Browse Study Guide

Chapter One

Women and the Early Churches

Chapter Summary

In the last generation, new attention has been paid to women in the New Testament and early Christian churches. Selecting from a set of stories about Jesus and providing their own literary framework, the Gospel writers present him as subordinating customary roles for women to his mission. Be sure to observe how this happens in the stories of the Samaritan woman, the woman with the issue of blood, and the story of Mary and Martha.

These accounts raise for scholars the question of how far Jesus deviated from Jewish culture in the first century. Her Story will help you to understand some important points of contrast between rabbinic culture and the Gospel stories. It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that the culture of the rabbis was very complex and embraced a minority tradition which offered women a degree of status and self-determination. At the same time that scholars are acknowledging rabbinic diversity, they also remind us that the Gospel tradition is also immersed in patriarchy. Jesus, for example, chooses twelve men as his closest disciples, and he never questions the patriarchal family structure.

Chapter One continues with Paul's views on women. His important role in establishing and shaping the early Christian community has led Christians to look to his writings for guidance on "the woman question." Work on relevant Pauline passages is becoming more and more refined, but many scholars engaged in the hermeneutics of revision still view Paul as a man in conflict – that is, drawn by both tradition (to protect the reputation of the church) and a new vision for women. Think about how the material presented in Galatians 3:28 and Corinthians reveal this conflict.

Because the Bible is the foundation for the Christian tradition, the status of women in it has continued to preoccupy scholars. You will find, therefore, a body of writing on the nature and application of feminist hermeneutics which has grown enormously over the past two decades. Students interested in additional work in this area will find better definitions of feminist principles, a clearer sense of the diversity of approaches and more extensive attention to the Old Testament. New sources include the Women's Bible Commentary and the Sheffield Feminist Companion to the Bible Series.

The chapter continued to follow the contours of significant scholarship on women in Christian history between the first and sixth centuries. Three important themes weave in and out of these centuries. You will be introduced to the question of whether women occupied leadership positions during this period and conducted sacramental and teaching ministries. The chapter also deals with cultural and theological factors that served to discourage these activities and confirm female subordination. Finally you will become acquainted with the appearance of women in roles apart from those connected with church leadership – roles such as that of deaconess and martyr.

Considerable attention has been given to the diverse evidence suggesting that women occupied positions of influence and power in the earliest churches. You should note the biblical texts that describe, among other roles, the importance of women as evangelists and in house churches where their culturally-articulated position as household manager may have opened the way for church governance. While there are not direct references to women in sacramental and teaching positions, such as bishop and presbyter, there are

Another theme is clear in this chapter in several sections: opposition to women in positions of power and their relegation to domestic and subservient roles as part of Christian culture. This imposition of patriarchy happens in different ways at different times and places. You will be able to discern this process by considering the circulation of the Deutero-Pauline material discussed, the weight of Jewish and Greco-Roman patriarchy, the appearance of the menstrual taboo, and organizational changes within the church. Readings from Tertullian should help you understand emerging Christian thought on the nature of women and appropriate behaviors for them.

What roles did women play in these centuries which either circumvented or conformed to these increasingly insistent restrictions? In the case of the deaconess and the widow, you will find offices for women, but offices that are hedged about with restrictions reflecting the ideas of the church leaders on women. The story of Perpetua (1.2) reminds us of another role played by early Christian women – that of martyr. Analyze the selection from her account in terms of the way in which it offers a tradition counter to that of patriarchy.

Chapter One also introduces us to another important way in which women in Christianity have shaped the tradition – through their writings. Letters, diaries, literature, and eventually theology and biblical commentaries will be vehicles for the voices and influence of women. Here we see this in its earliest phase in the work of Perpetua and also Proba and Egeria. Egeria's travel diary (1.4) will alert you to the many things which can be learned about the status of virgin women in the early church.

Near the end of the section in Her Story on patristic attitudes toward women you will find an important discussion on the emergence of the ascetic life in Christianity as an avenue for self-determination, power and fulfillment for women. The theme of liberation through asceticism is one which we will track through the next chapter on the medieval period.

Recent scholarship on this period of Christian history has in the main confirmed and elaborated upon what you have read in Her Story. It is worth reminding ourselves, however, that the complexity of this period is becoming more and more apparent. Women and men in the Christian tradition still have to deal with the Deutero-Pauline

Additional Readings: Women in the New Testament

Bach, Alice, ed. The Pleasure of Her Text: Feminist Readings of Biblical and Historical Texts. Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1990.
Caron, Gérald et al., eds. Women Also Journeyed with Him: Feminist Perspectives on the Bible. Translated by Madeleine Beaumont. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2000.
Cheney, Emily. She Can Read: Feminist Reading Strategies for Biblical Narrative. Valley Forge, Pa.: Trinity Press International. 1996.
Haskins, Susan. Mary Magdalen: Myth and Metaphor. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1994.
Newsome, Carol A. and Ringe, Sharon, eds. Women's Bible Commentary. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998.
Pagels, Elaine. Adam, Eve and the Serpent. New York: Vintage Books, 1989.
Schottroff, Luise et al. Feminist Interpretation: The Bible in Women's Perspective. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998.
Schottroff, Luise. Let the Oppressed Go Free: Feminist Perspectives on the New Testament. Translated by Annemarie S. Kidder. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1993.
Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth. But She Said: Feminist Practices of Biblical Interpretation. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992.
Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth, ed. Searching the Scriptures. Vols. I and II. New York: Crossroad: 1993–1994.
Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth. Sharing Her Word: Feminist Biblical Interpretation in Context. Boston: Beacon Press, 1998.
Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth. Wisdom Ways: Introducing Feminist Biblical Interpretation. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2001.
Thurston, Bonnie Bowman. Women in the New Testament: Questions and Commentary. New York: Crossroad, 1998.
Wegner, Judith Romney. Chattel or Person? The Status of Women in the Mishnah. New York: Oxford Uviversity Press, 1988.
Wire, Antoinette Clark. The Corinthian Women Prophets: A Reconstruction through Paul's Rhetoric. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990.
Witherington, Ben. Women in the Ministry of Jesus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

