Suchergebnisse

"There are few areas in which the chasm separating pagan and Christian ethics is deeper than that of sexuality. Here I wish to examine this fundamental shift of thought from the standpoint of the ontology of sexual difference. Is the difference between male and female solely bodily, or does it also extend in some way to the soul - and if so, how should we understand this further (and presumably deeper) level of difference? Any answer to this question necessarily depends on one's understanding of the soul itself, a topic on which there was little agreement among the philosophical schools of antiquity. Nonetheless, as we shall see, there was a broad consensus that sexual difference is a more or less accidental feature of embodiment and does not affect the soul intrinsically. The Greek Fathers accepted this view, using it to shape their own reading of the creation account in Genesis"--