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Sexuality, Gender and
Christian Identity
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The Egyptian ascetics of the fourth century were not a homogenous body. The different words used to describe them is evidence of this. The apotactites who lived in the towns or villages in small groups could still be landowners, church officials and tax-payers. The anchorites who had withdrawn from society, had not necessarily entered the desert. The monk could have started as either of these and later joined one of the monasteries of Pachomius (c292-346). Egyptian asceticism as the fourth century opened was a developing movement and the nature of that development was to owe much to the influence of Pachomius and Anthony and other teachers less well known because they were eventually left beyond the margins of a developing orthodoxy.
Gnostics and Manichaeans reguarded themselves as Christians and, when eventually persecuted by orthodoxy, disguised themselves as such. They all taught an individual salvation requiring a gnosis of some sort and asceticism. But, various as they were, they had in common the renunciation of marriage and traditional social life and the need to create another environment. It is sometimes said that this renunciation was founded not so much on a devaluation of the body, or a belief in celibacy as a prerequisite for holiness, as a search for liberation from the ties of family, society and even bishop, in order to concentrate on the spiritual life (68). But this is both to overstate the case and to underrate the complex heritage of the monks. Even in the school of Anthony, the body was a 'heaviness' from which to be freed. If this freedon was to be won by the spiritualising of the body, by becoming free of its corruptibility, then marriage, however deep the love between the partners, was not seen as a possible means to this end. As Anthony wrote in Letter 1V, 2-3, 'Bodily love has no firmness or stability.' He follows Origen's theology in this matter so closely that Rubenson suggests a direct contact with Origen's teaching, rather than a general knowledge of it (69). P. Brown sums up the teaching of both men with,
Corporeality meant corruptibility.It would be quite wrong to think of Anthony's teaching as largely philosophy and lacking the gospel message; but the Christ of Anthony's letters is not so much a sacrifice for the sin of the world as a healer of mankind's wounded mind. He has come, and yet is to come (for Anthony makes no clear distinction between the incarnation and the parousia) bringing with him this healing gift which is sometimes called the gift of the Spirit. This healing restores to man the ability to know himself, and to know one's self is to have, once again, the ability to know God. Christian identity, in Anthony's teaching, involves knowing this and acting accordingly.
To Anthony and those who followed him, the body, like all matter, is both the seat of 'the devil's power' and the means and opportunity for progress in virtue.
The ultimate end is the freeing of
meanwhile the task is to
The prize sought by the disciplining of the body and its passions was the stability and peace of 'pure mind' or essence united with its Source which is God, in exchange for the ambivalence and insecurity of mind immersed in the 'heaviness' of matter. Anthony had no doubt that this unity with unchanging Being was possible, in large measure at least, in this mortal life, through the guidance of the Spirit. This is made clear in his first letter where he describes the need to discipline all parts of the body in order to expel the passions which have no place in eternity. The mind, he assures his spiritual children, is united with the Spirit and under its authority. It makes the feet of believers walk according to the wishes of the Spirit to do good works. Thus, he says, the whole body is changed and placed under the authority of the Spirit.
There is no reference here to Church (77) to sacraments or to sacramental grace. The emphasis is placed on the Spirit's authority, the need for good works and the spiritualising of the body. Believers are those who have accepted the coming of Christ the healer and are progressively enlightened and empowered by the Spirit. The relationship of this to baptism is not stated. Christ the Healer : the Body and Gender.We must now look in greater detail at Anthony's understanding of Christ as the essential healer of mankind and, indeed, of all creation. We shall see that it results both in personal asceticism and in acceptance of the oneness of mankind and of all creation. This is because Anthony's teaching has two great themes, i. e, Christ's coming and the eventual unity of the essence of all creation with the Source of all. i. In his second letter he relates how God, through the Spirit, raised up a council of prophets who built upon the foundation of Moses but could not complete the task. They then died and, in the power of the Spirit, saw that the wound in man was incurable except by
Similarly, in his third letter, in almost the same words, he writes;
Anthony refers directly to the wound and its healing in all except the first of his seven letters. In his thinking, this wound is to man's mind, which is the image of God's mind. It is a wound which makes him incapable of knowing his own essence. The resurrection of Christ, in Anthony's teaching, brings about the resurrection of the believer's mind through the gift of the Spirit. Through the disciplining of the body by the enlightened mind the passions can be expelled and he or she can know again the natural law implanted in them at their creation; that law which had enabled them to know their origin in the Creator. Anthony describes this law as the law of promise or of covenant which irrational passion has 'withered away' or ' frozen' . Despite the premier position of mind, the body, in the tradition of Anthony and his monks, was not to be discarded, but transformed. It was to be made more spiritual, obeying the urges which were natural to it and guided by the soul. This meant the expulsion of those urges which were 'unnatural', the result of arrogance and greed or demonic activity (80), and the recovery of man's natural way. Christian identity was, to the Desert Fathers, a return to the natural identity of man. They were not to be afraid of the struggle for virtue, because all virtue needed was the compliance of the monk's will. Virtue is in mankind and arises when the soul maintains what is spiritual.
