Theology for the Masses

Previously, I talked about the cult of Thecla in general.  Today, I wanna look briefly at the physical shrine to Thecla at Seleucia.  We will see, through its physical development and imperial patronage, its popularity and subsequent influence on the minds of second through seventh century Christians.

As referenced Wednesday, Hagia Thekla, the main shrine dedicated to Saint Thecla, was located a mile south of Seleucia on the southern coast of Asia Minor. The earliest manuscript tradition only casually mentions this city as the place where Thecla travel to and died a peaceful death. [1]   Despite this, the city became the center around which the cult was centered. An international pilgrimage developed around this site to the extent that “regiments were stationed in Seleucia, offering pilgrims protection from the potential threats or robbery or assault.” [2]

The shrine there underwent several physical changes during its history; these changes are important because they demonstrate the importance of the Thecla tradition at the time. The original location of the site is unknown; more than one literary work suggests a different location than the earliest archaeological find and we are certain the site has been the subject of embellishment in the past. Both the Life and Miracles ((Ibid., 37.)) and Egeria’s diary [3]   speak of a much simpler site which was not connected to grotto. [4]   The earlier of the two works, Egeria’s diary from 384CE, [5] establishes the upper limit at which the original shrine would have to have been built.  However, there is strong evidence that the shire, and therefore the Theclan devotion, may date back into the second century [6]

The importance of Hagia Thekla is underscored by site itself and its embellishment. The diary of Egeria describes a simple hillside shrine and church with many cells which housed devotees. In the second half of the fifth century the shrine was moved to a natural limestone grotto in the area and a small, three aisled church was built at the new site. [7] Later in the fifth century the emperor Zeno sponsored the site and consequently build over the shrine and church, increasing it in size four-fold. [8]   According to the 6th century historian Evagrius, Zeno was overthrown by his rival Basiliskos in 476 CE and spent time in Isauria. He attributed his protection and rise back to power to Saint Thecla. [9] The expanded site included a public bath, four cisterns, and another small church. The architectural style matches that of the time. [10]   This imperial patronage and the increased building activity reflect the changing needs and increased demands of the pilgrimage site.

Hagia Thekla was connected with political intrigue and was embellished, which demonstrates its importance in the second [11] through seventh centuries.  This attests to the vitality of the Thecla tradition and implores us to seek out the tradition’s drawing power in the minds of its adherents.

Now that we have explored the importance of the cult of Thecla, we can now turn to its makeup structurally, socially, and ideologically.  Monday, I’ll look at the devotees to the shrine and we can see what life was like there and in doing so, peer into the the thoughts and expectations of this important, but often overlooked, group of Christians.

1. Acts of Thecla 43. [↩]
2. Davis, The Cult of St. Thecla: An Introduction to Women’s Piety in Late Antiquity, 69. [↩]
3. Wilkinson, Egeria’s Travels to the Holy Land, 121. [↩]
4. The grotto was the supposed location of the cave to which Life and Miracles and Acts of Thecla-Seleucia refer. [↩]
5. vs. the Life and Miracles from 450 CE [↩]
6. This upper limit may or may not be approximate to the actual founding of the shrine there. A case could be made for the shrine dating back to the writing down of the Acts of Thecla as it makes a point to mention the location of Seleucia even though it makes no sense whatsoever in the narrative. Perhaps as is the case with the Acts of Thecla-Seleucia, the author intended to give legitimacy to the location of the shrine at Seleucia. If this is the case, which is much more unlikely, the upper limit would be dropped to the late second century. What is certain is that the shrine and its pilgrimage were well established by 384CE and originated at a substantially earlier point in time. [↩]
7. Davis, The Cult of St. Thecla: An Introduction to Women’s Piety in Late Antiquity, 37. [↩]
8. George H. Forsyth, "Architectural Notes on a Trip through Cilicia," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 11 (1957): 223. The original site was around 20 meters long and the embellishment under Zeno resulted in a basilica that was over 80 meters long. [↩]
9. Davis, The Cult of St. Thecla: An Introduction to Women’s Piety in Late Antiquity, 38. [↩]
10. Ibid. [↩]
11. This is the most optimistic date, but it was certainly important well before 385 CE [↩]

In my previous post I introduced us to the Acts of Thecla and suggested that it played a powerful role in early popular Christian thought.  Next, I wanna talk about the devotion that sprang up around this figure.  Today, we will talk a bit about the material culture that we have from the Thecla devotion and its geographical location and finally, the literary words associated with the cult.

