¹ Comm. Gen. 2:18 (CO 23.46). This is a phrase which has been regularly noted, but insufficiently analyzed, by most of the recent commentators on Calvin aud women. See Bratt, John H., “The Role and Status of Women in the Writings of John Calvin,” in Klerk, Peter De, ed., Renaissance, Reformation, Resurgence (Grand Rapids: Calvin Theological Seminary, 1976) 3;Google ScholarDeBoer, Willis P., “Calvin on the Role of Women,” in Holwerda, David E., ed., Exploring the Heritage of John Calvin (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1976) 252–54, 270;Google ScholarWalt, B. J. Van der, “Woman and Marriage: in the Middle Ages, in Calvin, and in our own time,” in idem, ed., John Calvin's Institutes: His Opus Magnum (Potchefstroom, South Africa: Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education, 1986) 214–15;Google ScholarDouglass, Jane Dempsey, Women, Freedom, and Calvin (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1985) 60, 80;Google Scholar and Potter, Mary, “Gender Equality and Gender Hierarchy in Calvin's Theology,” Signs 2 (1986) 727.Google Scholar

² In Comm. Gen. 1:26 (CO 23.26). Calvin refers the reader to books 10 and 14 of Augustine's De trinitate and to book 11 of De civitate Dei: see also Institutes 1.15.4. The reference to Servetus is noted by McNeill, John T. in his footnote to Institutes 1.15.3 in LCC 20 (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960) 187 n. 101. That Calvin refers to Osiander in Comm. Gen. 1:26 is made clear in the parallel discussion in Institutes 1.15.3 (see following note).Google Scholar

³ Calvin comments on the anthropomorphites also in the Institutes; see 1.13.1 and 4.17.23, 25. Calvin's execration of the anthropomorphites in Comm. Gen. 1:26 (CO 23.26) is immediately followed by his denigration of those “who, though they do not imagine that God is corporeal, yet maintain that the image of God is in the body of man.” Calvin is probably referring here (in 1554) to the teaching of Osiander, whom he refutes by name in the 1559 Institutes (1.15.3): “Osiander … [by] indiscriminately extending God's image both to the body and to the soul, mingles heaven and earth.”.

⁴ Comm Gen. 1:26 (CO 23.26).

⁵ Ibid.: “Nihilo verior Chrysostomi expositio, qui ad imperium refert quod homini datum erat, ut Dei vices in mundi gubernatione quodammodo gereret. Est quidam haec imaginis Dei aliqua portio, sed perquam exigua.”.

⁶ Institutes 1.15.4, where Calvin does not name Chrysostom. Although the term translated here as “dominion” by Battles is not imperium (as in Comm. Gen. 1:26) but dominatus, the present argument does not depend on Chrysostom's particular term, but rather on Calvin's understanding of Chrysostom's concept. Chrysostom's original term, of course, would have been in Greek, though Calvin most likely read Chrysostom only in translation. One may surmise that the text of Chrysostom that Calvin had in mind was his homily on Gen 1:26, to which Calvin had access in a 1536 Latin edition. Here, in Hom. Gen. 8.3–4 (PG 53.72–73), Chrysostom repeatedly uses άρχή and its cognates (also found in Gen 1:26–28 of the LXX); I have not seen the translation of this passage which Calvin used, but Migne's facing-page translation usually, though not always, renders άρχή (etc.) in this passage as dominium or a cognate (PG 53.72–73). In any case, what Calvin apparently rejects is Chrysostom's interpretation of the image of God as consisting in the exercise of (say governmental) power, authority, rule, or dominion—an image wherein the human exercise of power images the omnipotence and providence of the Creator. The flaw in this interpretation, says Calvin, is its apparent neglect of the interior and spiritual character of the imago dei, next to which “external concerns” are virtually without significance. Nonetheless, Calvin's explicit rejection of Chrysostom's interpretation is problematic, as we shall see. On Calvin's limited knowledge of Patristic Greek, see Todd, William Newton, “The Function of the Patristic Writings in the Thought of John Calvin” (Ph.D. diss.. Union Theological Seminary [New York], 1964) 75–77Google Scholar, 252–57. On the editions of Chrysostom possibly used by Calvin, see Ganoczy, Alexandre, La Bibliothèque de l'Acadèmie de Calvin (Geneva: Droz, 1969)Google Scholar, listings # 26, # 37, and # 70. Calvin's own handwritten annotations of Chrysostom's homilies are reproduced in Ganoczy, Alexandre and Müller, Klaus, Calvins handschriftliche Annotationen zu Chrysostomus (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1981)Google Scholar. Unfortunately, Calvin did not annotate the text in question.

