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Catholics

Helena Waddy

in Oberammergau in the Nazi Era: The Fate of a Catholic Village in Hitler's Germany

Chapter One introduces master potter Anton Lang, the most famous player of Christ and an exemplary Catholic whose lifestyle helped to promote the Bavarian People’s Party (BVP) and whose success as a ... More

Chapter One introduces master potter Anton Lang, the most famous player of Christ and an exemplary Catholic whose lifestyle helped to promote the Bavarian People’s Party (BVP) and whose success as a hotelier contributed to Oberammergau’s growth as a tourism center. In Lang’s Alpine village, families survived as wood carvers marketing Catholic devotionalia to an international clientele. Locals joined pilgrimages and Corpus Christi processions, a statement of Catholic loyalism, developed charities, and venerated “charity” saints. Oberammergau’s Passion Play drew a growing audience, including English speakers, to stay with ethnically intriguing villagers and, later, in hotels and upgraded homes. The play’s text highlighted antagonism between “Jews” and “Christians” in the Crucifixion story, but elite visitors validated its anti-Semitic message. The community’s subsequent evolution as a tourism center created diverse social and political groups, while village insiders acquired an exclusive mentality as Passion players, creating a deep social rift with newcomers in Oberammergau.Less

Pelléas et Mélisande: Mélisande as Christ Symbol‐Life, Death, and Resurrection‐and Motivic Reinterpretations of the Whole‐Tone Dyad

Elliott Antokoletz

in Musical Symbolism in the Operas of Debussy and Bartok

This chapter first looks at Act IV, Scene 1, a room in the castle. This scene anticipates Pelléas's fate as foreseen by his father. It then next looks at Act IV, Scene 2, which presents Mélisande as ... More

This chapter first looks at Act IV, Scene 1, a room in the castle. This scene anticipates Pelléas's fate as foreseen by his father. It then next looks at Act IV, Scene 2, which presents Mélisande as symbol of resurrection as foreseen by Arkel, while Golaud's vengeance and Mélisande's hair are presented as a symbol of the Crucifixion. Next the chapter turns to Act IV, Scene 3 — a well in the park — which provides a symbol of the sacrificial lamb. Scene 4 is based on the love duet and the death of Pelléas. Finally, the chapter looks at Act IV, Scene 4, which addresses structure and proportion in the service of musico-dramatic development and emotional climax. This scene presents the “Shadows” motif and “Ecstasy” motif. The fusion of light and dark is represented by octatonic fusion of pentatonic and whole-tone sets. The scene culminates with Golaud's vengeance and the fulfillment of fate.Less

Jesus and Empire: The Crucified

Christopher Bryan

in Render to Caesar: Jesus, the Early Church, and the Roman Superpower

Jesus suffered crucifixion by the Romans. Is this because he was a rebel against Rome? Not according to the evangelists, who claim that the Sanhedrin under Caiaphas initially arraigned Jesus on a ... More

Jesus suffered crucifixion by the Romans. Is this because he was a rebel against Rome? Not according to the evangelists, who claim that the Sanhedrin under Caiaphas initially arraigned Jesus on a capital charge of blasphemy. References to Jesus’ death in Jewish sources (notably Josephus and the Talmud) also claim primary responsibility for the Jerusalem authorities. Having condemned Jesus, the Sanhedrin referred the case to Pilate, as would be necessary, given Rome’s normal practice of reserving the death penalty to itself. For Pilate’s benefit, the charge was restated in terms of maiestas laesa—high treason. The gospels describe Pilate as initially unconvinced and prepared to deal with Jesus of Nazareth as Albinus would later deal with Jesus ben Hananiah. Then, perhaps because he fears a riot, Pilate is persuaded to apply the death penalty. There is no good reason to doubt the essential truth of this record.Less

The Mystic Nativity: Botticelli and the Book of Revelation

Natasha O'Hear

in Contrasting Images of the Book of Revelation in Late Medieval and Early Modern Art: A Case Study in Visual Exegesis

Chapter 4 focuses on another synchronic visualization of elements of the Book of Revelation: Botticelli's Mystic Nativity of 1500/1. Botticelli's possible links to Savonarola himself and particularly ... More

Chapter 4 focuses on another synchronic visualization of elements of the Book of Revelation: Botticelli's Mystic Nativity of 1500/1. Botticelli's possible links to Savonarola himself and particularly to the piagnone movement are discussed as an important part of the cultural, artistic, and reliaious context of the painting. The unusually personal Greek inscription at the top of the painting in which Botticelli explicitly links the painting (superficially a Nativity scene) with Rev. 11. 12, and possibly 20 provides the focus for the hermeneutical discussion of the work. Possible links with the roughly contemporaneous Mystic Crucifixion are also discussed in an extended consideration of The Mystic Nativity's contemporary function and meaning within its early sixteenth‐century Florentine context. The exegetical implications of the painting are also touched upon in this chapter and returned to in Chapter 6.Less

