Women in Ministry in the Early Church

Abstract

Is the above title an oxymoron? Some would say that it is. One of the major arguments underpinning the rejection of women’s ordination to the priesthood in the papal document Inter insigniores and its later counterpart Ordinatio sacerdotalis can be succinctly stated that “it has never been done.” That argument has served only to deflect the rivers of ink into new courses, as scholars seek to prove either that it has been done or that it has not. Because it is impossible to prove a negative, the “has not” side has generally had the upper hand. Furthermore, until recently the evidence for women as presbyters in early centuries has been sparse. However, the question of “women in ministry” is not to be restricted to their exercise of the ministerial priesthood or their reception of priestly orders, at whatever point in time the presbyterate came to be a distinct order set apart by a particular ceremony. Even the churches of the Catholic tradition (Roman, Anglican, Old Catholic, and Orthodox), while setting apart certain persons for sacramental ministry, nevertheless affirm that ministry is much more widely bestowed and exercised. In what follows I would like to sketch the evidence for women exercising a variety of ministries in the early Church, and not simply (though not excluding)