Harvard Divinity School

The Milk of Salvation: Redemption by the Mother in Late Antiquity and Early Christianity
Author(s): Gail Paterson Corrington
Source: The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 82, No. 4 (Oct., 1989), pp. 393-420
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Harvard Divinity School
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HTR82:4 (1989) 393-420

THE MILK OF SALVATION: REDEMPTIONBY THE MOTHER

IN LATE ANTIQUITYAND EARLY CHRISTIANITY

Gail PatersonCorrington
Rhodes College

In their recovery and interpretationof the evidence for women's religious

involvement in antiquity, feminist historians of religion employ terms like
"image," "reflection," and "symbol" as constants in their vocabulary.1This
terminology indicates the importance feminist scholars attach to the ways in
which women's activities are presented and the ways in which they are inter-
preted. Interpretationbecomes the more difficult as one approaches the reli-
gions of the ancient Mediterraneanworld, not only because of the relative pau-
city and elusive natureof the evidence for women's participationin these reli-
gions, but also because the two great bodies of canon in the West-the literary
artifactsof the Greco-Romanworld and the canon of biblical literature-reflect
a dual process of "canonization." Certain cultural constructs and dominant
metaphorshave become embodied in the text themselves, while a traditionof
"canonized conventions" has been modeled by these metaphorsto "evaluate a
priori what we see."2 The interactionof conceptualization,representation,and
interpretationof appearance,moreover, is such that there cannot be an "inno-
cent eye." Nelson Goodman observes: "The eye always comes ancient to its
work.... Not only how but what it sees is regulated by need and perspec-
tive.... It does not so much mirror as take and make."3 Moreover, the use of

1See, e.g., Helene P. Foley, ed., Reflections of Women in Antiquity (New York: Gordon &
Breach, 1981); Averil Cameron and Amelie Kuhrt, eds., Images of Women in Antiquity (Detroit:
Wayne State University Press, 1983); ClarissaW. Atkinson, Constance H. Buchanan,and Margaret
R. Miles, eds., Immaculateand Powerful: The Female in Sacred Image and Social Reality (Boston:
Beacon, 1985); MarthaL. Banta, Imaging American Woman:Idea and Ideals in Cultural History
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1987); and KarenL. King, ed., Images of the Feminine in
Gnosticism (Studies in Antiquity and Christianity;Philadelphia:Fortress, 1988), to name some of
the more recent studies.
2Banta,ImagingAmericanWoman,xxx.
3Nelson Goodman,Languages of Art (Indianapolis:Bobbs-Merrill, 1968) 7-8, cited by Sallie
McFague, Metaphorical Theology: Models of God in Religious Language (Philadelphia:Fortress,
1981) 55.
394 HARVARD THEOLOGICALREVIEW

the term "image" itself reflects a process by which a particularrepresentationis

shaped and subsequentlyheld up as the way in which somethingis conceptually
"seen" or meant to be "seen," and which is not necessarily or even possibly a
"true" reflection.
Images, like the metaphorsto which they are roughly synonymous, are ways
of describingreality in a way thatboth participatesin it and points to it. As Max
Black has noted, metaphorsconjure up "a system of associated commonplaces
in the mind of the hearer, which are then applied to the subject."4 Thus both
verbal and visual metaphors("images") not only participatein a particularreal-
ity but also select from it, to re-presentit or idealize it. Metaphorsand images
are thus ways of providingmodels for, as well as models of, experience.5It is as
models, moreover, that metaphoricalmodes of describing reality become espe-
cially perilous. As dominantor sustained metaphors,models furtherprivilege
one mode of expression or one form of experience over another, while con-
sciousness of the model's having gone througha process of origination,forma-
tion, and selection has been lost. The model is then assumed to be the "true"
representationof "the way things are," and, even more, the way things ought to
be.6 As Janet Nelson observes: "At a given moment, the religious tradition
exists as a repertoireof symbols: why choose to employ some ratherthan oth-
ers? And what determinesthe timing of the choice?"7
Feminist scholars are quick to emphasize that traditionally, metaphors,
images, and models-that is, "re-presentations" of certain experiences-are
infrequently generated by women themselves, who thus are presented with
models for their own experiences or idealizations of them, which may not be
models of such experiences. Recent feminist critiquesof art and literature(sys-
tems of "re-presentation"),therefore,have attemptedto "expose that system of
power that authorizes certain representationswhile blocking, prohibiting, or
invalidatingothers."8If this is true for modes of expressing concepts in general,
it is even more true for modes of expressing religious concepts. As Margaret

4Max Black, Models and Metaphors: Studies in Language and Philosophy (Ithaca: Corell
UniversityPress, 1962) 28, cited by ClaudiaV. Camp,Wisdomand the Feminine in the Book of Pro-
verbs (Bible and LiteratureSeries 11; Sheffield:JSOT/AlmondPress, 1985) 72.
5Clifford Geertz, "Religion as a Cultural System," in Michael Banton, ed., Anthropological
Approachesto the Study of Religion (London/New York: Tavistock, 1966) 1-46, cited in Caroline
WalkerBynum, Stevan Harrell,and Paula Richman,eds., Gender and Religion: On the Complexity
of Symbols(Boston: Beacon, 1986) 9.
6McFague,MetaphoricalTheology,74.
7JanetL. Nelson, "Society, Theodicy, and the Origins of Medieval Heresy," in Derek Baker,
ed., Schism, Heresy, and Religious Protest (Studies in Church History 9; Cambridge:Cambridge
University Press, 1972), cited by John G. Gager, "Body-Symbols and Social Reality: Resurrection,
Incarnation,and Asceticism in EarlyChristianity,"Religion 12 (1982) 345.
8CraigOwens, "The Discourse of Others:Feminists and Post-Modernism,"in Hal Foster, ed.,
TheAnti-Aesthetic:Essays in Post-ModernCulture(PortTownsend,WA: Bag Press, 1983) 57 -77.
 GAIL PATERSONCORRINGTON 395

Miles has noted, there is danger, as well as opportunity,for women's self-

definition and orientation,inherentin the available repertoireof religious sym-
bols:

The relativeactivitywith which religiousideas and imagesare critically

appropriated seems to be
or the passivitywith whichthey are intrajected
crucial.... In usingthereligiousideasandimagesofferedwithintheircul-
ture,womenmust choose carefullythe religioussymbolsthateffectively
challengeandempowerthemratherthanthosethatoppressandrenderthem
passive.9

Yet, as JudithOchshornhas pointed out, the available inventory of religious

models has become narrowedeven more in the monotheisticreligious traditions
that developed in the ancient Mediterranean. Although Ochshorn's study
focuses on the relationshipof Judaismto the polytheistic religions of the ancient
Near East, a parallel to it might be drawn in the relationshipof emergent Chris-
tianity to the polytheistic religions of the Greco-Romanworld. In Ochshom's
view, the limitationof deity to a single dynamic personalityentailed the assign-
ment to that persona of a gender that was perceived as the less "limited" in its
socio-biological roles.10 In the metaphorical language monotheism uses to
describe the deity, gender has an even greaterweight than it does in polytheism,
for as Sallie McFague observes, "the human images that are chosen as meta-
phors for God gain in statureand take on divine qualities by being placed in an
interactiverelationshipwith the divine."'
The tension between the universaland the particularbecomes even more crit-
ical in Christianity,as Mary Daly succinctly expresses it in Beyond God the
Father:

The problemis not thatthe Jesusof the Gospelswas male,young,and a

Semite. Rather,the problemlies in the exclusiveidentification
of thisper-
sonwithGod,in sucha mannerthatChristian conceptionsof divinityandof
the "image"of Godareall objectifiedin Jesus.12

Because Jesus is, for Christianity,not only the incarnationof the deity, but also
the redeemerand savior of humanexistence, the relationshipof women to Jesus,

