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| Servants of God Cyprian & Daphrose Rugamba (m. 7 April 1994) |
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Epistula de mutuis relationibus inter viros et mulieres: Lettera ai vescovi della Chiesa Cattolica sulla collaborazione dell'uomo e della donna nella Chiesa et nel mondo (Letter to the bishops of the Catholic Church on the collaboration of men and women in the Church and in the world), 31 May 2004, sec. 12. Italian in AAS 96, no. 10 (2004 Oct 5): 671-687 from here.
More statements along this (as opposed to any other historically alternative) line:
Conferentia Episcopalis Scandiae, "Pastoral letter on human sexuality," Fifth Sunday of Lent (26 March) 2023: "When we profess that God made us in his image, the image does not just refer to the soul. It is mysteriously lodged in the body, too. For us Christians the body is intrinsic to personhood. We believe in the resurrection of the body. Naturally, ‘we shall all be changed’. What our bodies will be like in eternity we cannot yet imagine. But we believe on biblical authority, grounded in tradition, that the unity of mind, soul, and body is made to last forever. In eternity we shall be recognizable as who we are now, but the conflicts that still prevent the harmonious unfolding of our true self will have been resolved."
Hilary Yancey, "Heavenly (gendered) persons? Gender persistence in the resurrection and its implications," in The lost sheep in philosophy of religon: new perspectives on disability, race, gender, and animals, ed. Blake Hereth and Kevin Timpe (New York: Rouledge, 2019), 328 (): "justice does require gender persistence in heaven. God does not merely choose to resurrect persons who are gendered; God must do so in order to accomplish the justice promised in the resurrection itself."
Janet Martin Soskice, "Imago Dei and sexual difference: toward an eschatological anthropology" (orig. 2007), in Rethinking human nature: a multidisciplinary approach, ed. Malcolm Jeeves (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011), 302, 304-306 (295-306).
Ronald E. Long, "Heavenly sex: the moral authority of an impossible dream," Theology & sexuality 11, no. 3 (May 2005): (31–46)?
Elisabeth Gössman, "Was sage uns heute die Reflexionen zum Auferstehungsleib in den christlichen Traditionen?," in Vorgeschmack: Ökumenische Bemühungen um die Eucharistie: Festschrift für Theodor Schneider, ed. Bernd Jochen Hiberath and Dorothea Sattler (Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald Verlag, 1995), 187-188, 191-193 (179-194): "It astonished me [to discover] that a modern feminist dictionary[, the Frauenlexikon edited by Anneliese Lissner and published in 1988,] mentions, in [an article on] Christian eschatology, only the obliteration of the sexual difference [(die Auslöschung der Geschlechterdifferenz)] in the hereafter, despite the fact that the Christian tradition with its [(der)] doctrine of the preservation of the sexual difference treated precisely womanhood as well as manhood as something eternally valid and indissoluable [(Endgültiges und Unaufhebbares)]. . . .
". . . the church fathers and also later theologians held fast to the eternal validity [(Endgültigkeit)] of the sexual difference and its significance for the eschaton. . . .
"Against the medieval splits [(Abspaltungen)] from the Great Church, above all [that of] the Cathars, but also [those of] other groups under Gnostic [and/or] Manichaean influence, [all of] which wanted to exclude the female along with matter from their eschatologies, and proclaimed [(propagierten)] the eschatological becoming-man of the woman, the Franciscan Bonaventure fought as much as any, in that he wrote: 'Dominus utrumque sexum receipt, utrumque sanavit corporaliter, utrumque vocavit per apostolos' [(Commentary on Ecclesiastes VII.24.ii)]. He addressed himself, therefore, against 'haeresim illam, quod nulla mulier salvatur', [and] therefore against those who deny that women are capable of redemption as women.
"We see, therefore, that women are taken far [(wesentlich)] more seriously in the Great Church, with [its] doctrine of the preservation of the sexual difference [(Geschlechterdifferenz)] in the eschaton, than was the case among the disruptions influenced by Manichaeism. One can only be greatly astonished at how guarded recent dogmaticians have become on the theme of the resurrected body and sexual difference that, in the struggle over sound doctrine, has shaped [(bestimmt)] our tradition for so long. Ratzinger, as I've said, mentions the preservation [(Erhaltenbleiben)] of the sexual difference [(Geschlechterdifferenz)] as late as 1957, but no longer in 1977 [(but see the passage from the CDF under Ratzinger, above!)], and Schmaus writes in 1959, 'About the form of the resurrected body we can say nothing. But the sexual difference [(Geschlechtsverschiedenheit)] remains preserved [(bleibt . . . erhalten)] despite the spiritualization of the body.' And yet, in his eschatology of 1982, I have found nothing more along that same [line], just as in Gottfried Bachl’s Die Zukunft nach dem Tod of 1985.
"Even contemporary feminism—which, on the whole, has concerned itself to date too little with the Christian tradition of eschatology, [a] tradition inclusive of women [(inclusive Frauentradition)]—has greatly distanced itself from the thought of the Middle Ages. The oft-cited Rosemary Radford Ruether, herself a good judge of [(Kennerin, specialist in)] early Christianity, sees the insistence upon individual immortality as something typically male, and knows better than to root the beginnings of this tendency firmly in [(mit dem paulinischen Geistleib weiß diese Richtung nicht viel anzugangen)] the Pauline spiritual body. She emphasizes, rather, that women are more comfortable [(vertrauter sind)] with bodily life and the death it entails, and are able to acquiesce in transience and return-to-dust more readily than men.
"As much as there may be to agree with here, this tendency of feminist theology nevertheless suffers from this, that it still wrestles too little with the exegesis of the eschatological statements of the Old and New Testaments, and above all has yet to incorporate sufficiently into its reflections also the thought of [medieval] fore-sisters [(das Denken unserer Vorschwestern) such as St. Hildegard of Bingen (p. 191)]. This could be a consequence of the recency of feminism [(einem Mangel an Zeit)], for the attempt at a reception from the female point of view of [both] the biblical statements and the Christian tradition of female [reflection upon them] is of course still young. That said [(Aber)], a warning against over-hasty and apparently ideological [(ideologisch anmutenden)] conclusions is nevertheless appropriate.
. . .
"Let's summarize what the [Christian] Middle Ages, considered as partly a continuation of Christian antiquity, and partly [a] new achievement, [and in particular, on some of this, Durandus of Pourçain (pp. 189-190), as well as the early Franciscan tradition, as represented by the Summa Halensis above all (pp. 192-193),] has to offer us on the subject of eschatology: [1] the non-provisionality but rather eternal validity [(Endgultigkeit)] of the human being as [either] woman or man; [2] the identity of being-a-person with the body-spirit wholeness of man; [3] the unnecessary and also impossible material identity of the earthly and the resurrected body; [4] the possible transience of even the spiritual [(of a material and therefore mortal soul)], and therefore a so-much-the-greater dependence on the grace of [a] God [who raises the dead (pp. 189-190 ff.)].
The Protestant tendencies of 20th-century eschatology and questions about the viability of the traditional [Catholic] doctrine of the immortal soul aside, "the reflections of [those in] our [medieval] tradition [('these four important incitements-to-thought')] are nevertheless so stimulating that they merit being incorporated into the present discussion: [1] the eternal validity of the determination-to-sex [(die Endgültigkeit der geschlechtlichen Bestimmung)], [2] person-being in corporeality, [3] the non-identity of the material of [the] earthly and [the] eschatological body, and [4] the transience of [absolutely] everything created, be it corporeal or spiritual. . . ."
