Paul, Timothy, the
Gnostics and Women
Peter Baylis explores
some of the influences of Gnosticism.
AS predicted by Paul, the ‘falling away’ or apostasy of sections of the
early Christians from the true Gospel was swift. One of the greatest apostasies
was the heresy known as Gnosticism. It was violently suppressed and driven
underground by the power of the State Church, but it surfaced repeatedly
amongst such groups as the Albigensian Cathars and still exists today.
What was Gnosticism about? Let’s construct a ‘statement of faith’ for
it:
1) That which is physical is evil; spirit is good.
2) Salvation is by your pure spirit escaping from your vile body and
ascending to heaven. The means of such escape is ‘special knowledge’, gnosis
in Greek, hence Gnosticism.
3) The Old Testament God had created the evil physical world. Hence he
himself is evil and a deceiver.
4) The body is evil and to be treated harshly by fasting etc. But sexual
immorality is fine because it breaks the law of the evil creator; marriage however
is forbidden.
5) Creating more vile flesh by having children is evil. Women who give
birth will be hindered from entering Gnostic heaven.
6) Eve is worshipped as a perfect, spirit being, Adam’s creator and,
united with the Serpent, the enlightener of mankind with the True Knowledge.
7) Knowledge of your origins via your family tree is important to
salvation; Eve is the origin of all.
8) Christ being perfect did not have a physical body, he only appeared
to have one.
1 John 4:2-3 is a prime example of a verse countering the Gnostic heresy
and Christadelphians universally recognise it as such:
Every
spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,
but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the
spirit of the Antichrist.
This clearly
refers to the Gnostic heresy of the Christ with no physical body. We suggest
that the letters to Timothy are equally preoccupied with the Gnostic threat.
Consider 1 Timothy 1:4 which makes it plain that Timothy’s congregation
at Ephesus is beset by false teachers:
…Not to
teach false doctrines…nor to devote themselves to myths and endless
genealogies. (NIV throughout this article.)
Gnostic mythology turned the scripture on its head.1 The
false doctrines referred to in this verse are likely to be elements of
Gnosticism such as: that Cain was a hero and Abel a knave; that Eve and the
Serpent brought salvation; that you should oppose the evil Creator at every
turn; that if he said ‘thou shalt not’, thou jolly well shalt! Gnosticism was a
religion of revolt against every divine principle. This same verse also points
to the Gnostic obsession with genealogies.
Not surprisingly Paul has a great many other concerns:
They forbid
people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods….(1 Timothy 4:3 )
Here is
Gnostic revulsion at maintaining vile flesh in both its main forms! Further:
Have
nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales. (1Timothy 4:7 )
These ‘old
wives’ tales’ were the secret lore of Gnosticism, often taught to
impressionable children and young wives by the older women.
…rather
train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but
godliness has value … for both the present life and the life to come. (1
Timothy 4:8)
Gnosticism
taught the opposite; your spirit is already perfect, it only requires you to
suppress your flesh by harsh ascetic practices.
The apostle’s criticism of Gnosticism is seen particularly in 1
Timothy 2 which begins with a request for prayers to be made for everyone.
Might this suggest that some groups in the congregation were not being prayed
for? Then Paul underlines Christ’s mediatorship ‘for all’, not just for some
factions of the congregation.
For there
is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave
himself as a ransom for all .... (1 Timothy 2: 5-7)
What other mediators were competing with Christ in Timothy’s Ephesus?
Obviously the fertility Goddess Artemis held strong sway in the public
imagination of Ephesus (Acts 19). Women mediated her to her followers.
Gnosticism conflated spirit-guide Eve with many pagan mother-deities, including
Artemis, and the hidden ‘gnosis’ was only to be learnt from feminine
spirit-beings and women gurus. Paul is arguing against the idea that only women
had the saving teaching; it was the man Christ Jesus who was the mediator! Note
the emphasis on his body in 3:16. And there was not a false creator god and a
true Gnostic god; there is but one God.
Paul
continued:
A woman
should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach
or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. For Adam was formed
first.... And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived
and became a sinner. But women will be saved through childbearing.... (1 Tim
2:11-15)
Already, in the light of our comments on Gnostic teaching, this passage
should be reading rather differently from the orthodox slant! Usually these
verses are quoted to ‘prove’ that women must never speak in the ecclesia. Good
Christadelphian practice however is being ignored:
Any
doctrine must be suspect when it rests on only one verse. Much more so when the
interpretation ... violates ... scripture.1
Bro. Ron's principle is a Christadelphian tradition of pure, solid gold.
