conjectural navel gazing; jesus in lint form

Tripp:

Like what you've done here. I think I hear a faint hum of explaining away the difficulty (to us) of the passage, but if so I hear it in the context of a misinterpretation (that submission is ipso facto a matter of inequality and is demeaning--clearly Paul does not meant this, nor ever did if St. John Chrysostom has anything to say).

I do like Barth's translation, though I'm not sure if "subordinate" is necessarily a better translation than "submit". Etymologically, it means "to place or arrange under, to assign," but a major portion of its associated meanings also contain "to subject, to subdue, to make subject." So while Barth's translation does seem to capture the etymology, it doesn't seem to avoid some of the connotations most moderns are chary of. And even so, what woman CEO of a Fortune 500 company will hear "subordinate yourselves to your husbands as to Christ" in an egalitarian sense?

Still and all, the hyper-patriarchal interpretation is fended off quite well by simply paying attention to the rest of the text. I know that women will--rightly--say, "But many women have husbands who don't live up to Paul's (and, I might add, God's) admonition." To which it would not be uncharitable to reply, "There are many men whose wives don't live up to their admonition, either."

Folks, it's gotta be both-and. My wife has her text, here. I have mine. We both have to heed our admonitions if ours is to be a Christ-like marriage.

You what?! Oh...great googliemooglie!

Well, then, thanks.

If that had been a longer assignement, I would have said the same thing. The way we hear much of this is problematic. Welcome to the "fallen humanity," brother. We have to tackle all of this.

C'mon, don't be so surprised. My curmudgeonly nature is mostly facade. I'm just one big, fat teddy bear underneath. Ask Sofie.

I agree with Cliff here.

(Yes, you heard me. Pick up your jaw and pay attention.)

How? Both in the comment about the "both/and" nature of this scriptural instruction, and in pointing out the way a modern listener may not hear Barth's choice of "subordination" as an improvement (though his interpretation fleshes out the intent). In that case, I think your word "allegiance" bears attention, here.

Allegiance is my stretch, I think. The brevity of the assignment was frustrating.

To what do we subordinate ourselves? IBM? Bank One? A government? No, we all subordinate ourselves to Christ. It is an ecclesial theology that Ephesians spells out as well as a marital theology. In either case, as Christians we are to conform ourselves/be transformed by God into the life of Christ in the world.

As a Baptist, I wanna say that ecclesial heirarchies (as places of POWER and not servanthood) stretch this passage a little bit. I think that the possibility for sin is always present. We can be poor spouces. We can be poor leaders/servants in the church.

(Jaw duly picked up.) Wow. (Shakes head.)

I would say that it is an ecclesial theology which is instantiated in a marital theology. The home has always been "a little ekklesia"--as a father, I regularly bless Sofie, usually with the sign of the cross on her forehead. As her father, I announce the Gospel to her most every morning "Good morning. God loves you." Anna and I pray the Lord's prayer with Sofie most nights at bedtime.

Ours isn't the perfect Christian family--mostly because of my sorry example. But I think this was the sort of marital theology Paul was talking about.

The day you spot "the perfect Christian family," you let me know-- and be sure to take pictures, because I've never seen one. Goodness knows we fall short at our house, even when we're trying.

Still, it's not about being perfect, but about striving to be godly-- by overt action, as in praying and worshipping together, as well as the smaller moments of trying to model Christ in daily living. And that applies to both husband and wife-- in interactioin with one another, and with children, and with all with whom they (we) come in contact.

Yes, I will admit that I have an initially negative gut reaction to the words that are used here: "Submission;" and "subjection." I have to consciously remind myself of the theological import as we are discussing it here, rather than the more fundamentalist diatribe that is normally heard on the subject-- and which I have had pitched directly at me, on a couple of occasions.

This is where I cling tenaciously to the broader scripture-- interpretation that takes into account the preponderance of Biblical teaching, rather than the "select-a- verse," proof-text approach that Tripp speaks against here.

Okay, just so you don't think this conversation is one of the seven signs -- I still disagree with Clifton, and I still disagree most vociferously with Paul.

Feel better now? ;-)

If it were truly all about "everybody in the marriage/family has to be Christlike to one another," then why would Paul have repeatedly assigned a lower role to the WIFE? Specifically? And never ever to the HUSBAND? (Presuming that there is one of each...)