ii. But the struggle for perfect discipleship meant also a recovery of the oneness of mankind and that unity of all things in God which was broken by the fall (V1, 56, 62), The expulsion of the passions meant the expulsion of egotism and the will to divide. To the monk, as to Plato, virtue was knowledge and its pursuit was a moral and spiritual task as well as an intellectual one. This desire for the knowledge which is virtue and this belief in the oneness of all mankind were made evident by the monks' agricultural work undertaken in common although many of the monks were anchorites. This work was largely for the benefit of the poor outside their ranks. This was a part of the life and character of the desert monks most evident to visitors and pilgrims, as was the peace and unity that reigned among the monks themselves; but, before we examine them, one aspect of the unity which was to come is worthy of attention. Gender was seen by Anthony's monks to be a division which would one day end. It had no place in eternity. In the spiritual essence 'which has a beginning but no end' there is 'neither man nor woman' (1V,5). Gender was part of the corruptible body, which the essence did not have in the beginning and which was to pass away (1V,80 ), As we have seen, sexual union was held to coarsen the participants and deflect them from a desire for that perfect union with God. Nowhere in Anthony's seven letters does he say explicitly that those who are married and living 'in the world' are not to be considered Christians; but the implication throughout them is that ' in the world' must mean ' of the world. ' Whether this was still the case in the subsequent generation when the Lausiac History of Palladius and the Historia Monachorum in Aegypto were written we must consider now. Christian Identity in Fifth Century Egypt,In the fourth and fifth centuries the deserts of Egypt asserted a fascination for Christians with the freedom and resources to travel. Palladius, bishop of Helenopolis, was one of these. In 419-20 he wrote an account of his visit, some years previously, for Lausus, chamberlain at the court of Theodosius II, which is known as the Lausiac History. Two decades before, an account of the travels of seven pilgrims had been written by one of their number who was a monk of Rufinus's monastery on the Mount of Olives. To this work Rufinus added some of his own experiences among the monks of Nitra twenty five years before. 'this is the Historia Monachorum in Aegypto. The deserts were seen throughout the Christian world as the remote region where Anthony and others were living a life of such discipleship that God could work in them miracles such as those recorded in the Scriptures (82). Such angelic lives were said to have led these saints into such intimacy with God that they had become like Adam before the Fall. It follows that Egypt had many visitors. Some of these were no more than tourists and were treated hospitably and sent on their way; but many more were pilgrims who had visited the holy places of Palestine but were even more concerned to meet and learn from these spiritual athletes of the desert. As the visiting band of seven pilgrims told the clairvoyant monk John of Lycopolis,
In the opinion of the writer they were not disappointed. In his prologue he writes.
and he quotes the opinion of the local villagers.
In these two statements the writer links what he saw with what he was told. i. He and his friends saw men for whom extreme asceticism was but a means to an end; that end being a degree of serenity which visitors found bath admirable and awesome. Like the Abba Or, these men could look like angels, their countenances so radiant they filled the onlookers with awe. They found these men living in the countryside, in the desert and even occasionally in a city like Oxyrhynchus. They found some living solitary lives and others ministering to hundreds (85) and even thousands (86) of their brother monks. They found that two-roomed cells were most commonly their accommodation (87), grouped around a church where corporate worship was offered on Saturdays and Sundays. The solitaries, they found, were rarer than in Anthony's time (88) . The seven witnessed the monks' agricultural work for the comfort of visitors and sick brothers and the larger scale agriculture and commerce for the relief of the poor of Alexandria (89). They noticed the many trades contributing to the large scale commerce of the Pachomian monks. Above all they experienced the monks' warm hospitality which they do not hesitate to describe as loving (90). They found that, some elderly ascetics apart, the monks' diet was now usually one simple meal at the ninth hour, often after the celebration of the holy mysteries (90). They were surprised at the frequency of the ascetics' celebration of these mysteries and recorded the view of the holy man Apollo who thought that the Eucharist should be celebrated daily, 'for he who separates himself from the mysteries separates himself from God' (91). Baptism and the Eucharist are spoken of in a familiar way in this, the second generation of the desert monks, a way which is not to be found in the letters of St. Anthony. We even hear of many anchoresses and nuns, for women too lived the life of the desert. Palladius considers them to have attained 'a male degree of virtue', devotes a chapter of his Lausiac History to them (92) and describes the careers of the most outstanding. In the words of Susanna Elm,
These, however, are 'manly' women, counted by Palladius as 'fathers'. None is married and Rufinus's Latin account of the healing of the little girl by Macarius (H.M.E. XX1) sums up the attitude of these ascetics.
It is possible that Basianilla, whom Palladius calls the wife of Candidianus the general (Laws. Hist. XL1,4) to whom Chrysostom wrote as an old friend (94) is still living as a married lady; but even here it is unlikely, given the people with whom she is grouped and her description as 'practising virtue ardently and scrupulously'. Those mentioned with her, besides the virgins, include Avita, the niece of Melanin the Elder, and her husband Apronianus (XL1,5). These two have given up marital relations (XL1,5 and L1V,4) for 'the life of virtue and continence' on which account they were 'found worthy ...to fall asleep in Christ free from all sin' (XL1, 5). It is probable that they, and Veneria, wife of Vallovicus, the count, and Theodore, the wife of the tribune, are included among the distinguished widows mentioned earlier (XL1,1), their sexual activity having ceased. Palladius seems to be emphasising the social status of these ladies, and the great Melanin the Elder herself, although insisting on her religious status as a widow, could still describe herself as the wife of an aristocrat when the occasion demanded it (Laus. Hist. XLV1,4) . In Antony's letters, the Historia Monachorum in Aegypto and Palladius's Lausiatic History, abstinence from sexual relations seems to be considered by both monks and pilgrims to be an essential prerequisite of serious Christian commitment. This seems to be underlined in Palladius's account of his visit to John of Lycopolis (95) where the clairvoyant monk recognises his visitor's worry over the spiritual state of his brother and sister and tells him not to worry as 'both are saved as both have renounced the world.' Nevertheless, there seem to have been 'people of the region' in the Historia Monachorum (I, 4-9,10) who were married Christians. Significantly they appear as supplicants or receivers of blessngs through the monks' superior powers. There is no suggestion of marriage blanc about the tribune and his wife mentioned in the first of these passages and the wife clearly believes the monk John of Lycopolis is a prophet. It is most probable that these two visitors from the region would claim to be