A boundary-overflowing profusion of body types (and therefore sexes) capable of transcending the limits of biblical "kind"

Turning from a brief history of the question, and then from an analysis of the key New Testament passages, and especially 1 Cor 15:35-49 as represented diagrammatically (opposite), according to which bodily variety in time might "cross" with a presumably ever-increasing bodily variety across the aeons of creation, [reconciliation], but in the post-resurrection period of [redemption] most especially, Heß then makes some tentatively constructive moves, moves that strike me as—and that she more than once admits are—more speculative than strictly exegetical:

. . . The "explication begins already with v. 38 [of 1 Cor 15]: God’s newly creative work gives to every creature, 'between the times,' a body of its own, [i.e. a body] appropriate to it (ἴδιον σῶμα). On earth men, animals, birds, and fish live and move in a profusion of [(in einer Fülle an)] σάρξ, [while] in the heavens sun, moon, and stars shine in the most manifold δόξα. Also, this impressive panorama of metaphors—topologically an exuberant praise of the creation, in fact—can exhibit chronological lucidity [(kann chronologisch Transparenz entfalten)]. Again: the earthly sphere (v 39) for the reality of creation, the heavenly [sphere] for the reality of redemption (v 41): in all aeons of salvation God [(Gott)] maintains her creature [(ihre Kreatur)] in [a] variegated individuality. Presumably the future plurality of bodies will go well [(noch)] beyond [that of] the present, insofar as, with the individual creature [(Geschöpf)], this [plurality], too [(auch sie)], will stand for the first time no longer under the sign of fleshly brokenness, but will appear in perfect clarity. Perhaps such an eschatic clarification [(Aufklarung)] of the bodily manifold of creation will . . . [(ja nicht)] ultimately attain to form in this, that its 'earthly' orientation to [the 'one] kinds' of v 39 [will] sprout, in the heavenly aeon, [out] into a boundary-overflowing profusion of bodies capable of transcending even, beyond that [(noch)], the limits of kind: 'for one star differs from [another] star in δόξα' (v 41).
     "So also [with] the resurrection of—sexed bodies? I would risk the attempt to place the theological accents of 1 Cor 15:35-49, too, within the horizon of our opening question. Vv. 39-41 in particular promise for the eschaton, at any rate, no one (as it were) unified body of a certain fixed kind [(keinen wie auch immer gearteten Einheitsleib)]. Quite the contrary. In this difference [(Gefälle)], the confession that in Christ [there] is (one day) no longer either male or female might then hold out in prospect the absence of a uniform sexuality for th[ose] risen [(keine uniforme Geschlechtlichkeit der Auferweckten)]—be that [as in the tradition (295-301)] either exclusively male or sexually androgynous [(geschlechtsneutral)]. On the basis of vv. 38 and 41 an eschatic plurality of sexed bodies and identities could lie close at hand, in which God allows th[ose] risen to appear on the far side of [the] pre-established limits of the (dualizing) matrix of [the two] sexes [(jenseits vorgegebener Grenzen der (dualisierenden) Geschlechtermatrix)] in accordance with his (previously composed) will in the individuality suited to them: 'But God gives it [(ihm, him)] a body as it [(sie)] has chosen, and (indeed) to every individual seed [(jedem Einzelnen der Samenkörner)] a corresponding body [(einen entsprechenden Leib)]' (v. 38).
     "All in all, therefore, our eschatological search for clues [(Spurensuche)] on the far side of monism [on the one hand] and dualism [on the other] ends in a pluralism of sexual difference characterized by new creation [(neuschöpferisch qualifizierten Pluralismus der Geschlechterdifferenz)].
     "I summarize:
     "The theologically uncontested conception of an eschatic transformation of sexual corporeality can from the New Testament onwards and with significant theological justification [(vom Neuen Testament her durchaus theologisch begründet)] be represented 1) as a fundamentally corporeal re[con]figuration [(Neufigurierung)] of the form of sex [introduced at] creation [(der Schöpfungsgestalt von Geschlecht)] that [is] effected in the Christ-sphere [and] has also de-dualizing and anti-hierarchical consequences for sexual identity and sexual praxis (Gal 3:28; Mk 12:25 and parallels). Such an eschatological transformation of the reality of sex can occur 2) modally as [a] radical shift in perspective that brings with it a curative clarification [(Aufklarung)] of the risen with respect to their sexual existence. In that they obtain [a] share in the perception with which GOD sees them is their at-present-always only-fragmentarily-experienceable corporeality and identity for the first time adequately developed [(zur Entfaltung gebracht)] (1 Cor 13:9-12; 1 Jn 3:2). This transformation of perception might take shape qualitatively in 3) a newly created [(neuschöpferischen)] plurality of risen bodies that would make it possible for every single sexed body to make itself felt individually in the singularity perfectly [(je)] appropriate to it (1 Cor 15:35-49).”
