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4 Contexts of Women’s Leadership in Roman Society

Four Social Contexts where Women could Lead

The Greco-Roman world was patriarchal and highly stratified, and women were typically thought to be less capable than men. So how is it that some Christian women were able to exercise their ministry gifts, including speaking and leadership gifts, in churches?

There were a few contexts within broader Roman society where women could function as leaders. Some of these contexts shared similarities with the church. These similarities made it possible for resourceful and gifted Christian women to lead and minister in Christian congregations. This article looks at four social contexts of the wider Greco-Roman world where women could lead.

1. Household and Business

In larger Roman homes, the public and domestic spheres merged. It was in such homes that women who were in charge of large households could exercise authority and leadership.

Households could be sizeable communities consisting of immediate family, extended family, slaves, servants, and employees. Businesses were often run in households. Women’s experiences as managers of these households established their leadership in other settings in Greco-Roman society, including house churches and synagogues.[1]

The New Testament identifies several women who were householders: Mary of Jerusalem, Lydia in Philippi, Prisca with Aquila, Chloe of Corinth, Nympha of Laodicea, and the Chosen Lady in Asia Minor, etc. These women, some of whom may have been independently wealthy widows, would have exercised leadership within their own households, managing the running of their homes and home-based businesses and industries. They would have maintained their position when they hosted church meetings in their homes, especially as most of the church members would have included their family members, slaves, and clients.[2]

That is not to say that all Christian householders functioned like senior pastors or priests today. In the early decades of the church, ministries were shared within congregations and all could contribute according to their gifts and resources (1 Cor. 14:26). However, the wealthier householders were usually the ones who hosted visiting apostles, prophets, and teachers. And they were usually the people responsible for the welfare of the congregation that met in their home and controlled who was and who wasn’t welcome in church meetings (cf. 2 John 1:10).

Livia Drusilla, wife of Caesar Augustus

Livia Drusilla, wife of Caesar Augustus (Museo Arqueológico Nacional de España)

2. Wealth and Patronage

Some of the more wealthy women in the church were able to exercise leadership due to the social system of patronage.[3] Patronage was an important part of Roman society. Seneca, a prominent Roman statesman, described it as “the chief bond of human society” (De Beneficiis 1.4.2). Livia, the wife of Caesar Augustus, “invented new ways of extending patronage”[4] and, after her husband’s death, she “developed a more overt presence in a wide variety of public forums.”[5] Other high-status Roman women followed Livia’s example. By exercising influence through patronage, these women gained a greater public presence.

We know that Christianity attracted wealthy women who were prominent in their communities (e.g., Acts 13:50; 17:4, 12). The system of patronage gave these women a high level of influence in their congregations. This was especially true if the patron was also the host of the church.[6] Lydia was a wealthy businesswoman, as well as being a householder. She was likely a patron as well as the host of the church that met in her home in Philippi, a congregation that included her entire household and others (Acts 16:15, 40). Phoebe of Cenchrea is plainly called a patron (prostatis) in Romans 16:2b. Here Paul wrote that Phoebe “has been a benefactor (prostatis) of many and of myself as well.” (NRSV) Phoebe was not only a patron, she was also a deacon, or minister, of her church (Rom. 16:1-2).

While being wealthy gave elite women an advantage, wealth was not, and should not be, a prerequisite for ministry or leadership. Nevertheless, wealthy women who acted as patrons continued to be influential in the church even when other ministerial functions and positions were increasingly denied to them. In many churches, male clergy “welcomed women as patrons and even offered women roles in which they could act as collaborators. By 200 AD, the role of women [as patrons and collaborators] in Christian churches was quite unmistakable.”[7] Like the apostle Paul, some of the “great” men of early Christianity, such as Clement of Alexandria (b.150), Origen (b.184/5), and Jerome (b. 347) were supported by wealthy female friends and patronesses.[8]

3. Voluntary Associations

There was still another social context that allowed women in Roman society to exercise leadership.

