CREATION AND COVENANT

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 CREATION
AND
COVENANT

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF
SEXUAL DIFFERENCE IN THE
MORAL THEOLOGY OF MARRIAGE

CHRISTOPHER CHENAULT ROBERTS

2007

T & T Clark International, 80 Maiden Lane, New York, NY 10038

T & T Clark International, The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX

T & T Clark International is a Continuum imprint.

www.continuumbooks.com

Copyright © 2007 by Christopher Chenault Roberts

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic, mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written
permission of the publisher, T & T Clark International.

Unless otherwise noted, the Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version
Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the
U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Roberts, Christopher Chenault.

Creation and covenant : the significance of sexual difference in the moral theology of marriage / Christopher
Chenault Roberts.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-567-02655-2 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-567-02655-8 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-567-02746-7 (paperback)
ISBN-10: 0-567-02746-5 (paperback)

1. Sex differences—Religious aspects—Christianity. 2. Marriage—Religious aspects—Christianity. I. Title.

BT708.R53 2007
241’.63—dc22
2006039614
 CONTENTS
Acknowledgments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

Abbreviations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1. Five Early Theologians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Tatian. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Tertullian. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Clement of Alexandria . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Gregory of Nyssa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Jerome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

2. Augustine. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
De Genesi contra Manichaeos. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
De Genesi ad litteram opus imperfectum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Expositio epistulae ad Galatas liber unus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Confessionum libri XIII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
De bono conjugali and De sancta virginitate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
De Genesi ad litteram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
De Trinitate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
De civitate Dei . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
De bono viduitatis, De continentia, and De incompetentibus
nuptiis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
De nuptiis et concupiscentia ad Valerium comitem and
Contra Julianum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

3. Bernard of Clairvaux’s Sermons on the Song of Songs. . . . . . . . . . 79

Bernard’s Augustinian Beliefs about Sexual Difference . . . . . . . . 80
God’s Love Is Bernard’s Priority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
The Logical Structure of Bernard’s Use of Allegory:
Its Precedents and Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Why Bernard’s Eros Must Be Set in Sexually Differentiated
Marriage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

v
vi CREATION AND COVENANT

Further Reasons Why Sexual Difference Is the Right Analog . . 90

Conclusion: Redeemed Sexual Difference Includes
More Than Fertility. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

4. Thomas Aquinas. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
The Good of the Species, the Teleology of Sexual Difference,
and the Anthropology of the Body. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
How Sexual Difference Is Morally Ordered in the Present Era. . 103
Conclusion, and a Contrast with Augustine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

5. Luther and Calvin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

A Sermon on the Estate of Marriage (1519) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Judgment of Martin Luther on Monastic Vows (1521/1522) . . 115
The Estate of Marriage (1522) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Commentary on 1 Corinthians 7 (1523) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Lectures on Galatians (1535) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Lectures on Genesis (1535/1536) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Some Summarizing Thoughts about Luther . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Calvin on Sexual Difference. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
A Concluding Thought on Both Reformers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

6. Karl Barth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

Being and Knowledge in Christ: Creation for Covenant. . . . . . 140
The imago Dei and Sexual Difference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
Sexual Difference Is a Permanent and Necessary
Part of Human Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Bone of My Bones: A Portrait of the Recognition of
Sexual Difference. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Marriage and Sexual Difference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Precedence and Subsequence: Further Specification
of Sexual Difference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Why the Meaning of Sexual Difference Excludes Homosexuality
and Fornication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

7. John Paul II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Prelapsarian Sexual Difference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Postlapsarian Sexual Difference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
How Both Celibacy and Marriage Recognize the Significance
of Sexual Difference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
 CREATION AND COVENANT vii

How Contemporary Vatican Teaching Summarizes

John Paul II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
The Question of Woman and the Question of
Theological Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

