Introduction

The Role of Women in Early Christianity
by Jean LaPorte
Published by the Edwin Mellen Press, New York, 1982, pp. 53-108
published on our website with the necessary permission

The purpose of this book is to explain the place of women in Early Christianity as it emerges from the writings of the Fathers of the Church. It does not deal with the materials of the New Testament on women except in so far as the Fathers rely or comment on them, or when they provide models of institutions or types of life.

The literature of Early Christianity, which includes the texts written between the second and the sixth century, is immense, and materials about woman are rich. For this reason I do not pretend to be complete, but have tried simply to give a good representation of the main aspects of the role of women, and to present the texts which are the most significant.

I faced a dilemma in examining these texts, however. It seemed to me that the more developed aspects in this literature must be granted more importance in the book. Certainly it was necessary to deal at length and carefully with the problems of contemplative life and the profession of virginity, which comprise the major part of these writings. On the other hand, I considered it very important to gather as much material as possible about married life, which was the ordinary way of life of most women but--is-not widely represented in this literature. The reason for the scarcity of documents in this area is that usually one does not write about the ordinary, and thus the writers of the Early Church, bishops or lay .authors deeply influenced by the ideal of asceticism and-contemplative life, wrote more readily for those who shared the same ideals.

I selected five topics corresponding to the chapters of the book: women and martyrdom, women and marriage, women and contemplative life, women and ministry, and women as .symbol

I considered that showing the courage of women in ':martyrdom would counter-balance the impression left by many perjorative judgments on woman current in pagan and Christian Antiquity. Furthermore,- an insight into the soul of a woman martyr, her motivation, her behaviour, her inspiration and feelings, deserves first place.

The chapter on women and marriage is not properly speaking a study on marriage in Antiquity Rather, through a few early documents from Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian, it describes the life of a Christian wife in the conditions of Christian society at the beginning of the third century.

A close discussion of the case of Augustine and of his mother Monica clarifies the much debated problem of Augustine's pessimism on sex and marriage, and makes possible an evaluation of Augustine as a pastor and a counselor of married people. My evaluation of Augustine in this regard is very positive. I find him realistic in his Judgment, and irenic in his advice. He was particularly aware of the role of the woman in marriage and of the danger of her being victimized in a perverse society.

Chrysostom can be seen as the Eastern counterpart of Augustine in his roles as a pastor, a preacher, a commentator on Scripture, and a moralist. His monastic training did not prevent him from being attentive to the life of the ordinary Christian. His pages on the duties and vices of married people show keen observation and deep thoughtfulness. While maintaining the principle of the Apostle, that the man is the head of the woman, he clearly affirmed the necessity for the woman to assume the direction of the household in case of deficiency in the husband. He also acknowledged the right and duty of women to teach if they were more qualified than men, provided it be not from the pulpit.

I divided the chapter on women and contemplative life into three sections, which deal with the three categories of contemplative women which appeared in chronological succession: prophetesses, widows, virgins. We observe the existence of prophetesses in the first and second centuries. It is difficult to say how widespread the prophetic phenomenon was in the beginnings of Christianity. It deserves particular attention because of the involvement of women in the style of life and the charisms connected with the terns 'prophet.' It was an inheritance of Apostolic times, and was in evidence until Montanus and the famous Montanist prophetesses. Then philological evidence of prophets disappears. One of the reasons for this disappearance may be the anti-Montanist reaction within Christianity. I prefer to see the whole affair of Montanism more as part of the prophetic movement in the Church, than as the reformation of a corrupted Church, which was following the direction of a human hierarchy rather than divine inspiration. I incline to ascribe more importance than is usually granted by scholars to the Encratist character of Montanism, -i.e., to its excessive severity in discipline, which was often a cause of division within and between local Churches. In themselves, the famous Montanist Oracles don't strike me as properly heterodox.

The second section deals with widowhood in the Church. It is an old institution described in the Pastoral Epistles to Timothy and Titus, and is properly a Christian institution, which I do not see paralleled in Judaism or in Hellenism. Its first purpose was assistance to destitute elderly widows. These women had exercised the virtues of Christian life, and now, in the leisure of their isolation, they were invited to adopt the mode of life which should be the goal and reward of elderly people upon earth: contemplative life. It could also be considered as a kind of promotion in the community to a life of dedication to God through prayer, fasting and continence. They were more assiduous than others in attending meetings of worship, and they manifested certain traces of charismatic life. Later on, in the Christian Empire, it is less easy but still possible to recognize their existence in the crowd of poor widows who were just the victims of the pauperism in the great metropolis of Antiquity.

