When Women Were Priests
By Karen Jo Torjesen    

    Torjesen has done a brilliant job of investigating and revealing the historical truth about the role of women in the early Christian church.  She reveals how, in the first two centuries, when church services were usually held in someones home, women were often prophets, deacons, and priests.  This was accepted to some extent because the Greek and Roman social order placed women in charge of activities within the house while men were the leaders outside the house and in public places.  Women in these positions was apparently common enough for some more conservative male church leaders to write letters against the practice.  
    This tolerance of women in leadership roles changes rapidly after the Christians started building actual churches as public buildings.  Since women were not supposed to be talking in public buildings (according to Greek and Roman standards).  More church leaders began to condemn the practice and it was eventually banned.  Women who didn't accept the ban, were labeled witches and executed.  
    Torjesen carefully follows the time line showing how these changes happened and why.   One thing I found interesting is that the argument usually used by Catholics today for denying the priesthood to women, namely that none of Jesus' Apostles were women, never seems to be mentioned by the early church leaders that were condemning the practice of women in the clergy.  There condemnation seemed to be based entirely on the social rules of the Greek and Roman societies and not on religious grounds.
    I'm sure the conservative churches that continue to ban women in the clergy can find all kinds of reasons to deny the evidence that women did hold such offices in the early church.  It is well documented in this book and not so easily denied.