This collection explores how the body became a touchstone for late antique religious practice and imagination. When we read the stories and testimonies of late ancient Christians, what different types of bodies stand before us? How do we understand the range of bodily experiences-solitary and social, private and public-that clothed ancient Christians? How can bodily experience help us explore matters of gender, religious identity, class, and ethnicity? The Garb of Being investigates these questions through stories from the Eastern Christian world of antiquity: monks and martyrs, families and congregations, and textual bodies.
Contributors include S. Abrams Rebillard, T. Arentzen, S. P. Brock, R. S. Falcasantos , C. M. Furey, S. H. Griffith, R. Krawiec, B. McNary-Zak, J.-N. Mellon Saint-Laurent, C. T. Schroeder, A. P. Urbano, F. M. Young
List of Abbreviations | xi Introduction. Dangling Bodies, Robes of Glory: The Garb of Embodiment in Ancient Christianity Georgia Frank, Susan R. Holman, and Andrew S. Jacobs | 1 Part I: Making Bodies Body and Soul: Union in Creation, Reunion at Resurrection Frances Young | 15 Jesus’s Dazzling Garments: Origen’s Exegesis of the Transfiguration in the Commentary on Matthew Arthur P. Urbano | 35 Conversing with Clothes: Germanos and Mary’s Belt Thomas Arentzen | 57 Part II: Performing Bodies “Denominationalism” in Fourth-Century Syria: Readings in Saint Ephraem’s Hymns against Heresies, Madrāshê 22–24 Sidney H. Griffith | 79 A School for the Soul: John Chrysostom on Mimēsis and the Force of Ritual Habit Rebecca Stephens Falcasantos | 101 A Question of Character: The “Labor of Composition” as “Preventative Medicine” in Theodoret of Cyrrhus’s Religious History Rebecca Krawiec | 124 “I Want to Be Alone”: Ascetic Celebrity and the Splendid Isolation of Simeon Stylites Andrew S. Jacobs | 145 Crowds and Collective Affect in Romanos’s Biblical Retellings Georgia Frank | 169 Christian Legend in Medieval Iraq: Siblings, Sacrifice, and Sanctity in Behnam and Sarah Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent | 191 Part III: Scripting Bodies Five Women Martyrs: From Persia to Crete Sebastian Brock | 221 Gregory of Nazianzus’s Poetic Ascetic Aesthetic Suzanne Abrams Rebillard | 234 Eclipsed in Exile: In Defense of Athanasius and the Ethiopians Bernadette McNary-Zak | 263 Sacred Bonds: Religion, Relationships, and the Art of Pedagogy Constance M. Furey | 276 “And Yet the Books”: Patristics in the Footnotes Susan R. Holman | 294 Cultural Heritage Preservation and Canon Formation: What Syriac and Coptic Can Teach Usabout the Historiography of the Digital Humanities Caroline T. Schroeder | 318 Bibliography | 347 List of Contributors | 391 Index | 397
Georgia Frank (Edited By) Georgia Frank is Professor of Religion at Colgate University. Andrew Jacobs (Edited By) Andrew S. Jacobs is Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University. Susan Holman (Edited By) Susan R. Holman is the Eckrich Chair and Professor of Religion and the Healing Arts at Valparaiso University.
Reviews for The Garb of Being: Embodiment and the Pursuit of Holiness in Late Ancient Christianity
This welcome collection offers many well-articulated perspectives on the role of the body in late antique religious practice and imagination.---Charles Stang, Harvard Divinity School
