Bodies, Lives, Voices: Gender in Theology 9781474282031, 9781474293259, 9781474282048

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I

Bodies, Lives, Voices

Religious Studies: Bloomsbury Academic Collections

This set on religion’s relationship with gender and sexuality contains nine facsimiles from our imprints T&T Clark, Mowbray, Sheffield Academic Press and Continuum. Offering a broad overview over subjects such as feminist theology, the role of sex within the church and religious cultures, the relationship between women and organised religion, and the feminisation of religion, these titles are a valuable resource for students and scholars studying religious studies. The collection is available both in e-book and print versions. Titles in Religious Studies are available in the following subsets: Religions of the World Comparative Religion Christianity and Society Religion, Sexuality and Gender Other titles available in Religion, Sexuality and Gender include: Making the Difference: Gender, Personhood and Theology by Elaine Graham Religion and Sexuality edited by Michael A. Hayes, Wendy Porter and David Tombs That They May Be Many: Voices of Women, Echoes of God by Ann Kirkus Wetherilt Religious Feminism and the Future of the Planet: A Christian-Buddhist Conversation by Rita M. Gross and Rosemary Radford Ruether Through the Earth Darkly: Female Spirituality in Comparative Perspective by Jordan Paper From Women's Experience to Feminist Theology by Linda Hogan Civilizing Sex: On Chastity and the Common Good by Patrick Riley An A-Z of Feminist Theology edited by Lisa Isherwood and Dorothea McEwan

Bodies, Lives, Voices Gender in Theology

Edited by Kathleen O'Grady, Ann L. Gilroy and Janette Gray

Religious Studies: Religion, Sexuality and Gender BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC COLLECTIONS

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

1385 Broadway New York NY 10018 USA

www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in 1998 by Sheffield Academic Press This edition published by Bloomsbury Academic 2016 © Bloomsbury Academic 2016 Kathleen O'Grady, Ann L. Gilroy and Janette Gray have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editors of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders of material reproduced in this volume. If any copyright holder has not been properly acknowledged, please contact the publisher who will be happy to rectify the omission in future editions. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 978-1-4742-8203-1 ePDF: 978-1-4742-8204-8 Set: 978-1-4742-9307-5 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress Series: Bloomsbury Academic Collections, ISSN 2051-0012

Printed and bound in Great Britain

Bodies, Lives, Voices

I

BODIES, LIVES, VOICES GENDER IN THEOLOGY

Edited by

Kathleen 0'Grady, Ann L. Gilroy and Janette Gray

E

Sheffield Academic

Press

Copyright © 1998 Sheffield Academic Press Published by Sheffield Academic Press Ltd Mansion House 19 Kingfield Road Sheffield S l l 9AS England

Printed on acid-free paper in Great Britain by The Cromwell Press Trowbridge, Wiltshire

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 1-85075-854-9

Contents Acknowledgments Abbreviations List of Contributors

7 8 9

Introduction Kathleen O'Grady, Ann Gilroy and Janette Gray

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Part I: Bodies Boundaries and Knowledge: Feminist Ethics in Search of Sure Foundations Linda Hogan

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Dympna Revisited: Thinking about the Sexual Abuse of Children Ann Loades

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Women Theologians and the Holocaust Margie Tolstoy

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Part II: Lives Disrupting the Sacred: Religion and Gender in the City Grace M. Jantzen

72

Petronilla de Chemille, Mulier Fortis Berenice Kerr

93

Rebellious Women: Images of Women in the Protest Literature of Tamil Christian Dalits Lakshmi Holmstrom

118

The Woman's Lot in Esther Diana Lipton

133

Part III: Voices Feeling and Reason: Feminist Notes on the 1821-22 Debate between Hegel and Schleiermacher Esther Reed

154

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The Divine Masquerade: A Psychoanalytic Theory about the Play of Gender in Religion Naomi R. Goldenberg

188

'Abjection. . . the Most Propitious Place for Communication': Celebrating the Death of the Unitary Subject Pamela Sue Anderson 209 What's God Got to Do with It? Morny Joy

231

Postscript Janet Martin Soskice

266

Index of References Index of Authors

269 270

Acknowledgments

There are many people who deserve our warmest gratitude for their assistance during the production of this book. A generous grant from the Bethune-Baker and the Charles McPherson Fund of the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge, made possible the Women's Voices in Religion speaker series upon which this volume is based. We would like to thank all of those who attended the Women's Voices in Religion series for their intellectual contributions, enthusiasm and support. In particular, we would like to thank Janet Soskice, Graham Ward, Ann Dillon, Rebecca Hayward, Joan Chittister, Craig James and Morny Joy for their regular participation. Janet Martin Soskice provided detailed and insightful comments during both the organizational component of the speaker series and the production of this book. Cindy O'Grady and Christopher Livesey offered computer assistance during the project, and never once complained about our panicked phone calls or obtuse questions. Jean Allen, managing director at Sheffield Academic Press, and Rebecca Cullen, editor, were helpful and patient throughout. Special gratitude goes to the artist Heather Martelock for permission to use her Women of Religious Studies to adorn our cover. Friends and colleagues regularly encouraged our endeavours and offered helpful advice along the way. We would like to pay particular thanks to Mark Logan, Rubina Ramji, Cliona 6 Gallchoir, Chris Keanneally, Bridget Thompson, Rebecca Hayward, Johanna Stiebert, Eve Regas, Christine O'Grady, Carolyn Saunders, Stephanie Walker and Harold Remus. Finally, we would like to thank each other—as friends, critics and colleagues—for those happy, hardworking and memorable years in Cambridge.

ABBREVIATIONS

Bibliotheque de VEcole des Chartes Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research Cahiers de civilisation medievale The English Historical Review Journal of Ecclesiastical History Journal of Religion Le Moyen Age Patrologiae cursus completa . . . Series prima [latina] (221 vols.; Paris: J.-P. Migne, 1844-65) PL Rule of St Benedict,]. McCann (ed.), (London: 1952). RSB Revue Benedictine Revue de Vhistoire de la spiritualite Rev Ben Rev d'hist spir Revue d'histoire ecclesiastique Revue Mabillon RHE SBL Dissertation Series RM Vita Altera B. Roberti de Arbrissello auctore SBLDS monacho Fontis Ebraudi (PL, CLXII, 1058-1078). VA BN MS fr 2468, 'La vie de venerable Robert de VAB Arbrissel trad. F.G. Boudet', in J. Dalarun, L'impossible Saintete: La vie retrouvee de Robert dArbrissel, fondateur de Fontevraud (Paris: 1985), pp. 264-99. Vita B. Roberti de Arbrissello auctore Baldrico VP episcopo Dolensi (PL clxii, 1043-58).

BEC BLHR CCM EHR JEH JR LMA

List of Contributors Pamela Sue Anderson is Reader in Philosophy of Religion at the University of Sunderland. She gained a DPhil in Philosophy of Religion at the University of Oxford, after which she published Ricoeur and Kant: Philosophy of the Will (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1993) as well as various articles on Ricoeur and narrative identity. More recently she has done work on Kristeva, Irigaray and feminist epistemology, especially raising feminist questions about the rationality of belief. She published A Feminist Philosophy of Religion: The Rationality and Myths of Religious Belief (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1998). Ann L. Gilroy is Dean of Studies at the Catholic Institute of Theology, in Auckland, New Zealand. She is currently completing a doctorate in the Faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge, having fairly recently crossed disciplines from education to theology. Her research is on the Heart as a Figure for the Embodiment of God. Naomi Goldenberg is Professor of Psychology of Religion and former Director of Women's Studies at the University of Ottawa, Canada. She attended Princeton University and the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich and received her Doctorate in Religious Studies from Yale University. She is author of Changing of the Gods: Feminism and the End of Traditional Religions (Boston: Beacon Press, 1979) and Resurrecting the Body: Feminism, Religion and Psychoanalysis (New York: Crossroad, 1993). Janette Gray is a doctoral student in the Faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge. Her research topic is the Christian anthropology of M.D. Chenu. Her publications include Neither Escaping Nor Exploiting Sex: Woman's Celibacy (Slough: St Paul's, 1995). Linda Hogan is a graduate of St Patrick's College, Maynooth, and Trinity College, Dublin, where she gained her PhD in 1993She is currently Lecturer in Theology at the University of Leeds, where she lectures on gender, religion and ethics. She is the author of From Women's Experience to Feminist Theology (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995).

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Lakshmi Holmstrom is a freelance writer and translator who studied at Madras and Oxford. She is the author of Indian Fiction in English: The Novels of R.K. Narayan (Calcutta: Writers' Workshop, 1973), editor of The Inner Courtyard: Short Stories by Indian Women (London: Virago, 1990) and co-editor of Writing from India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), a collection of stories from India for readers aged 14-16. She has translated many short stories by contemporary Tamil writers, including A Purple Sea (Madras: Affiliated East-West Press, 1991), a collection of short stories by Ambai; Ashokamitran's Water (London: Heinemann, 1993); and Na Muthuswamy's Neermai (Madras: Affiliated East-West Press, 1995). A re-telling of the Tamil narrative poems Shilapadikaram and Manimekalai (Madras: Orient Longman) appeared in 1996 and Mauni: A Writer's Writer (New Delhi: Kath Vilasam) in 1997. Grace Jantzen is a Professorial Research Fellow and Director for Research and Publications in the Centre for Religion, Culture and Gender at the University of Manchester. Her most recent book is Power, Gender and Christian Mysticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995). She works at the interface between philosophy of religion and contemporary continental philosophy, trying to develop a feminist imaginary. Her book, Becoming Divine: Toward a Feminist Philosophy of Religion will be co-published by Manchester University Press and Indiana University Press in autum 1998. Morny Joy is Professor in the Department of Religious Studies, University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. She received her BA from the University of Sydney, Australia, and a PhD from McGill University, Montreal. Morny is Past-President of the Canadian Society for the Study of Religion and Director of the Institute for Gender Studies at the University of Calgary. She has co-edited two books: Claiming Our Rites: Essays on Religion by Australian Women Scholars, edited with Penny Magee (Adelaide: Australian Association for the Study of Religion, 1994) and Gender, Genre and Religion: Feminist Reflections with Eva Neumaier-Dargyay (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier Press, 1995). She has also published many articles on women and religion, feminist theory and contemporary continental philosophy.

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

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Berenice Kerr received her DPhil at Oxford University where she read mediaeval history. Her publications include Fontevrault in England: Religious Life for Women c. 1100-1350 (Oxford Historical Monographs, forthcoming, 1998). She is currently working as Secondary Curriculum Officer with the CEO, Lismore (Australia). Diana Lipton is a fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge. She is the author of Revisions of the Night: Politics and Promises in the Patriarchal Dreams of Genesis QSOTSup; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, forthcoming). She received her PhD in the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge. A n n L o a d e s is Professor of Divinity at the University of Durham. She has published three monographs, in addition to editing and co-editing numerous volumes in the field of feminist theology and sacramental theology. Two of her most recent works include The Sense of the Sacramental, co-edited with David Brown (London: SPCK, 1995) and Christ: The Sacramental Word (London: SPCK, 1996). K a t h l e e n O'Grady is a doctoral student in the Faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge, where she is currently completing her doctorate on the topic of metaphor and metonymy in the writings of Julia Kristeva. Her publications include Sweet Secrets: Stories of Menstruation, with Paula Wansbrough (Toronto: Second Story Press 1997) and Julia Kristeva: A Bibliography of Primary and Secondary Sources in French and English (Bowling Green, Ohio: Philosophy Documentation Center, 1997). Esther D . R e e d was previously lecturer in Theology at the University of Exeter, and is now lecturer in Theology and Ethics at the University of St Andrews. She has recently published A Theological Reading of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit (Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press, 1996), and has translated, with Alan Braley, and written an introduction and critical notes to F.D.E. Schleiermacher, 'On Colossians 1:15-20' in New Athenaeum / Neus Athenaeum, Vol V, 1998. Janet Martin Soskice is a University Lecturer in Theology at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Jesus College. She is the author of Metaphor and Religious Language (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985). She has also edited the collection After Eve: Women, Theology and the Christian Tradition (London:

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Marshall Pickering, 1990), and published articles in diverse fields in theology, ethics, aesthetics and philosophy of religion. Margie Tolstoy is Director of Studies at the Margaret Beaufort Institute of Theology, Cambridge, United Kingdom, where she teaches and supervises on Jewish and Christian responses to the Holocaust. In addition, she teaches ethics at Westcott House, Theological College, Cambridge. She received her PhD in the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge.

KATHLEEN O'GRADY, ANN GILROY AND JANETTE GRAY Introduction

It is no mystery why the anthology has become a favourite form for feminist scholarship, able as it is to encompass the changing and growing voice of feminism. The anthology form provides an appropriate response to the pressures of a feminism based on a celebration of plurality, multiplicity and, sometimes, even dissonance; it has a structure which demands difference. Together, various women can organize their thoughts and views without having to preserve a uniform ideology. Instead, the anthology genre offers women the opportunity to create a space where all types of women can meet, in full voice, and simply listen to one another, 'Hear each other into speech'. 1 The anthology framework allows distinct essays to be placed alongside one another to demonstrate the parallel exchanges taking place throughout, without eliminating the dynamic theoretical discord that is characteristic of contemporary feminist practice itself. The current climate of feminist scholarship consists of a broad discourse that continues to grow less monolithic and more varied in material, method and style with each passing year. While debates may focus on theories of gender construction versus theories of sexual difference, materialist ideology over psychoanalytic investigations, no one agenda dominates, since feminism is made up of more than its individual elements. One may reject the tenets of a particular strand of feminism without rejecting feminist practice itself. Instead, feminism embraces a plethora of techniques, each united by an invitation to explore that which has remained unexamined. Feminist practice is marked by a fluidity, evolving 1. Nelle Morton, from an unpublished sermon, 'Hearing to Speech', delivered at Claremont School of Theology, Claremont, California, 27 April 1977, p. 1. As quoted in Carol Christ, Diving Deep and Surfacing: Women Writers on Spiritual Quest (Boston: Beacon Press, 1980), p. 7.

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with each attempt; like a favourite recipe that never quite produces the same thing twice, it is a discursive adventure with a practised but always experimental hand. Together, the papers presented in Bodies, Lives, Voices participate in the vibrant tradition of the feminist anthology. The essays collected in this volume represent something of the vast array of feminist methodologies that are currently being employed by women in the field of religious studies to re-examine, reform and/or transform Judaic and Christian constructs. While the religious agenda of each study may be at odds—from reformation to transformation, from critique to reconstruction, or towards new creation—what is not at question is the transformation of religious studies itself from a discipline that marginalizes, effaces or subordinates women's religious experiences to a discipline that must include the bodies, lives and voices of women within the scope of its study. The essays collected here began first as a series of talks entitled 'Women's Voices in Religion', sponsored by the Faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge.2 But while the setting was England, the series drew together women who began their life journeys in Canada, Australia, India, America, New Zealand, England and Ireland. Some papers present a sociological perspective, others a historically informed feminism, while psychoanalysis and postmodernism never stray far from the scene. And while feminist methodologies differ, faith perspectives are varied as well: Atheists, Catholics, Jews, Agnostics and Post-Christians ask similar questions: Can we construct a feminist imaginary? Are we able to live within the same feminist ethic in which we write? How have we been shaped by the cultural and religious traditions in which we were raised? Shared concerns—the way the female body is represented in sacred and literary texts, how women's contributions have been 2. This ongoing speaker series began in 1990-91, organized by Teresa Elwes, and published as Women's Voices: Essays in Contemporary Feminist Theology (ed. Teresa Elwes; London: Marshall Pickering, 1992). The series was resurrected in 1994-96 by Ann Gilroy, Janette Gray and Kathleen O'Grady under the supervision of Janet Soskice, during which the papers of this volume were presented. Fortunately, the enthusiasm and support of the Faculty has ensured that this series continues today, 1997-98, organized by Carrie Pemberton.

INTRODUCTION

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neglected or misrepresented by centuries of male academics—also resonate throughout each paper. Challenging and provocative, the papers presented here add a significant contribution to Judaic and Christian studies and at the same time add their gifts to a burgeoning feminist tradition. The essays have been divided into three overlapping categories—bodies, lives, voices—which, rather than highlight uniformity in methodology, demonstrate the common concerns that continue to emerge from a variety of feminist perspectives. Bodies The papers in this first section examine the structures within theology and ethics that buttress and motivate the denigration of women and children's bodies. At the same time, however, they focus on the very embodiment of women as a source of knowledge and divinity. What is perhaps most courageous is the self-reflexivity operating within each of the essays in this section. As many of the authors note, the same epistemic structures that motivate prejudice of all kinds (based on sex, class, ethnicity and sexual orientation) have often been dangerously subsumed by feminist practice itself. The papers collected here insist on placing at the heart of religious studies an examination of sex and gender, while placing at the heart of feminism critical attention to the cultural traditions within which feminism itself has emerged. Linda Hogan opens this section by proposing a new feminist ethics that takes into account the opposing philosophic projects of Martha Nussbaum, Julia Annas and Onora O'Neill. Hogan firmly rejects a postmodern feminism that rests on an abstract relativism, with an ineffectual and politically debilitating decentred subjectivity, but acknowledges the lessons learned from postmodern ethics: the need for accommodating the actual corporeality of women. Hogan combines the seemingly irreconcilable 'camps' of ethics in order to find a system that is able to motivate political action and rectify injustices against women, while at the same time acknowledging the problems of normative (universal) morality. Her paper provides a thorough examination of the proposals of biological (natural) ethics (Annas), neo-Aristotelian (Nussbaum) and neo-Kantian (O'Neill) ethical paradigms in order to outline the beginnings of a pragmatic ethics that can contribute a new

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model for living a full and moral life. Ann Loades's paper highlights the marginalization of children from the texts of Christian theology, including their omission from the writings of much feminist theology. She struggles heroically with the problem of chilmdhood sexual abuse in Christian cultures and wonders, 'Why do children disappear from Christian theology after baptism and initiation and appear again only at puberty?' The answers to this question lie with the Christian understanding of human sexuality, which contemporary theology continues to conceal rather than address. Loades carefully draws a connection between the gender prejudice implicit in Christian theology and the omission of children's needs from the theological agenda. She demonstrates that the continued infantilization of women in our society leads inextricably to the powerlessness of children, their inability to refuse, like women, the desires of men. But this does not leave women blameless. Loades maintains that it is equally important to refuse the long-standing cultural idealization of women as naturally caring and maternal. This mythology acts to conceal the complicity of women in child sexual abuse, as well as the possibility of women abusers. While uncovering the structures that facilitate child sexual abuse, Loades also addresses the inadequate response to abuse by Christian communities, who encourage forgiveness and confession of personal sins, continuing to blame the victim rather than the abuser. Loades concludes her paper by calling for a radical revision of Christian theology that addresses the needs and the protection of children, while also redressing the power imbalance between women and men. Margie Tolstoy also insists on a radical revision of Christian theology in her essay on the Holocaust. She begins her paper by outlining the fundamental anti-Judaic foundations of Christian theology. This Christian anti-Judaism, she states, was mapped literally on to the bodies of European Jewish children, women and men in the Holocaust of World War II. Tolstoy writes of the inadequacy of the Christian response to the Holocaust in the decades after the war and concludes that 'every Christian is implicated in the Holocaust'. Tolstoy notes the lurking presence of anti-Judaic assumptions in Christian theology, particularly in feminist theology. While Christian feminists attempt to redeem their faith from a feminist perspective, they often do so in the spirit of an age-old tradition of

INTRODUCTION

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repudiating all that is Jewish. Yet Tolstoy reveals that the very ideology that frames this anti-Semitic prejudice is also the structure that is used to denigrate women and marginalize other ethnicities. As she informs us, it is not good enough to be feminist, we must also be aware of the hidden prejudices inherited from our cultural and religious traditions, and must make this self-awareness part of the feminist project. Tolstoy's paper is a passionate entreaty to expose anti-Semitism at its base so that it can no longer disfigure the relation between Jews and Christians. She concludes her paper with an invitation to attempt the difficult task of forming a Christian identity that is not founded on an anti-Judaic theology. Lives The papers in the second section of the volume participate in what the French philosopher, Luce Irigaray, calls the great tradition of female genealogy. Irigaray has written that it is difficult for women to come together to unite in love and understanding when there exists no representation, no genealogy of women or between women to provide them with a model. If women are trapped in an infantilized state, without images or symbols that can articulate their ethical and erotic economy, there is no ground on which to build an individualized subjectivity. A symbolic representation, a role model—be it mythical or historical—can provide the necessary substratum for an individual subjectivity, as well as the basis for a healthy relationship between women, and between men and women. The essays in this section demonstrate the fundamental need to recover the heritage of women, to return to woman her history so that she may move forward, propelled into her future by her past. Women are recast from the historical and mythical accounts in which they have been misrepresented, marginalized or overlooked altogether and granted the proper attention and critical concentration that they deserve. At the same time the essays are careful not to transfer on to those lives of the past our contemporary hopes and concerns. What emerges are accounts of women with powerful civil authority, literary genius and great spiritual and political insight. But the essays in this section do not simply 'retrieve' those important women from our past; rather, they also critically examine the processes by which these women's contributions have been, and continue to be, effaced and distorted

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by the prevailing academic discourse. The fourteenth-century mystic, Marguerite Porete constitutes the focus of Grace Jantzen's essay, which opens this section. Her paper argues that male commentators have tended to view women's spiritual texts as apolitical when, as in the case of Porete, they are overtly political. Jantzen's essay is framed by the contradictory fate of Porete's body and text. How could the person be condemned to death (and continue to be treated critically by history) and the text be both used as evidence of her heresy yet survive through the centuries as a highly esteemed spiritual work? Jantzen refutes the charge of heresy levelled at Porete and instead highlights the importance of gender in her trial. With tools from Foucault and Irigaray, Jantzen unearths the links between gender, religion and the city, and argues that while some utilize religion to maintain their authority over others, Porete, with her revolutionary fluid and diaphanous writings, uses religion 'as a mode of resistance rather than a force of oppression'. Jantzen's paper concludes by taking us from the fourteenth century to the present day to illustrate that, in the spirit of Porete, the possibility exists for creating a religious imaginary that can contain all the vitality, spirituality and variety of women's lives. Berenice Kerr's paper presents the courage, intelligence and diplomacy of the twelfth-century Petronilla de Chemille. Charged with the responsibility of abbess, Petronilla directed the order of Fontevraud through the difficult period that followed the death of its founder, the visionary and itinerant preacher, Robert of Arbrissel. Kerr tells of how the order flourished under Petronilla's supervision and of the many accomplishments that marked her outstanding career. But perhaps what is most interesting is Kerr's summary of the academic literature on Petronilla. Petronilla's political role is often overlooked, and when she is included in the religious history of the time, the usual accusations are levelled at her: she is deemed emotional, argumentative, 'villainous, power hungry, and destructive'. Kerr's account provides us with a fresh and critical evaluation of an important figure in the religious history of twelfth-century Europe. Lakshmi Holmstrom gives us an otherwise inaccessible peek into the untranslated Tamil autobiographies Karukku and Kalakka, and the fictional text Koveru Kazhudaigal by Imayam, and takes

INTRODUCTION

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as her focus the self-conscious representation of Dalit women by this emerging literature. The stories that Holmstrom shares with us display the tensions of a life lived between the Hindu system of caste and the Catholic Church. She tells us of two very different Tamil women who joined religious orders as a means to bring change to the oppressed Dalit communities. But each woman comes to understand the complicity of the Catholic Church in the caste system, as well as the lack of power and opportunity granted to women in the church hierarchy. Christian Dalit writings represent struggle on many levels—gender, caste and the religious remnants of colonial existence — and are marked by a powerful and growing self-awareness. As Holmstrom says, they are 'real life stories of risks taken, and of challenge, choice and change'. Holmstrom's essay confirms the power of reflecting on women's experiences, their personal expressions and individual struggles, linked inextricably to the challenges of their community. A detailed examination of the sacred text Megillat Esther and its relation to the festival of Purim is provided in Diana Lipton's essay. Lipton indicates that the presentation of women in Megillat Esther can be a source of embarrassment to many modern readers. Most feminist interpretations take Queen Vashti as the ideal role model for the Jewish woman, but Lipton, carefully and with humour, reverses this reading and firmly establishes Esther as the true heroine of the text. She dismisses the standard reading of Esther as manipulative and cunning with only physical and sexual power to exert her influence. Lipton shows that Esther uses her knowledge of court protocol rather than sexual favours to save her people. Lipton is thus able to place the story of Esther within the tradition of sacred texts that valorize the courage and skill of the weak and disadvantaged in their triumphs over those with civil power. Esther becomes the perfect model of courage, intellect and strength, 'a blueprint for Diaspora living'. Lipton's study stands between the Jewish tradition of actively rereading a sacred text and the feminist tradition of situating standard texts anew. Voices In 1994 Hypatia dedicated a special issue to 'feminist philosophy of religion', a field, the editors claimed at the time, that 'did not yet

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exist'.3 The papers in this section demonstrate that feminist work in philosophy of religion today is indeed an active and burgeoning arena. The essays in the final section, 'Voices', present the ways in which feminist philosophers of religion are looking to the future, drawing together canonical philosophy and contemporary feminist theory to create alternative methodologies for tackling age-old philosophical problems. Examinations of texts by Hegel, Schleiermacher, Freud, Ricouer and Levinas sit comfortably beside the most recent theories from Kristeva, Irigaray and Gillian Rose. These essays suggest that there is no decisive rupture between the philosophies of the past and the present; that it would be an error to reject the intellectual traditions on which our own philosophical frameworks are based. The papers in this section both reform and enrich standard epistemic frameworks and propose new ethical projects, strongly casting their voices to the future. Esther Reed begins this section with a feminist scrutiny of the 1821-22 debate on 'feeling' and 'reason' between Hegel and Schleiermacher. Her paper is framed by the question: what can a feminist philosophy of religion learn from this debate? Reed uncovers similar strategies employed by both thinkers to reconcile the feeling-reason tension within their philosophies. Both, she states, adopt a neo-Platonic monism of 'universal unity' in an attempt to veil the split. Reed notes that this Platonic substratum is overlooked by most feminist philosophers and theologians, who, in an uncritical alliance, buttress their own work with Hegelian concepts or a Schleiermachian paradigm. Reed follows Gillian Rose in recommending caution in not concealing too quickly the rupture between feeling and reason in Western philosophy. Next we enter the realm of philosophical psychoanalysis with Naomi Goldenberg's paper, where she explores the dynamics of 'masculinity' and 'feminity' in religious expression. Goldenberg argues that religions are implicitly gendered, but more radically, she observes that the structures that delineate gendered behaviour motivate religious practice itself, hinting, even, that religion is the outcome of gendered identification. Nestled closely to Butler's notion of 'gender performance' and Bakhtin's notion 'of the social', Goldenberg's argument suggests that religions provide cultural 3. Marilyn Thie, 'Epilogue: Prolegomenon to Future Feminist Philosophies of Religion', Hypatia 9A (1994), pp. 229-39 (229).

INTRODUCTION

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spaces in which men can take part in sanctioned acts of 'femininity', while at the same time effacing women's agency. Along the way, Goldenberg is also careful to critique her own feminist and psychoanalyist tools, noting that they are, in fact, the epistemic progeny of the same Judaic and Christian constructs that she hopes to unravel. Pamela Anderson's paper examines the tension between masculine 'reason' and feminine 'desire' in traditional readings of the Adamic myth. She employs Julia Kristeva's theory of abjection as a deconstructive method to examine Paul Ricoeur's reading of the Adam and Eve story in his The Symbolism of Evil. Abjection is the operation that describes the moment when the functional unity of the ego is threatened by ambiguous and liminal substances or states. Anderson suggests that women occupy the place of abjection in the Christian tradition, of desire, irrationality and defilement, and 'consequently [are]... excluded from the divine convenant and the social order'. However, it is this abject position that can now provide the space for conciliation between reason and desire. It is women, therefore, Anderson argues, who have the unique position of occupying the only place that affords both subjective rupture and reconciliation—the position of the abjected. Anderson, echoing a passage from Kristeva, makes a bold claim: 'Today women are potentially in the most propitious place for communication in religion.' The way in which Luce Irigaray's work has shifted and changed over time establishes the focus of Morny Joy's contribution. Joy illustrates in great detail the influence of Freud, Hegel and Heidegger on Irigaray's early work, and the dramatic influence of Levinas on Irigaray's later 'theological' writings, particularly within her understanding of the 'Other/other' in relation to her concept of the divine. Joy unfolds the way in which Irigaray offers philosophers of religion an alternative and radical way to rethink divinity, modelled on the love relationship of the heterosexual couple. Joy rescues Irigaray both from those critics who dismiss her work as 'essentialist' and from those who are content to view her work as simply critical of Western philosophy and psychoanalysis. Joy maintains that Irigaray's work contributes valuable constructive concepts as well, particularly of significance to a feminist ethics and theology. Joy concludes her essay by calling for an 'ethics of

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alterity' in the spirit of Irigaray. Not content with theorizing a new ethical project, Joy issues a challenge to herself and every feminist academic: 'Irigaray is not asking us to analyze her new order, but to live it.'4 It is not incidental that the volume ends with Joy's challenge. What this anthology presents is not only a sample of the variety of feminist readings from within religious studies, but equally, the closing divide between theory and living, between text and life in the feminist writings from religious studies. 'Ethics', once a specialized jfield of theoretical focus, has now become the core concern of many feminist scholars of religion, and forms the point at which the varied essays in this volume come together in dialogue. Combined, the essays here extend the invitation articulated in Irigaray, and echoed in Joy, to live—in all our diversity—within the feminist ethic of which we write.

4.

Our emphasis.

Parti BODIES

LINDA HOGAN Boundaries and Knowledge: Feminist Ethics in Search of Sure

Foundations

Epistemological questions have vexed feminist theory from its very beginnings, so it comes as no surprise that they have arisen with considerable acuteness in feminist ethics. I am primarily interested in arguing for a realist epistemology in feminist ethics, a notion of moral truth that is capable of crossing boundaries, cultural, social and religious, and an understanding of values as commensurable. Yet current orthodoxies seem to suggest that boundaries are very much in vogue. Postmodernism, which in a sense arose out of a desire to celebrate the plurality of human existence, has ironically locked us into local subsystems of beliefs and values. It has reinforced rather than liberated us from the narrowness of our own particular perspectives. It thus renders any aspiration to a common morality not only a folly but a scandal. In this paper I hope to examine some of the possibilities for a feminist ethic that is non-relativist, one that posits the legitimacy of a common morality. This would resist the idea that ethical systems are so bound by culture, time and language as to be irredeemably regional, and are thereby incapable of universal purchase. I will begin exploring why such questions have arisen and how feminism has dealt with new epistemological difficulties, 'including the politics of knowledge and the impact of social status as well as the sexed body of the knower upon the production of knowledge'. 1 Then, in arguing for some objectivity in ethics, I will consider three proposals that resist the relativism of much of feminist ethics. These are the diverse positions of neo-Aristotelian Martha Nussbaum, of Julia Annas and of neo-Kantian Onora O'Neill. While I am not prepared to endorse wholeheartedly any of the above, I admit that these proposals serve as genuine attempts to resist ethical 1. L. Alcoff and E. Potter, Feminist Epistemologies 1993), p. 2.

(London: Routledge,

HOGAN: BOUNDARIES AND KNOWLEDGE

25

relativism, and would allow one to claim some universal status for feminist ethics and politics. Faced with the options of either incommensurable ethical systems or of a common morality, two distinctive views emerge within feminist theory generally. One, which is either neo-Aristotelian or neo-Kantian, can underwrite a realist epistemology but could be charged with failing to take sufficiently seriously the power/knowledge axis. The other, while adopting a critical perspective on this issue, runs the risk of inducing ethical and political paralysis. In my view, feminist ethics must negotiate a way between the equally unattractive options of relativism and authoritarianism. And although this is not something that will be easily achieved, I want to argue that a firm commitment to a reconstructed realism must be the starting-point for this process. The dilemma for feminist theory vis-a-vis postmodernism is replicated in the works of theologians, ethicians and political theorists who take seriously what Matthew Lamb calls the end of intellectual innocence. Feminist theorists have, almost without exception, supported their critique of patriarchal theories with an analysis of Foucaultian provenance, of the will-to-power discernible in discourses and practices. While this theoretical position has indeed enabled feminists to critique the androcentrism that masquerades as asexual, normative, objective theory, this radical scepticism raises serious problems in terms of the nature and status of feminist criticism. Jane Flax, a supporter of the 'feminism as a subset of postmodernism' position, describes the options for feminists thus: We cannot simultaneously claim 1. that the mind, self and knowledge are socially constituted and that what we can know depends on our social practices and contexts and 2. that feminist theory can uncover the Truth of the Whole once for all. Such an absolute truth (e.g. the explanation for all gender arrangements at all times is X...) would require the existence of an Archimedes point outside of the whole and beyond our embeddedness in it from which w e could see and represent the whole. 2

2. Jane Flax, Thinking Fragments: Psychoanalysis, Feminism and Postmodernism in the Contemporary West (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), p. 34.

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BODIES, LIVES, VOICES

Flax's claim is that feminist notions of the self, truth and knowledge are essentially incompatible with enlightenment categories of the same, and thus the future for feminist theory cannot lie in reappropriating these (now obsolete) categories. Thus, for Flax, feminist theory more properly belongs to the terrain of postmodern philosophy, which, in turn, is characterized by subscription to the theses of the death of Man, of History and of Metaphysics. While Foucault's problematizing of the aspiration to truth as objective, verifiable and eternal must indeed be brought to bear on feminist theories, there is a discernible reluctance to embrace the thoroughgoing relativism that this position appears to necessitate. The ethical and political implications of such relativism would seriously undermine the central tenets of feminism. My main concern in this paper is to consider whether it is possible to formulate an epistemology that would acknowledge that knowledge itself is bound by culture, race, class and gender, while allowing for emancipatory politics on some basis other than whim or that which is fashionable at the time. Nancy Frazer has characterized the debate as one 'over the relative merits of critical theory and post-structuralism', in which one side 'defends a feminism rooted in critical theory and premised on concepts of autonomy, critique and Utopia' and the other 'rests on post-structuralist conceptions of subjectivity, identity and human agency'. The former position is charged with 'forwarding an authoritarian foundationalism antithetical to the feminist project', while the latter is said to be incompatible with feminist politics'.3 The critique of Cartesian metaphysics can already be discerned in the work of nineteenth-century left-Hegelians, and, of course, Marx and later theorists of the Frankfurt School. Already the human subject is regarded not as a self-sufficient, ahistorical, cultureless, languageless self, but one who creates the conditions of objectivity through emancipatory praxis. The feminist commentary on such a position highlights the explicitly gendered nature of the disembodied free-floating Man of Reason, although there are, of course, different proposals for dealing with gendered experience. The liberal feminist position has been to minimize the significance of 3. Nancy Frazer, in S. Benhabib et al., (eds.), Feminist Contentions: A Philosophical Exchange (London: Routledge, 1995), p. 59.

HOGAN: BOUNDARIES AND KNOWLEDGE

27

sexual difference, while Irigaray insists that any easy resolution ignores the reality that Western culture is in fact monosexual. Irigaray's position reminds us that 'there is no neutral or universal in this culture . . . what is taken to be neutral—the discourse of science and philosophy—is in fact gendered: it is the discourse of the male subject'.4 This critique of classical epistemology can still support the emancipatory politics of both Marxism and feminism. The notion of emancipatory praxis as both the starting point and goal of philosophical reflection implies that, although one acknowledges the historicity and sociality of knowledge, and the fact that it is ideology laden, one retains a realist epistemology. However, once one imports the scepticism of Nietzsche, Heidegger and, of course, Foucault, then knowledge is not only steeped in ideology but is the episteme of domination' 5 whereby reason 'can only know things in that it comes to dominate them'. 6 In fact, argues Benhabib, to bring this complex epistemological dispute to a simple formula, one can say like Dostoevsky and Nietzsche before them, postmodernists seem to say that 'God is dead, everything is allowed'. In their case the phrase would be 'transcendental guarantees of truth are dead; in the agonal struggle of language games nothing is commensurable; there are no criteria of truth transcending local discourses, but only the endless struggle of local narratives vying with one another for legitimation'. 7

But while this radical feminist position must interrogate the presuppositions of philosophy and criticize it for presuming to be ahistoric, acultural and disembodied, it is by no means the case that feminist theory can, or indeed ought to, abandon its appeal to reason and the work of the universal. Although the logic of the feminist critique does indeed bring one to the point of suspicion that all utterances are so contaminated by the will-to-power as to render any meaningful statements impossible, in my view this position is not a tenable one for feminists to hold. While not intending to designate feminist ethics as unambiguously part of the enlightenment 4. Luce Irigaray in M. Whitford, Luce Irigaray Philosophy in the Feminine (New York: Routledge, 1991), p. 2. 5. S. Benhabib, Situating the Self (Oxford: Polity Press, 1992), p. 208. 6. Benhabib, Situating the Self, p. 209. 7. Benhabib, Situating the Self p. 209.

28

BODIES, LIVES, VOICES

project, the abandonment of any claims to rationality and objectivity is, in my opinion, self-defeating. Of course, there is no possibility of return to the pre-critical naivety wherein patriarchal theories are juxtaposed with feminist alternatives, which are themselves considered to constitute the truth of the matter. The task for feminist ethics as I understand it is to formulate a response, or indeed responses, to the fragmentation of the subject and the retreat into regionalism in ethics while resisting authoritarian accounts of these categories. Although I do have some sympathy with Charlotte Witt's question, 'Why should philosophical theories developed entirely independently of feminist concerns themselves constitute the feminist metaphysical perspective?'8 part of the answer must be that feminist theory has used these precise theories to undercut patriarchy and so must be prepared to subject its own presuppositions to a similar critique. So it becomes important, first, to consider the implications of this radical scepticism for feminist ethics, specifically in relation to the status of ethical judgments. I will go on to evaluate the proposals of a number of theorists who have considered possible responses to such vexed questions. Although I have not come to any firm conclusions, I retain my conviction that the abandonment of confidence in the powers of reason and the rejection to any aspirations to objectivity will seriously cripple feminist ethical reflection and will represent the demise of emancipatory politics. Proposals for a Common Morality Thus we seem to be faced with two equally unpalatable options: either we endorse a concept of ethics as local and plural, grounded not in transcendent reason but in historically particular moral practices and traditions,9 or else we commit ourselves to moral realism and an international ethic, but leave ourselves open to the genuine danger of mistaking the contingent for the ideal. The former position seems to constitute the current orthodoxy. However, it is 8. Charlotte Witt, 'Feminist Metaphysics', in L. Antony and C. Witt (eds), A Mind of One's Own: Feminist Essays on Reason and Objectivity (San Francisco: Westview Press, 1993), p. 277. 9. Alison Jaggar, 'Feminist Ethics: Projects, Problems, Prospects', in C. Card (ed.), Feminist Ethics (Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1991), p. 8.

HOGAN: BOUNDARIES AND KNOWLEDGE

29

interesting to consider three alternative proposals, each with roots in the liberal tradition, that resist the notion of feminist ethics as a version of communitarianism (which is the logical result of the former position). The appeal to nature of Julia Annas, the neo-Aristotelianism of Martha Nussbaum and the neo-Kantianism of Onora O'Neill will be briefly discussed as possible resources for feminism in dealing with the demise of objectivity in ethics. The centrepiece for analysing these constructive proposals is a collection of papers from a conference at the World Institute for Development Economics Research of the UN University at Helsinki in 1988. The conference gathered economists, policymakers and philosophers in order to encourage reflection on what is meant by quality of life, whether it is measurable, whether it can cross cultural, social and gendered boundaries and how the conclusions of such theoretical reflection can be translated into social policies. When situated in such an explicitly political international context it is very easy to see why feminist theorists might want to insist on some universally applicable and possibly enforceable norms of behaviour. When confronted with the problem of 'just deliberation in a world of vulnerable agents' 10 some criteria for arbitrating between competing discourses, which in social and political terms have radically different effects, seems to be essential. Although there are significant differences between the positions forwarded, the basic commitment to non-relative values rooted in some version of shared human nature or shared grounding experiences unites these philosophers. A Shared Human

Nature?

An appeal to human nature is what is proposed by Julia Annas in her response to the desire to express the possibility of cross-cultural criticism. In many respects Annas's use of the term 'human nature' makes one suspicious. Annas, however, is not dismissive of the difficulties but insists that the 'human nature tradition is more complex than often thought, and that when properly understood it is not open to familiar objections'11, such as essentialism or racism

10. This phrase is used by Onora O'Neill. 11. Julia Annas, 'Women and the Quality of Life: Two Norms or One?', in

30

BODIES, LIVES, VOICES

or sexism under the guise of that which is natural to humans. Annas initially justifies her appeal to human nature by claiming that only such a basis is sufficiently 'deep' to ground a normative account of human flourishing. She dismisses appeals to 'informed desires' (a position that frequently confounds feminists when debating such practical questions as the provision of contraception or promoting literacy in developing countries). She also dismisses principles of equality or human rights as unworkable since there is no consensus as to what the basic rights are that we would appeal to, nor as to the principles of equality we would have to use, nor as to the justifiability of appealing to autonomy when this would involve overriding people's actual considered judgments. 12

Instead, she argues that only an appeal to, albeit, a general and indeterminate notion of a shared human nature will be sufficient to ground an ethic that can protest against injustice and formulate some account of what constitutes human flourishing. Annas is very aware that her proposal seems to come dangerously close to assuming 'a bedrock of natural facts about humans, facts true of anyone regardless of culturally produced perspectives'. 13 And although she is insistent that she does not endorse such a view, nonetheless she also rejects an account of human nature that views it as merely depending on a particular political theory or outlook.14 This would undermine the point of appealing to human nature in the first place. Annas attempts a negotiation of these extremes by reconceiving both the nature of appealing to human nature and our expectations of the kinds of claims that can arise from this appeal. Arguing that this is 'simply an appeal to the way people are, grounded in the refusal to take the level of people's expressed desires as the deepest we can go', 15 Annas insists that grounding an ethic in a shared notion of human nature commits us neither to a teleological view of the world and human functions in it, nor to any background theory of a metaphysical kind. Instead she conceives the role of M. Nussbaum and A. Sen (eds.), Quality of Life (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), p. 288. 12. Annas, Women and the Quality of Life', p. 284. 13. Annas, 'Women and the Quality of Life', p. 288. 14. Annas, Women and the Quality of Life', p. 289. 15. Annas, Women and the Quality of Life', p. 291.

HOGAN: BOUNDARIES AND KNOWLEDGE

31

human nature in ethics as functioning as a 'constraint on proposed forms of life and ethical rules', that is, ruling certain practices out rather than prescribing a specific ideal for human life. Thus Annas cautions us to be modest in respect of the appeals we make to human nature in ethics. She rejects approaches that claim to produce specific patterns of human life that give us answers to difficult questions right from the start. Here one could read much of the Roman Catholic natural law tradition. Instead she proposes an approach whereby we start from the unspecific notion that we have of human nature, arrived at negatively through our recognition of various injustices. Then 'we make it more specific as we consider the various capabilities and kinds of life that they can coexist in'. 16 Thus major disagreements will dissolve into smaller and tractable problems, which, she hints, will further enable reflection on the concept of human nature and how it can function as a ground for shared values. However, one of the most serious difficulties with this proposal is that there is no discussion of how this appeal to a common human nature can be both attentive to the tremendous diversity of human existence and yet not be an account of human nature that is determined by history, culture, language and so on. It is not sufficient to argue that it is an indeterminate notion without proposing some strategies for disentangling the universal features from the contingent. In addition, and arising from this, although she aspires to an inclusive account of human nature, her unwillingness to discuss how one could discriminate between the universal and the particular leaves it open to the dangers of exclusionary accounts of human nature. Individuals and groups (women, blacks, the insane, et al?) have frequently been excluded from the polis, on the basis that they were not fully human, that is, did not share in human nature to a sufficient degree. Such lack was evident since these groups did not conform exactly to a predetermined, authoritative, often biologically rooted account of what constitutes human nature and who has a share in it. An acknowledgement of the workings of power in these situations is part of Annas's critique of earlier attempts to construct an ethic based on a shared human nature, yet there is nothing in her own account that would guard against such

16. Annas, 'Women and the Quality of Life', p. 296.

32

BODIES, LIVES, VOICES

perversions. Further, her discussion seems to imply some transcendental concept of human nature, some tabula rasa on which the particularities of existence are inscribed and which functions as a unifying principle. She never discusses how genetic, biological, familial, social and other factors relate to one's human nature. Are they merely overlay? or are they part of the fabric of human nature itself? and if so, how do they relate to our apprehension of the universal? Although lip service is paid to particularity, one has the impression that one can strip away these layers and come, eventually, to a core that is human nature, unadulterated, is universal and can ground a realist ethic. Yet Annas's account is important, first, because she argues for a realist ethic, secondly, because she produces a coherent argument against the idea that people's expressed desires ought to ground ethical systems, and thirdly, because she defends the view that there is something shared by human beings that can function as the ground for a universal morality. I am reluctant to call this affinity human nature because of the difficulties mentioned above. Nonetheless, her work raises some interesting questions that need to be confronted when we aspire to express that which is common to humans and yet do so in a way that adequately recognizes difference. Non-Relative Virtues? Nussbaum's non-relative virtues approach constitutes another attempt to articulate that which is shared by humans. She bases her argument on the premise that it is possible to give an account of virtue that is both context sensitive and non-relative. Indeed, in contrast to the current tendency to associate virtue ethics with relativism (read communitarianism), Nussbaum argues that we can follow Aristotle, who evidently believed that there was no incompatibility between basing an ethical theory on the virtues and 'defending the singleness and objectivity of the human good'. 17 Whether or not she is making inflated claims for Aristotle's virtue ethics is not something that can be pursued here. What I am concerned with is her account of virtue ethics 'as a way of connecting

17. Nussbaum, 'Non-Relative Virtues: An Aristotelian Approach', p. 244.

HOGAN: BOUNDARIES AND KNOWLEDGE

33

the virtues with a search for ethical objectivity and with the criticism of existing local traditions'.18 Nussbaum argues that Aristotle distinguished between grounding experiences, which are 'spheres of universal experience and choice', and more culturally elaborated accounts of these experiences. From these grounding experiences we can read a 'thin or nominal definition of virtue, i.e. that which whatever being disposed to choose and respond well consists in, in that sphere'. 19 For example, in the sphere of bodily appetites and their pleasure, the virtue of moderation, in the distribution of limited resources, the virtue of justice, in the planning of one's life and conduct, practical wisdom and so on. The grounding experiences fix the reference of the corresponding virtue word so that, although there may be disagreement about, for example, what constitutes justice in a particular situation 'in that case.. .they are arguing about the same thing, and advancing competing specifications of the same virtue'. 20 Thus local or particular norms can be understood as rival answers to single questions and not random and incommensurable versions of morality. In short, according to Nussbaum, one can view virtue ethics as particular answers to a 'single general question about a set of shared human experiences' 21 and not as rival versions of morality. Thus, according to Nussbaum, in instances of ethical conflict, for example, when we are attempting to deal with injustice or poverty on an international scale, one can legitimately proceed on the basis of grounding experiences. She claims that 'not without a sensitive awareness that we are speaking of something that is experienced differently in different contexts, we can nonetheless identify certain features of our common humanity' 22 from which debate may proceed. In an account very closely associated with Aristotle's original list, Nussbaum mentions mortality, the body, pleasure and pain, cognitive capability, practical reason, early infant development, affiliation and humour as suggestions of experiences around which the construction of societies proceed. To ward off any claim 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

Nussbaum, Nussbaum, Nussbaum, Nussbaum, Nussbaum,

'Non-Relative 'Non-Relative Non-Relative Non-Relative 'Non-Relative

Virtues', Virtues', Virtues', Virtues', Virtues',

p. 244. p. 247. p. 247. p. 251. p. 260.

34

BODIES, LIVES, VOICES

that she is incorrectly assuming a 'bedrock of completely uninterpreted given data'23 she insists that there is no Archimedean point here, no pure access to unsullied nature... There is just human life as it is lived. But in life as it is lived, we do find a family of experiences, clustering around certain focuses, which can provide reasonable starting points for cross-cultural reflection. 2

The task of establishing how foundations for ethics can be both historically and culturally situated yet still claim to be foundations is essentially what Nussbaum is investigating. Her conclusion is that Aristotle's successful negotiation of this can serve as a paradigm for contemporary attempts at the same. Her explanation rests on distinguishing grounding experiences from the plurality of 'culturally specific narratives, each giving a thick definition of virtue that corresponds to the traditions of a particular group'. 25 This distinction enables us to see that that which the relativist mistakenly claims to be untranslatably different accounts of morality is in fact an objective account of what constitutes human flourishing, which is responsive to local traditions and is context-sensitive. Thus the sure foundations to which I refer in the title are delivered, according to Nussbaum, by a recognition of the grounding experiences discernible in every culture, which establish the basis for dialogue as to what constitutes the best possible account of human wellbeing. These grounding experiences describe the universal, essential features of human existence, although cultural and historical particularity means that such experiences are constructed differently and subject to a plurality of interpretations. This is what the relativist points to when mistakenly claiming an irreducible and conflictual plurality in ethics. Nussbaum is confident that, even when dialogue reveals a difference at the level of conceptualization of these grounding experiences', 26 there are certain dimensions of human experience that require us to think about the nature and purpose of our existence, that are broadly shared and can underwrite an account of eudaimonia that is universal in scope.

23. 24. 2 5. 26.

Nussbaum,'Non-Relative Virtues', Nussbaum, Non-Relative Virtues', Nussbaum, ' Non-Relative Virtues', Nussbaum, Non-Relative Virtues',

p. 265. p. 265. p. 251. p. 262.

HOGAN: BOUNDARIES AND KNOWLEDGE

35

Her focus on grounding experiences rather than on some metaphysical notion, such as human nature, guards against many of the difficulties already mentioned. However, it remains to be seen whether and how her account of grounding experiences,, on the one hand, can deliver an ethic that has a universal reference (in its theoretical, thin components), and, on the other, can absorb religious, social and cultural particularities. Nussbaum is adamant that these grounding experiences are sufficiently foundational to cope with even radically different conceptualizations of these experiences. But is this really the case? She says, for example, of the experience of mortality, 'no matter how death is understood, all human beings face it, and (after a certain age) know that they face it. This shapes every aspect of more or less every human life'.27 World views that agonize over whether or not there is an afterlife, or that confidently posit faith in its existence, can be said to be included in Nussbaum's description. But is this equally the case for a world view that is neither concerned with individual survival after death, nor even conceives of death in a manner that would posit the question? It may well be that investigations will reveal a set of grounding experiences. However, Nussbaum's account must be open to the possibility that they may not be the experiences that she (or Aristotle) has identified. They may also be less numerous, or may only be identifiable when violations occur. Questions must also be asked as to how to achieve agreement as to what constitutes justice in a particular situation and whether consensus is a sufficiently substantive notion from which to proceed. I find Nussbaum's account of non-relative virtues based on grounding experiences attractive in that it genuinely attempts to acknowledge the depth of the differences between cultures, yet posits a commonality among human beings. This proposal does not depend on an exclusionary account of human nature nor a disengaged free-floating subject, nor indeed a notion of disembodied reason. It is realist, but in the sense of requiring objective, universal judgments to take account of the particular. In addition, according to Nussbaum, it reflects the reality that when one sits down at the table with people from other parts of the world and debates with them concerning hunger, or just

27. Nussbaum, 'Non-Relative Virtues', p. 263.

36

BODIES, LIVES, VOICES deliberation...one does find, in spite of evidential conceptual difficulties that it is possible to proceed as if w e were all talking about the same problem; it is usually only in a context in which one or more of the parties is intellectually committed to a theoretical relativist position that this discourse proves impossible to sustain. 28

Abstract Principles? Instead of beginning from grounding experiences, O'Neill suggests that one ought to formulate abstract principles of a universal scope as the basis for a shared morality. These principles should be abstract, but should not idealize. She suggests that objections to abstract ethical reasoning are often objections 'not to detachment from certain predicates, but to the inclusion of predicates that are false of the objects of the domain to which the theory is then applied'.29 In short, it is not abstraction per se that is problematic but the privileging of certain human experiences and the covert tendency to present 'their...specific characteristics as the ideal'.30 It is this idealization masquerading as abstraction that is problematic and not idealization in itself. Indeed this is an observation that might be usefully applied to Annas's use of human nature. If we were to operate on this basis we could consider what principles of action must be adopted by agents w h o are numerous, diverse and neither ideally rational nor ideally independent of one another, and yet avoid specific assumptions about these agents... The issue then becomes: how powerful and convincing an account of justice can we offer if we appeal neither to fictions of ideal rationality and independence nor to the contingencies of actual agents and institutions? 31

Which principles then could be universally included? Well, as one might expect from a Kantian, she introduces the notion of universalizability. That is, there are certain principles of action that can be coherently held by some, but cannot be coherently held by all, that is, they are non-universalizable. This is so because of the connection between the principles that are shared and the 28. 29. 30. 31.

Nussbaum, Non-Relative Virtues', p. 26l. O'Neill, 'Justice, Gender and International Boundaries', p 309. O'Neill, Justice, Gender and International Boundaries', p. 310. O'Neill, Justice, Gender and International Boundaries', p. 313.

37

HOGAN: BOUNDARIES AND KNOWLEDGE

conditions of action. Thus she argues, for example, 'a principle of deception, which undermines trust, would, if universally adopted, make all trusting, hence all projects of deception, incoherent. Selective deception is on the cards: universal deception is impossible.' 32 This is also the case with a policy of coercion, a principle of violence, and so on. In short, she insists that principles of action which hinge on victimising some, go on destroying, paralysing or undercutting their capacities for action for at least some of the time and in some ways, can be adopted by some but cannot be adopted as fundamental principles by a plurality. 33

Although she avoids an account of human nature that might be suspect, one must ask whether she is simply displacing the problem by assuming a community of idealized rational agents? She would no doubt answer in the negative because she argues that in moving from abstract principles to determinate judgments we are required to recognize that one is always dealing with agents who lack the capacities and opportunities of idealized agents. In situating this recognition at the centre of any account of justice, O'Neill attempts to avoid the idea that justice consists in either 'the arrangements to which ideally rational and mutually independent agents would consent to', witness most liberal accounts of justice, or to 'the arrangements to which others in possibly oppressive situations do consent', for example, consent to polygamy, to violence or abuse. 34 Instead, she bases her account on asking 'which arrangements a plurality of interacting agents with finite capacities could consent to'. 35 This is done by determining whether these arrangements could have been refused or renegotiated, whether dissent is possible and whether the disparities in economic, social and other factors make the agreement of vulnerable agents spurious or at least problematic. By introducing the notion of legitimate consent, that is, taking all the above factors into account, O'Neill makes it possible to respect a plurality of local beliefs and practices without adopting a relativist position, because 'no principle is endorsed because it is 32. 33. 34. 35.

O'Neill, O'Neill, O'Neill, O'Neill,

Justice, Justice, Justice, Justice,

Gender Gender Gender Gender

and and and and

International International International International

Boundaries', Boundaries', Boundaries', Boundaries',

p. p. p. p.

315. 315. 318. 318.

38

BODIES, LIVES, VOICES

actually accepted'. 36 Put simply, the principle of justice can be determined for any possible plurality: for they demand only the rejection of principles that cannot be shared by all members of a plurality. Judgments about the justice of actual situations are regulated but not entailed by these principles. The most significant features of actual situations that must be taken into account in judgments about justice are the security or vulnerability that allow actual others to dissent from and to seek change in the arrangements which structure their lives. 37

In this way O'Neill hopes to negotiate a way between relativism and a rigid, authoritarian objectivism in ethics. By arguing for abstraction that refuses idealization and is rooted in the actual situations of agents, in many respects, she too provides a convincing account of an ethic that can protest against injustice and still claim universal purchase while recognizing the importance, though not absolute, of regional beliefs, values and practices. Conclusion Thus one could legitimately argue for either an account of ethics based on grounding experiences that give rise to nominal definitions of virtue or aspire to formulating abstract principles of justice based on the model forwarded by O'Neill. While each of the proposals has some difficulties relating to internal coherence, the practicalities of achieving consensus, and so on, these are probably obstacles that some refinement of the proposals would eliminate. However, there remains the significant critique of the feminist alliance with post-structuralism that would reject as impossible the notion of the subject and the notion of foundations in ethics that are evident in each of the proposals we have examined. Such proposals, it could be argued, depend on an understanding of the subject as prior to power and language and an understanding of foundations as norms that, too, are beyond power. Both positions could be said to 'subliminate, disguise and extend their own power plays through recourse to tropes of normative universality'.38 Thus, it could be argued that, although each of these positions attempts 36. O'Neill, Justice, Gender and International Boundaries', p. 321. 37. O'Neill, 'Justice, Gender and International Boundaries', p. 321. 38. O'Neill, Justice, Gender and International Boundaries', p. 39.

HOGAN: BOUNDARIES AND KNOWLEDGE

39

to acknowledge the power/knowledge matrix, the aspiration to articulate some shared ethical constants is, in itself, a negation of such a realization. Yet I would want to resist such a position. True, a number of the statements of each of these realist proposals sound extraordinarily unself-critical. However, both Nussbaum and O'Neill have, I would argue, taken an account of the reality of the person embedded in language, culture and society yet not thoroughly determined by these factors. I have mentioned already the idea of a reconstructed realism and I see each of these very diverse proposals as rather faltering steps toward articulating such a position. By realism I mean a commitment to foundations in ethics, values that are commensurable and subjects who can exercise agency, a recognition, in short, that 'all is not flux' in the ethical arena. I use the term 'reconstructed' to signal that it must take account of the collapse of the project of modernity and the recognition of the politics and economics of discourse. A reconstructed realism, however, would take 'a gamble on meaning', to use the phrase of Irish poet Michael O'Siadhial, in the face of the scepticism of the masters of suspicion. I expect that this reconstructed realism may begin from many different points. However, a central feature of any attempt must be a recognition of the ambiguity of the moral enterprise by acknowledging the bounded condition of ethical knowledge and it must yet intend to formulate some shared ethical aspirations. In short, the intention is to restore the link between epistemology and ethics.

ANN LOADES Dympna Revisited: Thinking about the Sexual Abuse of Children

Introduction Jean Bethke Elshtain has some pertinent questions to put to those concerned with the 'family debate' overall, in the light of her remark that 'Every political culture has a point at which it threatens to become unglued'. Beneath the surface there may be fault lines we prefer to ignore, but we may be compelled to acknowledge them when certain circumstances prevail. For circumstances sometimes prompt attention to particular issues, not least those that 'involve substantive moral imperatives and implicate us in larger, competing visions of social life and possibility'. Having given attention to certain issues, we may then find ourselves with a 'crisis' on our hands, but 'who gets to decide what constitutes a crisis in a fundamental social institution?' Or, how does that crisis get placed on the political agenda? And what sorts of remedies may be proposed to end the crisis, or to ameliorate it? What do the questions, the crisis itself, its ending or amelioration tell us about 'who we are as people, how we live, and how we choose to see ourselves'? More particularly, how does 'child abuse' come to be constructed as discourse, and, with an even narrower focus, how does the sexual abuse of children figure in all of this?1 The story of Dympna illustrates that deep-seated worries about the sexual abuse of children in one particular form may be longstanding in certain cultures. I was recently told by a clergyman that, in the village where he was brought up, a 'virgin' was a girl who could run faster than her father. The remark immediately helps us to see the point of Dympna's story, that children may 1. Jean Bethke Elshtain, 'The Family Crisis and State Intervention: The Construction of Child Abuse as Social Problem and Popular Rhetoric', in idem, Power Trips and Other Journeys: Essays in Feminism as Civic Discourse (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1990), pp. 73-88.

