ven as the epistles exist in the Bible today they were once sentiments that even a feminist would hail in the ancient world of gentile patriarchy. Careful consideration of the teachings which concern women in the epistles show that the early Christian Church was in fact pro-feminist struggling within a culture that wasn't. The tensions became only more acute as Christianity became part of a Greco-Roman world, whose underlying gender template defined women.

This may become clearer if one considers that a man could murder his wife without consequence in China until 1950; nearly two thousand years later.

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 (I 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. The African church father Tertullian, for example, describes an unnamed woman prophet in his congregation who not only had ecstatic visions during church services, but who also served as a counselor and healer (On the Soul 9.4). A remarkable collection of oracles from another unnamed woman prophet was discovered in Egypt in 1945. She speaks in the first person as the feminine voice of God: Thunder, Perfect Mind. The prophets Prisca and Quintilla inspired a Christian movement in second century Asia Minor (called the New Prophecy or Montanism) that spread around the Mediterranean and lasted for at least four centuries. Their oracles were collected and published, including the account of a vision in which Christ appeared to the prophet in the form of a woman and "put wisdom" in her ( Epiphanius, Panarion 49.1). Montanist Christians ordained women as presbyters and bishops, and women held the title of prophet. The third century African bishop Cyprian also tells of an ecstatic woman prophet from Asia Minor who celebrated the eucharist and performed baptisms (Epistle 74.10). In the early second century, the Roman governor Pliny tells of two slave women he tortured who were decons (Letter to Trajan 10.96). Other women were ordained as priests in fifth century Italy and Sicily (Gelasius, Epistle 14.26).

Bishop Irenaeus (ca. 140 - 203 AD) noted that women especially were attracted to Gnostic groups. ‘Even in our own district of the Rhone valley,’ he said, the gnostic teacher Marcus had attracted ‘many foolish women’ from his own congregation, including the wife of one of Irenaeus’ own deacons. Professing himself to be at a loss to account for the attraction that Marcus’ group held, he offered only one explanation: that Marcus himself was a diabolically clever seducer, a magician who compounded special aphrodisiacs to ‘deceive, victimize, and defile’ his prey. Whether his accusations have any factual basis no one knows. But when he describes Marcus’ techniques of seduction, Irenaeus indicates that he is speaking metaphorically. For, he says, Marcus ‘addresses them in such seductive words’ as his prayers to Grace, ‘She who is before all things ‘, and to Wisdom and Silence, the feminine element of the divine being. Second, he says, Marcus seduced women ‘by telling them to prophesy’ - which they were strictly forbidden to do in the orthodox church. When he initiated a woman, Marcus concluded the initiation prayer with the words ‘Behold, Grace has come upon you; open your mouth, and prophesy.’ Then, as the bishop indignantly describes it, Marcus’ ‘deluded victim ... impudently.utters some nonsense’, and ‘henceforth considers herself to be a prophet!’ Worst of all, from Irenaeus’ viewpoint, Marcus invited women to act as priests in celebrating the eucharist with him: he ‘hands the cups to women’ . to offer up the eucharistic prayer, and to pronounce the words of consecration.

Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, Book I, ch. 13, § 1 - 7; Hippolytus, Refutationis Omnium Haeresium, 6.35

Anoher gnostic leader, Marcion, appointed women on an equal basis with men as priests and bishops. The gnostic teacher Marcellina traveled to Rome to represent the Carpocratian group, which claimed to have received secret teaching from Mary, Salome, and Martha. The Montanists, a radical prophetic circle, honored two women, Prisca and Maximilla, as founders of the movement. Among such gnostic groups as the Valentinians, women were considered equal to men; some were revered as prophets; others acted as teachers, traveling evangelists, healers, priests, perhaps even bishops. It is more than likely that Mary Magdalen was hailed as a model for such feminine ministers.

