The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200-1336In The Resurrection of the Body Caroline Bynum forges a new path of historical inquiry by studying the notion of bodily resurrection in the ancient and medieval West against the background of persecution and conversion, social hierarchy, burial practices, and the cult of saints. Examining those periods between the late second and fourteenth centuries in which discussions of the body were central to Western conceptions of death and resurrection, she suggests that the attitudes toward the body emerging from these discussions still undergird our modern conceptions of personal identity and the individual. Bynum describes how Christian thinkers clung to a very literal notion of resurrection, despite repeated attempts by some theologians and philosophers to spiritualize the idea. Focusing on the metaphors and examples used in theological and philosophical discourse and on artistic depictions of saints, death, and resurrection, Bynum connects the Western obsession with bodily return to a deep-seated fear of biological process and a tendency to locate identity and individuality in body. Of particular interest is the imaginative religious imagery, often bizarre to modern eyes, which emerged during medieval times. Bynum has collected here thirty-five examples of such imagery, which illuminate her discussion of bodily resurrection. With this detailed study of theology, piety, and social history, Bynum writes a new chapter in the history of the body and challenges our views on gender, social hierarchy, and difference. |
Contents
V | 19 |
VI | 25 |
VII | 32 |
VIII | 41 |
IX | 49 |
X | 57 |
XI | 61 |
XII | 69 |
XXXI | 199 |
XXXII | 212 |
XXXIII | 218 |
XXXIV | 225 |
XXXV | 227 |
XXXVI | 230 |
XXXVII | 245 |
XXXVIII | 254 |
Other editions - View all
The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336 Caroline Walker Bynum Limited preview - 2017 |
The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200–1336 Caroline Walker Bynum Limited preview - 1996 |
The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200-1336 Caroline Walker Bynum No preview available - 1995 |
Common terms and phrases
Aphrahat Aquinas argues argument asserts Athenagoras Auferstehung Augustine Augustine's beatific vision Bernard bodily resurrection Bonaventure bones burial cadaver canto Cathars chap chapter Christ Christian Cistercian cols corpse Dante dead death decay discussion Divine Comedy early earth eating Erigena eschatology example flesh Fragmentation Giles Giles of Rome glory Godfrey of Fontaines Graesse Gregory Gregory of Nyssa Greshake heaven hell heretics Holy Honorius Hortus Hortus deliciarum human Ibid idea identity images incorruption Irenaeus Jerome John Last Judgment Legenda aurea martyrs material continuity matter Mechtild Mechtild of Magdeburg medieval metaphors Middle Ages miracles natural Opera Origen Origenist paragr Paris particles Peter Lombard philosophical plate purgatory reassemblage regurgitation relics resurrection resurrection body resurrectione rise Ryan and Ripperger saints says scholastic seed Sentence commentary separated soul sermon spiritual stress suggest Tertullian theologians theological thirteenth century Thomas tomb trans twelfth twelfth-century University Press urrection
Popular passages
Page vi - Behold I show you a mystery. We shall all indeed rise again ; but we shall not all be changed : in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet ; for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall rise again incorruptible ; and we shall be changed.
Page xiv - Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988); Deborah Sawyer, Women and Religion in the First Christian Centuries (London: Routledge, 1996).
Page v - Awake ye just, and sin not. For some have not the knowledge of God, I speak it to your shame. 35 But some man will say: H<rw do the dead rise again ? or with what manner of body shall they come?
Page vi - And there are bodies celestial^ and bodies terrestrial: but one is the glory of the celestial, and another of the terrestrial. One is the glory of the sun, another the glory of the moon, and another the glory of the stars. For star differeth from star in glory: so also is the resurrection of the dead.
Page v - Senseless man, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die first. And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not the body that shall be, but bare grain, as of wheat, or of some of the rest [of the grains]. But God giveth it a body as he will: and to every seed its proper body.
Page 6 - I exhort you, be ye not an unseasonable kindness to me. Let me be given to the wild beasts, for through them I can attain unto God. I am God's wheat, and I am ground by the teeth of wild beasts that I may be found pure bread [of Christ].