Biblical Theology Bulletin Volume 44 Number 1 Pages 312

The Author(s), 2014. Reprints and Permissions: http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav

DOI: 10.1177/0146107913514199
http://btb.sagepub.com

Modest, Industrious, and Loyal:

Reinterpreting Conflicting Evidence for Womens Roles
Susan E. Hylen
Abstract
Scholars have long recognized the diverse and contradictory evidence for womens activities in the Roman world.
Women are expected to be modest and subordinate to men; yet they are also found in leadership roles. A common
solution has been to say that women leaders were exceptions to the rule. Certain women or groups stepped outside
of cultural norms and took on influential roles. Instead of reading the conflicting reports as evidence of distinct
groups of women, I interpret them as evidence of a tension that pervades the culture. At the same time that women
are ideally described as modest and confined to the home, some virtues required women to exercise leadership and
to pursue the broad interests of their households and cities. Women who exhibit leadership are not stepping outside
of culture but also inhabit familiar social norms. Because of this, I argue that we should approach the contradictions
in early Christian sources as evidence of participation in this shared cultural background. Both inside and outside
the church, conformity to social norms for womanly virtue left open a range of possibilities for womens behavior,
including active leadership.
Key words: ancient women, social norms, modesty, patronage, New Testament

cholars have long recognized the diverse and contradic

tory evidence for womens activities in the Roman world. On
the one hand, the basic cultural assumption was that wom
en were inferior to men and should obey their husbands or
fathers. Philosophical and legal writings provide ample evi
dence of such views (e.g., Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.201; Plutarch,
Conj. Praec. 6, 11, 33; Gaius, Inst. 1.144; Ulpian Dig. 11.1).
On the other hand, the glimpses of womens lives that the
scattered evidence allows show women engaged in commerce,
heading households, and influencing politics, both with and
without their husbands participation. Scholars who read
these texts as products of their culture make interpretive deci
sions about how to understand this contradictory picture, and
how to situate the texts within it.

An early approach to this question was to marginalize

the evidence for womens participation by suggesting it was
not real participation. Women may have appeared to hold
religious and public offices; yet these were either merely hon
Susan E. Hylen, Ph.D. (Emory University) is Associate Re
search Professor of New Testament in the Candler School of
Theology, Emory University. She is the author of Imperfect Believers: Ambiguous Characters in the Gospel of John (Louis
ville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009); and Allusion and
Meaning in John 6 (BZNW 137; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter,
2005). She can be reached at 1531 Dickey Drive, Atlanta GA
30322. E-mail: susan.hylen@emory.edu.

Downloaded from btb.sagepub.com by guest on December 16, 2014

Hylen, Modest, Industrious, and Loyal

orary, or represented domestic (and thus unimportant) func
tions (Hillard: 40; MacMullen: 215). In this approach, the
philosophical norms of womens inferiority limit the meaning
of all other evidence regarding womens roles.
A more recent approach, and one that has become quite
widespread, understands some ancient women as inhabiting
true leadership roles. Glimpses of womens leadership are un
derstood as exceptions to an otherwise repressive rule (Hal
lett: 6, 29; MacMullen: 218). Individual women, or perhaps
women within a geographic region, gained a level of autonomy
that was rare for women in general.
Interpreters of early Christian texts are less likely to see
individual womens leadership as exceptional, but instead see
the contradictory elements as evidence of distinct sub-groups
with sharply differing views on women. For example, in her
classic work, In Memory of Her, Elisabeth Schssler Fioren
za presents a pattern of womens leadership in Pauline com
munities that she argues was not exceptional. However, she
argues that later Christians excluded womens leadership in
support of the Greco-Roman patriarchal order (Schssler
Fiorenza: 168, 26566). In this case the practices of the
Pauline community contrast with the social norms of other
Christian groups or of the Greco-Roman world at large (see
also Kraemer 1992: 140, 150, 19596). In another popular
expression of this view, the Pastoral Epistles are understood
to limit womens roles in response to a group centered around
the second-century text, The Acts of Paul and Thecla. Thec
las actions represent a community of women leaders whose
roles contradict the views and practices of the community of
1 Timothy (Burrus; Davies 1980; MacDonald. For more re
cent views, see e.g., Kraemer 2011: 149; Misset-van de Weg:
51; Nolan: 236237; Tamez: 28; and Vorster: 465). These
examples could be multiplied. The approach explains the di
verging evidence regarding women by assigning certain pieces
of evidence to distinct groups or individuals. In some groups,
women were viewed as inferior and incapable, but in others
they stepped outside of these constraints.
Some recent scholars have moved toward understanding
Christian women as reflections of the larger culture. For ex
ample, Lynn Cohick presents GrecoRoman cultural norms
and practices and then reads New Testament texts in light
of these common practices. Similarly, Carolyn Osiek and
Margaret MacDonald have sought to situate Christian wom
en within a framework of cultural expectations that include
leadership (Osiek & MacDonald).

