Not that children necessarily know that they’re using it for that when they first use it. They’re just babbling, experimenting with sounds, and it’s their mothers who decide that ‘ma-ma-ma-ma’ is supposed to mean something. Just as mothers decide a lot of other things for their kids. What food they’re going to eat, what clothes they’re going to wear, and what gods they’re going to worship, for example.
That’s why, if you’ve got a new religion to start, the people you want to appeal to first are the women. If you can get the women, you get the kids too, and if you get the kids then, in time, you’ve got everybody. Once you’ve got everybody, you can tell the women to get lost: men can take over and run everything.
And did – that’s what happened with Christianity. I think so, anyway. The trouble is that it’s very difficult to find out exactly what went on in the first few centuries of its development. A lot of records have been deliberately lost or destroyed and a lot have been re-written. There may well have been female priests at the beginning, for example, as well as same-sex marriages, but neither of those things would have been favoured by the patriarchal version of Christianity that won the fight for supremacy, so they would first have been suppressed and then quietly forgotten about.
Same with the Gospels: if there was anything there that the victorious orthodoxy didn’t like, it would have been removed. Christianity invented the cut-and-paste narrative a long, long time before Brion Gysin and William Burroughs – only Christianity did a lot more cutting than pasting. There are lots of odd, isolated incidents in the Gospels that don’t seem to have a full context, and usually the reason seems to be that something’s been cut out. But sometimes the reason may be that the full context was never there in the first place, because the incident has been put in rather than partly taken out.
As in Luke, chapter xi, when Jesus is telling the story of what can happen to a demonically possessed man if he isn’t careful after being cured:
24. When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out. 25. And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished. 26. Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. 27. And it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked. 28. But he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.[1]
Why does the woman say that? It doesn’t seem to fit with what Jesus has just said at all, except in a generalized “Ooh, aren’t you clever!” kind of way. And even then the compliment paid is an unusual one – it’s what might be called “gynocentric”.
Which doesn’t, in fact, make it that unusual in the Gospels, because the Gospels are very probably, as a guest writer has already said, “unique among ancient texts for their concern for and attention to the feminine”.[2] And I think it’s because, as part of Christianity’s early search for converts, the Gospels were deliberately written and edited to appeal to women.
For another example, take the story of the haemorrhagic woman in Matthew. Or Mark. Or Luke:
viii, 43. And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any, 44. Came behind him, and touched the border of his garment: and immediately her issue of blood stanched. 45. And Jesus said, Who touched me? When all denied, Peter and they that were with him said, Master, the multitude throng thee and press thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me? 46. And Jesus said, Somebody hath touched me: for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me. 47. And when the woman saw that she was not hid, she came trembling, and falling down before him, she declared unto him before all the people for what cause she had touched him, and how she was healed immediately. 48. And he said unto her, Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.
The story turns up in all three synoptic Gospels,[3] so it was obviously regarded as important. That’s what makes it unusual in ancient literature: it was regarded as important although it was about a specifically female sickness: a chronic menstrual flux. In the beginning, Christianity openly discussed such things; later on it did the exact opposite. Chad Varah, the Anglican priest who founded the Samaritans in 1953, did so when he heard about a young girl who committed suicide after her first period: she thought the bleeding meant she had cancer.
Even if that girl didn’t come from a Christian home – and I’d bet a lot that she did – she certainly came from a Christian society. That’s why she didn’t know what a period was. So how on earth did the religion that includes three versions of a story about menstruation in its Holy Scriptures turn into the religion responsible for a girl killing herself because she didn’t know what menstruation was?
Easily, I think. In the beginning Christianity wanted to attract women, but once it had attracted them and got what it wanted out of them, it told them to get lost. We’ve already looked at two examples of this initial policy of female-friendliness; here’s a third:
John, viii, 3. And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, 4. They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. 5. Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou? 6. This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. 7. So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. 8. And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. 9. And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. 10. When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? 11. She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.
This is probably the most famous story in John, but it doesn’t seem to have been there from the beginning:
The well-known story of the woman taken in adultery has no claim to be regarded as part of the original text of this gospel. It breaks the close connexion between 7 and 812ff., and in style and vocabulary it is clearly Synoptic rather than Johannine. Of early Greek MSS [manuscripts] the Cambridge MS (D) alone contains it ... Of early VSS [versions] the Latin alone contains it, and it was absent from some forms even of the Latin. It is supported by no early Patristic evidence. The evidence proves it to be an interpolation of a “Western” character. It is found in various places, after 736 in one Greeek MS, after 744 in the Georgian Version, at the end of the gospel in other MSS. In one important group of Greek cursives it is found attached to Lk. 2137.[4]
But, this commentator goes on, the story “bears every mark of preserving a true tradition”. If so, it’s a true tradition that has been preserved outside the Gospels for a time, and was perhaps never in them in the first place. Or never in the text that was made available to the mass of the faithful: Morton Smith’s book The Secret Gospel provides good evidence that there were originally two versions of the Gospels, a complete one for the initiate in the inner church and an expurgated one for the uninitiate in the wider. What seems to have happened is that the initiate lost control of the church, and the expurgated version of the Gospels became regarded as definitive.
