Advent Bible Study Course preached by The Reverend Dr Joan Crossley Advent 2003
Women and the New Testament
This evening I shall be looking at the main female characters in the New Testament and examining how their images have been modified over the course of history. I shall be relating those changes in attitude to wider religious and social attitudes to women. During the course of the talk I shall discuss the theological implications of these changes. The talk will be illustrated with paintings of the female saints from art history.
I think it is difficult for us in the Partnership churches, where we have
women Leaders as well as a female minister to imagine the centuries of
hatred of women which coloured the relationship of women to the church.
Starting with the early Church Fathers, misogyny, hatred of women reared its
ugly head. The Church Fathers taught that starting with Eve, women were
instruments of the devil’s work. That females were natural liars, that their
charms for men were merely snares for evil, which would degrade men and
distract them from Heaven. The venom which was poured out was partly
designed to help men who had taken vows of chastity to resist temptation. St
Paul’s emphasis on chastity and the spiritual dangers of sexual
relationships reversed Jewish teaching about the centrality of the family
and the joys of married life. In Judaic tradition the family has always been
the place in which religion and piety are first taught and maintained. At
the council of Nicea in 325 a proposal for all clergy to be celibate and put
away their wives was rejected, but gradually celibacy became the dominant
lifestyle for clergy in the West. The efforts of the higher echelons of the
Roman church to enforce celibacy led to rantings of unspeakable horror and
bitterness about women as the source of corruption. Here is a typical
outburst from Abbot Conrad of Marchthal in Germany, written in 1273,
defending his decision to throw nuns out of his religious community.
“…the wickedness of women is greater than all the other wickedness if
the world and that there is no anger like that of women and that the poison
of asps and dragons is more curable and less dangerous to men than the
familiarity of women have unanimously decreed that for the safety of our
souls no less than for that our bodies and goods that we will on no account
receive any more sisters to the increase of our perdition but will avoid
them like poisonous animals. ”
Imagine being a woman forced to listen to that kind of preaching! What
kind of anxiety did it produce in a spiritual man who longed for marriage
and children? From this brief setting of the background it can be seen that
the Church’s attitudes towards heterosexual relationships, marriage and
women’s bodies was fatally flawed and psychologically perverted. Despite the
fact that the Bible shows us that marriage was ordained by God, the Church
persistently taught that it was a poor second choice for those who couldn’t
maintain celibacy: the natural joys of sex, love, companionship and raising
the children were denigrated, and considered in opposition to the spiritual
life.
Mary
We are told only a very little about Mary, the mother of Jesus in the
Bible. But over time many legends and fantasies about Mary accumulated to
fit in the with Church’s beliefs and aspirations. The early Church Fathers
(in the third century) were not much interested in Mary except to contrast
her obedience with the disobedience of Eve. The notion of her perpetual
virginity first appeared in the Book of James, an apocryphal Gospel which
dwelt on the birth and boyhood of Jesus. This book related miraculous and
picturesque legends about how Joseph was chosen to be the husband of Mary,
about Mary’s upbringing by her parents and Jesus’ childhood. Supposedly
written by James the brother of Jesus, the book was a very popular text, and
was the source for popular drama and painters. As Neil told us last week,
the book did not make it into the canon of the New Testament. Many of the
tales were reused in a best-seller called the Golden Legends.
The figure of Mary continued to grow in importance over the next
thousand years, with all these non-Biblical beliefs and fantasies gathering
around her. By the sixteenth century there was a popular doctrine that Mary,
herself sinless, was also conceived without sin. She was placed on a
pedestal as the perfect woman, motherly yet unsullied by sexual intercourse.
The Church leaders decided that since she was without sin, she could never
have had another child and decided too that where the Gospels referred to
Jesus’ sisters and brothers, the writers of the Gospels must have meant
cousins or half-siblings.
Mary was considered to have been too perfect to have died in a mortal,
normal way, and stories were told that she herself was taken up into Heaven
on her death bed to be enthroned next to Jesus in Heaven. Her role was
believed to be that of a kindly intercessor. It was almost as though Jesus
was too important to be bothered with the prayers of mere mortals but that
Mary his mother would have time and sympathy for human problems and
intercede for humans with her Son.