⁷ Comm. Gen. 1:26 (CO 23.26); Institutes 1.15.3.

⁸ Comm. Gen. 1:26 (CO 23.26).

⁹ Similar phrases are found also in Calvin's commentaries on these verses.

¹⁰ Ibid.

¹¹ Institutes 1.15.3.

¹² Institutes 1.15.4. Richard, Lucien Joseph notes (The Spirituality of John Calvin [Atlanta: John Knox, 1974] 112) that “Calvin's concept of the image of God and of order were interchangeable.” It may be additionally noted that Calvin also finds order to be a chief characteristic of the kingdom of God; see Comm. Matt. 6:10.Google Scholar

¹³ This dynamic (or, “relational”) aspect of the image of God is especially noted (and documented) by Torrance, T. F. in Calvin's Doctrine of Man (London: Lutterworth, 1949) 36Google Scholar, 57–61, 68. Charles Partee, however, corrects those who would conclude that such is the only aspect of Calvin's doctrine: “[Torrance's] exposition … tends to underemphasize the natural, i.e. created, character of the image of God which Calvin also affirms”; see Partee, , Calvin and Classical Philosophy (Leiden: Brill, 1977) 52Google Scholar n. 8. Torrance's one-sided account is also challenged by Stauffer, Richard, Dieu, la création et la Providence dans la prédication de Calvin (Berne: Peter Lang, 1978) 201–4, who nicely supplements Torrance's documentation.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Comm. Eph. 4:24 (CO 51.208–9); see also, of course, Comm. 2 Cor. 3:18.

¹⁵ An especially illustrative text from Comm. 1 Cor. 11:7 will be cited below.

¹⁶ Institutes 1.15.3, emphasis added. See also a similar passage in Comm. Ps. 8:1 (CO 31.88), cited by Richard, Spirituality, 112.

¹⁷ “Certum est in singulis etiam mundi partibus fulgere lineamenta quaedam gloriae Dei: unde colligere licet …” (Institutes 1.15.3 [OS 3.178]).

¹⁸ Torrance argues (Calvin's Doctrine, 69) that one must read this phrase as a whole (“the light of the understanding”) so that the accent on the illuminating grace of God is maintained; otherwise, one might falsely conclude that Calvin intends to define the image of God as merely the faculty of understanding, i.e., as human reason. As the context of Institutes 1.15.4 makes clear, the “light of the understanding” is “God's Eternal Word” (citing John 1:4). Torrance's instinct here (at 1.15.4) is surely correct, then, that the faculty of reason constitutes the image of God only as that faculty partakes of the knowledge of God—a knowledge (and hence an image) which distinguishes us from the beasts. At the same time, however, one must add that Calvin elsewhere speaks of reason without the careful, relational distinction that Torrance admires. In fact, Calvin often defines the image of God in terms of just such a faculty of reason which is possessed by all, believers and nonbelievers; see Stauffer, Dieu, 201–4. Both Caims, David (The Image of God in Man [London: SCM, 1953]) 128–45)Google Scholar and Prins, Richard (“The Image of God in Adam and the Restoration of Man in Jesus Christ,” SJT 25 [1972] 32–44) explore some of Calvin's inconsistencies concerning the imago dei, but this hilly terrain is still not fully charted.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Institutes 1.15.4.

