Chapter VI: Whether Woman Also Was Created After The Image of God, § 105
CHAPTER VI: WHETHER WOMAN ALSO WAS CREATED AFTER THE IMAGE OF GOD
§ 105. Some disputations of the ancients and the Pauline passage 1 Cor. 11:7 have
given rise to the question: Was woman also created after the image of God? The basis for
our answer comes from noticing that the word “image” is predicated in different ways about its parts, namely, primarily and secondarily [per prius et posterius], from one [ἀϕ’ ἑνός] to one [πρὸς ἕν].1
§ 106. You see, the image of God consists primarily [κυρίως] and principally of the conformity of the rational soul and all its powers with God and with the Law of God, and of prescribed righteousness, holiness, and truth. Consequently, the light of wisdom and understanding shone in the mind, a consistent desire for good was in the will, delight and approval was in the heart, and complete submission free of any resistance was in all other powers. Tranquility of conscience, secure peace of mind, freedom from all pain and rebellion, eternal safety, and wholeness of all faculties were conjoined with this perfection of the soul.
§ 107. In addition to these gifts of soul and body there was an external privilege: dominion over other living things [cf. Gen. 1:28], in which the image of God shone forth less principally and secondarily. Therefore, when the apostle says that woman is the glory of man, but man is the image and glory of God [1 Cor. 11:7], he is not denying that woman also was created after the image and likeness of God in the principal sense. Instead, he is speaking of the sense in which the dignity of the image had been placed secondarily and less principally, that is, the position of dominion whose high status properly befitted the man, for the woman had been made subject to the authority of the man. The apostle himself supplies this explanation, for he adds: “Man does not come from woman, but woman from man. Indeed, man was not created for the sake of the woman, but woman for the sake of the man” [1 Cor. 11:8–9]. Just as God is the beginning and the end, by whom and because of whom man was made immediately, so man is the beginning and end of woman, for woman was created out of man for the sake of man. (See Augustine, De Trin., bk. 12, ch. 7.)
1 These terms were used by Aristotle when speaking about an “imperfect genus” (called “analogous genus” [genus analogum] by the Scholastics), a category of things in which a quality could not be predicated equally about all members of the category; the quality would belong more to an individual or part of the category than to another individual or part (Micraelius, Lexicon philosophicum, s.v. “genus”).