Christians. In the second passage the garrison commander is an expectant father whose wife gives birth to a son on the very day when her husband is visiting Father John, who brings her back from the brink of death. There seems no doubt that these people, too, were lay Christians. It may be that we see here two forms of Christian commitment which are becoming accepted norms. The first, the ascetic form of the Desert Fathers, we have examined at some length. The second is more mysterious. It may be that the christianisation of these people of the Nile valley was at an early stage and was well mixed with pagan religion in which holy men had long had an established place. Perhaps the people felt that little more than this was expected of them, anything more being the province of the celibate professionals on whose powers they could call. If this were the case the desert monks would have been a mixed blessing to the Christians of the Nile valley. These stories properly belong to the things the pilgrims were told, not to the things they saw. To the things told we may now briefly turn. The Reputed powers of the Desert Fathers.It would be easy to dismiss Palladius and the authors of the Greek and Latin versions of the Historia Monachorum as victims of credulity whose accounts of miracles are worthless; but to do so would mix sensible reservation with arrogance. They record what people thought and believed about the holy men of the desert. As a fourth or fifth century man or woman who did not believe in the miraculous would have been a rare specimen indeed, it is likely that they give a true report of what they heard. Further understanding comes from an examination of the words they used in their record which in English are translated 'miracle'. Benedicta Ward, in her introduction to Norman Russell's translation of the Historia Monachorum makes the important point that the words miraculum and teres are not the most used in the Historia Monachorum, because the miracles are not seen primarily as strange events contrary to nature; but as effective signs of the power of God. The words most commonly used are therefore dunamis, semeion, thaumata and signa, virtus, prodigia and sometimes thaumaturgia. Those who work these miracles are open to the power of God because of their faith and good works. They are in direct line with the prophets of the Scriptures. Ward suggests that the writers and, no doubt, some at least of the pilgrims, saw the healing work of the monks as part of the restoration of humankind in Christ, the new Adam. Such a restoration may have been seen as natural to holy men who had entered, or come close to, a state of things which existed before the old Adam's fall. Similarly, in their nature miracles, Ward suggests, the monks may have been seen to be bringing about man's original oneness with nature; at ease with the wild beasts; but in his proper place at their head. Apollo of Hermopolis, who is described as renowned and the spiritual father of five hundred monks and, through the Lord, a worker of wonders, expressed both the way of commitment of these Desert Fathers and their expectations in his teaching recorded in Hist. Mon. V111,15)
Two of these passions and appetites, sexual activity and gluttony (which sometimes seems to be no more than a desire for a square meal) are commonly mentioned and bracketed together in the literature of the desert (96), as when Serapion the Sindonite tells the Athenians that covetousness, fornication and gluttony have troubled him all his life (Laws. Hist. XXXV11). Both are seen as compulsions to return to the fallen world; but the actual sin of fornication is treated rather leniently, even among clergy. The Canons of Athanasius (c.370) include the following.
This compares favourably with the preceding canon (C.A.41) which is concerned with priests going to magicians, wizards or sorcerors. The priest in this case 'shall, on the evidence of three witnesses, be cast forth' and refused the reception of the mysteries for three years, 'doing bitter penance the while.' He is only to be restored to office according to the measure of his penance. It is not sexual activity which occupies so much space in the Historia Monachorum and Lausiac History; but sexual desire and erotic imaginings. The former robber Moses (Laus. Hist. XX1) is a case in point. We are told that, formerly a sexual athlete, he was attempting to become one of the athletes of asceticism. Not surprisingly, the demons of desire pursued him even in his dreams. He exercised the normal disciplines of fasting, hard work, long prayers and little sleep, without success. Finally victory was granted to him as pure gift, in order that he should not boast of victory. Another is Evagrius, who, after sixteen years without cooked food, needed, for health's sake, to change to vegetables, gruel and pulse. When he died two years later he was able to say that for three years he 'had not been troubled by fleshly desire' (XXXV111,13) In the way of commitment of the Desert Fathers sexual passions were the barometer of the soul's love for God. When this last, most private and most ubiquitous phantasy was admitted to the monk's mentor and fought against and defeated, the souls's turning to God was thought to be complete. Having thus described how fluids and damp humours betray the sinner John Climacus describes how the fierce passion of sensuality could be transformed into a passion for God. Former objects of love could be seen without passion; but with the greatest intensity, as objects of beauty. Tears of joy, deep satisfaction and exultation could flow and heartfelt thanksgiving be made to God, a fraction of whose wonder is shown in his creation. He sums it all up in the following words.
The surrender of his sexual fantasies was among the most costly humblings of the monk's heart. If he won through to the highest standards achieved by the greatest monks there would be about him a great tranquility, giving evidence of the tranquility of his soul. He would radiate that magnetic charm and openness to others which visitors noticed immediately in Anthony. As the centuries passed, understanding between the Desert Fathers and the Christians of the Nile valley grew. The harsh notes of Jerome and Gregory of Nyssa are absent. A hierarchy has emerged with virginity at its pinnacle; but marriage has its place; it even being admitted by 'Athanasius' in his Letter to Amoun that it is a good thing if a young man becomes the head of a household and begets children (98). In exercising their form of Christian identity, the married borrowed from the discipline of the monks. These borrowings included keeping vigils, times of fasting and times of sexual abstinence. Added to these were times of greater generosity to the poor. But it came to be tacitly agreed that the Desert Fathers' way of life as a whole was for monks only. They made little attempt to devise codes regulating in detail the lives of Christians living in the world, as Origen had done. Local notables, including clergy, could, and did, live thoughout their youth and their prime as friends, associates and disciples of the monks. Eventually, in middle or old age, they could retire from the world, as scholarly gentlemen had for centuries, and become monks themselves. But, if the re-emergence of matrimony as an accepted status for Christian men and women came about by tacit agreement in Egypt, it came about by debate and reconsideration in the West. The open challenge to the primacy of virginity by Jovinian, Helvidius and Vigilantius precipitated the debate. On the Status of Matrimony.Jovinian and his successors had experienced asceticism and had rejected it as a way of perfection. Jovinian's views are known only through the rebuttals attempted by Jerome in his two treatises 'Against Jovianus', his defence of these in his Ep.ILVIII to