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Sex, Gender and Christian Identity in the Patristic Era1

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Sex, Gender and Christian Identity in the Patristic Era1 UDK: 27-18 https://doi.org/10.2298/FID2102162C Original Scientific Article PHILOSOPHY AND SOCIETY Received 20.01.2021. Accepted 22.02.2021. VOL. 32, NO. 2, 157–334 To cite text: Cvetković, Vladimir (2021), “Sex, Gender and Christian Identity in the Patristic Era”, Philosophy and Society 32 (2): 162–176. Vladimir Cvetković SEX, GENDER AND CHRISTIAN IDENTITY IN THE PATRISTIC ERA1 ABSTRACT KEYWORDS Focusing on three historical examples of a different understanding of gender, sex, Christian Christian identity, the paper seeks to address the role of contemporary identity, martyrdom, concepts of sex and gender in the creation of Christian identity. In the virginity, ecstasy, love, first case study, focused on the literary representations of the Christian marriage. martyrdom from the second and third centuries, special emphasis is placed on the demand for the ‘manly’ or ‘masculine’ way of witnessing faith. The second historical example relates to the creation of a wider ascetic movement in the fourth-century Asia Minor, and its specific focus is on Macrina the Younger. In her Vita, Gregory of Nyssa distinguishes between Macrina’s gender identity based on her virginity on the one hand, and her social role as a widow, and ‘mother’ and ‘father’ of her monastic community on the other. Finally, the focus is shifted towards Dionysius the Areopagite and Maximus the Confessor, whose teachings about ecstasy, as a way to transcend oneself in the movement towards the loved one, provide the basis for establishing a theology of marriage and creating a Christian identity based not on sexual or gender roles, but on the uniqueness of human nature. The definition of Christian identity in relation to gender and sex largely de- pends on the very definition of the concepts of gender and sex. Defining sex as a natural or biological category in relation to gender as a cultural or a so- cially constructed category is questionable. It is not only questionable within the framework of the feminist theory advocated by Judith Butler (Butler 2011: 5), but it is also questionable within the framework of the late antique philo- sophical view of the world, in which Christianity as a religion has been devel- oped. The difference between man and woman was not expressed on thebasi s 1 This article was realized with the support of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia, according to the Agreement on the realization and financing of scientific research for 2021. Vladimir Cvetković: Research Associate Professor, Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade; [email protected]. PATRISTICS AND GENDER │ 163 of sex and gender, but in relation to the ‘one-sex’ model (Cоbb 2008: 25–26). However, defining Christian identity in relation to sex and gender is extreme- ly difficult in the patristic age, because often the differences between different groups of Christians can be greater than the differences between Christians and non-Christians. The aim of this paper is to dwell on several ways in which late Antique com- munities established their Christian identity in relation to sex and gender. It must be borne in mind that the early Christian communities developed as mi- nority communities in an attempt to establish themselves beyond the dominant social, ethnic and gender identities. Apostle Paul’s request that there should not be Jews or Greeks, nor slaves or free men, nor male or female, but that all should be one in Jesus Christ (Gal. 3: 27–28) clearly shows this tendency. The identity of the early Christian communities was not only shaped in relation to faith in Jesus Christ, but also to a large extent in relation to the social or- der. The early Christian congregations had a direct memory of Jesus and lived in the hope that the second coming of Jesus would happen during their lives. In order to preserve the memory of Jesus and his teachings, Jesus’ disciples – apostles wrote down the life of Jesus in a number of gospels that have been later divided into four canonical and several non-canonical. In addition to the life of Jesus, the lives of the apostles and their disciples, the so-called apostol- ic fathers, who faced the persecution from Roman authorities while spreading the new faith, were also written down. From the description of these events of persecution emerged a kind of early Christian literature, whose common fea- ture is the focus on the suffering and martyrdom of Christians. The emphasis is on voluntary death, as a way to become like Jesus Christ and at the same time to testify the faith in his resurrection, which was seen as a pledge of uni- versal resurrection and eternal life. The main difference between Christians and others was the willingness of Christians to testify through suffering and martyrdom (martyr