The Sin of Abbé Mouret

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Émile Zola
Keyword(s):  
Serious Illness ◽  
Adam And Eve ◽  
The Church

‘I really don't understand how people can blame a priest so much, when he strays from the path.’ The Sin of Abbé Mouret tells the compelling story of the young priest Serge Mouret. Striving after spiritual purity and sanctity, he lives a life of constant prayer, but his neglect of all physical needs leads to serious illness, followed by amnesia. No longer knowing he is a priest, he falls in love with his nurse Albine. Together, like a latter-day Adam and Eve, they roam through an Eden-like garden called the ‘Paradou’, seeking a forbidden tree in whose shade they will make love. Zola memorably shows their gradual awakening to sexuality, and his poetic descriptions of the luxuriant and beautiful Paradou create a lyrical celebration of Nature. When Serge regains his memory and recalls his priestly vows, anguish inevitably follows. The whole story, with its numerous biblical parallels, becomes a poetic reworking of the Fall of Man and a questioning of the very meaning of innocence and sin. Zola explores the conflict between Church and Nature, the sterility of the Church and the fertility of Nature. This new translation includes a wide-ranging and helpful introduction and explanatory notes.

scholarly journals Marriage in the theology of Martin Luther – worldly yet sacred: An option between secularism and clericalism

2007 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Johan Buitendag
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Intercourse ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Human Race ◽  
Adam And Eve ◽  
The Creation ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Church ◽  
Law And Gospel

Marriage, according to Martin Luther, is an institution both secular and sacred. It is secular because it is an order of this earthly life. But its institution goes back to the beginning of the human race and that makes marriage sacred, a divine and holy order. It does not – like the sacraments – nourish and strengthen faith or prepare people for the life to come; but it is a secular order in which people can prove faith and love, even though they are apt to fail without the help of the Word and the sacrament. The author applies this view of Luther in terms of two unacceptable extremes: the creation ordinances of Brunner and the analogy of relation of Barth. The dialectic of Law and Gospel should never be dispensed. Marriage is necessary as a remedy for lust, and through marriage God permits sexual intercourse. Similar is the allegory which Paul employs: that Adam and Eve, or marriage itself, is a type of Christ and the church.

scholarly journals Depictions of Christ’s ancestors in the altar of Markov Manastir. A contribution to research

Zograf ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 89-106
Author(s):  
Marka Tomic-Djuric
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Adam And Eve ◽  
The Church

The paper discusses the figures on the bema of the altar apse in the Church of St. Demetrios of Markov Manastir (Marko?s Monastery) painted in 1376/1377. It offers a more detailed overview of the programmatic and iconographic characteristics of previously known depictions of the Virgin?s ancestors and identifies the second ancestral couple. Following a reexamination of hypotheses that have been suggested so far, the paper concludes that the second pair of Old Testament personages should be identified as representing the original ancestors of humanity - Adam and Eve. The visual solution incorporating Sts. Joachim and Anne as well as Adam and Eve is highly unusual. The paper also discusses the peculiar thematic concept in the central apse of Markov Manastir, which was conceived so as to draw attention of the faithful to the human nature of Christ, while the choice of ancestors underlines the role of the Virgin?s parents in the economy of salvation and emphasizes the theological idea of absolution from ancestral sin and the rebirth of humanity beginning with the incarnation of God-Man.

Augustine and the Art of Gardening

2002 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 13-33
Author(s):  
Carol Harrison
Keyword(s):  
Simple Rule ◽  
Church Fathers ◽  
Garden Of Eden ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Ideal State ◽  
Adam And Eve ◽  
Book Of Genesis ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Ideal

Any description of man’s ideal state tells us a lot about the culture, society, and character of its author. Early Christian writers, as one might expect, tended to turn to Scripture, to the authoritative account in the book of Genesis of God’s creation of man and woman and of their life in the garden of Eden, in order to define their conception of the ideal life. There they discovered what to us, and perhaps to them, seems a rather strange, alien portrait of the life of two celibate naturists, at ease in a luxuriant garden which provided for all their needs. By some obscure and generally unspecified means, the Church fathers thought Adam and Eve were to be the founder members and originators of a society which, on condition it obeyed one simple rule, would become an immortal society.

Paradise Found

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mailan S. Doquang
Keyword(s):  
Tree Of Life ◽  
Adam And Eve ◽  
Visual Evidence ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church ◽  
Hortus Conclusus

This chapter inquires into the formal and metaphorical connections between medieval French churches and the paradisiacal garden. Drawing on textual and visual evidence, it demonstrates that monumental flora operated in tandem with organic motifs in other media, as well as with figural sculptures and the liturgy, to forge and promote links between sacred buildings and the earthly and celestial paradise. It explores the relationship between sculpted foliage and the Tree of Life, the hortus conclusus, and the Garden of Joseph of Arimathea (the location of Jesus’ rock-cut tomb and the site of the church of the Holy Sepulcher). The chapter concludes with an account of the possible negative connotations of vegetal motifs in church settings, which relate to the Fall and Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden.