Before we get into this, I wanna take a few minutes and talk about the terms “popular religion” and “cult.”  Given the problems we have had over other technical terms such as myth, a brief discussion here will be helpful. 

Roundel: Saint Thecla with wild beasts. From Egypt. From Women of Byzantium By Carolyn Loessel Connor. Page 9

The term “popular religion” refers to the practices, structures and beliefs that the common people have.  This is usually contrasted with the official religion of a group, which refers to the beliefs, practices and structures (hereafter: religion) that those in charge of the group hold.  To use a present day example, the official religion of a Southern Baptist church would consist of the religion that the head pastor and board of deacons and elders publicly endorse.  The popular level would refer to the religion that is actually being practiced by the laypeople.  For example, when I was a member of the Crossing in Columbia, [1] the leadership of a church were strong advocates of calvinism, but in their membership class, they admitted that the majority of the members were not calvinists.  Here is the messy part: what constitutes the official religion of a group?  Can’t we contrast the top-level endorsed religion of the Southern Baptist convention with the religion endorsed by the leadership of the/a member congregation(s)?  You absolutely can; the popular/official distinction applies to any two elements which have an authoritative/subordinate relationship.  This speaks to the need for context and subtlety when studying a religious phenomena.  Here, when we are talking about the popular Christian religion, I am contrasting the popular level of cults and their devotees with the official religion which consisted of the religion of the early church fathers.  You could contrast the official religion of the cults with the religion of the devotees, but that is not what I am looking at today.

Ampulla with Saint Thecla between beasts.  From Egypt. From Women of Byzantium By Carolyn Loessel Connor. Page 10.

Now lets turn to the term “cult.”  In popular culture, and in some religious academic contexts, the term “cult” refers to any group [2] that has a set of belies, practices, and structures that the official culture [3] rejects wholesale.  For example, take the Branch Davidians, the Peoples Temple, and (for the majority of Americans throughout history) Mormonism.  However, in the academic study of religion and antiquity, a cult is something much different.  It refers to an established organization with the duty of running the a religious site, usually a temple.  Thus, when we talk about the “Temple cult” in Jerusalem, we are not talking about those “damn dirty Jews and their false beliefs.”  I am doing nothing of the sort!  Instead, we are only referring to the structures, practices, and personnel employed at this religious site.  Therefore, when I talk about the Thecla cult, I am only referring to shrine and church, the people associated with these places, and the rituals and practices that these people employed.

She is mentioned by authors and shows up in material culture in Asia Minor, Armenia, Cyprus, North Africa, Gaul, Germany, Italy, Palestine, and Egypt. [4]   Among the material culture that references Thecla are oil lamps, combs, flasks, wall paintings, shrines, and limestone graves. [5] These materials date from the fourth to the seventh centuries CE. Due to the favorable environmental conditions, most of the material evidence comes from Egypt; however, there are remnants of this material culture from all over the Roman Empire, such as a fourth century gold flask bearing her image in Germany and wall carvings in Armenia. [6]   This abundance of material culture shows the widespread popular influence of Thecla.  People came from all over the Roman empire to visit her shrine.  The Thecla cult and the values behind it was a powerful early influence in the first few centuries of Christianity.

