In the first century GC, King Herod Antipas, ruler of Galilee, divorced his wife. He then married Herodias, his brother’s ex-wife. Herodias’s daughter, known as Salome, was a lovely dancer. Herod saw Salome dancing sensuously at a banquet. Perhaps drunk on wine, Herod vowed to her, “Whatever you ask of me, I will give you, up to half of my kingdom {ὅ τι ἐάν με αἰτήσῃς δώσω σοι ἕως ἡμίσους τῆς βασιλείας μου}.”[1] Salome asked that the head of the popular Jewish preacher John the Baptist be given to her on a platter. King Herod then had John the Baptist decapitated and served to Salome. What could determine men’s lives more than what women want? In the book Esdras associated with the ancient Hebrew bible, the great Jewish leader Zerubbabel, grandson of the king of Judah, had an answer: truth. Women and men should above all strive to live according to truth.
Zerubbabel foresaw the disastrous consequences of men’s subservience to women. Zerubbabel governed the province of Judah around 530 BGC under the rule of the massive, mighty Persian Achaemenid Empire.[2] Two centuries later, the relatively small Greek kingdom of Macedonia conquered the Achaemenid Empire. The king of Macedonia, now known as Alexander the Great, seized with his men the magnificent Persian capital Persepolis. With them was Thaïs, a courtesan serving one of Alexander’s highly trusted and influential generals. She effectively determined the fate of Persepolis at the Greeks’ victory feast:
While they were feasting and when the drinking was far advanced, they became drunk and madness took possession of the minds of the intoxicated guests. One of the women there, Thaïs by name and Attic by origin, then said that the finest of all Alexander’s feats in Asia would be if he joined them in a triumphal procession, set fire to the palaces, and permitted women’s hands in a minute to extinguish the famed accomplishments of the Persians.
Thaïs said this to young men giddy with wine. Thus, as would be expected, one young man shouted to form a party and light torches. He urged all to take vengeance for the destruction of the Greek temples. Others took up the cry and said that this was a deed worthy of Alexander alone. When the king had caught fire at their words, all leaped up from their couches and passed the word along to form a victory procession in honor of Dionysus.
Promptly many torches were gathered. Female musicians were present at the banquet, so the king led them all out for the party to the sound of voices and flutes and pipes. Thaïs the courtesan led the whole performance. She was the first, after the king, to hurl her blazing torch into the palace. As all the others did the same, so great was the conflagration that immediately the entire palace area was consumed.
{ καὶ δή ποτε τῶν ἑταίρων εὐωχουμένων καὶ τοῦ μὲν πότου προβαίνοντος, τῆς δὲ μέθης προϊούσης κατέσχε λύσσα ἐπὶ πολὺ τὰς ψυχὰς τῶν οἰνωμένων. ὅτε δὴ καὶ μία τῶν παρουσῶν γυναικῶν, ὄνομα μὲν Θαΐς, Ἀττικὴ δὲ τὸ γένος, εἶπεν κάλλιστον Ἀλεξάνδρῳ τῶν κατὰ τὴν Ἀσίαν πεπραγμένων ἔσεσθαι, ἐὰν κωμάσας μετ᾿ αὐτῶν ἐμπρήσῃ τὰ βασίλεια καὶ τὰ Περσῶν περιβόητα γυναικῶν χεῖρες ἐν βραχεῖ καιρῷ ποιήσωσιν ἄφαντα.
τούτων δὲ ῥηθέντων εἰς ἄνδρας νέους καὶ διὰ τὴν μέθην ἀλόγως μετεωριζομένους, ὡς εἰκός, ἄγειν τις ἀνεβόησε καὶ δᾷδας ἅπτειν καὶ τὴν εἰς τὰ τῶν Ἑλλήνων ἱερὰ παρανομίαν ἀμύνασθαι παρεκελεύετο. συνεπευφημούντων δὲ καὶ ἄλλων καὶ λεγόντων μόνῳ τὴν πρᾶξιν ταύτην προσήκειν Ἀλεξάνδρῳ καὶ τοῦ βασιλέως συνεξαρθέντος τοῖς λόγοις πάντες ἀνεπήδησαν ἐκ τοῦ πότου καὶ τὸν ἐπινίκιον κῶμον ἄγειν Διονύσῳ παρήγγειλαν.