It has been noted by several scholars that some of the very early churches functioned like the many voluntary associations and trade guilds that proliferated in the first century.[9] These associations and guilds were a subset of society. They had their own “highly developed constitutions with an established pattern of selecting and appointing leading officials. Many of these groups included non-citizens or slave members who earned positions of leadership within this limited context.”[10]

Women could not vote or run for office in some, perhaps many, trade guilds, but they could be its patrons.[11] Lydia who dealt in expensive purple cloth, Prisca who was a tentmaker, and women like them, could have belonged to a professional guild where they may have exercised leadership and influence. These women could use their influence to help people from the lower echelons of society to be leaders within a guild. Some associations were dependent on female patrons.[12]

The activities of guilds, like most institutions in Roman society, included rituals of worship to pagan gods and to the emperor, so it is difficult to see how men and women, after conversion to Christianity, could have remained in these associations with a clear conscience. Nevertheless, some customs of voluntary associations seem to have been adopted by at least some house churches, including the acceptance of leadership and ministry by people from the lower echelons of society. Unlike the associations and guilds, however, women, even slave women, could become recognised ministers in the very early church.[13]

The Household Gods by John William Waterhouse

The Household Gods by John William Waterhouse (Public Domain)

4. Pagan Cults

It is widely documented in ancient literature and in inscriptions that some pagan women were priestesses and prophetesses and held some of the highest offices in the cults of the Greco-Roman world.[14] The women and girls who were eligible to hold these positions typically came from elite, wealthy families. The Vestal Virgins of Rome are a notable example of wealthy women who held esteemed religious offices. The Vestal Virgins tended the sacred hearth of Rome and presided over religious festivals, including the festival of the Bona Dea (“good goddess”) held in December each year.

Religious offices often came with civic responsibilities. And vice versa, people with important civic responsibilities often held priesthoods. Many senators and statesmen were priests. This was also true for the emperor. The highest office in the state religion of ancient Rome was the Pontifex Maximus. From Augustus onwards, the title and office of Pontifex Maximus was bestowed on all Roman Emperors.

Women priests also could exercise both civil and religious authority. For instance, the priestess of Hestia, called a prytanus, functioned somewhat like a town mayor. Paul Trebilco writes, “In Asia Minor twenty-eight women were known to have held the position of prytanus (a position of very high rank involving the finances and cultic life of the city) in eight cities of the first three centuries of the Common Era.”[15]

While elite first-century women could be priestesses, and even high priestesses, ordinary women played certain roles in religious rituals held within the home. This broad social acceptance of women ministers in the pervasive religious culture of the Roman Empire meant that many people in the church would not have baulked at Christian women ministering in Christian congregations. Some of the problems in the congregations in Corinth, Ephesus, and Thyatira, may even have been caused by newly-converted women bringing elements of pagan religion into the church.

Conclusion

Despite the patriarchal culture of the Roman Empire, the setting of the New Testament Church, there were ways for women to have influence and be leaders, particularly in the four social contexts of household, patronage, voluntary associations, and pagan cults. These accepted cultural contexts spilled over into church settings and enabled women to have influence and be leaders in congregations of the very early church.

The most important criteria for ministry, however, were spiritual giftings, capabilities, and character. These criteria are discussed elsewhere on this website (including here). For Paul, giftedness was the key to ministry.

Footnotes

[1] Deborah M. Gill and Barbara Cavaness, Barbara, God’s Women—Then and Now (Springfield, MO: Grace and Truth, 2009) (Kindle Locations 862-870)

[2] Many congregations saw themselves as families, or households, of siblings in Christ (Eph. 2:19; 1 Tim. 3:15), with the responsibilities of church supervisors (episkopoi) often being “the same as, or at least modelled upon the manager of a household” (cf. 1 Tim. 3:4). Damien A. Casey, “The ‘Fractio Panis’ and Eucharist as Eschatological Banquet”, Theology@McAuley Issue 2 (August 2002) (Source)
Sometimes women were the managers, or overseers, of households.

