WOMEN’S WORK IN THE CHURCH.
I. In the Early Church. In the Apostolic Period (§ 1). In the Sub-Apostolic Age (§ 2). (§ 1). Widows (§ 3). Other Offices (§ 4). Influence of Women (§ 5). I. In the Early Church: By the greetings in the epistles of the New Testament it is seen that women were in some way in the apostolic age serving the Christian community. Many followed the example of those women who ministered to Christ and shared their wealth with him. Others, like Mary and Martha, Mary the mother of Mark, Lydia, Priscilla, Nympha, probably Damaris, and some of the “ honorable women” of Berea, made their homes the center of the little community in each city and the place where the love-feast could take place. In such homes the messengers of the Gospel found safe entertainment. Paul experienced this hospitality, which contributed much to the extension of Christianity. From the earliest times certain women seem to have been singled out for
(§ 2).
1. In the Apostolic Period.
II. In the Middle Ages. As Rulers of Monastic Institutions
In Philanthropy and Literature Decline in Culture (§ 3).
Women in Reform (§ 4). III. Under Protestantism.
Early Examples of Service (§ 1).
Later Philanthropic Work (§ 2).
Sisterhoods, Education, Missions
(§ 3).
special duties by special fitness. Phoebe (see Dra- CONESS) appears to have been one of these. Legend (Acts of Paul and Thekla) gives to Paul a woman missionary assistant, and it is certain that there were women teachers to the end of the second century, and women missionaries much later. In the apostolic period women instructed new converts (Acts xviii. 26), they also spoke in meetings. The daughters of Philip (Acts xxi. 8-9) were not the only prophetesses. Christianity was in the outset charismatic, and women shared in these gifts. Paul regulated the public speaking of women (I Cor. xi. 5). Harly Christian art gives examples of women speaking, with their veils fastened back from their faces by the ornament usually worn for the purpose. The context shows the prohibition of I Cor. xiv. 34 to refer not to prophesying but to interrupting a
Women’s Work in the Church
THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
a
discourse by questions. ‘“‘ In the gospel ”’ (Phil. iv. 3) can mean nothing else than “ In the preaching of the Gospel.” ‘Toward the end of the first century (I Tim. ii. 12) women were, on the score of seemliness, forbidden to speak in public. What had been proper in the small, familiar meetings of the early days ceased to be so when religious services took on a more public character, especially in the East, where reputable women lived in comparative seclusion. This rule did not extend to newly evangelized districts, as is proved by the fact that the Acts of Paul and Thekla were considered authentic through the second century.
Throughout the East women continued to teach those of their own sex as a matter of necessity, apostles and men missionaries being excluded from women’s apartments. The spread of Christianity in the Hast is unthinkable without this service. The method of administering baptism made the assistance of women in this rite indispensable. As numbers grew and special buildings were provided for religious services, where women sat apart from men, the service of women in the administration of the communion was equally indispensable. The whole question of woman’s work was one not of doctrine nor of office, but of good manners and actual need. In general, woman’s service was naturally along womanly lines, hospitality, care of the poor, the sick, prisoners and orphans, the oversight and instruction of women and children, and the last offices to the dead. In this period of first love there was need neither of organization nor of institutions, Every Christian was a worker, and every Christian home an asylum for travelers and the poor. Persecution, when it arose, created new duties in which, as well as in martyrdom, women had their full share. Their share in service and suffering is a stronger testimony to the position of women in the early Church than any special office.
Special offices, however, came into existence at a very early time. Official widows (see DEAcONEss, II., § 1) appear at the close of the apostolic age. Later sources shed light upon the directions in I Tim. v. 3-10. In the early days, when families
were divided religiously, believing 3. Widows. widows must often have been thrown
upon the community for support. These, being presumably free from family cares, were by years and experience peculiarly competent for womanly service. Official widows were to be at least sixty years old, and must have borne children (I Tim. v. 9, 10) that they might have experience and sympathy. Their especial duties were prayer and fasting (the widow was the “ intercessor of the church”; cf. Apostolic Constitutions, iii. >) but it was her part also to care for other widows and for the poor in general, especially for orphans and for those who were imprisoned for conscience’ sake, to have oversight of the female part of the community, being virtually the presbyter of the women, and to be “‘ keeper of the door ”’ in service time. Widows spoke at marriages, instructed the women, and prepared them for baptism, in which service they assisted, and held a position of such honor that they were designated the “ altar of God.” Widows are
2. In the Sub-Apostolic Age.
named in the second century with bishops, presbyters, and deacons as church functionaries. Married women and even young girls came to be included in this order. Ignatius (Ad Smyrneos, xiii.) speaks of “ virgins who were also called widows.” The Testament of our Lord (end of fourth century) mentions in the following otder the viduate, deaconesses, female presbyters, virgins, putting widows before deaconesses. The Apostolic Constitutions (q.v.) says, on the contrary, that widows must always obey the deaconesses, and prescribes the duties of each. The probably still earlier Didascalia, in the appendix of which is given the ritual for the consecration of widows and deaconesses, shows that by the third century many official duties were taken from the widow and conferred upon the deaconess, precisely in order that the former might keep to her original duty of prayer and fasting (I Tim. v. 5). Yet even in this century she still claimed the right to baptize, and a fifth-century synod at Carthage says that since widows assist in the baptism of women they must, therefore, be qualified to teach. The Testament of Our Lord names among the widow’s duties to pray at certain hours in the church and at home, to discipline the women, punish the
' refractory, warn the backward, teach the unlearned,
visit the sick, and help in the baptism of women ‘because she is herself anointed.” She is also to take the communion to sick women.
Among the functions sooner or later withdrawn from woman was that of presbyteress, which was for a time a distinct office. There was also a canoness, whose duty was chiefly to serve in the choir at
funerals and other ceremonies. The
4. Other heretical sects, especially the Monta-
Offices. nists, had also female bishops and
prophetesses, and it was in part because of the excesses of the latter that the orders above named were comparatively short-lived in the orthodox church. The growing concern for purity of doctrine doubtless counted for something in the increasing distrust of women as teachers; to this contributed the development of clericalism which began early in the third century, and the exaltation of the sacerdotal function of the clergy; the rise of monasticism completed the work. By the end of the fourth century the teaching office in the Church had ceased to be vested in women. While it may be disputed that Christianity emancipated woman, it certainly opened for the first time an honorable career to respectable unmarried women, for whom until that time there had been neither place nor dignity. Before the close of the first century appears the institution of the popular order of virgins, women who dedicated themselves to a single life and took a special place of honor as the Brides of Christ. They seem to have put themselves at the call of the bishop for any helpful service, were not cloistered, but lived at home and thence exercised their official functions. At first they claimed the right to teach. At a later day Tertullian forbade it, and this prohibition contributed much to the popularity of the monastic life. If the “‘ consecrated virgin ” might not be a leader in the Christian community, she had no part in it. The result was that virgins formed themselves into communities, first