8. Three Proposals for the Insignificance of Sexual Difference. . . . 185

Challenges to the Tradition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Sexual Difference Is Significant Only as a Figure of Speech . . . 187
Ward’s Argument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Criticism of Ward’s Argument . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
Sexual Difference Is Insignificant for the Ascesis and
Sacrament of Marriage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
Criticisms of Barth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
The Marginalization of Procreation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Do Asceticism and Desire Render Sexual Difference
Insignificant? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Sexual Difference Is Insignificant for the Social
Function of Marriage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259
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 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book would still be a PhD thesis sitting on the shelves in the library
at the University of London if it were not for Phyllis Tickle, formerly of
Publishers Weekly, and Henry Carrigan, formerly of T&T Clark. I thank
both of them for reading the manuscript and discussing it with me. I have
never asked whether they agree with me or not on substance, but I deeply
appreciate their confidence in this project and their unwavering support
for the contribution I am attempting to make to the conversation in
today’s churches. I am also grateful to Henry’s colleagues at Continuum,
Jeff McCord (for editing) and Abigail Cox (for marketing); I especially
appreciate their forbearance when my inexperience with publishing tried
their patience.
Also helpful in the transition from thesis to book were Mark Doorley
and Mary Quilter, both in the Ethics Program at Villanova University. I
thank both of them for their encouragement and for their practical help
as I printed and prepared the manuscript.
It is impossible for me to imagine this book without my supervisor, a
wide cohort of friends and colleagues, my parents, and my wife. Naming
their contributions is one way in which I hope to thank them.
Michael Banner was a superb PhD supervisor at King’s College,
University of London. Sometimes other postgraduates at King’s envied
those of us privileged to study with him. He invested a lot of time in me,
insisted on clear arguments, and sent me down fruitful paths. I admire
him and hope to keep learning from him in the future. Whatever concep-
tual breakthroughs occurred in this research could not have happened
without him.
Nigel Biggar first suggested five or six years ago that I write a PhD the-
sis probing the relationship between autonomy and theological anthro-
pology, and he has remained in friendly conversation ever since. Oliver
O’Donovan helped me formulate one of my earliest questions about
sexual difference over dinner at a meeting of the Society for the Study
of Christian Ethics. Professors Biggar and O’Donovan were my tutors
for my master’s degree in Christian ethics. I don’t know what they might
think of this book, but I hope they see in it that I have learned from their
methods, patience, goodwill, and ecumenical disposition.
Besides implicitly critiquing anthropologies of unnuanced autonomy,
another implicit theme in this book has been a critique of Gnosticism.
On that point I should note that very early in my research, before I had

ix
X CREATION AND COVENANT

officially matriculated as a PhD student, Ken Myers suggested that what-

ever topic I chose to pursue I somehow pay attention to Gnosticism. He
realized that various gnostic temptations and tendencies are problems in
many of today’s churches and that these issues require serious attention.
Although there are many intermediate steps between that conversation
and this book, I have basically taken his advice.
Sustaining me during all those intermediate steps were the other
research students at King’s, who created a wonderful environment of
friendship and collegiality. In particular, I thank Najeeb Awad, Demetios
Bathrellos, Rufus Burton, Andrew Cameron, Almut Caspary, Ovidiu
Creanga, Paul Cumin, Sandra Fach, Eric Flett, Lincoln Harvey, Babu
Immanuel, Kelly Kapic, Douglas Knight, Nicola Knight, Wai Luen Kwok,
Vladimir Lelmesh, Teck Peng Lim, Mihail Neamtu, Agneta Sutton, and
Justin Thacker for reading chapters and outlines, for being in reading
groups and swapping bibliographies, for teaching me about new aspects
of theology, for providing opportunities to grow intellectually and pro-
fessionally, and/or for just generally sweating it out together with prayers,
meals, good humor, and conversation. (Mark Poulson, while not a stu-
dent at King’s, was an essential part of this fellowship as well.) For all
these things to an even higher degree, I especially thank Luke Bretherton,
Brian Brock, and Anna Poulson.
Without Goodenough College, a residential college in Bloomsbury,
being a postgraduate student in London would have been much harder
and a lot less fun. This place allowed many of my King’s colleagues and
their families to be neighbors as well. Worshiping, praying, and eating
with Stephanie Brock, Andrea Burton, Melanie Cumin, Derek Brower,
JoAnn Flett, Usha Immanuel, Annie and Moray Thomas, Juan and
Bronwyn Garces, and all the folks at the Anglican and Roman Catholic
chaplaincies were an intrinsic part of my postgraduate experience. Thank
you all.
Moira Langston was an essential friend and an administrative sup-
porter; her Christian character helped bridge many different worlds.
Rusty Reno, Douglas Farrow, David Ford, Steve Holmes, Murray Rae,
Denys Turner, Timothy Radcliffe, and Mark Thiessen Nation all read sec-
tions, or responded to thesis outlines, and made helpful and encouraging
comments. Brian Horne was especially gracious with regard to several
issues related to the chapter on Bernard. Oliver Davies stepped in at the
last minute as an encouraging secondary supervisor, and Christopher
Hamilton was excellent as an internal examiner.
Linda Woodhead and Alan Torrance were the external examiners for
my thesis, and they were superb. They gave me several pieces of advice
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi

