Chapter 3 The Rise of the Church and the Downfall of Rome: Martyrs and Sex Objects

Chapter 3

The Rise of the Church and the Downfall of Rome: Martyrs and Sex Objects

A Lost Tradition is the intriguing title given a 1981 book on women writers of the early-church period.¹ In a sense the tradition, not only of their writings, but also of most of the women themselves who served their Lord courageously during the same period has been lost. It is mainly because of the modern discussions over women’s ordination, especially among Catholics, that the specific activities of women in subapostolic and patristic times have become a matter of intense interest and research.² Yet there were some earlier writers who sought to direct attention to women who had been outstanding during the first centuries of the church’s advance against pagan darkness. In 1959 Edith Deen, who had previously written All the Women of the Bible, published a book entitled, Great Women of the Christian Faith.³ She had drawn on other works, especially an 1851 book, Women of Christianity, by Julia Kavanagh.⁴ The major early figures whom she chose to include for their spiritual contribution were Perpetua, Helena, Macrina, Nonna, Marcella, Monica, Anthusa, and Paula. She adds vignettes of other women, such as Thecla, (a dubious choice because the main source of information is the Apocryphal Acts), Flavia Domitilla, Cecelia, Olympias, Fabiola, Pulcheria, and Genevieve.

Along with the paucity of references to women in the textbooks, another frustration awaits the student of church history. Those passages in early church literature that do relate to women deal in large measure with such matters as the desirability of celibacy and “spiritual marriage,” rather than with the actual accomplishments of women—whether virgins, married women, or widows—in the cause of Christ.

The occupation of the church fathers with the marital status of women was closely linked with their opinions of the women’s moral status. Their comments are not in some cases very different from some comments made by rabbis of their day. But just as the rabbis expressed divergent opinions, so the Fathers failed to reach any consistent viewpoint. As Elizabeth Clark puts it:

The most fitting word with which to describe the Church Fathers’ attitude toward women is ambivalence. Women were God’s creation, his good gift to men—and the curse of the world. They were weak in both mind and character—and displayed dauntless courage, undertook prodigious feats of scholarship. Vain, deceitful, brimming with lust—they led men to Christ, fled sexual encounter, wavered not at the executioner’s threats, adorned themselves with sackcloth and ashes.⁵

It is not easy to present a fair picture of the perceptions that men had of women during the patristic period because of the danger of selectivity. This is the same danger observed earlier in connection with rabbinical materials, evidence from the Graeco-Roman world, and even from the Bible itself. Not only are there changing perceptions among the Fathers, but apparent discrepancies within the works of the same person. These may be reconciled logically, but one suspects that they represent an inner conflict, perhaps between theology and experience. Also the descriptions that exist (especially those in the Apocryphal Acts) are not necessarily reliable accounts of real women, but rather perceptions of what the ideal Christian woman should be. Conversely, as can be seen in the quotation from Clark above, what the Fathers wrote is not necessarily a true reflection of the kind of Christian woman they actually knew.

Agnes Cunningham points out the difficulty faced by those who would seek some standard for women’s ministries today by reference to the early church:

The reason for this problem is not the failure of women to participate actively and extensively in the ministry of the Church. On the contrary, even limited historical evidence witnesses to the fact that the ministry of women flourished during the first six hundred years of Christianity. Rather, serious investigation points increasingly to the evidence that no uniform practice or policy regarding the admission of women to ministry prevailed universally during the early Christian centuries.⁶

Sister Cunningham continues by noting that each church had a measure of autonomy that, along with the perceptions of the bishop and the way the apostolic tradition was followed, determined different courses of action in different locations.

But in spite of such divergences and the questionable nature of some of the early accounts, there is much that is reliable and instructive. There can no longer be any question as to whether women were active in various church ministries in the early church. There also seems to be virtually no question that women did not serve as priests in the contemporary sense of the term. A Protestant explanation for this is that there was no separate class of priests in the earliest years of the church, but even Roman Catholic writers acknowledge the omission of women from sacerdotal ministry.⁷ There were, however, distinctive ministries for widows and virgins. It appears that at times these women were considered part of the clergy, though ordination was another matter.

It has also been questioned whether widows and virgins always formed two separate orders of ministry or whether the latter grew out of the former (which is thought to have its roots in Paul’s rules for widows in 1 Timothy 5:3–10). The tendency now is to see them as two distinct orders, though not always existing side by side.⁸ Widows were called “the altar of God,” a designation that shows how they were respected for their spiritual ministries.⁹ Ignatius spoke of the “virgins called widows,” a reference to the fact that there were widows who spurned the idea of remarriage and lived separately in service to God.¹⁰ Recent study has produced the hypothesis that the Apocryphal Acts represents a reaction on the part of widows whose ministries were repressed.¹¹

Whatever the actual situation may have been in that respect, there is a strong suspicion that what many consider a promising situation in the early church, reflected in the prominence of women in the list of Paul’s associates in Romans 16, continued for some time but did not survive in the church’s records.

What kind of service did women perform in the earliest centuries? The diaconate provided an open avenue of service, particularly in the Eastern church. This included both the ministry of women married to church officials and those who may be called “women deacons,” who served along with male deacons in personal and liturgical ministry.¹² Agnes Cunningham has suggested two kinds of ministry that drew women in the early church. One was the ministry of love, through which women could embody the agapē that was characteristic of all believers but which women especially had opportunity to express in the social situations of that era. The other she calls “ministries of commitment.” These were demonstrated in martyrdom, then in the orders of widows and virgins, and ultimately in the commitment to monastic living.

History shows what women did; some of the ancient writers show how they were perceived. Women were sometimes thought to be deceived, lascivious, and incapable, but they were also lauded as mothers, martyrs, intelligent students and teachers of Scripture, and—as some men acknowledged—as cherished friends. The profile of these two contrasting portraits will be clearly delineated in this chapter.

The Testimony of Archaeology: Women in the Shadows

There is evidence from the papyri and inscriptions of the first several centuries that women did hold ecclesiastical office. The 1976 issue of New Documents Illustrating the New Testament lists two instances of a woman being called a diakonos (= deacon?) and two instances of the use of a form of presbytis. It is not certain whether the latter term simply means “elderly woman.” There is also a citation of a “fourth-century Christian letter which mentions twice (5, 12) a woman called [Kyrian tēn didaskalon].”¹³ This might be translated “Madame teacher.” A suggestion by E. A. Judge places this at the time when there was an attempt to separate women from men “for the purposes of prayer and instruction.” The conclusion of the compiler of this material is that “these texts provide a continuity of evidence for women as office-holders in the Church (note diakonos at Rom. 16.1).”¹⁴

A fresco from the catacombs of Rome pictures a group, apparently all women, in the celebration of the Eucharist. (See illustration on page 57.) “The arrangement of the hair…in comparison with datable coins depicting emperors’ wives, has been an important factor in dating this fresco to the end of the first century, A.D.”¹⁵ It is suggested that this portrays a “eucharistic” vigil, held in the catacombs on the anniversary of the death of a Christian. The figure on the left end, wearing a long woman’s skirt (in contrast to the knee-length garment worn by men at this period), has her hands outstretched, breaking the bread. The fresco is therefore known as the “Fractio Panis” or Eucharist. The significance of this lies in the portrayal of a woman performing an act that is usually considered to have been reserved for a man, and, by many, to be the prerogative of an ordained minister or priest. On the other hand, there are other portrayals of feasting, and it could be argued that all these are simply portrayals of the present happy circumstance of the departed.

From Instruction to Persecution

As the church fathers ranged over the Scriptures, they found many passages about women to include in their church instruction. The teachings they formulated touched on such topics as morality, marriage, household duties, and church ministries. Meanwhile the women were proving their dedication in the face of persecution.

Clement of Rome

The letter to the Corinthians, known as 1 Clement, written by Clement of Rome around the last decade of the first century, commends the Corinthians:

And to the women you gave instruction that they should do all things with a blameless and seemly and pure conscience, yielding a dutiful affection to their husbands. And you taught them to remain in the rule of obedience and to manage their households with seemliness, in all circumspection.¹⁶

In this early opinion, the words “dutiful affection” and “rule of obedience” seem to clash with the teaching that “women manage their households.” The word “dutiful” could be translated less harshly as “proper” or “fitting,” but the Greek word often does convey the idea of duty.

In the same epistle there is admiration for the women who suffered cruel martyrdom: “Through jealousy women were persecuted as Danaides and Dircae, suffering terrible and unholy indignities; they steadfastly finished the course of faith and received a noble reward, weak in the body though they were.”¹⁷ In this way women in the first generations following the apostles took their place in the company of those who suffered for their faith. Whatever position Clement and others may have taken regarding women’s ministry, there is no question as to their admiration for their sisters.

Polycarp

Polycarp, writing around the middle of the second century, encouraged wives, as Clement did, to a committed marital life: “[Teach] your wives [to walk] in the faith given to them, and in love and purity tenderly loving their own husbands in all truth, and loving all [others] equally in all chastity.”¹⁸ This expresses the theme of purity in marriage that will become increasingly prominent in the Fathers. In the same work Polycarp also provides an early reference to widows: “Teach the widows to be discreet as respects the faith of the Lord…” This is the passage noted above where they are called “the altar of God.” It was already clear in the Pastoral Epistles that widows needed to be helped and guided as a special class of people in the Christian society.¹⁹

Susanna. This third-century painting is from the Catacomb of Peter and Marcellino, Rome. It portrays a typical female orans or praying woman. Note the veil, which is common in these portrayals of women. From Fratelli Alinari, Rome. Permission from Art Resource, New York.

Ignatius

Although some of the material in the writings of Ignatius may be a later interpolation, most of the work attributed to him was undoubtedly written during his trip to Rome, where he was executed—sometime near the beginning of the second century. Ignatius told Polycarp that he should not neglect widows and that he should not despise either male or female slaves.²⁰ He also urged husbands and wives to fulfill their duties, encouraging celibacy for those who could “continue in purity.” Marriage should not be a means to fulfill one’s lust.²¹

This did not mean, however, that women were to be given equal opportunities for service. When urging the appointment of someone for a special mission, Ignatius specifies that it be a man.²² Nevertheless, Ignatius had a characteristic that is pleasing to find in various writings of the Fathers: a cordial and gracious attitude to Christian women. In his letter to Polycarp he specifies that greetings should be given “in particular [to] the wife of Epitropus, with all her house and children.”²³

Blandina

Martyrdom in the early centuries was not simply the death of a Christian at the hands of unbelievers; it was an execution specifically brought on by the Christian’s steadfast and clear testimony to the faith. Nor was martyrdom described only in dark, grieving words. The martyrs were privileged; they were honored. They showed courage and dependence on God for endurance. Martyrdom was, of course, not a happy occasion, but it was a victorious one.

The story of Blandina, who was martyred in 177, is known through the writings of Eusebius. In 325 Eusebius produced the revised edition of his Ecclesiastical History; thus this account of a second-century martyrdom is seen through the eyes of a fourth-century churchman.

The dating of Blandina’s martyrdom depends on a reference in Eusebius to “the seventeenth year of the Emperor Antoninus Verus.” This is the other name of Marcus Aurelius. His seventeenth year was 177.

