Paul the Apostle and women

Santa Prisca (Saint Prisca).

The relationship between Paul the Apostle and Women is an important element in the theological debate about Christianity and women because Paul was the first writer to give ecclesiastical directives about the role of women in the Church. However, there are arguments that some of these writings are post-Pauline interpolations.[1]

Female disciples

The Gospels record that women were among Jesus' earliest followers. Jewish women disciples, including Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Susanna, had accompanied Jesus during his ministry and supported him out of their private means.[Lk. 8:1–3] Although the details of these gospel stories may be questioned, in general they reflect the prominent historical roles women played in Jesus' ministry as disciples. There were women disciples at the foot of the cross. Women were reported to be the first witnesses to the resurrection, chief among them again Mary Magdalene. She was not only "witness", but also called a "messenger" of the risen Christ.[2]

From the beginning of the Early Christian church, women were important members of the movement. As time went on, groups of Christians organized within the homes of believers. Those who could offer their home for meetings were considered important within the movement and assumed leadership roles.[3] Such a woman was Lydia of Philippi, a wealthy dealer in purple cloth. After hearing Paul preach, she and her household were baptized.[Acts 16:11-15]

The earliest Christian movement, most notably Paul’s movement, was very attractive for wealthy women and widows. They often opened their houses for worship by particular religious movements.[4] According to Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, in the 1st century a woman's place was in the home and the otherwise private areas of life. Turning the private domestic setting into the public religious setting opened up opportunities for religious leadership. Pauline Christianity did not honour its rich patron; instead, it worked within a "motif of reciprocity"[4] by offering leadership roles, dignity and status in return for patronage. Through building up their own house church, women could experience relative authority, social status and political power and renewed dignity within Paul's movement. This concept is reflected in Paul's relationship with Phoebe, Chloe and Rufus's mother.

Epistolary evidence

By the time Paul began his missionary movement, women were important agents within the different cities. Letters generally accepted as Paul’s are Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians and Philemon.[5] His casual greetings to acquaintances offer solid information about many Jewish and Gentile women who were prominent in the movement. His letters provide vivid clues about the kind of activities in which women engaged more generally.[6]

In the Letter to the Romans, Paul sends greetings to a number of people and specifically mentions:

According to Karen King, these biblical reports seem to provide credible evidence of women apostles active in the earliest work of spreading the Christian gospel.[17]

In Galatians 3:28, Paul wrote "nor is there male and female," hearkening back to Genesis 1, for all are one in Christ.

Deaconesses

According to Thurston, there can be no doubt that in their first institution the deaconesses were intended to discharge those same charitable offices, connected with the temporal well being of their poorer fellow Christians, which were performed for the men by the deacons. But in one particular, the instruction and baptism of catechumens, their duties involved service of a more spiritual kind. The universal prevalence of baptism by immersion and the anointing of the whole body which preceded it rendered it a matter of propriety that in this ceremony the functions of the deacons should be discharged by women.[18]

Ecclesiastical directives

Silence in church

The letters of Paul, dated to the middle of the first century AD, were written to specific communities in response to particular questions or problems. Paul was in Ephesus around the year 56 when he received disquieting news regarding the church at Corinth. Factionalism had developed. At the fellowship meal some got drunk while others were left hungry. There seemed to be a preference for ecstatic prayer at the expense of works of charity, with a number of members all "speaking in tongues" at the same time. It was apparently reported to him that women were appearing at the assembly without the head covering customary in contemporary Greek society, and may have been arguing over their right to address the assembly. The fledgling community appeared to be in disorder.[19]

1 Corinthians 14:33-35 states: "As in all the churches of the holy one, women should keep silent in the churches, for they are not allowed to speak, but should be subordinate even as the law says. If they want to learn anything, they should ask their husbands at home. For it is improper for a woman to speak in the church."

