Not long ago the Southern Baptist Convention ruled that the traditional, literal reading of Colossians 3:18 is a Christian doctrine: “Wives, be subject to your husbands,” (as the Revised Standard Version puts it; the New American Bible translation, which Catholics hear at Mass, says “be submissive”).
There was such brouhaha in the media following the Convention’s statement that you would think the Baptists had endangered national security.
The idea of a permanent obligation to another person does not sit well with the average American individualist. The Scripture verse also contradicts the unisex egalitarian mind-set. Little wonder that emotions run so high in the current controversy.
The argument that St. Paul was a celibate, ergo a woman-hater, has been used for more than a century to dismiss the teaching in question. It is comical, though, to watch secular feminists trying to dictate to married Southern women how they should read their Bible.
Adrienne von Speyr (1902-1967) was both a successful career woman and a wife. A brilliant bi-lingual student, she went on to complete medical school in Switzerland. (Her family disapproved, so she supported herself and paid her own way by tutoring on the side.) In 1927 she married Emil Dürr, a widowed history professor and the following year began what was to be a long and successful medical practice.
With her many accomplishments Adrienne von Speyr could serve as a feminist icon, yet she was a life-long Christian who loved and meditated upon Sacred Scripture. After becoming a Catholic she committed to writing her meditations on St. Paul’s Letter to the Colossians, five pages of which are devoted to the disputed passage (Chapter 3, verses 18-21). Her voice deserves to be heard in the present debate.
Von Speyr’s meticulous, line-by-line commentary on Colossians puts Paul’s advice to wives in perspective. She entitles Chapter 3 of the epistle “Life From Christ”. Paul’s instructions to the Christians of Colossus are neither arbitrary opinions nor the antiquated rules of a long-gone society. Rather, St. Paul is teaching the Christian community what it means to live in Christ, with the life of grace that only God can give. “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God…. For you have died [to sin through Baptism], and your life is hid with Christ in God.” (Col. 3:1, 3).
Von Speyr points out that this mystery is a transaction. “Now Christ has taken on our life and has given us his. His birth becomes the entrance of eternal life into time, and participation in this birth becomes for believers participation in the life of the triune God.” Christians behave differently in the world because they now live a supernatural life.
Life in Christ is not automatic. St. Paul assures us that it involves a struggle to overcome worldly, sinful habits. “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: immorality, impurity, [etc.]” (Col. 3:5). Von Speyr applies this to the ongoing work of staying Christian. “The Cross did not simply blow sin away; rather, it furnished believers with all possible weapons against it. The Lord has made the decisive move, and he offers the strength of his decision to Christians as they make decisions.”
A baptized person has “put on the new nature” (Col. 3:10). Therefore Christians live a life of increased freedom and responsibility. As adopted children of God, Christians should transcend worldly divisions of nationality and economic status, practice forgiveness and virtue, and preserve unity in charity (Col. 3:11-14).
St. Paul summarizes his teaching thus far by referring to the doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ. “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body.” (Col. 3:15). Adrienne von Speyr, having studied anatomy and physiology, has vivid insights into the spiritual “structure” of the Mystical Body. “A new light falls now on the commandment to love one's neighbor…. In this way the communion of saints is realized, in that those who love are linked to each other by love; in being so bound they also receive their place in the Church.”
Consider now Paul’s advice to married women. “Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.” Von Speyr explains. “[This is] a sentence that one cannot divide in two; the first half of it leads immediately to the second. Wives, then, have their proper place in the great order that the Lord brings….” The order here is not merely for the sake of order; rather it is the way that Redemption has reunited earth with heaven – in the Church. Von Speyr continues: “Wives, by their subordination to their husbands, are fit into a hierarchical order. Each married woman should be subject to her husband, but subordination is itself an expression of ecclesiastical life: it is determined by faith and is aware that it is from the Lord.”
God created man and woman in a “complementary equality”. The sin of Adam and Eve disrupted the order of creation and the right relationship between husband and wife. Von Speyr describes the transforming effects of grace: “In the Lord, marriage is instituted anew. A certain subordination in love remains, but it is accompanied by a blessing.” God the Son became man to save us and to give us an example of obedience to God the Father. “Subordination now is no longer coercion or distressing humiliation; it is sanctification that leads to the Lord, an ordering into his order.”
Of course, married women are not the only ones with Christian obligations. “A wife is sustained not simply by her Lord but also by her husband, whom Paul next admonishes. ‘Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them’ (Col. 3:19). This love, then is the answer to subordination. But subordination also has to be the answer to the love of husbands.” Both love and obedience belong to the Lord: they are from Him and they lead Christian married couples to Him.
As explained by Adrienne von Speyr, St. Paul’s doctrine is not ink on paper in a dusty book sitting on a shelf, but a vital principle and a guide to happiness. A Christian wife’s submission to her husband presupposes the submission of both to Christ by faith. Furthermore, it calls forth the love of the Christian husband, who is to love his wife selflessly, as Christ loves the Church. The requirements are reciprocal, while both spouses share in the same supernatural grace given in the Sacrament of Matrimony.
According to von Speyr, when a man and a woman enter a Christian marriage, they become part of Christ’s work of uniting heaven and earth. As part of His spiritual structure, the Church, their marital love becomes a sign and an instrument of Christ’s love, helping one another and other souls as well on their way to eternity.
Adrienne von Speyr’s commentary on the Letter to the Colossians has the clarity and scope of an Alpine vista. She herself, though, did not have a picture-perfect marital life. She had three miscarriages and so never had the joy of raising children of her own. While still young she was widowed and left with two sons from Professor Dürr’s earlier marriage. She remarried somewhat reluctantly, concerned primarily that the growing boys should have a father.
Von Speyr’s meditation on marriage is that much more poignant if read in light of her personal experience. The remarkable thing is that, even though she was raised a Protestant and had not studied theology, she discovers in St. Paul’s letter the same doctrine on married life that the Catholic Church has always taught. (Compare her discussion of Colossians 3:18-21 with paragraphs 11-15 of The Christian Family in the Modern World, the 1981 post-synodal document by Pope John Paul II.)
Every living person breathes, whether or not he or she understands how the lungs replenish the bloodstream’s oxygen supply and get rid of carbon dioxide. Similarly, it is quite possible for a couple to live a Christian married life without investigating in detail the Church’s doctrine of the Mystical Body. If someone has difficulty inhaling and exhaling, however, it is evidently time to call a doctor. And when the inspired teachings of the New Testament on marriage are challenged by contemporary culture, it is worthwhile hearing them explained by a physician, wife, convert, author and mystic.
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Michael J. Miller translated The Letter to the Colossians by Adrienne von Speyr (Ignatius Press 1998) from German into English.
