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The Heretical Woman as Symbol in Alexander, Athanasius, Epiphanius, and Jerome

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Virginia Burrus
Virginia Burrus
Affiliation:
Drew University
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Extract

Some three decades ago Michel Foucault sought to reestablish communication between “madness” and “non-madness” by going back to what he called the “zero point” in history at which the distance between reason and madness was first established. In Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, Foucault suggested that returning to this point of initial differentiation requires renouncing all that we as modern persons know to be true about madness and reason. If we are to locate “that realm in which the man of madness and the man of reason, moving apart, are not yet disjunct,” he wrote,

we must speak of that initial dispute without assuming a victory, or the right to a victory; we must speak of those actions re-examined in history, leaving in abeyance all that may figure as a conclusion, as a refuge in truth. … Then, and then only, can we… begin the dialogue of their breach, testifying in a fugitive way that they still speak to each other.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 84 , Issue 3 , July 1991 , pp. 229 - 248
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1991

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References

1 Foucault, Michel, Madness and Reason: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason (New York: Vintage, 1988) ixGoogle Scholar.

2 Foucault, , Madness and Reason, xGoogle Scholar.

3 Boulluec, Alain Le, La notion d'hérésie dans la littérature grecque, lle–lle siècles (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1985)Google Scholar.

4 Gryson, Roger, The Ministry of Women in the Early Church (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1976) 112Google Scholar.

5 Christ, Carol, “Heretics and Outsiders: The Struggle Over Female Power in Western Religion,” Soundings 61 (1978) 260–80.Google ScholarCf. Pagels, Elaine, “What Became of God the Mother? Conflicting Images of God in Early Christianity,” Signs 2 (1976) 293–303Google Scholar; this article forms the basis of chapter 3 of Pagels's, ElaineThe Gnostic Gospels (New York: Random House, 1979)Google Scholar.

6 Some would see the figure of the heretical woman emerging to prominence earlier, perhaps with the very birth of Christianity. Indeed, women do figure in heresiological rhetoric in the first three centuries (1) as scriptural “types” of heretics, in which case their gender seems to be incidental, (2) as partners in (or victims of) the sexual immorality of male heretics, in which case they are secondary figures, necessary “props” in the characterization of the males, and (3) as heretics in their own right, in which case they are assimilated with relative ease to the early stereotype of the heretic, in spite of the male orientation of that stereotype. However, there is no distinct rhetorical convention that associates heresy with female nature; rather, the topos of heretic remains neutral as regards gender for the first three centuries. An interesting measure of this is the fact that there is, to my knowledge, no pre-fourth-century use of either Genesis 3 or 2 Tim 3:6-7 to forge links between women and heresy, a strategy much exploited in the fourth century.

7 The orthodox male is always present as the implicit subject who creates the figure of the heretical woman and, conversely, the object that the figure of the heretical woman negatively defines. The orthodox male himself is not, however, a highly developed symbolic figure; it is rather female—or at least feminine or effeminate—figures that seem most available for symbolic signification in fourth-century texts. Susan Gubar, analyzing modern Western literature, suggests that women's bodies have historically been used as a “blank page” to be inscribed by male writers (“The ‘Blank Page’ and the Issues of Female Creativity,” in Abel, Elizabeth, ed., Writing and Sexual Difference [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982], 73–93). I owe this reference, along with its application to fourth-century symbolic uses of the body of the virginal female, toGoogle ScholarMiller, Patricia Cox, “The Blazing Body: Desire and Language in Jerome's Letter to Eustochium,” a paper delivered at the North American Patristic Society Conference, 1989Google Scholar.

8 Brown, Peter, The Body and Society. Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988)Google Scholar; see especially the chapters on fourth-century ascetic women and on Ambrose's theology of virginity, 259-84, 341-65.

9 This aspect of the controversy has been emphasized by Williams, Rowan, Arius. Heresy and Tradition (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1987)Google Scholar.

