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From Their Lips
 Gorgias Handbooks

53

Gorgias Handbooks provides students and scholars with reference

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 From Their Lips

Voices of Early Christian Women

VK McCarty

gp
2021
Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA
www.gorgiaspress.com
2021 Copyright © by Gorgias Press LLC

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright

Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the
prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC.

2021 ‫ܐ‬
1

ISBN 978-1-4632-4255-8 ISSN 1935-6838

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication

Data

A Cataloging-in-Publication Record is available

at the Library of Congress.
Printed in the United States of America
 The Word of the Father is formed by the word of a mother,
and the Creator is created by the voice of a creature. And just
as when God said, “Let there be light,” “at once there was
light,” so, as soon as the Virgin spoke, the true light dawned.1

This book is dedicated to the memory of my parents,

June McAlister Long & Charles Osner Long, MD;
so glad I can still hear you

1
Nicholas Cabasilas, “Homily on the Annunciation” 10:40-41, J. Sanidopoulos,
trans., “Homélies Mariales Byzantines (II),” Martin Jugie, ed., in Patrologia Ori-
entalis XIX, R. Graffin, F. Nau, eds (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1920), pp. 484-495.
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements .................................................................. ix
Abbreviations .......................................................................... xi
Foreword ............................................................................... xiii
Introduction.............................................................................. 1
I. Early Voices, Early Women’s Ministry ............................15
Chapter I.1 Lydia: Speaking Up to the Apostles ....................... 17
Chapter I.2 The Voice of St. Thekla: Inwardly Tuned by God .... 41
Chapter I.3 Queen Tryphaena: The Lord’s Refuge in Hospitality... 57
Chapter I.4 Perpetua’s Story in Her Own Words: Hope Facing
Martyrdom ...................................................................... 67
II. The Long Byzantine Hymn of Praise..............................83
Chapter II.1 St. Helena: Becoming A Christian Roman Empress.... 85
Chapter II.2 Divine Fire: The Mystic St. Syncletica Speaks .... 103
Chapter II.3 St. Macrina: Teaching Gregory of Nyssa On the
Progress of the Soul ....................................................... 115
Chapter II.4 The Deaconess Olympias: Soulmate of St. John
Chrysostom ................................................................... 127
Chapter II.5 The Hymnographer Kassia: Chanting the
Incarnation.................................................................... 143
III. New Theklas and New Helenas .................................. 157
Chapter III.1 Empresses Speak of Philanthropia: Following the
Command of Christ ....................................................... 159
Chapter III.2 Anna Komnene’s Alexiad: The Voice of the Good
Daughter (Kale Thugater) ............................................... 177
Bibliography ......................................................................... 195
Indices .................................................................................. 217
vii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book could not have been made without the support, gener-
osity, and mentorship of several people while I was researching
the individual chapters over the last several years. Among them,
I am indebted to the Very Rev. John McGuckin and the Rev. How-
ard T.W. Stowe for opening the way to this theological chapter of
my life; to Dr. Brice C. Jones and Dr. Tuomas Rasimus, for shep-
herding this book through the publication process at Gorgias
Press, and also to the Sophia Institute and the Institute for Studies
in Eastern Christianity, to the Rev. Dr. John T. Koenig, the Rev.
Dr. Ellen Barrett, the Rev. Dr. Janet Wootton, the Rev. William
Forrest, OSB, the Rev. Clark Berge, SSF, Barbara Pizio, the Sisters
of the Community of the Holy Spirit, and all the friends who feed
me. And last of all, I need to thank two friends for their compas-
sionate generosity and guiding support—Dr. Conrad Fischer and
the Rev. Dr. Sergey Trostyanskiy.

ix
ABBREVIATIONS

AB Analecta Bollandiana
ACCS Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture
An Res De Anima Et Resurrectione
AP Apophthegmatum Patrum
ASBMH American Society of Byzantine Music and Hym-
nology
ATR Anglican Theological Review
BMFO Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents
BZ Byzantinische Zeitschrift
Byz Byzantion
CH Church History
CSCO Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium
CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum
De Obit. Theo Ambrose, De Obitu Theodosii
DOP Dumbarton Oaks Papers
Ecclec. Hist. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History
GNO Gregorii Nysseni Opera
ER The Ecclesiastical Review
HTR The Harvard Theological Review
Hist. Ecclec. Socrates, Historia Ecclesiasticus
JAAR Journal of the American Academy of Religion
JECS Journal of Early Christian Studies
JEH Journal of Ecclesiastical History
JMH Journal for Medieval History
JTS Journal of Theological Studies
JSNT Journal for the Study of the New Testament

xi
xii FROM THEIR LIPS: VOICES OF EARLY CHRISTIAN WOMEN

Kr S. Gregorii Episcopi Nysseni de Anima et Resurrec-

tione cum Sorore Sua Macrina Dialogus, J.G.
Krabinger, ed.
Lampe A Patristic Greek Lexicon, Lampe, ed.
Laus. Hist. Palladius, Lausiac History
NPNF Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers
NTS New Testament Studies
NT Novum Testamentum
PG Patrologiae Cursus Completus. Series Graeca
PL Patrologiae Cursus Completus. Series Latina
REB Revue des Études Byzantines
RIC Patrick M. Bruun, The Roman Imperial Counage,
VII, Constantine & Licinius
SC Sources Chrétiennes
SH Subsidia Hagiographica
SOC Scriptores Originum Constantinopolitanarum
SVTQ St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly
ThDNT Theological Dictionary of the New Testament
TS Theological Studies
VB Vox Benedictina
VC Eusebius, Vita Constantinii
VS Vita Syncletica
VSM Vita Sancta Macrinae
FOREWORD

V.K. McCarty’s lovely book on the lives and intellectual signifi-

cance of a carefully selected group of ancient and medieval Chris-
tian women is a delightful addition to the comparatively scarce
literature on a very important subject. In Antiquity, women, with
few exceptions, did not break through the literary glass ceiling,
and given the massively prevailing patriarchal consensus, the re-
sult was that a deep Greek and Roman silence descended upon
them. They are hardly seen, even more rarely noticed, and when
they do form a subject of ancient historical scrutiny, it is through
the resolving lens of the interests of a tiny group of élite male
commentators. Only in this way are women allowed to appear on
stage. Only through this channel are they given a voice. V.K.
McCarty goes out of her way here to find the “lost recordings”
that have greater authenticity.
A modern generation of (mainly) women scholar-historians
has made great strides in the last fifty years to change the way
women’s lives in Antiquity have been read: but often their work
has been meant for the more rarefied rooms in the Academy. This
new study, elegantly written, with an eye for the telling detail as
well as a firm grasp of the historical overview, is approachable by
a much wider audience. It comes out from a passion to ask: Why
do these women’s lives matter to the Church? to Christian life? to
the history of spirituality? As such, this book will instruct and in-
spire a new generation to look back to the early days of the Chris-
tian movement and find there genuinely appealing and encourag-
ing examples, not merely patriarchalism dressed up.
V.K. McCarty’s book makes for a consistently lively and en-
grossing journey through ancient and medieval Christian times,
xiii
xiv FROM THEIR LIPS: VOICES OF EARLY CHRISTIAN WOMEN

and her patient scholarship and deep background reading is ap-

parent everywhere, generously presented to allow further indi-
vidual research for anyone who wishes to take the stories onward.
This would make a perfect book for universities and Christian
reading circles across a very wide range of denominations—since
these are stories of heroic fidelity and belief that belong to all.

V.Rev’d Prof John A. McGuckin,

Oxford University, Faculty of Theology; Emeritus Prof of Byzan-
tine Christian Studies, Columbia University, and Union Theologi-
cal Seminary.
INTRODUCTION

The female voice of Orthodox Christianity is all around us, famil-

iar in prayer from the close harmony of the chanted Liturgy, and
surrounding the faithful in the cloud of treble voices among the
Church’s saints. This volume provides a narrative of remarkable
Early Christians by exploring the lives of a dozen or so female
leaders, many of them venerated as saints; people whose courage
and mission exemplify the role of women in the life of the devel-
oping Church. In the first centuries of Church history, including
the earliest chapters of the rise of Christian monasticism, their
participation was in some ways made possible by the expansion
of the Gospel within the environment of the family home, an
arena where women could operate without violating societal
norms for proper behavior.
To the extent that the contribution of women to the Early
Church has tended to be minimized and under-reported, this book
is offered to fill in the niche of knowledge about women’s share
in the development of Early Christianity, with lively vitas illus-
trating the ministry and life-stories of several of our Christian
fore-mothers, based on traditional ancient sources. Each one pro-
vides something of a “textual ikon” crafted from the wisdom of
the Church Fathers, and together they create for the reader ele-
ments of an embodied “Matrology.”1
In our own time, it has been encouraging to hear that Patri-
arch Kirill of Moscow, on the Feast of Princess Olga (July 24),

1
Pace, Andrew Kadel’s helpful reference resource, Matrology: A Bibliog-
raphy of Writings by Christian Women from the First to the Fifteenth Centuries
(New York: Continuum, 1995).
1
2 FROM THEIR LIPS: VOICES OF EARLY CHRISTIAN WOMEN

highlighted the importance of the role of Orthodox women in the

continuing Christianization of our world. “I encourage you to re-
member her remarkable example,” he said, “and to pass on the
greatest unshakable values of human existence imprinted in the
Christian message to each subsequent generation; so that until the
end of time faith in Christ, crucified and risen, the Savior of the
world, remains in the hearts of people.”2 His message rings true,
not only for the ministry of the parent and the priest’s spouse, but
also for women theologians and iconographers, for women schol-
ars and grad school administrators, for women who are Church
diplomats and certified chaplains, for women parish counselors
and those who have been given a formal Blessing to preach the
Gospel during the Liturgy.3 There are important and sometimes
overlooked foundational roots for the ministry of all these women
which are deeply grounded in the early centuries of Christianity,
and several of them are explored in this book.
The first section, “Early Voices, Early Women’s Ministry,”
opens in first-century Philippi, where the memory of the Gospel
of Jesus Christ is so immediate and transformative in the hearts
and minds of His followers that Lydia, a purple-fabric dealer
(“Lydia: Speaking up to the Apostles”), is witnessed in the Acts of
the Apostles at the very moment of evangelization by the Apostle
Paul himself. She is reported to have experienced a transforma-
tive life-change; for “the Lord opened her heart” (Acts 16:14).4 In
response to this divine action, she is remembered being baptized
with all the people in her household and speaking up so

2
“Patriarch Kirill Highlights the Important Role of Orthodox Women in
the Christianization of Society,” Orthodox Life (July 29, 2019) Julia
Frolova, trans.; available at: pravmir.com. (accessed 1/6/2020).
3
Examples of women who have been given a formal Blessing to preach
during the Liturgy: Sr. Rebecca Cown at New Skete and Mother Raphaela
Wilkinson, of the Holy Myrrhbearers. See P. Bouteneff, “Invisible Leaders
of the Orthodox Church;” available at: https://www.aphaiare-
sources.com/2016/09/05/invisible-leaders-in-the-orthodox-church/
4
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture is quoted in the NRSV; The New
Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version: with the Apocrypha;
4th edition, Michael D. Coogan, ed. (Oxford; New York: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 2010).
 INTRODUCTION 3

persuasively to Paul that she is quoted in the text—a valuable and

rare marker of memory in Scripture, especially for women. Even
though Acts is written in narrative form, the challenging issue of
Lydia’s possible historicity is enhanced by her story being embed-
ded in the first “we” section with its keen sense of eye-witness
immediacy (Acts 16:10-17).
When Paul encountered Lydia among the women gathered
at the Jewish place of prayer just outside the city gate,5 she may
have been leading the group in prayer, there by the river. Her
persistent offer of hospitality indicates her substantial socio-eco-
nomic status; she was capable of providing table fellowship, and
probably housing to Paul and his cohort of missionaries, as well
as the new believers in Jesus whom his ministry was succeeding
in winning.
The development of the Church made possible new roles for
women: for example, they could function as missionaries and
ministers, and the hospitality which they offered in their homes
made possible the evolution of house churches as an early envi-
ronment for the Church, at a time when the structure of table
fellowship celebrated in the Spirit of Jesus Christ was in its earli-
est stages of formation. Indeed, Jaroslav Pelikan has pointed out
that it is unavoidably clear, both from the original words in the
second chapter of Joel and from quotation of them in the sermon
of Peter at Pentecost that it was to be “sons and daughters,” both
men and women on whom God “will pour out my Spirit” and who
“shall prophesy” (Acts 2:17-18).6
By the end of the chapter in Acts, the expanding assemblage
of followers of the Way meeting in Lydia’s home—in an example
of the early development of the house church—are addressed as

