*This paper was written for a course on Early Christian Varieties in December 2021*
Introduction
In the early Christian ekklesia, there were a range of conflicts and schisms regarding the state of the body and its purification. These schisms ranged from treatment of the believer’s body to the nature of Christ’s earthly body. The body was later viewed as a vehicle and locus of divine power and control through martyr’s bodies, sexuality, and in the life of holy men such as Antony of the Desert. It would seem that the human body shifts from being a source of obstruction to divine form and perfection to being a symbolic vehicle for grasping and sensing divine power. This paper will seek to begin making sense of the early Christian preoccupation with the body, both negative and positive. It will also explore when the shift from decentering to recentering may have occurred, and accompanying thematic developments.
Decentering and Renunciation in the Tradition
Asceticism can be defined in part as a renunciation “of the body’s desires for food, sex, warmth, or sleep.”[1] Lawrence Mills notes that this view was prominent from the 3rd century onward,[2] though it is also seen to a lesser extent in early Christian texts. The Q source, for example, could be considered a mandate for renunciation. As such, the Renunciant tradition is also found in the Synoptic gospels and the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas. Christian ascetics as a group developed through individuals such as Antony of the Desert (4th century) and Symeon the Stylite (4th-5th century). The desert fathers and mothers also practiced continence in their lifestyle, that is, they practiced enkrateia. This Greek term means “abstemiousness in the use of wine, meat, sex… a model for Christian behavior.”[3]
Here, it is also pertinent to define what is meant by “decentering” and “recentering.” In 1997, Michel Foucault described Christian ascetic practices as a way of remaking the self.[4] This shifted the focus “from external ascetic practices to… what Elizabeth Castelli calls ‘transformative work on the self’… [for Foucault,] decentering occurred on a moral plane in early Christian asceticism.”[5] While the Greek notion of enkrateia was self-mastery, some Christian ascetics saw that “the self on its own is not capable of self-mastery…. the self stands condemned and unworthy, in need of a more radical redemption.”[6] Thus, Christian enkrateia (decentering) was tied to salvific notions, while recentering is a return to the Greek view of enkrateia as self-mastery.
The early Jesus movement seems to show a shift from decentering to recentering around the late 3rd-early 4th century. This shift took place gradually over time, but was arguably solidified when proto-orthodox Christianity took hold in the Roman Empire after the Edict of Milan in 313 CE, resulting in some men and women venturing away from society and into the desert. The believer’s body and nature of Christ’s body were tied into this shift. Christology — while discussed by early church fathers such as Irenaeus, Tertullian, or Origen — changed focus with the post-Nicene period.[7] Athanasius’ Life of Antony, for example, was written after this period, which, though depicting ascetic practices, also sees Antony recentering himself (and his body) as a holy man. Athanasius was also involved in Christological debates, linking the historical development of Nicene Christology to shifting views of believer’s bodies.[8]
The believer’s sexual body was also a part of this overall shift. Early on, in the mid-1st century, Paul discussed bodies and sexuality in 1 Cor 7 in a positive but cautionary way. Other early texts show an almost morbid obsession with bodies. From an exercise in schadenfreude (Apoc.Peter), to the fairly pornographic descriptions in the Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity, the connection between sexualization, death, and bodies seems readily apparent. Believer’s sexual bodies also became tied with ritual purity.[9] This can be seen in Athanasius’ concern for Christian purity in the Life of Antony, or earlier, in the 1st century book of Revelation. For example, Rev 14:4 says, “It is these who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins; these follow the Lamb wherever he goes. They have been redeemed…”.
Decentering and Sexual Purity
As noted by David Frankfurter, Revelation’s concern for sexual purity is best understood as connected to Jewish purity traditions among priests.[10] The text holds an “anti-Pauline ideology of strict sexual purity.”[11] Frankfurter also writes that John of Patmos is focused on bodily purity, as when he says that “‘nothing koinon will enter’ the New Jerusalem (21:27)…. [there is an] overriding fear of pollution, especially with respect to the body, and a concern for the separation of the pure from the impure.”[12] For John, this is connected to matters of food and sex, and this impurity “involves a breach of bodily boundaries and orifices…. His visions of the heavenly Christ and his Jesus devotion seem indeed to be extensions, or consequences, of his Jewish hyperpurity.”[13] Revelation certainly seems to show a decentering of the self, and an embrace of the Christian encratic lifestyle rather than a self-mastery.
