Should women preach to men- the historical evidence

Throughout church history women have been esteemed within the church. They have been esteemed in prayer, in charity, in mind and in pen. However detailed study of the deaconess has amply shown that "there is no evidence that such deaconesses like those in the Apostolic Constiitutions with social and limited liturgical duties ever existed in the West. (74) William Weinrich says "there never was recognized ordained female ministry in the West (or East) that involved teaching in the assembly and ministering at the altar." (william wienrich)

Service of prayer and charity
Early Christian writers of the first till the third century make clear that widows as a group held a place of considerable honor and dignity and were dedicated to prayer and intercession and charitable works. (4, 7). Often they were listed along with the bishop, elders, and deacons (e.g., Origen, Hom. In Luc. 17), and turtullian calls them an "order" and says that widows were assigned a place of honor within the assembled congregation (On Modesty 13.4). (6)
Early eastern Christianity (Syria, Chaldea, Persia) established the order of deaconess which was a distinctly female ministry for the evangelism, teaching, and care of women (10). Indeed, the importance of the deaconess is indicated by the fact that she was an ordained member of the clergy. One such deaconess was Olympias, a friend of John Chrysostem who, according to Palladius, "catechized many women," (15) and used her wealth to found a convent that included a hostel for priests as well as a number of hospitals.
In the 19th century the German Lutheran church established deaconess training schools that trained women in the profession of nursing so that women could care for the sick, the poor, the orphan, discharged women prisoners and the mentally ill. (20) Likewise, in the 19th century The Anglican deaconess was established whose training was mostly theological and pastoral. They were well trained tehologically and worked in the parish or taught in school.
In her 1952 report on the function and status of women in the member churches of the World Council of Churches, Kathleen Bliss listen in addition to the deaconess these types of women parish workers:

1. trained lay parish worker whose duties might include Sunday school and youth work, Bible stury, home visitation, hospital visiting, preparation for confirmation, and social case work
2. Parish helpers
3. directors of religious education
4. trained youth leaders
5. church social workers
6. sunday school organizers 

(23)

Service of mind and pen

Woman have taken key roles within church history in the study of the bible, to the benefic of the church as a whole. "Although the voluime of theological and spiritual literature composed by Christian women is less than that written by Christian men, throughout the history of the church there has been capable women who have been productuve with the pen (and mind)." (WIlliam wei...)
In the fourth century Marcella and Paula founded circles of women in the homes whose central purpose was the intensive study of the Bible. Jerome became their mentor and introdiced them to the study of the Old Testament in Hebrew. (25). Paula and Jerome eventually established monastic communities for women and for men in Bethlehim.
Another Roman ascetic matron who conjoined learningg and monastic life was Melania the Elder. She, along with Rufinus of Aquileia, formed monastries in Jerusalem. Palladius speaks of melaniea's deep learning:
"Being very learned and loving liternature, she turned night into day perusing every writing of the ancient commentators, including the thtree million (lines) of Origen and the two hundred and fifty thousand of Gregory, Stephen, Pierius, Basil and other standard writers. Nor did she read them once only and casually, but she laboriously went through each book seven or eight times. (Lausiac History 55)
Perhaps the earliest writing we have from a Christian women is the account of Bibia Perpetua of her sufferings and visions as a CHristian martyr. It is clear from her narrative that Egeria was steeped in the clasics of the church, and "her language often echoes that of the Bible or of formal prayer." (32) Her account conttains some of the most helpful and informative detail we possess of early monasticism and liturgy.
Proba, who became a Christian later in life, contributed significantly to early Christian literature through her work in developing a poem in which she intended to present the whole of the biblical history. (33) It became a popular school text in the Middle ages. Its frequent use is attested by the number of manuscriptus containing it and the catalogues of monastic libraries.
The tradition of literary Christian women continues into the Middle Ages. Abbes Hildegarde of Bingen (1098-1179 AD) was an extremely influential women whos writings became renoun and whose corrresponence included "four popes, two emporers, several kings and queens, dukes, counts, abbesses, the masters of the University of Paris, and prelates including Saint Bernard and Thomas a Bechet." (37)
In Spain, St. Teresa of Avila was a prominent female voice during the Catholic Reformation who established covenants.

Whilst women have been honoured as having contributed significantly in almost every area that men likewise have, historically the broad central tradition and practice of the church maintained in the East and the West, in a multipliticy of cultural and social settings - has consistenlly been that the role of pastor and sacramental minister has been reserved for men alone. Turtullian (second century) may be taken as a representative voice of this viewpoint?: "It is not permitted to a woman to speak in church. Neither may she teach, baptize, offer, nor claim for herself any function proper to a man, least of all the sacerdotal office" (On the Veitling of Virgins 9:1). Photius, ninth-century Patriarch of Constantinople, echoes the same sentiment for Eastern Christendom: "A woman does not become a priestess" (Nomocanon 1.37). This general prohibition did not rest on some idea of a natural inferiority of women to men in intellect or spiritual stature. John Chrysostom writes that "in virtue women are often enough the instructors of men; while the latter wander about like jacdaws in dust and smoke, the former soar like eagles into higher spheres (Epiostle to Ephesians, Hom. 13.4).