In this article, I seek to extend this trajectory by addressing

the problem of the inconsistent evidence for womens partici
pation. Instead of reading the conflicting reports as evidence
of distinct groups of women or exceptional women, I interpret
them as evidence of a tension that pervades the culture. From
a modern perspective, the position of women in Greco-Ro
man culture is paradoxical: at the same time that women are
ideally described as modest and confined to the home, some
virtues required women to exercise leadership and to pursue
the broad interests of their households and cities. The evi
dence for this paradox is not new, and many scholars before
me have pointed out the seeming contradictions. What I hope
to do here is to offer a rationale to explain how what appears
contradictory to us may not have been to ancient women and
men. Women were expected to exhibit the virtues of modesty,
industry, and loyalty to family. However, these virtues did not
exist as a seamless whole, but were negotiated and embodied
differently by different women under changing circumstances.
Inhabiting these virtues led women to embrace a wide variety
of social and familial roles.

Multiple and Conflicting Cultural Norms

Part of the reason why groups have appeared to be delin
eated on the basis of their expectations of women comes from
our tendency to imagine ancient culture as a seamless web of
expectations for female behavior. The assumption has been
that patriarchal ideals form a rigid system that consigns wom
en to domestic anonymity. Women who do not fit this picture
are either exceptions to the rule or evidence of a community
that rejected those cultural norms. This view implies that cul
ture demands univocally that women are subordinate to men,
and anything that seems contradictory is an aberration. As
such it expresses a view of culture as an internally consistent
whole (Tanner: 42). This view of culture was popular in the
1970s and 80s, when many of the arguments about womens
leadership in the church took root. Clifford Geertz, for ex
ample, wrote of culture as a web of significance spun by
human beings, and identified religion as a cultural system by
which humans give meaning to the world (Geertz: 5). Ideas
like these have been challenged on many fronts, and those
conversations can help us rethink questions of the representa
tion of women in ancient texts.
Culture does not simply provide a set of rules everyone
must follow, but in Pierre Bourdieus terms, it provides a

Downloaded from btb.sagepub.com by guest on December 16, 2014

B I B L I C A L T H E O LO GY B U L L E T I N VO LU M E 4 4 2 0 1 4
sense or
disposition inculcated in the earliest years of life and constantly
reinforced by calls to order from the group, that is to say, from
the aggregate of the individuals endowed with the same dispo
sitions, to whom each is linked by his dispositions and interests
[Bourdieu: 15].

Bourdieu asserts that knowing what it means to follow the

rules is itself a social practice. As Charles Taylor explains,
a rule doesnt apply itself; it has to be applied, and this may
involve difficult, finely tuned judgments (C. Taylor: 57).
Bourdieus idea of habitus expresses the social understanding
required to live by the rules of culture. In light of Bourdieu,
interpreters who encounter social norms like the expectation
of womens modesty should go on to ask what modesty looked
like in practice.
The dispositions that shape actions are durable, but they
are also constantly negotiated and often in conflict. As Michel
de Certeau argues, each individual is a locus in which an
incoherent (and often contradictory) plurality of such relational
determinations interact (de Certeau: xi). Because of this, indi
viduals necessarily make choices about how to inhabit cultural
norms and roles. Even clearly stated dispositions like modesty
or the subordination of women do not exist in a vacuum, but
interact with other cultural norms and expectations. With this
understanding of culture in mind, interpreters might expect to
find texts expressing complex and even conflicting values.
Instead of seeing culture as a coherent force scripting hu
man action, individuals may be understood to function with
what Ann Swidler calls a cultural repertoire (Swidler: 24).
Cultures provide an array of social roles, values, and ways of
making meaning, which actors employ, depending on the re
sources and power available to them. As they utilize cultural
roles in new situations, actors may employ practices associated
with one role in new arenas. For example, scholars have long
studied the relationship between voluntary associations, syn
agogues, and churches. Familiar titles and roles in civic and
voluntary associations migrated into other realms like the syn
agogue and the church (Barclay: 113127; Harland 2003:
chap. 7; 2007: 5779; Kloppenborg: 212238; Richardson:
90109). In a similar fashion, scholars have looked for roles
available to women with authority or status, through which
they may have exercised power in the church (Osiek 2008:
17392; Osiek & MacDonald: 144219). Viewed as part of

a cultural repertoire, women who inhabited such roles did not

step outside of culture, evading norms of womens modesty.
Instead, they applied the norms regarding modesty in combi
nation with other culturally available roles and norms.
This more complex view of the cultural norms for womens
behavior points to a new way of understanding the varieties in
the evidence for womens participation in early Christian com
munities. The different roles that women play in antiquity do
not define the boundaries between communities with different
gender ideologies. Instead, the possibility for different roles
and leadership by women exists within and across various
subgroups in the Greco-Roman world.

