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Sex and Salvation in Tertullian

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

F. Forrester Church
F. Forrester Church
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Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
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Extract

Though often remembered for something he never said, Tertullian did contribute a few bold lines to his own caricature. Take for instance the famous, “Quid ergo Athenis et Hierosolymis?” It has come to symbolize Tertullian's wholesale rejection of philosophy. In fact, his indebtedness to the matter and methods of his classical heritage is profound. Today, by the same token, his ability to coin a striking phrase is earning for Tertullian yet another reputation he does not deserve. In the first book of De cultu feminarum, a withering attack on female fashions, Tertullian invokes the curse of Eve by means of a cruel and impressive metaphor: “Tu es diaboli ianua,” he writes; “You are the devil's gateway.” At once provocative of timely indignation and attractive as a foil, this single utterance is alone responsible for perhaps as much popular notoriety as Tertullian has ever been afforded. The following is offered in the hope that a more extensive examination of his attitude toward women may serve both to correct such misconceptions as have been drawn from the famous “gateway passage,” and also to clarify some of the ambiguities inherent in the Frauenfragen for early Christians.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 68 , Issue 2 , April 1975 , pp. 83 - 101
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1975

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References

1 “Credo quia absurdum.” Timothy Barnes notes, “the passage is frequently invoked to prove his irrationality, or that he viewed religion as the realm of subjective and unreasoning emotion. If that was his true attitude, why did he ever descend to apparently rational argument?” (Tertullian: a Historical and Literary Study [Oxford: Clarendon, 1971] 223).Google Scholar

2 Depraescriptione haereticorum 7. 9 (Tertulliani opera, CCL I, II [Turnhout: 1954]).

3 E.g., Cochrane's, Charles chapter “Quid Athenae Hierosolymis? The Impasse of Constantinianism,” in Christianity and Classical Culture (1940; reprint, Oxford: University Press, 1972) 213ff.Google Scholar

4 Recent scholarship has overthrown the previous notion entirely; see in particular: Otto, Stephen, Natura und Dispositio: Untersuchung zum Naturbegriff und zur Denkform Tertullians (München: Hueber, 1960)Google Scholar; Klein, Richard, Tertullian und das römische Reich (Heidelberg: Winter, 1968)Google Scholar; Sider, Robert, Ancient Rhetoric and the Art of Tertullian (London: Oxford University Press, 1971)Google Scholar; Fredouille, Jean-Claude, Tertullien et la conversion de la culture antique (Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes, 1972)Google Scholar; González, Justo L., “Athens and Jerusalem Revisited: Reason and Authority in Tertullian,” Church History, 43 (1974) 17–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and, Barnes, Tertullian, who provides perhaps the finest and certainly the most provocative single study of Tertullian available.

5 De cultu feminarum I. 1. 2.

6 To give but a sampling of those recent publications in which this text is so utilized: Vuuren, Nancy van, The Subversion of Women as Practiced by Churches, Witch-hunters, and Other Sexists (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1973) 29Google Scholar; Bullough, Vern L., The Subordinate Sex: a History of Attitudes toward Women (1973; reprint, Boston: Beacon, 1974) 114Google Scholar; Daly, Mary, Beyond God the Father (1973; reprint, Boston: Beacon, 1974) 44Google Scholar; Ruether, Rosemary, “Misogynism and Virginal Feminism in the Fathers of the Church,” Religion and Sexism: Images of Woman in the Jewish and Christian Tradition, ed. Ruether, Rosemary (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974) 157.Google Scholar

7 Even Tavard, George, whose book Woman in Christian Tradition ([Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1973] 59)Google Scholar offers perhaps the most balanced treatment of the subject available, goes no further than to admit that “Tertullian is no ordinary misogynist.”

8 Histoire littéraire de l'Afrique chrétienne I: Tertullien et les origines (1901; reprint, Brussels: Culture et civilisation, 1963) 387.Google Scholar

9 Cult. I. l. 1–2.

10 Monceaux, Histoire littéraire, 388.

11 Rondet, H., “Le péché originel dans la tradition,” Bulletin de littérature ecclesiastique, 67 (1966) 115.Google Scholar

12 Citing this fact with reference to the same article by Rondet, Turcan, Marie, in her edition of De cultu (Tertullien: La toilette de femmes, Sources chrétiennes, No. 173 [Paris: Les editions du Cerf, 1971] 37, n. 3)Google Scholar notes that in every other instance, “C'est toujours Adam qui est sur la sellette.”

