Historic theologian on women in the church

Are you being serious right now?

It is actually a huge stretch, considering the fact that by the time of St. Augustine, the Christian worldview had experienced a strict separation between men and women in ordained ministry for at least 1500 years.

The Church Fathers were but passive late-comers for a gargantuan tradition, that was at least as old for him, as he is to us of the present day. That's how old it was before it got to him, and how much of a child of aeons past he was, in terms of the faith that had been handed down to him.

Not to mention that the Second Person of the Trinity had walked among the people within that timeframe, and personally re-confirmed this stamp upon our faith.

 

Have you never read the Confessions of St Augustine? Serious stuff, but not all that lurid.

What re-confirmation had you in mind, that was stamped upon our faith by Jesus of Nazareth?

As to misogynistic church Fathers, here are some quotations. Men of their time no doubt, but obviously generalist woman haters the lot of them, judging from their own words. And YES I am being serious.
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Retrenchant, religious anti-modernism and obstinate refusal to listen to The Holy Spirit was the attitude that most opposed Christ on earth, due to its obsession with doctrine and traditions of men. The Pharisaical confidence that opposes spiritual progress and enlightenment is the same spirit which opposed Jesus of Nazareth and nailed him to a cross. John 7:7. John 15:18.
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I will have to consult the text when I get home, but I was reading a book that spoke to the carrying over of Jewish "misogyny" (I know that term has a lot of baggage these days) into the early church. It might be something worth considering when discussing this topic.

As well, we are wiser and more enlightend in certain respects. Human wisdom and knowledge has progressed.

 

@Tiffy, you are using misogyny improperly (because you are using it in the post-modernist sense, rather than the standard Greek sense). You are casting modern norms and values back on a time when those norms and values simply did not exist. You are judging the ancients by modern standards, which is not only wrong in the standard historical sense, but wrong in terms of Christian ethics and theology as well because it amounts to (essentially) "retconning" the faith to conform to modern values. (EDIT: The term I couldn't bring to mind was anachronism. "Misogyny" is an anachronism in this context.)

We do not accept the writings of the Church Fathers as scripture; they were not divinely-inspired and so of course were fallible. Much of what they have to say hits the modern ear harshly. Several of the Fathers (Origen, for example) fell into serious error later in life. But your broad-brush use of "misogyny" where it does not belong only clouds the issue.

Christian practice and theology is rightly grounded in the holy Scripture as preserved through the Apostolic tradition, and we must accept that as authoritative. Whether we find certain scripturally-mandated directives and practices objectionable to the modern sensibility is beside the point. God commands; we obey.

 

Sorry! I didn't realise you were a Standard Greek. I'll try to remember that in future whenever I write 'words', so you can understand.
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It's a Greek word, @Tiffy. If you want to know the standard meaning, look it up in a Greek lexicon.

γυνή (gyne, "woman")
μισέω (miseo, "hated" or "detested")

Thus misogyny in the standard sense means "hatred of women". Nothing you've quoted at me so far indicates an actual hatred of women, and thus misogyny is the improper word, regardless of whether you're using it in its standard (lexical) or post-modernist sense.

Words have meanings. You can't just redefine them on the fly to suit whatever argument you're trying to make. (Which is a signature trait of the entire postmodernist movement -- the arbitrary redefinition of words so they can be twisted to mean something other than what they plainly mean.)

 

As an aside, I have the same complaint about how modern translators interpret the Greek word δοῦλος (doulos, slave) in scripture. Though δοῦλος can mean "servant" in Koine Greek, in the Bible it's nearly always used as "slave" (either literally or figuratively as when Paul calls himself "slave of Christ"). Modern translators are skittish of "slave" and often use "bond-servant" instead, but I think this is an incorrect translation. I understand why they do it (though I think the NASB does maintain the use of "slave" for δοῦλος) but it's still irksome.

 

“Men should not sit and listen to a woman . . . even if she says admirable things, or even saintly things, that is of little consequence, since it came from the mouth of a woman.” Origen.

And you do not apearently consider this a 'hateful' attitude towards all women? That may probably explain a male only priesthood exclusivity proclivity even more than all the theological doctrinal reasoning and traditions of men, perhaps.

For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do. And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition. For Moses said, Honour thy father AND thy mother;

Yet Origen and quite a few other male doctrine establishing fellows had no time or honour for his mother or any other female of the species and wouldn't listen to a word that she said, advising others to do the same.
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Origen was a man of his time, as you are of yours. You don't know his heart. Maybe he thought women were silly, but he didn't hate them. You are casting your own feelings and perceptions backward in time. (And as I said before: we do not follow Origen or any other Fathers for doctrine, so I'm not sure what your actual point is.)

Here's an example. Let's suppose you own a beloved pet, a dog you dearly cherish. You write an essay extolling the virtues of your pet and publish it. Two hundred years hence, people of that time have abolished pet ownership as cruelty to animals and a sign of abject barbarism. Animals of that time are considered "persons" legally. Some reader of that future time comes across your essay and recoils in disgust at what an awful person you must have been.

Now you tell me: in this scenario, are you a truly wicked person or not? If not, why not?

