Preface: The Duty to Speak
The kingdom belongs to our God.
It is astonishing that among the many gifted minds produced by the island of Great Britain, the many godly and zealous preachers England once nurtured, and the many learned people of sound judgment now exiled by Jezebel, no one has been found with enough courage, faithfulness to God, and love for their native country to warn the island’s inhabitants how abominable before God is the rule of a wicked woman, indeed of a traitor and a bastard. Nor has anyone told them what a people or nation, left without a lawful head, may do by the authority of God’s word when electing and appointing public rulers and magistrates.
Alas, that island has treated God’s offered mercies with contempt and terrible abuse. It has shamefully turned from Christ Jesus and the gospel it once professed back to Satan. It therefore justly deserves to be left to its own counsel and to fall into confusion and bondage under foreigners. Yet I fear that the general negligence of those once esteemed as watchmen will aggravate our former ingratitude rather than excuse our universal, ungodly silence on so weighty a matter. We see our country offered as prey to foreign nations. We hear that the blood of our brethren, members of Christ Jesus, is being shed with great cruelty. Apart from God’s secret counsel, we know these miseries have only one cause: the rule of a cruel woman, contrary to nature. Yet we pass the time in silence, as though the matter had nothing to do with us.
The contrary example of the ancient prophets makes me question our conduct. Israel as a whole turned from God by embracing idolatry under Jeroboam and continued in it until the destruction of its commonwealth (1 Kgs 12). Judah and Jerusalem followed the vile superstition and open wickedness of Samaria (Ezek 16). Yet God’s prophets never ceased warning either people, even after God had poured out his plagues upon them. Jeremiah wrote to the captives in Babylon, corrected their errors, and plainly instructed those who remained amid that idolatrous nation (Jer 29). Ezekiel, among his fellow prisoners in Chaldea, sent his vision to those in Jerusalem. He sharply rebuked their vices and assured them that they would not escape God’s vengeance for the abominations they had committed (Ezek 7-9).
For the comfort of God’s afflicted and chosen saints, who lay hidden among the reprobate of that age as grain commonly lies among chaff, those same prophets foretold changes of kingdoms, the punishment of tyrants, and the vengeance God would take on the oppressors of his people (Isa 13; Jer 46; Ezek 36). Even among the wicked, God had his people, who never lacked prophets and teachers. Daniel and the other prophets did likewise, each in his time.
Their examples, together with God’s plain command to Ezekiel to say to the wicked, “Thou shalt die the death,” bind us in this miserable age to warn the world and its tyrants of their sudden destruction. We must assure them of it and cry out to them whether they will listen or not (Ezek 2). The blood of the saints shed by those tyrants continually cries out for vengeance before the Lord of hosts (Rev 6). We must also reveal to the ignorant and blind world the truth made known to us, unless we choose, to our own condemnation, to wrap up and hide the talent entrusted to our care.
I am assured that God has revealed to some in our age that it is more than a monstrosity in nature for a woman to reign and exercise authority over a man. Yet all of us remain as silent as if God were not offended by it. The natural man, God’s enemy, will find many reasons, I know, why such teaching should not be published in these dangerous days. First, it may seem to encourage sedition. Second, it will endanger not only the writer or publisher but also everyone who reads the writings or favors the truth they express. Last, it will not reform the chief offenders, partly because the teaching will never reach their ears and partly because they will refuse admonition in such matters.
I answer that if any of these is sufficient reason to conceal a known truth, then God’s ancient prophets were fools. They should have secured their own peace instead of risking their lives to rebuke vice and expose crimes unknown to the world. Christ Jesus also wronged his apostles when he commanded them to preach repentance and the forgiveness of sins in his name to every realm and nation. And Paul misunderstood his own liberty when he cried, “wo be to me, if I preache not the Euangile” (1 Cor 9).
