Religion (1982) 12, 345-363

BODY-SYMBOLS AND SOCIAL REALITY :

RESURRECTION, INCARNATION AND
ASCETICISM IN EARLY CHRISTIANITY

John G.Gager

Several years ago I was invited to participate in an interdisciplinary session on

the topic of resurrection in early Christianity . The invitation confronted me
with an unpleasant methodological dilemma . Should I follow the normal
procedure and create a typology for the subject under investigation e .g., there
are six basic types of resurrection-belief to be found among the early Christians
or undertake to explain the subject in terms of its antecedents, e .g . Paul's view
of the resurrection can be explained by locating him within the traditions of
apocalyptic Judaism and Christianity in the first century? As I vacillated
between these alternatives, I found my long-standing sense of dissatisfaction
with them becoming increasingly pronounced . They struck me not so much as
wrong as inadequate . I emphasize that my choice of the term inadequate is
quite deliberate . I do not mean to suggest that historical inquiries which take
the form of establishing typologies or of pointing to antecedents are wrong as
such or that we can afford to dispense with them . Rather I view them as
inadequate because they leave us with an incomplete picture . They stop short
of the final goal, and at one level they are not explanations at all . By this I mean
that explanations of a given subject, say, Paul's view about the resurrection,
which offer a set of precedents as the causes of his belief are explanations only
in the sense that they tell us that certain beliefs stood before him as pos-
sibilities . They presented him with options to accept, reject or modify . What
an appeal to these antecedents cannot explain is why Paul chose one particular
view rather than some other or why he modified it as he did . In her essay,
`Society, Theodicy and the Origins of Medieval Heresy,' Janet L . Nelson has
stated the problem as follows :'
At a given moment, the religious tradition exists as a repertoire of symbols : vhy
choose to employ some rather than others? And what determines the timing of the
choice? It is, I think, the responsibility of the ecclesiastical historian to undertake
the same kind of enquiry that his colleagues in social and comparative history have
been pursuing in the field on non-European cultures .

0048-721X/82/040345 + 19$02 .00/0 © 1982 Academic Press Inc . (London) Ltd .

3 46 J. G. Gager

This essay will be devoted largely to answering these questions and under-
taking this inquiry .
Nowhere is the inadequacy of such an approach better illustrated than in
E .P . Sander's insightful analysis of traditional approaches to Paul's views of
contemporaneous Judaism . 2 By taking at face value what Paul says ofJudaism
and by refusing to recognize the deeply polemical, apologetic and retrospect-
ive character of his views, scholars have been forced to adopt one of two
positions : either Paul presents an accurate account of first century Judaism as a
legalistic religion of works-righteousness or Paul has fundamentally mis-
understood the nature of Judaism . By contrast, Sanders has been able to
demonstrate the impossibility of moving from Paul's statements about
Judaism to any school or tradition ofJudaism of his time . For Paul is separated
from Judaism by his own conversion and the intervening years of conflict and
controversy . Paul represents an `essentially different type of religiousness from
any found in Palestinian Jewish literature' . 3 Paul's critique of Judaism has
little to do with specific beliefs or practices . In Sanders' words, `this is what
Paul finds wrong with Judaism : it is not Christianity .' 4 Nothing in Paul's
pre-conversion background can explain his later views ofJudaism.
It is at this point that what I call purely historical explanations reach their
outer limit and that we must call upon other resources to complete the picture .
What was it-we need to ask-about one particular form of resurrection belief
and about Paul's own situation that made him incline toward it? And why did
he defend it with such intensity against other interpretations? Unfortunately
we have almost no access to information from Paul's life that would enable us
to answer these questions directly . Thus if we are to proceed further, we would
do well to consider whether specialists in other fields can tell us something
about the role of symbols like the resurrection in cultures where we are much
better informed .
Since the resurrection is a symbol whose basic substance is the human body,
what can we learn about body-symbolism in other cultures? If symbols com-
municate messages-propositional, emotional or whatever-are there particu-
lar kinds of messages or situations for which they are especially appropriate?
Should we look for constant reference-points whenever we encounter body-
symbolism? Perhaps I can best communicate my sense of how we might
proceed by setting forth a series of hypotheses culled from the work of the
British social anthropologist, Mary Douglas . Her Purity and Danger. An Analysis
of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (1966) 5 and Natural Symbols. Explorations in
Cosmology (1970) 6 have called our attention again to the human body and its
symbolic application in religious discourse . Behind her, of course, stand Emile
Durkheim with his dictum that God is Society writ large and more proximately
Marcel Mauss, whose Les techniques du corps' inaugurated the modern study of
the human body as a social product and thus an apt basis for symbolization .
 Body-Symbols in Early Christianity 34 7

But it is Douglas who has crystallized this tradition in a useful way and
demonstrated its importance for students of religion .
In thefirst place, the resurrection is what Douglas calls a natural symbol, i .e .
a religious metaphor whose primary point of reference is the human body .
As such, it ought not to be considered in isolation from other body-oriented
images . For our purposes, this means that we must consider possible relation-
ships between resurrection and other body-symbols such as virgin birth,
incarnation, martyrdom and monasticism .
Second, as Douglas also points out, the body is really not a natural symbol
at all, by which she means that the human body, including its functions and
techniques, as well as our attitudes toward it, take on shape and meaning only
in the context of the social worlds in which we live . In effect there is no such
thing as natural behaviour . The body is a social product in a double sense : first,
in terms of how we develop, shape, train and adorn it, and second, in terms of
the emotional and symbolic values we associate with it . To illustrate this point
let me cite a recent discussion of female roles and their evaluation in relation to
female bodies in their purely physiological aspect : `The observation of physi-
cal differences itself tells us little about the social worlds we live in ; for humans,
biology becomes important largely as it is interpreted by the norms and
expectations of human culture and society . For example, biologists may tell us
that men are on the average, stronger than women ; but they cannot tell us why
male strength and male activities in general seem to be valued by people in all
cultures (p .4) .' 8
Thus I propose to pursue Douglas' observation that `doctrines which use
the human body as their metaphor . . . are likely to be especially concerned
with social relationships . . . The human body is never seen as a body without
at the same time being treated as an image of society .' 9 Put differently, there is
no way `of considering the body which does not take account of the social
dimension .' to
Third, I also adopt Douglas' specification that body-symbols represent
`condensed statements about the relation of society to the individual .' 11 More
specifically, as she puts it in her discussion of the Christological controversies
in the third and fourth centuries, the body will represent society whereas the
mind or spirit will represent the individual . Thus any symbol or ritual which
exalts the spirit over the body is tantamount to a `detachment from or revolt
against the established social forms' . 12 Conversely, symbols which `declare
that spirit works through matter . . . that body and mind are intimately
united, any emphasis on the necessity to mingle spirit and matter implies that
the individual is by nature subordinate to society and finds his freedom within
its forms' . 13
Fourth, and last, my proposal that we adopt Douglas' views about the
social reference of body-symbols is based on the proposition that all historical
348 J. G. Gager

explanations involve theoretical assumptions, whether they are explicit or not .

