sexist Roman slogan (and what Paul may do with it)

Kay Bonikowsky has a post up in which she suggests that "Paul was quoting a slogan" when writing in Greek to men and women in Korinth, Greece.  Translator Ann Nyland, likewise, says the following, right in the middle of her translation of what we call Chapter 14 of Paul's letter; Nyland says: "Paul now quotes from the letter sent to him by the Corinthian assembly."

The Corinthian men had quoted the Law of the Roman empire at Paul.  So how did that go?  Well, in a bit, I'll show you.  First, I want to let Cheryl Glenn remind us about that Roman law:

A particular point of Roman male pride seems to have been the deliberate exclusion of women from civil and public duties; and in the first centuries of its history, Roman law reflected rigid legal inequalities between males and females.  Cicero reportedly contemplated with utter dismay a society which "included women in assemblies" and which allowed women "soldiery and magistracies and commands."  "How great will be the misfortune of that city, in which women will assume the public duties of men" (Lactantius, Epitomes 33.[38.]1-5, ascribed to De re publica 4-5, qtd. in Hallett, Fathers 8)....  Over centuries, Roman law constructed and guaranteed the sexual distinction -- and division -- between males and females.  The differential between the legal status of women and that of men was justified by the natural inferiority of women:  their congenital weakness, limited intellectual faculties, and ignorance of law....  Roman women were perpetually restrained by law. [ Rhetoric Retold: Regendering the Tradition from Antiquity Through the Renaissance, pages 61-62, emphases mine: the red font the Roman exclusions, the blue the more liberal inclusions elsewhere.]

Glenn goes on from her research to discuss at great length the effects of the Law.  The legal constraints applied to women more severely under Roman rule even more than they had under the old laws and customs of the Greek empire.  The oppressive Law worked to silence women in Rome, in Athens, in Jerusalem and in Korinth:

Like the Greek matron, then, the Roman woman was oppressively busy managing her household and family [i.e., the Roman Domum as the counterpart of the Greek οἰκοδομή -- the OIKO-DOMĒ -- the domain of the home].... Because the Romans clung to the ideal of the domina, of the strong privatized woman, they [i.e., the Roman men] often reacted with perplexity or disgust at the women who pursued intellectual or political aspirations. Unlike the very few Greek women who found acceptance and admiration in the public domain, no Roman woman seems to have succeeded in establishing herself as a public figure in her own right....  The Greeks and Romans [i.e., the men] regarded most women as ciphers, whose worth varied according to the property and family connections accompanying them.  Women were to be traded among men.  And historians -- from the first -- have had little more to say about these women, who were always, particularly in their exceptions, defined by the private, feminine sphere.  The women in my study who passed into the public sphere, even if only temporarily, found themselves vulnerable to assaults on their families, their honor, their sexuality, their "feminine" influence.  These women endured the closest of inspections and critiques by males and females alike, usually being disarmed of their influence and respect in the process.  [ Rhetoric Retold, pages 63, 72-73, emphases mine: the red font the Roman exclusions, the blue the more liberal inclusions elsewhere.]

Okay, so what was the slogan, the Roman law, that the men of Korinth wrote to Paul?  And how did he reply?  Let's look, first at their Greek, then at our English.  (What my translation attempts is to show Paul's play with "feminine" words, with HOME-DOMAIN and with SILENCE and with ALL-inclusion in the ASSEMBLY and with the creative, maternal words of BIRTH.)  Here, hear:

Τί οὖν ἐστίν, ἀδελφοί;
Ὅταν συνέρχησθε ἕκαστος

ψαλμὸν ἔχει,
διδαχὴν ἔχει,
ἀποκάλυψιν ἔχει,
γλῶσσαν ἔχει,
ἑρμηνείαν ἔχει.

Πάντα πρὸς οἰκοδομὴν γινέσθω.

