Christianity, Early and Medieval

The 1960s and 1970s saw a proliferation of feminist scholarship on European and North American religion. This work served not only to recover a portion of women's history but also to reveal the importance of gender as a tool of analysis in scholarship on religion. The present survey assumes two important caveats made manifest by this feminist work. First, most of the information for these fifteen centuries of Christian history comes from elite Christian men, which means it is partial and ideologically selective. Second, Christianity was never a single, uniform entity but has always been a diverse, multifaceted enterprise. Fierce theological battles over orthodoxy and heresy led to many ruptures within Christianity. It should be remembered that the distinction between orthodoxy and heresy was often not at all obvious and that it was privileged men who determined which was which.

JESUS, THE MALE SAVIOR

The four New Testament gospels represent Jesus as an unattached Jewish man whose marital status is unspecified. He lived in a peripatetic community of twelve male apostles and sometimes visited the homes of female friends such as Mary and Martha of Bethany (Luke 10:38-42; John 11-12). Although Jesus rarely addresses sexual matters, in Matthew 5:28 he offers a surprising teaching on adultery: "But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (NRSV translation). Here Jesus equates sexual thought with action while presumably addressing a male audience. In Matthew 5:31-32 and 19:9 Jesus acknowledges that the husband can divorce his wife; however, remarriage is possible only in the case of unchastity (porneia in Greek). Mark 10:11-12 and Luke 16:18 forbid remarriage after divorce, which is equivalent to adultery. It is clear in these passages that Jesus is represented as holding conservative views of marriage and rather impossible standards for sexual ideation. This provides a good context for understanding his teaching on celibacy, found only in Matthew 19:10-12: "His disciples said to him, 'If such is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.' But he said to them, 'Not everyone can accept this teaching, but only those to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.'" This passage suggests that Jesus was celibate (a eunuch of sorts) and that celibacy was the superior calling. Origen, a third-century Greek writer, allegedly had himself castrated to avoid the possibility of sexual temptation. Much later, in the Byzantine empire of the twelfth century, eunuchs castrated before puberty were honored as "perfect servants of god" (Ringrose 2003, p 15). That is, they were men biologically but were womanly in appearance, demeanor, and their inability to produce semen.

PAUL AND HIS INTERPRETERS

The apostle Paul understood the physical body as an impediment to spiritual perfection. His view was to become the dominant Christian view through the centuries. Celibacy was the preferred state because the unmarried man and woman were not distracted by family but rather were intensely focused on God. Paul encouraged married couples to have sexual relations often in order to avoid temptation, not to produce offspring. Homosexual practices for men and "unnatural intercourse" for women were condemned (Rom. 1:26-27) because of prevailing attitudes about gender roles. Because the proper role of the male was to be active in sexual relations, the homosexual encounter required one male partner to be passive or feminine. This gender transgression was condemned, and rigid gender roles were expected. In 1 Corinthians 11:3 Paul explains that women, not men, must cover their heads during worship because "Christ is the head of every man, and the husband is the head of his wife, and God is the head of Christ." Paul constructs a cosmic hierarchy in this passage that requires the woman/wife to be subordinate to her husband. He explains this by implicit reference to Genesis 1:27, although in Genesis 1:27 both woman and man are made in God's image. In 1 Corinthians 11:7 Paul states, "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."

In the deutero-Pauline letters (those written by a disciple of Paul) the attitudes toward women become increasingly more restrictive. In Colossians 3:18-4:1 and Ephesians 5:22-6:9 wives are to be obedient to their husbands as to Christ. Husbands are to love their wives and ensure their purity. 1 Timothy 2:11-12 requires women to be submissive and silent and prohibits women from teaching men or having authority over men. A similar passage, now found in 1 Corinthians 14:33-36, was likely added to Paul's letter to echo later misogynist sentiments: "As in all the churches of the saints, women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says." This fear of woman's voice in part may have its exegetical roots in the Genesis 3 story of Eve, who speaks to the serpent while her male partner stands by silently. The man is later punished by the Lord because he listened to the voice of his partner/wife.

