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Women, Human Identity, and the Image of God: Antiochene Interpretations

Nonna Verna Harrison

Journal of Early Christian Studies, Volume 9, Number 2, Summer 2001,

pp. 205-249 (Article)

Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press

DOI: 10.1353/earl.2001.0023

For additional information about this article

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HARRISON/WOMEN AND THE IMAGE OF GOD 205

Journal of Early Christian Studies 9:2, 205–249 © 2001 The Johns Hopkins University Press

Women, Human Identity,and the Image of God:

Antiochene Interpretations

NONNA VERNA HARRISON

Most early Christian writers regard the divine image as the core of humanidentity and affirm that women, who are fully human, bear the image of God.Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia are exceptions. Thoughstating clearly that women share the same human nature as men, they readGen 1.26 in terms of 1 Cor 11.7 and identify the divine image as a kind of exclusively male authority. Theodore specifies that the human imago Dei is avisible viceroy representing the invisible God to created beings. Adam failed in

this task, which the assumed man Jesus fulfilled. For Theodore the divinelikeness, which women also share, is an imitation of many divine attributes,including creativity. Theodoret of Cyrrhus moves toward the Greek patristicmainstream, stating that woman is at least “image of the image” and elidingTheodore’s distinction between image and likeness, thus including manyhuman characteristics besides authority in the imago Dei.

Most of the early Christian authors regarded by the mainstream churches

as fathers agree that women are created in God’s image. This belief accords with Gen 1.27, “Male and female he created them,” which isoften linked in the exegetical tradition with Gal 3.28. In most patristic

theology the imago Dei is regarded as constitutive of human identity andis essential to the process whereby humans attain salvation. To deny itspresence in women would be to deny that they are genuinely human andthat they can be saved, a conclusion the fathers would have found un-thinkable in light of the New Testament witness and ecclesial experience.

However, some early Christian writers are exceptions to this consensus.To my knowledge, the most rigorous and consistent account of an anthro-pology in which women lack the divine image and are inherently inferior

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206 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES

to men is that of the anonymous Latin writer known to modern scholarsas Ambrosiaster.1

Tertullian’s exaggerated rhetoric in the treatise On Female Dress 1.1.1–

2 is notorious. There Eve, “the devil’s gateway,” is accused of havingdestroyed the divine image in Adam, and every woman is characterized as

another Eve destined for a life of shame and penitence.2 Yet this rhetoricdoes not represent Tertullian’s whole attitude toward women. The trea-tise he addresses To His Wife concludes with a beautiful description of their partnership in all aspects of Christian life.3 The loving mutuality,equality, unity, and collaboration between husband and wife expressed in

this text reveal the same human nature and vocation in both spouses and

disclose the range of human faculties and modes of activity generallyassociated by the fathers with the core of human identity and salvationand thus with the divine image. It may be that Tertullian says differentthings on different occasions to suit his rhetorical needs in various con-texts. However, what he says to his wife can be understood as consistent

with his noninclusive concept of the divine image in On Female Dress if

he understands the image as naming something other than the core of human identity. That is, given the New Testament and ecclesial experi-ence of women as fully human and fully capable of being saved, which

Tertullian eloquently acknowledges to the woman he loves, their nonin-clusion in the imago Dei mandates a disjunction between the image and

human identity as such. In this essay, “human identity” is understood as

referring to those characteristics that distinguish a person as truly human.This article will explore the relationship between the image of God and

1. See Kari Elisabeth Børresen, “God’s Image, Man’s Image? Patristic Interpretationof Gen. 1,27 and 1 Cor. 11,7,” in Image of God and Gender Models in Judaeo-Christian Tradition, ed. K. E. Børresen (Oslo: Solum Forlag, 1991), 192–94, and textscited there. See also David G. Hunter’s excellent article, “The Paradise of Patriarchy:Ambrosiaster on Woman as (Not) God’s Image,” JTS n.s. 43 (1992): 447–69. Hedemonstrates that the anonymous writer’s views are not “typical of the patriarchal ormisogynist attitudes of his time” as one might suppose, but rather “a closer scrutinyof western and eastern interpreters, both prior to and contemporaneous withAmbrosiaster, will show that his interpretation of the ‘image’ texts is virtually uniquein its characterization of women’s status” (455).

2. On Female Dress 1.1.2 (SC 173:44). See Elizabeth Clark, Ascetic Piety and Women’s Faith: Essays in Late Ancient Christianity (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press,

1986), 25–26. For a significant attempt to place this text in a broader context andpresent Tertullian’s views of women in a more positive light, see Daniel F. Hoffman,The Status of Women and Gnosticism in Irenaeus and Tertullian (Lewiston: EdwinMellen Press, 1995), 145–207.

3. CCL 1:393–94.

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condemnation, Diodore’s and Theodore’s commentaries on Genesis andmany other writings have survived only in a fragmentary form, so theconclusions we can draw from this evidence will of necessity be tentative

and incomplete. This essay will also prove incomplete in that it does notinclude the fourth major Antiochene interpreter, John Chrysostom. He

was a student of Diodore and a fellow student of Theodore, and Theodoretread his homilies and was influenced by them.6 However, his writings areso extensive and the various views he expresses toward women, asceti-cism, and marriage at different times are so complex that they cannot beconsidered adequately within this brief study.7 I have discussed his under-

standing of women and the image of God elsewhere.8

DIODORE OF TARSUS

Not much of Diodore’s exegetical writing has survived, but he recountshis understanding of the divine image in a fragment commenting on Gen

1.26 preserved in Theodoret’s Questions on Genesis. The teaching ex-

pressed in this passage provides the starting point for much subsequentAntiochene reflection on the human as imago Dei. Diodore presupposesthat being made in God’s image is unique to human beings and thus

cannot refer to any aspect of the human condition that is shared by theanimals or the angels. This clearly represents a reaction against Origen,

for whom the angels also bear the divine image.9 The later Antiochene

6. Jean-Noël Guinot, L’exé g èse de Thé odoret de Cyr (Paris: Beauchesne, 1995),811–19.

7. See Elizabeth A. Clark, Jerome, Chrysostom, and Friends: Essays and Trans-lations (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1979), who argues that John maintainedthroughout his life the negative view of marriage evidenced in his early asceticwritings. Martin George presented an excellent master theme on “ John Chrysostom’sChanging Views on Christian Marriage” at the Twelfth International Conference onPatristic Studies in Oxford, August 21–26, 1995. Unfortunately, it is not included inthe proceedings. In its absence, see David C. Ford, Women and Men in the EarlyChurch: The Full Views of St. John Chrysostom (South Canaan: St. Tikhon’s Sem-inary Press, 1996), who demonstrates that the mature Chrysostom is not a misogynistand has a warm appreciation of marriage. However, his recommendation that thegreat preacher’s preferences regarding social structure be implemented by today’sChristians suffers from a failure to take adequate account of the cultural differencesbetween the Mediterranean world in late antiquity and contemporary society.

8. “Women and the Image of God according to St. John Chrysostom,” forthcomingin Paul Blowers et al., In Dominico Eloquio/In Lordly Eloquence: Essays on PatristicExegesis in Honor of Robert L. Wilken (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001).

