Does the Spiritual Equality
of the Sexes Mean
That Women Can Be Priests?
By Dr. Catherine Brown Tkacz
Introduction
• Jesus gave strong emphasis to the
teaching that men and women are
spiritually equal. A wealth of evidence
shows that he advanced the doctrine of
the spiritual equality of the sexes. Full
consideration of this will allow then
looking at what implication, if any, exists
for the popular modern interest in
ordaining women as Catholic priests.
Jesus and Spiritual Equality
• Genesis had already taught that men and women are
•
•
•
•
•
both made in the image of God.
Jesus gave this doctrine of the spiritual equality of the
sexes new emphasis by his actions and by his words.
He healed and forgave and loved both men and women.
He responded to the intercession of both men and
women.
His parables and prophecies cite both men and women.
He elicited professions of faith from both men and
women.
The Parables
• In his parables Jesus highlights the spiritual
•
•
•
equality of the sexes in two ways.
First, he expects everyone to see the personal
application in a parable that involves only one
sex:
Everyone is to see himself in the parable of the
wise and foolish virgins, for instance, or in the
parable of the talents.
Second, he often gives pairs of parables, one
about a woman, the other about a man.
Pairs of Parables
• The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed
•
that a man plants, like leaven that a woman
mixes in the dough (Matt. 13:31-33, Luke 13:1821).
Rejoicing over one repentant sinner is like the
joy a man leads his friends in when he finds his
one lost sheep, or the joy a woman leads her
friends in when she has found her one lost coin
(Luke 15:4-10).
Innovative
• It was innovative of Jesus to use pairs of
•
•
sexually balanced examples as often as he did.
This is not to say that he always gave a pair of
examples; but he did so much more than was
usual.
Such pairs are “really quite rare” in the Jewish
haggadah, according to Jewish scholar Tal Ilan
(Mine and Yours are Hers: Retrieving Women’s
History from Rabbinic Literature [1997], p. 269).
Defense of Jesus’ Purpose
• However, Ilan also doubts the value and
•
•
historicity of Jesus’ use of paired examples,
because some other instances of it can be found
in antiquity (p. 272).
Her reasoning is not sound, though: Simply
because a few other examples can be found
does not mean that Jesus must have mindlessly
used sexually balanced examples.
Moreover, for Christians who believe Jesus was
and is God incarnate, it is proper to recognize
his words as deliberate.
Pairs of OT Saints
• Jesus also gives sexually balanced examples of
•
•
faith from the Old Testament.
Speaking of faith outside the Jews, he cites the
widow of Zarephath, to whom Elijah was sent,
and then Naaman, whom Eli healed (Luke 4:2427).
Moral authority can reside in both men and
women: Jesus prophesies that the Ninevites and
the Queen of the South will rise up and
condemn those who do not acknowledge Christ
(Matt. 12:41-42, Luke 11:29-32).
Balance of Sexes in Art
• Briefly looking ahead from the NT, one sees that the
•
•
•
•
Church imitated the Lord in representing both men and
women in art.
For instance, here is a famous image, the Anastasis
(“The Resurrection), showing both Adam and Eve being
delivered from Hell.
The icon of the “Holy Ancestors” of Christ can be named
the “Holy Fathers and Mothers.”
Other artworks show both men and women entering
heaven, etc.
In some churches, half the decoration depicts men and
the other half, women.
Focus on Women
• Other artworks focus on women.
• Consider a recent icon, written by Diane Plaskon
•
Koory, which you may have seen on the poster
for this talk: the Handmaiden Icon, showing
several holy women.
The icon was used with the kind permission of
Conciliar Press (www.conciliarpress.com). It was
commissioned for the Chapel of SS. Peter and
Paul, of the Midwest Chancery of the Antiochian
Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North
America, in Toledo.
Basis for this: Jesus
• The basis for artists depicting both the
balance of the sexes and also the focus on
women is the emphasis Our Lord gave to
the spiritual equality of the sexes.