WOMEN'S LEADERSHIP IN EARLY CHRISTIANITY

The earliest Jesus movement was composed of apostles, disciples, prophets, and teachers, all of which included both women and men. The most significant woman disciple associated with the earthly ministry of Jesus was Mary Magdalene, who is portrayed in all four gospels as a witness to Jesus's resurrection and is later called the apostle to the apostles. In certain apocryphal (nonbiblical) gospels such as the Gospel of Mary, Mary Magdalene, not Peter, is portrayed as the spiritual successor of Jesus, and in the Gospel of Philip, Mary is called Jesus's companion. In the Gospel of Thomas 114, however, Jesus says of Mary, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven." The bifurcation of male/masculine as spiritual and female/feminine as physical would become prerequisite for later orthodox teaching. Nonetheless, several women in the New Testament held significant authority. In Romans 16:1 Paul commends Phoebe as a deacon (masculine in Greek) of the church of Cenchreae. The Didascalia Apostolorum (third century) acknowledges the deaconess as the only ordained role permitted to a woman. Her responsibilities were limited to the ministry of women; she does what a deacon cannot do, for the sake of propriety. The Apostolic Constitutions (fourth century) further restricts the role of deaconesses to more menial tasks, until the sixth century in the western church, and as late as the twelfth century in the eastern church, when the role is no longer recognized.

The missionary partners Prisca and Aquila, who are mentioned twice by Paul (1 Corinthians 16:19 and Romans 16:3), are called his "coworkers" and seem to have led house churches in Rome, Ephesus, and Corinth. They are also recognized in Acts 18 (Priscilla and Aquila) as authoritative teachers in the synagogue at Ephesus. Other female heads of house churches include Chloe (1 Corinthians 1:11), Lydia (Acts 16:14-15), and Nympha (Colossians 4:15). In Romans 16:7 Junia is described by Paul as "prominent among the apostles," the only reference to a woman apostle in the New Testament. In Paul's letter to Philemon 2, Apphia "our sister," is one of three people to whom the letter is addressed. Women also exercised prophetic leadership that was recognized by Jesus in Mark 14:3-9 and Matthew 26:6-13 (the anointing woman), and by Paul in 1 Corinthians 11. Acts 21:9 mentions the prophetic leadership of the four virgin (unnamed) daughters of Philip in Caesarea.

In the late second century in Phrygia, the Montanist prophets Priscilla and Maximilla were revered for their divine oracles. The Montanists ordained women bishops, and according to epigraphic evidence other Christian groups did as well, such as the bishop Theodora of Rome (Eisen 2000). One enduring example of women's leadership is found in the apocryphal Acts of Thecla (late second century) where Thecla, an engaged virgin, rejects her fiancé to follow Paul. She escapes execution miraculously, baptizes herself, dresses in men's clothing, and goes off to preach the gospel on her own with Paul's blessing. Finally, both women and men were recognized as martyrs for the faith, sometimes dying gruesome and agonizing deaths. The earliest writing of a Christian woman is the Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas, written by Vibia Perpetua in the early third century in North Africa.

