Pilgrim's Progress, Part 2

I recently completed J John's modern re-telling of Pilgrim's Progress (simply titled "Pilgrim") and one of the passages that leaped out at me was Gaius' discourse on the role of women in the Bible.
Given the ongoing controversy in today's church about where women sit (or stand) in the story, I thought it might be interesting to reproduce the passage from John Bunyan's original text. I find it very illuminating.




"Gaius also proceeded, and said, I will now 
speak on the behalf of women, to take away 
their reproach. For as death and the curse came 
into the world by a woman, (Gen. 3), so also 
did life and health: “God sent forth His Son 
made of a woman” (Gal. 4:4). Yea, to show 
how much those that came 
after, did abhor the act of the 
mother, this sex, in the Old 
Testament, coveted children, if 
happily this or that woman might be the 
mother of the Saviour of the world. 
I will say again, that when the Saviour was 
come, women rejoiced in Him before either 
man or angel (Luke 2). I read not, that ever any 
man did give unto Christ so much as one groat; 
but the women followed Him, and ministered 
to Him of their substance (Luke 8:2, 3). It was 
a woman that washed His feet with tears, and a 
woman that anointed His body to the burial 
(Luke 7:37, 50; John 11:2; 12:3). They were 
women that wept, when He was going to the 
Cross, and women that followed Him from the 
Cross, and that sat by His sepulchre, when he 
was buried (Luke 23:27; Matt. 27:55, 56, 61).
They were women that were first with Him at 
His resurrection-morn; and women that 
brought tidings first to His disciples, that He 
was risen from the dead (Luke 24:22, 23).
Women, therefore, are highly favoured, and 
show by these things that they are sharers with 
us in the grace of life."