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The Role of Women in Gnosticism

During the earliest era of Christianity, Jewish and Roman women alike lived under the subjugation of men. Some sources say that during Jesus' lifetime, women ranked lower than beasts of burden in importance in that society. Christianity had its roots in Judaism, and most Jewish women of those times were neither educated nor allowed to have discourse with men in the Temple. The Torah and strict purity laws dictated how women and men were to conduct themselves.

A Challenge to the Patriarchy

Many women undoubtedly accepted their fate without much resistance because they lived in a society with rules enforced by men and passed through a lineage of Jewish patriarchs. Their lives mirrored the lives of their mothers and grandmothers. Yet the less fortunate women who had no men to define them and their place in society, such as widows, and those who were lame, chronically ill, slaves, or prostitutes became disenfranchised. They had no safety net and no easy way out of their miserable existence. In Jesus, they saw a new kind of man, one who accorded them respect, empathy, and the means of health and empowerment.

Jesus challenged the patriarchy in its treatment of women. He witnessed every day how women were treated in his world. A woman was not allowed to let a man other than her husband see her with her hair unbound, eat with a strange man, or talk with a man in public. Yet Jesus explained the Scriptures to women, offered them hope (as the woman at the well in John 4:4–42), protected them from being stoned to death, and healed them.

And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any, came behind him, and touched the border of his garment: and immediately her issue of blood stanched. — Luke 8:43–44

Until Jesus came along, they were cast off, ostracized, and disenfranchised. He showed a remarkable, radical egalitarian treatment of women. He treated them with respect. He accepted them even when they were considered ritually unclean or filled with sin. Jesus did not abuse them or treat them as servants or as sex objects. He never dehumanized or depersonalized them. He spoke to them in public, and also in private, and they taught him things. Women around him were grateful. They anointed him with perfumed oil and provided for him out of their means. They became his disciples. One woman — Mary of Magdala — became his closest friend and confidante (as the Gnostic Gospels argue), was eyewitness to his resurrection, and served as his designated messenger to the male apostles who, according to popular belief, may have fled into hiding after Jesus' death in fear of their own lives. Jesus may not have intended to emerge as a social reformer and he did not change Jewish law, but he showed through example a more equitable way to treat women.

Orthodox Christian women conform to roles of women reflected in the Bible. They see themselves as followers of Christ, wives and mothers, spiritual educators of their children, and workers and missionaries in the world. They see in the mother of Jesus a spiritual exemplar of piety and virtue.

As the first Christian communities grew, the Gentile communities expanded faster than those of the Jewish Christians. However, when the faithful gathered, they most likely did so in small groups so as not to alert the authorities. They met in house churches at table fellowships modeled upon the Jewish table tradition. Men and women worshipped with prayer and prophecy, healed, and did whatever they had known Jesus to do. They likely shared food and drink after their worship session in a communal fellowship. Because there were Jewish Christian groups that ate kosher foods and Gentile groups that consumed a more open diet, the evolution of the church away from its Jewish roots into the Gentile realm likely found the food choices becoming less restrictive. The New Testament Gospels depict Jesus at table fellowship with people who were disenfranchised or margin-alized in the Palestinian society of the first century. His social interaction with such individuals, disregard for washing purification before eating, and lack of regard for tithed bread rankled Jewish leaders, who labeled Jesus a glutton. The fourteenth chapter of the canonical Gospel of Luke shows how Jesus felt about the restrictions put upon him and others in Jewish society. In one instance he challenges the status quo by naming those who should be invited to a feast.

But when thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: and thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just. — Luke 14:13–14

Three women traveled with Jesus. Luke 8:2–3 mentions Mary Magdalene, Joanna (wife of Chuza, Herod's steward), and Susanna. In the Gospel of Philip 59:6–11, there were three who always walked with Jesus, and they were all Marys. Presumably many other women also followed him. He brought them words of wisdom in the parables, sayings, and prayers that he taught them. In the Lost Gospel of Q, also known as the Sayings Gospel Q, Jesus speaks the true sayings that are attributed to Wisdom. That Gospel shows how closely Jesus is associated with Wisdom, a feminine attribute of God. In the Dialogue of the Savior, he reveals that whatever comes from truth does not perish.

