Interlude C: The Women Lost

This chapter is part of the book The Sacred Editors: Christianity.

Note: After writing this chapter I decided to write an entire Sacred Editors book on the stories of women lost across multiple traditions. Check it out here.

"Tell us, Mary, what the Savior said to you in secret." —Gospel of Mary

Rome, late second century CE. In the flickering lamplight of a house church tucked into a residential quarter near the Aventine Hill, a woman rises from her place among the gathered believers. Her name is lost to history, but her courage remains etched in the fragmentary records of a community that would soon face the choice between preservation and suppression.

She has received visions that illuminate the master's teachings in ways that perplex even learned men. She knows the Hebrew Scriptures and can quote from memory the letters that circulate among the communities. When she speaks, her words carry the authority of one who has encountered the divine directly, not merely through institutional mediation.

But as her voice fills the small room with interpretations that challenge conventional understanding, a man interrupts sharply: "Christ would not reveal such things to a woman. These mysteries belong to the apostles, not to you." The gathered believers shift uncomfortably. The sacred moment fractures.

Her visionary insights are not carefully recorded by scribes. His dismissive objections are preserved in official church records as examples of proper episcopal vigilance against dangerous innovation. Within a generation, women like her will find their spiritual authority questioned, limited, and eventually erased from the emerging institution's memory.

Yet archaeological evidence and manuscript discoveries continue to reveal that such women were not isolated exceptions but integral participants in early Christian communities—teachers, prophets, patrons, and leaders whose voices shaped the movement's development until institutional consolidation systematically marginalized their contributions.¹

The lamp that illuminated that Roman house church also cast shadows that would grow longer as the centuries passed, until the women who had stood in its light became invisible to later generations of believers who inherited only the stories that institutional authorities had chosen to preserve.

The Foundational Presence of Women

Women were present at every crucial moment in Christianity's formation, from the resurrection appearances through the development of theological literature, yet their central roles have been systematically minimized or forgotten through centuries of institutional editing and cultural assumption. Archaeological evidence, manuscript analysis, and critical study of canonical and non-canonical texts reveal a far richer picture of women's leadership than traditional church history acknowledges.

Mary Magdalene: First Witness and Contested Teacher

Mary Magdalene's significance in early Christianity extends far beyond her canonical role as the first resurrection witness, though even that designation places her in a position of unique apostolic authority. All four Gospels identify her as the first person to encounter the risen Christ, making her literally the first Christian evangelist—the one who brought the good news to the other disciples.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus specifically commissions her to "go to my brothers and tell them" about his resurrection and ascension, using the same apostolic language (apostello) that appears in commissioning other disciples for mission.² This canonical portrayal already suggests apostolic status that later tradition would systematically downplay.

The Gospel of Mary preserves an even more elevated portrait, presenting her as the recipient of post-resurrection teachings that the male disciples cannot understand or accept. When Peter demands to know what Jesus taught her privately, Mary shares sophisticated theological instruction about the soul's ascent to divine union. Her teaching demonstrates mastery of complex spiritual concepts that surpass the comprehension of the acknowledged apostles.³

Levi defends Mary against Peter's jealous objections: "Peter, you have always been hot-tempered... If the Savior made her worthy, who are you indeed to reject her? Surely the Savior knows her very well. That is why he loved her more than us."⁴ This exchange reveals early Christian communities where women's spiritual authority was both recognized and contested, suggesting that Mary's prominence was historically grounded rather than literary invention.

Thecla: The Apostle They Tried to Forget

The Acts of Paul and Thecla, one of the most widely circulated texts in early Christianity, portrays a young woman who abandons conventional marriage and family obligations to become an itinerant preacher and teacher. Thecla hears Paul's preaching about celibacy and Christian discipleship, breaks her engagement to follow Christ, and survives miraculous trials including fire and wild beasts.

Most remarkably, Thecla baptizes herself when no male minister is available, establishes Christian communities throughout Asia Minor, and attracts devoted followers who seek her spiritual guidance. Virginia Burrus documents how Thecla's story "subverted traditional gender expectations" by portraying a woman who claimed religious authority independently of male supervision.⁵

Archaeological evidence supports Thecla's historical significance: her cult site in Seleucia became one of early Christianity's most important pilgrimage destinations, attracting visitors from throughout the Mediterranean world. Stephen Davis argues that Thecla's widespread veneration reflects "genuine early Christian traditions about women's apostolic authority" rather than later legendary elaboration.⁶

Yet despite this popularity, the Acts of Thecla was excluded from the New Testament canon, likely because its portrayal of independent female religious authority conflicted with emerging institutional preferences for male hierarchical control.