If fear of persecution, slander, or any other hardship just named could have excused God’s servants from plainly rebuking the world’s sins, every one of them would have had just cause to cease his work. Their teaching was quickly accused of sedition, novel learning, and treason. Persecution and fierce trouble soon fell on the believers as well as the preachers (Matt 26; Acts 18; Acts 21). Kings, princes, and worldly rulers conspired against God and his anointed Christ Jesus (Ps 2; Acts 4).
But did any of this make the prophets and apostles falter in their calling? No. The more the devil resisted them through his agents, the more determined they became to publish the truth revealed to them. They bore witness with their blood that grievous condemnation and God’s heavy vengeance would follow proud contempt for the grace offered. The faithfulness, courage, and constancy of those who went before us ought to move us to follow in their footsteps, unless we expect a different kingdom from the one Christ promised to those who persevere in professing his name to the end.
If anyone thinks that women’s rule is not important enough for a man to risk his life to suppress it, I answer that its suppression lies in God’s hand alone. But every true messenger of God to whom the truth in this matter has been revealed has a duty to expose its impiety and abomination. God’s messengers have a particular duty to preach repentance, to warn offenders of their offenses, and to say to the wicked, “thou shalt die the death,” unless they repent. Anyone who knows of wickedness that harms the commonwealth must disclose it. No one, I trust, will deny that preaching repentance and the forgiveness of sins is the proper work of all God’s messengers.
Neither repentance nor forgiveness can be preached unless offenders’ consciences are accused and convicted of transgression. How can anyone repent without knowing where he has offended? Where there is no repentance, there can be no entry to grace. It is therefore necessary to reveal openly and declare plainly to the world this monstrous rule of women, which, among all the enormities now abounding over the whole earth, is the most detestable and damnable, so that some may repent and be saved. That answers the first group of objections.
To those who think it will be a long time before such teaching reaches the chief offenders, I answer that God’s truth is of such a nature that sooner or later it will gain an audience. It is a scent that cannot be suppressed. Indeed, it is a trumpet that will sound despite its adversary. It will compel its very enemies, to their own confusion, to testify to it. I find that Elisha’s prophecy and preaching were reported in the Syrian king’s hall by that wicked king’s own servants and flatterers. They told him that Elisha revealed to the king of Israel whatever the Syrian king said in his most private chamber (2 Kgs 6).
The wonderful works of Jesus Christ were likewise reported to Herod, though not to praise his teaching. Rather, the report conveyed that Christ called the tyrant a fox (Luke 13:32) and regarded his authority no more than John the Baptist had. Herod had already beheaded John for speaking freely (Matt 14). Whether those who carried the reports favored Christ or flattered the tyrant, news of Christ’s teaching and works certainly reached Herod’s ears. In the same way, the sound of our weak trumpet may, with the help of some wind, reach the ears of the chief offenders. Whether it blows from the south or the north does not matter. And whether the sound reaches them or not, we dare not cease blowing as God gives us strength.
For we are debtors to more people than princes: we owe this warning to the multitude of our brethren (Rom 1). No doubt many of them have previously erred through ignorance, giving their votes, consent, and help to establish women in their kingdoms and empires. They did not understand how abominable, hateful, and detestable all such usurped authority is before God. The truth must therefore be spoken plainly, so that ordinary, uninstructed people may be warned.
As for the danger that may follow, I am not so brutish and unfeeling that I have failed to reckon what completing this work may cost me personally. First, I know how difficult and dangerous it is to speak against a common error, especially when the ambitions of men and women are called to obey God’s simple command. Most people regard whatever has been accepted from ancient times as lawful and godly. Second, I expect adversaries not only among the ignorant multitude but also among this world’s wise, politically minded, and peaceable people. Those who ought to uphold God’s truth will oppose me in this matter, just as princes and ambitious people will, for they always strive to suppress that truth in order to maintain their unjust tyranny. I am therefore quite certain that many will condemn my labor.
But I remember that we must account to the one who gave us our talents. He neither follows the multitude nor approves wisdom, policy, peace, or antiquity when any of them reaches a decision against his eternal will, revealed to us in his most blessed word. I am compelled to cover my eyes and stop my ears so that I neither see the multitude opposing me in this matter nor hear their reproaches, and so that I do not dwell on the dangers I may incur by speaking. I shall be called foolish, meddlesome, spiteful, and a sower of sedition. Perhaps one day, though I am now unnamed, I may be condemned for treason.
