Women in the Early Church

Posted Tuesday, July 18, 2006 by Charlie Trimm

Here is the second part of my three week series on the early church. This is also easily going to be the most controversial part. I look at how the early church viewed women, and what we can learn based on their views. If anyone notices any places where I put a bad spin on the history, I would appreciate a comment on that as well.

I want to talk about water. Actually, I do not want to talk about water, but we are going to anyway. First, a trick question. Is water good or bad? Well, of course, it depends. Sometimes it is good, and sometimes it is bad. Just thinking about the tsunami in southeast Asia or Hurricane Katrina will remind us that water can be bad. But then, on the other hand, we need water to grow crops and to live. What we think about water should be balanced.

But some of us are unbalanced in this area. I, for one, am far over on the “water is bad” side. I have just never liked water. I only learned to swim when I was under high school, and that was only because I had to in order to graduate. While other kids got an easy A in swimming, I got one of my lowest grades. I dreaded going to Wild Waves as a kid. When I worked at a camp during college, all of the staff had to pass a swim test. I kept on putting it off, until fortunately I tweaked my shoulder during a bout of oatmeal wrestling (it was camp!) and I couldn’t swim for a good reason. Then when I was finally able to swim again, they just gave me a bracelet even though I had not passed the test. I was very relieved. Even though I can swim decently well today, I still do not like the water and prefer to stay out of it. But notice how unbalanced I am. Instead of being in the middle, where I should be, I am far off to one side. I have over-reacted against water. While it has kept me safer, I’m not sure it has made my life better.

            Tonight we are going to look at one of those topics in which people are often unbalanced, but this time it is going to be on a more serious topic of theology and church life. We are going to see if the history of the early church can help us navigate in this area and what they had to say about it.  This topic is the value and role of women in the church. Obviously, this is a huge topic, and we only have half an hour, so we are only going to look at part of this issue. The way we are going to study the issue is to look at the early church practices and then compare them to the NT. We will see what we can learn about this specific topic as well as about life in general.

            As far as women are concerned, there are two specific areas we are going to look. These two areas often get out of balance. Since this is only a sermon and not a book, I am not really going to argue for my position. I realize that one person’s balance is another person’s unbalance. But even though I am not really going to try to prove my view, I will tell it to you so that you can know where I am going. My view is that men and women are absolutely equal in value and worth. They are both equally loved by God. They are both created in the image of God. But on the other side, they have different roles. The role of one does not mean one is better. They are simply different. Just because they are equal in value does not mean that they are equal in function.

            However, this is a balance that has often gone out of whack. We are going to look at two tendencies that cause it to get out of whack in the early church. We shall start with the “women are scum” tendency. Now, I have designed this title to be provocative. No one on this side really believes this, although some get close. The idea is that since women and men are not equal in function, then it logically follows that they are not equal in value. God simply loves men more. This is backed up by a variety of arguments from the Bible and from nature. Let us take a look at a few quotes from some early church fathers about women to get a feel for how they felt.  

The love of a woman is accursed; it is always insatiable… It makes a manly soul effeminate and allows him to think of nothing but his obsession… Woman is classed among the greatest of evils. Jerome

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. Epiphanius.

You [woman] 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 punishment, that is, death – even the Son of God had to die. Tertullian.

 

Strong words, are they not? There are a variety of reasons why they felt this way. One of the major reasons was the rise of celibacy. Marriage was for wimps. If you wanted to be really spiritual, then you were celibate. The only reason why someone would not be celibate is that that they burned. So woman becomes simply the temptation for you to be not as spiritual as you could otherwise. When Paul talks about the flesh, we see it as the sin nature. But many in the early church viewed it as sexual desire.

But let us go now to the other tendency. I call this side the “women are men” tendency. Obviously, this is hyperbole again. No one actually thinks this. But this is the direction they went and are going. In the early church the primary people who went this direction were heretics. They went against the mainline church and what the main churches stood for. Since the church had the Scripture, the heretics tended towards prophecy, in order to get new revelation. And they often had women leaders and women prophets. The primary example that I want to look is the Montanists. There were other groups where this same tendency was seen, such as among the Gnostics. But the most famous is the Montanists.

