Women in the History of Christianity

Women in the Early Church

By: Joel Ashirwadam J.W.

M.Th. Communication

Having seen Christianity in India itself for more than two thousand years,
there is always a role women had in the growth of the Church. There was even
more so in the Ancient West Asia (AWA) when Christianity was at its infancy, the
time we call today as the Early Church. Women had a significant contribution to
the Early Church community, but they were airbrushed out of history due to the
patriarchal structure of the society. Today with enough hermeneutical
(Interpretation) tools and understanding we have slowly started to uncover the
truth about the care that Early Church Community got for its mothers. Let us look
closer, at the Women in Early Church Community.

1. Women in Judaism and in the Roman Society

a. Women in Judaism
The position of women in Judaism is predominantly structured and guided by
the Hebrew Bible. But when we look closer the Oral Law, Rabbinic literature,
Customs and other non-religious cultural factors too have a determining factor
towards women.1

Women are held with respect in their own accord from the biblical point of
view out of the fifty five prophets, seven are women and many other women in
Judaism have acted as a turning point for the history of Judaism such as Miriam,
Deborah and Esther. Still then Women are positioned as the keeper of the
household. According to Judaism, Jewishness is passed over to the child through
women and not men. In regard to that if a child born to a non-Jewish mother is not
a child born as Jew. As in the case of divorce women needs to take consent from the
husband to get a divorce, which is not the case for the husband.2

The Synagogue is an important part of a Jewish community and it is not just

a place for worship and prayer, but also a place of governing themselves. 3 During
the prayer obligations such as Minyan (the 10 people necessary to recite certain
prayers) the participation of women are not counted and women’s prayer on behalf
of the group is also not counted thus women cannot lead the services/worship. In

1 Judaism and women,

"http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Women_in_Judaism&oldid=615112581" 11/07/2014 9:16
PM.
1

2 Judaism 101: The Role of Women , “http://www.jewfaq.org/women.htm” 11/07/2014 9:19 PM

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3 Steinberg, Theodore L. Jews and Judaism in the Middle Ages. (Westport, Conn.: Praeger

Publishers, 2008), 139.

this light of the situation we can understand that the Jewish understanding of
Women is that they are less privileged group.4

According to John Bowker (theologian), traditionally, Jewish "men and

women pray separately. This goes back to ancient times when women could go only
as far as the second court of the Temple."5 In most Synagogues women are given
separate building or offered balcony. Other than praying, one of the main jobs of
women is to beautify the building and arrangements in the building.6

b. Women in the Roman Society

The legacy (contribution) of the Roman Civilization is the foundation of the

Western Civilization even to this date. The ancient Rome changed monarchy to
republic; as a result an empire and this also resulted in the gradual change in the
status of women.7

It is clear that the Greek women were kept in seclusion; the Jewish women
were not as restricted in the public as the Greek women but did not have the
freedom of the first century Roman Women. Macedonian women had greater
independence and importance in public affair. This coincides with the greater
prominence that women held in the Macedonian Churches (women associated with
the Philippian Churches – Acts 16:14-15, Phil. 4:2-3).8 Roman history supplies us
the portrayal of gradual increase in the position and liberty to a higher status and
finally greater power and influence.9

Romans offered prayers and sacrifices to the many deities for every
conceivable opportunity. Priests and priestesses officiated at these rituals. Some of
the goddesses especially worshiped by girls and women were Fortuna Virginalis or
Virgo, Venus, Vesta, Juno, Cybele, Isis, and Minerva. Virgo was the patroness of
young girls as they came of age. These adolescent girls would dedicate their
girlhood Togas10 to this goddess, and then don a Stola11, the dress of a woman.12

4 Judaism 101: The Role of Women , Op.cit.

5 Bowker, John. World Religions: The Great Faiths Explored & Explained. (London: Dorling
Kindersley Limited, 1997), 119.
6 Judaism and women, Op.cit.
7 Anita L. Fisher, Anciant Rome,

“http://web.clark.edu/afisher/HIST251/lecture_texts/ancient_rome.doc” 09/07/2014 8:19 PM

8 Ferguson, Everett. Backgrounds of Early Christianity. (Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing

Company, 2003), 77-79.

