The main objective of this study is to explore androgyny in Christianity, to uncover new material and make it available for public debate. It offers not only an introduction to androgyny in Christianity, but also to the - mostly unknown - authors on the subject, who are important for the history of Christian Gnosticism, Mysticism, Pietism and Theosophy. This is particularly the case with Jacob Boehme, who is generally regarded as very inaccessible and difficult. Although this study does not explicitly describe the structure and function of androgyny from a systematic point of view, it provides the basis for such a description. The same is true with regard to the relation between androgyny and the official Christian doctrines. This study does not deal with the Jewish traditions of androgyny (with the exception of Philo of Alexandria) although very important relations between Jewish and Christian traditions are clearly visible; nor does it discuss the Islamic traditions. Questions of historical dependance are also not dealt with extensively; the third part of this Summary contains a sketch of some important historical perspectives. The first part of this Summary lists the main findings and points for further discussion and research. This list is not exhaustive, but to be viewed in connection with the rest of the Summary.
[316-->]
This book offers an overall view of the history of androgyny in Christianity and makes it possible to define its essence more accurately. We can define androgyny - unity of 'man' and 'woman', 'male' and 'female' - as a symbol of complete identity, which can involve aspects within one individual or the relation between different persons, as well as the unity of the cosmos, viz. the unity with God. Our conclusion is that androgyny is elaborated in two ways: 1. unity is found in the mutual completion of male and female; 2. unity is found in the dissolution of male and female as one-sidednesses. In this regard different levels can be distinguished: the material, the spiritual, and the divine level. Some forms of androgyny can be described in terms of one of these two attitudes on all levels; others combine, for instance, the first attitude for the material (and eventually the spiritual) level, with the second attitude for the divine (and eventually the spiritual) level. Another conclusion is that in a number of cases androgyny is connected with 'holistic' views, which try to combine separate aspects of reality and take interest in the concepts of mediation and equilibrium (Christ as the true Androgyne and Mediator!).
Androgyny was not popular in the mainstream of dogmatical institutional Christianity, but rather in the circles of artists, liberals, and pietists, of Rosicrucians, Freemasons, and alchemists. In this book we discuss androgyny in connection with the Christian theosophist Jacob Boehme (seventeenth century), with a theoretician of medieval mysticism, John Scottus Eriugena (ninth century), and with the Gnostic Christians of the first centuries. Research into the historical roots of androgyny confirms the view that later Christianity has often represented a narrowing of several different streams flowing from its time of origin, which were fed by, among other things, the confrontation of the Jewish religion with the Greek and other surrounding cultures and religions. It is becoming increasingly clear nowadays that in the first centuries of Christianity choices were made which, in the form of later unconscious prejudices, determined Christian thinking and Christian culture for a long time to come, and which also were choices between alternatives which perhaps are still of value even now, and knowledge of which is in any case an enrichment of our self-understanding.
[317-->]
This book shows that the psychology of Jung not only has roots in alchemy, but that the concept of the bi-sexuality of the soul is very old and belongs to the oldest Christian heritage. At the same time this book provides the basis (now available in Dutch:) for a comparison of androgyny in other, particularly Eastern religions, with androgyny in Christianity (in which comparison also the Jewish and the Islamic traditions should then be involved).
This book explores partly the position of woman in Christianity and Western culture. The history of androgyny is closely connected with views of sexuality and of the social relations of man and woman. Following my teacher, Professor Quispel, who has said that Gnosticism, Mysticism and Pietism have distinguished themselves within Christianity in the sense that woman could develop herself within them for her own sake, I want to stress that androgyny - unity of 'man' and 'woman', 'male' and 'female' - cannot be thought of without the peculiar value of the woman. At the same time, I have to note that Christian thinking in general has been marked by the assumption that man has a higher position than woman, that man is the starting-point and woman the derivative. We can now interpret androgyny as a corrective to this one-sidedness, although we must admit that androgyny in Christianity has nevertheless from its beginning shown the traces of a patriarchal thinking. Therefore it seems legitimate to conclude that an other, better position of woman in Christianity (at least on the ideological level), or offering a Christian contribution towards a greater equilibrium between man and woman in our culture, will only be possible through a much more fundamental change of Christianity than is usually contemplated. A number of androcentric presuppositions, i.e. presuppositions which have the man as starting-point, or make him so, are present in Christian thinking; and it is precisely these unconscious presuppositions which accustom the legitimation by Christian thinking of one-sidedly patriarchal relations. Of course the spiritual movements, mentioned above, are present to give indications of the direction in which important aspects of deep transformations could be sought and achieved.
