This study finds a new and productive way to explore the problem of sexual difference, not only in Paul, but also in second and third century writers who draw on Paul's Christ/Adam typology. Dunning goes beyond the well-worn discussion of the contradictions in the explicit gender passages in Paul (for example, Gal. 3:28 and 1 Cor. 11:2–16) to consider the way Paul's theological anthropology, especially his use of the Adam/Christ typology, create a fundamental problem regarding sexual difference. Dunning argues that these early Christian writers were intent on interpreting creation (Adam) and redemption (Christ) as a single event of signification—the eschaton was to be viewed in relation to creation. At a time when there was widespread philosophical interest in monism, the oneness in Christ called also for a oneness at creation. Thus, for some early Christian writers, Adam became representative of the primal androgyne, prefiguring the similarly non-differentiated state in the eschaton. As Dunning rightly notes, the sex/gender hierarchical logic of the ancient world presupposed that (paradoxically to us) in its perfection this primal androgyne was necessarily masculine. The problem with this theological anthropology, as Dunning identifies it, concerns the body of Eve, that is, the female body. Where does it fit in a theology framed by the masculine bodies of Adam and Christ? Working his way through a number of early Christian writers Dunning attempts to trace what he terms a “large-scale discursive failure” (154) to present a coherent resolution to the haunting presence of the female body.
In addition to building on the significant body of work that is now available on sex and gender in antiquity, the book is theoretically influenced by a range of postmodern theorists, with Judith Butler, Jacques Derrida, and Slavoj Žižek, among the most prominent. The debt to these theorists is evident throughout the work, but perhaps most explicitly in the introduction and the conclusion. For example, the author is influenced by Derrida and Žižek in his frequent use of the terms “specter” and “haunting” to indicate the way that the problem of sexual differentiation continues to make its presence known in various adoptions and adaptations of Pauline anthropology. In the conclusion, Dunning's indebtedness to these postmodern theories is clear in his suggestion that the failure to resolve the presence of the feminine is not an ethical failure, but points to the possibility of an “eschatological vision of the human that could still admit of fragmentation, partialness and undomesticated difference . . .” (155). With this emphasis on difference, Dunning positions his conclusions as a potential resource for feminist and queer theology.
Following the introduction, which gives an account of the problem of sexual difference in Paul's thought in terms of ancient conceptions of the sex/gender continuum, the book is divided into two parts—the “Platonic Woman” and “Flesh and Virginity.” The first part deals with early Christian writers who were influenced by platonizing philosophers as they drew on Paul's Adam/Christ typology. Chapter 1 in this section presents two texts as paradigms for different strategies of dealing with the “specter” of the female body. The Excerpts from Theodosius proposes the eradication of the female, as it is transformed into the male in the eschaton, while the Gospel of Philip carves out a supporting role for the female as the undefiled virgin, supplementing the male. Dunning suggests that while these texts present seemingly coherent treatments of the problem of sexual differentiation, other texts that develop these two strategies (erasure and supplement) more extensively reveal the fissures in these resolutions. The rest of book sets out to illustrate this persistent and fundamental incoherence. Chapters 2 and 3 examine the texts of Clement of Alexandria and On the Origin of the World respectively, which in different ways move toward the eradication of the female. Part two explores the figure of the virgin (both undefiled and deflowered) as it is deployed in Ireneus and Tertullian to contain the problem of sexual difference.
Overall, the individual arguments proceed in a sophisticated, if sometimes obscure way and it is impossible to do justice here to each analysis as it unfolds. One particularly interesting case is Dunning's interpretation of Eve's absence in Clement's Protrepticus II. Here he argues that Clement introduces a semi-personified “desire” who stands in for the missing Eve in his reading of Genesis. The ancient author links desire to the feminine, and by urging for the eradication of desire, also advocates the eventual erasure of the female. On the other hand, Dunning shows that because Clement also links desire subjectively to Adam, the feminine persists internally, confounding Adam's ideal masculinity.
Other readings proceed similarly, pointing to logical inconsistencies or instabilities evident in close readings of each author. In this way, there is a predictable plot to the book. There is little suspense as one is led painstakingly through these sometimes convoluted texts, all the while knowing that in spite of varying strategies and theological frameworks, these authors will be shown to have unsuccessfully exorcized the specter of the feminine. Whether this failure haunted the authors is an entirely different question and not one that seems to concern Dunning. The instabilities that he unmasks arguably reside more in the logic of the present than in the past. Thus, it is fitting that the book's conclusions are geared toward creating a resource for a postmodern queer and feminist theories. Still, I wonder whether we should not dwell more with the way these texts likely did cohere for their ancient authors, even if they do not for us. In short, the flipside of Dunning's work points to a specter of a different sort, the ongoing legacy of a monism and a sex/gender system that equates perfection, indeed divinity, with an incorporeal masculinity, even now, in some contemporary theological systems.
