Kierkegaard on imagination: possibility, hope, and the imitation of Christ

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Hjördis Becker-Lindenthal
Keyword(s):  
Imitation Of Christ

A DEFENSE OF THE CAROLINGIAN “DEFENSE OF MEDICINE”: INTRODUCTION, TRANSLATION, AND NOTES

Traditio ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 75 ◽  
pp. 87-125
Author(s):  
JOEL L. GAMBLE
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Medical Texts ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Imitation Of Christ ◽  
History Of ◽  
As If

The “Defense of Medicine” prefaces the Codex Bambergensis Medicinalis 1, a Carolingian collection of medical texts. Some scholars have dismissed the Defense as an incoherent patchwork of quotations. Yet, missing from the literature is an adequate assessment of the Defense's arguments. This present study includes the first English translation accompanied by a complete source commentary, a prerequisite for valid content analysis. When read systematically and with attention to the author's use of sources, the Defense is limpid and cogent. Its first purpose is to defend the compatibility of Christian faith and secular medicine. Key propositions include the following: God made nature good, so the natural sciences are reconcilable with divine learning; scripture respects medicine; God expects the sick to avail of physicians and deserves honor for healings done through physicians. Counter-arguments used by the Defense's opponents, who rejected medicine on principle, can also be reconstructed from the text. Two further purposes of the Defense have hitherto been explored insufficiently. After justifying medicine, the Defense addresses sick patients. It encourages them that illness can be spiritually healthful, an instrument for curing their souls. The Defense then addresses caregivers. It tells them why they should succor the sick, even the poor: not for gain or fame, but in imitation of Christ and as if treating Christ himself, whose image the sick bear. The Defense thus contributes to the history of ideas on medicine, health, sickness, and the ethics of altruistic care.

Sic vivere est devote vivere

2016 ◽  
Vol 96 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 13-39
Author(s):  
Tom Gaens
Keyword(s):  
Religious Orders ◽  
Imitation Of Christ ◽  
The World ◽  
The Church

This essay outlines the theology of “modern-day” devotion, as it can be found in the works of the Carthusian monk Henry of Coesfeld (d. 1410). This theology consists of a classical Thomist framework, infused with ideas from Brabantine and Rhineland mysticism (e.g., Ruusbroec, Suso) and Carthusian spirituality, in which contempt for the world, purity of the heart, progression in the virtues, repentance and inner renewal, Eucharistic piety, meditation on Christ’s humanity and passion, “Christiformity,” and the imitation of Christ, play a central role. While pointing at the “present-day” moral decline in the religious orders and the church, Henry’s idea of devotion relates to personal reform, a process of becoming congruent with the “ancient” examples of Christ and the saints. His theology is not anti-mystical and anti-intellectual in nature, but at the same time it warns against the pitfalls of curiosity (curiositas) and the excesses of mysticism.

scholarly journals The Modern Imitation of Christ. A Symposium

1904 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 248-260
Author(s):  
Walter L. Hervey ◽  
Charles R. Henderson ◽  
Thomas C. Hall ◽  
Henry S. Nash ◽  
George E. Dawson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Imitation Of Christ

Pole's Piety? The Devotional Reading of Reginald Pole and his Friends

2012 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 458-474
Author(s):  
M. ANNE OVERELL
Keyword(s):  
Religious Identities ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Imitation Of Christ ◽  
Devotional Reading

In this examination of the piety and devotional books of Reginald Pole and his friends, three booklists are compared: Pole's own, and those of Marcantonio Flaminio and Michael Throckmorton. The article also probes their comments and choices about reading and prayer, sacrament and preaching, as well as the observations of contemporaries. Piety in Pole's household was nourished principally by the Bible, the Fathers and the Imitation of Christ, but scriptural commentaries by suspect reformers also became part of their devotional reading, moulding religious identities which were unusual and became dangerous.

The Ambiguity of Mimesis: Kierkegaard between Aesthetic Fantasy and Religious Imitation

2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-110
Author(s):  
Nicola Ramazzotto
Keyword(s):  
Imitation Of Christ ◽  
Aesthetic Field ◽  
The Aesthetic

Abstract This paper attempts to investigate Kierkegaard’s thought through the category of mimesis. First, two meanings of the word are distinguished and analyzed: the archaic meaning that links it to the concept of re-enactment, and the traditional meaning that links it to the aesthetic field of art. These two meanings are then considered in relation to Kierkegaard’s opus, showing the oscillation of mimesis as corresponding to that between the aesthetic, which lives in fantasy and in the unfulfilled possibility, and the religious, which finds its identity in the imitation of Christ and in the transparent relationship to God.

scholarly journals Galona’s review of victim labelling theory: A rejoinder

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan van Dijk
Keyword(s):  
Crime Victims ◽  
Western World ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Imitation Of Christ ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Victims Of Crime ◽  
Labelling Theory ◽  
Speak Up ◽  
Practical Implications

In this article the author responds to a review by Galona (2018) of the historical-theological parts of victim labelling theory as elaborated previously in this journal and elsewhere (van Dijk, 2009). According to Galona, the term ‘victima/victim’ as a special name for Jesus Christ was not coined by Reformation theologians like Calvin, as asserted by van Dijk, but was for example already widely used by Roman poets. It also appeared in pre-Reformation theological writings for centuries. In his rejoinder, the author explains that Roman poets indeed sometimes used the term ‘victima’ for human beings but did so in a purely metaphorical sense. He agrees with Galona that the use of this label in its figural sense denoting Christ’s deep and innocent suffering emerged in theological writings pre-dating the Reformation. However, the label only ‘went viral’ around the time of the Reformation and has, from that time onwards, been the universal colloquial term for ordinary people victimised by crime across the Western world. In the second part of the article, the author elaborates on the theoretical and practical implications of the Christian roots of the ‘victima’ label. For centuries, victims of crime were expected to undergo their suffering meekly, in imitation of Christ. Ongoing secularisation has emancipated crime victims from the restraining ‘victima’ label, allowing them to freely speak up for themselves. Recent victim-friendly reforms of criminal justice have been driven by the need to find a new, victim-centred legitimacy in an increasingly secularised world.

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