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9 - The Apostolic Mothers
- Edited by Michael F. Bird, Scott Harrower
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- Book:
- The Cambridge Companion to the Apostolic Fathers
- Published online:
- 28 May 2021
- Print publication:
- 17 June 2021, pp 175-185
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Summary
In a debate with Origen over the interpretation of Paul’s invitation to fools (not the wise) to join the Christian movement, Celsus argues that Christianity is a religion of the stulti – women, children, and slaves (Cels. 3.44). Origen counters that the statement is a faulty generalization, jumping to a conclusion about all reached on the basis of just a few. Conversely, the history of early Christianity frequently emphasizes the history of men and male authors, without sufficient attention drawn to the role and significance of women in the early church. This short essay focuses on Christian women of the first four centuries either named as apostles, or playing the same role as apostles, or remembered as having done so, in a direct line of succession to the companions or early followers of Jesus. The title “Apostolic Mothers” is based, of course, on the title, “Apostolic Fathers” – not a group of writers, but a collection of texts, some undoubtedly pseudonymous. According to new research, the question of who devised the title “Apostolic Fathers” is debated, coming down to a choice between bookbinders and librarians. The collection includes writings attributed to figures including Barnabas, Clement of Rome, Diognetus, Hermas, Ignatius, and Polycarp. These writings seem to have been clustered, not because their authors were “apostles” (although the historical Barnabas was contemporaneous with the apostles), but because they were regarded as post-apostolic, i.e., in a direct line of succession from Jesus’ apostles. That said, not all “apostolic fathers” fit a single definition of “apostolic.” It is thus impossible to feminize the definition (“apostolic mothers”) without additional clarification. In this essay, the title is employed to refer to named female leaders of the church: (1) not referred to as “apostle” in the NT, but acting in a parallel fashion to the apostles, irrespective of their dominant NT role or the tradition about their role; (2) in a direct line of succession (real or fabricated) from Jesus’ apostles; and (3) contemporaneous with the purported authors of the “apostolic fathers” (i.e., first and second century CE). While both martyrs (e.g., Ignatius, Polycarp) and teachers (e.g., Diognetus) figure among the apostolic fathers, I have excluded women in these roles if we lack evidence for their even fictional succession to the apostles of Jesus. Thus, the martyrs Perpetua and Felicity are not considered here, nor for the same reason are the following writers: Faltonia Betitia Proba, 320–370 CE; Marcella, 327–410 CE; Macrina the Younger, 330–379 CE; Melania the Elder, 340–410 CE; Paula, 347–404 CE; Egeria, 380s CE and Aelia Eudocia Augusta, 400–460 CE. Likewise, prophetesses, such as Prisca and Maximilla (Montanism) and nameless female leaders in catacomb art such as the third-century fresco Fractio Panis have been excluded.
Ethiopianising the Devil: ὁ μέλας in Barnabas 4
- Clare K. Rothschild
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- Journal:
- New Testament Studies / Volume 65 / Issue 2 / April 2019
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 22 February 2019, pp. 223-245
- Print publication:
- April 2019
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Although interpreters refer to the association between blackness and evil in ancient texts as essentially universal, specific reference by Christians to the counter-divine with the colour epithet ὁ μέλας is new with the Epistle of Barnabas. Black is applied as an honorific to certain Egyptian deities, but it is never used in Egyptian religion with reference to the counter-divine. Furthermore, black demons proliferate in late third- and fourth-century Egyptian monastic texts, but these witnesses postdate Barnabas. The first explicit reference to the devil as black after Barnabas is in Didymus the Blind, who interprets the reference as ‘Ethiopian’. Exploring the origin and background of this nickname for the counter-divine, this essay argues that Didymus accurately apprehends Barnabas’ intention: namely, that ‘the Black One’ does not merely reflect the universal association of blackness and evil in Roman antiquity, but, rather it reflects the appropriation of an ethnic stereotype in an apocalyptic context with distinctly anti-imperial resonances.
Down the Rabbit Hole with Barnabas: Rewriting Moses in Barnabas 10
- Clare K. Rothschild
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- Journal:
- New Testament Studies / Volume 64 / Issue 3 / July 2018
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 06 June 2018, pp. 410-434
- Print publication:
- July 2018
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Barnabas 10 offers an allegorical discussion of kashrut. The writer addresses dietary laws in two groups of three: prohibitions against the eating of pig, vulture and eel, followed by prohibitions against eating hare, hyena and weasel. In each case, the allegorical interpretation construes diet as comportment (e.g. one should not behave like a pig, vulture etc.). Concerning the hare, readers are admonished not to emulate its corruption of children – a behaviour linked to its annual acquisition of an anus. Parallel allegorical interpretations of the Jewish food laws can be found in the Letter of Aristeas and Philo, De specialibus legibus 4 and similar quasi-scientific observations about animals occur in texts ranging from the rabbis to Physiologus. However, the rabbit poses a particular problem since no known precedent exists for either its behaviour or its physiology. The present investigation thus focuses on the rabbit, attempting to reconstruct the literary and historical background for its unusual characterisation.
2 - Historical Criticism
- Edited by Joel B. Green, Fuller Theological Seminary, California
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- Book:
- Methods for Luke
- Published online:
- 05 June 2012
- Print publication:
- 22 February 2010, pp 9-41
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Summary
The historical–critical method encompasses a variety of strategies for eliciting meaning from a premodern literary text. The most prominent of these subspecies are text, source, form, redaction, rhetorical, and social-scientific criticism. Although distinctive, each approach prioritizes comparative analysis of a text in its literary and historical contexts – involving cultural, social, political, religious, and other aspects. An investigation of early Christian texts from a historical–critical perspective implies close examination of a passage using any or all of the pertinent critical techniques listed previously.
In this chapter I sketch the emergence of the historical–critical method in the field of biblical studies and describe its suitability for understanding the Gospel of Luke. Following this background, I analyze Luke 20:45–21:4 by means of this method, showing how manipulation of traditional source material, in this case the author's version of Mark, best explains the author's narrative strategy, which in turn helps to reveal the author's first goal: to write the first credible history of early Christianity.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE HISTORICAL–CRITICAL METHOD
“Higher criticism” was the name given to study of the Bible as any other fancient text, that is, as composed by human beings during particular phases in history. In contrast, “lower criticism” was the attempt to understand biblical texts on the basis of internal evidence alone. The Dutch scholar Erasmus (1466–1536) might be credited as the first to study the Bible critically, although many of his methods are identifiable in the work of earlier scholars and theologians.