Thomas Aquinas' Twofold Subjection Explained, Part 2

Genesis 3.16 : From a Consequence to a Commandment

In the Vulgate, Jerome's Latin translation of the Bible, Genesis 3:16 reads:

”Sub viri potestate eris et ipse dominabitur tui.”
(“Under the man’s authority will you be and he will rule over you”)

This translation does not follow the original text found in the Hebrew Bible.

 Wª'el-  'iysheek   tªshuwqaateek   wªhuw'   yimshaal-  baak                         

The Hebrew word teshuwqah does not have the meanings "power" or "authority." 
Jerome knew this to be the case:

“And that after displeasing God she was immediately subjected to the man, and began to turn to her husband.” (Against Jovinianus, Book I, 27).

Also Augustine, Jerome's friend and pen-pal, knew that the word teshuwqah had the meaning "to turn."

"Yet He does not dismiss him without counsel, holy, just, and good. “Fret not thyself,” He says, “for unto thee shall be his turning, and thou shall rule over him.” [Genesis 4:7] Over his brother, does He mean? Most certainly not. Over what, then, but sin? For He had said, “Thou hast sinned,” and then He added, “Fret not thyself, for to thee shall be its turning, and thou shall rule over it.” And the “turning” of sin to the man can be understood of his conviction that the guilt of sin can be laid at no other man’s door but his own. For this is the health-giving medicine of penitence, and the fit plea for pardon; so that, when it is said, “To thee its turning,” we must not supply “shall be,” but we must read, “To thee let its turning be,” understanding it as a command, not as a prediction. For then shall a man rule over his sin when he does not prefer it to himself and defend it, but subjects it by repentance; otherwise he that becomes protector of it shall surely become its prisoner. But if we understand this sin to be that carnal concupiscence of which the apostle says, “The flesh lusteth against the spirit,” among the fruits of which lust he names envy, by which assuredly Cain was stung and excited to destroy his brother, then we may properly supply the words “shall be,” and read, “To thee shall be its turning, and thou shalt rule over it.” For when the carnal part which the apostle calls sin, in that place where he says, “It is not I who do it, but sin that dwelleth in me,” that part which the philosophers also call vicious, and which ought not to lead the mind, but which the mind ought to rule and restrain by reason from illicit motions,—when, then, this part has been moved to perpetrate any wickedness, if it be curbed and if it obey the word of the apostle, “Yield not your members instruments of unrighteousness unto sin,” it is turned towards the mind and subdued and conquered by it, so that reason rules over it as a subject. It was this which God enjoined on him who was kindled with the fire of envy against his brother, so that he sought to put out of the way him whom he should have set as an example. “Fret not thyself,” or compose thyself, He says: withhold thy hand from crime; let not sin reign in your mortal body to fulfill it in the lusts thereof, nor yield your members instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. “For to thee shall be its turning,” so long as you do not encourage it by giving it the rein, but bridle it by quenching its fire. “And thou shall rule over it;” for when it is not allowed any external actings, it yields itself to the rule of the governing mind and righteous will, and ceases from even internal motions. There is something similar said in the same divine book of the woman, when God questioned and judged them after their sin, and pronounced sentence on them all,—the devil in the form of the serpent, the woman and her husband in their own persons. For when He had said to her, “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow shall thou bring forth children,” then He added, “and thy turning shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” What is said to Cain about his sin, or about the vicious concupiscence of his flesh, is here said of the woman who had sinned; and we are to understand that the husband is to rule his wife as the soul rules the flesh. And therefore, says the apostle, “He that loveth his wife, loveth himself; for no man ever yet hated his own flesh.” This flesh, then, is to be healed, because it belongs to ourselves: is not to be abandoned to destruction as if it were alien to our nature." (The city of God, Book XV, Ch 7)

Note how Augustine sees the "turning" as a commandment from God instead of a consequence of sin. Jerome agreed, wherefore he changed Genesis 3:16 into a commandment for the woman to turn to the man in order to become his subject. And because Jerome changed the verse in the fourth century, Thomas Aquinas was faced with the question why the woman was created before sin, if her subjection began after sin.

“Further, subjection and limitation were a result of sin, for to the woman was it said after sin (Genesis 3:16): "Thou shalt be under the man's power"; and Gregory says that, "Where there is no sin, there is no inequality." But woman is naturally of less strength and dignity than man; "for the agent is always more honorable than the patient," as Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. xii, 16). Therefore woman should not have been made in the first production of things before sin (Summa, First Part, Question 92, Objection 1).