Megan, one of the possible answers to your question is this: pater familias. If the familial structure atthe time was male led, top down type stuff, you can take a couple of approaches. You can dismantle and shuffle everything around. Or you can redefine what it means to be head. Paul seems to have taken the latter approach.

To make all subordinate is essential. To focus on the ultimate servanthood of the husband actually reverses the family structure and does not affirm it. All are in submission to Christ. The husband is no longer in charge of the house. He is its servant.

You think this flies?

With all due respect, Tripp and Megan, look again at Eph 5. It's not about pater familias. It's about--again and again--Christ and the Church. Look not to Empire Rome for your interpretive framework. Look instead to the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world. It's that sacrifice that is absolutely central--and in the Ephesians passage, the essence--of the marriage. Indeed, in Ephesians generally, Christ is head into whom we grow, and in whose fullness we share. And it is this head that gave himself for the Church so that the Church would be holy and blameless.

This is so antithetical to the pater familias as to quite literally be a demolishing of strongholds. While the reference to us sinful men who do not live the life as husbands which Christ himself gives to us is not illegitimate, it is too easy an out. We husbands need to wrestle with the picture of Christ in Ephesians, because this is our model. Not the Roman pater familias. That is not only an egregiously facile interpretation, it is only another sort of fundamentalist proof texting.

Cliff, I am saying exactly what you are. By mirroring the structure to some degree, Paul explodes it into a relationship with Christ for all involved. It is no longer a proper "pater familias." It is something different...as you say, the church.

Tripp:

I'm sorry for not reading you more closely. I was simply trying to emphasize that Paul was not getting his paradigm from the culture--a stance that's commonly assumed among present day interpreters. Rather Paul's paradigm--at least here in Ephesians--is precisely the risen and glorified Christ and his Body the Church. There's nothing in Rome of Paul's day that would correspond to that. This was new wine for new wineskins.

Tripp, it don't fly.

Because, if the structure was male led (paterfamilias), then if Paul wanted to explode it (truly) he'd have said HUSBANDS be subordinate to your WIVES, wouldn't he?

But he didn't.

He maintained the structure in which a female person is specifically required to be submissive to the male person to whom (at the time and in the place) she, any children she bore, and any property associated with her, literally belonged.

Redefine what it means to be head of the family, fine. But he failed to redefine what it meant to be anyone else in the family.

Have you ever read a feminist advocacy of this passage? If so, I'd love the reference -- I think it would help me.

Megan:

I disagree. Under your suggestion, there would be no real explosion of the pater familias, it would simply be a shuffling of power. The structure would be the same, except it would be a mater familias.

Under Paul's Christ-Church rubric here in Ephesians, the pater familias is truly exploded because it has been set aside. It is no longer the model; Christ and His Church is. Under Paul's rubric, authority is not about power but about holy sacrifice: the husband for the wife's (and family's) sanctity.

Ha! I am going to borrow Tripp's favorite phrase: "both/and."

I didn't say Paul should have said "Husbands be submissive to your wives" INSTEAD OF "Wives be subordinate to your husbands."

He should have said both.

You cling to the Christ/church metaphor. That's fine, and it's most likely the privilege of your gender. But the passage has a literal meaning that prevents my entry.

5:21
"Because you fear Christ subordinate yourselves to one another." This is Barth's translation.

New International Version Ephesians 5:21
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

King James Version Ephesians 5:21
Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.

It starts there, Megan. That is the base assumption. From there is where the translation goes awry.

As far as feminist interpreters go, there is an interesting collection that I've read Freeing Theology edited by LaCugna. One essay by Sandra M. Schneiders supports my view of this text. She does speak to your concerns and the concerns of her fellow feminist theologians about the intrinsic patriarchalism in the Bible (Cliff and I part ways here). Nevertheless she desires to stay faithful to the placement of the scriptures though the historical/spiritual journey of the church.

Megan:

He did say "both and" as Tripp pointed out.

And while you come from a very different place than me, I'm unconvinced that my Christ-Church interpretation is the privilege of my gender.

We men are called upon to sacrifice our very selves for the wives God has given us. We are to love our wives as our own bodies, to work for their sanctification and holiness. In fact, in this passage more attention is paid to what the man is called to do, imitatio Christi, than what the woman is called to do.

And I must reiterate what Tripp has said: the submission to which women are called is rooted in a mutual submission--the man's submission being the sacrificing of himself for his wife.

