The Sorrows of Mattidia: A New Translation and Commentary 2018008878, 2018010290, 9780429507915, 9780429018756, 9780429018749, 9780429018732, 9781138579613

Table of contents :
Cover
Title
Copyright
Contents
List of illustrations
Acknowledgements
Part I Women of the Clementina
1 What is The Sorrows of Mattidia?
A Introduction
B Obscured origins
C An ancient romance
2 Women of the Clementina
A Overview
B Women of the Clementina
i Mattidia
a Historical background: Mattidia the Elder and Mattidia the Younger
b Mattidia, the mother of Clement
ii Mattidia and the widow(s) of Arados
iii Mattidia and the wife of Peter
iv Justa and her daughter, Bernice
v Helena and female prophecy
3 Women and gender relations in the community of Peter
A Feminist historiography and The Sorrows of Mattidia
B Peter, Paul, and women
C Jewish, Christian, and other women in the ancient Mediterranean world
4 Sylvia’s gift
Part II The Sorrows of Mattidia
5 The Sorrows of Mattidia: author, text, bibliography, and translation
6 The Sorrows of Mattidia
A Introduction: The Sorrows of Mattidia (Homilies 12.8–12.14)
B The first recognition: Mattidia on Arados (Homilies 12.15–12.24)
C The second recognition: Mattidia and her twins (Homilies 13.1–13.8)
D An interlude: concerning Justa and Simon Magus (Homilies 2.19–2.25; 3.73–4.1)
E The third recognition: Mattidia and Faustus (Homilies 13.9–13.13; 13.20–14.10)
F Mattidia and the magi (Homilies 20.11–20.23)
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

THE SORROWS OF MATTIDIA

The Sorrows of Mattidia is a fictional story in the Ps-Clementine writings that narrates the adventures and conversion of a noble woman to Christianity. The  authors’ approach  to these texts with their complex conceptual and methodological problems is well argued, and a new translation based on a text-critical reconstruction of the Greek Homilies is a welcome addition. These texts from the Ps-Clementines are generally interesting and will hopefully generate worthwhile discussions among scholars and students. Annewies van den Hoek, Harvard University, USA

This volume offers a new translation of the Pseudo-Clementine family narrative here known as The Sorrows of Mattidia. It contains a full introduction that explores the obscured origins of the text, the plot, and the main characters, and engages in a comparison of the portrayal of pagan, Jewish, and Christian women in this text with what we encounter in other literature. It also discusses a general strategy for how historians can utilize fictional narratives like this when examining the lives of women in the ancient world. This translation makes this fascinating source for late antique women available in this form for the first time. Curtis Hutt is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, USA, and the Founding Executive Director of the Leonard and Shirley Goldstein Center for Human Rights. Jenni Irving is an epigrapher and lecturer of Ancient Languages and Classical Studies at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, and the University of Nebraska at Omaha, USA. She also is an instructional designer for a Fortune 500 company.

ROUTLEDGE CLASSICAL TRANSLATIONS

Routledge Classical Translations  provide scholars and students with accurate, modern translations of key texts that illuminate distinctive aspects of the classical world and come from a range of periods, from early Greece to the Byzantine empire. Volumes include thematic groupings of texts, texts from important authors, and texts from the Byzantine period that are relevant for the study of the classical world but that remain inaccessible. Each volume has accompanying notes and commentary that provide a solid framework for deeper understanding of the material. As well as providing translations of significant texts, the series makes available material that is untranslated into English or difficult to access, and places these texts within new contexts to open up areas of study and support research. THE HISTORY OF ZONORAS From Alexander Severus to the Death of Theodosius the Great Thomas Banchich and Eugene Lane CTESIAS’ “HISTORY OF PERSIA” Tales of the Orient Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones and James Robson BYZANTINE READINGS OF ANCIENT HISTORIANS Texts in Translation, with Introductions and Notes Anthony Kaldellis THE LOST HISTORY OF PETER THE PATRICIAN An Account of Rome’s Imperial Past from the Age of Justinian Thomas Banchich THE SORROWS OF MATTIDIA A New Translation and Commentary Curtis Hutt and Jenni Irving www.routledge.com/classicalstudies/series/CLTRA

THE SORROWS OF MATTIDIA A New Translation and Commentary

Curtis Hutt

Translated by Jenni Irving

First published 2019 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 Curtis Hutt and Jenni Irving The right of Curtis Hutt and Jenni Irving to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Hutt, Curtis, editor. | Irving, Jenni, translator. Title: The Sorrows of Mattidia: a new translation and commentary/ Curtis Hutt; translated by Jenni Irving. Description: New York: Routledge, 2018. | Series: Routledge classical translations | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018008878 (print) | LCCN 2018010290 (ebook) | ISBN 9780429507915 (ebook) | ISBN 9780429018756 (web pdf) | ISBN 9780429018749 (epub) | ISBN 9780429018732 (mobi/kindle) | ISBN 9781138579613 (hardback: alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Christian literature, Early. | Recognitions (Pseudo-Clementine) | Clement I, Pope—Fiction. | Women in Christianity—History—Early church, ca. 30—600. | Christian literature, Early—History and criticism. Classification: LCC BR65.C55 (ebook) | LCC BR65.C55 R4313 2018 (print) | DDC270.1—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018008878 ISBN: 978-1-138-57961-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-50791-5 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC

CONTENTS

List of illustrations Acknowledgements

vii viii

PART I

Women of the Clementina1 1

What is The Sorrows of Mattidia?3 A Introduction 3 B Obscured origins  4 C An ancient romance  8

2

Women of the Clementina17 A Overview 17 B Women of the Clementina 19 i Mattidia 19 a Historical background: Mattidia the Elder and Mattidia the Younger  19 b Mattidia, the mother of Clement  29 ii Mattidia and the widow(s) of Arados  33 iii Mattidia and the wife of Peter  37 iv Justa and her daughter, Bernice  39 v Helena and female prophecy  42

3

Women and gender relations in the community of Peter A Feminist historiography and The Sorrows of Mattidia 53 B Peter, Paul, and women  61 C Jewish, Christian, and other women in the ancient Mediterranean world  64

v

53

C ontents

4

Sylvia’s gift

72

PART II

The Sorrows of Mattidia83 5

The Sorrows of Mattidia: author, text, bibliography, and translation

6

The Sorrows of Mattidia87

85

TRANSLATED BY JENNI IRVING WITH CURTIS HUTT

A Introduction: The Sorrows of Mattidia (Homilies 12.8–12.14)  87 B The first recognition: Mattidia on Arados (Homilies 12.15–12.24)  89 C The second recognition: Mattidia and her twins (Homilies 13.1–13.8)  92 D An interlude: concerning Justa and Simon Magus (Homilies 2.19–2.25; 3.73–4.1)  94 E The third recognition: Mattidia and Faustus (Homilies 13.9–13.13; 13.20–14.10)  97 F Mattidia and the magi (Homilies 20.11–20.23)  102 Bibliography Index

107 115

vi

ILLUSTRATIONS

1.1 Clementina and sources 2.1 Stemma for the Imperial women on the early second century ce 2.2 Marble portrait of Mattidia the Elder. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, Accession Number 13.229.3 2.3 Denarius of Trajan. London © British Museum 2.4 Aureus of Trajan. London © British Museum 2.5 Sestertius of Hadrian. London © British Museum 2.6 Aureus of Antoninus Pius. London © British Museum 2.7 Seal of the Order of Cîteaux (modern cast), c. 1300–50. Paris: Archives Nationales B 1540. Photo: Genevra Kornbluth 2.8 Icon of Our Lady of Valor. Tel Aviv: Our Lady of Valor Pastor Center. Photo: St. James Vicariate for Hebrew Speaking Catholics in Israel, Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem 2.9 Antigua Parroquia de Indios. Mexico City: Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Photo: Curtis Hutt 2.10 Marble Portrait of Mattidia the Younger. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, Accession Number 21.88.35

vii

6 20 21 23 23 23 24 25 26 27 28

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book is the result of a few decades of work. Several people have helped along the way. I want to especially thank Ross Kraemer, Nicole Kelley, Charles King, and anonymous reviewers who supplied comments on earlier versions of the text. Robert Dylan Campbell has worked on the permissions and index. I am, of course, extremely grateful to Jenni Irving for her work on the translation. She has also created the charts found in the text. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the British Museum, and David M. Neuhaus, S. J., from the St. James Vicariate of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem have supplied images for the publication. Most of all, I want to thank my wife, Anna Dunaevsky, who has supported my labors every step of the way. May we never be separated. Curtis Hutt

viii

Part I WOMEN OF THE CLEMENTINA

1 WHAT IS THE SORROWS OF MATTIDIA?

A. Introduction Few narratives in the ancient world enjoyed the popularity of the lost story of Mattidia. The Sorrows of Mattidia – a new title that I have given to what is generally referred to as the family narrative of Clement found in the Pseudo-Clementine literature or Clementina – resonated with audiences from late antiquity until the medieval period, in cultures surrounding the ancient Mediterranean but also in Africa, the Mideast, and northern Europe. Its main characters and plot provided influential antecedents for later classics like the Faust legends and One Thousand and One Arabian Nights. Mattidia herself is connected to emergent traditions related to the Virgin Mary. This epic account of an imperial Roman woman’s fall, separation from and miraculous reunification with her family, and conversion to a peculiar early Christian community of Peter in conflict with the arch-heretic Simon Magus, not only captured the imagination of those familiar with it (such as its promoter, Sylvia of Aquitaine) but also elicited alarm and disquiet. The translator Tyrannius Rufinus of Aquileia, who composed the famous Latin text of the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions, was so troubled by the content of a now-lost Greek manuscript of the work that he not only chose to omit some material found therein but also to disseminate an alternative ending. The composer of the Letter from Peter to James, attached to and introducing the Homilies, left instructions that these special Christian texts were only to be delivered into the hands of “the circumcised.” The Sorrows of Mattidia surprises contemporary readers in a variety of ways. First and foremost, I argue that this narrative has a woman as its main protagonist, although it is generally described as being Clement’s story. The central character – according to the majority of historical Christian and modern academic commentators – is not a silent, aggrieved woman but instead the apostle Peter himself. Second and no less critical for understanding this project, while the Clementina purports to describe life in the ideal first century ce Jewish and Christian community of Peter, scholars know that this is not what we encounter. Rather, the story of Mattidia embedded in this literature cannot be dated to the period before the late second or early third century ce. For many other reasons, The Sorrows of Mattidia unsettles. The decidedly antiPauline, anti-Marcionite, “Judaizing” content is a primary factor behind its demise in 3

WOMEN OF THE CLEMENTINA

the West. So is its use by dissenting Arians, some of whom may have had a role in the production and proliferation of the text. As the letters of Paul became part of the canon and the influence of and connections to earlier Judaisms faded, Christianity became exclusively associated with gentile converts. With the rise of Christian orthodoxies, a variety of “heresies” were identified and pressured to conform. The use and significance of the story of Mattidia changes over time. Earlier pre-Nicene traditions are redeployed and sometimes reformulated for later exigencies. By the medieval period, Mattidia’s reputation had greatly faded, with only droplets of this narrative living on. Just as importantly for this project, in the Pseudo-Clementine story of Mattidia we encounter a community associated with Peter that is thoroughly unlike what is presented in the more well-known Apocryphal Acts associated with this Gospel figure – especially when it comes to the portrayal of the ideal Christian woman. Whereas extreme asceticism and virginity are praised in the Acts of Peter, in the Clementina we are presented with a less socially radical agenda where “family values” associated with imperial Roman and Jewish traditions are advanced. Finally, not only is an earlier censored ending to The Sorrows of Mattidia restored, but also an entire way of reading this narrative is questioned. What at first glance appears to be a story about an impossible, miraculous family reunion “in Christ” for the long-suffering Mattidia is understood to actually promote a very different agenda for women than found in rival “Christian” communities. Mattidia is no Thecla. She is not a virgin and never forsakes her family, even though they are separated from her by pirates and faith. Mattidia is no religious leader and is mostly silent in the company of men unless she is spoken to. The women for whom Mattidia provides an exemplar are supposed to know their place in a religious community and a society that is dominated by men.

B. Obscured origins The Clementina are a group of texts purportedly linked to the life of Clement I, legendary leader of the Church in Rome who according to some traditions was ordained by and succeeded in leadership Peter himself. These writings include most famously the Recognitions and Homilies,1 in addition to Letters to James from Peter and Clement, Epitomes, and “Instructions for Correct Usage.” With the exception of the Letter from Peter to James, the Pseudo-Clementine literature is written ostensibly by Clement in his own hand. This, however, clearly could not have been the case. As will be discussed later, even the most indulgent claims postulating early third century ce crafting of these distinct though related texts place their author at least three generations after the supposed lives of the story’s Roman aristocrats who converted to an early Petrine “Judaizing Christian” community. The character of the narrator himself, as Bernard Pouderon argues convincingly, appears to be the result of a conflation or confusion that occurred decades if not centuries after the lives of two separate historical figures: the Emperor Domitian’s cousin Titus Flavius Clemens, who is described in Rabbinic sources (b. Avodah 4

W H AT I S T H E S O R R O W S O F M A T T I D I A ?

Zarah 10b; Deuteronomy Rabbah 2.25) as a proselyte to Judaism named Ketiyah bar Shalom, martyred in 95 ce; and the author of 1 Clement, the early bishop of Rome.2 The actual authors, storytellers, translators, editors, redactors, and patrons responsible for the production of the highly complex textual and literary layering of the Clementina are diverse. Ideally, something about each might be uncovered and exposed through concentrating where possible on identifiable individuals and communities  – whether we place those responsible for the production, translation, and promotion of these texts at specific times in Asia Minor, Syria, Africa, or Europe. While great textual and literary gains have been made – the product of the labor of a handful of academic careers and lifetimes in the last couple of centuries – most details concerning the Pseudo-Clementine literature remain underdetermined and many questions about the content unresolved. There are many complicated and often convoluted theories about the origins of this material. For the most part, modern-day scholars have chosen to pass by and ignore this substantive body of early Christian literature. Clearly, the fortunes of the Clementina as a whole have changed with the passage of time. As seen in Figure 1.1, at the height of its popularity, the story of Mattidia – especially in the form of epitomes – was translated into Latin, Greek, Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopic, Georgian, Armenian, and Slavonic, as well as North and West Germanic languages (N: Old Swedish, Icelandic; W: Middle High German, Early South English) and Anglo Norman. At a relatively early stage, however, accusations of heresy were leveled against at least some sections of the Pseudo-Clementine literature. These charges in combination with the emergence, dissemination, and textual crystallization of “authorized” traditions about the earliest Christian churches led to their virtual disappearance in Western Christian cultures. Most researchers have asserted that the Grundschrift or “basic writing” and oldest sources of the Clementina are connected to “Jewish Christian”3 and anti-Pauline4 traditions. Jerome’s adversary Tyrannius Rufinus of Aquileia, who translated the Greek Recognitions into Latin, is not the only one who found it necessary to edit material that he deemed offensive to the doctrines of the Church.5 The unknown author of the Greek Recognitions seemingly heavily censored and reworked material taken from the basic writing as well. This is in contrast to the Homilist, who was clearly less sensitive to orthodox catholic concerns on a number of interesting occasions. Several decades ago, Bernard Rehm laid the groundwork for this project by composing the first critical editions of the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions and Homilies. More recently, Georg Strecker6 published revised editions of Rehm’s work together with two Greek epitomes, and (significantly) references to extant Syriac translations7 complete with a Latin, Greek, and Syriac concordance. The Greek text of The Sorrows of Mattidia translated in this book is pieced together from appropriate sections of the Pseudo-Clementine literature primarily derived from the manuscript Vaticanus Ottobianus 443 found by Albertus R. M. Dressel in 1838 whose publication is reproduced in J. P. Migne’s Patrologia Graeca. The assembled text was then minimally modified via reference to Rehm’s work.8 This is the basis for Jenni Irving’s new translation of The Sorrows of Mattidia found 5

WOMEN OF THE CLEMENTINA

Sources of the Grundschrift: Family Narrative (The Sorrows of Mattidia); 10 Kerygmas from Peter to James; Ebionite Acts of Peter (Periodoi Petrou); Anabathmoi Jakobou?; Strecker’s Kerygmata Petrou? Others: Book of Laws; unknown philosophical treatise; Hegesippus; 2nd Apoc. of James; Justin’s Dialogue w/ Trypho; Jubilees; Matthew; Mark; Luke-Acts; John; Gospel of the Ebionites Grundschri (BasicWring)

Greek Homilies • Aka: “Clement’s Epitome of the Preaching of Peter from Place to Place” • Introduced by Leers + Instrucons for Use • 2 Gr. Codices: Parisinus Graecus 930 (11– 12th ) - incomplete from XIX.14; and, Vacanus Oobianus 443 (14th ) complete, published in Migne PG2, cols. 19–468 • End from Recognions appended at later date • Arian author?

Greek Recognions • According to Tyrannius Rufinus, he possessed 2 different text types • Lost • Sylvia’s gi

Lan Recognions • 5th  Rufinus translaon dedicated to Gaudenus • Instrucons and leers originally published separately • Over 100 mss. broken into text types acc. to 5 language groups; all used by B. Rehm in GCS crical ed./not in Migne PG1, cols. 1201–1474 • Rufinus used text type containing Homilies. X.52–65

Epitomes • Older version related to the Homilies/30mss. • Cotelarian version is paraphrase of older version related to the Homilies/over 100 mss. • Sinai Arabic epitome of Recognions not dependent upon Rufinus

Syriac Homilies & Recognions • Ms. from Edessa (Brish Museum Add. 12150), dated to 411  • Text wrien by two scribal hands containing secons from Homilies X– XIV.12 and Recognions I–IV 1,4 • Strecker's crical edion incorporates Jones’ English translaon (2014)

Figure 1.1 Clementina and sources.

in Part 2 of this book. An earlier translation of much of this material by Thomas Smith is spread throughout the eighth volume of the Ante-Nicene Fathers.9 More recently, F. Stanley Jones published an English translation of the Syriac PseudoClementine texts – which appear to have derived from Greek manuscripts of both the Recognitions and the Homilies.10 Almost thirty years ago, Jones also published 6

W H AT I S T H E S O R R O W S O F M A T T I D I A ?

in English an excellent but now dated review of the history of research on the Pseudo-Clementine literature itself.11 In Knowledge and Religious Authority in the Pseudo-Clementines: Situating the Recognitions in Fourth-Century Syria Nicole Kelley provides a more recent assessment.12 Since the work of Rehm, the majority of scholars have concluded that a lost Grundschrift (G) or base-text written in Greek predated the Pseudo-Clementine literature that has come down to us today. This basic writing no longer exists but has been the object of speculation quite similar to that undertaken by Christian Testament scholars regarding the Q source of the synoptic Gospels. Its form has been inferred from recensions found in the extant Greek Homilies and the Latin Recognitions that depend upon it.13 Most recently, F. Stanley Jones identified the “Circuits of Peter” (Periodoi Petrou) – referred to by Epiphanius and Origen – as the basic writing itself and gave this title to his reconstruction of the text.14 Whether or not Jones is correct, the base-text is usually dated to the beginning of the third century (220–60 ce) on account of similarities between it and the Didascalia Apostolorum.15 This hypothetical text’s use of astrological material from Bardaisan of Edessa’s The Book of the Laws of the Countries establishes a reliable terminus post quem for this text.16 The Apostolic Constitutions contains material from the Pseudo-Clementine literature and subsequently has been used to establish a terminus ad quem for the dating of the base-text. Generally speaking, the base-text bears the mark of Christian apologetic literature of the third and fourth centuries ce where religious practices and claims about the world are portrayed as superior to – though also at times compatible with – sound philosophical and astrological reasoning. It is critical to note that the text I label the “The Sorrows of Mattidia” is not equivalent to the Grundschrift but is instead a hypothetical source that the composer of the base-text relied upon. The Sorrows of Mattidia is the family narrative, roughly isolated from the other elements of the base-text. While I acknowledge that the strategy of separating the family narrative out from the more didactic, philosophical, and astrological components of the Pseudo-Clementine literature – as well as the story of Peter’s confrontation with Simon Magus – runs against the spirit of some recent work emphasizing the unity of the composer of the basetext’s project, my proposal is consistent with that of the vast majority of scholars who have addressed the composition of the base-text over the last one hundred and fifty years.17 Ever since Rehm, it has been argued that the base-text depended upon earlier sources. The most popular tentative assumptions are that ten Kerygmas of Peter sent to James (=Kerygmata Petrou) and an Ebionite Acts of Peter (=Praxeis Petrou) were utilized by the author. Strecker’s reconstruction of the Kerygmata Petrou from the material found in the Pseudo-Clementines has been widely accepted though in recent years increasingly questioned.18 In addition to the reliance of the base-text upon Bardaisan’s Book of the Laws of the Countries, work on Recognitions 1.27–71 points to a connection between the basic writing and another source text – possibly, according to Robert van Voorst, the Anabathmoi 7

WOMEN OF THE CLEMENTINA

Jakobou cited by Epiphanius in his Panarion 30.16.7–9 though this has been challenged by F. Stanley Jones.19 Jones, as well as James M. Scott, alternatively connect Recognitions 1.27–71 and Homilies 8 to earlier Enochic traditions such as are found in Jubilees and the Book of Watchers (I Enoch 1–36). 20 Other works which the base-text may have relied upon include an original “Dispute with Appion,” an unknown philosophical treatise, a text from Hegesippus, the Second Apocalypse of James, Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho, as well as Matthew, Mark, Luke-Acts, John, the Pastoral Epistles, and the Gospel of the Ebionites. Most critically for this book, I understand the family narrative or romance novel contained in the Pseudo-Clementine literature – The Sorrows of Mattidia – to be a distinct and separate source of the base-text. While it is possible that the author of The Sorrows of Mattidia utilized material from some of the other sources of the base-text, it is clear that he borrowed imagery and dramatic method from non-Christian literary sources  – specifically, Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoë though also possibly Xenophon’s imperial fiction, Heliodorus’ Aethiopica, Longus’ Daphne and Chloe, and Achilles Tatius’ Adventures of Leucippe and Clitophon. F. Stanley Jones’ claim that the basic writing itself took the form of a novel is not thoroughly convincing.21 His reconstruction of the base-text narrative, or Periodoi Petrou, is too complex, convoluted, and full of detailed theological arguments like those found in Peter’s disputations with Simon Magus to appeal to wide audiences. Like the Recognitions that relies upon the base-text, it too would be have been a target for epitomization. Rather, I argue that the base-text itself borrowed from a preexisting narrative about the trials of Mattidia and the reunification of her family.

C. An ancient romance Standing somewhat to the side of these labors, and delineating not only the sources utilized by the Recognitions and Homilies but also the base-text as well, is a long-standing assumption that there are important similarities between the Pseudo-Clementine literature and contemporaneous Greco-Roman romance and adventure novels. In this way, the Clementina resemble the Apocryphal Acts  – even though I  will later argue at length that there are important differences between the two, especially when it comes to their respective prescriptions for the ideal behavior of women in the earliest churches. I argue that the composer of the Greek text of the family narrative found in the Pseudo-Clementine literature plugged Christian traditions into the structure of just such an original story – one with possible pagan origins.22 I do not insist that this narrative existed in a specific literary form. It is even quite possible that it was derived from oral traditions. No new textual discovery related to the base-text itself or a distinct family narrative either supports or disproves my thesis. Instead, I  show how significant GrecoRoman traditions influenced the development of the plot of The Sorrows of Mattidia – most notably, as related to the persona of its main character. I do think it quite likely that the author of the base-text seriously altered the family narrative to 8

W H AT I S T H E S O R R O W S O F M A T T I D I A ?

serve his own polemical interests. If this were the case, it must be acknowledged that the author of the base-text drew on non-Christian traditions and established ideological appeals to Roman citizens and others living in the ancient Mediterranean world grounded in their commonly held conceptions of the pious wife, mother, and woman. The sections of the Clementina newly translated and examined in this book that deal specifically with the life of Clement’s mother, Mattidia, clearly fit the description of a Greco-Roman “romance novel” – much more so than didactic constituents such as those found in Recognitions 1.27–71 and in the many philosophical, theological, and astrological disputations scattered throughout the literature. For the most part, I have kept texts related to the confrontation between Peter and Simon Magus separate from the story of Mattidia and her family. This approach is not new, as Gerhard Uhlhorn suggested the same strategy in the midnineteenth century.23 Uhlhorn thought that material from the family narrative was added to a separate source focusing on the Peter/Simon Magus debates. I too presume that these distinct sources were sewn together by the author of the basetext. Once again, lacking some new textual discovery, this is difficult to prove with certainty. Practically speaking, it also presents obvious problems for any who (like myself) attempt to disentangle one narrative from the other. At least on a couple of decisive occasions, the two sources are thickly entwined – such as in the account of the adoption of Clement’s twin brothers by the unnamed Gospel character, known in the Pseudo-Clementine literature as “Justa,” who had the two educated alongside Simon Magus. In this way, however, these lost sons of Mattidia are able to serve an important role for the author of the base-text – as Peter’s primary informants regarding Simon Magus’ past activities. In the second half of the book, when discussing the women of the Clementina – specifically, Simon Magus’ consort Helena – I have turned to some other aspects of the Peter/ Simon Magus traditions that I think were originally unrelated to the family narrative. Clearly, in arguments between men, Mattidia provided the composer of the base-text with a moral exemplar for how women should behave. Not only was Mattidia’s traditional Roman familial piety something that pagans might deem praiseworthy,24 but also she provided an ideal model of the chaste woman who would be most likely to convert to the composer of the base-text’s practiced form of early Judaized Christianity. Mattidia’s horoscope is likewise held up as an example in debate over astrology. Even though F. Stanley Jones has convincingly argued that the examination of Mattidia’s horoscope makes up an integral part of the astrological argument in the text, it has not been definitively demonstrated that the origins of the family narrative are one and the same as the astrological material found in the Pseudo-Clementine literature.25 Kate Cooper is one of the few scholars who attempts – prior to the publication of this book – to raise the profile of Clement’s mother in discussions of the Pseudo-Clementine family narrative. In an article titled “Matthidia’s Wish,”26 she explicitly compares the version of The Sorrows of Mattidia found in Books 7–9 of the Latin Recognitions to the Christian Apocryphal Acts, the most likely Christian 9

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“Jewish” romance of Joseph and Aseneth, and pagan works like Heliodorus’ Aethiopica, the History of Apollonius of Tyre, Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe, and Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoë. Cooper is unable however to conclusively answer the question of whether or not the so-called pro-family approach of the Recognitions, as contrasted with “a Christian predilection for enkrateia,” reflects earlier traditions or simply provides further evidence for a more informed view of the varied social milieu of Christians in the late Roman Empire – specifically, during the time of Tyrannius Rufinus.27 The two main differences between my project and Cooper’s are as follows. First, in addition to examining Recognitions 7–9, I will also be turning to other parts of the Pseudo-Clementine literature, especially the Greek Homilies. For the purposes of my research on the women of the Clementina, many of the most important references occur only in the Homilies. Second, while I do agree that there is much to learn about ancient gender constructions in the late fourth and fifth centuries from examination of the rhetorical strategies of men during this time, I think that this is the case after and, significantly, before this period as well. There are many potential targets for historical retrieval in these texts.28 We know that the Homilies and Recognitions shared dependence on an earlier source – one that contained at least portions of the family narrative and more. The vast majority of scholars (e.g. Rehm, Waitz, Strecker, Jones) who have worked on and continue to study the Pseudo-Clementine literature maintain that these writings contain invaluable witnesses – though unfortunately often edited – to early Syrian Christian sources,29 Ebionism,30 Jewish Gnosticism,31 and anti-Marcionite32 and anti-Pauline traditions. The apologetic portrayal of women in this literature clearly draws upon sources encountered in the Christian Testament, particularly in the redactional phase of Luke-Acts, the Pastoral Epistle of 1 Timothy, and 1 Peter. The women of the Clementina, as contrasted with those encountered in the Apocryphal Acts, are subservient to men. Not only do they inhabit a world removed from that of other early Christian communities where the prophetic activities of women are described, but they are mostly silent. In this, they are more compatible with the stereotype of Jewish women at this time as well as the public image of the ideal Roman woman during the early second century – a period during which marriage and Concordia between husband and wife was promoted and praised.33 The family narrative as putatively presented in the Grundschrift and in the Pseudo-Clementine literature certainly does resemble the Acts of the Apostles – a text that likewise deserves comparison to ancient Mediterranean romances. In the Clementina, we are provided with many imagined views of a very early Judaizing Christian community led by Peter and other figures from the Christian Testament. These characters practice a form of Christianity purportedly not far removed from its earliest Jewish roots. This can be seen in the Recognitions and especially in the Homilies.34 James, the “brother of Jesus,” is a central figure in this group before his murder at the Temple in Jerusalem. Paul is described as an enemy in both texts, proving the anti-Paulinism of not only the composer of the basic writing but also of the Recognitions. In a passage with no parallel to the Homilies, Paul is held 10

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responsible in Recognitions 1.70–1 for the death of James, the massacre of Christians in Jerusalem, and continued persecution of the exilic church. The extent to which hostility towards Paul and Pauline communities is related to the fictionalized lives of women in the so-called community of Peter will be considered in the second part of this commentary at length. Unlike many scholars who do not believe that the Pseudo-Clementine family narrative relied upon pagan sources and exemplars, I think like Ben Edwin Perry that this was certainly the case. M. J. Edwards, for example, asserts that the family narrative was created and composed by a Christian author to serve as a positive example of the many theological and moral doctrines elaborated upon in the Pseudo-Clementine literature as a whole.35 While I am sympathetic to the idea that the tragic story of Clement’s mother serves to illustrate dogmas propounded elsewhere in the literature, I do think that the “recognitions” theme and the fictional character of Mattidia have been borrowed from non-Christian sources. The first is clearly pre-dated in Chariton of Aphrodisias’ Chaereas and Callirhoë. It is during the mid-second century ce, I will argue, that the principal model for the main female protagonist of the Pseudo-Clementine literature, Mattidia the mother of Clement, lived – namely, Mattidia the Elder, the mother of Mattidia the Younger and the Roman Emperor Hadrian’s wife, Sabina. The central argument made in this book, however, is that the family narrative found in the Pseudo-Clementine literature constitutes the most important framing motif for the Recognitions, Homilies, and the base-text underlying them. While the story of Mattidia and her family is used to drive the plot in large portions of this literature, it is unfortunately sometimes difficult to follow the story’s progression. In addition to competing with the confrontations between Simon Magus and Peter for guiding import, dialogue over philosophical, theological, and astrological issues is found throughout the texts and obscures a narrative that is a prime candidate for a Greco-Roman romance and adventure novel. The plot of the family narrative often seems to be simply a staging ground for the forwarding of Church orders, guides to interpretation, debates, and diatribes – both in the Recognitions and Homilies. I  contend, however, that at the heart of the Pseudo-Clementine literature is the often-overlooked story of a woman. Mattidia is its central focus, not Clement or Peter.36 I make this unusual claim for the following reasons. First, if we were to remove any of the most prominent characters from the Pseudo-Clementine family narrative without unalterably disturbing the overarching plot, the one person who could not be removed would be Mattidia. Perhaps in some earlier version of this “romance novel,” one might have been able to say this of her husband, Faustus as well. He plays Chaereas to Mattidia’s Callirhoë, but he has never been a serious candidate for the prominent role, and much less attention is devoted to his activities than those of Mattidia. From the first lines of what has most often been described as “Clement’s Family History,” Mattidia is accorded a position of highest prominence  – a daughter of the family of Caesar. It is not only Mattidia’s tragedies and reunions with her family that drive the plot, but also her healing and 11

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baptism at the hands of Peter as well. It is Mattidia’s horoscope that is at the forefront of examination – not that of Faustus, Clement, or the twins. Simply stated, I think this family narrative could stand on its own if written in the third person with no mention of Clement at all! He is only one of three brothers to be reunited with his mother. His own recognition of his twin brothers, as opposed to Mattidia’s, receives little to no attention in the narrative. In many ways, Clement’s story is less interesting than that of his brothers Faustinus and Faustinianus, who survive a shipwreck and slavery as well as being at one time or another followers of Simon Magus, Zaccheus, and Peter! Second, it is not difficult to imagine Peter’s role, representative of the “true prophet,” being played by another. Peter is, of course, an obvious choice to be the mouthpiece and symbol of “true” doctrine for early Judaizing Christian authors opposed to the practices and teachings of “Pauline” (e.g. Marcionite) communities. Throughout both the Recognitions and Homilies, Peter establishes rules for correct interpretation of Scripture and Greek mythoi and philosophy. He is the guarantor of apostolic succession. In other communities and at different times, however, this display of legitimizing power is connected with other apostolic figures. In giving primacy to the story about Mattidia and her family, I follow a tradition already established in the existent epitomes, whose text types are descendants of both the Homilies and Recognitions where this narrative is central. I have examined most closely, though not exclusively, the summaries presented in Homilies 12–14 and in Rufinus’ Recognitions 7, 9.32–37, piecing together a storyline that provides the backdrop for the overall compositions. After the “recognition” of Faustus, the different conclusions to the story are put off until after Peter and Simon Magus face off. These specific confrontations between the apostle and magus from Samaria, however popular and intriguing, are not particularly essential to the framing plot of the more prominent family narrative.37 They provide additional opportunity for participants in the creation of our received texts to refute other heresies in the composer’s present. Instead, to reiterate, the principal personality encountered in the family narrative is none other Mattidia, the mother of Clement.