The Ideal of the Virtuous Woman

In the Greco-Roman world the ideal woman was modest,
industrious, and loyal to her family. Funerary monuments pro
vide some of the clearest expressions of the standards, because
they praise the deceased for having fulfilled the ideal: e.g.,
Here lies Amymome, wife of Marcus, best and most beautiful,
worker in wool, pious, chaste, thrifty, faithful, a stayer-at-home
(ILS 8402, translated by Lefkowitz & Fant: 17). Similarly,
Murdias son praises her because in modesty, moral integrity,
chastity, obedience, wool-working, diligence, and loyalty she
was equal and similar to other excellent women, nor did she
yield to any woman in virtue, hard work, or wisdom (CIL
6.10230 [ILS 8394], translated by Shelton: 291). The vocab
ulary may change slightly. Although they are not synonyms,
both fides and pietas connote familial loyalty. Either modestia or
pudicitia could embody female modesty. The same constellation
of qualities appears again and again in inscriptions and literary
sources and suggests a consistent set of standards for womens
behavior (Cohick: 6771; Treggiari: 24349).
Sometimes the ideals of modesty, industry, and loyalty co
incide very smoothly. One example of this is the attribute,
worker in wool, which appears in both inscriptions cited
above as well as many others. So well did wool working en
capsulate female virtue that Suetonius insists that the women
of Augustuss family made his clothing (Suetonius, Augustus,
73). While the extent of their labor is likely exaggerated, his
assertion points to the potency of this image of female virtue.
One reason the wool worker may have been so iconic is that
it neatly embodies the norms of loyalty, industry, and mod
esty. Production of clothing was a laborious and multi-stage
process that directly benefitted the womans family. While in
5

Downloaded from btb.sagepub.com by guest on December 16, 2014

Hylen, Modest, Industrious, and Loyal

practice many of the steps involved may have been performed
with other people or in a courtyard space between lower in
come houses, wool working was imagined as something done
at home. Thus, the description, worker in wool encapsu
lates the ideal female virtues. Its frequency underscores how
important these norms were in Roman culture.
The smooth combination of gendered virtues is seen else
where in the culture as well. For example, the expectation that
women should be virgins when married combines the ideal
of modesty with that of loyalty to her familyboth to her fa
thers household and to that of her future husband. Likewise,
the Roman ideal of the univira, a woman married only once,
suggests both modesty and loyalty to family (CIL 5.7763;
6.3604; 6.13299; 6.13303; 6.25392; 6.31711; Catullus 111;
Propertius 4.11.36; Plutarch Tib. Gr. 1.7). In this case, the
loyalty involves sexual fidelity to the husband as well as pur
suit of the interests of the husbands children, for remarriage
had the potential to divide a womans loyalty. These are pow
erful social norms that often suggest a cohesive worldview that
confined women to a restricted set of roles.
There are a great many instances, however, in which the
ideals of modesty, industry, and loyalty interact in surprising
ways. As I discuss below, a womans loyalty to her family of
ten required her active involvement in arenas defined as mas
culine. Likewise, industrious women entered into commerce
and politics, pursuing wealth and honor for themselves and
their families. In light of sources that confine womens duties to
the home, modern readers often see this behavior as striking.
Yet most of the ancient sources give no indication that these
actions were unusual or untoward. Quite a few of the sources
attribute domestic virtues like modesty to these active wom
en. Thus, modesty does not disappear as a requisite virtue in
such situations; yet neither does it circumscribe the boundaries
of womens activities. Instead, modest women take on roles
and exert authority in ways that may seem surprising to mod
ern readers. These women are not stepping outside of existing
social norms, but inhabiting them in a variety of ways.
Here I flesh out the interplay between modesty, industry,
and loyalty with respect to womens wealth and patronage. I
draw on the diverse and disparate evidence for womens lives,
focusing on the first and second centuries. Egyptian papyri,
inscriptions from the west and east, and literary texts give dif
ferent glimpses of womens lives, viewed, as it were, from dif
ferent angles. The particularities of womens lives likely varied
a great deal from place to place. Even so, the evidence tends

to reinforce a common set of norms for womens behavior cou

pled with considerable variety in the ways the norms are em
bodied by actual women. I hope to show a social pattern in
which women who exhibited traditional domestic virtues also
played influential roles within their families and communities.
I am not arguing that women were free to do whatever they
pleased. Instead, I assert that conformity to social norms for
womanly virtue left open a range of possibilities for womens
behavior, many of which included active leadership roles with
in the household, civic groups, and in the city itself.

Womens Wealth
Women of the Imperial period owned a good deal of prop
erty and made decisions regarding its use. Richard Saller (97)
estimates that women controlled one-fifth to one-third of prop
erty in the Roman Empire. Elite women often owned large
country estates and property in the cities as well. For example,
Terentia sells property during her husband, Ciceros exile, a
fact he laments (Fam. 8.5). Both Pliny the Elder (Nat. 117)
and Tacitus (Ann. 12.22) mention the immense wealth of
Lollia Paulina. Pliny the Younger writes of the many country
estates of his mother-in-law, Pompeia Celerina (Ep. 1.4; 3.9;
6.10). His description of Ummidia Quadratilla (Ep. 7.24)
and inscriptions in her town (CIL 10.5813) attest her wealth
and status. None of these sources tries to explain or excuse the
wealth of such women. Women controlling property was a part
of everyday life in the Roman world.
Non-elite women also controlled property, albeit on a less
er scale. Papyri record women of lesser means establishing
wills, and buying, selling, and renting land and livestock
(e.g., P.Lips 29; P.Princ. 2.38; SB 8.9642(I); P.Diog. 11
12; P.Mich. 3.221; P.Oxy. 33.2680; P.Hamb. 1.86; P.Fay
127; P.Col. 8.212; P.Mich. 8.464; P.Oxy. 14.1758; P.Ryl.
2.243). Women also inherited, bought, sold, and freed slaves
(e.g., P.Oxy. 50.3555; 34.2713; P.Coll. Youtie 2.67; P.Oxy.
Hels. 26; P.Diog. 1112; Stud.Pal. 22.40). Women appear
less frequently than men in the papyri, but they are engaged
in many of the same activities.
Wealth, however, was never simply a personal affair over
which women (or men, for that matter) made autonomous de
cisions. Wealth was a household or familial matter. Not sur
prisingly, womens actions to preserve and extend their wealth
are shaped and framed by expectations of loyalty to family.
The funeral inscription to Murdia, cited above, also praises