The love and reverence felt for Mary was in dramatic contrast to the
wide-spread contempt with which ordinary women were regarded by theologians
and churchmen. Against background of hatred and fear of normal human
sexuality, the elevation of the eternally virgin Mary intensified. She was
the one woman a celibate man was allowed to love passionately and her purity
and her freedom from female traits was emphasised as the loathing of real
women was proclaimed from pulpits.
The thinkers and reformers that shaped the Reformation decided that the cult of the Virgin Mary was getting out of hand, that the extravagant devotion to her deflected people away from a close relationship with Jesus. There things have stayed for us Protestants, with only High Church Anglicans allowing reverence for Our Lady to emerge in their worship. Recently feminist scholars have begun to look again at the importance of Mary, and argue that we should reassess Mary, without all the woman-hating propaganda about her perpetual virginity. Might Mary’s story have valuable things to teach us? Certainly she is the most extraordinarily heroic individual. A role model for the way to act when caught up in the whirlwind that is sometimes God’s call. Mary though only a young woman responded to God’s challenge with simplicity and self-giving. Her role in protecting and nurturing Jesus was exemplary, and she demonstrated her faithfulness to God’s call right to the end of Jesus’ earthly life. Mary’s discipleship was of the most steady kind, of being present even though times were dark and desperate. At Easter we will think again about she stood by the Cross and watched her innocent Son die, an emblem of all who suffer innocently. Curiously she is not mentioned again after the Crucifixion so we must assume that she went home to be with those relations I mentioned earlier.
Mary Magdalene.
While it is true that the Twelve disciples named by Jesus were all men,
the immediate circle around Jesus seems to have included a number of
important women. They turn up in many of the narratives in the Gospels and
seem to have had constant access to Jesus’ teaching and preaching. The
presence of Mary of Magdala , who and what she was has never been properly
explained. What was her relationship to Jesus? What was her marital status?
It is unthinkable that an unmarried woman would have been allowed to travel
in a mixed group without her father or brother. Was she a widow and if so
why wasn’t this mentioned (most women are described as mother-in-law of, or
sister of)? Mary is always first in any list of the women around Jesus so
she was evidently first in importance, but why? Why was she the first to
find that His body had gone from the tomb? Why was she the first person to
whom He appeared in His resurrected form? The Bible does not tell us. Some
scholars have argued that all this points to the fact that she was in fact
Jesus’ wife. They ask why else would a woman who was not His relative be
sent to take away His dead body? It would surely be the province of a
relative not a friend, and since we know that Jesus did have named
relatives, why her not them? Scholars of first century Judaism find it
impossible to believe that a rabbi of thirty was unmarried. If He had been,
it would have been extraordinary enough to be mentioned and explained away
by the Gospel writers. Remember it doesn’t say He wasn’t married, it just
doesn’t mention that He was and to whom. Observant Jews were expected to
marry as part of their duty to God and the continuation of the line of
Abraham. Why might there be no mention of a wife? Well perhaps she was dead
or left behind in Galilee before He began His ministry in the last three
years of His life? The writing up of the Jesus stories, began a minimum of
fifty to seventy years after the Crucifixion and by that time the Church was
influenced by St Paul who felt very strongly that in order to prepare for
the imminent end of the world, the faithful ought not to be marrying and
having children but preparing for their place in Heaven. He felt that
celibacy was the preferred option and might have discouraged any references
to Jesus’ wife if there was such a person. It seems likely that if Jesus had
chosen not to conform to Jewish tradition by remaining celibate, Paul would
have trumpeted the fact in order to promote his ideal of celibacy.
As with Mary the mother of Jesus, fantastical legends completely
unrelated to anything in scripture grew up around the mysterious figure of
Mary of Magdala. For example there was the legend that she was a reformed
prostitute, a repentant fallen woman. The idea may have evolved from St
Luke’s mention that Jesus cast “seven devils” out of her” and Gregory the
Great in the sixth century, assumed she was the woman who anointed Christ’s
feet in Simon’s house. In that passage the woman was called “a woman of the
city”, which he assumed to mean a prostitute. The idea that the only kind of
sin a woman might commit was sexual appealed to the medieval church, which
as I have said was obsessed with sex and in particular with the threat posed
by women’s disgusting bodies and their sinful natures. Mary Magdalene could
be discussed as a role model for women who had sinned and had put their
sinfulness away from them. Prisons and places of refuge for reformed
prostitutes were called Magdalenes. In art Mary’s supposed sinfulness was
the excuse to show titillating images of her, often bare breasted and with
glorious hair let down. The subject was allowed because the artist and buyer
of the picture could claim that the picture showed a sinner grieving over
their sins and repenting.
