The Roman Catholic leadership still refuses to ordain women officially or even to recognize that women are capable of ordination. But is the widely held assumption that women have always been excluded from such roles historically accurate? How might the current debate change if our view of the history of women's ordination were to change?
In The Hidden History of Women's Ordination, Gary Macy offers illuminating and surprising answers to these questions. Macy argues that for the first twelve hundred years of Christianity, women were in fact ordained into various roles in the church. He uncovers references to the ordination of women in papal, episcopal and theological documents of the time, and the rites for these ordinations have survived. The insistence among scholars that women were not ordained, Macy shows, is based on a later definition of ordination, one that would have been unknown in the early Middle Ages. In the early centuries of Christianity, ordination was understood as the process and the ceremony by which one moved to any new ministry in the community. In the early Middle Ages, women served in at least four central ministries: episcopa (woman bishop), presbytera (woman priest), deaconess and abbess. The ordinations of women continued until the Gregorian reforms of the eleventh and twelfth centuries radically altered the definition of ordination. These reforms not only removed women from the ordained ministry, but also attempted to eradicate any memory of women's ordination in the past.
With profound implications for how women are viewed in Christian history, and for current debates about the role of women in the church, The Hidden History of Women's Ordinationoffers new answers to an old question and overturns a long-held erroneous belief.

Existing books on Christian ritual and the sacraments tend to presuppose a good acquaintance with Roman Catholic thought and practice. Today, however, even at Catholic institutions students tend to lack even a basic knowledge of Christian ritual. Moreover, for many modern people the word "ritual" carries negative connotations of rigidity and boredom. In this accessibly-written book two noted authors offer an engaging introduction to this important topic. Their goal is first to demonstrate that celebration, ritual and symbol are already central to the readers' lives, even though most do not see their actions as symbolic or ritualistic. Once this point has been made, the book connects central Christian symbols to the symbols and rituals already present in the readers' lives. The Christian theology of symbol, ritual, and sacrament is thus placed in the context of everyday life. The authors go on to discuss such questions as how rituals establish and maintain power relationships, how "official" rituals are different from other "popular" Christian rituals and devotions, and how Christian rituals function in the process of human "salvation." Their lively yet solidly grounded work will appeal to intelligent lay readers and discussion groups, as well as being useful for courses in ritual and the sacraments at the undergraduate and seminary level.

Women Officeholders in Early Christianity is a scholarly investigation of the evidence for women holding offices of authority in the first several centuries of Christianity. Ute Eisen focuses on inscriptions and documentary papyri (private letters, official documents, contracts, and other such pieces) that have scarcely been considered before. Eisen presents the first extensive documentation of selected Greek and Latin inscriptions, plus a few documentary papyri, that witness to the existence of Christian women officeholders. The intent is to show the multiplicity of titles borne by women and to illustrate the narrowness of previous research on this topic. A single chapter is devoted to each of the titles of office or functional designations found in the sources. The epigraphical, papyrological, and literary witnesses are accordingly grouped by function. Topics are Apostles," "Prophets," "Teachers of Theology," "Presbyters," "Enrolled Widows," "Deacons," "Bishops," and "Stewards." Central to Women Officeholders in Early Christianity are the epigraphical witnesses. To this point they have been only marginally incorporated into research on women officeholders in the Church. In order to ensure correct interpretation, the majority of the inscriptions discussed have extensive documentation. They are organized geographically and chronologically. Besides the documentation they are commented on in the context of the existing literary sources. The book concludes with a chapter entitled "Source-Oriented Perspectives for a History of Christian Women Officeholders." The book also includes a bibliography of reference works, primary sources, and secondary sources. Ute E. Eisen is a Wissenschaftliche Assistentin at the Institute of New Testament Studies and Ancient Judaism at the University of Kiel, Germany. She has a doctorate in theology from the University of Hamburg. Her special areas of study include narrative analysis of Luke-Acts, methodology in New Testament studies, history of early Christianity, and gender studies. "

Do we "really" know about religion in the Middle Ages? Gary Macy suggests that what most people believe about the Church of the Middle Ages is actually wrong or founded on the perspective of one figure, Aquinas. Now, after two decades of research, Macy explores the truth about medieval religion and the Eucharist in "Treasures from the Storeroom," an intriguing look into the forgotten areas of our Christian heritage. Using a wide range of original sources for these articles, Macy discusses such topics as theology, devotion, ecclesiology, and historical methodology.

