Women in the Primitive Church

What impressions do you draw from Acts about women's involvement in the early church?
Do you gain a clear picture?

One of the tendencies of which we must constantly be aware as interpreters and readers is that we understand what we read on the basis of preconceptions. In particular, we have preconceptions about what a church is how it is structured what its purpose and offices are that may not accurately reflect the nature of the primitive church.

The primitive church does not begin with a sacerdotal order
Who are its first leaders? What are the earliest church offices?
How do women fit into this picture?

Traditionally women have been treated as the objects of decisions made by church leaders and councils rather than as participants in the mission of the church.

Whether Luke intentionally obscures the involvement of women or does not think to make it clear is a debate that will continue to wage in academic circles. Let us abandon that question for the historical question. What were women doing?

What do we do with Acts as our principle document for reconstructing the life of the primitive church?

Look at architectural pairs of Acts identified by Mary Rose D'Angelo, professor of New Testament at Notre Dame University.

Two groups waiting 1:13-14
Menservants and maidservants, sons and daughters 2:17-18
Ananias and Sappphira 5:1-11
A crowd of both men and women 5:14
Paul as persecutor of both men and women 8:3
Both men and women added 8:12
Peter cures lame man and Tabitha 9:332-43
Worshipping women and first men of the city 13:50
Paul driven from Lystra by cure of lame man 14:5-18
Paul driven from Philippi by cure of mantic girl 16:16-40
Lydia baptized with all her household 16:15
Jailer baptized with all his household 16:32-34
A great crowd of worshipping Greeks and not
A few of the first women were persuaded 17:4
Not a few respectable Greek women and men 17:12
Dionysus and Damaris converted at Athens 17:34
Paul received by Priscilla and Aquila 18:1-4
Four prophesying daughters of Philip and Agabus,
The prophet from Judea 21:18-14
Paul as persecutor of both men and women 22:4
Felix arrives with Drusilla 24:24
Agrippa and Bernike 25:13, 23, 26:30

What do we make of this pairing? D'Angelo argues that, "The architectural pairs of women and men clearly serve the literary plan of the work." (184). She finds a similar pattern in the Gospel of Luke. D'Angelo suggests that women in various ways are being distanced from ministry roles in Luke/Acts. Does the pattern provide evidence that women are indeed in a tandem role with men, that women are participating in the same acts of ministry as men, that gender is not a significant factor in determining qualifications for ministry?

What are the ministries of the early church?

Prophecy
Table Service
Teaching
Administration of House Churches
Providing Financial support to the church

What are the offices?
Apostles
Deacons
Pillars?
The Poor in Jerusalem
The Widows

What does the data show us about the participation of women in the above?

As historians, we cannot rely on one source for reconstructing the past. Certainty usually relies upon agreement by three independent traditions/sources. Paul provides one of these.

Paul's uncontested letters (those that scholars agree Paul wrote) provides us with a similar picture:

Missionary couples:

Prisca and Aquila Rom 16:3
Andronius and Junia Rom 16:7
Philologus an Julia Rom 16:15
Nereus and his sister Rom 16:15
Tryphaena and Tryphos Rom 16:12
Eudoia and Syntyche Phil 4:2-3
Rufus and his mother and mine Rom 16:13

Women working for the sake of the gospel who do not have partners identified: Mary Persis, and Phoebe Rom 16

Women as heads of house churches:

Chloe in Corinth 1 Cor 1:8
Aphia? Phlm 2

Women are deacons:
Pheobe (cf. I Tim 3:11)

Women are apostles:
Junia Rom 16:7

Women are benefactors
Phoebe

Unfortunately we do not have a third source comparable to Paul and Acts. We do have the Letter of Pliny the Younger, Roman governor of Bithynia, interrogated and tortured slave women who were deacons (ministra).

We must be careful not to impose upon the New Testament our concept of church. The word ekklesia is rarely found in the Gospels (Matt 16:18; 18:17). It is abundant in Paul and in Luke's account of Paul in Acts.
The word ekklesia is used in the LXX to translate qahal (long a), the word used to describe the assembly of Israelites. Paul uses the word to refer to the local church and the universal church. The earliest office of the church seems to be that of the pillars (James, Peter and John) in Jerusalem (cf. Gal 2:9). Our earliest document, 1 Thessalonians makes no mention of church officers, but by the time Acts is written (ca. 70 A.D.) leadership is provided by elders and deacons. Paul's later epistles, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, refer to bishops as well as elders, but very little reference is made to their actual duties.
By the third and fourth century, the diaconate had evolved into an office designated for women and in the fourth century the term deaconess appears, but no distinction between men and women seems evident in this primitive church.

The office of priest seems to develop in the late second century. In the second century the bishop of a city celebrated the ritual of bread and wine for the entire comminuting. Already in the second century, the role of deacon seems to have diminished to that of helper. When the Christian community grew too large, he selected and ordained, by the laying on of hands, priests to be his assistants. Gradually a hierarchy emerged. By the third century, four bishops had been designated patriarchs, Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria and Rome. When Constantine establishes Constantinople as his new capital, this becomes the fifth patriarchate.
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