The 2nd century Acts of Paul and Thecla was another important text in the Renunciant tradition. Early on it says, “Blessed are those who have kept the flesh pure… [who are] continent… they who have renounced the world… Blessed are the bodies of the virgins, for they shall be well pleasing to God, and shall not lose the reward of their purity” (5-6).[14] There is an emphasis placed on continence, renunciation, and sexual purity. Similarly, two men claim that Paul says, “‘Otherwise there is no resurrection for you, except ye remain chaste and do not defile the flesh, but keep it pure’’” (12).[15] Thecla concludes at the end, “He who clothed me when I was naked… shall clothe me with salvation in the day of judgment” (38).[16] Her statement echoes Foucalt’s view of decentering as “radical redemption” through God’s assistance, again, rather than the Greek sense of self-mastery.[17]
One text that begins to depict a shift in mentality toward recentering is Acts of John 48-54, the conversion of the son who commits adultery and patricide. Murdered by the son, the father then raised to life by John. On hearing of his father’s resurrection, the son removes his own genitalia. John says to him, “the one who tempted you to kill… and commit adultery… has also made you take off the unruly (members) as if this were a virtuous act. But you should not have destroyed the place (of your temptation), but the thought which showed its temper through those members; for it is not those organs which are harmful to man, but the unseen springs through which every shameful emotion is stirred up... repent of this fault and recognize devices of Satan.”[18] John describes a positive attitude toward the body, but a negative view of illicit sexual thoughts. This attitude is not consistent throughout the text however, so the shift to recentering or self-mastery is only partial, not complete.[19]
The Martyr’s Body and Sexuality
The 3rd century Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity provides a firm link between sexuality and martyr’s bodies. As noted by Frankfurter, “Perpetua and Felicitas ‘were stripped naked, placed in nets… [and] brought out into the arena. Even the crowd was horrified when they saw that one was a delicate young girl and the other was a woman fresh from childbirth with the milk still dripping from her breasts.’…. sexuality is highlighted and eroticized through its partial concealment.”[20] Although Perpetua’s diary describes her visionary authority, the later editor focuses instead on “her and her companions’ bodies in torment. Inversion of pain, torment, and death becomes a principal theme of Christian narrative culture…. the sado-erotic prurience that martyrologies invite seems to have gone unquestioned by church fathers throughout late antiquity.”[21]
Indeed, the connection between martyrologies and carnality did not seem apparent to the church fathers. Consider, for example, a homily on Theodore the Recruit given by Gregory of Nyssa (4th century). He says, “The martyr’s body is in many respects different from other bodies: it was not dissolved by the death that happens to everybody, though it is composed from similar matter.”[22] Here, the body of a martyr is identified as incorruptible, but there is no emphasis on the body’s sexuality. For Gregory, the focus was not on martyrdom as sado-erotic, but rather as a glorious act of heroism. In describing martyr’s tombs, he notes that the painter depicted “the martyr’s brave deeds, his opposition, his continuous pain, the beastly appearance of the tyrants, the insults, the blazing furnace that was the athlete’s most blessed end…. he portrayed, as if in a book that uttered speech, in great detail the martyr’s contest.”[23] While this presents the martyr almost as a Greek hero, it still does not reach the sense of Greek self-mastery that calls for recentering.
Other texts, though not sexual in nature, blur the line between the dying or deceased bodies of martyrs and Christ’s body. Consider the 2nd century Martyrdom of Polycarp. Set to be burnt alive, Polycarp is described “like a loaf baking in the oven.”[24] Maxwell Staniforth writes that “Polycarp now shares the cup of martyrdom of the anointed one… [and] is himself the sacrifice, united with the sacrifice of Christ.”[25] This arguably Eucharistic connotation is also found in Ignatius’ Letter to the Romans 4, “I am [God’s] wheat, ground fine by lions’ teeth to be made purest bread for Christ.”[26] In both cases, there is a connection made between the bodies of the martyrs and the body of Christ, but decentering is still at work here as it is only through the salvific connection to Christ that they are changed.
Continence and Sexuality in the Gnostic Texts
Moving away from the martyrs, several Gnostic writings several texts that discuss sexuality, materiality, Docetism, and bodies. One such example comes from a letter to from Valentinus to Agathopous, recorded by Clement of Alexandria (2nd century). In it, Jesus is portrayed in an encratic light.[27] It says, “He was continent, enduring all things. Jesus digested divinity: he ate and drank in a special way, without excreting his solids. He had such a great capacity for continence that the nourishment within him was not corrupted…”.[28] Bentley Layton observes, “Valentinus discusses Jesus' 'continence'… perhaps as a model for Christian behavior.”[29] While Jesus’ scatological experiences may be a crude argument for his continence, it appears that even among the 2nd century Valentinians, the Christian view of enkrateia was important. But Jesus attains enkrateia not so much by his own actions or self-mastery, but rather as a result of his own divine nature.
