Nicholas Constas & Lyn Miller

Harvard Divinity School – Spring Semester 2001

HDS 2593

Eros Crucified: A Christian Symposium on Desire

Introduction: In Praise of Love

Fri Feb 2: Julia Kristeva, “In Praise of Love,” in Tales of Love, trans. Leon S. Roudiez (New
York, 1987), 1-17

Plato: Wings of Desire

Fri Feb 9: (1) Plato, Symposium (n.b. 180d-185c; 199e-212c); (2) Plato, Phaedrus (n.b. 244b-
257b), trans. William S. Cobb, Plato’s Erotic Dialogues (Albany, 1993), 15-59; 87-137; (3)
Plotinus, “On Love,” Enneads III.5, trans. A.H. Armstrong, Loeb Classical Library
(Cambridge, MA, 1996); (4) David Halperin, “Platonic Eros and What Men Call Love”
Ancient Philosophy 5; (5) Eleanor H. Kukendall, “Introduction to ‘Sorcerer Love’ by Luce
Irigaray,” and (6) Luce Irigaray, “Sorcerer Love: A Reading of Plato’s Symposium, Diotima’s
Speech,” in Revaluing French Feminism: Critical Essays on Difference, Agency, and Culture,
ed. Nancy Fraser and Sandra Lee Bartky (Bloomington, IN, 1992), 60-63; 64-76
Anne Carson, Eros the Bittersweet (Princeton, 1986); Julia Kristeva, “Manic Eros, Sublime Eros: On Male
Sexuality,” Tales of Love, 59-82 (Plato); Julia Kristeva, “Narcissus: The New Insanity,” Tales of Love, 103-
21(Plotinus)

Cupid and Psyche

Fri Feb 16: (1) Apuleius, Cupid and Psyche = Book 4.28-6.24 of The Golden Ass, trans. E.J.
Kenney (London, 1998), 71-106; (2)Thomas Taylor, The Tale of Cupid and Psyche
E.J. Kenny, Apuleius. Cupid and Psyche [IV.28-VI.24] (Cambridge, 1990); James Gollnick, Love and the Soul.
Psychological Interpretations of the Eros and Psyche Myth (Waterloo, Ontario, 1992)

Harlots of the Desert

Fri Feb 23: (1) “The Life of Mary of Egypt,” trans. Benedicta Ward, in Harlots of the Desert
(Kalamazoo, 1987), 35-56; (2) “The Life of St. Pelagia the Harlot,” trans. Benedicta Ward,
Harlots of the Desert, 66-75; (3) “The Exegesis of the Soul (II,6),” trans. William C. Robinson
in The Nag Hammadi Library in English , ed. James M. Robinson (San Francisco, 1977), 180-
87; (4) Gregory the Great, “Homily 25,” Forty Gospel Homilies (Kalamazoo), 187-99; (5)
James Kirwan, “The Heavenly and Vulgar Venus,” in id., Beauty (Manchester and New York,
1999), 77-92
See also: Paul Friedrich, Aphrodite; Karen King, ed., Gnostic Images of the Feminine.

Origen, On the Song of Songs

Fri Mar 2: (1) Origen, Commentary on the Song of Songs, Prologue, Book I.1-4; Book II.1-2,
8; Book III.5-7, trans. R.P. Lawson, Ancient Christian Writers 26 (New York, 1956), 21-57;
58-83; 91-113; 179-95; (2) Robert Hood, “Blackness as Evil and Sex in Early Christian
Thought,” in Begrimed and Black: Christian Traditions on Blacks and Blackness
(Minneapolis, 1994), 73-90; (3) Robert Hood, “Images of Ethiopia and Ethiopians in Patristic
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Literature,” in The Image of the Black in Western Art, vol. II (“From the Early Christian Era to
the ‘Age of Discovery’”), ed. Jean Divisse (Cambridge, MA, 1979). See also Prestige, “Eros,
or devotion to sacred humanity,” in his Fathers and Heretics.

Gregory of Nyssa: In the Shadow of the Apple Tree

Fri Mar 9: (1) Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity, trans. Virginia Woods Callahan, Fathers of the
Church 58 (Washington, D.C., 1967), 6-75; (2) Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nyssa, Homilies
on the Song of Songs, Prologue, 1-4, 6, 8, 11, 12, trans. Casimir McCambley (Brookline, MA,
1987), 35-106; 127-38; 161-68; 199-209; 213-25; (3) Peter Brown, “The Notion of Virginity in
the Early Church,” in Christian Spirituality: Origins to the Twelfth Century, ed. Bernard
McGinn, et al. (New York, 1993), 427-43
Mark Hart, “Reconciliation of Body and Soul: Gregory of Nyssa’s Deeper Theology of Marriage,” Theological
Studies ; Verna Harrison, “A Gender Reversal in Gregory of Nyssa’s First Homily on the Song of Songs,” Studia
Patristica 27 (1993): 34-38; ead., “Gender, Generation, and Virginity in Cappadocian Theology,” JThS 47 (1996):
38-68

