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The “Virgin Widow”: A Problematic Social Role for the Early Church?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Charlotte Methuen
Charlotte Methuen
Affiliation:
Evangelisch-Theologische Fakultät Bochum, Germany
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Extract

In her discussion of the life of Macrina (ca. 327–79), the sister of Gregory of Nyssa, Susanna Elm comments upon Macrina's decision to treat the death of her fiancé as if it were the death of a husband. Inasmuch as this decision became a reason for her not to (re)marry, Macrina took on “a new social role: the virgin widow.” Elm's casual remark points to a remarkable failure among a number of commentators to take account of the ambiguities inherent in the title “widow” (Greek χήρα, Latin vidua). While acknowledging the existence of an order of widows, scholars have also widely assumed that the terms χήρα and vidua can be equated to the modern term “widow,” that is, a woman who has survived her husband. The discussion of Christian widows, and especially enrolled widows, has accordingly focused primarily upon the function and often the age of these women. If scholars mention the marital status of such women at all, their discussion is generally directed toward the question of second marriages. I shall argue, however, that it is in fact misleading to assume that a widow must have been married previously and that in the earliest centuries of the Christian church, there is evidence not only for the existence of “virgin widows” but also for the problems that these women posed for some church leaders.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 90 , Issue 3 , July 1997 , pp. 285 - 298
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1997

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References

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2 Tertullian Ad ux. 1.6.4; see LeSaint, William P., ed., Tertullian: Treatises on Marriage and Remarriage (ACW 13; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1956) 19.Google Scholar

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4 Bremmer, Jan, “Pauper or Patroness: The Widow in the Early Christian Church,” in idem and Bosch, Laurens van den, eds., Between Poverty and the Pyre: Moments in the History of Widowhood (London: Routledge, 1995) 35.Google Scholar

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13 Acts of Peter §29 (NTApoc. 2. 311).

14 Davies, Revolt of the Widows, 71–72; Gryson, Roger, La Ministére des femmes dans l'Église ancienne (Recherches et Synthéses [l'histoire 4]; Gemboux: Duculot, 1972)Google Scholar; see idem, The Ministry of Women in the Early Church (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1976) 33.Google Scholar

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21 1 Tim 5:9,16.

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23 Didascalia Apostolorum 14, in Vööbus, Arthur, The Didascalia in Syriac (CSCO, 4 vols.; 401, 407 [text]; 402, 408 [trans.]; Louvain: Peeters, 1979) 408.Google Scholar 141.

24 Thurston, Widows, 48. See also 1 Tim 5:9 (RSV): “Let a widow be put on the list if she… has been married only once.”

25 Thurston, Widows, 48.

26 Bremmer, “Pauper or Patroness,” 36.

27 Wagener, Die Ordnung des “Houses Gottes,” 202–4.

28 Ibid., 240.

29 Trad. ap. 10; 12.

30 Carletti, Carlo, Iscrizoni critiane inedite del cimitero di Bassilla “ad S. Hermatem” (MPARA 2; Citta del Vaticano: Pontifical Academy, 1996) nos. 136Google Scholar, 146–7; discussed by Eisen, Ute, Amtsträgerinnen im frühen Christentum: Epigraphische und literarische Studien (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996) 141–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31 Elm, Virgins of God, 235–36.

32 Louth, Early Christian Writings, 105.

33 Tertullian Virg. vel. 9.2.

34 Bremmer, “Pauper or Patroness,” 41.

35 Tertullian Vir. vel. 7. 3.

36 Tertullian Ad ux. 1.6.2 (directed at men, although the ensuing discussion concerns women).

37 Tertullian Virg. vel. 7.32.

38 Tertullian Praescr. haer. 41.5; compare also idem Bapt. 1.17.4–5.

39 MacDonald, Dennis Ronald, The Legend and the Apostle: The Battle for Paul in Story and Canon (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1983).Google Scholar He cites, for instance (p. 19), Thecla's baptism of herself (Acts of Paul 34 [NT Apoc. 2. 222]) and Paul's instruction to her to “Go forth and teach!” (Acts of Paul 41 [NT Apoc. 2. 223]).

40 Methuen, Charlotte, “Widows, Bishops and the Struggle for Authority in the Didascalia Apostolorum,” JEH 46 (1995)Google Scholar 197–213, and see below.

41 Brown, Peter, The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (London: Faber, 1990) 147.Google Scholar

42 Bremmer, “Pauper or Patroness,” 40–42.

43 Jens-Uwe Krause, Witwen und Waisen im römischen Reich, vol. 4: Witwen und Waisen im frühen Christentum (Heidelberger althistorische Beiträge und epigraphische Studien 19; Stuttgart: Steiner, 1995) 65.Google Scholar

44 Bremmer, “Pauper or Patroness,” 42; compare Bartlet, James Vernon, Church-Life and Church-Order During the First Four Centuries (Oxford: Blackwell, 1943) 121–22Google Scholar; Gryson, Ministére des femmes, 69–71; Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schūssler, In Memory of Her (London: SCM, 1983) 309–15Google Scholar; Jensen, Anne, Gottes selbstbewuβite Töchter. Frauenemanzipation im frühen Christentum? (Freiburg: Herder, 1992) 74–80Google Scholar; Thurston, Widows, 99.

