Women of Spirit: Female Leadership in the Jewish and Christian Traditions

In her essay on Mothers of the Church, Ruether tells the stories of several women of the patristic era who devoted themselves to the celibate monastic life rather than choosing the conventional 4th and 5th century path of marriage and childrearing. Several gave their extensive property holdings over to support communities of women which they founded. In the end, Ruether makes the rather anachronistic statement that their lives were a tragedy because they were given no public voice in the church of that era. It is difficult to imagine these women agreeing with Ruether's estimate of their lives; they exercised more choice in the direction of their lives than most women of that age. They spent their lives in reflection on God, the scriptures, and the great writings of the early church. The only tragedy is that, in many churches, nothing has changed in the ensuing fifteen centuries.