ABSTRACT

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 Nazianzus's comment that 'what has not been assumed has not been redeemed'?

chapter Chapter 1|8 pages

Introduction

chapter Chapter 2|21 pages

Greek Insights into the Human Person

chapter Chapter 3|16 pages

Biblical Understandings of Flesh, Body and Soul

chapter Chapter 4|15 pages

Desert Teachings on the Body and Asceticism

chapter Chapter 7|20 pages

The Syrian Perspective on Asceticism

chapter Chapter 8|11 pages

Key Syrian Sources: Apocrypha and Anonymity

chapter Chapter 9|12 pages

Pseudo-Macarius, Messalianism and Synaesthesia

chapter Chapter 10|21 pages

‘Clothed in the Body' as a Metaphor for Incarnation

chapter Chapter 11|23 pages

Heterodox Christologies and the Heresiarchs

chapter Chapter 12|20 pages

Orthodox Patristic Formulations

chapter Chapter 13|3 pages

Conclusion