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Spermatic and Uterine Dimensions in Mark and Luke's Parable of the Sower
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 November 2023
Abstract
This article examines the language of seed reception within the Parable of the Sower in Mark and Luke. The paper argues that Mark's diction introduces reproductive terms into the seed figure and that Luke edits Mark to include even more distinctively gynaecological and reproductive terminology. The result is a parable in Luke that turns the audience into uterine receptacles of the seed/logos.
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press
References
1 Although the secondary literature on this parable in Mark and Luke is extensive, I have not found any substantive treatment of reproductive language or imagery. For broad reviews of scholarship on the Markan parable and examples of agricultural focus, see White, K. D., ‘The Parable of the Sower’, JTS 15 (1964) 300–7Google Scholar; Crossan, J. D., ‘The Seed Parables of Jesus’, JBL 92 (1973) 244–66Google Scholar; Wenham, D. ‘The Interpretation of the Parable of the Sower’, NTS 20 (1974) 299–319CrossRefGoogle Scholar; J. Marcus, Mark 1–8 (AB; New York: Doubleday, 2000) 288–313; Collins, A. Y., Mark (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007) 239–52Google Scholar; and Gnilka, J., Das Evangelium nach Markus (2 vols.; EKKNT; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Patmos, 2015 2) 1.155–78Google Scholar; for scholarship on the Lukan version and examples of agricultural focus, see Grundmann, W., Das Evangelium nach Lukas (THKNT; Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1971) 175–8Google Scholar; Marshall, I. H., The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978) 317–27Google Scholar; Bovon, F., Luke 1: A Commentary on the Gospel of Luke 1: 1–9:50 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002) 303–12Google Scholar; and Wolter, M., Das Lukasevangelium (HNT 5; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008) 302–10Google Scholar.
2 See duBois, P., Sowing the Body: Psychoanalysis and Ancient Representations of Women (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988) 39–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Collins, Mark, 244 gestures toward the reproductive sense of sowing in the Markan parable (‘In Greek literature, the image of sowing was also used for the generation of human beings.’) but does not pursue this line of inquiry. This and all subsequent translations are mine.
3 See duBois, Sowing the Body, 76–8.
4 For the agricultural and reproductive valences of seed and corresponding discourses in early Christian literature, see, for example, J. A. Cavallo, ‘Agricultural Imagery in the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Truth’, Religion and Literature 24 (1992) 29–30; B. Leyerle, ‘Blood is Seed’, JR 81 (2001) 26–48; M. D. Litwa, Iesus Deus: The Early Christian Depiction of Jesus as a Mediterranean God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014) 37–67; for Luke specifically, see M. Pope, ‘Luke's Seminal Annunciation: An Embryological Reading of Mary's Conception’, JBL 138 (2019) 791–807 and M. Pope, ‘Extraction and Emission Language in Luke 8:45’, NovT 63 (2021) 198–206.
5 Unhelpful also in this regard is A. Denaux and R. Corstjens, The Vocabulary of Luke: An Alphabetical Presentation and a Survey of Characteristic and Noteworthy Words and Word Groups in Luke's Gospel (Biblical Tools and Studies; Leuven: Peeters, 2009) and W. K. Hobart, The Medical Language of St. Luke (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1954).
6 For similar biological sex- and grammatical gender-bending in Latin literature, see A. Corbeill, Sexing the World: Grammatical Gender and Biological Sex in Ancient Rome (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015) 72–103.
7 This survey of Philo is not exhaustive and additional examples of δέχɛσθαι τὸ σπέρμα and various permutations of the phrase could be adduced (e.g., Philo De mutatione nominum 144; De praemiis et poenis 160).
8 M. Goodacre, Thomas and the Gospels: The Case for Thomas’ Familiarity with the Synoptics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012) 103: ‘Of all the evangelists, Luke is the most inclined to use [gynecological] imagery.’ My brackets.
9 C. O. Zuretti, ed., Codices Hispanienses (Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum Graecorum 11.2; Brussels: Lamertin, 1934).
10 E.g., Marshall, Luke 326 and J. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke I–IX: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB; Garden City: Double Day, 1981) 714.
11 Though see Wolter, Lukasevangelium, 309.
12 Though the greeting is followed by the announcement of impending pregnancy, we need not assume some sort of aural conception functioning within Luke's narrative since the agents of impregnation are provided in 1.35 (‘holy spirit’ πνɛῦμα ἅγιον, ‘power of the most high’ δύναμις ὑψίστου) and neither are auditory in nature.
13 E.g., J. B. Green, The Gospel of Luke (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997) 328–9. For later Christian theories about Mary's pregnancy and aural conception, see J. A. Glancy, ‘Mary in Childbirth’, Corporal Knowledge: Early Christian Bodies (ed. J. Glancy; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) 81–136 and G. Adamson, ‘Christ Incarnate: How Ancient Minds Conceived the Son of God’ (PhD diss., Rice University, 2014).
14 See also TDNT sc. ὑπομένω (Hauck).
15 Cf. Philo, Quaestiones in Genesim 4.fr. 97.
16 For similar gendered/sexed reversals in Luke, especially in the context of maternity and human fertility, see Wilson, B., Unmanly Men: Refigurations of Masculinity in Luke-Acts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015) 82–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 113–49.
17 See Pope, ‘Luke's Seminal Annunciation’ for semen and Luke's depiction of Mary's conception.
18 Incidentally, Grundmann, Lukas, 177 connects the receptive καρδία in Luke 8.15 to the heart of Mary, who just gave birth to the infant Jesus (τὸ βρέφος), in Luke 2.16–19: ‘Ein solches Herz besitzt Maria’.