Jesus' Teaching on Gender Equality

While the Hebrew scriptures or Old Testament and New Testament both assert that God and humans are separate, some of the Gnostic scriptures proclaimed that the Self and the Divine are the same, a truth that can be discovered through gnosis. In Gnostic Christian circles, such as one that Mary Magdalene may have led, women were prophets and leaders. The Apostle Paul in his New Testament letters greeted women and referred to them as coworkers. He even called one a deacon, although the feminine form would be deaconess, and praised another — Junia and her husband Andronicus, who were “my kinsmen, and my fellow-prisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me” (Romans 16:7). According to the Acts of the Apostles, in some cases women owned the houses where early Christians met. So among the many sects of Christians that emerged following Jesus' death, women were full participants in religious activities.

By the early second century, the patriarchal leaders had pushed women from their roles as prophets and priests and bishops and forced them back into patriarchal subjugation, as can be seen from reading 1 Timothy, chapter 2. The patristic leaders established rules and a hierarchy that limited women's roles or excluded them completely (such as serving as bishops and priests). They enforced their rules through their teachings, sermons, and writings, and, later, councils. Some scholars have noted that the contributions of women were eliminated from the official texts of the church. Not until the fourth century would women again be able to become deaconesses (just below the level of a priest), though they were still barred from entering the priesthood.

Leaders in the early Christian churches were called episkopos (bishop, overseer), presbyteros (elder), and diakonos (deacon). Qualifications for bishops are listed in the New Testament (1 Timothy 3:1–7): a man must be blameless, be husband of one wife, have good moral values, rule well over his house, be in control of his family, be spiritually mature, and be held in high esteem by nonbelievers.

It's difficult to imagine how the Christian church might have evolved if women's roles had not diminished, if the divine feminine aspect of God had not been eliminated, and if women's contributions had not been devalued or discarded. Gnostics believed in enlightenment but also ignorance. While the orthodox Christians labeled the Gnostics heretics , the Gnostics claimed that the orthodox were ignorant. Valentinus, in particular, believed that ignorance was the root of the material world and without it the world would cease to be. For Valentinus and his followers, the physical or material world was what kept the soul trapped from returning to the realm of Light.

Mary Magdalene as Sophia

The Gnostics had an image of divine feminine that was purged from the Christian texts of the early church fathers. However, she did appear often in the Gnostic writings as Mary Magdalene allegorized as Sophia/Wisdom/Goddess. She was portrayed as Jesus' most trusted apostle and companion (Gospel of Philip), as a visionary and prophet who possessed a secret teaching that Jesus gave her but not the other disciples (in the Gospel of Mary), as the “woman who knew the All” (in the Dialogue of the Savior) and as the Sophia, the brilliant questioner of Jesus (in the Pistis Sophia). Two Gnostic texts — On the Origin of the World and The Hypostasis of the Archons — proclaim that Sophia alone produced the Judeo-Christian God. A God who would send his only Son to be crucified was unthinkable to some Gnostics, who preferred to contemplate a transcendent God as Goodness and Light.

Followers of Valentinus and his disciple, Marcus the magician, believed that God is indescribable but could be imagined as having two aspects: the masculine (variously called the Primal Father, the Ineffable, and the Depth), and the feminine, seen as the Mystical Eternal Silence, Incorruptible Wisdom, and Mother of All. Marcus claimed his visions of the divine being were female.

The wisdom texts of the Hebrew scriptures often personify wisdom as Sophia or Hokhmah . She articulates knowledge through the proverbs, riddles, and sayings found in those texts. The Apocryphal book of Sirach, for example, states that the Lord “poured her [Wisdom] upon his works” and every living thing and also on his friends (Sirach 1:8).

