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by Madeleine 1. Boucher
from Women Priests, Arlene Swidler & Leonard
Swidler (eds.), Paulist Press 1977, pp. 152-155.
Republished on our website
with the necessary permissions
Madeleine I. Boucher received the M.A. in English Literature from the Catholic
University of America and the Ph. D. in Biblical Studies from Brown University.
She was at the time Assistant Professor of New Testament in the Department of
Theology at Fordham University, and a member of the Executive Board of the
Catholic Biblical Association of America. She is the author of The
Mysterious Parable: A Literary Study.
The
Declaration introduces the section on the apostolic age, the first generation
of Christians, with this sentence: “The apostolic community remained
faithful to the attitude of Jesus towards women.” The statement makes two
points. It refers back to the Declaration’s earlier argument that Jesus,
who broke through cultural boundaries by his positive attitude toward women,
nevertheless showed by choosing only men for membership in the Twelve that he
“willed” to exclude women from ordination. It also implies that the
apostles consciously intended to follow in their teaching and practice what
they understood to be the mind of Jesus regarding the place of women in the
Church. Neither of these assertions can be derived from the New Testament. Both
stages of the argument read far more into the biblical passages than can be
learned from them by careful historical - critical analysis. We have here an
example of eisegesis, not exegesis—of reading into, not out of the text.
The
line of argument of the Declaration requires that a proper response begin by
stating what might seem obvious, that Jesus was a first-century Palestinian Jew
who was by and large bound by both the religious and the social limitations of
that historical situation. He attended the synagogue, regarded the Temple as
the center of Jewish worship, understood the Scriptures as expressing
God’s will, adopted as his own the eschatological perspective current at
the time, that is, the view that the end of history was near and that a new
era, the reign of God, would soon be inaugurated. He also lived for the most
part within the accepted social norms of his culture.
Jesus
dared to shatter these limitations in one respect: he sharply criticized the
repressive legalism of the Jewish authorities, especially the scribes and the
Pharisees and Sadducees. The Gospels tell us that their system could not break
out of a sterile ritual to serve the sick (Mk 2:1-12; 3:1-6), the sinners (Mk
2:15-17), the hungry (Mk 2:23-28), even one’s father and mother (Mk
7:9-13). Because of this, according to Mark, Jesus leveled at them the
accusation, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God, in
order to keep your tradition!” (Mk 7:9). His teaching placed Jesus in line
with the great Israelite prophets, who spoke out against a mere external
fulfillment of ceremonial commandments that was not based on justice and mercy
(Am 5:21-27; Hos 6:6; Isa 1:11-17; 58; Jer 7:21-26). Jesus’ message
concerning the requirements of the law was to stress the ethical over against
the cultic-ritual. He taught above all the unsurpassed importance of the double
commandment to love God and neighbor (Mk 12:28-34).
It is
in this context that Jesus’ attitude toward women is to be interpreted. He
disregarded whatever conventions might have interfered with his ministering to
any class of people. He worked miracles for women (Mk 1:29-31; 7:24-30) and
accepted them as friends and disciples (see Mk 15:40-41, which says that women
followed Jesus in Galilee and on the way to Jerusalem). Jesus preached and
worked among the poor, the outcast, the weak. He violated rabbinic regulations
in this as in other matters (the Sabbath, ritual cleanliness, food laws). It is
essential to understand that Jesus was not carrying out a program to bring
about social equality by these deeds. Jesus’ role was as the agent of
eschatological redemption; his mission was to bring to the simple people of the
land—to all classes, bar none—God’s final forgiveness and
salvation.
Jesus
remained within the boundaries of the social mores of his time. It is for this
reason that he chose only men for the Twelve, the future rulers of Israel in
the new age. Jesus acted according to the social norm he knew, that positions
of authority were reserved to men. To say that he “willed” thereby to
exclude women from an ordained ministry in the Church that was to develop after
his death and resurrection is to attribute more to Jesus than the evidence of
the Gospels allows.
The
early Church, apostolic and post-apostolic, can be described in much the same
way, as we know from the epistles and the Acts of the Apostles. There are no
texts which address the specific subject of women’s ordination (a question
which no doubt did not arise in the earliest Church), but there are passages
which shed some light on women’s status in general in the New Testament
period. Women enjoyed full membership in the Church. They taught and took part
in the spread of Christianity (Phil 4:2; Rom 16:34; Acts 18:24-26). They could
prophesy at worship (1Cor 11:5). One woman, a co-worker of Paul, was called a
deacon (Rom 16:1-2). Still, positions of authority in the churches seem to have
been held exclusively by men in both the Jewish and Hellenistic environments.
New
Testament texts that speak explicitly on the role of women give.us a qualified
picture. Paul stated that “in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, there
is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female” (Gal 3:28),
teaching that in the “new creation” national, social, and sexual
barriers were transcended. He enjoined woman’s subordination in 1
Corinthians, but then toned down its absoluteness with the addition:
“Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of
woman; for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all
things are from God” (1 Cor 11:11-12). Similarly the author of 1 Peter,
after telling wives to be subject to their husbands, concluded by referring to
the two as “joint heirs of the grace of life” (1 Pet 3:7). What this
means is that the early Christians held a concept of equality coram Deo,
before God.
