Woman; Her Position and Influence in Ancient Greece and Rome, and Among the Early Christians

by Sir James Donaldson

Christianity also soon brought with it a new state of feeling in regard to questions relating to sex. Acts that had been indifferent before, now became morally wrong, and the Christian writers inquire minutely into points which had not previously been discussed. The Christian writers are particularly frank in their treatment of these questions. Their sense of decency is quite different from that of the moderns, and the consequence is that it is not possible for a modern writer to give a full exposition of their ideas and reasonings.

There are two Christian books belonging, the one to the beginning of the third century, the other to the beginning of the fourth, that make large reference to the duties and position of women. The first is the “Pædagogus,” or Instructor, of Clement of Alexandria. In this work the Alexandrian Father guides the Christian in all the affairs of common life. He exhibits how the Christian ought to behave at meals, what food and drink he ought to take, how long he should sleep, what kind of clothes he ought to wear, how he ought to conduct himself in church, and similar matters. Now in dealing with the duties of women he refuses to employ any euphemism. A spade with him must be a spade or it is a lie. God created man and woman, every part of them, and “no one,” he says, “ought to be ashamed of naming what God was not ashamed to create,” and to go about the bush is to act in disrespect of Him. Besides, he thought it very important that every detail of the Christian life should be directed according to the instructions of Divine Reason, and therefore he would have regarded it a dereliction of duty if he had not discussed all that concerns the functions of women. But the feeling of the present age is for euphemism and concealment, and accordingly when we had to translate Clement’s work into English, in the Ante-Nicene Library, there were portions so completely opposed to modern ideas of decency that we considered it better to present them in a Latin and not an English dress. The same peculiarity characterizes the other work which I mentioned—‘The Banquet of the Ten Virgins,’ by Methodius. In this book ten virgins praise virginity; but the virgins show a remarkably intimate acquaintance with the physiology and aberrations of women. Now in the case of Clement no one can doubt the purity and simplicity of his mind, and his expositions, though they have been denounced by some divines, are absolutely devoid of all pruriency. Perhaps there is a little of the meretricious in the style of the Banquet, for the writer is imitating somewhat unsuccessfully the Banquet of Plato; but the language is entirely consistent with perfect purity, and the difference from our own times is to be attributed to the sentiments of the age, not to a debasement of character.

There is another remark that has to be made before we proceed with our subject. We may have to employ the term Christianity frequently; but a great mistake would be committed if it were assumed that the term has always the same meaning. There is the Christianity of Christ, the Christianity of the first century, the Christianity of Hildebrand, of Luther, and of Calvin. Christianity is different as it appears in different ages and persons. In the early centuries the Christianity of Rome differed from that of Greece and of Africa, and it is not to be assumed that because one Christian writer mentions a practice, that practice was therefore universal in the Church. So when we quote a writer, that writer is of good authority for his own opinion or practice, of tolerably good authority for the doctrine and practice of the Christianity of his own country and age, but more faintly for the Christianity of other countries and ages.

At the time when Christianity dawned on the world women had attained, as we have seen in our chapters on Roman women, great freedom, power, and influence in the Roman Empire. Tradition was in favour of restriction, but by a concurrence of circumstances women had been liberated from the enslaving fetters of the old legal forms, and they enjoyed freedom of intercourse in society; they walked and drove in the public thoroughfares with veils that did not conceal their faces, they dined in the company of men, they studied literature and philosophy, they took part in political movements, they were allowed to defend their own law cases if they liked, and they helped their husbands in the government of provinces and the writing of books. One would have imagined that Christianity would have favoured the extension of woman’s freedom. For Christianity itself was one of the most daring revolutions which the world has ever seen. It defied all past customs, it aimed at the overthrow of the religions of the world, it overleapt the barriers of nationality, and it desired to fuse all mankind into one family and one faith. Necessarily, such a movement was accompanied by much excitement and agitation; but when enthusiasm sways any association of men, and they live in a state of ferment, they break in pieces the bonds of custom—those very bonds which most firmly chain women down to a slavish position of routine. Accordingly, at the very first stage women take a prominent part in the spread of Christianity and all the activities of Christians.[118] But in a short time this state of matters ceases in the Church, and women are seen only in two capacities—as martyrs and as deaconesses.

