Note 53.1 — The Evolution of Religion

In another question of administration, in the position of women in regard to the ministry, we can trace the opposing forces of differing pre-Christian traditions.53.1 Their present total exclusion from sacred functions in all but a few sects shows the triumph of the Judaic rule sanctioned and insisted upon by St Paul; it is not at all in accordance with Teutonic or Greco-Roman religious custom; and in fact we find in the early centuries of the Church, when Greek influence was strongest, that certain offices of the ministry could be fulfilled by women; we even hear of a heretic sect in the fifth century that signalised itself by the orgiastic processions of the “priestesses of the Virgin Mary.”54.1 It is still possible that the old Teutonic view in this matter may reassert itself.