Pairs in Prophecy
• Jesus’ description of the coming of the Son of
•
Man is rich in male and female examples:
The man on the housetop and the man in the
field are not to turn back but to remember Lot’s
wife. Of two men in bed, only one will be taken;
of two women grinding, only one will be taken.
Woe to those who give suck in those days (Matt.
24:17-19, 40-41; Luke 17:30-35).
Spiritual Equality in Art
• Early Christian art often shows a balanced
•
•
•
representation of the sexes.
This visually shows forth the spiritual equality of
the sexes.
For instance, on the Brescia Casket (4th c.) both
a man and a woman are shown being healed
and a different man and woman are shown
being resuscitated.
Furthermore, the resuscitations occurred at the
intercession of a man and a woman.
The Brescia Casket, 4th c.
The woman with the flux of blood
Left side
Jairus’ daughter resuscitated
Right side
The blind man healed
Lazarus resuscitated
Equal agency
• Consider the events depicted on the Brescia
•
•
•
Casket in terms of male and female agency.
Both a woman and a man approached Jesus for
personal healing, and he gave it.
Both a man, Jairus, and two women, Martha and
Mary of Bethany, approached Jesus to ask him
to heal loved ones who died before Jesus
arrived, and Jesus resuscitated them.
Clearly both sexes are able 1) to approach the
Lord on their own behalf and 2) to intercede for
others.
Forgiveness, Love
• Jesus forgives the woman taken in adultery
•
•
(John 8:2-11) and he forgives the paralytic
before he heals him (Matt. 9:1-8, Mark 2:1-12,
Luke 5:17-26), although in neither case was
Jesus asked for forgiveness.
He is reported by John to love all three siblings
of Bethany, Lazarus, Mary and Martha (John
11:5).
This is further evidence of the spiritual equality
of the sexes.
Bibliography
• Patricia Ranft, Women and Spiritual Equality in Christian
Tradition (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998).
• Tkacz, “The Doctrinal Context for Interpreting Women as
•
•
Types of Christ,” Studia Patristica 40 (2006) 253-57.
Tkacz, The Key to the Brescia Casket: Typology and the
Early Christian Imagination (Turnhout: Brepols, Notre
Dame, 2001), see index.
Tkacz, “Jesus and the Spiritual Equality of Women,”
Fellowship of Catholic Scholars 24.4 (Fall, 2001) 24-29.
Peter and Martha
• Critical for tonight’s topic are two professions of faith,
•
•
•
•
one made by Peter after the Bread of Life sermon (John
6:35-60) and the other by Martha of Bethany at the
threshold of her brother’s tomb (John 11).
Both Peter and Martha affirm their faith at moments of
excruciating difficulty.
In each case, the Lord elicits a statement of faith.
In each case, the Lord responds with an historically
important act.
These two, quite different acts manifest the iconic
complementarity of the sexes.
Christian Innovation:
Women as Types of Christ
• A striking way of showing that women, equally
•
•
with men, are called to be holy was introduced
in the first century, in the Gospels: interpreting
women, alongside men, as types of Christ.
Previously only Jewish men, such as Moses and
David and Jonah, had been interpreted by the
Jews as prefigurations of the Messiah.
Then Jesus made himself a model for his
followers to imitate, saying that the one who
would follow the Lord must take up his cross
daily and follow him.
Gentile and Female Types
• At once, Gentile and also female types of Christ
•
became appropriate, even necessary. The
gentile Melchisedek and the woman Susanna
were interpreted as types of Christ in the New
Testament.
Soon other women gained this role: Jephthah’s
daughter, Jairus’ daughter, Judith, the widow of
Zarephath, Ruth, and the woman in the parable
who finds the lost coin.
Balanced Pairs of Types
• Sometimes the early Church presented a male
•
•
and a female type of Christ together, giving a
sexually balanced pair of models for the faithful
to imitate.