9. See Henri Crouzel, Thé ologie de l ’image de Dieu chez Orig ène (Paris: Aubier,1956), 147–79.

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exegetes share his presupposition but develop it in different ways. Unlikethe Alexandrians, Diodore also links Gen 1.26–27a with 1 Cor 11.7instead of Gen 1.27b and Gal 3.28, and thus denies that women are made

in God’s image. Later we will see how Theodore and Theodoret followhim but broaden his perspective. Let us quote this important fragment in

full:

Some have considered that the human being is in the image of God throughthe soul’s invisibility. But I do not agree, since an angel is also invisible, anda demon is invisible. Hence it is also necessary to say this much, that indeedthe male among humans and the female possess the same nature in bodyand soul. Why then does Paul say that the man is the image of God but notalso the woman, if indeed the human being is an image of God according tothe principle of the soul? For he says, “For since man is the image and gloryof God, he ought not to cover his head; but woman is the glory of man”[1 Cor 11.7]. If then he who ought not to cover his head is the image of God, it is clear that she who covers it is not the image of God, though sheis of the same soul. How then is the human being an image of God? It isaccording to dominion, according to authority; and the voice of God is awitness of this, which says, “Let us make the human being according to ourimage and likeness,” and adds this, “and let them have dominion over thefish of the sea, and the birds of the sky, and the beasts of the earth, ” and

what follows. Hence just as God reigns over all, so also the human beingreigns over earthly things. So does not the woman also control the thingsshe chooses? But she has the man as head, who governs the other things.And the man is not subordinated to the woman. Therefore the blessed Paulsaid rightly that the man alone is the image of God and his glory, but thewoman is the glory of the man.10

Significantly, Diodore af firms that “women possess the same nature inbody and soul” as men. This means that, for him, the divine image is not

identified with the core of human identity. Hence his denial that women

are made in God’s image does not entail a corresponding denial of theirfull humanity. It appears that, like Tertullian writing to his wife, the

Antiochene teacher would still af firm that women and men share the

same ontology, human faculties, and activities, and thus can share thesame vocation and eschatological hope as Christians, even though, likeTertullian preaching On Female Dress, he denies that they are made inGod’s image.

10. Fragments on Genesis 1.26 (PG 33:1564C–1565A). Translations from Greekthroughout are mine unless otherwise noted. The same fragment is also found inTheodoret, Questions on Genesis 20 (PG 80:108C–109A); and in Joseph Deconinck,Essai sur la Chaî ne de l ’Octateuque avec une é dition des commentaires de Diodore deTarse qui s’y trouvent contenus (Paris: H. Champion, 1912), fragment 9, pp. 95–96.

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Another fragment commenting on Gen 2.23, “Now this is bone frommy bone and flesh from my flesh; she will be called woman, since she wastaken from the man,” strongly confirms this impression. Diodore makes

the point that only Eve “comes into being from a man,” whereas “allothers are from man and woman and the law of marriage.” Then he

considers why she was taken from his side. The answer is “so that notonly would all things in life be regarded as good, but forthwith also fatherand mother, who are united into one flesh, would value each other.” ThenDiodore observes that Gen 2.23b “does not seem to follow, for if Eve is awoman because she is from the side of Adam, those [fem.] after her are

not women since they are not from the man” but are born of a married

couple as noted above. Very interestingly, Diodore explains this nonsequitur as resulting from the Septuagint’s mistranslation of the Hebrewtext:

But an error by the translators has been said to have occurred, for the textdid not say “woman” (gunÆ) but “the [fem.] human being” (≤ ênyrvpow).For the [masc.] human being is named “Isa” (ÉIsa), the sound beingstrongly aspirated, while Eve [is named] “Isa” (fisa) after the [masc.] humanbeing (ı ênyrvpow). And this seems to me to follow rather [than theother].11

It is intriguing to wonder where Diodore obtained his mostly accurateknowledge of the Hebrew text, where the man and woman are named ’ish

and ’ishsha, seemingly masculine and feminine variants of the same word.There was a large and active Jewish community in Antioch and surround-

ing areas in his time, and he probably had dialogue partners there.12 In thefragment the Hebrew words are transliterated into Greek as identical.13

This underlines the exegetical point about the identity of human nature inmen and women even more clearly than the Hebrew does. The “aspira-

tion” surely refers to the “sh” sound, which is lacking in Greek. Diodorerenders the identity expressed in the Hebrew “Isa” but lost in the differ-

11. Fragment 13, Deconinck, Chaî ne, 99.12. See Robert L. Wilken, John Chrysostom and the Jews (Berkeley: University of

California Press, 1983). For similar rabbinic ideas about this Genesis text that wereperhaps akin what Diodore could have learned from his Jewish interlocutors, seeDaniel Boyarin, Carnal Israel: Reading Sex in Talmudic Culture (Berkeley: University

of California Press, 1993), 31–60.13. In Deconinck’s text, the first “Isa” is capitalized since it is at the beginning of

a sentence, but Diodore would have used uncials, which lack a distinction betweenupper and lower case. Let me thank an anonymous reader for JECS for bringing thisto my attention.

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af firming the intrinsic dignity of all people. In support of his conclusionhe refers to the social structure taken for granted in his culture, in whichwomen do not exercise authority, but men exercise authority over women.

The Antiochene exegetes sought to understand biblical events withinthe stream of human history and avoided viewing them as icons making

present in symbolic form a spiritual realm transcending history.18 HenceDiodore understands the original creation of humanity, and by implica-tion Paradise before the fall and God’s original intention for his humancreation, in terms of the social conditions of his own culture in his owntime. In rejecting Alexandrian methods, Diodore and Theodore aban-

doned interpretive tools that could have enabled them to view the identity

and destiny of women in a broader perspective. Allegory enabled theAlexandrians to create an interpretive distance between different levels of meaning that opened a space within which they could conceptualizehuman identity in terms of alternative social structures they perceived asreflecting the ethics of the kingdom of God, such as those of ascetic

communities. Allegory could thus serve as a means of cultural critique

and cultural transformation.19

THEODORE ON MALE AND FEMALE

Theodore of Mopsuestia’s denial that woman is made in God’s image

comes in a brief fragment commenting on 1 Cor. 11.7: “He says woman is

the glory, but in truth not also image, . . . since the glory looks toobedience, but the image to authority.”20 Here, as with Diodore, theimago Dei is linked to authority, and the same Pauline verse is cited asgrounds for excluding woman from it. However, Theodore’s concepts of woman and of the image prove to be far more complex than this fragment

indicates.Like Diodore, he reflects on how human identity is present in women

and men in his interpretation of the creation of Eve in Gen 2. Thismaterial is contained in a series of fragments extracted from catenae and

18. Bradley Nassif, “‘Spiritual Exegesis’ in the School of Antioch,” in NewPerspectives on Historical Theology: Essays in Memory of John Meyendorff, ed.Bradley Nassif (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1996), 343–77.

19. See David Dawson, Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992).

20. Karl Staab, ed., Pauluskommentare aus der griechischen Kirche aus Katenen-handschriften Gesammelt und Herausgegeben (Münster: Aschendorff, 1933), 188. Itis mistakenly labeled as a comment on 1 Cor 11.8.

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edited by Robert Devréesse.21 Theodore begins by stating that the creativework announced in Gen 1.27 is completed in Gen 2.18ff., and he draws aparallel between the fashioning of Adam and that of Eve: “For then [it

said] ‘Male and female he created them,’ and following this it says thatjust as the male came into being, so also did the female; in harmony with

the creation of Adam that of Eve is found to be conjoined.”22 Theodoregoes on to say that the words poiÆsvmen aÈt“ bohyÚn, “let us make him ahelper,” in Gen 2.18 (LXX) echo the poiÆsvmen in 1.26, which showsthat “the female is not something strange conceived later” as a modifica-tion of the original creative plan. He infers that male and female have the

same nature and that God exercised equal care in fashioning both of

them. The fragment continues:

“And God said, It is not good for the man (ênyrvpow) to be alone, let usmake him a helper in accord with him (kat’ aÈtÒn).” For the plan of God isshown in these words, that it is good that a helper for him in accord withhim also come into being.23

In this passage, Theodore takes care to show that woman is similar andequal 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, andascetic struggle:

Moreover, the words “let us make” have likewise been placed here, sinceinstruction is also necessary for the female, who indeed ought to be in noway inferior to the male in the teachings and principles of piety, as also theblessed Paul says, “except there is neither man without woman, nor womanwithout man in the Lord” [1 Cor 11.11]. For though indeed in bodilythings the female is in some sense secondary, in regard to the soul she islikewise immortal and rational, in no way inferior to the male. She labors

equally in works of piety, and in the struggles for uprightness presented [tous] she is alike benefited.24

Significantly, the Antiochene shares the idea that men and women arealike in soul though different in body and that, accordingly, they have thesame moral and spiritual capacities and tasks and the same ultimate

21. “Anciens commentateurs grecs de l’Octateuque,” RB 45 (1936): 364–84.These texts and other related ones are again published with useful commentary in

Robert Devréesse, Essai sur Thé odore de Mopsueste (Rome: Biblioteca apostolicavaticana, 1948), 12–23, which we will cite.

