|
|
 |
Electronic Reserve Text: Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels, New York: Vintage Books, 1979. Chapter 3: God the Father/ God the Mother
Christianity, of
course, added the trinitarian terms to the Jewish description of God.
Yet of the three divine "Persons," [49] |
|
two--the Father and the Son--are described in masculine terms, and the third--the Spirit--suggests the sexlessness of the Greek neuter term for spirit, pneuma. Whoever investigates the early history of Christianity (the field called "patristics"--that is, study of "the fathers of the church"-- will be prepared for the passage that concludes the Gospel of Thomas:
One group of gnostic sources claims to have received a secret tradition from Jesus through James and through Mary Magdalene. Members of this group prayed to both the divine Father and Mother: "From Thee, Father, and through Thee, Mother, the two immortal names, Parents of the divine being, and thou, dweller in heaven, humanity, of the mighty name. .."(5) Other texts indicate that their authors had wondered to whom a single, masculine God proposed, "Let us make man [adam] in our image, after our likeness" (Genesis I: 26). Since the Genesis account goes on to say that humanity was created "male and [50] female" (I,
27), some concluded that the God in whose image we are made must also
be both masculine and feminine-both Father and Mother. How do these texts
characterize the divine Mother? I find no simple answer, since the texts
themselves are extremely diverse. Yet we may sketch out three primary
characterizations. In the first place, several gnostic groups describe
the divine Mother as part of an original couple. Valentinus, the teacher
and poet, begins with the premise that God is essentially indescribable.
But he suggests that the divine can be imagined as a dyad; consisting,
in one part, of the Ineffable, the Depth, the Primal Father; and, in
the other, of Grace, Silence, the Womb and "Mother of the All."6
Valentinus reasons that Silence is the appropriate complement of the
Father, designating the former as feminine and the latter as masculine
because of the grammatical gender of the Greek words. He goes on to
describe how Silence receives, as in a womb, the seed of the Ineffable
Source; from this she brings forth all the emanations of divine being,
ranged in harmonious pairs of masculine and feminine energies. Followers of Valentinus
prayed to her for protection as the Mother, and as "the mystical,
eternal Silence."(7) For example, Marcus the magician invokes her
as Grace (in Greek, the feminine term charis): "May She who is
before all things, the incomprehensible and indescribable Grace, fill
you within, and increase in you her own knowledge."(8) In his secret
celebration of the mass, l'vlarcus teaches that the wine symbolizes
her blood. As the cup of wine is offered, he prays that "Grace
may flow"(9) into all who drink of it. A prophet and visionary,
Marcus calls himself the "womb and recipient of Silence"(10)
(as she is of the Father) .The visions he received of the divine being
appeared, he reports, in female form. Another gnostic
writing, called the Great Announcement, quoted by Hippolytus in his
Refutation of All Heresies, explains the origin of the universe as follows:
From the power of Silence appeared "a great power, the Mind of
the Universe, which man ages all things,
and is a male. ..the other. ..a great Intelligence ...is a female which
produces all things."(11) Following the gender of the Greek words
for "mind" (nous-masculine) and "intelligence" (epinoia-feminine),
this author explains that these powers, joined in union, "are discovered
to be duality. ..
How did these gnostics
intend their meaning to be understood? Different teachers disagreed.
