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PATRISTIC PERIOD

VIRGINITY, EDEN AND ESCHATOLOGY

In the early Church, reflection on scriptural texts introduced an eschatological hermeneutic to the reading of the Book of Genesis: the Garden of Eden was seen as a normative ideal state to which Christians were to strive; writers linked the future enjoyment of Heaven to the original blessedness of Adam and Eve in their reflections.

The valuation of virginity in the ancient church brought into relief a tension between the Genesis injunction to “be fruitful and multiply” Gen 1:28 and the interpretation of the superiority of virginity from the Gospel texts [cite gospels]. One way patristic thinkers tried to harmonize the texts was through the position that there had actually been no sexual intercourse in Eden: on this reading, sex happened after the fall of man and the expulsion from Eden, thus preserving virginity as the perfect state both in the historical Paradise and the anticipated Heaven. John Chrysostom, Gregory of Nyssa, Justin Martyr, Epiphanius of Salamis, and Irenaeus of Lyons all espoused this view:

Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity, 12 “He did not yet judge of what was lovely by taste or sight; he found in the Lord alone all that was sweet; and he used the helpmeet given him only for this delight, as Scripture signifies when it said that he knew her not till he was driven forth from the garden, and till she, for the sin which she was decoyed into committing, was sentenced to the pangs of childbirth. We, then, who in our first ancestor were thus ejected, are allowed to return to our earliest state of blessedness by the very same stages by which we lost Paradise. What are they? Pleasure, craftily offered, began the Fall, and there followed after pleasure shame, and fear, even to remain longer in the sight of their Creator, so that they hid themselves in leaves and shade; and after that they covered themselves with the skins of dead animals; and then were sent forth into this pestilential and exacting land where, as the compensation for having to die, marriage was instituted”.

John Chrysostom, On Virginity, 14.3 “When the whole world had been completed and all had been readied for our repose and use, God fashioned man for whom he made the world… Man did need a helper, and she came into being; not even then did marriage seem necessary… Desire for sexual intercourse, conception, labor, childbirth, and every form of corruption had been banished from their souls. As a clear river shooting forth from a pure source, so they were in that place adorned by virginity.” 15.2 “Why did marriage not appear before the treachery? Why was there no intercourse in paradise? Why not the pains of childbirth before the curse? Because at that time these things were superfluous”.

Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book 3, ch 22:4 “But Eve was disobedient; for she did not obey when as yet she was a virgin. And even as she, having indeed a husband, Adam, but being nevertheless as yet a virgin (for in Paradise they were both naked, and were not ashamed, inasmuch as they, having been created a short time previously, had no understanding of the procreation of children: for it was necessary that they should first come to adult age, and then multiply from that time onward), having become disobedient, was made the cause of death, both to herself and to the entire human race…” .

Epiphanius of Salamis, Panarion 78.17-19 “And as in paradise Eve, still a virgin, fell into the sin of disobedience, once more through the Virgin [Mary] came the obedience of grace”.

Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho ch 100 “For Eve, who was a virgin and undefiled, having conceived the word of the serpent, brought forth disobedience and death. But the Virgin Mary received faith and joy, when the angel Gabriel announced the good tidings to her…” .

These theories can be viewed in contrast with, for example, Original Unity in the system of Theology of the Body (see section 2.1, “Man and woman ‘in the beginning’”).

EVE, VIRGINITY, AND ARGUMENTS FROM FITTINGNESS

One noteworthy element in some of the above Fathers is use of arguments from fittingness, which had a place in ancient rhetoric, though are perceived as heuristic in contemporary philosophy. Arguments from fittingness follow a basic structure: God is, God is good, God made the world, a good God would make the world as perfectly as possible. If multiple theories arise about a matter that cannot be empirically tested, and no other methodological test can apply, the most fitting (understood as rational, elegant, or beautiful) is the reasonable one to think true.

Arguments from fittingness are associated with medieval philosophy, but are also used in the ancient period. Justin Martyr and Epiphanius of Salamis employ arguments from fittingness – in their view, it is more elegant that there be a symmetry between the virgin that caused the fall and the virgin that caused salvation. Eve-Mary typology appears to have been one of the first prominent strands in Christian Mariology. In addition to the above examples, the reader might refer to Origen’s Against Celsus, Book I, chapter 32.

ANCIENT NON-CHRISTIAN INFLUENCES: STOICISM, MANICHAEISM

Prof. John Noonan suggests that “if one asks… where the Christian Fathers derived their notions on marital intercourse – notions which have no express biblical basis – the answer must be, chiefly from the Stoics”. He uses texts from Musonius Rufus, Seneca the Younger, and Ocellus Lucanus, tracing works of Clement of Alexandria, Origen and Jerome to the works of these earlier thinkers, particularly as pertaining to the permissible use of the sexual act, which in the Stoic model must be subdued, dispassionate, and justified by its procreative intent.

Augustine of Hippo had a different challenge: to respond to the errors of Manichaeism. The Manichees, according to Augustine, were "opposed to marriage, because they are opposed to procreation which is the purpose of marriage". This may have reinforced the theological commitment to the twin theories of the procreative purpose of marriage and that of procreation being the only permissible intended end of the sex act, over and above the Stoic influence. Interestingly, "the method of contraception practiced by these Manichees whom Augustine knew is the use of the sterile period as determined by Greek medicine", which Augustine condemns (this stands in contrast to the contemporarily permitted Catholic use of Natural family planning).