Three Desert Ammas—Theodora, Sarah, and Syncletica

COURAGEOUS WOMEN: THREE DESERT AMMAS-THEODORA, SARAH, AND SYNCLETICA A New Translation from the Greek Alphabetical Apophthegmata Patrum, with Introduction, Notes, and Comments' Tim Vivian INTRODUCTION Something like 90% of classical Greek and Roman literature is lost to us. This realization becomes acute, even heartbreaking, when we think of how very little of the little we have is by women. An exception that proves the rule is Plutarch’s “Sayings of Trojan Women,” in the Moralia.2 A unique manuscript of Catullus’ poems survived in a wine jar discovered in a monastery. How many of us would delight—exult—to have the complete poems of Sappho? This attrition continues into early Christianity: Paul names quite a few women in ministry; we have authentic writings by none of them.1 In the New Testament we also have T permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent.”4 In the decade before or after the turn of the fourth century, Bishop Theophilus of Alexandria ups the ante, even when he, seemingly, has all the chips: Tim Vivian is a retired Episcopal priest and emeritus professor of Religious Studies at California State University, Bakersfield. He is an expert on Coptic monasticism and has published widely on that subject in this and other journals. 1 A different version of this article will appear as part of a 2-volume translation of the Alphabetical Apophthegmata Patrum (The Sayings of the Desert Fathers), with notes and comments, forthcoming from Cistercian Publications. I wish to thank Kathleen Norris for reading a draft of this article, Joseph Trigg for things Origen, and Janet Gonzales and Chris Livingston at the CSU Bakersfield Walter Stiern Library for help with research materials. 2 Plutarch, Moralia, Loeb Classical Library III (1931), https://www.loebclassics.com/ view/LCL245/1931/pb_LCL245 .i .xml. 3 But the number of later (2nd-3rd c.) Acts and Gospels concerning women is telling; see, for example, The Acts o f Paul and Thecla, The Gospel o f Mary, The Gospel o f Eve, and The Birth o f Mary. 4 1 Tim 2.T2. Unless otherwise noted, all quotations from the NT are from the NRSV. For a list of women in Paul’s writings and Acts, see Averil Cameron, “Neither Male Nor Female,” Greece and Rome, 2nd series, 27 (1980), 60-61. TIM VIVIAN 75 “Do you not know that you are a woman? And that because of women the Enemy wages war against the saints?”5 Historically, Theophilus, with his connection to Amma Theodora, offers a link to the three ammas discussed here. It’s striking that the first “saying” of Theodora has her asking a question of him. In early monasticism, the Alphabetical Apophthegmata Patrum (et Matrum), the Sayings o f the Desert Fathers (and Mothers) (AlphAP), contains sayings of and stories about some 125 men with hundreds of sayings. There are three women ,6 With regard to the “et Matrum ’ in the previous sentence, William Harmless challenges us not only about female ascetics but about both historical study and spiritual consideration: “It is fashionable nowadays to speak of ‘desert mothers,’ pairing the term with the more traditional 'desert fathers.’ But is it accurate? Is it true that women were equally prominent and active in the desert?"7 Harmless’ statement and questions deserve parsing and thoughtful response. First, if one adds and Mothers to the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, it does not mean they are “equally prominent and active in the desert” (see below).8 In addition, “fashionable nowadays” has, at least to me, an edge to it, as when people use “political correctness” 5 Alphabetical Apophthegmata (AlphAP) Arsenius 28; PG 65,75^440 (https://ww\v.roger- pearse.com/weblog/patrologia-graeca-pg-pdfs/). Jean-Claude Guy, S.J.. ed., Les Apophtegmes des Peres: Collection Systematique, 3 vols.. Sources Chretiennes 387, 474. 498 (Paris: Les Editions du Cerf, 2013) (SysAP) II.10. Theophilus was “twenty-third patriarch of the See of Saint Mark (385-412)” and a “complex and controversial patriarch”; D. B. Spanel, “Theophilus,” Coptic Encyclopedia, ed. Aziz S. Atiya (New York: Macmillan, 1991), 2247b-2253b; available online, Claremont College Coptic Encyclopedia (hereafter: CE), http://ccdl.libraries.claremont. edu/cdm/search/collection/cce/searchterm/Theophilus,%20Saint/field/title/mode/exact/. Susanna Elm, “Virgins of God": The Making o f Asceticism in Late Antiquity, Oxford Classical Monographs (Oxford: Clarendon, 1996), 257. n. 13, lists other sayings that rebuke women. 6 For a helpful bibliography, see William Harmless, S.J.. Desert Christians: An Introduction to the Literature o f Early Monasticism (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004), “Women’s Asceticism,” 456-457. On "desert mothers,” see Benedicta Ward. S.L.G., “Apophthegmata Matrum," Studia Patristica 16 (1985): 63-66. 