Cistercian Monasteries in Medieval Sweden—Foundations and Recruitments, 1143–1420

This article presents an overview of the Cistercian monasteries that were founded in Sweden in the 12th and 13th centuries. The first were Alvastra and Nydala, founded in 1143, both male monasteries. However, eventually the nunneries came to outnumber the male monasteries (7/5). The purpose of the article is also to discuss the social background of the monks and nuns who inhabited these monasteries. As for the nuns, previous studies have shown that they initially came from the society’s elite, the royal families, but also other magnates. Gradually, social recruitment broadened, and an increasing number of women from the aristocratic lower levels came to dominate the recruitment. It is also suggested that from the end of the 14th century, the women increasingly came from the burghers. The male monasteries, on the other hand, were not even from the beginning populated by men from the nobles. Their family backgrounds seem rather to be linked to the aristocratic lower layers. This difference between the sexes can most probably be explained by the fact that ideals of monastic life—obedience, equality, poverty and ban on weapons—in a decisive way broke with what in secular life was constructed as an aristocratic masculinity.

THE SACRED AND THE SECULAR IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH: ON THE PROBLEM OF BORDERS AND INTERACTION

В статье анализируется взаимодействие сакрального и мирского элементов в пространстве христианского храма, проблема границы мирского и сакрального и варианты ее решения в истории христианской церкви. Характер взаимодействия сакрального и мирского определяется космическим характером христианства. Христианство стремится к освящению окружающего мира и изменению его на Божественных началах, так как мир сотворен Богом и несет на себе Его образ. Высшей формой преображения мира является таинство Евхаристии. Конечное преображение мира, согласно христианскому учению, возможно после Второго Пришествия Христа. С первых веков существования христианства граница сакрального и мирского пространств в храме была подвижной, а богослужение предполагало активное участие мирян. В первые века христианства алтарь храма выделялся из его пространства, но не отделялся от верующих. Миряне имели возможность видеть происходящее в алтаре и участвовать в таинствах через приношения. Такие черты характерны как для Византии, так и для Руси X–XIII вв. В дальнейшем возникает проблема нарушения баланса мирского и сакрального элементов, которая по-разному решается на Западе и Востоке. Христианский Запад пошел по пути интеграции сакрального пространства в мирскую жизнь. Первоначально это проявилось в совершении молитв и тайнодействий «лицом к народу». Возникло представление, что такое совершение молитв соответствует Тайной Вечере Христа и апостолов. По той же причине место епископа в храме было перенесено ближе к молящимся мирянам. Позже произошел переход к богослужению на национальных языках. Все это привело к прогрессирующей десакрализации богослужения. По-другому развивалось богослужение на Востоке. Здесь приоритетным стало разделение священного и мирского пространств, что проявилось в увеличении высоты алтарной преграды и появлении высокого иконостаса. В дальнейшем снижается активность участия мирян в богослужении, а в XVII столетии происходит окончательное разделение сакрального и мирского пространств. В результате литургической реформы патриарха Никона изменяется положение священника. Священник понимается как носитель благодати, положение которого выше положения мирянина. Из текстов богослужения удаляются слова, имеющие мирское значение. Так возникает сфера мирской жизни, отдельная от церковной жизни. Это ведет к секуляризации культуры. Таким образом, западные и восточные христиане от христианской идеи освящения мира разными путями пришли не к освящению пространства жизни людей, а к секуляризации культуры и богослужения. Но богослужение и устройство храма на христианском Востоке, имея тенденцию к отделению своего пространства от мирского, все же в большей степени, чем Запад, сохраняет сакральное содержание христианства. The article analyzes the interaction of sacred and secular elements in the space of the Christian Church, the problem of the boundary between the secular and the sacred, and options for its solution in the history of the Christian Church. The nature of the interaction between the sacred and the secular is determined by the cosmic character of Christianity. Christianity seeks to sanctify the surrounding world and change it by divine principles, since the world was created by God and has His image. The highest form of transformation of the world is the sacrament of the Eucharist. The final transformation of the world, according to the Christian doctrine, is possible after the Second Coming of Christ. Since the first centuries of Christianity, the border of the sacred and secular spaces in the temple was mobile, and the service involved the active participation of the laity. In the first centuries of Christianity, the altar of the temple stood out from its space, but was not separated from the faithful. Lay people were able to see what was happening in the altar and participate in the sacraments through offerings. Such features are typical for both Byzantium and Russia of the 10th–13th centuries. Later, the problem of disturbing the balance of the secular and sacred elements appears; it is solved differently in the West and East. The Christian West has taken the path of integrating the sacred into its secular life. Initially, this was manifested in the performance of prayers and sacraments “facing people”. There was an idea that such a performance of prayers corresponds to the Last Supper of Christ and the apostles. For the same reason, the bishop’s place in the church was moved closer to the praying lay people. Later, there was a transition to perform liturgy in national languages. All this led to the progressive desacralization of liturgy. In the East, liturgy developed in a different way. The separation of the sacred and secular spaces became a priority, which was manifested in the increase in the height of the altar barrier and in the appearance of a high iconostasis. Then the activity of lay participation in liturgy decreases, and, in the 17th century, the final separation of the sacred and secular spaces takes place. As a result of Patriarch Nikon’s liturgical reform, the position of the priest changes. A priest is understood as a bearer of grace, whose position is higher than that of a lay person. Words that have a secular meaning are removed from the texts of the service. The sphere of secular life that is separate from church life appears. This leads to the secularization of culture. Thus, Western and Eastern Christians came from the Christian idea of sanctifying the world in different ways to the secularization of culture and worship rather than to the sanctification of the space of people’s lives. But liturgy and the arrangement of the temple in the Christian East, with its tendency to separate its space from the secular, still preserve the sacred content of Christianity to a greater extent than the West.