5
Although there is scant indication of a formal pattern of worship or
organization, evidence suggests that Jews prior to the end of the first
century were involved in informal gatherings for the purpose of “fresh
appropriation of the Torah, for the strengthening of group identity, and
for heightening devotion to the God of Israel.” Robert Clark Kee, “The
Transformation of the Synagogue after 70 C.E.: Its Importance for Early
Christianity,” New Testament Studies 36 (1990), p. 14.
6
Jaroslav Pelikan, Acts (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2005), p. 206.
4 FROM THEIR LIPS: VOICES OF EARLY CHRISTIAN WOMEN

multiple “brethren” (Acts 16:40), when Paul bids them farewell

and his band of evangelizing co-workers depart for further
church-building in Thessalonica. Furthermore, as with Prisca
(Acts 18:2-3, 18, 26), Chloe (1Cor. 1:11) and Nympha (Col. 4:15),
“these Christians of means must have exercised some leadership
in the house churches that they hosted.”7 The Acts of the Apostles
presents the house church functioning as the locus of the Chris-
tian community; “as the creative hub of God’s redemptive
work…these churches were banquet communities, celebrating
the abundance of God in Christ which is continually opening up
doors for repentance.”8
The Protomartyr Thekla9 as well (“The Voice of St. Thekla:
‘Inwardly Tuned by God’”) hears the Gospel directly from St. Paul
during his missionary visit to Iconium, which is likely referenced
in Acts 13:51. Both this and Paul’s ministry in Philippi took place
during the principle period of his apostolic work, his Aegean Mis-
sion, one which has arguably made “the most lasting impact on
Christian development and thought.”10 His compelling interpreta-
tion of the Beatitudes of Jesus (Mt. 5:3-12), which he commingles
with a charge to holy chastity, stirs the heart of young Thekla
who longs to “be made worthy to stand in the presence of Paul
and hear the word of Christ.” Her story is known to us from
the Acts of Paul and Thecla,11 one of the apocryphal texts which
was circulating with robust popularity alongside the authorized

7
John Koenig, New Testament Hospitality: Partnership with Strangers as Prom-
ise and Mission (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2001), p. 65.
8
Koenig, New Testament Hospitality, p. 106.
9
Thekla’s divine visions during her martyrdom have been regarded as
equivalent to the Lord appearing to St. Stephen before he was stoned, as
described in Acts 7:55-56; and as a result, both Stephen and Thekla are
characterized as Proto-Martyrs by the Orthodox Church.
10
James D.G. Dunn, The Acts of the Apostles (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity
Press International, 1996), p. 213.
11
“Praxeis Paulou kai Thekles” in Acta Apostolorum, R.A. Lipsius, M.Bon-
net, eds (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1958), pp. 235-272; for English, “The
Acts of Paul,” New Testament Apocrypha, revised ed., W. Schneemelcher,
ed., R. McL. Wilson (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press),
2:213-270.
 INTRODUCTION 5

books of Scripture in the late second century, at a time when the

canon of the New Testament was still in a dynamic process of
being formally codified.
The tale of Thekla’s miraculous deliverance from martyr-
dom, and her preaching ministry which it inspired, captivated
Early Christian thought in the first centuries of the Jesus move-
ment, a time when the ecclesiological development of the Church
lacked as yet formal organization, and can now be seen as re-
markably fluid and collaborative. Even though Thekla’s hagio-
graphic account12 did not gain canonical status, it may neverthe-
less quite accurately reflect the radical experience of many sec-
ond-century women who ventured away from the safety and so-
cietal sanction of the family hearth to follow the Gospel taught by
Paul—and found themselves, like Thekla, in “violent confronta-
tion with society.”13
As is demonstrated in the chapter, the Acts of Paul and Thecla
is a tale of high adventure and divine intervention, and it reveals
to the listener the incarnational tension at work between the as-
cetic and emotional aspects of Thekla’s experience in the ancient
document. Several Fathers of the Church took note as well, and
Thekla is praised: in the Symposium by Methodius;14 by Gregory
of Nyssa, as the secret soul-name of his sister, Macrina, in the Vita
Macrinae; by Gregory Nazianzus who regards her as apostle-mar-
tyr in his Oration Against Julian; by John Chrysostom in his Hom-
ily on Acts 25; in the Panegyric to Thecla by Pseudo-Chrysostom;
and, by Ambrose in the De Virginibus. Furthermore, the fifth-cen-
tury Life and Miracles of Thekla offers a fuller version of the story,

12
While texts may fluidly vary from biography to hagiography and back,
hagiography can be generally distinguished from biography by its prin-
ciple intention to reflect a biography of God—the nature and loving ac-
tion of God—through the life of the saint.
13
Margaret Y. MacDonald, “Rereading Paul: Early Interpreters of Paul on
Women and Gender,” in Ross Shepard Kraemer, Mary Rose D’Angelo,
eds, Women and Christian Origins (New York: Oxford Press, 1999), p. 249.
14
Note that the title of the chapter on Thekla references Methodius, Sym-
posium 8, Proem. 3-5, where he describes Thekla as a “cithera, inwardly
tuned and prepared to speak carefully and nobly,” the Gospel of Jesus
Christ.
6 FROM THEIR LIPS: VOICES OF EARLY CHRISTIAN WOMEN

as well as describing the growth of the cult of Thekla in the fol-

lowing years.15
Just as with the story of her sister in faith, Lydia, the gracious
offer of hospitality by a local queen (“Queen Tryphaena: The
Lord’s Refuge in Hospitality”) was not only crucial to safety and
comfort for Thekla; but, during her preaching career, it was crit-
ical to her ministry. In fact, hospitality was key to the mission of
Paul’s evangelization enterprise, based as it was on the extensive
network of households which supported the “sending”
(propempein) and “receiving” (prosdechesthai) of co-workers. It is
good to be mindful, especially outside the arena of these chapters
specifically focused on women, that any description of itinerant
preachers presupposes an equal complement of householders
opening their homes to the progress of the Gospel.
While Thekla survived to preach the Gospel of Paul, and the
irony that neither of her martyrdoms actually killed her is not lost
on the modern ear, no such fortunate nuance assisted the martyr
Perpetua (“Perpetua’s Story in Her Own Words: Hope Facing Mar-
tyrdom”), whose last days are vividly described in her own words
in the confession sections of The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity,16
making this the earliest surviving example of autobiography in
Latin—and furthermore, written by a woman.
Perpetua was arrested and condemned ad bestias, probably
as part of the Roman games arranged in the Carthage Amphithe-
atre17 to celebrate the birthday of Caesar Geta in 203 C.E.18 This
sentence from the Roman governor meant that Perpetua was

15
“Thaumata tes Hagias kai Proto-martyros Theklas,” in Gilbert Dragon,
Vie et miracles de Sainte Thecle: Texte Grec, Tradution et Commentaire
(Bruxelles: Societé des Bollandistes, 1978); for selected English transla-
tion, see: Scott F. Johnson, The Life and Miracles of Thekla: A Literary
Study (Washington, D.C.: Center for Hellenic Studies, 2006).
16
Passion de Perpétue et de Félicité suivi des Actes, J. Amat, ed. “Sources
Chrétiennes,” no. 417 (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1996); for English
translation, Thomas J. Heffernan, The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity (Ox-
ford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
17
The Carthage Amphitheater still exists; it is a popular pilgrimage des-
tination and has been developed into an UNESCO World Heritage site.
18
See Heffernan, Passion, pp. 68-77.
 INTRODUCTION 7

imprisoned, humiliatingly displayed, tortured and finally at-

tacked by wild beasts and fatally knifed down by gladiators. Yet
shot through her ordeal for the sake of Christ are Perpetua’s ab-
rupt and startling mystical visions, where she is granted uplifting
images welcoming her into a higher realm, which help distract
from the grisly rituals of the Roman games at hand. While not
included in the Canon of the New Testament, The Passion of Per-
petua and Felicity nevertheless circulated among sacred texts and
was immensely popular in the early centuries after Christ.
Even with the Deutero-Pauline injunctions (1 Tim. 2:11-12)
condemning women speaking and teaching in full force by the
late fourth or early fifth centuries,19 certain significant women’s
voices and life-stories were nevertheless persistently valued and
written down, often by men. Thus, even while rare, several Early
Christian women make distinct contributions to Early Christianity
and Early Christian thought, their fascinating vitas and their tex-
tual evidence indelibly ringing out from the traditional volumes
of the Greek Fathers, the Patrologia Graeca. Among them is the
Empress Helena Augusta (“St. Helena: Becoming a Christian Ro-
man Empress”), who takes the stage of history in her old age at
the very threshold of the lengthy arc of Byzantine history, exam-
ined in the second section of the book, “The Long Byzantine
Hymn of Praise.”
Before her compelling legend took hold and credited her
with the discovery of the True Cross for a score of generations,
she was praised by Church historian Eusebius quite soon after her
death in his Vita Constantinii.20 There, among the other Greek Fa-
thers, he lauds her as the Emperor’s “God-loved mother,” repeat-
edly describing her generous commissions in Jerusalem and
throughout the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, which
she visited “in the magnitude of imperial authority,” supervising
building projects at the holy sites associated with the life and

19
V.A. Karras, “The Liturgical Functions of Consecrated Women in the
Byzantine Church,” Theological Studies 66 (2005), p. 97.
20
Eusebius, Vita Constantinii, PG 20.909-1232; for English, Averil Cam-
eron, Stuart G. Hall, trans., Eusebius: Life of Constantine (Oxford: Claren-
don Press, 1999).
8 FROM THEIR LIPS: VOICES OF EARLY CHRISTIAN WOMEN

Passion of Jesus Christ. In the process, Christian pilgrimage, as

we know it today, was born; for her prayerful presence in the area
helped facilitate as well its transformation in identity into the
Christian Holy Land.
Even among other Early Christian women present in the
Patrologia Graeca, the Desert Mother Syncletica (“Divine Fire: The
Mystic St. Syncletica Speaks”) stands as an extraordinary figure;
for her Sayings (Apophthegmata) have survived in two volumes of
the Greek Fathers. Eighty-one of her teachings are gathered to-
gether in her Vita in PG 28,21 and a smaller selection appear
among the “Sayings of the Desert Fathers” (Apophthegmata
Patrum) in PG 65,22 where she joins two other female elders from
the Desert Tradition, Mother Theodora and Mother Sarah.
Famous for deploying the image of “Divine Fire,” Amma Syn-
cletica’s disciples found her teachings sounding an exhortation to
those striving for spiritual union with God’s love and divine ar-
chetypal beauty, calling them to pursue deep contemplation and
spiritual enlightenment, by means of humble askesis and practical
study with her. “The humility of Christ,” she is remembered say-
ing, “is a difficult treasure to acquire, yet necessary to be saved.
It is the one virtue the Devil cannot mimic. So, even as it strips
down, it clothes in salvation.”23
While some female spiritual elders, like Amma Syncletica,
are remembered venturing into the desert, in order to pursue fol-
lowing a call to life completely devoted to Christ, some women,

21
“Vita et Gesta Sanctae Seataeque Magistrate Syncleticae,” PG 28.1487-
1558; for English: Pseudo-Athanasius, The Life and Regimen of the Blessed
and Holy Syncletica: Part One: The Translation, Elizabeth Bongie, trans.
(Toronto: Peregrina Publishing Co., 2003).
22
Sayings of Syncletica, “Apophthegmata Patrum Graecorum” (Alpha-
betical Collection), PG 65.71-412; supplemented by J.-C. Guy, Recherches
sur la Tradition Grecque des Apophthegmata Patrum, Subsidia Hagiograph-
ica 36 (Brussels: 1962); for English: Give Me a Word: The Alphabetical
Sayings of the Desert Fathers, John Wortley, trans. (Crestwood, NY: St.
Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2014).
23
Saying 56, The Life & Regimen of the Blessed & Holy Syncletica by Pseudo-
Athanasius; Part One: English Translation, Elizabeth Bryson Bongie, trans.
(Toronto: Peregrina Publishing Co., 2003).
 INTRODUCTION 9

such as the Cappadocian theologian,24 Macrina the Younger (“St.

