How do we explain when saints say immoral things?

[DarkLight]

It’s a reality that a lot of things in the writings of the saints are just plain terrible. So, for example, St. Augustine has some passages about women that are just outright sexist and derogatory towards women. Many non-Christians see these, and see that these people are saints, and think the church gives a pass to such things.

How do we explain this? How do we handle when our great saints and even great teachers promote things we find abhorrent now? How do we answer the critics who point to these and say these men were no better than their time?

 

[E_7]

Please quote exactly what the saint said.

 

[thistle]

It’s a reality that a lot of things in the writings of the saints are just plain terrible. So, for example, St. Augustine has some passages about women that are just outright sexist and derogatory towards women. Many non-Christians see these, and see that these people are saints, and think the church gives a pass to such things.

How do we explain this? How do we handle when our great saints and even great teachers promote things we find abhorrent now? How do we answer the critics who point to these and say these men were no better than their time?

Please state exactly what he wrote otherwise how do you expect us to comment.

 

[DarkLight]

I’m not looking for a commentary or explanation on a specific passage, which is why I didn’t include a quote. So I include a sample passage with the caveat that I would not like the thread to get caught up on explaining or arguing about the particular passage listed. There are plenty of others in other saints I’m sure, so I’m looking for a general answer.

De Mendacio, taken from New Advent
Now if Lot, being so righteous a man that he was meet to entertain even Angels, offered his daughters to the lust of the Sodomites, to the intent, that the bodies of women rather than of men might be corrupted by them; how much more diligently and constantly ought the mind’s chasteness in the truth to be preserved, seeing it is more truly preferable to its body, than the body of a man to the body of a woman?

What I’m looking for is not an explanation of that passage, but how we explain the holiness of our saints as held up against often manifest flaws in their writings.

 

[christofirst]

The answer I hear most often is that even saints are the products of the times and cultures in which they lived. To judge what was said and done many centuries ago by our “enlightened” “politically correct” standards is problematic. The saints of old postulated on and followed the Faith to the best of their knowledge and understanding, as we do today.

 

[glendab]

Hello DarkLight.

It’s a reality that a lot of things in the writings of the saints are just plain terrible. So, for example, St. Augustine has some passages about women that are just outright sexist and derogatory towards women. Many non-Christians see these, and see that these people are saints, and think the church gives a pass to such things.

How do we explain this? How do we handle when our great saints and even great teachers promote things we find abhorrent now? How do we answer the critics who point to these and say these men were no better than their time?

It might help both Catholics and non-Catholics alike to note that not everything that comes out of the mouth of a Saint is saintly nor is everything they’ve ever written okay. Infallibility belongs properly to the Pope and everything else comes by degrees. There are basically 4 levels of Authority in things we say and write and not everything is expected to be 100 fool proof or sinless. Saying something is sexist is an opinion and like belly buttons, everyone has one. However, not everything that is taught is subject to opinion. For instance if I say women are the weaker sex and base that upon the Genesis accounts because it was the woman who fell first, that is my opinion and it may seem sexist to those whose own opinion of equality colors their own thinking. They are free to think anything they want about my opinions, but the Genesis accounts must be taken in a literal sense in regards to some parts of it. You must believe some things, and so an opinion is not an option. That is what I’d consider the assent of faith.

Another thing to consider is what is a Saint? It is simply someone who the Church is sure is in Heaven and you can “commune” with them and ask for their intercession in your life. That doesn’t mean everything they ever did or thought or wrote is pure and holy. Far from it. Consider St. Paul who prior to conversion was the murderous persecutor of the Church, Saul. Two phases of his life and you certainly wouldn’t throw out his contributions to the Scriptures based upon his past life prior to meeting Christ would you? And towards the end of his life, he admitted that he needed people’s prayers for strength and perseverance because he was a sinner. Now, if the Apostle can admit in writing he does the things he doesn’t want to and is in need of prayers, based upon your above statements, why do you still read a Bible and consider it worthy? He too called women the weaker sex and in need of correction by husbands and told them their husbands should rule them. By today’s Feminist standards that is sexist too! So what’s up with that? Throw that out too? Or question whether or not he’s really a Saint? Or turn what he says into a Church “endorsement” of sexist comments and language? Maybe the Church should re-write the “offending” passages like so many Protestants do who constantly re-work the Scriptures for just about everyone’s tastes? See how silly it gets?