     "III.
     "What we will be has in fact not yet appeared. The biblico-deconstructive inducements [(Anstöße)] to a de-dualized eschatology of sexual difference are understood, first, as [a] decidedly future-eschatological contribution. And so they are constructed, obviously, on the foundation of [some] very complex [(vielschichtigster)] theological problems that cannot [(nicht konnten)] be considered here explicitly.
     "But how goes it with their real-world [(lebensweltliche)] workability in particular? Does the idea of the eschatologically 'last things' issue, perhaps [even] necessarily, in an unpolitical quietism that [it] would be right to challenge from the standpoint of feminist theology? I think not. Pauline theology knows already of a specific mutual entanglement of [the] already now and [the] not yet, of present and future eschatology, of reconciliation and redemption. Thus, the baptismal formula of Gal. 3:28 puts its anticipated eschatological conclusions [(Urteile)] in the indicative. As incorporation into Christ’s sphere of influence, baptism brings with it already revolutionary [and] newly creative [(neuschöpferische)] transformations, [such that] in Christ the 'new creature' has already appeared (Gal 6:15; 2 Cor 5:17 ). And yet its qualitative transformation into ultimate perfection is still to come (1 Cor 15:35 ff. ). It is important not to fall short of this productive tension theologically. Within its horizon the future impetus of eschatology appears not as [a] reactionary scenario of consolation, but as [a] potential for a 'utopian anthropology' that does not leave to [present] reality in its self-sufficiency the last word. 'If . . . inherited [(tradierte)] certainties are placed in question, then ever-new fields of activity and life-plans [(Lebensentwürfe)] become possible as well.' As [a] universal perspective of hope, this doesn’t just open up[—to hope—]alternative and therein perhaps more authentic ways of existence to the individual; it opens up—to hope—new fields of increasingly plural [(pluralerer)] sociality in the here and now.
     "Naturally, one could [(kann)], speaking epistemologically, banish the considerations outlined here to the curiosity-cabinet of dogmatics with ease. Yet wholly apart from the pressures that Holy Scripture all by itself [(nun einmal selbst)] exerts [(gibt)], one certainly does not in this way, however, get rid of the questions that have [been] thrown open [(aufgeworfenen)]. If sexuality does in fact stamp human experience unavoidably, but the eschaton involves [(meint)] a personal event, then it may be impossible to avoid thematizing also the question of sexual identity eschatologically. And if the culturally-generated production of the sexual binary [(Zweigeschlechtlichkeit)] is accompanied by repressive trimmings of human bodies and identities, [then] one will also have to reflect upon the question of sexual transformation in the eschaton at the very latest. The theological tradition has not shrunk from this concern. Incidentally, we have yet to grasp that the problem of the sexuality of the resurrected body may be in and of itself in no way more unclear and speculative than many other theological topoi, indeed, ultimately, [even] the Christian faith itself in specific ways.
    "'It does not yet appear what we shall be.'
     "For this reason my comments can and want to be but provocations [(Anstöße)]. As such, the have obviously a theological potential that is wholly personal in nature: 'No proof is furnished; the point is simply to create room for thought.'
     "I would not like to exclude [(möchte nicht ausschließen) the possibility] that we could appear in the revelatory fulfillment of the eschaton as authentic and mutually reconciled men and women. But perhaps our redeemed (sexual) bodies will appear for the first time in their unmediated peculiarity [(un-vermittelten Eigen-artig-keit)] so variously that the interpersonal desire for [(zwischenmenschliche Begehren nach)] reductionistic dualizations [(reduktionistischen Dualisierungen)] of every kind will have been, in view of this fullness in God’s name, done away with. What we will be will then—if God wills and we live (Js 4:15)—appear in [all of its] splendor."