This collection of eight essays provides an important backdrop to the plenary address, The Eucharist and Popular Devotion," presented at the 1997 national convention of the Catholic Theological Society of America (CTSA), since several themes raised in that address are actually summaries of the fuller arguments presented in these articles. By presenting them here as a whole in the form of a book, Macy offers readers a clearer, more systematic look at the themes raised in that address.

As comforting as it may be for today's theologians (and others) to pick and choose from the past so that history conveniently leads to their own favorite conclusions, Macy suggests that the Church's true tradition is diversity. Writing to fellow scholars, he offers "Treasures from the Storeroom" as a text for classroom use and as simply interesting reading.

The chapters in "Treasures from the Storeroom" are *Introduction to "The Theologies of the Eucharist in the Early Scholastic Period. A Study of the Salvific Function of the Sacrament According to the Theologians," c. 1080-c.1220, - *The Theological Fate of Beranger's Oath of 1059. Interpreting a Blunder Become Tradition, - *Reception of the Eucharist According to the Theologians: A Case of Diversity in the 13th and14th Centuries, - *Beranger's Legacy as Heresiarch, - *The 'Dogma of Transubstantiation' in the Middle Ages, - *Demythologizing 'the Church 'in the Middle Ages, - *Commentaries on the Mass During the Early Scholastic Period, - and *The Eucharist and Popular Religiosity. -

"Gary Macy, PhD, teaches at the University of San Diego and is widely published in the areas of medieval theology and devotion.""

The Roman Catholic leadership still refuses to ordain women officially or even to recognize that women are capable of ordination. But is the widely held assumption that women have always been excluded from such roles historically accurate? In the early centuries of Christianity, ordination was the process and the ceremony by which one moved to any new ministry (ordo) in the community. By this definition, women were in fact ordained into several ministries. A radical change in the definition of ordination during the eleventh and twelfth centuries not only removed women from the ordained ministry, but also attempted to eradicate any memory of women's ordination in the past. The debate that accompanied this change has left its mark in the literature of the time. However, the triumph of a new definition of ordination as the bestowal of power, particularly the power to confect the Eucharist, so thoroughly dominated western thought and practice by the thirteenth century that the earlier concept of ordination was almost completely erased. The ordination of women, either in the present or in the past, became unthinkable. References to the ordination of women exist in papal, episcopal and theological documents of the time, and the rites for these ordinations have survived. Yet, many scholars still hold that women, particularly in the western church, were never "really" ordained. A survey of the literature reveals that most scholars use a definition of ordination that would have been unknown in the early middle ages. Thus, the modern determination that women were never ordained, Macy argues, is a premise based on false terms. Not a work of advocacy, this important book applies indispensable historical background for the ongoing debate about women's ordination.

Existing books on Christian ritual and the sacraments tend to presuppose a good acquaintance with Roman Catholic thought and practice. Today, however, even at Catholic institutions students tend to lack even a basic knowledge of Christian ritual. Moreover, for many modern people the word "ritual" carries negative connotations of rigidity and boredom. In this accessibly-written book two noted authors offer an engaging introduction to this important topic. Their goal is first to demonstrate that celebration, ritual and symbol are already central to the readers' lives, even though most do not see their actions as symbolic or ritualistic. Once this point has been made, the book connects central Christian symbols to the symbols and rituals already present in the readers' lives. The Christian theology of symbol, ritual, and sacrament is thus placed in the context of everyday life. The authors go on to discuss such questions as how rituals establish and maintain power relationships, how "official" rituals are different from other "popular" Christian rituals and devotions, and how Christian rituals function in the process of human "salvation." Their lively yet solidly grounded work will appeal to intelligent lay readers and discussion groups, as well as being useful for courses in ritual and the sacraments at the undergraduate and seminary level.