The [Montanist] movement was conservative, claiming to return, to what were the practices and beliefs of the primitive Church, and also asserting that a new or at least renewed dispensation of the Spirit had arrived. At his baptism the Holy Spirit spoke through Montanus in tongues, thus reviving the charismatic emotionalism and practices of such churches as that of New Testament Corinth and reacting against the coldness and formalism which were creeping into contemporary Christianity

Their movement fell as the result of a few wicked men securing power and spreading heresies, at which time some unknown author spoke against women speaking in the church and altered Paul's epistle to the Corinthians.

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 matron 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 recant. She tells of the support and fellowship among the confessors in prison, including other women. But above all, she records her prophetic visions. Through them, she was not merely reconciled passively 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 relinquishes her female roles as mother, daughter, and sister in favor of defining her identity solely in spiritual terms. However horrifying or heroic her behavior may seem, her brief diary offers an intimate look at one early Christian woman's spiritual journey.

Sibylline Oracles were "a collection of oracular prophecies in which Jewish or Christian doctrines were allegedly confirmed by a sibyl (legendary Greek prophetess); In the Oracles the sibyl proved her reliability by first 'predicting' events that had actually recently occurred; she then predicted future events and set forth doctrines peculiar to Hellenistic Judaism or Christianity. The Jewish apologist Josephus and certain Christian apologists thought the works were the genuine prophecy of the sibyls and were greatly impressed by the way in which their doctrines were confirmed by external testimony. Both Theophilus of Antioch and Clement of Alexandria, 2nd-century Christian theologians, referred to the sibyl as a prophetess apparently no less inspired than the Old Testament prophets."
"Scholars are unsure if there ever really was a 'Sibyl' who inaugurated this tradition. Collections of 'Sibylline' oracles appeared in a variety of centers in the ancient world. These collections enjoyed considerable prestige in the Roman Empire and allowed Jews and Christians to communicate their religious views....The collection...now makes up part of the Pseudepigrapha."

Study of works by and about women is making it possible to begin to reconstruct some of the theological views of early Christian women. Although they are a diverse group, certain reoccurring elements appear to be common to women's theology-making. By placing the teaching of the Gospel of Mary side-by-side with the theology of the Corinthian women prophets, the Montanist women's oracles, Thunder Perfect Mind, and Perpetua's prison diary, it is possible to discern shared views about teaching and practice that may exemplify some of the contents of women's theology:
Jesus was understood primarily as a teacher and mediator of wisdom rather than as ruler and judge.
Theological reflection centered on the experience of the person of the risen Christ more than the crucified savior. Interestingly enough, this is true even in the case of the martyr Perpetua. One might expect her to identify with the suffering Christ, but it is the risen Christ she encounters in her vision.
Direct access to God is possible for all through receiving the Spirit.
In Christian community, the unity, power, and perfection of the Spirit are present now, not just in some future time.
Those who are more spiritually advanced give what they have freely to all without claim to a fixed, hierarchical ordering of power.
An ethics of freedom and spiritual development is emphasized over an ethics of order and control.
A woman's identity and spirituality could be developed apart from her roles as wife and mother ( or slave), whether she actually withdrew from those roles or not. Gender is itself contested as a "natural" category in the face of the power of God's Spirit at work in the community and the world. This meant that potentially women (and men) could exercise leadership on the basis of spiritual achievement apart from gender status and without conformity to established social gender roles.
Overcoming social injustice and human suffering are seen to be integral to spiritual life. Women were also actively engaged in reinterpreting the texts of their tradition. For example, another new text, the Hypostasis of the Archons, contains a retelling of the Genesis story ascribed to Eve's daughter Norea, in which her mother Eve appears as the instructor of Adam and his healer. The new texts also contain an unexpected wealth of Christian imagination of the divine as feminine. The long version of the Apocryphon of John, for example, concludes with a hymn about the descent of divine Wisdom, a feminine figure here called the Pronoia of God. She enters into the lower world and the body in order to awaken the innermost spiritual being of the soul to the truth of its power and freedom, to awaken the spiritual power it needs to escape the counterfeit powers that enslave the soul in ignorance, poverty, and the drunken sleep of spiritual deadness, and to overcome illegitimate political and sexual domination. The oracle collection Thunder Perfect Mind also adds crucial evidence to women's prophetic theology-making. This prophet speaks powerfully to women, emphasizing the presence of women in her audience and insisting upon their identity with the feminine voice of the Divine. Her speech lets the hearers transverse the distance between political exploitation and empowerment, between the experience of degradation and the knowledge of infinite self-worth, between despair and peace. It overcomes the fragmentation of the self by naming it, cherishing it, insisting upon the multiplicity of self-hood and experience.
These elements may not be unique to women's religious thought or always result in women's leadership, but as a constellation they point toward one type of theologizing that was meaningful to some early Christian women, that had a place for women's legitimate exercise of leadership, and to whose construction women contributed. If we look to these elements, we are able to discern important contributions of women to early Christian theology and praxis. These elements also provide an important location for discussing some aspects of early Christian women's spiritual lives: their exercise of leadership, their ideals, their attraction to Christianity, and what gave meaning to their self-identity as Christians.