9Miles, Immaculateand Powerful, 2. Although, in a personalcommunication,Professor Miles

has said that this statementno longer representsher thinkingon the subject, I believe that it remains
valid for the presentdiscussion.
l?JudithOchshor, The Female Experienceand the Nature of the Divine (Bloomington, IN: Indi-
ana UniversityPress, 1981) 136-40.
1
McFague, MetaphoricalTheology, 38.
'2Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women's Liberation (Boston:
Beacon, 1973) 78-79.
396 HARVARD THEOLOGICALREVIEW

not merely as a model, but as the model for that saved existence, is a crucial
one. RosemaryRadfordRuetherprovides the most devastatingcritique of what
she perceives to be the "mis-appropriation"of the savior figure by Christian
tradition:

Who is this savior,and fromwhatdoes he save us? This saviorof men

comes to free men frombirth,fromwomen,fromearth,andfromlimits.
This saviorcan only come in the imageof the male. As Godcan only be
imagedas male,as the maleis the properimageof God,so the saviortoo
mustbe male.... Onlythe malerepresents perfecthumanity.In turn,only
themalecanrepresent Christ.13

By this logic, then, in order to be saved, women must symbolically become

"male": that is, they must model their behavior and their perceptionsof them-
selves after a dominantmetaphorwhich does not partakeof their female nature
or experiences. This mode of behavior finds its literal expression in the gnostic
ChristianGospel of Thomas (second centuryCE). In his reply to Peter's objec-
tion to the discipleship of Mary (presumably,although not necessarily, Mary
Magdalene) in Logion 114, Jesus says, "See, I am going to attracther to make
her male so that she too might become a living spirit that resembles you males.
For every female (element) that makes itself male will enter the kingdom of
heaven." 14
The patternof females becoming male is not confined to gnostic Christians.
In the second-centuryapocryphalActs of Thekla,that exemplary young convert
does not begin her apostolic career in earnest until she cuts her hair and dons
male clothing, conformingto her model, the apostle Paul (Acts of Thekla40). In
a more orthodox work, the Martyrdomof Saints Perpetua and Felicitas (third
centuryCE),the martyr-narrator, Vibia Perpetua,describes the process by which
she "becomes male." Although she is nursing a child, she sends it away to be
cared for by others, and her breastmilk dries up. In her dreamof salvation, she
fights as a male gladiator and overcomes her opponent, the devil. The most
obvious model of a woman who redeems both herself and those women who
model themselves after her is the Virgin Mary, whose role as mother is down-
played or transformed,as we shall see, in favor of her role as virgin, virginity
being perceived as a form of "maleness."15
It seems clear, therefore,that the model for salvation in Christianityis both

13RosemaryR. Ruether,Woman-Church:Theologyand Practice of FeministLiturgicalCommun-

ities (San Francisco:Harper& Row, 1985) 70.
14BentleyLayton, ed. and trans., The Gnostic Scriptures (GardenCity, NY: Doubleday, 1987)
399.
'5See RichardA. Baer, "Philo's Use of the CategoriesMale and Female" (Ph.D. diss., Harvard
University, 1965) 84.
 GAIL PATERSONCORRINGTON 397

historically and conceptually gendered as male. As with all models within reli-
gious traditions,we may, with McFague, ask of this one the following questions:
Why is it dominant? To whom is it significant? Does it fit with "lived experi-
ence," or does it have to be "rationalizedin order to be held"?16To formulate
these questions somewhatmore particularly,were there not, in the period of for-
mative Christianity, female savior figures in the "existing repertoire" of
saviors? Is there a conditioned "way of seeing" that has failed to reveal their
availabilityor women's possible responses to them? Finally, is there some pro-
cess by which the attributesof these female savior figures, as models of and
models for women's religious lives, were incorporatedinto the metaphorical
language for a male deity and male savior, valorizing aspects of women's
experience while at the same time preventingthe savior from being "seen" as
female?
In asking and attemptingto answer these questions, we will be engaged in a
process that Helena Michie has called "the mirroras history": "The moment
that we admit the mirror's failure to reproduce an undistortedimage, we are
introducingthe mirroras materialobject, the mirrorof history."17 In the discus-
sion of the mirroras history, one image employed as a metaphorfor the experi-
ence of salvation-that of the divine mother nursing her child-will be exam-
ined in three ways. First, we shall see whetherthis metaphoris continuouswith
the reality of women's lives, whether it valorizes any aspect of female experi-
ence or not, and in what ways. Second, we shall see how a once-dominant
metaphor loses its dominance in favor of another model-that of the virgin
mothermanifestingher divine child to the world. Third,we shall examine how
divine lactationas a metaphorfor divine-humancommunicationbecomes incor-
poratedinto descriptionsof the deity and male savior figure in formative Chris-
tianity.
The importance of the experience of salvation to early Christianity as a
Greco-Romanreligion is emphasizedby Mircea Eliade in his statementthat the
"principal characteristic"of such religions was "the promise of salvation."18
In this context, salvation connotes safety, security, and well-being, procuredby
the agency of a deity who can overcome the hostile cosmic forces that produce
in individuals feelings of helplessness and powerlessness. Within the frame-
work of salvation, the saved participates in the power of the savior by
identificationwith, or adoption by, that savior, who thus is the "parent" of the
saved. Paul expresses one aspect of this experience as the "spirit of sonship" in

'6McFague,MetaphoricalTheology,27.
17HelenaMichie, The Flesh Made Word: Female Figures and Women's Bodies (New York:
OxfordUniversityPress, 1987) 10.
'8Mircea Eliade, A History of Religious Ideas, vol. 2: From GautamaBuddha to the Triumphof
Christianity(Chicago:Universityof Chicago Press, 1982) 277.
398 HARVARD THEOLOGICALREVIEW

Rom 8:15-16: "When we cry, 'Abba! Father!' it is the Spirit itself bearing
witness with our spiritthat we are childrenof God."
One of the most widely worshiped of the saving deities of the Common
Era was not, however, a divine Father but a divine Mother, the goddess Isis.
Apuleius of Madaura,the second-centuryauthorwho tells us that he had been
initiatedinto many of the salvationmysteries of the Greco-RomanWorld (Apol.
55), writes in his novel, the Metamorphoses,that Isis, the conquerorof hostile
Fortune (Met. 11.15), is also the divine and compassionatemother who assists
her unfortunatehuman children. To Lucius, the protagonistof Apuleius's tale,
whose metaphoricalasininityhas turnedhim into an actual ass, Isis declares that
she will save him: "I am here, having taken pity on your misfortunes;I am here,
with favor and with solace."
Because she is a divine mother, Isis becomes associated with other mother
goddesses throughoutthe Mediterraneanworld, such as Hathor, Demeter, and
Cybele. Because she is a female deity, she becomes associated with other
female deities as different as Aphrodite and Artemis, but like all of these
goddesses, Isis protects women in all their passages throughlife. For example,
in Roman Spain (Acci, mid-second centuryCE),a grandmother,Fabia, makes a
dedicationon behalf of her granddaughterAvita to Isis puellaris, protectoressof
prepubescent girls (SIRIS 761). In Beroea, Macedonia, during the Roman
imperial period, a marble tablet is dedicated to Isis lochia, who presides over
childbirth,by L. BruttiusAgathophorusand his wife, Eleutheria,on behalf of
their daughter Meilesia (SEG XII.316; SIRIS 107). But by far the most
widespreadof all representationsof Isis was of the goddess as Isis lactans: Isis
seated, on a throneor some humblerseat, nursingher son Horus. This image is
found outside Egypt from the eighth centuryBCE onward, but it seems to have
been concentratedmainly in the first to fourth centuries of the Common Era,
modeled in numerous figurines and statuettes,on amulets, coins, magical inta-
glios, lamps, and even funerarymonuments,from Egypt to Asia Minor, from
Gaul to pre-RomanSpain, representinga felicitous union of a native Egyptian
image with thatof the Greek nursingdeity, the kourotrophos.
The reasons for the popularity(and popularnature)of this image of Isis may
be traced to her very origin as a saving deity in Egypt. In the official iconogra-
phy of ancient, Ptolemaic, and Roman Egypt alike, Isis was the mother and
nurse of rulers. As V. Tran Tam Tinh observes, the belief that milk from the
divine breastgives life, longevity, salvation,and divinity is one which exists "in
the mentality of the populations of the Delta from the earliest antiquity, and
manifests itself in the official imagery of the Pharaohs."19From the time of the
pyramids, two aspects of Isis as the mother and preserver of kings become

