the faith itself some Fashion with a Christian colouring. Work on their horror of the Same Old Thing.57
“Study the New Testament,” a Chartist newspaper, enjoined its readers in 1841, “it contains the elements of Chartism.”58 “. . . we are all priests,” exclaims a character in Flaubert’s L’Education Sentimentale (1869), “the workman is a priest like the founder of Socialism, the Master of us all, Jesus Christ!”59 Since the almost routine nineteenth century identification of Christianity with soft-edged socialism the notion has come a long way. (“Christianity and vegetarianism” was Lewis’s favorite.) The logic behind the syndrome is simple but fallacious: because Jesus was a Good Man he must necessarily have favored all that the protagonist thinks to be good. On grounds scarcely more sophisticated or informed, feminists have claimed him for their own. We need therefore to ask, “What did Jesus think about women?” And whether, in a modern analytical sense, he thought about women at all.
The chapter following deals with the claims repeatedly made about St. Paul. Feminists have always been in two minds about Paul. For a long time he was portrayed as an egregious example of the blanket misogyny of his era. Paul was said to be the crucial agent in the transformation of the counter-cultural, radically egalitarian “Jesus Movement” into an institutional church which oppressed women. The problem with this theory is the absence of any specific scriptural text establishing the alleged egalitarianism of Jesus. As we will see, Jesus never addresses the subject of the social or cultic status of women directly, and no firm conclusions can be drawn from his general conduct. This problem has been solved in a quite remarkable way. In a curious volte-face, Paul the hated misogynist was transformed into a feminist hero; and Galatians 3:28 has been drafted in to supply the pressing need for a biblical slogan. Of course, the mulier tacet texts (requiring women to stay silent), on which Paul’s previous reprobation had been based, remained. They were now regarded, not as incontrovertible proofs of Paul’s hatred of women, but either as later interpolations (by men who could not stomach the strong meat of Paul’s radicalism), or as undesirable elements in Paul’s own psycho-pathology (which the gospel values in him were struggling to suppress). Those who were in two minds about Paul had created an apostle in their own image; one who was in two minds about himself. The primary task of the exegete—to illuminate the text in its integrity in the light of its author’s culture, background, and known mentality—was set aside, and the concerns of an age far removed from his own arbitrarily imposed upon it.
Chapter 4 is devoted to Mary of Magdala. For a character to whom there are only thirteen references in scripture (most of them cognate and only one outside the Paschal narratives), the Magdalen has had a long and eventful career. Since her death she has been credited with being, amongst other things, a prostitute, a penitent, an early migrant to the Côte d’Azur, the scion of a royal house, and, of course, the wife of God and mother of his grandson. For none of this is there a shred of firm evidence. That fact might have been read as a warning against further unwarranted speculation, but not so. Recent books about her range from the relatively scholarly to the frankly barking. She has emerged in Christian feminist polemic as “apostola Apostolorum” (“apostle to the Apostles”). The claim is based on the assertion that Mary was the first to see the risen Lord, and was charged by Him to proclaim the resurrection to others. As we shall see, there is no unequivocal support in scripture for either claim. Nor is it clear what effect, if any, the truth of the assertion would have on the restriction of episcopal office to men.
The next chapter is a round-up of some of the more specific (and imaginative) evidence which has been adduced for women priests in the early years of Christianity. The Roman Catacombs and the Colosseum have a special place in the popular mythology of early Christianity. Featured in Hollywood blockbusters and historical novels, the truth is that neither lives up to its reputation. There is no evidence that Christians were ever martyred in the Colosseum; nor were the catacombs used either as hiding places or as places of regular worship. But the mystique lingers on. Ever since the attention of non-specialists was drawn to it by Joan Morris,60 a fresco in the Cappella Graeca in the so-called Catacomb of Priscilla has been a focus of misguided attention. Probably because of its resemblance to the most famous of all frescoes of the Last Supper (a group of figures at a table arranged to face the spectator), it has been claimed to be a representation of a concelebration of the Eucharist by women priests of the early second century. Or, according to another authority, Priscilla and Aquilla, that ubiquitous Pauline couple, celebrating the eucharist together with friends. All this is improbable in the highest degree. Representations of eucharistic celebrations are otherwise unknown in paleo-Christian art; concelebration is unheard of before the seventh century; and the fresco is dated by most authorities to the end of the third century, when Aquilla and his wife were long dead.
A mosaic in the chapel of S. Zeno in the titular church of Sta Prassede in Rome has been taken to be a portrait of a woman bishop, “Theodora Episcopa,” the mother of Pope Paschal I. Though she has left no other testament to posterity, Theodora has been celebrated by members of the Movement for the Ordination of Women with an eponymous cocktail (sparkling wine and pomegranate juice, in the style of the more familiar Bellini and suitably purple). Meanwhile, a former editor of The Catholic Herald has eked out a slim volume, and a subsequent television documentary, by retelling the hoary legend of Pope Joan, in which surely even he could not bring himself to believe.
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Christianity is an historical religion. It is related to a particular historical moment. The radical critique of Baruch Spinoza (and the post-Christian feminism of Daphne Hampson) bases itself on two principles: the absurdity of miracles and the need to treat scripture in the critical, analytical manner adopted with regard to all other texts since the age of humanism. The paradox is that Christianity is a religion compelled by its denial of Spinoza’s first principle to the rigorous pursuit of his second. Its particular relationship to a moment in time requires of it the utmost rigor in apprehending that moment. To uncover “the Jesus of history” (as though there were some other Jesus who was in some way unhistorical) is, for Christians, to learn something of the mind of God. The Incarnation—the foundational miracle of the Faith—is precisely the place where event and revelation meet. The two are inseparable: he is both God and a man. God in Christ, as the fathers of the Seventh Council affirmed, can be (and must be) described or delineated—the verb they used was perigraphein. The Council wittily turned the tables on the vanquished iconoclasts: to claim that God is indescribable, they said, is to fall into the deadly danger of making Him in one’s own image—the very idolatry of which the iconodules had been accused. And, one might add, the crime of which Albert Schweitzer thought the questers after the “historical Jesus” were guilty.
Whilst Islam is the religion of an inviolable text and a single language, the characteristic activity of Christians is translation. Jesus spoke Aramaic; the gospels and epistles were written in Greek; a Latin translation mediated the gospel message to Western Europe; vernacular translations (especially into English and German) were crucial in the development of early modern language and culture. The temptation has always been to mimic Islam and to canonise a particular text at a particular time. It has wisely been resisted. Translation is a delicate and subtle process. It demands different qualities and responses at different times. Consider the manifold difficulties of transposing Racine into modern English verse. Translation requires a deep historical insight and a lively imagination. These qualities have been tragically lacking among liberal Christians sympathetic to the feminist challenge. In place of historical sensitivity they have substituted cultural imperialism. They have recreated the Christian past in their own image. The flagship in this regard has been the campaign for so-called “inclusive language” in Bible translation and in the liturgy. Secular feminists, of course, have been busily policing the pronouns (with a degree of success) for at least three generations. Whether the abandonment of allegedly offensive terms like “actress” and “usherette” effected or reflected changes in general attitudes
