Description: |
Though we often assume that religion deals with the spirit or the soul, the earliest Christians were deeply and primarily concerned with the body. In this course, we examine the multiple and various early Christian debates and practices relating to the body focusing in particular on issues related to physical suffering, death, sexuality, identity, and asceticism. Topics include: early Christian debates over the nature of the body and its relationship to personal identity and the nature of the self; conflicting ideas about the nature of Jesus incarnated, crucified, and resurrected body; gender, sexuality, and the bodies of men and women; Christian valorization of physical suffering and the bodies of the ill; the cult of the martyrs and the cult of the relics; the rise of asceticism and the bodies of saints. |