But I cannot avoid this choice. Either I offend God, who daily calls upon my conscience to make known the truth I know, or I displease the world by doing so. I have determined to obey God, though the world may rage against it. I know that the world, if God permits, can kill the body. But when God’s majesty is offended, he has power to punish both body and soul forever. His majesty is offended when his commands are despised and his threats are treated as having no effect.
Among the many commands and threats he gave his prophets, none is more forceful than this word spoken to Ezekiel: “Sonne of man, I haue appointed the a watchman to the house of Israel, that thou shuldest heare from my mouthe the worde, and that thou maist admonishe them plainlie, when I shall say to the wicked man: O wicked, thou shalt assuredlie die. Then if thou shalt not speake, that thou maist plainlie admonishe him, that he may leaue his wicked way, the wicked man shall die in his iniquitie, but his blood will I requier of thy hand. But and if thou shalt plainlie admonishe the wicked man, and yet he shall not turne from his way, such a one shall die in his iniquitie, but thou hast deliuered thy soule” (Ezek 33).
This command and its attached threat, together with the rest of what is said in that chapter, apply not only to Ezekiel but to everyone God appoints as a watchman over his people and flock. Watchmen are those whose eyes he opens and whose consciences he moves to warn the ungodly. These words compel me to speak my conscience in this matter, even if the whole world should take offense at me for doing so.
If anyone wonders why I conceal my name, let him be assured that fear of bodily punishment is neither the only nor the chief reason. If God permits, I intend to sound the trumpet three times on this subject. Twice I intend to do so anonymously; at the final blast, I will take the blame upon myself, so that everyone else may be cleared.
The First Blast: Against Women’s Rule
To awaken women who have degenerated.
To promote a woman to rule, superiority, dominion, or power over any realm, nation, or city is contrary to nature, an insult to God, utterly opposed to his revealed will and established ordinance, and, finally, the overthrow of good order, equity, and justice.
In proving this proposition, I will not gather everything that might enlarge or adorn it. As I have spoken my conscience plainly and briefly, I will be content with a simple proof of each part. My witnesses will be God’s ordinance in nature, his plain will revealed in his word, and the judgments of the most ancient godly writers.
First, when I say that a woman’s rule is contrary to nature, I mean both that God, by the order of creation, withheld authority and dominion from woman and that men have seen, tested, and declared just causes why this should be so. Men, though blind in many other matters, see clearly here, for the causes cannot be hidden. Who can deny that it is contrary to nature for the blind to lead those who see; for the weak, sick, and powerless to care for the healthy and strong; or for the foolish, mad, and frenzied to govern the discerning and counsel those of sober mind? Such, compared with men in the exercise of authority, are all women. In civil government, their sight is blindness, their strength weakness, their counsel foolishness, and their judgment frenzy, if rightly considered.
I except those whom God, by a singular privilege and for reasons known only to himself, has exempted from the common rank of women. I speak of women as nature and experience now show them. Nature depicts them as weak, frail, impatient, feeble, and foolish; experience has shown them to be inconstant, changeable, cruel, and lacking the spirit of counsel and government. Men in every age have observed these notable faults in women. For that reason, they have kept women from rule and authority. Some have even thought men who submit to the counsel or rule of their wives unworthy of any public office. These private exceptions do not overturn the general ordinance.
Aristotle writes in the second book of his Politics: “what difference shall we make,” he asks, “whether women bear authority, or the husbands who obey the rule of their wives be appointed magistrates? For what ensues from the one must necessarily follow the other, namely, injustice, confusion and disorder.” He further argues that the government of the Lacedaemonians, otherwise among the most excellent of the Greeks, did not deserve to be counted among well-governed commonwealths because its magistrates and rulers were too eager to please and obey their wives.
