Her Share of the Blessings: Women's Religions among Pagans, Jews, and Christians in the Greco-Roman World

289 Pages·1994·32.26 MB·English

by  Ross Shepard Kraemer

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Her Share
of the Blessings
Women's Religions among
Pagans, Jews, and Christians in
the Greco-Roman World
Ross SHEPARD KRAEMER
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York Oxford
Oxford University Press
Oxford New York Toronto
Delhi Bombay Calcutta Madras Karachi
Petaling Jaya Singapore Hong Kong Tokyo
Nairobi Dares Salaam Cape Town
Melbourne Auckland
and associated companies in
Berlin Ibadan
Copyright © 1992 by Ross Shepard Kraemer
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc
198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016-4314
First Issued as an Oxford University Press Paperback, 1993
Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press
All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the pnor permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Catalogmg-nv Publication Data
Kraemer, Ross Shepard, 1948-
Her share of the blessings : women's religions among pagans >r
Jews, and Christians in the Greco-Rom an world / Ross Shepard Kraemer
p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0 19-506686-3
ISBN 0-19-508670-8 {PBK.)
1. Women—Mediterranean Region—Religious Life—History.
2. Women and religion—History. 3. Women in Judaism—History.
4. Women in Christianity— History—Early church, ca. 30-600.
5. Paganism—Mediterranean Region—History.
BL625.7.K73 1992
291 '.082—dc20 91-33 777 CIP
468 10 9753
Printed in the United States of America
To
Herman Seymour Shepard
1916-1989
and
John A. Hollar
1942-1989
In Memory
Bacchae of the City, say
"Farewell you holy priestess. *
This is what a good woman deserves.
She led you to the mountain and earned
all the sacred objects and implements
}
marching in procession before the whole city;
Should some stranger ask for her name:
AlcmeoniSy daughter of Rhodius,
who knew her share of the blessings.
—Epitaph from Miletus
Third/sccond century B.C.E.
Maenads, S
Preface
In 1974, while writing my doctoral dissertation and teaching a course on
women and religion at Franklin & Marshall College, 1 first began to envision a
collection of sources not on what men thought about women, but rather on
what women themselves did in religious contexts in the Greco-Roman world.
Fourteen years later, Maenads, Martyrs, Matrons, Monastics: A Sourcebook on
Women's Religions in the Greco-Roman World (Philadelphia: Fortress Press,
1988) appeared in print.
Once Maenads was in the works, my friend and editor at Fortress, John A.
Hollar, encouraged me to write a companion volume to provide the context
and commentary that the sourcebook deliberately lacked. With a fellowship
from the National Endowment for the Humanities, I intended to write just
such a work.
As I began my leave, I learned that the eminent anthropologist Mary Dou-
glas was teaching a graduate seminar on women and religion in the Depart-
ment of Religion at Princeton. She graciously allowed me to sit in on the
course, and thereby unknowingly altered the very nature of this book. I had
read some of Douglas's work before, and applied it profitably from time to
time in my teaching and some of my research, but the semester I sat at the
other end of a seminar table from Douglas allowed me to rethink some of my
major theoretical concerns regarding women's religions. By the time I began
to write this book, it was irrevocably different from the handbook I had ini-
tially planned. It no longer follows the organizational order of Maenads, and it
now primarily covers material from only three sections in Maenads ("Obser-
vances, Rituals, and Festivals," "Researching Real Women" and "Religious
Office") with some discussion of texts from "New Religious Affiliation and
Conversion." The sources from "Holy, Pious, and Exemplary Women" and
"The Feminine Divine" largely fell victim to the constraints of space and time.
Nevertheless, I hope this book provides some of the analysis absent from
Maenads.
Writing this book has in many ways been a lonely endeavor, though not
for any lack of sympathetic friends, family, and colleagues. Rather, I have
found myself interested in issues that intrigue few other scholars. The feminists
I know are primarily interested in feminist theology, or else they disavow the
study of religion altogether, considering religion to be a hopelessly patriarchal
institution that oppresses women. At least for the chronological and geo-
graphic periods in which I work, the study of women's religions as distinct
viii Preface
from theology sometimes seems a field I have carved out myself. My η on femi-
nist colleagues who share those general parameters of time and culture all too
often lack much interest in the study of women's religions. Ann Loades, in her
brief review of Maenads, was kind enough to refer to me as "one of the most
distinguished feminist historians of religions," but it quickly occurred to me
that to be one of the most distinguished among a very small company was at