Downloaded from btb.sagepub.com by guest on December 16, 2014

B I B L I C A L T H E O LO GY B U L L E T I N VO LU M E 4 4 2 0 1 4
her for her bequests to family (CIL 6.10230 [ILS 8394]).
Women inherited wealth from their husbands with the shared
expectation that they steward that wealth and pass it on to
their children (e.g., Cicero, Caecin. 1112). The social expec
tation of loyalty to ones family did not eliminate womens con
trol over their property but influenced the kinds of decisions
they were likely to make with the resources at their disposal.
Certainly there were avenues for men to exercise influence
over womens decisions with their property. Both sons and
daughters were under the authority (potestas) of their father
until his death. At that time, they became sui iuris, although
women still needed the consent of a guardian in order to sell
property defined by law as res mancipi: slaves, certain types
of livestock, and land within Italy. The practice was meant
to safeguard the womans property for the sake of her heirs,
who were members of her fathers family. Yet the role of the
guardian was limited. A woman who was sui iuris needed
the guardians consent if she wanted to form a dowry, but she
did not need permission to marry or to choose a husband.
The guardian never owned the womans property, and had no
influence over property that was not res mancipi. By the first
century changes in the practice made it unlikely that a guard
ian could interfere in a freeborn womans affairs (Gaius, Inst.
1.190192; 2.1.29. See Evans Grubbs: 2337). Although
the formal role of the guardian diminished over time, the ex
pectation that women would use wealth for the good of the
family remained.
Although men could influence a womans use of her prop
erty for the sake of the family, women also exercised daily
influence over their husbands affairs through their oversight
of household production (e.g., P.Mert. 2.63; P.Brem. 63; P.
Giss. 68; BGU 2.601602; SB 5.7572, 5.7737, 6.9026,;
P.Oxy. 6.932, 33.2680, 59.3991). Managing the household
was a job that varied depending on the social status of the
family, but in any case involved the woman directly in making
decisions about the use of household resources for the good
of the household. In the ancient world, the household was the
primary site of production of food and clothing. Although
cloth and other food items could be purchased in the cities,
women still performed many of the tasks required to make
clothing and meals, or supervised the slaves who did so. Cice
ros letters to Terentia show his reliance on her to carry out af
fairs in his absence (Cicero, Fam. 119, 14445, 158). Papyri
show similar patterns among non-elite women. For example,
Thermouthis writes to her husband, Nemesion, to inform him

of business transacted in his absence (SB 14.11585). I do

not mean to suggest that control of property was a two-way
street. Men had legal rights that women did not (e.g., Ulpian,
Dig. 50.16.195.2, 50.17.2; Gaius, Inst. 1.144). Yet women
had both formal and informal control over property, and used
both to marshal resources for the benefit of the household.
Yet even as they assert control over resources, women are
portrayed by their families and also portray themselves accord
ing to traditional virtues. For example, in a number of funerary
monuments in the west, women of average means are depicted
as domestic matrons. A world that required these womens ac
tive participation in producing wealth for their families never
theless honored them by depicting them as static, and located
within the household (Kampen: 97, 10506, 13036).
Similarly, in a few of the Egyptian papyri we see wom
en claiming womanly weakness at the same time they pur
sue their own economic and political interests. For example,
Demetria initiates legal action yet writes that being unable to
attend the court by reason of womanly frailty, she has appoint
ed her aforesaid grandson Chairemon as her legal represen
tative before every authority and every court, with the same
powers as she, Demetria, who has appointed him, would have
had if present (P.Oxy. 2.261, translated by Rowlandson:
179; cf. P.Oxy. 1.3335. The weakness of womenin this
case, expressed as womanly frailtyis a widespread cultur
al assumption that can be evoked as explanation or excuse; yet
it does not deter women from pursuing legal action.
The ability of women to act and yet to assert their modesty
or weakness at the same time appears to be woven into the
fabric of Greco-Roman culture. The tone of many of these
writings suggests that womens ownership of property and
pursuit of their interests is normal and expected. The pattern
that emerges is one in which claims of womens weakness exist
side by side with assertions of agency and authority.

