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Source: Selected Writings of John Knox:
Public Epistles, Treatises, and Expositions to the Year 1559, by David
Laing (ed.), Edinburgh 1864. Full electronic
copy available.
Geneva, 1558 AD
John Knox (1514 - 1572 AD), is perhaps after Luther and Calvin the
best known protestant theologian during the time of the Reformation, a foremost
Protestant leader in Scotland and ‘father’ of the Church of Scotland.
Knox wrote this book while in exile against the three queens who were ruling
England, France and Scotland at the time.
The main contention of ‘The First Blast of the
Trumpet’ is that the exercise of authority by women is contrary to
both natural law and religion. The interest of this lengthy treatise for us is
that Knox's arguments reflect the beliefs of the day, both among Catholics and
Reformers. We will only reproduce a few extracts.
. . . .“To promote a woman to bear rule, superiority, dominion,
or empire above any realm, nation, or city, is repugnant to nature; an insult
to God, a thing most contrary to his revealed will and approved ordinance; and
finally, it is the subversion of good order, of all equity and
justice.”
[Women are weak and foolish by nature]
. . . “Nature, I say, does paint them forth to be weak, frail,
impatient, feeble, and foolish; and experience has declared them to be
inconstant, variable, cruel, lacking the spirit of counsel and regiment. And
these notable faults have men in all ages espied in that kind, for the which
not only they have removed women from rule and authority, but also some have
thought that men subject to the counsel or empire of their wives were unworthy
of public office. For thus writes Aristotle, in the second of his
Politics. What difference shall we put, says he, whether that women bear
authority, or the husbands that obey the empire of their wives, be appointed to
be magistrates? For what ensues the one, must needs follow the other: to wit,
injustice, confusion, and disorder.”
[The Law forbids women to hold public offices]
. . . . “But lest that we shall seem to be of this opinion alone,
let us hear what others have seen and decreed in this matter. In the [Roman]
Rules of the Law thus is it written: "Women are removed from all civil
and public office, so that they neither may be judges, neither may they occupy
the place of the magistrate, neither yet may they be speakers for others." . .
. The Law further will not permit that the woman give anything to her
husband, because it is against the nature of her kind, being the inferior
member, to presume to give anything to her head. The Law does moreover
pronounce womankind to be most avaricious (which is a vice intolerable in those
that should rule or minister justice). And Aristotle, as before is touched,
does plainly affirm, that wheresoever women bear dominion, there the people
must needs be disordered, living and abounding in all intemperance, given to
pride, excess, and vanity; and finally, in the end, they must needs come to
confusion and ruin.”
[History shows that women cannot be trusted with
authority]
. . . “I might adduce histories, proving some women to have died
for sudden joy; some for impatience to have murdered themselves; some to have
burned with such inordinate lust, that for the quenching of the same, they have
betrayed to strangers their country and city; and some to have been so desirous
of dominion, that for the obtaining of the same, they have murdered the
children of their own sons, yea, and some have killed with cruelty their own
husbands and children. But to me it is sufficient (because this part of nature
is not my most sure foundation) to have proved, that men illuminated only by
the light of nature have seen and have determined that it is a thing most
repugnant to nature, that women rule and govern over men.”
[The Creator made woman subject to man]
“Woman in her greatest perfection was made to serve and obey man,
not to rule and command him. As St. Paul does reason in these words: "Man is
not of the woman, but the woman of the man. And man was not created for the
cause of the woman, but the woman for the cause of man; and therefore ought the
woman to have a power upon her head" [1 Cor. 11:8-10] (that is, a cover in sign
of subjection). Of which words it is plain that the apostle means, that woman
in her greatest perfection should have known that man was lord above her; and
therefore that she should never have pretended any kind of superiority above
him, no more than do the angels above God the Creator, or above Christ their
head. So I say, that in her greatest perfection, woman was created to be
subject to man.”
