By way of Underverse, I just came across an interesting defense of Richard Dawkins, written a few years ago, by PZ Myers of Pharyngula, titled the courtier’s reply.
Myers retells the story of the Emperor's New Cloths in the following fashion:
I have considered the impudent accusations of Mr Dawkins with exasperation at his lack of serious scholarship. He has apparently not read the detailed discourses of Count Roderigo of Seville on the exquisite and exotic leathers of the Emperor's boots, nor does he give a moment's consideration to Bellini's masterwork, On the Luminescence of the Emperor's Feathered Hat. We have entire schools dedicated to writing learned treatises on the beauty of the Emperor's raiment, and every major newspaper runs a section dedicated to imperial fashion; Dawkins cavalierly dismisses them all. He even laughs at the highly popular and most persuasive arguments of his fellow countryman, Lord D. T. Mawkscribbler, who famously pointed out that the Emperor would not wear common cotton, nor uncomfortable polyester, but must, I say must, wear undergarments of the finest silk.
Dawkins arrogantly ignores all these deep philosophical ponderings to crudely accuse the Emperor of nudity.
Personally, I suspect that perhaps the Emperor might not be fully clothed — how else to explain the apparent sloth of the staff at the palace laundry — but, well, everyone else does seem to go on about his clothes, and this Dawkins fellow is such a rude upstart who lacks the wit of my elegant circumlocutions, that, while unable to deal with the substance of his accusations, I should at least chide him for his very bad form.
Until Dawkins has trained in the shops of Paris and Milan, until he has learned to tell the difference between a ruffled flounce and a puffy pantaloon, we should all pretend he has not spoken out against the Emperor's taste. His training in biology may give him the ability to recognize dangling genitalia when he sees it, but it has not taught him the proper appreciation of Imaginary Fabrics.
While this argument should give one pause before replying to Dawkins type attacks on theology with a simple” how dare he,” I think Myers, like Dawkins, misses the point. It is one thing to attack theism; intelligent people acting in good faith are going to have different opinions as to the validity of the cosmological, the teleological, the ontological and other such arguments for the existence of God. Apart from this, there is also the separate issue of how one treats the various theologians throughout history, who have argued for the existence of God and have built systems of thought around the hypothesis that there is a God. One can reject the claim that God exists, yet still treat those who believed in God with respect.
As a historian it is of the upmost importance to me that we treat that we study with respect. This applies even to people whose values we disagree with. I do a lot of work dealing on medieval and Early Modern Christian mysticism and scholarship. I have no interest in attacking mystics such as Bridget of Sweden and Teresa de Avila or scholars such as Adrian Reland and Johannes Meyer. Nor do I have any interest in explaining them away through some cheap patronizing form psychological analysis. I want to understand them on their own terms and I will always treat them respectfully as equals. If I believed anything less about them I would not be studying this field.
In this respect Dawkins is a threat not just to theism but to any form of credible intellectual history. Like the clergyman who believes that his high school science education qualifies him to talk about science, Dawkins seems to believe that his high school history education qualifies him to talk about history.
I would recommend to Myers and to the rest of Dawkins’ followers that they read the late J.L Mackie’s the Miracle of Theism. Mackie was an atheist and this book is a scholarly attack on traditional arguments for the existence of God. That being said Mackie treats the thinkers that he attacks, from Anselm to Aquinas to Maimonides to Hans Kung, with respect.
Showing posts with label Bridget of Sweden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bridget of Sweden. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Female Spirituality in the Late Middle Ages and the Search for a Feminine Christianity (Part VII)
Conclusion:
There is a need, for scholarship, to separate the study of medieval women, from the modern day political issues that confront women. For me, this would mean that the study of medieval women could be carried in the same fashion as one would study medieval peasants, and merchants. In many respects the study of peasants and merchants could serve as a useful model for those who study women. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, the study of peasants and merchants was hopelessly intertwined with the present day issues of Socialism, Capitalism and the rights of workers. Since then the field has matured. While the issues of Capitalism and the rights of workers have not gone away, it is possible to write about such issues in various historical contexts while completely divorcing what one writes from having anything to do with the modern incarnations of these issues. Medieval merchants and peasants were not proto-capitalists and proto-labor movements; they were their own entity and must be studying on their own terms.