Macrina: Teaching Gregory of Nyssa on the Progress of the Soul”),
were able to spearhead establishing the ascetical arena of prayer
and repentance within their residential environment; and as a re-
sult, they became foundational leaders in an integral part of the
early development of Christian monasticism.
After the cathartic, and perhaps jarring, experience for Greg-
ory of Nyssa of being called to his sister’s death-bed very soon
after his brother, Basil the Great, had also died, Gregory poured
out his observations of his last visit with her in quoted dialogue
form, harvesting from his storehouse of her teaching, during the
poignant days soon after she died. Here, returning to the monas-
tery his sister founded at Annesa, their family’s country estate, his
examination of Macrina’s life-long exemplary spiritual transfor-
mation, by which she eventually led her family toward an asceti-
cal life, illuminates both On the Soul and Resurrection25 and his
vita26 of his elder sister. The remembered voice of her theological
teachings is ever-present throughout his writing: “The divine life
will always be activated through love,” she said, “and knows no
limit to the activity of love;”27 and her monastic life highlighted

24
Jaroslav Pelikan defends Macrina the Younger as the “fourth Cappado-
cian.” He observes that “not only was she a Christian role model by her
profound and ascetic spirituality, but at the death of their parents she be-
came the educator of the entire family, and that in both Christianity and
Classical culture.” Jaroslav Pelikan, Christianity and Classical Culture: The
Metamorphosis of Natural Theology in the Christian Encounter with Hellenism
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995), p. 8.
25
S. Gregorii Episcopi Nysseni de Anima et Resurrectione cum Sorore Sua
Macrina Dialogus, J. G. Krabinger, ed. (Leipzig: Gustav Wittig, 1837); for
English, Anna M. Silvas, Macrina the Younger, Philosopher of God (Turn-
hout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 2008).
26
Vita Sanctae Macrinae, Virginia Woods Calahan, ed., in Ascetica, VIII,1,
Gregorii Nysseni Opera, Werner Jaeger, gen. ed. (Leiden: Brill, 1958-
1996); for English, Anna M. Silvas, Macrina the Younger, Philosopher of
God (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols Publishers, 2008).
27
An Res 6.31-32.
10 FROM THEIR LIPS: VOICES OF EARLY CHRISTIAN WOMEN

by “meditation on divine things, unceasing prayer, and uninter-

rupted hymnody,”28 remained a role model for the rest of his life.
For many of us, one of the abiding and pleasurable memories
of experiencing Orthodox Liturgy is the distinctive ancient musi-
cal harmony of female voices chanting the prayers, repeating the
praise due to the glory of God Almighty again and again, so that
it seems to resonate throughout the body of the faithful, standing
at worship. Thus, in an example from the first Christian millen-
nium, certain women were appointed in the Patriarchate of Jeru-
salem to chant the Liturgy of the Hours on Holy Saturday morning
while cleaning and preparing the lamps inside the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre, liturgically embodying the historical Myrrhbear-
ers who came back to the tomb of Jesus early on the third day
and first experienced the Resurrection.
When their service was completed, the Patriarch extin-
guished the lamps and locked the great doors until the Paschal
Vigil. Later, “the typikon mentions that the Myrrhbearers re-
mained behind and re-entered the Holy Sepulchre in order to
cense and anoint it.”29 When the Patriarch and Archdeacon en-
tered the Church on Easter Morning, the Myrrhbearers were
“standing before the Holy Sepulchre,” and at the “Rejoice! Christ
is risen!” they prostrated and rising up, censed the Patriarch,
chanting the “Many Years!” hymn (Polychronion).30 These
Myrrhbearers (Myrophoroi) appear to have served the Byzantine
Church from the fifth to the ninth centuries and their chanted
prayer was part of the Holy Week observances.
In focusing on turn-of-the-fifth-century Constantinople, the
Deaconess Olympias (“The Deaconess Olympias: Soulmate of St.
John Chrysostom”) may have been among the treble voices heard
chanting in the Cathedral when John Chrysostom was brought in
abruptly and consecrated as the new Bishop of Constantinople.
Frail, aristocratic virgin heiress that she was, Bishop John Chrys-
ostom likely heard her singing at prayer before they even spoke

28
VSM 13.5.
29
Karras, “Liturgical Functions,” p. 111. See original text in Papadopou-
los-Kerameus, Analekta 189, 1.11-14.
30
See Papadopoulos-Kerameus, Analekta 190-191.
 INTRODUCTION 11

to one another. It was certainly known that she “would not budge
from the church.”31 Olympias has a fascinating tale to tell, be-
cause she was desired by the Emperor Theodosius, who sought
her hand when she was widowed, as a still-young bride for his
kinsman. As with many daughters from Byzantine nobility, Olym-
pias was strategically offered by her father in the élite marriage
market at an early age; and soon thereafter, ended up handsomely
endowed financially as a widow, when barely out of her teens.
Instead of taking up the tiara and pearled pendilia of a Byz-
antine courtier, however, Olympias was instead “seized by
Christ’s flame,”32 experiencing a call to an ascetical life for the
sake of her soul. Nevertheless, by managing to maneuver out of
the Emperor’s schemes, she was forced to endure heavy political
consequences for snubbing the imperial favor: her fortune and
vast estates was temporarily sequestered and she was inhibited
from visiting the Cathedral’s clerics—evidence, of course, that
this was indeed what she had been doing. In fact, Palladius re-
ports that she “addressed priests reverently and honoured Bish-
ops.”33
The Vita of Olympias34 describes the spiritual community she
founded for educated ascetic women, one which grew to include
250 women who followed her pious example as Abbess in a life
of prayer and charitable acts; its “prestige location and noble pro-
file may have shaped it into a female institution like none
other.”35 John Chrysostom’s correspondence with Olympias36

31
Palladius, Bishop of Aspuna, Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysostom,
Robert T. Meter, trans. (New York: Newman Press, 1985), p. 66.
32
John Chrysostom, “Homily XIII on Ephesians 4:17-19,” NPNF XIII.115.
33
Palladius, Bishop of Aspuna, The Lausiac History, translated and anno-
tated by Robert T. Meyer (New York: Paulist Press, 1964) 56.137.
34
“Vita Sanctae Olympiadis,” Hippolyte Delehaye, ed. Analecta Bollandi-
ana 15 (1896), pp. 400-423; for English, see Elizabeth A. Clark, “The Life
of Olympias,” in Jerome, Chrysostom, and Friends: Essays and Translations
(New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1979), pp. 127-142.
35
Peter Hatlie, The Monks and Monasteries of Constantinople, ca. 350-850
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 98.
36
John Chrysostom, Lettres à Olympias, Anne-Marie Malingrey, trans.;
Sources Chrétiennes, v. 13 (Paris: Éditions du CERF, 1947); for English,
12 FROM THEIR LIPS: VOICES OF EARLY CHRISTIAN WOMEN

provides tantalizing evidence of her voice responding to him in

letters now lost, and he expresses gratitude in his letters for the
therapeutic consolation of a lady of “such intelligence and wealth
of piety.”37
Letters from another prominent Church Father, St. Theodore
the Studite (759-826), also help us remember the ninth-century
hymnographer, Kassia (“The Hymnographer Kassia: Chanting the
Incarnation”), whose life is described in no less than four different
volumes of the Patralogia Graeca.38 Best known among her large
oeuvre of published compositions is the beloved sticheron doxas-
tikon,39 “Lord, the Women Fallen into Many Sins,” chanted as part
of the Holy Wednesday Vespers, which is sung on Tuesday even-
ing; and the sticheron doxastikon “On the Birth of Christ,” which
is chanted during the Vespers service on the Vigil of the Feast of
the Nativity.
The survival and acknowledgement of Kassia’s hymns and
other compositions are due in great part to her deep association
with Abbot Theodore and his Stoudian monks in Constantinople,
during the time when they were working to organize and unify
the Orthodox Liturgy. By including her work in the monthly Men-
aion and the Lenten Triodion, a few of Kassia’s works have become

see “Letters of St. Chrysostom to Olympias,” in Saint Chrysostom: On the

Priesthood; Ascetic Treatises; Select Homilies and Letters; Homilies on the
Statues; NPNF IX.284-304.
37
Letter VIII(II), Malingrey, p. 141.
38
Beside the Patria of Constantinople, Scriptores Originum Constantinopoli-
tanarum (Leipzig, 1907), p. 276, John Zonaris, Epitome Historiarum, Book
XIII-XVIII (Bonn: Weber, 1897), and Michael Glykas, Chronographia
(Bonn: Weber, 1836), Kassia is mentioned in at least the four following
volumes of the Patralogia Graeca: St. Theodore the Stoudite’s three sur-
viving letters to her (Letters 205, 413, 541) in Volume 99.903-1669,
Symeon the Logothete, Chronographia, in Volume 109.685C; George the
Monk, Chronikon 4.264 in Volume 110.1008B, and Leo the Grammarian,
Chronographia, in Volume 108.1046.
39
In Byzantine music, a sticheron is a lengthy verse chanted in various
parts of the morning and evening Orthodox Office. The term doxastikon
applies to a sticheron which glorifies or commemorates Jesus Christ or a
saint.
 INTRODUCTION 13

authorized for worship in regularly scheduled Orthodox services

to this day.
A popular tradition is widely reported about Kassia partici-
pating in Empress Euphrosyne’s bride show for her stepson, the
young Emperor Theophilus, where the well-educated Byzantine
poet is remembered speaking up to the Emperor; though her wry
remark may have lost her his marital favor.40 But this imperial
rebuke likely opened the way for Kassia’s family to found a mo-
nastic foundation with their daughter leading it as Abbess, where
she was able to continue in her creative work with her spiritual
father and the Stoudian monks. Kassia’s leadership and hym-
nographic contributions were a significant component of what
has been deemed “by far the most productive and sophisticated
experiment in monastic culture ever to date.”41
The final section, “New Theklas and New Helenas,” steps
back from the single-vita approach and explores the Christian vir-
tue of philanthropia (“Empresses Speak of Philanthropy: Following
the Command of Christ”), as it was taught to and embodied by
several Byzantine empresses and princesses. It provides an intro-
ductory catena of Patristic teachings grounding philanthropic ac-
tion in Christ’s own ministry, which charged imperial noble-
women to emulate the transactional aspect of God’s love of man-
kind by their prominent acts of generosity for the needy. As
Shewring charmingly renders Gregory of Nazianzus:
Give to the poor, they before God can plead,
And win, and richly give, the grace we need…
Honour in him God’s handiwork expressed;
Reverence in it the rites that serve a guest.42

