The Burden of the Flesh: Fasting and Sexuality in Early Christianity

by Teresa M. Shaw

Shaw's rich and fascinating work provides a startling look at early Christian notions of the body--diet, sexuality, the passions, and especially the ideal of virginity--and sheds important light on the growth ofChristian ideals that remain powerful cultural forces even today. Focusing on the fourth and early fifth centuries, Shaw considers three types of Christian arguments--physiological, psychological, and eschatological--about the efficacy of fasting in the ascetic pursuit of chastity. Demonstrating their connections also illumines relationships between body and belief, theory and behavior, and physical self-abnegation and theological speculation. In the process, Shaw examines a variety of texts from the seventh century b.c.e. to the seventh century c.e., including medical treatises,philosophical writings, Christian homilies, and theological treatises.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Theology

Paperback

First published May 1, 1998

Reviews

[Amy Hughes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shaw's 1998 Burden of the Flesh explores the relationship between dietary regimens and sexual renunciation in early Christian ascetic practice. She begins with an overview of the Greco-Roman understanding of the body and medicine (Musonius Rufus, Plutarch, and Galen) that she demonstrates undergirds the late antique ascetic conception of the body and its functions. One of the key observations that Shaw makes is just how intertwined all the philosophical, medical, and athletic language is in writers like Galen but also in Christian writers like Jerome, John Chrysostom, and Evagrius of Pontus. She pulls out three themes from the philosophical schools that carry over into Christian ascetic writing: 1. Moral virtues and vices are linked to the soul's condition; 2. the soul is somehow linked with the bodily senses and procreative impulse; and 3. an impulse to elevate the rational soul and a theoretical tendency to separate it from the fleshly body. This tension between soul and body courses through the texts that Shaw examines and often manifests in seemingly contradictory affirmations of extreme mortification of the body and calls for moderation and caution for one's bodily health.

Shaw then turns to the early Christian ascetic texts and how they wrote about fasting (Basil of Ancyra, Gregory of Nyssa, Jerome, John Cassian). It is clear that success in one's dietary regimen was directly correlated to sexual purity. Certain foods would inflame desire while others would assist in its quenching. Females had an especially difficult time as those who not only had to maintain the purity of their own flesh but were also responsible to a large extent for the success of men's quest for chastity. Shaw's chapter on Gluttony illustrates just how inseparable indulgence in food was from indulgence in sexual impurity in many texts (John Chrysostom and Evagrius of Pontus).

One of the most rewarding chapters in Burden of the Flesh was Shaw's examination of fasting, sexual renunciation, and early Christian eschatological formulations. Basically, early Christian theological anthropology was obsessed with the current state of the human body precisely because of the promise of the paradisal body to come. The prohibitions against certain foods and praise for extreme mortification of the body was really largely about the yearning and promise of the reversal of the fall. This can help us begin to understand why they would seek to preserve and carefully navigate the tension between mortification and balance. A body that had shed its lusts and had reoriented all love toward Christ as the bridegroom--especially in the case of female virgins as seen in Shaw's last chapter--was a body that was victorious over sin and death. I greatly appreciated the theological treatment that Shaw included, it demonstrates that she read the texts with a keen eye toward what was of fundamental importance to these early writers.

Asceticism is generally difficult to comprehend, but Shaw's project goes a long way toward helping us understand how to read texts that would otherwise leave us feeling quite hungry, if not also disturbed by their austerity.

[l · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the last two chapters (on paradise/fasting and women/fasting):

'What is especially important for this study is that all of the authors surveyed here, even those (such as Evagrius with the most 'spiritualized' or 'disembodied' interpretations of the first creation and the future resurrection, regard the condition of the present body which has been manipulated by ascetic techniques as in some sense related to - or realizing - the past and future blessed condition of humanity.'

[Natacha Pavlov · Rating 4 out of 5]

"... the failure of belief is, in its many forms, a failure to remake one's own interior in the image of God, to allow God to enter and to alter one's self... Disobedience or disbelief or doubt in the scriptures is habitually described as a withholding of the body." -Elaine Scarry

Through the examination of a variety of texts, Shaw provides a look at early Christian notions of the body, among them the role of fasting in overcoming temptations. Based on several views, fasting serves the purpose of re-bridging the gap with God, and bring us back to that ideal Golden Age (see Plato, Virgil and Ovid, to name a few).
While interesting, unsurprisingly, some of these late antiquity aspects were hard to digest (heh; pun intended), namely those cases where wasting away and other extreme physical changes were often seen as 'praiseworthy.' While I can appreciate the (hopefully) positive intent of spiritual growth through overcoming self-imposed hardships, some could definitely ring bittersweet, if not counter-productive. These, and other instances like it, tend to remind me of Matthew 6:17-18—which I guess some of the ascetics conveniently ignored.

But to end on a funnier note, I'll just leave the term 'wandering womb' right here... (lol!)

[Karim Farid · Rating 3 out of 5]

الكتاب غني جدًا بمعلومات وتحليلات أكاديمية عن رؤية النساك المسيحيين في القرن الرابع والخامس للجسد والأكل والجنس، وبيوضح الخلفية الطبية والثقافية والفلسفية اللي أدن للمفاهيم دي عن طريق عرض مفاهيم جالينوس وبلوتارخ وغيرهم للجسد والجنس والأكل، وبعدين الكاتبة بتربطهم بخطب غريغوريوس وباسيليوس وكاسيان وجيروم وغيرهم.
عندي شوية تعليقات نحوية على الترجمة العربي، وشوية تعليقات على التنسيق في الطباعة بس أظن ده سهل يتجنب في الطبعات القادمة بشوية مراجعة أكتر.
تقييم الكتاب 3.5

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has been on my to-read list for ages, and for the life of me, I cannot remember where I first heard of it or what led me to add it here. But I'm glad I read it- it's about how early Christians viewed the body and it's actually really interesting.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Concise, solid overview of early medicine and its implications for how we read early Christian ascetic texts. This info is (now) available quite broadly, but this still serves as an excellent starting point. Good bibliography, as this project started as a dissertation; a bit dated, but only in that more work has been done since this was published - there haven't been any major shifts in the field, so her conclusions and summaries are still current. Her linking of ancient philosophy and religion with ancient medicine, predicated on the ancient link between body and soul as an irreducible union, is particularly helpful. Dale Martin's book The Corinthian Body, which she credits and upon which she depends, provides an even more detailed argument in favor of the soul-body synthesis and serves as an excellent correction against our modern tendency to divide soul and body into two spheres (one supernatural, the other natural).