CLICK HERE FOR INDEX TO THIS SERIES ON ST PAUL

Dr Ian Elmer's commentary on Greed [link] written as part of the Seven Deadlies series in 2006 is still "climbing through the roof" in terms of the number of people reading it each week. Is the global economic recession causing such interest in the question of Greed? Today's commentary from Ian might come to rival that in that he has chosen a topical issue. This is how Ian himself introduces today's commentary: "Was Paul a misogynist? This is a question that is often asked classrooms, seminaries, parishes and in internet discussion forums. This question is particularly relevant in any examination of the Corinthian correspondence, which seems to offer conflicting answers to the question of Paul's attitude towards women."

Women as Leaders in Paul's Communities…

To begin this study, we cannot help but be impressed by the names of the many women that appear throughout Paul's letters, many of whom seem to occupy leadership roles within his communities.

Romans mentions Phoebe a "deacon" from Cenchreae (Rom 16:1) and also Prisca (Priscilla) who, along with her husband, Aquila, are notable co-workers with Paul (Rom 16:3; cf. 1 Cor 16:19; 2 Tim 4:19; Acts 18:2, 18, 26) — and we can only wonder why the wife is always named first.

We should not overlook Junia (Rom 16:7) who is both a relative of Paul and, amazingly, Paul calls her an "apostle". The title Paul grants her suggests that she is both Jewish (Paul's kin) and one recognised as a leading "apostle". Paul tells us that she was a convert to Christianity even before him and, thus, may likely owe her apostolic status to Jesus himself.

Also in Rome, there are Mary and the mother of Rufus, both prominent members of the Roman church (Rom 16:6, 13), and Julia and Nereus' sister who appear to be the leaders of another house church (16:15). Finally, we have Chloe, who was a "leader" of a church community in Corinth (1 Cor 1:11).

We have seen in previous commentaries how the Pauline communities were founded upon a familial house-church model of ecclesial polity. In these communities the Eucharist figured strongly as the central symbol of Christian unity as a new family of God.

It follows, then, that if the Eucharist figured so strongly in Paul's communities then there is no reason to doubt that it was presided over by the women named by Paul as leaders in their communities. After all, Paul explicitly declares without qualification that in his churches "there is no longer any distinction between Jew and Greek, male and female, slave and free" (Gal 3:28). Surely this egalitarian policy must have also extended to presiding at the Eucharist (Schüssler Fiorenza, 1985).

This line of argument, however, does not fully explain why there were so many women in leadership roles — especially since Greco-Roman society was so patriarchal (Torjesen, 1993: 179).

It is also true to say that the denigration of women as leaders within the emerging Christian communities may owe much to the Jewish matrix of Christianity. Women did not fair well in Judaism, at least in terms of their public role. They did play an important role in the family home, and especially in those domestic rites (like the Sabbath and Passover meals) that stood alongside the public observances in the Temple and synagogue.

One might expect that early Christianity, and especially Christian-Judaism, would have adopted a similar attitude to women in their emerging church polity. Since the earliest Christian-Jewish communities seem to have copied the administrative structure of the synagogue, it is unlikely that women played any significant leadership roles — even though they may have played some important roles as teachers and catechists.

I think Paul's early letters demonstrate that there were other models of Church polity that bore no resemblance to Jewish practices. Paul's earliest communities looked more like the extended Roman household rather than the synagogue.

This was especially the case in Corinth and Rome, where Paul's extensive greetings and discussion of disputes suggests a domestic model of small house-churches. In these communities, women seem to have played (for a limited time) a much greater role in the leadership structures of the small house communities. But, we still have to wonder why that was the case. One possible reason is that these leading women in Paul's communities were all widows with wealthy estates.

Wealthy Widows…

The Pauline scholar Wayne Meeks in his First Urban Christians (1983) has made a plausible argument that Paul consciously targeted wealthy widows as his first converts in any new city to which he went. Such women in Greco-Roman society suffered what Meeks calls "status inconsistence" — having the wealth commensurate with a high social status which was denied them by virtue of their gender.

The one significant advantage these wealthy women had, as far as Paul was concerned, was that they owned estates and houses big enough to host Church meetings. Hence, Paul's tactic was probably to convert these women by offering them leadership of the church that would (after further conversions) then meet in their houses; thereby giving them a status suitable to her wealth. In building up their own house church, such women could experience relative authority, political power, social status, and renewed dignity within the Christian movement.