Gössmann, Elisabeth (and Haruko Okano), "Himmel ohne Frauen? Zur Eschatologie des weiblichen Menschseins in östlicher und westlicher Religion," In Das Gold im Wachs: Feschrift für Thomas Immoos zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Elisabeth Gössmann and Günter Zobel (München: Iudicium Verlag, 1988), 406 (397-426): Given the then-relatively-recent recovery of the Aristotelian position on the weakness and passivity of women, "it is all the more astonishing that the most influential [(Wirkmächtigsten)] of the scholastics, [theologians] such as Peter Lombard, Thomas Aquinas, and Bonaventure, held fast to the eschatological equality of the sexes. Also, for them the woman remains in the resurrection a woman. Despite such clear words, uttered in patent fidelity to the Augustinian tradition, there spread in the Middle Ages also a confused wickerwork of thoughts on the eschatology of the female sex that must have planted uncertainty [(verunsichernd wirken mußte)] and perhaps also first elicited [the (solche)] clear words [of the great scholastics]. . . . Such confusions, to be understood, possibly, as [the result of an] influence of the heresies on the Great Church, permeated, therefore, [and] despite female and male counter-voices, the Middle Ages. Nor did the intermixture of the levels of reality [on the one hand] and symbol [on the other] come to an end. Although women themselves brought to the expectation-that-they-become-men less and less sympathy [(Verständnis)], there existed, nonetheless [(weiterhin)], a social order that valued a virilization of women as [an] ascent and an effeminization of men as [a] descent."
Michael Schmaus, Katholische Dogmatik, 5th ed., IV.2 (1959), 231: "On the subject of the form of the risen body we can say nothing. But the distinction between the sexes [(Geschlechtsverschiedenheit)] remains preserved [(bleibt . . . erhalten)] despite the spiritualization of the body." (I have not read this in context (pp. 221-241); check also vol. 6 of his later Dogma).
Joseph Ratzinger, "Auferstehungsleib," LThK, 2nd ed., vol. 1 (1957), col. 1053 (cols. 1052-1053): "Theology names as properties of the risen body spirituality (1 Cor 15:44), immortality (1 Cor 15:53 f.), incorruptibility (1 Cor 15:42, 53), invulnerability to suffering (Rev. 7:16 f.; 21:4), purity (Mt 28:2 ff.; Jn 20:19 and Phil 3:21), agility, clarity (1 Cor 15:43). The bodies of the damned lack of these properties only immortality and incorruptibility; certainly they lack [also] invulnerability to suffering. The risen body remains, despite the fundamental change that it experiences (-> Auferstehung des Fleisches III 3b), a true human body; even the distinction between the sexes [(auch der Unterschied der Geschlechter)] persists [(bleibt bestehen)]. Closer investigations into its form of existence must, however, be rejected as futile [(nutzlos)]."
Karl Barth, CD III.2, 296-297 (§45.3) =KD III.2 (1948), -358- (§45.3), where there is a lot more in context: "But Paul is not saying that the antitheses are simply set aside and done away by the being of Christians in Christ. Cest ordre là est inviolable et nostre Seigneur Iesus Christ n'est pas venu au monde pour faire une telle confusion que ce qui est establi de Dieu son Pere soit aboli (Calvin, C.R. [7]8, 568). Thus the fact that male and female are one in Christ does not mean that they are no longer male and female. Yet it might be asked whether this is the last word. Does it not apply only so long as Christians still share in this present aeon which passes? In their life which according to Col. 3:3 is hidden with Christ in God, and especially in its future manifestation in the resurrection of the dead, will it not perhaps be the case that they are no longer male or female, but a third thing which is higher and better? The question is an obvious one in view of Mk. 12:18-27 and par., where in answer to the question of the Sadducees which of the seven brothers should have the woman to wife in the resurrection Jesus said: 'For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven.' Does this mean that they will no longer be male and female? Is A. Oepke right (TWBzNT, 1, 785) when he says that by proposing for man in the perfected lordship of God a sexless being similar to that of the angels Jesus lifts from woman particularly the curse of her sex and sets her at the side of man as no less justifiably the child of God? Yet it does not actually say that man and woman will be ἄγγελοι, but ὡς ἄγγελοι (ἰσάγγελοι, Lk. 20:36), i.e., those who according to 1 Cor. 13:12 no longer see God, themselves and all things in a glass darkly but face to face, and are thus liberated from the problematical, burdensome and complicated nature of their existence in the form which they now know (through a glass darkly). To this form there belongs marrying and giving in marriage. . . . in this Synoptic passage Jesus certainly tells us that there will be no continuation of marriage but not that woman will not be woman in the resurrection. By His very negation He presupposes that men will still be men and women women. It cannot be otherwise. In the Syn. Theol. Leiden (1624, Disp. 51, 37) it is rightly observed that this is also demanded by the identity of the human subject in the two aeons. The determination as man or woman is not the least important of the conditiones individuantes of the human subject, so that if it were to lack in the resurrection the subject would no longer be this subject, and man would no longer be man. And in this case it would no longer be τὸ φθαρτὸν τοῦτο which in the resurrection puts on ἀφθαρσία, nor τὸ θνητὸν τοῦτο which puts on ἀθανασία (1 Cor. 15:53f.). Man would not be man if he were no longer male or female, if his humanity did not consist in this concrete fellow-humanity, in this distinction and connexion. He has lived in no other way in time, and he can live in no other way in eternity. This is something which he cannot lose. For by it there stands or falls his creatureliness. In relation to the goal of our existence in the future aeon we have thus no cause to doubt a statement which we formulated in relation to creation as its beginning. We have no cause not to see together the picture of Genesis 2 and that of the Song of Songs.
"Why does it have to be as we have stated on the primary basis of these passages? Why do Genesis 2 and the Song of Songs give us this particular picture of man and his humanity? Our statement would seem at least to be rather fortuitous if we simply appealed to this Magna Carta in its twofold form, accepting the fact that this is what is actually written and not something else. Why do we read particularly that man is male or female, male and female? In fact, there is nothing fortuitous about it. It belongs to the very centre of Holy Scripture. It is necessarily grounded in the decisive content of the Word of God. We can thus see, and if we are to have a proper understanding we must see, that there can be no question of anything but what is actually there, and that we cannot possibly adopt any other view than that which we have actually adopted. We must now try to show why this is the case."
Sergii Bulgakov, Свѣт невечерний: Созерцания и умозрѣния =Svět [or Sviet] nevečernij: sozercanija i umozrěnija (1917) =Unfading light: contemplations and speculations, trans. Thomas Allan Smith (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012), 295-301, according to Jennifer Newsome Martin (for whom some, though not all (?), of this is, of course, problematic), "The 'whence' and the 'whither' of Balthasar’s gendered theology: rehabilitating kenosis for feminist theology," Modern theology 31, no. 2 (April 2015): 228-230 (211–34):
Matthias Jos. Scheeben, Handbuch der katholischen Dogmatik IV.3.8.2.1.§423 (Die Beschaffenheit des Auferstehnungsleibes).2 (vol. IV, [Herders] theologische Bibliothek (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder'sche Verlagshandlung, 1903 [ ]), 921-922), translation mine: "The body of the human being will rise from the dead in the complete
integrity of its nature. It will be an organic, true human body,
possess the same form as in this life, and be equipped with all [of the] parts,
members, and organs that belong to it as natural components, and which it
requires for the operation of its life and capacity. All defects and abnormalities, all handicaps
and shortages will, however (from the bodies of the blessed, at least), be
excluded. According to the nearly unanimous
teaching of the Fathers and theologians, the sexual differences will also still
persist after the resurrection, and only the usus membrorum will not occur. . .
.
"Many Origenists, Eutychians,
and Armenians, as well as Scotus Erigena, were of the opinion that risen
humanity will slough off every sexual differentiation; according to Augustine (De civ. Dei 1. XXII, c. 17) and Thomas (C. gent. 1. IV, c. 88), others were
of the opinion that the whole [of] risen humanity will be of the male sex. Yet the persistence of the sexual difference
is doubtless implicated in [(eingeschlossen in)] the perfect integrity-of-nature
of the risen body affirmed above. The
human body will be restored to that perfection bestowed upon it by the Creator
bestowed in the beginning. But then
[this means that] the sexual difference belongs to the original integrity
[(Unversehrtheit)] of human nature, i.e. is in no way [a] consequence of sin. Christ himself may even allude to this
doctrine of ours when he makes a queen
of the south condemn at the judgment the men
[(τῶν ἀνδρῶν)] of this generation [(Geschletes)] (Lk 11:31). In Mt 22:30 and Lk 20:35-36 only sexual intercourse
and marriage [between (von)] those risen [from the dead] is excluded., just as
1 Cor 6:13 (Deus hunc [ventrem] et has [escas] destruet) is to be understood of
the relevant bodily functions only."
