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Journal of Early Christian Studies 9:2, 205249 2001 The Johns Hopkins University Press
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1. See Kari Elisabeth Brresen, Gods Image, Mans Image? Patristic Interpretation
of Gen. 1,27 and 1 Cor. 11,7, in Image of God and Gender Models in JudaeoChristian Tradition, ed. K. E. Brresen (Oslo: Solum Forlag, 1991), 19294, and texts
cited there. See also David G. Hunters excellent article, The Paradise of Patriarchy:
Ambrosiaster on Woman as (Not) Gods Image, JTS n.s. 43 (1992): 44769. He
demonstrates that the anonymous writers views are not typical of the patriarchal or
misogynist attitudes of his time as one might suppose, but rather a closer scrutiny
of western and eastern interpreters, both prior to and contemporaneous with
Ambrosiaster, will show that his interpretation of the image texts is virtually unique
in its characterization of womens status (455).
2. On Female Dress 1.1.2 (SC 173:44). See Elizabeth Clark, Ascetic Piety and
Womens Faith: Essays in Late Ancient Christianity (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press,
1986), 2526. For a signicant attempt to place this text in a broader context and
present Tertullians views of women in a more positive light, see Daniel F. Hoffman,
The Status of Women and Gnosticism in Irenaeus and Tertullian (Lewiston: Edwin
Mellen Press, 1995), 145207.
3. CCL 1:39394.
207
208
209
210
211
14. For further examples of nyrvpow, see Palladius, Lausiac History 9, ed.
Robinson, TSt 6 (1904): 29; idem, Dialogue 16, 17 (SC 341:31820, 344); Basil of
Caesarea, First Homily on the Creation of Humanity (SC 160:21216); and analysis
of the words meaning in these texts in my review of Gillian Cloke, This Female Man
of God: Women and Spiritual Power in the Patristic Age, AD 350450 (London:
Routledge, 1995), in JTS n.s. 48 (1997): 694700.
15. McLeod, Image of God, 2224, completely misses this fragments citation of
the Hebrew and mistranslates the text accordingly. However, he recognizes a parallel
between Antiochene and rabbinic exegesis and suggests possible Jewish inuence on
the Antiochene fathers (16). Diodores fragment strongly corroborates this possibility.
16. SC 160:18694. For Origen, see Crouzel, Thologie de limage, 197206.
17. See texts in Louis Maris, ed., Extraits du commentaire de Diodore de Tarse
sur les Psaumes. Preface du commentairePrologue du Psaume CXVIII, Recherches
de science rligieuse 9 (1919): 79101; with English translation in Karlfried Froehlich, Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984),
8294.
212
213
In this passage, Theodore takes care to show that woman is similar and
equal to man and of the same nature even though she is created after him
and as his helper. He immediately draws the conclusion that she is equal
to him in soul and has the same capacity for holiness, good works, and
ascetic struggle:
Moreover, the words let us make have likewise been placed here, since
instruction is also necessary for the female, who indeed ought to be in no
way inferior to the male in the teachings and principles of piety, as also the
blessed Paul says, except there is neither man without woman, nor woman
without man in the Lord [1 Cor 11.11]. For though indeed in bodily
things the female is in some sense secondary, in regard to the soul she is
likewise immortal and rational, in no way inferior to the male. She labors
equally in works of piety, and in the struggles for uprightness presented [to
us] she is alike beneted.24
Signicantly, the Antiochene shares the idea that men and women are
alike in soul though different in body and that, accordingly, they have the
same moral and spiritual capacities and tasks and the same ultimate
21. Anciens commentateurs grecs de lOctateuque, RB 45 (1936): 36484.
These texts and other related ones are again published with useful commentary in
Robert Devresse, Essai sur Thodore de Mopsueste (Rome: Biblioteca apostolica
vaticana, 1948), 1223, which we will cite.
22. Devresse, Essai, 15 n. 2.
23. Ibid., 18 n. 1.
24. Ibid.
214
215
true for every human being, thus clearly expressing a creationist theory of
the souls origin.28 Further, he holds that this is also true of the nonrational
animals.29 Presumably God implants a soul in each child as its body is
generated by its parents. This theory accords well with Theodores belief
that men and women are alike and equal in their souls, since the soul of
each is created directly by God in the same way. His belief in womans
secondary bodily status corresponds to his assertion that Eves body is
derived from the side of Adams body.
Theodores comment on Gen 2.23 expresses his strong sense of the
unity between husband and wife in marriage:
The name of woman is a manifestation of the conjunction and marital
union, through which they are intertwined with each other and united with
each other in one esh. But also if the name is common it is no wonder that
everything else is; for she has come into being of such a nature for this
[purpose]; a common name comes into being appropriately for those who
have the same nature.30
Here the ecstasy must refer to Adams sleep during the creation of Eve.
These fragments show that, like Diodore, Theodore has a positive view of
marriage and regards it as central to the human condition. Accordingly,
he afrms the unity, equality, and consubstantiality of husband and wife.
However, in accord with the story in Gen 2 and the structures of late
antique society, this is clearly an asymmetrical and androcentric conception of marriage, and Theodore even says that woman came into existence for the purpose of being a wife. Elsewhere he asserts that God rejects
Adams excuse that Eve gave him the fruit because the woman has been
given that you should command her, not that you should consult her and
28. According to the creationist theory, God creates each soul directly and implants
it into the body when the latter comes to exist through procreation. An alternative
view, which Theodore would not accept, is the traducianist theory, in which the
childs soul as well as its body derives from the parents.