about how to improve this manuscript; while I agreed with almost all of
their suggestions, in the end, for various reasons, I was not able to act on
most of them. My wife and I had a baby, we moved across the Atlantic,
I started a new job teaching at Villanova University—it was either pub-
lish the thesis as it was, or postpone it indefinitely. I apologize to Dr.
Woodhead and Dr. Torrance for that, and I hope that any future writing I
am able to do will bear the marks of their helpful criticism.
Tim Wainwright and Casimir Adjoe provided indispensable spiritual
support. They helped integrate what was happening in this book with
what was happening in the rest of life. They helped me to be a theologian
who prays.
Sadly, two people I would like to thank died before this book was
finished. One is Colin Gunton, who discussed the structure of the project
with me at a very early stage. He is also largely responsible for attracting
the people and setting the tone that made studying at King’s so wonder-
ful. The other person who died is Daniel Twomey, who belongs with Tim
and Casimir as an essential personal support. He would disagree with me
about homosexuality, but his wisdom, kindness, and insight taught me a
great deal.
I would probably have never done a PhD unless Bill Moyers and Bob
Abernethy had repeatedly urged me to do it; Stanley Johnson is in the
background there too, having helped me find my voice. My parents, John
and Marylynn Roberts, have been unwaveringly supportive, always avail-
able for help with discernment and offering to do whatever chore might
make things easier. My father was my first teacher in theology, and his
ways are an indelible influence upon me. I think of my parents, and I
think of Psalm 16:6 and Philippians 1:3–5.
I scarcely know what to say to Hannah Roberts, my wife, in regard to
thanking her for her role in this project. Both of her parents died during
the years I was at work on this project; these have not been easy years.
During the same period, we also welcomed the birth of our daughter
Martha; she is both joy and challenge. I have been studying the theol-
ogy of marriage, and Hannah has been with me in this research every
step of the way, both academically and experientially. Whatever I have
learned about how God calls, blesses, commands, loves, and judges men
and women in this sphere of life, Hannah has shared with me, or, more
often than not, been the person to teach me, or, too often, the person to
suffer when I’ve fallen short. Hannah, Philippians 1:6 can be for us.
Finally, there are others. A further “cloud of witnesses,” implicit and
sometimes explicit dialogue partners who shape the way I write, espe-
cially (but not only) various liberal friends, gay friends, and agnostic
xii CREATION AND COVENANT

friends, who might not appreciate a metaphor evoking the communion

of saints. But I thank them for being open with me and for letting me be
me in response; I ask for their forgiveness when I have been too academic
and argumentative at the wrong time. I am all too aware of many of these
moments. I hope they feel like we are friends, and that they too expect
that our life together still has a lot of conversation left in it yet.
 ABBREVIATIONS

AC = Alexandrian Christianity: Selected Translations of Clement and

Origen with Introductions and Notes. Edited by Henry Chadwick and
John Ernest Leonard Oulton. London: SCM Press, 1954.

ANF = The Ante-Nicene Fathers. Edited by A. Roberts and J. Donaldson.

1885–1887. 10 vols. Repr. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995.

NPNF2 = A Select Library of the Christian Church: Nicene and Post-Nicene

Fathers, Second Series. Edited by P. Schaff and H. Wace. 1890–1900. 14
vols. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995.

NRSV = New Revised Standard Version of the Bible

SCC = Sermones super Cantica Canticorum

SCG = Summa contra Gentiles

ST = Summa Theologiae

Regarding works by Augustine: Translators differ about the titles of

Augustine’s works. De Genesi contra Manichaeos, for instance, is often
either Commentary on Genesis against the Manichaeans or On Genesis: A
Refutation of the Manichees. To avoid confusion, I use full Latin titles on
first reference (as listed in the SBL handbook) and Latin abbreviations
afterward. The abbreviations are the standard scholarly ones as listed in
The SBL Handbook of Style: For Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, and Early
Christian Studies. Edited by Patrick H. Alexander, John F. Kutsko, James
D. Ernest, Shirley A. Decker-Lucke, and David L. Petersen. Peabody, MA:
Hendrickson, 1999.
Regarding works by Luther, since I cite a single, standard English
series of Luther’s works, I use the English titles from that series.

xiii
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 INTRODUCTION

Is sexual difference theologically significant? Specifically, when speaking

about the ethics of marriage, does sexual difference matter? When the
Christian tradition has claimed that the two parties in a marriage should
be sexually differentiated—that is, a male and a female—what is at stake?
What makes sexual difference morally significant? This book addresses
these questions by studying the history of the moral theology of marriage
in primarily Western Christianity.
In recent years, several branches of Christianity have been debat-
ing the question of same-sex marriage, and this debate lies in the back-
ground to this book. Nevertheless, the questions of this book are more
basic than this debate. One can ask about the significance of sexual dif-
ference without having questions of homosexuality in mind. Therefore,
in most chapters, this book will ignore the debate, allowing historical
sources to speak on their own terms and pursuing sexual difference as
a topic in its own right. Yet the debate about same-sex marriage helps
explain why this book is timely and important, and I will discuss this
debate in chapter 8 and in the conclusion. Therefore a few introductory
observations about this debate are appropriate.
The ongoing debates about homosexual marriage can be framed
and understood in a variety of ways. One way is to understand them
as debates about whether churches can or should sanction marriage
without sexual difference. In other words, the contemporary debates at
least implicitly ask whether the difference between male and female mat-
ters for marriage, and if so, how and why. Are there theological reasons