19V. Tran Tam Tinh, Isis lactans: Corpus des monumentsgreco-romains d'lsis allaitant Har-
pocrate (EPRO37; Leiden:Brill, 1971) 1.
 GAIL PATERSONCORRINGTON 399

intertwined. As a cow-headed deity like the goddess Hathor, Isis is known as

Hesat or Sechat-Hor, "the place where Horus dwells."20 Horus, the son of this
deity, is incarnatedas pharaoh. Hesat (Greek Hesis = Isis) is the incarnationof
the throne. Thus Isis is often picturedin the earlierEgyptianiconographywear-
ing the hieroglyph for "throne" on her head (see P1. 1). As Henri Frankfort
speculates, this image may representthe belief that the throne "gives birth to"
the pharaoh,so that Isis is the "mother" of the pharaoh,and he is represented
sitting on her lap, which thus forms a kind of "throne.''2 It is this image of the
infant king, seated on the "throne" of his mother's lap, being manifestedto the
world, that appears to be the dominant one in early Christianiconography of
Mary and the infantJesus, for reasons that will laterbe suggested.
As the mother of the king, moreover, Isis "made manifest a divine power"
that was transferredfrom her to the king.22The vehicle for the transferralof this
divine power is the milk of the goddess. Although there were many divine
nurses in ancient Egypt, including Hathor, the "divine cow," the preeminent
nursingdeity is Isis, who from the period of Middle Kingdom (2000- 1280 BCE)
onward, and even more so in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt, takes over this role
from the other divine nurses.23The infant king is suckled by the divine nurse
three times: at his birth, at his enthronement,and at his rebirthas Horns after
death. The milk of the divine breastprovides protective and reviving power, as
expressed in the words of Pyramid Text 2089a (Old Kingdom), in which Isis
gives new life to the dead king: "Isis comes, she has her breasts preparedfor
her son Horus, the victorious."24
The divine protectionof the goddess, expressed in the metaphorof nursing,is
especially emphasized in the mammisis, or "birth-houses," of the temples of
Hathorand Isis at Denderaand of Isis at Philae, in which the young king is sym-
bolically "born." The inscriptions from these birth-houses, like those of the
PyramidTexts, indicate the life-giving and protective qualities that come from
the goddess through her milk25(see P1. 2). A typical ritual formula from the
mammisiat the Temple of Sobek and Horns at Kom Ombo declares: "Milk of
Isis (milk?) of Hesat! Enter into the belly of the Lord of the Double Land, the

20Sechat-Hor(Hat-hor)is also the appellationof the goddess Hathor,and perhapsa source of the
conflationof Isis and Hathor;see ibid., 2.
21HenriFrankfort,Ancient Egyptian Religion: An Interpretation(New York: Columbia Univer-
sity Press, 1948) 6; cf. idem, Kingship and the Gods: A Study of Ancient Near Eastern Religion as
the Integrationof Society and Nature (Chicago:Universityof Chicago Press, 1948) 41, 229-301.
22Ibid.,6- 7.
23FrancoiseDunand,Le culte d'Isis dans le bassin oriental de la Mediterranee(3 vols.; EPRO
26; Leiden:Brill, 1973) 1. 8-9.
24TranTam Tinh, Isis lactans, 4; Jean Leclant, "Le role du lait et d'allaitementd'apres les textes
des Pyramides,"JNES 10 (1951) 123 n. 14.
25TranTam Tinh, Isis lactans, 6-7.
400 HARVARD THEOLOGICALREVIEW

child! Purify him, protect him from all evil."26 At Philae, one of the most
prominentPtolemaic-Romancenters of Isis worship, even the Roman emperors
Augustus and Tiberius, neither of whose sympathies lay with Egypt or its
deities,27presentofferings to the nursingIsis, in symbolic acknowledgmentthat
those who would be kings of Egypt derive their divine power and protection
from Isis, the "queen-mother"of Egypt.28
It was not merely because she was a goddess-motherthat Isis's milk was
regardedas the fluid of life: a major part of Isis's divine power was thanks to
her victory over death, the reviving of her dead spouse, Osiris, and the "virgin
birth" of her divine son, Horus. According to the myth of Isis and Osiris, as
described in the second century CE by Plutarchin his allegorizing treatise, On
Isis and Osiris, Isis assembled all the scattered pieces of her dismembered
spouse's body except for the phallus. Thereupon,she made the missing partout
of mud and her own saliva, settled herself on it in the form of a bird, and
became pregnant with Horus. According to the Stele of Amon-Mose, she
declares, "I have comported myself like a man, although I am a woman, to
make thy name [Osiris] live upon the earth."29Isis then protectedher infant son
Horus from Seth, his father's murderer,nursinghim and teaching him in hiding
in the bullrushesuntil he became king in place of his father Osiris. Thus, every
dead king (and laterevery dead person) becomes Osiris and is rebornas Horus.
While the metaphor of giving birth "like a man" will later be employed
by of the Virgin Mary in the ChristianOdes of Solomon, it is the reviving power
of Isis as savior goddess I wish at present to emphasize. Throughtheir identi-
fication with Osiris and Horus, the dead receive life at the hands of Isis. At
Philae, Isis is celebratedas "Isis the Great, the Mother of God, dispenseress of
life ... mistress of life is her name, because she gives life to the earth, and all
people live underthe orderof her ka."30The Greeks identifiedIsis with Deme-
ter, the goddess of the Eleusinian mysteries, through which the initiate was
assured of joy in the afterlife (cf. HerodotusHist. 2.59). After her Helleniza-
tion, Isis became the focus of a mystery religion of her own among the Greeks
and Romans. In the aretalogyof Kyme (second centuryCE), which was adapted
from an older one at Memphis, Isis declares that she was in fact the first to
"reveal the mysteries" to humankind. In Apuleius's Metamorphoses(11.25),
Lucius describes Isis's role in the mysteries as that of "savioress" (sospitatrix)
and mother (mater): "Holy and eternal savioress of the human race, ever
26Ibid.
27Ibid.,7; see also PlutarchAnt. 50, 54.6; Dio Cassius 53.2.4-5; JosephusAnt. 18.65-80.
28FranceLe Corsu, Isis: Mythe et mysteres (Paris:Belles Lettres, 1977) 31; TranTam Tinh, Isis
lactans, 6 - 7.
29Le Corsu, Isis, 8; Dunand, Le culte d'Isis, 10; A. Moret, "La legende d'Osiris a l'6poque
thebaine,"BIFAO(1931) 725 -50.
30Inscriptionfrom Philae, era of Ptolemy VI, from Dunand,Le culte d'lsis, 1. 25 - 26.
 GAIL PATERSONCORRINGTON 401

