Liturgies

Thursday, May 26th 2016

Gender Equality and St Paul

By Liz Little

Earlier this year we considered how our sacred scripture contributes to our concept of gender equality.  We looked at the Old Testament and at the Gospels.  Today I want to look at what the letters of St Paul have to say about gender equality.

A lot has been written about St Paul and gender equality. Many of the scholars reinforce one another’s ideas and I find it hard to know who developed each ides first.

So, these are the people whose work I am drawing on today.  They may or may not have been the original scholars.

Early Church

The writings of St Paul are important.

He wrote during the period that some refer to as The Early Church. The period of the Early Church is important. It represents the time when the first communities were trying to live according to the teachings of Jesus, a time before the teachings had been corrupted by other influences.  So, it’s the period we return to for authenticity.

The letters of St Paul are also believed to have been the first writings of the New Testament, preceding all four gospels.  It’s thought that this, too, increases the chance that the letters most authentically record the teachings of Jesus.

So, in the quest for the authentic Christian life, we return to those early communities and we return to St Paul’s letters to them, his guidelines.

Of course, there is a problem with St Paul and gender equality.  His writings are full of contradictions.

St Paul tells the community in Galatia that there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28)  And yet he advises Timothy that women must be silent and submissive. (1 Timothy 2: 11-12)

So, we need to make some sense out of the contradictions, if we are to understand Jesus’ teachings on gender equality.

Authenticity

The first thing the scholars want us remember about the letters of St Paul is that St Paul didn’t write them; well, not all of them.

There are fourteen letters in that section of the New Testament.

In the letter to the Hebrews, there is no claim that it was written by Paul.

Many of the letters begin with Paul identifying himself and greeting the leaders of the community.  The letter to the Hebrews does not begin this way at all.

There is consensus among the scholars that the two letters to Timothy and the one to Titus were written in Paul's name but long after his death.

There is also considerable doubt that he wrote the letters to the Colossians or the Ephesians or the second letter to the Thessalonians.

So, of the fourteen letters, seven are considered to be authentic, three uncertain and four written much later.

The reasons for the rejections of the other letters vary from letter to letter, but include some of these:

  1. They were vastly different in style and vocabulary from the undisputed letters;
  1. They used vocabulary that didn’t come into common use until the 2nd century; yet Paul died long before the first century ended, in 67 CE or AD;
  1. They contain 2nd century theology;
  1. The content suggests a church much more powerful and advanced than Paul’s communities;
  1. They reflect knowledge of the synoptic gospels before the gospels had been written.

So, can we conclude that Paul’s followers were trying to be deceitful in writing in his name after he had died?  Not necessarily.

The scholars suspect that his followers tried to continue to have him give advice to the various Christian communities.  The problem is that their advice, in terms of gender equality, contradicted Paul’s earlier advice.

The scholars speculate as to why Paul’s followers did that.  It could have been to avoid persecution; that Paul’s followers modified gender teachings to bring them more into line with Roman cultural mores to make everyone’s lives easier.

Or it could be that Paul’s successors came to accept Roman culture; that over time they became more socialized into it and saw it as the norm.

It could also be that the later writings represent a church that was becoming more patriarchal.

Whatever the reasons for the changes in the attitudes, the later writings, those of Paul’s followers, are probably less useful for interpreting Jesus’ teachings because other factors had started to have an impact.

So the feminist scripture scholars are able to put aside Paul’s most contentious teaching, that to Timothy, because St Paul himself probably did not write that letter and so did not say that

a woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. ... (and) do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. (1 Timothy 2:11-12)

It seems unlikely that it reflects the original understandings of Jesus’ teaching on gender equality.  It seems most likely that it was written much later by one of Paul’s followers.

Editing

So we can dismiss some of contradictions in Paul by separating the authentic Pauline letters from those written later.

But that dreadful advice to Timothy about silence is also found in First Corinthians, one of the authentic letters.

Women ... are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate. ... It is shameful for a woman to speak in church. (1 Cor 14: 34-35)

The scholars believe that some of the authentic letters were edited and passages added.

So how they we know what is original Pauline advice and what was added later?

The scholars identify certain criteria for that.

Firstly, if a passage has been added, the text before and after it should read just as well or better without it.

In Corinthians, the text before the silence passage is about prophesy.

And the text after it is about prophesy.

The silence passage is not about prophesy.

It’s about women.  In fact, it interrupts the advice about prophecy.  So, the scholars believe that it was added later, and it probably does not reflect the authentic teaching of Jesus regarding women.

…………………………………

Another criterion for establishing that text had been added later is that the teaching should not contradict other teachings from the same person.

In an earlier chapter of the same letter to the Corinthians, Paul refers very clearly to women speaking in church.

 

Any man who prays or prophesies with something on his head disgraces his head, but any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled disgraces her head (1Cor 11: 4-5)

It is actually a teaching about veils, but that is not the issue here, so let’s not be distracted by the veils.

The fact is that the text assumes that women pray aloud and prophesize in church.  There is no reprimand for it in chapter 11 of First Corinthians, yet there is in chapter 14, where women are told to be silent in church.  The earlier chapter is in line with the majority of the authentic letters.  The later text is not.  It was most likely added later.

There are other criteria for separating original and supplementary text, but I’m sure we’ve got the idea.

Leaders

 

The authentic letters abound with references to women, not in silent submission, but in leadership.

In the first letter to the community at Corinth, Paul refers to information he has received from Chloe’s people, implying that Chloe, a female, was the leader of that house church.

Also in his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul greets Aquila and Prisca, together with the church in their house (1 Cor 16:19).  

He refers here to a male and female couple who were known to have been active in three major centres of early Christianity.  We see here joint church leadership, gender equality.

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul entreats two women, to agree in the Lord. (Philippians 4:2)

For their disagreement to cause problems in the community, the scholars feel that they must have been significant people in that community.

St Paul also refers to the two women as his fellow workers (Philippians 4:3), indicating their equal status with himself, a male.

Several other Christian women in Rome are commended for their hard work: Tryphaena, Tryphosa, the beloved Persis, Mary, Julia and Nereus’ sister (Romans 16).  Their being singled out indicates Paul’s respect for their ministries.

Paul commends, Phoebe, a deacon and a financial backer of his mission.

He greets Junia as an apostle, just as he describes himself.

All One in Christ Jesus

It is worth noting that one of Paul’s most well known teachings comes from one of his authentic letters.

He advises the Galatians that within Christian communities, everyone is equal.  For those who have been baptized in Christ, there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. (Galatians 3:28)

Gender Equality

What the scripture scholars seek to do is to separate the authentic Pauline letters from those written later or edited later.  They want to identify the original teachings in the period closest to the time of Jesus.  The feminist scripture scholars want to see particularly how the early church managed gender equality before other factors impacted upon its authenticity.

In his book, Saving Jesus from the Church, Robin Meyers says that we are all responsible for going back, as much as possible, to the earliest and most authentic record of (Jesus’) message.  And those teachings clearly show gender equality.

Our take home message is that the communities who first and probably most accurately lived out Jesus’ teaching did so respecting both male and female. They created communities in which all people experienced dignity and empowerment.  Clearly, if we are to live authentic Christian lives, we are called to re-create that world, a world that lives Jesus’ message at its most authentic, a world of equality - equal power and equal respect, a world where both genders have a right to dignity and where all are one in Christ Jesus.