Sacred Scents in Early Christianity and Islam by Thurlkill Mary;

Author:Thurlkill, Mary;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Saintly Bodies and Scent

Theologians and hagiographers in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages relied upon fragrance in crafting an idealized Christian body in a variety of ways. In defining sanctity, both masculine and feminine, scent betrayed more than just outward aroma, revealing whether one had bathed; what one had eaten; or whether one was ill. Fragrance indicated, instead, a moral topography—virgin or whore? Saved or damned? Temporal or celestial? Also in shaping ideals of holiness, we find that Christian writers relied disproportionately on the female body in sacred discourse.

Early Christian male authors indeed depended upon Biblical exempla, martyrs, and saints when exploring what it meant to be holy. Within this rhetoric, theologians and moral polemicists tended “to think” with women’s bodies; i.e., female figures feature prominently as standards of what not to do and virginity surfaces as the most significant purveyor of spiritual purity and salvation.[89] Certainly Church Fathers and hagiographers did not require chastity from all their converts and hearers; yet, they quickly pointed out the rigors of married and parental life compared to the joys of virginity. Ambrose, for example, clarifies that brides and mothers must contend with countless demands of husbands and children which brings much “weeping” and much “pain before pleasure.”[90] Virgins, on the other hand, happily strive to please only God, find rest in virtue’s simple beauty, and remain fertile in works of the Holy Spirit.[91]

Scent, already so meaningful in cultural context, occupies a prominent position within this discourse. Many Church Fathers identified the spiritual body—transformed through baptism and sustained through the Eucharist—with sweet smells. First, however, they unanimously condemned secular uses of perfumes among the holy (and here women receive particular rebuke). In his Second Letter to Virgins, Athanasius writes:

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