Women Patrons
A similar pattern emerges in relation to patronage. Own
ership had social and political consequences in the Roman
social system, although the consequences were different de
pending on ones social status. Elite women took on leader
ship roles in their communities (Dixon: 91121; Lefkowitz
& Fant: 15861; van Bremen). They donated buildings and
monuments and gave bequests to relatives, clients, and cit
ies. They served in ceremonial capacities that symbolized the
7

Downloaded from btb.sagepub.com by guest on December 16, 2014

Hylen, Modest, Industrious, and Loyal

importance of their generosity. And while inscriptions show
fewer titles available to women than to men, nevertheless
women bore many of the same titles men did: stephanephoros,
demiourgos, etc. (van Bremen: 5980).
As patrons and donors, women gained honor for their
families and provided concrete benefits to their cities. In the
classic honor/shame model articulated by Bruce Malina and
others, women accrued honor only through their purity or by
bearing children (e.g., Malina: 512; Moxnes: 212). But
Zeba Crook (592609) has shown that women participat
ed alongside men in the public court of reputation. The
archaeological evidence of womens patronage, along with
praise of womens public works in inscriptions and literary
works, points to a social world in which women sought honor
alongside men (cf. Osiek 2005 :212).
Such benefaction was not limited to elite women, and there
is evidence at many levels of society that women gave gifts to
communities or local organizations, made bequests, loaned
money, owned and freed slaves, and thus acted as patrons in
many of the same ways men did. On a smaller scale, wom
en donated or renovated buildings in support of profession
al guilds and religious groups (CIL 10.810, 813 [ILS 3785,
6368]; CIJ 741; Cohick: 294296; Dixon: 107). Women also
made loans and supported individual clients in business and
social life (Cicero Att. 12.21.5; 12.51.3; Clu. 178; Pliny the
Younger, Ep. 3.19; AE 1982, 68 10; Pleket 14).
Women were also patrons of religious organizations and
voluntary associations. They donated buildings and mosaics,
and they are identified with titles like priest, elder, and
mother (Brooten: chap. 5; van Bremen: Appendix 2). As
Philip Harland has argued, although the titles were con
ferred as a way of honoring an influential person, in almost all
cases the person so honored also clearly served some function
ing role in the cults or institutions of the cities which honored
them (Harland 2007: 68). The titles of patrons confer honor
on that person, but they also reflect the status and influence
that person has accrued within the group.
Service as a patron was again not simply an individual
act but was also a way of extending the familys influence. As
Riet van Bremen argues (96), the language of the inscrip
tions themselves, and also their monumental display within
the cities emphasized the importance of dynastic continuity
(both in the paternal and maternal line) and the coherence of
the family. Inscriptions praising patrons often attribute honor
to the whole family by situating the gift within a pattern of

familial giving (van Bremen: 71, 91, 102). Womens civic do

nations are evidence of active leadership. Yet their decisions
were surely shaped by the fact that the social capital accumu
lated through such gifts accrued, not just to themselves, but
also to their families.
As they give such gifts, women are again praised for mod
esty and domestic virtues. Junia Theodora, commemorated
in five inscriptions for her political patronage of the Lycian
people, is described as living modestly (Kearsley: 20405;
Pallas, Charitonidis, & Vnencie: 498). Claudia Metrodora,
who twice served as stephanephoros, the highest magistracy of
her city (Chiot) and who donated a public bath complex, is
virtuous and of noble character (Kearsley: 20809). The
use of this vocabulary is commonly found in inscriptions de
scribing women. Men tend to be praised with words that con
note public service, and women with language like this that
evokes domestic virtues. R. A. Kearsley writes that sphn
(modesty or chastity) is most often found in grave epitaphs of
females in a specifically domestic context to describe a woman
who had performed her familial responsibilities to husband
and children impeccably (Kearsley: 197). Similarly, van
Bremen (103) notes the different vocabulary used to praise
Motoxaris and her brother. Although she held more civic of
fices and provided monuments, he is praised for his prostasia: leadership, authority...she for the impeccability of her
character and manners. The attribution of domestic virtues
in such cases should not be read as an indication that these
women never left their homes. Instead, the inscriptions attri
bute honor to women patrons by describing them as virtuous.
To summarize: the evidence that women pursued wealth
and acted as patrons suggests a more complex picture of the
socially acceptable roles played by women. The ideal woman
was modest; yet that modesty inhabited a variety of forms.
Modest women engaged in business and other public roles,
especially when those actions were perceived to benefit their
families or cities. In taking on such active roles, women did not
transgress social norms, but embodied them in ways deemed
acceptable by their culture.
Two additional aspects of this social pattern are directly re
lated to the interpretation of Christian texts. First, the tension
created by the gendered virtues (modesty, loyalty, and indus
try) can be found within a single source or author. Plutarch,
for example, lauds the submission of women to men (Conj.
Praec. 6, 9,14, 32). Yet he also recommends his wifes work as
an author (Conj. Praec. 48), dedicates his own work to a fe

Downloaded from btb.sagepub.com by guest on December 16, 2014

B I B L I C A L T H E O LO GY B U L L E T I N VO LU M E 4 4 2 0 1 4
male friend (Mulierum Virt. 1; Is. Os. 1), and praises examples
of womens military and political leadership (Mulierum Virt.).
Likewise, Philo frequently reproduces common gender stereo
types in his writings (e.g., Sacr. 21, 26; Spec. 3.169). Yet he
also approves of women living the philosophical life in parallel
with men (Contempl. 3233, 6971, 8390; see DAngelo:
6388; J. E. Taylor 2003; J. E. Taylor 2004: 110). Such
sources reinforce the idea that interpreters may find contradic
tory approaches to women within individuals or communities.
Second, the pattern includes elements that appear to mod
ern readers as explicit contradictions. For example, Turias
husband praises her in an inscription for traditional female
virtues:
Why should I mention your personal virtuesyour modesty, obedi
ence, affability, and good nature, your tireless attention to wool-work
ing, your performance of religious duties without superstitious fear,
your artless elegance and simplicity of dress...your affection toward
your relatives, your sense of duty toward your family....

