Out of Utopia

Woman in Christian Tradition
by George H.Tavard, University of Notre Dame Press, 1973, pp. 72-96.
Republished on our website with the necessary permissions

As it took shape in the first centuries, the Greek tradition about woman partly reflected and partly reacted against a number of extraneous influences. The Jewish sources of the faith, the pagan environment, sundry heterodox speculations contributed to its growth. The Christian expectation was slowly transformed from a transworldly eschatology based on the Jewish concept of the messianic Kingdom, to a this-worldly way of living based on sacramental experience, faith in the Savior, and ethical principles. This was bound to alter the views of womanhood that we have detected in the New Testament and the earliest writings. When Tertullian condemned female frivolity, he started from a high notion of womanhood which booked no compromise with the world; but his stand was already outmoded, for the pressures of pagan society were unavoidable. A return to a purely eschatologjcal concept of the world, congenial to Montanism, was already Utopian. Christian though they were, man had to live as man, and woman as woman. Like it or not, their standards of behavior would be set by the ethos of surrounding society no less than by doctrinal principles. Faith needed to reach a compromise with a world that was not coming to an early end.

At the beginning of the third century, the trend was clearly set against whatever Utopian elements lingered in the Christian view of woman. Despite the fundamental overcoming of the fall through baptismal regeneration, the theology and experience of womanhood effectively restored a “postlapsarian” conception of woman and her place in the Christian order. True, especially with Irenaeus, the Ecclesia and Mary provided types of the Christian woman. Yet the view of woman as an embodiment of evil—and, at the root of all, sexual evil—waxed strong, gaining the support of the powerful voice of Tertullian and of much popular apocryphal literature. In principle, the writings of the New Testament offered liberation to woman by restoring her to a “prelapsarian” status in keeping with the experience of baptism. But the theology of the Fathers did not follow this consistently. The two pictures that we have seen in biblical material remained side by side, woman as evil slowly casting her shadow over woman redeemed.

In the third century, Christian experience is focused on a new phenomenon, an amazing explosion of social relationships within Christian circles, from which the consecration of virgins and the choice of virginity as a stable way of life, were to lead in the fourth century to an exodus of both men and women toward deserted sections of the Roman empire, there to live in solitude. Out of this heremetical movement there grew the monastic (cenobitic) foundations of both East (Evagrius, Saint Basil) and West (Saint Benedict). Thus, at the very moment when the encratic implications of early heresies had been frankly discarded, Christian experience gave hitherto unknown value to virginity.(1)

The positions of the Christian authors are not unaffected by the social situation of woman at their time. When they protest over forced marriages, the theologians are actually reacting against the mores of the Hellenistic world, where, in keeping with the older Greek tradition, a “free” woman always belongs to some man, who not only must respond for her before the civil authorities, but may also marry her to whom he selects. A childless widow falls back under the authority of her parental relations (father, brother, uncle, as the case may be) until another husband has been found for her. And there is a public official, the gyneconomos, who watches over the proper application of the laws and customs concerning the status of women. In classical Athens a wealthy woman may not leave her house without his authorization. Indeed, the Greek world by and large does not promote the dignity of women.

In the ancient world, Crete and Egypt had developed a civilization where women enjoyed nearly as much freedom as men.(2) In the primitive Greece of Homer, woman, although by no means free, was entrusted with a great deal of responsibility and received the corresponding dignity. After the Doric invasions (1200-1000 B.C.) her status was considerably lower.

In classical Greece the legislation of Solon (594 B.C.) in Athens deprived her of the right of ownership; thus she lost the very basis of public influence.(3) Destined only for procreation, wives belong to their husbands. This reaches the point where the husband lists his wife in his will as a piece of property to be passed on to someone else. The wealthy classes confine her to the gyneceum, the equivalent of the oriental harem. She goes out infrequently, on a shopping expedition or to attend a religious ceremony. Her education does not go beyond music, dance, and some society games.

The benefits of education and culture are shared with men by the hetairae, or high-class prostitutes, who supply sophisticated conversation, for the entertainment of the mind, as well as sexual pleasure. Thus Sappho could be a great poetess. Presumably at a lower level of the scale, Hipparchia, a woman philosopher of Cynic orientation and the author of lost treatises, is said to have demonstrated her contempt of marriage by marrying a hunchback and consummating the marriage in public. Such would be the origin of the feast of Cynogamies (“dog-wedding”).

Numerous common prostitutes cannot share the joys of the mind with anyone; yet their head-tax suffices for the upkeep of the Temple of Aphrodite-Pandemos in Athens. Besides these, slave girls, having no ownership of their actions, are at the beck and call of their owner. As to the orphan girl (epiclaros, heiress), she: may be claimed as wife by her nearest male relative together with the rest of the inheritance from her father. If no one claims her, the gyneconomos promptly marries her off.

All this contributed to the low place of woman in Hellenic society. Whatever was left her as mother or playmate could even be contested by the Athenian penchant for boys as acceptable partners in friendships that were not entirely Platonic.

The principles and customs of Sparta, which dominated the Peloponnese peninsula from 700 to 500 B.C., differed greatly from those of Athens and of the other Greek states, even after Sparta’s defeat by the Athenians in 506. Here, little distinction was made between men and women in the duties and responsibilities of citizenship. Boys and girls received the same education, which stressed physical exercise. Nudity was the rule for their jousts and games. Because they were trained to fight, women were respected. Marriage customs remained primitive: marriage ordinarily began with the kidnapping, sequestration, and rape of the girl. But given the girl’s ability to defend herself, this was little more than an act played by the two parties. The parents had no say in the matter. (By contrast, the Athenian girl was married in great solemnity, but she had no choice in it and was practically sold by her father.) In the Spartan ideal, which inspired Plato’s Republic, women belonged to the state which should be able to distribute and redistribute them among men according to needs, just as it organizes the men on a military basis and sends them here and there for action. In fact, however, state ownership gave the Spartan woman more freedom than any other Greek woman enjoyed. She even owned property and could receive legacies.

Women indeed held a special place in Greek religion. Delphi and other shrines featured popular prophetesses. Yet power belonged to the priests rather than to the Sybil, herself no more than a passive, often a drugged, instrument in the hands of the divinity. Several cults and feast days gave women a unique place, such as the cult of Eleusis and the later forms of the cult of Dionysos. Isis, imported from Egypt, became a popular type of divine womanhood in later Hellenism. On the frieze of the Parthenon, women are shown taking part in a solemn procession in honor of Athena. They play a prominent role in the feast of Adonis, at the beginning of summer. And the Thesmophorae are celebrated by women only, while their husbands, if they are of means, pay the expenses of the feast.

In the world of philosophy, criticism of the customary and legal status of woman was fairly common. The school of Pythagoras seems to have made no distinction between sexes. Plato, however, endorsed the usual prejudices, as did the Socrates of the Dialogues, Aristotle justified the social inferiority of women by their presumed biological deficiencies. Thanks to their concept of a universal logos underlying all nature, the Stoics asserted the fundamental equality of men and women. Together with the Sophists and the Cynics they also disparaged marriage as a source of endless trouble. In this area the Christian authors did little more than imitate the social philosophy of their time. Largely borrowing the rhetoric of the New Sophistic movement,(4) which supported the contempt for marriage spread by the Stoics, they advised women of the drawbacks of the matrimonial condition. Little else could be done as long as the Christian ethos had not pervaded the empire. Meanwhile, the Christian principle of spiritual freedom contrasted sharply with the realities of life in the Hellenistic world. The Christian woman could be persuaded of her intrinsic value; yet the law, recognizing no such thing, placed her always under the power of a man. Some restrictions on her legal rights were removed very late by the Christian Emperor Justinian (527-565).

In these circumstances, the theologians had to take account of two sets of notions: Christian principles (baptismal equality of all; the biblical command to increase and multiply; the desire for spiritual fulfillment; the unreality of the present world as compared with the heavens; the true union, which is between Christ and the soul) and secular realities (the legal status of women; the normality of concubinage, adultery, divorce). Sheer prudence dictated their many reservations about the wisdom of marrying, or, having once had the experience of marriage, of trying it again after the death of the first husband. Add to this the frequency of infant mortality, the dangers of pregnancy in a world where medical care was primitive, the growing number of frontier wars against the barbarians, which sent soldiers away where they incurred the danger of violent death: criticism of the married state by Christian authors or by philosophers seems well justified on empirical grounds alone.

Are there only minor functional differences between men and women? Or do the male and the female principles affect the entire personality?