While this was happening, however, the story of the adulterous woman may have been taken from the esoteric Gospels and inserted into the exoteric ones as part of the early attempts to convert lots of women. That the story appeals to women may have been incidental or irrelevant to those who first invented or recorded it, and things like Jesus writing in the sand with his finger may have been much more significant than the sex of the accused. But more significant only to the initiate: to a wider audience, then as now, that detail is as obscure as the rest is clear. Jesus forgives a sinner, and the sinner is a woman. All sinners will like the message, but female sinners will like it even more.
And female adulterers most of all. The story may not be intended to appeal quite so narrowly as that, but there certainly seem to be examples elsewhere of Gospel messages intended not just for women but for a specific group of women. Rich women:
Mark xiv, 3. And being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he [Jesus] sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on his head. 4. And there were some that had indignation within themselves, and said, Why was this waste of the ointment made? 5. For it might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and have been given to the poor. and they murmured against her. 6. And Jesus said, Let her alone; why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on me. 7. For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always. 8. She hath done what she could: she is come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying. 9. Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her.
If you’re a poor woman, you’ll like the idea that a woman does something loving for Jesus and is praised for it; if you’re a rich woman, you’ll like the idea that a rich woman does something loving and extravagant for Jesus, is criticized for it by the disciples, and is then defended and praised by Jesus. You’ll also like the idea that the poor are always with us, which means that giving them money, while a Good Thing, isn’t absolutely always necessary.
The church liked that idea too, because it meant that rich women could feel comfortable giving money to it rather than the poor. The church liked the idea so much, in fact, that it appears elsewhere in the Gospels. That “spice-girl” story can appeal to all women, just about; I don’t think this one can:
Luke, x, 38. Now it came to pass, as they went, that he [Jesus] entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house. 39. And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard his word. 40. But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me. 41. And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: 42. But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.
I don’t think you’d find this story appealing if you’re a female servant or slave, because the message it gives is that the heart is more important than the hands. Put another way: the gift of love is more precious than the gift of cash.
The trouble is that it’s not always so useful, and it’s not always so sincere. It is, however, much easier to supply, even if you’re rich. Or particularly if you’re rich. I say that because there’s another story in the Gospels that seems to contradict what I’ve just been saying about the appeal of the Gospels to rich women. Here it is:
Luke, xxi, 1. And he [Jesus] looked up, and saw the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury. 2. And he saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites. 3. And he said, Of a truth I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all: 4. For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God: but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had.
There are a number of ways of resolving this apparent contradiction. First, there is the obvious point that the Gospels are literature, not mathematics, and a contradiction is not fatal to them – fortunately enough, because there are lots more beside this one. In fact, contradictions may even be very important to them as *religious* literature, because contradictions encourage the right kind of irrational mindset in religious believers. Not many people have died or killed to defend the truth of “1 + 1 = 2”, for example, but very many have both died and killed to defend the truth of “God is Three, but also One”. Why? Perhaps because you have to invest much more effort in believing the latter and are, subconsciously, much more worried about whether or not it is true.
The subconscious can certainly explain another common human reaction to contradictions: that of failing to see them at all, or of failing to remember them once they have been seen. This was once pointed out by Charles Darwin when he was describing his scientific work:
I had also, during many years, followed a golden rule, namely that whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought came across me, which [sic] was opposed to my general results, to make a memorandum of it without fail and at once; for I had found by experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from the memory, than favourable ones.[5]
This may mean that some contradictions in the Gospels are deliberate not because they are intended to strengthen irrational beliefs but because those who put them there knew that they wouldn’t be noticed: the spice-girl story will be read by a poor woman as a story about a good woman and by a rich woman as a story about a good rich woman, and the story of the Widow’s Mites will be read by a poor woman as a story about a good poor woman and by a rich woman as a story about a good woman: neither reader will necessarily see any contradiction between the two.
Notice too that the story of the Widow’s Mites contrasts not just rich and poor but “rich men” and a “poor widow”. Prima facie, the contrast isn’t so clear in Greek and Latin, because although the plural adjectives and pronouns used to mean “rich men” are indeed masculine, they could be read as applying to both sexes.[6] However, they don’t have to be, and the translators of the Authorized Version certainly didn’t read them like that. Nor, doubtless, did many rich female readers of the Greek or Latin Gospels in the early days of Christianity: to them too, the story pointed a contrast between “rich men” and a “poor widow”.
