Tasting the milk of celestial knowledge. Note about the rhetoric of the portrayal of the sacred in Alonso Cano’s painting The Lactation of St. Bernard (1653–1657) from the National Gallery in Prague

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pavel Štěpánek
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Milky Way ◽  
Virgin Mary ◽  
The Other ◽  
National Gallery ◽  
Dream Vision ◽  
Mystical Tradition ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Cistercian Order ◽  
Coptic Church

This is an attempt of interpretation of a picture that draws from mystical tradition. It is about the comprehension of a topic in a painting by the Spanish artist Alonso Cano (1601–1667, Granada), from the National Gallery in Prague (O 14 690) Lactatio S. Bernardi – presenting the miracle of lactation, in which the Virgin Mary is squirting milk from her breast into the mouth of St. Bernard of Clairvaux (a historically very famous saint and major representative of the Cistercian Order). Traces of iconography lead up to the Coptic Church, where the typology of the milking Virgin was probably first originated (Galacto Trofusa in Greek or Maria lactans in Latin). The starting point is perhaps the portrayal of the virgin goddess Isis milking her son Horus. In many cultures, milk symbolises physical and spiritual food (e.g. the Milky Way evoking the ancient myth about spurted divine milk). On the other hand, milking is also present in the Old Testament as the image of special blessing; it is a symbol of eternal beatitude and wisdom. The dream/vision of her milk is then – apart from the rest – a sign of abundance, fertility, love, and fullness. The lactation of St. Bernard is an allegory of the penetration of the divine science in the soul. Thanks to this act the saint receives God’s guide, which he can then discharge into his writings.

Cosmology

2018 ◽  
pp. 158-183
Author(s):  
Ian Richard Netton
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Virgin Mary ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Sun ◽  
The Moon ◽  
The People ◽  
The One

This chapter introduces its subject by examining two early cosmological miracles, the standing of the sun at the command of Joshua in the Old Testament and the stilling of sunset and moonrise in the Islamic account by Joshua during the conquest of Jericho.The chapter then surveys and analyses in some depth two major cosmological miracles in the Christian and Islamic traditions:the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima in 1917 and the Splitting of the Moon in the Qur’an. Both miraculous events may be described as ‘proof-events’ designed to underline the truth of messages brought to three children at Fatima in Portugal by the Virgin Mary on the one hand, and by Muhammad to the people of Mecca on the other.

La transposition profane de l’Exode dans Moïse fiction de Gilles Rozier

2013 ◽  
pp. 174-183
Author(s):  
Piotr Sadkowski
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
The Other ◽  
Jewish Tradition ◽  
Human Being ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Jewish Origin ◽  
French Writer ◽  
The World ◽  
Jewish Writers

Throughout the centuries French and Francophone writers were relatively rarely inspired by the figure of Moses and the story of Exodus. However, since the second half of 20th c. the interest of the writers in this Old Testament story has been on the rise: by rewriting it they examine the question of identity dilemmas of contemporary men. One of the examples of this trend is Moïse Fiction, the 2001 novel by the French writer of Jewish origin, Gilles Rozier, analysed in the present article. The hypertextual techniques, which result in the proximisation of the figure of Moses to the reality of the contemporary reader, constitute literary profanation, but at the same time help place Rozier’s text in the Jewish tradition, in the spirit of talmudism understood as an exchange of views, commentaries, versions and additions related to the Torah. It is how the novel, a new “midrash”, avoids the simple antinomy of the concepts of the sacred and the profane. Rozier’s Moses, conscious of his complex identity, is simultaneously a Jew and an Egyptian, and faces, like many contemporary Jewish writers, language dilemmas, which constitute one of the major motifs analysed in the present article. Another key question is the ethics of the prophetism of the novelistic Moses, who seems to speak for contemporary people, doomed to in the world perceived as chaos unsupervised by an absolute being. Rozier’s agnostic Moses is a prophet not of God (who does not appear in the novel), but of humanism understood as the confrontation of a human being with the absurdity of his or her own finiteness, which produces compassion for the other, with whom the fate of a mortal is shared.

USE OF THE GALAXY AS A TOOL FOR SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL ORIENTATION DURING THE EARLY ISLAMIC PERIOD AND UP TO THE 15TH CENTURY

2021 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-44
Author(s):  
Andreas Eckart
Keyword(s):  
Milky Way ◽  
The Other ◽  
Temporal Orientation ◽  
Islamic Period ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
15Th Century ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Galaxy ◽  
Early Islamic Period ◽  
Early Islamic

AbstractWe study to what extent the Milky Way was used as an orientation tool at the beginning of the Islamic period covering the 8th to the 15th century, with a focus on the first half of that era. We compare the texts of three authors from three different periods and give detailed comments on their astronomical and traditional content. The text of al-Marzūqī summarises the information on the Milky Way put forward by the astronomer and geographer ʾAbū Ḥanīfa al-Dīnawarī. The text makes it clear that in some areas the Milky Way could be used as a geographical guide to determine the approximate direction toward a region on Earth or the direction of prayer. In the 15th century, the famous navigator Aḥmad b. Māǧid describes the Milky Way in his nautical instructions. He frequently demonstrates that the Milky Way serves as a guidance aid to find constellations and stars that are useful for precise navigation on land and at sea. On the other hand, Ibn Qutayba quotes in his description of the Milky Way a saying from the famous Bedouin poet Ḏū al-Rumma, which is also mentioned by al-Marzūqī. In this saying the Milky Way is used to indicate the hot summer times in which travelling the desert was particularly difficult. Hence, the Milky Way was useful for orientation in space and time and was used for agricultural and navigational purposes.