1
2 CREATION AND COVENANT

that oblige the churches to the traditional understanding of marriage, in

which the sexual difference of husband and wife is a sine qua non? Or
is marriage a more flexible covenant, which any two people can keep
and for which sexual difference is indifferent? Such questions can lead to
further questions, including: Why has the tradition believed that sexual
difference was a necessary component for a marriage to exist and actu-
ally be a marriage? Are there sound and persuasive theological reasons
for these beliefs, or are they merely deeply held but unfounded assump-
tions, theoretically open to modification? Might the logic of Christian
marriage imply that existence as male or female is in some way a voca-
tion, a summons to a particular way of life that builds upon sexual dif-
ference, a call to which we are in some way accountable, or is sexual
difference something Christians can treat relatively indifferently, freeing
us for more important matters?
Surprisingly few Christians seem to ask these questions explicitly in
the current debates. Instead, for instance, some conservative Christians
think that certain passages from Leviticus or Romans end the discussion.
These passages can be cited and deployed legalistically against those who
would propose something like gay or sexually indifferent marriage. But
these scriptures, while condemning homosexuality, do not straightfor-
wardly answer this book’s questions about sexual difference. Mere oppo-
sition to same-sex marriage is not the same thing as a positive theological
and evangelical account of sexual difference, no matter how great the
weight of Scripture or tradition may be. Similarly, some conservatives
also appeal to the role of procreation for marriage. But in such instances,
one still needs to give a reason why marriage must be procreative. Why
should marriage have any necessary relationship to biological procreativ-
ity and thus to sexual difference? Why would one claim that the potential
fecundity of sexual difference is morally significant? To insist on sexual
difference in marriage will cause many people discomfort, for their ini-
tial desires at least appear not to be sexually differentiated. Thus explicit
reasons need to be offered: Why should these people accept a limitation
on their desires? What is significant about sexual difference that makes it
a constraint worth enduring, even when it is not easy? Those who would
make conservative appeals to traditional moral law must address these
questions, lest their law appear arbitrary and detached from the gospel.
Any account of the significance of sexual difference must be profound
enough to speak to the deepest levels of human personhood, explaining
why it matters so much. What significance must sexual difference have
if it is to lead to a definition of marriage that will cause some people to
embark on a long and difficult ascetical struggle?
 INTRODUCTION 3

Meanwhile, many liberal Christians tend to emphasize acceptance,

autonomy, and pastoral experience in their explanation of why same-
sex marriages should be embraced by the church. Yet this language is
a retreat from the categories of theological anthropology and from
Christianity’s historic confessions about marriage and celibacy. For
instance, in the Anglican communion, the Eames Commission recently
asked the U.S. Episcopal Church to explain its liberal views on homo-
sexuality. Afterward, a member of the commission noted that “given the
chance to make their case, Episcopal Church leaders argued on secular,
human rights and social justice grounds.”1 Rhetorically and conceptually,
such language is bound to fail to persuade those who realize, on the basis
of worshiping the Christian God, the need to seek a theological logic for
their claims. By definition, the language of liberalism fails to engage on
common terms with the communion of saints and the lordship of Christ.
Arguments about sexuality that dispense with theological logic and that
are premised on human autonomy and experience are incongruous in
debates within the churches, even when glossed with appeals to justice
or love, for such liberal arguments suggest that we can know ourselves
sufficiently apart from revelation and doctrine, as if there were parts of
life removed from God’s grace, address, vocation, command, judgment,
or teleology.
This book is an attempt to move beyond both left and right, and
toward a higher standard of theological conversation. Even when we will
be studying famous theologians, in this book it would seem that we are
bound to examine familiar material in an unfamiliar way, since all too
few people have taken the trouble to subject this classic material to these
pressing questions.
Furthermore, while the conclusions of this book should inform the
debate about homosexuality, this book also asks questions that are more
general and deeper than that debate has tended to encourage. In an essay
commenting on the St. Andrew’s Day Statement,2 which itself was an
attempt to put the ecclesiastical conversation about homosexuality on a
less partisan and more transparently theological basis, Oliver O’Donovan
noted that “the task of the theologian is not simply to engage in the
debate on the side that appears to have the greater right; it is to safeguard
the Gospel integrity of the debate, by clarifying what the questions are
that must be at issue.”3 This book is in sympathy with that description of
the theological task. In asking questions about the significance of sexual
difference, and in searching among historic theologians on marriage
for answers, the theologian’s foremost task is not to retrieve ammuni-
tion for today’s combatants. Instead, this research investigates whether
4 CREATION AND COVENANT

certain monumental theologians in the history of theology of marriage

have anything to say that might reveal a meaning or significance, or an
insignificance, for sexual difference. Only then, when one has looked at
the tradition in its own right and from a more disinterested perspective,
can one return to the present debates. Only then can this book hope to
offer resources and better questions for the present.
There are other reasons for sustained and patient engagement with
the tradition and, at least at the outset, not reading it through the lenses
of today’s anxiety. We could frustrate ourselves were we to dig too insis-
tently for answers to questions that might not have been asked by previous
generations; we are anachronistic if we fault them for failing to respond
to our own era’s challenges. The possibility that earlier generations might
not have asked and answered our questions in ways that satisfy us means
that, in principle, we have to be prepared for this research to have “nega-
tive results.” There may not be straightforward answers to our questions.
We will want to guard against overtheorizing and drawing conclusions
that are too grand for the original material to bear. We therefore must try
to stay close to the primary sources and be prepared to meet arguments
that have perhaps an awkward relationship to the questions we are ulti-
mately asking. After all, in earlier eras, apparently no one was contesting
the question of sexual difference as is happening today; in theology, it
often requires a debate before a doctrine is clarified and defined.
However, if we were to find only partial answers to our questions,
or if we were to learn that our material is not sufficient for answering
our questions, then such results would still be useful. Such results might
imply that today’s confusion arises at least partially because Christianity
has only recently had occasion to develop explicit and systematic answers
to our questions, in which case we will have some sympathy for why the
church is not unanimous today. We will then understand a little more
clearly that, to the extent that the tradition does have answers, the church
today might be assimilating what has only recently been heard and
understood. The extent of the originality of today’s theological predica-
ment will then be clearer. Equally, of course, neither should we discount
the possibility that the tradition has well-developed and precise argu-
ments about today’s questions which we should hear readily and directly.
Perhaps the tradition has already encountered our questions, answered
them well, and the church needs to repent of its amnesia.
It is not only partisans in today’s homosexuality debates who should
be interested in this research. Anyone interested in a complete Christian
theology of marriage should want to know about the significance of sex-
ual difference. If we can become more articulate about the relationship
 INTRODUCTION 5

