ITP Theology Group meeting Wednesday 17th December
David Carter
Joan Gibson’s article 'Could Christ have been born a woman? A medieval debate' in
Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 8 no 1 Spring 1992, pp. 65-82
The introduction to Joan Gibson’s article is followed by a brief account of why I think it
is of interest.
Introduction
Joan Gibson’s article sets out many theological arguments in considerable detail and in their
historical context. This introduction will sketch the links between the main theologians
involved and outline some of their arguments.
Gibson shows that ‘questions about the sex of God and its relation to human sex roles ...
evoked lively interest in the middle ages’ (p.66) from the time of Anselm of Canterbury (1033–
1109) and were included in 1150s in the influential Sentences of Peter Lombard which had
become a standard theological text at the University of Paris by the 1220s. Gibson concludes
her preliminary historical overview with the comment ‘Over the following three hundred years,
during which the Sentences dominated theological studies in the universities, the issue was
kept in philosophical and theological consciousness.’(p.66)
Many key medieval theologians (who were also to a varying extent, philosophers) wrote
something on such questions but it was small in relation to their total output. The list includes
– as well as Anselm and Peter Lombard mentioned earlier – Albertus Magnus (also known as
Albert the Great), Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas. Gibson also outlines the contributions of
less well-known figures such as Gandulph of Bologna [mid C 12th], Roland of Cremona [d.
1259], Peter of Tarantaise [1102-74], Denis the Carthusian [Denys van Leeuwen, 1402-71] and
[Gabriel] Biel ["the last of the Scholastics", 1425-95]. I knew nothing of these latter five so
checked their names and dates in the online Catholic Encyclopedia or other reliable source –
details added in square brackets.
At several places in the article Gibson examines current as well as medieval debates about
gender and Christianity. She says that they are both ‘fueled by conflicting interpretations of
history... These debates take place within a tradition and society that include misogyny and
male domination, and they rely on methodologies developed in communities that actively
excluded women. In these respects, medieval Catholicism exemplifies a similar set of
difficulties about gender and God...’ (p.65). But she does not consider how the arguments
would look without the deep-rooted prejudices – misogyny / androcentrism / sexism /
patriarchy – of the Middle Ages.
There is a roughly chronological survey of the development of questions around the sex of God
which were first put into the form of the article’s title by Peter Lombard when he asked ‘in
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book three of the Sentences whether God could have assumed humanity in the female sex.’
(p.66)
Before that, in Chapter 42 of his Monologium [or Monologion], Anselm had raised ‘the
question of which set of terms is more suitable for . . . [the persons of the Trinity] “father and
son” or “mother and daughter” — for there is no sexual distinction in the Supreme Spirit and
the Word.' (p.66). Long before that, Augustine of Hippo had discussed human male and female
embodiment in fairly positive terms. (p.68)
The Christology of Peter Lombard’s Sentences drew on both Anselm and Augustine. Gibson
says that his ‘brief response to the question about a female Christ does not really take up the
challenge he poses — following instead Augustine’s defense of birth from a woman —
nevertheless, his answer sets out the main lines of the commentaries that follow. Christ could
indeed have chosen to assume human nature as a woman, but it was better not to have done
so. It was more appropriate that He was born of a woman and assumed a male body in order
to show Christ’s liberation of both sexes from sin. Further, Lombard adds, He ought to take on
the male sex since it is the more honorable.’ (p.69) (my italics)
Gibson calls the theologians who reconsider Peter Lombard’s question and extend his
arguments commentators because they comment on this theme from his Sentences.
The next two are Gandulph of Bologna who ‘highlight[s] broad issues in incarnational
theology.’ (p.69) and Roland of Cremona who examines the hypostatic union: ‘If the union of
human and divine ceased, would the same person ... remain as before? And if the Son of God,
abandoning the humanity He first had, were to take on a different [in particular, female] one,
would the same person ... remain as before?’ (p.70)
The next major developments were made by Albert the Great who, Gibson says, gives the
question ‘definitive direction for the remainder of the middle ages’. He asks instead of could
rather ‘Whether Christ ought to have ... assumed humanity in the female sex?' (p.71, my
italics) and presented two arguments for: one based on a symmetry requirement for salvation
history and another based on Christ imaging the maternal role of the second person of the
Trinity and three arguments against: the first based on Christ’s proclamatory role and the
Pauline injunction against women preaching [probably 1 Cor 14:34 & 1 Tim 2:11-12]; the
second argument is based on ‘Aristotle's argument that a woman is a defective man, and that
since Christ ought to represent perfection ... He should be incarnate as a man’ and the third is
based on God’s completion of the ways of producing humans.
Gibson then sets out three other of Albert’s arguments against a female Christ: the first based
on the communication of properties: ‘He would be eternally a son and temporally a daughter,
and ... would thus be both, since predicates of the unified person of Christ could not belong
only to His divine or human nature’; the second argument is another view of the symmetry of
salvation history giving an opposite conclusion to that above, and the third revisits Christ’s
maternal role which, because it is spiritual, ‘need not require a female incarnation.’ (p.72)
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Bonaventure ‘rephrases the question again, this time as "whether it would have been fitting ...
for God to assume the female sex for the restoration of the human race."’ (p.72, my italics) To
give a fresh perspective I will list his sexist prejudices rather than outline his new arguments.
