18. Luke’s Perspective on Women and Gender

What was intended as an excursus on Acts 1:14 has grown to such length that I felt constrained to include it instead as a separate chapter within the introduction. It was impossible for me in a brief excursus to survey the background material and also provide sufficient nuance for one of antiquity’s more complex topics; the ancient material is too diverse and too vast to be treated in the summary fashion I have assigned to some other topics, even if the passages that they help us understand in Luke are fewer than, for example, those focused on the Gentile mission. The discussion here, and especially the exploration of ancient sources, is meant to offer background useful not only for 1:14 but for a range of other passages, most significantly 2:17–18; 8:3, 12; 9:2; 13:50; 16:13–15; 17:4, 12, 34; 18:3; and 18:26.

Scholars differ considerably in their evaluation of Luke’s approach to women. Is his approach “positive” or “negative”? This question is significant in contemporary discussions of Luke’s theology and ethics. Although we have examined questions usually associated with Luke’s historical reliability, for many interpreters today the question of Luke’s approach to gender is a matter of his theological reliability, a question of greater importance to them. My approach here as in the rest of the commentary is primarily historical, but the interests of many readers invite consideration of the topic. This chapter is primarily a historical exploration to provide perspective on Luke’s approaches to gender, but gender is also a topic of much theological interest today. At the same time, the topic is important with respect to Luke’s historiography; historians’ views toward women in their own day often helped shape the way they selected and presented the actions of women in their narratives.

From a historical standpoint (the commentary’s primary focus), what concerns us directly is where Luke stands among the range of perspectives in his culture. For those with hermeneutical concerns beyond the first-century meaning, the historical question remains a crucial starting point. If Luke was among the more progressive voices of his era and his foundational statements (e.g., Acts 2:17–18) are supportive of women, we might expect Luke to have been supportive also of more flexible arrangements in other cultures had the question ever been put to him and had he had opportunity to consider it. Thus interpreters interested in the counsel of respected ancient voices frequently can work from historical information to extrapolate theological or philosophic perspectives useful for their own contexts.

But before interpreters can come to such conclusions historically, they must investigate both what Luke says and what the range of views was in his culture. Given this commentary’s focus on providing historical information less available to students of the NT, I will spend more space on the latter, though this will represent only a brief survey compared to the many books that have been written. I will not take time to explore the hermeneutical concerns and expand an already extensive commentary further, although I will state briefly where I think the evidence points.

Scholars debate Luke’s view toward women; as A.-J. Levine summarizes, “Like the Gospel of Luke, the Acts of the Apostles has its feminist advocates and its feminist detractors.” Though some have been skeptical that Luke is positive toward women, and others are somewhat ambivalent, I would argue that those who see Luke as positive toward women seem to have the better case, on the whole. Part of the dispute among adherents of these views may be a matter of definition. Luke may not have been a modern egalitarian (he could not have had the advantage of even exposure to that perspective), but if he is read in the context of his own time, he surely would have seen his special attention to women as supporting their cause. Jesus’s support for women in Luke’s Gospel (fitting the gospel tradition more generally; see, e.g., Mark 5:34; 10:11; 14:9; 15:40–41) may fit the pattern of his supporting marginalized groups; certainly, women were marginalized from the power structures of Luke’s day.

Scholars frequently comment on Luke’s positive interest in women. Luke often mentions women followers along with the central group of male followers (Luke 8:2–3; 23:49, 55) or as converts (Acts 16:13; 17:4, 12, 34) and includes pairings of men and women in prophecy (Luke 2:25–38; Acts 21:9–11), healing stories (Luke 8:40–56; 13:11–16; Acts 9:32–42; cf. Luke 7:11–15), and parables (Luke 13:18–21; 15:4–10; 18:2–8). Even in the opening chapter of his Gospel, Luke balances annunciations to Zechariah and Mary (with Mary portrayed more favorably; 1:18–20, 34–38; see , , above), and both Elizabeth and Zechariah are filled with the Holy Spirit and speak for God in 1:41–45, 67–79. In contrast to Matthew’s annunciation narrative (admittedly unknown to Luke), Luke focuses more on Mary than on Joseph. Mary as God’s “servant” on whom the Spirit comes (1:35, 38) foreshadows the people of Pentecost (Acts 2:18) and hence becomes an ideal model for all followers of her son.

This positive interest in women characters becomes more striking when we consider the roles of women accepted in the Greco-Roman world at this time. Their roles varied according to region and social class, but Luke’s portraits rank among the more progressive voices of his day, even if these voices do not seem progressive when measured against the achievements of women in our own era. Bonnie Thurston correctly observes that women had more freedom under Roman law than in the East, and Acts appears to presuppose an audience especially in more romanized urban centers. Beverly Gaventa concludes that Luke-Acts fares well by the standards of other ancient narratives: women in Dionysius of Halicarnassus’s history, Roman Antiquities, and Chariton’s novel, Chaereas and Callirhoe, appear mostly in terms of their relations to male relatives, whereas the women in Acts appear in this connection fairly rarely. (We do not know who constituted Lydia’s “household” any more than we can answer this question for Cornelius or for the unnamed Philippian jailer.) Indeed, given Luke’s emphasis on people of status wherever possible, his emphasis on women (not only those of status, though naturally his interests intersect at that point) seems remarkable.

Luke’s sources may also reflect a pre-Lukan interest in gender egalitarianism that emerged in the earliest decades of the Christian movement. Such an egalitarianism may have grown out of Jesus’s teachings but also from a shared experience, among both genders, of prophetic inspiration (Acts 2:17–18; 21:9–11; cf. Luke 2:25–38). Although women held patronal and other roles, rarely were they granted public-speaking roles in ancient literature. Their testimony was far less valued than men’s. A few women became philosophers, but only a small percentage of philosophers were women. An even smaller percentage of women became rhetoricians, reflecting the other form of advanced education in the Greco-Roman world; Hortensia, known for oratory, was a rare exception. The experience of the Spirit, which empowered recipients for charismatic speech, would have provided some advances for women.

But given Luke’s historiography in general, postulating a more liberated community that Luke has suppressed may tell us less about Luke than about our own desire for a more egalitarian pristine Christianity. If the church could not immediately surmount ethnic and cultural barriers, we should not be surprised if the earliest community developed egalitarian sensitivities only gradually and not everywhere at once. Luke might even affirm the ideal of Acts 2:17–18 while largely “choosing his [cultural] battles” on the basis of different principles of urgency (such as pervasively focusing on bridging the Jewish-Gentile division), although we might wish for more emphasis on the former than he provides.

This interest in women appears in both the Gospel and Acts but is more obvious in the former; even in the latter, women normally “appear as individuals with their own names and never as types representing women’s position in the church.” The greater emphasis in the Gospel is not surprising. Many marginalized groups in the Gospel of Luke appear never or rarely in Acts; women fare better but also are affected by the shift in focus between the Gospel and Acts. This shift may reflect the nature of Luke’s material; in the former work, he has many traditions about Jesus and, in the latter, a tighter focus on the Gentile mission.

Yet even if Mary occupies a special place in Luke’s story (foundational in Luke 1–2 and appearing toward the beginning of Acts as well, in Acts 1:14), this status by itself would not necessarily imply much concerning his perspectives on women in general. A few “mythic women” attained heroic roles in Greek tragedy without thereby abolishing the system that restricted Athenian matrons to the domestic sphere. To reconstruct Luke’s perspective on women, one must survey a wider range of female characters in Luke-Acts—while also keeping in mind that Luke is writing a history and hence is somewhat limited by his sources (limitations on what is preserved may reflect an androcentric bias from some of his sources rather than his own perspective).