10 Alexander, Epistula ad Alexandrum 1.Google Scholar Translations of Alexander's letter are my own.

11 Ibid., 14.

12 Note that both Alexander and Athanasius appear to remember the 2 Timothy passage as “deceive little women” rather than “capture little women”; they may be influenced by 1 Tim 2:14, which refers to the Genesis 3 story and emphasizes the deception of Eve.

13 Elm, Susanna K. (“The Organization and Institutions of Female Asceticism in Fourth Century Cappadocia and Egypt” [2 vols; D. Phil, diss., Oxford University, 1986] 1. 126–27)Google Scholar suggests that the “little women” are prostitutes who are being used to discredit the orthodox leaders. As Elm points out, such a strategy is not uncommon later. However, the text itself does not explicitly mention prostitutes; nor does it seem to me likely that such a charge would be effective in secular law courts at this early date, or that Alexander would be seriously threatened by a charge brought to his own episcopal court.

14 Epiphanius, Panarion 68.4; 69.3Google Scholar.

15 Athanasius Letter to the Virgins, in Lefort, Louis-Théophile, S.Athanase. Lettres festales et pastorales en Copte (2 vols.; Louvain: Durbecq, 1955) 2. 72–76.Google Scholar The significance of this letter for our knowledge of Arian virgins is discussed in Elm, , “Female Asceticism,” 1. 125–31Google Scholar.

16 Elm, (“Female Asceticism,” 1. 127)Google Scholar offers this passage as evidence that “Arians went around town distributing writings (letters) to, and receiving from, women.” While not unlikely, this may be arguing too much from a text in which the reference to women relies so heavily on a scriptural quotation.

17 Alexander, Epistula ad Alexandrum 13Google Scholar.

18 The Arians' continued success among women is indicated by Athanasius's references to the easily deceived “little women” and by his irritation at the Arians' practice of consulting women concerning the generation of the Son (see below). Elm, (“Female Asceticism,” 1. 130) notes also that Athanasius's Letter to the Virgins indicates that the number of Arian virgins in Alexandria was on the rise at the time the letter was written. Athanasius struggles to combat the appeal of Arian doctrine (and perhaps also of a distinct form of Arian asceticism) among even the virgins of Athanasius's own following.Google Scholar

19 Athanasius, Orationes tres adversus Arianos 1.1–10Google Scholar.

20 Ibid., 1.1. Translations of Athanasius's text are my own.

21 Ibid., 1.5.

22 Ibid., 1.2.

23 Ibid., 1.4.

24 Direct quotations from the Thalia, which form the center of the introduction, follow the initial parody of Arius with its reference to the serpent (Athanasius, Orationes tres adversus Arianos 1.4)Google Scholar, and then Athanasius repeats the Genesis 3 theme (1.7, 8), thereby framing the Thalia extracts with allusions to the serpent and the story of the Fall. On Athanasius's use of framing devices in the introduction, see Kannengiesser, Charles, Athanase d'Alexandrie évêque et écrivain (Paris: Beauchesne, 1983) 21-28, 36–37Google Scholar.

25 Athanasius, Orationes tres adversus Arianos 1.7Google Scholar.

26 Ibid., 1.8.

27 Ibid., 1.22. Kannengiesser, (Athanase, 46–52)Google Scholar notes that this passage occurs in a “new” introduction within the first of the discourses that in many ways recapitulates the general introduction. This may account for the reemergence of the figure of the heretical woman both in the “new” introduction and in the chapters immediately following.

28 “And so that their heresy not appear to have any foundation, it is appropriate, although we digress, to refute them even here, especially on account of the little women who are so readily deceived by them” (Athanasius, Orationes tres adversus Arianos 1.23).Google Scholar “It is not necessary to reply to their other very simple and silly inquiry, which they put to little women” (1.26).

29 The diminutive form γυναικάριον seems to be rare outside of Christian texts; the appearance of the word in Christian texts can therefore probably be attributed to the influence of 2 Timothy 3 and interpreted as an allusion to that passage.

