The Journeys of the Magi: A Textual Analysis of Two Epiphany Autos in Sixteenth Century Mexico

AbstractThe anonymous Arnhem Mystical Sermons (Royal Library, The Hague, ms. 133 H 13), copied around 1560–1575 in the St. Agnes convent in Arnhem, is the largest sermon collection that has no other corresponding compilation. Till now, no concrete sources had been identified. This article elaborates on my discovery that one sermon (111) has incorporated a part of Ruusbroec's Spiritual Espousals with significant adaptations. This article provides a detailed analysis of the similarities and modifications, thereby showing the continuity and discontinuity with the fourteenth-century Ruusbroec and relating these differences to the context of the sixteenth-century by showing parallels with other mystical works from the region of Arnhem, namely the Evangelical Pearl and the Temple of Our Soul.

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Islamic Images of Isa/Jesus in the Chester Beatty Manuscript Collection: Visual Art as Framework for Comparative Christology

Religion and the Arts ◽

10.1163/15685292-12341236 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 16 (5) ◽

pp. 488-506

Author(s):

Miriam Y. Perkins

Keyword(s):

Sixteenth Century ◽

Visual Art ◽

Textual Analysis ◽

Religious Tradition ◽

Visual Media ◽

Theological Reflection ◽

Comparative Theology ◽

Sacred Texts ◽

Textual Interpretation ◽

Interpretive Process

Abstract Textual analysis has served as a paradigmatic approach to comparative theology for some time while analysis through artistic and visual media has received less attention. Most approaches to comparative theology rely on textual comparison of sacred texts. However, visual art is also a compelling way to engage in comparative theology and specifically comparative Christology. To demonstrate the power of visual art as a tool for comparative theology, I draw upon two recently published sixteenth-century Islamic images of Isa/Jesus from the Chester Beatty manuscript collection to illustrate how artwork can structure the work of comparative Christology by providing an entry point into Islam’s aesthetic tradition and relevant sacred texts. Paul Ricoeur’s theory of textual interpretation provides a theoretical framework, and I draw upon and extend his theory to describe the way visual art can initiate the interpretive process and move us through explanation toward understanding of another religious tradition, which in turn has the potential to transform theological reflection and generate theological insight.

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Communicating Across Communities

Journal of Jesuit Studies ◽

10.1163/22141332-00104011 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 1 (4) ◽

pp. 589-606 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Clarinda E. Calma

Keyword(s):

Sixteenth Century ◽

Religious Freedom ◽

Textual Analysis ◽

Historical Context ◽

Original Text ◽

Religious Tolerance ◽

Target Readership

In the sixteenth century, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was a multicultural and multidenominational country, where religious freedom was guaranteed by the General Warsaw Confederation Act of 1573. This climate of religious tolerance allowed a culture of public theological dispute to flourish within the realm. Printed in Vilnius in 1584, Gaspar Wilkowski’s Dziesięc mocnych dowodów [Ten Strong Reasons]—a translation of Edmund Campion’s Rationes decem—captured this culture of controversy and polemical dispute. To understand the significance of Wilkowski’s book this essay will situate it in its wider historical context of cross-confessional debates between Catholics and the Polish Brethren. Three other books will be discussed to demonstrate that Wilkowski’s translation was clearly written as an instrument of polemical dispute. A textual analysis of the work shows a change of emphasis from Campion’s book, consequently affecting the reader’s reception of the translated work. Understanding how the translator, in this case Wilkowski, made conscious changes in the original text to accommodate the particular needs of his target readership helps explain the purpose and structure of the Polish translation. In short, Wilkowski wanted to make his translation as relevant to his readers as possible.

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Crafting Piety for Success: Gülşeniye Literature and Culture in the Sixteenth Century*

Journal of Sufi Studies ◽

10.1163/221059512x626117 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 31-75

Author(s):

Side Emre

Keyword(s):

Sixteenth Century ◽

Early Modern ◽

Textual Analysis ◽

Historical Sources ◽

Early Literature ◽

Wide Range ◽

Political Environments ◽

Close Textual Analysis ◽

Rare Opportunity ◽

Shed Light

Abstract Today, scholarship on Islamic mysticism mostly prioritizes the poetry and mystical teachings of famous Sufi masters, with limited efforts to historically contextualize them. One of the sub-branches of the Halvetī order, the Gülşeniye, while being an influential participant in early modern Ottoman politics and society, presents the historian of Sufism with a rare opportunity to approach this gap. Despite offering a wide range of untapped literary, hagiographical, and historical sources, studies on the Gülşeniye remain in the margins. Through Gülşeniye literary production, including poetry and hagio-biographies by dervish-authors, this article explores the mystical thought and piety of İbrāhīm-i Gülşeni (d. 940/1534), the founder of the Gülşenī order of dervishes in Egypt. Close textual analysis of sources reveals that Gülşenī’s inspirations formed the contours of the order’s early literature and culture. I argue that the Gülşeniye literary corpus, and the culture formed alongside it, was a product of changing socio-political environments, not a replica of the doctrines of the order’s founder. The shifts in the corpus unveil the order’s changing practical priorities and shed light on how the Gülşeniye secured a stable niche for itself in Ottoman Egypt in the sixteenth century.

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Becoming a baker in the Ottoman town of Rodosçuk (1546-1552): A textual analysis of the records of designation

New Perspectives on Turkey ◽

10.1017/s0896634600005616 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 42 ◽

pp. 159-178

Author(s):

Özlem Sert

Keyword(s):

Sixteenth Century ◽

Institutional Change ◽

Textual Analysis ◽

Islamic Culture ◽

Economic Activities ◽

Court Records ◽

State Institutions ◽

History Of ◽

Static Nature

AbstractIn the history of Ottoman institutions, their roots in a “timeless Islamic culture and mentality” have been emphasized to such an extent that Ottoman state institutions appear as perfectly defined and applied ideals and myths rather than real entities. The myth of Ottoman guilds controlling all of the empires economic activities is one of these. As court records, which show the details of the guilds' functioning, as well as other relevant records have been examined more often after the 1980s, a new image of institutional change has emerged, and the myth of continuity has been challenged. For the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, numerous sources demonstrate transformations in various local guilds; however, for the first half of the sixteenth century, from which scarcer records have survived, it is more difficult to disprove the myth of the guilds' static nature. In this study, I analyze the court records of Rodosçuk in order to explicate the type of changes that occurred in craft organizations between 1546 and 1552. The textual analysis of the designation records of bakers and other documents concerning the crafts help to bring to light modifications to the conditions of membership of the bakers' guild by 1551, challenging the assumed myth of the monopoly over membership, or the professional restrictions on crafts.

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Maxims of Foreign Policy

Itinerario ◽

10.1017/s0165115300044508 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 24 (2) ◽

pp. 62-79

Author(s):

W.J. Boot

Keyword(s):

Foreign Policy ◽

Sixteenth Century ◽

Foreign Relations ◽

East Asian ◽

Modern Period ◽

Cultural Sphere ◽

Japanese Identity

In the pre-modern period, Japanese identity was articulated in contrast with China. It was, however, articulated in reference to criteria that were commonly accepted in the whole East-Asian cultural sphere; criteria, therefore, that were Chinese in origin.One of the fields in which Japan's conception of a Japanese identity was enacted was that of foreign relations, i.e. of Japan's relations with China, the various kingdoms in Korea, and from the second half of the sixteenth century onwards, with the Portuguese, Spaniards, Dutchmen, and the Kingdom of the Ryūkū.

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