Εἴτε γλώσσῃ τις λαλεῖ,
κατὰ δύο ἢ τὸ πλεῖστον τρεῖς,
καὶ ἀνὰ μέρος,
καὶ εἷς διερμηνευέτω·
ἐὰν δὲ μὴ ᾖ διερμηνευτής,
σιγάτω ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ·
ἑαυτῷ δὲ λαλείτω καὶ τῷ θεῷ.

Προφῆται δὲ δύο ἢ τρεῖς λαλείτωσαν,
καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι διακρινέτωσαν.
Ἐὰν δὲ ἄλλῳ ἀποκαλυφθῇ καθημένῳ,
ὁ πρῶτος σιγάτω.

Δύνασθε γὰρ καθ’ 

ἕνα πάντες προφητεύειν,
ἵνα πάντες μανθάνωσιν,
καὶ πάντες παρακαλῶνται·
καὶ πνεύματα προφητῶν
προφήταις ὑποτάσσεται.

Οὐ γάρ ἐστιν ἀκαταστασίας ὁ θεός,
ἀλλὰ εἰρήνης,
ὡς ἐν πάσαις ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις τῶν ἁγίων.

Αἱ γυναῖκες ὑμῶν ἐν ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις σιγάτωσαν·
οὐ γὰρ ἐπιτρέπεται αὐταῖς λαλεῖν,
ἀλλὰ ὑποτασσέσθωσαν,

καθὼς καὶ ὁ νόμος λέγει.

Εἰ δέ τι μαθεῖν θέλουσιν,
ἐν οἴκῳ τοὺς ἰδίους ἄνδρας ἐπερωτάτωσαν·
αἰσχρὸν γάρ ἐστιν γυναικὶ λαλεῖν ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ.

Ἢ
ἀφ’ ὑμῶν ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ ἐξῆλθεν;
Ἢ
εἰς ὑμᾶς μόνους κατήντησεν;

Εἴ τις δοκεῖ προφήτης εἶναι ἢ πνευματικός,
ἐπιγινωσκέτω ἃ γράφω ὑμῖν,
ὅτι κυρίου ἐστὶν ἐντολή
Εἰ δέ τις ἀγνοεῖ, ἀγνοεῖται.
Ὥστε, ἀδελφοί μου, ζηλοῦτε τὸ προφητεύειν,
καὶ τὸ λαλεῖν μὴ κωλύετε γλώσσαις·
πάντα δὲ εὐσχημόνως
καὶ κατὰ τάξιν γινέσθω.

In English, that goes something like this:

What is it, then, brothers?
When you meet together, each one may

have a Psalm,
have an Instruction,
have a Revelation,
have a Tongue,
have a Translation.

All gives birth to the Domain of the Home:

Whether it's a Tongue that is uttered,
by two or at the most three,
both a Top Part,
and through to a Translation.

Should there, however, not be the Translation, then: 
Silence in the Assembly!
To oneself, nonetheless, is an Utterance, and to God.

Prophesy, nonetheless, by two or three Utterances,
And the others through to a Judgement. 

Should there come, in fact, some Revelation to another seated, then:
For the first one, Silence!

You all, in fact, are quite able:

One and all may Prophesy
So that all may be Apprenticed
And all may be Called to Encouragement.
And may the Spirit of a Prophecy
Be given Order Under Prophets.

There's not, in fact, a God of Disruption,
but rather of Peace,
which is in all, in the Assembly, of the Holy ones. 

Your women, in the Assembly, are to be Silent! 
Give, in fact, to them no Turn to Utter anything there,
but rather give them their Order Under. 

just as the Law also states

If, however, some wish to be Apprenticed,
Then it's in the Home where their own men are that these may Question.
It is shameful, in fact, for women to Utter anything in the Assembly.

What?!
Is that from you all, The Statement of God springing out like your baby?
What?!
Is this your special delivery?

