Women in the Early Church

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In what ways did women participate in the Church during the first century C.E.?

Before answering this question, we must first address another: How did women live in the Roman Empire during the first century C.E.? The answer to that question is complicated by a myriad of factors, including the ancient sources available to us. Almost all such sources were written by men and focus on what were seen to be men’s (rather than women’s) concerns, including power and stability within the family, community, and empire. The sources that do address or discuss women often focus on the lives of upper-class women, as most of the people who could read and write came from that class (though the overall percentage of literate people was low). However, upper-class women would have constituted only a tiny portion of the population.

Most people, including women, would have worked from dawn to dusk to provide food for the day for themselves and their extended family groups. The necessity of food is tied to the larger question of women’s work. Although some ancient sources portray women as being secluded in the home behind closed doors, this would have been more common for upper-class women. For the rest of the population, the necessity of feeding all the hungry mouths in the household would require women to be in the fields working the land and then preparing the agricultural product for consumption or in the public marketplaces buying and selling food, clothing, and other necessities. In this way, women’s work likely hinged on the labor of men in the family.

While wealthier people in the ancient world had access to an abundance of food and drink, including a variety of meats, grains, vegetables, fruits, and wines, most of the population would have subsisted on grains, such as barley, wheat, and millet, perhaps with the occasional onion or turnip added to the meal. Even then, access to such food staples varied greatly, and people ate when they had food available to them.

Although the majority of the population lived in rural areas, perhaps 10–15 percent of people lived in cities, such as Ephesus and Corinth. Towns and cities were also the focus of early Christian missionary work, including that of the apostle Paul. The housing in urban areas was dominated by the ancient apartment building (called an insula). Because of unstable construction, the bottom floors of an insula were safer and thus more expensive, 067leaving the poor to live on the upper floors with a greater risk of collapse and fire. Most extended family groups would have shared a single room, where they cooked with small portable devices called braziers, ate, slept, and shared a chamber pot. Sanitation in larger cities was often facilitated by public toilets and baths, but public urination and public disposal of chamber pots was common.

These conditions supported the spread of disease, and short life spans were typical. Infant mortality rates were high; perhaps half of children survived to their fifth birthday. Further, 10–15 percent of women died in childbirth, making pregnancy and delivery the riskiest activities women would encounter in their lives. Women usually married shortly after puberty, around the ages of 12 to 14. For men, marrying in the late teens or early 20s was the norm. Widowed spouses often remarried.

The historical record shows the active participation of women—sometimes even as priestesses—in the worship of the many gods and goddesses on offer in the ancient world. The proclamation of a new deity, one named Jesus who was also a man, would have fit the framework for how at least some emperors were viewed (as man but also more than man, a god).

Jews likely would have viewed the local communities of followers of Jesus—called ekklēsiai or “assemblies”—as being modeled after the assembly of God’s people in the Old Testament (also called an ekklēsia in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament). Both Jews and non-Jews would have seen the Jesus-assemblies as another association where people gathered for a common purpose, such as business or worship of a deity. Women, however, were expected to worship the gods of their fathers and spouses, making the choice to become a Christian a high-risk decision if the men in the family were opposed.

All this means that the active participation of women in the local churches, or assemblies, would have been expected. In the earliest days of the Church, Christians met in homes, public spaces like gardens, and shops. The informality of these settings would have affected the structure of the gatherings. The apostle Paul talks about how when early Christians gather, everyone offers something: “a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation” (1 Corinthians 14:26).

The gathering likely centered on the meal (“communion” or the “Lord’s Supper”), both in imitation and remembrance of Jesus (see Matthew 26:26-29) and for practical reasons, such as ensuring that all in the group had at least one meal to eat that day. Just as Jesus ate with people from a variety of social classes (compare, e.g., Luke 5:29-32; Luke 7:36-50; Luke 19:1-10), these early communities were diverse in class and gender. Because women were almost always in charge of the food in their extended family groups, organizing and hosting this meal for the assembly would have provided natural opportunities for women to serve and even lead, all while children played nearby.

A setting in which all offered their gifts would have given space for women to offer a prayer, lead in a song, and perhaps even discuss or read a passage of Scripture—if they were literate. These practical contributions would have been one way for women to embody the reality that the early Church made space for them and encouraged them to use their gifts.

In what ways did women participate in the Church during the first century C.E.?