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123

WOMANS PLACE IN THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION

The four articles that follow are papers read at the annualConference of the Modern Churchmans Union held in July 1981under the Chairmanship of Deaconess Diana McClatchey

The Conference programme also included a presentation of

Elaine Morgans script Thy Humbler Creation Brigalia Bam ofWorld-Wide YWCA and Amrit Wilson spoke of the injustice andsuffering which are the lot of many women in the Third Worldand of the anger and bewilderment of coloured women in BritainJean Mayland who had organised the Sheffield section of theWCC Conference on The Community of Women and Men in theChurch spoke about the present-day role of women in theecumenical scene The final session was introduced by ChristianHoward

Seminars on Feminist Theology Women and Words andImagery and Spirituality were led respectively by Judith JennerGill Wilce (of the New Statesman) and Monica Furlong

There was an exhibition of Phoebe Willetts paintings anddrawings and the morning sessions opened with music which included he last movement of Mahlers Fourth Symphony andVaughan Williams Magnificat mdash music with settings of words for awoman singer

EDWARD COMPTON



124

The Facts and Issues in the Changing

Roles and Relationships of Women andMen in Britain Today

BY MRS JANE FINLAY

MAY I BEGIN by explaining to the conference that my remarksbased on the Equal Opportunities Commissions five years experience of the Sex Discrimination Act and on the work the Com

mission has been concerned with in Europe will necessarily beconfined to the secular world but I hope nonetheless that theywill make a useful contribution far the conferences general discussion on womans place in the Christian tradition as it is affectedby greater equality between the sexes

The idea of change carries with it the concomitant idea ofmovement away from long-standing norms and standards and thisalmost inevitably entails resistance and friction as those traditionalstandards are challenged and before new standards are established

So it is with the roles and relationships of women and men inBritain today they are changing and they are challenging Butproblems arise in deciding how to assess these movements andhow to find the appropriate response to them We should adopt anhistorical approach going back in time to identify the norms andstandards which are now being challenged

A thorough examination of the origins of the present divisionof labour between the sexes would be lengthy and complex buta useful starting point is one particular landmark that helped to

create the present position One of the effects of the first Industrial Revolution was to produce a dislocation literally between theplace of residence and the place of work In pre-industrial societieswork was mainly organised around the household but the comingof industrialisation disrupted that pattern and split workplace andhome in a way which made it virtually inevitable that womenwho had traditionally carried the main burden of child-bearing andhome-making were in general confined to the home while mentook on the role of sole breadwinner This dislocation between

workplace and home thus produced a division of labour whichcoincided all too readily with the distinction between the sexes



THE FACTS AND ISSUES IN THE CHANGING ROLES 125

The general imbalance was unaffected by the role played by women in certain pockets of industry What most Western coun-tries have been trying to come to terms with in the second half ofthis century is the best way of redressing the historic imbalance

The need to remedy this historic imbalance is not one which isprompted solely by theoretical considerations of abstract equalityThe fact is that while the mutually exclusive concepts of male breadwinner and female homemaker may have corresponded withthe social facts of the early stages of industrial society society hasnot stood still since the days of Arkwright Social trends them-selves especially in the decades since the end of the First World

War have eroded in fact the stereotypes of the typical roles ofmen and women

The last occasion on which the traditional conception of womens role was formally stated was in the Beveridge report of1942 on which many ideas about the family are still based Thisconception echoed views which had been formed in the 1920sand 1930s even stretching back to the nineteenth century Oneof Beveridges core assumptions was that marriedwomen shouldnormally stay at home and that a husbands earnings should besufficient to maintain a raquodependent wife and children Ίη anymeasure of Social Policy in which regard is had to facts the greatmajority of married women must be regarded as occupied on work which is vital though unpaid without which their husbandscould not do their paid work and without which the Nation couldnot continue (Social Insurance and Allied Services 1942 para107)

Furthermore Beveridge worked from the premise that even when a married woman undertakes employment outside thehome She does so under conditions distinguishing her from thesingle woman in two ways First her earning is liable to interruption

by child birth In the National interest it is important that the

interruption by child birth should be as complete as possible theexpectant mother should be under no economic pressure to con-tinue at work as long as she can and to return to it as soon as shecan Second to most married women earnings by gainful occu-pation do not mean what such earnings mean tocirc most solitarywomen Unless there are children the housewifes earnings ingeneral are a means not of subsistence but of a standard of livingabove subsistence (Para 108)

The intervening years have eroded the facts and undermined the

assumptions which lay behind Beveridges recommendations andI quote the Finer report of thirty years later Until the eve of theS d W ld W ll b t ll ti f t d



126 THE MODERN CHURCHMAN

work when they got married Today most married women beartheir children within the early years of marriage and then go backor out to work until they retire (Report of the Committee onOne Parent Families 1974 Para 25)

Today may I say that 102 million women over two-thirds ofwhom are married (ie about 67 million women) make up 418of the labour force of this country Most womens pay now formsan essential part of the household income In households wherethe husband and wife are both in full-time employment the proportion of such households where the wives earn as much as theirhusbands grew from one in twenty in 1968 to one in seven in1977 and the proportion of women who earned more that theirhusbands increased from 29 tograve 86 in the same period Thesocial facts have moved further and further away from the conventional social assumptions particularly the assumption offemale dependancy Today in Britain at least one family in eightis a one parent family the estimate for 1980 is that of the920000 single parent families just under 90 are families headedby a woman The divorce rate in England and Wales is nowamongst the highest in Europe and marriage and dependency forlife are no longer the norm for most women the increasing popularity of cohabition outside marriage suggests that the institutionof marriage itself is ceasing to be the norm

These facts provide evidence that social trends have broken themould of conventional assumptions in which the male was thebreadwinner and the female the homemaker Moreover such trendsare not peculiar to this country they can be seen clearly all overWestern Europe and industrial society generally

However other and newer trends must be taken into accountwhen assessing the extent to which the roles and relationships ofmen and women are changing These other trends are convergingindependently to break up the accepted mould of career and work

patterns which we have taken for granted so farFirstly in all advanced industrial societies the last three decadeshave seen an irreversible shift away from manufacturing to servicesAlthough the erosion of Britains manufacturing base may be aproblem which requires special attention it must be seen in thelong run against the background of a shift of the workforce out ofthe manufacturing sector into the service sectors Secondly thereis the impact of new technologies The consequence for the futureof the combination of these two trends can best be summarised as

a smaller workforce but a workforce more highly trained thanever before The current world recession has already reduced thei f th kf i ll t i it d ti ll b t




realistic view would indicate that the strongest force for change islikely to be the changing nature of technology rather than thecontinuance of present levels of unemployment What followsinevitably is the need to think seriously of a society characterised

by a shorter working life for most of its workforce with muchhigher degrees of investment in training and particularly in retraining A shorter working life can take any of a number ofdifferent forms It can take the form of shorter working hours Itcan take the more particular form of a greater acceptance of part-time work or job-sharing

This again is evidence of a social trend which is forcing men andwomen towards a broadly similar pattern of work and career

Hitherto the normal pattern has been for men to be predomin

antly in full-time employment throughout their working liveswhile part-time work and interrupted careers have been the predominant characteristic of the female labour force In the EEC atthe present time for example there are more than 9 million part-time workers 90 of whom are women mostly married womenTwo out of five that is 40 of all women workers work part-time However this pattern is beginning to change It is not onlywomen but also men who would like a chance to work part-timeRecent surveys in Germany and Belgium have shown that 25 of

full-time workers would prefer a working week of about 30 hoursAnd the demand for part-time work is growing also in the serviceindustries and certain manufacturing industries

In order to help achieve these objectives the EEC Commisionhas made a number of suggestions to end discrimination betweenfull and part-time workers though as yet no Directive on the sub

ject has been issued In a recent legal case Jenkins vs Kingsgate apart-time employee assisted by the Equal Opportunities Commission sued her employer for equal pay to that of a full-time

employee The European Court gave support to the womans caseby ruling that the employer could not pay part-timers less thanfull-timers simply because they were part-time The EuropeanCommission has also proposed a phased programme to allowemployees to reduce the number of hours they workMt has furthersuggested new forms of work organisation such as the introductionof part-time shifts and job-sharing These alternatives are areas inwhich the EOC has encouraged research and is preparing a seriesof information papers the first of which On job-sharing has

recently been publishedAn even more interesting aspect of alternative working arrangements that the EEC has emphasised is the contribution that a




of responsibilities between husband and wife The reason why thevast majority of part-time workers are married women is thatfamily responsibilities all too often restrict the woman to a part-time job or no job at all The European Commission is suggesting

that a gradual reduction of working hours and the sharing of jobsshould go hand in hand with greater encouragement to husbandsand wives to share the unpaid family duties on a more equitablebasis I would like to dispel the notion that it is only bureaucratswhether in the European Commission or in the Equal OpportuntiesCommission who are putting forward these radicad ideas

The CBI could be taken as an example This could hardly beconsidered a radical agency which however in a document discussing unemployment has suggested that one method of sharing

the available work would be by means of widespread paid sabbaticals The CBI points out that 10 of the working populationcould be removed from the labour market if workers took a six-month sabbatical once every five years or a twelve-month sabbatical once every ten years It is worth observing that it is the CBIwhich has put forward such radical solutions to use their ownwords on the grounds that they are justified by forseeable economic and social circumstances

It is clear therefore that we are moving towards a society in

which instead of regarding work as being inevitably full-time workusually in a single occupation and almost invariably for the wholeof ones working life from the end of school (or college) untilretirement we are moving towards a conception of a variedpattern of career and work accompanied by flexible workingarrangements as the structure of industry and the demands of theeconomy change

In addition the idea of education and training as being a once-for-all package which ends at the age of 19 or thereabouts is

giving place to a wider recognition that people in the new kind ofsociety towards which we are moving will have to be trained andretrained for a number of careers in a single working life All thesefactors together make it clear that the characteristics of womenwhich have hitherto been regarded as handicaps turn out in manyways to be more relevant to the emerging industrial and sociallandscape than the conventional picture of what work and careeramount to Hitherto womens patterns of career and work havebeen regarded as deviations from the accepted norm

But the facts of economic and social change are taking us in adirection where far from being the exception some of those




characteristics may well become the norm for the entire workforce male as well as female

Some of the implications of these trends are already visible inthe character of social relationships and peoples expectationsThere are clear signs that the social and personal repercussions oftwo-income families are being accepted by large numbers ofpeople particularly amongst the younger generation There is clearevidence of a much greater sharing of roles in the home There aresigns too although they are not easily quantified that peoplesambitions are not solely concentrated in their working lives andthat the exclusive concentration on achievement in ones career isbeing modified by the satisfaction that individuals find in sociallife and by the desire of a great many more fathers than everbefore to want a share in the rearing of children A joint EOCEECconference on equality for women held in Manchester last yearand attended by delegates from the EEC countries called on theEuropean Commission to study the possibility of a Directive onthe subject of family and parental leave and facilities for the careof children and dependants so as to provide for both parents theopportunity for genuine sharing of family responsibilities withoutplacing them at a disadvantage in the labour market The increasingexpectations of women for a satisfactory life which combines paidemployment with their more traditional domestic responsibilities

are being accompanied now by a recognition by many husbands ofthe need for their wives to find a fulfilling job Both men andwomen attach much greater importance now to the avoidance ofany interruption to the education of their children