Ταχὺ δὲ πλήθους λαμπάδων ἀθροισθέντος καὶ γυναικῶν μουσουργῶν εἰς τὸν πότον παρειλημμένων μετ᾿ ᾠδῆς καὶ αὐλῶν καὶ συρίγγων προῆγεν ὁ βασιλεὺς ἐπὶ τὸν κῶμον, καθηγουμένης τῆς πράξεως 6Θαΐδος τῆς ἑταίρας. αὕτη δὲ μετὰ τὸν βασιλέα πρώτη τὴν δᾷδα καιομένην ἠκόντισεν εἰς τὰ βασίλεια· καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ταὐτὰ πραξάντων ταχὺ πᾶς ὁ περὶ τὰ βασίλεια τόπος κατεφλέχθη διὰ τὸ μέγεθος τῆς φλογὸς }[3]
In this account by the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus in the first century BGC, wine controlled the minds of men, including the king. The courtesan Thaïs, however, rose above the power of wine to form a reasoned plan. Diodorus’s history carefully hedges Thaïs’s leadership with formal respect for King Alexander. The woman, however, was clearly more powerful than the king in determining the fate of Persepolis at the victory feast. In subsequent Christian literature, Thaïs became a saint as a reformed prostitute.
Zerubbabel recognized the power of beautiful women over kings. A text included in a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible about the second century BGC documents Zerubbabel’s view in relation to King Darius of the Medes:
Is not the king great in his authority? Do not all lands fear to touch him? I have watched him with Apame, his concubine, the daughter of the illustrious Bartacos. Sitting at the king’s right hand, she would take the diadem from his head and put it on herself. And she would slap the king with her left hand. And at this the king would gaze at her with mouth agape. And if she smiles at him, he laughs, but if she is cross with him, he flatters her so that she may be reconciled to him. O Gentlemen, how are women not strong, since thus they act?
{ μέγας ὁ βασιλεὺς τῇ ἐξουσίᾳ αὐτοῦ οὐχὶ πᾶσαι αἱ χῶραι εὐλαβοῦνται ἅψασθαι αὐτοῦ ἐθεώρουν αὐτὸν καὶ Ἀπάμην τὴν θυγατέρα Βαρτάκου τοῦ θαυμαστοῦ τὴν παλλακὴν τοῦ βασιλέως καθημένην ἐν δεξιᾷ τοῦ βασιλέως καὶ ἀφαιροῦσαν τὸ διάδημα ἀπὸ τῆς κεφαλῆς τοῦ βασιλέως καὶ ἐπιτιθοῦσαν ἑαυτῇ καὶ ἐρράπιζεν τὸν βασιλέα τῇ ἀριστερᾷ καὶ πρὸς τούτοις ὁ βασιλεὺς χάσκων τὸ στόμα ἐθεώρει αὐτήν καὶ ἐὰν προσγελάσῃ αὐτῷ γελᾷ ἐὰν δὲ πικρανθῇ ἐπ’ αὐτόν κολακεύει αὐτήν ὅπως διαλλαγῇ αὐτῷ ὦ ἄνδρες πῶς οὐχὶ ἰσχυραὶ αἱ γυναῖκες ὅτι οὕτως πράσσουσιν}[4]
In the ancient Islamic world, all-mighty caliphs were similarly subservient to their beloved slave girls. The power of beautiful women over men typically has no limits.
