Ideal & Real Women in Late Antiquity

Ideal & Real Women in Late Antiquity

Portrait of a wealthy Roman matron

from the catacombs of Domitilla, Rome.

Ideal and Real Women in Late Antiquity

I. Theoretical Roles

A. The Problem of Sources




B. A Tale of Ambivalence





1. Inferiority & the Legacy of Eve






• Greco-Roman Theories







• Christian Views







• Christian Views

2. Women as Heroines







• Christian Views


• Apocryphal Acts

The Acts of [Paul and] Thecla: The Example of Thecla

Coptic Icon of St. Thecla Byzantine Miniature of St. Thecla, 11th Century

St. Paul with St. Thecla and St. Timothy Psalter and New Testament Manuscript, Constantinople, ca 1084

St. Thecla, the proto-martyr for women







• Christian Views


• Apocryphal Acts

• Martyrdom Accounts

Women as Heroines

The Virgin-Martyr Agnes, Gold-Glass from fourth-century Rome







II. Real Lives







II. Real Lives

A. Ordinary Women’s Lives: Legal & Practical Perspectives

“Over there the babies are prattling, the children hang on her for kisses, the accounts are being added up, & the money got ready for payment. Here a posse of cooks, girded for action, is pounding meat, & a crowd of weaving-women chattering. Then a message comes that her husband has brought his friends home. She circles the rooms like a swallow: is the couch smooth? Have they swept the floor? Are the cups properly set out? Is dinner ready? Tell me, where in all this is the thought of God?”

Jerome, Against Helvidius, 20







II. Real Lives


B. Lifestyles of the Extraordinary







II. Real Lives



1. Ascetic Women: The Case of Marcella

Jerome on Marcella:

“She did not accept the ‘ipse dixit’ of her teacher, nor did authority, unsupported by the verdict of reason, influence her; but she tested all things, & weighed the whole matter so sagaciously that I perceived I had not a disciple so much as a judge.”

“Nor would she acquiesce in my explanations but on the contrary would dispute them; not, however, for argument’s sake but to learn the answers to those objections which might...be made to my statements.”

“…she gave her own opinion not as her own but as from someone else...For she knew that apostle had said: ‘I suffer not a woman to teach,’ & she would not seem to inflict a wrong upon the male sex.”

-Jerome on Marcella







II. Real Lives




2. A Female Pagan Philosopher: Hypatia of Alexandria

“So do not worry whether you are male or female in body, & do not see yourself as a woman, for I did not draw near to you as such. Avoid all feminization of the soul, just as if you had a male body also. The most blessed offspring come from a virgin soul & a celibate mind.”

- Porphyry, To Marcella 33







II. Real Lives

A. Ordinary Women’s Lives



2. A Female Pagan Philosopher: Hypatia of Alexandria

C. What difference did Christianity make for women?

Ideal & Real Women in Late Antiquity

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