Identity - Lesson 11

Dr. James Houston

Identity

th731-11

Christian Women—Virgin Identity in Late Antiquity

Lesson Transcript

Our sixth address is on Christian women’s identity as virgins in Late Antiquity. They were virgins in and for Christ. And this subject has not been explored very much by evangelicals, though one of our own distinguished alumni [Andrea Stirk 00:00:28] has explored this extensively in her publications. And one of her essays on this will be included in our volume, that I was speaking about at the beginning, that will be published to celebrate our jubilee.

The other reason why perhaps this is rather unknown territory for most of us is because it’s dealing with the Syriac world after the establishment of the Church and many scholars until recently had no access to the Syriac literature or what we now call the churches, for example, like Syria and on the borders of the great empires that developed in the period that follows. It’s also a period that we used to call the Dark Ages, but which we now can call Late Antiquity. It was dark because there wasn’t much research made on this period, but, of course, it was as highly cultural as any of the previous civilisations. It had moved to a new phase into Central Asia.

We were mentioning before how the Apostle Paul is listing these 28 names in Romans 16, of whom 15 were women. 12 of them are personally known to Paul. And it suggests, as we’ve said before, that gender differences were not then what they are now. In other words, it was the women who had the home life. The men tended to spend too much time in the baths. And it was the women that therefore had their house churches and took initiative in the founding of these early house churches throughout the Roman Empire. And it’s in that context then of the importance of women that we are arguing we need to recover the equality of women Biblically in our culture today. All these changes we need to bear in mind for our own change of paradigm.

We also find that women were very active in the beginning of the monastic movement of the 4th century onwards. When persecution had died down, instead of considering themselves as red martyrs for the faith, now the ascetic life of living in the desert was viewed as the life that was the ascetic life for martyrdom. White martyrs, they were called because of their lack of food and deprivation. They were expressing a new form of embodiment. One of the things that is so important for us to realise is that what keeps us from being Gnostic Christians is that we have to embody our acts of knowledge and this embodiment of faith took on these different forms: the embodiment of witness in death, the embodiment of witness in asceticism. These were efforts that were made to apply knowledge to deed and action. And so it’s in this context that the rise of women becomes a very significant thing.

I was privileged at Oxford where we had one of the few departments of Syriac languages that Sebastian Brock was the first really Western scholar to explore all this literature of this particular period. The Syriac language is actually a development of Aramaic, but it’s been scarcely recognised until recent times. And so Sebastian Brock is a work that I would recommend you to read called Holy Women of the Syrian Orient, which he published in 1987. It’s the first of its kind in English language, for the other book on the holy women of the Syrian Orient are in Persian and Arabic and [Armenian 00:05:59] and Georgian, all of which are not accessible to most of us as Western readers. What we are therefore ignorant of is the extraordinary courage of these single women, of their martyrdom, which had such a widespread growth of Christian communities throughout Asia.

Do you know that the pioneer to Christianise the whole of the Yemen was a woman? Do you know that the foundation of the Armenian church in the Eastern caucuses was a woman? Do you know that the first pioneer to enter and evangelise Georgia in the Western caucuses was a woman? They were all virgins and it was in their martyrdom that they became the patron saints of these territories, though today the notion of having a patron saint for pre-Islamic Yemen is totally inconceivable. Perhaps we will yet recognise that’s what the source of these areas were. They were women who were doing this.

We have to explain why. With the break up of the Roman Empire, not only was there raiding and therefore the raiding of slaves in the Western empire, but with the break up of the Eastern empire it was exactly the same. So it was the raiding and deportation of thousands of people to create new cities and new empires that really is where the spread of the Gospel continued, though we don’t have the documentation of it ourselves. And so in the 3rd century, the Iranian Shah Shapur I, who reigned between 240 and 270, proclaimed a massive campaign. He said we have led away into captivity men from the empire of the Romans, non-Iranians—in other words, he was raiding Roman territory—and settle them into our empire of Iranians in Persia, in Susiana in Asuristan, which is now, today, Iraq. Those that survived the long journeys were settled from the Roman cities of Antioch and Nisibis and [Carey 00:09:08] and they were spread into Iran to create newly founded cities there, like [Gansipur 00:09:18] and Bishipur, or to restore ancient ones that had decayed.