EVE, THE CHRISTIAN PANDORA

In the Greek story of Pandora, a woman's inquisitiveness causes her to open a heavenly box from which all human suffering escapes into the world. She is thus solely responsible for all human misery. A clear parallel can be found in the Christian use of Genesis 3, the story of the serpent and the woman in paradise. The woman, who seeks wisdom, takes fruit from the forbidden tree of knowledge and becomes enlightened. The punishments of both the man and woman in Genesis 3 lay the groundwork for later gender trouble. The man is told in verse 17, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife" the ground is cursed. The woman is told in verse 16, "in pain you shall bring forth children yet your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you." This particular passage in Genesis was to become a road map for the relations between the sexes in Christianity. Woman is condemned to be subordinate to her male partner, she is silenced because her voice causes catastrophe and her judgment is impaired, and all sexual encounters will lead to painful childbirth. This is hardly a celebration of romantic love. In 2 Corinthians 11:3 Paul invokes the deception of Eve by the serpent as the metaphor for all false teaching and heresy. Later Christian writers amplified this sentiment. Irenaeus (c. 135–140 to 202–203 ce) paralleled the disobedience of Eve with the obedience of Mary, the mother of Jesus. He describes Eve as "the cause of death for herself and all the human race." Tertullian (c. 160 to 240–250 ce) identifies all women as Eves: "You are the devil's gateway." Augustine of Hippo (354–430) similarly comments, "woman was given to man, woman who was of small intelligence and who perhaps still lives more in accordance with the promptings of the inferior flesh than by superior reason." And finally, John Chrysostom (c. 347–407; the archbishop of Constantinople) writes: "God in effect said to Eve, 'I made you equal in honor. You did not use your authority well, so consign yourself to a state of subordination.'" (All translations are from Clark 1990.)

CLERICAL HIERARCHY AND CELIBACY

Ignatius of Antioch, (d. 98–117), confirmed a three-tier model of church hierarchy—bishop, presbyter (later translated priest), and deacon—where the bishop was the sole authority of the community. In book VI.43 of the Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 260–c. 339) reports that the church in Rome in the mid-third century included many additional offices such as subdeacons, acolytes, exorcists, and readers. Also in the third century women and men who had chosen the ascetic or virginal life began to live in monastic communities that were organized under the unquestioned authority of abbesses and abbots, respectively. Nevertheless, women's exclusion from the church hierarchy had already begun to be formulated in the second century. In 476, six decades after the first sack of Rome in 410, the barbarian Odoacer deposed the last Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus. This date usually marks the beginning of the medieval period, although the eastern Byzantine empire lasted until the fifteenth century. By the sixth century the primacy of the bishop of Rome, as pope, was established. Three centuries later, a learned woman named Joan, who lived as a man, would transgress these growing clerical restrictions by being elected Pope John VIII. Her pontificate allegedly lasted from 856 to 858 before her true identity was discovered. It is also alleged that after her reign, papal candidates were physically examined to confirm their sexual identity.

Beginning in the eleventh century Pope Gregory VII (r. 1073–1085) imposed great ecclesiastical reforms including the mandatory celibacy of all clergy. This meant that married priests were required to leave their families to live in common, sex-segregated communities. The women and children were left to fend for themselves—children were declared slaves and deemed to be the property of the church, a fate that would later apply to wives and concubines as well. It is also in this time that the authority of the abbess was supplanted by the authority of the male priest. Whereas clerical celibacy had been addressed as early as the Spanish Council of Elvira (295–302), it was not until the Council of Trullo (692) that bishops were required to separate from their wives and remain celibate upon consecration. This council also prohibited priests and deacons from marrying after ordination, which is still the practice of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The Second Lateran Council (1139) prohibited marriage and prescribed celibacy for all ordained men in the Western church.

MEDIEVAL RELIGIOUS ORDERS

The eleventh century saw the proliferation of monastic orders and the reappearance of anchorites, women and men who lived reclusively, sometimes walling themselves up in cells built against church walls with small windows to receive food and to speak with outsiders. In 1098 Robert of Molesme founded the religious order of Citeaux, the Cistercians, which sought to return to strict Benedictine practice. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) founded over 160 European monasteries, and further developed the Cistercian Order. In the thirteenth century mendicant orders, such as the Franciscans and Dominicans, were founded. Clare of Assisi (1194–1253), a devout follower of Francis of Assisi (1181 or 1182–1226), founded a women's monastery based on the practice of total poverty and was declared abbess in 1216 at the convent of San Damiano. It is estimated that more than 10,000 women looked to her as a spiritual leader.