Johannes Polyander, Andreas Rivetus, Antonius Walaeus, and Anthonius Thysius, Synopsis purioris theologiae (1624) 51.37 (on p. 666 of the 1881 reprint ed. H. Bavinck) =Synopsis of a purer theology: Latin text and English translation, vol. 3, Disputations 43-52, ed. & trans. Harm Goris, Riemer Faber, Andreas Beck, and William den Boer (Brill, 2020), pp. 556-559; cf. the quotation of this at Heppe, Die Dogmatik der evangelisch-reformierten Kirche (1935), 564 no. 11 (I have not looked closely enough at the rest, and may do so only via the "idiosyncratic" translation of it into English): "And with the same Augustine we do not hesitate to assert that at the resurrection the difference between the sexes [(sexuum discrimen)] will remain. This is rightly gathered from the fact that Christ, when he was asked whose wife she will be of the seven brothers who each had had her as spouse, did not state that there would be no women in the resurrection—which if that were true would have been a very short answer—but he stated only that there will be no marriages. In fact, he even confirmed that the female sex [(sexum muliebrem)] will exist by saying 'they shall not be married,' which applies to women, and 'they shall not take as wives,' which applies to men. Therefore, both those for whom it is customary here to be married, and those for whom it is customary here to take as their wives will exist, but they will not have marriages there (On the City of God, book 22, chapter 17). And from this it follows that the same body in number must arise, as was demonstrated above, which would not be possible unless it had the same individual conditions, of which not the least is the determination of one's sex [(sexus determinatus)]. To this can be added the fact that at the resurrection the individual nature will not be done away with, nor the species in their perfection or wholeness, but only the defects of the nature, among which we should not put the difference between the sexes [(sexuum distinctio)]."
Johann Gerhard (1582-1637), Loci theologici loc. 28, "De resurrectione mortuorum," chap. 4.3.4 =sec. 80, "An in resuscitates corporibus futurum sit discrimen sexus?" (Tübingen edition of 1762-1789, vol. 19 (1780), pp. 47-49), trans. mine: "It is asked Whether in the bodies of the resurrection [(resuscitatis)] there will be the distinction of sex? Some have held [that] after the resurrection [there] will [be] no longer any remaining distinction of sex, but that women will be resurrected in the male sex. This is seen to be the opinion of Basil, who says, on Ps 114[:8], οὐκ ἔνι ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ ἐν τῇ ἀναστάσει [(from PG 29, col. 492)], 'there is neither male nor female in the resurrection'; Hilary on Mt 22. Sermon [no.] 3 of Athanasius against the Arians near the end, and [the sermons] of others, for the demonstration of which [(ad quod probandum)] they pull in first the words of Christ 'they neither marry, nor are given in marriage,' [and] then the apostolic dictum 'until we all attain to . . . mature manhood' [(RSV)]. Among the scholastics Scotus, lib. II Sent. dist. 20, teaches explicitly [that] 'all women, except only the B[lessed] Virgin, will be resurrected in the male sex. 1) Because the female sex is an accident [(accidens)] and imperfection [(impefectio)] of the human being, in the resurrection every imperfection will, in truth, be immediately abolished. 2) Because a female is, according to philosophical testimony [(teste philosophico)] an occasioned/occasionate/imperfect [(occasionatus)] male, whence in the female about to be produced [(producenda)] nature seems to go astray, so that when it wishes to produce a perfect human being [(hominem perfectum)], namely a male, by the deficient generative power of the woman it produces instead of a male a female.' But against this opinion Augustine rightly rises up in De civ. Dei 22.17: '[For my part, they seem to be wiser who make no doubt that both sexes shall rise. For there shall be no lust, which is now the cause of confusion. For before they sinned, the man and the woman were naked, and were not ashamed. From those bodies, then, vice shall be withdrawn, while nature shall be preserved. And the sex of woman is not a vice, but nature. It shall then indeed be superior to carnal intercourse and child-bearing; nevertheless the female members shall remain adapted not to the old uses, but to a new beauty, which, so far from provoking lust, now extinct, shall excite praise to the wisdom and clemency of God, who both made what was not and delivered from corruption what He made. For at the beginning of the human race the woman was made of a rib taken from the side of the man while he slept; for it seemed fit that even then Christ and His Church should be foreshadowed in this event. For that sleep of the man was the death of Christ, whose side, as He hung lifeless upon the cross, was pierced with a spear, and there flowed from it blood and water, and these we know to be the sacraments by which the Church is "built up." For Scripture used this very word, not saying "He formed" or "framed," but "built her up into a woman;" whence also the apostle speaks of the edification of the body of Christ, which is the Church. The woman, therefore, is a creature of God even as the man; but by her creation from man unity is commended; and the manner of her creation prefigured, as has been said, Christ and the Church. He, then, who created both sexes will restore both. Jesus Himself also, when asked by the Sadducees, who denied the resurrection, which of the seven brothers should have to wife the woman whom all in succession had taken to raise up seed to their brother, as the law enjoined, says, "Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God." And though it was a fit opportunity for His saying, She about whom you make inquiries shall herself be a man, and not a woman, He said nothing of the kind; but "In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven." They shall be equal to the angels in immortality and happiness, not in flesh, nor in resurrection, which the angels did not need, because they could not die. The Lord then denied that there would be in the resurrection, not women, but marriages; and He uttered this denial in circumstances in which the question mooted would have been more easily and speedily solved by denying that the female sex would exist, if this had in truth been foreknown by Him. But, indeed, He even affirmed that the sex should exist by saying, "They shall not be given in marriage," which can only apply to females; "Neither shall they marry," which applies to males. There shall therefore be those who are in this world accustomed to marry and be given in marriage, only they shall there make no such marriages]' [(trans. Dods)]. [And] in chap. 18 he responds to that apostolic passage at Eph 4:12, 'and as for the growth of [that] spiritual or mystical body' in eo agi, he then appends [the following]: '[But even if this should be referred to the form in which each one shall rise, what should hinder us from applying to the woman what is expressly said of the man, understanding both sexes to be included under the general term "man?" For certainly in the saying, "Blessed is he who feareth the Lord," women also who fear the Lord are included]' [(trans. Dods)]. Again, when with Augustine they say [that] women, too, will rise in their female sex they affirm Tertullian De resur. carn. 60; Jerome, epist. 61 to Pammachius against the errors of John of Jerusalem; the author of a book [entitled] De ecclesiast. dogmatibus, which is found among the works of Augustine, chap. 77; and, contrary to Scotus, the scholastics generally, the chief ground of whose opinion it is that scripture teaches that a 'body the same in number' is to be [(iri)] resuscitated, in order that we may show [(ostendimus) it to be] superior, [and that it [will] therefore also rise again in the same sex. For if [a body] the same in number arises, it will have also the same individuating conditions, one among which [(inter quas)] is, among [these] other important things [(ex praecipuis)], a determinate sex. Add [to this the fact] that in the resurrection are to be abolished not the nature of the individual itself nor the perfection or integrity of the species, but nothing more than [(dumtaxat)] the vices of [that] nature. To the passages of Scripture to the contrary produced by them, which have already been quoted above, it is easy to respond. It is [that there] will be marriages in heaven that Christ denies, not women; that we will be equal to the angels with respect to sanctity, immortality, spirituality, felicity, the disappearance of the [(exclusam)] necessity for food and drink, etc., that he asserts, not [that we will be equal] with respect to nature, or to the privation of sex. Tertullian De resur. carn. chap. 62: '[He said not, "They shall be angels," in order not to repeal their existence as men; but He said, "They shall be equal unto the angels," that He might preserve their humanity unimpaired. When He ascribed an angelic likeness to the flesh, He took not from it its proper substance]' [(as trans. ANF)]. By the term viri the apostle understands not sex, but perfection, [the] strength [of hardwood], and virile constancy. The sayings of the ancients are to be taken in such a way [as to recognize] that they deny that there will be [(fore)] in heaven the diversity of sex with respect to use, but not [the diversity of sex] with respect to substance. The judgments [(rationes)] of Scotus rest upon a false hypothesis. The female sex is in its own way [(genere)] just as perfect as the male. For if the female sex had consisted of defect [(vitium)] and imperfection, [then] there would have been no place for it in the state of innocence, nor would Christ have taken flesh from a woman. God intended to create for its own sake [(per se)] the feminine just as much as the masculine; [and] since each sex is necessary to the generation of offspring, and consequently to the conservation of the human species, it is therefore false that the female is an occasioned/occasionate/imperfect male."