Some insisted that the divine is to be considered masculofeminine--the
"great male-female power." Others claimed that the terms were
meant only as metaphors, since, in reality, the divine is neither male
nor female.(l3) A third group suggested that one can describe the primal
Source in either masculine or feminine terms, depending on which aspect
one intends to stress. Proponents of these diverse views agreed that
the divine is to be understood in terms of a harmonious, dynamic relationship
of opposites--a concept that may be akin to the Eastern view of yin
and yang, but remains alien to orthodox Judaism and Christianity. A second characterization of the divine Mother describes her as Holy Spirit. The Apocryphon of John relates how John went out after the crucifixion with "great grief" and had a mystical vision of the Trinity. As John was grieving, he says that the [heavens were opened and the whole] creation [which is] under heaven shone and [the world] trembled. [And I was afraid, and I] saw in the light. ..a likeness with multiple forms. ..and the likeness had three forms.(l4) [52] To John's question the vision answers: "He said to me, 'John, Jo[h]n, why do you doubt, and why are you afraid? ...I am the one who [is with you] always. I [am the Father]; I am the Mother; I am the Son."(15) This gnostic description of God--as Father, Mother and Son-may startle us at first, but on reflection, we can recognize it as another version of the Trinity. The Greek terminology for the Trinity, which includes the neuter term for spirit (pneuma) virtually requires that the third "Person" of the Trinity be asexual. But the author of the Secret Book has in mind the Hebrew term for spirit, ruah, a feminine word; and so concludes that the feminine "Person" conjoined with the Father and Son must be the Mother. The Secret Book goes on to describe the divine Mother:
The Gospel to the
Hebrews likewise has Jesus speak of "my Mother, the Spirit."(17)
In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus contrasts his earthly parents, Mary and
Joseph, with his divine Fatherthe Father of Truth-and his divine Mother,
the Holy Spirit. The author interprets a puzzling saying of Jesus' from
the New Testament ("Whoever does not hate his father and his mother
cannot be my disciple") by adding that "my (earthly) mother
[gave me death], but [my] true [Mother] gave me life."(18) So,
according to the Gospel of Philip, whoever becomes a Christian gains
"both father and mother"(19) for the Spirit (ruah) is "Mother
of many."(20) A work attributed
to the gnostic teacher Simon Magus suggests a mystical meaning for Paradise,
the place where human life began:
[53] The river that flows forth from Eden symbolizes the navel, which nourishes the fetus. Simon claims that the Exodus, consequently, signifies the passage out of the womb, and that "the crossing of the Red Sea refers to the blood." Sethian gnostics explain that
Evidence for such
views, declares Marcus, comes directly from "the cry of the newborn,"
a spontaneous cry of praise for "the glory of the primal being,
in which the powers above are in harmonious embrace."(23) If some gnostic
sources suggest that the Spirit constitutes the maternal element of
the Trinity, the Gospel of Philip makes an equally radical suggestion
about the doctrine that later developed as the virgin birth. Here again,
the Spirit is both Mother and Virgin, the counterpart--and consort--of
the Heavenly Father: "Is it permitted to utter a mystery? The Father
of everything united with the virgin who came down"(24)--that is,
with the Holy Spirit descending into the world. But because this process
is to be understood symbolically, not literally, the Spirit remains
a virgin. The author goes on to explain that as "Adam came into
being from two virgins, from the Spirit and from the virgin earth"
so "Christ, therefore, was born from a virgin "(25) (that
is, from the Spirit). But the author ridicules those literal-minded
Christians who mistakenly refer the virgin birth to Mary, Jesus' mother,
as though she conceived apart from Joseph: "They do not know what
they are saying. When did a woman ever conceive by a woman? "(26)
Instead, he argues, virgin birth refers to that mysterious union of
the two divine powers, the Father of All and the Holy Spirit. In addition to
the eternal, mystical Silence and the Holy Spirit, certain gnostics
suggest a third characterization of the divine Mother: as Wisdom. Here
the Greek feminine term for |
||
|
[54] "wisdom," sophia, translates a Hebrew feminine term, hokhmah. Early interpreters had pondered the meaning of certain Biblical passages--for example, the saying in Proverbs that "God made the world in Wisdom." Could Wisdom be the feminine power in which God's creation was "conceived"? According to one teacher, the double meaning of the term conception-physical and intellectual-suggests this possibility: "The image of thought [ennoia] is feminine, since. ..[it] is a power of conception."(27) The Apocalypse of Adam, discovered at Nag Hammadi, tells of a feminine power who wanted to conceive by herself:
The poet Valentinus
uses this theme to tell a famous myth about Wisdom: Desiring to conceive
by herself, apart from her masculine counterpart, she succeeded, and
became the "great creative power from whom all things originate,"
often called Eve, "Mother of all living." But since her desire
violated the harmonious union of opposites intrinsic in the nature of
created being, what she produced was aborted and defective;(29) from
this, says Valentinus, originated the terror and grief that mar human
existence.(30) To shape and manage her creation, Wisdom brought forth
the demiurge, the creator-God of Israel, as her agent.(31) Wisdom, then, bears
several connotations in gnostic sources. Besides being the "first
universal creator,"(32) who brings forth all creatures, she also
enlightens human beings and makes them wise. Followers of Valentinus
and Marcus therefore prayed to the Mother as the "mystical, eternal
Silence" and to "Grace, She who is before all things,"
and as "incorruptible Wisdom"(33) for insight (gnosis). Other
gnostics attributed to her the benefits that Adam and Eve received in
Paradise. First, she taught them self-awareness; second, she guided
them to find food; third, she assisted in the conception of their third
and fourth children, who were, according to this account, their third
son, Seth, and their [55] first daughter,
Norea.(34) Even more: when the creator became angry with the human race
because they did not worship or honor him as Father and God, he sent
forth a flood upon them, that he might destroy them all. But Wisdom
opposed him.. .and Noah and his family were saved in the ark by means
of the sprinkling of the light that proceeded from her, and through
it the world was again filled with humankind.(35) Another newly discovered
text from Nag Hammadi, Trimorphic Protennoia (literally, the "Triple-formed
Primal Thought"), celebrates the feminine powers of Thought, Intelligence,
and Foresight. The text opens as a divine figure speaks:
She continues:
"I am perception and knowledge, uttering a Voice by means of Thought.
[I] am the real Voice. I cry out in everyone, and they know that a seed
dwells within."(37) The second section, spoken by a second divine
figure, opens with the words I am the Voice... [It is] I [who] speak
within every creature. ..Now I have come a second time in the likeness
of a female, and have spoken with them. ...I have revealed myself in
the Thought of the likeness of my masculinity.(38)
Even more remarkable
is the gnostic poem called the Thunder, Perfect Mind. This text contains
a revelation spoken by a feminine power:
[56]
What does the use
of such symbolism imply for the understanding of human nature? One text,
having previously described the divine Source as a "bisexual Power,"
goes on to say that "what came into being from that Power-that
is, humanity, being one-is discovered to be two: a male-female being
that bears the female within it."(41) This refers to the story
of Eve's "birth" out of Adam's side (so that Adam, being one,
is "discovered to be two," an androgyne who "bears the
female within him"). Yet this reference to the creation story of
Genesis 2 (an account which inverts the biological birth process, and
so attributes to the male the creative function of the female) is unusual
in gnostic sources. More often, gnostic writers refer to the first creation
account in Genesis I: 26-27 ("Then God said, Let us make man [adam]
in our image, after our likeness. ..in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them"). Rabbis in Talmudic times knew
a Greek version of the passage that suggested to Rabbi Samuel bar Nachman,
influenced by Plato's myth of androgyny, that when the Holy one. ..first
created mankind, he created him with two faces, two sets of genitals,
four arms and legs, back to back. Then he split Adam in two, and made
two backs, one on each side.(42) [57] saying "according
to the image of God he made them, male and female he made them,"
means that "the male and female elements together constitute the
finest production of the Mother, Wisdom."(44) Gnostic sources which
describe God as a dyad whose nature includes both masculine and feminine
elements often give a similar description of human nature. Yet all the sources
cited so far-secret gospels, revelations, mystical teachings-are among
those not included in the select list that constitutes the New Testament
collection. Everyone of the secret texts which gnostic groups revered
was omitted from the canonical collection, and branded as heretical
by those who called themselves orthodox Christians. By the time the
process of sorting the various writings ended-probably as late as the
year 200--virtually all the feminine imagery for God had disappeared
from orthodox Christian tradition. What is the reason
