One of the deepest ironies of the Ancient World is that the Judaeo-Christian tradition, which has a manifest taboo about nakedity (outside of marriage), also has a deep respect for the body (it will be resurrected, for one), while Graeco-Roman paganism, which was shameless in its display of nudity, had a very low view of the worth of the body. The popular Greek saying sōma sēma, “the body is a tomb” well sums up this low view of the human body. In this respect, Gnosticism, with its overt hatred of bodily existence, is flat-out Hellenization. While orthodox Christianity, with its championing of corporeality, is proving its resistance to cultural accommodation on this issue.
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