Pammachius, and by references in Augustine's works. Nevertheless, it can be inferred from these that Jovinian's teaching contained three elements relevant to this study. He denied the need for asceticism as advocated by Gregory of Nyssa and Jerome. Abstinence, he argued, was no better than a thankful partaking of food. He rejected the teaching that virginity has a higher status than matrimony in the eyes of God; suggesting that the proponents of virginity were at heart Manichaean. He denied the current teaching that Christ was born of Mary through the walls of the womb, much as his resurrection body had later passed from the tomb and through closed doors (99), insisting that the Virgin had experienced normal childbirth. The teaching that Christ and the Virgin had been uninvolved in the normal birth process had placed the latter squarely in the fallen and therefore sinful state of man. Jovinian and his associates were probably giving voice to many fourth and fifth century Christians who felt misgivings over asceticism and the two standards developing in the Church. Jovinian was condemned by Pope Siricius in 392 and by Ambrose of Milan in 393; but his views could not be banished. Like the Encratites, he represented a genuine school of thought concerning sexuality and commitment in the Church, however unacceptable those thoughts might have been to Church authority. Indeed he might be seen as an influential thinker, as he appears to have influenced the thinking of Augustine who entered the debate in 403 in measured and somewhat critical support of Jerome, Jerome had written his first book refuting the opinions of Jovinian and defending the excellency of virginity in 393; but was plainly guilty of having done so at the expense of condemning marriage. His whole book attests the regrettable nature of first marriages and his comments on subsequent marriages include
Augustine, therefore, began his contribution to the debate with a consideration of matrimony in his book 'On the Good of Marriage'. The argument between Jerome and Jovinius had moved the discussion along. It is unlikely that Jerome or Gregory of Nyssa, or even Ambrose, would have thought matrimony required or deserved a whole book to itself. This was to be the first of three books; the others being 'Of Holy Virginity' (c401) and ' Of the Good of Widowhood' (c413) Augustine begins his study of marriage by carefully describing the social nature of mankind and the 'great and natural good' of friendship and deduces from this;
These two, he reminds his readers, were not created in isolation from each other; but one was born from the side of the other. This, he maintains, is of great importance, since it makes it natural for them to walk side by side and their union is increased by their doing so. There follows, he declares,
Here in his earlier writings on the subject we see Augustine's biblical interpretation reinforcing Graeco-Roman reasons for alloting to women a subordinate role. This union, Augustine argues in the same section, is enhanced by children, 'the one worthy fruit of sexual intercourse', for then the couple see each other not only as husband and wife, but as mother and father. He then passes to a matter he acknowleges as difficult and without definitive answer. If sexual intercourse is God's way of maintaining upon earth a mankind which has become mortal subsequent to Adam's fall, what was the meaning of the command to Adam and Eve in the days of their immortality to 'increase, be multiplied and fill the earth?' (Gen.1.28). He argues that there are many opinions and lists some of them. God was able to give them children, precisely as he had created them without parents. God might have instituted sexual intercourse as a means of producing children who would age, but not die, until the earth was filled by mankind. If, by divine fiat, the garments of the Israelites did not wear out in the desert, he argues, (section 2) neither need the bodies of those who were obeying his commandments. Yet again, the change might be from an 'animal' life to one of spiritual quality. The command 'increase and multiply' might refer to an improvement of mind and an increase in virtue, as in Psalm 138 verse 3 in the Septuagint. He concludes that no one can be sure which of these opinions is most agreeable to Scripture; but he is not a man to be satisfied with that. In 419 he will return to the subject in 'On Marriage and Concupiscence' and, at some time between 413 and 426, in book 14 of 'The City of God'. In both he will show a far greater certainty. Meanwhile, in 403, he continued to explore the good of marriage. The Lord, he says, came by invitation to a marriage. Therefore there can be nothing fundamentally wrong in marriage itself. Marriage is good, not merely because of its primary function, the creation of children, but because of the natural society of a difference of sex. This continues into old age, when the possibility of begetting children is past and marriage is 'improved' by abstinence from sexual intercourse.(section 3). In this treatise, Augustine goes so far as to say that the state of those who come together for sexual pleasure, if monogamous and lifelong, may be called marriage; but only if the possibility of procreation, despite their primary intention, is not removed. (section 5). But this charity does not alter his conviction that marriage is for the procreation of children and for companionship. Sexual desire within or without marriage is sinful concupiscence. In 'The Good of Marriage' Augustine addresses the subject of matrimony and its relation to virginity without direct reference to Jovinian; but Jovinian's claim for their recognition as equals is rejected throughout. Jerome tells us that Jovinian had asked consecrated virgins if they thought they were superior to the wives of the Patriarchs. Augustine answers for them. There was a time when the Fathers of the Old Testament used sexual intercourse from a 'duty of conservation, begetting sons for that mother Jerusalem' (section 17); but that time has passed. Now the Church begets children to Christ, and virgins, too, share in this spiritual motherhood.('Of Holy Virginity', section 7). He then widens the discussion, reminding virgins that a lax, worldly virgin was inferior to a good wife. He ends the first book with a combination of both points. Virgins are to be assured of the superiority of their calling 'as Mary surpasses Anna and Susanna'; but this is not enough, They are to remember that the Old Testament patriarchs will also, by God's grace, sit down with them in the kingdom of Heaven; because they were married men and fathers - for the sake of Christ's purposes. There is nothing of Jerome's rudeness or fanaticism in this. Thus far Augustine is restating a well known, moderate and widely accepted position; but there remain some unanswered questions. Perhaps it was in awareness of this that he launched into a profound study of Genesis as soon as 'of the Goodness of Marriage' was finished. Augustine was brought back to the subject of matrimony nearly twenty years later by the accusation of Julian, the Pelagian bishop of Eclanum in Southern Italy, that his teaching concerning marriage was Manichaean. Julian was the most able and articulate of the Pelagian writers and his views represented a strongly felt opinion within the Church. It needed a reply. In considering that reply and the work that provoked it we see at their best two points of view concerning sexuality within the early fifth century Church. Julian saw that Augustine's teaching concerning Adam's fall and original sin was intimately connected with his teaching that this corruption was made explicit by a derangement of the sexual urge. He set himself to defend the goodness of that sexual impulse and sexual delight as identical with that given by God to Adam and Eve.