29. Devresse, Essai, 19 n. 3.
30. Ibid., 20 n. 1.
31. Ibid.
216
217
218
If the luminaries have authority, this suggests that Theodore may share
the belief of Origen and many others in antiquity that the stars are living,
rational beings.40
In this passage Theodore argues strongly that the image cannot consist
in authority, though we have seen that in the fragment on 1 Cor 11.7 he
does identify it with authority, as Diodore does, and thus excludes woman
from it. How can we account for this apparent inconsistency? We could
suggest that he is not a systematic thinker but an interpreter who follows
the biblical texts he studies, thus saying different things in different exegetical contexts. However, sometimes scholars content themselves with
37. PG 80:112A.
38. PG 80:112B.
39. PG 80:112C113A.
40. See Alan Scott, Origen and the Life of the Stars: A History of an Idea (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1991).
219
This passage refers to the Roman practice of placing statues of the emperor throughout the empire. In his absence his image would be honored
as if it were the emperor himself. One recalls how John Chrysostom
intervened in a civic crisis that arose when protesters publicly dishonored
the emperors statues at Antioch and the whole city was threatened with
punishment for treason.44 According to Theodore, God establishes the
human being as his representative in the created world, so that all created
beings, angels as well as animals, would honor and obey him as a way of
serving God, just as loyal Romans honor the emperors statue. Yet if God,
unlike the emperor, is present everywhere, why does he need a human
representation to focus his creatures reverence for him? Theodores answer is that the human being is visible while God is invisible:
Every image, while itself seen, points to what is not seen. So it cannot
happen that an image is made which is such as not to be seen. For it is
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plain that this is the reason why it is customary to make images among
those who make them for the sake of honor or affectionso that there is
a resemblance of those who are not seen.45
45. On the Epistle to the Colossians 1.15 (H. B. Swete, ed., Theodori Episcopi
Mopsuesteni in Epistolas B. Pauli Commentarii, 2 vols. [Cambridge: University Press,
188082], 1:26263; tr. Norris, Manhood and Christ, 140).
46. McLeod, Image of God, stresses the important point that the divine images
visibility indicates that it must be located in the body as well as the soul.
47. Richard A. Norris, Jr., The Problem of Human Identity in Patristic Christological
Speculation, SP 17.1 (1993): 14759, 156.
48. Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 38.11 (SC 358:12426); Gregory of Nyssa, On
the Soul and the Resurrection (PG 46:28BC).
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222
beings to himself. He envisages Adams identity and with it the imago Dei
primarily as kingship, a role that Eve and other women presumably
cannot share.51
Signicantly, as Rowan Greer and Richard Norris observe, the concept
of divinization in the sense of human participation in God has no place in
Theodores theology.52 However, Nabil El-Khoury explains that Theodore
does have a concept of divinization, which he understands as meaning
sinlessness and immortality in the age to come. It also involves an indissoluble union between soul and body through the resurrection, thus
enabling the redeemed human being to serve effectively and permanently
as sndesmow and microcosm, thereby drawing all creatures into a cosmic
unity.53 Here again, this entails an ontological communion of the human
with other created beings, not with God. Theodore appears to have
redened divinization, which in his time is a traditional Greek patristic
term, within his own theological framework.54
To be sure, Theodore believes that Adam failed in his royal task, but
51. McLeod, Image of God, believes that, whereas Diodore, Chrysostom, and
Theodoret identify the human imago Dei as (male) authority, Theodore rejects this
idea and substitutes his idea of the image as the connecting link of the universe whose
role is primarily revelatory and cultic, and thus priestly. In my view this thesis
overlooks the fact that, when angels and earthly creatures honor God by revering and
serving his human image, this mediation is constituted as a relationship of authority
and obedience.
He suggests, probably rightly, that the assumed man Jesus is Theodores real
paradigm of the human image of God, and that Adam is a type preguring Jesus, who
alone truly fullls the role of image. In this context, the concept of the human being
as one who is revered and served as Gods visible manifestation becomes more
understandable than if the primary reference is to Adam or the male as such.
52. Rowan Greer, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Exegete and Theologian (London:
Faith Press, 1961), 15: It was Theodores greatest insight to realize the difculties
involved in this notion of redemption as divinization. Greer does not explain what
these apparent difculties are. One could equally suggest that the impenetrable wall
between divine and human is the fundamental problem with Theodores theology.
One of the primary consequences of such a wall is to make any genuine divinization
impossible. Norris, Manhood and Christ, 169, makes a similar point that there is no
trace in his thought of the idea that salvation consists in divinization, and hence
that the creaturely nature of man is not compromised. However, the classic Greek
patristic concept of divinization does not in any way compromise human creaturehood.
53. Nabil El-Khoury, Der Mensch als Gleichnis Gottes: Eine Untersuchung zur
Anthropologie des Theodor von Mopsuestia, OrChr 74 (1990): 6271. See Theodores
long fragment on Rom 8.19 in Staab, Pauluskommentare, 13738.
54. Another such redenition occurs in a fragment where Theodore says that
humans are called gods because of their kingship, which manifests an analogue to
the divine activities of ruling and judging. The text appears in Devresse, Essai, 14 n.
