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Women in the Writings of the Fathers: Language, Belief, and Reality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Graham Gould
Graham Gould*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Theology, Oxford
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Extract

The Church Fathers inherited from their social and intellectual environment a long tradition of debate about the physical, moral, and intellectual capacities of women. It would be an oversimplification to say that the uniform teaching of ancient philosophers and rhetoricians was that women were in every respect naturally inferior to men. Plato, for one, defended the view that moral goodness is the same for women as for men; the fact that they perform different tasks—the duties of a citizen in the case of a (free) man, and of a good wife, directing her household in obedience to her husband, in the case of a woman—does not mean that the same moral qualities of justice and temperance are not required of both. In his Republic, a radical programme for the restructuring of traditional society, Plato advocates equal access to education for women and an equality of opportunity for the intellectually able, regardless of sex, to rise to leading roles in the administration of the State. He continues to believe that most women will be inferior to most men at important tasks; but ‘it was something to have it said that sex is not relevant to natural ability and moral capacity’, and it is possible to detect the influence of subsequent philosophers who agreed with Plato in forming ‘an increasing belief in the competence and trustworthiness of women’ in financial and political affairs, even if the belief was to have little practical effect in changing socially-accepted roles.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 27: Women in the Church , 1990 , pp. 1 - 13
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1990

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References

1 Plato, Meno, 71E-3B.

2 Plato, Republic, 451D-7B.

3 Clark, G., Women in the Ancient World (Oxford, 1989), pp. 5, 8 Google Scholar.

4 Brown, P., The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York, 1988; London, 1989), pp. 9’10 Google Scholar.

5 Ibid., pp. 10-12.

6 Ibid., pp. 13-17; cf. Clark, Women in the Ancient World, pp. 5, 27. Classical rhetoric on the subject of marriage did, however, allow some room for the woman as an equal partner with her husband, for what Brown calls ‘a free consensus of man and wife’ and an ‘exquisite ideal of marital concord’ (pp. 16, 24).

7 Clark, Women in the Ancient World, p. 27: The educated classes were encouraged to think there was no natural barrier to a woman’s ‘being a philosopher’ in the sense of internalizing the ethical teaching given by philosophers, and perhaps understanding its metaphysical basis. This made them better able to deal with invasive emotions, like fear or desire or grief; it did not change their lifestyle’.

8 See Kopecek, T. A., ‘The social class of the Cappadocian Fathers’, ChH, 42 (1973), pp. 453’66 Google Scholar, who argues that they belonged to the curial class (those required by law to hold public office when called upon to do so) but not, as has often been asserted, to the senatorial aristocracy.

9 Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration, 8.13, 14, PG 35, cols 804C, 805B.

10 Basil of Caesarea, Outline of the Ascetic Life, PG 31, cols 624C-5A.

11 Gregory of Nyssa, Contra Eunomium, 1, ed. Jaeger, W., Gregorii Nysseni Opera (Leiden, 1960) (hereafter GNO), 1, p. 67, lines 20’4 Google Scholar.

12 GNO, 1, p. 70, lines 14-15. Gregory is quoting his opponent, Eunomius. For comments implying a similar view of the intellectual capacity of women see Augustine, De utilitate credendi, 13, ed. 1. Zycha, CSEL, 25 (1891), pp. 17-18, and Origen, Contra Celsum, VII, 41, ed. P. Koetschau, GCS, 3 (1899), p. 192.

13 Pseudo-Basil, Second Ascetic Discourse, PG 31, col. 888A-D.

14 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans, 31, PG, 60, col. 668D. For Chrysostom’s defence of the teaching ministry of women see Homilies on Romans, 30 and 31 (cols 661-76) in general, but esp. col. 669. Chrysostom is a major source for our knowledge of the fourth-century women’s diaconate. For useful discussions see Laporte, J., The Role of Women in Early Christianity (New York, 1982), pp. 109’32 Google Scholar, and Lang, J., Ministers of Grace: Women in the Early Church (Slough, 1989), pp. 73’92 Google Scholar.