What, I ask, would this writer have said of a realm or nation where a woman sits crowned in parliament among men? O Lord, how fearful and terrible are your judgments, by which you have brought man so low for his iniquity! I am certain that, if those men who, guided only by nature’s light, saw and declared sufficient reasons why women should not rule were alive today, the sight would astonish them. Imagine them seeing a woman sit in judgment or ride from parliament among men, a royal crown on her head and the sword and scepter carried before her as signs that justice lay in her hands. They would think the whole world had turned into Amazons, women who, as Justin recounts, could not endure men’s rule and killed their husbands. They would think the men of that country had undergone a change like the one poets imagine befell the companions of Ulysses. At the least, though these men still looked like men, they would judge that their hearts had changed from manly wisdom, understanding, and courage to what they considered womanly folly and cowardice.
They would declare further that where women reign or hold authority, vanity must be preferred to virtue, ambition and pride to temperance and modesty, and avarice, the mother of all mischief, must devour equity and justice. England and Scotland should beware. As Isaiah’s third chapter also warns, such rule is a judgment (Isa 3).
Lest we seem alone in this opinion, let us hear what others have observed and decreed. The rules of law say: “Women are removed from all civil and public office, so that they neither may be judges, neither may they occupy the place of the magistrate, neither yet may they be speakers for others.” The Digest repeats the prohibition against their acting as advocates for others. It adds that women must not, contrary to modesty, involve themselves in other people’s causes or presume to exercise offices belonging to men. The law says that women ought to have a natural modesty, which they certainly lose whenever they take upon themselves a man’s office and position. Calphurnia showed this plainly. Given leave to speak before the senate, she became so shameless and insistent that her babbling disturbed the whole assembly and gave occasion for this law to be established.
The Digest also declares that a woman’s position is worse than a man’s in many matters: jurisdiction, receiving responsibility for care and guardianship, adoption, public accusation, denunciation, every action brought on behalf of the people, and a mother’s authority over her own sons. It does not permit a woman to give anything to her husband, because, as the inferior member, she would presume to give to her head. It further calls women the most avaricious, a fault intolerable in those who should rule or administer justice. Aristotle, as I have said, plainly affirms that wherever women hold dominion, the people must be disorderly, given to intemperance, pride, excess, and vanity, and must finally come to confusion and ruin.
Would to God the examples did not so plainly show women’s imperfections, natural weakness, and unruly appetites. I could cite histories of women who died from sudden joy; who killed themselves through impatience; who burned with such uncontrolled lust that, to satisfy it, they betrayed their country and city to strangers; or who desired dominion so much that they murdered their own grandsons. Some have cruelly killed their own husbands and children. Examples include Romilda, wife of Gisulf, who betrayed the duchy of Friuli in Italy to Cacanus; Jane, queen of Naples, who hanged her husband; Athaliah, who killed the royal heirs (2 Kgs 11); and Irene, cited by Sabellicus.
But this appeal to nature is not my surest foundation. It is enough for me to have shown that men guided only by nature’s light have judged women’s rule over men to be utterly contrary to nature. Those who will not allow a woman authority over her own sons will surely not allow her to rule a realm. Those who will not let her speak for the accused or bring an accusation against a man will not approve her sitting in judgment, crowned and exercising authority among men.
Now I turn to the second part of nature, by which I mean God’s revealed will and perfect ordinance. Any woman’s reign or dominion over men is plainly contrary to it. God has declared the contrary, first through the order of creation and then through the curse pronounced on woman for her rebellion. Even in her greatest perfection, woman was made to serve and obey man, not to rule or command him. Saint Paul reasons: “Man is not of the woman but the woman of the man. And man was not created for the cause of the woman, but the woman for the cause of man, and therfore oght the woman to haue a power vpon her head” (1 Cor 11). By this last phrase he means a covering as a sign of subjection.
The apostle’s words plainly mean that woman, even in her greatest perfection, should have known that man was lord over her. She should no more have sought superiority over him than angels seek it over God their creator or over Christ Jesus their head. Woman, then, was created subject to man even in her greatest perfection. After her fall and rebellion against God, a new necessity was laid upon her: God made her subject to man by his irrevocable sentence, “I will greatlie multiplie thy sorowe and thy conception. With sorowe shalt thou beare thy children, and thy will shall be subiect to thy man: and he shal beare dominion ouer the” (Gen 3).