40
To the emperor’s sly remark, upon encountering Kassia as one of the
maidens presented to him during his bride show: “Ek gynaikós tá cheírō,”
(Through a woman [came forth] the baser [things]), meaning Eve, she is
reported to have cleverly quipped, “Kaí ek gynaikós tá kreíttō.” (Yet
through a woman [came forth] the better [things]), meaning Mary the
Theotokas.
41
Hatlie, Monks and Monasteries of Constantinople, p. 450.
42
Gregory Nazianzen, “Verses Against the Rich,” (Moral Poems XXVIII),
quoted in Rich and Poor in Christian Tradition, p. 49.
14 FROM THEIR LIPS: VOICES OF EARLY CHRISTIAN WOMEN

The women in the Imperial Court attending the Liturgy heard the
exhortations to philanthropy throughout the services and the Pa-
triarchal Homilies; and in times of catastrophe, litanies rang out
invoking the philanthropia of God and galvanizing the humanitar-
ian efforts of, for example, Empress Irene after the earthquake of
740. Thus, women operating near the imperial throne were hailed
as a “new Helena” when they emulated her pious generosity
through commissioned monuments and church-building; and
later, in monastic typyka, founding empresses were able to leave
their voice in the formal record of posterity.
On balance, it is hoped that the examination of the Early
Christian women’s lives in this volume will bring them into
sharper focus, and nurture an environment which will, as former
Archbishop Rowan Williams has encouraged, “genuinely make
women’s voices audible worldwide, looking for the ways in which
attitudes can be changed and looking, too, for the ways in which
all this can be experienced as good news for men.”43 For where
two or three are gathered in the name of Christ, one of them is
probably a woman. When two or three Orthodox gather, two of
them are likely to be women. This volume—which includes a trio
of abbesses and a pair of blushing fiancés, a purple-fabric dealer
and a desert mother; a queen, an empress dowager, and a Byzan-
tine emperor’s daughter—is meant to encourage visibility of some
of our ancient women elders from the early history of Christianity
who contributed to the sacred heritage of the Church we enjoy
today.

V.K. McCarty,
Feast of the Epiphany, 2021

43
Rowan Williams, “Tackling Violence, Building Peace,” Inaugural Par-
liamentary Lecture, marking the launch of Christian Aid Week, 12 May
2014.
CHAPTER I.1
LYDIA: SPEAKING UP
TO THE APOSTLES

The generous openness and support of Lydia,

a gentile devotee of Jewish worship,
is a model for the Christian household.1

The story of Lydia’s persuasive dialogue with the Apostle Paul in

Acts 16 reflects an affirmation of divine power; for she is wit-
nessed at the very moment of conversion. As an early believer in
the emerging Church, she demonstrates a distinctive exercise of
the charismata2 Paul describes in Rom. 12:6-8, namely spiritual
generosity and leadership. Additionally, the occasion of Lydia’s
remembered words in Scripture stands at the threshold between
two periods of the Primitive Church: an earlier time when devo-
tion to Jewish practice still influenced the lives of the believers,
and the continuing development of the gentile Church. This chap-
ter examining the brief texts which preserve the memory of Lydia
sheds light on the lives of the women at work in the Pauline min-
istry.
One of the happy surprises awaiting those who study the
New Testament is the discovery that St. Paul, who is often criti-
cized for his attitude toward women, is actually revealed in Luke’s
narrative describing him, and in his own writings, to be

1
Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament (New York:
Doubleday, 1997), p. 310.
2
The Greek term for “a gift of grace,” meaning the blessings bestowed
on every Christian for the fulfillment of vocation.
17
18 FROM THEIR LIPS: VOICES OF EARLY CHRISTIAN WOMEN

significantly appreciative of the contribution to his ministry made

by the women co-workers in his life. Several of these women were
collaborative associates with him, and their lives in their own
right affected the shaping of Early Christianity.3 Their contribu-
tion was made possible, to some extent, by the expansion of the
Gospel within the environment of the first-century family home
and workshop, arenas where women could operate without vio-
lating societal norms for proper behavior.
The author of Luke/Acts appears to have made a special
point of celebrating the ministry of women throughout his two-
volume work, and “of hearing and recording also treble voices.”4
The Spirit-driven progress of the Gospel message can be seen
here, with the sort of erratic, synergistic detail often characteriz-
ing the gift of human growth. Acts was written bearing witness to
an age in which the young Church “possessed the Spirit and was
triumphantly engaging in a world mission to the Gentiles,”5 and
Paul as well, acknowledges a “genuine pneumatic endowment” in
the women with whom he is reported interacting.6
In patriarchal society, where it was often assumed that
women were properly to be considered an invisible component
and were therefore, as John McGuckin observes, significantly un-
der-reported,7 it is remarkable that Luke chooses to include so
many details involving women. The interwoven appearances of
so many women in Luke/Acts, sometimes serving in leading roles,
creates a robust witness, and shows them making distinct contri-
butions during the early centuries of Christianity. By the very fact
that Luke portrays women exercising a variety of responsibilities,
“he shows how the Gospel liberates and creates new possibilities

3
Florence M. Gillman, Women Who Knew Paul (Collegeville, MN: Litur-
gical Press, 1992), p. 12.
4
Jaroslav Pelikan, Acts (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2005), p. 205.
5
Robert Jewett, A Chronology of Paul’s Life (Philadelphia: Fortress Press,
1979), p. 8.
6
Albrecht Oepke, ThDNT, v.1, p. 787.
7
John Anthony McGuckin, The Westminster Handbook to Patristic Theology
(Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), pp. 365-366.
 CHAPTER I.1. LYDIA 19

for women.”8 Thus, the development of the Church made possible

new roles for women, some with leadership responsibilities.9
Women could function as missionaries and ministers, for ex-
ample, and the hospitality which they offered in their homes
made possible the development of house churches as an early en-
vironment for the church at a time when the structure of table
fellowship celebrated in the Spirit of Jesus Christ was in its earli-
est stages of formation. Indeed, Jaroslav Pelikan has pointed out
that “it is unavoidably clear, both from the original words in the
second chapter of Joel and from quotation of them in the sermon
of Peter at Pentecost that it was to be ‘sons and daughters,’ both
men and women on whom God ‘will pour out my Spirit’ and who
‘shall prophesy’ (Acts 2:17-18).”10
Luke, using the high Hellenistic phrase, notes that “not a few
leading women” were brought to belief in Jesus Christ and re-
sponded in faith with generosity and missionary fervor (Acts
17:4). The witness of Lydia helps to illustrate the vision of the
Christian community for Paul and women’s potential roles within
it. The story recorded in Acts 16 takes place during the principle
period of Paul’s apostolic work, his Aegean Mission, one which
was significantly influential to Christian development and
thought. Both Paul and Luke portray women during this time as
prominently receptive to the Gospel and among the earliest of
those baptized in Europe. They were inspired by the Spirit of God
to open their homes, facilitating the creation of house churches.
Women like Lydia are remembered giving collaborative support
to Paul in his evangelistic work. In his letters and also in Acts, the

8
Ben Witherington, The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commen-
tary (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company,
1998), p. 156.
9
“No less than nine women were at one time or other members of what
we might call Paul’s mission team—that is nearly twenty percent, a no-
table statistic in a male-dominated society.” James D. G. Dunn, Beginning
from Jerusalem (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2009),
p. 634.
10
Pelikan, Acts, p. 206.
20 FROM THEIR LIPS: VOICES OF EARLY CHRISTIAN WOMEN

support of women is “integral to the expansion of Paul’s mis-

sion.”11
Furthermore, Luke and Paul both offer a picture of men and
women contributing to the expansion of Early Christianity by
working in partnership. Of course, these very partnerships put the
women at risk, for this was a time when “childbirth took as many
women’s lives as the battlefield took soldiers.”12 One-third of
those surviving infancy were dead by age six, and half of children
died by age ten. Over half of these survivors died by age sixteen
and by age twenty-six three-quarters of them had perished.13 If
they managed to survive the perils of childbirth, many young
brides outlived their older husbands and became widows at an
early age. Lydia was likely married at some time in her life and
could have borne children; the fact that none are named could
indicate that they did not survive until the time of Paul’s mission-
ary work.
While there are commentators who do not support the idea
of Lydia as a real historical person,14 several others—Brown,
Witherington and Cohick among them—maintain the basic as-
sumption that the story of Lydia reflects an actual person. “She
was not invented by Luke to serve his theological agenda.”15 Yet,
it may also be true that Luke has used his source material

11
Margaret Y. MacDonald, “Rereading Paul: Early Interpreters of Paul on
Women and Gender,” in Women and Christian Origins, Ross Shepherd Kra-
emer, Mary Rose D’Angelo, eds (New York: Oxford University Press,
1999), p. 237.
12
Lynn H. Cohick, Women in the World of the Earliest Christians: Illuminat-
ing Ancient Ways of Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2009), p.
160.
13
Richard S. Ascough, Lydia: Paul’s Cosmopolitan Hostess (Collegeville,
MN: Liturgical Press, 2008), p. 44.
14
L. Michael White, “Visualizing the ‘Real’ World of Acts 16: Toward Con-
struction of a Social Index,” in The Social World of the First Christians: Essays
in Honor of Wayne A. Meeks (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1995.), p.
246. See also Matthews, First Converts (Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Press, 2001), p. 93.
15
Cohick, Women in the World of the Earliest Christians, p. 188. See also
Witherington, Women in the Earliest Churches, pp. 147-149.
 CHAPTER I.1. LYDIA 21

concerning the traditions about Lydia in the service of his overall

story about the reception of the Gospel as it spread throughout
the Roman Empire. With Lydia especially, “we must hold these
two—historical detail and theological emphasis—in creative ten-
sion,”16 and evaluate historical probability with caution.17
While Lydia is a remarkable New Testament character, she
is also in some ways emblematic of the situation of the Early
Church, especially with regard to the evidence of her mobility,
her conversion experience, and the possibility of new roles for
women. The scriptural witness clearly implies that Lydia, being
from Thyatira, experienced considerable travel in her lifetime, re-
flective of the particular mobility characteristic among Early
Christians. The spread of the Early Church, like that of Greek cul-
ture, was made possible in part by the excellent system of Roman
roads throughout the empire; so that travel within the Roman
Empire, whether for business or ministry, could be contemplated
and accomplished with a confidence and certainty which were
unknown in the centuries after.18 This dynamic mobility of peo-
ple, enabling them to move from one location to another, is
clearly attested in Acts as well as Paul’s letters.
The Greek philosopher Epictetus boasted that “Caesar has
obtained for us a profound peace. There are neither wars nor bat-
tles, nor great robberies nor piracies, but we may travel at all
hours, and sail from east to west.”19 While the Roman Empire’s
excellent road-works made travel possible for both Lydia and
Paul, the available night-time accommodations were dismal and
dangerous places to seek rest, many being nothing more than
brothels. “The moral dangers at the inns made hospitality an im-
portant virtue in Early Christianity.”20 Therefore, from the earliest
development of the Church, the spread of the Gospel was