There is some trouble in what you say Cliff.

"the wives God has given us"

How is Anna a posession? I know she is not, but you wanna illuminate that?

"their sanctification and holiness"
This is where I wanna question the passage myself. Are you working for your own sanctification? Is Anna capable of working on her own? Being submissive to Anna and working for her "sanctification and holiness" seems to be a contrary notion. Would you expand this?

I needed to look at the whole passage. Here is the King James version:

22: Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
23: For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
24: Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.
25: Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
26: That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
27: That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
28: So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.
29: For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:
30: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.
31: For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.
32: This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
33: Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.

As you'll see, in each case Paul says "Wives, be submissive to your husbands," and "Husbands, here is how you're supposed to run things."

To run by submission is still to run. And that running Paul still assigns to men, and only to men.

And you wonder why I can't stand the guy.

Megan.

I pulled KJV out because it is notoriously conservative. Even it starts in the same place. Barth takes a different track. The NRSV meets them in the middle.

What you read, Megan, is the same trouble I have. We have to read past Paul's own cultural dispositions. I wanna say that the pater familias thing is useful in this context. We see Pauline stuff kowtowing to culture/governmental authority from time to time. Why is debatable. A pastoral concern? Meaning: Keep your head down and you will stay alive.

Maybe his vision is shortsighted. He thought that Jesus was going to show up yesterday. He does not need to restructure all. He just needs to tell you how to be righteous within the given context.

So, what I think our task is now is to try to critique our own context in the same way. What does "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." look like now?

It does NOT look like men doing one thing and women doing another. To start with.

What do you think it looks like?

Megan:

First: KJV (and other translations) do NOT say "Husbands, run things." Again and again, it says, "Love, cherish, give." You read authority as power but there's no warrant for such a reading from the text itself. (This, by the way, is why I reject Tripp's assertion that Paul is somehow sanctifying the pater familias model.)

Second: The gift God has given me of Anna does not mean my ownership of her, but rather my being a steward--the gift entails accountability. But even if it were to mean some kind of ownership, it would be mutual, for I am a gift given to Anna as well (though she might word it differently ;-|). We are gifts to one another for our mutual edification and sanctification.

Sanctification is a communal project. God works in us and we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. We are saved in the Church, through the grace found in it, and we are saved by our own efforts. Anna is responsible for her own actions, but I am responsible not to cause her to stumble, and to do everything I can so that she can run without hindrance the race set before her (us).

Clifton, it does say "Husbands, run things" in so many words. If we can't agree about this, then we can't have much of a productive discussion of this matter.

Paul says "husband is the head of the wife," nowhere does he say "wife is the head of the husband."

He says "as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing," nowhere does he say "let the husbands be subject to their wives."

It also says "love, cherish, give." Which is very easy for me to get behind, and certainly I'd expect no less of myself if I were a spouse.

But the fact that it says "love, cherish, give" does not abnegate the fact that it says "men are in charge, women are to shut up."

Megan:

(Taking breath)

Okay, let me try again.

If a text does not say something in so many words, then, it's a safe bet that the so many words we read in there are likely not intended by the author.

Is there authority in the text? Yes, of course. But what is the authority that is demonstrated in the text? Loving, cherishing, giving. It is not an authority of power, but one of self-sacrifice. That is not only a difference of attribute, but one of essence. It is not an authority the world knows very much about (and yes, sadly, it's an authority that specific Christian individuals know little about).

Given what the text itself says, then, there is no support for your assertion that the text is about women submitting and shutting up.

At the risk of overstating the obvious: the submission of the wife derives from the mutual submission Christians are to show for one another. And in that respect, the text does command men to submit. Their "method" as it were of submitting is by loving, cherishing, and giving.

BUT NOT TO THEIR WIVES.

God bless you, Clifton. I'm praying for you, and for myself.

BUT NOT TO THEIR WIVES.

God bless you, Clifton. I'm praying for you, and for myself.

Sorry -- I have no idea why that posted twice.

Tripp, I'm interested in your answer to the "look like" question, when you can get back to it.

Cf. this from John Chrysostom on our text (specifically Eph 5:25)--and, please, read beyond the obedience reference and see the rest of the text:

Thou hast heard how great the submission; thou hast extolled and marvelled at Paul, how, like an admirable and spiritual man, he welds together our whole life. Thou didst well. But now hear what he also requires at thy hands; for again he employs the same example.

