Clothed in the Body: Asceticism, the Body and the Spiritual in the Late Antique Era. By HANNAH HUNT.

Abstract

This is a study of what Christian thinkers in late antiquity thought it was to have a body, both for themselves and for Christ. These topics are usually treated separately: perhaps in writings about ascetic practices when discussing attitudes to the human form, whereas Christ’s embodiment would often be considered in writings on Christology. As Hunt herself says in the introduction, this volume is the result of two strands of her earlier research, into the debates leading up to the Council of Chalcedon about the nature of Christ, and also looking at the phenomenon of asceticism. It is easy see some sort of relationship between these two areas and late antique thinkers themselves commented on the parallel between the nature of the human body, and of Christ’s (such as Cyril of Alexandria and Gregory of Nazianzus, as quoted on p. 191), but nevertheless at the end of this vastly learned and fascinating book there are no easy conclusions. This must in part be due to the fact that there is such a wide variety of views on both aspects, and we are taken through these views methodically and clearly.