[318-->]
This book confirms the view that Christian thinking and Western culture have been largely determined by the strong mutual legitimation of faith and reason, or the mutual confirmation of the superior God and the superior intellect, a confirmation which was accompanied, as is now becoming evident, by the confirmation of the superiority of man above woman. This could lead to the conclusion that a greater equilibrium between man and woman not only needs a fundamental change of Christian thinking (insofar as Christianity is concerned), but also a review of the position of reason and science in our culture, particularly with regard to the relation of rationality and spirituality. Our analysis of the described authors can provide some important perspectives and elements for such a review.
Whether one considers these conclusions - particularly with respect to the eventual necessity of fundamental change - as a reason for pessimism or for hope, is a possible subject for scientific discussion as well as a question of personal values and judgments, and perhaps too of the fact of whether one is a man or a woman.
As regards the contribution of androgyny, three central insights can be noted:
1. androgyny in Christianity is a symbol for spiritual transformation, for the way that leads to unity with God, and which always deeply affects personal experience;
2. androgyny does not neglect oppositions - neither those outside man, nor those within man - but nevertheless stresses their essential unity;
3. this unity entails things which can be expressed by words as well as things which cannot.
[Return to Contents at top of this document.]
The sequence of the chapters of this book, which are summarized here, follows two lines.
First there is the line from the nineteenth century (Von Baader and Gunning) via the seventeenth century (Jacob Boehme) and the ninth century (John Scottus Eriugena) back to the first century (Philo of [319-->]Alexandria), and from there back again - forward in time - to the second century (the Gospel of Thomas) and the second or third century (the Gospel of Philip). This line proceeds from the known to the unknown. Particularly the chapter on Philo serves here also as a partial introduction to the chapters on the Gospels of Thomas and of Philip.
The second line is one from a positive view of sexuality (Von Baader and Gunning) via some negative ones (with Philo and the Gospel of Thomas as extreme examples) to a positive one again (the Gospel of Philip). It will be shown that Boehme holds an intermediate position in more than one respect. At the same time, it is clear that Philo is on the one hand to be compared with Eriugena because of the continuities in their interpretation of Genesis 1-3 and their rationalistic tendency, and on the other hand with the Gospels of Thomas and of Philip with which he has an important context of concepts and language in common.
Although the starting-point of this study is androgyny in the writings of Boehme (chapters 2 and 3) and we do not deal with androgyny in Christianity after Boehme because E. Benz has done this already in his book Adam: Der Mythus vom Urmenschen (München-Planegg 1955) [for more recent studies about androgyny in Mozart see above; for Goethe see R.-Chr. Zimmermann: Das Weltbild des jungen Goethe, 2 vols (München 1969, 1979)], we first must mention Boehme's influence on the important Dutch 'ethical' theologian J.H. Gunning, Jr. (1829-1905), because Benz does not mention Gunningh and because this aspect of Gunning's theology has been hitherto neglected even in the Netherlands. Boehme's influende came mainly through F. von Baader (1765-1841), whose views on androgyny are also mentioned briefly.
