A Portrayal of “Gendered” Authority. Mary of Cassobola Across Time and Space in Two Ps.Ignatian Epistles

I focus on two letters belonging to the corpus attributed to Ignatius of Antioch: the first letter is (allegedly) authored by a woman, Mary of Cassobola, and the second one is the response attributed to Ignatius. These letters, along with other four, are connected to the so-called “longer recension” of the corpus ignatianum, probably crafted by a fourth-century Arian forger. What emerges from the text is the intention of portraying Mary as a woman with authority, inasmuch she strongly advices Ignatius to acknowledge two young men, respectively as a bishop and a priest of two cities near Antioch. The time/space setting of these letters is the 2nd century Asia Minor; however, Ignatius’ response involves the description of an event preceding the narrated action, and set in Rome: Mary’s visit to Pope Anacletus. Applying a historical and narratological perspective to such an anachronistic account, it becomes clear how this temporal/spatial shift, along with other narrative devices detectable in both letters, supports the crafting of an extraordinary “gendered” authoritative model, set in the 2nd century, for women dwelling in Asia Minor two centuries later.