Tuesday, 19 Nov 2013: The Vatican unveiled newly restored frescoes in the Catacombs of Priscilla, known for housing the earliest known image of the Madonna with Child — and frescoes show women priests in the early Christian church.
The "Cubicle of Lazzaro," a tiny burial chamber featuring 4th century images of biblical scenes, the Apostles Peter and Paul, and one of the early Romans buried there in bunk-bed-like stacks as was common in antiquity.
The "Queen of the catacombs" features burial chambers of popes and a tiny, delicate fresco of the Madonna nursing Jesus dating from around 230-240 A.D., the earliest known image of the Madonna and Child.
Two scenes are of specific interest to readers of “Saint Paul’s Joke”, because, as mentioned in the letters of St. Paul, they depict women priests: One in the ochre-hued Greek Chapel features a group of women celebrating the banquet of the Eucharist. Another fresco in a richly decorated burial chamber features a woman, dressed in a dalmatic — a cassock-like robe — with her hands up in the position used by priests for public worship.
Ever in denial, Fabrizio Bisconti, the superintendent of the Vatican's sacred archaeology commission, asserted these were depictions of “fable, a legend”, when, in fact, the Canonized Letters of Paul (thus available in every Christian Bible) speak of the women who were Deacons of the various churches over which he held sway. The term Deacon means a minister or servant -- which was the role those in the early Church who we now refer to as Priests; there did not exist a bureaucratic church hierarchy of the type known today.
It is interesting that the Vatican restricts the priesthood to men, arguing that Jesus chose only men as his apostles.
If they were using that connection honestly, they would restrict the priesthood to only JEWISH men. Paul did require full adherence to Jewish law – a doctrine that Christians not only ignore, but go out of their way to violate. It is, after all, “Saint Paul’s Joke”.
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