[3] “Leadership, wealth, and patronage were inextricably intertwined  . . .  This is the context for understanding the status of wealthy widows as patrons. . . . The possession of wealth itself created the expectation of leadership.” Katherine Bain, Women’s Socioeconomic Status and Religious Leadership in Asia Minor in the First Two Centuries CE (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2014), 124.

[4] Beth Severy, Augustus and the Family at the Birth of the Roman Empire (London: Routledge, 2004), 234.

[5] Ibid., 236.

[6] “Because patronage was ‘in many ways gender-blind’ women could deliberately, or as a by-product of their benefaction, increase their honor and presence in the public arena. . . . Women patrons thus won for themselves liberty to speak and act in political and religious affairs.”
Greg W. Forbes and Scott D. Harrower, Raised from Obscurity: A Narratival and Theological Study of the Characterization of Women in Luke-Acts (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2015), 32. (I’ve posted a review of this outstanding book here.)

[7] Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), 144-145.

[8] Jesus was also supported financially by female patrons who were also disciples (Luke 8:2-3).

[9] For example, Philip Harland, Associations, Synagogues and Congregations: Claiming a Place in Ancient Mediterranean Society (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress Press, 2003)

[10] Andrew D. Clarke, Serve the Community of the Church: Christians as Leaders and Ministers (Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2000), 4.

[11] Hilary Becker, “Roman Women in the Urban Economy: Occupations, Social Connections, and Gendered Exclusions”, Women in Antiquity: Real Women across the Ancient World. Rewriting Antiquity, Stephanie Lynn Budin, Jean MacIntosh Turfa (eds) (London, New York: Routledge, 2016) 915-931, 923-924.

[12] For example, we have evidence of a woman from Pompeii who was a patron of an association.

Eumachia, was a priestess and a benefactor of an association of fullers. The evidence of her benefactions and building activities has been preserved in inscriptions. She erected a large multi-function building on the Pompeian forum. One of the building’s functions was to provide a meeting place for an association of fullers. Her activities date from the early first century C.E. The patronage of the association of fullers is indicated in an inscription placed on the base of Eumachia’s statue situated in the Pompeian forum:

To Eumachia, daughter of Lucius, public priestess, the fullers (set this up). Eumachia, daughter of Lucius, public priestess (sacerd[os] publ[ica]), in her own name (nomine suo) and that of her son, Marcus Numistrius Fronto, built at her own expense (sua pecunia) the chalcidicum, crypt and portico in honour of Augustan Concord and Piety and also dedicated them.

Kaisa-Maria Pihlava, The Authority of Women Hosts of Early Christian Gatherings in the First and Second Centuries C.E. Dissertation, University of Helsinki (2016), 59.

[13] Some male and female slaves in the early church appear to have become bishops (Ignatius, Ign.Eph 1:3, etc) and deacons (Pliny, Letters 10:96).

[14] See chapter 5 of Lynn H. Cohick’s book Women in the World of the Earliest Christians: Illuminating Ancient Ways of Life (Baker Academic, 2009), 159ff, for more on the religious activities of Greco-Roman women.

[15] Paul Trebilco, Jewish Communities in Asia Minor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 120.

© Margaret Mowczko 2015
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Images

(1) Statue of Livia Drusilla (Wikimedia)
(2) The Household Gods (1880) by John William Waterhouse (WikiArt)


Explore more

The First Century Church and the Ministry of Women
The Prominence of Women in the Cults of Ephesus
The Role of Overseers in First-Century Churches
Women and Men and Ministry in First-Century Churches (3-part series)
Women Church Leaders in the New Testament
Phoebe as Patron
Nympha: A House Church Leader in the Lycus Valley
Working Women in the New Testament: Priscilla, Lydia, Phoebe
Wives, Mothers, and Female Masters in the NT Household Codes
Wealthy Women in the First-Century Roman World and in the Church

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