04.06. Some Glimpses into History

Chapter 6 Some Glimpses into History

We have space in our concluding chapters only briefly to say that one primary fact emerges from all the light upon Genesis 3:16 and the information brought together by Dr. Bushnell in her textbook. And that is that in the early period of the human race and less and less down to the time between the Old Testament and the New Testament story -a period of 400 years, called in Jewish history the ’’days of mingling"-woman had a very different status from that which she is seen to occupy among the Jews in the days of Paul and a different position also from that which she held in the Christian Church after the early centuries of the Christian era.

All the facts of history referred to by Dr. Bushnell on this point will be a revelation to those who know nothing about them. Professor Flinders Petrie says that women were heads of their tribes in Abraham’s day, for Sarah’s name was changed to the "well understood title of a female prince" (Genesis 17:15-16), or "chieftainess." He writes, "Sar" is "the regular old term for a chief, still kept up in the East, [and Sarah’s] position . . . was not by any means that of secluded dependence, but rather that of an independent head, or tribal mother." In those days there were matriarchs. (1) as well as patriarchs, and kinship was reckoned through the women and not the men. Professor Sayce writes that Sumeria, Ak Kadia, Babylonia, Arabia, Phoenicia and Egypt were all ancient civilizations " characterized by features of the matriarchy," and Prof. Ramsay says "the best authenticated cases of ’Mutterrect’ (2) belong to Asia Minor. Also in Genesis 36:1-43 we discover that some of the "dukes of Edom" were women, and we have an interesting sidelight in the meaning of the name of Dinah as ’’ the female judge."

It is now conceded also by Bible scholars, writes Dr. Bushnell, that women had their place in the Tabernacle services either as Priestess or Levite, as " proved by the technical term used in Exodus 38:8 and 1 Samuel 2:22." But the reluctance of Jewish translators to translate the original faithfully when it ran across their prejudices connected with the position of women is to be found even in the Septuagint Greek version, for the translators, who were Jews, rendered the Hebrew word as "fasting women" in Exodus 38:8 and omitted the entire phrase containing the words in 1 Samuel 2:22. Prof. Margoliouth, of Oxford, comments on this: ’’ it is evident that by the time when the Septuagint translation was made, the idea of women ministering at the door of the Tabernacle had become so odious that it was wilfully mistranslated." The early dignity of woman is therefore unmistakably to be traced in the Old Testament Scriptures; and Kalisch, the Bible expositor, allows that they were in those days admitted to the highest office of teaching, that of prophets -Miriam, Deborah, and Huldah. (3) He comments on the seemingly narrower sphere allotted to women under the Gospel. But the light we have now gained does not indicate that a narrower sphere was allotted to women in the Christian dispensation. If there are no Deborahs referred to in the New Testament, or Huldahs as "judges," is it not because God adapts His messengers to the age or dispensation in which they live?

There was no Moses going up the fiery mount in apostolic days, but there was a Paul who was equally a revelator of God’s will to his age as Moses was in his. The Judaizers described Paul’s "bodily presence" as--"weak, and his speech contemptible," and to people of his day and generation he probably appeared far below Moses in his service, but afterwards he is seen to have been to the Christian Church what Moses was to the people of God in the wilderness.

Even so it can be with the Deborahs and Huldahs of the Apostolic Age and in every age. There are traces in history of women’s ministry in apostolic days as well as those recorded in the Scriptures, although on account of the teaching of the Jews and the deadening influences of the Oral Law upon them, women were far behind the men in education. But we cannot forget that this would not prevent the Holy Spirit teaching them the deep things of God, which the ’’natural man,’’ however highly educated, could not know.

We have as examples some notable women referred to in the letters of Paul, which show that they did teach when the Spirit of God made them capable of doing so. Phoebe we have already mentioned. but there is more to say about her.