Notes 1 In the ancient world, the Recognitions were known as the Recognition of the Roman Clement. The Homilies were simply titled the Klementia. They are referred to in Clement’s Letter to James, as “Clement’s Epitome of the Preachings of Peter from Place to Place.” 2 Bernard Pouderon, “Clément de Rome, Flavius Clemens et le Clément Juif,” in Studi su Clemente Romano: Atti degli Incontri di Roma, 29 marzo e 22 novembre 2001, ed. P. Luisier (Orientalia Christiana Analecta 268; Rome: Pontificio Istituto Orientale, 2003), 197–218. 3 I am uncomfortable using the appellation “Jewish Christian” (which has no equivalent in the ancient world), as this term is too general and conceals wide diversity amongst groups so labeled. When possible, I  will refer to specific “Jewish Christian” groups identified by writers in antiquity – most notably, Ebionites, who have since Epiphanius (cf. Panarion 30) been commonly associated with the Pseudo-Clementine literature. The

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term “Judaizing Christians,” as opposed to “Jewish Christians,” simply means that the members of the described group are not Jews. Generally speaking, I will use this term when referring to the community of Peter described in the Pseudo-Clementine literature as it contained many non-Jewish Christian members. 4 Anti-Paulinism has been attributed by Church fathers and heresiologists to several different communities that scholars only in the last few centuries have labeled “Jewish Christian” – “Elchasaites/Elkesaites” (Eusebius, Historia Ecclesiastica 6.38), “Cerinthians” (Epiphanius, Panarion 28.5.3), and at least two types of “Ebionites” (Origen, Contra Celsum 5.65; see also Irenaeus, Adversus Haeresis 1.26.2 and Epiphanius, Panarion 30). Beginning with F. C. Baur, anti-Paulinism has been explicitly connected with the Pseudo-Clementine literature – especially in light of the vilification of Saul/ Paul in Recognitions 1:70–1, part of a passage often associated with the Anabathmoi Jakobou (1:27–71) that is almost unanimously described as having Jewish Christian origins. Peter’s arch-opponent in these texts, namely Simon Magus, has been commonly viewed as caricature of Paul. This clearly seems to be the case, at least in Homilies 17:13–19, though elsewhere it does appear that Simon may also be a stand-in for Marcion (Homilies 2:14). The identification between Paul and Simon Magus in the Clementina continues to be affirmed by scholars like Bart Ehrman in Lost Christianities (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), xiv. It has been challenged in recent years, though, for example by Markus Bockmuehl in The Remembered Peter in Ancient Reception and Modern Debate (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 262; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 104–113. 5 See Rufinus’ preface to his Latin Recognitions. Here he explains that “incomprehensible” heretical material has been left out from his translation. 6 B. Rehm, ed., Die Pseudoklementinen I: Homilien, ed. G. Strecker, 3rd ed., rev., GCS 42 (Berlin: Akademie, 1992); Die Pseudoklementinen II: Rekognitionen in Rufins Übersetzung, ed. G. Strecker, 2nd ed., rev., GCS 51 (Berlin: Akademie, 1994); and G. Strecker, Die Pseudoklementinen III: Konkordanz zu den Pseudoklementinen, vol. 1/2, GCS (Berlin: Akademie, 1986/1989). 7 For critical editions of the Syriac translations, see P. A. de Lagarde, Clementis Romani Recognitiones Syriace (Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus; London: Williams  & Norgate, 1861) and Wilhelm Frankenberg, Die syrischen Clementinen mit griechischem Paralleltext: Eine Vorarbeit zu dem literargeschichtlichen Problem der Sammlung (Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur, vol. 48, no. 3; Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1937). F. Stanley Jones has just published a long-awaited new edition/translation titled The Syriac Pseudo-Clementines: An Early Version of the First Christian Novel (Apocryphes Series 14; Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2014). See also the following articles by Jones – “Evaluating the Latin and Syriac Translations of the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions,” Apocrypha 3 (1992), 237–258 and “PseudoClementine Concordances: Mistakes/Corrections,” Zeitschrift für antikes Christentum 1 (1997), 126–128. 8 Albertus Rud. Max. Dressel, Clementis Romani Quae Feruntur Homiliae Viginti Nunc Primum Integrae (Göttingen: Sumptibus Librariae Dieterichianae, 1853). See also J. P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca 2, cols. 19–468. 9 Thomas Smith, tr., “The Pseudo-Clementine Literature,” in The Ante-Nicene Fathers: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325, eds. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson, vol. 8 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 67–346. 10 F. Stanley Jones, The Syriac Pseudo-Clementines: An Early Version of the First Christian Novel (op cit.). 11 F. Stanley Jones, “The Pseudo-Clementines: A History of Research” was most recently published in Pseudo-Clementina Elchasaiticaque inter Judaeochristiana: Collected Studies (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 203; Leuven: Peeters, 2012) 50–113, along with other highly influential contributions on this literature. Jones’ review is also

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12

13 14 15 16

17

18

19

20

published in E. Ferguson, ed., Studies in Early Christianity, vol. 2, Literature of the Early Church (New York and London: Garland, 1993), 195–262 and in The Second Century 2 (1982), 1–33, 63–96. See especially Chapter  1 of Nicole Kelley, Knowledge and Religious Authority in the Pseudo-Clementines: Situating the Recognitions in Fourth-Century Syria (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2. Reihe 213; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 1–35. See F. Stanley Jones’ “Outline of the Basic Writing” published in the article “Eros and Astrology in the Periodoi Petrou: The Sense of the Pseudo-Clementine Novel,” Apocrypha 12 (2001), 53–78. See F. Stanley Jones, The Syriac Pseudo-Clementines, op cit, 13–27, esp. 14, note 2. This position was originally formulated by Carl Schmidt and adopted by Oscar Cullman; see F. Stanley Jones, “The Pseudo-Clementines: A History of Research,” op cit, 60–61. There is some debate over whether Bardaisan or his student Philippus is responsible for The Book of the Laws of the Countries. See, more recently, F. Stanley Jones in “Clement of Rome and the Pseudo-Clementines: History and/or Fiction,” in Studi su Clemente Romano: Atti degli Incontri di Roma, 29 marzo e 22 novembre 2001, op cit, 144. F. Stanley Jones discusses the dating of the base-text in detail in “The PseudoClementines: A History of Research,” op cit, 56–62. For example, M. J. Edwards argues in “The Clementina: A Christian Response to the Pagan Novel,” The Classical Quarterly 42 (1992), 459–460 that the plot of the family narrative was not the work  – as it has sometimes been theorized  – of an earlier pagan author to which sermons and other educational material has been attached by the author of the base-text. Instead, the family narrative was composed as an “illustration” of these teachings. According to Edwards, “there are no grounds for supposing that the plot was independent at any time.” G. Strecker, Das Judenchristentum in den Pseudoklementinen, TU, vol. 70, 2nd ed. rev. (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1981 [1st ed. 1958]) 137ff., and in “The Kerygmata Petrou” – New Testament Apocrypha, ed. W. Schneemelcher, trans. and ed. R. McL. Wilson, vol. 2 (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1963–1965), 105–111. In the revised edition of The New Testament Apocrypha, which I  will reluctantly use for citations (Cambridge/Louisville: John Clarke/Westminster-Knox, 1992, vol. 2, 483–541), Strecker’s work has been integrated into the overall presentation of the Pseudo-Clementine material. Important objections to Strecker, however, have been raised by Josep RiusCamps, Jurgen Wehnert, and F. Stanley Jones, who rely upon analyses of the vocabulary of the postulated Kerygmata Petrou. Most significantly, Wehnert has asserted that Strecker’s reconstruction might be purely attributable to a “literary motif” deployed by the Homilist. See F. Stanley Jones, “The Pseudo-Clementines: A History of Research,” op cit, 50–113. Strecker following Rehm does acknowledge that the purported “Table of Contents” of the Kerygmata Petrou found in Recognitions 3.75 is spurious. (489). Robert E. Van Voorst, The Ascents of James: History and Theology of a Jewish-Christian Community (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989), 1–46. See criticisms of this identification by F. Stanley Jones in An Ancient Jewish Christian Source on the History of Christianity: Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions 1.27–71 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995), 146–148. F. Stanley Jones, “Pseudo-Clementine Literature,” in Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, eds. L. H. Schiffman and J. C. VanderKam (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 718. For more detailed accounts of the possible relationship between Jubilees and Recognitions 1.27–71, see James M. Scott, Geography in Early Judaism and Christianity: The Book of Jubilees (SNTS 113; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 97–125. Eibert Tigchelaar in “Manna-Eaters and Man-Eaters: Food of Giants and Men in the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies 8,” J. Bremmer, ed., The

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21 22

23 24 25

26 27 28

29

30

Pseudo-Clementines (SECA 10; Leuven: Peeters, 2010), 92–114, is highly suspicious of attempts to establish any direct connection between the Pseudo-Clementine literature and the third-century BCE Book of Watchers. See F. Stanley Jones’ outline of the “Basic Writing” in The Syriac Pseudo-Clementines, op cit, 15–27 and “Eros and Astrology in the Periodoi Petrou: the Sense of the PseudoClementine Novel,” op cit, 58–61. See M. J. Edwards, “The Clementina: A Christian Response to the Pagan Novel”, op cit, 459–471. Edwards does not believe this to be the case. He thinks instead that the Christian family narrative never relied upon a pagan source. In fact, he asserts that the family narrative was composed to serve as an example of the many theological and moral doctrines elaborated upon in the Pseudo-Clementine literature as a whole. While I am sympathetic to the idea that the tragic story of Clement’s mother serves in the Grundschrift to illustrate dogmas propounded elsewhere in the literature, I do think that the fictional character of Mattidia has been borrowed from a “pagan” source – namely, the public persona of Mattidia the Elder, mother-in-law of the emperor Hadrian as shown by Bernard Pouderon in “Mattidia la proselyte. Enquête sur l’appropriation d’une femme de la maison de Trajan dans le prototype juif du roman pseudo-clémentin,” Actes du colloque de Lausanne, 2006, Nouvelles intrigues clémentines, eds. F. Amsler, A. Frey, C. Touati and R. Girardet (Lausanne: Éditions du Zèbre, 2008), 103–115. See F. Stanley Jones, “A History of Research,” op.cit, 57–58. Uhlhorn was the first scholar to place the origin of the base-text in Syria. See the arguments of Bernard Pouderon in “Mattidia la proselyte,” op cit, 103–115, who shares this assessment. F. Stanley Jones, “Eros and Astrology in the Periodoi Petrou: the Sense of the PseudoClementine Novel,” op cit, 76–77. While I do not identify a common origin for The Sorrows of Mattidia and Peter/Simon Magus/Faustus debate over astrology, one should not assume that this is because the astrological material is “pagan” and the source of the family narrative is not. I actually maintain the opposite. Astrological reasoning was not uncommon amongst Jews in late antiquity. The rabbis and others like Philo discussed and debated proper astrological methods. The use of zodiacs in late antique Jewish synagogues is well known. Astrological material has also been identified amongst texts found in the Dead Sea scrolls (cf. 4Q318). The story of Mattidia, I will argue, draws on clear Greco-Roman exemplars. Kate Cooper, “Matthidia’s Wish: Division, Reunion, and Early Christian Family in the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions,” in Narrativity in Biblical and Related Texts, eds. G. J. Brooke and J. D. Kaestli (Leuven: University Press, 2000), 243–264. Kate Cooper, “Mattidia’s Wish,” op cit, 259–262. Cooper and most other commentators have focused on the audience of Rufinus and this famous translator’s motives. One might do the same for many, say a later Slavonic translator and his readers. Significantly, I will also target the earlier time of the author of the Grundschrift and his sources. No one should, of course, assume that we encounter the real Peter or Mattidia in this literature. At best, we uncover fragments of traditions and stories associated with these figures long years after they might have lived. Cooper does suggest that the “pro-family” provenance of the reunion stories found in the Recognitions might be accounted for geographically. She interestingly ends her article by citing similarities to the anonymous Syriac Life of Mary and the work of Susan Ashbrook Harvey on how “Syriac hagiography reflects family-based institutions within Syriac asceticism” – see Harvey, “Sacred Bonding: Mothers and Daughters in Early Syriac Hagiography,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 4 (1996), 27–56. Following early Christian writers like Justin, Origin, and Eusebius, Ebionites are generally broken into two groups distinguished from each other on the basis of Christology. One group denies the divinity of Jesus while the other affirms it. See Ray Pritz, Nazarene Jewish Christianity (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1988), 108–110.

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31 This is particularly evident in the sometimes-labeled “Elchasaite/Elkesaite” cosmology of the author of the Homilies who continually deploys a radically dualistic principle of syzygies similar to that found in Valentinian gnostic writings like Ptolemy’s Letter to Flora – W. W. Harvey., ed. Sancti Irenaei . . . Adversus Haereses, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1857), cxix. See Georg Strecker, “The Kerygmata Petrou,” in New Testament Apocrypha, op cit, vol. 2, 491. 32 Scholars regularly connect criticisms of “Simon the Samaritan” in Homilies 2:14 with anti-Marcionism. For a substantial review of this general topic see F. Stanley Jones, “Marcionism in the Pseudo-Clementines,” Poussières de christianisme et de judaïsme antiques: Etudes réunies en l’honneur de Jean-Daniel Kaestli et Eric Junod, ed. Rémi Gounelle Albert Frey (Publications de l’Institut romand des sciences bibliques 5; Lausanne: Zèbre, 2007), 225–244. 33 The enhanced status of marriage during the Trajanic and Hadrianic eras, which was admittedly first initiated by the famous reforms of Augustus, has been noted by several scholars – for example, Peter Brown in volume one of A History of Private Life: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1987), 247–248. 34 In a few different cases, the reputation and status of important characters are buoyed in the Recognitions. For example, John the Baptist is treated positively in this text (bk. 1), while in the Homilies 2.23 he is presented as the evil predecessor of Simon Magus. Jesus’ status is equal to Moses in the Homilies 8.5–6 while he is elevated above him in Recognitions 1.59. 35 M. J. Edwards, “The Clementina: A Christian Response to the Pagan Novel,” op cit, 459–471. I agree in principle, rather, with Ben Edwin Perry who cursorily argues that the Pseudo-Clementine family narrative was specifically “derived from a pre-Christian Greek romance built on a structural pattern similar to that of Apollonius Prince of Tyre and to the plot of Plautus’ Menaechini with only small variations.” See Perry’s The Ancient Romances: A Literary-Historical Account of Their Origins (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1967), 285. 36 It is no mistake that Kate Cooper in “Mattidia’s Wish” chooses Recognitions 7–9 to be the focus of her reading of the Pseudo-Clementine literature. Cooper, however, still maintains that the Recognitions are “Peter-centered.” (244) In a certain sense, this cannot be denied. I myself will utilize the texts in question by connecting them to so-called Petrine communities that choose to identify themselves with Peter rather than Paul. Other writers have described the Pseudo-Clementine literature as organized around Clement and the confrontations between Simon and Peter. It seems clear to me, however, that the family narrative provides a frame for the whole and that Mattidia is at its center. 37 The rivalry between Simon Magus and Peter begins in the canonical Acts of the Apostles (ch. 8) and “continues” in the Homilies and Recognitions. One of the earliest and most interesting accounts of Simon Magus can also be found in the work of Justin Martyr, who was from Samaria. Several “gnostic” groups, according to later Church heresiologists (Irenaus, Hippolytus, Tertullian, and Epiphanius), find their origins in Simonian teachings. Many scholars, following the position of Hans Jonas in The Gnostic Religion (Boston: Beacon Press, 1958), have emphasized that Simonian thought has origins distinct from those of the earliest “Jewish Christian” movement. Noteworthy are strong anti-Judaistic tendencies  – explicit in Simon’s cosmology (Recognitions 2:49; Homilies 18:15–7) – where he rejects the creator-god and Moses “the lawgiver,” as well as, most interestingly, Jesus.

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A. Overview The second chapter in this extended introduction to The Sorrows of Mattidia is not about the lives of specific women in the earliest “Jewish Christian” or “Judaizing Christian” communities led by the apostle Peter and joined by Clement of Rome. Rather, it concerns and is directly linked to people living in the later historical communities of the producers and audiences of the Clementina, which is commonly referred to as the “Pseudo-Clementine literature.” While my primary concern is the characterization of the fictional first-century ce figure Mattidia, the mother of the supposed narrator, “Clement,” who occupies an obscured but key position at the center of these later texts, this is not on account of conspicuous prosopographical interests. Instead, I believe that by examining the portrayal of Mattidia and her companions such as Peter’s wife and the women of Arados – in addition to that of other women like the Gospel characters Justa and Bernice, and the mysterious consort of Simon Magus named Helena – we might gain not only knowledge of the rhetorical strategies of their producers and the tastes of ancient audiences but also general insights into the lives of women and men from different social classes dwelling in diverse communities at this time in areas surrounding the ancient Mediterranean. After all, the stories told of Mattidia and other women in this literature, even if they are regarded as only incidental to the texts, are addressed to and would make sense to people in these communities. Just as we can learn a great deal about the cultures of the late twentieth century from novels, films, and other cultural productions that have their origins during the period, it is possible to discern much about life around the ancient Mediterranean from descriptions – no matter how fantastical or historically accurate – of the earliest Christians guided by Peter described in the PseudoClementine literature. The accounts of various Christian, Jewish, and other women in the Clementina provide us with windows – though clearly not transparent and free of the prejudices of probably exclusively male authors – to the lives of people who resided in the past. Most fortunately, I will be able to connect the story of Mattidia with women known to have lived in antiquity (at least in a couple of cases). In spite of my argument that popular knowledge of the historical figure Mattidia the Elder was an influence on the fictional Mattidia’s constructed persona, I do not 17

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make any claims that the Pseudo-Clementine Mattidia actually corresponds with the real mother of an historical Clement. Neither do I attempt to link other female characters portrayed in this literature with figures in the historical record. Alternatively, I do investigate the relationship of this story to a fourth-century Christian woman, Sylvia of Aquitaine, who played a vital role in the dissemination of the Pseudo-Clementine literature. Out of favor over the years and mired with interpretive difficulties, the Clementina today provide those who wish to excavate them for their clues to the past with a wealth of relatively fresh material to work with. Few have written even a paragraph about issues related to women and gender construction in the PseudoClementine literature.1 When these topics have been addressed, the Latin Recognitions and portrayal of Mattidia have taken center stage while the Homilies and prominent female characters in this literature like Justa, Bernice, Peter’s wife, and Helena have been mostly ignored. What do these texts have to say about fictionalized accounts of women other than Mattidia? More importantly, what can we learn from all of this about historical women’s lives in early proto-orthodox, orthodox, and heterodox churches as well as non-Christian Jewish and pagan communities? Generally, as noted earlier, my interests are not prosopographical. I view much of the material under consideration as akin to midrash – fictional embellishment of scripture for a religious purpose.2 To counter Bart Ehrman, there are alternatives to looking at the Pseudo-Clementine literature with its pseudonymous origins and extracanonical stories about legendary early Christian figures as intentional forgeries – nothing but “lies and deceptions.”3 Not only can a case be made that these narratives about Peter, Justa, and even Simon Magus functioned pedagogically in a way similar to midrashic exegesis and derasha, but also they can be mined by scholars in a variety of other ways without having to make claims that they record actual events or describe specific women known to have lived in the past. It is, of course, vitally important that we recognize the inherent difficulties involved in reconstructing the history of women who lived so long ago. Our twenty-first century world in the West, after all, is so different from that of our grandparents – much less from the distant denizens of late antiquity. The fact that we must rely upon literary sources composed by men only further complicates the issue. For surely the various texts contained in the Pseudo-Clementine literature are the written expressions of men, perhaps of somewhat varied cultural and religious backgrounds. Ancient prejudices and stereotypes about women inform plot and character development. Success in my overall endeavor will necessarily require evaluating the ways in which some men responsible for the composition and spread of this literature might have been different from other males in the ancient world. I would, however, also argue that we must be suspicious of the intentions of these men and the gendered categories through which they envision the world, especially when they have a theological “axe to grind.” Simply stated, it is probable that they have in many cases only provided us with descriptions of the world as they conceived or wished it to be, not as it actually was. Oftentimes, incidental details making up the backdrop against which actions are played out and others related to 18

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the circulation of the texts yield more useful data about material conditions than the authoritative arguments and dictates of the Pseudo-Clementine Peter. The scope of my task in this critical commentary is broad. In addition to focusing on the character of Mattidia, I will be examining the fictional portrayals of other women in this literature who inhabit different contrived social spaces. The Clementina, its postulated sources, and the history of its promulgation will prove itself to be, even after skeptical examination of the rhetorical strategies encountered in the texts, an important though less-than-direct source of information – not on the lives of individual women but on the communities where these accounts might have been produced and the producer’s target audiences. I will then compare and contrast the descriptions of women in the Petrine community described in this literature with their counterparts in other rival Christian and non-Christian groups. This is followed up with a discussion about the use of ancient fictional sources in the study of women’s lives in early Christian, Jewish, and pagan communities. Finally, I will consider what attracted wealthy, educated Christian women like Sylvia of Aquitaine to this sorrowful story about Mattidia.

B. Women of the Clementina i. Mattidia a. Historical background: Mattidia the Elder and Mattidia the Younger Before discussing at length the portrayal of the character of Mattidia, who occupies an indispensable and crucial position in the overall plot of the Clementina, it is important to note that this fictional daughter of the house of Caesar was preceded in name and reputation in the historical record by two famous women in the immediate household of the emperors Trajan and Hadrian: Salonia Mattidia (the Elder) and Mindia (?) Mattidia (the Younger). It is against the backdrop of these women’s public images, and not necessarily some acquaintance with how women in the community of the historical Peter conducted themselves, that the fictional Mattidia’s personal background and temperament is forged. Just as the composers of the Pseudo-Clementine literature borrowed for their own purposes the names, supposed histories, and imagined personalities of figures made famous in the Christian Testament (like Peter, Barnabas, Simon Magus, Cornelius the Centurion, and Zaccheus), I would argue that the central character of the family narrative found in the Clementina – Mattidia  – was borrowed from the public persona of Mattidia the Elder and perhaps that of Mattidia the Younger as well. Mattidia the Elder, as seen in Figure 2.1, was the daughter of Ulpia Marciana, the sister of Trajan.4 She was married twice, and her oldest daughter through marriage to an unknown figure named L. Mindius was Mattidia the Younger – who made a mark upon the Empire through her extraordinary philanthropy. More significantly, Mattidia the Elder’s second daughter via marriage to L. Vibius Sabinus 19

L. Pompeius = (Ploa?)

TRAJAN = Pompeia Plona Augusta by 105 d. 123

Figure 2.1  Stemma for the Imperial women on the early second century ce.

Vibia(?) Sabina = HADRIAN b. 85(?) Augusta 119 or 123 d. 137(?)

Mattidia the Elder = L. Vibius Sabinus Augusta 112, d. 119

Mattidia the Younger b. pre 85 d. 165(?)

(L. Mindius?) =

C. Salonius = Ulpia Marciana Madius Patruinus, Augusta by 105, pr. Pre 78 d. 112

M. Ulpius Traianus cos. 70?

Pedanius Fuscus

Cn. Pedanius Fuscus = Iulia Paulina Salinator

(Aelia) Domia = C. Iulius Ursus Paulina Servianus

P.Aelius = Domia Paulina Hadianus Afer

(Ulpia) = (Aelius)

Stemma for the Imperial Women on the Early Second Century CE

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Figure 2.2 Marble portrait of Mattidia the Elder. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, Accession Number 13.229.3.

was the wife of the future emperor Hadrian, Vibia Sabina. These women, as attested to by surviving material culture, were well-known public figures. Trajan and Hadrian used their images upon coins to promote Augustan family values – especially the virtue Pietas – in addition to associating them with the ancient goddess of the hearth, Vesta, the protector of Rome and the Roman family. The many surviving statues and dedications to them are a witness of their importance not only in Rome but throughout the Empire. In addition to having her image struck on coins and buildings erected in Rome in her honor, the title Augusta was bestowed upon Mattidia the Elder in 112 ce.5 At first glance, the Mattidia of the Pseudo-Clementine literature seems to mirror in character Mattidia the Elder and possibly Mattidia the Younger who came before her. As noted by several scholars, Mattidia the Elder, her daughter Mattidia the Younger, and other imperial women of the Trajanic and Hadrianic age stand out against the imperial women of earlier and later ages. They do not appear to have been as autonomous in their actions as the most famous women of Roman imperial families before and after them. As argued by Mary Boatwright, 21

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these women were notable for not “muscling into male spheres” and were “personally retiring and submissive.”6 In this they bear little resemblance to extraordinarily powerful Augustan empresses like Livia and Agrippina the Younger, or the wives of the Severan potentates. Even though Hadrian acknowledged that his deceased predecessor’s wife Plotina influenced his decisions at times,7 no evidence exists suggesting that she challenged her husband or “adopted” son politically, like the Flavian empress Domitia Longina who conspired to murder the tyrannical Domitian. Neither is there any indication from the available sources that they were involved in “sexual or political intrigues” like the Faustinae wives of the Antonine emperors.8 In the least, such behavior was obscured in the cultivation of their public images. While I have some important reservations about Boatwright’s central thesis that the Trajanic and Hadrianic imperial women  – especially in the cases of the two Mattidias and Hadrian’s wife Sabina – were “subservient and impotent” in comparison to others,9 this was an impression that served these emperors’ goal of restoring the “way of the elders” (mos maiorum) of their republican ancestors. By associating these women and thereby themselves with the principal virtues of the ancient Romans (Fides, Pietas, Concordia, etc.), Trajan and Hadrian not only provided the people with an example of marital virtue in the spirit of Augustus’ famous marriage laws but also were able to separate themselves from the self-indulgences and moral depravity that marked the reigns of several emperors  – most notably Domitian  – who came before them.10 Mattidia the Elder became a well-known public figure in the Roman Empire at the time of Trajan’s death and when her own mother, Marciana, died. Mattidia the Elder was famously present at the passing of Trajan in the East. She was one of the only witnesses – along with Trajan’s wife, Plotina – to Trajan’s controversial adoption of Hadrian.11 By backing Hadrian as the successor to Trajan, as argued by Michael Grant, Plotina and Mattidia the Elder provide us with an example of imperial women from this age wielding huge political power – albeit quietly.12 As Plotina had no children, when Marciana died the imperial line survived through Mattidia the Elder and her two children: Mattidia the Younger and Sabina. Once more, Mattidia the Elder became the agent through which Roman imperial power was passed on. Mattidia the Elder’s prominent role is preserved on several coins imprinted with her image dated to the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian. Even as Jupiter is seen to extend his mantle to protect Trajan on the reverse side of the Conservator denarius (ca. 114 ce) commemorating the Emperor’s miraculous escape from an earthquake in Antioch, Mattidia the Elder is portrayed on at least the reverse side of coins (aureus, sestertius, denarius) dated to the reign of Trajan (ca. 115–7 ce) – inscribed with the words PIETAS and AUGUST – standing over and seemingly providing protection to her daughters, Mattidia the Younger and Sabina.13 During the reign of Hadrian several coins are imprinted with the same image of Mattidia the Elder and her children on the reverse.14 Years after the original representation of Mattidia

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Figure 2.3  Denarius of Trajan. London © British Museum

Figure 2.4  Aureus of Trajan. London © British Museum

Figure 2.5  Sestertius of Hadrian. London © British Museum

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Figure 2.6  Aureus of Antoninus Pius. London © British Museum

was stamped on the reverse of the coins from the reigns of possibly Trajan and certainly Hadrian, Antoninus Pius reproduced a similar image on coins – this time connected to the Roman virtue concordia and Faustina the Younger. As established by Susan Solway, these images were originally connected with Trajan. Later, Mattidia and her children serve as numismatic sources for representations of the Virgin Mary/Madonna of Mercy on early Cistercian seals found in nunneries and convents in Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.15 Elsewhere in the medieval world, the Pseudo-Clementine Mattidia will serve as a precursor to and be connected with legends of Virgin Mary. In the Crescentia and Hildegard versions of what is known as the CrescentiaFlorentia-Hildegard cycle, a “chaste empress” whose story closely resembles that of the Pseudo-Clementine Mattidia is embedded within a collection of legends about the Virgin Mary. 16 In this medieval saga, Peter himself plays the critical role as miracle worker. Later in this book, investigation into the geographical backdrop of the story of Mattidia on Arados will supply us with another possible link between emergent traditions about the Virgin Mary and earlier pagan traditions. The image of Mattidia/Virgin Mary proffering her cloak over her children remains popular until this day, as evident in the iconography of the Virgin Mary in places like Tel Aviv and Mexico City. The image of Mattidia the Elder protecting Mattidia the Younger and Sabina not only modeled a family value to be emulated by those living in the Roman Empire during the early to mid-second century ce – especially in the East17 – but also provides yet another example of traditional classical virtues rehabilitated for use in developing Christianities. Apart from being portrayed on Roman imperial coins as a child, Mattidia the Younger, like her mother, was a public figure – well-known particularly in

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Figure 2.7 Seal of the Order of Cîteaux (modern cast), c. 1300–50. Paris: Archives Nationales B 1540. Photo: Genevra Kornbluth

Italy and the Eastern part of the Roman Empire. While Mattidia the Elder is the most likely person to have served as a model for the character of Mattidia in the Pseudo-Clementine literature, Mattidia the Younger’s reputation was not dissimilar. Even though she had no children and may not have ever married, by reputation Mattidia the Younger also served as the image of a protecting, supportive matron to the Roman people. Close examination of Mattidia the Younger’s life, however, raises a problem. While Mattidia the Younger was famous enough to have been an influence on the literary creation of Mattidia, her public life was markedly different in a couple of important ways from her mother’s and especially the Clementine Mattidia. Mattidia the Younger in several ways bolstered Mattidia the Elder’s image as protector of the Roman imperial family and people, but she was also more clearly independent in her activity and often operated in full public view. As acknowledged by Boatwright, in a couple of significant regards Mattidia the Younger stands out from other imperial women of the early second century.18

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Figure 2.8 Icon of Our Lady of Valor. Tel Aviv: Our Lady of Valor Pastor Center. Photo: St. James Vicariate for Hebrew Speaking Catholics in Israel, Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem

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Figure 2.9 Antigua Parroquia de Indios. Mexico City: Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Photo: Curtis Hutt

She appears to have been personally in control of her financial resources, possibly because she remained unmarried.19 From what we know about her financial holdings, which are admittedly difficult to separate from those of Mattidia the Elder, she was extremely wealthy and her property holdings were extensive. Like her mother, Mattidia the Younger was extremely close to Hadrian’s family as the sister of Sabina and traveled with them to the East. She maintained her connections to imperial families long after the time of Hadrian and was famously close to the family of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Most interestingly, the number of surviving isolated statues and dedications containing no overt reference to Hadrian and later emperors is evidence of the influence that she had particularly in Italy and the eastern part of the Roman Empire – in cities like Suessa Aurunca, Vicetia, and Ephesus.20 Finally, Mattidia the Younger was renowned for the many large and important philanthropic gifts she made. In Ephesus and Suessa she was given the title Procurator. In Vicetia, she and her mother Mattidia the Elder were honored for making donations that provided for the foundations of the city itself.21 While no major public alimentary ventures like the puellae Faustinianae and novae puellae Faustinianae for aiding orphaned women were established in their names  – such as was done

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by Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius – Boatwright notes Richard DuncanJones’ startling finding that Mattidia the Younger was a philanthropist rivaling Pliny in Italy alone!22 Amongst her benefactions included large public works in Ostia and the restoration of the Suessa theatre after an earthquake. Most interestingly, Mattidia the Younger had a public library named after her in Suessa that she probably financed as well. She was directly involved in promoting in public education. Perhaps this is an indication of her own education and cultural interests. Boatwright is correct to suggest that Mattidia the Younger presents a challenge to the official images of imperial women during Trajan and Hadrian’s reigns. While she may have been subservient to the men in her family, she clearly did not shun public life and seemingly enjoyed much personal power and autonomy.

Figure 2.10 Marble Portrait of Mattidia the Younger. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, Accession Number 21.88.35.

