Wisdom: Lady of the Temple, Lady of the Red Thread

This chapter considers the problematic relationship of Christian Neoplatonism with the cult of the Virgin Mary through the prism of gender. It reviews apocryphal lore regarding the Lady of the Temple, whose enthronement in Jerusalem antedated Abrahamic monotheism, and discusses that Lady’s eventual identification with the Theotokos. It then turns to this tradition’s impact in the Komnenian period. A study of the text and images of the Marian Homilies of Jacob of Kokkinobaphos, and of the life of their probable patron Eirene Sevastokratorissa, reveals the existence of a gendered imperial discourse. This discourse assigned to the female body politic a unique comprehension of and control over the pagan past. In this context, two learned but devout empresses of Athenian origin, Eudocia and Eirene, were identified post Iconoclasm as models worthy of emulation. Above all, the Virgin Mary was seen as the embodiment of knowledge and power accessible only to members of her own sex. Womanly devotional practices at all social levels were distrusted by clergymen whose own Mariology concerned itself primarily with a male economy of salvation. Churches such as the Little Metropolis (Panagia Gorgoepoikoos) in Athens’ lower city may attest to tensions between the ecclesiastical hierarchy and female worshippers.