If the Clementine Recognitions are at all indicative of a popular view of the matter, the difference between men and women would be reduced to the distinct shape and functions of sexual organs in the strict sense. Everything else would belong equally to both. A lengthy description of the human body in the eighth book of the Recognitions mentions no difference outside of the organs which give or receive the human seed: “The female differs from the male species only in that part of her body where posterity is seeded, received and nourished.”(5) If both have breasts, only women’s provide milk. Thus woman is made for receiving the seed and nuturing the child. Apart from this her body is the same as man’s. This passage praises the wonderful hand of Providence, who makes all things adequate to their purpose. Woman is defined in relation to procreation; she remains a man in everything else.

If this could correspond to a popular view of the matter, medical opinion was, naturally enough, more nuanced. Basilius of Ancyra (d. c. 366), who had been a medical doctor before becoming a priest and a bishop, drew on his science in his De virginitate (written before 358).(6) His detailed account of virginity gives unusual importance to physiological descriptions and to the psychological analysis of sex. Basilius’s method is clear: “Let us examine at the start, if you wish, what is the nature of the female sex in relation to the male sex, in order at the same time to perceive clearly the purpose of virginity.”(7) In order to fill the world God divided the human creature into male and female, setting “in the nature of each an ineffable desire to be united to the other.” Thus woman was to act as a magnet that would draw man to itself. God “placed the female under the power of the male, and charmed the male with the female’s attraction.” In this natural order, it is not the female that is brought to the male, but rather a “mysterious power” has been placed in woman, so that man is drawn to her “not only for procreation, but through this very desire for union.”(8) In this magnetic radiation lies the secret of the female body: delicate and beautiful, it should “soften the male in pleasure” when it “assails him through all his senses”, “through the touch, the sight, the demeanor and the sweetness of all its parts.”

This very beauty renders woman physically weaker, and this in turn makes her inferior. She needs a protection that she can obtain only from the male whom her endowments have attracted. “For this reason, man will leave his father and his mother; not the female, but the male, urged by his deep desire to be joined to woman. And it is written: he—the male—will cleave to woman: not woman to the man.”(9)

In this perspective, the difference between man and woman cannot be restricted to the sexual organs and their purpose. It is the entire body of woman which attracts man, and the entire body of man which pines after woman. “For, as I say, there is a great seduction in the nature of woman, which brings to itself the entire nature of man.”(10) Basilius analyzes at length the part of each sense organ in this man-woman polarity. Yet, doctor though he be, fully aware of the importance of the flesh in human nature, and bolder in his descriptions than the modern mentality would expect from a bishop writing a treatise on virginity for the benefit of monks and “sisters,” Basilius remains a Greek. His philosophy preserves typical elements of neo-Platonism, the chief philosophy of his times. For this reason, he does not extend to the essence of the soul the polarities which he finds in the male and the female bodies. Souls are equal, both in dignity and in structure. They become unequal only to the extent that they are affected by the differences of the bodies into which they have been thrown and which now clothe them. Could souls converse with each other “naked,” that is, without the outer garment which is their body, men and women would never know each other as male and female.”In this life, however, souls are clothed, and communicate through a bodily apparatus which happens to be male or female.

In such a context, the ultimate goal of those who decide to live a virginal life is to escape the order of the flesh and to come as near as possible to being pure, naked souls, unhampered by bodies. This requires a thorough reeducation of nature, so that the soul tied to a female body no longer shares in its sex appeal, and that which lives in a male condition no longer feels the attraction of the female. “Seeing that the soul is equal and of the same essence in man and woman ... the virgin does not cease trying to sever the soul from the love of the body... ,”(12) “Clearly knowing that the kingdom of heaven belongs to the violent on account of their trials, she must do violence to nature in view of the purpose she has formed... .”(13) Basilius accordingly gives advice or mortification of the senses, especially of sight, touch, and taste. He shows how a virgin can take care of her own hygiene without making herself an object of desire to men. He tells her how to dress and how to go to the baths.

Overcoming the nature of the body should eventually achieve the equality of man and woman which belongs to their souls and which is to be fully manifested in the next world, when men and women will no longer marry: “If the soul, in the body where she is, experiences no desire for man or for woman and does not bear the mark of the passions, then there is neither male nor female, neither passion nor concupiscence, but ‘in all and for all, it is Christ.’ The body has died, since the pleasure instinct of man and of woman has stopped acting, and the soul lives alone in them without corruption through virtue.”(14) At the summit, once this blessed indifference(15) has been reached, the disciples of the Lord can approach the other sex without fear, in total equality. “Then such a woman may touch the servant of the Bridegroom, if indeed feminine voluptuousness no longer lives in her flesh.”(16) Then, she need not be afraid of those who may harm her body in a persecution. Were such virgins assaulted and raped, their souls will remain virginal, for, “experiencing the death of the flesh, they remain uncorrupted, whatever they may have to submit to.”(17)

The text of Basilius of Ancyra clearly shows the movement of thought which underlies the promotion of virginity in the early Church. This is a simple though far-reaching transformation of a New Testament concept. The equality of man and woman through baptism, which Saint Paul expressed in the statement, “There is neither male nor female,” has been severed from baptism and made an effect of the ascetic life. In their souls men and women are one and the same, though in their bodies they are not. Destined, however, to be restored in oneness and equality when the soul leaves the body, they may already learn to participate in the heavenly life. This participation, offered to all believers, cannot be achieved without strenuous effort: it requires abstinence from marriage, reeducation of the senses, and an absolute avoidance of the ways of society.

The De virginitate of Basilius of Ancyra is unusual in patristic literature for its insistence on human sexuality. Most authors rather see the problem of woman mainly from the social standpoint, which reveals many drawbacks to the spiritual development of woman in marriage. Admittedly, this contrast is not absolute. In his famous encomium of virginity, Methodius of Olympus includes a description of the sexual act which modern exhibitionism could envy. On the whole, however, the Christian theologians do not operate at that level. They feel caught between the dogmatic statement of the fundamental Christian freedom, in view of which “there is neither male nor female,” the conditions of the times, which, both in and outside of marriage, subject woman to man, and the patently human experience of dividedness on which Paul had already reflected. Is Christian freedom, promised in baptism (indeed, given, if Paul was to be believed), a present reality? Or, contrary to the expectations of Paul, since the world had not yet been transformed into the messianic Kingdom, is Christian freedom to be indefinitely delayed until the receding parousia finally dawns? By abolishing a number of previous laws including part of Augustus’s legislation against celibacy, Constantine in 320 will slightly narrow the gap between Christian theory and secular reality. By this time, however, the main lines of Christian thought will have been set.

In any case, legislation could not erase the problem of men and women divided between sexual attraction and the ideal of the contemplative life. (Owing to the influence of neo-Platonism, virginity and contemplation are tied together in the intellectual conceptions of the Fathers). Likewise, changes in legislation could not do away with the medical views of woman’s passive role in relation to man. As a result, whatever theological adjustments could be made, marriage remained a less than perfect way of life, and woman kept her inferior social and legal status inherited from former times. What changed somewhat was the explanation of, and justification for, this inferiority.

The Greek theologians found the only solution that was then possible to the dilemma of the Christian woman. How can woman, who is made inferior to man in the legal and social order, achieve in her own life the equality with him which belongs to her by right as a disciple of Christ? The solution, if difficult to achieve in fact, is beautiful in its stark simplicity: the promise of baptism can be fulfilled through the ascetic life. In the structure of the Church following the Constantinian peace, a woman could be free from entering the bonds of marriage by joining the Order of Virgins or of Widows. This had already been the case, but the more fluent and dangerous situation of pagan times impeded the formal organization of virgins and widows. A woman then remained legally under the authority of her nearest male relative, but the endorsement of her virginity by the Ecclesia protected her, guaranteeing that she would not be married into another man’s power. Thus woman’s freedom was tied to her choice of a way of life which excluded matrimony. It would be the fruit of baptism indeed, but through asceticism. Thus the accent shifts from a transformation of the old order by the Redeemer (the old order being, primitively, that of the Old Testament and of Jewish society), to an overcoming of the old order by the charism given by the Spirit to the ascetes (the old order now being the pagan order of Greek and Roman society). It is in the microcosmos of each person that this takes place, until a more favorable time when it may extend to the structure of Christian society.

