ABSTRACT
Inexplicably, Augustine must…affirm that Eve, too, has a rational nature, being likewise a compound of spirit and body. Yet in relation to man she stands for body vis-à-vis male spirit.
(Rosemary Radford Ruether) The Western ‘fathers of the church’ have provided some of the most ambivalent accounts of women in history, idealising woman as virgin while denouncing the tempting seductress. This chapter addresses methodologies deployed in feminist interpretation of religious philosophy through a discussion of interpretations of Saint Augustine’s views on women. There is a genre of simple critique of misogynist representations of women. Critique runs the risk of reinforcing the consistency of the tradition, rather than analysing its instability. There is also a feminist tradition of exposing the incoherence of representations of women. This can distract from interrogating the coherence of the figure to which women are subordinated: man.
