[MR] Women and the Early Church

[EoganOg at aol.com]

In a message dated 3/1/02 2:06:08 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
rowanwald at sybercom.net writes:


>    I realized upon reading your responses that we are at cross-purposes. I 
> was addressing women priests who were Christian, and you were addressing 
> "ordained by the early church", with "church" meaning the Roman Church. 
> That gives us each different parameters. 

Well, slightly, but not really.  Again, there is a tendancy to project our 
modern arena of this vast multitude of Christian denominations and sects back 
to the early church.  We read about these various heretical movements and 
tend to assume that they were simply "alternate" Christianities, different 
sect, different denominations if you will.

But such was not the case.  None of these early heresies established their 
own seperate church.  All existed within the Catholic Church, while denying 
or perverting authentic Catholic teaching.  And they eventually were stamped 
out by correct, orthodox teaching -- sometimes very quickly, sometimes after 
quite a while.  But different denominations they were not.

So, if your goal in research is to see if any early heretical sects attempted 
women ordination, then you may very well prove that.  And, I suppose, using 
our modern day, very broad definition of Christianity (that encompases such 
extrememly different faiths as Catholicism, Mormonism, Oneness Pentecostals, 
and Unitarian Universalists), you could label these early heresies Christian. 
 But the danger there woudl be in misleading peopel into thinking that 
women's ordination in the early church was an accepted practice.

In fact, I would be surprised if more than just a few of the heretical sects 
actually endorsed women's ordination. 

No way would I state that the Roman practise, or even the Eastern, after the 
300s, 
> allowed or condoned women officiates! 

Nor did they before 300, I would add.  

The question for me is did they exist as Christian priests before that time 
within the 
> developing church, which is what the reference to Paul and Peter's letters 
> is addressing 

But the reference given in the epistles was to deaconesses, which I have 
shown is a very different thing than a priest, and in fact is different from 
a modern deacon, in that it is a lay position, with no ordination.

>    Tracing down stories and references to Irish Christianity before/during 
> the time of Patrick is tough, and again, the question of women officiates 
> is not the thrust of my research, but I do find references to this, as well 
> as discussion within the community about eucharistic practises by 
> non-Catholics.

I would caution that so far the only evidence to women's ordination in the 
Celtic Church (which, contrary to popular opinion was still part of the 
Catholic Church, just a non-Roman rite), was a letter from a bishop 
instructing a priest to not allow women to assist him in the liturgy.  So 
once again, there is no evidence suggesting the woman was actually ordained.  
And the evidence further suggests that this practice was an anomoly that was 
not to be tolerated.

 But finding anything definitive is nigh impossible, and as your response 
clearly 
> showed - what works as possible evidence for one researcher, is not 
> acceptable to the other.
> 

Sigh.  I do believe that history is a science.  If we are capable of 
examining the evidence clearly and objectively, then there should not be a 
problem.  It should not be a case of different researches having different 
standards for evidence.  It should be about whether or not the evidence 
actually proves what the researcher is claiming it to.  

And a reference to a heretical sect encouraging women to assist priests at 
mass does not prove that the early church ordained women to the priesthood.  
It does not even prove that the heretical sect ordained women, only that they 
encouraged them to assist the priest.

And finally, if my response suggested to you that "finding anything definite 
is nigh impossible" then I am sorry.  I was attempting to show just how 
possible it is to find ample, definite, evidence showing that the early 
church most definitely did not ordain women priests, nor did they tolerate 
women assisting priests at mass in the heretical sects.

Aye,
Eogan
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