scholarly journals From Conversion to Ritual Murder: Re-Contextualizing the Circumcision Charge

2018 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 361-389
Author(s):  
Paola Tartakoff
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Ritual Murder ◽  
Simultaneous Development ◽  
Marginal Note ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract In the 1230s, Christian authorities prosecuted Norwich Jews on charges of having seized and circumcised a five-year-old boy in an effort to convert him to Judaism. In the same decade, English chroniclers began to depict this case as an attempted ritual murder. According to Roger Wendover and Matthew Paris, Jews circumcised the boy with the intention of crucifying him at Easter. This article explores what the near simultaneous development of these two intriguing and seemingly disparate narratives suggests about thirteenth-century Christian perceptions and portrayals of circumcision. In so doing, it ushers research on medieval Christian attitudes toward circumcision into new spheres, deepens understandings of thirteenth-century Christian anxieties about conversion to Judaism, and brings to light a marginal note in the autograph copy of Matthew Paris’ Chronica majora that may constitute evidence of evolving Christian views of the relationship between the bodies of Jews’ alleged victims and the body of Christ.

Excerpt from “Women Mystics and Eucharistic Devotion in the Thirteenth Century”

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Walker Bynum
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Full Potential ◽  
Christian Women ◽  
Imitatio Christi ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
The World ◽  
Embodied Practice ◽  
Women Mystics

In this chapter the renowned medievalist scholar Caroline Walker Bynum brings our attention to a striking historical occurrence: in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Europe the concern with and attachment to Eucharistic devotion was overwhelmingly female. Why this gender bias, and at that time? Christian women were predominantly “inspired, compelled, comforted and troubled by the Eucharist” and in many different forms—from miraculous apparitions, to experiences of ecstasy connected to the attendance and ingestion of the Eucharist, to the showing of sensorial excesses in its presence. Bynum shows how material and physical receptions of the body of Christ were expressed not only as forms of ecstasy but also as gendered modes of living the Imitatio Christi. This thirteenth-century corporeal, female experience of the Eucharist is connected to a particular moment in the life of Christ—the transition between life and death. Positioned as “brides” and hence as the erotic counterparts of Christ, women and female mystics exploited the full potential of Christ’s own corporeality rather than his otherworldly nature. Bynum’s work constitutes a formative reference point for scholars of Catholicism across a range of disciplines for the obvious reason that it deals so elegantly with themes of substance, gender, bodies, and devotional forms of Catholic practice. Her work continues to be an original source of inspiration for anthropologists because of its remarkable sensitivity to religion as an embodied, practice-generative engagement with the world. Bynum should also be considered as important for the “new” anthropology of Catholicism for her pioneering work on the gymnasticity of gender and for the attention it draws to the sublimated erotic tension that exists between institutional doxa and mystical aesthetics.2 In Bynum’s work, gender is not presented as merely one among a number of potential analytical foci for elaboration of Catholicism; rather, it is the very ontological architecture of the religious, and hence an essential topic for scholars seeking to understand Catholicism as a translocal force.

Rites of Reconciliation and Healing in Christian History

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lizette Larson-Miller
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Cultural Patterns ◽  
Scriptural Interpretation ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Whole Person ◽  
Physical Elements ◽  
Religious Systems ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

Christian rites for reconciliation and healing are intimately related to one another in that individuals and communities are healed and made whole through divine action In ecclesial rites, this divine response is in cooperation with prayer and ritual that operate within understandings of health and salvation for the whole person, inclusive of spiritual, physical, emotional, mental, and social healing. The historical rites and rituals of the church have undergone tremendous changes throughout history, reflecting differences in what it is that was desired and prayed for, and whether the ritual work was to reincorporate a member back into the church or into health and wholeness. The various ritual processes emerged from the intersection of these theological intentions with scripture and scriptural interpretation, with cultural patterns established or emerging, with geographical availability of physical elements and climate possibilities, and with other religious systems as well as from political and population shifts linked to all of these aspects. Rites of reconciliation were ritual responses to theological assumptions about the free will of humans, human nature and sin, the love of God, and the authority of the church as the body of Christ to challenge members when their words and actions were counter to the unity of the community and the teaching articulated by the appointed leaders. Rites of healing were ritualized acts of the prayer of faith, imitating one of the primary ministries of Jesus himself in healing people into the fullness of life, proclaiming healing as sign and symbol of the reign of God, and assuring all the members that “the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up” (James 5:14). Both of these rites, while ritually evolving as theologies and contexts changed, were always concerned with the reconciliation and healing of individuals to themselves, as well as reconciliation and healing in relationship to their communities and to their God. Of these three constituencies—God, community, oneself—one aspect or another would often take precedence in a particular time period, giving a discernable emphasis to the rites in their historical contexts. This tripartite emphasis was met with other factors that shifted historically, such as who may receive these rites, who may administer the rites, and the relationship to the church and to God as perceived by different voices. All of these factors shape the rites of reconciliation and healing over the centuries of Christian practice, contributing to the diverse practices found in Christianity today.