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! 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.

1 and 2 Timothy and Titus were definitely pseudonymous (written by a unknown person, passing the writings off as Paul's.) They were written 35 to 85 years after Paul's death. Although such a writer would be considered a forger today, the practice was quite common in the 1st century CE, and was considered acceptable behavior.

What can clearly be ascribed to Paul's hand is his praise of Timothy's Mother Eunice and Grandmother Lois, both referred to as women of unfeigned faith.

Certain episodes in the Acts of Paul, such as the 'Journeys of Paul and Thecla', exist in a number of Greek manuscripts and in half a dozen ancient versions. Thecla was a noble-born virgin from Iconium and an enthusiastic follower of the Apostle; she preached like a missionary and administered baptism. It was the administration of baptism by a woman that scandalized Tertullian and led him to condemn the entire book.

hat about young women casting of their first faith? ( 1 Tim 5:12 )What does this passage really mean in respect to serving God?
What about young men burning with youthful lust? These statements cannot be ascribed to the Church houses started by the first Christians. These additions come from a desire to provide rules for established monastic brotherhoods.("taken into the number.") How did this statement about rules governing monastic brotherhoods and some woman's particular bad habit of gossip enter into the question of serving God?
This passage should be understood as referring to the goodness of marriage and perhaps as a blessing in disguise for young women by discouraging a life lived in monastic orders, while still maintaining an opening for devote widows. We must never, never, forget factors of place, time, and culture when examining these statements about social order.

For example, in the past women were often dumped in convents by families who did not want to care for them. Martin Luther, in his lifetime, rescued dozens of such women from cloisters and arranged for their marriages. During eras when dowries were mandatory, Christian charity stepped in where families failed, wishing to spare these women spinsterhood.

During the 4th and 5th century, the Christian church gradually extinguished women's access to positions of power in the church: Council of Laodicea (352 CE): Women were forbidden from the priesthood. They also were prohibited from presiding over churches. They decided that "One ought not to establish in the church the women called overseers (presbutidas)....women must not approach the altar." (Forbidding something implies a practice already in use--this prohibition tells us there were female priests at that time and the CATHOLIC church removed and subjugated them! Fourth Synod of Carthage (398 CE) "A woman, however learned and holy, may not presume to teach men in an assembly...A woman may not baptize." Obviously holy women were teaching and baptizing at that time. Council of Chalcedon (451 CE). Canon #15 of the Council states: "No woman under 40 years of age is to be ordained a deacon, and then only after close scrutiny." Apparently, the council wanted to start restricting the ordination of deaconesses, which must have been a common practice at the time. And, of course, anyone ordained to the Holy Order of Deacon would be eligible for later ordination to the priesthood as well. Younger women in their midst might tempt the brethren to lust and to sin against God--rather than addressing the problem by telling these men to repent and get victory over their flesh, they instead forbid younger women with a call on their lives to fulfill that call--t hus compounding the transgression against both their sister co-workers and God.