Mary Magdalene's Divine Wisdom

Mary Magdalene, the disciple of Jesus, sought wisdom; as Sophia, she expressed the divine attribute of Wisdom (as in the Pistis Sophia). Yet in the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas (verse 114), Peter tells Jesus that Mary Magdalene was not worthy of being an Apostle because she was a woman. Peter was married, yet in the Gnostic literature he is the one most often at odds with Mary Magdalene. But to the Gnostics, Mary Magdalene was filled with wisdom that the Lord poured upon her. For Gnostic women, she must have stood as a powerful spiritual example. The Naassenes, one of the early Gnostic sects, possessed a lesson containing initiatory teachings of Jesus from the Last Supper, which mentions Mariamne [Mary Magdalene].

To understand how the Gnostics might have seen Mary Magdalene as the personification of Sophia, an understanding of a few (of the great number) of the roles Sophia played in ancient times might be in order. In the Ptolemaic tradition, Sophia, the Aeon known as Wisdom, was called Achamoth, or Mother of the Seven Heavens. To the followers of Valentinus, Sophia was represented as higher aspect — Lightsome Mother — and a lower one — Achamoth. In the Gnostic Acts of Thomas, she is the focus of the Eucharistic Prayer. As such, she becomes the ancient goddess known as Astarte or Isis (both were called goddesses of wisdom). The symbol for Astarte was the dove, which is also the symbol of the Holy Spirit.

Gnostic Women and Sophia

It is difficult to say with certainty what theological views about Sophia, the Divine Mother, and other feminine references to God meant to Gnostic women going about their daily activities within their communities. It seems clear that, in the spiritual realms, they did officiate at church fellowship gatherings, prophesied, and performed functions that their conservative counterparts reserved for priests. They likely prepared foods for a simple or celebratory meal for Christian fellowship. But the Gnostic texts for the most part bear the names of men.

Who conducted baptisms in the house churches of different congregations in different urban areas of the Diaspora?

The Apostle Paul with co-workers evangelized communities and established individual homes as “house churches” where he baptized the house-church owners or residents and, they, in turn, baptized the others. Women not only baptized but also may have presided over the Eucharist.

Scholars still seek answers about how Gnostic women lived their lives on a daily basis and how much equality with men they really had. Patriarchy had not disappeared. Slavery still existed. Roman domination and persecution continued at least until the reign of Emperor Constantine in the fourth century. While much of what survives in ancient literature offers conflicting images, it is likely that the zeitgeist did not change much while they went about their lives while inwardly searching for the special spiritual knowledge that would set them free.

Mary Magdalene as Female Counterpart to Jesus

Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, authors of Jesus and the Lost Goddess , suggest that the “All,” as Mary Magdalene is called in the Dialogue of the Savior, represents the Goddess, who was prominent in the ancient world from the pagan mysteries. Goddess worship had its roots in the Egyptian cult of Isis, the Sister-Bride of Osiris. Their child, known as the God of Light, was named Horus. The Gnostics' assigning of Goddess status to Mary Magdalene may be a reflection of their tendency to borrowing themes, ideas, myths, and practices from other traditions and syncretizing them into their own belief system. In the Egyptian legend, Isis discovers that her husband has been murdered and mutilated. Osiris descended into the underworld, struggled with evil powers, and on the third day rose again. He became equal to Râ, the Sun God. The similarities with Jesus' suffering, death, and resurrection cannot be missed. Scholar Margaret Starbird maintains that in the anointing, death, and resurrection of Jesus is the reworking of an old partnership paradigm found in the ancient myths of the Sacred Bride and Bridegroom. She asserts that the Isis and Osiris myth serves as one example.

Mary Magdalene's anointing of Jesus with special oil places her in the Egyptian shamanic tradition as a great priestess. Authors Freke and Gandy suggest that the Gnostic beliefs about Mary Magdalene as the Goddess-consort to Jesus' God-man so threatened the early orthodox church's vision that the church sought to “brutally suppress” such ideas. The church, however, does call Mary Magdalene “Apostle to the Apostles.”

For the orthodox Christians (Catholics and Greek Orthodox), the feminine archetype is embodied in the Blessed Virgin Mary. However, in Gnostic Christianity, Mary Magdalene personified the archetype feminine counterpart to Jesus. The Gnostic texts place Mary Magdalene in a position that the orthodox texts reserve for Peter — that is, as Jesus' closest, pre-eminent, and most trusted disciple. The Gnostic Gospel of Thomas mentions six disciples: Thomas, Matthew, Peter, James, Salome, and Mary Magdalene.