Johann Gerhard (1582-1637), "XIX, 38" (Schmid, Doctrinal theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, 3rd ed. ([1889]), 642: "and complete in members, etc." That's as explicit as Gerhard gets in this excerpt (641-643), at least (I am also recalling a reference to a passage in Gerhard's An explanation of the history of the suffering and death of our Lord Jesus Christ according to the four evangelists, but have so far been unable to locate this in the translation by Elmer M. Hohle, or in any of the secondary sources on this topic that I had read). Cf. Holl, who is apparently equally inexplicit at 641: "with respect to activity and endurance: the former are subject to generation, nutrition, growth, local progress, and feel the need of food, drink, marriage; the latter will be entirely at leisure for spiritual actions, and will not need nourishment or conjugal intercourse."
"P. Eugenius" in Ob die Weiber Menschen seyn, oder nicht? (1618), as reproduced in the original early 17th-century German at Gössmann (1988), 408-409, as (only) intuited into a "translation" by me: As for the [(Ihre)] resurrection of women, it is certain that it [(sie)] will take place just as well as the creation [in a] wonderful way by the power of God alone [(408)]. Etc. (fill this out with some good grammars and dictionaries of early 17th-century German in hand).
Alfonso de Tostado de Madrigal (c. 1400-1455), Bishop of Ávila (1449-1455), Commentaria in Genesim =Opera omnia 1 (Venice, 1728 [1569]), Quaest. DCCXCII (792), p. 506, col. 1: "Question 792: Whether the [six] arguments posed above are conclusive? It must be said that those and [other arguments] like [them] do not argue for this persuasively [(movent sufficienter ad hoc)], but [that, rather,] there will be male & female in heaven [(ibi)]. For however many of those living here were [(erant)] male, all [of those] will be male there, and however many of those living [here] were [(fuerunt)] female, [all of those] will be female there. & this will be [true] not only among the blessed, but also among the damned. For both will rise again [(resurgent)] in that [sex] which they were [(fuerant)], & the sex will be preserved in them which is according to nature fitting [(conveniebat)], because just as [he] who rises again will be the same in number as he was here, so will he be according to nature of such [a sex] as he was born [to]." Tostado's discussion of this topic, which I am translating and plan to link to, is as massive as it is tedious. But it also appears to be also rather surprisingly "feminist." Set within the larger context of a discussion of the this-worldly dominium of the male/subjectio of the female, it extends from Quaestiones 788-801 (pp. 504-511) at the very least.
Bernardine of Siena (1380-1444), Sermon no. 2 on Joseph (Opera 7, 16.30), as trans. from the Liturgia horarum in Universalis: "Remember us, Saint Joseph, and plead for us to your foster-child. Ask your most holy bride [(sponsam)], the Virgin Mary, to look kindly upon us, since she is the mother [(mater)] of him who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns eternally. Amen."
St. Bonaventure, Commentary on Ecclesiastes (1254-1257) VII.24.ii, as trans. Campion Murray and Robert J. Karris (WSB 7, 289-290; Latin: Quaracchi Opera omnia 6, 64): "II. There is also doubt about what he means by: One man among a thousand I have found. According to this statement it would appear to confirm that heresy which stated that no woman is saved. And heretics try to prove this: 1. Because if only what Christ assumed is to be saved and Christ assumed only the sex of a man, therefore only men are to be saved. 2. They try to prove this from what is said in Mark 16:16: He who believes and is baptized [(baptizatus)] will be saved. The text does not say: She who believes and is baptized [(baptizata)]. The same thing is stated in John 3:3 [(natus, a masculine)]. Contra: 1. The text of Matthew 21:31 reads: The harlots [(Meretrices)] will go into the kingdom of heaven ahead of you. 2. It is also clear that the Lord received both sexes, healed the bodies of both, and called both through the Apostles [(Dominus utrumque sexum receipt, utrumque sanavit corporaliter, utrumque vocavit per Apostolos)]. Solomon himself praised both sexes and said of the valiant woman [(muliere)] in Proverbs 31:25: She will laugh on the last day. How then does he say: A woman [(Mulierem)] among them all I have not found? I reply: . . . 1. To the objection of the heretics that Christ assumed the male sex, I reply that even if Christ assumed the male sex [(assumsit sexum virile; respondeo, quod etsi virile assumsit)], it has to be noted that he assumed it from a woman. Christ would not have done this unless it had a bearing on salvation. Moreover, man and woman are of one nature and are one body." Etc.
St. Bonaventure, Comm. in IV Sent., pars I, art. III, quaest. I, dubium II circa litteram magistri (Quarrachi 4, 917-918), translation mine (because not yet, I think, translated by Franciscan Institute Publications, which has made a start): "We should ask also after the meaning of 'in order that it might signify the perfection of strength [(perfectionem virium)]' [(Peter Lombard, IV. Sent. 44.1)]. For [this] seems to imply the male, because if a woman [(femina)] is a man [(vir)] with respect to neither sex nor the perfection of strength because the female sex is confirmed in infirmity, it therefore seems that the woman does not rise again in any mode [(non resurgat aliquo modo)]. —Similarly, 'a woman is,' as the Philosopher [Aristotle] says [in De generat. animal. II.3 (II.352)], 'an imperfect [(occasionatus)] man.' And so, if occasions do not rise again in nature with respect to the elect, neither do women rise again. —Similarly, 'in the resurrection they shall . . . be as the angels of God' [(Mt 22:30 Douay-Rheims)], and this will be because the body will be conformed to the soul. But in the angels there is a distinction of neither sexes nor souls [(non est distinction sexus nec in animabus)]. And so, etc. —Similarly, the distinction of sex is for the purpose of [(propter)] generation. But there there will be no generation. And so, etc.
"I respond: It is to be said [in reply] that, as Augustine says in De civitate Dei XXII[.17], Some have wanted to say that the female sex will not rise again on account of the aforementioned authority of the apostle: 'Until we all meet unto a perfect man [(virum)]' [(Eph 3:13 Douay-Rheims)]. But as [Augustine] says, one is called there a man not from sex, but from virtue, [and] not [the] virtue of the body, but [the virtue] of the mind, by which mode-of-being a woman [(mulier)] is made a man, [and] according to which mode-of-being it is said in Psalm [1:1], 'Blessed is the man who hath not walked in the counsel,' etc., which can be understood of the woman [(muliere)], too. And so that authority does not deny the resurrection of women [(mulierum)], whereas manifest reason confirms [it]. For because the female sex is natural and was formed by God, who formed [also] the male—which is obvious, because without [the female sex] there would be no perfection of the species—and [because] in our bodies nature is preserved, and imperfections are excluded, [then] just as men [(viri)] will rise again with [(cum)] the male sex, not for the purpose of generation, but for the purpose of the perfection and comeliness [(decorum)] appropriate to [(quantum ad)] the elect, so [too] women [(feminae) will rise again] in [(in)] the female sex, because from th[eir] members [too] there will be removed for [(per, 13a in the DMLBS here)] all at that time [all] vice and dishonor [(dedecus et inhonestas)], and what [once] gave rise to desire [(libidinem)] will give rise to the praise of God.
"And so, [to] what is objected in the first place, [namely] that [Peter Lombard] implies [(dicit) on the part of women] a defect of strength, [it is] to be said [in reply] that this is only according to the present state, but there sex is allowed to remain and infirmity is removed.
