Where Did All the Women Go? The Erasure of Female Leadership from Church History Throughout its long and complex history, countless Christian women have served in prominent roles. Regrettably, most of their stories have been erased from traditional religious histories.1 From its origins, the Church has had female apostles, deacons, priests, prophets, abbesses, missionaries, bishops, and ministers. Women have also made up the majority of Church attendees. Why have they been erased? Christianity is a tradition that focuses on the worship of what is perceived of as a male God. It could be said, therefore, that the development of patriarchy and misogyny in a religion focused on a male God is not surprising.2 Men wrote the histories of the Church and its rules. When a woman exercised leadership—seen as a male activity—that woman was “operating beyond their allotted sphere.”3 Further, these separate spheres were thought to be natural, even biological, and ordained by God. Because of cultural patriarchy, the histories of women in the Church have too often been stricken from the record. Therefore, the hard work must begin to recover the stories of these female leaders. To examine the role of women in the early Church, one must understand women in broader Hellenistic culture. Very little information about women exists from this period, and that which does exist “represents, for the most part, the viewpoint of men writing about women.”4 Politics and public life was a sphere reserved for men in Christian antiquity. Political life reflected the hierarchy of the home, of which the father was the head. There is, therefore, an inherent and inevitable patriarchal bias to be found in the culture’s records. The New Testament Church based its philosophy on Christ. In contrast to the Hellenistic culture in which the early Church was located, the teachings of Christ were countercultural, including their view of women. Women and men were called disciples of Jesus, they were a “discipleship of equals,” and expressed themselves as such.5 Both women and men heard the teachings of Jesus, and were called to live life by the message of the gospel. Like men, women were baptized, and encouraged to live in service to the Christian community.6
Fresco of a female priest in the early Christian church in the Catacombs of Priscilla in Rome, Italy. Fair use.
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