Conybeare and Howson, in their Life of St. Paul, call attention to the use in Paul’s recommendation of her of two words associated together in technical legal matters, which indicate that she was abroad on some important business with the Courts-possibly in behalf of the church. "What Paul says of Phoebe," writes Dr. Bushnell, ’’ as a prostatis (translated ’ succourer,’ literally meaning ’one standing before’ ), proves that she was of no inferior order in the church." The word means in Greek a champion, leader, chief, protector, patron! It is the " noun form corresponding to the verb translated ’ rule’ in 1 Timothy 3:4-5, 1 Timothy 3:12 and 1 Timothy 5:17. But it could not be translated as if Paul said ’she hath been a "ruler" of many, and of myself also!’ The fact is,’’ Dr.. Bushnell says, " that the passages in Timothy referred to do not speak of ’rule.’ ’’ in Titus 3:8, Titus 3:14, the word is translated "maintain," and Phoebe held the same relation to the Church at Cenchrea that Paul says, "church officials" should hold to their own children and household --take good care of them! Theodoret says, writes Mrs. Booth, ’’The fame of Phoebe was spoken of throughout the world. She was known not only to the Greeks and Romans, but also to the Barbarians," which ’’implies that she had travelled much, and propagated the Gospel in foreign countries.

We have also referred elsewhere to Priscilla, and there is more to say about her and her work in the early church. The first reference to Priscilla is to be found in Acts 18:2, where we read of Paul s arrival at Corinth. He there met Aquila and his wife Priscilla, "lately come from Italy,’’ and took up his abode with them. After eighteen months in Corinth, Paul and Priscilla and Aquila removed to Ephesus. Here came, later on, Apollos, a "learned man," "mighty in the Scriptures," but spiritually " knowing only the baptism of John." And "when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more carefully." Here we find Priscilla as a " teacher. " She was one who evidently had been taught of God so deeply that she could spiritually instruct a man "mighty in the Scriptures," and this was not a small thing when said about a Jew. ’’There are certain indications, says Dean Alford, that [Aquila] was rather the ready and zealous patron than the teacher; and this latter work, or a great share of it, seems to have belonged to his wife Priscilla." Another expositor says that "she must have been associated with, and more distinguished than, her husband.... One is allowed to infer... that she was the chief instructor, otherwise she would scarcely have been mentioned." In Romans 16:3, Paul calls her and Aquila his "fellow-labourers."

"This expression," writes Dr. Bushnell, "not so very frequently employed by Paul, means much. By its use Priscilla and Aquila are legitimatized official Evangelists and Teachers." It is noteworthy also that after the first instance in Acts 18:1, Priscilla is always mentioned first (Acts 18:18, Acts 18:26, R.V.; Romans 16:3; 2 Timothy 4:19) with the single exception of 1 Corinthians 16:19. It is therefore a historical fact that Priscilla is associated in the period of her greatest activity with the Apostle at the very time that he is represented by expositors as relegating women to silence.

Then we are told in Acts 2:9 that ’’Phillip, the evangelist, had four daughters, virgins, which did prophesy." The ancient church historian Eusebius says that these godly women fulfilled the work of evangelists, " to preach Christ to those who had never yet heard the word of the faith, and to deliver to them the record of the Holy Gospels. He also refers to Potomania Ammias, a prophetess in Philadelphia, and others ’’ who were equally distinguished for their love and zeal in the cause of Christ."

There is also a reference to women apostles’’ in Romans 16:7; Paul writes, Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellow-prisoners, who are of note among the apostles.’’ Chrysostom and Theophylact, both Greeks, "say Junia was a woman; ’kinsmen’ should therefore have been rendered ’ kinsfolk,’ “ writes Mrs. Booth. She also says, ’’Justin Martyr, who lived until about A.D. 150, says, in his dialogue with Trypho the Jew, that ’both men and women were seen among them who had the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit of God, according as the prophet Joel had foretold." And Dodwell, in his Dissertions of Irenaeus, says that "the gift of the spirit of prophecy was given to others besides the Apostles: and that not only in the first and second, but in the third century-even to the time of Constantine-men had these gifts; yea, and women too.’’