The Montanists were named after their founder, Montanius. He was a pagan priest before he got saved, and at some point after he was converted he began to prophesy. Soon, two women, Maximila and Priscilla, began to prophesy along with him. They did not teach heresy like other heretics did about such topics as the deity of Christ or the nature of God. Instead, they prophesied that the end of the world was at hand. Maximilla said “After me, there will be no prophetess anymore, but the end will come.” The last days had begun with the Montanists, they claimed. The mainline church did not like this because they viewed it as diminishing the coming of Christ. The last days began with Christ, they said, not the Montanists. So their main problem was not the fact that women were prophesying, it was with their theology. But they also did not like that women were prophesying. Remember the quote from Jerome earlier? Those two women spouting nonsense were the two prophetess’ from the Montanists. While the Montanists were certainly not feminists like we would think of today, they were certainly on that side of the equation.

So in the early church there were two competing views about women, both in reaction to each other and both out of balance. Both viewpoints had elements of the truth. The mainline church emphasized the differences between men and women, and biblically speaking these are important. The heretics emphasized the equality of men and women, and this is also biblically grounded. Both sides had part of the truth. But that is not our goal as believers. Our goal is to live right lives with all the truth of God in balance, not just the part that we like. So let us move on to look at a few indications in the Bible of where the emphasis should lie.

We are going to start by looking at the equality side and see how women were valued in the Bible. First, we are going to look briefly at some not-so-famous women in the NT. There are several women mentioned in Romans 16, where Paul greets the church at Rome. The first of these is Phoebe, who is called a deaconess or a servant. We are not sure if Paul just called her a servant in general or if deaconess was a specific office. I rather think that it was a specific office. There is a fascinating story from AD 111 about two deaconesses. Pliny, the governor of a region of northern Turkey, was having problems with Christians because the pagan temples were empty. Someone gave him a list of Christians, and he started to examine them. But he could not find anything that would show them to be dangerous criminals. So he tortured two deaconesses, which he says is the term the Christians use to describe them, and they told him the same thing he already knew. So he wrote to the emperor and wondered what he should do. The emperor said that he should not seek out Christians. But if they are accused, they should be prosecuted, not so much for being a Christian, but for being obstinate in a Roman court.

So early on, there were deaconesses. Also, there is a possibility that Paul gives qualifications for a deaconess in 1 Timothy, although the passage is unclear and could refer to wives of deacons. Phoebe is also called a patron or a helper. She was apparently a wealthy lady who supported Paul and many others.

Priscilla is another important lady. She was married to Aquila, and they apparently hosted the church in their home wherever they went, whether it be Rome or elsewhere. The most interesting passage is in Acts 18, where Priscilla and Aquila (note how she is listed first) hear Apollos speaking without knowing the whole truth, take him aside, and then instruct him more accurately in the way of God. A later scribe did not like this, so a few manuscripts have the order of the names reversed to downplay the role of Priscilla.

Women play an important role in the ministry of Jesus. There were several women who traveled with Jesus and provided for him and his friends. The first witnesses to the Resurrection were women. Jesus talked to a Samaritan woman, which was a shocking breach of etiquette, both because she was a Samaritan and a woman.

Second, we will look at some of the teaching of the NT. Mary was encouraged by Jesus to sit at his feet and learn, a revolutionary attitude for that time period. The Jewish men often said a prayer that they were thankful that they were not female, gentile, or ignorant. The reason for this prayer was that these groups could not study the Torah. Women were not expected nor allowed to study. But Jesus turns this around. Women are encouraged to learn. Paul continues this theme in his letters. When he says that women are to learn in quietness and full submission, our minds can only focus on the submission and quietness part. But for the ancients, that is expected. What is shocking is that women are to learn!

Another area where respect is shown to women is the household commands. Once again, when we hear that women are commanded to submit to their husbands, we can’t get past the submitting part. But the ancients would be astounded that Paul was talking to the women in the first place! More expected would be a command to husbands to make their wives submit. But instead Paul speaks directly to the wives. Also, the command to husbands to love their wives is revolutionary. No one else is saying this at that time. So the commands that Paul gives in regards to the households are brand new and very exciting for women.

Finally, the equality of women with men is stated at one point. In Galatians 3, Paul is discussing salvation. He ends the chapter with the words “there is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). This shows very clearly the equality of women in getting saved and being with Christ. However, Paul is not saying that there is absolutely no difference here between male and female. This leads us into our next topic, where we examine the differences between male and female in the NT.

While men and women are equal in value and worth, they are different in function. One is not better than the other, they are simply different. Equal value does not imply equal function. In Genesis 2, woman was created to be the helper of the male. This does not denigrate her at all (God is called a helper elsewhere), but she does have a different role than the male. The priests in the OT had to be male, not female. The women were not allowed to teach, according to 1 Timothy 2:12.