     Ruth Heß, "'Es ist noch nicht erschienen, was wir sein werden.'  Biblische-(de)konstruktivische Anstöße zu einer entdualisierten Eschatologie der Geschlechterdifferenz," in Alles in allem:  eschatologische Anstöße:  J. Christine Janowski zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. Ruth Heß and Martin Leiner (Neukirchen-Vluyn:  Neukirchener Verlag, 2005), 320-323 (291-323), translation (and every misunderstanding) mine.  E.g. I must confess that I haven't yet figured out what to do with the ja nicht near the end of that first paragraph (on p. 320).

Holy places

"It is true that God is everywhere, that He is not confined or bounded by any place, because He made everything; and it is fitting for Him to be adored by the true adorers in spirit and truth, that, hearing them in secret, He may likewise justify and reward them in secret.  But, as far as things visibly known to men are concerned, who can search into His purpose, or the reason why these miracles occur in some places but do not occur in others?"

     St. Augustine, Letter 78 (AD 404), as trans. Parsons, FC 12, Saint Augustine:  Letters, volume 1 (1-82) (1951), 377-378.  Latin:  CSEL 34.2, 335.  The resort here was to "the place where the body of the blessed Felix of Nola is buried".  He continues:  "We also know that at Milan, at the shrine of the saints, where the devils make wonderful and terrible confession, a certain thief, who had gone there to strengthen a false oath, was forced to confess his theft, and to restore what he had stolen.  But, how about Africa:  is it not full of the bodies of holy martyrs?  Yet we do not hear of such things happening anywhere.  It is that, as the Apostle says, just as all saints do not have the gift of healing, nor do all have the discernment of spirits, so, not in all shrines of the saints does He will that these things happen, and He ‘divides to everyone his own according as [H]e will.'"  So the resort was to a specific place where both parties might be forced to confess any sin committed with respect to the other.
     What bishop would have the faith to submit a question of the truth of the matter (in a case of, say, sexual (im)propriety) to the divine tribunal in this way today?  What people would be properly theistic (rather than atheistic) enough to credit such a procedure cum verdict?

Do not be disturbed, do not be frightened, do not fall into sadness

"what was the use of the Lord Jesus Himself saying:  'Then shall the just shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father,' which is to happen after the end of the world, and even exclaiming:  'Woe to the world because of scandals'—if it was not to keep us from flattering ourselves that we can attain the abodes of everlasting bliss in any other way than by standing firm when we are tried by temporal evils?  What was the use of His saying:  'Because iniquity hath abounded the charity of many shall grow cold,' if it was not that those, of whom [H]e speaks when He adds at once:  'He that shall persevere to the end, he shall be saved,' should not be disturbed [(non perturbarentur)], should not be frightened [(non expauescerent)], when they see this charity growing cold with the prevalence of iniquity, should not fall into sadness [(non . . . contristati deficerent)] as at things unanticipated and unexpected?  But, seeing these things that were predicted happen before the end, should they not persevere patiently to the end so as to deserve, after the end of time, to reign without care in that life which has no end?"

     St. Augustine, Letter 78 (AD 404), as trans. Parsons, FC 12, Saint Augustine:  Letters, volume 1 (1-82) (1951), 375-376.  Latin:  CSEL 34.2, 332-333.

