Augustine in His Own Words (continued)
On the Trinity 303 scholars have examined this (and other texts) and come to differing assessments—some positive, some negative—of Augustine's theological attitudes on women.44 From On the Trinity, Book 12:
(7.9) We ought, therefore, not to understand the human being as made in the image of the exalted Trinity (that is, to the image of God) in such a way that the same image is understood to be in three human beings, especially since the Apostle says that the man is the image of God and so should remove the covering from his head, which he warns the woman to use, when he speaks as follows: "A man indeed ought not to cover his head because he is the image and glory of God. But the woman is the glory of the man" (1 Cor 11:7). What, then, is to be said about this? If the woman according to her own person completes the image of the Trinity, why is the man still called that image when she has been taken from his side? Or if even one person rather than three can be called the image of God as each Person in the exalted Trinity is also God, why is the woman not also the image of God? For this is the reason why she is commanded to cover her head, something the man is forbidden to do because he is the image of God.
(7.10) But we must see how what the Apostle says about the man (and not the woman) being the image of God is not contradictory to what is written in Genesis: "God made the human being to the image of God; male and female he made them; he made them and blessed them" (Gn 1:27). For Genesis says that human nature itself, which is complete in both sexes, has been made to the image of God, and it does not exclude the woman from being understood as the image of God. For after it said that God made the human being to the image of God, it goes on to say: "He made them male and female," or, if we in any case punctuate this passage differently, "male and female, he made them." In what sense, therefore, are we to understand the Apostle, that the man is the image of God and so is forbidden to cover his head, but the woman is not and so is commanded to do so? The solution lies, I think, in what I already said when discussing the nature of the human mind, namely, that the woman together with her husband is the image of God so that that whole substance is one image. But when she is assigned her role as helpmate, a function that pertains to her alone, then she is not the image of God, but as far as the man is concerned, he is by himself alone the image of God, just as fully and completely as when he and the woman are joined together into
44. See Kari Elizabeth Børresen, "In Defense of Augustine: How femina Is homo," in Bernard Bruning, ed., Collectanea Augustiniana: Mélanges T. J. van Bavel (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1990), 1:411–28; Kari Elizabeth Børresen, "La feminologie d'Augustin et les droits humains des femmes," Augustiniana 54 (2004): 325–41; E. Ann Matter, "Christ, God, and Woman in the Thought of St. Augustine," in Augustine and His Critics, 164–75.
one. As we said of the nature of the human mind: if as a whole it contemplates the truth, it is the image of God; and when its functions are divided and something of it is diverted to handling temporal things, still that part that consults the truth is the image of God, but that other part that is directed to handling inferior things is not the image of God. And since the more it has extended itself towards what is eternal, the more it is formed thereby to the image of God, and so it is not to be restrained to hold itself back and refrain from this direction; therefore, "the man ought not to cover his head" (1 Cor 11:7). . . . (7.12) Not only true reason, but also the authority of the Apostle himself declares that "the human being is made to the image of God," not according to the form of the body but according to the rational mind. For it is vain and degrading thinking which represents God as circumscribed and limited by the outlines of bodily limbs. Moreover, does not this same blessed Apostle say: "Be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man who is created according to God" (Eph 4:23–24), and even more plainly in another place: "Stripping yourselves of the old man with his deeds, put on the new who is renewed to the knowledge of God according to the image of the One who created him" (Col 3:9–10)? If, therefore, we are renewed in the spirit of our mind and if it is precisely the "new man" who is renewed to the knowledge of God according to the image of the One who created him, then no one can doubt that the human being has been made to the image of the One who created him, not according to the body nor according to any part of the mind, but according to the rational mind, where the knowledge of God can reside. But according to this renewal, we are made children of God through the baptism of Christ, and when we put on the "new man," we certainly put on Christ through faith. Who is it, then, who would exclude women from this fellowship since they are, with us, co-heirs of grace and since the same Apostle says in another place: "For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For whoever has been baptized in Christ has put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal 3:26–28)? But then have believing women, therefore, lost their bodily sex? Because they are renewed to the image of God where there is no sexual identity, the human being is made to the image of God where there is no sexual identity, namely, in the spirit of the mind. Why, then, is "the man on that account not bound to cover his head because he is the image and glory of God," but the woman must cover it because "she is the glory of the man" (1 Cor 11:7), as though a woman were not renewed in the spirit of her mind, which "is renewed to the knowledge of God according to the image of the One who created" her (Col 3:10)? But because