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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 January 2009
Few aspects of Paul's teaching have proved more controversial in recent times than his injunction that women should neither speak (lalein) nor teach (didaskein) in church assemblies (1 Cor. 14.34–35; 1 Tim. 2.11–12). To those seeking to promote the ministry of women in the church, the apostle's words appear as a personal expression of opinion founded on patriarchal prejudice, on rabbinic conservatism or on purely local considerations of strategy, motives which are of little more than documentary interest in the current debate. To proponents of the principle of male leadership, on the other hand, Paul's instruction forms part of a normative, enduring evangelical tradition which is often assumed to bear not only on the order of the church but on the order of creation itself. In these circumstances it is instructive to examine Calvin's treatment of the subject as found not only in his major dogmatic work, The Institute of the Christian Religion, but at various places in his sermons and commentaries. Our purpose here is not to make Calvin the arbiter of what, in his own day, was a highly marginal question – outside of court and literary circles, equality of the sexes was not a serious Renaissance concern – but rather to understand how he interpreted Paul's teaching in the context of a creation which God was already renewing and of a church where all were already made one in Christ.
1 The fullest study to appear to date is that of Douglass, Jane Dempsey, Women, Freedom and Calvin (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1985).Google Scholar Earlier studies include Bratt, John H., ‘The Role and Status of Women in the Writings of Calvin’, in Klerk, Peter De (ed.), Renaissance, Reformation, Resurgence (Grand Rapids: Calvin Theological Seminary, 1976), pp. 1–17Google Scholar; DeBoer, Willis P., ‘Calvin on the Role of Women’, in Holwerda, David E. (ed.), Exploring the Heritage of John Calvin (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1976), pp. 236–272.Google Scholar A consideration of the social and historical context in which Calvin worked lies beyond the scope of this paper. Details may be found in the works cited above, in Davis, Natalie Z., Society and Culture in Early Modern France (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1975), pp. 65–95Google Scholar, and in Irwin, Joyce L., Womanhood in Radical Protestantism (New York: E. Mellen, 1979).Google Scholar
2 Sermon on 1 Tim. 2.13–15 (CO53, 221). On Sarah and Abraham, cf. Comm. Gen. 21.10 (CO23, 301).
3 Sermonon 1 Tim. 2.13–15 (CO53, 221). Cf. Comm. I Tim. 2.11–12 (CO52, 276): ‘God's extraordinary acts do not annul the ordinary rules by which he wishes us to be bound.’ Here and elsewhere the text cited is that of D. W., and Torrance, T. F. (eds.), Calvin's New Testament Commentaries (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd/St Andrew's Press, 1959–1972).Google Scholar
4 Comm. Ev. Harm. Matt. 28. 1–7 (CO 45, 792).
5 Comm. Acts 18.26 and 21.9 (CO 48, 437–438; 478); Comm. Rom. 12.8 and 16.1 (CO 49, 240; 284–285). On the order of widows, see below, and the article by McKee, Elsie Anne, ‘Calvin's Exegesis of Romans 12.8’, Calvin Theological Journal 23 (1988), 6–18.Google Scholar – At its worst, Calvin's method of argument is circular: Priscilla instructed Apollos; but since women are not permitted to instruct men in open assembly, she can only have done so privately, in her own house; therefore her example cannot be invoked to justify a public teaching role for women.
6 DeBoer, , ‘Calvin on the Role of Women’, p. 269.Google Scholar
7 Attention should also be paid to other Pauline texts such as Eph. 5.22–24, which speak of women's subordination in marriage. Calvin's exegesis of these passages is discussed by Bieler, André, L'Homme et la femme dans la morale calviniste (Geneva: Labor et Fides. 1963), pp. 46–52.Google Scholar
8 Comm. 1 Cor. 14.34 (CO 49, 533).
9 Ibid.
10 Comm. 1 Tim. 2.13 (CO 52, 277).
11 Ibid.
12 Comm. 1 Tim. 2.14 (CO 52, 277).
13 Ibid. See also Comm. Gen. 3.16 (CO 23, 72). The classic statement of woman's double subjection is found in Aquinas' Summa (la. 92.1). The idea does not appear in Luther who, though somewhat ambivalent on the question of Eve's inherent excellence, nevertheless affirms that but for the Fall woman would have been man's equal ‘in all respects’ (Comm. Gen. 2.18 and 3.16; LWI, 115; 202).
14 Comm. 1 Cor. 14.34ff. (CO49, 532–533).
15 Comm. 1 Cor. 14.35 (CO49, 533).
16 Bouwsma, William J., John Calvin, a Sixteenth-Century Portrait (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 138.Google Scholar Cf. Douglass (op. cit., pp. 22, 36, 46, 50–51, 62–63, 106), who generally speaking regards cultural factors as the decisive element in the shaping of Calvin's ideas.
