Scriptures:
Matthew 22:30 – For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.
1 Peter 3:7-9 – Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered.
Luke 20:34-36 – The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.
Galatians 3:28 – There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
1 John 3:2 – Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.
Philippians 3:20-21 – For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.
Church Fathers:
Clement of Rome:
Let us expect, therefore, hour by hour, the kingdom of God in love and righteousness, since we know not the day of the appearing of God. For the Lord Himself, being asked by one when His kingdom would come, replied, When two shall be one, that which is without as that which is within, and the male with the female, neither male nor female. – 2 Clement, chapter 12
For a woman, being half a man…. – Peter, Homilies of Clement, book 2, chapters 23-24
Clement of Alexandria:
He will therefore prefer neither children, nor marriage, nor parents, to love for God, and righteousness in life. To such an one, his wife, after conception, is as a sister, and is judged as if of the same father; then only recollecting her husband, when she looks on the children; as being destined to become a sister in reality after putting off the flesh, which separates and limits the knowledge of those who are spiritual by the peculiar characteristics of the sexes. For souls, themselves by themselves, are equal. Souls are neither male nor female, when they no longer marry nor are given in marriage. And is not woman translated into man, when she has become equally unfeminine, and manly, and perfect? Such, then, was the laughter of Sarah when she received the good news of the birth of a son; not, in my opinion, that she disbelieved the angel, but that she felt ashamed of the intercourse by means of which she was destined to become the mother of a son. – Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata, book 6
And those whose life is common, have common graces and a common salvation; common to them are love and training. “For in this world,” he says, “they marry, and are given in marriage,” in which alone the female is distinguished from the male; “but in that world it is so no more.” There the rewards of this social and holy life, which is based on conjugal union, are laid up, not for male and female, but for man, the sexual desire which divides humanity being removed. Common therefore, too, to men and women, is the name of man. – Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor, book 1, chapter 4
So when a person refuses to indulge temper or desire, which in fact grow from bad character and bad nurture till they overshadow and conceal rational thought, when he strips off the darkness these produce, when he repents and out of repentance feels shame, when he integrates soul and spirit in obedience to the Word, then, as Paul joins in affirming, “there is no male or female among you.” Galatians 3:28 The soul stands aside from the mere appearance of shape whereby male is distinguished from female, and is transformed into unity, being neither male nor female. – Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata 3.13.93
Tertullian:
For you too, (women as you are,) have the self-same angelic nature promised as your reward, the self-same sex as men.” – Tertullian, On The Apparel of Women, book 1, chapter 2
But to Christians, after their departure from the world, no restoration of marriage is promised in the day of the resurrection, translated as they will be into the condition and sanctity of angels. – Tertullian, To His Wife, chapter 1
Origen:
“Sadducees came to Jesus, therefore, which are those who say that there is no resurrection”, but the resurrection (as we have set forth) according to them, and they question again our Lord saying, “Moses said, if someone dies without having any children, his brother will take his wife as next of kin and will raise up seed for his brother”
Let us say that the flesh which is to behold the salvation of God, the soul should love and nourish, and cherish it with the teachings of the devout, feeding it with heavenly bread, and irrigating it with the blood of Christ, so that, being restored and bright, it may be able to follow the man with a free course, and not be weighed down with any debilitating burden. Likewise, beautifully, in the likeness of Christ, nourishing and cherishing the Church, and saying to Jerusalem: ‘How often I wanted to gather your children, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not!’ The soul also cherishes its body, so that this corruptible body may put on incorruption, and, by the lightness of the wings being raised, may more easily be lifted up into the air. Therefore, let us cherish both our wives and the bodies of our souls, so that both wives may be in their husbands, and bodies reduced into souls, and that there be no distinction of sexes: just as among the angels there is neither male nor female, so also we, who will be like the angels, may begin now to be what is promised to us in the heavens. Origen, Commentary on Ephesians (Fragment, Patrologia Graeca Vol. 14 pg. 1297)
Aphrahat:
They shall not marry wives there, nor shall they beget children; nor shall there the male be distinguished from the female; but all shall be sons of their Father Who is in heaven; as the Prophet said:— Is there not one Father of us all; is there not one God Who created us? – Aphrahat Demonstrations 22.12
