There is now abundant published evidence that women were teachers, pastors and church leaders in New Testament times. Where then, did the attitude forbidding women to teach arise?
We know from First Corinthians (in the original Greek that is, the mistranslations of most English Bible versions give us the wrong idea) that Paul took the Corinthian church to task for their attitude to women in the church. Early attitudes to women varied greatly. The Christian, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, stated that a woman is sometimes a better judge than a man and can be good advisor. Around 180 AD, Clement of Alexandria wrote that women were as capable as men of studying any subject. In the third century, John Chrysostom, commenting on 1 Timothy 3:11, stated that Paul was speaking of those who hold the rank of deaconesses.
On the other hand, Philo (first century) wrote in De Opificio Mundi,165, "The attitude of man is informed by reason, that of woman by sensuality." Around the same time, Josephus wrote in Contra Apioneum, 2.201, "For the Scripture says, 'The woman is inferior to her husband in every way.'" His attitude to marriage is illuminated by his comment in the same passage (2.203) that marital relationships defile one in soul and body. Epiphanus of Salamis in his Panarion (374-377 AD) stated that women were weak, fickle and of only mediocre intelligence. Tertullian, On Female Fashion, I. 1-6, went further and wrote that women were the doorway to the devil.
Given the ambivalent attitude to women, it is not surprising that 300 years after the New Testament was written, many were departing from its teachings. After all, general misunderstandings had happened as early as Paul's ministry. Paul had to admonish the Thessalonians for getting their facts wrong, facts which he had kept explaining to them (2 Thessalonians 2:5), and rebuked the Galatians (Galatians 1:6) for so quickly turning their backs on what they had seen.
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