Well, I’ve said too much. I hope this helps.

Glenda

P.S. There is no Commandment in the 10 that reads “Thou shalt not be sexist.” Keep it in perspective.

 

[1ke]

There is nothing wrong with what St Augustine wrote. Not sure what other things you believe to be immoral or why.

Perhaps the problem is not the writings of the saints, but rather your understanding of them.

Some of your prior experiences could be coloring how you are reading their writings. One must also understand what they are writing about, to whom they are writing, and the cultural and historical context in which they are writing. Many saints are also writing of mystical experiences using allegory, symbolism, etc, and others have advanced theological training and may be writing about things we simply lack context for.

While certainly not infallible, saints don’t become saints by way of “immoral” writings. Their lives and their writings are studied carefully.

 

[GoldenSeal]

There is nothing wrong with what St Augustine wrote. Not sure what other things you believe to be immoral or why.

Nothing wrong with what St. Augustine wrote?

"Women should not be enlightened or educated in any way. They should, in fact, be segregated as they are the cause of hideous and involuntary erections in holy men.”

“Woman does not possess the image of God in herself but only when taken together with the male who is her head, so that the whole substance is one image. But when she is assigned the role as helpmate, a function that pertains to her alone, then she is not the image of God. But as far as the man is concerned, he is by himself alone the image of God just as fully and completely as when he and the woman are joined together into one.”

“What is the difference whether it is in a wife or a mother, it is still Eve the temptress that we must beware of in any woman… I fail to see what use woman can be to man, if one excludes the function of bearing children.”

And here are some other saints’ quotes:

“Woman is a misbegotten man and has a faulty and defective nature in comparison to his. Therefore she is unsure in herself. What she cannot get, she seeks to obtain through lying and diabolical deceptions. And so, to put it briefly, one must be on one’s guard with every woman, as if she were a poisonous snake and the horned devil. … Thus in evil and perverse doings woman is cleverer, that is, slyer, than man. Her feelings drive woman toward every evil, just as reason impels man toward all good.”–St. Albertus Magnus

“As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active force in the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of woman comes from a defect in the active force or from some material indisposition, or even from some external influence.”–St. Thomas Aquinas

Other quotes of interest:

“Woman is a temple built over a sewer.”–Tertullian

“Men have broad and large chests, and small narrow hips, and more understanding than women, who have but small and narrow breasts, and broad hips, to the end they should remain at home, sit still, keep house, and bear and bring up children.” and “No gown worse becomes a woman than the desire to be wise.”–Martin Luther (can’t leave the Protestants out!)

And from a modern Protestant minister, Mark Driscoll: “Women will be saved by going back to that role that God has chosen for them. Ladies, if the hair on the back of your neck stands up it is because you are fighting your role in the scripture.” Also, his take on Esther in the Bible: “…Her behavior is sinful and she spends around a year in the spa getting dolled up to lose her virginity with the pagan king…Today, her story would be, a beautiful young woman living in a major city allows men to cater to her needs, undergoes lots of beauty treatment to look her best, and lands a really rich guy whom she meets on The Bachelor and wows with an amazing night in bed. She’s simply a person without any character until her own neck is on the line….”

After all, as Driscoll reminds us, "Every single book in your Bible is written by a man.”

 

[1ke]

Nothing wrong with what St. Augustine wrote?

Correct. There is nothing wrong with what Augustine wrote. I was responding to the paragraph in De Mendacio.

There is also nothing immoral in what the saints wrote that you quoted. Incorrect, yes. Immoral, no.

As I said, Saints are not infallible. But they are not made saints for their immorality. They are made Saints for their holiness. St Augustine was a great man of holiness, who spent many years a sinner before his conversion. He had personal frailties, women being one of them. He is writing from his own experiences. The idea of Eve as temptress is not new to these saints writing in their time as they understood the world, the soul, and God.

Wrong? Yes. Immoral? No. Something to get worked up about or “defend”? No.