Arnobius:
You consider that the deities have sexes, and that some of them are male, others female; we utterly deny that the powers of heaven have been distinguished by sexes, since this distinction has been given to the creatures of earth which the Author of the universe willed should embrace and generate, to provide, by their carnal desires, one generation of offspring after another. – Arnobius, (305 AD) The Seven Books of Arnobius Against the Heathen Book 7 Chapter 35
Athanasius:
Put away the womanish mentality and take up courage and manliness. For in the kingdom of heaven there is no male and female [Gal. 3:28], but all well-pleasing women take on the rank of men. – Pseudo-Athanasius, Discourse on Salvation to a Virgin, chapter 10
Ambrose of Milan:
Why, then, should you concern yourself with gender, when what is required from you is the strength of the soul, not of the body—a soul which has no sex? Do not, therefore, distinguish honor or divide reward where no distinction of sex is made. Do not wonder, however, if the one who was first to fall is now called later to the struggle. She who began badly should follow, not lead—that even after her experience she may become more modest. Eve wrongfully overturned the order of nature—she should have waited for the one who was meant to go before her. The serpent cunningly began from the one who came after; therefore, the Prophet returns to the one who came before—the man who would not have fallen had he not followed the one who came after. – Ambrose of Milan, Homily on Psalm 1, Chapter 14
Gregory of Nazianzus:
O nature of woman overcoming that of man in the common struggle for salvation, and demonstrating that the distinction between male and female is one of body not of soul! O Baptismal purity, O soul, in the pure chamber of thy body, the bride of Christ! O bitter eating! O Eve mother of our race and of our sin! O subtle serpent, and death, overcome by her self-discipline! O self-emptying of Christ, and form of a servant, and sufferings, honoured by her mortification! – Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration VIII. Funeral Oration on His Sister Gorgonia.
Cyril of Jerusalem:
The soul is immortal, and all souls are alike both of men and women; for only the members of the body are distinguished. There is not a class of souls sinning by nature, and a class of souls practising righteousness by nature: but both act from choice, the substance of their souls being of one kind only, and alike in all. – Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, Lecture 4, chapter 20
Jerome:
… However, I will set out the actual words which are found in Origen’s third book: “We may say that the soul loves that flesh which is to see the salvation of God, that it nourishes and cherishes it, and trains it by discipline and satisfies it with the bread of heaven, and gives it to drink of the blood of Christ: so that it may become well-liking through wholesome food, and may follow its husband freely, without being weighed down by any weakness. It is by a beautiful image that the soul is said to nourish and cherish the body as Christ nourishes and cherishes the church, since it was he who said to Jerusalem: How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings and you would not; and that thus this corruptible may put on incorruption, and that being poised lightly, as upon wings, may rise more easily into the air. Let us men then cherish our wives, and let our souls cherish our bodies in a way as that wives may be turned into men and bodies into spirits, and that there may be no difference of sex, but that, as among the angels there is neither male nor female, so we, who are to be the Angels, may begin to be here what it is promised that we shall be in heaven.” – Jerome, Apology Against Rufinus, Book 1, chapter 28
Augustine:
And it is according to this renewal, also, that we are made sons of God by the baptism of Christ; and putting on the new man, certainly put on Christ through faith. Who is there, then, who will hold women to be alien from this fellowship, whereas they are fellow-heirs of grace with us; and whereas in another place the same apostle says, “For you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus; for as many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ: there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus”? Pray, have faithful women then lost their bodily sex? But because they are there renewed after the image of God, where there is no sex; man is there made after the image of God, where there is no sex, that is, in the spirit of his mind. – On the Holy Trinity, book 12, chapter 7
Thomas Aquinas:
For one is a boy, before he is a man. Absolutely speaking, however, the perfect precedes the imperfect in the order of time and of nature. For a boy is produced from the man. This, therefore, is the reason why the woman was produced from the man, because he is more perfect than the woman, which the Apostle proves from the fact that the end is more perfect than that which is for the end; but man is the woman’s end. And this is what he says: For man was not created for woman, but woman for the sake of man, as a helper, namely, in reproduction, as the patient is for the sake of the agent and matter for the sake of form: “It is not good for man to be alone: let us make him a helper like unto him” (Gen 2:18). – Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on 1 Corinthians 11, Chapter 611