1. The religions equality of woman with man before God is clearly asserted by Paul : ' as many of you as were baptized into Christ did put on Christ. There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither bond nor free, there can be no male and female : for ye are all one in Christ Jesus' (Gal S'-''- ■'*). The mutual dependence of man and woman, and their common origin in God, teach that the male has no exclusive place 'in the Lord ' (1 Co 11"- '-'). This result of the evangelical evaluation of human nature (see art. Man) lifts the Christian idea of woman clearly above that of the contemporary Jud.aism, which in several noticeable ways ditierentiated woman religiously from man (cf. Bousset, Die Religion des Jitden- turns^, p. 490 f.). The morning service of Judaism still retains the ancient thanksgiving: 'Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who hast not made me a woman' (Authorised Daily Prayer Book, p. 6). We naturally think of the ' Court of the Women ' in the Temple, be- yond which no woman might pass. ' Her work is to send her children to be taught in the syna- gogue : to attend to domestic concerns, and leave her husband free to study in the schools : to keep house for him till he returns ' (C. Taylor, Sayings of the Jewish Fathers'^. Cambridge, 1897, p. 15). If such significant limitations as these are found in contemporary Judaism, notwithstanding the general humanity of its relationships and the in- tensity of the nation.al religion, it need not s\irprise us to find no etiective assertion of the religious equality of woman emanating from Roman jiatriot- ism or Greek philosophy. Plato, it is true, had
argued that the di/ferentice of sex ought not to constitute any barrier to the exercise of a woman's personal powers : ' None of the occupations which comprehend the ordering of a state belong to woman as woman, nor yet to man as man ; but natural gifts are to be found here and there, in both sexes alike ; and, so far as her nature is con- cerned, the woman is admissible to all pursuits as well as the man ; though in all of them the woman is weaker than the man ' (Republic, 455, Eng. tr.' by J. LI. Davies and D. J. Vaughan, London, 1906, p. 161 f.). But this theoretical judgment relates to social, not religious, equality, l^robahly the nearest parallel to the welcome given to woman in Christian worship could be found in the cults of Isis and Magna Mater, which became so popular in the early Christian centuries (not to be found in Mithraism ; cf. 1"". Cumont, Les Mystires de Mithra^, Brussels, 1913, p. 183). To the wel- come which those cults gave to woman they owed no small measure of their success ; by its deeper satisfaction of woman's needs Christianity was helped to win its victory over them. That there is much in the gospel of the Cross to appeal to the peculiar nature and temperament of woman needs no argument. There is some measure of truth in the assertion that ' the change from the heroic to the saintly ideal, from the ideal of Paganism to the ideal of Christianity, was a change from a type which was essentially male to one which was essentially feminine' (Lecky, History of European Alorals^, vol. ii. p. 362). But the full truth is seen rather in the perfect humanity of Christ ; as F. W. Robertson has well said (Sermons, 2nd ser., London, 1875, p. 231): 'His heart had in it the blended qualities of both sexes. Our humanity is a whole made up of two opposite poles of character — the manly and the feminine.'
2. A larger life of social fellowship and service was thrown open to women by apostolic Christi- anity. The story of the primitive Church signifi- cantly begins with the inclusion of women in the apostolic meetings for prayer (Ac 1"). Their presence and activity are clearly illustrated by the references to Tabitha (9^), Mary the mother of John Mark (12'=), Lydia (16"), Damaris (17**), Priscilla (18^). The story of Sapphira (5"') implies the comparatively independent membership and responsibility of women within the Christian com- munity. Priscilla illustrates their active evan- gelism (18-'). Attention is expressly called to the ' multitudes ' of women converts added to the Church (5"). The story of Thekla (Acts of Paul and Thekla, in F. C. Conybeare's Monuments of Early Christianity'^, London, 1896, pp. 61-88) doubtless rests on some historic basis. ' Thekla became the type of the female Christian teacher, preacher, and baptiser, and her story was quoted as early as the second century as a justification of the right of women to teach and to bajitise ' (W. M. Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire, Lon- don, 1893, p. 375). Clement of Rome, at the end of the century, refers to the suH'erings endured by women under the Neronian persecution (Ep. ad Cor. i. 6). The spread of Christianity amongst women of high rank is probably exemplified in Pomponia Grajcina (Tacitus, Aymals, xiii. 32), the wife of Plautius, the conqueror of Britain. Another probable example is supplied by Domitilla (banished in A.D. 96), the niece of the Emperor Domitian (Dio Cassius, Ixvii. 14).