2. This is an aspect of the divine likeness, discussed below.
223
Christ completes it, and in the age to come he enables other humans to
share in this mediatorial work through communion with him. More
precisely, this redemptive work is accomplished not by the divine Logos
but by the assumed man conjoined to him in the incarnation. Theodore
explains this to new converts in one of his baptismal catecheses:
You have become the unique body of Christ, since its head is the assumed
man, by whom we have familiarity with the divine naturewe who expect
in the world to come to receive association with it, because we believe that
the body of our humiliation will be transformed and that it will become the
likeness of his glory [Phil 3.21].55
Thus, Christians become ontologically united as one body with the human Christ, and in the next age hope to share with him in the resurrection
of the body together with immortality and sinless obedience to the divine
will. Through communion with the assumed man Jesus, this brings familiarity and association with God, but not participation in the divine nature
in an Alexandrian sense. As a result, the ultimate human vocation of
serving as the cosmic center, connecting link, and mediator of divine rule
will be fullled by the totus Christus, that is, redeemed humankind united
with Jesus as head. The divine image has its eschatological fulllment
primarily in this head, but also in the collective body through union
with him.
As Frederick McLeod recognizes, Theodore emphasizes the communal
dimension of human identity, and for him this unity is actualized differently in the Two Ages. In this sinful and mortal life, Adam is the source
and unier of humankind, whereas in the age to come, and through hope
in the present age, Christ becomes the source of life and unity.56 The
interpreter explains this in his commentary on Gal 3.28:
Adam is the principle of the present life for all. And we are all one human
being by reason of nature, for truly each one of us belongs to this common
group, as if limbs [of a body]; so truly also in the life to come Christ is the
principle, and all we who share with him the resurrection and the
immortality that follows the resurrection become as one toward him, as
each of us belongs to this common group in like manner as a limb [to a
body]. Then, accordingly, neither male nor female is seen, for one neither
55. Catechetical Homilies 9.17 (Raymond Tonneau, ed. and tr., Les Homlies
Catchtiques de Thodore de Mopsueste [Rome: Biblioteca apostolica vaticana,
1949], 24243; tr. Norris, Manhood and Christ, 170). See also the Syriac text with
English translation in A. Mingana, ed. and tr. Commentary of Theodore of Mopsuestia on the Nicene Creed, Woodbrooke Studies 5 (Cambridge: W. Heffer, 1932), 103.
56. See McLeod, Image of God, 21819.
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marries nor is given in marriage; neither Jew nor Greek, for neither is
there a place for circumcision in an immortal nature, that the uncircumcised
might be distinguished from the circumcised; neither slave nor free
person, for all such unevenness has been abolished.57
57. Swete, Pauli Commentarii, 1.57, who has provided the Greek text of this
passage as well as the ancient Latin translation.
58. Clement, Miscellanies 6.100.34 (GCS 154:482); Basil, Homily on Psalm 114
(PG 29:492C); Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 7.23 (PG 35:785C); Gregory of Nyssa,
On Those Who Have Fallen Asleep (Werner Jaeger, ed., Gregorii Nysseni Opera
[Leiden: Brill, 1960], 9:63).
59. McLeods interpretation of this text, in Image of God, 219, as asserting that in
the age to come the gender distinction is still present though it is rendered meaningless
by unity in Christ, is not supported by the text itself or by Theodores agreement with
many other fathers on this point.
225
60. See the extant fragments of treatise On the Incarnation edited in Swete, Pauli
Commentarii, 2:290312, and translated in Richard A. Norris, Jr., ed. and tr. The
Christological Controversy (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980), 11322. See also
Aloys Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition I: From the Apostolic Age to
Chalcedon (451), 2nd ed., tr. John Bowden (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1975), 421
39. A Christology with this structure is already present in Diodore. See Rowan A.
Greer, The Antiochene Christology of Diodore of Tarsus, JTS n.s. 17 (1966): 32741.
226
61. However, Sebastian Brock notes that in the fourth- to sixth-century golden
age of Syriac Christian literature and subsequently, the Syrian Orthodox Church
(Monophysites) and the Church of the East (Nestorians) approached Mary in
the same way and borrowed Marian hymnography from each other, and he observes
that this is surprising for the following reason: Nestorius is well known to all as
having rejected the title of Theotokos, bearer of God, for Mary, and in view of this
one might have expected the East Syrian liturgical texts to be less concerned than their
Syrian Orthodox counterparts with the role of Mary, but this is in fact far from the
case: the general tone of both traditions is very similar. In actual fact, the Christological differences that separate the Syrian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox (Chalcedonian)
Churches and the Church of the East do not appear to have had much effect on their
attitudes to Mary, at least outside technical theological discussions (Introduction to
Jacob of Serug on the Mother of God, tr. Mary Hansbury [Crestwood: St. Vladimirs
Seminary Press, 1998], 2). The writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia considered in this
article are probably the kind of technical discussions Brock has in mind here.
227
Notice that Theodore emphasizes how far the human imitation falls short
of the divine model. This language occurs repeatedly in his discussions of
the human as likeness to God. As Frederick McLeod has observed, the
likeness in this sense is an analogy between human and divine characteristics.63 That is, humans relate to other created beings in ways that mirror
the ways God relates to his creatures, though rather distantly. Again this
concerns modes of connectedness linking the human center to the rest of
the created world. Theodore would not understand the likeness the way
Gregory of Nyssa does, as a human participation in all the divine attributes.64
A subsequent fragment from the same source explains how this likeness
is necessary to the human beings function as cosmic mediator and unier,
and further emphasizes the radical difference between imitation and
Archetype:
That [the human being] himself and all [created beings] on his account
might through the image approach God, who is invisible to all the creation
according to his own essence, and cannot be seen by the creation unless
through some image manifested to allas far as the image which some
painter by his own art makes of a human being would have only the form
of the model, but not the thing in realityGod has made his own image to
have this special [characteristic], giving him even in regard to things proper
[to God] a part of their reality, though the imitations necessarily fall short
of this ineffable essence to the extent that an image normally [falls short] of
the one of whom it bears only an imitation.65
Thus, the human likeness resembles God only in the way that an outline
or shape painted on a canvas resembles the living person depicted there.