It was this question that caused Thomas to create the twofold subjection, in which the woman was subjected from creation and as a result of sin. 

Thomas Aquinas' Twofold Subjection Explained, Part 1

The idea behind the twofold subjection is that God subjected the woman to the man from creation, and again after the fall. It makes no sense for us, and for a good reason; but it made sense for the person who created it, and also that was for a good reason.

A few years ago, when I was researching the subject of equality for my own sanity's sake, I stumbled over the twofold subjection of the woman to the man in Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica. By this time, I had acquainted myself with early church theology and ancient Greek philosophy, and it was easy enough to see where Thomas borrowed more from Aristotle than he did from the Bible, which was, of course, only natural since Thomas's entire work is a synthesis of Aristotle's philosophy and medieval theology.

For Thomas a lot of things were twofold, but this particular twofoldedness was based on something other than good biblical hermeneutics; it was based on the ancient concept that men are the norm, and women the deviation from that norm. In other words, women couldn't be equal with men, because they weren't men. The lack of reason in women was a major tenet in Greek philosophy that was accustomed to making such statements without a whiff of proof.

However, Thomas could not have subjected the woman from creation, had Jerome not subjected her as a result of sin. You see, Jerome changed Genesis 3:16 in the Latin translation because he followed fourth-century theology more than the original Hebrew text. In the Latin Vulgate, we find "Under the man's authority will you be, and he shall rule over you," which is in accordance with the very Roman belief that God subjected the woman to the man as a result of Eve's sin; Adam was deemed innocent of the whole affair.

The Latin Vulgate was the only Bible available in the 13th century, wherefore Thomas Aquinas thought the woman was subjected to the man as a result of the fall. But he couldn't reconcile the idea of equality with Aristotle's concept of the woman being a misbegotten male, which negated all possibility of equality. As a result, Thomas sided with Aristotle and subjected the woman to the man from creation.

For more than 700 years, the church taught this belief that the woman was subjected to the man twice: both from creation, and a as a result of the fall. The first-mentioned was said to be a "good" subjection, the other a "bad" subjection, a servile kind in which the man uses the women as he pleases - with God's blessing. Since the twofold subjection was challenged in the 1970s, we now look either for a involuntary subjection from creation (by God), or an involuntary subjection as a result of sin (by man).

Which one is it? 

The Weird World of Mr. Ware

Bruce A. Ware is the author of a lengthy article on the compatibility of our equality as humans created in the Image of God and hierarchical theology in which the man has authority over the woman because of his prior creation. To read the article, visit the below link
http://www.cbmw.org/Journal/Vol-7-No-1/Male-and-Female-Complementarity-and-the-Image-of-God. 

In the weird world of Mr. Ware, all things are not as they seem. What looks right at first becomes quickly left, as he guides us through a maze of incoherent thoughts. 

The first part of the introduction explores what being created in the Image of God actually means. Mr. Ware concludes this exploration with the noble thought that both men and women are created in the image of God and are therefore equal as human beings. But because equality and inequality are like oil and water, and Mr. Ware wants to prove the existence of the latter instead of the former, he has decided to convince us that the woman derives the Image of God from the man.

Man is a human being made in the image of God first; woman becomes a human being bearing the image of God only through the man. While both are fully and equally the image of God, there is a built-in priority given to the male that reflects God's design of male-headship in the created order.

What then about the rest of us? How do we become the Image of God since we are born of women, and not perpetually created from a man’s side?  Mr. Ware seems to be of the opinion that both parents contribute, “So, it appears that those born become the image of God because they are born through those who are the image of God.” But because it would create a contradiction in his theology to affirm that only Eve derived the Image from a man, he adds his opinion that Genesis 5 teaches that only the father transfers the Image of God to the child. 

What is true in both texts, of Seth's and the woman's formation respectively, is that they derive their human natures, as Scripture specifically indicates, through the man. Another parallel is clear and is significant: both Seth and Eve are fully and equally the image of God when compared to Adam, who is image of God. So, the present discussion reaffirms and reinforces our earlier declaration that all human beings, women as well as men, children as well as parents, are fully and equally the image of God. But having said this, Scripture indicates in addition to this important point another: God's design regarding how the woman and how a child become the image of God seems to involve inextricably and intentionally the role of the man's prior existence as the image of God.

