 |
|
     |
|
|
|
Rosenstock-Huessy notes that the ancient world observed a division of labor with regard to speech: "Women are expected to contribute wild, passionate, inarticulate shouts of blind feeling. Men are expected to build on this natural stratum the structure of high and articulate speech. . . . Women and children yell, weep, shake; men act and speak."
Against this background, Paul's instructions for women to be silent have a different impact than is often thought:
"When Paul asked that women be silent in church he said it at a time and within a world in which the women - Jewish and Gentile alike - were expected to utter terrible wails and yells, to be Sibyls and Bacchants, to utter passionate cries at any funeral. The modern detractors of Paul usually have not the faintest idea what they attack. Paul made formal speech accessible to women by freeing them from the burden of pre-Christian ritual in which they strewed ashes on their heads, punctured their breasts and uttered long-drawn cries for days [think of contemporary Islamic funerals]. Paul was faced with passionate people who stammered and had fits under the new dispensation of freedom, who had been obsessed by spirits and by demons of their clan or family."
Thus, Paul's instructions "laid the foundations of a new truth that women may from now on participate in the word as well as men." And Paul's instructions were heeded: "We no longer fear that we should hear hysterial cries in church. Women behave as respectably in religious gatherings as though they were men." The silence of women was a roadbloack against relapse into hysteria, and particularly the re-confinement of women to the "irrational" sphere of yells and wails. "Women keep silence," paradoxically, frees women to speak.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, February 10, 2007 at 05:17 PM
Permission is given to use material on this site, provided the source is cited, blog entries are republished in full, and the author is notified in advance.
1 & 2 Kings
Brazos Theological Commentary
The Promise Of His Appearing: An Exposition Of Second Peter
A Great Mystery: Fourteen Wedding Sermons
Deep Comedy: Trinity, Tragedy, And Hope In Western Literature
Miniatures & Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen
The Priesthood of the Plebs: A Theology of Baptism
A Son To Me: An Exposition of 1 & 2 Samuel
From Silence to Song: The Davidic Liturgical Revolution
Ascent to Love: A Guide to Dante's Divine Comedy
Blessed Are the Hungry: Meditations on the Lord's Supper
A House For My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament
Heroes of the City of Man: A Christian Guide to Select Ancient Literature
Brightest Heaven of Invention: A Christian Guide To Six Shakespeare Plays
Wise Words: Family Stories That Bring the Proverbs to Life
The Kingdom and the Power: Rediscovering the Centrality of the Church