Gunning finds in the androgyny of the first man support for monogamous marriage, with a special accent on the spiritual union and the overall equilibrium between male and female. The aim of such a union is the mutual restoration (reintegration) of an original (but disintegrated) human nature. This restoration is a counter-image to the 'dying' of the marital partners 'in each others arms' during the sexual act (death as a kind of sleep). For Christians, death implies resurrection. Nevertheless Gunning also assigns a high value to unmarried, socially and spiritually developed (single) persons. Other elements stressed by Gunning in this context are: 1. man as 'microtheos' and his relation with Sophia, the Wisdom of God; 2. the continuation[320-->] of the Revelation as the task of man; 3. man's possibility of heavenly procreation and his loss of this, which is then replaced by earthly procreation; 4. the cosmic, universal meaning of (the androgynous) Christ; 5. the expectation of a new body and a new earth; and 6. androgyny as an ideal for society. Gunning calls his thoughts a 'theosophy', a way of thinking in the tradition of Boehme. Thus also in the Netherlands we are not alone in our interest in androgyny and in Boehme, even in theologically very influential circles.
[320-->]After this introduction of androgyny according to Gunning and Von Baader, a short outline is given of our own study: with the supplementary aim of first describing the subjects our study does not deal with; and second, of putting forward a number of questions connected with the study of androgyny, to keep in mind while reading this study.
[Return to Contents at top of this document.]
The starting-point and first objective of this study is androgyny in the works of Jacob Boehme (1575-1624), the shoemaker, visionary, and writer of influential but mostly neglected mystical works, who lived in Görlitz, on the river Neisse (now in Eastern Germany). His influence extends from German Idealism and Romanticism and a wide range of European literature and art (Blake!) to pietistic circles in the churches and esoteric ones outside them, from Germany and the Netherlands to England, France, Russia and the United States, even, here and there, to this very day.
First we give an introduction into his life and works and some of the main aspects of his theosophy, as the direct context of his ideas on androgyny. The word 'theosophy' was then not very different from 'theology' but during the rise of rationalism the word got a pejorative meaning; later the modern 'theosophical movement' used it for a different - mainly Eastern, that is not-Christian - content. Boehme's indebtedness to traditions such as alchemy and the kabbalah is clear; although they do not at all suffice to explain the very personal way in which he combines important theological and philosophical themes with psychological depth, and connects an explanation of nature and world with the most important theme of the rebirth of man. The essential thing for Boehme is that his insights - for himself as well as for his readers - should not function outside the Will and the Revelation of God, but only in relation to and taking part in these.
Boehme's system implies a theodicy, and his theosophy implies for [321-->]the reborn man - when in a state of enlightenment - the possibility of an almost full knowledge of Divine Revelation, including both man and nature. Boehme's work is always aimed at the rebirth of himself and his readers.
According to Boehme, androgyny is closely related to the evolution of man and the world, first 'in' and later 'out of' God. God looks for partners - in Himself and outside Himself- with whom to play the game of Revelation, of coming-into-being and becoming (Self-) conscious. There is only one cosmic drama which implies the coming- into-being of God, man, and the world, and which implies also the coming-into-being of all sorts of opposite qualities, their growth (birth) from one phase to the other till ultimately all oppositions are again united in God as God, at the same time, becomes fully Self-conscious. Among these oppositions we find, e.g.: spirit and matter, man and woman, eternity and time, good and evil, anguish and joy, dark and light. In short, evil and sin play in this whole the role of the antithesis without which a thesis cannot evolve into further being and consciousness, i.e. synthesis: the process of God's Self-Revelation (including the totality of Creation and Restoration, materially as well as spiritually).
[Return to Contents at top of this document.]
Among the aspects at every stage of God's Revelation, i.e. evolution, is the cooperation of the male and the female. In this sense, male-female unity is the essential characteristic of the first man, who is the image and likeness of God. The first man is composed - in his soul - of the two fires in God, the dark and burning fire (male) and the light and joyous fire (female). The male side of God is God the Father, whereas God the Son is the female side. The Word and the Spirit are the ways in which the Revelation is further extended to the realms of the created world. In this creative process everything comes forth from a conjunction of oppositions, from a 'marriage'. Sophia, the Wisdom of God, is the personification of God's growing Self- consciousness, pregnant with the models of the world to be created: yet nevertheless herself chaste, and spiritual.
