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Naked Woman nudity and
sin
It is difficult in our time to keep a sense of balance.
On the one hand, Christian culture still carries the scars of associating body and sin, and of considering nakedness, especially that of a naked woman, a symbol of seduction and sex.
On the other hand, the permissive culture of secular society cheapens respect for the body, and degrades sexual love and chastity. So I want to start with a principle. As Christians, we believe in the essential wholesomeness of all human bodies. We believe that we were created by a God who loves us as we are, body and soul. Our bodies, as Gods creation, are nothing for us to be ashamed of.
In this document we focus on nudity and its role in the exclusion of women from being fully accepted in the Church. The way nakedness was understood and represented has deeply effected, and continues to effect, the way women are perceived by many members in the Church, including some of our leaders. See also: Is naturism for Catholics?
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Naked Eve: the
temptress
The second creation story in Genesis
described how Adam and Eve lost their original innocence.
Shame for
nakedness shows awareness of sin. |
And when Eve saw that the tree was good for food, and that
it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she
took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with
her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew
that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves
aprons. Genesis 2,21-23 and
3,1-24 |
Notice how Eve and Satan both wear the same face and
have the same (female) body! To enlarge, click on the picture or
here.
To see the whole
painting, click here. |
Genesis, however, began to be interpreted so as to demonize the
body and sexuality. The myth in Genesis, even read with earnest doctrinal
intention, does not name sexuality but the breaking of Yahwehs
commandment as the cause of expulsion into the human condition, nor can the
knowledge of good and evil, which they gained by their act of
disobedience be totally explained in terms of sexual knowledge. Yet both
the disobedience and the knowledge soon became associated with sexuality
because the first thing Adam and Eve saw when their eyes were
opened was that they were naked. Before that they were naked and
unashamed; afterwards, it is implied, they were ashamed because they knew they
were naked, not because they had broken the word of their Lord God. Shameful
nakedness soon became sinful sexuality, ... A view of sexuality as
ungodly, underpins the character of Eve herself.
See the
excellent account in Eve: the Mother of
All Living, by Anne Baring and Jules Cashford.
See also: the representation of Adam and Eve in Christian art. |
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Naked Woman
Some influential Latin Fathers of the
Church saw a direct link between a womans nakedness and marriage. Jerome held that
marriage was only instituted after the fall. Marriage partakes in the effects
of sin. Augustine thought
that original sin was transmitted by sex, and that sexual pleasure itself was
sinful. Tertullian taught
that Eves curse lies on every woman.
Thus arose one of the reasons
why women could never be admitted to holy orders:
because every woman
is a creature riddled with sin. Woman was the effective cause of
damnation since she was the origin of transgression and Adam was deceived
through her, and thus she cannot be the effective cause of salvation, because
holy orders causes grace in others and so salvation.Guido de Baysio (1296
AD) |
To
enlarge, click on the picture or here. |
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The association between woman, sin
and death, as well as
the fear of
menstruation, led to Church customs, and later Church laws, forbidding any
woman to touch sacred things.
No woman may receive the holy
eucharist with bare hands. Every woman must have her
dominicale ( = a linen cloth to cover her hand) at communion.
Canons 36 and 42, diocesan synod of
Auxerre, France, in 585 or 588 AD..
Until 1914, the general code
of the Church contained these laws:
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To enlarge, click on the picture or
here. |
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Naked catechumens:
rebirth
It is not to be wondered at that, when
catechumens were led to baptism, they were first anointed over their whole
bodies, and then immersed in the baptismal water. The whole body needed to be
cleansed and to be reborn. That is why ordained women deacons were required,
viz. to anoint and
immerse female catechumens. |
The baptizer pours the oil for anointing into the cup of his
hands and rubs it on the whole body of the catechumen, also in between the
fingers of his hands and the toes of his feet, and his limbs, and his front and
his back. |
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To
see the whole painting,
click
here. |
It is interesting that, in Walesby, England,
a lead baptismal font
of the 5th cent. was found that shows two women, probably women deacons,
preparing a female catechumen for baptism. |
Naked Christ: vulnerable
humanity
Jesus probably hung naked on the cross. It
showed his human
vulnerability, in solidarity with us. |
To enlarge, click on the picture or
here. |
To enlarge, click on the picture or
here. |
An object of curiosity or rejection, she
hangs, bloodied and bruised, stripped of her dignity, crucified on the
cross of her calling. Above her head it is written: Woman
priest "
This is how Catholic women feel
whose vocation to the
priesthood is rudely rejected. |
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Christs nakedness on the cross is at times invoked to
demonstrate that only a male priest can represent him at the
Eucharist! * See the
background information here. * Read the refutation by
Emily C.
Hewitt. * See Blasphemy and
God-with-us by Tina van Lieshout. |
The priest consecrates at the head of the people because God
has singled him out in his maleness to be Christ for the people, the summation
of the naked man before his mother at Golgotha and the whitely robed man before
the harlot in the Garden: Sex and Eucharist are together.
George William Ruder, Priests and Priestesses (Ambler, Pa.:
Trinity Press, 1973), pp. 83-84. |
Naked Mary: restoring womans
dignity
The Belgian artist, Malagoli, painted the Pregnant
Virgin in 2002.
To enlarge, click on the picture or
here. |
As she describes in
the accompanying
article, she was amazed to find how many Catholics took exception at this
representation. She asks: How can a religion that believes in the Word made
Flesh object to imagining and representing this flesh that welcomed the
Word?
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An English artist, Guy Reid, produced a sculpture of Mary and
Child in which both figures are totally naked. He said his intention was to
portray the New Adam and New Eve. |
About this naked figure of Mary, read the following
reflections:
* The Naked
Madonna by Sarah Boss;
* The Handmaid of the
Lord by Louis Weil. |
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