Women Baptizers: Restoring Baptismal Typology to the Birth of Moses from a Painting at Dura Europos (c. 240 CE)

La tipologia battesimale della nascita di Mosè da un dipinto a Dura Europos (c. 240 CE)

Resum

A painted panel with the scene of the rescue of Moses from the Nile in the Dura Europos synagogue is here discussed in relation to the question of women baptizers in the Didascalia apostolorum. The panel and the document are roughly contemporary and from the same region, Syria. A performative reading of the panel where women enact Moses’ safe delivery from the threat of exposure, and name and wash him with ritual vessels, reveals the baptismal typology of the scene. However, patristic tradition almost entirely neglects the rescue of Moses among the many baptismal typologies of episodes from his life. This observation leads to an understanding of women’s marginalization from baptismal celebration as a theological choice that removed ritual significance from the acts of birth and naming that were the prerogative of womenfolk, especially mothers.