But if both Seth and Eve derived the Image of God from Adam, how was it possible for Seth, but not for Eve, to transfer the Image to his own children? Could it be that Eve is not mentioned in Genesis 5 because the chapter is “the written account of Adam's line” and the whole point is to show which father goes with which son, the mother being well known to all? In other words, maybe Eve had a bit more to do with Seth being in the Image of God than Mr. Ware would have us acknowledge.

Despite the obvious flaw in his thinking, Mr. Ware continues undeterred. To provide further evidence for his theology, and to remove the possibility that the man’s prior creation could be “nothing more than a sort of tossing of a divine coin,” Mr. Ware informs us that God formed the woman from the man in order to make her dependent of the man.

But God wanted to convey two theological truths (not just one) in the formation of the woman from the rib of Adam: since the woman was taken out of the man, 1) she is fully and equally human since she has come from his bones and his flesh, and 2) her very human nature is constituted, not in parallel fashion to his with both formed from the same earth, but as derived from his own nature so showing a God-chosen dependence upon him for her origination.

In other words, the woman must be the man’s subject and dependent of him or Genesis 2 speaks only of equality.
In an effort to find his “derivation” theology already in Genesis 1, Mr. Ware points out that the Hebrew word ‘adam, found in Genesis 1.26, is a masculine word and therefore it teaches us “that woman possesses her common human nature only through the prior nature of the man.”  Mr. Ware seems strangely unaware of the fact that the gender of a word is an artificial linguistic tool, not a theological statement; for example, spirit is a feminine word in Hebrew but neuter in Greek. Mr. Ware adds to the confusion when he writes, “Since this is so, we should resist the movement today in Bible translation that would customarily render instances of áa„d£a„m with the fully non-gender specific term ‘human being'. This misses the God-intended implication conveyed by the masculine generic ‘man,' viz., that woman possesses her common human nature only through the prior nature of the man.” How strange then that the creators of the Greek Septuagint (250 BCE) translated ‘adam with anthropos, a non-gender specific Greek term for “human being.”  Perhaps the dictionary is right and ‘adam is a non-gender specific word for “human being” in Hebrew.

As long as Mr. Ware’s focus was on the first humans, his theology was able to survive, albeit full of holes. But when he begins to apply it to singles, the boat sinks before it even has had a change to float.  Mr. Ware writes that a marriage is only a shadow of the union between Christ and the church, wherefore “no believing single will miss out on the reality of marriage even if God calls him or her to live without the shadow.” So far so good. But when the question of the man’s authority is brought up, Mr. Ware is suddenly of the opinion that the man's prior creation “does not entail the authority of all men over all women,” for the man’s authority should be extended only to Christian husbands and the elders of the church. All single people should therefore be members of a church “where they may be involved in the authority structure of that church,” for “qualified male elders are responsible for the spiritual welfare of their membership, and so single women, in particular, may find a source of spiritual counsel and guidance from these male elders in the absence of a husband who might otherwise offer such help.” If only married women are subject to their husbands, why does Mr. Ware nevertheless insist that Christian single women offer deference to Christian single men?

Second, the temporal priority of the male in the image of God means that in general, within male-female relationships among singles, there should be a deference offered to the men by the women of the group, which acknowledges the woman's reception of her human nature in the image of God through the man, but which also stops short of a full and general submission of women to men. Deference, respect, and honor should be showed to men, but never should there be an expectation that all the women must submit to the men's wishes. And for single men, there should be a gentle and respectful leadership exerted within a mixed group, while this also falls short of the special authority that husbands and fathers have in their homes, or that elders have in the assembly. Because all are in the image of God, and because women generally are image of God through the man, some expression of this male-headship principle ought to be exhibited generally among women and men, while reserving the particular full relationships of authority to those specified in Scripture, viz. in the home and the believing community.

Although Mr. Ware has an explanation to the subjection of women and children, he doesn’t provide an explanation as to what the foundation is for one man’s authority over another. Since all men are directly in the image of God and therefore equal, Mr. Ware lacks the means to make one man subject to another.


 To conclude, Mr. Ware's "derivation" theology has several serious flaws:

1. Why do men not derive the Image of God from women although they are born of women?
2. How do men transfer the Image of God to their children if also Seth derived the Image of God from Adam in the likeness of his mother Eve?
3. If husbands have authority over their wives because Eve was created from Adam, what is the foundation of a man's authority over another man?
4. If all men do not have authority over all women, why must single Christian women offer deference to single Christian men?

