This excellent volume sets out to be ‘a comprehensive resource of all textual evidence – literary, canonical, and epigraphical – in the Greek and Roman worlds’ relating to ordained women in the early church up to c.600ce (p.1). In this alone, the book is to be highly recommended because in setting out the primary evidence so fully and in such a clear and scholarly manner it is unique. The texts range from the familiar – Paul's commendation of Phoebe in Romans 16.1–2 and Tertullian's condemnation of women who teach and baptise in his On Baptism– to texts and inscriptions which would be hard to find in all but the most specialist libraries. All Greek and Latin texts appear in new English translations provided by the editors. Although the passages are not given in the original languages, comprehensive bibliographical details are provided and various key words, for example, the titles of the women discussed, are given in the original Latin or transliterated Greek. (This is particularly important, since the authors propose that the terms diakonos and diakonissa were ‘interchangeable’– against those who have tried to construct arguments based on the distinction between them.) A good number of the inscriptions are illustrated with photographs or sketches. Some texts translated from the Syriac are also included, but this selection of eastern texts makes no claim to be comprehensive. The indexes are helpfully subdivided and the book includes some useful appendices indicating the geographical location and family relationships of the women discussed.
However, this book is far more than a collection of raw data. Chapters 1 and 9 (the Introduction and Conclusion) discuss the editors' conclusions and some methodological issues, to which we shall return below. In the main body of the volume, each extract is accompanied by detailed commentary setting it in its historical and cultural context and referring to previous scholarly discussion. The editors' own interpretations are presented clearly, with careful argument. (One of the great merits of this work is that Madigan and Osiek are as precise about what they are not claiming as about what they are.)
Chapter 2 deals with New Testament texts and with passages from the Church Fathers which comment on them. The editors defend the translation of Phoebe's role as ‘deacon’ (not ‘deaconess’), whilst pointing out that ‘what exactly a deacon did at this point is not clear’ (p.13). They show how later fathers such as Chrysostom and Ambrosiaster tended to interpret such biblical passages in ways that reflected the established practices in their own churches. The division between east and west regarding women's roles is nicely illustrated by Pelagius who contrasted the formal role of ‘deaconesses’ (diaconissae) in the east, who participated in the ministry of the word and in the baptism of women, with the informal private teaching given by some women he knew in Rome.
Chapters 3–5 treat the East, first setting out the frequent appearance of the terms ‘female deacon’ (hē diakonos) and ‘deaconess’ (diakonissa) in literary texts and inscriptions (Chapter 3). Although some of the evidence by its very nature is tantalisingly brief, from the more detailed descriptions and from the canonical material presented in Chapter 4 the editors gradually build up a clearer picture. Women deacons or deaconesses were ordained, by the laying-on of hands, to their roles in local churches or in monasteries for women; they often had specific teaching or pastoral responsibility for the women in their communities. The fact that some are mentioned as leaders of women's choirs (e.g. Lampadion pp.37–8 and Publia p.49), together with other evidence, suggests that they had an important liturgical role. Canonical rulings that women should not baptise or teach suggest both that some women were doing so, but also that the wider church wanted to forbid such behaviour. The editors are very good at disclosing the subtleties of women deacons' roles. For example, while women could not baptise, they were closely involved in the baptism of women for the sake of decency: while a bishop or presbyter would baptise the candidate in water and would anoint her with oil on the forehead, a woman deacon would anoint the rest of her body. Similarly, although a woman deacon could not have a teaching role with respect to the whole community, she could teach and pay pastoral visits to female candidates (both before and after baptism). Because women were banned from preaching as well as from ministering the sacraments, the authors are probably right to conclude that the restriction of women's roles in the early church was due to the denial that they could hold any position of authority (an idea which was of course consistent with the social norms of the time), rather than to a specific theology of the role of the bishop or priest in the sacraments.
Consistent with this conclusion is the fact that some women deacons or deaconesses were heads of female religious communities: a role that would require these women to guide and teach the women in their community and to lead some aspects of the liturgy. Various canons regarding the age at which women could be ordained deacon/ess are discussed: some canons stipulated sixty (alluding to 1 Timothy 5:9), others forty. A common assumption in the canons was that the women should be unmarried (widows or virgins) and past childbearing age, although the literary and epigraphical evidence suggests that there were in fact some married women deacons. The presence of young women deacons within the congregation was clearly deemed improper. Sometimes women were ordained deacon younger than forty, but in most cases they seem to have then led a cloistered life either at home or in a female community. A brief selection of later eastern texts in Chapter 5 nicely illustrates the fact that there was an institutional memory of a rank of ordained women deacons, even after it had ceased to exist and even though later writers were not sure what the women actually did.
The (much more scarce) evidence from the West is presented and analysed in chapter 6. The editors argue that the female diaconate had a much less clear shape than in the east and that it probably developed – patchily and with local variations – in response to developments in the east. The two pieces of literary evidence suggest a strong link between ordination as deacon and being a female religious, but Madigan and Osiek deny that female ordination was restricted to the monastery. They suggest that the canonical evidence from the fifth and sixth centuries – often taken to show there were never female deacons in the west – forbade the ordination of female deacons, rather than forbade women deacons as such. (These texts assume that members of the clergy were distinguished from the laity by the laying-on of hands – not a universal assumption in this period). Furthermore, the move to forbid the ordination of women suggests it had indeed occurred, however infrequently. As a coup de grace dispelling the myth, the authors present a letter from Benedict VIII (1012–24) to the Bishop of Porto, in which one finds the Pope ‘not only recognizing the office of deaconess but acknowledging that the rite of initiation is an ordination’ (p.148).