The 3rd century Hypostasis of the Archons is also pertinent here for its sexual use of the female body. It first describes the rape of Eve by the Archons. The Archons later send a deluge, but their ruler tells Noah to build an ark. The woman Norea tries to board, but Noah stops her. She blows on the ark, which becomes consumed by fire (92:15-17). The Archons approach her and try to rape her as they did her mother Eve. She rejects them and calls upon the god of entirety, who sends the angel Eleleth. The angel reveals her origins as a child from the abode of incorruptibility. Norea is called “the virgin whom the powers did not defile” (92:1).[30] Sexuality is portrayed here as explicitly predatory, but a concern for continence and purity is also implicit. This reveals that sexual purity was a theme even among early schisms.
Antony of the Desert and Recentering the Self
In the 4th century Life of Antony, Athanasius depicted Antony of the Desert as one who departed from the world (anachoresis) and took up encratic practices. Yet it is also apparent that while he was tempted by the flesh, Antony did not completely reject his body, but recentered himself as a holy man. Antony tells his followers, “great care must be shown, for the body must not be completely starved nor should it be overfed in case it should lose its ability to work…. the soul should claim the authority granted to it in the flesh and raise its dwelling up to the third heaven, like the apostle Paul” (45).[31] Antony redefines the self as having mastery over its vices and illicit practices, and authority to raise itself to heaven. This appears to be enkrateia in the older sense of Greek self-mastery.[32]
Antony repeatedly engages in fasting as a way of attaining purity (sexual or otherwise), a notion also found in earlier texts.[33] Antony often “endured hunger and sleeplessness… Sometimes he continued fasting for two or three days at a time and only took refreshment on the fourth day... Antony also stated that wearing down the body’s energies in this way could revive a person’s mental powers” (7).[34] Elsewhere we read, “When his human condition forced him to allow his poor body some food or sleep or any other necessities of nature, he was overcome by an extraordinary sense of shame because the physical limitations of his poor body restricted his spiritual freedom…. ” (45).[35] While he believed that fasting could help revive his focus, Antony was reminded that he also had to care for his body in order to do the transformative work.[36]
A final feature of interest is Antony’s bodily temptation. In the Life of Antony 5, the devil uses seductive dreams and lustful thoughts to try to sway him, but Antony prays them away. The devil also “tried to titillate [Antony’s] senses by means of natural carnal desires but [he] defended his whole body by faith, by praying at night and by fasting… the devil would turn himself into the attractive form of a beautiful woman, omitting no detail that might provoke lascivious thoughts, but Antony called to mind the fiery punishment of hell and the torment inflicted by worms: in this way he resisted the onslaught of lust.”[37] Antony pushes away thoughts of sexual pleasure by focusing on strong thoughts of potential torment, and does so by his own will, as a recentered self who engaged in enkrateia as self-mastery.[38]
Conclusions
In the early ekklesia, interpretation of the human body shifts from decentering to a recentering of the self. This early Christian preoccupation was part of “a religious movement consumed by the definition of its own boundaries… persistently conceptualized through bodies: Christ’s, infants’, women’s, martyrs.’”[39] It sought, through encratic practices or acts of continence, anachoresis, and sexual purity or virginity, to decenter the self. The shift toward recentering that occurred in the ekklesia by the 3rd to 4th century can be seen in texts such as the Life of Antony. The life of a holy man was not so much focused on the earlier Christian understanding of enkrateia, but rather in the Greek sense of the word as self-mastery. This shift can also be seen in the Acts of John, in which it is not the body that needs to be changed, but rather one’s own thoughts that must be mastered. In doing so, particularly when removed from the larger society, one can seek to recenter or redefine the self. In the end, our bodies can be said be symbolic vehicles for grasping and sensing divine power, just as holy men such as Antony did through self-mastery and recentering.
Endnotes
1. Lawrence M. Wills, “Ascetic Theology before Asceticism? Jewish Narratives and the Decentering of the Self” (Journal of the American Academy of Religion 74, no. 4, 2006), 902.
2. Ibid.
3. Bentley Layton, The Gnostic Scriptures: A New Translation with Annotations and Introductions (New York: Doubleday, 1995), 238.
4. Wills, “Ascetic Theology Before Asceticism”, 903.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Christological differences were present among the early Christian varieties. For example, the Johannine community focused primarily on Christ’s divine, rather than human nature. The apocryphal Acts of John in particular held a fairly Docetic view that is not present in the Gospel or Epistles of John. The Acts also sees Jesus change form and age multiple times, emphasizing his otherworldliness. Ebionites, on the other hand, focused on the humanity of Christ, rather than his divinity.
8. In fact, some hold the opinion that Athanasius uses his biography of Antony in part to make him a mouthpiece for anti-Arian propaganda, and pro-Nicene theology (Carolinne White, Early Christian Lives (New York: Penguin Books, 1998), 33).
9. This concern for ritual purity was carried over even into exorcistic practices as a form of preparation (see PGM IV.26, 52-85, 850-929, 3085, 3209-54; cf. Sefer ha-Razim).