From p.72:
Women are the (morally) ‘weaker sex’ and ‘more sunk in wretchedness’
Following Albert and ultimately Aristotle: ‘a woman is a defective man’
From p.73:
The ‘Pauline view that a woman ought not to be head of the Church. It would be a perversion
of order, he contends, since according to the Apostle, the head of a woman is man.’ [Refs: 1
Cor 11:3 and Eph 5:23]
‘the female sex ... is not of equal worth ... The male sex is more excellent in worth in
originating; in power in acting; in authority in ruling.’
‘the male is active, the female passive’
‘The communication of properties in the Incarnation requires that the most noble spirit be
united to the most noble sex [the context implies male] in the most noble union.’
Enough! Bonaventure is not noticeably more or less prejudiced than any of the other medieval
theologians in Gibson’s article. This approach just highlights the prejudice.
Thomas Aquinas considers what sex is appropriate (similar to Bonaventure’s fitting) for Christ,
and after a reasoned examination of the possibilities of no sex, hermaphrodite, female and
male – comes unsurprisingly to the conclusion that male is appropriate. (pp.74-75)
The remaining theologians mentioned by Gibson, other than in passing or in footnotes, are
Peter of Tarantaise, (pp.75-76) Denis the Carthusian (pp.76-77) and Gabriel Biel (p.77). They all
use criteria similar to Aquinas’s appropriate or Bonaventure’s fitting – words translated as
proper or decent – and come to the same conclusion. There are, from the perspective of an
overview or introduction, only minor points of interest in their treatment of the question.
Gibson opens her conclusions (pp.77-82) by asking about the reasons for the medieval interest
in the sex of Christ. She notes that the question ‘did not arise in any obvious way from
Scripture, nor [was] it debated in this form in patristic sources’ (p.77) She considers a number
of intellectual influences and social factors including the change from discussions in a monastic
context to a university and ecclesiastical context, noting ‘monks' characterizations of
themselves as lowly, weak, and obedient, in short, as playing the role the world assigned to
women.’ (pp.77-78) and the later shift of ‘the focus of imitation of Christ toward more active
roles and more ecclesiastical models — roles appropriate to men who preached, administered
the sacraments and governed the Church.’ (p.78) This change marginalised women: because
they ‘were excluded and the discussion removed from a monastic context, the ways in which at
least some monastic women had exercised authority in teaching and presiding became less
visible.’(p.79)
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Theology was used to defend the status quo and it became ‘less important to know that God
could have willed it otherwise, than to learn from what He has in fact ordained.’ (p.79) This is
linked with ‘the elaboration of a doctrine excluding women from Holy Orders ... renewed
restrictions on women's preaching, teaching and counselling roles even within their
monasteries... Many of the leading figures in the thirteenth-century discussion of the sex of
Christ also play central roles in defining women's ecclesiastical impediments.’ (p.80)
Gibson speculates that one reason for the decline in argument about the gender of Christ in
the late 13th and early 14th centuries was the growing consensus for the doctrine of the
Immaculate Conception of Mary. ‘In the face of such surpassing grace, the issue of whether
Christ might have chosen to become a woman Himself may have appeared superfluous...’
(p.81)
Near the end of her conclusions Gibson says that ‘the problems raised by imputing gender to
the divine are wide-ranging and complex. They are difficult to avoid in a religion that proclaims
the unsexed fatherhood of God and the salvific incarnation of Christ. To the extent that issues
of possibility and appropriateness underlie the discussion, the solution to such problems can
reasonably be expected to change as our understanding of gender develops.’ (p.82) This leads
us nicely on to modern feminist reconsiderations of the medieval debates.
Why I find Joan Gibson’s article of interest
1. It is a fascinating glimpse into the range of medieval theological debate, covering a topic and
arguments not mentioned in most introductions to the subject.
2. I believe the medieval debate could usefully be re-examined in a modern context and
wonder how the arguments would look if all the sexist presuppositions were removed. Would
a female incarnation be seen as a possibility? The medieval debate, in spite of its negative
conclusions, sets a historical theological precedent – adding to the one from historical
devotional writing – for modern approaches to the Christa.
3. We are now in the season of Advent, which is a time of preparation not only for the coming
of Christ at Christmas but also for the Second Coming on the Last Day. In keeping with this, I’m
interested not only in the ‘hypothetical counterfactual’ (p.77) question 'Could Christ have been
born a woman?’ but in the future-directed question 'Could Christ be born and come again as a
woman?’ A few lines from Nicola Slee’s poem Seeking the Risen Christa (SPCK, 2011, p.1) come
to mind:
Where is the risen Christa?
Why have we not realized her?
Is she still on her way to us?
How can we help her arrive?