Yet it is clear that Turia has not fulfilled these virtues by sitting
passively at home. Her husband goes on to recount how she
avenged her parents death, supported female relatives with her
own money, and assisted her husband in political difficulty:
When you threw yourself on the ground at [Lepiduss] feet, not
only did he not raise you up, but in fact he grabbed you and
dragged you along as if you were a slave. You were covered with
bruises, but with unflinching determination you reminded him
of Augustus Caesars edict of pardon....Although you suffered
insults and cruel injuries, you revealed them publicly in order to
expose him as the author of my calamities [CIL 6.1527, 31670
(ILS 8393), translated by Shelton: 292].

Turia fulfills the female virtues in part through her deter

mined action.
Similarly, there are contradictions between legal materials
and evidence of practice. For example, the jurists tell us that
potestas, the control of the pater familias over lesser members
of the household is, by definition, a male capacity, because
women did not have potestas over their children (Ulpian, Dig.
50.16.195.2). Yet as Richard Saller and others have argued,
the term pater familias referred generally to property owners
and slave owners, and as such included women as well as men
(Saller: 18590; Gardner: 377). In another example, the

jurist Ulpian states that women do not serve as magistrates

(Dig. 50.17.2). Yet as I discussed above, inscriptions assign
women the titles of magistrates. This strange variety seems to
be a regular feature of Roman life: the rules do not always
align neatly with the evidence of practice. There are explic
it prohibitions of womens participation in certain activities
or roles, along with evidence that women not only did these
things, but did them with approval.
My intention is not to resolve this contradiction, but to note
its regular appearance. The pattern suggests a deep tension
within Roman culture. It is not that some women could be civ
ic and familial leaders, but not others, or that women in some
groups could, but not in others. Instead, Roman women both
could and could not be leaders of households and communi
ties. Modesty and the assumed superiority of men demanded
that they not do these things. At the same time, the pursuit of
other gendered virtues demanded that they do so.

Conclusion
Assertions of agency and leadership by women are part of
the cultural milieu of the first and second centuries. Ancient
women were shaped by cultural expectations of passivity and
subordination to men. Yet women who demonstrate leadership
or agency were not operating outside of culture, or with a dif
ferent set of rules. The agency of individual women appears
normal rather than exceptional in the sources cited above.
Women regularly appear across the varied kinds of evidence as
people who assert social influence and control over resources
for the good of their families and cities. Women are not named
to formal leadership roles as often as men; neither are they free
to act in any way they please. But their actions taken for the
good of the family or community are expected.
Conflicting and even (to us) contradictory norms for wom
ens behavior occur in much of the evidence available. Cultur
al norms for womens modesty do not disappear when there
is evidence of womens agency, nor does womens leadership
vanish when norms of modesty are extolled. Instead, the pres
ence of women leaders in Greco-Roman society appears to be
normal even in groups whose stated principles exclude or limit
womens participation. Women affirm the weakness of females
as a general principle even as they seek their own self-interest.
These tensions are present within single documents, individ
ual authors, and in subgroups of Greco-Roman culture. Be
cause of this, it seems unwise to use the contradicting norms
9

Downloaded from btb.sagepub.com by guest on December 16, 2014

Hylen, Modest, Industrious, and Loyal

as principles by which to demarcate groups of people with
diverging views.
Like the culture at large, early Christian texts also exhibit
conflicting signals about women. Although a full interpreta
tion of any of these texts lies outside the scope of this arti
cle, scholars have long noticed the strange disparities within
Christian texts regarding the roles of women. For example,
1 Timothy demands womens silence and modesty (2:915)
and shows concern that young widows will be idle rather than
industrious (5:13). Yet women also serve this community in
official capacities as widows (5:9). And although a few in
terpreters argue that 1 Timothy 3:11 indicates only wives
of deacons, the consensus view is that the verse lays out the
qualifications of women who are deacons (Collins: 9192;
Krause: 69; Witherington: 241). Similarly, Thecla is char
acterized as a modest virgin who stays inside her mothers
home (ATh 7). To many interpreters, her pursuit of Paul (23,
40) suggests her subordination to his authority. Yet she also
baptizes herself (34) and is sent by Paul to teach the gospel
(41). The two works are by no means identical, but they share
a pattern that is familiar from other ancient texts in which
women are both denied and assert authority.
Instead of assigning texts like these to different factions with
radically different views, it may make more sense to view the
contradictions in the Christian texts as evidence of the nego
tiation of complex and often conflicting cultural dispositions.
Among these dispositions are gender norms and expectations,
marital status, and various social roles like patron, host, dea
con, and widow. Different individuals and groups negotiate
the tensions in different ways, so that the forms of womens
leadership may differ even within one locale. Yet none of the
differences seem to represent a group that has stepped out
side of the shared cultural framework. Texts in which women
appear as remarkable leaders still embrace their theoretical
subordination to men. Texts asserting womens subordination
also expect their service as leaders. The pattern reflects the
churchs participation in wider cultural norms that simultane
ously encouraged and limited womens public leadership.
The task of this article has been to complicate the picture
of ancient women in a way that may help readers to reflect dif
ferently on these texts and the questions they raise. If culture
does not operate with rules and exceptions, interpreters
may start with a different set of assumptions as they approach
these texts. We might not be surprised that women served in
leadership roles even in communities that extol their silence,

