Medieval Mysticism

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niklaus Largier
Keyword(s):  
Negative Theology ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Christian Life ◽  
History Of Emotions ◽  
Affective Arousal ◽  
History Of ◽  
Passion Of Christ ◽  
The Sacrifice ◽  
The Church ◽  
Spiritual Sensation

An overview of the significance of emotions in mysticism during the medieval period would not be complete without an account of two other paradigms of affective arousal, namely, the suffering of Christ and the sacrifice of martyrdom. A mysticism of the passion of Christ, and of martyrdom as an imitation of the passion of Christ, emerged already in the early times of the church. In many ways, monastic asceticism follows this pattern, emphasizing acts of self-mortification, of spiritual martyrdom, and of mystical death, often invoking a psychomachy that includes the investment of the passions as well. The metamorphosis of the passions is based on practices that include the reading of the scriptures and mystical contemplation, but also liturgy and prayer. The practice of memory through reading, liturgy, and prayer that is at the center of the Christian life is for the most part also a practice of emotional stimulation. This article examines medieval mysticism, memory and prayer, spiritual sensation and emotion, negative theology and affective mysticism, and the link between the passion of Christ and the history of emotions.

The Idea of the Church in Christian History

1952 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 191-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wilhelm Pauck
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Special Kind ◽  
Church History ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Special Importance ◽  
Christian Life ◽  
History Of Christianity ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Church ◽  
Christian History

It is customary to describe and interpret the history of Christianity as church history. To be sure, most church historians do not emphasize the special importance of the “church” in the Christian life they study and analyse; indeed, they deal with the idea of the church, with ecclesiological doctrines and with ecclesiastical practices as if they represented special phases of the Christian life. But, nevertheless, the fact that all aspects of Christian history are subsumed under the name and title of the “church” indicates that the character of Christianity is held to be inseparable from that of the “church”; the very custom of regarding Christian history as church history indicates that the Christian mind is marked by a special kind of self-consciousness induced by the awareness that the Christian faith is not fully actualized unless it is expressed in the special social context suggested by the term “church.”

Art. III.—The Poetry of Mohamed Rabadan, of Arragon

1869 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 138-177
Author(s):  
H. E. J. Stanley
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Present Issue ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Sacrifice ◽  
The Church

In the preceding number of the Journal, this poem had reached the birth of Abraham: the portion contained in the present issue consists of the life of Abraham, the history of the line of Isaac ending with Jesus Christ, and the line of Ishmael down to Heshim, great-grandfather of Muhammad. The description of the sacrifice of Ishmael brings to mind the mysteries or plays in which Abraham's sacrifice of his son is still represented in Spain at the Church festivals.

scholarly journals A Vision Of

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 35-48
Author(s):  
Ewa Czczkowska
Keyword(s):  
World View ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
The Past ◽  
National Memory ◽  
The World ◽  
Theological Perspective ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Sacrifice ◽  
The Church ◽  
Soviet Model

For Primate Stefan Wyszyński, the past of the nation was an important element creating the identity of the nation, on whose behaviour its future depended. Maintaining the memory of the history of the nation, which, in the primate’s thought, was constituted when Mieszko I was baptised in 966, was one of the priorities of Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński’s teaching. For this reason, it was also a part of the world-view dispute between the Primate and the communist authorities of postwar Poland, whose aim was to erase many pages of history from national memory or to give them a different meaning as a condition for creating a „new” society based on the Soviet model. In the evaluation of the past, falsified in the People’s Republic of Poland, the Primate used „his own domestic and national sense” and „proper evaluation of the spirit”. The theological perspective allowed the Primate to look at the painful and tragic pages of history, including the lost national uprisings, as a sacrifice modelled on the sacrifice of Christ, necessary for the resurrection of Poland. According to Primate Wyszyński, the history of the nation was a reservoir of values, co-shaped by faith and the Church, from which future generations could draw in the struggle to regain independence in 1918 and regain sovereignty.

scholarly journals Ambiguous Memories of the Reformation: The Case of Norway

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 287-303
Author(s):  
Tarald Rasmussen
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
History Writing ◽  
The West ◽  
The People ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Church

AbstractThe Reformation came to Norway along with Danish annexation of political and ecclesiastical power. For this reason, Norwegian history writing seldom appreciated the history of the Norwegian Reformation, and preferred to look further back to the history of the Middle Ages in search of national, as well as religious, roots of Norwegian Christianity. This was already the case in late sixteenth and early seventeenth century Norwegian historical writing. In nineteenth century historical research, the strategy was underpinned by focussing on the medieval period of Christianization: Norwegian Christianity was imported from the West, from England. Here, the Pope was not at all important. Instead, some key Reformation values were addressed in a kind of “proto-Reformation” in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The King was the ruler of the church; native, Old Norse language was used and promoted; and the people (strongly) identified themselves with their religion.