Theodore identies four aspects of human likeness to God. They are
described in a series of fragments cited by John Philoponus as identied
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and analyzed by Robert Devresse. The rst is perhaps the most insightful
and rings true in the twenty-rst century. Theodore regards human creativity as a likeness of divine creativity:
The human being creates things that [previously] did not exist, being a
certain imitation of the divine [activity] in this; for indeed a house, and a
ship, and a city, and a wall, and a harbor, and a bench, and a bed, and
everything both small and great that at some time is made, creates what did
not before exist.66
This passage follows another reminder that the human imitation greatly
falls short of the divine. Theodores fragment ends by adding another
tantalizingly brief analogy between divine and human faculties of perception: For we see and hear, as indeed God sees all things and hears all
things.67 This sums up his approach to human modes of likeness to God.
He identies how the imitation resembles the model yet notes the radical
difference. Thus both see and hear, but human perception is limited while
God perceives everything.
The second kind of human likeness to God is an analogy between the
divine innity and omnipresence and the activity of the human mind. As
God is present everywhere, the human mind can traverse heaven and
earth in thought and imagination. The difference is that God is wholly
present in every place simultaneously, whereas our minds move from
place to place, and in this way we are made present only in thought, not in
reality.68 Here again the contrast between the painted outline and the
esh-and-blood model is relevant. The third mode of likeness to God is
human kingship, authority, and judgment, to which Theodore adds the
minds activity of making critical decisions. Clearly this is closely linked
with his understanding of the divine image.69
The fourth mode of likeness is also interesting. Like Augustine, Theodore
nds an analogy to the Trinity in the internal structure of the human soul:
There are two powers of the God and Father, God the Logos and Son and
the Holy Spirit, and they come forth alike but not identically from the
Father. But our soul also has two powers, reason (lgow) and life, according
to which the soul lives itself and gives life to the body.70
66.
67.
68.
69.
70.
Devresse, Essai, 13 n. 4.
Ibid.
Ibid., 14 n. 1.
Ibid., 14 nn. 23.
Ibid., 14 n. 4.
229
71. Though it does not provide additional information on the topic of this essay,
there is an interesting set of Syriac fragments on Gen 3 with French translation in R.
M. Tonneau, Thodore de Mopsueste: Interprtation (du livre) de la Gense (Vat.
Syr. 120, ff. IV), Mus 66 (1953): 4564.
72. Clark, Jerome, Chrysostom, and Friends, 56, notes that John Chrysostom
asserts in his homilies and sermons on Genesis that women can possess the divine
likeness through virtue but lack the divine image, which consists in authority. Despite
scholarly disagreements, this summary of his anthropology appears quite plausible
when his thought is compared to the views of Theodore, his Antiochene friend and
colleague. It makes far less sense if one seeks to understand it in terms of the
standard Orthodox belief that the likeness is an intensication of the image, a
freely chosen and graced actualization of potentials inherent in the image, which it
thus presupposes. On the basis of such assumptions the presence of a human likeness
to God without the image would be ultimately incoherent and thus unthinkable.
230
231
232
In this concept of a single human being divided when Eve is made from
Adams side and reunited in marriage, there is perhaps an echo of the
primordial androgyne described by Aristophanes in Platos Symposium.79
Yet there is also a practical, ethical goal of uniting families and overcoming tension between the sexes through marriage and family affection. It is
signicant that Theodoret acknowledges the existence of such a tension.
The union between husband and wife has a further purpose, namely
procreation. Like many of the ancients, the bishop of Cyrrhus regards the
77. On this topic, see G. W. Ashbys important article, Theodoret of Cyrrhus on
Marriage, Theology 72 (1969): 48291.
78. Natalio Fernndez Marcos and Angel Senz-Badillos, eds., Theodoreti Cyrensis
Quaestiones in Octateuchum: Editio Critica (Madrid: Textos y estudios Cardenal
Cisneros, 1979), 3233.
79. It might also have a Jewish source. For intriguing rabbinic parallels, see
Boyarin, Carnal Israel, 4246.
233
fathers semen as becoming the substance of the childs body while the
mothers womb provides a nurturing environment in which it can grow.80
He envisages God as supervising the whole procreative process.
Theodoret develops these points at greater length in his Remedy for
Greek Illnesses 5.5457. He rst speaks of the marital union and explains
that procreation occurs through that little semen transforming itself into
a thousand forms, and the soul which is then created and bound to the
body, and of course after the childbirth the divine aid [present] to guard
and guide.81 Note that, like Theodore, he clearly holds a creationist
theory of the souls origin. He then afrms that the different races and
ethnic groups all share the same human nature since they are all derived
from a common source. He traces the unity of humankind as such back to
the creation of Eve from Adam:
The author of our creation account has taught that the Creator fashioned
one man from earth and made the woman from his side, [and] from the
union of these [two] he lled the whole world with human beings as their
children and their descendants have in turn increased the [human] race. For
it would have been very easy for him to command and at once ll earth and
sea with inhabitants, but lest one suppose that human beings are different in
nature, he ordered that from that one pair the thousand tribes of humans
come into being.82
80. See Thomas Laqueur, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990), 2562.
81. SC 57.1:243.
82. SC 57.1:244.
83. PG 62:13536.
84. Exgse de Thodoret, 64466.
234
women, since indeed the difference is in the form of the body and not in the
soul.85
85.