This problematic illustrates a change of perspective in Christian thought, which has altered the structures of its parousiac expectation. From now on, that aspect of eschatology which promises total spiritual freedom is offered as an ideal to be achieved here below through the virginal life. Such a project is clearly presented in all the great tractates on virginity, from the Banquet of Methodius of Olympus to the treatises of John Chrysostom, including the De virginitate of Gregory of Nyssa and the writings of Basil of Caesaria and Gregory Nazianzen.

The study of virginity and, by implication, of womanhood, is often more symbolic and poetic than in the technical treatise of Basilius of Ancyra. At least one instance of that approach should be given. And we cannot select a better example than the early and very influential work called The Banquet, written by Methodius of Olympus between 260 and 290.

Methodius was a most influential author, who left his mark not only on the theory of the ascetic life, but also on the basic categories of Greek theology. Yet all accounts of his life are too short and too confused to provide reliable information. Probably bishop of Olympus in Lycia, and perhaps a martyr during the persecution by Decius (311-312), he lived in the second half of the third century. Of his many works, the most important is The Banquet.(18)

The Banquet is a dialogue, in which ten guests plus the hostess, all virgins, pronounce the praises of virginity. Two virgins, Gregorion and Eboulion, introduce and conclude the series and occasionally interrupt the account to exchange their impressions. The speeches are reported by Eboulion, who heard an account of them by one of the guests.

The eleven speeches on virginity (plus a hymn) adopt diverse points of view, so that the whole Banquet constitutes a well-balanced survey of the question as well as a complete summary of theology. Much of the material is not particularly original, though its presentation is always interesting. The speeches draw on the New Testament (Paul: Discourse 3; the parable of the wise and foolish virgins: Discourse 6; the Song of Songs: Discourse 7; the Apocalypse: Discourse 8) and the Old Testament (the description of the Feast of Tents in Leviticus: Discourse 9; the parable of the trees in Judges: Discourse 10). Far from condemning marriage, The Banquet devotes one whole speech (Discourse 2) to its defense. All in all, the work is a beautiful rhetorical encomium of virginity, presented from the point of view of women who have chosen it.

Because they are placed in the mouths of women, the discourses contain none of the disparaging remarks about women in which many other authors indulge. On the contrary, woman appears throughout as the high point of creation, exemplified in the Ecclesia, “the woman who appeared in heaven clothed with the sun,” our Mother “whom the prophets, in their vision of the future, have called Jerusalem, the Bride, Mount Sion, the Temple and Tent of God.”(19) The task of virgins here below is to imitate this heavenly Mother, seeing her “like a virgin prepared for her wedding.” In other words, the Ecclesia is given us as an icon of the heavenly type of womanhood. And women in history are progressively uplifted toward that image. “Mankind has been raised by degrees toward virginity through the impulses of God age after age.”(20) There will come a time when marriage will no longer be practiced. This will be when fruits and animals are no longer made, “when the predetermined number of mankind has been reached.”(21) Meantime, one may still enter marriage in order to fulfill the creator’s injunction: “Increase and multiply.” Yet the Christian newness resides precisely in the possibility of participating now in the heavenly life, of overcoming corruption and of growing the seeds of immortality.

The history of the Church, like the spiritual interpretation of Scripture, leads from the letter to the Spirit, from the shadows of the Old Testament to the reality of heaven, by way of the image of heaven now enshrined in the Ecclesia.(22) The ancients practiced polygamy and endogamy, including even incestual unions; then exogamy was adopted when women were chosen from outside the clan; then monogamy became the standard; later, adultery was rejected; later still, continence in marriage or in widowhood was accepted, and finally, the age of virginity has dawned. This process of history, which is by the same token a spiritualization of mankind, is summed up by Marcella, the virgin of Discourse 7: God “aimed at bringing mankind nearer to heaven by passing from one practice to another, until, having reached the supreme and ultimate teaching, that of virginity, it finds its fulfillment there.”(23) At this level, the order to “increase and multiply” finds an application which is indeed higher than in Genesis: through her espousals with Christ, the virgin Ecclesia unites in the highest manner virginity and fruitfulness. Yet The Banquet never completely identifies virginity and spiritual perfection. Indeed it distinguishes between “the great mass of the faithful” and “the more perfect, who are progressively brought to become the person and the one body of the Ecclesia.,”(24) In this we may recognize the theme of gnosis as developed in Alexandrian Christianity. The perfect chose virginity; but others, having already chosen marriage, may also grow spiritually to the perfection of Christian life.

By the fourth century, virginity has become the Christian ideal, to be lived in the various structures available for its protection, the home of one’s parents, the Order of Virgins, the Order of Widows, the wilderness, the monastic foundations. Yet, all in all, the Greek Fathers do not disparage marriage. Or, if they maintain that virginity is better, they still teach that marriage is good; and if they dwell on the drawbacks of married life in the conditions of the present world, they assert that, in its essence, marriage is good.

Marriage is often defended even in works written to promote virginity. The Banquet itself includes a discourse on marriage which defends it against its detractors. Basilius of Ancyra justifies it with more common sense than most as the choice of a legitimate way of life. It is good since it channels the God-given sex appeal of woman and “the power of love placed in man for woman.”(25) There remains, however, a major difference between pagans and Christians. Pagans commonly enter marriage out of passion and in view of its pleasures, whereas Christians, as true philosophers, do it “with reflection, in order to organize their existence.”(26) The treatises by Gregory of Nyssa and John Chrysostom carefully distinguish their love of virginity from the condemnation of marriage by the encratics or by some who show an excessive zeal for the ascetic life. The bishop of Nyssa places a defense of marriage in the middle of his dissertation on virginity (chapter 7). Chrysostom begins his on a similar note (chapters 2 and 3) and returns to the question at length in the course of his work (chapters 8 to 10).(27)

Chrysostom, himself enthused for virginity, describes marriage in general and analyzes some marital situations with traits that are caricatures of doubtful taste.(28) Even in regard to the very nature of marriage, Chrysostom’s early works—written before his ordination to the priesthood (386) when, as a monk and a deacon, he was intent on promoting the monastic life—come near to Tertullian’s excesses. Marriage, which did not exist in Paradise, was born of sin and is now permitted rather than willed by God.(29) His Homilies on Genesis trace back the practice of sex to the order of things which followed the fall of Adam and Eve; it resulted from the loss of the angelic life in Eden. God’s wisdom invented this way of propagating the race as a consolation for mankind, which had lost its immortality. He “granted succession of children, thus somehow suggesting a shadow of the resurrection, making it possible that, for those who die, other would arise.”(30) In this man finds “his greatest consolation after the introduction of death.” At the beginning then, marriage had the positive purpose of propagating the race and the negative one of providing a lawful channel for the satisfaction of libido. But, as remarked in the De virginitate (written around 382), the world is already full, so that propagation can no longer be a useful purpose. Only the second need now persists, “the suppression of debauchery and licentiousness.”(31) It is better to marry than to frequent prostitutes. In this sense Chrysostom speaks even of the “beauty” of marriage, but he cannot see it as a very high beauty: marriage is beautiful only in the abstract, insofar as it keeps the faithful from “becoming members of a prostitute.”(32) Even so, marriage is not very effective, since all this can be accomplished, and much more thoroughly, through asceticism. As to the beauty of woman, Chrysostom writes to Theodoros, a young monk who is tempted to leave the ascetic life and marry: “Should you reflect about what is contained in beautiful eyes, in a straight nose, in a mouth, in cheeks, you will see that bodily beauty is only a white-washed tombstone, for inside it is full of filth.”(33)

Though his first works show no understanding of the gifts of marriage when he refers to it in general, Chrysostom becomes much more human when he addresses himself to one particular person. His short letter “to a young widow” shows great understanding of the beauty of her past relationship with her husband. Chrysostom apparently knew both of them well and sincerely shares her sorrow. He recognizes all the solace they could find in each other and speaks with delicacy of the drama of sudden separation. He promises the young woman, a still more beautiful union with her husband after she joins him in heaven, at least if she enters no other marriage. For the unity of love need not end with death. It, still joins the living and the dead. Her husband continues to protect her. As she should remain faithful to him in her continuing love, she should also look forward, in hope, to their future reunion: “After reaching the same degree of virtue, you will be admitted in the same tabernacle, again you will be able to be united to him for eternity, no longer in the harmony of marriage but in a higher one. Here below it only joins bodies; but then there will be unity of soul with soul, much more pleasurable and noble.”(34) Gregory Nazianzen, in all things more sensitive then most of his contemporaries, speaks of marital unity with great tact and understanding, as witness the poem he addressed to Olympia on the occasion of her marriage in 384.(35)