10. David Frankfurter, “Beyond 'Jewish Christianity' Continuing Religious Sub-Cultures of the Second and Third Centuries and Their Documents” in Adam H. Becker and Annette Yoshiko Reed, The Ways That Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (1st Fortress Press ed. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), 137-138.
11. Ibid.; see Rev 2:14, 20; 5:10, 14:4; cf. 1 Cor 7.
12. David Frankfurter, “Jews or Not? Reconstructing the ‘Other’ in Rev 2:9 and 3:9” (Cambridge University Press, The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 94, No. 4, Oct., 2001), 410-412.
13. Ibid.
14. Wilhelm Schneemelcher, ed., trans. by R. McL. Wilson, New Testament Apocrypha, Volume II: Writings Relating to the Apostles Apocalypses and Related Subjects (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1992), 239-240.
15. Ibid., 241.
16. Ibid., 244.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid., 181.
19. Before his martyrdom, John says to God, “Thou who hast kept me… pure for thyself and untouched by union with a woman; who when I wished to marry in my youth…. [said] ‘John, if thou wert not mine, I should have allowed thee to marry’;… [God] didst blind me…. [and] when I regained my sight didst disclose to me the repugnance even of looking closely at a woman…” (Act.Jn 113; Schneemelcher, New Testament Apocrypha, 203).
20. David Frankfurter, “Martyrology and the Prurient Gaze”, (Journal of Early Christian Studies 17, no. 2, 2009), 221.
21. Ibid., 232-233.
22. Gregory of Nyssa, “A Homily on Theodore the Recruit” in Pauline Allen, et al. 'Let us die that we may live': Greek homilies on Christian Martyrs from Asia Minor, Palestine and Syria c.350-c.450 AD (Taylor and Francis, 2003), 84-85.
23. Ibid.
24. Mart. Pol. 2, 5, 13-16 in in Early Christian Writings, trans. William Staniforth (London: Penguin Classics, 1968), 125-126.
25. Ibid., 134.
26. Ibid., 86.
27. Layton, The Gnostic Scriptures, 238.
28. Ibid., 239.
29. Ibid., 238.
30. Ibid., 69.
31. White, Early Christian Lives, 50.
32. Wills, “Ascetic Theology Before Asceticism”, 903.
33. Statements about fasting can also be found in Matthew, Luke, the Didache, Tertullian, and elsewhere (Wills, “Ascetic Theology Before Asceticism”, 905.). The Apocalypse of Elijah 1:15-22 says that God created the fast “for a benefit to men on account of the passions and desires which fight against [them].” Proceeding to list the benefits of fasting, it ties fasting to purity, gives it a salvific nature, and claims that it heals diseases and exorcises demons. In the Shepherd of Hermas, fasting also brings about visions. One vision is tied to his sexuality. Hermas lusts after Rhoda, his master, although he is married (1:2). He sees her bathing and helps her out of the river, but claims to have nothing (impure) in mind. He receives a vision of one who looks like Rhoda, who says, “[God] is angry at you for sinning against me…. The desire for evil did rise up in your heart” (1:6). Other visions are brought about explicitly by fasting. In either case, both texts connect fasting to bodily purity, albeit with a more decentered view.
34. White, Early Christian Lives, 38.
35. Ibid., 50.
36. Despite his rigorous fasting practices, Life of Antony 14 describes a crowd who tore down his doors, and “They were all stunned at the beauty of his countenance and the dignified bearing of his body which had not grown flabby through lack of exercise; neither had his face grown pale as a result of fasting and fighting with demons… the handsomeness of his limbs remained as before, as if no time had passed.” This echoes the perceived incorruptibility of some saint’s bodies. It is ironic that while there was a negative Christian preoccupation with bodies early on, the bodies of saints came to be regarded as sacred relics imbued with divine power. It seems that only by recentering the self in a saintly lifestyle like Antony, or through a martyr’s death, did their bodies become truly holy.
37. Ibid., 37.; In the Life of Antony, the devil also appears in distorted forms. It describes, “a form that revealed his true nature: an ugly black boy” (6). Similarly, Apoc.Eli. 3:15-18 describes the Antichrist with distorted features, “a skinny-legged young lad… a tuft of gray hair at the front of his bald head. His eyebrows will reach to his ears. There is a leprous bare spot on the front of his hands” (James H. Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Apocalyptic Literature and Testaments (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1983), 746).
38. Antony also engaged in thaumaturgical display, that is, miracle working. He was known as a master exorcist, a role which Athanasius attests to. By contrast, in the Acts of John, the titular figure goes out to the demons, while in the Life of Antony the demons come to him. In other words, Antony fights the demons and animals, and recenters or redefines himself as not completely human. Holy men appear in the magical papyri as well, such as Apa Anoup (ACM 63).
39. Frankfurter, “Martyrology and the Prurient Gaze”, 232-233.
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