22. Devréesse, Essai, 15 n. 2.23. Ibid., 18 n. 1.24. Ibid.

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vocation to holiness and salvation. This is a commonplace among theGreek fathers. It is found, for instance, in Clement of Alexandria and theCappadocians.25 In the next fragment, Theodore draws an ontological

conclusion that parallels his practical af firmation of woman’s moral andspiritual equality with man. He infers from the fact that Adam could not

find a helper like himself among the animals that, in contrast to them,woman, as a human being, is like man, equal in honor and “not at all lessthan him according to essence” (katå tØn oÈs¤an).26

From these fragments we can discern Theodore’s overall understandingof how God created humans in Gen 1–2. He does not explain the pres-

ence of two creation accounts in terms of a “double creation” theory, as

Philo, Origen, and Gregory of Nyssa do, each in a different way. Insteadhe understands the creation of Adam in Gen 2 as a description of whatGod did to create the human being in his image and likeness as stated inGen 1.26. The woman’s creation follows in Gen 2.18ff. In these texts heuses ênyrvpow in a noninclusive sense to refer to the man, but he addsthat the woman is also fully human, like the man in essence and nature

and the same in soul. Hence by implication the divine image in Gen 1.26appears to be present only in the male, as in Diodore. Yet althoughTheodore says this when commenting on 1 Cor 11.7, he does not say it

explicitly in the extant fragments on Genesis. This suggests that, likeDiodore, he also makes a clear distinction between the image and his

understanding of human identity as such.

Another fragment comments on the creation of Eve from the side of Adam in Gen 2.22. Theodore says that God took a little bit of materialfrom the man and built it up into a woman so that she would be of thesame essence as the man. He explains that because God had alreadycreated the essence of humanity ex nihilo he did not make Eve out of

nothing because then she would have had a different oÈs¤a from Adam.27

Theodore explains further that only the woman’s body is derived fromthe body of the man, while “through the divine activity alone the soulcame to be.” That is, as God molded Eve’s body from Adam’s side hesimultaneously implanted a soul into her. Theodore adds that the same is

25. Clement, Pedagogue 1.10.1–1.11.2 (GCS 123:95–96); Miscellanies 6.100.2–3(GCS 154:482); Basil, Homily on the Martyr Julitta (PG 31:240D–241A); Homily on

Psalm 1 (PG 29:216D–217B); First Homily on the Creation of the Human Being 1.18(SC 160:212–16); Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 8.14 (PG 35:805B).

26. Devréesse, Essai, 18 n. 1.27. Ibid., 19 n. 3.

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true for every human being, thus clearly expressing a creationist theory of the soul’s origin.28 Further, he holds that this is also true of the nonrationalanimals.29 Presumably God implants a soul in each child as its body is

generated by its parents. This theory accords well with Theodore’s 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 woman ’ssecondary bodily status corresponds to his assertion that Eve’s body isderived from the side of Adam’s body.

Theodore’s comment on Gen 2.23 expresses his strong sense of theunity 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 witheach other in one flesh. But also if the name is common it is no wonder thateverything else is; for she has come into being of such a nature for this[purpose]; a common name comes into being appropriately for those whohave the same nature.30

Another fragment adds the following:

For it is quite clear that it was by divine inspiration that Adam recognizedthrough seeing her that Eve came into being from himself, and from where

and in what way [this occurred], and that in a certain pattern and for thesake of order every woman is oriented toward her own husband. Godrevealed these things to him in the time of ecstasy.31

Here the “ecstasy” must refer to Adam’s 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 af firms the unity, equality, and consubstantiality of husband and wife.However, in accord with the story in Gen 2 and the structures of lateantique society, this is clearly an asymmetrical and androcentric concep-tion of marriage, and Theodore even says that woman came into exist-

ence for the purpose of being a wife. Elsewhere he asserts that God rejectsAdam’s excuse that Eve gave him the fruit because “the woman has beengiven that you should command her, not that you should consult her and

28. According to the creationist theory, God creates each soul directly and implantsit into the body when the latter comes to exist through procreation. An alternativeview, which Theodore would not accept, is the traducianist theory, in which the

child’s soul as well as its body derives from the parents.29. Devréesse, Essai, 19 n. 3.30. Ibid., 20 n. 1.31. Ibid.

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be guided in your activities.”32 Thus, Theodore believes that the husband’sauthority over the wife is mandated by God even before the fall.

Among ancient writers such ideas follow when marriage serves as the

paradigm defining human identity. In contrast, the Alexandrians andCappadocians characteristically treat asceticism or monasticism as the

paradigm disclosing the core of human identity. For them women are notnecessarily created to be wives. Men and women have essentially thesame nature, vocation, and eschatological hope, just as monks and nunshave the same way of life. However, we saw in the fragments cited earlierthat, as regards holiness, good works, and ascetic struggle, Theodore

would agree with these conclusions.

Before leaving our discussion of Theodore’s understanding of women,we must consider one more text which expresses a perspective very differ-ent from those we have considered thus far. In a fragment commenting onGen 3.17 he considers why God, foreknowing that Adam would disobey,gave him the opportunity to do so through the commandment. The

interpreter’s answer is that God knew mortality would be of advantage to

a fallen, sinful creature since it would teach him the grave consequencesof disobedience, limit the evil he could do, and ultimately enable his re-creation in a state free from sin and death. For these reasons Theodore

believes that, from the outset, God fashioned humans in a way that wouldprepare them for a mortal mode of existence.33 He declares that the

gender distinction provides evidence of this: “For the very pattern of male

and female shows that [God] prepared the human being for the mortallife by making manifest straightway the power of procreation.”34 Thus,gender is created to enable humans to reproduce in a fallen world.

Here Theodore’s assertion closely parallels Gregory of Nyssa’s theoryof human origins. The idea that God fashioned the gender distinction in

foreknowledge of the fall and to provide a partial remedy for mortalitythrough procreation is a distinctive feature of Gregory’s well-known specu-lation in On the Creation of Humanity 16–17.35 Theodore is also similarto the Cappadocians in his concept of the human person as microcosm

32. Ibid., 22 n.1.33. PG 66:640C–641A. See Richard A. Norris, Jr., Manhood and Christ: A Study

in the Christology of Theodore of Mopsuestia (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), 182–84. This book remains an excellent study of Theodore’s anthropology as it bears on

his Christology; it is not a discussion of his concept of masculinity. If written today itwould have a different title.

34. PG 66:641A.35. PG 44:188A–192A. See my article, Verna E. F. Harrison, “Male and Female in

Cappadocian Theology,” JTS n.s. 41 (1990): 441–71, and literature cited there.

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and connecting link between the intelligible and perceptible levels of creation, though he develops it in his own way, which we will studybelow. One wonders whether Theodore might have borrowed from this

source.36 Alternatively, one wonders whether the ideas about transcend-ing gender that modern scholars know best from Gregory’s writings may

also have been current in the influential ascetic communities that livedaround Antioch in the fourth and fifth centuries. After all, the exegeticalschool of Diodore and Theodore had its setting in an ascetic community.This connection between anthropology and asceticism will become muchstronger in Theodoret of Cyrrhus. He was an ascetic bishop who was

closely acquainted with many male and female ascetics and wrote of their

lives and practices in his Religious History, and this is reflected in hisunderstanding of women and human identity, as we shall see.

Gregory of Nyssa connects the idea that the gender distinction exists tomake provision for the fall to a belief that it is not part of God’s ultimateintention for humankind and that it will be absent in the resurrection

body, which is freed from mortality and thus has no need for procreation.

One wonders how far Theodore would agree with him in this. A keyconcept in the Antiochene’s theology is the doctrine of the Two Ages, thatis, a contrast between the present age, when humans are subject to sin and

death, and the age to come characterized by sinlessness and immortality.Since he links the distinction between male and female to mortality, could

he have envisaged the possibility that it will be absent in the very different

condition of resurrection and immortality? We will see how Theodoretdevelops these ideas further along lines similar to those Gregory sug-gested. Because Theodore’s writings have survived in fragments, it isunclear how much of the later Antiochene’s thought is already present inhis teaching. To the extent that he agrees with Gregory’s speculations, he

hints at an understanding of human identity very different from what wefind in most of his writings. His anthropology involves tensions, but hemay envisage their resolution in the eschaton. We will return to this issuelater.