This drive, he maintained, was within the control of the human will. Such a doctrine had obvious attractions for married Christian laymen. Julian was well-connected and his views came to the knowledge of influential friends. To clarify his position in the mind of one of these, the distinguished soldier Count Valerius, Augustine sent him the first of the two books entitled 'On Marriage and Concupiscence' in late 418 or early 419 'after the condemnation of Pelagius and Coelestius'. Julian replied to it with no less than four books of his own. Extracts from these Pelagian works were collected by someone unknown and passed to Valerius, who sent them to Augustine for comment. Augustine's reply took the form of the second book under the same name as the first, written no later than 420. Both books may be seen as a defence of the doctrine of original sin, a refutation of the charge of Manichaeism and a systematic refutation of Pelagian teaching; but the last is applied especially to marriage. The first section of the first book acts as an overture to the whole work. New-born infants whether born in wedlock or not are created by God; but they inherit a nature rebellious against God through the sin of concupiscence inevitably associated with sexual intercourse, They require baptismal regeneration. This, he insists, is a very different thing from saying that marriage itself is of the devil. He is to continue this theme throughout this book and the next; but in this first section he puts things in their proper order in passing. Virgins are to be preferred. They are not party to this concupiscence. They are like Christ
The virgin birth of Christ and the perpetual virginity of Mary give primary authority to his understanding that the pursuit of perfection involves the life of virginity. Here Augustine stands squarely with Ambrose and the traditionalists. Ambrose had written to his sister Marcellina that virginity is 'of heaven'; that Christ is its author; that Christ was virgin before being 'of the Virgin' and has taken the virgin Church to be his bride (Ambrose. 'Concerning Virgins' , I, 5, §§ 2O and 21). Later, in his second book on the subject, he declares Mary to be the great example to be followed. Her life, he says, should be seen as 'virginity itself' .(II §6). His horror of compromise with the world forces him to see in virginity a type of the uncompromised Church. Perhaps this is why he is far from convincing and reminiscent of Jerome when he asserts that he is not discouraging matrimony; but merely 'enlarging on the benefits of virginity'.(VI §24). It is to be remembered that both Augustine and Verecundus, on hearing Ambrose preach, understood him to imply that baptism involved celibacy because baptism meant incorporation into the perfect, virgin, flesh of Christ. Ambrose could write treatises on virginity and widowhood; but, as we have noted, no more than Jerome or Gregory of Nyssa did he find it necesary to write a book on marriage. Augustine, in contrast, having already written a book on each of these three states, is prepared to write two more on marriage. This alone is a strong indicator of marriage's growing prominence in the mind of the fifth century Church and the current uncertainty on the subject. The Manichaean calumny out of the way, Augustine outlines his main theme. His purpose in writing, he declares, is to distinguish between the purpose of creation which is the good of marriage, (Bk I, Chs I and V) and the evil of carnal concupiscence from which is inherited original sin and which "in the body of this death" cannot be separated from the process of procreation (Bk I Ch I). The marriage of believers, he argues, is God-given to 'convert to the use of righteousness' the evil of concupiscence, 'by which the flesh lusteth against the Spirit'. (Bk I Ch V). Augustine thus lays bare his belief: 1. That there is no distinction between the excitement of lovers and the gratification of lust; 2. That Paul's term 'the flesh' is encapsulated in erotic desire; which is a lust disobedient to the will. 3. This concupiscence had no existence in Paradise and is a just punishment; 'the rebellion of the members retaliating man's own disobedience'. (BkI Ch XXVI) His Neoplatonic training makes him insist that the body is there to serve the reason and to obey its will. The erotic urge must, in Augustine's view, be sinful, because it displays a will of its own and is rebellious against reason.
It is therefore the pre-eminent example of the rebel spirit which was Adam's downfall. This, at any rate, is the cerebral reasoning; but there might well have been subconscious factors which could have led to a different conclusion and which Augustine could not or would not admit. It does appear that Augustine entered long term and exclusive concubinage for love's sake (101). Such a love's contempt for the primacy of reason had within it the power to undermine both his Neoplatonism and his Roman teaching of the need for manly control in all circumstances. It might be that Augustine could not or would not accept so explosive a truth. The preaching of Ambrose offered a noble, demanding and, in the end, a more easily acceptable alternative. What Augustine called concupiscence and Julian natural appetite, (Bk II, XVII) was eulogised by Julian and the Pelagians as part of a wider argument which Augustine found wanting. Their insistence that sexual delight was a good gift from God was bound up with their insistence that children were born free of any taint of sin and that a doctrine of original sin was disguised Manichaeism. Augustine's objection to the description 'natural appetite' was, in return, bound up with his fundamental objection to other Pelagian doctrines. Augustine constantly refers to the ubiquitous nature of shame in connection with cohabitation which made it always a private act, despite arguments that it need not be, which the Cynics put forward. He finds the origin of this shame in Adam and Eve's rebellion which aroused a similar rebellion in their sexual members, which caused them shame (Genesis 3,7. and Bk II,XIV). Augustine insists that this universal feeling of shame recalls to everyone the rebellion of Adam. It is possible that his former inability to remain 'continent' produced in his competitive nature a shame for which he later found justification in Genesis and in the universal nature of what his opponent described as natural modesty. The unmerited, miraculous grace of God did what his unaided reason and will could not do, namely, give him continence. After such an experience the beguiling power of concupiscence was bound to be seen as of the devil. It might well be that J.M.Rist is correct in pointing out that Augustine has overstated his case. Nakedness does not cause universal shame. Perhaps his point should have been, and perhaps was intended to be, that men are ashamed to be seen erect (102). His further point that Julian would have done better if he had dropped the charge of Manichaeism and attacked Augustine's dualist teaching that body and soul are separate substances would also appear a sound one. Even so, through his long and profound study of
Genesis, Augustine reached a conclusion concerning sexuality in Paradise which
was to separate him from the previously held Christian view that men and women
were originally created as sexless beings. In his work The City of God, which
occupied him from 413-426, he discusses the conjugal union as it was originally
instituted and blessed by God, and answers the problem he had left unanswered
in the first chapter of On The Good Of Marriage. His answer is
unequivocal. Men and women were created by God as fully sexual beings.
