Davide's Notes

Tomorrow I'm finally off to Italy to celebrate Christmas with relatives, and there will not be much blogging till January 8 or so. Merry Christmas (Buon Natale), then, to the readers of this blog, with the hope that 2005 is going to be a year of Peace.

But lest anybody thinks this post is out of context in the blog, here's a quote from Tertullian that I arbitrarily apply to Christmas (and Tertullian, by the way, like Irenaeus for that matter, did not include Christmas in his list of feasts):

But "let your works shine," saith He; but now all our shops and gates shine! [...] "The things which are Caesar's are to be rendered to Caesar." It is enough that He set in apposition thereto, "and to God the things which are God's." What things, then, are Caesar's? Those, to wit, about which the consultation was then held, whether the poll-tax should be furnished to Caesar or no. Therefore, too, the Lord demanded that the money should be shown Him, and inquired about the image, whose it was; and when He had heard it was Caesar's, said, "Render to Caesar what are Caesar's, and what are God's to God;" that is, the image of Caesar, which is on the coin, to Caesar, and the image of God, which is on man, to God; so as to render to Caesar indeed money, to God yourself. Otherwise, what will be God's, if all things are Caesar's? "Then," do you say, "the lamps before my doors, and the laurels on my posts are an honour to God?" [...]
Amid these reefs and inlets, amid these shallows and straits of idolatry, Faith, her sails filled by the Spirit of God, navigates; safe if cautious, secure if intently watchful. (On Idolatry, XV.XXIV)

The following table compares some early "Rules of Faith". The passages are color coded in this way: Father, Son, and Spirit.

(Epistula Apostolorum, 3) [before 150?]	Hippolytus (Against Noetus, I) [c. 200]	Irenaeus (AH I.X.1-2) [182-188]	Tertullian (De Praescriptione Haereticorum 13) [c. 207]
This know we: that our Lord and Redeemer Jesus Christ is God the Son of God, who was sent of God the Lord of the whole world, the maker and creator of it, who is named by all names, and high above all powers, Lord of lords, King of kings, Ruler of rulers, the heavenly one, that sitteth above the cherubim and seraphim at the right hand of the throne of the Father: who by his word made the heavens, and formed the earth and that which is in it, and set bounds to the sea that it should not pass: the deeps also and fountains [... cf. Gen 1] , and by the fathers of old and the prophets is it declared (or, and spake in parables with the fathers of old and the prophets in verity), of whom the apostles preached, and whom the disciples did touch. In God, the Lord, the Son of God, do we believe, that he is the word become flesh: that of Mary the holy virgin he took a body, begotten of the Holy Ghost, not of the will (lust) of the flesh, but by the will of God: that he was wrapped in swaddling clothes in Bethlehem and made manifest, and grew up and came to ripe age, when also we beheld it.	We too know in truth one God; we know Christ; we know that the Son suffered even as He suffered, and died even as He died, and rose again on the third day, and is at the right hand of the Father, and cometh to judge the living and the dead.	[The Church believes] in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the advents, and the birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and His [future] manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father "to gather all things in one," and to raise up anew all flesh of the whole human race, in order that to Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God, and Saviour, and King, according to the will of the invisible Father, "every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess" to Him, and that He should execute just judgment towards all; that He may send "spiritual wickednesses," and the angels who transgressed and became apostates, together with the ungodly, and unrighteous, and wicked, and profane among men, into everlasting fire; but may, in the exercise of His grace, confer immortality on the righteous, and holy, and those who have kept His commandments, and have persevered in His love, some from the beginning [of their Christian course], and others from [the date of] their repentance, and may surround them with everlasting glory.	[What we defend is] the belief that there is one only God, and that He is none other than the Creator of the world, who produced all things out of nothing through His own Word, first of all sent forth; that this Word is called His Son, and, under the name of God, was seen "in diverse manners" by the patriarchs, heard at all times in the prophets, at last brought down by the Spirit and [brought down by the] Power of the Father into the Virgin Mary, was made flesh in her womb, and, being born of her, went forth as Jesus Christ; thenceforth He preached the new law and the new promise of the kingdom of heaven, worked miracles; having been crucified, He rose again the third day; (then) having ascended into the heavens, He sat at the right hand of the Father; sent instead of Himself the Power of the Holy Ghost to lead such as believe; will come with glory to take the saints to the enjoyment of everlasting life and of the heavenly promises, and to condemn the wicked to everlasting fire, after the resurrection of both these classes shall have happened, together with the restoration of their flesh.