Eusebius, after telling something of the background and the hostility of both crowds and officials against the Christians, provides a vivid description. He says that Blandina was proof that God uses and honors “things which are obscure and contemptible among men.” Did he consider her womanhood part of her contemptibility?²⁴ The narration continues:

For while we were all afraid…Blandina was filled with such power that she was released and rescued from those who took turns in torturing her in every way from morning until evening, and…they marveled that she still remained alive, seeing that her whole body was broken and opened…but the blessed woman, like a noble athlete, kept gaining in vigor in her confession and found comfort and rest and freedom from pain from what was done to her by saying, “I am a Christian woman and nothing wicked happens among us.”

Eusebius continues his description of the martyrdom of Blandina and others by telling of another woman, Biblias, who had renounced the faith. She reaffirmed her commitment to Christ and was included among the martyrs. Meanwhile Blandina was taken to the amphitheater. While other Christians were beaten and burned, Blandina was hung on a stake, where she was exposed to wild beasts. Eusebius describes the scene:

She seemed to be hanging in the shape of a cross, and by her continuous prayer gave great zeal to the combatants, while they looked on during the contest, and with their outward eyes saw in the form of their sister him who was crucified for them, to persuade those who believe on him that all who suffer for the glory of Christ have forever fellowship with the living God. [Blandina was taken down again, because the wild beasts did not touch her, but eventually brought back and was killed by a bull.] And so she too was sacrificed, and the heathen themselves confessed that never before among them had a woman suffered so much and so long.²⁵

Deaconesses Interrogated by Governor Pliny

Undoubtedly there are many other women who likewise suffered during this period. We know of two such, not from Christian writings, but from the correspondence between Pliny, governor of Bithynia, and Trajan in the year 111. Pliny wrote Trajan about two women slaves whom he arrested because they were Christians. He said, “I have judged it necessary to obtain information by torture from two serving women called by them ‘deaconesses.’”²⁶ Why was it that Pliny tortured women slaves in order to get information about the Christians? Did he think they would yield under questioning? Was it that they were the only Christians known to Pliny who had remained faithful during the persecution? Could it have been that these women were the only church leaders whom Pliny knew? He called them “serving women.” The Latin word ancillae normally means “slaves.” In the opinion of Jean Daniélou it “seems to denote some kind of inferior office.”²⁷ It could also have been used to describe people Pliny thought were doing servile work. The word ministrae seems to be the equivalent here of the Greek diakonos. It came to be used for deaconesses. Wilson-Kast-ner has this explanation: “Although one must keep in mind that the terminology for various Christian offices was not fixed firmly by this period, at the same time one ought not to minimize the fact that these women clearly did have a recognized function with the local church.”²⁸ Gryson, noticing that the word ancilla is followed by ministrae, thinks that ancilla may simply describe these women’s “social condition.”²⁹

The Curious Case of Flavia Domitilla

The women interrogated by Pliny were slaves. But socially prominent free women were also becoming Christians. This is seen already at the time of Acts, when “many of the Jews believed, as did a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men” (Acts 17:12). A perplexing question is whether the Roman matron Flavia Domitilla was a Christian. Her grandmother was the wife of Emperor Vespasian. Since her mother was Vespasian’s daughter, Flavia Domitilla was the niece of Vespasian’s son, Emperor Domitian. She married a cousin of Domitian, the consul Titus Flavius Clement.

She was banished to the island of Pandateria. The reason for this exile was the charge that she had lapsed into “Jewish customs” and into “atheism.” This has been interpreted to mean that she was a Christian or, at least, a Christian sympathizer. On the surface it sounds as though she were Jewish; the charge of atheism, however, was often leveled at Christians, who did not have the status that Jews did in the Empire.³⁰

Irenaeus on Eve and Mary

In about 178 Irenaeus became bishop of Lyons. He is known for his great work against heresies, in which he attacked Gnosticism and the Montantists. While arguing against the Gnostics, Irenaeus drew a parallel between Eve and Mary, emphasizing the physical reality of the Incarnation. He referred to the sin of Eve, but did so mildly compared to some of the later writings of the Fathers. Whereas Mary was obedient, Eve was disobedient. She and Adam did not understand about the procreation of children. In a manner similar to the comparison between Adam and Christ in Romans 5, Irenaeus asserted that Eve by her disobedience was the “cause of death both for herself and the whole human race,” while Mary through her obedience was the cause of salvation, again both for herself and for the whole human race.³¹

Irenaeus was not the only ancient churchman to blame Eve, nor was he the only one to laud Mary. In both respects, there was a tendency to extremes.

The Shepherd of Hermas

The Shepherd of Hermas, written sometime around 120, regarded women as symbols of “holy spirits” in his imaginative description of the church.³² In his opinion, however, women are also symbolic of evil. In a more earthy section of his work, Hermas referred to the matter of divorce and claimed there was no possibility of remarriage even for the innocent person. Significantly, in spite of the custom in the ancient world to give more freedom to the man than to the woman in a divorce situation, Hermas declared, “Men and women are to be treated in exactly the same way.”³³ Like a number of other church leaders in the early centuries, Hermas was against remarriage on the death of one’s spouse. His language is mild compared to later writings: “If they remain unmarried, they gain honor and glory with the Lord.”³⁴

Hermas mentions widows as those who minister and also who need the supportive ministry of others.³⁵ In a totally different vein he tells of a vision in which a woman named “Graptē” is supposed to exhort widows and orphans. It is not known whether this is a well-known personage in the ancient church, or even an actual person.³⁶

The Purity of Christian Women

The Christian apologists portrayed Christian men and women living in a purity that contrasted with pagan practices. Tatian, writing in the latter part of the second century, contrasted the luridness of Greek art, which was characterized by strong sexual suggestiveness, with the purity of Christian women.³⁷ In the same vein another Christian apologist, Athenagoras, extolled Christian morals, saying that even lustful looks are prohibited.³⁸ He wrote on behalf of celibacy, saying that it brings one nearer to God. Like the Shepherd of Hermas, he was against remarriage and called it “a specious adultery.”³⁹

Justin Martyr on Ministering Women

Some of the evidence for the ministries of women comes in oblique ways. Justin Martyr’s Dialogue With Trypho provides just such an indirect testimony. A chapter about the bestowal of the Holy Spirit on Christ commences with the observation that “it is possible to see among us women and men who possess gifts of the Spirit of God…”⁴⁰ There is no further comment on this, and we are left with the bare observation that such was the case.

Clement of Alexandria

The first example of an apparent ambivalence between two views on marriage occurs in Clement of Alexandria. Writing around the end of the second century, Clement expressed himself almost harshly against certain tendencies that he saw mainly in women, such as the wearing of luxurious clothes, immodesty, the use of cosmetics, the wearing of jewelry and especially gold ornaments, and the wearing of fashionable shoes. He attributed the desire to own more clothes than are necessary to the “weakness of women.”

He also spoke disparagingly of “diaphanous materials” and dresses of any kind that excite lust by revealing the female figure.⁴¹ He inveighed further against rings, women’s going to church without being entirely covered (face included), and women’s having short hair rather than long hair bound up. Men should “turn away from the sight of women. For it is sin not only to touch but to look.”⁴²

As for marriage, Clement adopted the position that marriage is for procreation; it is not right for everyone.⁴³ While men and women have the same human nature, and women are able to do such things as manage the house and take care of the flocks, the husband is the head of the wife.⁴⁴ A person who is a “gnostic” (not in the heretical sense, but one who has true spiritual knowledge) should be able to resist the approaches of a beautiful woman as Joseph did in Egypt. True marriage is free of inordinate affection.⁴⁵

Yet at the same time Clement rejected gnostic celibacy, citing 1 Corinthians 7 in support of his position.⁴⁶ In opposition to gnostic ideas, he defended marriage as good. He did so in a passage that “may sound like a lukewarm defense of its subject to the contemporary reader, [but] is in fact the strongest for the goodness of marriage to be found in the writings of the first three Christian centuries.”⁴⁷ Clement thought that when Paul said one should “marry rather than burn,” he was referring to a second marriage.⁴⁸ He attacked the wife sharing advocated by some gnostics. In short, he supported two standards of ethics without contradicting himself, because these two standards did not suit only one kind of people.⁴⁹

Clement argued both that women have a different nature from that of men (they get pregnant; they are under the “ruling power” of the husband as head) and that they have the same nature as regards virtue. He referred to a woman in Greek tragedy who acted “manfully”; to Judith, who prevailed over Holofernes “though a woman”; and to Leaena of Attica, who endured torture in a “manful” manner. Clement thus paid women a backhanded compliment.⁵⁰

Heretical Sects

It is a curious fact that women were prominent in the life and literature of fringe groups. The Naasenes claimed to have received their teachings from James, the brother of Jesus, mediated by a woman named Marianne. Epiphanius said that the Nicolaitans had a work they ascribed to a woman they thought was Noah’s wife, called Noria.⁵¹ The Apocryphal literature names not only Thecla, in the Acts of Paul and Thecla, but also Marianne, alleged to have been the sister of Philip, and a number of other women who were said to be prophetesses.⁵² The New Testament itself had spoken scathingly of “that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess” (Rev. 2:20). But does this mean that only deviant sects had prophetesses, or, conversely, that prophetesses were always heretical?

The answer is clearly negative, since the canonical Book of Acts mentions that Philip the evangelist had four daughters who prophesied (Acts 21:9). Why then were prophetesses apparently more active in heretical groups than in the orthodox stream of the church? One can only speculate, but the following facts may have a bearing on the question. In order for the deviant groups to gain adherents it was necessary for them to demonstrate their superiority over the established church. This was done, in part, by claiming truth the orthodox Christians did not possess or emphasize. Such “truth” had to come from a divine source, and the expected mode would be prophecy. By their nature, these groups were individualistic and lacked the established church’s corporate structure (such as it was by that time). The way was open for individual prophetic activity, which in these groups included the participation of women. It could also be suggested that because women were increasingly restricted in the developing church structure, some of the more strong-minded or impulsive ones would gravitate to groups that allowed them more expression.

Gnosticism

Whatever the case may have been with the other sects, in Gnosticism the female presence was prominent in its very theology. While the question could be asked as to why their theology became so feminized, for purposes of the present survey it is more important to observe that the existence of a feminine principle at the heart of their system could hardly fail to raise the female consciousness in their society. Much research has been done in this area, especially by Elaine Pagels. In a chapter entitled “God the Father/God the Mother,”⁵³ she assembles a curious assortment of texts. They are not monolithic, but evidence a diversity of attitudes toward sexual differentiation. One of these reveals an assumption that for women to enter the kingdom of heaven they must, as Pagels puts it, “assimilate themselves to men.”⁵⁴

Simon Peter said to them [the disciples]: “Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of Life.” Jesus said, “I myself shall lead her, in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit, resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”⁵⁵

Some of the data are assembled in an article by Louis A. Brighton: “The Ordination of Women: A Twentieth-Century Gnostic Heresy?”⁵⁶ Brighton amasses a number of the gnostic texts on women and on the feminine principle in God to prove that the idea of the ordination of women is heretical, presumably because it echoes gnostic ideals. While his conclusion may go beyond the facts, he offers a convenient summary of data, found also in Pagels and, in their original context, in the Nag Hammadi Library. These include the following:

In The Dialogue of the Savior Jesus is said to have selected three disciples to receive his sayings: Matthew, Judas, and Mary Magdalene (called Mariam). Mary Magdalene is a “revealer,” who knows all things.⁵⁷ In the Gospel of Mary, she is not only a “comforter” but also a “revealer.” On the sayings of Jesus she is an authority equal to any of the other disciples.⁵⁸

In addition to such recastings of Jesus’ disciples, there is the figure of Helena, who was the associate of Simon Magus and whom he called “the first thought of my mind.”⁵⁹ Another woman, Philoumene, will be noted below.

