Florence Gantenbein: Von Priska bis Drusiana, Kartoniert / Broschiert

Blurb

Florence Gantenbein examines the public roles of early Christian women in imperial Ephesus during the first and second centuries CE. Her starting point is the large number of women who held public office in imperial Ephesus - serving as prytanes, gymnasiarchs, and priestesses of Artemis Ephesia and the imperial cult - and who are attested in numerous inscriptions. In addition to members of the urban elite, she also draws on sources concerning the midwives of the Ephesian physician Soranus, women in associations and Jewish communities, and the portrayal of gender-specific stereotypes in Artemidorus's Book of Dreams. Against this local and historical backdrop, the author analyzes the scope of action available to early Christian women based on literary and epigraphic sources. She examines Prisca from the Pauline epistles and traditional literature as well as the Acts of the Apostles; the prophetess and teacher referred to as "Jezebel" in the Book of Revelation; the wise virgins of the Epistula Apostolorum; and Cleopatra and Drusiana from the Acts of John. Drawing on sociological theories of identity and current research in gender history, the author develops the concept of "functional activity" as a heuristic category that goes beyond traditional questions about church offices. In doing so, she productively applies the concept of "functionaries" - derived from ancient history research - to the early Christian context and further develops it as an analytical category. Florence Gantenbein demonstrates that, in both urban and early Christian contexts, gender - as a social or collective identity - exhibits context-specific salience and can only be adequately understood in interaction with other social identities. The study thus connects the history of early Christian women and female figures with that of the early Christian movements in Ephesus and with the social and gender history of the Roman imperial period.