Christine de Pizan and Biblical Wisdom: A Feminist-theological Point of View

The fifteen-century writer Christine de Pizan very adeptly used various aspects of the religious traditions of her day in her confrontation of misogynous beliefs and attitudes. In this book the insights of today's feminist scholars in religion are used to demonstrate that one of the more intriguing religious elements Christine drew upon was the female figure of biblical Wisdom. While the use of Wisdom in the Medieval era in a general theological and literary sense was quite prevalent, Christine took a significant step beyond customary symbolic usage in that Wisdom was called upon as a metaphor for deity to creatively fortify her efforts to claim justice and honor for herself and for all women. Wisdom appeared to function, for Christine, as a reflection in the divine realm of ideal female and male realities in the human. This book serves to add a newly discovered source of inspiration for Christine de Pizan's development of her literary-theological creations, and serves as well to add Christine's remarkable feminist appropriation of the female figure of biblical Wisdom to current feminist-theological discussions.