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Through much of its history, especially in the West,
women were considered ritually unclean.
According to Jewish tradition, a woman's monthly flow of blood put her
regularly into a state of ritual defilement.
Similar taboos against
menstruation existed in pagan Greek and Roman circles.
Through their anti-sex mania, the Fathers of the Church
aggravated the fears of women's ritual uncleanness.
Church leaders were
anxious that such uncleanness might defile the holiness
of the church building, the sanctuary and mainly the altar.
In a climate
that increasingly looked on all aspects of sex and procreation as tainted with
sin, theologians considered that an ‘unclean
creature’ like a woman could not be entrusted with the care of God's
sacred realities.
Prohibitions based on the presumed ‘ritual
uncleanness’ of women have remained in official Church
Law for the last 700 years.
Knowing this background, we need not be surprised to
find that the vast majority of Fathers, canon lawyers, theologians and Church
leaders were of the opinion that such a ‘ritually unclean’ person
could not be entrusted with the ministry of the Eucharist.
It is clear that
this social and cultural bias invalidated their judgment as to the suitability
of women for ordination.
The Jewish fear of contamination by
menstrual blood
A key Old Testament text on the defilement by monthly periods is
Leviticus 15,19-30 which can contains the following prescriptions:
- “ When a woman has a discharge of blood, and blood flows from
her body, the uncleanness of her monthly periods shall last for seven
days.”
- “Anyone who touches her will be unclean until
evening.”
- “ Any bed she lies on in this state will be unclean; any seat
she sits on will be unclean. Anyone who touches her bed must wash his clothing
and wash himself and will be unclean until evening. If there is anything on the
bed or on the chair on which she sat, anyone who touches it will be unclean
until evening.”
- “ If a man sleeps with her, he will be affected by the
uncleanness of her monthly periods. He shall be unclean for seven days. Any bed
he lies on will be unclean.”
- “If a woman has a flow of blood for several days outside her
period or if the period is prolonged, during the time the flow lasts she shall
be in the same state of uncleanness as during her monthly periods.”
- “When she is cured of her flow, she will let seven days pass
then she will be clean. On the eighth day she is to take two turtle doves or
two young pigeons and bring them to the priest at the entrance of the Tent of
Meeting. With one of them the priest is to offer a sacrifice for sin and with
the other a holocaust. This is the way in which the priest will perform the
rite of atonement over her before Yahweh for the flow rhat caused her
uncleanness.”
- “The children of Israel are to be warned lest they defile the
tabernacle that is set among them.”
These laws were made even more onerous and complicated in the
rabbinical traditions that followed. The
consequences for women were:
- Every month, there were seven or more days during which she was
ritually unclean.
- She needed purification at childbirth; after the birth of a son a
mother was unclean for 40 days, of a daughter for 80 days (Leviticus
12,1-8).
The taboo of menstruation in
Graeco-Roman culture
A taboo against women during pregnancy and menstruation was common among
many nations in early pre-Christian centuries. Not only were women considered
to be “impure” during these periods, but in danger of communicating
their impurity to others.
“Contact with the monthly flux of women turns new wine sour,
makes crops wither, kills grafts, dries seeds in gardens, causes the fruit of
trees to fall off, dims the bright surface of mirrors, dulls the edge of steel
and the gleam of ivory, kills bees, rusts iron and bronze, and causes a
horrible smell to fill the air. Dogs who taste the blood become mad, and their
bite becomes poisonous as in rabies. The Dead Sea, thick with salt, cannot be
drawn asunder except by a thread soaked in the poisonous fluid of the
menstruous blood. A thread from an infected dress is sufficient. Linen, touched
by the woman while boiling and washing it in water, turns black. So magical is
the power of women during their monthly periods that they say that hailstorms
and whirlwinds are driven away if menstrual fluid is exposed to the flashes of
lightning” from Pliny the Elder, Natural History, book 28, ch.
23, 78-80; book 7, ch. 65.
The Latin Fathers and the taboo of
menstruation
During the first five centuries of the Christian era, the Greek and
Syriac speaking part of the Church protected women against the worst effects of
the menstruation taboo. The 3rd century Didascalia explains that women are not unclean during
their periods, that do not need ritual ablutions and that their husbands should
not abandon them. The Apostolic Constitutions
repeated this reassuring message. In 601 AD, Pope Gregory 1 endorsed this
approach. Menstruant women should not be kept out of church or away from holy
communion. But this truly Christian response was,
unfortunately, overwhelmed by an intensified prejudice in later centuries.
