Severus of Antioch on Gender: The Evidence of his Cathedral Homilies

Leading anti-Chalcedonian theologian, Severus, served as patriarch of Antioch for under six years (512–518), before he was expelled by Chalcedonian emperor Justin I. Severus’s 125 Cathedral Homilies, delivered in Greek, survive mostly in Syriac, the language of the Syrian Orthodox Church, which adopted Severus as a founding figure. An examination of this corpus of homilies reveals Severus’s original outlook on gender, and his positive attitude to women, past and present. Severus proposes what may be called a “diachronic” model of gender. Unlike a “synchronic” model that bases gender distinctions on anatomical sex at any given moment in time, in Severus’s diachronic model gender distinctions are decoupled from sex, and are based instead on changes in time. There are periods in history where all people are women, and periods where all are men. Severus’s diachronic gender model is linked to his appreciation of “biological” women past and present whom he extols, and to his passionate argument against societally and traditionally accepted restrictions against women’s participation in certain parts of the liturgy. This article explores the contours, ramifications, and limitations of Severus’s novel outlook on gender, on women, and on men, as it emerges from his Cathedral Homilies.