These deportees were not only soldiers, but deliberately they raided the right kind of people: craftsmen, builders, engineers, doctors and scholars. In other words, the kind of population that was needed to create urban dwellers. Under Shapur II, further Roman deportees were selected especially because they were specialists as craftsmen in glass, in metalwork and textiles. This is where the beginning of the famous textile industry that we associate with Central Asia came about. We are told that many of them were vibrant Christian communities in Iran and that further Christian importees were added to them by the transfers of population. One of the smart policies of these Persian emperor, or shahs as they were called, was to keep families together. So as the Christian trait was to be bonded as a family, so very smartly the raiders did the same thing because they wanted a reproductive rate. They knew what the right thing was to do.

And so the Chronicle of Seert narrates the transfer of population from Antioch into Iran and reports that the Christian multiplied also in Persia, building churches and monasteries. Their number included priests who’d been taken prisoner in Antioch and the captivity as the Christian captivity called itself, echoed to them the repetition of Biblical history. In other words, we’ve seen already why Christians always exceeded the population of the local community because of the equality of family life between girls and boys. This was not true in these other cultures. Again like we see in China today, again like we see in the Roman Empire, the preference was for a male son. But this is where the uniqueness of Christian demographics was constantly always excelling.

Their faithful service to their new masters that were called the Shahshanshah is also recorded. The Martyrdom of Candida is a wonderful, moving picture of one of these young virgins: a young Christian of great beauty, who was imported from one of the Christian settlements in the Eastern empire and raised as a Christian by her parents. She’s like Esther that’s taken into the king’s court as one of his wives, but by jealousy within the harem she was falsely accused, tortured and martyred when she refused to apostasise. Other deportees were converted on the arduous journeys because they saw the faith of their fellow deportees that were so strong in comparison to their demoralised state. So whether on the travel in exile, whether in the exile in their new communities, always the Christians excelled because of their moral character and stamina. The Syriac martyrdom of the captives refers to the important role of one particular bishop called Bishop Heliodorous, who was numbered among 9,000 deported prisoners ministering pastorally on the arduous journey. He kept going backwards and forwards along the long line of refugees or deported and he died with the extremities of his exhaustion.

Under Shapur II, who was the grandson of the first, who reigned 309–379, he was much less tolerant than his grandfather. He built the new city of Karka d-Laden, which he deliberately colonised, very smartly, with 30 families from each ethnic group. And again, it was because as the result of family ties and affection and their intermarriage, he knew that they would become cohesive and they would not run away. Instead, the other ethnic groups also became Christian because they saw the love within the Christian families that they’d never witness. Thus, Christianity expanded vigorously. You see, the emphasis all the way through is it’s the family that is the witness for Christ. It’s the family that has the stability to demographically succeed. It’s the family that is really the crux of a Christian identity. And so Christianity expanded vigorously.

And so, of course, they were also highly recognised in the society. They rose in rank. So we read of Posi, who’s a Christian master weaver and embroiderer, so finding favour with the king of kings that he’s appointed to the royal workshop next to the palace, rather like Daniel, having supervisory responsibility for all the other workshops of the kingdom. He was like another Joseph, you see. But it was jealousy, of course, that angered the Zoroastrian priests, who tried to convince the shah he was being disloyal to their language. In vain, the shah responded but he’s the most useful member of my kingdom, reminiscent of how Nebuchadnezzar tried to defend his three young advisors, yet forced to place them in the lion’s den. Posi was martyred. And then his daughter Martha was offered marriage by [inaudible 00:17:14]. Again, refusing, she suffered martyrdom.

Persecution continued relentlessly throughout the 5th century and yet Christianity flourished more than ever before. The Armenian historian Elisha recites a letter from a Magian chief priest, who speaks of the Christians’ unstoppable expansion, their inexplicable wealth lavished on church buildings and monasteries and their incredible endurance under torture and martyrdom. By now, in this world, the captives was an interchangeable word for Christian. The word witness had become interchangeable before with Christian. Now, in this new set of circumstances, it’s the captives who are the Christians. Hated by the Zoroastrian priests, it was their faithful service to the shahs and their skilled craftsmanship which continued to ingratiate them with their rulers.

