outline for xian history paper

introduction:

1. origen and augustine were two of the most important thinkers of sex and the body in the early church
   
2. origen's castration and augustine's (problematic) relationship with his son were two narratives of profound ambiguity that cast a long shadow of this history.
   
3. these two acts could be construed as narratives of absence, of neglect, of longing, and desire.
   
4. they left the church scrambling for narratives of presence, completion, and satition.
   

origen:

1. on the history of castration as a literal act
   
2. on the ambiguity of exactly what origen did
   
3. on the calling out of castration at the council of nicea
   
4. on the move from castration being literal to being a lingustic/symbolic model.
   
5. the construction of celibacy as part of this model, and its later antecdents.
   

augustine:

1. on the history of his libertine nature
   
2. on his rship to the mancieans and the paradox of pleasure
   
3. the ambigious and problematic connection he had with his son, one of attachment and deattachment, loyalty and shame
   
4. how this realtionship worked thru a seires of lacnue/absences.
   
5. some notes on the virture of contience, how it relates to his earlier sexual ethics, and his later work.
   
6. a small note on the misogyny angle.
   

conclusion:

1. the body as unruly and unstable. esp. the penis
2. personal history as social history as church history
   
3. lessons to learn.