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Categories: Church_History

The post on the Easter controversy clearly lacks an explanation (or at least an attempt thereof) of how it could ever happen that Irenaeus felt at ease with the apparent contradiction of advocating a consistent "catholic" faith and, at the same time, acknowledging that within the same "catholic" community different options could be given, even in important matters.

It seems that the fundamental distinction to be made is between established traditions (and the Asian tradition of celebrating Easter on the 14th of Nisan is acknowledged as a very old one, and admittedly older than the Roman tradition) on the one hand, and teachings that "neither the prophets announced, nor the Lord taught, nor the apostles delivered, but of which [the Gnostics] boast that beyond all others they have a perfect knowledge. They gather their views from other sources than the Scriptures" (AH I.8.1).

And when the Gnostics say they do gather their views from the Scriptures, Irenaeus answers with this well-known passage:

Their manner of acting is just as if one, when a beautiful image of a king has been constructed by some skilful artist out of precious jewels, should then take this likeness of the man all to pieces, should rearrange the gems, and so fit them together as to make them into the form of a dog or of a fox, and even that but poorly executed; and should then maintain and declare that this was the beautiful image of the king which the skilful artist constructed. (AH I.8.1)

Let's now briefly consider Irenaeus' Rule of Faith. It is not only an exposition of the "true beliefs" of the Church given for didactic purposes; it is a summa doctrinae that explains Scriptures, and at the same time it is the only true method for scriptural hermeneutics. Which is to say, all authentic interpretations of Scripture must be in accordance with the Rule, because the Rule sums up the authentic interpretation of Scriptures. Teachings that cannot be validated through the Rule are therefore heretics.

An obvious fallacy of the Rule, of course, is that it only works if there is an agreed set of Scriptures (which was not the case in Irenaeus' time): lacking this, it becomes apparently difficult to maintain that the Rule summarizes Scripture: another case for the pressing urgency to establish a canon.

But, canonical problems aside, there is more: this is not simply a sola scriptura doctrine. There is the fundamental role of tradition, and this is what allows Irenaeus to accomodate, within the same orthodox system, different teachings. But since tradition apparently changes for him with times, and places, we must acknowledge that Irenaeus has in mind a developmental concept of doctrine. Indeed, let's look at how he interprets salvation: he uses the traditional biblical pattern of "creation, transgression, redemption, judgement and final glory" (Hall). The history of salvation is a progressive education (Chadwick). I find the following passage especially interesting:

If, however, any one say, "What then? Could not God have exhibited man as perfect from beginning?" [...] God had power at the beginning to grant perfection to man; but as the latter was only recently created, he could not possibly have received it, or even if he had received it, could he have contained it, or containing it, could he have retained it. It was for this reason that the Son of God, although He was perfect, passed through the state of infancy in common with the rest of mankind, partaking of it thus not for His own benefit, but for that of the infantile stage of man's existence, in order that man might be able to receive Him. (AH IV.38.1-2)

Contrast this with Gnostic thought, linked to the fall from an eternal state of grace, and often leading to devaluation of the earthly condition as a mean to attain the lost perfection. So, salvation is a continuous and dynamic process on earth. From this, we can also derive consequences for hermeneutics: it is itself subject to this dynamic process, and it progresses as man progresses: as Irenaeus says quoting 1 Cor 3:2

on this account does Paul declare to the Corinthians, "I have fed you with milk, not with meat, for hitherto ye were not able to bear it." (loc. cit.)

