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Carnal Resurrection: Sexuality and Sexual Difference in Early Christianity Carnal Resurrection: Sexuality and Sexual Difference in Early Christianity The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Petrey, Taylor Grant. 2010. Carnal Resurrection: Sexuality and Sexual Difference in Early Christianity. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard Divinity School. Citable link https://nrs.harvard.edu/URN-3:HUL.INSTREPOS:37367431 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA “Carnal Resurrection: Sexuality and Sexual Difference in Early Christianity” A dissertation presented by Taylor Grant Petrey to Harvard Divinity School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Theology in the subject of New Testament and Early Christianity Harvard Divinity School Cambridge, Massachusetts March 2010 © 2010 Taylor G. Petrey All rights reserved. Karen L. King, Adviser Taylor G. Petrey “Carnal Resurrection: Sexuality and Sexual Difference in Early Christianity” Abstract This dissertation explores the ways in which early Christians thought about resurrected bodies in terms of desires, sexual practices, and roles, as well as in terms of how maleness and femaleness are distinguished. The early Christian writings on the resurrection discussed in this dissertation addressed a set of interrelated and overlapping questions and goals. First, they sought to define what was meant by the resurrection, especially with respect to what degree of continuity existed between the mortal self and the resurrected self. In doing so, they specified what substances, desires, dispositions, and practices persisted in resurrected bodies and what did not. For early Christians, sexual acts, desires, and reproduction did not have any place in the resurrection. Second, they sought to underscore the importance of having a correct view concerning the resurrection so that they could better understand the mortal body. By examining the resurrected body’s characteristics, early Christians sought to diagnose what was most important about the mortal body. These differences between the mortal and resurrected spheres produced a set of problems for describing not only the relationship of sexual practices, desires and reproduction to resurrected bodies, but also the place of such practices in mortality. Third, as these writers wrangled over what kinds of morphological and substantive bodies would persist in the resurrection, they confronted questions concerning the nature of male and female difference. While they suggested that sexual desires, acts, and reproduction were inessential to resurrected bodies, they argued that maleness and femaleness remained essential features of resurrected bodies. This dissertation explores the instability of the early Christian attempts to separate maleness and femaleness, located in resurrected “parts,” from the gendered discourses of sexual desires, acts, and reproduction. Table of Contents Acknowledgements viii 1. Introduction to Carnal Resurrection 1 Early Christianity and the Resurrection 1 Bodies, Sexuality, and History 4 Sexual Difference in Antiquity 9 Heat/Cold 10 Hardness/Softness 11 One Seed/Two Seeds 12 Activity/Passivity 14 Desires 17 Parts 19 Bodies, Sexuality, and Sexual Difference in Early Christianity 24 Chapter Outline 30 2. “Like Angels:” Ps. Justin Martyr, De Resurrectione 35 Introduction 35 The Sexualized Nature of the Flesh 37 Ps. Justin’s Desexualized Nature of the Flesh 44 Desexualized Flesh is the Foundation for a Virginal Life 47 Sexuality as Unnecessary 50 Matter and Salvation 56 Virginity is a Practice of Enkrateia 62 Conclusion 65 3. “Spiritual Resurrection” in the Flesh: Epistle to Rheginos 69 Introduction 69 The Son of Man 74 Limits 78 History and Eternity 82 Spiritual Resurrection While in the Flesh 87 Sexuality and Spiritual Resurrection 95 Visibly Invisible Parts 98 Conclusion 103 4. “The Practice of Every Virtue:” Athenagoras, De Resurrectione 107 Introduction 107 Virtue and Sexual Difference 111 Philosophy and the Human Body/Soul Relationship 120 Mastery Over Desire 125 Sexual Practice and Sexual Difference 133 Parts and Chain Consumption 137 Humors and the Resurrected Body 140 Conclusion 150 v 5: “As a Bridegroom with a Bride:” Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses 153 Introduction 153 The Place of Sex and Reproduction in the Divine Economy 156 Adam, Eve, and Innocence 157 Christ, Adam, and the Resurrection 162 Eve and Mary 166 Mortal Fleshiness and Resurrected Flesh 169 Growth 174 The Place of Sexual Difference in the Divine Economy 178 Feminine Bodies 178 Feminized Males 184 Conclusions 193 6. Conclusion 196 The Multiplicity of Christianity 198 Christianity and Greco-Roman