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Oppostion to women priests in Gnostic sects?
Rome makes this claim: “A few heretical sects
in the first centuries, especially Gnostic ones, entrusted the exercise of the
priestly ministry to women: this innovation was immediately noted and condemned
by the Fathers, who considered it as unacceptable in the Church.”
Inter Insigniores, § 6.
Rome quotes five sources. “We know of them only through the severe
disapproval with which they are noted by:
- St Irenaeus in his Adversus Haereses 1, 13, 2: PG 7, 580-581;
Response: A scrutiny of this passage shows that Irenaeus describes the
bizarre rites of the Gnostic Marcus in great detail, including
a section in which women act as priests.
Irenaeus obviously rejects Gnosticism, but nowhere does he explicitly reject
the idea of validly ordained women in the Catholic Church.
- Tertullian in De
Praescriptione Haereticorum, 41, 5;
Response: Tertullian
does, indeed, condemn the practice of ordaining
women among heretics and also elsewhere he expresses
his opposition to women priests . But this
opposition is clearly based on his prejudices against women.
- Firmilian of Caesarea in a letter to St Cyprian, Epist.,
75: CSEL 3, pp. 817-818;
Response: Firmilian describes a
woman whom he considers ‘possessed by a demon’, who offered Mass and
administered baptism. His concern is whether such baptisms
are valid, not the ordination of women.
- Origen in a commentary on the First Letter to
the Corinthians, Fragmentum in I Cor. 74, in Journal of
Theological Studies 10 (1909), pp.41-42;
Response: I have so far
not been able to find this text. However, Origen may hardly be considered a
trustworthy witness of tradition in this matter. As a
disciple of Plato and Aristotle he considered woman inferior by nature.
Influenced as he was by semi-Gnostic writings, he looked on all matter as evil
and tainted. Everything to do with sex, even the prayers of a Christian couple
before intercourse, is ‘unbecoming’ (In Lev. Hom. 8, 12, 4; Fragm.
in 1 Cor. 34). Origen castrated himself and held that the Holy Spirit
departed from a couple during sexual intercourse (In Num. Hom. 6, 288).
The results of his thinking can be seen in St.
Augustine.
- and especially by St Ephiphanius in
his Panarion 49, 2-3; 78, 23; 79, 2-4: vol. 2, GCS
31, pp.243-244; vol. 3. GCS 37, pp.473, 477-479.”
Epiphanius rejects the ordination of women to the priesthood with the following
arguments
- ‘In the Old Testament
women never functioned as priests’.
Response: This
argument is invalid, since we are talking about a new dispensation. The
second-rate status of women in the Old
Testament has made way for their equality
in Christ.
- ‘Even Mary did not exercise the priestly
office’
Response: Though Mary did not function exactly as
the Apostles did, she joined Christ intimately
in his priesthood. Catholic devotion has always seen Mary as a true
‘priest’ with Christ..
- ‘Never has a woman been appointed among bishops and
priests.’
Response: The reason for not appointing women,
not mentioned by Epiphanius here, is the inferior
status attributed to women. Epiphanius himself calls them
‘a feeble race, untrustworthy and of mediocre
intelligence’.
- ‘There is the Order of Deaconesses in the Church . But
they are not permitted to act as priests or have anything to do with that
office.’
Response: Epiphanius is wrong here. As the Council
of Trent has defined, the diaconate belongs to Holy Orders, and is the first
step of the sacramental priesthood. Deaconesses at
the time were validly ordained.
Conclusion: Irenaeus does not address the question of ordaining
women as such. Among the Fathers quoted only Epiphanius argues the case against
‘women priests’ explicitly. His arguments do not stand up to
scrutiny.
Do prejudices not matter?
Rome states: “It is true that in the writings of the Fathers
one will find the undeniable influence of prejudices unfavourable to women, but
nevertheless, it should be noted that these prejudices had hardly any influence
on their pastoral activity, and still less on their spiritual direction.”
Inter Insigniores, § 6.
