1 Cor 14:34-35
It is better for a man to be silent and be [a Christian],
Than to talk and not to be one. It is good to teach, if he who speaks also acts.
There is then one Teacher, who spoke and it was done;
While even those things which He did in silence are worthy of the Father.
He who possesses the word of Jesus, is truly able to hear even His very silence,
That he may be perfect, and may both act as he speaks,
And be recognized by his silence.
- Ignatius[1]
***
William Weinrich [In Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood] observes correctly that it was during the patristic and medieval periods that “patterns of conduct and ecclesial behavior were developed and solidified,” and that the fathers of the Reformation adopted the medieval practice of excluding women from the clergy “without question.”[2]
Martin Luther (d.1547) consistently maintained a priesthood of all believers (especially on the basis of 1 Peter 2:9). This common priesthood possesses the right and power to exercise all “priestly offices” (teach, preach, baptize, administer the Eucharist, bind and loose sin, pray for others, sacrifice, judge doctrine and spirits). Yet, Luther habitually combines 1 Corinthians 14:34 with Genesis 3:16 to assert that women are excluded from the public exercise of the common priesthood. In view of the “ordinance and creation of God” that women are subject to their husbands, Paul forbade women “to preach in the congregation where men are present who are skilled in speaking, so that respect and discipline may be maintained.” However, if no man is present to preach, then “it would be necessary for the woman to preach.” For Luther, the apostolic prohibition of 1 Corinthians 14:34 was determinative.[3]
But if Genesis 3:16 does not describe what should be, why did Luther connect the verse with 1 Corinthians 14:34 to affirm that women were excluded from the common priesthood? Because he followed tradition and not all traditions follow the Bible.
Luther’s exclusion of women has it’s origin in a tradition begun by Tertullian (145-220). Karen Jo Torjesen describes Tertullian’s vision of the church as an essentially Roman institution.
Tertullian’s description of the Christian community dramatically marks the transition of the model of the church from the household or private association to the body politic. With him the church became a legal body (corpus or societas, the term the Romans used for the body politic) unified by a common law (lex fidei, “the law of faith”) and a common discipline (disciplina, Christian morality). For Tertullian the church, like Roman society, united a diversity of ethic groups into one body under the rule of one law… Tertullian conceived the society of the church as analogous to Roman society, divided into distinct classes or ranks, which were distinguished from one another in terms of honor and authority.[4]
Only those who were full members of the political body could possess ius docendi (the legal right to teach) and ius baptizandi (legal right to baptize). Women could not be full members and therefore they were excluded from the clergy. But Tertullian excluded women also from the laity, for although the laity could perform the legal functions in the absence of the clergy, women could not.
“It is not permitted to a woman to speak in the church; but neither (is it permitted her) to teach, nor to baptize, nor to offer, nor to claim to herself a lot in any manly function, not to say (in any) sacerdotal office.”[5]
Weinrich considers Tertullian “a representative voice” of the universal church of the second century,[6] but he cannot do so without excluding women from the church altogether.
Thomas Aquinas continued to connect 1 Corinthians 14:34 to Genesis 3:16 in the Medieval Church.
The apostle says: “Let women keep silence in the churches,” and “I suffer not a woman to teach.” Now this pertains especially to the grace of the word. Therefore the grace of the word is not becoming to women. … First and chiefly, on account of the condition attaching to the female sex, whereby women should be subject to man, as appears from Genesis 3:16. Now teaching and persuading publicly in the church belong not to subjects but to prelates (although men who are subjects may do these things if they be so commissioned, because their subjection is not a result of their natural sex, as it is with women, but of some thing supervening by accident). Secondly, lest men’s minds be enticed to lust, for it is written (Sirach 9.11): “Her conversation burneth as fire.” Thirdly, because as a rule women are not perfected in wisdom, so as to be fit to be intrusted [sic] with public teaching.”[7]
Luther inherited Thomas’s theology, and the Protestant churches have continued Luther’s habit of connecting Genesis 3:16 and 1 Corinthians 14:34-35, as seen in William MacDonald’s Believer’s Bible Commentary.[8]
We believe that the expression ‘as the law also says’ has reference to the woman’s being submissive to the man. This is clearly taught in the law, which here probably means the Pentateuch primarily. Genesis 3:16, for instance says “your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”[9]
But MacDonald cannot remain consistent in his theology, for Christian freedom from the law is one of the central themes of the New Testament.
