ABSTRACT
The statements of the pagan philosophers above reflect what they perceived to be a factor in the spread of Christianity in their times. How true was this picture? The early Christian writers certainly seem to endorse this theory from a more positive viewpoint. From the first generations after Christ, we find Paul writing of many women, as ‘of great help’ (Rom. 16:2), ‘hard-working’ (Rom. 16:6, 12), ‘contending at my side’ (Phil. 4:3), Clement of Rome opining that ‘females have frequently been ennobled by God’s grace to achieve feats of heroism’ (First Epistle to the Corinthians 55), Ignatius of Antioch expressing the view that his female followers showed ‘faithful and loving steadfastness within the worldly and the spiritual life’ (Epistle to the Smyrnaeans 11), and somewhat later Clement of Alexandria stating that ‘both men and women practise the same sort of virtue’ (Paedagogus [The Educator] 4.10). From all these writers, and others, there are many indications that the activities, influence and potentialities of women within the new faith were perceived in a positive light. But this was not a universal assessment: equally from earliest times are evident scolding voices asserting ‘it was the woman who was deceived and broke God’s law’ (1 Tim. 2:14); and, quite quickly in this era, these judgements on
— Women , w o r s h i p a nd m i s s i o n —
women’s capacities have become a shrill, restrictive, self-enforcing stream of criticism: ‘[woman,] you are the devil’s gateway . . . you have been made the sword that destroys’ (Tertullian, On Women’s Dress [De cultu feminarum] 2.2); ‘the female sex is weak and vain’ ( John Chrysostom, On the Epistle to the Ephesians PG 42.148); ‘by a woman, care entered the world’ (Ambrose, Letter 42.3); ‘it is woman who hunts for the precious souls of men’ (Epiphanius, Panarion [Medicine Box] 79.8). Can we trace the history of the development in these contemporary attitudes to women in the early Christian centuries?
