"His flesh did not see corruption" (Acts 2:31)

Patristic conceptions of the body of Jesus and their New Testament references

In the sixth century, an intense debate arose about the nature of Jesus' body: the question was discussed as to whether aphtharsia, i.e. incorruption in the full sense, was already attributed to him before the resurrection. This debate about Julianism, which took place in various churches of Christianity at the time and dragged on for centuries, particularly in the Syriac and Armenian-speaking East, is only at first glance a rather bizarre side note in the history of dogma. For in this highly productive literary debate, problems arose that had accompanied the Christological debates and drafts since the Gospels were written. However, the heated discussion about the aphtharsia of the body of Jesus is just one of many examples of the fact that the New Testament texts by no means only provided the problems for the early church Christologies. Rather, the exegesis of these texts continuously accompanied the discussions and drove them forward like a kind of 'motor'.