the least somewhat depressing.
Since my doctoral dissertation at Princeton, I have argued against the
insufficiency of theories, models, and explanations based more or less exclu-
sively on what men do. In its attempt to lay out alternative approaches, this
book in many ways represents new territory: efforts to ask new questions of old
sources and overlooked sources, and very occasionally even of new sources. In
this regard, even though it is the product of almost two decades of work, it is a
preliminary venture.
By now, I think I have asked many of the crucial questions and proposed
at least a few compelling answers. With this study, I hope to shift the focus of
the discussion about women and religion in antiquity away from the contem-
porary theological concerns that have dominated the scholarly and popular lit-
erature to date toward a better understanding of the way religion functions in
the lives of women. Ultimately, I wish to facilitate a fuller understanding of
religion as a human phenomenon, an understanding that cannot be achieved
without careful consideration of the differences between the religious dimen-
sions of women's and men's lives.
But the very nature of the enterprise I have undertaken warrants humility
and caution. In response to Ann Loades's praise that I had judiciously
refrained from providing more than minimal commentary to the sources in
Maenadsy a colleague sanguinely remarked that I could not possibly provide
adequate commentary to the sources I had collected, for who among us could
know enough to do that. As I wrote this book, and found myself embroiled in
textual and contextual issues ranging from analysis of the archaic Greek Hymn
to Demeter to early fifth-century C.E. epigraphical evidence for women pres-
byters in Christian churches, I was acutely aware of the limits of my own
knowledge and my debt to and dependence on many other scholars far more
versed in various aspects of these materials than I. Doubtless, readers who
know these materials intimately will have some corrections of facts to offer;
those expert in the theoretical models I have employed will critique my appli-
cation of the models or my emendations based on ancient examples.
The actual writing of this book bore at least some superficial resemblance
to Dionysian possession. At times I know I seemed, at least to my family, to
alternate between ecstatic pleasure and borderline insanity. My deepest grati-
tude goes then to my husband, Michael, and my daughter, Jordan, for their
patience, love, pride, and encouragement.
I owe thanks to many other people for their support and assistance. In
Cynthia Read of Oxford University Press, I have gained not only a superb edi-
Preface ix
tor, but a wonderful friend, whose humor and candor tempers all her insightful
criticism. Mary Rose D'Angelo, Robert Kraft, and Susan Niditch each read vir-
tually the entire manuscript; Judith Baskin, Stephen Benko, Daniel Boyarin,
Richard Lim, Amy Richlin, and Judith Wegner read various chapters. All were
candid, kind, and constructive in their critique. They have saved me from many
blunders: for those that remain, I take full responsibility.
The National Endowment for the Humanities awarded me my second
year-long fellowship to write this book, for which I am honored and grateful.
Over the last nine years, the Department of Religious Studies at the University
of Pennsylvania has continued to extend to me the privileges of a visiting
scholar, which has quite simply made my research possible. The collegiality of
Ann Matter, Robert Kraft, and the graduate students in early Judaism and early
Christianity has enriched my life immeasurably. The Department of Religion at
Princeton has welcomed me back home numerous times most recently in
1989-1990 as a visiting faculty member. To my readier John Gager and to the
latest generation of late antiquity graduate students, I am especially grateful for
a year of replenishment spent in their midst. Finally, I would like to thank all
those who participate in the Philadelphia Seminar on Christian Origins, where
my preliminary research presentations have received sympathy, support, and
scrutiny.
Although writing this book was often a source of great pleasure and satis-
faction, I will always associate it with two personal tragedies. On Friday,
August 18, 1989, I delivered the first draft of this work to John A. Hollar.
That evening, my father died in his sleep, peacefully but unexpectedly after
many years of debilitating psychiatric and physical illness. Two months later,
on Friday, October 20, John Hollar died suddenly on the way home from the
Frankfurt Book Fair, leaving a wife and two small children and a vast number
of colleagues and friends stunned and bereft. I trust no one will find any irony
in my dedication of this feminist study on women's religion in antiquity to my
father and my friend, as a modest memorial to two good and decent human
beings, both of whom deserved far more from this life than they received.
RS.K.
Philadelphia
February 1992