Examine the following documents and answer the questions below.
Document D: Eriugena Periphyseon (Periphyseon, II, 543A)
John Scotus Eriugena was a ninth-century Christian Theologian who wrote De Divisione Naturae, a text explaining being and non-being. Book II of this work contains his philosophy on the creation and maintenance of gender.
“… the Lord Jesus united in himself the division of (our) nature, that is male and female. For it was not in the bodily sex but simply in man that He rose from the dead. For in Him there is neither male nor female although it was in that masculine sex in which He was born of a Virgin and in which He suffered that he appeared to His disciples after His resurrection… For otherwise they would not recognize Him if they did not see the shape that was known to them […]
“For who is there who, hearing such things, would not be horrified and at once break out in these words: ‘Then after the resurrection, there will be no sexual division of male [and] female if each is to be totally removed from human nature? Or what form will appear in man if no one has either male or female form? Or what sort of recognition will there be if there is to be an extermination of both sexes and an amalgam of all men, whether spiritual and incorporeal or visible and corporeal (and) circumscribed by place and time, into a simple unification, not divided by difference of forms?'” (Periphyseon, II, 543A)
Questions:
- Did Eriugena believe that Jesus was male, female, or neither?
- What might it mean if Eriugena’s God was genderless? Does Eriugena believe gender is a man-made creation?
- What does Eriugena believe gender does?
Document E: Male Friendship and Adelphopoiesis
Early Judeo-Christian communities had a strong sense of male friendship. King David and his close friend Jonathan were often depicted as lovers, and David is described as “loving Jonathan above all women” and choosing him and their relationship over that of his own father (1 Samuel 18). Greek and Roman Christian communities continued this tradition in a ceremony called Adelphopoiesis, otherwise known as brother making. The Adelphopoiesis ceremony bound two men together as siblings under Christ and has been compared to an early form of Christian same-sex marriage by historian John Boswell. The Christian Saints, Sergius and Bacchus were two such people joined together in Adelphopoiesis. The traditions of Male Friendship and Adelphopoiesis were ended in response to the sodomy allegations against Pope Boniface VIII.
Jonathan embraces David: Caspar Luiken’s Historiae Celebriores Veteris Testamenti Iconibus Representatae (1712)
David and Jonathan (“La Somme le Roy”, 1290 AD; French illuminated ms (detail); British Museum)
Detail of a Byzantine 7th-century icon of Saints Sergius and Bacchus.
Questions:
- What might David have meant when he declares to “Love Jonathan above all women.”
- The ceremony of Adelphopoiesis joined two men to be together in a similar way that a husband and wife would be joined together. Historian John Boswell used this connection to call Adelphopoiesis a form of early same-sex marriage. Do you agree with his assessment? Why or why not?
- Why might the papacy end the tradition of Adelphopoiesis while under pressure for charges of sodomy?