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Women among the Early Martyrs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Stuart G. Hall
Stuart G. Hall*
Affiliation:
King’s CollegeLondon
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Extract

The Pentecostal sermon attributed to Peter in Acts announces Joel’s prophecy fulfilled:

It shall happen in the last days, says God, that I will pour some of my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your youths shall see visions and your elders shall dream dreams; yes, even on my slaves and slavegirls in those days I will pour some of my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.

The gift thus overrides sex, rank, and social status; it is often overlooked that the company on whom the Spirit falls in Acts 2 includes, beside the restored Twelve, ‘women and Mary the mother of Jesus and his brothers’, and Acts in this respect agrees with Paul that in Christ ‘there is no Jew nor Greek, there is no slave nor free man, there is no male and female; you are all one person in Christ Jesus.’

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 30: Martyrs and Martyrologies , 1993 , pp. 1 - 21
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1993

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References

1 Acts 2.17-18, adapting Joel 2.28-9.

2 Acts 1.14.

3 Galatians 3.28.

4 Matthew 10.19-20, and parallels.

5 Alluding to Matthew 19.28; I Corinthians 6.2-3; Revelation 20.4.

6 Quoted by Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 6, 42, 5. I use Eusebius Bishop of Caesarea. The Ecclesiastical History and The Martyrs of Palestine, tr. with intro. and notes Hugh Jackson Lawlor and John Ernest Leonard Oulton (London, 1954, repr. 1927). The generally excellent Penguin Classics edition (Eusebius, The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine tr. G. A. Williams, rev.edn and intro. Andrew Louth, 2nd edn (Harmondsworth, 1989)), lacks complete marginal numeration, making its scholarly use very difficult.

7 See, for instance, Slusser, Michael, ‘Martyrium III’, Theologische Realenzyklopädie, 22 (1992), pp. 207–11 Google Scholar, and bibliography; A Patristic Greek Lexicon, ed. G. W. H. Lampe (Oxford, 1961), under and cognates. J. Ruyschart, ‘Les “martyrs” et les “confesseurs” de la lettre des églises de Lyon et de Vienne’, in Les Martyrs de Lyon, 177 — Colloques Internationaux du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, no. 575 (Paris, 1978), pp. 233–47, emphasizes the fluidity of the terms, and uses ‘témoin’ in preference to ‘martyr’ throughout.

8 So Athanasius, De Incarnatione, 28–9 = SC, 109, pp. 362–70.

9 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 5, 18, 5–6.

10 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 5, 28, 10.

11 Hippolytus, Refutation 9, 11, 4, and 9, 12, 10–11, ed. Miroslav Marcovich, Patristische Texte und Studien, 25 (Berlin, 1986), 350, lines 25–30, and 352, lines 46–55.

12 So first I Clement, 42–4, and Didache, 15 [conveniently in The Apostolic Fathers, I, Eng. tr. Kirsopp Lake — LCL (1912)].

13 Full discussion in Ulrich Neymeyr, Die christlichen Lehrer im zweiten Jahrhundert. Ihre Lehrtädtig-keil, ihr Selbsverstädndnis und ihre Geschichte — Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae, IV (Leiden, 1989).

14 Apostolic Tradition, 10, 1–2, The Treatise on the Apostolic Tradition of St Hippolytus of Rome, ed. Gregory Dix (London, 1937), rev. edn Henry Chadwick (London, 1968), pp. 18–19; also in Hippolyte de Rome, La Tradition apostolique, intro. etc., Bernard Botte, 2nd edn (Paris, 1968) — SC, 11, 2, ch. 9, p. 64, from which some of the wording above is derived.

15 See above, n. 10.

16 Quoted from Stevenson, J., A New Eusebias. Documents Illustrating the History of the Church to AD 337, rev. edn Frend, W. H. C. (London, 1987), p. 290 Google Scholar, where further notes on cruelty to slaves are added.

17 Hippolytus, Apostolic Tradition, 16, 4–5, Dix edn, pp. 23–4: 15 Botte edn, pp. 69–70.

18 I Clement, 1, 3 (tr. adapted from Lake’s LCL edn).

19 I Clement, 6, 1.

20 Ibid., 6, 2.

21 Hanns Christof Brennecke, ‘Danaiden und Dirken. Zu 1 Cl 6, 2’, Zeitschrift für Kirchenge-schichte, 2 (1977), pp. 302–8. Brennecke gives full Forschungsgeschichte and documentation.