Ontology and Perception

2004 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-58
Author(s):  
Jeffrey S. Galko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
The Other ◽  
Cognitive Capacity ◽  
Complex Environment ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Ontological Question ◽  
The One ◽  
Bodies Of Water ◽  
The Relationship

The ontological question of what there is, from the perspective of common sense, is intricately bound to what can be perceived. The above observation, when combined with the fact that nouns within language can be divided between nouns that admit counting, such as ‘pen’ or ‘human’, and those that do not, such as ‘water’ or ‘gold’, provides the starting point for the following investigation into the foundations of our linguistic and conceptual phenomena. The purpose of this paper is to claim that such phenomena are facilitated by, on the one hand, an intricate cognitive capacity, and on the other by the complex environment within which we live. We are, in a sense, cognitively equipped to perceive discrete instances of matter such as bodies of water. This equipment is related to, but also differs from, that devoted to the perception of objects such as this computer. Behind this difference in cognitive equipment underlies a rich ontology, the beginnings of which lies in the distinction between matter and objects. The following paper is an attempt to make explicit the relationship between matter and objects and also provide a window to our cognition of such entities.

Reformation and Judaism

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 20-30
Author(s):  
Gerbern S. Oegema
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
The Other ◽  
Christian Zionism ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Ambivalent Relationship ◽  
The One ◽  
State Of Israel ◽  
Initial Focus

The topic of this paper is the complex and ambivalent relationship between the Reformed Churches and Judaism, moving from a kind of Philo-Semitism to Christian Zionism and support for the State of Israel on the one hand, to missionary movements among Jews to anti-Judaism, and the contribution to the horrors of the Holocaust on the other hand. In between the two extremes stands the respect for the Old Testament and the neglect of the Apocrypha and other early Jewish writings. The initial focus of this article will be on what Martin Luther and Jean Calvin wrote about Judaism at the beginning of the Reformation over 500 years ago. Secondly, the article will deal with the influence of mission activity toward Jews and the emergence of Liberal Judaism as both scholarship and theology in the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries. Lastly, the article will address the question of how the Holocaust and subsequent Jewish-Christian dialogue have changed the course of this relationship.

“Ọrọ, nwa, ẹkọ”, the talk, the look, the education: reflections on a pedagogy of cosmoperception

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Roseane Santos Mesquita ◽  
Késia Dos Anjos Rocha
Keyword(s):  
Educational Experience ◽  
The Other ◽  
Educational Practices ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The World ◽  
The Look ◽  
Ways Of Being ◽  
Present Text ◽  
The Way

The present text bets on the power of reflections on a pedagogy guided by cosmoperception. It is a collective call for the enchanted ways of perceiving and relating to the other. “Ọrọ, nwa, ẹkọ”, the talk, the look, the education, insurgent forces that grow in the cracks, just like moss, alive, reborn. That is the way we think about education, as a living practice, turned to freedom. Freedom understood as a force that enables us to question certain hegemonic truths entrenched in our ways of being, thinking and producing knowledge. In dialogue with the criticisms on the decolonial thought and by authors and authoresses who are putting themselves into thinking about an epistemology from a diasporic place, from the edges of the world, we will try to problematize the effects of the epistemic erasures promoted by the colonial processes and how that has affected our educative practices. The look at the educational experience that happens in the sacred territory of candomblé, will be our starting point to think about politically and poetically transformative educational practices.

scholarly journals Mysticism and/in the Old Testament: Methodological orientation and a textual example

2015 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christo Lombaard
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Specific Aspect ◽  
The Other ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Mission History ◽  
The One ◽  
Interpretative Framework

This contribution is the second in a series on methodology and Biblical Spirituality. In the first article, ‘Biblical spirituality and interdisciplinarity: The discipline at cross-methodological intersection’, the matter was explored in relationship to the broader academic discipline of Spirituality. In this contribution, the focus is narrowed to the more specific aspect of mysticism within Spirituality Studies. It is not rare for Old Testament texts to be understood in relationship to mystical contexts. One the one hand, when Old Testament texts are interpreted from a mystical perspective, the methods with which such interpretations are studied are familiar. The same holds true, on the other hand, if texts in the Old Testament, dating from the Hellenistic period, are identified as mystic. However, African mission history has taught us that the Western interpretative framework, based on ancient Greek philosophical suppositions (most directly the concepts rendered by Plato and Aristotle) and rhetorical orientations, is so strong that it transposes that which it encounters in other cultures into its terms, thus rendering the initial cultural understandings inaccessible. This is precisely the case too with Old Testament texts dating from pre-Hellenistic times, identified as mystic. What are the methodological parameters required to understand such texts on their own terms? In fact, is such an understanding even possible?

