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Widows As Altar in Christian Texts of the Second and Third Centuries

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Widows As Altar in Christian Texts of the Second and Third Centuries Widows as Altar in Christian Texts of the Second and Third Centuries The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:37944984 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Widows as Altar in Christian Texts of the Second and Third Centuries A dissertation presented by Margaret Leslie Butterfield to The Committee on the Study of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of The Study of Religion Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts January 2017 © 2017 Margaret Leslie Butterfield All rights reserved. Dissertation Advisor: Professor Karen L. King Margaret Leslie Butterfield Widows as Altar in Christian Texts of the Second and Third Centuries Abstract This dissertation examines the image of widows as an altar of God as employed in four early Christian texts commonly dated to the second and third centuries CE: Polycarp’s letter To the Philippians, Tertullian’s Ad uxorem, Methodius’s Symposium, and the Didascalia apostolorum. Each of the four chapters provides an analysis of the rhetoric of one of the texts in order to contextualize its use of the image of widows as altar, which is then explored in more detail. These texts exhibit concerns with three matters in particular: widows’ purity (particularly marital / sexual purity), their relationship to community offerings and finances, and their practices of prayer and speech. They employ the image of widows as an altar of God in order to shape understandings of widows, and their behavior, through the language and logic of sacrifice, and they do so in relation to one or more of the three core concerns. Although the texts generally deploy the image of widows as altar in attempts to control or subordinate widows, the very functioning of that rhetoric depends upon the presence of sociohistorical conditions regarding widows and their work that may run counter to those goals. I argue that these sociohistorical conditions included the presence of widows in some early Christian communities who were figures of sacerdotal importance. They received offerings from the community and prayed to God on their behalf, and formed a significant connecting link between humans and the divine. iii Table of Contents Acknowledgments and Dedication v Abbreviations vii Introduction 1 1. Prayer as Sacrifice: Widows as Altar in Polycarp, Philippians 42 2. The Altar Must Be Pure: Widows as Altar in Tertullian’s Ad uxorem 78 3. Bloody Altar, Bloody Widows: Widows as Altar in Methodius’s Symposium 106 4. Wiser Than the Bishops: Widows as Altar in the Didascalia apostolorum 144 Summary and Conclusions 185 Appendix 206 Works Cited 223 iv Acknowledgments and Dedication This dissertation would not have emerged into this world without the support I received from so many people over the years of its birthing. It would be impossible for me to list all of them by name and just as impossible for me to adequately express my thanks, so I ask their pardon for the poverty of the following words. First, thank you to Henry Wheaton. You, my love, have supported, motivated and nourished me, body, mind and soul, in uncountable ways through the writing of this project. Thank you to my family—my parents, my siblings, and especially my wonderful niece— who have believed in me from the very beginning. Thank you to Mara Block and Amy Howe, two of the best friends and fellow-travelers along the doctoral path that I could possibly have wished for. You helped me to think, to be patient, to laugh and to trust myself. Thank you to all of the members of the Harvard New Testament and Early Christianity Dissertation Seminar who have read, critiqued, discussed and encouraged my work over the years, especially Katherine Shaner, Michal Beth Dinkler, Jung Choi, Eunyung Lim, Tyler Schwaller, and Jennifer Quigley. This dissertation is better in countless ways through your abundant contributions. Thank you to Giovanni B. Bazzana for his always-attentive reading of my work, and for his gracious willingness to help me with some of the Syriac passages in the fourth chapter. Thank you to Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza and Laura S. Nasrallah, my ever-patient committee members whose expertise, honesty, encouragement, critique and willingness to expect my best work have helped to carry this project through from beginning to end. v Finally, thank you to Karen L. King, who has been quite simply the best advisor I could have asked for throughout my time in the doctoral program and through the crafting of this dissertation. I have become a more capable scholar, critical thinker, writer and teacher through the countless hours of conversation and pages of feedback you have given me. You have had confidence I could do better, and have helped me to do it, when I was not sure of that