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T h e F a t h e r s K n o w B e s t
GIRLZ IN THE 'HOOD
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This Rock
Volume 5, Number 4
 April 1994 
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Can women be ordained to the priesthood?
This is a lively question in some quarters today, but it is one to
which the Church has always answered "no." This teaching
goes back to the New Testament.
While women could pray and prophesy in church (1 Cor. 11:1-16), they
could not teach or have authority over a man (1 Tim. 2:11-14), these
being two essential functions of the clergy, nor could women publicly
question or challenge the teaching of the clergy (1 Cor. 14:34-38).
The following quotations from the Church Fathers indicate that women
may play an active role in the Church and that in the age of the Fathers
there were orders of virgins, widows, and deaconesses (all forerunners
of modern nuns), but that these positions were not ordained.
The Fathers considered whether women could be ordained, as non-Christian
priestesses in the ancient world were, but rejected the idea as incompatible
with the Christian faith, not merely with Christian culture.
Irenaeus
"Pretending to consecrate cups mixed with wine,
and protracting to great length the word of invocation, [Marcus the
Gnostic heretic] contrives to give them a purple and reddish color
. . . [H]anding mixed cups to the women, he bids them consecrate these
in his presence. When this has been done, he himself produces another
cup of much larger size than that which the deluded woman has consecrated,
and pouring from the smaller one consecrated by the woman into that
which has been brought forward by himself, he at the same time pronounces
these words: 'May that Charis who is before all things and who transcends
all knowledge and speech fill your inner man and multiply in you her
own knowledge, by sowing the grain of mustard seed in you as in good
soil.' Repeating certain other similar words, and thus goading on
the wretched woman [to madness], he then appears a worker of wonders
when the large cup is seen to have been filled out of the small one,
so as even to overflow by what has been obtained from it. By accomplishing
several other similar things, he has completely deceived many and
drawn them away after him" (Against Heresies 1:13:2 [A.D.
180]).
Tertullian
"It is of no concern how diverse be their [the
heretics'] views, so long as they conspire to erase the one truth.
They are puffed up; all offer knowledge. Before they have finished
as catechumens, how thoroughly learned they are! And the heretical
women themselves, how shameless are they! They make bold to teach,
to debate, to work exorcisms, to undertake cures . . . " (Demurrer
Against the Heretics 41:4-5 [A.D. 200]).
"[A female heretic], lately conversant in this
quarter, has carried away a great number with her most venomous doctrine,
making it her first aim to destroy baptism. . . . But we, little fishes,
after the example of our Icthus [Greek, "Fish"],
Jesus Christ, are born in water . . . so that most monstrous creature,
who had no right to teach even sound doctrine, knew full well how
to kill the little fishes, by taking them away from the water"
(On Baptism 1 [A.D. 203]).
"It is not permitted for a woman to speak in
the church [1 Cor 14:34-35], but neither [is it permitted her] . .
. to offer, nor to claim to herself a lot in any manly function, not
to say sacerdotal office" (On the Veiling of Virgins
9 [A.D. 206]).
Hippolytus
"When a widow is to be appointed, she is not
to be ordained, but is designated by being named [a widow]. . . .
A widow is appointed by words alone, and is then associated with the
other widows. Hands are not imposed on her, because she does not offer
the oblation and she does not conduct the liturgy. Ordination is for
the clergy because of the liturgy; but a widow is appointed for prayer,
and prayer is the duty of all" (Apostolic Tradition 11
[A.D. 215]).
Didascalia
"For it is not to teach that you women . . .
are appointed . . . . For he, God the Lord, Jesus Christ our Teacher,
sent us, the Twelve, out to teach the [chosen] people and the pagans.
But there were female disciples among us: Mary of Magdala, Mary the
daughter of Jacob, and the other Mary; he did not, however, send them
out with us to teach the people. For, if it had been necessary that
women should teach, then our Teacher would have directed them to instruct
along with us" (Didascalia 3:6:1-2 [A.D. 225]).
Firmilian
"[T]here suddenly arose among us a certain woman,
who in a state of ecstasy announced herself as a prophetess and acted
as if filled with the Holy Ghost. . . . Through the deceptions and
illusions of the demon, this woman had previously set about deluding
believers in a variety of ways. Among the means by which she had deluded
many was daring to pretend that, through proper invocation, she consecrated
bread and performed the Eucharist. She offered up the sacrifice to
the Lord in a liturgical act that corresponds to the usual rites,
and she baptized many, all the while misusing the customary and legitimate
wording of the [baptismal] question. She carried all these things
out in such a manner that nothing seemed to deviate from the norms
of the Church" (collected in Cyprian's Letters 74:10
[A.D. 256]).