When Irenaeus thundered against the Gnostics, he took pains to describe their alleged heavenly beings in detail. The reconstructions of the Christian apologists are, of course, always likely to suffer from misinformation on their part, but at the very least they provide insight into the perceptions of the Fathers concerning Gnostic teaching and practice. Among the supraterrestrial female beings he mentioned were Ennoea (also called Charis or Sige),⁶⁰ Sophia,⁶¹ and Achamoth.⁶² Irenaeus claimed that the Gnostic Marcus profaned the consecrated cups with the blood of the female being Charis.⁶³ He also mentioned that Marcus was particularly devoted to women.⁶⁴

But lest it seem that women were automatically drawn away by heresies, it is worth noting that Irenaeus spoke of faithful devout women who were not deceived and who withdrew from Marcus.

Equally important is Irenaeus’ observation that these women knew that the gift of prophecy was bestowed directly by God, not by someone like Marcus.⁶⁵ This shows both that the gift of prophecy was expected by the orthodox in that era of the church and that there were women who had great discernment. Nevertheless, there were also “silly women,” like the deacon Asiatic’s wife, a beautiful woman who fell victim to Marcus “in mind and body.”⁶⁶

At the heart of all of this is the theological discussion among the Gnostics themselves (again according to Irenaeus) as to the feminine element in Bythus, who was generally thought to be the supreme being among the Gnostic hierarchy. Some considered “him” to be sexless, while others thought he was both masculine and feminine, “assigning to him the nature of a hermaphrodite.”⁶⁷ The feminine principle in Gnostic thought was expressed frequently and under a variety of names, including “Mother,” “Sound,” “Thought of the Father,” “Image of the Invisible Spirit,” “Perfect Mind,” “First and Last,” “Thunder,” “Whore,” “Mother of All,” “Virginal Berbelon,” and the “Ineffable Mother who presides over heaven.”⁶⁸

How does this complex of Gnostic ideology—of which only a part is reproduced here—fit into the whole picture of women in the early church? It has become increasingly common for students of the religious literature and history of the early Christian centuries (including the New Testament itself) to view this from a social perspective. Commenting on the Gnostic views and the diversity within the Christian church (e.g., Paul’s teachings in comparison with the prominence of prophetesses in Montanism), Pagels remarks:

Such contradictory attitudes towards women reflect a time of social transition, as well as a diversity of cultural influences…In Greece and Asia Minor women participated with men in religious cults…In Egypt women had attained…a relatively advanced state of emancipation…In Rome, forms of education had changed…[women were active publicly in business and social activities]…

Yet despite all of this, and despite the previous public activity of Christian women, the majority of Christian churches in the second century, like the majority of the middle class, opposed the move toward equality.⁶⁹

Montanists

In contrast to some of the heretical sects that developed a competing system of theology over against orthodoxy, Montanism was flourishing as an attempt to bring in a new spiritual and visionary order emphasizing the Second Coming; this order was established to counter the formalism of the church. Along with Montanus himself were two prophetesses, Maximilla and Priscilla. They were accused of leaving their husbands to follow Montanus. These prophetesses announced the imminent return of Christ and the advent of the New Jerusalem.

Maximilla declared, “After me, there will be no prophetess anymore, but the end will come.”⁷⁰

Montanism itself was condemned by the church, but the extant pronouncements of the Montanist prophetesses, though they are somewhat mystical, do not contain outright denials of basic doctrine. These women spoke in the name of God but did not claim to be divine themselves. On the contrary, they sought to call the church to Christ and to an expectation of his return. Opinions have differed on whether their adherence to a deviant sect invalidated their belief that God had called them to prophesy. But throughout the centuries there have been women who were willing, even under criticism, to commit themselves to ministries they thought—rightly or wrongly—were the call of God. Some, suffering not merely criticism but also persecution, even committed themselves to martyrdom. The views of Tertullian, the most famous Montanist, will be discussed later.

Understanding the Conflict

There are at least three ways to view the conflict between the orthodox and the sectarian practices regarding women. One is that the orthodox biblical position forbade the public ministry of women, with much of the prophetic and other leadership activity of women being thought of as simply out of order. Another view is that the more orthodox churches were in reality opposing the activity of women in heretical sects such as Gnosticism and Montanism largely because they opposed the sects themselves. A third view is that in keeping with the social movements of the day, as Pagels says, perhaps Christianity moved upward in the social scale, from lower-class status, in which women had been needed in ministry (a theory Pagels ascribes to Morton Smith), to the middle class, where women were still restricted in that society. In this last view, we should also note that Christianity was not completely at home in the upper classes in which, certainly in Roman as well as in other societies, women had long since gained status and freedom. Perhaps all three of these views are in some degree valid.

Perpetua

Approximately twenty-five years after the death of Maximilla another women died, perhaps the best-known martyr among early Christian women. Vibia Perpetua, a woman who had been born into a wealthy family was taken captive during the persecution under Septimius Severus around 202/3, along with her slave, Felicitas, and several men. Knowledge of the tragic events comes from a unique source, a firsthand account coupled with a third-person narrative by an eyewitness. There is also a first-person narration by Saturus, one of the men who was martyred with Perpetua.

The account by Perpetua land the eyewitness) is one of only a few writings by a woman from the early-church period. It is a touching and poignant story, encompassing far more than just the details of her arrest and martyrdom. The reader is drawn in sympathy to her father who could not understand or identify with her Christian determination to obey God rather than the state. His anxiety far exceeded hers. The response of Perpetua’s slave, Felicitas, provides an exemplary story in itself.

Even granting the tendency for legends to develop at this period, Perpetua’s story seems to be essentially historical. An abbreviation of the original Latin version was used in church services, and a translation was made into Greek as well. A basilica was dedicated to Perpetua in Carthage. The anniversary date of her martyrdom was included in the Roman church calendar, and St. Augustine preached sermons about her. There are other pieces of evidence as well to show not only that the early church assumed the historical fact of her martyrdom but also that Christians esteemed her very highly.

After an introduction by a later editor, the account proceeds with a description of her arrest; her father’s attempt, first with considerable hostility, to dissuade her from her testimony; then Perpetua’s concern for her child; and finally her peace in the situation. When her father heard that she was to be tried, he came again, this time with a more kindly attitude, to dissuade her: “These were things my father said out of love, kissing my hands and throwing himself at my feet. With tears he called me not daughter, but woman. I was very upset because of my father’s condition. He was the only member of my family who would find no reason for joy in my suffering.”⁷¹ Perpetua continues to tell her experiences, which include visions. One of them is of contending with the devil himself. She tells the experience of Felicitas, who was pregnant when she was arrested. One month before her baby was due she became concerned lest her martyrdom be delayed because it was not permitted to execute a pregnant woman. She prayed, and immediately went into labor; after considerable pain she gave birth to a daughter. The conclusion of the story is worth quoting in full:

The day of their victory dawned, and with joyful countenances they marched from the prison to the arena as though on their way to heaven. If there was any trembling it was from joy, not fear. Perpetua followed with a quick step as a true spouse of Christ, the darling of God, her brightly flashing eyes quelling the gaze of the crowd. Felicitas too, joyful because she had safely survived childbirth and was now able to participate in the contest with the wild animals, passed from one shedding of blood to another; from midwife to gladiator, about to be purified after child-birth by a second baptism…For the young women the devil had readied a mad cow, an animal not usually used at these games, but selected so that the women’s sex would be matched with that of the animal. After being stripped and enmeshed in nets, the women were led into the arena. How horrified the people were as they saw that one was a young girl and the other, her breasts dripping with milk, had just recently given birth to a child. Consequently both were recalled and dressed in loosely fitting gowns. Perpetua was tossed first and fell on her back. She sat up, and being more concerned with her sense of modesty than with her pain, covered her thighs with her gown which had been torn down one side. Then finding her hair-clip which had fallen out, she pinned back her loose hair, thinking it not proper for a martyr to suffer with disheveled hair; it might seem that she was mourning in her hour of triumph. Then she stood up. Noticing that Felicitas was badly bruised, she went to her, reaching out her hands and helping her to her feet…And when the crowd demanded that the prisoners be brought out into the open so that they might feast their eyes on death by the sword, they voluntarily arose and moved where the crowd wanted them. Before doing so they kissed each other so that their martyrdom would be completely perfected by the rite of the kiss of peace. The others, without making any movement or sound, were killed by the sword…but Perpetua, in order to feel some of the pain, groaning as she was struck between the ribs, took the gladiator’s trembling hand and guided it to her throat. Perhaps it was that so great a woman, feared as she was by the unclean spirit, could not have been slain had she herself not willed it.⁷²

The Apocryphal Acts

The so-called Apocryphal Acts were patterned after the ancient romance, literary elements of which are also found in the canonical Book of Acts. The literary form in itself has no bearing on the historicity of the book. In the case of the Apocryphal Acts, however, pious imagination took over. The ancient reader enjoyed hearing stories about travel, and especially about dangers and shipwreck.

The absence of the romantic and female element in the canonical Book of Acts is adequately “remedied” in the unhistorical story we know as the Acts of Paul and Thecla. The woman Thecla sacrificed everything to follow the apostle Paul. She cut her hair and traveled around looking like a man. Paul commissioned her as an apostle. As might be expected, she became a model in later years for Christian women who desired to live a life of asceticism and sacrificial devotion to the Lord. The significance of Thecla lies not, as with Perpetua, in an actual devotion to the point of dying for the sake of the Lord, but rather in the ideal that characterized the thinking of many women of that time. As noted earlier, there is a theory that the Apocryphal Acts represents a reaction to the oppression on the part of the church against the activities of the orders of widows.

Tertullian

Tertullian’s writings come mainly from the period 196 to 212. He grew up in a cultured pagan environment in the North African city of Carthage. After he became a Christian, he developed strong views about morality and eventually became a Montanist. Tertullian has been the object of much recent study.⁷³

Tertullian’s strong views have resulted in some equally strong reactions on the part of modern students of human social behavior. Gryson says, “Tertullian could not find words vehement enough to stigmatize the abusive pretensions of women in the heretical sects he opposed.” And Tertullian did not oppose women only for their heresies, for, Gryson adds, he “did not tolerate women pretending to teach or to discuss.”⁷⁴

Women’s Guilt for Sin

Perhaps the best known and most explosive of Tertullian’s statements about women is found in his work On the Apparel of Women. He addressed this work to “best beloved sisters.” Christian women, he admonished, should dress humbly and walk around “as Eve,” in an attitude of mourning and repentance

in order that by every garb of penitence she might the more fully expiate that which she derives from Eve—the ignominy, I mean, of the first sin, and odium [attaching to her as the cause] of human perdition…In pains and in anxiety dost thou bear, woman; and toward thine husband [is] thy inclination, and he lords it over thee…And do you not know that you are [each] an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age; the guilt must of necessity live too.