The pattern of employment suited to the bachelor boy is nowbeing questioned by men as well as woman In short profoundchanges in social attitudes are taking place mainly unrecognised inour social and institutional arrangements reflecting the changinglandscape in which we live

The Equal Pay and Sex Discrimination Acts are attempts toreflect these changes in legislation but they are only a part of thenecessary recognition They provide a framework for making thenecessary adjustments for altering out-of-date assumptions andattempting to replace them with arrangements which are more intune with current realities

In order for these two Acts to be fully effective a great dealmore needs to be done and I am not at all sure that what requiresto be done can best be effected through further legislation

The changes which have come about as a result of the SexDiscrimination and Equal Pay Acts themselves a response to deepi l h h b i l b ht id bl b fit t




women They could do more if the Government were to acceptthe EOCs recently proposed amendments but that at the end ofthe day there is inevitably a limit to what legislation can do andthat the EOC has always recognised that legislation has to beaccompanied by changes in institutional arrangements and socialattitudes which are not properly achieved through the use oflegislation

May I state clearly that when inequality exists between thesexes equality for one sex must mean logically equality for theother sex as well and any Commission which is in the business ofpromoting equality of opportunity between men and womengenerally cannot seriously discharge its responsibilities if it doesnot pay attention to the complaints from men as well as womenIn fact a fifth of the EOCs correspondents are men and the Commission has given assistance to men bringing complaints under theSex Discrimination Act For example in Jeremiah vs The Ministry

of Defence where a man claimed he should not be forced to do adirty job when women employees were not and in Burton us

British Raily where a male employee was unable to take advantageof an early retirement scheme until age 60 whereas a womencould do so at age 55 and he claimed that this amounted to discrimination on the grounds of sex Many of the EOCs complaintsconcern the fact that there are benefits for widows but not similar

benefits for widowers eg in relation to occupational pensionsIt has become obvious that the pattern of industrial societies mthe future will require a workforce with a varied rather than a continuous career pattern and this should apply to men as much as towomen What I believe is emerging is a situation in which thosefeatures which have been regarded as a handicap from whichwomen suffer will come increasingly to be regarded instead as apositive option which men too must have

The implications of this argument run right through the patternof daily life The educational system must now provide completeequality of access to the syllabus for both boys and girls ratherthan provide effectively for education related to separatefunctions Options such as Domestic Science Woodwork andTechnical Drawing must now be open to both sexes Steps must betaken to ensure the girls have equal opportunity to participate andexcel in Mathematics and Science Furthermore the educationservice must adapt itself to providing for the sort of continuingeducation and training which both men and women are going to

require in the course of their working lives in the future There areimplications for both sides of industry in accommodating newtt f ki t f fl ibl th thi




society has known so far The argument involves the recognitionthat people whether men or women require more from work thathan the conventional standards of career achievement that isthey seek job satisfaction which is related to the demands of skills

and training which are going to be made on the workers of thefuture and the near future It means recognising that a variedcareer pattern is of positive value to the employer as well as tosociety and that there is no especial merit in having held downone particular job for 20 or 30 years It involves a recognition thatindividuals of either sex who have taken the opportunity of sabbaticals for retaining purposes have something positive to contributeboth to the economy and to themselves It involves too an acknowledgement of the contribution of women in the home and in

the manifold voluntary roles by which they support our societyThe Wolfenden Report found an over 50 contribution in theSocial Services by voluntary workers both male and female

All of these factors run counter to our prevalent and conventional conceptions of what a career should be like I have arguedthat these conceptions are products of an industrial revolutionwhich we have left far behind us In order to adapt to a new socialand industrial environment we have to break the old moulds and ithas been my argument that in so doing many of the features which

have been regarded as characteristics of womens employment willinevitably have to become the norm rather than the exception Tothe extent that we can accelerate the acceptance of these changeswe will have furthered the prospects of equality of opportunityfor women But equality for women must mean equality forwomen and men and any attempt to achieve that equation byconcentrating on only one half is bound to fail The equation canonly be complete if we recognise that liberation for women involves liberation for men as well It may well be that many men

do not yet see it in that light Willy Brandt speaking at the 1975Unesco Conference at which I represented the UK declared thatmost men see equality for women as a threat I think this is understandable and is perhaps even becoming more prevalent today inthis time of serious and growing unemployment

May I warn the conference that changes of the magnitude anddepth of which I have talked will not come easily or painlesslyBut they are changes that should be welcomed as a challenge if thenation is to survive It may well be that in the process of accepting

such a challenge a more equal society may be achieved a societywhich is richer for its diversity flexibility and adaptability asociety in which equality between the sexes will feature not just as




who through its operation will lead fuller and more roundedhuman lives Legislation is an essential step in that direction but itcan only be one step towards this goal

Finally to quote the Archbishop of Canterbury who said

recently on this very topic of coming to terms with the changingroles of women and men You need a sense of direction and somesort of vision

You must find that vision yourself and trust in itI have no doubt that this conference today will make a very

positive start to providing that sense of direction and shaping thatvision



133

Eve and Mary Images of Woman

BY SUSAN ASHBROOK HARVEY

THE PROBLEM WITH Eve and Mary as images of woman is how toget at them They have a remarkable tendency to appear bothomnipresent and omnipotent leaving real women stranded ina kind of no-womans land As images Eve and Mary have polarised women and their lives into awesome extremes Worse yetthey have successfully effected this polarisation in secular as wellas religious life in our own times no less than in earlier days The

Temptress and the Great Mother serve as archetypes which domore to reduce womens experiences and capacities than to illuminate them Eve and Mary confine women because they are usedto define them

Now I would define imagery as comparisons used to evokeexploration At best the use of imagery should enable a dynamicand creative experience to happen at the least images can bereduced to stereotypes So in the case of Eve and Mary both processes work The images of Eve mother of all life and Mary

mother of our salvation contain breathtaking insights forexploring human experience and perception of the divine precisely because of the tension between them Yet Eve-Mary imagery inits use regarding women more frequently falls into the lack-lusterstereotype of ordaining a two-dimensional existence for womenand neither pole seems a match for womens reality

Imagery is not of course the same thing as theology althoughconsiderable confusion sometimes of devastating nature hasarisen during the churchs lifetime over the boundary lines bet

ween the two For example does God the Father convey animage that enables us to explore our relationship to the divine ora theological statement which justifies the exclusion of womenfrom the priesthood The move towards inclusive language nowhappening in many churches is an effort to separate imagery andtheology to enable further exploration of both Again the case ofEve and Mary and real women is another example of mistakenidentity here for most of the churchs existence imagery andtheology have been co-terminous and unfortunately inter

changeable Miss Harvey is a Research Student at the Centre for Byzantine Studies at




When an image becomes well-defined and familiar it can function without being stated It is simply present Eve and Mary asimages have been so integral to womans place in the Christianchurch throughout itccedil history that they have been able to functionfor centuries and in our own day without necessarily beingarticulated Yet their presence continues to be vibrant imminentand charged As images of woman Eve and Mary empower us Wemay battle against or with them as dispossessed daughters of Eve1Or we may battle through them the Maria group of dissidentRussian feminists currently tackling the Russian state on the issueof sexism has taken Mary as their banner saying that for themshe is a symbol of power and intimacy2 Again as images ofwomen Eve and Mary suffocate us with threats of innate evil andinnate enslavement to a self-abnegating motherhood Both positively and negatively womans legacy from Eve and Mary continuesto press upon fundamental aspects of womens lives

With these preliminary remarks in mind it seems that the issuesabout Eve and Mary are threefold 1) How did these images comeabout 2) How have they been used and 3) How have they actuallyfunctioned apart from their institutional usage To explore thesequestions I would like briefly to consider where these imagescame from how they got going and then to look at a case studyof them in action In the process of encountering Eve and Marywith such intentions perhaps we may gain greater access to theirimages hopefully we may then be able to approach issues ofempowerment and manipulation with clearer insight

I confess to harbouring a delicious fascination for Eve I reckonthat somewhere underneath all that pompous self-righteoumlusmisogynist and falsely canonical junk that has been heaped onher for centuries she really has got to be on my side Any womanabout whom one can say so little mdash at least with Mary one canproduce volumes of scriptural speculation mdash and upon whom one

can blame so much has got to have more to her than meets theeye Her story simple and brief as it is seems to have stung rawevery nerve of terror pain vulnerability and guilt that men haveever had The sheer extravagance of the situation is dazzling

It is not easy to look at Eves story objectively so ingrained has

1 Cf S Doweil and L Hurcombe Dispossessed Daughters of Eve Faith and Feminism (London 1981)

2 See Spare Rib issue 98 (Sept 1980) and issue 107 (June 1981)3 See the exegesis of P Trible God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality Over

tures in Biblical Theology 1 (Philadelphia 1979) and also G TavardWomen in Christian Tradition (London 1973) I quote from the RSVtranslation of the Bible with adaptation following the text in the Biblia



EVE AND MARY IMAGES OF WOMAN 135

its misreading become for our civilisation But I will pause toremind you of some basic features in the text3 Eves appearancecomes in the earlier J creation account of Genesis 2 God takessome dust breathes into it the breath of life and creates (in the

Hebrew) ha-adam humanity mdash the Hebrew word is generic undifferentiated in its scope When God sees that humanity experiencesitself as alone he creates Woman in Hebrew the specific termishshah suddenly with her appearance ha-adam Adam becomesa man mdash in Hebrew the specific term ish When Adam sees Eve andcries This at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh he iscelebrating the completion of human creation his own as well asEves In the differentiation of humankind into persons female andmale a wholeness a perfection is found There is nothing here of

subordination each part of humanity had been contained in thewhole in ha-adam and each found itself in fulness in its encounterwith the other Adam becomes a man only wjien Eve becomes awoman Her creation is his creation

But what about the Fall A return to the text in Genesis 3 reminds us pointedly of what is not present in the story There is nosex for a start no malice no calculating treachery and theimpetus is external to humanity rather than innate Original sinhas nothing to do with sex nor is it inherent in humankind let

alone in woman Eve and Adam err by disobedience and consequently suffer alienation from the works God has made The serpent urges Eve to eat the forbidden fruit she is curious andthoughtful in making her decision So when the woman saw thatthe tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyesand that the tree was to be desired to make one wise she took ofits fruit and ate and she also gave some to her husband and he ate(Gen 36) Next to Eves measured survey of the situation Adamis insipid and uncritical her active response and his passive one

contrast with each other Again when God questions them Adamcowers and denies any responsibility of his own Eve is direct andhonest in her reply she has acted and her actions are her responsibility Gods punishment is harsh not the corruption of the goodness of human creation but the corruption of sexuality for bothsexes Lust and domination pain in childbirth and pain in labourmdashbull both man and woman are alienated from the most basic elements of human experience