Additional Readings: Women in the Early Church

Bjerre-Aspegren, Kerstin. The Male Woman: A Feminine Ideal in the Early Church. Edited by Rene Kieffer. Uppsala: Academia Ubsaliensis, 1990.
Cloke, Gillian. This Female Man of God: Women and Spiritual Power in the Patristic Age, AD 350–450. London: Routledge, 1995.
Cunningham, Agnes. "Women Preaching in the Patristic Age." In Preaching in the Patristic Age: Studies in Honor of Walter J. Burghardt, S.J., edited by David Hunter, 53–72. New York: Paulist Press, 1989.
Elm, Susanna. Virgins of God: The Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Heine, Susanne. Women and Early Christianity: A Reappraisal. Translated by John Bowden. Minneapolis: Augsburg Press, 1987.
Hickey, Anne Ewing. Women of the Roman Aristocracy as Christian Monastics. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1987.
Jensen, Anne. 2 Women. Translated by O. C. Dean. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996.
Kraemer, Ross Shepard. Her Share of the Blessings: Women's Religion among Pagans, Jews and Christians in the Greco-Roman World. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Kraemer, Ross Shepard and D'Angelo, Mary Rose, eds. Women and Christian Origins. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
McNamara, Jo Ann. A New Song: Celibate Women in the First Three Christian Centuries. New York: Haworth Press, 1983.
The Martyrdom of Perpetua. Introduction by Sara Maitland. Evesham: Arthur James, 1996.
Scholer, David, ed. Women in Early Christianity. New York: Garland, 1993.
Schottroff, Luise. Lydia's Impatient Sisters: A Feminist Social History of Early Christianity. Translated by Barbara and Martin Rumscheidt. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1995.
Swan, Laura. The Forgotten Desert Mothers: Sayings, Lives, and Stories of Early Christian Women. New York: Paulist Press, 2001.
Thurston, Bonnie. The Widows: A Women's Ministry in the Early Church. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1989.
Torjesen, Karen Jo. "The Early Christian Orans: An Artistic Representation of Women's Liturgical Prayer and Prophecy." In Women Preachers and Prophets Through Two Millennia of Christianity, edited by Beverly Kienzle and Pamela Walker, 42–56. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
Torjesen, Karen Jo. When Women Were Priests: Women's Leadership in the Early Church and the Scandal of Their Subordination in the Rise of Christianity. San Francisco: Harper, 1993.
Vivian, Miriam Raub. "Escaping Women: Paradox and Achievement in Late Roman Asceticism." In The Formulation of Christianity by Conflict through the Ages, edited by Katharine Free, 101–125. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen, 1995.
Witherington, Ben. Women and the Genesis of Christianity. Edited by Ann Witherington. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Witherington, Ben. Women in the Earliest Churches. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

Questions for Reflection: Women in the New Testament

Paul talks about marriage as a relationship of mutuality in which husband and wife both have rights. This concept goes far beyond ideas on marriage in Greco-Roman culture. What would a relationship of mutuality look like to you?
In your experience, how has the Bible been used to determine roles for women?
The Song of Solomon has been acclaimed as part of a counter-tradition supporting women and a restoration of what life was intended to be like in Eden. Do you agree? Can you see a darker side in this material?
Choose a text about women in the Bible not discussed in the readings and think how you might revision it from the perspective of someone who supports self-determination and dignity for women.
Read the Book of Ruth. How would you support the argument that in these chapters we find both the footprints of patriarchy and a counter-tradition?
Some scholars claim that the Gospels clearly reflect patriarchy of the first century. Can you find evidence for this?
What guidance does the Bible offer for those who are wrestling with gender issues in the twenty-first century?
Review the way some scholars have re-visioned the Creation stories. What arguments do you think are the most significant and convincing?
Feminist scholars reject the idea that the Bible can be read objectively but they also reject the notion that the text can mean anything a reader wishes. What strategies do they use to make certain they can support their interpretations? How do you react to the fact that they are beginning from a position supporting the self-determination and equality of women?
How would you respond to the use of a female name and image for God such as Sophia in worship?
Do you agree that Paul is a man in conflict?
Do you think Jesus as presented in the Gospels was a feminist as some scholars argue?

Questions for Reflection: Women in the Early Church

Why is discerning the experiences of women in the early church so important for Christians? What stands in the way of this process?
How does Egeria's writing reflect the idea that asceticism was a sphere for women's self-determination and status?
In your experience, has the Deutero-Pauline material influenced the way women are regarded in the Christian community?
How would you evaluate the arguments used to claim that women were leaders and even exercised a sacramental ministry in the early church? Which do you think are the most compelling? Which are the weakest?
By re-visioning the story of Perpetua, what would you discover that may have been previously overlooked?
What are the main points in the text from Tertullian? What kinds of issues does he raise for men and women in the twenty-first century?