Zerubbabel had no doubt that women are stronger than kings and wine. The Hebrew chronicle Sepher Yosippon, composed no later than the tenth century, has Zerubbabel elaborate upon this truth with realistic, low detail:
The woman is stronger than wine and the king and all the plants of the vineyards from which comes the wine. And why would not woman be stronger than the king, for she bore the king and nursed him, and held him secure in her bosom and raised him and fed him and dressed him and washed his feces from him, and she chastened him, and she rules over him as a mother over the son she bore. Her fear is upon him, and he fears her scolding voice, for at times she strikes him, and other times she rebukes him. And if she takes a stick to him, he runs from her outside because he is afraid of her. Until the boy grows to be a young man, he will not forget her awe, and he will not fail to honor her, and he will respect her at all times as a son respects his parent.[5]
Every man, including a king, has a mother. Spartan mothers have long been famous for compelling their sons to fight fiercely against other men. Mary, the mother of Jesus, was the most powerful figure in medieval Europe. The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world. That hand sometimes even holds a knife against those who declare that women are not angels, but fully human beings.[6]
Men ardently love women. Even when the male gaze is demonized, men’s eyes will betray them. The medieval Sepher Yosippon observed:
If a man lifts up his eyes and sees a woman of beautiful appearance, he will lust after her beauty to make love to her, for his soul have cleaved unto her. He has set his heart upon her, and his love would not change for any price, and he would leave even his mother, who taught him, and his father, who sired him, and betray them for the love of a woman’s beauty and her shape. … Do you not know and understand that if a woman of beautiful form passes before a man carrying a precious vessel, his eyes would peer upon her — at the beauty of her shape — because his heart turns after her? If she but utters a word, he would drop everything in his hand and, with mouth agape, look upon her, for she caused his heart to be attracted to her. Who will not believe me about this and not aver the truth of women’s strength?[7]
No precious vessel is more beautiful than a beautiful woman. Men will do almost anything for women. Men engage in massive violence against men to gain status in women’s eyes. Sumptuary laws have been established to prevent men from buying extravagant luxury goods for women. Zerubbabel frankly and bluntly stated the implications for men’s gender position:
Women make men’s clothes, and they bring men glory, and men cannot exist without women. … And therefore you men must realize that women rule over you!
{ καὶ αὗται ποιοῦσιν τὰς στολὰς τῶν ἀνθρώπων καὶ αὗται ποιοῦσιν δόξαν τοῖς ἀνθρώποις καὶ οὐ δύνανται οἱ ἄνθρωποι εἶναι χωρὶς τῶν γυναικῶν … καὶ ἐντεῦθεν δεῖ ὑμᾶς γνῶναι ὅτι αἱ γυναῖκες κυριεύουσιν ὑμῶν οὐχὶ πονεῖτε καὶ μοχθεῖτε καὶ πάντα ταῖς γυναιξὶν δίδοτε καὶ φέρετε }[8]
With her loving concern for men, the great twelfth-century woman leader Hildegard of Bingen insisted that neither women nor men could exist without the other:
Woman is necessary for man, and man is an aspect of woman’s consolation, and neither of them could exist without the other.
{ Femina enim opus viri est, et vir aspectus consolationis feminae est, et neuter eorum absque altero esse posset. }[9]
Mutual necessity is a fundamental aspect of gender equality. Unfortunately, mutual necessity doesn’t necessarily change the social reality that women rule over men. How then can gender equality be achieved?
To achieve true gender equality, women and men must subordinate themselves to truth. Zerubbabel insisted that truth is stronger than even women:
The whole earth calls upon truth, and Heaven blesses it. All God’s works quake and tremble, and with God there is nothing unrighteous. Wine is unrighteous, the king is unrighteous, women are unrighteous, all human beings are unrighteous, all their works are unrighteous, and all such things. There is no truth in them and in their unrighteousness they will perish. But truth endures and is strong for ever, and lives and prevails for ever and ever. With it there is no partiality or preference, but it does what is righteous instead of anything that is unrighteous or wicked. Everyone approves its deeds, and there is nothing unrighteous in its judgment. To it belongs the strength and the kingship and the power and the majesty of all the ages. Blessed be the God of truth!