Key passages highlighting Luke’s agenda are thus more instructive than his unexplained silence elsewhere. One key passage for understanding Luke’s perspective on gender roles is Luke 10:38–42. Some scholars aver that Jesus here silences Martha’s defense of her diaconal role while he affirms Mary’s silent passivity for women. Common as this approach is among respected scholars, I confess that I find it astonishing. Jesus affirms the role of disciple in Mary over against the traditional feminine role of homemaker. Mary’s role as disciple connects with the male disciples and their ultimate evangelistic role in Acts; the role of serving tables is important yet secondary, in Luke’s vision of ministry, to that of proclamation (Acts 6:2–4), but this role of serving tables, though often a feminine, domestic role in antiquity, is clearly not restricted to women in Acts 6. Mary is paradigmatic for discipleship in general, not exclusively for female discipleship.

No one would have been surprised by Martha’s “feminine” role, but most Palestinian Jewish women would have been surprised by Mary’s role (Luke 10:38–41). The larger Greco-Roman world knew of traveling philosophers who welcomed women students, but even these were a minority. Training Mary in the law would not necessarily make her a teacher of it, given social realities of the era, but it did challenge social ideals. Thus, for example, in Musonius Rufus’s Stoic ideals, which are among the most progressive recorded for the era, daughters should receive the same education as sons (Mus. Ruf. 4), especially where relevant for virtue (4, p. 42.31–37; p. 48.1–26). Musonius opines, however, that women need not be given technical philosophic knowledge, since they have few opportunities to use it (p. 48.21–23).

Although it is difficult to miss the prominent mention of women in Luke-Acts, some scholars doubt that women exercise there any roles of public leadership or Christian proclamation. Some regard Luke as less liberated than Paul, since Paul mentions women coworkers; but even if we exclude 1 Cor 14:34–35 as an interpolation, as some do, we cannot easily do the same for 11:2–16. Paul, like Luke, contended with an environment holding social sensitivities that differed from our own. Although I have argued elsewhere that Paul was progressive by the standards of his day, I believe that in at least some settings he also probably accepted some limitations that he considered strategic to preserve the support of more conservative elements in his milieu.

In contrast to the skepticism entertained by some scholars about Luke’s support for women in proclamation roles, Luke is careful to balance not only male and female models in accounts of Jesus’s healings and in his parables but also male and female involvement in prophecy (Luke 2:25–38; Acts 2:17–18; 21:9–11) and, where possible, more generally, as being Jesus’s followers (Luke 8:2–3; 10:38–42; 23:49, 55; 24:10; Acts 1:14; 5:14; 8:3, 12; 9:2; 12:12–13; 16:13–15; 17:4, 12; 22:4). If men hold more prominent speaking roles as prophets, this prominence could reflect Luke’s sources or the results of social realities of his day rather than his own bias (See comment on Acts 21:9). As Gaventa argues, although Luke does not often or at length recount women’s speech, this is probably not deliberate suppression (any more than Luke suppresses Peter by his allowing Peter to disappear from the narrative, or five of the Seven disappearing from Acts after their roles are complete). Luke’s focus is just salvation history. We can wish that he focused more on gender or provided more information on early institutions or more biographic information on individual leaders, and so on, but although Luke does not denigrate those other interests, his focus remains on the Gentile mission.

Women become the first witnesses of the resurrection event (Luke 24:3–10); that the men emphatically disbelieve their testimony (24:11, 22–24) is to the discredit of the men, not the witnesses, a point reinforced both by Jesus’s reproof (24:25) and by the analogous situation at Peter’s deliverance (Acts 12:13–15). True, the women are not explicitly told to proclaim the resurrection in Luke 24:5–7, in contrast to Mark 16:7 (as well as Matt 28:7, 10; cf. John 20:17). But they also turn out to be more effective witnesses than in Mark 16:8 (where they remain silent from fear), the one specific source that we know Luke had available here (though, in the resurrection narratives, the Gospel writers apparently had available a variety of sources diverging in details).

Moreover, as noted above, women do appear as prophetesses (Luke 2:36; Acts 21:9), a role that illustrates the heart of Luke’s programmatic message, which includes Spirit empowerment for both genders (Acts 2:17–18). This prophetic empowerment is connected with witness (1:8) and is fundamental for ministry of the “word of the Lord” in Acts (a biblical prophetic phrase applicable, in Acts, to proclaiming the good news). Jesus himself is something of a prophetic figure (e.g., Luke 7:16, 39), including in his own self-presentation (4:24; 13:33; 24:19). It appears to me that Luke is far more interested in charismatic ministry (such as modeled by Paul’s mission or prophetic figures) than in institutional authority, in the cases where those forms of ministry differ. That most traveling ministers whom he could report (apart from married ones such as Priscilla) are male probably reflects the general historical reality of his sources, which probably, in turn, reflects the most common social conditions of the era.

Granted, the Twelve are all men (Acts 1:13), and they instruct the congregation to select seven “men” (ἄνδρας) to direct the program for feeding widows (6:3). (See also the frequent addressing of crowds as ἄνδρες; as to whether such a designation could ever function gender-inclusively, see comment on .) But at least the gender of the twelve apostles and probably the stated gender expectations of the earliest community reflect tradition rather than Luke’s creativity, so he can hardly be blamed for them. Priscilla helps instruct Apollos in the way (18:26); although Luke does not include even passing mention of a woman apostle as we find in Paul (Rom 16:7), we should remember that, apart from Acts 14, Luke never shares the title “apostle” outside the Twelve, even for Paul himself.

Is it possible that just as the Spirit eventually led most Jerusalem Christians beyond their ethnocentrism (Acts 10:14–15, 19, 28; 11:18; 15:28), the promise of Pentecost in 2:17–18 suggests similar crossing of gender barriers in the future, an ideal that the earliest community about which Luke writes had not fully attained? On the whole, I believe that Luke’s perspective, especially as exemplified in Luke 8:2–3; 10:38–42; and Acts 2:17–18, points in this direction, though Luke has a limited body of tradition available to support this trajectory. Ultimately, however, determining Luke’s perspective entails choosing which evidence in Luke-Acts we weigh most heavily.

The presence of married women (cf. Luke 8:3) with other women’s husbands may have posed more of a problem than the role they were playing. No one objected to women speaking with other women, but people held a range of views regarding women speaking with men, especially in more traditional society. Although Jewish women attended synagogue with men, inappropriate mixing could violate widespread ancient Mediterranean mores. A gossiper might complain that some women were immoral because they talked with men (were ἀνδρόλαλοι, Theophr. Char. 28.3; cf. John 4:27). Men’s eating with women other than their spouses would be suspicious (Isaeus Philoct. 21), as would be women talking with male neighbors (Quint. Decl. 354 intro). The presence of women in (see comment there) thus could continue a potential for scandal found in Luke 8:2–3, where women traveled with Jesus. Paul continued this potentially controversial activity (Acts 16:15; see comment there).

That Luke’s narrative does not mention the offensive character of such behavior may stem partly from the location of Luke’s Diaspora urban audience. Though genders were far more segregated in urban classical Athens than in any period in Palestinian Judaism, they were less segregated in Macedonia and especially in a Roman colony such as Philippi (where I have suggested some of Luke’s target audience lay). Nevertheless, among Greeks and even among Romans, some gender-exclusive ideals remained. Luke may otherwise omit mention of the offense because it would have been obvious to his audience that at least very conservative elements among the early church’s (and to a lesser extent, among Luke’s) contemporaries would have taken offense. Such behavior might not provoke criticism from one’s friends (cf. John 4:27), but enemies were certain to exploit it.

It is anachronistic to evaluate Luke’s approach to gender without reference to the views of his milieu. When we evaluate the options articulated among his contemporaries, we quickly recognize that a range of options existed and that Luke’s presentation is among the more favorable toward women.

Presenting this full range is somewhat precarious: some scholars focus mainly on the negative data regarding women in antiquity, and others on the positive, reacting against (and sometimes challenging the objectivity of) scholars doing the opposite. Both poles of the range represent genuine views held in antiquity; unless we regard none of the literary evidence as representative, it is also not easy to say what the “majority” position was, except with respect to particular regions, eras, and classes.