in Greek means witness) that Jesus is actually the messiah (Christ) and that he overcame death with his resurrection. At the same time, the early Christian model of martyrdom as an expression of identity is not op- posed, but it is created in accordance with the existing Greco-Roman assump- tion regarding sex and gender (Cоbb 2008: 5). Sex, Gender, and Martyrdom People of the late antiquity did not distinguish between sex and gender. The distinction between men and women was conditioned by their individual char- acteristics rather than by sex, which was the result of Aristotle’s understand- ing of sexual difference. Aristotle was the first thinker who offered a compre- hensive reflection on sexual differences, on whose metaphysical and logical aspects will be the focus here. Aristotle’s critique of Plato’s metaphysical du- ality of form and matter as the nature of different entities can be extended to his critique of Plato’s view on sexual differences. In hisTimaeus , Plato distin- guishes three models in the created world: idea or form as the intelligible and 164 │ VLADImIR Cvetković SEX, GENDER AND CHRISTIAN IDENTITY IN THE PATRISTIC ERA ever-consistent source of creation, matter as visible receptacle of creation and the world of physical objects as the union of these two (Plato 1929, Timaeus: 50cd; Allan 1997: 58–59). The first model pertains to the cosmic father, as gen- erating principle, the second to the cosmic mother, as passive natural recipient of all expressions, and the third to the cosmic offspring as the union of gen- erative and receptive principles. This enables Plato to identify forms or ideas with the masculine gender, matter with the feminine gender, and the world of sensory things with the neuter gender (Plato 1929, Timaeus 52а). Aristotle op- poses the duality between form and matter, claiming that form and matter are one. Thus, for Aristotle if an object is stripped of its form or essence it is also striped of its materiality, because nothing remains from its physical properties (Aristoteles 1957a, Metaphysica: Z3 1029a). Since form (εἶδος) and matter are inseparable from the essence of things, then the only way to distinguish things that share the same essence, i.e. the same nature, is on the basis of their belong- ingness to a certain genus or species (Aristoteles 1957a, Metaphysica: Z3 1020 a 6–17). Gender here does not refer to the Platonic distinction between form, matter and the world of sensory objects, which can be further identified with the masculine or the feminine principle, but rather it refers to a particular genus (such as animals), within which the difference (e.g. bipeds in relation to quadru- peds) can distinguish different species (e.g. human being in relation to primates) (Aristoteles 1949, Categoriae: 5.3a23; Aristotle 1989, Topica: VI,4,141 b 31–32). The division into male and female is no longer a division into separate genera, but a division that exists within certain genera (animals), i.e. species (humans, primates). Male and female are not two genera or species, but opposites that exist within the genus, because the difference between them is not of a formal nature, that is in shape (such as the difference between winged and wingless animals), but of a physical or bodily nature (as a difference in the anatomy of the body) (Aristoteles 1957a, Metaphysica: I8, 1058а 29–31). According to Por- phyry, a faithful interpreter of Aristotle, the difference between male and fe- male could be expressed as an inherent difference, because sex, like a physical trait (blue eyes, curved nose), was considered a distinguishing characteristic (or predicate) of each individual, but not the most essential, or in the Aristotelian sense understood by a specific differentia, because then members of different sexes would be classified by species (Porphyrius 1887, Isagoge: 4.1–3). Such an attitude influenced to some extent the belief that women, in addition to the same physical characteristics as men, have also the same reproductive organs, only, as Galen from the 2nd century, and after him Nemesius, the 4th-century bishop of Emesa, put it, ‘inside and not outside’ the body (Nemesius Emeseni 1987, De Natura Hominis 86, 246–247; Nemesius 2008: 155). Since the physical, i.e., anatomical, differences between male and female members of the same species are considered individual sexual characteristics, the question arises about the origins of this difference in the social perception of the roles of men and women. The humanity owes this distinction, which can also be described as gender difference in its modern sense, to Aristotle again. Since, according to Aristotle, male and female are not different species, PATRISTICS AND GENDER │ 165 but opposites within a species, then according to the definition of the term opposition, they can be contradiction, deprivation, contrariety and relatives (Aristoteles 1957a, Metaphysica I4 1055а 38 – 1055b 1–2).
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