Anyone not wholly blinded can see that God’s sentence has cast all women down from rule and dominion over men. It lays two punishments on woman: pain and anguish whenever she becomes a mother, and the subjection of herself, her appetites, and her will to her husband and his will. Neither skill, nobility, statecraft, nor human law can free women from the first part of this curse. Every woman who becomes a mother experiences the force of God’s word. Yet ignorance of God, ambition, and tyranny have tried to abolish its second part. Women have been raised to head realms and to rule men according to their own pleasure and appetites.
Terrible vengeance awaits both those who promote them and those promoted, unless they repent quickly. They will be cast from the glory of God’s children into slavery to the devil and the torment prepared for all who exalt themselves against God. Nothing could more plainly oppose God than exalting a woman to reign over men, for he pronounced the opposite sentence: “Thy will shall be subiect to thy husband, and he shall beare dominion ouer the” (Gen 3).
It is as though God said: Because you abused your former condition, and your free will brought yourself and mankind into Satan’s bondage, I will bring you into bondage to man. Your obedience, which should once have been voluntary, will now be compelled by necessity. Because you deceived your man, you will no longer be mistress of your own appetites, will, or desires. You lack the reason and discretion to govern your affections, so they will be subject to your man’s desire. He will govern not only your body but your appetites and will as well. God pronounced this sentence against Eve and her daughters, as the rest of Scripture plainly witnesses. No woman, therefore, can presume to reign over men without defying God and despising his punishment and curse.
I know that most people understand this curse as applying to a wife’s subjection to her husband and his dominion over her. But the Holy Spirit, speaking through Saint Paul, gives another interpretation that takes every kind of superiority, authority, and power over men from all women: “I suffer not a woman to teache, nether yet to vsurpe authoritie aboue man” (1 Tim 2). He speaks of women generally, excepts none, and says that no woman may usurp authority over a man.
He speaks still more plainly elsewhere: “Let women kepe silence in the congregation, for it is not permitted to them to speake, but to be subiect as the lawe sayeth” (1 Cor 14). These two testimonies of the Holy Spirit suffice to prove what I have said, to restrain women’s unruly pride, and to correct the folly of those who have tried to exalt women over men against God’s pronounced sentence.
To understand these passages better, notice what Paul has said before the latter one, in the fourteenth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians. He permits people to prophesy one after another so that all may learn and all may receive comfort (1 Cor 14). Lest anyone fear irrelevant speech or confusion among so many speakers, he adds, “the spirites of the prophetes are subiect to the prophetes” (1 Cor 14). He means that God will always raise up some to whom the truth is revealed, and they must be given room to speak even if they sit in the lowest seats. Paul thus wants prophecy to be an exercise open to the whole church. Each person may tell the congregation what God has revealed, provided it is done in order.
From this general privilege, however, he excludes all women: “let women kepe silence in the congregation” (1 Cor 14). Why? Did he think no woman could have knowledge? No. His reason is, “let her be subiect as the lawe saith” (1 Cor 14). Paul calls the earlier sentence against woman a law, meaning God’s unchangeable decree. By his own voice God subjected her to one member of the congregation, her husband. The Holy Spirit therefore concludes that she may never rule over men. One made subject to one person may never be placed over many.
The Holy Spirit makes this plain: “I suffer not that women vsurpe authoritie aboue man” (1 Tim 2). Paul does not say that a woman may not usurp authority over her husband. He speaks of man generally. He takes from her every authority to speak, reason, interpret, or teach, and above all to rule or judge in an assembly of men. God’s law, as interpreted by the Holy Spirit, utterly forbids a woman to occupy God’s place in these offices. God assigned them to man, whom he appointed his representative on earth, and excluded all women from that honor and dignity.