 

[schaeffer]

I do not have a copy of Augustine’s writings available to me now. Do they have the “nihil obstat” or “imprimatur” on them?

That should offer a bit of information on how they are considered by the Church.

 

[1ke]

I do not have a copy of Augustine’s writings available to me now. Do they have the “nihil obstat” or “imprimatur” on them?

That should offer a bit of information on how they are considered by the Church.

Augustine’s writings predate that construct.

He is a Doctor of the Church. That, indeed, tells us how his writings stand with the Church.

 

[Hoosier_Daddy]

 

[E_7]

Correct. There is nothing wrong with what Augustine wrote. I was responding to the paragraph in De Mendacio.

There is also nothing immoral in what the saints wrote that you quoted. Incorrect, yes. Immoral, no.

As I said, Saints are not infallible. But they are not made saints for their immorality. They are made Saints for their holiness. St Augustine was a great man of holiness, who spent many years a sinner before his conversion. He had personal frailties, women being one of them. He is writing from his own experiences. The idea of Eve as temptress is not new to these saints writing in their time as they understood the world, the soul, and God.

Wrong? Yes. Immoral? No. Something to get worked up about or “defend”? No.

I agree.

For an act to be moral, there must be good intention (intended end), that object is good( by its very nature.It is the end toward which the act is inherently ordered) , and good circumstances. It is at least morally permissible. But when at least one of those three is bad, it is immoral (it is a sin to knowingly choose such act).

 

[DarkLight]

And this is what I was afraid of happening - people twisting around to defend writings that are not only incorrect but under any reasonable reading derogatory and disrespectful towards women, not to mention opposed to correct teaching. This isn’t a thread about “feminism” so let’s not turn it into one.

There’s just no sane way to read Augustine that he does not teach women are inherently worse than women. He outright says it is better that women be raped than men because their bodies are less pure. There are plenty who speak all sorts of nonsense about women, impugning on their ability to be holy and deriding them as little more than temptresses.

Speaking such things as deny the imago dei is equally possessed by men and women, who derides the bodies of women as less perfect creations of God than those of men, I do call immoral. At the very least it is the sort of thing that tends towards immorality, as it betrays both an incorrect respect towards God’s creation and a lack of charity towards fellow believers.

There’s just no way around the fact that plenty of our church fathers said pretty derogatory things about women. And that’s something, when a lot of outsiders look at the Catholic church and see these men as saints, they think maybe we support these things and believe them too. We need an answer to that.

 

[Mintaka]

Actually, it looks like a lot of those quotes you’re quoting are made up quotes.

For example, your first one about “hideous and involuntary erections” appears on a list of dubious and misattributed quotes

“This quote is usually passed around without being credited to any original source. When we are given a source, it is usually attributed to The Dark Side of Christian History by Helen Ellerbe. However, this is not an original source from an actual work of Augustine. In order for this quote to be given serious consideration, skeptics need to come up with something other than Source Unknown when copying and pasting this quote onto their websites.”

For myself, I can run a search for it but I just don’t find an actual source from anywhere in Augustine’s body of work, so I can’t look it up, or look up the Latin and translate it for myself, or see the context. I can’t see if it’s a quote from a pseudo-Augustinian work, or some nasty anti-Catholic screed from 1643, or a Victorian historical novel about Augustine, or what.

As it happens, St. Augustine favored education for women, and he credited his mother as having saved his soul and being very knowledgeable about the Bible. Such a quote would be very strange and out of character.

He defended women, and what he said about rape (at the beginning of the City of God, in response to the many Christian women raped in the sack of Rome) was that women who were raped should stop killing themselves in the old Roman style, because it wasn’t their sin, but the rapist’s sin. A virgin who is raped is still a virgin in God’s eyes; a person who vows celibacy and is raped is still celibate; a virtuous woman who is raped is still virtuous. Only the heathen would believe a woman defiled by something that isn’t her fault.

So the first thing you have to ask about any derogatory quote is whether it’s real, or whether it’s totally made-up. If you see a quote that does have a source, go check the source and read the whole thing in context. This is Internet 101, and it’s Research 101.