and later in the same passage he asserts that the first 'men' were made
Augustine has thus made two uncompromising statements. 1. Sexuality is of God, whatever may be said further about
concupiscence. 2. 'Men', or as we should perhaps say, mankind, or human beings, were by divine act created in two genders. Both sexuality and gender, therefore, had a place in God's original creation. Yet, strangely, it was not the corporate, two-part man who was considered able to represent God in the ministry of the orthodox Church. Trinitarian orthodoxy proclaimed God the creator as Father, his son as God incarnate, and his Spirit, too, as masculine. As Adam alone was masculine he alone was able to represent them. It would seem, therefore, that Susanna Elm's claim that Nicene orthodoxy increased the subservience of women was justified (103). So, too, is Gillian Cloke's claim that this subservience was buttressed within orthodoxy by New Testament examples, whereas the example of Thekla in apocryphal literature had the opposite effect outside orthodoxy, for Thekla taught and baptised (104). The continued adulation of virginity, which had formerly drawn upon the sexlessness of Adam and Eve, was not undercut by Augustine's exegesis, and for this there appear to be two reasons. Firstly, virginity had the authoritative examples of Christ and the Virgin. 'Unpolluted and unmixed', to use Ambrose's terms (105), they were seen to symbolise the uncorrupted body of the Church. Secondly, there remained the problem of concupiscence, for the sexual urge, which Augustine allowed as a possibility in Paradise, was there subject to the will; whereas we now find it in rebellion. It was concerning this rebellious libido that Augustine and Cassian differed. To Augustine it was a most appropriate punishment for Adam's rebellion, being beyond the power of the will to conquer, epitomising the corruption of mankind and carrying on this corruption from generation to generation. To Cassian, every soul was distinct and the sexual urge was implanted in fallen man by God as an act of mercy. It ensured his survival as a species; moreover, the battle against its rebellious nature enabled mankind to draw ever closer to God. To Augustine, victory over it was impossible in this life. The will was as good as dead. To Cassian, a change in the depths of the soul was possible. The will was not dead, but unhealthy (106). Their disagreement is well known; but their areas of agreement less so. To Cassian, as to the Desert Fathers, sexual phantasies were the barometer of the soul, revealing a will still retaining a love of sin in its other, often weightier, forms. To Augustine, concupiscence stood for the disruption of the world by violence and oppression, contrary to the will of God. For both, as for Church authority generally, virginity was by far the better way and the married were expected to revert to continence when the years of child-bearing were over. Not to do so was to forsake the bliss of the world to come and to be at ease in concupiscence; that is, in the irrational pleasure of a fallen world. The place of sexuality in the orthodox Church of the fourth and fifth centuries was therefore a very limited and circumscribed one. Gender, on the other hand, was emphasised; an emphasis which resulted in the exclusion of women from the ranks of the clergy. It was outside orthodoxy, where sexual activity had no place and where baptism and the spirit of Christ, the incarnate Logos, rendered gender redundant, that women sometimes occupied preaching, teaching and sacramental roles. Such bodies were numerous, especially in the eastern empire, and they could claim an ancient Christian identity. Such an identity was denied them after Nicaea and the proclamation of Theodosius I. The great variety in response to the Christian Gospel was thereupon restricted. That does not mean that the banning of those forms, judged unacceptable, was justified, or that they immediately ceased to exist. Notes.1. See Susanna Elm. Virgins of God. pp10,11 for a discussion of the limitations of the sources and an assertion of our ability to interpret their evidence. 2 Aretaeus; Causes and Symptoms of Chronic Diseases. 2.5 in The Extant works of Aretaeus the Cappadocian.pp346,347 M. T. May. trans. Galen. The Usefulness Of Parts Of The Body 2:620 I.Maclean. The Renaissance Notion of Woman.pp8-27. Quoted by Peter Brown, The Body and Society. p l0. 3. Galen. de Semine. 1.16. in C. G. Kuhn ed. Galeni Opera
4. 586. 4. J. Harris and I. Wood. The Theodosian Code. pp137, 141, 142 5. There is some hesitation on this subject. Brown quotes A. R. Burn, Hic Breve Vivitur, ppl-31 in favour; but cites K. Hopkins, ' On The Probable Age Structure Of The Roman Population', pp 245-264 and B.W. Frier, Roman Life Expectancy : Ulpian' s Evidence, pp 213-251, who both advise caution. ( Brown, The Body And Society, p6 and footnote 2.) 6. Elm says the legal minimum age for marriage was 14 when Macrina's fiance died c340 but notes that the Theodosian Code allowed marriage at 10. CTh.3.5. 11. (17.June 380) and further cites W. M. Calder (ed) Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua. VII 56 No258. Elm, Virgins of God, p43 and footnote 46. 7. F. Van der Meer. Augustine The Bishop p 57. For superstition generally see Chrysostom's Second Instruction to Catechumens. section 5. 