"[To] what is objected, [namely] that [the] woman [(femina)] is an imperfect [(occasionatus)] man, [it is] to be said [in reply] that [one] is to say [it] of the universal intention of nature [on the one hand], and so the female is of the intention of nature, which intends to preserve the species; and [one] is to say [it] of the singular intention of nature [on the other], which desires to make the thing as much better and more perfect [(or perhaps as well and as perfect)] as it can, and [yet] insofar as it does not make [it so], this is contrary to [(praeter) its] intention, on account of a certain incidental occasion [(propter aliquam occasionem indidentem)]. And this [(hic)] is in this [(hoc)] way, because the nature of the seed would make a man if it could, but either because [there] is a defect in power and artifice, or even a weak coagulation in the seed, or [because] it is not received directly into the womb [(sed quia vel est defectus in virtute et caliditate vel etiam est debilis coagulation in semine vel non directe recipitur in matrice)], from this it is that a woman is generated and called an imperfect [(occasionatus)] man. And yet, because it is necessary that that occasion occur, and [because] without [that incidental occasion] nature cannot be preserved in existence [(in esse)], for that reason nature, which intends to preserve, intends each sex. And so that [(i.e. the resurrection of women as women?)] is obvious.
"To what is objected, [namely] that they will be as the angels, [it is] to be said [in reply] that they will not be alike [unto the angels] in every way [(non est omnimoda similitudo)], but [only] insofar as they will be exempt from the duties of the flesh [(immunes ab operibus carnis)].
"To what is objected, [namely] that [there] will be no generation, [it is] to be said [in reply] that just as there will be the generative power, [but] no need for the act of generation [(non ad usum generandi)], but [only] for the perfection of humankind [(hominis)], so also there will be sexual organs [(membra genitalia)] for the perfection of the body [alone]."
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae Suppl. III.81.3, trans. FEDP: "On the contrary, Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xxii): 'Those are wiser, seemingly, who doubt not that both sexes will rise again.' Further, at the resurrection God will restore man to what He made him at the creation. Now He made woman from the man's rib (Genesis 2:22). Therefore He will also restore the female sex at the resurrection." "I answer that, Just as considering the nature of the individual, a different quantity is due to different men, so also, considering the nature of the individual, a different sex is due to different men. Moreover, this same diversity is becoming to the perfection of the species, the different degrees whereof are filled by this very difference of sex and quantity. Wherefore just as men will rise again of various stature, so will they rise again of different sex. And though there be difference of sex, there will be no shame in seeing one another, since there will no lust to invite them to base deeds, which are the cause of shame." And "Reply Obj. 3: Although the begetting of a woman is beside the intention of a particular nature, it is in the intention of universal nature, which requires both sexes for the perfection of the human species. Nor will any defect result from sex, as stated above (ad 2)." Etc.
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa contra Gentiles IV.88, trans. Charles J. O'Neil (there are other translations, of course): "[1] One ought, nevertheless, not hold that among the bodies of the risen the feminine sex will be absent, as some have thought. For, since the resurrection is to restore the deficiencies of nature, nothing that belongs to the perfection of nature will be denied to the bodies of the risen. Of course, just as other bodily members belong to the integrity of the human body, so do those which serve for generation—not only in men but also in women. Therefore, in each of the cases members of this sort will rise.
"[2] Neither is this opposed by the fact that there will be no use for these members, as was shown above. For, if for this reason such members are not to be in the risen, for an equal reason there would be no members which serve nutrition in the risen, because neither will there be use of food after the resurrection. Thus, then, a large portion of the members would be wanting in the body of the risen. They will, therefore, have all the members of this sort, even though there be no use for them, to re-establish the integrity of the natural body. Hence, they will not be in vain.
"[3] In like fashion, also, the frailty of the feminine sex is not in opposition to the perfection of the risen. For this frailty is not due to a shortcoming of nature, but to an intention of nature. And this very distinction of nature among human beings will point out the perfection of nature and the divine wisdom as well, which disposes all things in a certain order.
"[4] Nor is this position forced on us by the words of the Apostle [in Eph 4:13]. . . . For he did not say this because everyone in that meeting when the risen shall go forth 'to meet Christ in the air' (1 Thess 4:16) will have the male sex. He said it to point out the perfection of the Church and its power. For the whole Church when meeting Christ will be like a perfect man, as is clear from the words which precede and follow."
St. Thomas Aquinas, Compendium of theology (Compendium theologiae ad fratrum Reginaldum socium suum) I.153, 156-157, and 159, trans. Cyril Vollert (cf. pp. -118- of the 2009 Oxford trans. Richard Regan and the 1947 translation by Lawrence Lynch), and copied (with ellipses but not paragraph breaks) from Past Masters; Latin for now from Corpus Thomisticum: "[153] At the resurrection the soul will not resume a celestial or ethereal body, or the body of some animal, as certain people fancifully prattle. No, it will resume a human body made up of flesh and bones, and equipped with the same organs it now possesses. . . . [156] Likewise, exercise of the reproductive functions, which is designed for the generation of animals, must cease. Generation serves the ends of mortal life, so that what cannot be preserved in the individual may be preserved at least in the species. Since the same individual men will continue in eternal existence, generation will have no place among them; nor, consequently, will the exercise of reproductive power. . . . [157] Although risen men will not occupy themselves with activities of this sort, they will not lack the organs requisite for such functions. Without the organs in question the risen body would not be complete. But it is fitting that nature should be completely restored at the renovation of risen man, for such renovation will be accomplished directly by God, whose works are perfect. Therefore all the members of the body will have their place in the risen, for the preservation of nature in its entirety rather than for the exercise of their normal functions. Moreover, as we shall bring out later, men will receive punishment or reward in that future state for the acts they perform now. This being the case, it is no more than right that men should keep the organs with which they served the reign of sin or of justice during the present life, so that they may be punished or rewarded in the members they employed for sin or for merit. . . . [159] These remarks about the integrity of risen men should be understood as referring to whatever pertains to the true state of human nature. What is not required for the reality of human nature, will not be resumed by risen man. Thus, if all the accretion of matter from the food that has been changed into flesh and blood were to be resumed, the size of risen man would exceed all bounds. The proper condition of any nature is regulated by its species and form. Accordingly all the parts that are consonant with the human species and form will be integrally present in risen man: not only organic parts, but other parts of like nature, such as flesh and sinews, which enter into the composition of the various organs. Of course, not all the matter that was ever contained in those parts during man's natural life will again be taken up, but only so much as will be enough to constitute the species of the parts in integrity."Peter Lombard (c. 1100-1160), Sent. IV, 44. Fill this out on the basis of the claim at Gössman (1995), 191, third full paragraph. NB: I see nothing on gender or sex specifically at Sent. IV, 44 as trans. Silano.
St. Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias (1141-1151) III.12.3, as trans. Mother Columba Hart & Jane Bishop (CWS (1990), 517); Latin in CCCM 43A (1978): "3 The bodies of the dead will rise again in their wholeness and gender | And when, as you saw, the divine command to rise again resounds, the bones of the dead, wherever they may be, are brought together in one moment and covered with their flesh. They will not be hindered by by anything; but if they were consumed by fire or water, or eaten by birds or beasts, they will be speedily restored. And so the earth will yield them up as salt is extracted from water; for My eye knows all things, and nothing can be hidden from Me. And so all people will rise again in the twinkling of an eye, in soul and body, with no deformity or mutilation but intact in body and in gender [(in integritate corporis et sexus sui)], and the elect will shine with the brightness of their good works, but the reprobate will bear the blackness of their deeds of misery. Thus their works will not there be concealed, but will appear openly." Cf. the later "Commentary on the Johannine Prologue," Liber divinorum operum (1163-1173) I.iv.105 at "But to as many as received him," trans. Barbara Newman, Theology today 60, no. 1 (April 2003): 29 (16-33); see also The book of divine works, trans. Nathaniel M. Campbell, FCMC 18 (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2018), 257 (244-263; "to all people of both sexes"; "to become children of his Father"), and Hildegard of Bingen's book of divine works with letters and songs, trans. Matthew Fox (Santa Fe, NM: Bear & Co., 1987), 141 ("All people, both men and women"; "to become of their own free will sons and daughters [!] of God"); critical edition: CCCM 92 (1996), 259: "But to as many as received him, he gave power to become children [(filios)] of God. To all people of both sexes [(utriusque sexus)] who received him, believing him to be God and man [(hominem)] (for God first is grasped by faith, and afterwards God-made-man [(homo)]), he potentially gave this power by his own will and potency: namely to become children [(filii)] of his Father in the heavenly kingdom." Elisabeth Gössmann at Gössmann and Okano, 405: "Of the becoming-man of women [Hildegard] knows nothing, and to the scholastic 'exaltations' of the virgo to the level of the vir she gives no support whatsoever, but [rather] celebrates her cloistered community, with which she experiences the pinnacle of being-woman, without, however, forgetting [its] solidarity with the women who bear children."
