THE PSEUDO-DIALOGUE OF HIS EMINENCE
MARKUS
WITH SUZIANA THE WOMAN
(circa 500 CE)
by
Mark and Janet Sue Given
We
join in progress an imaginary heresy trial held around 500 CE. The participants are an archbishop named
Markus and a woman prophet named Suziana.
Suziana is on trial for performing the duties of an ordained bishop in a
renegade church that has recognized her prophetic gifts and calling. As we join the proceeding, Markus (M) and
Suziana (J) are arguing about the nature of man and woman according to the Scriptures.
M:
"God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them."
J:
So man is a them?
M:
Man represents all humanity.
J:
Man is male and female?
M:
So it is written.
J:
Then man is androgynous, male and
female simultaneously, a hermaphrodite!
M:
Of course not. Man is two, not one.
J:
I see. Male and female he created them? Because that is God's
image?
M:
So it is written.
J:
God's image is male and female, yet you call God he?
M:
So it is written.
J:
A he that creates children all by himself?
M:
Yes.
J:
Then God is androgynous, both male
and female?
M:
Of course not. He says "in our image." God is two, not . . .
J: One?
M:
You are utterly perverse! That's not
what I meant. Let us continue. "God blessed them, and God said to
them, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have
dominion over . . .'"
J: Both of them?
M: Don't interrupt.
J:
Both of them have dominion? Both of
them ruling together?
M:
That was God's intention.
J: Which god?
The Male or the Female?
M: God is
One. It is written.
J:
God is singular, yet god is an "us." God is androgynous then.
M: You are utterly deluded. Let us continue.
"Then God said it is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a
helper as a partner."
J:
But man isn't alone. You said man is
male and female, not one but two. Man
is not alone.
M:
That was man in general; now we are speaking of man in particular.
J: I'm
confused.
M:
Naturally. You are a woman. I will be your helper.
J:
Where did this "woman" come from? You said man is male and female.
M:
Patience child. I'm getting to
that. God made woman from man. This one shall be called woman for out of
man this one was taken.
J:
So man in general is male and female, but man in particular is male. Then can we say that woman in general is
male and female, but woman in particular is female?
M: There is no woman in general, only man in general. Woman's source is man, woman's destiny is man. But man's source and destiny is God.
(Pause; Suziana looks troubled)
J:
This hardly seems to agree with the idea that God created them male and female in God's image. Did the female in God emerge from the male in ages past in God's
own primordial Eden?
M:
Thou mother of perversity! Of course
not! God's nature does not change and
God is not female!
J:
But you said male and female, in the image of God, and . . . (interrupted).
M:
You are truly a daughter of Eve. The
serpent is deceiving you as well. After
all, it was the woman who was deceived, not the man. "For man was formed first, then woman; and the man was not
deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor." So it is written.
J: Oh, you refer to Paul I suppose.
M:
Of course, in his first divinely inspired letter to Timothy.
J: The same Paul who said in Christ there is no
male or female.
M:
That's not what he meant! (Spoken to quickly; Markus looks confused).
(slight
pause)
J:
Now you seemed confused. Let me
help you.
M:
Like you helped Adam? No. I am the teacher. You are only a woman. You
may not teach a man.
J:
Your beloved pastoral epistles again.
M:
It is written, "Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or have authority
over a man; she is to keep silent."
J:
Do you think Paul disapproved of his friend Priscilla when she taught Apollos?
M:
That was different. She took him aside
and taught him, corrected him, privately. This is different than teaching
publicly.
J:
So Paul calls someone his fellow worker who only works in private. Shall we suppose that his relative Junia
whom he calls prominent among the apostles in Romans was a private apostle? Isn't a private
apostle a contradiction in terms? Was
she sent . . . to herself? (teasingly)
M:
I see your perversity leads you to prefer corrupt manuscripts of the Holy
Scriptures. The best manuscripts do not
include Junia among the apostles.
J: And why are they the best? Because they don't call a woman an apostle
perhaps?
M:
Certainly. Paul would never have called
a woman an apostle.
J:
I see. Paul could not have allowed a
woman to speak in the public assembly of the church.