As martyrs they presented a magnificent spectacle of what poor weak woman can dare and do when under the impulse of an inspiring faith. There are especially two genuine Ante-Nicene writings which relate the courage of women under the agonies of trial. The first is the letter of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne, written in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, and the second narrates the martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas in the beginning of the third century. In the letter of the Church of Lyons the most conspicuous woman is a delicate young slave of the name of Blandina, to whom every possible kind of torture was applied, until her body was a mass of deformity, but no word could be wrung out of her in denial of her Lord. “I am a Christian,” she said, “and there is no evil done amongst us.” The torturers, finding her resolution immovable, allowed her a short respite. After an interval of a day or two she was taken to the amphitheatre to be exposed to the wild beasts. She was hung up fastened to a stake in the midst of these animals, but they did not touch her, and she was conveyed back to the noisome and dark dungeons of her prison. Neither wild beast nor prison altered her determination. The magistrates were very anxious that she should recant, and day by day they led her to the scenes of torture, in the hope that she would be frightened by the terrible sufferings which she saw her companions endure, and on each occasion they urged her to swear by the gods. Blandina remained steadfast, and on the last day of the gladiatorial shows she was taken to the amphitheatre. There she was scourged and roasted on a red-hot iron chair, then enclosed in a net and tossed by a bull, and finally stabbed, triumphant in the faith of a glorious resurrection and a blessed union with her Lord.

The martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas was carried out in similar circumstances. Felicitas was a slave. Vivia Perpetua belonged to the higher ranks. She had received a good education, and was married at the time of her apprehension, and had a child at the breast. She was only twenty-two years of age. Her father was still a heathen, and urged her by every possible form of argument and appeal to renounce her faith, but she was firm. She was then cast into a dungeon, and suffered agonies on account of the darkness and separation from her child. But her friends were influential enough to procure an alleviation of her hardships, and she was permitted to have her infant and to receive visits from her Christian brethren. After some days the prisoners were taken to the town hall and tried. Perpetua’s father again assailed her with entreaties to swear by the gods, and so did the Roman procurator. “Spare,” said the latter, “the grey hairs of your father, spare the infancy of your boy, offer sacrifice for the well-being of the emperors.” But Perpetua was unmoved, and to the fatal question “Are you a Christian?” she replied “I am a Christian,” and was condemned to the wild beasts. She returned to her dungeon, there to await the day of the games. On that day the various prisoners were conveyed to the amphitheatre, and when the turn of the young women came, Felicitas and Perpetua were placed in nets and exposed to the attacks of a mad cow. Perpetua was first tossed up in the air and fell on her loins, but was not injured so much as to be unable to help Felicitas when she was crushed to the ground, for she gave her hand to her companion and lifted her up. The savage fury of the populace was appeased for a time, and a demand was made for other combatants. As the evening drew on, all the Christians alive were summoned to receive the final sword-thrust; they kissed each other and then submitted to their fate. Then the writer of the narrative exclaims, “O most brave and blessed martyrs, O truly called and chosen unto the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Every honour was heaped after death on the women who thus suffered for Christ’s sake, and their ashes and other relics were supposed to exercise a sanctifying and miraculous influence; but during their lives it was their duty to stay at home and manage the affairs of their household and not meddle in teaching or any spiritual function.

Let us look now at the organization of the church. Various ideas are entertained in regard to this subject. The view that I take of it is that the organization was the outcome of the necessities of the case directed by the institutions of the age and the place. The idea that regulated the forms of organization was that each member should contribute to the Church, in an orderly way, any gift that God had given him. And, in the first enthusiasm of the Christian movement, women were allowed to do whatever they were fitted to do. Accordingly, we meet in the early Church with prophetesses. Special mention is made of the four daughters of Philip.[119] The women combine with the men in spreading the Gospel. St. Paul calls several of them his fellow-labourers, and one he designates a minister or deaconess (as some have translated it) of the Church in Cenchreæ. But not many generations elapse when all this comes to an end, and we hear only of two classes of women in connexion with the administration of Church affairs. The first is that of widows. The Church supported its own poor, and took upon itself especially the maintenance of widows and orphans. For the widows work was found. Some persons were required to visit sick women, to convey assistance to poor women, and to rear orphan children. Widows were selected for this service, but not all widows. Certain qualifications were deemed essential. The widow must be at least sixty years of age; she must have made up her mind not to marry again, and she must have experience in the nursing of children, so as to give suitable advice to mothers in their distress and difficulties. And, of course, she must have a good character for sobriety, discretion, and piety. In process of time the widows no longer are prominent, and, at length, the institution passes out of sight. A new class arose. This new class received the name of deaconesses. Some have thought that deaconesses existed in the apostolic times, and others have supposed that the office was of early origin but confined to special localities.