At the risk of using a charged word what we have here is a

myth a story by which people are trying to make sense of and to justify the ambivalent experience-of life in human society inparticular in its patriarchal form The thing works backwards




need to account for mdash the myth does not cause your reality it justifies it4 Later when Israel had had time to reflect on itsexperience of the divine and of humanitys relation to it a glosswas added to the creation story the later T account of Gen

126-7 Then God said Let us made adam humanity in our image So God created ha-adam humanity in his own image in theimage of God he created it male and female he created themThis is an inclusive understanding of Gods creative act As such itdoes not diverge from the creative act of the earlier myth mdash as wehave seen mdash but rather enhances it as if to remind us of what wasmost important to remember about creation

Now Eve does not in fact come off too badly in these storiesShe is essential to Adams existence mdash without her he is not who

he is And she is a searching thoughtful open-minded figurewilling to risk and willing to be accountable for her actions nextto Adams unassertive unquestioning sheeplike and cowardlycharacter Perhaps it is not so hard after all to understand herabuse at the hands of men At any rate lest I read too much intoothers motives whathappened to Eve She does not appear againanywhere else in the Old Testament so she cannot have had muchinfluence on its development But her specific absence as a modelis somewhat ambivalent the treatment of women in the Old

Testament is decisive only in its ambiguity5

However the arrival of Christian revelation brought Eves reappearance on the religious scene6 The Pauline teachings of theNew Testament resurrected her with fresh if misguided vitalityPaul mis-read the Adam-Eve story with considerable vigourcoining the sentiments we know only too well Tor man was notmade from woman but woman from man Neither was man created for woman but woman for man (cf I Cor 114-10) TorAdam was formed first then Eve and Adam was not deceived but

the woman was deceived and became a transgressor (cf I Tim29-15)7 Now arguments for and against Paul on the issue ofwomen have waxed strong in recent years But the arguments are

4 Consider P Bird Images of Women in the Old Testament Religion andSexism Images otMamen in the Jewish and Christian Traditions ed RRRuether (New York 1974) 41-83 esp at 72 The primary concern of amyth is not with the past but with the present

5 P Bird art cit J Otwell And Sarah Laughed The Status of Women in the Old Testament (Philadelphia 1979)

6 By this time in fact Judaism was developing a similar strain of thought

its canon had finally become set and its people looked back on theirscriptures as established truths There are strong parallels to the Christiandevelopment of Eves image See B Prusak Woman Seductive Siren andso rce of Sin R li i a d S i 89 116



EVEJ AND MARY IMAGES OF WOMAN 137

in effect academic8 Whatever Paul himself said with whatever justification and whatever was interpolated into his teachings forwhatever reason and with whatever injustice to Pauls own intentmdash the fact remains that teachings ascribed to Paul were granted

canonical status by the early church and these have served decisively to sanction a negative church doctrine on women throughoutChristian history9

In her new guise Eve became clothed in garments of evil shebecame the Temptress the Destroyer of all creation10 As suchshe proved a potent weapon Thus arrayed she validated and justified a view of women that the Christian message in its simplicitywould have undermined Tertullian crystalised the early churchstreatment of Eve in the early-third century calling her the DevilsGateway and ^identifying her with Everywoman X1 his invectivebecame the hallmark of preaching about women12 Little creativityor initiative has since then been shown towards the image of Evethis is the usage to which the church stuck like a broken recordIts effects can hardly be measured let alone grasped Simply putwoman has been turned into the cause and source of all evil of allsin The audacity of it stuns the mind and the heart

Eves experience is disconcertingly simple a brief story and atradition of imposed reductionism With Mary on the other handwe encounter an experience of such complexity that any shape tothe whole eludes us The clarity of Eves situation rests upon hermythical features her story touches primordial roots for humanitymdash how do we account for the ambiguity of human life for theexistence of good and of evil A scapegoat is always the easiestway out Eve alas was conveniently if unjustly available Nodoubt the utter enigma of Mary lies in the fact that here we dealultimately with no primordial archetype but a symbol whichrests upon a real woman The problems clamour forth immediately

It would be nice to know more about Mary the woman shewas it would be hard to know less Even worse what we do know

8 The argumente for and against Paul are laid out eg in ft Scrogffs Pauland the Eschatological Woman Journal of the Amercian Academy of

Religion 41 (1972) 283-303 and E Pagels Paul and Women A Responseto Recent Discussion JAAR 43 (1974) 538-49

9 Cf eg G Tavard op cit passim Ecclesiastical literature is legion withdependence on just these Pauline and deutero-Pauline texts regardingwomen

10 Consider J Bugge Virginitas An Essay in the History of a Medieval Ideal(The Hague 1975)11 Terlaquo de cultufem 11




is scarcely unambiguous13 The nativity story in the Gospel ofMatthew paints an unobtrusive picture of her the infancy accountin Luke gives her a rather more active mdash indeed some would say adecidedly assertive character and role in the goings-on Otherstories of Mary during Jesus childhood growth and ministry arefew and brief and indicate that she played a negative role in Jesuscareer insofar as she played any at all Certainly she shows in theGospel texts at least little comprehension or affirmation of hersons purpose The pickings are lean enough but the nature of theNew Testament canon complicates the picture to a hair-raisingextent Each writers purpose and chosen literary format call intoquestion the historicity of every incident and obscure effectivelythe kernels of truth in a web of propaganda allegory and interpretative elaboration

Then too the Gospels present us with a veritable heap ofMarys who are not always clearly distinguished one from anotherAgain the presence of important but unnamed women in theGospel accounts has led many to identify various of these withvarious of the Marys and so the confusion multiplies as to whoMary was and what she did for example there are the problems ofaccounting for Jesus brothers and sisters and the woman clothedwith the sun Catholic scholars and theologians continue to claimthat Catholic Marian doctrine has developed with firm scriptural

basis mdash and this has been brilliantly argued no less in the past fewyears14 But in the last analysis the scriptural texts alone as theystand do not account for the whole of Mariology whether doctrinal or devotional

Mary herself is lost to us mdash though many poets artists thinkersand plain believers have sought her reality in the depths of theirhearts All that we have to be fair is her image more preciselywhat we have are her images For if Eve is remarkable because ofthe relentless unison in the usage and presence of her image Mary

is remarkable because her image defies definition The images wefind of her in Scripture in cult in theology in devotion and inthought are nothing if not discordant sometimes they are mutuallyexclusive Indeed perhaps only here is Marys reality accessibleto us her image is a complete self-contradiction

I dare not venture into the abyss of what has been said aboutMary during Christianitys lifetime or even our own Indeed I

13 In outline see RE Brown et al eds Mary in the New Testament (London

1978) and RR Ruether Mary The Feminine Face of the Church (NewYork and London 1979)14 See especially J McHugh The Mother of Jesus in the New Testament

(L d 1975)




would again simply remind you of some basic features that outlinethe problems15 Marys importance was realised from Christianitysinception mdash as the nativity accounts of Matthew and Luke alonewould indicate The second century witnesses to the presence of a

growing awareness towards Marys possibilities at least at apopular level in the forms of apocryphal gospels legends ofMarys life and even the occasional hymn testifying to her glory16

But her real rise to prominence began in the late fourth centuryonly to burst forth in the fifth century with unbounded fervourNow theologians had their own reasons for bringing Mary into thelimelight at this point and none of them had to do with her theirinterests were partly political and partly theological The definitionof the Holy Trinity at the Council of Njcaea in 325 with its

declaration of consubstantiality had raised concern as to Christsidentity he was in danger of appearing completely divine Mary asMother guaranteed the full humanity of Christ whose human-nesshad seemingly been absorbed into the Godhead as defined atNicaea moreover as Virgin Mary guaranteed a fully human birththat was also miraculous and thus partaking of the divine SoMary was the answer to what was really a Christological problemThe title Theotokos God-bearer is a title not about Mary but oneabout Christ17

With this rather vicarious start theologians proceded to developMarian doctrine as one necessary for proving certain aspects ofChrists incarnation18 Mary herself was relegated to a secondaryrole despite what was clearly an essential position Not unlikeEves role in creation the whole meaning of the incarnation wouldhave been undermined without her Without Mary Christ would

15 In general see H Graef Mary A History of Doctrine and Devotion 2vols (London 1963)16 The second century literature on Mary is equally fascinating and prolem-

atic Principal theories and critical biographies may be found in REBrown et al op cit E Hennecke and W Schneemelcher New Testament

Apocrypha^ 2 Vols (Condon 1973) E Pagels The Gnostic Gospels

S jondon 1979) G Every The Protevangelion of James with relatedxts (Forthcoming) It is important that the integrity of Marian witness at

this point be recognised and not belittled as goddess-fevermdashan explanationtoo easy and too simplistic Graef Mary 134-5 suggests that in apowerful Syriac ode from this time Mary has been confused with thegoddess Isis a suggestion completely off the mark For the Syriac text seeThe Odes of Solomon Ed and trans JH Charlesworth 2nd Ed (Missoula

1977J 81-417 But Cyril of Alexandrias Fourth Homily on the Nativity like theAkathistos Hymn a century later lays bare the essence oi the Marian prob




not have been could not have been what he was and who he wasmdash either for us or for God The interesting thing is that whiletheologians exalted Mary often with uninhibited adoration mdashclaiming they did so for the sake of Christ mdash she began to carry

theologically those traits which patriarchal society has decreed tobe innately female She became the emotional compassionatemerciful illogical element in the divine family the human frailand inferior part of the impassible perfect male godhead In thehands of Thomas Aquinas a man who could put the more dubiousachievements of Aristotle to such devastating use Mary became theimage of woman weak passive subordinate and defective(Aristotles gift to us)19 More painful still Aquinas and otherscould manipulate Marys role to say what they wanted to say

about real women while sanctifying their own twist to the tale byglorifying her with singular celebration This is the image still pursued by the Catholic hierarchy in the 1960s Pope Paul VI declaredthis image of Mary in the role of submissive and mystical motherhood as symbol of the New Woman of our times20 Pope John PaulII extends this impetus with his policy of visiting the majorCatholic Marian shrines while effectively stifling evefy efforttowards equality for women within the Catholic institutionAt this level the feminist case works21 ^

But theologians and church leaders do not necessarily harmonisewith the faith of the worshipping community Marys cult as weknow has followed a somewhat different course although therehas been much overlap throughout22 The same issues which ledtheologians to worry about Christ after the Council of Nicaea ledordinary people to worry also They however worried about a

19 See es p E McLaughlin Equality of Souls Inequality of Sexes Womanin Medieval Theology Religion and Sexism 213-66

20 Perhaps at its most alarming in his Address to Delegates of the Society ofObstetrics and Gynecology 29 Oct 196621 Eg M Daly The Church and the Second Sex (New York 1968 with New

Post-Christian Feminist Introduction Boston 1975) and idem BeyondGod the Father Towards a Philosophy of Womens Liberation (Boston1973)