Also in the Chronicle of Seert is the story of a young physician, [Bahshabah 00:18:49], who was a desert ascetic, having mastered both Syriac and Persian, he gained a great reputation for being a healer and came to the notice of the Shahshanshah. Brought to the court, he healed one of the shah’s concubines and converted the shah’s sister to become a Christian. Refusing to renounce her faith, the shah exiled his sister to Central Asia, giving her in marriage to the provincial governor of [inaudible 00:19:32] in [Shirvan 00:19:34]. Later, Bahshabah was permitted to visit Shirvan in [inaudible 00:19:39], where he consecrated a church, was ordained the bishop and allowed to evangelise the vast region of Khorasan, that extended beyond the Asian frontiers of Persia. In other words, all that it does is to spread the Gospel right across Asia now. Again persecution continued relentlessly throughout the 5th century, but Christianity flourished more than ever.

The Armenian historian Elisha recites a letter of a Magian chief priest, who speaks of the Christians’ relentless expansion, their inexplicable wealth and their incredible endurance. So he shrewdly advised the shah of his time not to pursue the intense persecution of [ancestors 00:20:44] as being counterproductive. There’s no point in persecuting Christians—they only spread. This was a new voice in the movement. Well, what was true in the great empire building of Central Asia was also, of course, true in the Roman Empire to the south and to the north. And so whether it’s among the Goths or the Huns or the Arabs, we find this great spread and although they might be abducted as slaves, we keep on hearing the same story in the same scenario.

The Saracens, or the nomadic Arabs, also pillaged for profit, also ransomed, also sold their captives into slavery. And Jerome’s Life of Malchus tells the story of a young Syrian monk captured by nomad raiders and assigned to an master attending sheep. And he can do this while still practising his monastic life. He can still sing the Psalms and pray continuously in the desert. A pious, Christian woman separated from her husband when they’re both taken captive is forced to marry Malchus. So they carry on as before, both chaste in their virginity for the remainder of their lives. As Jerome concludes, in the midst of swords and the wild beasts of the desert, virtue is never a captive and he who is devoted to the service of Christ may die, but never can be conquered. This is a beautiful testimony that Jerome gives in his Life of Malchus.

A later group of war-like people from Asia were the Huns, who also raided the borders of the Persian empire, also seizing Christians as slaves or exchanged with their Persian prisoners. By the 6th century, the Armenian bishops were entering the Huns’ territory and building their churches and monasteries. And again, we hear of female captives in the Caucuses, some evangelising Armenia, as I mentioned—[Rapseemia 00:23:45] she was called: the nameless female captive that later was given the name of Saint Nino. That’s what she did in Georgia.

And so I remember vividly going to Yerevan at the auspices of World Vision some years ago and taking by the Catholicos, that is to say, the pope, the leader of the Armenian Church, to their shrine some 60 kilometres north of the capital. And in the church he showed me, he said watch your steps as you’re going down the steps by the high altar. And I watched as I went down the steps. There, there was the clean-cut stone of the Christian foundations of the church. And then as we got below the high altar into the basement, into the crypt, there we saw the rubble of the Zoroastrian church and literally immediately below where is the high altar today is the Zoroastrian large remnant of the pot that would contain the burning oil for the holy fire. And so what we find that Christianity did as a result of this turbulence of slavery and of captivity and exile and martyrdom with it all was it simply spread the flame. Yes, Christ had conquered.

Antiquity then was spreading its influence from being concentrated in great metropolitan centres like Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, to the whole countryside, to the remote parts of the empire. And likewise, its message was moving away from the monopoly of bishops and the great scholarly theologians to the simply-lived life of simple folk. The teaching by Jesus had always been addressed to women to share with others as it had been never been given to women to voice in the Roman world. And now the advent of the Kingdom of God was first announced by Jesus himself and then by the Apostles. Yes, the Apostle Paul could debate it publicly on Mars Hill in Athens, but most frequently he shared it domestically in house churches, as he did in Rome and the other cities of the empire. Others followed, as we studied it in the 2nd century. But after the rise of Christendom with the whole empire being Christianised, then the debates developed over the nature of God, first in the Nicean Council of [325 00:27:17] and then in later church councils. And there developed the Arian heresy that denied the deity of Christ as the Son of God, which spread widely into the Eastern diocese. Then dissensions over the Council of Chalcedon followed in 451.