M: That is certain. John Chrysostom, that illustrious bishop of Constantinople says, and I quote, "Our life is customarily organized into two spheres: public affairs and private matters, both of which were determined by God. To woman is assigned the rule of the household; to man, all the business of state, the marketplace, the administration of justice, government, the military, and all other such enterprises. A woman is not able to hurl a spear or shoot an arrow, but she can operate the spinning wheel and weave at the loom; she correctly carries out all such tasks that pertain to the household. She cannot express her opinion in a legislative assembly, but she can express it at home . . . She cannot handle state business well, but she can raise children correctly, and children are our principal wealth. . . . She provides complete security for her husband and frees him from all such household concerns, concerns about money, wool working, the preparation of food and decent clothing." But returning to the Scriptures themselves, Paul himself says to the Corinthians, "As in all the churches of the saints, women should be silent. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the Law also says." Paul and Chrysostom agree, A woman's place is in the home.
J:
You believe Paul said this? You believe
that the Paul who says Christians are no longer subject to the Law, who calls
the Law a curse, who said in Christ there is no male or female, this same Paul
used the Law to support the idea that women should be silent in the churches?
M:
So it is written.
J:
It is also written in the same letter to the Corinthians that women should have
their head's veiled when they pray or prophesy. Have you ever seen someone prophesy in silence?
M:
You are arguing like a sophist. You are
magnifying minor and trivial details.
In the very same passage of which you speak, Paul unambiguously states
that man is the image and reflection of God; but woman is the reflection of
man. It is written, "man was not
made from woman, but woman from man.
Neither was man created for the sake of woman, but woman for the sake of
man."
J:
An unambiguous Paul you say. Do you
remember what he says next? It is
written, "Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man or man
independent of woman. For just as woman
came from man, so man comes through woman; but all things come from God."
M:
You do not understand Paul at all.
J: You do not understand Paul at all. Have you not read what he says to the Ephesians. It is written, "Be subject to one
another out of reverence for Christ."
M:
Is this the best you can do? His very
next words are "Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the
Lord."
J:
So my husband is my God?
M:
I didn't say that.
(pause)
J:
But Paul says "Be subject to one another."
M:
This does not mean the subjection is reciprocal. It means those who should be in subjection should remain in
subjection to whomever is their superior.
He goes on to remind children to be subject to their parents. He does not say parents should be subject to
their children. He also reminds slaves
to be subject to their masters. He does
not say masters should be subject to their slaves. That's common sense. In
the same way, when he reminds wives to be subject to their husbands, he does
not then contradict himself and say husbands should be subject to their wives.
J:
So I, the woman, the female, I whom God created to have dominion with the
male—male and female he created them—I am to be to subject to the male in the
same way a child is subject to a parent, or a slave to a master. I am to be a child and a slave.
M:
That's what my Bible says. But
you're correct that God intended for woman to have equal authority. The problem is that she couldn't handle
it. Again, as Chrysostom, that
supremely gifted preacher, put it in one of his sermons, "God said in
effect to Eve, 'I made you equal in honor.
Yet you did not use your authority well, so consign yourself to a state
of subordination. You couldn't handle
your liberty, so accept servitude.
Since you do not know how to rule—as you showed in your experiment with
the business of life [in the Garden of Eden]—henceforth be among the
governed and acknowledge your husband
as lord."
(Pause; Suziana looks troubled again)
J:
I am troubled by all these ambiguous images of Paul. They remind me of Paul's strange behavior towards Thecla, the
woman apostle. One moment he appears to
be her best friend. Another moment he
denies and abandons her in the street.
This seems typical of all Paul's ambiguous attitudes toward women.
M: Thecla? I suppose it was only a matter of time before you brought up such "old wives tales." You can't support the idea that women can preach and baptize with such manifestly fantastic falsehoods. There is no Thecla mentioned in the New Testament. The great Church Father Tertullian warned us about those heretics who use such forgeries as the Acts of Paul and Thecla and appeal to the example of Thecla as giving women the right to teach and baptize. Let them know that a priest in Asia constructed this document decades after Paul's death, as if he were heaping glory up for Paul by his own effort; when he was convicted and confessed that he had done it out of love for Paul, he lost his position. For how credible is it that Paul gave a woman the power of teaching and baptizing, when he firmly prohibited a woman from speaking?