The cult was centered at Seleucia in Asia Minor. It is here where her great shrine, Hagia Thekla, was located. [7] Two locations of the shrine have been located, and the site has an interesting history that includes the lives of Roman emperors. Most of the manuscript traditions can be traced back to this area. Two important ones in addition to the Acts of Thecla are the Life and Miracles of St. Thecla  ((Hereafter the Life and Miracles of St. Thecla will be referred to as Life and Miracles. When referring to the first section of the work, I will use the title Life, and Miracles when referring to the second part.)) and an extended version of the Acts of Thecla-Seleucia. The Life and Miracles of St. Thecla is a two part work that contains a paraphrase of the Acts of Thecla and a listing of forty-six of her purported miracles which was written in the 450’s CE. [8] The Acts of Thecla-Seleucia is an extended version of the Acts of Thecla that details her life after arriving at Seleucia that serves to provide an aetiological explanation for the shifting location of the Hagia Thekla shrine. [9] While a great deal of space could be consumed cataloging and discussing the multitude of manifestations of the Thecla cult in the Roman Empire, we will focus on the Seleucia cult. In examining this manifestation of the Thecla cult, we will be able to get a glimpse of why the cult was so popular in Roman Empire.  We will look at this issue in the next post.

1. which is not a Southern Baptist Church, but is of the reformed tradition [↩]
2. Here I am talking about religious groups [↩]
3. or the culture of the group that is using the term [↩]
4. Ibid. see chapters 3 and 6. [↩]
5. Ibid., 150. [↩]
6. Ibid., 85. [↩]
7. Dennis Ronald MacDonald, The Legend and the Apostle: The Battle for Paul in Story and Canon (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1983), 91. [↩]
8. The author mentions the death of prominent priest named Serverus who died in 444 CE and presupposes a local living bishop named John who died in 448CE. Davis, The Cult of St. Thecla: An Introduction to Women’s Piety in Late Antiquity, 41. [↩]
9. Ibid., 45. [↩]

Though I have posited that I Timothy 2 is best understood in light of the Artemis Cult, I have not attempted to dispel the traditional reading of this text. In this post that is what I intend to do. The BC’s generally make two assertions regarding Paul’s reasons for women not being able to pastor. I will suggest here that these 2 assertions, as interpreted by the BC’s, cannot stand up under close biblical scrutiny. They suggest Paul forbids women to pastor/preach because 1. the woman was created 2nd and 2. The woman was deceived, not the man.

1. A Woman Cannot Be a Pastor B/c She Was Created Second

When we examine the Genesis text from which Paul draws his argument, we see that Genesis makes no reference to a pre-Fall hierarchy. That said, as I have already argued, there is no reason to read patriarchy into the pre-sin community.

Genesis NEVER draws any kind of headship related inferences in regards to her being created second. In fact, her creation sets her as the man’s equal – she is bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh – she is the same as me! Unlike those beasts who could not be my companion, she is like me! The emphasis of Genesis is NOT on their distinctiveness, it is on their SIMILARITIES! [1] We run into problems when we attempt to read our arguments of male/female distinctions onto this text.

On another note, one of the dominant storylines in Genesis is the reversal of societal expectations. That is, especially as it relates to primogeniture, Genesis has a recurring theme of the youngest receiving the blessing, while the oldest gets the leftovers. This is a reversal of societal expectations – and the prevalence of this idea means there is no reason to assume coming second implies subordination within either the immediate Genesis narrative or the surrounding context of the whole book. In fact, that concept completely contradicts the current of the Genesis narrative.

Follow this up with the fact that the first creation account says they were created at the same time – if it is really that important that she was created second, why would the first account not have emphasized this as well?

2. A Woman Cannot Be a Pastor B/c She Was Deceived and Adam Was Not

This assertion is as fallacious as the first when it comes to the evidence in Genesis. First, it should be noted that the man was present when the temptation occurred. It was not that he was of somewhere trimming hedges. The serpent’s uses plural pronouns because he is speaking to both of them. Second, if he is present with Eve, and only she is deceived, why doesn’t he correct her? Why does he just stand by and let this happen? She tries to justify the boundaries Yahweh has set in their lives, and the man stands by silently. What is worse, being deceived or standing by with the truth and not rescuing others from falsehood? Sorry, I see the man’s sin as worse than the woman’s.