For instance, at Mount Sinai and at the Red Sea
one finds a pair of depictions in the sanctuary:
Isaac and Jephthah’s daughter.
On the Brescia Casket, both Daniel and Susanna
are depicted prominently, as types of Christ.
Bibliography by Tkacz
• “Typology Today,” New Blackfriars (in press).
• “’Here Am I, Lord’: Preaching Jephthah’s
•
•
Daughter as a Type of Christ,” The Downside
Review 434 (2006): 21-32.
“Aneboesen phonei megalei: Susanna and the
Synoptic Passion Narratives,” Gregorianum 87.3
(2006): 449-86.
“The Doctrinal Context for Interpreting Women
as Types of Christ,” Studia Patristica 40 (2006):
253-57.
Bibliography, cont’d
• “Susanna victrix, Christus victor: Lenten
•
•
Sermons, Typology and the Lectionary,” in
Speculum Sermonis, ed. Donavin et al.
(Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), pp. 55-79.
“Women as Types of Christ: Susanna and
Jephthah’s Daughter,” Gregorianum 85.2 (2004):
281-314.
“Susanna as a Type of Christ,” Studies in
Iconography 21 (1999): 101-53.
Peter
• Peter: “We have believed and have known that
•
•
you are the Christ, the Son of God” (John 6:70).
Following Peter’s affirmation of faith, the Lord
declared him the Rock on which Jesus will build
his church.
Peter had already been one of the twelve
disciples; now his special responsibilities and
authority were indicated.
Martha
• Martha: “Yes, Lord, I know (pisteuo) that you
•
•
are the Christ, the Son of God who has come
into the world” (John 11:27).
This affirmation is more complete than Peter’s,
yet Martha was not one of the twelve, and the
Lord did not respond to her profession by
making her one.
After all the Lord had done to make clear that he
emphasizes the spiritual equality of the sexes, it
is reasonable to see the difference here as
deliberate and purposeful on the part of Jesus.
Profound Response to Martha
Following Martha’s affirmation of faith, the Lord performed
the greatest miracle of his entire ministry: He
resuscitated Lazarus.
• Jairus’ daughter had been dead only a matter of
minutes; the son of the widow of Nain had been dead
long enough that his body was being taken for burial,
but Lazarus had been in the tomb for three days.
• This miracle was the strongest evidence that Jesus had
ever given that he had the power of God, and Jesus
performed this miracle in response to a woman’s
demonstration of faith.
Further implications
• Moreover, this miracle foreshadowed the Lord’s
•
•
own resurrection, which occurred one week
later.
Finally, this raising also remains a type of the
resurrection of the faithful at the end of time.
In light of this, what meaning is in the fact that
a woman’s faith prompted the miracle?
Iconic Complementarity
• The iconic complementarity of the sexes (to use
•
•
•
the words of the late Pope John Paul II) is seen
in Peter and Martha here.
Peter is a priest, and the Rock of the Church.
Martha is pre-eminently one of the faithful: She
is a type of the individual soul, and she is also a
type of the Church Herself.
Spiritually equal, and sharing equally in the
universal vocation to holiness, this man and
woman also demonstrate dynamically the
spiritual mystery of sexual difference.
The Mystery of the Priesthood
• In mystery, God reserves the priesthood to those
•
•
•
men whom he calls.
The original Levitical priesthood was established
at the foundation of community worship at Sinai
and involved only men descended from Levi.
The new priesthood established by Jesus is no
longer genetically limited, and it involves God’s
calling the priest, but, in mystery, it remains all
male.
This is shown by Jesus’ deliberate choice of men
for the twelve.
Contrary views
• Since the Enlightenment, however, and
especially in the past fifty years, some
have asserted that there are limits to how
authoritative Jesus and the Gospels are.
• If these limits exist, they undercut the
basis for believing that the priesthood is
all male.
• Thus, we will look in some detail at this.
The views
• Some hold that Jesus was socially limited, that he
•
•
•
•
pragmatically accommodated his actions to what the
prevailing culture would accept.