between various theological doctrines, moral practices concerning sexu-

ality, and sexual difference, then it stands to reason that the church’s pro-
fession and witness will be more coherent.
Moreover, feminists of all varieties, in and out of the church, have
reasons for being interested in questions of sexual difference. As Linda
Woodhead recently concluded, “What is needed, it seems, is fresh and
creative reflection on the mystery of human sexual difference which is
as responsibly related to the Christian tradition as it is to contemporary
concerns.”4 Feminist theory helps raise the question of what it means to
be sexed, and a history of why classic theologies of marriage have thought
that sexual differences matter (or not) has a role in that discussion.
Once one has asked theologically about sexual difference, there
are many possible ways of proceeding. Biblical scholars have exegeted
key passages in Genesis, the Pauline corpus, and elsewhere in order to
gather material for today’s debates about sex and gender.5 One could also
approach the significance of sexual difference through the question of
who is eligible for ordination to holy orders,6 or by examining the issue
of inclusive language in theological discourse.7 In a painstaking project,
Prudence Allen has completed two volumes in a projected multivolume
quasi-encyclopedic attempt to compare and contrast dozens of individual
philosophical and theological anthropologies of sexual difference, from
the pre-Socratic philosophers to the present.8 Featuring prominently in
Allen’s project and elsewhere are technical discussions of Aristotelian or
Thomistic metaphysics and biology, and what they imply for sexual differ-
ence.9 Allen and other substantial historical studies have also scrutinized
some of the classic theological anthropologies of the past for evidence of
proposed hierarchy, complementarity, or equivalence between the sexes.10
Other scholars who attempt to account for sexual difference by means
of more systematic (as opposed to historical) theological anthropology
include Hans Urs von Balthasar11 and, more recently, Gavin D’Costa.12
Some theologians have also proposed original christological approaches
to sexual difference, asking, for instance, about the implications of the
ascension: What might it mean that Jesus’ embodied (and hence male)
particularity is affirmed at precisely that moment when such a corpus
would seem to have the least earthly utility, and what might that indi-
cate about the eschatological significance of the bodies and sexual dif-
ferences for those who follow him in the resurrection?13 One could also
study a particular theologian known for being significant with respect to
issues of anthropology and embodiment, such as Irenaeus,14 or one might
study church policies and councils, such as the Council of Gangra in the
fourth century, where matters of marriage and asceticism were debated
6 CREATION AND COVENANT

with particular thoroughness.15 Contemporary philosopher Luce Irigaray

has famously framed questions of sexual difference with respect to femi-
nism and the history of Western philosophy, employing a post-Christian
quasi–Roman Catholic rhetoric in the process.16 Irigaray’s work contends
that the history of Western discourse about sex is compromised because
its interlocutors are forced to use grammar and modes of rationality that
inevitably articulate the world from a male point of view and hence inevi-
tably obscure the true difference between the sexes.
Faced with such an overwhelming and complex field of potential
inquiry—and there are certainly many other approaches that could be
proposed—this book must, on its own, be insufficient to its ambitions.
One book cannot finally separate the overlapping strands of this complex
subject, and yet any final answers to our questions must engage on all of
these fronts. Thus one book cannot do everything that needs to be done.
However, I offer this defense for the approach of this book: I have
chosen to study the significance of sexual difference in the moral theol-
ogy about marriage. This classic literature on marriage is a worthy topic
in its own right among the many possible inquiries into sexual difference,
and, although it might not be finally sufficient, it is at least a necessary
element in any comprehensive deliberation on the topic. Moreover, since
it is to some extent the present discussion about the possibility of gay and
lesbian marriages that prompts our questions about sexual difference, it
is logical to begin seeking answers by reviewing prior traditions of moral
theology about marriage. Do these traditions offer explicit or implicit
arguments about sexual difference? Before deconstructing their authors’
perspectival influences, or before quarreling with their biblical herme-
neutics, or before proposing exotic solutions to the various problems the
tradition appears to have bequeathed, it would seem prudent to make
sure we have identified and understood the arguments that the tradition
actually makes or presupposes, and to do so on terms that are not alien
or anachronistic to that tradition.
It is also worth acknowledging that often in theological history, dis-
cussions of marriage have occurred in relation to discussions of celibacy.
For that reason, from time to time and fairly often, our argument must
be generous in what it understands to be the moral theology about mar-
riage. The significance of sexual difference with respect to celibacy will
need to be considered, since marriage and celibacy were often discussed
as interlocking and mutually reinforcing vocations.
By focusing on sexual difference, this book is not emphasizing what
some might term “gender difference.” The distinction between “sex” and
“gender” is arguable and subtle, but commonly scholars use “gender”
 INTRODUCTION 7