Prayers for the apparently non-Christian dead

". . . Do Thou Thyself, O Master of all things, our God and Saviour, Thou Hope of all the ends of the earth and of them that be far off at sea, . . . Who on this all-perfect and saving Feast [of Pentecost] hast vouchsafed to accept the supplicatory prayers of forgiveness [(ἱλασμοὺς ἱκεσίους)] for them that are held in Hades [(ὑπὲρ τῶν κατεχομένων ἐν ᾍδῃ)]; Who grantest us great hope that unto the departed held in the bondage of grief [(τοῖς κατοιχομένοις τῶν κατεχόντων αὐτοὺς ἀνιαρῶν)], there be sent from Thee rest and refreshment:  Hearken unto us, the lowly and the wretched, who pray unto Thee, and grant rest unto the souls of Thy servants that have fallen asleep before us [(τῶν δούλων σου τῶν προκεκοιμημένων)], in a place of light, a place of verdure, in a place of refreshment, where all pain, sorrow, and sighing are fled away; and establish their spirits in the tabernacles of the righteous, and vouchsafe unto them peace and rest; for it is not the dead that shall praise Thee, O Lord, nor shall they that are in Hades dare to offer thanks unto Thee, but we the living, bless and entreat Thee, and offer unto Thee reconciliatory prayers and sacrifices [(τὰς ἱλαστηρίους εὐχὰς και θυσὶας)] in behalf of their souls. . . ."

     Service of kneeling (Vespers, Sunday of Pentecost), The Pentecostarion, translated from the Greek by the Holy Transfiguration Monastery (Boston, MA, 1990), 424.  But is this really a prayer for unbelievers-in-life, the reference to Hades constituting a prayer upon which "no limits are placed"?  ODCC, 4th ed. (2022), sv Dead, Prayers for the:  "In the E. Church no limits are placed on such prayer. In the liturgy of Chrysostom, the eucharistic sacrifice is offered for (ὑπέρ‎) the saints and martyrs, and there is authority for praying for those 'bound in Hades' (Service of Kneeling, Pentecostarion [(πεντηκοστάριον χαρμόσυνον)] (Rome, 1883), 414; (Athens, 1959), 212) and for pagans (cf. Apophthegmata Patrum, Makarios, 38[, below]). In the W. prayer for the dead was closely connected with the development of the doctrine of purgatory; gradually such prayer was limited to prayer for the ‘holy souls’, i.e. the souls in purgatory. The W. Church does not pray for the martyrs, because they are believed to be in full possession of beatitude immediately after death, a refusal later extended to all canonized saints. Nor, it is held, can the damned, i.e. those who have died in unrepented mortal sin, be assisted by our prayers, though who they are is known to God alone"; sv Purgatory:  "The E. Church came to admit of an intermediate state, but refrained from defining it so as not to blur" ['the clear-cut alternative fates of heaven and hell']; it combined with this doctrine a firm belief in the efficacy of prayer for the dead, which was a constant feature of both E. and W. liturgies. Such prayer is held to be unintelligible without belief in some interim state in which the dead might benefit."


"Abba Macarius said, 'Walking in the desert one day, I found the skull of a dead man, lying on the ground.  As I was moving it with my stick, the skull spoke to me.  I said to it, "Who are you?"  The skull replied, "I was high priest of the idols and of the pagans who dwelt in this place; but you are Macarius, the Spirit-bearer.  Whenever you take pity on those who are in torments, and pray for them, they feel a little respite."'  The old man said to him, 'What is this alleviation, and what is this torment?'  He said to him, 'As far as the sky is removed from the earth, so great is the fire beneath us; we are ourselves standing in the midst of the fire, from the feet up to the head.  It is not possible to see anyone face to face, but the face of one is fixed to the back of another.  Yet when you pray for us, each of us can see the other’s face a little.  Such is our respite.'  The old man in tears said, 'Alas the day when that man was born!'  He said to the skull, 'Are there any punishments which are more painful than this?'  The skull said to him, 'There is a more grievous punishment down below us.'  The old man said, 'Who are the people down there?'  The skull said to him:  'We have received a little mercy since we did not know God, but those who know God and denied Him are down below us.'  Then, picking up the skull, the old man buried it."

