Women Officeholders in Early Christianity: Epigraphical and Literary Studies

Women Officeholders in Early Christianity: Epigraphical and Literary Studies. By Ute E. Eisen. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2000. viii + 322 pp. $49.95 (paper).

While feminist reconstruction of early Christian history is now well established, Ute Eisen's work on women holders of ecclesiastical office gathers more data on this topic than any previous single source, and breaks new ground in its emphasis on epigraphy-evidence from inscriptions.

This is not the first case where evidence from non-literary sources has provided surprising alternatives to conventional views of antiquity. It is nonetheless among the more surprising and important. While literary sources often seem to deal with the "genus `woman"' (p. 2), epigraphy reveals something of individual women; where treatises deny the possibility of women as presbyters, etc., inscriptions refer to them as facts. This is not to say that Eisen treats epigraphical evidence as a direct reflection of reality, but its references to concrete persons are invaluable.

Most of Eisen's book is arranged in terms of the offices or roles themselves. There are chapters on apostles, prophets, teachers of theology, presbyters, widows, deacons, bishops, and stewards, framed by a useful critical introduction to the issues and a brief conclusion. An extended bibliography and indices (including one of women's names) add to the value of this book as a reference.

Women were present in all Church offices. Some of the discussions and characters will be familiar to those who have dabbled in these issues before: from the New Testament the apostle Junia and deacon Phoebe, from early narratives Thecla, Macrina, Syncletica and so forth. The individuals from inscriptions (and occasionally papyri) are new, however: the visionary prophet Nanas, the teacher Kyria, the presbyter Ammion, the mysterious Umbrian bishop "Q. . . ." In each case Eisen raises critical questions concerning the individual inscriptions or other evidence. She also engages existing scholarly discussions, e.g., concerning the relationship between the offices of "deaconess" (the one relatively uncontroversial instance of ancient women's ordination) and enrolled widow, or concerning the use of titles such as "bishop" in honorific terms.

Eisen also points to the various legislative and literary protests against forms of women's leadership as good evidence that at least some of the things mentioned were happening-else why the need to complain? Thus the Synod of Laodicea in the fourth century and Pope Gelasius's complaint to the churches in southern Italy late in the fifth indicate that some women were presiding liturgically at these times and places.

Not every one of these cases is likely to achieve unquestioned acceptance as evidence for ordained women in the ancient Church. The case of the bishop Theodora, for instance, remains puzzling, as Eisen herself acknowledges (pp. 200-205). Further, the actual functions performed by these women are often obscure, given the "laconic" nature of most funerary inscriptions. However, with these real figures before us, scholars of all kinds are faced more pressingly with the need to distinguish not only between ancient rhetoric and real exceptions, but also between ancient male authors' views and modern male scholars' tendency to read them as definitive.

Eisen is also critical of the almost standard feminist paradigm of "decline" from a supposed egalitarian period to full Christian accommodation to patriarchy, which in effect equates institutionalization with marginalization of women. Conservatives and feminists alike have seemed equally willing to accept the notion that women's leadership was characteristic of heretical groups, and only these. This of course entails a circularity prominent in some recent official pronouncements: since the Catholic Church has not ordained women, ordained women must not have been Catholic. Eisen's concern is not to deny the reality of exclusion, but to demonstrate that "social history is ... as complex and multivalent as the history of Christianity" (p. 12).

Eisen's work is something of a watershed in the study of women in early Christianity, and its welcome appearance in English will be of tremendous interest to scholars and students, and to church members and leaders. This will become a standard reference, and it will also renew some debates.

ANDREW MCGOWAN

Episcopal Divinity School Cambridge, Massachusetts

Copyright Anglican Theological Review, Inc. Summer 2001
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