"Women’s only century in the Christian Church,’’ observes Dr. Bushnell, "was during Apostolic days, and a little while thereafter,’’ although there are records that there were women teachers and preachers during the first four centuries. In an article in the Indian Standard (the organ of the Presbyterian Church in India). a writer on "Women Preachers’’ gives the following instances of their work in the early centuries of Christianity:

1. ’’Tertullian, one of the earliest of the Latin fathers, notes that women appear in every early reference to ecclesiastical orders. Four titles, he writes, ’’are applied to the women clergy, all of which occur in the New Testament, ’Widow,’ ’ ’Deaconess’, ’Presbyter,’ Virgin’. "The two former.’’ he adds, "are Apostolic orders."

2. "Marcella preached Christianity publicly in Rome, and Jerome (born about 340 A.D., and the translator of the Latin Vulgate Bible), writes of her: ’all that I learn with great study. . . the blessed Marcella learnt also but with great facility.’ He also celebrates her immense influence for good in Rome.

3."1n the Catacombs are found representations of women clergy, and they are shown presiding at the Lord’s Supper....

4. " Mabillon, a French writer on ecclesiastical biography and antiquities, records that the evangelisation of Europe was due in great part to the Nuns of St. Benedict, many of whom publicly preached the Gospel.

5. "Among the Montanists, (4) who were the evangelicals of the third century, Priscilla and Maximilla, ladies of rank, served as evangelists over a wide extent of country. Women were elected by the Montanists as Deacons, Pastors, President-Presbyters or Bishops. Opinions vary as to when the recognized order of women clergy died out All agree that it lingered longer in the East than in the West...." "It seems," says the writer, "as if the decay of women’s ministry took place with the decay of Christianity, the rise of the Roman Apostasy, and the proud pretensions of an exclusive priesthood." But Dr. Bushnell’s book throws much light upon this very question-a light that is important at the present time because it shows that it was only when the teachings of the Jewish Rabbis began to influence the translations of the Scriptures that the status of Christian women in the church was changed. This means that the "Judaism" which Paul the Apostle so successfully combated in its efforts to fasten circumcision upon the Christians of his time did eventually succeed in robbing the church of the active ministry of women. In this light a comparison of the dates of the various translations made during the Christian era is very significant. Dean Stanley says that the Septuagint Greek was " the Bible of the Evangelists, and the Apostles of the first century, and of the Christian church for the first age of its existence, and was the text sanctioned probably by our Lord Himself."

Then in the second century, points out Dr. Bushnell, three Greek versions of the Hebrew Scriptures were made by the Jews and Judaizers " with the express object of emphasizing the teaching of the Jews where they differed from Christianity." Following these, in the year 382, appeared the Latin Vulgate, translated by Jerome, who went to Palestine and studied Hebrew under the Jewish Rabbis, imbibing naturally the rabbinical viewpoint of the original Scriptures. Then came in the fourth century the tremendous change in the status of the ’’church’’ itself, when Constantine the Great took it under his protection. From this time on we have the gradual rise of an exclusive priesthood and an ecclesiastical system which has led men further and further away from the simplicity of the early days of Christianity.

Notes 1. I.e. Matriarchism, rule by women

2. Mother rule.

3. Read the account of Miriam (Exodus 15:20); of Deborah (Judges 4:1-24 and Judges 5:1-31); of Huldah (2 Kings 22:1-20); the references to women who ’’prophesy out of their own heart’’ (Ezekiel 3:17), implying the existence of many women prophets who were not false.--Dr. Bushnell

4. Belle Montanists took their name from Montanus. who claimed to he a divinely commissioned prophet and the bearer of a fresh influx of the Spirit. Some say that he ’called himself the Paraclete Tertullian joined the Montanists, who were loyal to the fundamental truths of the Gospel. They proclaimed the imminent return of Christ and demanded the radical reform of the church.