THEODORE ON THE DIVINE IMAGE

Like Diodore, Theodore presupposes that the divine image in the humanbeing must be something unique to him, not a characteristic shared by the

36. McLeod, Image of God , emphasizes the importance of the microcosm motif toTheodore and makes the useful suggestion that he may have derived it from Stoicsources, but he seems unaware of the parallel with the Cappadocians.

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animals or angels. Yet, in a long fragment preserved with Theodoret’sQuestions on Genesis, he dismisses the suggestions of other commenta-tors, that the image somehow consists in authority, reason, or intellect,

since these properties also belong to the angels.37 Thus, besides critiquingOrigen, Theodore appears to use Diodore’s own presupposition to cri-

tique him. After citing biblical texts that ascribe the imago Dei to thehuman being, he draws the following conclusion:

But if the human being alone in these [Scriptures] has come to be an image,it is clear beforehand, as this has been declared regarding this one [i.e., thehuman] alone, that some property belonging to the one named is the cause;but neither is he alone intellectual, nor rational, for we say that the invisiblepowers are also such. Nor indeed is it authority, for we see that this alsobelongs to the invisible powers. . . .38

A series of biblical citations about angelic authority follows, and then asuggestion that the heavenly bodies also have authority:

And it is said concerning the luminaries, “the great light to rule the day,and the lesser light to rule the night” [Gen 1.16]. Thus David calls themauthorities, saying, “the sun as authority of the day and the moon and starsas authorities of the night” [cf. Ps 136.8–9]. How then is the human beingsaid to be an image through such things as these, which he shares withmany created beings, while only he is said to be created according to theimage of God? Whence it is clear to us that one certain thing is present asthe cause according to which that one alone [i.e., the human] is thus named,in which none of the [other] created beings participate, inasmuch as theyare not participants in this name [i.e., the image].39

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 consistin authority, though we have seen that in the fragment on 1 Cor 11.7 hedoes identify it with authority, as Diodore does, and thus excludes womanfrom it. How can we account for this apparent inconsistency? We could

suggest that he is not a systematic thinker but an interpreter who followsthe biblical texts he studies, thus saying different things in different ex-egetical contexts. However, sometimes scholars content themselves with

37. PG 80:112A.38. PG 80:112B.39. PG 80:112C–113A.40. See Alan Scott, Origen and the Life of the Stars: A History of an Idea (Oxford:

Clarendon Press, 1991).

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such an assessment when what is needed is rigorous conceptual analysis.Sergio Zincone is on the right track in suggesting that Theodore links theimage with authority in the Pauline context, but when discussing creation

as such in the context of Genesis he addresses the problem of the humanas image of God in more general terms.41 In fact, he places it in a broad

cosmic perspective, to which we will now turn. Our discussion of thecosmic function of the human being as image of God will allow us tounderstand in what sense it is identified with authority and in what senseit is not.42

At the beginning of the same long fragment Theodore compares God’s

relationship to his creation with a king’s relationship to a city he has built:

It is as if a certain king built a great city and adorned it with many andvaried works, and when it was finished ordered a large and comely image of himself to be placed in the middle of the city as evidence of the city’s cause.Of necessity also the image of the king who built the city would be honoredby all in the city, that they might acknowledge through this the city’s creatorbecause he had given it to them as a dwelling. So also the Fashioner of creation, when he had made all things in the world and beautified it withvarious and diverse works, introduced the human being last as an imageakin [to himself]. Thus all the creation was manifestly given for the serviceof the human being.43

This passage refers to the Roman practice of placing statues of the em-peror throughout the empire. In his absence his image would be honoredas if it were the emperor himself. One recalls how John Chrysostom

intervened in a civic crisis that arose when protesters publicly dishonoredthe emperor’s statues at Antioch and the whole city was threatened withpunishment for treason.44 According to Theodore, God establishes thehuman being as his representative in the created world, so that all createdbeings, angels as well as animals, would honor and obey him as a way of serving God, just as loyal Romans honor the emperor’s statue. Yet if God,

unlike the emperor, is present everywhere, why does he need a humanrepresentation to focus his creatures’ reverence for him? Theodore’s an-swer is that the human being is visible while God is invisible:

Every image, while itself seen, points to what is not seen. So it cannothappen that an image is made which is such as not to be seen. For it is

41. “Immagine di Dio,” 105–6.42. For a lucid analysis of this material, see Norris, Manhood and Christ , 140–46.43. PG 80:109A–B.44. See J. N. D. Kelly, Golden Mouth: The Story of John Chrysostom — Ascetic,

Preacher, Bishop (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995), 72–82.

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plain that this is the reason why it is customary to make images amongthose who make them for the sake of honor or affection—so that there isa resemblance of those who are not seen.45

As Richard Norris explains, Theodore understands the divine image asexpressing primarily a relationship between the human being and othercreatures, in which they serve him as God’s visible representative.46 In

order to fulfill this function, he also has to obey God, though Adam failedin this. The human person’s relationship to the divine Archetype is thus an

external one, consisting of piety and moral behavior. It is not an ontologi-cal relationship of contemplative assimilation and participation in divinelife, which is how the Alexandrians and Cappadocians understand the

human as image of God.47

In short, Theodore envisages the human beingas related to the Creator primarily through authority and obedience.After describing the analogy of the king’s statue, the fragment cited

above explains how the human being must be linked to all other creaturesin order to represent God to them and receive their service on his behalf.Theodore thus articulates a version of the ancient idea of the humanbeing as microcosm. Here his thought parallels that of the Cappadocians,48

to whom he may be indebted either directly or indirectly; but he developsit in his own way:

If he is created as a compound of the fruits of air, and earth, and water, andlight which heaven bears in itself, the enjoyment of all these thingsnecessarily belongs to the human being; while a certain inferior role hasbeen allotted to the irrational animals, which are appointed for service tohuman beings. The blessed Paul teaches that the invisible powers all servethe divine plans for our profit, saying, “Are they not all ministering spiritssent for service on behalf of those who will inherit salvation?” [Heb 1.14]Hence it is clear beforehand that, since God has planned the creation of allthings as one world, and all creation is composed of different natures,

mortal and immortal, rational and irrational, visible and invisible, havingwilled that they be gathered into one, he fashioned the human being as aconnecting link (sÊndesmon) of all things. Thus all things are united to him

45. On the Epistle to the Colossians 1.15 (H. B. Swete, ed., Theodori EpiscopiMopsuesteni in Epistolas B. Pauli Commentarii, 2 vols. [Cambridge: University Press,1880–82], 1:262–63; tr. Norris, Manhood and Christ , 140).

46. McLeod, Image of God , stresses the important point that the divine image’s

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): 147–59, 156.48. Gregory Nazianzen, Oration 38.11 (SC 358:124–26); Gregory of Nyssa, On

the Soul and the Resurrection (PG 46:28B–C).

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through service, so as to join the whole of creation in himself, and that hemight be a manifest pledge of friendship for all. For this reason [God] hasgiven him both soul and body, the one visible, akin to visible things,

composed of earth and air and water and fire, and produced from the fruitsmade from these things; the other intellectual and immortal and rational,similar to the invisible and rational beings. Hence the creation is not joinedto him only through service but also by the kinship of nature. Rather,because of the kinship according to nature and for the sake of service allthings are joined to him. They labor agreeably on behalf of the one relatedand akin [to them].49

The idea of the human being as sÊndesmow is a key concept in Theodore’santhropology. For him this is what constitutes the image of God. But

notice that he envisages the human as linked through participation withall other creatures, not with God. Within the creation the relationships of authority and obedience express an underlying communion of nature and

being. In contrast, the human relationship with God, though also one of obedience, is more external. This means that the human in some sensemediates creaturely reverence and obedience to God and divine authority

to creatures, but does not mediate divine life to them since the divine andthe human remain external to each other. Theodore’s position thus differsfundamentally from the classic concept of the human as microcosm and

mediator later articulated by Maximus the Confessor as a creative synthe-sis of the Alexandrian and Cappadocian traditions. In Ambigua 41, Maxi-mus explains how the human task is to unite all levels of creation in

himself so as to unite all of them to God.50 The final division of being to bebridged in this process of ascent is that between the created and theuncreated. The human mediatorial role is thus a royal priesthood that

unites all created beings so as to raise them up and offer them to God andin turn mediate God’s life to them. The human is joined to all creatures as

microcosm to enable him or her to mediate divine communion, transfigu-ration, and divinization to the whole cosmos.