Similarly, while I do not expect the issues of women’s empowerment and women’s spirituality to disappear, one should be able to write about medieval female visionaries in a way that is not a commentary on women’s empowerment and women’s spirituality in modern times. The women we have dealt with here were not some nascent women’s movement, waiting for the dawn of modernity to come out into the open. They existed within the context of late medieval Catholic theology; the issues they dealt with and their thought structures came from that world. To understood them we must remove ourselves from the equation and humbly and enter their world on their terms.
I would see the whole question whether or not female spirituality was a form of empowerment for women in the Middle Ages as a trap. The very wording of the question bespeaks of modern concerns. Today most historians would find the question of whether or not merchants in the Middle Ages demonstrated true class consciousness to be quant, silly and ultimately meaningless. It creates a false dichotomy in which one must choose between equating medieval merchants with moderns or creating straw-men out of them. The only intellectually honest response is to say that medieval merchants had a class consciousness, but not in the way that moderns would use the term; this effectively makes the term, and hence the whole question, meaningless. I would hope to see the day when the question of whether women were empowered or really created their own form of spirituality during the Middle Ages will be treated with the same scorn. To ask this question is to create a false dichotomy between saying that medieval women were like moderns or turning medieval women into straw-men for the prejudices of moderns. All one can say in response to such a question is that the whole issue of empowerment meant something very different for people in the Middle Ages, rendering the original question meaningless.
The question that should guide research is how does female spirituality fit into the larger narrative of the evolution of Christian thought in the later Middle Ages. The goal being to integrate medieval women into medieval intellectual history. One should not be able to get away with the traditional narrative of medieval religious history, going from Francis of Assisi and Bonaventure to Albert the Great and Thomas Thomas Aquinas to William of Ockham without talking about Hildegard of Bingen, Bridget of Sweden and Catherine of Siena. This has nothing to do with empowering women. This is a matter of our narrative of the Middle Ages being incomplete without them.
There is a need, for scholarship, to separate the study of medieval women, from the modern day political issues that confront women. For me, this would mean that the study of medieval women could be carried in the same fashion as one would study medieval peasants, and merchants. In many respects the study of peasants and merchants could serve as a useful model for those who study women. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, the study of peasants and merchants was hopelessly intertwined with the present day issues of Socialism, Capitalism and the rights of workers. Since then the field has matured. While the issues of Capitalism and the rights of workers have not gone away, it is possible to write about such issues in various historical contexts while completely divorcing what one writes from having anything to do with the modern incarnations of these issues. Medieval merchants and peasants were not proto-capitalists and proto-labor movements; they were their own entity and must be studying on their own terms.
Similarly, while I do not expect the issues of women’s empowerment and women’s spirituality to disappear, one should be able to write about medieval female visionaries in a way that is not a commentary on women’s empowerment and women’s spirituality in modern times. The women we have dealt with here were not some nascent women’s movement, waiting for the dawn of modernity to come out into the open. They existed within the context of late medieval Catholic theology; the issues they dealt with and their thought structures came from that world. To understood them we must remove ourselves from the equation and humbly and enter their world on their terms.
I would see the whole question whether or not female spirituality was a form of empowerment for women in the Middle Ages as a trap. The very wording of the question bespeaks of modern concerns. Today most historians would find the question of whether or not merchants in the Middle Ages demonstrated true class consciousness to be quant, silly and ultimately meaningless. It creates a false dichotomy in which one must choose between equating medieval merchants with moderns or creating straw-men out of them. The only intellectually honest response is to say that medieval merchants had a class consciousness, but not in the way that moderns would use the term; this effectively makes the term, and hence the whole question, meaningless. I would hope to see the day when the question of whether women were empowered or really created their own form of spirituality during the Middle Ages will be treated with the same scorn. To ask this question is to create a false dichotomy between saying that medieval women were like moderns or turning medieval women into straw-men for the prejudices of moderns. All one can say in response to such a question is that the whole issue of empowerment meant something very different for people in the Middle Ages, rendering the original question meaningless.