Even ancient writers who were progressive by the standards of their milieu were normally not modern egalitarians, and women rarely achieved prominence in the male spheres of politics and rhetoric; rarely do they appear even as teachers of philosophy (and, as rabbis and rhetoricians, even less often—indeed, almost never). At the same time, apart from outright misogynists, actual male views toward women were often tempered by affection for mothers, sisters, wives, and daughters; even the harshest laws or wisdom sayings would therefore be qualified in practice. Some role divisions conventional among people of means were impossible among peasants or artisans, where every hand was needed for the work.

Depending on how one weighs the evidence, one can argue either for women’s being poorly treated in antiquity or for their being well treated; there was considerable variation even within the same period from one region to another. Class also made a major difference; an outspoken wife might be viewed as noble if she was an aristocrat working at common purpose with her husband.

Intellectuals often recognized that views about gender roles varied among cultures. Thus, for example, women had more freedoms in Egypt and Sparta than in Athens, although none of these societies was fully egalitarian. Greeks found it strange that Ligurian women worked in the fields (Diod. Sic. 4.20). Then again, few places were as restrictive as classical Athens (and especially as conservative Athenian writers portrayed their city to be); earlier Mycenaean women probably shared more activity and status with men than did classical Athenian women. Early Roman law was also more favorable than classical Greek culture; Greeks recognized that, historically, women were more influential among Romans than among Greeks, and in the early empire, women had much more freedom in the West than in the East. Palestinian Jewish wives lacked some rights held by Greek or Roman women, but they possessed other rights that most of the latter lacked, such as the right to sue without a guardian. Palestinian Jewish wives also had much mobility outside the home, going to the market or the well and conversing with other women.

Roman women owned businesses and homes, and their homes, unlike aristocratic Greek homes, did not separate male and female domains. Some Stoics opined that most work is, by its character, suited for either gender except that physical labor was more suited for men and weaker tasks, such as spinning, for women. Women were accomplished in many fields; some, for example, proved successful as artists. As suggested above, in many places women must have been heavily engaged in agrarian labor. On women’s engagement in work, see further comment at Acts 18:3.

The sphere of Roman law appears more ambivalent. In the midst of an extended verbal attack on women (Juv. Sat. 6), Juvenal complains that no legal quarrel existed that did not start with the involvement of a woman (6.242–43). Roman laws often treated women more leniently, as less knowledgeable and hence less culpable than men. In early Roman law, women could not make wills, though Hadrian later changed this custom. Apart from some significant exceptions, women’s testimony, when accepted, normally carried much less weight than men’s in both Roman and rabbinic law.

Conversely, Roman law recognized a divorced woman as emancipated from male control, and this allowed considerable freedoms. Even in the late republic, a wife of a living man could own an estate. We even read of several women who pleaded their own cases in court (Val. Max. 8.1–3), though one was called manly (8.3.1) and another, who could have found male advocates had she wanted them, impudent (8.3.2). Although Roman law treated women as equals of men in some respects, it did not do so in the majority of ways affecting public life.

Greeks and Romans knew of prominent women in various other cultures, such as Egyptian queens and the British queen Boudicca. Although prominent women often achieved a category unavailable to other women, they did not always fare well. Xenophon, more appreciative of women than were many of his male contemporaries, notes that one Persian satrap’s widow reigned well (Xen. Hell. 3.1.10–13) until her son-in-law, resolving that satrapy was a man’s job, murdered her (3.1.14).

Rome, however, had its own prominent women. The most noted was the empress Livia, wife of Augustus Caesar, who was known to influence him, albeit within limits. But although Augustus made propagandistic use of her prominence, he maintained general social conservatism. She participated alongside the next emperor Tiberius in honoring her deceased husband, as if she held great authority (αὐταρχοῦσα). But when she sought to remain active in public affairs after Augustus’s death, his heir, Tiberius, warned her to stop meddling. In some respects, even the publicly honored Livia was made into an exception instead of views about women in general being changed; thus Philo praises her by claiming that she became almost male in her intellectual ability. Yet other women achieved or displayed unusual power without being empress, such as Germanicus’s widow Agrippina or Agrippa I’s daughter Berenice.

Wealthy benefactresses and patronesses commanded great respect and exercised considerable influence, including in the Jewish community. Most Roman honorary inscriptions regarding women (in contrast to their funerary inscriptions) celebrated them as benefactors rather than mothers. Sometimes a woman could be patroness even of a city. Yet although high-class Roman men viewed some women as peers, this perspective coexisted with the view that men were different and often superior to women.

A wide range of offices in the East were held by women as well as by men. Some prominent offices in the East were liturgical; that is, they primarily conferred public honor in return for substantial economic contributions. This is probably true of many public offices held by aristocratic women, but it is not true of all of them (see, e.g., the comment on priestesses in [Women in Myth and Religion] below). Although women do appear in civic administration, the vast majority of civic administrators were men; civic life in the eastern Mediterranean remained primarily a man’s world. Women achieved prominence in some other venues—for example, a noted Jewish woman alchemist cited by Greco-Roman alchemists.

Women in classical Greek society held little power; classical Athens is typically the extreme with which other ancient Mediterranean societies are compared. It is from ancient Greece that we have opinions such as those of Semonides (On Women) in the sixth century B.C.E., for whom women were made out of all sorts of terrible garbage and are the greatest curse of Zeus on men. Greek women’s situation improved in the Hellenistic period but did so much more rapidly in the first century C.E. under Roman influence. Romans themselves had long been making gradual progress from highly chauvinistic traditions; for example, not until about 396 B.C.E. did the senate rule that funeral eulogies could be said over women as well as men, and it was reportedly only Caesar’s behavior in 68 B.C.E. that introduced mourning over young as well as older women. Roman women experienced greater advances in the first century, though not without opposition. The advancements were not unilinear, of course; there was a revival of the norm of submissiveness for imperial women in the early second century, perhaps mirroring the increase of philhellenism at that time.

Contributing to women’s progress in Roman society was the gradual abandonment of the transfer of wives to their husbands’ authority, thus leaving them under that of their fathers. Because married women no longer lived with their fathers and because fathers frequently passed away in their daughters’ early adulthood, this arrangement allowed women much more freedom. Sometimes women’s “progress” even violated norms of morality, stirring resentment.

Despite women’s considerable progress in society, older literary models and ideologies continued to influence elite thinking and writing. According to one view, women exist only to make men miserable (Eurip. Orest. 605–6); a misogynist might wish that women did not exist, apart from bearing children (Lucian Affairs 38). An example of tactlessness is for a guest to denounce women when he is invited to speak at a wedding (Theophr. Char. 12.6). Juvenal longs for the old days of cavewomen, before adultery had been invented (Sat. 6.7–8). Because of their supposed immaturity, women were often linked with minors, slaves, and the like. Indeed, Socrates or Thales was said to have praised fortune for not making him a woman, beast, or barbarian, a saying eventually adapted into a Jewish benediction as well.

Aside from such ideology, some men were simply brutal: for example, to obey the priests and not be defiled, Sulla divorced his sick and dying wife and had her carried away while she lived. Plutarch reports that when Alcibiades’s good wife asked for a divorce in response to his behavior with courtesans, he dragged her home forcibly; she died soon after, while he was away (Alc. 8.3–4). This was not cruel, Plutarch explains, because the law requires the wife to go to court precisely so that if the husband wants her, he may take her (8.5). Abuse was sometimes sanctioned, especially in earlier times, though even the “ancients” had their limits. Another man ordered his freedman to beat his eight-months-pregnant wife; she died in childbirth, but he was not guilty because he grieved and was not seeking her death. Husbands could go too far, however. A man who was found to have killed his wife by throwing her out the window after a struggle did face death.

Most regarded the natures of men and women as different; Aristotle was particularly emphatic in contrasting them; the male was by nature superior to, and ruling over, the female. Against Socrates, he doubted the animal analogy in arguing for gender equality; lower animals, Aristotle insisted, do not have households requiring careful management! Others appealed to nature to show that males were superior to females. Physical differences were used to justify divergent social treatment. Not all allowed such distinctions to be thoroughgoing; for example, though hunting was traditionally male, Artemis had gifted some women for it (Xen. On Hunting 13.18). But to be shown up by a woman was considered a shameful matter. Women were held to be weaker physically, emotionally, intellectually, and socially. Female “weakness” explained why one first-century woman could not attend court (P.Oxy. 261.12–13). Such “weakness” could mean vulnerability and might merit protection or invite sympathy.