Response: Rome misses the point entirely. Obviously, the
Fathers of the Church did not totally exclude women from their pastoral
activity and spiritual ministry. They may even, on occasion, have been kind,
tolerant and gracious towards them. The point is that, in the general opinion
of the Fathers, women could not be considered for ordination:
- because, as inferior creatures
‘by nature and by law’, they could not be entrusted with the
responaibility of the priesthood;
- because they thought that punishment for
Eve's sin kept women in permanent subjection;
- because through their monthly periods women were often
ritually unclean.
Such prejudice cannot be shown in detail to have been held by all
Fathers of the Church in its three manifestations, often by lack of documentary
evidence and by a lack of occasions when the prejudices would show up. The
prejudices were so much part of the accepted culture and the social structures
that they did not need to be fully expressed. Yet, the prejudices were always
there and acted as the major block against promoting women to the
priesthood.
Ambrosiaster (4th cent. AD) spoke for all of
them when he said:
“ Women must cover their heads because they are not the image
of God. They must do this as a sign of their subjection to authority and
because sin came into the world through them. Their heads must be covered in
church in order to honor the bishop. In like manner they have no authority to
speak because the bishop is the embodiment of Christ. They must thus act before
the bishop as before Christ, the judge, since the bishop is the representative
of the Lord. Because of original sin they must show themselves submissive. How
can anyone maintain that woman is the likeness of God when she is demonstrably
subject to the dominion of man and has no kind of authority? For she can
neither teach nor be a witness in a court nor exercise citizenship nor be a
judge-then certainly not exercise dominion.” On 1 Corinthians 14, 34.
But what about St. Chrysostom?
Rome claims that at least St. Chrysostom was not biassed. Here are their
exact words: “St John Chrysostom, for his part, when commenting on chapter
twenty-one of John, understood well that women’s exclusion from the
pastoral office entrusted to Peter was not based on any natural incapacity,
since, as he remarks, ‘even the majority of men have been excluded by
Jesus from this immense task.’ De Sacerdotio 2, 2: PC 48,
663.
This is truly an amazing interpretation! For Chrysostom says just the
opposite. The task of the priesthood is so demanding, he says, that no woman
can match up to it. “For those things which I have already mentioned might
easily be performed by many even of those who are under authority, women as
well as men; but when one is required to preside over the Church, and to be
entrusted with the care of so many souls, the whole female sex must retire
before the magnitude of the task, and the majority of men also.” The
addition that the task is too big for the majority of men also, is no
consolation. ‘The whole female sex’ falls short. Why, because they
are inferior by nature! Read the whole passage
in its context.
St. Chrysostom's real ideas about women are expressed as follows:
- Paul orders women to keep silent in
church because they are subject to men
- Women are subjected because they are
weaker beings and lightminded
- Women speaking in public also offends
against common reason and received custom
- Women have to keep silent because they
are subject to men
- Women show their submission by their
silence
- Men are preeminent to women in every
way
- Woman was subjected by God, because
she wrought our ruin in paradise
- In Eve all women sinned and all women were
punished with subjection
- A woman's hope for salvation lies in
childbearing
- The whole female race transgressed in Eve,
but is redeemed by bringing up children
Notice, St. Chysostom's teaching here fails on many counts. It
contradicts the inspired meaning of both the Genesis story and the Pauline passages
1 Corinthians 14,34-35 and
1 Timothy 2,11-15. It presumes the
inferiority ascribed to women in Greek philosophy
and in Roman law. To him, women were inferior by
nature, by law and by God's punishment.
With such faulty cultural and religious ideas in his mind, how could
Chrysostom ever have imagined that women might be ordained priests?
The so-called ‘tradition’ of not ordaining women in the
early Church is not a true Tradition at all. It is a practice due to social,
cultural and religious prejudices.
Read also ‘Patristic elements towards a theological anthropology of
woman as a human being and as woman in her difference from
man’,, by Constantinos Yokarinis, lecture in Warsaw 1996.
John Wijngaards
Follow @JohnWijngaards
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