MetaCatholic

Lo, I will tell you a mystery.

Yesterday I had 700 posts (an easy number to note). Today I seem to have 661 posts. None seem to have been deleted.

Hmm …

There’ve been a fair few reactions to the vote of the Church of England’s General Synod to move forward towards the ordination of women as bishops. One of the tendencies I’ve noted in more than the odd report, however, is that this is a liberal development, and one that largely overturns the Church’s tradition. It seems to me worth recalling what could be described as the biblical and Catholic case for seeing this as a faithful and proper development of the tradition.

The evidence of the biblical period is mixed. However, one has to note

• The description of Junia as “outstanding among the apostles” (Rom 16:7 – ἐπίσημοι ἐν τοῖς ἀποστόλοις).
• The description of Phoebe as not simply a servant or deacon of the church (Rom 16:1 – διάκονον τῆς ἐκκλησίας) but also as Paul’s patron (Rom 16:2 – αὐτὴ προστάτις πολλῶν ἐγενήθη καὶ ἐμοῦ αὐτοῦ). Patron – προστάτις – is a term that would normally connote a form of what many today mean by “headship” whatever Paul meant by that term then.
• There are Euodia and Syntyche who have not only struggled alongside Paul in the work of the gospel (Phil 4:2-3 – ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίῳ συνήθλησάν μοι) and these two women are named ahead not only of other generic fellow-workers but also of Clement, who in Catholic tradition is identified with the third Bishop of Rome.
• In John’s gospel Mary Magdalene is entrusted with the first proclamation of the resurrection, which led tradition to call her “apostle of the apostles” (John 20:11-18).
• In Luke’s gospel Jesus defends Mary’s choice to sit at his feet as a disciple, instead of being about women’s work (Luke 10:38-42). The cultural implication is not only radical about roles (possibly in terms like the gospel of Thomas of becoming male – Saying 114) that she could be entrusted with the passing on of his teaching.

There are other instances that one can adduce, but it seems to me these are the most significant. They represent a spread across the width of the early Christian movement which seems at least strong enough to counter any facile quotation of Pauline texts. The Pauline examples seem to show that Paul’s practice is to accept women as apostles, and accord them significant honour for their ministry in the churches. And even if the idea of a bishop of Rome is a tad anachronistic in the first century, I rather like the idea of the third Pope learning ministry as a junior partner to a couple of women.

The early centuries are problematic. There is patchy evidence both from apocryphal writings and from inscriptions for women exercising ministry, but we have no idea how mainstream much of this is, nor exactly what is being described. There is also the evidence of women’s prominence and leadership in early martyrology – Perpetua, for example. There is also evidence from attempts to ban women from various forms of ministry, such as this one: “Presbytides, as they are called, or female presidents, are not to be appointed in the Church. (Canon 11 of the Council of Laodicea). Exactly what is being referred to is not fully clear, except that some form of public ministry appears to be in view. The cumulative effect of this, however, is to undercut any simple appeal to the idea that the church has only ever known one practice. There is no simple continuity but rather a more complex picture. Evaluating these precedents is a matter for theological reflection, and not historical excavation.

An outline of the “traditional” argument for women as bishops and priests might include the following points. (I note that this is not an argument which will appeal to evangelicals, who may have to content themselves with the biblical material summarised above. Saying that, however, does remind us that some of those who are arguing that women can’t be priests, don’t believe that men can be priests either!)

All Christian priesthood, whether that of the people of God, or the ordained ministry, is a participation in the priesthood of Christ in diverse ways. Essential to Jesus’ qualification to be a priest, and therefore to be able to offer himself as the sacrifice for humanity, is that, according to Hebrews, he must be made like his brothers and sisters in every way (Heb 2:17). The inclusive translation is demanded by the argument of the text. Only by sharing our flesh and blood can he share our death so as to redeem us from death. The whole argument of Hebrews, summarised in this key text, is that the efficacy of Jesus’ priesthood not only depends on his sharing humanity, but that if it was, instead, a function of his masculinity, then he could not be the Saviour of women, only of men. In short, any argument that there is something inherently masculine in priesthood contradicts the way in which Hebrews develops the argument for the priesthood of Christ. An essentially masculine priesthood is a different type of priesthood from that of Christ, and therefore cannot be a Christian priesthood at the most profound and fundamental level. As St Gregory remarks, “What he did not assume, he cannot heal.” If Jesus is the Saviour of men and women, then the qualification is the human nature he shares with men and women.

Now in terms of some forms of ancient biology which held that women are pretty much defective men, it would have been possible to affirm that men could represent men and women, and women could only represent other women, and still maintain that Christ shared our common humanity. I do not believe that understanding of humanity is biologically, philosophically or socially tenable in any respect. Furthermore, most coherent readings of biblical anthropology give little support for accepting that kind of Aristotelian biology.

Therefore, it seems to me that, given our understandings of humanity, psychological, social, biblical and biological, we must today insist that priesthood should be open to women (and if priesthood, then episcopacy). Unless we do so we will (however inadvertently) be calling into question either the full humanity of Christ, or the salvation of half of humankind. It is, in the end, a biblically informed catholic theology of priesthood as rooted in, and representative of, Christ our priest, which demands that the episcopate and priesthood be open to women as well as men.

This is what I mean when I say that ordaining women is actually traditional and conservative, because it is expressing the essential heart of the gospel. Maintaining an essentially masculine character to the priesthood is, given the rest of our understanding, increasingly running the risk of conveying not orthodoxy, but heresy, that Christ is neither fully human, nor the Saviour of all. By contrast, at least some of us who argue for the ordination of women are doing so in order to proclaim and defend the incarnation of Christ as one like us in every respect save sin, and to announce and receive the ministry of our great high priest for all humanity.