woman, even among the Jews, must have had no small amount of both
courage and wisdom, to have surmounted the difficulties which hedged up
the path to fame and honor, and risen to the distinction which some of
them reached. "The rabbins"--not Moses--"taught that a woman should know
nothing but the use of her distaff." Their idea of the education
fitting for a woman was, that she should understand merely how to manage
the work of a house; in other words, know nothing but how to minister to
the appetites or whims of her husband, regarding him as her lord, her
irresponsible master. Rabbi Eliezer said, "Let the words of the law be
burned rather than that they should be delivered to a woman." Why, we
wonder? Because they might, if they read it, learn what privileges it
accorded them, and perhaps claim them--a state of things to be prevented
by any means, no matter how unscrupulous.

Notwithstanding the teachings of the rabbins, however, and dark as was
the day just prior to the coming of the Messiah, we find a woman who was
prophesying in the temple even then. The prediction of Anna the
prophetess is mentioned in the New Testament without a word of censure
on the unwomanliness of her conduct, or her profanation of the temple
by it. Modern writers would perhaps have been wiser, and treated her
with what they considered deserved contempt.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote F: Gen. i, 26, 27, 28.]

[Footnote G: Gen. ii, 18, 20, 21, 22.]

[Footnote H: For the original meaning of the word _woman_ see Dr. Clarke
on Genesis ii, 23.]