For Theodore, instead of mediating God’s life to other creatures, thehuman being serves only as a viceroy to whom God’s authority has been

delegated. Thus, although Theodore does not identify the divine imagewith authority per se, he does identify it with a specific kind of authority,the central mediating role through which the microcosm unites all created

49. PG 80:109B–112A.50. PG 91:1304D–1316A; Andrew Louth, ed. and tr. Maximus the Confessor

(London: Routledge, 1996), 155–62. See also Lars Thunberg, Microcosm and Medi-ator: The Theological Anthropology of Maximus the Confessor, 2nd ed. (Chicago:Open Court, 1995), 137–43.

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beings to himself. He envisages Adam’s identity and with it the imago Dei

primarily as kingship, a role that Eve and other women presumablycannot share.51

Significantly, as Rowan Greer and Richard Norris observe, the conceptof divinization in the sense of human participation in God has no place in

Theodore’s theology.52 However, Nabil El-Khoury explains that Theodoredoes have a concept of divinization, which he understands as meaningsinlessness and immortality in the age to come. It also involves an indis-soluble union between soul and body through the resurrection, thusenabling the redeemed human being to serve effectively and permanently

as sÊndesmow and microcosm, thereby drawing all creatures into a cosmicunity.53 Here again, this entails an ontological communion of the humanwith other created beings, not with God. Theodore appears to haveredefined divinization, which in his time is a traditional Greek patristicterm, 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, andTheodoret identify the human imago Dei as (male) authority, Theodore rejects thisidea 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 thesisoverlooks the fact that, when angels and earthly creatures honor God by revering andserving his human image, this mediation is constituted as a relationship of authorityand obedience.

He suggests, probably rightly, that the “assumed man” Jesus is Theodore’s realparadigm of the human image of God, and that Adam is a type prefiguring Jesus, whoalone truly fulfills the role of image. In this context, the concept of the human beingas one who is revered and served as God’s visible manifestation becomes moreunderstandable 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 Theodore’s greatest insight to realize the dif ficultiesinvolved in this notion of redemption as ‘divinization.’” Greer does not explain whatthese apparent dif ficulties are. One could equally suggest that the impenetrable wallbetween divine and human is the fundamental problem with Theodore’s theology.One of the primary consequences of such a wall is to make any genuine divinizationimpossible. Norris, Manhood and Christ , 169, makes a similar point that “there is notrace in his thought of the idea that salvation consists in ‘divinization,’” and hencethat “the creaturely nature of man” is not compromised. However, the classic Greekpatristic concept of divinization does not in any way compromise human creaturehood.

53. Nabil El-Khoury, “Der Mensch als Gleichnis Gottes: Eine Untersuchung zurAnthropologie des Theodor von Mopsuestia,” OrChr 74 (1990): 62–71. See Theodore’s

long fragment on Rom 8.19 in Staab, Pauluskommentare, 137–38.54. Another such redefinition occurs in a fragment where Theodore says that

humans are called “gods” because of their kingship, which manifests an analogue tothe divine activities of ruling and judging. The text appears in Devréesse, Essai, 14 n.2. This is an aspect of the divine likeness, discussed below.

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Christ completes it, and in the age to come he enables other humans toshare in this mediatorial work through communion with him. Moreprecisely, this redemptive work is accomplished not by the divine Logos

but by the “assumed man” conjoined to him in the incarnation. Theodoreexplains this to new converts in one of his baptismal catecheses:

You have become the unique body of Christ, since its head is the assumedman, by whom we have familiarity with the divine nature—we who expectin the world to come to receive association with it, because we believe thatthe body of our humiliation will be transformed and that it will become thelikeness of his glory [Phil 3.21].55

Thus, Christians become ontologically united as one body with the hu-

man Christ, and in the next age hope to share with him in the resurrectionof the body together with immortality and sinless obedience to the divinewill. Through communion with the assumed man Jesus, this brings famil-

iarity 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 rulewill be fulfilled by the totus Christus, that is, redeemed humankind unitedwith Jesus as head. The divine image has its eschatological fulfillmentprimarily in this “head,” but also in the collective “body” through union

with him.

As Frederick McLeod recognizes, Theodore emphasizes the communaldimension of human identity, and for him this unity is actualized differ-ently in the Two Ages. In this sinful and mortal life, Adam is the sourceand unifier of humankind, whereas in the age to come, and through hopein 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 humanbeing by reason of nature, for truly each one of us belongs to this commongroup, as if limbs [of a body]; so truly also in the life to come Christ is theprinciple, and all we who share with him the resurrection and theimmortality that follows the resurrection become as one toward him, aseach of us belongs to this common group in like manner as a limb [to abody]. Then, accordingly, “neither male nor female” is seen, for one neither

55. Catechetical Homilies 9.17 (Raymond Tonneau, ed. and tr., Les Homé lies

Cat é ché tiques de Thé odore de Mopsueste [Rome: Biblioteca apostolica vaticana,1949], 242–43; tr. Norris, Manhood and Christ , 170). See also the Syriac text withEnglish translation in A. Mingana, ed. and tr. Commentary of Theodore of Mopsues-tia on the Nicene Creed , Woodbrooke Studies 5 (Cambridge: W. Heffer, 1932), 103.

56. See McLeod, Image of God , 218–19.

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marries nor is given in marriage; “neither Jew nor Greek,” for neither isthere a place for circumcision in an immortal nature, that the uncircumcisedmight be distinguished from the circumcised; “neither slave nor free

person,” for all such unevenness has been abolished.

57

Thus, like many Greek fathers, including Clement of Alexandria, theCappadocians,58 and, as we shall see, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Theodorebelieves that the gender distinction will be absent in the age to come, sinceit will be superseded by the unity of the body of Christ, as will othercauses of human division such as class and ethnic differences.59 We ob-

served in a text cited above that he sees gender as given by God for the

purpose of procreation to provide a partial remedy for the mortalitycaused by the fall. Theodore’s linking of gender with marriage here sug-gests the same perspective. The immortality of the age to come rendersprocreation, and hence marriage and gender, unnecessary. Interestingly,he also explains the lack of distinction between Jew and Greek in the age

to come as arising through the absence of the primary bodily marker of

Jewish or non-Jewish identity in an immortal human nature. This sug-gests that he may well believe the organs of generation will themselves beabsent in the resurrection body, since they will have no function whendeath no longer occurs.

At this point, the tensions in Theodore’s anthropology regarding womenand human identity are ultimately resolved, as all human persons who are

saved presumably share alike in the image of God which belongs properlyto Christ as last Adam, though the interpreter does not say this explicitly.In this life women do not share in the divine image since they lack maleauthority, yet men other than Jesus do not fully share in it either becauseof the sin, cosmic fragmentation, and mortality caused by the fall and the

consequent failure of the human task of mediation.

As is well known, for Theodore, even within the person of Christ, the

57. Swete, Pauli Commentarii, 1.57, who has provided the Greek text of thispassage as well as the ancient Latin translation.

58. Clement, Miscellanies 6.100.3–4 (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. McLeod’s interpretation of this text, in Image of God , 219, as asserting that inthe age to come the gender distinction is still present though it is rendered meaninglessby unity in Christ, is not supported by the text itself or by Theodore’s agreement withmany other fathers on this point.

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disjunction between divine and human remains.60 Although he speaks of a conjunction between the two natures within Christ, they remain distinctand largely self-enclosed. He would not accept the Cyrilline concepts of

hypostatic union and the interchange of properties between the Savior’sdivine and human natures. Instead, he envisages the man Jesus as an

autonomous human subject, a living temple who freely receives the in-dwelling of the divine Logos and obediently cooperates in his savingwork. This assumed man becomes the second Adam, the king of therenewed creation.