beneficient in cherishing mortals, you indeed bestow the sweet affection of a

motherupon the tribulationsof the unfortunate."
Amulets, terra-cottas,and lamps with representationsof Isis lactans dating
from 700 BCE onward have been found throughoutthe Mediterraneanworld,
where Isis apparently became identified with the Greek nursing deities, the
kourotrophoi.31As Theodora Hadzisteliou Price has observed, these deities,
pre-Hellenic in origin, often represent"popular" or "underground"aspects of
the deities of official Greek cults, like Hera and Artemis.32They also reflect a
belief, which may have reached Greece from Egypt, that the divine nurse has
the "power to turnmortalsinto Heroes and give them spiritualqualities with her
divine nursing."33The divine milk is thus metaphorically the "medicine of
immortality,"throughwhich not only kings and heroes, but the initiatesof mys-
tery religions, are given life: "The sacramentalact of nursing, symbolic of
divine adoption, protection, or initiation as a means of divinity, is found in the
Eleusinian, Orphic, and later Sabazian mysteries."34In the Orphic-Dionysiac
cult of southern Italy, the highest initiates, the eriphoi, were baptized in milk,
while initiates were often representedas small, childlike figures nursing at the
breastof a goddess.35On the level of popularreligion, milk was also considered
a divine element: in a spell from the Berlin Magical Papyrus (5025; Preisen-
danz 1.20), for example, one is advised that milk, applied with honey at sunrise,
"will become somethingdivine in your heart.'36
Thus far, we have seen that, in the Egyptian royal iconography and in the
mysteries of the Greco-Romanworld, Isis was regardedlargely in her maternal
aspect, as the deity who imparts life and protection to her children as their
mother and nurse. But is this model associated with the lives of real women?
Indeed, it would at first appearas though much of the "official" propagandaof
the expanding Isis cult, being generated by male aretalogists and theologians,
has less emphasis on Isis as motherand more on her role as "mistress" (icupia)
and "queen" (xrpavvos). In the Metamorphoses,for example, Isis tells Lucius
that her "true name" is "Isis the queen (reginam Isidem, Met. 11.5),"

31TranTam Tinh, Isis lactans, 10-12; Theodora Kadzisteliou Price, Kourotrophos:Cults and
Representationsof GreekNursing Deities (Studies of the Dutch Archeologicaland HistoricalSociety
8; Leiden:Brill, 1978) 8.
32Price,Kourotrophos,199.
33Ibid.,201.
34Ibid., 202; cf. Tran Tam Tinh, Isis lactans, 28; Richard Reitzenstein, ARW 7 (1904) 402.
Although Price does point out that male deities (e.g., Hermes)may be kourotrophoi,theirrepresenta-
tion is much rarer,and never includes figuresactually "nursing" at their breasts.
35Price,Kourotrophos,175.
36HeinrichSchlier, "yXaa," TDNT 1 (1964) 647.
402 HARVARD THEOLOGICALREVIEW

and in fact, many of the inscriptions and dedications by women to Isis in the
Greco-Romanworld use this title.37
However, in the opinion of Tran Tam Tinh and others, the official iconogra-
phy and propagandaof Isis seem to have been derived from popularrepresenta-
tions.38One of the oldest known representationsof Isis lactans outside of Egypt,
a bronze from about 1900 BCE,39 has on its base an inscription,stating, "Isis the
goddess speaks ... to her son, Horus, 'I have come.' "40 Because the inscription
may be of a much later date than the bronze itself, it is difficult to determine
whetherthis is indeed a representationof Isis or simply an ex-voto representing
an Egyptian mother nursing her child. FranqoiseDunand, who has studied this
and other figurinesof a popularnaturerelatedto the Isis religion in Egypt, notes
that such "confusion" is frequent,since the ex-votos display their origin in real
life and indicatetheirpossible function in popularbelief:

Herearefamiliarposes,buttheyareimprinted withthoseof the womenof

Egypt.... The same transposition to the divinerealmof the gesturesof
dailylife appearsin a bronzefromthe BerlinMuseum... datingfromthe
MiddleKingdom,in whichone sees Isis, sittingon the ground,one knee
bent,nursinghersonin themannerof anEgyptianpeasantwoman.41

The same sacralizationof everyday life confrontsDunandin her examination

of terra-cottafigurines from Isis worship in Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt. Not
only do many of the figurines,which are predominantlyfemale, representthem-
selves in the poses and garmentsof Isis, but it is difficult to determinewhether
the figures of women nursingchildrenor leading them by the hand are ex-votos
representingthe women themselves or the goddess42(see P1. 4). In Tran Tam
Tinh's view, the proliferationof such ex-votos, amulets, lamps, and magical
intaglios with the image of Isis lactans in the Mediterraneanworld of the first
four centuriesCE indicates the popularityof this particularimage of Isis, which
arises in his opinion from an image of maternaldevotion particularto the Egyp-
tians.43As Paul Perdrizetnotes, "It was all the women of Egypt who, by dint of
imploringthe goddess-motherand her divine infant,ended by setting them up as

37SharonKelly Heyob, The Cult of Isis among Womenin the Greco-RomanWorld (EPRO 51;
Leiden:Brill, 1975) 79.
38TranTam Tinh, Isis lactans, 7, 20; Heyob, Cult of Isis, 52, 74-76; FrancoiseDunand,Religion
populaire en Egypte romaine (EPRO 66; Leiden: Brill, 1979) 3-4; idem, Le culte d'lsis, 781; Le
Corsu,Isis, 15.
39EgyptianMuseum,Berlin, Inv. no. 14078; see PI. 3.
40TranTam Tinh, Isis lactans, 8; Dunand,Le culte d'Isis, 1. 97.
41Dunand,Le culte d'Isis, 1. 97.
42Dunand,Religion populaire, 31; Tran Tam Tinh, Isis lactans, 8, 29-30; idem, Le culte des
divinites orientales en Campanie(EPRO27; Leiden:Brill, 1972) 30-31.
43TranTan Tinh, Isis lactans, 18; cf. Leclant, "Le r6le du lait," 123.
 GAIL PATERSONCORRINGTON 403

principal and essential divinities."44 Thus it is the popular sentiment, which

regarded Isis as the maternal "savior in all perils of life" (Hymns of Isidorus
from Medinet-Madi,SEG nos. 548-52), which furnishes the frameworkfor the
Isiac religion of the Greco-Romanworld.45The devotion of Isis to Horus, as a
model for female behavior, is the more strikingas an ideal in a world where, at
least in the Hellenized and Roman upper classes, very few mothers actually
nursedtheir own children,and infanticideand child exposure were widely prac-
ticed. In the opinion of R. E. Witt, supportedby SharonKelly Heyob, Isis first
enters Italy and eventually Rome "as a friend of the masses," her divine spon-
sorship of the lower classes occasioning the limitationsof her cultic worship by
the Roman Senate.46
Women in the Greco-Romanworld seem to have revered Isis, not only as a
"model for inspirationin the circumstancesof domestic life," of themselves as
the saviors and protectorsof childrenand spouses,47but also because they them-
selves found refuge in Isis as a protectiveand saving deity. The Kyme aretalogy
proclaims Isis as the one who is "called goddess by women," who brings men
and women together, who "compels women to be loved by men," and ordains
that "parents should be loved by their children."48Heyob further notes that
"women in particular seem to have found great comfort in the redemptive
aspects of the religion,"49as evidenced by the numberof funerarysteles, sarco-
phagi, and inscriptions representing women in the garb of Isis, with icono-
graphic or textual allusions to the mysteries. This identification with Isis, a
literal "putting on" of the goddess and presumably thus participatingin her
divinity, even as they participatein her womanhood and she in theirs, is strik-
ingly illustratedby two grave steles from Egypt, dating from two widely diver-
gent periods,Roman and ChristianEgypt.
The first stele, dating from the late Ptolemaic/early Roman period, seems to
be combined with a sort of aretalogy,a recitationof praises or attributesusually
reserved for deities. On it is depicted a seated young woman in Isiac dress,
offering her left breast to a seated child whom she holds by the left hand. The
woman, whose name is Seratous,has the following epitaph:

