"BEAUTIFUL ON THE CROSS, BEAUTIFUL IN HIS TORMENTS": THE PLACE OF THE BODY IN THE THOUGHT OF PASCHASIUS RADBERTUS By DAVID APPLEBY The Humanism of Paschasius's VlTA ADALHARDi In his literary portrait of Abbot Adalhard,1 written soon after the abbot's death in 826, Paschasius Radbertus of Corbie2 compared his subject 's moral and spiritual progress to the method of the ancient painter Zeuxis as this had been described in Cicero's De inuentione. According to Cicero, the people of Cortona commissioned Zeuxis to decorate a temple with the image of Helen, who was reputed to be the most beautiful of mortal women. Because nature withheld overall perfection from any individual , Zeuxis studied several handsome models and combined the best features of each in an image that was more perfect than the form of any actual maiden. Adalhard too was an artist who sought to realize a work that somehow went beyond nature, but in his case the objective was a reformation of the image of God in himself. To achieve this, Adalhard too used models, in his case the lives and deeds of the saints, whose examples 1 On Adalhard see Brigitte Kasten, Adalhard von Corbie: Die Biographie eines karolingischen Politikers und Kloslervorstehers, Studia humaniora: Düsseldorfer Studien zu Mittelalter und Renaissance 3 (Düsseldorf, 1986); on the reign of Louis the Pious in general see Egon Boshof, Ludwig der Fromme (Darmstadt, 1996). " The surviving sources inform us about Radbertus's life only in a general way. He was born toward the end of the eighth century, around 790, presumably somewhere in the vicinity of Soissons. His parentage is unknown. He was raised and educated by Abbess Theodrada and the nuns of St. Mary's at Soissons, where he took the tonsure. As a young man, he entered the monastery of Corbie, where Theodrada's brothers Adalhard and WaIa held the abbacy during the years 780-815 and 826-35. At Corbie Radbertus served for a time as schoolmaster and then as abbot from 843 to about 851. His tenure as abbot ended because of some sort of disturbance or dissent among the monks at Corbie. As a consequence , Radbertus withdrew for a few years to the monastery of Saint-Riquier, but returned to Corbie before his death about 860. See Henri Peltier, Pascase Radberl, Abbé de Corbie (Amiens, 1938); idem, "Radbert," DThC 13:1628-39; Reginald Grégoire, "Paschase Radbert." Dictionnaire de spiritualité ascétique et mystique, doctrine et histoire, 17 vols, in 21 parts (Paris, 1937-95), 12:295-301; M.-A. Aris, "P. Radbertus," Lexikon des Mittelalters, 10 vols. (Munich, 1977-99), 6:1754-55. The following abbreviations for the works of Paschasius Radbertus are used throughout: De assumptione = Epistula beati Hieronymi ad Paulam et Eustochium de assumptione sanctae ? traditio of virtue he discerned with the mind's eye and assimilated in an effort to resemble the transcendent archetype.3 This passage of the Vita Adalhardi exemplifies several of the characteristic features of ninth-century Frankish culture that have come to be identified with the humanism of the Carolingian period, the most obvious being Radbertus's use of Cicero. Since the nineteenth century, a main built-in assumption of this view has been that interest in ancient literature and the pursuit of the liberal arts are an index of humanism. One readily acknowledges the differences in scope between fifteenth-century studia humanitatis and the narrower arts curriculum known in the eighth and ninth centuries. Nevertheless, some authors of the Carolingian age exhibited a deep enough familiarity with the classics that it is possible to affirm that they anticipated at least some of the spirit of later Renaissance humanism.1 Mariae virginis, ed. A. Ripberger, CCM 56C (Turnhout, 1985); De benedictionibus = De benedictionibus patriarcharum Iacob et Moysi, ed. B. Paulus, CCM 96 (Turnhout, 1993); De corpore = De corpore et sanguine Domini, ed. B. Paulus, CCM 16 (Turnhout, 1969); Epístola = Epístola Radberti Pascasii ad Fredugardum, ed. B. Paulus, CCM 16 (Turnhout, 1969); Epitaphium = Epitaphium Arsenii, ed. E. Dümmler, Abh. Akad. Berlin 2 (Berlin, 1900), 1-98; De fide = De fide, spe el caritate, ed. B. Paulus, CCM 97 (Turnhout, 1990); In Lamentaiiones = Expositio...