J:
I'm curious. You are sure that the Acts of Paul is composed of falsehoods. How do you know Paul really wrote
those letters to Timothy? Do any of the
early Church Fathers know these epistles?
Does Clement or Ignatius or Justin refer to them?
M:
Do you dare to challenge the authenticity of books so long received and
venerated among the Orthodox? Perhaps
you would like to join the heretics.
They always have "uses" for women like you, as Paul says
"wretched women, burdened with sins, carried about by every wind of
doctrine, always learning and never reaching the knowledge of the
truth." Jerome just
recently wrote an epistle detailing the endless parade of women who have helped
the heretics. When women are involved in
the ministry of the church, the result is heresy.
J:
I'm familiar with Jerome's examples. Isn't it
interesting that he
says the heretic Marcion sent a woman ahead of him to Rome to prepare his way.
Do you remember a woman named Phoebe?
M:
The name is familiar.
J:
Paul said to the church at Rome "I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a
deacon in the Church at Cenchreae, so that you may welcome her in the Lord as is
fitting for the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for
she has been a benefactor of many and of myself as well." Is he not introducing her because she
carried his epistle to the Romans.
Isn't it true that Marcion was simply imitating his hero Paul by sending
a woman ahead of him to prepare his way?
M:
That's disgusting. You would compare
the saintly Paul with Marcion, the first-born son of Satan?
J: Are
they that different?
M:
God forbid!
J:
Very well. What about Montanus? Do you call him a heretic?
M:
Most certainly.
J:
Why? Was his theology defective?
M:
Not exactly.
J:
Was his Christology defective?
M:
Not exactly.
J:
Was he not ascetic enough?
M:
He was quite chaste.
J:
Then why was he a heretic?
M:
Because he believed that the Spirit continues to give new revelations and these
revelations came through women. Both
ideas are manifestly heretical. The
canon of Scripture contains all the revelation we need, and Scripture commands
women to be silent.
J: You are confident that the Spirit does not inspire new prophecy.
M:
I am confident.
J:
You are not afraid of blasphemy against the Spirit.
M: What
do you mean?
J:
Jesus said every sin is forgivable save one, blaspheming against the
Spirit. You don't consider it blasphemy
to say the Spirit is now silent? Aren't
you treating the Spirit like a woman?
pause
M:
That's not what I'm saying. The Spirit
is not silent. I said there is no
"new prophecy." The Spirit
continues to speak but its message is unchanging.
J:
So God never has anything new to say these days.
M:
Now who blasphemes?
J:
I am not the one limiting God, but let me ask you this. Did Tertullian agree with your view
of revelation? You quoted him so
approvingly before when he supported your position on women. What about his conversion to Montanism?
M:
Anyone can fall from grace.
J:
Anyone can grow up. Tertullian became
convinced in his day that the church, not yet 200 years old, was spiritually
dead, languishing in hardened traditionalism.
He put his hatred of women aside and joined a Spirit led movement in a
church that truly believed that the Spirit blows where it will, that truly
believed that in Christ there is no male and female. Possession of the Spirit was all that mattered, and all Christians have a share in that.
M:
Be careful. Tertullian's writings may
yet suffer the same fate as others who strayed away from the straight and
narrow.
J:
Are you saying that Tertullian, one of the pillars of Orthodoxy, could be
retroactively condemned as a heretic just because he supported a movement that
extolled the Spirit and looked upon women as spiritual equals?
M:
It could happen.
(pause)
J:
I've heard enough. It appears that
people like myself, women that is,
have no future in this place.
M:
That's not true. You can cease to
practice the works of the female and join a monastery. You can go on pilgrimages to the Holy
Land. Since you are a woman of some
means, you can contribute financially as we build Augustine's City of God.
J:
No. Augustine can keep his city. It's
no place for a woman.
M:
I see. Your complete refusal to see
reason today has only confirmed everything Augustine said of your kind: woman
is truly of meager intelligence and subject more to the promptings of inferior
flesh than superior spirit. He was also
probably correct when he suggested that in the Garden of Eden the woman had not
yet received the grace that comes with the knowledge of God, did not yet bear
God's image as did the man, and would have acquired it only gradually—under
man's rule and management to be sure.
Scripture and Church tradition are firmly on my side.
J:
And the Spirit of the living God is firmly on my side.