Surpassing Gender
The Cappadocian fathers, including Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa believed that the soul was without sex. Male and female were only human categories, part of the animal nature of humanity. Both women and men were made in the image of God. Therefore, they both shared in the possession of the rational aspect of God.
While Augustine and Ambrose believed that women were created for procreation, Gregory of Nyssa believed that gender was created for procreation. Though Adam and Eve were created male and female, he wrote that “the differentiation of the original human nature into two distinct sexes became active only when Adam’s disobedient act of will brought upon him the loss of immortality.” Gender was instated at the fall, and therefore nonessential to human nature.
Gregory understood humanity as being caught between the glory of Adam and the future restoration of that glory. For him, gender existed only as a temporary measure, created in order for the human race to provide progeny. However, a Christian’s goal was to return to the original purity. This is not to be taken as a condemnation of marriage, gender, or sexuality, but recognition of them as only temporal. It was not necessary for women to undergo gender transformation, but for both sexes to surpass their gender. Early Christians waited for the day when their bodies would be transformed at the resurrection and acknowledged that at that time they would be like the angels, neither male nor female and not being given in marriage.
— Erin Kidd, “The Virgin Desert: Gender Transformation in Fourth Century Asceticism” [See also Gregory of Nyssa on calling God 'mother']
24 June 2007 |
Comments (2)
Tags: Gender, Patristics
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Yikes. That seems a little close to a gnostic denial of the goodness of the body to me. I’m not sure where we would get the notion that “gender was instated at the fall” if we were giving Genesis a fair shake. Furthermore, by making gender and procreation post-lapsarian, Gregory connects sex more essentially with sin than anything Augustine ever did (the question of relative misogyny aside).
I agree with Spencer here.
I don’t think the idea of being unmarried in the next life should assume androgynous/bodiless beings. If I happen to have memory after death, I hope that I do not have to leave behind my former identity as a woman. Well maybe I will have to…there’s no back-talking God.