Others hold that he was limited in his understanding.
Some hold that he was limited in his ability to determine
the Gospel record.
Some explicitly hold that he was not God and was too
unenlightened to value women.
Others hold that Jesus had no active influence after his
death and that the male disciples misrepresented his
ministry and purpose, wrongfully excluding women.
1. Socially Limited
• The mildest of these views is that Jesus was limited by
•
•
•
the social norms of Jerusalem in the first century.
That is, he chose only male disciples because he knew
that no one would follow him if he had women among
the twelve. With this view, one can still think him God.
The assumption is that he always intended that
eventually women would be priests and that the time for
this has come.
However, given all that the Lord did that shocked Jewish
sensibilities, and given the prominence he gave to
women, it appears that he would have called women to
be among the twelve if he had wanted women to be
priests.
2. Intellectually Limited
• Some modern academics hold that Jesus was
•
•
personally limited in his understanding.
Conveniently, that view allows the critic to
improve or correct Jesus, on the assumption
that the critic is more enlightened than the Lord.
That view is beautifully skewered by C.S. Lewis
in the character of the “Episcopal Ghost” in
Lewis’ The Great Divorce (1946):
The “Episcopal Ghost”
• “People always forget that Jesus (here the Ghost
•
bowed) was a comparatively young man when
he died. He would have outgrown some of his
earlier views, you know, if he had lived. …
Consider what his mature views would have
been. …What a different Christianity we might
have had if only the Founder had reached his full
stature.”
(Lewis, The Great Divorce [1946], ch. 5, end)
“The Son of Man”
• The “Episcopal Ghost” is not alone. Jesus is seen
as barely average by many scholars: He lacked
the intellectual ability and imagination to
correlate his actions and thoughts with the
Scriptures. For instance, the Gospels record
numerous statements attributed to Jesus using
the phrase “Son of Man.” Maurice Casey doubts
that Jesus actually said any of these sayings
because in order to do so he would have had to
understand them. – Son of Man, p. 167.
“The Son of Man,” cont.
• In a bit of circular reasoning, after Casey
discounts the scriptural evidence that
Jesus often used the phrase "Son of Man“
(Dan. 7), then Casey asserts that Dan. 7
"was not an important formative influence
on the thought of Jesus"; ibid., p. 202.
Defense of Jesus’ Words
• Only a minority hold that Jesus was deliberately quoting
•
Daniel and calling himself “the Son of Man.”
Raymond E. Brown, S.S., soundly argues that if one
holds that “later Christians ‘retrojected’ the phrase onto
Jesus, then "one faces two major difficulties: Why was
this title so massively retrojected, being placed on Jesus’
lips on a scale far outdistancing the retrojection of ‘the
Messiah,’ ‘the Son of God,’ and ‘the Lord’? And if this title
was first fashioned by the early church, [not Jesus,] why
has it left almost no traces in nonGospel NT literature,
something not true of the other titles?” –Death of the
Messiah (1994), 507.
• Reason suggests that Jesus’ followers were
•
•
influenced by him and uses his ideas and words.
Yet, a "radical principle" used by many biblical
scholars is to assume that if "the vocabulary of a
saying" in the Gospels is also found in the NT
Epistles, then "it cannot safely be attributed to
Jesus."
Brown notes that "such a principle guarantees
deformity in understanding Jesus" (2:1481).
Bibliography: Son of Man
• Raymond E. Brown, S.S., Death of the
Messiah (1994).
• Chrys Caragounis, The Son of Man: Vision
and Interpretation (1986)
• Extreme case of limiting Jesus: Maurice
Casey, Son of Man: The Interpretation of
Daniel 7 (1979)
Correcting Jesus,
revising the priesthood
• Those who arrogate to themselves the
•
•
presumed power to correct and edit Jesus can
easily make the step to revising what the
priesthood should be.
It is popular today to attempt to remake the
Church on a socially egalitarian model, without
regard to grace and the sacraments.