Now Christ was being sharply divided as being one in two natures: human and divine. And being human, yes, he suffered. As divine, he performed miracles. One in two nature: human and divine. The Chalcedon theologians wanted to be able to always explain things. That’s what academics do—they’re always explaining. And the consequence was that it was settled by the Chalcedonians that the two natures of Jesus were that it was as Jesus that he told parables and it was as Christ that he gave healing. They split his humanity from his deity. Whereas, of course, those who had simply settled that no God could ever become man… so this Greek background that was so strong in Eastern Asia was the rise of this movement of the Nicean creed of this controversy about monophysitism: teaching that he was either not properly human or that he was only human. We don’t realise that that was a seed bed for Islam two centuries later; that if it hadn’t been for all this controversy within the Church, Islam would never have arisen.

So when Justin 1 ascended the Byzantine imperial throne in 518, it now became imperial policy to dramatically enforce the doctrine that we call the doctrine of Chalcedonian theologians. There was one voice of opposition: John of Ephesus. Writing in his Lives of the Eastern Saints, he writes about the stories of men and women who were being persecuted and slain by their fellow Christians simply because they were accepting that Jesus lived an ordinary Christian life as they lived an ordinary peasant life. And so, vividly, John of Ephesus depicts their daily lives in all its domesticity, just facing ordinary problems, but were extraordinary individuals and their families. They were truly the epistles of Christ known and read of all men, who needed no Council of Chalcedon. They were living the mystery. In our previous lectures that we had on immanence and transcendence, this is what Chalcedon did not understand: that the Christian lives in these two realms. He lives with immanence and domesticity. He lives with transcendence in terms of the mystery of who Christ is. So for the first time in the history of early Christianity, we have exposure to what it was like to be an ordinary Christian.

One of the first essays that I wrote in the beginning of Regent was an essay on simply being a mere Christian. And being a mere Christian is just an ordinary Christian. It’s so easy for us to have Chalcedonian trends, even in our own lives today. God has no extraordinary men and women. He simply has simple fishermen, simple domestic women. He simply lives in Nazareth where they live. The evidence is that there were thousands of refugees, thousands of deportees, thousands that were martyred, whole communities uprooted just over this controversy.

Now we come to the Christian confrontation with Islam. Ironically, the territories overrun by later Islam, such as the Yemen or Southern Egypt or parts of Armenia, had all been Christianised before by virgin martyrs. And during the late 4th century, we read of an enigmatic community of Christians in the wake of the sever persecutions of Shapur II, whose spiritual leader wrote a collection of 30 discourses entitled the Book of Steps, arguing the need to distinguish the upright and the perfect, the former being laity, who may marry, and the latter celibate, who pray unceasingly and teach and mediate conflicts. Again, you have the same thing: you have this hierarchical scaling of what it is to be a Christian. But a bishop can never be perfect. He’s got too many worldly issues to administer, so why call him perfect?

Four centuries later, an extraordinary multi-talented bishop called Timothy of Baghdad translated Classical Greek texts into Arabic, was a codifier of a new system of law. He was a brilliant administrator, a theologian of great depth. In other words, in many ways he was replicating a lot of the skills of Augustine in his threefold development. He promoted missionary penetration along the Silk Road so extensively into Asia and beyond into China that his diocese is called the Church of the East. No diocese has ever exceeded the diocese of Timothy of Baghdad. It stretched from Western Asia right into China. Incredible! He was elected the patriarch in 780 as I say as these Eastern hierarchies were called, for 43 years. And remarkably, he enabled the Church of the East to co-exist, uneasily, with its Muslim rulers as strangers in their own land.

But at the same time, Timothy was not concerned about personal holiness. He was a politician. We might call him an outstanding Christian politician, but not a man of devotion. No, the people of devotion were the women.