The participation of women in Christian Gnostic circles in the 2nd and 3rd centuries

Abstract

This work aims to reflect on the participation of women in the Christian Gnostic movements of the 2nd and 3rd centuries. Therefore we take as sources the accounts of the heresiologists Irenaeus of Lyons and Tertullian, who in their works show great concern regarding the participation of women in Gnostic circles. In contrast to these views, we will use the Gnostic texts discovered at Nag Hammadi in 1945. These writings present us with various female images that appear from the act of creation or appear as symbols of wisdom, as opposed to the orthodox view that God thought only in masculine terms. To reflect on the participation of women in Gnostic circles, we will seek the elaborations of Ginzburg (1989; 2005) on the indicative paradigm and cultural circularity and of Chartier (1992, 2001) on the history of reading. We will also look at the studies of Foucault (1984, 1085, 2006) and Brown (1988) for the various discourses of the body in Christian Antiquity. In the analysis of the speeches of Irenaeus of Lyons and Tertullian, on the one hand, we perceive that many women who circulated in the Church and in Gnostic circles were in contact with various religious texts and ritualistic practices. On the other hand, we perceive that the participation of women in these movements did not imply a relationship of equality, but rather the absorption of the feminine element in a perspective of redemption.