Even so-called narrative histories are based on theoretical notions of historical
causation . The advantage of making one's theories explicit is not only that
they are open to public inspection and thus subject to criticism and control,
but even more that they may make it possible for us as historians to see the
wood for the trees, to establish relationships between phenomena that had
previously seemed unrelated . Douglas puts the same idea in a different way
when she remarks that doctrines at issue are never chosen at random ; `they
will always summarize a total system of transactions which is being attacked
or defended' . 14 Thus disputes about the resurrection-which is where we shall
begin-involve more than just doctrinal matters in the narrow sense . They are
also condensed statements about perceived difficulties in the body social and
about proposed solutions for those difficulties .

With these assumptions before us, let us look at three expressions of body-
symbolism in early Christianity-resurrection, incarnation and asceticism .
While my primary concern will be to examine each of these symbols separately
as condensed statements about the relation of society to the individual, I will
also suggest that it may be possible to track the successive prominence of each
particular symbol with reference to major trends in the cultural, political and
social development of the Christian movement as a whole . In other words, as
mainstream Christianity moved by stages from a small sectarian cult at the
fringes of Roman society to an international religious institution of great
social, political and economic power, we would expect, in conformity with
Douglas's premises, certain predictable changes in the use of body-symbolism .
Specifically, I would anticipate that we should find, at the centre of the
movement, a shift from symbols of alienation to symbols of integration and that
we should discover a return to earlier symbols of alienation wherever we come
upon expressions of protest or reform at the fringes of the movement . As Paul
uses the notion in 1 Corinthians, the future resurrection of Christians is clearly
a symbol of transformation and thus presupposes an undercurrent of protest
and alienation . He describes the present body as perishable, dishonorable,
weak and physical, whereas the resurrection body of the not too distant future
will be imperishable, glorious, powerful and spiritual . Now if, according to our
hypotheses, statements about the body are simultaneously condensed state-
ments about the social order, Paul's view reflects a clear sense of alienation
from Roman culture and society . His anticipation of the imminent resurrec-
tion expresses his sense that the Roman world in its present condition is not a
satisfactory arena for the enactment of God's salvation . When read in this
context, Paul's comment [in 1 Cor . 15 .191 that `if in this life we who are in
 Body-Symbols in Early Christianity 349

Christ have only hope, we are of all men most to be pitied' may be seen to
contain a very precise evaluation of the rewards that Christians could expect
within the existing social order . The view of the Corinthians, conversely, was
that there would be no resurrection of the dead (1 Cor . 15 .12) . We may take
this statement to be a denial in the first place not of Jesus' resurrection but
more specifically of thefuture resurrection ofChristians and in the second place
of the resurrection of the body ('But someone will ask, `How are the dead
raised? With what kind of body do they come?'-l Cor . 15 .35) . Beyond this the
Corinthians, or at least `the perfect' among them, probably also asserted that
the spiritual transformation, which Paul held out as a future promise for
Christians at the time of the general resurrection, had already come to fulfill-
ment in their individual and collective religious experiences . Paul's ironic
appropriation of their own language in 1 Cor. 4 .8 clearly points in this
direction : `Already you are filled! Already you have become rich! Without us
you have become kings!'
If the position of the Corinthian perfectionists is as we have outlined it, we
must now ask what other differences, beyond purely doctrinal ones, are being
expressed in this bundle of symbolic exchanges . For we must assume that what
separated the Corinthians from Paul was not just their inability to compre-
hend the peculiar Jewish notion of resurrection of the human body but rather
that they viewed the world with different eyes . At the conscious level the
dispute looks like a difference of opinion over religious doctrine-future resur-
rection, resurrection of the body, resurrection body . But if we take these
doctrines as `condensed statements about the relation of society to the individ-
ual', we encounter in the views of the Corinthians not only a more pessimistic
or negative evaluation of society in general but a view of Christianity in which
individual values take clear precedence over corporate life . Taking only this
view of resurrection, we may recognize in Douglas' account of those who `insist
on the superiority of spiritual over material elements' 15 a virtual summary of
the Corinthians' programme : `they insist on the liberties of the individual' and
they are `on the side of spontaneity, freedom and the elevation of spiritual
values [and they] reject society in its established form' . 16
Conversely, Douglas' representation of the contrary view `that spirit works
through matter . . . that body and mind are separate but intimately united'
sounds like Paul's view of the spiritual resurrection body as articulated in 1
Cor . 15 .36-50 . Furthermore, the behaviour associated with such views sounds
again very much like Paul's views of Christian community in general . `The
individual is by nature subordinate to society and finds his freedom within its
form' . 17 This is, of course, precisely the stance taken by Paul against the
spiritualists throughout the letter : individual figures are to be subordinated to
the welfare of the community as a whole (chs . 8-10 on foods) and the insistence
that the exercise of spiritual freedom by individuals must serve the needs of all
3 50 J. G. Gager