The Christian has died to the law; he has nothing more to do with it. … Christians who desire to be under the law as a pattern of behavior do not realize that this places them under its curse. Moreover, they cannot touch the law in one point without being responsible to keep it completely. The only way we can live to God is by being dead to the law.[10]
***
Although Tertullian believed women ought to be silenced in the church, he did not know what to make of the reference to the Law.
When enjoining on women silence in the church, that they speak not for the mere sake of learning (although that even they have the right of prophesying, he has already shown when he covers the woman that prophesies with a veil), he goes to the law for his sanction that woman should be under obedience. Now this law, let me say once for all, he ought to have made no other acquaintance with, than to destroy it.[11]
By the fourth century, the Law no longer posed a problem, for the inferiority of the woman and the sole guilt of Eve had changed the meaning of Genesis 3:16 from a consequence of sin to a commandment of God. Chrysostom combined 1 Corinthians 14:34 with Genesis 3:16 without discussion and maintained that women should be silent in the Church because “the woman is in some sort a weaker being and easily carried away and light minded.”[12]
In the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century theology the inferiority of the woman was the reason for her silence. Matthew Henry concluded that women ought to be silent and refrain from teaching in the Church because, “it is the woman's duty to learn in subjection, it is the man's duty to keep up his superiority, by being able to instruct her.”[13] Adam Clarke believed women prophesied in the Early Church because of 1 Cor 11:5, but because of the apparent contradiction with 1 Cor 14:34, he concluded that the latter forbade only asking questions, not all speech.[14] Clarke thought “the law” had reference to Genesis 3:16, as did Barnes and Tertullian, but although Tertullian allowed women to pray and prophesy, Barnes concluded that the silencing of women in the Church could not be disputed because the rule was “positive, explicit, and universal.”[15] He equated foreign languages and prophesy with public speaking and therefore they were only for “the male portion of the congregation.” And as to the contradiction between chapters 11 and 14, for Barnes there was none, for he thought Paul was forbidding women from speaking “on every ground.”[16]
D.A. Carson disagrees with Weinrich’s approval of Luther’s habit of connecting Genesis 3:16 and 1 Corinthians 14:34 in his essay Silent in the Churches.
By this clause [the law says], Paul is probably not referring to Genesis 3:16, as many suggest, but to the creation order in Genesis 2:20b-24, for it is to that Scripture that Paul explicitly turns to on two others occasions when he discusses female roles (1 Corinthians 11.8, 9; 1 Timothy 2:13).[17]
But the new connection is not without problems. The phrase “the law says” is found three times in the New Testament: Rom 3:19, 1 Cor 9:8, and 1 Cor 14:34. Carson concedes that Paul usually provides the actual verse from the Old Testament, which is true of the first two examples, but he believes Paul has already provided the verse (Genesis 2:20-4) in 1 Corinthians 11. Carson believes also that the reference to the Law should be understood as Scripture, which includes the Creation account.[18] However, Genesis 1-3 is not called “the Law” or “Scripture” in the Bible; it is always called “the beginning.”[19] Hence “the law” cannot refer to Genesis 2:20-24.
Carson recognizes the problem of reconciling 1 Cor 11:3-16 with 14:34-35, wherefore he suggests that the former allows women to prophesy, but that the latter forbids them from evaluating prophecies. Because Carson acknowledges that the whole church should participate in the evaluation of teaching (Acts 17:11; Rev 2:2-3) he creates a distinction in which women are (1) allowed to prophesy, but not allowed to evaluate prophecy; and (2) disallowed to teach, but allowed to evaluate teaching. If "the careful weighing of prophecies falls under the magisterial function" of the teaching authority, why does not the evaluation of teaching considering Carson’s belief that teaching is superior to prophesying?[20]
Also George W. Knight III recognizes that 1 Cor 11:3-16 allows women to pray and to prophesy in his essay The Family and the Church, but he views 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 as a prohibition for women to teach in a church setting.