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b. Mattidia, the mother of Clement Against the backdrop of the reputation of Mattidia the Elder and perhaps her daughter, whose lives establish a compelling terminus post quem to the family narrative contained in the Pseudo-Clementine literature (as opposed to the basetext), we encounter the fictional character of Mattidia, the wife of Faustus. Like the couples found in earlier Greek epics (most notably, Homer’s archetypal story of Penelope and Odysseus) and later, more contemporaneous romances (Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoë, Longus’ Daphnis and Chloe, Achilles Tatius’ Leucippe and Clitophon, Xenophon of Ephesus’ Anthia and Habrocomes [Ephesiaca], Heliodorus of Emesa’s Theagenes and Charicles [Aethiopica]), in the Clementina the virtuous heroine is separated from her lover/husband only to be reunited after a series of fateful misadventures and dramatic “recognitions.” Events like the dramatic sexual assault on Mattidia by her husband’s brother that initiated her sorrows and traumatic separation from young twin sons followed established and compelling narrative precursors that were familiar to ancient Mediterranean audiences.23 While following the same general plot as found in many similar Greek and Roman “love-stories,” which have also influenced other Christian apocryphal texts,24 The Sorrows of Mattidia is unusual in one decisive way. Whereas in many romances with comparable plots the reunion of the separated couple is a welcome occurrence – for example, in the tale told by Scheherazade in the Arabian Nights of the pious Israelite who was reunited with his wife and children25 – Mattidia’s reunion with Faustus is anticlimactic and, at least in the Homilies but arguably the Latin Recognitions as well, somewhat disturbing.26 The singular reason for the disquiet is clear. Just prior to her unexpected reunion with Faustus, Mattidia converted to a new religion and became a member of a community led by the apostle Peter. This is important for a couple of reasons. In doing so, the narrative stages a conflict between the early Christianity practiced by the members of Peter’s community and the chief religious traditions of the Roman Empire. The character of Mattidia provides audiences with an example of an early convert to Christianity from the imperial family itself! Even though Mattidia provided Peter, in debate, with an example of the victory of divine providence over astrological fate and of a pious, chaste, and high-born convert to Christianity, the apostle returns her to the pagan astrologer Faustus, who at least at this time was not a member of Peter’s community. The apostle not only forces this long-suffering Christian wife back into a relationship with her pagan spouse but makes her resemble Helena – the partner/prostitute of the Peter’s archenemy Simon Magus. The tension between Christian and pagan traditions is mirrored in the relationship between the Pseudo-Clementine Peter and Faustus. Just as occurs in the Apocryphal Acts, Mattidia is placed between an apostle and her husband. For example, in the Acts of Paul and Thecla, the female protagonist scandalously abandons the man she is betrothed to in order to follow the apostle Paul. In the Acts of Peter, Xanthippe is inspired to leave her husband by a “Peter” who is

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described very differently than in the Pseudo-Clementine texts under consideration. What is, however, so strange and unsettling about the story found in the Homilies – especially to twenty-first century Western readers  – is that conflict between Peter and Faustus over Mattidia is resolved in a different and unexpected way. Whereas in the Apocryphal Acts the lead female characteristically leaves her husband or betrothed to follow an apostle, Mattidia is forced by Peter to leave her new community and reenter a relationship under extraordinarily difficult circumstances with her pagan husband – who has himself taken upon the form of Simon Magus! Mattidia is a most sympathetic figure, clearly associated with the position and the virtues of Mattidia the Elder and at least to some degree Mattidia the Younger. First and foremost, the fictional Pseudo-Clementine Mattidia was a member of the imperial family like the other Mattidias who came before her. Clement’s mother clearly embodied the Roman virtue of pietas so closely connected to Mattidia the Elder and possibly Mattidia the Younger as well, who even though she was childless, was devoted – as evidenced in her philanthropy – to the well-being of the Roman people. Like Mattidia the Elder, in the Clementina Mattidia’s duty and devotion to her family comes first – though she is also a tragic figure insofar as she was unable to protect her sons, who were separated from her and lived a life of great poverty and misery. The fallen Mattidia, exemplifying a virtue one can easily ascribe to Mattidia the Elder, was praised for her “sound-minded self-restraint” (sophrosyné). As argued by Laura Breglia, Mattidia the Elder served as a visual example of moderation and self-control.27 In the Pseudo-Clementine literature – as opposed to its usage in other early Christian sources, where sophrosyné is often translated as “chastity” and associated with the permanent sexual abstinence of virgins – “sound-mindedness” implies conformity to expectations of fidelity to husband and family. In Recognitions 7.38 and Homilies 13.13–21, immediately following Mattidia’s baptism, Peter explicitly states that both Mattidia’s reunion with her children and her knowledge of eternal life as well are rewards for her sound-mindedness. In Homilies 13.21, Peter states: The sound-minded faithful woman is the choice of God, God’s good gift, God’s glory, God’s child. So great a good thing is faithfulness that if it was not a law that a just unbaptized person could not enter into the kingdom of God, through fidelity those misled by the Gentiles might have been able to be saved. For the composers of this literature, Mattidia’s sound-mindedness, exhibited in her fidelity to family and husband, made her an ideal example of the likely female convert to this “Petrine” form of Judaized Christianity. The Pseudo-Clementine Mattidia, however, was never as powerful or autonomous in her behavior as Mattidia the Elder or Mattidia the Younger. Even when residing in Rome with her young family, Mattidia – a daughter of Caesar – was sexually assaulted by the brother of her husband and scandalized. One might 30

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assume that Mattidia the Elder and her daughter, on account of their elite status, would have been able to resist such advances and remain in Rome. Moreover, it is difficult imagining that just anyone would be allowed to conduct genethlialogical studies and discussions of Mattidia the Elder or Mattidia the Younger’s personal horoscopes as they were members of the emperor’s family. Obviously, Mattidia lost most of the affluence and capabilities accompanying her imperial status after her shipwreck on Arados. When the fictional Mattidia becomes a member of the Judaizing Christian community of Peter, her ability to direct her own actions is further diminished. In terms of the grid/group model devised by Mary Douglas, Mattidia’s travels involve two separate movements.28 First, her tragic downfall, taking her from Rome to Arados, which resulted in a major loss of her capacities – subject to male domination – entailed a transition from what Douglas refers to as strong group/strong grid (characterized by high levels of community support but minimal individual autonomy, the privileged status of few women in the ancient world) to weak group/weak grid (little community support with a high degree of individual autonomy). Second, her “escape” from Arados to Peter’s community marks another step down – from weak group/weak grid to weak group/strong grid (little community support but minimal individual autonomy) – at least in terms of her ability to control her own life. As argued by Ross Kraemer, who challenged Douglas’ assertion that strong grid is preferable to weak grid for women, it is for the most part only in weak grid situations where patriarchal domination is eluded.29 Given the gender bias of the composers of the Pseudo-Clementine literature, it should not be a surprise that any hint of autonomy of action, power, philanthropy, or political maneuvering behind the scenes is left out of this picture of Mattidia, who is clearly subservient to the men in her life – including in Peter’s community as well. Mattidia, in general, is unheard and unseen. Mattidia’s life is pushed to the side throughout most of the Homilies and Recognitions, except in the construction of the underlying plot of the family narrative. This occurs even in places where one might have thought to search for her. Clement does not mention a single family member or the tragic breakup of his family until asked specifically by Peter about his past. He does not connect his troubled emotional state prior to becoming a Christian with any specific event, though he discusses his malaise and anxiety at length. As I have noted, after the final “recognition” of Faustus, Mattidia all but disappears from the Pseudo-Clementines; like the other women in Peter’s community, she is separated from the men. Mattidia does not attend most of the long dialogues and disputations between men that make up most of this literature. She is present for discussion and a speech by Peter only when it concerns her directly.30 The only times that Mattidia speaks boldly are before her conversion, when asking Peter for a drug to take her life, and when objecting to having to accompany Faustus, who is in the guise of Simon Magus. The apostle addresses Mattidia, but not like one of the men. She is given instructions and praise. There is, however, no dialogue among equals – something that Peter is keen to maintain in his “fair” philosophical disputations with other pagan men like Faustus and even Simon Magus. 31

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It is in the context of debate and the forwarding of religious precepts that we meet the Pseudo-Clementine Mattidia. Our picture of her is blurred by the concerns of men responsible for this literature, who are probably not interested in her at all. Faustus offers his own personal experiences and Mattidia’s horoscope as evidence for his argument that all is predetermined and laid out for the astrologer in the heavens. The story of her “recognitions” explicitly serves Peter as a tool for evangelization and is presented as a Bardasian example of divine providence supervening over astrological fate.31 One of the leading concerns of the composers responsible for the portrayal of men in Peter’s community is the confirmation of correct ritual protocol. A relatively large amount of time is spent emphasizing that Mattidia cannot eat with her sons after being “reunited” with them. She pleads for baptism that, according to the group’s guidelines, can only occur after preparation through fasting. The fact that she has only had a single glass of water for the preceding day is insufficient – she must abstain from sustenance deliberately for an additional day.32 At length, Peter emphasizes that Mattidia’s deliverance has come about as a result of her “chastity” (sophrosyné).33 Once again, it is most critical to understand exactly what is meant by this term. Here as in other places in the Pseudo-Clementine literature, sophrosyné is best translated as conformity to expectations of fidelity and should not be mistaken for a reference to the permanent sexual abstinence of virgins.34 It is easy to become confused. Peter is referring to Mattidia’s temporary sexual abstinence during the time when she was away from her husband. It matters not that she is forced, after her reunification with Faustus, to play the part of Simon Magus’ companion. There are important dissimilarities between what Peter advocates in the Clementina and what we find in the letters of Paul or the Apocryphal Acts. Examination of Homilies 3.58 provides us with important interpretive clues for understanding Peter’s commendation of Mattidia. In this crucial passage with no parallel in the Recognitions, he appeals to young and old alike to marry.35 Chastity unequivocally can only be maintained within the bonds of marriage. Adultery is the sin most hated by God, and Mattidia has remained true to Faustus while separated from him. After her conversion and final “recognition,” she is instructed by Peter to return to her married state and share a bed with her husband. The ending found in the Homilies suggests that it does not matter if, due to Faustus’ appearance as Simon Magus, the public thinks Mattidia has entered into an adulterous relationship with a man other than her husband or has become like Helena the consort of Peter’s archenemy. Furthermore, it is of no consequence at all – in both the endings found in Rufinus’ Recognitions or the Homilies – if Faustus chooses to convert to Christianity or not. In Recognitions 10.1, Mattidia has been returned to the keeping of her pagan husband, Faustus, who no one must attempt to convert for another year. In Homilies 20.22, it matters not if Faustus lives in the company of his fellow pagan astrologers, Simon Magus, or in the community of Peter.

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ii. Mattidia and the widow(s) of Arados The story of Mattidia’s shipwreck and subsequent exile on the island of Arados (Gk.: Arados; Heb.: Arvad; Ar.: Arwad) certainly caught the attention of ancient audiences. First, to quote Hans Blumenberg on real and metaphorical shipwrecks in the literature of the ancient Greek world: “Shipwrecks belong to fates that possess a classical stature.”36 The Pseudo-Clementine Peter himself has been a witness to Mattidia’s survival and overcoming. Second, and perhaps almost as dramatically, the disaster that befalls Mattidia is set against the striking backdrop of the island citadel of Arados and its spectacular temple of Aphrodite/Astarte/Europa. This temple, reputedly containing famous vine-wood columns attributed to the famous fifth century bce sculptor Phidias, who was by reputation also responsible for the statue of Athena inside the Parthenon and statue of Zeus on Mt. Olympia (a wonder of the ancient world), was a site of ancient religious pilgrimage and, if we are to believe the Clementina, even non-religious tourism! It is explicitly placed on Arados not only by the author of the Pseudo-Clementine literature but also by the first century ce author Chariton.37 In Chaereas and Callirhöe, as in the story of Mattidia, the island is described as a place of asylum for women. While the temple is referred to without the actual naming of the goddess in the Recognitions, it goes completely unmentioned in the Homilies, where Peter is portrayed as being not only uninterested in the site but drawn away to the suffering of women found there.38 At the same time, the apostle specifically does not want the first recognition between Clement and Mattidia to happen on Arados near the famous temple – though it occurs at this remarkably notable location anyways. The reader must not overlook the new historical context influencing events on Arados at the time of the composers and later audiences of the narrative of Mattidia and her family. It is against the backdrop not only of Chariton’s Aphrodite or the “Syrian Goddess” but also the rise of Christianity in the East that we encounter the character of Mattidia on Arados, in person, for the first time. At least by the time of Constantine, Arados – led by developments on the mainland – would have been impacted by emergent Christian traditions. In the late third or early fourth century a mere three kilometers across the sea in Antardus (Anti-Arados; cf., Marathus, Tortosa; today, Tartus, Syria), an ancient chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary was built overlooking the island, reputedly by the apostle Peter himself. In 346 ce this chapel was refurbished by the Emperor Constantine the Great, who made it the centerpiece of the burgeoning city he re-named Constantia. It is certainly one of the oldest if not the oldest site associated with the veneration of the Virgin Mary to which we have witness in Christian history.39 Do we witness in the portrayal of the Pseudo-Clementine Mattidia’s Arados ancient clues to the emergence of an early cult of the Virgin Mary in the area? Arados, most importantly, had a long and well-known history as a sanctuary for women. To cite once again the early Greek romance Chaereas and Callirhoë, because of Aphrodite, on Arados “women could feel completely unafraid, as

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though at home.”40 In Chariton’s popular novel, the main character Callirhoë – who is portrayed not only as beautiful but also a “sound-minded and faithful” woman (sophrosyné) 41 – was left on Arados for safekeeping by her captor and wooer, the Persian King Artaxerxes, with his wife Statira. Upon the seizing of the island by her husband Chaereas, whom Callirhoë thinks is dead, the two “recognize” each other and are reunited – in a clear literary precursor to the story of Mattidia and her husband, Faustus, found in the Pseudo-Clementine literature. Given Arados’ reputation as a religious sanctuary and refuge for women, the description in the Clementina of Mattidia’s time on this island is brought into more vivid relief. After being washed upon shore, naked and seeking desperately for her children – who unbeknownst to her had been taken captive by pirates – Mattidia is clothed, aided in her fruitless search, and then comforted by the women who live on the island. Empathizing with her experiences, they relate to her their own stories of misery. One of these women, an unnamed “poor” widow whom Kate Cooper has argued was a Judean Jew42 – like Callirhoë (or so she thought of herself before being surprised by Chaereas) – invites Mattidia to stay with her. Interestingly, this widow tells Mattidia that her husband died at sea and that she subsequently refused to take a new husband in spite of having had many offers to remarry. Regretting the loss of her husband, she too chose to live a life of soundminded self-restraint (sophrosyné) – that is, fidelity to husband and family – like Callirhoë and Mattidia. It is specifically on account of this widow’s love and loyalty to her dead husband that Mattidia agrees to live with her. In spite of social pressures in the Roman Empire to remarry, these women resisted. In the case of Mattidia and her new friend, in contrast to Callirhoë who lived in the company of Persian King Artaxetes’ family, they were forced because of the choices that they made to work with their hands in order to survive until they succumbed to sickness. When Peter and Clement arrived on the island, Mattidia – former member of the household of Caesar – had contracted a debilitating, painful disease and been reduced to begging in order to support her friend and herself. Mattidia, in an emotionally moving text pleads with Peter for a drug to end their sorrowful conditions. Why should she choose to live in the face of such misery? Arados apparently offered a haven of sorts for the women, but at a horrific price to their economic and physical well-being. To what extent did women really choose abstinence and live as widows, instead of taking on another partner after separating from the first? Again, such evasions from high grid to low grid social situations – to once again deploy Mary Douglas’ useful model – definitely supplied women more autonomy and self-determination. It is curious that both Mattidia and her hostess on Arados chose to live as chaste widows before their conversion to Christianity. These details in the Pseudo-Clementine accounts lead us to the conclusion that such actions were common outside better-known historic Christian circles. Descriptions of widows and other impoverished women are rare in the literature of the Greco-Roman world. It is possible to find references to them, such as when they fill in the backdrop making up part of the scenery in the work of Roman comic playwrights. The Censor Marcus Cato 34

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the Elder, for example, leaves us in his manual on running a farm and keeping slaves (On Agriculture) a clear description of the life of a simple female housekeeper.43 But such women were not in a comparable position to that of Mattidia and her friend on Arados. They were part of a household and did not need to fend for themselves alone. In spite of their poverty and susceptibility to disease, however, the poor widows and other women on Arados had managed to escape difficulties often associated with the domestic sphere brought upon by traditional family values and marriage – where oftentimes seclusion as well as domination by males were the norm. There are several relevant and noteworthy portrayals of widow’s lives in the Christian gospels. Their property was preyed upon by men after their husbands’ deaths (Mark 12:40; Luke 20:47) and they needed persistence to pursue their claims in court (Luke 12:2–5). Jesus’ story of the poor widow and her meager though praised offering illustrates their poverty (Mark 12:42–4; Luke 21:2–4). Possibly following the example of Jesus, who aided a poor widow by raising from the dead her only son (Luke 7:12–17), upon whom she probably relied for care, early Christian communities made it their duty to aid these widows (Acts of the Apostles 6:1–6; James 1:27). The popularity of this ministry was such that soon limitations on who qualified for the assistance offered by Christians needed to be established (I Timothy 5: 3–16). By the time of John Chrysostom, these practical restrictions became the basis for theological arguments as to who was or was not a “real widow.”44 In the story of Mattidia’s shipwreck and life on Arados we encounter not only a description of the lives of pagan and – if we are to believe Kate Cooper45 – Jewish widows on this island sanctuary for women, but also female converts to an early form of Christianity associated with the community of Peter. The stories of Mattidia and the widow she befriended on Arados provide us with a representation of early Christian widows that is quite different from what we find in the Apocryphal Acts. For the most part, they have lost their first husbands and live in a state of poverty as in the Christian Testament – unlike many of the lifelong “widows” and “virgins” described in non-canonical texts like the Acts of Paul and Thecla. The term “widow,” in the Pseudo-Clementine literature, does not refer to widows and virgins alike – as is the case in the Acts of Peter.46 Instead, as in Acts of the Apostles 6:1–6 and 9:36–42 as well as in I Timothy 5:3–16, the “widows” of the Clementina are continent women who are loyal to the memory of their first husbands. In this way, they embody traditional Roman virtues found in Mattidia the Elder and other famous fictional characters like Penelope and Callirhoë in Greco-Roman romances and epics. As opposed to several of the women praised in the Apocryphal Acts, neither Mattidia nor her friend on Arados were lifelong virgins. They never spurned their husbands. Mattidia only reluctantly left Faustus when she fled Rome with her twins after being subjected to unwanted sexual offense by her brother-in-law. Neither the characters of Mattidia nor the widow of Arados who befriended her in the Clementina were “Encratites.”47 While unmarried young women might have looked up to older widows and envied 35

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their freedom – a postulation that interestingly reinforces the idea that Christian widows were not only the recipients of charity but actually respected members of their Christian communities48 – they did not follow these widows’ route to the chaste, continent life. This said, the women of the Pseudo-Clementine literature and Apocryphal Acts do appear to be motivated by the same desire to flee oppressive high grid social arrangements where men dominated the lives of women. Like the women of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, their continence is deployed as a tool in order to secure their own interests. Exactly how many widows lived on Arados? If its reputation in Chariton’s novel is accurate, this island certainly may have provided large numbers of women with protection from male aggression and unsolicited advances. It afforded them a social space for activities that did not exist for the married. Of course, as is evident in the story of Mattidia, not every widow on Arados was a dowager and many clearly would have suffered (like Mattidia and her friend) from their decisions not to remarry. Readers of the Clementina, however, must not forget that “Christians” of a certain sort are responsible for the transmission of Mattidia’s story and they were probably keen to present these two women as “likely” proselytes – exhibiting chaste behavior even before their acceptance of this new faith. By headlining the traditional “sound-mindedness” of Christian converts like Mattidia, who were manifest in their steadfast loyalty to husbands and family, the authors of the Pseudo-Clementines engaged in apologetic appeals to ancient socially conservative Mediterranean audiences.49 In the end – not unexpectedly given the family values promoted by the person(s) responsible for the writing, editing, translating, and promoting of the PseudoClementine literature – Mattidia’s companion on Arados and eventually Mattidia herself will be returned to the world of men. Like Callirhoë on Arados before them, whom Aphrodite instructs to take a new husband even before the identity of Chaereas is known, they are encouraged to return to the marital state – in spite of explicit and imagined protests. After Mattidia is recognized by and reunited with her son Clement, she will not leave the island until saying good-bye to her bedridden friend. Peter then has the nameless widow carried on her bed into their presence. Next, before a multitude that has gathered, he heals her in order to strengthen their faith. It is only after this occurs that Mattidia will allow herself to be healed (Rec. 7.22; Hom. 12.22). Before departing, Clement provides the widow with one thousand drachmas and puts her under the charge of the “chief man” of the island – something we can infer, from her earlier discussion with Mattidia, that had she tried to resist all along. Likewise, the new Christian convert Mattidia, in the disturbing conclusion to the family narrative in the Homilies edited out of the Recognitions by its Latin translator Rufinus, after her final recognition and reunification with her husband, Faustus, is forced by Peter against her will to leave his community and travel with her unconverted spouse – whose appearance has been altered to resemble Peter’s enemy Simon Magus. Mattidia, who fears that her virtue and faith will be compromised, is given no choice.

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After returning Mattidia and her friend on Arados to the company of men, Clement distributes money amongst numerous other women on Arados. Thereby, if I am correct, the patronage of this ancient sanctuary for women is passed on in this literature from devotees of Aphrodite, and formerly Astarte, to the heirs of Christ with the establishment of an endowment for widows by Peter’s community. While this narrative that I have titled The Sorrows of Mattidia is certainly no first century ce historical source that we can assume accurately portrays events associated with Peter and Clement of Rome, we can view it as a third century ce witness to the transformation of an island and region associated in an earlier age with Aphrodite/Astarte. At some point in the time prior to the arrival of the Emperor Constantine in the area, or as part of his appropriation of this historically strategic site in the Eastern Mediterranean, devotion to the Virgin Mary took hold – something that was, intriguingly, in the Pseudo-Clementine literature connected to Peter, who was the reputed builder of the chapel just opposite the island in Antardus (present day Tartous). Unfortunately, I have attempted without success to find any literary or archaeological evidence for pagan or Christian virgins living on Arados. This would have made Peter’s visit to Arados particularly noteworthy, especially given the apparent opposition (to be discussed in more detail forthwith) of the writers of the Clementina to the radical asceticism of Christian women associated with more scandalous “Pauline” communities and encountered in texts like the Apocryphal Acts. iii. Mattidia and the wife of Peter After being healed and reunited with her son Clement, Mattidia accompanies Peter’s early Christian group off the island of Arados. From the start, Mattidia is secluded from the men. She is seated for the journey with the wife of Peter.50 Upon reaching their new destination, the site of Mattidia’s second “recognition” of her twins, not only is she unable to eat with her long-lost children until after she has been baptized, but she must also strictly observe a fast before this ritual of inclusion. No man, not even one of her three sons, can give testimony that she completed the requirements of the fast successfully. Only another woman, once again Peter’s unnamed wife, can be a witness to her achievement.51 For the most part, Mattidia, like the other women of Peter’s community, was separated from men who were not part of her household. Evidence for this can be gleaned from Homilies 14.1, where the movement of men and women at Mattidia’s early morning baptism indicates that this was the case. After the baptism of Mattidia and her companion from Arados, the new members are allowed to eat with the men of the community. Mattidia is, however, then presumably separated from the men again along with the mysterious wife of Peter – who is absent from the rest of the story, as she is from almost all other early Christian traditions. Mattidia’s interaction with Peter’s wife, albeit alluded to in only a couple of short sentences in the Pseudo-Clementine literature, is a quarry yielding diverse

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finds for those studying the lives of women in early Christian communities. For some, it might raise more prosopographical questions about the composition of Peter’s family. Bart Ehrman, for example, in an article titled “Cephas and Peter” that questions the common identification (generally based upon John 1:42) between what he believes to be two separate figures, concludes his work by asserting that his findings have “obvious” implications for those believing that Peter’s wife accompanied him on his missionary journeys.52 Simply stated, Ehrman thinks that the Cephas referred to by Paul in I  Corinthians 9:5 who travels with his wife is not Peter. Even if Ehrman is right about this Pauline Cephas, the Pseudo-Clementine literature does provide us with a witness to a later tradition – never noted by Ehrman in his article – alleging that Peter’s wife accompanied him on his missionary journeys. While it is possible that the tradition which the Pseudo-Clementine literature depends upon is ultimately derived from a mistaken identification of Peter with Cephas, one still might infer from parallel passages found in the synoptic Gospels (Matthew 8:14–5; Mark 1:30–1; and, Luke 4:38–9) – where specific reference is made to Simon Peter’s motherin-law, who was healed from a fever by Jesus – that Peter did have a wife who could, like the wives of the brothers of the Lord, have traveled with him. Elsewhere, in the apocryphal Acts of Peter (Berolinensis Gnosticus 8502), reference is made to Peter’s daughter.53 While I do not view the Pseudo-Clementine expansions on the lives of Gospel characters as anything other than fiction, it is clear that in ancient Mediterranean traditions Peter is described as having a family. In keeping with the thrust of my analysis, the descriptions of even imagined family life matters. More interestingly, the account of Mattidia’s interaction with Peter’s wife in the Pseudo-Clementine literature provides a less-examined account of how women and men traveled and worked together on early Christian missionary journeys. This can be compared to more well-known representations of married missionary couples mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Pauline epistles – Priscilla and Aquila as well as Andronicus and Junia. In the Apocryphal Acts, we encounter Paul and Thecla as well as Andrew and Maximilla. There are substantial differences, however, between what our texts have to say about Peter’s interaction with his wife in the Clementina and how some these other missionary couples related to one another. The lack of ascribed paternal and marital filiation for women in the letters of Paul54 is particularly noteworthy when compared to the opposite case in the Mattidia story. We never even learn Peter’s wife’s name! Whereas Priscilla, Junia, and other female figures encountered in Paul’s writings play prominent roles as Church leaders and prophetesses, Peter’s wife in the Clementina does not. It must also be emphasized that in the case of named Pauline missionary couples, most of them are not traditional husband–wife partnerships. Some, like Tryphaena and Tryphosa (Romans 16:12) in addition to Euodia and Syntyche (Philemon 4:2–3), were female–female. Given the description of Mattidia’s life in Peter’s community, it is hard to imagine the composers of the Pseudo-Clementine literature advocating Christian missions led by a woman or female leadership 38

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team. As witnessed in 1 Corinthians 9:5, Paul’s choice not to marry is at odds with the practice of Cephas and the brothers of the Lord who travel with their wives. The chastity of Mattidia (and presumably Peter’s wife praised in the Clementina) is clearly of an altogether different sort than what we encounter in the Apocryphal Acts. In the Acts of Peter, which provides for us a very different characterization of the apostle as is found in the Clementina, the daughter of Peter is celebrated as a beautiful virgin who prefers to be paralyzed rather than be exposed to the sexual advances of men.55 Taking this logic one step further, a peasant’s virgin daughter in the Acts of Peter is proclaimed better off dead than raised to life! In death, she had escaped the shamelessness of the flesh. Likewise, Eubola’s renunciation of the world in the same apocryphal text is praised. In the Acts of Paul and Thecla the message is the same: In order to be saved, women should be celibate. New female converts, who are typically from the upper classes, spurn the desires of husbands, fiancés, and the wishes of their own families. Thecla herself rebuffs social pressure to marry in order to follow Paul. On account of this, Thecla’s own biological mother calls for her to be burned alive. As in the Acts of Perpetua and Felicitas, non-reconciliation between pagan family members and a Christian protagonist is promoted. It is explicitly Thecla’s resistance to the familial obligation to marry that wins the apostle’s approval to teach her. Certainly, the men responsible for the Pseudo-Clementine literature are decidedly less sympathetic towards independent women and cite them as the origin of heresies.56 They do not, however, urge lifelong celibacy as in the Acts of Peter and Acts of Paul and Thecla. This is likely a reflection of the authors’ own more traditional ancient Mediterranean views about family, though it cannot be ruled out that they relied upon earlier anti-Pauline, Judaizing Christian, and/or Jewish traditional practices for their own purposes. It is easy to assume that in the historical communities connected to the sources of the Clementina, women were more clearly subordinated to their partners and that celibacy was less common than in other early Christian groups. Throughout the Homilies and Recognitions, the vast majority of scholars studying this literature have agreed that it is possible to retrieve fragments of earlier traditions therein. Are we encountering in these texts evidence for another distinct manner of male–female interaction in the earliest churches? Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, argues for just such a divergence claiming that “Hebrews” and “Hellenists” did not share the same views on this general topic.57 Whether we choose to emphasize the motivations of Tyrannius Rufinus or some hypothetical “early Jewish Christian” source, examination of the many different women encountered in canonical or apocryphal texts associated with Paul offer us little insight into the portrayals of Peter’s wife or Mattidia under review. These women are locked into another social dynamic, or so this literature would have us believe. iv. Justa and her daughter, Bernice On the periphery of the narrative of Mattidia and her family, the Clementina contains unique references to two previously unnamed Gospel characters: the 39

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Canaanite/Syro-Phoenician woman encountered in Matthew 15:21–28 and Mark 7:24–30 as well as her daughter.58 In this literature, written many years after any such figures might have lived, they are named Justa and Bernice. The two, like other figures from the Christian Testament who make appearances in the Clementina, play secondary though important roles. In The Sorrows of Mattidia, the main character’s twins – Faustinus and Faustinianus – never made it with her to the shores of Arados, which remains in the Clementina a safe haven for women alone. Clinging to the wreckage of their vessel, they floated upon the sea until rescued by pirates. After suffering starvation and beatings, the two were renamed Nicetas and Aquila. They were then brought to Caesarea Stratonis and sold as slaves. Fortunately, the purchaser was none other than the Gospel character noted earlier, now named Justa. “Justa” begs Jesus to exorcise her child, who in the Clementina is known as Bernice (also transliterated as “Berenice”).59 She pleads her case by arguing that “even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s tables” (Mt. 15:27; Mk. 7:28). In the canonical Gospels, Jesus complies with her request. The most sympathetic author of Matthew explicitly cites her great faith. The mother and daughter do not appear again in the Christian Testament. In the Pseudo-Clementine literature, however, we encounter an alternative version of the famous meeting between the Canaanite/Syro-Phoenician woman, her daughter, and Jesus, along with additional extracanonical stories about their lives. Most dramatically, in the Homilies account of the interchange between Justa and Jesus, the latter refuses to perform a miracle on her daughter because they are Gentiles. Justa then becomes Jewish or “lawful.” It is only then, after her conversion to Judaism, that Jesus heals Bernice. According to our text, the two women then become important members of an early Judaizing Christian community in Tyre. The specific passages containing references to Justa in the Recognitions and Homilies are considered by several scholars – for example, Georg Strecker – to find their origins in the earliest sources used by the composer of the basic writing.60 They are connected explicitly with “Jewish Christian” traditions, specifically a form of Ebionism in which early Hebrew followers of Jesus kept some form of Mosaic law and practiced Jewish traditions.61 This is evident, first and foremost, in the retelling of the Gospel event encountered in the Homilies. In the Gospels, the unnamed Canaanite women spurs Jesus into opening the door for Gentiles to the “kingdom” – allowing them to recover crumbs from the master’s table. Whether or not such a woman ever existed, and even if the Pseudo-Clementine account is entirely fabricated, the reworking of this story is clear proof for the existence of an alternative and provocative view of the tradition transmitted by Matthew and Mark, where it is taken for granted that this story renders void Jewish exclusivity in Jesus’ kingdom of God.62 Whereas the canonical Gospel writers pave the way for the Christian mission to the Gentiles, in a most anti-Pauline interpretation of the event associated with the Gospel passages referred to earlier that did not escape editorial scrutiny by Tyrannius Rufinus, Homilies 2.19 asserts that if Justa had remained a Gentile and not become a proselyte to the religion of the “sons of the kingdom” then Jesus would 40

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not have healed her daughter at all! This would not have been “lawful.” In Homilies 2:20, we are provided with an extraordinarily rare example of a purportedly early female Gentile convert to a form of Second Temple Judaism associated with Jesus. Justa is described by her “adopted sons” as having been driven out from her home with Bernice by her husband, an unnamed character absent from the Gospel accounts, after choosing to live her life in accordance to the law (Torah). One further detail connecting Justa to early followers of Jesus living as observant Jews is the statement that she later gave her daughter Bernice in marriage to a man of the “true faith” who was “poor” (ebion; cf. Ebionites). The stories told of Justa and her daughter Bernice in the Pseudo-Clementine literature are significant for a number of reasons. While supplying the narrator a plausible explanation for what happened to Mattidia’s twins during the time that she was on Arados, it also provides us with fascinating material – ignored if not suppressed by Rufinus in his translation of the Recognitions – purportedly about the lives of two women who lived at the time of Jesus. It is not only the alternative account of Jesus’ healing of Bernice at the insistence of Justa in the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies that is startling. This story, the origins of which I do not associate with the source of the family narrative,63 minimally reveals an early alternative Christian portrayal of a Gospel event generally connected with the extension of Jesus’ mission from the Jewish people to the Gentiles. Justa (whose name probably is as much a description of her behavior as a proper name given by her family), rather than spurring Jesus’ mission to non-Jews, is depicted as converting to Judaism in order to secure her daughter’s healing. Subsequently, Justa and Bernice were driven out of their home by her husband because she lived life in accordance to the Jewish law. Most interestingly, Justa and Bernice provide us with examples of female characters in the Pseudo-Clementine literature who are patently unlike Mattidia and Peter’s wife. They are self-confident and assertive, resembling not only other famous Canaanite women like Tamar and Rahab, but more critically unmarried women of means in the ancient Mediterranean world who are able to act with autonomy and relative freedom from male supervision. In the Pseudo-Clementines, the healing of Bernice and entrance of Mattidia into the community of Peter does, however, require compliance with the author’s understanding of “Jewish” law. Justa’s separation from her husband provides us with an example of a wife who decides to become a part of a very Jewish Jesus movement while her husband does not. She is described in Homilies 2.20 as a “widow” even though her husband is apparently still alive – like Mattidia herself. In the Gospel accounts, “Justa” approaches Jesus to plead for her daughter. This action, as noted by Amy Jill Levine, was itself unusual. Normally, fathers represented their families on such missions, like Jairus who appealed to Jesus on behalf of his daughter who had died.64 The consequences of Justa’s action were great. Like those women counseled by Paul in 1 Corinthians 7:10–11,13–16, Justa is forced to separate from her unbelieving husband. This action, in Homilies 2.20, is directly associated with her decision to convert to Judaism. She is not thrown out on the street, 41

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though! Justa takes advantage of Roman law and retains wealth that she must have inherited from her family.65 As portrayed at the end of the third and beginning of the fourth Homilies, Bernice appears to have inherited something of her mother’s wealth. She has a house in Tyre known to Peter and is able to host his troupe along with Clement in an impressive fashion. It is worth noting that Bernice’s “poor” Ebionite husband is not mentioned in the opening sections of Homilies 4. Bernice herself welcomes Clement and her adopted brothers. As instructed by Peter, the men then “learn” from her – not her husband – about Simon Magus’ activities! Bernice laments that the magus has run rampant through Tyre with none to contest his actions. The stage is thereby set for Peter to challenge Simon Magus. Nevertheless, Bernice – while not as prominent a character as Mattidia or Justa in the Pseudo-Clementine literature – is described as a possible leader and patroness of the Ebionite Christian community of Tyre. The traditions responsible for these stories of Justa and Bernice evince, in keeping with the overall flavor of the earliest sources of the Pseudo-Clementine literature, a very different type of early Christianity than that encountered in the letters of Paul. The most confusing interpretive problem, though, is that they don’t really fit in very well with Homilies 3.58 discussed earlier in relation to Mattidia.66 Justa does not follow Peter’s instructions to Mattidia and attempt to rejoin her pagan husband! While she seems to follow the prescription of Paul in 1 Corinthians 7:8 to live as a widow, this is done for a completely different reason. Justa, it is explained, does not take a new husband for fear of what this will mean for the young Bernice. By not remarrying, she chose to protect her daughter from potential violence that might be perpetrated by a future spouse. Like Mattidia and the widow on Arados, Justa chooses to live a chaste life as a widow in reaction to the advances of men. Unlike those women, however, she was fortunate to have at her disposal access to a personal fortune that was not in jeopardy. In the case of Justa, we also find evidence for women choosing to live as “widows” who were actually divorcees. This does not accord well with the famous picture that we have of the different social positions of widows in the early churches as described in 1 Timothy 5:3–16. In addition to widows being separated into the categories based upon age (young/old), economic class (rich/poor), offspring (with/without children), and family (with/without relatives), a new grouping of “widows” must be added: Specifically, women who have been divorced by pagan husbands and choose not to remarry. v. Helena and female prophecy Of all the characters that we meet in the Clementina, Justa the Caananite – though formerly unnamed and in the Gospel limelight for only a few verses – may be the most well-known. Justa and Mattidia are the heroines in this literature. Contraposed to them is the notorious Helena – companion of Peter’s archrival as well as the enemy of Rome,67 Simon Magus. While there is no reference to her in the Christian Testament, this female prophetess holds a special place in the work of 42