The case for Christ is that through him humanity can recover the lost likeness of God, and Irenaeus quite naturally quotes Paul and its concept of recapitulation (Eph 1:10), and the parallelism between Christ and Adam. Finally, note that this dynamicity of the human experience is explicitly supported by the Spirit:

man, a created and organized being, is rendered after the image and likeness of the uncreated God, -the Father planning everything well and giving His commands, the Son carrying these into execution and performing the work of creating, and the Spirit nourishing and increasing [what is made], but man making progress day by day, and ascending towards the perfect, that is, approximating to the uncreated One. (AH IV.38.3)

I cannot help but notice that, in this light, Irenaeus is very modern, proposing an hermeneutic that rejects scripture as pure objects and that includes tradition right into the hermenutical process. And, if what I said above about legitimate (according to Irenaeus) changes of tradition in space and in time is true, interpretation has to be validated in a socio-historical context: but in a context that preserves the overall unity of the whole Church.

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Categories: Church_History

Housekeeping time: I've just added a "Printable View" link on the left. This will open a new browser window with only the text of the posts (without buttons, left bar, main heading). The link is available both in the main view and in the individual posts.

In case this interests anybody, here's how I did it. Warning: you need to modify your Blogger template; make sure you save a copy before doing anything else, so that you can always go back to a working template in case something does not go well (or if you don't like the result). You have been warned.

1. I put the following Javascript (slightly modified from this version) in the <head> section of my Blogger template:
   

   <script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">
   var divName = "printableView"; // this is the <div> to print
   
   function printSpecial() {
     if (document.getElementById != null) {
       var html = '<HTML>\n<HEAD>\n';
       if (document.getElementsByTagName != null) {
         var headTags = document.getElementsByTagName("head");
         if (headTags.length > 0)
           html += headTags[0].innerHTML;
       }
   
       html += '\n</HE' + 'AD>\n<BODY>\n';
       var printReadyElem = document.getElementById(divName);
       if (printReadyElem != null) {
         html += printReadyElem.innerHTML;
       } else {
         alert("Could not find the printableView section in the HTML");
         return;
       }
   
       html += '\n</BO' + 'DY>\n</HT' + 'ML>';
       var printWin = window.open("","printSpecial");
       printWin.document.open();
       printWin.document.write(html);
       printWin.document.close();
     } else {
       alert("Sorry, the Printable View feature is only available in modern browsers.");
     }
   }
   </script>
   

2. Also in the template, I marked with <div id="printableView"> and </div> the section I wanted to make available in the printable view page (have a look at the source of this very page to see what I mean in practice.)
3. On the left bar, I put a link to the Javascript. The link is simply
   <a href="javascript:void(printSpecial())">Printable View</a>

You need to have Javascript enabled and a reasonably modern browser for this to work.

Irenaeus' doctrine of apostolic succession and the explicit statement of the universal uniformity of the teaching of the true church (which I mentioned already in the notes on gnosticism and resurrection) are ingenious and effective devices to refute heretical teachings.

It has to be said, though, that not even Irenaeus was consistent in believing they were true. An an illustration, we can take the Easter controversy (see also here); in summary, eastern Churches in particular used to celebrate Passover and the paschal communion on the 14th of Nisan, perhaps following a chronology of Johannine origin, regardless of the day of the week. Because of this practice, these Christians were called Quartodecimans. Note that with I am not talking here of Ebionites, but of "orthodox" churches, a representative of which was for example Polycarp, which we have already seen to be taken by Irenaeus as a champion of the true faith. The "churches in the rest of the world" (as Eusebius puts it, but he's probably quite concerned to put forward his "now-orthodox" view), on the other hand, standardized the practice of celebrating Christ's resurrection on the Sunday following the 14th of Nisan (later on came the practice to celebrate the death of Christ always on Friday.)

Eusebius tells us how things went during a meeting in Rome between Polycarp and bishop Anicetus in HE V.24, and he explicitly labels this "a question of no small importance", acknowledging by the way that the Asian churches were following "an older tradition." (HE V.23). It seems to me that this is indeed an important question on several levels; examples that readily come to mind are

• the relative importance of the paschal chronology of John's gospel vs. that of the synoptic gospels; considerations on the authority (or authenticity) of diverse gospel traditions;
• the desire to maintain vs. the desire to diminish or even severe links to original Jewish traditions;
• the difference between a focus on the death of Christ vs. a focus on the resurrection.
  

