Review of Rumsey’s book

Review of Patricia Rumsey’s Less she Pollute the Sanctuary

by John Wijngaards, in RENEW. Quarterly Magazine for Catholics for a changing Church, no 197, March 2021, p. 17.

__

‘LEST SHE POLLUTE THE SANCTUARY’. The Influence of the Protoevangelium Iacobi on Women’s Status in Christianity, by Patricia M. Rumsey, Brepols Publishers, Turnhout Belgium 2020, paperback, 243 pgs, € 65.

This fascinating book explains how an apocryphal nativity account of probably second-century Syriac origin managed to inflict damaging effects on Christian life. It caused monastic isolation, disgust of female sexuality and reluctance to admit women to holy orders. Many pages of Rumsey’s study are devoted to document how in the West, in spite of official dismissal of the account, it conquered popular imagination and devotion by means of liturgical prayers and readings. It became a favourite source for sermons, spiritual writings and festive celebrations. But since I have to keep this review short, I will focus on the elements of the story that had such a devastating impact.

Mary’s birth from Anna and Joachim is depicted as a divinely guided event. By confining baby Mary in an inner room, she is prevented from walking on earthly soil. As a three-year old child she is locked up in the Holy of Holies in the Temple where ‘she received food from the hand of an angel’. Rumsey, herself the abbess of a Poor Clare monastery, shows how this generated an ideal of monastic holiness through enclosure, condemning women to a life in prison and depriving them of taking part in a meaningful apostolate.

To return to the story, when Mary reaches the age of twelve her guardian priests decide she may not remain in the Temple ‘lest she pollute the sanctuary’. Even pure Mary’s menstruation would defile a holy place! This, combined with the prevalent cultural distrust of menstrual blood, led to the conviction that women should be barred from access to the altar, removing them from the possibility of presbyteral ordination.

The nativity legend then revolves around Mary’s undefiled virginity. Joseph, to whom she has been entrusted, doubts her virginity but is corrected by an angel. The priests take Joseph and Mary to court where they are tested with a ‘potion of the ordeal’ which proves them innocent. Mary gives birth in a cave near Bethlehem where a midwife witnesses the virgin birth: Jesus appears in a burst of light. Another midwife called Salome establishes Mary’s post-partum virginity by ‘thrusting her finger and examining her (private) parts’. The implication: a woman is contaminated if she is exposed to any form of sex.

Next to the Manichaean remnants in St Augustine’s teaching, the devotional obsession with Mary’s virginity helped to push the Church into its lasting disdain of a healthy human sexuality. As Rumsey illustrates, normal womanhood has now become something shameful, polluting and degrading. A deep-seated distrust of matter, body, sex which underlies Mary’s virginity story greatly influences present-day Vatican legislation, such as enforced priestly celibacy, dismissal of marital intercourse unless capable of contraception and forbidding bodily touch in same-sex relationships.

Rumsey’s thoroughly researched and well-documented account – I counted 892 footnotes! – gives much room for thought. How could we as a Church allow such a concoction of ridiculous tales to impoverish the lives of countless Christian women through the centuries? How can we continue now to tolerate its deleterious effects?

John Wijngaards