Heavenly Healing: Eschatological Cleansing and the Resurrection of the Dead in the Early Church

Abstract

This paper uses constructions of the resurrected body in the early church as a lens through which to consider the roles of bodily ability and difference as identity markers in the study of religious texts. It argues that with the emergence of “orthodox” views of bodily resurrection and the encounter with the objections of Greek philosophy, the perfect resurrected body began to be described using the language of healing and cleansing. By examining constructions of resurrected bodies in the writings of Pseudo-Justin, Irenaeus, and Augustine, it argues that—unlike gender—certain bodily impairments are not reproduced in the resurrection. Their removal is tied to a particular view of salvation history and functions both as the completion of Jesus' healing ministry and as proof of the removal of primordial sin. The salvation of all flesh is completed with the eradication of bodily “deformity.”

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 56 citations exist upstream.