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Christian heresiologists. Irenaeus in his Adversus Haereses 1.23.2 wrote that “all the heresies are derived from Simon of Samaria.” We might possibly say, after reading Peter’s teachings found in the Homilies 3.22–8 – immediately following the introduction of the character of Helena – that she and other women like her since Eve were the origin of heresy!68 Whereas Simon by his “own” words in Clementina claimed that he was born of a “virgin,” “the highest God,” and “all Father” above the demiurgical Jewish creator, he also asserted that Helena was more than a mere mortal. Helena, Simon alleged, preceded himself in the company of the followers of John the Baptist. She was none other than the “moon” (luna or selene), Sophia descended from heaven, and the true Helen of Troy. Justin Martyr and Irenaeus similarly wrote that Simon referred to her as the “Great Mother” and the “first thought” (Ennoia), as well as the “lost sheep” of Matthew 18:12. Interestingly, Irenaeus also wrote that Simon actually met Helena in Tyre, where she was a prostitute, the same city where Bernice and presumably Justa made their home.69 In Recognitions 2.8–12 and Homilies 2.23, 25, we first are introduced to Helena in the company of the followers of John the Baptist. Helena is one of John’s thirty chief disciples and is the only woman, hence her title (Luna). The Latin Recognitions is careful not to connect her or Simon too closely with Elizabeth’s son, though an undeniable tension still exists in this text between the disciples of the Baptist and those who have chosen to accompany Jesus. The Homilies, however, are more explicit. Simon was John the Baptist’s favorite follower. While Simon was away studying magic in Alexandria, Dositheus usurped his position as leader or “the Standing One” in the group.70 Upon his return, Simon feigned friendship with Dositheus and was admitted or re-admitted to the group. Then he challenged and defeated John’s successor, winning Luna. The two then embarked upon their travels with disciples such as Mattidia’s twins Faustinus and Faustinianus (Nicetas and Aquila). Clement’s brothers claim to have seen Simon and Helena work mysterious miracles and magic. One incident involving Helena places her in a tower, leaning out of it, and showing herself to spectators from different windows at the same time.71 It is their reworking of Greek myths and philosophy to suit their own purposes that stands out. Simon and Helena are portrayed as extremely hostile towards Judaism and “Jewish Christian” practices, prompting hatred of the true Creator and the belittling of the “poor.” A number of similarities to traditions contained in the Christian Testament and other early “Christian” literature, specifically linked to gnostic groups, come to the forefront. Of particular interest are those claiming close connections with John the Baptist, Jesus, and Mary Magdalene – though I will focus now primarily upon the latter. It is certainly possible that many of the claims about Simon and Helena made in the Clementina and by heresiologists are attempts to denigrate these figures and what they represent. Some details stand out more than others, though, and deserve special notice. For example, the inclusion about Simon having been born of a virgin can be explained in a number of ways. This might have been a libel targeted by opponents, a way heresiologists might have illustrated 43

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Simon’s depravity. But it also could have been something that Simon or his followers might have asserted to gain legitimacy. The births of both John the Baptist and Jesus are also described as miraculous, following traditions established in the Torah (Moses, the Patriarchs and Matriarchs; this is also the case with the prophet Samuel) and in numerous non-Biblical ancient texts. The only difference between Simon’s claim to be the “highest God” and the attribution of the same to Jesus by more orthodox Christians is Simon’s refusal to identify this deity with the Jewish creator instead choosing to follow a more “Platonic” theological model. The early Judaizing Christian community of Peter, praised in the Pseudo-Clementine literature, is appropriately opposed by anti-Jewish Hellenizers. The similarities between Helena and Mary Magdalene are more relevant. Each is associated with prophetic and visionary traditions.72 Both are characterized as a close companion of a male religious leader.73 While I  do not associate Mary Magdalene with the “prostitute” saved by Jesus from stoning in John 8:3–11 or the Mary who anointed Jesus’ feet with expensive oil to the dismay of Simon/ Peter (Luke 7:36–50), she was represented as early as the second century as a woman flaunting traditional Jewish/Greco-Roman family values. This is the case in the work of Celsus where Mary Magdalene is famously identified as a hysterical woman who (like other women of ill-repute, as argued by Margaret McDonald and Jane Shaberg) supported Jesus’ mission.74 Was Mary Magdalene, though, the sole female in a group of male disciples, like Helena? One might come to this conclusion through examination of gnostic texts like the Gospel of Mary, the Gospel of Philip, and the Dialogue of the Savior. However, other women in different texts are also characterized as attending to and passing on Jesus’ teachings (not only ministering to physical needs), such as Mary, the sister of Martha; and Salome. The Gospel character Mary Magdalene is notably absent from the Clementina. Perhaps it should also be no surprise that references to her cannot be found in the Pauline corpus, either – though her fellow female religious leader Helena may represent the apostle’s Thecla for the anti-Pauline producers of the Pseudo-Clementine literature, who equate Simon with Paul. Whereas Pauline writings do not generally mention Gospel characters, the pages of the Homilies and Recognitions abound with references to such figures. One might have expected to encounter Mary Magdalene here, arguably one of the most important of Jesus’ followers – the first witness to the resurrection itself – known even to non-Christians like Celsus. Women in the Clementina though, as in Luke-Acts, while present are pushed to the background and limited to traditional roles usually encountered in Greek, Roman, Jewish, and ancient Mediterranean society in general. This was exemplified earlier in the discussion of Mattidia and her companions. It is most likely that Mary Magdalene’s association with prophecy and female leadership in the early Church led to her exclusion from these texts. This should not be seen as unusual, though, considering the prominence of Peter in the literature under examination. Peter – even if we do not accept the traditional identification of Mary Magdalene with a prostitute or the woman who washes Jesus’ feet with her tears in Luke 7:36–50 – is portrayed in

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the Gospel of John and Luke-Acts as her early opponent. Each record that Mary’s witness to the resurrection was doubted and discounted. The rivalry between Peter and Mary continues in gnostic texts like the Gospel of Thomas and Gospel of Mary. It is Peter who objects to Mary’s presence amongst the male disciples of Jesus. It is Peter who, together with Andrew, discredits her visionary experience of the risen Jesus. Helena explicitly, Mary Magdalene through her notable absence, and countless other female leaders and prophetesses for the most part associated with gnostic, Montanist, and Pauline Christianities are the targets of the Pseudo-Clementine literature. In no place is this more evident than Homilies 3.22–28, a passage with no real parallel in Tyrannius Rufinus’ translation of the Recognitions. While preparing for his upcoming dispute with Simon Magus, Peter explains to Clement and his other male companions that there exist two different types of prophecy. This is in keeping with the notion already established in Homilies 2.15, 33, also found in Recognitions 3.61, that God has distinguished all principles into pairs and opposites for mortals. Where there is a male nature, there is a complementary female nature. In Homilies 3.22, the present world is identified with the female. On one hand, female prophetesses, of whom Eve was the first, produce knowledge of the world born of woman. Men, on the other hand, prophesy of the better world to come. The problem elucidated in Homilies 3.23 is that the female prophetesses wish to be thought of as male! This can be read as an explicit rebuke of a tradition associated directly with Mary Magdalene in the final logion of the Gospel of Thomas where Jesus promises to turn her into a male. This transformation of the female into the male is a relatively common theme, the interpretive key to which might be found in the writings of Philo.75 Other notable examples of a similar shift in gender status can be found in somewhat more orthodox Church writings such as The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas and in Origen’s Commentary on Ephesians. In the former work, which may possibly be linked to Montanism and/or Tertullian, Vibia Perpetua has a vision of becoming a man in order to fight an Egyptian opponent.76 Origen argues that the female will become male after the resurrection.77 Jerome corrects slightly this “heretical” claim in his own Commentary on Ephesians where he argues that women would “spiritually” become men in the kingdom of God.78 Peter’s criticism of female prophecy in Homilies 3:24 becomes more vitriolic. Seemingly now accepting the gnostic myth of Sophia that Simon has told of Helena (whom Peter refers to as Eve), he identifies her with the worship of many gods and berates the claim that she is one herself. The female prophetess is like a woman making sacrifices in the Temple while menstruating, polluting all that she touches. Her children are bloodthirsty kings. The female prophetess keeps them forever desiring blood and they are never satiated. She prophesies lies. After contrasting Abel’s “nature” with that of the murderous Cain who has been corrupted by Eve, Peter states in Homilies 3:27 that the male prophet represents truth and the female prophetess falsehood.

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Notes 1 The main exceptions to this are Marie-Ange Calvet-Sébasti, “Femmes du roman pseudo-clémentin,” in Les Personnages du roman grec, ed. B. Pouderon, Ch. Hunzinger, and D. Kasprzyk (Actes ducolloque de Tours, 1999, Collection de la Maison de l’Orient méditerranéen 29, Série littéraire et philosophique 7; Lyon: Maison de l’Orient Méditerranéen – Jean Pouilloux, 2001), 285–297; Kate Cooper in “Mattidia’s Wish,” op cit, 243–264; and, Cornelia Horn, “The Pseudo-Clementine Homilies and the Challenges of the Conversion of Families,” Lectio Difficilior (2/2007), 1–35. 2 See Ross Kraemer, When Joseph Met Asenath (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 42–43, n. 1, on problems associated with the use of this terminology. There are no overt, clear connections between the Pseudo-Clementine literature and the midrashim of the rabbis composed at roughly the same time. Each has come down to us, however, in “homiletic” (cf. Heb.: derasha) forms where rabbis and Christian composers have “filled in the gaps” of sacred stories for ancient popular, non-specialist, audiences. 3 See Chapter 4 of Bart Ehrman, Forged (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2011). My approach to this topic is somewhat similar to that found in G. W. Bowerstock’s Fiction as History: Nero to Julian (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1994). My emphasis, as opposed to Bowerstock, is on how to mine these admittedly fictional, “lying” texts for specific details embedded within them that can illuminate the historical record. 4 See Jenni Irving’s new rendering of Mary Boatwright’s simplified stemma for imperial women of the early second century CE in “The Imperial Women of the Early Second Century A.C.” in The American Journal of Philology 112 (1991), 516. Her work is based upon that of Marie-Thérèse Raepsaet-Charlier, Prosopographie des femmes de l’ordre senatorial (Ier-IIe siècles) (Louvain: Peeters, 1987), #IX. Others, as noted by Anthony Birley in Marcus Aurelius: A Biography (London: B.T. Batsford, 1966), have argued unconvincingly that Mattidia the Elder’s “second husband” or possibly even “third husband” was Libo Rupilius Frugi – which would make her the paternal greatgrandmother of Marcus Aurelius. 5 Regarding coin inscriptions and the role the public images of these women played in pro-family imperial propaganda especially during Hadrian’s reign, also see Hildegard Temporini, Die Frauen am Hofe Trajans: Ein Beitrag zur Stellung der Augustae in Principat (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1978), 120–175. 6 Mary Boatwright, “The Imperial Women of the Early Second Century A.C.,” op cit, 530, 537. 7 Ibid., 530–532, 514. As noted by Boatwright, Plotina represented the cause of Epicureans before Hadrian (Cassius Dio, Roman History 69.10.3a) and is reputed to have done the same for Jews from Alexandria before her husband Trajan (Epitome de Caesaribus 42.20–21). 8 Ibid., 513–515, esp. note 5. 9 Ibid., 513. 10 In Pliny’s Panegyric 83–84, Plotina and Marciana are applauded for their modesty. This is taken as a reflection upon Trajan’s own virtuous behavior, something that Pliny repeatedly highlights. Beryl Rawson, in her article “Children as Cultural Symbols: Imperial Ideology in the Second Century” found in S. Dixon, ed., Childhood, Class and Kin in the Roman World (London and New York: Routledge, 2001), 25–26 explicitly states that Trajan’s intent is to make a favorable comparison to Domitian. 11 It was in fact quite rare (prior to the period of Trajan, Hadrian, and the Antonines) for women in the imperial family to accompany the emperor on trips outside of Italy. Peter Brown, in A History of Private Life, vol. 1, op cit, 247–248 connects this development

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12 13

14 15

16 17

with the heightened significance of marriage in this period. I  think that it is also a result of the public image of imperial women promoted during this period. They were portrayed as strong supporters of their husbands and families. Imperial women of this age were characterized as beyond reproach in matters of sexual fidelity – which might have been more easily questioned if these women lived apart from their husbands in Rome for extended periods of time. Michael Grant, Roman History From Coins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958), 40–41. Paul L. Strack, Untersuchungen zur römischen Reichsprägung des zweiten Jahrhunderts, T. II Die Reichsprägung zur Zeit des Hadrian (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1933), 67, disagrees with the dating of these coins to the time of Trajan. Instead, he thinks that they date to the time of Hadrian and that the image on the reverse side (seemingly Mattidia?) of these coins shelters Hadrian and Sabina. By dating these original coins with images of Mattidia the Elder to the time of Trajan, I side with the position taken by Harold Mattingly in Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum, v. III: Nerva to Hadrian (London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1966), lxxxii–iii, 126–127, and in The Roman Imperial Coinage (RIC) vol. II, ed. H. Mattingly, and E. A. Sydenham (2nd ed., London: Spink and Son Limited, 1994), 301. Laura Breglia in Roman Imperial Coins: Their Art and Technique (New York and Washington: Frederick A. Praeger Publishers, 1968), 136–137, agrees with this earlier date and likewise thinks that the figures on the reverse are Mattidia the Elder protecting Mattidia the Younger and Sabina. Susan Solway in “A Numismatic Source of the Madonna of Mercy,” The Art Bulletin 67 (1985), 365, also dates the coins to the time of Trajan. However, while she acknowledges on at least one occasion that the figure on the reverse side is Mattidia (note 38), most of the time in her paper she refers to this character as “the goddess” or Pietas. The figure on the obverse side of these Trajanic coins is more difficult to determine. Though Mattidia is the prime candidate  – especially given her apparent characterization on the reverse – it is more likely upon review of hairstyle that this is Marciana. Mattingly, in Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum, op cit, seems to be of two different opinions. In the introduction (lxxxii–ii) he argues that that bust on the obverse is of Marciana. In his descriptions of the coins, however, he claims that the bust is Mattidia’s. Grant in Roman History From Coins, op cit, 40–41, and Breglia in Roman Imperial Coins: Their Art and Technique, op cit, 136–137, both think that the bust on the obverse is of Mattidia the Elder. See similar images on coins from the period of Antoninus Pius and also Marcus Aurelius connected to the care of imperial children in figures 8.17, 9.6, 9.7, and 9.8 of Jasper Burns, Great Women of Imperial Rome: Mothers and Wives of the Caesars (New York and Oxon: Routledge, 2007), 151, 158. See, for example, Harold Mattingly, Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum, op cit, 281; pl. 53,4. Susan Solway, “A Numismatic Source of the Madonna of Mercy,” The Art Bulletin 67, 359–368. Solway reproduces the archival work of Paul Perdrizet as found especially in La Vierge de miséricorde: étude d’un thème iconographique (Paris: Fontemoing, 1908), Pl. 2.1. Perdrizet unlike Solway, however, never connects these images with sources earlier than the work of fourteenth century Cistercians. See The Stella Maris of John of Garland, ed. E. Faye Wilson (Cambridge, MA: The Medieval Academy of America 1946), 168–170. Richard Duncan-Jones in Money and Government in the Roman Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 175, points out that none of the Mattidia coins were found in hoards from northwestern Europe. The coins are also rare in Italian hoards. Most of these coins are found in hoards in the region of the Black Sea, in Syria, and Egypt. This data indirectly confirms the view of generations of scholars who have

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18 19

20 21 22 23

24 25

26

27 28

29 30 31

32 33

placed the origins of the Pseudo-Clementine literature in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire – where the stories about Mattidia the Elder would have flourished. See Mary Boatwright, “Mattidia the Younger,” in Echos du Monde Classique/Classical Views 36.11 (1992), 19–32. Emily Hemelrijk argues in Matrona Docta: Educated Women in the Roman Elite from Cornelia to Julia Domna (London and New York: Routledge, 1999), 120, that this was probably not the case. Mattidia the Younger was probably widowed early, like her mother. Mary Boatwright, “The Imperial Women of the Early Second Century A.C.,” op cit, 529. Ibid., 522. Ibid., 524; see Richard Duncan-Jones, The Economy of the Roman Empire. Quantitative Studies (2nd ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 31. Roman audiences, in particular, were well aware of the story of Lucretia, who committed suicide after sexual aggression/rape against her  – see Livy, Historiarum ab urbe condita 1:57–60. Of course, Rhea Silvia – the mother of the twins Romulus and Remus – was herself raped by Mars. For example, see the “Apostolic Romances” attributed to Leucius Charinus like the Acts of Paul and Thecla, Acts of Andrew and Acts of Thomas; the Acts of Philip [and Mariamne?]; the Acts of Xanthippe and Polyxena; and, Joseph and Asenath. Arabian Nights 3.784–791. Did the Pseudo-Clementine family narrative have an influence on the tale of “The Island King and the Pious Israelite” recorded centuries later in an Islamic setting? We know that material from the Pseudo-Clementine literature did make in roads into late-antique Arabian culture – see, for example, the Book of Rolls published by Margaret Dunlop Gibson in Apocrypha Arabica (Studia Sinaitica VIII; London: C. J. Clay and Sons, 1901), which claims to be a sixth hidden book of Clement and contains amongst other things anti-Pauline material! The implications of a, seemingly obvious, positive answer to this question will be explored later. See Philip F. Kennedy’s discussion of this “Islamic Recognitions,” in Recognition: The Poetics of Narrative: Interdisciplinary Sudies on Anagnorisis, eds. P. F. Kennedy and M. Lawrence (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2009), 30. Kate Cooper in “Mattidia’s Wish,” 255, writes that Mattidia’s reunion with her husband is a “wishful reconciliation.” I am unsure, especially in light of the alternative ending found in the Homilies. Even in the Recognitions, Mattidia is not given the choice of returning to Faustus. Laura Breglia, Roman Imperial Coins: Their Art and Technique, op cit, 136–137. Mary Douglas, Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology (London: Barrie and Rockcliffe; New York: Pantheon Books, 1970), 77–92, and Cultural Bias (London: Royal Anthropological Institute, 1978), 5–36. See also, Ross Kraemer, Her Share of the Blessings (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 12–21. Ross Kraemer, Her Share of the Blessings, op cit, 206. Homilies 13.10–21 and Recognitions 7.34–38. Homilies 14.6 and Recognitions 9.32. The reader is prepared for Faustus’ “recognition” in Recognitions 8–9 with a long debate between Peter and Faustus on the topic of astrological determinism. In Homilies 14.3–6, the same is the case, though the dialogue here is much shorter. Much work of late has been accomplished on the topic of astrology and the Pseudo-Clementine literature. See F. Stanley Jones, “Eros and Astrology,” op cit and Nicole Kelley, Knowledge and Religious Authority, op cit. Homilies 13.4–5, 9–12 and Recognitions 7.29–30, 34–37. Homilies 13.13–21 and Recognitions 7.38. This is how Thomas Smith has translated the term in his famous English translation of “The Pseudo-Clementine Literature,” in The Anti-Nicene Fathers, op cit.

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34 See Cornelia B. Horn in “The Pseudo-Clementine Homilies and the Challenges of the Conversions of Families,” Lectio Difficilior (2/2007), who concludes the same regarding the “chastity” practiced by Mattidia. 35 In Clement’s Letter to James 7, similar instructions are given to male presbyters. Regardless of whether they are old or young, it is their duty to wed. This is the only defense against adultery. 36 Hans Blumenberg, Care Crosses the River (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010), 3. 37 See Chariton’s Callirhoë, Loeb Classical Library 481, trans. G. P. Goold (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1995), 345b. Ancient Arados or Arwad is my candidate for the location of the famous temple to Astarte mentioned by Lucian of Samosata in The Syrian Goddess, 4. Lucian also states that many also associate the temple with Europa, who was carried off by the bull Zeus to Crete from this location. Coincidentally, Lucian points out the coinage of Phoenicians that contains images of the Europa story. The coinage of Arados, which long had a mint, specifically bears images of Astarte/Europa with stephane and veil along with a galloping humped bull from the early second century BCE to the time of Trajan. Most wonderfully, on coins minted in Arados from the late third century BCE, is the image of a turreted Tyche – the daughter of Aphrodite and Zeus. There were of course other famous temples to Aphrodite in the ancient world, such as in Aphrodisias, Ascalon, and Corinth. The Arados temple, as described in the Pseudo-Clementine literature, would have been their equal. 38 See Recognitions 7.12.3. In the Homilies, not only does Aphrodite go unmentioned but also the temple in which the huge vine-wood columns of Phidias were held. In both texts, Peter appears quite uncomfortable with his followers going on a “pleasure trip” to or even being seen as a group at the site. In the Recognitions, Peter enters the temple. In the Homilies, Peter does not and shows no interest in the site at all. In both narratives, he is drawn away to the suffering women at the site. 39 To my knowledge, no archaeological excavation has unearthed remains for the preConstantinian chapel. The existence of the Constantinian Church is widely accepted though Roman remains are few. Antardus was for most of its early history of secondary importance to the far more important Arados. This, because of the lack of land on the island for expansion and diminishment of its strategic military importance, began to change during the time of its control by the Roman Empire. Tartus, or Tortosa, later became a Crusader stronghold (the last occupied by the Templars in the Near East). A cathedral in Antardus dedicated to the Lady of Tortosa now serves as the city museum. 40 Chariton, Callirhoë, op cit, 345, sect. 7.5.1–2. See Warwick Bell’s identification of the site with Astarte/Aphrodite in Rome in the East: The Transformation of an Empire (London: Routledge, 2000), 172. 41 See, for example, Chariton, Callirhoë, op cit, sect. 2.8.4, 2.10.8, and 6.4.10. 42 Kate Cooper in “Mattidia’s Wish,” op cit, 252 asserts that this widow was a Jew from Judaea. I have so far found no indication in the texts to confirm this other than possibly her description as being “poor” (Ebionite?). If this widow were Jewish, she would provide us with a rare example of a narrative detailing female conversion from Judaism to an early form of Jewish Christianity. 43 Cato the Elder, On Agriculture 143, trans. W.D. Hooper and H.B. Ash in the Loeb Classical Library 283, 1934): See that the housekeeper performs all her duties. If the master has given her to you as wife, keep yourself only to her. Make her stand in awe of you. Restrain her from extravagance. She must visit the neighboring and other women very seldom, and not have them either in the house or in her part of it. She must not go out to meals, or be a gadabout. She must not engage in religious worship herself or get others to engage in it for her without the orders of the master or

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the mistress; let her remember that the master attends to the devotions for the whole household.

44

45 46 47

48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57

58

59

Regarding the lives of poor women after the time of Cato the Elder, see especially Peter Brown, Poverty and Leadership in the Later Roman Empire (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2001). Refer to Elizabeth Clark’s discussion of John Chrysostom, Homilies on I Thess. 4:13, VI in Reading Renunciation: Asceticism and Scripture in Early Christianity (Ewing, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), 367–368. Clark furthermore discusses the difference for Chrysostom between “real widows” and “real virgins.” The latter in contrast to the former are lifelong virgins, who on account of never having “fallen” deserve to be praised all the more. Kate Cooper, “Mattidia’s Wish,” op cit, 252. See note 42. See especially the chapter “Widows and the Apocryphal Acts” in Stevan L. Davies, The Revolt of the Widows: The Social World of the Apocryphal Acts (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1980), 70–94. Ibid., 72. Davies gives this label to the “virgin-widows” of the Apocryphal Acts. While the “chastity” of Mattidia and the unnamed widow on Arados provided them more personal autonomy than many other married women may have experienced, it was not the same lifelong chastity of the women of the Apocryphal Acts. See also Virginia Burrus, Chastity as Autonomy: Women in the Stories of the Apocryphal Acts (Lewiston, NY and Queenston, Ontario: Edwin Mellen, 1987). See Stevan Davies’ review of texts supporting the idea that early Christian widows constituted a “semi-clerical” association in The Revolt of the Widows, op cit, 70–71. Kate Cooper outlines the use of such apologetic strategies in “Insinuations of Womanly Influence: an Aspect of the Christianization of the Roman Aristocracy,” Journal of Roman Studies 82 (1992), 150–164. Homilies 13.1 and Recognitions 7.25. In the Homilies, Clement is seated with these women – at least long enough to cause his mother great grief when he tells her what happened to Faustus after Mattidia and the twins’ departure. Homilies 13.11 and Recognitions 7.36. Bart D. Ehrman, “Cephas and Peter,” Journal of Biblical Literature 109 (1990), 474. See especially point (3). Elsewhere, the daughter of Peter is associated with St. Petronilla. See Giovanni Battista De Rossi, La Roma sotterranea cristiana, vol. 1 (Rome: Cromo-litografia pontificia, 1864), 180–181. See, for example, Ross Kraemer, Her Share of the Blessings, op cit, 136–138. In a Manichaean story cited by Augustine in Adimantum, xvii (J. P. Migne, Patrologia Latina xlii, 161), it is Peter’s own prayers that brought about his daughter’s affliction. This position is made explicit in Homilies 3.23–24. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her (10th ed., New York: Crossroad, 1998), 164–166. Her claims depend heavily upon a complex reading of Luke-Acts. Interestingly, she explicitly connects the “Jewish Christian” Pseudo-Clementines to this discussion (164) citing the role played by Barnabas comparing material in the Acts of the Apostles with the Recognitions and Homilies. She does not specifically address male–female interaction in this literature. I agree with Richard Bauckham in Gospel Women (Grand Rapids, MI and Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2002), 43, that Matthew relies little on Mark and that another “source” needs to be postulated. Just as important, for the purposes of this chapter, Matthew seems to be “Biblicizing” – tailoring his account to mirror the stories of “gentile foremothers of the messiah” like Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth. Are these the “real” names of the “real” characters in the Gospel story? There is of course no proof that this is the case. At first, it appears that this is an odd fact for

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60

61 62 63 64 65

66 67 68

69 70

a source or sources of the Pseudo-Clementine literature to just make up. Attributing names to initially anonymous characters is, however, a widespread phenomenon in the ancient world. I view it as part of a larger “midrashic” expansion of traditions. There are other explanations for why this happens. For example, Mary Rose D’Angelo has hypothesized an alternative scenario accounting for the ascription of the names, where influential women from a later period are subsequently attached to earlier traditions. She has suggested that this was the case with the sisters Mary and Martha, and possibly Mary Magdalene, in “Reconstructing ‘Real’ Women from Gospel Literature: The Case of Mary Magdalene,” in Women and Christian Origins, eds. R. Kraemer, and M. D’Angelo (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 107–109. See Homilies 2.19; 3.73, and, less importantly, Recognitions 7.32; 10.64. The text of the Recognitions is far less helpful and appears to have been heavily edited – something that the Latin translator Rufinus confessed to doing. It contains fewer details about Justa and does not mention Bernice at all. What was this religion that the twins were to defend? The author of the Greek Recognitions in general was far more inclined to alter the basic writing than the Homilist, expunging from it what was deemed problematic from a more or less orthodox catholic perspective – e.g. pre-Nicene christology, anti-Pauline material. See G. Strecker’s “Introduction” to the reworked section on the Pseudo-Clementines in New Testament Apocrypha, ed. W. Schneemelcher vol. 2, 485. Strecker includes these sections from the Homilies in his reconstruction of this hypothetical early source of the base-text. (488–492). See section 1, note 30. From the Pseudo-Clementine account, it is difficult to tell if these Ebionites accepted or denied the divinity of Jesus. See Amy Jill Levine, Women in Scripture, eds. C. Meyers, T. Craven and R. S. Kraemer (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 412. Like the material related to Simon Magus, I believe that the story of Justa has been woven into the storyline of the narrative of Mattidia’s family. The story of Jairus and his daughter is found in Mark 5:21–43, Luke 8:40–56, and Matthew 9:18–26. For Amy Jill Levine’s remarks, see Women in Scripture, op cit, 408, 425, 443. There is no evidence to suggest that the Justa of the Pseudo-Clementine literature, if she was a real historical personage, was a member of the family of the more famous Bernice mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles. See Tal Ilan’s discussion of the “rare” name “Bernice” in Integrating Women into Second Temple History (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1999), 228–231. This might be a sign that the Mattidia and Justa traditions have divergent textual and perhaps social origins. Betraying a de facto alliance between the producers of the Pseudo-Clementines and Roman authorities, Simon Magus is characterized in this literature as being hunted by Caesar’s agents as well as being opposed by Peter. See especially, Homilies 20.13–14. This is roughly equivalent to the views of Athanasius and Epiphanius, who considered Eve to be the “archetypal heretic.” Homilies 3.27 advances an argument similar to that found in Epiphanius’ Panarion 37.2 – namely, that heresies derive from innately deficient female reasoning. See Virginia Burrus, “The Heretical Woman as Symbol in Alexander, Athanasius, Epiphanius, and Jerome,” Harvard Theological Review 84 (1991), 241. See Justin Martyr, Apology 1.26.1–3; Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 1.23.2–24.4. Helena is the target of the following heresiologists as well: Tertullian, de Anima 34; Hippolytus, Refutatio Omnium Haeresium 6.19; Epiphanius, Panarion 21–22. In Recognitions 2.8, it states that Simon gained entrance to the group by requesting Dositheus for membership only after John’s death. In both the Recognitions and Homilies, the number of John the Baptist’s followers is set at thirty. In contrast, seemingly

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71

72 73 74

75

76 77 78

following the example of Jesus in the Gospels, in the Recognitions (2.1, 3.68) Peter’s followers number twelve. Recognitions 2.12. The literary motif of a woman in a tower, which appears most famously in the medieval tale of Rapunzel, finds an historical antecedent in this account as well as in the stories of St. Barbara and St. Irene – see Agnes Smith Lewis’ translation in Select Narratives of Holy Women, Studia Sinaitica X (London: C.J. Clay and Son, 1900), 77–84, 94–148. While it may be impossible to prove any direct connections between Helena and Rapunzel, or similarly the Roman and medieval Faustus, it is not difficult to imagine (given the popularity of the earlier Pseudo-Clementine literature) that we may witness here historical forerunners of these later traditions. See Bernard Pouderon, “Le Faustus clémentin aux origins du Faustbuch: enquête sur la divulgation des Homélies clémentines avant 1587,” Ephiphania. Études orientales, grecques et latines offertes à Aline Pourkier, eds. E. Oudot and F. Poli (Nancy: ADRA and Paris: De Boccard, 2008), 197–221. Mary Rose D’Angelo, “Reconstructing ‘Real’ Women from Gospel Literature: The Case of Mary Magdalene,” op cit, 105–128. See, especially, the Gospel of Philip 59.8–9. Origen, Contra Celsum 2:55. See, especially, Jane Shaberg, The Resurrection of Mary Magdalene: Legends, Apocrypha, and the Christian Testament (New York and London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2004), 84–5; also Margaret McDonald, Early Christian Women and Pagan Opinion (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 103. See Marvin Meyer, “Making Mary Male: the Categories of ‘Male’ and ‘Female’ in the Gospel of Thomas,” New Testament Studies 31 (1985), 554–570 and Elizabeth Castelli, “ ‘I Will Make Mary Male’: Pieties of the Body and Gender Transformation of Christian Women in Late Antiquity,” in Body Guards: The Cultural Politics of Gender Ambiguity, ed. J. Epstein and K. Staub (London: Routledge, 1991), 29–49. Acts of the Christian Martyrs 10.7, ed. and trans. by H. Musurillo (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), 118. See fragments from Origen’s Commentary on Ephesians found in Origenis Opera Omnia, vol. V, ed., C. H. E. Lommatzsch (Berlin: Sumtibus Haude et Spener, 1835), 272. In Ephesios 3. This reading of Ephesians 5:28 is a centerpiece in Jerome’s argument against Rufinus who defends Origen.