Gibt es ein Asymmetrie-Problem in der Genealogie der nachmetaphysischen Vernunft?

This essay places some conceptual pressure on the model of a “learning process” in Jürgen Habermas’s Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie, and it asks whether this model introduces a subtle asymmetry into the relationship between religion and secular philosophy. Such an asymmetry would seem to obtain insofar as religious tradition is granted a privileged or unique status as the source of normative insights that are then available for rational scrutiny and translation into secular life. The essay also draws a comparison between Lessing and Habermas: Lessing, like Habermas, saw revelation as a source of instruction for humanity, and affirmed that religion could thereby play a role in the Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts. But Lessing was careful to say that no valuable normative contents are found in religion that could not also be derived by secular reason alone. Habermas’s genealogy of post-metaphysical thinking does not seem to confirm Lessing’s idea; instead, it appears to confirm an asymmetry in the relation between religion and secular philosophy.

Islamic Epistemology Paradigm: Worldview of Interdisciplinary Islamic Studies Syed Muhammad Naqueb Al-Attas

This article departs from the author's anxiety about Islamic epistemology vis a vis the Islamization of science in the worldview of interdisciplinary Islamic epistemology, Syed Muhammad Naqueb al-Attas regarding the Islamization paradigm of science with a concept with an approach based on the paradigm of Islamic epistemology. In this case, the problem of Islamization is fundamental epistemologically. However, al-Attas does not want to contradict one another, in fact, it further strengthens the Islamization of science under Islamic epistemology’s spirit or values. The epistemology of Islamic thought of Syed Muhammad Naqueb al-Attas regarding the concept of epistemology vis a vis the Islamization of science is not only built on revelation and religious belief. However, it is built on a cultural tradition strengthened by philosophical speculation related to secular life that focuses on humans as rational beings. As a result, science and ethical and moral values, governed by human reason, are constantly changing. Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas’ Interdisciplinary Islamic Studies is a conception of the need for the Islamization of science related to reality and truth is understood by the unification method where there is a unity between inductive and deductive, empirical, and rational principles. The approach and theory used in this paper explore the historical roots of the epistemological paradigm of Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas by combining esoteric and ecstical elements as well as the combination of secularism and religion. However, it must be an interdisciplinary scientific discipline in Islamic studies.

The Voice in Women

Most Jews have heard about Kol Isha, the proscription against women raising their voices in song. But discussions about the voice of a woman were broader than whether or not she could sing and in what context, and in whose presence. The discomfort men had about women, not just singing but also speaking, has never been simply an issue of a voice, but rather of a voice embodied in a particular body, a female body, whose physical presence has traditionally presented a problem for Jewish men. These days, this is not solely an uncomfortable problem within the Orthodox Jewish world, but also within the progressive Jewish world, where women’s voices and women’s presence are still challenging and discomfiting to people. Nor does it remain solely a source of Jewish anxiety; women and their voices affect women in all aspects of secular life as well.

Islam and the Creative Imagination in Senegal

In few other places in the creative traditions of sub-Saharan Africa isthe factor of Islam more prominent and influential than in Senegal.Manifested on the level of form and subject-matter and spanning a widecross-section of talent in both the traditional and modern media ofcreative expression, this prominence and influence can be attributed toanumber of factors ranging from the artistic maturity, religioussensibility, intellectual astuteness and ideological orientation ofindividual artists to the more general impact that Islam, as a dominantreligious force, is perceived to have had on secular life in Senegal. Thesefactors, to a large extent, determine the various ways in which individualSenegalese artists define themselves and their art vis-a-vis Islam, inparticular, and society, in general, definitions which creatively translateinto formal choice, thematic focus and, to use a cliche, “message”.Two opposite sets of equally militant attitudes constitute the polarextremes that bracket the range of Senegalese artists’ creative responseto Islam, thus paralleling or ‘reflecting’ similar patterns that obtain inthe society at large. This is hardly surprising, given the conception thatSenegalese, and indeed, most African artists, have of the nature andfunction of art in society. On one pole is that ensemble of attitudes shapedby a zealous embrace and vigorous advocacy of the primordiality ofIslam as the most, indeed, the only, legitimate and effective vehicle forthe totalization of the individual and the society. Art in the hands ofindividuals on this end of the creative spectrum becomes an instrumentof propagation of religious ideals, in this case Islamic religious ideals.But beyond this religious vision or in conjunction with it, cultural and ...

SPIRITUALITAS KRISTEN DALAM MATIUS 22:37-40 SEBAGAI POLA HIDUP KRISTIANI

There are so many questions and personal struggles about the spirituality of a Christian. In practice, spirituality is separated from the reality of life; the higher a person's spirituality, the further he should be from secular life. However, in Christianity, spirituality has a much more special and unique meaning than other religions or beliefs. The Bible has given teachings about true spirituality for believers as written in Matthew 22: 37-40. This article aims to explain the correct meaning of Christian spirituality in Matthew 22: 37-40 as a Christian lifestyle