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27
Plumbe, Mater Ecclesia, 9. Similarly, Plumbe remarks
that the idea of the Church as mother is “commonplace
with patristic writers everywhere” (47).
28
Cyprian, Letter 74.7.2, in Ancient Christian Writers:
The Works of the Fathers in Translation, vol. 47, eds.
Walter J. Burghardt and Thomas Comerford Lawler,
The Letters of St. Cyprian of Carthage, trans. and
annot. by G. W. Clarke, vol. 4 [Letters 67-82] (New
York: Newman, 1989), 74.
29
Carl E. Braaten, Mother Church: Ecclesiology and Ecumenism
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998), 2-3.
30
Robin Jenson documents this phenomenon in “Mater
Ecclesia and Fons Aeterna: The Church and Her
Womb in Ancient Christian Tradition,” in A Feminist
Companion to Patristic Literature, ed. Amy-Jill Levine,
137-55 (New York: T&T Clark, 2008).
31
Augustine, Sermon 57.2, in Works of Saint Augustine:
A Translation for the 21st Century, ed. John E. Rotelle
(Hyde Park, NY: New City, 1990-), 3:109-10.
32
Augustine, Sermon 213.7, in Fathers of the Church: A
New Translation (Washington, DC: Catholic University
of America Press, 1947-), 38:127.
33
Cited in Henri de Lubac, Christian Faith: An Essay
on the Structure of the Apostles’ Creed (San Francisco:
Ignatius, 1986), 199.
34
Martin Luther, Selected Writings of Martin Luther:
1529-1546, ed. Theodore G. Tappert (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 1967), 169.
35
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, vols.
20-21 of The Library of Christian Classics, ed. John
T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia:
Westminster, 1960), IV.1.4.
36
Cyprian, Epistle 73, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers: Translations
of the Writings of the Fathers Down to A.D. 325,
10 vols., ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson,
rev. A. Cleveland Coxe (reprint; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1973), 5:321-23.
37
Feminist theologian Robin Jenson comments on
how the early Church fathers connected baptism and
the maternal function of the Church: “In [baptism],
the Church was the spiritual mother—at once both
fecund and virginal—from whose impregnated womb
(a baptismal font) her children emerged.” Jensen,
“Mater Ecclesia and Fons Aeterna,” 137.
38
Interestingly, Hans Küng expressed his anger at the
Roman Catholic Church by refusing to love the
Church as a mother. See Hans Küng, On Being a
Christian, trans. Edward Quinn (Garden City, NY:
Doubleday, 1976), 522-24.
39
Angelo Cardinal Scola, The Nuptial Mystery, trans.
Michelle K. Borras, Ressourcement: Retrieval and
Renewal in Catholic Thought (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
2005), 254.
40
Ibid.
41
Jensen, “Mater Ecclesia and Fons Aeterna,” 138.
42
Scola, The Nuptial Mystery, 254.
43
Minear, Images of the Church in the New Testament,
56; see fn 6.
44
Richard of St. Victor, Patrologia Latina, 196, 405-
06, as cited in de Lubac, The Splendor of the Church,
365; cf. Ernest Best, One Body in Christ: A Study in
the Relationship of the Church to Christ in the Epistles
of the Apostle Paul (London: S. P. C. K., 1955), 179.
45
Richard A. Batey, New Testament Nuptial Imagery
(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1971), 1.
46
Per Batey, nuptial imagery is used in the Synoptic Gospels
(Matt 9:14, 15; 22:1-14; 25:1-13; Mark 2:18-20;
Luke 5:33-35; 12:35-40; cf. Luke 14:15-24), John’s
Gospel (2:1-11; 3:25-30), the Pauline Epistles (2 Cor
2:2-3, Eph 5:21-33); the Johannine Epistles (2 John
1); and Revelation (19:6-9; 21:2, 9; 22:17). Ibid.
47
For Origen’s view of the nuptial motif in the Song of
Songs, see Christopher J. King, Origen on the Song of
Songs as the Spirit of Scripture: The Bridegroom’s Perfect
Marriage-Song, Oxford Theological Monographs
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 1-7,
14-17, 110-12, 217-18.
48
E.g., Martin Luther, The Freedom of a Christian
(1520),” in Luther’s Works: American Edition, ed.
Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut T. Lehman, vols. 31-54
(Philadelphia: Fortress, 1957-75), 31:350-51, as cited
in Timothy Lull, ed. Martin Luther’s Basic Theological
Writings, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 397-
98; idem., Confession Concerning Christ’s Supper—Part
III (1528), in Luther’s Works, 37:369, as cited in Lull,
ed., Martin Luther’s Basic Theological Writings, 67.
49
Batey, New Testament Nuptial Imagery, 68-69.
50
De Lubac underscores this point: “The Bride of Christ
31