"Husbands," saith he, "love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church."

Thou hast seen the measure of obedience, hear also the measure of love. Wouldest thou have thy wife obedient unto thee, as the Church is to Christ? Take then thyself the same provident care for her, as Christ takes for the Church. Yea, even if it shall be needful for thee to give thy life for her, yea, and to be cut into pieces ten thousand times, yea, and to endure and undergo any suffering whatever,-refuse it not. Though thou shouldest undergo all this, yet wilt thou not, no, not even then, have done anything like Christ. For thou indeed art doing it for one to whom thou art already knit; but He for one who turned her back on Him and hated Him. In the same way then as He laid at His feet her who turned her back on Him, who hated, and spurned, and disdained Him, not by menaces, nor by violence, nor by terror, nor by anything else of the kind, but by his unwearied affection; so also do thou behave thyself toward thy wife. Yea, though thou see her looking down upon thee, and disdaining, and scorning thee, yet by thy great thoughtfulness for her, by affection, by kindness, thou wilt be able to lay her at thy feet. For there is nothing more powerful to sway than these bonds, and especially for husband and wife. A servant, indeed, one will be able, perhaps, to bind down by fear; nay not even him, for he will soon start away and be gone. But the partner of one's wife, the mother of one's children, the foundation of one's every joy, one ought never to chain down by fear and menaces, but with love and good temper. For what sort of union is that, where the wife trembles at her husband? And what sort of pleasure will the husband himself enjoy, if he dwells with his wife as with a slave, and not as with a free-woman? Yea, though thou shouldest suffer anything on her account, do not upbraid her; for neither did Christ do this.

Even under someone as patriarchal as I'm sure you assume St. John to be, marriage was a relationship of equals.

Megan:

To whom else would their submission be in loving, cherishing and giving, if not to their wives?

To Christ.

It's interesting -- first, that your quotation spurred me finally to find out who John Chrysostom was -- and second, that this blog posting and subsequent conversation had me thinking about the comparison between marriage and slavery last night. And now, voila, it shows up in Chrysostom's words too.

And still, what Chrysostom says is "love your wife, be thoughtful and kind and considerate." He does not say "submit to her." So, presuming that Chrysostom endorses what Paul said (and what Paul didn't say, and didn't mean) I don't see the "relationship of equals" you're talking about.

Megan:

The equality has to do with their status in Christ. Yes, certainly St. John's explicit language is a far cry from the egalitarianism espoused today. I have no problem granting that. I was trying to simply point out that even in St. John, authority is not about power but loving, cherishing, giving.

Yes, the husbands are to submit to Christ, but in the text, there is:

a) Christian mutual submission
b) wives submitting to their husband
c) husbands (submitting) to their wives by loving and cherishing them and giving of themselves totally

I bracketed the submitting part with regard to husbands not because it's not there, but because it's not explicitly stated. But clearly the context demands it.

As you can see, I don't back away from any part of the text, so I affirm the mutual submission and the submission wives are told to give, but I emphasize--because it's my text--the submission the husband is to give.

I can see that almost the only thing you can hear from the text is the admonition for wives to submit, and that you hear that submission in terms of power. But there's more submission in the text than that of the wife, and the authority in the text is not about power.

I always follow these kinds of conversations, usually as a lurker.

But I have to wonder why Clifton hasn't pointed out that the passage in question really starts at verse 21:

"Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ."

It is here that the "wives submit/husbands love" teaching makes sense. They are two sides of the same truth found in verse 21.

Megan: Does this help give a more complete and "balanced" view to the rest of the Eph 5? Does this provide for a "relationship of equals"?

Glib, Clifton.

That is what I hear, because that is what Paul is saying.

Your bracketed addition is not there -- if it were there, it would not need to be added. (How's that for glib?)

And if it were there, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Whoops, I'm sorry Karl, you slipped in while I was typing.

Alas, no, it doesn't help much. If the commandment is supposed to be enacted and expressed in different ways, and those ways are assigned by gender, then no. It doesn't help.

Megan:

"Glib"? I beg your pardon. That's a weak dismissal for someone as intelligent as I know you to be.

Karl stated what I have thought we all knew.

Grammatically, in the Greek, the imperative comes from v. 21: submitt to one another, and in fact, there. It reads literally, "Submit to one another in (the) fear of Christ, women to their husbands as being submitted to the Lord." So the wife's submission derives its imperative force directly from the command for Christians to submit to one another.

