The Malta Classics Association is holding an online public lecture on Tuesday, entitled ‘Early Christian Feminist Reads’, to be delivered by Despina Iosif, a historian of the Greco-Roman world.
In the opening of her 2017 book Women and Power, Mary Beard writes that the first recorded example of a man telling a woman to “shut up” − telling her that her voice was not to be heard in public − is immortalised in the Odyssey 1.346-7 and 356-9, when Telemachus orders his mother not to express her thoughts and will in the presence of others but rather to withdraw to her quarters.
Iosif notes that throughout antiquity in the Mediterranean, it was widely held that women were by nature inferior to males and prone to error, that their subordination was totally justified and that it was preferable for them to remain silent.
But the Apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla did not follow widely held notions on women. The fascinating early Christian text was written in the second half of the second century CE as a manual for educating liberal and strong women. This was also precisely the reason why it was soon considered by mainstream Christian fathers as a far too dangerous read for Christian maidens and it got rejected.
The lecture starts at 7pm and is free and open to the public. Those who would like to tune in, can click here.
