The Good, the Bad, and the Body

by Stephen Morris

Body parts, and their veneration as relics, were an important devotional focus in late antique Christianity. These body parts were seen as a locus of power and sanctity which continued to exert influence over the world in their vicinity. Patristic authors used images of various body parts (hair, right hands vs. left hands, genitalia, gender, old age) as metaphors for both good and evil, virtue and vice. The inner reality of a person’s spirit would not always be obvious in this world but would be revealed in the world to come, often by the condition of these various body parts when the body was resurrected at the Last Judgment.

30 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 11, 2011

About the author

Stephen has degrees in medieval history and theology from Yale and St. Vladmir's Orthodox Theological Academy. A former priest, he served as the Eastern Orthodox chaplain at Columbia University. His previous academic writing has dealt primarily with Late Antiquity and Byzantine church life.

He is also the Chair of the CORE Executive of Inter-disciplinary.net and organizes annual conferences on aspects of the supernatural, evil and wickedness, and related subjects. It was an I-D.net project that took him to Prague for the first time in 2001 and he immediately fell in love with the city! He has been back many, MANY times!

Stephen, a Seattle native, is now a long-time New York resident and currently lives in Manhattan with his partner, Elliot.