Second, supposing the man had a responsibility to teach the woman about God’s rules, he failed to do so. If she didn’t know the rules of Yahweh in relation to the Tree, it was not only her fault, it was his too. Maybe men should be ousted from their pastoral responsibilities because they have the universal characteristic of being negligent in their teaching roles! [2]

In the end, I find the traditional reading of Pauls’ 2 assertions lacking in evidence from the Genesis narrative. I see proof-texting mostly based on presuppositions. If we do not read our presuppositions from I Tim. 2 back onto Genesis, we see that Genesis does not provide support for our presuppositions.

If Paul supports the Complementarian view in I Timothy 2, then he is contradicting and prooftexting from Genesis. As we conservatives are not willing to say that, we need to reexamine how the texts relate to one another – because the Complementarian view simply doesn’t do justice to Genesis or Paul. My assertion is that the Artemis Cult allows Paul to read Genesis without contradiction and in its proper context.

1. One of our problems in this discussion is that we want to emphasize the differences between the man and the woman [strength vs. nurture, for example] because we are reacting to Feminism. The problem with this, though, is that when we are reacting to something in our reading of a text, we always run into the danger of not allowing the text to speak to us. Genesis wants to emphasize the similarities of the man and the woman. Are there differences? – yes. But that is not the focus of Genesis. [↩]
2. This completely fits the I Timothy context as well. In pagan temples women were allowed to take priestess positions upon conversion [whatever that meant]. They didn’t have to have experience, they just needed to be a vessel for prophetic utterances from the deity. These same women, upon converting to Christianity, would have wanted to teach in the Ephesian churches even though they were novices. Paul is creating a distinction between the pagan practice and the Christian practice. One cannot simply come into a Christian church [male or female] and start teaching without having a good knowledge of Christ. [↩]

I just ran across a lecture by NT Wright that gave a thumbs up to my Artemis Cult reading of I Timothy 2. He doesn’t go as far as I do in attempting to explain the pain in childbirth, but nonetheless, he deals with I Timothy 2 and a few other supposedly patriarchal texts.

Here’s the Link, enjoy. Women’s Service in the Church: The Biblical Basis

As of yesterday, the latest Christian Carnival is up over at Lingamish, a blog by a Bible translator living in Africa.

The Christian Carnival is a great way to a) find some of the best posts on Christianity/theology out there and b) find some of the best Christian blogs. It is a weekly publication consisting of author submissions that are Christian in nature.

Christian Carnival 193: Lions in Africa edition

Some of the highlights:

• Our Tom on I Timothy 2 and the Artemis Cult
• Fighting Despondency with Faith by Light Along the Journey considers modeling Jesus’ way of dealing with despondency.
• Common prayer is far too uncommon by Lingamish – on the corporate worship that is common prayer

A Very Brief Background to Artemis:

The Greek/Roman female deity Artemis/Diana had a twin brother named Apollo. When her mother went into labor, Artemis came out of the womb first. Having preceded Apollo, many female worshipers considered her superior to Apollo because it symbolized the female preceding the male and therefore being superior. After she was born, while her mother was giving birth to her brother, Artemis assisted her mother across a river where she helped her mother give birth. This act made her, in the eyes of the women who followed her, the goddess of protection during childbearing. The problem, however, lied in that she was prone to killing a woman in labor just for the fun of it. This caused women not only to need her assistance, but also to fear her assistance.

Artemis was sort of a Feminist deity of the Greco-Roman world – especially Ephesus, Timothy’s location when Paul wrote to him (as her temple was in Ephesus). Women rallied around here for strength and escape from male oppression, and she gave them an avenue of resistance in a patriarchal culture.