Augustine: Cupiditas and Charitas

Fri Mar 16: (1) Augustine, Commentary on Psalm 42 (NPNF, vol. 7, 132-38); (2) Augustine,
On Christian Doctrine I (NPNF, vol. 2, 522-34); (3) Augustine, Tractates on 1 John 1, 2, 5, 7,
8, 9.9, trans. John W. Retting, Fathers of the Church 92 (Washington, D.C., 1995), 121-40;
141-58; 185-97; 217-27; 228-45; 257-59; (4) Augustine, City of God XIV (NPNF, vol. 2, 262-
83); (5) Hannah Arendt, “Love as Craving,” Love and Saint Augustine, ed. Joanna Scott and
Judith Stark (Chicago, 1996), 9-44; (6) Augustine, Confessions IV.10, trans. R.S. Pine-Coffin
(London, 1961), 80-81; (7) Rowan Williams, “Language, Reality, and Desire in Augustine’s
De Doctrina Christiana”

Ladders of Divine Ascent and Descent

Fri Mar 23: (1) John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent 27-30, trans. Colm Luibheid and
Norman Russel (New York, 1982), 261-90; (2) Maximus the Confessor, “Four Centuries on
Love,” trans. G.E.H. Palmer, et al., The Philokalia, vol. 2 (London, 1981), 52-113; (3)
Dionysius the Areopagite, On the Divine Names 4.7-16, trans. Colm Luibheid and Paul Rorem
(New York, 1987), 76-83; cf. John Parker, trans., On the Divine Names, in id., The Works of
Dionysius the Areopagite (London, 1897-1899; repr. 1976), 39-51

Christ the Chameleon

Fri Mar 30: (1) Nicholas Constas, “The Last Temptation of Satan” [later published as:
Nicholas Constas, “The Last Temptation of Satan: Divine Deception in Greek Patristic
Interpretations of the Passion Narrative,” Harvard Theological Review 97.2 (2004): 139-63];
(2) “The Life of Mary/Marinos,” trans. N. Constas, in Holy Women of Byzantium, ed. A.-M.
Talbot (Washington, D.C., 1996), 1-12

Bernard of Clairvaux: The Debt of Love

Fri Ap 6: (1) Bernard of Clairvaux, “On Loving God,” trans. G.R. Evans (New York, 1987),
173-205; (2) Bernard of Clairvaux, “Sermons on the Song of Songs,” trans. Evans, 209-78; (3)
Michael Casey, “The Vocabulary of Desire,” in A Thirst for God: Spiritual Desire in Bernard
of Clairvaux’s Sermons on the Song of Songs (Kalamazoo, 1988); (4) Andrew Louth, “Bernard
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and Affective Mysticism,” in The Influence of Saint Bernard, ed. Jean Le Clerq; (5) Julia
Kristeva, “Ego Affectus Est. Bernard of Clairvaux: Affect, Desire, Love,” in Tales of Love,
151-69

Fri Ap 13: Good Friday

Hadewijch of Antwerp: The Mercies of Minne

Fri Ap 20: (1) “Hadewijch of Antwerp: Introduction,” in Women Mystics in Medieval Europe,
Emilie Zum Brunn and Georgette Epiney-Burgard (New York, 1989), 97-112; (2) Hadewijch,
trans. Mother Columba Hart (New York, 1980)

Pavel Florensky: Friendship and Jealousy

Fri Ap 27: (1) Pavel Florensky, “Letter Eleven: Friendship,” and (2) “Letter Twelve:
Jealousy,” from The Pillar and Ground of Truth, trans. Boris Jakim (Princeton, 1997), 284-
330, 331-43

Levinas and Irigaray: The Fecundity of the Caress

Fri May 4: (1) Emmanuel Levinas, “Section IV: Beyond the Face,” in Totality and Infinity,
trans. Alphonso Lingis (Pittsburgh, 1969), 251-85; (2) Luce Irigaray, “The Fecundity of the
Caress: A Reading of Levinas,” in An Ethics of Sexual Difference , trans. Carolyn Burke and
Gillian Gill (Ithaca, NY, 1984), 185-217; (3) Hegel, “Lordship and Bondage,” in Hegel’s
Dialectic of Desire and Recognition: Texts and Commentary, ed. John O’Neill (Albany, 1996),
29-45

The Reformation of Desire

Fri May 11: (1) Martin Luther, “The Freedom of a Christian,” in Martin Luther: Selections
from his Writings, ed. John Dillenberger (New York, 1962), 42-85; (2) Martin Luther, Lectures
on the Song of Solomon Book I, in Luther’s Works, vol. 15, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan (Saint Louis,
1972), 191-210; (3) Martin Luther, “A Meditation on Christ’s Passion,” trans. Martin Bertram,
in Luther’s Works, vol. 42 (Devotional Writings I), ed. Martin O. Dietrich (Philadelphia,
1969), 5-14; (4) Heiko Obermann, “Simul Gemitus et Raptus: Luther and Mysticism,” in The
Reformation in Medieval Perspective, 219-51; (5) Bengt Hoffman, Luther and the Mystics

Requirements: Each week, two members of the class will be responsible for initiating and
leading discussion. A final, twenty-page research paper, due on May 18th