Our authors dwell at length with the practical problems of marriage, Gregory of Nyssa and most others with more respect than John Chrysostom, who frequently falls into bad taste.(36) Chrysostom is particularly savage in his indictment of remarriage, to which he devotes an entire writing.(37) His argument is commonplace for his time: remarriage shows that one has not learnt one’s lesson. The troubles of a first marriage ought to be enough for anybody. A person who tries again behaves like a fool. His “On the One Marriage” adds a more interesting reason taken from psychology, namely, the love of the male for his wife is jealous. Man does not want to love what has already been shared by others: “We are thus made, we, men: through jealousy, vainglory or what not, we like above all what nobody has owned and used before us and of which we are the first and only master.”(38) Woman should know this, and not enter a marriage where she will not be truly appreciated. At this point the modern reader ought to remember that reflection on the sacramentality of matrimony came late in the history of Christian thought. As experienced in the first centuries, marriage was chiefly a family and civic affair. The Church entered the field mainly to promote the evangelical notion of permanent marriage, condemning divorce and, for a long time, frowning on remarriage. Gregory of Nyssa, who had himself been married, may speak for the others when, with a touch of humor, he explains that it is not necessary to encourage the faithful to marry: “Let no one believe that we reject the institution of marriage. We are not ignorant of the fact that it is not excluded from God’s blessing. But it finds a sufficient advocate in the nature shared by all men, which has placed a natural inclination toward these pleasures in all those who come to existence through marriage. ... It would be superfluous to compose a discourse of encouragement and exhortation to marriage.”(39) The promotion of virginity has, on the contrary, been entrusted to the Ecclesia.

In his later years as archbishop of Constantinople, when Chrysostom reflects on marriage, he sees it, after Saint Paul, as “a great mystery.” But the exact point where the mystery lies is the very possibility of love between man and wife. Chrysostom still speaks of the petty sides of matrimony and of its constant worries over health, or children, or mutual bickering. But he seems more aware than formerly of the fact that love does exist, and that it ties together for life partners who, in the current customs of Greek society, had never set eyes on each other before the day of their wedding: “How great is [this mystery], tell me: that a virgin who has always been kept inside, from the first day [of marriage] desires a husband whom she has never seen before, and loves him like her own body; that from the first day a man prefers to all others, to his friends, to those of his home and to his parents, a woman whom he has never seen and to whom he has never spoken.”(40) Indeed, this is where the Apostles’ injunction becomes important: man must love his wife as Christ loves the Church, regardless of her shortcomings. Thus John Chrysostom, mellowed by age and experience, is now willing to find beautiful relationships in marriage seen as a “koinonia of life”(41) and a sharing of complementary qualities and capacities for mutual assistance.

The virginity which is identified with perfection and the life of contemplation is spiritual rather than bodily. As is made clear in The Banquet, we shall not be judged on the presence or absence of virginity, but on faith: “Let no one imagine that the rest of the crowd of the faithful is rejected and believe that we alone, the virgins, will see the fulfilment of the promises; this would misunderstand the fact that there will be tribes, families and ranks according to the measure of the faith of each.”(42) Discourse 10 explains that bodily virginity accompanied by pride avails nothing to salvation.(43) In the eyes of Gregory of Nyssa, it is not bodily virginity that counts, but the spiritual elevation to which true virginity contributes. For him, virginity belongs among the attributes, energies or angels of God: “So great is the power of virginity that it dwells in heaven near the Father of spirits, that it dances in choir with the hypercosmic substances and that it devotes itself to man’s salvation. For it brings God, through its mediation, to share human life here below.”(44) In this context virginity is the unity of a human being totally oriented to God through all his powers. Only the eye that is pure of all corruption can see the light of God.(45) Gregory of Nyssa aims at spiritual marriage. As there are two men, corporal and spiritual, in each man, so there are two marriages, one with the other sex, the other with the True and the Beautiful. One may recognize in this neo-Platonism’s concept of union to the One,(46) which in the Christian context becomes union with the God who has revealed himself as the One, the True, and the Beautiful. “When, according to the Apostle’s words, there is neither male nor female and Christ is all and in all, truly the lover of wisdom possesses the divine aim of his desire, true Wisdom, and the soul, clinging to the incorruptible Bridegroom, possesses the love of the true Wisdom which is God.”(47) For John Chrysostom, the ultimate justification of the virginal life lies in eschatological awareness: “If marriage does not reach beyond the present, if in the future life one neither marries nor is given in marriage, if the present time nears its end and the time of resurrection stands at the gate, this is no moment to think of marriage or of the goods of this world, but rather of our frailty and of all the other elements of wisdom that will help us in the next life.”(48)

Of this virginity alone do the Fathers speak when they insist that its standard lies in the soul, not in the outward garments,(49) that it dwells inside the heart.(50) They relate it to the vision of God. They depict it as an icon of the divine blessedness,(51) as a share in the divine life.(52) They claim that it has already overcome death.(53) They see it as a liberation, as an epitome of the new order inaugurated or restored by the coming of the Lord into the flesh. It achieves among men the life of the angels,(54) as it already did in paradise.

Physical virginity alone is of so little value that according to its most forceful proponent, John Chrysostom, the gnostic heretics will gain deeper damnation through their practice of it.(55) For him too, a widow can rank higher than a virgin.(56) Married persons may even be called virginal if they are totally given to God.(57) Chrysostom insists: “Not to be married does not make a virgin; but there must be chastity in the soul.”(58) Against all customs, he lets the widow Olympia, a deaconess, sit among the virgins in the Church of Constantinople.(59)

Only in the proper order of faith and life does bodily virginity count. Then it becomes an ascetic practice serving the higher purposes of virtue. It also provides convenient symbols to help the mind conceive of spiritual realities. Indeed, because the worries and the drudgery of married life, the dangers of pregnancy, the subservience of wife to husband, and the strenuous duties of a husband and father constitute such telling examples of the cares and troubles of the present life, encouragements to virginity frequently dwell on these, the celibate life standing in happy contrast. The qualities of spiritual virginity, which are identical with the higher degrees of the contemplative life, are rhetorically attributed to bodily virginity. But these are figures of speech, metaphoric appropriations, literary and pedagogic devices, which are to be understood as such. The mistake is ours if we take them literally.

The nature of womanhood not only raised the question of virginity and marriage. At a deeper level of discussion, the account of the creation of Adam and Eve posed problems which the theologians of the great patristic age attempted to solve as best they could. Of the various questions that could be asked, I will select two, which bring us to the heart of the theological concepts of woman that are reflected in the works of the Greek Fathers. Is Eve also, and not only Adam, created “in the image and likeness of God”? What is the function of woman as a “helpmate” for man?

The first question is briefly answered in the Commentary of Genesis of Diodoros of Tarsus (d. 390). Paul speaks of man as being the image of God. The word he uses is not anthropos (man in general) but aner (man as male). In 1 Corinthians 11:7, man is the “image and glory of God,” whereas woman is only “the glory of man.”(60) The “image of God” resides in the power given to man: as God has power over all, so has he granted man power over all the earth. Woman has received no such authority and, being also on earth, she has been placed, like everything else, under man’s dominion.(61)

Diodoros of Tarsus is associated with the more literal interpretation of the Bible of what we call, with more or less accuracy, the school of Antioch. John Chrysostom is himself an Antiochian by birth and formation. His solution of the problem follows similar lines. Man is made in the image of God; woman is not. Yet John Chrysostom’s explanation is of a more sophisticated coinage. The principle is clear and admits of no exception: “Man commands, woman obeys, as God said to her at the beginning: Your desire will be after your husband and he will lord it over you.”(62) But is there nothing common in man and in woman? As Eve was built from a bone extracted from Adam’s body, this would be astonishing indeed. What is common to them both, however, does not lie at the level of the “image” of God, for woman can only be the “image” of her husband. Yet man and woman have the same “form and structure”: “Because man was made in the image though not in the structure by virtue of power, man dominates all and woman serves. For this reason Paul says that man is the image and glory of God, and woman the glory of man. Had he said this of their form, he would not have separated them so, for man and woman have the same model.”(63)

