Scenting Salvation - Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination

Acknowledgments xi Abbreviations xv Introduction 1(10) 1. The Olfactory Context: Smelling the Early Christian World 11(46) A Martyr's Scent 11(10) Sacrifice: The Aroma of Relation 21(9) Daily Smells: Powers and Promises 30(16) God's Perfume: Imagined Glory and the Scent of Life 46(11) 2. The Christian Body: Ritually Fashioned Experience 57(42) A New Place 57(2) A Revelatory World 59(6) Participatory Knowing: Ritual Scents and Devotional Uses 65(18) Participatory Knowing: Scents and Sense 83(7) Excursus: Incense Offerings in the Syriac Transitus Mariae 90(9) 3. Olfaction and Christian Knowing 99(57) Sense Perception in the Ancient Mind 100(5) Christian Senses in a Christian World 105(9) Olfactory Analogies as Theological Tools 114(11) Revelatory Scents: Olfaction and Identity 125(9) Remembering Knowledge: Liturgical Commentaries 134(14) Excursus: On the Sinful Woman in Syriac Tradition 148(8) 4. Redeeming Scents: Ascetic Models 156(45) The Smell of Danger: Marking Sensory Contexts 158(4) The Fragrance of Virtue: Reordering Olfactory Experience 162(7) The Spiritual Senses: Relocating Perception 169(12) Ascetic Practice and Embodied Liturgy 181(5) The Stylite's Model 186(11) A Syriac Tradition Continued 197(4) 5. Sanctity and Stench 201(21) Ascetic Stench: Sensation and Dissonance 201(5) Stench and Morality: Mortality and Sin 206(4) Ascetic Senses 210(3) Asceticism: Holy Stench, Holy Weapon 213(9) 6. Resurrection, Sensation, and Knowledge 222(19) Bodily Expectation 222(7) Salvific Knowing 229(12) Notes 241 Bibliography 33(356) Index of Biblical Citations 389(8) General Index 397