Thus, because Theodore envisages the divine and human natures as

related to each other only externally even within Christ’s own person, he

regards the created realm as essentially self-enclosed and largely autono-mous. This realm is dominated by the human being as center and headwho serves as the visible representation of divine authority. This meansthat Theodore’s anthropology is largely anthropocentric, whereas theAlexandrians and Cappadocians have a theocentric anthropology in which

human identity is defined in terms of participation in the divine. For the

Antiochene, the imago Dei consists in cosmic authority, whereas for theAlexandrians it consists in a loving communion with God in which thehuman being receives the imprint of the divine Logos as the core of his or

her own identity. These differences have implications relating to gender. For Theodore,

the paradigm of human identity is a kingship defined primarily through

external relations of authority and obedience. Because of this his anthro-pology is ultimately not only anthropocentric but also androcentric, par-ticularly in this age, although the gender division is overcome eschato-logically. Originally Adam bears the divine image but Eve does not. Incontrast, for the Alexandrians human identity is centered in loving recep-

tivity, communion, and participation in the life of God. For Cyril and hisfollowers, the autonomous human subject who receives the indwelling of the divine Logos, becomes his living temple, and obediently cooperates inhis saving work is not the “assumed man” but the Mother of God. In

60. See the extant fragments of treatise On the Incarnation edited in Swete, PauliCommentarii, 2:290–312, and translated in Richard A. Norris, Jr., ed. and tr. TheChristological Controversy (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980), 113–22. See also

Aloys Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition I: From the Apostolic Age toChalcedon (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): 327–41.

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Byzantine theology she becomes the great exemplar of human identity,the human person who perfectly fulfills the vocation to be God’s imageand likeness. It is no accident that the fifth-century Christological contro-

versy began when Theodore’s student Nestorius refused to accord her thetitle of Theotokos. In Alexandrian and Byzantine theology she takes the

place occupied in Antiochene theology by Theodore’s “assumed man.”61

THEODORE ON THE DIVINE LIKENESS

To complete our discussion of his anthropology, we need to consider one

further aspect of Theodore’s interpretation of Gen 1.26. Like many early

Christian writers he distinguishes between the image of God and thelikeness. His understanding of the divine likeness in the human being haslasting significance. It discloses further aspects of the Antiochene’s view of human identity in ways that are quite interesting, not least because mostof them are not linked to gender.

In fragments of the Genesis commentary identified by Françoise Petit,

he explains that, in order to function as a divine image for other crea-tures, the human being, like the emperor’s statue, has to exhibit a likenessto the Archetype. He characteristically calls this likeness a m¤mhma, an

imitation:

Then to the [words] “according to the image” [Scripture] fittingly adds the“likeness.” Since God has made the human being with the function of animage, as I have said, for this reason he has fittingly granted him also topossess a certain imitation of the divine attributes, though indeed he fallsfar short of that essence to the extent that an image normally falls short of

61. However, Sebastian Brock notes that in the fourth- to sixth-century “goldenage” of Syriac Christian literature and subsequently, the Syrian Orthodox Church(“Monophysites”) and the Church of the East (“Nestorians”) approached Mary inthe same way and borrowed Marian hymnography from each other, and he observesthat this is surprising for the following reason: “Nestorius is well known to all ashaving rejected the title of Theotokos, ‘bearer of God,’ for Mary, and in view of thisone might have expected the East Syrian liturgical texts to be less concerned than theirSyrian Orthodox counterparts with the role of Mary, but this is in fact far from thecase: the general tone of both traditions is very similar. In actual fact, the Christo-logical 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 theirattitudes to Mary, at least outside technical theological discussions” (Introduction to Jacob of Serug on the Mother of God , tr. Mary Hansbury [Crestwood: St. Vladimir’sSeminary Press, 1998], 2). The writings of Theodore of Mopsuestia considered in thisarticle are probably the kind of technical discussions Brock has in mind here.

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an archetype, yet likewise he bears imitations and reflections of thatmajesty.62

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, thelikeness in this sense is an analogy between human and divine characteris-

tics.63 That is, humans relate to other created beings in ways that mirrorthe ways God relates to his creatures, though rather distantly. Again thisconcerns modes of connectedness linking the human center to the rest of

the created world. Theodore would not understand the likeness the wayGregory of Nyssa does, as a human participation in all the divine at-

tributes.64

A subsequent fragment from the same source explains how this likenessis necessary to the human being’s function as cosmic mediator and unifier,and further emphasizes the radical difference between imitation and

Archetype:

That [the human being] himself and all [created beings] on his accountmight through the image approach God, who is invisible to all the creationaccording to his own essence, and cannot be seen by the creation unlessthrough some image manifested to all—as far as the image which somepainter by his own art makes of a human being would have only the formof the model, but not the thing in reality—God has made his own image tohave this special [characteristic], giving him even in regard to things proper[to God] a part of their reality, though the imitations necessarily fall shortof 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 outlineor shape painted on a canvas resembles the living person depicted there.

Theodore identifies four aspects of human likeness to God. They aredescribed in a series of fragments cited by John Philoponus as identified

62. Françoise Petit, “L’homme créé ‘à l’image’ de Dieu: Quelques fragments grecsinédits de Théodore de Mopsueste,” Mus 100 (1987): 269–81, fragment 3, p. 276.This article also contains an excellent summary of Theodore’s understanding of thedivine image and likeness in the human being.

63. “The Antiochene Tradition Regarding the Role of the Body within the ‘Imageof God,’” in Maureen A. Tilley and Susan A. Ross, eds., Broken and Whole: Essays

on Religion and the Body (Lanham: University Press of America, 1994), 36.64. Catechetical Oration, ed. J. H. Srawley (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1956), 23–24; On the Creation of Humanity, PG 44:156A, 184D; On theChristian Profession, Jaeger, Opera, 8.1:134–35.

65. Fragment 9, Petit, “Fragments grecs,” 280.

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and analyzed by Robert Devréesse. The first is perhaps the most insightfuland rings true in the twenty-first century. Theodore regards human cre-ativity as a likeness of divine creativity:

The human being creates things that [previously] did not exist, being acertain imitation of the divine [activity] in this; for indeed a house, and aship, and a city, and a wall, and a harbor, and a bench, and a bed, andeverything both small and great that at some time is made, creates what didnot before exist.66

This passage follows another reminder that the human imitation greatly

falls short of the divine. Theodore’s fragment ends by adding anothertantalizingly brief analogy between divine and human faculties of percep-

tion: “For we see and hear, as indeed God sees all things and hears allthings.”67 This sums up his approach to human modes of likeness to God.He identifies 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 infinity and omnipresence and the activity of the human mind. AsGod is present everywhere, the human mind can traverse heaven andearth 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 inreality.68 Here again the contrast between the painted outline and theflesh-and-blood model is relevant. The third mode of likeness to God ishuman kingship, authority, and judgment, to which Theodore adds themind’s 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

finds 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 andthe Holy Spirit, and they come forth alike but not identically from theFather. But our soul also has two powers, reason (lÒgow) and life, accordingto which the soul lives itself and gives life to the body.70

66. Devréesse, Essai, 13 n. 4.67. Ibid.68. Ibid., 14 n. 1.69. Ibid., 14 nn. 2–3.70. Ibid., 14 n. 4.

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and being given in marriage. Accordingly, he believes that the genderdistinction will no longer exist in the resurrection body, since it will beimmortal. This enables him to af firm the full inclusion of all humans who

are saved in the ultimate human vocation after all.From what we know of his position, not all anthropological questions

can be resolved with certainty. God endows the man with his likeness soas to enable him to function as his image and representative, but thewoman is also endowed with many aspects of the likeness although shecannot fulfill this function in the present life. Presumably this is becauseshe, along with the man who images God incompletely in this life because

of sin, can become a full image of God and thus use her divine likeness for

its intended purpose in the age to come through participation in the totusChristus. More fundamentally, one can ask where Theodore ultimatelylocates human identity, in human nature as such or in the divine image?For him these are clearly two different things, at least in this life. Womenare fully human and share with men the same capacity for holiness in this

age and immortality and incorruption in the age to come. Both hope for

the resurrection, in which soul and body are indissolubly reunited, thusmaking the connecting link between spiritual and material creatures per-manent and completing the unity of the cosmos. Yet at least in this life

only man possesses the divine image and can serve as that connectinglink, the king in whose service all created beings come together. Or maybe

this pertains only to two men, the prelapsarian Adam and Jesus. So is

human identity located in the rationality, holiness, and salvation that allcan share or the cosmic authority from which some are excluded? Theodoreis ambivalent. He believes that women are fully human but stops short of drawing all the logical conclusions of this belief.