Junia: The Apostle Hidden in Plain Sight

Perhaps the most striking example of women's erasure from Christian memory is Junia, whom Paul identifies in Romans 16:7 as "outstanding among the apostles" (episēmoi en tois apostolois). For over a millennium, this passage was understood as referring to a female apostle, with church fathers like John Chrysostom celebrating her significance: "O how great is the devotion of this woman that she should be even counted among the apostles!"⁷

However, medieval and modern manuscript traditions increasingly altered "Junia" to the masculine "Junias," effectively erasing a female apostle from Scripture itself. Eldon Jay Epp's definitive study demonstrates that "Junias" is grammatically impossible in Greek and represents deliberate textual corruption designed to eliminate evidence of women's apostolic authority.⁸

Recent translations have restored "Junia," but the millennium-long suppression illustrates how systematically women's biblical prominence was obscured through seemingly technical editorial decisions that actually reflected theological and cultural bias.

The Ministerial Matrix: Phoebe, Priscilla, and Early Church Leadership

Phoebe, described in Romans 16:1-2 as both deacon (diakonos) and benefactor (prostatis) of the church at Cenchreae, appears to have held significant ministerial and administrative authority. Paul commends her to the Roman church and requests that they "welcome her in the Lord as is fitting for the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you"—language suggesting she carried considerable ecclesiastical responsibility.

Priscilla (also called Prisca) appears six times in the New Testament, often with her name preceding her husband Aquila's—a pattern that indicates her prominence in early Christian leadership. Acts 18:26 describes the couple correcting Apollos's theological understanding, but the narrative emphasizes Priscilla's teaching role. Some scholars, including Ruth Hoppin and Adolf von Harnack, have proposed that Priscilla authored the Letter to the Hebrews, which would make her the only certain female author of canonical Scripture.⁹

The Voices That Were Written Down—Then Lost

Perpetua: The Martyr's Diary

Vibia Perpetua, a young noblewoman from Carthage martyred in 203 CE, left behind a prison diary that represents one of the earliest first-person Christian documents written by a woman. Her Passion describes her visions, her theological reflections, and her preparation for death with remarkable literary and spiritual sophistication.

Perpetua's account includes a vision where she receives masculine characteristics to fight in the arena, suggesting theological reflection on how discipleship might transcend conventional gender limitations. Her diary ends abruptly before her execution, with a male editor completing the narrative—a pattern that illustrates how women's voices were often framed and controlled by male institutional authority even when they were preserved.¹⁰

Macrina: The Philosopher They Called "The Teacher"

Macrina the Younger (c. 330-379 CE), sister of Gregory of Nyssa and Basil the Great, established a monastic community that became a center for theological education and spiritual formation. Gregory's Life of Macrina credits her with profound philosophical insights and describes her as his theological mentor.

Susanna Elm documents how Macrina's intellectual influence shaped Cappadocian theology, particularly regarding the soul's relationship to the body and the nature of resurrection. Yet her theological contributions were transmitted primarily through her brothers' writings rather than being preserved under her own name.¹¹

The Anonymous Artists: Medieval Manuscript Evidence

Recent archaeological discoveries have revealed extensive evidence of women's participation in medieval manuscript production, though their work was typically anonymous. A 2019 study of a tenth-century German nun found lapis lazuliembedded in her teeth—evidence that she worked as a manuscript illuminator, likely creating the elaborate decorations that enhanced biblical texts.¹²

Michelle Brown documents how medieval double monasteries—communities of both men and women—employed female scribes, illuminators, and scholars who contributed significantly to biblical transmission and theological education. Figures like Hilda of Whitby and Brigit of Kildare administered major intellectual centers, yet their scholarly contributions were rarely attributed by name.¹³

The invisibility of these women illustrates how institutional assumptions about authorship and authority systematically erased evidence of women's intellectual contributions to Christian tradition.

The Mechanics of Erasure

Understanding how women's voices were systematically removed from Christian memory requires attention to both theological arguments and practical mechanisms that institutional authorities employed to limit women's religious authority.