The words that follow are among the most notorious comments on women:

You are the devil’s gateway; you are the unsealer of that [forbidden] tree; you are the first deserter of the divine law; you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God’s image, man. On account of your desert [i.e., punishment], that is, death—even the Son of God had to die.⁷⁵

It is easy for a modern writer, addressing readers who have become sensitized to the hurts caused by sexual slurs, to quote this passage for its shock value. Because of the controversial nature of Tertullian’s writings, it is important to understand his reasoning. As Manges observes, “Historical work in an area such as the history of sexuality in the Church should be constructed on a foundation of individual analysis of each figure who contributes to that history. Rapid surveys which pull out provoking quotations from an entire series of writers will not do the job.”⁷⁶ Tertullian worked from the same biblical premises as other church fathers and confronted an essentially similar pagan environment as they (although care must be exercised against oversimplification here). The strength of his comments was due largely to his revulsion against pagan sexual excesses.

Women’s Modesty

Tertullian’s repugnance toward the sexual excesses of pagan women appears also in a passage where he insists that it is not enough to avoid fornication. Women should also avoid “the studied graces of form and brilliance.”⁷⁷ It is clear from the context that his attribution of evil to women stems from his observation of pagan immorality and reflections of that immorality even among Christian women, and not simply from a low view of women.

Tertullian’s outrage over the immodest dress of unmarried women in his culture comes out all the more strongly in his work On the Veiling of Virgins: “The virgins of men go about, in opposition to the virgins of God, with front quite bare, excited to a rash audacity…Are therefore chaste virgins to be, for the sake of these marketable creatures, dragged into the church, blushing at being recognized in public, quaking at being unveiled, as though they had been invited as it were to rape?”⁷⁸

Celibacy and Marriage

Celibacy, especially the virginity of women, was important to Tertullian, as it increasingly was to the other church fathers. Veiling was important also. In particular he said, “Let virgins alone be veiled, and this when they are coming to be married, and not until they have recognized their destined husband.”⁷⁹ If people want to know a specific divine law regarding veiling, there is one in Paul’s words, “Does not even nature teach you…?”⁸⁰ A woman should have her head covered because, among other reasons, “She has the burden of her own humility to bear.”⁸¹

Although Tertullian addressed married women as “women of the second (degrees of) modesty, who have fallen into wedlock,” he wrote positively of marriage in his treatise to his wife; even so, of course, celibacy is preferable.⁸² Tertullian did oppose remarriage, however.⁸³

Tertullian’s concept of marriage and celibacy becomes clearer in his treatise, On Exhortation to Chastity. He described three classes of virgins. The first class is those who are virgins from birth; the second, those who are virgins from their second birth—i.e., from their baptism; and third, those who are monogamous “when after the inception of a marriage once contracted, there is therefore a renunciation of sexual connection.” This he called the glory of “moderation.”⁸⁴ The principles illustrated by the excerpts quoted here are continued in other treatises of Tertullian, such as On Monogamy and On Modesty.

Another summary of his views on marriage is found in his response to Marcion: “We do not reject marriage, but simply refrain from it.”⁸⁵

Throughout his treatises, Tertullian frequently refers to Scripture. Much as he or any of the other fathers was a child of his age, imbued from childhood with a patriarchal attitude, this perspective was consistent with their understanding of Scripture. Tertullian’s view of women—whether it concerned veiling, the sin of Eve, or whatever—was not in tension with, but rather stemmed from, his theology. We may have trouble with the idea that every woman today is guilty of Eve’s sin, but it was perfectly logical and theologically sound to Tertullian. Further, Tertullian must be understood as a strong opponent of both the immorality he saw in the pagan culture of his day and the heretical ideas he saw in the Gnostics and especially in Marcion. If it seems strange that he urged continency within marriage, for him that was a sensible and biblical response to Marcion’s opposition to marriage itself.

Tertullian’s view that marriage should not be a sexual convenience was spelled out in even more detail in later church fathers. There are, according to Ernest Manges, three “theological incentives” in Tertullian that lay behind his “notable preoccupation with sexuality.” One is the Christian witness before pagan contemporaries. A second is the eschatological viewpoint that the end of time was near. The third is Tertullian’s view of soteriology, that salvation is partially dependent on the moral behavior of the Christian.⁸⁶

Manges summarizes Tertullian: “If sexual pleasure even in marriage can lead to lust, then it is better to abstain from such pleasure by controlling and restricting marriage.”⁸⁷

Headship: Authority or Source?

Tertullian’s discussion of 1 Corinthians 11 deals with the sense in which Paul used the word head. He begins with Paul’s affirmation that Christ is the head of man and indicates that this is the Christ who is the “author” of man. This is a comment of significance for those who emphasize the meaning of “source” for head. But Tertullian goes on to support his reference to Christ as “author” (auctor) by stating that he has “authority” (auctoritas) and then observing that “authority can belong to no other than the author.” Turning to the relation of woman to man, Tertullian states that the reason she needs to have “power” on her head is that she was taken out of man and was made for his sake. This seems to reinforce the impression that Tertullian thinks of headship primarily in terms of source.⁸⁸

Teaching and Baptizing

Tertullian (a Montanist) held that women should be silent in the church but should be permitted to prophesy when veiled.⁸⁹ Not only should women be veiled and silent, they should also not be too bold even to learn, much less teach and baptize. After asserting that laymen have the right to baptize, Tertullian resisted any “woman of pertness, who has usurped the power to teach.” “For how credible would it seem that he who has not permitted a woman even to learn with over boldness, should give a female the power of teaching and of baptizing! ‘Let them be silent,’ he says, ‘and at home consult their own husbands.’”⁹⁰

The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine, by Parmigiano. Notice the spiked wheel. It is customary in paintings of St. Catherine to portray the wheel on which she was tortured. National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C. Used by permission.

Application of Restrictions to Single Women

One issue of biblical interpretation is whether Paul’s injunctions regarding women’s silence, veiling, and teaching were intended for single as well as married women. Tertullian had no question about this, because “the precepts of ecclesiastical discipline concerning women have an eye to the virgin.”⁹¹ With regard to virgins and headship, Tertullian held that “if ‘the man is head of the women,’ of course (he is) of the virgin too, from whom comes the woman who has married; unless the virgin is a third generic class, some monstrosity with a head of its own.”⁹²

Prophets and Prophetesses

A problem that has surfaced from time to time in the history of the church is the appearance of those who claim to be prophets or prophetesses but whose teachings seem to be against the teachings of Scripture. This was a particular problem at the time of Tertullian. When Tertullian became a Montanist, he had to come to grips with the role prophetesses had played in the beginning of that movement. While he continued to oppose allowing women in ecclesiastic leadership, he did uphold the right the apostle Paul gave to women to prophesy.⁹³ But he could not tolerate all he heard from women. He opposed “a certain virgin [called] Philoumene an angel of deceit, transformed into an angel of light, by whose miracles and illusions Apelles was led [when] he introduced his new heresy.”⁹⁴ Tertullian makes no effort to conceal his disdain for this prophetess, saying that “afterwards [she] became an enormous prostitute.”⁹⁵ Tertullian also objects to the boldness of heretical women who are bold enough to teach, to dispute, to enact exorcisms, to undertake cure—it may be even to baptize. Their ordinations are carelessly administered, capricious, changeable.”⁹⁶ Tertullian brings his charges to a climax with a statement that is significant for its concept of ministry as well as for the role of women: “For even on laymen do they impose the functions of priesthood.”

Phoebe and Others in Origen’s Commentaries

If Tertullian had problems with women in ministry, Origen (the Alexandrian scholar who was prominent in the first part of the third century) spoke out even more strongly, especially against the Montanist prophetesses. In his comments on 1 Corinthians 14:34–35 (about women being silent), he said this about Philip’s four daughters who prophesied:

…at least they did not speak in the assemblies; for we do not find this fact in the Acts of the Apostles…There is no evidence that Deborah delivered speeches to the people…Huldah did not speak to the people, but only to a man, who consulted her at home…Anna [Luke 2:36–38]…did not speak publicly. Even if it is granted to a woman to prophesy and to show the sign of prophecy, she is nevertheless not permitted to speak in an assembly…Certainly, women should “teach what is good,” but men should not sit and listen to a woman…even if she says admirable things, or even saintly things, that is of little consequence, since they come from the mouth of a woman.⁹⁷

Origen’s understanding of the ministry of Phoebe (Rom. 16:1–2) also reveals something of the feelings about women in his own time as well as contributing to our understanding of the diaconate in his day. He begins, “This text teaches with the authority of the Apostle that even women are instituted deacons in the church.”⁹⁸ The reader immediately learns that even women can be deacons. But more than that, it takes the “authority of the Apostle” (Paul) to validate this practice. This suggests that even by the early part of the third century deaconesses were not commonly accepted in Egypt.

Origen continues by saying that Phoebe’s ministry was one of assisting people and exercising hospitality. The example with which he compared her was Abraham’s nephew Lot. Phoebe was pious and helpful, and she “deserved to assist and to serve the Apostle himself.” He therefore defines Phoebe completely in terms of service.

The following comment illustrates how Origen’s opinion of Phoebe is viewed by a present-day feminist biblical scholar, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza:

Those women whom the patriarchal writers could not erase from historical consciousness they declared frauds or heretics or interpreted from a patriarchal perspective. Origen, for example, acknowledges Phoebe, but reduces her to an assistant and servant of Paul and argues that women who do good works can be accepted as deaconesses.⁹⁹

Origen is known for his allegorical interpretation of Scripture. It is not surprising, therefore, that he developed a symbolism of woman as representing the church in his commentary on the Song of Solomon. “The appellations of Bride and Bridegroom denote either the church in her relation to Christ, or the soul in her union with God the Word.”¹⁰⁰

Prophetesses, Virgins, and Widows in Hippolytus

One of Origen’s contemporaries, Hippolytus of Rome, whom Origen heard preach in that city, is known for his Refutation of All Heresies and Apostolic Traditions. The Refutation contains comments on the prophetesses Priscilla and Maximilla mentioned above. Hippolytus’ opinion comes through sharply:

They have been deceived by women, a certain one named Priscilla and one named Maximilla, whom they considered to be prophetesses, into whom they say the Comforter, the Holy Spirit has come. And before these, they similarly believed a certain Montanus to be a prophet…they also glorify these women above the apostles and every spiritual gift, so that some among them have come so far as to dare to say that there is something more in them than in Christ. These people…bring in new observances by way of fasts and holidays, diets of dry food and radishes, alleging that they have been taught to do so by these women.¹⁰¹

Virgins and Widows

Although virgins ultimately consitituted an order in the church, Hippolytus asserted that “a virgin does not receive the laying on of hands; it is her choice alone that makes her a virgin.”¹⁰² He was equally opposed to the ordination of widows.

