What's a Body to Do?
Gregory or Nyssa
April 1, 1999
Narcissus, the antihero of Greek myth, worshipped his own body. Symeon the Stylite—a hero among Christian holy men in the fifth century—demonstrated his rejection of bodily desires by living atop a 60-foot-tall pillar for 40 years. With whom do our sympathies lie? Most of church history has been marked by Symeon-like tendencies. Generations of the faithful have feared that they could not enjoy both God and his creation. More recently, many Christians thought their devotion to God was defined by what portions of creation they rejected (no drinking, no dancing). Recent decades, however, have seen narcissism's return. Now, we are often more tempted by an "irrational exuberance" about material life and our human appetites.
Of course, the need to navigate between these treacherous alternatives is not new. Toward the end of the fourth century, Gregory of Nyssa, one of the great Cappadocian theologians, spoke to a church torn between these two extremes. Christians—seeking to differentiate themselves from a sensual and materialistic Roman society—were tempted to define holiness as rejecting the body's needs and desires.
How do you defend and expound the significance of the Word taking on a human body to a community that is tempted either to join in its culture's worship of the body or to reject the body's significance as part of God's handiwork? How can we, who by nature require material sustenance, pursue the pure spiritual life? In response to this problem, Gregory offered a series of sermons on the Lord's Prayer. The following extract from the fourth sermon explains the text, "Give us this day our daily bread."—Stanley P. Rosenberg
Someone might suggest an objection: How can those who have been destined for life in the flesh achieve ...
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