44PaulPerdrizet,Terres cuites grecques d'Egypte de la collection Fouquet (Paris, 1921) xx, cited
by Tran Tam Tinh, Isis lactans, 18; cf. Francois Daumas, Les mammisis des temples egyptiens
(Paris, 1958) 339-47.
45MariaTotti, Ausgewdhlte Texte der Isis-und Sarapis-Religion (Subsidia epigraphica 12; Hil-
desheim: Olms, 1985) no. 21 (76); TranTam Tinh, Isis lactans, 19.
46Heyob,Cult of Isis, 16-17; R. E. Witt, Isis in the Graeco-RomanWorld(London:Thames &
Hudson, 1971) 136-37.
47Heyob,Cult of Isis, 52; Witt, Isis, 137; TranTam Tinh, Campanie,30-31.
48Totti,Ausgewdhlte Texte, no. 1 (1-4); ET FrederickC. Grant,ed., Hellenistic Religions: The
Age of Syncretism(New York:LiberalArts Press, 1953) 131-33.
49Heyob,Cult of Isis, 60.
404 HARVARD THEOLOGICALREVIEW

Eternity(AtiOv) proclaimstheonewholoves
hermother(OtiXoutiopa)andherbrother((DitXdeXpov):
withmy child
I lie here,likejustice(06eu;)
betweenmotherandbrother,
andI amof mybrother
thegreatestproclamation (icpuryga),
whosemoderation is spokenof
(ocoppoolu6vn)
throughout theworld(iKoCigo).
Seratous,21 years(old),IeraxYear4.... Neionesy50

The meaning of this inscription,due to its highly idiomatic Greek, is difficult to

derive, but it is clear that Seratousseems to be identifiedin some ways with Isis.
First, she is depicted in the same manner as Isis lactans. Second, in her self-
definition, which exhibits some parallels to those of Isis in her aretalogies, she
calls herself justice (09gtq) and brother-loving (t(pXda8eXpoS). In the Kyme-
Memphis aretalogy, Isis is referredto as Oeoaiocpopo;, or "Law-giver," and is
also called "Justice" (Atlcatoaovrl) by Plutarch (Isis and Osiris 3) and in
inscriptions, such as those at Delos (e.g., CE 117, 122) and Gerasis in Arabia
(SIRIS 365). Because Isis is marriedto her brother,Osiris, she is also called
(pt6eX(po;, an epithet that leads Tran Tam Tinh to suggest that Seratous has
marriedher brother,of whom she is the "greatest proclamation." He further
notes of this stele: "As in many of the Isiac funerarysteles of the Roman era,
Seratousdressedlike Isis identifiesherself in some way with the goddess."51
The second grave stele has no inscription. It is from the Fayum area of
Egypt, dated anywherefrom 500 - 700 CE,and is now in the StaatlicheMuseum,
Berlin (inv. no. 14726; see P1. 5). The seated woman nursing her child who is
depicted on it has been said to represent,not only the woman buried there, but
also Isis, a Greek nursing deity (kourotrophos),or Mary and the infant Jesus.52
Comparingthis and a similargrave stele, in which the seated figureis flankedby
two orantes, to the relatively rare representationsof Mary nursing the infant
Jesus found in seventh- and eighth-centuryCoptic art, TranTam Tinh remarks:

It is difficultto confirmwhetherthe Virginandchildarerepresented in this

funeraryimagery; in effect,if the IsiacSeratous
... herself
presents as Isis,

50TranTam Tinh, Isis lactans, 29 - 30 (SEG 8.2, 147 no. 804).

51Ibid.,30.
52Berlin,Early Christiancollection, Inv. 14726 (Tran Tam Tinh, Isis lactans, P1. 77, fig. 202);
Price, Kourotrophos, fig. 26; Ross S. Kraemer, ed., Maenads, Martyrs, Matrons, Monastics: A
Sourcebookon Women'sReligions in the Greco-RomanWorld(Philadelphia:Fortress,1988) frontis-
piece.
 GAIL PATERSONCORRINGTON 405

our Christianwomen of Egypt could have continuedthis traditionin a

form.53
"christianized"

The inability to distinguish the deceased woman from the deity suggests the
completeness of the identification. The Isiac examples show that the goddess
not only partookof women's lives, they also partookof eternallife in her.54
Like the goddess Isis, with whom she shares several mythic attributes,the
figure of personifiedWisdom in Judaismis also called "bestower of life" (e.g.,
Prov 8:35; Wis 8:3).55Both BurtonMack and ElisabethSchiissler Fiorenzahave
pointed to the mystic aspects of Hokmah/Sophiain Jewish Wisdom literature
that she shares with Isis.56 John Kloppenborg has suggested that the "dense
configurationof attributesof divine Wisdom in the Hellenistic Jewish Wisdom
of Solomon (particularlyin 8:2-9) originally belonged to Isis, as the traits of a
savior-deitywho was especially connected with royal ideology."57 However, it
should be noted that in the portrayalof the figure of Wisdom, as in that of Isis,
there are two models. These are distinguished by Mack as the "hidden" or
cosmic Wisdom, connected with Isis as the sponsor of kings and sages, and the
"near" or present Wisdom, connected with Isis as "sister, wife, lover, and
mother. "58
However, Kloppenborgpoints out that the cosmic Wisdom of the Wisdomof
Solomon is not the mother of the king, and the traits of "female fertility and
childbirth,"so importantin the Hellenistic cult of Isis, are missing.59In Claudia
Camp's analysis of personifiedWisdom in the Book of Proverbs,she shows that
seldom is Wisdom portrayedspecifically as a mother, although the role of the
mother as the first instructorof childrenin Wisdom (e.g., Prov 6:20) was one of
authority in Israel. Camp demonstratesthat personified Wisdom more aptly
parallels the "woman of worth" in Proverbs 31 as household manager and
counselor of her husband. Royal or cosmic Wisdom is thus the counselor of her

53TranTam Tinh, Isis lactans, 45.

54Price,Kourotrophos,46 (fig. 436), cites the grave-steleof Apollonia from Icaria,sixth to fourth
centuryBCE,from which it is difficult to determinewhetherthe woman representedis a kourotrophos
deity or Apollonia herself. The "unusual width" of the stele, in Price's opinion, may indicate its
"votive character"as a "heroization" of the dead Apollonia.
55JohnKloppenborg,"Isis and Sophia in the Book of Wisdom," HTR75 (1982) 78.
56BurtonMack, Logos und Sophia: Untersuchungenzur Weisheitstheologieim hellenistischen
Judentum (SUNT 10; Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1973) 41, 65; Elisabeth Schiissler
Fiorenza, "Wisdom Mythology and the ChristologicalHymns of the NT," in RobertL. Wilken, ed.,
Aspects of Wisdomin Judaismand Early Christianity(Notre Dame: Universityof Notre Dame Press,
1975) 17-41; cf. BurtonMack, "Wisdom Myth and Myth-ology," Int 24 (1970) 46-60; Kloppen-
borg, "Isis and Sophia," 62, 76.
57Kloppenborg,"Isis and Sophia," 62.
58Mack,Logos und Sophia, 32.
59Kloppenborg,"Isis and Sophia," 72, 81.
406 HARVARD THEOLOGICALREVIEW