Philosophers often affirmed women’s equality in principle, though as a school apparently only Epicureans achieved this ideal in practice. Socrates claimed that a woman’s nature was not inferior to a man’s except in strength and intellect; a Cynic writer more generally denies that women are worse by nature than men. Although women held some prominence in Pythagorean communities, a Pythagorean argued that wives should submit to their husbands (Iambl. V.P. 11.54). Another thinker of Pythagorean persuasion, benevolently encouraging his wife to grow intellectually, warned her to flee from what was effeminate as if she were male and to regard herself as female no longer.

In the first-century Stoic ideals of Musonius Rufus, women, like men, are gifted with reason by the gods. A daughter should receive the same education as a son (Mus. Ruf. 4), though adapted for women’s work such as spinning; after all, trainers equip female as well as male dogs and horses. Training in virtue is the same for all, though Musonius points out that he does not mean that women should receive technical philosophic training, since they would have little occasion to use it. More generally, he could point out that domestic and public welfare depend on both genders together.

Yet Seneca the Younger, another first-century Stoic, though allowing that women were capable of the same virtues as men, often portrayed women as unstable and irrational, and a later Stoic emperor could regard a man’s soul as different from a woman’s. In contrast to Epicureans and Pythagoreans, Stoics had few, if any, women pupils. Seneca’s apparent inconsistencies come from the Stoic idea that the same virtue could be expressed differently for different settings and an understanding of equality different from today’s. The egalitarian trend moving beyond Aristotle’s chauvinism was not meant to disrupt the hierarchical roles already existing in society. Thus “Roman Stoics were egalitarian in theory but Aristotelian in practice.” Even Pythagoreans, who allowed women to be philosophers, accepted the basic distinction between public and private spheres, limiting military, civic, and political leadership to men and expecting women to care for their households. Others had earlier contended for women’s equality intellectually and morally, arguing that nature had simply fitted men physically for outside life and women for inside life; but this was an unusually progressive position for its time.

Many people considered women more emotionally unstable, and thus less self-controlled, than men. They were considered more fickle and changeable than men; their instability could be expressed in anger, hatred, or gullibility. Hysteria may have even been an accepted female outlet in that culture (in contrast to today). Preference for luxury or comfort, as opposed to hardship, was considered feminine; in the rabbinic worldview, masculinity involved the self-discipline of Torah study, which was not a normal feminine activity. Women were considered more prone to fear and servility as well as grief. (Nevertheless, regardless of general gender stereotypes, individual women could be hailed for courage.)

Although Epicurean communities tended to be among the most egalitarian, an Epicurean writer warns that women do not receive correction gladly because they take it personally and suspect the reprover’s personal motives; they are too emotional, vain, and attached to their reputation. They believe that their weaker nature should invite pity, and hence believe that those stronger than they are exploiting their weakness from contempt.

Pliny the Younger’s letters depict intelligent women and affectionate friendships. Judith favorably portrays its heroine’s intelligence (Jdt 11:21). Later rabbis take special precautions for pregnant women, and some Jewish burials show equal treatment in death. The rabbis recognized that girls reached majority on average a year before boys, though this was based on puberty and did not affect girls’ freedoms. In general, parents often preferred bearing sons over daughters. Yet daughters were also important, and fathers could lavish affection on their daughters; some wrote that fathers were especially close to daughters, and mothers to sons.

Ancient Israelite roles for women often mirrored those of surrounding societies. Conforming to norms in their milieu, Jewish women in the Greek Diaspora were regulated by Greek, rather than Judean, practices. Like Greek stories about ancient women, Jewish stories about ancient women may not reflect current social reality, yet they are instructive nonetheless. Women play important roles in the book of Tobit (Sarah, Edna, and Anna); Judith subverts traditional gender roles in some respects as well. Pseudo-Philo’s Biblical Antiquities also appears to expand the roles of some biblical women; Jubilees may improve Genesis’s picture of Rebekah more than that of any other character. Many midrashic texts honor biblical women such as Sarah and Miriam; later than our period, Amoraim often mentioned the merit of the matriarchs. Eve tended not to fare so happily in most texts.

Second Temple Judaism reveals a wide range of views toward women. The Qumran scrolls probably reflect more traditional patriarchal ideology. Philo claims that Essenes avoided marriage because women were selfish and deceitful (Hypoth. 11.14–15); men bound to them become enslaved (11.16–17). Josephus opines that Essenes avoided women because women were immoral (War 2.121). Although later rabbis accorded mothers and fathers equal honor, Qumran texts accord more to fathers.

The approach toward women in Sirach is often harsh. Some scholars suggest that Testament of Job is positive (regarding Sitis and especially Job’s daughters), although this has been disputed. Some have argued that even rabbinic Judaism was largely patriarchal and androcentric, though it was, undoubtedly, less so than most other streams of early Judaism known to us (represented, e.g., in Josephus and Philo). Tannaitic rabbis did articulate women’s proper rights and often affirmed their dignity. Although some have argued that Judaism became harsher toward women in the talmudic era, others have argued the opposite. Rabbinic law treated women as chattel with regard to their sexuality, though as persons in most other respects. The wife was obligated to serve her husband, and her earnings belonged to him. A man’s life must be saved before a woman’s, but her sexuality was more vulnerable and required greater protection than a man’s. Women functioned as a cultic contaminant, inviting the development of Levitical regulations (which also originally reflect more widespread cultural ideas).

Philo is fairly negative toward women. He always portrays male as superior to female, and some scholars argue that he even gives Wisdom some masculine characteristics. Masculinity is closer to divinity than is femininity. Philo thinks well of Sarah as a matriarch, but when he allegorizes her, he must masculinize her for his system. Philo does view positively the female Therapeutae, but he remains fairly consistent and forestalls criticisms by emphasizing their virginity. When he praises the empress Livia, he claims that her training made her virtually male in her intellect. Others have argued that Philo’s detractors have overemphasized his misogyny; even if this is the case, his portrayals are hardly positive toward women.

Josephus is likewise negative toward women in general. Josephus liked some women—especially wealthy aristocratic women—better than others (e.g., Life 426–27). He knew and respected women patrons, aristocratic women sympathetic to Judaism. He treats the matriarchs well, as he does the patriarchs, but presumably because he views them as members of the aristocratic class. (Some scholars think that he decreases Deborah’s role, but others differ.) By contrast, when the Levite’s concubine was brutally gang-raped in Judg 19:24–28, Josephus claims that she died from shame, doubting that her husband would forgive her! Josephus believes that men who heed the folly of women merit judgment, and cites approvingly the Essene suspicion of women’s infidelity.

As already noted, some philosophers argued that virtue was the same for men and women, even if expressed in different ways. Likewise, Jewish sages spoke of virtuous as well as wicked women; for some later rabbis, the wife’s virtue was more influential in the family than the husband’s.

The particular nature of feminine virtue suited a wife’s situation. Thus Musonius, who emphasizes equality in virtue, opines that a virtuous, philosophically knowledgeable woman serves her husband by her own hands. (That is, Musonius was progressive by the standards of his day but was not a modern egalitarian.) Plato and the Stoics believed that women could display the same virtues as men did, but most ancients limited women’s “wisdom” mainly to domestic activity. It is not surprising that some feminine specialities in virtue emerged. Ancient writers presented as virtuous women who defended their chastity with their life; a woman who slew herself rather than be dishonored sexually might be called a matron of manly soul.

Not all thinkers agreed that virtues were the same for both genders. Aristotle held that even a woman or slave may be “good,” but only by comparison with other women or slaves, since “a woman is an inferior thing and a slave beneath consideration.” Aristotle’s views were less influential in the early Christian era, but he was not alone in his perspectives; even in Luke’s day, feminine characteristics were often considered weaker and more passionate than the strong, rational traits characterizing men.

