Reading Saving Paradise: Chapter 7, Part II

Theosis and women

Contemporary scholarship has demonstrated that some Christian communities did promote equal relationships.  Ephrem, in the eastern tradition, respected the spiritual power of women and lauded their courage and boldness.  And women themselves did not simply accept their insubordination.... 

Women used the concept of theosis to claim their spiritual authority.  They established and led churches and became leaders in existing churches, where they disrupted traditional structures of male dominance.  Many opted out of marriage and lived in communities of women.  

 The Acts of Thecla (2nd century) reports that Thecla baptized herself in the face of her family’s opposition – and Paul’s refusal to do so.  Thecla’s life inspired women, many of whom used her example to become church leaders or pilgrims themselves. 

 Paul and Thecla 
6th c. fresco found in a grotto, Ephesus

This fresco shows both Paul and Thecla are the same height, which means they are equals.  They are also equal as teachers – their hands are raised in a teaching pose.  (Note that Thecla’s eyes have been scratched out. It might be easy to write this off as vandalism, but look again….Paul has not been touched. Sometime after the 6th century, as the church grew into misogyny, someone felt compelled to blot out her power as a teacher and leader.)  

 Thecla inspired a large community of virgins in Alexandria, Egypt – and the pilgrim Egeria reports a women’s community in 4th century Spain, where a selection from the Acts of Thecla was the scripture reading for worship.  

 A fragment of the Gospel of Mary (Magdalene)

The Gospel of Mary depicts the disciples, members of the first Christian community, questioning and arguing, rather than submitting to a system of domination.  The gospel describes Mary Magdalene exhorting the male disciples, who were distraught over Jesus’ death.  As she urged them to become more courageous, they doubted her authority to teach them, and argued over her taking on this role.  They eventually decided to follow her teaching. 

In the Roman world, sex was legally regulated and bound by gender and power.  Engaging in sex with men required women to accept as subjugated role; but virginity and chastity gave them power.  (Today many regard virginity as a sign of conformity to patriarchal standards, but the virginity of early Christian women was a radical statement against male dominance.)

In Roman culture, females had authority over males in two roles: as mothers or as goddesses.  That Mary was mother of Jesus Christ and a virgin gave her extraordinary authority and power.  

 Mary Theotokos 
Byzantine church Panagia Angeloktisti in Kiti, Cyprus

At the Council of Ephesus (431), Mary was declared Theotokos (the God-Bearer, or Mother of God). In early church art, she is often enthroned like her son – resembling older images of Isis, the queen of heaven, who is sometimes shown nursing her son, as Mary was shown nursing Jesus. 

Mary’s dignity and power were reflected in depictions of other mothers.  In Istanbul’s Chora Church, the story of Herod’s slaughter of the innocents focuses on the mothers and their grief:

 A mother reaches for her slaughtered baby 
Chora Church, Istanbul – 13th c.

The standard Roman marriage involved an adult male who could provide for a family, and an adolescent female a decade or more younger. Rome needed every woman to begin reproducing at the onset of puberty, and to bear 5 children to keep the population at a replacement rate.  Men and women joined dissident religious groups to resist conscription and over-taxation, and asceticism and virginity emerged as ways to defy imperial pressures to marry and reproduce. The ascetic ideals that challenged imperial systems of marriage offered people an alternative to the pater familias; abstinence from marriage was a pathway to theosis and offered spiritual power. 

Ephrem the Syrian was a voluntary ascetic, but did not regard sex as inherently bad or defiling.  He wrote many hymns about the dignity, power and humanity of women who acted with courage.  His view of women as models of humanity affirmed a wide range of female roles and activities.  He noted how such women as Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth were part of a long legacy of women who brought God into the world (‘God-bearers’).  Ephrem’s admiration for marginalized, courageous women included the Samaritan woman at the well. 

Sexual pleasure appeared frequently in discussions of theosis as a positive metaphor for the soul’s ascent to God.  The image of union in the garden in the Song of Songs and the story of the wedding at Cana suggested the connections between bodily pleasure in sex and experiences of God. 

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on the next post,
Images of equality in paradise