The words which I translate as “form” and “model” are
morphe and tupos. Morphe refers both to the inner structure and to the external appearance, while tupos refers to what later philosophy will call the prime analogue of a created reality. In other words, “image” and “glory” do not connote the structure of man and woman in themselves: at that level they are alike. They stress rather a function and a task. The “image” in man resides in his power, analogous to God’s dominion over all. Chrysostom uses this to refute what he regards as an absurdity: because the Logos took “the form of man,” he must have been female as well as male, for man and woman share the same form. We touch here on some of the problems that Platonism introduced into Christology. That mankind has one form is a commonplace of Platonic philosophy. Yet Scripture, as read by John Chrysostom, does not see the Incarnation at the level of the form but at that of the image.(64)

The question of the image of God has thus been raised as a historical, or prehistorical, problem concerning the first men, and as an ontological one concerning the nature of man. Many answers are then possible, for these two fields lie wide open to speculation. Diodoros or Chrysostom do not include woman in the natural image of God, since this image is one of power and dominion, of which woman has been deprived by God and society. In another perspective, Gregory of Nyssa, working along lines already pioneered by Origen, sets the image in the soul itself, beyond the distinction of male and female.(65) The image results from a first creation anterior to the fall: this made human nature “like God.”(66) Made in the image, man before the fall had a natural beauty patterned on that of the archetype.(67) This image resides in all men, who all have their root in the divine prototype. As to sexual distinction, it is due to a second creation, which added the separation of sexes to the oneness of the image of God. Only after man’s sin and exile from Paradise was “marriage invented to compensate for death.”(68) Not all the Fathers, of course, follow this line of thinking. Yet, in the main, the Greek Fathers opted for a view of the secondary nature of sex. As God foresaw man’s sin, his fall into corruption and mortality, and consequently his loss of the angelic mode of multiplication, he gave man in advance the means to perpetuate the race with the method used by the animals rather than by the angels. Accordingly, the present historical state of man depends on the two images that are in him: that of God, which is common to all and by which all are one, and that of animality, whereby mankind is divided into men and women with diverse and complementary natural functions.

In such a view, sex has nothing to do with the image of God. Male and female are equal in their divine likeness. For at that level there is neither male nor female, even after the fall.

Whether proposed by Diodoros, by Gregory of Nyssa or by John Chrysostom, these speculations should not overshadow the deeper dimension of the doctrine of the image, which is found in the main trends of oriental theology. Whatever was given to Adam and Eve, and whether creation was in one or two steps, the image of God in man (to speak the usual language) or the form and structure of man (to use Chrysostom’s distinction between image and form), though given, is still to be built up through the Christian sacraments and life. Men equally with women must grow in the response to the inspirations of the Spirit. To say that they are made in the likeness or in the form of God is not enough. For they must grow into the image, regain incorruption and immortality, develop their participation in the divine life, be elevated to deification. To borrow the vocabulary of Dietrich Ritschl, this is a doxological rather than an ontological doctrine.(69)

Precisely, the ascetic and the monastic movements from the third to the sixth century were a response to this challenge. The life of virginity was a prophetic anticipation of restored incorruptibility, a manifestation of the fullness of deification, of the final integrity of the image of God in man and in woman. Although still subject to the conventions of this world, the virgin was spiritually free. She experienced the fullness of baptismal restoration. In her, as in (he martyr or in the holy man, the image of God beyond the distinction of male and female, or the form which is common to male and female, came to light. She was the equal, in the Ecclesia, of any man.

Coming now to the other problem of woman as helpmate of man, we will return to John Chrysostom, who, on this point, may stand for the Greek Fathers in general.

Writing against remarriage, around 383, John Chrysostom makes a fairly long and not unsympathetic description of the tasks of woman as man’s helpmate. Although God gave man dominion over things, animals, and women, he did not intend to leave woman without dignity or responsibility. Rather, he divided mankind’s capacities into two broad areas: to man the important things of social life, like politics, war, the acquisition of property; to woman the small things, like the care of the household, the protection of the patrimony. To man the glorious and public affairs; to woman the private concerns and the hidden chores. To man questions of principle and philosophy; to woman practical problems. “Since private affairs are part of the human condition as well as public ones, God has doled them out: all that takes place outside, he has entrusted to man, all that is within the house, to women.”(70) When she loses her husband, woman keeps the same tasks if she has been left with children: she must preserve their inheritance and defend their rights until they can take care of themselves. Even then, a widow should not attempt to increase the family wealth, for this is not a woman’s job; her role is only to see that it is not wasted away. “To make money is man’s function; all lucrative activity is forbidden to women.”(71) Of course, Chrysostom can quote no biblical precedent for this line of thought. Indeed, one could well object that Proverbs 31 contradicts him. He simply relies on fairly common ideas among Greek philosophers, although this opposition to woman earning money was contrary to the mores of Greek society, where women often assisted their husbands in the family business. His ideas on the matter are a mere rendering of the classical Greek view that, in well-to-do society, women belong within the thalamos or gyneceum, the part of the house reserved to them.

What Chrysostom found in the type of civilization with which he was acquainted colored his understanding of the stable nature of men and women. The feminine activities of which he speaks at length in On the One Marriage and in his homilies on marriage have been forced on woman by society: “The one task of woman is to keep the acquisitions, to preserve the gains, to take care of the houses: God gave her for this purpose. . . .’(72) John Chrysostom willingly details the number of things that she may not do. She may not engage in sports, speak in the senate or obtain public office; but she can spin, decide family questions, educate children. From matters of fact in the world of John Chrysostom, these restrictions on women become in his mind eternal decrees enshrined by divine providence in the nature of things:

This is an aspect of the divine providence and wisdom, that the one who can conduct great affairs is inadequate or inept in small things, so that the function of woman becomes necessary. For if he had made man able to fulfil the two functions, the feminine sex would have been contemptible. And if he had entrusted the important questions to woman, he would have filled women with mad pride. So, he gave the two functions, neither to the one, to avoid humiliating the other as being useless, nor to both in equal part, lest the two sexes, placed on the same level, should compete and fight, women refusing authority to men.(73)

It is therefore by God’s act of creation itself that woman is, in society, subservient to man. She was created as man’s helpmate. In the De virginitate, Chrysostom defines this assistance first of all in terms of sex and procreation,(74) although woman can make herself her husband’s associate in the spiritual life, especially if she invites him to continence.(75) But this can be only a limited contribution to his ascetic development, for she may not refuse sex if he demands it.(76) But this is not all. In his letter to the “young widow,” Chrysostom already spoke with sympathy of the assistance that man and wife find in each other. His Homilies on Genesis bring further lights to bear on the matter. By creation, woman is made for man, that is, “for his consolation.” She is so constructed that “she may talk to him and bring him much comfort through a total communion.” She is rational like him “in order to help him in the necessities and the utilities of life.”(77) Yet she is not under man, except as a result of the fall and the curse. Acting on her own, woman, in the person of Eve, behaved irresponsibly. So God gave her a tutor. Henceforth she must obey, in order to walk straight. Subjection is imposed on her for her own sake: “It is better for you to be under him and to have him as your lord, than, that, living freely and on your own, you fall into the pits.”(78)

After the fall, it is only through grace that woman can reach equality with man. This will depend on her charisms and therefore on the Spirit. Homilies for the commemoration of martyred women praise them for having reversed the customary order of nature. The martyrs overcame the frailties of soul and body. Some orators who pronounced panegyrics on their own mothers or sisters, like Gregory Nazianzen on his sister Gorgonia or Gregory of Nyssa on his sister Macrina, picture them as so filled with the Spirit that they were raised above the inferiority of their sex. Gorgonia took the best of marriage (a way of life which is “humble and secure”) and the best of virginity (“sublime and divine, but hard and dangerous”).(79) And Gregory Nazianzen wrote of his mother, in a poem “On His Own Life”: “In body she was a woman, in her behavior, higher than a man.”(80) John Chrysostom thought that his mother Anthousa had been a model of feminine heroism through her courageous widowhood.(81) His homilies on the saints harp on these themes: of Saint Thecla, for instance, he shows that her virginity gave her the power to withstand torture.(82) Allowing for oratorical exaggerations and the use of rhetorical cliches, we may still admit that for the Fathers the fruits of the Spirit in woman entailed their uplifting above the condition of nature, into a realm of freedom unknown to natural women. With the recess of persecution in the fourth century and the growing rarity of martyrdom, virginity became the very type of a life that has overcome the limitations of nature.

