LHMP #584 D’Angelo 1990 Women Partners in the New Testament

This article goes some interesting places, starting with a discussion of a first century Roman funeral monument of two women clasping right hands, then tying it in to early Christian traditions of paired missionaries, with contextual information on the possible implications of such bonds.

The funeral monument shows two women in relief with joined right hands – a formal, conventional gesture that most often represents a marriage bond. The stone was later re-carved to remove the women’s veils and to make one look more masculine (the rework is very obvious) and was most likely done to align the image with the expected symbolism of the “dextrarum iunctio” gesture, but the original inscription is untouched: “FONTEIA.C[aiae].L[iberta].ELEUSIS.H[uic?]O[lla].DATA.FONTEIA.C[aiae].L[iberta[HELENA” that is, “Fonteia Eleusis, freedwoman of Gaia, the [burial] urn given [to her] [by?] Fonteia Helena.”

The main body of the article discusses other contexts in which the later translation, interpretation, or alteration of references to women appears to have been done to make history conform to sexist assumptions, as with the 16th century alteration of the New Testament named “Junia” to the masculine “Junias” to avoid presenting a woman as an apostle.

As background for the funeral monument: there is a common type of monument primarily in the Augustan era (and not necessarily funerary) depicting two or more libertini (freedmen/women) either identified individually as liberta/-us or as conliberti (fellow freedpersons). These former slaves no longer had a legal or social relationship to their birth families, but continued the relationship to their patrons in a different form, taking the patrons nomen. Such images might include husband-wife pairs, or mixed- or same-gender pairs with no relationship other than being conliberti. Husband-wife pairs could be identified by the dextrarum iunctio. The gesture had a more general use in Greek and Etruscan funeral images, indicating fidelity, but the most common meaning is marriage, and in the case of a male-female couple, this interpretation is rarely questioned. Various historians, however, have speculated on other potential meanings for Eleusis and Helena, including a mother-daughter relationship (which requires explaining why this isn’t mentioned in the inscription).

Setting aside the handclasp, the monument emphasizes the two women’s relationship as conliberti, and specifically as establishing a special bond based on this that overwrites blood relationships.

The author makes a slightly more strained connection via the women’s names. Roman slaves were typically renamed by their patrons, often in patterned ways. Eleusis might evoke the Greek Eleusinian mysteries, with the Greek name Helena also being linguistically connected. Other paired names of conliberti (and paired Christian missionaries discussed later) have more obvious thematic connections, as with Tryphaena and Tryphosa.

In raising the question whether Eleusis’ and Helena’s handclasp indicates a marriage-like relationship, the author reviews Roman evidence for female homoerotic relationships, drawing specifically on Brooten, but notes that even if we accept the handclasp as evidence of an intimate relationship, it need not have been an erotic one. (A nod is given to various studies of the range of female effective relationships.)

The consideration now turns to three female pairs mentioned in the New Testament in contexts that suggest an established pair-bond of some type, where there are parallels for mixed-sex and male pairs.

Tryphaena and Tryphosa are mentioned in a paired context in Romans 16:12 among the missionaries Paul greets by name, establishing connections in preparation for a visit. Missionary pairs were common in early Christian activities. When male-female they are typically interpreted as husband and wife, although the wife might be referred to as a “sister” and there are other contexts where the alternation of “wife” and ”sister” is ambiguous. But pairs appear to have been expected. Most commonly, in translation, a male partner is referred to as “apostle” and a female partner as “sister” or “coworker,” but especially when the original language is considered, there is more overlap of terminology. Both members of a male-female pair might be identified as apostles, or both as “coworkers” or the male partner of a male apostle might be identified as “brother” (with no blood relationship – more in a “brothers in Christ” sense).

All of this suggests that when missionary pairs are described in familial language, it could as easily indicate a constructed religious family not a blood family, similar to the conliberti bond.

The second female pairr, Evodia and Syntyche, are mentioned in Philippians 4:1 where Paul is requesting the agreement of the two who have “co-contested with him in the gospel.” Although some interpreters framed this as a disruptive quarrel between the women, the author suggests that – in parallel with other evidence – this refers to a religious disagreement between Paul of the one hand and a socially important female missionary couple on the other hand.

The third and perhaps more familiar female pair are Mary and Martha, who are described as “sisters” – but as other evidence shows, this could indicate a missionary partnership rather than a blood relationship. The popular interpretation of the Mary/Martha episodes (one in Luke, one in John) presents Mary as the religious disciple and Martha as the “housewife” who takes care of hospitality. But a detailed examination of the language once again muddles these roles. Martha – who appears to be the more socially important of the two – is described as “serving” (diekonei) while her “sister” Mary is described in language indicating a disciple. One historian argues that diakonos (minister) and adelphe (sister) were functionally titles used by missionary pairs. In a male-female pair the “sister” would typically be interpreted as having the supportive wife-like role (if not actually a wife), but in the Martha/Mary pair it is Mary who is called “sister” and Martha called “minister” reversing the popular reading of their roles. Further, one older variant text of Luke has one additional word, indicating that “[Martha] had a sister called Mary who also sat at the feet of Jesus” [emphasis added] whereas variants that omit the “also” are the ones interpreted as saying that only Mary sat at his feet – i.e. acted as a disciple.

The article continues with a deep dive into the uses and context of adelphos/adelphe (brother/sister) in the context of missionary pairs, to support the interpretation of Martha/Mary as functioning as just such a pair.

Summing all this up, and returning to the comparison with conliberti, the author suggests that the early Christian community included and embraced pair-bonded couples of all gender combinations who functioned as constructed family units, regardless of whether those pairings may have had an erotic component.

Later reinterpretations and revisions of this textual material to downplay women’s importance in Christian hierarchies and communities had the side effect of downplaying the presence and acceptance of these female pair-bonds, especially their marriage-like aspects.