Mater Et Magistra: Gendered Images and Church Authority in the Thought of Pope Innocent III

FEW POPES LEFT THEIR MARK on the Catholic church and European civilization as indelibly as did Innocent III (1198-1216). He intervened in a disputed succession to the throne of the Holy Roman Empire. He sponsored the Fourth Crusade (1204), which, because of the lack of funds and a Byzantine succession crisis, never reached the Holy Land, but instead degenerated into an attack on Constantinople, the capital of eastern Christendom. He called for a crusade against the Albigensian heretics of southern France (1209), the first ever raised against dissenting Christians. Innocent's relations with the kings of Christian Europe were often strained. He quarreled with King John I (1199-1216) of England, Philip II Augustus (1180-1223) of France, and the various claimants to the throne of the Holy Roman Empire. Innocent sanctioned the Franciscan (1210) and Dominican (1215) orders, and in so doing strengthened the church's ability to minister to the pastoral needs of a growing urban population. In the last year of his pontificate, he presided over Lateran IV, the church council that established the fundamental practices of Roman Catholicism until the present day. [Begin Page 67]

As a result, Innocent's political and diplomatic maneuverings have fascinated generations of scholars. Innocent, however, was an impressive theologian whose rhetorical talents have likewise garnered attention. ¹ Innocent skillfully employed an impressive knowledge of Scripture and the classical poets in his sermons and theological treatises, particularly De miseria humane conditionis (On the misery of the human condition), and De sacro altaris mysterio (On the sacred mystery of the altar). That theological and rhetorical skill included a keen sense of metaphor and analogy, particularly with regard to gender. Some years ago, Christopher Cheney noted that Innocent III employed the phrase mater et magistra (mother and teacher) to describe the church of Rome and the authority of the universal church in some of his most important decretals. ² In other texts, Innocent used nuptial metaphors to describe the relationship between the pope and the Roman church. Innocent contrasted gendered imagery--maternal images, on the one hand, versus paternal images on the other--when explaining the nature of the authority of the church. All of his gendered images were drawn from the Scriptures. He described church authority in metaphors drawn from numerous biblical references to familial relationships proclaimed during the cycle of the liturgy. ³

Above all, for Innocent the authority of the church resembled the sacrament of matrimony, along with the blessings that that sacrament conferred--companionship, progeny, growth in grace and Christian wisdom. He vigilantly followed the logic of that rhetoric. Just as the right ordering of a household and the proper care of children required the authority of wife and husband, so were the maternal and paternal characteristics of the Roman primacy necessary for the right ordering of the Christian church. Since the bond between husband and wife preceded the bond between parents and children, the relationship between bishop and diocese preceded the relationship between bishop and subjects. While Innocent believed that feminine and masculine authority were inseparable, he used the metaphors of wife and mother in more sophisticated and creative ways than the metaphors of husband and father.

A Tradition of Feminine Imagery for Church Authority

The imagery of gender entered into Christian conceptions of church authority in the age of the Fathers, long before Innocent, who inherited the patristic tradition from the reformers of the eleventh century and the Cistercian spiritual masters of the twelfth century. Pope Leo I (440-61), for instance, told the people of Rome that they were holy descendants of "our catholic mother," and told the Emperor Leo that he owed assistance to the church, "your mother." ⁴ In the early Middle Ages, important and influential writers likewise described the authority of the...