Like virgins, widows constituted a special ministering group in the early church. Hippolytus asserted:

When a widow is appointed she is not ordained but she shall be chosen by name. But if she lost her husband a long time previously, let her be appointed. But if she lately lost her husband, let her not be trusted. And even if she is aged let her be tested for a time for often the passions grow with him who gives place for them in himself. Let the widow be instituted by word only and let her be reckoned among the [enrolled] widows. But she shall not be ordained because she does not offer the oblation nor has she a liturgical ministry. But ordination is for the clergy, on account of their ministry. But the widow is appointed for prayer, and this is a function of all Christians.¹⁰³

In regard to widows, as Hippolytus saw it, one whose husband had been dead for a time could be “appointed” to the group of enrolled ministering widows. The Greek verb Hippolytus originally used (we have only a translation) was apparently kathistēmi, a common word that could be used also in secular situations of appointment. But a widow was not, in his opinion, to be “ordained.” The Greek word for “ordained” was probably cheirotoneō. It was formerly used to indicate any designation (originally by stretching out one’s hand to point or to vote) but came to be used in an ecclesiastical sense for ordination to the clergy. By contrast, virgins were not even appointed.¹⁰⁴

Ordination

This passage is of obvious importance not only for Hippolytus’ opinion concerning widows but also for his perception of ordination. Among the issues discussed both in ancient times and today regarding ordination are: (1) whether celebrating the eucharist is a special priestly function different from ordinary ministries, (2) whether it therefore requires ordination, (3) if so, whether people in other ministries should or should not have the same ordination, and (4) whether women may have ordination for either an ordinary or a liturgical ministry. For those whose decisions are molded by church tradition, this opinion of Hippolytus is of considerable significance. In his judgment, ordination was clearly for the clergy, who performed a liturgical ministry that widows did not. Women were appointed for prayer, a “function for all Christians.” It is this kind of issue that makes the question of women’s ordination so complex.

A Christian Concubine

A controversy that Hippolytus had with Callistus yielded a curious fact. In a biography that the former wrote of the latter, there is a reference to a Christian woman named Marcia. She was a concubine of the emperor around the year A.D. 225. She used her influence in the emperor’s court to win the freedom of Callistus and other imprisoned Christians. This is reminiscent of the role of Esther in the pagan court of her day.¹⁰⁵

Other Prominent Christian Women

Church historians have found evidence of socially prominent women of the fourth century who were Christians. When Emperor Diocletian launched his persecution against the Christians, he made his own wife and daughter offer pagan sacrifices. This suggests that they were Christians. Prior to the toleration of Christianity under Constantine, Constantine’s father had a daughter who was named Anastasia. Only those favorable to Christianity would have bestowed such a name. Flavius lanuarinus, who was Roman consul for the year 328, had a Christian wife, Marcia Romana Celsa. The sarcophagus he made for her pictured the raising of Lazarus. Eustorgius, a man known as an Epicurian, left clues on his grave and on that of his wife that she had Christian morals. Julian the apostate grumbled about those whose wives gave money to the poor. Such a wife would “carry everything out of his house to the Galileans.”¹⁰⁶ W. H. C. Frend cites an ancient complaint about women who tried to persuade their husbands not to go to the pagan altars. He quotes Libanius as saying that “when a man gets home, his wife and her tears and the night…draw him away from the altars.”¹⁰⁷

Cyprian on Virgins

Cyprian (who lived during the first half of the third century) was bishop of Carthage. He wrote extensively about virgins. The virgin was mystically married to Christ and was required to live in absolute purity. She was to dress modestly, something Cyprian also advised for all women. His instructions concerning virgins came at a time when they were increasingly recognized as a separate group of women devoted to the service of Christ. However, at that time they were not living a communal life in convents.¹⁰⁸

Didascalia Apostolorum

Also in the third century a compilation of instructions on church order was developed, probably in the Syrian church, called the Didascalia Apostolorum. This work was later modified and included in the Apostolic Constitutions.

Women Not to Teach

Chapter three of the Didascalia is very clear on the opinion that a woman should be subject to her husband. She should reverence, please, and give her life in ministry to him. She should be modest so as not to attract other men. Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza cites this writing as an example of third- and fourth-century “patriarchal reaction against female leadership.” It “maintains that women are not appointed by Jesus to teach and to proclaim Christ.”¹⁰⁹

Although the Didascalia mentions several women, including Mary Magdalene, as disciples, it maintains that the Lord “did not send them to instruct the people with us. For if it were required that women should teach, our Master Himself would have commanded these to give instruction with us.” The rule that the Didascalia gives, based on Jesus’ action, is, “We do not allow women to teach [didaskein] in the Church, but only to pray.”¹¹⁰

Widows and Deaconesses

In spite of these restrictions on women’s ministry, the Didascalia did encourage an order of widows and also, according to some, provides the “earliest reliable witness to the existence of an office of deaconess.”¹¹¹ This judgment has not gone unchallenged, for some see earlier evidence, beginning with Romans 16:1 and perhaps 1 Timothy 3:11. Much of the ministry of a deaconess (or woman deacon, to distinguish her from one who was the wife of a church official) was to other women, not to men: “But let a woman rather be devoted to the ministry of women, and a male deacon to the ministry of men.”¹¹² Yet the same passage, in speaking of their spiritual ministry, mentions the example of the women who served Jesus. Nevertheless, the role of the deaconesses was clearly to assist women at the baptism and to minister to women who were sick.¹¹³ Gryson observes that while the Didascalia in various places describes male deacons as closely associated with the bishop, nothing like that is said of women deacons.¹¹⁴

The actual term deaconess, was not used until the third century. Ministries were being carried out, especially by widows, but not by a separate, named ecclesial order. But once such an order was recognized, it spread quickly throughout the eastern part of the Empire. The reason for the church’s fostering this was perhaps not so much to fill a need for service, as this was already being met, as it was a means of order and control.¹¹⁵

“It is a fact,” says van der Meer, that deaconesses, and later the “abbesses of the canonesses’ foundations…did much in the ecclesiastical and cultic area which is now forbidden to women. The real problem is whether they received an actual sacramental consecration.”¹¹⁶

It would certainly be interesting if it were established that the ancient Church had actually seen deaconesses as incumbents in a hierarchical office…It would be a clear proof that the church had already overcome its low interpretation of women. But it is not decisive. For no matter how high the position of deaconesses can be fixed, the fact still remains that no one among the orthodox Catholics at that time had the remotest idea that a woman could be ordained a priest.¹¹⁷

Nevertheless, it should be noted that at least by the time of the Council of Chalcedon (A.D. 451), the technical term for ordination, cheirotonēa, was clearly used for deaconesses.¹¹⁸

Regarding widows, the Didascalia specifies that those who were enrolled should be over fifty years of age. They should be “meek and quiet and gentle…and…not be talkative.” The widows’ ministry should largely be one of prayer. “It is in this context that the Didascalia speaks against women teaching.” Widows are to be “obedient to the bishop and the deacons” and not even “lay hand on and pray over anyone without the command of the bishop or the deacon.”¹¹⁹ Hippolytus of Rome thought, as we observed earlier, that some widows, those whose husbands had been dead for some time, should be “appointed” (but not ordained). Gryson, after surveying the material in the Didascalia, asks whether the widows in the Syrian community were “members of the clergy or of the laity.” He continues, “On the one hand, they were the object of a special call from God, and they occupied a “place” or “rank” apart from lay people. But, on the other hand, there is no evidence that they were in some way positively associated with the bishops, presbyters, and deacons, so that they too were considered members of the clergy.”¹²⁰ Gryson also notes that the widows described in the Didascalia “had also at least two things in common with the nuns of the following centuries: the vow of continence and the duty of prayer.”

Women and Priesthood

Dionysius, who was bishop of Alexandria around 247–264, gave clear expression to one of the reasons women have been barred from priesthood: not only should women not be touched during “the time of their separation” [i.e., menstruation], but a woman is not to “approach the holy table or touch the body or blood of the Lord” (i.e., in the sacrament). The reason is that during her period she is not perfectly pure in soul and body.¹²¹ This restriction finds precedence in the legislation of Leviticus 15:19–24, where the woman’s periodic discharge is mentioned as one of the bodily emissions that result in defilement. Actually the emission of males had the same result. Theoretically a male could opt for celibacy, though that does not necessarily preclude an emission. But a woman has no way short of age to prevent her discharge. In this connection E. Margaret Howe cites the incident in the Protevangelium of James when the temple priests pondered how to handle the situation when Mary, Jesus’ mother, became twelve years of age and, with the onset of her period, would pollute the temple.¹²² Was this condition truly a problem the church fathers could not overcome, or did it offer a convenient “pious” support for restrictions established for other reasons?

The Beginnings of Monasticism

A significant development took place during the first part of the fourth century. Pachomius, who had constructed a monastic community for men, proceeded to do the same for women. We read about this from the later writings of Palladius: “With these men there was also a monastery of about 400 women…The women were across the river, with the men on the opposite side.” Apart from the necessity of transporting the body of a virgin who had died, no one “except for the priest and the deacon, crosses over to the women’s monastery, and this happens only on Sundays.”¹²³

The ideal of the celibate, virgin life developed rapidly during the fourth century. “From the middle of the third century,” writes LaPorte, “there was a special rank or dignity for virgins. It paralleled, and progressively substituted for, the rank of widows in the exercise of contemplative life.”¹²⁴ LaPorte observes that there were many widows who were living in poverty and therefore not drawn to the contemplative life. The virgins, however, increasingly lived in communities (at this time in private homes, not, as later, in convents). They lived an ascetic life with vigils and fasting. Their ideal was to be like the angels, not marrying and totally given to the contemplation and praise of God.¹²⁵

A Curious Argument for Virginity

A reason for virginity was offered in the Banquet of the Ten Virgins. This early fourth-century work by Methodius was written in a similar way to Plato’s famous Symposium. These virgins discuss among themselves the virtues of the celibate life and, in a section of considerable theological

Procession of Virgins (Saints Agatha, Pelagia, Euphemia, and Agnes) This mosaic is from S. Apollinari nuovo, Ravenna. From Fratelli Alinari, Rome. Permission from Art Resource, New York.

and apologetic interest, the matter of polygamy in the Old Testament. In early New Testament times, the argument runs,

the race of mankind was still very small in numbers; and it was necessary that it should be increased in number and then brought to perfection. Therefore the men of old times thought it nothing unseemly to take their own sisters for wives until the law coming separated them…For the world was still unfilled with men, it was child, and it was necessary that it should be filled with these, and so grow to manhood.

As time went on, God intended that such kinds of marriage should cease, and also that polygamy itself should cease. Methodius then introduces an argument used by the church fathers to justif, celibacy: overpopulation. “But when hereafter it [the world] was colonized from end to end, the race of man spreading to a boundless extent, God no longer allowed man to remain in the same ways…”¹²⁶ So, the argument ran, marriage to a sibling and polygamy were permitted by God in order to populate the earth. However, when the world reached its saturation point (which, according to the Fathers, had already taken place in their day!) celibacy became the ideal, and virgins could “advance nearer to heaven, until, having obtained to the very greatest and most exalted lesson of virginity, they should reach to perfection.”¹²⁷ Christ was the supreme example, having been born of a virgin and being celibate himself.

The World of Eusebius

It was about this time that Eusebius of Caesarea was writing his Ecclesiastical History. His narration of the martyrdom of Blandina in A.D. 177 was related earlier. There were also in his day a number of women whose Christian character, witness, and martyrdom he celebrated.

Women Under Adversity

One of the believers martyred during the persecution under the Roman emperor Decius was a woman by the name of Quinta. She was taken to the idol temple where they tried to force her to worship. When she turned away in disgust, “they bound her by the feet and dragged her through the whole city over the rough pavement, so that she was bruised by the big stones, beating her all the while.” They stoned her to death and then attacked the homes of other believers.¹²⁸

They then seized an elderly virgin, Appollonia. Pictures of her, like the one in this chapter, include a pair of pliers because her persecutors broke out all of her teeth. When they lighted a pyre to torture her, she jumped into the flames and ended her life a martyr.¹²⁹

Others who were tortured at that time included Ammonarion, a holy virgin who was “tortured very vigorously” but held firm. Another was Mercuria, a highly revered, elderly woman. Yet another was Dionysia who had many children but “did not love them above the Lord.”¹³⁰

Eusebius described another martyr as “a certain holy person, admirable for strength of soul yet in body a woman,” who was noted “for wealth, mirth and sound judgment.” She had two beautiful unmarried daughters. They attracted the amorous attention of soldiers. To preserve their purity they escaped and jumped into a river where they drowned.¹³¹ Still another woman avoided violation by commiting suicide with a sword. In one terrible incident an entire Christian town was set on fire by soldiers; all perished, including women and children.