to refer to the “psycho-social-cultural characteristics” that can exist or

be constructed in light of the biological differences between male and
female.17 If one accepts the distinction, concepts such as “masculinity” or
“femininity” refer to gender, but “male” and “female” refer to sex. It might
be helpful, then, to say that to the extent the sex-gender distinction is pos-
sible and sustainable, this book will prioritize sex. What sexual difference
means and why it matters is the subject of this book, and that generates a
closely associated but nevertheless distinct agenda from the questions of
gender studies. The significance of gender in marriage is a valid and over-
lapping research project, but it is subtly different. For instance, asking
whether it is appropriate to define certain roles in marriage as masculine
or feminine is not the same as asking why it might matter that there are
two sexes at all. Asking how one sex might or might not have dominated
and defined the place of the other sex is not the same as asking whether
the phenomenon of two sexes should have significance. My point is sim-
ply to say that in this book I will usually, but not always, concentrate on
whether and how the biological difference between male and female has
or has not mattered in moral theology about marriage. I will usually,
but not always, focus on sex and not gender. One can easily imagine a
project on similar questions that reverses this priority, but that is not my
present intention.
This book is organized chronologically. The first chapter surveys five
patristic theologians and shows that the early Christian tradition was
somewhat inchoate about the significance of sexual difference. In their
theologies of marriage and celibacy, these five theologians only rarely
addressed questions of sexual difference. To learn what they believed, one
often has to make inferences, or scrutinize comments that were made as
mere asides or rhetorical flourishes. However, to the extent one can dis-
cern their beliefs, they seem to contradict one another, with incompatible
views about the status of sexual difference.
However, as we will see in chapter 2, these disagreements resolve into
a more coherent position with Augustine. Augustine, as is evident from
both explicit and implicit arguments, believed that sexual difference is
an ontologically significant feature of humanity in every era of theo-
logical history, from creation to eschaton. For Augustine, sexual differ-
ence derives its significance in the first instance by enabling procreative
marriage, which is necessary for populating the heavenly city and thus
fulfilling God’s purposes in history. But the significance of sexual dif-
ference appears to go beyond marriage and procreation for Augustine.
His argument, often rooted in anti-Manichaen polemics, commits him
to the goodness of embodied, material life, and that leads him to suggest
8 CREATION AND COVENANT

that sexual difference will be adapted to some new use in heaven, in the
eschatological era when marriage is obsolete.
The next three chapters—on Bernard of Clairvaux, Thomas Aquinas,
and the Reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin—show continuity
with Augustine. Bernard’s sermons on the Song of Songs are premised
on Augustine’s framework, as Bernard relies on the basic goodness of
sexual difference in marriage as privileged material for allegories of God’s
love. Aquinas recapitulates Augustine to an extent, but his assimilation
of Aristotelian biology leads him to relate sexual difference, procreation,
and celibacy in ways that depart from Augustine. This departure is per-
haps trivial initially, but it will matter in the modern period, and it needs
to be noted at its source. The Reformers, while apparently emphasiz-
ing marriage at the expense of celibacy, argue that sexual difference is a
fundamental aspect of being human, regardless of whether one is mar-
ried or not. For Luther especially, to be a man or a woman is to be con-
fronted with the question whether and when one will marry; Luther’s
way of describing this question, as a basic precondition for obedient life
under God, has the effect of connecting sexual difference to the life of
the church.
By the end of these first five chapters, it seems that while the clas-
sic theologies of marriage in Western theology have not offered lengthy,
explicit, and sustained treatments of sexual difference, they have never-
theless raised the issue from time to time, suggesting a certain consen-
sus. This consensus believes that sexual difference ought to be treated
as morally significant. From Augustine to the Reformation, there was a
consensus that God created human beings in sexual differentiation, that
Christian social life will affirm this difference through marriage and the
regulation of erotic life, and that sexual difference will be redeemed in
the eschaton.
The rest of the book—three more chapters and a conclusion—studies
several theologians in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Two chap-
ters focus on Karl Barth and John Paul II, respectively, whose arguments
about sexual difference seek to deepen and clarify the traditional prem-
ise that sexual difference has moral significance. The last chapter reviews
three contemporary theologians—Graham Ward, Eugene Rogers, and
David Matzko McCarthy—who argue in various ways that sexual dif-
ference is morally insignificant. Finally, in the conclusion, I review and
consolidate the arguments from each chapter of the book.
We will see that the revisionist theologians of today—like their coun-
terparts at the beginning of the Christian era—do not subscribe to the
traditional view of the significance of sexual difference. However, there
 INTRODUCTION 9