[Further reason for subjection was put on woman by way
of punishment]
“But after her fall and rebellion committed against God, there was
put upon her a new necessity, and she was made subject to man by the
irrevocable sentence of God, pronounced in these words: "I will greatly
multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. With sorrow shalt thou bear thy
children, and thy will shall be subject to thy man; and he shall bear dominion
over thee" (Gen. 3:16). Hereby may such as altogether be not blinded plainly
see, that God by his sentence has dejected all women from empire and dominion
above man. For two punishments are laid upon her: to wit, a dolour, anguish,
and pain, as oft as ever she shall be mother; and a subjection of her self, her
appetites, and will, to her husband, and to his will. From the former part of
this malediction can neither art, nobility, policy, nor law made by man deliver
womankind; but whosoever attains to that honour to be mother, proves in
experience the effect and strength of God's word. But (alas!) ignorance of God,
ambition, and tyranny have studied to abolish and destroy the second part of
God's punishment. For women are lifted up to be heads over realms, and to rule
above men at their pleasure and appetites. But horrible is the vengeance which
is prepared for the one and for the other, for the promoters and for the
persons promoted, except they speedily repent. For they shall be dejected from
the glory of the sons of God to the slavery of the devil, and to the torment
that is prepared for all such as do exalt themselves against God.”
[All women suffer dominion by men because of Eve's
sin]
“Against God can nothing be more manifest than that a woman shall
be exalted to reign above man; for the contrary sentence he has pronounced in
these words: "Thy will shall be subject to thy husband, and he shall bear
dominion over thee" (Gen. 3:16). As [though] God should say, "Forasmuch as you
have abused your former condition, and because your free will has brought
yourself and mankind into the bondage of Satan, I therefore will bring you in
bondage to man. For where before your obedience should have been voluntary, now
it shall be by constraint and by necessity; and that because you have deceived
your man, you shall therefore be no longer mistress over your own appetites,
over your own will or desires. For in you there is neither reason nor
discretion which are able to moderate your affections, and therefore they shall
be subject to the desire of your man. He shall be lord and governor, not only
over your body, but even over your appetites and will." This sentence, I say,
did God pronounce against Eve and her daughters, as the rest of the scriptures
do evidently witness. So that no woman can ever presume to reign above man, but
the same she must needs do in despite of God, and in contempt of his punishment
and malediction.”
[The Fathers too teach that women are sinful and
subject]
- “Tertullian, in his book of Women's Apparel, after he has
shown many causes why gorgeous apparel is abominable and odious in a woman,
adds these words, speaking as it were to every woman by name: "Do you not
know," says he, "that you are Eve. The sentence of God lives and is effectual
against this kind; and in this world, of necessity it is, that the punishment
also live. You are the port and gate of the devil. You are the first
transgressor of God's law. You did persuade and easily deceive him whom the
devil durst not assault. For your merit (that is, for your death), it behooved
the Son of God to suffer the death; and does it yet abide in your mind to deck
you above your skin coats?" ”
-
. . . “And how that woman ought to obey man, Augstine speaks
yet more clearly in these words, "The woman shall be subject to man as unto
Christ. For woman," says he, "has not her example from the body and from the
flesh, that so she shall be subject to man, as the flesh is unto the Spirit,
because that the flesh in the weakness and mortality of this life lusts and
strives against the Spirit, and therefore would not the Holy Ghost give example
of subjection to the woman of any such thing," etc. This sentence of Augustine
ought to be noted of all women, for in it he plainly affirms, that woman ought
to be subject to man.”
-
. . . “St. Jerome agrees in every point, who thus writes in
his Hexaemeron: "Adam was deceived by Eve, and not Eve by Adam, and
therefore it is just, that woman receive and acknowledge him for governor whom
she called to sin, lest that again she slide and fall by womanly facility." . .
. . He proceeds further, saying, "Women are commanded to be subject to men by
the law of nature, because man is the author or beginner of the woman: for as
Christ is the head of the church, so is man of the woman. From Christ the
church took beginning, and therefore it is subject unto him; even so did woman
take beginning from man that she should be subject."
-
. . . “Ambrose, writing upon the second chapter of the first
epistle to Timothy, after he has spoken much of the simple arrayment of women,
he adds these words: "Woman ought not only to have simple arrayment, but all
authority is to be denied unto her. For she must be in subjection to man (of
whom she has taken her origin), as well in dress as in service." And after a
few words, he says, "Because that death did enter into the world by her, there
is no boldness that ought to be permitted unto her, but she ought to be in
humility." Hereof it is plain, that from every woman, be she married or
unmarried, is all authority taken to execute any office that appertains to man.
Yea, it is plain, that every woman is commanded to serve, to be in humility and
subjection.”
Conclusion: Knox goes on and on in this way, repeating
all the stock arguments common in his day. Not once does he attack Catholics in
this treatise. On the question of the inferior status and sinful nature of
women all theologians of the time, whether Catholic or Protestant, were in
agreement!
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