Essay: Male tolerance of women holding influential roles in spreading Christianity

During the start of the Roman Empire, Paterfamilias, the male head of a household, ran most of the family affairs, controlling the majority of his children’s lives (McKay et. al 152).  The daughters of Augustus learned home skills such as spinning and weaving while his sons were trained to become commanders-in-chiefs and to govern his local provinces (Suetonius 4).  Yet, despite men’s dominant role in Roman life—as the ideas of Jesus spread and the small churches were replaced by formal institutions to form Christianity—women “[preached], [acted] as missionaries, [was] martyred alongside men, and perhaps even [baptized] believers” (McKay et. al 167, 214).  Concerning the male dominant culture within the Western Roman Empire, how did men react to women assuming influential roles within the Christian community and what led to those reactions?  The religious, economic, and social values of the Roman Empire seem to be evidence that reveal men to be supportive towards the increasing role of women within the Christian faith.
The Christian doctrine provides reasons for why women were accepted as Christians.  In the gospel of the apostle, Matthew, Jesus says that to accept a stranger is to accept him and to accept him is to accept God (New Oxford Bible, 10.40).  Jesus, as the pioneer of pre-Christianity, establishes this proverb as a keystone to the Christian belief: to be a good Christian, one must welcome the outsider into their home.  To men, the “stranger” is women due to their history of excluding women.  This gospel paves a path for women to become socially accepted Christians because it forces men to recognize the need to accept others—including women—in order to fulfill their Christian duty by following Jesus and his scriptures.  In another chapter of Matthew, while travelling with his disciples, Jesus resolves a woman’s daughter’s trauma after the woman’s insistent begging (New Oxford Bible, 15.21-28).  He did not ignore the woman initially because she was simply a woman but because he was testing her faith. Jesus revealed to his disciples that eternal salvation is evaluated not by gender but by faith alone.  This account must have influenced men to accept women solely based on their faith instead of their gender as well.  Jesus claims anyone who follows and believes in his Father is his brother or sister (New Oxford Bible, Matthew 12.50).  If one believes in God and is therefore part of Jesus’s family, would he not love the women of his family who also believe in God?  Since women are considered sisters of Christ, this scripture obliges men to accept women like family.  Rejecting women to Christianity would just be selfish and immoral.  Thus, it is plausible that Christian men opened up to women becoming Christian because of the scriptures’ teachings.
The economic prosperity produced from accepting women to the church influenced men’s welcoming attitude towards them.  In the home, families worshiped their dead ancestors and Roman gods because they believed that the spirits protected their home (McKay et. al 153).  Because of the similar worship of paganism and Christianity, men realized pagans could be open to conversion and the number of Christians would increase.  And an increase in the number of members would have collected more donation revenue for establishing Christian schools, monasteries, or churches, making the church clergymen pleased.  Monasteries also became a place to develop revenue.  They held “relics” that supposedly held spiritual “powers”, intriguing “tourists” who donated to the monasteries (Smarr).  Marking relics as venerable objects encouraged potential converts to become Christian because it validated the church’s authority an institution.  Women would have also been capable of managing tours for potential nuns among the monasteries which would have promoted Christianity’s spread as well.  The pope, Gregory the Great, adds that replacing the tributes and “idols” in the Roman polytheistic churches with “altars”, “sacrifices”, and “relics” of Christian forms would allow easier conversions (24).  Money was saved from constructing new churches by removing the idolatrous features and preserving the rest of the pagan temples.  And since converters from paganism had experience worshiping inside the temples, they transitioned comfortably to Christianity.  Therefore, since the increase in the number of Christians members brought a wealth of money and a growth of infrastructures to the church, men were eager to accept women’s faith.
In welcoming women to the church, Romans’ social values on practicality and perseverance persuaded men to be tolerant of them.  Monasteries, in which monks resided, served as hospitals, temporary inns for “overnight travelers”, orphanages, and schools (Smarr).  As seen in the biography of Augustus, women were raised to learn intricate hobbies like spinning and weaving.  Throughout time, women have also assumed the role of caregiver, partly because they in fact bear children.  Because the jobs in the monasteries required gentleness—a quality women exhibited throughout their lives—to care for the sick, travelers, babies, and children, men recognized the practicality for women to work in them.  Pliny the Elder introduces another Roman social value.  He boasts of the number, the scale, and especially the cost of the projects accomplished by the empire (Pliny the Elder 14, 15).  Although the Romans made many achievements, they remark that it cost lots of time and effort.  Similarly, women justified their reason to be accepted as Christians because they preached and died alongside men, defending their belief in Christianity (Pliny the Younger 17).  The Christian male authority must have respected women’s devotion to Christianity’s upbringing because of Romans’ respect for persistence in tough times.  The extent that women went to even die with men for their faith would have deemed women worthy to continue helping the church.  These social values of the Roman Empire may have refined men’s tolerance with women’s increasing role in the church.
A counterargument may argue that men were reluctant rather than open to the movement of women.  In recalling the paterfamilias, the male head of the family, fathers did dictate much of his children’s lives.  Since men held lots of power, the hierarchy of authority of the church must have been modelled similarly to that of the family.  Women were not eligible to become pope, bishops, or priests which seems to provide evidence that men discouraged women from becoming part of the church.  Moreover, in response to the monastic movement, men thought a celibate life was better than a pleasurable one and therefore felt women as evil (McKay et. al 215).  They believed that women were evil because women’s sexuality had the ability to tempt men into being unchaste, or sexually unclean.  Since men blamed women for their own sexual wrongdoings, it suggests that men viewed women even with contempt over having roles within the church.  Thus, it may seem that the male dominant culture of the empire and Christian men’s negative image of women show discontent from men with women becoming Christian.
Although the accusations claim that women were met with disapproval by the majority of men, the argument neglects other factors that argue more logically.  The first counterargument assumes that men undertook the highest roles in the church because of their contempt with women.  Yet, it does not consider that men had these only because male authority was so common.  Men took on higher positions not due to a dislike of women authority but as a result of the common practice of male authority in the Roman Empire.  In fact, theologian St. Jerome, writes that he “[praises]” married women but praises virgin women even more (39).  This goes against that men rejected women from the church, since both virgin and married women were admired among some Christian men.  The problem with the second counterargument is that it assumes that most Christian men believed women were evil.  However, this claim is inconsistent with the virtues of Jesus.  Why would Christian men hate women if Jesus’s parables told people to accept anyone into their lives?  If they followed Jesus and his teachings, men would be hypocritical to exclude women from the church.  Also, women’s option to live hermetically would have alleviated the problem of men’s lustful desires.  Those who followed the ascetic life banded in groups and fled from the cities to the mountains, deserts, or caves (McKay et. al 212).  By fleeing from the city, women would not have posed a problem to Christian men back home.  Although some men may have disagreed with women being in the church, this disagreement would not have lasted, since men would have recognized the importance of universal acceptance in Christianity.
Many factors contributed to men’s tolerance of women holding influential roles in spreading Christianity.  The message of the scriptures taught followers to welcome any people, influencing men to accept women as fellow sisters of Christ.  The conversion of people to Christianity led to a spread in Christianity overall and an increase in prosperity, motivating men to bring in women to the church.  The nurturance of women and their dedication to preaching the words of Christianity despite adversity pushed men to be open to them.  Women proved themselves to have been essential to the stability and growth of Christianity.  In fact, Christianity continues to thrive as one of the main world religions today with a wealth of women believers.  Perhaps, men—as a result of their attitude of acceptance towards women in the church—helped Christianity reach its height in the modern world.