{ πᾶσα ἡ γῆ τὴν ἀλήθειαν καλεῖ καὶ ὁ οὐρανὸς αὐτὴν εὐλογεῖ καὶ πάντα τὰ ἔργα σείεται καὶ τρέμει καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν μετ’ αὐτοῦ ἄδικον οὐθέν ἄδικος ὁ οἶνος ἄδικος ὁ βασιλεύς ἄδικοι αἱ γυναῖκες ἄδικοι πάντες οἱ υἱοὶ τῶν ἀνθρώπων καὶ ἄδικα πάντα τὰ ἔργα αὐτῶν πάντα τὰ τοιαῦτα καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν αὐτοῖς ἀλήθεια καὶ ἐν τῇ ἀδικίᾳ αὐτῶν ἀπολοῦνται ἡ δὲ ἀλήθεια μένει καὶ ἰσχύει εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα καὶ ζῇ καὶ κρατεῖ εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα τοῦ αἰῶνος καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν παρ’ αὐτῇ λαμβάνειν πρόσωπα οὐδὲ διάφορα ἀλλὰ τὰ δίκαια ποιεῖ ἀπὸ πάντων τῶν ἀδίκων καὶ πονηρῶν καὶ πάντες εὐδοκοῦσι τοῖς ἔργοις αὐτῆς καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν τῇ κρίσει αὐτῆς οὐθὲν ἄδικον καὶ αὐτῇ ἡ ἰσχὺς καὶ τὸ βασίλειον καὶ ἡ ἐξουσία καὶ ἡ μεγαλειότης τῶν πάντων αἰώνων εὐλογητὸς ὁ θεὸς τῆς ἀληθείας }[10]
Sepher Yosippon subtly signals the revolutionary implications of Zerubbabel’s dedication to truth. As in other versions, King Darius and all the assembled persons acclaim Zerubbabel’s insight about truth. In Sepher Yosippon, however, King Darius offers a particularly significant reward to Zerubbabel:
Ask whatever your soul desires of anything written in the scroll, and I will give it to you. Even unto half the kingdom I will grant you.[11]
King Darius’s reward to Zerubbabel is like the pledge of King Herod to the beautiful dancing girl Salome. King Darius, however, rewarded not the delightful dancing of a beautiful young woman, but proclaiming the glory of truth. Appreciating truth as did Zerubbabel and King Darius leads to recognizing injustices against men, criticizing women for the wickedness common to all fully human beings, and achieving the worthy ideal of gender equality in truth.
In the ancient book Esdras, Zerubbabel and two other bodyguards of King Darius compete in wisdom about power. One bodyguard declares, “The king is the strongest {ὑπερισχύει ὁ βασιλεύς}.” Another bodyguard declares, “Wine is the strongest {ὑπερισχύει ὁ οἶνος}.” Zerubbabel declares, “Women are strongest, but truth is victor over all things {ὑπερισχύουσιν αἱ γυναῖκες ὑπὲρ δὲ πάντα νικᾷ ἡ ἀλήθεια}.”[12] Zerubbabel is the wisest. The banquet experience of Alexander the Great and Thaïs, along with that of King Herod and Salome, show women governing amid the presence of wine and the nominal male ruler. As Zerubbabel recognized, only steadfast commitment to truth can save men’s heads from their intrinsic vulnerability to women’s dominance.[13]
* * * * *
Read more:
- no fable: Thais showed men’s propensity to believe women
- Cato the Elder understood Pythionice’s public prominence
- Abelard’s advice to his son Astralabe & Trimalchio’s Fortunata
Notes:
[1] Mark 6:23. Matthew, a gospel apparently written for Jewish Christians, tells of King Herod promising whatever Herodias’s daughter Salome might ask. Neither gospel specifies the name of Herodias’s daughter. For Salome as the stepdaughter of King Herod Antipas, Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews {Antiquitates Iudaicae / Ἰουδαϊκὴ ἀρχαιολογία} 18.5.4.
[2] Haggai 2:21. Zerubbabel also is a figure in the biblical books Zechariah, Ezra, Nehemiah, and 1 Chronicles. Zerubbabel led the construction of the second Jewish temple in Jerusalem. According to Matthew, Jesus was a descendant of Zerubbabel. Matthew 1:12-3.
[3] Diodorus Siculus, Library of History {Bibliotheca historica / Βιβλιοθήκη Ἱστορική} 17.72, ancient Greek text and English translation (modified insubstantially) from Welles (1963). For similar accounts, Quintus Curtius Rufus, History of Alexander the Great {Historiae Alexandri Magni}, 5.6.1-7; and Plutarch, Parallel Lives: Alexander {Βίοι Παράλληλοι: Αλέξανδρος} 38.1-8. Arrian of Nicomedia, The Anabasis of Alexander {Ἀλεξάνδρου Ἀνάβασις} 3.18.11-12, doesn’t mention the courtesan Thaïs. Alexander’s general and bodyguard Ptolemy I Soter was Thaïs’s lover.