Barbara Leonhard and others[20] find this contradicts a statement in 1 Corinthians 11:5 that seems to presuppose that women are, in fact, praying and prophesying in the assembly of believers (but prefers they do it with the appropriate head covering). Leonhard notes that it is inconsistent with Paul's dealings with his co-workers in that women such as Prisca, Phoebe and Junia could not have functioned as Church leaders and apostles if they were not allowed to speak in public.[5] She and other such as Jerome Murphy-O'Connor believe this to be a "post-Pauline interpolations".

According to Murphy-O'Connor, in the New Jerome Biblical Commentary:

1 Corinthians 14:34–35 are not a Corinthian slogan, as some have argued…, but a post-Pauline interpolation. ... Not only is the appeal to the law (possibly Genesis 3:16) un-Pauline, but the verses contradict 1 Corinthians 11:5. The injunctions reflect the misogyny of 1 Timothy 2:11–14 and probably stem from the same circle. Some mss. place these verses after 40.
— Jerome Murphy-O'Connor[21]

First Epistle to Timothy

The First Epistle to Timothy is presented as a letter from Paul in Macedonia to Timothy in Ephesus. It is termed one of the "pastoral epistles" in that it is not directed to a particular congregation but to a pastor in charge of caring for a community of believers.

1 Timothy 2: 9-15 (NASB) says:

Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments, but rather by means of good works, as is proper for women making a claim to godliness. A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. But women will be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint.

Since the nineteenth century, the attribution to Paul of the "pastoral letters" has come into question. There are a wide variety of opinions as what extent, if any, Paul either wrote or influenced their composition. If Paul wrote them, the date of composition is likely 63–67; if not their date may be as late as the early second century.[22] While acknowledging a degree of patriarchalism in Paul, according to Bernard Robinson, former Lecturer in Sacred Scripture at Ushaw College, Durham, most scholars think that Paul is not the author; and that 1 Timothy probably comes from the end of first century, at a time when the church had become somewhat more institutional and patriarchal than it was in Paul’s day.[23]

Headship

A New Testament passage that has long been interpreted to require a male priority in marriage are these verses: "Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord", and "the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church".[Eph. 5:22–24] Both Christian Egalitarians and Complementarians agree that the Apostle Paul wrote that the "husband is head" and "wives, submit", and that he was divinely inspired to write what he wrote, but the two groups diverge in their interpretation of this passage.

But I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God. Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head—it is the same as having her head shaved. For if a woman does not cover her head, she might as well have her hair cut off; but if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, then she should cover her head. A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man.[1 Cor. 11:3–9]

Christian Egalitarians believe that full partnership in an equal marriage is the most biblical view. As persons, husband and wife are of equal value. There is no priority of one spouse over the other. In truth, they are one.[24] Bible scholar Frank Stagg and Classicist Evelyn Stagg write that husband-wife equality produces the most intimate, wholesome and mutually fulfilling marriages. They conclude that the Apostle Paul's statement recorded in Galatians 3:28, sometimes called the "Magna Carta of Humanity",[25] applies to all Christian relationships, including Christian marriage: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus."[26]

Christian Egalitarian theologians also find it significant that the "two becoming one" concept, first cited in Gen. 2:24, was quoted by Jesus in his teachings on marriage.[Matt. 19:4–6] [Mk. 10:7–9] In those passages he reemphasized the concept by adding to the Genesis passage these words: "So, they are no longer two, but one" (NIV). The Apostle Paul cited the Genesis 2:24 passage.[Eph. 5:30–32][24]

Much has been written concerning the meaning of "head" in the New Testament. The word used for "head", transliterated from Greek, is kephalē—which means the anatomical head of a body. Today's English word "cephalic" (sə-făl'ĭk) means "Of or relating to the head; or located on, in, or near the head." In the New Testament, a thorough concordance search shows that the second most frequent use of "head" (kephalē), after "the structure that connects to our neck and sits atop our bodies", is the metaphorical sense of "source".[27][28]

