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by Elisabeth M Tetlow
Paulist Press New York/Ramsey
Republished on our website
with the necessary permissions
CONCLUSION
Jesus
called both women and men to service in his Church. The earliest Christian
communities followed the practice of Jesus. In the first century women
exercised the ministries of disciple, apostle, prophet, deacon, proclaimer of
the gospel and leader of worship. Despite the fact that women were not equal
and were generally subordinate to men in contemporary Jewish, Hellenistic and
Roman society, both Jesus and the early Church allowed women to hold and
exercise ministerial office.
The
New Testament gives an indication of many factors which were considered
important conditions for Christian ministry, such as faith in the risen Jesus,
commission by Jesus or by recognized ecclesiastical authorities, understanding
of and ability to communicate the gospel message, and gifting by the Holy
Spirit. But the sex of the minister was not relevant for ministerial office
either in the teaching and practice of Jesus or in the earliest theology and
exercise of ministry in the Church. Sex became a problem, beginning in the
second half of the first century, when the Church began to come into conflict
with its social milieu and began to adapt its own practice to the mores of that
milieu.
In the
same way the marital status of the disciple or minister was also irrelevant for
the exercise of ministry in the New Testament era. The presence of a wife in
the company of a male minister was considered normal, not as contaminating the
minister. Those apostles, bishops and other ministers in the early Church who
were not married were considered exceptional. Shared ministry exercised by
husband and wife teams was a common phenomenon in the first century
Church.
The
primary model of ministry in the New Testament is service.The ministry of Jesus
was characterized through the application of the image and theology of the
suffering servant. The gospels portrayed Jesus as teaching his disciples that
the nature of their ministry was to be like his own, one of service. The
Christian servant was to serve both God and the people through total
self-offering even to death.
The
Old Testament ministerial model of levitical priesthood is absent from the
pages of the New Testament. It is mentioned only in passing reference to
contemporary Jewish priest, but its application to Christian ministry is
nowhere suggested. The theology of one New Testament epistle, Hebrews,
specifically precludes the Christian use of this model. In the first century,
as the Church was in the process of working out its understanding, theology and
structures of ministry, there is no scriptural evidence that the model of
levitical priesthood was ever introduced. In the Old Testament the levitical
model had developed connotations of power and status, sexism and hierarchy.
When it was finally introduced into Christianity, in the second through the
fourth centuries, hierarchical status and power and the exclusion of women from
official ministry appeared at the same time.
Both
priesthood and ordination are post-biblical concepts. Ministry in the New
Testament is described in terms of discipleship and service. The disciple is a
person who is bound in close, loving, and learning relationship to Jesus. The
disciple is called to be like his or her master, to be a servant. The service
of the Christian disciple may be understood as priestly through the model of
the priesthood of the suffering servant. The priesthood of gratuitous
self-offering in atoning love is authentic Christian ministry. The levitical
model of priesthood of power and status cannot be authentic Christian
ministry.
The
early Church experimented with other models of ministry which it found in the
Old Testament tradition of the ministry of word. There were Christian teachers
and disciples, apostles, prophets and elders. There is evidence in the New
Testament of the participation of women in all of these offices, with the sole
exception of that of elder which was rooted in patriarchal tradition. The
office of elder, however, soon ceased to exist in the Church as it was merged
with other offices.
In
1976 the majority of the members of the Pontifical Biblical Commission in Rome
voted to affirm that scripture does not give sufficient evidence to exclude the
possibility of the ordination of women to ministerial office in the Church
today.(1) The Vatican “Declaration on the Question of the Admission of
Women to the Ministerial Priesthood,” which was issued in the same year,
asked whether the Church could depart from the attitude and practice of Jesus
and the apostles as reported in scripture and considered normative in the
Church,(2) The Declaration itself had an interpretation of the attitude and
practice of Jesus and the early Church very different from that of the
Pontifical Biblical Commission or that presented in this book. Its
interpretation was determined by theology and magisterium, rather than by
biblical scholarship. The 1978 “Research Report” of the Catholic
Theological Society of America challenged the Vatican Declaration on precisely
this point.(3) Its conclusions support the interpretation of the biblical
evidence which has been put forth in this book.
The
magisterium of the Church has itself called for the equality of women in all
areas.(4) The only area in which women are still today excluded from equality
in and by the Church itself is the exclusion of women from the Church’s
call to serve Jesus in the fulness of sacramental ministry. The Church has
justified this exclusion on the basis of tradition. Yet the Church has also
consistently taught that its tradition and practice must be conformed to the
norm of scripture. The crux of the problem lies in the interpretation of
scripture. Scholars today are realizing that the interpretation of scriptural
texts about women have long been influenced by the misogynistic biases of male
commentators. Since scholars have now become aware of such influences, they are
better able to eliminate them from future understanding of scripture. The study
of sacred scripture is a developing science, which changes with and builds upon
new discoveries. Current biblical scholarship is in the process of
rediscovering the prominent role of women in ministry in the New Testament. New
understanding in this area, as has happened in other areas of biblical
scholarship in the past, will finally come to influence and affect the life of
every Christian in the Church.
Long
ago, in a letter to the Christians of Galatia, Paul proclaimed that in Christ
there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female.(5) In spite of
this theology of Paul, all three dichotomies have existed within the history of
the Church. The first was overcome in the first century, with the aid of Paul
himself. The second was not overcome until the nineteenth century. In both
cases the process of moral insight and change involved controversy, pain and
division. It is time now for the Church to repudiate the third dichotomy and to
suffer the pain which that may entail. Pain and division are not inherently
evil, but very much a part of biblical tradition. And suffering, as the New
Testament affirms, leads to the birth of new life.
NOTES
1.
Pontifical Biblical Commission, “Report,” Origins 6 (1976) pp.
92-96
2.
1976 Vatican Declaration, 18.
3.
Catholic Theological Society of America, “Research Report: Women in Church
and Society” (Bronx, N. Y.: Catholic Theological Society of America,
1972), pp. 21-23.
4.
Vatican II, Gaudium et spes, 29, trans. in Abbott, op, cit, pp. 227-228:
“every type of discrimination, whether social or cultural, whether based
on sex, race, color, social condition, language, or religion, is to be overcome
and eradicated as contrary to God’s intent. For in truth it must still be
regretted that fundamental personal rights are not yet being universally
honored. Such is the case of a woman denied the right and the freedom to choose
... a state of life, or to acquire an education or cultural benefits equal to
those recognized for men.”
5. Gal
3:28.
Contents page of Women and
ministry in the New Testament
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