The
early Church did not, however, feel any compulsion to implement this religious
equality in social structures. In marriage, wives were to be subject to their
husbands (Col 3:18; 1 Pet 3:1-6; Tit 2:4-5; Eph 5:22-24). In the congregation,
women must wear veils when praying or prophesying (1Cor11:3-6) and must remain
silent (1 Cor 14:33-35, probably an addition by a later hand, 1 Tim 2:11-15),
because they were subordinate. It is clear that these Christian writers
(perhaps like their Jewish predecessors) maintained a dichotomy between the
religious and social domains, and had no difficulty in holding together the
recognition of equality before God and the practice of inequality in society.
The
first Christians, like Jesus, hardly envisioned a program to change the
established social structure. For Paul and the other apostles slavery was a
legitimate institution. The subordination of woman was taken for granted as
part of the created order. Even had their cultural background not been a
limitation, the apostles would scarcely have thought in terms of social reform
because of their belief that the end of the world was fast approaching.
“The appointed time has grown very short,” Paul reminded the
Corinthians (1 Cor 7 29) In view of this he told these converts, Jews and
Gentiles, slaves and freedmen, to remain in their present state of life:
“Every one should remain in the state in which he was called” (1 Cor
7:20). It is evident from this passage that Paul did not preach social
revolution. It is also evident that he saw a dichotomy between one’s
social state and life in Christ, for he said that the slave is “a freedman
of the Lord” and the freedman “a slave of Christ” (1 Cor 7:22).
Paul
did, however, call for one change of great consequence: this was the admission
of Gentiles into the Church without the imposition of the Mosaic law
(especially circumcision and dietary prescriptions). Just as Jesus’
concern was to cut through legalism to the will of God, so Paul’s desire
was to win membership for Gentiles, law-free, in the Church. This is probably
the real thrust of Gal 3:28, and of the other passages where Paul employs the
pairs Jew/Greek and slave/free (1Cor 12:13; Col 3:11): persons of all stations
in life can be brought together in the Church. The statement is a baptismal
ecclesial one, and Paul is speaking not so much of equality as of unity
in the Church: “we were all baptized into one body” (1 Cor 12:13;
cf. Gal 3:28). Yet the revolutionary character of Paul’s position can
hardly be overestimated. He challenged centuries of tradition based on the
Scriptures, and indeed the position of the first church in Jerusalem and the
Twelve, in declaring the Mosaic law null and void.
The
epistolary literature does not provide any theoretical discussion of either
slavery or the role of women. Such references as there are to either are brief
and directed to specific and limited situations. At 1 Cor 11:2-16, for example,
in telling the women to wear veils Paul is simply instructing them to act with
decorum and in conformity with social conventions so that the new converts will
not appear conspicuous and eccentric in the eyes of thc world. If the apostles
did not call for the abolition of slavery or woman’s subordination,
neither did they set down social principles to be permanently normative. There
is here no blueprint for society in an on-going history.
It is
important to inquire into the rationale which the New Testament writers give
for their views on women. Nowhere in any epistle does the author give as the
ground for the subordination of womon the will of Jesus. This is all the
more striking since Paul cites a command of the Lord in connection with several
other issues, one of which is divorce (1 Cor 7:10, 25; 9:14; 11:23, 25; 14:37).
Had his teaching on women come from Jesus, he wou1d undoubtedly have said so.
There is no evidence that the apostolic community knew of any tradition about
the “will” of Jesus in this regard
When
exhorting women to behave in a submissive manner, the New Testament writers
sometimes appealed simply to what was fitting (Col 3:18) or customary in the
churches (1Cor 11:16) or “natural” (lCor 11:14). The only text where
Paul attempted to give his statement on women’s subjection a
theological grounding is 1Cor 11:8-9, and there it is not the teaching
of Jesus to which he appealed; it is the notion that woman is subordinate in
the order of creation, an idea which he derived (correctly or incorrectly) from
the second creation account (Gen 2:4-3:24). (The same argument appears in I Tim
2:13-14; cf. I Cor 14:34.) Any attempt to put forward the New Testament texts
on women’s subjection as normative will therefore have to deal with that
notion. The question cannot be evaded: Can the idea that woman is subordinate
in the created order still be entertained as serious and valid’ In light
of the empirical evidence of women’s equality in so many areas of
achievement, it is extremely doubtful that we can continue to take that view as
“revelation”; the evidence fairly compels us to attribute it to the
cultural limitations of the biblical writers.
New
questions are asked by each generation from its own perspective. History,
despite the apostles’ expectation of the imminent end, goes on. Social
issues have arisen which they did not foresee. We, unlike the ancients simply
cannot regard as compatible a belief in equality before God on the one hand and
the practice of inequality in Church and society on the other. The Bible does
not fail to give us pointers toward solutions to these problems. What we can
know about the intention of Jesus and Paul is that both taught the
centrality of love of God and neighbor and freedom from convention tradition,
law. It is this ethos that turns out to be sound and enduring in Christianity.
The ultimate question is whether the Church’s practice of keeping women in
a second-class status can any longer be reconciled with such basic ethical
guidelines as the principle of love and liberation from the constraints of
tradition.
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