(chs . 12-14 on spiritual gifts) . What is more, it now becomes possible to see a
clear, if unexpressed connection between Paul's communal ethic and his
defense of resurrection on the one side and the Corinthians' individualism and
denial of future corporeal resurrection on the other side . If, to speak hypo-
thetically, we knew only of their individualism and their positive attitude
toward spiritual gifts, Douglas' premise that the body symbolizes society and
the spirit the individual would lead us directly to the Corinthians' position on
resurrection of the body . And conversely, Paul's insistence on the primacy of
the community leads him to resist them vigorously on this very point .
On one issue, however, Paul and the Corinthians appear to have been of one
mind . On the assumption that 1 Cor . 15 .13 represents Paul's attempt at a
reductio ad absurdum in order to show the Corinthians that their position ('There
is no resurrection of the dead') led them to contradict themselves ('Then
Christ has not been raised'), rather than an accurate report of their views, we
are left with the result that both affirmed the resurrection of Jesus . This
agreement should prevent us from exaggerating the differences between Paul
and the Corinthians as regards the relation of the individual and society . The
centrality of Jesus' resurrection as a powerful symbol of transcendence and
transformation marks the early Christian movement as a whole with an
unmistakably sectarian stamp . Put differently, the fundamental issue at stake
between Paul and the Corinthians may not have been so much their respective
degrees of alienation from the social order as the concrete social expression-
individual or corporate of that alienation . As for Paul himself, there is more
than a hint of ambivalence or vacillation on this very point . On the other hand,
he stands with or perhaps leans towards the position of the Corinthians to the
extent that his view of the spiritual resurrection body clearly leads him to
regard the resurrection of the physical body as unacceptable and unthinkable .
On the other hand he does insist on the resurrection of the body-even if it be a
spiritual one. By the same token, he is not at all averse elsewhere to using the
body as a metaphor in describing the life of Christian communities in general
(1 Cor . 12 .12-31) . For confirmation of the existence of this ambivalence we
need go no further than an explicit statement of Paul himself, in his letter to the
Philippians, where lie confesses it quite openly :
To live is Christ and to die is gain . If it is to be life in the flesh that means fruitful
labor for me . Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell . I am hard pressed between the
two . My desire (epithymia) is to depart [i.e ., die] and be with Christ, for that is far
better . But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account . 17

In light of Paul's feelings it may not be too much to suggest that his vehemence
in opposing the Corinthians is related to the fact that he harboured sentiments
identical to theirs .
The greatest impact of this dispute and of its outcome, however, lies in
 Body-Symbols in Early Christianity 351

future developments which far exceeded even the wildest intentions of either
party . The denial of physical resurrection, present already in Paul and fully
articulated among the Corinthians, will continue in various forms . In its more
radical version it is widespread among various Christian Gnostics and
Marcionites, while in its moderate form it will surface again in Origen and his
successors . 18 Among the anti-Origenists, and more generally at the level of
what might be called popular Christianity, neither the `moderate Pauline' nor
the `radical Corinthian' view proved acceptable . Here the identity of the future
resurrection body with the present physical body was a matter ofimplicit faith .
In this sense we must speak of a complex symbolic potency inherent in early
Christian views of the resurrection . Among the earliest Christians, the future
resurrection of believers, combined with the death and resurrection of Jesus,
provided recent and potential converts with a ready symbolic expression of
their feelings about present conditions and the social order which reckoned
them as little people . With Paul's notion of a spiritual resurrection body and
even more with the absolute denial of resurrection by the Corinthians, this
cluster of symbolic forms provides an accurate measure of the alienation
among these Christians from the body politic .
As time passed, as the expected end failed to materialize, and as the
movement expanded horizontally throughout the empire and vertically into
new classes, new levels of symbolic content came to the fore . The retreat from
Paul's moderate spiritualism and the fierce resistance to the denial of resur-
rection by Christian Gnostics led to a double modification of the Pauline
position . First, by displacing the time of the resurrection from the immediate
future to an indefinite future, Christianity reflected at a symbolic level what
was taking place at a social level . From the third century onward, the issue for
the majority of Christians was no longer the radical transformation of society
for the simple reason that Christians were becoming increasingly significant
figures without that society . It is precisely within this setting of an increasingly
`worldly' Christianity that we must set the attacks of orthodox spokesmen
against those `heretics' who denied the future resurrection . What was un-
acceptable about these heretics was not just their doctrinal stance, but the
sectarian attitude toward society which that stance implied . Although the
evidence is incomplete, we might generalize to the point of saying that a denial
of the future resurrection, as well as an affirmation of an imminent resurrec-
tion, are attitudes that will always be associated with sectarian movements of
protest . Conversely, by stressing the physical aspect of resurrection against
any form of spiritualizing compromise, however `reasonable' or 'philosophi-
cal' it might appear, the majority of Christians were stating, in compressed
fashion, a conviction that `the individual is by nature subordinate to society,'
whether that society be the Christian Church or the Christian Empire .
Before turning from resurrection to incarnation, it may be useful to compare
352 J. G. Gager

the results achieved thus far with the treatment of resurrection in Elaine
Pagel's provocative and controversial work, The Gnostic Gospels. 19 In her
analysis of the social meaning of disputes about Christ's resurrection-
whether he was really crucified and really raised or merely separated his true
self from the body and appeared as a spirit or phantom-she lays great
emphasis on the political function served by the doctrine of bodily resurrec-
tion . 20 By restricting the line of legitimate apostles to those who had witnessed
the risen body of Jesus, in contrast to the much larger number who claimed
visions and auditions, emergent orthodoxy was able to undercut the authority
of gnostic teachers who stood outside the tradition of the original eyewitnesses .
But as Pagels herself recognizes, the meaning of bodily resurrection extends
well beyond the criteria of apostolic legitimacy . By likening the conception of
resurrection in certain gnostic treatises to the creative spirit of modern artists,
she points to other and possibly deeper rifts between gnostics and their
`orthodox' opponents . Put differently, other techniques could have been
deployed if the sole concern had been to limit the number of Christians who
sought to establish their spiritual authority by claiming direct encounters with
the resurrected Jesus . The issue was not so much numbers as the nature and
context of the religious experience beneath the spiritual authority . This, too, as
we have seen in the dispute between Paul and the Corinthians, is directly
voiced in the language of resurrection .
According to Douglas, there is a definite connection between attempts to
separate body from spirit, which is in turn tantamount to denying bodily
resurrection, and certain basic characteristics of gnostic religiosity, i .e ., indi-
vidualism, creativity and an emphasis on spiritual values . In this sense, what
separates the gnostics from figures like Tertullian and Irenaeus are not differ-
ent interpretations of specific doctrines or practices but a totally different
conception ofChristian spirituality . Tertullian is remarkably close to the heart
of this spirituality, though totally unsympathetic to it, when he denounces
their sense of freedom and individuality :

