Ladies' Column. CHRISTIANITY AND THE WOMAN QUESTION.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 8521, 16 November 1889, Page 6

Ladies' Column. CHRISTIANITY AND THE WOMAN QUESTION.

In the curreni number of the Contemporary JSey!e!i>,l?rincipaJ lionalds^n, L.L.D., discusses, in a very interesting a^tfcic, "the prevalent opinion that wo'man owes her present high position 1o Christianity. 1 ' I£e bituselJ! used to believe this opinion, 8))4 wogld'|ik( 3 f o believe it still; bat the facts of hiatorjf, he says, have been too much for him, for, "in the first three centuries I have not been able to see that Christianity hjU} a^y favorable effect on the position of women, lmt, on the contrary, that it teuded to lower their' char^ctqr and coutract the k'&nga pf iheir actjiyity." KO "WOMAN'S QUESTION" IN 9HJS OOSPELS. In the Gospels, says Dr Donaldson, women fjo indeed occupy a prominent position. Many of ihArp followed Christ and ministered to Him. With o 57oraan who had had iive husbands and waa living with a man not her husband, He hoid3 the most profound conversation, and to her He proclaims tho grandest truths of His revelation. And the women of His day and country soem to have had great liberty of movement aud action. One of ;them, described by St. Luko as " a ainnor in the city," finds her way into the hopse of a Pharisee with whom He was dining, pours a box of ointment on Hia feet, and wipes His fe,?£ with the hair of her head. Christ miuglea freely Ja the marriage festivities where His mother and doojMess other female ' relatives were p'resput, Hip j intercourse with tho £aroily of Bethany ' Is of the most unrestrained cbataoter, i and He talks to both sisters on the I highest subjects. And, according to I St. John. His first appearnnoe afler His < resurrection is Eade to a, woman, Mary ( nf ?«lagdala, froni whojOiiio expelled ! seven demoDS. But in the G-ospeb ] tlieic is no special doatrine propounded 6 in regird to women. t ST. PAUL AS A TOMAN-HATER. £ it is when we come to the writings of t St. Paul thai tp.ia;ons are pronounced r in regard to mamiiga ami tfes conduct r of women, aud thero can fee'no'doubt 3 that these opinions are of a atern and' t restrictive nature. The Ebionites ex- I plainod tho Apostle's conversion by o stating thai Jw was, as he himself n allowed, a native of Tcrcu, that he was d not a Jew, but a Greek with a Greek o father and a Greek mother, that he went & up to Jerusalem and stayed there for si sow.c t"«o, that ha fell in love with the' b high priest'a daughter, became in con- d seqnenco a prosolvte, and as£ed her in 0 marriage, but on being refused ha was d enraged, and wjoto against eiiewaoisioc, d

the Sabbath, and the law. Some have thought that there ia a bitterness against, women in the writings of St. Paul which cau be explaln«i only by some such rejection as that related by the Ebionites. THE HIGHEB PAGAN IDEAL. Bat the fact is, Dr Donaldson goes on to point out, that St Paul's doctrines fell in with the tendencies of the time. Arid this is the more remarkable because la Roman civilisation, whioh Christianity sought to overthrow, women enjoyed great power and Influence. Tradition was in favor of restriction, but by a concurrence of oircumstanceß women had been liberated from the enslaving fetters of the old legal forms, and they enjoyed freedom of intercourse in BODiety ; they walked and drove in the public thoroughfares with veils that did not conceal their faces, they dined in the company of men, they studied literature and philosophy, they took part in political movements, they were allowed to defend their own law cases If they liked, and thoy helped their husbands in the government of provinces and the writing of books. CHRISTIAN "WIDOWS: " LET THEM SIT AT HOME." One might hare expected Christianity to favoi this extension of woman's freedom. But, in fact, it did quite the reverse. In the Church itself women are soon Been only iv three capacities— as martyrs, as widows, and as deaconesses. Persons were required to visit sick women, to convey assistance to poor womdn, and to rear orphan children. Widows were selected for this service, but not all widows. Certain qualifications were deemed essential. The widow must be at least sixty years of age ; she must have made up her mind not to marry again, and she must have experience ia the nursing of children, so as to give suitable advice to mothers in their distress and diffioulties. The widows had no spiritual fonotlon. They were not to teach. How jealous the Church was ia this matter is seen from the instructions given to them : " Let the widow," Is the oommandment in tha Apostolical Constitution, " mind nothing but to pray for those that give and for the whole Church, and when she is asked anything by anyone let her not easily answer, excepting questions concerning the faith and righteousness and hope In God. . . . But of the remaining doctrines let her not answer anything rashly, leat by sAying anything unlearnedly she should make the Word Ito be blasphemed." And the occupation of the widow is summed op in these words, fI She is to sit at home, sing, pray, read, watch and fast, speak to] God continually in songs and hymns." j CHRISTIAN DEACONESSES I " LET THEM BE SILENT." The deaconesses also were prohibited from teaching. They were superior to Ihe widows in the liberty of movement which they had, and the widows were enjoined to be obedient to them; but they had no spiritual function, and while there is no doubt that they were ordained for their service, an the widows also were, they had no sacred character, and could perform no priestly office. ' Let them be silent,' says Tertullian, ' and at home consult their own husbands.'"