16
Cohick, Women in the World of the Earliest Christians, p. 188.
17
Richard A. Pervo, Acts: A Commentary (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress
Press, 2009), p. 15
18
Abraham J. Malherbe, Social Aspects of Early Christianity (Philadelphia:
Fortress, 1983), p. 63.
19
Discourses 3.13.9; Everett Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003), p. 86.
20
Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity, p. 89.
22 FROM THEIR LIPS: VOICES OF EARLY CHRISTIAN WOMEN

intimately dependent on the faithful offer of a safe resting place

and refreshment and, as a result, a valued role traditionally con-
nected with women.
Paul is described accepting lodging and table fellowship
from those who came to the faith from his teaching as a regular
aspect of his ministry. Luke often focuses on new believers who
were relatively wealthy and inspired by the message of the Spirit
to finance the cause, some by providing hospitality in their resi-
dential estates, so that itinerant preachers could be sent out from
a stable missionary home base. These benefactors included
women who were attested as heads of households, and Lydia is
among them (Acts 16:14-15). The home was “the basic cell of
organization in the Pauline mission; it was the arena of celebra-
tion, teaching, and probably often of conversion.”21 Hospitality
was key to the mission, based as it was on an extensive network
of households which supported the “sending” (propempein) and
“receiving” (prosdechesthai) of co-workers. Therefore, any descrip-
tion of itinerant evangelists presupposes an equal complement of
householders opening their homes to the progress of the Gospel.
Luke appears to take special care to demonstrate to his audi-
ence that where the Gospel went, women, often prominent, were
“some of the first, foremost, and most faithful converts to the
Christian faith, and that their conversion led to their assuming
new roles in the service of the Gospel.”22 Women are attested in
Scripture serving the early communities of believers through re-
sponsibilities that normally would not have been available to
them, and Luke emphasizes the viability of women taking on var-
ious tasks of ministry for the community. As Paul himself, after
all, preached to the Galatians, in the new religion, “There is no
longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus”
(Gal. 3:28). When the work of the Holy Spirit is discerned and
faithfully described, both men and women are called to action.
Not surprisingly then, an acknowledged and necessary

21
MacDonald, “Rereading Paul: Early Interpreters of Paul on Women and
Gender,” p. 241.
22
Ben Witherington, Women in the Earliest Churches (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1988), p. 157.
 CHAPTER I.1. LYDIA 23

component of sending out preachers for the progress of the Gospel

is providing hospitality for their needs.
The ministry of hospitality offered by women is reflected in
the life of Jesus as well; the itinerant ministry of Christ is de-
scribed in connection with the generosity of believers around
him. Significant among them were Mary and her sister Martha,
whose determined style of hospitality was incorporated into one
of his familiar teachings (Lk. 10:38-42). Luke describes women
who were present with “the twelve” as they were “proclaiming
and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God” (Lk. 8:1-3).
They are acknowledged as offering Jesus and the Apostles hospi-
tality; they were women “who provided for them from their re-
sources.”
The missionary charge of Jesus in his teaching, imploring the
Apostles to rely on hospitality freely given (Lk. 9:2-5, 10:1-16),
establishes the practice from which the “house church” emerged.
Luke demonstrates that women in the memory of the Early
Church who offered the hospitality of their home aided both the
intensity and the extensive growth of the Christian community.
This explains why prominent women are cited “whenever house
churches are mentioned in the New Testament.23
Since Lydia’s story cannot be confirmed and contextualized
by comparing it with another scriptural source, it is difficult to
establish that Lydia was a real person. Still, her story in the Acts
of the Apostles functions as an effective window illuminating the
development of the Early Church. Contrasting with Paul’s own
letters, which naturally offer a more diffused, impressionistic pic-
ture of what happened, Luke presents an active narrative in Acts,
rich with vivid details, indicating clearly that the work of God in
the Holy Spirit empowers men and women alike. Luke’s descrip-
tion in Acts 2:42-47 is useful for describing the action of the Spirit
at work in the lives of the early believers. These verses offer a rich
glimpse of those responding to the action of God with awe, praise
and acts of generosity. Here divine support for the growth of new
members “who were being saved” is met with cooperative pooling

23
Witherington, Women in the Earliest Churches, p. 145.
24 FROM THEIR LIPS: VOICES OF EARLY CHRISTIAN WOMEN

of resources and acts of hospitality which further inspire “glad

and generous hearts” during table fellowship.
The link between leadership and household created a special
significance for the roles of women. The fact that the seminal
groups of believers functioned in much the same way as an ex-
tended household, the domain traditionally associated with
women, undoubtedly facilitated the involvement of women in
Pauline Christianity. Since much of their leadership would have
been exercised in a household setting, “the house base of the
movement may have enabled women to turn community leader-
ship into an extension of their roles as household managers.”24
The private home offered a place of privacy, intimacy and stabil-
ity, providing an economic infrastructure for the Early Christian
community, a headquarters for missionary work, a framework for
authority and leadership, and “a definite role for women.”25
The house church functioned as the locus of the Christian
community. Luke presents the house church as “the creative hub
of God’s redemptive work…these churches are banquet commu-
nities, celebrating the abundance of God in Christ which is con-
tinually opening up doors for repentance.”26 The individual house
church as well as the whole church (ekklesia) in a town “counted
women as well as men, persons of high and low social status, and
persons of different nationalities among its membership and lead-
ership. Those who joined the Early Christian missionary move-
ment joined it as equals.”27
The very fact, then, that women—that is, half the human
race—are absent from so many historical narrations in Scripture

24
Margaret Y. MacDonald, “Reading Real Women through the Undis-
puted Letters of Paul,” in Women and Christian Origins, Ross Shepherd
Kraemer, Mary Rose D’Angelo, eds (New York: Oxford University Press,
1999), p. 203.
25
Vincent Branick, The House Church in the Writings of Paul (Wilmington,
DE: Michael Glazier, 1989), p. 15.
26
John Koenig, New Testament Hospitality: Partnership with Strangers as
Promise and Mission (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), p. 106.
27
Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, “Missionaries, Apostles, Coworkers: Ro-
mans 16 and the Reconstruction of Women’s Early Christian History,”
Word & World 6:4 (1986), p. 432.
 CHAPTER I.1. LYDIA 25

demonstrates that “both the ancient literary sources and contem-

porary historiography are not the mirrors or windows they claim
to be.”28 More recent historians of Early Christianity are gaining
a greater appreciation of how the simple arrangements and pri-
mary functions of everyday life in the home and workshop were
likely quite significant for the expansion of the movement.
When the Apostle Paul, with his pious background as a Jew-
ish Pharisee, encountered Lydia among the women of Philippi
gathered by the river, this colorful character was likely startlingly
different than the women familiar to him from his home syna-
gogue family. Taking into account Lydia’s cultural background,
her level of independence and her occupation, consider how she
might have been dressed and groomed. Before speaking to her,
Paul may have heard her offer prayer, perhaps leading the other
women in their Sabbath day devotions.
Lydia is known to us from three verses narrated by Luke in
Acts 16:14-15, 40. From that scant reference, we know that she
owned a house in Philippi, over which she was householder; that
she was a substantial businesswoman in the market for purple-
dyed fabric products, and originally from Thyatira in Asia Mi-
nor—and that she was a worshipper of God. When “the Lord
opened her heart” to receive Paul’s Gospel and she was baptized,
she responded eagerly, generously opening her house to the Paul-
ine missionaries as their home base.
Thus, Lydia became the first person recorded in Scripture to
support Paul with hospitality. Although it may have been unusual
for first-century women to be householders on their own, and to
carry on financial transactions, it is not without precedent. New
Documents Illustrating Early Christianity offers several examples of
papyrus evidence indicating women as homeowners inde-
pendently conducting business.29 Additionally, it is generally

28
Bernadette J. Brooten, “Early Christian Women and their Cultural Con-
text: Issues of Method in Historical Reconstruction,” in Feminist Perspec-
tives on Biblical Scholarship, Adele Yarbro Collins, ed. (Chico, CA: Scholars
Press, 1985), p. 68.
29
New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity: A Review of the Greek In-
scriptions and Papyri, G.H.R. Horsley, S.R. Llewelyn, eds (North Ryde,
26 FROM THEIR LIPS: VOICES OF EARLY CHRISTIAN WOMEN

recognized among New Testament scholars that Macedonian

women from the Hellenistic period onward were known for
greater independence and more visibility and influence in public
affairs.30
Cities were named after wives, female money-earners funded
tomb-building, women were being permitted to join their hus-
bands at table fellowship and in other activities, and there are
examples in inscriptions of women’s names where “a metronymic
takes the place of the usual patronymic.”31 The fact that women
may have taken on leadership roles in the Early Church in Philippi
is demonstrated by the reference to the dispute between Paul’s
co-workers, Euodia and Syntyche in Phil. 4:2.
In any case, under Roman law, “women enjoyed far more
freedom and privileges than traditionally has been supposed.”32
In some cases “free marriage” had dissolved the restraints of manu
mariti, where a woman’s rights passed “into the hands of her hus-
band” from the hands of her father. In sine manu, women were on
an equal par with their spouses in terms of rights of ownership.
Furthermore, ius trium liberorum, the law of three children, ex-
empted freeborn women with three children or freed women with
four children from the necessity of employing a guardian or tutor
to transact business.33 Some women were therefore free to dispose
of their own property as they saw fit, and the widow could stand
in the place of her deceased husband for execution of household

N.S.W.: Ancient History Documentary Research Centre, Macquarie Uni-

versity, 1981-95), 2:28.
30
Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity, p. 78.
31
Witherington, Women in the Earliest Churches, p. 12. Both types of
names convey lineage: a patronymic is based on the name of the bearer’s
father or an earlier male descendent; more unusual is a metronymic
which is derived from the bearer’s mother or another female ancestor.
32
Caroline Whelan, “Amica Pauli: The Role of Phoebe in the Early
Church,” Journal for the Study of the New Testament 49 (1993), p. 73.
33
Among the Oxyrynchus archeological documents recovered is a third-
century request “applying to the prefect’s office for the right of ius li-
berorum, ‘so that I may henceforth be able to conduct my affairs without
any impediment.’” P.Oxy XII.1467.
 CHAPTER I.1. LYDIA 27

business activities. Thus, Lydia’s position as the head of a house-

hold was not uncommon for widows.34
The character Lydia who greeted Paul at Philippi, then, had
a home large enough to accommodate Paul and his group, as well
as the finances to care for their needs. The various aspects of her
life referenced in Scripture—purple-dealing, heading a house-
hold, showing hospitality, and traveling—each one contributes to
a picture of some wealth. Lydia’s offer of hospitality may well
mean that she became host to one of the original core groups of
the Primitive Church,35 for “she was the nexus for the network of
Jesus believers in and around Philippi,”36 a vibrant and flourish-
ing community that filled Paul with pride and joy (Phil.1:3-4).
In fact, archeological evidence has been found which sup-
ports the existence of people similar to Lydia, but not Lydia her-
self. An inscription has been uncovered in Thessalonica, for ex-
ample, which cites a purple dealer named Menippus from Thya-
tira;37 and not far from Lydia’s home city of Thyatira, due north
in the city of Aphrodisias, a stele was found with an inscription
naming benefactors to the synagogue. Almost half were labeled
theosebeis or God-fearers, and among them was also a dealer in
purple cloth.
Luke’s narration of the development of the Early Church in
Acts, with its detail-rich storyline, offers a different type of re-
source than the more impressionistic evidence provided in the
letters of Paul; “[Luke] is a painter rather than a photographer.”38
Of course, the contemporary reader is also separated from Luke’s
story by the imperfect lens of translation and editorial redaction
over the centuries. Nevertheless, at its heart Acts reflects some
grounding in reliable historical events. To its credit, the text
demonstrates the accomplished treatment and theology of an

34
Cohick, Women in the World of the Earliest Christians, p. 188.
35
James D.G. Dunn, Beginning from Jerusalem (Grand Rapids, MI: William
B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2009), p. 671.
36
Richard S. Ascough, Lydia: Paul’s Cosmopolitan Hostess (Collegeville,
MN: Liturgical Press, 2008), p. 1.
37
Ascough, Lydia, p. 18.
38
Pervo, Acts, p. 9.
28 FROM THEIR LIPS: VOICES OF EARLY CHRISTIAN WOMEN

author who may have been significantly close to the story, and it
should not be discounted merely because of the expansive style
of its narrative literary genre. Furthermore, the Acts of the Apos-
tles serves as an important bridge to the next generations of rec-
orded memory at a time when the Primitive Church and its the-
ology were still coming into being.
While it is possible that Luke’s characterization of a person
like Lydia, one who is not corroborated in Paul’s letters, could
have been creatively influenced by the author in some measure,
even modeled on the memory of more than one conversion expe-
rience of a woman in the missionary field, Raymond Brown esti-
mates that Luke has recorded the Lydia story from “the fabric of
genuine local tradition…She is an exemplary case of the success
of the early Christian household mission.”39 And after all, as he
observes, “there is no reason to think that the tracing of every-
thing carefully from the beginning promised by Luke 1:3 stopped
with the Gospel.”40
As Paul makes his way from Asia Minor across the Aegean
Sea toward Philippi, “a leading city in the district of Macedo-
nia”(Acts 16:12), Luke is able to portray his encounter with the
purple textiles dealer, Lydia, and other characters there in com-
pelling detail, but, a glance at the parsing of the verbs may indi-
cate a tantalizing hint as to why. Abruptly, without explanation,
the text shifts from third-person plural into first-person plural for
eight verses (16:10-17), which creates a distinct “we” section, the
first of four. The majority of Acts gives no indication of an au-
thor’s point of view, and indeed “from the biblical tradition comes
the technique of omniscient narration and its companion, anony-
mous authorship,”41 melding humility with expertise for the sake
of authority. Nevertheless, the Evangelist Luke crafts distinctly
intimate-sounding narrative in these “we” sections, appearing to
write himself into the missionary picture alongside the Apostle
Paul.