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indeed need to 'run for it'. For while there are 'fairy-tales' that begin with the death of a beautiful mother leaving a daughter who is her 'spitting image' to fear suffering at the hands of a jealous stepmother, there are fairy-tales that alert us to another possibility, that a father may want to make his daughter the sexual 'stand-in' for her mother. Eventually the child must flee, heavily disguised, perhaps in animal skins, to work in a scullery maybe (a symbol of the sort of place where princesses are not to be expected) until she is either rescued or discovered in a Cinderella-like transformation scene by a prince who will marry her, and thus protect her from her father. Not a fairy-tale, but a saint's tale, Dympna's story is that of a martyr. Daughter of a Christian mother and of a pagan father (Christian fathers do not behave in certain ways?), she runs from her father accompanied by her confessor and by the court jester and his wife, reaching sanctuary near Gheel. When the king and his attendants catch up with them, the attendants kill the confessor, but the king does his own dirty work and murders his daughter. Dympna came to be regarded as the patroness of the insane, with Gheel associated with the practice of what would now be called 'care in the community'. In his Lives of the Saints, Butler ingenuously comments only that popular belief has attached to the murdered pair a story that, with variations, is to be found in the folklore of many European countries, and leaves it at that. 2 (Just how folklore reflects and shapes the assumptions and concerns of societies is a fascinating subject in its own right. 3 ) However, despite the fact that the background to Dympna's story is not 'authenticated' by the sorts of documents that would satisfy a historian, nevertheless it is possible to guess at it, as Judith Lewis Herman perceptively points out. 4 In other words, if we want to know why Dympna became important, it is because she represents the real experiences of countless women or girls who have resisted 2. H. Thurston and D. Attwater (eds.), Butler's Lives of the Saints (London: Burns & Oates, 1956). 3. See Wendy Doniger's review, 'Once Upon a Real Time', of Marina Warner, From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and their Tellers, London Review of Books, 23 March 1995, pp. 12-13. 4. Judith Lewis Herman, Father-Daughter Incest (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), pp. 1-4.

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threats even at the cost of life itself. Dympna represents those who feel like 'outsiders' even while still within the apparent 'shelter' of their society and their home, because of their actual or threatened experiences there, and who are burdened too with things about which they cannot or dare not speak. She symbolizes acute emotional distress, even 'madness', as a result of intolerable abuse that is in no sense the sufferer's fault. I must, however, add that the possible or actual experiences she represents can no longer (if they ever were) be associated only with the behaviour of the 'pagan' rather than the 'Christian', for the empirical evidence, such as it is, where sexual abuse is concerned, of whatever kind, incestuous or not, does not support a distinction between the experience of children brought up in Christian as distinct from non-Christian households. The word 'household' here simply means the domestic context of a child's upbringing, whether that be the familial home, with or without 'carers' who are genetically a child's parents, or genetically related to some degree or another, or 'home' in an analogous sense, that is, a non-familial institution of some kind, which may even be churchrelated. A New Topic on the Agenda of Christian Ethics? For Christians, the sexual abuse of children now has a place on the agenda of ethics in a way it has not had before. There are various indications of this, such as the existence of the organization Christian Survivors of Sexual Abuse (concerned, obviously, with more than the sexual abuse of children), which held its first national conference in York in the summer of 1993. The House of Bishops of the Church of England published its Policy on Child Abuse in July 1995. The Church of Scotland's Board of Social Responsibility produced its own report in 1990, now incorporated into a study pack. There are publications available from a number of dioceses, such as Protecting our Children (July 1994) from the Diocese of Southwark. Those who need to see as well as to read about child abuse may peruse the ABC of Child Abuse, edited by Roy Meadow for the British Medical Publishing Group, in 1993. In these publications, the sexual abuse of children takes its place within the range of abuse. Documents directed specifically at the

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sexual abuse of children are represented by a publication commissioned by the Roman Catholic Bishops's Conference of England and Wales and published in Briefing for 14 January 1993, and, looking further afield, by the substantial report of the Canadian Council of Catholic Bishops, From Pain to Hope (June 1992). The Christian response includes invaluable publications from survivors' and counsellors of those seeking to negotiate experiences of sexual abuse, 5 and it is in these writings that one is most likely to find attempts to address the contribution that may be made, however inadvertently, to the 'gender constructions' that may help to precipitate the conditions that make the sexual abuse of children possible. There will be some attention given to this latter difficulty later in this essay. It seems, however, both from the 'official' statements of those who bear responsibility for the conduct of those of either sex who represent their institutions, whether ordained or lay, and from the non-official publications, that as yet little effort is being made, in the United Kingdom at least, to enable children to discrimi nate between what may and may not harm them so far as the introduction to their own sexuality is concerned, and to empower them to resist what they do not want or need. If Jean La Fontaine is right, what is important to a child's emotional health 'is not whether s/he knows it is forbidden or not but whether s/he can stop it when s/he does not wish it to go on. The majority of those children who suffer abuse are not allowed to say "no".' 6 And children will continue to be unheard until they are attended to in their own right, so to speak, and not primarily as the appendages of their mothers, whose own voices may also be unheard, which is only to be expected given the extent to which they are regarded, or, worse still, regard themselves, as 'childlike' in the worst sense. A mother may not 5. For example: Tracy Hansen, Seven for a Secret: Healing the Wounds of Sexual Abuse in Childhood (London: SPCK, 1993); Muriel Green and Anne Townsend, Hidden Treasure: A Journey towards Healing from Sexual Abuse (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1994); Dan B. Allender, The Wounded Heart: Hope for Adult Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse (Colorado: NavPress, 1990). 6. Jean La Fontaine, Child Sexual Abuse (Oxford: Polity Press, 1990), p. 89.

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teach her children to say 'no' because she cannot say 'no' herself, either on her own behalf or on behalf of the household's children. Children are failed by not being enabled to refuse sexual intrusion, by not being protected from it, or its not being stopped if once suspected. If 'mother' is not fully regarded, or cannot regard herself, as a person in her own right, it is difficult to see how a child can do so, especially in a situation of great stress such as is fostered by sexual abuse. Our Indifference to Children To get some sort of focus on the sexual abuse of children, we need, in Christian ethics and theology, to take children seriously, because it is hardly likely that we can think through our attitudes to their abuse if we do not normally think about them in any case. Christian tradition (the feast of Holy Innocents included) does indeed provide material for reflection on the subject of church and childhood,7 but as far as I know only Stanley Hauerwas among contemporary writers on Christian ethics has children as a central focus in his theology. Helen Oppenheimer has now also made a distinguished contribution to the whole matter of 'talking with children about God' that has significant implications for the way everyone, and not just children, may talk about God.8 For the most part, theologians have focused their attention on such topics as the moral status of the human embryo and the human foetus, and damaged newborns and what can and cannot and should or should not be done for them. It is as though they have a 'blind spot' about the lives of children between birth and infancy and the stage of developing post-pubertal sexuality, which may then become another focus of anxiety. Little attention has been given to the value and significance of the lives of those who may or may not flourish in the period between birth and social maturity, and to the abuse that may be present in their lives. If we only pay attention to children when spending time and energy trying to prevent their conception and birth or when having them, we are not likely to 7. See for example, Diana Wood (ed.), The Church and Childhood (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1994). 8. Helen Oppenheimer, Finding and Following: Talking with Children about God (London: SCM Press, 1994).

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find ourselves well-equipped for evaluating their abuse, sexual or otherwise. Nor will feminist theology and ethics, if it mimics the agenda of ethics as it is commonly practised, make much difference to the problem. Betrayal of Trust Whatever our response to Jean Bethke Elshtain's questions, it is undeniable that children all too often cannot trust those entrusted with their care, and moreover meet with inappropriate reactions when they turn for 'salvation' to those who represent its possibility. Having summoned the strength to 'tell', they may have great difficulty in doing so, and even an adult may hardly have the vocabulary for it. To be met with the injunction to confess one's own 'sins of impurity', or to be told simply to 'forgive' one's abuser, is to be offered not 'salvation' but a further intolerable burden to carry. As for 'sins of impurity', it is deeply wounding, and the child must be deemed to be not responsible for whatever is happening, even if they have learned inappropriate sexual behaviour, rendering them yet more vulnerable to abuse, assault and isolation. The demand for forgiveness is a deadly one, precisely because there is indeed truth and salvation in the need to forgive and to be forgiven in order to flourish and not be trapped by harm or hurt. Where forgiveness may be placed in the process of recovery from abuse is a topic to which we will return. The sole merit of these identifiable errors is that they at least represent recognition that there is indeed something profoundly wrong at stake here. Those who 'tell' should never be met with denial of the reality of their experiences, for such denial is itself a harm, a betrayal of trust. There are complications to think about, inevitably. There may be false accusations, sometimes made by deeply disturbed children, sometimes made out of sheer mischief and malice. For instance, what are we to make of false memory syndrome, supposedly engendered by therapists? However, if the most vulnerable are indeed to be protected, we need not to be paralyzed by the fear that these exceptional possibilities may present themselves. Acknowledgment that they exist is all that is needed. And we need to dislodge from our working assumptions the 'norm' that children

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lie and that adults tell the truth, in the matter of sexual abuse at least, for here adults have everything to lose from the exposure of their abusive behaviour. However, they need to be freed from their self-deceptions like the rest of us, and have everything to gain by it. Our own capacity for self-deception is well-exemplified in the slow recognition of the 'battered child' syndrome. And then, as the story of Dympna reveals, there may be connections between 'domestic violence' (a phrase that conceals the identity of the agents) and sexual abuse of children, as contemporary examples also illustrate.9 To focus only on incest, if it is the case that the only universal taboo is on the mother-son relationship, what are we to make of those patterns of prohibition in which father-daughter incest is not mentioned?10 Sexual Abuse and our Concern for Children We may say with some confidence that discussion of the sexual abuse of children is part of a movement of concern about children that has been developing for some time.11 What may well be new is making children's points of view central to our thinking. Whatever our concern for the abuser, it is the child and their wellbeing that must have priority. Children must be seen as 'victims', and we must be clear that this word signals that the abused child is not to blame for what has happened or is happening, that responsibility lies elsewhere. Equally, it needs to be understood that 'victim' status may become dangerous if it is taken to be a permanent mark of identity. Both the vulnerability of being a 'victim' and, even more important perhaps, the strength of being a 'survivor' need to be affirmed, and we might say transcended in good time. They lie on the track of freedom from the hurt and damage, a track at the end of which may lie forgiveness. The 9. See for example, Violence Against Children Study Group, Taking Child Abuse Seriously (London: Unwin Hyman, 1990). 10. Mary Noble and J.K. Mason, with Commentary by Gerard J. Hughes SJ, Incest', Journal of Medical Ethics 4 (1978), pp. 64-70; and see Howard Eilberg-Schwarz, 'Incest and Husbandry', in idem, The Savage in Judaism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), pp. 128-34. 11. See for example, Nigel Parton, The Politics of Child Abuse (London: Macmillan, 1985).

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wellbeing of children in respect of their developing sexuality has been expressed in legislation in the past by the 'age of consent' being raised from 13 to 16 in 1885, in connection with campaigns to discourage the disposal of children into prostitution. This problem has reappeared today in connection with 'sex tourism', and it seems that the spread of sexually transmitted diseases through groups of very young girls and boys in some parts of the world is a direct result of the pressures of international tourism in some of its forms.12 The difficulties of expressing concern for children through legislation (recently in the 1989 Children Act) must to some extent be obvious. Childhood is only to some degree an age-related phenomenon, since human beings develop and mature in different respects at different rates. 13 So at one level we need to acknowledge a continuum of child-adult sexuality14 and allow for the reality of sexual experimentation that is not abusive, and yet find ways of distinguishing such experimentation from abusive behaviour, possible for someone 'under age' in legal terms. My own pre-judgments on this matter are by now no doubt clear. Within theology and ethics we do not and should not expect to think in a value neutral way, except perhaps at some level of statistical abstraction. We are trying to talk and think about what is properly described as maltreatment, the infliction on the young of undeserved suffering of an entirely avoidable kind, suffering which may result in a kind of 'soul murder' 15 of those who experience it.

12. See Anne Symons, Child Prostitution and Tourism', Crucible, JanuaryMarch (1995), pp. 26-31; Gordon T. Stewart, AIDS and the Ethics of Programmed Compassion', Bulletin of Medical Ethics 106 (1995), pp. 19-24. 13. Brian Corby, Child Abuse: Towards a Knowledge Base (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1993), p. 70. 14. See C.K. Li, D.J. West, T.P. Woodhouse, Children's Sexual Encounters with Adults (London: Gerald Duckworth, 1990), esp. chap. 12 on the question of ethics, pp. 304-16; and John L. Randall, Childhood and Sexuality: A Radical Christian Approach (Pittsburgh: Dorrance, 1992). 15. Leonard Shengold, 'Child Abuse and Deprivation: Soul Murder', Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 27 (1979), pp. 533-59.

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Gender Issues and the Sexual Abuse of Children An important shift in public attention to the sexual abuse of children is to be associated with the BBC's 'Child Watch' campaign of 1985-86, which helped large numbers of people to begin to attend to the issues. What weight do we give to the interests of children and why? Who speaks for them if they are too young to speak for themselves, or if they are not trusted to do so? and why are they not trusted? How do children tell us or show us what is happening? Do we attend only to their physical wounds? How much do we value 'interference' or 'intervention' by 'professionals', such as medical specialists in paediatric care, or social workers, for instance? How is such intervention complicated by the gender issues involved when the professionals happen to be females who are attempting to function in a male-dominated environment? How much value do we place on the expression of adult 'freedom in private' in sexual matters? What indeed do we think about the relative autonomy of domestic groups? Discussion of 'Natural Bonding and the "Right to Rear'"16 needs to attend to the difficulties of how best to resolve emotional ambivalence and conflict, given that these are not always resolved to the benefit of the most vulnerable; and that paternal and maternal interests are not necessarily in harmony with one another. Nor need parental authority be identified with that to be attributed to males rather than to females, least of all when disguised by an appeal to the 'autonomy of the family'. Ian Hacking may well be right when he says that without the women's movement and 'feminism' there is little likelihood that the idea of child abuse would so quickly have been widened to include the notion of the sexual abuse of children, 17 adding one more perspective to our understanding of 'domination' (or patriarchy).18 However, we must not allow gender issues to tempt 16. Mary Midgley, 'Rights-Talk Will Not Sort out Child Abuse: Comment on Archard on Parental Rights', Journal of Applied Philosophy 8.1 (1991), pp. 103-14. 17. Ian Hacking, The Making and Molding of Child Abuse', Critical Inquiry 17 (1991), pp. 253-88. 18. A. Imkens and I. Jonker, Christianity and Incest (London: Burns &

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our attention away from the issue of child abuse and questions connected with it. For instance, despite all the publicity and the discussion, we still have no clear picture of how frequent or widespread it actually is, or at what age it occurs. It may involve as many as one-third of females before the age of 12, and a quarter of males a little older. (Some abuse begins very early in children's lives, at under a year old, so it is claimed.) We still do not know whether boys are less or more frequently abused than girls. We do not know how many female abusers there are. We do not know how many women collude in or fail to protect children from sexual abuse, and there may be great difficulty in evaluating the extent of their willing or unwilling complicity in the abuse. Our investment in mother figures as 'carers', as primarily 'relational' beings, may blind us to the truths about them. For instance, in a situation of domestic violence, a woman's behav-iour may be profoundly ambivalent towards an abuser when her own sexual relationship with them may be at stake, or her negotiation of some precious economic independence, and some mothers may themselves sexually abuse their children. Towards a Definition of the Sexual Abuse of Children We need to acknowledge here the old and familiar problem that we cannot always recognize or interpret correctly what we see, and that to do either or both may take time. In the matter of the sexual abuse of children we may indeed experience alarm, distaste, disbelief and denial in the initial stages of trying to recognize it for what it is and of learning to react appropriately. 19 If and when a 'problem' has been identified, there is still a lot to be settled after a clear and unambiguous affirmation has first been made that the interests of the child must be paramount. What does one do, if anything, since some modes of intervention may compound the harm? What amounts to full evaluation of a problem and by whom? How is it to be 'managed' if trauma is not to be deepened? As there is not yet agreement about how to interpret 'abnormal physical Oates, 1992), p. 120; Linda Gordon, Heroes of their Own Lives (London: Viking, 1988), pp. 204-49. 19. See for example, J.H. Keen and colleagues on Inflicted Burns and Scalds in Children', British Medical Journal, 1 November 1975, pp. 268-69.

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signs', we cannot yet be clear about what weight is to be given to 'medical' evidence. Nor can the responsibility to sort out the 'evidence' be left to members of the medical profession alone, partly because we need to avoid 'medicalizing' our problems if we can, and partly because we have no reason to suppose that 'medics' can function as our surrogate consciences. Above all, we need to be able to distinguish between abuse and the proper sensual exchanges of tenderness between human beings, so vital for the wellbeing of all of us. Those who care for children need this ability in order to retain confidence in themselves in this vital area, particularly when it is intention alone that distinguishes a practice from abuse. For instance, in certain societies, it may be the case that children are soothed to sleep by gentle genital comfort provided by someone they love and trust. There is of course no difficulty in identifying abuse when there are signs of sexual intercourse on a 'non-assaultive and possibly chronic basis', or 'rape with acute forced intercourse' or evidence of sexually transmitted disease. Sexual abuse may include not merely 'fondling and touching' of an adult by a child who has been introduced to a mode of sexual behaviour appropriate between adults, but exposure to, or involvement in, the production of pornography, the viewing of sexual acts or exhibitionism. 20 The broader the sweep of what is included, the higher the statistics, and there is a danger that our sense of incapacity to respond in an appropriate way may increase in the face of the sheer weight of numbers. But we must remain undaunted if the children are to be helped. If the interests of children are indeed to be central in this matter, this must include taking them seriously enough to listen to what they find disturbing and unwanted. They must not be humiliated further by what they are trying to say being denied. A child does not have to be very advanced in years or to have a very extensive vocabulary in order both to say that someone has hurt or disturbed them and who that person is. But their finding the strength not to be terrified by fear of the consequences, to tell or show what has happened, depends on them coming to trust the person to whom 20. H. Steiner, 'Description and Recording of Physical Signs in Suspected Child Sexual Abuse', British Journal of Hospital Medicine 40 (1988), pp. 436-351.

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they talk, which is not possible in the face of denial. If in doubt about the capacity of children to understand, like or object to what is happening to them, we can learn much from the work of Priscilla Alderson and her research on children's consent to surgery. The new European Charter for Children in Hospital includes as its tenth clause, 'Children shall be treated with tact and understanding and their privacy shall be respected at all times'. It is evident that children under three years of age can understand explanations, and that they mind their privacy and dignity being disregarded. They are capable of taking part in making complex and serious decisions about their treatment. And even older adolescents may both need and want close 'mothering' care. 21 We have absolutely no reason to suppose that children do not know when they are being abused in some way. Definitions of the Sexual Abuse of Children Apparently there is no easy correlation between what happens and a child's degree of trauma, but there are certain indicators of when the sexual abuse of children is likely to be most harmful. These are when the abusive acts involve penetration of the child's body (as in vaginal, anal or oral intercourse or other modes of penetration); where the abuse has persisted for some time; where the abuser is a 'father figure'; when the abuse is accompanied by force or the threat of it; and where the response of the family is negative. 22 Definitions from a variety of sources pay explicit attention to the intention of the abuser, that is, to obtain gratification for the abuser, irrespective of the child's attempts to resist, expressed wishes or wellbeing.23 It damages a child to be made to participate in an activity that violates their emotional and physical integrity, that makes them feel smirched by it and therefore guilty for having participated. Of the available definitions, I employ here that from the Canadian Council of Catholic Bishops's Conference document, 21. Priscilla Alderson, 'European Charter of Children's Rights', Bulletin of Medical Ethics 92 (1993), pp. 13-15; and her Children's Consent to Surgery (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1993). 22. Corby, Child Abuse, p. 125. 23. La Fontaine, Child Sexual Abuse, p. 191.

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From Pain to Hope: Contacts or interactions between a child and an adult when the child is being used as an object of sexual gratification for the adult. A child is abused whether or not this activity involves explicit force, whether or not it involves genital or physical contact, whether or not it is initiated by the child, and whether or not there is discernible harmful outcome. 2 4

The Bishops are clearly trying to avoid entanglement in any appeal to 'no harmful consequences', such as might be advanced by those who want to involve children in sexual activities with adults, that the children learn valuable things about their own sexuality through such interaction and so on.25 On the matter of 'force', the Bishops are implicitly attending to the point that coercion can be subtle rather than extremely violent and physically damaging. Children may be 'groomed' and seduced into sexual activities, bribed and rewarded. They are vulnerable because they need sensual contact with those they love. They need lots of 'good touch', kisses, hugs, cuddles and emotional care, and they should never have to pay for them by involvement in activities that they dread or fear and are compelled to keep secret. There should be no 'price' to pay for dependency. Nor should they be precipitated into fear of not being believed, fear of being unprotected and lonely because the people they should have been able to trust with their vulnerability have betrayed them. We can, as it were, thicken out the definition of the sexual abuse of children by contrasting material from an essay by Rowan Williams on The Body's Grace26 with passages from the writing of Tilman Furniss.27 This is deliberately to contrast a 'best' with a 'worst' case scenario to illustrate the symmetry of sexual exchange between adults and the dissymmetry of sexual exchanges between adults and children. For Williams 'grace' is a 'transformation that depends in large part on knowing yourself to be seen in a certain way: as significant, as wanted'. To be the occasion of joy in another 24. Canadian Council of Catholic Bishops, From Pain to Hope (Ottawa: CCCB, 1992), p. 20. 25. See Randall, Childhood and Sexuality, p. 14. 26. Rowan Williams, The Body's Grace (London: LGCM, 1989). 27. Tilman Furniss, The Multi-Professional Handbook of Child Sexual Abuse (London: Routledge, 1991), pp. 25-35.

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is to be directed to the enjoyment, the happiness of the other, because only as so directed does my body become unreservedly lovable. 'To desire my joy is to desire the joy of the one I desire: my search for enjoyment through the bodily presence of another is a longing to be enjoyed in my body.' All this needs the fidelity and trust in another that can only be developed through time. How can an adult construe themselves in relation to a child, or expect a child to construe themself in relation to an adult, in the terms of Williams's understanding of grace and transformation? We may also want to think about the 'sacramental' aspects of bodiliness in Helen Oppenheimer's terms, of how God gives to human creatures a surprisingly large part in consecrating and adopting one another.28 How can such consecraion and adoption be expressed in an adult's sexual relationship with a child? In the sensual expression of parental love, yes, but not in what we can see is abuse. A worst case scenario is represented in Tilman Furniss's work in the description of the way in which an abuser may create a certain kind of context for abuse. This context may include silence, a withholding of eye contact (crucial in human interaction from the first moment a child is held in someone's arms at birth), darkness, with entrance and exit rituals creating a physical and temporal 'space' between abuser and child in which the change to 'abuser' takes place and is reversed at the end of the incident. Gestures, speech, voice and facial expression may all change, and in the course of the abuse the child may experience intense physical stimulation, pain and sexual arousal, anxiety and helplessness, that is, a combination of intense bodily and physical contact disconnected and dissociated from intimacy, empathy and joy. Whatever else it is, it cannot count as 'love-making' as Williams understands it, or as a manifestation of the body's grace. Quite apart from anything else, grace by definition cannot be coerced or compelled or seduced. Christian Responses to the Sexual Abuse of Children This essay has already ventured to suggest the importance of 28. Helen Oppenheimer, 'Ourselves, Our Souls and Bodies', Studies Christian Ethics 4 (1991), pp. 1-21.

in

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thinking theologically about the lives of actual children. We would no doubt like to think that Christians can respond constructively and creatively to the phenomenon of sexual abuse of children, and draw on their traditions to see what, if any, resources there may be for changing things for the better. Apart from our 'blind spot' about children, we also have to cope with the sheer wariness and uneasiness of Christian attitudes to human sexuality, and an unfortunate 'genital fixation', remote from the giving and receiving of pleasure, let alone of 'the body's grace' in Williams's style. That said, we could draw not only on the work of Stanley Hauerwas and Helen Oppenheimer, already mentioned, but on the work of such philosophers as Mary Midgley29 about the importance of children in the human community, as gifts to all and not only to those to whom they are born. We might want to 're-locate' some familiar theological phrases, such as the 'sanctity of life', from their familiar contexts to this new one. This phrase fundamentally has to do with the relationships human beings have with one another and with God. Children, like all other human persons, are precious to God, sacrosanct before God, and have an inherent right to be protected from harm.30 Being reminded of their inviolability brings the recognition that they should not have to work and pray for deliverance from the harm of sexual abuse and its legacy in heart, mind or body. We need not, however, assume that the constructive resources that may be available in the Christian tradition can be freed up, so to speak, without some thorough-going self-critique of that same tradition. Again, the Canadian Bishops have the courage to point up some of the issues here: Child sexual abuse flourishes in a society that is based on competition and power and which is undermined by sexual exploitation and violence against women. Contemporary society has shown itself quick to reject traditional values, to be unable to offer new ones, and to be unfair to women and children. The challenge to transform society becomes enormous when we begin to realise the terrible

29. Mary Midgley, Beasts and Man: The Roots of Human Nature (Brighton: Harvester, 1978); with Judy Hughes, Women's Choices (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1989). 30. Gordon Dunstan, The Artifice of Ethics (London: SCM Press, 1974), p. 71.

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social cost when child abuse is tolerated. Another contributing factor to child sexual abuse is a Church that too readily shelters its ministers from having to account for their conduct; that is often tempted to settle moral problems behind a veil of secrecy which only encourages their growth; that has not yet fully developed a process of internal reform in which the values of familial c o m m u n i o n would p r e d o m i n a t e . Challenges for personal conversion and institutional change are far from lacking. We would like to see our Church take firm steps which would leave no doubt as to its genuine desire to eradicate the phenomenon of child sexual abuse. 31

The primary focus of attention here is correctly identified as having to do with power, rather than with sexuality, except as that is one means of its expression. And as ecclesiastical institutions are at last realizing, they must clarify what to do when someone who represents such an institution abuses a child. The problem may be more theologically complicated than even such an exemplary document exhibits, however, in that it may well be the gender constructions of our theological traditions, and not just those of contemporary society that, however indirectly, sustain and legitimate certain kinds of relationships based on power. What kinds of theologies support the view that someone does not have to account for their actions, and in effect sanctify the abuse of power? According to Poling, to give only one example, women's behaviour is circumscribed by the limitations of patriarchy and inequality, whereas men are 'socialized to be dominant in interpersonal relationships, and they are excused for their abusive behaviours'.32 He goes on to claim that men abuse children because they are not held accountable for their actions, and because they choose to inflict suffering on others. What is being believed about God that licences earthly fathers to behave in this way? This is one area where feminist insistence on the reevaluation of what it means to address God as 'Father' 33 is too important to be ignored, even if this requires radical critique of 31. CCCB, From Pain to Hope, p. 41. 32. James Newton Poling, The Abuse of Power: A Theological Problem (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1993), p. 54; pp. 89-90. 33. Janet Pais, Suffer the Little Children: A Theology of Liberation by a Victim of Child Abuse (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1991), pp. 62-87.

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familiar doctrines of atonement, 34 Christology or Trinity.35 It has to be added, however, that women's complicity in the sexual abuse of children needs to be addressed theologically, as part of any project about the re-evaluation of female and feminine in relation to the divine, and the overcoming of naivety in respect of perhaps characteristically feminine forms of sinfulness.36 In tandem with this radical critique must, in the meantime, run generous attention to those who need help in the process of recovery. We return here to our earlier themes of salvation and forgiveness. Salvation here will perhaps be perceived initially in the form of the resilience of hope that the damaged received (if indeed inflicted) need not be the last word. In the first place, people need to know that it is not inevitable that the abused become abusers themselves.37 From that nightmare at least, they need release, in the form of reassurance, repeated as often as necessary, essential throughout the process of recovery and not only in the initial stages of being laid hold of by saving grace. Such reassurances may be mediated, for example, by repetition of the Psalms, which convince us that no injustice is hidden to God, and by sacramental acts of anointing and healing, which again may need repetition. 38 Recovery may be a long process, and may or may not be marked by what can be identified as 'forgiveness'. As we noted earlier, this

34. In addition to Poling see Debora Kuller Shuger, The Renaissance Bible: Scholarship, Sacrifice and Subjectivity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), pp. 89-127. 35. Rita Nashima Brock, 'And a Little Child Will Lead Us: Christology and Child Abuse', in Joanne Carlson Brown and Carole R. Bohn (eds.), Christianity, Patriarchy, and Abuse: A Feminist Critique (New York: Pilgrim Press, 1989), pp. 42-61; and Janet Martin Soskice, 'Trinity and "the Feminine Other"', New Blackfriars 75 (1994), pp. 2-17. 36. A discussion begun by Valerie Saiving in her article 'The Human Situation: A Feminine View',/i? 40 (I960), pp. 100-12. 37. Linda Sandford, Strong at the Broken Places (New York: Random House, 1990). 38. See David R. Blumenthal, Facing the Abusing God: A Theology of Protest (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993), pp. 57-189; and Rebecca Abrams and Hugo Slim, 'The Revival of Oils in Contemporary Culture: Implications for the Sacrament of Anointing', in Martin Dudley and Geoffrey Rowell (eds.), The Oil of Gladness: Anointing in the Christian Tradition (London: SPCK, 1993), pp. 169-75.

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identifying mark of someone playing their part in the Christian tradition must not be required prematurely or inappropriately of someone recovering from damage of any kind, least of all from sexual abuse. Being able to forgive may be contingent upon the conviction, perhaps entirely novel, that one bears or may come to bear, baptismal glory, and as such need not be bound by the past any more, that one can at least get to the point of not wishing an abuser harm. The process of recovery will not be fostered by immediate misplaced injunctions to 'forgive and forget'. To forget may be vital for survival at some stages,39 but the track to recovery seems to be through remembering, recalling, giving up denial, believing, digesting, feeling, sharing, letting the hurt surface, letting the hurt show in tears and anger, from all of which may come healing, and at length, perhaps, something recognizable as an appropriate mode of forgiveness. Even then, in matters of the sexual abuse of children, depending on the hurt and damage, we may have to say that forgiveness has to be left to God, with the human beings involved able only to proffer some pale simulacrum of what forgiveness might mean. I have referred to the sacrament of healing, and to the convictions expressed in the words of the psalmists, but no one can have their childhood back. We are deeply reluctant, as our theology all too often reveals, to believe anything other than that all the bad can somehow be recovered in such a way that it can be transformed, made good. 40 There is also a need for a kind of biblical realism conveyed in the story of Tamar (in the 'court history' of David) that reminds us that this is not so, that provides us with at least one reason why this text now has its place in quasiliturgical contexts where 'survivors' of sexual abuse meet and support one another in moving forward in their lives, learn from the shreds of Tamar's dignity as well as from her tragedy.41 It is interesting that those who suffer from the legacy of sexual abuse do not seem to have found comparable resources in the re-telling 39. Pamela Cooper-White, The Cry of Tamar: Violence against Women and the Church's Response (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), p. 158. See also Ian Hacking, Memoro-politics, Trauma and the Soul', History of the Human Sciences 7.2 (1994), pp. 29-52. 40. Shengold, 'Child Abuse', pp. 539-41. 41. Cooper-White, The Cry of Tamar, pp. 1-14, 24-25, 33-34.

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of the incident of the raising of Jairus's daughter, or of other biblical stories of the raising of children from death. This may mean that they associate the abuse with the tradition, but are as yet deeply ambivalent about the resources on offer for their recovery and future fulfilment, at least so long as there is little engagement with the constructive critique of its doctrines. It is perhaps to their ambivalence that Christians need to turn their attention in the next phase of understanding not simply the sexual abuse of children, but the conditions which may help to precipitate it, as well as to the resources for human flourishing and fulfilment of which the Christian tradition has also been a bearer.

MARGIE TOLSTOY Women Theologians and the Holocaust

Hosea 6.6 reads: For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God, rather than burnt offerings.

The knowledge of God, rather than 'Holocaust', burnt offerings. To think of Hitler's 'final solution', the extermination of the Jews, in terms of sacrifice is a kind of blasphemy. However, words take on a life of their own, different from their original meaning, and since Jewish theologians use the word 'Holocaust' without any intention to associate it with sacrifice, I think it will stay in circulation. In the Hebrew Bible we find many accounts of impending as well as genuine catastrophes. Mark in the Testament of the Christians warns: 'For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places, there will be famines' (13.8). The book of Revelation is entirely devoted to the theme. An apocalyptic scenario is firmly in place in both Judaism and Christianity. But steadfast faith and trust in the Lord will either prevent the calamity or help people overcome and bring it to a good end. Jeremiah imparts the conventional wisdom: Thus says the Lord: Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his arm, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit (Jer. 17.5-8).

It is a trust that gives life to hope: 'All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.'

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Today, trust in the Lord that all shall be well has been shaken not only by the sceptical attitude that is intrinsic to scientific understanding, but also by everything that the names Auschwitz and Hitler represent. The project was the destruction of the entire Jewish people. After such gratuitous cruelty and the callous murder of more than a million children, we cannot really say any more that all will be well. The reassurance does not ring true after Auschwitz. Hitler was possessed and had delusions of grandeur. This childless man wanted to give birth to a master race. His crusade of redemption through genocide almost succeeded. Six million Jews were killed. This means that not only did more than one third of all the Jews in the world—two-thirds of all the European Jews at that time and 90 per cent of the rabbis and religious scholars of East and West Europe—die, but a whole way of life was forever extinguished. This happened in the heartland of Western Europe, in a place of high culture. It happened in the middle of Christian Europe, with little protest from church leaders, Catholic, Protestant or Orthodox. Some individual Christians helped their Jewish neighbours, but by and large, Christian churches remained mute. The Vatican felt it could not protest particular atrocities and stuck to general warnings, never ever mentioning the fate of the Jews. Even the Confessing Church in Germany limited its protest against Hitler to the heresy of a Nazi 'cultural Christianity' and failed to mention anti-Semitism. Nora Levin, in her book The Holocaust: The Destruction of European Jewry, 1933-1945, writes: 'Most German Protestants had been deeply conditioned not only by Martin Luther's vehement and often coarse anti-Semitism, but also by his insistence on absolute obedience to political authority.' 1 In Luther as well as in many others, we find a case of tainted greatness. Elie Wiesel, at the end of a conference entitled 'Tainted Greatness—Anti-Semitism and Cultural Heroes', said: 'The problem is not what to do with the taint, but what to do with their greatness.' 2 1. Nora Levin, The Holocaust: The Destruction of European Jewry, 1933-1945 (New York: Schocken Books, 1973), p. 505. 2. Nancy A. Harrowitz (ed.), Tainted Greatness: Antisemitism and Cultural Heroes (Philadelphia: Temple University, 1994), p. 305.

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There is no simple answer to the question, why did the Holocaust happen? What is beyond doubt is that every Christian is implicated. The Jewish faith has also been shaken to its very foundations. Where was God in Auschwitz? Reflection on the meaning of the Holocaust by Jewish and Christian theologians was slow in coming. The horrific nature of the event caused stunned silence. Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, winner of the Nobel Peace prize and an extraordinary spokesperson for the Jewish community said: 'In Auschwitz all the Jews were victims, all the killers were Christian.'3 This indictment set the agenda for Christian theologians. The anti-Judaic, and indeed, anti-Semitic heritage of Christian civilization is neither an accidental nor a peripheral element. Christian Scripture is, one can almost say, irredeemably anti-Judaic. And I want to illustrate the way Jews and Judaism are portrayed in the Christian Testament in case there is anyone for whom this comes as a surprise. Let me start with Paul, since that is chronologically correct. Romans 9-11 says that the fulfilment the Jews have been waiting for has taken place and the Jews failed to recognize it. Paul presents the case for the prosecution. At the heart of it all is the incomprehensible blindness of the Jews to the fulfilment of their own heritage: the coming of the Messiah. Paul considered the rejection of Jews to be only temporary. One day everyone, and certainly every Jew, would accept Jesus as the Christ. Some did, but by no means the numbers that were hoped for. This became a source of hate that is still present today. The Church Fathers in the first century were very severe, because, unlike Paul, they had no positive kinship with Jews. When in 70 CE the destruction of the Temple took place during the fall of Jerusalem, it was interpreted as an affirmation of the rejection of 'Old Israel' and the coming of the 'New Israel' of the Christians. The destruction of the Temple was seen as a sign of divine anger. So, before long, Jews were turned into the enemies of Christians, and their rejection was accepted as permanent and this put salvation out of bounds. Paul asked the question in Rom. 11.1: 'Has 3. Elie Wiesel, A Jew Today (trans. Marian Wiesel; New York: Random House, 1978), p. 11.

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God rejected his people?' and answered: 'By no means!' And he asked in Rom. 3.1: 'Then what advantage has the Jew?' and it was spelled out positively. The Epistle of Barnabas states that God did indeed choose the Jews, but Israel had never seriously accepted the covenant and instead participated in the idol worship of the golden calf. God restored the covenant, but this time with the Christians. John Chrysostom in his 'Eight Orations against the Jews' stated in one of his sermons: The synagogue... is not only a theatre, it is a place of prostitution... a den of thieves and a hiding place of wild animals, not simply animals, but of impure beasts. The Jews in shamelessness and greed surpass even pigs and goats. The Jews are possessed by demons, they are handed over to impure spirits. Instead of greeting them and addressing them as much as a word, you should turn away from them as from the pest and a plague of the human race.

In the synoptic Gospels, the anti-Judaism is always portrayed in contrast to the teachings of Jesus. In encounters with chief priests, scribes, elders, Pharisees, Herodians and Sadducees in Mark, for example, Jesus always wins the argument. The scribes and Pharisees are mentioned 32 times, but only once in a positive way inMk 12.34. Matthew intensified the anti-Judaic message of Mark. For example, Mark wrote on the trial of Jesus that the Jews seek true testimony against him but find only false, while Matthew wrote bluntly that the Jews seek false testimony. The Sermon on the Mount, apart from its important message, also sets out to demonstrate the inadequacy of the Mosaic law. The imagery of the mountain is not accidental. Matthew wants to show Jesus as the new Moses. Supersessionism is now firmly in place. Luke's attitude towards the Pharisees is somewhat tempered. He sets out to show that the teachings of Jesus are a truthful continuation of authentic Judaism, so that Jews who reject it are in fact inauthentic Jews. The worst of all anti-Judaism is found in John. A few examples: Jn 8.19, Jesus says to the Pharisees, 'You know neither me nor my father'; Jn 8.24, Jesus says to the Jews that they will die in their sins unless they believe in him; Jn 8.44, 'You are of your father the devil... He was a murderer from the beginning...' In the book of John, Jesus is made to be the chief proponent of anti-Judaism and

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there is no way in which the anti-Judaism can be removed. It is in the area of biblical exegesis that women theologians have begun to respond. Charlotte Klein, a German theologian, wrote an important book in 1975: Anti-Judaism in Christian Theology.4 Klein shows that the majority of European Christian exegetes, religious historians and theologians maintain that Israelite religion declined in the period of the Second Temple (515-70 CE), and the notion that it was a tired religion that needed a new lease of life is set in motion. Klein takes this misrepresentation to task in a vigorous and scholarly manner. In 1974, Rosemary Radford Ruether published a book in the USA in response to the Holocaust entitled, Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism.5 The German title is more pointed: Nachstenliebe und Brudermord. Ruether identifies the theological consequences of anti-Judaism in Christianity. She writes: The meaning of the prophetic dialectic of judgment and promise is destroyed when its cohesion in a single people is pulled apart. By applying prophetic judgement to 'the Jews' and messianic hope to the Church', Christianity... denied to the Jews the record of their greatest moral accomplishment, the breakthrough from ideological religion to self-critical faith. By the same token, the Church deprived itself of the tradition of prophetic self-criticism. The revolution of the prophets was undone by the Church. Prophetic faith was converted into self-glorification and uncritical self-sanctification.6

However, Ruether concluded that Christology is at the heart of Christian anti-Judaism and she writes: Theologically, anti-Judaism developed as the left hand of Christology. Anti-Judaism was the negative side of the Christian affirmation that Jesus was the Christ. Christianity claimed that the Jewish tradition of messianic hope was fulfilled in Jesus... In effect, the Church set up its polemic against the Jews as a historical task of Christians to maintain perpetually the despised status of the Jews as

4. Charlotte Klein, Theologie und Anti-Judaismus (Munich: Chr. Kaiser Verlag, 1975), published in English as Anti-Judaism in Christian Theology (trans. Edward Quinn; London: SPCK, 1978). 5. Rosemary Radford Ruether, Faith and Fratricide (New York: Seabury, 1974). 6. Ruether, Faith and Fratricide, p. 230.

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BODIES, LIVES, VOICES a proof of their divine reprobation... In Nazism the Christian demonization of the Jews' spiritual condition was converted into the demonization of their biological condition. Hence the Nazi final solution to the Jewish question was not religious conversion, but physical extermination... For us, who live after the Holocaust, after the collapse of Christian eschatology into Nazi genocidal destruction, profound reassessment of this whole heritage becomes necessary... We have to examine the roots of the theological patterns that fed this demonic myth of the Jew and its perpetuation even in liberal theologies, today. 7

In her book, Redemption of God: A Theology of Mutual Relations, Isabel Carter Heyward writes about the Holocaust and she responds to the work of Elie Wiesel. She suggests that the same sacred tenets to which many Christians held fast to justify the Holocaust... are precisely those which allow, even encourage, many contemporary Christians to trivialize and despise not only Jews but also women, homosexuals, blacks, the poor, and human life itself.8

She writes that the Holocaust becomes a mirror in which we may fix our eyes upon our capacity to reduce one another to ashes. 9 Like Ruether, Heyward wrestles with the problems that Christology poses in the Jewish-Christian dialogue and suggests that Jesus had to be conceptualized as divine because patristic anthropology could not have accounted for his exceptional qualities in any other way.10 If the question is 'Jesus: Lord or Brother?' Heyward's feminist perspective leaves her no other choice than to accept Jesus as brother. 11 Alice and Roy Eckhart wrote a book in 1982 entitled, Long Nights Journey into Day: Life and Faith after the Holocaust, and that was followed in 1986 by their book Jews and Christians. For the Eckharts, a full and adequate Christian response to the Holocaust necessitates a revolutionary revision in Christian theology. All 7. Rosemary Radford Ruether, To Change the World: Christology and Cultural Criticism (London: SCM Press, 1981), pp. 31-33. 8. Isabel Carter Heyward, A Theology of Mutual Relations (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1982), p. 75. 9- Heyward, Mutual Relations, p. 75. 10. Heyward, Mutual Relations, p. 197. 11. Heyward, Mutual Relations, pp. 193-203.

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notions that Judaism has an inferior moral or salvific content compared to Christianity must be rejected; this must mean a rethinking of the basic interpretation of the Resurrection and status of Jesus as Messiah in an unredeemed world. Even though an increasing number of Jewish women theologians are beginning to write about the Holocaust,12 Richard Rubenstein, Emil Fackenheim, Irving Greenberg, Eliezer Berkovitz, Ignaz Maybaum and Arthur Cohen are the ones in Jewish theology that continue to lead the search to make sense of the calamity, finding ways to go forward. Within Christianity, Paul Van Buren, John Pawlikowsky, Allen Ecclestone, Gregory Baum, Johann Metz, Jiirgen Moltmann and David Tracy write thoughtfully about the task of getting the Christian house in order. A somewhat surprising source of antiJudaism has come to the fore. Judith Plaskow, an important Jewish feminist theologian, pointed out as long ago as 1978, in an article published in Lilith entitled, 'Blaming the Jews for the Birth of Patriarchy', that Christian feminist theologians are perpetuating the familiar anti-Judaism pattern. This is a particularly shocking observation, since feminism is about transforming society in such a way that differences are no longer construed in terms of superiority and subordination. In a paper Plaskow gave at the third conference of the European Society of Women for Theological Research, which took place at the Protestant Academy in Arnoldshain, Germany, she said: Confronting feminist anti-Judaism... is part of a process through which we face the fact that there is no reason why becoming feminists should suddenly free us from the other forms of hatred that mark our world or the groups to which we belong; that without continual self-examination and vigilance we are as likely to use feminism to perpetuate other forms of domination as to overcome them. 1 3

She also quite correctly points out that in the case of the relationship between Jewish and Christian feminists there are 12. There are many women writers in Holocaust literature; see Marlene E. Heinemann's Gender and Destiny: Women writers and the Holocaust (New York: Greenwood Press, 1986). 13. Judith Plaskow, Feminist Anti-Judaism and the Christian God', Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 7 (Fall 1991), p. 100.

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profound asymmetries that make it difficult for Jewish feminists to appreciate the Christian perspective: Christians have had the power to forbid Jews to practice Judaism, to herd Jews into ghettos, to restrict Jews to certain professions and to kill Jews. And in a continuing way, they have had the more subtle power of any dominant group to impose their own world view without the slightest idea that they are doing so. Not surprisingly, this history makes it very difficult for Jews to take seriously Christian claims—traditional or feminist—that Christianity is a religion of love, liberation or right relation. On the other hand, feeding antijudaism in a different way is the religious and psychological reality that Christians need Jews in a way that Jews do not need Christians. Wondering what Jews think about Jesus or why Jews reject Jesus as the Messiah, Christians seem to find it almost impossible to hear that Jews don't think about Jesus except when a Christian questions and Christian culture force them to do so—and that they do not so much reject Jesus, they are simply not interested in him. The fundamental irrelevance on the religious level of Christianity to Judaism means that Christians taking Judaism seriously as an independent, living tradition must rethink the self in a way that is not true for Jews in relation to Christianity. What does it mean to affirm Christian identity without defining it over against Judaism? This is a question that the Christian tradition has never found a way to answer. And in large measure, it still has not been resolved by Christian feminists, some of w h o m have turned feminism into a new way of yet again defining Christian identity at the expense of Judaism.

Plaskow gives as an example the idea of the jealous God and the God of wrath of the 'Old' Testament and the 'New' Testament's God of love (a stereotype predating feminist theology). Also, blaming the Jews for the death of the Goddess and the 'Jesus was a feminist' theme again perpetuate anti-Judaism. For a serious and thorough response Katharina von Kellenbach offers an excellent study of anti-Judaism in feminist religious writings. It is particularly interesting that von Kellenbach is a German theologian who has moved to the USA but remains in touch with her native land. 15 She diagnoses that anti-Jewish distortions occur continuously, because Jewish history as a subject 14. Plaskow, Feminist Antijudaism', p. 101. 15. Katharina von Kellenbach, Anti-Judaism Writings (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994).

in Feminist

Religious

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in its own right is habitually marginalized. Judaism is cast pragmatically in the roles of antithesis, scapegoat or prologue to Christian discourse. For example, Susanne Heine, in her book on women in early Christianity, notes approvingly that Paul sees both marriage and celibacy as good, thus acknowledging bodily needs and the power of sexuality.16 Heine commends Paul's openness and pragmatism in matters of sexuality and marriage without acknowledging the Pharisaic thinking behind this argumentation. On the contrary, she asserts: 'It is striking that Paul had hardly any effect on subsequent history in what he said on the question of mixed marriages, but the rabbinic howler of 1 Cor. 11 is on everyone's lips' (i.e. woman created from man and for man). Von Kellenbach also comments on this. The rabbinic howler to which Heine refers advocates woman's subordination to her husband, who in turn is under Christ, who is under the Godhead. This christological hierarchy hardly originates in rabbinic thought. What seems to make it Jewish is its sexism. By projecting it onto Judaism the sexist affront is removed from Christianity. She points out that the un-Jewishness of Jesus is another instance of antiJudaism; his uniqueness and attitudes towards women were, they say, 'unparalleled and unprecedented'. Ruether calls them 'puzzling', Daly 'striking', others 'extraordinary, shocking to his contemporaries' (Mollenkott), 'very different from his peers!' (respectively, Ruether, Russell, Moltmann-Wendel, Mary Gray).17 Von Kellenbach states the obvious, namely, that this appraisal of Jesus as a unique and exceptional figure requires the not altogether objective historical presentation in the Christian Bible, which depicts him as a man who stood apart from and over and against his religious Jewish environment. Jesus' liberal attitudes to women are not presented as typical for certain sectors of Judaism, but as antithetical to Jewish sexism and patriarchy. Once noticed, it is so obvious—but it is both telling and embarrassing that this was not noticed earlier by Christian theologians. Schiissler Fiorenza highlights the fact that women were the first witnesses to the resurrection 'in spite of the disbelief of the twelve 16. Von Kellenbach, Anti-Judaism, p. 65. 17. Von Kellenbach, Anti-Judaism, p. 58.

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and lack of legal qualification as witnesses'. 18 Schiissler Fiorenza goes on to say that 'this fact could not have been imagined in Judaism or invented by the primitive church'. Actually, as von Kellenbach points out, legal qualifications for witnessing in a court of law are not needed for the kind of testimony reported in the Christian Bible. Moreover, in many Mediterranean cultures women play very important roles in funeral customs. The testimony of Jesus' female disciples is well within the parameters of Jewish law and need not be understood as its repudiation. Restrictive customs are seen as Jewish, liberal actions and teachings as un-Jewish and anti-Jewish and von Kellenbach pre-sents a host of examples where this false interpretation is perpetuated. This is directly related to the lies that were swallowed about Jews by Christians while the Holocaust took place. The efforts to uncover every anti-Judaic attitude is not a matter of political correctness, but of radical reformation. Another example from von Kellenbach concerns the relational Trinity versus male monotheism. Moltmann was one of the first to bring this up and feminist theologians have taken it on board. Moltmann writes: monotheism was and is the religion of the patriarchism just as we may suppose, pantheism ('Mother Earth') was the religion of the earlier matriarchism. The Christian doctrine of the Trinity, with its affirmations about the motherly Father, represents a first step towards limiting the use of masculine terminology to express the idea of God, without, however, changing over to matriarchal conceptions. 1 9

According, then, to Moltmann, Christianity is 'the ideal compromise between Jewish monotheism, the religion of patriarchy and paganism, and the religion of matriarchy'.20 Von Kellenbach writes that Moltmann argues that the Christian Father/God shows both motherly and fatherly characteristics because he gives life and begets his only son, Jesus Christ. God's suffering over Christ's crucifixion further indicates his emotional attachment and relational connection with his son, the second 18. Von Kellenbach, Anti-Judaism, 19. Von Kellenbach, Anti-Judaism, 20. Von Kellenbach, Anti-Judaism,

p. 61. p. 78. p. 78.

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person of the Trinity. These relational, compassionate features qualify Trinitarian God-concepts as a feminist metaphor. This has been in one form or another taken up by McFague and rejected because of the invisibility of the mother, and accepted by Patricia Wilson-Kastner, who suggests that the Trinitarian notion is more supportive of feminist values than monotheism. Von Kellenbach drives the message home over and over again. Her contribution to Christian feminist theology is outstanding. And of course, she would bring into the discussion on the Trinity Mary Daly's acid but apposite observation. Daly characterizes the Trinity as The original love story, performed by the Supreme all Male Cast. It is the 'sublime' (and therefore disguised) erotic male homosexual mythos, the perfect all male marriage, the best boys club, the model monastery, the supreme Men's association, the mold for all varieties of male mono-gender mating! 21

Judith Plaskow suggests that Trinitarian God language may heighten theological sexism. Von Kellenbach makes an interesting comment on the way feminist theologians have promoted the use of multiple images. She says that the God of today is permitted to be poor, black and female, but not Jewish. The presence of anti-Judaic assumptions in Christian feminist theology is a reminder that discernment and vigilance is required, even by and of those who appear to be most discerning. The impact this horrendous event, which is referred to as the Holocaust or Shoah, has had on Jewish as well as Christian women and men is, I believe, much greater than generally recognized. It is indeed the task of the women and men of the generation who can claim, as it is called in Germany, 'Gnade der spaten Geburt', the grace of late birth (those born after the Holocaust), to make an important difference in the ongoing and necessary process of mending the world. Once the Holocaust has been taken on board, no one's theology will remain unaffected. Women theologians have an important part to play in this process of healing and reconciliation.

21. Von Kellenbach, Anti-Judaism,

p. 79.

Part II LIVES

GRACE M. JANTZEN Disrupting the Sacred: Religion and Gender in the City1

Is it time for feminists to rethink religion rather than either to dismiss it or defend it? After all, religion affects the lives of millions of women, whether they are adherents or not. In recent continental thought, there has been considerable impetus to reconsider what religion is, and to re-evaluate its effect on contemporary life. A significant example is Luce Irigaray, who writes, It seems we are unable to eliminate or suppress the phenomenon of religion. It re-emerges in different forms, some of them perverse: sectarianism, theoretical or political dogmatism, religiosity... Therefore, it is crucial that w e rethink religion, and especially religious structures, categories, initiations, rules, and Utopias, all of which have been masculine for centuries. 2

But what does it mean to rethink religion from a feminist perspective, developing a trustworthy account by thinking from women's lives? With religion as the linchpin of the Name of the Father in the masculinist Symbolic, the development of a female Imaginary must surely be one of the most urgent and central questions for a feminist philosopher of religion. Not that such rethinking of religion from the standpoint of women's lives, developing a new Imaginary domain, can proceed unproblematically. How could it, given that women's lives, our hopes, dreams and desires have been moulded in part by the very religions we need to rethink? There is every reason, especially in a feminist effort to problematize religion, to bear in mind how deeply our consciousness, even as feminists, is saturated with the 1. I am glad to acknowledge the financial support of the John Rylands Institute which has made this research possible, and I am grateful to Elaine Graham for her comments on an earlier draft. 2. Luce Irigaray, Sexes and Genealogies (trans. Gillian C. Gill; New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), p. 75.

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Name of the Father, and our language, our concepts and even our longings are shaped by the master discourse. Each 'reverse discourse' of resistance will no doubt call forth new exertions of recuperative power; and both the oppressive power and the possibilities of resistance are not only around us but also internalized in the development of our subject positions. Nevertheless, each exertion of power becomes in turn a possible point of resistance, as Foucault reminds us; and the acknowledgment of difficulty is hardly a reason not to make the attempt at all. Indeed, it is from Foucault that I propose to begin the effort to 'rethink religion', even though he himself did not pay it systematic attention. What he did do was to call into question many of the assumed universals of western thought, showing that these socalled universals were actually historical constructions that went through various transformations: they did not refer to some unchanging essence. Foucault focused on such alleged universals as madness, illness, delinquency and sexuality: but might not religion be treated in the same way? As he described the task, In the realm of knowledge, everything presented to us as having universal validity, insofar as human nature or the categories that can be applied to the subject are concerned, has to be tested and analyzed: to refuse the universals of 'madness,' delinquency,' or sexuality' [or religion'?] does not mean that these notions refer to nothing at all, nor that they are only chimeras invented in the interests of a dubious cause. Yet the refusal entails more than the simple observation that their content varies with their time and circumstances; it entails wondering about the conditions that made it possible, according to the rules of truth-telling, to recognize a subject as mentally ill or to cause subjects to recognize the most essential part of themselves in the modality of their sexual desire [or to consider themselves as 'religious'—or even as 'non-religious'?]. The first methodological rule for this sort of work is thus the following, to circumvent anthropological universals to the greatest extent possible, so as to interrogate them in their historical constitution. 3

3. Maurice Florence', 'Foucault, Michel, 1926-', in Gary Gutting (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Foucault (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 317. As Gutting explains in his Preface, p. viii, there is little

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Proceeding on that suggestion, then, would mean that rather than look for some unchanging 'essence' of 'religion', some sort of universal that is what religion must always be at its core, a feminist appropriation of Foucault's method would proceed by looking at how what has counted as religion has varied according to the historical context and in terms of who was in a powerful enough position to be doing the counting. Moreover, a feminist perspective brings to that investigation an awareness that positions of power are gendered positions, so that powerful men have been able to define and redefine religion for women and other subordinate groups. What David Halperin says of Foucault's approach to sexuality offers great possibilities for a feminist critical rethinking of religion: The value of Foucault's non-theory, of his critical intervention in the realm of theory, lies precisely in its strategic evasion of all those questions about what sexuality is and in its diversion of our attention, instead, to questions about how sexuality functions in both knowledge and society: what role sexuality has played, as a concept and an experience, in the history of European discursive and institutional practices. The effect of Foucault's inquiries into that latter set of questions about sex is to reconceptualize sexuality as a strategic device, as the linchpin of a complex socio-politicoscientific apparatus. Foucault thereby converts sex into the basis for a radical critique of, and political struggle against, innumerable aspects of modern disciplinary culture. 4

If we reread that passage, substituting 'religion' for 'sexuality' or 'sex', the possibilities begin to emerge. Instead of seeking (or defining) an 'essence' of religion, and instead of looking for that essence in 'primitive' and rural contexts, and instead of focusing almost entirely on males (all of which have been the practice of social scientists and philosophers asking 'What is religion?'), we investigate instead how religion functions and the roles it has played in concept and experience in European thought and practice, where it is highly urbanized and highly gendered. We can then begin to see religion also as a 'linchpin of a complex socioreason to doubt that the otherwise unknown 'Florence' is actually Foucault himself. 4. David Halperin, Saint Foucault: Towards a Gay Hagiograpby (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 120.

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politico-scientific apparatus' of 'modern disciplinary culture'. Moreover, I suggest that we see many modern scholars of religion doing their utmost to keep that linchpin of the masculinist Symbolic firmly in place. In the course of one paper, I can do no more than raise some questions and suggest some directions. Rather than pursue the issues abstractly, I have chosen to focus on thinking from one particular woman's life, a woman who found herself at the cusp of change for religion in the city. That woman was Marguerite Porete, in Paris, in the early fourteenth century. We can consider her life and writing as an illustration of how 'religion' functions (parallel to how Foucault suggested 'sexuality' functions), and discover the convoluted triangulation of religion, gender and the city. I shall show that what counted as religion was significantly different for Marguerite than it was for the royal court of the time, even though that court was powerful enough to impose its view by force. However, my interest is more than historical. I wish to suggest that not only did religion function as a strategic device in fourteenth-century France, but that it continues to do so today. Rather than making a general case for this claim, I shall use the various modern interpretations of Marguerite to show how, in the guise of scholarly exposition, assumptions about women, religion and the city continue to underwrite aspects of a modern disciplinary culture that has uncomfortable parallels with Philip's inquisitorial regime in the fourteenth century, a culture which a feminist rethinking of religion and the sacred would disrupt. Paris in the early fourteenth century, under the jurisdiction of Philip IV (Philip the Fair), was one of the foremost cities of Western Europe. In the central square of that city, on 1 June 1310, Marguerite Porete was burned alive at the stake as a heretic. In the documents recording her trial she was judged to be a lpseudomulier\ literally a 'pseudo-woman'. Though the documents give no explicit account of what they meant by this phrase, calling her a 'pseudo-woman' immediately signals how significant gender was in her trial. Marguerite was a beguine, a religious group about whom I shall have more to say in a moment. Some years before her execution she had written a book called The Mirror of Simple Souls, which had been admired by Godfrey of Fontaines, one of the foremost theologians of the University of Paris. But the Bishop of

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Cambrai condemned the book, and had it publicly burned in Valenciennes sometime before 1306. Marguerite was present. She refused to submit to the bishop's injunction never to speak of the book again, and in 1308 she and her friend and defender Guiard de Cressonessart were arrested at the behest of William of Paris, confessor to the king and Dominican inquisitor. Guiard 'confessed', probably under duress, at his second consultation. But Marguerite stood firm. William gathered together lawyers and theologians, giving them a series of passages from her book: it seems that no effort was made to read them in context. They judged her writing to be heretical, and she herself to be 'contumacious and rebellious', because she refused to repent, recant or cooperate with the inquisitors, even though she was imprisoned for nearly two years in grim conditions. So she was burned. 5 What was this heresy that warranted such a dreadful end? And what, by implication, was 'true religion' in fourteenth-century Paris? Why did powerful men make such a fuss over one woman and her book? That question is all the more pertinent in view of what happened next. Some copies of Marguerite's book had escaped destruction and began to circulate, but without the author's name attached. The book was translated into Latin and Middle English and was taken as a book of profound spiritual teaching: Meister Eckhart, for example, drew a great deal from it.6 It continued to increase in importance throughout the modern period. In England, for example, it continued from strength to strength: Evelyn Underhill praised it, and the Downside Benedictines republished it in 1927, still anonymously. It was only in the middle of the century that Romana Guarnieri, an Italian historian, definitively identified the author as none other than the heretical 'pseudo-woman', Marguerite Porete. If the book contained awful heresy, that heresy had not been obvious to centuries 5. Ellen L. Babinsky, Introduction' and Notes', in Marguerite of Porete, The Mirror of Simple Souls (Classics of Western Spirituality; New York: Paulist Press, 1993 [c. 1296]); Peter Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 217; Robert E. Lerner, The Heresy of the Free Spirit in the Later Middle Ages (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972), pp. 68-78. 6. Michael A. Sells, Mystical Languages of Unsaying (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994).