[4] 1 Esdras / Esdras A {Ἔσδρας Αʹ} 4:28-32, ancient Greek text of the Septuagint from Kata Biblon, English translation (modified insubstantially) by R. Glenn Wooden for Pietersma & Wright (2007). Subsequent quotes from the Greek 1 Esdras are similarly sourced. The King James Version and the New Revised Standard Version are alternate English translations. For an earlier scholarly translation with analysis, see 1 Esdras by S.A. Cook in Charles (1913), volume 1. Zerubbabel {זְרֻבָּבֶל} is alternately called Zorobabel or Zorobabelos.
Regarding what is commonly called 1 Esdras, the Clementine Vulgate and the English Douay–Rheims Bible call this book 3 Esdras, while in the Ethiopic version of the Bible it’s 2 Ezra. It’s also called the Greek Esdras. The name “Esdras {Ἔσδρας}” is a Greek adaptation of the Hebrew name “Ezra {עזרא}.” Jews, Roman Catholics, and Protestants today typically do not include 1 Esdras in the biblical canon, while Eastern Orthodox generally include it. References to Esdras above refer more specifically to the book variously called 1 Esdras / Esdras A / 2 Ezra / 3 Esdras in its different language versions.
1 Esdras has an uncertain origin and complex textual relations. The Hebrew biblical books Ezra and Nehemiah originally were one book titled Ezra. Those books share considerable narrative with 1 Esdras. A Hebrew version of 1 Esdras exists, but the Greek 1 Esdras of the Septuagint isn’t a Greek translation of that surviving Hebrew version. For some analysis, Böhler (2003). The Greek 1 Esdras apparently is a Greek translation of a Hebrew-Aramaic rewriting of the biblical 2 Chronicles 35–36, Ezra-Nehemiah, and 2 Kings 22–23, re-organized and supplemented. De Troyer (2020). An Old Latin version of 1 Esdras (alternate source) also exists. The Old Latin version isn’t a direct translation of the Greek 1 Esdras of the Septuagint.
Zerubbabel’s description of the strength of women and truth comes from a narrative called the “Tale / Story of the Three Guardsmen,” “Story of The Three Youths,” or “Tale of the Three Bodyguards.” It isn’t included in the Hebrew version of 1 Esdras, but is included the Septuagint and the Old Latin versions. It’s also included in Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 11.31-63, and the anonymous Sepher Yosippon, copied in the tenth century. On Sepher Yosippon, Bowman (2019). Sepher Yosippon perhaps preserves an earlier version of the story than does the Greek Esdras. Neuman (1953) p. 50; Zimmerman (1964) p. 197. The “Story of the Three Guardsmen” apparently was first composed in Aramaic in a Jewish milieu. Talshir & Talshir (1995); Talshir (1999) pp. 81-105; Talshir (2001) p. 128. On the Jewishness of the story, De Troyer (2015). Naming the third guardsman Zerubbabel and adding his culminating answer “Truth” probably were adaptations of an existing story.
Zerubbabel’s position as a bodyguard of King Darius isn’t explained in the Greek Esdras. Josephus explains that Zerubbabel became Darius’s bodyguard because the two were long-time friends. Antiquities of the Jews 11.31. In Sepher Yosippon, the prophet Daniel successfully recommends Zerubbabel to succeed him as advisor to King Darius. Sepher Yosippon, trans. Bowman (2023) pp. 29-30 (Chapter 6).
The identify of Apame and the “illustrious Bartacos” isn’t clear. Josephus states that King Darius was slapped “by Apame, the daughter of Rabezakosa Themasios {ὑπὸ τῆς Ῥαβεζάκου τοῦ Θεμασίου παιδὸς Ἀπάμης}.” Antiquities of the Jews 11.54. Sepher Yosippon callls her “Apomenia, daughter of Absius the Makedonian.” Sepher Yosippon, trans. Bowman (2023) p. 33 (Chapter 6). She perhaps was Apama, the daughter of the satrap Artabazos, who was the son of the satrap Pharnabazos II. Torrey (1910) pp. 40-5; Charles (1913) p. 31 (note to 1 Esdras 4:29).
In Leiden in 1579, Pieter Balten published an engraving “The Power of Women” by Johannes Wierix (after Ambrosius Francken). Along the bottom of the engraving are the verses:
Yet woman surpasses king and wines. She is foremother
of the king and powerful persons of the land and sea.
