Siblings and the sexes within the medieval religious life

Church History, March, 2008 by Fiona J. Griffiths

Nevertheless, the pointed celebration of family that appears in Elisabeth's Cologne visions stands in sharp contrast to a long-standing tradition within Christian thought of ambivalence concerning natural, or biological, family. According to early Christians, believers were united by ties of spiritual kinship, which superseded the bonds of biological kinship. Jesus himself championed such a view, commenting that "whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother" (Matt. 12:50; cf. Mark 3:34-35, Luke 8:21). Elsewhere, Jesus spoke out even more strongly against biological family, counseling followers to reject blood ties entirely and declaring that "if anyone comes to me, and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children ... he cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26; cf. Mark 10:29, Matt. 19:29). According to this teaching, biological kinship was not simply inferior to its spiritual counterpart but in fact posed an active obstacle to true discipleship. (11)

Elisabeth's close ties with her brother Ekbert, together with the spirited defense of family that emerges from her Cologne visions, offers a robust challenge to this image of a Christianity in which biological ties presented little more than an obstacle for the holy man or woman to overcome. Even so, her defense of family, and in particular of the blamelessness of male-female kin relations, was not her own creation but formed part of a medieval tradition--rooted in late antiquity in which kinship bonds could be privileged as a legitimate context for contact between ascetic men and women. Already in the fourth century, the Synod of Elvira had ruled that bishops and other clerics should allow their daughters and sisters to live with them, provided that these women had vowed themselves to God. (12) Some years later at Nicaea, the assembled church leaders declared that while clerics were to refrain from entertaining unrelated women in their homes, they could nevertheless continue to welcome their "mother or sister or aunt," explicitly claiming that these women were above suspicion. (13)

The validation of family ties expressed in these two councils reflects one side of an ongoing debate within early Christian communities concerning both the proper stance of believers toward their biological families and the ideal relationship between men and women within the newly constituted spiritual "family." Neither topic was without controversy. Although Jesus had taught that all believers were joined to him and thus to each other--by ties of spiritual kinship, there was nevertheless considerable concern regarding the conduct of spiritual siblings, the so-called "brothers" and "sisters" to whom the apostle Paul had addressed himself. (14) Close friendships between these men and women were routinely viewed with suspicion and even denounced by skeptical observers who doubted that such friendships could have a spiritual purpose. (15) The danger that spiritual brothers and sisters might overstep the limits of acceptable affection was made clear in Clement of Alexandria's fear that even the ritual kiss of peace might, through "unrestrained use," cause "shameful suspicions and slanders." (16)