 

The same applies to the word 'Sons' regarding inheritance. The word is used metaphorically of our inheritance of salvation and applies equally to male and female believers. However in Roman times only sons could legally inherit and daughters rarely had any rights or recognition in either Jewish or Roman society. Thus modern translations may use 'children' or 'heirs' in order to preserve the notion that our Salvation Inheritance does not depend upon what SEX we just happen to be.

Roman and Jewish Social Norms litter the Bible because it was written by 'normal' Jewish and Roman Citizens. However just because those 'norms' are in the text it does not mean that we, as 21st Century believers in Jesus Christ, should slavishly adhere to ancient Roman and Jewish social attitudes. We should move on with The Holy Spirit, not hunker down in an imagined 'perfect biblical past'.
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Nevertheless you are appealing to this man's opinions and others like him, (along with some Bible verses by old and new testament writers), to give you guidance on allowing women in the priesthood.

I think you are getting your 'guidance' from some suspect sources. Not that scripture is suspect, but that some traditional male interpretations of it definitely ARE. Which is pretty well the position on some other issues that Jesus took on a number of occasions in his 'run ins' with Pharisees and Sadducees.
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They're only "suspect" because you don't like them, not because they're heterodox (or even particularly controversial). My opinion on this matter (and of most on this board, I think) relies entirely on scriptural authority. We may refer to the Fathers for wisdom or insight, but only to scripture as true doctrine.

I also note in passing that you didn't address my question. You're free to ignore it, of course, but I'd find your answer very helpful in understanding your base argument.

 

They are suspect because they were biased and insulting to women. Jesus never insulted women nor dismissed them on the grounds of stupidity or being of no account. On the contrary he welcomed their participation in his endeavours and commissioned them first to carry the good news of his resurrection.

We all ignore statements and arguments we don't consider worthy of debate or divergent from the subject. There are some things concerning the Christian faith which are essentially changeless with time and convention, and there are also things that need to be consigned to the past as being unhelpful in the task of serving Christ in our own generation. These tensions were played out in Jesus' own life on earth in his frequent confrontations with Pharisees and Sadducees, who were the 'religious traditionalists' of his own time. They were not particularly wicked people, just very cock sure they were right and he was wrong.

You and I will eventually discover from Jesus Christ himself which of us was right about women's ordination, just as Pharisees and Sadducees presumably have eventually discovered the rightness or wrongness of their opinions. 1 Cor.13:12.
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Which "we" are you referring to? Are you using the royal "we"? You are ignoring it, and are working really hard to avoid explaining why.

 

Who gets to decide what gets thrown and what is kept? Do we just let each person decide which parts of the Bible they'll obey on any given day? Even if they feel differently tomorrow? Is Christianity ultimately just what each person thinks it is? Should we accept no higher authority than ourselves? Should we just toss out the Bible entirely and organize the church service around singing happy songs and giving motivational speeches? (There are nominally "Christian" churches that currently do exactly this, so this is not hyperbole.)

The Bible -- the entire Bible, all 66 books of the canonical scripture -- has authority. Article VI of the 39 Articles makes that point plainly.

 

Sure, I and every adherent of the historic Church has always welcomed and cherished women in the Church. People like you always try to reduce it to respect and welcome, when the question is about office and nature of the people involved. We know for a fact that woman was made from man, and not the other way around; their natures are not identical, although both are to be respected. They are different, and that is why the Christian religion had always had different rules for men and women, even to the extent of sometimes having them worship in different parts of the church altogether.

And if you think that different treatment means disrespect, then did Christ Jesus disrespect women when he excluded them from his Twelve disciples, or from the institution of the last supper, aka the most holy Sacrament of the Body and Blood? Did Saint Paul, the prince of the apostles, disrespect womanhood when he taught that women are not to preside in official capacity in churches, but wait until they got home?

Or, are their behaviors examples of the Biblical and godly relationship between men and women, and that you are using worldly, non-Christian and maybe even antichrist-ian parameters of what counts as "respect"?

 

We who answer questions in Anglican Forums. And I didn't ignore the question. I just answered it in my own way.

 

It might be helpful to remember that not everything a church father wrote necessarily was written for the purpose of delineating doctrine. Do we know the full context within the document and the situation upon which Origen was writing? I don't think so. As an example, I'm reminded of a conversation I had with my pastor; as we discussed marital situations and (as he showed that his situation bore similarities to mine) he made some comments about wives that were quite humorous and which, if taken out of context, could have been perceived as derogatory of women. Now, imagine if he'd written these things in a letter to me 1500 years ago (because back then it wasn't so easy to drive over and yack... I mean, take personal counsel ) and some religious type were reading those comments today; it would be very easy to get the wrong idea about my rector! So perhaps we might have a stilted view of what Origen really thought.

At any rate, all the early fathers' writings can do is help us understand and interpret the Bible; those writings can't set doctrine. I really don't see any validity in quoting just 3 church fathers from the first 5 centuries (Origen, Tertullian, and Augustine), two of which by the way are well known to have expressed some non-mainstream ideas, and alleging that those three people's comments prove that misogyny permeated the entire early church!

 

That's an overly broad statement that is easy to agree with but proves nothing about the specific "attitude" in question (an "attitude" which may be rooted in more than mere temporal social norms).