Women in the Pauline Churches

– An Answer

by Steve Santini

(This article is an addendum to The Apostle Paul’s Great Mystery Revealed .

For a more complete understanding of this article read that one also)

During the last decade or so, it seems that an increasing number of publications have written of the apostle Paul in a disparaging manner. On a recent national television news show, each of four theologians being interviewed spoke disparagingly of Paul. Considering the understandable rising tide of the feminist movement and what first appears as Paul’s attitude in his letters concerning women in relation to men, it is not surprising that on the surface this may be a reason Paul has been disparaged so.

On the other hand, when it is considered that the church is comprised of spiritually mature masculine saints and the mature souls of the feminine faithful in Christ Jesus without regard for physical gender, the argument that Paul was “chauvinistic” falls apart.

Paul wrote, as the custom was in many languages of the time, using figures of speech and with interpretations of figures from the Old Testament. In Galatians 4:24 he lets the reader know that as he writes of Isaac and Ishmael, he is writing allegorically. In Hebrews 9:9, Paul reveals that the temple and its services were a figure of things then not yet manifest. In Ephesians 5:32, when Paul is writing about the husband and wife, he lets the reader know that his main emphasis is the figure of the great mystery of Christ and the church. There are other sections where he writes primarily in a figure of the masculine and feminine yet he does not point it out. He leaves it up to the readers, whom from the scope of their scriptural understanding can determine the figure present.

Besides the section in Ephesians, chapter five, there are several other sections of his writings that deal with the wife’s relationship to her husband or women to men. One is in I Corinthians 14:33-36.

For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints. Let women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn anything let them ask their men at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. What? Came the word of God out of you? Or came it unto you only?

Although this church at Corinth was coming to maturity, it was wrought with divisions in the family of God. Throughout the letter Paul is primarily addressing the division between the saints and the faithful in Christ Jesus in order to correct the situation for their further development. In this verse, the first sentence continues from “the saints” through to the second “churches” in the section according to the footnote in the Interlinear Greek-English New Testament by George R. Berry. It should be read like this: “as in all the churches of the saints which women keep silence in the churches.” Also the word for husbands is also translated as men in many other places in the King James Version.

Another indication that Paul is writing to and about the feminine faithful in Christ Jesus figuratively as women is contained in the last sentence of the section. In Ephesians 4:12, when read according to Greek rules of grammar, Paul writes that the perfecting or maturing of the church emanates from the saints. In this site’s study “Faith to Faith” in regard to the figurative types of Noah and Abraham, it is proposed that the revelation of righteousness came out of the saint Noah unto Abraham who believed it and became the father of faith for the feminine.

The second section of these several in which Paul writes about the relation of women to men to be addressed in this study as most likely a figure is I Timothy 2:10-15.

But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works. Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, the Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.

For context, it is evident that Paul is writing Timothy, another saint, concerning the growth and furtherance of the church. Timothy may be, at the time of receiving the letter, the elder saint of the church in Ephesus.

This section is introduced with the Greek word alla which is the strongest of contrasting connectives used in the Greek texts of scripture. As such the section is connected, yet in contrast to what has come previously. It does not say that the women are not to speak of the Lord or dialogue. It is the feminine of the church, speaking of the Lord, which are most adept at influencing an unbelieving soul to believe. In the gatherings of the mature church only the saints were to provide the specific function of teaching.

The word childbearing used in this verse means not necessarily birth but it does mean feminine parentage. The root of one of the two words used in compounding this word is a word used of new Christian converts according to Strong’s Analytical Concordance. Factually, it was the eastern woman who had the authority and responsibility to raise both male and female children until they reached the age of five and figuratively, it is the mature feminine of the church that has the responsibility for nurturing new converts. Since upon Paul’s entrance into Thessalonica there were no mature feminine, he cared for them at first “as a nurse who cherisheth her children.” It was later after the cherishing or nourishing that he began “charging them as a father” according to the normality of his given masculine spiritual function.

As stated, the Apostle Paul has taken a lot of heat for these sections by those whose eyes are dimmed to figurative understandings and dimmed to the revelation of the great mystery. This study is written to compliment the study on the great mystery, The Apostle Paul’s Great Mystery of Christ Revealed. It is written for those who hunger for the righteousness revealed in the one new man made up of the twain - masculine saints and feminine faithful in Christ Jesus.

