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It's not a good idea to use the quote enemies of the Church like to share to trash St. Augustine. St. Augustine thinks that man and woman, as souls, are each fully and equally the image of God, but he also thinks the image has nothing to do with the body. (1/?) https://twitter.com/DacReactionary/status/1262498661034086401
The image exists ubi nullus sexus est, i.e. where no sex is, nor even in every part of the soul (neque secundum quamlibet animi partem). Rather, the image resides only in the rationalis mens, in that which is contemplative of eternal things (De Trinitate XII, 4, 4). (2/?)
A woman is an imago Dei in the same way a man is, so that in their minds a common nature is found. (Ibid. 8, 13) Each sex is the image of God. The sexual distinction refers only to the body and its domain. (3/?)
Augustine says, "In the first condition of being human, a woman also had a rational mind, according to which she too was made in the image of God." (De Genesi ad litteram III, 22, 34) For him, the image of God is sexless. (4/?)
A woman is a woman and a man is a man precisely and only in terms of their bodies. Sexuality, to him, is wholly bodily. He says: "There could have been no distinction of male and female except in relation to the body. (5/?)
A woman, for all her physical qualities as a woman, is actually renewed in the spirit of her mind in the knowledge of God according to the image of her Creator, and therein there is no male or female." (Ibid. 22, 34) (6/?)
He understands 1 Corinthians 11:7 as a metaphor, not a metaphysical claim: "Although in the sex of their body, something different is symbolized, on account of which man alone is said to be the image and glory of God." (Ibid.) This is figurative, not literal/constitutional. (7/?)
It potrays the hierarchy between man and woman as bodies. He explains: "Woman, who has indeed a natural equality in the mind of rational understanding, by the sex of the body she might be subject to the masculine sex." (8/?)
Augustine believes that man should direct woman in one human nature. But, between the sexes, there is no spiritual hierarchy. So, Augustine thinks man is stronger/superior and woman weaker/inferior only with regard to their bodily aspects. (9/?)
As an imago Dei, a woman can and must perform as a man does. Woman and man are spiritual equals in Augustine's philosophical anthropology. (10/?)
Charges of gross misogyny that St. Augustine has to endure to this day AND the number of Catholics sharing these quotes to "own women" is deceitful and worrisome. He countered St. Jerome's vitriol on married life and argued against the double standard of sexual conduct. (11/?)
He also presented women in his life in unabashedly glowing terms. St. Aquinas relied on him to argue that woman is indeed an imago Dei, yet omits his full writings because he maintained woman is not so perfect an image as man is. (12/?)
St. Augustine thinks of himself and every other human primarily as a soul ("ego, ego anima") and in this aspect, men and women are nothing but equals. (13/13)
