A woman with Saint Peter's Keys?: Aemilia Lanyer's Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum and the priestly gifts of women

Criticism, Summer, 2003 by Micheline White

A brief examination of traditional approaches to the disciples will estabhsh a standard against which to examine Lanyer's work. Scholars note that the twelve male disciples occupy a curious place in the Gospels, for although Christ provides them with special teaching, they misunderstand his identity and mission, and when it becomes clear that he will suffer a humiliating death, they betray and abandon them. (28) However, precisely because they had foolishly abandoned their master, the disciples were viewed as exemplary sinners, and their actions were believed to facilitate a reader's engagement with the Passion narrative. In the Geneva Bible, Peter's denial of Christ at the High Priest's Hall is accompanied by notes that encourage readers to identify with Peter and contemplate their absolute weakness "until they be raised up againe, by a new vertue of God" (John 18:25). (29) Furthermore, Christ was reunited with his disciples after his resurrection, and he instructed and sent them to continue his ministry.

Lanyer departs from this traditional perspective, and she frames her Passion in ways that are unusually critical of the disciples. For example, whereas the Geneva Bible glosses Peter's refusal to believe Christ's prediction that he would deny him by noting that Peter is an "excellent person" who is nonetheless a "sorrowfull example of marts rashnesse and weakenesse" (Mark 14:29), Lanyer vehemently accuses Peter of pride and "forward speech," and refers to his subsequent denial as a "crime" that will inflict "sinne and shame" (35758). In her account of Christ's Agony, she expresses amazement that Christ should try to communicate his grief to the "Scorpions" who are the "cause" of his woe (381, 380), and she devotes two stanzas to the disparity between Christ's love and their impending failure. She notes further that although Christ's affliction should "moove pitie" (395), the disciples fall asleep, and she follows Mark and Matthew in order to stress that Christ returns to find them sleeping more than once. (30) Her accentuation of the disciples' spiritual lethargy is all the more striking because she praises her female readers for displaying watchfulness, the very virtue that the disciples lack. Frank Matera notes that the Agony's themes of watching and faith are treated immediately before the Agony in the parable of the wise and foolish virgins (Matt. 25:1-13), a parable that Lanyer draws on in the poem "To all vertuous Ladies in generall." (31)

In her account of Christ's arrest, Lanyer continues to accentuate the disciples' failings, focusing on Peter's violent outburst. She notes that although the disciples have been "wait[ing]" on Christ and have promised to be "sharers in his Ils" (577-78), they do not understand his teaching. When Peter wounds a soldier, Lanyer apostrophizes him directly, claiming that he has failed to follow Christ's peaceful "paths," that his gesture "offends" Christ, and that Christ must undo his act by healing the victim (603, 600). This interpretation of Peter's gesture differs significantly from Samuel Rowlands's praise for "manly valiant Peter" who fought against an "armed multitude" even though his charge was not to fight but to "feed/The flocke of sheepe committed to his hand." (32) Lanyer concludes her account of the arrest by depicting the disciples' flight, and while the Geneva Bible provides no commentary on their flight, she devotes an entire stanza to it, characterizing it as a "fall" and a failure to endure the "triall of affliction" (630, 627).