7 Harmless, 440. See the bibliography on 457^458. For introductions, see "Women in Early Monasticism," Chapter 3 of Marilyn Dunn, The Emergence o f Monasticism: From the Desert Fathers to the Early Middle Ages (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 42-58: Joan M. Peterson, “Feminine Monasticism in the First Six Centuries: An Historical Introduction,” in Peterson, Handmaids o f the Lord: Contemporary Descriptions o f Feminine Asceticism in the First Six Christian Centuries, CS 143 (Kalamazoo. MI: Cistercian, 1996); and Elm, “Virgins of God," especially Chapter 8, “Desert Mothers and Wandering Virgins: The Apophthegmata Patrum,” 253-282. * The first person I recall using "fathers and mothers” was Douglas Burton-Christie twenty-five years ago in The Word in the Desert: Scripture and the Quest for Holiness in Early Christian Monasticism (New York: Oxford UP, 1993). Kathleen Norris uses the phrase in her more recent Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life (NY: Riverhead Books, 2008). 76 ABR 71:1 - MARCH 2020 with a visible or hidden sneer. Words on a page, alas, don’t have tone and pitch; but I can hear someone, a male, uttering those seemingly dismissive words with a slightly higher voice and, perhaps, a roll of the eyes. The picture becomes even more forceful if we give the man in our imagined scenario an upper-crust British accent. Another two words, “equally prominent,” deserve serious discussion. By adding “et Matrum” (and Mothers) to the title of the Apophthegmata, am I saying, as Harmless suggests, that the desert ammas were—and, therefore, are—“equally prominent and active” as the men, the abbas? I admit that I hadn’t even thought of his question until I read his words for the third or fourth time. Were—and, again, a re - female monastics equally prominent, therefore as important, as their confreres? No. One hundred twenty-five to three is an extravagantly lopsided score. “Active,” though, resets the scoreboard. But (switching metaphors), what happens as in the last presidential election in the United States, when someone games the system? I will look at these two points below. Now, though, I will consider the implicit, and important, question that Harmless asks. “Fashionable nowadays” can imagine us watching a movie from the 70s and losing the artistic intent and merit because we’re snickering and guffawing at the (to us now) outrageous clothing and hairstyles. If we’re honest, though, we ask ourselves; What are the current fashions, and digital products, that in twenty, or even five, years will be superannuated or even ludicrous? (Cassette tapes, anyone?) So, Harmless asks: Were the desert mothers really out there in ascertainable numbers and influence or, like a mirage, do we see them prominent in the near distance because we, almost desperately, want to see more women in the desertV The first monastic biography-hagiography (the doublet is very significant) raises a serious question. Although it’s very difficult to know how much and what portions of Athanasius’ Life o f Antony are historical, two important statements by the Bishop of Alexandria early on deserve our attention and seem quite plausible.9 10 Athanasius tells us two key things when Antony embraces a life of asceticism: first, “there was at that time an old man in the neighboring village. From 9 Harmless, 440. 10 See “The Discipline of Virgins Within the Church,” in David Brakke, Athanasius and the Politics o f Asceticism (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995), 21-57. He notes, 24, that “[t]here were virgins in several of the cities and towns of Egypt” in the 4th century; with regard to Antony’s sister, he says “How organized these women were is not clear. It is possible that this is not a historical fact, but merely Athanasius’ depiction of what he thought Antony should have done with his sister.” TIM VIVIAN 77 his youth he had practiced the solitary life of an ascetic. So, like him, Antony began his ascetic practice by staying in places outside that village.”" As important, just before this, Antony entrusts his sister “to well-known and faithful virgins, giving her to them to be raised in virginity.”12 Probably the first thing that strikes us today is Antony’s sister’s agency—or, rather, lack thereof. But it is also very significant that Athanasius says that there were women—a group of women — practicing the ascetic life. As James E. Goehring has emphasized, Antony’s early significance is not that he “founded” the ascetic life but that he withdrew from village life into remoter and remoter places—“the desert.”13 When Antony decided to become an ascetic, there were already men—and women— living as Christian ascetics in towns and villages. These early ascetics were called remnouth (Coptic: “solitary”) or apotaktikoilapotaktikai (Greek: “renunciants”). E. A. Judge first emphasized the importance of the apotaktikov. “the men at last followed the pattern long set for virgins and widows, and set up houses of their own in town,” in which they would practice “the life of personal renunciation and service in the church.14 A papyrus dated to 400 C.E.

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