Chapter 8 addresses the much more controversial issue of whether there were female presbyters in this period. The editors are clear that the title ‘presbytera’ needs to be interpreted in its context for, logically speaking, it could mean ‘old woman’, ‘female church elder’, ‘female priest’ or ‘wife of a priest’. They argue that repeated criticisms of and canons against women priests imply that some existed, but note that it is not clear what their functions were. Epiphanius condemned the Montanists for having women ‘bishops, presbyters and the rest’ and for allowing women to prophesy with authority (p.165). Tertullian famously condemned heterodox women who took on themselves the priestly function of baptism, but the influence of Montanism is perhaps detectable in the way in which he allowed that women could prophesy authoritatively. Later texts in the west often decried women presbyters by implying they were Montanist and it is difficult to assess the women's orthodoxy from such hostile witnesses. However, the editors point to at least one text that ‘constitutes very strong evidence that some women in the south Italian dioceses [i.e. in communion with Rome] were functioning as fully-fledged presbyters with the knowledge of their bishops’ (p.188). It is in the light of such literary evidence, as well as epigraphical conventions, that the editors argue that at least some of the inscriptions they list referred to women who functioned in their churches as an elder or priest. This certainly was the view of some in later generations: a Bishop Atto in the tenth century asserted that the early church used women priests and deacons ‘because of their great usefulness’; in the era of conversion, he argues, women were employed because of the scarcity of workers to spread the gospel and because they were well-educated ‘in philosophical teachings’ (p.192). The practice, according to Atto, was, however, ‘no longer… expedient’.
The editors agree that some (especially western) texts used the terms ‘presbytera’ and ‘diaconissa’ to denote the wife of a priest or deacon. Whilst obviously disagreeing with those who would argue that all such terms refer to clerics' wives (at least in the catholic church), the editors also note that such arguments – which simply focus on the idea that the women were not clergy– miss an important point. If bishops, priests and deacons were expected to remain married but not have sexual relations after their ordination, then not only they but their wives too were in effect dedicating themselves to such a life. Such a ‘presbytera’ and ‘diaconissa’ would therefore have a distinctive and honoured role in her community, albeit one that was not clerical, sacramental or liturgical.
The authors' overall conclusions are summarised in Chapters 1 and 9. There is overwhelming evidence that women held office in the early church, but the picture of what exactly they did is clouded by regional variation, changing attitudes and great fluidity of terminology. Modern scholarship has obscured the view still further by persistently confusing high status with clerical status, and being unaware that membership of the clergy was not always synonymous with ordination by the laying-on of hands. There has also been a tendency to reduce liturgy to sacramental liturgy, with the result that women's extensive participation in aspects of liturgy beyond baptism and eucharist has got squeezed out of the conversation (p.5). Despite these problems, however, the editors feel they have successfully corrected several common assumptions (p.3): that there were never women deacon/esses or priests in the west; that the term deaconess replaced that of deacon in the third century (thus indicating the recognition of a clearly distinct female rank at that early date); that all female officer-holders were celibate; and finally that the term ‘deaconess’ in the fifth and sixth centuries applied only to abbesses.
Through their presentation of the material and extensive scholarly comment the authors have given convincing evidence for these judgments. The argument that some of the evidence is anecdotal or even apocryphal must contend with the fact that exactly the same could be said for much evidence for the lives and practices of early Christians. Madigan and Osiek have also succeeded in their further aim of advancing ‘a greater appreciation of who these women were and what they actually did’ (p.9). Moreover, by challenging various myths about women office-holders in the early church, they have brought to our attention the dedicated ministry of women whom previous generations of scholars have argued simply did not exist – or rather could not have existed.
As the title makes clear, this book does not intend to argue a case for or against the ordination of women in modern times, based on evidence relating to the early church. Nevertheless, under the surface there is more to be learned simply than the fact that there were female deacons and even some female priests in the early church. Subtly and with scholarly precision, Madigan and Osiek have set out evidence which reveals how the roles of women in the church were repeatedly constrained by wider society's considerations of how it was appropriate for women to behave. For example, women could most easily exercise authority and a teaching capacity within an all-female monastic environment, or privately at home; women deacons participated in the teaching and anointing of candidates for baptism precisely because of contemporary social conventions about contact between men and women; the fact that such conventions were stricter in the east than the west may explain the wider prevalence of women deacons in the east. Later, ideas of (female) contamination and (male) sacramental purity overtook previous concerns about social contact, so that female presence near the altar became seen as the main danger: hence women's liturgical roles became greatly constrained.
As we have seen, even the most sympathetic of later western bishops considered the ordination of women in the early church a matter of ‘expediency’. It is impossible to come away from this excellent, erudite and evenly argued book without some very uncomfortable questions about how women in the church have from the beginning been fitted into wider society's conception of what is appropriate and expedient.