Prudence withdraws from her untameable love,
and lively virtue departs. See men weep when she
weeps, rejoice when she is happy, become fearless when
she drives out fear. Thus woman subjugates king.{ Vina tamen Regemque excellit Foemina, Regis
Progenitrix, hominumque maris terraeque potentum
Illius indomito prudentia cedit amori.
Vividaque absistit virtus: illa aspice flentes
Flente viros, lactante hilares, pellente timorem
Impavidos. Ergo subdit sibi Foemina regem. }
These verses refer to Apame and the king in 1 Esdras 4:28-32. On Johannes Wierix’s engravings on the four powers, Veldman (1987) pp. 228-31.
[5] Sepher Yosippon, Hebrew text of Flusser (1981), English translation (modified insubstantially) from Bowman (2023) pp. 32-33 (from Chapter 6, “The Story of Zarubavel”). I haven’t included the Hebrew source text above because regrettably it isn’t readily available to me. Subsequent quotes from Sepher Yosippon are similarly sourced from id., Chapter 6.
An internal colophon indicates that Sepher Yosippon was composed by an unnamed author no later than 953 GC. Some scholars argue for a date in the first half of the tenth century. Bowman (2023) p. xxi. Other scholars believe that it was composed in the second or third century GC. Neuman (1953) pp. xii, 21-7, 51, 57. In any case, Sepher Yosippon’s source for the “Story of the Third Guardsman” probably predates the Greek 1 Esdras.
Sepher Yosippon is “one of the most disseminated works in medieval Jewry.” By the twelfth century, it was read among Jews in Palestine, Egypt, Byzantium, Spain, France, and Germany. Dönitz (2014) pp. 83-5. Because the work was continually revised, it has multiple recensions. The oldest recension wasn’t known to Flusser (1981). See Dönitz (2014).
[6] The wisdom that the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world goes back more than 4500 years. An ancient Sumerian cuneiform text declares:
The wet-nurses in the women’s quarters determine the fate of their lord.
{ emeda ga la2 ama5-a-ke4 lugal-bi-ir nam ci-im-mi-ib-tar-re }
The Instructions of Shuruppag l. 254, Sumerian transliteration and English translation from the Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature, second edition. This text survives on a tablet written about 4500 years ago. Moreover, the text itself characterizes the wisdom it contains as ancient.
In response to recognizing frankly women’s power, modern scholarship vacillates between discerning misogyny and triumphantly asserting women’s superiority. For example, the good man academician Blamires explored the “formal case for women” in European medieval literature. He set out that case on the basis of a stark division between misogynists (evil persons such as Saint Jerome’s Theophrastus and Rufinus’s friend Valerius) and pro-feminists (good persons led by the pioneering heroine, the proto-feminist Christine de Pisan). Blamires explained:
The formal case {for women} has a quasi-judicial flavor and expressly sets out to promote women’s cause and to exonerate them from slander. Its typical features are these: it questions the motives and morality of misogynists, who seem to forget that women brought them to life and that life without women would be difficult; it denounces antagonistic generalization; it asserts that God showed signs of special favor to women at creation and subsequently; it revises the culpability of Eve; it witnesses women’s powerful interventions throughout history (from the Virgin Mary and scriptural heroines to Amazons and modern notables); and it argues that women’s moral capacities expose the relative tawdriness of men’s.
Blamires (1998) p. 9. Denouncing antagonistic generalization while arguing that “God showed signs of special favor to women” and “women’s moral capacities expose the relative tawdriness of men’s” — that’s a rhetorical strategy that Christine de Pisan so successful made into the centerpiece of modern efforts to promote gender equality, or in other words, “to promote women’s cause.” Slandering and libeling persons as misogynists is also a central tactic in this endeavor. Misogynists are all those persons “who seem to forget that women brought them to life and that life without women would be difficult.” On modern elite scholarly reckoning, nearly all medieval men were misogynists, and many women were sub-consciously misogynists, too. With equally astonishing obtuseness and tendentiousness, Blamires identified “the single most cogent source and paradigm for the medieval case for women” to be the “Story of the Three Guardsman” in 1 Esdras (which, following the Latin manuscript tradition, he labeled 3 Esdras). Id p. 50
[7] Sepher Yosippon, Chapter 6, Bowman (2023) p. 33. Recasting the story of John the Baptist’s beheading is consistent with other material in Sepher Yosippon. In particular, Sepher Yosippon includes a parody of the story of Jesus’s virgin birth as recounted in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. It’s the story of Caesar’s chief charioteer Mundus tricking the beautiful, pious, married woman Paulina into believing that a god was having sex with her when it was really just Mundus. That story adapts the Alexander Romance’s tale of the Egyptian king Nectanebus / Nectanebo II deceiving King Philip of Macedonia’s wife Olympias into having sex with him by pretending that he was the god Zeus Ammon. Olympias thus gave birth to Alexander the Great. The story in Sepher Yosippon comes from Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews {Antiquitates Iudaicae / Ἰουδαϊκὴ ἀρχαιολογία} 18.66-80 via Pseudo-Hegesippus, On the destruction of the city Jerusalem {De excidio urbis Hierosolymitano} 2.3.2.