Two more considerations:

• Anicetus and Polycarp cannot come to an agreeement on this issue. But even if there was disagreement on such an important question, the epilogue of their meeting is instructive:

  For neither could Anicetus persuade Polycarp not to observe what he had always observed with John the disciple of our Lord, and the other apostles with whom he had associated; neither could Polycarp persuade Anicetus to observe it as he said that he ought to follow the customs of the presbyters that had preceded him. But though matters were in this shape, they communed together, and Anicetus conceded the administration of the eucharist in the church to Polycarp, manifestly as a mark of respect. And they parted from each other in peace, both those who observed, and those who did not, maintaining the peace of the whole church. (HE V.24.16-17)

• Irenaeus is well aware of these differences. As a matter of fact, in the "demonstration" of his theory of apostolic succession he mentions both the Church of Rome and Polycarp and he certainly knows of their divergence on the matter. And when Victor, bishop of Rome, "attempted to cut off from the common unity the parishes of all Asia", Irenaeus, while supporting the Roman customs, admonished Victor not to do that, and wisely wrote that this variety in observance (and not only about the day of the resurrection, but also about the duration of the fast - what will later become standardized in the Quadrigesima)

  has not originated in our time; but long before in that of our ancestors. It is likely that they did not hold to strict accuracy, and thus formed a custom for their posterity according to their own simplicity and peculiar mode. Yet all of these lived none the less in peace, and we also live in peace with one another; and the disagreement in regard to the fast confirms the agreement in the faith." (HE V.24.13)
  

So, a not-so-uniform teaching is one of the weaknesses of Irenaeus' doctrine of the apostolic succession. This was clearly recognized by the subsequent orthodox tradition and Irenaeus' tolerance was not tolerated anymore: by the time of Eusebius the pre-paschal fasting had been normally set to 40 days; and it is said that the council of Nicea in 325 decreed that all Christians had to observe Pascha on Sunday, and that Quartodecimans were to be called heretics. I say "it is said" because this decree is not found in the official documents of the council. But at any rate this excerpt from a letter of Constantine to the churches about the council makes it very clear what the solution had to be:

We must consider, too, that a discordant judgment in a case of such importance, and respecting such religious festival, is wrong. [...] Since, therefore, it was needful that this matter should be rectified, so that we might have nothing in common with that nation of parricides who slew their Lord: and since that arrangement is consistent with propriety which is observed by all the churches of the western, southern, and northern parts of the world, and by some of the eastern also: for these reasons all are unanimous on this present occasion in thinking it worthy of adoption. And I myself have undertaken that this decision should meet with the approval of your Sagacities, in the hope that your Wisdoms will gladly admit that practice which is observed at once in the city of Rome, and in Africa; throughout Italy, and in Egypt, in Spain, the Gauls, Britain, Libya, and the whole of Greece; in the dioceses of Asia and Pontus, and in Cilicia, with entire unity of judgment. And you will consider not only that the number of churches is far greater in the regions I have enumerated than in any other, but also that it is most fitting that all should unite in desiring that which sound reason appears to demand, and in avoiding all participation in the perjured conduct of the Jews. In fine, that I may express my meaning in as few words as possible, it has been determined by the common judgment of all, that the most holy feast of Easter should be kept on one and the same day. For on the one hand a discrepancy of opinion on so sacred a question is unbecoming, and on the other it is surely best to act on a decision which is free from strange folly and error. (Eusebius, Life of Constantine, XVIII.XIX)

Getting the right date for Easter was apparently not an easy task anyway, if Ambrose can write in his Letter XXIII (387) to the bishops of the province of AEmilia that Easter was celebrated on March 21 in Gaul, April 18 in Italy, and April 25 in Egypt.

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Categories: Church_History

Before looking at why and how Ireneaus deals with apostolic succession, a few words on Hegesippus (born c. 110, wrote c. 165-175), according to Eusebius (our main source about him) a Palestinian Jew, converted to Christianity.

Eusebius says in HE IV.8.2 that Hegesippus was a "well known" ecclesiastical writer. According to HE II.23.3, he "lived immediately after the apostles", and this is what allows him to be authoritative in what he says. In HE IV.22, Eusebius apparently quotes from Hegesippus's books of Memories; this is the passage that interests me here, in the CCEL translation:

And when I had come to Rome I remained there until Anicetus, whose deacon was Eleutherus. And Anicetus was succeeded by Soter, and he by Eleutherus. In every succession, and in every city that is held which is preached by the law and the prophets and the Lord."