I must not omit an account of the conduct also of the heretics-how frivolous it is,
how worldly, how merely human, without seriousness, without authority, without
discipline as suits their need . . . every one of them, just as it suits his own tempera-
ment, modifying the tradition he has received after the same fashion as the one who
handed them down, when he moulded them according to his own will . 21

Similarly, when the gnostic author of the Apocalypse of Peter refers scornfully
to those `who name themselves bishops and also deacons, as if they have their
authority God' and calls them `dry canals,' 22 the issue is not that the wrong
people occupy positions of ecclesiastical authority but that the entire system of
ecclesiastical structure epitomized by bishops and deacons is hopelessly un-
 Body-Symbols in Early Christianity 35 3

spiritual, i .e . ungnostic . Thus Pagels is correct in her statement that `the

controversy over resurrection . . . proved critical in shaping the Christian
movement into an institutional religion' . 23 Indeed, as she points out later on,
gnostic spirituality is intrinsically inimical to institution-building and lacks all
of the attitudes necessary for expansion and persistence across prolonged
periods of time . Much more was at stake in this struggle, i .e . the long-term
survival of Christianity itself, though it is doubtful whether either side saw the
debate over resurrection in anything like these terms . When Douglas speaks of
`a restricted speech code' at work in exchanges about body symbols, she
assumes that the implicit meanings are fully understood by all parties . With-
out denying that such implicit meanings are present, even as the primary
symbolic content, there is no reason to suppose a conscious awareness of this in
all cases .
Resurrection thus stands for a much broader range of issues and symbols . In
Douglas' words, `the doctrines at issue summarise a total system of inter-
actions which is being either defended or attacked' . 24 As such we would expect
a certain degree of coherence or consistency among various symbols within a
given religious point of view . If, for instance, a denial of bodily resurrection
signals alienation from the body politic, we would expect to find a similar use
of other body-symbols . A powerful insistence on bodily resurrection ought to
entail both a `realistic' view of the incarnation as the active interpenetration of
the human and the divine, the physical and the spiritual and an aversion to
strenuous asceticism . It is not surprising that we find in Ignatius, as almost
coterminous assertions, (a) opposition to docetic christologies, (b) the reality
ofJesus' death and resurrection and (c) Ignatius' own commitment to the path
of martyrdom . Similarly, in her analysis of controversies about martyrdom,
Pagels is able to show that `in every case, the attitude toward martyrdom
corresponds to the interpretation of Christ's suffering and death' . 25 Where, as
with the school of Valentinus, we find an openness toward martyrdom, we also
find a more `realistic' conception ofJesus' death and resurrection . Where we
find a repudiation of martyrdom, we also find the most `spiritual' conception of
Jesus' resurrection . The Testimony of Truth from Nag Hammadi presents us with
a pristine example of congruence between body symbols of several kinds : a
clear rejection of martyrdom ' 26 a strongly ascetic life-style, 27 a denial of bodily
resurrection 28 and a docetic view ofJesus' earthly appearance . 29 With the aid
of Douglas' insights regarding the symbolic reference of body symbols, we are
in a position to appreciate the underlying reason for this congruence . In this
case, the gnostic perspective is governed by a separation of body from spirit at
the conscious level which translates into a separation of the individual from
corporate authority, whether political or ecclesiastical, at the conscious level,
which translates into a separation of the individual from corporate authority,
whether political or ecclesiastical, at the unconscious or `symbolic' level . What
3 54 J. G. Gager

we will need to determine in the following is whether this pattern of consist-

ency among various forms of body-symbolism reveals itself more generally .

INCARNATION
Let me pursue this line of inquiry one step further by proposing that from the
time of Constantine onward, and no doubt earlier, several shifts of focus had
taken place which lend support to our assumptions about the immediate social
reference of body-symbols . Those who rejected the view of resurrection as a
spiritual and inward event thereby gave immediate expression to the cor-
porate and communal character of mainstream Christianity and prepared the
way for the rapid accommodation between church and empire under Constan-
tine and his successors . As this happened, attention came to be focussed on the
question of incarnation : How were the human and the divine, the physical and
the spiritual, the Son and the Father related in the person of Jesus? Two
aspects of the controversies that led from Nicea to Chalcedon are particularly
relevant for our purposes . First, in affirming the consubstantiality of Father
and Son and the essential unity of the divine and the human in Jesus, the
orthodox position reflected directly the larger social and political reality of
Christianity in the fourth century . As church and world became increasingly
intermingled and coextensive, what we find affirmed at Nicea is a Christolog-
ical symbol whose condensed message is that the church as a whole, and
Christians as individuals, should now find their fulfillment within rather than
against the body politic . Thus it is no wonder that Constantine should have
supported the opponents of Arius or that he should have been the one to
introduce the crucial term 'homoousios' into the debate and thus into the creed .
While there is no difficulty in perceiving the congruence of political and
ecclesiastical interests in Nicene orthodoxy, we must proceed somewhat more
cautiously in dealing with Arius and his anti-Nicene supporters . The problem
is the absence of documentation . Of Arius' views apart from Christology we
know virtually nothing . What we do know is the following : (1) he strongly
defended the unity of God ; (2) he denied the eternity of the Son; (3) he denied
that the Son was consubstantial with God ; (4) he asserted that the Son was
created by God and that he was both imperfect and changeable ; and (5) he
denied any union between the human and the Son in Jesus-the Son simply
replaced the human soul-with the result that Jesus was neither fully human
(since he lacked a human soul) nor fully divine (since the Son was not himself
divine) . While it may not be appropriate to designate this view of the'incarna-
tion' as docetic, inasmuch as the denial of divinity to the Son skirted the
divine-human problem altogether, there can be no doubt that the Arian Christ
was far removed from the language of Nicea and Chalcedon . As for ascetic
leanings, Harnack describes him as a `strict ascetic' and notes that he enjoyed
 Body-Symbols in Early Christianity 3 55

great popularity among the ascetics and virgins of Alexandria . 30 At one point,
Constantine described Arius' appearance in a most revealing manner. 31
Look, look . . . how his veins and flesh are possessed with poison, and are in a
ferment of severe pain ; how his whole body is wasted, and is all withered and sad
and pale and shaking, and all that is miserable and fearfully emaciated . How
hateful to see, and how filthy is his mass of hair, how he is half dead all over, with
failing eyes and bloodless countenance, and woe-begone ; so that, all these things
combining in him at once, frenzy, madness, and folly, from the continuation of the
complaint, have made thee wild and savage .