It was the Latin Fathers who re-introduced an anti-sex hysteria into
Christian morality. It began with Tertullian (155-245
AD) who declared even legal marriages ‘tainted
with concupiscence’. St. Jerome (347-419 AD) continued this line of
thought, teaching that corruption attaches to all sex and
intercourse, even in legitimate marriages. Marriage, with all its
‘dirty’ sex, only came after the fall. Small wonder then that Jerome
too held that the ‘menstrual fluids’ make women unclean.
- To become human, Jesus put up with the
‘revolting conditions’ in the womb
- Through abstaining from sex a woman can
become ‘a man’
- Holy women who are married are holy because
they live like virgins
- Virginity is the original and pure
human condition; marriage came with sin
St. Augustine (354-430 AD) was no better.
‘Pleasure’ during intercourse was equated with concupiscence, i.e.
the remnants of sin. Even in marriage, sex is a sin, a ‘venial
fault’. The ‘pleasure’ [=concupiscence] of intercourse is, in
fact, the means through which original sin is passed on. For the human seed is
now corrupted. It is clear that for him a menstruating woman could never have
served at the altar as a priest.
- Sexual intercourse in marriage is
permitted on account of human weakness, or to beget children
- If Adam and Eve had not sinned, God
might have created children for them without the need of intercourse
- Sexual intercourse in marriage not for
begetting children is a venial fault
- Jesus was not born from sexual
intercourse, i.e. from ‘sinful flesh’
- Shame about intercourse proves its origin
from sin
- Concupiscence, even in a good marriage,
passes on original sin
- Carnal pleasure in marriage is the
consequence of original sin
- Because of original sin, human seed is
corrupted
- Self-willed ‘lust’ in the
sexual organs is a sign of concupiscence caused by sin
- Pleasure (=‘shameful lust’) in
marriage is a disease
- A good Christian hates in his wife
conjugal connection and sexual intercourse
- The perfect Christian couple live
together as brother and sister
- ‘Lust’ during intercourse is
the carrier of original sin
Church practice in later
centuries
Already in 241 AD Dionysius, Archbishop of
Alexandria, wrote to say that: “menstruous women ought not to come to the
Holy Table, or touch the Holy of Holies, nor to churches, but pray
elsewhere.” This was a rare voice in the eastern part of the Church in
which, after all, women deacons served in all
dioceses.
The real problem came from the West, from the Latin speaking dioceses of
North Africa, Italy, Gaul and Britain.
- The local Council of Carthage in North
Africa (from 345 AD) introduced rules imposing abstinence from intercourse on
bishops, priests and deacons.
- Local Councils in France: Orange (441 AD)
and Epaon (517 AD), decreed that no women deacons
were to be ordained in their region. The obvious reason was the fear of
menstruous women defiling the sanctuary.
- Pope Gelasius I (494 AD) objected to women
serving at the altar.
- The diocesan Synod of Auxerre (588 AD)
decreed that women had to cover their hands with a ‘dominical’ cloth
in order to receive communion.
- The Synod of Rouen (650 AD) forbade priests
to give the chalice into the hands of women or to allow them to help in
distributing communion.
- Bishop Timothy of Alexandria (680 AD) laid
down that couples should abstain from intercourse on Saturdays and Sundays and
on the day before receiving communion. Menstruous women may not receive
communion, may not receive baptism or visit the Church at Easter.
- Bishop Theodore of Canterbury (690 AD),
ignoring Pope Gregory the Great's letter to his
predecessor, forbade menstruant women to visit a church or receive holy
communion. Mothers remained unclean for forty days after giving birth.
- Bishop Theodulf of Orléans (820 AD)
forbade women to enter the sanctuary. Also: “Women should remember their
infirmity, and the inferiority of their sex: and therefore they should have
fear of touching whatever sacred things there are in the ministry of the
Church.”
Scholastic theologians and women's
ritual impurity
The rhetoric against women's presumed ritual impurity was continued by
theologians in the Middle Ages.
- “Women are not allowed to visit a church during menstruation or
after the birth of a child. For a woman is an animal that menstruates. Through
touching her blood fruits will fail to get ripe. Mustard degenerates, grass
dries up and trees lose their fruit before time. Iron gets rusted and the air
becomes dark. When dogs eat it, they acquire rabies” Paucapalea,
Summa, Dist. 5, pr. § 1 v.
- Women may not take communion to the sick and have to stay out of
church after childbirth. Reason: “That blood is so execrable and impure,
as already Julius Solinus has written in the book about the miracles of the
world, that through its contacts fruits do not mature, plants wither, the grass
dies, the trees lose their fruits, the air becomes dark, if dogs eat it they
are afflicted with rabies..... And intercourse at the time of the monthly
period is very risky. Not only because of the uncleanness of the blood has the
desire to be restrained from contacting a menstruating woman: from such an
intercourse a spoilt foetus could be born.” Rufinus,
Summa Decretorum, passim.
