CHAPTER IV.
WOMEN IN THE ANTE-NICENE PERIOD.
(1) INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY ON WOMEN.
One of the most recent utterances on this point occurs in Bishop Wordsworth’s book ‘The Ministry of Grace.’ He says,[263] “Of all the revolutions introduced by Christianity into the social life of mankind the new position given to women has been, perhaps, the most remarkable and the most fruitful in results.” Zscharnack, who has written by far the most thorough book on the subject, speaks with much more caution.[264] “In the first place,” he says, “it cannot be proved that to Christianity alone is due the honour of the emancipation of women and the realization of the true conception of marriage; rather had Greece as well as the social relations in Rome prepared the way in this matter, as in the question of the emancipation of slaves, to no inconsiderable degree. And second, it ought not to be overlooked that this socalled (Christian) appreciation of marriage did not at all succeed in putting aside the ancient immediately and everywhere.”
(2) CALLISTUS.
The bishop referred to is Callistus, who was bishop of Rome from 218 to 223. Hippolytus, in his ‘Refutation of all Heresies,’ denounces him as an unmitigated scoundrel. Among other accusations he reproaches him with his opinions and conduct in regard to marriages.[265] “This man,” he says, “issued a decree that, if a bishop was guilty of any sin, if even a sin unto death, he ought not to be deposed. In his time bishops, priests, and deacons, who had been twice married and thrice married, began to be appointed to their orders. If, also, any one who is among the clergy should marry, he decreed that such an one should continue among the clergy as a person who had not sinned.”
Further on, he continues: “And the hearers of Callistus being delighted with his decrees (doctrines), continue deluding themselves and many besides, crowds of whom flock together in his place of teaching. Therefore their numbers increase, they boasting of their multitude, on account of the pleasures which were not permitted by Christ, whom despising they do not put restraint on any sin, alleging that they pardon those who are pleased with his (Callistus’s) opinions. For he even permitted women of high rank, if they were unmarried and burned with passion through their time of life, and if they were not disposed to lose their own rank through a legal marriage, to have one man whom they might choose as a bedfellow, whether a slave or free, and to deem him in place of a husband, though she had not been married to him legally. Whence women, reputed believers, began to resort to drugs for producing sterility, and to gird themselves round so as to expel what was being conceived on account of their not wishing to have a child either by a slave or by a mean fellow, on account of their family connexions and their excessive wealth. Behold into how great impiety that lawless person has proceeded, teaching adultery and murder at the same time, and withal, after such audacious acts, they, lost to all shame, attempt to call themselves a Catholic Church.”
The printed part in italics is based on an amended text. The text adopted is that proposed by Abbé de Hir and approved by de Rossi. It embodies the emendations of several critics and contains the fewest changes. But though the text is corrupt, there can be no doubt of the general sense. Callistus claimed for women the privilege which was accorded to men. Senators were not allowed to form a legal marriage with freedwomen, but they might have them as concubines. Callistus allowed a similar liberty to women of senatorial families. These women could not marry a freeman who was an actor or whose father or mother had been actors, nor could they marry a freedman, and no Roman could marry a slave. If they went through any form of marriage with such persons, the marriage was null and void. But Callistus declared that a permanent union of a senatorial woman with a man of the humbler class or with a slave was a real marriage, notwithstanding the law. Probably he extended the permission more widely, and declared that any permanent union between one Christian and another was a real marriage. He might reason that a marriage between two people who were citizens of heaven was as valid as a marriage between two citizens of Rome, and if it was carried out with the sanction of the bishop and the church it mattered not whether it was according to Roman law or not. And thus a senator might marry a freedwoman or a slave, though the law regarded such marriages as null and void. It is not unlikely that the lex de maritandis ordinibus, while forbidding senators to marry freedwomen, laid down no special directions in regard to the marriage of daughters of senators.[266] But when some of these became Christian, they would find it difficult to marry in their own rank, and, adopting the Christian ideas of brotherhood and the equality of all men in the sight of God would ally themselves with the forbidden classes. If any of them formed a union with a converted actor or with the converted son of an actor or with a slave, her conduct would excite the utmost indignation among the aristocratic classes. Some such incidents may have induced Marcus Aurelius to take the matter up—for the legislation prohibiting the daughters, granddaughters, and great-granddaughters of a senator from marrying a freedman occurred first in a speech of that emperor which was followed by a decree of the senate.[267]
The statements of Hippolytus in regard to the motives of senatorial women for marrying actors or freedmen or slave may be regarded as mere calumnies. The senatorial women could legally marry men of equestrian or plebeian rank, but they and their children took the rank of the husband, and they were subject to the contracts involved in the marriage. But if they married an actor, freedman, or slave, it was no legal marriage, there was no contract and no loss of rank or of property. Such marriages had their disadvantages. The children were illegitimate and the husband might at any time refuse to acknowledge his wife. Besides this, if the woman did not lose her rank legally, no doubt she would be repudiated by all her aristocratic friends. There was, therefore, no great temptation to enter on such marriages.
Allard[268] maintains, as a good Catholic, that Pope Callistus, in issuing such decrees, and declaring such unions legitimate before God, proclaimed loudly the distinction between the civil law and the religious law, and the independence of Christian marriage. But though it is likely that many Christians in the earlier period of Christianity agreed with the opinions of Callistus, yet there is nowhere any definite statement of this, and Callistus stands unique in the matter in the first three centuries. The passages which have been adduced by Allard prove nothing. In the Epistle to Polycarp,[269] attributed to Ignatius, occur the words, “It becometh men and women who marry to make their union with the consent of the bishop, that the marriage may be according to the Lord, and not according to lust.” But here, and in all other passages adduced, there is nothing said of the nature of the marriage. Certainly Hippolytus speaks in the strongest language against Callistus, and it is likely that Callistus is the person attacked by Tertullian in his ‘De Pœnitentia.’ Allard is forced to allow that the legislation of the Christian emperors did not follow the suggestions of Callistus. The laws may be read in Bingham’s chapter on the impediments of marriage in his ‘Antiquities of the Christian Church.’[270]
Though Hippolytus is very severe on Callistus, he speaks of Marcia, the concubine of Commodus, as “a God-loving concubine.”[271] He states that Callistus was a slave, and if this were the case the bishop’s own experiences would be a strong stimulus to his action.[272]