Did the Early Church have Women Priests?

I was going through my Google news feed when I happened across an article by LA Book Review called Recovering the Female Clerics of the Early Church. I only read a part way in to the article when I saw errors popping up left and right, and felt a need to revisit this topic on my blog - because when we encounter error we should fix it.

 I have previously discussed women's ordination on this blog back in 2020. In that post I mentioned that women deacons - deaconesses - were indeed a thing in the Early Church, and have remained such into the modern Church; although their numbers and roles have been greatly reduced. I also explained the reason for their numbers being so reduced. I also mentioned that the Church has never had women priests. Never. If you haven't read that post yet, please do. Or don't - it's not like I get paid to write this blog, so page views don't matter.

Back to the article mentioned above. I'm going to break down the article, using various quotes from the source, with my rebuttal to follow. This is probably going to be a long post. 

Firstly, the article starts by talking about how Pope Francis has appointed a women to a really high position within the Vatican. A position that traditionally has been held by men. The authors then mention a mosaic in Ashdod, Israel that has deaconesses and that, "The mounting evidence from Ashdod and other sites across the Mediterranean together demonstrate that the origins of the early Christian church included women, even if not every church agreed upon their ordination."

Again, as I posted earlier in my article about women's ordination, deaconesses have been around since the earliest days of the Church. As far as I know, no one calls that into question - it would be ridiculous, to my mind at least - since we see St. Phoebe mentioned as being a deaconess. From what little information I could find about deaconesses, the role did indeed seem to be an ordained position. Not having witnessed an ordination of a deaconess for myself, I couldn't say how closely it resembles the ordination of male clergy.

The authors of the LA Book Review article then state,

"Within many early Christian churches, women served clerical roles as ordained ministers called deacons and presbyters, both subordinate to the higher-ranking bishops. By the second century CE, deacons functioned as liturgical assistants in the giving of the Eucharist and at baptisms, and could also be used to carry official letters and visit those in prison. The early Christian author Tertullian attests to women presbyters as well, clerics who directly taught, healed, offered the Eucharist, and gave baptisms. The image of solely men populating the clerical orders that stretch back to the time of Jesus and his disciples is an oft-repeated origin story, but one that should be questioned."

Let us break this paragraph down.

They say that within many early Christian churches women served as deacons and presbyters. I will remind readers here that we get the English word "priest" from the word "presbyter". They then state the Tertullian attests to women priests who it seemed did the same thing as male priests when it came to their clerical duties.

Do either of those claims have any truth? Well, yes. But they are half truths, at best.

Tertullian writes in his letter, Prescription Against Heresies, well, against heresies. In Chapter XLI of the aforementioned letter, Tertullian writes,

"The very women of these heretics, how wanton they are! For they are bold enough to teach, to dispute, to enact exorcisms, to undertake(13) cures–it may be even to baptize.(14) Their ordinations, are carelessly. administered,(15) capricious, changeable.(16) At one time they put novices in office; at another time, men who are bound to some secular employment;(17) at another, persons who have apostatized from us, to bind them by vainglory, since they cannot by the truth. Nowhere is promotion easier than in the camp of rebels, where the mere fact of being there is a foremost service.(18) And so it comes to pass that to-day one man is their bishop, to-morrow another; to-day he is a deacon who to-morrow is a reader; to-day he is a presbyter who tomorrow is a layman. For even on laymen do they impose the functions of priesthood."

So, we see Tertullian is calling out heretics. He is calling out these women as wanton. Tertullian is not casting a favorable light on these heretics.

We also see Tertullian writing in his letter, On Baptism, against women who would baptize.

"But the woman of pertness, who has usurped the power to teach, will of course not give birth for herself likewise to a right of baptizing, unless some new beast shall arise like the former; so that, just as the one abolished baptism, so some other should in her own right confer it! But if the writings which wrongly go under Paul's name, claim Thecla's example as a licence for women's teaching and baptizing, let them know that, in Asia, the presbyter who composed that writing, as if he were augmenting Paul's fame from his own store, after being convicted, and confessing that he had done it from love of Paul, was removed from his office. For how credible would it seem, that he who has not permitted a woman even to learn with over-boldness, should give a female the power of teaching and of baptizing! Let them be silent, he says, and at home consult their own husbands. 1 Corinthians 14:34-35" (Chapter 17)

Here Tertullian tells us that women should not be baptizing of their own accord. The don't have the right. He even tells us that a priest wrote under St. Paul's name who argued for women teaching and baptizing was removed from office.