A woman of the fourth century could also rise above her conditions through study, especially through the study of the Scriptures. Saint Jerome in Palestine animated a cluster of studious women.(83) One such circle gathered in Constantinople around Theodosia, sister of the bishop of Iconium, Amphilokos. like Gregory Nazianzen, Chrysostom knew it personally and he wrote letters to several members of it. In his admiration for these women, Palladios (363-c. 431), in his Laudiac History (420), calls them “virile women”(84) at the same time betraying the male complex of superiority which had left its mark on language (“courageous” being one of the derived meanings of “virile”) and illustrating the Christian assumption that perfection implies a reversal of nature. Olympia (c. 368—after 408), who had been educated in this circle, was widowed at eighteen years of age and worked from that time on as a deaconess in Constantinople. It was on the occasion of her wedding that Gregory Nazianzen composed his poem Carmen ad Olympiaden.(85) A touching sign of John Chrysostom’s mellowing with experience is that, during his exile from 404 to 407, he wrote her long letters of friendship. These were meant to help Olympia, also victimized by the wave of opposition which caused Chrysostom’s loss of favor at court. They were also letters of self-consolation. To this great woman who had worked closely with him, Chrysostom confessed that separation proved hard to bear: “Do you see the hard struggle of accepting with serenity the absence of the one we love? This is painful and bitter; it requires a courageous and noble soul. ... To those who love each other, it is not enough to be linked at soul-level. This does not comfort them, but they need physical presence. And if this is not granted, a great deal of their happiness is taken away from them.”(86) Thus in his old age Chrysostom came to understand love, and to share it with a woman who had become spiritually free. In this sense, she had overcome nature while, as the letters show, she had also preserved the delicacy of cultured womanhood.

Even then, Chrysostom grants less dignity to woman as such than another great Antiochean, Theodoretos of Cyrrhos (393—c. 466). In his Therapy of Hellenic Diseases, Theodoretos approaches the question from the standpoint of the essential oneness of mankind: creation gives the principle of the essential equality of man and woman. There is admittedly a touch of male superiority in the suggestion that Eve was extracted from Adam “so that woman, claiming to have another nature, would not go another way than that of the male.” However, “God prescribes the same laws to men and to women, since their difference resides in the structure of the body, and not in the soul.” At the level of nature woman has the same intelligence, the sense of duty, the knowledge of good that man has; sometimes she even shows better judgment. As for the level of the Ecclesia, Theodoretos says:

Not only men, but women also must be admitted to the divine Temples; and the law which permits the former to take part in the divine mysteries does not forbid the latter, and even orders them, like the men, to be initiated to the divine mysteries and to take part in them.(87)

The principle is clearly stated. Yet it is understandable that possible application of it beyond the practice of the Church of his time do not enter Theodoretos’s horizon. Even so, his thought is well in advance of that of his contemporaries. On the equality of men and women, no other Greek Father seems to have reached the forcefulness of Gregory Nazianzen. His Homily 37 on Matthew, preached in 380 in Constantinople, condemns the legal injustice by which civil law permits a husband to be unfaithful to his wife and punishes the wife who is unfaithful to her husband. “I do not accept this legislation; I do not approve this custom. The law was made by men, and for that reason it is directed against women.” By contrast, God makes no distinction between sexes. “There is only one Creator of man and of woman, one dust from which both have come, one image [of God], one law, one death, one resurrection.”(88) Thus, men and women must be equal in the Ecclesia, just as they are equal in God’s sight.

The equality of woman with man is also affirmed, at least as a spiritual ideal, in other circles. In the Life of Saint Melany, written by her disciple and friend, the priest Gerontios, Empress Serena—a woman of considerable importance, as she was the niece of Emperor Theodosius, the wife of Emperor Stilicho, and the legal guardian of Emperor Honorius—praises Melany (383-439), who is no more than twenty-one at the time, for proving herself the equal of men: “Having mastered nature, she has undergone death daily, showing evidently to all through her works that, as regards godly virtue, the female sex is not inferior to the male sex when its purpose is steady.”(89) Melany herself appears through her Life as a perfect example of a free woman. Belonging to a wealthy and aristocratic Roman family, herself the granddaughter of another famous lady, Melany the Elder (c. 345-410), she persuades her husband, Pinianus, to lead the ascetic life with her. She is received at court and known to the greatest personages in Rome and Constantinople. Consulting with learned and holy men, she travels in Africa and settles down in Palestine. She acts as a true spiritual director to her chaplain and biographer, the priest Gerontios, on whom she herself bestows the monastic habit. She establishes two monasteries, one for women and one for men.

We might also mention Etheria. This lady, presumably a native of Galacia, travelled extensively at the beginning of the fifth century in a pilgrimage on the traces of the Old Testament and left us the account of her journeys. Totally immersed in biblical culture, she visited the Sinai, Mount Nebo, Idumea, and Palestine, returning home by way of Constantinople. Her piety was more liturgical than ascetic. And she faithfully recorded descriptions and impressions of liturgical ceremonies as well as of the sites and buildings she visited. This is another, very attractive type of Christian woman who meets bishops and monks on terms of equality and manifests the greatest freedom even from social conventions.(90)

The peregrinations of Etheria bring in a question, which, I suspect, greatly influenced the practical and theoretical status of woman in the Church.Church buildings often included a hospitality house for pilgrims and travellers. Monastic foundations were open to visitors. Etheria herself was freely received by male monasteries, who set her and her companions in their guest house. Bishops invited her to share their meals and to rest in their residences.

How far could such hospitality go? Once a woman entered the way of life of virginity, was counted among the ascetics, frequented the sacred liturgy assiduously, and conversed on biblical matters, what difference remained between her and a monk? Could the equality of souls, included in the common doctrine of the image of God and practically achieved through asceticism and the sacramental deification of the faithful, sufficiently transform persons so that differences of sex could safely be ignored? There were some who thought so. The extensive literature against the agapetai—or, as they were called in the West, virgines subintroductae,—proves that this optimistic view was fairly widespread. There were unmarried deacons, priests, monks, and even bishops who shared their living quarters and perhaps—this at least seems to have been the case with some Africans about whom Cyprian was consulted by a puzzled bishop—their beds, with women consecrated to virginity. The old idea of some apocryphal writings and of the Second Epistle of Clement had not fallen on deaf ears: the Kingdom will come “when the two are one, and the outside like the inside, the male like the female, that is, neither male nor female.” In the Epistle, this means: “when a brother seeing a sister does not think of her as a woman, and when a sister seeing a brother does not think of him as a man.”(91) If this provides a valid eschatological sign, there is no intrinsic reason why those who have reached the eschatological awareness of overcoming sex should not live accordingly. Once this was granted, there could develop beautiful friendships. But the door was also open to abuses. Paul of Samosata, who became bishop of Antioch in 260, lived with several virgines subintroductae. The fact that he favored an adoptianist Christology and that he was suspect in other areas of behavior, did not help the cause of these unconventional women in the eyes of the orthodox. Likewise, the influence of women in the Montanist movement helped to discredit women prophets and those who claimed Christian freedom outside of the usual regulations concerning virgins and widows.

At any rate, strenuous opposition grew against the practice of chaste promiscuity. The two Epistles of Pseudo-Clement; an unknown author of the third century (around 270); John Chrysostom in two treatises; Cyprian in Africa (Letter 62), who dealt with a case involving a deacon and a virgin; in the West, Ambrose of Milan—all condemned the movement, in spite of the venerable eschatological tradition that could support it. In the words of Charles Williams, this was a “great experiment,” “dangerous, but dangerous with a kind of heavenly daring.”(92)

I suspect that the final settlement of the status of woman in the Church proceeded from a reaction against the fear of scandal, that is, ultimately, from acquiescence to social conventions, rather than from theological principles. The advocates of the eradication of sex in anticipation of the Kingdom could rest their case on the theological ground of their very opponents: were they not reaping the fruits of the movement for the reversal of nature of which all the promoters of virginity spoke? What can be the good of a program of life if we are immediately told that it is unattainable? But, the writings that lambast the virgines subintroductae and their protectors do not argue from theology. They adduce considerations of social conventions and of ethics: it becomes a matter of avoiding scandal and of not falling into sin by presumption. John Chrysostom admits the validity of the purpose, but realistically postpones its achievement until we have entered heaven: “When bodily passions have been removed and the tyranny of concupiscence is extinct, there is no objection: man and woman can be together”; but this is reserved to “those who have been introduced into the Kingdom of heaven”;(93) it is the life of the angels. Here below we remain in the conditions of the world. Christian freedom must be, at least at this level, a hope. Such a reaction could be valid only to the extent that the virginal ideal had been Utopian; but nobody seemed to realize this. The Council of Antioch, which condemned Paul of Samosata, confessed: “We are aware how many, through taking spiritual brides, have fallen, while others have become suspect. Even if we grant that [Paul of Samosata] does nothing licentious, he should at least have taken care to avoid the suspicion to which such practices give rise... .”(94)

On the face of it, the opposition to virgines subintroductae was ethically and psychologically the only sane attitude. But it could not be theologically satisfactory as long as the emancipation of woman from man was necessarily tied to virginity and to an ascetic reversal of nature. Not only did this amount to separating some Christian women into a small elite (John Chrysostom, for one, was well aware of this); it furthermore removed Christian freedom from the sacramental experience of baptism to a program of self-education and effort throughout life. Admittedly, this asceticism was kept in balance by insistence on the Eucharist as the sacrament of immortality and incorruptibility and by the experience of the Holy Liturgy as the event in which the deification of the Christian is manifested. Thanks to this, asceticism in the East did not turn into pelagianism. Christian liberation was given, not achieved.

