Clothed in the body
Subtitle: asceticism, the body, and the spiritual in the late antique era
By: Hannah Hunt
Series: Ashgate studies in philosophy & theology in late antiquity
Publisher: Ashgate
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Farnham, Surrey, England; Burlington, VT
Language: eng
Number of pages: 237
ISBN-13: 9781409409144; 9781409409151
Subjects: History; Human body; Asceticism; History of doctrines; Theological anthropology; Christianity
Description: "Hunt examines the apparent paradox that Jesus' earthly existence and post resurrection appearances are experienced through consummately physical actions and attributes yet some ascetics within the Christian tradition appear to seek to deny the value of the human body, to find it deadening of spiritual life. Hunt considers why the Christian tradition as a whole has rarely managed more than an uneasy truce between the physical and the spiritual aspects of the human person. Why is it that the 'Church' has energetically argued, through centuries of ecumenical councils, for the dual nature of Christ but seems still unwilling to accept the full integration of physical and spiritual within humanity, despite Gregory of Nyssa's 'what has not been assumed has not been redeemed?'" -- Publisher's description.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p.         ) and index.
Table of contents: title: Hellenistic insights into the human person; title: Biblical understandings of flesh, body and soul; title: Desert teachings on the body and asceticism; title: "Virgins of God": manly women and transvestite saints; title: "Enemy" or "friend": Climacus's integration of the body; title: The Syrian perspective on asceticism; title: Key Syrian sources: apocrypha and anonymity; title: Pseudo-Macarius, Messalianism and synaesthesia; title: "Clothed in the body" as a metaphor for incarnation; title: Heterodox christologies and the heresiarchs; title: Orthodox patristic formulations.