Seite - 37 - in Austrian Law Journal, Band 1/2017

ALJ 1/2017 Women and Civic Identity in Roman Antiquity 37 legal framework of marriage, whilst the importance of women in the religious public sphere decreased. However, Christianity was to become a total social fact, in the sense used by Marcel Mauss, in other words, a feature of Roman culture that is connected to all others and therefore also contributes to structuring civic identity. In this sense, the role taken on by Christianity in the social construction of female identity and therefore in the role of women in society and the state is important. With this in mind, the history of this role can certainly be divided into two parts. In the first part, from the preaching of Christ until the end of the III century CE, the female presence is strong and important. One of the most popular strands of research in recent years is precisely the study of the history of the female role: at home, women pray and host meetings of the faithful, as seen in Men and Women in the Household of God by Korinna Zamfir.59 The picture that emerges is of a generally free domestic and non-domestic condition of women: in this regard, the figure of Lydia of Thyatira and her meeting with the Apostle Paul at Philippi is an apt example.60 At the same time, we see a strand of misogyny that is obviously a child of the times and that will condition the whole history of Christianity up to the present. This strand finds its strongest expression in the theological problem of whether women, like men, are imago Dei, with a pre- dominantly negative answer that later will be overcome, albeit with difficulty. The most im- portant formulation of this trend can be found in a fragment of the Gospel of Thomas, proba- bly influenced by the philosophy of Clement of Alexandria61 but which is in any case perfectly in line with Pauline thought:62 “Simon Peter said to them, ‘Make Mary leave us, for females don't deserve life.’ Jesus said, ‘Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven.’” Traditional Roman law63 and Christian theology meet in Ambrosiaster,64 at about 380 CE: “For in what way can it be said of the woman, that she is the image of God, who is known to sub- ject to the dominion of the man and to have no authority? For neither is she able to teach, nor to be a witness or not to stand security for someone, not to judge: how much more to rule!”65 59 KORINNA ZAMFIR, MEN AND WOMEN IN THE HOUSEHOLD OF GOD. A CONTEXTUAL APPROACH TO ROLES AND MINISTRIES IN THE PASTORAL EPISTLES (2013). 60 ACTA AP. 16.11–15. 61 CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA EXC. THEOD. 21.3 see MAURO PESCE, LE PAROLE DIMENTICATE DI GESÙ 72, 582 (2004). 62 See PAUL. 1 COR. 11.3–10 (much more concrete than PAUL. GAL. 3.27–28 [a mere statement of principle]). 63 See LIV. 34.7.9, supra note 10, especially the list of exclusions in the famous DIG. 50.17.2 PR.-1 (Ulp. 1 ad Sab.): “Feminae ab omnibus officiis civilibus vel publicis remotae sunt et ideo nec iudices esse possunt nec magistratum gerere nec postulare nec pro alio intervenire nec procuratores existere. 1. Item impubes omnibus officiis civilibus debet abstinere.” “Women are debarred from all civil and public functions and therefore cannot be judges or hold a magis- tracy or bring a lawsuit or intervene on behalf of anyone else or act as procurators. 1. Likewise, someone who is not grown up must abstain from all civil functions.”; FRIER-MCGINN, supra note *, at 457: “act as procurators (for others in lawsuits)”. 64 (Unknown author, very probably a Christian linked to Judaic culture and with a good legal education.) Ulrich Manthe, Wurde die Collatio vom Ambrosiaster Isaak geschrieben?, in FESTSCHRIFT R. KNÜTEL ZUM 70. GEB. 737 (Holger Altmeppen ed., 2009). 65 AMBROSIASTER Quaestiones veteris et novi Testamenti 45.3: “Quomodo enim potest de muliere dici, quia imago dei est, quam constat dominio viri subiectam et nullam auctoritatem habere? Nec docere enim potest nec testis esse neque fidem dicere nec iudicare: quanto magis imperare!” (It has been said about this text [Wurde die Collatio — id., a 742;