Video Transcript: Married Women in the Christian Empire

We've been looking at the role of women, the function of women in ministry in the diaconate  as presbyters. Whatever we know about that, we turn now to that actually back to the reality  of family, but we're going to investigate some known families. In the Christian empire, we're  moving along here, we're way past the New Testament time. in the second and third century,  

and we're moving into the fourth century. Now, in fact, the late fourth century, when the  Empire has been predominantly Christian for a while, and things are different than they were  when Christians were a minority. Now Christians are a majority, they're in control. They're in  government, and the the old ways the, what we call pagan ways were we're dying out. And so it's, again, it's a new era, in which it's the era of Christendom, in which Christianity is, is the  majority, and so you can kind of take it for granted. So how are people living then? So we're  going to look first, at the family of one of the the famous Cappadocian theologians, one of the Fathers of the Church, Gregory Nazianzen. Now to look at the Cappadocian theologians as  theologians is another whole thing that we're not going to do, we're going to look at their their family life and what they have to say about it. Gregory's father was also named Gregory, and  his mother's name was Nonna, she died in the year 374. Gregory preached the oration for his  father's death, for his father's funeral. That was the customary thing you would gather for the  funeral. And you would get some great speaker to deliver what was a eulogy and a tribute in  a very literary composition, which is delivered orally, of course, in honor of the deceased, and  Gregory Nazianzen, and did this. And in the midst of the oration, he throws in some very  interesting information about his mother, his mother Nonna. And so we're going to read some  of that text. He says, My mother was a worthy companion for such a man for for his father.  And her qualities were as great as his. She came from a pious family, a Holy Family, but was  even more pious than they pious, the word pious. I don't know in where you are, what that  connotes to you. That's not really a terribly good translation. Devotion. Devoted, I think, is  maybe a better translation. Because pious now can mean sort of, sticky, holy, you know, and  overdone. So it's not that so maybe we should think devoted she came from a devoted family. She was even more devoted than they, though in her body, she was but a woman, this is  typical oratory. In her spirit, she was above all. So this is his mother he's talking about. And  he's devoted to his mother. She's she, she's already dead at the time of her husband's death.  So it's the past tense here. And she, she was, she was just a woman, you know, but her spirit  was always better than anybody else. Her mouth knew nothing but the truth. And in her  modesty, she was silent about those deeds which brought her glory, she was guided by the  fear of God. For He says, the most excellent of men and of women were so united, that their  marriage was a union of virtue, rather than of bodies. Now, it was also union of bodies, they  had several children, since while they excelled, all others they could not excel each other  because in virtue, they were quite equally matched. Now that's a really interesting way to say it, he he still can't say in his culture that as man and woman they were equally matched, but  by golly in virtue they were. But she who was given by God to my father became not only his  assistant but even his leader, drawing him on by her influence in deed and word to the  highest excellence, judging as best in all other respects to be overruled by her husband  according to the law of marriage. So he's alluding to the Pauline idea of subordination, the  wife subordination to her husband, but not being shamed in regard to devotion, piety, to offer  herself as his teacher. Admirable indeed, as this was, as was this conduct of hers, it was still  more admirable that he readily acquiesced. He, he readily agreed, that she would be the  leader, that she would, would lead him on to virtue and to Christian life. She was drawn to  prayer first thing in the morning to fasting and vigil to all night singing of Psalms, she was the  patron of orphans and widows. Ah, that's the end. So that's the end of what he says about his  mother Nonna. And that and it's just, it's just really interesting that she was. She was a good  wife, and she was a good mother. And she understood what her responsibilities were. But she  also was the the one who was equal to her husband in the practice of Christian virtue. And he  goes on to say how much she lived with prayer. When, at the end of this, she was patron of  orphans and Virtues. Gregory, as she says, in a very rhetorical way, what orphan was there  who did not receive from her what widow was there who didn't know her her generosity? So  he really portrays her as, as an ideal Christian, no question here of her being ordained. She  wasn't. Gregory, her son was, was a bishop when he's writing this. And so it wasn't a question