A CONTIiAST WITH ROHAN WOMEN. Tbo entire exclusion of women from every sacred function stands in striking contrast with heathen practice. In Home the wife of thePontifex Maximns took the lead in the worship of Bona Dea, and in the religious rites which specially concerned women. The most honored priest attached to a particular God in Rome, the Fiamen Dialia, must be married, and must resign his office when, his wife died, for his wife was also a priestess, and his family were consecrated to the Bervice of the God, And the vestal virgins received every mark of respect that cpuld be bestowed on them, and the amplest liberty. The highest oipcials made way for them a 9 they passed along the streets, they banqueted with the College of Pontificee, they viewed the games in the company of the Empress, and Btatues were erected in their honor. CIffiISTIAN KISStffQ, Under the Christian rdgime, on the contrary, the highest point to which a woman could rise was to be a doorkeeper and a raes3age-womgn, and even these functions were taken away froni her during the Middle Ages. Dr Donaldson finds a clue to this phenomenon in the narrow conception which the Fathera of the Church formed of the nature of Wqman. Tk? 8 conception was due, he ; thinks, to tha scandals -pinch attended the earliest Christian rites. It is, he says, one of the most striking facts in all history that in the second century the Cbriatians were universally believed by Pagans to be secret conspirators combined for immoral purposes. The exhortations of St. Paul show that the belief was not without some foundation. We need not wonder, says Dr Donaldsod, that Fagans should suspect _that the lores' of the •' love ireaals •' were not of the purest. Then there was another practice, still more foreign to our Christian ideas. There is no command in the New Testament to keep the Sunday, or to stand or sit at Binging, or to repeat the Creed, or to keep Good Friday or Christmao, or to do a hundred other tKings about which phristiana have wrangled with all earnestness ; but there is' a commandment five times repeated in the Apostolic Epistles, and indicative of ' tjv?' ptrong bond of brotherhood which' bound Christian brothers and sisters to each other, to this effect: "Salute the brethren with a holy Hsb," St. Peter, varying the command, " Salute the brethren with a kiss of love." ft is easy to see that auch a practice would give rise to scandalous reports, jthe)'e' is eyidepce it ths ecclesiastical writers fh&t the eaply Christians did not always make jt a holy kiss, as it should have bbbo, A.thenagories quotes a saying which he attributes to our Lord, and which evidently deals with an abuse of this praotice. It is to this effect : -" Whoever kisses a second time, because he hss found pleasure in it, oommits a sin." And Oioment of Alexandria thus speaks of the matter ; "Love is not tested by a kiss but by kindly feeling. But there are those that do nothing but make the churches resound with a kiss. l ? or this very thing, the shameless use of the kiss, which ought to be mystic, occasions foul suspicions and evil reports." WOMEN AS "THE DEVIL'S GATEWAY." It was the reaction against such abuses that led to the asoetio ideal of tLe Chr;otian Fathers, which in its turn dpgj'aSe'd worsen to the position of household drudges." What the early Christians did, says Er.' Donaldson, was to strike the male out of the definition of man and human being out of the definition of woman. Man was a human being made for the highest and highest pcrposPß ; woman was a female made to serye oply opa. She was on the earth to inflame flje he'grt ftf m^n with every cvii passion. She jyas a fjrejhip continually striving lo get alongside the male man-of-war to blow him into piec9B. Thia is the way in which Tertullian addresses women : " Do yon hot know that each one of you is an Eve ? The sehiejjge of (Jod on thia sox of yours lives in this age ; the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the devil's gateway ; you oro the uneealer of that forbidden fruit; you are the firnt deserter of the divtoe law ; you are she who persuade* h;m whom the devil was not valiant enough' to attack. You destroyed so easily God's image, man. Oa account of your desert — that is, death— even the Son of God had to die," A.ni the gentle Clement of

Alexandria hits her hard when ho says : " Nothing disgraceful is proper to ram, who is endowed with reason ; much less for woman, to whom it brings ahame even to reflect of what nature Bhe is." (It is curious to note that the doctrine of laying all the guilt on women, against which modern reformers protest, has thus Christian authority on ita side.) THE WHOLE DUTY OF A CHRISTIAN WOMAN. Here, finally ( 9ays the Pall Mall brazette, from which the above is taken) put together from Dr. Donaldson's apostolic researches, v the whole duty ?v T" 11 , aMO n tdin ? to the Fathers of the Church. Her first and great dnty was to stay at home, and not let herself be seen anywhere. She is not to go to banquets. She is not to go to marriage feasts ; nor to frequent the theatre, nor public spectacles. Does she want exercise? Clement of Alexandria prescribes for her:— "She is to exercise herself in spinning and woaving, ond superintending the cooking, if necessary." Any personal adornment is characteristic of " women who have lost all shame." The hearing of children was " perilous to faith," and it was a great spiritual gain to a man " when he chanced to be deprived of hia wife —that is, by death. Meanwhile, during her life her duty was plain. She was to stay at home and to be subservient to her husband in all things.