THEODORET ON MALE AND FEMALE

While remaining deeply rooted in the Antiochene exegetical tradition,Theodoret of Cyrrhus broadens its perspective and places it in a largercontext. Though greatly indebted to Diodore and Theodore and largelyfaithful to their interpretive methods, he moves away from many of their

more extreme positions. He has clearly read Greek patristic theologiansand interpreters of other schools, and he enters into dialogue with theirideas, sometimes borrowing from them and sometimes critiquing them.

His exegesis is balanced, judicious, and often insightful, and his prosestyle exhibits a clarity and succinctness often lacking in that of Theodore.As Derek Krueger observes, “By his own description, his biblical exegesis

plotted a middle course between the often extreme allegory associated

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with Origen and the perceived literalism of Theodore of Mopsuestia.”73

Though he deserves much more attention from modern scholars than hehas received, the classic study of G. W. Ashby provides an excellent

introduction to his extensive work as a biblical commentator and hisrelationships to the earlier Antiochene exegetes and to his contemporary

Cyril of Alexandria, whose exegetical work is also vastly understudied.74

However, Jean-Noël Guinot’s monumental study of Theodoret’s exegesismust now be considered definitive.75

In commenting on 1 Cor 11.7, Theodoret seeks to move beyond theposition of Diodore and Theodore so as to reconcile the Pauline verse

with Gen 1.27:

The human being is an image of God neither in body nor in soul but onlyin dominion. Accordingly, as he is believed to be ruler of all things on theearth, he is called the image of God. But as the woman is subject to theauthority of the man, she is the glory of the man, and as it were an imageof the image. For she herself rules other things, but she is obedient andreceives orders from the man.76

Here Theodoret appears to be reworking the interpretation articulated by

Diodore in the fragment cited at the beginning of this essay. He surelyrealizes that the earlier exegete’s simple exclusion of women from thedivine image is inconsistent with Gen 1.27, so he af firms initially thatevery human being possesses authority and thus can be named as image

of God. He then seeks to show how this af firmation can be consistentwith 1 Cor 11.7. In accordance with the presuppositions of late antique

culture, he echoes Diodore in acknowledging that woman rules over somethings but is herself subject to man’s authority. His conclusion differs,

73. “Typological Figuration in Theodoret of Cyrrhus’s Religious History and theArt of Postbiblical Narrative,” JECS 5 (1997): 393–419, 407. See also Guinot,Exé g èse de Thé odoret , 276–81, 801–26.

74. Theodoret of Cyrrhus as Exegete of the Old Testament (Rhodes University,Grahamstown, South Africa, 1972). Ezéchiel Montmasson, “L’homme créé à l’imagede Dieu d’après Théodoret de Cyr et Procope de Gaza,” EO 14 (1911): 334–39 and15 (1912): 154–62, contains some useful insights. However, unfortunately heconflates Theodoret’s thought with ideas expressed in the fragments by Origen,Diodore, and Theodore included in the Migne edition of Questions on Genesis 1.20(PG 80:104B–117A). These fragments derived from the catenae are now generally

recognized as interpolations and are not included in the critical edition of the text. SoMontmasson mistakenly concludes from Diodore’s fragment, quoted near the begin-ning of this essay, that Theodoret believed women are not made in the image of God.

75. Cited in n. 6 above.76. PG 82:312C.

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however, in that he regards her as somehow “an image of the image.”That is, insofar as she shares in human dominion over the earth, she musttruly participate in the divine image in some measure, at least through the

mediation of the man. His share in the imago Dei is perhaps greater or atleast more direct because he possesses authority in ways that she does not.

Theodoret’s position thus moves beyond the interpretations of hisAntiochene predecessors. Yet he retains the same fundamental perspec-tive since at least here he still defines the divine image exclusively asauthority.

In Questions on Genesis 1.30, Theodoret considers why God formed

the woman from the side of Adam. Following Diodore and Theodore, he

understands the manner of Eve’s creation as disclosing a profound unityand likeness between men and women. Moreover, like his predecessors helinks this af firmation to a very positive theology of marriage:77

The Creator of nature planned to lead families to concord. On account of this, he fashioned Adam from the earth but the woman from Adam, so thatthey would also be shown [to have] the same nature, [and] he implanted inthem a certain natural affection for each other. For if indeed things havebeen created thus yet men fight against women and women against men,what would they not do if he had fashioned the woman from a different

source? Wisely, therefore, he both divided [them] and joined [them] togetheragain. For marriage brings families together into one. “For,” [Scripture]says, “the two will be one flesh.” And procreation testifies that this is true.For through marital intercourse, one fruit grows from both, from the man’ssowing and from the woman’s nurturing, achieving the goal under theFashioner of nature.78

In this concept of a single human being divided when Eve is made fromAdam’s side and reunited in marriage, there is perhaps an echo of theprimordial androgyne described by Aristophanes in Plato’s Symposium.79

Yet there is also a practical, ethical goal of uniting families and overcom-ing tension between the sexes through marriage and family affection. It issignificant that Theodoret acknowledges the existence of such a tension.The union between husband and wife has a further purpose, namelyprocreation. Like many of the ancients, the bishop of Cyrrhus regards the

77. On this topic, see G. W. Ashby’s important article, “Theodoret of Cyrrhus onMarriage,” Theology 72 (1969): 482–91.

78. Natalio Fernández Marcos and Angel Sáenz-Badillos, eds., Theodoreti CyrensisQuaestiones in Octateuchum: Editio Critica (Madrid: Textos y estudios “CardenalCisneros,” 1979), 32–33.

79. It might also have a Jewish source. For intriguing rabbinic parallels, seeBoyarin, Carnal Israel , 42–46.

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father’s semen as becoming the substance of the child’s body while themother’s 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 forGreek Illnesses 5.54–57. He first speaks of the marital union and explains

that procreation occurs through “that little semen transforming itself intoa thousand forms, and the soul which is then created and bound to thebody, and of course after the childbirth the divine aid [present] to guardand guide.”81 Note that, like Theodore, he clearly holds a creationisttheory of the soul’s origin. He then af firms 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 tothe creation of Eve from Adam:

The author of our creation account has taught that the Creator fashionedone man from earth and made the woman from his side, [and] from theunion of these [two] he filled the whole world with human beings as theirchildren and their descendants have in turn increased the [human] race. Forit would have been very easy for him to command and at once fill earth andsea with inhabitants, but lest one suppose that human beings are different innature, he ordered that from that one pair the thousand tribes of humans

come into being.82

Thus humankind forms a single family whose unity is rooted in theprimordial marriage between Adam and Eve. This passage and Questions

on Genesis 1.30, cited above, parallel John Chrysostom’s famous Homily

20 on Ephesians.83 Guinot has demonstrated that Theodoret was in-debted to Chrysostom and particularly to his Pauline exegesis.84 We can

probably discern his influence in these texts.Theodoret goes on to say that the creation of Eve grounds unity and

likeness between men and women as well as unity among different ethnicgroups:

Surely for this reason also [God] did not fashion the woman from someother source but took from the man the starting point of her creation, lest,if she had a different nature, she would take the opposite path from theman. Surely because of this also [God] gives the same laws to men and

80. See Thomas Laqueur, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud

(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990), 25–62.81. SC 57.1:243.82. SC 57.1:244.83. PG 62:135–36.84. Exé g èse de Thé odoret , 644–66.

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women, since indeed the difference is in the form of the body and not in thesoul.85

Notice that Theodoret follows Theodore in asserting that the gender

distinction pertains to men’s and women’s bodies but does not exist intheir souls. Like his predecessor he concludes from this that their ethicaland religious capacities and duties are the same, and that both can hope

for the same eschatological rewards:

For like man, woman is capable of reason and understanding and theapprehension of her duties and can know as he does what to avoid andwhat to seek. And it sometimes happens that she discovers better than theman what will be useful and becomes a good advisor. Therefore not only

men but also women must go to the divine temples, and the law thatrequires men to share in the divine mysteries does not prevent women, butit prescribes that they equally with men be initiated and participate in themysteries. Moreover, the prizes for virtue are set before women as beforemen, since the struggles for virtue are common to both.86

Theodoret’s welcome suggestion that women can be good advisors could

serve as an appropriate response to Theodore’s condemnation of Adamfor listening to Eve when he should have commanded her. This passage issaying that, since women have the same moral abilities and responsibili-

ties as men, they need the same means of divine grace to help them fulfilltheir duties, namely, church attendance, baptism, the eucharist, and theascetic struggle inherent in the life of all Christians.

