I was wondering if someone could tell me what book this quote of Tertullian's came from?
“In pain shall you bring forth children, woman, and you shall turn to your husband and he shall rule over you. And do you not know that you are Eve? God’s sentence hangs still over all your sex and His punishment weighs down upon you. You are the devil’s gateway; you are she who first violated the forbidden tree and broke the law of God. It was you who coaxed your way around him whom the devil had not the force to attack. With what ease you shattered that image of God: Man! Because of the death you merited, even the Son of God had to die… Woman, you are the gate to hell.”
Thanks!
Tertullian
De cultu feminarum
Ripped from Roger Pearse's Tertullian site:
http://www.tertullian.org/anf/anf04/anf04-06.htm
(But I can't find the last sentence you provide: "Woman, you are the gate to hell.")
De cultu feminarum
(On female fashion)
Book I.
Chapter I. ----Introduction. Modesty in Apparel Becoming to Women, in Memory of the Introduction of Sin into the World Through a Woman.
[1] If there dwelt upon earth a faith as great as is the reward of faith which is expected in the heavens, no one of you at all, best beloved sisters, from the time that she had first "known the Lord," and learned (the truth) concerning her own (that is, woman's) condition, would have desired too gladsome (not to say too ostentatious) a style of dress; so as not rather to go about in humble garb, and rather to affect meanness of appearance, walking about as Eve mourning and repentant, in order that by every garb of penitence she might the more fully expiate that which she derives from Eve,----the ignominy, I mean, of the first sin, and the odium (attaching to her as the cause) of human perdition. "In pains and in anxieties dost thou bear (children), woman; and toward thine husband (is) thy inclination, and he lords It over thee." And do you not know that you are (each) an Eve? [2] The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the devil's gateway: you are the unsealer of that (forbidden) tree: you are the first deserter of the divine law: you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God's image, man. On account of your desert----that is, death----even the Son of God had to die. And do you think about adorning yourself over and above your tunics of skins? [3] Come, now; if from the beginning of the world the Milesians sheared sheep, and the Serians spun trees, and the Tyrians dyed, and the Phrygians embroidered with the needle, and the Babylonians with the loom, and pearls gleamed, and onyx-stones flashed; if gold itself also had already issued, with the cupidity (which accompanies it), from the ground; if the mirror, too, already had licence to lie so largely, Eve, expelled from paradise, (Eve) already dead, would also have coveted these things, I imagine! No more, then, ought she now to crave, or be acquainted with (if she desires to live again), what, when she was living, she had neither had nor known. Accordingly these things are all the baggage of woman in her condemned and dead state, instituted as if to swell the pomp of her funeral.
http://www.tertullian.org/anf/anf04/anf04-06.htm
(But I can't find the last sentence you provide: "Woman, you are the gate to hell.")
De cultu feminarum
(On female fashion)
Book I.
Chapter I. ----Introduction. Modesty in Apparel Becoming to Women, in Memory of the Introduction of Sin into the World Through a Woman.
[1] If there dwelt upon earth a faith as great as is the reward of faith which is expected in the heavens, no one of you at all, best beloved sisters, from the time that she had first "known the Lord," and learned (the truth) concerning her own (that is, woman's) condition, would have desired too gladsome (not to say too ostentatious) a style of dress; so as not rather to go about in humble garb, and rather to affect meanness of appearance, walking about as Eve mourning and repentant, in order that by every garb of penitence she might the more fully expiate that which she derives from Eve,----the ignominy, I mean, of the first sin, and the odium (attaching to her as the cause) of human perdition. "In pains and in anxieties dost thou bear (children), woman; and toward thine husband (is) thy inclination, and he lords It over thee." And do you not know that you are (each) an Eve? [2] The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the devil's gateway: you are the unsealer of that (forbidden) tree: you are the first deserter of the divine law: you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God's image, man. On account of your desert----that is, death----even the Son of God had to die. And do you think about adorning yourself over and above your tunics of skins? [3] Come, now; if from the beginning of the world the Milesians sheared sheep, and the Serians spun trees, and the Tyrians dyed, and the Phrygians embroidered with the needle, and the Babylonians with the loom, and pearls gleamed, and onyx-stones flashed; if gold itself also had already issued, with the cupidity (which accompanies it), from the ground; if the mirror, too, already had licence to lie so largely, Eve, expelled from paradise, (Eve) already dead, would also have coveted these things, I imagine! No more, then, ought she now to crave, or be acquainted with (if she desires to live again), what, when she was living, she had neither had nor known. Accordingly these things are all the baggage of woman in her condemned and dead state, instituted as if to swell the pomp of her funeral.
Dysexlia lures • ⅔ of what we see is behind our eyes
-
Peter Kirby
- Site Admin
- Posts: 8617
- Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2013 2:13 pm
- Location: Santa Clara
- Contact:
Re: Tertullian
"... Woman, you are the gate to hell" seems added to repeat "You are the devil's gateway" just to make sure we get it.
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
-
Roger Pearse
- Posts: 393
- Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 10:26 am
Re: Tertullian
De cultu feminarum 1 is correct. The addition at the end is by the modern quote-miner.
From memory, this passage is usually used by modern haters, as part of a collection of quotes designed to prove that the early Christians did not conform to the "women's rights" agenda invented in the US around 50 years ago and promoted ceaselessly ever since. The argument is not made, of course - it's a silly argument that begs the question - but insinuated, with the intention of shaming people into conforming.
On my site you will also find an article by Marie Turcan, Etre femme selon Tertullien, which I translated here, and may help.
All the best,
Roger Pearse
From memory, this passage is usually used by modern haters, as part of a collection of quotes designed to prove that the early Christians did not conform to the "women's rights" agenda invented in the US around 50 years ago and promoted ceaselessly ever since. The argument is not made, of course - it's a silly argument that begs the question - but insinuated, with the intention of shaming people into conforming.
On my site you will also find an article by Marie Turcan, Etre femme selon Tertullien, which I translated here, and may help.
All the best,
Roger Pearse