Historic theologian on women in the church

Does Paul ever enforce the pentateuch as opposed to the Spirit anywhere else in any of his epistles I wonder?

I seem to remember him getting quite upset with the Galatians over their Law Keeping activities. He even wished that those wanting to impose 'Law' on them should castrate themselves.

Paul was not renouned for telling people they had to be obedient to 'Law'. I wonder why he would make exception only in the case of women not being allowed to speak in church?
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Jesus Christ rendered the Jewish ceremonial laws obsolete because he was the final sacrifice, and his own body became the new Temple as a conduit to God. The moral law of the old testament (as codifed in the Decalogue) remained in full effect. Jesus himself affirmed this in Matt 5:18-19.

 

According to scripture there may have even been a female Apostle. Rom.16:7. An Apostle was anyone commissioned personally by Christ. She may have been one of the 70 sent out in pairs. Luke 10:1. Husband and wife perhaps, as may have been the two on the road to Emmaus.

 

Never heard this before. Can you name them so I can look them up? Whatever references you can provide will be helpful, too.

 

I don't think scripture records any, but then scripture did not record very much at all about the structure of the early church. Acts and Epistles tend to give only scant details and Paul's writings were mostly to address problems in the churches. Chloe in 1 Corinthians 1:11 though seems to have had a position of leadership and Junia or Julia is referred to as among the apostles, though many translations tried to make out her name was Julias (a male name) which does not appear so in many manuscripts. By 'Early Church' we might also include the period between the last Epistle written and the Early Church Fathers, a gap of some decades, of which very little is known. Uncharacteristically though of Jewish society, women figured prominently in the ministry of Jesus when he was teaching. It was primarily the women who financed his mission on earth, buried him, performed funeral rites, met him first from the tomb and were first told to go and tell the men, who would not believe them.
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Unlikely. The Greek is clearly stating that Andronicus and Junia were known to the Apostles, not among them.

Ἀσπάσασθε Ἀνδρόνικον καὶἸουνίαν τοὺςσυγγενεῖς μου καὶσυναιχμαλώτους μου, οἵτινές εἰσινἐπίση μοι ἐν τοῖς ἀποστόλοις, οἳ καὶπρὸἐμοῦ γέγοναν ἐν χριστῷ.

 

To be fair: ἐν can be translated as "to" or "among", but in this context the "to" reading is the more accurate one, in my (admittedly amateur) opinion. Using "among" here would be a more archaic usage of English, as in, "This man was known among the people as a notorious liar and cheat".

 

I don't think you should be so sure and Youngs and Strongs think the same as I do, it would seem.

salute Andronicus and Junias, my kindred, and my fellow-captives, who are of note among the apostles, who also have been in Christ before me. (Youngs Literal Translation).

ἐπίσημος
STRONG’S NUMBER: g1978
Dictionary Definition g1978. ἐπίσημος episēmos; from 1909 and some form of the base of 4591; remarkable, i.e. (figuratively) eminent: — notable, of note.
AV (2) - notable 1, of note 1;
having a mark on it, marked, stamped, coined marked in a good sense of note, illustrious
in a bad sense notorious, infamous

Notice that Youngs gets her name wrong, making it Junias instead of the more frequently manuscripted Junia and slightly less frequent Julia, substituting the almost non existent Junias.

Perhaps there has been a reactionary male misogynist hatchet job going on at the translating desks of many male scholars unwilling to accept that a woman could possibly be remarkable, eminent, notable or of note, in Paul's estimation.
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@Tiffy nothing of what you just posted gives any evidence at all for your contention that Junia (or Andronicus, for that matter) were apostles. Zip. Zero. In fact, the very text you quote argues against it. And because we have already clogged this thread too much with this stuff, I will move on.

 

Well your, (because I say so), certainly doesn't prove that were not apostles, the pair of them. I'll go with Youngs and Strongs anyday compared to your unsubstantiated claims to know the Greek terms used.

I welcome your decision to move on and grind your axe on something else instead.
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Good points all. To add to it, my position is, that even if Junia was female (far from sure, when many manuscripts say Junias), and even if she were called an apostle (far from sure, as you demonstrated), there is still a huge gulf between it and being a case of women’s ordination. The reason? Because “apostle” was a functional adjective (“someone who ‘apostol’s”), and not a substantive noun (“an Apostle”) that it became in subsequent centuries. It was just something one did, and there’s no indication that it was limited to the Twelve, or had a special holy significance (similar to how evangelist/elder etc were just functions and not “titles of church hierarchy” which Presbyterians mistook them for).

Referring to the Twelve as “the Apostles” is something of a modern error. A similar case is how the name Lucifer creeps in as a synonym for Satan in the middle ages, when it literally never meant that and you have ancient church fathers/bishops who were called Lucifer. There is a mass of language errors which has crept in because of how old our faith is. In short, you don’t find this revered reference to the Twelve as simply “the Apostles” until long after the New Testament era. If anything, they were just referred to as The Twelve, which was a substantive noun, with a special holy significance.

In short many people were, and could be, apostles / heralds of the Lord; it didn’t convey anything of church leadership, or preaching authority, or officiating the sacraments.

