lesson six
Paul’s attitude to women

• read the narration column first
• then do the exercises

1. Pioneer missionary

Paul played a crucial role in the building up of the early communities of faith among hellenised converts.

In the New Testament books that reflect Paul’s own work (especially 1 & 2 Thessalonians, Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians and Galatians) we have a good record of what the early Church believed.*

As we saw in Lesson 1, the Congregation of Doctrine quotes Paul as confirming the tradition of not admitting women to leadership positions in the Church. It bases this conclusion on 1 Corinthians 11,2-16. Paul is said to make a distinction between his female co-workers (my fellow workers) and male colleagues in the ministry whom he calls God’s fellow workers. By this he is claimed to have indicated a difference in women’s status as non-ordained collaborators. (Romans 16,3; Philippians 4,2-3 and 1 Corinthians 3,9; cf. 1 Thessalonians 3,2)..

Exercise 1

Imagine yourself in conversation with Paul. Allow him to accept the principle of 'equality of men and women in Christ' while also at times lapsing into traditional rabbinical prejudices.

What is your attitude to him after this conversation?

Exercise 2

" St.John's Gospel reflects the beliefs and practices of another group of early Christian communities. Revisit this gospel in the light of this observation, and explore the role played by women there.

2. What did Paul actually say?

1. In Lesson 5 we have seen that Jesus established absolute equality between men and women as members of the New Covenant. Paul endorses this principle explicitly in Colossians 3,9-11 and Galatians 3,27-28.

“In Christ Jesus there are no more distinctions between Jew and pagan, male and female, slave and free” (Galatians 3,28)

2. In 1 Cor 11, 2-16 Paul tries to persuade women to wear a veil during prayer meetings. Among the arguments he brings forward, there are some traditional rabbinical reasonings such as:

• The head of every man is Christ, the head of a woman is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.
• The man is the image of God and reflects God’s glory. But a wife reflects her husband’s glory.
• For man was not created from woman, but woman from man.

It is these ad-hoc reasonings which have been so much misunderstood in later tradition, for they were interpreted as doctrinal statements that should be accepted on their own terms. In reality, they are just rationalizations, which need to be understood as a literary device within a limited context (see Lesson 2 about scriptural meaning). In this light one should read the fuller discussion of 1 Corinthians 11,2-16.

3. The presumed distinction between ‘my fellow workers’ (for women) and ‘God’s fellow workers’ (for men) in Paul’s letters cannot be legitimately used to indicate that Paul excluded women from ordained ministries.

We are not allowed to make an author say more than his intended scope, and it would be farfetched to claim Paul’s expression deliberately included such a fundamental distinction. Read ‘God’s Fellow Worker and Apostleship’ by Mary Ann Getty .

On the contrary, we find Paul including women among ministers who were appointed through ‘the laying on of hands’ and among ‘apostles’:

• Paul greets ‘Phoebe, a deaconess of the church at Cenchreae’ (Romans 16,1). The word used is the male diakonos. About the ‘ordination of deacons’ read Acts 6,1-6.
• Paul greets ‘Andronicus and Junia . . . who are outstanding among the apostles’ (Romans 16,7). It is clear that Junia was a woman. This has been the interpretation of the Fathers of the Church. Only in the early Middle Ages was Junia turned into Junias and interpreted to be a man, since the association with apostleship seemed incompatible with being a woman. Paul ranks a couple, both a man and a woman, among the apostles. Read “Junia . . . Outstanding among the Apostles” (Romans 16:7), by Bernadette Brooten.

Readings

• John Wijngaards, ‘Would Paul not raise his eyebrows?’, in Did Christ Rule Out Women Priests? McCrimmons 1977, new edition 1986.
• John L. McKenzie, ‘St. Paul’s Attitude Toward Women’, in Women Priests: A Catholic Commentary on the Vatican Declaration, Paulist Press 1976, ed. Arlene Swidler & Leonard Swidler, ch.27.
• R.H.Fuller, ‘The Ordination of Women in the New Testament’, in Toward a New Theology of Ordination: Essays on the Ordination of Women Virginia Theological Seminary, Alexandria, Virginia 1976. ed. Marianne H. Micks & Charles R. Price, ch. 1.

Conclusion

Jesus’ openness to women continued in the early Christian communities as reflected in Paul’s letters.

We have the first indication of women receiving the ‘laying on of hands’, which was the traditional ceremony by which spiritual leadership was entrusted.