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3 WOMEN AND GENDER RELATIONS IN THE COMMUNITY OF PETER A. Feminist historiography and The Sorrows of Mattidia For a number of years now, a lively debate has ensued amongst historians working on early Christian apocryphal literature regarding what we can learn about the lives of women from these texts. As described by Shelly Matthews,1 in the first wave of scholarship several historians (cf. Steven Davies, Margaret MacDonald, and Virginia Burrus) argued that the stories of women from upper class backgrounds who shunned traditional societal norms to marry and have children in order to follow Christian ascetic teachings were the product of ancient “womencentered communities that resisted the ruling patriarchal order.”2 The stories of Thecla and Maximilla, for example, provided a window through which these communities could be viewed. Similarly, one could argue that stories of Mattidia and Peter’s wife contained in the Pseudo-Clementine literature supply scholars with examples of how women lived in more traditional Judaizing Christian, Jewish Christian, and perhaps even Jewish communities. In recent years, however, the historiographical assumptions upon which these arguments are based have been brought into disrepute. First, as summarized by Matthews, they were challenged by historians (cf. Wilhelm Schneemelcher, Lynne Boughton, and Peter Dunn) who were unconvinced by what they characterized as the first groups’ nonobjective “feminist” romanticization of the status of women in the early Christian Church. They contended that not only did texts like the Acts of Paul and Thecla inaccurately portray historical fact, as resistance to patriarchal forces in the early Churches never took hold, but that stories in such works were not the product of women at all. Most interestingly, a third group of historians  – including many feminists dedicated to researching the often obscured and ignored lives of women in the ancient world  – has agreed with these critics at least on the following. The descriptions of the activity of women in early Christian and other ancient literatures should not be taken at face value. All too often the men responsible for texts containing references to women like the Apocryphal Acts and by extension the Clementina, were merely using women to “think with.” On the recommendation of scholars like Peter Brown, Elizabeth Clark, and Kate Cooper, focus 53

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moved away from what could be learned about ancient women from their portrayal in early Christian novels and turned almost exclusively to the men who produced these texts.3 These men’s characterization of women like Thecla and Mattidia were “rhetorical vehicles” for advancing specific interests. In the case of the Apocryphal Acts, Greco-Roman family values related to marriage and childbearing were undermined. In the Clementina, if my analysis is correct, the same traditional values were supported. Kate Cooper wonders if any of these fictional stories about women who purportedly lived in the first and second centuries of the common era can be used for historical reconstruction of the activities of women in the past. Refocusing on the motives and interests of the male producers of these literary characterizations of women is, as recognized by Matthews, potentially highly problematic for feminist historiography. By arguing that these texts actually tell us little about the lives of women in the ancient world, the feminist goal of researching the previously unheeded lives of women is in large part stymied.4 Matthews’ contribution to this debate is to explain how this literature is still useful for historians interested in reconstructing women’s lives in the early Christian communities. She thinks that while Cooper and others are correct to highlight the rhetorical uses to which male-manufactured “women” are put in ancient literature, it is possible to read in between the lines of these texts (“reading texts against the grain and reading for what a text both does and does not say”) to discover an all-too-often mute and misrepresented past “reality” beyond them.5 Matthews provides in her article, however, only two examples of how this is practically accomplished. First, she cites the strategy of Barbara K. Gold, who writes about marginalized women in the Greco-Roman world by examining poetry where the written word is more readily understood from a variety of perspectives  – the female included.6 Matthews then provides readers with a specific example taken from Tertullian, the arch opponent of those who turn to Thecla to establish precedence for women as baptizers and teachers, of how “reading against the grain” is to be accomplished. Tertullian, as argued by Mathews in “Thinking of Thecla,” in spite of his opposition to female resistance to patriarchal control in the early churches supplies us with important information about the proliferation of Thecla’s story amongst women themselves!7 In addition to providing significant details regarding the involvement of a woman in the transmission of the story of Mattidia and her family, I will lay out below a more developed strategy8 for doing women’s history using ancient literature like the Apocryphal Acts and the Clementina. My response to the dilemma posed by Brown, Clark, Cooper, and many others – that narratives about “women” are not about women and shouldn’t be used in the historical reconstructions of their lives  – is similar in a couple of important regards to what is presented by Matthews. First, we both agree in large part with the contention that these texts cannot be satisfactorily assessed without taking into account the motives and interests of the men producing them. The Pseudo-Clementine literature, specifically, is fundamentally apologetic in nature. Its composer(s) portray, generally speaking, the character and activities of 54

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Mattidia with clear didactic purpose. Second, we both think that texts like ancient Greek and Roman novels, the Apocryphal Acts, and Clementina can still be used fruitfully by historians studying the lives of women in the ancient world. Finally, I  think that Matthews’ tactic of reading ancient narratives referring to women “against the grain” is an excellent first step. I supplement her work and that of others with some additional suggestions. While it is a great initial move to “recognize the rhetorical”9 and then mine it for historical purposes, is it the case that one can get around the biases of sources in the process of our overall investigation of women in the ancient world? Rather than simply focusing upon material in the Clementina directly related to the gender-related views of the men who produced this literature, I  take an additional big step to suggest that one can – with some degree of confidence – do more. By attending to details buried in the narrative backdrops against which these men’s interests are promoted, it is possible to make historical inferences about women’s lives in the past. Of course, this is not a simple interpretive task. Take, for example, the analysis of poetry, which like other forms of writing must be understood as colored by the prejudices of their producers and ourselves. What Barbara Gold attempts to do with Roman elegy, following a strategy developed by the historian of modernity Alice Jardine, is to locate spaces in these ancient texts where women’s voices can be heard. To quote Gold, scholars should “look in our texts for what is hidden, deemphasized, left out, or denied articulation, and try to make evident the spaces produced in these texts over which the writer has no control and in which ‘woman’ can be found.”10 Hans Blumenberg’s spectacularly fruitful metaphorological studies promote a similar type of research from a very different interpretive perspective. Metaphors, as a species of involuntary expressions, can – as argued by Blumenberg and his many German students – convey historical truth that bypasses “ideology.”11 There are many different ways that we can skirt the intended messages of the producers of the Pseudo-Clementine literature and The Sorrows of Mattidia. This can be accomplished not only through focusing on Blumenberg’s uncontrolled metaphors, but also through other types of textual material  – for example, inconsistencies that don’t fit well with an author, translator, or editor’s overarching agendas, or often-overlooked verisimilitudinous details included in background of these texts. By considering such things, a more reliable reconstruction of women’s lives in ancient Mediterranean communities is attainable. Let me repeat: For the most part, I agree with Kate Cooper’s methodological approach and the details of her analysis of the Pseudo-Clementine narrative of Mattidia’s life in particular. For example, in light of her research on the representation of the “Christian” family in the Pseudo-Clementine romance novel, in the article “Mattidia’s Wish,” Cooper argues: “It no longer makes sense to look for ‘the Christian view’ of the family, as against ‘the pagan’ or ‘the Jewish view’.”12 By and large, my reading of the Clementina supports a similar thesis. It is apparent from the existence of pro-marriage texts and policies designed to limit the role of women in public life in Greco-Roman, Jewish, and Christian groups in 55

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the first few centuries of the Common Era that none of these communities had a monopoly when it came to their praise for “pious,” “chaste,” and “pure” women. Various groups self-identifying with these religions and traditions lent rhetorical support for the subordination of women in family life and in public. Women, however, in these communities occasionally found opportunities to exercise greater autonomy – most notably, upon the death of a spouse. Female leaders, teachers, and prophets existed amongst each of these greater religious and cultural constellations. Female associations also prospered even in what have been commonly characterized as the most conservative and male-dominated Jewish communities.13 Evidence from the Clementina, specifically the use of the well-known persona of Mattidia the Elder, confirms that some Christians clearly borrowed from pagan Roman exemplars with similar “family values.” Following the apologetic examples of the Pastoral Epistles of the Christian Testament, the composers of the Clementina presented a form of early Christianity that was less threatening to established Roman and Jewish family traditions than that offered by other followers of Jesus. The Pseudo-Clementine literature’s portrayal of women in the community of Peter makes it clear that females, even Peter’s wife, should have no say regarding the religious doctrines and practices of the described early Judaizing Christian group. The references to Simon Magus’ consort Helena in the Clementina perform precisely the opposite rhetorical function: pejoratively “insinuating womanly influence.”14 Whereas in the Apocryphal Acts efforts to get women to return to their husbands and the responsibilities that they owe to their families are rebuffed, in the Clementina such attempts are endorsed. In the struggle taking place over the nature of “the pure woman” between the advocates of traditional notions of marriage and those supporting more radical practices such as found in encratism, the composers of the PseudoClementine literature side with the former.15 Social reality – the lives of historical women in communities associated in one way or another with these texts  – is clearly obscured by the fictional narratives found in the Clementina and other literature like the Apocryphal Acts. Frankly, it is extremely difficult to argue that what specific men have written about women approximately 1,500–1,800 years ago is an accurate representation of past fact. The producers of these texts, knowingly and unknowingly, shape a world and the gender relations within it to suit their own interests. Their rhetorical motives are, however, quite visible to historians like Cooper and Elizabeth Clark who have downplayed the task of reclaiming historical women in favor of investigating the “social logic” of ancient gender construction.16 This is possible whether “real” women come into historical view in these texts or not. Substantive historical retrieval is possible from critical analyses of these texts, regardless of whether or not what is investigated is labeled “fiction” or “nonfiction.” Just because something is a forgery doesn’t mean that we cannot extract valuable information from it. This can be accomplished with difficulty through attending to relative inconsistencies and incidental details contained in the more or less verisimilitudinous backdrop of ancient texts – both of fiction and non-fiction 56

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alike. In fact, inquiry into “non-fictional” texts – regularly though misleadingly presented as “real” (as opposed to “fictional” works, which are often characterized as “imaginary”) – is fraught with dangers that do not generally trouble those reading fiction. For example, it is clear that the work of many authors previously deemed authoritative witnesses to events in the past, like Josephus, should be examined cautiously and not accepted necessarily as vulgate or received truth.17 Nonetheless, as evident in the work of the classicist Keith Bradley on families in the Greco-Roman world, analysis of fantastical fiction such as found in Apuleius’ Golden Ass can produce significant results.18 Apuleius might weave a “preposterous” yarn, but he still provides insight into the richness and diversity of family life in the ancient Mediterranean. Fantastical, miraculous events that contemporary critical historians would undoubtedly describe as impossible to occur are significantly couched in highly believable and plausible details. Not only does the promotion of traditional Roman family virtues provide a background against which scandalous behavior is illuminated as transgressive, but also the likelihood of common deviation from these norms is implied.19 An important example of how “relative inconsistencies” found in a text can help us to come to clearer answers as to its origins can be found when analyzing the Pseudo-Clementine family narrative. Was the story of Mattidia and her family composed by the author of the Grundschrift to expound upon or “illustrate” a specific favored theology as has been argued by M. J. Edwards20 or was it derived from a separate, earlier source? Consider the suffering of Mattidia and her widowed friend on the island of Arados. Why were these and other women residing in this sanctuary subject to such great misery, suffering, and disease? It seems obvious to me that this is a literary device, credibly increasing dramatic tension, as opposed to being an exemplar simply serving theological purposes. As Nicole Kelley has argued, in the Homilies – and I assert, most likely the basic writing as well21 – deformity and illness in a controversial “Jewish Christian” reading that runs counter to John 9:1–3 are presented as consequences of sinful disobedience and so-called sins of ignorance.22 The fact that Mattidia and her friend’s miserable state cannot be attributed to such – they are, instead, explicitly praised for their virtue, which also makes them likely converts to Peter’s community  – thereby lends support to my argument that the family narrative was not composed by the writer of the basic writing. Rather, it seems more likely that he borrowed this story and adapted it for his own purposes without harmonizing this detail with his overall theological agenda. Amidst the theological, religious-political, and cultural declarative statements found in the Pseudo-Clementine literature (which for the most part resembles more of a compendia of sources than a sustained narrative), we regularly encounter details that seem out of place or even contradictory. As we find in scholarship of the canonical Gospels, the sayings of Jesus that are most difficult to reconcile with his authorized and most popularly construed “message” can be arguably deemed the most authentic. This is, of course, the famous argument of Norman Perrin and others like M. Eugene Boring and John Meier, who have asserted that 57

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what is dissimilar and even “embarrassing” can be deemed a convincing “criterion of authenticity” when it comes to determining which canonical and non-canonical sayings of Jesus are most likely to be genuine.23 In short, it is more likely that texts fitting the agenda of the compiler of sacred traditions have been normalized than those which  – having simply missed the editor’s notice or devotedly taken on faith – would have made past followers and the recipients of authorized traditions wince. As noted earlier, this is why I consider the alternative account of Jesus’ encounter with Justa, the unnamed Canaanite/Syro-Phoenician woman of the Gospels, to be so interesting: It runs against the grain of so many received traditions. It is no wonder that either Rufinus or the author of the Greek Recognitions edited it out of their text. It is, however, not simply made up by the Homilist in order to make his point but is likely derived from an earlier source deemed credible by this writer. Of course, not just any odd saying attributed to Jesus or incongruous detail related to the actual lives of women in the ancient world is a good candidate to be deemed “authentic.” Such assertions about the past, for contemporary critical historians, must fit our other related credible historical beliefs in the present that accrue as a result of our faith in tested sources and the products of inquiry.24 This principle – that beliefs are justified vis-à-vis other beliefs – not only applies when it comes to determining to the best of our ability “what actually happened in the past” but also plays a role in how fictional narratives work as well. This was observed by Quintilian in the ancient world, who argued that all three forms of narrations (tragedies and poems, comedies, and history) have some relation to the truth – with the first two functioning because of their appearance or resemblance to truth (vero simile).25 Please note, my soon-to-be outlined commitment to investigating verisimilitudinous details contained in ancient fiction when coming to some assessment of the lives of women living in the ancient past does not entail a belief, like that so compellingly argued by Hayden White and even the pragmatist Richard Rorty, that history amounts to nothing other than a form of narrative fiction.26 What I argue – contra Cooper, who targets the work of A. D. Nock and Ross Kraemer in her early article published in Signs titled “The Conversion of Women to Ascetic Forms of Christianity,”27 but more importantly Elizabeth Clark28 – is that historical retrieval is possible through attending to what is tacitly accepted as true, such as metaphors and other involuntary revealings in the backdrop of ancient texts, both fiction and non-fiction alike. While Kraemer, perhaps in response to criticism of this article by Cooper but mainly from her extensive reading of Clark, carefully retracts large parts of this view in her most recent work Unreliable Witnesses: Religion, Gender, and History in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean,29 I try in what follows to respond to Cooper’s initial criticism by rehabilitating and fortifying Nock’s and Kraemer’s original positions. Whereas Kraemer in Signs focuses primarily on common widespread patterns of conversion that made sense as “probably true” or “appearing as true” to the audiences of fantastical stories of the Apocryphal Acts, I believe that attending to unrestricted metaphors and other incidental details found in both ancient fictional 58

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and non-fictional texts  – unintended and often overlooked even by translators and editors  – while perhaps not supplying definitive evidence to past states of affairs might still invite modest appraisals of what might generally and sometimes even specifically have been the case. Supplying verisimilitudinous details when constructing a background for attaining believability is a well-known narrative strategy deployed by writers of fiction across cultures in both the ancient world and today. Couching even a fantastic fictional narrative – such as that of Mattidia and her family  – in such details makes it not only understandable to the audience but also plausible, believable, and compelling. To the critical historian who attends to such details, rather than the intentions or motivations of a text’s author, a wealth of information about the composer’s world is supplied. With eyes wide open she is suspicious of political-religious agendas overlaid on the text as well as cultural biases embedded within it. As a forensic scientist, this historian proceeds reconstructing events in the past from evidence that speaks with either an odd, inconsistent voice or no explicit declarative voice at all. Of course, attention paid to such details yields only what is background to the writer and her immediate audience. In the case of the Pseudo-Clementine literature, such background material is reliably informative only of its various composers’ worlds. I make no attempt to argue that the purported first century ce context for Peter’s missionary activities has been accurately reconstructed using this tactic. My view in this text is of the later period of their producers – though we might assume that wide-scale environmental and material changes that might influence interpretive practices were less prevalent across pre-industrial age Mediterranean cultures from the first to fifth centuries ce than in the last couple of hundred years in the West. In the Pseudo-Clementine fictional narrative about Mattidia’s family, several details that compose the background of this story and make it believable are of interest to historians. For example, this literature contains an “incidental” account of Peter and Clement’s visit to a temple on Arados containing vine-wood columns and works of the famous Greek sculptor Phidias. Such material, which not only would have been verifiable but plausibly well-known to at least some of the intended members of the audience of this literature, probably has not been fabricated. Or has it? How can we prove that the “real” fifth century bce Phidias was not the origin of the vine-wood columns? Minimally, however, the work was by reputation at the time of the composers of Pseudo-Clementine literature attributed to this legendary figure. It is more than possible that there existed on Arados at the time of the writing of The Sorrows of Mattidia an impressive temple or perhaps even multiple shrines associated with women and linked Aphrodite, Astarte, and/or Europa. The existence of this historically evolving site is confirmed not only through numismatic studies but also the verisimilitudious details contained in ancient fiction! Other aspects of Mattidia’s difficult life would clearly have been recognizable and even frightening to those familiar with her story in antiquity. For example, as witnessed in many sources including the Christian Testament, sea travel in the Eastern Mediterranean took months or years to complete and was filled with 59

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many risks – most notably, shipwreck and piracy. More pertinent to historians of women’s lives in the ancient Mediterranean world, the existence of large numbers of widows was part of the social context of the composer(s) of Mattidia’s story. This is seen as well in the literary backdrop of other romance novels of the time. It was also common for women to be subjected to undesired sexual advances as Mattidia was. Certainly women without husbands commonly experienced dire economic and physical hardships like those portrayed on Arados. Situated between Church ordinances and proprieties, seemingly insignificant details about Mattidia’s life prompt further consideration. Their use by the historian studying the lives of women in the ancient world, to summarize, depends upon the historian’s ability to construct a backdrop of the likely and probable against which even fantastical narratives like those found in the Pseudo-Clementine literature and Apocryphal Acts make sense. It is, of course, critically important to focus on the character of literary representations of women found in these texts. Metaphors, to cite Blumenberg, can reveal to us more than simply the biases of the writers who utilized them. To repeat, one need not assume that these men’s portrayals were accurate. As argued by Ross Kraemer in her discussion of what we can learn about Jewish women from the rabbis in Her Share of the Blessings, the lives of real historical women were “undoubtedly far more diverse and complex than rabbinic sources allow us to see.”30 It is not unexpected that in the precepts and teachings of such male-dominated religious cultures women leaders and teachers would usually be absent and “anomalous in the extreme” – except when they were the object of male-inspired action guides and fantasies. Just because, however, the rhetoric of these intentionally devised narratives – especially when interests are involved – cannot necessarily be trusted in toto doesn’t mean that this literature is not a reliable historical resource. Once again, Kate Cooper is correct to question the degree to which Stevan Davies, Margaret MacDonald, and Virginia Burrus have viewed the lives of continent heroines in the Apocryphal Acts as “expressions of a woman’s world.”31 But her focus on the rhetoric of gender should not forestall work elsewhere. Likewise, Elizabeth Clark, as Kraemer has acknowledged, is correct that unfortunately numerous “scholars of ancient Christianity have tended to read many texts as relatively transparent” and that verisimilitudinous details present us with an illusory “façade of reality.”32 In the case of utilizing fictional texts like the Clementina and Apocryphal Acts when doing historical research on women’s lives in the ancient world, these sources are still invaluable – especially once the biases of the composer are understood and attention is given to less “theologically” and/or “politically” significant, though still coherent, details that should be treated as verisimilitudinous. For example, film made in 1972 about events that took place in earlier decades or even in an imagined future, can tell us a lot about 1972.33 Likewise, embellished fictional accounts of Biblical characters can tell us a great deal about the communities in which they were produced. It is essential that historians of women’s lives in the societies surrounding the ancient Mediterranean and elsewhere attend both to the agendas of the composers 60

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of literary sources and to eisogetical factors influencing their later reception. In doing so, and through being relentlessly self-conscious and reflexive, many inaccurate historical representations might be weeded out. Historians are thereby able to do addition via subtraction, ruling out representations that are misleading and difficult to trust. Another more constructive strategic alternative, however, does exist. Through focusing on the most unassuming of details that make up the background within which a narrative or teaching comes to life, historical backdrops might be illuminated slowly but with more certainty. In this way, dangers associated with contaminating bias might be rendered less powerful and convincing. Over and over again, the critical historian investigating the lives of women is forced into asking questions like: Is what is described simply a consequence of wishful thinking, or even blatant propaganda? Does it elicit a concern of the author for how women ought to live as opposed to how they actually led their lives? Even if we answer each of these questions in the affirmative, legitimately distrusting the motivations of the male writers of these texts through attending to less prominent details, the background against which various agendas are played out can be clarified. In the case of the Clementina, we meet women separated from public life and dominated by the men in their community. One might, after a cursory reading, certainly be led to think that this was not only the way that women lived in the earliest of Christian and Jewish communities but how Christian women (in later ages) by and large should live as well. Closer consideration of the backdrop reveals a slightly different picture, though. Yes, a tradition of female submissiveness in early Christianities appealing back to Luke-Acts, the Pastoral Epistles, and a postulated community of Peter – credible to audiences at least at the time of the translator Rufinus – is cited and promoted. Just beneath the surface, however, clues to a somewhat different account of the lives of women in early Christianites are present.

B. Peter, Paul, and women Another big difference between my presentation of the story of Mattidia and Kate Cooper’s is that I have relied upon details supplied not only by the Recognitions but also the Homilies. Most controversially, in contrast to Cooper (who confines her historical research in “Matthidia’s Wish” on the story of Mattidia and her family to the investigation of the rhetoric of gender at the time of Tyrannius Rufinus), I have chosen to note and emphasize the implications of source-critical investigations postulating not only the existence of a basic writing utilized in common but also a likely source of this base-text – namely, the Pseudo-Clementine family narrative or what I  call The Sorrows of Mattidia. This leads me, in contrast to Cooper (who mostly attends to the reception of the Pseudo-Clementine family narrative at the time of Rufinus), to additionally focus upon religious communities at an earlier date. I have chosen to date the story of Mattidia and her family between roughly the middle of the second century ce (after the death of Mattidia the Elder) and the middle of the third century ce (the time of the composition 61

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of the Didascalia Apostolorum). It is because of my interest in both the age of Rufinus and a somewhat earlier period that I am forced to deal directly with the problem of whether or not we can learn something about women in earlier Christian groups, perhaps even early “Jewish Christian” communities, from examination of the lives of women in the Clementina. Like F. Stanley Jones and others, I think that the Pseudo-Clementine literature does quite possibly supply us with material derived from earlier Judaizing Christian traditions – such as in the case of Recognitions 1:27–71 – though not, in any strong or direct sense, from the first or even second century ce. Specifically, there is evidence to suggest that we can pin certain aspects of the treatment of women in this literature on specifically antiPauline sources. By extension, it may be possible to reveal differences between communities associated respectively with a more notorious representation of Paul and this legendary community of Peter. Cooper, quite cautiously, stays far away from the problem of displaying such provenance. She chooses instead to focus on the age of Rufinus and makes the general assertion that the “pro-family” approach of this literature, when specifically contrasted with the material denigrating earthly marriage found in the Apocryphal Acts, provides us further reason to assert great diversity regarding the fortunes of women in the earliest churches. I think it highly probable that at least some of the authors/redactors of the Epistula Petri, Contestatio, Recognitions, Homilies, and the base-text were attempting to promote an explicitly anti-Pauline version of Christianity. According to the Epistula Petri and Contestatio, the Kerygmata Petrou – which Georg Strecker argues was a possible source of the basic writing, though its very existence has been questioned by many in recent years – were sent to James in Jerusalem in order to protect the accurate transmission of these “lawful” pronouncements from the “lawless” teachings of the “hostile man.”34 While much of the libel contained only in the Homilies35 – which Strecker claims originated in the Kerygmata Petrou – seems to be either edited by Rufinus out of the Greek Recognitions that he translated or trimmed earlier by the composer of the base-text, the existence of anti-Pauline material unique to the Recognitions that presumably has been taken from the Anabathmoi Jakobou minimally shows that anti-Paulinism was present even in later recensions.36 Specific anti-Pauline passages shared in common between the two main textual traditions confirm the adoption of the same stance by the author of the base-text.37 Once again, however, copies of this have not survived. While the Gospels are quoted extensively38 and events from the first century like the death of James and the flight to Damascus/Pella are narrated, there are no existent early second, much less first century ce textual precursors. It is clear, nonetheless, that this literature relied upon a multiplicity of sources and that there exists anti-Pauline material spread across the historical renditions of these texts. Where does The Sorrows of Mattidia fit into all of this? While I consider the family narrative to be ultimately derived from a separate source that by no means was necessarily connected to anti-Paulinism, it seems clear that it was utilized and adapted by writers and editors – early and late – who shared these sympathies.

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Whether anti-Paulinism is derived from second century “Jewish Christian” sources, or the extreme Arianism of fourth century of Eunomian39 redactors, it is woven into the accounts of Mattidia and other women of the Clementina. In some partisan and metaphorical sense, if Simon is a stand-in for Paul in this literature, we might even assert that Helena herself very well might have been considered Paul’s prostitute. Before discussing how this anti-Paulinism influences the earliest representations of “Christian,” “Jewish,” and “pagan” women, it is necessary to establish the degree to which we can link the texts in question to the teachings of an early socially conservative “Petrine” community. To begin with, I will revisit a text cited in the previous chapter. This passage not only links anti-Pauline sentiments with an attack upon female prophecy, but also provides us with an important clue about who this text, and the basic writing as well, were addressed to. Homilies 2.15–7 describes a cosmos divided in all its parts into opposing pairs (syzygies).40 As noted earlier, even as the present earth is contrasted with the world to come, the female is opposed to the male. Female prophets know only of this world, while males prophesy of a superior future existence to come. In 2.16, the author goes on to show how after Adam, who was made in the image of God, offspring always come in twos – the first invariably being corrupted and the second righteous. Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, as well as Esau and Jacob are supplied as examples of this principle. In 2.17, this principle is extended to the characters of the Christian Testament. John the Baptist is designated as the adversary of Jesus. “Simon,” explicitly identified as the representative of female prophecy, is singled out as the opponent of Peter. He is the one who came before Peter to the Gentiles – the teacher of “darkness,” “ignorance,” and “disease.” Even if we do not read “Simon” in Homilies 2.17 to be Paul, as has been the routine of a long line of scholars since Ferndinand Christian Bauer in the early nineteenth century, still the basic message is clear. Peter is represented as a second true missionary to the Gentiles. The literature under review concerns Gentile “Christians” who are encouraged to follow the instructions of James and Peter to live as Jews, not Jews who have chosen to live as Christians. This is the background of every Christian character encountered in the Clementina, with the exception of personalities like James, Peter, Peter’s wife, Zaccheus, Cornelius, and Barnabas, who have been caricatured in the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles. Regardless of whether or not the Epistula Petri, Contestatio, Recognitions, or Homilies has been written under a pseudonym, the fact that this literature is directed to Gentiles in each case cannot be disputed. The original author(s) have associated themselves with “Petrine” (= anti-Pauline) groups. There is no hard evidence, however, to suggest that they were – ethnically speaking or otherwise – early “Jewish Christians.”41 Once again, uncritical use of such language has clouded past debate. In varying degrees the authors of the Recognitions and Homilies, and therefore probably of the basic writing as well, here and elsewhere have hidden a more original opposition between Paul and Peter which must have been derived from

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an earlier source. In the base-text underlying Homilies 11.37 and Recognitions 4.34–5, Jesus’ tempter (Matt. 4; Luke 4) is described as having sent false witnesses to the Gentiles who do not accurately reproduce the preaching of James the brother of the Lord. In the former text, Simon is once again strangely named as this messenger while in the latter this is an anonymous figure. Homilies 17.13–19 describes Simon as claiming to have heard the words of Jesus from an apparition in a vision. On this occasion, Peter goes into a long diatribe against those who ground their teachings in such experiences, which are really the product of demons. This passage culminates in 17.19 with a vitriolic tirade clearly targeted against Paul containing multiple references to the confrontation between Cephas and Paul in Antioch described in Galatians 2:11. The truth has been revealed to Peter firsthand. Paul is like a man who has fallen in love with an evil woman, not caring for lawful marriage with a virtuous bride.42 It is a widely acknowledged fact that there were substantive differences between early Christians on the questions of celibacy and female leadership in the Church. Tension between variant positions can be detected in the letters of Paul himself, much less than, say, between Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians and Luke-Acts. The Pastoral Epistles already provide the background for what we find in the Clementina. While appeal is made in the Pseudo-Clementine literature to stark contrasts between pagans and Jews as well as between pagans and Christians, the richest and most pertinent distinctions are made between the most socially radical and more traditionally minded Christians. The appeal to female celibacy would have been just as unnerving to many Christians as it might have been to Jews and pagans. The Pseudo-Clementine literature provides propaganda against the women of Simon Magus and Paul, the opponents of Peter’s Church. As we have noted, this is exhibited in the different endings of Recognitions and the Homilies, where Mattidia is in each text returned to her pagan husband even though he has not yet been converted to Christianity. These texts, of course, send Christians the opposite message of what we find in the story of Paul and Thecla. It is Paul and the scandalous women of the Apocryphal Acts that are associated with him that are the likely target – as well as other “Christian women” like the female companions of Valentinus in Rome and Tertullian’s female Montanist opponents. But also targeted are women in Peter’s own community. Chastity is praised, but only for true widows and those separated from their living husbands. Female leadership and prophecy are prohibited. Helena, her unnamed counterpart in the early Church, Mary Magdalene, and all other female visionaries are the origin of Christian heresy – not the men who write about and otherwise attempt to control them.

C. Jewish, Christian, and other women in the ancient Mediterranean world Not unexpectedly, we encounter little in the story of Mattidia that distinguishes it from the greater social backdrop. The pro-family content, generally contrasted

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with the stark encratism and asceticism of the Apocryphal Acts, can be found even in the work of Tyrannius Rufinus – certainly neither a Judaizing nor Jewish Christian. More tellingly, the male prejudices informing the tale of Mattidia were prevalent throughout the Greco-Roman world, as is evident in pagan, Jewish, and Christian literature at this time as well as before and after. Any appeal to a more authentic or traditional model established in the Clementina rests upon an untenable assumption that the women in this early community are represented accurately. Just because some men – whether Christian preachers, Jewish rabbis, or Roman emperors  – have issued rules mandating certain forms of behavior for women, this does not mean that these were universally or even normatively put into practice. This is what Matthews argued in “Thinking of Thecla” in her discussion of the work of Tertullian. Tertullian’s admonishment of women baptizers and teachers signals their existence. Kraemer in Her Share of the Blessings, several years before Matthews article, quite influentially infers the same about John Chrysostom’s “Eight Orations Against Judaizing Christians” written in 387–8 ce, where he forbids his congregation from engaging in various forms of Christian–Jewish interaction.43 By doing so, shouldn’t we infer that forbidden activity was actually going on and was perceived as a threat? Kraemer, at length, argues the same about the legal pronouncements of Jewish rabbis concerning how Jewish women ought to act.44 It is obvious that Augustan marriage laws of 18–17 bce were similarly enacted: to change existing situations. They are not to be understood as conclusive descriptions of historical realities but preferred “action guides” promoted by male religious leaders. Significantly, many women from varying social classes did not lead lives that conformed to the most repressive ideals. Close examination of the Pseudo-Clementine literature reveals that this was the case at times for each of the women in the idealized community of Peter, except the apostle’s wife. Mattidia found some relief in flight before being turned over by Peter to her pagan husband to play the role of Helena to Faustus who is under Simon Magus’ spell, and is disguised as the archenemy himself. The widow on Arados retreated to isolation away from the demands of men. Most curiously, Justa and Bernice do not seem to be bound by the same constraints as Mattidia and Peter’s wife. They are both influential figures in their communities. They own property and speak instead of their husbands. Nonetheless, the references to Justa and Bernice are limited and only incidental to the storyline of the family narrative. Perhaps this is what allowed for their preservation. Close analysis of incidental details found in the Clementina confirms that not all women in the idealized community of Peter fit the ideal model encountered in the machinations of dominant male leadership. The patriarchal representations, and at times even misogynistic material, found in the Pseudo-Clementine literature are regularly lined up by its producers with well-regarded “Jewish” traditions. The authors/editors of the Homilies especially and presumably the base-text, as noted by Annette Yoshiko Reed, “see Christianity and Judaism as allies in the battle of truth against error.”45 As Reed shows in her article “Heresiology and the (Jewish-)Christian Novel,” the primary target of

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this literature’s attacks is “Hellenism” and the Christians that it has influenced. Along with Samaritanism to a lesser extent, this is the “heresy” under attack – an opponent that Reed convincingly argues is shared with rabbis, as evidenced in Talmudic literature of the time, attempting to counter the “minim.” In the Homilies, according to Reed: “Far from functioning as a foil for self-definition, Judaism is forerunner and ally of Christianity in the debate against Hellenism and ‘heresy’ – and in the attempt to persuade ‘pagans’ of prophetic truth.”46 I agree. First, when it comes to the portrayal of women in the Judaizing Christian community of Peter, the scandalized opponent is a reference to more-Hellenized Christian groups like those associated emblematically with Simon/Paul.47 Second, it is “paganized” Christian women who do not adhere to traditional Jewish/Judaizing Christian standards for gender relations. In my view, these are “straw women” set up by the Pseudo-Clementine composers and other Christian writers of the time to favorably compare themselves with. As noted, traditional “family values” were neither exclusively Jewish, Jewish Christian, or Judaizing Christian. They were likewise promoted by “pagans” like Julius Caesar and the imperial rulers at the time of Mattidia the Elder. In the Clementina, Gentile Christians like Justa are admonished by the author(s) of this literature to follow prescriptions with explicit origins in the Torah. They exhibit a concern with sexual practices and diet, two general themes also found in the rulings directed to Gentile converts in Acts 15 as well. The examples I will use to exhibit this have a direct relation to baptismal imagery and rituals  – an important topic in “Petrine” communities. While the use of metaphors like “living water” parallels what is found in more traditional Christian and gnostic texts,48 in other places ritual instructions supplied have a markedly Jewish provenance. In addition to placing a prohibition on sex during menstruation, bathing was required after all intercourse.49 Bathing is done in the morning before prayer (Hom. 14.1) and before meals (Hom. 8.2 and 10.26). Pertaining to diet, in the case of Mattidia, she must fast and be baptized before eating with her children, who are members of the community; that is, more generally, baptized members of Peter’s group may not eat with the unbaptized. Elsewhere, like in Homilies 7.8, they may not eat what has been offered as sacrifices (to idols/demons) or animals that have been killed by other beasts or strangled. Such requirements are generally comparable to Jewish dietary practices described in the Hebrew Bible, the Christian Testament, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and in later Rabbinic literature. The need to emphasize these prohibitions intimates that the men and women of Pauline communities, to whom Peter has been sent to correct, do not automatically refrain from such practices. While the author of the “aduration” found in section four of the letter of Peter to James, which was attached to the Homilies, writes that these esteemed texts should be given only into the hands of someone who has been circumcised, we must not assume that those addressed must become circumcised themselves. Nowhere in the Pseudo-Clementine literature is this Jewish ritual practice required for converts (though it is cast in a positive light in Recognitions

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1.33 in a discussion of “purifications”), something that is understandable given the medical problems associated with such procedures when performed on adults. This request does minimally seem to confirm that the author and recipients of this letter were in contact with “Jewish Christians” and held this Jewish practice in high regard. One of the most attractive passages for anyone attempting to argue for a close connection between the “Petrine” practices of Gentile converts and distinctively Jewish practices is Homilies 2.19 – namely, the Pseudo-Clementine version of the Gospel story found in Matthew 15:21–28 and Mark 7: 24–30. Here, as previously described, Justa and Bernice are identified with the Canaanite/Syro-Phoenician woman and her daughter. Most significantly, Justa is required to convert to Judaism if Jesus is to heal Bernice. The traditionally received meaning of the canonical texts – that in acceding to the mother’s request Jesus has opened the door of the “kingdom” to Gentiles – is turned upon its head in this alternative version. There is no reason to assert, however, that such “lawful” conversion was required of the Gentile Christians that the Clementina are addressed to. This curious detail in the story of Justa, while forwarding unabashedly anti-Pauline sentiments, has no equal in the many accounts of conversion to Christianity in this literature – including that of Mattidia and her friend from Arados. If there are present elsewhere in the Pseudo-Clementines literature traces of an earlier Christianity more influenced by Judaism, then the Justa tradition may be one of the strongest candidates for such a designation. Finally, I want to return to the aforementioned story told by Scheherazade in the Arabian Nights of the pious Israelite who was reunited with his wife and children50 and explore the possible connections between this narrative that has so many clear similarities to The Sorrows of Mattidia. Granted, in this story (set during the Islamic period), the wife is not the central character but instead it is the pious Israelite husband. In each, however, we encounter the separation of a husband from his wife and two boys, a shipwreck, a prominent island, and the overhearing of tales. If one dismisses the resemblances as mere coincidence, which I do not, it seems that there are then only two possible ways to explain the relationship between the two narratives. First, however improbable, it is conceivable that an earlier Jewish precursor influenced the story of Mattidia’s family reunion and then separately the tale of pious Israelite. Second – and much more likely given the observable similarities and dependence of The Sorrows of Mattidia on earlier Greek precursors as well as the absence of any analogous narrative in Biblical, Second Temple, or Rabbinic Jewish textual traditions – the family narrative of the Pseudo-Clementine literature influenced the composer of the Arabian Nights. If this were the case, then one must explain how the well-known story about a Christian family reunion morphed into a story told in the Islamic world about Jews! Of course, given the lack of historical sources that might help us to do this, we are left to ponder possible credible solutions. In the least, we must surmise that the Christians, Jews, or Judaizing Christians from whom Muslims

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ultimately derived this story from connected the character of Mattidia and her family with Jews. Perhaps the story was even transmitted by “Petrine” Christians who not only self-described as Jews but also modeled their religious practices upon Jewish exemplars.