Congregations in the Early Church

Curtiss Paul DeYoung

in United by Faith: The Multiracial Congregation as an Answer to the Problem of Race

The first congregation of Christian faith was comprised of followers of Jesus from Galilee who gathered days after the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. These events, along with the ascension of ... More

The first congregation of Christian faith was comprised of followers of Jesus from Galilee who gathered days after the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. These events, along with the ascension of Jesus into Heaven, paved the way for a new batch of disciples to step forward since Jesus was no longer physically present to guide and preach the people. These early followers, however, experienced difficulties in fulfilling what Jesus envisioned as a house of prayer for all the nations. This chapter illustrates how the authors of the New Testament perceived how the Christian church developed and how this church was welcomed by people of various ethnic backgrounds and cultures.Less

Cyril of Jerusalem: The Devil in the Word, the Demons in the Image

Dayna S. Kalleres

in City of Demons

Cyril, lacking in ecclesiastical autonomy, crafts a demonology and anti-ritualizing weaponry for baptized Christians to experience the true Jerusalem and enable them to aid others in the same. ... More

Cyril, lacking in ecclesiastical autonomy, crafts a demonology and anti-ritualizing weaponry for baptized Christians to experience the true Jerusalem and enable them to aid others in the same. Through pre-baptismal exorcisms, baptism, as well as cultivation of memory, he manufactures what I term “Apocalyptic Seers,” capable of seeing through demonic mist to the living events of Christ’s Passion. This stands in particular protest to Constantine’s Holy Sepulcher and its focus on the tomb and resurrection. Cyril develops a view of Jerusalemite exorcism, which pulls the human body and mind into conceptualizations of sacred time and vision. To that end, his descriptions of exorcism revolve informally around general understandings of Stoic optics interwoven subtly with biblical categories of sacred history. In this way, he develops Jerusalemite exorcism and baptism that visually liberate one’s sight from a demonically compromised present age so that it may travel back to the ontological event of the Passion re-imprinted upon the soul.Less

Apocalyptic Prophets and the Cross: Revealing Jerusalem’s Demons from the Crucifixion to the End of Days

Dayna S. Kalleres

in City of Demons

This chapter is in two parts. Part 1 reads almost all of Cyril’s Cat. Hom. 15 (except chapters 11–17) and argues that it presents a radical apocalyptic, eschatological viewpoint postdating his first ... More

This chapter is in two parts. Part 1 reads almost all of Cyril’s Cat. Hom. 15 (except chapters 11–17) and argues that it presents a radical apocalyptic, eschatological viewpoint postdating his first or second exile. The tribulation language (several mentions of the antichrist), as well as searching for false christs, false messiahs, and heretics who have infiltrated the church, represents an effort to shore up insider/outside boundaries around a community that has fallen under Caesarean control via a various Acacian proxies for several years. Part 2 agrees with Oded Irshai’s argument that chapters 11–17 are a reflection of Julian’s failed attempts to rebuild the temple.Less

Sin, Shame and Atonement: A Challenge for Secular Redemption

Christopher D. Marshall

in Criminology and Public Theology: On Hope, Mercy and Restoration

In expounding on wrongdoing, both criminological theory and theological reflection have been controlled by the language of guilt and punishment. Both have largely failed to factor in the role of ... More

In expounding on wrongdoing, both criminological theory and theological reflection have been controlled by the language of guilt and punishment. Both have largely failed to factor in the role of entrenched shame in understanding and responding to human transgression, and both often display an impoverished understanding of what is involved in atoning for sin and defeating its ongoing thrall in the lives of individuals. This chapter maps out the complex ways shame functions in human experience, then considers the place of shame and honour in the biblical world. It proposes that the unique saving power ascribed to the life, death and resurrection of Christ in the New Testament, known in theological shorthand as the Atonement, includes its capacity to expose, absorb and disrupt the tyranny of shame in human experience. It suggests the gospel’s offer of spiritual regeneration provides both a paradigm for and a challenge to secular attempts to secure rehabilitation and relational renewal through the criminal justice system.Less

