Around the year 200 C.E., Tertullian of Carthage ran into difficulties with a certain, otherwise unknown woman, a visiting teacher in the city.

Tertulli­an especially disapproved of her teaching on baptism and was disturbed to see how many were attracted to it. To fight this “female viper from the Cainite sect” - as he calls her - he wrote a treatise On Baptism^[1025] and claimed that the woman had no authority behind her.

But if the writings, which wrongly go under Paul’s name, claim the example of Thecla for allowing women to teach and to baptize, let them know that in Asia the presbyter who compiled that document, thinking to add to Paul’s reputation, was found out, and though he confessed he had done it for love of Paul, resigned from his position. How could we believe that Paul should give a female power to teach and to baptize, when he did not allow a woman even to learn in her own right? Let them keep silent, he says, and ask their husbands at home.^[1026]

This quotation reveals two competing views of how the legacy of Paul was understood and used in the second Christian century to justify the role and place of women. On the one hand, there were those who, like Tertullian, referred to Paul’s instruction on silencing women in the Christian gather­ings (cf. 1 Cor 14:33-36) and used their authority to fight against women’s leadership in the church.^[1027] This Pauline passage was frequently cited by those who wanted to underline women’s subordination, on par only with the prohibition of women to teach (1 Tim 2:12). On the other hand, there were others who recalled how Paul had commissioned his female compan­ion Thecla to act as a preacher and leaned on her example in defending their own right to teach and to baptize. The story of Thecla has survived both independently^[1028] and as a part of a larger narrative known as the Acts of Paul.^[1029] In the story, Paul is Thecla’s teacher and lends his authority to her as she becomes an itinerant teacher on her own.

There were several debates among early Christians over the legacy of Paul. The question of women, in particular their role and conduct, was not the least among these. In this essay, I give some examples of how different early Christian writers used Paul, his heritage, and his authority, to legiti­mize what they understood to be the proper role for women. By a woman’s role I mean, on the one hand, her opportunities for teaching and perform­ing leadership roles in Christian communities and, on the other hand, her position in the family within the framework of marriage - particularly the question of whether a woman should marry or stay celibate. In many an­cient discussions, these two aspects were inseparably intertwined. Paul and his teaching were used as guarantors of quite different views: celibacy, monogamy, in some cases even sexual liberalism, as well as women’s ac­tive role in the Christian gatherings and their submission to male office­holders.

A.