This is what the text says. So my tying the submission of the wife to that of mutual submission is grammatically and theologicall required by the text (as is that of the husband). It's not merely a "glib" reading of the text.

I have no Greek, so no, we didn't "all" know that.

And still, just as you wrote above, the submission is going one way: from the woman to the man.

Megan:

I'm sorry, I meant that I assumed we all knew v. 21 to be in play. And I didn't assume that you knew Greek, that's why I wanted to point it out--that it's not just in my head.

And if the Greek is correct, then the submission is NOT going one way. It's mutual. A wife's submission looks like this, a husband's like that.

"If the commandment is supposed to be enacted and expressed in different ways, and those ways are assigned by gender, then no."

But both are submitting to one another. It is a two way street. I just don't see where you are getting that submission is only one way.

This is going in circles. The text says mutual subjection/submission. But here's another interesting thing - the fact that Paul addresses the woman first, as a moral agent, is revolutionary. John Howard Yoder calls it revolutionary subordination. I think Yoder says women were not regarded as moral agents in ancient times (Cliff, since you're the ancient philosophy person, you can correct if this is wrong.) Then, Paul moves on and spends much more text space telling the men how to behave, because they weren't used to being subject to their wives. Christ revolutionizes everything. Power must always be understood in the framework of the cross.

That said, Megan has a point about linking marriage and slavery. Read further on...is there an assumption that masters and slaves could remain in that relationship, but it could be so revolutionized that it didn't make sense to look at it as slave/master anymore? Then why did Christian abolitonists bother? I think we must admit some cultural dispositions in certain texts. We have a different society now, and not ALL the same frameworks can apply. (Thinking also of the women can't teach or have authority over men part...I teach men in adult Sunday school all the time!)

Jennifer:

My first reaction was to agree with you (Yoder), but as I reflected further, Plato, in the Republic, very clearly envisions women as much ruling guardians as men. In the Symposium, it is Diotoma's discourse that is the authoritative one. Aristotle, in the Nicomachean Ethics does, it is true, envision women as in a lesser status as to men, but clearly do partake in a friendship with their husbands, and as a partner in raising children, such that a life of virtue is cultivated.

These are the texts that occur to me most immediately. I could also mention such tragedies as Medea, and such historical figures as Our Lady, Mary.

Interesting. I don't have the Politics of Jesus in front of me, just going from memory, so I'm not sure what else Yoder might have said about that. Do you think it's significant that Paul addresses women first but gives much longer instructions to men?

Medea!!! What a role model... I prefer Antigone : ) Oh, yeah, and Mary and Mary Magdalene too.

So what about the relation of these texts to the one on slavery?

I'm not sure what to make of the order.

I am certain that he spends more time with men for a reason--and it ain't a flattering one.

I should have added, I do like Yoder's reading. It would certainly support my position.

But I'd have to read what Yoder has to say.

Holy cow!! I step away and what do I behold? Myriad musings and circles of logic and thought. Huzzah! What joy.

Okay...

This, I think, will address several things at once. Cliff, I do not think that Paul is sanctifyig pater familias per se. But I do think he is addressing the structure. Thus, Megan, he is compelled to speak to the person in power...the husband. But the way that he begins in vs. 21 must have been a kick in the teeth to the men who felt they "owned" their spouces. "What do you mean 'submit to one another'?" I imagine it would have sounded nuts. So, then as Paul continues he focuses on the men because they are the problem children, so to speak. It is their role that is turned upside down. They no longer posess their wives because all are posessed by Christ. This is why I think the focus is so much on the men. Their societal roles are going to change.

And yet, this is still a HElleistic society. The structure will probably not change. So, I wonder if Paul is trying to reinterpret the structure.

Barth tries to argue that the piece on the wife is solely for the purpose of example. I am not entirely convinced, but then I am not a Greek scholar as some may be. I can muddle my way through, but there you go.

Jennifer, you provide an interesting read from Yoder. I think it plays into what I am suggesting that it is a reinterpretation of sorts. Let's give women more algency in the home that actually extends above and beyond their husbands.

Oh! One more thing. There is a metaphorical equating of "husband" with "Christ". But that is where it ends to some degree. We all have the same responsibility (Submission). but the salvific work is done by Christ and Christ alone. The exemplar Christ provides in this instance is servanthood.