Notes 1 Shelly Matthews, “Thinking of Thecla: Issues in Feminist Historiography,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 17 (2001), 39–55. See also “Feminist Historiography,” in Feminist Biblical Studies in the Twentieth Century: Scholarship and Movement, ed. E. S. Fiorenza (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2014), 233–248. 2 Ibid., 40. 3 Many scholars of the earliest Christianities and ancient Judaisms have been influenced by this skepticism. See, for example, Lynda L. Coon’s study of the vitae of female saints in Sacred Fictions: Holy Women and Hagiography in Late Antiquity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997). For a “skeptical” approach to the study of ancient Jewish women, see Daniel Boyarin in Carnal Israel: Reading Sex in the Talmud (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993) and Michael Satlow, “Fictional Women: A Study in Stereotypes,” in The Talmud Yerushalmi and Graeco-Roman Culture III, ed. P. Schäfer (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002). 4 Shelly Matthews, “Thinking of Thecla: Issues in Feminist Historiography,” op cit, 46–47. 5 Ibid., 52. 6 Ibid., 52–53. See Barbara K. Gold, “ ‘But Ariadne Was Never There in the First Place’ – Finding the Female in Roman Poetry,” in Feminist Theory and the Classics, eds. N. S. Rabinowitz and A. Richlin (New York: Routledge Press, 1993), 75–101. 7 Ibid., 53–54. See Tertullian, On Baptism, 17. 8 The central principles of my approach to the use of ancient sources for historical reconstruction, not necessarily of the lives of women but in general, are presented in Curtis Hutt, “Qumran and the Ancient Sources,” in The Provo International Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls – Technological Innovations, New Texts, and Reformulated Issues (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1997), 274–293. An updated version of my methodology can be found in Curtis Hutt, “Catherine Bell and Her Davidsonian Critics,” in the Journal of Ritual Studies 23.2 (2009), 69–76. 9 Shelly Matthews, “Feminist Historiography,” op cit, 237. 10 Barbara K. Gold, “ ‘But Ariadne Was Never There in the First Place’ – Finding the Female in Roman Poetry,” op cit, 86. See Alice Jardine, Gynesis: Configurations of Woman and Modernity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986). 11 See Hans Blumenberg, Care Crosses the River, op cit and Paradigms for a Metaphorology (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010). 12 Kate Cooper, “Mattidia’s Wish,” 262. 13 What Carol Meyers asserts in Rediscovering Eve (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 139–143, about women’s informal networks and associations in the largely patriarchal Israelite societies that produced the Hebrew Bible, I believe is also the case for early Rabbinic communities. See Ross Kraemer, Her Share of the Blessings, op cit, 95, 225, note 8, who questions the degree to which the rabbinical prescription against women’s religious fellowship groups (havurot) applied outside of the precincts of the Jerusalem Temple contra Judith Wegner’s assertion in Chattel or Person: The Status of Women in the Mishnah (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 148. 14 Kate Cooper, “Insinuations of Womanly Influence: An Aspect of the Christianization of the Roman Aristocracy,” op cit, 150–164.

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15 Kate Cooper, “Apostles, Ascetic Women, and Questions of Audience: New Reflections on the Rhetoric of Gender in the Apocryphal Acts,” Society of Biblical Literature Seminar Papers 31 (Atlanta: Scholar’s Press, 1992), 150–151. See also Kate Cooper, The Virgin and the Bride: Idealized Womanhood in Late Antiquity (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1996). 16 Curtis Hutt, John Dewey and the Ethics of Historical Belief: Religion and the Representation of the Past (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2013), 54. See Shelly Matthews’ comments on Elizabeth Clark’s work in “Feminist Biblical Historiography, op cit, 247. 17 This does not mean that we cannot learn about the past from reading Josephus. See Curtis Hutt, “Qumran and the Ancient Sources,” op cit, 274–277. 18 Keith Bradley, “Fictive Families: Families and Household in the ‘Metamorphoses’ of Apuleius,” Phoenix 54 (2000), 282–308. 19 Ibid., 291–292. 20 See note 17 in section 1. 21 I make this claim given the tendency of the Homilies to retain heretical Jewish Christian material from the basic writing as opposed to adding it. I contend, in keeping with his comment in his translator’s preface, that Rufinus has edited out heretical elements from the Greek Recognitions, and that this material has been deleted either from this text or by the author of the Greek Recognitions from the Grundschrift. This is similar to what we encounter in the alternative Jewish Christian rendering of Gospel story of Justa in the Clementina. 22 Nicole Kelley, “The Theological Significance of Physical Deformity in the PseudoClementine Homilies,” Perspetives in Religious Studies 34.1 (2007), 82–83. 23 See Curtis Hutt, “’Be Ye Approved Money-changers!’ Reexamining the Social Contexts of the Saying and Its Interpretation,” Journal of Biblical Literature 131.3 (2012), 592, note 7. 24 The term “critical historian” is borrowed from F. H. Bradley and his seminal text on modern scientific historiographical practices titled “The Presuppositions of Critical History” found in Collected Papers, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1935), 1–53. My pragmatist, anti-representationalist approach to historiography is presented in Curtis Hutt, John Dewey and the Ethics of Historical Belief, op cit, 29–31, 101–103. 25 Quintilian, Institutiones Oratoriae 2.4.2. 26 Curtis Hutt, John Dewey and the Ethics of Historical Belief, op cit, 1–15; 47–51; 88–92. 27 Ross Kraemer, “The Conversion of Women to Ascetic Forms of Christianity,” Signs 6 (1980), 298–307. In this text, Kraemer believes that she is able to illuminate the dynamic of the conversions of some early Christian women through appeal to legends found in the Apocryphal Acts. Her argument rests upon “the explicitly stated assumption that they accurately describe the patterns of ancient conversions if not the conversions of specific historical persons” (299). See Cooper’s criticisms of Kraemer and A. D. Nock in Conversion: The Old and the New in Religion from Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo (Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1998 [orig.: 1933]) published in “Apostles, Ascetic Women, and Questions of Audience: New Reflections on the Rhetoric of Gender in the Apocryphal Acts,” op cit, 147–153. 28 See, especially, Elizabeth Clark in “Holy Women, Holy Words: Early Christian Women, Social History, and the Linguistic Turn,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 6.3 (1998), 413–430. 29 Ross Kraemer, Unreliable Witnesses: Religion, Gender, and History in the GrecoRoman Mediterranean (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 7–11. 30 Ross Kraemer, Her Share of the Blessings, op cit, 104. 31 Kate Cooper, “Apostles, Ascetic Women, and Questions of Audience,” op cit 147.

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32 Ross Kraemer, Unreliable Witnesses, op cit, 9–10. 33 This is the most basic principle behind, for example, Ross Kraemer’s former examination of fictional religions in Ross Shepherd Kraemer, William Cassidy, and Susan L. Schwartz, Religions of Star Trek (Boulder: Westview Press, 2001). 34 Epistula Petri 2.3. 35 Homilies 2.15–17; 17.1–19. 36 Recognitions 1.70. I  would also argue that the ending of the Recognitions supports the same anti-Paulinism, as Mattidia – in contrast to what is found in the Apocryphal Acts – is returned to her pagan husband. 37 Recognitions 4.5–35 and Homilies 11.35. 38 There has been much debate about the sources of Gospel quotations in the PseudoClementine literature. Any number of options continue to be on the table including direct use of one or more Gospels, in addition to use of at least one non-canonical, probably harmonized, Gospel – see A. F. J. Klijn in A Survey of Researches into the Western Text of the Gospels and Acts, vol. 2, NTS 21 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1969), and Arthur J. Bellinzoni, The Sayings of Jesus in the Writings of Justin Martyr, NTS 17 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1967). Georg Strecker in “Eine Evangelienharmonie bei Justin und Pseudoklemens?” New Testament Studies 24 (1977–8), 297–316, argues that because no manuscript of such a harmonized source has been discovered, the use of oral traditions cannot be ruled out. Also, specifically related to the quotations in the Homilies, see Leslie L. Kline, The Sayings of Jesus in the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies, (SBL Dissertation Series 14; Missoula: Society of Biblical Literature and Scholars’ Press, 1975). 39 Rufinus claims in the preface to his Latin translation that Eunomian heresies, which are reliably dated to the fourth century CE, have been removed from his work. 40 Homilies 2.15–7 has been assigned by Georg Strecker to his reconstructed Kerygmata Petrou. He argues that this material is not attributable to the later Ebionism of the author of the basic writing. Rather, the source of the base-text in turn utilized by the Recognitions and Homilies is colored by dualistic cosmological tendencies associated with a form of Jewish Gnosticism – perhaps, related to the Elchasaites. See Georg Strecker, “The Kerygmata Petrou“ in New Testament Apocrypha, ed. by W. Schneemelcher, vol. 2, 489–492. There is, however, little evidence substantiating this claim; see, at best, F. Stanley Jones in “An Ancient Christian Teacher in the Pseudo-Clementines,” in PseudoClementina Elchasaiticaque inter Judaeochristiana: Collected Studies, op cit, 194–203. Others have argued for Cerinthian origins, that the author was familiar with traditions similar to those recorded in the Gospel of Thomas, or that some inspiration has been found in the theology of Valentinus as described by Irenaeus in Book 1 of Adversus Haereses. 41 One is not forced, moreover, to deny that James, Peter, Clement, and “Jewish Christians” are little more than fictional creations fulfilling “authorizing” functions in the literature. 42 Homilies 17.15. It is tempting to read this passage as criticism of females perhaps in Pauline communities who have spurned traditional marriage and the seclusion of women. Perhaps, this lies behind the characterization of Helena as a prostitute. 43 Ross Kraemer, Her Share of the Blessings, op cit, 108. 44 Ibid., 93–105. 45 Annette Yoshiko Reed, “Heresiology and the (Jewish-)Christian Novel,” Heresy and Self Definition in Late Antiquity, E. Iricinschi and H. Zelletin, eds. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 292. Reed relies on the work of scholars like Juda Bergman, “Les éléments juifs dans les Pseudo-Clémentines,” Revue des Études Juives 46 (1903): 89–98; Arthur Marmorstein, “Judaism and Christianity in the Middle of the Third Century,” Hebrew Union College Annual 10(1935): 223–263; and Albert Baumgarten, “Literary

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46 47

48 49 50

Evidence for Jewish Christianity in the Galilee,” The Galilee in Late Antiquity, ed. L. Levine (New York/Jerusalem: The Jewish Theological Seminary of America Press, 1992), 39–50. See also Annette Yoshiko Reed, “'Jewish Christianity’ as Counter-history? The Apostolic Past in Eusebius’ Ecclesastical History and the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies,” in Antiquity in Antiquity: Jewish and Christian Pasts in the Greco-Roman World, eds. G. Gardner and K. Osterloh (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 173–216. Reed, “Heresiology and the (Jewish-)Christian Novel,” op cit, 290. Dominique Côté in Le thème de l’opposition entre Pierre et Simon dans les PseudoClémentines (Paris: Institut d’Etudes Augustiniennes, 2001), 195–196, and Annette Yoshiko Reed in “Heresiology and the (Jewish-)Christian Novel,” Heresy and Self Definition in Late Antiquity, op cit, 288–290, both argue that the association of Simon Magus with Hellenism in the Pseudo-Clementines is a relatively new twist on these traditions that fits well the milieu of the producers of this literature. Homilies 11.26–27. Homilies 7. 8 and 11.28,30,33. The origins of these Jewish purity laws can be found in Leviticus 15:24; 18:19. Arabian Nights 3.784–791. See section 2, note 25.

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It is commonly assumed that in order to faithfully assess the significance of a literary text one must first secure at least some sense of the identity of the author and the community in which and to which the author’s words are composed. In the case of the Pseudo-Clementine literature and many other ancient writings, this is a formidable and often unworkable task. It is common for a given text not to be “signed” by its creator or, as in the case of the collection of writings known as the Clementina, to be ascribed for various reasons to a figure who could not have produced it. Identifying initially targeted audiences can also be quite challenging. On account of these difficulties, it is a fortunate happenstance when one is able to directly connect an individual that historians know something about with the production/proliferation of a specific text. In the case of the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions, we are familiar with its famous Latin translator, Tyrannius Rufinus of Aquileia. Even more interestingly for this monograph, he writes in the letter introducing his work addressed to Bishop Gaudentius of Brescia that a woman, Sylvia of Aquitaine, first encouraged him to translate into Latin a Greek copy of the Recognitions. While the characters described in the fantastic fictional story of Mattidia cannot be proved to have ever lived – much less that the events, deeds, and words associated with their lives actually occurred – Rufinus and Sylvia provide interpreters with possible historical links between the women of the Recognitions, and indirectly the Homilies, with a specific ancient audience. Scholars have used the biographical information found in the preface of the Recognitions, at least relating to Rufinus, when attempting to place in context the presumed motives informing the production of the Latin Recognitions. For example, Kate Cooper has written that the pro-family values found in this text fit well the “social milieu of . . . Rufinus . . . who was known for his interest in providing edifying reading for the married Christian laity.”1 Cooper’s approach is very productive. I  intend to extend her findings by evaluating the role played by Sylvia in the proliferation of the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions. I suggest that we can learn something about the transmission and reception of the story of Mattidia as well as the descriptions of other women in this literature through investigating its connection to Sylvia.

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Sylvia of Aquitaine, as just noted, according to Tyrannius Rufinus originally encouraged him to translate the Recognitions from the Greek into Latin. E. D. Hunt suggests that it was Rufinus who first introduced the work to Sylvia either in Aquileia or Jerusalem.2 There is, however, no conclusive evidence confirming that the latter was the case. Sylvia may just as easily have obtained a copy of the Greek Recognitions on her own, perhaps in Constantinople. It would have then been a part of the treasures she bequeathed to Christians in the West, like the relics she obtained on her pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Rufinus, moreover, may not have been the only person that Sylvia persuaded to attempt a translation. Paulinus of Nola, originally from Aquitaine as well and an additional source on Sylvia’s life, writes that he too undertook a translation of “sanctus Clemens.”3 Rufinus writes that it was his letter’s addressee Bishop Gaudentius’ obligation, inherited from the virgin Sylvia, to promote this text. Sylvia, whom I do not confuse – like Gian Francesco Gamurrini4 – with the author of the Peregrinatio ad Loca Sancta of Egeria, was the sister-in-law of the Praetorian Prefect named Flavius Rufinus who in Theodosius’ absence was ruler of the East in 394. While it is almost certain that much of the so-called description of Sylvia (=Sylvania) in Chapter 55 of Palladius’ Lausiac History is a continuation of a description of Melania the Elder,5 undeniably reference is made to a woman of this name who traveled to Jerusalem in the last decade of the fourth century. There she probably met the theologian/ translator Tyrannius Rufinus for the first time and was hosted profligately, if we are to believe Jerome, in the monastic community of Melania the Elder on the Mount of Olives.6 Sylvia then traveled as described in the Lausiac History, following a well-known pilgrimage route, to the desert of Egypt – accompanied at least part of the way by Palladius, Melania, and Bishop Jovinus of Ascalon. It is important to note that it was quite possible that Sylvia returned to Jerusalem some time after this trip to stay with family and friends in the city. When her brother-in-law Flavius Rufinus, who had assumed control of the Eastern part of the fracturing empire upon the death of Theodosius, was murdered in 395 ce, the wife and daughter of this immensely powerful figure were allowed to move to Jerusalem, where they were presumably welcomed and assisted by Sylvia’s Jerusalem contacts.7 At some point after her pilgrimage to Egypt, according to Paulinus of Nola, Sylvia then returned to the West with the relics of many Eastern martyrs.8 She donated these to the basilica in Primuliacum, and quite possibly, along with the Greek text of the Recognitions, to the basilica established by Bishop Gaudentius just outside of Brescia. In today’s church built upon this site she is known as St. Sylvia and her feast day is celebrated on December 15. Unfortunately, what is found in the writings of Palladius, Paulinus, and in Tyrannius Rufinus’ preface to the Recognitions convey little more information about her. Sylvia was an extremely well-connected aristocrat, with powerful family and friends in Aquitaine, northern Italy, Constantinople, and Jerusalem. She was a virgin. She presumably knew at least some Greek, but may have had to learn it – like her brother-in-law Flavius Rufinus – when she traveled east.9 Sylvia’s memory

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was venerated. Most critically for the twenty-first century historian investigating the story of Mattidia and her family, Sylvia is a woman directly connected to its transmission. She provides us with, in my view, a rare example of a woman proliferating a story about another woman – like the women, described by Tertullian, with whom the story of Thecla was popular.10 Whereas we know little of Sylvia’s relationship with Tyrannius Rufinus, it is easier to write about his association with that other powerful woman in his life: Melania the Elder.11 Indeed, Rufinus translated the Recognitions in the last years of his life at Melania’s Sicilian estate, which sheltered him not only from charges of heresy but also the aftermath of the sack of Rome.12 Melania herself – a very wealthy Roman widow who was a benefactress for many ascetics throughout the East, including Evagrius of Pontus – was not only extremely well read in Greek but reputedly provided later scholars with seven hundred volumes of the writings of the Church Fathers.13 She was the first of several imperial aristocratic women after Helena, the mother of Constantine (such as Paula, Eustochium, Aelia Eudocia, and her granddaughter Melania the Younger), to construct churches and establish monasteries as well as hostels in Palestine. While what Rufinus has written concerning Melania the Elder does not suggest it, she appears at various times to have acted at as disciple, confidant, teacher, and spiritual guide for men as well as women. For example, in Chapter 38 of the Lausiac History, Palladius described Melania the Elder as being a counselor to Evagrius – from despair to vocation. In Chapter 55, a passage Gamurrini associated with Sylvia, she upbraids the bishop of Ascalon for his ascetical softness.14 Jerome, most interestingly, accused Melania the Elder of being a “second Thecla.”15 In his apologia (designed to defend Origenists like himself from charges of heresy), Tyrannius Rufinus’ strategy was to minimize and downplay Melania the Elder’s questionable activity as a religious leader. Rufinus – as shown by Ute Eisen in her book Women Officeholders in Early Christianity – did something very similar elsewhere with the reputation of another famous early Christian woman, St. Nino. In his Ecclesiastical History, Rufinus “watered down” Georgian Christian traditions that their country was converted to Christianity through the work of Nino, a female prisoner of war.16 Whereas other sources record that Nino – ordained by Juvenal of Jerusalem – was a teacher, baptizer, and even is referred to as an “apostle” responsible for one of the first nationwide conversions to Christianity, Rufinus downplays the portrayal of this prisoner as a religious leader and refers instead to the king of Georgia as the “apostle” responsible for the conversion of his lands.17 Rufinus and perhaps even Melania the Elder herself, already under attack for being Origenists, were careful not to raise perceived threats to male ecclesiastical power as well. If we are to believe Rufinus’ account of Nino, in public settings these women – teachers, scholars, and preachers – provided instruction only for other women. Yet was this always the case, especially in contexts where they yielded great influence such as in their homes and the churches/monasteries that they financed? In the accounts handed down to us in Christian traditions, patronesses like these have generally been relegated to the shadows of the Church fathers that they propped up. 74

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Sylvia, especially when a member of the court in Constantinople – where we can assume she would have spent time with her sister’s family (Palladius and Paulinus specifically associate her with Flavius Rufinus) – was part of a community where highly literate and powerful women had had a great deal of influence on its leading religious figures, both as benefactresses and as teachers. These aristocratic women supported varying causes. Aelia Galla, the wife of Theodosius I, was a supporter of Arianism like her mother Justina, who ruled the empire through her son Valentinian II and faced off with Ambrose, the Nicene archbishop of Milan.18 This is especially important given the work of F. Stanley Jones, who has linked passages in the Homilies and Recognitions with Arianism!19 The deaconess Olympias famously aided several Church leaders in Constantinople such as the archbishops Gregory Nazianzus and John Chrysostom, as well as Ephiphanius of Salamis, defender of the faith against multiple heresies including Arianism and Origenism. Even as Tyrannius Rufinus had been supported in exile by Melania the Elder, Olympias famously supported John Chrysostom and his followers during their time of need, even though this would lead to her own banishment from the city. In the years following Sylvia’s departure, Constantinople would become home to the Empress Pulcheria, who ruled on behalf of her younger brother Theodosius II and personally intervened in the Theotokos debate.20 Even more interestingly for this study, in 420 ce Athenäis, the daughter of the pagan Athenian philosopher Leontius, moved to Constantinople where she was introduced by the Empress Pulcheria to her brother, who would soon become emperor. After converting to Christianity, she became the Empress Aelia Eudocia, perhaps the most well-attested female author in antiquity. It is in her Martyrdom of St. Cyprian, a rendering in Homeric verse of an earlier source(s), that we meet another woman named Justa.21 In this intriguing work, Justa – a “Galilean virgin” – is attacked by a “Faustian” magus named Cyprian, who then becomes as a result of this encounter a Christian convert and saint. Did Eudocia draw upon traditions connected to the Justa found in the Pseudo-Clementine literature? It seems quite clear that this was the case with the character of Cyprian, who appears to have been modeled upon not only the famous bishop of Carthage but the Pseudo-Clementine Simon Magus as well.22 There is in Eudocia’s work, unfortunately, little apart from the reference to Justa being from Galilee that supports this. There is no hint of the famous Gospel character and her daughter, much less the redescribed Justa of the Homilies who is a pagan convert to Jesus’ purported form of Judaism and raised Mattidia’s twins as her own. It is quite possible that the traditions about a famous Justa that Eudocia drew upon were known to Sylvia. The character of Justa that she was arguably acquainted with from the Pseudo-Clementine literature is quite different. Tyrannius Rufinus (and perhaps Paulinus of Nola) was not the only one to translate a religious text for a woman like Sylvia. Jerome translated Origen’s Homilies on the Song of Songs for Marcella, Paula, and Eustochium. Neither was Rufinus the first to be supplied with an important text for translation by a woman. His teacher Origen was given a copy of Symmachus’ Greek translation of the 75

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Scriptures contained in the Hexapla by the mysterious virgin named Juliana.23 Origen, following the practice of several famous Church fathers, had female disciples such as his patron Ambrosius’ sister, Tatiana, who is described as “most zealous for learning.”24 Macrina the Elder is said to have studied under Gregory Thaumaturgos before passing his teachings down to her grandchildren – each of whom were declared saints after receiving instruction as well as from their mother, Emmelia – namely, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Peter of Sebaste, Macrina the Younger, and Theosebia. Most intriguingly, Gregory of Nyssa describes Macrina the Younger as a highly trained philosopher who drew students to her monastery/“phrontisterion” because of her ability to sort through the most difficult philosophical issues.25 Gregory Nazianzus similarly cites instruction in the faith given to him by his own mother, Nonna. He writes that his sister Gorgonia was a teacher of Christian piety not only to her family but to those in their wider community as well.26 According to Gerontius, Melania the Younger (granddaughter of Melania the Elder) was not only a benefactress but also a scholar and teacher of both sexes.27 We know far less about these women than the more famous men that they were understood to have aided, studied under, or taught. Unfortunately, these women did not write any commentaries or do translations like Rufinus, Jerome, and Origen themselves – or did they? Their letters, unlike those of the more famous males with whom they corresponded, were not preserved.28 Why would Sylvia want Tyrannius Rufinus and possibly Paulinus of Nola to make a translation into Latin of the Greek Recognitions? Questions like these delving into the “intentions” of specific individuals in past and present are notoriously difficult to answer. More cautiously, one might ask to what degree Mattidia or even Justa was a compelling character to highborn women such as Sylvia, who were familiar with the narratives about them? Sylvia was an aristocrat, like the character of Mattidia who reputedly lived several generations before her in the age of the apostles. As portrayed in the Pseudo-Clementine literature, Mattidia was a member of Caesar’s family  – in a social position not unlike where Sylvia would have found herself in Constantinople. Sylvia was also a Christian, though we have no reason to believe that she was a convert to the faith like Mattidia and some other upper-class women like Aelia Eudocia. In the Clementina, Mattidia was held up as an example of the ideal female Christian convert. Peter also praised Mattidia for her sound-mindedness/chastity (sophrosyné). But was Mattidia’s marital fidelity to Faustus, marked by temporary chastity, offered up as an example by or for the virgin Sylvia and other aristocratic Christian female ascetics? The chastity of the Pseudo-Clementine character Mattidia, it must be reiterated, bears little resemblance to that of the continent women of the Apocryphal Acts, Encratites, and other extreme Christian ascetic groups as her behavior did not upset traditional Mediterranean family and social structures. Mattidia was not a lifelong virgin, unlike many in the age of Sylvia. Mattidia was praised in the Pseudo-Clementine literature, like her historical precursor Mattidia the Elder, for her dedication to her husband and family – not her virginity.

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Mattidia, the mother of Clement, was neither a confidant of nor interfered with the religious business of pagan or Christian men. As a new Christian convert in Peter’s community, she was submissive and seldom heard. Sylvia, in contrast, may not only have been a lifelong virgin but also never experienced such a fall from her social status as Mattidia. Even if we accept that Palladius’ description in Chapter 55 of the Lausiac History is primarily of Melania the Elder,29 we must conclude that Sylvia was not only quite literate but also conversant with scholars such as this grande dame of the Christian ascetic movement but also men like Tyrannius Rufinus and Bishop Gaudentius. It is hard to know what Sylvia would have thought about Mattidia and her plight. Perhaps she empathized with Mattidia and feared that she too could fall into misery. Alternatively, as an educated and powerful Christian woman, did she feel threatened by the subservience of the Christian Mattidia? Frankly, we have no way of knowing for certain if Sylvia or Melania the Elder personally empathized with Mattidia’s sorrows. Of all the characters found in this literature, as a wealthy Roman citizen Mattidia was the one potentially most similar to Tyrannius Rufinus’ female friends. Like all good dramatic figures, though, Mattidia’s appeal reaches out across economic and social barriers. She had fallen and entered worlds far removed from Rome – a community of destitute women and widows on the island of Arados, and then by conversion into the early Christian community of Peter. Sylvia herself, upon the death of Flavius Rufinus and his family’s subsequent banishment from Constantinople to Jerusalem, may have had cause to empathize with her fate – though no evidence exists suggesting that she or her sister-in-law became impoverished. When she returned to the West, Sylvia was still able to serve as a patroness and maintain her aristocratic connections. What message to women might Sylvia have been trying to promote by suggesting that the Recognitions be translated into Latin? If Rufinus himself first supplied the text to Sylvia, given his treatment of Nino, this question might be more easily answered – but perhaps not. Did Rufinus or Sylvia expect women like Melania the Elder to act like Mattidia? Were the empresses Justina and Galla, scholars like Macrina the Elder and Gorgonia, and others like Marcella, Paula, and Eustochium not supposed to engage in religious dialogue and studies with men? Imagine Mattidia, seated away from the men with Peter’s nameless wife, soon be returned to her pagan husband. Despite her protests, Mattidia is forced by Peter to accompany Faustus, who appears before all with the terrifying face of Simon Magus. Mattidia’s actions are constrained and directed by men. In Peter’s community, she loses the bitter freedom of being another poor widow on Arados. Mattidia is praised for having remained chaste all of this time. For the most part, however, she is just forgotten. It is hard to imagine anyone ignoring Sylvia or Melania the Elder, even Peter and the men in his entourage – just as no one would have misplaced in an earlier age that other Bernice, not Justa’s daughter, but King Herod Agrippa’s (the mistress of Titus). In some ways, these powerful women undoubtedly did humble themselves in the company of men when they needed to do so. It seems unlikely,

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however, that Tyrannius Rufinus translated the Recognitions for Sylvia or Melania’s improvement! They had, in my view, a wider target audience. Mattidia and Peter’s wife are models for other women’s behavior: married and widowed Christian women. What did Sylvia make of the stories about that other famous wealthy woman described in the Pseudo-Clementine literature, specifically the previously unidentified Canaanite/Syro-Phoenician woman of Matthew 15:21–8 and Mark 7: 25–30 known in the Recognitions and Homilies as Justa? Was she, for example, aware of the so-called Jewish Christian rewrite of this Gospel story in the Homilies? Any speculation on this front must begin by noting that the vast majority of material about the women of the Clementina originates before the time of Sylvia’s visit to Jerusalem and the translation of Tyrannius Rufinus. While Rufinus himself has admitted to altering the received text of the Recognitions, it is impossible to pin all relevant modifications of the original base-text upon him and, as argued earlier, he has clearly not been entirely effective. Differences, for example, between the Recognitions and Homilies might as easily be considered the work of the producer of the Greek Recognitions. In any case, Justa quite clearly may have been transformed by the writer of the base-text, before Rufinus did his translation, into an image more reconcilable with his own ideas about what an upper-class patroness was like. Justa, likewise, is portrayed in the Latin Recognitions, the Greek Homilies, and presumably the Greek Recognitions and base-text as having provided Mattidia’s twins Nicetas and Aquila with a fine education in Greek literature and philosophy. This detail appears to have been added at a secondary stage in the development of the Pseudo-Clementine literature as it is part of a literary device connecting Mattidia’s story, via her twins, with narratives about Simon Magus (Peter’s opponent in debate). It seems reasonable to suggest that if there ever were a Justa similar to the one described in the Homilies, she would have less in common with extremely wealthy and powerful women like Sylvia or Melania the Elder than with Rhoda, the buyer of the slave, Hermas, whose visions are recorded in the Shepherd.30 Then again, Justa’s purported connections to an early community of Jewish Christian “poor” (Ebionites) stands out against this identification. The “pious poor” who are praised by Hermas are simply impoverished and, while arguably having some connection to the Church in Rome, have no explicit link like that described of Clement and Mattidia to an early group of Judaizing Christians associated with Peter. Simply stated, the Clementina generally promotes traditional pagan, Jewish, and Christian values that separate women from the affairs of men, demand submissive behavior, and hold that their opinions on religious matters are really not that important. While Sylvia and Melania on account of their wealth and social position did not experience these conditions in precisely the same way as the women described in the Clementina, they most certainly must have understood them. The degree to which even they experienced this endemic cultural subjugation provides us with a good point of reference when examining the lives of other women at this

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time who were neither extremely wealthy nor well-connected. Interestingly, the Pseudo-Clementine literature provides us with several good examples of women engaging in strategies of retreat in order to escape adverse conditions in their relationships with men. Mattidia flees sexual assault. Justa forsakes her husband and possibly another abusive situation involving her daughter for Jesus’ community. The widow on Arados prefers to remain unmarried. In the end, Mattidia has nowhere to run and no one – not even Peter or her own sons – to protect her. In the Pseudo-Clementine literature, we encounter several female characters who are “poor” or have become “poor.” Though they come from diverse backgrounds and have different means at their disposal, they are identified with the purported early community of Peter, which takes poverty (ebion) as its name. Regardless of the original reason why this community was described as “poor,” this must have been a powerful symbol to women generations removed, like Sylvia and Melania, and others from the Roman over-class who had chosen ascetic lifestyles during the late fourth and fifth century like Basil who established the “New City” of the “poor” in Caesarea. Generally, however, it must be accepted that there is little actual economic and social resemblance between these influential readers and the fictional characters of the Clementina. Even as it is impossible to link the women in the story of Mattidia to real historical persons, so too is it highly unlikely that we can learn much about the way that gender identity and relationships are constructed in the social settings occupied by Sylvia and Melania from the literature under examination and vice versa. At best, we can only guess why the texts under investigation might have been interesting to such wealthy, powerful, and erudite female readers who play a role in the history of the textual transmission of the Recognitions.