22 M Warner Alone of All Her Sex The Myth and Cult of the Virgin Mary(London 1976) and G Ashe The Virgin (London 1976) are two recentattempts to deal with the problem of Marys cult Both are romantic andundisciplined in their approach mdash though for different reasons mdash but dosucceed in raising crucial questions J McHugh The Mother of Jesus provides important elements lacking particularly in Warners book JC

Engelsman The Feminine Dimension of the Divine (Philadelphia 1979) isat her weakest and most misleading when treating Mary How would sheaccount for the vengeful and violent Virgin Mary whose cult is glorified in

g J h M s h s P t S i it l 45 46 47 48 50 75 (t t i J i




Christ who now apparently absorbed into full divinity had become too remote for human reach Intercessors were sought whowere human mdash and thus compassionate towards human sufferingand frailty mdash but also somehow closer to the divine perhaps by

being extra good9

23

The growth of the cult of saints during thefourth century was an acute declaration of yearning by theChristian populace Mary with her special status as Mother ofChrist was top of the list In this respect the rise of her cultcoincided with the rise of a wider phenomenon24

But something else was happening By the fifth century herpopular following was a hefty force to be reckoned with mdash as arecent study on crowd violence at that time has shown25 Mary asa symbol in herself clearly touched deep needs in the Christian

body and here her function as a specifically female symbol cannot be overlooked The passion that has accompanied her devotion from then into our own times has yet to be adequatelyexplained9 mdash despite copious efforts by theologians CatholicOrthodox or Protestant by psychologists by philosophers bygoddess-worshippers As Queen of Heaven Mary has stood inabsolute majesty in her own right Further she has been everyinch a match for the God of the Old Testament as well as of theNew her followers have experienced her as vengeful wilful evenviolent in her treatment of those who scorn or blaspheme herHere her relation to Christ is an altogether different matter She isthe source of all salvation

Where in any of this do doctrine and cult coincide And wheredoes Eve encounter Mary Theologians came up with an answerthat popular devotion declared in less articulate ways From thesecond century onwards as early as Justin Martyr Marian doctrinehailed her on three accounts as Mother and as Virgin with theemphases we have seen and also as the Second Eve Following therelationship established by Paul between the First Adam andChrist the Second Adam the same pattern was extended to Eve

23 Eg P Brown The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity Journal of Roman Studies 61 (1971) 80-101 E Kitzinger The Cult ofImages in the Age before Iconoclasmi Dumbarton Oaks Papers 8 (1954)83-150 N Baynes The Thought World of East Rome in idemByzantineStudies and Other Essays (London 1955) 24-47 P Brown Eastern andWestern Christendom in Late Antiquity A Parting of the Ways TheOrthodox Churches and the West Studies inChurch History 13 (1976)1-24

24 Cp A Cameron The Cult of the Theotokos in Sixth Century Constantinople A City Finds its Symbol Journal of Theological Studies 29 (1978)19-108

5 T G V P li P l O i i d Vi l i th R li i




and Mary Prose and poetry alike have waxed eloquent exploringthis face of Marys image26 In sum it works like this throughWoman sin through Woman redemption The implications areprofoundly thrilling For humanity this means that we who are

capable of absolute sin are capable of deserving absolute graceThat woman should be the means of declaring so powerful anaffirmation has clearly been an uncomfortable thought for ourpatriarchal civilisation Mary in the image of Second Eve thoughgloriously celebrated at times has not been her dominant themefor the church institution Admittedly it is an image whose consequences challenge and subvert church as structure while exultingin the revelation that is Christianity as faith Perhaps the conflictsare understandable

I have tried very sketchily to separate the features of Eve andMary from the images that have emerged about them But returningto my opening remarks I would like to do one more thing andquestion how these images actually work I do not think it is assimple as it looks I choose purposely unfamiliar ground encountering something different sometimes enables greater clarityof understanding

In the sixth century an eminent Monophysite church leader calledJohn of Ephesus wrote a book titled the Lives of the Eastern

Saints mdash 58 short biographies of nuns and monks he himself knew

27

Unlike most other works in this genre mdash an informal style of hag-iography ie the writing of saints9 lives mdash his work was notprimarily didactic or stereotyped28 He lived in a time of constantwar religious persecution famine and Black Death His subjectswere people whose calling to God was a calling to action in thisworld Their religious vocation fras not an excuse to withdrawfrom the world but a responsibility to work within it Johnspurpose was to say something real and something honest aboutholy presence in the midst of unholy times He was a realist Mostof his so-called saints are otherwise unknown to us his subjectswere for the most part not the leaders of the day but people inthe back villages of the remote eastern provinces of Byzantium

26 Eg2 Graef Mary For lyrical examples see SP Brock Mary in SyriacTradition (Ecumenical Society for the Blessed Virgin Mary 1978) RMurray Mary the Second Eve in the early Syriac Fathers EasternChurches Review 3 (1971) 372-84 and H Graef The Theme of theSecond Eve in some Byzantine Sermons on the Assumption Studia

Patristica 9 (Berlin 1966) 224-30

27 John of Ephesus Lives of the Eastern Saints ed and trans EW Brooks Patrologia Orientato ed R Graffin and F Nau Vols 17-19 (Paris 1923-5)28 Cp eg Palladius Historia Lausiaca TEeoraoret of Cyhus Historia

R li i John Mosch s P t S i it l Thomas of Marga Hi t i




To all appearances Johns treatment of women in the Lives of the Eastern Saints is what you might expect Only five of his 58chapters are devoted to female rather than male ascetics29 andalthough he mentions many cases of laywomen who followed

deeply religious practices he brushes over these with disinterestedhaste Apart from the chosen few womankind is assumed to bearher more familiar guise weak feeble-minded and ever a sister toEves image

John justifies his inclusion of stories about holy women byciting the well-known apostolic injuction that in Christ there isneither male nor female and insists that the lives of these womenin no way detract from nor fall short of the standard set by hismale subjects30 But his praise for these women singles them out

as exceptions to their own kind they are not examples of whatwomen are ordinarily like in Johns view31 Despite their presentation in such a manner Johns holy women leap off the pagein their own right Their decisions and courses of action suggest asense of self-determination and self-definition not generally available to women as itwas to men They provided critical work forthe needs of a suffering populace and they provided encouragingand inspiring leadership to the crisis-ridden community thesewere truly women of spirit women of the Spirit32 They choseemphatically not to define themselves in relation to father husband or child but only in relation to God even then they oftenacted autonomously rather than through the more shelteredcloister of convent sisterhood In each case public reaction was asfervent and demanding as for any holy man Whatever inhibitionsthe church may have had ordinary people seem to have measuredsanctity by action and mode of behaviour rather than by sex mdash atleast when times were frightening

Now Johns five chapters about specific holy women do notreally tell us what we want to know because of their sense ofMarys image these woman are exceptions to the norm We wouldlike to know what the norm was So we must look at what Johntells us about women when he is talking about men Unknowinglyhere John points to the dilemma underlying the churchs treatmentof women and its use of Eve-Mary imagery Pragmatic as he is

29 Jo Eph Lives 12 (Mary and Euphemia) PO 17166-86 27 (Susan) PO 18541-58 28 (Mary the Anchorite) PO 18 559-62 54 (Caesaria) PO 19

185-91 55 (Sosiana and John) PO 19191-630 PO 17166-7PO 18 54231 Eg at PO 18 541 and ibid 559




John does not portray woman as intrinsically evil nor as intentionally corruptive nor destructive But as if to echo Tertullianosentiments with fresh force John presents women as passive evenunwitting instruments for Satans wiles they are literally the devils

gateway the path by which evil can most effectively cause thepollution of sanctity and the downfall of holy men Not withoutreason did many monks forbid women to enter their presencesdemanding instead that they shout from beyond a wall or door ifthey desired counsel33

So it is that a woman can provide measure and proof of spiritualfortitude In one case34 John wanted to indicate how truly wondrous a certain monk was Hence he told how this man prevailedwith the might of Christ over a rather violent seduction attempt

by a lust-crazed woman mdash a woman John tells us who acted atthe devils instigation He does not hold her wilfully responsiblefor her actions Although he is not sure of her actual innocence mdashhe says it is as if the devil acted through her mdash he is certain thatSatan should seek the demise of holy men and a woman wouldclearly be the best bet This incident above all others representedthe height of spiritual struggle for Johns subject but the blame islaid at Satans feet rather than at the womans

Johns generosity here and elsewhere35 highlight the ambiguityhe shares with the wider church structure as far as women areconcerned Although incidents involving women in the guise ofEve are noticeably few in his work (two) compared with others ofthe same genre the implication is clear that one does well toremember her through whom the devil is most apt to work IfJohn does not actually see women as true daughters of Eve heimplies that Eves image ought to be seen in every woman Fordespite the striking honesty with which John honours his holy

33 Eg PO 17 63 Cp Syriac and Arabic Documents Regarding Leglislation Relative to Syrian Asceticism ed and trans A Voumloumlbus (Stockholm 1960)and idem History of Asceticism in the Syrian Orient 2 Vols (Louvain1958) for the context of Johns subjects and in particular for how thissentiment was not only bolstered by other ascetic practices but hardenedby canonical jurisdiction

34 Lives 44 PO 18 666-835 For an entirely different episode sharing the same viewpoint see Lives

47 PO 18 676-8436 Cp John Moschus Pratum 314 1931 3945 60757 6788 8128

135 136 152 179 188 189 204 205 206 207 217 Examples arelegion in hagiographical collections The summary incident however is intne Sayings of Arsenius 28 from the Apophthegmata Patrum PatrologiaGraeca 65 cols 95-8 (a translation may be found in Sayings of the Desert




women he would never go so far as to see in women the feminineface of divine activity Marys image is not present in women asEves is Thus in his most bizarre account of temptation by thedevil Johns views are plainly stated to see the image of theblessed Virgin in any woman is folly

The story John tells of two monks who encounter Satan in theguise of Marys image37 seems an incongruous addition to his Lives

of the Eastern Saints for he offers it intentionally as a warningand he tells us so The story is about two monks mighty comradesin faith and works whose downfall the devil sought by an ingeniousmethod

Choosing a young and pretty woman who was also insane mdashthat is possessed by demons mdash the Evil One took her one nightto a chapel and sat her on the bishops throne clothing her inawesome rays of light Satans demons then filled the sanctuarywith blazing forms and light fantastic and clothed themselves inthe dazzling likeness of angels Our two innocent monks wereroused from where they slept by some of these pseudo-angels andexhorted to make haste for the chapel the holy Mother of Godhad come to see them Utterly terrified the men flew to the sanctuary where they found the woman enthroned in a brilliant extravaganza of light Staggered by what they saw the two prostrated themselves in obeisance before the unholy image But worse

sacrilege was yet to come Announcing herself to be Mary theMother of Christ specially sent to them by her Son for his purpose the woman proceded to ordain the monks to the priesthoodThereupon the spectacle suddenly faded and the men discoveredthemselves at the feet of an ordinary woman They never recovered