So we can see that while there were some sects of people who called themselves Christians, they were seen as heretics and not a part of the Church.

Also, as an aside, earlier in Chapter 17 of On Baptism, Tertullian talks about how the bishop is authorized to baptize, and passes that authority on to the priests, and deacons. This mirrors what St. Ignatius writes about unity with the bishop which I wrote about in my post On Saint Ignatius. I mention this because it will be important.

Tertullian does not show these women who would be priests in a good light at all. 

Were there some women priests back in antiquity? Yes, but it is obvious that they were a part of heretical sects. This causes a problem with what the authors are trying to push.

The authors go on about women's role in the Early Church, and how the churches (notice the use of the plural) were divided on the issue of deaconesses and women priests. They mention several deaconesses, and icons found alongside those of male clergy. They even mention that Jesus broke down some barriers by preaching to women, having women close to Him, and even having women be the first to see the resurrected Christ. I don't necessarily call all of those things into question. It would not surprise me if there have been proponents of women priests even from the earliest times of the Church. It's the next part that I am about to quote that I see some huge issues with.

"These difficulties are further compounded when we think about how Church titles have shifted in meaning over 2,000 years. Our earliest texts, like the New Testament, describe churches trying to find their footing, but not a singular Church — with a capital “C” — that’s established or unified. Titles like “deacon” and “apostle” had not been formalized and did not carry the same meaning as these titles do now. Paul himself did not minister with Jesus, meaning even he would be out of the running for the title of “apostle” according to Acts 1:12–26. But even so, the book of Acts elevates Paul to the level of Peter, in essence making Paul an “apostle” as well. We might consider Paul an apostle today, but his status was not a given in earliest Christianity. Understandings of apostleship and the diaconate shifted over time. Would the well-known Phoebe recognize her own title in 2021?"

Let us take a look at that second sentence. The authors are claiming that there was no singular Church that was established or unified. They are very clearly wrong.

First of all Christ established His Church. He even says to St. Peter, "And I say unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church;" (St. Matthew 16:18 KJV). For us Orthodox Christians we understand that Christ is saying that He will build His Church on St. Peter's confession of faith - that Christ is God. Traditionally, we say that the Church was founded on Pentecost in AD 33 (give or take a few years). When the Bible talks about "churches" it is talking about the various churches that were founded by the Apostles and such. For example the Church of the Ephesians. This would be like talking about the various Orthodox churches - there are different jurisdictions within the Orthodox Church, but they all make up the one Church.

Second, the claim that there was no unity. This is also false, as we can see from St. Paul's various writings to different churches, that he is correcting them and helping them along in the True Faith. We also see the Council of Jerusalem (AD 50) in Acts 15 put a lie to the claim that there was no unity. We also see from the Didache (~AD 60) that there was a unified teaching and way of conducting services. We also see this in the writings of St. Ignatius (~AD 108 [I did say that this would be important later]).

Third, the claim that the titles changed. This is true. The Didache mentions "prophets", and we can see in 1 Peter 5:1-2 as well as in Acts 20:17-18,28 that Sts. Peter and Paul seem to use the terms episcopos and prebyteros interchangeably. Those terms are where we get the English terms bishop and priest, respectively. It seems that Church governance changed in small ways as the Church grew. However, it seems that by the time of St. Ignatius that the two - bishop and priest - were separate offices, "In the early Christian era the term was not always clearly distinguished from presbýteros (literally: "elder" or "senior", origin of the modern English word "priest"), but is used in the sense of the order or office of bishop, distinct from that of presbyter, in the writings attributed to Ignatius of Antioch.[1] (Wikipedia).

I currently serve as an Acolyte - or basically an Altar Server. This role used to be an ordained position, but now no longer is, with the duties having been subsumed by the Reader and the Subdeacon, or unordained males (OrthodoxWiki). So yes, there are some roles and positions that have changed over the centuries. Some fell out due to disuse, just like the office of deaconess.

Would St. Phoebe recognize her title or her office? I think that priests and deacons would still recognize their positions in the Church, but also recognize that their roles have changed.

