The “Spiritual Hammer” (1656) as an Emblematic translation of “Imitatio Christi” by Thomas à Kempis

The subject of this article is a Polish-language collection of emblems by Paweł Mirowski, the Spiritual Hammer, 1656. The work is in fact a paraphrase of Thomas à Kempis’s Imitatio Christi, which the author admits neither on the title page nor in the preface. In addition, the translation is supplemented with five to seven engravings (depending on the surviving copies) of an emblematic kind. The purpose of this article is twofold. Firstly, to juxtapose Mirowski’s translation with Kempis’s work in order to reveal his translation techniques and discuss the advisability of their use. Secondly, to analyse the purpose of using emblematics in the Imitatio Christi and to point to two hitherto unknown copper engravings preserved in a unique copy of the Seminary Library in Warsaw.

Difficult texts: being made perfect according to Matthew 5 and 19

Usually translated as ‘perfect’, teleios appears in Matthew’s Gospel – twice in an exhortation (in the Sermon on the Mount) to imitate our heavenly Father’s boundless love and once in an invitation to a rich young man to divest himself of his great wealth and join the disciples in following Jesus. This article explores the grounds and difficulties for Christians who embrace this imitatio Christi and imitatio Dei.

Giovanni Bellini’s Madonna of the Meadow, ‘Meditational Poesia’, and the Imitatio Christi

This essay examines Giovanni Bellini’s Madonna of the Meadow as a ‘meditational poesia’, focusing upon formal aspects that differentiate between embracing landscape and figural group and upon Bellini’s approach to this landscape and its contrasting staffage that elicits contemplative reflection. I examine three treatises that may have stimulated the artist and contend that Thomas à Kempis’s Imitation of Christ (translated as Imitatione de Cristo, Venice, 1488) provides thematic structures that most closely align with those characterizing Bellini’s painting and intimate its role in articulating a meditational approach by which a viewer can effectively appraise the Madonna of the Meadow.

Visitatio Christi: Matthew 25:33-46 as Apocalyptic-Ethical Impulse

Through an exploration of the interpretation history of Matt. 25:33-46, this article develops an apocalyptic ethics based on Christ’s encountering us in the least of his brothers and sisters. Proposing the newly coined expression ‘ visitatio Christi’, the article offers a counterpoint to the common theological-ethical theme of imitatio Christi. First, it recalls how Jesus’ eschatological parable has time and again inspired love of the neighbour in need (e.g., the works of mercy) and challenged the scope of the required option for the poor (e.g., the debate about charity and structural change). Next, the article shows how an apocalyptic ethics based in Matthew 25, which imagines our moral life as a response to the visitatio Christi, implies a transformation of attitude/perception, a reversal of roles, and finds its source in the sacramental presence of Christ in the poor. Finally, the different aspects of the argument are recapitulated drawing upon Pope Francis’s use of Matthew 25.

Violence, Jesus, and Just War Reasoning

This chapter examines the deeper logic of just war thinking by analyzing its central distinction between aggressive violence and responsive violence, as well as its recognition of the threat of destructive synergy between the two. The chapter considers whether the teaching of Jesus renders impossible any Christian sanctioning of even defensive violence, as insisted by the peace church traditions. Through a consideration of the Sermon on the Mount and a theological appraisal of the imitatio Christi motif in relation to martyrdom, the chapter upholds just war reasoning as theologically defensible. It suggests that the pacifist and just war traditions both require a precarious wager in relation to faithfulness and thus serve as one another’s external consciences in the face of the ambiguity of violence.

Nonviolence as Criterion of Martyrdom?

In view of the possibility of violence en route to Christian martyrdom, this chapter explores the pacifist tradition of Christian ethics and its claim that true martyrdom demands nonviolence, as that is the intended shape of the Christian life. After presenting the biblical case for nonviolence and charting the historical development of Christian pacifism, the chapter focuses on historic Anabaptism’s link between martyrdom and nonviolent defenselessness as the distinctive texture of discipleship, especially as reflected in the martyrologies in Thieleman van Braght’s Martyrs’ Mirror (1660). The chapter concludes with an analysis of the role of the imitatio Christi ethic in the peace church traditions and the insights that this tradition offers to the question of the criteria or markers of true Christian martyrdom.