Theological Justifications

Patristic writers developed sophisticated arguments for excluding women from public teaching and leadership roles that drew on selective biblical interpretation and Greco-Roman cultural assumptions. Tertullian argued that women should not "teach, baptize, offer [the Eucharist], or claim to herself any function proper to the male sex, not to speak of the priest's office."¹⁴

Jerome praised women's spiritual achievements while simultaneously arguing that their proper role involved private virtue rather than public authority. His celebrated correspondence with wealthy Christian women like Paula and Marcellademonstrates respect for women's theological sophistication while maintaining that such gifts should be exercised privately rather than in ecclesiastical contexts.

Canonical Strategies

The canonical formation process systematically excluded texts that portrayed women in teaching or leadership roles, often by categorizing them as "Gnostic" or "heretical" regardless of their actual theological content. Karen King argues that this labeling reflected institutional bias rather than legitimate theological concerns: "The charge of heresy was a weapon used to suppress not theological error but theological alternatives."¹⁵

Textual transmission provided additional opportunities to marginalize women's contributions through subtle editorial modifications. The transformation of "Junia" to "Junias" represents the most documented example, but similar processes likely affected other biblical texts where women's prominence was gradually diminished through manuscript copying.

Institutional Development

As Christianity developed increasingly formal institutional structures modeled on Roman administrative patterns, leadership became associated with offices that cultural assumption restricted to men. The development of apostolic succession as a legitimating principle for episcopal authority necessarily excluded women, since cultural convention prevented them from holding the civil offices on which ecclesiastical hierarchy was modeled.

Jo Ann McNamara documents how the transition from charismatic to institutional authority systematically disadvantaged women, whose spiritual gifts had been more readily recognized in the informal contexts that characterized early Christian communities.¹⁶

What Would Have Changed?

The systematic exclusion of women's voices from Christian tradition represents one of the most consequential editorial decisions in religious history, with implications that extend far beyond questions of gender equality to fundamental issues of theological method, spiritual authority, and community organization.

Apostolic Authority Would Be Co-Gendered

If texts like the Acts of Thecla and biblical passages like Romans 16:7 (with its reference to Junia) had been consistently interpreted as establishing female apostolic authority, the development of exclusively male priesthood and episcopal succession might never have occurred.

Rosemary Radford Ruether argues that early Christian communities practiced "discipleship of equals" that was gradually replaced by hierarchical structures that marginalized women's leadership.¹⁷ Canonical preservation of women-centered texts might have prevented this development by providing ongoing biblical warrant for women's ministerial authority.

This alternative trajectory could have affected everything from sacramental theology (where female clergy would have been normative) to theological education (where women's perspectives would have been systematically included) to church governance (where collaborative rather than hierarchical models might have prevailed).

Christian Ethics and Gender Roles Would Be More Flexible

Many women-centered texts emphasize spiritual equality and freedom from conventional social expectations in ways that could have fundamentally altered Christian approaches to marriage, family life, and social organization.

The Gospel of Mary's emphasis on inner spiritual knowledge over institutional authority suggests that canonical inclusion might have supported more contemplative and mystical approaches to Christian discipleship that transcended gender-based role assignments.

Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza argues that early Christian communities offered women "alternative spaces" that challenged patriarchal social arrangements, and that preserving this tradition might have prevented Christianity's accommodation to conventional gender hierarchies.¹⁸

Theological Method Would Be More Experiential

Women-centered texts often emphasize visionary experience, contemplative insight, and personal revelation as legitimate sources of theological understanding alongside scriptural and traditional authorities. Canonical inclusion of such texts might have supported more experimental and experiential approaches to theological reflection.

Amy Oden documents how early Christian women "claimed religious authority through mystical experience" in ways that challenged exclusively institutional approaches to spiritual leadership.¹⁹ This tradition might have flourished rather than being marginalized if canonical texts had provided biblical warrant for women's visionary authority.

Historical Memory Would Be Richer and More Inclusive

Perhaps most importantly, canonical inclusion of women's voices would have provided role models and precedents that could have inspired subsequent generations of women to claim their own spiritual authority and theological insight.

Caroline Walker Bynum argues that medieval women mystics drew on "hidden traditions" of female spiritual authority that had survived despite institutional suppression.²⁰ If such traditions had been canonically preserved rather than marginalized, they might have supported more robust development of women's religious leadership throughout Christian history.

Contemporary Christian communities struggling with questions about women's ordination, theological education, and spiritual authority would have very different biblical and traditional resources to draw upon if women's voices had been systematically preserved rather than systematically erased.

Scholar Debate: Deliberate Suppression or Historical Accident?