husband/lover the king, while maternal imagery is appropriatedto describe

Yahweh.60The metaphorof the divine mother's impartinglife, protection, and
saving knowledge to her children through her maternalmilk becomes increas-
ingly detachedfrom the reality in which it participated. Nursing, detachedfrom
the mother,becomes an even more symbolic way of describingcommunication
through utterance and intellect, becoming, in McFague's phrase, "detached
from lived experience."61
The detachmentof the mother from the role of nurse may in part reflect the
social reality of the Greco-Romanworld, in which, at least for those able to
afford it, the hiring of a wet nurse was a given. In additionto contractsfor wet
nursing (e.g., Pap. Oxy. 91), letters of advice and gynecological manuals show
concern for choosing the right nurse, who will impart to the child the things
necessary for his or her correct upbringing. In a letter between Pythagoreans
(Italy, third to second century BCE), Myia advises Phyllis that care should be
exercised in choosing a temperatewet nurse who will put the child's welfare
first,because nursingis "an importantpart,foremost and prefatoryto the whole
of the child's life."62 Soranus,the Greek physician, in his manual on gynecol-
ogy writtenat Rome in the firstcenturyCE, advises women to select a wet nurse
who is "self-controlled, sympathetic,and not ill-tempered."63Common advice
given is that the nurse be Greek-speaking,so that the educationof the child will
begin in the properlanguage as he or she imbibes the nurse's milk.
Therefore,the detachmentof the mother from the actual role of nurse seems
to enable the metaphorof nursingto be applied to males as impartersof life and
saving knowledge. While Philo of Alexandria,for example, may speak of God
as the "father" of the universe and Wisdom (mattagTirL)as the "mother" and
"nurse" (tiOivrll) of the All (De ebr. 31.10; 33, a midrash on Prov 8:22), he
also typically devalues the training(nat&eia) offered by the nurse/mother/Wis-
dom as imperfect or incomplete (cf. De ebr. 33; 61.11). He also frequently
speaks both of God and the Stoic "right reason" (6p06; X6yo;) as "nurses,"
and not simply as paidagogoi responsiblefor the intellectualand moral upbring-
ing of their "children." For example, in De congr. 171(30).4, commenting on
the providingof mannain Deut 8:2-3, Philo declares that "(God) providedfor
them when they were unable to live without nourishment;for he is good and the
source of goods, benefactor, savior, nurse, bringerof wealth, provider of great
gifts." In De migr. Abr. 24.13, God as nurse is the source of Wisdom: "For he

60Camp,Wisdomand the Feminine, 80 - 90.

61McFague,MetaphoricalTheology,27
62MaryR. Lefkowitz and MaureenB. Fant, eds., Women'sLife in Greece and Rome (Baltimore:
Johns HopkinsUniversityPress, 1982) no. 111 (from Holger Thesleff, ed., The PythagoreanTextsof
the Hellenistic Period [Abo: Abo Akademi, 1965] 123 -24).
63SoranusGynaecologia 1.19-20 in Lefkowitz and Fant, Women'sLife, no. 178.
 GAIL PATERSONCORRINGTON 407

is the one who nourishes and nurses (rpocpeb Kcai t Orlvo;) wise deeds, words,
and thoughts."
The Cynic philosophers also regarded themselves as the metaphorical
"nurses" responsiblefor the discipline and educationof those who were infants
in knowledge. Dio Chrysostom(Or. 33.7.44) describes the attitudeof instruc-
tors to their hearers as that of nurses who "smear the cup with honey" to get
childrento swallow bad tastingbut salutarymedicine. In the same vein, accord-
ing to AbrahamMalherbe,is Paul's attitudetowardsthe Thessalonians: "like a
nurse (rpo(po6)caring fondly for her children" (1 Thess 2:7).64 As in Philo,
however, the instruction imparted by the nurse, described metaphorically as
milk, may be inferior, since it is for the spirituallyinfantile. In 1 Cor 3:2, Paul
treats the Corinthiansas "infants" in Christ, feeding those still on the material
plane with milk, not the "solid food" of adult spirituality. The author of
Hebrews also shows impatience with those who are still drinkingthe "milk" of
the rudimentsof Christianknowledge, ratherthan eating the "solid food" of the
"difficult teaching" meant for adults (ztrEtot), not children (vimtot). The
authorof 1 Peter, however, reverts to the original use of the metaphorof divine
nursing as a means of impartingsalvation. In 1 Pet 2:2-3, the source of saving
nourishment is the male God, while nursing refers to spiritual instruction:
"Like newborn infants, long for the pure milk of reason (ob koyKucv a5oXov
ydaa), so that in it you may grow up to salvation, since "you have tasted that
the Lord is good" (XPiriaro).
The appropriationor inversion of the metaphorof divine nursing in describ-
ing the activities of a male deity becomes all the more strikingif we note that,
for the first five centuries of the Christianera, there appearto be no representa-
tions of Mary nursing the infant Christ. One clue to the reason why this is so
may be found in the Syrian ChristianOdes of Solomon (first to second century
CE),in which female metaphorsare applied to God the Fatherand male meta-
phors are used for the Virgin Mary. This process of inversion, as Caroline
Bynum has argued, is typical of the way in which men use gender symbols:
"Women's symbols and myths tend to build from social and biological experi-
ences; men's symbols and myths tend to invert them."65However, this process
of inversion seems simultaneouslyto appropriatefor males, and hence, to give
value to, a model derived from female experiences, and to devalue them as
female experiences. As Susan Harvey observes, early Syrian Christianityinher-
ited "a religious traditionremarkablefor its receptivity and sensitivity towards
feminine aspects oc the divine," with a long established "pattern of powerful

64AbrahamJ. Malherbe, "Gentle as a Nurse: The Cynic Backgroundto I Thess. ii," NovT 12
(1970) 203 - 17. Tpoqe6l; in Greek is also used as a synonym for catSatyoyd;: see, e.g., Xenophon
EphesiusEphesiaca 1.14.4. See also Price, Kourotrophos.
65Bynum,"Introduction,"in idem, et al., eds., Genderand Religion, 13.
408 HARVARD THEOLOGICALREVIEW

female symbols," carriedover from the worship of the Dea Syria, Isis, Cybele,
and Hera.66 The Christianity that reached this region, carrying with it its
"aggressively masculine imagery for God," caused "strains" within the meta-
phorical language for the deity.67These strains appearespecially visible in the
nineteenth Ode of Solomon, whose imagery has been consistently described as
"grotesque."68Whathas caused editors and translatorsof this poem to charge it
with "grotesquerie" is thatmale and female characteristicsseem to be reversed:
the "Father" has breasts and acts the role of midwife, while the "Mother,"
Mary,bringsforth "as a strongman."
In suggesting possible interpretationsof these metaphors,we must look at the
poem as a whole:
1. A cup of milk was offered to me,
and I drankit in the sweetness of the Lord's kindness.
2. The Son is the cup,
and the Fatheris he who was milked;
and the Holy Spiritis she who milked him;
3. Because his breastswere full,
and it was undesirablethathis milk should be released
withoutpurpose.
4. The Holy Spiritopened her bosom,
and mixed the milk of the two breastsof the Father.
5. Then she gave the mixtureto the generationwithout
theirknowing,
and those who have received (it) are in the perfection
of the righthand.
6. The womb of the Virgin took (it),
and she received conceptionand gave birth.
7. So the Virgin became a motherwith greatmercies.
8. And she laboredand bore the Son but withoutpain,
because it did not occur withoutpurpose.
9. And she did not seek a midwife,
because he caused her to give life.
10. She bore as a strongman with desire,
and she bore accordingto the manifestation,
and possessed with greatpower.