The Eucharist

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Aers ◽  
Sarah Beckwith
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Focal Points ◽  
The Tempest ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Medieval Liturgy

This chapter explores theological and ethical dimensions of the Eucharist in the later Middle Ages and in the Reformation. The exploration introduces a number of genres and practices, because the Eucharist was a central and pervasive presence in Christian cultures, including those opposing medieval liturgy and teaching. One of the focal points of the study is the emergence of the doctrine and practice of transubstantiation, a language that became enshrined in thirteenth century orthodoxy. The chapter sets out with St. Augustine, who did not know either this doctrine, or the theological questions it sponsored (such as, what happens when a mouse eats the consecrated host), or its practice, together with its rich visionary accompaniments (such as bleeding hosts and manifestations of bleeding parts of the body of Christ or the Infant Jesus). After Augustine, a cluster of medieval writers and performances are addressed. The chapter concludes with commentary on the Reformation, and some rumination of Shakespeare, especiallyThe Tempest.

Epilogue: Why (Again) Are the Utopians Monogamous?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Will Stockton
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
New Atlantis ◽  
The Relationship

This epilogue moves beyond Shakespeare to consider the relationship between marriage and Christian citizenship in three utopian texts: Thomas More’s Utopia, Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis, and Henry Neville’s Isle of Pines. Reading the first against the latter two, it argues that Utopian monogamy signals of that state’s readiness to enter the body of Christ. The epilogue concludes with a brief discussion of Reformation controversy over the sacramental status of marriage.

Gentiles, Christians, and Israelites in the Epistle to the Ephesians

1986 ◽  
Vol 79 (1-3) ◽  
pp. 31-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nils Alstrup Dahl
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
The World ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

Most early Christians perceived the world in which they lived as a world of Jews and Gentiles. Ephesians speaks most impressively about the unity of the two parts in the church, which is the body of Christ. Studies of Ephesians have very often concentrated on the idea of the church and the relationship between ecclesiology, christology, and soteriology. Some scholars have paid special attention to the relationship between the church and Israel, Christians and Jews. Statements about the Gentiles have received much less attention, but for reasons which will become apparent in the course of this article, I prefer to begin with them*.

scholarly journals “ESTE ES MI CUERPO QUE SE ENTREGA” CUERPO DEL ATLETA Y CUERPO EUCARÍSTICO

2014 ◽  
Vol 46 (129) ◽  
pp. 267
Author(s):  
Nurya Martínez-Gayol
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
The Relationship

En este artículo vamos a explorar la relación entre el cuerpo de Cristo eucarístico y el cuerpo del atleta/deportista desde la perspectiva del dinamismo de la entrega. No se trata simplemente de establecer una analogía estética, ni tampoco meramente funcional, sino “dinámica”. Lo que nos gustaría poner de relieve es que hay un movimiento que supone la entrega del cuerpo para la consecución de la meta/misión perseguida, que atravesando por la abnegación y el sacrificio que acompañan esta entrega, conduce al sujeto protagonista a una victoria en la que experimenta la realización y consumación de sus posibilidades y capacidades, en medio de la alegría por la meta alcanzada, en una celebración que le trasciende y alcanza a otros. Este dinamismo es observable en el cuerpo entregado de los deportistas, como una referencia antropológica que puede ayudar a comprender el dinamismo eucarístico al que el reyente es invitado a incorporarse, haciéndose con Cristo “un cuerpo que se entrega”.ABSTRACT: This article explores the relationship between the Eucharistic body of Christ and the body of an athlete from the perspective of the dynamism of giving fully of oneself. More than simply establishing an aesthetic or merely functional analogy, we speak here of a dynamic analogy. We would like to draw attention to the fact that this full self-giving implies movement so as to achieve the desired goal/mission. Passing through the experiences of abnegation and sacrifice that accompany this self-offering, the protagonist of the offering is lead to a victory that includes the realization and consummation of his or her possibilities and capabilities, in the midst of the joy experienced upon reaching the goal, a celebration that transcends him or herself and reaches others. This dynamism is observed in the offered body of an athlete, in itself an anthropological example of the Eucharistic dynamism into which the believer is invited to be incorporated, becoming with Christ “a body which is given up for others”. 