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of devout and learned scholars. Moreover, it is easy to show that the articles for which Marguerite was condemned, when put back into the context of the book from which they were extracted, give little credence to the heretical interpretation placed upon them by the inquisitors.7 For example, in one of the extracts for which she was condemned, Marguerite says that a person who is entirely one with God need no longer concern herself with good works or even virtues. The context, however, makes clear that anyone who is truly one with God will do only those things that the will of God prompts; consequently virtue has become internalized and no longer requires continuous attention. A careful look at her book, and indeed a look at the whole manner of the inquisitorial procedure in relation to Marguerite, shows that the so-called heretical articles can only have been a pretext. So what was it that generated so much outrage among the powerful men of Paris? Why was she expendable in their scheme? How was her death necessary for their agenda of religion in the city? How was religion functioning as a strategic device in the power struggles of the time? And how did Marguerite Porete and her book constitute so disrupting a reverse discourse on what religion is that it had to be ruthlessly suppressed? The late thirteenth and early fourteenth century is a notable turning point in France for religion in the city, marking a transition to modernity, whose effects are still with us. It was during this period that the French monarchy struggled for pre-eminence with the papacy, a landmark in the process of secularization. As a historian of the period puts it, 'The reign of Philip the Fair marked the point when the balance of loyalty definitively swung toward the secular sovereign state. From the political point of view, this shift marks the transition from the medieval to the modern period.' 8 This does not mean, however, that the people suddenly became less religious. On the contrary, what was happening was that Philip and his ministers, by a series of skilful (not to say devious) moves, were getting his people to identify religion with him and his monarchy, seeing him, rather than the pope, as the 7. Grace Jantzen, Power and Gender in Christian Mysticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 262. 8. Joseph R. Strayer, The Reign of Philip the Fair (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980), p. xiii.

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'Vicar of God'. 9 Philip's was a crucial act in the modern disruption of the sacred, moving its location from the holy city of Rome to secular modern cities: the drama he generated can be seen as a dress rehearsal for the power play by Henry VIII in England a century and a half later. Philip, like Henry, needed to be seen to be the one who defended the faith, suppressed heretics and furthered the interests of the nation, taking special care to build up the growing cities. One of the means by which Philip hoped to further all these ends simultaneously was in his actions against the Templars. The Templars were a military order that had been founded in the early twelfth century in connection with the Crusades. They grew immensely powerful and wealthy; and in the thirteenth century became bankers for the French monarchy, a position that became even stronger when other large-scale moneylenders, the Jews and the Lombards, were expelled from France. Philip decided to move against them, confiscating their property, accusing them of heresy and showing himself more ardent for the purity of the faith than was the pope. He thereby expected at a stroke to gain great wealth which he would use to further French interests and to demonstrate his religious superiority. The charges against the Templars were preposterous, but Philip ensured that sufficient torture was used so that many of them 'confessed'. In May 1310, 54 Templars were burned at the stake near Paris—only weeks before Marguerite Porete met the same fate. By 1312 the pope had been coerced into suppressing the order throughout Europe.10 Now, what connection would the destruction of the Templars have with the condemnation of Marguerite Porete? That the two events were not coincidental becomes clearer when we note that William of Paris, the inquisitor in charge of Marguerite's trial, was also in charge of Philip's proceedings against the Templars. Moreover the Bishop of Cambrai, who burned Marguerite's book and was probably the one who sent her to Paris to be tried, was 9. Strayer, Reign of Philip, pp. 13, 295. 10. Steven Runciman, A History of the Crusades. III. The Kingdom of Acre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1954), pp. 429-38; Jo Ann McNamara, Gilles Aycelin: The Servant of Two Masters (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1973), pp. 155-69; Strayer, Reign of Philip, pp. 28596.

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the very one who called the council against the Templars in 1310.11 So the city becomes the obvious triangulation point of power, gender and religion. But this still does not answer the question of why, when they clearly had plenty on their minds already, powerful men should have felt so threatened and taken so much trouble over a book by a woman who was otherwise insignificant. Or was she? I mentioned earlier that Marguerite was a beguine. Beguines were women who lived alone or in clusters, joining together for worship, mutual support and an intensive programme of work to help those who were homeless, poor and ill, the outcasts of society. They did not live in convents, and they did not take vows as cloistered nuns did. They could be widows or single women, or women whose husbands were away—perhaps in the Crusades. They could join the group for a time and then leave without blame. Beguines were a phenomenon of the growth of towns and cities: when they grouped together in beguinages, it would be in a city or at its edge; and much of their relief work was directed toward people living in cities with little in the way of social services. Many northern cities—Antwerp, Bruges, Amsterdam, Cologne, Paris and others—had considerable numbers of beguines. Beguines were a multi-layered threat to the powerful in society, especially to the ecclesiastical authorities. They were strong, independent women who were under the authority of neither husband nor priest, but rather banded together for mutual help. They developed writings and liturgies, subsequently heavily suppressed, in which they spoke of God as Lady Love and used striking female imagery, such as gestating and giving birth to God:12 as we will see later, Marguerite herself bends gender out of its normal categories in her writings. And the way of life and relief efforts of the beguines were an implicit rebuke to those whose activities caused such poverty and homelessness in the first place. Like Philip, they were disrupters of the sacred, but in quite a different way. Where Philip thought to bring ecclesiastical power to the monarchy, beguines asked who were the victims of the new 11. Lerner, Heresy, p. 76. 12. Hadewijch, The Complete Works (trans. Columba Hart, OSB; Classics of Western Spirituality; New York: Paulist Press, 1980 [c. 1250]), p. 345.

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social order and tried to relieve the suffering it caused. The authorities dealt with the threat posed by the beguines in various ways. In some areas, beguines were treated with contempt, or even as heretics, a treatment given official sanction by the Council of Vienne of 1312. In other places they were allowed to continue, provided that they grouped themselves into enclosures and accepted the oversight of a (male) confessor.13 In France, however, a different tactic was used. Beguines were under royal patronage (perhaps as another snub to the papacy?); toward the end of the thirteenth century there were around four hundred beguines in Paris alone, many of them living in the great beguinage founded by Louis IX.14 There were also beguine houses in many other towns and cities of northern France. Part of the price of royal protection, however, was that beguines were required to submit to strict rules of moderate enclosure. These rules did not stipulate that they could not go out at all, but their movements were strictly regulated and supervised on pain of dismissal. However, some beguines refused such regulation as incompatible with what they felt called to do. Marguerite was one. No doubt this made her simultaneously more vulnerable and more of a threat, not only to the political authorities but even to beguine communities, who would be under pressure to disown her. Moreover, although the charges of heresy for which she was convicted can easily be shown to be misinterpretations of passages wrenched from their contexts, there are good reasons why her text would generate the wrath of the powerful. In the first place, it was written in the vernacular, not in scholarly Latin, and thus made itself available to those she calls the 'little ones of Holy Church' or 'simple souls', common folk without much learning, rather than only to those living in religious communities. 15 Apparently Marguerite had a considerable following among such 'simple souls', both male and female. Moreover, some of her text takes the form of a dialogue between Reason and Love. Now throughout her book, Reason is associated with 'the masters of the natural senses' and 'the masters of

13. Jantzen, Power, pp. 205-207. 14. Babinsky, 'Introduction', pp. 13-17. 15. Porete, Mirror, p. 81; 94.

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scripture', 16 the philosophers and theologians of the intellectual and ecclesiastical establishment.17 However, Reason is shown to be quite inadequate to the requirements of spiritual progress. Marguerite mocks at Reason, personifying Reason as one who is hysterical at the Soul's freedom in the love of God: O God! O God! O God! says Reason. What is this creature saying? She is n o w completely beside herself! But what will my children say? I do not know what to say to them, nor how to excuse this. 18

Eventually, to the great relief of Soul, Reason dies and Love (personified as female) takes over his functions. 19 It is not surprising that the self-constituted intellectual authorities were displeased: few male intellectuals take kindly to a woman portraying them as hysterical and best relieved of their position. The disruption of their Symbolic would not be alleviated by Marguerite's use of gender in her text. Marguerite's longing for and relationship with her divine lover makes use of prevalent themes in what has come to be known as 'erotic mysticism': in itself this would hardly have caused surprise. But Marguerite refuses the conventional heterosexual model in which the soul is the passive female and the divine lover is the active male. Instead, she moves freely between speaking of God in male and female terms. 20 Love, who is personified female, is (the voice of) God herself, though God is also named 'the Farnear', who is a male character in Marguerite's spiritual drama. She writes, for example, And Divine Love tells me that she has entered within me, And so she can do whatever she wills, Such strength has she given me, From One Lover whom I possess in love, To whom I am betrothed, Who wills what He loves, And for this I will love Him. 21 16. Porete, Mirror, p. 87. 17. Sells, Mystical Languages, p. 130. 18. Porete, Mirror, p. 161. 19. Porete, Mirror, p. 163. 20. Amy M. Hollywood, 'Beauvoir, Irigaray, and the Mystical', Hypatia (1994), pp. 158-84 (173-74); Sells, Mystical Languages, p. 134. 21. Porete, Mirror, p. 201.

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There is considerable fluidity here between 'Divine Love' (female) and the 'One Lover' (male), as also between who is possessor and who is possessed. The same occurs in many other passages, such as this one: Then to me came Love, filled with goodness... And she said to me: Beloved, what do you wish from Me? I contain all things, which were, And are, and shall be, I am filled by all things... Say, beloved, what do you wish from me? I am Love, filled with the goodness of all things. 22

Marguerite, however, is entirely satisfied by this fullness of Love and asks for nothing; and in that nothingness has suddenly revealed to her 'Him and me; that is, He the most High...and there was born my good'. 23 Is the divine male or female in this erotically charged encounter? The only possible answer is 'both'. The fluidity of gender and sexuality in Marguerite's writing is characteristic of numerous mediaeval women's religious writings; 24 its virtual disappearance in modern religious writing bespeaks the severe disruption of the sacred Name of the Father with which such gender bending threatened ecclesiastical authorities. Was it partly because of this that Marguerite was characterized as a 'pseudowoman'? When we read her book, it is clear that it contains a full-scale indictment of greed and the injustices born out of ruthless pursuit of wealth—which is precisely what the king was doing, with the full complicity of his bishops, first in relation to the Jews and Lombards and then in the case of the Templars. Marguerite never names the king, nor does she speak directly of the Templars or indeed of any current happening. Nor does she dwell much on condemnation or any form of preaching against corruption or injustice. Her whole focus is on building up 'simple souls', guiding them in the stages of spiritual growth they will need to go through if their wills are to be united with the will of God. But for anyone thinking of her book in the context of her political situation, it is 2 2. Porete, Mirror, p. 215. 23. Porete, Mirror, p. 216. 24. Jantzen, Power, p. 290.

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obvious that her account of spiritual growth severely disrupts the self-perception of the Parisian court, which was touting itself as the spiritual guardian of France and defender of the faith. Very early in her book she lays down as a ground rule that anyone hoping to make spiritual progress must begin 'with the commandments of the Holy Church', foremost of which is the divine command to love God 'with all our heart, all our soul, and all our strength; and ourselves as we ought, and our neighbours as ourselves'. This she then glosses as follows: First, that we love Him [sic] with all our heart: that means that our thoughts should be always truly in Him. And with all our soul: that means that until our death we do not speak but the truth. And with all our strength: that is, that w e accomplish all our works purely for Him. And ourselves as we ought: that means that in doing this we do not give attention to our gain but the perfect will of God. And our neighbours as ourselves: that is, that w e neither do, nor think, nor speak towards our neighbours anything we would not wish they do toward us 25

And she follows this immediately with the Gospel story of the rich young man who had kept the law of God to all appearances, but who fell foul when he was told by Jesus to sell his possessions and give to the poor. 26 Standard spiritual teaching?—of course. But in her political context, choosing this particular emphasis and this specific story out of all the biblical possibilities was hardly without implication. The cap fitted rather too snugly for comfort. The fact that Marguerite is hardly ever thought of in political terms by modern commentators has more to do with the modern assumption that religion, especially as practised by women, is apolitical, than it has to do with how things were in the city and nation of her own time. I shall return to this point. Moreover, Marguerite made a distinction in her book between Holy Church the Little and Holy Church the Great. Holy Church the Great is the invisible ideal community of the truly spiritual; Holy Church the Little is the empirical Church on earth. Though the latter may appear strong, Marguerite says, it is actually weak, often corrupt, and dependent for its spiritual sustenance on the guidance and help of those who are part of the true, divine 25. Porete, Mirror, p. 81. 26. Porete, Mirror, p. 82.

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community: 'For these Souls, says Love, are properly called Holy Church, for they sustain and feed and teach the whole Holy Church. And not merely they, says Love, but the whole Trinity within them.' 27 Marguerite places no positive emphasis whatever upon the structures of the empirical Church: confession, penance, or even the eucharist. All these are part of Holy Church the Little, and are all too easily taken as substitutes for direct communion with God, and thus become the trappings of religion rather than its substance. As Carolyn Bynum has pointed out, such refusal of official religious activity bespeaks 'a reflection in image of women's own experience of the irrelevance of structure', a structure that defined religion in ways that would further its own powerful and gendered ends. 28 Marguerite is under no illusions that her distinction between Holy Church the Little and Holy Church the Great, with its implicit rebuke to the empirical Church, will find favour with its authorities, even though she was by no means the first mediaeval writer to use such a distinction as a way of calling for reform. Indeed she feared that even beguines (presumably those who accepted royal patronage and enclosure) would not understand. She writes, 0 my Lover, what will beguines say and religious types When they hear the excellence of your divine song? Beguines say I err, priests, clerics, and Preachers, Augustinians, Carmelites, and the Friars Minor, Because I wrote about the being of the one purified by Love. 1 do not make Reason safe for them, who makes them say this to me. 2 9

Peter Dronke is convinced that it was this challenge to the 27. Porete, Mirror, p. 122. 28. Carolyn Walker Bynum, Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion (New York: Zone Books, 1991). 29. Porete, Mirror, p. 200.

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empirical Church that cost Marguerite her life.30 It could, of course, be objected that, where there is greed, corruption and injustice, any Christian teaching will sound like rebuke, whether or not that was specifically intended, so that even if Marguerite had nothing political in mind, she could be interpreted (either then or now) as though she did. To some extent that objection must be granted. But there are traces in her text that make me doubt modern interpreters, who, by their silence on her political context, seem to suppose that because she was heavenly minded, she was far above sordid social and political realities. For instance, in a chapter in which she is discussing the fact that some folk become so heavily preoccupied with 'good works' that they lose sight of who those works are intended to benefit, there is an exchange between two of her speakers, personified as 'Love' and 'Soul': Such folk are happy, says Love, but they are lost in their works, on account of the sufficiency which they have in their being. Such folk, says Love, are called kings, but they are in a country where everyone is one-eyed. But without fail, those who have two eyes consider them to be servants. Soul: Servants they are truly, says this Soul, but they don't understand it. They are like the owl who thinks there is no more beautiful bird in the wood than young owls. So it is, says this Soul, with those who live in perpetual desire. 31

The writings of mediaeval religious women are full of striking figures of speech, and at first glance these metaphors of one-eyed servants who think themselves kings, and owls with a ludicrous estimate of their own importance, might seem to be no more than this. It is more, however. In the first place, in the literature of courtly love being one-eyed was a common (if unfortunate) trope used to characterize someone thought to be too ugly to be capable of true love.32 This is therefore not an idiosyncratic metaphor on Marguerite's part, though she presses it into her own use. But that is not all. Those who study the religious writings of women seldom study politics, and vice versa: modernity has, as I 30. Dronke, Women Writers, pp. 217-28. 31. Porete, Mirror, p. 132. 32. Babinsky, 'Notes', p. 225 n. 37.

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have said, split these into separate disciplines with large 'no trespassing' signs over each. But since we are flouting those signs, let us consider further the court of Philip the Fair. Philip surrounded himself with powerful advisers—too powerful, many people thought—among whom was one, Pierre Flote, who was deeply involved in the struggle for the ascendancy of the monarchy over the papacy. He rose rapidly in influence, and in 1298 became Keeper of the Seals (chancellor). But though he had the esteem of the king, he (like many other royal officials) was hated and resented by the people because he put on kingly airs, although he was officially only a servant. So far there is nothing particularly remarkable about this. It only becomes startling when we learn that Pierre Flote was one-eyed!—a feature for which even the pope used to ridicule him. 33 Could Marguerite's acid comment on oneeyed servants who think themselves kings really be politically innocent? Even more follows. One of the tactics that Pierre Flote used in his efforts to discredit the papacy was to attack a bishop, Bernard Saisset, as an enemy of the king. Though in himself he was not of major political importance, Bernard was given to rather intemperate utterances. One day he overstepped the mark. He said that Philip was just like an owl, a handsome bird who stared ineffectually while others did the work. Philip never forgave him for that. When a pawn was needed in the moves against the pope, Bernard was arrested.34 Of the commentators I have been able to consult, only one, Robert Lerner, so much as notices the parallels between Marguerite's metaphors and the realities of Philip's court; and even he dismisses it in one sentence: 'It is doubtful that Marguerite intended her words to have had a political connotation, but it is not impossible that someone at Philip's court took umbrage at them.' 35 But on what basis does he claim she had no such intention? He offers no argument whatever. As far as I can tell, he is just repeating the modern assumption that a woman who writes a religious book must be politically uninvolved. Yet there are plenty of mediaeval counter-examples: witness Hildegard of Bingen 33. Strayer, Reign of Phillip, p. 52, 272, 416; Lerner, Heresy, p. 77. 34. Strayer, Reign of Phillip, p. 262. 35. Lerner, Heresy, p. 11.

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rebuking Frederick Barbarossa, or Catherine of Siena negotiating the return of the papacy from Avignon to Rome. Of course I cannot prove Marguerite's intentions any more than Lerner can; but it seems to me stretching credulity to think that it was sheer coincidence that she wrote about one-eyed servants who thought they were kings, and about self-important owls, just when the king's one-eyed minister was arresting a bishop who compared the king to a self-important but ineffectual owl. Marguerite never recanted, never apologized for her book, never indicated any sense of inappropriateness that a woman should write as she did. Contrary to other mediaeval women who struggled with the conflict between their gender identity and the authority they claimed as religious writers, Marguerite wrote with confidence and stood by her writings when they were burned in front of her face at the command of a bishop. Indeed, Marguerite used her own sexuality and erotic longing as a way to meditate on love and her longing for the divine Lover. It was all too much for her enemies, and eventually she followed her book to the flames. She was burned as a heretic; but burned also as a 'pseudo mulier\ a fake woman, who was not respectful and subservient as a 'real woman' should be, but was presumptuous, 'rebellious and contumacious', a woman for whom the personal, which was religious, was the political—a woman who disrupted the masculinist Symbolic with her strategies of imagination. So what is religion in the Paris of Philip the Fair and Marguerite Porete? If we are looking for a definition in terms of essence, the answer is unlikely to be very instructive. But if, instead of asking what religion is, we divert our attention to how religion functioned and how it served as a strategic device in one of the contexts that marked a transition to modern urban disciplinary culture, then a whole new way of thinking about the triangulation of power, gender and religion begins to open up. Obviously religion could serve as a discourse of repression, in the contested rhetoric between papacy and the 'most Christian king of France'. Obviously it could serve as the context of enforced uniformity, where those 'others' who were perceived as threats—Jews, Templars, heretics,

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women—could be eliminated as polluters of the city.36 But the story of Marguerite Porete shows that this is not all there is to be said. For her, as for other mediaeval religious women (and some men), religion functioned as an occasion for a reverse discourse, a discourse that offered guidance toward justice, integrity and love. The way of life of beguines, and in particular the life and writing of Marguerite, was a refusal of the religion modelled by the court of Philip and his ecclesiastical stooges in favour of a religion they saw as patterned after the poor man of Galilee. Of course Philip won: he could enclose them, silence them, burn their books and even burn them. He could impose his vision of religion. Yet her book persisted, recognized as a work of great religious insight, and in the middle of this century, Marguerite was at last recognized as its author. But now a new story begins, in which the question of what shall count as religion is again to the fore, and again reveals issues of power and gender. In spite of the fact that there is now scholarly unanimity that The Mirror of Simple Souls, for so long a spiritual classic, was indeed written by Marguerite Porete, the result has not been—as one would have hoped—a recognition that a woman had been unjustly condemned and executed in the name of true religion. Instead (with important exceptions like Dronke and Sells) scholars have turned to the text and the trial documents to justify her burning anew. Jean Leclercq, 37 for example, in a book generally contemptuous of women, repeats the inquisitorial condemnation of Marguerite. He simply quotes the extract in which she says that a soul who is at one with God need no longer be preoccupied with good works. Like the inquisitors, he pays no attention to context; and it is left to appear that her conviction is understandable or even justifiable. He is more willing to listen to the inquisitors than to Marguerite. Now, my concern is not simply with a lapse of scholarship or even with its underlying misogyny. The question I would rather highlight, is this: what formation of the concept of religion is being endorsed when an otherwise meticulous scholar is so willing to 36. Cf. R.L Moore, The Formation of a Persecuting Society (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987). 37. Jean Leclercq et al, The Spirituality of the Middle Ages: A History of Christian Spirituality, II (New York: Seabury, 1968).

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acquiesce in a woman's execution in the name of what he sees as true religion? How is such a conception of religion, reinforced by purported 'historical evidence', serving a disciplinary function in modern society? and what alternatives could be generated? Other scholars are equally ready to condemn Marguerite. Edmund Colledge, for instance, characterizes her as a 'high priestess' of the Heresy of the Free Spirit,38 and Ernest McDonnell speaks of her as a 'heresiarch', 39 though without offering much evidence. Yet it has been persuasively argued that the so-called 'Heresy of the Free Spirit' never existed except as an invention of heresy hunters after the Council of Vienne in 1311 (that is, after Marguerite's execution), and moreover that the condemned passages culled from her book were taken over by the Council as the basis of Ad nostrum, the papal bull that defined this 'heresy'. Robert Lerner goes so far as to call this document 'the birth certificate of the heresy of the Free Spirit',40 a heresy that was almost entirely an invention of its persecutors. 41 Once again it is necessary to ask not only about lapses of scholarship but about how such 'lapses' reflect a modern Symbolic and play a part in modern configurations of power. As Elizabeth Petroff pointed out in her study of Marguerite, her public burning must have sent a shock wave of calculated warning to other women and men who might have been tempted to challenge the religion of power of Philip's court. 42 When modern scholars repeat her disparagement and condemnation, what message is being sent today to those who would challenge current configurations of religion, gender and power with a new Imaginary? Not only do modern interpreters echo inquisitorial judgments of heresy, they also ring the changes on the theme of Marguerite's character as 'rebellious and contumacious'. Edmund Colledge, for instance, in his account of the book's contents, says, 38. Edmund Colledge, 'Liberty of Spirit: The Mirror of Simple Souls', in L.K. Shook (ed.), Theology of Renewal (Montreal: n.p., 1968), II, p. 8. 39. Ernest W. McDonnell, The Beguines and Beghards in Medieval Culture (New York: Octagon, 1969), p. 490. 40. Lerner, Heresy, p. 83. 41. Jantzen, Power, pp. 258-64. 42. Elizabeth Alvida Petroff (ed.), Medieval Women's Visionary Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 282.

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BODIES, LIVES, VOICES Despite all the Soul's protestations of her wretched nothingness, the entire book is characterized by a stubborn, wilful determination to persist in its opinions, by a spiritual arrogance which could surely find no place in a truly 'Simple Soul'. 43

Similarly, McDonnell writes of her 'obstinacy' and 'audacity' in refusing to cooperate with the inquisitors.44 What are they asking for? Is the only reliable sign of a 'truly simple soul' that she submit herself obediently to the will of the masters—and if she does not, does that in itself show her 'spiritual arrogance'? This strikes me as an 'irregular conjugation', which runs: I show firm resolve; you are stubborn; she is rebellious and contumacious. The theme is all too familiar to women unwilling to accept with due meekness the authoritative pronouncements on religion of those in power. The speculations on Marguerite's sexual morality follow with tiresome predictability. McDonnell muses that Marguerite may very well be one of the free beguines—and her wandering life points to it—who had no permanent residence, lived by begging, were guilty of moral laxity, hesitated to submit to ordained spiritual officials, and were receptive to heretical ideas. She was a sectarian, far removed in spirit and practice from the real [sic] beguine movement. 5

'Real' beguines are presumably the dutiful daughters who submitted to 'ordained spiritual officials'. However, had Marguerite in fact been 'morally lax', as McDonnell here speculates (with not a scrap of evidence offered in support), it is inconceivable that the inquisitors would not have accused her of it: it is notorious that accusations or innuendoes of sexual misdemeanours were a 'favourite charge' of theirs.46 Yet they never levelled such a charge against her. Moreover, Romana Guarnieri, who identified Marguerite as the author of The Mirror, shows from the text that its author must have been well educated and conversant with both theology and the literature of courtly love. This, and her use of feudal-aristocratic metaphors, leads Gwendolyn Bryant to comment, 43. Colledge, Liberty', p. 114. 44. McDonnell, Beguines, p. 491. 45. McDonnell, Beguines, p. 492, my emphasis. 46. Gwendolyn Bryant, 'The French Heretic Beguine: Marguerite Porete', in Katharina M. Wilson (ed.), Medieval Women Writers (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984), p. 207.

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This aura of refinement of the patrician mystic addressing herself to a clandestine feminine following contrasts sharply with the wandering promiscuity of McDonnell's beggar maiden.' 47 Quite so. But what is the disciplinary function of the modern trope that a woman whose ideas of religion are at variance with established orthodoxy can be presumed to be morally lax? Perhaps most disturbing of all is the assumption, already hinted at, that a woman concerned with religion could not possibly be politically involved. Religion in modernity is characterized as private, belonging to the inward, personal, subjective sphere and far removed from the sordid world of power and social policy formation. It is therefore seen as eminently suitable for women, a gentle and humanizing aspect of domesticity. We have seen how this assumption is read back into an interpretation of Marguerite, such that scholars simply cannot imagine that she might have been making astute political observations. My concern, however, is not only with reclaiming her dangerous memory, but with pointing out how the privatization and feminization of religion serves a sharp disciplinary function in contemporary society. On the one hand, it is widely accepted that 'religion and politics don't mix', that religion is a purely personal matter: such a view is wheeled out when religious groups or individuals protest against greed and corruption, nuclear weapons, environmental degradation or other scandals of modernity. Yet at the same time the rhetoric of 'family values', a national curriculum in which religious education must be 'broadly Christian' irrespective of the faith traditions of the children in the school, and a racist immigration policy, all implicitly appeal to a concept of religion that bears a striking resemblance to the one that flourished in the court of Philip the Fair. Whether we are personally religious or not, whether we deplore it or not, all women in modern Western cities are affected in many areas of our lives by the disciplinary functions of what counts as religion in modernity. If feminists ignore it, that does not make it go away: as Irigaray insists, it is high time that we 'rethink religion' instead of pretending that it is a fading relic of the past. But when feminists 'rethink religion' in our contemporary, urban context, should we just accept that it has a universal essence, and that 47. Bryant, Porete', p. 207.

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Philip's patriarchal and oppressive religion is what religion must be, a linchpin of the masculinist Symbolic? Should we not rather suspect that the assumption that religion has a universal essence is already a power play on behalf of that Symbolic? What happens if instead we think of how it functions, think from women's lives, women like Marguerite who offered a reverse discourse of religion, using it as a node of resistance rather than a force of oppression, developing a religious Imaginary that begins thinking otherwise? What is to count as religion? And who will be doing the counting?

BERENICE KERR

Petronilla de Chemille, Mulier Fortis

Our setting is mediaeval France. The year was 1116; the date 25 February. Robert of Arbrissel, hermit, itinerant preacher and founder of the Order of Fontevraud, universally recognized as a holy man, had just died in the priory of Orsan in Berry.1 The archbishop of Bourges and the lay lords of the region, sad to have lost a friend and associate, were nevertheless delighted that God had given them gratis a saint. Immediately they began making arrangements for his burial in the priory church. They had not, however, taken into account the determination of Petronilla de Chemille, abbess of the order, who had given Robert her word that she would do everything in her power to return his body to Fontevraud for burial. It seemed to matter little to Leger, the archbishop, and Allard, lord of Orsan, that they too had given Robert their assurance that they would see to it that his final resting place would be in Fontevraud. God had permitted a saint to die in their territory and they would not allow anybody or anything, not even their promise to a dying man, to prevent them from keeping him there. If God had meant Robert to be buried in Fontevraud, they argued, he would have died at Fontevraud; he had died in Orsan, therefore God must have meant him to be buried there. 2 The lords set their men to guard the body; conflict seemed inevitable. Petronilla was a noblewoman; she could confront the archbishop and the lay lords as their social equal. 3 And she had the added prestige of being the abbess of the order that Robert had founded. At first, with all dignity, she knelt before them and begged them to allow her to take Robert's body to Fontevraud in accordance with his wishes. The men refused. At stake was not merely the honour of having a holy man in their midst to intercede for them; there 1. 2. 3.

These events are described in VAB, §§ 48-68, pp. 285-96. VAB, § 58, p. 292. Petronilla's lineage is discussed below.

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were also financial rewards to be had.4 Pilgrims would come to the shrine; offerings would be made; miracles might occur, all of which would bring prosperity to the region. Petronilla then appealed to reason and justice. She argued that this was a matter of right and wrong and that, if they did not acquiesce, she would have recourse to the Holy See. What is more, if denied justice by Rome, she would fight the case to the very throne of God. No pope, prince or potentate could oppose God's justice, she contended. 5 Her argument convinced the lay lords that this was a religious affair, so they withdrew. They were, stated one of Robert's biographers, afraid of meddling in sacred matters. 6 Not so Archbishop Leger. He was, he told Petronilla, motivated by genuine love of his dear friend; he wanted him buried in Orsan so that when he himself died he could rest at his feet. Petronilla, sensing that in this case neither reason nor justice would prevail, resorted to a course of action familiar in our own times. She and her nuns staged a protest. First, they went on a hunger strike, vowing neither to eat nor drink until the body was delivered to them, and then, barefoot and without overcoats, they processed round and round the priory cloister. After two days, Leger finally relented. His concern for them had moved his heart, he declared. The body of their founder was handed over to them and was taken back to Fontevraud, under escort where, with all due ceremony, it was buried. Petronilla's first public action as abbess of Fontevraud was an indication of the calibre of the woman Robert had put at the head of his order. She had confronted both ecclesiastical and lay authorities on a matter of principle and, holding doggedly to that principle, she had won. I do not intend in this paper to offer explanations for the apparent disloyalty of the men who figure in the episode. I prefer, rather, to focus on Petronilla and to propose that this incident reveals her as a woman of courage and determination, an important figure in twelfth-century religious history, deserving, in fact, of greater attention than has hitherto been given her. Most of our knowledge of Petronilla comes from two lives of Robert of Arbrissel, the founder of the Fontevraud order, which 4. S. Tunc, Apres la mort de Robert d'Arbrissel, Le conflit entre l'abbesse et l'eveque', LMA 98, (1992), p. 382. 5. VAB, § 59, p. 292. 6. VAB, § 59, p. 292.

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were written between 1116 and 1120.7 Her importance in the history of the order can best be judged by a closer examination of the circumstances surrounding the foundation. Robert was an itinerant hermit-preacher whose ministry centred in the West of France, in the area around Anjou, in the second half of the eleventh century. His was not an isolated mission; he was, in fact, part of a much wider religious movement that manifested itself in the Church in the context of the process of renewal and reform that occurred in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. 8 Robert's particular charism was in ministering to women, and, according to one of his biographers, women of every social rank and every description could be found in his following—old, young, rich, poor, virgins, widows, those who spurned men and former prostitutes. 9 While we can definitely detect in this description elements of religious cliche, it 7. Vita B. Roberti de Arbrissello auctore Baldrico episcopo Dolensi, PL, CLXII, cols. 1043-58 (referred to as Vita Prima); Vita Altera B. Roberti de Arbrissello auctore monacho Fontis Ebraudi, PL, CLXII, cols. 1058-78, (referred to as Vita Altera). 8. The reform of the Church is treated in G. Constable, Renewal and Reform in Religious Life: Concepts and Realities', in R.L. Benson and G. Constable (eds.), Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), pp. 42-65. Among the more relevant publications on the eremitical movement are H. Leyser, Hermits and the New Monasticism (London: Macmillan, 1984), passim; J.-M. Bienvenu, 'Pauvrete miseres et charite en Anjou aux Xle et Xlle siecles', LMA 72 (1966), pp. 389-424; 73 (1967), p p . 5-53, 189-216; L. Raison and R. Niderst, Le mouvement eremetique dans l'Ouest de la France a la fin du Xle siecle et au debut du Xlle siecle', Annates de Bretagne 55 (1948), pp. 1-34; J. von Walter, La vie de Robert Arbrissel', trans. J. Cahour, Bulletin de la Commission historique et archeologique de la Mayenne 23 (1907), pp. 262-92, 385-406; G. Constable, Eremitical Forms of Monastic Life', in Instituzione monastiche e instituzioni canonicali in occidente, MCSM 9 (Milan: 1977), pp. 238-64; J. Becquet, L'eremiticisme clerical et laique dans l'Ouest de la France', in L'eremitismo in Occidente nei secoli XI e XII: Miscellanea del centro de studi mediovali iv (Milan: 1962), p p . 182-202; E. Delaruelle, Les ermites et la spiritualite populaire', in L'eremitismo in Occidente nei secoli XI e XII: Miscellanea del centro de studi mediovali iv (Milan: 1962), pp. 212-41; L. Gougaud, 'La vie eremitique au Moyen Age', Revue dAscetique et de Mystique 1 (1920), pp. 209-40, 316-28; D. Iogna-Prat, La femme dans la perspective penitentielle des ermites du Bas-Maine', Rev d'hist spir 53 (1977), pp. 47-64; L. Milis, Ermites et chanoines reguliers au Xlle siecle', CCM 12 (1979), pp. 46-80. 9. VP, § 19, col. 1053, § 22, col. 1055.

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nevertheless serves to illustrate the point that women predominated in the group that followed this man in his wanderings. We are justified in wondering what prompted women to leave home and hearth to follow an unkempt and unconventional preacher, exposing themselves to a rough existence in the countryside. There is no one answer. Social and political conditions in Anjou in the second half of the eleventh century were far from stable; population increase put pressure on the land; new inheritance practices reduced wealth and forced younger members of families into inappropriate marriages or religious life.10 The implementation of the Church laws on concubinage and incest meant that many women, abandoned by their husbands, were faced with either homelessness or returning to the parental home, where they were not always welcome. Calamities and natural disasters inten-sified the difficulties of everyday life, and religion, which might have provided some answer to these social ills, had fallen into disrepute. In describing Brittany at this time, Robert of Arbrissel declared that it was a land where no good could be accomplished, where all ranks of the clergy were guilty of simony, princes were wicked and rapacious and the common people ignorant of God's law.11 On the other hand, women had participated with vigour in the groundswell of religious sentiment that was one of the manifestations of the reform movement, but opportunities for them to express that sentiment in religious life were extremely limited.12 In 10. The situation in Anjou is discussed in J. Dunbabin, France in the Making, 843-1180 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 184-90. See also Bienvenu, Pauvrete', passim, andJ.-M. Bienvenu, L'Etonnant fondateur de Fontevraud, Robert d Arbrissel (Paris: Nouvelles Editions Latines, 1981), pp. 52-57. 11. Sermo Domni Roberti de Arbrussello ad Comitissam Britanniae, in J. de Petigny, 'Lettre inedite de Robert d'Arbrissel a la Comtesse Ermengarde', BEC 5, 3rd ser. (1854), p. 228. 12. For a survey of the problems faced by women wishing to follow a monastic vocation see P.S. Gold, The Lady and the Virgin: Image, Attitude and Experience in Twelfth Century France (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), pp. 81-93; M. Fontette, Les religieuses a I'dge classique du droit canon: Recherches sur les structures juridiques des branches feminines des ordres (Paris: 1967), pp. 9, 10, 13-18, 27-42; B. Bolton, 'Mulieres Sanctae', in Sanctity and Secularity: The Church and the World (ed. D. Baker; Studies in Church History, 10; Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1973), pp. 77-80.

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general they were restricted either to joining conventional Benedictine monasteries or attaching themselves more or less permanently to an already existing male order. Thus, while women flocked to join religious life, as an institution it was ill-prepared to receive them. In the west of France, Benedictine houses were not plentiful. In the whole of Anjou, for instance, at the beginning of the twelfth century, Ronceray was the only monastery for women. 13 Charismatic figures such as Robert, proposing a solution to the prevailing social problems, preaching penance, evangelical living, denouncing the vice they saw all around them and actually ministering to the poor, naturally attracted attention from both the curious and the devout. 14 Those who saw in the preachers' message a way to eternal salvation attached themselves to them and followed them wherever they went. A group numbering hundreds followed Robert of Arbrissel throughout the Angevin countryside. Their life was haphazard; they slept in the open and seemed to be without any discipline other than following the precepts of the master. Soon they aroused the suspicion of the clergy and nobles responsible for law and order.15 Robert's group was disorderly; scandalous stories were being circulated about their behaviour. Furthermore, Robert's personal appearance left a lot to be desired, and his denunciation of vice, especially the vices of the clergy, was viewed as subversion. His followers were accused of depriving the parish clergy of their dues, but even more disquieting were the rumours that he practised a peculiar form of discipline: to prove his mastery over his sexual urges he slept with young women. 16 In a society where 13. Bienvenu, Fondateur, p. 56. 14. Robert's message is best summarized in Sermo Domni Roberti de Arbrussello ad Comitissam Britanniae, pp. 225-35. 15. On numbers see VP, § 20, col. 1054; on behaviour see Marbod of Rennes, Epistola vi (PL, CLXXI, col. 1481). 16. Marbod of Rennes, Epistola vi (PL, CLXXI, cols. 1480-92). The practice of proving one's mastery over the flesh by cohabiting with w o m e n is discussed in L. Gougaud, Mulierum Consortia: Etude sur le syneisaktisme chez les ascetes celtiques', Eriu, the Journal of the School of Irish Learning 9, pt 2 (1923), pp. 147-56, and Iogna-Prat, 'La femme', pp. 57-64. The Celtic influence postulated by Gougaud is feasible given Robert's Breton origins. However, Iogna-Prat shows that most educated clergy of the time were familiar with the conferences of John Cassian, where the practice is also

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orthodoxy was equated with social order and where 'false' hermits and preachers abounded—the false hermit Henry of Lausanne, for example, led the people of Le Mans in an insurrection against the bishop—the criticism expressed in the letter of the archbishop of Rennes can be seen as perfectly legitimate, if not timely.17 Robert may or may not have been guilty of all the charges laid against him in this letter but its fundamental message was clear: in the name of sanity and sanctity he must amend his behaviour, put an end to the lack of discipline among his followers, provide them with stable accommodation and a rule by which they could live. About the same time as all of this was going on, Robert gained public acclaim for his stand at the Council of Poitiers.18 One of the most memorable events associated with this council was the violent interruption of the troops of William IX of Aquitaine demanding that the fathers rescind the ban of excommunication imposed on King Philip II because of his adulterous liaison with Bertrade de Montfort, wife of the count of Anjou. Most of those present fled leaving Robert and his friend Bernard of Tiron to confront and confound the hoodlums. As a consequence, Robert was identified as a staunch opponent of licentious behaviour. He was now under pressure—moral as well as ecclesiastical and civil—to ensure that the conduct of his followers was beyond reproach. So it was that sometime between November 1100 and Easter 1101 Robert accepted a grant of land in a fertile valley called Fontevraud and there laid the foundations for a permanent settlement of both men and women where his ideals of eremitical living could be put into practice. 19 The men lived together in one dwelling known as discussed. See Jean Cassian, Conferences (ed. and trans. E. Pichery; Paris: 1958), II, pp. 219-220. According to Gerard of Wales, St Aldem of Malmesbury slept between two young girls (J.S. Brewer et al. [eds.], Giraldi Cambrensis Opera [8 vols; RS, 21; 1861-91], II, p. 236). 17. See J. Becquet, 'L'eremiticisme et heresie au Moyen Age', in Heresies et societes dans VEurope pre-industrielle Xle-XVIIIe siecles (ed. J. Le Goff; Paris: 1968), pp. 139-45. False hermits are discussed in J. Leclercq, 'Le Poeme de Payen Bolotin contre les faux ermites', Rev Ben 68 (1958), pp. 52-86, and in R.I. Moore, The Origins of European Dissent (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985), pp. 84-86. 18. Vita B. Bernardi Tironiensis Gaufridus Grossus (PL, CLXXII, cols. 1362-446), §48, col. 1396. 19. On the date of the foundation see J.-M. Bienvenu, Aux origines d u n

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The Habit under the patronage of St John the evangelist.20 Women, who clearly outnumbered the men, were grouped around several cloisters. The main cloister was for contemplatives—at least three hundred of them. Other cloisters, under the patronage of St Lazarus and St Mary Magdalene, housed other groups.21 Of the foundation community, Baldric, one of Robert's biographers, paints an idyllic picture. 22 All lived in harmony, never a cross word was spoken, women prayed, men worked, clerics sang the office and all kept silence at prescribed times. Soon, however, cracks appeared in the fragile structure. Arrangements that had suited Robert's initial band of male followers in the Forest of Craon were not necessarily ideal for the large heterogeneous group now settled at Fontevraud. Collective eremitical living was not wholly practicable for such a large group, but then Robert was not the most practical of men. Moreover, Robert's real vocation was to preaching; he had little aptitude for or patience with administration, and he was in no way suited to a stable lifestyle.23 Some of the women complained to Geoffrey, abbot of the monastery of La Trinite of Vendome, that Robert was being unduly harsh with them while being inordinately lenient with others. Geoffrey's letter to Robert addressing these problems suggested that he needed to take steps to remedy them. 24 This probably reinforced for Robert his inability to administer such a large group and convinced him of the need to return to his preaching as soon as possible. However, he had to make a decision about the future of the group; if he was not going to be there to direct it, he needed to appoint some reliable persons to do so. Thus it was that he confided administration to two noblewomen with obvious capabilities. As prioress he appoinordre religieux: Robert d'Arbrissel et la fondation de Fontevraud', Cahiers d'histoire 20 (1975), p. 238. For initial endowment see Peter of Poitiers, Privilegia (PL, CLXII, cols. 1089-90, i) and Diversorum Donationes Piae (PL, CLXII, col. 1104, xix, xx). 20. This title may have been borrowed from dwellings of this name occupied by early Breton hermits. Its derivation is from Old French habiter, to dwell. Raison and Niderst, 'Le mouvement eremetique', p. 5 n. 18. 21. VP, §20, col. 1054. The separate cloisters are named in VAB, § 66, p. 295. 22. VP, § 17 col. 1052; cf. Acts 4.32. 23. VP, § 21 col. 1054. 24. Geoffrey of Vendome, Epistola xlvii (PL, CLVII, cols. 181-84).

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ted Hersende of Montsoreau, whose husband's family had granted the land at Fontevraud; her assistant, officially termed procuratrix, was Petronilla de Chemille.25 At this early stage the community had some rudimentary rule of life, though its form is uncertain. 26 Robert had laid down regulations concerning work, food, speech and clothing, and we know that he expected the community to live by the fruit of their labours.27 They were not to use violence to protect their property.28 Beyond these general principles we are ignorant. The role of the two women was to direct the group in their living of this rule of life but more especially to supervise the extensive building project that had been undertaken to provide accommodation for them, as well as an oratory and other monastic buildings. Robert had not deserted his foundation; he returned from time to time to give them spiritual direction and wherever he preached he founded priories dependent on the mother house and worked to increase the temporal assets of the order. Day-to-day management, however, was in the hands of the prioress and her assistant. Grants of property inevitably meant disputes. As early as 1104 the abbey was involved in a conflict with the monastery of Sainte-Croix at Poitiers over property rights in the woods of Bort and the litigation in this case was but a sign of what was to come. 29 Until c. 1110 Hersende managed these tasks, assisted by Petronilla, but after her death all responsibility devolved to Petronilla, who assumed the role of prioress. She continued as Hersende had done, witnessing documents, receiving grants, making purchases and defending the interests of the order. 30 A change occurred in 1115 when, sensing the end of his life approaching, Robert took steps to establish some structures that would ensure the permanence of the order and secure it in a definite direction.31 25. VP, § 21 col. 1054. 26. VP, § 17, col. 1052; cf. Peter of Poitiers, Privilegia {PL, CLXII, col. 1091, i). 27. VA, § 10, col. 1062; VP, §17, col. 1052. 28. Innocent II, Epistola Ixxviii (PL, CLXXIX, cols. 118, 119). 29. M. Peton, 'Robert d'Arbrissel et la fondation de Font-Evraud', Bulletin de la Societe des lettres, sciences et artes du Saumurois 4 (1913), pp. 62-76. 30. Cf. Bienvenu, Fondateur, p. 103. 31. These events are reported in VA, §§ 3-6, cols. 1059-60.

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His first action was to call all the brothers together and make sure that they wished to remain in the order, obeying the nuns and serving their needs. Next, assured that the m e n and w o m e n w e r e of one accord, he sought advice from the bishops and abbots of the region on the choice of an abbess. His method here was obvious; if he gained their endorsement of his plan for the future of the order, there was less chance of their interfering and enforcing their o w n designs after his death. However, it is equally obvious that in this matter Robert was in a dilemma. His preference was clear; in a manifest departure from precedent he wanted at the head of his order a w o m a n with experience of the world, someone with practical know-how, rather than a virgin whose only experience of life was in the cloister. Yet at the same time he acknowledged that the dignity of the order demanded that a virgin occupy the abbess's throne. The decision was particularly difficult, seeing that Robert was so ardent a supporter of celibacy, and this course of action might have seemed to undermine its value, but he was insistent that he did not want the patrimony of the order to be lost through naivety. Reading between the lines w e can see that he already had Petronilla in mind for the position; it was necessary, however, to convince the prelates and lay lords that this was a wise choice. This he finally managed to do, and, having done so, he built it into the statutes of the order that future abbesses w e r e to b e chosen from among the conversae—that is, w o m e n w h o had joined the order later in life—rather than from the oblatae and nutritae w h o had been in the cloister since their childhood. 3 2 Having established the parameters, it was n o w possible for him to make public his choice of Petronilla, she w h o had borne the privations and labours of the early days and w h o had clearly demonstrated her capacity for administration. Now, he contended, it was time for her to be confirmed in the position of abbess, to enjoy the years of prosperity and consolation as the order e x p a n d e d and flourished. On 28 October 1115 she was installed as abbess, the areas of her authority w e r e defined and Gerard of Angouleme, papal legate, undertook to have her election ratified immediately by Rome. 33 Who was this w o m a n w h o m Robert had elevated to the position 32. VA § 9, cols. 1061, 1062. 33. VABU, p. 267.

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of head of his order? What was her background and how qualified was she to direct an order comprising 18 priories of men and women, an order that had already attracted privileges from the Holy See and generous benefactions from the nobility of Anjou and Poitou? Her lineage was aristocratic. Her family, de Craon, was of ancient Angevin noble stock.34 She was the daughter of Burchard de Craon and his wife Texeline and niece of Renaud le Bourgignon, who had given the land for Robert of Arbrissel's first eremitic foundation at La Roe. Her brother Roland and sister Agnes are mentioned in the martyrology of Fontevraud, the latter having also joined the order. Her cousin Geoffrey, he who played a significant role in the subsequent history of Fontevraud, was abbot of La Trinite of Vendome. By birth, therefore, she was well-connected. Furthermore, she had married Orri le Roux, lord of Chemille, by whom, as far as we can judge, she had two sons, Peter and Alard. She had followed Robert of Arbrissel from the earliest days of his preaching mission—that is, from c. 1098—and it is significant that we are told that she left her father's house to become part of the crowd following the hermit-preacher.35 Are we to infer from this that she had been repudiated by her husband on grounds of consanguinity or for some other reason, or do we follow the seventeenth-century apologists who claim that she was a widow? 36 Answers to these questions are by no means certain. We know nothing of her appearance. The romantic tradition would have us believe that she was beautiful and charming, and perhaps she was, but we do not know. We do know, however, that she was capable and intelligent, otherwise Robert would not have entrusted her with the task of ruling the order. She was well-educated; Robert's biographer, Baldric of Dol, addressed her in Latin. Brother Andrew, telling the story of her election, suggests that she possessed an appropriate measure of self-confidence. On being told of her election she at first demurred, aware of the immensity of the task and of her own weakness. Yet, after entreaty from her friends, 34. G. Menage, Histoire de Sable (Paris, 1683), pp. 114-15; Bienvenu, Fondateur, p. 87. 35. VP, § l,col. 1043. 36. H. Nicquet, Histoire de VOrdre de Font Fvraud contenant la vie et les merveilles de la saintete de Robert d'Arbrissel et I'histoire chronologique des abbesses (Paris, 1642), p. 392.

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she acquiesced to the will of God in obedience to Robert. This story, containing as it does elements of hagiography, nevertheless fits with Petronilla's character. A realist, she would have been aware of the magnitude of the responsibility she was asked to undertake and, despite Robert's assertion that she could now have her share of prosperity and consolation, she would have been able to envisage the difficulties that lay ahead, the problems she would have to face, especially after Robert's death. On the other hand, she had been guiding the order for more than five years and would have gained confidence in her ability. She, better than most, would have known Robert's hopes and dreams for his order; she would no doubt have discussed matters of policy with him and probably advised him on practical details; he would have known her strengths and weaknesses and been familiar with her modus operandi. She, therefore, was ideally qualified to guide the order into the next phase of its existence, and we can be reasonably sure that it was in recognition of these qualifications and neither by constraint nor default that she was chosen and accepted as abbess.37 In the months following her election, Petronilla worked more or less in tandem with Robert, until, in February 1116, she was called to his deathbed. It was here that he expressed the wish to be buried at Fontevraud and asked her to do everything humanly possible to ensure that his wish was granted. No doubt he knew he could rely on her to keep her word. But the end of the story has a curious twist. Robert's body was indeed brought back to Fontevraud but his wishes were not fulfilled to the letter. He was not buried in the mud of the cemetery with the lepers and his coworkers, as he had requested, but with full pomp and ceremony in the abbatial church near the tomb of his friend Peter, former bishop of Poitiers. This has caused some questioning of the extent of Petronilla's loyalty and of her motives in wanting the body at the mother house. How could it be that she who, one week previously, had stood up to both clerical and lay authorities and demanded the body now bowed to their wishes and agreed to have him interred in the church in what was clearly a denial of his request? Unfortu37. The views that Hersende would have been Robert's preferred leader and that Petronilla's family exerted pressure on Robert to make her the abbess are expressed in Bienvenu, Fondateur, p. 132.

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nately nothing is written that would enable us to establish clearly why Petronilla acted as she did, but there is a feasible explanation: Robert had the reputation of being a holy man—indeed this was the reason why Alard of Orsan and Leger of Bourges wanted so desperately to have him buried in their territory. Trade in 'saints' and relics of saints was rife in the Middle Ages; frequently graves were robbed, bodies dismembered. 38 The greater the person's reputation for holiness, the greater the desire to possess all or part of his or her body by fair means or foul. Left unguarded in the cemetery of Fontevraud, a fairly isolated place, Robert's body could easily have fallen prey to those who stood to gain from possession of his relics. Petronilla's decision to inter him in the church was, therefore, probably born more of wisdom than of perfidy. But this is not the sole charge laid against Petronilla in relation to Robert's burial; she has been accused of deliberately attempting to suppress any cult associated with Robert, of failing to circulate a rouleau de mort and of depriving the Fontevraud brothers of any contact with the relics of their founder. These accusations stem from a view of Petronilla that sees her as power-hungry, arrogant and deliberately destructive of Robert's original purpose, a view that is as unwarranted as it is unfair.39 There is, for example, evidence of a private cult being practised at Fontevraud; Robert's name was mentioned in the formula for profession of vows and a prayer in his honour appears in an early fourteenth-century manuscript.40 As for public veneration of Robert, his statutes prescribed that seculars were not permitted to keep vigils in any of the churches of the order. Veneration at his shrine, pilgrimages and vigils would have disrupted the lives of contemplation of the nuns and distracted them from the main purpose of their existence. 38. See P. Geary, Furta Sacra: Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, rev. edn, 1990). 39. See Bienvenu, Fondateur, pp. 158-59; 166-67; J. Dalarun, L'impossible Saintete: La vie retrouvee de Robert d'Arbrissel, fondateur de Fontevraud (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1985), pp. 198-200; idem, Robert dArbrissel, fondateur de Fontevraud (Paris: A. Michel, 1986), pp. 195-200. 40. 'Ego soror...promitto stabilitatem et conversionem morum meorum, obedientiam secundum regulam Sancti Benedicti abbatis, coram Deo et omnibus Sanctis ejus, in hoc loco...ante Sepulchrum domini Roberti patris nostri in praesentia dominae...abbatissae\ Nicquet, Histoire, p. 349. For evidence of later devotion to Robert see CUL MS Ee. vi. 16, fo. 9v, 65v.

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There is a story that the monks of Chaise Dieu pleaded with their Saint Robert to refrain from performing miracles so that they would be left in peace by the pilgrims, and the abbot of Clairvaux bade St Bernard, by virtue of obedience, to cease performing miracles for the same reason.41 Thus it could be out of loyalty to Robert that no public cult was encouraged. The positioning of his tomb, the fact that only those chaplains saying mass would have had access to it, is more difficult to explain—in fact it is impossible to understand why some compromise solution was not adopted at Fontevraud, such as that at Sempringham, where the tomb of St Gilbert was placed in the median wall dividing the two sections of the church. 42 Let us now examine the extent of Petronilla's authority. What did it mean to be the abbess of Fontevraud? A statute bearing the hallmark of Robert's design delineates it carefully: Petronilla, having been chosen by Master Robert and constituted abbess by common consent and the devoted request of the nuns as well as of the brothers, was to have and maintain the power of ruling the order and all the places belonging to the order. All were to obey her and revere her as their spiritual mother, and all the affairs of the order, spiritual as well as temporal were in her hands to be assigned to whomsoever she designated.43 She was, first of all, temporal 'lord' of the entire Fontevraud demesne and exercised dominion over its lands, towns, churches, customs—in a word, over all its property. 41. P.A. Sigal, L'homme et le miracle dans la France medievale (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1985), pp. 223-25. 42. The Book of St Gilbert (eds. R. Foreville and G. Kier; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), pp. 128-31; R. Graham, 'Excavations on the Site of Sempringham Priory', Journal of the British Archaeological Association 5 (1940), p. 91. 43. 'Ut Petronilla electa a magistro Roberto et constituta abbatissa communi voluntate, et devota petitione tarn sanctimonialium quam religiosorum fratrum habeat, obtineatque potestatem regendi ecclesiam Fontis Ebraldi, et omnium locorum eidem ecclesiae pertinentium, et obediant ei; venerentur earn ut suam matrem spiritualem, in eiusque prudentia omnia ecclesiae negotia tarn spiritualia quam saecularia permaneant, aut quibuscunque attribuerit, et prout constituent' (PL, CLXII, cols. 1083-84, [5]). This section of the statutes is considered to be a fragment of Robert's rule. J. von Walter, Die ersten Wanderprediger, p. 77. I am indebted to Miss R. Hiley for having translated this section of von Walter's work.

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She possessed the powers of a lay lord, controlling the lives of her vassals, giving them permission to marry, take orders or join religious life. But this was only part of the picture. Her temporal lordship was a consequence of her spiritual authority. Over her religious subjects an abbess had the same powers as any abbot, and since Fontevraud was exempt from episcopal jurisdiction, Petronilla was subject to no other authority than the pope. From the statutes of the order we can deduce that she supervised observance, admitted new recruits, controlled contacts with the outside world, guarded the integrity of the cloister and presided over the administration of the sacraments. 44 She similarly supervised entrance to and exit from the brothers' convent, received new members and gave permission for rebellious brothers to be readmitted after suitable penance had been performed.45 She may, in her capacity as abbess, have veiled her nuns; she may have given abbatial blessings; she may even have heard the confessions of the nuns. 46 The exact extent of the powers of an abbess at this time are by no means certainly known, and there is little direct evidence on which to base any conclusions other than the certainty that Petronilla's position was one of absolute control over the entire order, all its houses, all its members and all its properties. All authority was vested in her, men and women were subject to her. For the order to function as a juridical entity it could not have been otherwise. As well as consolidating her authority over the 18 or more priories founded during Robert's lifetime, one of Petronilla's primary duties was to have the statutes of the order approved by Rome.47 Robert had, as we know, formulated some basic precepts at the time of the foundation and by the time of Petronilla's appointment there was at Fontevraud a body of statutory material, a fragment of

44. Regulae Sanctimonialium Fontis Ebraldi, §§ XIX, XXI, XXII, XXIV, XXIX, XXXIII (PL, CLXXII, cols. 1079-82). 45. Praecepta Recte Vivendi, §§ I, II, VII, VIII, XVII, XIX, XXI, XXIV, XXV {PL, CLXXII, cols. 1081-84). 46. The authority of a twelfth-century abbess is discussed in S. Tunc, L'autorite d'une abbesse de Fontevraud au XVIIe siecle: Gabrielle de Rochechouart de Mortemart 1760-1704', RHE 87 (1992), pp. 75-76. 47. VP, § 17, col. 1052.

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which is printed in Migne's Patrologia Latina.48 However, it was necessary to codify and modify these so that they would suit the new phase of the order's existence and, since mediaeval law tended to be normative rather than prescriptive, we can assume that the statutes approved in 1119—also printed in Migne— reflected the lived experience of the order in the years following Robert's death. 49 While in the opinion of some writers the changes constitute a betrayal of Robert's ideal for his order, they can quite legitimately be interpreted as fidelity to his spirit, an attempt to translate into practical terms the legacy of the founder. Most of the precepts that appear in the surviving fragment of Robert's original rule are to be found in the 1119 version, and there appears to be a good reason for any modifications or omissions that have been made. It is important to remember, however, that the fundamental rule for a Fontevraud nun was the rule of St Benedict. The statutes simply clarify this rule, making explicit how it was to be lived according to the Fontevraud interpretation. Any examination of the statutes, therefore, needs to be done in association with the Benedictine rule. St Benedict, for example, forbade his followers to eat the flesh of quadrupeds, exempting only those who were ill from the prescription; Robert of Arbrisssel originally imposed on his followers total abstinence from meat, no matter what the circumstances.50 The fact that this precept does not appear in the 1119 version of the Fontevraud statutes is not, however, an indication that the order abandoned its penitential practices. 51 It simply suggests that the more humane prescriptions of the Benedictine rule had been implemented. Another area which the 1119 statutes made explicit, no doubt under Petronilla's guidance, was contact between the two sexes.52 48. PL, CLXII, cols. 1083-85; VA, § 10, col. 1062. 49- PL, CLXII, cols. 1079-84. 50. RB, pp. xxxvi, xxxix, 90, 96. 51. § 4 (PL, CLXXII, col. 1083). 52. On mixed orders and the terminology applicable to them see M. Bateson, The Origin and Early History of Double Monasteries', Transactions of the Royal Historical Society NS 13 (1889), pp. 137-98; E. de Moreau, 'Les monasteres doubles—leur histoire surtout en Belgique', Nouvelle Revue Theologique 56 (1939), pp. 787-829; and Gold, The Lady and the Virgin, p. 89.

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Given the sensitivity of the Church to situations in which men and women lived in close proximity, it is not surprising that for papal approval to be granted, there needed to be an unequivocal statement on how separation was to be effected. Thus the statutes prescribed that no priest was to enter the choir alone at any hour of the day or night, that the door of the choir was never to be opened while mass was being celebrated and that while receiving communion the nuns were to be watched over by the abbess, the cellarist or someone in authority.53 The liturgical functions of the priests were stipulated in detail and the limits of nuns' participation in such ceremonies as processions strictly defined. The sick were to be brought to the church for viaticum and anointing and the nuns, having said prayers for the dead, were to retire to the cloister and not attend the burial of their sisters.54 Comparison between the Fontevraud statutes and those of the Gilbertines or those written by Abelard for the Paraclete community show a high level of similarity.55 Viewed in context they appear to be practical, logical and just and certainly do not betray a desire to demean or humiliate the men of the order, or, as one modern writer terms it, to be a proximity anxiety.56 They indicate, rather, a development of the life of the order and a fidelity to the inspiration of the founder. Approved by Callixtus II in 1119, on the occasion of the dedication of the abbatial church, they embodied the spirit that animated the order in the early years of Petronilla's abbacy. The men of Fontevraud were probably Augustinian canons, as was Robert himself.57 The statutes that detailed their particular way 53. Regulae Sanctimonialium Fontis Ebraldi, §§ XXXIII, XXXV. 54. Regulae Sanctimonialium Fontis Ebraldi, §§ XXXVI-XLI. 55. In 1139 nuns and brothers were forbidden by canon law to sing office in the same choir: Lateran II, Canon xxvii in Sacrorum Conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio (ed. J.D. Mansi; reprinted in 53 vols.; Paris: 1901-27), xx, p. 526 (xxvii). The Book of St Gilbert, pp. 46, 47; Abelard, Epistola viii (PL, CLXXVIII, col. 276). 56. L. Simmons, The Abbey Church at Fontevraud in the Late Twelfth Century: Anxiety, Authority and Architecture in the Female Spiritual Life', Gesta 3 1 2 (1992), pp. 99-107. 57. Bienvenu, Fondateur, pp. 46-47. This explains why, in certain matters, the provisions in the men's rule are more explicit than those in the women's. The canons regular are discussed in C. Dereine 'Vie commune, regie de saint Augustine et chanoines reguliers au Xle siecle', REE 41 pp. 365-406.