for this total rejection? The gnostics themselves asked this question
of their orthodox opponents and pondered it among themselves. Some concluded
that the God of Israel himself initiated the polemics which his followers
carried out in his name. For, they argued, this creator was a derivative,
merely instrumental power whom the Mother had created to administer
the universe, but his own self-conception was far more grandiose. They
say that he believed that he had made everything by himself, but that,
in reality, he had created the world because Wisdom, his Mother, "infused
him with energy" and implanted into him her own ideas. But he was
foolish, and acted unconsciously, unaware that the ideas he used came
from her; "he was even ignorant of his own Mother."(45) Followers
of Valentinus suggested that the Mother Herself had encouraged the God
of Israel to think that he was acting autonomously, but, as they explain,
"It was because he was foolish and ignorant of his Mother that
he said, 'I am God; there is none beside me.' "(46) According to another
account, the creator caused his Mother to grieve by creating inferior
beings, so she left him alone and withdrew into the upper regions of
the heavens. "Since she had departed, he imagined that he was the
only being in existence; therefore he declared,
'I am a jealous God, and besides me there is no one.' "(47) Others
agree in attributing to him this more sinister motive-jealousy. According
to the Secret Book of John:
[59] finally he came
to welcome what Wisdom had taught him. The teacher concludes: "This
is the meaning of the saying, 'The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of Wisdom.' "(51) Yet all of these
are mythical explanations. Can we find any actual, historical reasons
why these gnostic writings were suppressed? This raises a much larger
question: By what means, and for what reasons, did certain ideas come
to be classified as heretical, and others as orthodox, by the beginning
of the third century? We may find one clue to the answer if we ask whether
gnostic Christians derive any practical, social consequences from their
conception of God--and of humanity--in terms that included the feminine
element. Here, clearly, the answer is yes. Bishop Irenaeus notes with dismay that women especially are attracted to heretical groups. "Even in our own district of the Rhone valley," he admits, the gnostic teacher Marcus had attracted "many foolish women" from his own congregation, including the wife of one of Irenaeus' own deacons.(52) Professing himself to be at a loss to account for the attraction that Marcus' group held, he offers only one explanation: that Marcus himself was a diabolically clever seducer, a magician who compounded special aphrodisiacs to "deceive, victimize, and defile" his prey. Whether his accusations have any factual basis no one knows. But when he describes Marcus' techniques of seduction, Irenaeus indicates that he is speaking metaphorically. For, he says, Marcus "addresses them in such seductive words" as his prayers to Grace, "She who is before all things,"(53) and to Wisdom and Silence, the feminine element of the divine being. Second, he says, Marcus seduced women "by telling them to prophesy"54 which they were strictly forbidden to do in the orthodox church. When he initiated a woman, Marcus concluded the initiation prayer with the words "Behold, Grace has come upon you; open your mouth, and prophesy."55 Then, as the bishop indignantly describes it, Marcus' "deluded victim. ..impudently utters some nonsense," and "henceforth considers herself to be a prophet!" Worst of all, from Irenaeus' viewpoint, Marcus invited [60] women to act as
priests in celebrating the eucharist with him: he "hands the cups
to women"(56) to offer up the eucharistic prayer, and to pronounce
the words of consecration. Tertullian expresses
similar outrage at such acts of gnostic Christians:
Tertullian directed
another attack against "that viper"(58)--a woman teacher who
led a congregation in North Africa. He himself agreed with what he called
the "precepts of ecclesiastical discipline concerning women,"
which specified:
One of Tertullian's
prime targets, the heretic Marcion, had, in fact, scandalized his orthodox
contemporaries by appointing women on an equal basis with men as priests
and bishops. The gnostic teacher Marcellina traveled to Rome to represent
the Carpocratian group,(60) which claimed to have received secret teaching
from Mary, Salome, and Martha. The Montanists, a radical prophetic circle,
honored two women, Prisca and Maximilla, as founders of the movement. Our evidence, then,
clearly indicates a correlation between religious theory and social
practice.(61) Among such gnostic groups as the Valentinians, women were
considered equal to men; some were revered as prophets; others acted
as teachers, traveling evangelists, healers, priests, perhaps even bishops.