66SusanAshbrookHarvey, "Women in Early Syrian Christianity,"in Cameronand Kuhrt,eds.,

Images of Women,289.
67Ibid.
68J. Rendel Harris, in idem and A. Mingana, The Odes and Psalms of Solomon (Manchester,
1916-20) 2. 340-41; Henry Chadwick, "Some Reflections on the Characterand Theology of the
Odes of Solomon," in Patrick Granfield and Josef A. Jungmann, eds., Kyriakon: Festschrift
Johannes Quasten (2 vols.; Miinster:Aschendorff, 1970) 1. 269; H. J. W. Drijvers, "The 19th Ode
of Solomon: Its Interpretationand Place in SyrianChristianity,"JTS n.s. 31 (1980) 341.
 GAIL PATERSONCORRINGTON 409

11. Andshelovedwithsalvation,
andguardedwithkindness,anddeclaredwithgreatness.
Hallelujah.69

Within this rich profusion of poetic language, we note that divine milk is
once again the vehicle of salvation. This is true also of Ode 8.16, where God is
again divine nurse:

I fashionedtheirmembers;
andmy ownbreastsI prepared
forthem,
thattheymightdrinkmy holymilkandlive by it.70

Thus the milk of salvation, which impartslife, used in Ode 19 as a metaphorfor

the "Son," proceeds in each example from the Father. The Holy Spirit, fem-
inine in Syriac by grammarand "inherited religious thought patterns,"71also
retains female characteristics:for example, the bosom (also, "womb") that she
opens is hers, but she appearsto have been almost bodily absorbedby the male
God. Strikinglysimilar language occurs in the Coptic Gospel of Truth,a Chris-
tian Gnostic sermonon salvationfrom the second centuryCE:

Andthe Fatheruncovershis bosom-now, his bosomis the Holy Spirit-

andrevealshis secret-his secretis his son.72

H. J. W. Drijvers's interpretationof the image as found in Ode 19 reflects the

appropriation:"The Holy Spirit functions as the womb of the Fatherin which
his grace in the shape of the milk ... is received," the "milk" thus being
transformed,in Drijvers's view, into anotherbody fluid, the Father's "sperm,"
enabling the womb of the Virgin to take it and conceive.73
The Virgin's bearing "as a strong man" is explained by Drijvers,rathertor-
tously, as the process by which the "desire" or "will" of the male God, when
coupled with Mary's assent to that will, brings forth the savior, Christ. Drijvers
draws a parallel between Ode 19.10 and John 1:13, in which the Logos is born,
not according to the "will of the flesh," but the "will of God."74 Jean
Lagrande'sexplanation,perhapsa little closer to the mark, stresses the fact that
the Holy Spirit is grammaticallyand conceptually female in Syriac. He sees a
transformationbeing describedby the language of Ode 19, whereby conception

69Translationof Ode 19 by James H. Charlesworth,The Odes of Solomon (Oxford: Clarendon,

1973) 81-82.
70Drijvers,"19th Ode," 341.
71Harvey,"Syrian Christianity,"289.
72Gos.Truth24.9 (Layton,Gnostic Scriptures,250).
73Drijvers,"19th Ode," 341.
74Ibid.,349.
410 HARVARD THEOLOGICALREVIEW

occurs throughthe agency of the male, ratherthanby a female Holy Spirit. This
answers such questions as that propoundedby Logion 17 of the Gospel of Tho-
mas: "When did a woman (Mary) conceive of a woman (the Holy Spirit)?"
Therefore, Mary's bringing forth of Christ "by will" (or "desire"), a process
defined as "male," is the means by which Mary becomes "male." According
to Gos. Thom. 114, as previously noted, only females who are made males will
enter the kingdom of heaven.75Although Lagrande'sargument,like Drijvers's,
may appearconvoluted, it agrees with the view, as we see it in Philo, that "vir-
gin" means "male."76
These examples have two implications for the history of female metaphors
for and models of the experience of salvation in early Christianity. On the one
hand, metaphorsderived from childbirth and nursing, once applied to female
deities, when they become increasinglydetached from women's social and bio-
logical experiences, are appropriatedfor applicationto male models as descrip-
tive of modes of communicatingdivine wisdom and protection. On the other
hand,Mary, who might be expected to be regardedas the "mother of salvation"
(or at least the motherof the savior) par excellence, becomes a model for virgin-
ity in woman, a process by which they symbolically become male. Thus,
through Mary, women are "redeemed" from the sin of Eve and its conse-
quences, as expressed in Gen 3:16 (RSV):
Inpainyou shallbringforthchildren,
yet yourdesireshallbe foryourhusband,
andhe shallruleoveryou.

If Mary is seen as bringingforth "as a strongman," as in Odes of Solomon 19,

she does not thereforebring forth "as a woman," with pain, or "according to
the will of the flesh" which rules over her. According to this view also, women
will no longer be saved "by child-bearing," as in 1 Tim 2:15, unless it is by the
divine child-bearing. If it is only in this fashion that the "rule" of the husband
(the male will) over the wife will be overcome, it is an impossibilityfor women
to accomplish,except throughMary.
The Virgin Mother is thus a different model of salvation for women. By
yielding her female will, Mary, as a virgin, both escapes the dominationof the
human male will and becomes the "cause of salvation." Irenaeus,the first of
many church fathers to formulate an Eve/Mary typology that parallels Paul's
Adam/Christtypology, declares (Adv. haer. 3.21-22) that the "disobedient"
virgin Eve "was made the cause of death, both to herself and to the whole
human race," while Mary, "although she was yet a virgin, by yielding obedi-

75JeanLagrande,"How Was the Virgin Mary 'Like a Man'?" NovT 22 (1980) 97 -107.
76Baer,"Philo's Use," 84.
 GAIL PATERSONCORRINGTON 411

ence, became the cause of salvation, both to herself and to the whole human
race." By implication,althoughone perhapsnot intendedby Irenaeus,Mary is
first the redeemer of herself, and then, not merely of other women, but of all
humanity. This conclusion is an importantone, since the redemptionthrough
Mary occurs before she bears Christ. Thus Mary is even furtherdetached from
actual childbirthand from the concerns of the "flesh," even though, in patristic
and medieval theology, it is to Mary that Christ owes his human nature and
form.77
In the early period of formative Christianity,then, there seems already to
have been a dissociation of Mary from maternityin the material sense. This
detachmentmay even be reflected in the canonical gospels, in which Jesus is
consistently portrayedas dissociating himself from Mary (e.g., Mark 3:31 and
par.;John 2:4; possibly even John 19:25-27). In the earliest representationsof
Mary and the infant Jesus in Christianart, he is seated on her lap in the position
of Horns being nursed by Isis, but even when his position suggests it, it is
difficult to determinewhetherhe actually suckles at her breast(see P1.6). As G.
A. Wellen observes of these early representationsof Mary and Jesus, they are
"manifestations," the child Jesus being seated on Mary's lap so that she may
show him to the wise men, in symbolic fulfillment of the prophecy of Balaam
(Num 24:17).78RobertJavelet adds that, in extant catacombart, and to a greater
extent in early Byzantine art, Mary is represented"en patricienne," while the
infant Jesus reigns as Pantocratorfrom the maternal lap/throne.79Tran Tam
Tinh points out that, despite the desires or contentionsof many art historiansto
the contrary,it is the image of the king who rules from his divine mother's lap
that forms the iconographicconnection between Isis and Mary, while there is a
very tenuous connection between Isis lactans and Maria lactans, at least in the
firsteight centuriesof the Christianchurch.80The rareexceptions are five paint-
ings datingfrom the sixth or seventh centuryCE,found, as might be expected, in
Egypt, but all in the cells of monastics (see P1. 7). A similar painting from the
seventh or eighth centuryCE,found in the cave of a hermit in Asia Minor;and
the two grave steles that have already been mentioned, which are also from
Egypt. On the latter two, as previously noted, the identity of the nursing figure
is ambiguous.81
We might ask why, when the image of the divine mother nursing her child
was an available, not to say dominant,metaphorfor the experience of salvation