Potamiaena, who had faithfully maintained her virginity against the advances of lovers, faced a further struggle when brought to court. The judge, Aquila, “imposed severe punishments on her entire body and finally threatened to hand her over to the gladiators for bodily abuse.” Her courageous response caused her to be put to death.

A soldier by the name of Basilides was kind to Potamiaena, and she offered to intercede to the Lord for him. Then “boiling pitch was poured slowly and gradually upon the various parts of the body from the tips of her toes even to her head.” Not long after that Basilides confessed to having become a Christian. He said that Potamiaena had appeared to him three days after her martyrdom, assuring him that she had interceded for him and that the Lord had heard.¹³²

After a summary of the horrible tortures endured by the Christian men, Eusebius says, “And the women, on the other hand, showed themselves no less manly than the men, inspired by the teaching of the divine word: some, undergoing the same contests as the men, won equal rewards for their valour; and others, when they were being dragged away to dishonor, yielded up their souls to death rather than their bodies to seduction.”¹³³ He goes on to describe a Christian woman who was “most famous and distinguished among those at Alexandria,” whose name, Dorothea, we know from a later account by Rufinus. The price she paid for resistance to the advances of a tyrant named Maximin was to be exiled and to lose all of her property.¹³⁴ Another woman similarly threatened by a tyrant at Rome asked to be excused to make herself more attractive. When she was alone, she killed herself with a sword.¹³⁵

Eusebius tells of a woman who came to believe and gave up a sinful life. Her husband, however, did not follow her in the faith. She tried her best to persuade him to change, but to no avail. Finally, “in order not to become a party to his injustices and impieties while remaining in wedlock and sharing in his board and bed, she gave him what among you is called a bill of divorce and was separated.” Her husband, instead of being glad that she had given up her former partying and worse, brought charges against her, accusing her of being a Christian.¹³⁶ Such a story is not intended, of course, to justify the woman’s divorce proceedings but to portray her strength of conviction and willingness to make any sacrifice necessary for the Lord.

Women Against the Mainstream

Eusebius’ opinion of other women did not always match his opinion of Blandina and the others just described. He tells of the “possessed maiden” Philoumene who influenced Appelles.¹³⁷ He also writes of the Montanist prophetesses, Priscilla and Maximilla.¹³⁸ Citing another work by Miltiades, Eusebius mentions the names of Ammia and Quadratus among others prophesying in the New Testament period.

Apparently, during this period of flourishing prophetic activity, women as well as men were prophesying, and some apologetic was needed to defend both. We are beginning to see a pattern that is discernible at different stages of church history. Alongside the “mainline” churches are groups that feel the church is not fulfilling its proper function in a spiritual way. These groups find support in prophetic activity among themselves. Among such groups it is not unusual to find women prophesying. This pattern will become more apparent in the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Naturally, perspectives differ on the validity of the prophetic activity, especially through the women. Eusebius relates the charge “that these first prophetesses themselves deserted their husbands from the moment that they were filled with the spirit.”¹³⁹ In that day and since, such criticisms have flowed easily from churches in the mainstream, picking up deviations in theology or practice among the prophets and prophetesses. Conversely, groups such as the Montanists have tended to criticize the formality and deadness of the more orthodox churches. In their opinion God is not speaking through the official church channels, but he chooses ordinary men, and—here is the point—especially women, to mediate his Word.

Other Women Martyrs

A number of stories about women martyrs similar to those in Eusebius are vividly narrated in the compendium of martyrology known as Foxe’s Book of Martyrs.¹⁴⁰ Although the sources are often obscure, the instances related are linked with one or another of the major persecutions during the reigns of Roman emperors.

When a widow named Symphrosa refused to sacrifice to the heathen deities, she was tortured and killed. Under orders from Emperor Trajan (A.D. 98–117), “she was scourged while she was hung up by the hair of her head,” and afterward she was weighed down by a large stone and thrown into a river. Anthia, “a godly woman,” was beheaded with her son, a bishop. During the reign of Marcus Aurelius (A.D. 161–180), Felicitas, “an illustrious Roman lady of a considerable family and great virtues” refused to forsake her faith and was beheaded. Her seven sons were also tortured and killed.¹⁴¹

The persecutions under Decius (A.D. 249-251) claimed the lives of many faithful Christians. One was Denisa, who, at the age of sixteen, took a firm stand against sacrificing to idols. Although the soldiers admired her, the proconsul of Asia had her beheaded. There were a number of stories about women of considerable beauty who refused the advances of pagan men. One of these was Agatha, a woman of Sicily. Her refusal to yield to the governor “changed his desire into resentment.” When he learned that she was a Christian, he “ordered her to be scourged, burnt with hot irons, and torn with sharp hooks.” After all of this was done to her, she was “laid upon live coals, intermingled with glass” and taken back to prison, where she died.¹⁴²

Saint Apollonia by Piero della Francesca, Assistant to Umbrian (C. 1470). St. Apollonia is typically pictured with pliers representing the tool with which her teeth were broken off during her martyrdom. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Samuel H. Kress collection, 1952.

During the same period a young woman in Antioch, Theodora, was condemned to a brothel when she refused to sacrifice to idols. A Christian man visited her, changed clothes with her, and in this way helped her escape. However, fearing for his safety, she told the authorities, with the result that both of them were killed. A number of other virgins were martyred during the Decian persecution.¹⁴³

Emperor Diocletian (A.D. 284–305) is also known for his persecution of Christians. It was during his reign that a woman named Zoe, the wife of a prison guard, cared for some martyrs who had been tied to posts, their feet pierced with nails. Although they were eventually killed by spears, she was moved and impressed by their testimony and became a Christian herself. When she refused to sacrifice to the god Mars, they hung her on a tree, lighted straw underneath her, and then threw her into a river with a large stone tied around her neck. Another Christian woman, Faith, was broiled on a gridiron and then beheaded in 287.¹⁴⁴

One woman maintained her faith at the expense of her child—a seven-year-old who professed his faith in Christ as the only true God. When they whipped him, his mother reproved him for asking for water. The more she encouraged him to faithfulness, the more he was tortured. Other stories tell of Suzanna, of Justina, and of Eulalia, who was burned to death in 303.¹⁴⁵

Many women were tortured by Galerius, the adopted son of Diocletian. These included a young woman named Victoria and three sisters—Chionia, Agape, and Irene. Irene was shamefully exposed in public, she and her sisters were burned to death in 304. In the same year Anastasia, Mouris, and Thea were martyred. Another woman, Maura, tried to persuade her husband, Timothy, to sacrifice to idols. When he refused, she turned back to God, after which they were crucified near each other. A child of Julitta, a descendent of a royal family in Lyconia, confessed faith in Christ and was killed. She followed him in death after boiling pitch had been poured on her feet and her sides torn with hooks. Names of women who suffered during those days could be multiplied.¹⁴⁶

Epiphanius: Women Are Mediocre

In the process of these charges and countercharges, some highly offensive comments were made. Epiphanius (C. 315–403) rigorously opposed what he considered to be heresies. “His weaknesses included an unenlightened zeal for orthodoxy and an inability to understand the points of view of others.”¹⁴⁷ Perhaps this explains the following comment on women: “In very truth, women are a feeble race, untrustworthy and of mediocre intelligence. Once again we see that the Devil knows how to make women spew forth ridiculous teachings, as he has just succeeded in doing in the case of Quintilla Maximilla and Priscilla.”¹⁴⁸

Ironically, among Epiphanius’ contemporaries were some remarkable women who could have taken the witness stand against his accusations. These included Proba; Marcella; Paula; the notable mother and daughter, Melania the Elder and Melania the Younger (or Junior); and Olympias.

Some Outstanding Women of the Fourth Century

Proba

Proba is known for an outstanding literary work, the date of which is difficult to establish but very likely was around 351, when Epiphanius was in his mid-thirties. Her work is known as a cento, which is a literary (or a musical) composition that is composed of sections of other works. In this case Proba drew on the famous first-century B.C. poet Virgil to write a vivid description of Creation and the Incarnation. It is a moving literary experience, especially for one who is familiar with ancient Latin literature, to see how she “baptized” secular and pagan vocabulary and pressed it into the service of Christianity. She had an educated and keen mind. Here are some examples:

Then the almighty Father whose sway over the universe is supreme

removed the darksome air and dispelled the shades

and divided the world into two,

giving half to light and half to night…

Of a sudden, as He pondered His will took shape:

Rich clay He took up and shaped it,

molding fertile earth from the first months of the year.

And now, unexpectedly, the novel form of a man came forth.

The brightness of his great holiness, beautiful beyond all else,

like unto God in face and body, whose mind and soul

God in His greatness directs and moves towards deeds of moment.

Now another is sought for this one;

but none dares comes forth to be called His comrade in sovereignty.

Without delay God brings restful slumber to the young man’s limbs;

his eyes sink into blissful sleep.

It is a marvelous story—a maiden shone forth in brightest light,

beautiful of face and breast

already ripe for husband, in age right for marriage.

And concerning the incarnation of Christ:

because Thy Son descended from high heaven

and time brought to us with our hopes at last

succour and the coming of God whom for the first time

a woman bearing the guises and habit of a virgin—marvelous to say—

brought forth a child not of our race or blood.

And now the promised day was at hand when first

He showed His hallowed face, the first of a holy race

sent for a kingdom, and virtue came in His body

one with God, the very image of His beloved Sire.¹⁴⁹

Marcella

Another great mind among the women of this period was Marcella. She was born around the year 322 and was highly esteemed by Jerome. The following description of her by Jerome is interesting, not only for its portrayal of a remarkable woman, but also for its description of how a woman in that day could effectively teach God’s truth without being considered a teacher:

And because my name was then especially esteemed in the study of the Scriptures, she never came without asking something about Scripture, nor did she immediately accept my explanation as satisfactory, but she proposed questions from the opposite viewpoint, not for the sake of being contentious, but so that, by asking, she might learn solutions for points she perceived could be raised in objection. What virtue I found in her, what cleverness, what holiness, what purity, I am afraid to say, lest I exceed what belief finds credible. I will say only this, that whatever in us was gathered by long study and by lengthy meditation was almost changed into nature; this she tasted, this she learned, this she possessed. Thus, after my departure, if an argument arose about some evidence from Scripture, the question was pursued with her as the judge.¹⁵⁰

The next sentences deal with the matter of a woman teaching:

And because she was so discreet and knew about what the philosophers call in Greek to prepon, that is, “how to behave appropriately,” when she was thus questioned, she used to reply as if what she said was not her own, even if the views were her own, but came either from me or from another man, in order to confess that about the matter she was teaching, she herself had been a pupil. For she knew the saying of the Apostle, “I do not, however, permit a woman to teach” (I Tim. 2:12) lest she seem to inflict an injury on the male sex and on those priests who were inquiring about obscure and doubtful points.¹⁵¹

In other words, Marcella, with Jerome’s concurrence, ascribed her theological opinions to him so that she would not seem to be taking over the position of a teacher.