86.
87.
88.
SC 57.1:244.
SC 57.1:24445.
PG 82:801C804A.
Marriage, 487.
235
2.15 as referring to all women and adds that they are not harmed by Eve
unless they wish it. That is, they will be punished if they misuse their free
choice as she did hers, not because they share her femaleness as such.
Moreover, according to Theodoret, women are of very great value when
they bear fruit through faith and love and preserve holiness and moderation.89 He has turned the negatively charged language of the epistle into
an occasion to compliment devout and virtuous women.
In the material we have discussed so far, Theodoret follows in the footsteps of his Antiochene predecessors though with a few signicant modications. Yet there are two other important texts where he appears to
take a different tack, though Theodore has hinted at such a development.
He discusses the origin of the gender distinction at some length in a way
that recalls the Cappadocians and, in particular, Gregory of Nyssas famous speculation in the treatise On the Creation of Humanity.90 Theodoret
compares the human creation with the creation of the angels and the
nonrational animals, and, like Theodore, he links the need for gender and
procreation to mortality, but he develops the point further than what we
nd in his predecessors extant fragments. He says God foresaw that the
fall would occur and make humans subject to death, thus entailing their
need for a mode of existence like that of the other animals rather than the
angels. God therefore created them in a way that would enable this need
to be met.
The rst of these passages comes in Questions on Genesis 1.37, where
Theodoret asks himself how a good God could impose such a harsh
punishment for the eating of a small morsel of fruit, not only on Adam
and Eve who sinned but on their descendants, as well. He offers several
responses,91 including this:
The God of all has an immutable nature, and he sees as having already
happened the things that have not yet happened. And at once foreseeing
and foreknowing that Adam would become a mortal through transgression
of the commandment, he prepared his nature for this beforehand, for he
fashioned the form of the body into male and female. Since mortals need
procreation for the continuation of their species, their bodies are fashioned
in this way. The immortal nature does not need the female, and for this
89. PG 82:804A. In his commentary on the same verse, Theodore anticipates much
of what Theodoret says in this passage. See Swete, Pauli Commentarii, 2:9496; and
McLeod, Image of God, 21617.
90. PG 44:188A192A.
91. Ashby summarizes this passage in Theodoret as Exegete, 59.
236
reason the Creator brought into being at once the [full] number of the
bodiless ones.92
Like Gregory of Nyssa, Theodoret argues that God foreknew the fall and,
in anticipation of it, introduced the gender distinction into the human
creation to prepare people for mortal existence. Notice that this does not
mean the fall is the cause of gender, but rather through procreation
gender is a partial remedy for its consequence, death. In contrast, the
angels are immortal and hence have no need for procreation or for the
gender distinction that makes it possible. These ideas are so distinctive as
to suggest strongly that Theodoret was indebted to Gregory either directly or indirectly through Theodore or some other intermediary, though
this view may also have been current in the Antiochene ascetical circles to
which he had close ties. However, it is interesting that he avoids the need
for Gregorys hypothesis of a mysterious angelic mode of generation by
asserting that in the beginning God created all the angels at once.
Notice that he characterizes the absence of gender in the angels by
saying that they do not need the female. As we shall see, he repeats this
language several times in Remedy for Greek Illnesses 3.8894, cited
below, and one wonders what concept of gender lies behind it. Does he
think of all the angels as male?93 Apparently not, since he says that the
division of humans into male and female is linked to their mortality. This
ambiguity presupposes an androcentrism that may be at least in part
unconscious. That is, Theodoret notices the presence of gender in rational
creatures as an issue only in the form different from his own, i.e., the
female. There are people who insist that inhabitants of their native region
do not speak with an accent although everybody else does. Similarly, for
237
Then, interestingly, Theodoret adds that, forseeing the fall, God also gave
the rst humans instructions about what to eat in Gen 1.2930 even
before he commanded them to avoid the forbidden fruit. The exegete
observes further that food belongs to mortals, for an immortal nature
does not need nourishment, and teaching this the Lord said, After the
resurrection they neither marry not are given in marriage, but they are as
angels in the heavens [Matt 22.30 and parallels]. That is, food, like
94. Ashby, Marriage, 489, makes this point with regard to the parallel text in
Remedy for Greek Illnesses 3.8894, which we will cite and discuss below.
95. Fernndez Marcos and Senz-Badillos, Quaestiones, 38.
238
procreation, is necessary only for mortal beings, not for the angels. It
follows that much of the way of life God provided for Adam and Eve in
Paradise was established as a providential remedy for the fall, namely a
whole biologically congured mode of existence involving eating as well
as marriage and death.96 Further, in the resurrection humans will share
the angelic mode of existence rather than that of the animals which are
mortal by nature, and they will have immortal bodies freed from biological necessity. All this is presupposed in the otherwise inexplicable exegetical leap from the discussion of food to Matt 22.30. These ideas are
characteristic of the Alexandrians and Cappadocians. If, as seems clear,
Theodoret has adopted this theology, he would probably agree with the
Cappadocians that the gender distinction, like eating and digestion, is
absent in the resurrection body. The text goes on to refer to the resurrection directly. Having spoken of procreation as a partial remedy for death,
Theodoret concludes by afrming that, from the beginning, God also
foresaw a denitive remedy for death through the incarnation of the
Only-Begotten and his resurrection.97
Theodoret discusses some of the same issues in his Remedy for Greek
Illnesses 3.8894, which concerns the angels. He begins by explaining, in
contrast to Greco-Roman ideas, that they are not gods but worship and
serve the Creator. Christians do not worship them but regard them as
more honorable than humans although they are the humans fellow slaves
in relation to God.98 The text then speaks of the absence of gender in the
angels and contrasts the angelic and human creations in ways that are by
now familiar:
We do not divide the bodiless nature into male and female, for truly this
division is [only] needed by the nature subject to death, for since death
reduces this [nature] to slavery, marriage through procreation compensates
for the loss. For as it is a kind of repaired immortality, the Creator devised
procreation for the mortal animal. Therefore in truth it is necessary for
those who have a mortal nature to use the female, but for those who have
become immortal the female kind is altogether superuous. For they do not
need increase since they do not undergo decrease, nor sexual intercourse
since they are free of bodies. The creation of humans and angels supports
my argument. For on the one hand God did not immediately make a great
many human beings but fashioned one man and one woman and through
96. See Teresa M. Shaw, The Burden of the Flesh: Fasting and Sexuality in Early
Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), 161219.
