Early Christians Grapple with Virginity and Divinity
Origen stressed that love of God must come before all other expressions of love, even that of a man for his wife. He also believed in the human pre-existence as angelic spirits. Once the angel fell from grace, the consequence of his sin was human birth. Stories of angels as messengers of the Lord appear in both the Old and New Testaments. The angels were usually male, as might be expected in a patriarchal culture in which a woman's testimony was not valued or accepted. In the fourth century, Peter of Alexandria disagreed with Origen's thinking and accused his predecessor of borrowing ideas from the Greeks.
Origen believed in the perpetual virginity of the mother of Jesus, and that Mary was first among virgins, meaning her purity exceeded that of all others. Origen and others referred to the young church as being as pure as Mary's virginity; the church was frequently described in the first few centuries of religious writing as the “chaste bride,” and “the virgin.” Virginity became a sacrifice that one could make for the church. Indeed, many Christian women became virgin martyrs for the faith, offering first their chastity to God, and then their lives for their beliefs.
Like Origen, other men of the early Church wrestled with and wrote about female icons in the Bible, mainly the temptress and the virgin. Athanasius (A.D.296 — A.D. 373) and Epiphanius of Salamis (circa A.D. 310 — A.D. 420) refer to Mary, Jesus' mother, as the perpetual or “ever” virgin. And while the early church fathers saw a feminine ideal in the Blessed Virgin, they didn't devote major writings to her or her state of virginity; only through her approximation to the Lord does she receive mentions in various writings. As has already been stated, she stood alone as the perfection and strength of womanhood, while Eve represented the weakness.
Augustine (A.D. 354'A.D. 430), who became Bishop of Hippo and named a Doctor of the Church, was born of a Catholic mother and a pagan father at Tagaste, in North Africa. He is widely credited with being one of the most influential contributors to Western Christianity. Augustine addressed the topic of original sin, and underscored his own lustful desires in
Augustine, like some of the patriarchs of the Old Testament, had a concubine for fifteen years, with whom he had a child. Augustine sent the woman back to Africa from Milan prior to his conversion to Christianity. He confessed that he struggled against the wretched sin of lust, which he saw as an impediment to a life of virtue.
A giant among the great thinkers of his time, Augustine wrote vigorously against literal interpretation of the Bible, even expounding the idea that the universe and everything in it was created simultaneously, rather than in six days. Many writers have asserted that Augustine's understanding of the Genesis creation story translated to a belief in the moral and physical inferiority of women (a belief that Aristotle and Plato also held). However, he did recognize women's value as their mate's helper in the process of procreation. origen, Augustine, and other early church fathers, both before and after them, didn't alter prevailing societal beliefs about the status of women, but they did define and defend the faith. They were the ones who, early on, grappled with some of the thorniest issues of theology and, through their understanding, clarified many beliefs that Christians held during their lifetimes, and still hold today.
