1. For descriptive passages of physical beauty see, Basil, In Hexaemeron, FC 5.2; Gregory of Nyssa, De Virginitate, FC 3; Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio, NPNF 8.10.
2. Clement of Alexandria, Paedagogus, ANF 3.11.
3. Basil, Hex FC 9.3.
4. I Cor. 3:16-17.
5. Gregory of Nyssa, De Opificio Hominis, SC 2.1.
6. Ibid. 3.2.
7. Basil, De Spiritu Sancto, NPNF 5.12; also see Rom. 9:21.
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8. A discussion of some early Christian sources for later Medieval views of the beauty of Christ can be found in Umberto Eco. The Aesthetics of Thomas Aquinas, (Cambridge, MA, 1988), 122-125.
9. "'The Apocryphon of John," in The Nag Hammadi Library, ed. James M. Robinson, rev. ed. (Leiden, 1988), 105-7. Also see Elaine Pagel's discussion of this text in The Gnostic Gospels, (New York, 1979), 73.
10. Mark 16:12; Luke 24:13-32.
11. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio, PG 36.321.
12. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio, NPNF 39.16
13. Gregory of Nyssa, Oratio, PG 46.662.
14. Basil, Hex, FC 5.2
15. Origin tells us that those Christians who were actually put to death, "could be easily numbered." Contra Celsus, ANF 3.8. Eusebius also mentions the fact that there were no universal persecutions until the third century, Church History, III.3.
16. Tertullian, Ad Scapula, ANF 5. See also Hilary A. Armstrong, Expectations of Immortality in Late Antiquity, (Milwaukee, 1987), 44.
17. Tertullian, De Anima, ANF 55.4-5. St. Cyprian also held this belief, Ad Fortunatum, ANF 13.
18. Gregory of Nyssa describes the painless state of martyrs in Vita Macrina, PG 46.977. A lengthy discussion is also found in Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians, (New York, 1989), 438-41.
19. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, ANF 4.9; 4.26.
20. 1 Cor. 9:25-7; Phil. 3:14; Heb. 12:1; 1 Tim. 1:18, 6.12; 2 Tim. 4:6-8. See also the discussion in Robert J. Daly, Christians Sacrifice: The Judaeo-Christian Background Before Origen, (Washington, D.C., 1978), 383-5.
21. For examples of the athletic Christian physique, see Wolfgang Fritz volbach, Early Christian Art (New York, 1973), pls. 114; 250.
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22. Similarities between the secular art can be seen in two images of Hercules in volbach, pls. 180; 251.
23. 4 Mac. 17:11, 17:15.
24. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio, NPNF 2:84.
25. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio, NPNF 32:16.
26. Basil, Hex, FC 6.1.
27. Two other representations of Jonah, the ever-valiant athlete, appear in volbach, pls. 5; 87.
28. This rise in popularity was not without its critics, particularly among aristocrats who feared losing sons and daughters--potential heirs--to this movement. See Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (New York. 1988), 259-284.
29. Plato, Phaedo 65.
30. Plato, Cratylus 400 b,c; Seneca, Epistle 102.26.
32. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Baptism of Christ, NPNF 524.
34. Gregory of Nazianzus, Epistle, FC 31.
35. Athanasius, Life of Antony, CWS 45.
36. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio, FC 21.23.
37. See volbach, pl. 66, for an example of Early Byzantine portraiture. Several of these portraits are discussed in Jale Inan and Elisabeth Rosenbaum, Roman and Early Byzantine Portrait Sculpture in Asia Minor, (London, 1966).
38. H.P. L~Drange, "The Antique Origin of Medieval Portraiture," Likeness and Icon: Selected Studies in Classical and Early Medieval Art, (Denmark, 1973), 99.
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39. Gregory of Nyssa, Hominis, SC 8.1.
40. Basil, Hex, FC 9.2.
41. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio, PG 35.493.
42. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio, FC 43.5
43. Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio, FC 21.28.
44. Basil, On the Renunciation of the World, FC. 25.
45. Peter Brown, Body and Society, 223.
46. Some other examples of ascetic figures are represented in volbach, pls. 53, 143; 217.
47. Basil, Hex, FC 8.8.
48. Gregory of Nyssa, De Virg, NPNF 20.