A Roman sage lamented that a woman was at her best when her evils were openly exposed. In various periods, some writers portrayed women as deceptive, dangerous, greedy, lazy, in strife with other women, and so forth. They were considered more prone to sexual immorality—though perhaps only because most male license, which was far more prevalent, was not counted as immoral. Thus a woman was easily deceived if a man slept with her; a woman who prostitutes herself acts according to her nature, unlike a man who does so. Yet some also warned that men were easily seduced (positively and for a good cause in Jdt 10:7), usually warning against the dangers of women. When R. Jose caught a man trying to glimpse his (R. Jose’s) beautiful daughter, he cursed her: “My daughter, you are a source of trouble to mankind; return to the dust so that men may not sin because of you.” Though designed to experience love passively, Seneca complains, some women now match men in their passions. Many Mediterranean cities elected γυναικονόμοι, officials whose role was to “control women,” and in some (undoubtedly a small minority), women were not supposed to run shops or engage in other business in the market.

Women were also considered talkative and prone to gossip; their words were untrustworthy, and some ancients said that women characteristically wasted their time in talk. Before marrying a woman, a man should learn about her tongue because “a talkative woman is a hell.”

Although most cultures allowed that both genders practiced magic, some associated magic more with women than with men. According to one rabbinic tradition, “most women practice witchcraft,” though in concrete narratives only some specific women were sorceresses, and the rareness of examples may suggest that the gender association reflects mostly male prejudice.

One early Jewish sage warns men not to sit among women (Sir 42:12) because evil comes from them like a moth from clothes (42:13); a man’s evil proves better than a woman’s good (42:14). Some later rabbis complained that Satan was created along with Eve; one apocalyptic writer insists that of sixty thousand souls led to destruction, only one woman was found whose good deeds even equaled her bad ones, allowing her to be kept in the intermediate state.

Some writers reacted against “modern” women, who had come to share male vices. Seneca the Younger complains of liberated women now engaging in men’s sins of drunkenness and gluttony, which brings on the same diseases such men suffer from (Ep. Lucil. 95.20–21). Juvenal, whose satirical comments on women suggest misogyny, complains of pampered aristocratic women enjoying their leisure while having innocent slaves brutally flogged (Sat. 6.474–85). Such a woman governs her house cruelly (6.486) and, if she is in a hurry, may abuse and rip the hair of a slow servant woman (6.490–91).

Modesty and meekness were among the chief virtues traditionally expected for women, although these aristocratic ideals had outlived actual practice in much of Roman society (and may sometimes reflect male nostalgia for an idealized past). Traditional Roman matrons were portrayed as submissive, supportive, and subservient. In traditional Greek values, a shameless, bold woman was bad; in earlier Roman times, an aristocratic woman who spoke too arrogantly could be fined, and a strict husband might divorce a wife who went to the games without his knowledge. Seneca the Elder advised a wife to walk around looking at the ground; if a man greeted her with too much interest, it was better for her to respond rudely than immodestly, and if she must respond to the greeting, she should act confused and blush, so guarding her honor.

Yet people knew that even Augustus, who urged men to command their wives as they wished and admonish them to modesty, did not treat his wife Livia in this manner. Such practices had declined further in the first century C.E. but remained an ideal. Thus Plutarch urges that sensible wives wait silently for their husbands’ fits of rage to subside before comforting them.

The Greek and Roman world carefully defined gender roles, especially when children reached maturity. Regarding gender roles, Dio Chrysostom believed that “everyone would admit that man is stronger and more fitted to lead. Consequently, to her falls the larger share of the household tasks”; yet this does not make women’s lot more fortunate than men’s.

Funerary inscriptions appear to attest many happy marriages. Yet despite exceptions for some prominent women, funerary inscriptions also attest that the vast majority of women were honored for their roles as mothers, wives, and daughters. In one fictitious letter, a man requests that his daughter may spin with the servant women to prevent the parents’ shame when she would marry; this would help school her “in propriety and modesty.” The wife ruled the domestic sphere (caring for home, children, and, in some homes, servants) as the husband ruled in public; some philosophers proposed to instruct women in the virtue of proper household management. A classical Greek author could note that husbands chose wives not from lust but for childbearing and child rearing; indeed, in classical Athens a bride became a γυνή (woman, wife) only after bearing her first child.

Jewish women’s roles in Palestine were also especially domestic (e.g., cooking and child rearing). Concern for household and children was to be paramount. Thus a wife’s “beauty” involved the ordering of her house (Sir 26:16), and a rabbi could claim that he would endure a difficult wife so long as she kept him from sin and reared the children. Early Diaspora Christians followed the same distinction between public (masculine) and private (feminine) spheres (1 Tim 5:14, addressing a Hellenistic setting), even though their biblical canon allowed considerably greater freedom (e.g., Gen 29:9; Prov 31:16, 20, 24, 31).

Inscriptions also praise obedient and sacrificial wives, and numerous texts show us this expectation in ancient sources. The ancient Greek expectation was of the wife’s subordination and submission to her husband; a truly prudent wife should “yield in all things” to her husband. This was certainly clear in Homer, the most widely recited of Greek poets: Telemachus reminds his mother that he holds the authority in the house and warns her to leave speaking in public to men. Aristotle emphasizes that the sort of “friendship” a husband and a wife share is analogous to that shared by rulers and subjects, appropriate equity requiring the superior party to receive the greater share.

Xenophon, one of the more progressive authors of his era, praised his wife for obeying even his mere word (adding that she was so skilled in managing the household that she had “a masculine mind”). He notes that if a wife misbehaves, it is the husband’s own fault if he has not properly instructed her, just as it is the fault of one who tends animals if the animals are poorly trained. Hellenistic marriage contracts granted new rights to women but reflect the older conventional expectations about wives’ restrictive roles in marriage, including the wife’s submissiveness. In Philo’s symbolism, male naturally rules female; in his ethics, the wife “serves” the husband and the husband-wife relationship is comparable to father-child and slaveholder-slave relationships.

Disparity in age naturally affected Greek marriages. Indeed, throughout the Mediterranean world, men married women who could be significantly younger, and this “must have encouraged a psychological subordination of wife to husband.” Younger mothers could be viewed as still somewhat “childish”; their husbands would have to put up with new brides’ childish antics until they matured. Greek men married around thirty, marrying a young woman on average about eighteen but potentially much younger.

Although the age disparity was not as great as among Greeks, similar expectations obtained in Roman society. Among the aristocracy, for whom we have the most information regarding such matters, wives should be knowledgeable enough to encourage their husbands’ opinions, but they were not encouraged to offer their own. “In public they were best seen—nodding in agreement or smiling appreciatively at their husbands’ wit—but not heard.” Roman men often looked wistfully to marriages in the “good old days” of the republic or the beginning of the empire. Thus Cato preferred a wife of noble birth to one who was merely rich, because the former type cared about their honor and hence would prove more obedient (ὑίηκόους) to their husbands (Plut. M. Cato 20.1).

In the early second century B.C.E., one critic of women’s advancement opined that if the state eased up on women’s subjection, wives would not settle for equality but even become their superiors; after all, they had already gone so far as to publicly speak to other women’s husbands. Cato was particularly offended by their speaking in public to other women’s husbands, insisting that they should have made their requests to their own husbands at home. He could only imagine that these women had come to make their requests in public because they thought they were more attractive to men other than their husbands. The opposing side of the debate, however, won out.

Roman laws changed in the early empire as wives passed from husbands’ to fathers’ authority. Some scholars contend that wifely subordination had even ceased to be the norm among Romans before the imperial period. This is true only by way of comparison with earlier practice, however, not in the sense of modern egalitarian marriage. A husband “bossed around” by, or compliant to, his wife or freedmen remained an object of ridicule. A first-century Roman Stoic could insist that a virtuous, philosophically knowledgeable woman serves (ὑίηρετεῖν) her husband by her own hands, doing even servants’ work. In the early second century, Pliny praises his wife, noting that her devotion to him confirms her virtue. An orator of second-century C.E. Rome opined that even the backward Cyclopes ruled at least their wives and children. A late second-century Stoic emperor praised the gods for an obedient wife. Another second-century Roman writer could present a wife promising to obey her husband. One should not divorce an “obedient” wife.