myself. You have been unfailingly generous, attentive, demanding and kind. I feel privileged to count you as a mentor and friend. Memoriae fratris sacrum vi Abbreviations ACW Ancient Christian Writers AGJU Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt: Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neueren Forschung. Part 2, Principat. BEHER Bibliothèque de l’École des hautes études: Sciences religieuses BETL Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium BJS Brown Judaic Studies BTS Biblical Tools and Studies BZNW Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft CH Church History Const. ap. Constitutiones apostolicae / Apostolic Constitutions CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum CSPESPT Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy, and Society in Past Time CurBR Currents in Biblical Research DA Didascalia apostolorum EJWS European Journal of Women’s Studies ExpTim Expository Times HABES Heidelberger althistorische Beiträge und epigraphische Studien HDB Harvard Divinity Bulletin HTR Harvard Theological Review IDB The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible. Edited by George A. Buttrick. 4 vols. New York: Abingdon, 1962. IJWS International Journal of Women’s Studies JBL Journal of Biblical Literature JECS Journal of Early Christian Studies JRA Journal of Roman Archaeology JSNT Journal for the Study of the New Testament JTS Journal of Theological Studies LLT-A Library of Latin Texts-Series A LSJ Liddell, Henry George, Robert Scott, Henry Stuart Jones. A Greek-English Lexicon. 9th ed. with revised supplement. Oxford: Clarendon, 1996. MFC Message of the Fathers of the Church NRSV New Revised Standard Version NTS New Testament Studies NWP Next Wave Provocations OAF Oxford Apostolic Fathers OTS Old Testament Studies Phil. Polycarp’s Epistle to the Philippians PG Patrologia Graeca PW Paulys Real-Encyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft SBLSP Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers SC Sources chrétiennes SecCent Second Century vii SO Symbolae Osloenses STT Studia Traditionis Theologiae: Explorations in Early and Medieval Theology TDNT Theological Dictionary of the New Testament Symp. Methodius’s Symposium Test. Dom. Testamentum Domini TLG Thesaurus Linguae Graecae® Digital Library TSAJ Texte und Studien zum antiken Judentum TUGAL Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur Ux. Tertullian’s Ad uxorem VC Vigiliae Christianae VCSup Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae WUNT Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament ZAC Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum / Journal of Ancient Christianity viii Introduction A small group of early Christian texts from the ancient Mediterranean talks about widows as an altar of God. What an odd image this is, to many modern eyes and ears. What does it mean? Why would it make sense to some early Christians to call widows “an altar?” What underlying assumptions and ways of thinking made that image intelligible and what understandings of widows might it allow us to see? What historical possibilities regarding widows in early Christian communities might an analysis of the image of widows as altar bring to light? In this project I will seek answers to these questions—or at least progress toward possible answers. In order to do so I will engage in a detailed reading of what are likely the four earliest references to widows as an altar, contained in texts commonly dated to the second and third centuries CE. For many of these texts widows are not the primary focus of their interest. All, though, are texts with strong persuasive projects and each uses the image of widows as altar in particular ways and in order to do particular kinds of work. Outline of Approach In the chapters that follow I consider the four earliest Christian texts that employ the image of widows as altar: Polycarp’s letter To the Philippians (Phil.), Tertullian’s To His Wife (Ad uxorem; Ux.), Methodius’s Symposium (Symp.), and the Didascalia apostolorum (DA). Each of the four chapters provides a rhetorical analysis of one of the texts in order to contextualize its use of the image of widows as altar, which I then explore in more detail. I situate the particular passages under consideration within the text as a whole, exploring the ways in which the 1 widows-as-altar image may both be used to support the text’s persuasive project and provide glimpses of alternative understandings of widows and their work.1 All of these texts also build their rhetorical worlds out of the building blocks of scripture, and so I pay careful attention to the obvious and subtle ways in which they draw upon both Hebrew Bible and New Testament scriptural resources in shaping their particular uses of the image of widows as an altar of God. In the course of reading these texts I observe that the image of widows as an altar of God serves as a lightning rod of sorts for many concerns.
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