39
The New Jerome Bible Commentary, Raymond E. Brown et al, eds (Eng-
lewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990), p. 753.
40
Brown, Introduction to the New Testament, p. 316.
41
Pervo, Acts, p. 15.
 CHAPTER I.1. LYDIA 29

Although it is unlikely that the missionary band came to

town and swept up the young physician Luke in their evangelistic
fervor, the text does convey the author incorporating himself into
his description of their group and identifying himself with their
ministry. While it has been suggested that Philippi, with its fa-
mous school of medicine, could have been the hometown of the
physician/evangelist, Luke, who was “still based in Philippi at a
later time when that epistle was written, somewhere between 60-
62 C.E.;”42 this view is inconclusive. It is just as likely that here,
as in three other places in Acts (20:5-16; 21:1-18; 27:1-28:16),
Luke has incorporated an eye-witness testimony known to him as
a source or is simply including Paul in the narrator’s point of
view.43 Yet, whatever the relationship is between the author of
Acts and Paul’s eye-witness companion, it adds to the reliability
of the story of Lydia in Acts 16 that it is contained in one of the
“we” sections.44
Named after the father of Alexander the Great, Philippi was
located on the eastern border of the Roman province of Macedo-
nia; only ten miles inland from the Aegean Sea, it was a busy port
of call along the first-century trading route. As a Roman colony,
Philippi was granted the honor of the “Italian law” (ius italicum),
which meant that the town was to be treated as if it were located
on Italian soil and given equal status with other Roman cities,
governed by collegiate magistrates under Roman law and kept
free from direct taxation. This is demonstrated in Scripture by the
mention of the technical Roman job title, stragtegoi, in Acts 16:35-
38.45
Philippi was the gateway into the rest of Macedonia and
what is today northern Greece. One of the significant accomplish-
ments of the Roman Empire, and of particular benefit to Philippi,
was the building of the Via Egnatia, a major 500-mile road, which
stretched across Macedonia from the Adriatic coast to the Aegean

42
Witherington, Acts of the Apostles, p. 490.
43
This issue is comprehensively examined in Richard Pervo’s “Excursus:
‘We’ in Acts,” in Acts, pp. 392-396.
44
Brown, Introduction to the New Testament, p. 317.
45
Ascough, Lydia, pp. 19-21.
30 FROM THEIR LIPS: VOICES OF EARLY CHRISTIAN WOMEN

Sea and ran through the center of town. Between the well-con-
structed road running through Philippi and the busy seafaring en-
terprise nearby, Lydia’s purple-dealing business probably in-
volved the import of goods from Asia Minor via the trade routes
by either land or across the sea.
When he arrived in Philippi, Paul set out to follow the usual
mode of operation for mission he had been using since his com-
missioning by the Holy Spirit (13:2). As he had done in Salamis
on Cyprus (13:5), and in Antioch of Pisidia (13:14), and also in
Iconium (14:1), Paul embarked on the Sabbath day to find a gath-
ering of Jewish worshippers in order to proclaim the Gospel to
them first. He and his group proceeded outside the gate by a
river;46 where they supposed there was a “place of prayer”
(proseuche), sometimes translated as a “Jewish assembly.” Here,
“we sat down and spoke to the women there” (16:13). This is a
fascinating observation on many levels!
Were men there as well, faithfully occupied in liturgical af-
fairs, while Paul meanwhile engaged in conversation with the
women present? Paul’s group may have been unable to find any
local Jewish assembly yet in Philippi; if indeed there was one, it
may not have met formally in a designated synagogue building.
Given the possibilities of gathering for religious rites, certain
women from the synagogue group, including interested Gentiles,
could have met on the Sabbath without the men.47 Perhaps Luke
would not share the author’s surprise that the Jewish prayer gath-
ering which was found by Paul and his co-workers consisted of
women and that Paul approached them and even sat down among
them like a rabbi to teach the Gospel message.48

46
When Paul encountered Lydia, he may have gone outside the Krenides
Gate by the river where the Via Egnatia intersected Philippi on the west-
ern side. Ascough, Lydia, p. 23.
47
Cohick, Women in the World of the Earliest Christians, p. 188.
48
Since it is unusual because of the gender of the recipients, this episode
echoes the story of the twelve-year-old Jesus teaching in the Temple,
radically unusual because of the age of the “rabbi” (Lk. 2:41-52). Thus,
Luke appears to be authenticating the apostleship of Paul by imbuing
him with Christ-like characteristics.
 CHAPTER I.1. LYDIA 31

This story may indicate a different kind of assumed Jewish

ritual setting than can be expected in a contemporary situation
today where liturgical and study activities take place in the syna-
gogue, while ritual cleansings are done elsewhere. Additionally,
this may have been the women’s part of the group, or the special
day or time when the women rather than the men met for prayer,
at a location convenient for cleansing rituals as well. Neverthe-
less, it is fascinating that, for whatever reason, this group at this
time seems to have consisted of women. Moreover, it is most in-
teresting to note that Luke doesn’t describe this as in any way
unusual, though it seems astonishing to our ears.
Here, then, by the river we are introduced to Lydia, one of
the remarkable characters witnessed in Luke’s story. She has a
name well-known from Horace’s Odes;49 yet since most Roman
women were usually called by their family name, Lydia’s name,
with its likely geographic reference to the region of Lydia, might
mean that she was of Greek descent or a freed slave.50 It is prob-
ably significant that Luke calls her by name; although, the name
Lydia has sometimes been interpreted as an ethnic nickname, im-
plying “the Lydian.”
Lydia is described as a “worshipper of God” (sebomene ton
Theon), probably meaning someone familiar with and sympa-
thetic to Jewish religious practice. She is also a “dealer in purple
cloth” (porphuropolis) from Thyatira, a city on the mainland of
Asia Minor. Purple dye in antiquity was extracted principally
from mollusk shells. Purple fabric was considered so luxurious
that it was often monopolized by the imperial family, to the ex-
tent that those engaged in the production and sale of it were
sometimes referred to as “Caesar’s household.”51 It so typified
glamorous adornment that Luke, probably influenced by the

49
Odes 1.8. Hans Conzelmann, Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary on the
Acts of the Apostles; (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), p. 130.
50
“A number of inscriptions suggesting that several people involved in
the purple trade were ex-slaves might imply that she was herself a freed
slave.” Ascough, Lydia, p. 7. See also Pervo, Acts, p. 403.
51
New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, 2:28.
32 FROM THEIR LIPS: VOICES OF EARLY CHRISTIAN WOMEN

moralizing reaction against purple,52 characterized the rich man,

in the parable with Lazarus, as being clothed in it (Lk. 16:19).
“The Lord opened her heart to listen eagerly to what was
said by Paul” (16:14). This fulsome description of one woman’s
divinely inspired response to Paul’s teaching of the Gospel leads
her as well as her entire household to be baptized; she becomes
the first convert in Europe. But what does it mean for the Lord to
have “opened her heart?” Here, “the Lord” probably indicates the
Spirit of Jesus in action by the riverside. Luke might have consid-
ered Lydia among those who respond to the Word of God with “a
good heart and bear fruit with patient endurance,” (Lk. 8:15) as
Jesus himself taught.
Lydia’s spiritual openness also has echoes of the skilled
women in Exodus whose hearts were moved by the Lord (Ex.
35:25-26) to a generous enterprise. By her conversion, she has,
like them, “now come face to face with God’s incredible gracious-
ness and willingness to begin again.”53 Lydia's conversion is
unique in actually taking place within the scope of the scriptural
text (Acts 16:13-15). Like other conversions, this one was life-
changing and the reader hears the outcome in Lydia’s faithful ac-
tion; and in contrast to other characters attested in Scripture, we
glimpse Lydia at the very heart of the evangelizing moment.
The successful outcome of Lydia’s evangelization along with
her household is demonstrated by the fact that, by the time Paul
and Silas depart from Philippi, they have won over enough people
that Paul is reported to have encouraged the brethren (tous
adelphous), in the plural form. This could indicate the develop-
ment of a group of believers meeting in Lydia’s home, which had
become a house church. Her story is significant in illustrating how
the house church came to be developed.
Earlier in Acts (10:48), the conversion of Cornelius’s house-
hold is the first of the examples of an entire household being Bap-
tized in Acts. Other examples include those cited at Acts 11:14

52
New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, 2:25.
53
Walter Brueggemann, “The Book of Exodus: Introduction, Commen-
tary, and Reflections,” in The New Interpreters Bible, v.1 (Nashville, TN:
Abingdon Press, 1994), p. 961.
 CHAPTER I.1. LYDIA 33

and 18:8. In considering what the Baptism of Lydia and her house-
hold looked like, the Cornelius story may provide an effective ex-
emplar for the pattern of early Baptism. According to this ac-
count, Cornelius “feared God” (10:2), heard Peter’s message
(10:33, 44), and believed (10:43); he received the Holy Spirit and
spoke in tongues (10:46), and extolled God (10:46).54
The make-up of Lydia’s household is not specified, but it
probably consisted of other women employed by her for the pur-
ple-fabric business and her slaves, or freed servants—and even
some of the local poor, for whom Lydia may have served as a
patron.55 Only women are indicated in Scripture, though; so, if
there were other males in her family and household in general,
they were probably not present at the river for prayer on the Sab-
bath day. In contrast to the next Baptism described in the story,
which takes place “without delay” (16:33), in the case of Lydia’s
household the conjunctive phrase (hos de) in 16:15, which the
NRSV translates as “when,” indicates some passage of time. In the
natural course of events, the group Baptism of Lydia’s household
may have taken place directly but not immediately, with an op-
portunity for the entire group to come along, including men and
children, if any.
Baptism is attested in Acts as administered in the name of
Jesus Christ. Lydia’s Baptism likely included a confession of faith
in him. As in other accounts in Acts, such as that of the Ethiopian
eunuch (8:26-40), her Baptism follows a transformational hearing
of the spoken Word of God (16:13-14). Baptism was viewed as
“both a human act and an act in which God was at work.”56 The
coming of the Holy Spirit is suggested by the fruit of Lydia’s faith-
ful commitment in generously opening her home to Paul and his
band of missionaries, and it is notable that her invitation of hos-
pitality is recorded as a remembered quotation: “If you have

