What I don’t see is a strong notion that sex difference enhances rationality, more that it frees us up for contemplation.

Paul: well said. I don’t mean to speak for the entire Christian tradition, only to try to explain what those Fathers might have been getting at whom Peter alluded to in his talk. There are obviously major voices in the tradition who sound different notes. And the principle that when we’re saved, nothing that makes us fundamentally who we are is left out, is exactly right. I might quibble with you that exclusivity in loving is one of those things (if that is what you mean to say). It does seem to me that the perfection of the mystical body of Christ in heaven, with its bringing together of the many into one, means that whatever perfection there is in exclusive loving will be extended to all by virtue of membership in the one body of Christ. Hopefully that’s sufficiently corporeal to exonerate from the charge of angelism. Like you, I’m pretty baffled as to what that will look like.

I also find Lewis’ image of the artist compelling, as well. After all, the body of Christ is still a body with members, which means it’s differentiated. So my own distinctiveness will not only be preserved, but even accentuated by full incorporation into the mystical body. So whatever I am on earth, I will be moreso in heaven. My personhood will be brought into its complete perfection. As Lewis points out, it’s the saints who are the most distinctive characters we know of. And heaven will be populated only with saints.

The seven brothers refer to the seven Jewish patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David and Solomon. Stephen summarizes this in Chapter 7 of Acts of the Apostles, and even to this day Orthodox Jews teach about the seven patriarchs.

Asking to whom will the bride belong refers to the Jewish doctrine of “gilgul hanefesh,” and was either a way for the Sadducees to determine which of those seven souls would be incarnated as the Messiah, or perhaps a cynical ploy to trick Jesus into claiming to be an incarnation of one of the patriarchs (even today some Orthodox Rabbis claim to be reincarnated prophets) in order to turn popular opinion against him.

Jesus’ response was basically a legal, inoffensive way to stake his claim as a “homo novus,” stating that he was not an incarnation of one of the patriarchs but a new soul sent for a new age of deliverance of G-d’s chosen people.

Almost everything in the Greek testament is reflected from the Hebrew testament, and there are several references in the Tanakh to G-d’s chosen people being the “bride” of the one true G-d of Abraham.

The particular tribe or leadership role changed at various times even throughout the “Old Testament,” hence the question from the Sadducees who were, like all the Judeans under pagan Roman rule, living through a particularly excruciating period of persecution, bereft of spiritual authority and leadership.

Many years ago I gave a commencement speech at a seminary graduation: I used C. S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce to put some flesh and bones on the notion of heaven. My guiding proposition: our salvation and perfection must be our perfection and salvation as we really and truly are. The latter includes our bodies, our habits, our memories, our personal identities. I was a serious tennis player at the time; would I be “perfected” if my tennis playing abilities were rendered moot in heaven? Lewis nicely presented the artist, with his particular talent, pointing out to us less-gifted blessed, the glories of God’s creation by way of his expert eye and his deft hand. Any notion of heavenly perfection that bleaches us of the foregoing would be a salvation that doesn’t really save “me/”us. Any notion of “the beatific vision” that is so overwhelming that we denigrate the aforementioned parts of our being seems incarnationally suspect to me. The Catholic both-and seems to demand as much. I grant that what this conjugation of “totally improved-but-still-recognizable-Paul” is, is quite mysterious: “Eye has not seen etc.”. But I find the “we’re still married but not (in some sense) exclusively-in-love and bodily-affectionate” position too angelic. But what do I know? I hope to find out.

Aquinas seems more grounded in the biological reality (from which he moves higher into morality and sacramental signification) than the Fathers you mention.

This is my speculation and not my church’s theology, which may consign all of this to mystery. That might be wiser than speculation.

And, of course, we both know that, if I know anything, it’s mostly because of our mutual friend, anyway.