is at least one difference between the early and the contemporary hetero-
geneity of belief. Today it is possible to juxtapose arguments for the
insignificance of sexual difference with traditional, post-Augustinian
claims for its significance. This juxtaposition enables us to ask whether
the contemporary revisionists adequately respond to these arguments,
to see why questions about sexual difference are important, and to pose
fresh questions. I shall conclude that the revisionists have not adequately
understood or responded to the post-Augustinian consensus that links
sexual difference to the purposefulness of God’s creation. In other words,
the standard of argument must be higher before the revisionist case can
claim to have succeeded; the revisionists must engage points they have
left hitherto untouched. The pre-Augustinian theologians could not be
held accountable to what subsequent tradition believed and argued,
but the contemporary revisionists can be. The contemporary revision-
ists claim to be responding to the likes of Barth and John Paul II, and
yet, especially on those points where Barth and John Paul II bring the
post-Augustinian consensus to light, the revisionists appear to misread
or misunderstand their twentieth-century interlocutors.
The lacunae in the revisionist case are not necessarily culpable faults,
for the kinds of questions this book will put to the tradition are rarely
asked. The tradition itself has perhaps not been as explicit as it might
have been about its beliefs and arguments, not least because these argu-
ments were not previously contested. The number of times I must speak
of “inference” or “presupposition” in the early chapters will be testimony
to this phenomenon. The originality of the first seven chapters consists
partially in bringing to light what might have been obscure in whatever
the tradition might have thought or implied about sexual difference,
as well as achieving clarity about what the tradition does not say. We
might want therefore to moderate our frustration with contemporary
theologians who do not engage ideas that have not been as accessible as
we might want them to be.
What I claim, nevertheless, is that once the historical recovery has
been made, the inadequacies of the revisionist case are newly visible.
To make this claim is not to damn the authors or their motives, or to
make final pastoral responses for a church in pain or disarray, or to
say everything that needs to be said about the theological significance
of sexual difference. It is simply to say that the tradition has better
arguments and richer ideas than the revisionists have perhaps real-
ized, and that recovering these resources enables us to speak coher-
ently and faithfully today and thus to set the theological context for
subsequent discusions.
10 CREATION AND COVENANT

Notes
1. William Sachs, “Anglican Disunion: The Global Response to a Gay Bishop,”
Christian Century, November 16, 2004, 8.
2. See Michael Banner et al., “St. Andrew’s Day Statement: An Examination
of the Theological Principles Affecting the Homosexuality Debate,” in The Way
Forward? Christian Voices on Homosexuality and the Church (ed. Timothy
Bradshaw; London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1997), 5–11.
3. Oliver O’Donovan, “Homosexuality in the Church: Can There Be a Fruitful
Theological Debate?” in The Way Forward? 22.
4. Linda Woodhead, “Woman/Femininity,” in The Oxford Companion to
Christian Thought (ed. Adrian Hastings et al.; Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2000), 757.
5. Recent examples include Francis Watson, Agape, Eros, Gender: Towards
a Pauline Sexual Ethic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); and
Douglas A. Campbell, ed., Gospel and Gender: A Trinitarian Engagement with
Being Male and Female in Christ (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2003).
6. See, e.g., A. M. Allchin et al., A Fearful Symmetry? The Complementarity of
Men and Women in Ministry (London: SPCK, 1992). Also see the Hans Urs von
Balthasar references in note 11, below.
7. See, e.g., Miroslav Volf, After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of
the Trinity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 170; and Alan Torrance, “‘Call No
Man Father!’ The Trinity, Patriarchy and God-Talk,” in Gospel and Gender: A
Trinitarian Engagement with Being Male and Female in Christ (ed. Douglas A.
Campbell; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2003), 179–97.
8. Prudence Allen, The Concept of Woman: The Aristotelian Revolution, 750
B.C.–A.D. 1250, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997); and The Concept of
Woman, vol. 2, The Early Humanist Reformation, 1250–1500 (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2002).
9. See Michael Nolan, “What Aquinas Never Said about Women,” First Things,
no. 87 (1998) for a position challenging Allen.
10. Other examples include Kari Elisabeth Boerresen, Subordination and
Equivalence: The Nature and Role of Women in Augustine and Thomas Aquinas
(trans. Charles H. Talbot; Washington, DC: University Press of America, 1981);
and Paul K. Jewett, Man as Male and Female: A Study in Sexual Relationships
from a Theological Point of View (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975).
11. See, for example, Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Dramatis Personae: Man in
God (vol. 2 of Theo-Drama: Theological Dramatic Theory; trans. Graham Harrison;
San Francisco: Ignatius, 1990), 365–82. See also Balthasar, “Women Priests?” in
New Elucidations (trans. Mary Theresilde Skerry; San Francisco: Ignatius, 1986),
 INTRODUCTION 11

187–98. For a discussion profoundly influenced by von Balthasar, see David L.