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of life—Praecepta Recte Vivendi—needed to treat matters that for the women were regulated by the rule of St Benedict. 58 Their statutes thus make clear the extent of the abbess's authority and the treatment of recalcitrant or rebellious brothers. Some writers have read into these statutes indications of a servility and subservience that do not seem to be justified.59 That the brothers promised absolute obedience to the abbess is clear; so did the nuns. That they depended on the abbess or her representatives for everything they needed is clear; this is a normal state of affairs in any religious order. If the Fontevraud brothers had to bring their leftover food to the nuns for distribution to the poor at the monastery gate, it was not necessarily to reinforce their dependence on the nuns or to cause them humiliation. In all likelihood it was because The Habit, the brothers' monastery, was located in an area of the precinct geographically removed from the main buildings and hence from the main gate. The first few years of life under Petronilla's rule would nevertheless have involved major readjustments for the men of the order, and for some of them these would have been difficult, if not insupportable. 60 The men had identified with Robert and his mission of preaching in a way that was very different from the way the women did. They had seen themselves as 'the men of the master'; he had referred to them as 'my sons begotten in the Gospel'. 61 Theirs was a relationship that could not be replaced by one with a woman, no matter how competent she was. Many of them who had travelled with him on his missions were ill-prepared for a life of stability in one monastery. Robert's biographer, Andrew, recounts a rather sad anecdote of the brothers coming to Robert on the eve of his death to ask what was to become of them. 62 They had, it appears, just realized the implications of living in the order without their master's presence. His reply was that if he had left it until this juncture to explain their role in the order he had indeed 58. §§ 5, 6 {PL, CLXXII, col. 1083). 59. Bienvenu, Fondateur, p. 96; Dalarun, Saintete, pp. 192-96. 60. VAB, § 48, p. 288, refers to Robert's centralization of the order. Petronilla, however, would have had to have worked to impose her own authority after his death. 61. Marbod, Epistola vi (PL, CLXXI, col. 1485); VA, § 3, cols. 1058, 105962. VAB, § 51, p. 289.

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left it rather late. Then he reiterated his advice to obey the nuns and serve them for the salvation of their souls. Previously, aware that some of the men were not likely to be able to cope under the new scheme of things, he had offered to arrange a transfer to another order for anyone who wished. 63 At that stage, almost to a man, they had determined to stay. After the founder's death, however, some of the men apparently chose to take advantage of his offer. Some went to other monasteries; some simply deserted. Several papal injunctions attest to the problem of Fontevraud brothers living outside the jurisdiction of their abbess and instructed monasteries to command them to return to the priories of the order.64 But this phenomenon was not confined to Fontevraud, as the correspondence of Peter the Venerable and St Bernard illustrates; desertion or transfer from one monastery to another seems to have been a common occurrence in the Middle Ages.65 Critics have interpreted the problems experienced by the brothers of Fontevraud as signs that they resented their subjection to and humiliation by the nuns. 66 This need not, however, necessarily be the case. First, there is no evidence that the obedience of the Fontevraud brothers was any different from normal monastic obedience. Secondly, the revolt of the lay brothers of Sempringham in 1165 illustrates that it was not necessarily female authority that brothers found difficult to bear.67 At this point it might be appropriate to examine the structure of the order over which Petronilla presided. In the first place, Fontevraud was a women's order. Robert was unequivocal on this point; the terms used in deeds of gift or sale to the abbey make it clear that contemporaries saw it that way and papal pronouncements indicate that in the eyes of the Church this was so. 68 This 63. VA, § 3, col. 1059. 64. Gelasius II, Epistola xxii (PL, CLXIII, col. 504); Honorius II, Epistola xlix (PL, CLXVI, col. 1268); Eugenius III, Epistola ccclxiv (PL, CLXXX, col. 1400). 65. A. Dimier, 'Saint Bernard et le droit en matiere de transitu', RM 43 (1953), pp. 48-82; Peter the Venerable, Epistola xvi, in The Letters of Peter the Venerable, I, pp. 78-79; The Book of St Gilbert, pp. 76-85, 116-19, 343-49. 66. E.g. Fontette, Les religieuses, p. 78. 67. D. Knowles, 'The Revolt of the Lay Brothers at Sempringham', EHR 1 (1935), pp. 465-87. 68. '...quidquid in mundo aedificavi ad opus sanctimonialium nostrarum

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order, however, had incorporated into its structure a group of brothers and priests whose specific duty was to serve the needs of the nuns. They had no part in the executive structure of the order and their incorporation into it illustrates the plan of Robert, and no doubt that of the women whose advice he took, to provide a unique solution to the problem of the cura monialium—the care of nuns—that beset the mediaeval Church. 69 Nuns, because they could neither say mass nor administer the sacraments, needed the spiritual services of priests and needed to ensure that these could be provided on a permanent basis. Furthermore women needed material assistance. Enclosure meant that they had to rely on someone else to look after their interests in the market place or the courts; it also meant that they needed to make some provision for the labours that were traditionally performed by lay brothers in men's orders. Benedictine nunneries traditionally maintained a staff of chaplains and brothers, but these were never an integral part of the order. In this lay the difference of Fontevraud: priests and brothers in this order were integrated into its very structure. At their profession they promised poverty, chastity and obedience to the abbess. The relationship of the men to the women was to mirror that of St John, who obeyed and served the Virgin Mary after the ascension of Jesus.70 And, according to this same model, Robert expected the nuns to work in cooperation with the brothers. On his deathbed he instructed them not to undertake anything new without first consulting them. 71 In general, it is true, the social feci eisque potestatem omnem factultatum mearum praebui' (VA, § 5, col. 1059); Paschal II, Epistolae civ, cdxcii (PL, CLXIII, cols. 164, 419); Callistus II, Epistola xxxii (PL, clxiii, col. 1121); Innocent II, Epistola xxv (PL, CLXXIX, col. 72); Peter of Poitiers, Privilegia (PL, CLXII, col. 1090, i); Diversorum Donationes Piae (PL, CLXII, col. 1097, iv, v, v; 1103, xviii). For a discussion of the evidence from charters of donation see Gold, The Lady and the Virgin, pp. 104-107. 69- The problems associated with the cura monialium are discussed in Gold, The Lady and the Virgin, pp. 76-93. In the twelfth century, association of men and women in religious life was probably more common than has hitherto been acknowledged. See S. Thompson, Women Religious, the Founding of English Nunneries after the Norman Conquest (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), p. 113. 70. VA, § 11, col. 1063. Seejn 19. 22-27. 71. 'Aussy sy voulez faire quelque chose de nouveau, ne faictes jammais

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status of the men was lower than that of the women but the fact that their role was to serve the nuns pastorally, liturgically and practically does not mean that they were nothing more than glorified domestics, treated as slaves by the high-born women. 72 Nor are we justified in concluding that the men were assigned a position of humiliation for reasons that reflect the ascetic practices of the founder. 73 The order was founded on the principle of reciprocity; the needs of the nuns were provided for by brothers in an order designed for the women and directed by the women. The women were manifestly in charge of their own destiny and not reliant on the good will of men's orders, as, for example, were the Cistercian nuns, or under male control as were the Gilbertines.74 Nevertheless, the process of consolidating control during the first years of her abbacy cannot have been easy for Petronilla. She had, for example, to contend with the consequences of Robert's lack of practicality. The order was involved in several cases of litigation, many of them stemming from Robert's failure to obtain written confirmation of grants of property to the abbey. 75 One classic example, the dispute with the abbey of La Couronne over the priory of Agudelle, lasted more than 30 years and must have been a drain on resources both economic and personal. 76 The prime cause of this dispute was Robert's failure to have properly recorded the terms of the initial grant. Petronilla's handling of this case and others like it show her as a capable woman, well-organrien sans le conseil de voz freres et religieux' (VAB, § 52, p. 290). One critic casts doubt on the significance of this action, arguing that new ventures would be rare. Tunc, 'Apres la mort de Robert d'Arbrissel', p. 383 n. 6. It would seem, rather, that Robert is counselling a spirit of continual cooperation that he hoped would characterize the relationship between the sexes. 72. This is proposed in Dalarun, Robert ofArbrissel, p. 191. 73. See J.-M. Bienvenu, Les deux vitae de Robert d'Arbrissel', in La litterature angevine medievale: actes du Colloque du samedi 22 mars, 1980 (Maulevrier: Herault, 1981), p. 76, and idem, Fondateur, p. 96. 74. See Gold, The Lady and the Virgin, pp. 76-93, 111-12, and Fontette, Les religieuses, pp. 13-18, 27-42; The Book of St Gilbert, pp. 68-71, 86-89. 75. See M.T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England 10661307 (London: Edward Arnold, 1979), pp. 21-28. 76. R.I. Moore, 'Reconstruction of the Cartulary of Fontevrault', BIHR 41 (1968), p. 94, and de la Martiniere, 'Une falsification de document au commencement du Xlle siecle', LMA 2nd ser. 15(1911), pp. 1-45.

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ized, one who employed competent staff and who ultimately was able to impose some method on the administrative confusion that was part of Robert's legacy to his order.77 Another matter requiring political acumen and the skill of a tightrope walker was the fact that, because the abbey was in the territory of the dukes of Anjou, it inevitably became involved in the dispute in England between King Stephen and Empress Matilda, wife of Geoffrey of Anjou. Grants to the abbey by Henry I were confirmed by Stephen and then, as fortunes changed, later by Matilda, thus illustrating the careful path Petronilla had to tread.78 Furthermore, battles in Normandy between Geoffrey of Anjou and Stephen's supporter, Waleran Beaumont, had their impact on the order.79 One priory was probably destroyed and lands and possessions were devastated. Relations with the hierarchy were not always as amicable as they had been in the early days when Peter, bishop of Poitiers, had been one of the order's most staunch supporters and Gerard of Angouleme, the papal legate, had hastened to comply with Robert's request for ratification of Petronilla's election. Very early in its history, Robert obtained the special protection of the papacy for his foundation.80 By 1113 Fontevraud was paying Rome an annual census of two shillings, thus denoting its subjection to papal rather than episcopal jurisdiction.81 Throughout the twelfth century, the papacy, traditionally averse to allowing orders of women too great a degree of control over their own lives, extended the privileges granted by popes Paschal and Callixtus, culminating in 1244 with the decree of Innocent IV that the order was directly reliant on the Holy See nullo mediante?2 11. Moore, 'Reconstruction', pp. 94-95. 78. Calendar of Documents Preserved in France Illustrative of the History of Great Britain and Ireland. I. A.D. 918-1206 (ed. J.H. Round; London, 1899), pp. 1052, 1055, 1056, 1459, 1460. 79. J-M Bienvenu, 'L'Ordre de Fontevraud et la Normandie au Xlle siecle', Annates de Normandie 35 (1985), p. 10. 80. '... sanctimonialium congregationem et locum ipsum apostolicae auctoritatis privilegio muniremus'. Paschal II, Epistola civ {PL, CLXIII, col. 164). 81. Paschal II, Epistola cccxxxix (PL, CLXIII, col. 296); see also P. Fabre and L. Duchesne (eds.), Le Liber Censuum de VEglise Romaine (2 vols.; Paris: 1889-1910), I, p. 205. 82. Bibliotheque de la ville d'Angers, MS Molinier 880, fo. 52; E. Berger

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Even so there were disputes with the hierarchy, one of the most celebrated being that between Ulger, bishop of Angers, and Petronilla.83 It was Petronilla's loyalty to the order and her determination to protect its property—not for herself but for God and the Blessed Virgin, as is testified by the grants to the order—that lay behind the conflict with Ulger. Previously a friend and supporter of Fontevraud, Ulger c. 1140 risked the full force of papal injunctions against those who harmed the property of the abbey by interfering with its exclusive rights on the Ponts-de-Ce, the bridges over the Loire.84 Petronilla retaliated through her agent Basset of Chalonnes but Ulger's men ill-treated the agent, carried off his goods and burned his house. At this juncture the dispute may possibly have been contained, but Petronilla, obviously infuriated, referred the matter to the Holy See as protector of the order and refused to submit to any process of conciliation. Ulger, not content with injury, now turned to insult, trying to establish a rival monastery to Fontevraud right at its very doorstep. By now the quarrel was in the public domain and St Bernard felt it his duty to intervene, begging the bishop to be reconciled.85 Ulger refused, however, and he too went to Rome to plead his cause but instead was suspended

(ed.), Les Registers d'Innocent IV(4 vols.; Paris, 1884), I, p. 498. The steps by which papal privilege was extended can be traced in a plea made to the Holy See on the eve of the French Revolution by the last abbess of Fontevraud, Julie-Sophie Gilette de Pardaillan d'Antin, abbess 1765-92 (Bibliotheque de la ville d'Angers, MS Molinier 880, fo. 48-57). Some of these bulls are printed: Callistus II, Epistola xxxii (PL, CLXIII, col. 1121); Honorius II, Epistola xlix (PL, CLXVI, col. 1268); Innocent II, Epistola xxv (PL, CLXXIX, col. 72); idem, Epistola Ixxiv (PL, CLXXIX, col. 116). For further information on exemption: D. Knowles, The Growth of Exemption', The Downside Review 1 (1932), pp. 201-31, 396-436; J.-F. Lemarignier, Etude sur les privileges d'exemption et de juridiction ecclesiastique des abbayes normandes depuis les origines jusqu'en 1140 (Paris: 1937), pp. 180, 205, 218, 219, and H.E.J. Cowdrey, The Cluniacs and the Gregorian Reform (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), pp. 2232. 83. J-M. Bienvenu, 'Le conflit entre Ulger, eveque d'Angers et Petronille de Chemille, abesse de Fontevrault (vers 1140-1149)', RM 48 (1975), pp. 113-32. 84. For papal protection of Fontevraud possessions see Paschal II, Epistolae civ, cccxxxix (PL, CLXIII, cols. 164-65, 296-97); Innocent II, Epistolae xxv, Ixxviii (PL, CLXXIX, cols. 74, 118-19). 85. Bernard of Clairvaux, Epistola cc (PL, CLXXXII, col. 367-68).

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from office.86 The affair dragged on. St Bernard intervened again, but it was not until 1145 that a new pope managed to bring the two parties together to effect a reconciliation. An accord was finally reached, the mutual rights of each party were recognized and ultimately Basset received recompense for the wrongs he had suffered. Neither Ulger nor Petronilla was without fault in this incident. Ulger was meddlesome and belligerent; Petronilla stubborn and intransigent.87 Yet in this episode at the end of her life we see Petronilla acting with the same dedication to principle that she had displayed in the conflict over Robert's body. She knew the rights of the situation and she knew that those who harmed the order or interfered with its rights were subject to severe disciplinary measures from Rome. 88 Ulger must have been aware of this too; the papacy had made it clear in various letters. He must have known what he was risking and perhaps he too reckoned without the determination of the abbess. Petronilla, on the other hand, was defending the interests of her order. The very livelihood of the abbey had been threatened and had she failed in this instance it might have opened the way for erosion of the order's patrimony. This she could not have risked. Towards the end of her life, then, we see Petronilla once more vindicating the wisdom of Robert's choice of her as abbess. He had insisted that the abbess of Fontevraud be a person who was aware of the ways of the world, one who would protect and defend the material wealth of the order. Protect and defend it she did—persistently and stubbornly perhaps—but against all adversaries. At some point during the reign of Innocent II, Petronilla uncharacteristically sought to resign from her office. We do not know the background to the request, but from what we know of her character and her general attitude to duty we can infer that it was not the result of a whim. She may have been exhausted; she may have been ill; obviously the pressures of leading the order seemed at that point beyond her capacity to endure. Pope Innocent II, however, refused permission and bade her by virtue of obedience to

86. Innocent II, Epistola dlxxvi, (PL, CLXXIX, col. 634). 87. Lucius II, Epistola Ixxix (PL, CLXXIX, col. 924). 88. See above, n. 84.

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continue to guide her flock in both spiritual and temporal affairs.89 How has history judged Petronilla? The two vitae of Robert are largely hagiographic and it is difficult to separate fact from pious convention. Some interpreters claim that Baldric disapproved of Petronilla, especially in view of her having been married, and that he was deliberately reticent on her account. 90 Andrew, on the other hand, provided the details of her election and of her confrontation with the authorities over Robert's body. Yet in general he took the role of an observer and refrained from making comment on her character. At one stage in the biography he declared that there were several things he could have said but that he had refrained for fear of being thought a flatterer.91 From neither of these two can we obtain the information that would make us privy to Petronilla's motivations and desires. Sixteenth-century writers do little more than use stock phrases to describe her abbacy, and it was not until the twentieth century that some interpretations of Petronilla and her role in the story of Fontevraud were presented. These are characterized by a certain polarity. Writers imbued with the romantic spirit, such as Reto Bezzola and Regine Pernoud present her as a grand lady in the chivalric style, famed for her beauty and intelligence;92 others, in particular Jean-Marc Bienvenu and Jacques Dalarun, portray her as villainous, power-hungry and deliberately destructive of the Fontevraud ideal.93 It is, I believe, important to view Petronilla in her own social and religious context and to avoid imposing a priori constructions belonging to another age. She was a product of her time, an aristocratic woman conscious of her dignity and her social position. Had she wished, she could have been a religious in one of the grand 89. '...dilectionem tuam monemus, et per obedientiam imperamus ut gregem tibi commissum nulla ratione relinquas, sed potius more soli to sorores tuas temporaliter et spiritualiter studeas procurare... ' (Innocent II, Epistola ccliv [PL, CLXXIX, col. 304]). 90. Bienvenu, 'Les deux vitae\ pp. 68-71, particularly p. 70. 91. VA, §8, col. 1061. 92. R. Bezzola, Les origines et la formation de la litterature courtoise en Occident (Paris: Champion, I960), II, pp. 275-92; R. Pernoud, La femme au temps des cathedrales (Paris: Stock, 1984), pp. 129-69. 93. Bienvenu, Fondateur, pp. 158-59; 166-67; Dalarun, Saintete, pp. 198200; idem, Robert d'Arbrissel, fondateur de Fontevraud (Paris: 1986), pp. 195-200.

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abbeys, such as Ronceray. She chose, however, to follow Robert of Arbrissel when Fontevraud was simply an experiment. What motivated her choice we do not know. We do know that she was sufficiently courageous to follow Robert in his wanderings and sufficiently capable to have been chosen by him for positions of authority within his order. What were her achievements? Under her leadership the order expanded. Between 1115 and 1150 about 70 new priories were founded in France, 4 in Spain and foundations in England were possibly already being negotiated. At least one General Chapter was held before her death and there may have been others. 94 She guided the order through a difficult period of adjustment after the death of the founder and left it in a strong position numerically— by one estimate between four and five thousand members. 95 The lasting tribute to Petronilla is the abbatial church of Fontevraud with its domed nave and chapels radiating from the chevet. Built under her authority, it stands today as a tribute to a woman of vision and enterprise. Undoubtedly during her abbacy she made some mistakes and errors of judgment. However, for a period of 35 years she guarded the patrimony of the order and supervised its expansion. It was this, after all, that Robert had asked of her in making her abbess.

94. R. Niderst, Robert d'Arbrissel et les origines de Vordre de Fontevrault (Rodez: G. Subervie, 1952), p. 84. Cf. de la Martinere, 'Une falsification', p. 41. 95. Suger of St Denis, Epistola Ixxxviii, (PL, CLXXXVI, cols. 1392-93).

LAKSHMI HOLMSTROM

Rebellious Women: Images of Women in the Protest Literature of Tamil Christian Dalits

The former Untouchables have been variously known as Scheduled Castes (from the Government of India Act of 1930, in which Untouchables from several parts of India were listed in a separate schedule), Harijans (a name coined by Gandhi meaning 'people of God') and sometimes as Adi-Dravidas (the ancient people of Tamil Nadu, the first Dravidians). More recently they have chosen to be called Dalit, the oppressed. Under the Indian Constitution of 1950, Untouchability is declared illegal, its practice in any form punishable by law. Further, positive discrimination is offered to a large section of the total population, known collectively as 'Backward Classes', a term that includes Scheduled Castes and Tribes. In spite of the legislation, however, they have continued to be controlled by the dominant caste in many villages, and have lived and worshipped separately, still attached to caste-linked functions, such as drumming, leather working, laundering and serving as agricultural labourers. Similarly, they have suffered from discrimination and lack of equal opportunities in many areas, such as employment and education, despite the policy of reserved places in Tamil Nadu and other states. The English word 'caste' roughly corresponds to the Hindi jati, borrowed into Tamil and used along with kulam and kudi to mean an endogamous hereditary social group, sometimes linked to a traditional occupation, and related to other groups in terms of ritual nearness and distance. The classical Sanskrit texts refer to an ideal varna system, or the fourfold division of society into Brahman or priest, Kshatriya or prince and warrior, Vaisya or tradesman and Shudra or artisan. In practice, however, it is difficult to see such a clear pattern in the complex interrelationships of caste, particularly in the south of India. It might be easier to follow Andre Beteille, who points to three caste categories in the traditional agrarian economy of the Tanjore district of Tamil Nadu: Brahmans

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(landowners); Non-Brahmans (cultivating tenants); and the AdiDravidas or lowest castes, including Untouchables (agricultural labourers, often in hereditary contractual relationships to the upper castes).1 In other villages, Brahmans might be replaced by another dominant land-owning caste, such as Mudaliars or Gounders. The word dalit is from Marathi, meaning oppressed; it is the name that the former Untouchables of Maharashtra preferred to what struck them as the more patronizing name Gandhi gave them, 'Harijan', the people of God. The Dalit movement has had a long history in Maharashtra in particular, the state of Dr Ambedkar, the great Dalit leader (1891-1956). Dalit writing from Marathi has become particularly well known throughout India since 1972, when a new wave of Dalit uprising took place with the organization of the Dalit Panthers, a gathering of the ex-Untouchable youth of Maharashtra, with their manifesto calling for 'a tidal wave of revolution' and proclaiming their alliance with all oppressed and exploited peoples. Namdeo Dhasal and Raja Dhale, who founded the Dalit Panthers, were both poets. The anti-Brahman Dravidian movement in Tamil Nadu has a different history, going back to the nineteenth century, and its great anti-caste, anti-religious, rationalist exponent was E.V. Ramaswamy Naicker (1878-1973), popularly known as Periyaar, Great Elder. Periyaar was outspoken against both caste and the oppression of women. Unfortunately, the two political parties developing out of Periyaar's Self Respect movement, that is Dravida Kazhagam and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, became more and more anti-Brahman only rather than anti-caste, and they certainly lost Periyaar's sharp critique of discriminatory practices against women. The modern Tamil critic A. Marx points to one main 'Untouchable' writer who protested vigorously against Brahman oppression in the late nineteenth century, Ayoti Das. It is only in recent decades that non-Brahmin writers have come into prominence, and very recently indeed, only in the past decade, that self-consciously styled 'Dalit writing' has been seen in Tamil. The novels of K. Daniel, who wrote in the 1980s have been reissued; Raj Gautaman's Dalit Panpaadu (Dalit culture) and Dalit Paarvaiyil 1. Andre Beteille, Cast, Class and Power: Changing Patterns of Stratification in a Jangore Village (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965), p. 61.

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Tamil Panpaadu (Tamil culture from the Dalit perspective), Baama's and Vidivelli's autobiographies and Imayam's novel Koveri Kazhudaigal have all appeared since 1990.2 A good deal of this writing is patently influenced by the Marathi poets and writers, themselves influenced by Black American writing (the very name Dalit Panthers signals towards the Black Panthers and such writers as Angela Davis and LeRoy Jones). But the creative writing has gone hand in hand with political activism and with critical and ideological underpinning. Such events as the furore throughout India following the Mandal Commission report (submitted in 1980 but discussed nearly ten years later), which recommended more reserved places for the so-called Other Backward Castes in Government Services, spurred on the Tamil Dalits, as did the Ambedkar centenary of 1994. Conceptually, the notion of 'Hindutva', which has gained currency in India since 1990 or so, and which assumes a seamless Hinduism to which all Indians other than Muslims, Christians and Sikhs conform, has called out a Dalit critique. And along with this, there has been a reassessment of Periyaar's work and its relevance today. However, it is worth noting that the gender issue has not always been seen in parallel with the caste issue. It is also perhaps significant that there are fewer numbers of women poets and writers among even Marathi Dalits, compared with men. Gail Omvedt (1994) points this out in her article in the special edition of the Tamil journal Nirappirikai dedicated to Dalit literature. And an overview of modern Tamil Dalit literature by A. Marx mentions only two Tamil women, Baama and Sivakaami.3 In this paper I want to look at two autobiographies, Karukku and Kalakkal, and place them both against each other and against the fictional portrait of an older woman, 'Arokkyam', of Imayam's Koveru Kazhudaigal, in order to draw out the nature of their 2. Raj Gautaman, Dalit Panpaadu (Dalit Culture) (Pudavai: Gauri Padipakam, 1993); idem, Dalit Paarvaiyil Tamil Panpaadu (Tamil Culture from the Dalit Perspective) (Pudavai: Gauri Padipakam, 1994); Baama, Karukku (Blades) (Madurai: Ideas, 1992); Vidivelli, Kalakkal (Turmoil) (Madurai: Ideas, 1994); Imayam, Koveru Kazhudaigal (Mules) (Madras: Cre-A, 1994). 3. A. Marx, Tamil Dalit eluttaalarkal' (Dalit writers in Tamil), Nirappirikai (Pondicherry), spec, edn (Nov. 1994), pp. 107-10.

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experience and protest as Dalit women in the context of the rapid economic and social change of modern India. It is of specific interest that all three are Catholic Christians, but there are important differences in age, education, economic and social position between them, and above all in their relationship towards and protest within Catholicism. I begin with a man's picture of a woman and a mother. Koveru Kazhudaigal was published in July 1994. It is the first novel of Imayam, a young man and a school teacher in South Arcot district, near Madras. The title means 'mules', but carries the sense here of 'beasts of burden'. It has a particular significance because the story is that of a Vannaan (Washerman) family, who traditionally carry their bundles of washing on mules. The 'mules' of the title, though, refers ironically to the Vannaan and Vannaati themselves. The story is that of decline and change in the village seen through the perspective of the Vannaati, Arokkyam, who serves a Dalit community of Parayas (agricultural labourers attached individually as bonded labourers to Gounder families). This is a time when ritual status and payment in kind (murai wcv&padi in Tamil) are giving way to a contract based solely on cash wages. Arokkyam's own children rebel against both the old order and the new. The novel is probably set in the early 1970s, and the details of social organization that it gives us are very similar to the village of Endavur described by Moffatt.4 I need to emphasize that Arokkyam and her husband Savuri serve only the Paraya streets, always known as 'the colony', which also has its own lower caste priest; a separate washerman serves the upper caste village or uur. As Moffatt points out, the Harijan or Dalit washerman is not even allowed into the houses of the Dalits whom he serves, and who pay for that service partly in cooked rice and leftovers every evening, and also in grain, foodstuffs, clothes and so on at other fixed times of the year.5 The Dalit Vannaan and Vannaati, besides doing the personal and household washing for the families they serve every day, also traditionally do all the mending; they must also do the winnowing of grain for the colony families at harvest time, since the colony families must do this for 4. Michael Moffat, An Untouchable Community in South India: Structure and Consensus (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979). 5. Moffat, Untouchable, pp. 131-40.

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their Gounder masters. The Vannaan and Vannaati also perform other ritual services for the colony dwellers. The Vannaati is the midwife and provides clean clothes for girls' coming-of-age ceremonies. The Vannaan and Vannaati decorate the marriage pavilion (pandal) make and decorate the funeral bier; the Vannaan acts as funeral priest, leading the chief mourner in the funeral procession, then following the chief mourner in three circumambulations of the body at the funeral grounds, making holes in the water-filled mud pot that the chief mourner carries over his shoulder and, finally, outlining the symbolic funeral pyre on the ground. In all of this, Arokkyam and Savuri are very similar to the Vannaans in Moffatt, but there is one striking difference. Although they officiate in all Hindu rites of passage, they themselves are Catholics. This mainly means (besides personal devotion to Christ and to St Anthony) going to the Church of St Anthony as and when they can, particularly on feast days. As the church is some distance from the village, and their services in the village are needed constantly, it is not often that they can find time to attend. Most importantly, they defer to the authority of the priest there and seek his blessing at all Catholic Church services and on important occasions, for example, at weddings. As a self-consciously Dalit novel, Koveri Kazhudaigal gives us an extraordinarily detailed picture of a lifestyle that has now passed; a lifestyle that is reclaimed and told with pride, without any attempt to 'Sanskritize' it. That is, there is no supposition that the lifestyles of the upper castes (vegetarianism, Brahmanic rituals, etc.) are, or ought to be, the norm. Yet it is not even the rich ethnographic detail that makes the book so valuable, but the insight it gives us into the life of the woman, Arokkyam, literally in the margins of society (her house is outside the Paraya colony, and the colony is outside the caste village) and poised between Hindu ritual and Christian devotion. The names, incidentally, have a ringing poignancy: Arokkyam means 'good health', 'well-being'; Savuri is the Tamil version of Xavier. The novel is constructed between two journeys: a pilgrimage of hope at the beginning and a routine trip to the washing pool in drudgery and despair at the end. Between these, it is signposted by rites of passage, giving a sense of cyclical time, but also by

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landmarks of historical, linear time. This climate of time and change is important to the novel whose primary theme is Arokkyam's dilemma within changing systems of belief about the self and society. First, there is the gradual commercialization of traditionally caste-linked functions. The village acquires a regular tailor and a laundryman with a box-iron, both of whom serve not only the village people but the colony dwellers too, taking away the custom from the traditional washerman. Changing styles of dress contribute to this too, as men begin to wear shirts and trousers that need pressing rather than the traditional veshti wrapped about the waist. Both Arokkyam's sons move into more liberated worlds: her elder son, Josep, is persuaded by his wife to leave home and go into partnership with his brother-in-law to start a laundry business in town, while the youngest, Peter, cannot understand why they do not go in for coolie work that would be paid in daily cash wages. At the same time as this loss in main livelihood, there is a steady decline and breakdown in the old caste prerogatives: the amount of grain that Arokkyam and Savuri were allocated by right at each household where they winnowed dwindles to no more than a single scant tray; the head and intestines of the sacrificial goat, which were traditionally the Vannaan's by right, begin to be auctioned. And the payment for all ritual services grows less and less; it is often no more than a token. Arokkyam has one main hope in coping with change: that the Church will intervene in support of the old order and appeal to the elders of the colony to keep up their caste obligations to their Vannaan. The novel begins, as I said, with a pilgrimage to the Church of St Anthony's, which is a journey of hope. In fact, when the Church intervenes much later, it is with the offer of a completely new life for their second son, Peter. Arokkyam and Savuri must allow their youngest son, Peter, to return with the priest's messenger. The priest will see to his education, teach him English, send him to a seminary, send him abroad. Peter will become a priest, too. Peter will be comfortable for the rest of his life, respected, privileged, moving out of his caste and class. Peter will look after his parents in their old age. The novel turns on the central dilemma of what Arokkyam should do. In a beautifully developed central chapter, Arokkyam struggles with the anguish of her choices. Her two elder children have

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married and left; she and Savuri have no one but the twelve-yearold Peter to be with them, look after them in their old age, help them fulfil their duties. Even at such a time caste obligations figure large in her calculations. She certainly resists change. Perhaps she resists the minimal urban lifestyle offered to her by her eldest son, Josep. But she also intuits the isolation and probable deracination that the change offered by the priest will mean to Peter. In the end she refuses the priest's offer. The irony is that, in the next few days, Peter runs away to the big town of Madras, stealing all his mother's savings. Now the indomitable but suffering mother figure is a repeated image in Marathi Dalit writing. She is often the sole breadwinner of the family, sacrificing everything for the family. Namdeo Dhasal, Vaman Nimbalkar and Jyoti Lanjeswar have all written poems entitled 'Mother'. Gail Omvedt, in her article in Nirappirikai, points to the mother figure in the poetry of Dalit men as a continuing symbol of oppression but also of struggle, sacrifice and sense of duty. But she adds that in all such portraits, 'These women did not challenge nor change greatly the nature of the functions and duties that were traditionally theirs'. 6 The portrait of Arokkyam is in that tradition, but at the same time different from the symbolic archetype in that she is not seen objectively, as in the Marathi portraits of mothers, but from within; from the perspective of her own dilemma. The worst oppression of the caste system is the way in which it becomes internalized; in the way Arokkyam is made totally dependent upon it for her living. Thus Imayam presents her as trapped within the dilemma of her changing times. She has neither the skills nor the economic independence that would enable her to take the risks and the responsibility for change. All the same it is she who provides a model of strength for her daughter, Mary, her final words to whom are: 'Lock the doors behind you and come out with me.' Although the two autobiographies, Karukku (Baama, 1992) and Kalakkal (Vidivelli, 1994) were published a little earlier than Koveru Kazhudaigal, they deal with a later and more contemporaneous time. They are the work of women who are much younger 6. Gail Omvedt, Dalit Peenterkal, Tamil ilakkiyam, penkal' (Dalit Panthers, Tamil literature, women), Nirappirikai (Pondicherry), spec, edn (Nov. 1994), pp. 3-7.

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than Arokkyam; who could, like Mary, be the daughters of Arokkyam; or perhaps of female versions of Peter had he gone into the seminary. They are similar to each other in that they tell the life stories of educated Dalit women who chose to become nuns, and then for different reasons left their institutions, and remade their lives of commitment and service. These, therefore, are real life stories of risks taken, and of challenge, choice and change. Something needs to be said here about the importance of autobiographies by women in India and their place in modern writing. The number of autobiographies by women that appeared in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and at the start of a modern genre of creative writing by women is striking. Tharu and Lalita, in their monumental Women Writing in India, point out that many of these texts 'are a personal testimony of the new sense of worth these women experiences as "individuals", whose specific lives were of interest and importance'. 7 They also point to the tension in modern autobiographic writing between the 'life scripts that cultures provide at particular junctures in their history' and the details of individual life, which both internalize and yet struggle against the blueprints. Such a tension, in fact, begins to be the starting point for fictional writing; novels of quest and self-discovery. In the case of the Dalit women whose autobiographies are examined here, though, the self-exploration as women and as Dalits takes place within the most prescriptive of life scripts. If Arokkyam was framed within the tight parameters of caste, then Baama and Vidivelli, separated from her by class and education, also choose the tight prescriptions of religious life from which they work out their choices. Karukku means palmyra leaves with serrated edges. Baama explains the image in her introduction: Between the saw-edged palmyra karukku and my own life there are many connections. I used to pick up the scattered palmyra karukku in the days when I was sent to gather firewood, and scratch and tear my skin as I played with them. All the same, they became the embryo (karu) and symbol that grew into this book.. .Dalits seeking

7. S. Tharu and K. Lalita (eds.), Women Writing in India. I. 600 BC to the Early Twentieth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 160.

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BODIES, LIVES, VOICES to create a new world based on Justice, Equality and Love are themselves as karukku, challenging their oppressors on all sides. 8

By a felicitous pun, the word karukku, containing the word karu, embryo, also means freshness, newness. The events of Baama's life are not arranged according to a simple, linear or chronological order, but are rather reflected upon in different ways, repeated from different perspectives, grouped under different themes, for example, Work, Games and Recreation, Education, Belief and so on. Thus the early part of the book is also rich in descriptive and ethnographic detail retrieved with affection and pride. The other truly remarkable thing about this book is that it is written entirely in a spoken, demotic style. Although Koveru Kazhudaigal makes no concessions to 'polite' language, it still distinguishes between a more formal narrative style and the tough colloquial style of the reported conversation. Karukku has the immediacy and intimacy of the spoken word throughout. Yet so intimate a piece of writing is also reticent in many ways: the narrator never tells us her name; the book reads like an autobiographic novel, or a fictionalized autobiography. 'Baama' is a pseudonym. As with Koveru Kazhudaigal, the richness of remembered detail becomes important by way of reclaiming and cherishing a Dalit lifestyle. But the shocking revelatory moment in the book is the moment when Baama, as a child, becomes aware of the significance of untouchability. One day she observes an old Paraya man, their street elder no less, who is bringing a parcel of fried food, vadais or bhajjis, to the Naicker master who has demanded it. He is being extremely careful not to touch the food, but only to carry it carefully by the loose end of the string that binds the parcel. He then bows before the Naicker and extends the parcel towards him, cupping the hand that held the string with his other hand, in a gesture of submission. The child is convulsed by the whole incident, which to her looks like an absurd charade or joke. However, when she goes home, her brother explains to her about Untouchability, and impresses upon her that the only way in which she can make her way in the world and gain respect is through education. It is a lesson she will never forget. The argument of the book is, of course, to do with the arc of the 8.

Baama, Karukku,

p. ix.

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narrator's spiritual development: the nurturing of her belief as a Catholic, and her gradual understanding, as a Dalit, of the gap between belief and practice. We are given a very full picture of the way in which the Church ordered and influenced the lives of the Paraya Catholics. Unlike Koveru Kazhudaigal, there is no dubious slippage here between Catholicism and Hinduism in terms of ritual or observance. On the other hand, every aspect of the child's life is imbued with the Christian religion. The day begins with morning Mass; literally the moment when she is awake and ready she must run to church. Every evening there are catechism lessons and family prayers before the evening meal. (She writes that her abiding memory of her mother is that of her face lit up and rapt in prayer.) During the day there are Scripture lessons. The year is punctuated by religious processions and festivals that become part of the natural yearly cycle of crops and seasons. There seems to be here an easy localization of Indian Catholicism; no prefiguring of the cultural alienation the narrator is to feel later when she becomes a nun. The period of doubt begins when she goes to college. She questions the extent to which class and caste considerations operate in Catholic educational institutions. She questions the place of the priesthood as mediators between the individual and God. In an attempt to speak directly and for herself, she sets herself the task of reading the entire Bible. She discovers: They taught us only that God is loving, kind, that he forgives sinners, is patient, gentle, humble, obedient. Nobody insisted that God is just, righteous, is angered by injustices, opposes falsehood, and never countenances inequality. There is a great deal of difference between this Jesus and the Jesus who is made known through everyday practice. The oppressed are not taught about him but rather, are taught in an empty and meaningless way about humility, obedience, patience and gentleness. 9

Now, it is striking that Baama does not address the issue of gender either within the Church or within the Dalit community. Her concerns are the issues of caste and class, most particularly of caste. Her frustration and anger comes out of the realization of the Church's hegemony, its deliberate stress on an ideology that keeps the oppressed humbly accepting their oppression. Christian 9.

Baama, Karukku,

p. 85.

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doctrine and the life of Jesus seem to her to point to the service of the poor; the practice of the religious orders, however, seems directly the opposite. Moreover, the Church is actually seen by her to support and buttress class and caste structures and even to mirror them in its own hierarchy. The priesthood and administration, the people in positions of power, are all upper caste and upper class who hold deeply entrenched and stereotyped beliefs about Dalits. People such as Baama are not expected to rock the boat. Her frustration, both as a Christian and as a Dalit, is compounded because her questions are met and rebutted with the insistence on faith, humility and a reminder of the vow of obedience. She recognizes such language as in itself alienating and, finally, silencing. Baama joins a religious order in the clearly stated hope that she will have a chance to change things, to redress the balance from meek acceptance of oppression to staking a claim for justice. What she realizes more and more, however, is the lack of space within the order for her to achieve this as a Christian nun. Yet she sees the change, if not in practice, in the increased awareness among Dalits of the ways in which they have been exploited: They have understood that God is not like this, has not spoken like this. They have become aware that they too were created in the likeness of God. They are filled with a new strength to reclaim that likeness which has been repressed, ruined and obliterated, and to begin to live with honour and respect and love of all humankind. To my mind, that alone is true devotion. 10

She understands that her own experience is part of a larger movement. And she learns of her own accord: no one needs to tell her this. Baama leaves her religious order to return to her village, where life may be insecure but she does not feel alienated or compromised. The choices that elude the fictional and archetypal Arokkyam are possible in the real life of Baama. Kalakkal (Turmoil), as I said earlier, has close parallels with Karukku. The author, writing under the name Vidivelli, comes from a middle-class Dalit family. Once again, the name of the narrator is never revealed. She also became a nun, was sent to study theology in Rome and, returning to India, step by step climbed up 10. Baama, Karukku,

p. 89.

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to the top rungs of responsibility within the order. She comes to a crossroads in her life when she becomes aware of a progressive group of Catholics, well versed in liberation theology, and finally decides to leave the order and her position within it in order to work in the villages for the empowerment and progress of Dalits. She marries an ex-priest. The first important difference between Baama (of Karukkii), and Vidivelli (of Kalakkat) is the fact that the latter comes from a comparatively privileged middle-class family. Her father, Chinnappa, a school teacher in Tindivanam, was well known as a leader of Dalits and was finally asked to leave the school after 23 years of teaching, because of his political activities. The class difference between the two women authors is significant. It is only after the school teacher Chinnappa's family are forced to leave the school and the housing provided for married staff that they experience briefly (and very resentfully) life in an Untouchable chert (lower caste street) in Madras. Baama, on the other hand, grew up in a typical Paraya colony in a village. Baama becomes aware of Untouchability because of the unforgettable sight of the Paraya elder's trembling deference to the Naicker farmer, and from then on, by constant personal experience. Vidivelli knows second hand of the terrible discrimination that her father suffered. One story, above all, sums up his experience and turns him into an activist: kneeling in church one festival day, he is literally knocked sideways by a man in the congregation who shouts at him, 'Get out. Go to the Paraya church on the other side of the town'. But Vidivelli herself is very largely protected by her middle-class status; what the family suffers is because of her father's politicization of the caste issue. Thus, Vidivelli's style and language do not have the vividness, earthiness and closeness to rural experience that Baama and Imayam share. Nor does her understanding of Dalit identity spring from a close and organic awareness of a community and its immediate and shared experience of oppression. The arc of her quest and self-discovery, therefore, is different from Baama's, although, like the other woman's, her own immediate family, and particularly her close and happy relationship with her parents, is the basis from which her life takes shape. Vidivelli does not analyse her reasons for joining a religious order. And it not until she is sent to Rome for three years, from

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1981-84, to study theology that she begins seriously to question her position. It is only then, as a 'third world student' in the 'first world' (her terms), that her political awareness regarding the Church begins to formulate for the first time. Several things strike her, first of all about the way the theology course is constructed and its (ir)relevance (indeed its alienating nature for third world students, nuns and priests). For example, where was the God who freed Israel from captivity? The Jesus who aligned himself with the poor and the oppressed? The early Christian Church that was prepared to stand firm against the Roman emperor? She concludes that it was not designed to prepare the students to give a lead in liberating the poor, but rather that it successfully alienated them from the suffering masses. (It is of course interesting that Vidivelli's reading of Christian doctrine is similar to that of Baama, and similarly selective of its 'revolutionary' elements.) Secondly, while travelling in England and Germany during her vacations, she notes with appreciation the provision of welfare for those in need, such as children, the aged and the disabled; and the openness of affection between men and women. At the same time she sees the exploitation of the third world by the Church; and she deprecates the way the Tamil girls who had come to join religious orders in these countries were stripped of their culture, compelled to change the style of their clothing and ridiculed for their eating habits. She meets other Tamil girls who had been sent to Sicily, where they were doing no more than menial jobs. The example of her father's work of consciousness-raising returns to her. She begins to bring together her identities as Christian and Dalit. At this point, she is critical, certainly, but hopeful of effecting change within the religious order when she returns home to India. Vidivelli is appointed in turn Novice Mistress, then Regional Superior and then Assistant Superior General. It is in these capacities, and while travelling and meeting a large number of nuns and priests, that she clarifies her own criticisms of the Catholic Church in South India and her own order. These, unlike Baama's, are wide ranging rather than focused on Dalit oppression alone. There is the issue of wealth and poverty. There is the issue of caste and communalism. This is a central concern with Vidivelli, but not her only concern as with Baama. The issue of gender is

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important to her, and it is seen within the context of the Church, rather than within the Dalit community. She sees an entrenched patriarchy operating within the institutions of the Church. The women's institutions have little autonomy, either in terms of funding or of decision-making. In all aspects of top administration, but also in the daily observance of ritual, the celebration of Mass, the giving of sermons —in all this, she says, 'patriarchy has planted its banner and reigns supreme'. She watches the frustration of many nuns who have no platform to voice their disagreements or opposition. She listens to their description of the failure of their aspirations, as what begins as service to the poor is channelled instead into a kind of stultified upkeep of the institution and its administration. She wonders if the life of renunciation is not too full of pain for most women. (The word used here is turavaram, a classical Tamil word, that is, the entire lifestyle, the moral and ethical code of conduct appropriate to the religeuse.) Centrally, both Baama and Vidivelli reject turavaram or the contemplative life, and choose activism and developmental work amongst rural Dalits. Baama's is a brave and lonely journey; Vidivelli is supported by her future husband and by friends. We are given to understand that Baama's connection with the Church is severed, while Vidivelli's continues in some form. Nevertheless, the life story told in Kalakkal is quite as courageous as that told in Karukku in that it ends with the rejection of status and power and a return to rural roots. Both find a means through the thicket of their dilemma, and homewards, keeping faith with their Dalit peers. Like Mary in Koveru Kazhudaigal, they must lock the door behind them and go out, or die. The three works described here are strikingly different from the novels of the highly political Progressive Writers' Movement, written in both English and the regional languages of India in the 1930s and 1940s about the casualties of Indian society. Mulk Raj Anand's The Untouchable (1935) and Coolie (1936), and Thagazhi Sivasankaran Pillai's Scavenger's Son (1948) were certainly great novels of their time, grim studies springing from middle-class guilt.11 The 11. Mulk Raj Anand, The Untouchable (London: Bodley Head, 1935; reprinted, Toronto: Copp Clark; Delhi: Hind Pocket Books, 1970); idem, Coolie (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1936; reprinted Toronto: Copp Clark; Delhi: Hind Pocket Books, 1970); Thagazhi Sivasankaran Pillai, Tottiyute

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protagonists portrayed in them are victims of gross social oppression. Koveru Kazhudaigal, Kalakkal and Karukku, on the other hand, are not about victims only, but also about rebels. Certainly the perception of self as Dalit in all three works comes from a much more powerfully held position. But also very powerful is the refusal to 'Sanskritize', the refusal to see Dalit life-style, language and relationships in terms of mainstream Hindu values (which include caste hierarchy in some form). All three authors, Imayam, Baama and Vidivelli take pride in the best aspects of Dalit lifestyle and community, particularly the openness of expression, vividness of language use, greater freedom of relationships among men and women than among Hindu caste peoples, and above all, in their enjoyment of and pleasure in nature. They can claim these attributes as theirs, as Dalit, while also claiming a role in the struggle for equality and justice. In all these things, the three works are clearly complementary and contribute to the construction of a Dalit point of view and an emerging Tamil Dalit literature. The critic Raj Gautaman writes, 'We have to stop reading Dalit literature as if it consisted merely of stories of individual men and women, and of their tragedies... on the contrary, Dalit literature should also be read as the story of Dalit struggle as a whole'. 12 Yet that single struggle cannot easily subsume the struggles of gender and class; these too have to be encountered in different ways. The tension that both autobiographies share is that between the one and the many; the self and the community. Both narrators leave one community (as religious women) and choose another (as Dalits). Their personal journeys thus become part of the journey of a people.

makan (1948; reprinted as Scavenger's Heinemann, 1993). 12. Gautaman, Dalit Panpaadu, p. 98.

Son; trans. RE. Asher; London:

DIANA LIPTON The Woman's Lot in Esther

As Edward Greenstein has observed in his article 'A Jewish Reading of Esther',1 the book of Esther occupies very different places both in Jewish and Christian Bibles and in the respective hearts of their readers. In the Christian Old Testament, Esther appears alongside Ezra and Nehemiah, which naturally prompts an historical evaluation of its contents. In the Hebrew Bible, on the other hand, Esther is one of five megillot (scrolls) that are chanted at different festival services during the course of the Jewish year. For Jews, then, Esther's physical position in the Bible encourages a liturgical rather than historical assessment of its significance. Greenstein claims that, since Martin Luther's harsh rejection of Esther, Christian readers have tended 'to dismiss it or merely to tolerate it'. Luther, who was responsible for transferring to the Apocrypha the Greek additions to Esther that had been drawn from the Septuagint, wished the book did not exist at all, complaining of Esther and 2 Maccabees that they 'Judaize too much and have much heathen perverseness'. 2 To be sure, B.W. Anderson goes much further than either dismissal or mere toleration when he describes Esther as 'an uninviting wilderness', 'inspired by a fierce nationalism and an unblushing vindictiveness which stands in glaring contradiction to the Sermon on the Mount'. 3 In general, however, Greenstein's assessment of Christian attitudes to Esther is on the mark. Whereas Christians have been inclined to dismiss or tolerate Esther, Jews, Greenstein claims, have tended to love it. There are, however, some notable exceptions to this rule. Many Jews have 1. In J. Neusner, B. Levine and E. Frerichs (eds.), Judaic Perspectives on Ancient Israel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987), pp. 225-43. See pp. 225-26 for this discussion. 2. Cited by B.W. Anderson in The Place of the Book of Esther in the Christian Bible' (1950), reprinted in C. Moore (ed.), Studies in the Book of Esther (New York: Ktav, 1982), pp. 130-41. 3. Anderson, 'The Place of the Book of Esther', p. 130.

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been deeply disturbed by the book's revenge-filled conclusion; as Anderson points out in slightly different words, there seems to have been some hesitation among the rabbis about canonizing a book that might have become a focus of anti-Semitism.4 (Anderson assumes that Esther was canonized at the Council of Jamnia in 90 CE, although Sidnie Ann White, in The Women's Bible Commentary, observes that it did not achieve undisputed canonical status in Judaism until after the third century CE).5 Every year the reading of Megillat Esther, the scroll of Esther, forms the backbone of the festival of Purim (a Persian loan-word meaning 'lots'—hence the pun in my title), and all the children's costumes, delicious triangular cakes (hamantaschen or Haman's purses), misloach manot (gift bags), and general carnival atmosphere cannot disguise the story's horrific ending. Indeed, there was a time when, fearing anti-Semitic backlash, embarrassed by the festival's undignified revelry (including officially sanctioned drunkenness), disturbed by the lack of any explicit reference in the book to God and using the excuse of the story's dependence on a pagan myth about the Babylonian deities Ishtar and Marduk (we should note that, in a different case, parallels with Gilgamesh did not discourage the reading of Genesis 1-11), many non-Orthodox synagogues cancelled the holiday until further notice. This, however, was later regarded as an example of the inclination of early reformers to throw out the baby with the bath water, and Purim has been duly reinstated in most, if not all, synagogues. I am not unduly disturbed by Megillat Esther. Although it is difficult to be sure about its historical provenance, 6 it almost certainly originated at a time when diaspora-dwelling Jews were as likely to organize a moon landing as to receive the permission of a Gentile king to massacre their enemies. The concluding report of the slaughter of even the potential, let alone actual, enemies of the Jews was never intended as a serious role model for Jewish existence in the diaspora. In his excellent The Jewish Religion: A 4. Anderson, 'The Place of the Book of Esther', pp. 130-31. 5. In C. Newsom and S. Ringe (eds.), The Women's Bible Commentary (London: SPCK, 1992), pp. 124-29. See p. 125 for this point. 6. See S.A. White Women's Bible Commentary in Newson and Ringe (eds.), pp. 124-29, who seems to reflect the recent consensus of opinion when she posits a date in the early fourth century BCE (p. 125).

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Companion, Louis Jacobs explains the significance of 'Purim Torah' (frivolous biblical interpretations offered in fun by the rabbis at Purim) as 'a means of obtaining psychological relief, on one day of the year, from what otherwise might have become a burden too hard to bear'. 7 There is a sense in which this can be extended to all aspects of the festival; Purim was a time when the marginalized underdogs could fantasize themselves into the position of their mainstream oppressors. In this paper, however, I am going to address another source of embarrassment that modern readers find in Megillat Esther, and this concerns its presentation of women. Although I am instinctively sympathetic to the story of Esther and to the character of Esther in particular, I am also affected every year at Purim by reservations expressed by women in my Reform congregation about Esther's suitability as a role model for Jewish women, and I have decided to try to explore this issue here by means of textual interpretation. At the same time, having been once accused during a brief correspondence with the post-Christian feminist Daphne Hampson of not being able to see the wood for the trees (I asked whether her condemnation of the book of Hosea as pornographic took into account the fact that only three of its fourteen chapters employ feminine grammatical forms in relation to Israel), I am painfully aware that textual interpretation, especially when based on minutiae of the Hebrew text, cuts little ice with many readers of the Bible. For me, however, the ubiquitous rabbinic phrase "TIN 1X7, 'another interpretation', is music to the ears, not merely licensing but impelling unlimited reinterpretation of the sacred text for our own time. To illustrate the problem that arises for many Jewish readers, and particularly for many Jewish women, in connection with Esther, I would like to quote from an essay by Mary Gendler in which she analyzes her shift from childhood delight in dressing up as Queen Esther at Purim to intense discomfort at the book's presentation of the ideal woman embodied by Esther, in contrast to the rebellious Vashti: Sociologically it is no secret that men were seen distinctly as the master of their homes and of the society in general, not only at the period of history during which the story might have taken place, but

7.

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 'Purim' p. 398.

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BODIES, LIVES, VOICES throughout all of recorded Jewish history. Men were the leaders, the scholars, the rabbis, the authorities. Women tended the home and the babies. In this sense, Ahasuerus can be seen not only as an Ultimate Authority who holds vast power over everyone, but more generally as a male, patriarchal authority in relation to females. As such, Vashti and Esther serve as models of how to deal with such authority. And the message comes through loud and clear: women who are bold, direct, aggressive and disobedient are not acceptable; the praiseworthy women are those who are unassuming, quietly persistent, and who gain their power through the love they inspire in men. These women live almost vicariously, subordinating their needs and desires to those of others. We have only to look at the stereotyped Jewish Mother to attest to the still-pervasive influence of the Esther-behaviour-model. 8

While Gendler's assessment may contain an element of truth about Judaism's ideal woman, it surely represents an oversimplification on several important counts. Some of these have been addressed by articles written about Megillat Esther since Gendler's (though not necessarily in response to it), but, using an argument I have not seen raised elsewhere, I want to explore the possibility that, contrary to Gendler's view, Esther and not Vashti is the book's proper feminist heroine. For anyone interested in the woman's perspective on Megillat Esther, Athalya Brenner's A Feminist Companion to Esther, Judith and Susanna is an invaluable recent addition to the literature. 9 Brenner's own contribution to this collection of essays is fascinating. In 'Looking at Esther through the Looking Glass', she explores the use of duplication and multiplication in Esther with the help of Lewis Carroll's Alice Through the Looking Glass as an intertext. 10 Just as Alice emerges into a world of matter and anti-matter, the absurd and the coherent, peopled by exotic figures and defined by the rules of chess, Esther enters a world of reversals and inversions, populated by eunuchs and arch-villains, and defined from beginning to end by court protocol. Brenner offers a convincing portrayal of a subtle and highly sophisticated set of contrasts and 8. Mary Gendler, 'The Restoration of Vashti', in E. Koltun (ed.), The Jewish Woman: New Perspectives (New York: Schocken Books, 1976), pp. 241-47, esp. p. 245. 9. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995. 10. Brenner, Esther, Judith and Susanna, pp. 71-80.

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reflections that she sees in Megillat Esther. Mordecai mirrors Haman, Esther mirrors Vashti, Bigthan and Teresh mirror both Mordecai and Haman and the eunuchs Hegai and Harvona, and the wife-husband team of Haman and Zeresh mirror the cooperation between Esther and Mordecai.11 King Ahasuerus alone has no parallel, unless, Brenner notes in passing, the absent God, the 'other place' of 4.14, is his counterpart. 12 In the interpretation of Megillat Esther I am proposing here, the relationship between God and Ahasuerus is a crucial element of the narrative, perhaps, indeed, its most crucial element. In order to demonstrate this I would like to modify Brenner's illuminating model of the looking glass and ask you to envisage instead a 'twoway mirror'. For those who have not recently visited the London Science Museum's Launch Pad, where this wonderful object is on exhibit, I'll elaborate. Imagine a glass screen dividing a small table. On either side of the screen, facing it, sit Mordecai and Vashti. You are standing behind Mordecai with your hand on the controls. If you turn the dial to the right, the screen becomes a mirror and you see the image of Mordecai reflected there. If you turn the dial to the left, the reflective surface becomes a window, and gradually the image of Vashti emerges, replacing that of Mordecai. This is, I think, a helpful mechanism for looking at Megillat Esther: sometimes you see the character being described, sometimes you glimpse an image of another character, and sometimes this other image becomes so powerful that it eclipses altogether the image ostensibly being described. I used the examples of Vashti and Mordecai in my description of the two-way mirror partly because I want to return to it later, but primarily because Jewish tradition inhibits me from invoking the image of at least one of the two figures I would have preferred to ask you to envisage, namely Ahasuerus and God. Yet it seems to me that, in respect to these two, this is precisely how the text operates on its readers: we see in the two-way mirror what King Ahasuerus is, and the window reveals what God is not. Needless to say, the plausibility of this idea must be assessed against the background of a worldview in which parallels between the royal and the divine were commonplace. God is described as a 11. Brenner, Esther, Judith and Susanna, p. 75. 12. Brenner, Esther, Judith and Susanna, p. 76.

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king on many occasions in the Hebrew Bible, and, as Henri Frankfort has observed in Kingship and the Gods: A Study of Ancient Near Eastern Religion as the Integration of Society and Nature,1^ the cultures surrounding ancient Israel often failed to distinguish between divinity and royalty. The leap from king to God would thus have been considerably shorter for Esther's original audience than for modern readers, for whom The Times (as the closest modern parallel to Ahasuerus's book of royal records) has so often revealed all about our reigning monarchy. Several scholars, most notably Gillis Gerleman, 14 have conjectured parallels between Megillat Esther and the ultimate redemption narrative, the book of Exodus. Gerleman sees the relationship between Mordecai and Esther as patterned after that between Moses and Aaron, with Esther as the spokesperson and Mordecai as 'the brains'. Certain details of the Esther narrative were thus determined by the desire to reflect the Exodus tradition; Esther is adopted because Moses was adopted, Esther expresses reluctance to intercede because Moses was reluctant, Esther has to appear several times before the king because Moses appeared many times before the Pharaoh, and the enemies of the Jews perish to reflect the drowning of the Egyptians in the Red Sea. One might note in passing that these particular parallels point to Esther rather than Mordecai as the Moses figure, but the implications of this need not detain us here. Rather, we will focus on a parallel, or perhaps an anti-parallel, that Gerleman does not mention, and this concerns the representation of God in Exodus in contrast to that of Ahasuerus in Esther. Megillat Esther opens with the information that during the third year of his reign Ahasuerus gave a banquet, lasting almost six months, for all the officials and courtiers in his service. The purpose of this extended feast is made quite explicit: For no fewer than one hundred and eighty days he displayed the vast riches of his kingdom and the splendid glory of his majesty (1.4). 15

13. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948). 14. 'Studien zu Esther: Stoff—Struktur—Stil—Sinn' (1966), reprinted in Moore (ed.), Studies in the Book of Esther, pp. 308-29. 15. All biblical citations are from Tanakh, The Holy Scriptures (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1985).