At the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, Pope Innocent III (r. 1198–1216) confined women to two life choices, marriage or the cloistered convent. He also prohibited the founding of any new religious orders, male or female, and sought to impose the Benedictine rule on existing orders. Both Francis and Clare had to fight against this ruling and were successful. Other groups, both male and female, rejected this papal decree. One female group was the Beguines, a group of religious women in Belgium, France, Germany, and northern Italy in the early thirteenth century. They were "at the centre of a medieval conflict about the role of women." (Malone 2002, p. 124). These women lived in small groups, professed chastity, and ministered to the sick and poor. They were officially condemned as heretics in 1312, and many were burnt at the stake. The Poor Men of Lyons, or Waldensians, founded about 1173, were another group that practiced poverty and rejected the teaching authority of priests as their members were not ordained. They were eventually condemned as heretics by Pope Lucius III in 1184, and many likely died in the crusade against the Albigensians of 1208.

CONSOLIDATION OF PATRIARCHY

Scholars such as Karen Jo Torjesen associate the enforcement of clerical celibacy with a concurrent "demonization of female sexuality" literally to keep men celibate (Torjesen 1993, p. 224). In 1486 two German inquisitors published the Malleus maleficarum [The hammer of witches], which explicitly links women's sexuality with the demonic ability to control sexual acts generally, and the male sex organ specifically. It is estimated that a million women lost their lives to the witch craze that followed. The final event of note for this survey is also from the fifteenth century. Joan of Arc was accused of heresy, blasphemy, and wearing male clothing, and was burned at the stake in Rouen on May 30, 1431. Twenty-five years later she was absolved of all charges against her because of "manifest errors of fact and of law," among other reasons, and was much later canonized a saint by Pope Benedict XV on May 16, 1920. Her experience eerily mirrors the paradox of the inquisitor's techniques concerning women and men condemned as heretics. Exoneration was often possible only through death. As such, this survey has come full circle. The attitudes about sex and gender expressed in the New Testament culminate in the Inquisition, and in the early twenty-first century they continue to dictate Christian attitudes about women's ordination, gay and lesbian unions, and gender. That the canonical gospels preserved Jesus as ostensibly a celibate male continues to have ramifications for both women and men.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brown, Peter. 1988. The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity. New York: Columbia University Press.

Brubaker, Leslie, and Julia M. H. Smith, eds. 2004. Gender in the Early Medieval World: East and West, 300–900. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Bullough, Vern L., and James A. Brundage, eds. 1996. Handbook of Medieval Sexuality. New York: Garland Publishing.

Clark, Elizabeth A. 1990. Women in the Early Church. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press. [Orig. pub. 1983.]

Eisen, Ute E. 2000. Women Officeholders in Early Christianity: Epigraphical and Literary Studies, trans. Linda M. Maloney. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press.

Elm, Susanna. 1994. "Virgins of God": The Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kraemer, Ross Shepard, and Mary Rose D'Angelo, eds. 1999. Women and Christian Origins. New York: Oxford University Press.

Kuefler, Mathew. 2001. The Manly Eunuch: Masculinity, Gender Ambiguity, and Christian Ideology in Late Antiquity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Malone, Mary T. 2001. Women and Christianity, Vol. 1: The First Thousand Years. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.

Malone, Mary T. 2002. Women and Christianity, Vol. 2: From 1000 to the Reformation. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.

Martin, Dale B. 2006. Sex and the Single Savior: Gender and Sexuality in Biblical Interpretation. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press.

Ringrose, Kathryn M. 2003. The Perfect Servant: Eunuchs and the Social Construction of Gender in Byzantium. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Rousselle, Aline. 1993. Porneia: On Desire and the Body in Antiquity, trans. Felicia Pheasant. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.

Shaw, Teresa M. 1998. The Burden of the Flesh: Fasting and Sexuality in Early Christianity. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.

Stafford, Pauline, and Anneke B. Mulder-Bakker, eds. 2001. Gendering the Middle Ages. Oxford: Blackwell.

Torjesen, Karen Jo. 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: HarperSanFrancisco.

                                  Jacqueline Z. Pastis