followed Jesus from
Galilee and ministered to him of their substance; those who went early
to the tomb on Easter morning, to perform the last offices of affection,
and found the sepulchre empty: Mary Magdalene, Salome the mother of John
and James, Joanna, and "the other Mary." But these are no more mentioned
by name in the New Testament; nor is even the mother of Jesus again
referred to, except in that impersonal manner in which Saint Paul speaks
of Christ as "born of a woman." A large and prominent place was held by
women in the life of Jesus, but those same women are not accorded a
corresponding importance in the history of the founding of the Church.
It is a new set of names that we encounter in Apostolic history;
converts from heathendom, and those who labored with the Apostle to the
Gentiles. The records allow the women of the Gospels to fall into
obscurity; but they will never pass out of human memory as a galaxy
which surrounded the Bright and Morning Star.

As yet the Church had not developed an organization, except that the
Twelve--the place of Judas having been filled--were recognized as
leaders by virtue of their having been chosen by Christ. The rest, women
equally with men, were simply believers. Even the Apostles had no plan,
no foresight of future development. Officers were created only as
conditions arose which required them. At first the Church was simply a
communistic family, bound together in holy love by a common enthusiasm.
The ordinary conventions of society were for the time suspended; men and
women lived together in the free communion of a great family. Their time
was almost wholly spent in prayer and the work of conversion; the
ordinary avocations of life were almost entirely discontinued. The
community was supported out of a common stock, which was daily
replenished by the proceeds of the sale of the possessions of converts.
No one called his own anything that he had; they held all in common.
Their number was too great for a common table, but they met in large
parties at each other's houses, none suffering disparagement on account
of condition or sex. Each evening meal was a commemoration of the Last
Supper of Christ with his disciples. This briefly enduring prototype of
a perfect human society contained in itself the prophecy of all that
Christianity would do for woman through all the slow development of the
ages. In the community of the Jerusalem Christians she was neither a
slave nor a subo