Christ’s Cosmetic Hydrotherapy: Blemishes, Wrinkles, and Transformational Waters in Ephesians 5:26–27

This article argues that the washing that removes blemishes and wrinkles in Eph 5:26–27 is intelligible against wider ancient Graeco-Roman and early Christian conceptions of transformational waters. Ancient Mediterranean traditions tell of special waters that change human skin complexion, prolong life, and remove impairment. Ancient Graceo-Roman medicine indicates that for many women in the Mediterranean, blemishes such as freckles and wrinkles were non-ideal epidermal conditions that women tried to cover up and/or remove through various topical substances and applications. In light of this context, Christ’s washing of the church can be viewed as a cosmetic hydrotherapy designed to remove undesirable blemishes and wrinkles and conform the body to an ideal youthful female complexion, which the author equates with holiness. Christ is the church’s cosmetological kyrios, transforming his household into the ideal physique by washing them. The wider Mediterranean culture concerning women and transformative waters is not only background material that makes intelligible the bathing in Eph 5:26–27 but it shows the household code’s participation in what Margaret MacDonald calls “ideologies of masculinities.” Whatever cultural modifications or progressive advancements might be found in the household code, the Ephesian author’s use of the metaphor of Christ washing the bride fundamentally enshrines the control a husband has over his wife’s body. While the author of Ephesians portrays Christ’s cosmetic hydrotherapy as dealing primarily with sin, because it is embedded within a wider discourse about gender, it is also a transformative water that reinforces and bends the gender of early Christian believers.