Naked saints and other holy beings
I remember when I first found out about the Jain religion, I was fascinated by the colossal statues showing full frontal nudity. Turns out they represent beings called tirthankars, the Jain counterpart to Buddhas. They are naked because they have completely renounced all earthly things, including clothing.
Christianity also teaches us not to be attached to earthly things, but generally does not advocate renouncing clothing. It took me years to find references to naked Christian saints, and when I did, they were in the Eastern Christian tradition. I saw in a book about the Byzantine Empire a drawing of a stylite, i.e an ascetic who lives on top of a pillar. He was naked. And then there is St. Basil, a Russian saint who was known not to wear clothes in summer or winter. Icons of him show him naked.
I have read that the biggest difference between the Eastern and Western Christian traditions is that the West focuses more on the Crucifixion, i.e death, whereas the East emphasizes more the Resurrection, i.e life. I wonder if this is connected to my finding naked saints in the East but not the West.
St. Sebastian is definitely the most famous of the naked or nearly naked saints venerated in the Catholic Church. He is always depicted in art and literature tied to a post or tree and shot with arrows, either naked or only minimally covered by a loin cloth.
St. Sebastian is a bit different though, because in his case, he was stripped by his persecutors. This is psychologically (and hence symbolically) different from a saint like Basil who went naked habitually.
I can't say I understand the Bible's views on nudity, and question if there's a cultural or spiritual narrative I don't understand at all. For example, it cites Peter as a naked fisherman as the norm. I can imagine that thick drapey clothes with fish guts just weren't practical back then. On the other hand, there's the story of Noah getting drunk and naked. It's not an issue that he's irresponsible in his actions, but all the focus is on his sons seeing/leaving him naked. Ham is cursed for it, which is used later to justify both classism/serfdom and racism. Besides baptism and symbolic cleaning, the Bible doesn't offer much about justified nudity or personal hygiene. It forbids tattoos and discusses sexual morality, but seems to write more about taking and keeping slaves than basic hygiene. How did people stay clean in an arid climate without bathrooms or a beach culture? I imagine understanding this better would clarify Biblical views of nudity whether for saints or common folk.
There are at least two naked saints that are honored in the Eastern Church as well as the Western Church. St. Onofre (Humphrey) who lived as a naked hermit in Egypt as well as Saint Mary of Egypt who also lived as hermit. Both have feast days in Church calendars. There iss strong evidence that at least St. Onofre lived with a community of naked hermits which were know to exist at the time. This is not so surprising as the Bible refers to prophets who were naked when they were speaking prophecies. Also Isaiah who God ordered to live and preach naked for three years. The prophet Micah also was naked for some of time as a prophet. Nudity can hardly be considered "morally evil or wrong" if God ordered them to be naked in public and blessed those who lived nude.
Also, we can be certain of at least four times when Jesus Himself was naked: 1) His birth (obviously); 2) His baptism; 3) His crucifixion, and His resurrection (the sign of His resurrection was that the burial cloths were left behind. Unless He brought a change of clothes with Him, he rose the dead naked.)
This is an interesting thread. Im an Eastern Orthodox Christian and I have not explored this theme. Of course, it is not something that is too noted when talking about the lives of the saints.
I believe it would be accepted that Christ was nude upon his resurrection, which is why Mary mistook Him as the gardener it was not uncommon for gardeners to be nude at that time.
One story I can think of off the top of my head is that of the 40 martyrs of Sebaste. There were 40 men who refused to renounce Christ and were forced to stand nude in a freezing cold lake while soldiers had a fire going on the shore. One of the soldiers had a vision of 40 crowns being lowered from heaven so when one of the men in the lake gave in, reneged and went to warm up by the fire (he died anyway), this soldier was convinced by the witness of the men, stripped off his uniform and joined the men in the lake, gaining the rank of martyr along with the others. Hmm, I guess this is not the same as living nude, as noted above.
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