The question that should guide research is how does female spirituality fit into the larger narrative of the evolution of Christian thought in the later Middle Ages. The goal being to integrate medieval women into medieval intellectual history. One should not be able to get away with the traditional narrative of medieval religious history, going from Francis of Assisi and Bonaventure to Albert the Great and Thomas Thomas Aquinas to William of Ockham without talking about Hildegard of Bingen, Bridget of Sweden and Catherine of Siena. This has nothing to do with empowering women. This is a matter of our narrative of the Middle Ages being incomplete without them.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Female Spirituality in the Late Middle Ages and the Search for a Feminine Christianity (Part V)
Voaden, Rosalynn. God’s Words, Women’s Voices: The Discernment of Spirits in the Writing of Late-Medieval Women Visionaries.
Rosalynn Voaden sees prophecy as representing one of the very few areas in which women could be empowered even within a patriarchal system such as the Church. This empowerment depended on having access to the discourses found in the formal Church structure. Educated women could form useful alliances with members of the Church hierarchy and could translate their experiences in ways that men would understand. In the texts that Voaden deals with, she finds evidence that these female visionaries “co-operated with the prevailing ideology in general, and with certain representatives thereof, in the persons of spiritual directors and scribes, in particular, thus participating in their own empowerment.”[1]
The focus of Voaden’s work is on the concept of discretio spirituum. This was a methodology developed by clerics in the later Middle Ages to differentiate between people acting under the influence of the Holy Spirit and those acting under the influence of the devil. There were seven signs. One, that the person led a virtuous life under the guidance of a proper spiritual director. Two, the vision should inspire the soul with an overwhelming love for God and reverence for the Church. Three, that the visionary should feel a deep inward understanding of the truth. Four, that that only true things are revealed to the visionary. Five, that the vision bore good fruits. Six, that the visionary should be able to predict the hour of their death. Seven, that posthumous miracles be performed. According to Voaden:
… the doctrine was, in effect, a discourse, developed and elaborated by ecclesiastical authorities, a discourse which provided both a vocabulary to articulate visionary experience and a set of criteria to evaluate the vision and the visionary. In addition, discretio spirituum supplied a pattern for self-fashioning which extended to behavior, demeanor and modes of expression. Familiarity with, and skill in, the discourse was a vital factor in the textual – and physical – survival of the visionary. Facility with discretio spirituum empowered medieval women visionaries and enabled them to fulfil[l] their divine mandate to communicate revelation.[2]
The majority of the book is devoted to a case study of two female visionaries, Bridget of Sweden and Margery Kempe and how they were received by the Church; Bridget of Sweden was successful at navigating the discourse of discretio spirituum, while Margery Kempe failed at it. Margery comes across, in her writing, as a very forceful and independent personality while Bridget of Sweden comes across as a blank cipher. As historians, we might find Margery Kempe’s work to be far more interesting and worthy of preservation than Bridget of Sweden’s work for precisely the same reasons why the Church did not approve of her and approved of Bridget of Sweden. Margery Kempe took a strongly independent role for herself; even though she attempted to gain the approval of the Church, she failed to hold on to a spiritual director. While she gained the respect of many ecclesiastical authorities, she constantly quarreled with her spiritual directors and hence could not hold on to one. Bridget of Sweden succeeded in maintaining the aid of Alfonso of Jaen, who went on to advocate for her canonization. Margery Kempe seems to have been fairly unlearned, particularly in matters related to discretio spirituum, while Bridget of Sweden was relatively well educated and, in particular, understood discretio spirituum. Margery Kempe’s visions tended to be more corporeal, while Bridget of Sweden’s visions were of an intellectual nature. Margery Kempe was a married woman, who had abandoned her husband for life as a wondering pilgrim. Furthermore she engaged in activities that seemed to veer rather closely to preaching. Bridget of Sweden, though she was originally married, became a nun after the death of her husband.
Despite the fact that Bridget of Sweden was portrayed by Alfonso of Jaen as a meek passive servant of the Church, her status as a visionary made a major power. Kings and popes alike heeded her advice. She involved herself in the Hundred Years Wars, supporting the English. She played a crucial role in bringing the papacy back to Rome from Avignon. She did live as a cloistered nun, but traveled about, working to create her own order of nuns, the Bridgettines.