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Six months of feasting culminates with seven days—a resonant number in another biblical context—devoted to a feast of feasts, during which the king's ultimate glory is displayed through elaborate wall hangings, marble pillars, alabaster pavements, golden beakers and unlimited supplies of wine. The glory of Ahasuerus's majesty, we quickly learn, is his wealth. By the seventh day the king is drunk, and it is in this state that he summons Queen Vashti to provide yet another manifestation of his greatness through her beauty. When Vashti refuses to cooperate in the role of Trophy Wife, she not only denies Ahasuerus the opportunity of saying 'all this and a beautiful wife to boot', but she actually undermines the preceding six months of display: 'All this', his guests may murmur, 'but he cannot control his wife'. The book of Exodus also includes an account (close to 15 chapters) of almost unimaginable, but definitely not untold, riches in the form of the tabernacle. A comparison of the two is instructive. Exodus makes it abundantly clear that God's wealth, unlike that of a human king, is separable from His majesty. The Ark was thus constructed not from materials that already belonged to God, but rather from gifts brought by the Israelites as an offering, and, despite the emphasis on the divine origin of the plans, the great skill of the artisans who built it is repeatedly underlined. These are important distinctions, weakening the identification of wealth with power that is widespread in ancient Near Eastern texts. Moreover, what is revealed in the Ark is not primarily God's majesty but His will: There I will meet with you, and I will impart to you—from the cover, from between the two cherubim that are on top of the Ark of the Pact—all that I will command you concerning the Israelite people (Exod. 25.22).

The words spoken by God from the tabernacle are, of course, infinitely more important than the artefact itself. By these means, God's majesty, unlike that of the human king Ahasuerus, is clearly distinguished from the glory of His dwelling place. An important extension of this theme of display versus actual power concerns the use of costume in Megillat Esther. At Purim this is reflected in the tradition of dressing up, with children and uninhibited adults adopting the disguises of anyone from Mordecai to Superman. In the narrative itself, Jews dress up as Gentiles,

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commoners as monarchs, and clothing imagery abounds. This emphasis is reminiscent of another saga of impotent royalty, Shakespeare's King Lear. Like Ahasuerus, Lear issues a decree concerning someone he loves, which turns out to work against him, but which he is unable to reverse. Gradually, through the intensive use of clothing imagery, we discover that 'the tailor made the man'; Lear's daughters are ladies 'if only to go warm were gorgeous', and 'unaccommodated man is but a bare-forked beast'. In the case of Megillat Esther, the prevalence of clothing imagery points to a theological conclusion: God is the rock upon whom people may not look, and the king is a fabulously attired empty fortress. Vashti's disobedience is the first crack in the edifice, and a second is revealed almost immediately with Ahasuerus's response to it. 'What', he asks his advisers, 'shall be done according to law, to Queen Vashti for failing to obey the command of King Ahasuerus conveyed to her by the eunuchs?' (1.15). That the king is powerless to act alone is driven home by the solution offered by Memucan, one of his advisers: 'If it please your majesty, let a royal edict be issued by you, and let it be written into the laws of Persia and Media, so that it cannot be abrogated, that Vashti shall never enter the presence of King Ahasuerus. And let your majesty bestow her state on another w h o is more worthy than she' (1.19).

For better or for worse, the anger provoked in Ahasuerus by Vashti's disobedience is quickly dissipated in the vast machinery of statecraft, in which he, as much as any of his subjects, is enthralled. Indeed, it seems that control of his own emotions may be the limit of Ahasuerus's realm of power. Once his anger against his wife has ceased to burn, he is powerless to bring her back, since a royal edict, once proclaimed and incorporated into the law of the land, is irreversible. The passive niphal form in Ahasuerus's recollection of what had been decreed concerning her ( i T ^ "IT33 ""ICDK DK) emphasizes that he, just as much as Vashti, is a victim of this decree. Once again, a comparison with Exodus is instructive. Although God has what might be termed a second-in-command in the person of Moses, there is no sense in which Moses is an adviser, and in no possible construal of their relationship can we claim that God's actions are in any way restricted by His laws as transmitted to Moses.

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A pattern is beginning to emerge: Ahasuerus has the outward trappings of royalty, but nothing lies behind them. He has wealth but no majesty, a legal system but no authority, and under his royal clothes he is just a man, and perhaps not even that. It is conceivable that the text's emphasis on Ahasuerus's innumerable wives, and on the elaborate cosmetic preparations they were required to undergo prior to spending a night with him, reflects Israelite fantasy concerning perceived licentiousness among foreigners, especially those wealthy enough to have harems. Yet the king's lack of spontaneity (his wives must wait until he is ready), the exclusively 'one-night-stand' quality of his relationships, his notorious fondness of wine, not known as an aphrodisiac in the quantities suggested here, and his inclination to surround his wives with eunuchs, thus avoiding sexual competition, all point to a man who, if not impotent, may very well be sexually insecure. The sceptre that Ahasuerus extends to women who find favour in his eyes, and whose tip they must touch, may thus be more of a substitute than a promise of things to come. It is also pertinent to this matter that Ahasuerus is finally convinced to execute Haman by the sight of his chief minister sprawling suggestively on Queen Esther's couch. According to Jonathan Magonet's ingenious reading of this episode, the perceived seduction is the final straw in what the king views as Haman's attempt to overthrow him. His insomnia was caused by fear of insurrection, and he peruses his book of records, not because it was soporific bedtime reading, but because he hopes it will identify a suitable rival (Mordecai) to set up in court against Haman.16 That the king's last straw occurs in the context of sexual, not political, insecurity may represent additional evidence for the validity of the picture sketched here. The notion that we should include sexual impotence among Ahasuerus's human frailties may also be suggested by an inner biblical comparison that will, I hope, be illuminating in other ways. Each of the three so-called 'wife-sister texts' (Gen. 12.10-20; 20.118; 26.1-11) reports an interaction between a patriarch (Abraham and later Isaac) and a foreign king (Pharaoh and later Abimelech) upon whose generosity the patriarch has made himself reliant. The patriarch, pretending that his wife is his sister, makes her available 16. Jonathan Magonet, Bible Lives (London: SCM Press, 1992), pp. 80-88.

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to the king in the hope of benefiting from the situation. For our purposes here, I will concentrate on the account in Genesis 20 of the interaction between Abraham and Sarah, Abimelech and God. In this episode Abraham and Sarah go to the court of King Abimelech in Gerar and, partly to protect himself but also in the hope of prospering on her account, Abraham persuades Sarah to conceal her true identity. Hearing of her great beauty, Abimelech takes her into his harem, but God comes to him in a dream, threatening death if she is not returned to her rightful husband, who will then intercede on his behalf. The king protests his innocence: 'He himself said to me "She is my sister"' (v. 5), to which God responds, 'That was why I did not let you touch her' (v. 6). Only in the last two verses, when, as a consequence of Abraham's intercession, God heals Abimelech and his wife and his slave-girls, do we begin to see how God prevented the king from touching Sarah. Meir Sternberg, in a dazzling discussion of temporal disorder in The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading,11 reveals the mechanisms through which we may infer that God prevented Abimelech from touching Sarah by rendering him and his entire household sexually dysfunctional. There is at least one important reason for establishing that Abimelech did not touch Sarah; the opening verses of ch. 21 announce the conception of Isaac, and it was crucial to demonstrate Abraham's indisputable paternity. Yet God's active involvement in this matter was not an ideal, but a temporary necessity. I have argued elsewhere that the three 'wife-sister' texts show a development from God's unilateral and unquestioning intervention in Egypt (the location of the direst episodes of Israel's history), through his dream dialogue with Abimelech in Gerar, to an ideal state, also in Gerar, where Isaac and Abimelech can achieve peaceful co-existence without divine assistance.18 When Megillat Esther is read in the light of the 'wife-sister' texts, it emerges that it too reflects a time when problems of co-existence between Israelites and non-Israelites are addressed without overt divine assistance. The texts are not, of course, parallel in every 17. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987). 18. Revisions of the Night: Politics and Promises in the Patriarchal Dreams of Genesis (JSOTSup; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, forthcoming).

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respect. Most obviously, Esther is not Mordecai's wife, although, fascinatingly, the Talmud (Tractate Megittah 13a) suggests that she is, thus raising the possibility that the rabbis had already observed a resemblance between Esther and the 'wife-sister' texts. Yet the stories are strangely close; a Jew puts himself in a position of dependence on a foreign king, jeopardizing along the way a female member of his own family whom he instructs to conceal her origins, but in the end the foreign king supports the Jews and all is well. In the three 'wife-sister' texts, read 'progressively', the woman's role remains passive throughout, while God's role moves from active intervention to a passive, behind-the-scenes presence and the role of the male protagonists is expanded to compensate. In Megillat Esther, on the other hand, God is a passive presence throughout and the role of the male protagonists remains consistent, while the role of the woman develops in the opposite direction. Esther begins as an emphatically passive presence (when her turn comes to visit the king she requests nothing except what has been recommended by Hegai [2.15], she does not 'go' to the king but is 'taken' [2.16], and even when she has won the admiration of the entire palace [2.15], she continues to follow Mordecai's instructions, just as she had when she was in his care [2.20]), and she is transformed before our very eyes into a highly active redeemer of her people. We can now examine the relative roles of Esther and Mordecai in more detail. As seems to be the case for almost every biblical text, there are scholars who wish to divide it into smaller units. Thus J. Lebram sees Megillat Esther as the imperfect union of an older Persian tale in which a girl saves her people with a more recent Palestinian narrative about Mordecai and Haman,19 while a similar claim forms the basis of Elias Bickerman's exegesis in Four Strange Books of the Bible.20 Yet in the text before us what is striking is the inextricable mutual dependence of Esther and Mordecai. Without Mordecai, Esther would not have been in the right place at the right time to save her people, and nor, one must conclude, is she likely to have been sufficiently diplomatic on the point of her own 19- 'Purimfest und Estherbuch' (1972), reprinted in Moore (ed.), Studies in the Book of Esther, pp. 205-19. 20. (New York: Schocken Books, 1967), pp. 171-234.

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origins. Yet without Esther, Mordecai, court official as he may have been, would surely have been lost in the intricate maze of court protocol that had to be observed before anything could be achieved in the palace of Ahasuerus. Esther was not just a convenient tool for Mordecai, somewhat akin to Joseph's skill in dream interpretation in yet another biblical narrative with interesting parallels to Megillat Esther, she was indispensable in her own right to the task at hand. The first indication that Mordecai will be unable to succeed without Esther comes before either one of them has even been mentioned. When describing the metaphorical two-way mirror through which Megillat Esther may be read, I used as examples the figures of Vashti and Mordecai. There are several interesting and important parallels between them. David Clines, in The Esther Scroll: The Story of the Story,21 notes the most obvious connection: both Vashti and Mordecai refuse to obey the king.22 To this one might add that, through their disobedience, admirable as it seems in some respects, both risk a limitation of the freedom of their respective peer groups. In addition to the individual punishment recommended for Vashti, the king's counsellors distribute letters throughout the land to the end that 'every man should wield authority in his home' (1.22), while Mordecai's refusal to bow down to Haman ignites the spark of uncontrollable revenge; Haman's chillingly prescient anti-Semitic diatribe casts every Jew as a threat to national security. Although we are expected to admire Mordecai for his adherence to the principles of his faith, the foreshadowing with Vashti represents a serious qualification. Even as we hear the report of Mordecai's noble act, we have been forewarned about what it may entail. With this in mind, perhaps, the mediaeval rabbinic commentators, all too conscious of the often precarious nature of a Jew's position in society, were more or less overtly critical of Mordecai for refusing to bow down to Haman. Barry Dov Walfish provides a useful overview of rabbinic attitudes towards this and other matters in his fascinating book Esther in Medieval Jewish Garb: Jewish Interpretation of the Book of Esther in the Middle Ages,25 but most pertinent is the question 21. JSOTSup, 30; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1984. 22. Clines, The Esther Scroll, p. 12. 23. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1993.

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posed and only half-heartedly answered by Ibn Ezra: why did Mordecai not simply walk away from the palace gate when Haman was around?24 Showing that the text may not regard Mordecai as entirely exemplary is not, of course, the same as demonstrating that it casts Esther in such an exemplary role. Yet there are a number of reasons for claiming that this is the case. Many readers, especially modern women, have been negative about Esther because of the means by which she supposedly got her way, but a closer look at the text raises doubts about whether this assessment is fair. The possibility that Ahasuerus is impotent would, of course, necessitate a move away from the image of Esther as a sex object who controls men by making them physically dependent, but, even if he is not, a glance at the account in Judges of the relationship between Samson and Delilah or at the apocryphal book of Judith should suffice to show that, unlike them, Megillat Esther is not concerned with dangerous dependence based on sexual attraction. Yet if Esther's power does not lie in her sexuality, where does it lie? In his extraordinary commentary, Gersonides (Rabbi Levi ben Gershom) sees Megillat Esther as a code of court protocol with Esther as the model of appropriate behaviour in royal circles.25 Her success with the king is thus attributable not to great beauty, nor to stereotypical feminine wiles, but to a perfect grasp of how to win friends and influence people in the context of a royal court. Gersonides himself offers a rather disturbing example of Esther's political shrewdness when he suggests that her invitation of Haman to the feast was motivated by an interest in creating in him a possible ally against the king should that prove to be necessary. At the same time, the invitation inflames Ahasuerus's jealousy against Haman, and so, either way, Esther wins. In this particular case, Gersonides may be crediting Esther with more political sophistication than she actually has, but the text contains plenty of less controversial examples. Among the most compelling of these concerns is Esther's response to the threat to her people. When Mordecai learns about Haman's decree, he dons sackcloth and ashes and makes his way to the royal palace. Aware that no one wearing sackcloth and ashes 24. Discussed by Walfish on pp. 158-59. 25. Perush ^al ha-Torah (Venice, 1547).

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may enter the palace, Esther sends a change of clothes. Mordecai's refusal to accept them jeopardizes the scheme, which depends upon Esther's ability to maintain secrecy about her identity, and does nothing to help the Jews. Esther's response, by contrast, is brilliantly effective; eschewing sackcloth, she commands Mordecai to organize a communal fast. This was traditional in times of crisis, and, as Sandra Beth Berg observes in a discussion of loyalty to the Jewish community, 26 it succeeded in binding people in a communal response, yet it did not entail a provocative violation of the law of the land. That a fairly drastic shift in power has occurred here is confirmed by two extremely rare occurrences of the verb mi) in its feminine form, which are all the more striking for being used with a masculine object, namely Mordecai. For authority to be compelling in biblical terms, it must usually be recognized by more than one party, preferably the group it addresses and an opposing group. The signs and miracles in Egypt must convince the Egyptians, as well as the Israelites, of God's superior powers; the foreign king's recognition of God's authority is a crucial element of the Genesis 'wife-sister' texts, and, in our text, it is not enough that Mordecai respects Esther's commands; Haman too must acknowledge her authority. This is achieved during the scene in which Esther reveals the identity of the would-be exterminator of her people: Thereupon King Ahasuerus demanded of Queen Esther, 'Who is he and where is he that dare to do this?' 'The adversary and enemy', replied Esther, 'is this evil Haman!' And Haman cringed in terror before the king and queen. The king, in his fury, left the wine feast for the palace garden, while Haman remained to plead with Queen Esther for his life; for he saw that the king had resolved to destroy him (7.5-7).

Clines sees a choice at the heart of this episode: Ahasuerus goes into the garden to decide between Haman, his favourite courtier, and Esther, his wife of 'uncertain ancestry with nothing much to recommend her except her good looks and her cookery'. Yet Clines is surely mistaken when he proceeds to claim that the text fails to indicate whether Ahasuerus's anger is directed towards 26. The Book of Esther: Motifs, Themes Missoula, MT: Scholars Press 1979), p. 100.

and Structure

(SBLDS, 44;

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Esther or towards Haman. We have no reason to doubt Haman's intuition that the king has resolved to destroy him (7.7).27 The choice at the heart of this episode is thus not Ahasuerus's between Haman and Mordecai, but rather Haman's between Ahasuerus and Esther. At first, Haman cringes before both the king and queen, but the king, by stalking out to the garden, forces him to make a quick calculation about his subsequent action. Should he run out after the king, or stay with Esther? On the one hand, women are traditionally more merciful than men, but, on the other hand, Esther's people had been the target of his attempted extermination. In the end, Haman simply backs the stronger horse. He is well aware that the king is weak, and the power of the throne actually rests behind it, but, more importantly, he recognizes Esther as the stronger and more influential of the two. This scene is a source of useful evidence for the debate about whether Esther is a real queen or simply the powerless wife of a monarch. Athalya Brenner in The Israelite Woman: Social Role and Literary Type in Biblical Narrative,2* concludes that Esther is a queen only in 'title and dress', relying on 'feminine and sexual charms'. Against this, Zefira Gitay, in 'Esther and the Queen's Throne', 29 uses a fascinating collection of images of Esther in art to reveal Esther's queenly authority, whose origins she finds in the text itself, particularly in its emphasis on her noble ancestry and lengthy apprenticeship (more than cosmetic, we must assume) before she may ascend the throne. When Haman throws himself on to the queen's couch, he is using the so-called 'feminine and sexual charms' usually attributed to Esther, and this unexpected reversal surely underlines the obvious point that Esther's battle has not been won by these strategies. It is important to observe that Mordecai is completely absent during the scenes in which Esther secures the salvation of her people. She alone is responsible for determining the most effective means of dealing with Ahasuerus and Haman, and she carries it off without assistance. Once Haman is safely impaled on his fifty cubit high stake Mordecai returns to the palace, but a careful reading demonstrates that Esther is by no means despatched into the sunset. Upon 27. The Esther Scroll, p. 15. 28. (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1985), p. 31. 29. In Brenner, Esther, Judith and Susanna, pp. 136-48.

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his return, Mordecai presents himself to Ahasuerus, at which point: The king slipped off his ring, which he had taken back from Haman, and gave it to Mordecai (8.2).

This verse confirms that Mordecai is not replacing Ahasuerus; rather, he is stepping directly into the shoes of Haman, over whom Esther, as we have seen, had complete control. And if there is any doubt about whether this hierarchy will be transferred to the new players, the concluding words of v. 2 make it abundantly clear: 'And Esther put Mordecai in charge of Haman's property.' The pattern is repeated when Esther turns to address her next problem: how to revoke the decree that had been sent out in the king's name? Here again, Mordecai slips from view, while Esther goes through the proper motions—falling at the royal feet, rising only to touch the royal sceptre, and pleading with excessive diffidence. The king is, as usual, convinced and promises that she can write another edict, in his name and sealed with his ring, to cancel out the first. Mordecai then returns to dictate letters to the Jews and to all the officials of the provinces, explaining what the Jews are entitled to do on the 13th of Adar to those who sought their harm. Yet, once again, the king addresses Esther, who requests that the same events be repeated on the next day in Shushan itself, and that the sons of Haman, in particular, should be put to death. Esther assesses that the job is unfinished and that enemies of the Jews are still remaining. This is hardly the response of a stereotypical woman, and should discourage any evaluation of Esther in those terms. It should also deter readers from assuming that Mordecai is pulling the strings, for he has no role to play in this decision. And if even this is insufficient to convince the reader of Esther's independent power, the text proceeds to establish that Mordecai's letter outlining how the days of Purim must henceforth be celebrated (with the sending of gifts to each other and to the poor—9.20-22) is followed up by a letter from Esther, confirming the authority of Mordecai's (929). It would surely be odd to validate the letter of a person of great authority with a second letter by someone of lesser authority. It is, moreover, Esther's ordinance validating the observances of Purim, and not Mordecai's original letter, that is recorded in the allimportant scroll (9.32). The demonstration of divine strength through the use of a weak and insignificant group is a familiar tactic in biblical narrative. Most

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obviously, God chooses small, enslaved, landless Israel as his Holy people, thus making a far greater impression than would have been possible had he selected Babylon or Assyria at the height of their power. Other examples abound: a young shepherd boy fights against a notorious giant, Gideon's army consists of the few men who lap up water like dogs, and, in the most frequently recurring example, a younger child continues the line in a society based on primogeniture. It would be relatively straightforward to construct a theory in which the choice of Esther is based on just this pattern; a weak, orphaned woman whose only known attribute is moderate beauty (pace Clines, I think the feasts were catered), is able to dominate an immensely wealthy foreign king with God's help. Yet, in Esther's case, the familiar pattern fails to fit. First of all, God is not mentioned in this role, nor, of course, in any role in Megillat Esther. In contrast to the accounts of women of action, such as Deborah and Jael (see Judg. 4, especially w . 14 and 23), and the apocryphal Judith, in which God's contribution is subsequently emphasized, our text preserves the impression that the relevant partnership was between Esther and Mordecai, not Esther and God. Yet if God is not working through Esther, what is their relationship? It seems to me that there is a certain respect in which Esther may be understood as the face of God in Megillat Esther; she stands where God would have been had He been present. This reading is not as radical as it sounds. Jacob ben Sheshet, in an early thirteenth-century Catalonian kabbalistic text, identifies Esther with the Shekinah (divine presence), and this image of Esther also fits well with the well-known rabbinic interpretation of the words used by Mordecai to convince Esther that she must intercede for her people. If she refuses to cooperate, Mordecai warns, then 'relief and deliverance will come to her people from "another source" pnK Dlpft]' (4.14). The rabbis, influenced by the widespread use of Dipftas a name of God, saw this as a veiled allusion to divine intervention. While it is impossible to determine one way or another whether Mordecai had this in mind, his subsequent words certainly point in that direction: And who knows, perhaps you have attained to royal position for just such a crisis (4.14).

Taken to its logical extension, the rabbinic interpretation of Mordecai's words entails that Esther's refusal to act on behalf of the

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Jewish people will result in God's acting instead, which is very close to my claim that Esther plays the role in Megillat Esther that would otherwise have been fulfilled by God. Maimonides wrote that, when the Messiah comes, only two parts of the Hebrew Bible will remain: the Torah and Megillat Esther}0 I do not know what Maimonides had in mind, but there is a strong case to be made for claiming that just as the Torah is the ultimate book of the land, so Esther is, par excellence, the document of the diaspora, where God acts indirectly and invisibly. In this paper I have tried to show that at the very heart of Megillat Esther lies the greatest dilemma of diaspora existence: how to trust an invisible God who acts indirectly in the face of a highly tangible source of authority in the shape of a human king and his laws. By contrasting the weakness of Ahasuerus with God's strength, by evoking the chaos and destruction that can emanate from a weak king (once again, it is difficult not to think of King Lear), and by showing the impotence of fate, as exemplified by Haman's use of lots, against divine providence, Megillat Esther provides a blueprint for diaspora living, albeit one in which negative examples are as important as, or more important than, positive ones. In the place where God would have acted stands Esther, working with Mordecai in just the way that God worked with Abraham in Genesis 20. This is not to say, of course, that the point of God's withdrawal here was to provide a rare if not unique example of an equal opportunity biblical narrative. Yet it was an inevitable result of Megillat Esther's particular approach to the problem of God's presence in the diaspora that the figure of Esther would achieve a prominence unmatched by a woman, and perhaps even by a man, in any other book of the Hebrew Bible. Not only does the text demonstrate repeatedly that Esther's success lay in the conventionally masculine attributes of intelligence and courage, but this is a very rare case of a biblical heroine whose success is not subsequently attributed to God. And if this interpretation has any validity, the traditional reading of Esther as Mordecai's weak, whining, manipulative, stereotypically feminine helpmeet, Aaron to his Moses, must be discarded once and for all.

30. Mishnah Torah, Hilchot Megillah, 2.18.

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Many modern readers will, no doubt, remain unconvinced, seeing the equal opportunity Esther I have outlined here as a twentieth-century apologetic for an enduringly sexist tract. For their benefit, and for my own pleasure, I would like to conclude by citing a first-century CE rabbinic text in which Esther, if not a stand-in for God, is certainly an equal of Mordecai. I do not want to mislead; the rabbis were often highly derogatory about Esther, claiming that she was 75 years old when she entered the court of King Ahasuerus, sallow-complexioned and attractive only because of a thread of grace linking her to heaven. But Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanos shows a perfect understanding of the true balance of power in Megillat Esther when he completes his point by point catalogue of the similarities between Ahasuerus and Mordecai—both wore royal clothes, both had crowns, both inspired fear among the citizens of the country—with the crucial information that both had a currency. And what, according to Rabbi Eliezer, was on the money of Mordecai? 'On one side was the face of Mordecai, and on the other, the face of Esther.'

Part III VOICES

ESTHER REED

Feeling and Reason: Feminist Notes on the 1821-22 Debate between Hegel and Schleiermacher

Where did it all go wrong? When did the diremption of feeling and reason become a problem in theological anthropology? Is it a diremption that feminist theologians should wish to overcome? Will it always be repeated?

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, it is to explore what can be learned by feminist theologians from the 1821-22 debate between Hegel and Schleiermacher. Second, where appropriate, the intention is to apply any lessons learned from their debate to contemporary Christian feminist anthropology. Whether we like it or not, Hegel and Schleiermacher are progenitor figures who bequeath a vocabulary and mode of conceptualization that pervade our understanding; they are our intellectual ancestors in the modern Western philosophical era out of which feminism and feminist theology have grown. Few questions about contemporary and theological anthropology can be posed or probed without their spectral influence being reflected in our thoughts. This influence resides, not least, in the diremption between feeling and reason that they bequeath to their successors. In this paper I seek to explore why and how this diremption or brokenness occurs. The argument is that the diremption or bifurcation from which theology in the modern period has suffered has its cause in the over-unification of various types of misconceived speculative interconnection (zusammenhang) of all human experience. As we shall see, both Hegel and Schleiermacher took inspiration from Neo-Platonic doctrines of philosophic unity that prove to be incapable of sus-taining difference. Both sought to 'mend' 1 the break or diremption 1. Gillian Rose uses this term in Pathos of the Concept', in idem, The Broken Middle (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1992), pp. 308-309. I am indebted at several points in this paper to her insights.

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prematurely through the transformation of false oppositions within a higher unity. Both offered a 'mended' anthropology in which bifurcation finds unification in a Neo-Platonic series of progressions to either absolute knowing or piety. Neither, however, could offer an adequate basis for knowledge of God. Neither could prevent the closing of human feeling and reason in upon itself. Both are dangerous allies for feminist theologians today. Staging the Debate Plato wrote in The Republic that a man who surrenders his soul to the sound of music will find it soften and weaken as iron in a furnace; his energy will degenerate as his learning is weakened for want of instruction or inquiry.2 By contrast, the man who takes part in physical education, discussion and educated activity will become strong and stable and will have the potential for a proper harmony between every aspect of education. 3 Clear standards of rational excellence and cultivation of the ability to reason are imperilled by the giving up of the soul to the effects of music and other distractions: if he persists and does not break the enchantment, the next stage is that it [the soul] melts and runs, till the spirit has quite run out of him and his mental sinews (if I may so put it) are cut, and he has become what Homer calls 'a feeble fighter'.4

The upward progress of the mind is endangered by the softness and fluidity that results in the soul from non-intellectual influences. The intellect is at risk of losing control of all other elements when led to action on the basis of receptive response and feeling rather than physical education and acquaintance with literature or philosophy. Such 'mindless' activities as abandonment to the raptures of music tend to lack of control and tenuity; the effects of music on the soul are less reliable than those that accrue from a life of reason and are appropriate to the intelligible realm. The influence of music, as well as poetry, was to be controlled within the confines of an education in reason.

2. 3. 4.

Plato, The Republic 3-41 la-c. Plato, The Republic 3.41 ld-e. Plato, The Republic 3.411b.

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Hegel cites this passage by Plato in his 'Foreword' to H.F.W. Hinrichs's Philosophy of Religion, published in April 1822, and claims Plato in support of his attacks against the misology of the day.5 The cultural trappings by which each was bound must, of course, be borne in mind. Plato was concerned with the interrelation between physical and military training, literary and philosophical learning. He sought ways to nurture the qualities of discipline, courage, generosity and greatness of mind, and criticized non-intellectual influences that hindered the realization of ideals of objective rationality.6 He was concerned with the supposed hatred or disrespect of knowledge inherent in the Gefuhlstheologie of his time that, he thought, assumed feeling or immediate self-consciousness to be the beginning, middle and end of religion. Yet he claims affinity with Plato's concerns regarding contempt for the proper place of reason in philosophy and knowledge of God. He links Plato's warnings against music for dulling the rational parts of the soul with his concerns about the use that his colleagues at Berlin—notably F.D.E Schleiermacher—made of non-intellectual, responsive elements in human experience. In the 'Foreword' he makes reference to Plato's Phaedo wherein is a warning that we do not become 'haters of discussion', that is, those who disregard trained methods of arriving at sound judgments. 7 The risk was that stimulation of non-intellectual parts of the soul would endanger proper skill in judging human affairs. Most feminist writers have tried in some way to reject Plato's diremption between feeling and reason as mediated to us in the Western philosophical tradition through figures such as Descartes, Fichte, Kant, Hegel and others. Women such as Genevieve Lloyd

5. G.W.F. Hegel, 'Foreword' to Hinrichs's Philosophy of Religion, in Hegel, Hinrichs, and Schleiermacher on Feeling and Reason in Religion: The Texts of their 1821-22 Debate (trans. Eric von der Luft; Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1987), § 27. 6. Plato, The Republic 3.402c-d. For Plato's previous comments on the skills required to distinguish good music from bad, see 3.400d. 7. Plato, Phaedo 89d. On the debated issue of development in Plato's thought regarding dialectic as a method of division that enables sound judgment, see M. Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 228-29.

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and Sarah Coakley have perceived colossal self-deceptions surrounding the activity of reason as it is spoken of by Western successors to Plato.8 It is argued by others that Western philosophy has for too long been dominated by the elevation of reason at the expense of feeling. The cultural theorist Susan Griffin, a resolute adversary of the belief structures of Western men such as Empedocles, Descartes, Rousseau, Darwin and Freud, tries to shake women awake from the rationalist dream that allows Neo-Platonic Western philosophical assumptions about the thinking T to go unchallenged.9 She seeks a new kind of reason that is free from the contaminations of the so-called Western 'Man of Reason' and is more sensitive to the whispering voice of nature. Agnes Heller, an avowed and distinguished proponent of much of the modern project, argues that such figures bequeath a diremption between feeling and reason in which the former is too often rendered subordinate to the latter. She identifies an emotional impoverishment within everyday value hierarchies in which, for instance, 'personality quality' audits are conducted, but all criteria for assessing banality have been lost.10 Despite their differences, both agree that we inherit a philosophical tradition in which an improper diremption between feeling and reason prevents life from being lived to its fullest. Feminist theologians are also concerned that the divide between feeling and reason affects not only human subjectivity but impinges in parallel fashion upon knowledge of God; they perceive a simultaneity between problems of self-knowledge and knowledge of God. In 1984 Dorothee Solle sought a revaluation of the interconnection of what it is to feel and think: To Love Is To Be Whole Multidimensionality

8. E.g. Genevieve Lloyd, The Man of Reason (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984); Sarah Coakley, 'Gender and Knowledge in Western Philosophy', in Ann Carr and Elisabeth Schiissler Fiorenza (eds), The Special Nature of Women, Concilium (London: SCM Press, 1991-96), pp. 75-83. 9. Susan Griffin, Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her (London: Women's Press, 1984), p. 118. 10. Agnes Heller, 'Are we Living in a World of Emotional Impoverishment', in P. Beilharz et al. (eds.), Between Totalitarianism and Postmodernity (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992), pp. 220-32.

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BODIES, LIVES, VOICES Integration of our physical potencies physical intellectual aesthetic emotional spiritual. 11

Solle implies that individuals are increasingly less able to cope with anxieties and inhibitions and are less capable of intimacy. Her concern is that contemporary theology has been slow to meet societal needs. A sense of warm accord is often evoked from her readers by her clarion call for 'holism' in every aspect of theological concern. However, in the decade since she wrote, we have been so bombarded in the West with one advertisement after another for 'holistic' approaches to medicine, ecological issues, education or sexual problems, that the appeal has become worn out with overuse, hackneyed and commonplace. A tension besets contemporary feminist anthropology. On the one hand, waves of disillusionment descend upon us every time we hear the refrain. On the other, we share with Dorothee Solle the need to resist the diremption of feeling and reason that besets the legacy of Hegel, Schleiermacher et al. This means that we face at least two questions. What do Hegel and Schleiermacher bequeath us to work with? What do they bequeath us to work against? It is often argued that they leave to us a legacy of improper diremption between feeling and reason. This is undoubtedly true and will be demonstrated shortly. It is less often argued that they assign to us a common methodology that renders both dangerous allies for contemporary Christian feminist anthropology. In this paper it will be shown that we can learn as much today from their similarities as from their differences. At its most fundamental, the problem consists in the residual Platonic monism in both, which, when left unexplained and uncorrected, prevents an adequately Christian definition of what it is to be human. Both Hegel and Schleiermacher know something of the wholeness of human being and struggle to express it. However, both in various ways always posit this wholeness within a philosophical framework of unity or ontological monism in which 11. Dorothee Solle, To Work and to Love (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), p. 144.

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feeling and reason are tied together in a condition of oneness or unitas. Their philosophical stereotypes compress feeling and reason together within some dominant appellation of unity that produces an over-unification that has severe and detrimental consequences for a fully relational definition of what it is to be human. An ultimacy is ascribed to unity qua unity that leads to an unavoidable fracturing in ontology in which feeling and reason fall apart because their relationality is inadequately framed. The problem for feminist theological anthropology is that this problem has not yet been transcended but is continuously reoccurring in surprising and variant forms. The problem is complicated by common confusion regarding the terminology used by Hegel and Schleiermacher, their sometimes deliberate misunderstanding one of the other, and subsequent misinterpretations of their intended meanings. Thus, the task in hand is, first, to understand their debates and, secondly, to learn to avoid the many dangers associated with the modern philosophical legacy that Hegel and Schleiermacher represent. An Improper Diremption between Feeling and Reason There is little doubt that the history of Christian theology since Hegel and Schleiermacher, including feminist theology, has suffered various forms of both subjectivist and rationalist dissolution. In the nineteenth century, whether one traces the various types of rational theology that developed after Hegel (F.C. Baur, H.E.G. Paulus, A. Ritschl, E. Caird), or the different types of 'mediating' theology influenced by Schleiermacher that sought compromise between rationalism and orthodoxy (J.A.W. Neander, F.A.G. Tholuck, LA. Dorner), the problem of the separation of feeling and reason occurs time and time again. At least two clear schools of thought developed under their influence. The first applied Hegelian rationalism to both doctrine and study of the New Testament. F.C. Baur (1792-1860), for example, achieved a new synthesis between rational criticism and historical understanding that was profoundly influenced by the philosophy of Hegel. His work had a significant application to historical critical study of the Gospels and Pauline Letters. In Scotland, Edward Caird's (1835-1908) The Evolution of Religion offered an idealistic philosophy in the Hegelian tradition in which he argued that Christianity is the absolute religion. By contrast, those who took their lead from Schleiermacher

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were opposed to Hegelian rationalism and argued that Christian belief found its attestation in individual Christian consciousness and religious feeling. Those with Pietist sympathies, for example, Johann Neander (1789-1850) were renown for catchphrases, such as 'the heart makes the theologian'. The followers of Hegel and Schleiermacher lacked the subtlety of their forebears who built self-correction mechanisms into their philosophies which ensured that both feeling and reason were accommodated and ultimately reconciled. However, this article argues that the problematic relationship between feeling and reason that they bequeath to us is less that of antinomial contradiction than the over-unification of feeling and reason within some allencompassing category. The reason is that Hegel and Schleiermacher represent different, but essentially similar, Neo-Platonic philosophies of universal unity. Each represents a forefront endeavour in Germany's classical period to combine feeling and reason within a hierarchical structuring of consciousness, they just carry out the task differently. This might seem hard to believe given that their differences were bitter and the 1821-22 dispute yielded some of the most infamous insults in the post-Enlightenment period. However, while a chasm separates their orderings of the interconnection between feeling and reason, there are patterns of thought and presuppositions common to each. For Hegel the interconnection of feeling and reason is grasped through pure speculative knowing; it involves a rediscovering of the unity of concepts in their opposition and the emergence from this opposition of a unity in distinction. Schleiermacher, like Hegel, describes progressive levels of self-consciousness, although for him the gradations of consciousness represent not the highest forms of thinking but grades of human feeling. Each evidences a type of unitary thinking within a philosophy of religion that subsumes the feeling-reason antithesis within an interpretation of ultimate unity. This becomes clear as we look at the debate itself. First, however, we should note that the nomenclature 'debate' is somewhat anomalous, because there was no single or staged debate in which they clashed with each other. Rather, 1821-22 were eventful years in which a succession of lectures and publications made their differences clear and well-defined. Secondly, it should be borne in mind that Schleiermacher's two letters to Dr Lticke of 1829 were

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responses to what he perceived as misinterpretations of, among other things, his use of the terms 'feeling' (Gefiiht) and 'dependency' (Abhdngigkeif) in the first edition of Der Glaubenslehre}2 The first edition does not represent his final position. He also cautioned against any overemphasis of interpretation of the Introduction; it was no more than 'a portal and entrance hall' for the propositions contained in the work as a whole. 13 Thus there are reasons to be cautious about abstracting this debate for special study for fear of skewing an historical perspective on the development of his thought. Nevertheless, there is sufficient reason to investigate this 'debate' with a view to understanding how feeling and reason were conceived in their displacement one of the other. Both Hegel and Schleiermacher were at stages of their respective careers where they were in a position to set forth coherent statements of their views. During 1821 Hegel's The Philosophy of Right was published, as was the first edition of his Religionsphilosophie that already bore the overall shape that governed the posthumously published editions of 1832 and 1840.14 The third edition of Schleiermacher's Reden fiber die Religion was published, as were the first edition of two volumes of Der Glaubenslehre, in 1821 and 1822 respectively. Hegel had been appointed from Heidelberg to a chair in Philosophy at Berlin in 1818, and, during the summer semester of 1821, he began a series of lectures on the philosophy of religion. The philosophy of religion had not yet become firmly established in its own right alongside anthropology and psychology, and it was quickly perceived that Hegel and Schleiermacher were taking antipodal positions with respect to foundations of the discipline.15 Moreover, it was in April 1822 that Hegel wrote an opportunistic and embittered attack on the romantic and Pietist religion of his colleague at Berlin. 12. F.D.E. Schleiermacher, On the Glaubenslehre: Two Letters to Dr. Lucke (trans. J. Duke and F. Fiorenza; AAR Texts and Translations; Ann Arbor, MI: Edward Brothers, 1981). 13. Schleiermacher, On the Glaubenslehre, second letter, p. 57. 14. It took a threefold systematic form, namely, The Conception of Religion (Der Begriffe der Religion)', The Definite Religion (Die Bestimmte Religion); and The Absolute Religion (Die Vollendete Religion). 15. On this see W. Jaeschke, Reason in Religion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), p. 10.

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Acrimony

andAcrisy

Hegel's 'Foreword' to H.F.W. Hinrichs's Philosophy of Religion represents his most direct assault on the Gefuhlstheologie of the time.16 Hinrichs, an ex-student of Hegel, had been entrusted with the teaching of speculative philosophy in Heidelberg after Hegel's appointment to Berlin. Hegel rarely gave such public support to his students, but this publication proved expedient to his own wishes publicly to castigate an attitude to religion and knowledge of God that he deemed inadequate to guide human reason or knowledge of God. Its tone is scornful and scathing, and, whilst Schleiermacher is not mentioned by name, the 'Foreword' is an aggressive polemic of disputatious intent. As I shall suggest, Hegel's critique of Schleiermacher fails, perhaps deliberately, to recognize the nub of the latter's argument. He makes cheap jokes that distract from the heart of the matter. 17 There were also personal disagreements between the two that should be noted. For instance, at the time of Hegel's appointment at Berlin, Schleiermacher had successfully opposed Hegel's membership of the Royal Academy of Sciences; a position that would have resulted for Hegel in a small increment. As Walter Jaeschke advises, we should be careful not to overpersonalize the dispute. He observes that the 'Foreword' is less a private disparaging of a colleague than a politico-religious argument against the theological fundamentalism of the evangelical church of the Prussian Union.18 Undoubtedly, some of the personal and philosophical tension stemmed from political differences regarding church and state. Hegel, who had been at a loss to account for Napoleon's fall between 1813 and 1814, and continued 16. A good English translation of the text is given by Eric von der Luft, Hegel. 17. On 9 April 1821, before reading the full text of the first edition of Der Christliche Glaube that had gone to print four days earlier, Hegel wrote to Karl Daub: 'You can get away with paying IOUs for a long time, but you still finally have to open your purse. It remains to be seen, however, whether this purse will dispense anything but more IOUs' {Lange genug kann man mit Rechenpfenningen zahlen, aber am ende—da muss man den Beutel doch ziehn) (cited by K. Rozenkranz, Hegel's Leben [Berlin, 1844], p. 342). 18. Walter Jaeschke (ed.), 'Vorwort des Herausgebers', in Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: Vorlesungen iiber die Philosophic der Religion (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag 1983-85), p. xii.

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to uphold the principles of the revolution, associated himself with the government reforms in Prussia more closely than Schleiermacher, albeit reluctantly. Their disagreement over the dismissal of a colleague named de Wette, who spoke in defence of Karl Sand, a political romantic of Jacobin tendency, illustrates the point. Hegel, opposed to Jacobin tendencies, contributed to a collection for de Wette but defended the right of the state over university affairs and the government's right to suspend him. Schleiermacher contributed to the fund but vehemently protested that the matter was internal to the university and that the government had no right to suspend a faculty member. Their philosophic and religious differences were interwoven with university and state politics. Nevertheless, the timing and content of the publication indicate an opportunistic and embittered attack against a rival colleague in the philosophy of religion. Hegel's attack in the 'Foreword' is built upon the identification of three false presuppositions common to his contemporaries, namely: (a) humankind assumes that it can know nothing of the truth; (b) truth can have only to do with appearances; and (c) feeling is the genuine form of religiosity. My particular concern is with his third point, namely, that no religion derived from natural intuition can satisfy the need of the soul for authentic inner peace. According to Hegel, Schleiermacher's intuitive and aesthetic locating of knowledge of God within the freedom and fluctuations of feeling invites an unrestrained form of religious experience that has few, if any, boundaries. His most scathing comments on the implications of Schleiermacher's principle of subjectivity or Gefilhlstheologie are well known. Indeed, it was rumoured by a Privatdozent in the University of Berlin in 1824 that Schleiermacher never forgave Hegel for the following scornful abuse:19 If religion in man is based only on a feeling, then such a feeling rightly has no further determination than to be the feeling of his dependence, and the dog would then be the best Christian, for the dog feels this most strongly in himself and lives mainly within this feeling. 20

Hegel's jibe about dependency deliberately misrepresents Schleiermacher's understanding of feeling as affectivity, that is, 19. Rozenkranz, Hegel's Leben, p. 346. 20. Hegel, 'Foreword', in von der Luft, Hegel, § 26.

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pertaining to the emotions not the intellect. Also suspect is his identification of Paul's reference to 'natural humankind', in 1 Cor. 2.14, with the subjectivism and selfish religious individuality that he perceived in Schleiermacher's finite conditioning of religious knowledge of God. According to his paraphrase: Natural man perceives nothing of the spirit of God and cannot recognise it, for it must be spiritually ordered. 21 (Der naturliche Menscb vernimmt nichts vom Geiste Gottes und kann es nicht erkennen, denn es mussgeistliche gerichtet seiri)22

The implication is that the true content of religion is attained in rational cognition of God that is unavailable to der naturliche Menscb. This interpretation is contrived and refers to the sort of Romantic feeling associated with Schlegel, Schleiermacher or Rousseau, rather than that intended by Paul. Whatever the latter's intended meaning, for Hegel it is intellectual operation that takes every human individual beyond the primitive, natural levels of consciousness into 'the native realm of truth'. 23 He imposes his own particular interpretation of true religion as enabling the self to become certain of its own conscious existence and which proceeds as the lower, natural levels of existence are preserved, cancelled and raised to a higher level of rational being.24 The validity of his arguments must surely be tested. However, we should summarize the reasons for his challenge. First, Hegel argues that feeling speaks approval or disapproval to the self as an immediate expression: Feeling, for itself, is natural subjectivity, which is just as capable of being good as of being evil, just as capable of being pious as of being godless. 25 21. Hegel, Foreword', in von der Luft, Hegel, § 26. XVII, 295. 22. These are the words of Hegel's paraphrase. See von der Luft, Hegel, § 26 n. 5 for a helpful look at the Greek text and German translations available to Hegel. 23. Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit (trans. A.V. Miller; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), § 167. 24. This definition of aufhebung is given by von der Luft as used by Hinrichs, Hegel, p. 180. Cf. Michael Inwood, A Hegel Dictionary (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1992) which gives the three main senses of Aufheben as, to raise, to annul and to keep or preserve. 25. Hegel, 'Foreword', in von der Luft, Hegel, § 25.

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Feeling gives no reasons for its decision. It is a natural, 'base', or unconditioned quality that does not decide with reference to reason and thus has no freedom in itself. Secondly, feeling is inconstant and changeable. It is at one time in one state and at another in a different one. It is something subjective and belongs to one as an individual: 'Feeling...contains within it at the same time what is most diverse and most contrary.' His accusation, albeit unjust, is that the kind of feeling experienced is merely the result of sentiment; the individual appeals to feeling in order to make a decision after withdrawing into themself and expressing only what concerns them. Thirdly, there is nothing objective, universal or intelligible in decisions made on the basis of feeling: 'even the illusion of objectivity has disappeared'. Decisions are made in an immediate fashion, without reflection, according to whether a mood is pleasant or unpleasant. Only the sublime demands of reason separate the immediacy of such feeling from the animals. Fourthly, the natural and emotional needs of the human heart require rational direction, because humankind is ordered to a higher, rational, way of life: The absolute content of religion is essentially something present, and therefore it is...only in rational cognition, that spirit can find something further present and free for it and which is able to satisfy its eternal requirement to think and thus to add the infinite form to the infinite content of religion. 26

According to Hegel, philosophical cognition alone is capable of systematic explication of the relation of religious feeling to reason. Feeling of itself can never be made into a principle. It cannot demonstrate the full expanse or real possibilities of religion and thus remains vacuous. For Hegel, the religious person who merely holds the truth in his heart as a feeling or appearance has an inadequate knowledge of God. Hence his accusations of irrationality, beast-like ignorance, sophistry and arbitrariness against the type of psyche that results from the Gefiihlstheologie advocated by Schleiermacher. Schleiermacher represented for him the highest product of sentimental rationalism.27

26. Hegel, Foreword', in von der Luft, Hegel, § 31. 27. These are the words used by Rozenkranz, Hegel's Leben, p. 344.

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Fudging on Feeling? Schleiermacher must be given the opportunity to answer for himself. It takes two to wrangle, and he should be allowed to respond to Hegel's challenge that his philosophy of religion is a colossal self-deception. Does he, as Hegel suggests, fudge the relationship between feeling and reflective consciousness or reason? Can Schleiermacher assure us that individuals can know more than their own feelings in any encounter with the divine? Are intuition and feeling insufficient to provide an adequate basis for the formulation of knowledge of God? The Introduction to Der Christliche Glaube 1821-22, § 8, gives one of Schleiermacher's clearest definitions of feeling: By feeling I understand immediate self-consciousness, as it fills up a portion of time, if not exclusively, then indeed principally, and as it essentially comes forth among the now more strongly, n o w more weakly, opposed forms of the pleasant and unpleasant. 28

In some similarity to the Aristotelian doctrine of the mean whereby the pleasure and pain that accompany an act should be taken as a sign of its disposition,29 Schleiermacher suggests that the condition of joy or delight that results from feeling should be taken as a clue to its disposition. In § 9 he states that feeling is that which is innermost to the self. It is prior to any conscious thought or act of will, and is that moment at which immediate self-consciousness passes into movement. This is consistent with the connection in On Religion of 1799 between intuition and feeling. In On Religion, intuition was analogous to the apprehension of light by the senses; it was 'immediate perception' (die unmittelbare Wahrnehmungy50 'the knack of absorbing everywhere the original light of the universe into our senses'. Intuition was a generic aspect of human experience that belonged to the particular self and conveyed their original sense of existential unity with the world. 28. F.D.E. Schleiermacher, Der Christliche Glaube 1821-22, Kritische Gesamtausgabe 1. Abt. Band 7,1 (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1980), § 8. 29. Aristotle, The Ethics 1102a2-18. 30. F.D.E. Schleiermacher, On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers (trans. R. Crouter; Cambridge: Cambridge Univerity Press, 1988), pp. 104-105, 144; idem, Uber die Religion: Reden an die Gebildeten unter ihren Verdchtern (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1958), p. 33.

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Feeling was the stimulus produced by intuition that wrought a change in the inner consciousness: 'An action is brought forth in you, that the internally generated activity of your spirit is set in motion.' 31 Feeling was the stirring of the inner being or the flaring of the spark of the soul.32 As in the Introduction to Der Christliche Glaube 1821-22, feeling was unmediated self-consciousness in its initial expressions of life; the free production of inner activity in response to the infinite. On this basis, Schleiermacher implies that intuition and feeling are sufficient to provide a basis for the knowledge of God because (a) we can never transcend the limits of possible experience of feeling, and (b) the experience of feeling conforms to concepts that represent what is general and universal. He assumes with Kant that human knowledge is incapable of producing an object and depends upon something being given to it.33 For Kant, intuition precedes all conscious reflection and is the initial form of relationship between the T and its objects. So also for Schleiermacher, intuition is the condition for the experience of something that does not belong to the self but is given from outside. 34 For Kant, intuition is both the condition for reflection and is conditioned by its object.35 So also for Schleiermacher, intuition receives the information that constitutes the raw material of experience prior to thought. Intuition provides the conditions for reflective knowledge of objects. For Kant, the raw material of intuited experience must be worked over by understanding that conforms to universal principles.36 So also for Schleiermacher, the raw material of intuited 31. Schleiermacher, On Religion, p. 109; Uber die Religion, p. 37. 32. Schleiermacher, On Religion, p. 145. 33. This summary of Kant's most fundamental assumption is formulated by H.W. Cassirer in Kant's Critique of Judgement (London: Methuen & Co., 1938). 34. 'The capacity [receptivity] for receiving representations through the mode in which we are affected by objects, is entitled sensibility. Objects are given to us by means of sensibility, and it alone yields us intuitions', they are thought through the understanding, and from the understanding arise concepts' (I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason [trans. N. Kemp Smith; London: Macmillan, 1929], A 19. [hereafter cited as CPR\). 35. Kant, CPR, B 132. 36. 'Understanding may be regarded as a faculty which secures the unity of appearances by means of rules, and reason as being the faculty which secures

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experience must be worked over by understanding or the determination of feeling that conforms to what is general and universal. Here we glimpse why Wilhelm Dilthey designated Schleiermacher the Kant of Protestant theology; not only for the scientific vigour that he brought to his work but also for his fusion of transcendental philosophy and theology that was reminiscent of Kant's science of knowledge. 37 Whilst Kant's transcendental philosophy is based on a priori conditions of knowledge, Schleiermacher's systematic theology is grounded upon assumptions about the universality of religious feeling. The concept of religious piety replaces that of the transcendental ideal as the basis for a new type of transcendental theology. For this reason, John P. Crossley Jr is right to describe the feeling of absolute dependence as an epistemological concept and not a theological concept: 'not a definition of religion in the phenomenal sense, but an analytic definition of the mind's capacity for actual religious experience'. 38 Both Kant and Schleiermacher were concerned to explain the very conditions whereby it is possible to know that there is such a thing as (religious) experience. Both agreed that experience requires not only intuition but also the concept and the analysis that confers reality upon it.39 Both intuition and concept, intuition and the determination or judgment of feeling, are necessary parts in any and every experience for Kant and Schleiermacher respectively. Both Kant's notion of intuition and Schleiermacher's notion of feeling concern what is individual and particular. Both Kant's notion of concepts and Schleiermacher's notion of the determinations of feeling concern what is general and universal. So for Kant: 'Concepts without intuitions are empty, and intuitions without concepts are blind.' For Schleiermacher: 'Feeling without judgment is blind, and judgment without feeling is empty.' Thus Schleiermacher cleverly balances transcendental assumptions about the nature of feeling with an explicitly formulated the unity of the rules of understanding under principles'. Kant, CPR, B 359. 37. Wilhelm Dilthey, Leben Schleiermachers: Zweiter Band Schleiermachers Systems Als Philosophie Und Theologie (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1966), pp. 531-38. 38. John P. Crossley, Jr, 'The Relevance of Schleiermacher's Ethics Today', The New Athenaeum 4 (1995), p. 70. 39. Kant, CPR, A108-10.

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appeal to diversity and non-homogeneity. He assumes an inner unity of feeling or religious experience such that religious processes are fundamentally the same in all individuals. In § 9 of Der Christliche Glaube 1821-22 he hints at the unity of religious feeling in Christian and non-Christian religions, in a fashion that might endear him to religious pluralists today: Indeed, even in polytheism itself, the unity behind the plurality is always recognised, mediately or immediately, by sensible people, as soon as there comes to pass a more scrupulous consideration of pious states of affairs.40

Like Hegel, Schleiermacher assumes higher and lower levels of consciousness and will happily refer to some as more godly than others. 41 Early levels of feeling, such as those of the beasts, are hidden from consciousness and cannot be made plain or distinct.42 The individual becomes responsible for differentiation bet-ween different types of feeling. Hence the importance for Schleiermacher of religious education, and of the need to discern the character and quality of religious feeling or piety: Piety in itself is neither a knowing nor a doing, but a disposition and determination of feeling. 43

The hierarchical manner in which he grades and structures the quality of religious experience cannot be ignored: Piety, as the highest level [die hochste Stufe] of human feeling, assimilates other levels into it and cannot exist apart from them.

On the other hand, he balances this reliance upon transcendental concepts of the unconditioned nature of religious feeling with the assertion that feeling does not and cannot transcend the limits of possible experience. A priori forms of feeling cannot be received by individuals except in the everyday world of space and time. In such a world, every experience will be different and precious for its own sake. Self-consciousness, he writes, is as variegated as life; 40. Schleiermacher, Der Christliche 41. Schleiermacher, Der Christliche 42. Schleiermacher, Der Christliche 43 Schleiermacher, Der Christliche AA. Schleiermacher, Der Christliche von der Luft, Hegel, p. 222.

Glaube, § 9. Glaube, § 37. Glaube, § 10. Glaube, § 8. Glaube, § 8, p. 32. Translation from

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BODIES, LIVES, VOICES since the sensuousness must be viewed as something infinitely variegated, this provides us therefore with the ground of the heterogeneity in which pious emotions configure themselves. 5

His system draws its strength from experience as the beginning of all knowledge with its inexhaustible new supplies of information about the nature of religious feeling.46 This is the genius of Schleiermacher's philosophy, namely, its synthesis of Kantian philosophy and pietistic religious experience. Knowing God? Hegel (probably deliberately) misrepresents Schleiermacher's understanding of feeling as affectivity and indulges in a torrent of abuse and defamation that belongs at the lower end of the tabloid scale of philosophical debate. He is concerned to emphasize, however, that the case to be answered concerns the possibility of knowledge of God. He writes in the 'Foreword': The cognition of God and of truth is the only thing that raises man up above the beasts, sets man apart, makes man happy, or rather, according to Plato and Aristotle, as well as Christian doctrine— makes man blessed. 7

Cognition or knowledge of God {die Erkenntnis Gottes) is, he says, not just finite understanding or human thinking that belongs to the mere naturalness of humankind. It has its origin in the supersensuous essence {das iibersinnliche Weseri) or divine idea in which the human spirit is set free. This should not be taken to mean that, for Hegel, feeling, as individual subjectivity, has no place in a definition of the human person or of religion. To the contrary, as early as his Berne Plan of 1794 he had written about the need for objective religion, that is, externally imposed or positive, to be made subjective: To make objective religion subjective must be the great concern of the State, the institutions must be compatible with freedom of moral dispositions [Gesinnungen]. 45. Schleiermacher, Der Christliche Glaube, §§ 10, 16, par 1, p. 70. 46. Cf. Kant, CPi?, Bl/A 1, pp. 41-42. 47. Hegel, 'Foreword', in von der Luft, Hegel, p. 266. 48. G.W.F. Hegel, Early Theological Writings (trans. T.M. Knox; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971), p. 509.

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In 1810 he had stated in the Propaedeutic that intuition was the simple, immediate perception of external objects and feeling or sentiment [Gemut] or feeling [Gefilhl] was a second internal source of experience: Religion itself consists in the employment or exercise of feeling and thought in forming an idea or representation of the Absolute Being, wherewith is necessarily connected forgetfulness of one's own particularity and actions from this disposition [Sinn] in regard to the absolute Being. 49

Feeling is described as a determinate affection of an individual, that is, it is not contingent but belongs to the inner nature of what it is to be human. In the Logic of 1812-13, he refers to das Gefilhl as belonging properly to the nature of the mind.50 In the Philosophy of Right of 1821, he does not dispense with or degrade feeling but regards it as belonging to nature and therefore as of limited value until recognized, named, and brought into dialectical unity with reason.51 With reference to the family, Hegel says that feeling must be recognized as ethical life in the form of the natural that is lifted to a higher understanding when feeling, love, marriage and monogamy become principles on which the ethical life of a community is built.52 Of itself, the family, wherein love was based either in instinctive sexual impulses or treated as a contract, could not properly understand or fulfil its role within civil society. Similarly, the religion, within which feeling or natural subjectivity was sufficient, could provide no certain guide in the quest for truth:

49. See 'The Science of Laws, Morals and Religion' in The Philosophical Propaedeutic (trans. A.V. Miller; Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1896), p. 53. 50. G.W.F. Hegel, Hegel's Logic (trans. W. Wallace; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), p. 106-107. The argument here concerns the nature of certainty that arises from intuition. 51. G.W.F. Hegel, Hegel's Philosophy of Right (trans. T.M. Knox; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1952), p. 99. He attacks the principle of subjectivity in a political context (with especial reference to F.H. Jacobi) as unable to produce more than an immanent or abstract feeling for right or morality. 52. Hegel, Philosophy of Right, p. 114. For an excellent commentary on this see J. Derrida, Glas (trans. J.P. Leavey; Lincoln: Nebraska, 1986), p. 17.

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BODIES, LIVES, VOICES What is a theology without a cognition of God? Precisely what a philosophy is without a cognition of God: a resounding brass and a tinkling cymbal! 53

Pious feelings maintain themselves in the warmth and unity of passive subjectivity. The question for Hegel is how to bring such feeling and religion to a higher truth. Thus, Hegel did not deny any place for feeling in religion or the philosophy of religion but condemned the so-called modern theology or unmediated religion as insufficient to attain any objective knowledge of God. In the Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, delivered in 1821, his opening sentences were to the effect that rational consciousness and the act of thought set humankind apart from the animals. 54 He joked there about introducing 'spirit' into a dog such that it might eat jokes or chew on printed writings, and lamented the shallowness of contemporary understandings of religion in which the true rational content was neglected. Feeling, he says, was driven back constantly into the realm of feeling and mental imagery. It was tied to the finite and provided no answers for the religious culture of his day. It seemed to Hegel that wherever he looked the knowledge of God was either emptied of subjective content or emptied into subjective feeling. On the one hand, the Lutheran orthodoxy of the day was tied to impossible creedal definitions that presented unresolvable ontological problems, not least the divinity and humanity of Jesus Christ. On the other, Schleiermacher's understanding of religion had also emptied itself of the possibility of knowledge of God. Neither option was, he thought, to be desired: Theology is reduced to historical erudition, and then to the insufficient exposition of certain subjective feelings. 55

In both cases, God was degraded to an Unknown. When formal, institutional religion .made authoritarian demands with respect to creedal definitions of belief based on dualisms of substance religion became sterile. When reason is made redundant and religion flees 53. A good English translation of the text is given by von der Luft, Hegel, pp. 245-67. This quotation is from p. 267. 54. G.W.F. Hegel, Vorlesungen tiber die Philosophie der Religion (ed. W. Jaeschke; Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1983), III, part 1, p. 3. 55. Hegel, 'Foreword', in von der Luft, Hegel, § 15.

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from all objectivity of truth, that religion is lowered into the uncertain realm of feeling and becomes subject to arbitrary whims and attitudes. The true content of religion, says Hegel, seems either to be given by external authorities, and hence is only of finite import, or it is found in individual subjectivity that cannot transcend the finite either. The problem with the latter is that natural subjectivity knows nothing of the truth. The choice seemed to be between the sterile erudition of orthodoxy, in which external authorities bear undue influence, or the Gefuhlstheologie of the Enlightenment, which advocated that the finite wisdom of feeling and piety was a basis for cognition or knowledge of God. Conversely, Schleiermacher allowed for the place of reason in his definitions of how both the individual human person and the Christian religion attain knowledge of God. As early as his association with the literary journal The Athenaeum between 1797 and 1799, he was collaborating with Friedrich Schlegel to argue that religion and philosophy are intimately related: Only through religion can logic develop into philosophy, only from this source stems that which makes philosophy more than science. 56

Religion, they argue, is not only a part of education and an element of humanity but the centre of everything else, including philosophy, in so far as both are related to the 'ultimate' or 'absolutely original'.57 In Die Rede, Schleiermacher expresses his longing that religion find a fresh inner harmony with the demands of the intellect: I wish to lead you to the innermost depths from which religion first addresses the mind. 58

Even at this early stage, there is a sense in which religion and philosophy are related modes of consciousness in which there is a reciprocal knowledge of God. His groundwork of ethics, first sketched in 1804-1805 and not given again until 1825, centres around a doctrine of the highest good as the shared common 56. F. Schlegel, 'Literary Aphorisms (1797-1800)' in Dialogue on Poetry and Literary Aphorisms (trans. E. Behler and R. Struc; London: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1968), p. 150. 57. Schlegel, 'Literary Aphorisms' no 14, p. 150. 58. Schleiermacher, On Religion, p. 87; idem, Uber die Religion, p. 11. Crouter translates Gemut as 'mind'.