Irenaeus of Lyons, Tertullian of Carthage, Hippolytus of Rome, and others labeled Gnostic beliefs (for example, God as the Sacred Feminine) absurd, their myths ridiculous, their corruption of orthodox scripture dangerous, and their women officiating over the Eucharist deviant. Women were to remain silent and Gnostic texts were to be destroyed.

The Gnostic Gospel of Mary reveals that Jesus' inner circle knew of her elevated standing with Jesus. In a scene from that Gospel, Peter disbelieves Mary Magdalene after he has asked her to share words or a teaching that Jesus may have given her and not him. When she does, he disbelieves and asks whether or not the others think that Jesus would tell her, a woman, something that he would not tell the male disciples. Levi defends Mary Magdalene and asks Peter who he was to reject her if the Savior made her worthy. Levi reminds Peter that the Savior “knows her very well.” Levi suggests that instead of being contentious with Mary, they should “put on the perfect man” and do as Jesus had commanded them (Gospel of Mary 18:10–20).

Some Internet Gnostic sites proclaim an understanding of Mary Magdalene as Jesus' wife and co-Redeemer. They point out that in the canonical gospels, Mary Magdalene's name appears first in lists of women (but behind the Virgin Mary), indicating her important stature. They make note of the Gnostic Gospels' elevation of her over other disciples and point to the Gospel of Philip's statement that Jesus kissed her often on the … , inserting the word “mouth” where the lacuna appears. For others to see Mary Magdalene as a consort or counterpart to Jesus would have dismayed and worried the Christian orthodox fathers because she stood for freedom of the individual over the need of clergy to secure salvation. She represented dangerous ideas that were reprehensible to the church, including sacred marriage and sexuality rather than virginity and abstinence.

Female Officeholders and Bishops

Jesus helped women. He restored them to wholeness. He gave them hope and treated them fairly. Jesus welcomed them into his small but growing movement. According to some Biblical scholars, many of the first Christian sects treated women as Jesus had shown through example. They allowed women to serve in Christian house-church worship sessions as presbyters, deaconesses, and bishops. But at the close of the first century of Jesus' ministry, with the dominant branch of Christianity emerging as orthodox, women's roles began eroding. The Gnostic sects, by allowing women to officiate in churches, stood in direct opposition to the ban against women speaking in church enforced by the orthodox Christian groups. Paul, in his first letter to the Christians in Corinth (a community he established in circa A.D. 51), spells out clearly the behavior expected of women. In his letter, he writes forcefully with all his apostolic authority about how to deal with community issues, such as women who wished to speak to those assembled.

Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. — 1 Corinthians 14:34–35

Yet, in seeming contradiction, women in the orthodox version of the faith must have served in some leadership roles according to various references in the texts of the New Testament, especially Acts and the letters of Paul. Those texts reveal that women were helpers, workers in the faith, and prominent leaders. Some scholars believe that an unknown individual at a later, unknown date inserted the quote above into the text of the letter to the Christians at Corinth to enforce (by Paul's authority) the suppression of women as full participants in church. If this proves true, then the quote cannot be construed as authoritative.

Paul's Revelations about Early Christian Women

In the years following Jesus' death, the Apostle Paul recognized the contributions of women working with him as ministers and apostles. Paul made a profound and vigorous assertion of equality between men and women as God's children in Christ in his letter to the Galatians. The letter suggested that gender was dissolved through baptism in Christ. The words he uses in the letter are from a baptismal formula belonging to the Jewish Christian “church” that he had joined.

For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise. — Galatians 3:27–29

Paul participated in the Christian fellowship meetings that took place in private homes. In his letters in the New Testament, Paul often began his letters with a greeting to his hosts. It was not unusual for him to recognize the contributions of women, and it seems, since women ruled over the domain of the home, that women provide the food and drink for these religious/social gatherings. All who had an interest or desire to participate could join in sessions of fellowship and prayer.