Once again John has no blame for the woman herself She isalready possessed by demons mdash insane mdash before the episode takesplace he tells us she was unaware even herself of what was happening and she was not responsible for what she said since John

says The devil spoke in her She is a mute puppet a source ofevil through no fault of her own no will of her own and no knowledge of her own The arresting point however is that she doesnot tempt the monks in the image of Eve the sexual SeductressShe tempts them into a theological sin mdash an altogether differenttheme for woman as the source of evil Though John does notstate it outright he clearly implies that the content of the demonicvision was so absurd the monks ought to have discerned the truthby common sense alone That the Virgin Mary should command

her own worship as if she was not merely exalted but divine that37 Lives 15 PO 17 220-8




she should further dare to consecrate men to the priesthood mdash anauthority granted to no woman not even herself (as men thenand now enjoy reminding us) such ideas could only be the workof the devil Johns account of innocent piety the cleverness of

Satan and the image of Mary is his most lurid statement on thepotential dangers of women Yet what he tells us of womensactual involvement in the Christian community directly contradicts his portrayal of woman as the devils gateway to men

If you read the Lives of the Eastern Saints and omit the specificchapters about holy women you gradually realise that women inall ranks of society witnessed to a striking Christian devotion andintegrity In his chapters about men repeatedly John shows usmany women who by their practices of faith provide the spiritualmeasure the inspired impetus and the discipline that turn theirbrothers their husbands and their children to a life devoted toGod Repeatedly where John writes of those men who decide toleave secular occupations and undertake works of service to thesick and the destitute or astonishing works of asceticism mdash thesemen transform their lives because of womens influence Sometimes it is the model of a sister who is a nun or a pious mothersometimes when a husband declares his calling to religious faithhis wife responds with such joy and such devotion that her ownasceticism and active works for divine love match or surpass thoseof her spouse John points to this undercurrent of spiritual andpractical leadership as equally plentiful amongst the married asamongst the unwed38

With one exception John does not name these women He mentions them in passing and quickly during his accounts of theirbrothersor their husbands or their sons Their individual identitiesare not important to him although he clearly affirms their importance for the life of the church community Married and unmarriedas mothers and as virgins John speaks of many women who in

fact serve the church in the image of Mary mdash she who was trulymarried yet unmarried mother yet virgin Further unlike the fewwomen John presents in the image of Eve he tells us that thesedaughters of Mary act by their own choices and their own willshe tells us they are themselves responsible for their actionsThough John does not realise it the image at work for women inhis society is the image of Mary and indeed in her image as




Second Eve like Eve who she was in her own story Johns womensearch and question and act and take risks and they do not shunthe consequences of their actions

Johns account then of Satan at work in the image of Mary is

not so outlandish as it appeared In a work such as the Lives of the Eastern Saints mdash a work whose focus lies on experience ratherthan stereotype or didacticism mdash the use of Marys image ratherthan Eves for admonitory purposes is alarmingly appropriateJohns encounters would suggest that if women represent a threatto the Christian community of his times they do so under Marysaegis and not through the inheritance of Eve By their competenceand spiritual strength women themselves belied the churchsstance against them as unjust and vindictive I would suggestthat

such is the story of our own dayI suspect that if we want to claim the images of Eve and Maryback for our own use for our own work we must look to howthey work within real women and not to the manipulation ofthese images by persons or institutions with motives of dubiousconsequence There is great truth in these images but it does notlie in how they have been used It lies in what they can reveal tous Accordingly I leave you with a piece of my own heritage as anAmerican woman

Sojourner Truth was a black woman who lived from 1795 to1883 She was born a slave in New York state (my own homegtbut gained her freedom in 1827 when New York abolished slaveryAfter some years she heard the call of God and gave up her lifeat the age to 46 to travelling the length and breadth of the land forthe cause of her people She was a passionate abolitionist and civilrights activist for black people and an equally passionate feministSojourner Truth never learned to read or write she spoke what sheknew from the truth of her own experience What we have of herspeeches has been left by those who took thought to record herwords

In 1851 the Akron Convention for Womens Rights convened inAkron Ohio Many clergymen were present who spoke outagainst equality for women on the grounds of Eves sin and themanhood of Christ Although not on the agenda Sojourner Truthcould not keep silence She rose addressed the convention for a fewminutes and turned to the clergymen ending her say with thesewords

that little man in black there he says women cant have asmuch rights as men cause Christ wasnt a woman Where did yourChrist come from Where did your Christ come from From God

d M h d hi d i h hi




If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turnthe world upside down all alone these women together ought tobe able to turn it back and get it right side up again And nowthey is asking to do it the men better let them

39 M Schneir ed Feminism the Essential Historical Writings (New York



149

God An Essay in Patristic Theology

BY DR FRANCES YOUNG

IN RECENT YEARS a good deal of attention has been given in certain circles to the fact that God is traditionally conceived asmasculine addressed in masculine pronouns and described in

masculine images Some are upset by this Some blame the male-dominated Church hierarchies and the chauvinist attitudes of theChurchs leading theologians down the centuries No doubt thereis an element of truth in their contention mdash all men are humanHowever what I want to suggest in this paper is that theologicalthought conducted at an appropriately profound level is not opento this critique and that the Fathers in their basic theologicalstance mdash whatever the prejudices abroad in their age and culturemdash would find this challenge puzzling not simply because theykept at arms length the monstrous regiment of women but ratherbecause it reflects what they could only regard as a superficialtheology

So what I present is an essay in patristic theology which avoidsthe conventional issues like the development qf Trinitarianism orthe problems of integrating the Bible and philosophy (thoughwhat I have to say implies some criticism of the assumed contrastbetween the philosophical and biblical concepts of God) and instead focusses upon what I have just referred to as their basictheological stance The questions to which I address myself are as

follows how did the Greek Fathers think about God What weretheir principal interests and motives when they tried to give someaccount of what God is like how did they envisage the God theyworshipped and preached about My purpose is to provide thedeeper theological perspective within which the concerns of thisconference should be considered

There is a famous letter written by Basil of Caesarea1 which

Dr ioung is lecturer in Theology at the University of Birmingham

1 Basuuml Ep 234 Ed Y Courtonne (Paris 1957-66) ΙΠ 419830854 ET in MauriceWiles and Mark Santer Documents in Early Christian Thought (Cambridge




outlines the basic position in a remarkably clear and succinctmanner He was writing to Amphilochius the bishop of Iconiumwho had addressed certain theological questions to him In a previous letter2 Basil had suggested that the proper activity of the

mind is the understanding of truth and since God is truth theprimary function of the mind is to know God Yet he had gone onto explain that we know in part (I Cor 1312) we know himonly to the extent that what is infinitely great can be known bywhat is small Now Basil is faced with the counter-question doyou worship what you know or what you do not know Basilknows that the question is a potential trap and he shifts theground by indicating that the word know has a variety of meaningsWe do not and cannot know Gods Being his actual essence what

he is in himself What we do know is his greatness his power hiswisdom his goodness his providential care for us and the justiceof his judgment It is from Gods activities that we know God hisactivities reach down to us but his essence remains inaccessibleKnowledge of the divine essence is the perception of his incomprehensibility no man has seen God at any time the only begottenSon has revealed him What he revealed was not his essence buthis power Gods activities are the baacircs of knowledge and knowledge is the basis of worship So in one sense we do worship what

we know in another sense we worship what we do not knowBasil produced this careful statement in the midst of controversy mdash in fact a later and more developed stage in the Ariancontroversy Eunomius and his followers were claiming that theessence of God can be known God is simple and uncompoundedcompletely definable in terms of his being agenetos mdash the ultimatefirst principle who has never come into being or been begottenbut has eternally existed From this understanding of Gods essentialnature they deduced of course that the Son was not essentially

God That corollary is not for us the immediate area of concernand it is interesting that even at the time the thrust of the debatewas very much directed at the theological presuppositions ratherthan the Christological consequences The principal indictment ofthe Eunomians in the eyes of their opponents people like BasilGregory of Nyssa John Chrysostom was their blasphemous presumption in claiming to comprehend the ultimate Being of GodWas this simply a reaction born of controversial necessity or did itrepresent a more fundamental and traditional theological stance

There are three good reasons for thinking that the latter is far



GOD AN ESSAY IN PATRISTIC THEOLOGY 151

more probable mdash that it was a deep-seated theological instinct towhich appeal was made1 Exactly the same fundamental position is to be found in theCatechetical Homilies of Cyril of Jerusalem which pre-date thesophisticated Eunomian developments of Arianism So basicallythe same understanding of Gods nature is found in a totally difference context32 The mystery of God is deeply engrained in the liturgical traditionsof the East It was to the context of worship that many of theorthodox opponents of Eunomius appealed and not only in thecourse of this particular controversy It was fundamental to theirthinking about the divine nature3 Though couched in apparently philosophical terms this understanding of God is profoundly true to the instinct of the Psalms

and is constantly backed up by reference to the scriptures TheFathers learned from the Bible that you do not worship God bydepicting him directly but by reviewing his saving acts

Let us pursue each of these points in more detail

1 The same fundamental position is to be found in the CatecheticalHomilies of Cyril of Jerusalem that is at an earlier date and in adifferent context

It was round about 350 AD that Cyril as bishop of Jerusalemgave his series of lectures during Lent to prepare candidates forbaptism They are our earliest surviving collection of catecheticalhomilies and have particular interest in that they show what aChurch leader of the time thought a new Christian ought to graspabout his faith They are an introduction to fundamental theologicalprinciples with no compromise and no patronising of the simple-minded it was necessary to arm the committed Christian againstthe dangers of a culture with polytheistic and superstitious assumptions and against the plausible rival churches whose chief fault

consisted in false ideas about GodWhat we say about God Cyril suggests4 is not what should besaid mdash for that is only known to him what we say is only whathuman nature takes in and what we expound is not what God isbut the fact that we have no sure knowledge about him mdash that is

3 In fact the seeds of this position can be traced in the Apologists See GLPrestige God in Patristic Thought (London 1936) p3 for examples illustrating their assertion of Gods transcendence and p56 for their view thatGod is known through his creation A Cat Orat vi text in Migne PG 33 331-1059 selections translated inLCC vol iv complete in ET in LNPF vol vii




to say our chief theological knowledge is confession that we havenone Seek not that which is too difficult for you commentsCyril quoting Ben Sira and that which is too big for you do notenquire into (Ecclus 3219830852)