17 Biéler, op. cit., pp. 36, 76.
18 Comm. 1 Cor. 11.5–6 (CO 49, 475). Similar attempts to harmonize Paul's thought may be found in Erasmus (Paraphrases, LB7, 905) and in Luther (The Misuse of the Mass, LW36, 152; Infiltrating and Clandestine Preachers, LW40, 390–391).
19 Comm. 1 Tim. 2.11–12 (CO 52, 276).
20 Stauffer, Richard, Dieu, la création et la providence dans la prédication de Calvin (Berne: Peter Lang, 1978), pp. 303–306.Google Scholar Cf. Douglass (op. cit., pp. 26, 45), whose insistence that priority should be given to the Institute appears to us a major methodological weakness. Calvin's prefaces to the Institute notwithstanding, there is no warrant for making this work the yardstick by which all his ideas are to be measured and all inconsistencies resolved.
21 Battles, Ford L. (ed.), Calvin, , Institutes of the Christian Religion: 1536 Edition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), p. 204.Google Scholar The 1536 text survives, though in amended and greatly amplified form, in the definitive edition of 1559 (Inst. 4.10.27–32).
22 Ibid., p. 205.
23 Ibid.
24 Ibid., pp. 205–206.
25 Inst. 4.10.30. The text cited is that of McNeill, J. T. (ed.), Calvin, , Institutes of the Christian Religion (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960).Google Scholar
26 Inst. 4.10.29.
27 Inst. 4.10.28.
28 Ganoczy, A., Calvin, théologien de l'Eglise et du ministére (Paris: Ed. du Cerf, 1964), pp. 244–247.Google Scholar It is important, nevertheless, not to drive too firm a wedge between Calvin and Luther. The latter concedes to ministers of the Word the same functional superiority as the French Reformer. See, e.g., his sermon on 1 Pet. 2.5 (LW30, 54); Infiltrating and Clandestine Preachers (LW40, 390–392); On the Councils and the Church (LW41, 154).
29 Inst. 4.10.30.
30 Comm. Rom. 12.8 (CO49, 240); Draft Ecclesiastical Ordinances (CO 10/1, 23), Inst. 4.3.9. See further, Ganoczy, op. cit., pp. 285–294, 381–386. The textual evidence which according to Ganoczy, shows that Calvin envisaged a sacramental role for deacons, is at best ambiguous; historical evidence is entirely lacking. Cf. Doumergue, Emile, Jean Calvin, les hommes et les choses de son temps (Lausanne: G. Bridel, 1899–1927) 5, 253–255.Google Scholar
31 Inst. 4.15.20–22. So too, Comm. Ev. Harm. Matt. 28.19 (CO 45, 822).
32 Wendel, F., Calvin (London: Collins, 1963), p. 304.Google Scholar On the primacy of the pastorate in Calvin's thinking, see Ganoczy, op. cit., pp. 344–366.
33 Sermon on 1 Tim. 2.9–11 (CO 53, 207–208).
34 Attention has already been drawn to the strictly defined functions of the diaconate. On the limitations imposed on the offices of doctor and elder, see Inst. 4.3.4; sermon on 1 Tim. 5.16–18 (CO 53, 505–509). Also Lecerf, Auguste, Etudes calvinistes (Neuchâtel: Delachaux et Niestlé, 1949), pp. 73–74.Google Scholar
35 Bratt, , ‘The Role and Status of Women’, p. 10Google Scholar; Deboer, , ‘Calvin on the Role of Women’, p. 269.Google Scholar
36 Douglass, op. cit., pp. 63, 65. The notion that God has ‘repeatedly’ called women into positions of authority in the church is not borne out by Cahin's reading of Scripture. Such a call remains, as we have noted, exceptional, a portentous deviation from the norm. Nor does the Reformer speculate as to God's future action in the matter. Similarly, Bouwsma's contention (op. cit., p. 138) that, in Cahin's eyes, there is nothing in principle which prevents women assuming the highest positions in the church, needs much more careful qualification.
37 Bratt, , ‘The Role and Status of Women’, p. 11.Google Scholar
38 Stauffer, op. cit., p. 304 (on Calvin's ‘biblicism’); Douglass, op. cit., pp. 88–107 (on contemporary influences).
39 Sermon on 1 Cor. 11.4–10 (CO 49, 727). Cf. Comm. 1 Cor. 11.3 (CO 49, 474).
40 Torrance, T. F., Kingdom and Church: a Study in the Theology of the Reformation (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1956), p. 104.Google Scholar
41 Sermon on 1 Cor. 11.2–3 (CO49, 719).
42 Cf. Torrance (op. cit., pp. 134–139), who argues that Calvin views all orders of the church as in a state of suspension, since the church in Christ transcends history, but also as necessary, in order that the church in this present age may reflect, however imperfectly, the face of Christ.