Schindler, “Catholic Theology, Gender, and the Future of Western Civilization,”
in Heart of the World, Center of the Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996),
237–74. Agneta Sutton compares von Balthasar’s theology of sexual difference
to Barth’s and John Paul II’s in “The Complementarity of the Two Sexes: Karl
Barth, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and John Paul II,” New Blackfriars 87, no. 1010
(2006): 418–33.
12. Gavin D’Costa, Sexing the Trinity: Gender, Culture, and the Divine (London:
SCM Press, 2000).
13. Steve Holmes and Sandra Fach have raised versions of this question with
me in seminars and informal conversation. Fach suggests that Douglas Farrow,
Ascension and Ecclesia: On the Significance of the Doctrine of Ascension for
Ecclesiology and Christian Cosmology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999), 13n47,
might be opening possibilities along these lines.
14. John Behr, Asceticism and Anthropology in Irenaeus and Clement (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2000), 220, argues that Irenaeus had an anthropology
of “the fullness of our created, fleshly, sexual being.”
15. The Council of Gangra documents may be found in NPNF2, vol. 14.
16. Among Irigaray’s many works are An Ethics of Sexual Difference (trans.
Carolyn Burke and Gillian C. Gill; London: Athlone, 1993), and Marine Lover
of Friedrich Nietzsche (trans. Gillian C. Gill; New York: Columbia University
Press, 1991).
17. Allen, Concept of Woman, 2:15–16.
This page intentionally left blank
 Chapter 1
FIVE EARLY
THEOLOGIANS

In this chapter we will study Tatian, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria,

Gregory of Nyssa, and Jerome. Besides these five theologians, there are,
of course, other early patristic theologians who wrote about marriage,
celibacy, and sexual difference. But these five theologians arguably had
more influence on subsequent tradition than their other contemporaries,
and, in any case, five theologians is a sufficient sample for establishing
that in the earliest stages of the church’s theological reflection there was
no consensus about the theological significance of sexual difference. Is
sexual difference a biological epiphenomenon, something that should be
transcended en route to an angelic-like existence, or is sexual difference
“integral to God’s vision for His creation, and as such . . . an enduring fea-
ture of ourselves”?1 Often the theologians of this era have little or nothing
to say in response to this question. In other instances, they do have some-
thing to say, but, as we shall see, the diversity of their beliefs indicates a
collective inchoateness in early Christianity about sexual difference.

Tatian
Tatian has virtually nothing to say about the theological significance of
sexual difference in the sources that still exist today, although a few infer-
ences can be made.
Although he was excommunicated in Rome in 172, Tatian continued
to be respected in the Christian East. Part of Tatian’s ambiguous legacy
means that he is sometimes suspected of having held gnostic attitudes
toward God, creation, the human body, and asceticism. Indeed, judging

13
14 CREATION AND COVENANT

from the brief quotations surviving in Tatian’s foes, it would appear that
he was either an actual gnostic such as Valentinus or a supposed gnos-
tic such as Marcion.2 Sometimes his foes cited the fact that Tatian’s fol-
lowers, known as Encratites, insisted on sexual continence (and dietary
restraints) for all the baptized at all times; to these critics, Encratic asceti-
cism suggested that Tatian must have been teaching unorthodox attitudes
toward sex and the body.
However, as Henry Chadwick notes, “there is all too little evidence
of the details of the heretical doctrines he came to hold.”3 We can even
say that when we examine Tatian through his only treatise to survive in
its entirety, Oratio ad Graecos, a picture emerges that reveals nongnostic
foundations for his extreme asceticism. Listening to this text, it would
appear that Tatian’s thought is more complex than simple denunciations
of his alleged Gnosticism would allow. Nevertheless, even when we listen
carefully and draw out a more rounded portrait of Tatian’s asceticism, we
still learn little about sexual difference.
In Oratio, Tatian professes that “the construction of the world is excel-
lent”4 and that there is but one God, the sole creator of all that is, and
who, as Spirit, is utterly distinct from all created matter.5 In saying these
things, he makes no appeal to any intermediary aeons or demiurges, and
says much else that disavows characteristic gnostic explanations. The
oration offers an anthropology and a doctrine of creation in which the
constitution of a human being is both flesh and soul, a combination like
a temple in which God can dwell.6 For Tatian it is possible to “descend”
through the flesh to the level of wild beasts (excelling them in “articulate
language only”), but the fault lies not in the intrinsic nature of flesh but
in free will influenced by passions.7 What we long for, Tatian maintains,
is not an escape from creation, which would be standard gnostic long-
ing, but a restoration of its pristine state.8 Eschatologically, Tatian con-
fesses a “resurrection of bodies after the consummation of all things.”9
But nowhere in this basic but orthodox doctrine of the created body do
we find an extended treatment of sexual difference.
Tatian also counsels Christians to “despise all worldly things,” includ-
ing and perhaps especially sexual intercourse.10 But this counsel is prob-
ably best regarded as a rhetorical exhortation to love God above all other
things, or to shape the human will so that it is “superior to the passions,”11
which would distinguish it from the conventional gnostic disdain for
creation itself. For example, Tatian declares that Aphrodite “finds joy in
the bonds of marriage,”12 and so we should avoid marriage because we
want to love the true God and avoid giving succor to Aphrodite.13 That
is not the attitude of a gnostic denigrating a material phenomenon, such