The third section deals with the virgins, who did not -appear as a particular group in the Church before the middle of the third century. They first lived independently in the Christian community, and many continued to do so until the end of Patristic times. Others entered monastic life properly speaking, and lived in convents, either in towns or in the desert. Many bishops, and often the founders -of--monasteries for men, founded monasteries for women. Wealthy ladies who converted to the ideals of monasticism sometimes turned their house into a convent of women. Just like those of men, these convents multiplied and the Church, to a large extent, became monastic in spirit.

It is thus easy to understand why the literature of the Church was deeply influenced by monasticism, and why so many bishops wrote treatises on virginity. This literature on virginity has to be understood by our times as an important manifestation of the Christian spirit. For this reason, it is necessary to explain it succinctly but clearly and with-out prejudice. By this I me An that it should be explained from inside, from its own principles and purposes. It even relies on its own world view and anthropology. Gregory of Nyssa, for instance, built his theological system: creation, redemption spirituality, and eschatology, upon the notion of virginity.

The chapter on women and ministry is not a discussion of whether women should be ordained as priests. Since in Christian history women have never been ordained as priests, except for rare cases in marginal groups, the discussion of such a possibility for our time is irrelevant in a book dealing with Antiquity. I simply explain why there were no women ordained to the priesthood in Antiquity. In order to resolve .the modern problem of women's ordination to the priesthood I can only, as a Patrologist, invite theologians and Church authorities to pay particular attention to the notion of the priesthood appearing in the pastoral Epistles and the whole Patristic period: the Christian priesthood is a college of presbyters, presided over by the bishop, and itself presiding over the Christian community and its worship. All other aspects of the Christian priesthood are included in this definition, but none is as basic as this collegiality of the Presbyterate. More reflection on this collegiality may suggest an answer to the question of whether or not the principle of the Presbyterate would remain the same with the presence of women.

Therefore, the object of the chapter on woman and ministry is the diaconate of women and the curious ministry of a few widows in certain Syrian Churches who belonged to clergy and exercised authority over women--even over deaconesses. The institution of deaconesses seems to have been confined to the Greek Churches, and was unknown in Egypt, Africa, and the Western Churches. But the Greek Churches contained a large number of the faithful, and the deaconesses were established in order to help and to nurse destitute and sick widows left helpless in the multitude. They were, in some regards, the social workers of the Church. In spite of their liturgical functions "around the altar," the deacons performed basically the same function. Reflection on the role of ancient deacons and deaconesses, even on the reasons for the disappearance of the latter and the inactivity for centuries of the former in their chief capacity as social workers, shows the relativity of this order and also can justify its restoration.

Finally, the chapter on woman as symbol introduces women as an expression which belongs to the nature of language. It is a sign referring to a reality different from the sign itself. For instance, pejoratively, woman could be the symbol of the irrational part of the soul or even of physical and moral weakness.There is no pejorative judgment on women made by the author, who is only making use of a language. The society of the time is responsible for the connection between woman and a negative aspect signified by woman.

Fortunately, there are positive aspects also. I mention the speculations on the feminine figure of Wisdom in Proverbs as a divine agent of creation which became part of our Christology. But the most important aspect of the Christian symbolism of woman continued the feminine figure of Israel as the Fiancée of God. Ephesians compared the covenant between Christ and the Church to a marriage. This marriage, or mystery, in which woman was the image of the Church, also became the form of mystical life for virgins who dedicated themselves to Christ in religious life. To this same symbolism of woman and marriage we owe a notion of the love of God which was not emptied of the concrete power of its sexual connotation. This symbolism should be preserved, even if we acknowledge the necessity of a linguistic evolution serving the equality of women in our society.

I add a last word about my method of quoting. I wanted to' offer the reader a rich contact with sources, but the prolixity of the Fathers would have made it impractical. Therefore, I adopted the following system: a combination of full texts, of abbreviated texts, and resumes of texts. The resumes themselves contain direct quotations in italics.

In order to facilitate the consultation of sources, references in the footnotes include both the text and English translations.

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