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ground between the human sciences. It was supported by notions of the identity of knowledge and the participation of every individual in it through progressive levels of consciousness.59 In his 1811, 1814, 1818 and 1822 lectures on Die Dialektik, Schleiermacher developed a theory of consciousness in which an architectonic unity bound together all forms of knowledge within a form of knowledge of the world. The real and the ideal shared an equal part in wisdom because each partook of a higher unity that was both God and the world. He clarifies his stance in a letter of March 1818 to F.H. Jacobi, the so-called Glaubensphilosoph and self-confessed heathen'. Jacobi claimed to treat faith as an aspect of feeling that was independent of the constraints of the human understanding. He had declared himself to be a pagan in his understanding but a Christian with his whole heart, swimming between two currents of water that, for him, could never unite. Schleiermacher rejects Jacobi's distinction and argues that feeling and understanding have equal claim within the Christian faith. He writes: [Dogmatics] is only the interpretation [Dolmetschung] resulting from the reflective powers of intellect. 60

of the feeling

Schleiermacher looks for an equilibrium to be achieved between the two currents of feeling and the intellect that allows one to enjoy the fullness of both. He hints at the inclusion of every grade or level of consciousness within the highest grade, which is piety. A False Sense of Unity Thus we see that both Hegel and Schleiermacher evidence types of unitary thinking within a philosophy of religion that subsumes the feeling-reason antithesis within an interpretation of ultimate unity. Both stressed the wholeness and unity of human experience and both attempted to bind idealism and humanism, liberalism and orthodoxy within an analysis of that experience. Both had speculative notions of unity with the divine in which pathways to the knowledge of God could be opened and pursued according to natural human experience, feeling and reason. The reason is that both 59. On this see Halbband, Schleiermachers System, p. 313. 60. F. Rowan (trans.), The Life of Schleiermacher (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1860), p. 280.

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Hegel and Schleiermacher had a love affair with Plato. The fundamental assumption underlying their work was that truth is the whole. The clue is given in the importance for each of the doctrine of universal unity. Plato concluded in the Parmenides that the whole is the one inasmuch as it is both whole and in parts, at rest and in motion, at one with itself and in others. Reason traces everything back to the one. 61 Both Schleiermacher and Hegel offer variations on this theme. For Hegel, the concept of the whole (das Ganz) functions to unify themes from logic and metaphysics, the philosophy of nature, anthropology, psychology, natural right, world history, aesthetics, the history of philosophy and so on. within a notion of Absolute Idea.62 This is most clearly expressed in the concluding sections of his Logic of 1830, where he identifies perception and intuition, abstract being and Idea, with being that is nature itself. So also for Schleiermacher, any and every act of knowing or feeling can be dissolved into connection with the universe and absorbed into 'the all' that is God, who is, at the very least, an undivided absolute unity.63 For this reason, religious feeling includes the quest for union with nature. For Hegel, the uniting or objectifying category is reason. For Schleiermacher it is feeling. For both, there is a unity that subsumes all differences and renders the diremption between feeling and reason of ultimate indifference. However, their forced reconciliations within ever higher forms of human existence betray unholy preconditions for the knowledge of God and anthropology.64 Hegel's speculative knowledge of God, or Wissenschaft,65 subsumes every aspect of human experience within an all-inclusive conceptual process. In his opening to the 1821 lectures on Religionsphilosophie, it is evident that speculative knowing alone supersedes the bare knowledge of God that is given in Christianity.66 The objectivity of all truth lies within a philosophical 61. Plato, Parmenides (trans. H.N. Fowler; London: Williams Heinemann, 1926), pp. 323-25. 62. Hegel, Logic, p. 292. 63. Schleiermacher, Der Christliche Glaube, § 69. 64. My reading here is informed by Gillian Rose's Pathos of the Concept', pp. 308-10. 65. Hegel, Foreword', in von der Luft, Hegel, § 15. 66. 'Er ist der Ausgangspunkt von allem und das Ende von allem; von ihm

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precondition of the divine Idea.67 Geist is the setting free of the 'natural spirit' through a rebirth of reason that knows and contemplates the infinite; the speculative identity of humankind with the divine Being that is given philosophically through a quasi-Socratic giving birth to itself: The absolute content of religion is essentially something present, and therefore it is...only in rational cognition, that spirit can find something which is able to satisfy its eternal requirement to think and thus to add infinite form to the infinite content of religion.

The interconnection of feeling and reason is grasped through pure speculative knowing; it involves a rediscovering of the unity of concepts in their opposition and the emergence from this opposition of a unity in distinction. Schleiermacher, like Hegel, describes progressive levels of selfconsciousness, albeit not the highest forms of thinking but grades of human feeling. Piety, for Schleiermacher, is the highest grade or level of consciousness within which all prior levels are absorbed: pious emotions and sensuous feelings must, at every instant, become one, though in varying degrees, i.e., the higher level must absorb the lower level within itself.69

Knowledge of God, the supreme Being, is given by internal means not confined to transient (zeitliche) effects or imperfect forms of knowledge; it is an interactive unity of every level of feeling within a notion of the One or the Whole. 70 Every individual act of knowing, thinking and feeling could be dissolved into connection

nimmt alles seinen Anfang, und in ihn geht alles zuriick. Er ist der eine und einzige Gegenstand der Philosophic... sowie aus ihm alles Besonders abzuleiten und alles allein zu rechtfertigen, insofern es aus ihm entspringt, sich in seinem Zusammenhang mit ihm erhalt, von seinem Strahl lebt und seine Seele hat. Die Philosophic ist daher Theologie.' W. Jaeschke, Hegel: Vorlesungen, pp. 3-4. 67. Hegel, 'Foreword', in von der Luft, Hegel, § 29. 68. Hegel, 'Foreword', in von der Luft, Hegel, §§ 5, 31. 69. Schleiermacher, Der Christliche Glaube, § 10 par. 4. 70. For an excellent summary of scholarship on this subject see Gunter Scholtz, 'Schleiermacher und die Platonische Ideenlehre\ in SchleiermacherArchiv: Internationaler Schleiermacher-Kongress Berlin 1984 (ed. KurtVictor Selge; Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1985), I, part 2, pp. 849-71.

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with the universe and absorbed into 'the all'.71 God, as the undivided absolute unity or supreme Being {das hochste Weseri), gives to every level of existence its coherence, dynamic and direction. Schleiermacher's letter to Jacobi of 30 March 1818 illustrates the point in so far as religion is the sphere within which supposed opposites coincide in a condition of balance. Schleiermacher's appropriation of a Platonic doctrine of idealism is clearly evident: philosophy properly consists in the perception that this inexpressible reality of the highest Being underlies all our thinking and all our feeling; and the development of knowledge is, according to my conviction, what Plato understood by dialectics. 72

He adopts Plato's notion of dialectics as the most adequate form of conception available to express the highest Being that underlies all our experience: as what is finite can be cognized only as conceived in opposition... so what is finite is...in the opposition only with and from what is placed beyond the opposition. 73

Schleiermacher, like Hegel, has no time for false oppositions and expounds the highest levels of self-consciousness in which successive types of knowing and feeling are dissolved in a greater whole. He uses the concept of aufgehoben to describe the cancellation of opposition between finite things and contrasts this with the higher existence of pious emotions that bear witness to the possibility of existence at a level in which opposition is annihilated and every individual act of knowing is dissolved 'into connection with the whole'. 74 For Schleiermacher, the imagery of fluidity is used positively to describe how the individual experiences God and feels themself to be dependent upon God. Like Plato, Schleiermacher directs his philosophy towards a systematization of knowledge in which the end is unity. Unlike Plato, Schleiermacher maintains that the level of pious emotion is not detrimental to the intellect but 71. Schleiermacher, Der Christliche Glaube, § 69. 72. Rowan, The Life, p. 28373. Schleiermacher, Der Christliche Glaube, § 37 par. 2. 74. Schleiermacher, Der Christliche Glaube, § 10 par. 3. For a thorough study of the concept of speculation in Schleiermacher's Glaubenslehre, see Thomas H. Curran, Doctrine and Speculation in Schleiermacher's Glaubenslehre (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1994) pp. 299-300.

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belongs together with the act of knowing within an interconnected unity. Thus, whilst there is no difference in the direction towards unity that both Plato and Schleiermacher take, there is a certain incongruity between the two in Schleiermacher's prioritizing of pious feeling over the rational intellect. We have the curious situation in which both Hegel and Schleiermacher rely on a philosophically derived sense of unity but Schleiermacher holds back from admitting the natural consequences of this position, that is, to acknowledge the identity of theology and philosophy. Both are attracted to a monism of Platonic and pre-Platonic origin, but only Hegel acknowledges the full consequences that this philosophical logic of difference within unity entails. Schleiermacher refrains from acknowledging the necessary relationship that Platonic notions of unity entail between theology and philosophy, faith and reason. 'Broken Conceptuality'11* So where does this leave us with respect to a Christian feminist anthropology? What warnings must be heeded? What false assumptions need to be exposed? In order to answer these questions it is necessary to do at least two things in these concluding sections. First, it is necessary to consider the consequences for theology of the binding up of conceptuality that occurs in both Hegel's and Schleiermacher's views of anthropology. I have argued that their variant Neo-Platonic quests for unity result in a type of 'broken conceptuality' that appears to cry out for unifying notions of what Gillian Rose and others have called the 'middle' by which diremption can be 'mended'. In this section I shall caution against contemporary feminist options for unity in which difference is again subsumed. Secondly, it is necessary to comment upon the feelingreason debate in the light of stereotypical gender discussion equated with it. Not surprisingly, Hegel has conventionally been perceived by feminists as more the 'villain of the piece' than Schleiermacher, because of his theories about the natural inequality of the sexes and his fashioning of the concept of reason; there tends to be less feminist resistance to Schleiermacher's religious

75. Gillian Rose uses this phrase in 'Pathos of the Concept', p. 309.

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expressionism than to Hegel's philosophical schema. 7 6 It will be suggested, however, that whilst Schleiermacher's study of feeling and piety, in terms of dependence and passivity, might hold possibilities for a r e n e w e d and gender-inclusive theology of t h e relational self, feminists might do well to avail themselves of some of Hegel's warnings. His diagnostic acuity might be brought to bear with respect to the dangers of any religious anthropology that gives primacy to individual spirituality and religiosity, and is vulnerable to self-deception. First, therefore, w e look at the issues of unity, brokenness and mending. Throughout this paper w e have witnessed a falling apart of feeling and reason with respect to knowledge of God. The brief review of t h e history of Christian theology since Hegel and Schleiermacher at the begining of this paper illustrated the point. We have also seen that b o t h Hegel and Schleiermacher tried, in related but variant ways, to implement a type of philosophy of religion that could 'mend' this diremption within an interconnected w h o l e . Each inherited from Plato the logical assumption that mutual relation of whole and parts is the first category of relation; each believed the whole and its parts to be essentially related one to the other; each had a unifying category, a 'middle' or 'third' term in w h i c h all the different parts of human experience converged; each believed that it fell to the 'middle' to achieve union, mediate or bring about convergence of the parts. For Hegel, the unifying category, that included feeling, was reason; for Schleiermacher, that w h i c h could bring about unity with reason was pious feeling. Each offered a hierarchical process in w h i c h difference was sublated. Each offered the philosophic category of unity within w h i c h the interrelation of feeling and reason was secondary. Neither could accommodate difference effectively because each was reliant on a 'middle' or 'third' term in which feeling and reason converge. This makes us suspicious of philosophical categories of unity that hide a diremption that feminist theologians should not wish to overcome. Gillian Rose used the terms 'broken middle', 'missing middle' and 'holy middle' in the search for postmodern answers to

76. See S. Benhabib, 'On Hegel, Women and Irony', in idem, Situating the Self: Gender, Community and Postmodernism in Contemporary Ethics (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992).

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modern oppositions between morality and legality.77 She was wary of hurried or patched resolutions and wanted the middle to be kept open: 'to know, to misknow and to grow'. 78 She was hesitant to invoke any simple uniting of two terms by a third, not least Hegel's uniting of the universal and the individual in the particular, and concluded: [T]he more the middle is dirempted the more it becomes sacred in ways that configure its further diremption. 79

We do well to heed this word of caution. The 'middle' has been the scene, of both an over-unification of reason and religion within a philosophical system, and of a temptation to self-justification on the basis of the quality of feeling; ancient and modern errors can repeat themselves in postmodern form. In a paraphrase of Gillian Rose's words: 'Because the middle is broken—because these faculties are flawed in their relation—does not mean they should be eliminated or mended.' 80 Rather, there is need for an anthropology that neither reduces difference to sameness, nor holds itself together by various hierarchical structurings of consciousness. Feminist theology should refrain from any indulgence in variant recapitulations of a movement of thought that began with Parmenides and extend to various evolutionary types of idealism today. To illustrate the point, I note that Hegel's influence can be detected in unexpected places; some feminists betray frequent, if unwitting, similarities with his philosophy of identity. For example, Rosemary Radford Ruether shares with Hegel a thought pattern that tends towards an idealized unity. She states quite explicitly that the transition from nature to reflective consciousness is a linking category within a single continuum of 'organised life energy'.81 Each phase within the life force passes into its successor in a way 77. Rose, The Broken Middle, pp. 277-78. 78. Rose, The Broken Middle, p. 310. 79. Rose, The Broken Middle, p. 307. 80. 'Because the middle is broken—because these institutions are systematically flawed—does not mean they should be eliminated or mended' (G. Rose, Diremption of Spirit', in P. Berry and A. Wernick [eds.], Shadow of Spirit: Postmodernism and Religion [London: Routledge, 1992], p. 53). 81. Rosemary Radford Ruether, Gaia and God (San Francisco: Harper 1992), p. 250.

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similar to transitions between categories within Hegel's philosophy of spirit. Ruether is, of course, not attracted to the temporal developments of reason that Hegel identifies, and is far more critical of 'man'-made social and cultural constructions of nature. However, she agrees with Hegel that nature has an immanent and developing history that manifests itself self-consciously in intellectual or 'mind' activity. Reflective consciousness is the privilege and danger of human persons that emerges out of nature and is, in a quasi-Hegelian sense, the coming of nature to itself: humans alone, amid all the earth creatures... are capable of reflective consciousness. We are, in that sense, the mind' of the universe, the place where the universe becomes conscious of itself.82

Her idealizing of human reflective consciousness as the intelligence of nature betrays an affinity with Hegel's philosophy of spirit in execution, if not overall purpose. Ruether and Hegel share certain assumptions about the processes and ontological progressions of nature and human consciousness. For both, human consciousness is where nature rises to awareness of itself and the result in her work is an ultimate unification of the two such that the wholeness of living Gaia subsumes all life forms: The small selves and the Great Self are finally one, for as She bodies forth in us, all the beings respond in the bodying forth of their diverse creative work that makes the world. 83

Like Hegel, she perceives an urgent need for the overcoming of dichotomy and duality, and conceives of an ongoing, creative whole in which a spiral pattern of repetition mends all opposition. Like Hegel, she is a thinker of sublimity; her work belongs to the lofty regions of thought and centres around sublimare or the process of elevation. Like Hegel, she subjects difference (not only the feeling-reason, but also the God-cosmos, division) to the processes of nature and history so as to convert them into energy that is creative and that, in death, is deposited back into nature's store. Difference is ultimately lost in the single action of nature and history. Having voiced this warning we must look, secondly, at the 82. Ruether, Gaia, p. 249. 83. Ruether, Gaia, p. 253.

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feeling-reason debate in the light of stereotypical gender discussion. The passage from Plato's The Republic, with which we began, referred primarily to the education of young men. Later, in The Republic, book 5, Plato argues that women and men should receive the same education and preparation for Guardianship, including training in gymnastics and music: Do you agree, then, that the best arrangement is for our men and women to share a common education, to bring up their children in common and to have a common responsibility, as Guardians, for their fellow citizens, as we have described?'... 'I agree,' he said.

The critical comments regarding music turning the soul to water were not gender specific. Plato's attack against the possible effects of non-intellectual forces on the rational soul applied to men as much as to women. However, despite the status of women in Plato's ideal society, it cannot be denied that many modern myths of gender have become associated with the divide between feeling and reason. This is clearly seen in Hegel's exposition of the family relationship between man and woman. For Hegel, the proper sphere of feeling is the family and is located in the play between the opposing natures of man and woman. Pious feeling, which for Hegel in this context means a warm, semi-conscious sense of unity with oneself and other members of the family, is essential to civil society. The happy husband, he writes, can relax at home because there he has a sense of 'concrete individuality', or immediate unity, between the rational and feeling parts of himself: In the family he has a tranquil intuition of this unity, and there he lives a subjective ethical life on the plane of feeling. 85

The woman is free from the struggles of keeping herself together, so to speak, in the conflictual worlds of public life and commerce. Her work is to maintain the family equilibrium between knowledge, will and feeling; activity, passivity and relationship, by her presence in the home: Woman, on the other hand, has her substantive destiny in the family, and to be imbued with family piety is her ethical frame of mind. 8

84. Plato, The Republic 5 A66c-d. 85. Hegel, Philosophy of Right, p. 114. 86. Hegel, Philosophy of Right, p. 114.

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Feeling, and especially the feeling of love, takes the form of a socalled natural interdependence of man and woman but requires elevation to a higher truth in order to participate fully in civil society. In other words, Hegel schematizes the so-called 'natural' differences between women and men as aspects of a necessary ontology that is both rational and realized in history, and that renders him less than virtuous in the eyes of feminist thinkers. By contrast, Schleiermacher is often perceived as an ally or kindred spirit in the feminist cause. Daphne Hampson wrote in 1990: I find the thought of Friedrich Schleiermacher.. .to be an inspiration. For Schleiermacher opened up the possibility of conceiving that it is through our knowing of ourselves that we come to a perception of God. 87

His constructive mediation between idealism and humanism, liberalism and orthodoxy, naturalism and supernaturalism, is used by some feminists today to prompt a potential correlation between a theology of religious consciousness and spontaneous receptivity to the divine. Isabel Carter Heyward associates herself with Schleiermacher's elevation of the concept of feeling, his stress on human experience of God, his apersonal notion of God as universal and natural, and his close association of God's acting in history with the activity of human self-consciousness.88 He resonates harmoniously with her intention to cultivate expressive religiosities that replace concept with symbol, metaphysics with myth, and dogma with experience. Hampson and Carter Heyward both imply that Schleiermacher's analysis of experience and religious consciousness still inspire a sublime appreciation of nature, beauty, human creativity and sense of harmony with the universe. In After Christianity, Daphne Hampson writes that her theological methodology is very close to Schleiermacher's procedure. 89 For Schleiermacher, theoological reflection was a secondary discipline predicated upon immediate awareness of dependence upon God. For Hampson, each woman finds her own way to experience God through 87. Daphne Hampson, Theology and Feminism (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), p. 172. 88. Isabel Carter Heyward, The Redemption of God (Langham, MD: University Press of America, 1982), Appendix. 89. Daphne Hampson, After Christianity (London: SCM Press, 1996), p. 232.

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reflexive self-awareness. She welcomes his emphasis on (a) religion as an intrinsic element in the immediacy of self-consciousness; (b) self-determination; (c) the relational nature of selfhood; (d) God experienced as a dimension of all that is. It is perhaps not surprising that some feminist writers evidence more frequent and witting similarities with Schleiermacher's philosophy of religious consciousness than with Hegel's philosophic schema, given that Hegel and Schleiermacher spawned divergent histories of interpretation in which there was a falling apart into opposing camps that preferenced either the rational mind or the feeling heart. There are problems here, however, not least, the fact that it is easy to skate over the philosophic import of what Schleiermacher meant by feeling in terms of religious epistemology, and to repeat Hegel's (deliberate) mistake of misrepresenting his understanding of feeling as affectivity. I am not saying that the authors named above necessarily fall into this difficulty. I merely suggest that feminist theology/thealogy, for which the initial method is self-reflexive, has a choice ahead regarding how theology continues to be done. This choice concerns the place and status of doctrine. Is feminist theology/thealogy that which can be taught and learned? Is it simply felt and experienced? If the answer to the first question is 'yes', then a consequence will be the alienation of some women who resent doctrinal statements being made on their behalf, and who wish only to articulate their individual feminist spirituality. If the answer is 'no', then feminist theology/thealogy could render itself vulnerable to the sorts of criticisms that Hegel voiced against Schleiermacher, namely that theology is reduced to little more than agnostic expressionism that is anti-intellectual in character. As we have seen, Hegel's critique of Schleiermacher on this point failed even to recognize Schleiermacher's argument. His jibe about Christianity, dogs and dependency was a cheap joke that distracted from the heart of the argument. However, contemporary feminist theologians should be wary of making the same mistake, albeit from the flip side. It is very easy to adopt Schleiermacher as an ally in the feminist cause because his talk about unmediated religion allows an emphasis on experience and feeling, creative originality and spontaneous activity, rather than reason and thought. To do so is to risk (a) repeating the (deliberate) mistakes

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perpetrated by Hegel with regard to his interpretation of Schleiermacher's use of the term 'feeling'; (b) overlooking that the resources with which Schleiermacher stages a 'comeback' at Hegel are thoroughly Kantian and derive from the heart of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason] (c) indulging in an overemphasis on feeling and experience in religious consciousness that carries in its wake a temptation to self-justification, that is, a false sense of certainty that we can be sure of feeling more than our own arbitrary feelings in any encounter with the divine. This is not to say that feminist writers might not find valuable resources in Schleiermacher's work. To the contrary, he might yet assist feminist theology in unexpected ways, not least through his notion of passivity. Feminists have conventionally repudiated any association of religious, and especially female, consciousness with passivity because of hidden reminiscences of Aristotelian biology that renders women naturally 'passive' and, therefore, subordinate to 'active' men. 90 Consequently, there has been very little consideration of notions of passivity in religion that are philosophically derived but on gender-neutral terms. Much work needs to be done in the area, especially on Schleiermacher's work in early psychological studies. From present observations, however, I note that passivity for Schleiermacher is not a female role nor linked to any personality type. Rather, it is both an ontological state that defines what it is to be human and an epistemological theory that enables a type of self-reflexivity that is most appropriate to human being. Schleiermacher offers an understanding of passivity and dependence that is not gender specific but characterizes a fundamental level of all human existence (see above pp. 166-70). To date, feminists have utilized the writings of Schleiermacher the romantic and artistically minded youth of Die Rede, who, by making theology and mysticism lie together, gave birth to a panaestheticism in which religion was about living creatively and enthusiastically and attaining one's own salvation.91 Some turn to him as the father of liberal Protestantism, whose Der Glaubenslehre tends to compromise the real content of theology by subsuming it within a science of religious consciousness. A suggestion here is that we might look 90. Aristotle, The Ethics ll48b.2-20. 91. This is Wilhelm Dilthey's expression in Lebens Schleiermacher, pp. 5-6 .

II/I,

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again at Schleiermacher, the pioneering psychologist for whom religious notions of dependence on God were in harmony with, and were the outworking of, a basic characteristic of human existence, and congenial to a theology of divine transcendence. 92 It is, of course, impossible to isolate one part of Schleiermacher's work from another. It is possible, however, to place greater emphasis upon those aspects of his theological anthropology that might be of particular assistance today, not least the manner in which he invites us to rethink the relational nature of passivity, rest and dependence in the development of selfhood and relationship with God.93 Conclusions Thus, I have attempted to identify and confront some assumptions derived from Plato that are shared by Hegel and Schleiermacher, but which remain largely unaddressed by feminist theologians today. I have argued the need to break free of conceptual forms of thought in which feeling and reason are subsumed within a goal of unity by means of an ascending dialectic. This argument was applied to some feminist notions of evolutionary idealism within which comparable assumptions exist. I have also stepped warily through the minefield of difficult terminology and cautioned against any repeat of Hegel's misinterpretations of Schleiermacher's use of the term 'feeling'. At the end of the day, it may be that the human faculties of feeling and reason are both ultimately insufficient to suffice an inquiry into either their own trustworthiness or knowledge of God. Affirmations of ineffability are needed in order to keep open both the relationship between feeling and reason, and that between humankind and God. Before feminist writers can offer more than a shuffling excuse for theology in the postmodern age, the closed conceptuality that we inherit from Hegel and Schleiermacher has to be broken open and transcended. To this end, I recall and welcome Schleiermacher's reminder of the utter dependence of all we have and are on God, bearing in mind that 92. Schleiermacher, Der Christliche Glaube, § 9. 93. Important questions concerning h o w Schleiermacher perceives passivity as relational, rather than as 'pure' and non-relational, cannot be pursued here.

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the perfect pulsing of feeling and reason is given—in relational dependence, in wonder, in faith, in worship, but not in a philosophical ideal.

NAOMI R. GOLDENBERG The Divine Masquerade: A Psychoanalytic Theory about the Play of Gender in Religion

The argument I am advancing in this essay is composed of three interlocking parts: the first is a methodological reflection about the relationship of psychoanalysis and religion; the second is a discussion about gender and religion in the context of Freud's theory of theism followed by an update inspired by the work of Nancy Chodorow; and the third is an application of Melanie Klein's concepts of envy and jealousy to traditional religions and the contemporary women's spirituality movement.1 I use psychoanalytic theories as tools to explore a question that has stirred my curiosity since the early 1970s; namely, why—that is, to what end—do the world's dominant religious systems trumpet masculinity? Psychoanalytic ideas help me frame some responses. Recently, I have come to understand that the psychoanalytic concepts with which I like to think my seemingly untraditional thoughts are derived from a religious matrix of discourse and tradition. I find precedent for this understanding in Freud's early work. In 1901, while discussing the psychological roots of superstition and paranoia in The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, Freud writes: The differences between myself and the superstitious person are two: first, he projects outwards a motivation which I look for within; secondly, he interprets chance as due to an event while I trace it back to a thought. But what is hidden from him corresponds to what is unconscious for me, and the compulsion not to let chance count as chance but to interpret it is common to both of us... Because the superstitious person knows nothing of the motiva1. For further elaboration of the hypothesis about gender presented here please see my essay 'A Theory of Gender as a Central Hermeneutic in the Psychoanalyis of Religion', in Jacob van Belzen (ed.), Hermeneutic Approaches to the Psychology of Religion (Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi, 1997).

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tion of his own chance actions, and because the fact of this motivation presses for a place in his field of recognition, he is forced to allocate it, by displacement, to the external world. If such a connection exists, it can hardly be limited to this single application. In point of fact I believe that a large part of the mythological view of the world, which extends a long way into the most modern religions, is nothing but psychology projected into the external world. The obscure recognition... of psychical factors and relations in the unconscious is mirrored... in the construction of a supernatural reality, which is destined to be changed back once more by science into the psychology of the unconscious. One could venture to explain in this way the myths of paradise and the fall of man, of God, of good and evil, of immortality, and so on, and to transform metaphysics into metapsychology. The gap between the paranoiac's displacement and that of the superstitious person is less wide than it appears at first sight. 2

This rich, complex statement intrigues me: like the very large crystal ball on display in Washington at the Smithsonian, the passage becomes deeper and more layered as I look at it. I read it for clues about understanding the relationship between psychoanalysis and religion and sometimes catch glimpses of future theory in the psychology of religion. Formerly, I saw these remarks as prefiguring Freud's 1927 argument about religion in The Future of an Illusion—namely, that religious ideas would be rendered untenable when psychoanalysts revealed their 'true' psychological roots. I still would defend this reading of his earlier text. However, now such an interpretation lacks resonance for me. The passage suggests other more interesting directions for theory. I now read Freud's statement as indicating that the gap between psychoanalysis and religion is 'less wide than it appears at first sight'. Although the similarity Freud specifies explicitly is between paranoia and superstition, his text describes a kinship between metaphysics and metapsychology. He portrays religion as an ancestor of science. As a descendant of 'the mythological view of the world', his science interprets religious ideas about deity, escha tology, morality and mortality. The older system derives these 2. Sigmund Freud, 'The Psychopathology of Everyday Life', in James Strachey (ed.), The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (24 vols.; London: Hogarth Press, 1953-1974), VI, pp. 258-59. (In subsequent references, SE will refer to the standard edition.)

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constructs from an external source; while the more recent 'psychology of the unconscious' traces them back to internal origins. The future superseding of religion by science is thus seen as an eclipse of one notion of topography by another. Psychoanalysis replaces religion in a progression of epistemologies as one discourse cedes its explanatory power to its younger offspring. This reading of the 1901 text imputes to Freud awareness that, in regard to religion, he was engaged in a struggle more about language than about what he thought might be 'really real'. Such an interpretation encourages me to attend to similarities between psychoanalysis and religion. Instead of seeing psychoanalyis as the ultimate literalization of religious categories, I now see it as a reform movement arising out of larger social and ideological matrices growing out of Judaism and Christianity. Religion is the source of psychoanalyis, which, as a related discourse, takes on the traditional so-called spiritual projects of conferring meaning and dispensing healing. I count myself among those for whom psychoanalyis offers a fairly sustainable fiction of truth. Others find their hospitable hermeneutics in more established religious forms. One of the many characteristics that proponents of both psychoanalysis and religion share is an inclination to locate principles of their favored system of narration in a sphere that Mikhail Bakhtin once called 'beyond the social'. Religious ideology about the eternal, magical nature of deities and the universal relevance of sacred texts is paralleled by psychoanalytic faith in such entities as instincts and complexes. In his 1927 critique of Freudianism (often attributed to Voloshinov), Bakhtin describes Freud's work as typical of what he terms 'modern trends': he writes that A sui generis fear of history, an ambition to locate a world beyond the social and the historical, a search for this world precisely in the depths of the organic—these are the features that pervade all systems of contemporary philosophy...' 3 Bakhtin's critique of psychoanalysis still has relevance. I think it 3. V.N. Volosinov, Freudianism: A Critical Sketch (trans. I.R. Titunik; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976), p. 14. For an explanation of why Bakhtin should be considered the author of this critique of Freud, please see Katerina Clark and Michael Holquist, Mikhail Bakhtin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), pp. 146-85.

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fair to say that much of Freudian and post-Freudian thought (with the notable exception of the Lacanian branches) has tended to claim a truth that transcends language and social circumstance. Although object relations theory pushes psychoanalysis in the direction of taking better account of the social environment, sociological perspectives have not yet had an appreciable influence. Object relations theory tends to consider the world from a baby's point of view: the individual mother is foregrounded to such a degree that complexities of the larger, cultural milieu are often obscured. Bakhtin presents a challenge to those of us who use psychoanalytic theory in our work. His critique urges us to resist the Freudian inclination to construct models that abstract human beings from culture and collectivity. This is a difficult goal—one that perhaps is possible to realize only intermittently. Two concepts that I find useful in developing theory that situates psychoanalytic thought about religion in a social field are performance and performativity. Judith Butler has made a significant contribution to several disciplines by stimulating interest in these ideas and deploying them effectively in her work on gender. In reference to acts of speech, Butler writes: a performative [action] succeeds... only because that action echoes prior actions, and accumulates the force of authority through the repetition or citation of a prior, authoritative set of practices. What this means, then, is that a performative [action] 'works' to the extent that it draws on and covers over the constitutive conventions by which it is mobilized. In this sense, no term or statement can function performatively without the accumulating and dissimulating historicity of force. 4

I think that the doctrines and practices of religious traditions operate analogously to the speech acts that Butler theorizes. Her work encourages me to think of religion in terms of sustained, elaborate and repeated social performances that derive power and authority from continued citation of texts, rituals and institutions. The frequent and ubiquitous repetition and re-enactment of scriptures, rites, prayers and parables, as well as the replication and reinterpretation of sacred stories and dramas in literature, film, 4. Judith Butler, Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 226-27.

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theater, architecture and visual art give what we term the 'great traditions' an enormous force of historicity. What might have begun long ago within the psyches, politics and histories of particular people in specific circumstances has now accumulated as a dense sediment produced and maintained by seemingly infinite individual and institutional reiteration and recitation. The cultural precipitate of these performances is material for the construction of what we term our individual psychologies. In other words, in reference to Bakhtin's phrase—our psyches can only be of the social, or, within the social, and not (except in fantasy) 'beyond the social'. Our active recitations and performances of the central discourses of our culture construct our sense of self and identity. But our passive, sentient presence within the collective structures of language and symbol has profound influence as well. There is no way to refrain from participating in the world's dominant dramas. We can not exit the theater, walk off the stage, leave the church, quit analysis or bend our genders without fashioning ourselves in response to that which we disavow. Whether we oppose or reinterpret, in some sense, we always incorporate what we were as building material for what we are becoming. Furthermore, others will perpetually interpret our innovations within existing discursive structures. While there is no clean way out of the worlds produced by continual citation and performance, these worlds do change. No discourse, institution or cultural practice is fixed. Because the seemingly monolithic systems that contain us are maintained by repetitive performances, they are forever vulnerable, forever in flux. The Greek deities were right never to overlook or forgive the omission of a sacrifice. They knew that their immortality depended on the fickle attentions of mortals. Change is inevitable because institutions and language systems are rife with contradictions, lapses, ambiguities and inequalities. From time to time, groups or individuals that are uncomfortable within a discursive framework consciously set about altering it. I think both Freud and Jung did this in different ways with both religion and medicine, a discipline with religious origins. Both men successfully modified existing structures to create newer institutions concerned with dispensing healing and conferring meaning. The novelty of their innovations has both collective and individual

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consequence: human subjectivity changes under the influence of Freudian and Jungian theories and therapies. Likewise, feminists are modifying religion by challenging the usual performances and citations with variations on both gestures and scripts. Whether by founding our own systems of belief or by redesigning existing institutions, we women are expanding the discursive range of religions by improvising on the traditional themes of ritual, deity and sacred text. I confidently used to quote Audre Lorde's famous line as an apt description of feminist reform: 'the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house'. 5 Now I wonder: what else but the master's tools could ever take apart his house? And further, perhaps we should consider the dismantling a form of or a prelude to renovation. These reflections apply to my work. Both psychoanalytic and feminist discourse arise out of a cultural matrix shaped by Jewish and Christian forms of thought. I consider three terms that are necessary for my current project—gender, envy and jealousy—to derive from religious frameworks. More specifically, gender, that is, the social practice of dividing human beings into two categories—male and female—to which everyone is obliged to relate, is rooted in religious ideation. I share the opinion of the anthropologist Howard Eilberg-Schwartz who writes that 'gender is not just another subject that intersects with religion, but is central to the work that religion accomplishes'. 6 Moreover, I want to push Schwartz's insight further: while religion does intensify and even produce gendered behavior, so too does gender encourage and perhaps even necessitate religious behavior in a mutually reinforcing cycle of performance and citation. Stated more precisely, I want to argue that theism is a result of the sustained practice of gender. At present, I am going to restrict the argument to Western forms of theism, although I suspect the hypothesis is relevant in other contexts as well. Like the concept of gender, I also understand the Kleinian terms 'envy' and 'jealousy' to be embedded in a hermeneutic circle involving religious discourse. Envy and jealousy can be considered 5. Audre Lorde, Sister/Outsider (Trumansburg, NY: Crossing Press, 1984), p. 123. 6. Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, God's Phallus and Other Problems for Men and Monotheism (Boston: Beacon Press, 1994), p. 5.

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as derivatives of aggressive aspects of religious sensibility: envious and jealous deities had been modeling and reflecting human behavior for millennia before Melanie Klein described the behaviors in psychoanalytic terms. Secular institutions built around tribalism and competition incarnate envy and jealousy in secular spheres. Thus, Klein's theory appropriates for psychoanalysis patterns of thought and feeling that are already central to our cultural structures. She renames the gods and moves their shrines to a neighboring temenos. Consequently, to conclude this reflection on methodology, I consider feminist and psychoanalytic concepts to have been forged from religious substance. These hermeneutic tools tend to construct variations of religious ideas. Thus, although a feminist or psychoanalytic approach to religion may promote a political, critical distance from religious institutions, it can not radically depart from religious frameworks of thought. Rather, at the most, an inquiry like this project I am calling 'the divine masquerade' can help us pay closer attention to the enduring structures that enable us to think and imagine. That religion is a gendered phenomenon is a central premise of Freud's theory about theism. In Totem and Taboo, his famous 1913 account of the origins of religion, gender is a primary, though unstated focus. The last sentence of the book—Im Anfang war die Tat—states his major premise about the male tragedy that set theism in motion: 'In the beginning was the deed.' The deed, as we all know, was the murder of a primal father by a horde of primal brothers who wanted access to the women of the tribe. In Freud's account, religion is a system that codifies and channels men's ambivalent reactions to the killing of the father. Recurring rituals of feasting and permissiveness indicate feelings of joy related to the patriarch's demise; while remorse is expressed by placing stringent restrictions around whatever is closely associated with the father's reign. Most significant religious phenomena result from vacillation between emotional polarities of triumph and regret: 'In the course of the later development of religions', Freud writes, 'the two driving factors, the son's sense of guilt and the son's rebelliousness never became extinct. ' 7

7.

Freud, SE, XIII (1913), p. 152.

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If we place Moses and Monotheism, written in 1939, alongside Totem and Taboo, we see that this subsequent work continues the story about the father and his sons. For example, Freud alleges that Moses was killed by 'his Jewish people' and that this event becomes 'an important link between the forgotten event of primaeval times and its later emergence in the form of the monotheist religions'. 8 To him, Judaism and Christianity form a single tradition characterized by its preoccupation with the paternal revenant. Freud says, There is a piece of historical truth in Christ's resurrection, for he was the resurrected Moses and behind him the returned primal father of the primitive horde, transfigured and, as the son, put in the place of the father. 9

Freud is firm in his insistence that the sons' murder of the father is the basis of religion. He upbraids 'philosophers' who, he says, think they can rescue the God of religion by replacing him by an impersonal, shadowy and abstract principle'. 10 The father of psychoanalysis believes that people could understand religion and throw off its yoke only if they could first see God clearly, that is, as an anthropomorphic male figure. Women do not figure prominently in Freud's version of the history of religions: at no time do female deities or leaders play an active role. Freud discounts any legend that depicts a woman as an agent of religious development: he surmises that 'in the lying poetic fancies of prehistoric times, the woman, who had been the prize of battle and the temptation to murder, was probably turned into the active seducer and instigator to the crime'. 11 Although, in most of his writings, Freud appears to believe that his historical conjecture reflects actual events, occasionally he admits that, like a 'just-so story', his hypothesis might not be literally accurate. 12 However, even as a just-so story that, for example, purports to explain how the leopard got its spots, Freud's imaginative rendering of humanity's religious past has value as a 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

Freud, Freud, Freud, Freud, Freud,

SE, XXIII (1939), p. 89. SE, XXIII (1939), p. 90. SE, XXI (1927), p. 74. SE, XVIII (1921), p. 136. SE, XVIII (1921), p. 122.

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descriptive account that emphasizes a dominant characteristic of his object of study. A hermeneutic postulate of Freud's interpretation of religion is that all the principals in the drama are male. The centrality of masculinity in his account warrants further attention. One way to interrogate Freud's ideas about the origin of theism is to look at his work as continuous with the religious traditions he critiques. By hardly glancing at women in his chronicle of religious history, Freud repeats a religious pattern. Because he does not ask why women play such minor roles in religious scripts and performances, he constructs a theory that diminishes women yet again. In order to advance the psychoanalytic investigation of religion it is necessary to problematize the gender disparity that Freud finds all too obvious. I find Nancy Chodorow's work on the social construction of gender helpful in this process. In The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender, Chodorow questions the seemingly 'natural' cross-cultural fact that women do most of the mothering of the world's children. Since most social scientists insist on 'the social malleability of biological factors', Chodorow suggests 'we must always raise as problematic any feature of social structure, even if—and perhaps especially because—it seems universal'.13 Given its apparent freedom from biological determinants, religion ought to be a feature of the social structure that exhibits greater malleability than human child rearing practices. Yet, the world's recognized religious formulations are inflexible about the maleness of both their central divinities and his key disciples. It seems that, at least for the last few millennia, men have turned into gods about as predictably as women have turned into mothers. Although this analogy might sound flippant, it is important in relation to Chodorow's analysis of the reproduction of mothering. Her thinking, I believe, can also shed light on the reproduction of religion. Chodorow begins her novel reading of Freudian and postFreudian theory by offering an account of the Oedipus complex 13. Nancy Chodorow, The Reproduction of Mothering: Psychoanalysis and the Sociology of Gender (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), p. 14.

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that focuses on how patterns of identification differ for girls and boys. Because women mother, that is, because women are the primary caretakers of young children, she thinks that girls have a fairly easy time identifying with the parent who nurtures them. As a girl becomes acquainted with her father, she incorporates the masculine parent in a triangle of deep emotional attachment that includes her mother, who, Chodorow believes, is felt to be continuous with a female sense of self. Since girls are never required to draw a rigid boundary between themselves and their mothers, in adulthood their affections tend to oscillate between men and women. Boys, on the other hand, are not permitted such flexibility. Chodorow emphasizes the problem presented to male children because they are asked to behave like men even though they have been put in women's care almost exclusively during the crucial years of early childhood. 'Male development', she writes i s more complicated than female because of the difficult shifts of identification a boy must make to attain his expected gender identification and gender role assumption.' 14 While a girl's adult identification with her mother is continuous with her 'earliest primary identification', a boy must give up his sense of being linked to his mother and become like the more distant parent, his father. For most boys, growing up means finding ways to be like their elusive fathers while being unlike their more familiar mothers. Chodorow thinks that the extent to which men and male activities are removed from the home influences the extent to which boys are inclined to define masculinity negatively as that which is not related to women. A boy, she says, 'tends to deny identification with and relationship to his mother and reject what he takes to be the feminine world'. 15 She sees masculinity 'being presented to a boy as less available and accessible than femininity' at the same time that it is being idealized as superior. The boy is thus encouraged to repress 'those qualities he takes to be feminine inside himself and devalue women and whatever he considers to be feminine'.16 To complicate matters further, according to Chodorow's theory, 14. Chodorow, Mothering, p. 174. 15. Chodorow, Mothering, p. 176. 16. Chodorow, Mothering, p. 181.

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if the growing boy asserts his masculinity by denying his connection with all things female, he risks experiencing a great sense of loss and insecurity. After all, his mother (or her female surrogates) have been his bond to life itself from the time of his earliest infancy. Although he fears being too similar to women, he needs them to feel at home both in the world and in his own skin. And, since he must repress the parts of himself that he feels to be feminine, his dependency on women is intense. Paradoxically, he is likely to fear and despise the female qualities he needs so much. In contrast, writes Chodorow, because girls are allowed to feel closer to the mothering capacities within themselves, they are less emotionally dependent and tend to experience adult women more realistically than boys do. Many common ideas about women respond to men's psychological predicaments: 'Given that masculinity is so elusive,' she says, 'it becomes important for masculine identity that certain social activities are defined as masculine and superior, and that women are believed unable to do many of the things defined as socially important.' 17 Citing Karen Horney, Chodorow acknowledges the significance of 'folk beliefs, legends and poems' that allow men to cope with fear and to distance themselves from women without giving them up completely. These imaginative creations, writes Horney, ward off the dread by externalizing and objectifying women: It is not...that I dread her; it is that she herself is malignant, capable of any crime, a beast of prey, a vampire, a witch, insatiable in her desires.. the very personification of what is sinister.

Horney continues: [Men] deny dread at the expense of realistic views of women. On the one hand, they glorify and adore: 'There is no need for me to dread a being so wonderful, so beautiful, nay, so saintly.' On the other, they disparage: 'It would be too ridiculous to dread a creature who, if you take her all round, is such a poor thing.' 1 8

On the surface, religions seem to reinforce the dynamics that Chodorow and Horney identify: men use religious structures to emphasize their uniqueness and to create distance from women by 17. Chodorow, Mothering, p. 182. 18. Chodorow, Mothering, p. 183.

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doling out excessive praise or blame to females in holy stories and by commanding the genders to inhabit different spheres distinguished by separate responsibilities, clothing and ritual roles. This obsessive insistence on difference should raise suspicions. Psychoanalysis teaches that when a fantasy is both deep and desperate (like men's assertion that they are radically dissimilar to women), it is probable that the opposite wish will be present as well. Vacillation between both poles of the wish is testimony to its importance. Chodorow and Horney call attention to the ways men construct culture to distance themselves from women, but their theories do not develop the other side of the argument. To further their work it is necessary to look for male imaginative creations that deny sex differences altogether. Religions, I believe, are such creations. They are primary cultural arenas in which men can safely pretend to be women, especially in regard to matters of nurture and reproduction. Another way to think about this idea in psychoanalytic terms is to interrogate the religious performance of maleness as one would the manifest content of a recurring dream. Although the dream keeps -saying that the struggles and victories of various male figures— Yahweh, Christ, Allah and their look-alike agents, such as Moses, Paul and Mohammed—initiate everything of merit in the world—sacred children, sacred texts, commandments, laws and valued teachings—there might be a latent meaning behind the bravado. Perhaps the overstated masculinity of religious texts and institutional practices signals a displacement of its opposite—that is, femininity. The outward unimportance of women in the world's religions might be an attempt at what Freud calls negation and Melanie Klein terms denial. Both concepts describe a refusal to recognize that upon which a subject actually depends. A survey of Jewish and Christian themes and practices that involve gender imitation supports the assertion that an important function of Western theisms is to permit men to masquerade as women. Although each strand in the montage must be unraveled and contextualized, I think there is value in presenting the argument in the form of a collage. Claims about the primacy of male reproductive capacities do not play themselves out precisely or discretely in our culture. Rather, they appear and reappear in a disheveled and generalized mythology of gender that is believed

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because it is continually performed and encountered in a variety of venues and fragmented contexts. A few Jewish and Christian ideas relating to male fecundity and maternity are these: A male god creates human beings and everything else in the world. In one version, the god, although spoken of as male, is imaged as containing both sexes. He thus can clone himself to create both human sexes. In another version, the god creates a man, makes him pregnant and together they give birth to a woman. Later, Christian themes continue the story: first, a male god bypasses all physical contact with a female body and reproduces himself through a virgin. Then, the male son of the same god insists that his father's words are more important than 'the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked' (Lk. 11.27). In both Judaism and Christianity, ritual activities directed by a male hierarchy continually displace women's agency and creativity. Circumcision and baptism supersede the importance of physical birth. In Judaism, the boy's reading from the Torah at his bar mitzvah both mimics and upstages the girl's initiation into her adulthood through menstruation. 19 In Catholicism, symbolic feeding from a male body during mass is infused with meaning through ritual and incantation, thereby eclipsing the importance of the nursing and feeding done by women. 20 Incessant repetition of such rites reasserts the basic religious principle that men are the primary, if not the sole, agents of creation. The rituals of androcentric religion work effective magic. Because many of our secular intellectual traditions stem from religious institutions, the primacy of male procreative power is insisted upon within secular spheres of culture. For example, some scholars suggest that the origins of Western science reveal a male interest in making women irrelevant to the important work of creation. Alchemical images seem to express a desire to bring the wonders of maternity under male control. Instead of recognizing an equitable conjunction of male and female opposites, the alchemical opus works to displace the female part in biological creation 19. Bruno Bettelheim, Symbolic Wounds (New York: Collier, 1962). 20. For a nuanced discussion of the importance of gender in reference to this sacrament, please see Kelley A. Raab, 'When the Priest Becomes a Woman: A Psychoanalytic Exploration of the Significance of Gender for the Catholic Eucharist' (PhD dissertation, University of Ottawa, Canada, 1990).

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through a male-directed technology.21 Carolyn Merchant develops this line of thought in her work on the death of nature. 22 In his book A World Without Women: The Christian Clerical Culture of Western Science, David Noble looks at the influence of monastic culture on mediaeval science. He notes that monks sometimes cultivated an ambiguous gender identity by imagining themselves as females in maternal roles. For example, in the twelfth century, Bernard of Clairvaux entreats his fellow abbots to 'show affection as a mother would... Be Gentle, let your bosoms expand with milk not swell with passion.' Similarly, Francis of Assisi is said to have encouraged his associates to address him as mother. 23 Noble believes that contemporary science has been influenced by the clergy's desire to make women unnecessary and to dominate the creative forces of a nature imagined to be 'mother'. He is not alone in suggesting that the most recent expression of this wish is men's effort to control new reproductive technologies. The male aim to appropriate imaginatively the female role in maternity is, I believe, characterized by a contradiction: it is motivated both by men's profound need for women and by their wish for women not to exist at all. One of the reasons that Melanie Klein's dark and controversial concept of envy can be useful in addressing such an equivocal emotional phenomenon is that the theory takes account of the ambiguity that often characterizes basic human wants. I will draw on Klein's presentation of the idea in her essay entitled 'Envy and Gratitude' in order to show the relevance of Kleinian psychoanalytic theory to the divine masquerade. 'Envy', writes Klein, 'is the angry feeling that another person possesses and enjoys something desirable—the envious impulse being to take it away or spoil it.'24 She traces the etiology of envy to early experiences of being fed and cared for. If these basic activities go well, foundations for the adult ability to derive satisfaction 21. Sally Allen and Joanna Hubbs, 'Outrunning Atalanta: Feminine Destiny in Alchemical Transmutation', Signs 6.2, (1998), pp. 210-21. 22. Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature (New York: Harper & Row, 1980). 23. David Noble, A World Without Women: The Christian Clerical Culture of Western Science (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992). 24. Melanie Klein, Envy and Gratitude and Other Works 1946-1963 (New York: Delacorte Press; New York: Seymour Lawrence, 1975), p. 181.

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from life will be established. If infancy is troubled, however, adult experience might be forever tinged with varying shades of negativity. In Klein's thought, as in psychoanalytic theory in general, the perception of meaning attaches itself to early experience in the context of a person's later life. Klein believes that the satisfaction an infant derives from being well-nurtured gives rise to the 'prototype of maternal goodness, inexhaustible patience and generosity, as well as creativeness'. Early phantasies connected with happy memories of the fulfillment of basic needs construct 'the foundation for hope, trust and a belief in goodness'. 25 Because envy is seen as a primary force that erodes the capacity to take pleasure in life and find value in experience, mitigating it is a significant goal of Kleinian therapy. Although an infant might develop aggressive feelings from frustrations that arise while she or he is trying to satisfy hunger, Klein thinks the destructive wishes that characterize envy are directed toward the beloved source of nurture mainly because it is felt to be outside the baby's control. Thus, to an extent, even a good mother is hated for being both absolutely necessary for her child's wellbeing and completely independent of her child's will. Klein believes that as adults all of us tend to experience some degree of envy in reference to people we love and admire because we know that their beauty, wealth or talent is separate from us. Guilt about wishing to damage what we love and appreciate often accompanies our envy. In her view, we can measure our sense of peace by the degree to which we are able to enjoy goodness and success that exist apart from ourselves. 'Whereas envy is a source of great unhappiness,' she thinks that 'relative freedom from it is felt to underlie contented and peaceful states of mind—ultimately sanity.'26 Envy threatens to hurt that which it wants and needs most. Klein writes: There are very pertinent psychological reasons why envy ranks among the seven deadly sins'. I would even suggest that it is unconsciously felt to be the greatest sin of all, because it spoils and harms the good object which is the source of life. 25. Klein, Envy, p. 180. 26. Klein, Envy, p. 203.

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She agrees with Chaucer, who, in 'The Parson's Tale', says, 'It is certain that envy is the worst sin that is; for all other sins are sins only against one virtue, whereas envy is against all virtue and against all goodness.' 27 In a general sense, creativity can be considered to be the target of envious feelings. Klein says: though superficially... [envy] may manifest itself as a coveting of the prestige, wealth, and power others have attained, its actual aim is creativeness. The capacity to give and to preserve life is felt as the greatest gift and therefore creativeness becomes the deepest cause for envy. 28

She thinks that both sexes envy one another; each wants 'to take away the attributes of the other sex' so that creativity could be wholly within male or female control. Klein believes that excessive envy in men extends to all feminine attributes, 'in particular to the woman's capacity to bear children'. In a man who is psychologically mature, 'compensation for unfulfilled feminine desires' can be derived from 'a good relation to his wife or lover and by becoming the father of the children she bears him...the feeling that he has created the child counteracts the man's early envy of the mother's femininity'.29 The last sentence of this quotation warrants close attention: 'the feeling that he has created the child counteracts the man's early envy of the mother's femininity'. How do men come to believe that they create children? And, in a more metaphoric sense, how can they be convinced of their ability to create and nurture themselves? Since the male role in procreation is always somewhat theoretical—that is, children do not emerge from male bodies (except in religions)—such linguistic customs as stamping mother and child with male surnames have evolved to reassure men of their utility. Initiation rituals are thought to serve a similar purpose. Anthropology is rife with theories that analyze male puberty rites in preliterate cultures as efforts of men to take over the functions of women. 30

27. 28. 2930.

Klein, Envy, p. 189. Klein, Envy, p. 202. Klein, Envy, p. 201. Bettelheim, Symbolic

Wounds.

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Klein does not consider how cultural factors could both mitigate and exacerbate inter-gender rivalry. To bring her work into wider arenas of theory, we should think about how the exaggeration of gender difference in cultural practices might stir up the envy and aggression to which she draws our attention. If our text-based religions are sophisticated expressions of male anxiety about procreation and dependence on women, they are not innocuous. What makes these systems problematic is that, instead of mitigating the envy of femininity that Klein describes, religions aggressively diminish women in order to glorify men. Male envy is thus both denied and promoted. Please consider this hypothesis as I juxtapose religious themes that correspond to four of the mechanisms Klein identifies as defenses against envy. Klein writes, 'A frequent method of defence is to stir up envy of others by one's own success, possessions, and...good fortune, thereby reversing the situation in which envy is experienced'. 31 I see this technique manifested in overblown praise for the power, majesty and omnipotence of male god figures. Often the claim is made that all creativity issues from male divinity. In Job, for example, God praises himself with a long inventory of his abilities and achievements in order to deflate humankind. However, in addition to privileging divinity over humanity, I read God's grandiose rhetorical questions—such as 'Where was thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?' (Job 38.4), 'Who divided a watercourse for the overflowing of waters, or a way for the lightning of thunder?' (Job 38.25), and 'Who provideth for the raven his food (Job 38.41) as evidence of the father god's insecurity about his role as sole male creator of the world. The insistence that everything issues from the male godhead both masks and reveals the anxiety about generativity that seems basic to biblical religion. Splitting the desired object into parts that can be separately idealized and despised is another way to cope with envy. Kleinians theorize that imagining the bad object as entirely different from the good one has the psychological goal of keeping whatever is loved safe from aggressive wishes. However, since hatred for the bad object is not allowed to be lessened by any tender feelings, splitting can encourage distorted views that lead to destructiveness. 31. Klein, Envy, p. 218.

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In Judaism and Christianity, images of women tend to appear in pairs that are split: one is virtuous with a 'price far above rubies' (Prov. 3110); while another's 'end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword' (Prov. 5.4). As stories about women unfold in the traditions, the good women tend to get better while the bad ones get worse. The case of Esther and Vashti has been cited in feminist analysis as an interesting example. Even though Queen Vashti initially does nothing more than refuse to appear before her drunken husband and his friends, she is vilified in rabbinic literature. Esther's glorification seems to require the denigration of her predecessor.32 Similarly, as Christian myth continues through the centuries, Mary's purity is increasingly extolled over Eve's duplicity. Mary is put forward as the Second Eve, whose role is to serve as an antidote to the vileness of her ancestor. Such images encourage both sexes to think of women in terms of caricature, as beings who either embody perfection or evil. The persecution of witches is a dramatic tragedy made possible by the willingness of large numbers of people to see women in unrealistic ways. Klein writes that the aim of envy is often 'the destructive introjection' of what the subject needs. Greek myth presents us with a graphic image of this when Zeus swallows Metis, Athena's mother, and displays the ability to give birth through his head. Although the appropriation of women by men in Judaism and Christianity is usually more subtle, I think these traditions express the same envious wish that motivated Zeus. By masquerading as women in Jewish and Christian texts and rituals, men imaginatively eliminate the separate existence of women and put creativity and the capacity to nurture wholly under male control. A serious question that arises in reference to this argument is: how do religions express women's desires? One answer to such a query could be this: on the basic level of symbol and image, contemporary mainstream religions of the world are constructed to reflect men's fantasies, not women's. Although women are often enthusiastic followers of the world's major faiths, I believe that our participation reflects a wish to be within institutions that are relevant and socially significant. Women support religious performance 32. Mary Gendler, The Restoration of Vashti', in Elizabeth Koltun ( e d ) , The Jewish Woman: New Perspectives (New York: Schocken Books, 1976), pp. 241-47.

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even though the psychological content of the symbols arises out of male alienation. To use a bit of slang, in regard to religion, masculine need determines 'the only game in town'. By arguing that the symbolic foundation on which religion rests is that of the male imitation of women, I am not arguing that this is all religion is. Religious traditions are also concerned with facets of behavior, law and social organization that have little to do with gender. Furthermore, the motives of both women and men who participate in religion are complex. Habits, customs and rituals learned in childhood carry a strong emotional valence throughout life. Religious organizations can provide a sense of order, community and psychological comfort that derive from their long-standing institutional presence in human history. Many people join the clergy in order to be part of groups that are actively trying to improve the world in conjunction with a structured ideology. In addition, many members of congregations enjoy the sensuality and drama of religious services; music, pleasing architecture and the theater of ritual can enrich both male and female lives. Nevertheless, although I recognize the secondary gains that can accrue from religious institutions and practices, I do think that the underlying dynamic of the primary symbols of major contemporary faiths involves the male appropriation of female qualities. If I were a very ambitious theorist, I would claim the following: that religion is a result of gender; that it begins in cultures that emphasize gender discontinuity and endures as institutionalized habit; that it is a primarily male form of ideation and theater in which men imaginatively transform themselves into women; and that through religion, men lessen the pain, anxiety and narcissistic affront of feeling radically separate from their mothers. These propositions, I suggest, can illuminate much of the phenomenology of the sacred. For instance, the goal of 'transcendence' proposed by theologians might be understood as a vision that offers men an escape from the contingency of masculinity. Likewise, doctrines about an afterlife, rebirth, second birth or miraculous birth of either a holy child or a holy text could be interpreted as expressions of male wishes to control creativity and nurture. And religious interest in the transformation of one thing into another, as well as ritual concerns about separating objects and people into categories of rigid difference, could be seen as

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reflecting two poles of the dilemma of both being and not being male. In recent decades, as we all know, increasing numbers of women have turned to the burgeoning women's spirituality movement for spiritual sustenance. Preliminary research on contemporary religions designed by women points to three findings relevant to the divine masquerade: (1) Women's religions emphasize continuity rather than disjunction. They are not based on radical separations between sacred and profane, between this world and the next, or between divine and human. (2) Furthermore, although nurture of life is an ongoing concern, there are no miraculous creation stories either of children or of texts in women's religions. (3) Women are enhancing and elaborating images of femininity in their spiritual practices instead of inverting gendered symbols to reflect male attributes.33 These observations indicate that women are pursuing very different psychological goals in their spiritual groups. Perhaps the word 'religion' should be reserved to describe the male ideologies that enact the verb 're-ligare', the oft-cited Latin root of the term religion meaning to bind again that which has presumably been torn asunder. The term does not apply to women's spirituality groups. Rather than displaying much concern about returning from a condition of exile, these organizations are centered on elaborating that which is already here. Even though women's spirituality groups are not motivated by the same basic envious passions that fuel the male constructions we call our 'great traditions', I do think they express powerful, serious desire. This potent emotion can, I believe, be illumined by another Kleinian concept—namely, jealousy. For Kleinians, jealousy is less ruinous than primal envy. It strives to gain the same goods a rival or sibling possesses without hungering for the destructive incorporation of the very source of goodness. Jealousy aims at an equitable distribution of cultural and psychological treasures. Perhaps when we women imitate male behavior by constructing our own deities, spiritual organizations and rituals, we are looking to acquire a measure of the social power, prestige and selfimportance that religious institutions and ideologies have accorded 33. Susan Starr Sered, Priestess, Mother, Sacred Sister: Dominated by Women (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).

