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Chapter 5. The Contrary Operation: Resignifying the Unpenetrated Body in Tertullian of Carthage
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C h a p t e r 5 “The Contrary Operation”: Resignifying the Unpenetrated Body in Tertullian of Carthage For incarnation nudges us toward the deciphering of the function of that virgin-mother. . . . The word made flesh in Mary might mean— might it not?—the advent of a divine one who does not burst in violently, like the god of Greek desire, does not simply rule the world from a heaven of dreams, and does not remain closed in a text of law either . . . This aspect of Christ is still to be discovered. —Luce Irigaray, “When the Gods Are Born” Scholars have paid a great deal of attention to the question of whether the North African theologian Tertullian of Carthage was a misogynist. And there would seem to be ample textual support for an affirmative answer—most notably the notorious opening chapter from De cultu feminarum (The Apparel of Women) where Tertullian vigorously attacks female practices of adornment by appeal to creation, comparing the women of his Carthaginian ecclesial community to the odious and sinful figure of Eve: And do you not know that you are an Eve? The judgment of God upon your sex (sexum istum) lives into this age—and the guilt must necessarily live also. You are the doorway of the devil. You are the unsealer of that tree. You are the first deserter of the divine law. You are the one who persuaded him whom the devil did not have the strength to attack. You destroyed God’s image, man, (imaginem Dei, hominem) so easily. On account of your demerit, that is death, the The Contrary Operation 125 son of God actually had to die! And yet is it in your mind to adorn yourself on top of your tunics of skins?1 Furthermore, Tertullian elsewhere argues forcefully against the right of Christian women to baptize and teach in the church, following what he takes to be Paul’s lead (while maintaining an allusive nod to the creation narrative): But the effrontery of the woman who usurped the activity of teaching—certainly she is not also going to seize for herself the right to baptize?—unless some new beast should appear, similar to the original one (pristinae), so that just as that one destroyed baptism, so another should confer it through her own authority. . . . For how believable does it seem that he [Paul] would give to a female the power to teach and baptize [i.e., a reference to Thecla]—he who did not even permit for a woman to learn consistently? “Let them be silent,” he says, “and consult their husbands at home.” [cf. 1 Cor 14.34–35]2 From the standpoint of feminist scholarship then, as Mary Rose D’Angelo has noted, “On many levels, the rhetorical excesses, the overwrought moral rigor, and the ultimate schismatic bitterness of Tertullian make him an easy mark.”3 Yet complexities abound in Tertullian’s many treatises, preventing a simple answer to the question of his putative misogyny—or (to raise another complicated question) its relationship to his theology of sexual difference. For example, as is well known, Tertullian cites female prophecy approvingly in numerous places throughout his work.4 One explanation that has been offered for this apparent contradiction is that Tertullian’s tirades about women should be understood not as a generalized misogyny, but rather in terms of a contextualized agenda to consign women in the church to the private rather than the public sphere.5 Another possible solution is to locate Tertullian’s rhetoric in relation to his putative conversion to “Montanism” (or the New Prophecy ) and his subsequent polemics against “Catholic Christianity” in Carthage. Along these lines, D’Angelo argues (with respect to Tertullian’s insistence that virgins—and indeed all women—be veiled), “The paraclete is now revealing a stricter and more all-encompassing discipline which the New Prophecy puts into practice. Virgins are not to be exempt from the veil, but to recognize that they can escape from the disabilities of being women only by submitting fully [44.200.23.133] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 13:32 GMT) 126 Chapter 5 to them. . . . If some women are to be heard, then all women, including and especially virgins, are not to be seen.”6 As numerous scholars have noted, the problem with this argument (and others like it) is that it relies on too strict a bifurcation of early Christian Carthage into two discrete camps—Catholic orthodoxy...