Here is a brief argument. The apostle takes from every woman the power to speak in the assembly. Therefore he permits no woman to rule over men. The first point is evident, and the conclusion necessarily follows. One who denies woman the least part of authority, dominion, or rule will not permit her the greatest. Reigning over realms and nations, making laws, commanding men of every rank, and appointing judges and ministers are greater powers than speaking in the congregation. An opinion she offers there can be judged by all, corrected by the learned, and reformed by the godly. But when a woman is raised to sovereign authority, her laws must be obeyed, her opinion followed, and her tyranny upheld, even if it plainly opposes God and harms the commonwealth, as present experience all too clearly shows.
I repeat what I said before: a woman raised to sit in God’s seat, whether to teach, judge, or reign over men, is a monstrosity in nature, an insult to God, and utterly opposed to his will and ordinance. As already proved, he has deprived women of speech in the congregation and expressly forbidden them to usurp any authority over men. How, then, could he allow them to reign over realms and nations? He will never approve it. It is utterly opposed to his perfect ordinance, as I shall explain further and as the Scriptures already cited plainly testify.
Nothing need be added to those Scriptures, except that the world has grown so blind that whatever displeases princes and the multitude is rejected as newly invented doctrine and condemned as heresy. I have therefore chosen to recount the judgments of some ancient writers. Those not wholly blinded by the devil may see that my judgment is no new interpretation of Scripture but agrees with most godly writers since the apostles’ time.
Tertullian, in his book on women’s apparel, gives many reasons why gorgeous dress is hateful in a woman. Then he addresses each woman, as it were, by name: “Do you not know,” he says, “that you are Eve? The sentence of God lives and is effective against this kind, and in this world it is necessary that the punishment also live. You are the door and gate of the devil. You are the first transgressor of God’s law. You did persuade and easily deceive him whom the devil dared not assault. For what you deserved (that is, for your death) it was necessary for the Son of God to suffer death, and does it yet remain in your mind to adorn yourself beyond your skin coats?”
With these solemn statements and sharp questions, Tertullian sought to make every woman examine herself. He wanted each to consider deeply God’s sentence against Eve and all her daughters, to humble and subject herself daily before God, and to avoid anything that might lift her up in pride or make her forget God’s curse. What could make a woman forget her condition more readily than authority over men? Even a steadfast man raised to honor can hardly escape some stirring of pride; the wind of vain glory easily lifts the earth’s dry dust. For a woman set in authority over men, resisting pride is no more possible, I say, than it is for a weak reed or a weathercock to remain unmoved in a strong, shifting wind.
Tertullian therefore expressly forbids every woman to take up a man’s office. In his book de virginibus velandis (On the Veiling of Virgins), he writes: “It is not permitted to a woman to speak in the congregation, neither to teach, neither to baptize, neither to claim for herself any office of man.” In the preface to his sixth book against Marcion, he speaks still more plainly. Recounting strange things seen near the sea called Euxine, he calls it a great monstrosity in nature that women there were neither restrained nor humbled by consideration of their sex. Setting aside all shame, they spent money on weapons and learned warfare, taking more pleasure in fighting than in marrying and being subject to men.
Tertullian’s words need no explanation. One who denies women every office belonging to men will not allow them to reign over men. One who judges a woman’s use of weapons a monstrosity in nature must consider her exaltation over a whole realm and nation a monstrosity greater still. Origen and many others agree. I pass over their statements, down to Augustine’s day, to avoid undue length.
In his twenty-second book against Faustus, Augustine argues that a woman ought to serve her husband as she would serve God. He says that she has equal power with man in nothing except that neither has power over their own body. He plainly means that a woman should neither seek nor thirst for the authority due to man. Elsewhere he says that a woman who aspires to dominion should be restrained early, since allowing her to advance is dangerous even in temporal and bodily matters. He adds: “God does not see for a time, neither is there any new thing in his sight and knowledge.” By this he means that what God has seen concerning dominion in one woman he sees in all, and what he has forbidden to one he forbids to all.