The authors then say in the proceeding paragraph,

"Although the evidence can be contradictory, most scholars — like Ute E. Eisen in her book on Women Officeholders in Early Christianity and Valerie A. Karras, in her work on later female deacons in the Byzantine Church — agree that it collectively demonstrates that a number of ancient Christian communities had women leaders. Clearly, this would include communities like the Church at Rome in Paul’s day. Later Christian groups like the Montanists also had women who were not only leaders, but recognized as prophets who directly spoke the words of Jesus. Women could also attain religious authority through martyrdom or asceticism."

Here they are equating Montanists practices with what was acceptable by the Church. Montanism was a heretical sect of Christianity that originated with it's founder, Montanus, around AD 156. Montanus and some of his followers claimed that they were the incarnations of the Holy Spirit (OrthodoxWiki). This is also where the authors' use of Tertullian starts to fall apart, as Tertullian became a Montanist later in his life (ibid).

They are using the writings of a man who became a heretic as their basis that some early "churches" had women priests. But, Tertullian wrote pretty vehemently against women in priestly rolls, at least before he apostatized from the True Faith which he had before so diligently defended.

The authors then assert that there was no unified Christian movement, but that those who followed the Church Fathers eventually won out and deemed the other movements heresies.

"If the evidence is contradictory, it’s because no one coherent Christian movement existed in the ancient world. While some groups recognized women clerics, others — like those represented by the Church Fathers — did not. Dominant Christian groups who took the Fathers’ views as authoritative eventually won out the fight for Christian “orthodoxy,” and a number of the movements led by women were dismissed as 'heresies.'"

Well, again, we see that they are wrong. There definitely was one coherent Church, as I explained above. Jesus established His Church. St. Paul wrote correcting churches - making sure that they were following a unified faith. There was the Council of Jerusalem to determine correct doctrine and practices. These examples from the New Testament show one coherent Church. And then we see writers such as St. Ignatius preaching about unity, and how we should be united to our bishops. We see preaching against heresies from really early in the Church - from the Apostles, to St. Ignatius, to Tertullian, to St. Irenaeus of Lyons (his Against Heresies is a phenomenal work), and the list just keeps going. 

These show, that despite there being a plethora of different communities popping up claiming to be Christian in some form or another, there was one unified Church.

That one unified Church did not have women priests. 

The authors try to stick to the claim that the Church Fathers are to blame for this, or rather the "dominant Christian groups who took the Fathers' views as authoritative" are to blame for women priests being forgotten. But the reality is that when those evil Church Fathers wrote about women priests they were writing about heresies that just so happened to have women priests.

I mentioned St. Irenaeus (c AD 130-202) earlier. In his writing, Against Heresies, he writes extensively against Marcionism (as does Tertullian). Marcion taught that there was some unknown god - different from the one from the Hebrew Bible - that Jesus had revealed; he also taught that Jesus was not the Messiah, and that Jesus was sent by a god who was greater than the Creator. (OrthodoxWiki)

In Chapter XIII St. Irenaeus mentions a certain Marcus who the saint claims is a magi, and has women consecrate cups of wine with him. (Against Heresies) The saint makes it clear that this Marcus deluded these women into being his followers.

I mention all of this to show that there is a clear unity of faith among the Early Church. These other sects that the authors of Recovering the Female Clerics of the Early Church are appealing to are heretics. We know they are heretics because we are clearly shown that they have deviated from what was taught by Jesus, the Apostles, the disciples of the Apostles, and later those who were disciples of the Church.

In Galatians 1:9 St. Paul tells us, "If any man preach any other gospel unto you than ye have received, let him be accursed."(KJV). The gnostics, the Marcionians, the Montanists all taught something that was vastly different from what Jesus preached, and what His followers preached.

That there were heretics running around since the early days of the Church does not show that the Church wasn't organized, nor unified. In fact, we see the early organization of the Church starting in the New Testament, and being fleshed out as the Church grew. We see the opposite of disorganization and the opposite of disunity. That there were heretics only shows that there were those even in the early days who were trying to pervert the Gospel and cause disunity among the faithful. Many times they were almost successful, as can be seen with Arianism - which was the cause of the First Ecumenical Council (OrthodoxWiki).

But despite this, the Church remained (and remains) one unified entity, with one unified faith. We wouldn't say that the United States were no longer united just because some states broke away - that just makes those states a separate entity. Just like those sects that broke away from the established Church were separate entities. 

And while the Church has indeed had deaconesses throughout its history, it has never had women serving as priests. Women who were called equal to the Apostles, women who converted countries, women who have done great and wondrous deeds for the Church, yes. But never did the Church that was founded by Christ have women priests.