Making Women Priests
AND
The Peputians or Pepuzians
"Did not saint Paul forbid women to speak the Word of God in congregations for the avoidance of abuse and disorder?"
Bishop Barlowe's Dialogue (1531)(i)
"I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence."
Saint Paul, I Timothy 2:12.
General Background.
In the early Church it is well known that women did play an active part, however on many occasions it was emphasised the fact that women could not be bishops or presbyters, that is rule over men or teach.(ii)
The
Pepuzians originating about A.D. 170 did allow women to minister
but were generally rejected though they were too early to be
condemned by a general Council. The name was revived at the
Reformation by Rome when England allowed Elizabeth I to be
Supreme Governor of the Church of England which Rome asserted was
making her bishop in all but name.
[ Notes on The Pepuzians].
Early councils which spoke against the ministry of Women whose decisions were received by the Ecumentical Councils, include:
The Synod of Laodicea (A.D. 343-381): "Presbyterides, as they are called, or female presidents, are not to be appointed in the Church" Canon 11. (iii).
The Quinisext Council (A.D. 692): "Women are not permitted to speak at the time of Divine Liturgy; but, according to the word of Paul the Apostle, 'let them be silent. For it is not permitted to them to speak, but to be in subjection, as the law also saith. But if they wish to learn anything let them ask their own husbands at home'." Canon 70.(iv).
The ealiest record of a particularly English opposition is in the Canons adopted by Ecgbriht Bishop of York dated A.D. 740. The 87th reads:
"A canon of Carthage. Let not a woman, though learned and holy, dare to teach men in the assembly."(v)
Although there were deaconesses in the early Church it is quite clear they were not part of the ordained ministry of the Church:
The Council of Nicea (A.D. 325), "And we mean by deaconesses such as have assumed the habit, but who since they have no imposition of hands, are to be numbered only among the laity" Canon 19.(vi)
The Peputian Heresy and the Reformation.
Nicholas Heath (1501-78), Archbishop of York, speaking in the House of Lords(1) against the Bill to make Elizabeth I supreme governor of the Church of England asserted "But to preach or minister the holy sacraments a woman may not, ... But a woman in the degrees of Christ's Church is not called to be an apostle, nor evangelist, nor to be a shepherd, neither a doctor or preacher. Therefore, she can not be supreme head of Christ's militant Church, nor yet any part thereof."(2)
So renewed the debate over whether women could have spiritual or pastoral authority in the Church of England. The Reformers maintained that a Queen, as a woman, could have Civil Jurisdiction, but not Spiritual Jurisdiction. This is the reason they inserted "we give not to our Princes the ministering either of God's Word, or the Sacraments" into Article 37. (3)
However Roman Catholics were not satisfied and kept the charge alive into the 17th century. St Francis de Sales, Bp of Geneva, wrote: "The Pepusians, says St. Augustine, admitted women to the dignity of the priesthood. Who is ignorant that the English brethren hold their Queen Elizabeth to be head of their Church?"(4) "The English hold their queen as head of their church, contrary to the pure Word of God." (5).
The charge was refuted by such men as Abp Bancroft's Chaplain, Thomas Rogers, in an authoritative book The Catholic Doctrine of the Church of England (6)stating "Queens may not have or give voice, either deliberative or definitive in councils and public assemblies, concerning matters of religion; nor make ecclesiastical laws concerning religion; nor give any man right to rule, preach, or execute any spiritual function, as under them, and by their authority."(7). Adding concerning Ministering in the Congregation "In error they remain, who are of the opinion that ... women may be deacons, elders, and bishops, the former the Acephalians, the latter the Pepuzians did maintain."(8)
Dean Richard Field(9) in Of The Church(10) says "The fourth heresy imputed to us ... is that of the Peputians, who gave women authority to intermeddle with the sacred ministry of the Church. ... We say, therefore, to silence this slander, that we all most constantly hold the contrary of that he imputeth unto us;"(11).
Bishop Joseph Hall and others allude to it: "What heresy is there in all times which [Rome is] not want to cast up on us? ... [including that] we are Pepuzians, that ascribe too much to women."(12).
So in the past, Anglicans distanced themselves from what was called the heresy of making a woman a Bishop or Priest. Should we not do the same today?
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Notes.
[Back](i) Bishop Barlowe's Dialogue On
the Lutheran Factions, first published 1531 and again in 1553,
with an introduction bearing on the Question of Anglican Orders
and notes by John Robert Lunn, London 1897, p. 116.
[Back](ii)Much direct and incidental
evidence exists on the views of the early church, canon law
always assumes a Presbyter or Bishop is a man when specifying
impediments to ordination and sexual offences after ordination.
Prohibitions about wearing clothes of the opposite sex, and the
use use of the veil as a sign of subjection all witness the same
message.
Even the office of deaconess is associated with unusual
practices, they were required to baptise women in secret at a
time when the candidate was naked at baptism, they also
catechised women in societies where women were normally taught
separately from men. Again, later when an Abess was over priests
it was in the management of secular affairs and always clearly
distinguished from ministry or spiritual matters.
[Back](iii) Laodicea (A.D. 343-381), Canon
XI: The Seven Ecumenical Councils, A Select Library of Nicene and
Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. XIV, p129, T&T Clark 1997 reprint.
[Back](iv) Council in Trullo, also called
the Quinisext Council (A.D. 692), Canon LXX, ibid p. 396.
[Back](v) Johnson's Collection of
English Canons, Vol. 1, p.202, Oxford, 1850. The
Council of Carthage may be that of A.D. 257 under Cyprian which
was ratified by Ecumenical Councils but whose Canons are now lost
(see above p. 515).
[Back](vi) Council of Nicea (A.D. 325)
Canon XIX, Seven Ecumentical Councils p40.
[Back](1) House of Lords, 18th March
1559.
[Back](2) Proceedings in the Parliaments
of Elizabeth I, Vol. 1, p17, Ed. T.E. Hartley, Leicester
University Press, 1981.
[Back](3) [Thirty-nine] Articles of
Religion, 1562: XXXVII, Of the Civil
Magistrate.
[Back](4) The Catholic Controversy by
Francis de Sales (1567-1622), Library of Francis de Sales, 3rd
ed. 1909, p77.
[Back](5) ibid. p162. [c.f. I Timothy
2:12 etc.].
[Back](6) The first exposition of the
Thirty-nine Articles (1607). In the context of the Canons of
1603/4, the claim "Perused, and by the
lawful authority of the Church of England, allowed to be
public" (Parker Society, 1854, p2),
points to Archbishop Bancroft's formal approval.
[Back](7) Re: Article 37, ibid. p342/3.
[Back](8) Re: Article 23, ibid. p.240.
[Back](9) "1562-1616 Dean of
Gloucester ... intimate friend of R. Hooker, H. Savile, and other
noted scholars, Field was one of the most learned and acute
theologians of his age." Oxford Dictionary of the Christian
Church, 1958.
[Back](10)The major defence of the Church
of England after Jewel and Hooker.
[Back](11) Bk3, Ch 25, "Of
the Heresie of the Peputians, making women priests";
1635, p134/5; 1847 vol. 2 p276-278.
[Back](12) No Peace
with Rome 1625, Works(1863) Vol. X, p.352.