A Response:

I printed out and read your article you sent me, re: Paul's writings to

women. I have not had time to read it in depth yet. As you know I love

your writings. The one thing that struck me, but I have to go back and read

it again, is I think when Paul wrote about the marriage relationship - he

meant it literally. This has caused great problems for women.

But I think he was a product of his culture and that's as far as he could

go. Back then, women were men's property, needed their protection and

income to survive. It was basically that way up until the industrial

revolution. Then, couples who had worked as a team to survive (farming,

etc.), now, the women's jobs were co-opted and you had tailors, bakers, etc.

working in the city and women now basically stayed home with the kids.

Then, of course the pill and feminism (the backlash of being someone's

property) changed that. Today we look at what Paul wrote as very

antiquated. Therefore, I somewhat disagreed with you in looking at it in a

figurative sense. But, as I said, I must read your article again slowly.

An Answer:

I do think that in Paul's churches women were highly valued either as saints or faithful in Christ Jesus. Of course there were women saints in the Old Testament. Maybe Rahab, Ester, and Ruth were saints. I am sure that there are more to consider. I am fairly certain Deborah of Judges was a saint. Jesus alludes to female saints in the gospels. When the Pharisees tempted him with the hypothetical story about the woman that had seven husbands, Jesus' response was such that he was clearly indicating that she was a saint. Since Philippians was written to primarily the saints and secondarily to the elders ordained from among the faithful in Christ Jesus, I believe that the women of whom Paul writes in the forth chapter were very likely saints. In the closing chapter of Romans, Paul writes of a woman that succored him. A saint? Probably.

In the second century there were some churches that had women as full-fledged ministers. I think the church in Lyons, France was one of these. Anyway, this bothered the church at Rome, which had not yet consolidated its power. The Romans, in general, were the least spiritual people of all in their empire. They were the ones who most certainly denigrated women. I think that it was the church in Rome that eventually altered the NT texts to hide or eliminate the feminine gender of the Holy Spirit.

I do not think that Paul would limit the abilities of saints who were female in gender by saying that they were to keep silence in the "churches of the saints." This is a central reason along with textual evidence that I believe that the two sections mentioned were figurative in the sense that Paul was speaking of women as the spiritually faithful in Christ Jesus. It was, of course, the saints who were (and are) responsible to make known the great mystery in the church by teaching. How could he be limiting the responsibility of these women who were saints by saying they could not teach and that they were to keep silent in the churches of the saints?

Although Marcion was eventually declared a heretic by the early church, many scholars today credit his work for insuring that the Pauline epistles were preserved and established in the canon of scripture. Here is what one Marcionite scholar has shared with me about the Marcionite church of the second century.

From Danny Mahar, The Marcionite Research Center, 2004

“A legend was reported by St.Jerome that a woman envoy was sent to Rome from the Marcionite Church to announce and prepare for the arrival of

Marcion to that city (circ. 144). "As Paul sent Phoebe to Rome, so Marcion sent a woman beforehand to prepare a welcome (Jerome, Ep., 131)’.

Charles B. Waite in History of the Christian Religion to the Year Two Hundred also alludes from Jerome (adv. Ctesiph., t.4, p.477) ‘that Marcion had sent before him to Rome, a woman, to prepare the minds of

the people for his doctrines.’

Marcion's critics, particularly Epiphanius, railed on him with especial indignation over the fact that women in the Marcionite churches were permitted to conduct the rituals of baptisms. (Epiphanius, Panarion sect 42

(4,5), translated by Frank Williams (p.275):

‘They even permit women to give baptism! For, seeing that they even celebrate the mysteries in front of the catechumens, everything they do is simply ridiculous.’

I don't know if it's possible to determine what percentage of women the Marcionites attracted, but from what I gather with these reports, women enjoyed a bit more freedom and prominence in the Marcionite churches than apparently those movements in competition with Marcion, if their mockery toward Marcion permitting such freedoms for women is any indication.”

Righteousness: The Synergism of Masculine and Feminine