There were many women recorded in the Bible who exhibited religious leadership. Their stories appear in both the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) and Christian Scriptures (New Testament): *Exodus 15:24: Miriam, the daughter of Aaron was a prophet and one of the triad of leaders of Israel during the Exodus from Egypt. * Judges 4 & 5: Deborah, a prophet-judge, headed the army of ancient Israel. * 2 Kings 22:14; 2 Chronicles 34:22 Huldah, a prophet, verified the authenticity of the "Book of the Law of the Lord given through Moses" - the Book of Deuteronomy. Like Miriam, she triggered a religious renewal. * Luke 2:3638- Anna, a prophetess who recognized the Messiah on sight when he was brought into the temple to be dedicated to the Lord. She glorified God and blessed Jesus- -and prophesied over him to all that were in the temple. *Acts 9:36 The author of Luke referred to a female disciple of Jesus by her Aramaic name Tabitha, who was also known by her Greek name Dorcas. She became sick had died; St. Peter brought her back to life. *Acts 21:8: Philip the evangelist had four unmarried daughters who were prophets. *Philippians 4:2: Paul refers to two women, Euodia and Syntyche, as his co-workers who were active evangelicals, spreading the gospel. *Romans 16:1: Paul refers to Phoebe as a minister or deacon of the church at Cenchrea. The Greek word which describes her function is "diakonos" which means literally "official servant." She is the only deacon in the Bible to be identified by name. Some translations say deaconess; others try to obscure her position by mistranslating the Greek as a simple "servant" or "helper". Paul later refers to Phoebe as a woman, calling her "our sister." This prevented later church leaders from hiding her gender as they did with Junia in Romans 16:7 below - by changing her name and implying that she was a man. * Romans 16:3: Paul refers to Priscilla as another of his "fellow workers in Christ Jesus" (NIV) Other translations refer to her as a "co-worker". But other translations attempt to downgrade her status by calling her a "helper". The original Greek word is "synergoi", which literally means "fellow worker" or "colleague." 1 It is worth noting that Paul refers to Priscilla and her husband as "Priscilla and Aquila" in this passage and as "Aquila and Priscilla" in 1 Corinthians 16:19. It would appear that the order is not important to Paul. As in Galatians 3:28, he apparently believed that there is no distinction among those who have been baptized into Christ between male and female. *Romans 16:7: Paul refers to a male apostle, Andronicus, and a female apostle, Junia, as "outstanding among the apostles" (NIV) Every Greek and Latin church Father until Giles of Rome (circa 1000 CE) acknowledged that Junia was a woman. 2,3 After that time, various writers and translators of the Bible resorted to deceptions in order to suppress her gender. For example: The Amplified Bible translates this passage as "They are men held in high esteem among the apostles" The Revised Standard Version shows it as "they are men of note among the apostles". The reference to them both being men does not appear in the original Greek text. The word "men" was simply inserted by the translators, apparently because the translators' minds recoiled from the concept of a female apostle.

*Many translations, including the Amplified Bible, Rheims New Testament, New American Standard Bible, and the New International Version simply picked the letter "s" out of thin air, and converted the original "Junia" (a woman's name) into "Junias" (a man's). Again, it was probably inconceivable to the translators that Paul would recognize a woman as an apostle.

Female Leaders Mentioned in Early Christian Writings

There are many Gospels and other early Christian writings that never made it into the official canon. Some shed light of the role of women in various early Christian groups: The Christian Gnostic tradition represented one of the three main forms of early Christianity - the others being Jewish Christianity and Pauline Christianity. Gnostic texts show that women held senior roles as teachers, prophets and missionaries. They conducted rituals such as baptism and the Eucharist. They performed exorcisms. The Gospel of Philip, was widely used among early Christian congregations. It portrayed Mary Magdalene as the companion of Jesus, in a position of very high authority within the early Christian movement. The Gospel of Mary described Mary Magdalene as a leader of Jesus' disciples. She is seen delivering a passionate sermon to the disciples after his resurrection. This raised their spirits and inspired them to evangelize the known world. Philoumene, a woman, headed a Christian theological school in Rome during the second century CE.