Hail Mary, Western, 11th century (ODCC, 4th ed.): "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus."
"Aurora velut fulgida" (11th cent.), by St. Peter Damien: "one woman [(una femina)], raised above the angels," "O Virgin of virgins", etc.
"Hail Mary," Eastern (technically a troparion), 9th century (ODCC, 4th ed.): "Rejoice, O Virgin Mother of God! Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you! Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb, for you gave birth to the Savior of our souls." Grube, Complete book of Orthodoxy, sv Hail Mary: "the name often, though mistakenly, given to a Troparion in the Byzantine Orthodox Church. It is sometimes used in the liturgy and often in private prayer. . . . The best English translation of the Greek text is, 'Rejoice, O Virgin, Birthgiver [(Theotokos)] of God, Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you, blessed are you among women and blessed is the Fruit of your womb, for you have borne the Saviour of our souls.'" See also below. GET AN ACCURATE TEXT OF THIS.
Controversy surrounding and decisions for Theotokos, 5th cent. and ff.
Antecedents of "the Orthodox Hail Mary" in the Liturgy of St. James, pre-mid-5th cent. at the latest (ODDC, 4th ed., sv Hail Mary)
St. Augustine, City of God 22.17, trans. Dods: "From the words, 'Till we all come to a perfect man, to the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ,' and from the words, 'Conformed to the image of the Son of God,' some conclude that women shall not rise women, but that all shall be men, because God made man only of earth, and woman of the man. For my part, they seem to be wiser who make no doubt that both sexes shall rise. For there shall be no lust, which is now the cause of confusion. For before they sinned, the man and the woman were naked, and were not ashamed. From those bodies, then, vice shall be withdrawn, while nature shall be preserved. And the sex of woman is not a vice, but nature. It shall then indeed be superior to carnal intercourse and child-bearing; nevertheless the female members shall remain adapted not to the old uses, but to a new beauty, which, so far from provoking lust, now extinct, shall excite praise to the wisdom and clemency of God, who both made what was not and delivered from corruption what He made. For at the beginning of the human race the woman was made of a rib taken from the side of the man while he slept; for it seemed fit that even then Christ and His Church should be foreshadowed in this event. For that sleep of the man was the death of Christ, whose side, as He hung lifeless upon the cross, was pierced with a spear, and there flowed from it blood and water, and these we know to be the sacraments by which the Church is 'built up.' For Scripture used this very word, not saying 'He formed' or 'framed,' but 'built her up into a woman;' whence also the apostle speaks of the edification of the body of Christ, which is the Church. The woman, therefore, is a creature of God even as the man; but by her creation from man unity is commended; and the manner of her creation prefigured, as has been said, Christ and the Church. He, then, who created [(instituit)] both sexes will restore [(restituet)] both. Jesus Himself also, when asked by the Sadducees, who denied the resurrection, which of the seven brothers should have to wife the woman whom all in succession had taken to raise up seed to their brother, as the law enjoined, says, 'Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God.' And though it was a fit opportunity for His saying, She about whom you make inquiries shall herself be a man, and not a woman, He said nothing of the kind; but 'In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.' They shall be equal to the angels in immortality and happiness, not in flesh, nor in resurrection, which the angels did not need, because they could not die. The Lord then denied that there would be in the resurrection, not women, but marriages; and He uttered this denial in circumstances in which the question mooted would have been more easily and speedily solved by denying that the female sex would exist, if this had in truth been foreknown by Him. But, indeed, He even affirmed that the sex should exist by saying, 'They shall not be given in marriage,' which can only apply to females; 'Neither shall they marry,' which applies to males. There shall therefore be those who are in this world accustomed to marry and be given in marriage, only they shall there make no such marriages.:
St. Augustine, Retractationes (426/427) 1.19.5:
St. Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram 9.9.15, trans. Hill, WSA 1/13, p. 384: "it is because the heavenly city of the angels is populated by such countless millions that it would not be right for them to be coupled in marriage if they were not going to die. It was with foreknowledge of the completion of this vast multitude in the resurrection of the saints joining the company of the angels that the Lord said: In the resurrection they are neither married nor do they take wives; for they will not be going to die, but will be equal to the angels of God (Lk 20:36). Here, however, the earth still had to be filled with human beings; and since for the sake of a close family relationship, and above all for giving the highest commendation to the bond of unity, it was essential to start its being filled from one man, for what other reason was a helper like him sought in the female sex, than that a wife by her very nature should assist him, like fertile soil, in sowing and planting out the human race?" Similarly, 9.5.9 ("if it was not for help in producing children that a wife was made for the man, then what other help was she made for? . . . How much more agreeably, after all, for conviviality and conversation would two male friends live together on equal terms than man and wife? . . . For these reasons I cannot work out what help a wife could have been made to provide the man with, if you take away the purpose of childbearing"), 9.11.19, etc. Clearly St. Augustine isn't thinking exactly like me, no matter how forward-looking on the question of whether we will remain male and female in heaven!
St. Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram 9.3.5:
St. Augustine, De sermone domini in monte 15/41-42 (393; but cf. Retractationes 1.19.5, De Genesi ad litteram 9.3.5, etc. (see the Augustinus-Lexikon on the De sermone in monte for additional passages-in-correction?)). I'm not sure offhand which translation this (taken from the internet) is, so cf. with it, e.g., the Jepson translation in ACW 5, pp. 51-52: "Therefore, if I were to ask any good Christian who has a wife, and even though he may still be having children by her, whether he would like to have his wife in that kingdom; mindful in any case of the promises of God, and of that life where this incorruptible shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality; though at present hesitating from the greatness, or at least from a certain degree of love, he would reply with execration that he is strongly averse to it. Were I to ask him again, whether he would like his wife to live with him there, after the resurrection, when she had undergone that angelic change which is promised to the saints, he would reply that he desired this as strongly as he reprobated the other. Thus a good Christian is found in one and the same woman to love the creature of God, whom he desires to be transformed and renewed; but to hate the corruptible and mortal conjugal connection and sexual intercourse: i.e. to love in her what is characteristic of a human being, to hate what belongs to her as a wife. So also he loves his enemy, not in as far as he is an enemy, but in as far as he is a man; so that he wishes the same prosperity to come to him as to himself, viz. that he may reach the kingdom of heaven rectified and renewed.
"This is to be understood both of father and mother and the other ties of blood, that we hate in them what has fallen to the lot of the human race in being born and dying, but that we love what can be carried along with us to those realms where no one says, My Father; but all say to the one God, Our Father: and no one says, My mother; but all say to that other Jerusalem, Our mother: and no one says, My brother; but each says respecting every other, Our brother. But in fact there will be a marriage on our part as of one spouse (when we have been brought together into unity), with Him who has delivered us from the pollution of this world by the shedding of His own blood. It is necessary, therefore, that the disciple of Christ should hate these things which pass away, in those whom he desires along with himself to reach those things which shall for ever remain; and that he should the more hate these things in them, the more he loves themselves.
"A Christian may therefore live in concord with his wife, whether with her providing for a fleshly craving, a thing which the apostle speaks by permission, not by commandment; or providing for the procreation of children, which may be at present in some degree praiseworthy; or providing for a brotherly and sisterly fellowship, without any corporeal connection, having his wife as though he had her not, as is most excellent and sublime in the marriage of Christians: yet so that in her he hates the name of temporal relationship, and loves the hope of everlasting blessedness. For we hate, without doubt, that respecting which we wish at least, that at some time hereafter it should not exist; as, for instance, this same life of ours in the present world, which if we were not to hate as being temporal, we would not long for the future life, which is not conditioned by time."
