Introduction

Abstract

Abstract When I published the first edition of this sourcebook in 1988, I wanted to assemble in one place, in English translation, major texts and documents pertaining to the study of women’s religious activities in the various religions of Greco-Roman antiquity, including Judaism and Christianity. As I pointed out at the time, there were then numerous sourcebooks on the religions of Greco-Roman antiquity (many designed to aid the study of the New Testament and early Christianity), an anthology of texts on women’s lives in Greek and Roman society, and several on women in Christian sources. A handful of studies surveyed what were then couched as “attitudes” toward women in Judaism and Christianity, and one Christian feminist theologian had assembled a collection of resources for feminist (Christian) theology. No one, however, had assembled the texts relevant to women’s religions in Western antiquity. Maenads, Martyrs, Matrons, Monastics: A Sourcebook of Women’s Religions in the Greco-Roman World marshaled an array of materials into 135 entries, ranging from Euripides’ description of the first ecstatic worshipers of the Greek god Dionysos in his late-fifth-century b.c.e. prize-winning play The Bacchae to Philo of Alexandria’s report on monastic Jewish women philosophers in the first century c.e. to epitaphs attesting women deacons and elders in numerous Christian communities, and women leaders in late antique Jewish synagogues.