The Complementarian (also known as Traditionalist or Hierarchical) view of marriage maintains that male leadership is biblically required in marriage. Complementarians generally believe that the husband and wife are of equal worth before God, since both are created in God's image, but that husbands and wives have different functions and responsibilities in marriage.[29] According to this view, the husband has the God-given responsibility to provide for, protect, and lead his family. Wives are expected to respect their husbands' authority and submit to it.[30] However, some Complementarian authors caution that a wife's submission should never cause her to "follow her husband into sin".[31]

Submission to one's husband

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, people have never hated their own bodies, but they feed and care for them, just as Christ does the church—or we are members of his body.[Eph. 5:22–30]
Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them.[Col. 3:18–19]

Christian Egalitarian views

In Galatians 3:28, Paul maintains that "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus." Given the number of greetings to women in Romans 16 and the commissioning of Phoebe—the only person identified in the New Testament as having been commissioned by Paul, there is considerable evidence supporting Paul's being relatively egalitarian for his time.

In the first century when Paul was writing passages that now appear in the New Testament, people in Roman society were judged by two sets of criteria:

When these categories collided, it created status inconsistency/dissonance when one's achieved status was greater than the status attributed to the person by culture and by law.

Second-century deference to society

Elaine Pagels maintains that the majority of the Christian churches in the second century went with the majority of the middle class in opposing the trend toward equality for women. By the year 200, the majority of Christian communities endorsed as canonical the "pseudo-Pauline" letter to Timothy. That letter, according to Pagels, stresses and exaggerates the antifeminist element in Paul's views: "Let a woman learn in silence in all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or have authority over men; she is to keep silent."[1 Tim. 2:11] She believes the letters to the Colossians and to the Ephesians, which order women to "be subject in everything to their husbands", do not express what she says were Paul's very favorable attitudes toward women, but also were "pseudo-Pauline" forgeries.[33]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Odell-Scott, D.W. "Editorial dilemma: the interpolation of 1 Cor 14:34–35 in the western manuscripts of D, G and 88." Web: 15 Jul 2010.
  2. ↑ Ingrid Maisch (1998). Mary Magdalene: the image of a woman through the centuries. Liturgical Press. ISBN 978-0-8146-2471-5.
  3. ↑ Margaret MacDonald, "Reading Real Women Through Undisputed Letters of Paul" in Women and Christian Origins, ed. by Ross Sheppard Kraemer and Mary Rose D'Angelo (Oxford: University Press, 1999), p. 204
  4. 1 2 Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza (1994). In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins. The Crossroad Publishing Co. ISBN 978-0-8245-1357-3.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Leonhard O.S.F., Barbara. "St. Paul and Women: A Mixed Record", St. Anthony Messenger, Franciscan Media
  6. ↑ Frontline: from jesus to christ - the first christians: paul's mission and letters. PBS. Retrieved on 2011-02-13.
  7. ↑ Achtenmeier, P.J. (1996). HarperCollins Bible Dictionary (revised ed.). HarperCollins. p. 882. ISBN 0-06-060037-3.
  8. 1 2 3 Laput CM, Thaddeus Noel G., "Women and St. Paul", Catholic San Francisco, March 6, 2009
