Thursday, November 8, 2012

Resurrection Bodies

This semester, I am researching early understandings of gendered bodies at the time of the resurrection.  Will our glorified bodies be male and female?  St. Gregory of Nyssa thinks we will not be man and woman at the resurrection.  St. Augustine of Hippo disagrees:
In the resurrection, the blemishes of the body will be gone, but the nature of the body will remain.  And, certainly, a woman's sex is her nature and no blemish; only in the resurrection there will be no conception or child-bearing associated with her nature.  Her members will remain as before, with the former purpose sublimated to a newer beauty... Her womanhood will be a hymn to the wisdom of God, who first made her a woman. (City of God, Bk 22, Ch. 19) 
How beautiful is that!  I just want to sit and meditate upon it for a while.  Sadly, I have to keep working, so I am blogging it instead.

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