²⁰ This is the pattern of Calvin's discussions of 1 Cor 11:7 both in Comm. Gen. 1:26 (CO 23.27) and in Institutes 1.15.4. The latter discussion, most of which was added in 1559, incorporates Calvin's earlier remarks in the Genesis commentary (sometimes verbatim) and adds to them. Still fuller treatments of Paul's dictum, of course, are found in Comm. 1 Cor. 11:1–16 [1546] (CO 49.472–79) and in Serm. 1 Cor. 11:1–16 [1556] (CO 49.706–50).

²¹ These three phrases are found respectively in Institutes 1.15.4, Comm. Gen. 1:26 (CO 23.27), and Comm. 1 Cor. 11:7 (CO 49.476).

²² Douglass argues that, for Calvin, politia (Fr. police) signifies more than what is implied by “the political order” (above). What is rather in view is all “humanly made order or governance,” an order and a governance “that is seen both in the political order and in the church” (Douglass, Women, 24). Douglass wishes to underscore Calvin's assessment of all such order and governance as contingent order, indeed, as indifferent matters which are binding upon the church (and society) only insofar as they prove useful in preserving order and decorum in a particular culture and time. See Douglass, Women. 24–25, 29–41, 50–65, 82; see also Calvin Institutes 4.10.30–31 and Comm. l Cor. 14:34–40 (CO 49.532–36). That Calvin does so “relativize” (for lack of a better term here) considerations of ecclesiastical and social polity is undeniable—at least in the two texts just cited—and it is especially to be noted that he addresses such statements specifically to issues of women's behavior in church (wearing veils, keeping silence, etc.). It is less clear, however, that Calvin may be said to be “genuinely open to exceptions to the normal rule of women's subordination” or to “major change in the future” (Douglass, Women, 104, 121; see also 63), for alongside such statements as those in Comm. l Cor. 14:34–40 are other pronouncements (e.g., in Serm. 1 Tim. 2:13–15 [CO 53.224]) which characterize the subordination of woman as “an inviolable rule which will remain until the end of the world.” But the question of “exceptional cases” and future change will be taken up in detail below.

²³ Comm Gen. 1:26 (CO 23.27); Institutes 1.15.4.

²⁴ Comm. 1 Cor. 11:7 (CO 49.476), emphasis added.

²⁵ In a recent article, Mary Potter (“Gender Equality,” 731–32) has attempted to account for Calvin's apparently inconsistent evaluation of woman's status in general, and her possession of the image of God in particular, by attributing to Calvin “a shifting theological perspective.” Accordingly, when woman is considered from the perspective of the cognitio dei (i.e., from the perspective or knowledge which God has), woman is seen to be the equal of man, sharing equally in the divine image. But when woman is viewed from the perspective of the cognitio hominis (i.e., from the limited, relative, and hierarchically oriented perspective or knowledge which human beings have), she appears to be inferior to the male. Potter's “perspectival” hypothesis would be a plausible resolution of Calvin's two accounts of woman as the image of God were it not so at odds with Calvin's own language and with his very approach to doing theology. Specifically, although the Institutes begins in 1.1.1 with Calvin's well-known inquiry into cognitio dei et nostri, then turns in 1.2.1 to consider the duplex cognitio dei (knowing God as creator and redeemer), neither of these phrases can be taken as subjective genitives, as Potter seems to have done. When Calvin speaks of the cognitio dei, he has in mind not the absolute knowledge which God himself possesses, but the knowledge which we may obtain of God—a knowledge which is quite relative, at least insofar as it is a knowledge of God as he has accommodated his revelation to us. And for Calvin, as for Luther, this is the only kind of knowledge of God we can obtain; any more “absolute” perspective would be dangerous, blasphemous, impertinent speculation. Calvin's doctrine of woman may well admit to no “easy solution” or systematization at this point, but even something like Luther's coram Deo / coram hominibus distinction would serve as a better working hypothesis, whereby women are free and equal before God, but bound to submission with respect to their vocation in the present life. Calvin occasionally suggests something like this (it arises in Serm. Eph. 6:5–9 [CO 51.804] in a related context), but the subtleties of Luther's two kingdoms doctrine are not well preserved by Calvin.