45 Wagener, Die Ordnung des “Houses Gottes,” esp. 236–39.

46 Origen In Is. hom. 6.3. Compare Thurston, Widows, 95–96; and Krause, Witwen und Waisen im frühen Christentum, 57.

47 For a detailed argument, see Georg Schöllgen, “Die Anfänge der Professionalisierung des Klerus und das kirchliche Amt in der Syrischen Didaskalie” (Habilitation thesis, University of Bonn, 1991) esp. 192–95, 271–72; see also Methuen, “Widows, Bishops.”

48 Methuen, “Widows, Bishops”; see also eadem,”'For pagans laugh to hear women teach': Gender Stereotypes in the Didascalia Apostolorum” in R. Swanson, ed., Gender and the Church (Studies in Church History 34; Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, forthcoming). For the instruction that widows should not teach or baptize, see Did. ap. 15 (Vööbus, 408. 144–45, 151).

49 See Schöllgen, “Anfänge der Professionalisierung,” 279–81.

50 Eisen (Amtsträgerinnen im frühen Christentum, 112–37) discusses six epigraphs in which these titles occur. For the title presbytera in Judaism, see Brooten, Bernadette, Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue (BJS 36; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1982).Google Scholar

51 Clement Alex. Paed. 3.12.97, and Origen Orat. 28.4. For a discussion of widows in the Alexandrian fathers see Gryson (Ministére des femmes, 52–58), although his conclusions are questioned by Thurston (Widows, 96). Compare also Cloke, Gillian, This Female Man of God: Women and Spiritual Power in the Patristic Age. AD 350–450 (London: Routledge, 1995) 89–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

52 Tertullian Monogam. 11.

53 Trad. ap. 10; This instruction applies also to virgins and subdeacons (Trad. ap. 12–13). It probably indicates an increasing need to define leadership and authority within individual congregations and the church as a whole.

54 As asserted by Schöllgen, “Anfänge der Professionalisierung,” 284, 300–319; see also Thurston, Widows, 54.

55 Bremmer (“Pauper or Patroness,” 42), however, insists that widows only ever had the status of “lowly” clergy.

56 The prophet and widow Anna who, with Simeon, welcomed the infant Jesus at the temple in Jerusalem (Lk 2:36–38) is an early Christian example of a woman of this status. The parallel between “the saints” and “the widows” in Acts 9:41 suggests that these terms refer to groups of men and groups of women whom Luke regarded as particularly holy (“He called the saints and the widows”).

57 Krause (Witwen und Waisen im frühen Christentum, 56) remarks that “church widows obviously received pay.” Wagener (Die Ordnung des “Hauses Gottes, “144–49) believes that the command that widows be “honored” (1 Tim 5:3) must be interpreted as an instruction to pay them for fulfilling specific tasks. See also Gryson (Ministére des femmes, 32) who argues that this honor is “au moins autant d'une assistance matérielle que de respect” (“at least as much a case of material assistance as of respect”).

58 For political patriarchy as an important controlling motif in Tertullian's thought, see Miles, Margaret R., “Patriarchy as Political Theology: The Establishment of North African Christianity,” in Rouner, Leroy S., ed., Civil Religion and Political Theology (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986) 169–86.Google Scholar

59 Elm, Virgins of God.

60 Feichtinger, Apostolae Apostolorum, 3–6.

61 See, for example, Miles, “Patriarchy as Political Theology”; and Torjesen, Karen Jo, When Women were Priests: Women's Leadership in the Church and the Scandal of their Subordination in the Rise of Christianity (San Francisco: Harper, 1995).Google Scholar

62 Jerome, Ad Pammachiam, Ep. 48.10. See Salisbury, Joyce E., Church Fathers, Independent Virgins (London: Verso, 1991) 78Google Scholar; and compare Feichtinger, Apostolae Apostolarum, 90–114, esp. 93.

63 That the deaconess is a direct descendant of the widow has frequently been noted; for example, see LaPorte, Jean, The Role of Women in Early Christianity (Studies in Women and Religion 7; New York: Mellen, 1982) 114–15Google Scholar; and Methuen, “Widows, Bishops,” 201. It would be wrong, however, to conclude that no women remained in positions of authority; Eisen (Amtsträgerinnen im frühen Christentum, 112–37, 154–201) has collected epigraphic evidence for the existence of female presbyters and bishops as well as deaconesses into the sixth century or even later.

64 Bremmer, “Pauper or Patroness,” 49.