This is seen in Paul's treatment of the gifts in 1 Corinthians 11-14, where women are excluded only from speaking in church (1 Corinthians 14:34-5) where congregational "teaching" is involved (1 Corinthians 14:26; notice that the items listed in verse 26 correspond with the subjects dealt with in verses 27 and 35 [with only the first item, "a psalm," not dealt with in these verses] and in particular notice that "teaching" [NASB] in verse 26 is the one-word description for the "speaking" Paul will deal with when it comes to women in verses 34-35). These women are recognized as properly participating in praying and prophesying, for example, but are only asked not to throw off the cultural sign of their submission when they do so (1 Corinthians 11:1-6).[21]
Knight does not explain how the "one-word description" of "teaching" can be "speaking" (laleo) in 1 Corinthians 14:34, considering the word is connected to both tongues and prophecy three times in verses 27-29. Neither does he have a reason why women should learn (manthano) at home when the purpose of prophecy is that all may learn (manthano) at church (v. 31).
The context of 1 Corinthians 14 is speech. (Laleo is used twenty-four times in chapter 14.) In verses 1-25 Paul explains why the Corinthians should desire to prophesy rather than to speak in tongues; in verses 26-40 he explains the proper way of prophesying and speaking in tongues. Moreover, Paul considered prophesying, which both men and women participated in, equivalent to teaching, for he wrote, “But one who prophesies speaks [laleo] to men for edification [oikodome] and exhortation [paraklesis] and consolation… For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all may be exhorted [parakaleo]” (Cor 14:3, 31, NAS). The purpose of their gathering together - the psalms, teachings, tongues, revelations and interpretations - was edification (oikodome, v. 26). Therefore prophesy was not distinguished from teaching as to its purpose. In addition, exhortation (paraklesis) is equivalent to declaring divine truths - such as the gospel, as seen in Acts 13:15-52, Hebrews 13:22, and 1 Thessalonians 2:2-3 - and people are expected to learn as a result. Since prophesying is a form of teaching, it is impossible that Paul excluded women from teaching, and consequently, the evaluation of prophesy.
***
Because of the difficulties associated with the former connection to Genesis 3:16, the meaning of “the law” and the impossibility to reconcile the two verses with chapter 11, it has been suggested that 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 is an interpolation (a later addition). Carson rejects the possibility on the grounds that “it is hard to believe that none of the earliest copies had any influence on the second-and third century textual traditions to which we have access.”[22] But because all of the Western witnesses place 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 after verse 40, Carson concludes that it would take only one copyist to introduce a transposition of a verse “presumably early enough to capture the Western tradition.”[23] If one copyist could create a uniform tradition by changing the position of a verse without the earlier copies having an influence on the later textual tradition, why cannot the same be true of an interpolation?
It is likely that 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 was instrumental in changing the interpretation of Genesis 3:16, for it is connected to Genesis 3:16 only when the verse is viewed as a commandment. Because the interpretation of Genesis 3:16 was changed before the end of the second century, the interpolation must have been created in the early second century – early enough to change the textual traditions of the second and third centuries.
Carson is aware that the Western tradition knew of a variant position, but he is mistaken of the variant itself.