97. Fernndez Marcos and Senz-Badillos, Quaestiones, 39.
98. SC 57.1:196.
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their union has lled all earth and sea with their kind. On the other hand,
he has not created the nature of the bodiless ones in a couple, but he made
them all at once, for in truth he introduced from the beginning the myriads
he thought t to exist. Because of this the use of the female is truly
superuous for them, since being immortal they do not need increase, and
as bodiless they do not have sexual intercourse. In truth we also name them
holy as possessing nothing earthly, but they are removed from earthly
passions and their work is dancing in heaven and singing hymns, as well as
the services they are commanded to do by the divine will.99
At least here it appears that, for Theodoret, the only things that are
distinctively female are womens roles in sexual intercourse and procreation, which he regards as burdensome in contrast to the angels freedom
to worship and serve God without bodily encumbrances. Yet clearly this
is not all that he sees in women. He genuinely recognizes the qualities of
reason, faith, and virtue he ascribes to them in texts cited above. Yet these
are universally human characteristics shared by men as well. We can
conclude that, for Theodoret as for the Cappadocians, the core of human
identity is linked to attributes that all humans can share, not to those that
pertain to some but not others, such as gender. Notice that in this passage
the female, and by implication the corresponding aspects of maleness
involved in procreation, is superuous for those who have become immortal. This again suggests that the gender distinction will be absent in
the resurrection body.
The text goes on to explain that the theological articulation of ideal
human identity through a comparison with the angels instead of the
animals has in view a specic category of people in the Christian community, namely, the ascetics:
Imitating [the angels] way of life, many human beings have embraced the
service of God. They have ed bodies and lawful intercourse as dragging
them away from divine things, and have abandoned their country and race
that they might transfer all their concern to divine things, and no bond
hinders their mind from striving to hold fast to heaven and see the invisible
and ineffable beauty of God. . . . But if those [ascetics] conjoined to bodies
and troubled by many passions of all kinds embrace a bodiless and exalted
way of life proper to heavenly beings, how could one describe the life of the
bodiless natures, passionless and free from care?100
99. SC 57.1:19697.
100. SC 57.1:197.
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Antioch where he grew up, in his diocese of Cyrrhus, and elsewhere in the
region. He says that, before his birth, his mother was converted to a
devout life by a hermit named Peter the Galatian, who healed her of an
eye disease. When his parents were unable to bear a child, his father asked
a blessing of another holy man, Macedonius, who promised that God
would give them one, who would then be dedicated to Gods service from
birth. It was his mother who insisted that his dedication be carried out,
and she took her child to see Peter every week to receive his blessing.
Theodoret was close to his parents, but after their death he was free to
pursue his own ascetic vocation as a learned monk in a cenobitic community. Then as a bishop he continued in his ascetic lifestyle. He used the
access permitted by his high ecclesiastical ofce to visit even the most
reclusive ascetics, to observe their way of life, seek their guidance, and
give them pastoral care.101
Given his experience in his immediate family, it is not surprising that
Theodoret strongly afrms the equality of men and women in virtue and
the service of God. He recounts how, at their rst meeting, Peter the
Galatian exhorts his mother to stop wearing cosmetics, jewelry, and other
adornments. He describes her as a picture painted by God and likens her
feminine adornments to the clumsy and disrespectful work of an unskilled artist painting over the work of a great master. Therefore, Peter
concludes, do not ruin the image of God, or try to add what he has
wisely not given.102 Thus, as Krueger observes, God is understood not
only as the artist who creates Theodorets mother but also as the model
whose image she bears.103 The condemnation of cosmetics and elaborate
female dress is a patristic commonplace, but different writers emphasize
signicantly different reasons for it. In the text cited at the beginning of
this essay, Tertullian mandates penitential shame for women who are
identied with Eve as the cause of the fall and the ruin of the divine image
in Adam. Chrysostom, the radical advocate of the poor, decries the expense of high fashion and declares that money spent on it should instead
be given as alms.104 Gregory Nazianzen, who, like Theodoret, is the
loving son of a strong and devout mother, like him contrasts the painted
face with the greater beauty of the divine image.105 This contrast entails
101. R. M. Price, ed. and. tr., Theodoret of Cyrrhus: A History of the Monks of
Syria, Cistercian Studies 88 (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1985), xixiii.
102. Religious History 9.6 (SC 234:418); Price, History of the Monks, 84.
103. Typological Figuration, 418.
104. Homily on John 69.3 (PG 59:38081). See Blake Leyerle, John Chrysostom
on Almsgiving and the Use of Money, HTR 87 (1994): 2947.
105. Oration 8.10 (PG 35:800B801A).
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main point is that both achieve feats that surpass the capacities of human
nature, whether male or female.