This general observation is not, however, universally applicable. At
least three heretical circles that retained a masculine image of God
included women who took positions of leadership--the Marcionites, the
Montanists, and the Carpocratians. But from the [61] year 200, we have
no evidence for women taking prophetic, priestly, and episcopal roles
among orthodox churches. This is an extraordinary
development, considering that in its earliest years the Christian movement
showed a remarkable openness toward women. Jesus himself violated Jewish
convention by talking openly with women, and he included them among
his companions. Even the gospel of Luke in the New Testament tells his
reply when Martha, his hostess, complains to him that she is doing housework
alone while her sister Mary sits listening to him: "Do you not
care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her, then, to help
me." But instead of supporting her, Jesus chides Martha for taking
upon herself so many anxieties, declaring that "one thing is needful:
Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from
her."(62) Some ten to twenty years after Jesus' death, certain
women held positions of leadership in local Christian groups; women
acted as prophets, teachers, and evangelists. Professor Wayne Meeks
suggests that, at Christian initiation, the person presiding ritually
announced that "in Christ. ..there is neither male nor female."(63)
Paul quotes this saying, and endorses the work of women he recognizes
as deacons and fellow workers; he even greets one, apparently, as an
outstanding apostle, senior to himself in the movement.(64) Yet Paul also expresses
ambivalence concerning the practical implications of human equality.
Discussing the public activity of women in the churches, he argues from
his own-traditionally Jewish-conception of a monistic, masculine God
for a divinely ordained hierarchy of social subordination: as God has
authority over Christ, he declares, citing Genesis 2-3, so man has authority
over woman:
While Paul acknowledged
women as his equals "in Christ," and allowed for them a wider
range of activity than did traditional [62] Jewish congregations,
he could not bring himself to advocate their equality in social and
political terms. Such ambivalence opened the way for the statements
found in I Corinthians 14, 34 f., whether written by Paul or inserted
by someone else: ". ..the women should keep silence in the churches.
For they are not permitted to speak, but they should be subordinate.
.. it is shameful for a woman to speak in church." Such contradictory attitudes toward women reflect a time of social transition, as well as the diversity of cultural influences on churches scattered throughout the known world.(66) In Greece and Asia Minor, women participated with men in religious cults, especially the cults of the Great Mother and of the Egyptian goddess Isis.(67) While the leading roles were reserved for men, women took part in the services and professions. Some women took up education, the arts, and professions such as medicine. In Egypt, women had attained, by the first century A.D., a relatively advanced state of emancipation, socially, politically, and legally. In Rome, forms of education had changed, around 200 B.C., to offer to some children from the aristocracy the same curriculum for girls as for boys. Two hundred years later, at the beginning of the Christian era, the archaic, patriarchal forms of Roman marriage were increasingly giving way to a new legal form in which the man and woman bound themselves to each other with voluntary and mutual vows. The French scholar Jerome Carcopino, in a discussion entitled "Feminism and Demoralization," explains that by the second century A.D., upper-class women often insisted upon "living their own life."(68) Male satirists complained of their aggressiveness in discussions of literature, mathematics, and philosophy, and ridiculed their enthusiasm for writing poems, plays, and music.(69) Under the Empire,
|
||
|
[63] and made major
inroads into professional life. Women of the Jewish communities, on
the other hand, were excluded from actively participating in public
worship, in education, and in social and political life outside the
family.(71) Yet despite all
of this, and despite the previous public activity of Christian women,
the majority of Christian churches in the second century went with the
majority of the middle class in opposing the move toward equality, which
found its support primarily in rich or what we would call bohemian circles.
By the year 200, the majority of Christian communities endorsed as canonical
the pseudo-Pauline letter of Timothy, which stresses (and exaggerates)
the antifeminist element in Paul's views: "Let a woman learn in
silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have
authority over men; she is to keep silent."(72) Orthodox Christians
also accepted as Pauline the letters to the Colossians and to the Ephesians,
which order that women "be subject in everything to their husbands."(73) Clement, Bishop
of Rome, writes in his letter to the unruly church in Corinth that women
are to "remain in the rule of subjection"(74) to their husbands.