- Women may not touch any sacred vessel. The birth of a child carries a
double curse: “There were two commandments in the (Old) Law, one
pertaining to the mother giving birth, the other to the delivery itself. With
regard to the mother giving birth, when she had given birth to a male child,
she was to refrain from entering the Temple for forty days as an unclean
person: because the foetus, conceived in uncleanliness, is said to remain
formless for forty days. But if she gave birth to a female child, the space of
time was doubled, for the menstrual blood, which accompanies birth, is
considered to such an extent unclean that, as Solinus states, fruits dry up and
grass withers at its touch. But why was the time for a female child doubled?
Solution: because a double curse lies on the feminine growth. For she carries
the curse of Adam and also the (punishment) ‘you will give birth in
pain’. Or, perhaps, because, as the knowledge of physicians reveals,
female children remain at conception twice as long unformed as male
children” Sicardus of Cremona, Mitrale V, ch. 11.
The supposed ‘ritual
uncleanness’ of women led to many prohibitions in Church Law
The presumed ‘ritual uncleanness’ of women entered Church Law
especially through the Decretum
Gratiani (1140 AD), which became official Church law in 1234 AD, a
vital part of the Corpus Iuris Canonici that was in force until 1916.
- Women may not distribute
communion
- Women may not teach in
church
- Women may not teach or
baptize
- Women may not touch sacred
objects
- Women may not touch or
wear sacred vestments
The ritual prohibitions against women under the Corpus Iuris
Canonici (1234 - 1916 AD) can be seen in the following examples:
- Women cannot be
ordained
- A woman may not normally
baptize
- A woman may not touch the
corporal
- Women may not receive
communion during their monthly periods
- Women should receive
communion in their hand on a ‘housel-towel’ or on the tongue
- Women should be veiled when
receiving communion
- Women may not be singers in
Church
The ridiculous prohibition for women to ‘sing in church’ was
reiterated more than once by the Sacred Congregation for Liturgy. Girls or
women could not be members of any church choir (decree 17 Sept. 1897).
“Women should not be part of a choir; they belong to the ranks of the
laity. Separate women's choirs too are totally forbidden, except for serious
reasons and with permission of the bishop” (decree 22 Nov. 1907).
“Any mixed choir of men and women, even if they stand far from the
sanctuary, is totally forbidden” (decree 18 Dec. 1908).
The Codex Iuris Canonici,
promulgated in 1917, contained the following canons based on a woman's
presumed ritual uncleanness:
- Women are the last choice of minister
for baptism
- Women may not distribute holy
communion
- Girls or women may not be Mass servers
at the altar
- Only men can be ordained to Holy
Orders
- Women should have their heads veiled in
church
- Sacred linen must first be washed by
men, before women touch them
- Women may not preach in church
- Women may not read out Sacred Scripture
in church
Reversal in 1983?
The new Code of Canon Law (1983 AD)
saw many improvements in the status of women in the Church. While it retains
the prohibition against the ordination of women, and reserves even the
lectorate and the ministry of acolyte only to men, it finally reversed the
Church's position by stating that women, ‘by temporary deputation’
may fulfil these ministries in the Church.
- Women may be readers of Sacred Scripture during liturgical
functions;
- Mass servers;
- commentators during the Eucharist;
- preachers of the Word;
- cantors and singers, either alone or as members of a choir;
- leaders of liturgical services;
- ministers of baptism;
- distributors of Holy Communion.
Through this change in Church Law and practice the official Church has
finally acknowledged, to some extent, that its prejudice against women based on
‘ritual uncleanness’ was unfounded. Why do Church leaders not draw
the obvious conclusion that their ban on the ordination of women, which was
based on this and other prejudices, is totally invalid?
In the past many Fathers, canon lawyers, theologians
and Church leaders were of the opinion that women could not be ordained priests
because their monthly periods made them ‘ritually unclean’.
If
women were not allowed to approach the altar, touch altar linen or sacred
vessels, could not enter a church during menstruation or after childbirth, and
so on, how could they imagine women presiding over the Eucharist at the
altar?
It is undeniable, therefore, that their opposition to ‘women
priests’ rested, to a great extent, on the prejudice that women were a
ritual risk.
It is clear that this social and cultural bias invalidated
their judgment as to the suitability of women for ordination.
Read also: Uta Ranke-Heinemann, ‘Female Blood: The Ancient Taboo and its
Christian Consequences’, from Eunuchs for Heaven, André
Deutsch, London 1990, pp. 12-17.
John Wijngaards
Follow @JohnWijngaards
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