 

[Mintaka]

Re: your quoted quote from “St. Albertus Magnus” -

St. Albert the Great’s book on Chapter 31 of Proverbs, the Valiant Woman, is pretty much nothing but saying nice things about us ladies and the Church. You get the feeling that his Swabian mom and older sisters were really great with him. So if he ever said it (which I doubt), he obviously didn’t really believe it.

You will also notice that the Creation story has God directly making Eve, so to say that woman is misbegotten would be to say that God makes mistakes. Bad heresy.

Aristotle, OTOH, was the one who thought women were defective men. This was one of the reasons that the Church was iffy about Christians studying Aristotle.

So as long as Aristotle’s rediscovered ideas were the scientific cutting edge, and they thought that women were the product of “weak seed” or unfavorable reproductive environment, you see some men quoting this. However, if they wanted to avoid heresy, they quickly added that women had a perfectly created nature and a perfectly created soul, and that they were part of God’s plan from the beginning.

So what you usually see is somebody quoting the “misbegotten male” thing as “Hey, Aristotle said this; let’s argue about whether it’s true.”

As for all the stuff about the devil, I literally don’t know where they got that. Again, there’s no source given, and it seems unlikely. It is possible that they got it from an occult source falsely attributed to St. Albert the Great (because he was rumored to be a great wizard, thanks to his science experiments) like “The Book of Women’s Secrets”.

Needless to say, that kind of source isn’t worth the parchment it was scribbled on. Occult bookstores in the Middle Ages weren’t any more reliable than the one in your mini-mall.

 

[Mintaka]

As for De Mendacio, Augustine himself said that it stunk, because it was troublesome and confusing. He wrote a better book, Against Lying, and asked people to trash the first one.

But if you want to go with the quote, first you would want to see what else Augustine wrote about this Lot story. So you’d want to go to Quaestiones Genesin, and the book on the interpretation of Genesis, and probably look up in a patristic biblical quote index what all times he referenced Lot and his daughters and the angels the crowd wanted to rape. You’d also want to check chronology of when he wrote what, so you can see if his exegesis changed.

And to be really really thorough, you’d want to check other exegetes from the time; and if you could find any contemporary women talking about the story (like Proba the poetess), that would help too. (And rabbinic sources, too, if you really wanted to be thorough.)

But in general, what you’d find is this: any wild, hard to understand story in Genesis is routinely read as meaning it spiritually. Also, that the early patriarchs meant to obey God, which is why they were righteous, but they did things that would have been evil if they had known better. Contemporary Christians and Jews know better, so they are not to follow the example of the Patriarchs in specifics of their actions.

(And really, it’s Lot’s daughters who ended up being rapists. They raped their own dad, for pity’s sake, even though their intentions were trying to save humanity. Lot and his daughters were both pretty quick to be pessimists, and to try something crazy instead of just sitting tight.)

 

[1ke]

He outright says it is better that women be raped than men because their bodies are less pure.

That is not what Augustine said AT ALL.

Your own experiences have colored your reading of this treatise on lying and you are reading things into it that simply are not there.

 

[DarkLight]

That is not what Augustine said AT ALL.

Your own experiences have colored your reading of this treatise on lying and you are reading things into it that simply are not there.

Given that I had no prior experiences with Augustine outside of Christian settings, I have serious doubts that my experiences are the ones coloring things. It sounds more to me like people are seeing what they want to see rather than what the text actually says, because it’s too uncomfortable to think that saints might have said ugly things.

If nothing else, he outright says that the mind is preferable to the body in the same way that a man’s body is preferable to a woman’s. I don’t see any way that’s not an ugly thing to say.

 

[adrift]

That is not what Augustine said AT ALL.

Your own experiences have colored your reading of this treatise on lying and you are reading things into it that simply are not there.

It sounds more to me like people are seeing what they want to see rather than what the text actually says, because it’s too uncomfortable to think that saints might have said ugly things.

If nothing else, he outright says that the mind is preferable to the body in the same way that a man’s body is preferable to a woman’s. I don’t see any way that’s not an ugly thing to say.

I think you need to provide a source of your claims

Mintaka told you that

Actually, it looks like a lot of those quotes you’re quoting are made up quotes