of ordained ministry, but it certainly was of what we might call lay ministry of her  understanding and embracing the identity of Christian. Gregory also had a sister named  Gorgonia. And Gorgonia was one of several siblings, she she died early, she died while her  husband and her parents were still alive. So this was a very sad thing for for all of them. But  he, Gregory has it an oration, it's oration eight, on his sister Gorgonia. And it goes on for for  quite a while. And is what he has to say about her is quite beautiful. So Gregory's sister, her  husband's name was Alypius. They had two sons and three daughters. And it's funny, we  know the daughters names, and not the sons names. The daughters names were Alypiana,  Eugenia and Nona, who was named after her grandmother, and that was often a custom of  naming children after a grandparent Gorgonia he says the same thing about her that she she  surpassed everyone in, in virtue, in this case, it's in modesty and prudence and wisdom. And  she even surpassed men in the chanting of Psalms, the singing of Psalms and the knowledge  of Scripture. So we're talking here about a very highly educated woman. And again, we get  these little hints, you know, these people are, they're not the the, the top elite of the Empire,  but they are their elites in their own place in in Caesarea, in Turkey, in Asia Minor. And, and in  Cappadocia. So they're, they're among the top family, certainly, and they were wealthy  enough. But you get the the definite implication here of the women as well as the men being  highly educated. He doesn't say the same thing about his mother about her knowledge of the  Scripture, but certainly she must have had it and and by this time, education, Christian  education is in full force for teaching people through the scriptures. Through the Bible, biblical text and the singing of the Psalms. This is the origin. It's early origins of what later develops  into what's what we call the Divine Office, the morning prayer in the evening for the church  that whose content is basically the Psalms, the singing of the Psalms, along with some  reading and prayer. And this is what she's engaged in and what he is talking about. Now, he  says, this is code now, she blended the excellence of, of the married with that of the  unmarried state. Proving that neither of them absolutely binds us to or separates us from God or the world. Now, I need to say here, that by this time, particularly in the east, but also  growingly in the West, they they are beginning to cultivate the life of a thesis, which the  ascetic life which includes celibacy, virginity, and this is held out as an ideal. Gregory himself  was probably celibate. He were going to see in related families, that there were a number of  ascetic women. And it is, it's an ideal, and so he's, when he's talking about Gorgonia, who is  not a celibate she, she was a married woman, he has to kind of, excuse her for that, you  know, kind of explain it away, that even though she wasn't an ascetic, which is, which would  be the paragon of virtue. Yeah, she was still right up there. So that's what he's trying to say  here, that, that she blended the, the excellence of married life with the excellence of  unmarried life. And she proves that neither of them, either binds us or separates us from God  or the world. For tho she had entered upon a union of flesh, she was not therefore separated  from the Spirit. So it wasn't that marriage, and some people were saying this, that in  marriage, it was impossible to be holy. It was the spirit of the age, you know. And so he, and  he will have some sympathy with that position. But when you he's going to say something  about his own family, you know, that's that's not the case. And so he, he is going to say that  she was just as good as any celibate that he knew. So she was not separated from the Spirit,  by her union of flesh by marriage, but performing those duties, due to the world and nature,  according to the raw flesh, in other words, being a good wife, and with sexual union and  everything involved there in the care of children. So she's, she performs the duties of the  world and the flesh, that rather are the duties of those of God who gave these laws to the  flesh. So it all comes from God. And having all of that she consecrated herself entirely to God.  And it's very interesting language because it's usually spoken of virgins and ascetics that they consecrate their their entire life to God. And he's saying this of his married sister, I think that,  that what he does here with Gorgonia, and with his mother, are just really wonderful ways in  which he gave tribute to members, women, who are members of his own family, women who  were in what was the majority situation of marriage, and he can, he can defend marriage and  he can give a solid theology of marriage here, even though the, the prevalent idea among  people like him was that the ascetic life and the celibate life was, was higher. So he, he goes  on to say that she, she lived her role in marriage with prudence and piety. With no adornment.

Now that is classic. That is you can trace it all the way back to I Timothy and I Peter in the  New Testament that women should not adorn themselves with pearls and gold, that their  adornment is virtue. So this and with elaborate hairstyles, of which there were plenty, and  that the virtuous Christian woman does not wear all of this finery does not have elaborate  hairstyles. But her adornment is her virtue. So this is a very classic illusion that everybody  would have expected him to say. So she was with prudence and piety and no adornment, and  charity to the needy again, like Gorgonia. And Gregory's mother, someone who was known for charity for for giving to the poor, the the Cappadocians the three theologians are Gregory  Nazianzen, Basil and, and his, his brother, Gregory of Nyssa. And then their sister Macrina.  And we're going to talk about them later. They are known in their were ordinary writings or  their letters, and particularly their letters. They're known for concern for the poor. So that we  get the the idea that there was some kind of organized church charity for the poor that there  there were an enemy. And this comes in earlier at earlier times to centers of distribution. Well, you can get that in Acts 6 in in Jerusalem, you know, that they, the seven are appointed to to  minister to the to the needy that to do the ministry of, the table. That and that's a whole  study. That's another whole question how charity was organized in early Christian groups,  because we have a lot of evidence of that. And here too somebody like like Gorgonia, would  be actively participating in those kinds of charitable works. In the, the oration, Gregory  recounts two stories, two episodes, one in which she had had a fall, and injured her leg. And  through he claims through prayer, through persistent prayer, she was healed. The other was  that she had some kind of a growth on her breast, and went to the altar and with cries and  tears and earnest prayers, begged for healing. And then she was healed. She was and he  counted, miraculous, miraculously healed. And he tells those two stories in the oration. So so  he's really portraying her as, as an extraordinary woman. He writes that she died with a Psalm on her lips. So the Psalms were the living prayers that they prayed with. And as I said, it  happened when her parents and her husband were they were present for the preaching of  this oration, so she died, must have died fairly young, even though she had five children. We  don't know what age the children were when she died. So this is again a portrayal of a nobly  virtuous woman, fulfilling her her role in marriage. Not someone who was ordained but but  someone who was living out the finest ways of ministry, to her family and to others in her own life. And, and I think for a time when a time in place when when asceticism was gaining  popularity, as I said, these two are really interesting portrayals of Christian marriage.