Her Share of the Blessings: Women's Religions among Pagans, Jews, and Christians in the Greco-Roman World

by Ross Shepard Kraemer

Whether pagan, Jewish, or Christian, religion was an integral part of the lives of women in the Greco-Roman world. Yet studies of the ancient Mediterranean world have focused almost exclusively on the religious beliefs and practices of men.
In Her Share of the Blessings , Ross Shepard Kraemer provides the first comprehensive look at women's religions in Greco-Roman antiquity. She vividly recreates the religious lives of early Christian, Jewish, and pagan women, with many fascinating Greek women's devotion to goddesses,
rites of Roman matrons, Jewish women in rabbinic and diaspora communities, Christian women's struggles to exercise authority and autonomy, and women's roles as leaders in the full spectrum of Greco-Roman religions. In every case, Kraemer reveals the connections between the social constraints under
which women lived, and their religious beliefs and practices.
Women's religious devotion often reflected and reinforced social definitions of women in terms of their relationships to men, as daughters, wives, sisters and mothers. Yet religions such as the ecstatic worship of Dionysos (where women periodically abandoned husbands, children and social
responsibilities for nocturnal mountain rites), enabled women to find increased autonomy and female community, at least temporarily.
The relationship between female autonomy, sexuality and religion emerges as a persistent theme. In antiquity, the body was associated with the soul and spirit with the male. Analyzing the monastic Jewish Therapeutae and various Christian communities, Kraemer demonstrates the
paradoxical liberation which women achieved by rejection of sexuality, the body and the female. In the epilogue, Kraemer pursues the disturbing implications such findings have for contemporary women.
Based on epitaphs and public inscriptions, letters and personal documents, references in literary works, and feminist and anthropological studies, Her Share of the Blessings is an insightful work that goes beyond the limitations of previous scholarship to provide a more accurate portrait of
Jewish, Christian and pagan women in the Greco-Roman world.

Genres: History, Religion, Christianity, Nonfiction, Judaism, Feminism

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Ross Shepard Kraemer is a professor of Religious Studies at Brown University, specializing in early Christianity and other religions of the Greco-Roman Mediterranean.

Reviews

[Brian Griffith · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well-researched account of devout women in Judeo-Christian tradition, their gifts to religion, and the restrictions placed on those gifts. Kraemer compares developments, both within and between regional churches. She shows that in many areas women never lost their right to serve as teachers and deaconesses. As Archbishop John Chrysosthom of Constantinople explained (around the year 400), the New Testament clearly encouraged women to teach, and even to teach males. Obviously it took women to teach other women in their quarters. And if the church forbade females to instruct men, how could a Christian woman ever bring her male relatives to Christ? As Chrysosthom spoke, he perhaps bore in mind a famous mother from central Turkey named Emmelia, whose sons included two major saints of the Eastern Church -- Basil of Caesarea, and Gregory of Nyassa. Emmilia's sons certainly proclaimed their debt to her. And we may wonder how many Christian teachers ever raised up better students than this woman.

With attention to step-by-step increments, Kraemer measures the growing restrictions on women's devotion. Where male leaders tried to stop females from serving the sacred meal (on suspicion they might be menstruating and pollute the host), the women could always hold their own ceremonies for females only. The women of Salamis (in Asia Minor) certainly did so, but then their Bishop, Epiphianus, complained of self-appointed female priests who presumed to conduct their own services:

"They attempt to undertake a deed that is irreverent and blasphemous beyond measure -- in her [Mary's] name they function as priests for women. ... For some women prepare a certain kind of little cake with four indentations, cover it with a fine linen veil on a solemn day of the year, and on certain days they set forth the bread and offer it in the name of Mary." (p. 166.)

Kraemer follows this theme northward as Christianity spread into Europe, moving into regions with ancient traditions of reverence for local holy women. In these areas, local priests often treated support from female leaders as a blessing rather than a corruption. Therefore, in 494, Roman Pope Gelasius felt he must castigate the overly permissive priests of Lucania (Portugal):

"As we have learned to our anger, such a contempt for the divine truths has set in that even women, it has been reported, serve at the holy altars. And everything that is exclusively entrusted to the service of men has been carried out by the sex that has no right to it." (p. 132.)