[8] Greek 1 Esdras 4:17, 22.
[9] Hildegard of Bingen, Book of Divine Works {Liber Divinorum Operum} / On God’s Activity {De operatione Dei} 1.4.99, Latin text from Patrologia Latina 197.885b-c, my English translation. For related discussion, references, and quotes from Hildegard, see notes 10-13 in my post on men as sol novus and umbra viventis lucis in Revelation.
[10] Greek 1 Esdras 4:36-40.
[11] Sepher Yosippon, Chapter 6, Bowman (2023) p. 34.
[12] Greek 1 Esdras 3:10-2.
[13] In Sepher Yosippon, Zerubbabel declares:
Who will not believe my words that the woman is stronger than all, for she enfeebled the strength of Sampson and made David transgress and led Solomon astray and tempted him. … Even Adam, father of all who inhabit the earth, for his wife caused him to transgress the commandment of the Lord his God.
English translation from Bowman (2023) p. 34. These exemplars of women’s strength figure prominently in medieval literature of men’s sexed protest. These exemplars in the “Story of the Three Guardsmen” seem intended to promote a favorable perception of Zerubbabel. In particular, that story indicates:
Zerubbabel will not follow in the bad footsteps of his forefathers and will surely not have a wife or concubine governing his life. A good Jewish king ought to have proper relations with the woman he loves, not succumb to her beauty, and surely not have a concubine that wants to sit at his right hand, take a crown and slap him in the face.
De Troyer (2015) p. 50. Foreign (non-Jewish) wives dominating their husbands would be of particular concern to Jewish authorities. The “Story of the Three Guardsmen” supports the expulsion of foreign wives described in 1 Esdras 8:65-92 and similarly in Ezra 9-10. Sandoval (2007).
Jewish concern to expel foreign wives has been misinterpreted through modern scholarly belief in mythic patriarchy. One scholar has described 1 Esdras as a “patriarchal text” for an “intended patriarchal audience.” Sandoval (2007) p. 215. If that’s a claim that 1 Esdras was written only for ruling fathers or men in general, that claim is most probably false. Among the author’s orthodox ritual invocations of “patriarchal order” and “patriarchal social order,” one reads of a substantive concern:
Zerubbabel understands the strength of women, one of the dangers women pose, to be their ability to make a man forsake his own cultural patrimony. … The concern with men forsaking their kin and country hence probably refers (at least in part) to a man’s potential abandonment of his inherited culture and traditions in favour of those of his wife.
Sandoval (2006) pp. 214-5. Kin and country, and the culture and traditions of a people, arise from women and men’s lives together. They do not exist because of the nominal rule of men leaders. In short, Zerubbabel is wisely concerned about women dominating men. On the “Story of the Three Guardsmen” as wisdom literature, Torrey (1910) p. 35. On Zerubbabel’s masculine wisdom in contrast to modern academic constructions of “hegemonic masculinity” and a “classical, more militaristic model of masculinity,” Groce (2018).
As Zerubbabel understood, men’s ardent love for women supports women’s dominance over men. The dominance of gynocentric ideology in academia has become so overwhelming that scholars refuse to take seriously Zerubbabel’s wisdom. See, e.g. Eron (1991). Rather than wisdom, scholars have served up mindless abstractions:
The fear of sexuality which lies behind a fear of women is part of the common heritage of Judaism and Christianity from the world of late antiquity.