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men. We are, I think, motivated by jealousy, in what we might decide is the best sense of this term. Psychoanalytic descriptions rarely flatter the religious traditions to which they are applied. But what else can we expect from ideas that are engaged in an aggressive hermeneutic competition with parent concepts derived from religious frameworks? Such irreverence can serve a positive end: it can deflate some of the puffery infusing the gods and ideologies of contemporary culture so that there can be space for new variations to develop.

PAMELA SUE ANDERSON 'Abjection... the Most Propitious Place for Communication':1 Celebrating the Death of the Unitary Subject

Introduction When asked to provide a paper for the series 'Women's Voices in Religion', I decided that my voice in religion to date had been largely associated with my writings on Paul Ricoeur's philosophy of the will.2 So in this paper I use Ricoeur's The Symbolism of Evil (original French edition, I960) as a point of departure for a feminist critique of some of the generally dominant religious symbolism in the West. 3 Here Ricoeur's work is also important for understanding how symbolic language about the sacred has brought forth sexual identity by connecting women with defilement and with what Julia Kristeva calls abjection. To explain abjection, however, I turn to Kristeva's Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (original French edition, 1980). In the terms of Kristeva's psycholinguistics, 4 abjection occurs with the splitting of the self, most fundamentally in the separation from the nascent self's bodily identification with the mother. This occurs immediately prior to the emergence of language and prior to the self's formation of identity as a unitary subject. So abjection is something that happens in the process of forming self-identity. My initial question is, how can abjection also signify a place or space? Employing Kristeva's insights to read Ricoeur's text I aim to demonstrate the way in which the rifts in the language of a text 1. Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (trans. Leon S. Roudiez; New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), p. 127. 2. Pamela Sue Anderson, Ricoeur and Kant: Philosophy of the Will (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1993). 3. Paul Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil (trans. Emerson Buchanan; New York: Harper & Row, 1967). 4. Seep. 212 n. 9 below.

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can be used to recognize the gaping spaces created by abjection. In the process of reading a text, I explore the meanings of the abject and abjection as the most propitious place for communication in the signifying process that has constituted and continues to constitute sexual identity. The abject is neither subject nor object; but it remains as both a condition and a threat to the identity of meaning in language. As Kristeva explains, What is abject...is radically excluded and draws me toward the place where meaning collapses. I abject myself within the same motion through which T claim to establish myself. . . T a m i n the process of becoming an other at the expense of my own death. The corpse, seen without God and outside of science, is the utmost of abjection. It is death infecting life. Abject. It is something rejected from which one does not part, from which one does not protect oneself as from an object. Imaginary uncanniness and real threat, it beckons to us and ends up engulfing us. It is thus not lack of cleanliness or [lack of] health that causes abjection but what disturbs identity, system, order. What does not respect borders, positions, rules. The in-between, the ambiguous. 5

I will return to the above account of abjection. Before that, allow me to provide some indication of what follows. I intend to illustrate that abjection appears in a text as points of ambiguity, yet ultimately, it is at such points that new formations of our subjectivities can begin to take place. 6 In turn, the points of 5. Kristeva, Powers of Horror, pp. 2, 3, 4. 6. My own underlying concern is with the way in which subjectivities are formed by taking up identities and positions in a social-symbolic world. This is a world in which meaning has been and will continue to be socially and symbolically mediated, but not strictly determined. The symbolic language of religious myths constitutes a crucial form of mediation through identity of meaning in language. And psycholinguistic reflection upon the formation of our subjectivities can give us insight into the role of our affective relationships in the constitution of symbolic language. This constitution involves a reciprocal relationship whereby language both affects and is affected by our social and corporeal connections. It is then my particular contention that feminist transformations of religious symbolism would be accompanied by changes in both our social-material relationships and our psycho-sexual identity or non-identity. Furthermore, I propose that transformations of

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textual ambiguity will, on one level, recall the initial stage at which the self is split before formation of the unitary subject; but these points will, on another level, reveal that every written text retains traces of the repressed material, corporeal contributions to its textual production. It is in the light of Kristeva's psycholinguistics that I have set myself the specific task of seeking abjection in Ricoeur's text on religious symbolism. In particular, I have found significant points of self-reflexivity, where a turning back upon his own writing raises questions about sexuality, revealing exclusions in the text's production. Ricoeur's exclusions can be linked to those productively abject spaces that, as I will maintain, women are uniquely able to occupy at the present time.7 My main contention in this paper is that today women are potentially in the most propitious place for communication in religion. On the one hand this is true because women have been connected—at least symbolically in religious myths—with abjection. On the other hand this is so because the idealized unitary subject of traditional philosophy of religion has been found lacking precisely in what it has excluded. I would like to say something original, in the light of the popular symbolism of the death of the unitary subject, about women's place of abjection as potentially a site of intellectual privilege. This will be original in the sense that I aim to push beyond Ricoeur's symbolic reading of sexuality and defilement, as well as beyond Kristeva's stoic awareness of being a subj ect-in-process.8 women's voices in religion, at the point of abjection, occur not only by reriguring abjection but by way of self-affection: the self is recognized as affected (object) and affecting (subject) even in its relations to its own self. 7. For an account of those gaping spaces, rifts and aporias that have been opened up within modern philosophy by Kristeva and Irigaray, see Philippa Berry, Woman and Space according to Kristeva and Irigaray', in Philippa Berry and Andrew Wernick (eds.), Shadow of Spirit: Postmodernism and Religion (London: Routledge, 1992), pp. 250-64. 8. For Ricoeur's account of the complicity between defilement and sexuality, see The Symbolism of Evil, pp. 28-29. By stoic I mean accepting the process of language and passion by which subjects are constituted. To cite Kristeva on this point, 'We are no doubt permanent subjects of a language that holds us in its power. But we are subjects in process, ceaselessly losing our identity, destabilized by fluctuations in our relations to the other, to whom we

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As two Continental exegetes of religious texts Kristeva and Ricoeur both build—to some degree—upon the descriptive phenomenology that has been used, in the twentieth century, to elucidate the meaning of religious experiences. Ricoeur faithfully interprets the emergence of this meaning in conscious experience, while Kristeva subverts the meaning of self-consciousness by uncovering the pre-signifying energies of language. Each of them is concerned with the emergence of meaning from an order of preverbal affects to a linguistic text. However, Kristeva clearly moves beyond phenomenology with her distinctive semiotics and postLacanian psycholinguistics.9 To describe the dimensions that Kristeva adds to my reading of Ricoeur, first, her semiotics does more than interpret what appears to consciousness. Her semiotics recognizes pre-signifying material and psychical energies that give rise to language as a signifying process. Secondly, Kristeva's psycholinguistics assumes that the structure of language is the condition of all meaning and value. Then psychical, as different from real, material energies can have their basis in phantasy that, nonetheless, has the linguistic effect of a real event, as if the phantastic experience had occurred. Kristeva reads the unconscious as both a psychical reality, which may or may not correspond to material reality, and as a dimension of language. By assuming her semiotic foundation and linguistic framework, I have tried to uncover the role of affective relationships in constituting the language and the subjectivity of Ricoeur's text. I have found Kristeva's semanalysis of a text especially useful. Essentially, semanalysis elucidates the residue that is not incorporated into the unity of the text's language but is excluded, left over. nevertheless remain bound by a kind of homeostasis. By postulating this eclipse of subjectivity at the dawn of our life, by sensing a hiatus in subjectivity in moments of intense passion, the psychoanalyst... places exorbitant confidence in the power of transference and interpretive language, knowing from experience that they are capable, once recognized and hence named eclipse and hiatus of the subject, of re-establishing the provisional unity of that subject and thus of preparing it for the further trials set by the life process of the pas-sions' (Julia Kristeva, In the Beginning Was Love: Faith and Psychoanalysis [trans. Arthur Goldhammer; New York: Columbia University Press, 1987], p. 9). 9. For further background, see John Lechte, Julia Kristeva (London: Routledge, 1990), pp. 15-17, 123-40.

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Admittedly fundamental difficulties remain in the different uses of similar terms, especially since Ricoeur and Kristeva often employ the same word or derivative word-forms to say quite different things. Ricoeur uses symbolism to refer to linguistic and non-linguistic signs with both a present and a latent meaning, while Kristeva uses the Symbolic to refer to the social-symbolic order of language that is structured yet dynamic. Ricoeur's hermeneutic phenomenology10 elucidates signs as constitutive meanings in conscious experience, while Kristeva's semiotics designates signs as material or psychical traces in language that emerge from a pre-signifying order; the latter traces are broadly associated with the maternal body. So they each employ sign as defined within their respective frameworks. The same term gains its different significance from two separate foundations: one, on the unity of self-consciousness; the other, on the polymorphous energies of material and psychical reality, in short, on the unconscious. 11 Semanalysis of Ricoeur's Text In The Symbolism of Evil, Ricoeur maintains that the symbolic language of myth mediates the complicity of defilement and sexuality. He names defilement a primary symbol, identifying it as a certain sort of sign of impurity. As one of three primary symbols of evil— the other two being sin and guilt—defilement is a sign with a double intentionality, with both an apparent and a latent meaning. It signifies a stain and something like a stain, hence indicating a material and, by analogy, a moral impurity.12 Especially intriguing is the appearance of defilement not only in all four Western types of ancient myths (i.e. the Babylonian, Greek, Hebrew and Orphic myths) but in the consciousness of contemporary androcentric 10. For background on Ricoeur's hermeneutic phenomenology, see Don Ihde, Hermeneutic Phenomenology: The Philosophy of Paul Ricoeur (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1971), esp. pp. 81-130; Ricoeur, 'Phenomenology and Hermeneutics', in Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences (ed. and trans. John Thompson; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 101-30. 11. I have tried to be consistent by initially using Ricoeur's post-Kantian terms, but gradually redefining them in the light of a Kristevan semanalysis of his text. 12. See Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil, pp. 8-9, 14-18, 25-46, 161.

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societies. However, the irony—the problem and the possibility— for women's voices in Western religions is that the signs of defilement have endured precisely in their connecting the maternal body and the materiality of sexuality with abjection. According to Ricoeur, defilement as the most archaic yet still primary symbol within the biblical text signifies something that—I would have to say in the light of scientific language—acts magically, producing an evil, an impurity, a fluid. And he continues, a quasi-material something that infects as a sort of filth, that harms by invisible properties, and that nevertheless works in the manner of a force in the field of our undivided psychic and corporeal existence. [Defilement is] something which makes purity its exemption and purification its annulment. 13

Compare this description of defilement with Kristeva's view on the abject and bodily defilement: What is abject, the jettisoned object, is radically excluded... as in true theater, without make-up or masks, refuse and corpses show me what I permanently thrust aside in order to live. These body fluids, this defilement... are what life withstands l4

Then, returning to Ricoeur's further claim that by many of its traits sexuality supports the ambiguity of a quasimateriality of defilement. At the limit, the infant would be regarded as born impure, contaminated from the beginning by the paternal seed, by the impurity of the maternal genital region, and by the additional impurity of childbirth. 15

We can also compare this claim about defilement and childbirth with the following claim by Kristeva on abjection's connection with the maternal body: Evocation of the maternal body and childbirth induces the image of birth as a violent act of expulsion through which the nascent body tears itself away from the matter of maternal insides. Now, the skin apparently never ceases to bear the traces of such matter. These are persecuting and threatening traces. 13. I have revised slightly the last line of Buchanan's translation of Ricoeur; Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil, pp. 25-26. 14. Kristeva, Powers of Horror, pp. 2-3. 15. Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil, pp. 28-29. 16. Kristeva, Powers of Horror, p. 101.

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Notice Kristeva's references to corporeal or psychical traces of the pre-signifying material order that conditions language. The threatening traces reinforce the repression of the affective relationship with the maternal body, as well as the exclusion of women from sacred places. Ricoeur's account of the founding 17 myth of Adam and Eve, in particular, graphically portrays the background to the religious meanings of such signs or traces of defilement and abjection. While Ricoeur's reading of the Adamic myth represents the inevitable self-division of the post-Kantian subject, internally split as both reasoning and desiring, Kristeva's post-Lacanian account of abjection reveals an additional, external split between male and female subjects, who, in their different relationships to reason and desire, support the separation of rational self-consciousness as male from the pre-signifying traces of the unconscious as maternal. What is, as I will reiterate, problematical for women in the generally dominant configuration of the Adamic myth is the androcentric bias—a bias that seeks to keep male autonomy at the centre of Christian cultures. This androcentrism is arguably a heuristic addition to the Old Testament narrative.18 According to one still popular configuration, two distinct stories of creation in the biblical text together constitute sexual identity by differentiating man from woman and by narrating Eve's story to culminate in 'the fall' of Adam. The problem, for relations between male and female subjects, with the second Yahwist creation story followed by the story of the fall lies in the role given to Eve as the second sex who seduces Adam and so leads him to fall from his privileged height.19 In fact, the configuration of the Adamic myth that culminates in the fall remains contentious. For Ricoeur in I960 this interpretation of the Genesis myth was already open to demythologization.20 Or I might prefer to say, a demystification, since referring to a persistent 17. Founding refers to the fundamental significance of myth in giving meaning to a culture or identity to a people. Here the mythical narrative is being described as constitutive of sexual identity under patriarchy. For more on founding myth and on the mythical first man, who represents the male ideal of unity-in-multiplicity, see Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil, pp. 5, 244. 18. On the fall', Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil, pp. 6-7, 309-10. 19. Gen. 2.4b-3.27; cf. Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil PP- 243-60. 20. Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil, pp. 6-7, 233, 352-53.

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Western illusion concerning an exclusively male ideal of privilege.21 By its nature, myth is always open to new interpretations; in this case, a demystification of the myth of the fall would eliminate the hierarchy implied in the event in which Eve caused Adam to be displaced from his place of innocent privilege. The creation stories in Genesis could then be read as constructing very minimally the sexual identities of Adam and Eve within the text. In other terms, this would be a diachronic rather than a synchronic construction, so formation of identities and differences would occur according to the chronology of a mythical process and not according to the sudden imposition of a static and exclusive hierarchy: no single event—or fall—would represent abjection as resulting in an entrenched hierarchy of sexual identity. While this diachronic reading would seem less contrived, the fall interpretation would appear to constitute a strongly biased projection on to the text. So what about Ricoeur's configuration of the mythical story of the fall? And what about his account of the symbolism of sexuality and defilement? Ricoeur admits that the prominence given to Adam's fall involves a questionable interpretation of the Yahwist creation story in Genesis and of the Old Testament history in general. Yet after describing defilement as man's most archaic and enduring symbol of evil, he finds its most adequate portrayal in the secondary symbolism that makes up the Adamic myth. And as Ricoeur recounts it, [Eve] represents the point of weakness and giving way in the presence of the seducer; the serpent tempts the man through the woman. [but] the biblical myth, in spite of Eve and the serpent, remains 'Adamic'—that is to say, anthropological. 22

With the assertion of her weakness, Ricoeur identifies Eve by way of a contrast with Adam. Giving way to the serpent, Eve 21. In Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation (trans. Denis Savage; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970), Ricoeur draws the following distinction: 'whether we call it demythologization, when it occurs within a given religion, or demystification, when it proceeds from without, the aim is the same: the death of the metaphysical and religious object' (p. 530, also 27, 420). On reading the myth of the fall as a Pauline retrospective fallacy, see n. 30. 22. Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil, pp. 254, 260.

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actively led Adam into temptation and so became the tragic figure; in that drama she represents active involvement with evil. Ironically but tragically she is both active in relation to the passive man and unable to overcome evil. Although the serpent plays a significant role in the drama of temptation, it only represents the passive aspect of the subject who is tempted, without changing the anthropology. In Ricoeur's terms, the serpent signifies the quasiexternality of temptation projected by the subject onto the mediating object which seduces.23 Adam is the subject who, once reassociated with a good fatherGod, can learn to be the responsible, rational figure. But in her tragic association with the evil serpent, Eve remains outside of man's bond with the sacred. Evil emerges with the serpent as a form of desire: A desire' has sprung u p . . . not the infinity of reason and happiness; it is the infinity of desire itself; it is the desire of desire, taking possession of knowing, of willing, of doing and of being...[it] is the evil infinite'. 24

And Ricoeur has also insisted that the mediation of the serpent is itself linked with another figure— that of the woman, Eve, Life. Thus the myth multiplies intermediaries, countering the irrationality of the Instant [of the fall]. 25

So in his reading of the fall, the myth preserves man's rationality while the woman, in being linked with desire, is a threat of irrationality, disorder and defilement; consequently she will be excluded from the divine covenant and the social order. But to be fair Ricoeur also attempts to apologize for his anthropological—dare I say, misogynist—configuration of the Hebrew myth. In his words, It must be granted that the story [of Eves defilement] gives evidence of a very masculine resentment, which serves to justify the state of dependence in which all, or almost all, societies have kept women. 2 6

This unusual admission connects women's dependence on man to her symbolic defilement, as well as it breaks up Ricoeur's other23. 24. 25. 26.

Ricoeur, Ricoeur, Ricoeur, Ricoeur,

The The The The

Symbolism Symbolism Symbolism Symbolism

of of of of

Evil, Evil, Evil, Evil,

p. p. p. p.

256. 253. 252, also p. 243254.

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wise largely androcentric text. In his admission of a masculine resentment, Ricoeur leaves an opening for not only a recognition of women's lack of autonomy, but a challenge to the rational autonomy of the idealized male subject in Western societies. Ricoeur himself is not completely successful in moving beyond what he is able to identify as a Nietzschean criticism of the Yahwist Genesis story. Ricoeur apologizes for a masculine subordination of women and for the archaic belief in women's defilement, specifically in beliefs concerning the harmful virtues of shed blood that continue to subordinate women in today's societies. 27 But salient points and gaps in his argument appear as follows: beyond the legitimate criticism that a Nietzschean spirit might level against the resentment of the Yahwist, the story points to an 'eternal feminine' which is more than sex and which might be called the mediation of the weakness, the frailty of man... The essence of that frailty is to be found in the type of finiteness belonging to man... insofar as it is an ethical finiteness it is easily seduced by perversion of the limit that constitutes it... Here the woman represents the point of least resistance. Eve, then, does not stand for woman in the sense of 'second sex.' Every woman and every man are Adam; every man and every woman are Eve; every woman sins 'in' Adam, every man is seduced 'in' Eve. 28

Now it is left to us to do something with the ambiguities in Ricoeur's text. For instance, the eternal feminine might be read as an image of the limits of masculine rationality. In Ricoeur's postKantian terms, the limit-idea of man's finitude marks out the boundaries for his ethics. 29 Could this opening to interpretation of an ambiguous eternal feminine suggest a point of mediation where psychosexual and social-material identities, infinite and finite, meet? There may be ground for a reading of Ricoeur's eternal feminine, according to Kristeva's semiotic, as the place where psychical and material pre-signifying energies give rise to the social27. Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil, pp. 28-29, 254; cf. Kristeva, Powers of Horror, pp. 99-100. 28. Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil, pp. 254-55; emphasis added. 29. Cf. Paul Ricoeur, Fallible Man (trans. Charles Kelbley; introduction Walter Lowe; New York: Fordham University Press, 2nd edn, 1986).

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symbolic order of language. However, there is a point in Ricoeur's own interpretation that counts decisively against his thinking of the eternal feminine as the place for a potential meeting of the abject and the sacred in the materiality of sexual difference. The decisive point is his use of an active verb in stating that all women sin in Adam (toute femmepeche 'en' Adam), but a passive tense to state that every man is seduced in Eve (tout homme est seduit 'en' Eve)}0 In this configuration, man has been clearly led to break his bond with the sacred by way of the desire of his partner, against which he, as unitary subject, must subsequently guard himself. But again Ricoeur's text is broken with both a question and an opening. He asks, And now, why is the woman chosen for the confrontation of interdict and desire? [Answer] In the biblical account she represents the point of weakness. [Furthermore] the woman represents the point of least resistance of finite freedom to the appeal of the Pseudo, of the evil infinite.31

At this further point of self-reflexivity and ambiguity, the finite 30. Mieke Bal identifies a retrospective fallacy here, claiming that the patriarchal myth has been imposed on the Hebrew myth; see Bal, Lethal Love: Feminist Literary Readings of the Biblical Love Stories (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), pp. 109, 116. Bal argues that over and against the New Testament theology of St Paul, Adam is formed male at the moment Eve is named female in the Yahwist story of Gen. 2. Adam's sexual formation occurs in Gen. 2.23 only when Eve is differentiated as ishshah (woman) from ish (man). Before this, in Gen. 2.7, the Yah wist narrator uses the generic term ha'adham (earthly creature). Only with the specific creation of woman does a specific reference to man as male (ish) occur. Bal's semiotic logic is that only by differentiation does man assume his own sexual identity; or woman her own sexual identity. The man recognizes the woman as part of the same ha'adham of which he himself is a leftover: 'This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man' (Gen. 2.23). To assume that God' in v. 23 forms Eve after the earthly creature, but before the fall, as female at the very moment w h e n Adam recognizes himself as male is to take the chronology as a fundamental principle of interpretation: just as the earthly creature has been previously created by differentiation from a larger earthly environment (Gen. 2.7), so female and male identities are subsequently created by differentiation from the original earthly creature or from the clod that is not fully formed. 31. Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil, pp. 254, 255.

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and the infinite are supposed to meet. Such a meeting could constitute an opening for beginning the transformation of sexual identity, hence giving expression to sexual difference or, in Kristevan terms, to the unnameable principle within patriarchy. Ricoeur's question concerning desire should be answered by breaking down the barrier to a new account of sexual desire and difference; this would be a positive account of the desires that have been forbidden and the material differences that have been excluded by the privileging of the unitary subject. However, before I can provide any novel answers, we must consider more closely the development of Ricoeur's thought. Desire and Language In raising questions about the relationship between sexual desire and symbolic language, Ricoeur's own progression to a study of psychoanalysis in the late 1960s, in his Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation, was logical, even inevitable. These questions followed logically in the development of his own thinking and of the intellectual culture. Is sexual desire a place for distortion or revelation of religious meaning? Is symbolic language a vehicle of phantasy or reality? Does the psychical reality of religious symbolism correspond to the material reality of truth? To approach such questions Ricoeur focuses upon the relationship between language and desire in his study of Freud. And he is compelled to this focus by critical reflection upon his own phenomenology of religion in The Symbolism of Evil. To maintain his phenomenological position, which depends upon the mediation of self-consciousness and the apparent meaningfulness of religious symbolism, he must confront potentially damaging psychoanalytic readings of religion. In brief, Ricoeur is forced to confront Freud. In his words, [T]he entrance of psychoanalysis into the general contemporary discussion about language is not due solely to its interpretation of culture ... Freud invites us to look to... the various relations between desire and language. [However, w]hat psychoanalysis encounters primarily as the distortion of elementary meanings connected with wishes or desires, the phenomenology of religion encounters primarily as the manifestation of a depth or... the revelation of the sacred.

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[Thus] the form of the debate is set and the key question proposed: Is the showing-hiding of double meaning always a dissimulation of what desire means, or can it sometimes be a manifestation, a revelation of the sacred? And is this alternative itself real or illusory, provisional or definitive?32

So Ricoeur's study of Freud, the unconscious and its psychical productions arose from issues concerning the relation between sexual desire and symbolic language. Does sexual desire affect religious language or does religious language affect sexual desire? I suggest that Ricoeur gradually recognizes a reciprocal relation between language and desire, whereby symbolic language affects as well as is affected by the religious meanings of desire; hence desire mediates the formation of sexual identity through the sameness of meaning in language. In addition, Kristeva offers the means to analyse the place where the psychosexual and social meet, where desire disrupts the socialsymbolic order of law and language, in Ricoeur's reading of the Adamic myth. Desire is crucial here in marking the place of abjection, that is, the most propitious place for communication. But notice that the significance of desire begins to shift at this point: from having a negative meaning for patriarchy as a conscious inclination to deviate from a good rational intention, desire comes to be recognized as a potentially positive energy, however repressed in the unconscious, as an unnameable maternal trace. Although Kristeva enables recognition of this place of abjection, my conception of subjectivity as a mediated process may go beyond her idea of a subject-in-process.33 And I do insist that discovery of the most propitious place for communication and change is possible only in so far as the formation of sexual identity is clearly seen to be a mediated process; this implies that social and symbolic meanings would not directly or strictly construct our 32. Ricoeur, Freud and Philosophy, pp. 5, 7-8. 33. However, it might be argued that in certain articles Kristeva herself suggests the possibility of identity being a mediated process; the affective relationship and discourse between the subject and his or her analyst would constitute a mediation through identity of meaning in language. See Julia Kristeva, Freud and Love: Treatment and its Discontents', in The Kristeva Reader (ed. Toril Moi; Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987), pp. 239-71; and In the Beginning Was Love, pp. 9, 26-27, 62-63-

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identities. Instead our subjectivities, including sexual identity and non-identity,34 would be formed through a self interpreted in the context of our symbolically mediated affective relationships. In moving with and beyond Ricoeur it should be possible to join certain postmodern feminists in celebrating the symbolic death of the unitary subject.35 This death would put the formerly excluded, desiring woman in a place of potential privilege: she represents something the unitary subject lacked but desired, now offering the possibility of discovering the place where reason and desire meet. At this stage I can return, with more ground, to respond to the question of why the woman is chosen for the confrontation of prohibition and desire. In doing so, I intend to initiate a critical account of sexual identity and difference. The Potential Place for the Disruption of Patriarchy My account attempts to indicate—in the abject space of desire— the place where we might begin to break through to the excluded desires of patriarchy. Male sexual identity appears to have been constituted both by Adam's difference from Eve and by Adam's relation to the sacred, which involves the creation of the socialsymbolic order of prohibitions and rites of purification. The interconnection of two points implicit in this situation is significant. First, Adam's differentiation as male from Eve as female could, if read diachronically, remain a difference in equality in so far as Eve is created out of the same original earthly creature (ha'adham; Gen. 2.7).36 But, secondly, Adam's specifically human identity is

34. Non-identity is another way to say that sexual difference is repressed. 35. Rosi Braidotti, Patterns of Dissonance: A Study of Women in Contemporary Philosophy (trans. Elizabeth Guild; Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991), pp. 1-2,209-11. 36. At one time Phyllis Trible reads the earthly creature as being androgynous; 'Eve and Adam: Genesis 2-3 Reread' (reprint), in Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow (eds.), Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1992), pp. 74-78. Later she rejects her earlier reading because androgyny assumes sexuality and she decides that the earthly creature in Gen. 2.7 is sexually undifferentiated (Phyllis Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978], pp. 97-98, 141 n. 17).

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determined with the distance created by the relationship or covenant with his creator God.37 When Adam's differentiation from Eve at Gen. 2.23 is read retrospectively in the light of the fall, then he is placed at the centre of God's universe. But this centring implies that Adam's identity as human is constituted by a hierarchy: the divine is privileged over the human, purity over impurity, immortality over mortality. Adam recognizes himself as impure, mortal and human within the symbolic system of taboos and rites of purification. The systematic ordering of relations between subject and object constitutes both his distance from and his covenant with the sacred. However, woman as abject is excluded from this order, remaining a threat to man's bond with the sacred. Read together the two points reveal both an androcentric and a patriarchal bias in this configuration of the biblical story of Adam and Eve. Androcentric means that, despite the possibility of difference in equality, the mythical configuration remains focused upon man and his relation to God. Patriarchal means that the ordering of the covenant imposes a hierarchy of power relations. The paternal term is always privileged; as the first term it is always assigned more value and power than any filial terms. And only masculine terms are meaningful; meaning breaks down with femininity. This is evident in Ricoeur's exemplary personages in the great Old and New Testament narratives about the beginning and end of evil. All the exemplary personages are patriarchal men. The dominant titles and figures in the Old Testament are fathers, kings and prophets, including Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah and the Mes37. Writing before Kristeva, Ricoeur discusses the ethical distance created by the covenant between man and his God in The Symbolism of Evil, pp. 5862. But Kristeva uses semiotics and psychoanalysis to explain further that The pure/impure distinction, tabor/tame, shows up in the Biblical episode of Noah's burnt offerings to the Lord after the flood... That recognition of the pure/impure difference apparently forces the Lord to defer his judgment... [Similarly] Neither Cain, although at fault, nor Adam, although wandering (nad, and that brings him close to feminine impurity, niddah), are defiled. Tahor/tame seems to be a specific relation that pertains to setting in order, dependent on a covenant with God. That opposition, even though it is not absolute, is inscribed in the Biblical text's basic concern with separating, with constituting strict identities without intermixture' (Powers of Horror, pp. 92-93).

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siah; then, in the New Testament, Jesus is represented by the symbolism of the first and second Adam—especially important for Ricoeur.38 The symbolic language of the first and second Adam, in its bringing together the privileged figures in the Old and New Testament narrative, assumes a patriarchal covenant ordered by laws of prohibition and purification. Furthermore, in relation to the patriarchal covenant, the figure of woman appears in the gaps or the abject spaces. She is represented ambiguously within the Adamic myth of the origin and end of evil as both defiling and purifying. Eve as defiled will be—retrospective to the second Adam— dialectically related to Mary, the virgin mother of the Son of God, who is neither defiled nor dies.39 The ambiguity in this abject space enables a splitting, whereby the figure of woman both threatens and conditions man's bond with the sacred.40 More specifically, in the space of motherhood, Kristeva identifies the crucial principle and place for the transformation of patriarchy. According to her psycholinguistics, the myth and cult of the Virgin Mary demonstrates that the maternal has remained an ambivalent, unnameable principle, since both outside of the paternal socialsymbolic order and a condition of that order.41 Precisely because of such ambivalence, the maternal principle offers a significant space for disrupting patriarchy, for a potential revelation of the sacred. As she explains,

38. Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil, pp. 6-7, 237-43; and Freud and Philosophy, pp. 38-40. 39- See Ricoeur The Symbolism of Evil, pp. 28, 31, 37-38; Lechte, fulia Kristeva, pp. 160, 177; and Kristeva, 'Freud and Love', pp. 234-63. 40. Kristeva also identifies the ambiguity of women's blood, with its defiling and purifying meanings, as a propitious place for communication; see Powers of Horror, p. 96. Ricoeur suggests a reversal of the relationship between masculine/feminine and defilement in the second Adam—Christ— whose wounds indicate his identification with death; and so the god-man— instead of the woman—is connected with defilement and abjection. Yet Ricoeur does not explain the implications of this identification for the anthropology of the Adamic myth or for real women (The Symbolism of Evil, pp. 269, 324-25). 41. Kristeva, 'Stabat Mater', in The Kristeva Reader, pp. 160-86. Cf. Marina Warner, Alone of All her Sex: The Myth and Cult of the Virgin Mary (London: Picador, 1985).

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Let us call maternal' the ambivalent principle that is bound to the species, on the one hand, and on the other stems from an identity catastrophe that causes the Name to topple over into the unnameable that one imagines as femininity, nonlanguage, or body...at the same time the most intense revelation of God, which occurs in mysticism, is given only to a person who assumes himself as maternal.' Augustine, Bernard of Clairvaux, Meister Eckhart, to mention but a few, played the part of the Father's virgin spouses, or even, like Bernard, received drops of virginal milk directly on their lips. 2

Femininity, equated above with the body, remains non-language in being grounded in the maternal principle. Thus bodily difference functions in the maternal principle, prior to the nameable and so prior to the law of the father. The maternal is excluded at the point of the self's acquisition of language and so at the point of man's entry into the social contract. This is the point of decisive separation from the mother; thereafter the maternal principle is applied to a space outside of the symbolic order of subject and object. Yet notice, as an ambivalent principle, the maternal still retains an attractive role, erupting into the social-symbolic order in moments of intense revelation of a divine love where abjection and the sacred come together (e.g. in the signs of an undefiled body of the virgin mother). At the outset of this paper I affirmed that this ambiguity reflects a loss of meaning; to repeat, the abject 'draws me toward the place where meaning collapses'.43 But this abject space could also give rise to the creation of new meaning for women and men. In a crucial passage for my argument, Kristeva boldly contends that abjection does not have to be configured alongside the subject's identity as masculine within a patriarchal social order. Nor does abjection necessarily designate ejection and separation of the maternal principle of bodily mystery from man. Men can be abject; so neither femininity nor the maternal principle of love and desire has to be restricted to women. The relationship between Adam and his God no longer looks as simple as a covenant between these two parties might imply. Adam is not necessarily a unitary subject or object in relation to his God. Kristeva proposes that

42. Kristeva, 'Stabat Mater', pp. 161-62. 43. Kristeva, Powers of Horror, p. 2.

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BODIES, LIVES, VOICES Seen from a different viewpoint, the story of the fall sets up a diabolical otherness in relation to the divine. Adam is no longer endowed with the composed nature of paradisiac man, he is torn by...consuming desire... He must protect himself from that sinful food that consumes him and that he craves... Christian sin, [as long as] tying its spiritual knot between flesh and law, does not cut off the abject... By the same token, abjection will not be designated as such, that is, as other, as something to be ejected, or separated, but as the most propitious place for communication—as the point where the scales are tipped towards pure spirituality... One recalls Francis of Assisi who visited leproseries 'to give out alms and left only after having kissed their wounds, sponging pus and sores'. 4

From this different point of view, Adam is not configured with a composed nature but with bodily defilement. He represents a diabolical otherness, as a source of both consuming desire and pure spirituality. I might say that the idealized unitary subject appears to be symbolically dead. In turn, abjection becomes a condition both for the splitting of the self into bad and good categories and for the reconciling of human and divine. Abjection, as a condition of reparation, may become the condition for reconciliation of the maternal body and the paternal law.45 Conclusion: Celebrating Death of the Unitary Subject I seem to have reached the most propitious place for communication about the sacred between men and women in abjection. To quote Kristeva one last time:

44. Kristeva, Powers of Horror, p. 127, emphasis added; also, see p. 96. For further references to ambiguity, communication and dissimulation, see Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil, pp. 243, 246-47. 45. For background on reparation, see Melanie Klein, Love, Guilt and Reparation', and Other Works 1921-1945 (London: Virago, 1988). Cf. Julia Kristeva, Black Sun: Depression and Melancholia (trans. Leon S. Roudiez; New York: Columbia University Press, 1989), pp. 11-25. Concerning Kristeva's reference to a third term that brings together the maternal and paternal functions, see her account of the imaginary father of individual prehistory in Freud and Love', pp. 239, 244-46, 257, and in In the Beginning Was Love, pp. 24-27, 40; and for a feminist reading of Kristeva's imaginary father, see Philippa Berry, 'Kristeva's Renguring of the Gift', Paragraph 18.3 (1995), pp. 223-40.

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The border between abjection and the sacred, between desire and knowledge, between death and society, can be faced squarely, uttered without sham innocence or modest self-effacement, provided one sees in it an incidence of man's particularity as mortal and speaking. There is an abject' is henceforth stated as I am abject, that is, mortal and speaking.' Incompleteness and dependency on the Other...allow him only to make his dramatic splitting transmittable... Provided we hear in language—and not in the other, nor in the other sex... the wound, the basic incompleteness that conditions the indefinite quest of signifying concatenations. That amounts to joying in the truth of self-division (abjection/sacred). 4

Here, celebrating the symbolic death of the unitary subject appears possible if I follow Kristeva. Yet I do have my doubts about her reading of self-division, resulting from the disruption of a process. This process of constitution/disruption of a speaking subject is not necessarily the same as the self-division of constituted and constituting subjects who would clearly have the capacity to initiate change. Instead, self-division in the preceding quotation appears to remain an eruption of the abject other—for example, repressed desire and death—within language. My main doubt is that self-division may not give the autonomy that would be necessary for the subjects' self-reflexivity, deliberate choice and change. And yet notwithstanding this apparent lack of autonomy, if the question is about women's voices in religion, I am not certain there is another way forward at this time, except by seeking the points at which abjection disturbs the symbolic order of social and linguistic norms. It might, then, be possible to begin the reinterpretation of abjection in terms of self-affecting subjects who can initiate an internal critique and so a decisive transformation of patriarchy. In concluding, I would use my doubt concerning Kristeva's idea of'joying in the truth of self-division'47 in order to push beyond any stoic interpretation of the subject-in-process. That is, I would stress the importance of autonomy as different from a simple acceptance of a self-division, over which selves have no definite control. It is not possible here to explain how some of Kristeva's writings might suggest a means to give subjects autonomy (e.g. by way of transference love) in regard to their repressed desires and linguistic 46. Kristeva, Powers of Horror, pp. 88-89. 47. Kristeva, Powers of Horror, pp. 88-89-

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norms. However, in so far as I have found self-division in Kristeva to be a matter of language understood as both a signifying process and a form of the social-symbolic order, there is a danger in conflating linguistic and social norms, neither of which are the individual subject's making. Although these norms would both be conditioned and disrupted by the semiotic order of pre-signifying energies, the possibility for the deliberate formation or transformation of the identity of meaning in language would remain a problem. The really decisive question remains, does Kristeva offer an existential basis for the self-reflexivity of embodied female subjects and so their freedom to initiate deliberate change?48 I have illustrated, with my Kristevan reading of Ricoeur's configuration of the Adamic myth, that woman remains different from man, outside of his relation to God. In this way, woman represents a peculiar ambiguity. 'She', as the abject maternal, is ambiguous and so a site for Kristeva's celebration of both disruption and reconciliation between human and divine. But can 'woman' be more than a vehicle for reconciliation of man and the maternal with the divine? Can she herself be a real flesh and blood subject, body and mind? And if so, can she as an affected and affecting subject also be reconciled with the divine? More generally stated, can the subjectivities of real women in their bodily specificities find reconciliation with the sacred in this place of abjection? I am not convinced that Kristeva—on her own— answers this line of questioning adequately.49 In fact at times Kristeva seems to offer only a stoic acceptance of the process of change in which subjects are caught up. So what more has been learned from my Kristevan semanalysis of Ricoeur that might take me beyond Kristeva? Let me draw together the crucial points from the rereading of Ricoeur on symbolic language and sexual identity. The dominant configuration of the Adamic myth is both man-centred and hier48. For a critical discussion of the missing, existential dimension in Kristeva's account of the subject-in-process, see Patricia Huntington, 'Toward a Dialectical Concept of Autonomy: Revisiting the Feminist Alliance with Poststructuralism', Philosophy and Social Criticism 21.1 (1995), pp. 44-55. 49. Real women in their stoic acceptance of being subjects-in-process find, at most, consolation in the cult of the Virgin Mary: in she who is 'alone of all her sex'. See Kristeva, 'Stabat Mater', pp. 160-86.

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archically structured from father to son. Despite Ricoeur's attempts to reject the imposition of 'the fall', the story of Adam's deviation from and so loss of innocence represents the woman as active transgressor and seducer; she, then, must be excluded from the covenant with a good God. Henceforth female sexual difference is rendered ambiguous, uncertain and threatening: woman remains on the boundary of purity and impurity, where meaning collapses. By representing man, in the Adamic myth, as responsible sinner and victim, with woman as sinner and seducer, the ambiguity of evil and defilement inevitably remains with female desire. The consequence is that female sexuality, defiled and defiling as understood after the fall, supports the subordination of woman by the radical exclusion of her body and desire. What has this meant for female subjects, sexual difference, identity and women's relation to the divine? As Ricoeur is aware, as long as women are symbolized as defiled, connected with the threatening traces of both the birth and the burial of man (i.e. of the afterbirth and the corpse), they will be excluded as subjects from sacred places. 50 Hence their relations to religious rites and the divine will remain uncertain. Yet I have tried to demonstrate that, notwithstanding abjection appearing in a text as the point of exclusion, women's voices may still find in abjection the most propitious place for communication and change. This is possible if abjection and the abject spaces in a text are also read as radical points for self-reflexivity and for a new lucidity. Self-reflexivity, an act of abstraction from and turning back upon the meaning of the subject's own philosophy, enables selfdivided subjects to find for themselves new voices for internal critique and change. And such places of self-reflexivity—whether as spaces in a text or in ritual performances—emerge especially with the double meanings of concrete images of abjection that can reverse or confound the dominant meanings of symbolic language and sexual identity. For example, the shed blood in religious symbolism can mean both female defilement and death or purification and life.51 50. Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil, pp. 39-40. 51. I am indebted to Janet Martin Soskice for this example. For a fuller account, see Soskice, 'Blood and Defilement: Jesus, Gender and the Universality of Christ', European Theology Bulletin 2 (1994), pp. 230-41. Also, see n. 40 above.

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Specifically, this means, for my double reading of Ricoeur and Kristeva, at least three things. First, new subjectivities of men and women would need to be sought by pushing further than Ricoeur was able to, despite his best intentions; that is, I would need to move decisively beyond the 'fall' interpretations of the Adamic myth as representing the existential condition of man (sic), and so decisively beyond any reading of a debilitating complicity between sexuality and defilement. Secondly, this would then make it necessary to reject any lingering assumption of a hierarchical split between, on the one hand, the being of God and Adam, and, on the other hand, the being of the serpent and Eve. Thirdly and finally, it would be necessary to push beyond Kristeva in order to conceive women as affected and affecting subjects of new knowledges: fully embodied female subjects would offer knowledge of desire, of affective relationships, of new forms of embodied love between sexually different subjects. Thus understood, abjection, as the most propitious place for communication, might then become the site for formations of new subjectivities, for women and for men, that would enable the most propitious communication.

MORNYJOY What's God Got to Do with It?

The work of Luce Irigaray resonates with references to God, the divine and mythological figures. Besides specific concepts and images, her thought explores these topics in terms of the language of desire and o/Otherness. Her immediate influences in much of this discussion are Derrida, Lacan and Levinas. But her work also needs to be set in the context of the developments in French thought since 1930, specifically the impact of such diverse thinkers as Hegel, Freud and Heidegger. Irigaray is neither a theologian nor a philosopher of religion in the traditional sense. Nor would she wish to be considered a systematic theologian. Yet the body of her work, especially her mythopoetics and her ethics, provides a radical challenge to received notions of divinity and femininity.1 In this article I would like to follow the development of her ideas with specific attention to the concept of o/Otherness and how the various constructs of God and of the divine have implications for her views on the need for women to affirm their status and identity as distinct from men, and to express their own desires.

1. Irigaray's style of writing is unique in its intermingling of critical, mimetic and creative elements. Placing herself initially within the purview of current psychoanalytic theory, which Irigaray believes denies women any voice, her tactics are to subvert the monolithic structures by a type of deconstructive approach that incorporates both rhetorical and poetic devices. At the same time she wishes to introduce positive features of feminine ideals and modes of communication: a positive mythopoetic resource. As she has stated: 'I am trying...to go back through the masculine imaginary, to interpret the way it has reduced us to silence, to muteness or mimicry, and I am attempting, from that starting point and at the same time, to (re)discover a possible space for the feminine imaginary' (Luce Irigaray, This Sex Which Is Not One [trans. Catherine Porter and Carolyn Burke; Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985], p. 164).

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Preliminary

Diagnosis

Irigaray's initial investigations of the situation of women and their relation to God and desire are undertaken in Speculum of the Other Woman.2 In this intertextual exercise, Irigaray interacts with selective themes in the work of Western philosophers—Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Descartes, Kant and Hegel. It is the opening study of Freud entitled 'The Blind Spot of an Old Dream of Symmetry', however, which both sets the tone and frames the issue that Irigaray discerns as critical for the position of women in the Western intellectual tradition. Basically, a male-centred system has prevailed, where man has been regarded as the norm, the ideal, the integral exemplar of the human species. Woman, in contrast, has been deemed inferior, if not alien to all those qualities that are associated with reason and morality. Irigaray questions Freud's depiction of a girl's resolution to the Oedipal conflict, which he regards as opposite to that of a boy: Does 'opposite' mean 'placed over against something on the other or farther side of the intervening line; contrary in position? Or does it mean 'opposed', 'hostile', or 'harmful to', contrary like Mary in the rhyme or as the dictionary develops the meaning?... This decisive moment in sexual structuring is then supposedly produced in the little girl's case as the 'opposite' of the (so-called) masculine economy. Or so Freud would wish, as he thinks of sexual difference from within the realm of the same, and attributes all the properties (and improprieties) of the dictionary definition listed above to the sex opposite' his own. 3

This scenario places woman as the other of man within an economy of sameness. As such, her difference, when not deemed a deficiency, is subsumed by a model of identity that cannot but incorporate any diversity into its own monolithic system. While such a system has definite Hegelian overtones, Irigaray also places it in another context of the interplay of identity and difference, which in Greek philosophy, particularly the work of Plato, defers to the unity of the Idea. In her study entitled 'Plato's Hystera' within Speculum, Irigaray describes this process, detecting a similar 2. Luce Irigaray, Speculum of the Other Woman Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985). 3. Irigaray, Speculum, p. 83.

(trans. Gillian C. Gill;

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teleological procedure in both forms of dialectical interchange: The Idea of Ideas, alone, is itself in itself... It neither indicates nor indexes anything other than itself, however akin. And needs no heterogeneous vehicle, no foreign receptacle, in order to signify and represent itself. The idea goes beyond such mere methodological, generative procedures. It is the end of every road, even the road of dialectic. 4

In the resultant composite frame of reference that forms the Western philosophic/theological heritage—this self-same unity or identity—is identified not just with Being, Truth and Goodness, but with a unitary God, inevitably designated as male in a paternalistic mode: The One produces the even by subsuming under it the less and the more, and the gaps between them, which are operative in the dyad, and in this way the One swells to infinity. But as sameness, the One (of) the Idea... What is to be said, then, of him who, now and forever, through all eternity, contains all these essences, these powers, while going beyond them in a pre-existence that engenders them as such and regulates the connections between them? The Good (of) God-the-Father. 5

This God-the-Father, co-terminus with the idea/Ideal, guarantor of the old dream of symmetry, has been subjected to rigorous psychoanalytic scrutiny this century, firstly by Freud, and then by Jacques Lacan. The latter reformulated the operations of the unconscious in a structuralist/linguistic model. 6 Yet though the actual existence of God may be put into question from such a seemingly materialist perspective, Irigaray detects within the 4. Irigaray, Speculum, p. 298. 5. Irigaray, Speculum, p. 359-60. 6. Elisabeth Roudinesco details, in her book, Jacques Lacan & Co. (trans. J. Mehlman; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), pp. 297-300, how the structuralist ideas of Ferdinand de Saussure were to have a marked impact on Lacan s reformulation of the Freudian unconscious according to linguistic categories. She proposes two different influential readings of Saussure. The first was that of the years previous to 1953, where the other influences were Heidegger and Levi-Strauss. During the period from 1953 into the 1960s, the time of the crystallization of many of his ideas, Lacan's reading of Saussure was affected by the work of Jakobson and Merleau-Ponty. This also marked a reevaluation of Hegel's philosophy, which, via Alexandre Kojeve's lectures in the 1930s, had also been a major influence.

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articulation of psychoanalytic procedures a momentum that continues to deify the male gender and the symbol of its power, the phallus.7 For Irigaray, it is still the male who accedes to his godlike inheritance of identity by a repression of all things maternal. In such a male-focused setting, women as the other function both as fetish object, in the guise of mother-substitute fixations, and as a mirroring device, reflecting to men their own narcissistic selfpreoccupations. What a mockery of generation, parody of copulation and genealogy, drawing its strength from the same model, from the model of the same: the subject. In whose sight everything outside remains forever a condition making possible the image and reproduction of the self. A faithful polished mirror, empty of altering reflections. Immaculate of auto-copies. Other because wholly in the service of the same subject to whom it would project its surfaces, candid in their self-ignorance. 8

What Irigaray also discerns is a subtle move whereby this idealized male self-image, which is primarily an imaginary projection, becomes fixated in cultural productions as a symbolic figure of authority. Such an outcome marks one of the resolutions of the Oedipal conflict. As Elizabeth Grosz explains it: A whole history of philosophy [and theology] seems intent on rationalizing this debt [to the mother] away by providing men with a series of images of self-creation culminating in the idea of God as the paternal 'mother', creator of the universe in place of women/ mothers. Man's self-reflecting Other, God, functions to obliterate the positive fecundity and creativity of women. Born of woman, man devises religion, theory, and culture as an attempt to disavow this foundational, unspeakable debt. 9

7. Irigaray describes the phallic system as one that shares the values promulgated by the patriarchal society and culture, values inscribed in the philosophical corpus: property, production, order, form, unity, visibility... and erection (Irigaray, This Sex, p. 86). Here, for Irigaray, phallic values are associated with the possession of a penis: The girl then turns toward her father to try to get what neither she nor any woman has: the phallus; the desire to have a child, for a woman, signifies the desire to possess at last the equivalent of the penis' (Irigaray, This Sex, p. 69). 8. Irigaray, Speculum, p. 136. 9. Elizabeth Grosz, Jacques Lacan: A Feminist Introduction (London: Routledge, 1990), p. 181.

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Essential to the deciphering of both Lacan's and Irigaray's positions is an appreciation of the uses of this term o/Other—a borrowing from Hegel, via Alexandre Kojeve—that is a central term in Lacan's repertoire. The o/Other is a multifaceted term. In his extrapolation of Hegel, Lacan has reworked the Freudian transition from the pre-Oedipal to Oedipal by means of the imaginary or mirror phase. Otherness plays a vital role in the process. This development is detailed in Schema L, which Elizabeth Grosz discusses in Jacques Lacan: A Feminist Introduction: In the mirror stage... the child enters an imaginary relation with the other, with others, including the mother, father, nurturer, or mirrorimage (represented by autre)... The mirror stage generates the child's ego or mot which is built upon its imaginary identification with the other. 10

This autre/other is distinct from Autre/the Other, which, as the law of symbolic functioning (societal norms) 'is embodied in the figure of the symbolic father, who intervenes in the narcissistic imaginary'.11 Lacan designates the move from other to the Other as a passage from the mirror stage and maternal symbiosis to the symbolic, which permits the acquisition of language and of the accompanying socio-cultural structures. The Other has thus come to indicate two aspects of one process. It registers the transition from the imaginary (unconscious) to symbolic (conscious) conventions. At the same time, it indicates the maternal alliance that has been repudiated in this transaction. As Elizabeth Grosz again elucidates: The Other (represented by Autre) enters the Oedipal triangle as a point outside the dual imaginary structure. As the law of symbolic functioning, the Other is embodied in the figure of the symbolic father, who intervenes into the narcissistic, imaginary, and incestual structure of identifications and gratifications. The relation between self/mot and other is necessary for the initiation of social exchange, and the articulation of the unconscious. The locus of the Other is at the same time that site within the subject known as the uncon-

10. Grosz, Jacques Lacan, p. 74. 11. Grosz, Jacques Lacan, p. 74. 12. Grosz, Jacques Lacan, p. 74.

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While it is this very conflation of the imaginary and the symbolic representations that Lacan sees as the task of analysis to illuminate, Irigaray will add her own diagnosis of his hypothesis regarding the prima and institutional erasure of woman that is thereby enacted. 13 Needless to say, in her analysis of the conflation of men's unconscious fabrications with the symbolic designation of God, Irigaray is not impressed by the way that the Other has functioned so as to constrict women's spheres of activity, specifically to their ability to function as discrete subjects. Though she does not cite Lacan specifically, his model underlies one of her initial interrogations regarding women's potential opposition to their designation of expendable o/Otherness. But what if the 'object' started to speak? Which also means beginning to 'see', etc. What disaggregation of the subject would that entail? Not only on the level of the split between him and his other, his variously specified alter ego, or between him and the Other, who is always to some extent his Other, even if he does not recognize himself in it, even if he is so overwhelmed by it as to bar himself out of it and into it so as to retain at the very least the power to promote his own forms. 1

And she also gives some intimation of the momentous upheaval that could result if this dormant force of the repressed maternal were to stir: 'The Other, lapsed within, disquieting in its shadow 13. Irigaray would be the first to agree that, in the phallocratic system, imaginary projections have been conflated with the symbolic Other in the various expositions of God. As Lacan has observed: 'The objective of my teaching, inasmuch as it aims at that part of analytic discourse which can be formulated, or put down, is to dissociate the a [autre/other] and the O [Autre/Other], by reducing the former to what belongs to the imaginary and the latter to what belongs to the symbolic. That the symbolic is the support of that which was made into God, is beyond doubt. That the imaginary is supported by the reflection of like to like, is certain. And yet, a has come to be confused with the S(O)' [Symbolic Other] (Juliet Mitchell and Jacqueline Rose [eds.], Feminine Sexuality: Jacques Lacan and the ecole freudienne [New York: Pantheon, 1983], pp. 153-54). While Lacan is concerned with illustrating that God has been placed in the site that women, as the repressed Other, occupies, he is not as concerned as Irigaray has become with the denigration of women this confusion has entailed. 14. Irigaray, Speculum, p. 135.

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and its rage, sustaining the organization of a universe eternally identical to the self.'15 Most of Irigaray's work is, I believe, vitally concerned with both the strategies and implications involved when women refuse to support the process of their silencing, and, as a result, the o/Other is thus 'stripped of the veils that still shroud it'.16 As a corollary, she is also concerned with eliciting the integral elements that support women's reclamation of a divinity or a divine ideal of their own. Inevitably, this will have repercussions for human relationships and prevalent definitions of desire. The Lure of Desire Love of the other without love of self, without love of God, implies submission of the female one, the other and of the whole of the social body. 17

As well as refusing to be the basis of the male specular economy of sameness, and thus rejecting her excluded otherness, in Irigaray's project women have to reclaim their own desires, which they have also had to repress. These desires are not simply libidinal urges, but the basis of a positive female relationship to their M(Other)—who needs to be viewed as a woman in her own right. This will allow women access to positive forms of representation. 18 Irigaray describes the problem accordingly: Freud can discuss the little girl's relation to the place of origin only as a vacancy, a taking leave of the mother: as rejection, or hatred of the mother...she is left with a void, a lack of all representation, 15. Irigaray, Speculum, p. 135. 16. Irigaray, Speculum, p. 135. 17. Luce Irigaray, 'Divine Women', in Sexes and Genealogies (trans. Gillian C. Gill; New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), p. 68. 18. In so far as Lacan follows Freud, where both see 'the unconscious as a consequence of primal repression, where the phallus is the preserved infantile nucleus of the unconscious, a residue of the child's primal repression of its maternal desire' (Grosz, Jacques Lacan, p. 117), woman is regarded quoad matrem (only as mother). This reduction of woman to simply her maternal functioning, and the inherent need for her repression and concomitant silencing, is one of the impetuses for Irigaray to re-establish both a positive, imaginary representation of women in relation to their mothers and then a further symbolic affirmation of women themselves that does not fuse the imaginary and symbolic (by simply identifying with the mother's limited role).

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But Irigaray is not just combating Freud's denial of women's desire as an active force that would allow her both a positive selfimage and object choice, she also wishes to resist Lacan's further emendations of this theory. Lacan associates women's fundamental lack—her being 'not-all'—not just with the deprivation of a penis but with an absence both of awareness and of articulation of her condition.20 Irigaray is obviously not receptive to the fact that the woman/mother, as the object of primary repression, is rendered responsible for the development of the insatiable desire for plenitude that haunts the discourse of consciousness. Nor does she agree with the conclusion that women are thus the occasion of the chain of linguistic signifiers that attempt to compensate for this exile. But her most vehement protest is reserved for contesting women's imposed silence. The ultimate inequity, from Irigaray's perspective, is the outcome that women themselves—by an inexorable logic on Lacan's part that posits women as the unconscious womb of man's language—cannot presume to have access to consciousness. Thus, they cannot name their own desires, let alone summon up a language that would elucidate their condition.21 19. Irigaray, Speculum, p. 42. 20. In both Freud and Lacan, it is the fact of women's castration that, either literally or figuratively, is the reason for her rejection as defective in a phallic economy. Instead of the Freudian commitment to a phylogenetic, pseudobiological explanation of the oedipal structure, Lacan will use social, unconscious, and linguistic explanations... The mother is denigrated from her position as the all powerful phallic [unconscious] mother, not because of the child's perception of an anatomical lack. Instead, the child perceives her powerlessness in terms of the mother's relation (of desire for, of subordination to) the father' (Grosz, Jacques Lacan, p. 70). Irigaray wants to challenge the inevitability of both Freud's and Lacan's selfserving and seemingly irremediable systems. 21. Lacan is taken to task by Irigaray for his cavalier treatment of women, especially that in his essay, 'God and the Jouissance of The Woman' (Mitchell and Rose [eds.], Feminine Sexuality). While granting that women, insofar as they are not part of the phallic economy, can have experiences, specifically of an ecstatic/mystical variety, he does not permit them either consciousness or expression of this state. This is because, within his linguistically based formulas, women are both repressed and silent. Yet Lacan cannot but both

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In Lacan's model, women must forever be relegated to a condition where they are prevented from comprehending the circumstances of their own confinement. They are barred from the possibility of conceiving a positive and conscious arrangement whereby they might have access to a God. As for women, unless raised to the dignity of the male essence, they would have no access to the sublime circles of sameness, to the heights of the intelligible...women are incapable of realizing whether some idea—Idea—in fact corresponds to themselves, or whether it is only a more or less passable imitation of men's ideas. Unaware of the value of the names given them by the logos—assuming that some really specific names exist—women would, it seems, not know their definition, their representation, or the relationships with others, and with the All, that are maintained in this way. 22

To repudiate this muting of their voice, women need to begin to understand how Lacan manipulates the manifestations of desire. This term 'desire' will be decisive in the development of Irigaray's thought. In one sense, for both Irigaray and Lacan, it retains the associations of Platonic eros, but during its voyage through Western thought, particularly through Hegel, and its later Freudian and Lacanian adaptations, it has undergone permutations. In her book, Subjects of Desire, Judith Butler traces the relevant trajectory from Hegel to Lacan, as it was mediated in France during the 1930s by the lectures of Kojeve. Whereas for Hegel 'desire signifies the reflexivity of consciousness, the necessity that it become other to itself to know itself23 by means of the dialectical move of differentiation or negativity, by the time of Lacan, 'Desire can no longer be said to reveal, express or thematize the reflexive structure of consciousness, but is, rather, the precise moment of consciousness posture and taunt women from his own position of linguistic competence— not only can he decode their inarticulate yet visceral paroxysms of desire, but he would even class his own writings as of the same calibre—though he knows what's going on. Irigaray's 'Cos! Fan Tutti' demonstrates h o w the phallic frame of reference, particularly in its dry, verbal analyses of love, is still caught in its own desire for the same. It reaffirms [T]he narcissistic pleasure that the master, believing himself to be unique, confuses with that of the One' (Irigaray, This Sex, p. 103). 22. Irigaray, Speculum, p. 342. 23- Judith Butler, Subjects of Desire (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), p. 7.

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opacity.'24 Desire, as it is employed by Lacan, is not an impetus to a greater awareness, but an insatiable, interminable dynamic that holds us in the thrall of the o/Other. It is also the residue of the repression of the primordial maternal connection. 25 Desire, then, marks the outcome of a complicated process by which a child negotiates the progression from biological drives to the acquisition of social conventions, especially language. Kelly Oliver gives a succinct description of the somewhat convoluted moves involved: [OJnce the infant realizes that its needs will not be met automatically by the mother, it must substitute demands (words) that indicate what it needs for the imaginary unity with the all-gratifying maternal body. Lacan calls the gap between need and demand desire'. Desire is unfulfillable; it is the remainder when you subtract the demand from the need. In other words, once you have to ask for what you need you cannot get what you need because what you need is to have your needs automatically met without having to ask. In Lacan s version of the Oedipal story, the infant moves from need to desire or from the maternal body to the name or law of the Father. 26

Another description that conveys the outcome of this mediatory

24. Butler, Subjects of Desire, p. 186. 25. Another facet of Lacan's modification of Hegel (by way of Kojeve), so as to accommodate his revision of Freud, has to do with the term 'desire'. As Roudinesco explains it: 'Through his doctrine and through the relations he entertained with his disciples and with the psychoanalytic community, Lacan put into effect the essence of that negative dialectic of human Desire and the Struggle for Recognition, as Kojeve formulated them out of Hegel's discourse' (Lacan, p. 141). Further on she elaborates: 'He did not pit a 'philosophy' against a 'biologism'; he made use of philosophical discourse in order to restore its adequate meaning to Freud's endeavor. He thus effected a merger between Begierde [Hegel's term for desire], that is, desire founded on recognition or the 'desire of the desire of the other' and a Wunsch [Freud's term for desire] unconscious in nature and bound to signs. He introduced the Freudian unconscious into a Hegelian-Kojevian definition of Begierde and the struggle for recognition' into the Freudian definition of Wunsch' (Lacan, p. 146). 26. Kelly Oliver, Womanizing Nietzsche: Philosophy's Relation to the 'Feminine' (London: Routledge, 1995), p. 167.