Mona Siddiqui

Jonathan Benthall

in Islamic Charities and Islamic Humanism in Troubled Times

This review of Mona Siddiqui’s Christians, Muslims, and Jesus (Yale University Press) was published in the Times Literary Supplement on 29 January 2014, under the heading “Abraham’s children”. As ... More

This review of Mona Siddiqui’s Christians, Muslims, and Jesus (Yale University Press) was published in the Times Literary Supplement on 29 January 2014, under the heading “Abraham’s children”. As well as being a senior academic in religious studies, Siddiqui is well known to the British public as a frequent contributor to the “Thought for the Day” religious slot in the early morning “Today” programme broadcast by the BBC’s Radio Four. SIddiqui makes an important contribution to comparative theological debate by comparing and contrasting the roles of Jesus (Isa) and Mary (Maryam) in the New Testament and the Qur’an, and more broadly in the two religious traditions as they evolved. She also reflects on the specifically Christian semiotics of the Cross. The Chapter ventures some further reflections on how the two traditions may be compared along broader lines.Less

‘The Temple of His Body’

John Behr

in John the Theologian and his Paschal Gospel: A Prologue to Theology

Chapter Three opens Part Two of this work, which looks at what it is that is ‘finished’, as Christ affirms with his last word from the Cross in the Gospel of John. This chapter focuses on Christ as ... More

Chapter Three opens Part Two of this work, which looks at what it is that is ‘finished’, as Christ affirms with his last word from the Cross in the Gospel of John. This chapter focuses on Christ as the true Temple, erected when his body is lifted up upon the Cross, Building upon the work of Mary Coloe and others, this chapter explores how Christ is presented in the six feasts which structure the narrative of this Gospel, culminating in the Passion and the appearances of the Risen Christ on the first and eighth day. In addition, this chapter also examines the way in which imagery drawn from the Tabernacle and Temple are used to explain Christ’s flesh (John 1:14 and 6), the relationship of this flesh, his glorified body, to the Eucharist and martyrdom, broadening in this way what is meant by ‘incarnation’.Less

The Body in Question

David Morgan

in Embodied Eye: Religious Visual Culture and the Social Life of Feeling

This chapter discusses the relations between the image and the body: the fleshly body that the image portrays and the body of the viewer standing before the image. It presents Renaissance artist ... More

This chapter discusses the relations between the image and the body: the fleshly body that the image portrays and the body of the viewer standing before the image. It presents Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer’s works to explain the bodies in images as well as their coordination in the creation of presence. For instance, The Crucifixion displays dozens of discrete moments from the biblical accounts of the crucifixion of Jesus, and others ascribed to the event over the course of centuries of retelling and interpretation. In particular, the sun and moon in the upper corners of the painting operate allegorically by rendering the darkness mentioned in Luke 24:44–45, which may have been remembered as fulfilling a prophecy in the Old Testament of the Hebrew Bible.Less

The Last German Jews

Ruth Gay

in Safe Among the Germans: Liberated Jews After World War II

This chapter focuses on the small town of Deggendorf in southeast Bavaria, which has long had a bad reputation in Jewish chronicles. The Jews of the town were massacred, their property confiscated, ... More

This chapter focuses on the small town of Deggendorf in southeast Bavaria, which has long had a bad reputation in Jewish chronicles. The Jews of the town were massacred, their property confiscated, and their synagogue razed because of their presumed desecration of the Host. This was a popular accusation by the medieval church, according to which the Jews pilfered the sacred wafers and then pierced them with knives, causing them to bleed—a symbolic reenactment of the Crucifixion. The Jews were also blamed for the Black Death that raged through Europe and killed off perhaps half of its population. In the decades immediately following the Black Death, Jews left Germany by the thousands to start a new life in Poland. By 1910, only 17 Jews still called Deggendorf home.Less

‘The Axile Tree’: Northumbria, Anglo-Welsh Christian Tradition, and the Ruthwell Monument

Francesca Brooks

in Poet of the Medieval Modern: Reading the Early Medieval Library with David Jones

Chapter 5 asks how Jones’s vision of an early medieval culture in which Welsh and English tradition are equally dominant resonates throughout the poem’s eight poetic sequences in the image of the ... More

Chapter 5 asks how Jones’s vision of an early medieval culture in which Welsh and English tradition are equally dominant resonates throughout the poem’s eight poetic sequences in the image of the cross. The chapter traces a history of Jones’s encounters with The Dream of the Rood, the Ruthwell monument, and the history of early medieval Northumbria during the 1930s, and explores how this experience of the landscape and history of Northumberland informed his reading of the Old English Dream of the Rood tradition. Jones’s visual and verbal engagement with the Ruthwell monument at the climax of The Anathemata in ‘Sherthursdaye and Venus Day’ allows for the creation of a new sign of the cross for the twentieth century, a sign which draws together the English and Welsh traditions that have informed the institution of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, as well as the poet’s own Catholicism.Less