In Natural Symbols, Douglas has attempted to spell out the political dimensions
of the Arian controversy . By taking what has traditionally been viewed as a
strictly doctrinal, sometimes philosophical dispute 32 into the ambient arenas
of political and social discourse, she is able to reconstruct a hidden dimension
of the debate, to render it more fully intelligible and meaningful and to account
for the obvious, if inarticulate political passions that seem at times to dominate
the exchanges . If we approach them from the direction of Constantine and the
promulgators of Nicene orthodoxy, we will have little difficulty in appreciating
the political appeal of the homoousios formula . For it proclaims unambiguously
the message of political legitimacy, not just of the emperor as Christian but
also of Christianity as a religion in the world and of the empire . It embodies
perfectly at the level of doctrine what was happening at another level between
church and state . H . Marrou observes that in the political theology of the late
Roman empire, the fact that the emperor was now a Christian in no way
reduced `his sacred character, quite the contrary' . 33 As a Christ's regent, as `a
visible manifestation of God on earth' ' 34 the emperor had every reason to
endorse the doctrine of Nicea . For if the power and the glory of God were fully
present in his Son, they must be equally present in the emperor who now rules
in his place . Conversely, if the Son did not know the Father and was not in any
way identical with him, we get a rather different image of imperial power and
legitimacy .
If there are good reasons for Constantine's preference for the Nicene party
and the homoosious formula, there are equally compelling reasons for his
opposition to Arius . John Henry Newman, she urges, was correct in perceiving
the powerful strain of revolt against institutional authority, religious and
political, in the view ofArius . She disagrees, however, with his view that Arius
could have chosen any issue, any point of view, for expressing his rebellious
nature . Against this Douglas counters that `the anthropologist can never
assume that the chosen symbols of differentiation are arbitrary . 13s Arius had
insisted that God himself was not `incarnate' in either the heavenly Son or the
earthly Jesus . At the doctrinal level, this was tantamount to a denial of the
claim that God was in Christ . At the political level, it was to adopt a symbolic
stance of `detachment from or revolt against the established social forms' . 36
356 J . G . Gager

Before leaving the subject of politics and incarnation in the fourth century, it
may be useful to look briefly at a resurgence of the same issues in sixteenth
century England . E . Kantorowicz' remarkable study, The King's Two Bodies . A
Study in Medieval Political Theology ' 37 has shown that in the process of establish-
ing a theoretical justification for absolute monarchy, the jurists of the time
transferred the old teaching of the church as the body of Christ from the
ecclesiastical to the political spheres . As in earlier centuries, `all the christo-
logical problems of the early church concerning the Two Natures once more
were actualized and resuscitated in the early absolute monarchy' . 38 All of the
earlier `heresies,' especially those based on a separation of body and spirit,
reappeared with their political colors fully revealed . Above all, notes
Kantorowicz, `any move in the direction of 'Arianism' may be excluded a
priori, since the co-equality of the King's natural body with the body politic
. . . is beyond any question . ' 39 Thus in speaking of the 'crypto-theological
idiom' present among Tudor lawyers of the sixteenth century, Kantorowicz
points us to the crypto-political idiom present among the Christian theolo-
gians of the fourth century . And in tracing the historical antecedents of this
political theology, he points to none other than Athanasius himself, specifi-
cally to a passage from the Third Oration against the Arians which fully reveals the
political aspect of the controversy . After citing three passages from the gospel
ofJohn (10 .38 ; 14 .10 ; 14 .9), he continues ' 40

For what can be a clearer consequence, than that the son is in the Father and the
Father in the Son, if He and the Father are one? . . . And we may understand this
the more easily by the familiar comparison of the Emperor's image (eikón) on a coin .
For there you have in the image the feature and form of the Emperor, and in the
Emperor himself you have the living picture of that representation . There is such
an exact correspondence between the original and the facsimile, that he who has
looked upon the latter may, without impropriety, be said to have seen the former
. . . And if the coin were sensible how exactly it represents the face of the Emperor,
and could speak to those that were going to see him, after they had been looking at
the image, it might say, `I and the Emperor are one ; for I am in him and he is in me .
What you see in me, you will see in him ; and what you have seen in him, that is
exactly to be seen in me' .

ASCETICISM
More briefly, we turn to the final arena of body symbolism, asceticism and
early monasticism . What I have in mind here is not the rather pervasive
expression of moderate asceticism in late antiquity, of the sort found among
Neoplatonists or expressed in the celebate priesthood or even in the ascetic
nostalgia of figures like Augustine, Athanasius and John Chrysostom during
the late stages of their respective careers . A certain level of body-spirit dualism
was part of the cultural koiné of late antiquity itself and is not simply attribut-
able, as some have proposed, to the influence of Platonic philosophy . Thus the
 Body-Symbols in Early Christianity 357

