Mary and Early Christian Women: Hidden Leadership

ISBN-13: 9783030111106 / Angielski / Twarda / 2019 / 295 str.

Ally Kateusz

Recenzje

"Ally Kateusz has written an engaging and extensively researched book examining the evidence for liturgical roles for women in the early Church. ... Mary and Early Christian Women will certainly be encouraging to those girls and women who have only seen examples of male leadership in the Church, and for whom the example of Mary has been misused and abused, by providing an alternative image of an empowered, active Mary as a type for female leadership in the early Church." (Nell Whiscombe, Modern Believing, Vol. 64 (4), 2023)

"This book will inspire Christian scholars, ministers, and congregations to rethink their perspectives on gender roles in Christianity. ... this book will assist in breaking the prevalent misperception that early church women leaders were rare. It will challenge readers to fully acknowledge that women have been integrally present throughout Christian history." (JungJa Joy Yu, Reading Religion, readingreligion.org, April 27, 2021)

"Ally Kateusz presents a multidisciplinary analysis of literary texts, church art, and church ... . She supports her literary and iconographic claims with official church commissions, directives, and commentaries, sometimes made by popes. .... For scholars, the book is a treasure trove, with thirty-nine pages of references and fifty pages of notes. ... Mary and Early Christian Women: Hidden Leadership is a stimulating read and the author's perspective on imagination and Christian history will make you think. Highly recommended." (Elizabeth Ursic, Cross-Currents, Vol. 71 (1), March, 2021)

"Mary and Early Christian Women would certainly interest readers who are invested in women's roles in churches and especially readers invested in Catholicism. ... The artwork included in this book is stunning, and the images portray Mary and other women in significant liturgical roles. Overall, Mary and Early Christian Women is a significant contribution to the field for its attention to extracanonical texts, artistic analysis, and its accessibility." (Christy Cobb, RBL, Review of Biblical Literature, Issue 12, 2020)

Spis treści

1.            Background and Perspective on Mary

                Why the Mother of Jesus?

                Mary, a Jew

                Mary Remembered in the Extracanonical Gospels

                Methodology

                The Power of Bio-Power

                Breaking the Box of Our False Imagination of the Past

 

2.            More Collyridian Déjà vu

                The Old Rule of Thumb: lectio brevior potior

                Redaction Analysis of Mary’s Religious Authority

                A Scene of Mary Exorcising Demons

                Women Using Censers and Incense

Kernels of Historicity: Women Using Censers Liturgically

                Redaction Analysis of the Markers of Women’s Authority

 

3.            Women Apostles: Preachers and Baptizers

                Assembling a Jigsaw Puzzle—The Apostle Mariamne in the Acts of Philip

                Sexual Slander as Evidence of Women in the Clergy

                Irene, Apostle of Jesus

                The Long Narrative about Irene’s Life

                Male Re-Baptizers and the Apostle Nino

                Irene Baptizes and Seals

                The “Apostle” Thecla Baptizes and Seals

                Dating Controversy: When Was the Life of Thecla Composed?

                The Thecla Tertullian Knew

                Cultural Context

 

4.            Mary, High Priest and Bishop

                Jesus’s Mother Versus 1 Timothy

                Mary in Art: High Priest and Bishop

                Mary with the Episcopal Pallium

                Mary with the Cloth of the Eucharistic Officiant

                Women with the Cloth of the Eucharistic Officiant

 

5.            Mother and Son, Paired

                Mother and Son Paired on Objects Used in the Liturgy

                Dividing the Mother-Son Dyad: The Maria Maggiore Mosaics

                The Mother-Son Dyad in Art Prior to the Council of Ephesus

                Mother and Son Paired in Third- and Fourth-Century Funereal Art

 

6.            The Life of the Virgin and Its Antecedents

                The Oldest Text of the Life of the Virgin

                The Annunciation to Mary in the Temple

                Mary at the Baptism of Her Son

                The Women at the Lord’s Supper

                Partaking at the Temple Altar in the Gospel of Bartholomew

                Gender Parallelism in the Liturgy in the Didascalia apostolorum

                The Ritual of Body and Blood according to the Apostolic Church Order

 

7.            Women and Men at the Last Supper: Reception

                Female and Male Co-Officiants from the Second Century Onwards

                Writings that Paired Male and Female Clerical Titles

                Women Overseers or Bishops

                Cerula and Bitalia, Ordained Bishops

                Historicity of Pulcheria inside the Holy of Holies of the Second Hagia Sophia

                Female and Male Clergy at the Altar in Old Saint Peter’s Basilica

                The Ciborium in Old Saint Peter’s Basilica

                The Altar in Old Saint Peter’s Basilica

                Possible Identification of the Male and Female Officiants at the Altar Table

                Theodora and Justinian in San Vitale: Modeling Mary and Jesus at the Last Supper

                Third-Century Evidence of Gender Parity at the Offering Table

 

8. Modes of Silencing

Modes of Silencing the Past

Breaking the Box of Our False Imagination of the Past

O autorze

Dr. Ally Kateusz is Research Associate at the Wijngaards Institute of Catholic Research in London. She is a cultural historian whose work focuses on religion and gender. Her research has been published in the Journal of Early Christian Studies, the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, as well as other venues, and has won prestigious awards.

Blurb

This book is open access under a CC BY-NC-ND license.

This book reveals exciting early Christian evidence that Mary was remembered as a powerful role model for women leaders—women apostles, baptizers, and presiders at the ritual meal.  Early Christian art portrays Mary and other women clergy serving as deacon, presbyter/priest, and bishop. In addition, the two oldest surviving artifacts to depict people at an altar table inside a real church depict women and men in a gender-parallel liturgy inside two of the most important churches in Christendom—Old Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome and the second Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. Dr. Kateusz’s research brings to light centuries of censorship, both ancient and modern, and debunks the modern imagination that from the beginning only men were apostles and clergy.