13 De jejunio 3. 2.

14 The “gateway passage” and its immediate context, constituting the exordium of De cultu I, are replete with ethos and pathos, which were the favored means of proof for an introduction. Sider (Ancient Rhetoric, 21) describes the exordium as an attempt “to set the audience in a receptive mood by an immediate appeal to considerations of an ethical and emotional character.” His important study contributes substantially to our appreciation of the influence of rhetoric on Tertullian's theological methodology.

15 Pat. 5. 5.

16 Marc. II. 2. 7.

17 Marc. II. 8. 2.

18 Exhort, cast. 2. 5.

19 “Le péché originel,” 118.

20 De testimonio animae 3.2.

21 De anima 40. 1. In contrast, the Eve/Mary motif is utilized but slightly by Tertullian. In De came Christi 17, where it finds its fullest expression, the argument appears to be derivative (compare Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 100; Irenaeus, Adversus haereses III. 22. 4).

22 Test. an. 3. 2.

23 Exhort. cast. 2. 6–7.

24 Tr. H. M. Parshley (New York: Knopf, 1953) 167.

25 De carne 17. 6.

26 De resurrectione mortuorum 8. 2.

27 Ibid. 8. 2–3.

28 De pudicitia 6. 16.

29 De virginibus velandis 10. 4. See Christoph Stücklin's edition (Frankfurt /M..: Herbert Lang Bern, 1974), in which is contained a considerable essay on “Die Stellung der Frau in der Gemeinde nach der Schleierschrift.” Stücklin makes more of the first two chapters of Genesis than TertuUian does, writing (p. 187) that “Schöpfungs- und Sündenfallgeschichte haben in seinen Augen das Verhältnis der Frau zum Manne und ebenso ihre Stellung vor Gott irreversibel determiniert.”

30 (Gembloux: Editions J. Duculot; Paris: P. Lethielleux, 1969)45.

31 Ibid., n. 2.

32 Res. mort. 9. 1.

33 De baptismo 5. 7.

34 De anima 36. 4.

35 The Early Church (Baltimore: Penguin, 1967) 59.Google Scholar

36 De Paenitentia 7. 10. To Tertullian, an opening for repentance seemed little more than an invitation to sin. A single second repentance, which had at first been sactioned by him (Paen. 7. 10), was later admitted only in the case of lesser offenses (Pud. 1. 10). Two ramifications of this are first, the disapprobation of pedobaptism — one should postpone baptism until one's faith is sound and one's lustfulness contained, as by marriage, or abated, as by continence (Bapt. 18); second, the insistence upon moral purity — one must refrain from sin in order not to fall from grace.

37 Pud. 17. 1.

38 Cult. II. 1. The difference of tone between the two proems has led some scholars, most recently Timothy Barnes (Tertullian, 137), to conclude that the two books must be independent works, written as many as ten years apart, during which time Tertullian's antipathy for women markedly increased. His chronology is adapted from Säflund, G., De Pallio und die stilistische Entwicklung Tertullians (Lund: 1955) 106ff.Google Scholar, with Barnes dating II in 197, and I in c. 205/6. Marie Turcan, in her new edition of De cultu (p. 20ff), disagrees, as does Braun, René in “Le problème des deux livres du De cultu feminarum” Studia patristica VII (Berlin: Akademie, 1966) 133–42.Google Scholar The single most convincing factor in their arguments is that Tertullian gives a summary of his subject in I. 4. 1–2, making a division of the “habitus feminae” into two parts roughly corresponding to matters discussed in I and II respectively. “Habitus feminae duplicem speciem circumfert, cultum et ornatum. Cultum dicimus quern mundum muliebrem vocant, ornatum quern immundum muliebrem convenit dici. Ille in auro et argenlo et gemmis el vestibus deputatur, iste in cura capilli et cutis et earum partium corporis quae oculos trahunt” While it is dangerous to argue, as does Turcan, that the plan is entirely consistent with its execution, it is clear that the first book will not stand alone, given the statement of intention in I. 4. Braun, , while defending his earlier opinion that the two books belong together (Deus Christianorum [Paris: Presses universitaires de France. 1962] 571)Google Scholar, suggests that what we have represents an expansion of a sermon (originally II) into a tractate (I and II). This serves to explain those aspects of I that indicated to Säflund that it was prior, especially the elaboration in I of certain points only touched on in II (e.g., II. 10 as presupposed in I. 2 and 7). A third possibility would be that Tertullian consolidated two addresses into a single tractate. Regardless, there is no reason to assume that the two are distanced from one another by a decade in order to rationalize any implicit differences between them.

