the conduct of women in the assemblies for worship.
The other reason lies in the special circumstances of the Apostolic converts. Pagan presuppositions in their minds, pagan tradition governing their action, determined necessarily the specific form of the admonitions by which the apostles endeavoured to correct both, and to bring their spiritual children into worthy habits of thought and life. Of St. Paul it has been said with substantial truth that he "did not in any way go beyond the conception of woman's position which at bottom belonged to the whole ancient world," and of the first Epistle to the Corinthians, which is our chief authority for learning what the apostle's teaching with respect to marriage actually was, it has been justly observed that "in its main portions it is chiefly a history of the difficulties which the Gospel had to contend with on heathen soil."[1]
It is indeed the case that within the life of
- ↑ See Weizsäcker, "Apostolic Age" vol. i. p. 339, vol. ii. p. 384.