This is a disputed passage. The crux interpretationis becomes apparent reading the Greek mss:

γενομενος δε εν 'Ρωμη διαδοχην εποιησαμην μηχρις 'Ανικητου

διαδοχην εποιησαμην has been traditionally rendered as "I composed a catalogue of bishops", and this would therefore be one of the first attestations of a sort of apostolic succession. Against this, Harnack et al. have argued that διαδοχη in the sense of "list, catalogue, succession" is rare in Eusebius, and that διαδοχην would therefore be a corrupt reading of something like διατριβην or διαγωγην; but διαδοχη does occur in this sense in HE V.5.9, "In the third book of his work Against Heresies he has inserted a list of the bishops of Rome" (he's speaking of Irenaeus here, see below) and in HE V.12.2, "After him the succession in the episcopate was: ..."; so I am not sure if this objection really stands. It seems a bit more strange that, if this was really a list, Eusebius does not write it down (like he does for Ireneaus, for example), especially since Hegesippus was clearly kept in high esteem by Eusebius. It has also been said that Rufinus of Aquileia (died 410) gives support to the translation reported above, since he translates the Greek into permansi ibi; on the other hand, it is well known that Rufinus was accused to be not a very accurate translator (cf. his quarrel with Jerome on Rufinus' translation of Origen's First Principles). Certainly, this is not an exceedingly clear text.

Be as it may, apostolic succession is a key feature of Irenaeus' argument against the Gnostics. The chapter to look at is AH III.3. He mantains that if the apostles really wanted to give hidden instructions to "the perfect", they in the first place would have given them to their successors (who, by definition, were to be first and foremost "the perfect"). But apparently they have not, because their successors (the bishops) do not teach what the heretics teach; so there were no hidden instructions, and therefore those who teach things that are contrary to what the successors of the apostles teach are really heretics.
It is clear that for this logic to work, one needs to know with certainty who the real successors of the apostles are. And this is why Irenaeus is so concerned about apostolic succession. But since it is "tedious" to track all the bishops of all the Churches, he focuses on two main points:

1. apostolic succession in the Church of Rome
2. apostolic succession in Asiatic Churches
   

For the first point, we come across the highly debated passage in AH III.3.2:

Ad hanc enim ecclesiam propter potiorem principalitatem necesse est omnem convenire ecclesiam, hoc est, eos qui sunt undique fideles, in qua semper ab his qui sunt undique conservata ea quae est ab apostolis traditio.

which I would explicitly render in Italian (for my own clarity) as

Infatti occorre che, a causa della sua grande importanza, tutte le [altre] chiese, ovvero i fedeli, da dovunque vengano, concordino con la Chiesa di Roma, nella quale cio' che deriva dalla tradizione apostolica e' sempre preservato dai fedeli, da qualsiasi parte essi siano giunti.

To me, key points in interpreting this sentence (assuming it correctly renders the original Greek, that is) seem to be:

• the context: Irenaeus is giving here an example of his apostolic succession argument; his argument is not logically based on the Church of Rome. The enim at the beginning of the sentence links this example with the argument.
  
• the use of a comparative and not of a superlative when describing the Church of Rome
  
• the interpretation of necesse est. One could read it as "it has to be", "it is necessary", but in the sense that, given the logical argument explained at paragraph III.3.1 (the true doctrine imparted from the Apostles to their successors), it is not consistent that a given church, that is, a given believer, does not agree with what is believed in Rome, which is a most important Church, having being founded by Peter and Paul (Irenaeus says), and that therefore certainly testifies to the true faith. I would not read necesse est in the sense of "all other churches have to look at Rome as the only deposit of the true faith". In other words, necesse est is a consequence of the logical argument (of apostolic succession), which finds a concrete example in the Church of Rome (a second example will be given by Irenaeus when talking about Polycarp).
  

For the second point, Polycarp is an example of a bishop who inherited the true faith, "having always taught the things which he had learned from the apostles, and which the Church has handed down, and which alone are true", and this is testified by "all the Asiatic Churches". There is no reference here to a "supremacy" of the Church of Rome; this suggests to me that the interpretation I gave above is correct.