9 C. T. Seltman, Women in Antiquity. (New York, 1956), 174.
10 The Toga, a distinctive garment of Ancient Rome, it is made of wool, and the tunic under it often

was made of linen. It was a garment worn exclusively by men, and only Roman citizens were allowed
to wear the toga. Women were expected to wear the Stola; to distinguish prostitutes from
respectable women, prostitutes were required to wear the toga.
2

11 The Stola was the traditional garment of Roman women, corresponding to the toga, or the
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pallium, that was worn by men. The stola was made of linen.
12 Anita L. Fisher, Op.cit.
 Women were found in wide variety of offices. In addition to the role as such
as wives, mothers, commercial sex workers, midwives and also as physicians,
musicians, artists, winners of athletic events and all sorts of activities.13

2. Prominent Roles of Women in Early Church

Early Christianity is the period of Christianity from the time of Ascension till
the First Council of Nicaea in 325 C.E.14 In the recent times, the history of women
in the Early Christianity is revised, as feminist historians try to uncover the
presence of women in neglected texts and stumbled upon new findings. If fact the
stories that we thought we know about some know women are changing
dramatically.15

Women have been airbrushed out of early Christianity despite having been
crucial to its spread. Professor Kate Cooper of the University of Manchester has
identified dozens of forgotten Christian women who were influential in the first and
second centuries, during a period when Christianity was - in some respects - more
progressive towards women than today. She believes that women played a central
role in spreading the new Christian faith through informal friendship and family
networks. Their authority within Christian communities was earned through their
role as parents, community organisers, and small business owners.16

One, Lydia the Purple-seller of Philippi, remembered in the Bible’s Book of

Acts, was the first person to sponsor St Paul. Another woman, Perpetua, who lived
in Carthage at the end of the second century, was famous at the time for refusing to
denounce her faith, choosing martyrdom against her father’s wishes. Her diary,
written while she awaited execution in prison, was a radical document which would
be seen in today’s world as extreme and very unlike the official Christian views of
what the Christian woman should be.17

One of the most important is Thecla of Iconium, believed by second century

Christians to have been one of St Paul’s disciples. Referring to the ‘Acts of Paul and
Thecla’, an anonymous second century text shows how Thekla rebelled against her
family to refuse marriage - an unthinkable act at the time. Though there is no
certain evidence that Thecla existed, her story was hugely influential in the first
few hundred years of early Christianity. The influence of her story was far-
reaching, in that it became the root of the Catholic theology of chastity and
virginity. Women, says Professor Cooper, regularly preached the gospel in the first

13 Ferguson, Everett. Op.cit.

14 Early Christianity, “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Christianity” 07/07/2014 7:15 PM.
15 King, Karen L. Women In Ancient Christianity: The New Discoveries,

“http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/first/women.html” 09/07/2014 11:46 PM

16 Reilly, Rachel. “http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2390252/Women-airbrushed-early-
3

Christianity-despite-having-crucial-spread-claims-leading-historian.html?printingPage=true”
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10/07/2014 12:17 AM
17 Ibid.
two centuries of Christianity and in some communities women carried out
baptisms. It wasn’t until the Roman Emperor Constantine’s conversion to
Christianity, in around 313 AD, the religion became institutionalised: male bishops
were now Government officials and women came to be seen as players in the
background rather than public figures.18

The ancient sources mention the women, but over time less and less
attention was given to their role. Women were the last disciples at the cross and the
first at the empty tomb; they remained integral to the work of the church in its
early centuries. One of the best-kept secrets in Christianity is the enormous role
that women played in the early church. There was a number of upper-class women
in the Church who were privileged to study Bible under Jerome and they showed
such scholarship that in the early 400C.E. Augustine wrote, “any old Christian
woman was better educated in spiritual matters than many a philosopher”.19

a. Women as Witness of Jesus

The Earlier Christian apostles usually spoke about “Bearing Witness” to

Jesus Christ.20 From the very beginning, women had a role in the Birth, Ministry,
Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. The major witnesses of the Crucifixion of
the Christ and the Resurrection were the women. The traditional four Gospels
indicate of a group of Galilean women, who followed Jesus and were also present
during His Crucifixion when the “Chosen” apostles were absent. Then the burial
events that followed and John alone writes about the Garden Interview between
Risen Christ and Mary Magdalene. Jesus’ resurrection in the Gospel is given
witness to even till this day to us by the women and they can be rightfully called as
“Apostle to the apostles”. Luke’s Gospel clearly portrays that it is heavily based on
the testimony of women, which is also in the case of Acts.21