22 Ibid., p. 305, n. 21.

23 Mart. Just., conveniently ed. in three Greek recensions and tr. Herbert Musurillo, The Acts of the Christian Martyrs (Oxford, 1972) = Oxford Early Christian Texts, pp. 42–61 [hereafter Musurillo]. Musurillo’s translations, though useful, are at times sadly inaccurate.

24 Mart. Just., A.4.1-2; B.4.1-2. The longer question and Charito’s answer in C.3.2-3, revealing an attitude of contempt for female judgement, are clearly secondary.

25 Ibid., A, 6; B, 6; unhelpfully misrendered by Musurillo, ‘fulfilled their testimony by their act of faith in our Saviour’.

26 lbid., A, 5, 1.6; B, 5, 1.8.

27 Ibid., C, 3, 3.

28 Passio Sanctorum Scillitanorum, Musurillo, 86–9, p. 12.

29 Ibid., see especially the list at p. 15, where the name Speratus is misprinted as Sperata in the English.

30 Mart. Perp., Musurillo, pp. 106–31. See 2, 1 and 4, 5.

31 Mart. Carp.; Musurillo, pp. 22–37, prints both recensions.

32 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 4, 15, 48; see Musurillo, p. xv and n. 8.

33 Mart. Carp. A, 5–20; B, 2, 1–4, 6.

34 Ibid., A.28-32;B, 3, 2–3.

35 Ibid., A, 38–9; should be understood as, ‘I have just seen.’ This episode is attributed to Pamfilus in B, 4, 3, and is not related to Agathonice.

36 Ibid., A, 42–4.

37 Mart. Perp., 6, 7–8; 15, 7.

38 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 6, 43, 11.

39 Ibid., 6, 41, 7.

40 Ibid., 8, 14, 17.

41 Eusebius, Martyrs of Palestine, 8, 6–8.

42 Martyrdom of Polycarp, 4, Musurillo, pp. 4–5.

43 Recent accounts and documentation in Frend, W. H. C., ‘Montanism. A movement of prophecy and regional identity in the early church’, BJRL, 70 (1988), pp. 25–34 Google Scholar; ‘Montanismus’: Theologische Realenzyklopädie (forthcoming); Heine, Ronald E., The Montanist Oracles and Testimonia — North American Patristic Society, Patristic Monograph Series 14 (Macon, GA, 1989 Google Scholar), which supersedes earlier collections of documents.

44 ‘The role of martyrdom and persecution in developing the priestly authority of women in early Christianity. A case study of Montanism’, ChH, 49 (1980), pp. 251–61.

45 Mart. Carp. B, 6, 2.

46 Ibid., B, 6, 4–5.

47 Ibid., B, 6, 1.

48 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 5, preface and 1–4, cites the martyrology at length (also in Musurillo, pp. 62–85).

49 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 5, 4, 3.

50 Glory of the martyrs, 48; conveniently accessible in English in Raymond van Dam, ed. and tr. with intro., Gregory of Tours. Glory of the Martyrs = Translated Texts for Historians. Latin Series 3 (Liverpool, 1988), which has a useful note on p. 73.

51 The celebration volume, Les Martyrs de Lyon (see above, n. 7), is essential reading but somewhat disappointing. For a judicious discussion of the problems generally, see W. H. C. Frend, Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church (Oxford, 1965), pp. 1–30, and for a comprehensive recent analysis, Winrich A. Löhr, ‘Der Brief der Gemeinden von Lyon und Vienne (Eusebius, h.e. V, 1–2[4])’, Oecumenica el Patrística. Festschrift für Wilhelm Schneemelcher (Chambésy and Stuttgart, 1989), pp. 135–49. Some connection with the senatusconsultum of 175 seems probable (see J. H. Oliver and R. E. A. Palmer, ‘Minutes of an Act of the Roman Senate’, Hesperia, 24 (1955), pp. 320–49), though the Christian sources show no knowledge of the legal niceties or the price of gladiators, and most of the martyrs did not perform in the ring. For the polemical orientation against the New Prophecy, though not for the date, Pierre Nautin, Lettres et écrivains chrétiens des iirme et iiieme siècles (Paris, 1961), ch. 2, deserves more attention than it has received.

52 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 5, 1, 33.