While in earlier times Christian men and women sat together for worship,
in the middle of the second century--precisely at the time of struggle
with gnostic Christians--orthodox communities began to adopt the synagogue
custom, segregating women from men.(75) By the end of the second century,
women's participation in worship was explicitly condemned: groups in
which women continued on to leadership were branded as heretical. What was the reason
for these changes? The scholar Johannes Leipoldt suggests that the influx
of many Hellenized Jews into the movement may have influenced the church
in the direction of Jewish traditions, but, as he admits, "this
is only an attempt to explain the situation: the reality itself is the
only certain thing."(76) Professor Morton Smith suggests that the
change may have resulted from Christianity's move up in social scale
from lower to middle class. He observes that in the lower class, where all labor
was needed, women had been allowed to perform any services they could
(so today, in the Near East, only middleclass women are veiled). Both orthodox and
gnostic texts suggest that this question proved to be explosively controversial.
Antagonists on both sides resorted to the polemical technique of writing
literature that allegedly derived from apostolic times, professing to
give the original aposdes' views on the subject. As noted before, the
Gospel of Philip tells of rivalry between the male disciples and Mary
Magdalene, here described as Jesus' most intimate companion, the symbol
of divine Wisdom:
The Dialogue of
the Savior not only includes Mary Magdalene as one of three disciples
chosen to receive special teaching but also praises her above the other
two, Thomas and Matthew: ". ..she spoke as a woman who knew the
All."(78) Other secret texts
use the figure of Mary Magdalene to suggest that women's activity challenged
the leaders of the orthodox community, who regarded Peter as their spokesman.
The Gospel of Mary relates that when the disciples, disheartened and
terrified after the crucifixion, asked Mary to encourage them by telling
them what the Lord had told her secretly, she agrees, and teaches them
until Peter, furious, asks, "Did he really speak privately with
a woman, (and) not openly to us? Are we to turn about and all listen
to her? Did he prefer her to us?" Distressed at his rage, Mary replies, "My brother Peter, what do you think? Do you think that I thought this up myself in my heart, or that I am lying about the Savior?" Levi breaks in at this point to mediate the dispute: "Peter, you have always been hot-tempered. Now I see you contending against the woman like the adversaries. But if the Savior made her worthy, who are you, [65] indeed, to reject
her? Surely the Lord knew her very well. That is why he loved her more
than US."(79) Then
the others agree to accept Mary's teaching, and, encouraged by' her
words, go out to preach. Another argument between Peter and Mary occurs
in Pistis Sophia ("Faith Wisdom"). Peter complains that Mary
is dominating the conversation with Jesus and displacing the rightful
priority of Peter and his brother apostles. He urges Jesus to silence
her and is quickly rebuked. Later, however, Mary admits to Jesus that
she hardly dares speak to him freely because, in her words, "Peter
makes me hesitate; I am afraid of him, because he hates the female race."(80)
Jesus replies that whoever the Spirit inspires is divinely ordained
to speak, whether man or woman. Orthodox Christians
retaliated with alleged "apostolic" letters and dialogues
that make the opposite point. The most famous examples are, of course,
the pseudo-Pauline letters cited above. In I and II Timothy, Colossians,
and Ephesians, "Paul" insists that women be subordinate to
men. The letter of Titus, in Paul's name, directs the selection of bishops
in terms that entirely exclude women from consideration. Literally and
figuratively, the bishop is to be a father figure to the congregation.
He must be a man whose wife and children are "submissive [to him)
in every way"; this proves his ability to keep "God's church"(81)
in order, and its members properly subordinated. Before the end of the
second century, the Apostolic Church Order appeared in orthodox communities.
Here the apostles are depicted discussing controversial questions. With
Mary and Martha present, John says, But her argument
fails; the male disciples agree that, for this reason, no woman shall
be allowed to become a priest. [66] We can see, then,
two very different patterns of sexual attitudes emerging in orthodox
and gnostic circles. In simplest form, many gnostic Christians correlate
their description of God in both masculine and feminine terms with a
complementary description of human nature. Most often they refer to
the creation account of Genesis I, which suggests an equal or androgynous
human creation. Gnostic Christians often take the principle of equality
between men and women into the social and political structures of their
communities. The orthodox pattern is strikingly different: it describes
God in exclusively masculine terms, and typically refers to Genesis
2 to describe how Eve was created from Adam, and for his fulfillment.
