I was using the term mainstream to describe the doctrines and practices that became normative for the so-called Great Church that would later divide into the Eastern and Western Churches.

To paraphrase Lancelot Andrewes’s famous dictum on sources of Anglican theology “…three creeds, four Councils, five centuries and the Fathers who wrote therein.” As I’ve said before, I find the materials outside the canon fascinating—but too many in the church today know too little of what is in the canon or written in the early texts of the church to appreciate the different perspective. There is a richness, a diversity, a variety even within the bounds of the church’s thinking that goes untapped when it goes untaught.

Your point about gnosticism not being proto-feminism (or proto-any other positive liberal movement) is a good one. I got some negative email responses on my strongly critical review of the Gospel of Judas, but the fact is, it is not a “good find” (except in the scholarly sense), but a misogynistic, anti-Semitic text that has no place in Christian faith formation.

Gnosticism is not monolithic, of course, but for the most part its texts are just not useful for Christians.

The gnostics were not and are not a red herring. Rather, I had gnostics on the brain this morning due to reading Dr. Chilton’s article before Dr. Good’s. My main point still stands–the gnostics were not proto-feminists.

Dr. Good corrected me and I fully accept her correction that she was not speaking about the gnostics.

Yes, women’s voices were kept out of the mainstream in the early church. I do not dispute that it was in and participated in a patriarchal culture. That doesn’t change the fact that they were there and we have interesting bits of data about them.

However–you know how academia works–it often takes a while for ideas current there to perk to the level of public knowledge. I have heard of some interesting work done on recovering images and practices of women in patristic and other early texts; regrettably, I can’t name any names as I’ve been concentrating pretty exclusively on tenth century England and Matthew commentaries for the last several years and haven’t been keeping up with the field as much as I’d like.

Other readers of this blog may be able to offer suggestions.

One of my general beefs with seminary education is that not enough early material is read. The patristic and early church writings should form an important part of our dogmatic and ascetical theology—not to mention preaching, Scripture interpretation, etc…

And the issue of gnosticism seems to be a bit of red herring here…

I believe that there are a lot of postitive pictures of women within the mainstream Christian tradition *despite* it growing in and participating in a demonstrably patriarchal culture. I fear that constantly going outside of it serves only to undermine the value of the tradition in the eyes of those who have not been exposed to its richness.

However, the three non/post-biblical sources are also outside the mainstream Christian tradition. (Yes, the PJ was rather influential in Christian popular culture but was eventually suppressed because it denied the virginity of *Joseph*.) As such the pattern that you are building implicitly is that to find positive statements about women prophets or women religious figures one must go outside of the Christian mainstream.

I will concede that it is difficult to find mainstream Christian texts on women *prophets* but I’ll also note that it’s really hard to find texts in support of Christian *male* prophets after the Apostolic Fathers anyway.

At that point I have to ask, is the issue one of gender or is it one of prophecy in light of the Montanist problem?

I do appreciate your interest in my piece!

However, if you read it carefully you will note that I do not quote from a single source that might be identified as “gnostic”! This is quite deliberate.

I am trying to get a cross-section of voices from Corinthian women prophets and Philo’s Therapeutrides plus Luke’s portrait of Mary in the 1st Century to Montanus and other prophets plus the Protevangelium of James in the second century and thereafter. There is a pattern, but, with all due respect, I don’t think its the one you describe!