St. Jerome (d. 420). See on the alleged ambiguities and flip-flops of St. Jerome DTC 3 (1908), col. 1897, adding contemporary scholarship later. Here I will reproduce mainly the statements quoted in the DTC: Jerome In Eph. 5:28, as quoted by Rufinus: "'Let us men then cherish our wives and let our souls cherish our bodies in such a way as that the wives may be turned into men and the bodies into spirits, and that there maybe no difference of sex but that, as among the angels there is neither male nor female, so we who are to be like the angels may begin here to be what it is promised that we shall be in heaven'" (Rufinus, Apol. I.23); Rufinus: "I marvel how you can demand from others a strict opinion upon the continuance of the diversity of sex when you yourself, as soon as you begin to discuss it, find yourself involved in so many knotty questions that to evolve yourself out of them becomes impossible" (Rufinus, Apol. I.24); Jerome: "The phrases by which Rufinus shows himself so scandalized are not from me, but from Origen. It is Origen who speaks in this place, not I. One must therefore not impute [these expressions] to me. . . . I said, and this is what most shocks my adversary, that the sexes must disappear. Did I not explicate this sufficiently by adding that one must begin right away to be what is promised? Did I not also clearly leave it to be understood that they will subsist [(subsisteraient, a conditional)] in heaven as they subsist on earth?" (Jerome, Apol. I.29, as translated from the French of the DTC; yet I have yet to find this passage in either NPNF, or at, as claimed, PL 23, col. 420 (or in some printings col. 440), or on pp. 76-81 of SC 303, as ed. Lardet); Jerome: "When I say, 'We shall begin to be on earth,' I do not take away the difference of sex [(SC 303, p. 78 ll. 30-31: non naturam tollo sexuum; SC 303, ed. Lardet (1983), 78: non naturam tollo sexuum; PL 23, col. 420C: naturam non tollo sexuum)]; I only take away lust, and sexual intercourse, as the Apostle does" (Jerome, Apol. I.29). Etc.
St. Jerome, Contra Iohannem Hierosolymitanum (397?) 30-31, trans. W. H. Freemantle in NPNF, ser. 2, vol. 6, pp. 439-440 (424-427) and in CCEL; Latin: CCSL 79A (1999), ed. Feiertag: "Where there is skin and flesh, where there are bones and sinews, and blood and veins, there assuredly is fleshy tissue and distinction of sex. 'And in my flesh,' he says, 'I shall see God.' When all flesh shall see the salvation of God, and Jesus as God, then I, also, shall see the Redeemer and Saviour, and my God. But I shall see him in that flesh which now tortures me, which now melts away for pain. Therefore, in my flesh shall I behold God, because by His own resurrection He has healed all my infirmities.' Does it not seem to you that Job was then writing against Origen, and was holding a controversy similar to ours against the heretics, for the reality of the flesh in which he underwent tortures? For he could not bear to think that all his sufferings would be in vain; while the flesh he actually bore was tortured as flesh indeed, it would be some other and spiritual kind of flesh that would rise again. Wherefore he presses home and emphasizes the truth, and puts a stop to all that might lie hid in an artful confession, by speaking out plainly: 'Whom I shall see for myself and my eyes shall behold and not another.' If he is not to rise again in his own sex, if he is not to have the same members which were then lying on the dunghill, if he does not open the same eyes to see God with which he was then looking at the worms, where will Job then be? You do away with what constituted Job, and give me the hollow phrase, Job shall rise again; it is as if you were to order a ship to be restored after shipwreck, and then were to refuse each particular thing of which a ship is made.
I will speak freely, and although you screw your mouths, pull your hair, stamp your feet, and take up stones like the Jews, I will openly confess the faith of the Church. The reality of a resurrection without flesh and bones, without blood and members, is unintelligible. Where there are flesh and bones, where there are blood and members, there must of necessity be diversity of sex. Where there is diversity of sex, there John is John, Mary is Mary. You need not fear the marriage of those who, even before death, lived in their own sex without discharging the functions of sex. When it is said, 'In that day they shall neither marry, nor be given in marriage,' the words refer to those who can marry, and yet will not do so. For no one says of the angels, 'They shall not marry, nor be given in marriage.' I never heard of a marriage being celebrated among the spiritual virtues in heaven: but where there is sex, there you have man and woman. Hence it is that, although you were reluctant, you were compelled by the truth to confess that, 'A man must either be crowned in the body because he lived a pure and upright life, or be condemned in the body, because he was the slave of pleasure and iniquity.' Substitute flesh for body, and you have not denied the existence of male and female. Who can have any glory from a life of chastity if we have no sex which would make unchastity possible? Who ever crowned a stone for continuing a virgin? Likeness to the angels is promised us, that is, the blessedness of their angelic existence without flesh and sex will be bestowed on us in our flesh and with our sex. I am simple enough so to believe, and so know how to confess that sex can exist without the functions of the senses; that it is thus that men rise, and that it is thus that they are made equal to the angels. Nor will the resurrection of the members all at once seem superfluous, because they are to have no office, since, while we are still in this life, we strive not to perform the works of the members. Moreover, likeness to the angels does not imply a changing of men into angels, but their growth in immortality and glory."
St. Jerome, Adversus Jovinianum 1.36 (392?): Here Jerome, writing in defense of virginity, as trans. W. H. Freemantle, is a bit equivocal: ". . . What others will hereafter be in heaven, that virgins begin to be on earth. If likeness to the angels is promised us (and there is no difference of sex among the angels), we shall either be of no sex as are the angels, or at all events which is clearly proved [(aut certe, quod liquido comprobatur)], though we rise from the dead in our own sex [(resurgentes in proprio sexu)], we shall not perform the functions of sex." Where was this "clearly proved"? Earlier in this same treatise? Latin at PL 23, col. 273 (no modern critical edition yet, it would seem).
Shortly after 362: Marius Victorinus, Commentarius in epistulam Pauli ad Galatas, at 3:28: "From his commentary on Gal 5:6 . . . and Gal 6:15 . . . it is obvious that Marius Victorinus does not procede from an elimination of these differences, but that they no longer have any relevance in a Christian connection, either in this or in the next life", etc. (Karla Pollman, "«Non est masculus et femina»: Gal 3,28 in Komentarauslegungen des 4./5. und des 20. Jahrhunders: ein nicht eingelöstes Vermächtnis?," in Spiritus et littera: Beiträge zur Augustinus-Forschung: Festschrift zum 80. Geburtstag von Cornelius Petrus Mayer OSA (Würzburg: Augustinus bei echter, 2009), 684 (681-695), translation mine; get the texts in Victorinus from this article and this translation).
Antecedents of "the Orthodox Hail Mary" in the Liturgy of St. Mark, 4th cent.? (ODDC, 4th ed., sv Hail Mary).
Irenaeus, Against heresies 2.33.5, as trans. ANF 1 (not Unger) for now: "as each one of us receives his body through the skilful working of God, so does he also possess his soul. For God is not so poor or destitute in resources, that He cannot confer its own proper soul on each individual body, even as He gives it also its special character. And therefore, when the number [fixed upon] is completed, [that number] which He had predetermined in His own counsel, all those who have been enrolled for life [eternal] shall rise again, having their own bodies, and having also their own souls, and their own spirits, in which they had pleased God. Those, on the other hand, who are worthy of punishment, shall go away into it, they too having their own souls and their own bodies, in which they stood apart from the grace of God. Both classes shall then cease from any longer begetting and being begotten, from marrying and being given in marriage; so that the number of mankind, corresponding to the fore-ordination of God, being completed, may fully realize the scheme formed by the Father." John Behr, Asceticism and Anthropology in Irenaeus and Clement (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 113 (Does Behr still think this (about Irenaeus, at least)?): "Procreation shall cease once the foreordained number has been reached; human existence as male and female will not cease, for it is the condition and framework, as created by God, for the man's [(humanity's)] never-ending maturation and growth towards God."
Tertullian, On the resurrection of the flesh -57-63- (late 2nd/early 3rd cent. (nail this down)), as trans. ANF. Very important, but reproduce here a more recent translation.
