Jesus as Mother and Abbot as Mother: Some Themes in Twelfth-Century Cistercian Writing

Abstract

A number of scholars in this century have noticed the image of God or Jesus as mother in the spiritual writings of the high Middle Ages. The image has in general been seen as part of a “feminine” or “affective” spirituality, and neither of these adjectives is incorrect. The idea of God as mother is part of a widespread use, in twelfth-century spiritual writing, of woman, mother, characteristics agreed to be “feminine,”and the sexual union of male and female as images to express spiritual truths; the most familiar manifestation of this interest in the “female” is the new emphasis on the Virgin in doctrinal discussions and especially spirituality. And the frequency of references to “mother Jesus” is also part of a new tendency in twelfth-century writing to use human relationships (friendship, fatherhood or motherhood, erotic love) in addition to metaphysical or psychological entities to explain doctrinal positions or exhort to spiritual growth.