Voaden offers a fascinating analysis of the specific cases of Margery Kempe and Bridget of Sweden. My problem with this work, though, is that Voaden does not offer a broader context for the material she deals with. This work does not discuss the situation of men; how did the Church apply discretio spirituum to men? This is crucial because if the Church handled men in the same manner then discretio spirituum ceases to be a women’s issue. At the end of the day I am not convinced that discretio spirituum was a coherent ideology that was ever put into practice by the Church. It is too vague. The two male theologians that Voaden deals with, Alfonso Jaen and Jean Gerson, are perfect examples of this. Alfonso Jaen wrote on discretio spirituum to promote the veneration of Bridget of Sweden. Jean Gerson wrote to argue against her canonization. Did their respective decisions have anything to do with Bridget’s success at handling the discourse of discretio spirituum? In the case of Jean Gerson it is clear that he opposed her in large part because she supported the English in the Hundred Years War.[3] In the end discretio spirituum would seem to have simply been a discourse to be used to justify whatever one was inclined to believe from the beginning. The most a female visionary could hope to do in order to navigate the discourse of discretio spirituum was to tie herself to the right clergymen and hope that he would come through for her.
[1] Voaden, God’s Words, Women’s Voices pg. 3.
[2] Ibid pg. 4.
[3] Jean Gerson would later go on to write a book defending Joan of Arc. This would suggest he was less motivated by misogyny or the technicalities of discretio spirituum than by politics. See Dyan Elliott, Proving Woman pg. 264-96.
Rosalynn Voaden sees prophecy as representing one of the very few areas in which women could be empowered even within a patriarchal system such as the Church. This empowerment depended on having access to the discourses found in the formal Church structure. Educated women could form useful alliances with members of the Church hierarchy and could translate their experiences in ways that men would understand. In the texts that Voaden deals with, she finds evidence that these female visionaries “co-operated with the prevailing ideology in general, and with certain representatives thereof, in the persons of spiritual directors and scribes, in particular, thus participating in their own empowerment.”[1]
The focus of Voaden’s work is on the concept of discretio spirituum. This was a methodology developed by clerics in the later Middle Ages to differentiate between people acting under the influence of the Holy Spirit and those acting under the influence of the devil. There were seven signs. One, that the person led a virtuous life under the guidance of a proper spiritual director. Two, the vision should inspire the soul with an overwhelming love for God and reverence for the Church. Three, that the visionary should feel a deep inward understanding of the truth. Four, that that only true things are revealed to the visionary. Five, that the vision bore good fruits. Six, that the visionary should be able to predict the hour of their death. Seven, that posthumous miracles be performed. According to Voaden:
… the doctrine was, in effect, a discourse, developed and elaborated by ecclesiastical authorities, a discourse which provided both a vocabulary to articulate visionary experience and a set of criteria to evaluate the vision and the visionary. In addition, discretio spirituum supplied a pattern for self-fashioning which extended to behavior, demeanor and modes of expression. Familiarity with, and skill in, the discourse was a vital factor in the textual – and physical – survival of the visionary. Facility with discretio spirituum empowered medieval women visionaries and enabled them to fulfil[l] their divine mandate to communicate revelation.[2]
The majority of the book is devoted to a case study of two female visionaries, Bridget of Sweden and Margery Kempe and how they were received by the Church; Bridget of Sweden was successful at navigating the discourse of discretio spirituum, while Margery Kempe failed at it. Margery comes across, in her writing, as a very forceful and independent personality while Bridget of Sweden comes across as a blank cipher. As historians, we might find Margery Kempe’s work to be far more interesting and worthy of preservation than Bridget of Sweden’s work for precisely the same reasons why the Church did not approve of her and approved of Bridget of Sweden. Margery Kempe took a strongly independent role for herself; even though she attempted to gain the approval of the Church, she failed to hold on to a spiritual director. While she gained the respect of many ecclesiastical authorities, she constantly quarreled with her spiritual directors and hence could not hold on to one. Bridget of Sweden succeeded in maintaining the aid of Alfonso of Jaen, who went on to advocate for her canonization. Margery Kempe seems to have been fairly unlearned, particularly in matters related to discretio spirituum, while Bridget of Sweden was relatively well educated and, in particular, understood discretio spirituum. Margery Kempe’s visions tended to be more corporeal, while Bridget of Sweden’s visions were of an intellectual nature. Margery Kempe was a married woman, who had abandoned her husband for life as a wondering pilgrim. Furthermore she engaged in activities that seemed to veer rather closely to preaching. Bridget of Sweden, though she was originally married, became a nun after the death of her husband.