The Artist as Reformer

2020 ◽  
pp. 85-160
Author(s):  
David H. Price
Keyword(s):  
Martin Luther ◽  
Close Friend ◽  
Media Campaign ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Philipp Melanchthon ◽  
History Of ◽  
Passion Of Christ ◽  
Visual Record ◽  
The Church

Lucas Cranach the Elder, a close friend of Martin Luther, not only produced the definitive visual record of the history of the Reformation but also became a major leader in the movement to transform Christianity. From 1518 onward, he designed art to advance the Reformation of the church across Germany and Europe. The Bible stood at the center of his media campaign. Cranach and his workshop designed the first Protestant Bible (1522) as well as subsequent imprints of Luther’s translations. He also developed innovative biblical propaganda (most importantly in the anti-papal Passion of Christ and Antichrist). Frequently in his immense oeuvre (including works designed for both Protestant and Catholic contexts) Cranach anchors the new biblicism in a humanist ideal of the authority of philology. A major accomplishment was his development of the portrait type of the professor of the Bible (preeminently Luther and Philipp Melanchthon) as an icon of the authority of humanist biblical philology for the Reformation.

Die Stellung der Juden im Merowingerreich nach dem Zeugnis der Synodalakten

Aschkenas ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-216
Author(s):  
Lotter Friedrich
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Early Medieval Period ◽  
Systematic Overview ◽  
High Middle Ages ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Church

Abstract In research into the history of the Jews in the Merovingian kingdom, relevant Council decrees have so far played a very subsidiary role compared to information gleaned from narrative sources. Yet besides facilitating discoveries of importance not only for the Merovingian period, and scarcely to be found in other sources, a number of these decrees also found their way into the canon law of the High Middle Ages and acquired long-term significance as a result. The compilation presented here systematically investigates this source material according to perspectives important for the synods: Christian-Jewish intermarriages; Christian slaves owned by Jews, and the danger, as the Church saw it, of proselytism; Jews as holders of public offices; Judaizing tendencies amongst Christians; attempts to limit contact between Christians and Jews. From this it becomes apparent that the position of the Jews in the Merovingian kingdom was not as perilous as is often assumed based on the narrative sources. On the contrary, during this era the foundations were laid for a later autonomous Jewry in Europe. The essay also elaborates on the importance of the synodal decrees as source material for investigating the history of Jewry in the early medieval period. The concluding tables provide a systematic overview and also demonstrate which of the decrees were incorporated again into the medieval canonical collections.

La beatificazione dei vescovi romeni uniti, alla luce della teologia del martirio

2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 57-74
Author(s):  
Alexandru Buzalic ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Church Of Christ ◽  
Shed Blood ◽  
Long Line ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Times ◽  
Ancient Christianity ◽  
The Sacrifice ◽  
The Church

The Beatification of the United Romanian Bishops, in the Light of the Theology of Martyrdom. The Church of Christ fulfills three functions in the history of salvation: martyria, leiturgia and diakonia. Confession of Faith, martyria, it is a fundamental mission entrusted to the Church, which is exercised by preaching the Gospel (Matt. 28:19), the Logos transmitted and explained, the life in the faith and defending it from internal enemies (schisms, polemics, etc.) or external ones (heresies and persecutions). Since the times of apostolic and ancient Christianity martyria was achieved through a testimony of faith strengthened by resistance to persecution and the radicality of the sacrifice of life, starting with St. Stephen, passing through the long line of martyrs of all times, in 1623 by the martyrdom of St. Archbishop Joshaphat for the unity of the Church, the Churches United confessing from now on, with the price of shed blood, the faith and mission entrusted by Jesus “that all may be one” (Jn 17:20). During the persecutions of the twentieth century, the United Romanian Church wrote a page in the “theology of martyrdom”, building the Church, fulfilling its crown of martyrdom, the beatification of martyrs to restore the unity of the Church opening a new stage in the history and mission of contemporary Christianity. Keywords: beatification, Church, Catholicism, Greek Catholicism, martyrdom, theology, unity.

History of the Study of Apocrypha in Early Medieval England

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 13-26
Author(s):  
Brandon W. Hawk
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Medieval England ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Early Judaism ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Early English

Literature written in England between about 500 and 1100 CE attests to a wide range of traditions, although it is clear that Christian sources were the most influential. Biblical apocrypha feature prominently across this corpus of literature, as early English authors clearly relied on a range of extra-biblical texts and traditions related to works under the umbrella of what have been called “Old Testament Pseudepigrapha” and “New Testament/Christian Apocrypha." While scholars of pseudepigrapha and apocrypha have long trained their eyes upon literature from the first few centuries of early Judaism and early Christianity, the medieval period has much to offer. This article presents a survey of significant developments and key threads in the history of scholarship on apocrypha in early medieval England. My purpose is not to offer a comprehensive bibliography, but to highlight major studies that have focused on the transmission of specific apocrypha, contributed to knowledge about medieval uses of apocrypha, and shaped the field from the nineteenth century up to the present. Bringing together major publications on the subject presents a striking picture of the state of the field as well as future directions.

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