scholarly journals The Taste and Perfume of the Virgin: Mary and the Nuptial Meaning of Eucharistic Sacramentality

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Noel Custodio
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
The Body ◽  
Virgin Mary ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Theology Of The Body ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Middle Ages

If we are to understand the Eucharist as the Body of Christ, it is necessary to explore how Mary’s own body participates in the Eucharistic mystery. Such a discussion was prominent during the Middle Ages, but today there is very little attention given to the relationship between Mary and the the Eucharist. This paper will explore this subject through the lens of a theology of the sacramental principle. By examining recent papal documents as well as John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, this paper will argue that Mary is the perfect fulfilment of the sacramental principle. The sacramental principle fulfilled is a principle that is nuptial, where the Eucharist expresses the wedding point between God and creation. It is Mary who unveils this mystery in her own person and body.

scholarly journals Die verband tussen doop en lidmaatskap van die kerk

1999 ◽  
Vol 55 (2/3) ◽  
Author(s):  
W. A. Dreyer
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Main Thesis ◽  
Initiation Rite ◽  
Church Polity ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

The relationship between baptism and membership of the church. This aricle examines the relaionship between bapism and membership of the church. The author's main thesis is that baptism signifies the unity with Christ, and as such unity with the body of Christ (the church). Research has shown that baptism exists in different religions, cults and sects as an initiation rite. This forms the background to the New Testament,s presentation of baptism as (inter alia) an initiation rite. This article examines not only these baptism rites, but also the different metaphors in the New Testament concerned with baptism as initiation. The history of baptism in the church and the way bapism functions in the Reformed tradition, in terms of church polity and membership of the church, are also examined.

The use of Body Surface Index as a Better Clinical Health indicators Compare to Body Mass Index and Body Surface Area for Clinical Application

2018 ◽  
pp. 131-136
Author(s):  
Shirazu I. ◽  
Theophilus. A. Sackey ◽  
Elvis K. Tiburu ◽  
Mensah Y. B. ◽  
Forson A.
Keyword(s):  
Surface Area ◽  
Body Surface Area ◽  
Clinical Application ◽  
Body Surface ◽  
Body Height ◽  
Health Indicators ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Parameters ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Individual Body

The relationship between body height and body weight has been described by using various terms. Notable among them is the body mass index, body surface area, body shape index and body surface index. In clinical setting the first descriptive parameter is the BMI scale, which provides information about whether an individual body weight is proportionate to the body height. Since the development of BMI, two other body parameters have been developed in an attempt to determine the relationship between body height and weight. These are the body surface area (BSA) and body surface index (BSI). Generally, these body parameters are described as clinical health indicators that described how healthy an individual body response to the other internal organs. The aim of the study is to discuss the use of BSI as a better clinical health indicator for preclinical assessment of body-organ/tissue relationship. Hence organ health condition as against other body composition. In addition the study is `also to determine the best body parameter the best predict other parameters for clinical application. The model parameters are presented as; modeled height and weight; modelled BSI and BSA, BSI and BMI and modeled BSA and BMI. The models are presented as clinical application software for comfortable working process and designed as GUI and CAD for use in clinical application.

Double Affirmation: Medievalism as Christian Apologetic in the Arthurian Poetry of Charles Williams

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-96
Author(s):  
Sørina Higgins
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
European History ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Female Figure ◽  
Century Poetry ◽  
Charles Williams ◽  
Embodied Theology

In his unfinished cycle of Arthurian poems, Charles Williams developed a totalizing mythology in which he fictionalized the Medieval. First, he employed chronological conflation, juxtaposing events and cultural references from a millennium of European history and aligning each with his doctrinal system. Second, following the Biblical metaphor of the body of Christ, Blake’s symbolism, and Rosicrucian sacramentalism, he embodied theology in the Medieval landscape via a superimposed female figure. Finally, Williams worked to show the validity of two Scholastic approaches to spirituality: the kataphatic and apophatic paths. His attempts to balance via negativa and via positiva led Williams to practical misapplication—but also to creation of a landmark work of twentieth century poetry. . . . the two great vocations, the Rejection of all images before the unimaged, the Affirmation of all images before the all-imaged, the Rejection affirming, the Affirmation rejecting. . . —from ‘The Departure of Dindrane’ —O Blessed, pardon affirmation!— —O Blessed, pardon negation!— —from ‘The Prayers of the Pope’

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