John Locke and the Prophecy of Quaker Women

John Locke and the Prophecy of Quaker Women Peter A. Huff= In recent years, with the rise of interest in women's studies, a new area of scholarship on the seventeenth-century philosopher John Locke has opened up. For over two centuries, studies of Locke's thought have concentrated on issues related to epistemology, education, language, politics, and religion. With the development of the discipline of women's history, several works have appeared which attempt to identify Locke's contribution to the modern discussion of the place of women in society. Some studies have even tried to connect Locke with the roots of modern feminist thought.1 For the most part, recent investigations have focused on Locke's 1690 work, Two Treatises of Civil Government, in which Locke criticized the patriarchal and Tory theory of government articulated most thoroughly in seventeenth-century England by Sir Robert Filmer. Filmer's argument in Patriarcha (1680) and Locke's responses centered on key passages from the Old Testament, including significant portions dealing with the nature and role ofwomen. The studies which analyze these documents show not only thatboth authors used biblical exposition as the arena for a battle over political theory but that their presuppositions concerning biblical interpretation were fundamentally opposed.2 These studies are misleading, however, because they imply that Locke's thought about women can be found primarily in his Old Testament exegesis. Actually, what Locke achieved in Two Treatises was the construction of an ad hoc argument designed to invalidate Filmer's case for patriarchy. As Henning Graf Reventlow has demonstrated, Locke himself evaluated the bipartite Christian canon in much the same way as Erasmus had in the sixteenth century.3 Like many of his Enlightenment contemporaries , Locke judged the Christian New Testament morally and intellectually superior to the scriptures of the Old Testament. This means that Locke's writings on the New Testament, particularly his interpretation of the important Pauline passages on women, must be explored to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of his views of women. Unfortunately, Locke's New Testament studies have never received the full treatment they deserve. The Reasonableness ofChristianity, As Delivered in the Scriptures (1695) and its two vindications (1695 and 1697) are often mentioned only inpassing. Moreover, with the exception ofa handful of specialized studies, histories ofreligious thought have virtually ignored *Peter A. Huff received his Ph.D. from Saint Louis University and is Assistant Professor of Theology at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire. John Locke and the Prophecy of Quaker Women27 Locke'^ParaphraseandNotes on theEpistlesofSt. /W(1705-07).4 When it has been the object of research, scholars have simply treated the Paraphrase and Notes (more accurately, the essay that serves as its preface) as the material out of which to develop a summary of Locke's theory of biblical interpretation. Regrettably, the full text of Locke's reading of Paul has rarely been studied, even by the most dedicated of Locke scholars. There is, however, one significant exception to this general rule. The fine print of Locke's notes on the Pauline epistles did indeed receive considerable scrutiny from at least one circle of concerned students: the major spokesmen ofa controversy among British Quakers in the eighteenth century. These Quaker writers, engaged in intramural debate regarding the legitimate role ofwomen in public worship and preaching, pored over the pages of Locke's commentary as they tested the limits of their radical reformation doctrines. Though, as the premier historian ofearly Quakerism has observed, "equality of men and women in spiritual privilege and responsibility has always been one of the glories of Quakerism,"5 the precise nature of this equality was never obvious to the early community ofFriends. One side ofthe dispute marshalled arguments to expand the role ofwomen in Christian ministry. The other side endeavored to make a case for restricting the activity ofwomen. Curiously, from our perspective, both sides quoted the same authority to bolster their respective arguments. Both relied upon the insights of the "judicious" John Locke. A Quarrel Among Friends The history of the Quaker controversy began eight years after the posthumous publication of Locke's Paraphrase and Notes.6 In 1715, Benjamin Coole, a Quaker preacher...