and we might expect womens roles to be limited even in com

munities that praise their exemplary leadership. Different
questions about these texts might then result. For example,
what might it have looked like for women in 1 Timothys com
munity to fulfill norms of modesty while serving as deacons
and widows? Given the cultural expectations for womens
patronage, does Thecla represent a radical departure from
the cultural norms? What are the dispositions of culture that
Thecla and 1 Timothy share? Similar questions could be
formulated for many of the texts we have used to assess the
participation of women in the early church. Regardless of the
answers to such questions, I hope that readers may begin to
imagine ancient Christians as participants in a complex sys
tem of social norms that both limited and assumed womens
influence in the public sphere.

Works Cited
Barclay, John M. G. 2006. Money and Meetings: Group Forma
tion among Diaspora Jews and Early Christians. Pp. 11327
in Vereine, Synagogen und Gemeinden im kaiserzeitlichen Kleinasien, edited by A. Gutsfeld & D.-A. Koch. Tbingen, Germa
ny: Mohr Siebeck.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice, translated
by R. Nice, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Brooten, Bernadette J. 1982. Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue: Inscriptional Evidence and Background Issues. Chico,
CA: Scholars Press.
Burrus, Virginia. 1987. Chastity as Autonomy: Women in the Stories of Apocryphal Acts. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press.
Cohick, Lynn H. 2009. Women in the World of the Earliest Christians. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.
Collins, Raymond F. 2002. 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus: A Commentary. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press.
Crook, Zeba. 2009. Honor, Shame, and Social Status Revisit
ed. Journal of Biblical Literature 128: 591611.
DAngelo, Mary Rose. 2007. Gender and Geopolitics in the
Word of Philo of Alexandria: Jewish Piety and Imperial Family
Values. Pp. 6388 in Mapping Gender in Ancient Religious
Discourse, edited by T. Penner & C. Vander Stichele. Leiden,
The Netherlands: Brill.
Davies, Stevan L. 1980. The Revolt of the Widows: The Social
World of the Apocryphal Acts. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illi
nois University Press.
de Certeau, Michel. 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life, translat

10

Downloaded from btb.sagepub.com by guest on December 16, 2014

B I B L I C A L T H E O LO GY B U L L E T I N VO LU M E 4 4 2 0 1 4
ed by S. Rendall. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Dixon, Suzanne. 1983. A Family Business: Womens Role in Pa
tronage and Politics at Rome 8044 B.C. Classica et Mediaevalia 34: 91112.
Dixon, Suzanne. 2001. Reading Roman Women: Sources, Genres
and Real Life. London, UK: Duckworth.
Evans Grubbs, Judith. 2002. Women and the Law in the Roman
Empire: A Sourcebook on Marriage, Divorce, and Widowhood.
London, UK: Routledge.
Gardner, Jane F. 1995. Gender-Role Assumptions in Roman
Law. Echos du Monde Classique 39: 377400.
Geertz, Clifford. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York,
NY: Basic Books.
Hallett, Judith P. 1984. Fathers and Daughters in Roman Society:
Women and the Elite Family. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univer
sity Press.
Harland, Philip A. 2007. Familial Dimension of Group Identity
II: Mothers and Fathers in Associations and Synagogues of
the Greek World. Journal for the Study of Judaism 38: 5779.
2003. Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations: Claiming
a Place in Ancient Mediterranean Society. Minneapolis, MN:
Fortress Press.
Hillard, Tom. 1992. On the Stage, Behind the Curtain: Images
of Politically Active Women in the Late Roman Republic. Pp.
3764 in Stereotypes of Women in Power: Historical Perspectives and Revisionist Views, edited by B. Garlick, S. Dixon &
P. Allen. New York, NY: Greenwood Press.
Kampen, Natalie Boymel. 1981. Image and Status: Roman Working Women in Ostia. Berlin, Germany: Gebr. Mann Verlag.
Kearsley, Rosalinde A. 1999. Women in Public Life in the Ro
man East: Iunia Theodora, Claudia Metrodora and Phoebe,
Benefactress of Paul. Tyndale Bulletin 50: 189211.
Kloppenborg, John S. 1993. Edwin Hatch, Churches and Colle
gia. Pp. 21238 in Origins and Method: Towards a New Understanding of Christianity and Judaism, edited by B. H. McLean.
JSNTSupp 86. Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press.
Kraemer, Ross Shepard. 2011. Unreliable Witnesses: Religion,
Gender, and History in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean. Ox
ford, UK: Oxford University Press.
1992. Her Share of the Blessings: Womens Religions among
Pagans, Jews, and Christians in the Greco-Roman World. New
York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Krause, Deborah. 2004. 1 Timothy. London, UK: T&T Clark.
Lefkowitz, Mary R., & Maureen B. Fant 1992. Womens Life in
Greece and Rome: A Source Book in Translation 2nd ed. Balti

more, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.