15 Jerome, Epistle, 122.4, ed. 1. Hilberg, CSEL, 56 (1918), p. 70, quoting Virgil, Aeneid, 1.364.

16 Origen, On Prayer, 11.t, ed. P. Koetschau, GCS, 3 (1899), p. 298; Genesis 18.11.

17 For this view in the case of some hagiographical writings see S. Brock and S. Ashbrook Harvey, Holy Women of the Syrian Orient (Berkeley, 1987), p. 20: ‘Strong undercurrents of what the society or the church would like to say about women, or what they would like women to be, are at work … we can sometimes see severe discordance between what the author says about women and what he tells us women are actually doing’, and p. 26: ‘The paradox is that in the society from which our hagiographers came, not different from others of its time, women were not valued as women.… But no Christians disputed that women had value in the eyes of God and that women performed actions of worth for the Christian Church as a whole. Our hagiographers thus glorify their women’s actions as true followers of Christ while diminishing the integrity of their identities as women’s. See also Cameron, A., ‘Virginity as metaphor: women and the rhetoric of early Christianity’, in Cameron, A., ed., History as Text: the Writing of Ancient History (London, 1989), pp. 181’205 Google Scholar, esp. 197-201, which generally emphasizes the negative, critical, and repressive side of patristic rhetoric about women.

18 Basil of Caesarea, The Creation of Man, 1.18, ed. Smets, A. and Esbroeck, M. van, Basile de Césarée: Sur l’Origine de l’Homme, SC, 160 (Paris, 1970), pp. 212’15 Google Scholar.

19 Gregory of Nyssa, The Creation of Man, 16-17, PG 44, cols 177D-92A

20 For women becoming like men, or losing their sexual identity altogether, in hagiographical and other writings see, however, Brock and Ashbrook Harvey Holy Women of the Syrian Orient, pp. 24-5, ‘… the sexual annihilation of women by the taking on of a male identity…’, Clark, Women in the Ancient World, p. 38, ‘A Christian saint… could reject all that defined her as female: physical weakness, fertility, low resistance to desire, family centred life. She could thus become an honorary man’, and T. K. Seim, ‘Ascetic autonomy? New perspectives on single women in the early Church’, Studia Theologica, 43 (1989), pp. 125–40, esp. 136-7. Cameron, ‘Virginity as metaphor’, p. 197, refers to Gorgonia as transcending the ‘limits of her sex’ according to Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration, 8.14. But Gregory does not say that Gorgonia loses her female identity; she demonstrates the equality of the sexes.

21 Gregory of Nyssa, Life of Macrina (hereafter VM), 1, p. 371, lines 6-9. In references to this text the chapter numbers are taken from Grégoire de Nysse, Vie de sainte Macrine, ed. P. Maraval, SC, 178 (Paris, 1971), the page and line numbers from GNO, VIII.1, ed. V. Woods Callaghan (Leiden, 1963), pp. 370-414. For studies of the VM see G. Luck, ‘Notes on the Vita Macrinae by Gregory of Nyssa’, in A. Spira, ed., The Biographical Works of Gregory of Nyssa, Patristic Monograph Series, 12 (Cambridge, Mass., 1984), pp. 21-32, and A Meredith, ‘A comparison between the Vita S. Macrinae of Gregory of Nyssa, the Vita Plotini of Porphyry and the De Vita Pythagorica of Iamblichus’, in ibid., pp. 181-95.

22 For Macrina’s life as approaching in quality that of the angels, see VM, 11, p. 381, line 20; and p. 382, line 19-p. 383, line 5: ‘Their [i.e., Macrina and her mother Emmelia’s] life was lived within the parameters both of human and of incorporeal nature. In that they were free from human passions their nature was more than human; but in that they lived in the body… they remained inferior to the angelic and incorporeal nature. But perhaps one may dare to say that the difference did not imply inferiority, because by living in the flesh according to the likeness of incorporeal powers, they were not overcome by the burden of the body; their life was sublime and elevated, lived on high with the heavenly powers’.

23 See above, n. 12.

24 Augustine, De Trinitate, XII.7.X, PL 42, col. 1003.

25 Ibid., xii, cols 1004-5; Ephesians 4.23-4; Colossians 3.9-10.

26 Ibid., col. 1005.

27 Ibid., x, xii, cols 1003-4,1005;’Because she differs from man in bodily sex, it was possible for that part of the reason which is turned to the control of temporal things to be symbolized by her bodily covering. The image ot God does not remain except in that part of the human mind which watches and considers eternal things—which it is manifest that not only men but also women possess’. (The division of the soul is itself natural, but is distorted when the concern of the lower element for temporal things robs it of the image of God).