Meanwhile, the average Christian woman remained at the place which society, that is, Greek paganism, had assigned to her. Equality with men was claimed only for the small number of the ascetic elite. And the reaction against gnosticism, Montanism, and the virgines subintroductae curtailed the freedom even of those, as it restricted the behavior of bishops, priests, and deacons in their dealings with women.

This last point may be illustrated with a brief look at Church institutions.

The Order of Widows, never very successful, declined in the fourth century and practically disappeared by the year 400. The Order of Virgins continued, to be eventually incorporated into monastic institutions for women. The Order of Deaconesses seems to have grown out of the Order of Widows, the widows really interested in Church service often being given recognition and responsibility as deaconesses. There is evidence that in some areas deaconesses were created through an imposition of hands which, in the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus (c. 170-235) is identical with the ceremony for the male diaconate:(95) in other words, they received a real ordination and not simply a blessing. The Councils of Nicaea (canon 19) and of Chalcedon (canon 15) allude to this ordination, which the latter regulates (no ordination of a woman under forty years of age). Throughout the fourth and fifth centuries the institution of deaconesses thrived in the East. Deaconesses had to remain unmarried.

At the same time, a trend toward separating Orders from womanhood developed.(96) The third canon of the Council of Nicaea forbade bishops, priests, and all members of the clergy to have an agapeta. Yet this was not too rigid, for exceptions were made in favor of relatives (mother, sister, aunt) and even of “persons beyond suspicion.”(97)

In his Ecclesiastical History, book 1, chapter 11, the historian Socrates reports that several bishops urged the Council of Nicaea to forbid bishops, priests, and deacons to have intercourse with their wives any time after their ordination.(98) This custom was then spreading in Thessaly, Macedonia, and Greece, counter to the common practice of Egypt and Syria. After the intervention of an Egyptian bishop, Paphnutius, the Council dropped the matter. In 400, Synesius, bishop of Ptolemais in Egypt, clearly refused to repudiate his wife and expressed the fond hope of having many more children still.(99) In Cappadocia, Gregory Nazianzen was himself the son of the bishop of Nazianzen, born while his father was effectively bishop.

Around 340, the Council of Gangra had specified that no distinction must be made between a married and a celibate priest and blamed the faithful who attended only the liturgy celebrated by a celibate.(100) At Nicaea, Paphnutius, who was himself unmarried, had argued that it was quite enough to forbid single priests to marry and widowed priests to remarry; those who were already married should not be restricted.(101) And, according to the tenth canon of the Council of Ancyra (314), a deacon may marry even after his ordination if he had expressed this intention beforehand and the bishop had agreed to ordain him with this proviso.(102)

Thus, until well into the fourth century there were diverse practices and customs in the East, yet no clear or final legislation. But the trend to bring further separations between the service of the altar and women was growing. By the end of the fourth century, the canonical compilation known as Apostolic Constitutions formulated rules that have remained basic to the Eastern Church. Bishops, priests, and deacons, if they are celibate at their ordination, may not marry; if already married they may continue in marriage. Except as concerns bishops, this has remained the discipline to this day. Concerning women, the Apostolic Constitutions specify that women must obey their husbands “for the man is the head of the woman.”(103) They should keep away from the mores of pagan women and avoid going to the public baths.(104) Not only is woman forbidden to teach in church, moreover she may not usurp any priestly function. To ordain a woman would be against the natural order, for woman may not yield authority over man. The creation of priestesses is a pagan impiety. A woman may not even baptize, for Christ, as creator of nature and lawgiver of the Church, has given her no such power.(105) Neither virgins nor widows receive an ordination.(106) As for deaconesses, the eighth book of the Apostolic Constitutions records that they receive the imposition of hands from the bishop, “in the presence of the presbyterium, the deacons and the deaconesses.” The prayer is the following:

Eternal God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Creator of man and woman, who filled Mary, Debora, Anna and Holda with the Spirit, who let your only Son be born of a woman, who instituted women-guardians for the holy gates of the Tent of Witness and of the Temple: look now upon this your servant who has been elected for your ministry; give her the Holy Spirit and purify her from all sin of body and of soul, that she may worthily fulfil the function assigned to her, to your glory and to the praise of your Christ—with Whom be to You glory and worship, and to the Holy Spirit for ever. Amen.(107)

It is difficult to read this text as implying less than an ordination to a sacred order of the ministry. Thus, the Apostolic Constitutions have preserved a testimony that in the fourth century and at least in Syria women could be ordained to the diaconate. In the practice of later centuries, however, the legislative sections of the Constitutions, which outlawed women from sacred functions, won the day over the liturgical sections.

In another area the canonical legislation of the East is much harsher on woman. The second chapter of the Canonical Epistle of Dionysius of Alexandria (190-264), a former disciple of Origen, forbids women to enter a church building at the time of their period, which is understood to imply a spiritual as well as a corporeal impurity: “The one who is not entirely pure in soul and body must be stopped from entering the Holy of Holies.”(108) Such women should stay outside the gate and must abstain from communion.

After the chaotic contrasts of the second and third centuries, the Greek tradition has now taken a definite orientation. The liberation achieved by Redemption, communicated in baptism and nurtured through the Eucharist, provides the basis of the theological tradition on womanhood, even though the situation of woman in society makes it impossible for a new type of sex relationship to be effectively established. The tendency to stress the essential identity of man and woman is clear. Their differences and the ensuing subordination of woman to man are seen as elements belonging to the curse. The progress of Christian life should wear away the sequels of the fall, now that the fall itself has been overcome in baptism. The image of God will shine through more and more as the charisms of the Spirit become more active in the Church, carrying the faithful from glory to glory. Everything that divides man from himself will go. Sex and marriage belong to the order of the fall, and they will progressively disappear. Thus, whatever their social inequalities, physiological differences, and psychological diversities, man and woman, as nous and pneuma are theologically one. The life of virginity testifies to this oneness. Even though the servitudes of marriage will help to promote, by contrast, the ascetic ideal, the expectation of the parousia and the desire to live like the angels of heaven will continue to provide the main justification for the central place of the charism of virginity in the life of the Ecclesia. The eschatological sense will never disappear, although its form will change: the expectation will not be that the end may soon burst on us, but that heaven may come down and make its presence felt in the Holy Liturgy.

The ethical concerns of John Chrysostom’s homilies added to the conservative structure of Byzantine society, will slow down and even, to all practical purposes, halt the emancipation of woman which should logically have followed the proclamation of her spiritual freedom. A number of excesses had the same effect. The agapetai threw a veil of suspicion on relations between men and women in the Church. The overenthusiastic promotion of virginity over against the decadent sexual mores of society made marriage a second-rate vocation. The former freedom of the clergy to be married was drastically reduced. And the feminine diaconate, at one time an option that could have gathered strength and, in the long run, genuinely altered the very tone of clerical life, was on the way out.

Yet in all this, the sense of eschatological participation in the freedom of God through the Sacred Liturgy and the sacraments kept the balance from tipping over into excessively ethical concerns and even secular considerations and motivations. John Chrysostom well illustrates the actual status of woman as in fact it persisted for centuries. Yet Gregory of Nyssa provides a more adequate instance of the theology at work in the Greek conception of woman.

Notes

1. Louis Bouyer, La Vie de saint Antoine. Essai sur la spiritualité du monachisme primitif (Paris, 1950); Le Sens de la vie monastique (Turnhout,1950); La Spiritualité du Nouveau Testament et des Pères (Paris, 1960).