This was not unique to Christianity. The Feminist biblical scholar Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza (1983: 176) notes that women in Greco-Roman society had often opened their houses for worship by particular religious movements or practices such as Oriental cults. Where Christianity differed was in the fact that it did not honour its rich patrons like these other religious movements; instead, it worked within what Schüssler Fiorenza (1993: 182) calls a "motif of reciprocity" by offering leadership roles, influence, dignity, and status in return for their patronage.

Schüssler Fiorenza also notes a further distinction unique to Paul, which flows from his positive view on celibacy in 1 Corinthians 7:1-40. In these exhortations, Paul encourages widows and unmarried women to "remain as they are" (1 Cor 7:8) so that they may have the freedom to exercise a ministry to the wider community. This perspective constituted a "frontal assault on the intensions of existing law and the general cultural ethos...offering the possibility for 'ordinary' women to become independent" (Schüssler Fiorenza, 1983:225-226).

Women Leaders in Corinth…

Three women are named as associates of the Corinthian churches were Phoebe, Prisca and Chloe. Phoebe was a "deacon" or "minister" from a community in the Corinth's port town, Cenchreae (Rom 16:1). She travels to Rome bearing an official letter of commendation from Paul.

Prisca and her husband Aquila were formally collaborators with Paul in the Gentile mission at Corinth and Ephesus (Acts 18:2-3, 18-21; 1 Cor 16:19). Acts (18:2-3) relates Paul's initial meeting with these two Christians at Corinth and goes on further to describe Paul's collaboration with the couple at Corinth and later in Ephesus (Acts 18:2-3, 18-21; cf 1 Cor 16:19). Such was their close association with Paul that Paul publically in Romans (16:3) recognises the "debt of gratitude" owed to them by the Gentile churches.

Finally, we have Chloe who figures in the opening chapters of Paul's first letter to Corinth (1:11) as the official leader who is responsible for sending a delegation to Paul to report on matters at Corinth. Chloe was clearly a person of some influence and, in a very real sense, the first letter Corinth is written in direct response to her envoy.

All three of these women must have been leaders of house churches of Corinth. Phoebe and Prisca were likely business people whose trade required them to travel (Meeks, 1983). Acts (18:2-3) suggests that Prisca and her husband were tentmakers like Paul himself. And, like Paul, they apparently used their trade as means of evangelisation in and around the market places of the Roman cities.

As we have noted in previous commentaries, Pauline Christianity was a collaborative effort; it was a movement not simply the sole work of a single individual. Paul probably spent very little time in any one place — except Corinth and Ephesus where he seems to have spent about 18 months and 2 or 3 years respectively. For the most part, his communities were run and administered by fellow workers. Many of his communities were even originally proselytised by others in the Pauline camp. And, it is clear that many of these co-workers were women.

The Problem of Women…

Having women in leadership roles would have proven problematic in some quarters, and there seems to be some evidence for this in 1 Corinthians (11:2-16; 14:33-35). In these two passages Paul appears to limit the role of women, suggesting that women should keep their place, both in the home and in church.

Many scholars suspect that the second passage (1 Cor 14:33-35), which specifically commands women to be quiet during worship, may be an interpolation — that is a latter (posthumous) addition by a scribe or disciple of Paul (Fee, 1987: 699-708). There are some notable linguistic disparities that support this view, and the passage seems to interrupt the flow of a discussion about prophesy (14:26-40). But there are some other, historical considerations as well.

Given the prominence of women in Paul's mission, Paul's admonitions in 1 Corinthians 14:33-35 against women speaking in church seems to be quite remarkable, even incredible. It is clearly incongruent that Paul would write such things to communities, three at least were led by women like Phoebe, Chloe and at one time Prisca. Accordingly, many scholars, including myself, would argue that this is an interpolation.

By contrast, the first passage, 1 Corinthians 11:2-16, is difficult to dismiss as an interpolation (Fee, 1987). It forms an integral and structural part of the larger discussion about worship services at Corinth (1 Cor 11:2-14:40).