 

The Church was indeed no less un-Christian or nonbiblical than it is today during the first tentative years of its New Testament form and structures. There would be many developments in structure and regulation as it became more and more hierarchical and universally established rather than a subversive organisation of locally based 'cells' of believers, surviving incognito in a hostile environment. (Indeed it still survives in similar circumstances in some places today). It was a century or two before the ecclesiastical structures we recongnise now as being distinctively 'church' came into being with a centralised hierarchy presiding over and controlling sacramental activities. The current manifestation of ecclesiastical chain of command would have originally have been seen as an innovation, even an imposition, though perhaps necessary in the face of a plethora of heresies but not necessarily as an expression of true christian orthodoxy. Heresies, of which we have no significant historical record concerning women being debarred from serving the church as ordained priests, were predominantly about other issues entirely. There were some sects which allowed women to perform sacerdotal duties, which were later persecuted by the Roman Catholic church but that was probably not the primary cause for the RC church persecuting them. This lack of historical evidence of, 'women in the priesthood' as a heresy, could be interpreted in two possible ways:

(1) Women were originally celebrating the eucharist and consecrating in some local churches and this was not seen as heretical per se, but was rare and ran against secular convention, so died out as the initial spiritual impetus of the church dissipated and gave way to 'male ecclesiastical organisation' and post Roman Empire religious ignorance became the norm as the Dark Ages drew on.

(2) Women never originally celebrated the eucharist and consecrated, or it was so rare that scant historical evidence of objections to it exist.

I happen to think option (1) the most likely, given the fact that archiological evidence exists in the catacombes in Rome of an apparently female priest celebrating the eucharist and there is some extra biblical evidence that there were some women priests early on in church history but this 'died out' or was suppressed by the predominantly male leadership as time went on.
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Other than what @Tiffy has already said about Scripture, I would also point you to the following:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episcopa_Theodora
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractio_Panis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordination_of_women#Christianity

 

1. In the Greek Orthodox Church today, as for the last two thousand years, the priest is the presbyter and the wife is the presbytera. A woman sharing in the title of her son or husband is different from her being a deacon, priest, or bishop.
2. An icon that includes a woman sitting at a table isn't the same thing as the Church ordaining women priests.
3. Female deacons are still a part of the non-Chalcedonian Churches, as for the last two thousand years. But they're not priests, and they aren't ordained.
The only female priests in ancient Christianity that the wiki mentions are those of the Montanists, who where heterodox and not associated with the Church.

In other words, none of these provide clear evidence of female priests in the early Church.

 

That is one possible interpretation. However, it isn't clear that it is the only interpretation.

It is debated whether the figure breaking the bread is a woman. If it is, then she would presumably be a priest.

Mentioned also is a letter from Pope Gelasius I:

We have learned to our annoyance that divine affairs have come to such a lower state that women are encouraged to officiate at sacred altars and to take part in all matters imputed to the offices of the male sex, to which they do not belong.​

What is clear is that women were ordained as priests (by at least the Montainists and the particular church that Pope Gelasius I was writing to). As well, we have potential evidence in the artwork of the early church. There are several books on the subject that I plan to eventually read. Until then I can only speak on what I know of.

 

If we are honest, we should all give credence to the fact that there was a period in the Church's history when some of its leadership was rabidly misogynistic with not a few of them having some serious unresolved sexual hangups. This just might have flavoured their gravy on the subject of whether it was right or wrong to ordain women. There is not much specific guidance in scripture itself on the issue. Similarly there is not much specific guidance on the rights or wrongs of slavery. The arguments for or against both tend to be based on the general thrust of scripture and the logic of human reason rather than any specific scriptural Apostolic edict or Antiquated Old Testament LAW (still literally in force ?), under the New Covenant.
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I can't let this pass without comment. You're going to need to provide some citations on that one, @Tiffy . I realize that your own view of Christian doctrine and history is, shall we say, distinctive; but you're asserting as fact something that (so far) you have not remotely proved.

 

Misogynistic like the people of Israel who didn't count any matriarchs, but only the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Misogynistic like the OT priests who were only men, and chosen from men? Misogynistic like Christ Jesus who only chose the men for his twelve disciples? Misogynistic like God who held Adam and not Eve as the the the covenant head of humanity? Misogynistic like God who made woman in the image of man, and not man in the image of the woman? Misogynistic like God who told everyone to address him as Father? The church fathers were mere followers in this sacred legacy, against the testimony of countless pagan priestesses of the ancient world.

 

Straw man production seems in full swing here. Sales in straw men must be booming. Are we now ignoring the fact that some notable individuals in positions of leadership within 100 years of Peter's Pentecost sermon were notorious misogynists to an insanely irrational degree, compared to what would be considered a 'sane' mindset today? Even great theologians like Augustin of Hippo had some 'confessed' sexual 'hang ups' dogging him into later life. Not to mention the fastidious pole sitting hermits.

It is not much of a stretch to consider the possibility that the issue under discussion here may have been influenced by such extreme individual aversions to women in ministry, as the darkness of post apostolic natural ignorance crept back into the church, finally requiring a Reformation, (which didn't go far enough).
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It is, in fact, quite a large stretch; and does not remotely come up to being a "fact".

This is psychologizing, and amateur psychologizing at that. This is modernism purely distilled: you seem to think yourself higher, wiser, and more-enlightened than the very Apostles (chosen by Jesus himself!) who carried the faith to the world and the Fathers who worked so hard to maintain that faith and purge it of heresy.