54
Everett Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and
Liturgy in the First Five Centuries (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans
Pub. Co., 2009), p. 178.
55
Ascough, Lydia, p. 32.
56
Ferguson, Baptism in the Early Church, p. 184.
34 FROM THEIR LIPS: VOICES OF EARLY CHRISTIAN WOMEN

judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come and stay at my home”

(16:15).
Luke shows God working through the new faith of Lydia by
interacting with the faith of Paul, challenging him to accept hos-
pitality from a new believer, who was in all likelihood sharply
different from him: a non-Jewish woman, from a different culture,
operating without the guardianship of a man. Here is a case where
a woman’s established role of providing hospitality to visiting
guests “became a means by which they could support and sustain
the Church.”57 Lydia’s statement appears to reflect hesitancy of
some sort of Paul’s part, perhaps a normal aspect of polite con-
versation, but more likely it is an honorable acknowledgment of
their differences.58
Showing sensitivity to the dangerous circumstances facing
itinerant Jewish preachers in the Roman Empire, Lydia offers him
hospitality, in the same way that the disciples from Emmaus wel-
comed the itinerant Jesus whom they did not recognize (Lk.
24:29). Lydia prevailed, or perhaps the Spirit working in her ef-
fectively prevailed. As often recorded in stories about Jesus, both
host and guest show generosity in engaging with one another in
this exchange, and from this acceptance of hospitality, the church
in Philippi began to grow.
After the experience of encountering women at the Philip-
pian “place of prayer” outside the city gates, and settling into the
residential hospitality of Lydia’s house, it is interesting to note
that the text describes Paul and his band of missionaries still re-
turning to the riverside “place of prayer” again in Acts 16:16.
While it is plausible that this is a mere stylistic place-holder to
mark the beginning of a new story in the same narration, it may
indicate as well that Luke’s “eyewitness” source knew that Paul
repeatedly returned to preach the Gospel among the group of
women praying by the river.
While Luke mentions an earlier house church back in Jeru-
salem, where many had gathered in prayer and fellowship “in the
house of Mary, the mother of John” (Acts 12:12), the story of

57
Witherington, Women in the Earliest Churches, p. 145.
58
Ascough, Lydia, pp. 5, 13.
 CHAPTER I.1. LYDIA 35

Lydia’s conversion in Philippi signals another important shift

from a Jewish place of prayer to a believer’s home as the mission-
ary base. This becomes increasingly a pattern in the emerging
Church and in the continuing story of Acts as it unfolds. Thus, as
Witherington observes, it is probably not accidental that “at the
only two points in Acts (12:12, 16:40) where Luke clearly tells us
of a Church meeting in a particular person’s home, not just a place
of lodging or hospitality, it is the home of a woman.”59
Three centuries later in his commentary on Philemon, St. Je-
rome described hospitality to Paul as participating in Paul’s
apostleship. “When Paul would arrive at a new city to preach the
crucified one…he needed before anything an appropriate place in
the city where all could gather, a place without disturbances,
large in order to receive many listeners, not near the places of
spectacles with disturbing neighbors.”60 Jerome reflects a Church
memory which made a significant connection between early
Christian hospitality and effective missionary work. Not only is
the peripatetic preaching disciple necessary for the progress of
the Gospel, but also the ministry of the host in whose household
the missionary is welcomed and given provisions.
After an ordeal of persecution, imprisonment, and miracu-
lous manumission by the work of the Holy Spirit (Acts 16:19-26),
note that Paul and Silas retire again to the comfort and mission
fellowship of Lydia’s house (16:40), even though they had actu-
ally been asked to leave town (16:39). Acts 16:40 acknowledges
the hospitality of Lydia’s home in the formation of the Philippian
group, since it is there that Paul and Silas encourage the brethren
before leaving the city, demonstrating that her house had become
the meeting place for the early believers in Philippi.
In this, “Luke wishes us to understand that what began as a
lodging for missionaries became the home of the embryonic
church in Philippi.”61 Furthermore, the fact that Paul and Silas

59
Witherington, Women in the Earliest Churches, p. 146.
60
PL 26.616.22; for English, St. Jerome’s Commentaries on Galatians, Titus,
and Philemon, Thomas P. Scheck, trans. (Notre Dame, ID: The University
of Notre Dame Press, 2010), p. 377.
61
Witherington, Women in the Earliest Churches, p. 149.
36 FROM THEIR LIPS: VOICES OF EARLY CHRISTIAN WOMEN

retreated to the encouraging atmosphere of Lydia’s house, when

in fact they had been instructed to leave town may indicate the
possible danger inherent for Lydia and her household, as indeed
is the case for Paul’s host, Jason, in Acts 17:5-9. It must have been
courageous hospitality for her to harbor the recently incarcerated
pair; this may have been a dangerous action on the part of Lydia.
Although Luke doesn’t describe them, it cannot be assumed that
there were no further negative consequences for Lydia and her
household—and she is, after all, never heard of again.
The fact, nevertheless, that we still have the women’s stories
in the scriptural text demonstrates that their remembered pres-
ence has remained strong. The persistence of the memory of
Lydia’s contribution has won out over the natural tendency, espe-
cially throughout the early centuries, to editorially diminish or to
even delete entirely female presence in the processes of redaction.
“Luke expresses by this arrangement that man and woman stand
together and side by side before God. They are equal in honor and
grace; they are endowed with the gifts and have the same respon-
sibilities.”62
As Paul and Silas move on to embark on mission work in
Thessalonica, and after experiencing opposition again in Beroea,
the Church is described as continuing to grow; and the attested
presence of male and female followers throughout the story
demonstrates that “the strength of Christianity’s appeal to women
was a function from the first.”63 Luke makes a point of stressing
the number of women who became believers, and their socio-eco-
nomic prominence. The emerging Church is shown, therefore, as
dependent on its female benefactors, like Lydia, for their philan-
thropic ability to seed the growth of house churches, and also to
witness to the women’s leadership in the earliest faith communi-
ties.
Note in the verse adjacent to it that the women of high stand-
ing who came to belief were among those observed having the

62
Quoting H. Flender, Witherington, Women in the Earliest Churches, p.
129.
63
Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological
Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York: Crossroad, 1992), p. 167.
 CHAPTER I.1. LYDIA 37

intellectual capacity and spiritual desire to examine the Scriptures

daily “to see whether these things were so” (17:11). The verses in
Scripture do not specify whether Lydia served as a leader of the
group of believers which gathered at her house, yet: “Lydia’s sta-
tus as Paul’s benefactor would make a leadership role in the
Church likely.”64 The witness of “not a few of the leading women”
(17:4) contributes to an overall picture of converts being added
to the growing community of believers from both Jews and Gen-
tiles; and the character of Lydia stands out among them, as a pur-
ple-dealer and also as a God-fearer whose heart was opened by
the Lord.
Regarding the root term from which porphuropolis, describ-
ing Lydia, derives, “It is uncertain whether we are to translate this
word as ‘trader in’ or ‘maker of purple,’ perhaps ‘purple dealer;”
but, epigraphical evidence indicates the importance of the purple
trade in Tyre and in the provinces of Lydia and Phrygia, and in
Macedonian cities such as Philippi. In fact, in Tyre, Christian pur-
ple dyers are attested in archeological inscriptions; 65 purple-dye-
ing in the Lydia region can be traced back as far as the Iliad.66
The purple which Lydia was selling was not likely the imperial
Tyrian murex extracted from shellfish, but a less luxurious dye
from the roots of the madder plant (rubia), which was generically
called “turkey red;”67 it was an industry “well-known in associa-
tion with Tyratira.”68 There was a vigorous market for desirable
goods; togas, for example, garments which could only be worn by
Roman citizens, often featured a purple-dyed border. Pliny the
Elder described how purple fabric could be double-dyed to
achieve a greater depth and consistency of purple, but that dou-
ble-dying also raised the price.69

64
Cohick, Women in the World of the Earliest Christians, p. 307.
65
New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, 2:26.
66
Homer, The Iliad, 4.141-42.
67
New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, 3:53.
68
Craig Steven De Vos, Church and Community Conflicts: The Relationships
of the Thessalonian, Corinthian, and Philippian Churches with their Wider
Civic Communities (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1999), p. 257.
69
Pliny the Elder, The Natural History 9.125-34.
38 FROM THEIR LIPS: VOICES OF EARLY CHRISTIAN WOMEN

Lydia is also identified as a “worshipper of God” (seboumene

ton Theon). Luke uses two different expressions in Greek to convey
this category, “God-fearer” (phoboumenos ton Theon) in Acts 10:2,
22, 35; 13:26 and “God-worshiper” (seboumenos ton Theon) or
simply “worshipper” in Acts 13:43, 50; 16:40; 17:4, 17; 18:7. The
Septuagint speaks of God-fearers in Ps. 119:9-11 and Ps. 135:19-
20, so Luke in Acts may have adapted this phrase to describe Gen-
tile sympathizers with Jesus, since God-fearers stood on the
boundary between Judaism and paganism—and often Christian-
ity as well. They were associated with Judaism, but had not be-
come proselytes; not yet having taken the radical step of circum-
cision in the case of men. God-fearers represent an important
Christian category; and analyzing epigraphic evidence shows that
over 75% of God-fearers may have been women.70 Lydia is a
prominent example of a God-fearer. She also presents an intri-
guing character, not only with regard to her role as a business-
woman in the market for purple fabric goods, but also as one of
Paul’s benefactors. Luke understands her to be making a signifi-
cant contribution as “a patron of the seminal Jesus group in Phi-
lippi.”71
In his own writing, Paul offers a glimpse, both in 2 Cor. 8:1-
5 and Phil. 4:14-18, of his gratitude for the abundant hospitality
he received from men and women in the young churches of Mac-
edonia “in the early days of the Gospel.” He assures his readers
that their hospitality to the Gospel and to his little band of mis-
sioners is earning them bountiful grace from God. Thus, “the gen-
erous openness and support of Lydia, a gentile devotee of Jewish
worship, is a model for the Christian household.”72
The foundation for the ministry of the benefactor offering
hospitality as a necessary component of missionary work is not
only laid down in the Gospel, but Paul in his letters acknowledges
that the generosity of the giver fulfills one of the divine attributes
God lives out in the work of the Holy Spirit through God’s people.
The liberal giving of money in Rom. 12:8 is understood as a

70
Cohick, Women in the World of the Earliest Christians, p. 187.
71
Cohick, Women in the World of the Earliest Christians, p. 53.
72
Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament, p. 310.
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Seeing that the fight was won, Hull hauled off to repair his rigging.
He must be prepared for another enemy if one should appear. At
7:00 he returned to receive the surrender of Captain Dacres. The
prize was so completely wrecked that there was no hope of bringing
her into port. After her crew had been taken off, she was set on fire.
From the Constitution’s quarter-deck Captain Dacres watched. At
length her magazine exploded and she disappeared beneath the
waters. A sad omen it must have seemed to the British captain. A
new sea power had arrived!

That this was fully appreciated is shown by an article in the London

Times. “It is not merely that an English frigate has been taken, after,
what we are free to confess may be called a brave resistance, but
that it has been taken by a new enemy, an enemy unaccustomed to
such triumphs, and likely to be rendered insolent and confident 23
by them. He must be a weak politician who does not see how
important the first triumph is in giving a tone and character to the
war. Never before in the history of the world did an English frigate
strike to an American.”