MacDonald, Dennis Ronald. 1983. The Legend and the Apostle:
The Battle for Paul in Story and Canon. Philadelphia, PA:
Westminster Press.
MacMullen, Ramsay. 1980. Woman in Public in the Roman
Empire. Historia: Zeitschrift fr alte Geschichte 29/2: 20818.
Malina, Bruce J. 1981. The New Testament World: Insights from
Cultural Anthropology. Atlanta, GA: John Knox.
Misset-van de Weg, Magda. 2001. Magic, Miracle, and Miracle
Workers in the Acts of Thecla. Pp. 2952 in Women and Miracle
Stories, edited by A.-M. Korte. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.
Moxnes, Halvor. 1996. Honor and Shame. Pp. 1940 in The
Social Sciences and New Testament Interpretation, edited by
Richard L. Rohrbaugh. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson.
Nolan, S. 2000. Narrative as a Strategic Resource for Resistance:
Reading the Acts of Thecla for Its Political Purposes. Pp. 22542
in Narrativity in Biblical and Related Texts, edited by G. J. Brooke
& J.-D. Kaestli. Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press.
Osiek, Carolyn. 2008. The Patronage of Women in Early Chris
tianity. Pp. 17392 in A Feminist Companion to Patristic Literature, edited by A.-J. Levine. New York, NY: T & T Clark.
2005. Family Matters. Pp. 20120 in Christian Origins, edited
by Richard A. Horsley. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress.
Osiek, Carolyn, & Margaret Y. MacDonald. 2006. A Womans
Place: House Churches in Earliest Christianity. Minneapolis,
MN: Fortress Press.
Pallas, Demetrios I., Sraphin Charitonidis, & Jacques Vnencie.
1959. Inscriptions lyciennes trouves Solmos prs de Corin
the. Bulletin de correspondance hellnique 83: 496508.
Richardson, Peter. 1996. Early Synagogues as Collegia in the
Disapora and Palestine. Pp. 90109 in Voluntary Associations in the Greco-Roman World, edited by J. S. Kloppenborg
& S. G. Wilson. London, UK: Routledge.
Rowlandson, Jane, ed. 1998. Women and Society in Greek and
Roman Egypt: A Sourcebook. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press.
Saller, Richard P. 1999. Pater Familias, Mater Familias, and the
Gendered Semantics of the Roman Household. Classical Philology 94/2: 18297.
Saller, Richard P. 2007. Household and Gender. Pp. 87112 in
The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World,
edited by W. Scheidel, I. Morris & R. Saller. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press.
Schssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth. 1988. In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins. New York,

11

Downloaded from btb.sagepub.com by guest on December 16, 2014

Hylen, Modest, Industrious, and Loyal

NY: Crossroad.
Shelton, Jo-Ann. 1998. As the Romans Did. 2nd ed. New York,
NY: Oxford University Press.
Swidler, Ann. 2001. Talk of Love: How Culture Matters. Chicago,
IL: University of Chicago Press.
Tamez, Elsa. 2007. Struggles for Power in Early Christianity: A
Study of the First Letter to Timothy. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis.
Tanner, Kathryn. 1997. Theories of Culture: A New Agenda for
Theology. Guides to Theological Inquiry. Minneapolis, MN:
Fortress Press.
Taylor, Charles. 1993. To Follow a Rule... Pp. 4560 in Bourdieu: Critical Perspectives, edited by C. Calhoun, E. LiPuma, &
M. Postone. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Taylor, Joan E. 2004. The Women Priests of Philos De Vita
Contemplativa: Reconstructing the Therapeutae. Pp. 102
22 in On the Cutting Edge: The Study of Women in Biblical
Worlds, edited by J. Schaeberg, A. Bach & E. Fuchs. New

York, NY: Continuum.

2003. Jewish Women Philosophers of First-Century Alexandria:
Philos Therapeutae Reconsidered. Oxford, UK: Oxford
University Press.
Treggiari, Susan. 1991. Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges from the Time
of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press.
van Bremen, Riet. 1996. The Limits of Participation: Women and
Civic Life in the Greek East in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: J. C. Gieben.
Vorster, Johannes N. 2006. Construction of Culture through the
Construction of Person: The Construction of Thecla in the
Acts of Thecla. Pp. 98117 in A Feminist Companion to the
New Testament Apocrypha, edited by A.-J. Levine. Cleveland,
OH: Pilgrim Press.
Witherington, Ben. 2006. Letters and Homilies for Hellenized
Christians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on Titus, 12 Timothy and 13 John Vol. 1. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic.

12

Downloaded from btb.sagepub.com by guest on December 16, 2014