The relevant textual evidence is quickly stated. Verses 34-35 appear in all known manuscripts, either in their present position, or in the case of all Western witnesses, after verse 40 (D F G 88* a b d f g Ambrosiaster Sedulius-Scotus). In addition, Codex Fuldensis (a Latin manuscript written between A.D. 541, and A.D. 546 by order of Bishop Victor of Capua) places the verses after verse 40, but also inserts them in the margin after verse 33. It appears that, despite the uniformity of the Western tradition, Victor, or those who worked at his bidding, became aware of the placement of the verses outside their own tradition and signaled their hesitation in this way. [24]
Carson believes the variant concerns the location of the two verses, but B.M. Metzger, whose error Carson perpetuates, admitted to Philip B. Payne that he had never seen the actual text. After viewing a photocopy of the manuscript, which shows that Bishop Victor ordered a rewriting of verses 36-40 in the bottom margin and not next to verse 33 and after verse 40, he admitted that “his statement in the Textual Commentary on the NT is in error.”[25] As Payne explains, the scribe placed a symbol next to verse 33 to signal where to begin to read the text found in the bottom margin,
I conclude that Bishop Victor ordered the rewriting of 1 Cor 14:34-40 in the margin of Codex Fuldensis with vv. 34-[3]5 omitted and that there is a text-critical siglum that indicates the scribe’s awareness of a textual variant at the beginning of 1 Cor 14:34 in codex Vaticanus. This text-critical evidence, plus the evidence from the non-Western ms 88* and Vulgate ms Reginensis with vv. 34-[3]5 transposed after v. 40, makes an already strong case for interpolation even stronger.[26]
Professor Metzger agreed that “the most natural explanation is that Victor ordered the rewriting of the text of 1 Cor 14.36-40 to replace all of vv. 34-40 in the text above and that this implies that Victor believed that 34-[3]5 was an interpolation.”[27]
The Codex Fuldensis (A.D. 546) is the earliest dated manuscript of the New Testament and the only manuscript edited by “one of the eminent scholars of the early church,” Bishop Victor, who combined Tatia’s Diatessaron (the four Gospels) and Jerome’s Vulgate, which he substituted for the Old Latin.[28] Payne concludes that “we must assume that Victor had sufficient evidence to convince him that the Vulgate text was wrong at 1 Cor 14:34-[3]5.”[29] The Vulgate included also 1 John 5:7-8 with a preface claiming to be written by St. Jerome which “accuses the Latin translators of omitting this testimonium.”[30] Bishop Victor omitted these verses, which supports the existence of interpolations in the Vulgate.
As noted before, Carson believes the second and third century textual traditions should have been affected by the first wherefore an early interpolation would have been impossible. But the incorrect rendering of Genesis 3:16 in the Vulgate was not challenged in the fifth century although Hebrew Bibles and the Septuagint were widely available. It is therefore not surprising that an interpolation of the same nature had been readily accepted and that the dissenting voices were few and far apart.
That a text bearing a striking similarity to 1 Corinthians 14:34-35 is found in the writings of Flavius Josephus, the Jewish historian, strengthens the likelihood of an early interpolation.[31]
The woman, says the law, is in all things inferior to the man. Let her accordingly be submissive, not for her humiliation, but that she may be directed, for the authority has been given by God to the man.[32]
Josephus (born in A.D. 37) wrote Against Apion around A.D. 100, which makes Paul’s letter to the Corinthians an earlier work. The context of the chapter in which the quote is found is marriage in Jewish Law. Because the husband’s authority and the woman’s inferiority are not found in the Old Testament, Josephus was most likely referring to the Jewish oral law, which he calls “our law.” Josephus does not demand that the women be silent, for he affirms that all Jews knew the Law well and that anyone, women and servants included, could answer inquires.[33]
The silencing of women is found in a speech by Cato the Censor, the second century B.C. moral guardian of the Republican Rome.
According to Livy, recorded in The Early History of Rome… Cato [the Censor] declared if every man had been concerned to ensure that his own wife looked up to him and respected his rightful position as her husband, we should not have become so powerful that our independence has been lost in our own homes and is now being trampled and stamped underfoot in public. We have failed to restrain them as individuals, and now they have combined to reduce us to our present panic… It made me blush to push through a positive regiment of women a few minutes ago in order to get here. My respect for the position and modesty of them as individuals – a respect which I do not feel for them as a mob – prevented me from doing anything as consul which would suggest the use of force. Otherwise I should have said to them, “What do you mean by rushing out in public in this unprecedented fashion, blocking the streets and shouting out to men who are not husbands? Could you not have asked your questions at home, and have asked them of your husbands?”[34]
The speech was given as a response to the upper-class women who had come to inquire of the Senate when the Oppian Laws, which had restricted the display of luxury during the war against Hannibal, were going to be abolished. Although Cato failed to retain the Oppian Laws, he became the icon of austere, moral living for all Romans. Tertullian, when defending the faith, asked the Romans, “Which of these gods of yours is more remarkable for gravity and wisdom than Cato.”[35] And, Lactantius called Cato “the Chief of Roman wisdom.”[36]
Cato’s belief that women would not be content with equality makes him a likely source of an interpolation which mandates the subjection of women.
