The Persecution of Women in the Church

[Newman]

Originally Posted by crazyhomie

Early church fathers left us with a difficult heritage; evidenced by the continual denegration of...women in particular. Originally Christianity was quite positive for women, (Jesus treated them equally) but by the time of Augustine, women were regarded as responsible for the fall of man. The letters of Jerome teem with loathing of the female almost to the point of sounding deranged. Tertullian had castigated women as evil temptresses, an eternal danger to mankind:
"Do you not know that you are each and Eve? You are the devil's gateway; you are the unsealer of that forbidden tree; you are the first deserter of the divine law; you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You so carelessly destroyed man, God's image. On account of your desert, even the son of God had to die."-

Augustine agreed; "What is the difference," "whether it is in a wife or a mother, it is still Eve the temptress that we must beware of in any woman."
As a matter of fact Augustine is puzzled that God should have made the female at all, "if it was good company and conversation that Adam needed, it would have been much better arranged to have two men together as friends, not a man and a woman." "Early church fathers regarded a womans only function as "childbearing which passed the contagion of original sin to the next generation, like a veneral disease. -"

Western Christianity never fully recovered from this neurotic misogyny, which can still be seen in the unbalanced reaction to the very notion of the ordination of women. - a history of God, pg.124, karen Armstrong.

My personal view is this: Satan's attempt to destroy Eve in the garden was a direct attack against her seed. A man is never greater than his mother. It's been said 'behind every good man is a better woman". Truthfully, this is usually his mother or grandmother.

The persecution of women in the church is still evident today. Catholicism teaches that women are to blame for original sin and should be avoided; thus the doctrine of celibacy. A holy man cannot be defiled by a women.

Is it possible that much of what women have had to endure relationally with regard to the church is a carryover of this wicked and insidious spirit to destroy the women, thus destroying their seed?

An angry mother produces angry children. An offended mother produces offended children. A bitter mother produces bitter children.

God's fundamental law of creation is this; "everything reproduces after its own kind."

Women, now is your opportunity to be liberated! You should love me for this!

CH-

1. The early church fathers (not to be confused with the early church leaders who walked with Christ and laid the foundation for the church) were indeed heavily influenced by Helenistic thought. Greek philophers viewed woman with great disdain; as a lesser human and/or a great distraction.

2. However as an aside, I would note that Augustine was raised by a godly mother. He wrote of her “As an infant I had drunk in the name of [Christ] my Savior...along with my mother’s milk. I had cherished that name piously, and treasured it always in the depths of my heart. Hence no masterpiece in which that name failed to appear; however learned, polished, and truthful it might be, could bear me away entirely.”

Notwithstanding, he became a huge playboy and thus viewed women as temptations that he could not resist and pursued other philosophies. However, Christ won out in the long run and so he wrote that these things could not bear him away entirely (from the love of Christ he learned from his mother).

3. I haven't really ever considered before if its possible to be a great man without a great mother or grandmother behind him (although it would obviously be easier). I wonder what history shows us?

Watch out! I expect Chauncellor will have something to say on this thread!