In the Gnostic Christian fellowship gatherings, all were encouraged to participate. Women and men drew lots to choose who would serve as prophet, priest, or bishop. But by the second century in the literalist Christian churches, Jesus' pattern of gender equality changed. Women, after Jesus' death, had claimed spiritual power and served as spiritual leaders. They had baptized, healed, shared discourse, and performed exorcisms, according to a polemic against them by second-century church father Tertullian, who called them “audacious,” “without modesty,” and “bold.” With the apostolic hierarchical structure firmly in place and vigorous verbal and written attacks mounted against the Gnostics by the orthodox dominant group of Christians, the religious roles for women receded.

In Paul's letters to the churches that he had established in various communities, he singled out women for greetings and praise. Christian women leaders in his epistles include:

• Apphia: a leader in a house church along with Archippus and Philemon.
• Chloe: a wealthy woman with some stature in her Christian community, where she was possibly a leader of a Corinthian church.
• Euodia and Syntyche: missionaries who were equal with Paul in the work they did.
• Mary: one of Paul's workers.
• Persis: a woman who worked hard for the faith and for whom Paul felt an especially deep fondness. He commended her for her efforts.
• Junia: wife of Andronicus; they were a missionary couple. Paul called her “outstanding among the apostles,” which clearly shows that the early Christian church had female apostles. He said she was imprisoned.
• Phoebe: a high-class woman, likely a patron of Paul's that he singled out as a helper. She may have provided financial assistance to him in his missionary work as well as done some preaching and teaching as the diakonos, or leader, of one of his churches.
• Prisca: wife of Aquila, who served as leader with her husband of house churches in Corinth, Ephesus, and Rome. They were a missionary couple that risked their lives for Paul. He accorded her a superior position to her husband by regularly mentioning her name before his.
• Typhaena and Tryphosa: possibly sisters and workers in the faith.
• Nympha: a hostess and leader of a house church, possibly a widow.

Like Paul, the Gnostics argued for gender equality and supported the right of women to lead services, prophesy, and preach.

Legacy of Mary Magdalene

Some Gnostic sects saw Mary Magdalene as a lover, and perhaps even a wife, to Jesus. For them, she was the Illuminatrix or Light Bearer. Jesus' pure light and hers would pour into each other in the rite of sacred marriage known as hieros gamos. Hers was the presence her followers invoked in silence to guide them on their inward journey out of darkness toward the light of the Pleroma. She was the wisdom chalice that contained all of Jesus' teachings. Though the Gnostics did not have a hierarchy like the more dominant orthodox group of Christians, Mary Magdalene for them would have been the Apostle from whom all future generations of her followers could trace their ancient spiritual lineage. Even the orthodox Christians called her the “Apostle to the Apostles.” Later, the Greek Orthodox Church bestowed upon her the title of “Holy Myrrh-Bearer” and “Equal-Unto-the-Apostles.” Like the Roman Catholic Church, the Greek Orthodox Church celebrates her feast day on July 22.

In the Dialogue of the Savior, when Mary Magdalene asks why she has come to “this place,” Jesus tells her she “makes clear the abundance of the Revealer.” Some modern Gnostics take that to mean that she brings forth into consciousness what is already there. There is no practice beyond turning inward in silence to experience the mystery.

Modern advocates of women in the priesthood say that Jesus called women to both discipleship and leadership. By revealing his risen transcendent form to Mary Magdalene and entrusting her to carry his resurrection message to the other disciples (some say, the first command to preach), he upheld the place of women in his ministry after his death. The texts that esteem Mary Magdalene and reflect her as the guarantor of the tradition of women leaders in the faith, exhort them to share with others their sacred visions and significant words. Modern Catholic women who love their faith but seek change within the church call out her name. Mary Magdalene would have known the power of the numinous Presence. As one modern Gnostic explained, Gnosis is as close as the heartbeat and in silence the spirit recognizes and experiences that Holy Presence.

Future Church, an organization seeking reform with the Catholic church to raise awareness of Mary Magdalene's central role in the early church and to allow women who are called to serve into the priesthood, maintains a Web site at www.futurechurch.org . The organization cites evidence from fourth-to sixth-century churches that women served as priests.