The ideal may have persisted more fully in the East, where a wife could call a husband “master” much later than this. Josephus claims that the law of Moses regards women as inferior to men in every respect; the authority belongs to the husband, and the wife should be submissive. Heeding one’s wife can even merit punishment. In the late first century, Dio Chrysostom regards it as common knowledge that men are stronger than women and hence more suited to lead.

Likewise, Plutarch, writing in the late first and early second century, advises a wife not to cultivate her own friends or religion but to accept those of her husband. Wives are praised if they “subordinate themselves to their husbands” (ὑίοτάττουσαι μὲν γὰρ ἑαυτὰς τοῖς ἀνδράσιν); the husband meanwhile ought to control his wife not as one controls property but as the soul controls the body to “govern” (ἄρχειν) it lovingly without being enslaved by its desires. Plutarch did advocate harmonious consent, but at the same time insisted on the husband’s leadership.

In the second century C.E., a writer in Asia Minor takes for granted that wives, children, and slaves should obey. Aelius Aristides declares that a wife “should be pleased with whatever the husband says; her place is to be ‘ruled’ [ἄρχεσθαι], and he will command her; she will also seek to be girded by his nature, “as a better person would treat an inferior one.” The second-century Stoic Hierocles agreed with the dominant perspective in placing wives over domestic and husbands over public activities but protested against making these distinctions absolute. Later still, a Pythagorean writer could contend that a wife should not oppose her husband; and Cynic writers (of less certain date) portrayed virtuous wives as those who carry out their husbands’ wishes as an unwritten law.

What is clear is that the confrontation of old and new values created tension. Advancements that had occurred could provoke a backlash, illustrated most readily by complaints from the early second-century C.E. satirist Juvenal: because women are always complaining and demanding more, marriage may lead to suicide (Sat. 6.30–37); wives contended with husbands violently (6.111–12) and bickered with husbands even in bed (6.268–85). Juvenal contrasts the humble and chaste wives of the past (6.286–305). Wives, he complains, order slaves crucified, regardless of their husbands’ sentiments, and change husbands frequently (6.219–24).

For many ancients, however, marriage was not just about subordination. Mutual love is common in the sources; not only the wife but the husband could demonstrate love for the spouse. Even centuries earlier, Xenophon portrayed marriage as sharing and partnership. A first-century Greek author describes a wife as a partner in sharing a husband’s entire life. Another first-century author depicts an ideal marriage as “perfect companionship [συμβίωσιν] and mutual love” and summons the husband to the same measure of fidelity as demanded for the wife. A moralist from this period emphasizes that husband and wife should feel that they share everything; the wife must supply “conversation, character, and comradeship.”

Even a Qumran text warns against disdaining one’s wife, one’s “closest companion.” Unlike many Greek philosophers, many rabbis emphasized husbands’ sexual appreciation for their wives. It was said that R. Akiba consulted his wife before accepting a position, and she gave her advice. Not everyone agreed with such perspectives. Thus, for Josephus, God punished Adam for being so weak as to have heeded his wife (Ant. 1.49); God likewise punished Antipas for listening to a woman’s talk (18.255; cf. 18.240–55). That different rabbis even in a later period retained different views is clear: one Babylonian Amora charged hyperbolically that a man “who follows his wife’s counsel will descend into Gehenna,” and another responded with the saying, “If your wife is short, bend down and hear her whisper!” Some wives proved unrighteous, such as the wife who objected to her husband’s generosity to the poor during famine; for such circumstances, however, divorce remained an option.

Later rabbis insisted that a husband must respect his wife (that the reverse was also true goes without saying). He could not prevent her from visiting her parents, going to the bathhouse, or visiting the grieving. Mutuality is clear in the lists of marital duties, although they are mostly divided by gender and need not indicate equality.

Still, Jewish women were mostly under the authority of either husbands or fathers. Women do not control their lives, being under others’ dominion. A Qumran text reminds the husband that he holds authority over his wife; he alone may govern her, and he may rule her so that she lives the way he wants her to. A man governed by his wife would be held miserable. Philo opines that wives are under their husbands’ authority and obey their commands, and Josephus claims that wives should be submissive, since the Jewish law granted the husband the authority over the wife for her good. Samaritans also expected wifely obedience.

Women’s piety could be praised. Women were often involved in religious cults in ways that, at least in traditional Greek culture, were not open to them in other aspects of life. Many Roman rituals could be performed by either gender. Women could become priestesses both in Italy and in the Greek East, for example, Flavia Ammon, a first-century C.E. high priestess of a temple in Ephesus, and Paulina, a fourth-century C.E. priestess of multiple mystery cults in Rome. In some cases, these offices belonged to families, but in others, the woman held this office alone; the primary function of many of these offices was, however, patronal rather than cultic. Often priestesses were engaged in temple administration, but it remains noteworthy that priestesses usually belonged to the same class as priests, in contrast to the majority of women not found in such offices. That is, these offices were open to the elite and were determined by class more than by gender. Women sometimes had their own special cults and rites; men who were found invading these rites would provoke scandal. (Likewise, men also had some exclusive or nearly exclusive cults.) On women’s roles in religion, see further comment on Acts 16:13.

Moreover, although men were also involved in each of these cults, women were known for their participation in the Egyptian cult of Isis and (apparently often ecstatic) participation in the cult of Dionysus (popular in Asia Minor), probably in reality as well as in myth, and in the cult of Cybele (also associated with its origins in Asia Minor). Romans were often concerned with the inroads such Eastern cults were making into dignified Roman society; the cult of Dionysus provoked scandal partly regarding women more than two centuries earlier, and the cult of Isis only recently. Some claimed that women were particularly susceptible to such cults. Such scandals required groups like these (including Judaism and the early Christians) to respond with a careful apologetic emphasizing that they upheld traditional family values.

Classical myths sometimes portray women negatively, as in the story of Pandora; man received woman as a punishment for receiving the gift of fire (Hesiod Theog. 570–612). A misogynist thus might be portrayed as cursing Prometheus for making women. Tiresias, who had been each gender at different times, testified that a woman’s life was much easier than a man’s. Yet myths often focused on women as objects of violence and abuse—common, for example, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Tragedies often focused on women because of their perceived weakness. Some, however, objected to such portrayals. Because Clytemnestra murdered him, the deceased Agamemnon advised Odysseus never to trust a woman, but Dio Chrysostom objects that the issue was not that she was a woman but that she was an evil woman.

At the same time, some women achieved “heroic” status in myth and could come to the fore (for good or harm) in drama in ways they did not typically in daily life. Still, even such “heroic” status did not always benefit the women in question. Although the Amazons (see comment on Acts 8:27) are portrayed as powerful warriors, they are always defeated, serving as a foil for the “normal” masculine heroes of Greek narratives.

Jewish women were often actively engaged in the life of their synagogue communities, although these roles varied from one location to another. Contrary to some older suppositions, women held leadership roles in some synagogues in Asia Minor, probably a minority approach in ancient Judaism that mirrored the social prominence of women in some of these cities. Thus we read of women as synagogue rulers, for example, in Smyrna (CIJ 2:10, §741) and Caria (2:20, §756). In some such locations, a few women became “heads of synagogues”; some were apparently wealthy and probably benefactors of the synagogues, which was also how men typically achieved the same office. Women account for only about 10 percent of the “synagogue head” inscriptions, a percentage similar to that for women as patronesses in general, but their existence, in any case, refutes the claim that women could not fill the office.

Bernadette Brooten also notes some women in the role of ἀρχηγός. Three of the five women “elders” are from one town, Venosa (and two other women are bearers of office there); though women remained the minority in leadership even there, that Jewish community appears to have provided women with more opportunity for office than was usual.