broad cultural milieu contained within it the seeds of asceticism and encrat-
ism . Our interest here, however, is in the more pronounced expressions of
ascetic behaviour, especially among the monks of Syria and Egypt in the
fourth century . What can we say of their choice of the human body, indeed
their own bodies, as symbols of differentiation? Toward what is their protest
directed? Is their any congruence between strenuous asceticism and other
forms of body symbolism? Is there any proclivity among these living martyrs
for docetic views of the incarnation or spiritual interpretations of the resurrect-
ion?
Of course, primitive Christianity harboured unmistakable ascetic tendencies
from the start . The 144,000 who have not defiled themselves with women
(Rev . 14 .4) and the celibate Paul, wishing that others could live like him (1
Cor. 7 .7), may be taken as appropriate symbolic manifestations of the move-
ment's sectarian sense of alienation from the present order of things . This
coupling of asceticism and revolt remained very much alive in the movement
of Marcion, in Montanism, Christian Gnosticism and in Syriac Christianity
generally . In the fourth century, however, there is a dramatic injection of
ascetic fervour into the mainstream, or rather in creative tension with it .
Nowhere is the impact of this ascetic revival more apparent than in the figure
ofAthanasius, urbane bishop and theological controversialist on the one hand,
fervent admirer of Antony and frequent visitor to the desert on the other .
Before long the movement would escape the isolation of the desert and
overwhelm figures like Augustine and Jerome in the West.
It is the timing of the revival and its choice of the human body as the
medium for symbolic articulation that must draw our attention . Many have
pointed out that the monks, led by Antony, took to the desert precisely during
the time when the world was being taken into the church and the church into
the world . `The hermit was a living criticism of ecclesiastical society .'4 1 This is
manifest not just in the obvious physical withdrawal into the desert but
equally so in numerous negative images of `the city' in the ascetic literature .
There is thus a double focus to the protest-the city as such and Christianity as
the religion of the city .
If it has been apparent to some that the ascetic revival coincided almost
exactly with Constantine's conversion to Christianity and with the growing
signs of the new alliance between church and state '42 almost no one has
thought to consider the appropriateness of asceticism itself as the symbolic
medium for protest . So much energy has been devoted to the great feats of
individual monks that we have missed `the deep social significance of asceti-
cism' . 43 This social significance may take several forms . Arnold Toynbee and
others have seen the ascetic revival as the critical point of transition between
the death of ancient pagan civilization and the birth of mediaeval and modern
Christian civilization . 44 Peter Brown has shown that by virtue of their mar-
3 58 J. G. Gager

ginal status, figures withdrawn from the traditional forms of social life in Syria,
the ascetics there were able to play an important role in mediating powerful
social tensions in Syrian towns of the fourth and fifth centuries . 45 My own view
stresses the element of symbolic protest and alienation .
If we read these accounts socially, rather than physiologically ; if we recall
Douglas' warning that the body must always be treated as an image of society ;
if we recall the timing of the revival itself-we will no longer be astonished that
mortification of the body was the central feature of the earliest monks . The
extreme measures which they sometimes took against their bodies represent
an effort at clarification and differentiation in a time when it was becoming
increasingly difficult to distinguish between church and society . The body
symbolism inherent in their actions is thus a statement not just about secular
societies but about the secular church as well . To reject both was indeed a
daring move, every bit as daring as the monk's decision to inhabit the desert
and to vie with each other in killing the body . From this perspective, the cry of
Dorotheus the Theban, `I am killing my body because it is killing me!' 46
reveals altogether new levels of meaning . E .R . Dodd's question, `Where did all
this madness come from?' appears to be as misdirected as his answer . The
important question is not `Where does it come from?' but `What does it mean?'
or rather `What does it say?' The answer is not that Antony's ascetism results
from an 'introjection' of hostile feelings about the physical world or from an
overheated super-ego expressing itself through acts of self-punishment or
self-mutilation . 47 There is little evidence in the writings about the Desert
Fathers to suggest that their harsh treatment of the human body corresponded
to a dualistic conception of the physical universe . 48 The `world' that concerned
them was not defined in terms of cosmology, but of cities and the church . As
such, their asceticism is altogether different from that of Plotinus and belongs
in a separate category . 49 D .J . Chitty has observed that Athanasius, in his Life
of Antony, stressed the monk's remarkable physical condition and saw his
`perfection as the return to man's natural condition' . 50 In short, neither physi-
cal matter nor the body as physiological organ was the monk's primary
concern . The body stood for something else .
Before concluding this brief treatment of ascetic symbolism, I am obligated
to ask whether other body symbols follow the same tendency toward a separa-
tion of body and spirit . The force of the argument leads us to expect that we
should encounter such views . Do we, then, find evidence of docetic christolo-
gies or tendencies to deny the physical resurrection among the desert ascetics
as we do, for instance, in Marcion and a number of Christian Gnostics?
At the very outset we must recognize that clear answers to these questions
are made difficult by the general paucity of doctrinal material in the ascetic
literature . Nonetheless, there are bits and pieces of evidence which suggest
that the symbolic logic of the ascetics sometimes carried them in `heretical'
 Body-Symbols in Early Christianity 359

directions . In the early fourth century, a learned and an enthusiastic monk of

the Delta was led to deny the resurrection of the body and to insist that no
married person could enter the kingdom of heaven ." `Many of the Egyptian
ascetics followed him .' As for Antony, Athanasius is anxious, perhaps overly
so, to defend his orthodoxy . 52 At one point, says the bishop, Antony was forced
to visit Alexandria in order to refute the Arian assertion that his views were the
same as theirs . 53 The same Athanasius, in his Letter to the Monks, warns the
recipients to be alert for Arians who make a habit of spreading propaganda in
the monasteries, apparently with some success . 54 The discovery of the Nag
Hammadi codices in close proximity to a Pachomian monastery raises the
interesting possibility that this extraordinary library may well have provided
reading material for an outpost of Pachomian monasticism .--' Against the
orthodox view put forward, perhaps tendentiously, in The Life of Pachomius,
James Robinson has raised the possibility that `the common presentation of
the monastic movement of the fourth century C .E . as solidly orthodox is an
anachronism, and more nearly reflects the situation of the later monasticism
that recorded the legends about the earlier period' . 56 The importance of this
observation lies in the fact that virtually all of our sources stem from orthodox
reporters, e .g. Athanasius and Jerome, and from a later time when the ascetics
had been organized as monasteries and subjected to episcopal control . The
independent evidence from Nag Hammadi and elsewhere suggests, though it
does not establish, that circumstances may have been different earlier on . The
repeated insistence on the orthodoxy of the ascetics in the later reports would
be quite consistent with this possibility . But the truth is that we know very
little .

