Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume V/Cyprian/The Treatises of Cyprian/Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews/Book III/Part 46

by Cyprian

46.  That a woman ought to be silent in the church.

In the first Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians: “Let women be silent in the church. But if any wish to learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home.”^[1] Also to Timothy: “Let a woman learn with silence, in all subjection. But I permit not a woman to teach, nor to be set over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve; and Adam was not seduced, but the woman was seduced.”^[2]

Footnotes

1. 1 Cor. xiv. 34, 35. [Women might have spiritual gifts, like the daughters of Philip, Acts xxi. 9; but even such are here forbidden to use them in the public worship of the Church.]
2. 1 Tim. ii. 11–14.