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exercise is that 'man's desire is the desire of the Other'. 27 This version of the Hegelian depiction of desire is a form self-consciousness (in relation to the other) that surpasses the simple gratification of organic satisfaction. It depends on Kojeve's subtle variation on the theme of recognition as self-affirmation: Thus, in the relationship between a man and a woman, for example, Desire is human only if the one desires, not the body, but the Desire of the other; if he wants 'to possess' or 'to assimilate' the Desire taken as Desire—that is to say, if he wants to be 'desired or loved', or, rather, recognized' in his human value, in his reality as a human individual. 28

Lacan's ingenious denouement of this transaction depends on his controversial designation of the phallus as the key cipher in the workings of desire. For if the phallus indicates the object of the various registers of lack—need, demand and desire (Lacan's revision of Freud's libido)—the phallus cannot but have an insidious relation to the penis. 29 This results from the fact that, as Elizabeth 27. Jacques Lacan, Ecrits: A Selection (trans. A. Sheridan; New York: W.W. Norton, 1977), p. 264. 28. Alexandre Kojeve, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel (trans. J J . Nichols Jr; New York: Basic Books, 1969; 1947), p. 6. 29. There is an intense debate, especially among female interpreters of Lacan, as to just how firmly entrenched is the phallus/penis liaison, and how privileged is the phallic signifier in its assignation of sexual/social roles. In defense of Lacan, Ellie Ragland-Sullivan claims that within the signifying system inaugurated by the Oedipal resolution, the differences acquired/ assigned are simply cultural conventions, and there is no definitive imposition: Post-structuralist feminists seem unaware of the Other Lacan' who teaches us that the phallic signifier has no signified, that his signifier only symbolizes the learning of difference as an effect which posits a materiality in language which differentiates the word qua meaning from the word as the sense of its meaning(s). That is, meanings always point to other meanings, to missing pieces' (Ellie Ragland-Sullivan, 'The Sexual Masquerade: The Lacanian Theory of Sexual Difference', in Ellie Ragland-Sullivan and M. Bracher [eds.], Lacan and the Subject of Difference [London: Routledge, 1991], p. 55). Elizabeth Grosz responds: 'Contrary to Mitchell, Ragland-Sullivan and others, I will claim that the phallic signifier is not a neutral third' term against which both sexes are analogously or symmetrically positioned. The relation between the penis and the phallus is not arbitrary, but socially and politically motivated. The two sexes come to occupy the positive and negative positions not for arbitrary reasons, or with arbitrary effects. It is motivated by the

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Grosz observes, the phallus functions both as 'the crucial signifier in the distribution of power' and 'the signifier of lack marking castration'. (The phallus thus marks the site of the dual significance of Otherness—as involving conscious cultural adaptation and the suppression of natural/maternal elements.) She then continues: As such, it also signifies presence or possession, for only in opposition to the absence of the term does its presence have any meaning or value. It thus signifies that what men (think they) have and what women (are considered) to lack.30

What this ultimately translates to, in Lacan's paradigm, is that a child will desire the desire of the (m)other (which is to have the phallus). Yet, because all this transpires at an unconscious level, the mother cannot know or name her desire. In response Irigaray states: This does not mean, however, that women's desire for herself, for the self-same—a female self, a female same—is not to [be] recognized ... [It does not mean that it] does not have to discover a possible economy. That this desire is not necessary to balance the desire of the other. 31

Irigaray would insist that the type of phallic economy that substitutes language, particularly the logos of the father/God, for the maternal body and her desire, is not irrevocable. In her initial publications, not only does she seek to introduce a type of corporeal language that would reflect women's desire, but one that would also disrupt the paternal law. This will lead, in turn, to further attempts to confound a system built on 'thoughts on divine truth that are available to man only when he has left behind everything that still linked him to this sensible world that the earth, the mother, represents'. 32 already existing structure of patriarchal power, and its effects guarantee the reproduction of this particular form of social organization and no other. They are distinguished not on the basis of (Saussurian 'pure') difference, but in terms of dichotomous opposition or distinction; not, that is, as contraries ('A' and 'B'), but as contradiction ('A' and 'not-A')' (Jacques Lacan, p. 124). 30. Grosz, Jacques Lacan, p. 125. 31. Irigaray, Speculum, p. 102. 32. Irigaray, Speculum, p. 339. Kelly Oliver describes well the ramifications of the traditional oedipal resolution: T h e mother-infant dyad is anti-social and must be prohibited and repressed by the Law of the Father so that society

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Irigaray thus links the need for women to be able to express their desire with the depiction of a divine figure in their own image that treats positively all that has been connected with women as repressed. Desire, Jouissance and the God of Excess Woman certainly does not know everything (about herself), she doesn't know (herself to be) anything, in fact. But her relationship to (self)knowledge provides access to a whole of what might be known or of what she might know—that is to God 33

In the development of her work, Irigaray will expand her range of response and employ diverse tactics. In her introductory studies, she attempts to subvert the seemingly divinely sanctioned law of the Father. Concurrently, in both Speculum and This Sex Which Is Not One she also explores forbidden territory. This is the alleged inarticulate pleasure of a female sexuality—linked with her banished desire and irreducible to phallic constraints—that goes by the name of jouissance,34 In this connection, Irigaray speculates about another modality of 'God' who is not circumscribed by a masculine taxonomy. And she intimates that there might be some form of concord between women and a God in this area of excess, of exclusion from malecentred configurations. Lacan has called this inaccessible domain the Real—the unconscious in its unassimilable and uncoordinated dimensions—prior to imaginary and regulatory symbolic constructions.35 Lacan himself (in marked contrast to the 'good old God' of might exist... The Oedipal situation is a struggle to the death between mother's body and father's name/law in which, if the resolution is successful, the father always wins. This struggle is a battle between nature and culture. The child must leave nature behind in order to enter culture. The maternal body is sacrificed for the sake of culture' (Oliver, Womanizing, p. 167). 33 Irigaray, Speculum, p. 231. 34. Both Lacan and Irigaray s term for the excessive, superabundant expression of feminine pleasure, extraneous to phallic control is jouissance. Irigaray, in contrast to Lacan's proprietary delineation of its application, wants to encourage its exorbitance as a measure of the inexhaustible potential that a feminine imaginary can deploy. 35. Elizabeth Grosz describes the Real accordingly: The c h i l d . . . i s born into the order of the Real. The Real is the order preceding the go and the

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believers in traditional religion and atheists that is supplied by synthetic imaginary and symbolic constructions) would place his own somewhat sardonic apprehension of 'God', extraneous to any human conjecture, in this same a-topia. But though Irigaray will refer in a comparably circumspect fashion to this entity as 'God', and as a 'radically autarchic unit', she does not also subscribe to Lacan's obvious scepticism. Instead, as a retaliatory device, Irigaray deliberately adopts the role of the female mystic/hysteric whom Lacan imputes as experiencing, but not being able to enunciate, the delights of this unconditioned yet suppressed erogenous zone. 36 Irigaray's essay 'La Mysterique' in Speculum is at once a vindication of female mysticism and a prototype of the only rejoinder possible for women as long as a phallic system that idolizes the male remains functional. Her deliberate mimetic manner is thus a concerted attempt to deflate masculine conceit. This approach contests not just a generalized masculine God-like superiority, but especially the intellectual arrogance assumed by Lacan in his facile dismissal both of God-constructs and his deflation of women's insight into the mystic state as a particular charism of women's affinity with the Real. In depicting a female mystic as an hysteric figure, Irigaray recognizes her not as sexually repressed but as voicing her protest, basically through her body, against societal and religious regulations that fashion them simply as extraneous others, as vehicles to serve male requirements. As Elizabeth Grosz describes the hysteric: Hers is a mode of defiance of patriarchy, not the site of its frustration. In this sense, the hysteric is a proto-feminist, or at least an isolated individual who, if she had access to the experiences of other women, may locate the problem in cultural expectations of femininity rather than in femininity itself. The hysteric's defiance through excess, through over compliance, is a parody of the expected. 3 7 organization of the drives. It is an anatomical, 'natural' order.. .a pure plenitude or fullness. The Real cannot be experienced as such: it is capable of representation or conceptualization only through the reconstructive or inferential work of the imaginary or symbolic orders' (Jacques Lacan, p. 34). 36. Lacan's somewhat smug and tasteless description of Bernini's statue of St Teresa in ecstasy prompted Irigaray's acerbic inquiry as to whose pleasure was actually involved. 37. Elizabeth Grosz, Sexual Subversions: Three French Feminists (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1989), p. 135.

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In a way, the essays of Irigaray in much of Speculum are those of an hysteric, employing the special foil of calculated mimicry. This tactic is calculated to be subversive, but it is only employed in her early work. Again, Elizabeth Grosz elaborates: Irigaray does not naively advocate hysteria as a strategy for women in general. Rather, in her own rereading of philosophy, Irigaray herself acts out the hysteric. Her strategies are mimetic, not of organic disorders, but of philosophical and psychoanalytical texts. She imitates/parodies women's hysterical positions in discourse. Rather than act as a mimic—the mime reproduces behaviour marked by its difference from behaviour (this is what distinguishes the mimic from what he or she mimes), in its excessiveness over it, Irigaray mimes the hysteric's mimicry. She mimes mime itself.38

In 'La Mysterique', the mystic female, who is a composite from the writings/lives of different mediaeval women, is indeed exorbitant 38. Grosz, Sexual Subversions, p. 136. Mimicry as simple reproduction is ineffectual as a disruptive device—it simply reproduces the status quo. Irigaray's use of mimicry has had a mixed reception. In 'The Power of Discourse', Irigaray discusses two forms of mimicry: (1) hysterical mimicry— which simply reiterates a situation (even if it is a deliberately assumed role, and (2) a productive mimesis, which involves a creative and dynamic process (Irigaray, This Sex, p. 131). Diane Chisolm perceives Irigaray in Speculum as engaged in the imitative mimesis for subversive purposes, though it is a risky enterprise. Such a mimicry would systematically 'unspeak' that discourse by performing a risky de(con)struction so as to clear the ground for other, less reactively reproductive, more actively productive strategies of mimesis. The problem Irigaray must confront is how to liberate the first mimesis (the productive/active mimesis) through the second (reproductive-reactive mimesis)—how to open a space for countercultural production by overblown histrionic effects of hysterical reproduction without destroying that enclave in the process' (Diane Chisolm, 'Irigaray's Hysteria', in C. Burke, N. Schor and M. Whitford [eds.], Engaging with Irigaray [New York: Columbia University Press, 1994]), p. 270. Naomi Schor, in 'This Essentialism which Is Not One' (in Burke, Schor and Whitford [eds.], Engaging with Irigaray) would envision Irigaray's work as in the service of a mimicry which 'comes to signify difference as a positivity, a joyful reappropriation of the attributes of the other that is not in any way to be confused with a mere reversal of the existing phallo-centric distribution of p o w e r . . . The mimesis that lies beyond masquerade and mimicry—a more essential mimesis, as it w e r e . . . does not signify a reversal of misogyny but an emergence of the feminine, and the feminine can only emerge from within or beneath... femininity, within which it lies buried' (p. 67).

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in her spiritual invocations. Images of dark, shadows, fire— reflections from the Platonic cave where she remains enshrouded—become the figures of a transgressive passage to an illuminative physical passion that confounds customary channels for knowing God.39 Beyond her standard task of being a mirror to the selfreferential eye of men, an incandescent encounter awaits the eye of soul of a woman, where a mutual illumination occurs, in which each participant in their absence/presence reaffirms the other in their fullness/nothingness. The extravagant paradoxes of negative theology are played to their extreme: Thus I have become your image in this nothingness that I am, and you gaze upon mine in your absence of being. .a living mirror, thus, am I (to) your resemblance as you are mine. 4 0

Or again: Each becomes the other in the consumption, the nothing of the other is the consummation. Each will not in fact have known the identity of the other, has thus lost self-identity except for a hint of an imprint that each keeps in order the better to intertwine in a union already, finally, at hand. 41

In her ecstasy, this synthetic figure of a mystic flaunts the contradictions of her condition, the abasement that is transfiguring, the immanence that is transcendent, the lack that is fullness, the dark night that is illuminative. Her jouissance is at once perverse and exquisite, an exaltation of the limitless possibilities of an otherness that defies/celebrates its escape from conscious calculations and ontological impositions. This form of the other is no longer a figment expropriated to serve the designs of sameness. It represents a type of deconstructive irreducibility. As Irigaray continues to eulogize this situation in later episodes in Speculum, she introduces her infamous motif of the two lips of women's sexuality as emblematic of this otherness. It indicates a space of intimate communication with the God, a God that shares a similar field of eccentric forces, beyond the pale of language.

39. Philippa Berry, 'The Burning Glass: Paradoxes of Feminist Revelation in Speculum', in Burke, Schor and Whitford (eds.), Engaging with Irigaray. 40. Irigaray, Speculum, p. 197. 41. Irigaray, Speculum, p. 136.

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That sex (of) nothing at all in his [God's] absolute fluidity, plasticity to all metamorphoses, ubiquity in all things possible at once, invisibility— [he] who has not ceased to heed women, though silently, in their most secret, covered places. God knows women so well that he never touches them directly, but always in that fleeting stealth of a fantasy that evades all representation: between two unities w h o thus imperceptibly take pleasure in each other. 4 2

It is these dual lips that defy traditional binaries—variously characterized as genital, vulval, carnal, erotic—that have landed Irigaray in controversy. She is charged not just with essentialism, but with reifying female attributes as substitute or counter symbols for the ubiquitous male phallus. Defenders, such as Kathryn Bond Stockton, celebrate this move, applauding its audaciousness as perhaps the most appropriate rejoinder (and deflation) of phallic pretensions. I want to read Irigaray against the grain of Irigaray criticism by emphasizing Irigaray's embrace of lack as what makes her able to convert castration into (auto) eroticism. This Irigaray—feminist theologian of lack', as I will call her—is early Irigaray, the feminist who tangles with Freud and Lacan. 43

This depiction of Irigaray focuses on her ingenuity in manipulating the lacuna in the biological and structural reductionisms of Freud and Lacan, yet in turn would appear to limit the range of response. Irigaray (and women) are consigned to an eternal and ethereal assignation with God that can occur only in the transports of sexual abandon. While conspiratorial and indeed pleasurable, it functions as an escape mechanism, even a consolation, but without recourse to remedial measures. Nevertheless, Bond Stockton vindicates such measures: Irigaray's uniqueness lies, if anywhere, in the explicitness with which she spiritualizes—not just poeticizes—the bodies she would grasp. Pointedly mystical moves, which effectively locate lack and God between 'women's' genital lips (no small moves, there), make possible her bold belief in women's bodies that escape the dominant constructions that would suture them. 4 4 42. Irigaray, Speculum, p. 236. 43. Kathryn Bond Stockton, God between their Lips: Desire Between Women in Irigaray, Bronte and Eliot (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994). p. 26. 44. Stockton, God between their Lips, p. 13.

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Now while this is indeed a plausible reading of the early Irigaray, I don't think it fully captures Irigaray's versatility. For Irigaray is also indicating with the emblem of two lips the other facet of her work that does not want simply to react to the gaps in male theory—however conducive to jouissance they may be. For Irigaray also wants (in a productive mimetic mode) 45 to use the two lips as a figure for women's constructive capabilities. Women's representation, as well as her subjectivity, while it embraces the corporeal, cannot remain sequestered in private mystical interlude if it is to redress the imbalance that has, until now, distorted both human and divine relationships. Thus, though neither provides a satisfactory solution for women, there are two forms of God discernible in the pages of Speculum. One is the supreme Being/God of the Fathers. This God is a testament to all men's attempts to obliterate women as well as to the ignorance of men's own repression that is displaced on to an idealized divine male sovereign. A central facet of Irigaray's resistance to this figure is, in a deconstructive style (after Derrida), to undermine the unitary absolutes associated with this authoritarian figure in ways that disrupt the symmetry of sameness. 46 As a further corrective, Irigaray then introduces an experiment whereby the deficient other 'speaks' back (or rather acts out a relationship to a different God). Here women begin to explore prohibited desires— the erased pleasure of female sexuality, irreconcilable, if not anomalous, to phallic constraints. This is the exuberant, insatiable desire of jouissance that meets God in exclusive territory, beyond the dualistic formulas that have demarcated the sphere of influence of the phallic God. But such a solution does not appear to completely satisfy Irigaray, who begins to explore other possible remedies. In the next phase of her work, Irigaray begins to move from a jouissance that is realized only hysterically in extremis to forms of desire that can be incarnated in ways that affirm women's actual existence. To achieve this she accentuates other engagements that promote positive and mutually supportive relationships for women.

45. Berry, Burning Glass'. 46. See Chapter 6, Derrida, Irigaray, and Feminism', in Tina Chanter, Ethics of Eros: Irigaray's Rewriting of the Philosophers (London: Routledge, 1995).

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The only diabolical thing about women is their lack of a God and the fact that, deprived of God, they are forced to comply with models that do not match them, that exile, double, mask them, cut them off from themselves and from one another, stripping away their ability to move forward into love, art, thought, toward their ideal and divine fulfilment.47

Irigaray's next move, in 'Divine Women' in particular, is a concerted effort to fashion other themes, such as a feminine divine, that have been mentioned earlier but not expanded upon. Her principal task is to indicate the difference that is woman in a positive way—beginning with the primary forms of representation that the Freudian/Lacanian coalition has denied her. This is not a naive task of simply reclaiming or asserting appropriate 'feminine' qualities and values—yet it is this literalist sense of essentialism that is the most frequent charge against Irigaray.48 In distinct contrast to such facile literalism and false universalization, Irigaray is aware that the task of portraying the otherness of woman, in terms that 47. Luce Irigaray, 'Divine Women', in Sexes and Genealogies (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), p. 64. 48. One of the charges that is laid against Irigaray in her attempt to delineate a positive appreciation of femininity is that of essentialism. As Naomi Schor defines the term in her article This Essentialism which Is Not One': Essentialism in the specific context of feminism consists in the belief that woman has an essence, that woman can be specified by one or a number of inborn attributes that define across cultures and throughout history her unchanging being and in the absence of which she ceases to be categorized as a woman' (p. 58). To counter such charges regarding Irigaray, Schor demonstrates that Irigaray's wager is that difference can be reinvented, that the bogus difference of misogyny can be reclaimed to become a radical new difference that would present the first serious historical threat to the hegemony of the male s e x . . . Mimesis is the term Irigaray appropriates from the vocabulary of philosophy to describe her strategy, transforming women's masquerade, her so-called femininity into a means of reappropriating the feminine' (p. 66). Few of Irigaray's most hostile critics, for example, Somer Brodribb and Alison Assiter have read further than Irigaray's first two books, not venturing into the more constructive stage of her work. See Somer Brodribb, Nothing Matftjers: A Feminist Critique of Postmodernism (North Melbourne: Spinifex Press, 1992); Alison Assiter, Enlightened Women (London: Routledge, 1996).

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owe nothing to former male-oriented systems of appropriation, is a manifold one. It will have reverberations that are revolutionary in their psychic, emotional, social, philosophical and theological effects. Irigaray acknowledges that these diversifications will both instigate and be accompanied by radical reformations of how difference will be construed particularly with reference to (a) mother/daughter relationships (genealogy); (b) a notion of a divine/other along feminine lines; and (c) an innovative ethical standard of loving interaction with (an)other human being (specifically in a male-female relationship). The sense of otherness that is crucial in this interplay is addressed by Irigaray in somewhat abstract terms in her next major work, An Ethics of Sexual Difference: If we are to have a sense of the other that is not projective or selfish, we have to attain an intuition of the infinite: • either an intuition of a god or divine principle in the birth of the other without pressuring it with our own desire, • or the intuition of a subject that, at each point in the present, remains unfinished and open to a becoming of the other that is neither simply passive nor simply active. 4 9

Irigaray's complex interweaving of these strands converges round the notion of otherness that is rescued from a fixated or predetermined object, to a space that honours (sexual) difference, that refuses the orthodox oppositions of male-female, mind-body, vertical-horizontal, transcendent-immanent even metaphorical-literal, so that this new indeterminate space is constantly being transformed rather than reduced by desire. In this exchange, God cannot continue to be located on high as a remote, authoritarian figure. As her insight into this organic and heuristic venture deepens, the former self-serving mechanisms of desire are replaced by the expansiveness of love. This love will have radical implications for the delineation of the divine. God will not feature as a paternal autocrat, nor as a consolation for extravagant, dissociated love, but as a force inherent in the expression of incarnate love. In this movement, o/Otherness begins to take on different aspects from primarily repressed masculine or negative sublated 49. Luce Irigaray, An Ethics of Sexual Difference (trans. Carolyn Burke and Gillian C. Gill; Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993 [1984], pp. 111-12.

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ones, as well as from deconstructive disruption. In a somewhat surprising switch, she will insist not just on a more positive form of female identification, involving a genealogical relation between mothers and daughters, but also a nuanced model of differentiation that can sustain an amorous relation between women and men. This change is due in part to another formative influence on Irigaray as she is devising her notion of sexual difference. He is Emmanuel Levinas. In an interview with Amsberg and Steenhuis, published in Hecate,50 Irigaray makes reference to the fact that she is writing an article on Emmanuel Levinas. This article, 'The Fecundity of the Caress', was published as the final essay in An Ethics of Sexual Difference (but it was first presented in 1984, and then published in Critique in March 1985). From this time on, it is Levinas who becomes her primary conversation partner on the topic of the Other, rather than Lacan (though Hegel is always hovering in the background). And thus sexual difference will incorporate aspects of Levinas's own appropriation of difference/otherness as he distinguishes his ethical programme from that of Heidegger, his early teacher.51 Levinas wishes to reclaim a metaphysical position that inculcates an originary ethics of relationship towards an irreducible other. This non-objectifying ethical orientation, in recognizing the priority of the other, demarcates a form of knowing that cannot be confined to thinking, but rather a domain of excess that will always surpass the capacity of thought. Levinas, like Irigaray, is highly suspicious of the reigning philosophy of the same, which has not respected the other in its integrity, 'A philosophy of power, ontology is, as first philosophy which does not call into question the same, a philosophy of injustice.'52 In contrast to totality, which is his term for the Western impulse to subdue the manifold by reduction to an imposed unity, Levinas 50. 'An Interview with Luce Irigaray', Kiki Amsberg and Aafke Steenhuis, Hecate 9.1-2, (1983) pp. 192-202. 51. See Adriaan Peperzak, The One for the Other: The Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas', Man and World 24 (1991), pp. 427-59, for a succinct discussion of the influence of Heidegger on Levinas and his use of the term other'. 52. Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority (trans. A. Lingis; The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979), p. 46.

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posits infinity. Levinas's ethics of alterity is based on a primordial relation to the infinitely Other, God, who surpasses any attempts at designation. This relationship can only find expression for Levinas in one's behaviour toward the other—specifically in the face of another human being who issues a summons to each person encountered. This encounter does not result in the apprehension of God as presence, but as a trace. The face of the other then witnesses to the immemorial passage, but never the presence of God. As Levinas states: 'The face signifies the Infinite.'53 For Levinas, o/Otherness thus generates a disruptive influence, an opening to infinity, to a God who cannot be conceived according to traditional formulas of definition, but only attested to in ethical action. In 'Divine Women' Irigaray has also identified God with the infinite. The infinite, in Irigaray's view, has not been available to women, who have basically languished in the role of virgin/mother in relation to God. Irigaray posits the need for an infinite for women 'that resides within us and among us, the god in us, the Other for us, becoming with and in us'. 54 Irigaray's embodied notion of God and the infinite will obviously lead her to a disagreement with Levinas, but his appeal to infinity in contrast to totality has had a powerful impact on her work. In a statement that shows the influence of Levinas's emphasis on relationship and repudiates those who would denounce her as merely trying to vindicate an otherness that would become the prerogative of women alone, Irigaray demonstrates that her programme is much more complex: Why try to speak with a man? Because what I want, in fact, is not to create a theory of woman, but to secure a place for the feminine within sexual difference... For a woman it is not a matter of installing herself within this lack, this negative even by denouncing it, nor of reversing the economy of sameness by turning the feminine into the standard for 'sexual difference'; it is rather a matter of trying to practice that difference. 55

Before it is possible to evaluate this enigmatic phrase of 'practising sexual difference' and its relation to otherness, it is important 53. Nemo 54. 55.

Emmanuel Levinas, Ethics and Infinity: Conversations with Philippe (trans. R. Cohen; Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1985), p. 105. Irigaray, Divine Women', p. 63. Irigaray, This Sex, p. 159.

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to examine further Irigaray's postulate of a feminine divine and its implications for women's participation in this mode of sexual difference. In this connection, Irigaray employs the ambiguous term genre, which has connotations of gender and genus (kind) with particular reference to humankind—genre humain. According to Irigaray, 'God has been created out of man's gender' and '[h]is unique God is assumed to correspond to the human race'. 56 Irigaray appeals to Ludwig Feuerbach, and his formula 'God is the mirror of man' to describe the projective device she discerns operating here. 57 And while Irigaray acknowledges the need for some divine matrix or model that in turn corroborates one's existence— Having a God and becoming one's gender go hand in hand' 58 —she is not seeking a formation for women that is the equivalent of the self-aggrandizing divine identification of men. For Irigaray, women's process of seeking the divine will entail diverse and interrelated tasks. One is a reclamation of her own space, her own right to determine her subjectivity and representation, as distinct from the male's subjugating designations of her: I have yet to unveil, unmask, or veil myself for me—to veil myself so as to achieve self-contemplation, for example, to let my gaze travel over myself so as to limit my exposure to the other and repossess my own gestures and garments. 59

As part of this recuperation, the enterprise is to appreciate how the divine in a female mode might be conceived. That Irigaray's conception of God according to the feminine gender is not simply a facile apotheosis of stereotypical imaginary attributes is made obvious in her following statement: I am far from suggesting that today we must once again deify ourselves as did our ancestors with their animal totems, that we have to regress to siren goddesses, who fight against men gods. Rather I think we must not merely instigate a return to the cosmic, but also to ask ourselves why we have been held back from becoming divine women. 56. Irigaray, Divine Women', p. 61. 57. Ludwig Feuerbach, The Essence of Christianity York: Harper & Row, 1957). 58. Irigaray, 'Divine Women', p. 67. 59. Irigaray, Divine Women', p. 65. 60. Irigaray, Divine Women', p. 60.

(trans. G. Eliot; New

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This quest for the nature of feminine divinity is then both an historical re-evaluation and a contemporary reformulation. Irigaray does not shy away from traditional terms, such as transcendent, infinite, the vertical dimension—but she wishes to imbue them with distinct resonances and balances that refine their past rigidities. Irigaray allows that Feuerbach's declaration of God as being the projection and assurance of man's own ideals has led to sterile and debilitating notions of God and faith. In Irigaray's assessment, what is needed now is not a fixed objective, not a One postulated to be immutable but rather a cohesion and a horizon that assures us in the passage between part and future, the bridge of a present that remembers.. .not a crumbling away of existence, a failure, simply, to take note.

Thus, while Irigaray has no doubt that there should be a divine female horizon that confirms a female's identity/gender, her use of the term 'infinite of becoming' certainly places this divine entity on a different plane than the familiar static categories of the symbolic, such as Being/Idea/Unity that she addressed in Speculum. Elsewhere in 'Divine Women' Irigaray also indicates where her sympathies lie when she states, 'The belief in the love of God is the belief in the feminine principle as divine.' 62 Yet God conceived as a feminine principle, or as inherently in the mode of becoming, or as love incarnate, are not unfamiliar descriptions in the Christian repertoire, and have even been uttered by male religious thinkers. Thus the task is to ascertain what is revolutionary in Irigaray's pronouncements as she strives to articulate her vision of God according to the feminine (and its repercussions for relationships).63 Perhaps one area of distinctiveness is that, though this God is still in some way an other, it is not a negative differentiation that denies 61. Irigaray, Divine Women', p. 67. 62. Irigaray, Divine Women', p. 70. 63. God as mother was often invoked by the mediaeval mystics, for example, particularly the work of Julian of Norwich. See also Carolyn Bynum, Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982). Often these visions were of an incarnate Christ as mother (p. 278). Then, in process theology there is a model of God's presence at work in the world, though not specifically in the act of love. See Grace Jantzen, God's World, God's Body (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1984).

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the energy of the productivity of difference in the name of an inflexible sameness. God emerges As an other that we have yet to make actual, as a region of life, strength, imagination, creation which exists for us both within and beyond, as our possibility of a present and a future.

Irigaray is only too conscious that this is an imaginary exercise: This God, are we capable of imagining it as a woman?' 65 but her task is to avoid its cooptation by stultifying symbolic forces, as she believes has occurred in the case of Christianity and, even to some extent, in Lacan's pronouncements. That she hopes to avoid the dogmatic intransigence both of Christianity and Lacan is obvious in her reference to women's divine as 'their Other without capital letters'. 66 But in evoking God as woman (or vice versa), Irigaray does not prescribe any definite attributes as authentic. Instead she insists more on the mind-change that must occur that would encourage this equation of God and woman. And it is also this conversion that could entertain the thought that God is made flesh in woman and between women that is unique. [WJithout the possibility that God might be made flesh as a woman, through the mother and daughter, and in their relationships, no real constructive help can be offered to a woman. If the divine is absent in woman and among women, there can be no possibility of changing, converting her primary affects.67

Thus it is not a question of a God defined according to beliefs, proofs or even particular graphic representations. Rather, relationship is stressed—initially the positive regard of mother and daughter. This then becomes the paradigm not just for a distinct way for women to relate, but a way of being, a way of relating to (an)other where both those involved honour each other's infinite possibilities of becoming. This alone is conceived as the divine task. It is involvement in this undertaking that will alter not just women's, but men's conventional concepts of God and the tenor of their relationships. Ultimately for Irigaray 64. 65. 66. 67.

Irigaray, Irigaray, Irigaray, Irigaray,

Divine Women', p. 72. Divine Women', p. 63. Ethics, p. 115. Divine Women', p. 71.

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BODIES, LIVES, VOICES The only task, the only obligation laid upon us is: to become divine men and women, to become perfectly, to refuse to allow parts of ourselves to shrivel and die that have the potential for growth and fulfilment.68

Of particular relevance in this evolution is Irigaray's interpretation of the incarnation. She first alludes to this in 'When the Gods Are Born', the concluding chapter of Marine Lover, where she muses about the 'death of God'—brought about in part by those who kill the spirit, for example, those who 'indefinitely repeat the identical, because they are unable to discover difference'. Et incarnatus est. Must this coming be univocally understood as a redemptory submission of the flesh to the Word? Or else: as the Word's faithfulness to the flesh?... Et incarnatus est manifesting a different relationship between flesh and word. Approach into a touch that no longer drains bodies of their animation by the saying of them—either in acts or in words. Bonds in which human and divine are wedded. 9

The crucial question then becomes, what exactly is the difference that is discovered? What is the sexual difference that transpires in the embrace of male and female, where word is made flesh, where human becomes divine? How is the feminine not just reabsorbed into an encompassing merger that negates any gains she may have made? The Difference that Is Sexual Difference In this approach, where the borders of the body are wed in an embrace that transcends all limits—without, however, risking engulfment thanks to the fecundity of the porous—in the most extreme experience of sensation, which is also always in the future, each one discovers the self in that experience which is inexpressible yet forms the supple grounding of life and language... For this, 'God' is necessary, or a love so attentive that it is divine. 70

As a term 'sexual difference' first makes its appearance in This Sex Which Is Not One, when Irigaray is discussing Freud: 68. Irigaray, 'Divine Women', pp. 68-69. 69. Luce Irigaray, Marine Lover of Friedrich Nietzsche Gill; New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), p. 169. 70. Irigaray, Ethics, pp. 18-19.

(trans. Gillian C.

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Where sexual difference is in question, Freud does not fully analyze the presuppositions of the production of discourse. In other words, the questions that Freud's theory and practice address to the scene of representation do not include the question of the sexualized determination of that scene. 71

Then, in marking the shift that will preoccupy her in much of her subsequent work, Irigaray introduces, further on in This Sex Which Is Not One, the productive way in which she will approach this topic. In her emphasis on experiencing or discovering difference that will become the pivot of her later work, Irigaray is striving to counter the predominant model of 'the other of the same' so evident in Lacan. But it is not simply a matter of asserting an essential difference between the sexes to establish this position. As JeanJoseph Goux observes in his essay 'Irigaray vs. the Utopia of the Neutral Sex': In short, Luce Irigaray clarifies two confusions in current discourses: 1. To overthrow patriarchal and phallocentric power does not mean denying the difference between the sexes but living the relation between them differently; 2. To assert the difference between the sexes is not at all the same thing as positing an essential femininity (or masculinity). 72

Goux also places in perspective the change in focus in Irigaray's work dating from the early 1980s, where she pursues the subject of difference in ways that have led to those charges of essentialism. Goux elaborates: In relation to the earlier work, which was primarily defensive, there is no contradiction, but the shift of emphasis is significant. The aim is no longer merely 'to escape patriarchal culture' and learn to speak among women'; it is now explicitly to denounce egalitarian dreams about sexual difference.' 73

In appreciating the subtleties that Irigaray wishes to convey by the term 'sexual difference', acknowledgment needs to be given to the influence of Heidegger, specifically his notion of ontological

71. Irigaray, Ethics, p. 73. 72. Jean-Joseph Goux, 'Luce Irigaray Versus the Utopia of the Neutral Sex', in Burke, Schor and Whitford (eds.), Engaging with Irigaray, p. 181. 73- Goux, Irigaray', p. 183.

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difference, as developed in Identity and Difference (1969) 7 4 Tina Chanter provides an astute description of the similarity in the conception of difference that is employed: Sexual difference, according to Irigaray, suffers the same fate at the hands of feminism (insofar as feminism uncritically embraces the idea of equality) as the question of Being suffers, according to Heidegger, in the history of Western philosophy. Sexual difference is what gets passed over but remains an unstated ground of feminism; Being is what is forgotten yet allows beings to appear as they are. 75

Joanna Hodge is more explicit in how this difference is played out for Irigaray: His [Heidegger's] attempt to disrupt the imposition of sameness by insisting on ontological difference remains abstract. Irigaray by contrast emphasizes a lived relation, that of sexual difference, and thus can identify what is missing from philosophical inquiry as woman and femininity.

But there is also the influence of Levinas, who enjoins a relationship to an irreducible other—also employing as a prototype the love bond between a man and a woman. Inherent in Levinas's discussion is a crucial distinction between desire and need. Need is identified with selfish preoccupations for satisfaction, for assimilation to personal requirements. Desire, by contrast, is inordinate in the sense that it can never be satiated. But this is not a negative connotation, for it is a sublime hunger, an infinite momentum unto the other which constantly replenishes itself. Irigaray is obviously attracted by this positive notion of desire, in contrast to its reduction to an unconscious residue by Lacan. But the word 'desire' has been so corrupted by its association with the Lacanian dynamics of lack that, though she recognizes the infinite impetus Levinas evokes, Irigaray seeks to recast desire so as to coincide with a redefinition of love. From Irigaray's perspective, if desire is to be recuperated, it must be located as an energy that belongs to both 74. Martin Heidegger, Identity and Difference (trans. J. Stambough; New York: Harper & Row, 1969). 75. Chanter, Ethics, p. 138. 76. Joanna Hodge, 'Irigaray Reading Heidegger', in Burke, Schor and Whitford (eds.), Engaging with Irigaray, p. 203.

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men and women. This energy is activated only when an inviolate identity is respected and each partner occupies a distinct position of otherness. As a result, the interval between them becomes a locus of divine indwelling. Thus, by their mutual engagement, each partner intensifies the identity of the other. The relation would then seem to be enhanced by a humanly sanctified love, rather than by the conventional codings of desire. This expansion also supports the claim that Irigaray makes that while contemporary women have to fulfil their own divinity, once they have achieved this, the divine can also be discovered in relations between women and men. Thus, as distinct from Levinas, for whom the Other as God is never revealed and desire can never be realized, for Irigaray God is interfused in a love relationship that honours the sovereign alterity of another person—specifically as an exemplar of the uncompromising fact of sexual difference. And it is this reconception that she refers to in relating love to wonder as the first passion (after Descartes) with its limitless possibilities: Who or what the other is, I never know. But the other who is forever unknowable is the one who differs from me sexually. This feeling of surprise, astonishment, and wonder in the face of the unknowable ought to be returned to its locus: that of sexual difference. The passions have either been repressed, stifled or reduced, or reserved [solely] for God. Sometimes a space for wonder is left to works of art. But it is never found to reside in this locus: between man and woman?1

Yet it is the articulation of the dynamics of this vision that indicates an area where Levinas has had the strongest influence on Irigaray. This is in his disruption of the normative definitions of the metaphysical constructions of God, which have been established according to classical distinctions. Traditionally, either there is an utterly transcendent God as Other, or God is somehow immanent within the created world. Levinas's delicate manoeuvres regarding an Infinite/Other that can be indicated, though not disclosed in the face of an other, strive to ensure that absence and presence, that transcendence and immanence, are not mutually exclusive, but can coexist. This formulation flies in the face of conventional Western dichotomous exclusions regarding materialism and idealism, transcendence and immanence. 77. Irigaray, Ethics, p. 13.

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It is this specific coincidence of opposites, without fusion, but with reciprocal enhancement, that also underlies Irigaray's appeals to an integral difference and otherness. It is under this influence of Levinas that Irigaray introduces the phrase 'sensible transcendental' as a way of conveying an incarnate divine that promotes the openness of a subject to the other, without a diminution or domination of one partner by the other. Tina Chanter conveys the resemblance between Levinas and Irigaray on this subject: Irigaray understands the 'sensible transcendental' as that which confuses the opposition between immanence and transcendence.' With this concept Irigaray wants to avoid a 'closed universe' in which the absolute kills, 'saps vitality', and 'destroys its first roots.' Like Levinas's idea of the free being that is no longer free because it is always already responsible for itself, Irigaray's notion of the sensible transcendental conflates categories that traditionally philosophers have kept apart. The 'sensible transcendental' is nothing if not paradoxical. Irigaray draws on this conflation of abstraction and materiality in order to insist on the need to retain the otherness of the other... Irigaray wants to emphasize the 'path between heaven and earth.' 7 8

It is this seemingly paradoxical term, 'sensible transcendental', this coincidence of opposites, that also provides the key to grasping Irigaray's insistence that women must learn to occupy a vertical as well as a horizontal dimension. Irigaray contends that women have traditionally been situated on a horizontal plane. This assignation has various connotations—but it principally indicates women's maintaining a secure foundation from which the male can achieve his attributes of transcendence. For Irigaray, women need to establish a vertical aspect that is unique to them. This would refer both to the positive genealogical connection between generations of mothers and daughters, and the feminine affiliation with the divine. But the transcendent must not be acquired at the expense of the immanent, the heavenly at the expense of the terrestrial. Both perspectives are essential to women for constituting a horizon that is divine—either separately or cooperatively. The symbol of sexual difference, ground in the apparently paradoxical sensible transcendental, heralds this new order that does not deny the concurrence 78. Chanter, Ethics, p. 180.

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of logically incongruous terms, and that does not regard male and female as incompatible components in a dyadic ethical relationship. Levinas and Irigaray both want to dislodge us from the complacency of conventional metaphysical and ethical presuppositions, so that any encounter with o/Otherness will henceforth generate a disconcerting influence, an opening to infinity—which eludes accustomed patterns of thinking and acting. But Irigaray, as she pursues her understanding of the divine and its distinctively novel implications for women, parts company from Levinas. In 'The Fecundity of the Caress', Irigaray challenges Levinas's portrayal of the love relationship, where she concludes that the woman in his ethical project still remains the passive recipient of the male's attentions. She contemplates an alternate possibility where it is a woman, not man solely as lover, who can also be 'transformed' by such fecundity. In a later article, 'Questions to Emmanuel Levinas' (1991), Irigaray also questions Levinas's presumed delegation of woman to the periphery, and the consequent loss of emphasis on the carnality of the exchange. For Irigaray, this is an act where 'God makes his presence known... [through] nourishment of the senses.' 79 Intimating that Levinas's God remains more on the side of the law than present in the act of love, Irigaray asks: The law creates invisibility, so that God (in his glory?) cannot be looked upon. What happens to seeing, to flesh, in this disappearance of God? Where can one's eye alight if the divine is no longer to be seen? And if it does not continue to dwell in the flesh of the other in order to illuminate it, to offer up to the look the other's flesh as divine, as the locus of a divine to be shared? 80

Thus, Irigaray will not testify to a remote and undisclosed God by self-abnegation in the service of (an)other. For Irigaray, God must be instantiated in a relationship where each partner ventures beyond their limits but does not encroach on the sacrosanct space of the other. It is this simultaneous openness and veneration, without either annihilation or subjugation, that constitutes the prerequisites of the infinite vistas of love incarnate—the fecundity bestowed by God: 79. Luce Irigaray, Questions to Emmanuel Levinas', in Reading Levinas (trans. M. Whitford; R. Bernasconi and S. Critchley [eds.]; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), p. 187. 80. Irigaray, Questions', p. 187.

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BODIES, LIVES, VOICES The fecundity of God would be witnessed in the incalculating generosity with which I love, to the point of risking myself with the other. A loving folly that turns back the other's ultimate veil in order to be reborn on another horizon. Together, the lovers becoming creators of new worlds. 81

In contrast to Levinas's ethical fidelity to the other, which demands the sacrifice of one's own initiative, Irigaray posits an 'ethical fidelity to incarnation'. For, as she emphasizes in her concluding words of An Ethics of Sexual Difference, 'To destroy it is to risk the suppression of alterity, both the God's and other's. Thereby dissolving any possibility of access to transcendence.' 82 Transcendence, then, no longer refers to the priority of one term over another, or a movement that privileges one ideal state or location. Nor does it demarcate a realm of excess, or even a dimension that is an inaccessible source of transformation. It is generated in the process of living the difference, of realizing the divine as that which partakes or inheres in the continuing creation of dynamic partnerships. Representation does not figure as literal depiction, nor as a discursive exposition, but as a way of inhabiting one's body, of living with the awareness of one's divinity. All of Irigaray's intricate strategies find their ultimate expression in her most recent work, I Love to You (1996). Here she reiterates/ refines many of her ideas, but with particular reference to transcendence: Just as the masculine's transcendence is problematic in terms of what it annuls of the reality of engendering, the establishment of this culture which is called patriarchal denies transcendence in the feminine. Everything that is of the feminine gender is thus less valued in this logic because it lacks any possible dimension of transcendence. Christianity's cult of the mother and son is not a respect for feminine transcendence unless it is given a different interpretation. 83

This new form of transcendence is achieved by recasting the economy of the same-other-woman in relation to man in a dialectic that recognizes a form of difference-negativity that reworks the 81. 82. 83. 1996),

Irigaray, Ethics, p. 205. Irigaray, Ethics, p. 217. Luce Irigaray, I Love to You (trans. Alison Martin; London: Routledge, p. 67.

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traditional Hegelian system and its derivatives. She then redefines transcendence: You are transcendent to me, inaccessible in a way, not only as an ontic being, but also as an ontological being (which entails in my view, fidelity to life rather than submission to death). Between us there is always transcendence, not as an abstraction or a construct, a fabrication of the same grounding its origins or measuring its development, but as the resistance of a concrete and ideational reality. I will never be you, either in body or in thought. 8

Conclusion Irigaray's view of God and divinity does not rest either in legal injunctions or metaphysical pronouncements. It delights in an incarnate God who participates in the world, particularly in the love relationships of men and women. Irigaray is also not interested, as is Levinas, in an ethics where the difference to the o/Other is primordial and where only by deferring to this other is there access to an absent God. As she has stated: 'Love of the other without love of self, without love of God, implies the submission of the female one, the other and the whole of the social body.' And as a coda, she asks: 'How can one love one's neighbour, without loving God?'85 Instead of divisions and dichotomies, Irigaray wishes to foster bonds that promote non-duality. And while there is an implicit deconstructive theme in much of Irigaray's writing, she is more interested in establishing relationships that nurture difference rather than exploit it. This then implies living the difference— which basically involves a mode of existence where male and female, although different, are no longer binary opposites with their attendant respective dualist categorizations of phenomena: The link uniting or reuniting the masculine and the feminine must be horizontal and vertical, terrestrial and heavenly. As Heidegger, among others, has written, it must forge an alliance between the divine and mortal, such that the sexual encounter would be a festive celebration and not a disguised or polemical form of the masterslave relationship.

84. Irigaray, I Love, pp. 103-104. 85. Irigaray, Divine', p. 68. 86. Irigaray, Ethics, p. 17.

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Irigaray's adventures in Otherness strive to express an appreciation of that dimension that cannot be identified with the dialectical mechanisms of Hegel, the semiotic displacements of Lacan or even the radical ethical imperative of Levinas. It does not depend on a definition of desire that entails a deficiency on the part of a subject that can only (if ever) be appeased by gratificatory expropriations from the realm of the other—however interpreted. Otherness is an inexorable element that will both put us into question, yet does not demand from us strenuous efforts to control it as an oppositional force or an extraneous material. Instead, it instils a mode of acceptance and respect that honours difference. In so doing, Irigaray believes that both partners are transformed and achieve transcendence, but not in the way that traditional theological concepts have prescribed these terms. This raises the intriguing question as to whether Irigaray's project can be considered a theological one. There are a number of possibilities that merit further discussion in this regard. In subverting the old order, does Irigaray introduce a humanism (albeit one of plenitude) where the difference from the Renaissance affirmation of 'You shall be as gods' is that it celebrates (not the individual but) a love relationship as an act of self-divinization that no longer requires God as Ultimate Other? Or is it that in recognizing God or the divine (Irigaray's preferred term) in a love relationship that has nothing sacrificial about it, the resultant fecundity of infinite becoming that Irigaray celebrates is similar to St Irenaeus's acclamation: 'The glory of God is humanity fully alive', here modified by an acknowledgment of the fact of sexual difference? Today, this encomium would, however, have to exalt not only woman but a renegotiated male-female bond. Or perhaps finally, in exalting the couple (and a heterosexual one at that) as the ideal abode of the divine in a theology of fecundity, Irigaray is introducing an erotic and sensual God who honours both flesh and spirit, and from whom no further covenantal or redemptive pacts are required. In this connection, an elaboration of a personalistic pantheistic or process theology could be explored. Yet the overall impression of Irigaray's work intimates that we are no longer in the realm of conventional Judaism or Christianity, nor are we operating according to the proprieties of Being, of Idea or of Absolute Spirit. And it may well be that Irigaray is not asking that we try to solve

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her dissident philosophical or theological conundrums by neatly categorizing them according to recognizable formulas. For basically this can only be done by resorting to those metaphysical divisions that, in Irigaray's vision, have distorted the web of experience. Irigaray is not asking us to analyse her new order, but to live it. And it is perhaps from living the difference that innovative ways of depicting its synergistic dynamics may gradually emerge.

JANET MARTIN SOSKICE Postscript

In his introduction to a wartime edition of Athanasius's treatise 'On the Incarnation', C.S. Lewis extols the virtues of reading old books. Nothing strikes me more when I read the controversies of past ages than the fact that both sides were usually assuming without question a good deal which we should now absolutely deny. They thought that they were as completely opposed as two sides could be, but in fact they were all the time secretly united.. .by a great mass of common assumptions. We may be sure that the characteristic blindness of the twentieth century—the blindness about which posterity will ask, But how could they have thought that?'—lies where we have never suspected it, and concerns something about which there is untroubled agreement between Hitler and President Roosevelt or between Mr. H.G. Wells and Karl Barth.

'What blindness', I found myself asking on reading this, 'could possibly unite "Hitler and President Roosevelt, Mr. H.G. Wells and Karl Barth?"', C.S. Lewis unwittingly gives one answer when, a few pages later, and still praising the reading of sturdy theological works, he says that many who find that 'nothing happens' when they sit down...to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand. l

Lewis's theological reader is a recognizable type—tweedy, donnish and—unthinkingly—male. No wonder women reading the texts of theology sometimes feel they eavesdrop on conversations not for their ears. One of the most startling and potentially revolu1. C.S. Lewis, Introduction to Athanasius on the Incarnation translated and edited by a Religious of C.S.M.V. Original edition published in 1944 by Centenary Press. This edition by St Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, New York, 1993, pp. 5, 8. Lewis's remark is all the more touching when we note it was a woman who did this translation of the Athanasius text.

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tionary developments in the interpretation of religious texts in this century (hermeneutics) must certainly be the growing presence of a critical and self-conscious female readership. Women in considerable num-bers are paying scholarly critical attention to texts expounding their faiths, written almost entirely—until the last few decades—by men. This is unprecedented. And women are not only reading books on theology and religion, they are writing them, too: sometimes from within the recognized structures of the academy, sometimes at its margins; sometimes as theologians or students of Rabbinics or the Veda, sometimes from across the disciplinary boundaries. The series from which these papers arose has been going on for some years in Cambridge, its organization lovingly passed down from generation to generation of graduate students. Every year we debate the series title 'Women's Voices in Religion'. 'It is clumsy,' we agree. 'Men tend to think the series is not for them,' we say. "Religion" sounds dispiritingly vague.' The title bears no explicit commitment to feminism, and yet doesn't cash in on the more modish 'gender theory' terminology either...and so we agonize. But this modest nomenclature has proved a generous one. It does not decide in advance what is 'theology' or 'religious studies' or even 'feminism' or 'theory'. It allows that speakers from outside the normal confines of a department of theology and religious studies may have something students there need and want to hear. Above all, it provides a space where women's voices may be heard without the frame of being determined in advance—without even a feminist frame. We do not ask if the contribution is to be Christian doctrine, or Rabbinics or feminist history or psychology of religion, or ethics or religious studies or biblical studies. We do not ask if the contributors are religious or not, feminist or not. The offerings, as the pieces in this volume demonstrate, so often cut across received fields and expectations. And so we keep our title, because it keeps open a space or—to pursue the auditory image— allows a space of silence where women's voices may be heard. Each of these essays has an energy that comes from the involvement of the heart. How can we read our history—and its tragedies? How do we weigh the literary inheritance of our religious pasts? How do we structure an ethics or a religious psychology that will find in religions a place of life for women? Can the religions any

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longer be such a place for women? Readers will find that they are given a glimpse of the vitality that women are bringing to the study of religion and theology and, we hope, be encouraged to dream their own dreams.

INDEXES

INDEX OF REFERENCES

BIBLE

Genesis 1-11 2 2.4-3.27 2.7 2.23 12.10-20 20 20.1-18 20.5 20.6 20.21 26.1-11 Exodus 25.22 Judges 4 4.14 4.23 Esther 1.4 1.15 1.19 1.22 2.15 2.16 2.20 4.14

134 219 215 219 222 219 223 141 142 150 141 142 142 142 141

139

149 149 149

138 140 140 144 143 143 143 137 149

7.5-7 7.7 8.2 9.20-22 9.29 9.32

146 147 148 148 148 148

Job 38.4 38.25 38.41

204 204 204

Proverbs 5.4 3110

205 205

Jeremiah 17.5-8 Hosea 6.6 Mark 12.34 138

59

Romans 31 9-11 11.1

62 61 61

1 Corinthians 2.14 164 11 67 Other Ancient References Talmuds b. Meg. 13a 143 Classical Aristotle The Ethics 1102a2-18 H48b.2-20

166 185

Phaedo 89d

156

The Republic 3-400d 3.402c-d 341 lac 3411b 3-41 ld-e 5.466c-d

156 156 155 155 155 182

59

62 59

Luke 11.27

200

John 8.19 8.24 8.44 19.22-27

62 62 62 111

INDEX OF AUTHORS

Abrams, R. 56 Alcoff, L. 24 Alderson, P. 51 Allen, S. 201 Allender, D.B. 43 Amsberg, K. 251 Anand, MR. 131 Anderson, B.W. 133, 134 Anderson, PS. 209 Annas, J. 29-31 Antony, L. 28 Assiter, A. 249 Attwater, D. 41 Baama, 124-28, 131 Babinsky, E.L. 7 6 , 8 0 , 8 1 , 8 5 Baker, D. 96 Bakhtin, M. 190 Bal, M. 219 Bateson, M. 107 B e c q u e t J . 95, 98 Beilharz, P. 157 BelzenJ. van 188 Benhabib, S. 26, 27, 179 Benson, R.L. 95 Berg, SB. 146 Berger, E. 113 Bernasconi, R. 261 Berry, P. 180, 2 1 1 , 2 2 6 , 2 4 7 Beteille, A. 119 Bettelheim, B. 200, 203 Bezzolo, R. 116 Bickerman, E. 143 Bienvenu, J.-M. 95-97,98,100-104, 108, 109, 112-13, 114, 116 Blumenthal, DR. 56 Bohn, C.R. 56 Bolton, B. 96

Bracher, M. 241 Braidotti, R. 222 Brenner, A. 136, 137, 147 Brewer, J.S. 98 Brock, R.N. 56 Brodribb, S. 249 Brown, J.C. 56 Bryant, G. 90, 91 Burke, C. 245, 246, 257, 258 Butler, J. 1 9 1 , 2 3 7 , 2 3 9 Bynum, C.W. 84, 254 Caird, E. 159 Canadian Council of Catholic Bishops 52, 55 Card, C. 28 Cassirer, H.W. 167 Chanter, T. 248, 258, 260 Chisolm, D. 245 Chodorow, N. 196-98 Christ, C. 13,222 Clanchy, M.T. 112 Clark, K. 190 Clines, D. 144, 146 Coakley, S. 157 Colledge, E. 8 9 , 9 0 Constable, G. 95 Cooper-White, P. 56, 57 Corby, B. 47, 51 Cowdrey, H.EJ. 114 Critchley, S. 261 CrossleyJ.P.Jr,. 168 Curran, T.H. 177 DalarunJ. 1 0 4 , 1 0 9 , 1 1 2 , 1 1 6 Daly, M. 69 Delaruelle, E. 95 Dereine, C. 108

INDEX OF AUTHORS

DerridaJ. 171 Dilthey, W. 168, 185 Dimier, A. 110 Doniger, W. 41 Dronke, P. 76, 85 Duchesne, L. 113 Dudley, M. 56 Dunbabin, J. 96 Dunstan, G. 54 Eckhart, A. 64 Eckhart, R. 64 Eilberg-Schwarz, H. 46, 193 ElshtainJ.B. 40 Elwes, T. 14 Fabre, P. 113 Feuerbach, L. 253 Flax, J. 25 Fontette, M. 96, 110, 112 Foreville, R. 105 Foucault, M. 73 Frankfort, H. 138 Frazer, N. 26 Frerichs, E. 133 Freud, S. 188, 189, 194, 195 Furniss, T. 52 Gautaman, R. 120, 132 Geary, P. 104 Gendler, M. 136, 205 Gerleman, G. 138 Gilroy, A. 14 Gitay, Z. 147 GoffJ.Le. 98 Gold, P.S. 96, 107, 112 Goldenberg, N.R. 188 Gordon, L. 49 Gougaud, L. 95, 97 GouxJ.-J. 257 Graham, R. 105 Gray, J. 14 Green, M. 43 Greenstein, E. 133 Griffin, S. 157 Grosz, E. 234, 237, 238, 241-45 Gutting, G. 73

271

Hacking, I. 48, 57 Halbband, 174 Halperin, D. 74 Hampson, D. 183 Hansen, T. 43 Harrowitz, N.A. 60 Hegel, G.W.F. 156, 161-65, 168-70, 171, 172, 175, 182 Heidegger, M. 258 Heinemann, M.E. 65 Heller, A. 157 Herman, J.L. 41 Heyward, I.C. 64, 65, 183 Hodge, J. 258 Hollywood, A.M. 8 1 , 8 2 Holquist, M. 190 Horney, K. 198 Hubbs,J. 201 Hughes, G.J. 46 Hughes, J. 54 Huntington, P. 228 Ihde, D. 213 Imayam, 120-23, 131 Imkens, I. 48 Inwood, M. 164 Iogna-Prat, D. 95, 97 Irigaray, L. 27, 72, 231, 232, 236 , 238, 239, 242-47, 249, 250, 25259, 261-63 Jacobs, L. 135 Jaeschke, W. 1 6 1 , 1 6 2 , 1 7 6 Jaggar, A. 28 Jantzen, G. 77, 80, 82, 89, 254 Jonker, I. 48 Kant, I. 167, 168, 170 K e e n J . H . 49 Kellenbach, K. von 66-69 Kier, G. 105 Klein, C. 63 Klein, M. 201-203, 204, 226 Knowles, D. 110, 114 Kojeve, A. 240 Koltun, E. 136, 205,241 Kristeva, J. 209-15,218,223-29

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BODIES,

La Fontaine, J. 43, 44, 51 L a c a n J . 241, 243 Lalita, K. 125 Lebram,J. 143 L e c h t e J . 212,22 4 Leclercq, J. 88, 98 Lemarignier, J.-F. 114 Lerner, R.E. 7 6 , 7 9 , 8 6 , 8 9 Levin, N. 60 Levinas, E. 251, 252,262 Levine, B. 133 Lewis, C.S. 266 Leyser, H. 95 Li, C.K. 47 Lipton, D. 142 Lloyd, G. 157 Lorde, A. 193 Magonet, J. 141 MansiJ.D. 108 Marx, A. 120 Mason, J.K. 46 McDonnell, E.W. 89-91 McNamara, J.A. 78 Meadow, R. 43 Menage, G. 102 Merchant, C. 201 Midgley, M. 48, 54 Milis, L. 95 Mitchell, J. 238 Moffat, M. 121 Moi, T. 221 Moore, C. 133, 137, 143 Moore, R.I. 8 8 , 9 8 , 113 Moreau, E. de. 107 Morton, N. 13 Neusner,J. 133 Newsom, C. 134 Nicquet, H. 102, 104 Niderst, R. 95, 99, 117 Noble, D. 201 Noble, M. 46 Nussbaum, M. 30, 32-36, 156 O'Grady, K. 14 O'Neill, O. 29, 36-38 Oliver, K. 242, 243

, VOICES

Omvedt, G. 124 Oppenheimer, H. 44, 53 Pais, J. 55 Parton, N. 46 Pemberton, C. 14 Peperzak, A. 251 Pernoud, R. 116 Petigny, J. de. 96 Petroff, E.A. 89 Peton, M. 100 Pillai, T.S. 131 PlaskowJ. 6 5 , 6 6 , 2 2 2 Poling, J.N. 55 Potter, E. 24 Raab, K.A. 200 Ragland-Sullivan, E. 241 Raison, L. 95, 99 Randall, J.L. 47, 52 Ricoeur, P. 2 0 9 - 2 1 , 2 2 3 , 2 2 4 , 2 2 6 Ringe, S. 134 Rose, G. 154, 175, 177, 180 Rose, J. 238 Roudinesco, E. 232, 238 Round, J.H. 113 Rowan, F. 174, 177 Rowell, G. 56 Rozenkranz, K. 162, 163, 165 Ruether, R.R. 63, 64, 180, 181 Runciman, S. 78 Saiving, V. 56 Sandford, L. 56 Schlegel, F. 173 Schleiermacher, F.D.E. 161, 166, 169 170, 173-76, 177, 186 Scholtz, G. 176 Schor, N. 245, 246, 249, 257, 258 Sells, M.A. 7 6 , 8 1 Sen, A. 30 Sered, S.S. 207 Shengold, L. 47, 57, 106 Shook, L.K. 89 Shuger, D.K. 56 Sigal, P.A. 105 Simmons, L. 108 Slim, H. 56

INDEX OF AUTHORS

Solle, D. 157, 158 Soskice, J.M. 14, 56, 229 Steenhuis, A. 251 Steiner, H. 50 Sternberg, M. 142 Stewart, G.T. 47 Stockton, K.B. 247 StrayerJ.R. 7 7 , 7 8 , 8 6 Symons, A. 47 Tharu, L. 125 Thie, M. 20 Thompson, S. I l l Thurston, H. 41 Townsend, A. 43 Trible, P. 222 Tunc, S. 94, 106, 112

273

Vidivelli, 125, 129-32 Violence Against Children Study Group 46 Volosinov, V.N. 190 Walfish, B.D. 144, 145 Walter, J. von. 95, 105 Warner, M. 4 1 , 2 2 4 Wernick,A. 180,211 West, DJ. 47 White, S.A. 134 Whitford, M. 27, 245, 257, 258, 261 Wiesel, E. 61 Williams, R. 52 Wilson, KM. 90 Witt, C. 28 Wood, D. 44 Woodhouse, T.P. 47