8. In many sermons; but in 9, 10, 14 he insists he will not stop. See also reference to Caesarius of Arles, Markus. End Of Ancient Christianity.p70. In the East, Basil of Caesarea gives 33 rulings on sexual shortcomings in the Church in his letter CXIX alone. 9. F. van der Meer. pp 181-193 10. R. A. Markus. The End of Ancient Christianity. pp33-36. 11. The witness of St Martin had popular appeal. Markus. E. A. C. p 70 -72. Ausonius and Paulinus of Nola mark either side of a divide. A complicating factor was Paulinus's tendency to equate Christian identity with asceticism. E. A. C. p35-38 12, Markus. E. A. C. p72 and footnote 33. 13. ibid. p75. 14, Bruce F Frier. Roman Life Expectancy : Ulpian's Evidence. Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 1982. 86: 213-251. quoted by P. Brown. B. S. p 6. footnote 5. 15. S. Rubenson. The Letters of St Anthony. p 91. 16. ibid. p 90. 17. Elm. Virgins of God. pp 29-33 18. Cyprian. Ep. 75. 10, ed. G. Hartnell. Vienna 1871
19. The Didache accepts as a norm the right of a travelling
prophet with charismatic gifts to preside at the Eucharist of local
churches. Didache X,7. and 20. Acts of Thomas 98 p115 21. Brown. The Body and Society, pp99, 100. 22, Acts of Thomas 18-19, pp72-74; 82-83, p108; 129, p134 cited by Brown. The Body and Society, pp98,99. 23. Elm. Virgins of God. pp 40, 41 footnote 36. 24. D. Amand and M. C. Moons. Revue benedictine. 1953. 63:18-69, 211-238. 25. Elm. V. of G. p34. 26, Brown. The Body and Society. pp 99-102 and esp. p1O1. 27, J. N. D. Kelly. Golden Mouth. p. 19. 28, Elm. Virgins of God. p37 28. Palladius. Historia Lausiaca. 29.1. 30. Elm is referring here to ascetics within 4th and 5th century orthodoxy and not to Montanist ascetics. 31. Canons of Athanasius. 98. pp 62-63 in Riedel and Crum's edition. 32. Palladius. Historia Lausiaca. 31. 1-4. 33. Basil of Caesarea. Letter 119. 18. in R. J. St Basil:
Letters 2.109. 34, Brown. Body and Society. p.261, footnote 10 cites
Augustine's recently discovered letter to a parent who withdrew a virgin
daughter. Epistola 3.1.; pp98-100 in the French translation of the Works of
St Augustine 46B. Letters 1-29 35, Gospel of Thomas. 114. (eds) E. Hennecke and F. Schneemelcher.
Apochryphal New Testament. Tubingen. 1959 p. 216. 36, Life of Macrina. 968 B. Lowther Clarke's translation. 37. ibid 970 C, D. 38, ibid 972 C, D. His work seems beyond the capacity of a boy. See also Elm. Virgins of God. p205. Perhaps the ambiguity surrounding his age reflects the rejection by orthodoxy of mixed communities supported by Macrinus's brother, Basil of Caesarea. 39. Socrates. Historia Ecclesiana. Eng. trans. A.
C.Zenos. Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers. 2;2 Grand
Rapids. 1979. p. 1-178. 40. Elm. Virgins of God. pp 206 and 378. Elm's enthusiasm for evidence of mixed communities is seen in her argument (plea?) for the extended use of the term 'migas'. See p206. 41. Basil of Caesarea. Ep. CV. acknowledges their support. 42. Life of Macrina. 972 C. Lowther Clarke's trans. 43, Life of Macrina. 982 B. Lowther Clarke's trans. Palladius. Laus Hist. LV.3. describes the well-to-do virgin Lavania as 'very learned' and Olympias of Constantinople as 'having engaged in no mean combat for the truth's sake' and 'having instructed many women' L V1. 2 . 44. Life of Olympias. ed. A. M. Malingrey. Sources chretiennes 13bis Paris 1968. pp418-420 45. Jerome. Life of Malchus. 5. Nicene and post-Nicene Fathers. 2nd. series. vol.6 46. Jerome. Ep. XXII, 20. 47. Jerome. Ep. CVII, 11. 48. Jerome, Against Jovinius. 1,4 and 1,29. 49. Recent historians testify to their desire for virginity. G. Cloke. This Female Man of God. p78. 50. Palladius. Laus. Hist. XLVI, 5. and LV, 3. testifies to
Melania the Elder's erudition and pastoral ability. 51. Brown. Body and Society. p.100. 52. Palladius. Laus. Hist. XLVI, 4. 53. Kelly. Golden Mouth. p. 122. 54. Vita Melaniae (the younger) 54. Latin version, says she instructed illustrious women in sound doctrine. The Greek version says there were cultivated men among those she edified. V. M. 56. says she edified the emperor Theodosis. Cited by Elizabeth A Clark. Anglican Theological Review. 1981. LXIII, 3, p. 252. 55. Jerome says she took a stand against Origenism in Rome. Ep. CXXVII, 9, and was an interpreter of Scripture. Ep. CXXV1I, 7. 56. Clark. A. T. R. LXIII. p. 257. 57. Clark. A. T. R. LX1II, 3. pp254, 255. 58. Benedict's comment is noted by Clark herself. ibid p255, note 119 and W. H.Freemantle. trans. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, vo1.6, p37, footnote 5. 59. Kelly. Golden Mouth. p. 113. 60. e. g. the sixteenth and seventeenth century saints Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross; St Francis de Sales and St Jeanne de Chantal. 61. Kelly. Golden Mouth. p. 114. 62. A. M. Melingrey. ed. Jean Chrysostome : Sur la vaine gloire et 1' education d' infants. p. 178. cited by Brown. Body and Society. p. 309. 63. J. Chrysostom. de Virginitate. XIX, 1. 64. John Chrysostom's preaching stressed poverty's abuse of the bodies of the poor. Sexual exploitation was part of this. C. Baur. Chrysostom and his Times calculates that in Chrysostom's series of sermons on St Mattew's Gospel he condemns injustice to the poor from different aspects 130 times. Quoted by P. Brown. B and S, p 309. footnote 22. 65. Kelly. Golden Mouth. p.22. 