            Thus, we see a balance in the NT. On one side, women are equal with men as far as value and the worth of their service to God. On the other side, women and men have different roles. Both of these must be kept in balance, but many in the early church tended towards one side or the other.

            Previously I presented the early church in a very black and white fashion. One was either for women or against women. But history cannot be told this way. People in history are never totally black and white. Even the people we most admire do things that shock us, and the people we most hate do some good things. People in the early church were inconsistent in their view of women. The clearest example is Tertullian. One of the quotes at the beginning was from him and his negative view of women. But then Tertullian was also a Montanist, the group that had female prophets! Jerome, who also had one of the quotes above, devoted his life to two of his female friends, who proved to be his best lifelong friends.

Now, I painted a bleak picture of the early church previously. There were some who got it more right than wrong. There were some highly valued women in the early church. One group of such women were the women martyrs. The most famous female martyr was that of Perpetua and Felicitas her slave. She was from Carthage and was arrested during one of the bouts of persecution (202 or 203). She had a young child. Her father at first tried to force her to change from Christianity, but she resisted. Later he came back again and tried to convince her again much more compassionately, but was once again unsuccessful. She and her slave were both condemned to be killed by the beasts in the arena. Her slave, also a Christian, was pregnant and was concerned that she would miss her opportunity for martyrdom because it was illegal to kill a pregnant lady. But days before the execution was scheduled, she went into labor and gave birth. The two women were taken into the arena naked and imprisoned in a net. But when the crowd saw that they were just a young woman and a lady who had just given birth, the two were taken back and clothed before being sent out again. The cow hit them once, and Perpetua’s main concern was to properly clothe herself and to put her hair back into a pin so that she did not appear to be mourning when she was killed. Shortly afterwards, they were killed by the soldiers. Perpetua’s story is very interesting because she herself wrote most of the story, except for the very end, and is some of the earliest writing we have from a woman in the church.

Potamiaena (say that five times fast!) was another lady who was tortured. She as well withstood the torture, so well that one of the soldiers became kind to her. She prayed for him, and Basilides became a believer.

There were many other women martyrs, but now we shall move on to Monica. Monica was the mother of Augustine, one of the great theologians of the early. In his Confessions, he tells stories frequently of how his mother cared for him, loved him, and often encouraged him to turn to God.

Another group of godly women were the widows. The widows as a specific group had already started by the time of Paul, as we see qualifications to join the group in the Pastorals. The job of the widows was primarily to pray, and then secondarily to care for people in the church, especially the women.

Marcella was a brilliant woman in the early church who was good friends with Jerome, who had high praise for her. Here is what he said about her.

And because my name [Jerome] 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. Jerome

So what can we learn from all this data? Well the obvious lesson to learn is how the church is view women and what the roles of men and women are. We need to stay in balance: men and women are equal in value and worth, but they have different roles. This balance has been difficult for the church throughout history and is especially difficult for Americans. Americans like to always be doing something, and they define themselves by doing. So when they are told that women are just as valuable before God but have a different role, it does not compute. This attitude has also been found long before the USA was a nation, of course. At one point during the desert wanderings, Korah brought this complaint before Moses. The argument essentially was: all the people are holy before God, so why are you special and the leader? There was an essential confusion between equality of value and equality of role. In the ensuing debate, God clearly took the side of Moses. For those who think that women are unfairly treated simply because of how they were born, the priests in the OT operated the same way. This is simply the way that God works throughout his plan.

So we need to be careful to keep a balance. Men, we must always value and respect women in the church. Men are not better than women. Do not fall into the “women are scum” tendency. Women, do not feel like second class citizens in the church. Also, do not treat your different role as an excuse not to serve. Just as being a male gives one unique opportunities to serve, so being a female gives you unique opportunities to serve. I know, as a male leader, that there are areas of ministry that I simply cannot do or am not effective at simply because I am male, especially in the area of discipling females. We need more females to step up and take younger females under their wings and teach them. Just because you are female does not mean that you do not teach.

This issue also highlights for us how easy it is to overreact. My final challenge tonight is that we do no overreact in any area of our life, whether it be theology, ethics, practice, parenting, marriage, personality, or whatever other area we can think of where balance is needed. Let us be a balanced people who seek to love God and glorify God by our lives.

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