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I posted about this yesterday and deleted it because I wanted to offer a more constructive response. This is from Denny Burk's article at @CBMWorg posted yesterday. I take issue with much in this article, but this claim is so patently false as to be disingenuous. A thread:
*A quick preface: First, This material has been covered well by numerous scholars, including an anthology of primary texts by Alcuin Blamires. I'm sure much of this is noted in @bethallisonbarr's forthcoming book.
Second, keep in mind that Denny's assertion that complementarianism is "assumed" by the church universal since its inception implies that the doctrine is a first order doctrine, not a second or third order doctrine. (Also, it infers the Church as a Western entity.) Preface over.*
Complementarianism (hereafter CMP) argues that male and female are equal in creation, worth, and dignity, but different in role or function. Is this what the (Western) church has taught for all ages? Did Christians assume this to be the case? Let's look at just a few loud voices
Chyrostom argues in Homily 8 on Genesis that since Paul orders women to submit to men and "woman is man's glory," that the imago dei refers to the right to have command. Thus, the imago dei excludes women:
"You see, since it is on the basis of command that the image was received and not on the basis of form, man commands everything whereas woman is subservient--hence Paul's words about man, that he is constituted in God's image and glory, whereas woman is man's glory."
Augustine perhaps comes closest to a proto-CMP viewpoint in his Genesis commentary, where he notes that the image of God refers to a "mind endowed with reason," something he believes both men and women have. However, this is actually collapsing...
of the way that maleness and femaleness reflect the image of God--it is in their sexless rationality and movement toward God that the image is perceived. For Augustine, "complementarity" as such can only refer to the different parts to make babies.
This differs significantly from the (best) teaching of CMP, which argues that men and women are meant for companionship. Not for Augustine, who says that if God wanted to make a labor-helper or emotional companion suitable for the man, he would have just made another man.
Aquinas followed Aristotle's lead in assuming that woman was physically "defective and misbegotten" in relation to the humors, even if this "defect" was part of God's intention to propogate the species. That was, after all, what God gave women for as a "helper"--to have babies.
Aquinas: "Not, indeed, as a helpmate in other works, as some say, since man can be more efficiently helped by another man...but as a helper in the work of generation." Aquinas also elevated men above women "to a still nobler vital action, and that is intellectual operation."
Women were subject to men, not as a picture of Christ and the Church, but rather "naturally," since "in man the discretion of reason predominates." (ST Ia q.92, a.1)
Let's jump into the Reformation. Luther, to be sure, says women are sharers in the image of God, but her creation is nonetheless lackluster compared to the male: "For as the sun is more excellent than the moon (although the moon, too, is a very excellent body)..."
"...so the woman, although she was a most beautiful work of God, nevertheless was not the equal of the male in glory and prestige." Sharer of the image? Yes, which is an improvement from Chrysostom! Equal in dignity and worth? Not hardly.
Tyndale, like Luther, is all over the place on the subject. Interestingly (as an aside), in arguing for the priesthood of all believers against Thomas More, he suggests that the command to love one's neighbor "doth teach women to baptize in time of need; yea and to teach..."
"...and to rule their husbands too, if they be beside themselves." (I don't think Tyndale actually would have ever suggested this in practice, btw. His point is to elevate spiritual authority derived from scripture against the church hierarchy.)
Suffice it to say, CMP isn't ancient, unless you distill it to a skeleton--male and female, created in the image of God, given roles. But those last two are somewhat contentious and highly debated in the Western church sources.
To borrow M. Wiesner-Hanks's fine point about Aristotle, many ancient philosophers and theologians asked completely different questions about the sexes. "What is man?" vs. "What are women for?"
That CMP isn't ancient doesn't ipso facto make it wrong. But arguing for its veracity by appealing to a false premise of universality is, in fact, wrong.
Epilogue: When you make CMP about women’s ordination, of course you’ll find consistency because women couldn’t be priests in the Late Antique and medieval church. But it’s a mistake to assume that practice is founded in a close reading of scripture instead of...
cultural presuppositions then supported by a reading of scripture (e.g., “women can’t be priests *because* they are irrational, more prone to sin, etc. and here’s a Bible verse about women submitting”).
P.S. it would be weird as a low church Prot to say that the Western church got it wrong on sacraments, polity, images, saints, and salvation by faith but nailed it on women in ministry.