Now, Hall is obviously right in saying that there were Christians in Rome before Peter and Paul arrived there. But this does not alter Irenaeus' logical argument: he assumes that true faith is handed down by bishops, and bishops derive via succession from the apostles; whether there were Christians or not in Rome before Peter (assuming e.g. that Peter was the first bishop of Rome) is not relevant for the argument, since Peter himself is an Apostle: what counts is that the bishops after Peter can be traced back to Peter. And this is what Irenaeus wants to do. Now, for the actual list he gives, it is not possible to verify it before Sixtus, and some names are unknown altogether (on the other hand, why the names Linus, Anacletus and Clement are in the list can be easily understood).

For what regards the effectiveness of Irenaeus' argument, I have already noted some responses from the Gnostics. I think that an excellent example is the Gospel of Mary, where the apostles are clearly at a loss about what to do, while Mary Magdalene has had extra revelations from Jesus and is able to impart instructions to the apostles themselves. More generally, a gnostic response to Irenaeus can be seen to take several forms: firstly, not all mysteries were revealed to the apostles (but somebody else received them and passed them on to selected people). Or there are mysteries that were revealed by some apostles to some people, who did not become bishops, but rather gnostic teachers. In this second category falls for example Valentinus, who was a disciple of Theudas, who was a disciple of Paul. Or Basilides, who was a disciple of Glaucus, who was a disciple of Peter. So, in this second case, we just see that the same argument of legitimization of authority through apostolic succession is adopted by both orthodox and etherodox churches. Finally, there is the case of traditions that, according to gnostic thought, can be traced back to the apostles (hence they are authoritative), but that are not recognized by orthodox bishops (the case for example of the Apocryphon of John.) Important: this last point suggests the key role of an accepted canon of scriptures.

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Categories: Church_History

Sometimes, esp. when one has been living abroad for some time, one learns about what happens in his/her own native country quite indirectly. Jim West briefly blogged about a report by Spiegel Online on the removal of the name of Jesus from Christmas songs not to offend Muslim students in schools.

This seems to me just another dummy application of "laicist" dogmas. Here is another report (in Italian) on what happened. Reading this, it seems that it is not only songs that are deemed to offend sensibilities; the main devices that to date have been found to implement religious correctness and multi-ethnicity are the following:

• When singing Christmas songs in class, students have the option to replace "Jesus" with "virtue".
• More radical: no Christmas songs are to be sung at all.
• No crèches (presepe) in schools anymore (having crèches at Xmas as representation of the Holy Family is a tradition popularized by St Francis of Assisi in 1223; see for example this article)
• The traditional Nativity play (very common in primary schools) has been substituted in a school by Little Red Riding Hood (in Italian: Cappuccetto Rosso). I can imagine the dismay of a young student that had been selected to play Balthasar of Saba and all of a sudden has to play Poor Granny.

And, strange as it seems, I agree for once with that Northern League politician mentioned in the article, describing this as yet another form of racism.

These are some notes on the role of women in the early Church, with some considerations specific to the ordination of women to a priestly role.

Ireneaus (175-185) in AH 1:13:2 talks about to the role of women in consecrating wine referring to Marcus the Gnostic, who "deceived many". Note that Marcus would ask in his prayer that "Charis" fill the women's "inner man", multiplying in them her (Charis') own knownledge. This reminds me of the well-known final passage of the Gospel of Thomas:

Simon Peter said to him, "Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life."
Jesus said, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven." (Gospel of Thomas, 114)

Tertullian (197-220) directly refers to 1 Cor 14:34-35 ("As in all the congregations of the saints, women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the Law says...") in his On the veiling of virgins, IX; and in the same passage he says that to a woman is not permitted "to teach, nor to baptize, nor to offer, nor to claim to herself a lot in any manly function, not to say (in any) sacerdotal office." It is also interesting to note that Tertullian explicitly does not grant virgin women any special privilege in this regard.

Speaking of the 1Cor quotation, it is perhaps worth noting that Paul does not mean with that that women cannot pray or "prophesize" in general; see 1 Cor 11:5; and he certainly does not rule out the role of deaconness for women, see Rom 16:1-4; it seems he really wants to apply his directive in 1Cor 14:34-35 just to speaking in the church.

