Dist. 16, Art. 2, Q. 2
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/2/d/16/q/bon-sent-II-d16-a2-q2
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### Question II. *Whether the image is more principally in the male than in the female.*

Secondly it is asked whether the image is more principally in the male than in the female. And that it is so, seems the case.

*On the opposite side.* 1. First to the Corinthians, chapter eleven: *The man is the image and glory of God.* But this, as the Apostle says, separates the man from the woman: therefore either the woman is not the image, or if she is the image, she is not so expressly so as the man.

2. Likewise, the Gloss on the same passage: «To the image of God was the man made, not the woman»; but this is not said because the woman has in no way been made to the image: therefore it is said because she is less to the image than the man.

3. Likewise, because man is to the image, he is unitable to the divine nature; but he was more unitable in the male sex than in the female: therefore the man is more the image than the woman.

4. Likewise, because man is the image of God, he is set above and given charge over all things, as is intimated in the text, Genesis 1: *Let us make man to our image* etc. And it is added: *And let him have dominion over the fishes* etc.: therefore, if presiding does not belong to man in the female sex but in the male, it seems that the image is in the male sex in a more excellent way than in the female.

**On the contrary:** *Foundations.* 1. Genesis 1: *God created man to his own image and likeness, male and female he created them*: if therefore woman was created to the image of God and to the equality of the man — as the formation of her from the side intimates, and the reason also for which she was formed, when it is said: *Let us make a helper like to him* — it seems therefore that in the man and the woman alike the formal character of the image is found.

2. Likewise, the image is regarded in the human being with respect to the highest part of the soul; but in the highest part of the soul there is no distinction according to sex: therefore whether the human being be a woman or a man, he is equally the image.

3. Likewise, sex does not vary the species: therefore man and woman are of the same species; but the image follows the human being according to the form of the species, not according to the form of the individual: therefore it is equally in the man and the woman.

4. Likewise, the image of creation is ordered to the image of re-creation or of gratification; but the image of re-creation, which consists in grace and the virtues, can be just as excellently in the woman as in the man: therefore by parity of reason also the image of creation, in which the human being was constituted.

> **Conclusion.** The formal character of the image is not more in the man than in the woman as regards the first being, but only as regards an accidental property.

**I respond:** For the understanding of what has been said, it must be noted that, as is plain from the preceding, the image as regards its *being* principally consists in the soul and its powers, and most of all in these insofar as they are ordered to be turned to God; and as regards this there is no distinction of male and female, of slave and free: therefore *Conclusion 1.* the image, as regards that which belongs to its completion and to its *being*, is not more found in the man than in the woman. — But as regards *well-being* or clearer expression, it consists more in the soul, according as the soul has order and disposition to the body. And since the distinction of sexes is on the side of the body, and according to the distinction of sexes there is a greater representation either with respect to the account of *presiding* or with respect to the account of *originating*, because the man is the head of the woman, and the man is the principle of the woman, and *not the man is on account of the woman, but the woman on account of the man*: *Conclusion 2.* with respect to this mode then the image is found in a more excellent way in the male sex than in the female, not by reason of that which belongs to the *being* of the image itself, but by reason of that which lies adjacent to it. And according to this one can answer the objections plainly enough.

*To the arguments.* For the reasonings showing that the man is not more the image than the woman proceed from the image as regards its *first being*, as is plain to the one looking. But the reasonings on the opposite side proceed from the image as regards some *accidental property* or by way of relation to the body.

*To arguments 1 and 2 on the opposite side.* 1. 2. To that which the Apostle and the Gloss say, that *the man is the image and glory of God*; it must be said that "the man" is taken metaphorically for the superior part of reason, and "the woman" for the inferior, as Augustine expounds in the twelfth [book] of *On the Trinity*. And if you should object that the Apostle is speaking of the man and the woman according to the letter; it must be said that he is speaking of them not according to themselves but according to signification. For the man, because he is strong and presides over the woman, signifies the superior portion of reason, but the woman the inferior. Hence also it is the case in matrimony that the man signifies God, and the woman signifies the Church or the soul. But this is by reason of virility on the one side and of weakness or fragility on the other, which do not regard the image according to itself but by reason of the body adjoined; and so not essentially but accidentally.

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