SUMMARY
Mary Douglas has invited historians of religion to test her hypothesis about
the social meaning of body symbols . Her view that body symbolism always
points in the direction of social concerns and that efforts to separate body and
spirit indicate sentiments of revolt and alienation has proved fruitful in several
areas . Of course there is nothing particularly novel in the proposal that the
body can be seen as a symbol of wider realities . The Stoics spoke of the
universe as a body; Paul could describe individual Christian congregations as
a body ; and Priscillian referred to the human body in depreciating terms as a
figura mundi . Victor Turner has shown that the body symbols of the Ndembu in
Zambia are part of a wider pattern which uses `an aspect of human physiology
as a model for social, cosmic and religious ideas and processes', including, he
adds, `the human body [as] . . . a microcosm of the universe, 1'7 There is even a
considerable literature on the subject . 58 Indeed, one cannot help but be struck
by the fact that with the great abundance of work devoted to body symbols in
general, so little has been done with early Christianity .
36 0 J . G . Gager

What distinguishes Douglas from other theoreticians of body symbolism

is her Durkheimian orientation . By taking seriously the social dimension of
body symbols and by positing the revolutionary character of symbols which
separate body and spirit, she is able to uncover latent dimensions of doctrinal
controversy and to restore flesh to the dry bones of theological debate . In her
own preliminary studies, she has limited herself to one symbol, i .e . in-
carnation, and one controversy, i .e . the Arian . In extending her initiative to
other symbols and controversies, I have proceeded on the assumption that
body symbols of different sorts should reflect the same condensed message
about society . I would argue that this effort has been largely successful .
Expectations of imminent resurrection or views of the resurrection which deny
the physical aspect are regularly associated in early Christianity with separa-
tist-sectarian behaviour generally . The recession of hopes for an imminent
resurrection accompanied the transition of Christianity from sect to church .
Conversely, and this would warrant further study, subsequent sectarian
movements within Christianity seem to be accompanied by a return of hopes
for physical resurrection . Particular sorts of sectarianism, especially those
which stress individualism and spiritualism, are prone to view the resurrection
in other than physical terms . Even the mainstream of Christianity refused to
abandon altogether the doctrine of a future resurrection . Orthodox believers
could always point to the denial of resurrection as an unmistakable signpost
of heresy . At one level we may treat this doctrinal survival as little more than
a memory of Christianity's sectarian pedigree, as a vaguely disquieting
memory . At another level, however, its very survival, against heavy odds, may
also be seen as a permanent symbolic indicator of Christianity's ultimate
refusal to identify itself completely with the secular order . Beyond this, the
survival of belief in resurrection has meant the persistence of a latent symbol of
protest, alienation and transformation . For in the final analysis, it is not the
case that symbols merely reflect social reality . As symbols, they also possess
the power to shape it .
In this observation lies perhaps an explanation for the fact that our effort has
not been fully successful . We have not found it to be true in every case that
statements of protest in one symbolic medium, say, asceticism, will inevitably
be replicated in other media, say, incarnation and resurrection . This does
occur often enough to be interesting and more than coincidental . The Testimony
of Truth from Nag Hammadi is a paradigm case . Paul's Corinthians, Paul
himself and Arius come close . The ascetics of Egypt are the most interesting
`deviants' . The connection between their asceticism and the message of aliena-
tion and protest is clear . Their views of the resurrection have not been much
studied, but in view of the symbolic function of their bodies and their view of
ascetic practice as a means of restoring the natural state of Eden, it is not too
much to suggest that their conception of resurrection would have emphasized
 Body-Symbols in Early Christianity 361

the restored and purified nature of the resurrection body in contrast to the
orthodox view of the absolute identity of that body with the present physical
one . As for their views of the incarnation, there is some evidence of leanings in
this direction . While those who held to docetic christologies generally favoured
asceticism, the reverse was not always true . Part of the reason for the absence
of docetic views of the incarnation among the ascetics-assuming, of course,
that they should have been docetists-is that they say so little about doctrines of
any kind . Part may also be due to the orthodoxy of those who wrote about the
monks . Part may be due to the fact that the primary target of ascetic protest
was not the physical universe, or matter as such, or even the world of social and
political reality, but rather the church in and of the world-a differentiated
and thus moderated protest . But part may also be due to a more or less
conscious decision to draw a line between expressions of alienation, so to
speak, a symbolic quid pro quo . The quid was the recognition by the church at
large that ascetic piety could not be proscribed by the successor generations of
the martyrs . Thepro quo would then take the form of doctrinal orthodoxy . Thus
the absence of docetic christologies among the ascetics would result not just
from the imposition of episcopal authority but from the power of doctrine to
shape reality .
Body symbols thus provide us with a new thread for tracing the trans-
formation of Christianity from an obscure cluster of sects in Palestine to an
institution of unparalleled spiritual and political power in the Roman empire .
Of course, not everyone accepted this transformation as an act of divine
providence . Some reacted by denying that God had taken on a human body in
the person of Jesus ; others tortured their bodies ; and from time to time in
succeeding centuries still others gathered in small communities to await the
resurrection of the body and with it the birth of a new world .

NOTES
1 The essay appears in Schism, Heresy and Religious Protest, ed . D . Baker Cambridge,
Cambridge University Press, 1972, p . 68.
2 Paul and Palestinian Judaism . Philadelphia, Fortress Press 1977, pp . 2-12, 33-57 .
3 Ibid ., p . 543
4 lbid ., p . 552 .
5 London, Routledge & began Paul .
6 New York, Random House .
7 First published in the journal de Psychologie, 32 (1936) and reprinted in Mauss'
collected works, Sociologie et Anthropologie, Paris 1966, pp . 363-386 .
8 M . Rosaldo and L . Lamphere (eds), Women, Culture and Society, Stanford University
Press 1974, p . 7 .
9 Douglas, 'Social preconditions of enthusiasm and heterodoxy,' Forms of Symbolic
Action, Proceedings of the 1969 Annual Meeting of the American Ethnological
Society, Seattle and London, American Ethnological Society 1969, p . 71 .
10 Ibid .
11 Natural Symbols, p. 195 .
36 2 J. G . Gager