In detail and sensitivity the book is very illuminating. It gives a history-long overview, showing how great a role the mothers and daughters of Western religion have played.

[Jeff O'Connor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ross Shepard Kraemer's Her Share of the Blessings: Women's Religions Among Pagans, Jews, and Christians in the Greco-Roman World is a landmark study on women's religious practices in antiquity. In order to reveal the complex and varied religious practices of women in various cultural and religious contexts, Kraemer carefully studies a broad range of materials, including literary works and archaeological discoveries. She sheds light on how women negotiated and affected their religious landscapes despite the patriarchal confines of their communities. The book makes a strong case for the important—yet sometimes disregarded—part that women played in forming Greco-Roman religious customs.

Although Kraemer's work is ground-breaking and incredibly enlightening, readers who are not familiar with ancient history or religious studies may find it to be somewhat dense and difficult. The book's scientific rigor is largely dependent on its academic tone and intensive use of primary sources, which may limit its accessibility to a wider readership. Nevertheless, Her Share of the Blessings is a priceless tool for anybody curious about the relationships between gender, religion, and history. It improves our understanding of women's religious experiences in antiquity and draws attention to the wider implications of these customs for the formation of religious traditions.

[Ellie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ross S. Kraemer is the go-to for women's ancient history. This book is brilliant, well referenced and researched. Kraemer not only interestingly analyses the history, but also applies anthropological theorems, which is very interesting.

[Ella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dated but still an interesting read for those interested in women’s religion of the ancient world.

[Kharm · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was good, but not quite what I was hoping for. While it is well researched, academic and well cited - I would have preferred more direct citation of primary sources in the text itself, instead of just referencing the notes in the back. I would have been happy to read a book twice as long if it had more direct citations in-text.

I also would have preferred more detail about the role of women in pagan religions and cults. I felt like half the book was about women in early Christianity - which I'm sure is fascinating for some people, but it's not interesting to me. I would love to read a book focusing specifically on women in pagan religions, but this book was not that.

I had problems staying focused through the many chapters on Christianity, but it was all worth it for this quote in the epilogue:

"I would have to agree with that same astute reviewer of Maenads, Ann Loades, who suggested that those preoccupied with Christianity might do well to reflect on the differences between a religion whose central myth is that of the separation and ultimate reunion of mother and daughter beloved of one another, and that of a religion whose central myth is of a father who requires the painful sacrificial death of his only son."

I'm sure I will re-read this at some point, but I'll probably stop after the pagan chapters.

[Alexander Kennedy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book fulfilled my main purpose for reading it which was giving me some details about roles women played in rituals, marital practices, fashion, sex life, and inheritance. Her book centers around a sociological model for analyzing religion that makes religion look like a tool of the elite to suppress women. While culture most definitely shapes religion, there are underlying religious truths that go beyond constructed society. In fairness, this book was a very hard undertaking because source material from a female perspective is seriously lacking.

[Roger Burk · Rating 1 out of 5]

She reviews the scanty evidence concerning women's private religious practices and beliefs in the classical world, filling in the many gaps with free speculation. The word "Conceivably" pops up again and again to introduce another unverifiable hypothesis. She applies to the subject a modern feminist framework that is wholely foreign to classical thinking, heedless that applying such a constract to sparse data is as likely generate false patterns as to yield new insights.

[Daniel Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredible resource for starting research on Women and religion. I really enjoyed the readability and well researched material. I would like to have seen a little more engagement into the hermetical differences on some of the Christian texts. But overall it was a fantastic resource. Not the final word, but a great place to explore the issue of women's religion and women in religion.

[Bruce Morton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Careful, groundbreaking research regarding the female leadership and characteristics of the ancient Dionysus cult. Ross Shepard Kraemer puts students of Paul's letters to Roman Asia in her debt.

[Farzana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Slendid, detailed analysis.