But Cyril then faces an objection if God is incomprehensiblethere is no point in further theological discourse But Cyril has areply he points out that even if it is impossible to gaze directly atthe sun we can glance at it and experience its benefits and he alsostresses that the aim of theology is to praise and glorify our Makernot expound his nature It may be inevitable that our praise andglory will fall short but it is at least our duty to make the attempt After all no man has seen God at any time For our religious lifeit is sufficient to know that we have a God that we have oneGod a God who is existing eternally and even self983085existent with

none to compare with him Being one and the same he is thesource of countless divine activities and may therefore be known by many names and descriptions here Cyrils discussion highlightsGods goodness righteousness power wisdom lovingkindnessforeknowledge and providence holiness and omnipresence Yetscripture itself indicates that while something is known of Godsactivities his shape and form is inexpressible in art language orimagination and if it is impossible to picture what he is like shallthought come near to envisaging his essential being Proposed pic-

tures of God Cyril finds wanting is God fire he asks Does hehave wings mdash after all he says Psalm 17 speaks of being hiddenunder the shadow of his wings and our Lord Jesus Christ spoke ofgathering the children of Jerusalem together like a hen gatheringher chicks under her wings Yet surely this must be understood ashuman language for Gods protecting power To limit God in any way by conceiving him in bodily terms is blasphemous he is all983085seeing all983085good all983085loving and not confined in any space He is thefountain of every good abundant and unfailing a river of blessings

an eternal light of never983085failing splendour whose very name wedare not hear Cyril knows the ancient tradition that the Hebrewname of God is never to be pronounced According to Job Cyrilnotes even Gods works are incomprehensible Paul affirms thateye has not seen and ear has not heard nor has it entered theheart of man what God has prepared for those that love him (ICor 29) If the things which God has prepared are incompre-hensible to our thoughts how can we comprehend the one whohas prepared them Ό the depth of the riches the wisdom the

knowledge of God How unsearchable are his judgements and his ways past finding out (Rom 1133) If his judgements are incom-prehensible can he be comprehended himself




In a later lecture5 Cyril develops the main thrust of his positionTo look upon God with the eyes of the flesh is impossible forGod is without body and the incorporeal is not subject to bodilysight What prophets and visionaries like Ezekiel saw was not Godhimself but the likeness of his glory (Ezek 128) No man cansee God and live (Exod 3320) That is why God spread out theheaven as a veil over his proper Godhead mdash it was an act of loving-kindness Yet like Basil later Cyril is certain that even though it isimpossible to see the divine nature some conception of the divinepower can be attained from the works which are his divine handiwork It is because God is the Maker of heaven and earth that wecan come to some understanding of his nature Cyril is moved todescribe the wonders of the heavens and the earth they call foradmiration The Maker of such things is to be glorified From the

greatness and beauty of creatures their Maker may be seen in proportion comments Cyril quoting the Wisdom of Solomon (135)and bending the knee with godly reverence to the Maker of theworlds you may with a grateful and holy tongue with unweariedlips and heart praise God and say How wonderful are thy worksO Lord in wisdom hast thou made them all (Ps 10424)

Such is Cyrils exposition of the nature of God and its contextits fundamental basis and its principal source are highly significant(i) The context In the same homilies Cyril stresses the madness

of idolatry and heresy When contrasted with polytheism anthropomorphism and various kinds of dualism the transcendent butcreating God of Cyril is presented strikingly as the only God worthworshipping It did not need the Eunomian controversy to pushChristian theology into acknowledging the mystery of Godsessential Being It was fundamental to the Churchs awareness ofits central and distinctive theological view to recognise that only inhis activities is God discerned and even then only partially(ii) The fundamental basis At its heart Cyrils discussion is not

theoretical or philosophical The thrust of his argument derivesfrom his perception of the close interrelationship of an adequateconcept of God and proper worship He here anticipates a pointnoticed in Basils exposition which we still have to pursue(iii) The principal source Cyril appeals to scripture to substantiatehis claim The Bible is the source of reflection about God and hisnature Insofar as abstract or philosophical terms are used theyare merely convenient shorthand for key elements in the scripturesThis too we shall explore further

5 Cat Orat ix




2 The mystery of God is deeply engrained in the liturgical traditions of the East and it is to the context of worship that theFathers constantly appeal

Proper worship depends on an adequate concept of God an

inadequate concept of God is just plain blasphemy We have observed the importance of worship as the basis of theologicalthinking for both Cyril and Basil For Basil it was not simply animportant element in his opposition to Eunomius it informedmuch else in his theology

Probably a year or so before the letter already referred to Basilhad written a major treatise also for Amphilochius on the natureof the Holy Spirit6 People had objected to the form of the Doxol-ogy which praised the Father with the Son together with the Holy

Ghost it was more proper they argued to say through the Son inthe Holy Ghost This apparently minor verbal detail actuallycarried with it enormous theological implications mdash was it properthat all three Persons of the Trinity should be ranked alongsideeach other in worship Was not a hierarchical understanding oftheir relationship more appropriate and more traditional Basilstreatise contains a number of very significant points for our studyincluding a marked emphasis on theological arguments drawn fromthe experience of worship Tf you remain outside the Spirit saysBasil you will not even be able to worship at all and when youcome to be in him no way will you be able to separate him fromGod7

In the bulk of the treatise Basil is concerned to show that thecharacteristics of the Holy Spirit are those proper to God It isimpossible to think of the Spirits nature as confined or circumscribed in space or time it is full self-sufficient overflowing ingoodness filling all things with its power In essence it is simplein powers various it is wholly present in each and yet whollyeverywhere The Spirit is experienced through its activities its

blessings its sanctifying and illuminating power but by nature itis unapproachable incorporeal purely immaterial indivisiblebeyond change or passion apprehended only by its goodness8like the Father the Spirit is holy good righteous royal true andwise known through the gifts bestowed on us and all creationthough unapproachable in thought9 So shall we not highly exalt

6 De Spiritu Soneto Text in Sources Chreacutetiennes ed Β Pruche (Paris1947) ET in LNPF volviii

7 De Spiritu Sancto 648 De Spiritu Sancto 229 De Spiritu Sancto 48




one who is in his nature divine in his greatness infinite in hisoperations powerful in the blessings he confers good Shall wenot give him glory by recounting all the wonders which stemfrom him10 Thus the same distinction between knowing theessential divine nature and knowing something of it by its activitiesis being used and it is used in a context in which the emphasis isupon the fact that proper worship is the key to proper understanding of the divine nature Not for nothing does the treatiserevolve around the right form of doxology

Basils debate with Eunomius had begun ten years previouslybut controversies over Trinitarianism were not always in the forefront of his theological work Sometime in the intervening yearsbefore he became bishop of Caesarea Basil had preached a seriesof sermons on the six days of creation11 Here again worship appears to be the motive of what he had to say about the divinenature Let us glorify the supreme craftsman for all that waswisely and skilfully made he says By the beauty of visible thingslet us raise ourselves to him who is above all beauty by the grandeur of physical entities known through the senses and hmited intheir nature let us conceive of the infinite Being whose immensityand omnipotence surpasses all efforts of the imagination912 Thetranscendence of God was not for Basil simply a controversial pointIf we are penetrated by these truths he says after much descrip

tion of the wonders of creation we shall know ourselves we shallknow God we shall adore our Creator we shall serve our Masterwe shall glorify our Father we shall come to our sustainer weshall bless our benefactor we shall not cease to honour the Kingof our present and future life who by the riches that he showerson us in this world makes us believe his promises13 Yet thewhole universe says Basil cannot give us a right idea of Godsgreatness it is only by signs weak and slight in themselves thatwe raise ourselves to him Content with this let us offer thanks14

Thus it did not need the Eunomian controversy to push Basilinto his particular account of what God is like The perceptionthat we know God in his activities but not in his essential Beingwent far deeper than its use as a controversial argument againstEunomius might at first suggest It was grounded in the experience

10 De Spiritu Sancto 5411 In Hexaemeron Text in Sources Chreacutetiennes ed S Giet (Paris 1949)

ET in LNPF volviii12 In Hexae meron 11113 In Hexaemeron VI 114 In Hexaemeron VI11




and practice of proper worship At a later stage we shall look intothe language of the Eastern liturgies and see how this proper worship expressed in practice

3 The Fathers learned from the Bible that you do not worship

God by depicting him directly but by reviewing his saving actsIt should have been noticeable how much Cyril of Jerusalem

and Basil himself quoted or alluded to key Biblical texts No manhas seen God at any time (Jn 118) we know in part (I Cor 1312)Ezekiel saw only the likeness of his glory9 (Ezekiel 128) no mancan see God and live (Exod 3320) from the greatness and beautyof creatures their Maker may be seen in proportion (Wisdom 135)These are but a few of the sample of texts I happen to have mentioned in summarising the arguments offered by Basil and CyrilNeedless to say they are the most obvious and include favouritesused by many of the Greek Fathers in their discussion of theseissues They genuinely believed that the Bible taught that God inhis essential Being was a mystery though known through hisworks

I was first alerted to the importance of scripture in this contextnot by Cyril or Basil but by the Homilies of ChrysostomZte Incom-

prehensibilite Dei16 sermons preached to guard his flocks fromthe dangers of Eunomianism Chrysostoms argument begins from

I Cor 13 we know in part we see in a glass darkly Knowledge islimited he says I know that God is present everywhere and thathe is without beginning and eternal but how I know not Reasoncannot know how Gods Being is Indeed the prophets appear ignorant not merely of what his Being is but even how great his wisdomis Appeal to Psalm 139 takes over your knowledge is too wonderful for me (v6) I praise you for you are fearfully wonderful (v14)Chrysostom draws a picture of the Psalmist looking down from acliff-top onto the boundless and vast ocean of Gods wisdom and

going dizzy with vertigo that is the experience which draws suchexclamations from him Gods wisdom overpowers him he cannotattain unto it It is as if the Psalmist said I give thanks to youbecause I have a Lord who is incomprehensible If I go up toheaven you are there if I go down to hell you are there ThePsalmist is at a loss to understand confused and dizzy

And yet the Psalmist also says You have shown me the hiddensecrets of your wisdom (Ps 508 LXX) but though knowingthese secrets he still says of him that he is unapproachable and

15 Text in Sources Chreacutetiennes ed A M Malingrey (Parle 1970) with French




incomprehensible Great is the Lord he saysand great his powerand his understanding is beyond measure (Ps 1475) And Isaiahasks Who could tell his generation (Isaiah 538) And Paul saysWe know in part We know nothing of his essential being con-cludes Chrysostom though we do know something of the wisdom

revealed in providence Chrysostom then explores Pauls treatmentin Romans of Gods providential acceptance of the Gentiles andends up with the favourite text O the depth of the riches of the

wisdom and knowledge of God his judgements are unsearchablehis ways past finding out So he concludes even Gods providentialactivities are only partially discernible furthermore the heart ofman has not conceived what God has prepared for those who lovehim (I Cor 29) His peace passes all understanding (Phil 47) Hisgrace is inexpressible (II Cor 915) If all this is so if his judgements

are past finding out his ways untraceable his peace beyond under-standing his grace indescribable if what God has prepared forthose who love him has not entered the heart of man if his great-ness has no limit and his intelligence no measure if everything is beyond our grasp can God himself be comprehensible asksChrysostom We know in part not his essential Being but hisoikonomia his providential outreach to his creatures That heforeknows and contains and governs all things down to the smallestdetail we know but the way in which he does this we do not

knowIn this Homily 16

what we have been observing is a remarkablysensitive appeal to scripture True certain non983085scriptural philo-sophicalmiddot terms like akataleptos (incomprehensible) are introducedinto the exegetical process Yet it is hard to deny that this is a valid reading of the intent of the scriptural texts to which appeal ismade mdash their aim was to evoke wonder and worship Furthermorescripture is full of warnings about pride and deliberately contraststhe eternal power of God with the creaturely weakness of man

made of dust Who is man to answer God back This element inscripture Chrysostom exploits elsewhere in these homilies Indeedthe whole series of homilies is in many ways a collage of scripturaltexts drawn particularly from Genesis the Psalms the prophetsJob and Paul So what I want to suggest is that what we find hereis not the result of a somewhat artificial attempt at marrying philo-sophical and Biblical theology rather scripture was in fact theimpetus for the concept of God we have been exploring I believeit has been demonstrated that the idea of Gods incomprehensibility