However, while the Church is social, it is not
merely social, and priesthood is a vocation, not
merely a job.
3. Jesus unable to guide Church
• Some hold that Jesus was unable to prevent his
•
•
patriarchal disciples from misrepresenting him
and his teaching.
For instance, it has been claimed that women
were present at the Last Supper, but that the
bigoted evangelists suppressed this information.
Ultimately, however, this view has to mean that
Christianity is invalid. Instead of meaning that
women should be priests, it would mean that
there is no real priesthood.
4. Jesus as social product
• Whereas Lewis’ “Episcopal Ghost” thought Jesus would
•
•
have discarded his juvenile views, many modern critics
simply suggest that he was a social product of late
antiquity, and incapable of their enlightened views.
Implicit in their thought is that Jesus was just a man.
Often implied in their argument is that the Incarnation is
a fiction invented by manipulative men like Peter and
Paul.
Many who claim to seek “the historical Jesus” in fact
assume, as an unquestioned article of faith, that Jesus
was not God. The “Jesus Seminar” advances and
popularizes this unChristian view.
The Jesus Seminar
• A group of fewer than 200 academics, mostly associated
•
•
•
with Harvard and Claremont, claim the authority to
identify as fictitious various parts of the Gospel.
They are quite dogmatic about their idiosyncratic beliefs.
They reject as “inauthentic” the Gospel records of Jesus’
prophecies, his references to the Old Testament, most of
the Our Father, and the accounts of Jesus’ birth, death
and resurrection. Having censored all that is Jewish in
Jesus, they find him to be Greco-Roman culturally.
They accept as valid gospels sixteen other texts, most
written 2-3 centuries after the canonical Gospels.
Bibliography: Jesus Seminar
• Philip Jenkins, Hidden Gospels: How the Search
for Jesus Lost Its Way (Oxford, New York:
•
Oxford University Press, 2001).
Birger A. Pearson, "The Gospel According to the
Jesus Seminar," Occasional Papers, 35
(Claremont Graduate School, Institute for
Antiquity and Christianity: April, 1996), available
online: http://www.veritasucsb.org/library/pearson/seminar/home.html
Jesus as bad, patriarchal
• Kathleen E. Corley of the Jesus Seminar severely
•
•
•
criticizes Jesus as patriarchal in her book Women
and the Historical Jesus (2002).
Poor reasoning and manipulation characterize
her study.
She uses the Jesus Seminar’s radically truncated
Gospels and thus rejects as “inauthentic” many
of the actions and words of Jesus concerning
women.
Where she retains his words, she misrepresents
them.
Corley’s misogynistic Jesus
• Two examples show her manipulation.
• First, she treats two parables involving women,
•
•
the woman who finds the lost coin and the
woman who kneads the leaven into the dough
(Luke 13:20-21, 15:8-10).
These are in fact positive parables, with the
women acting successfully.
Corley, though, interprets each idiosyncratically:
Corley’s View
• “The images of women in these parables are
•
•
hardly complimentary. One loses a coin worth
two days sustenance, … another overproduces
bread; the point of the parable is made at each
woman’s expense.”
(Corley, Women & the Historical Jesus, 57)
This is a strained and unusual reading.
Corley ignores Sexual Balance
• Note that Corley also fails to treat these parables
•
in the context of the parables Jesus paired with
them, namely, the man who sows the mustard
seed and the shepherd who finds the lost sheep
(Luke 13:18-19, 15:4-7).
If the women in the parables are failures, so are
the men. Of course, in a fair reading none of
them are failures.
Corley’s scandalous charge
• Startling is Corley’s assertion that Jesus was
•
•
•
guilty of “repeating a gender stereotype that
labeled [the women who followed him] ‘whores’”
(p. 142, also p. 4).
The one piece of evidence Corley offers to
support this charge is Matt. 21:31-32.
Again Corley is idiosyncratic in how she
interprets the passage.
Again she ignores comparison with men.
