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Document Details :

Title: 'Danaïdes et Dircés'
Subtitle: Sur 1 Cl 6,2
Author(s): KOZLOWSKI, Jan M.
Journal: Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses
Volume: 82    Issue: 4   Date: December 2006   
Pages: 467-478
DOI: 10.2143/ETL.82.4.2018923

Abstract :
The purpose of the current article is to address a question to which scholars devoted considerable thought: the identity of the Christian women whom Clement of Rome called Danaïds and Dircae in his First Epistle to the Corinthians. The first part of the article explores the context in which these designations appear. Clement cites examples drawn both from the Bible and from his own time to illustrate the danger of desintegration facing Corinth’s Christian community. Subsequently, the author provides his interpretation of the allegoric names Danaïds suggesting that it was given to Christian women who, for religious reasons, refused or reduced sexual relations with their pagan husbands – a motif quite frequently met in ancient Christian literature. As such refusals could provoke violent reactions from their pagan husbands (including sexual abuse), Clement metaphorically called these Christian women Dircae, the bull being a symbol of unchained debauchery.

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