Like the gnostic view, this translates into social practice: by the
late second century, the orthodox community came to accept the domination
of men over women as the divinely ordained order, not only for social
and family life, but also for the Christian churches. Yet exceptions
to these patterns do occur. Gnostics were not unanimous in affirming
women-nor were the orthodox unanimous in denigrating them. Certain gnostic
texts undeniably speak of the feminine in terms of contempt. The Book
of Thomas the Contender addresses men with the warning "Woe to
you who love intimacy with womankind, and polluted intercourse with
it! "(83) The Paraphrase of Shem, also from Nag Hammadi, describes
the horror of Nature, who "turned her dark vagina and cast from
her the power of fire, which was in her from the beginning, through
the practice of darkness."(84) According to the Dialogue of the
Savior, Jesus warns his disciples to "pray in the place where there
is no woman," and to "destroy the works of femaleness. .."(85) Yet in each of
these cases the target is not woman, but the power of sexuality. In
the Dialogue of the Savior, for example, Mary Magdalene, praised as
"the woman who knew the All," stands among the three disciples
who receive Jesus' commands: she, along with Judas and Matthew, rejects
the "works of femaleness"--that is, apparently, the activities
of intercourse and [67] procreation.(86)
These sources show that some extremists in the gnostic movement agreed
with certain radical feminists who today insist that only those who
renounce sexual activity can achieve human equality and spiritual greatness. Other gnostic sources
reflect the assumption that the status of a man is superior to that
of a woman. Nor need this surprise us; as language comes from social
experience, any of these writers, whether man or woman, Roman, Greek,
Egyptian, or Jewish, would have learned this elementary lesson from
his or her social experience. Some gnostics, reasoning that as man surpasses
woman in ordinary existence, so the divine surpasses the human, transform
the terms into metaphor. The puzzling saying attributed to Jesus in
the Gospel of Thomas--that Mary must become male in order to become
a "living spirit, resembling you males. For every woman who will
make herself male will enter the Kingdom of Heaven"(87)--may be
taken symbolically: what is merely human (therefore female) must be
transformed into what is divine (the "living spirit" the male).
So, according to other passages in the Gospel of Thomas, Salome and
Mary become Jesus' disciples when they transcend their human nature,
and so "become male."(88) In the Gospel of Mary, Mary herself
urges the other disciples to "praise his greatness, for he has
prepared us, and made us into men."(89) Conversely, we
find a striking exception to the orthodox pattern in the writings of
one revered father of the church, Clement of Alexandria. Clement, writing
in Egypt c. 180, identifies himself as orthodox, although he knows members
of gnostic groups and their writings well: some even suggest that he
was himself a gnostic initiate. Yet his own works demonstrate how all
three elements of what we have called the gnostic pattern could be worked
into fully orthodox teaching. First, Clement characterizes God in feminine
as well as masculine terms:
Second, in describing
human nature, he insists that men and women share equally in perfection,
and are to receive the same instruction and the same discipline. For
the name "humanity" is common to both men and women; and for
us "in Christ there is neither male nor female."(91)
[69]
Their consensus, which ruled out Clement's position, has continued to dominate the majority of Christian churches: nearly 2,000 years later, in 1977, Pope Paul VI, Bishop of Rome, declared that a woman cannot be a priest "because our Lord was a man"! The Nag Hammadi sources, discovered at a time of contemporary social crises concerning sexual roles, challenge us to reinterpret history-and to re-evaluate the present situation. |
||
|
[163] Notes: 1. Where the God
of Israel is characterized as husband and lover in the Old Testament,
his spouse is described as the community of Israel (e.g., Isaiah 5°:1;
54:1-8; Jeremiah 2:2-3; 20-25; 3:1-2°; Hosea 1-4, 14) or as the
land of Israel (Isaiah 62: 1-5). [164] "The Jewish
Background of the Gnostic Sophia Myth," in Novum Testamentum
12. [165] ), 187 ff.; E.
S. Fiorenza, "Word, Spirit, and Power: Women in Early Christian
Communities," in Women of Spirit, ed. R. Reuther and E.
McLaughlin (New York, 1979), 39 ff. [166] 74. I Clement 1.3. |
||