     Sayings of the Desert Fathers, alphabetical collection, Marcarius 38, trans. Benedicta Ward.

Reality-check

HFP, Harvard University

     "Brilliant as [Lorraine] Daston’s account is, it falters in her sense of moral epistemology. She generally takes moral claims to be generated simply by the community, then imposed, subconsciously, onto the broader material world. If our norm-generation mechanisms are in poor repair, then the world can do little to help us. But this is surely wrong. A thousand times in history—a million, more likely—visionaries, prophets, artists, and philosophers have wandered away from the social world that made them and sat themselves in nature, to see what could be seen when you stop demanding that nature echo back precisely the creeds of your community. We can think here of Elijah or John the Baptist, Muhammad or the Buddha, or Christ. Closer to our own time, Thoreau, Whitman, and Emerson went to nature to find a renewed, energized version of America. Analogous solitudes have been sought and found even in prison cells—think of Martin Luther King Jr. or Fyodor Dostoevsky. As much as all of these men’s cultural formations accompanied them into solitude, shaped what they would see, there is also—in nature, in reality—more than is contained in any philosophy or culture. The main things that are needed are silence and trust—and not just for the would-be prophets among us, but for all of us: teachers, policymakers, clerics, parents, humans of any stripe. Panicked catastrophism will only ensure that our challenged cultures stay brittle and stuck.
     "The turn to panic has been an immensely frustrating aspect of the past several years. The liberal establishment has gnashed its teeth, shrieked, buried its head in the sand, blamed its comeuppance on omnipotent Russian bots, anything to avoid going back to reality and seeing what it might have missed, how its cultures have been blind, how they could be refreshed. The ongoing advancement of postwar liberalism is not guaranteed by the dictates of nature. That is fine, or it had better be, because it is true. But what should we do with that fact? Here there are infinite options. We have to say it again, and keep saying it: There is always more to see in the world; the process of understanding is unending. There are ways for America to stay America, while gathering back in its various warring factions. One thing we can say for sure is that to keep giving voice to the shouted slogans of yesterday is not one of those ways. If America wants to return to a state of relative social peace, if it wants its various peoples to be at home in its world, it had better dispatch its incumbent prophets from the noisy, contentious town square immediately. New, more capacious visions are needed—great awakenings and reformations and renaissances still to be seen. Thankfully, beautifully, reality is waiting, and reality is never spent."

     Ian Marcus Corbin, "Deep down things in a time of panic," The hedgehog review:  critical reflections on contemporary culture 24, no. 3 (Fall 2022):  25-26 (20-26).

"from their own hearts"

Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture

     "The only way out of this prison of self-deception and self-justification is to love and seek the truth—and to believe that truth is something we share:  not 'my truth' and 'your truth' but the truth, truth as a commons, a potentially fertile plot of ground we tend together and that is nurtured by our collective work or ruined by our neglect. . . .
". . . In a society that does not love and seek truth and whose people do not know their own temptations and strive to expel deception from their own hearts, then, in the end, Truth will be what Power says it is."

     Alan Jacobs, "Staying for the truth," The hedgehog review:  critical reflections on contemporary culture 24, no. 3 (Fall 2022):  12 (9-12).

The Greeks as well as the Romans

"The idealized vision that past centuries left of Greece has for a long time forestalled the admission that torture and torments [(la torture et les supplices)] had their place, as much in the collective imaginary as in ancient juridical institutions.  Yet they played a role [(participaient)] in the everyday world of the citizens [of Greece], coming to the surface in their cultural life, at the theater and in recitations [(l’écoute)] of the myths, taking their place in social life, in corporal punishment [(la pénalté en vigueur)], and in judicial investigations.  One could even, out by chance on a walk, [or] when rounding a rampart [(au hazard d’une promenade, au detour d’un rampart)], be suddenly confronted with the horrific spectacle of torments."

     Monique Halm-Tisserant, Réalités et imaginaire des supplices en Grèce ancienne, Études Anciennes (Paris:  Les Belles Lettres, 1998), Introduction (I have read no more).