2. Gonzague Truc, Histoire illustrée de la femme, 2 vols. (Paris, 1940- 1941), I, 81-84; James Donaldson, Woman: Her Position and Influence in Ancient Greece and Rome, and among the Early Christians (London, 1907), pp. 1-75.

3. Truc, I, 85-115.

4. The term “neo-sophistic” is applied in general to the philosophical style of the third century, characterized by rhetoric, eloquence, and exaggeration.

5. Recognitiones, VII, 32 (P.G., 1, 1387).

6. Basilius of Ancyra should not be confused with St. Basil of Caesarea 329-379), to whom the De virginitate has sometimes erroneously been attributed.

7. A. Vaillant, ed. and trans., De Virginitate de St. Basile. Texte vieux-slave; traduction française (Paris, 1943), p. 5.

8. Ibid., p. 7.

9. Ibid.

10.Ibid., p. 31.

11. Ibid., p. 33.

12. Ibid., p. 7.

13. Ibid., p. 9.

14. Ibid., p. 59.

15. The concept and the ideal of “apatheia, ataraxia” are also basic to stoic philosophy.

16. Basilius, in Vaillant, p. 59.

17. Ibid., p. 61.

18. My references will be to the edition of The Banquet in S.Chr., 95 Paris, 1963); an English translation will be found in Ancient Christian Writers 27 (Westminster, Md., 1958), 38-162.

19. S.Chr., 95, p. 213.

20. Ibid., p. 69.

21. Ibid., p. 71.

22. Although the Church is fully manifested only with the advent of Christ, its history goes, in the words of Vatican II, “from Abel the just to the last: of the elect” (Constitution De Ecclesia, no. 2). This expression is itself borrowed from the Fathers.

23. S.Chr., 95, p. 59.

24. Ibid., p. 111.

25. Ibid., p. 49.

26. Ibid., p. 39.

27. Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity, chap. 7 (S.Chr., 119, pp. 349-359). Also, John Chrysostom, On Virginity, chaps. 2-3, 8-10 (S.Chr., 125).

28. John Chrysostom, Letter to Theodora (S.Chr., 117, pp. 71ff).

29. On Virginity, chaps. 15-17 (S.Chr., 125).

30. Homily in Genesis IV, no. 18 (P.G., 53, 154).

31. On Virginity, chap. 19 (S.Chr., 125, p. 159).

32. Ibid., chap. 25 (p. 175).

33. Letter to Theodora, chap. 14 (S.Chr., 117, p. 167).

34. Letter to a Young Widow (S.Chr., 138, p. 159).

35. Carmen ad Olympiaden (P.G., 21, 897-918).

36. On Virginity, chaps. 40 and 50-58 (S.Chr., 125).

37. Ibid., chap. 37; On the One Marriage (S.Chr., 138, pp. 161-201).

38. On the One Marriage (p. 191).

39. On Virginity (S.Chr., 119, p. 351).

40. Homily Quales ducendae sint uxores (in Opera omnia, ed. Montfaucon [Paris, 1832] 111,259).

41. Ibid.

42. The Banquet (S.Chr., 95, p. 185).

43. Ibid. (pp. 305-307).

44. On Virginity (S.Chr., 119, p. 269).

45. Ibid. (p. 397).

46. Plotinus, Ennead I, bk. VI, nos. 6-9. See Stephen MacKenna, The Enneads of Plotinus, I (Boston, 1916), 84-89.

47. On Virginity (S.Chr., 119, p. 503).

48. Chrysostom, On Virginity (S.Chr., 125, p. 351).

49. Ibid., chap. 7.

50. Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity, chap. 7 (S.Chr., 119).

51. Ibid., chap. 14.

52. Ibid., chap. 2.

53. Ibid., chap. 14 (p. 433).

54. Chrysostom, On Virginity (S.Chr., 125, p. 377).

55. Ibid., chaps. 1-2.

56. Chrysostom, On the One Marriage (S.Chr., 138, p. 199).

57. Chrysostom, On the Epistle to the Hebrews, XII, Homilia XXVIII, no. 7 (P.G., 63, 202).

58. On Virginity (S.Chr., 125, p. 367).

59. Letter VIII to Olympia (date: 404) (S.Chr., 13, pp. 121-122).

60. P.G., 33, 1564 d.

61.P.G., 33, 1565 a.

62. Chrysostom, Homily VIII on Genesis I, no. 4 (P.G., 53, 73).

63. Ibid.

64. Ibid., no. 3 (P.G., 53, 72).

65. On Virginity, chap. 12, no. 2 (S.Chr., 119, pp. 399-411). See On the Creation of Man, chap. 16 (S.Chr., 6).

66. On Virginity (p. 411).

67. Ibid. (pp. 401-403).

68. Ibid. (p. 421).

69. Dietrich Ritschl, Memory and Hope (New York, 1967), p. 95.

70. On the One Marriage (S.Chr., 138, p. 183).

71. Ibid.

72. Homily Quales ducendae sint uxores, in Opera, III, 260.

73. Ibid., pp. 260-261.

74. On Virginity (S.Chr., 119, pp. 259-263).

75. Ibid., pp. 263-271.

76. Ibid., pp. 271-274.

77. Homilia XV in Genesis II, no. 3 (P.G., 53, 122).

78., no. 9 (p. 145).

79. Gregory Nazianzen, Oratio VIII, no. 8 (P.G., 20, 502). On Macrina the younger (c. 327-379), elder sister of Basil and Gregory of Nyssa, see Gregory of Nyssa, Life of Macrina the younger (P.G., 46, 959-1000).

80. On His Own Life, verse 60 (P.G., 21, 590).

81. On the Priesthood, bk. I, chap. 5 (Opera, I, 443-444).

82. On Saint Thecla (Opera, II, 897-899).

83. Ferdinand Cavallera, Saint Jérome, I (Paris, 1922), 123-129.

84. Laudiac History, 41, 1 (Ancient Christian Writers, 34 [Westminster, Md., 1965], p. 117).

85. See above, n. 35.

86.Letter VIII to Olympia, no. 12 (S.Chr., 13, p. 138).

87. Therapy of Hellenic Diseases, chap. 5 (S.Chr., 57, p. 244).

88. P.G., 36, 289-292. See J. Bernardi, La Prédication des Pères cappadociens (Paris, 1968).

89. Life of Saint Melany (S.Chr., 90, p. 15 1).

90. The Pilgrimage of Etheria (S.Chr., 21).

91. Second Letter of Clement, no. 12 (Early Christian Fathers [Philadelphia, 1953], pp. 197-198). See H. Achelis, Virgines Subintroductae. Ein Beitrag zu 1 Cor., VII (Leipzig, 1902).

92. Charles Williams, The Descent of the Dove (New York, 1956), p. 11.

93. Contra eos qui subintroductas habent virgines, no. 12 (Opera, I, 303).

94. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, bk. VII, chap. 30. See Penguin Classics ed., (London, 1965), p. 318.

95. Jean Daniélou, The Ministry of Women in the.Early Church (London, 1961), p. 22 ff.

96. Henri Leclercq, “La legislation conciliaire relative au célibat ecclesiastique” in Hefele-Leclercq, Histoire des Conciles, vol. II/2 (Paris, 1908"), appendix VI.

97. C.O.D., p. 6.

98. Socrates (c. 380-c. 450), Ecclesiastical History, bk. I, chap. 11 (P.G., 66, 1485). The same information is given by Sozomen (c. 400-c. 450), Ecclesiastical History, bk. I, chap. 23 (P.G., 67, 925).

99. Socrates, ibid. Synesius (c. 370-c. 414), a neo-Platonist philosopher who studied under Hypatia in Alexandria, was elected bishop of Ptolemais in 410, when, apparently, he was not yet baptized; his remaining writings are in P.G., 64, 1021-1756.

100. Hefele-Leclercq, vol. 1/2 (Paris, 1907), pp. 1029-1045.

101. Hefele-Leclercq, vol. I/1, pp. 620-624.

102. Ibid., pp. 312-313.

103. Apostolic Constitutions, bk. I, chap. 8 (P.G., 1, 579). See bk. VI, chap. 29 (986-987).

104. Apostolic Constitutions, bk. I, chap. 9 (586-588).

105. Ibid., bk III, chap. 9 (782-787). .

106. Ibid., bk. VIII, chaps. 24-25(1122).

107. Ibid., chaps. 19-20(1115-1118).

108. Dionysios of Alexandria, Canonical Epistle (P.G., 10, 1282).

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