But it also, implicitly, pointed a contrast between how easy it is for a poor woman to give of her all and how hard for a rich woman. All the poor woman had to do was take a couple of mites – two tiny copper coins – and throw them in the temple treasury. A rich woman couldn’t give of her all anywhere near as quickly or conveniently, and a rich woman wouldn’t necessarily have complete control of “her all” anyway, because it wouldn’t necessarily be hers, but her husband’s or her family’s. The poor woman is a widow, after all: she certainly has no husband and perhaps no children to look after either. So probably no-one else at all is affected by what she does. Which makes it highly admirable, but not, alas, highly emulatable.
That, at least, is the conclusion I think many rich Christian women must have drawn from this story (and must still draw). It flatters the female sex, but it doesn’t lay down an example for every member of it to follow. And even if it does – partly – its example doesn’t have to followed to the letter. The poor widow is giving her money to religion, but she’s doing it in a quiet, humble way: Jesus realizes what she’s done, but no-one else may do. She comes to the temple treasury, throws in a couple of coins, and goes away again: where’s the satisfaction in that?
Or rather, where’s the earthly satisfaction in that? Presumably the widow is rewarded in heaven, and rightly so, but she doesn’t get much fun on earth. Maybe if she’d had more money to give she would have, because then she might have been able to join the followers of Jesus mentioned at the beginning of Luke, chapter viii:
1. And it came to pass afterward, that he [Jesus] went throughout every city and village, preaching and shewing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God: and the twelve were with him, 2. and certain women, which had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene, out of whom went seven devils, 3. And Joanna the wife of Chuza Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others, which ministered unto him of their substance. 4. And when much people were gathered together, and were come to him out of every city, he spake by a parable: 5. A sower went out to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it.
Giving money like that sounds much more fun, doesn’t it? But it doesn’t sound as though the fun was mentioned from the beginning: that passage would read better if verses 2 and 3 were removed. Which doesn’t necessarily mean that they were inserted: perhaps something else is missing. Either way, though, they contain a message that may be clearer in this translation from the New International Version of the Bible:
viii, 3. ... These women were helping to support them out of their own means.
In other words, it’s yet another message from the church for its rich female followers: Jesus is gone, so you can’t minister unto him any more, but we’re Jesus’s representatives, and we’re still here.
But there’s also a message there for demonically possessed women cured by the church: you can help us too, even if you aren’t rich. The genius of early Christianity was that it didn’t appeal exclusively to one group, or rather, to one out-group. It appealed to several: I’ve examined one of them here: women. I could also have examined out-groups like lepers or invalids or slaves or homosexuals or foreigners. In each case, you can find good evidence in the Gospels of an early policy of appeal and recruitment, and in each case you can find even better evidence in history that once recruitment was both successful and irrevocable, Christianity did what it also did to women: told the group in question: “Thanks a lot. Now get lost.” Machiavelli didn’t invent Machiavellianism, you know. Nor, despite his best efforts, did he ever apply its principles successfully in real life. Christianity did though, and we’re still suffering the consequences. I hope this article has shown you who’s partly to blame, too – bloody women. Well, haemorrhagic ones, anyway.
[1]I’m used to the idea that Christianity is a dishonest religion, but it can still surprise me. As in the modern translations of “blessed paps” comment in the Good New Bible and the New International Version, which run:
“How happy is the woman who bore you and nursed you!”
and
“Blessed is the woman who gave you birth and nursed you.”
I think the translators would call these paraphrases. I’d call them dishonest paraphrases, intended not to avoid literally translating an ancient Eastern idiom but to avoid offending modern Western sensibilities. “Womb” and “breasts” are plainly mentioned in the original and Jesus is plainly borne by the former and sucking on the latter: “Makaria he koilia he bastasasa se kai mastoi hous ethelasas” – “Blessed the womb having-borne thee and [the] breasts that thou hast sucked.”
[2]See the article “Light of Our Lady” by Wendy Samuels.
[3]The synoptic Gospels – Matthew, Mark, and Luke – are so-called because, particularly by comparison with John, they take a similar view of Jesus and the incidents of his life. In Greek, they show a synopsis, or a “seeing-together”.
[4]Peake’s Commentary to the Bible, Thomas Nelson & Sons, Edinburgh, 1959, appendix to the Rev. A.E. Brooke’s commentary on John, pg. 765
[5]Autobiography, pg. 73 of the 88-page text published in Charles Darwin and T. H. Huxley: Autobiographies, ed. Gavin de Beer, Oxford University Press, 1983.
[6]They are translated like that in the New International Version:
xxi, 1. As he looked up, Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury.
The Greek reads:
Anablepsas de eiden tous ballontas eis to gazophylakion ta dora auton plousious.
And the Latin:
Respiciens autem, vidit eos qui mittebant munera sua in gazophylacium, divites.
© 2004 Simon Whitechapel