ABSTRACT
Gender in Byzantine culture was not only implicitly hierarchical but was also firmly linked with spiritual authority. This chapter examines various tensions arising from this dual heritage and suggests how some of the attempts to reconcile them brought about certain distinctive features of Byzantine civilization. The study of gender is useful for Byzantine society's study, as it helps to illuminate the tensions present in its foundational values: between Greek and Christian attitudes to the body and the spirit, and between Christian aspirations and the values of the Byzantine world from Late Antiquity to the late Byzantine period. The chapter focuses on the ways in which Byzantine society sought to reconcile the division between flesh and spirit, male and female, gender hierarchy and its abolition in Christ, and between being and becoming. It explains reconciliation in the reflections of the Cappadocians, especially Gregory of Nyssa, on the relative merits of living like angels or living according to the flesh.