28 Augustine, De opera monachorum, 40, ed. 1. Zycha, CSEL, 41 (1900), p. 594: ‘Do women then not enjoy this renewal of mind, in which lies the image of God? Who would say this? But in their bodily sex they do not signify this, and so they are bidden to be veiled. The part which, as women, they signify, is what may be called the concupiscent part, over which the mind is dominant while itself subjected to God when it lives in an upright and orderly way. Therefore the mind and concupiscent part of a single human being (one ruling, the other ruled, one dominant, the other subject) are symbolized by two human beings, a man and a woman, as regards bodily sex’.

29 Among earlier proponents of the view (like Augustine as a key to the allegorical understanding of a specific scriptural text, Genesis 1.26-7) was Origen in Homilies on Genesis, 1.15, ed. W. Baehrens, GCS, 29 (1920), p. 19.

30 See above, n. 20. For the issue in general, see Cameron, ‘Virginity as metaphor’, especially pp. 189,199-201, and R. R. Ruether, ‘Misogynism and virginal feminism in the Fathers of the Church’, in R. R Ruether, ed., Religion and Sexism: Images of Women in the Jewish and Christian Traditions (New York, 1974), pp. 150-83. S. Ashbrook Harvey, ‘Women in early Syrian Christianity’, in A. Cameron and A. Kuhrt.eds, Images of Women in Antiquity (London, 1983), pp. 288-98, esp. 293-8, makes clear how harshly the development of ascetic Christianity in Syria affected attitudes to women. Women ascetics were (pp. 295-6) seen as a danger to men and expected to be veiled, passive, and to show none of the exhibitionist traits of male spirituality. See also Brown, The Body and Society, pp. 241-3.

31 Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration, 37.7, PG 36, col. 289C.

32 Oration, 8.14, col. 805C.

33 VM,2, pp. 371-3.

34 Ibid., 5, p. 375, lines 18-20. The fact that Gregory presents Macrina’s decision in this way, as a product of acceptable human feelings of love and grief, is remarkable in view of his extremely negative comments on marriage in his work On Virginity, ed. J. P. Cavarnos, GNO, VIII.1, pp. 247-343, and must therefore represent the views of the historical Macrina. Even in On Virginity, however, Gregory concentrates on the unhappiness and worldly frustrations which allegedly result from marriage, and does not attack sexuality (male or female) as such. For Gregory’s attitude to sexuality see A. H. Armstrong, ‘Platonic elements in Gregory of Nyssa’s doctrine of man’, Dom St, 1 (1948), pp. 113-26, and Brown, The Body and Society, pp. 291-304.

35 See Ruether, R. R., ‘Mothers of the Church: ascetic women in the late patristic age’, in Women of Spirit. Female Leadership in the Jewish and Christian Traditions (New York, 1979), pp. 72’98 Google Scholar, esp. 72-3: ‘Not only did [asceticism] allow women to throw off the traditional female roles, but it offered female-directed communities [like that led by Macrina] where they could pursue the highest self-development as autonomous persons’. She supports this view despite her belief that ascetic ideals also functioned repressively towards women by treating them as symbols of the sexual and irrational aspects of human nature (see p. 72, also the work cited above, n. 30). See also Seim, ‘Ascetic autonomy?’, Clark, Women in the Ancient World, pp. 36-7, and E. A. Clark, ‘Ascetic renunciation and feminine advancement: a paradox of late ancient Christianity’, Anglican Theological Review, 6 (1981), pp. 240-57 (reprinted in Ascetic Piety and Women’s Faith: Essays on Late Antique Christianity [New York and Toronto, 1986], pp. 175-208). Brock and Ashbrook Harvey, Holy Women of the Syrian Orient, p. 22, warn against seeing the achievements of female ascetics in modern terms as instances of ‘assertiveness’ or a search for self-awareness. On women ascetics see also Lang, Ministers of Grace, pp. 93-107, and Brown, The Body and Society, pp. 259-84.

36 See above n. 7.

37 VM, 6, p. 377; 8-9, pp. 378-80; 12, pp. 383-4.

38 VM, 19, p. 391, line 10; cf. Gregory of Nyssa, Epistle, XIX.6,10, ed. G. Pasquali, GNO, VIII.2, 2nd edn (1959), p. 64, line 14; p. 65, line 19.

39 VM, 17-18, p. 390, lines 5,19-21; p. 390, line 27-p. 391, line 4. This death-bed discussion is the context in which Gregory sets the dialogue between himself and Macrina, which is the form adopted in his philosophical work On the Soul and the Resurrection, PG 46, cols 12-160.

40 Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration, 8.11, col. 801A-B.