It seems extremely unlikely that Mary of Magdala was the sister of Martha and Lazarus, as was once thought. She was certainly part of the group of wives and mothers who gathered at the foot of the Cross. And she was the first bringer of the Gospel in that it was she who told the other followers of Jesus that He had risen from the grave. The Nag Hammadi texts, which Neil mentioned last week, includes a number of writings which give Mary chief importance among Jesus’ followers and make her the recipient of many of Jesus’ sayings.
Martha and Mary
Jesus included women among his close friends. In particular Our Lord
spent time with Lazarus, and his sisters, Mary and Martha. The gospels
suggest that they had substantial social status and were prosperous. The
Gospels also give interesting insights into the confident ways that these
two female friends spoke to Jesus, as though expecting Him to take them
seriously and to listen to them with respect. Jesus was even prepared to put
up with them reproaching Him over the death of their brother.
READING : Luke 10: 38-42
You will have sat through a score of sermons on the subject so you
won’t need reminding that it is traditionally used to argue that Jesus
believed that a life of contemplation is superior to that of practical
service. It is also used to have a dig at women either for nagging or for
fussing about food rather than focussing on religious matters. I promised,
in response to a question by Sylvia, to give a flavour of some of the new
scholarship that has resulted from recent archaeological and linguistic
advances, and the new interpretations of scripture which can result from it.
This has been interestingly applied to the story of Martha we have just
heard.
Warren Carter, an American scholar, by analysing the Nag Hamadi manuscripts
and other early texts, has shown that the word used in Luke to describe what
Martha was stressed about was “ministry”. The same word is used elsewhere in
the Gospels eight more times always in relation to male ministry and
leadership. Translators assumed that Martha’s role must be domestic even
though the word when used in regard to men meant Christian leadership.
Judging by other uses in Acts and Luke, Martha’s “concerns” may just as
easily have been with care of believers, teaching and preaching and
leadership of a house church . We had merely assumed that Martha was fussing
about overseeing the servants making a meal for Jesus and the guests. What
if she were doing more general kinds of ministry – what implications would
that have for the role of women in the Early Church? The very beautiful
point that this scholar draws from his interpretation of the story is this:
not that Martha was wrong to be so busy about the Lord’s service, but that
when she (like us) is overstretched and tired she should return to the
teaching of Jesus to be restored and fed.
This one brief example reminds us that we can’t rely on using the Bible
as a rule book for life without realising that humans have intervened in the
process of translating the Bible. In the case of Martha’s ministry, the
translators believed that no woman could have done the kind of ministry done
by men, so changed the word to fit their beliefs about what Martha was
doing. This warns us that other meanings may have been either accidentally
or wilfully adjusted by translators. But given that warning, if we go back
to the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles we see that Jesus did not share
His church’s hatred for women. As I have described above Mary of Magdala was
only one of a group of women who were constantly in Jesus’ company. They
were given constant access to His teaching, and were witnesses to His
miracles and healings. There is no evidence that they were excluded. To
Roman observers, who had a very low opinion of the intellectual qualities of
women, it seemed bizarre and noteworthy that Jesus wanted to talk to women
and include them in his intimate circle. The Gospels place great emphasis on
Jesus’ willingness to engage spiritually and intellectually with women at a
time when Rabbis would have felt themselves to be contaminated by so much as
looking a woman who was not his wife or daughter. Jesus took the Samarian
woman by the well seriously, discussed her life and her faith with her,
discussed the possibility of Heaven with her. Observers at the time must
have been astonished.
Who were these women who faithfully travelled with Jesus? Among them was
Joanna, wife of Chuza who managed Herod’s estates, a woman of some means and
social position. The women seem to have come from a broad range of social
classes and regions, showing that Jesus intended the good news to be open to
all. In Luke 8: 3 we are told that such women provided the resources to
sustain Jesus and His followers.
Women and the Early Church.
