Hi Thomas, thanks for starting this substack and all of your valuable reflections on these patristic works.
There is something that’s been bothering me with your commentary, and that is the assertion that the Fathers assert that we are not bodies but minds. I don’t see that claim born out in the texts at all.
The idea that we are primarily minds in a temporary cloak of bodily flesh is a distinctly Platonic idea. Certainly, some Fathers were influenced by Platonism, but I rather think that their consensus conception of the human distinctly clashes with Platonism on this point. No doubt there is a spectrum of opinion amongst the Fathers, but the consensus is not Platonic.
I think that this is especially true of the Cappadocian Fathers. Certainly, St Basil would have received an extensive Platonic education in his youth in Athens. However, he and his family’s anthropology is probably most clearly articulated in his brother St Gregory of Nyssa’s “On the Soul and Resurrection”, which as you know also claims to be a dialogue with their eldest sister.
In this dialogue, it is the unambiguous claim is that the human is always an embodied creation, even in the dissolution of death. St Gregory - and I extrapolate to his brother Basil, whose literary tradition he continued - asserts that the human soul is always associated with the material body, which will be reconstituted in the Resurrection.
So contrary to the Platonic claim that we are principally minds, as I take you to assert in this commentary, the Cappadocians - and the Church Fathers more broadly - rather assert that we are at all times embodied souls, although the character of that embodiment changes through the aeons.
I’d be interested in your thought, and perhaps in your commentary on “On the Soul and Resurrection”. I think it’s important to correctly characterise the Patristic opinion, even where it is diverse, rather than represent the Orthodox position as essentially Platonic, which I don’t take to be the case.
Hi Machaon! Thank you so much for taking the time to write such a considered comment.
You're not the first person to push back against my presentation of the Fathers' teaching on the body. And as I've endeavoured to stress several times in Life Sentences so far, I am not saying that the Fathers regard the body to be evil. Nor do they consider the fact of the mind's embodiment to be a tragic accident. Not at all. If the body were evil, then God the Creator would be evil; if embodiment were a tragic accident, then this would cast aspersion upon God's providence. The error of Platonism lies in its tendency to assert either or both of these heresies, that the creator of the world is not wholly good, and that embodiment in itself is evil, or accidental, or meaningless. But this is blasphemy.
Nonetheless, the human being is not to identify with the body, and this teaching, though Platonic, is no less patristic. This is what I'm trying to stress. Modern, atheist, materialist thought teaches us to identify with our bodies, and far too many Christians simply go along with it, believing that they are thereby honouring the doctrine of the incarnation. As a consequence, most modern Christians neither affirm nor practice asceticism of any kind; indeed, most modern Christians find it inexplicable that the Fathers insisted on ascetic labours as the bedrock of the spiritual life. After all, if the body is good, as the Church teaches, and if what I am is the body (which the Fathers, in fact, did not teach), then why all this emphasis on fasting, vigil, and martyrdom? Instead, identifying with their bodies, most modern Christians put the body in charge; the flesh, which is meant to be regarded as an enemy, is instead put in the driver's seat; and this is a recipe for disaster. It is why most Christians conform themselves so easily to our modern, passionate, consumerist, success-oriented, bourgeois way of life. Which is to say nothing of the higher problem, beyond asceticism, that results from this unwillingness to dis-indentify with the body. Namely that, by stubbornly identifying with their bodies in that modern way, modern Christians cut themselves off from the possibility of experiencing the spiritual illumination of both natural and theological contemplation, which are the soul's true life, and which can only be experienced when the mind has withdrawn from the flesh.
As for 'On the Soul and Resurrection', you're absolutely right, in that (Platonic) dialogue, St Macrina does argue that the soul, while not being attached to the body, remains present to the body, even to the lifeless body in the grave, even after the body has decomposed. But even then, she says that at death the 'rational nature', which is what we essentially are, changes state and becomes 'subterranean', i.e. it 'separates' from the body. And she also stresses that the image of God is the mind, and she calls the body the soul's 'vehicle' and suchlike. This is in accordance with St Basil, who very carefully distinguishes between 'the soul and mind' which we are, and 'the body' which we possess. St Paul's language, though subtle, is no different, for example in 1 Cor. 9:27 where he says, 'I discipline my body and enslave it,' making a distinction between himself and his body, not to mention the metaphor of being clothed and unclothed which he regularly employs to describe the different modes of our embodiment.
Which metaphor St Macrina also employs, for example here from the end of chapter 7: 'For although this bodily covering is now dissolved by death, you will see it woven again from the same elements, not indeed with its present coarse and heavy texture, but with the thread respun into something subtler and lighter, so that the beloved body may be with you and be restored to you again in better and even more lovable beauty.' Note that the body here is beloved, as indeed it is; note as well that it will be returned to us changed and more glorious, and that we will be clothed by it anew; but also note, the body is not you, it is with you.
In my view, that distinction is absolutely key. Thanks again for your really thoughtful comment!