Eron (1991) p. 63. As universalized abstractions, “fear of women” and “fear of sexuality” are ludicrous, objectively meaningless phrases. Zerubbabel, in contrast, described ways in which men’s ardent love for women makes women dominant over men in actual life experience.
[images] (1) Salome and Herodias with head of John the Baptist on a platter. Painted in the seventeenth century by Jan van Ryn and preserved in the Musée du Mont-de-Piété (Bergues, France). Source image via Wikimedia Commons. See also the painting “Salome with the head of the Baptist {Salomé con la cabeza del Bautista}” painted by Mariano Salvador Maella in 1761 and preserved in the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (Madrid, Spain). Salvador Maella’s painting copied a painting that Guido Reni painted in 1631. U.S. founding father, library maker, and third U.S. president Thomas Jefferson had another copy, made after 1692, in his home at Monticello. (2) “Alexander the Great and Thaïs”: Alexander and Thaïs feasting at banquet in Persepolis and preparing to burn the city. Oil painting by Ludovico Carracci, c. 1609-11. For catalog descriptions, Brogi (2001) pp. 212-3 (work # 98) and Emiliani & Feigenbaum (1994) pp. 139-40 (work # 64). Source image via Wikimedia Commons. (3) Alexander and Thaïs setting fire to Persepolis. Fresco that Ludovico Carracci painted in Bologna’s Palazzo Francia in 1592. For catalog descriptions, Brogi (2001) pp. 161-2 (work # 50) and Emiliani & Feigenbaum (1994) pp. 83-4 (work # 38). Source image via Wikimedia Commons. Here’s a preparatory drawing by Ludovico Carracci for this fresco. Dante placed Thaïs in Hell. Dante, Inferno 18.127-36. Her reputation subsequently improved. In 1697, John Dryden wrote a poem, “Alexander’s Feast, or the Power of Music: A Song in Honour of St. Cecilia.” In 1736, George Frideric Handel set to music an adaptation of Dryden’s poem. (4) “Apame Usurps the King’s Crown.” The god Bacchus is handing the king wine, while the king’s concubine Apame slaps his face and puts his crown on her head. Cf. 1 Esdras 4:28-32. Oil on panel painting by Hendrik Goltzius in 1614. Preserved in the Musée des Beaux-Arts (Verviers, Belgium). Source image via Wikimedia Commons. (5) The power of women. Engraving that Zacharias Dolendo made in 1595-6 (after Karel van Mander). From a series of four engravings on the powers that rule the world. Source image is reference # 2023.814 in the Art Institute Chicago. The Metropolitan Museum (New York City) also holds a copy. At the bottom of this engraving are inscribed the verses:
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Greatest is the power of Venus, who is united with Cupid’s arms
and his darts dipped in poison injure with evil:
they make wretched lovers without understanding,
hence fear, hence uprightness, hence shame all are absent.{ Maxima vis Veneris, cui iuncta Cupidinis arma,
Et quae tincta malo spicula felle nocent:
Haec faciunt miseros sine sensu vivere amantes,
Hinc metus, hinc probitas, hinc pudor omnis abest. }
On Zacharias Dolendo’s series on the four powers, Veldman (1987) pp. 232-4. (6) The power of woman. Engraving that Philips Galle made in 1574 (after Gerard van Groeningen). From a series of four engravings on the four strongest powers. Source image is reference # 2023.478 in the Art Institute Chicago. At the bottom of this engraving are inscribed the verses:
Do you see Venus, accompanied by her flattering boy Cupid,
laughing as she’s watching you with tender, alluring eyes?
Whoever you are, avert your eyes if you would avoid the soul’s wounds.
She conquers all, if only by her light.{ Aspicis ut blando Puero comitata Dione
Rideat, illicibus lene tuens oculis?
Quisquis es hinc oculos, animi si vulnera vitas,
Averte, haec solo lumine cuncta domat. }
On Philips Galle’s series on the four powers, Veldman (1987) pp. 224-7. (7) Publicity photo of actress and opera singer Lina Cavalieri as Thaïs in 1907 in Jules Massenent’s opera Thaïs. That opera is based on the novel Thaïs (1890) by Anatole France. Both the novel and the opera concern the life of Saint Thaïs. She is plausibly understood as an ancient Christian rewriting of the life of the courtesan Thaïs who led Alexander the Great in the burning of Persepolis.
References:
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