16 Horn ι




and indeed infinity went beyond the mainsteam Platonic traditionand entered Christian Platonism from Jewish and Gnosticsources17 Now I would add that the doctrine that God is anultimate mystery yet known partially through his works or activities is not the result of desperate endeavours to integrate theliving God of the Bible with the abstraction of the philosophersbut rather a deeply engrained instinct of the Judaeo-Christiantradition which was dressed in philosophical language and bysome sophisticated early Christian thinkers developed in a moreexplicitly philosophical direction under the pressures of contemporary intellectual needs

Within scripture itself the Psalms in particular exploit the indirecttechnique for the most part there is no attempt to describe Godin himself rather he is worshipped by allusion to his works what

he has created commanded done for his people This techniqueof reviewing the works of creation so as to convey the goodnessand greatness of the creator is adopted by the Fathers It is beautifully evident throughout Basils Hexaemeron Similarly the goodness and love of God is depicted by Chrysostom through telling ofhis providential and saving activity Interestingly enough this isparticularly apparent in his Homilies on the Psalms The Homilyon Ps 9 is a good example18 God is worshipped in song and celebration it is impossible to see him mdash so the prophet composes

songs communicating with him through the songs kindling hisown desire seeming to see him and even through singing songsand hymns kindling the desire of many others The Psalmist is likea lover for lovers are always like this mdash singing love-songs whenthey cannot see the loved one Praise comes from thinking thethings of God mdash his wonders what happens day by day to individuals and to people in general the marvels of creation The worshipper gets his materials from everything mdash heaven earth airbeasts seeds plants the law grace mdash there is a whole sea of

blessings to be told Gods goodness his philanthropie (love tomankind) his great salvation is the source of rejoicing Throughout

17 Some discussion of this will be found in my paper The God of the Greeksand the Nature of Religious Language in Early Christian Literature and the Classical Intellectual Tradition In honorem RM Grant Ed WRSchoedel and RL Wilken (Paris 1979) reference to scholarly discussionsof this matter will be found there NB also RM Grant The EarlyChristian Doctrine of God (University of Virginia Press 1966) and TheDoctrine of God in Early Christian Thought in Studia Evangelica 557-68he shows that philosophical theology is rooted in the New Testament itself

and that the fundamental emphasis of the early Christian thinkers wasupon the transcendence of God whether philosophically expressed anddeveloped or not18Mi P G 55 121 140




this Homily we can observe at work the fundamental principleoutlined praise requires elusiveness indirectness focussing not onGod himself who is beyond our perception but on the evidencesof his loving activities This point is quite explicit in the Homilyon Ps 4219 The image of the lover drooling over anything con

nected with the absent loved one is beautifully exploited so theworshipper loves God whom he cannot see by contemplating hiscreation and by associating with Gods dear ones those saintswho are close to him Here Chrysostom dwells on the beautygreatness and goodness of God while evoking a sense of theirelusiveness he stresses that there is so much goodness evidenced increation in peoples lives in Gods great saving acts that we canlove God even though we cannot conceive him In the process heemploys over thirty scriptural texts but even more significant is

the way in which the spirit of scripture is captured Chrysostomsawareness that God is to be celebrated not by direct descriptionbut by reviewing his saving acts came not from philosophicalreasoning but from his wide knowledge of the Bible

So the reaction to Eunomianism I suggest was not merelytheoretical nor was it just a convenient controversial platform Itwas deeply engrained in the Judaeo-Christian traditon it wasbased on scripture it arose out of worship The mystery of Godthey thought is not to be domesticated the goodness of God is to

be celebrated Though couched in philosophical terminology theunderstanding of God so neatly summarised in Basils letter wasfundamentally scriptural and in particular profoundly true to theinstinct of the Psalms

So far we have observed that the Greek Fathers were profoundlyanxiousmiddot to offer God fitting worship while having a deeply engrained chariness of trying to describe the essential nature of God

How then were they to express their worship How were they tothink and speak of GodOne answer we have already explored they spoke of him

indirectly by describing his activities But let us pursue this furtherwhat epithets did they use of God in worship How did theyaddress him How did they think of him How did they arrive atdescriptions of him who was indescribable

The earliest liturgy we have dating from approximately thetime of Basil and probably originating in Syria is to be found in

19MignaPG 55155-167




the Apostolic Constitutions 20

In the very first prayer God is described as good and loving towards humanity (philanthropos)these epithets each appear in the liturgy several times more alongwith merciful kindly (eumeneumls) and gracious (hiacuteleos) God is thekind of God who can be expected to hearken to the petitions of

his worshippers Yet he is also the pantocrator the AlmightyRuler the Lord the Creator and Prince of all It is as Sovereignthe highest and most powerful Lord of everything that God ischiefly addressed It is because he is pantokrator (the word occursnine times in the liturgy) that his answers to prayer will be powerful and effective He is the ultimate patron of the weak theirguardian and champion a hedge of safety He is thus God andSaviour God is worth praying to and worshipping precisely becausehe transcends earthly patrons by not being given to favouritism or

susceptible to bribes or easily deceived (aprosopoleumlptos apros- charistos aparalogistos) The use of negative epithets oftenassociated with the tradition of the philosophical via negativa hasto be seen in this overall context God is worth addressing inprayer and praise because he is not limited by time or origin nor ishis being power or authority derivative (agennetos anarchos

abasileutos adespotos) furthermore he is anendeeumls mdash not lackingin anything The eternal one who is unapproachable (aprositos)who really exists as God (ho ontos δη theos)

9 who is the supplier

(chorecircgosr) of everything good who is the fount of knowledge andsource of wisdom while himself being beyond all reckoning theone who brings everything into being and oversees everything inhis providence that is the God to be praised the God to whom itis worth offering sacrifices and petitions So the liturgy culminatesin a great prayer of address which is both affirmative and negativephilosophical and Biblical in its thrustGod Almighty the true and incomparable one who is everywhereand present to everyone yet not contained by anyone or anything

who is not spatially circumscribed nor aging with time nor curtailed by the passing of ages who is not taken in by words whosebeing is not created nor in need of protection but beyond dissolution not susceptible to change but unchangeable in naturewho dwells in unapproachable light by nature invisible yet knownto all rational beings who seek you with good intent indeed comprehended by those who seek you with good intent God of Israelof your own people who discern the truth by believing in Christbe kindly disposed hear and bless grant the petitions of their

hearts20 The text of the liturgies referred to in this paper will be found in FE

Brightman Lit i Ea t and W t (O f d 1896)




Now the important thing to notice about this liturgy is that ittakes the most valued human characteristics as conceived withinthe particular social and cultural framework of the early Byzantineworld and sees them transcended and perfected in God In this

period society depended upon the patronage system

21

friendsrecommending friends the unfortunate befriended by the fortunate mdash it was not what you knew but who you knew that matteredThe supreme human patron was the Emperor who as Gods representative ruled all the earth mdash or at least so it seemed to his subjectsand the good emperor in the current idealism of the time was alover of humanity the friend of the needy the righter of wrongsthe merciful just incorruptible ruler22 The whole thrust of thisliturgy is to see God in similar terms with all human weaknessesovercome mdash transcience and mutability spatial and temporallimitation shortage of supplies nepotism and all God is approachedas the ideal pantocrator who holds everything in his hands He isknown through his power and his mercies his providential activitiesSo here his acts of creation and salvation are celebrated Yet hehimself remains in many ways a mysterious transcendent Being

We also have liturgies handed down under the names of Basiland Chrysostom23 In each case we have good reason for believingthat they made significant contributions to liturgical developmentbut to what extent these liturgies which are still in use in theOrthodox Churches actually go back to Basil and Chrysostom is amuch-discussed question We will assume here that they may beused to discern the kind of worship-dimension their theologicalwork would have had Compared with the liturgy already exam-

21 On patronage seeraquo AHM Jones The Later Roman Empire (Oxford 1964)284-602 JHWG Liebeschutz A ntioch City and Imperial Administrationin the Later Roman Empire (Oxford 1972) AR Hands Charities andSocial Aid in Greece and Rome (London 1968) and P Brown The Riseand Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity Journal of RomanStudies 61 (1971) 80-10122 For the ideology of the King-Emperor see HA Drake In Praise of Con- stantine A historical study and new translation of Eusedius TricennialOrations (Berkeley 1976) A useful bibliography will be found in thisvolume

23 The Liturgy of St Basil is used in the Eastern Church on certain specialdays of the ecclesiastical year The earliest manuscript dates from theNinth Century Since then considerable modification can be documentedThe discussion here is based on the Ninth Century version It is likely thatits general structure does go back to Basil himself For a recent discussionsee E Capelte Les liturgies basiliennes et Scasile in J Doresse and ELanne Un Teacutemoin archaiumlque de la liturgie copte de SBasile (Louvain

1960) The Liturgy of St Chrysostom is the one in regular use in theEastern Church The earlier Ninth Century version is the one used here Itoverlaps considerably with that of St Basil but its connections withChrysostom are generally regarded as very tenuous




ined the striking thing is the increase in concentration on thegoodness and philanthropia of God In Basils liturgy these ideasor epithets of God related to them occur fifteen times in addition

-God is described as merciful or full of pity9 twelve times and he

is repeatedly referred to as the one who saves

9

the one who giveswisdom9 brings to repetence9 leads to life and salvation blesseswith revelation and knowledge of truth He is the God of hope ahelp for the helpless hope for the hopeless saviour of the tempest-tossed harbour for the sailor doctor for the sick He is the Fatherof mercies and God of all comfort The parallel liturgy of Chrysostom is marked by the same characteristics in the sections peculiarto Chrysostom the word philanthrocircpos alone appears eight timesOf course Gods almighty power and transcendence also appear inthese liturgies his power is unequalled his glory incomprehensiblehis mercy immeasurable his love for humanity inexpressible he isthe holy one worshipped by angels and heavenly powers he ismaster of all Lord of heaven and earth and all creation who sitson a throne of glory he is without beginning unseen incomprehensible unconfined unchangeable mdash the negative attributes arepiled up But this transcendence greatness and holiness belongs toone who oversees everything and in his goodness providentiallydirects the world His power is power for salvation The sameemphasis is found in Chrysostoms liturgy God is inexpressibleunintelligible unseen incomprehensible eternally and ever thesame but praise is offered for his saving acts thanks is given forthe fact that humanity has parrhecircsia (direct access and freedom ofspeech) with the Creator and Lord of all

