A Christ with Boobs

By Jonas Atlas

It’s often thought that Christianity is predominantly occupied with dogma and ritual. Mysticism, so it seems, belongs to the fringes of the Christian tradition — certainly in its contemporary Catholic and Protestant forms. Yet Christian mysticism wasn’t always as marginalized as it is today. For a long time, it remained deeply entwined with both lay religion and institutionalized churches.

Just like in most (or perhaps all) other great religious traditions, the Christian search for truth was combined with a search for beauty. The masculine religious logic of theology and ethics found its counterbalance in the feminine religious mythologic of imagination and spirituality. And just like in most (or perhaps all) other great religious traditions the masculine approach to religion often found its most poignant exteriorization in creeds and cosmologies while the feminine approach towards religion often found its most abundant exteriorization in mysticism.

Of course, when speaking of ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’ approaches to religion, the implication isn’t that only women would be capable of a mystical approach towards life. Men can have just as much mystical experiences, while women can also be well versed in argumentative theology. As such, the distinction here is not some pubescent opposition between ‘men from Mars’ and ‘women from Venus’. Rather it advances a concept like the old traditional Chinese symbol of yin and yang. It’s about opposite poles on a continuum which are present in each and every one of us. In the socio-psychology of modernity, however, most of these poles were linked with ‘the feminine’ or ‘the masculine’. The modern mind associates masculinity with lines, borders, categories, activity, analysis, power, force, law, stability and mind, while it associates femininity with curves, fluidity, hiddenness, passivity, experience, mystery, softness, emotion and body. (In fact, modern English, knows no gender-neutral concept like yin and yang. As such it can only rely on the terms ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ to express these polarities.)

In this respect it is interesting to see how the modern mind conceives religion as an almost purely masculine endeavor. The more feminine approach of mysticism is seen as something separate. It is claimed that malestream religion opposes such an approach.

Yet those who take a broader look at the long history of Christianity will see how a more feminine mystical approach to religion has been more than present before. As could be witnessed in the ubiquitous devotion to Mary, feminine spirituality often received a prominent place. It used to be a very alive and active principle in Christian societies.

One particularly beautiful example thereof is an image of Saint Bernard which can be found in different variations throughout Europe. It portrays this saint, who gave us a famous series of mystical interpretations on the Song of Songs, praying in front of a Mary statue at a time when he had gone blind. As legend has it, the statue came alive, took out its breast and squirted its milk on the eyes of the saint in order to heal them.

One of the paintings depicting this mythological moment can be found in the Belgian museum of Notre-Dame à la Rose in Lessines. However, on the opposite wall, one can see another exquisite painting which offers an even more poignant example: a Christ with boobs.

For a couple of centuries, this Notre-Dame à la Rose has been the hospice of a sisterhood with a strong spirituality of care. That is why, in this convent-cum-hospital, one can thus find such a peculiar image of the Descent from the Cross. The website of the museum offers the following description:

This intriguing painting, dating from the end of the 16th century, portrays a lying Christ, surrounded by the saintly women of Saint-John. Look very carefully at the representation of Christ in this image: he was painted with female breasts. Such images of Christ as a spiritual father and mother, refer to several religious and mystical writings that lend Christ feminine and motherly features. Christ has placed his hand on his breast and thus offers ‘spiritual nourishment’ to the sisters.

Even though the idea of a ‘feeding Christ’ wasn’t new, such a visual representation certainly wasn’t common. It wasn’t appreciated by all. Nevertheless, in the 16th century the abbess could still request a painter to paint female breasts on this image of The Lamentation of Christ by the Holy Women. Only later, in the 19th century, was it deemed inappropriate and painted over. However, it was rediscovered after restoration works in the last decade of the 20th century.

This painting thus becomes a very pertinent symbol of the manner in which the Christian world gradually pushed feminine spirituality to the margin, and the manner in which feminine spirituality became ever more decoupled from masculine rationality. It shows how the view on the essence of religion drastically changed during the periods which are called ‘the Enlightenment’ and ‘Modernity’. It shows how mystical and mythological thinking were gradually denied, ‘painted over’ and forgotten — not because of ‘malestream religion’ but because of changes in our modern — and quite binary — way of thinking.