On the other hand, Irenaeus seems to be ignorant of Paul's prohibition--
Against Heresies, 3.11.9
Alii vero ut donum Spiritus frustrentur, quod in novissimis temporibus secundum placitum Patris effusum est in humanum genus, illam speciem non admittunt, quae est secundum Johannis Evangelium, in qua Paracletum se missurum Dominus promisit; sed simul et Evangelium, et propheticum repellunt Spiritum. Infelices vere, qui pseudo-prophetae quidem esse volunt, prophetiae vero gratiam repellunt ab Ecclesia: similia patientes his, qui propter eos qui in hypocrisi veniunt, etiam a fratrum communicatione se abstinent. Datur autem intelligi, quod huiusmodi neque Apostolum Paulum recipiant. In ea enim Epistola quae est ad Corinthios, de propheticis charismatibus diligenter locutus est, et scit viros et mulieres in Ecclesia prophetantes. Per haec igitur omnia peccantes in Spiritum Dei, in irremissibile incidunt peccatum. | Others, again, that they may set at nought the gift of the Spirit, which in the latter times has been, by the good pleasure of the Father, poured out upon the human race, do not admit that aspect [of the evangelical dispensation] presented by John's Gospel, in which the Lord promised that He would send the Paraclete; but set aside at once both the Gospel and the prophetic Spirit. Wretched men indeed! who wish to be pseudo-prophets, forsooth, but who set aside the gift of prophecy from the Church; acting like those who, on account of such as come in hypocrisy, hold themselves aloof from the communion of the brethren. We must conclude, moreover, that these people cannot admit the Apostle Paul either. For, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, he speaks expressly of prophetical gifts, and recognises men and women prophesying in the Church. Sinning, therefore, in all these particulars, against the Spirit of God, they fall into the irremissible sin. |
Here Irenaeus alludes to 1 Cor 11:5, where Paul indirectly approves of women prophesying in church. He is criticizing people who reject the Gospel of John, either because they don't like the spiritualist practices that it encourages, or because spiritualism had some association with women prophesying in church and perhaps exercising other functions of authority; or for both reasons. (The editors of the Ante-Nicene Fathers edition put "Montanists" in parentheses where Irenaeus refers to these people, but isn't that doubtful? Montanists liked gJohn and praciticed spiritualism, ecstatic prophecy, etc. So I wonder if the clause "who wish to be pseudo-prophets" had originally referred to people who want to exclude pseudo-prophets. This reading would make better sense of the comparison to those who avoid church because they don't want to rub elbows with hypocrites.)
Turmel thinks that Irenaeus would have cited or alluded to the prohibition in 1 Cor 14 (or in 1 Timothy 2:11ff) if he had known it. Neither does the anonymous anti-Montanist in Eusebius EH book 5.16ff help himself to the apostolic prohibition, either this one or the one in 1 Timothy, despite having an axe to grind against Priscilla and Maximilla, leaders of the Montanist movement. Thus Turmel concludes that these passages were not present in the NT until the time of Origen, and naturally would have been inserted by anti-montanists.
(One could ask whether the whole of chapter 14 is anti-montanist, since it puts a restraint on speaking in tongues to no edifying purpose. In Elaine Pagels' book The Gnostic Paul, she apparently found no commentary by the 2nd century Valentinians et al. on any part of chapter 14.)ces textes tombaient à pic [arrived just in time] sur les prophetesses montanistes
One further point, in favor of a late interpolation, is the unmoored clause at 14:33b, which doesn't fit the preceding sentence, and sounds silly when appended to the following sentence because of the repetition of the phrase "the churches." Translators have to fudge it, while the editors of the NA28 leave it dangling in empty space--
Ὡς ἐν πάσαις ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις τῶν ἁγίων
34 αἱ γυναῖκες ἐν ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις σιγάτωσαν· οὐ γὰρ ἐπιτρέπεται αὐταῖς λαλεῖν, ἀλλ’ ὑποτασσέσθωσαν, καθὼς καὶ ὁ νόμος λέγει.
Sloppiness doesn't necessarily tell us where the late edits are, but they do indicate fraud to some degree. If the text is disjointed and incoherent, then someone was trying (and failing) to join things together.