A later passage in the same tribute shows something further of her character as well as of her brilliance: “She was in the front line in condemning the heretics; she brought forth witnesses who earlier had been taught by them and later were set straight from their heretical error. She showed how many of them had been deceived…She called upon the heretics in frequent letters to defend themselves.”¹⁵²

Paula

Paula was a member of the Roman aristocracy. She was widowed and was left with five children. One of these children died an unfortunate death after turning to asceticism too soon after a serious illness. Her relatives reacted angrily against Jerome, who, with Paula, had been pleased with the daughter’s decision. Another one of Paula’s daughters was Eustochium. Jerome wrote a treatise to her on virginity, as well as, later on, a memorial to her mother.

Paula left the other children, and, taking Eustochium, went with Jerome to begin a new life of devotion. They went to Palestine and visited the holy places there. After a trip to Egypt, they returned to Bethlehem, where they decided to develop a monastery for women; one already existed there for men. Ultimately, Eustochium led the women’s monastery after the death of her mother. Here are some of Jerome’s appreciative comments on Paula:

What poor man, as he lay dying, was not wrapped in blankets given by Paula? What bedridden person was not supported with money from her purse? Not mindful of home, of children, of servants, of possessions, of anything that pertains to the world, she was eager to proceed alone. She was slow at speaking and quick at listening. She had memorized the Scriptures; she urged me that she, along with her daughter, might read through the Old and New Testaments, guided by my discussion. If at any passage I was at a loss and frankly confessed that I was ignorant, she by no means wanted to rest content with my reply, but by fresh questions would force me to say which of the many possible meanings seemed to me the most likely.

Paula and her daughter also learned Hebrew, speaking it without a Latin accent.¹⁵³

In the same epistle Jerome describes the rule of the women’s monastery under the gentle and wise leadership of Paula. This was a significant step in the development of communal life under the spiritual leadership of competent women. Increasingly, women of ability were to find opportunity to serve their Lord, not in the church at large, but in the community of ascetics. Naturally, there are different perspectives on this development. One might celebrate such a ministry of women to women and collectively to the needy. On the other hand one might regret the loss of such spiritual and theological ability to the church at large. Further, it is becoming apparent that the ascetic life was in one sense a release to women. The restrictions in marriage, and indeed the strong feeling that marriage itself was not for any reason other than procreation, meant that it was virtually hopeless for women of spiritual ability to live a happy married life of fulfillment and at the same time to serve their Lord.

Melania the Elder

Melania the Elder was born a few years before Paula but outlived her. She is called the Elder, not because she was an ecclesiastical elder but to distinguish her from her daughter, commonly known as Melania the Younger. Like some of the other women of importance in the history of Christianity, she was born into a prominent family. After losing her husband and two of her children, she devoted herself to the Lord as a Christian ascetic. During a time of persecution after the death of Athanasius, she used her resources to help the ecclesiastical leaders who had been exiled. She disguised herself but was arrested anyway; she was released, however, when she made her social position known.¹⁵⁴

The following description was written in A.D. 419–420:

She was very learned and a lover of literature. She turned night into day by going through every writing of the ancient commentators, three million lines of Origen, and 250,000 lines of Gregory Stephen, Pierius, Basil, and other excellent men. And she did not merely glance through them casually, but laboring over them, she read each work seven or eight times. Therefore she was able to be freed from “knowledge falsely called” (I Tim. 6:20) and to take flight by the influence of the books, making herself a spiritual bird, passing over to Christ in good hopes.¹⁵⁵

Another writer, possibly Melania’s cousin Paulinus of Nola, said of her, “What a woman she is, if it is permissible to call such a manly Christian a woman!”¹⁵⁶ It is easy to see from this and from other comments recorded in our survey that some virtues were typed as masculine. Palladius quotes Melania in her old age saying as she reflects on a long life of self-discipline: “Look I am sixty years old and neither my feet nor my face nor any of my members, except for the tips of my fingers, has touched water…I have not yet made concessions to my bodily desires nor have I used a couch for resting nor have I ever made a journey on a litter.”¹⁵⁷

Melania the Younger

Melania’s daughter, Melania the Younger, was married, but after her children died she and her husband, Pinian, took a vow of chastity. They built monasteries for both men and women on the Mount of Olives. She made an intensive study of the Bible and of the lives of the desert Fathers. Although Pinian had been in charge of the monastery for men, after his death Melania the Younger was left alone in charge of the entire complex. In addition, she taught a group of women in theology so they could refute Nestorianism.¹⁵⁸

Olympias

“The most holy and admirable Olympias,” as Palladius called her, followed in the footsteps of Malania’s “resolution in her reverence and in her footsteps.” She also was of noble birth. She was married only a few days, and it was said that she died a virgin. “She contended eagerly in no minor contests for the sake of the truth, taught many women, held solemn conversations with priests, honored the bishops, and was deemed worthy to be a confessor on behalf of truth…”¹⁵⁹ We learn more of her from an anonymous fifth-century work, which tells us that “by the divine will she was ordained deaconess of the holy cathedral of God and she built a monastery at an angle south of it.”¹⁶⁰ The “holy cathedral” mentioned in the text was in Constantinople, where she lived. Note that this evidence of a deaconess does not come from the western church, but from the eastern.¹⁶¹

Macrina

The name of Macrina is not as well known as those of the so-called Cappadocian Fathers—Basil of Caesarea, his brother Gregory of Nyssa, and Basil’s close friend Gregory of Nazianzus. Even so, it was because of Macrina, who was Basil’s sister, that he became dedicated to Christian ministry. Gregory said of Macrina: “It was a woman who was the subject of our discourse, if indeed you can say ‘a woman’ for I do not know if it is appropriate to call her by a name taken from nature when she surpassed that nature.” Gregory and Macrina’s brother Basil had been in a school for rhetorical training. Macrina “detected that he was enormously puffed up with pride over his rhetorical abilities; he despised all the worthy people and exalted himself in self-importance above the illustrious men of the province. Yet she drew him with such speed to the goal of philosophy that he renounced worldly renown.”¹⁶² Gregory’s further descriptions of the various ministries of Macrina included the founding of a monastery for women near one that Basil had founded for men.

Basil wrote on the problem of “fallen virgins.” If widows who sinned caused a problem to the early church, virgins did so even more seriously. According to Basil, since a virgin is a “spouse of Christ,” deviation constitutes adultery. He acknowledges that some who were enrolled among the virgins did not become so of their own choice, but because of the ambitions of their families.¹⁶³

Gregory of Nyssa also wrote about virgins. Virginity is celestial, he said; it transcends this life, and, unlike marriage, is “stronger than the power of death.”¹⁶⁴

Fourth-Century Compilations of Church Order

From time to time rules were drawn up, sometimes pseudonymously, to govern the increasingly complex affairs of the church. Some of these incorporated or imitated earlier works.

The Ecclesiastical Canons of the Apostles

This is also known as The Apostolic Church Order, not to be confused with Hippolytus’ Apostolic Tradition, or with the Apostolic Constitutions of the late fourth century. Gryson cites a passage in which Jesus’ disciples are reported to have discussed the matter of women’s ministry. Andrew observed that it would be good “if we established ministries for women.” Peter responded that some progress had been made in this, but that there remained the matter of “the oblation of the Body and Blood”—i.e., the celebration of the Eucharist. John objected that Jesus did not permit women to “stand with us.” Gryson interprets this to mean officiating, since otherwise they would be sitting. Mary and Martha get into the discussion (though not to press for this ministry), and finally James declares that women’s place was to minister to other women in need.¹⁶⁵

A fourth-century work, the Canons of Hippolytus, was modeled on the earlier writing of Hippolytus. One important opinion it expresses is that “the appointed widows should not be ordained…Let them not be given ordination, but prayed over, since ordination is for men.”¹⁶⁶

The Apostolic Constitutions

In the late fourth century a work on ecclesiastical practices was compiled. It drew on earlier works such as the Didascalia and the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus, referred to earlier. This probably represents the thought of some eastern Christians, but it never had official status in the eastern church. Therefore, as we survey some of the teachings of the Constitutions, we need to bear in mind that this is personal opinion, though undoubtedly it represented the thinking of many. Among the various instructions are a number concerning widows and deaconesses. Some of the instructions concerning widows are similar to those found elsewhere, including the age at which they are to be recognized (in this case sixty years) and standards of character. Other statements, however, are strongly restrictive, as will be noted below.

Instructions are given for the ordination of deaconesses. The bishop was to lay hands on her in the presence of the presbytery and deacons and other deaconesses. A prayer is given on behalf of the one ordained to the office of a deaconess.¹⁶⁷ Virgins, however, are not to be ordained, “for we have no such command from the Lord.”¹⁶⁸ Other instructions include these: Wives are to be obedient to their husbands on the basis of 1 Corinthians 11:3.¹⁶⁹ Widows are to “mind nothing but to pray and to answer basic questions concerning the faith, but of the remaining doctrines not answer anything rashly, lest by saying anything unlearnedly she should make the word to be blasphemed.”¹⁷⁰

We do not permit our “women to teach in the church,” but only to pray and hear those that teach; for our Master and Lord, Jesus Himself, when He sent us the twelve to make disciples of the people and of the nations, did nowhere send out women to preach, although He did not want [i.e., lack] such…For “if the head of the wife be the man,” it is not reasonable that the rest of the body should govern the head.¹⁷¹

There are both virgins and widows who live for themselves, not for the Lord. A good widow will be modest and not greedy and will be found “sitting at home.”¹⁷²

The following passage is clear as to its line of argument, and probably expresses the convictions of many churchmen today:

Now as to women’s baptizing, we let you know that there is no small peril to those that undertake it…it is dangerous, or rather wicked and impious. For if the “man be the head of the woman,” and he be originally ordained for the priesthood, it is not just to abrogate the order of the creation.¹⁷³

The argument continues with a reference to the creation of woman from man, who is therefore to rule her. She is not to teach, so cannot possibly be a priest. The reason is that

this is one of the ignorant practices of the Gentile atheism, to ordain women priests to the female deities, not one of the constitutions of Christ. For if baptism were to be administered by women, certainly our Lord would have been baptized by His own mother, and not by John.¹⁷⁴

The laity are not allowed to perform any of the offices of the priesthood either. They cannot offer the Eucharist or baptize or lay on hands in ordination or pronounce the blessing. The obvious point here is that women can never rise higher than the level of the laymen. In a later book of the Constitutions there is a severe statement about remaining in one’s appropriate rank. In support of this, allusion is made to the statement of 1 Corinthians 14:33, that God is not the God of confusion. The “subordinate persons” should not “tyrannically assume to themselves the functions belonging to their superiors…”¹⁷⁵

No one but a bishop or a presbyter was allowed to baptize, and not even presbyters were allowed to ordain. This shows the extent to which ecclesiastical structure had been developed. This obviously worked against the ministry of women.¹⁷⁶ Then, as in most segments of Christendom to-day, the issue of ordination was crucial. The devoted ministry of women in many capacities was certainly recognized by many writers of the early church period. There was much that women, especially deaconesses and women in the orders of widows and virgins, could do. The dividing line, however, was ordination to the liturgical aspect of ministry. Did the “Yes, but…” that aggravates Christian feminists today have the same effect then?