Notes 1 Kate Cooper, “Mattidia’s Wish,” op cit, 259–260. 2 E. D. Hunt, “St. Silvia of Aquitaine: The Role of a Theodosian Pilgrim in the Society of East and West,” Journal of Theological Studies 23.2 (1972), 363–364. 3 Paulinus of Nola, Epistle 46.2. 4 G. F. Gamurrini, “Delia inedita peregrinazione ai Luoghi Santi nel quarto secolo,” Studi e documenti di storia e diritto 6 (1885), 145–167. Contra Gamurrini, Marius Férotin in “Le veritable auteur de la Peregrinatio Silviae, la vierge espagnole Etheria,” Revue des questions historiques, 74 (1903), 367–397, convincingly identified the author of the Peregrinatio – one of the earliest Western European texts that can be attributed to a female writer – with the Gallic pilgrim Egeria/Aetheria who traveled to the Holy Land in the early 380s. See also E. D. Hunt, op. cit, 351–352 as well as John Wilkinson in Egeria’s Travels (Oxford: Aris and Phillips, 2006). 5 This is suggested by C. H. Turner in “The Lausiac History of Palladius,” Journal of Theological Studies 6 (1905), 352–354, and is evident in translations of Section 55 of Butler’s text into the German by S. Krottenthaler in Des Palladius von Helenopolis Leben der heiligen Väter (München: Kempten, 1912), in French by A. Lucot in Palladius, Historie Lausiaque (Paris: Picard, 1912), and into English by W. K. Lowther Clarke, The Lausiac History of Palladius (London and New York: Macmillan, 1918),

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and Robert T. Meyer, The Lausiac History (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1964). Cuthbert Butler’s claim in Texts and Studies: Contributions to Biblical and Patristic Literature – The Lausiac History of Palladius, vol. 6.2 (Cambridge: University Press, 1898) that St. Sylvia of Aquitaine is an entirely mythical figure, in my view – as well as that of Hunt and Meyer – is unsubstantiated especially in light of references to her in other historical sources. 6 Jerome, Epistle 54. Hunt, op cit, 358–359, writes that Sylvia’s presence in Jerusalem in 394 CE was the “scandal” referred to by Jerome in this letter to Furia. Sylvia certainly would have arrived on the Mount of Olives with a large retinue and would have received “royal” treatment. As a member of the court of Theodosius, Sylvia would have been a powerful ally to Melania the Elder and Rufinus in their well-known conflict with Jerome. 7 Zosimus, Historia Nova 5. 8. 8 Paulinus of Nola, Epistle 31.1. 9 Libanius, Epistle 865, 1106. 10 Shelly Matthews, “Thinking of Thecla: Issues in Feminist Historiography,” op cit, 40, 54. 11 Melania the Elder may have no equal in terms of patronage at this time, perhaps with the exception of Olympias of Constantinople. She was sponsor and renovator of monastic communities on a grand scale and also established new ones, like the one for virgins on the Mount of Olives. She may be well compared to women in the circle of Jerome like Marcella and Paula. They sponsored Jerome and were his students/ disciples. Marcella read Greek and possessed a library of Greek texts. Paula learned Hebrew as well. 12 See C. P. Hammond, “The Last Ten Years of Rufinus’ Life and the Date of His Move South from Aquileia,” Journal of Theological Studies n.s. 28 (1977), 428. 13 According to Palladius’ Lausiac History 55.3 she read “millions” of lines of Origen and others. See Caesaria the Patrician’s account in Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Asceticism and Society in Crisis: John of Ephesus and the Lives of the Eastern Saints (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 127. 14 Palladius, Lausiac History 38.9. 15 Tyrannius Rufinus, Apologia contra Hieronymum 2. 29. 16 Ute Eisen, Women Officeholders in Early Christianity: Epigraphical and Literary Studies (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2000), 54. 17 Ibid., 52–54. In Georgia, St. Nino is referred to liturgically and otherwise as “Equalto-the-Apostles.” See especially Constantine Lerner’s critical edition, translation, and commentary on ancient manuscripts related to the life of Nino in The Wellspring of Georgian Historiography: The Early Medieval Historical Chronicle – The Conversion of Kartli and The Life of St. Nino (London: Bennett and Bloom, 2003). 18 See J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, “Ambrose’s Conflict with the Empress Justina at Milan,” in Ambrose of Milan: Political Letters and Speeches (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2010), 124–135. 19 See F. Stanley Jones, “The Pseudo-Clementines: A History of Research,” op cit, 91–92, 96. 20 Antonia Atanassova, “Orthodox Women’s Defense of the Theotokos: The Case of Empress Pulcheria and the Council of Ephesus,” Philanthropy and Social Compassion in Eastern Orthodox Tradition: Papers of the Sophia Institute Academic Conference (New York: Theotokos Press, 2009). 21 See especially Eudocia’s “The Martyrdom of Cyprian,” in Women Writers of Ancient Greece and Rome: An Anthology, ed. I. M. Plant (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004), 198–209. Edgar Goodspeed in The Martyrdom of Cyprian and Justa (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1903) reviews the earliest Greek manuscripts

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22 23 24 25

26 27 28 29

as well as Latin, Syriac, Arabic translations in addition to his own work on the Ethiopic text. This is the argument of T. A. Sabbatini in “S. Cipriano nella tradizione agiographica,” Rivista di Studi Classici 21 (1973), 183–204. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6.2.13–14. See also Henri Crouzel, Origen (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989), 16–17. On Prayer 34 in Origen: An Exhortation to Martyrdom, Prayer, and Selected Works, trans. R. Greer (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), 170. Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Saint Macrina, trans. K. Corrigan (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2001), 59. See also Gregory of Nyssa’s dialogue with Macrina in On the Soul and Resurrection, trans. C. Roth (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002). Gregory Nazianzus, On His Sister Gorgonia in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 7, 240–241. Gerontius, Vita Melaniae 54. See Ute Eisen, Women Officeholders in Early Christianity, op cit, 97. Jerome, Epistle 49.2. Jerome writes in De Viris Illustribus 135 that he did not know how many letters he wrote to Paula and Eustochium as he wrote them every day. How many did Paula write to Jerome? Palladius writes of Melania (though this has been confused with a description of Sylvia) that: She was most erudite and fond of literature, and she turned night into day going through every writing of the ancient commentators – three million lines of Origen and two and a half million lines of Gregory, Stephen, Pierius, Basil, and other worthy men. And she did not read them once only and in an offhand way, but she worked on them, dredging through each work seven or eight times. Thus, it was possible for her to be liberated from knowledge falsely so called and to mount on wings, thanks to those books. (Translation by Robert Meyer in The Lausiac History of Palladius, op cit, 136–137)

30 Shepherd of Hermas – Visions, 1.1.

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Part II THE SORROWS OF MATTIDIA

5 THE SORROWS OF MATTIDIA Author, text, bibliography, and translation

Author: Unknown. The narrator claims to be Clement, successor to Peter, Bishop of Rome. The origins of The Sorrows of Mattidia are not, however, to be found within the first generation of “Christians” after Jesus. This postulated source of the Pseudo-Clementine Grundschrift that is used in common by the authors of the Recognitions and Homilies is, rather, at the earliest derived from the late Hadrianic age. The Sorrows of Mattidia is most likely to have its origins in the late second century, though necessarily prior to its inclusion in the Pseudo-Clementine base-text that is generally dated to the beginning of the third century. Text: Tyrannius Rufinus’ Latin translation of a lost Greek edition of the Recognitions, undertaken at the behest of Sylvia of Aquitaine, and the Greek Homilies depend upon a common source. This basic writing relied, I presume, upon earlier sources as well – including, the family narrative that I call The Sorrows of Mattidia. I chose this title primarily on account of my view that Mattidia is the central figure in this story. Not only does Rufinus in the introduction to his Latin translation of the Recognitions provide us a critical witness to the centrality of the family narrative to the Clementina itself, but also to the existence of two alternative versions of the story about Mattidia and her family found in two different manuscripts of the Recognitions in Greek. According to Rufinus, the principal difference between these largely parallel accounts is that their endings are dissimilar. Rufinus chose to translate one and not the other. Fortunately, the Greek Homilies contain an alternative conclusion to that encountered in his Latin Recognitions. In the new translation, the ending and possibly other details suppressed by Rufinus are reproduced. The Sorrows of Mattidia is presented primarily via quotation from the Homilies with occasional references to parallel passages in the Latin Recognitions. The text that is translated is derived from a complete manuscript of the Homilies known as Vaticanus Ottobianus 443 that was published by Albertus Rud. Max. Dressel in Clementis Romani Quae Feruntur Homiliae Viginti Nunc Primum Integrae (Göttingen: Sumptibus Librariae Dieterichianae, 1853). Vaticanus Ottobianus 443 is also reproduced in J. P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca 2, cols. 19–468. I have made several adjustments to this text principally following, though not always, the work of Bernard Rehm in Die Pseudoklementinen I: Homilien, ed. Georg Strecker, 3rd ed., rev., GCS 42 (Berlin: 85

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Akademie, 1992), and Die Pseudoklementinen II: Rekognitionen in Rufins Übersetzung, ed. G. Strecker, 2nd ed., rev., GCS 51 (Berlin: Akademie, 1994). Note that I have added a couple of sections to The Sorrows of Mattidia from Books 2 and 3 of the Homilies that probably were not part of the original narrative tradition about Mattidia and her family. This includes material about the lives of Mattidia’s twins, Faustinus and Faustinianus (aka Nicetas and Aquila), after they were separated from her – namely, their time with Justa and her daughter Bernice. I have also included material related to the twins’ time with Simon Magus. As noted earlier, I regard material concerning the confrontation between Simon Magus and Peter to be likely derived from a separate source that is distinct from the family narrative. The Homilies version of The Sorrows of Mattidia is preferable for my purposes to that found in the Latin Recognitions as it better reflects a pre-Constantine, preNicene text. Rufinus himself has admitted to leaving passages that were “beyond his comprehension” out of his translation. An example that he provides of such editing is explicitly related to Christological controversies. There is reason to suspect that he might have done the same in a couple of other pertinent cases, where the Homilies provide us with richer yet more divisive storyline to work with. This is evident upon comparison of Homilies 13.4 and Recognitions 7.29 where the religion of Justa and Bernice – purported Gospel characters (Matt. 15:21–28 and Mark 7:24–30) previously unnamed – is concerned. The Homilist, however, is more heterodox and is less concerned to make such changes.1 In a few important instances, I have added material extra to the Homilies found only in the Recognitions – for example, the precise details of Mattidia’s horoscope. Generally, Tyrannius Rufinus’ Latin translation of the Recognitions has received by far the most scholarly attention. Rufinus, however, is clearly keen to defend orthodoxy as he views it. Bibliography and translation: Jenni Irving’s new English translation is preferable to what can be pieced together from Thomas Smith’s dated work titled “The Pseudo-Clementine Literature” found in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 8. Unlike F. Stanley Jones’ new English translation of the Syriac version of the PseudoClementine novel, which depends upon both passages from the lost Greek Recognitions and the Greek Homilies, Irving’s work is based almost exclusively upon a text-critical reconstruction of the Greek Homilies. The text Irving uses is, once again, derived from Vaticanus Ottobianus 443. It has been minimally adapted using the work of Bernard Rehm and Georg Strecker. This popular translation is intended for twenty-first century readers.

Note 1 This is evidenced, for example, when comparing Gospel citations contained in the Recognitions and Homilies respectively. In the Recognitions, the citations are more “canonical.” This noted first by Adolph Schliemann, Die Clementinen nebst den verwandten Schriften und der Ebionitismus (Hamburg: Friedrich Perthes, 1844), 325.

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A. Introduction: The Sorrows of Mattidia (Homilies 12.8–12.14) And Peter asked: “Are you truly a nobody in your family?” And I, Clement, answered: “Indeed, there are a lot of great men in Caesar’s household. For this reason, Caesar himself gave my father, who was also his foster brother, a wife from his own family, from whom three sons were born, including two before myself, who, being twins, were very similar to each other, as my father told me himself. For I neither knew them, nor our mother much, but I do carry an image of them like a faint dream. So, my mother was named Mattidia, and my father was Faustus, and one of my brothers was called Faustinus and the other was named Faustinianus. After I, the third son, was born, my mother saw in a dream – as told to me by my father – that unless she took her twin sons and left the city of Rome for twelve years of exile, they would certainly die by an all-destructive fate. “So indeed, my father,  loving  his children, furnished them with supplies, including befittingly both male and female slaves, and placed them onto a ship, sending them to Athens to be brought up. And he kept me, his lone remaining son, for his own relief. And for this I am much obliged, that the dream had not demanded that I also depart from the city of Rome with my mother. So, after a year had passed, my father sent money to them in Athens, at the same time also bidding his messengers to find out how they were faring. But those who went did not return. With the third year, my father, being disheartened, likewise sent others with supplies, who came back in the fourth year bearing a message that they had neither seen my mother or my brothers, nor had they found even a trace of those who traveled with them. “So, my father, having heard these things, became paralyzed by much grief, and not knowing where to begin to look for them, took me regularly to the harbor where he tried to learn details from many people, about what each of them knew or had heard about a shipwreck that had happened four years prior. He asked others elsewhere. He asked if they had seen a woman’s body with two children washed up on the shore. My father groaned, hearing them speak about having seen many corpses in many places. Because of his heart’s outcry, he asked about 87

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unfathomable things so that he might attempt to search the vastness of the sea. He could be forgiven as he fed upon empty hopes on account of his love towards those he sought. Finally, at age twelve, he placed me under guardians and left me in Rome, whereupon he went to the harbor in tears and embarked onto a ship to further lead the search. And from then until today, I have neither received a letter from him nor do I know for certain if he lives or has died. But I exceedingly suspect that he has died somewhere, either through the victory of grief or perishing by shipwreck. But the fact is this, that now it is twenty years since anything certain has been heard about him.” And Peter, upon hearing these things, wept with sympathy and immediately said to his true friends, “If any man in the service of God was afflicted like this father has been, immediately impress upon them that his religion is the cause of his toil. When such things happen to miserable Gentiles, do not think of these as fateful obligations to God. I have sensibly proclaimed them miserable, because they are abandoned in this world and do not happen to have hope for the next. But when those in the service of God are suffering these things, their endurance overcomes the sins they suffer.” After Peter had said these things, one particular man amongst us suggested to him that we should sail the next day to the nearby island of Arados, which I think was not more than a whole stade away, to see a certain wonderful construction with gigantic vine-wood columns.1 Peter acquiesced, saying “when the boat departs don’t all set your hearts upon being pilgrims. For I do not want you to be noticed by the citizens.” And thus sailing in good time we reached the island, and departing the hull of the ship we went into a place where there were wonderful pillars, on which every one of us gazed earnestly at the works of Phidias. But Peter alone did not think it necessary to be engaged by the investigation of that place, and instead observing a certain woman sitting outside the doors constantly begging for food, he said: “Woman! Do your limbs forsake you that you display so much hubris, indeed I refer to the begging, and why not instead do the work of God, as he has given you hands to obtain your nourishment daily?” But groaning, the woman answered: “If only I had hands able to render service for me. But now they maintain only the form of hands, as they are dead, by my gnawing that has rendered them useless.” Then Peter asked, “What is responsible for you suffering this terrible thing?” And she answered, “Weakness of soul and nothing more. For if I had the mind of a man, I would have thrown myself from a cliff or into a depth to stop myself from being able to do evil things.” And Peter said, “So what? Woman, do you imagine that all those destroying themselves are free from punishment, or that no-one will punish the inferior? In Hades, are not the souls of the dead punished for their suicide?” But she said, “If I could be persuaded that souls are really found alive in Hades, then I would greet death with affection, looking down upon the punishment, if only I could see my much-beloved for just one hour.” Then Peter said, “I came to learn, woman, what is your grief? For if you will teach me, after this grace I will assure you that in

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Hades souls live, and instead of a cliff or a depth, I will give you a drug whereby, without torture, you may be able to cease living.”

B. The first recognition: Mattidia on Arados (Homilies 12.15–12.24) Not understanding the words of the fisherman, the woman, upon this promise, answered: “Indeed, to speak of family and country, I do not presume whether I am capable of persuading anyone. Except what does it matter to you? Do you expect to learn the reason why in anguish I killed my hands? Yet I will give you an account of these things which happened to me to the degree that you are able to hear it. I, belonging to the very nobly born, became the wife of a man by the arrangement of a certain master from his family. And afterwards I had twin children, then another son. But my husband’s brother, being mad, did not love miserable me less, and exceedingly violated discretion. And wanting neither to consent to the fiend nor to expose to my husband his brother’s lust towards me, I reasoned, to neither stain myself by adultery, nor disgrace the bed of my husband, nor start a war, brother against brother, nor throw the whole family, which is great, into all reproach. As I said, I thought about leaving the city with my twin sons for a while, until his disgraceful lust for me stops, and he stops flattering me with pride. However, the other son I left with his father to be a comfort. “Truly, to make these things happen, I fabricated a dream. Indeed, one night it descended upon me and spoke, ‘Woman, with your twin children go away from the city at once for some time, until I charge you to return here again. Otherwise, you will perish badly and miserably with your husband and all your children.’ So, I did so. For falsely telling the dream to my husband, he became alarmed and sent me on a boat to Athens with my two sons, until he said it shall please the vision to return me to him. However, woe is me, sailing with my children, the ship was destroyed in the night by a fury of winds that came into those regions. And I was cast out and set upon a piece of wreckage. And everyone else died. My unfortunate self alone was tossed by violent waves and cast upon a rock. Upon this, I sat in my misery, living with a hope of finding my children, rather than throwing myself into the depth, which easily I could do, having my soul swollen by being expelled [from the sea]. “But when dawn came, I shouted loudly. Wailing mournfully, I looked around, seeking the corpses of my wretched children. Seeing me naked, the locals took pity on me. First clothing me, then searching the depth, seeking for my children. And when they found nothing of what they sought, some hospitable women came to comfort me, each relating their own misfortunes, in order that I might obtain comfort from similar occurrences, which still further extremely grieved me. For I said I was not so bad as to take comfort from the misfortunes of others. And indeed, imploring me to accept their great hospitality, a certain woman there

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forcibly drove me to go to her house despite her being very poor, saying to me: ‘Have courage, woman, for my husband, being a sailor, while youthful in life also died at sea. And ever since many have asked for my hand thinking me worthy of marriage. But I am a widow, yearning for my husband. We shall have in common whatever we both are able to earn with our hands.’ ” “And in order not to prolong this for you with unnecessary details, I went to live with her because of her love for her husband. And not long after, my hands stopped working from suffering my biting, and the woman who took me into her house was wholly bound by an evil malady and confined to the house. So since then, the former compassion of the woman has declined and both I and the woman of the house have been helpless. For a long time now, as you see, I have sat here begging, and whatever I acquire I provide to my companion for nourishment. And indeed, I say let these things of mine be sufficient. The rest, I will not tell you until you fulfill your promise to give the drug, so I may give it to her also, she longing to die, and thus I also shall be able to escape life, as you said.” While the woman spoke these things, Peter appeared excited because of the many revelations. But I came up and said, “For a long time, I have been going around looking for you, and now why do we do these things?” But Peter, taking the lead, commanded me to await him upon the ship and not to speak against what he commanded. I did as I was ordered. But a little afterwards Peter related to me all these things with some suspicions swaying his heart. He inquired of the woman, saying, “Woman, tell me the names of your family, city, and children, and I will now give you the drug.” But she, resisting the pressure and not wanting to speak, cleverly devised to say these things in the guise of another person, having her heart set upon taking the drug. And so, she said she was an Ephesian, and her husband was a Sicilian. Likewise, she changed the names of her three children. But Peter enacted her to be truthful and said, “Oh dear woman, I  thought this day was to bring some immense joy, suspecting you to be a certain person who I thought of, whose matters hearing accurately I know.” But she swore, saying, “I bid you tell me, in order that I may know if there is one among women more wretched than me.” Then Peter through pity towards her, not knowing she had lied, began to speak the truth: “Accompanying me now is a young man, yearning for the teachings of service to God, a Roman citizen who related to me how having a father and two twin brothers, he sees nothing of them. He says, ‘My father related to me that my mother, seeing a dream, left the city of Rome with her twin children in order that she not die by a terrible fate. But having left with them, she now cannot be found. Indeed, her husband, his father, also went away seeking her and now cannot be found.’ ” With Peter saying these things, the woman stood nearby swooning with anguish. But Peter came forward and, catching her, he commanded her to get in control of herself, persuading her to concede what it was that she suffered. But she, as if

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intoxicated, turned her head, without moving her body, sustaining her hopeful joy and wiping tears from her face. “Where is he?” she said, “this young man?” And now seeing the whole situation, he said, “First tell me, for otherwise you do not get to see him.” So, she urged on, “I,” she said, “I am the mother of that young man.” And Peter said, “What is his name?” “Clement!” she said. And Peter said, “It is he, and it was he that spoke to me a little while ago, whom I commanded to wait in the boat for me.” And the woman, falling by Peter, urged him to hurry and go to the boat. Then Peter said, “If you give heed to me of the situation, then I will do this.” So, she said, “I will do all things, only show to me my only remaining child. For through him I shall imagine my two who died here.” Then Peter said, “When you see him, be silent until we depart the island.” And she replied, “I will do this.” So, Peter, taking her hand, led her to the boat. And I seeing him leading the woman by the hand laughed and approached him, offering to lead her by the hand for him. But as soon as I touched her hand, she let out a great shout like a mother and embraced me tightly and kissed me, her son. But I, being ignorant of the whole matter went to send her away like she was mad, but respecting Peter, I refrained. But Peter said, “Alas! What are you doing son Clement, sending away your actual mother?” And I  hearing this began weeping, and falling down by my mother, who had collapsed, I kissed her, for then the reason was also told me, and I recalled faintly how she looked. So indeed, great crowds assembled to ask about the beggar woman. They said to each other that her son recognized her, a remarkable man. So, wishing to leave the island with us, my mother said, “My muchlonged-for child, is it appropriate for me to leave the woman who welcomed me into her home, who being wholly disabled lies in her house?” Then Peter and the crowd encircling, upon hearing this, were amazed at the worthy determination of the woman. And straightaway Peter ordered some people to carefully carry the woman [Mattidia’s companion] on a couch. When the couch was brought out and set down, with all the crowd listening, Peter said, “If I happen to be a truthful herald, with the trust of those present, in order that they may know there is one God, who made the world, let her at once be healthy.” And at the same time as Peter spoke these things, the woman arose, becoming healthy, and fell before Peter, and kissed her beloved friend. She asked what this meant. And she briefly related the whole matter of the recognition of her, and those listening were astounded. And then my mother seeing her hostess healed, invoked that she also be healed. And he [Peter], placing his hand upon her, also healed her. And thus, Peter having spoken about God and his worship, conversed, proclaiming: “If anyone wants to learn about these things in detail, go to Antioch, where I have decided to wait for some length of days. And going there, learn these things concerning salvation. For indeed, if you are familiar with leaving your fatherland for the sake of trading or war, you should not hesitate to go to a distant place – traveling three days on the road – for the sake of deliverance.” So, after

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Peter’s announcement, I [Clement] presented the healed woman with a thousand drachma for her support to all the crowd, placing her in the charge of a particular good man, who being the first man of the city undertook to do this purposefully with grace. Furthermore, having distributed money, thanking many others who then comforted my mother, I sailed to Antarados, alongside my mother, and Peter and our other companions, and thus we proceeded to our lodgings.

C. The second recognition: Mattidia and her twins (Homilies 13.1–13.8) Then at dawn, entering, Peter spoke: “Clement, with his mother Mattidia and my wife, should now take their seats on the wagon.” And at once it [the trip] began. And hastening us along the road to Balanaeae, my mother asked me to describe how my father was. And I said, “Upon going out in search of both you and my twin brothers, Faustinus and Faustinianus, he went missing. And I  suppose he must have died long ago, perishing by shipwreck, getting lost on the road, or wasting away from grief.” And hearing this, she became tearful, and grieving, she groaned. But being joyed at finding me, her anguish was somewhat dulled. Thus together we arrived at Balanaeae. But on the following day, we travelled to Paltus, and then onto Gabala. And on the next day we reached Laodicea. And behold! Near the gates, Nicetas and Aquila met us. And embracing us, they led us to our lodging. But Peter, seeing the great and beautiful city, said, “It is worthwhile to stay here awhile, for in general this great place is most able to bear whom we are seeking.” So, then Nicetas and Aquila inquired of me, who is this strange woman. And I said, “My mother, whom God gave to me to recognize through my master Peter.” With me saying these things, Peter set forth to summarize everything that had happened. How at the same time as they journeyed, I, Clement, set out my lineage to him and the journey undertaken by my mother with her twin children through the pretext of her fabricated dream, then the journey of my father in search of them. And how Peter, after he heard these things, went onto the island and meeting the woman and seeing her begging inquired as to the reason and came to perceive her family, her background, the fabricated dream, and both the names of her twin children who travelled with her and mine having been left with my father, who she suspected to have perished in the deep. So, with these summations from Peter, Nicetas and Aquila, being amazed, said, “Indeed, master and lord of all, is this true or a dream?” And Peter said, “Unless we fell asleep, it is true!” Then waiting a brief time in meditation, the men said, “We are Faustinus and Faustinianus! And from the time you began your explanation, we looked over at each other wondering if you refer to us. Questioning the many coincidences that happen in life, we were for the moment quiet though our hearts leapt. But towards the end of your story, we saw that the tale did indeed refer to us and we ourselves agreed.” And saying this with tears, they rushed to

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their mother, and finding her now sleeping they wanted to embrace her. But Peter ordered them, saying, “Let me lead and present you to your mother, so she is not brought into a stupor being elated through much sudden joy. As indeed she is sleeping and her spirit by sleep has her held fast.” All the same, when she had slept enough, Peter spoke to my mother first about religion. Foremost saying, “Woman, I wish you to know the way of our religious worship. We worship one God, who made this world, so we guard his law, embracing his law only, worshipping only him and making his name holy, by honoring our parents, being sound of mind and living solemnly. Through these things, we live discriminatingly and do not enjoy Gentile hospitality. Indeed, we are unable to feast with them because they live uncleanly. Only when we have convinced them to think and act truly, and they have been rightly baptized three times, can we interact with them. For even if they are our father or mother or wife or child or brother or any one else we have affection for, we cannot feast with them. For in our religion, we do this purposefully. So do not take insult that your son does not feast with you until you think and do these things with him.” Hearing these things, she said, “So what prevents me from being baptized today? Because even before meeting you today, I  turned from so-called gods, with the thought that I have sacrificed so much to them and they have never come to aid me in my anguish. And why is it necessary to speak about the adultery when not even when I was rich was I betrayed by that luxury, and this poverty has been unable to force me into doing so also, as my self-restraint is of the greatest good, for the sake of which I became as I am now. I do not believe, Lord Peter, that you are ignorant of the greatest temptation that comes from being in good cheer. And yet I am sound-minded in my good cheer, and in my bad fortune I do not give myself pleasure. Now you are not to assume that my soul has been delivered from maltreatment, although I  happen to have some amount of encouragement from my recognizing Clement. For the sullenness from losing my two children dims my joy. For I grieve not so much because they perished in the sea, but that they were destroyed with their souls and bodies greatly separated from real piety to God. But as I learnt from Clement; their father, my husband, went searching for me and my sons, for so many years and is now missing. He must have died at any rate. And for the miserable man, loving me faithfully, he went in search of his children. Being deprived of all us, who were all things to him, the old man died by great hopelessness.” Hearing the words of Peter and their mother, the sons were no longer able to keep hidden. Rising, they embraced her with many tears and kisses. But she said, “What is this?!” And Peter answered, “Bravely come to your senses, O woman, that you may still enjoy your children. For these are Faustinus and Faustinianus, your sons, who you said perished in the deep. And how they live after dying in the deep on that most grievous night, and now how one calls himself Nicetas and one Aquila. They will themselves be able to tell you what we need to learn.” After Peter said these things, my mother fainted being extremely overjoyed through

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this release. But when we revived her, she sat up and gathering herself she said, “Full of longing, I ask my children to tell us the events they suffered after that disastrous night.” And Nicetas, who hereafter is called Faustinus, began to speak: “After that night with the boat being broken apart, as you know, we were captured by some men who were not afraid to plunder the sea, and they placed us in the hull of a ship, and carrying loads from the land they rowed onwards. When sending for supplies, they led us into Caesarea Stratonis. Despite hunger and fear and blows tormenting us in such a way, we did not recklessly disclose anything that they were not expecting and moreover we changed our names so they were able to sell us. And a certain all worthy woman proselyte, named Justa, purchased us and brought us up like her own children, educating us like all Greek children with haste. And we, having grown up attached to the religion, industrious in education, and conversing with other communities, were able to discredit deceitful things. Thus, we accurately made philosophic studies and discredited especially the most atheistic arguments. I talk indeed of the matters of Epicurus and Pyrrho with which we could demolish opponents’ arguments. “Being reared alongside Simon, a magus,2 we were in danger of being deceived by friendship and led astray. That is why were interested in the report of a man, who appeared in the kingdom of the pious multitude possessing immortality and life without pain. However, these things indeed will be described to you, mother, with the most accurate measure. Except for us, about to be led astray by Simon, a friend of our Lord Peter called Zacchaeus came to us and warned us not to be led astray by magic. When Peter came he brought us to him in such a manner as to persuade us concerning the discourses of religious matters. So, mother, we pray in order that you hold these good things in high esteem, and having grasped these things, thus communicating all at once we may be able to unite at the table. So, this is the reason, mother, why you thought us to have died. But that terrible night we were taken up by pirates from the sea.”

D. An interlude: concerning Justa and Simon Magus (Homilies 2.19–2.25; 3.73–4.1) [And Peter said:] “Amongst us is a certain Syro-Phoenician, Justa of the Canaanite race, whose daughter collapsed due to a terrible disease. She came to our lord shouting and supplicating, so he would heal her daughter. But expecting us, he said, “It is not possible to cure Gentiles, being like dogs, because they are subject to different foods and practices, giving up that which is upon the table in the Kingdom of the sons of Israel.” Hearing this, she begged to partake of falling crumbs from the table like dogs. Having changed her way of living to like the sons of the Kingdom, she obtained a cure for her daughter as she had asked. For had she kept her lifestyle as a Gentile, he would not have healed her, because it was impossible to heal a Gentile.

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So, taking up the customary lifestyle, with her daughter who had been healed, she was driven out from her house because of the interests of her husband, knowing well they were opposed to ours. But she, taking initiative in her circumstances and being affluent in life, remained a widow and gave her daughter in marriage to a particular man of good faith who was poor. But she herself shunned marriage for her daughter’s sake, and bought the two boys [renamed Nicetas and Aquila] and educated them in the place of having her own sons, and they were educated by Simon Magus from childhood, learning all these things from him. For such was their friendship that they were also associated with him in all that he did. [And Peter said,] By living there, these men fell into the company of Zacchaeus and received the truth through his teachings, repenting their former attempts to convert, they quickly denounced Simon, testifying against all he did. As soon as I came home here, they came to me with their foster mother, being presented to me by him [Zacchaeus]. And ever since they have lived with me, enjoying the learning of the truth.” Having said these things, Peter sent for them [Nicetas and Aquila] and ordered them to accurately relate all things to me concerning Simon, calling God to witness that they did not lie. At first, Aquila began to say thus: “Listen oh friends, brothers to me, all these things you say concerning this man are accurate. Including why and what and where, and certain events which passed, and how and why they passed. This Simon, indeed whose father is Antonius, and mother is Rachel, of the Samaritan race, from the village of Gitthae, six schoeni from the city  – this man, having become Greek through growing up in Alexandria by the river Nile, having trained himself and being capable of great magic and ambitions, wished to practice a certain advanced power and be greater than God who created the world. And at times, imitating Christ himself, he says that he will always stand, as he has no cause of corruption that will make his body fall. And he says that God, the world creator, is neither the most supreme, nor does he believe the dead can be raised. He denies Jerusalem, introducing Mount Gerizim. Entreating, proclaiming publically that he himself is Christ to us. These things of the law he repeats allegorically by his own interpretation. And indeed, he notes that there is a distinction, but he does not explain it. For if he were persuaded that God will judge him, he would not dare to be impious towards God himself. Whence, for some not knowing that, spinning an illusion through dutiful observance, he spoils truth and believes by his hope and distinction, that they will be led into ruin. “Then he came around to tackle the dispute over religious worship. And there was a certain man called John, a day-baptist, who according to all arguments also became the exponent of our lord Jesus. And like the lord, he had twelve apostles, who came into a new state of being bearing the number of the twelve months of the sun, and he [John] was the leader of thirty men, fulfilling the argument of the moon. And within his followers was a certain woman called Helena, and not even this might be without an ordered significance. For the imperfect woman, being

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half a man, made up the number of the triacontad, like with the moon, whose course does not complete the course of the month. But of these thirty, the most notable after John was Simon, but with the death of John he was not chief for the following reasons. “While he was abroad in Egypt, to practice magic, and John being dead, a certain Dositheus reached out for leadership. Falsely reporting [Simon] was dead, he succeeded the commission. But returning not long after, Simon stood his ground, firmly asserting that the place was his own. Meeting with Dositheus, he did not demand the position, knowing that the man who leached for leadership with purpose is not easily put aside. On which account, with assumed friendship, indeed he gave himself second place for a little while. But after being appointed among the thirty fellows for a few days, he began to detest Dositheus, as he did not transmit the matters of learning genuinely. And he said he did this, not through being unwilling, but through ignorance. And when Dositheus perceived the cunning slander of Simon, he criticized him in front of many, so that they would think that he was the Standing One.3 Coming to the dwelling in a rage and finding Simon, he struck him with a staff, but it seemed to pass like smoke through Simon’s body. Upon this, confounded, Dositheus said to him, “If you are the Standing One, I will prostrate myself to you.” Then Simon said, “I am.” Dositheus knew that he himself was not the Standing One. Falling, he prostrated, and associating himself with the twenty-nine leaders, he raised Simon to his own place, and thus after a few days [Simon] stood while [Dositheus] himself fell down and died. “And Simon, going around with Helena, stirred a crowd as you can see. Then he said that he has brought Helena herself down from the highest heavens to the world, being a queen like an all-bearing being and wise, for whose sake he says both the Greeks and Barbarians fought, seeming likely to appear as the truth, for she really was then with the chief God. Moreover, he interpreted such a thing as this allegorically, by plausibly relating it to Greek myths, especially many pretentious miracles. If we did not know that he made these things by magic, we would also be deceived. So, while we were his fellows at first, when he began to do such things unjust to religious observance, and furiously began to attempt to deceive those in religious matters, we departed from him.” After these things were spoken, he [Peter] said, “Whoever of you who wishes to be baptized, from tomorrow begin to fast, and each day have hands laid upon you, and ask what you wish. For I intend to remain with you here a further ten days.” But after three days, having begun to baptize, calling me and Aquila and Nicetas, he said, “I am going to set out towards Tyre after [being here] seven days. I wish you now to go away, secretly lodging with the Canaanite Bernice, daughter of Justa. And from her learn of Simon and write to me accurately about him. For it is very important that I prepare myself. So, depart from here with peace.” And indeed, leaving him baptizing, as he ordered, we advanced into Tyre of Phoenicia. So, I, Clement, at the same time as both Nicetas and Aquila, departed from Caesarea Stratonis to Tyre of Phoenicia, according to the command of Peter, who sent us. We lodged with Bernice, daughter of Justa of Canaan. She received us most 96

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joyously and indeed with much honor directed towards me, and with affection towards Aquila and Nicetas, speaking freely because of friendship. She treated us kindly, and hospitably urged us to take refreshments. So perceiving that she was entrusted to impose on us only a short delay, I said, “Indeed you do right to hasten these affectionate things and sharing of fulfillment. As our fear towards God takes precedence over this. For on behalf of many souls, we fear having our own ease before their salvation.”