41 Brock and Ashbrook Harvey, Holy Women of the Syrian Orient, pp. 22-3, argue that their writers too found a modus vivendi by which the asceticism and activism of Christian women could be effectively portrayed without any implication that the subservient role of women in society as a whole was being undermined. For classical parallels cf. Clark, Women in the Ancient World, p. 29: even women who assume a public role in the community are ‘praised for modesty, charm and self-restraint, as though everyone needed reassuring that no departure from convention was intended’.

42 Described in Gregory of Nazianzus’s funeral oration on his father, Oration, 18.7-11, PG 35, cols 992D-7D.

43 Oration 18.7, cols 992D-3A. Hesiod, Works and Days, 700.

44 Described by Gregory in highly rhetorical terms: Oration, 18.8, col. 993B; 11, col. 997B-C; Oration, 8.5, col. 793C. Gorgonia also converts her husband: Oration, 8.8, col. 797B; 20, col. 813A.

45 Oration, 18.8, col. 993B;cf. 8.4, col. 793B.

46 Oration, 18.8, col. 993B-C; 8.10, cols 800B-1A. In content the idea is Christian, but it is effectively equivalent to traditional classical references to the modesty and good sense of the ideal wife.

47 Oration, 18.8, cols 993D-6A; 8.9, cols 797C-800A.

48 Oration, 8.9, col. 800A. Cameron, ‘Virginity as metaphor’, p. 197 speaks of Gregory’s ‘litany of negative praise’ of his sister.

49 Ibid., 13-18, cols 804B-12A. For Macrina’s asceticism see VM, 7, pp. 377-8 and 11, pp. 381-3. For comparisons between the works of the two Gregorys see Luck, ‘Notes on the Vita Macrinae’, pp. 23-5, and Meredith, ‘A comparison’, p. 193, n. 5.

50 Oration, 8.11-12, cols 801B-4B.

51 Ibid., 8, col. 797A-B. Gregory’s use of this antithesis between marriage and virginity does not mean that he regards Gorgonia’s married state as a barrier to sanctity, or feels any need to portray her as rejecting it in order to devote herself more perfectly to the service of God.

52 Like Gregory, Clement of Alexandria in the late second century affirms that women share the same virtues and the same eschatological reward as men, Paiagogos, 1.4, ed. O. Stählin, GCS, 12,3rd edn (1972), pp. 95-6. But, also like Gregory, he pictures the Christian woman as living out her faith in the domestic context assumed by the classical ethical and rhetorical tradition, Stromateis, IV.19-20, ed. O. Stählin, GCS, 52, 3rd edn (1960), pp. 303-5: a wise woman (like Nonna and Gorgonia) will attempt to persuade her husband to share her life of virtue. If he does not she will administer her household efficiently in a way pleasing to him, and obey him in everything consistent with her own religious beliefs. He is at fault if he tries to prevent her or his female servants from doing so. Clement adds, of course, that virtue is preferred to beauty in an ideal marriage: IV.20, p. 304, lines 5-6. The first-century Jew Philo of Alexandria (certainly an author Clement had read) defines the duty of women as administration of their households in De specialibus legibus, III.169-71, ed. F. H. Colson, Philo, VII, LCL (London, 1937), pp. 580-2. His contrast between a woman’s duty in her home and the male role of service to the State is even more traditional than Clement’s position. For further references see the note on this passage in Philo of Alexandria: The Contemplative Life, the Giants, and Selections, ed. D. Winston (London, 1981), p. 386, n. 642.

53 See G. H. Ettlinger, ‘θ∊Òζ δἐ oὐχ (Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio XXXVII): The dignity of the human person according to the Greek Fathers’, Studia Patristica, 16, ed. E. A. Livingstone = TU, 129 (1985), pp. 368-72 for the relative absence of repressive misogynist views among the Fathers, despite the rhetoric of their works. Ruether, ‘Mothers of the Church’, pp. 93-4, also emphasizes that commonplace rhetorical stereotypes are not everything: the reality of women’s lives despite them must be considered.

54 Against Cameron, ‘Virginity as metaphor’, pp. 196-7, who suggests that ‘matters of gender figure largely’, in the Life.

55 Cf. again Cameron, ‘Virginity as metaphor’, p. 197.

56 That there was a marked lack of correspondence between the behaviour of women in classical Athens as we can know it from various sources, and the expectations of rhetorical and philosophical works about the proper role of women in society, is argued by D. Cohen, ‘Seclusion, separation and the status of women in classical Athens’, Greece and Rome, 36 (1989), pp. 3-15.