Matthew 21:31-32, context
• The context is that the chief priests and Elders
have asked Jesus by what authority he teaches,
and he has countered by asking them whether
John’s baptism was from heaven or from men.
They deny knowing (vv. 23-27). He then asks,
which son did his father’s will, the son who first
refuses to serve, but then does, or the one who
first says he will, but then does not? The Elders
reply that the first son served. Then Jesus
makes the statement Corley objects to:
Matthew 21:31-32
• “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes
•
(pornai) are going into the Kingdom of God ahead of
you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness,
and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and
the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it,
you did not change your minds and believe him. “
First, this passage does not refer to all women who
follow Jesus: it refers to some men and women who
believed John. Based on this, Corley’s equation of
“whore = follower of Jesus” is unreasonable.
Corley ignores Sexual Balance
• Second, Jesus has offered a pair of sexually
•
•
balanced examples of repentant sinners who are
redeemed, the male being the tax collectors and
the female being the prostitutes.
Corley has ignored Jesus’ reference here to men,
just as she did in his sexually balanced parables.
Only by ignoring this information can she
pretend that Jesus is misogynistic.
5. Disciples ruined the Church
• Another view, related to ones already
•
•
mentioned, implies that Jesus had no ability to
influence his followers after his death.
Specifically, the claim is made that the disciples
invalidated their priesthood by running away
from the passion, and that the women by
remaining faithful became the only proper
persons to be priests.
This view has a strange reading of the Gospels:
Arbitrary Selection
• This view treats part of the Gospels as accurate, namely
•
•
•
in reporting that the men ran away and that the women
came to the tomb.
But it ignores much of the narratives.
The Gospels report that the resurrected Lord gave the
commission to baptize and the power to forgive sins to
the eleven remaining disciples, for instance, and that
does not fit this view.
This view is based on an immature hermeneutic of
accepting some passages because “I like them” and
rejecting others because “I don’t like them.”
Criticisms of Jesus’ Authority
• The five criticisms that seem to undermine
Jesus’ authority have all been shown to
fail.
• This seems to indicate that his selection of
men for his new priesthood is valid and
ought still to be normative.
Women, Justice and Priesthood
• Many fine works have been written
addressing the issues and arguments
offered to support the idea of ordaining
women.
• Here is a brief bibliography:
Bibliography: Roman Catholic
• Benedict Ashley, O.P., Justice in the Church:
Gender and Participation (Washington, D.C.: The
•
Catholic University of America Press, 1996).
Manfred Hauke, Women in the Priesthood? A
•
(San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988)
Francis Martin, The Feminist Question: Feminist
Systematic Analysis in the Light of the Order of
Creation and Redemption, trans. David Kipp
Theology in the Light of Christian Tradition
(Grand Rapids, Mich.: Wm. B. Eerdmann’s,
1994).
Bibliography: Orthodox
• God and Gender, a special double-issue of
Saint Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly
37.2-3 (1993).
:
Final Case
• A particular instance of how the Church has
•
•
shown great respect for the spiritual equality of
the sexes is a fitting topic to conclude tonight’s
presentation.
This phenomenon was created by the Church in
order to insure that women could receive the
sacraments of life in full, Baptism, Chrismation,
Eucharist, Anointing.
The historical circumstances which made it
necessary no longer exist, so many people have
not even heard of it…
Eastern Deaconesses
• The historical phenomenon of female deacons is a
•
•
•
striking expression of the Church’s doctrine of the
spiritual equality of the sexes.
In Semitic and Eastern cultures of extreme modesty,
when nude adult baptism was the norm, the Church was
concerned to insure that women could receive the full
sacraments of baptism and chrismation while preserving
their modesty.
In the third century the Didascalion attests female
deacons, who assisted women in these sacraments
Other sources indicate deacons also visited housebound
sick women.
Syrian diaconal abbesses
• Diaconal abbesses among the Syrian
•
•
Monophysites had the greatest range of duties
assigned to female deacons.