If someone opines that they have so Prophesied, or are so Spiritual,
then let him understand what I have written to you all:
our Master is giving Commandments.
If, nonetheless, someone is without understanding, then he lacks understanding. 
Therefore, my brothers, yearn to Prophesy,
and to Utter (don't forbid it) a Tongue.
All, nonetheless, with Blessed Form
and according to Arrangement be birthed! 

Home Training: Rhetorical (Hellenist-Roman-Afra) Feminism

SEXISM

Julius Ceasar was a sexist man, as William Shakespeare portrays him. (See “Making a Woman and Other Institutionalized Diversions,” by Jeanne Addison Roberts and “O, what men dare do” by Anthony Sampson).

And generally men in ancient Rome were chauvanists, according Cheryl Glenn: “A particular point of Roman male pride seems to have been the deliberate exclusion of women from civil and public duties” (See Rhetoric Retold: Regendering the Tradition from Antiquity Through the Renaissance page, 61).

FEMINISM

But we must retell this history, a bit more, a bit differently. First, the facts we all know (from the cradle):

Julius Caesar was born to Gaius Caesar, the patrician, and to Aurelia Cotta, the plebian. The baby boy was born after two girls, Julia Caesaris the Elder and Julia Caesaris the Younger.

The historical facts show that Aurelia Cotta perfectly fulfilled the Roman “ideal of the domina, of the strong privatized woman” (Glenn 72). Aurelia Cotta was “very influential in her son’s upbringing and security” while her husband “was often away.” Thus, the “historian Tacitus, considers her as an ideal Roman matron and thinks highly of her. Plutarch describes her as a ‘strict and respectable’ woman. Highly intelligent, independent and renowned for her beauty and common sense, Aurelia was held in high regard throughout Rome” (See her history being written at Wikipedia.)

HINTS OF HELLENIST-ROMAN-AFRA RHETORICAL FEMINISM

But we must retell this story a bit more, and quite a bit differently. Second, the earliest factual accounts we tend to overlook (to the grave):

Julius Caesar had the presence of mind to speak and act when he was assassinated. Let’s review then rewind from Shakespeare’s (16 century A.D.) version of what he said:

“Et tu, Brute? Then fall Caesar!”

Let’s go back to and then beyond snippets of Plutarch’s (1st century A.D.) version (and of the 20th century A.D. English translations) of what he said and did:

πρῶτος δὲ Κάσκας ξίφει παίει παρὰ τὸν αὐχένα πληγὴν οὐ θανατηφόρον οὐδὲ βαθεῖαν, ἀλλ’ ὡς εἰκὸς ἐν ἀρχῇ τολμήματος μεγάλου ταραχθείς, ὥστε καὶ τὸν Καίσαρα μεταστραφέντα τοῦ ἐγχειριδίου λαβέσθαι καὶ κατασχεῖν.

It was Casca who gave him the first blow with his dagger, in the neck, not a mortal would, nor even a deep one, for which he was too much confused, as was natural at the beginning of a deed of great daring; so that Caesar turned about, grasped the knife, and held it fast.

ἅμα δέ πως ἐξεφώνησαν, ὁ μὲν πληγεὶς Ῥωμαϊστί· „μιαρώτατε Κάσκα, τί ποιεῖς;“ ὁ δὲ πλήξας Ἑλληνιστὶ πρὸς τὸν ἀδελφόν· „ἀδελφέ, βοήθει“.

At almost the same instant both cried out, the smitten man in Latin: "Accursed Casca, what does thou?" and the smiter, in Greek, to his brother: "Brother, help!"