scholarly journals The vow of Ivan Crnojevic to the Virgin Mary in Loreto under the shadow of the ottoman conquest

Balcanica ◽  
2017 ◽  
pp. 19-32
Author(s):  
Valentina Zivkovic
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Social Adjustment ◽  
Virgin Mary ◽  
The Other ◽  
Comprehensive Understanding ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Institutional Organization

This paper looks at the circumstances in which Ivan Crnojevic, a fifteenth-century ruler of Zeta (historic region in present-day Montenegro), made a vow to the Virgin in a famous pilgrimage shrine, the Santa Casa in Loreto (Italy), where he was in exile fleeing another Ottoman offensive. The focus of the paper is on a few issues which need to be re-examined in order to understand Ivan?s vow against a broader background. His act is analyzed in the context of the symbolic role that the Virgin of Loreto played as a powerful antiturca protectress. On the other hand, much attention is paid to the institutional organization of Slavs (Schiavoni) who found refuge in Loreto and nearby towns, which may serve as a basis for a more comprehensive understanding of the process of religious and social adjustment of Orthodox Slav refugees to their new Catholic environment.

scholarly journals Violence in social memory intimate beliefs regarding operation storm in the Croatian and Serbian publics

2008 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-68
Author(s):  
Gordana Djeric
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Social Memory ◽  
The Other ◽  
Silence Suppression ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The One ◽  
Performance Character ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Manipulation Strategy

This text is part of a research conducted under the working title "What do we talk about when we are silent and what are we silent about when we are talking? - premises for the anthropology of silence about the nearest past." In the first part the author investigates the meaning of silence in the Croatian and Serbian press right before and during Croatia's Operation Storm. The ratio between silence, suppression of information and forgetting, on the one hand, and social memory, on the other, has been elaborated in the final part of the text by following reports about the anniversaries of Operation Storm in both Croatian and Serbian publics. The starting point lies in the belief that the phenomenon of silence (and suppression of information), being an immanent part of each discourse, represents an important factor in the creation of social relationships and system of value models, that it has important communication and cognitive functions and that the performance character lies in its essence. In short, silence makes it possible to form the prevailing image about this event, even if it does not construct it indirectly - through speech. The author has elaborated on the meaning of silence in the context of Operation Storm partly because studies about the breakup of Yugoslavia frequently mention silence as a manipulation strategy employed by some of the sides in the conflict (or analysts dealing with Yugoslav topics), while not a single study systematically investigates the semantic of silence and suppression of information in these conflicts. Most importantly, taking into account the frequency of direct silence in the newspaper discourse and rhetoric strategies that point at silence indirectly from the context and discourse, the author focuses on the relationship between the event (situation) and silence. In order to shed light on the way in which Operation Storm is remembered, i.e. forgotten, in the stakeholders' publics and political imageries, she follows the dailies - Vecernje Novosti Politika, Danas (Belgrade) - Vecernji List, Jutarnji List, Magazin supplement of the Jutarnji List (Zagreb), as well as texts about Operation Storm in weeklies such as the NIN and Vreme of Belgrade or Globus of Zagreb in the period between August 2, 1995 and mid-August 2006.

scholarly journals Silent and a audible stereotypes: The constitution of "ethnic character" in Serbian epic poetry

2005 ◽  
pp. 105-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordana Djeric
Keyword(s):  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Mental Image ◽  
Epic Poetry ◽  
National Character ◽  
The Other ◽  
Relevant Feature ◽  
Explanatory Relevance ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Epic Poems

The article deals with the explanatory relevance of the concept of stereotype in one of its original meanings - as a "mental image". This meaning of the term is the starting point for further differentiations, such as: between linguistic and behavioral stereotypes (in the sense of nonverbal, expected responses); universal and particular stereotypes; self representative and introspective stereotypes; permanent and contemporary stereotypes; and finally, what is most important for our purposes, the difference between silent and audible stereotypes. These distinctions, along with the functions of stereotype, are discussed in the first part of the paper. In the second part, the relations of silent and audible stereotypes are tested against the introduction of "innovative vocabularies" in popular lore. In other words, the explanatory power of this differentiation is checked through an analysis of unconventional motives in Serbian epic poems. The goal of the argument is to clarify the procedure of self creation of masculinity as a relevant feature of the "national character" through "tactic games" of silent and audible stereotypes. The examination of these "poetic strategies" serves a twofold purpose: to illustrate the process of constructing particular features of the "ethno type", on one hand, and to check hypotheses and models which are taken as frameworks in analyzing stereotypes, on the other.

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