There are four verses in the entire Bible which are taken to teach that women
cannot speak and teach but there are the equivalent of a couple of chapters’
worth saying that women should pray, speak, teach and lead. Common sense and
Christadelphian tradition say ‘Go with the majority of passages and doubt the
face-value meaning of the minority.’ Why is this sound principle driven away
with blows over this raw issue, but sanely upheld in almost all others?
So what is this quietness (AV silence) Paul speaks of?
Silence (AV/RSV) in v.12 does NOT mean ‘silence’; it is the Greek word hesychia,
which carried the idea of ‘quietness’ – ‘being less loud’ – as in NIV. The
adjective form is translated as quiet in verse 2 (‘that we may live peaceful
and quiet lives’). If Paul meant for a woman not to speak he would have
used sigan which does mean, ‘to refrain from speaking’. This fits our
context; a woman should cooperate with sound instruction, and not be boisterous
and rebellious like a Gnostic virago!
This contrasts with the foolish women referred to in 2 Timothy 3: 6-7
who are ‘always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth.’ Note also
the change from ‘women’ in 2:9-10 to ‘woman’ in verse 11; it appears husband
and wife is being referred to.
The Greek words gyne and aner used here can be translated
respectively wife/woman or husband/man depending purely on context. The use of
the word ‘submission’ is probably contextual with Paul’s use of the same word
in his previous letter to the same congregation – the Epistle to the Ephesians.
In Ephesians 5:22 Paul says, ‘wives submit to your husbands.’ Here in 1 Tim 2,
the reference to Adam and Eve in v. 14 – the first husband and wife – and the
reference to childbearing in v. 15 also point to a context of marriage.
So this quietness (silence) and submission is restricted to the
relationship between husband and wife that the scripture DOES teach, the ‘great
mystery’ of Ephesians 5:32. If it applies to every brother with every sister,
what is special about marriage – just bed and board?
In verse 12 Paul says that a woman (wife?) is not to have ‘authority’ or
authentein over a man (her husband?). When we want to understand the
meaning of a scriptural word, we generally look at how the scriptures elsewhere
use it; we can’t do this with authentein because this is its one and
only appearance! Koine Greek writings in general use it in several ways:
‘Precedence (coming first)’ which ties in
with the Gnostic doctrine of Eve creating Adam
‘domineering, usurping authority’ like that
of the Gnostic teachers.
‘To murder a
wife and take her place.’ Again, extreme usurpation and violence!
Most of these meanings are about the abuse of power; I am certainly
against that. The following translation is a perfectly permissible translation
of the Greek text, and best suits the Gnostic context:
I do not permit (such) a woman to teach nor to represent herself as the
originator of man; she is to be in conformity (to the scripture teaching) for
Adam was created first, not Eve….
A woman who does not peddle Gnostic rubbish but who holds sound doctrine
should teach and can hold proper authority, in line with Paul’s teaching
elsewhere! Eve was deceived and a sinner, not enlightened and perfect as the
Gnostics taught! This is far removed from saying that because Eve sinned all
women are unfit to speak or lead.
The clinching verse is 15, because out of the Gnostic context it makes
no obvious sense at all; is it saying good women don’t die while giving birth
(they do) or that they are saved by having children? Paul was denying the
Gnostic doctrine that having children would hinder a woman’s salvation. Paul
teaches that salvation depends on faith in Christ, not on whether or not you
have babies!
In short, 1 Timothy 2 is saying not that women should not teach, but that
they should teach what is right, and not that they should not exercise
authority, but that they should exercise it properly. So should men! This is in
perfect conformity with the rest of the New Testament: mutual submission on the
part of all.
The final proof that Gnosticism is behind many of the statements of Paul
in this letter comes in 1 Timothy 6:20:
Turn away
from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called
knowledge, (A.V. ‘science’) which some have professed and in so doing have
wandered from the faith.
The word
‘knowledge’ there is, you’ve guessed it, GNOSIS. (Strong’s 1108) Could Paul be
more plain?
Peter Baylis
References:
1 The Gnostic Gospels, Elaine Pagels (The
basic study on Gnostic doctrine.)
2 Wrested Scriptures, Ron Abel (no date
given) p.38
Other books
consulted were:
I Suffer
not a Woman, Richard and Catherine Clark-Kroeger, 1992
(This is devoted to explaining the Gnostic
heresy with special reference to 1Tim 2. Believe me, I’ve only scratched the
surface. Highly recommended.)
All one in
Christ Jesus, Ian and Averil McHaffie, 1999 (Chapter 11)