The Anthropology of St Gregory Palamas: The Image of God, the Spiritual Senses, and the Human Body

Description

How are we to regard our body? As a prison, an enemy, or, maybe, an ally? Is it something bad that needs to be humiliated and extinguished, or should one see it as a huge blessing, that deserves attention and care? Is the body an impediment to human experience of God? Or, rather, does the body have a crucial role in this very experience? Alexandros Chouliaras' book The Anthropology of St Gregory Palamas: The Image of God, the Spiritual Senses, and the Human Body argues that the fourteenth-century monk, theologian, and bishop Gregory Palamas has interesting and persuasive answers to offer to all these questions, and that his anthropology has a great deal to offer to Christian life and theology today. Amongst this book's contributions are these: for Palamas, the human is superior to the angels concerning the image of God for specific reasons, all linked to his corporeality. Secondly, the spiritual senses refer not only to the soul, but also to the body. However, in Paradise the body will be absorbed by the spirit, and acquire a totally spiritual aspect. But this does not at all entail a devaluing of the body. On the contrary, St Gregory ascribes a high value to the human body. Finally, central to Palamas' theology is a strong emphasis on the human potentiality for union with God, ?theosis: that is, the passage from image to likeness. And herein lies, perhaps, his most important gift to the anthropological concerns of our epoch. Front Matter Introduction Part I. Introduction Chapter I. Introduction Chapter II. Imago Trinitatis: The Trinitarian Reflections in Man Chapter III. The Image of God in Man and the Angels Chapter IV. The καθ’ ὁμοίωσιν Conclusion Part II. Introduction Chapter V. Contextualising the Palamite Spiritual Senses Chapter VI. Αἴσθησις νοερά (Intellectual Perception) Chapter VII. Vision through Ecstasis and the Role of the Body Conclusion Epilogue Back Matter