Monica and Augustine

Augustine’s mother, Monica, seems to have been influential at every major turn of his career. He attributed his conversion to her piety. His father was not a Christian and did not become one until just before his death. Augustine said of him, “His was the drunken joy in which this world becomes forgetful of Thee, its Creator, and loves Thy creature in place of Thee.” In contrast, his mother “experienced a rising feeling of holy fear and trembling for me; though I was not yet one of the faithful, she nevertheless feared the crooked ways in which they walk who turn their back and not their face to Thee.”¹⁷⁷

The story of Augustine’s conversion has often been told. During a time of deep emotional tensions, Augustine heard someone saying, “Take it, read it!” repeatedly. He took this to mean that he should read a book, and so he took the Book of Romans and read the first verse that he came upon. It was Paul’s injunction in Romans 13 to forsake debauchery and make no provision for the lusts of the flesh. This changed his life. When he told his mother what had happened, “she was exultant, triumphant, and she blessed Thee…She saw that much more in regard to me had been granted her by Thee than she was wont to ask with her unhappy and tearful laments.”¹⁷⁸

Monica was also influential in Augustine’s rejection of the Manichaean heresy. In this connection he describes her as “womanly in her dress but virile in her faith, mature in her serenity, motherly in her love, Christian in her piety.”¹⁷⁹

Augustine wrote an extensive passage in his Confessions about her death. It is a moving narrative. In a slightly mystical manner he praised her spirituality by saying, “Such a person was she, under the influence of Thy teaching as an inner Teacher in the school of her breast.”¹⁸⁰ Augustine freely confessed that his knowledge of Christ came through her teachings and his spiritual life through her prayers.

The views of Augustine, whose major literary work was produced in the first quarter of the fifth century, are fairly well known. Augustine did not condemn marriage; on the contrary, one of his treatises is called On the Good of Marriage. There are, however, some modifications to this. Eve was created to be man’s helper “specifically for the production of children.”¹⁸¹

This sounds something like the teaching of Ambrose, who had been bishop of Milan in the last quarter of the fourth century. He felt that woman was a good helper, in that her purpose was to generate human nature.¹⁸²

According to Augustine, marriage would have produced children without lust if Adam had not sinned. He described in rather explicit terms how man could have placed his “seed” into his wife without any passion being involved.¹⁸³ Of course, life completely without sex would have been even better. “Thus a good Christian is found to love in one woman the creature of God whom he desires to be molded again and renewed, but to hate in her the corruptible and mortal sexual connection, i.e., to love in her what is human, to hate in her what pertains to a wife.”¹⁸⁴

Saint Lucy by Francesco del Ferrarese Cossa (C. 1470). St. Lucy is typically portrayed with a pair of eyes, because, according to tradition, she gouged out her eyes and sent them to a young man who was attracted to her because of the beauty of her eyes. She made this sacrifice to deter him from inordinate desire for her. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Samuel H. Kress collection, 1939.

Rosemary Ruether, referring to Augustine’s view that the relationship of woman to man is similar to that of body to spirit, and to his conclusion that only the man possess the full image of God, calls this “perhaps the ultimate core of misogynism.”¹⁸⁵

John Chrysostom

If Augustine’s views can be so described, those of John Chrysostom are more extreme—in both directions. He has some tender comments in his homily on Ephesians 522–24, but contemporary feminists will be quick to point out this statement: “The wife is a second authority; let not her then demand equality, for she is under the head; nor let him despise her as being in subjection, for she is the body; and if the head despises the body, it will itself also perish.”¹⁸⁶

Although Chrysostom attempts to argue for an “equality of honor” between Adam and Eve, he makes a point of Paul’s comment on man being the image of God, while woman is (only) the glory of man.¹⁸⁷ The man is “skilled at the greater things” but he is “downright inept and useless in the performance of the less important ones, so that the woman’s service is necessary…God maintained the order of each sex by dividing the business of human life into two parts and assigned the more necessary and beneficial aspects to the man and the less important, inferior matters to the woman.”¹⁸⁸

Authority and Teaching

Chrysostom did not think that a woman should exercise authority: “She asserted her authority once and asserted it badly.” Neither should she teach: “Therefore let her descend from the professor’s chair!”¹⁸⁹

Eve

In his homily on 1 Timothy, Chrysostom states that Paul “wishes the man to be preeminent in every way.” After all, the woman had her chance. Eve “taught the man once, upset everything, and made him liable to disobedience. Therefore God subjected her, since she used her rule, or rather, her equality of honor, badly.” But what about the question of deceivability? Was not Adam also deceived? Yes, but “it is not same thing to be deceived by a fellow human being, of the same kind as we, as to be deceived by an animal…[Adam] sinned not because he was blinded by desire, but merely by his wife’s persuasion.”

Eve’s deception affects all women, because “the female is weak and vain, and here this is said of the whole sex. For he does not say, ‘Eve was deceived,’ but ‘the woman,’ which is the common name of the sex, not her particular name.” And how do women have salvation? “through having children.”¹⁹⁰

Priscilla

Those who mainatin that women may not teach must explain Priscilla’s instruction of Apollos in Acts 18:24–28. The way Chrysostom explained it is that Priscilla was more pious than Aquila. She was not like the worldly women of Chrysostom’s day. Also, if a man is “an unbeliever, wandering in error, Paul [in 1 Timothy 2:12] does not deprive her of the power of a teacher.” “In a word, then, when Paul says, ‘I do not permit a woman to teach,’ he is talking about public instruction that involves arguing in front of people and about the teaching that befits the priesthood. But he does not rule out her exhorting and giving advice in private.”¹⁹¹ Actually, says Chrysostom, if a man is ashamed to be taught by a woman, he should repent on his own!¹⁹²

As if that were not enough, Chrysostom compares one’s going to a woman for instruction to his going to the “irrational animals of the lower kind” like the ant of Proverbs 6:6.¹⁹³

Mary and Junia

Amazingly, in view of such comments, Chrysostom celebrated the outstanding women whom Paul mentioned in Romans 16. Regarding Mary, whose hard work Paul commended in verse 6, Chrysostom said that Christians are both honored and shamed by having her among us. Men are put to shame “in that we men are left so far behind” by such women. He also wrote glowingly of Junia (whom he understood to be a woman), whose devotion made her worthy to be called an apostle.¹⁹⁴

Virgins

Like other church fathers, Chrysostom has extensive comments about virgins. He also was upset over those who abused the position of virgin. Certain ideals had been developing, especially as set forth in the work of Methodius, as to what virgins should be. These were not yet uniform, but Chrysostom knew what he did not consider appropriate.¹⁹⁵ Chrysostom, we should note, also favored the office of deaconess and encouraged the work of deaconesses.¹⁹⁶

Marriage

And what is the justification for marriage according to Chrysostom? “So there is one excuse for marriage, namely, avoiding fornication.”¹⁹⁷ Even the wedding ceremony and the festivities surrounding it can be a means of evil:

“What,” someone asks. “Are you criticizing marriage? Speak up!” By no means—I am not that crazy! But I do criticize the baggage wickedly dragged along in the wake of marriage: the make-up, the eye-shadow, and all the superfluities of this sort. Indeed, from that day she will receive many lovers and these even before she receives her bridegroom-to-be…Then see what happens next. Not only during the day, but also in the evening, drunken men…are supplied to gape at the beauty of the girl’s face…Nothing is decent, everything is full of indecency. Will not the bride have a lovely lesson in discretion, seeing and hearing such things?

All of this, he says, is the devil’s work against marriage, that “fortified outpost stationed against sexual immorality.”¹⁹⁸

We should note that Chrysostom does argue that men and women are equal to the extent that there is just one sexual standard for both.¹⁹⁹ Not all church fathers honored that standard. Chrysostom also had strong words for husbands:

You see the rule of obedience? Well, hear also the rule of love. Do you wish your wife to obey you, as the Church obeys Christ? Then take care for her, as Christ did for the Church; and even if you must give your life for her, or be cut in a thousand pieces, or whatever you must undergo and suffer, shrink not from it; and even if you suffer all this, you have not yet done anything that Christ did; for you do this being already joined in marriage to her, but He suffered for a Bride who rejected and hated Him…A slave a man may perhaps bind by terror…but the partner of your life, the mother of your children, the subject of all your joy, you ought to bind not by terror and threats, but by love and gentle considerations.”²⁰⁰

If Augustine thought that children could be produced through marriage without any sexual passion, Chrysostom thought that it was “even more probable that God could make humans aside from marriage, just as he created the first people without marriage…”²⁰¹

One practice that flourished in the early church in spite of a definite lack of approval, was “spiritual marriage”—a man and woman living in the same home together but without sexual relations. Chrysostom opposed this practice, for he was concerned about its impropriety.²⁰² Tertullian had said that a “second marriage must be said to be nothing else than a kind of fornication.”²⁰³ Chrysostom agreed with that, implying that those who marry after the death of a spouse show where their minds have been!²⁰⁴

Women as Friends

In concluding this chapter, we may recall that in spite of severe statements of the church fathers about women’s intelligence and morals, some of them, at least, had a high esteem for, and even a warm friendship with, certain women. In a fascinating work²⁰⁵ Elizabeth Clark suggests several factors that produced this phenomenon. One of these is especially pertinent here. It is that there was a contrast between women in general, whom they pictured as “light-minded, vain, unintelligent, and even treacherous,” and the particular women with whom they had close fellowship. These individual women were seen as beginning, at least, to transcend their femaleness. Clark supports this with a reference to recent anthropological studies on liminality or the transition from one state to another.²⁰⁶

Without making too facile a comparison on the basis of a complex explanation, one may venture to suggest that Paul envisioned Christian women as transcending, in the Lord, the conventional limitations of their sex in anticipation of the world to come. If this were the case, his arguments for restriction of ministries would have been addressed to specific circumstances that in his judgment would require conventional morals, but with full realization that in Christ such distinctions were transcended. This would accord with the restrictions in 1 Corinthians that are followed by the transition words, “Nevertheless, in the Lord…”

Concluding Observations

The early church has left a rich heritage of faithful women. Some were martyrs, resisting violation not only of their chastity but also of their pure faith. Others found that the alternative to martyrdom was not necessarily an easy life. There were restrictions that not all accepted. Women in general tended to be branded as sexually loose. Some writers were so preoccupied with women in their physical sexual role that it might be said that women were sometimes viewed as sex objects.

At the same time, it is too easy to judge the church fathers; a better understanding of their times can help us understand their concerns. Tertullian is an example. Those who read modern authors who write about women in the early church quickly realize how strong their own perspectives are.

The writers quoted here have provided a curious juxtaposition of opinions on marriage, sex, celibacy, church offices, and a number of related topics. It is important to note that all of these opinions were claimed by their proponents to have been based on Scripture.

It should also be kept in mind that the men who denied women access to liturgical ministries did so on the basis of views concerning ordination, the Eucharist, and celibacy that many today (Catholics among them) challenge. Those who hold “traditional” views need to know what that tradition included. The biblical hermeneutics and ecclesiastical assumptions of the church fathers require careful attention. The issues are both important and complex.

During the period just surveyed, the Roman Empire tolerated and then adopted Christianity. Christian ethics were affecting society. For example—to cite a matter that involved women—adultery with slaves was not prohibited. The Roman Empire itself was on the verge of collapse. But the ministry of women would continue, mainly within monastic walls.

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