Narrated by both Biblical and non-biblical sources, state that there were
numerous women leaders such as Priscilla, Chloe, Lydia, Apphia, Nympha, the
mother of John Mark, and possibly the “elect lady” of John’s second epistle who
made the home churches to flourish up in the Roman Empire. In the 2nd century,
Clement of Alexandria wrote that the apostles were accompanied on their
missionary journeys by women, who were not marriage partners, but colleagues,

“that they might be their fellow ministers in dealing with housewives. It

was through them that the Lord’s teaching penetrated also the women’s
quarters without any scandal being aroused. We also know the directions

18 Cooper, Kate. Band of Angels: The Forgotten World of Early Christian Women, (London: Atlantic
Books, 2013), 95-100.
19 Kroeger, Catherine. The Neglected History of Women in the Early Church,

“https://www.christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/women-in-the-early-church/” 09/07/2014
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11:40 PM
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20 Cadoux, Cecil John. The Early Church and the World. (Edinburgh: T.&T. Clark, 1955), 80-81.
21 Ibid.
 about women deacons which are given by the noble Paul in his letter to
Timothy."

Junia was mentioned by Paul in Romans 16 as “of note among the apostles.”
Some have debated the meaning of this verse, but early tradition holds that Junia
was a woman and was considered an apostle. Until the Middle Ages, the identity of
Junia as a female apostle was unquestioned. Later translators attempted to change
the gender by changing the name to the masculine Junias. But such a name is
unknown in antiquity; and there is absolutely no literary, epigraphical22 or
papyrological23 evidence for it.24

Paul also mentions Phoebe in Romans 16, “a deacon of the church at

Cenchreae.” He calls her a prostatis or overseer25. This term in its masculine form,
prostates, was used later by the Apostolic Fathers to designate the one presiding
over the Eucharist. The four daughters of Philip appear in Acts 21:9 as
prophetesses. Eusebius viewed these daughters as “belonging to the first stage of
apostolic succession.”26

b. The Other Christian Women

Other women appear in later literature as well. One of the most famous
woman apostles was Thecla, a virgin-martyr converted by Paul. She cut her hair,
donned men's clothing, and took up the duties of a missionary apostle. Threatened
with rape, prostitution, and twice put in the ring as a martyr, she persevered in her
faith and her chastity. Her lively and somewhat fabulous story is recorded in the
second century Acts of Thecla. From very early, an order of women who were
widows served formal roles of ministry in some churches (Timothy 5:9-10). The
most numerous clear cases of women's leadership, however, are offered by prophets:
Mary Magdalene, the Corinthian women, Philip's daughters, Ammia of
Philadelphia, Philumene, the visionary martyr Perpetua, Maximilla, Priscilla
(Prisca), and Quintilla. There were many others whose names are lost to us.

Women were also prominent as martyrs and suffered violently from torture
and painful execution by wild animals and paid gladiators. In fact, the earliest
writing definitely by a woman is the prison diary of Perpetua, a relatively wealthy
matron27 and nursing mother who was put to death in Carthage at the beginning of
the third century on the charge of being a Christian. In it, she records her
testimony before the local Roman ruler and her defiance of her father's pleas that
she recants28. She tells of the support and fellowship among the confessors in

22 A quotation at the beginning of a book, chapter, or section of a book, usually related to its theme.
23 The study of ancient papyrus manuscripts.
24 Kroeger, Catherine. Op.cit.
25 Somebody who supervises work done by somebody else.
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26 Kroeger, Catherine. Op.cit.

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27 A woman who is head of the nursing staff in a hospital, nursing home.

