A couple of months ago I participated in a long and heated debate about women and the man’s authority. As the debate was ending, I mentioned how the creation-based subjection began with the twofold subjection in the scholastic period. As proof I quoted Matthew Henry:
Genesis 2.21-25
That Adam was first formed, then Eve (1 Tim 2:13), and she was made of the man, and for the man (1 Cor 11:8-9), all which are urged there as reasons for the humility, modesty, silence, and submissiveness, of that sex in general, and particularly the subjection and reverence which wives owe to their own husbands. Yet man being made last of the creatures, as the best and most excellent of all, Eve's being made after Adam, and out of him, puts an honour upon that sex, as the glory of the man, 1 Cor 11:7. If man is the head, she is the crown, a crown to her husband, the crown of the visible creation. The man was dust refined, but the woman was dust double-refined, one remove further from the earth.
Genesis 3.16
She is here put into a state of subjection. The whole sex, which by creation was equal with man, is, for sin, made inferior, and forbidden to usurp authority, 1 Tim 2:11-12. The wife particularly is hereby put under the dominion of her husband, and is not sui juris-at her own disposal, of which see an instance in that law, Num 30:6-8, where the husband is empowered, if he please, to disannul the vows made by the wife. This sentence amounts only to that command, Wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; but the entrance of sin has made that duty a punishment, which otherwise it would not have been. If man had not sinned, he would always have ruled with wisdom and love; and, if the woman had not sinned, she would always have obeyed with humility and meekness; and then the dominion would have been no grievance: but our own sin and folly make our yoke heavy. If Eve had not eaten forbidden fruit herself, and tempted her husband to eat it, she would never have complained of her subjection; therefore it ought never to be complained of, though harsh; but sin must be complained of, that made it so. Those wives who not only despise and disobey their husbands, but domineer over them, do not consider that they not only violate a divine law, but thwart a divine sentence[i]
Our opponent – a Christian school teacher – told me that the early church has always taught a twofold subjection. I didn’t think much about it until a few days ago, when during a walk I suddenly began to think about his statement: if the church has always taught a twofold subjection of Eve, why does the modern church no longer do so?
The church got rid of the twofold subjection in the 1980s when Gen 3.16 was returned to its original position as a description of a consequence of sin. Now, why did the church do so? The answer: because it was universally acknowledged that it could not be a commandment as the church had previously taught, for why would God reward the man with authority over the woman if the man was equally guilty? The patristic church had taught that the first woman was solely guilty (the man being innocent) and therefore she was punished with a servile subjection. This, however, was ruled out as un-biblical belief little over two decades ago.
But what about the early church? Did the first and second century church teach a twofold subjection? Such a belief cannot be found until in the writings of the fourth-century bishop Augustine, who had to resort to neo-Platonism and a faulty reading of the creation account to create a creation-based subjection – a task in which he ultimately failed. All Christian writes, including Augustine’s contemporaries, wrote that the first man and woman were created equal and that it was only due to sin that the man was given authority over the woman. They based this belief on the Roman concept that the first woman had ruined the man - his equal - and was therefore justly punished with servile subjection. But if we take the Roman concept out of the picture, what other reason was there for God to punish only the woman since the man was equally guilty? None can be found, wherefore the modern church now claims that the woman desires to control the man as a result of sin - a novel belief that cannot be found until the twentieth-century.
In conclusion, the early church did not teach a twofold subjection, nor is it possible for the modern church to do so. For the modern church to teach a twofold subjection, it must first affirm with the patristic church that only the woman was guilty, a belief contradicted by Romans 5; and secondly, it must affirm with the scholastic church that the woman was subjected to the man originally because the woman lacked reason, a belief contradicted by Genesis 1, which states that both the man and the woman were created in the image of God. The modern position, which is an exact reversal of the patristic teaching and which contradicts the beliefs taught by the early church, is based on a faulty reading of 1 Timothy 2, which ultimately cannot be defended without resorting to the twofold subjection, as seen in our recent debate.
[i] (Gen 2:121-25, 3:16; from Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible: New Modern Edition, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1991 by Hendrickson Publishers, Inc.)
