Women and early Christianity
1.
Averil Cameron
2.
Anderson
1.
Jesus – for or against?
2.
Paul – for or against?
3.
Beliefs supporting women in early Church
4.
Beliefs subordinating women in early Church
Averil Cameron-Early Christian Discourse
• Her background – currently a Fellow at Oxford –
late antiquity and Byzantine History including
church history and intellectual history
• Her Big Question: How did ‘concept of women’
in early Christianity affect women’s lives?
• “Women [in early Christianity] continued to be
seen both as being particularly desirous and as
the objects of men’s desire, and the denial of
their sexuality as offering the best hopes of
rendering them harmless in both guises.” (165)
Averil Cameron-Early Christian Discourse
• Sources and methodology:
– Primary Sources: mainly New Testament as
well as the early Christian fathers
– Secondary Sources: literary criticism and
biblical scholarship
– Methodology: “The area of textuality…is of
fundamental importance in understanding the
development both of early Christian thought
and practice.” (154)
Averil Cameron-Early Christian Discourse
• Her theoretical framework: feminist
theologian examining power of ideas
through rhetorical devices
• Her argument: “Women continued to be
seen both as being particularly desirous
and as the objects of men’s desire, and
the denial of their sexuality as offering the
best hopes of redering them harmless in
both guises.” (165)
Averil Cameron-Early Christian Discourse
• Her evidence to support her assertions:
• On forbidden sexuality: “Forbidden sexuality…is
inextricably identified with the idea of women, who are
seen as the bearers of temptation for unwary monks and
hermits.” (155)
• On polarities of gender: “the developed doctrine of
the Incarnation rests on the notion of the tension
between splitting and union, in Platonic language the
problem of the one and the many…. The Platonic
language in which Christian theology was couched…was
at least as important as any social factor in formulating
early Christian attitudes to virginity and to women.” (163164)
Averil Cameron-Early Christian Discourse
• Her evidence to support her assertions:
• On woman (Mary) as the saviour of men:
“For the men who wrote the stories [miracle stories and
Marian legends], it was highly congenial to sanitise the
dangerous female element into a saving maternal figure,
not only motherly but also safely virginal” (161)
• On male writers’ view of woman: “The
overall presentation of woman in early Christian
texts is therefore a negative one, which is also a
textual strategy. [It is] a rhetoric of power.”
Anderson
• Jesus – for or against?
– How was Jesus’ relationship with women
portrayed in the Gospels?
– Is there a difference between his words and
his deeds?
• Paul – for or against?
– Is he consistent in his views of women?
– Is there a difference between his words and
his deeds?
Anderson
• Women in early Christian power circles (71)
– Who are the Gnostics?
– What was the role of women in their sects?
– How did the mainstream Church respond?
• Is there a gender difference in martyrdom? (71)
• After the persecutions, what role did women take
in early Christianity that was “not the norm”? (72)
• What role did women’s religious communities
play in the Church? Were they supported or
denied? (75)
• What did these communities offer women? (76)
Anderson – subordinating
women
• How did leaders such as Benedict and
Caesarius modify women’s communities to
accommodate their “weaker” nature? (77)
• Which chief sources were used to support
subordination and how? (77)
• Now reassess Paul and the Church Fathers –
good thing or bad thing for women? (78)
• Try to put the Judeo back into Judeo-Christian
views here. What do Hebrew traditions do for
women and the image of their bodies? (80)
Anderson-subordinating
women?
• The Church Fathers and marriage. What was
subordinating and what was not? (82)
• What about control of women’s bodies; where do
the Church Fathers differ from previous views
held by “Greeks, Romans, Hebrews, Celts and
Germans” (82)
• Exam type question: According to Anderson, “by
the ninth century, Christianity had both
empowered and subordinated European
women.” How? Which periods promote
women’s role and which periods restricted their
roles?