53 Ibid., 5, 1, 14–16.

54 Ibid., 5, 1, 47–8.

55 Pliny, Epistulae, 10, 96, 5–6, and esp. 97, 2 (cited from Eng. version in Stevenson, New Eusebius, pp. 18–21).

56 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 5, 1, 47 for the sentences.

57 Ibid., 5, 1, 25–6.

58 Ibid., 5, 1, 17–24.

59 Pliny, Epistulae, 10, 96, 8.

60 Ibid., 10, 96, 2 and 7.

61 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 5, 4.

62 Ibid., 5, 1, 11.32-5.45-8.

63 Ibid., 5, 1, 32.

64 Ibid., 5, 2, 2–6.

65 Les Martyrs de Lyon, p. 174.

66 ‘The role of martyrdom and persecution in developing the priestly authority of women in early Christianity. A case study of Montanism’, ChH, 49 (1980), pp. 25161.

67 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 5, 1, 17–19.

68 Ibid., 5, 1, 41–2.

69 Ibid., 5, 1, 53–6-

70 II Maccabees 7, esp. 20–41.

71 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 6, 41, 1–42, 6.

72 Passio sanctorum Perpetuae et Felicitatis [hereafter Passio]; Latin and English in Musurillo, pp. 106–31. See also Frend, W. H. C., ‘Blandina and Perpetua. Two early Christian heroines’. Les Martyrs de Lyon, pp. 167–77.Google Scholar

73 Passio, 1, 3–5.

74 Ibid., unfortunately Musurillo’s English is very faulty.

75 Against Augustine, De origine animae 1, 12, CSEL, 60, p. 312, see Musurillo, n. 11.

76 Passio, 11–13.

77 Ibid., 15.

78 Ibid., 18, 7–8.

79 Ibid-, 5.1-5-

80 Justin, 2 Apologia 2, repr. with Eng. tr., Musurillo, pp. 38–41.

81 Passio, 2, 2.

82 Ibid., 5, 5.

83 Ibid., 4, 5.

84 Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 6, 3–4. That Origen’s own apologetic letter is the source is apparent from his remark about Herais, quoted in 6, 4, 3.

85 So John Morris. ‘The date of St Alban’, Hertfordshire Archaeology, I (1968), pp. 1–8.

86 Frend, Martyrdom and Persecution, pp. 319–21. He underestimates the degree of Christianity in Perpetua’s family.

87 Passio, 3, 5.

88 Ibid., 2, 2.

89 Hermas, The Shepherd, Vis. 11, 4 = 8, 3, ed. Whittaker, Molly, Die griechische christlkhen Schrijtsteller der ersten Jahrhunderte, 48, 2 (Berlin, 1967), p. 7, 14–18.Google Scholar

90 Origen, Contra Celsum 5, 62; Irenaeus, Adversus haereses 1, 25, 6. Notes and further references in Origène, Contre Celse III, ed. with intro. Marcel Borret = SC, 147, pp. 168–9; Origen, Contra Celsum, ed. and tr., 2nd edn Henry Chadwick (Cambridge and New York, 1979), p. 312.

91 Musurillo, pp. 280–93.

92 Martyrdom, 5.

93 Tertullian, De praescriptione, 41; English from Stevenson, New Eusebius, p. 170.

94 Tertullian, Adversus Praxean, 1.

95 Tertullian, De pudicitia, 21, 7.

96 Tertullian, De anima, 9; conveniently in Stevenson, New Eusebius, pp. 175–6.

97 Hardy, E. R., ‘The decline and fall of the Confessor-Presbyter’, Studia Patristica 15 (Berlin, 1984) = Texte und Untersuchungen, 128, pp. 221–5 Google Scholar, provides a useful discussion, but the only woman he mentions is Julian of Norwich.

98 For example, Die Frau im Urchristentum, ed. Gerhard Dautzenberger et al. (Freiburg, Basle, and Vienna, 1983); Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (London and New York, 1979); Rosemary Radford Ruether, ‘Misogyny and virginal feminism in the Fathers of the Church’, in R R Ruether, ed., Religion and Sexism. Images of Women in the Jewish and Christian Traditions (New York, 1974), pp. 150–63; and on the Cappadocians, Graham Gould, ‘Women in the writings of the Fathers. Language, belief and reality’, in W.J. Sheils and Diana Wood, eds, Women in the Church, SCH, 27, pp. 1–13.

99 Louis Bouyer, Women in the Church (San Francisco, 1984) [tr. from Mystère et ministères de la femme dans l’église (Paris, 1976)]; note esp. p. 88.