I Timothy 2

As the previous word study from my last post suggests, the problem in the church did not lie in the fact that the women were preaching or having authority, but rather, they were enacting violence (probably through sermonic rhetoric) against the men in their congregations. Paul’s remarks do not forbid a woman “to teach or have authority”, but rather the Gk. word usage and construction of the sentence suggests he is forbidding women to “teach in such a way that oppresses men.” (my own paraphrase)

The Artemis Cult gives us the historical background to understand how this authoritative feminism might have arisen in their midst, and it gives us clear understanding of Paul’s subsequent response. The Ephesian women, through their cultural assumption of female superiority derived from Artemis, oppressed the men in their congregation. Paul responds with some statements regarding Adam and Eve – statements which have been taken to mean male leadership and female subordination. He says,

“For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.”

Adam and Eve

Paul gives 2 reasons women shouldn’t dominate men through their sermonic rhetoric:

1. Adam was created first and Eve was created second
2. Eve was deceived while Adam wasn’t

Traditionally these two statements have been interpreted to eliminate the possibility of women becoming preachers or pastors. It has been suggested by many that 1. Men are superior to women because God created them first. And 2. Men are superior to women because women are easily deceived and men are intellectually superior.

These statements fall apart when we examine them in light of the Artemis Cult.

How do these 2 reasons fit into the Artemis hypothesis?

First, by maintaining that Adam was the first one created and Eve the second, Paul is not establishing patriarchy based on the order of creation as most biblical Complementarians assume. Rather, Paul is answering the objection of the Artemis Cult. The Artemis Cult assumed female superiority based on the fact that Artemis preceded here male counterpart Apollo. Paul, reorienting the mythology by which these people have ordered their lives, introduces Hebraic narrative as a way of subverting the female dominance. In other words: Paul counters Artemis with Adam, suggesting a new way of viewing the created order and power. He is not establishing male dominance so much as he is disestablishing female dominance. He’s saying, “Female superiority founded upon the Artemis philosophy does not work in this new community because in the new community, founded upon Hebraic narratives of Genesis 1, the male came first. Thus, your premise is really no foundation for the way you ladies are acting.”

Second, he suggests, female superiority in teaching roles cannot be assumed either. After all, it was Eve who was deceived, not Adam. (Where Paul gets this from Genesis I do not know.) The ultimate failure of your first mother is no basis for establishing female dominance – it simply doesn’t work. This explanation also gives us reasons as to why this theology is so foreign to the New Testament outside of this passage. In every other instance Paul blames the sin on Adam (Romans 5). Here, however, Eve is blamed for the Fall. Why the theological shift? Actually, there isn’t a theological shift. Paul is simply arguing that their mother Eve does not provide them with opportunity for female dominance. He is simply trying to get his point across.

Related to this second point, Eve’s deception was probably connected to Adam’s lack of teaching. That is, interpreters throughout the ages have read into the Genesis text that the serpent deceived Eve easily because Adam did a bad job of teaching. Though I have some questions about this interpretation, I do think it can work with my I Timothy 2 interpretation. All a woman in the Artemis cult needed to take leadership was an ecstatic experience. Discipleship was not a prerequisite. However, Paul will not have them transfer this assumption into the ecclesiastical community. Discipleship is essential, and one cannot teach if they have not undergone long term discipleship. The church has stricter standards than the pagan cults did.

In the end, whether this text was written by Paul or one of his disciples, we need to understand that this is not a proof-text for male dominance or solely male leadership in the ecclesiastical arena. Yes, this text IS bringing women down. However, it is not bringing them down from oppression to further oppression; it is bringing them down from a place of dominance to a place of equality with men.

Paul does not assume a gender based hierarchy in this text – or any other for that matter. I will argue over the next few weeks (months?) from each of Paul’s male/female relation texts that this is the case.

*I promised in my last post to comment on the ‘saved through childbearing’ aspect of this text. I would have done it in this post, but that would have made this post so long no one would want to read it. I am working on it, and it will be my next post.