scholarly journals On the origin of death: Paul and Augustine meet Charles Darwin

2013 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Izak J.J. Spangenberg
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Charles Darwin ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Original Sin ◽  
Eternal Life ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
Adam And Eve ◽  
Life On Earth ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
The Church

Ever since the 4th century, Christian theologians have linked Romans 5:12–21 with Genesis 2–3. Augustine (354–430), one of the Latin fathers of the Church, propagated the idea of ‘original sin’ according to his reading of these chapters. This idea eventually became a fixed doctrine in Western Christianity and a large number of Christians still believe and proclaim that humans would have lived for ever but for the misconduct of Adam and Eve. They also proclaim that Jesus, through his obedience, death and resurrection, re-established God’s original creation plan. Death was conquered and eternal life can be inherited by all who believe in Jesus as saviour and second Adam. However, since both the introduction of the theory of evolution into biology and the paradigm shift in biblical studies (at the end of the 19th century), the view that death was to be linked to ‘original sin’ came under severe criticism. This article argues that Romans 5:12–21 and Genesis 2–3 do not support the idea of ‘original sin’ and that death is a normal part of life on earth, as argued by evolutionary biologists and proclaimed by many Old Testament texts.

The Genesis and Staging of the Jeu D'Adam

PMLA ◽  
1944 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grace Frank
Keyword(s):  
Adam And Eve ◽  
Cain And Abel ◽  
Verse Forms ◽  
The Church

Many of the remarkable qualities of the Jeu d' Adam have long been recognized and warmly admired: the subtlety of its characterization and motivation, the vivacity and freshness of its dialogue, the skill with which its verse forms have been handled. Yet its author has never been given sufficient credit, it would seem, for the originality of his composition. Here is a play still attached to the church, through its use of the church itself and of church properties, through its incorporaton of liturgical lectiones and responsoria, and through its adaptation and translation of a liturgical Ordo Prophetarum; nevertheless its author has dramatized and visualized for himself, with more spirit and imagination than any of his successors (he had no known predecessors), the stories of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel. Surely a man capable of such creative and untrammelled writing needed few “sources” and may be presumed, when proof to the contrary is lacking, to have drawn largely upon his own inspiration.

scholarly journals Macht, onmacht en volmacht in 1 Timoteüs 2:8−15

2012 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
P. H. Rob Van Houwelingen
Keyword(s):  
Breeding Ground ◽  
Pastoral Epistles ◽  
Power Struggle ◽  
Problematic Situation ◽  
Female Relationships ◽  
Adam And Eve ◽  
Timothy 2 ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Book Of Genesis ◽  
The Church

Power, powerlessness and authorised power in 1 Timothy 2:8−15.Thinking in terms of ecclesiastical power has often found a breeding ground in the Pastoral Epistles. To what extent is this justified? This article will examine a passage that always comes up when the position of women in the church is discussed: 1 Timothy 2:8−15. Consecutively, three aspects will be considered: power, powerlessness and authorised power. Power says something about the underlying problem that Timothy faced: the male or female relationships in the church of Ephesus threatened to degenerate into a power struggle. Powerlessness refers to the story of Adam and Eve referred to in verses 13−15. Its focus is the woman, Eve. The book of Genesis tells the story of human weakness, which becomes in the first letter to Timothy a sort of triptych about Eve and the Creation, Eve and the Fall and Eve and the Redemption. Authorised power is the way Paul tries to regulate the problematic situation in the congregation with apostolic rules. Not only because he wants something (βούλομαι) or because he does not allow something (οὐκ ἐπιτρέπω) , but also in particular to create space for the faithful Word.

scholarly journals POWER PLAY IN THE CHURCH? THE CASE OF 1 TIMOTHY 2:8–15

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-185
Author(s):  
P.H.R Van Houwelingen
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Breeding Ground ◽  
Pastoral Epistles ◽  
Power Struggle ◽  
Problematic Situation ◽  
Adam And Eve ◽  
Timothy 2 ◽  
The Church ◽  
Power Play ◽  
The Way

Thinking in terms of ecclesiastical power as a negative force has often found a breeding ground in the Pastoral Epistles. To what extent is that justified? This article examines a passage that always comes up when the position of women in the church is discussed: 1 Timothy 2:8−15. Three aspects will be considered consecutively: power, powerlessness, and authorised power. Power says something about the underlying problem that Timothy faced: the male/female relationship in the Ephesian congregation threatened to degenerate into a power struggle. Powerlessness refers to the story of Adam and Eve mentioned in verses 13−15. The Genesis narrative recounts human weakness, which in 1 Timothy becomes a sort of triptych about Eve and creation, Eve and the fall, and Eve and redemption. Authorised power is the way in which the problematic situation in Ephesus was regulated with apostolic authority, to create space for the trustworthy Word. Paul’s instructions about the behaviour of women could nowadays easily be considered a kind of misogynistic power play. However, the apostle should be interpreted on his own terms. This is true both for his social context and for his missionary drive. KEYWORDS: power, man, woman, congregation, Paul

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