30 Athanasius, Orationes tres adversus Arianos 1.22.Google Scholar

31 Ibid., 1.26.

32 Ibid., 1.28.

33 Ibid., 2.30.

34 Athanasius, Historia Arianorum ad monachos 5.38Google Scholar.

35 Athanasius, Epistula encyclica 3Google Scholar; cf. Athanasius, Apologia contra Arianos 30 and 49Google Scholar.

36 Athanasius, Apologia contra Arianos 15Google Scholar.

37 Epiphanius, Panarion 1.Google Scholar preface 1. All English translations of the Panarion are from The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis, Book I, Sects 1–46 (trans. Williams, Frank; Leiden: Brill, 1987)Google Scholar.

38 Ibid., 2. pref. 3.

39 Ibid., 1. pref. 1.

40 Ibid., 1. pref. 1; 35.3.

41 Ibid., 80.10-11; Epiphanius, De fide 1-3, 5-7, 12-13, 21Google Scholar(De fide serves as the conclusion to the Panarion).

42 Epiphanius, Panarion 35.3Google Scholar.

43 Epiphanius, Anacephalaiosis 1.Google Scholar pref. (An Anacephalaiosis, or summary, exists for each of the three major sections of Epiphanius's Panarion).

44 Athanasius, Orationes tres adversus Arianos 1.1Google Scholar.

45 Epiphanius, Panarion 37.2Google Scholar.

46 E.g., ibid., 26.11 and 33.9.

47 Ibid., 26.4-5.

48 Ibid., 26.17.

49 Ibid.

50 Ibid., 26.15-16.

51 Jerome, Epistulae 22Google Scholar.

52 Ibid., 133.4. Translations of Jerome's works are my own.

53 Ibid.

54 Ibid.

55 Ibid., 133.3.

56 Ibid., 133.11.

57 Jerome, Commentariorum in Ieremiam libri VI 1.57Google Scholar.

58 Jerome, Epistulae 22.38Google Scholar.

59 Ibid., 130.

60 The distinction I am making here corresponds roughly to Mary Douglas's distinction between “grid” and “group” aspects of social experience. Douglas first introduced this terminology in her 1970 publication of Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology (New York: Pantheon, 1970).Google Scholar Her formulation of grid-group theory was revised in subsequent editions of Natural Symbols (New York: Vintage, 1973; New York: Pantheon, 1982),Google Scholar and in 1978 received its classic shape with the publication of idem, , Cultural Bias (London: Royal Anthropological Institute, 1978).Google Scholar More recently, in idem, , ed., Essays in the Sociology of Perception (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982),Google Scholar Douglas has collected and edited papers written by scholars in various fields, whose work both tests her basic theory and pushes it in new directions. See now the helpful article by Spickard, James V., “A Guide to Mary Douglas's Three Versions of Grid-Group Theory,” Sociological Analysis 50 (1989) 151–70Google Scholar.

61 This contrast between the subordinate virgin and the rebellious heretical woman echoes the more explicit reaffirmations of the ancient political discourse of public and private spheres that are found in many fourth-century texts. For a general discussion of the categories of public and private spheres as applied to gender analysis within the field of anthropology, see the seminal essay of Rosaldo, Michelle Zimbalist, “Woman, Culture, and Society. A Theoretical Overview,” in Rosaldo, Michelle Z. and Lamphere, Louise, eds., Woman, Culture, and Society (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974) 17–42.Google ScholarElshtain, Jean Bethke (Public Man, Private Woman: Women in Social and Political Thought [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981])Google Scholar explores the historical use of these terms within the discourse of political philosophy, beginning with the thought of Plato and Aristotle.

62 Elm (“Female Asceticism”) traces the gradual emergence of more patriarchal institutions within women's asceticism in the fourth-century East.

63 Compare the emergence of the figure of the witch in the fifteenth century during a period of similarly dramatic social change which included redefinition of gender roles; see Yehuda, Nachman Ben, “Deviance within Societal Transition: The European Witchcraze of the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries,” in idem, ed., Deviance and Moral Boundaries (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985) 23–73Google Scholar.