Looking at gnostic writings, it seems clear that there was some tension between those who supported the view that spiritual authoritiy could only come from men, and those who admitted that women could at least prophesize: see for example the Gospel of Mary (but note that in that dialogue the underlying assumption is still that the disciples are the men that Jesus chose, and no details are given about the future role of Mary in preaching the Gospel). But this view is not necessarily in constrast with what Paul says.

When examining these texts, one could of course say that they reflect the mentality of the time, where women were allegedly given a subjugated role, and that mentality has changed since then, and that therefore these texts should not be seen as normative in their prohibition of the ordination of women to a priestly role. But this is, first of all, not relevant in this context, where what seems very clear is that in the Early Church women acting as priests are not attested by the available documents. Then (but only then) there is the important problem of what to make of directives found in the Bible and in attested traditions, i.e. what is deemed to be changeable because tied to inessential customs of a certain time, and what is not. But this is a very complex problem, and I am not dealing with it right now (also because as I just said it does not seem relevant to me in this context).

At any rate, it is always interesting and useful to try and see the overall picture. For example, in the direct antecedent of early Christianity, i.e. Judaism, it would be very superficial (= wrong) to declare the role of the woman as marginal, and still it is clear that the officiant's (to simplify things) is a role reserved to men alone; for a summary, cf. Judaism 101: The Role of Women or Kressel's Korner.

And what about "heretical" movements which the "orthodox" church had to fight? Here (cf. again Elaine Pagels' "The Gnostic Gospels") we notice a tendency to characterize cosmological thought using sexual terms (something not very common in orthodox schools, but see for example Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus 1.VI: "The Word is all to the child, both father and mother and tutor and nurse"). For example, see the description that Hippolytus makes of the philosophy of Pythagoras, taken up by Valentinus:

The Father Himself, then, as He was solitary, projected and produced Nous and Aletheia, that is, a duad which became mistress, and origin, and mother of all the Aeons computed by them (as existing) within the Pleroma. Nous and Aletheia being projected from the Father, one capable of continuing generation, deriving existence from a productive being, (Nous) himself likewise, in imitation of the Father, projected Logos and Zoe; and Logos and Zoe project Anthropos and Ecclesia. (The Refutation of All Heresies, 6.XXIV)

This Logos, in Hippolytus, is mapped elsewhere to Sophia and to the Holy Spirit; see for example 6.XXX, describing interesting divisions within the Valentinians on the nature of Jesus' body (the "Italians", i.e. Heracleon and Ptolemaeus, vs. the "Orientals", i.e. Axionicus and Bardesianes); which somehow reads the Trinity into the triad Father, Mother (i.e. Holy Spirit in this case) and Son. This concept can be explicitly seen in the Apocryphon of John found at Nag Hammadi:

He said to me, "John, John, why do you doubt, or why are you afraid? You are not unfamiliar with this image, are you? - that is, do not be timid! - I am the one who is with you (pl.) always. I am the Father, I am the Mother, I am the Son. I am the undefiled and incorruptible one.

But while considerations on the sexual nature of the divinity like these abound, there does not seem to be much attention paid to the role of women in priesthood. As I wrote at the beginning, Irenaeus does speak of women consecrating wine in gnostic gatherings, but the context under which this is done focuses rather on the deceiving role of Marcus the Gnostic who, at any rate, retains a superior office: "handing mixed cups to the women, he bids them to consecrate these in his presence. When this has been done, he himself produces another cup of much larger size than that which the deluded woman has consecrated,  and pouting from the smaller one consecrated by the woman into that which has been brought forward by himself, he at the same time pronounces these words..." (loc. cit.).

Moreover, one point that has to be considered is that Gnostic liturgy, in all its variety of incarnations, seems to be much less formalized (or, generally speaking, concerned with formalization) than its orthodox counterpart (cf. also the notes on Montanism); and this is reflected in the much more vague definition of the role of the clergy. On the one hand, as I noted already elsewhere, this can at least partly explain why the gnostic movements succumbed to orthodoxy; and, on the other hand, it reiterates the fact that it is very difficult to speak of gnosticism as a uniform movement and that, therefore, it does not seem easy or even meaningful to extract propositions about the "role of women" in such a loosely defined context.

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Categories: Church_History