It appears that the Church of the Corinthians was infected with this fault too, that the talkativeness of women was allowed a place in the sacred assembly, or rather that the fullest liberty was given to it. Hence he forbids them to speak in public, either for the purpose of teaching or of prophesying. This, however, we must understand as referring to ordinary service, or where there is a Church in a regularly constituted state; for a necessity may occur of such a nature as to require that a woman should speak in public; but Paul has merely in view what is becoming in a duly regulated assembly.
34. Let them be in subjection, as also saith the law. What connection has the object that he has in view with the subjection under which the law places women? For what is there, some one will say, to hinder their being in subjection, and yet at the same time teaching? I answer, that the office of teaching
877 is a superiority in the Church, and is, consequently, inconsistent with
subjection. For how unseemly a thing it were, that one who is under subjection to one of the members, should preside
878 over the entire body! It is therefore an argument from things inconsistent If the woman is under subjection, she is, consequently, prohibited from authority to teach in public.
879 And unquestionably,
880 wherever even natural propriety has been maintained, women have in all ages been excluded from the public management of affairs. It is the dictate of common sense, that female government is improper and unseemly. Nay more, while originally they had permission given to them at Rome to plead before a court,
881 the effrontery of Caia Afrania
882 led to their being interdicted, even from this. Pauls reasoning, however, is simple that authority to teach is not suitable to the station that a woman occupies, because, if she teaches, she presides over all the men, while it becomes her to be
under subjection.
35. If they wish to learn any thing. That he may not seem, by this means, to shut out women from opportunities of learning, he desires them, if they are in doubt as to anything, to inquire in private, that they may not stir up any disputation in public. When he says,
husbands, he does not prohibit them from consulting the Prophets themselves, if necessary. For all husbands are not competent to give an answer in such a case; but, as he is reasoning here as to external polity, he reckons it sufficient to point out what is unseemly, that the Corinthians may guard against it. In the meantime, it is the part of the prudent reader to consider, that the things of which he here treats are intermediate and indifferent, in which there is nothing unlawful, but what is at variance with propriety and edification.