In our country the effect was magical. Where before political strife,
sectional differences, and commercial rivalries combined to bring our
people to the verge of civil war and secession, now a wave of wildest
enthusiasm spread like a forest fire. For here was a deed of which
every man and woman from Maine to Louisiana might be proud.
“Thank God for Hull’s victory” was a watchword which passed from
state to state. It gave impetus to naval operations and fired our
captains with impatience to get to sea and bring the enemy under
their guns. It encouraged swarms of privateers to cover the Seven
Seas and attack the enemy’s vital trade routes.

Admiral Sir John Jervis is reported to have said to his flag captain as
he sighted the Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent that a victory was
very necessary to England at that moment. With equal justice Isaac
Hull might have made a similar remark on sighting the Guerriere. Our
country needed a victory then as it never had before nor has since.
Napoleon said that in war the moral is to the physical as three to
one; in this case it was many times more. The mere sinking of a
frigate meant nothing to England. But the fact that it was sunk by an
American frigate at the cost of only fourteen casualties meant a great
deal to England, and to our United States. What had been done once
could be done again!

24

SCENE II. AND NOW FOR THE “JAVA”

While the Constitution was taking a little rest in Boston Stephen
Decatur in the sister-ship United States had taken the sea. In the
latter part of October he encountered the British frigate Macedonian,
likewise a sister-ship of the Guerriere. So the scene was set exactly
as in the previous battle. But, whereas Hull had decided the issue by
sheer overpowering force at point-blank range, Decatur fought a
distant battle in an effort to capitalize to the full his superiority in
gunnery and seamanship. He won his fight at the cost of only eleven
casualties. In ninety minutes his gunners had put a hundred shot into
the Macedonian’s hull and killed or wounded one hundred and four of
her crew. This time the prize was brought safely into port. Here was
a convincing confirmation of American naval efficiency.
By the time this fight had been won the Constitution was again at
sea. This time she was commanded by William Bainbridge, the
unlucky officer who had lost the Philadelphia off Tripoli. But now he
was in a luckier ship. Soon fortune sent a fine British frigate into his
arms. This happened on December 29 off Bahia on the coast of
Brazil.

The Java was considerably more powerful than the other British
frigates previously captured. She was commanded by an excellent
officer, Captain Lambert. In weight of metal she was inferior to the
Constitution only as nine to ten. Neither captain had any idea of
dodging the issue. Each made ready to fight to the finish. Fighting
topsails were spread. Battle ensigns decorated every masthead. At
2:10 P.M. the battle began. At first the range was long. But in a 25
few minutes the ships were in to two hundred yards. Then the
real business of the day began. It was as finely contested a frigate
action as ever was fought. Both Bainbridge and Lambert maneuvered
their ships with masterly skill. First one ship would gain an
advantageous position, then the other. Like two skilled wrestlers,
each in turn gained a hold, only to have it broken by his opponent.

All this time the guns’ crews were fast at work, rushing from one
battery to the other as their captains tacked and wore. It was work,
hard and grim—hauling at the gun tackles, ramming home powder
and shot, and slewing around the clumsy gun carriages to point the
guns squarely at the enemy. Acrid smoke clouds swept along the
decks and clouds of splinters flew around.

For a time the action is very closely fought. But, barring a lucky
accident, the issue is really never in doubt. For Yankee gunners are
incomparable and they have iron sides to protect them—twenty
inches of stout oak beams. They cannot be beaten in such a ship.
Slowly but surely our superiority in gunnery wears down the enemy.
One after another the Java’s tall spars crash down. Heroic Lambert
fights well but is killed. Lieutenant Chads, already wounded, takes
command. Half his crew is killed or wounded. Still he fights.
The Constitution also has her losses. Bainbridge himself is severely
wounded, but he still keeps the deck. Brave Aylwin, who already
wears a wound stripe for the Guerriere battle, is again shot down.
This will be the last fight for him. Well, he will live long enough to see
a second British frigate lower her battle flags. Over thirty 26
others lie dead or wounded about the decks or under the
surgeon’s knife in the cockpit. British frigates cannot be taken without
losing men.

For two long hours the battle rages. Chads does well but he cannot
do the impossible. Finally the Java must give in. Here is a fight in
which there is honor enough for all, vanquished as well as victor. And
Bainbridge, after such buffets of fate as few have received, at last
has won his well-deserved victory. A third British frigate had been
taken.

When “Old Ironsides” reached Boston a great reception awaited the

commodore. There he marched through the streets, arm in arm with
Rodgers and Hull—three commodores of whom any country might be
proud. Fifes and drums played Yankee-Doodle as the procession
moved through the streets. It was a big Navy Day!

SCENE III. THE LAST FIGHT

The Constitution took a long rest after this battle. The Java’s shot had
discovered some rotten spots in her sides. A long overhaul was
required to make her again ready for sea. Meanwhile the Navy had
won many a victory and had suffered some defeats. Our little sloops-
of-war won a long succession of splendid successes. Gallant James
Lawrence, hero of the Hornet-Peacock fight, lost the Chesapeake to
the British frigate Shannon—crying, as he lay dying, “Don’t give up
the ship!” Sewing this motto on his blue battle flag Perry annihilated
the British squadron on Lake Erie. Macdonough saved the northern
frontier with a complete victory on Lake Champlain, which a British
marine thought more desperately fought than Trafalgar. Our 27
privateers were gathering in their prizes on every sea in
constantly increasing numbers and sending the insurance rates three
times higher than all previous levels.

But the war could not well end without a third victory by the
Constitution. Now she was commanded by Charles Stewart, a worthy
successor to Hull and Bainbridge. On February 20, 1815, north of
Madeira, the American frigate came in contact with the British
corvette Cyane, thirty-four guns, and the sloop Levant, twenty-one.
Their fifty-five guns threw a slightly heavier weight of metal, but their
armament consisted mostly of short-range carronades which could
not be compared with the terrible long 24’s which filled the
Constitution’s gun-deck ports. Still the two Britons formed column
and accepted Stewart’s challenge.

Stewart might have fought at long range where the British

carronades could not have reached him. But night was coming on,
and, if he were to take both ships, there was no time to waste. “At
five minutes past six,” he wrote, “ranged up on the starboard side of
the sternmost ship, about three hundred yards distant, and
commenced the action by broadsides, both ships returning our fire
with the greatest spirit for about fifteen minutes.” Stewart’s tactics
have a lesson: When you are anxious to engage and night is
approaching, do not try to get all the conditions in your favor. Take
things as they are and fight in the most decisive manner. Otherwise
you will never capture your Cyane and Levant. Perhaps we 28
have here a lesson for the battles of peace as well as those of
war.

After this first engagement smoke clouds obscured the range and fire
ceased. But not for long, for now the Constitution began a series of
beautiful maneuvers—raking each enemy ship in turn. They
separated and made off. Stewart hung close to the Cyane and soon
forced her to surrender. By eight o’clock she had been manned by a
prize crew. Stewart started in search of the Levant.

Captain Douglass of the Levant had now repaired his damages.

Instead of trying to escape, he sailed back to assist his comrade. But
he was too late. At eight-thirty he ran into the Constitution. Attempts
to escape proved futile and at ten the second prize was made. “At
1:00 A.M.,” Stewart reported, “the damages to our rigging had been
repaired, sails shifted, and the ship in fighting condition.” The price of
this double victory was only fifteen casualties.

The Cyane safely reached home. The Levant was recaptured by a

British squadron in a neutral port. The Constitution received her last
battle triumph in New York many months after peace had been
signed. She had fought her last fight. But for many long years she
served her country well by showing the flag in every part of the
world. After that she trained many classes of midshipmen at the
Naval Academy. Now her useful labors are ended but she serves a
still more important purpose. For this old hulk, whose iron sides
protected iron men, is an inspiration to every officer and man in the
naval service—and to every American.
 Courtesy U. S. Naval Academy
From an engraving by Sartain, after the original painting by Thomas Birch
The Night Battle Between U.S.S. Constitution and H. M. Ships Cyane
the
AND Levant
On the left is the corvette Cyane, in the center the frigate
Constitution, and on the right the sloop Levant. The Constitution
captured both vessels.
From an engraving by Henry Meyer after the original painting by John W. Jarvis
Stephen Decatur
29
 EPILOGUE

Scarce one tall frigate walks the sea

Or skirts the safer shores
Of all that bore to victory
Our stout old Commodores.

So wrote Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1865. Many years have passed

since then. Again a tall frigate walks the sea. She carries a message
from many a stout old commodore, many an alert topman, many a
keen-eyed gunner. In fact, she carries a message from our Navy to
our People.

All the stories of “Old Ironsides” in this little pamphlet are based on
chapters of We Build a Navy, by Commander H. H. Frost, U. S.
Navy, published by U. S. Naval Institute, Annapolis, Maryland.

30
 Information about the “Constitution”

The building of the Constitution resulted from the failure of the new
United States government to purchase protection from the Algerian
pirates. By a majority of two, the House of Representatives voted, in
March, 1794, to provide six frigates that “separately would be
superior to any European frigate.” The Constitution was one of these.
She was designed by Joshua Humphreys of Philadelphia and built at
Hartt’s Wharf in Boston, near the present Constitution Wharf. The
copper bolts and fittings were supplied by Paul Revere. Construction
was all but abandoned after a new treaty was made with the pirates,
but the insistence of Presidents Washington and Adams, coupled with
the rising difficulties with revolutionary France, finally brought the
work to completion. She was launched in October, 1797, and
commissioned quickly.
The Constitution was rated as a 44-gun frigate but has carried as
many as 55 guns at various times. The present arrangement closely
follows that of her early days. The guns on the spar deck are 32-
pounder carronades, short, light guns which threw heavy shots a
short distance (300 to 400 yards). On the gun deck are long 24-
pounders, heavy guns with much greater range but less smashing
power than the carronade. In the following table the ranges given are
for one degree of elevation. The long gun could attain ranges up to
2,000 yards by greater elevation, the projectile leaving the gun with a
velocity of about 1,500 feet per second.

The Constitution cost $302,917. Her original dimensions were: 31

length over-all, 204 feet; beam, 43.5 feet; draft, forward 21
feet, aft 23 feet; displacement 2,200 tons. She was generally
considered an excellent sailer, the report being that “she works within
eleven points of the wind; steers, works, sails, scuds, and lies-to well;
rolls deep and easy, and sailing close-hauled has beaten everything
sailed with.”

Guns of the Constitution

Weight Bore Powder Approx.

Location Type No. Length lbs. inches charge range
Gun 24-pdr., 12 9′ 5¾″ 5,135 5.824 8 lbs. 700 yds.
deck, American
for’d. and
aft
Gun 24-pdr., 18 10′ 5,733 5.824 8 lbs. 700 yds.
deck, English 5¾″
amidships
Spar deck 32-pdr., 20 5′ 5″ 2,240 6.41 4 lbs. 400 yds.
carronades
Spar 24-pdr. 2 9′ 9½″ 4,170 5.824 8 lbs. 700 yds.
deck,
bow
chasers

The two bow chasers are 18-pounders bored for 24-pound shot.
They are lighter than the standard 24-pounder to reduce top
weights. Total weight of broadside, 734 pounds. As shot were
frequently underweight, this figure is not exact.

Her complement was 400 officers and men, but she usually cruised
with about 50 men in excess. At sea the men were crowded closely
together and there was much sickness. The ration was fixed by law
and it made a monotonous diet. The legal ration for Sunday was 1½
lbs. beef, 14 oz. bread, ½ lb. flour, ¼ lb. suet, ½ pt. spirits. On week
days pork was sometimes substituted for beef, with cheese or dried
peas in place of suet. The meat was usually salted, the bread stale
and moldy, the spirits good.
 Transcriber’s Notes
Silently corrected a few typos.
Retained publication information from the printed edition: this
eBook is public-domain in the country of publication.
In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by
_underscores_.
Inserted the original page-footer line drawings into the text.
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