Chrysostom on the Subjection of Women

John Chrysostom, the eloquent bishop of Constantinople, is not popular with complementarians for not only did he explicitly mention that Junia was an apostle, Phoebe a deacon and Deborah a judge, his theology casts a long shadow of doubt on the claim that modern complementarian theology faithfully replicates the ancient apostolic tradition: when compared to Chrysostom's theology, modern complementarism appears to be a recent novelty, a complete reversal of John's fourth century beliefs.

Modern complementarism finds the woman's subjection in the creation account, and claim the woman is barred from teaching due to the man's prior creation. The fall account is said to represent the consequence of sin, not the beginning of the man's rule. Both 1 Tim 2 and 1 Cor 11 are said to enforce female subjection as a created order. Chrysostom, on the other hand, believed that the woman was subjected because “she made an ill use of her privilege and she who had been made a helper was found to be an ensnarer and ruined all then she is justly told for the future, “thy turning shall be to thy husband” (Gen 3.16).” Neither God or the man said anything about subjection to the woman at creation, instead the man said she was “bone of his bones, and flesh of his flesh,” which signified her equality with the man. (Homilies on 1 Corinthians 11, Homily XXVI) Neither did Chrysostom find subjection in 1 Cor 11:

But the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.” Here the heretics rush upon us with a certain declaration of inferiority, which out of these words they contrive against the Son. But they stumble against themselves. For if “the man be the head of the woman,” and the head be of the same substance with the body, and “the head of Christ is God,” the Son is of the same substance with the Father. “Nay,” say they, “it is not His being of another substance which we intend to show from hence, but that He is under subjection.” What then are we to say to this? In the first place, when any thing lowly is said of him conjoined as He is with the Flesh, there is no disparagement of the Godhead in what is said, the Economy admitting the expression. However, tell me how thou intendest to prove this from the passage? “Why, as the man governs the wife, saith he, “so also the Father, Christ.” Therefore also as Christ governs the man, so likewise the Father, the Son. “For the head of every man,” we read, “is Christ.” And who could ever admit this? (Homilies on First Corinthians, XXVI)

According to Chrysostom, the woman was barred from teaching because of the fall, not creation.

If it be asked, what has this to do with women of the present day? it shows that the male sex enjoyed the higher honor. Man was first formed; and elsewhere he shows their superiority. “Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man.” (1 Cor. xi. 9) Why then does he say this? He wishes the man to have the preeminence in every way; both for the reason given above, he means, let him have precedence, and on account of what occurred afterwards. For the woman taught the man once, and made him guilty of disobedience, and wrought our ruin. Therefore because she made a bad use of her power over the man, or rather her equality with him, God made her subject to her husband. “Thy desire shall be to thy husband?” (Gen. iii. 16) This had not been said to her before… The woman taught once, and ruined all. On this account therefore he saith, let her not teach. But what is it to other women, that she suffered this? It certainly concerns them; for the sex is weak and fickle, and he is speaking of the sex collectively. For he says not Eve, but “the woman,” which is the common name of the whole sex, not her proper name. Was then the whole sex included in the transgression for her fault? As he said of Adam, “After the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of Him that was to come” (Rom. v. 14); so here the female sex transgressed, and not the male. Shall not women then be saved? Yes, by means of children. For it is not of Eve that he says, “If they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.” What faith? what charity? what holiness with sobriety? It is as if he had said, “Ye women, be not cast down, because your sex has incurred blame. God has granted you another opportunity of salvation, by the bringing up of children, so that you are saved, not only by yourselves, but by others.” (Homilies on First Timothy, Homily IX)
Because it seemed irrational that women should earn their salvation through works, and because virginity was so highly valued in the fifth century church, Chrysostom felt compelled to explain the inconsistency, but he could only conclude that “this is the amount of what [Paul] says.”

Although Chrysostom remained remarkably faithful to the original beliefs handed down by the apostles, he was nevertheless influenced by the teachings of Aristotle, the fourth century BCE Greek philosopher, which is seen in his rather condescending remarks of the woman's ability to think for herself ("the woman is weakminded"), his insistence that equality is always hurtful (although he wrote that Abraham and Sarah obeyed each other), and his remark that women are inferior to men. His attempts to incorporate these into his theology accounts for the occasional inconsistency in his otherwise faithful transmission of the apostolic tradition and is clearly seen in his treatment of Genesis 3.16: he believed, alongside all fourth century theologians, that God punished Eve with subjection to Adam, who was deemed innocent (although he was somewhat inconsistently also charged with being the reason for original sin). If we change this one aspect in Chrysostom's theology and affirm with the first century and the modern church that Gen 3.16 is not God's mandate but a consequence of sin, Chrysostom's theology is faithfully replicated in the theology of modern egalitarianism.