Despite the fact that Bridget of Sweden was portrayed by Alfonso of Jaen as a meek passive servant of the Church, her status as a visionary made a major power. Kings and popes alike heeded her advice. She involved herself in the Hundred Years Wars, supporting the English. She played a crucial role in bringing the papacy back to Rome from Avignon. She did live as a cloistered nun, but traveled about, working to create her own order of nuns, the Bridgettines.
Voaden offers a fascinating analysis of the specific cases of Margery Kempe and Bridget of Sweden. My problem with this work, though, is that Voaden does not offer a broader context for the material she deals with. This work does not discuss the situation of men; how did the Church apply discretio spirituum to men? This is crucial because if the Church handled men in the same manner then discretio spirituum ceases to be a women’s issue. At the end of the day I am not convinced that discretio spirituum was a coherent ideology that was ever put into practice by the Church. It is too vague. The two male theologians that Voaden deals with, Alfonso Jaen and Jean Gerson, are perfect examples of this. Alfonso Jaen wrote on discretio spirituum to promote the veneration of Bridget of Sweden. Jean Gerson wrote to argue against her canonization. Did their respective decisions have anything to do with Bridget’s success at handling the discourse of discretio spirituum? In the case of Jean Gerson it is clear that he opposed her in large part because she supported the English in the Hundred Years War.[3] In the end discretio spirituum would seem to have simply been a discourse to be used to justify whatever one was inclined to believe from the beginning. The most a female visionary could hope to do in order to navigate the discourse of discretio spirituum was to tie herself to the right clergymen and hope that he would come through for her.
[1] Voaden, God’s Words, Women’s Voices pg. 3.
[2] Ibid pg. 4.
[3] Jean Gerson would later go on to write a book defending Joan of Arc. This would suggest he was less motivated by misogyny or the technicalities of discretio spirituum than by politics. See Dyan Elliott, Proving Woman pg. 264-96.
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Female Spirituality in the Late Middle Ages and the Search for a Feminine Christianity (Part I)
(This is a paper that I wrote for a course I took this past quarter. Since the issues that I deal with in this paper are things that I deal with here on Izgad I have decided to put this paper up as a series of posts.)
Christianity is generally looked upon as a patriarchal religion. Christians believe that God came down in the form of a man, Jesus of Nazareth, and died to save mankind from Original Sin, which was brought about by a woman, Eve. While women appear in various Gospel stories and it would seem that Jesus possessed female followers, Jesus’ apostles were all men. It was to men that Jesus gave the authority to preach his word and to cast out demons.[1] The primary books of Christianity, the New Testament and the writings of the Church fathers, were written by men. The Church excluded women from its leadership.[2] Paul forbade women to preach, saying that: “The women should be silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but they should be subject, even as the law also says. But if they desire to learn anything, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is a shame for a woman to speak in the church.”[3] Not only were women shut out of the Church hierarchy, they were also viewed as sources of sin. Women, as the bearers of the legacy of Eve and Original Sin,[4] were viewed as more earthly, less rational and, if left unchecked, likely to corrupt men.
That being said women, throughout the history of Christianity, left their mark on the Church. Women played a leading role in spreading the Christian faith. Christian women were venerated as saints and martyrs.[5] During the latter Middle Ages we see numerous examples of female religious leaders, and movements. Women such as Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), Bridget of Sweden (1303-1373) and Catherine of Siena (1347-80) took on highly public roles, daring to criticize the Church hierarchy. The source for this power lay in the belief that women possessed a special relationship with Christ, manifesting itself in prophetic visions, their personal identification with the Passion and their adoration of the Eucharist. This raises the question as to the extent these things can be viewed as part of a female Christianity. Were the female spiritual movements of the later Middle Ages an expression of a unique feminine understanding of Christianity or were these movements simply reflections of the male Church hierarchy.