Augustine makes the point plainer still when he asks: “how can woman be the image of God, seeing she is subject to man, and has no authority, neither to teach, neither to be witness, neither to judge, much less to rule, or bear dominion?” These are Augustine’s own words. He agrees not only with Tertullian but with the earlier legal judgment that denies women authority among men and every office belonging to men.
Augustine answers his question this way: “Woman,” he says, “compared to other creatures is the image of God, for she bears dominion over them: but compared to man, she may not be called the image of God, for she bears not rule and lordship over man, but ought to obey him,” etc. He explains the required obedience further: “the woman shall be subject to man as to Christ. For woman,” he says, “does not take her example from the body and from the flesh, that so she shall be subject to man, as the flesh is to the spirit. Because the flesh in the weakness and mortality of this life lusts and strives against the spirit, the Holy Ghost would therefore not give the woman an example of subjection from any such thing,” etc.
All women should mark Augustine’s judgment. He plainly says that a woman should be subject to man and should no more desire precedence over him than she should desire precedence over Christ Jesus.
Saint Ambrose agrees with Augustine in every respect. In his Hexaemeron he writes: “Adam was deceived by Eve, and not Eve by Adam, and therefore just it is that woman receive and acknowledge him for governor whom she called to sin, lest again she slide and fall through womanly pliability.” Writing on the letter to the Ephesians, he says: “let women be subiect to their owne husbandes as vnto the Lorde: for the man is heade to the woman, and Christ is heade to the congregation, and he is the sauiour of the bodie: but the congregation is subiect to Christ, euen so oght women to be to their husbandes in all thinges” (Eph 5).
Ambrose continues: “women are commanded to be subject to men by the law of nature, because man is the author or beginner of the woman: for as Christ is the head of the church, so is man of the woman. From Christ, the church took beginning, and therefore it is subject to him: even so did woman take beginning from man, that she should be subject.” These two writers agree so closely that one might think one had taken his words and thoughts from the other. Yet they wrote far apart. The Holy Spirit, the spirit of concord and unity, enlightened their hearts and guided their tongues and pens. Understanding one truth, they expressed it alike and left us, their posterity, evidence of their knowledge and agreement.
Someone may think these statements concern only a married woman’s subjection to her husband. I have already proved otherwise from Saint Paul’s plain words and reasoning, and will now do so from these writers. Ambrose, commenting on 1 Timothy 2, speaks at length about women’s simple dress and then says: “woman ought not only to have simple attire, but all authority is to be denied to her: for she must be in subjection to man (of whom she has taken her origin) as well in dress as in service.” A little later he says: “because death did enter into the world by her, there is no boldness that ought to be permitted to her, but she ought to be in humility.” Clearly, then, all women, married or unmarried, are denied authority to carry out an office belonging to man. All are commanded to serve and to live in humility and subjection.
Ambrose says it even more plainly: “It is not permitted to women to speake, but to be in silence, as the lawe saith” (1 Cor 14). What does the law say? “Vnto thy husband, shall thy conuersion be, and he shall beare dominion ouer the” (Gen 3). Ambrose calls this a special law: women are commanded to keep silence so that its sentence will not be violated or weakened. He includes all women. He continues: “It is shame for them to presume to speak of the law in the house of the Lord, who has commanded them to be subject to their men.” And whose house ought parliament to be, I ask: God’s or the devil’s?
Ambrose speaks most plainly when writing on Paul’s words to the Romans, “Salute Rufus and his mother” (Rom 16). He says: “For this cause did the apostle place Rufus before his mother, for the election of the administration of the grace of God, in which a woman has no place. For he was chosen and promoted by the Lord to take care over his business, that is, over the church, to which office his mother could not be appointed, although she was a woman so holy that the apostle called her his mother.” Thus the administration of God’s grace is denied to all women.
By that administration I mean both preaching the word and administering the sacraments, through which God’s grace is presented and ordinarily distributed to people, and administering civil justice, through which virtue should be upheld and vice punished. A woman is no less barred from carrying out civil justice than from preaching the gospel or administering the sacraments, as will become still plainer hereafter.
