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A History of Women and Ordination, Vol. 1: The Ordination of Women in a Medieval Context
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$ 79.11
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| Item Number |
2208107 |
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Item Description...
Product Description
This first volume contains two studies, the first by Gary Macy, one of the series editors, and the other by Fr. John Hilary Martin. Macy provides the background to the earliest understanding of _ordination_ and discusses some of the controversy surrounding the change in the definition of the term in the 12th century. Until that time _ordination_ meant, _installed,_ as a king was said to be ordained when he was crowned king; a deacon was ordained into the diaconate and so was a deaconess. Then the theologians and canonists of the period insisted that the only _true_ ordination was to those roles that served at the altar, and that, furthermore, only men could serve in those roles.
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Item Specifications...
Pages 200
Dimensions: Length: 9.1" Width: 6" Height: 0.8"
Weight: 1.05 lbs.
Binding Hardcover
Release Date Oct 15, 2002
ISBN 0810843277
EAN 9780810843271
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Availability 100 units.
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 | Good general discussion of the Issue Historically Jan 25, 2005 |
A History of Women and Ordination: The Ordination of Women in Medieval Context by Bernard Cooke, Gary Macy (Scarecrow Press) the purpose of these volumes is to provide the non-specialist reader with the best scholarly research on the role of women in Christian ministry and on the changing shape of ministry in Christian history. This first volume contains two such papers. The first, by Dr. Gary Macy one of the editors of this series, presents the evidence for the ordination of women in the early Middle Ages. This evidence, however, is set in the larger context of the changing definition of ordination that took place in the twelfth-century.
Up until the twelfth-century, the Latin terms, ordo (order), ordinatio (ordination), and ordinare (to ordain) indicated one's role in the church or the society at large and the ritual which celebrated and effected the installment of a person into such a role. Since women as well as men fulfilled important roles in church and society, they were considered be "ordained" into these positions as much as were men. Thus, a king was said to be "ordained" when he was crowned king and so was a queen. An abbot was "ordained" when he was installed as abbot and so was an abbess. A deacon was "ordained" into the diaconate and so was a deaconess.
This changed in the twelfth-century when theologians and canonists began to insist that the only "true" ordination was an ordination to those roles which served at the altar, that is, the subdiaconate, the diaconate and the presbyterate. Further, only men could serve in these roles. In order to explain the many ancient sources that referred to the ordination of kings, queens, abbots, abbesses and deaconesses, the canonists held that these were merely blessings and not true ordinations. The ancient sources had been sadly inexact in their terminology. These arguments so completely won the day that scholars, such as Fr. Martin, could state that "there were, of course, no ordinations of women to Holy Orders during this period." Fr. Martin is referring, as the readers of his paper would certainly understand, to ordination in the sense that it has been used since the twelfth-century. In this sense, true sacramental ordination can only take place when a person is accepted into the orders of subdeacon, deacon, or priest; roles limited from the twelfth-century to males.
Dr. Macy's article, which originally appeared in Theological Studies, 61 (September, 2000): 481-507, gives the background to the earlier understanding of ordination and discusses some of the controversy surrounding the change in the definition of ordination which occurred in the twelfth-century. Dr. Macy further makes the point that merely establishing that the church once considered women to be properly and sacramentally ordained in the past does not immediately argue for or against ordaining women in the present. The Christian church has done many things in the past which Christians now would be loath to imitate, for instance, the Crusades or the inquisitions. Of course, Christians in the past have also done many admirable things present Christians might do well to revive. The question of which practices from the past we in the present ought to imitate (and which practices in the present should be abandoned) must be examined carefully and conscientiously and prayerfully based on the best discernment of the Spirit for present circumstances. Dr. Macy's article, then, is included to provide a general introduction to the history of ordination in Christian history that is essential for understanding of the changing role of women's status in Christian ministry and the relationship of such a history for the modern question of the ordination of women.
Fr. Martin's learned and detailed study takes up the question of the ordination of women after women had already been excluded from the ordained ministry. Originally published in the Spanish Dominican journal of theology, Fr. Martin's impressive study has until now been extremely difficult for audiences to obtain, particularly in the United States. Fr. Martin presents here an amazing array of sources, proving that there was a continuous interest in the question of why women could not be ordained. In fact, the question was a reoccurring concern of theologians from the thirteenth through the sixteenth-centuries, precisely at a time when women had already been excluded from sacramental ordination. The many authors discussed by Fr. Martin were concerned with giving a reasonable explanation as to why women were so excluded from the ordained ministry since there seemed to be no obvious reason why this should be done. The problem was compounded by the fact that these authors were aware of sources which referred to women as ordained.
As Fr. Martin demonstrates, there seems to have been no one consis¬tent reason given for the exclusion of women from ordination and that many of the reasons given by modern Christians for not ordaining women differ from those of the later Middle Ages. Perhaps, the several reasons offered never quite justified the current practice and so had to be con¬stantly refined and reasserted by each new generation of scholars. In any case, Fr. Martin's article provides an invaluable guide to the social, political, and theological background to the centuries-old Christian practice of excluding women from sacramental ordination.
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