Council of Nicaea
"Similarly, in regard to the deaconesses, as
with all who are enrolled in the register, the same procedure is to
be observed. We have made mention of the deaconesses, who have been
enrolled in this position, although, not having been in any way ordained,
they are certainly to be numbered among the laity" (canon 19
[A.D. 325]).
Council of Laodicea
"[T]he so-called 'presbyteresses' or `presidentesses'
are not to be ordained in the Church" (canon 11 [A.D. 362]).
Epiphanius
"Certain women there in Arabia [the Collyridians]
have introduced this absurd teaching from Thracia: how they offer
up a sacrifice of bread rolls in the name of the Ever Virginal [Mary]
and hold their meetings in that very name and how they undertake something
that far exceeds proper measure in the name of the Holy Virgin. In
an unlawful and blasphemous ceremony they ordain women, through whom
they offer up the sacrifice in the name of Mary. This means that the
entire proceeding is godless and sacrilegious, a perversion of the
message of the Holy Spirit; in fact, the whole thing is diabolical
and a teaching of the impure spirit" (Against Heresies
78:13 [A.D. 377]).
"It is true that in the Church there is an order
of deaconesses, but not for being a priestess, nor for any kind of
work of administration, but for the sake of the dignity of the female
sex, either at the time of baptism or of examining the sick or suffering,
so that the naked body of a female may not be seen by men administering
sacred rites, but by the deaconess" (ibid.).
"From this bishop [James the Just] and the just-named
apostles, the succession of bishops and presbyters [priests] in the
house of God have been established. Never was a woman called to these.
. . . According to the evidence of Scripture, there were, to be sure,
the four daughters of the evangelist Philip, who engaged in prophecy,
but they were not priestesses" (ibid.).
"If women were to be charged by God with entering
the priesthood or with assuming ecclesiastical office, then in the
New Covenant it would have devolved upon no one more than Mary to
fulfill a priestly function. She was invested with so great an honor
as to be allowed to provide a dwelling in her womb for the heavenly
God and King of all things, the Son of God. . . . But he did not find
this [the conferring of priesthood on her] good" (ibid. 79:3).
John Chrysostom
"[W]hen one is required to preside over the Church
and to be entrusted with the care of so many souls, the whole female
sex must retire before the magnitude of the task, and the majority
of men also, and we must bring forward those who to a large extent
surpass all others and soar as much above them in excellence of spirit
as Saul overtopped the whole Hebrew nation in bodily stature"
(On the Priesthood 2:2 [A.D. 387]).
Apostolic Constitutions
"A virgin is not ordained, for we have no such
command from the Lord, for this is a state of voluntary trial, not
for the reproach of marriage, but on account of leisure for piety"
(Apostolic Constitutions 8:24 [A.D. 400]).
"[T]he 'man is the head of the woman' [1 Cor.
9:3], and he is originally ordained for the priesthood; it is not
just to abrogate the order of the creation and leave the first to
come to the last part of the body. For the woman is the body of the
man, taken from his side and subject to him, from whom she was separated
for the procreation of children. For he says, 'He shall rule over
you' [Gen. 3:16]. For the first part of the woman is the man, as being
her head. Bur if in the foregoing constitutions we have not permitted
them [women] to teach, how will any one allow them, contrary to nature,
to perform the office of the priest? For this is one of the ignorant
practices of Gentile atheism, to ordain women priests to the female
deities, not one of the constitutions of Christ" (ibid. 3:9).
"Appoint, [O Bishop], a deaconess, faithful and
holy, for the ministering of women. For sometimes it is not possible
to send a deacon into certain houses of women, because of unbelievers.
Send a deaconess, because of the thoughts of the petty. A deaconess
is of use to us also in many other situations. First of all, in the
baptizing of women, a deacon will touch only their forehead with the
holy oil, and afterwards the female deacon herself anoints them, for
it is not necessary for the women to be gazed upon by men" (ibid.
3:16).
"A widow is not ordained; yet if she has lost
her husband a great while and has lived soberly and unblamably and
has taken extraordinary care of her family, as Judith and Anna--those
women of great reputation--let her be chosen into the order of
widows" (ibid. 8:25).
"A deaconess does not bless, but neither does
she perform anything else that is done by presbyters [priests] and
deacons, but she guards the doors and greatly assists the presbyters,
for the sake of decorum, when they are baptizing women" ;(ibid.
8:28).
Augustine
"[The Quintillians are heretics who] give women
predominance so that these, too, can be honored with the priesthood
among them. They say, namely, that Christ revealed himself ..
. to Quintilla and Priscilla [two Montanist prophetesses] in the form
of a woman" (On Heresies 1:17 [A.D. 428]).
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