Hi Thomas, thanks for starting this substack and all of your valuable reflections on these patristic works.
There is something that’s been bothering me with your commentary, and that is the assertion that the Fathers assert that we are not bodies but minds. I don’t see that claim born out in the texts at all.
The idea that we are primarily minds in a temporary cloak of bodily flesh is a distinctly Platonic idea. Certainly, some Fathers were influenced by Platonism, but I rather think that their consensus conception of the human distinctly clashes with Platonism on this point. No doubt there is a spectrum of opinion amongst the Fathers, but the consensus is not Platonic.
I think that this is especially true of the Cappadocian Fathers. Certainly, St Basil would have received an extensive Platonic education in his youth in Athens. However, he and his family’s anthropology is probably most clearly articulated in his brother St Gregory of Nyssa’s “On the Soul and Resurrection”, which as you know also claims to be a dialogue with their eldest sister.
In this dialogue, it is the unambiguous claim is that the human is always an embodied creation, even in the dissolution of death. St Gregory - and I extrapolate to his brother Basil, whose literary tradition he continued - asserts that the human soul is always associated with the material body, which will be reconstituted in the Resurrection.
So contrary to the Platonic claim that we are principally minds, as I take you to assert in this commentary, the Cappadocians - and the Church Fathers more broadly - rather assert that we are at all times embodied souls, although the character of that embodiment changes through the aeons.
I’d be interested in your thought, and perhaps in your commentary on “On the Soul and Resurrection”. I think it’s important to correctly characterise the Patristic opinion, even where it is diverse, rather than represent the Orthodox position as essentially Platonic, which I don’t take to be the case.
Hi Machaon! Thank you so much for taking the time to write such a considered comment.
You're not the first person to push back against my presentation of the Fathers' teaching on the body. And as I've endeavoured to stress several times in Life Sentences so far, I am not saying that the Fathers regard the body to be evil. Nor do they consider the fact of the mind's embodiment to be a tragic accident. Not at all. If the body were evil, then God the Creator would be evil; if embodiment were a tragic accident, then this would cast aspersion upon God's providence. The error of Platonism lies in its tendency to assert either or both of these heresies, that the creator of the world is not wholly good, and that embodiment in itself is evil, or accidental, or meaningless. But this is blasphemy.
Nonetheless, the human being is not to identify with the body, and this teaching, though Platonic, is no less patristic. This is what I'm trying to stress. Modern, atheist, materialist thought teaches us to identify with our bodies, and far too many Christians simply go along with it, believing that they are thereby honouring the doctrine of the incarnation. As a consequence, most modern Christians neither affirm nor practice asceticism of any kind; indeed, most modern Christians find it inexplicable that the Fathers insisted on ascetic labours as the bedrock of the spiritual life. After all, if the body is good, as the Church teaches, and if what I am is the body (which the Fathers, in fact, did not teach), then why all this emphasis on fasting, vigil, and martyrdom? Instead, identifying with their bodies, most modern Christians put the body in charge; the flesh, which is meant to be regarded as an enemy, is instead put in the driver's seat; and this is a recipe for disaster. It is why most Christians conform themselves so easily to our modern, passionate, consumerist, success-oriented, bourgeois way of life. Which is to say nothing of the higher problem, beyond asceticism, that results from this unwillingness to dis-indentify with the body. Namely that, by stubbornly identifying with their bodies in that modern way, modern Christians cut themselves off from the possibility of experiencing the spiritual illumination of both natural and theological contemplation, which are the soul's true life, and which can only be experienced when the mind has withdrawn from the flesh.
As for 'On the Soul and Resurrection', you're absolutely right, in that (Platonic) dialogue, St Macrina does argue that the soul, while not being attached to the body, remains present to the body, even to the lifeless body in the grave, even after the body has decomposed. But even then, she says that at death the 'rational nature', which is what we essentially are, changes state and becomes 'subterranean', i.e. it 'separates' from the body. And she also stresses that the image of God is the mind, and she calls the body the soul's 'vehicle' and suchlike. This is in accordance with St Basil, who very carefully distinguishes between 'the soul and mind' which we are, and 'the body' which we possess. St Paul's language, though subtle, is no different, for example in 1 Cor. 9:27 where he says, 'I discipline my body and enslave it,' making a distinction between himself and his body, not to mention the metaphor of being clothed and unclothed which he regularly employs to describe the different modes of our embodiment.
Which metaphor St Macrina also employs, for example here from the end of chapter 7: 'For although this bodily covering is now dissolved by death, you will see it woven again from the same elements, not indeed with its present coarse and heavy texture, but with the thread respun into something subtler and lighter, so that the beloved body may be with you and be restored to you again in better and even more lovable beauty.' Note that the body here is beloved, as indeed it is; note as well that it will be returned to us changed and more glorious, and that we will be clothed by it anew; but also note, the body is not you, it is with you.
In my view, that distinction is absolutely key. Thanks again for your really thoughtful comment!