Models of the Dignity of the Human Being in the Middle Ages

2018 ◽

pp. 12-32

Author(s):

Svetlana Babkina

Keyword(s):

Middle Ages ◽

The Other ◽

Human Being ◽

The Third ◽

The People ◽

Bed Form ◽

The Temple ◽

The Middle Ages

This article deals with the idea that the bed should be placed north to south and not from west to east formulated in B. Berakhot 5b. As the later tradition says, this rule stays actual during the middle ages and till these days. According to the commentators this rule is based on the idea, that the Shekhinah lays from west to east, so this direction became sacred. There are three reasons to avoid this position during the sleep. All of them are connected to the ritual impurity. The first is nocturnal emission, which can happen to a man or a woman and which make that person impure. The second reason is the connection of sleep to death, which is the «father of fathers of impurities». The third is the vulnerability of the human being from the side of the different kind of night demonic creatures, who can kill the people (and make them ritually impure). All the ideas have deep biblical roots, but were combined only in rabbinical period when the prescription to put the bed form north to south first appeared. The problem is, that the practice could be very much older than the rabbinic tradition. This the rule formulated in Talmud can serve as a good example of adaptation of popular beliefs toward the official religion. From the other side this example shows that inside the monotheistic tradition there always was a place for ideas rooted in archaic societies: here we can see the clearly formulated idea, that by the manipulation sleeping space one can influence prosperity.

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Sex and Sexual Fantasy among the Arabs in the Middle Ages

Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal ◽

10.14738/assrj.75.7889 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 7 (5) ◽

pp. 96-116

Author(s):

Hanan Bishara

Keyword(s):

Middle Ages ◽

Islamic Law ◽

Female Circumcision ◽

Human Being ◽

Human Beings ◽

Male Homosexuality ◽

The Subject ◽

Female Homosexuality ◽

Two Stages ◽

The Middle Ages

Dealing with the theme of sex among the Arabs in the Middle Ages requires distinction between two stages: the pre-revelation of the Koran and the life of Prophet Muhammad stage, and the post- Prophet stage, including the Umayyad and Abbasid ages. The Arabs were interested in the subject of 'sex' in an incomparable way, and this appears in their over-talking about everything that is related to the female sex organs and her reproductive system such as female circumcision, puberty, engagement, marriage, sexual intercourse, haymen, virginity and non-virginity. In addition, the Arabs dealt with the shortcomings of the wife, her childbearing and child birth, breastfeeding, nikaḥ al-mutʿah, literally "pleasure marriage", adultery, fornication, sexual deviation, male homosexuality (liwatt) and female homosexuality (lesbianism), which is called "sihaq" in Arabic. Islam gave interest to 'sexuality' because the sexual passion is a human instinct and a phenomenon that affects the behavior of human beings Therefore, it should be cultivated and refined without going away from its reality and the human tendencies that God created in the human being. According to Islam, the human being does not have to nullify his instincts or control them just for control's sake, but he has to employ them according to the Islamic Law (Shariʿa).

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Magnum miraculum est homo. . . . The Phenomenon of Man in the Light of Hermetic Excerpts: Lactantius, Div. inst. 7.13.3

The Biblical Annals ◽

10.31743/biban.8260 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 10 (4) ◽

pp. 707-734

Author(s):

Agata Ewa Sowińska

Keyword(s):

Characteristic Feature ◽

Human Nature ◽

Middle Ages ◽

Reference Point ◽

Human Being ◽

Dual Nature ◽

Corpus Hermeticum ◽

Range Of Influence ◽

The Middle Ages

The aim of this paper is to present the question of human nature in a hermetic approach based on the source texts of Asclepius and Corpus Hermeticum. As the reference point for a research on hermetic anthropology serves one of the hermetic fragments found in Lactantius’ Divinae institutiones (i.e. Div. inst. 7.13.3), who focused on a characteristic feature of every human being: their dual nature – both divine and hylic. The analysis of Div. inst. 7.13.3 is preceded by a short study, based on the anthology by M.D. Litwa, of the range of influence of hermetic texts on literature from antiquity to the Middle Ages.

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Bernard of Clairvaux

10.7591/cornell/9781501751042.001.0001 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Brian Patrick McGuire

Keyword(s):

Middle Ages ◽

Human Being ◽

Human Spirit ◽

The People ◽

Historical Figure ◽

Monastic Life ◽

Saint Bernard Of Clairvaux ◽

Saint Bernard ◽

The Church ◽

The Middle Ages

This intimate portrait of one of the Middle Ages' most consequential men, delves into the life of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux to offer a refreshing interpretation that finds within this grand historical figure a deeply spiritual human being who longed for the reflective quietude of the monastery even as he helped shape the destiny of a church and a continent. Heresy and crusade, politics and papacies, theology and disputation shaped this astonishing man's life, and this book presents it all. Following Bernard from his birth in 1090 to his death in 1153 at the abbey he had founded four decades earlier, the book reveals a life teeming with momentous events and spiritual contemplation, from Bernard's central roles in the first great medieval reformation of the Church and the Second Crusade, which he came to regret, to the crafting of his books, sermons, and letters. We see what brought Bernard to monastic life and how he founded Clairvaux Abbey, established a network of Cistercian monasteries across Europe, and helped his brethren monks and abbots in heresy trials, affairs of state, and the papal schism of the 1130s. By re-evaluating Bernard's life and legacy through his own words and those of the people closest to him, the book reveals how this often-challenging saint saw himself and conveyed his convictions to others. Above all, the biography depicts Saint Bernard of Clairvaux as a man guided by Christian revelation and open to the achievements of the human spirit.

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