Theodoret’s appreciation of women is clear also in his handling of thedif ficult text in 1 Tim 2.14–15. He struggles to reconcile the epistle’sstatement that “Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived”

with Genesis 3 by observing that Eve was deceived first, she picked thefruit and she admitted that the serpent beguiled her. Yet he adds that “she

has been deprived of excuse, having been persuaded by the serpent, but hehas little defense, as led on by the woman.” In other words, after all,Adam was deceived too. Theodoret concludes that “one must also seethat the divine Apostle arranges his words with a view to the need lying

before him.”87 Ashby remarks that “this is perhaps the nearest an ancientcommentator has ever come to accusing St. Paul of twisting the sense of Scripture to suit his own intentions.”88 Theodoret then interprets 1 Tim

85. SC 57.1:244.86. SC 57.1:244–45.87. PG 82:801C–804A.88. “Marriage,” 487.

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2.15 as referring to all women and adds that they “are not harmed by Eveunless they wish it.” That is, they will be punished if they misuse their freechoice as she did hers, not because they share her femaleness as such.

Moreover, according to Theodoret, women “are of very great value whenthey bear fruit through faith and love and preserve holiness and modera-

tion.”89 He has turned the negatively charged language of the epistle intoan occasion to compliment devout and virtuous women.

In the material we have discussed so far, Theodoret follows in the foot-steps of his Antiochene predecessors though with a few significant modi-

fications. 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 waythat recalls the Cappadocians and, in particular, Gregory of Nyssa’s fa-mous speculation in the treatise On the Creation of Humanity.90 Theodoretcompares 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 wefind in his predecessor’s extant fragments. He says God foresaw that thefall 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 theangels. God therefore created them in a way that would enable this need

to be met.

The first of these passages comes in Questions on Genesis 1.37, whereTheodoret asks himself how a good God could impose such a harshpunishment for the eating of a small morsel of fruit, not only on Adamand Eve who sinned but on their descendants, as well. He offers severalresponses,91 including this:

The God of all has an immutable nature, and he sees as having alreadyhappened the things that have not yet happened. And at once foreseeingand foreknowing that Adam would become a mortal through transgressionof the commandment, he prepared his nature for this beforehand, for hefashioned the form of the body into male and female. Since mortals needprocreation for the continuation of their species, their bodies are fashionedin 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 muchof what Theodoret says in this passage. See Swete, Pauli Commentarii, 2:94–96; andMcLeod, Image of God , 216–17.

90. PG 44:188A–192A.91. Ashby summarizes this passage in Theodoret as Exegete, 59.

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reason the Creator brought into being at once the [full] number of thebodiless ones.92

Like Gregory of Nyssa, Theodoret argues that God foreknew the fall and,

in anticipation of it, introduced the gender distinction into the humancreation to prepare people for mortal existence. Notice that this does notmean the fall is the cause of gender, but rather through procreation

gender is a partial remedy for its consequence, death. In contrast, theangels are immortal and hence have no need for procreation or for thegender distinction that makes it possible. These ideas are so distinctive as

to suggest strongly that Theodoret was indebted to Gregory either di-rectly or indirectly through Theodore or some other intermediary, though

this view may also have been current in the Antiochene ascetical circles towhich he had close ties. However, it is interesting that he avoids the needfor Gregory’s hypothesis of a mysterious angelic mode of generation byasserting that in the beginning God created all the angels at once.

Notice that he characterizes the absence of gender in the angels bysaying that they do not need the female. As we shall see, he repeats thislanguage several times in Remedy for Greek Illnesses 3.88–94, cited

below, and one wonders what concept of gender lies behind it. Does hethink 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. Thisambiguity presupposes an androcentrism that may be at least in partunconscious. That is, Theodoret notices the presence of gender in rationalcreatures 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 regiondo not speak with an accent although everybody else does. Similarly, for

92. Fernández Marcos and Sáenz-Badillos, Quaestiones, 38.93. For a crosscultural analysis of the many complexities involved in the sym-

bolism of the androgyne, see Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty, Women, Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 283–334. Shesuggests (284) that androgynes are usually males who have assumed female character-istics, and that such male androgynes are generally positively valued while femaleswho have assumed male characteristics are negatively valued. This generalization maybe true in Hindu mythology and the other mythologies she discusses, but it does notprovide an adequate account of early Christian ideas. For example, highly praisedwomen martyrs and ascetics are often described as having acquired masculinecharacteristics or even being functionally male. See Kerstin Aspegren, The Male

Woman: A Feminine Ideal in the Early Church, Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis,Women in Religion, 4 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1990). Although the casecannot be fully argued here, my suggestion is that notions of androgyny in earlyChristian concepts of God, angels, and human beings involve a genuine transcendenceof gender.

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Theodoret maleness is the “default mode” of humanity. Thus, he tacitlyoverlooks maleness when thinking of humanity as such and disregardsthe fact that procreation, for whose sake gender comes into being, in-

volves using the male as much as the female. His reasoning actually pointstoward the conclusion that the immortal angels do not need either one.

However, the characteristic Antiochene interpretation of Genesis 2may also lie behind this ambiguity.94 We saw how Theodore identifies thehuman being created in Gen 1.26–27a with the creature molded of earthin Gen 2.7 and understands this as the man Adam. The woman is subse-quently created from his side in Gen 2.21–22. Given this sequence of

events, it would be easy for Theodoret to envisage the female as some-

thing added on to humanity as such, whereas maleness is inherent in itfrom the outset and is not initially distinct from it. Maleness is onlymanifest as a distinct reality when Eve is separated from Adam and in herperson femaleness is added to the human substance taken from him.Thus, perhaps Theodoret simply reasons that such an addition to the

angelic nature would be superfluous. Maybe he has integrated Gregory’s

concept of the origin of gender into a characteristically Antiochene an-thropology in such a way that the Cappadocian’s idea of humanity asinitially androgynous, at least in God’s original plan, is unconsciously

interpreted to mean an initial maleness.Having contrasted the human and angelic creations, Question 37 on

Genesis describes the creation of the nonrational animals and compares it

to the way humans were created in anticipation of the fall:

Of the mortal animals [God] created two of each kind, male and female;and he bestowed on them the blessing to increase, for it says, “Increase andmultiply” [Gen 1.22]. So also he formed the human being male and femaleand gave them the same blessing, “Increase and multiply and fill the earthand subdue it” [Gen 1.28].95

Then, interestingly, Theodoret adds that, forseeing the fall, God also gavethe first humans instructions about what to eat in Gen 1.29–30 evenbefore 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 theresurrection they neither marry not are given in marriage, but they are asangels 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 inRemedy for Greek Illnesses 3.88–94, which we will cite and discuss below.

95. Fernández Marcos and Sáenz-Badillos, Quaestiones, 38.

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procreation, is necessary only for mortal beings, not for the angels. Itfollows that much of the way of life God provided for Adam and Eve inParadise was established as a providential remedy for the fall, namely a

whole biologically configured mode of existence involving eating as wellas marriage and death.96 Further, in the resurrection humans will share

the angelic mode of existence rather than that of the animals which aremortal by nature, and they will have immortal bodies freed from biologi-cal necessity. All this is presupposed in the otherwise inexplicable exegeti-cal leap from the discussion of food to Matt 22.30. These ideas arecharacteristic 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, isabsent in the resurrection body. The text goes on to refer to the resurrec-tion directly. Having spoken of procreation as a partial remedy for death,Theodoret concludes by af firming that, from the beginning, God alsoforesaw a definitive 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 GreekIllnesses 3.88–94, which concerns the angels. He begins by explaining, incontrast to Greco-Roman ideas, that they are not gods bu

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