In this paper I will be looking at five books that deal with this issue from different perspectives. Rudolph Bell’s Holy Anorexia and Dyan Elliott’s Proving Woman take a male centric view on these movements, seeing them as reflecting male ideas. In contrast to this, I offer Caroline Bynum’s Holy Feast, Holy Fast, who analyzes these movements from a more female centric point of view and argues that these movements came out of a distinctively feminine view of the world. Finally I offer Rosalyn Voaden’s God’s Words, Women’s Voices and John W. Coakley’s Women, Men and Spiritual Power, who view these movements as part of an ongoing dialogue of the female visionaries and the clergymen who followed them.
[1] See Luke 9:1-2. Also see Matthew 28:19 and Mark 16:15.
[2] The discovery of non-canonical gospels and Gnostic literature has shown us that the early Church was far more open to women than previously thought. These texts did not play any role in medieval thought. As this paper is concerned with the Middle Ages, it is the patriarchal tradition in Christianity that we most deal with.
[3] I Corinthians 14:34-35 (Recovery Version)
[4] See I Timothy 2:14
[5] See Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg’s Forgetful of Their Sex: Female Sanctity and Society CA. 500-1100.
Christianity is generally looked upon as a patriarchal religion. Christians believe that God came down in the form of a man, Jesus of Nazareth, and died to save mankind from Original Sin, which was brought about by a woman, Eve. While women appear in various Gospel stories and it would seem that Jesus possessed female followers, Jesus’ apostles were all men. It was to men that Jesus gave the authority to preach his word and to cast out demons.[1] The primary books of Christianity, the New Testament and the writings of the Church fathers, were written by men. The Church excluded women from its leadership.[2] Paul forbade women to preach, saying that: “The women should be silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but they should be subject, even as the law also says. But if they desire to learn anything, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is a shame for a woman to speak in the church.”[3] Not only were women shut out of the Church hierarchy, they were also viewed as sources of sin. Women, as the bearers of the legacy of Eve and Original Sin,[4] were viewed as more earthly, less rational and, if left unchecked, likely to corrupt men.
That being said women, throughout the history of Christianity, left their mark on the Church. Women played a leading role in spreading the Christian faith. Christian women were venerated as saints and martyrs.[5] During the latter Middle Ages we see numerous examples of female religious leaders, and movements. Women such as Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), Bridget of Sweden (1303-1373) and Catherine of Siena (1347-80) took on highly public roles, daring to criticize the Church hierarchy. The source for this power lay in the belief that women possessed a special relationship with Christ, manifesting itself in prophetic visions, their personal identification with the Passion and their adoration of the Eucharist. This raises the question as to the extent these things can be viewed as part of a female Christianity. Were the female spiritual movements of the later Middle Ages an expression of a unique feminine understanding of Christianity or were these movements simply reflections of the male Church hierarchy.
In this paper I will be looking at five books that deal with this issue from different perspectives. Rudolph Bell’s Holy Anorexia and Dyan Elliott’s Proving Woman take a male centric view on these movements, seeing them as reflecting male ideas. In contrast to this, I offer Caroline Bynum’s Holy Feast, Holy Fast, who analyzes these movements from a more female centric point of view and argues that these movements came out of a distinctively feminine view of the world. Finally I offer Rosalyn Voaden’s God’s Words, Women’s Voices and John W. Coakley’s Women, Men and Spiritual Power, who view these movements as part of an ongoing dialogue of the female visionaries and the clergymen who followed them.
[1] See Luke 9:1-2. Also see Matthew 28:19 and Mark 16:15.
[2] The discovery of non-canonical gospels and Gnostic literature has shown us that the early Church was far more open to women than previously thought. These texts did not play any role in medieval thought. As this paper is concerned with the Middle Ages, it is the patriarchal tradition in Christianity that we most deal with.
[3] I Corinthians 14:34-35 (Recovery Version)
[4] See I Timothy 2:14
[5] See Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg’s Forgetful of Their Sex: Female Sanctity and Society CA. 500-1100.
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