Theodoret only recounts the lives of three women ascetics, but he
concludes his discussion by acknowledging the presence of countless
others throughout the Christian world of his time:
There are many others, of whom some have embraced the solitary life and
others have preferred life with many companions. . . . Myriad and defeating
enumeration are the philosophic retreats of this kind, not only in our region
but throughout the East; full of them are Palestine, Egypt, Asia, Pontus, and
all Europe.109
The text then explains why this has occurred, strongly afrming as in
Theodorets other works cited above that men and women are alike and
equal in their true nature, capacities, vocation, and eschatological hope as
human beings:
From the time when Christ the Master honored virginity by being born of a
virgin, nature has sprouted meadows of virginity and offered these fragrant
and unfading owers to the Creator, not separating virtue into male and
female nor dividing philosophy into two categories. For the difference is one
of bodies not of souls: In Christ Jesus, according to the divine Apostle,
there is neither male nor female [Gal 3.28]. And a single faith has been
given to men and women: There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one
God and Father of all [Eph 4.56]. And it is one kingdom of heaven which
the Umpire has set before the victors, xing this common prize for the
contests.110
109. Religious History 30.45 (SC 257:244); Price, History of the Monks, 187.
110. Religious History 30.5 (SC 257:246); Price, History of the Monks, 18788.
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for anthropological reection. This results in an emphasis on characteristics and capacities shared by all human beings alike. In contrast, in late
antique culture generally the model human being is usually the male head
of an aristocratic household. This paradigm shift to the ascetic model
embodies a strong critique of mainstream Greco-Roman social values.
Such ascetically based Christian anthropologies are characteristic of the
Alexandrians and Cappadocians and focus on the divine image and likeness of Gen 1.2627 as dening the human. The earlier Antiochenes, as
we have seen, begin their anthropological reection from a different
social location, that of the married man, and correspondingly have a
different exegetical focus, Gen 2. Following hints in Theodores writings
and in accord with his ascetical orientation, Theodoret combines the
ascetic or Cappadocian view with that of his Antiochene predecessors to
produce an anthropology that is a hybrid of both patterns. The angels,
who transcend the gender distinction and procreation, are the model for
human beings, but their life is described asymmetrically as an absence of
the female. Theodoret is ambivalent toward marriage and procreation.
On the one hand they wondrously aid Gods creative work and bind the
human race into one family, but on the other hand all this is only needed
because of the fall and the consequent mortality, and it will be superseded
in the resurrection by an immortal mode of existence like that of the
angels. In this life the ascetics anticipate the eschatological goal and what
will ultimately be the true human identity by struggling to imitate the
angels as far as is possible for embodied, fallen mortals.
THEODORET ON THE DIVINE IMAGE AND LIKENESS
Even though Theodore of Mopsuestias comments on the rst three chapters of Genesis have survived only in fragments, the existing evidence
depicts a rich and detailed picture of his thought regarding the human as
image of God. What Theodoret writes on the subject in his Questions on
Genesis is much briefer, but it provides a clear summary of some of his
great predecessors main points, though with subtle but signicant modications. Question 1.20 asks, What is meant by that which is according
to the image? Theodoret critiques some other interpretations before
articulating his own. He says that the imago Dei is not the souls invisibility since the angels possess this characteristic even more than humans do.
However, one must not suppose that the human body is an image of God
because Scripture uses anthropomorphic language about Gods eyes, ears,
mouth, etc. Such language is an accommodation to human weakness, but
God is Spirit [John 4.24], which means he is simple, without composition
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The text then cites biblical verses that speak of angels serving humans.
Theodoret incorporates these ideas into his discussion without comment.
Next he turns to the traditional Antiochene concept of the divine image
as authority:
Some have said that the human has come into being according to the image
of God in regard to dominion. They have provided a most clear proof,
citing [the words of] the Creator: And let them rule the sh of the sea, and
the birds of the sky, and the beasts, and all the earth, and all the reptiles
that creep on the earth [cf. Gen 1.26]. For just as he himself has
sovereignty over all things, so he has given to the human authority over the
nonrational animals.113
Notice how the last sentence makes an analogy between Gods authority
over the universe and human authority over the animals. This summary
of how authority constitutes an image of God actually mirrors precisely
the way Theodore characterizes the various kinds of divine likeness. As
we saw above, he says that we see and hear, as indeed God sees all things
and hears all things.114 He identies how the human likeness faithfully
imitates the divine model but also radically falls short of it. After noting
the analogy between divine and human modes of authority, Theodoret
immediately adds, One also nds other imitations of the Archetype.115
There follows a lucid summary of the kinds of human likeness to God
identied by Theodore. McLeod believes that in this passage Theodoret
follows Theodore in distinguishing between image and likeness,116 but a
close reading of the text suggests rather that he is subtly blurring his
111.
112.
113.
114.
115.
116.
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246
imitation of God, but with the difference that, unlike God who knows
everything that happens, human judges need prosecutors and witnesses to
supply them with information. The exegete then makes some interesting
observations about divinization language and the distance between imitation and archetype that recall Theodores apophatic reserve. He almost
implies that the imago Dei in the human being is merely a matter of
words, not of ontological reality:
Thus also the human has been called god, since he is called image of God;
For a man, it says, ought not to cover his head, being the image and
glory of God [1 Cor 11.7]. But again the God of all has the divine nature,
not a mere name, while the human, as image, has only the name, having
been deprived of the thing itself.120
This suggests that Theodoret would not follow the Alexandrians and
Cappadocians in their belief that, for a likeness between divine and human attributes and activities to exist, it must in some genuine way be
grounded in a participation of the human in the divine nature [cf. 2 Pet
1.4], though of course there cannot be an identity between them.