²⁶ Comm. l Cor. 11:4 (CO 49.475).

²⁷ Ronald S. Wallace calls attention to Institutes 4.20.24, where Calvin clearly implies that a ruler worthy of the name ought to reflect the image of God; see Wallace's discussion in Calvin's Doctrine of the Christian Life (Edinburgh/London: Oliver & Boyd, 1959) 160–61.Google Scholar

²⁸ It is not immediately clear from the passages at hand whether such “imaging “applies equally to Christian as well as non-Christian families, but Calvin's affirmation (in Comm. 1 Cor. 11:7, cited above) that the “glory of God is … reflected in every superior authority” would seem to imply that the imaging of the divine glory which occurs in domestic “headship“extends to all households. This conclusion may also be inferred on the grounds that such headship is part of the (universal) “order of nature.” Thus all husbands and rulers “image “God in their headship (though not all equally well!), just as all human beings “image” God to some extent in their use of reason (see n. 18 above) even in a fallen and unredeemed state.

²⁹ Dominium, above; also praestantia, principatus.

³⁰ Comm. Gen. 2:18 (CO 23.46).

³¹ Quistorp, Heinrich (Calvin's Doctrine of the Last Things [trans. Knight, Harold; Richmond: John Knox, 1955] 175) calls attention to Calvin's statements that “marriage [and, hence, the conjugal order] is merely a temporal, not an eternal, fellowship.” Douglass similarly observes (Women, 34) that, for Calvin, all earthly rule and authority is strictly penultimate, destined to pass away at the end of this world. See esp. Comm. l Cor. 15:24 (CO 49.546–47), also noted by Douglass, and the pages cited from Douglass, Women, in n. 22 above.Google Scholar

³² Although Calvin does use this and similar phrases to describe the divine institution of women's subordination (as in Comm. l Tim. 2:13 [CO 52.277]: “aeterna Dei institutio”), his usage must be qualified by our observations in the preceding note and paragraph.

³³ Serm. l Tim. 2:13–15 (CO 53.224), as translated by Douglass, Women, 55–56.

³⁴ With DeBoer, “Role of Women,” 262–64, 271 – 7 2, and Douglass, Women, 63, 82, 106. See also Biéler, André, L'homme et la femme dans la morale calviniste (Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1963) 80.Google Scholar

³⁵ Douglass, Women, 104, 121.

³⁶ Thus Calvin rationalizes Sarah's demand that Abraham banish Hagar, in Comm. Gen. 21:10 (CO 23.301); see also Comm. Gen. 24:12 (CO 23.334).

³⁷ See, e.g., Comm. Matt. 28:1 – 7 and parallels (CO 45.792).

³⁸ Even Calvin's conciliatory letter to William Cecil (wherein he attempted to regain the favor of Queen Elizabeth by distancing himself from John Knox's offensive treatise, The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous, Regiment of Women) gives no real indication that Calvin shifts his position in the least. He does acknowledge, on the grounds of “custom, common consent, and long established usage,” that women may legitimately inherit the rulership of a nation, and he cites Isa 49:23 as proof that queens, as “nursing mothers of the church,” are to be distinguished from private women. Furthermore, he seems to flatter Elizabeth by stating that “certain women”—Calvin later names Huldah and Deborah, and presumably wishes to include Elizabeth in this company—”have at times been so gifted that the singular blessing which appeared in them made it clear that they were guided from above.” But Calvin's valuation of such women rulers is woven throughout, even in this letter: “Because [female government] deviates from the first and original order of nature, it ought to be counted among those punishments which are inflicted upon mankind for neglecting [that order], just like slavery.” Calvin's allowance for women leaders in exceptional cases still supposes that the purpose of such exceptions is either ‘‘to condemn the slothfulness of men, or to show more distinctly [God's] own glory.” There is no reason to suppose that Calvin has shifted from his position expressed in an earlier letter to Bullinger: “A gynecocracy … is like tyranny, which is to be endured until it is overthrown by God.” See Calvin to Cecil (May 1559; CO 17. 490 – 92, # 3036), and Calvin to Bullinger (3 May 1554; CO 15.125, # 1947).