The first man, Adam, is married to Sophia. He is created by God for the explicit task of replacing the fallen Lucifer, one of the leaders of the angels' choruses, and to help God to fulfil the goal of His (Self-)Revelation. To this end, man is imbued with all the gifts of [322-->]heaven and earth, and in him is everything united. The four elements, whose quintessence he is, are in equilibrium in him, and so, as microcosm, he is in full harmony within himself and with God. The way in which man should respond to God's purpose should, therefore, be through heavenly procreation - bodilessly or 'magically'.
This, however, is prevented by Adam's fall, his longing for the material world and the weakening of his divine consciousness, as a result of which he falls asleep, and Eve is made out of his female side. From the moment that man and woman are so divided, they are in danger of falling into further sin, and - seduced by Lucifer (in the form of the snake) - they do sin, thus destroying the equilibrium between all oppositions and creating the conditions experienced in the actual situation of man and world. The most important characteristic of sin is the choice of one's own way of being 'like God', that is, without being in harmony with God's will. This is the same as directing one's consciousness only to the lower levels of reality.
Instead of to the heavenly Sophia, he is now married to the earthly woman, Eve. Procreation is now in the first place earthly, animal-like, and in constant danger of being unspiritual. The weakening of the heavenly consciousness now accompanies the growth of sexual consciousness. The inner as well as the outer struggle to renew the equilibrium and the original nature has begun. From the beginning (God's promises in Paradise), the saving Word and Love of God play their roles in this process, often personified in Sophia, who helps individual souls.
Boehme elaborates this vision into an extended exegesis of the history of the patriarchs of Israel and of the redemption by Christ, Himself the true and (as far as he is human) restored Androgyne, born of the virgin (!) Mary, and through Whom every man can be reborn to unity with God. This exegesis contains his views of the differences between circumcision and baptism, sacrifices and the eucharist. In the end, the unity of all redeemed people and the whole world with God will be restored, which implies a new heavenly body and a new heavenly life after this earthly life and the Resurrection of the dead. Then, not only will the androgyny of man and his total identity with God be restored, but the (Self-)Revelation of God will also then reach its full development - thanks and in relation to Christ and Sophia: the Wedding of the Lamb can then take place.
Although Boehme's view of earthly sexuality is negative, and although he interprets the actual domination of man over woman as a consequence [323-->]of the Fall, Redemption, according to Boehme, in fact comprehends the restoration of 'the sin of the male'. Through Christ the equilibrium is restored. In terms of inwardness, man and woman are equal now, but externally the restoration will follow the Resurrection (iust as we all still have to die corporally, although our spirit is reborn already). This final Restoration will even imply the 'domination' of the female over the male, i.e. of the light (flame) over the fire (burning): the eternal joy of heavenly Light.
From the viewpoint of God, the game of Revelation came to a dead end when the first man lost his heavenly consciousness and 'imagined' himself into the earthly reality, and was continued in man and on earth only as an underground stream while no more seen and practiced by man. This 'reverse' is, in turn, reversed in the reconciliation through Christ: the retarded process of Revelation could then resume, once again consciously realised and practiced by man.
[<--323-->]Eriugena (ca. 81- ca. 877), the 'Irishman', was the leader of the palace-school of Charles the Bald (ninth century) and the author of, among other works, the famous Periphyseoon (De divisione naturae). He derived the idea of androgyny from the Greek church fathers, particularly Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus the Confessor, whose works he translated into Latin (together with the works of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite). In fact, the model of thinking about the Creation is largely and in many details the same in a tradition from Philo to Eriugena. This model implies that Gen. l is the description of the 'first creation', which regards the heavenly ideas or models for the Creation, and Gen. 2-3 of the 'second creation', which regards the concrete earthly creation as having become necessary because of the Fall of man, and brought about in advance by God because he foresaw the Fall. Gen. 1:27 ('male and female' God created man in His image) is then an anticipation in the story of the 'first creation' of the situation following the 'second creation'. Maximus the Confessor had already elaborated this model into a system of divisions of reality (at every level a division into two categories) with God at the top and the visible earth at the bottom, in a hierarchical order. The last division was that between man and woman, caused by the sin of the first man.