66. N. Russell and B. Ward. Lives of the Desert Fathers. (The Historia Monachorum in Aegypto, plus an introduction by Ward.) XIV, 5. 67. S. Rubenson. The Letters of St Anthony. p. 101. 68. Brown. The Rise and Function of the Holy Man. p. 95. quoted by Rubenson. p. 118, footnote 1. 69. Rubenson. p66. 70. Brown. Body and Society. p174. 71. St. Anthony. Ep. I, 18, 19 and 32-34. The Syriac version reads 'the sexual intercourse of the imagination'. 72. Rubenson. Letters of St. Anthony. p. 66 73. Rubenson. Letters of St. Anthony. Ep. VI, 70. 74. Rubenson. Letters of St. Anthony. Ep. VI, 73. 75. Rubenson. Letters of St. Anthony. p. 67. Thus the Syriac version. The Arabic version gives 'body' for 'dwelling'. 76. S. Rubenson. Letters of St Anthony. Ep.I, 69-71. 77. Anthony does not appeal to the Church to support his teaching. He quotes only the bible. He refers to the Church on just three occasions in his seven letters. i. e. Ep. II, 10; Ep. IV, 1; Ep. VI, 85; but there is some variation in the wording between the Arabic, Georgian and Latin versions. Rubenson. p.203. footnote 10. 78. Rubenson. Letters of St. Anthony. Ep. II, 12-14. 79. ibid. Ep. III, 20, 21. 80. ibid. pp. 71, 87, 88. 81. Life of Anthony. 20, quoted by Rubenson. 82. N. Russell and B. Ward. Lives of the Desert Fathers (Historia Monachorum Aegyptae plus introduction by Ward.) Intro. pp. 39, 40 and prologue to H. M. A. p. 51. 83. ibid. pp. 54, 55. H. M. A. I, 13-19. 84. ibid. H. M. A. prologue. pp. 49, 50. 85. ibid, VIII, 2. 86. ibid. XVIII, 1; III, 1. 87. ibid. Intro. p. 21. 88. H. M. A. Intro. p. 20. 89. Russell and Ward. p13 and XVIII,1,2. See also Lausiac History XXXII, 8-10. 90. ibid. XX, 5-8 in Rufinus' s Latin account of their
visit to Nitria. p148. 91. ibid. VIII, 55. 92. Palladias. Lausiac History. XLI 93. Elm. Virgins of God. p.330. 94. J. N. D. Kelly. Golden Mouth p. 263. 95. Palladius. Laus Hist. XXXV, 8, 9. 96. Russell and Ward. Lives of the Desert Fathers. 97. John Climacus. The Ladder. 130. p. 179; quoted by Brown. Body and Society. p.239. 98. Athanasius. Letter to Amoun: Patrologia Graeca 26:1073.
99. Rufinius of Aquileia. Expositio Symboli 9. Corpus
Christianorum 20 pp 146-147. 100. Julian of Eclanum. Opus Imperfectum 3:142: 1303. quoted by Brown. Body and Society. pp. 1412, 413. 101. Augustine. Confessions, Bk VI. 15. 102. J. M. Rist. Augustine. pp. 325-7. 103. Elm. Virgins of God, p.387. 104 R. S. Kraemer and M. R. D'Angelo (eds). Women and Christian Origins pp. 310-313. 105. Hexaemeron. 5. 21. 67. p190. quoted by Brown. B. S. p353, footnote 60. See also pp347-357, esp. p353. 106. O. Chadwick. Cassian. p123. BIBLIOGRAPHYSOURCESIn the reprint edition of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first and second series, published Massachusetts 1994, second printing June 1995: AMBROSE............................................. Concerning
Virgins. (1 and 2) AUGUSTINE......................................... On The Good Of
Marriage
BASIL OF CAESAREA......................... Letters JOHN CHRYSOSTOM.......................... Ascetic Treatises
GREGORY OF NYSSA .........................On Virginity JEROME................................................. Letters
SOCRATES, SOZOMEN....................... Histories and Letters ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AUGUSTINE.......................................... Confessions. trans. R. S. Pine-Coffin. Harmondsworth, Middlesex. 1961. GREGORY OF NYSSA.......................... Life Of Macrina. trans. W. K. Lowther Clarke. London. 1916. PALLADIUS........................................... Lausiac
History, trans. W. K. Lowther Clarke. London 1918
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SCHOLARLY LITERATURE.ALFOLDI. A. The Conversion of Constantine and Pagan Rome.1948.Oxford BROWN. P. Society and The Holy. London 1982. CHADWICK. 0. John Cassian. London/Cambridge. 1968. CLARK. E. Ascetic Renunciation And Feminine Advancement. Anglican Theological Review LXIII:3 Vo1.63. 3, p.240. July 1981. CLOKE. G. This Female Man of God. London. 1994 ELM. S. Virgins Of God. Oxford. 1994. HARRIS. J. AND WOOD I. The Theodosian Code (studies) London 1993. HEDLUND. M. F. and ROWLEY. H. H. Atlas of the Early Christian World. London and Edinburgh. 1958. JONES. A. W. M. Constantine and The Conversion of Europe. Toronto. 1978. KELLY. J. N. D. Golden Mouth. London. 1995 KLINGSHIRN. W. Caesarius of Arles. Cambridge 1994. KRAEMER. R. S. and D' ANGELO. M. R. (eds.) Women and Christian Origins. New York/ Oxford. 1999. MARKUS. R. A The End of Ancient Christianity. Cambridge.
1990. RIEDEL. W AND CRUM. W E. The Canons of Athanasius. London/Oxford. 1904. RIST. J. M. Augustine. Cambridge 1994. RUBENSON. S. The Letters of St Anthony. Minneapolis. 1995. RUSSELL. N. (trans) and WARD. B. (introduction) The Historia Monachorum In Aegypto. Oxford. 1981. ROUSSEAU. P. Ascetics, Authority and The Church. Oxford. 1978. TABBERNEE. W. Montanist Inscriptions and Testimonia. Mercer.1997. TROMBLEY.F.R. Religious Experience in Late Antiquity: Theological Ambivalence and Christianisation. Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 24 (2000) 2-60. VAN DER MEER. F Augustine The Bishop. London/New York. 1961. WILLIAMS. D. H. Ambrose of Milan and the End of the Arian-Nicene Conflicts. Oxford. 1995. |
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