³⁹ Douglass also raises this issue, Women, 65.

⁴⁰ Ironically, Calvin himself draws a comparison between gynecocracy and tyranny (in Calvin to Cecil, n. 38 above), though his advice there concerns one's obligation to endure such apparent disorder, knowing that such circumstances are yet part of God's providence. Not surprisingly, Calvin does not address there how one might discern God's extraordinary call to initiate such “disorder”—though he would not deny, if pressed, that God could so call one.

⁴¹ See Institutes 3.20.29–30. Roland H. Bainton has noted that Calvin's restriction of the right of tyrannicide to those who had a “special revelation” was a “grave embarrassment” to the Huguenot pamphleteers, “who badly needed a justification for armed revolution” (“The Immoralities of the Patriarchs according to the Exegesis of the Late Middle Ages and of the Reformation,” HTR 23 [1930] 48).Google Scholar

⁴² These two “criteria” may be discerned in the letters just cited (n. 38). Thus Calvin recounts to Bullinger his earlier advice to John Knox concerning the recent accession of Mary Tudor that “if any tumult shall arise on account of religion … nothing seems better and safer to me than to remain quiet until an extraordinary call should appear.” The second criterion, that the exceptional call be validated by results, may be inferred from his letter to William Cecil, as quoted in the same note: “Certain women have at times been so gifted that the singular blessing which appeared in them made it clear that they were guided from above.” Calvin's idea of validation by results also appears in Comm. Gen. 24:12 (CO 23.334).

⁴³ Comm. Gen. 24:22 (CO 23.335). This is a recurring theme in Calvin's commentary, it is applied to patriarchs and matriarchs alike.

⁴⁴ Douglass, Women, 65. On the basis of Calvin's letter to William Cecil, one may infer that Calvin allowed Elizabeth such “exceptional” status in the political realm (see n. 38 above). A case could further be made that Calvin's general treatment of women is far less severe than his rather traditional exegesis might suggest; evidence for this may be found both in his letters and in his sermons. Nonetheless, though Calvin's letters to noblewomen in particular do show him as able to treat woman “in spiritual matters … as if she were equal to man,” Calvin's egalitarianism in this context does not seem to have influenced either his exegesis or his formal theological position. Charmarie Jenkins Blaisedell concludes (in reference to Calvin's correspondence with Marguerite de Navarre, Jeanne d'Albret, and Renée de France) that “in spite of the fine educations of his female correspondents, Calvin never ventured far into theological discussions with them. His respect for these wellplaced women was limited to their political roles as agents and supporters for the Reform in France” (“Calvin's Letters to Women: The Courting of Ladies in High Places,” The Sixteenth Century Journal 13:3 [1982] 74, 84). Calvin's letter to Cecil evidences a similar ambivalence. There Calvin compromises his theology not at all while yet allowing Elizabeth's political legitimacy as an “exception” grounded in “custom, common consent, and long established usage.”.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ See, e.g., Comm. l Tim. 2:11 – 13 (CO 52.276–77).

⁴⁶ See, e.g., Institutes 4.10.30–31.

⁴⁷ Institutes 4.10.30. Douglass comments on this text (Women, 31) that “Calvin's principal line of argument is clear: he wants to cut through what he perceives to be a mountain of religious obligations imposed on the Christian by the papal church, obligations that have created anxiety and even terror for the conscience, by sharply distinguishing Christ's commands from church laws. Only Christ's commands are binding on believers' consciences, and only Christ's clear teaching is to be seen as necessary to salvation.” Douglass's discussion here (Ibid., 30–41) supplies a firm grounding for both emphases of Calvin's teaching about the contingency of polity: (1) Calvin wishes above all to protect the doctrines concerning salvation (and, hence, the freedom of the believer's conscience) from encroachment by merely human ordinances; and (2) Calvin is seeking the broadest possible foundation for ecumenism without compromising the Gospel itself.