Examples of Female Christian Leaders from the Archeological Record

"Archaelogical Discoveries" cites:

*An ancient mosaic which shows four female figures. One is identified as Bishop Theodora. The feminine form for bishop (episcopa) is used. *A 3rd or 4th century burial site on the Greek island of Thera contains an epitaph referring to Epiktas, a "presbytis" (priest or presbyter). Epiktas is a woman's name. *A 2nd or 3rd century Christian inscription in Egypt for Artemidoras, whose mother is described as "Paniskianes, being an elder" (presbytera) *A memorial from the 3rd century for Ammion the elder (presbytera) *A 4th or 5th century Sicilian inscription referring to Kale the elder. (presbytis) Prohibition of Women from Positions of Power by the Early Church During the 4th and 5th century, the Christian church gradually extinguished women's access to positions of power in the church: Council of Laodicea (352 CE): Women were forbidden from the priesthood. They also were prohibited from presiding over churches. They decided that "One ought not to establish in the church the women called overseers (presbutidas).... women must not approach the altar." (Forbidding something implies a practice already in use-- this prohibition tells us there were female priests at that time and the CATHOLIC church removed and subjagated them! Have we forgotten the many women ministers who spread the truth in the early days of the Pentecostal revival??) Fourth Synod of Carthage (398 CE) "A woman, however learned and holy, may not presume to teach men in an assembly...A woman may not baptize." Obviously holy women were teaching and baptizing at that time. Council of Chalcedon (451 CE). Canon #15 of the Council states: "No woman under 40 years of age is to be ordained a deacon, and then only after close scrutiny." Apparently, the council wanted to start restricting the ordination of deaconesses, which must have been a common practice at the time. And, of course, anyone ordained to the Holy Order of Deacon would be eligible for later ordination to the priesthood as well. Younger women in their midst might tempt the brethren to lust and to sin against God--rather than addressing the problem by telling these men to repent and get victory over their flesh, they instead forbid younger women with a call on their lives to fulfill that call--thus compounding the transgression against both their sister co-workers and God. Islam solved the problem by circumcising women and thereby depriving them of meaningful sexuality for life--and then by enclosing them in the voluminous robes of the Chador. The first removed the lust of the flesh--the second the lust of the eye and lifted responsiblity for their own actions and thoughts from the shoulders of men and placed them on the backs of women.

Jesus said, "Come to me all ye who are heavily laden; Take my yoke upon you, for my yoke is easy and my burden light" .... shouldn't the men who claim to represent Him stop piling their burdens on the backs of the women God intended for them to protect, cherish, and provide for?

omen were ordained just like men in the ancient church, were leaders of communities, were called elders (presbyterae), and fulfilled the duties of preaching, directing, and teaching.

Paul clearly states in any matter regarding his opinions on marriage that he has no commands from the Lord. He states that his reasons for declaring not to marry are because the time is short; that was two thousand years ago. Further, no one knows what questions he was replying to!

Paul taught that Christian wives could continue to live with their pagan husbands if the husband consented. It was thought that the wife's spirit of obedience would win over the husband. However; the language used (...*...if both parties agree) in the original text does not mean that a believing spouse must be subject to an unbelieving spouse if that spouse chooses to lord it over the spouse and posses the the spouse only as an object of gratification or someone to dominate. Both Peter and Paul preached the obedience of the wife to the husband; but we must remember that the apostles were in no position to change the whole social system. Neither did they preach law, but rather, grace. How much more grace exists when the husband loves the wife as Christ the church; when the two shall be one? We are called to freedom. Love must be nourished or it will die, and the death of love is not God's will. Jesus was very strict on divorce because of the woman's welfare and because of upholding the ideal of a holy and loving marriage.