P
Pete_Holter
Guest
I hope you’re beginning to see the picture emerge of the man as representing the mind devoted to the contemplation of eternal things and the woman as representing the mind as it is fashioned to manage temporal things.
This brings us to the passage in question, and it regards how to reconcile Genesis 1:27 with what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:
“How then did the apostle tell us that the man is the image of God, and therefore he is forbidden to cover his head; but that the woman is not so, and therefore is commanded to cover hers? Unless, forsooth, according to that which I have said already, when I was treating of the nature of the human mind, that the woman together with her own husband is the image of God, so that that whole substance may be one image; but when she is referred separately to her quality of help-meet, which regards the woman herself alone, then she is not the image of God; but as regards the man alone, he is the image of God as fully and completely as when the woman too is joined with him in one” (, Bk. 12, Ch. 7.10On the Trinity).
Augustine thinks that Paul is “speaking outwardly of the sex of male and female” in order to create a “figure” of “the mystery of some more hidden truth” and that what he has said “will remain mere empty words, unless referred to some hidden sacrament” (, Bk. 12, Ch. 7.11On the Trinity). The man is the inner man and this is why he is the image of God all by himself. The man and the woman together are the inner man rightly governing the outer man, and this is why the two together still form an image of God. And the woman by herself is a picture of the outer man, in which there is no image of God. All three serve as figures of the human mind.
The crazy part is that Augustine explicitly repudiates the idea that the woman is not made in the image of God:
“[N]o one can doubt, that man was made after the image of Him that created him, not according to the body, nor indiscriminately according to any part of the mind, but according to the rational mind, wherein the knowledge of God can exist. And it is according to this renewal, also, that we are made sons of God by the baptism of Christ; and putting on the new man, certainly put on Christ through faith. Who is there, then, who will hold women to be alien from this fellowship, whereas they are fellow-heirs of grace with us; and whereas in another place the same apostle says, ‘For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus; for as many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ: there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus?’ (Galatians 3:26-28) Pray, have faithful women then lost their bodily sex? But because they are there renewed after the image of God, where there is no sex; man is there made after the image of God, where there is no sex, that is, in the spirit of his mind. Why, then, is the man on that account not bound to cover his head, because he is the image and glory of God, while the woman is bound to do so, because she is the glory of the man; as though the woman were not renewed in the spirit of her mind, which spirit is renewed to the knowledge of God after the image of Him who created him? But because she differs from the man in bodily sex, it was possible rightly to represent under her bodily covering that part of the reason which is diverted to the government of temporal things; so that the image of God may remain on that side of the mind of man on which it cleaves to the beholding or the consulting of the eternal reasons of things; and this, it is clear, not men only, but also women have” (, Bk. 12, Ch. 7.12On the Trinity).
All of this is in exact contradiction with the claim of the author you quoted:
“If God was male and woman was not male, then whatever God was, woman was not.”
Augustine has just finished saying that “there is no sex” in the image of God, and this is because bodies are something that we share in common with animals. The difference in the bodily sexes simply provided Paul a means of building his picture of “a hidden sacrament” of the human mind, which is common to both male and female as created in the image of God.
I hope that this was helpful for you. Welcome to the forums!
With love in Christ,
Pete
This brings us to the passage in question, and it regards how to reconcile Genesis 1:27 with what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:
“How then did the apostle tell us that the man is the image of God, and therefore he is forbidden to cover his head; but that the woman is not so, and therefore is commanded to cover hers? Unless, forsooth, according to that which I have said already, when I was treating of the nature of the human mind, that the woman together with her own husband is the image of God, so that that whole substance may be one image; but when she is referred separately to her quality of help-meet, which regards the woman herself alone, then she is not the image of God; but as regards the man alone, he is the image of God as fully and completely as when the woman too is joined with him in one” (, Bk. 12, Ch. 7.10On the Trinity).
Augustine thinks that Paul is “speaking outwardly of the sex of male and female” in order to create a “figure” of “the mystery of some more hidden truth” and that what he has said “will remain mere empty words, unless referred to some hidden sacrament” (, Bk. 12, Ch. 7.11On the Trinity). The man is the inner man and this is why he is the image of God all by himself. The man and the woman together are the inner man rightly governing the outer man, and this is why the two together still form an image of God. And the woman by herself is a picture of the outer man, in which there is no image of God. All three serve as figures of the human mind.
The crazy part is that Augustine explicitly repudiates the idea that the woman is not made in the image of God:
“[N]o one can doubt, that man was made after the image of Him that created him, not according to the body, nor indiscriminately according to any part of the mind, but according to the rational mind, wherein the knowledge of God can exist. And it is according to this renewal, also, that we are made sons of God by the baptism of Christ; and putting on the new man, certainly put on Christ through faith. Who is there, then, who will hold women to be alien from this fellowship, whereas they are fellow-heirs of grace with us; and whereas in another place the same apostle says, ‘For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus; for as many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ: there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus?’ (Galatians 3:26-28) Pray, have faithful women then lost their bodily sex? But because they are there renewed after the image of God, where there is no sex; man is there made after the image of God, where there is no sex, that is, in the spirit of his mind. Why, then, is the man on that account not bound to cover his head, because he is the image and glory of God, while the woman is bound to do so, because she is the glory of the man; as though the woman were not renewed in the spirit of her mind, which spirit is renewed to the knowledge of God after the image of Him who created him? But because she differs from the man in bodily sex, it was possible rightly to represent under her bodily covering that part of the reason which is diverted to the government of temporal things; so that the image of God may remain on that side of the mind of man on which it cleaves to the beholding or the consulting of the eternal reasons of things; and this, it is clear, not men only, but also women have” (, Bk. 12, Ch. 7.12On the Trinity).
All of this is in exact contradiction with the claim of the author you quoted:
“If God was male and woman was not male, then whatever God was, woman was not.”
Augustine has just finished saying that “there is no sex” in the image of God, and this is because bodies are something that we share in common with animals. The difference in the bodily sexes simply provided Paul a means of building his picture of “a hidden sacrament” of the human mind, which is common to both male and female as created in the image of God.
I hope that this was helpful for you. Welcome to the forums!
With love in Christ,
Pete