⁴⁸ Serm. l Cor. 11:4–10 (CO 49.728).

⁴⁹ Comm. l Cor. 11:10 (CO 49.477); and Comm. l Tim. 2:12 (CO 52.276).

⁵⁰ In dealing with Philip's daughters, Calvin emphasizes that their teaching function is to be interpreted in such a way that their status as private women is not compromised; that is, they exercised no public office and probably (Calvin speculates) prophesied “at home.” Likewise, Priscilla's teaching of Apollos was done “in private.” See Comm. Acts 21:9 and 18:26 (CO 48.478, 438). A further example is found in Calvin's account of Sarah's imperious behavior in ordering the banishment of Hagar. Calvin allows that Sarah was the “minister (ministra) of a great and terrible judgment…. But even though she sustains a higher character (persona) than that of a private woman, she does not usurp power from her husband, but makes him the lawful director of the ejection” (Comm. Gen. 21:10 [CO 23.301 ]). It is unusual for Calvin to grant any woman more than private status, especially in the realm of spiritual or ecclesiastical leadership, but his interpretation of Sarah's behavior mitigates her quasi-public office by emphasizing the traces of her enduring submission to her husband.

⁵¹ The actual image used by Calvin is the “potter and clay “metaphor found in Romans 9. “Shall the pot complain against the potter?… If the woman asks, ‘Why should men have such preeminence?’ [the answer is that] God so willed it. And we can allege no desert [to explain] why God has preferred us to women” (Serm. l Tim. 2:12 – 1 4 [CO 53.212]).

⁵² See Institutes 4.10.31 and Comm. l Cor. 14:34 – 40 (CO 49.533). It is difficult to determine whether Calvin here envisions merely occasional exceptions to Paul's advice regarding women's silence, or whether he has in mind a more general allowance for women's speech. It does not seem at all self-evident that Calvin equates allowing women to speak with allowing them to teach, given his vociferous defense of this particular Pauline prohibition. See Comm. l Tim. 2:11 – 13 (CO 52.276–77); cf. Douglass, Women. 106.

⁵³ Serm. l Cor. 11:4 – 10 (CO 49.728), as translated by Douglass, Women, 35.

⁵⁴ Serm. l Cor. 11:4 – 10 (CO 49.724), as translated by DeBoer, “Role of Women,” 245.

⁵⁵ Douglass states (Women, 80) that she finds “no evidence in Calvin of such an attempt [i.e., as that of Augustine and Aquinas] to base male superiority on the fuller possession of the image of God.” It is true that Calvin wishes to reject any notion of the male's fuller possession of the image of God insofar as that notion is based on the supposed superiority of the male's body, intellect, or biology. Calvin wishes to affirm the equal possession of the image by men and women as a reflection of their spiritual equality, even as both Augustine and Thomas maintain similar positions. But the unique way in which the male bears the image is nonetheless a quasi-material reality for Calvin, at least in the sense that the image is visible and external. It is possible to say that male superiority for Calvin is not based on a fuller possession of the image only if one acknowledges that the two are at least correlated. That is to say, both the male's superiority and his fuller possession of the image of God involve his “imaging” of God in a way that women do not. This imaging and this superiority are effected by what I have described as a this-worldly election, grounded in God's secret counsel. Hence, both are attributed by Calvin to God's free choice; there is no room in Calvin's theology for an eternal or ontological superiority of the male, since the male's superiority is merely an arrangement of this world. The “external” aspect of the image of God has nothing to do with salvation, only with the preservation of order and decorum—both of which are useful (if not required) for the Gospel's propagation.