Women and Spiritual Equality in Christian Tradition by Patricia Ranft (review)

BOOK REVIEWS General Women and Spiritual Equality in Christian Tradition. By Patricia Ranft. (New York: St. Martin's Press. 1998. Pp. xii, 307. $39.95.) According to the blurb this book is the "first lengthy study" to document the fact that for a millennium and a half Christianity posited "women's equality in any aspect." Actually, this thesis was argued in 1973 in my own Woman in Christian Tradition. The new book simply brings more evidence to bear on the question; it dwells at length on the medieval period; and, more questionably, it draws much more than I did on the often ambiguous references to the Virgin Mary that have abounded in writing and devotion since the Council of Ephesus . In twelve chapters the story of spiritually free Christian women is taken from the Scriptures (half a dozen pages only) to the enlightenment, when interest veered away from the spiritual, and the tradition was generally lost. Four chapters cover the patristic period, six the Middle Ages. The last chapter is a hurried survey of the Reformation, the Counter-Reformation, and the Enlightenment . The general thesis is undoubtedly right. However, some points deserve more discussion. Chief among them is the question why spiritual equality, like the political superiority of empresses and queens, had no visible effect on the social status of ordinary women. One could also ask: What was the theological motivation for the promotion of virginity? Does Syriac literature truly illustrate the position of holy women in Byzantium? What was the exact status of women deacons in patristic times? Has the effect of Marian piety and doctrine been positive or negative for Christian women? The medieval evidence is taken from art as well as from writing. In regard to medieval women, however, the vitae of many of them are taken at face value, even though hagiography was a literary genre distinct from historiography. Great attention is paid to Héloïse and to Hildegard; and many women mystics are cited. But not a word is said about Jeanne d'Arc, even though Christine de Pisan, whose critique of courtly love is discussed (pp. 203-205),wrote about her whenJeanne was still living. That the spiritual equality of women was challenged in the Renaissance, and that this influenced some of the Reformers is overlooked. In the Counter-Reformation the French School's Teresian roots (p. 225) could bear some discussion, and more could have been made of SorJuana's poetry. Unfortunately, signs of hasty redaction or careless revision make the reading hesitant. Not only are there innumerable misprints or misspellings, but a list of liturgical commemorations should not include both Felicitas and Felicity (p. 125); the Council of Carthage of 419 297 298BOOK REVIEWS was not "one of the seven ecumenical councils" (p. 124); that "after many centuries of dormancy" theology woke up in the eleventh century (p. 133) is hardly accurate; and that Dante "wrote the ultimate statement of the Christian worldview" (p. 305) is highly questionable. There is a long bibliography, and a very incomplete index. George H.Tavard Assumption Center Brighton, Massachusetts Encyclopedia ofthe Vatican and Papacy. Edited by FrankJ. Coppa. (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. 1999. Pp. viii, 483. $99-50.) This volume is the work of a number of renowned scholars who cover some two millennia of the "historical, political, diplomatic, social, cultural and religious role of the Vatican and the papacy in the modern world," with a "major emphasis ... on the Vatican since the time of the Renaissance . . . within the broader context of European and world history" (Preface, pp. vii-viii). Such a mammoth task would be impossible if it were not for the medium chosen, that is, an encyclopedic work which allows each specialist room to present material consonant with his or her own field of specialization. Herein lies the predominant weakness of such a work, which requires by its very nature a broad paintbrush to cover various topics. While it would at first seem that the Vatican and the papacy, as the title of the work itself suggests, are the thread which unites all the topics, in reality the reader does not come away with a clear understanding of what the "Vatican and the...