Woman is a violent and uncontrolled animal, and it is not good giving her the reins and expecting her not to kick over the traces. No, you have got to keep the reins firmly in your own hands… Suppose you allow them to acquire or to restore one right after another, and in the end to achieve complete equality with men, do you think that you will find them bearable? Nonsense. Once they have achieved equality, they will be your masters…[37]
A religion which made women equal with men would have not been welcomed by a patriarchal system which recognized only authority and subjection, for those who live in a hierarchical society seem woefully unable to trust that their subjects would not wish to rule them in turn if given a chance. Even today, equality between men and women is as abstract of a concept as eating grass is for the lion for those who fear the emerging of a matriarchy that has never existed in the past.
[1] Ignatius, Letter to the Ephesians, Ch. XV.
[2] Piper and Grudem, 279.
[4] Torjesen, 162-3.
[5] Tertullian, On the Veiling of Virgins, Ch. IX.
[7] Summa Theologica, Second Part of Second Part, Question 177, Article 2.
[8] MacDonald proposes laleo means “to speak authoritatively,” which creates the absurd position of allowing children, but not women, to speak with authority: “When I was a child, I spake [laleo] as a child.” (1 Cor. 13:11, KJV; William MacDonald, Believer’s Bible Commentary, [Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, Inc, 1980]).
[9] MacDonald, “1 Cor 14:34-35,” 1802.
[10] Ibid., “Gal 2:19,” 1880.
[11] Tertullian, Five Books Against Marcion, Book V, VIII.
[12] Homilies on First Corinthians, Homily, XXXVII.
[13] “1 Cor 14.34-35,” Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible: New Modern Edition.
[14] “1 Cor 14.34-35,” Adam Clarke's Commentary on the whole Bible.
[15] But if women are not allowed to speak in the church, why did Peter write if “anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God” (1 Pet. 4:11)? A similar prohibition against female speech is not found in his letters.
[16] Barnes' Notes on the New Testament.
[17] Piper and Grudem, 152.
[18] Ibid., 148.
[19] See Isaiah 40:2; 41:26; 46:10; Matthew 19:4-9; 24:19-21; Ecclesiastical 3:10-12; Mark 10:3-9; 13:18-19; Luke 11:49-51; 2 Thessalonians 2:13; 2 Timothy 1:9; Hebrews 1:10-12; 2 Peter 3:3-4; 1 John 3:8.
[20] Piper and Grudem, 153.
[21] Ibid., 351.
[22] Ibid., 142.
[23] Ibid., 142-143.
[24] Ibid.,141.
[25] Philip B Payne, New Testament Study (Edmonds, WA: Edmonds Publishing Group, 1995), 241-2.
[26] Ibid., 240.
[27] Ibid., 245.
[28] Tatian, a disciple of Justin Martyr, wrote the Harmony of the Gospel (Diatessaron) about A.D. 170. Tatian was an Assyrian and his work was used widely in Syria. “Scholars are inclined to make Tatian’s to be the earliest Syriac translation of the Gospel” (www.newadvent.com).
[29] Payne, 245.
[30] Ibid., 241.
[31] An alternative translation by William Whiston reads, “But then, what are our laws about marriage? … For saith the Scripture, “A woman is inferior to her husband in all things.” Let her, therefore, be obedient to him; not so, that he should abuse her, but that she may acknowledge her duty to her husband; for God hath given the authority to the husband.” (Flavius Josephus Against Apion, in Josephus, The Complete Works, trans. by William Whiston [Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1998], 2.24).
[32] Thomas Cahill, Desire of the everlasting Hills (New York: Random House, 2001), 233.
[34] Jack Holland, Misogyny (New York City: Carroll and Graf Publishers, 2006), 43-44.
[35] Tertullian, The Apology, Ch. XI.
[36] Lactantius, Of the False Wisdom of Philosophers, Book III, Ch. XVIII.
[37] Holland, 43-44.
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