It seems to me that the passages on which these opinions have been based do not substantiate a fixed and definite office, but mere casual and sporadic services. It is towards the middle of the third century that in all probability the new order became common in all the Churches of the East, for then the circumstances were such as to demand its existence. First of all widowhood had fallen in the spiritual market and virginity had risen. It was not wrong for the widow to have married, but the act implied a certain weakness and she thereby contracted a stain which rendered her less fit for the service of the Church. Accordingly, even in the time of Tertullian[120], virgins were elected for the duties and called widows. “I know plainly,” he says, “that in a certain place a virgin of less than twenty years of age has been placed in the order of widows.” He himself objects in the strongest manner to this innovation, and speaks of this virgin as a monster—a virgin-widow, and unfit for the work, because she had not had experience in the married life and in the training of children. But the respect for virginity was at that time growing, and other circumstances combined to evoke the new order. To the end of the second century there were no public buildings for Christian worship. The Christians met in private houses, and the tenants of the houses made all the arrangements necessary for the meetings. But when churches began to be built, officials had to look after them, and this duty was assigned to the deacons. In the advance of ascetic ideas, the women sat or stood apart from the men, and entered by a separate door. And at this door stood the deaconess to direct the worshippers to their places, and to see that all behaved quietly and reverently. This was the great work of women in the Church, and in the end became nearly their only work. But they had also to help the deacons in any service which was deemed more suitable for women. Thus, in baptism, the women were immersed, but it was not seemly that all the preparations for the ceremonial should be made by the men, and the dressing and undressing were committed to the care of the deaconess. At the same rite the deacon anointed only the forehead of the Christian woman with oil; the deaconess then anointed her whole body. The deaconess also undertook the work which the widows had done in carrying messages and ministering to the temporal wants of poor women. “Thou shalt send a woman a deaconess, on account of the imaginations of the bad,” is the order given in the Apostolical Constitutions.[121]

The widows had no spiritual function. They were not to teach. How jealous the Church was in this matter is seen from the instructions given to them: “Let the widow,” is the commandment in the Constitutions, “mind nothing but to pray for those that give and for the whole Church, and when she is asked anything by any one let her not easily answer, excepting questions concerning the faith and righteousness and hope in God.... But of the remaining doctrines let her not answer anything rashly, lest by saying anything unlearnedly she should make the word to be blasphemed.” And the occupation of the widow is summed up in these words, “She is to sit at home, sing, pray, read, watch and fast, speak to God continually in songs and hymns.” And if she wishes to go to any one to eat or drink with him, or to receive anything from any one, she must first ask the deacon’s consent, and if she acts without first consulting him she is to be punished with fasting or separated on account of her rashness.[122]

The deaconesses also were prohibited from teaching. They were superior to the widows in the liberty of movement which they had, and the widows were enjoined to be obedient to them; but they had no spiritual function, and while there is no doubt that they were ordained for their service, as the widows also were, they had no sacred character, and could perform no priestly office. To take one instance from Tertullian. In discussing the administration of baptism, he states that the bishop has the right of conferring it first of all, then presbyters and deacons, and then, if none of these are at hand, a layman might administer, but a woman never. Tertullian thus appeals to the Apostle Paul. “For how credible would it seem that he who has not permitted a woman even to learn with over-boldness, should give a female the power of teaching and baptizing. ‘Let them be silent,’ he says, ‘and at home consult their own husbands.’”[123]