The citation of 1 Cor 11.7 in this context is curious. One wonders
whether Theodoret places it here to downplay the linkage between male
authority and the divine image emphasized by his predecessors. However,
this citation also underlines the fact that Theodoret is still discussing the
divine image here, not a likeness distinct from the image.
The text then notes the analogy between Gods omnipresence and the
ability of the human mind to be present everywhere, though only in
thought and imagination. In contrast, God is present everywhere in
essence and in wisdom, and his power is uncircumscribed. Then Theodoret
says an analogy to the Trinity is present in the human soul with its
rational and lifegiving faculties, though in the human image these faculties are without hypostasis. He explains that in God the three hypostases
each genuinely subsist, and they are united without confusion.121 In all
these examples of human imitation of the divine, Theodoret has added
precision and clarity to what we know of Theodores account from extant
fragments.
In conclusion, it is evident that Theodoret reafrms the positive aspects
of what his Antiochene predecessors say about women, particularly in
their understanding of the creation of Eve and of marriage. He also
mitigates some of their negative attitudes by afrming that women share
120. Fernndez Marcos and Senz-Badillos, Quaestiones, 26.
121. Ibid., 2627.
247
the divine image, at least indirectly through men, and suggesting that
authority is only one among many aspects of the human image of God.
He also adopts Gregory of Nyssas view of human identity as primarily
located in characteristics all people share, and regards the gender distinction as a provision meant as a partial remedy for the fall rather than a
fulllment of Gods ultimate creative intention. However, given the
Antiochene anthropology based on Genesis 2, he appears to have interpreted this Cappadocian theory in an androcentric way. His understanding of human identity, like that of Theodore, is complex, fascinating, and
suggestive, but it contains unresolved tensions and creates some problems
that it cannot solve.
CONCLUSION
Let us now attempt to summarize what the three Antiochene exegetes say
about women and the divine image. Citing the Hebrew text of Gen 2.23,
Diodore of Tarsus afrms unequivocally that women fully share the same
human nature as men, that marriage is good, and that, accordingly,
husbands and wives should honor each other, especially in their roles as
parents. However, he identies the divine image of Gen 1.2627 with
authority and interprets this text in terms of 1 Cor 11.7 to show that
women lack authority and therefore also lack the image of God. This
produces a certain incoherence in his anthropology, since the divine image is separated from human identity as such. For him women and men
are united in their common human nature, as shown by the creation of
Eve from Adams side, but they are divided by the fact that men possess
authority and women do not. Thus the divine image actually serves to
divide humankind rather than uniting it in a way that afrms the dignity
of each person, as has become standard in mainstream Christian thought.
Theodore of Mopsuestias interpretation follows the same pattern but
with further, often insightful developments. Like Diodore, he strongly
afrms the value of marriage and the full humanity of woman, who is
equal to man spiritually and has the same moral and spiritual vocation as
he does. Theodore believes that the gender distinction is present in the
body but not in the soul. For him womens bodies, which come into being
through biological procreation, are different from and inferior to those of
men, but their souls, being created directly by God, as are the souls of all
humans and animals, are the same as those of men.
Following Diodore, Theodore denies that women are created in Gods
image, citing 1 Cor 11.7 and identifying the image with authority. However,
in extant fragments of his Genesis commentary he differs from his teacher,
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rejecting the idea that the image is authority as such but identifying it with
a specic kind of authority. That is, he develops the concept of the human
being as a sort of viceroy of God, a visible representation of the invisible
Creator whom angels and animals serve as a way of honoring God. The
human king as microcosm unites the created world and mediates between
God and the creation, though this mediation consists in external structures of authority and obedience rather than an inner, ontological sharing
of divine life. For Theodore the divine image names a relationship of
other creatures to the human being more than a relationship of the
human with God. In his anthropology as in his Christology, there is an
ontological wall between the divine and the human. The result is that
loving receptivity and communion with God are decentered in human
identity while authority is emphasized, so Theodores anthropology is
unbalanced in an androcentric way.
Theodores discussion of the divine likeness contains several fruitful
ideas of how humans imitate divine attributes and activities, most of
which pertain to women as well as men. These include perception and
rationality but also, very interestingly, an imitation of the Trinity within
the human soul, and human creativity broadly understood as embracing
cultural activities such as art and technology, agriculture and manufacturing. These insights clearly have contemporary theological relevance. However, Theodore asserts that these various modes of likeness to God were
given to the human being to enable the fulllment of his royal mediating
role as divine image. This points to another incoherence in Theodores
anthropology, besides the difculties he shares with Diodore noted above.
According to Theodore, woman has been given most of the divine likeness but she does not share mans royal vocation as image of God,
although the purpose of the likeness is to enable the fulllment of this
vocation, so its presence in woman appears to have no purpose, at least in
this life. This incoherence is resolved in the age to come, when Theodore
believes the gender distinction will be transcended and all redeemed human persons will be united in Christ, the last Adam, and together with
him fulll the human task of cosmic mediation and unication.
While sharing many of his views, Theodoret moves beyond Theodore
in subtle but signicant ways. When reading Gen 1.2627 with 1 Cor
11.7, he afrms that women along with men possess authority over the
earth, and that, if man is Gods image, woman is at least an image of the
image. He also blurs the distinction between image and likeness, thus
including the characteristics Theodore associates with the human likeness
to God in his concept of the divine image and thereby broadening it to
include many other things besides authority.
249