διὸ καὶ Βροῦτος αὐτῷ πληγὴν ἐνέβαλε μίαν εἰς τὸν βουβῶνα. λέγεται δ’ ὑπό τινων, ὡς ἄρα πρὸς τοὺς ἄλλους ἀπομαχόμενος καὶ διαφέρων δεῦρο κἀκεῖ τὸ σῶμα καὶ κεκραγώς, ὅτε Βροῦτον εἶδεν ἐσπασμένον τὸ ξίφος, ἐφειλκύσατο κατὰ τῆς κεφαλῆς τὸ ἱμάτιον καὶ παρῆκεν ἑαυτόν, εἴτ’ ἀπὸ τύχης εἴθ’ ὑπὸ τῶν κτεινόντων ἀπωσθεὶς πρὸς τὴν βάσιν ἐφ’ ἧς ὁ Πομπηΐου βέβηκεν ἀνδριάς.

Therefore Brutus also gave him one blow in the groin. And it is said by some writers that although Caesar defended himself against the rest and darted this way and that and cried aloud, when he saw that Brutus had drawn his dagger, he pulled his toga down over his head and sank, either by chance or because pushed there by his murderers, against the pedestal on which the statue of Pompey stood.

Let’s now read what the Roman historian Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus writes (in our earliest 1st century account, with a later 20th century translation):

Atque ita tribus et viginti plagis confossus est uno modo ad primum ictum gemitu sine voce edito, etsi tradiderunt quidam Marco Bruto irruenti dixisse: καὶ σὑ τὲκνον;

And in this wise he was stabbed with three and twenty wounds, uttering not a word, but merely a groan at the first stroke, though some have written that when Marcus Brutus rushed at him, he said in Greek, “You too, my child?”

Now, let’s reconsider.

What if Julius Caesar’s dying words were not Latin (as Shakespeare and Plutarch have suggested)?

What if, in the Hellenist language, Caesar said to Brutus (as the Latin-writing but then Hellenist-alphabet writing-historian Suetonius reports from his other earlier sources): καὶ σὑ τὲκνον?

Where would Julius have gotten those Hellenist utterances? Who would have trained him so viscerally in this other mother tongue?

HOME TRAINING

So we retell this a bit more, a good bit differently. Third, then, here are some things we do well to hear (feminist rhetorics of resistance):

Aurelia Cotta was the trainer of those in her home. She was the mother of Julia Caesaris the Elder, Julia Caesaris the Younger, and Gaius Julius Caesar. She was the bodily present parent. She was the plebian parent (not one of the patricians, like her husband). She told stories. She was educated. She read Homer, Hesiod, and Sappho, and spoke the Hellenist tongue.

It is not too far fetched to imagine Aurelia Cotta reading the Illiad in her home place. It is likely to have been some act of resistance. Resistance to being silenced, as a woman, as a plebian, as a mother, in Rome! (Glenn reminds us here that:

Because the Romans clung to the ideal of the domina, of the strong privatized woman, they [i.e., the Roman men] often reacted with perplexity or disgust at the women who pursued intellectual or political aspirations. Unlike the very few Greek women who found acceptance and admiration in the public domain, no Roman woman seems to have succeeded in establishing herself as a public figure in her own right. [72])

It is not too difficult to think that little Julius hears his mother's Hellenistic words of resistance profoundly. He hears them as the Hellenist hero Achilles, the son, hears them from his own mother, Thetis. (James J. Murphy says little Roman boys profoundly learned lots of Hellenistic rhetoric: "The young lad who begins with a simple fable of Aesop ends up years later as a young adult doing the same thing with a complex speech of Demosthenes . . ." [61]. Feminist history explains the role of the mothers).

Listen as if to Aurelia Cotta reading and reciting to her children the Hellenist words of Thebis to her child (from the Illiad, Book 1, Line 414):

τὸν δ' ήμεἰβετ' ἐπειτα Θέτις κατά δάκρυ χἐουσα:
Thetis answered him then letting the tears fall: 'Ah me,

ὥ μοι τἐκνον ἐμὸν, τἰ νὑ σ' ἐτρεφον αἰνά τεκοῦσα;
my child. Your birth was bitterness. Why did I raise you?