Virginity and the Catholic Hierarchy

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. 

I have What You Want, You Have What I Need

We hear often that supply and demand are sufficient to sort out the complexities of human interaction on all levels of life, whether they be commercial or personal. The theory may look good on paper, but it overlooks the fact that sometimes I have what you want, and you have what I need.

If someone has what others want, and others have what that someone needs, the others can use extortion to get what they want, because of the need of that someone. The more acute the need, the easier it will be for  the others to extort what they want, be it money, sex, or time.

Because our needs and wants are never equal, which is, by the way, why inequality is said to be inevitable, there can never be such a thing as an equal trade between equal partners. If there can never be an equal trade, supply and demand are not sufficient; we need another kind of model that ensures that human need does not become an opportunity for extortion. Unless, of course, we like the idea that those who have more have the right to use the need of others to get what they want.

What kind of model would ensure that needs and wants are equalized? A good start would be to recognize that all humans have equal needs, but not equal means. Healthcare, education, food and clean water, are needs all humans share in common, but as the world is right now, most humans have great needs, but lack the means. As a result a large portion of humanity goes hungry, destitute, ill, and illiterate.

The most common objection to the creation of a new model is that people need to help themselves. But since the poverty is created by those who use the needs of others to create inequality, which further creates poverty, the cycle cannot be broken by the poor, it must be unraveled by the wealthy. Economic equality ensures that the needs of some are not greater than the wants of others, rescuing millions from the hands of traffickers, human smugglers, human organ traders, and gives back lost childhoods, lost lives.

The price we pay for not getting everything we want is small compared to the opportunity it creates for others to have what they need to live.

What's in a Name?

Raymod Ortlund grasps the beauty of the poetry involved in Genesis 2:23 and he sees the woman as an equal because she is created from the man, for with the woman the man can experience companionship on his own level. But at the same time he views the man naming the woman as an act of authority, a royal prerogative, since he is naming his helper.[1] Ortlund’s reasoning makes the woman the man’s slave, since the “naming concept” is adopted from the ungodly Babylonian practice of depriving the slave of his or her previous identity through the imposition of a new name. Theologians have used the argument indiscriminately as seen in Henry’s Commentary, “It is an act of authority to impose names (Dan, 1:7), and of subjection to receive them” [2] The biblical practice of name-changing is, however, not an act of authority, for names were changed as a sign of a changed situation. Hence Adam named the first woman Chawah (“Eve”) because she was to become the mother of all living (chay) (Gen. 3:20). Also Sarai was re-named Sarah as she was to become the mother of Isaac (Gen. 17:16).

Wayne Grudem suggests that the naming of various people by God and the name giving of children by their parents are examples of an act of authority. However, God owns us as our Creator, and children need parental authority for their own protection. The man does not own the woman nor is she a child, wherefore the comparison fails.[3] 

Because the woman was not created to be a helper, Ortlund’s statement lacks a solid foundation but his belief that Eve understood who she was by the man’s definition, instead of God’s, reveals the true nature of complementarism: the woman is said to be what the man wants her to be – his helper instead of his equal.[4] 

There is also the added problem of Sarah’s slave-girl Hagar naming God:

She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: "You are the God who sees me," for she said, "I have now seen the One who sees me." 14 That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi; it is still there, between Kadesh and Bered.  (Gen 16:13-14, NIV)

If giving someone a name is an act of authority, did Hagar have authority over God? Or should we restrict the naming of a subordinate only to a man? If so, we have committed the fallacy of circular reasoning: the man is proven to have authority because he names the woman; the man names the woman because he has authority. Either way, the man just has authority, regardless of how we look at the subject. Such reasoning can safely be excluded, for more than unproven axioms are needed to prove that God gave the man authority at creation.

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[1] Piper and Grudem, ed. Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood [Crossway, Wheaton Illinois, 1994] 101-102.

[2]  “Gen 2:18-20,” Matthew Henry Commentary On the Whole Bible.

[3] Wayne Grudem, Systematic theology, (Inter-Varsity Press (UK) and Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1994), 462.

[4] Piper and Grudem, 103. The man did not define the woman, for God had already defined her before bringing her to the man by calling her “woman” (Gen. 2:22). The man simply recognized who she was: a female human being.