Contemporary scholars remain divided about whether the marginalization of women's voices from Christian tradition represents systematic institutional suppression or reflects the broader cultural limitations that affected women's public roles throughout ancient and medieval societies.

Karen King argues for deliberate theological suppression, contending that texts featuring women's spiritual authority were excluded not because they were historically unreliable but because they threatened emerging institutional power structures. King emphasizes that "the winners wrote the history" and that recovering women's voices requires challenging institutional narratives that have systematically marginalized alternative traditions.²¹

Joan Taylor provides comprehensive archaeological and literary evidence demonstrating that "women held more significant roles in early Christianity than traditional scholarship acknowledged." Taylor's research reveals how subtle editorial choices and cultural assumptions combined to minimize women's documented contributions to early Christian development.²²

Eldon Jay Epp's definitive study of Junia provides the clearest documentation of how textual corruption systematically eliminated evidence of women's biblical authority. Epp demonstrates that the masculinization of Junia's name in later manuscripts represents "deliberate theological editing" rather than innocent copying errors.²³

However, Bart Ehrman offers a more cautious assessment, acknowledging the significance of women's lost voices while warning against "romanticizing the alternatives." Ehrman argues that while women clearly played more significant roles than later tradition preserved, many excluded texts may have been marginalized for legitimate reasons related to theological content or historical reliability rather than simply because they featured women.²⁴

Craig Evans and other traditional scholars emphasize that canonical formation involved complex theological and historical judgments that cannot be reduced to gender bias. Evans argues that excluded texts often reflected "later theological developments" that appropriately remained marginal to apostolic tradition, regardless of their portrayal of women's roles.²⁵

Despite these methodological disagreements, virtually all contemporary scholars acknowledge that women's contributions to early Christianity were far more extensive than traditional historiography preserved. Even conservative scholars now recognize that institutional development gradually limited women's opportunities for religious leadership that had been more available during Christianity's earliest periods.

The scholarly consensus supports several key conclusions: women were integral to early Christian development; their contributions were systematically minimized through institutional and cultural processes; and recovering their voices provides important perspective on both historical Christian diversity and contemporary debates about religious authority and gender roles.

Archaeological and Interdisciplinary Evidence

Recent archaeological discoveries and interdisciplinary research continue to reveal new evidence of women's contributions to Christian tradition, demonstrating that the recovery of women's voices represents an ongoing rather than completed scholarly project.

Material culture studies have documented women's participation in manuscript production, church patronage, and artistic creation that was previously invisible to historians focused primarily on literary sources. The lapis lazuli nunrepresents just one example of how scientific analysis can reveal women's intellectual contributions that were not preserved in textual records.

Epigraphic evidence from early Christian cemeteries and churches reveals women who held titles like presbyter, episcopa (female bishop), and diaconissa in various regional Christian communities, suggesting that women's ministerial roles were more widespread than literary sources indicate.²⁶

Comparative religious studies have revealed similar patterns of women's marginalization across different religious traditions, suggesting that understanding Christianity's particular development requires attention to broader cultural and institutional dynamics that affected women's religious authority throughout ancient and medieval societies.

Digital humanities projects are making previously inaccessible manuscript collections available for analysis, enabling scholars to identify patterns of editorial modification and textual transmission that may reveal additional evidence of women's contributions to Christian tradition.

The Continuing Significance

The recovery of women's lost voices in Christian tradition has implications that extend far beyond academic historical research to contemporary questions about religious authority, biblical interpretation, and community leadership that affect millions of believers worldwide.

Contemporary ordination debates often appeal to biblical precedent and apostolic tradition as primary authorities for determining women's eligibility for religious leadership. Understanding how canonical formation systematically excluded evidence of women's early authority provides crucial context for these discussions by revealing the contingent character of supposedly timeless traditions.

Feminist theological scholarship has been significantly enriched by access to early Christian texts that portray women as teachers, visionaries, and community leaders. These materials provide historical foundation for contemporary arguments about women's spiritual capabilities while also revealing how institutional decisions shaped what modern Christians understand as traditional teaching.

Contemplative and mystical traditions within contemporary Christianity have found inspiration in texts that emphasize women's direct spiritual experience and personal revelation. These materials offer historical precedent for approaches to spiritual formation that value individual contemplative insight alongside communal worship and institutional guidance.

Biblical interpretation in contemporary Christian communities has been affected by recognition that canonical texts preserve evidence of women's leadership that was later obscured through traditional interpretation. Understanding this history encourages more careful attention to biblical texts that may preserve evidence of women's authority despite editorial attempts to minimize it.