Some brilliant and educated women generated respect and praise. Women from wealthy households increasingly had access to education in the first and second centuries C.E. We read, for example, of women poets, including from the imperial period. Educated mothers were valued, though perhaps particularly for the influence on their sons’ eloquence.

These women were, however, exceptional achievers in a system that did not tend to facilitate women’s achievement. Women had far less access to education, particularly concerning public activities such as speaking, than did males of the same class. Most women (i.e., outside the small percentage of the population that was well-to-do) had little education; scholars who give examples of educated women often fail to note that these cases are the exception and that even their advanced education most frequently focused on domestic activity. Some estimate that “for every five or six men who could read and write, there was one woman who was fully literate.”

Whereas most upper-strata males could read and write, some argue that only “a small percentage of women from the same social orders could.” Even though such a claim probably underestimates female literacy in the upper strata of the first century for places such as Rome, women had far less access to education for public activity. In well-to-do families, some girls would receive elementary education along with boys from age seven, but from twelve, generally only boys moved to the second level in public, girls learning household duties at home. Dio opined that gold earrings were acceptable for girls’ ears, but for those of Greek boys, only education.

Views on women’s education differed. Although even the most progressive voices were rarely egalitarian in practice (sometimes perhaps due to social constraints), a number of voices in antiquity advocated women’s education and trusted women’s ability to learn. Around 600 B.C.E., Cleobulus advocated providing husbands with women educated in wisdom; he was supporting their education but presumably upholding traditional roles (since they were being provided for husbands). Aristotle, reacting against such views, attacked general education as wasteful; it was not sensible trying to educate everyone in the same way. In advocating that women be taught philosophy, Musonius guarded against accusations that this learning subverted roles traditionally assigned to women by arguing that they be taught what would help them more effectively fulfill the roles that society demanded of their gender. That is, it would be adapted for women’s work, such as spinning; women did not need technical philosophic training because they lacked opportunity to use it.

Plutarch insisted that a husband, contrary to common perspectives, ought to care for his wife’s learning, which will keep her from following nonsense and immorality; he then chivalrously proceeded to insist that women, left to themselves, produce only base passions and folly and so they need a man’s input. Some argued that women were less intelligent or more susceptible to deception than men; Juvenal ridicules women who try to be educated in philosophy and rhetoric. Because of their generally lesser education than that of males of the same class, women were sometimes targeted by unscrupulous teachers, who found wealthier women particularly useful; at least, these were the claims of the teachers’ detractors.

Because they were so few in proportion to the vast numbers of men, women trained in philosophy drew disproportionate attention and comment in literary sources, but they are well attested. The Pythagorean tradition is noteworthy in its inclusion of women. After listing 218 names of the known disciples of Pythagoras, Iamblichus lists the most famous women by name, of whom he mentions seventeen. This allows that 8 percent, and possibly more, of the early disciples were women, an extraordinary figure by ancient standards in general.

Pythagorean tradition offers examples of learned women. Pythagoras’s wife, Theano, was known for her philosophic wisdom, and she authored some works. Pythagoras also entrusted his writings to his daughter Damo. Iamblichus reports that the pregnant wife of a Pythagorean philosopher was tortured to make her reveal the school’s secrets; concerned lest her female weakness dispose her to break under torture, she bit off her tongue and spat it out. In a later period, Porphyry explains to his wife that he married her partly because of her aptitude for philosophy; thus he freed her from other masters and shared philosophy with her.

Plato reportedly had some women disciples; later sources name among them Lastheneia of Mantinea and Axiothea of Phlius. Although his other named pupils were male, among Aristippus’s disciples was his daughter Arete. For all of Philo’s gender bias, he seems happy to portray women Therapeutae as philosophers; yet for ancient philosophers, these women’s virginity insulated them from “feminine” traits. Elsewhere Philo seems ready to allegorize Rebekah as a true disciple of God able to teach wisdom to men (although this process involves allegory and, as noted above, Philo knows how to make exceptions for women belonging to the elite).

As already noted, Stoics were more prone to talk about egalitarianism in virtue than to have women disciples. Epicurus, however, allowed women into his communities. As also noted, even among Epicureans women might face conventional prejudices, but they had more opportunity there than in most schools. Over the centuries, at least eight women students of the Epicurean school are named; presumably there were others, although traditions appear more apt to mention women (because of their relative rareness) than men. This would still leave women a small minority, but it left no doubt that the school, in at least much of its history, admitted women.

Lucian mentions among women trained in philosophy “Aspasia, Diotima, and Thargelia”; I comment more fully on Aspasia below. Hipparchia, the pupil and wife of the Cynic sage Crates, went down in history as a very rare yet genuine woman “Cynic.” She successfully defended her right to learn philosophy as more important than weaving. Nevertheless, she apparently generated some mild detractors in a later era, who felt that she needed some special prodding. Lucian mocks Cynic pretensions to allow women disciples, accusing them of group sex instead.

In one Hellenistic Jewish work, it is the father who teaches his sons the Law and the Prophets (4 Macc 18:10), but the mother can certainly quote Scripture (18:11–19). Clearly, Jewish women had access to some learning, as is clear even in some of the more conservative literary traditions. Women regularly attended synagogues, although rabbinic sources, at least, portray them mainly as listening passively. Some women must have gone further, actively pursuing learning. One husband complained about a wife who he thought was neglecting her household responsibilities to go hear R. Meir teach.

Josephus acknowledges that women, children, and servants are permitted to hear the Law read, as adult males do, at the Feast of Tabernacles and that even the women and the servants among the Jewish people affirm that God’s law upholds virtuous living. Rabbi Hananiah ben Teradion’s wife and daughter are each able to quote Scripture accurately and appropriately in one schematized story. That women in rabbinic literature quote Scripture does not necessarily indicate special training in Scripture, since women would hear Scripture quoted in synagogue and elsewhere, but it does suggest a degree of potential biblical literacy among Jewish women.

Most of the knowledge of Torah expressed by women in rabbinic sources, however, concerns domestic halakah (such as kosher regulations) necessary for a matron to know, what a woman learned from a family member at home, or fairly simple portions of Scripture. A Torah scroll written by a woman was invalid, and women were exempt from the obligation for Torah study. They were exempted from many of the commandments; for example, they were not required to observe tefillin. Men also seem more disposed to attend festivals. But in later sources, wives (or children or slaves) could recite a blessing on behalf of the male head of the household if he was unable to do it.

Rabbis differed among themselves about how much Torah teaching a daughter should receive. Whereas some insisted that girls be taught the Torah, especially the passage about the suspected adulteress, others felt that teaching daughters Torah (whether the same passage or as a whole) was sexually dangerous. The point may be that coeducation of girls with boys could lead to sexual immorality, which may be why girls did not attend schools, though they must have been taught the blessings and other Torah information, presumably in the home.

In any case, the Tannaim required Torah learning for boys but not girls. Girls could not but learn Torah in synagogues and from the home, but they were normally not schooled in it and trained to recite it as boys were. An Amoraic source claims that women earned merit by sending their sons to synagogue to learn Torah and their husbands to Beit ha-Midrash to learn Mishnah.

We also do not read of women as formal disciples of rabbis (though cf. the learning of Beruria in talmudic tradition), as is often noted. Second-century Palestinian rabbis expounded less technical moral counsel to synagogue audiences than in their schools, and the same was probably true of those who taught disciples in the first century.

The classical ideal, though long mitigated in practice, was that the public domain was a male sphere of activity whereas the domestic domain belonged to the wife. Practice apparently shifted increasingly away from such a sharp distinction, but among Greeks and even among Romans, some gender separation remained an ideal, often for moral reasons.

