Nearly
four hundred years after Jerome’s false translation ("Under the man's
authority shall you be and he will rule over you") was rejected by
Protestant theologians, Genesis 3.16 was returned to its original
position as a description of a consequence of sin (in the 1980s). The
Catholic response to the changing of the interpretation of Genesis 3.16
is seen in that although Rev. Regis Scanlon refers to Thomas’s twofold
subjection, he views the verse as a description of a “bad” subjection
given to Eve as a punishment and “a constant threat” from which the
married couple escapes, for the husband’s authority is given to bring
about mutual submission based upon their free commitment.[1]
I.e., Scanlon no longer agrees with Thomas’s view that Genesis 3:16
mandates the man to rule over the woman. Scanlon believes also that
virgins overcome the negative effect of the Fall and “the threatened
rule of the male over the female” by being under the authority of the
Catholic Church, for in his view it is “the perfect fulfillment of that
hierarchy of authority found in God’s creation.” But by this statement
he contradicts himself, for the church has always been, and still is,
considered feminine, and thus he makes a celibate man subject to a
woman, so to speak. Perhaps Scanlon considers the celibate man to be
subject to the authority of the bishop, who is always male, and not to
the church per se. But even if we would allow for such a distinction, the celibate man’s subjection does not fulfill the hierarchy in which a man has authority over a woman, unless we consider the celibate man to have become a woman.
If
the church has always taught a creation based hierarchy, why does
Scanlon refer only to the thirteenth-century theologian Thomas Aquinas?
In fact, it is Scanlon’s own argument which proves the impossibility of
implementing such a hierarchy in the case of virgins, which accords well
with the patristic belief that virgins and chaste women were equal with
men. Thus we may conclude that the early church did not teach a
creation based hierarchy in which the man had authority over the woman,
for although virginity was highly esteemed, also marriage was approved
of and not viewed as a consequence of sin.
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