It is not impossible that “ὥ μοι τἐκνον ἐμὸν” [“ah me, my child”] is heard and heard and recited and recited and spoken again by young Julius. So it is not impossible that “καὶ σὑ τὲκνον” [“and you? child”] rolls off the tongue of the dying man, Julius Caesar. He is a son who repeatedly heard his parent, his mother. When a dying man, as a parent (perhaps even the parent of Brutus) he now identifies with and repeats the words of his mother, those words of Thetis, who was (also) betrayed by a son.

I am not trying to suggest that Julius Caesar was not sexist. Or that ancient Roman (or Greek) men generally were not chauvinists.

Rather, I am hoping to show that such simple categorizations of ancient men hardly shows the profound impact of ancient women on such boys and men (from cradle to grave). The impact is in the rhetorics these women found and used.

HOMEGROWN FEMINIST RHETORICS

(Feminist) rhetorician, Patricia Bizzell, praises the “afrafeminist ideology” of Jacqueline Jones Royster as good “feminist rhetorical methodology.” And Royster says the following as she wonders how non-African American scholars can so speak for her, an African American woman (in her article, "When the First Voice You Hear is Not Your Own"):

People in the neighborhood where I grew up would say, “Where is their home training?” Imbedded in the question is the idea that when you visit other people’s “home places,” especially when you have not been invited, you simply can not go tramping around the house like you own the place, no matter how smart you are, or how much imagination you can muster, or how much authority and entitlement outside that home you may be privileged to hold. (32)

bell hooks, another Afrafeminist, puts it this way (in "Homeplace: a Site of Resistance"):

Throughout our history, African-Americans have recognized the subversive value of homeplace, of having access to private space where we do not directly encounter white racist agression. Whatever the shape and direction of black liberation struggle (civil rights reform or black power movement), domestic space has been a crucial site for organizing, for forming political solidarity.

In our young minds houses belonged to women, were their special domain, not as property, but as places where all that truly mattered in life took place—the warmth and comfort of shelter, the feeding of our bodies, the nurturing of our souls. There we learned dignity, integrity of being; there we learned to have faith. The folks who made this life possible, who were our primary guides and teachers, were black women . . . [who fostered] a radical political dimension . . . [and who created] a site of resistance and liberation struggle (47).

I shall never forget the sense of shared history, of common anguish, I felt when first reading about the plight of black women domestic servants in South Africa, black women domestic servants in South Africa, black women laboring in white homes. Their stories evoked vivid memories of our African-Amerocian past. . .

I want to remember these black women today. The act of remembrance is a conscious gesture honoring their struggle, their effort to keep something for their own. I want us to respect and understand that this effort has been and continues to be a radically subversive political gesture. For those who dominate and oppress us benefit most when we have nothing to give our own, when they have so taken from us our dignity, our humaness that we have nothing left, no “homeplace” where we can recover ourselves. I want us to remember these black women today, both past and present. (42-43)

Let's make the connections, between women (Africans, African Americans, Hellenists [goddesses and humans] and Romans) and men. How profound our histories, our passionate bodily rhetoric of memory:

Aurelia Cotta bore and raised Julius Caesar. But most later (merely sexist, even "feminist") histories have him simply living and dying as a sexist.

What gets missed in such historying (i.e., historiography) is the Hellenist-Roman-Afra-feminism of Aurelia Cotta and of the Hellenist Thebis that influenced Caesar to his dying words. His words, because of his mother's rhetorical influence, have him, at the very end, identifying with the pain, and the loss, of a mother.

Feminist retelling of feminist rhetorics (such as that of Sappho, of Aurelia Cotta, of Laura Cereta, of Christine de Pizan, of Cheryl Glenn, of Patricia Bizzell, of bell hooks, and of Jacqueline Jones Royster's) indicate the power of the woman. The woman's power is in resistance. Her power is in rhetorically telling and retelling histories more fully, with our profound identification with the pain, and the loss, of a mother separated from her child. The ultimate uttered response to such betrayal runs deep in boys and men and girls and women trained in her home place.