E. The third recognition: Mattidia and Faustus (Homilies 13.9–13.13; 13.20–14.10) With Faustinus [Nicetas] saying these things, our mother fell by Peter, begging and entreating him to send for her and her hostess to be baptized. She begged this in order that not a single day pass after recovering the children without being able to take food with them. When we joined our mother’s requesting, Peter said, “Do you think I am alone heartless, that I do not want you to take food with your mother, to baptize her today? But it is necessary for her to fast an entire day before being baptized. But this is simple considering she herself uttered an argument which I  see as a sufficient interpretation of her faith, since it was necessary to purify her for many days.” And I  said, “Tell us what argument she uttered, which brought to light her faith.” And Peter said: “Her request for her benefactor to be baptized. She would not have sought this for herself but asks about someone she loves, so as not to use up a great gift as baptism. I  perceive much, whenever those wanting to be baptized say nothing of the faith of those they love. Indeed, I say in regard to their wives, or sons, or friends, to apply this: if they have trust in God to give eternal life with good works in baptism, immediately urge forward those whom they love to also be baptized. But one of you says, they do love them and think of them. This is simple-minded. Why then when seeing them being sick, or being led away by death, or suffering some terrible thing, they lament and have pity? For if they [the converts] expected the eternal fire awaiting those who do not worship God, they would not stop warning, seeing them in a state of unfaithfulness. For when it comes to faithlessness, which causes suffering, the punishment will be brought to them in full measure. And now sending for the hostess, I  will ask her if she grasps the law received through us gratefully. And accordingly observing what it is necessary that we practice. “But since your mother is willing concerning the baptism, let her fast one day before the baptism. For she swore, ‘During the past two days, having set out these things concerning the recognition in detail, I was not able to take sustenance because of my excessive joy, except only a little water.’ ” The wife of Peter witnessed the oath, saying, “Truthfully she did not eat,” and Aquila, who is henceforth Faustinianus, said, “Therefore nothing stops her from being baptized.” And Peter, laughing, answered, “But what has taken place is not 97

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a baptismal fast.” And Faustinus answered, “So perhaps with the ‘recognition,’ God, wishing our mother to not even be separated from our table for one day, arranged the fast. For she was sound of mind during her time of ignorance, having made a change for truth; also in this way now perhaps, God arranged her to fast for one day before the true baptism. In order that from the first day of her recognizing us, she may be able to take meals with us.” And Peter said, “Do not let wickedness defeat us, finding an alleged motive in genethialogy and affection for your mother. But above all, you and I, we wait for you today in your fast, and tomorrow she will be baptized. For this hour of the day is not suitable for baptism.” And then we all agreed it should be so. So that same evening, we all enjoyed the teachings of Peter, bringing to light for us that which was happening concerning our mother, showing us that good things happen with sound-minded faithfulness,4 while those of adultery cause terrible things bringing forth destruction upon the whole race, if not quickly, then slowly. He said, “Then to such an extent, do deeds of self-restraint for God, that also are for those wandering, even those who are in error; for them alone salvation is granted to those who have been baptized and because their sound-mindedness. Like you have seen come into being through your mother. I say indeed that these things are good in the end. But perhaps if she had committed adultery she would have been cut off. But God pitied her, having been faithful, he turned her back from death and gave her back her lost children.” Saying these things, Peter saw the good and sound-minded, faithful Mattidia crying for joy, thinking upon the promise of transforming her grieving state. He said: “Have courage, woman, many have suffered many evils because of adultery, you have suffered because of faithfulness and because of this you did not perish. For if you had died, your soul would have been saved. You left your fatherland Rome because of sound-minded faithfulness, and through this you found truth shines forth, the diadem of the eternal kingdom. Into the deep, you have ventured and did not die. And even if you had perished, dying faithful, the deep itself would make a baptism for the salvation of your soul. You were deprived of your children for a little while, those being legitimate offspring though have been found in better circumstances. Being famished, you begged for nourishment, but you did not stain your body by fornication. You exposed your body but you saved your soul. You fled an adulterer, in order that you did not stain your husband’s couch, but because of your self-restraint you left purposefully, if you had not, indeed you would have perished unwillingly simply because sins after a time. “So, it is much better these first things should be distressing, for when it is the case, one does not grieve for hope to go away, but for an expectation of better things to subject oneself to rejoice. But above all, I wish you to know how much self-restraint pleases God. The sound-minded faithful woman is the choice of God, God’s good gift, God’s glory, God’s child. So great a good thing is soundmindedness that if it was not a law that a just unbaptized person could not enter into the kingdom of God, through self-restraint those misled by the Gentiles might 98

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have been able to be saved. Because of this, I am exceedingly despondent concerning the sound-minded ones who wander, who without good hope choosing to be loyal, don’t want to get baptized. Wherefore they are not saved because the decree of God set down: an unbaptized person cannot enter his kingdom.” Having said these things and much more of this, we turned to sleep. Early the next day, Peter arising came to us and waking us he said, “Let Faustinus and Faustinianus alongside Clement, accompany me with the household in such a manner as to find a sheltered place by the sea which cannot be observed, where we will be able to baptize her.” So, when we came to the sea-shore, amid some rocks in a calm and pure place he baptized her. And us brothers, with the delight of the women as well as our brother and some others, withdrew and bathed, before returning to the women, and took them and went to a secret place and prayed. Then Peter sent the women onward because of the crowd, ordering them to go by another road to their lodging, and alone of the men he entrusted us to bring our mother with the rest of the women. So, going into the lodging, and waiting for him to come, we talked with one another. And after a few hours, Peter came, breaking the bread upon the Eucharist and adding salt, he gave first to our mother, and after to us, her sons. And so, we ate with her and blessed God. Remaining in that place, Peter, seeing that a crowd had entered, sat down, commanding us to sit down with him. Conversing with us, he began by relating why he had sent for us following the baptism and why he himself was delayed in returning. He said that the reason was this: “While we were entering, an old workman arrived moving stealthily alongside us. He himself later conceded that he came to see what we were doing entering the sheltered place. Then secretly he followed us as we left. And when in an appropriate spot, he came out and greeted me, saying: ‘For a long time I  have been following you and wishing to meet you, but I was ashamed, lest in any way you might greet me with anger. But now if you please, I shall tell you what I think is the truth.’ And I answered: ‘Tell us what you think to be virtuous, and we will accept you, even if what you have said is not good, since with respectable purpose you have chosen to state what you deem to be good.’ “And the old man began to relate thus: ‘Having seen you bathe in the sea and retire to the sheltered place, I went forward secretly and contemplated what you might be doing entering that spot. And when I saw you praying, I withdrew. But taking pity on you, I waited so that I would have a chance to speak with you and persuade you not to be deceived. For neither is there God nor providence, but all things are subject to fate. I am certain of that which I have experienced myself from so many accurate lessons. So, do not be deceived, child. For whether you pray or not, you will suffer by the force of fate. For if prayers could do good, or indeed anything, I would myself be in better circumstances. And now, unless my poor clothing deceives you, you should accept what I say. As for much of my life I was wealthy, and I sacrificed to the Gods and gave to those who lacked, and I prayed and worshipped, but I was not able to escape my circumstance.’ And I said, ‘Why is it you have experienced such?’ And the man replied, ‘I am 99

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not forced now to tell you, but perhaps at the end you will hear both who I am and my parents are, and into what kind of life I have fallen. But now, I wish you to understand fully that all is subject to fate.’ “And I said, ‘If all things are subject to natal fate, and of this you have been fully convinced, your advice and thoughts are contradictory. For if it is impossible even to think against fate, why do you do it while advising me that it is unable to be done? But still, if fate exists do not hurry to persuade me to not worship the Lord of the stars, by who’s will a thing cannot happen, as this is an impossibility. For always that which is subjected must obey that which rules. However, concerning the worship of the common gods, it is well known that fate holds power. For neither does anything happen contrary to the will of fate, nor are they themselves able to do anything. For they are all subject to their own fate. If natal fate exists, it corresponds to that which is not first having priority. Or instead that the uncreated cannot be subjected, for the uncreated has nothing preceding it.’ “While we were talking to each other, a great crowd gathered. And then I considered the crowd and said, ‘I and my race have had the worship of God handed down to us from our forebears, and we transmit the message to give no heed to fate, I speak of the lesson of astrology, because of this I give it no attention. For this reason, I have no experience of astrology, but I will speak of that which I am experienced in. Since I am unable to refute natal fate by knowledge of that which relates to it, I will prove it in another way that the world is managed by providence, and each person will receive honor or punishment according to what they do. Whether they do so now or later, indeed it has no consequence to me. All I will affirm is that each is deserving. But the proof that there is no fate is this: If any one of you here has been deprived of eyesight, or has a maimed hand or a lame foot, or any other ailment of the body, which is incurable by all healing, and all the doctors say it is not curable; that not even astrologers say they can cure, and no cure has happened for a long time, but I praying to God will cause healing, although it could not have been cured by fate. And since this is so, do they not sin by blaspheming the God who created all things?’ And the old man answered, ‘Is it then blasphemy to say that all things are subject to natal fate?’ And I responded, ‘Most definitely, for if all the sins, acts of impiety, and irreverence of men were created by the stars, but the stars were created by God to do these things, in order that they were the efficient causes of all evils, then the sins of all are carried up to him who placed fate in the stars.’ “And the old man answered, ‘You have spoken truthfully, but for all your interpretation, he pointed out what thwarts the knowledge shared. For I, being an astrologer and first a Roman citizen, and being a friend to the family of Caesar, both the family of him and his wife, I ascertained accurately the astrological genesis of himself and his wife, and tracing their history I find all the matters actually accomplished in exact accordance with their natal fate, thus I am unable to trust your argument. For the arrangement of her genethialogical chart included disposition, undertaking adultery, loving private slaves, and dying in a foreign land in water. And this happened. For she loved the private slave and did not bear the 100

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blame, indeed fleeing with him, urging him to move to a foreign land and sharing a bed with him, she died under the sea.’ “And I answered, ‘Then how do you know that she is the person who fled into a foreign land, who married the slave?’ And the old man said: ‘Clearly I know it is true, indeed not that she married him, and I do not know that she loved him, but that after she escaped, a brother of her husband told me all these things concerning her love, and how being revered as indeed a brother, he did not wish to pollute the bed and how the wretched woman longed for him (for she is not blameable, inasmuch as she wants to make these things happen and suffers from fate), and yet a dream either truth or lie she formed, I can not say. For she said, “Someone in a vision stood and ordered me, as well as my children, straightaway to depart the city of the Romans.” And her husband, indeed hurrying to save her with her sons, at once sent them to Athens to be educated, with their mother and slaves, but the third young son he kept with him, as indeed he who gave warning concerning the dream allowed him to live with him. And after much time had elapsed, as he had not received letters from her, he often set out to Athens in search of, her taking me, as I was the most real thing of all to him. So indeed, I did many things for him willingly concerning travel, remembering that long ago his good will was a companion to me, for of all his friends he loved me most. And indeed, we set sail from Rome herself and thus came here to these parts of Syria, and arrived in Seleucia. And a few days after having arrived in our boat there, he died disheartened. But I, having arrived here have procured my livelihood thereafter with my hands.’ “With the old man saying these things, I [Peter] knew that he spoke of your father who had died. I did not want however to relate this about him to you, until I conferred with you personally. Except having learnt these things about where he stayed and revealing where I was staying for the sake of detail, I asked what the name of the old man was. And he said, ‘Faustus.’ ‘And what of his twin sons?’ And the man answered, ‘Faustinus and Faustinianus.’ ‘And what of his third son?’ And he said, ‘Clement.’ ‘And what is their mother’s name?’ And he said, ‘Mattidia.’ So out of compassion I became tearful, and releasing the crowds, I came to you, in order that after releasing the crowd and partaking in food, I might take counsel with you. But I did not want to speak to you with the masses, in case you were overcome by grief on the day of baptism, continuing lamentation when even angels rejoice.” With Peter saying these things, we all cried with our mother. And seeing us weep he said, “Now let each of you through fear towards God bravely bear what has been spoken. For your father did not die today but long ago as you surmised.” After Peter had said these things, our mother, not enduring the crying, said, “Alas! Husband! You died for your love of us by your own choice, and we live seeing light and have partaken in food.” This crying had not ceased when the old man entered, wishing to learn the cause of the crying, he looked at the woman and said, “What does this mean? Whom do I see?” And going and looking more closely and being seen, he embraced her. But they by sudden joy were likely to 101

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die, and wishing to speak to each other they were not able to maintain strength, being seized by speechlessness from their unsatiated joy. And not long after our mother said to him, “I have you now Faustus, and am the most delighted of all. How do you live, when we heard just a little while ago how you died? For these are our sons, Faustinus, Faustinianus, and Clement.” And saying these things, we fell upon him and kissed him, faintly recalling what he looked like. Seeing these things, Peter said, “Are you Faustus, the husband of this woman and father of her children?” And the man said, “I am.” And Peter said, “So why did you describe to me your own circumstances as if they were another’s, speaking about your distress and grief and burial?” And our father answered, “Being of the family of Caesar and not wishing to be detected, I devised the narrative as another’s because I knew that if I was recognized, those rulers in the area would learn these things and host me to gratify Caesar, and would bestow upon me that former prosperity to which I  had previously said goodbye with resolution. For I was not able to give myself up to a luxurious life when I had the greatest condemnation for myself as I had caused their deaths, those whom I had loved.

F. Mattidia and the magi (Homilies 20.11–20.23) And when they were about to eat with us, someone ran in, saying, “Appion Plesitonices has come with Annubion just now from Antioch, and lodges with Simon.” And my father, hearing and rejoicing, said to Peter, “If you allow me, I shall depart to address Appion and Annubion, who were my friends from my earlier years. For perchance I will persuade Annubion to discuss the astrological fate [Mattidia’s] with Clement.” And Peter said, “I allow you and praise you for fulfilling these things as part of friendship. But consider for me how these things benefit you in the view of God for your personal gain, bringing harmony to an end. I say these things because Annubion cares about your best interests.” And my father [said], “Truthfully I see this is so.” And saying these things, he went to Simon. So being with Peter, we asked questions again and again through the whole night because of the pleasure and joy derived from conversation with him. But now, with night coming to an end, Peter, looking to both me and my brothers, said, “I am at a loss as to what your father expected.” And saying this, our father came in, having caught Peter conversing about him to us. And seeing him disheartened, he apologized, because he had slept outside. But seeing him (my father) we were amazed, as he was in the form of Simon, but we heard the voice of our father, Faustus. And we fled from him and abhorred him. Our father was thus amazed upon such use of harsh and hostile behavior. But Peter alone, seeing his true form said to us, “Why do you turn away in horror from you father?” And we and our mother said, “To us he appears as Simon, having the voice of our father.” And Peter said, “Indeed to you his voice alone is distinguished from magic, but my eyes are also unaffected by magic and his form is visible as it is, that he is not Simon but Faustus your father.” Then looking towards my father, he said, “Your true form does not appear to them, but rather that of the most impious Simon and our enemy.” 102

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With Peter saying these things, a man who had previously gone from Antioch returned and entered, saying to Peter, “I wish you to know, my Lord, that Simon in Antioch is publicly doing many amazing miracles, calling you a magus and a sorcerer and working up such hatred towards you that every man is eager to grab a piece of your flesh themselves if you are staying here to get a taste of you. Thus, we who went previously with those you sent to Simon, having seen the city raging wildly against you, met secretly and considered what we should do. And while we were in a state of confusion, Cornelius the Centurion arrived, having been sent by Caesar to the leader of the district. He was the man who the lord cured in Caesara of being possessed. This man we sent for secretly, and learning of the reason of our despondency and deeming it worthy to help us most willingly, he took it upon himself to seize him (Simon) with fear and make him take flight, if we could assist him with his effort. And when we prepared, promising to do all these things, he said, ‘Through my many friends coming together in secret, I will spread the information that I  seek him, because Caesar, having destroyed the magi and learning these things about him, sent me out to seek him. And those of your companions with him will indeed report having secretly heard that I have been sent to apprehend him. And perchance hearing these things he will flee in fear.’ But while we intended to do something else, the following occurred. For having heard the news from many outsiders, who greatly praised him by telling him things secretly, and from our fellows pretending to be with him, he took it as knowledge of them and resolved to retire. So, departing Antioch, he came here with Athenodorus, as we have heard. Wherefore we advise you to not yet enter that city until we know if they will be able to put aside the false accusation against you in his absence.” When the herald said these things, Peter, looking towards my father said, “You hear, Faustus, your change appears to have been caused by Simon Magus. For the laws of Caesar seek to punish him. Becoming afraid, he fled, putting you in his own form so you would be killed, grief coming to your children.” My father, hearing these things, weeping and lamenting, said, “Rightly you have conjectured, Peter. For Annubion, my dear friend, mysteriously revealed the plan to me. And I did not believe the miserable man, since I am worthy to suffer.” Not long after my father said these things, Annubion came to us announcing the flight of Simon and how he fled that night towards Judaea. And he found our father mourning and lamenting, saying, “Alas! Alas! Miserable man! I did not believe when I heard he was a magus. The miserable man, for just one day after being recognized by my wife and children, I  quickly returned to my previous suffering.” And my mother, lamenting, pulled at her hair, and we groaned, being sorely troubled by our father’s difference, which we were unable to comprehend. But hearing and seeing these things Annubion stood speechless, while Peter said to us among all his followers, “Believe me, this is Faustus, your father, thus I order you to attend him like a father. For God will make clear the motive for his form being made that of Simon, and clearly reveal him to be your father.” Saying these things to us and looking to our father, he said, “I allowed you to associate with Appion 103

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and Annubion, since you argued that from childhood you were friends, but not to associate with Simon the magus.” And our father said, “I sinner, I confess it.” And Annubion said: “And I beg you alongside him, to pardon the good and well-born old man who has been deceived. For the unlucky man was a plaything of the scandalous man. And I will tell how it happened. The good old man came to honor us. But we happened to be with those listening to Simon at that time, who was wanting to escape that night having heard some people from some place who had come here to Laodicea searching for him by command of the emperor. But as Faustus entered, he turned his anger on him, saying thus to us: ‘When he comes, make him partake in your meals and I will prepare a tonic, in order that having taken a meal and receiving some tonic, anointing his own face he will appear to all to have my form. But I will anoint you with some sap of a plant so you will not be deceived by this hastened form, but to all others Faustus will seem to be Simon.’ “And with him saying thus, I  said, ‘But what is the advantage to you of such contrivance?’ And Simon said, ‘First, those seeking me will stop searching for me. And second, if he is killed by the hands of the emperor, great grief will befall his children who left me, fleeing to Peter.’ I argue truthfully that as I feared, Simon did not inform Faustus of this plan. Nor did Simon give us the opportunity to disclose his evil plans to him, by keeping us busy. And then in the middle of the night, Simon awoke and fled to Judaea, being supplied by Appion and Athenodorus. I though, pretended to be ill and remained when they departed, so I could help [this] Simon return to his own people at once. In that way he could be concealed and escape the notice of those seeking Simon, as being seized with anger, the emperor may have killed Simon. So, I  sent him to you and in my distress I followed by night to both see him safe and quickly return before those who departed with Simon returned.” And looking towards us, he said, “I, Annubion, see the true form of your father having been anointed by Simon himself as I  related, in order that the true form of Faustus appear before my eyes. So being, I wonder in amazement at the magic of Simon that standing there you do not even recognize your own father.” And our mother, father and ourselves cried over the common misfortune of us all, and Annubion wept sympathetically. Peter, though, promised us that he would restore the true form of our father, saying to him, “Oh Faustus, you heard these things concerning the present situation, but the deceptive form that possesses you is useful to us also and you will render service to us if you do what I now will tell you to do. I will give you back your true form, if first you do these things.” And my father said, “I will do all that you ask most willingly, as long as you give me back my own form.” And Peter answered: “You heard with you own ears about those who preceded me from Antioch and said that Simon there urged the crowd against me with strong distain, calling me a magus and a murderer, a deceiver and a protestor, to such an extent that all were eager to taste my flesh. So, do thus: leave Clement with me and go to Antioch 104

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with your wife and Faustinus and Faustinianus, your sons. And some others will accompany you, whom I deem able to assist with my will. “Once in Antioch with them, appear publicly as Simon and proclaim your repentance, saying ‘I Simon, proclaim these things to you: I proclaim that what I said about Peter is unjustly false, for he is not a deceiver, nor a murderer, nor a wailer, nor such a thing as I said previously in anger. I beg of you not to believe these things, for it is I who caused your hate of him, so cease hating him. For truly he is a prophet sent by God for the salvation of the world, truly he is an apostle. Wherefore, I advise this, believe about him according to what I now proclaim, or your whole city will be utterly destroyed. Because of this reason I have confessed these things to you, I want you to know. This night, angels of God terribly flogged me as the impious one, as being an enemy to the messenger of truth. So, I beseech you not to listen to me even if I should come at another time and attempt to say anything against Peter. For I confess to you, I am a magus, I am a deceiver, I am a wailer. For perhaps it is possible by repentance to destroy the sins committed before by me.’ ” With Peter suggesting these things, my father said, “I  know what you want, wherefore do not toil. For I shall assuredly take safe care, when I go to that place, to say what you wish me to say.” And again, Peter suggested, “So when you perceive the city has changed its hatred, send a message to me and we will come to you at once. And having come, I shall that day remove your strange form and will make you appear yourself again to your family and all others.” Saying these things, he made his sons, my brothers, and Mattidia, our mother, accompany him. And he ordered some of his acquaintances to accompany him also. But my mother was unwilling to accompany him, saying, “I will look like an adulteress being in the company of Simon. And if I am compelled to accompany him, it is impossible for me to lie upon the same couch as him. So, I do not know if I will be persuaded to accompany him.” And so, while she was refusing to depart, Annubion urged her, saying, “Believe both me and Peter and the voice itself that it is Faustus, whom is your husband, whom I do not love less than you. And I will go along with him.” With Annubion saying these things, our mother promised to accompany him. But Peter said, “God manages our matters most satisfactorily. For we have with us Annubion, an astrologer. And when we arrive in Antioch, as a friend he will tell us more genuine things concerning the remaining natal fate.” And by night, our father ordered those with Peter and Annubion to go on to nearby Antioch. Early the next day before Peter went forth to talk, Appion and Athenodorus, who had sent forth Simon, returned to Laodicea in search of our father. And Peter learning of this, ordered them to enter. But when they came and sat down, they said, “Where is Faustus?” Peter answered, “We do not know, for his fellows have not seen him since he left, but yesterday with dawn Simon also came in search of him and when we did not answer him, something seemed to come over him, for he called himself Faustus, but not being believed, he cried and lamented, and threatening to kill himself he urged towards the sea.” 105

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When Appion and those with him heard these things, they howled and lamented, saying, “Why did you not receive him?” And at the same time, Athenodorus said to me, “It was Faustus, your father.” Appion urged him to action, and said, “We learnt from someone, that finding him, Simon urged him to go along with him, leaving Peter, taking it upon himself to uncover the truth. Faustus himself having called to him that he did not wish to see his sons live as Jews. And hearing these things, for his sake we went seeking him. But since he is not here it appears he was speaking truthfully to us, and we heard from him what we have related to you.” But I, Clement, perceiving the purpose of Peter, that he wanted to create a suspicion in them, that he intended to chase the old man for them, in order that they would take flight in fear, gathered my will, and said to Appion, “Listen, my dearest Appion, we were eager to give these things of good practice to our father, but if he himself did not wish to take them, but rather fearing loathing fled from us, I would have to speak more harshly. ‘Nor do we think of him.’ ” Saying these things, they departed as they were unable to endure my crudeness, and we learnt that the next day they advanced swiftly to track Simon to Judaea. And after ten days had elapsed, one of our people came from Antioch from our father announcing to us how he had publicly spoken in his assumed form against himself, praising Peter, placing regret throughout the city of Antioch. And from this, many set their hearts upon seeing him. Yet also some were angry with him, like Simon, because of their aversion towards Peter and wish to place their hands on Faustus who appeared as Simon. And so, in fear, at once he sent for Peter, deeming it worthwhile, in such a manner that while living he may follow him, appearing at the proper time to the city when it was most longing for him. Peter, hearing these things, purposely called a gathering and appointed an overseer. And he himself remained in Laodicea three more days, baptizing and healing many before he continued on to Antioch.

Notes 1 This translation has been augmented by a more detailed description from the Latin Recognitions 7.12. Stade is the English translation of the Greek “stadion” (Latin: “stadium”), measuring 625 feet (185 meters). 2 The choice of the term “magus” is based on its connotations with both wisdom and trickery or illusion. This term was chosen over modern equivalents because the popular associations of terms such as magician and mage could lead to misinterpretation on the part of the reader. 3 This ancient title “the Standing One”, seemingly derived from Deuteronomy 5:31(LXX), is used not only by Simon but others as well. Simon is describing himself either as the eternal God or as his representative. See, most recently, M. David Litwa, Desiring Divinity: Self-deification in Early Jewish and Christian Mythmaking (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), esp. 91–118; 187, n. 18. 4 See the discussion, in the commentary, on the translation of sophrosyne. As opposed to the traditional rendering “chastity” or “chasteness”, it is being translated here as “soundness of mind” and “faithfulness” to traditional Greco-Roman family values.

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Achilles Tatius 8, 29 Acts of Peter 4, 7, 29, 38, 39 Acts of the Apostles 10 Aelia Galla 75, 77 Aethiopica 8, 10, 29 Agrippina the Younger 22 Ambrose 75 Anabathmoi Jakobou 7, 62 Annubion 102 – 105 Antardus 33, 37, 49 Anti-Marcionite 3, 10, 12, 13, 16 Anti-Pauline 3, 5, 10 – 11, 12, 13, 37, 39, 40, 44, 45, 48, 51, 62 – 63, 67, 70 Antoninus Pius 24, 28, 47 Antonius 95 Aphrodite 33, 36, 37, 49, 59 Apocryphal Acts 4, 8, 9, 10, 29 – 30, 32, 35 – 37, 50, 53 – 56, 62, 64, 76 Apostolic Constitution 7 Appion 102 – 106 Aquila 40, 43, 78, 86, 87, 92 – 94, 95, 96 – 97; see also Faustinianus Aquila, partner of Priscilla 38 Arados 17, 31, 33 – 37, 49, 59 Aristophanes 36 Artaxerxes 34 Aseneth 10 Astarte 33, 37, 49, 59 Atanassova, Antonia 80 Athanasius 51 Athenodorus 103, 105 – 106 Augustus 16, 22 Barbara, Saint 52 Bardaisan 7, 14 Barnabas 19, 50, 63 Basil the Great 76 Baur, F. C. 13

Bell, Warwick 49 Bernice 17, 18, 39 – 43, 51, 65, 67, 86, 96 Bernice, daughter of King Herod Agrippa 77 Bishop Gaudentius of Brescia 72, 73, 77 Blumenberg, Hans 33, 49, 55, 60, 68 Boatwright, Mary 21 – 22, 25, 28, 46, 48 Bockmuehl, Markus 13 Bowerstock, G. W. 46 Boyarin, Daniel 68 Breglia, Laura 30, 47, 48 Brown, Peter 16, 46, 50, 53, 54 Burns, Jasper 47 Burrus, Virginia 50, 51, 53, 60 Butler, Cuthbert 79 – 80 Caesarea 40, 79, 94, 96 Callirhoë 11, 29, 33 – 36 Calvet-Sébasti, Marie-Ange 46 Castelli, Elizabeth 52 Cato the Elder 49 – 50 Celsus 44 Chaereas 11, 34, 36 Chariton 8, 10, 11, 34, 36 Chrysostom, John 35, 50, 65, 75 Clark, Elizabeth 50, 53, 54, 56, 58, 60, 69 Clement 9, 12, 31, 36 – 37, 85, 87, 96, 106 Constantine 33, 37, 74 Coon, Lynda 68 Cooper, Kate 9 – 10, 15 – 16, 34 – 35, 46, 48, 49, 50, 54 – 56, 58, 60, 61 – 62, 68, 69, 72, 79 Cornelius the Centurion 19, 103 Crescentia-Florentia-Hildegard cycle 24 Cyprian, magus 75, 80 D’Angelo, Mary Rose 50 – 51, 52 Davies, Stevan 50, 53, 60 Didascalia Apostolorum 7, 62

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Domitia Longina 22 Domitian 4, 22, 46 Dositheus 43, 51, 96 Douglas, Mary 31, 34 Duncan-Jones, Richard 28, 47 Ebionism 10, 40, 70, 79; also Ebionite Acts 7; also Ebionites 6, 12, 42, 49, 51, 78 Edwards, M.J. 11, 14, 15, 16, 57 Ehrman, Bart 13, 18, 38, 46 Eisen, Ute 74, 80, 81 Elchasaites 13, 16, 70 Emmelia 76 Encratism 35, 56, 65; also Encratites 35, 76; also Enkrateia 10 Ephesus 27 Epiphanius 7 – 8, 12, 13, 16, 51 Epitomes 4, 5, 6, 8, 12 Eubola 39 Euodia 38 Europa 33, 49, 59 Eusebius 13, 15, 81 Eustochium 75, 77 Evagrius of Pontus 74 Faustina the Younger 24 Faustinianus 12, 40, 43, 86 – 87, 92 – 93, 97, 99, 101 – 102, 105; see also Aquila Faustinus 12, 40, 43, 86 – 87, 92 – 94, 97 – 99, 102, 105; see also Nicetas Faustus 11 – 12, 15, 29 – 36, 48, 50, 52, 65, 76 – 77, 87, 97, 99 – 106 Flavius Rufinus 73, 75, 77 Gamurrini, Gian Francesco 73, 74, 79 Gerontius 76, 81 Gibson, Margaret Dunlop 48 Gnosticism 10, 16, 43 – 45, 66, 70 Gold, Barbara 54 – 55, 68 Goodspeed, Edgar 80 – 81 Gorgonia 77 Gospel of Luke 35, 38, 44, 64 Gospel of Mark 35, 38, 40, 67, 78, 86 Gospel of Matthew 38, 40, 43, 67, 78 Grant, Michael 22, 47 Gregory Nazianus 76 Gregory of Nyssa 76 Gregory Thaumaturgos 76 Grundschrift 5, 6, 7, 10, 15, 57, 69, 85

Hadrian 15, 19, 20, 21 – 22, 23 – 24, 27 – 28, 46, 47 Harvey, Susan Ashbrook 15, 80 Hegesippus 6, 8 Helena 9, 17, 18, 29, 32, 42 – 45, 51, 52, 56, 63 – 64, 65, 70, 74, 95 – 96 Heliodorus 8, 10, 29 Hemelrijk, Emily 48 Hippolytus 16, 51 Homilies 4 – 12, 18, 29, 31, 32, 33, 36, 39, 40 – 45, 48, 49, 57, 61 – 67, 69, 72, 75, 78, 85 – 86, 87 – 106 Homilist 5, 14, 51, 58, 86 Horn, Cornelia 46, 49 Hunt, E. D. 73, 79, 80 Ilan, Tal 51 Irenaeus 13, 16, 43, 70 Irene, Saint 52 James 4, 10 – 11, 49, 62 – 64, 66, 70 Jerome 5, 45, 73 – 76 Jerusalem 11, 62, 73, 77, 78, 80, 95 Jesus 15, 16, 35, 38, 40 – 41, 43 – 45, 51, 52, 56 – 58, 63 – 64, 67, 95 John the Baptist 43 – 44, 57, 63, 95 – 96 Jones, F. Stanley 7 – 8, 9, 10, 13 – 15, 48, 62, 70, 75, 80, 86 Jovinus 73 Junia 38 Justa 9, 17 – 18, 39 – 41, 42 – 43, 51, 58, 65 – 67, 69, 75 – 79, 86, 94, 96 Justina 75, 77 Justin Martyr 16, 43, 51, 70 Kelley, Nicole 7, 14, 48, 57, 69 Kennedy, Philip 48 Kerygmata Petrou 6, 7, 14, 16, 62, 70 Ketiyah bar Shalom 5 Kraemer, Ross 31, 46, 48, 50, 58, 60, 65, 68, 69, 70 Leontius 75 Lerner, Constantine 80 Leucippe 8, 29 Leucius Charinus 48 Levine, Jill 41, 51 Lewis, Agnes Smith 52 Liebeschuetz, J.H.W.G. 80 Livia 22 Livy 48

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Longus 8, 10, 29 Lucian 49 Lucretia 48 McDonald, Margaret 44, 52 Macrina the Elder 76, 77 Macrina the Younger 76 Marcella 75, 77, 80 Marcus Aurelius 27 – 28, 46, 47 Marcus Cato the Elder 34 – 35 Mary Magdalene 43, 44 – 45, 51, 64 Matthews, Shelly 53 – 55, 65, 68, 69, 80 Mattidia 4, 9, 11 – 12, 17 – 19, 24 – 25, 29 – 39, 41 – 42, 54, 57, 59 – 60, 61, 64, 67, 76 – 77, 79, 85 – 86, 92, 98, 101, 105; And Callirhoë 11, 34, 37; Mattidia’s Horoscope 9, 12, 31 – 32, 86; And Thecla 4, 54; And Widow on Arados 77 – 78 Mattidia the Elder 11, 15, 17, 19, 21 – 28, 29, 30 – 31, 35, 46, 47, 48, 56, 61, 66, 76 Mattidia the Younger 11, 19, 22 – 25, 27 – 28, 30 – 31 Mattingly, Harold 47 Melania the Elder 73 – 75, 76, 77 – 78, 79, 80 Melania the Younger 74, 76 Meyer, Marvin 52 Meyers, Carol 68 Migne, J.P. 5, 6, 13, 50, 85 mos maiorum 22 Nicetas 40, 43, 78, 86, 92 – 97; see also Faustinus Nino 74, 77, 80 Nock, A. D. 58, 69 Nonna 76 Olympias 75 Origen 7, 13, 45, 52, 76, 80; And Origenists 74 – 75 Palladius 74, 75, 77, 80, 81 Pastoral Epistles 10, 35, 42, 56, 61, 64 Patrologia Graeca 5, 85 Paul 10 – 12, 29, 38, 40 – 42, 61 – 64; see also Anti-Pauline; Pauline Paula 74 – 75, 77 Pauline 12, 37 – 40, 44 – 45, 66 Perdrizet, Paul 47

Periodoi Perou 7 – 8 Perpetua 21, 45 Perry, Ben Edwin 11, 16 Peter 7, 9, 11 – 12, 29, 30 – 39, 44 – 45, 53, 62 – 66, 76 – 79, 87 – 89, 90 – 96, 97 – 99, 101 – 106 Peter of Sebaste 76 Peter’s daughter 38; see also Petronilla Peter’s wife 37 – 39 Petronilla 50 Phidias 33, 49, 59, 88 Pietas 21 – 22, 30 Plautus 16 Plotina 22 Pouderon, Bernard 4, 12, 15, 52 Praxeis Petrou 7 Priscilla 38 Prophet 12, 45, 105; see also Prophetess Prophetess 42, 45 Proselyte 5, 36, 40, 94 Pseudo-Clementines 4 – 12, 17, 19, 24, 29, 31 – 39, 42 – 45, 55 – 57, 61, 65, 67, 72, 76 – 78, 85 – 86 Pulcheria 75 Quintilian 58 Rabbinic 60, 66 – 67 Rapunzel 52 Rawson, Beryl 46 Recognitions 5 – 12, 29 – 33, 40, 43, 45, 48, 51 – 52, 61 – 64, 69, 72 – 74, 85 – 86 Reed, Annette Yoshiko 65 – 66, 70, 71 Rehm, Bernard 5, 7, 10, 13 – 14, 85 Rhea Silvia 48 Rhoda 78 Rome 30, 42, 74, 78, 87, 101 Rorty, Richard 58 Sabbatini, T. A. 81 Sabina 11, 22, 24, 27 Satlow, Michael 68 Scheherazade 29, 67 Schüssler Fiorenza, Elizabeth 39, 50 Scott, James 8, 14 Severans 22 Shaberg, Jane 44 Simon Magus 11 – 12, 16, 18 – 19, 29, 30 – 32, 42, 45, 56, 64 – 65, 75, 77, 86, 94 – 95, 103

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INDEX

Smith, Thomas 13, 48, 52, 86 Solway, Susan 24, 47 Sophrosyné 30, 32, 34, 76 Statira 34 Strack, Paul 47 Strecker, Georg 14, 40, 70 Suessa Aurunca 27 – 28 Sylvia of Aquitaine 3, 6, 18, 19, 72, 73 – 79, 80, 81, 85 Symmachus 75 Syntyche 38 Tatiana 76 Tertullian 16, 45, 51, 54, 64, 65, 68, 74 Thecla 29, 35, 38 – 39, 44, 53 – 54, 64 – 65, 74; and Maximilla 53 Theodosius I 73, 75 Theodosius II 75 Theosebia 76 Titus Flavius Clemens 4 – 5 Trajan 19, 21 – 24, 28 Tryphaena 38 Tryphosa 38 Tyche 49 Tyrannius Rufinus 3, 5, 6, 10, 12, 13, 15, 32, 36, 39, 40, 41, 45, 51, 52, 58,

61, 62, 65, 69, 70, 72 – 74, 75, 76, 77 – 78, 80 Tyre 40, 42, 43, 96 Uhlhorn, Gerhard 9, 15 Ulpia Marciana 19 Valentinian II 75 Valentinus 70 Vaticanus Ottobonianus 5, 85 – 86 Vibius Sabinus 19 Vicetia 27 Virgin Mary 24 – 27, 33, 37 Voorst, Robert 7 – 8, 14 White, Hayden 58 Widow (Mattidia’s friend on Arados) 34 – 37, 42, 49, 57, 65, 74, 77 Widows 33 – 37, 42, 48, 49, 50, 57, 60, 64, 65, 74, 77 – 78, 79, 90, 95 Wilkinson, John 79 Xanthippe 29 Xenophon 8, 29 Zaccheus 12, 19, 63

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