28 To deny believing in something or withdraw something previously said.
prison, including other women. But above all, she records her prophetic visions.
Through them, she was not merely reconciled passively29 to her fate, but claimed
the power to define the meaning of her own death. In a situation where Romans
sought to use their violence against her body as a witness to their power and
justice, and where the Christian editor of her story sought to turn her death into a
witness to the truth of Christianity, her own writing lets us see the human being
caught up in these political struggles. She actively relinquishes30 her female roles
as mother, daughter, and sister in favour of defining her identity solely in spiritual
terms. However horrifying or heroic her behaviour may seem, her brief diary offers
an intimate look at one early Christian woman's spiritual journey.31

c. Undermining Women's Prominence

Women's prominence did not, however, go unchallenged. Every variety of

ancient Christianity that advocated the legitimacy of women's leadership was
eventually declared heretical, and evidence of women's early leadership roles was
erased or suppressed. This erasure has taken many forms. Collections of prophetic
oracles were destroyed. Texts were changed. For example, at least one woman's
place in history was obscured by turning her into a man!32

In Romans 16:7, the apostle Paul sends greetings to a woman named Junia.
He says of her and her male partner Andronicus that they are "my kin and my
fellow prisoners, prominent among the apostles and they were in Christ before me."
Concluding that women could not be apostles, textual editors and translators
transformed Junia into Junias, a man.33

Or women's stories could be rewritten and alternative traditions could be

invented. In the case of Mary Magdalene, starting in the fourth century, Christian
theologians in the Latin West associated Mary Magdalene with the unnamed sinner
who anointed Jesus' feet in Luke 7:36-50. The confusion began by conflating the
account in John 12:1-8, in which Mary (of Bethany) anoints Jesus, with the
anointing by the unnamed woman sinner in the accounts of Luke. Once this initial,
erroneous identification was secured, Mary Magdalene could be associated with
every unnamed sinful woman in the gospels, including the adulteress in John 8:1-
11.34

The Gospel of Mary, for example, argued that leadership should be based on
spiritual maturity, regardless of whether one is male or female. This Gospel lets us
hear an alternative voice to the one dominant in canonized works like I Timothy,

29 Tending to submit or obey without arguing or resisting

30 To renounce.
31 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/first/women.html” 09/07/2014 11:46 PM
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32 Ibid.
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33 Ibid.
34 Ibid.
which tried to silence women and insist that their salvation lies in bearing
children.35

3. Women in Ministry

Apart from the outstanding ministry by individual women, there are notable
women in specialized orders. Notably ecclesial widows, virgins, presbytresses and
deaconesses sometimes these women are ordained and sat among the clergy in front
of the congregation. Mary McKenna suggests that the disadvantaged women who
accompanied Jesus in his Galilean ministry. Tertullian complained of a virgin who
was admitted to the order of widows at the age of nineteen! These widows were
supported by the gifts of the congregation, and in turn were expected to pray for
their benefactors as well as for all other members of the church. Their duties and
qualifications were developed from the instructions in 1 Timothy 5.36

The walls of the Roman catacombs bear pictures showing women in

authoritative stances, with their hands raised in the posture of a bishop. The
Ecclesiastical Canons of the Apostles specifically forbade women to stand in prayer,
But here we see them standing in prayer, exercising a ministry of intercession and
benediction, and dominating the scene.37

Conclusion

Women had various important functions in the early church. Some taught,
some prophesied, some provided financial support, and many worked in the gospel
and some witnessed. It is quite sad that a religion which began with a mother and
her Baby should still have so much difficulty honour the contribution of its women.
It needs to be emphasized that the formal elimination of women from official roles
of institutional leadership did not eliminate women's actual presence and
importance to the Christian tradition, although it certainly seriously damaged their
capacity to contribute fully. What is remarkable is how much evidence has survived
systematic attempts to erase women from history, and with them the warrants and
models for women's leadership. The evidence presented here is but the tip of an
iceberg.

Tamil Nadu Theological Seminary

Facilitated by: Rev. Dr. Rayappan Isaac

7

35 Ibid.
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36 The Neglected History of Women in the Early Church, Op.cit.

37 Kroeger, Catherine. Op.cit.