The opinion has been continually expressed that woman owes her present high position to Christianity, and the influences of the Teutonic mind. But an examination of the facts seems to me to show that there was no sign of this revolution in the first three centuries of the Christian era, and that the position of women among Christians was lower, and the notions in regard to them were more degraded than they were in the first. Unquestionably in the Gospels women occupy a prominent position. Many of them followed Christ and ministered to Him. With a woman who had had five husbands and was living with a man not her husband, He holds the most profound conversation, and to her He proclaims the grandest truths of His revelation. And the women of His day and country seem to have had great liberty of movement and action. One of them, described by St. Luke as “a sinner in the city,” finds her way into the house of a Pharisee with whom He was dining, pours a box of ointment on His feet, and washes His feet with tears and wipes them with the hairs of her head. Christ mingles freely in the marriage festivities where His mother and doubtless other female residents were present. His intercourse with the family of Bethany is of the most unrestrained character, and He talks to both sisters on the highest subjects. And, according to St. John, His first appearance after His resurrection is made to a woman, Mary of Magdala, from whom he had expelled seven demons. But in the Gospels there is no special doctrine propounded in regard to women, and if there is any approach to this, it exhibits great mildness, if we take the story of the woman caught in adultery as genuine. It is when we come to the writings of St. Paul that opinions are pronounced in regard to marriage and the conduct of women, and there can be no doubt that these opinions are of a stern and restrictive nature. The Ebionites[116] explained the Apostle’s conversion by stating that he was, as he himself allowed, a native of Tarsus, that he was not a Jew, but a Greek with a Greek father and a Greek mother; that he went up to Jerusalem and stayed there for some time; that he fell in love with the high priest’s daughter, became in consequence a proselyte, and asked her in marriage, but on being refused he was enraged, and wrote against circumcision, the Sabbath, and the law. Some have thought that there is a bitterness against women in the writings of St Paul, which can be explained only by some such rejection as that related by the Ebionites. Perhaps, also, the character of the women of Tarsus, his native city, may have had an effect upon him. At an early time they were particularly prim and modest. They were in the habit of covering the entire body with clothing, so that no one could see a single part of their face or the rest of their body, and they themselves could see nothing except the road on which they were walking. This habit continued till the time of Dio Chrysostom,[117] who relates the fact.