In this passage, Paul is concerned that in worship women should only pray and prophesy with their heads covered, while men should only do so with their heads uncovered. In order to support this exhortation, Paul seems to present a created "order" in which man must take priority over women:

I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the husband is the head of his wife, and God is the head of Christ. Any man who prays or prophesies with something on his head disgraces his head, but any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled disgraces her head—it is one and the same thing as having her head shaved. For if a woman will not veil herself, then she should cut off her hair; but if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off or to be shaved, she should wear a veil. For a man ought not to have his head veiled, since he is the image and reflection of God; but woman is the reflection of man. Indeed, man was not made from woman, but woman from man. (1 Cor 11:3-8)

This passage is notoriously difficult to interpret. What does Paul mean by the term "head"? Does it imply a relationship of authority, or rather one of source, as in man being the source of woman in the second creation account of Genesis (2:21-23)? The latter understanding would seem highly unlikely, since Paul immediately stresses the equality of the genders by adding:

Neither was man created for the sake of woman, but woman for the sake of man... in the Lord woman is not independent of man or man independent of woman. For just as woman came from man, so man comes through woman; but all things come from God. (1 Cor 11:8-12)

What seems more likely is that Paul is here concerned with decorum, decency and order within the worship services at Corinth. Women are told to wear a veil as "a symbol of authority on her head" (1 Cor 11:10). Paul effectively turns the accepted world order on its head by suggesting that man and women are equal and interdependent and, therefore, they each can play leadership roles within the communities. But, for all that, it is noteworthy that the roles women played were still very much tied to "hearth and home". One could hardly describe Paul's innovations as "radical".

In both Jewish and Greco-Roman traditions, a woman's place was in the home and the otherwise private parts of life. Since Paul's communities were based upon domestic models, the emergence of women as leaders within the house church was a somewhat natural development — turning the private and domestic into the public front of a religious setting.

Taking a step back…

Later Pauline communities will explore the role of women in the home and house church further, effectively taking a step back from the measured equalitarianism of Paul.

The emergence of a neo-patriarchy is clearly visible the so-called "household codes" in the Deutero-Pauline letters, Colossians (4:18-4:1), Ephesians (5:21-6:9), and the Pastorals (Titus 2:1-10), which come from the hand of Paul's latter disciples. In these letters unlike the earlier ones from Paul, women are excluded from positions of authority (1 Tim 2:9-15) and their ministry is restricted to teaching other women (Titus 2:3-5). In the Pastorals, women are excluding from the emerging male hierarchy, and role is increasingly being relegated to the "domestic church"; that is, the family home.

These hierarchical structures and the household codes seem to represent a far more developed model of church polity that probably owes more to Roman legal practice and, therefore, might also explain why these later Pauline communities further limited the role of women (Schüssler Fiorenza, 1985). At this stage in the development of Pauline Christianity, the primary goal was to assimilate the communities into the wider Greco-Roman society by appearing to conform to the moral and religious codes of the status quo.

These later development should not tempt us to label Paul as a misogynist. However, neither should we see Paul as the first champion of women's rights. His vision of their role was a narrow one, limited to the ministry within the rituals of the house church and he continues to define their role within the prevailing social roles of wife, mother, and sister. In many ways, Paul's treatment of women was a "double-edged sword" (Schüssler Fiorenza, 1985: 236), liberated for ministry, but still partially subjugated to societal expectations. Schüssler Fiorenza's own conclusions on Paul are worth quoting:

Paul's impact on women's leadership in the Christian missionary movement was double-edged. On the one hand he affirms Christian equality and freedom. He opens up a new independent lifestyle for women by encouraging them to remain free from the bondage of marriage. On the other hand, he subordinates women's behaviour in marriage and in the worship assembly to the interest of Christian mission, and restricts their rights not only as "pneumatics" but also as "women"...The post-Pauline and pseudo-Pauline tradition will draw out tehse restrictions in order to change the equality in Christ between women and men, slaves and free, into a relationship of subordination in the household which, on the one hand, eliminates women from leadership of worship and community and, on the other, restricts their ministry to women.

CLICK HERE FOR INDEX TO THIS SERIES ON ST PAUL

Bibliography and Further Reading:
For those who are looking for resources on Paul that are both reliable and readable, I can recommend the following:
G Fee, G. (1987), The First Epistle to the Corinthians. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans.
Meeks, W. (1983), The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
Schüssler Fiorenza, E. (1985), In Memory of Her: A Feminist Reconstruction of Christian Origins. New York: Crossroads.
Torjesen, K. J. (1993), When Women Were Priests: Women's Leadership in the Early Church and the Scandal of their Subordination in the Rise of Christianity. San Francisco: Harper.
Thurston, B. (1998), Women in the New Testament: Question and Commentary. New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company.
Photo Credits:
The headline image of St Paul has been sourced from an icon which you will find at: www.airmaria.com. Clicking on the other images will take you to the original source.

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©2009 Ian Elmer

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