12 Ibid ., p . 196 .
13 Ibid ., p . 195 .
14 `Social Preconditions', p . 71 .
15 Ibid ., p . 69 .
16 Ibid .
17 Ibid .
18 See the discussion in J .N .D . Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (London : Adam &
Charles Beck, 1960) pp . 476-479 .
19 New York, Random House, 1979 .
20 Ibid., p . 6 .
21 Prescription against Heretics, 41 .
22 Apocalypse of Peter (VII, 3 in the Nag Hammadi Corpus) p. 79 ; of The Nag Hammadi
Library, ed . J . Robinson (San Francisco : Harper and Row, 1977), p . 343 .
23 The Gnostic Gospels, p . 25 .
24 `Social Preconditions', p . 71 .
25 See Pagel's discussion (p . 90) of the Gospel of Truth, The Tripartite Tractate and the
Interpretation of Gnosis .
26 Testimony of Truth (IX, 3) p . 34.
27 Ibid ., pp . 30f, 38f.
28 Ibid ., pp . 35-37 .
29 Ibid ., p . 30 (`[being] alien to the defilement') ; p . 33 ('he [destroyed] his flesh from
. . .') ; p . 45 ('Christ passed through a virgin's womb') .
30 History of Dogma, New York, Dover Publications 1961, vol . IV, p . 8 .
31 Letter to Arius and his Party (333) ; in H .G. Opitz (ed .), Athanasius Werke, Berlin and
Leipzig, W . de Gruyter, III . 1, 1935, p . 73, lines 34 ff. (Urkunde 34 .35) .
32 For an example of such a doctrinal-philosophical approach to Arius see L .W .
Barnard, `The Antecedents ofArius', Vigliae Christiane 24 (1970), pp. 172-88 . For
recent studies on Arius see R. Lorenz, Arius judaizans? Untersuchungen zur dogmens-
geschichtlichen Einordnung des Arius [Forschungen zur Kirchen Dogmensgeschichte,
31 ; Göttingen : Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1979) and R.C . Gregg and Dennis E .
Groh, Early Arianism A View of Salvation, Philadelphia, Fortress Press 1981 .
33 H . Marron, The Christian Centuries, vol . 1 : The First Six Hundred Years, J . Danielou
and Marrou, New York, Paulist Press 1964, p . 241 .
34 Ibid ., p. 242 . On Constantine as image of Christ, see Eusebius, Oration in Praise of
Constantine, passim .
35 `Social Preconditions', p . 70 .
36 Ibid .
37 Princeton, Princeton University Press 1957 .
38 Ibid ., p . 17
39 Ibid .
40 Third Oration, ch . 5 ; the translation is from The Orations of S . Athanasius Against The
Arians, London, Griffith Farran & Co ., n .d ., p . 185 .
41 So L . Duchesne, Early History of The Christian Church, vol . 11, p . 390 .
42 See the thoughtful remarks of A1 J . Festugière, Les Moines d'Orient, I : Culture ou
sainteté, Paris, Editions des Cerf 1961, pp . 18f. Festugière is well aware that
Antony's career predated the reign of Constantine . D . Chitty's reminder that `when
we think of monasticism as flowering with the conversion of the Empire, that about
half of the ascetic life of Athanasius hero was completed . . .' (The Desert a City . An
Introduction to the Study of Egyptian and Palestinian Monasticism under the Christian Empire
 Body-Symbols in Early Christianity 363

[Oxford : Basil Blackwell, 1966] p . 2) is superfluous for our purposes . No one has
thought to deny the existence of ascetic practices before the time of Constantine .
What differentiates this period is a renewed sense of urgency, the retreat into the
desert and a broad impact beyond ascetic circles themselves . It is Chitty (p . 1)
himself' who notes the remarkable coincidence of events in 313 : Constantine's edict
of toleration dramatically altered Christianity's status in the empire and Antony
withdrew into the desert .
43 P. Brown, `The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity', Journal of
Roman Studies 61 (1971), p . 91 .
44 See Toynbee's A Study of'Histoy, London, Oxford University Press, vol . VII, esp
388f'.
45 Brown, `Rise and Function', passim .
46 Herachdis Paradeisos, 1 .
47 Dodds, Pagan and Christian, pp . 27f.
48 See the useful comments of A . H . Armstrong, `Gnosis and Greek philosophy', B .
Aland (ed .), Gnosis. FestschriftfürHansJonas, Gottingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht
1978, p . 93, n . 8 .
49 See D . Chitty, The Desert a City, pp . 41f
50 Ibid ., p. 4 .
51 Epiphanius, Haer. 67 .1 (p . 7091) .
52 See ch . 4 ('Claims on the Life of St. Antony') in Gregg and Groh, Early Arianism, pp .
131-159 . The chapter concludes with the following words : `A carefully fashioned
polemical weapon, the Antony presented by Athanasius stands as a sharp alterna-
tive to the Arian scheme of salvation . . . As symbol of ascetic greatness, the desert
hero becomes also the vehicle for orthodoxy's campaign to undo threatening
(perhaps successful) Arian bids for monastic support' (p . 153) .
53 Lif è of Antony, p. 69 .
54 Letter 53 in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol . IV : Athanasius, A. Robertson (ed .),
Grand Rapids, Eerdmans 1971, orig . 1891, p. 564 .
55 See the discussion of James Robinson in The Nag Harnmadi Library, ed . Robinson,
San Francisco, Harper & Row 1977, pp . 16-21 .
56 Ibid ., 18. The fact that Pachomius himself made use of `secret letters' in his
correspondence may indicate that he was himself less orthodox than his admirers
might have wished . See H . Quecke, Die Briefe Pachoms, Textus Pastrici et Liturgici,
11 ; Regensburg, Friedrich Postet, 1975 .
57 The Forest ofSymbols-Aspects of'Ndembu Ritual, Ithaca and London, Cornell Univer-
sity Press 1967, p . 107.
58 Of the recent literature, mention may be made of L . Barkan, Nature's Work of Art .
The Human Body as an Image of The World, New Haven and London, Yale University
Press 1975 .
59 One partial exception to this rule can be found in Margaret R . Miles, Augustine on
The Body, AAR Dissertation Series, 31 ; Missoula, Scholars Press 1979 . In her
concluding remarks she shows an awareness of the extra-doctrinal significance of
doctrinal matters, e .g . `the Church fathers instinctively realized that the Incarna-
tion `settles' the question of the value of the body . . . (p . 127) . She is also conscious
of connections between diflèrent body images, e .g . she comments that Augustine
moved from an ascetic `preoccupation with overcoming the body to . . . a growing
obsession with resurrection of the body' (p . 128) .
364 J . G . Gager

JOHN G . GAGER is Chairman and Professor in the Department of Religion

of Princeton University . He is the author of Moses in Greco-Roman Paganism
(1972) and Kingdom and Community . The Social World of Early Christianity (1975) .

Department of Religion, Princeton University, 613 Seventy-Nine Hall, Princeton, New

Jersey 08544, U.S .A .