of equality, and they held themselves bound to chastity in the marital relation. The women of Scandinavia were regarded with respect, and marriage was held as sacred by both men and women. These old Berserkers reverenced their Alruna, or Holy Women, on earth, and worshiped goddesses in heaven. All Pagandom recognized a female priesthood, some making their national safety to depend upon them, like Rome; sybils wrote the Books of Fate, and oracles where women presided were consulted by many nations. The proof of woman's also taking part in the offices of the Christian Church at an early date is to be found in the very restrictions which were at a later period placed upon her. The Council of Laodicea, A.D. 365, in its eleventh canon[1]forbade the ordination of women to the ministry, and by its forty-fourth canon prohibited them from entering into the altar.
The Council of Orleans, A.D. 511, consisting of twenty-six bishops and priests, promulgated a canon declaring that on account of their frailty, women must be excluded from the deaconship.
Nearly five hundred years later than the Council of Laodicea, we find the Council of Paris (A.D. 824) bitterly complaining that women serve at the altar, and even give to the people the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The Council of Aix-la-Chapelle, only eight years previously, had forbidden abbesses from taking upon themselves any priestly function. Through these canons we have the negative proof that for many hundred years women preached, baptized[2] administered the sacrament, and filled various offices of the Church, and that men took it upon themselves to forbid them from such functions through prohibitory canons.
A curious old black-letter volume published in London in 1632, entitled "The Lawes and Resolutions of Women's Rights," says,
- ↑ Canon law is the whole body of Church decrees enacted by councils, bulls, decretals, etc., and is recognized as a system of laws primarily established by the Christian Church, and enforced by ecclesiastical authority. It took cognizance first merely of what were considered spiritual duties, but ultimately extended itself to temporal rights. It was collected and embodied in the ninth century, since which period numerous additions have been made.
- ↑ The women claimed the right to baptize their own sex. But the bishops and presbyters did not care to be released from the pleasant duty of baptizing the female converts.—Hist. of Christian Religion from a.d. to 200, p. 23, Waite. The Constitution of the Church of Alexandria, which is thought to have been established about the year 200, required the applicant for baptism to be divested of clothing, and after the ordinance had been administered, to be anointed with oil.—Ibid., p. 384-5. The converts were first exorcised of the evil spirits that were supposed to inhabit them; then, after undressing and being baptized, they were anointed with oil.—Bunsen's Christianity of Mankind, Vol. VII., p. 386-393; 3d Vol. Analecta.