If no male clergy was present, the abbess could
distribute Communion to the nuns and read the
Epistle and Gospel at liturgies attended solely by
women.
Again, the clear intent is to insure that women
are enabled to have as full a sacramental life as
possible.
Limited roles
• All the documents present deaconesses as having these
•
•
•
few, practical sacramental roles, and not the full range of
duties of male deacons.
It shows how highly the Church esteems women, that it
conducted ordinations of women deacons.
This occurred in the same liturgy with male deacons,
even though it is clear that the scope of duties was
never identical.
For instance, after the ordinations, the new male
deacons would proceed to assist in administering the
Eucharist, while the female deacons did not.
Infant baptism
• When infant baptism became the norm, the
•
•
need for female deacons waned and they ceased
to be ordained.
The documents attesting their ordination have
been available in mainstream editions since the
nineteenth century.
Much of the evidence comes from saints’ Lives,
which describe women deacons assisting at
baptism.
Recent claims
• Recently, Orthodox scholars who are
radical feminists have focused on the
female deacons of the past.
• They consider the facts out of context,
and treat very slight pieces of evidence
idiosyncratically, in order to seem to show
that women today ought to be ordained as
deacons and all clerical orders.
NT evidence
• In the New Testament, the word “servant”
•
(diaconos) is often used, sometimes meaning
simply a servant, sometimes meaning a deacon,
famously, Stephen.
In the same way, in the Gospels the word
“disciple” is often used, sometimes meaning in
general a follower of Jesus and sometimes
meaning one of the twelve.
“Deaconess”
• The feminine form of the word servant
(diaconissa) is found twice in the Epistles.
• It is not clear that the word has a
technical meaning here, or what precisely
the word implies.
• Clearly the women in question serve the
church, but no details survive.
Inflated Claims
• Those who currently want women to be
•
•
ordained to the priesthood tend to refer to the
NT references to deaconesses as if they proved
the existence of an established clerical order.
That is anachronistic.
St. Paul writes of persons of different ages and
walks of life, giving instruction in morals for
them, but this does not mean that there was a
formal “order” of widows, anymore than there
were formal “orders” of masters and slaves.
Ordination Rites
• The third-century Didascalia and the eighth•
•
century Barberini Codex contain ordination rites
for deaconesses.
Actual ordination of deaconesses occurred in
Constantinople and some parts of Asia Minor,
especially Syria.
The evidence suggests that the Church so
revered the sacraments of Baptism, Chrismation,
and Communion, that the women who assisted
in administering these rites were themselves
ordained to a kind of diaconate.
“minor order” or “major order”?
• Valerie Karras argues at length that female deacons were
•
•
•
considered a “major order,” along with bishop, priest,
and deacon
She admits that it is anachronistic to apply the
distinction of “minor” and “major orders” to the early
Church (“Female Deacons,” p. 290, n. 76, 296).
It would be like trying to find in the Gospels every
technical term concerning the sacraments or doctrine.
However, her purpose is to suggest that women should
be priests, and she considers that goal to be advanced
by claiming that deaconess was a major order (pace p.
315).
Amending a single document
•
•
•
•
Critical to her argument is a single text.
To make use of it, she also alters the text.
That is a very slender base of support.
Specifically, Council of Nicaea (in 325), canon
19, “regulated the manner in which Paulinist
clergy were to be received into the catholic
Church, requiring re-baptism and re-ordination
(Karras, “Female Deacons, 287).
Nicaea on deaconesses
• Karras continues: “Deaconesses were specifically banned
•
•
from ordination because, the canon states, ‘since they
have received no laying on of hands (cheirothesian tina),
[they] are thus to be counted among the laity” (p. 288).
Jerome Cotsonis suggests changing the word tina to
tines so that the canon would mean: “since some of
these women have received no laying on of hands,
[they] are thus to be counted among the laity” (p. 289).
Introducing this change implies that some deaconesses
were ordained by this time.