Culture 204 Parts 207 Sexual Difference 210 Sexuality 214 Conclusion 217 Works Cited 220 vi To my teachers and To Stacey L. Petrey vii Acknowledgements There are many people to whom I am indebted for the completion of this project. I am particularly thankful to my adviser Karen L. King, who fostered my interests, encouraged my research, fruitfully challenged me intellectually, and above all devoted countless hours to reviewing and commenting on my work. Her guidance and vision for the study of early Christianity has profoundly influenced me and I am honored to have been her student. I am also thankful to the members of my dissertation committee, Laura S. Nasrallah and Amy Hollywood, incredibly influential teachers who shaped my way of understanding scholarship and the world. I also wish to thank my friends and colleagues at Harvard who have offered endless hours of conversation and collaboration. I am especially thankful to Benjamin Dunning, Carly Daniel-Hughes, Brent Landau, Cavan Concannon, Katherine Shaner, and Mikael Haxby who have read and commented on my work over the years. I also wish to thank members of the New Testament Dissertation Seminar who have offered so many excellent suggestions, with particular thanks to Kenneth Fisher, Cavan Concannon, and Marcie Lenk, who offered written responses that helped to shape my thinking. I also thank the faculty members of that seminar besides my advisers, including Francois Bovon, Elisabeth Schüssler-Fiorenza, John Townsend, and Giovanni Bazzana who offered their helpful feedback. I am also thankful to the institutions that have provided material support, including Harvard Divinity School, the HDS Dean’s Dissertation Grant, and the Religious Education Grant from Brigham Young University that have made it possible to pursue my research. I wish to especially thank my wife Stacey L. Petrey who has supported my scholarship for many years now. Her encouragement and devotion has been the most important factor in the pursuit and completion of this dissertation. Many have also provided the necessary care for our son Theodore B. Petrey that has made it possible for me to have the time to write. I am very grateful to the Beus family, the Woods family, and Lois Ball who have given their care and attention in this regard. viii 1. Introduction to Carnal Resurrection Early Christianity and the Resurrection This dissertation will explore the ways in which early Christians thought about resurrected bodies in terms of desires, sexual practices, and roles and the ways in which maleness and femaleness are distinguished. In other words, the resurrection will be analyzed through the lens of sexuality and sexual difference. The second century roiled with debate and inconsistency over the nature of the resurrection. This debate picked up roughly in the third quarter of the second century, likely during or immediately following the reign of Marcus Aurelius (161- 180 CE). Most of these debates appeared among Greek-speaking Christians, although they are preserved in Greek, Latin, and Coptic texts, thereby demonstrating the wide interest in these topics in later decades. Polemicists and apologists defended their particular view of the nature of the resurrected body against both Christian and non-Christian “doubters.” The four authors featured here—Pseudo- Justin Martyr, the anonymous author of the Epistle to Rheginos, Athenagoras, and Irenaeus—produced extended treatments of the issue that lay the groundwork for producing a new discourse on the resurrection that continues for centuries. Though there are broad similarities among some of the texts, each is distinctive not only in how the resurrected body is presented, but also in expressing why its views should be accepted as normative. The rise of dedicated treatises on the resurrection in the second half of the second century coincides with the rise of apologetic works more generally. Works 1 by Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, Tatian, and Theophilus treat the resurrection as a part of their overall demonstrations of the truthfulness of Christianity. These works offer compressed arguments focusing on the possibility of the resurrection.1 These texts also offer a glimpse into the diversity of Christian belief about the resurrection. Though he wants to exclude categorically anyone who denies the resurrection from Christianity, Justin Martyr goes so far as to say that some “who are called Christians” deny the resurrection altogether.2 Polycarp may also be read suggesting that many Christians denied the resurrection and judgment.3 We shall see that others described resurrection in a variety of different ways. This inner-Christian context of debates
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