Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 146:581 (Jan 1989)
Article: A Biblical View of Women in the Ministry Part 5: Distinctive Roles for Women in the Second and Third Centuries
Author: H. Wayne House

BSac 146:581 (Jan 89) p. 41

A Biblical View of Women in the Ministry
Part 5:
Distinctive Roles for Women in the Second and Third Centuries

H. Wayne House

Associate Professor of Systematic Theology
Dallas Theological Seminary

The Role of Virgins

The question of virgins arose in the time of Paul, when the Corinthians, influenced by an incipient Gnosticism, appealed to him to settle their differences on virginity, marriage, second marriage, and widowhood. Paul stated clearly that marriage was honorable and not to be despised.1 Even with this teaching, some church fathers taught unorthodox views on marriage. Justin, Athenagoras, and Clement of Alexandria maintained a view of marriage similar to advocates of Stoicism, that the sole purpose of marriage was for the continuance of the race, procreatio prolis.2 Believers in the second and third centuries were preoccupied with the glories of martyrdom, but Christian asceticism was also prominent. Part of the value of virginity and the self-control it required was that it was viewed as a state of perfection that prepared one for martyrdom. The high ideal of virginity and its accompanying asceticism is found in an

BSac 146:581 (Jan 89) p. 42

alleged sermon of Paul in the Acts of Paul and Thecla, in which he was speaking about self-control and the resurrection:

In this sermon self-control is seen in relation to virginity rather than to the biblical concept of moral purity. Howe rightly says, “The word [<...