Commenting on Pricilla's teaching of Apollos in view of 1 Timothy 2:12, Chrysostom says that "Paul does not exclude a woman's superiority, even when it involves teaching," when the man is an unbeliever and in error (Greek Pricilla and Aquila 3.)

Some argue that the rise of feminism over the past 50 years has been the first time the traditional roles have been questioned, and the first time women have been given a voice and recognised alongside men in the social, academic and political spheres. However, the social and cultural context of Christianity at times favored the church's admitting women to the teaching "office". In first and second century Asia Minor, for example, the social position of woman was well developed. There were female, physicians, and Ephesus had its female philosophers among the Stoics, Epicureans and Pythagoreans, who were known to teach, perhaps publicly. Likewise, female leadership and priesthood were well known in the local religious cultus (Cybele, Isis, Demeter, Artemis). (61)

The first clear opposition to female teachers and ministers is in reaction to Gnostic groups that often regarded women as the special bearers of revelation. (64) In their belief in the distinction between the body as evil, and the spirit as good, the Gnostics refused to take seriously any fleshly, creaturely differences, so that Turtullian complains that among them no dinstinctions are made between men and women. In his rejection of such Gnostic egalitarianism, Tertullian writes of their women: "how wanton they are! For they are bold enough to teach, to dispute, to enact exorcisms, to undertake cures, it may be even to baptize" (prescription Against Heretics 41.5). It is evident that Tertullian believes the Gnostics are engaging in a practice contraru to the standing practice of the churhc. Otherwise his point that in creed and practice the gnostics are contrary to the church would lose all force. It is equally evident that a distinction of functions between man and women in the church relates in some way to actual distinctions in creation. Against the GTnostic, to maintiain a distinction of male and female function was to confess a creation theology that respected the concrete, fleshly differences between man and woman. (65)

An underlying issue relating to this issue is one of revelation. Is the church to be understood as essentially spostolic or prophetic. We know from scripture that the role of apostle was restricted to those who had wintessed the resurrection and thus was confied to the first generation of the church. This truth refletes the finality of the revelaiton of the Word that happened once in history. The prophet, who rises again and again, does not and cannot represent Christ as final truty. When the prophet asserts his independence and autonomy, the finality of the revelation in Christ is threatened. The prophetic must be aubordinated to the apostolic. Not suprosingly, therefore, the Fathers appeal to Pauline (apostolic) statements against women speaking in church as well as to the practice of Christ and the completed canonical histories of the Old and New Testaments.

In response to the Montanist group that held to a spiritual egalitarianism based on the common outpouring of the end time, prophetic Spirit, Origen replies: "If the daughters of Philip prophesied, at least they did not speak in the assemblies; for we do not find this fact in the Acts of the Apostles." Deborah, Miriam, and Huldah were prophetesses. Yet, "there is no evidence that Deborah delivered speeches to the people, as did Jeremias and Isaias." Miriam and Huldah also did not speak to the people. Similarly, in the Gospel the prophetess Anna "did not speak publicly." The apostolic statements in 1 Corinthians 14:23 and 1 timothy 2:12 correspond to the Biblical history. (66). Certain Montanist groups in the forth century were known to have women bishops and presbyters on the basis of Galatians 3:28, and others venerated Mark as a virtual goddess, and women in the group served as priests in offering up a sacrifice in her name. Epiphanius responds by quoting Genesis 3:16 and 1 Timothy 2:14 ("Adam was not deceived, but Eve was first to be deceived" ) along with 1 Timothy 2:12 and 1 COrinthians 11:8 (against the heresies 49.1-3) and by runninng through the Old and New Testaments pointing out that God's priests were always men but never a woman, "Never from the beginning of the world has a woman served God as priest." He went on to say that Mary herself, the mother of Jesus, was not entrusted to baptize, that being given to John (Against the Heresies 78-79).

Church Councils

Many councils over the years were held which enforced the biblical stance of male teaching, including the following:

