Women Spiritual Directors of Church Fathers

Abstract

Given the scarcity of documents written by women during late antiquity and the early medieval period, only rarely do we have the opportunity to hear a woman’s voice discussing spiritual matters and direction. Nevertheless, we can establish beyond doubt that women were spiritual directors who formed their own spirituality and who directed others according to that spirituality. If all humanity is made in the image of God (Gen 1:26), if there be neither male nor female before God (Gal 3:28), and if all people are called to “the very holiness of God” (2 Cor 5:21), then there is nothing extraordinary about a woman guiding a man to salvation—a conclusion demonstrated in the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman. The premise that women are men’s spiritual equals is accepted and endorsed in all early Christian sources without exception.1 Once a society acknowledges a belief in women’s spiritual equality then the construction of women’s own spirituality and their exercise of spiritual direction no longer appears surprising. Indeed, they follow logically. As we turn our attention next to late antiquity to identify its women spiritual directors and to see how that society reacted to them, we must be patient. Because there are no extant sources written by women directors during this period, we must rely entirely on the women’s male directees. Fortunately, these sources are abundant, for many of the most prolific and influential writers of the period had women spiritual directors and wrote at length about them and their direction.