Perhaps most importantly, the history of women's erasure from Christian memory provides perspective on contemporary questions about whose voices deserve to be heard and whose experiences count as spiritually authoritative. The systematic marginalization of women's contributions reveals how institutional power can shape religious memory in ways that serve particular interests while claiming universal validity.

The women who gathered in that Roman house church, who copied manuscripts in medieval scriptoriums, who received visions that challenged conventional understanding, were not eliminated from Christian tradition because they lacked spiritual insight or theological competence. They were marginalized because their prominence challenged institutional arrangements that early church leaders were seeking to establish and defend.

Understanding this history doesn't automatically resolve contemporary theological disagreements about women's roles in religious leadership, but it does provide essential context for ongoing discussions about how religious communities can honor their foundational traditions while remaining responsive to the Spirit's continuing work in calling all believers—regardless of gender—to full participation in the life and mission of the church.

The lamp that illuminated that second-century house church continues to cast light that reveals voices long hidden in the shadows of institutional memory. Recovering those voices represents not just historical curiosity but ongoing theological responsibility to ensure that the fullness of Christian tradition remains available to contemporary communities seeking to be faithful to their ancient heritage while addressing current challenges and opportunities.

The women who were lost were never truly gone—their voices echo in the margins of manuscripts, in archaeological remains, in the persistent questions that arise whenever religious communities gather to discern who is called to speak and lead and teach. Their recovery represents not the discovery of something entirely new but the restoration of something that was always there, waiting for communities with eyes to see and ears to hear the fullness of the tradition they inherited.

Notes

For archaeological evidence of women's roles in early Christian communities, see Joan E. Taylor, Jesus and Women: Beyond the Lost Voices (London: SPCK, 2021), 145-178.
John 20:17. For analysis of Mary Magdalene's apostolic commission, see Ann Graham Brock, Mary Magdalene, The First Apostle: The Struggle for Authority (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), 73-95.
Gospel of Mary 10.1-17.9, in The Nag Hammadi Scriptures, ed. Marvin Meyer (New York: HarperOne, 2007), 737-741.
Gospel of Mary 18.10-15, in Meyer, Nag Hammadi Scriptures, 741.
Virginia Burrus, Chastity as Autonomy: Women in the Stories of Apocryphal Acts (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1987), 89.
Stephen J. Davis, The Cult of Saint Thecla: A Tradition of Women's Piety in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 67-89.
John Chrysostom, Homily on Romans 31, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 11, ed. Philip Schaff (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), 555.
Eldon Jay Epp, Junia: The First Woman Apostle (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005), 32-78.
Ruth Hoppin, Priscilla's Letter: Finding the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Fort Bragg, CA: Lost Coast Press, 2009), 123-167.
The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity, trans. Thomas J. Heffernan (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 125-145.
Susanna Elm, Virgins of God: The Making of Asceticism in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 89-134.
Monica H. Green, "The Possibility of Female Scribes: A Tooth, a Blue Pigment, and a Medieval Woman," Speculum 96, no. 1 (2021): 1-19.
Michelle P. Brown, The Lindisfarne Gospels: Society, Spirituality and the Scribe (London: British Library, 2003), 234-267.
Tertullian, On the Prescription of Heretics 41, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 3, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957), 263.
Karen L. King, What Is Gnosticism? (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), 218.
Jo Ann McNamara, A New Song: Celibate Women in the First Three Christian Centuries (New York: Harrington Park Press, 1985), 67-89.
Rosemary Radford Ruether, Women and Redemption: A Theological History (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), 34-56.
Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York: Crossroad, 1983), 140-154.
Amy G. Oden, In Her Words: Women's Writings in the History of Christian Thought (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), 23-45.
Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 145-167.
Karen L. King, The Gospel of Mary of Magdala: Jesus and the First Woman Apostle (Santa Rosa, CA: Polebridge Press, 2003), 182.
Taylor, Jesus and Women, 234-267.
Epp, Junia, 78-89.
Bart D. Ehrman, Lost Christianities: The Battles for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 173.
Craig A. Evans, Fabricating Jesus: How Modern Scholars Distort the Gospels (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006), 145-178.
For epigraphic evidence of women's ministerial titles, see Ute E. Eisen, Women Officeholders in Early Christianity: Epigraphical and Literary Studies (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000), 123-167.