1. The council of Saragossa (380 AD): rejected meetings where women might give readings and teach
2. The council of Nimes (396 AD): rejects the admittance of women to the "levitical ministry" as an innovation "contrary to apostolic discipline" and not permitted by the ecclesastical rule. (68)
3. The council of Orange (441 AD): which ruled that "deaconesses are absolutely not to be ordained; and if there are still any of them, let them bow they head under the benediction which is given to the congregation."
4. Epaon (517 AD) and Orleans (533 AD) prohibited the consecration of women to the diaconate. Suzanne Wemple claims these councils were "a battle against female ministers." Of the Council of Orange she writes: "We do know that, by 441, the Gallican church had ordained deaconesses who regarded themselves as equals to the male cerlgy.... The bishops assembled at Orange were apparently determined to abolish the feminine diaconate, to humuliate women who had already been ordained, and to assert the exclusivity of male authority in the church." (72) Tucker and Liefeld give a similar judgement. Quoting the "commonly used" ordination prayer for the deaconess in the apostolic COnstitutions (8.20), they comment: "By the sixth century, such consecrations were becoming less and less common in the Western church... church councils during the sixth century gradually lowered the status of these women until the positions of deaconess was virtually nonexistent." (73)
5. The Statuta Ecclesiae antiqua of Gennadius of Marseilles (480 AD) which adapts eastern practice for western life, allows the nuns and widows to teach women who are baptized("to teach clearly and with exactitude unlearned women from the country"), but it also repeats the general prohibitions: "a woman, however learned and holy, may not presume to teach men in the assembly" (in conventu); and, "a woman may not presume to baptize."
6. Pope Innocent the third (1200 AD) pronounced a ban on the preaching and hearing of confession by women as he appealed it to be commonplace in canon law: "No matter whether the most blessed Birgin Mary stands higher, and is also more ullustrious, than all the apostles together, it was still not to her, but to the,, that the Lord entrusted the keys to the Kingdom of heaven." (77). 
7. The Corpus Iuris Canonici, the present-day book of canon law in the Roman Catholic CHurch, is the final recipient of the long tradition that has its origin in Paul: "Only a baptized man validly received sacred ordination" (Canon 1024)

The reformation

"Within Protestantism, the major Reformation and post-reformation leaders assumed without question the practic eof reserving the office of pastor and sacramental minister to men. Their strong "Scripture alone" principle led the, however, to rely almost exclusively on actual apostolic prohibition. Appeal to the Biblical history and to the example of Jesus is corresponingly less requent." (WIlliam Weinrich)

On Rome's use of 1 Corinthians 14:34 to argue the existence of a special priesthood not common to all CHristians, Martun Luther (d 1547 AD) consistendly maintained a priesthood of all believers (especially on the basis of 1 Peter 2:). This common priesthood posssess the right and power to exercise all "priestly offices" (teach, preach, baptize, administer the Eucharist, bind and loose sin, pray for others, sacrifice, judge doctrine and spirits). (79) Yet, Luther habitually combines 1 Corinthians 14:34 with Genesis 3:16 to assert tha twoman are excluded from the publuc exercise of the common priesthood. In view of the ordinance and creation of god) that women are subject to their husbands, Paul forbade women "to preach in the congregation where men are present who are skilled in speaking, so that respect and discipline may be maintained." (80) 

John Calvin (d 1564 AD) also understood Paul's prohibitions as excluding women from speaking in an ordinary service or where there is a Church in a regularly consituted state." The office of teaching is "a superiority in the Church," and therefore it is inconsistent that a woman, who is under subjection, should preside over the entire body. (92) Commenting on 1 Corinthians 14:34, Calvin writes: "It is therefore an argument from things inconsistent - if the woman is under subjection, she is, consequently, prohibited from authority to teach in public." (83) In his commentary on 1 Timothy, Calvin writes similarly:  Paul "excludes [women] from the office of teaching, which God has committed to men only." (84) ALthough Calvin recognizes that some women in the Old Testament were supernaturally called by the Spirit to govern the people, "extraordinary acts don eby God do not overturn the ordinary rules of governemtn, by which he intended that we should be bound." (85)

Summary

During the medieval periods of the church's history the patterns of conduct and ecclesial (church) behaviour were developed and solidified. The evidence shows that the Pauline statements against women speaking in the church were consistely upheld. Outside eastern Syria, that is, in the West, within the first 1500 years the consecration of women as ministers never existed. Detailed study of the deaconess has amply shown that "there is no evidence that such deaconesses like those in the Apostolic Constiitutions with social and limited liturgical duties ever existed in the West. (74) William Weinrich says "there never was recognized ordained female ministry in the West (or East) that involved teaching in the assembly and ministering at the altar." (william wienrich) Contrary practices were regarded as innovative and opposed to the truth and were, by ecclesiastical discipline, exlcuded from the church.  The practice of the early and medieval church was followed without question by the churches of the Reformation, and by virtually all other communions until the most recent past. Post reformation, there were only two exceptions. The quakers, in the 1700's argued that the "authority of the indwelling Spirit gave women equal right and obligation to speak, even in public assemblies" (william W), whilst the Weslians made some exceptians for woman teaching due to their emphasis on experience. And even John Wesley refuted the view of the quakers as in direct opposition to the scriptures. Other Reformation and post-Reformation groups largely concurred with the views of Luther and Calvin. The Anabaptists, the Anglicans, the Purtitans, and the Separatists all prohibited women from the public ministry of preaching and teaching. It was not until the mid ninteenth century did churches begin to accept women in roles of teaching and authority.

To overthrow the work of the Spirit in the minds, councils and practice of believers for the first 1960 years post Jesus, of an orderly view of church practice, where the roles of men and women were to be reflecte through the church, is arrogant and presumptuous. Previous to the last 60 years, There has never been a period of time in the church where the church has overthrown and marginalised the distinctions of men and women, in the family and in the church as they have been today.Almost alll reasons given for womens involvement in the teaching and sacramental ministries have been based upon an appeal to experience and a denial of the flesh as evil rather than to the biblical texts themselves.