39 Cult. II. 7. 3; compare Cull. I. 2. 5, where it is claimed that all artificial adornments originated with the devil, and consequently must be shunned by self-respecting Christians, who aspire to salvation. Noting De cultu in particular, Sider (Ancient Rhetoric, 120) remarks, “how pliant the topics of deliberative and epideictic rhetoric were in his hands … At every point, he casts aspersion upon, he vituperates, the various parts of dress on the grounds of their origin and utility. By thus bringing together two themes appropriate each to a different genre, he has been able to write an exhibition piece that carries at the same time an honest hortatory purpose.”

40 Cult. II. 8. 2. Moreover, it is the same motive, ambitio, that impels both men and women to dress fashionably. “Vanity” drives men to exchange the mantle for the toga (De pallio 4. 10), as much as it does women to bedeck themselves with jewels (Cult. I. 2. 4).

41 Cult. II. 8. 2. In De spectaculis (25. 2) Tertullian notes that among the devil's things there will be met with no greater stumbling-block than “ille ipse mulierum et uirorum accuratior cultus.”

42 Cult. II. 2. 6.

43 Pud. 1. 1.

44 Ibid. 4. 3.

45 Exhort. cast. 1. 3. This kind of emulative sanctification, part and parcel of a works-righteousness, has, as is evident from the language, many constitutive elements in common with Tertullian's theory of atonement. It might be said to represent a post-baptismal extension of the means by which humankind was made pure, as adapted to the requirements that attend to the maintenance of that same purity. While Christ plays an exemplary role in this second scheme, humankind is left, for all intents and purposes, to atone for itself.

46 Rogers, Katharine M., The Troublesome Helpmate: a History of Misogyny in Literature (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1966) 14.Google Scholar Generalized, the argument reads as follows: “What the early Christians did was to strike the male out of the definition of man, and human being out of the definition of woman. Man was a human being made for the highest and noblest purposes; woman was a female made only to serve one. She was on the earth to inflame the heart of man with every evil passion.” Donaldson, James, Woman: her Position and Influence in Ancient Greece and Rome, and among the early Christians (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1907) 182Google Scholar, cited by Cohen, Chapman, Woman and Christianity: the Subjection and Exploitation of a Sex (London: Pioneer Press, 1919) 46.Google Scholar

47 Histoire littéraire, 391. Henry Chad wick (The Early Church, 59) writes, “The Christian sex ethic differed from the conventional standards of pagan society in that it regarded unchastity in a husband as no less serious a breach of loyalty and untrust than unfaithfulness in a wife. The apostle's doctrine that in Christ there is neither male nor female (Gal. iii, 28) was not taken to mean a programme of political emancipation, which in antiquity would have been unthinkable. The social role of women remained that of the homemaker and wife. At the same time, Christianity cut across ordinary social patterns more deeply than any other religion, and encouraged the notion of the responsibility of individual moral choice in a way that was quite exceptional.”

48 De monogamia 10. 7. Monceaux (Histoire littéraire, 191) suggests that Tertullian's interest in his wife's future continence is occasioned by proleptic jealousy, noting that, “il proteste aussitôt qu'il ne lui donne pas ce conseil par une sorte de jalousie anticipée, mais il proteste de telle sorte, et avec tant d'insistance, qu'il trahit justement son involontaire préoccupation,” However, in the three tracts treating of the question, only in the one addressed to his wife is allowance made for the contingency that she may, regardless of his wishes, decide to remarry. If she should, he requires only that she remarry within the faith. This is just an intimation of the dangers to be incurred by the first who is trepidatious enough to attempt a psycho-historical study of Tertullian. Timothy Barnes (Tertullian, 136) states the problem nicely and makes a few sound conjectures, noting that “some explanation must be attempted for his repeated discussion of women and marriage.” It is hoped that this article will contribute a few theological points to that explanation, as well as a warning to any who would take too many liberties with this admittedly provocative material.