  9. ↑ ‘προστάτις, ιδος, ἡ (προΐστημι, cp. προστάτης; Cornutus 20 p. 37, 20; Lucian, Bis Accus. 29 θεὰ προστάτις ἑαυτῶν; Cass. Dio 42, 39 al.; PGM 36, 338; also pap ref. New Docs 4, 243) a woman in a supportive role, patron, benefactor (the relationship suggested by the term πρ. is not to be confused w. the Rom. patron-client system, which was of a different order and alien to Gk. tradition [s. JTouloumakos, Her 116, ’88, 304–24]) προστάτις πολλῶν ἐγενήθη καὶ ἐμοῦ αὐτοῦ she has proved to be of great assistance to many, including myself Ro 16:2 (Ltzm., Hdb. ad loc. The masc. προστάτης took on a technical sense and is found w. this mng. in Israelite [Schürer III, 102] as well as in polyth. [OGI 209; SIG 1109, 13; CIG I, 126; GHeinrici, ZWT 19, 1876, 516ff.—EZiebarth, Das griech. Vereinswesen 1896, index s.v.; Poland, Gesch., index s.v.; WOtto, Priester u. Tempel im hellenist. Ägypten II 1908 p. 75, 1] religious circles).—S. preceding entry. On women as benefactors, s. RvanBremen, in Images of Women in Antiquity, ed. ACameron/AKuhrt ’83, 223–42; COsiek, Women in the Ancient Mediterranean World: BR 39, ’94, 57–61 (NT). New Docs 4, 242–44. M-M.’, Arndt, Danker, & Bauer, A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature, p. 885 (3rd ed. 2000).
  10. ↑ T. Hammer, ‘Wealthy Widows and Female Apostles: The Economic and Social Status of Women in Early Roman Christianity,’ in G.D. Dunn, D. Luckensmeyer & L. Cross (ed.), Prayer and Spirituality in the Early Church: Poverty and Riches, 5 (Strathfield: Paulist Press, 2009), 65–74.
  11. ↑ R. Saunders, Outrageous Women, Outrageous God: Women in the First Two Generations of Christianity (Alexandria: E.J. Dwyer, 1996), 117
  12. ↑ J. Wijngaards. No Women in Holy Orders? The Women Deacons of the Early Church. (Norwich: Canterbury, 2002)
  13. ↑ Bart D. Ehrman (2006-05-01). Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene: The Followers of Jesus in History and Legend. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-530013-0.
  14. ↑ Stephen Finlan (2008). The Apostle Paul and the Pauline Tradition. ISBN 978-0-8146-5271-8.
  15. 1 2 Elmer, Ian. "Was Roman Christianity founded by a woman?" Catholica. Web: 9 Dec 2009.
  16. ↑ Finlan, Steven. The Apostle Paul and the Pauline Tradition. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2008. pp. xiv + 229.
  17. ↑ King, Karen L. "Women in Ancient Christianity: The New Discoveries."
  18. ↑ Thurston, Herbert. "Deaconesses." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 4. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. 11 Aug. 2014
  19. ↑ "1 Corinthians", Introduction, NAB, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2003
  20. ↑ "1 Corinthians 14", note 10, NAB, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2003
  21. ↑ New Jerome Biblical Commentary, ed. Raymond E. Brown, S.S., Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J, and Roland E. Murphy, O.Carm., Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990, pp. 811–812
  22. ↑ "1 Timothy", Introduction, NAB, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2003
  23. ↑ Robinson, Bernard. "St Paul and Women: Was the Apostle a Misogynist or a Feminist?", January 2010
  24. 1 2 Stagg, Evelyn and Frank. Woman in the World of Jesus. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978. ISBN 0-664-24195-6
  25. ↑ Paul King Jewett (1975). Man as male and female: a study in sexual relationships from a theological point of view. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. p. 142. ISBN 978-0-8028-1597-2.
  26. ↑ See Christians for Biblical Equality for example
  27. ↑ Kroeger, Catherine Clark. "Toward an Understanding of Ancient Conceptions of 'Head'." Priscilla Papers, Volume 20:3, Summer 2006.
  28. ↑ Johnson, Alan F. "A Meta-Study of the Debate over the Meaning of 'Head' (Kephale) in Paul's Writings."] Priscilla Papers, Volume 20:4, Autumn 2006
  29. ↑ Core Beliefs. CBMW. Retrieved on 2011-02-13.
  30. ↑ The 2000 Baptist Faith and Message, Southern Baptist Convention, 2000 revision
  31. ↑ Piper, John and Grudem, Wayne (eds.) Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1991, p. 57
  32. ↑ Wayne A. Meeks (2003). The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-09861-7.
  33. ↑ Elaine H. Pagels (1992). The gnostic Paul: gnostic exegesis of the Pauline letters. Trinity Press Intl. ISBN 978-1-56338-039-6.

Further reading

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