Pseudo-Justin Martyr, De resurrectione (2nd/early 3rd cent; Heimgartner, p. 197: 153/161-182/185) 2-3, or Frag. 1.3.1 ff. (best critical edition: Martin Heimgartner, PseudoJustin: Über der Auferstehung, Patristische Texte und Studien 54 (Berlin: 2001): 108 (102-131) =pp. 214 ff. of vol. 2 of the 3rd (1876-1881) ed. of the edition ed. Otto =PG 6, col. 1576 (cols. 1572D-1592A)), trans. Dods (ANF 1, pp. 294 ff.): "They who maintain the wrong opinion say that there is no resurrection of the flesh; giving as their reason that it is impossible that what is corrupted and dissolved should be restored to the same as it had been. And besides the impossibility, they say that the salvation of the flesh is disadvantageous; and they abuse the flesh, adducing its infirmities, and declare that it only is the cause of our sins, so that if the flesh, say they, rise again, our infirmities also rise with it. And such sophistical reasons as the following they elaborate: If the flesh rise again, it must rise either entire and possessed of all its parts, or imperfect. But its rising imperfect argues a want of power on God’s part, if some parts could be saved, and others not; but if all the parts are saved, then the body will manifestly have all its members. But is it not absurd to say that these members will exist after the resurrection from the dead, since the Saviour said, 'They neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but shall be as the angels in heaven?' And the angels, say they, have neither flesh, nor do they eat, nor have sexual intercourse; therefore there shall be no resurrection of the flesh. By these and such like arguments, they attempt to distract men from the faith. And there are some who maintain that even Jesus Himself appeared only as spiritual, and not in flesh, but presented merely the appearance of flesh: these persons seek to rob the flesh of the promise." (DTC 3, col. 1893: Thus does Athenagoras (?) or Hippolytus (?) speak of "this integrity of the risen body".) And in the next fragment: "when He had been born, and had submitted to the other conditions of the flesh,—I mean food, drink, and clothing,—this one condition only of discharging the sexual function He did not submit to; for, regarding the desires of the flesh, He accepted some as necessary, while others, which were unnecessary, He did not submit to. For if the flesh were deprived of food, drink, and clothing, it would be destroyed; but being deprived of lawless desire, it suffers no harm. And at the same time He foretold that, in the future world, sexual intercourse should be done away with; as He says, 'The children of this world marry, and are given in marriage; but the children of the world to come neither marry nor are given in marriage, but shall be like the angels in heaven.' Let not, then, those that are unbelieving marvel, if in the world to come He do away with those acts of our fleshly members which even in this present life are abolished" (underscoring mine). Needless to say, I have not checked this 19th-century translation against the 2001 edition and translation (into German) of Heimgartner.
1 Pet 3:7 RSV: "Likewise you husbands, live considerately with your wives, bestowing honor on the woman as the weaker sex, since you are joint heirs of the grace of life [(συγκληρονόμοις χάριτος ζωῆς)]. . . ."
Bibliography (Selected!), in progress (as read):
- Børresen, Kari Elisabeth. "God's image: is woman excluded? Medieval interpretation of Gen. 1,27 and I Cor. 11,7." In The Image of God and gender models in Judaeo-Christian tradition, edited by Kari Elisabeth Børresen, 10-235. Oslo: Solum Forlag; [Atlantic Highlands], NJ: Humanities Press, 1991. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995. I have not examined this one yet.
- Cutino, Michele. "La différenciation sexuelle et son accomplissement eschatologique chez Augustin." Revue des sciences religieuses 91, no. 4 (October 2017): 565–588. Abstract in English, then pars. 24-26, rough-and-ready translation (and underscoring) mine: "In conclusion, the attentive analysis of the well-known Augustinian text and of others that have attracted less attention causes us to attain to a renewed appreciation for the Augustinian approach to the theme of the distinction between the sexes. We can note above all the importance, even for Augustine, of the exegetical approach to this theme, from which [some] very different perspectives [nevertheless] derive. In particular, we have observed how an historico-literal approach to the events in Genesis [1-2], [and] notably to the role of Eve as intermediate to the sin of Adam, leads Augustine to allow for, in some fashion in accordance with the letter of 1 Cor 11:7, a certain protological inferiority of the woman by relation to the man: this bond between [a] literal approach to the narrative of Genesis and to 1 Cor 11:7 [on the one hand] and [a] denial of the 'image' [to the woman on the other] is found among the Antiochenes. [¶] By contrast, the allegorical interpretation of the creation of the woman in Gen 2:21-24—[in accordance with which] the subsidiary function of the woman [is said to] represent the part of the human soul which governs practical, inferior realities, [and in accordance with which] her being drawn from the side of Adam [is said to] represent the Church [as] built up from the side of Christ on the cross—, this allegorical interpretation, transferring [as it does] the idea of the dominium into the symbolic dimension[,] permits Augustine to disassociate the social inferiority of the woman from a [(l’)] protological inferiority, and, as a consequence, to contest the non-permanence of sexual differences in the condition of the risen body. Under this aspect it is interesting to note how the analysis of the Augustinian texts confirms that it is only on the allegorical plane—just as in Origen and in the tradition associated with him—that one can get beyond the idea, generally shared, that the distinction between the sexes entailed a hierarchy between the sexes. Augustine goes well beyond Origen in his allegorical interpretation because for him the equality between man and woman on the spiritual plane is accompanied by the permanence, even in the eschatological dimension, of the distinction between the sexes. [¶] It seems important to note also that Augustine helps us to comprehend the true novelty of the Christian approach to the theme of the difference between the sexes by relation to ancient culture, [though] actually substantially homogenous with [ancient culture] when it came to the theorization of the dominium and sexual hierarchy. The only true guarantee of equality between the sexes at the interior of Christianity is constituted rightly by the novelty of Jesus Christ: in the renewal of the protological image promoted by him and destined to be realized in the eschatological accomplishment, there are no distinctions between man and woman. The possession of the unique faith in Jesus Christ renders formally possible the accomplishment of the audacious perspective of Gen 1:26-27—between man and woman as image of God."
- Gössman, Elisabeth. "Auferstehung (des Leibes). Geschichte." In Wörterbuch der feministischen Theologie, ed. Elisabeth Gössmann et al., 49-52. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus G. Mohn, 1991.
- Gössman, Elisabeth. "Was sage uns heute die Reflexionen zum Auferstehungsleib in den christlichen Traditionen?" In Vorgeschmack: Ökumenische Bemühungen um die Eucharistie: Festschrift für Theodor Schneider, ed. Bernd Jochen Hiberath and Dorothea Sattler, 179-194. Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald Verlag, 1995).
- Gössmann, Elisabeth and Haruko Okano. "Himmel ohne Frauen? Zur Eschatologie des weiblichen Menschseins in östlicher und westlicher Religion." In Das Gold im Wachs: Feschrift für Thomas Immoos zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Elisabeth Gössmann and Günter Zobel, 397-426. München: Iudicium Verlag, 1988.
- Gössmann, Elisabeth. "Anthropologie und soziale Stellung der Frau nach Summen und Sentenzenkommentaren des 13. Jahrhunderts." In Soziale Ordnungen im Selbstverständnis des Mittelalters, papers presented at the twenty-first Kölner Mediävistentagung held 6-9 September 1978 at the Thomas-Institut of the University of Cologne and ed. Albert Zimmerman, vol. 1 =Miscellanea Mediaevalia 12.1 (1979): 281-297.
- Heß, Ruth. "»Es ist noch nicht erschienen, was wir sein werden.« Biblisch-(de)konstruktivistische Anstöße zu einer entdualisierten Eschatologie der Geschlechterdifferenz." In Alles in allem: Eschatologische Anstöße: J. Christine Janowski zum 60. Geburtstag, 291-323. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2005.
- Prinzivalli, E. "Early Christian anthropology: gender models in creation and resurrection." In Christian and Islamic gender models in formative traditions, edited by K. E. Børresen, 43-65. Rome: Herder, 2004. This, called "exhaustive" for the first centuries by Cutino, I have not yet read.
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