49 He continues, “En effet, il est sévère pour la femme qui doit porter l'expation de son péché, elle qui a été ‘la première a deserter la loi divine’ et qui a brisé l'image de Dieu, condamnant a mort le Fils de Dieu,” (Tertullien, 45).

50 Ux. II. 8. 7–9. This and two analogous tracts are conveniently collected in LeSaint, W. P., Tertullian. Treatises on Marriage and Remarriage: To his Wife; An Exhortation to Chastity; Monogamy, Ancient Christian Writers 13 (Westminster, Md.: Newman Press, 1951).Google Scholar

51 Marc. I. 29. 5.

52 Three forms of celibacy are reckoned accountable for sanctification: virginity from birth; virginity from rebirth, that is, from the moment of baptism; and, chaste monogamy, often initiated upon the death of one's spouse and maintained by continence thereafter.

53 Exhort, cast. 13. 4.

54 (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1929) 194. Stücklin (ed. De virginibus velandis, 205) poses the problem in similar terms: “Hinsichtlich der Stellung der Frau in der Gemeinde nimmt Tertullian eine Stellung ein, die wiederum von zwei Faktoren bestimmt ist: Einerseits anerkennt er die Frau als gleichwertige Glaubensschwester, andrerseits scheint ihm das weibliche Geschlecht besonders schuldbeladen, da alle Frauen an der Ursünde ihrer Stammutter Eva teilhaben.”

55 Brandt, Tertullians Ethik, 193.

56 Ibid., n. 2.

57 Cult. II. 13. 4–5.

58 Ad Martyras 4. 2–3.

59 Nat. I. 18; Apol. 50. The most striking of Tertullian's exempla is that of Dido, whose story he tells in its Carthaginian rather than Roman version. That is, she preferred to burn rather than remarry (Apol. 50. 5). On one occasion Tertullian even presents her as a judge of Christians less protective than she of their sanctity (Mon. 17. 2). Such is the virtue of continence and the efficacy of martyrdom, that a pagan queen, dead centuries before the birth of Christ, should be accorded priority over baptised Christians, who, interpreting the word of the apostle, chose rather to remarry than to burn.

60 Scorpiace 12. 10.

61 An. 55.

62 Ibid. 55. 5.

63 De fuga in persecutione 9. 3: evidently a dictum of the New Prophecy. Two aspects of Tertullian's acceptance of the paraclete are of particular relevance to the question of his attitude toward women. First is the role of the coming of the paraclete in the unfolding drama of salvation history. Since Christ had already done what he could in making sanctification for Christians through baptism possible, Tertullian might look to the paraclete for such revelations as would confirm Christians in their determination to persist in a manner befitting their sanctity, through modesty, continence, martyrdom, etc. Second, in the words of R. Gregor Smith, the paraclete “liberated his thought with regard to the work of the Holy Spirit. The grand conception that the Spirit is utterly free in His workings, and that the Church is consequently a living company capable of being led into all truth is the assumption underlying all of Tertullian's work” (“Tertullian and Montanism,” Theology 46 [ 1943] 134). While precipitating his rift from the Church, this principle contributes directly to Tertullian's enormous respect for the spiritual authority of individual believers. By virtue of his respect for the pure who see visions (Exhort, cast. 10. 5), he derives both personal inspiration and matter for his teachings from such individuals as Perpetua, the Montanist prophetesses Prisca and Maximilla, and the woman in his congregation who saw visions during worship, such as that of the corporeal soul (An. 9. 4).

64 See Fredouille, Tertullien, 235–300, for a valuable assessment of the history of salvation in Tertullian's thought.

65 Marc. II. 10.

66 Res. mort. 26. 14.

67 Marc. V. 10. 13.

68 Ux. I. 1.5.

69 Res mort. 62. 4.

70 Cult. I. 2. 5.

71 Adversus Valentinianos 32. 5.

72 Apol. 49. 2.