For many observers, the number and importance of women in the new
religion of Christianity was one it its outstanding features. Didn’t Nero
sneer that it was a cult followed by women and slaves ? There are
tantalising references to women leaders in the Acts of the Apostles. We hear
of the four prophetesses at Caesarea who were the daughters of Phillip. We
hear about Tabitha (aka Dorcas) full of good works and charity who is
described as a disciple at Joppa. She, you may remember, was brought back
from the dead by Peter.
Mary, the mother of John Mark, hosted a house church in her home,
suggesting that she was a woman of means and with leadership qualities.
Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods was baptised with
all her household. The disciples were given hospitality by Damaris in
Athens. Priscilla and Aquila taught Apollos how to understand the faith
better(18:26) All these examples showed that women were active in the Church
in a variety of roles, teaching, preaching, prophesying and leading. In the
first centuries of the church’s history there are hints that women served as
deaconesses, and even as priests. But women’s ministry, along with women’s
spiritual equality was savagely attacked throughout the Middle Ages. You
might have expected that in the Reformation, when so many fixed ideas were
over turned that the role of women would have been reconsidered but, apart
from a few breakaway groups, women remained despised and ignored by the
church. The women who were exalted were always celibates, and preferably
martyrs who died rather than give up their virginity such as St Catherine
and St Barbara. The only women who were able to enjoy service within the
church were also celibate, nuns. Although medieval prioresses and abbesses
did enjoy a large degree of power, it was always within the enclosed sphere
of the convent.
The history of the church has remained skewed by the earlier loathing
and suspicion of women. Although churches were always full of women, usually
making up half of the congregation, they were always treated as if they were
children, excluded from being church wardens and church councils. They were
lectured on their essential sinfulness. Told that they as , daughters of Eve
were responsible for the downfall of humanity. They told off for their
vanity and worldliness, and told that their bodies made them unclean and
unwholesome.
The general view of society that women were incapable of logical thinking, that too much brain work made them infertile or hysterical, all contributed to prevent women taking up a more equal role as children of God. Reforming churches such as the Quakers and Methodist movements were ready to recognise the injustice of excluding women from roles of responsibility within the church and also that the church was being robbed of the possible benefits of women’s ministry. Wesley admitted women as preachers from the early stages of the movement but the Wesley deaconess movement was only established in England in 1890. It is only in recent years that true equality has been obtained for Methodist women. Roman Catholic women still suffer from lack of equality, although there is a movement to ordain women to the Catholic priesthood. Charlie’s famous ancestress, Maud Royden ,1876–1956, was the first English woman to preach (1917–20) in an established Anglican church. Despite her excellent mind and education she was unable to exercise her undoubted calling to ministry. She wrote very sadly, “I was born a woman and have never been able to get over it”.
You might think that now women have been made District Superintendents and
Archdeacons that the battle has been won and that the role of women in the
wider church is no longer an issue. Alas not all churches are as pro-women
as the Partnership churches. Within many sections of the Church of England
women are still treated as second-class citizens and their ordination
denied. A male priest wrote recently, “you might as soon ordain a pork pie
as a woman”. The rights of women-hating male priests have been protected by
an Act of Synod, which was rushed through at the same time as women were
ordained. Among other things it gives anti-women priests and parishes the
right to be looked after by a bishop who has not been “tainted” (that is the
word they use) by ordaining women. So in fact, Bp Christopher has certain
parts of this diocese which he can’t control, because they are under the
authority of the so called “flying bishop” of Richborough, even though the C
of E supports them financially. The final thing that the Act of Synod did
was to prevent women becoming Bishops in the Church of England. This isn’t
simply an issue of whether women like me get to be bishops and dress up in
purple. It is an issue about whether we consider there is something
inherently inferior about all women, which makes the church right to
maintain its patriarchal attitudes. It becomes an issue about the equality
of all human beings in the love of the Lord, not merely a women’s issue. We
need to look again at the Gospels and remind ourselves that Jesus had a
revolutionary acceptance of women as valued and trusted disciples. We need
to read for ourselves about the role of women in the early Church. We must
be aware how these women have been edited out of church history and
minimised by historians and theologians. The hatred and fear of female
sexuality has dominated two Millennia of thinking about women and what we
are to God and what they could be to the church, it is only by returning to
the Bible that we can regain a proper perspective on what Jesus requires of
women as well as men in His Church.