Eriugena built this model and its implied traces of androgyny into his Christian view of the evolution of the world from before [324-->]Creation to the eventual unity of all man and things in God. His view was at the same time an explanation of the Holy Scripture and a logical basis for the seven 'artes' (the sciences, including music) of his days. In logical terms, his Christian world-view was only a by-product of the logical foundation of the seven 'artes', a foundation which involved a synthesis of the biblical and the scientific truth (a mutual legitimation). This synthesis was mainly illustrated with reference to Gen. 1-3.
Characteristic for Eriugena is the notion of descent and ascent as corresponding with each other (e.g., from Eternity to Time and vice versa; cf. also Creation and Fall on the one hand, Redemption and Restoration on the other). The last phases of the descent include the Fall of man from his heavenly consciousness into the world of earthly passions, whereby man takes the sense-perceptible world as such as real instead of reducing it to its primordial causes, the ideas in God. A consequence of this is that man is divided into the two sexes, and that all sorts of variations and oppositions in earthly life become visible. Earthly matter, inclusive of the human body, is merely accidental (although not given without a purpose: man should use it to his purification). This implies that, for Eriugena as well, the Fall entails the loss of resemblance to the angels, of a heavenly body and heavenly procreation, of which the earthly is only a surrogate. According to Eriugena, sin contains two elements: a wrong choice by man's Free Will (against God's will and intellect) and a choice (against reason) for the lower passions; or, alternatively, pride (instead of submission to the will of God and man's harmony with God) and passions (instead of the use of reason).
Eriugena does not think that man's heavenly, eternal part (the model of his being-an-image-of-God) as such is damaged by the Fall. Only his blessed state is thus affected: and (re-)union with God is now much more difficult. In principle, the Fall into the sense-perceptible world was not wrong, but has come too early: man should have first grown wise enough for it. But, in the end, the true union of intellect and sense-perception will be restored (in this context woman is - already in Paradise - the symbol of the perfect sense-perceptible world, man of perfect reason, and the snake of the evil passions). Eventually evil will be reduced to nothing; but the unbelievers will still have enduring knowledge of their own sins.
For the Fall is, at the same time, the deepest moment of the descent and - by God's grace and pedagogics - the beginning of the possibility [325-->]of the ascent, by which man can become again the middle of all extremes and one with God - through Christ, the true Middle, the Mediator.
Paradise is not regarded as historical (because man has never really been in this state, but sinned immediately), but as giving - in retrospect - a view of the ideal future.
The restoration of all divisions also implies, for Eriugena, the end of all differences and variations of men and things. He stresses the unity of mankind.
His view is rational, not to say rationalistic: man plays his role in Creation and Redemption mainly through the use of his intellect, by linking it to God's intellect. The Fall is man's loss of the right use of his intellect, and through the Restoration he reunites everything in himself and himself with God. The return to God is also a return from the Fall into the sense-perceptible world to the submission of this world to the intellect and to pure contemplation. After the Resurrection the continuing purification of concepts and ideas will take place until they are again identical with the divine ones. Eriugena can even say that 'being' is the same as 'thinking' or 'being thought'.
Nevertheless everything depends for Eriugena on the Free Will which gives direction to the intellect (upwards to God or downwards to this world) and on God's grace in Christ.
Eriugena was not a pantheist because he makes a clear distinction between becoming God according to grace (which is possible for the believer) and according to nature (which will never be possible to any human person).
In Eriugena we discover no tendency to consider woman as equivalent to man. Sexuality is allowed for procreation but not for pleasure (although pleasure is granted as unavoidable).[<--325-->]
[Return to Contents at top of this document.]
[Continued with Chapter 5 in part II, separate page]