77CarolinWalker Bynum, "And Woman His Humanity:Female Imageryin the Religious Writ-
ing of the LaterMiddle Ages," in idem, et al., eds., Genderand Religion, 261.
78G. A. Wellen, Theokotos: Eine ikonographischeAbhandlung iiber das Gottesmutterbildin
friihchristlicheZeit (Antwerp:Spectrum1961) 14- 16.
79RobertJavelet, "Marie la femme m6diatrice,"RSR58 (1984) 165.
8Tran Tam Tinh, Isis lactans, 43; Wellen, Theotokos,14-90.
81TranTam Tinh, Isis lactans, 45-47; see above, n. 51.
412 HARVARD THEOLOGICALREVIEW

in the MediterraneanIsis cult both before and during the early centuries of
Christianity,it does not seem to have been employed extensively by Christian
artists,while that of the divine queen-mothermanifestingher child to the world,
also originatingin the Isis cult, was. One simple, if not very satisfactory,expla-
nationmight be that Christianartistsdid not wish to connect their deity with any
goddess religions as practiced by pagans. However, this answer would not
explain the apparentlydeliberate iconographic connection between the infant
Christ "enthroned" on his mother's lap and the infant Horus enthronedon the
lap of Isis. Thus it would appear that, at least in the public iconography of
emergent Christianity,the majesty of Christas conquerorof death, and the roy-
alty of the Theotokos throughher relationshipto him-an inversion of the rela-
tionship between Isis and Horus-is emphasizedat the expense of their human-
ity. The continuumbetween Isis and Mary is thus throughroyal ideology and
imperialpropaganda,as we saw in the case of Wisdom, ratherthan throughIsis
as prototypicalmotherand nurse of the child to whom she gives life and imparts
divine power, and whom she protects and saves. Mary as an ideal is both royal
and virgin. When the Isis devotees are praised at all by the church fathers, it is
for their chastity and modesty (cf. Tertullian De cast. 13). It may thus be
inferred that the motif of the lactating mother was eschewed in Mary's case
because she is a model for "overcoming" the material by the spiritual, the
female by the male. Women are "redeemed" by and in Mary because the
obedient virgin overcomes the painful childbirththat is the curse of the disobe-
dient Eve.
Anotherreason that Maria lactans does not dominate early Christianart and
literatureis simply that she is not the savior. The metaphorof nursing,however,
is appropriatedto describe the saving activities of the male savior-deity.
Modeled after him, the male "nurses" of the New Testamentepistles feed the
infant Christians,their spiritualchildren, with the "pure milk" for the health of
the soul that comes from the Father (cf. 1 Pet 2:2-3). Irenaeus refers to the
Lord (Christ)feeding the faithful "as if from the breastof his flesh" (Adv. haer.
4.38.1), while Clement of Alexandria, in his Paedagogos, consistently uses
breast milk as a metaphorfor the Logos, issuing from the breasts of the Father,
Christ,or the Virgin Church.82In Paed. l.vi.46. 1, Christhimself as the Logos is
"milk from the breasts of the Father." Christ is described in a hymn from the
thirdbook of the Paedagogos (3, Hymn, 42- 47) as

HeavenlyMilk,
pressedfromthebride'ssweetbreasts,
thegiftsof yourWisdom...
82Anneweisvan de Bunt (van den Hoek), "Milk and Honey in the Theology of Clement of Alex-
andria," in Hans Jorg auf der Maur, ed., Fides Sacramenti,SacramentumFidei: Studies in Honour
ofPieter Smulders(Assen: Van Gorcum, 1981) 32- 33; cf. Drijvers,"19th Ode," 344.
 GAIL PATERSONCORRINGTON 413

Clement apparently senses the anomaly of describing a virgin bride (the

Church) as a nursing mother, for he states in Paed. l.vi.42.1-2 that the
"Mother Church," being a virgin, cannot produce any milk other than "holy
milk," the Logos or Christ. Cyprian, who uses a similar metaphor, seems to
experience the same tension, for, while he declares of the churchas mother, "Of
her womb we are born, of her milk we are fed, of her spiritour souls draw their
life-breath," he claims at the same time that the church is "the inviolate and
chaste" virgin spouse of Christ (De eccl. cath. unit. 6.6). In the economy of
Christiansalvation,therefore,"mother's milk" is becoming ever more detached
from anything resembling actual lactation, becoming less of a metaphor and
more of a symbol. The separationmay be typified by Clement, who equates the
nourishingmilk of salvation with the sacrificial blood of Christ (Paed. 1.39.2;
40.1; 44.3; 49.1).83Thus, within the teaching of the early church, the "milk of
salvation" comes, not from the divine mother,but from the divine father,in the
form of the divine son. A metaphorderived originally from the acquisition of
health, well-being, and survival by infants at their mother's breast, used to
describe the experience of salvation, has been appropriatedto symbolize salva-
tion as an intellectual and spiritual "feeding," imparted by the male. The
power relationshiphas also shifted: the divine mother no longer sustains her
child; either the divine child saves his mother or the mother saves herself
throughher dissociation from actual childbirth. In this "grotesquerie," let Cle-
ment have the final word (Paed. 1.45.1):

Withmilk, the food of the Lord,we are suckledwhen we are born,and

whenwe arereborn,we arehonoredwiththehopeof (heavenly)rest.

83Vande Bunt, "Milk and Honey," 37-38.

 PLATE1

.d
I..

i 1i
. '

'Aset (Isis) with hieroglyphfor "throne." EighteenthDynasty, tomb of

AmenophisII.
FromFranqoiseDunand,Le culte d'Isis dans le bassin orientale de la
Mediterrange (Leiden:Brill, 1973) 1, pl. 1.
 PLATE2

Fig. 3. Mammisi de Dendara

et^ /i- 'Kt/Ari- /

Relief from the mammisiat Dendara(cf. F. Daumas,Les mammisisde Dendara,

pl. XXIB, IIA).
FromV. TranTam Tinh, Isis lactans (Leiden:Brill, 1973), pl. III.
 PLATE3

".~. ~,4w' ....

Bronze of Isis nursing Horus (ca. 1900 BCE). Egyptian Museum, Berlin, no.
14078.
From FranqoiseDunand,Le culte d'Isis dans le bassin orientale de la
M.diterranee (Leiden:Brill, 1973) 1, pl. V.
 ..

PLATE4

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..

~~~~~~~~~~~~~'"~
'~" '~I :piZ.
I~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~,..~. ,,::
......
~~~~~~~~~7i~~~~~~~~~~~~~~:'..
i-?t??;;~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~,..,
.-.

L.~ ~ ~ ~ ~ C.~

(Horus) .Ii"~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~,~TeracLmfgrs
Harpocrates usn ou ci.Fuu.2
in tl.Psscryn
rino,Lstrecuesd
houa
l'gyt g r c -roaiep.?
X,7.
Fro Frn iseDnn,Lut d'Issdasl basi
orietlel
Mdtrand (Lie:Bil 93 ,p.XXV

Terra-cottafigures: 1. Isis nursingHorus (coll. Fouguet). 2. Isis carrying

Harpocrates(Horus) "in the popularstyle." (P. Graindor,Les terres cuites de
l'Egyptegreco-romnaine, pl. X, 27.)
FromFran9oiseDunand,Le culte d'lsis dans le bassin orientale de la
Mediterrane'e (Leiden: Brill, 1973) 1, pl. XXXIV.
 PLATE5

?S7'. -w1-
--' *~~ -# - :.- -
;;4/ *<~~'
y~~ *
X`1-
-%
*?'?k .
.

^
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41r4

Seated kourotrophos;Isis lactans "christianized," or Mary nursinginfantJesus.

Fayum, ca. 500 CE.
From V. TranTam Tinh, Isis lactans (Leiden:Brill, 1973), pl. LXXVII.
 PLATE6

t..,., '......v

,-!', ::,
:B& i ,

:i "'
" ; ,'I ,

b'`

Rome, Catacombof St..Priscilla, 3rd cent. CE: Top: the prophecyof Balaam
fulfilledby infant Christon Mary's lap. Bottom:the manifestationto the magi.
FromG. A. Wellen, Theotokos(Utrecht:Spectrum,1961), facing p. 20, Fig. I.
 PLATE7

c"". .:? .. a
-,:ry |

_W J 'a-_m. - aU - ' V
.' -7
Two paintingsof Madonnalactans from monasteryof St. Jeremiahat Saggara:203 (cell A); 2
FromV. TranTam Tinh, Isis lactans (Leiden:Brill, 1973) pl. LXXVI.