This emphasis on Gods goodness is characteristic of Basil andChrysostom in their theological works When they thought ofGod it was his overflowing goodness and mercy and love whichthey felt bound to celebrate When Chrysostom lectured to hiscatechumens24 mdash and one of the more interesting recent discoveries in the Patristic field is the text of his lectures mdash it was ofGods philanthropia that he spoke That philanthropia he describes as infinite as overflowing an inexpressible Gods love isbeyond expectation a source of constant wonder He calls theconverts to a life of joy and celebration and the words giftgrace9 goodness9 echo through the text The same is true of mostof the texts we have been considering the first thing the Fathersthought of when worshipping God or thinking of him was his

24 Text in Sources Chreacutetiennes Ed A Wenger (Paris 1957) ET in ACW byPW Harlans (Westminster Maryland)






depict the overflowing goodness and love of God Here the Biblicalprecedents were extremely important and surely they mustremain so for us Yet consciously or unconsciously the Fathersalso used their own conceptions of the ideal human character theideal human relationship as a jumping-off point As cultures andsocieties change so these conceptions change and so must imagesof God Images of God will inevitably be parasitic upon any givenperception of the highest human values and this may well varyfrom person to person as much as from culture to culture

And so to my personal confession although I rarely put thisinto words at the deepest level of my devotional life I experienceGod as husband It is in the marriage relationship that I meet thehighest human values and they reach transcendent proportions inmy conception of how God is in relation to me He allows me tobe an independent self-determining being yet he has made a deepcontribution to what I have become He respects me loves me andsupports me We are totally committed to one another and yetsometimes in tension We live independent lives and yet our livesare inextricably intertwined so that any but temporary parting isunthinkable Sometimes I find it difficult to track him down buthe is never really far away Sometimes it is with criticism that hemeets me sometimes encouragement Yet whatever happens thereis that embrace the self-surrender which is the discovery of total

fulfilment and freedom and there is the ultimate mystery of theOther who is self-revealing only to a partial extent even in theclosest and most intimate relationship It is in this kind of relationship that I am overcome by the deepest joy and thanksgiving andthe only fit expression of this is to write love-songs As a woman Ihave the greatest possible advantage since it is natural for me touse the traditional ie masculine language of my consort

Maybe the Fathers did not quite see their relationship with Godin such terms Yet according to Chrysostom if you remember it

was writing love-songs that the Psalmist was doing and it was to aspiritual marriage that he himself summoned his candidates forbaptism Many more of the Fathers found the erotic language ofthe Song of Songs the natural expression of their devotion In usingsuch language they were unconsciously acknowledging either theirown femininity or God9s Of course they had a very differentideal of marriage one in which the partners were hardly regardedas equals Hence it would be their own femininity rather than thatof the dominant divine partner which was implicitly assumed Yet

the Fathers were always conscious of the analogous character ofthe language they used and with that awareness they were notshy of using female symbols like motherhood to express the over







SYMBOLS AND STEREOTYPES 167

Men9 said Olive Schreiner are like the earth and we are the

moon we turn always one side to them and they think there is noother but there is

9 (The Story of an African Farm ρ 212983085213)

There is indeed as any honest man will admit who has ever beenhit by the negative and not the positive Animus side of a womans

Unconscious (See the gruesome novel on this theme The Case ofMr Crump by Ludwig Lewisohn)

The concept I am here developing requires further elucidationthrough the distinguishing of sign or stereotype symbol andarchetype The first may be exemplied by Ladies

9 or Gentlemen

9

over the lavatory door the second by the White or Black Madonna(symbol of loving mother or devouring witch) the third by theresonance of the primordial image of the Animus reverberatingfrom the Collective Unconscious through symbol and sign which

themselves lose their functioning capacity when severed from thisarchetypal root as happens from time to time in history forexample for many people it is no longer possible to triumph in thesign of the Cross because that particular symbol has for them lostcontact with the archetype that used to nourish it but which hasnow flowed into other channels

Each sex male and female is in actuality the puppet of itsunconscious opposite projected on to another until it is recog-nised and the projection of it withdrawn and integrated into con-

sciousness Then instead of being an intrusive demon the Animus becomes an acceptable and benevolent guide That process I would maintain is the essential first step towards any womenselucidating of her relationship to God

Why this is so requires a brief historical digression Traditionallyand maybe for sound unavoidable biological and psychologicalreasons the roles of women have tended to get stuck in what I

would call the second stage of the evolutionary concept of GodheadThe first was that of Nature983085worship associated with the Mother

Goddess the second with a forking development mdash in the Easttowards stress on Immanence in the West towards Transcendence with the God in the West receiving the projected image of the Animus first fixated on to a human man Hence the slogan Hefor God only mdash she for God in him

9 Women saw God through

their men and men felt earth through their women Since the endof the nineteenth century the world chiefly in its Westernisedsections has been moving into a third stage in which the dichotomyof Immanent983085Transcendent disappears as does also the conflict

between male983085female its place being taken by their complemen-tarity (See Joseph Campbell The Masks of God Creative Myth983085 r

ology ρ 1269830858 Denis de Rougements Passion and Society Esther




Hardinges The Way of AU Women and Anthea Zemans Presump-tuous Girls mdash Women and their World in the serious womansnovel)

Incidentally though surely not accidentally this most recentdevelopment could not have happened without the practice ofreliable birth control

Todays perspective is dominated by the theoretical equal rightsof women mdash even one is tempted to anticipate within the church

by a militant Feminism as opposed to what might be called theLittle Women

9 image but also by a confusion or even perversion

of genuine womanliness by the modern woman becoming either Animus983085ridden or reverting to a kind of sexual infantilism Thisdanger as we shall be seeing she can only avoid to the degree thatshe becomes individuated fulfils her own hypothesis

9 (Jung) as a

person and this involves her respecting even worshipping thatentity in a human being defined by Martin Buber as the redemptivethird

9 in the I983085Thou relationship This process is beautifully illus-

trated by a mediaeval story When Peter Abelard died Peter the Venerable wrote a letter of condolence to Heloise in which heremarked Christ is sheltering him I say in his bosom in yourplace as a second you

9 Translated into humdrum parlance what

Peter was saying is that the enduring essence of their relationshipmdash all that which their body983085egos were seeking in ephemeral union

and which suffered such tragic ruin mdash was intact inviolate in theChristos the timeless still centre of the cosmosThe contemporary situation regarding women was sensationally

heralded by Ibsens The Doll9s House (1879) with Noras procla-

mation that has echoed round the world983085 983085Ί must try and educate myself mdash you are not the man to helpme in this I must do that for myself And that is why I amgoing to leave you now I must stand quite alone if I am tounderstand my self and everything about me

9

Similarly in The Lady from the Sea (1888) Ellida has to cometo terms with the Animus in the shape of the Stranger and herhusband has got to allow this Only then left free to choose be-tween husband and Stranger does she feel able to name her goaland act as a truly independent free human being But it is on thefollowing dream passage from Olive Schreiners Story of an

African Farm that the whole of my argument hingesmdashΊ saw a woman sleeping In her sleep she dreamt life stood

before her and held in each hand a gift mdash in the one Love in

the other Freedom And she said to the woman Choose Andthe woman waited long and she said Freedom9 and life said




Thou hast well chosen If thou hadst said Love I would havegiven Thee that thou didst ask for and I would have gone fromThee and returned no more Now the day will come when Ishall return In that day I shall bear both gifts in one hand Iheard the woman laugh in her sleep

9

Why did she laugh Because of the joy she felt at this gift butalso in rueful recognition that successful fusion of love and free-dom in womans daily life was not going to be all that easy Indeedshe has to earn them by rescuing her womanliness from the jawsof twin dangers either regressive archaism (Little Woman

9) or

aggressive Feminism through being possessed by instead of co-operating with her Animus Her problem is how to be assured ofher freedom as a whole individuated person on equal terms withmen without sacrificing her essential womanliness in the process

and so neglecting her other equally valuable role as the projectionreceiver of mans Anima In her book Knowing Women mdash AFeminine Psychology (Harper Colophon Book) Irene Clarement deCastillijo makes a very clear statement on this ρ oint983085

Ά woman today lives in perpetual conflict She cannot slay thedragon of the Unconscious without severing her own essentialcontact with it without in fact destroying her feminine strengthand becoming a mere pseudoman Her task is a peculiarly difficultone She needs the focussed consciousness her Animus alone

can give her yet she must not forsake her womans role ofmediator to man9

Her skill in solving this problem lies in the outgrowing of herinstinctive and her socially983085conditioned role as nothing but a partof masculine psychology She has the right and the duty to be an

Anima but she also requires meaning in terms of her own develop-ment ie in relationship to that midpoint of personality

9 which

Jung calls the Self with a capital letter or in religious language theGodhead Immanent By developing the capacity to name her goal

she transcends the conflict between herself and the negative Animus and complements it with the positive Woman stand in adangerous rapport to finitude but our human way to the infiniteleads only through finitude fulfilled

9 (Buber) Modern woman ful-

fils her finitude through discovering her Self and by rejecting anystereotypes of her sex which stand in the way of this task

Ibsen summed up this achievement in the following poemmdashThey sat there those two in so snug a housein autumn and in winter days

Then the house burnt

All lies in ruinsThese two must rake in the ashesFar down among them a jewel is hidden




a jewel that can never burnAnd if they search diligently it might perhapsbe found by him or herBut even if this fire-scarred pair ever do find

the precious fire-proogravef jewelshe will never find her burnt faithhe never his burnt happiness9No because both of them (man and woman) must accept the

burnt sacrifice of their body-Egos in order to gain their Selves mdashtheir eternal jewel9 In the case of woman this means her enduringthe journey to her Self through the sacrifice of her instinctive andher negatively Animus-possessed body-Ego



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124

The Facts and Issues in the Changing

Roles and Relationships of Women andMen in Britain Today

BY MRS JANE FINLAY

MAY I BEGIN by explaining to the conference that my remarksbased on the Equal Opportunities Commissions five years experience of the Sex Discrimination Act and on the work the Com

mission has been concerned with in Europe will necessarily beconfined to the secular world but I hope nonetheless that theywill make a useful contribution far the conferences general discussion on womans place in the Christian tradition as it is affectedby greater equality between the sexes

The idea of change carries with it the concomitant idea ofmovement away from long-standing norms and standards and thisalmost inevitably entails resistance and friction as those traditionalstandards are challenged and before new standards are established

So it is with the roles and relationships of women and men inBritain today they are changing and they are challenging Butproblems arise in deciding how to assess these movements andhow to find the appropriate response to them We should adopt anhistorical approach going back in time to identify the norms andstandards which are now being challenged

A thorough examination of the origins of the present divisionof labour between the sexes would be lengthy and complex buta useful starting point is one particular landmark that helped to

create the present position One of the effects of the first Industrial Revolution was to produce a dislocation literally between theplace of residence and the place of work In pre-industrial societieswork was mainly organised around the household but the comingof industrialisation disrupted that pattern and split workplace andhome in a way which made it virtually inevitable that womenwho had traditionally carried the main burden of child-bearing andhome-making were in general confined to the home while mentook on the role of sole breadwinner This dislocation between

workplace and home thus produced a division of labour whichcoincided all too readily with the distinction between the sexes
























































































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