“Silence,” one gruff warrior in a classical text informs his concubine, “makes a woman beautiful.” In classical Greece, precautions were taken (at least among the well-to-do who could afford this) to keep women in the private sphere and to keep them from being heard. In the early first century C.E., Valerius Maximus emphasizes that ancestral custom prohibited women from speaking in a public meeting, with only the rarest of exceptions. Granted, he mentions some women who pleaded cases before magistrates despite Roman custom (Val. Max. 8.3), but he does so precisely because it was unusual and offers only three examples. These were rare women whose feminine nature and the normal “modesty” attached to it could not make them “silent” (8.3.praef.). As noted above, one was called manly (8.3.1); another was impudent, a “monster” to be ridiculed (8.3.2).

Plutarch insists that a wife ought to reserve her speaking for her husband or speak through him. Pliny the Younger praises his young wife for enjoying his readings—as she sits privately behind a curtain. He also mentions an excellent speaker who publicly read eloquent letters from his wife, whereas the wife herself would not make an appearance to read them. A virtuous woman in a possibly third-century novel prefers that the man accompanying her do the speaking, “for I think it proper for a woman to be silent, and for a man to make answer, before a company of men.” Conventional “wisdom” opined that women’s words were untrustworthy.

Some exceptional women emerged despite social obstacles. In an early period, Aspasia allegedly taught rhetoric and numbered Socrates among those who learned from her. In late antiquity, one Sosipatra married the famed philosopher Eusthathius, but her wisdom was so great that it was greater than his. She held a very famous chair of philosophy. Allegedly, however, she did not achieve her wisdom in the conventional way, by studying with sages, but by supernatural teaching from the gods. More prominent still was the late fourth- to early fifth-century C.E. philosopher Hypatia; she became leader of Alexandria’s Neoplatonic school. Like some other prominent women, she was the daughter of a noted intellectual, though her father was a mathematician rather than a Neoplatonist lecturer.

But Aspasia, Sosipatra, and Hypatia were notable exceptions. As noted above, only a small proportion of those trained in philosophy were women; those who became teachers were far fewer still. Whereas ancient sources often speak of women teaching their sons at home, there is little evidence for women as professional teachers in public, as sages hired by wealthy homes or as heads of rhetorical schools. Indeed, although we know of women trained in philosophy, we know of few trained in rhetoric, which inevitably entailed public speaking. Even those who granted women’s intellectual equality with men did not (apart from homeless, countercultural Cynics) advocate destroying the public/private partition that separated most traditionally masculine from most feminine activities. Although these barriers gave way before wealth and patronage for certain public offices, they rarely gave way for teachers (who normally had to achieve sufficient acceptance in that role, after all, to acquire students).

Rabbinic tradition also reveals some exceptional women. Imma Shalom helped to expose an unfair judge; she was R. Gamaliel II’s sister and wife of R. Eliezer. In a later legend, the wife of Rabbi Simeon ben Halafta persuades him from Torah and refutes R. Judah ha-Nasi himself. Much more important is that Beruria entered into rabbinic disputes and once even persuaded the majority of rabbis about her position on a halakic matter. But as the daughter of R. Hananiah ben Teradion and the wife of R. Meir, Beruria may have had access to more learning than did some of her female contemporaries. There was apparently a fair degree of fictionalizing in the talmudic portrayal of Beruria and the two other rare women (Imma Shalom and Akiba’s wife, Rachel) fluent in the Torah. Yet even though Beruria was probably not studying three hundred talmudic topics daily, such stories were presumably told of her rather than others precisely because of her unusual Torah knowledge. In any case, some women, such as Beruria, achieved sufficient skill in Torah learning to command attention, but they remained exceptional.

Men were supposed to avoid unnecessary conversation with women to guard against unchastity or folly. Some teachers even applied this rule to speaking with one’s own wife. (As noted above, however, some rabbis did support heeding wives.) As a rule, the rabbis forbade women even to teach children. Some scholars note that the rabbis forbade women to read in the synagogue, from respect for the congregation; others argue that they were allowed to read in synagogues until the time of the Babylonian Talmud. At least as early as the editing of the Tosefta, rabbis disapproved of a woman’s reading the Torah in public; but another text from this period permits even menstruating women to read the Torah, and by the early third century, a rabbi could say that women are obligated to read the Megillah. In the Greek-speaking Diaspora, we have no reason to doubt that this could occur. Because the evidence against the practice is more explicit and prevalent than the quite slender evidence for it, however, we may gather that in most locations men were the more usual readers. In any case, women’s expounding on the Torah in synagogue services does not seem to have been the norm in Jewish Palestine. Though we cannot rule it out in the cases where we have female synagogue leaders in some cities of Asia Minor (see discussion above), that women would not teach would fit the usual pattern regarding women’s public teaching in Greco-Roman antiquity. One text instances a man who made a marriage covenant requiring the wife to support him financially and teach him Torah, but the text plainly presents this situation as the inversion of the norm.

Inspired speech might be treated differently; a tradition that acknowledged prophetesses could not well silence any form of inspired speech, although some traditions may have expected women to prophesy privately and men to relay the message. (On prophetesses, see comments on ; 21:9.) But if they were expected to prophesy privately, this would simply reinforce the traditional private/public distinction between the genders, which constituted a particularly fundamental characteristic of ancient gender ideology (at least in literary sources).

The closest Luke comes to offering a statement of ideology about gender in Acts is his programmatic quotation of Joel about sons and daughters prophesying. That he notices the gender significance of the quotation should be beyond dispute, since he illustrates it in his narratives (with respect to Anna and Philip’s four daughters). I have addressed this matter more fully above, in the early part of this chapter.

Acts offers much less about marriage relations than about prophecy, and even the Gospel’s clearest statements on the subject address more the priority of the kingdom over marriage than gender roles. We may, for this discussion, leave aside Luke’s examples of elite women (whom society obligated everyone of lower station to respect). Moreover, that Luke includes women who work (e.g., Acts 18:3) or function as patrons (e.g., 16:15) is not surprising in light of the larger cosmopolitan culture.

More significantly, Luke’s portrayal of close public association between male agents of the kingdom and women (e.g., Luke 8:2–3; Acts 16:15) does suggest that Luke favors the approach of more progressive cosmopolitan contemporaries rather than that of extreme traditionalists, even though this approach could have appeared scandalous to more traditional minds (or to those looking for excuses to attack the early Christian movement). That women follow Jesus itinerantly along with male disciples (Luke 8:2–3) and some learn at his feet (10:38–42) was certainly unusual among ancient rabbis.

Luke does not address the question of women’s engagement in some kinds of ministry. Bringing female traveling companions was hardly practical for Paul (later stories of Thecla aside), especially on the final journey to Jerusalem, where the slightest hint of scandal would have appeared counterproductive to that mission’s purpose. Likewise, Luke reports no women apostles, but we should recall that he restricts the term “apostle” almost exclusively to the Twelve and his options for recording women’s roles were constrained by available historical sources about what had happened. Yet he does allow Paul’s allies Priscilla and Aquila to instruct the famous Apollos (Acts 18:26).

As examples above should illustrate, some ancient traditionalists (e.g., Valerius Maximus) allowed and even highlighted exceptions, yet for them exceptions proved the rule; others who were more progressive (e.g., Musonius) might use such “exceptions” to encourage further cases. Luke offers no editorial aside to explain how to interpret these examples, but that he offers multiple cases cannot, I believe, be coincidence. As elsewhere in analyzing Luke’s narrative, we infer many of his points through repetition and emphasis.

What is clear is that Luke expects women (such as Anna and Philip’s four daughters) to declare the word of the Lord and regards this as normative, illustrating the programmatic principle articulated in 2:17–18. The same Spirit that forces the church across ethnic and cultural barriers also breaks down gender barriers for speaking God’s message. The most obvious examples are specific prophetesses, who, like specific prophets, are limited in number. But for Luke, the principle of 2:17–18 applies to all believers, since the Spirit empowers all to announce the message about Jesus, including cross-culturally (see comment on ).

Weighing our exploration of Luke’s approach to gender with our exploration of the options in his culture does not allow us to pinpoint with precision Luke’s opinion on every item that he does not explicitly address. I do believe, however, that it suffices to place him among more progressive, rather than less progressive, voices of his era.

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