Junia, a woman called “apostle” by Paul
Saint Paul in his writings “doesn’t talk much about questions of femininity”, admits Father Michel Quesnel, but “he mentions several women”. Thus, in his Letter to the Romans, we find Phébée, Prisca, Chloé… “Greet Prisca and Aquila, my co-workers in Jesus Christ”, writes Saint Paul (Rom 16:3). Prisca and Aquilas worked closely with him, forming “a collaborative couple of Paolo”, Father Quesnel describes.
Also, it’s another woman, Junias. “Greet Andronicos and Junias who are related to me. They were my fellow prisoners. They are famous apostles; they also belonged to Christ before me.” (Rom 16:7) Junias is truly an apostle, underlines the priest. “In the animation of the Church in the first century, there is a hierarchy in ecclesial functions: in the first place the apostles, secondly the prophets, thirdly those in charge of teaching”. So Junias takes first place – with her husband of course, but “a single woman didn’t have many rights in antiquity”. However, “there are few who call themselves apostles”! It is therefore not irrelevant to consider that Paul mentions Junias as a woman and an apostle.
A Church that developed according to the model of the civil society of Antiquity
“Let the woman receive instruction calmly, in all submission. I do not allow a woman to teach, nor to dominate her husband; Shut up”. (Tim 2, 11-12) This text was probably written at the end of the first century, the specialist points out. That is to say “at the time when the Church is structured according to the models of civil society: in civil society it was the males who had the main functions…”
Misogynous St. Paul: an image conveyed by the Fathers of the Church?
Among the Fathers of the Church there are “pretty clearly anti-feminist remarks”, recognizes Michel Quesnel. Thus, in a homily on the First Letter of St. Paul to Timothy, John Chrysostom writes: “When the woman interfered in teaching the man, she turned everything upside down; she made the husband fall into wrongdoing. The only advice the woman gave the man was catastrophic.” That John Chrysostom lends such remarks to St. Paul about women, who “has no reason to exist,” Father Quesnel considers.
