What the Early Church Believed: Women and the Priesthood

Scripture and Church teaching

Women could publicly pray and prophesy (1 Corinthians 11:1-16), but not teach or have authority over men (1 Timothy 2:11-14), two essential clerical functions, nor publicly challenge the clergy's teaching (1 Corinthians 14:34-38). The Fathers rejected women's ordination not as culturally unsuitable but as incompatible with the faith.

In 1994 John Paul II, confirming the brethren (cf. Luke 22:32), declared that "the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women" and that this is to be definitively held by all the faithful (Ordinatio Sacerdotalis 4). In 1995 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ruled that the teaching requires definitive assent, having been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal magisterium (cf. Lumen Gentium 25).

The witness of the early Church

• Irenaeus (189) describes the Gnostic Marcus having women "consecrate" cups as a deception.
• Tertullian (200, 206): heretical women presume to teach and baptize; a woman may not speak in church (1 Corinthians 14:34-35), offer, or claim any priestly office.
• Hippolytus (215): widows are not ordained, since they do not offer the oblation or conduct the liturgy.
• The Didascalia (225): Christ had women disciples but did not send them to teach with the Twelve.
• Firmilian (253) condemns a woman who pretended to consecrate the Eucharist.
• The Council of Nicaea I (325): deaconesses are not ordained and are numbered among the laity.
• The Council of Laodicea (360): "presbyteresses" are not to be ordained.
• Epiphanius (377) condemns the Collyridians who ordained women; deaconesses exist for the modesty of women at baptism, not as priestesses; no woman was ever called to the succession, and if any woman should have been a priest, it would have been Mary.
• John Chrysostom (387): the whole female sex must retire before the task of presiding over the Church.
• The Apostolic Constitutions (400): virgins are not ordained; deaconesses assist at women's baptisms but do not bless or do what priests and deacons do; women may not perform the priest's office (1 Corinthians 11:3; Genesis 3:16), which is a pagan practice.
• Augustine (428) lists among heretics the Quintillians, who gave women the priesthood.