Implications of Deaconesses
• The evidence suggests that the female
•
diaconate arose when there was need to
preserve women’s modesty during nude baptism
and ceased when the norm became infant
baptism.
Given that deaconesses never had the full
sacramental duties of male deacons, their past
existence does not indicate that women today
could be ordained to the diaconate, let alone to
the priesthood.
Exaggerated Implications
• Karras, however, ignores the evident purpose of
•
the female diaconate when she makes her
conclusion.
She urges that the only reason women deacons
did not have duties identical with male deacons
was “the Byzantine ideology of the private role
of women versus the public role of men”
–
(p. 316; also “Women,” p. 5).
Disingenuousness
• Repeatedly Karras and her supporters
deny that her purpose is to argue for the
ordination of women to the priesthood.
• However, she suggests that since
deaconesses did so much when there was
an “ideological” limit on them, “what
might we do … in the 21st century?”
(“Women,” p. 5).
Parallel with Jesus Seminar
• Intriguingly, Karras and the advocates of
the Jesus Seminar make some of the
same logical errors:
• They exaggerate how old the evidence is.
• They exaggerate the implications of the
evidence.
• In each case, they are seeking to remake
the Church in their own image.
Bibliography
• Jerome Cotsonis, “A Contribution to he 10th
•
•
Canon of the First Ecumenical Council,” Revue
des etudes byzantines 19(1961) 190ff.
Valerie A. Karras, “Female Deacons in the
Byzantine Church,” Church History 73.2
(Summer 2004).
Karras, “Women in the Byzantine Liturgy,” public
lecture, Pittsburgh, May 8, 2006. On CD.
Conclusion
• Jesus gave a new emphasis to the spiritual
•
•
equality of the sexes, and his followers
embraced this doctrine.
Women have always had equal access to the
sacraments of life—baptism, chrismation
(confirmation), anointing, Eucharist– even when
the Church had to create female deacons to
insure that women had this access.
At the same time, in mystery, Christ’s new
priesthood remains reserved to men whom God
calls.
• The very fact that Jesus and the early
Church gave such impressive emphasis to
the spiritual equality of the sexes
highlights the fact that Our Lord’s
selection of men and only men for the
twelve was His free choice, not a culturally
conditioned mistake that has to be
corrected now.
Four Suggestions
for negotiating controversy
• In class work and in conversations, keep
four thoughts in mind when treating
scholarship-• 1) To report is not the same as to affirm.
• 2) Quote your sources.
• 3) Creatively avoid false dichotomies.
• 4) If Christian, keep in mind the goal…
• Our goal is to understand and to grow in
•
knowledge, to seek to live in the communion of
saints, while recognizing that some who are to
be saints do not yet believe in sanctity.
Believing that every human person is called to
be holy, we are to live and conduct our
conversations in such a way as to help each
other to be holy.
• We are each of us, male and female, young and
•
•
•
old, called by our Creator to be saintly, heavenly
-- to become living images of God.
That is the universal vocation to holiness.
The vocation to the Catholic priesthood is, in
mystery, reserved to men whom God calls.
In our spiritual equality, however, every one of
us is called to be holy.
Additional Bibliography
• For a comprehensive summary of traditions
•
•
concerning women in the Church, see the
following:
Tkacz, “Women and the Church in the New
Millennium,” St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly
(in press).
The chapter on “Women in the Church” in Tkacz,
Theological Reflections on the Ruthenian Liturgy
in English: Language, Women, and Worship
(Pittsburgh: Stauropegion Press, in press).
Additional Bibliography
• On the importance of women’s words in the
•
•
liturgy and in the prayer life of the faithful, see
also:
C. B. Tkacz, “Singing Women’s Words as
Sacramental Mimesis,” Recherches de Theologie
et Philosophie Medievales 70.2 (2003): 275-328.
_______, “Reproductive Science and the
Incarnation,” Fellowship of Catholic Scholars
Quarterly 25.4 (2001) 11-25.