Into the Fourth Dimension

Nicholas Mee

in Celestial Tapestry: The Warp and Weft of Art and Mathematics

Hinton used the hypercube, or tesseract, to explain four-dimensional geometry. Chapter 18 takes a detailed look at the hypercube and shows how its geometry can be understood through its ... More

Hinton used the hypercube, or tesseract, to explain four-dimensional geometry. Chapter 18 takes a detailed look at the hypercube and shows how its geometry can be understood through its cross-sections, its projections, and its nets. Albrecht Dürer introduced the idea of the net of a polyhedron in a treatise published in 1525. Just as a polyhedron can be unfolded into a two-dimensional net, so a hypercube can be unfolded into a three-dimensional figure. The painting Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) by Salvador Dali uses the net of a hypercube to depict the crucifixion. Robert Heinlein’s short story And He Built A Crooked House relates the tale of an architect who designs a house in the shape of a hypercube.Less

On the Mystery of the Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ

in A Rule for Children and Other Writings

This chapter presents Jacqueline Pascal's devotional treatise on the Crucifixion, On the Mystery of the Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ, written shortly before her entry into the convent. She wrote ... More

This chapter presents Jacqueline Pascal's devotional treatise on the Crucifixion, On the Mystery of the Death of Our Lord Jesus Christ, written shortly before her entry into the convent. She wrote this meditation in response to a spiritual note sent to her from Port–Royal by Mère Agnès. Following the custom of the convent, Mère Agnès sent a monthly note to lay friends of the convent recommending meditation on a particular theme (in this case, the Passion of Christ). Jacqueline Pascal composed this work in May–June 1651. In the work, Pascal establishes a parallel between a particular attribute of Christ during the Passion and a specific virtue that his disciples should develop.Less

Trauma and Theology: Prospects and Limits in Light of the Cross

Hilary Jerome Scarsella

in Trauma and Transcendence: Suffering and the Limits of Theory

The discipline of Christian theology is itself formed around the traumatic narrative of Jesus’ crucifixion. Investigating trauma in order to provide useful accompaniment to trauma survivors is, ... More

The discipline of Christian theology is itself formed around the traumatic narrative of Jesus’ crucifixion. Investigating trauma in order to provide useful accompaniment to trauma survivors is, therefore, theology’s starting point, not a secondary interest. Holding the narrative of crucifixion at its center, this chapter asks whether a discipline constructed in response to traumatic rupture is bound to exacerbate systems of retraumatization or has the potential to empower trauma survivors toward recovery. Building upon the scholarship of late 20th and 21st century womanist and feminist theologians and the significant risk of retraumatization, it engages contemporary psychoanalytic trauma theorists to argue that theology's strength with respect to trauma and contribution to the interdisciplinary task of supporting trauma survivors is its potential as a holding space for diverse stories of both traumatic rupture and recovery.Less

Identity

Candida R. Moss

in Divine Bodies: Resurrecting Perfection in the New Testament and Early Christianity

The chapter uses the mark of the nails in the hands of the risen Jesus in John to investigate the question of identity and recognition in the resurrection. It asks which aspects of bodily identity ... More

The chapter uses the mark of the nails in the hands of the risen Jesus in John to investigate the question of identity and recognition in the resurrection. It asks which aspects of bodily identity are integral parts of ourselves and how that identity remains stable over time. It uses medical and philological evidence to argue that the nail-marks on Jesus’s body should be read as scars, not open wounds.Less

The Theology of Archetypes in “Taras Bul'ba”

in The Jewish Persona in the European Imagination: A Case of Russian Literature

This chapter analyzes the theology of archetypes in Nikolai Gogol's “Taras Bul'ba.” It suggests that the character of Taras represents both faces of the “the Jews'” archetype of the Wise Old Man, and ... More

This chapter analyzes the theology of archetypes in Nikolai Gogol's “Taras Bul'ba.” It suggests that the character of Taras represents both faces of the “the Jews'” archetype of the Wise Old Man, and describes his confrontation with his sons Ostap and Andrii. The chapter examines the sacrificial symbolism in the novella and argues that the exclusion of empathetic females from the execution of Ostap and Taras violated traditional Crucifixion imagery.Less

The Science of the Cross

François Laruelle

in Christo-Fiction: The Ruins of Athens and Jerusalem

This chapter deals with the science of the Cross, where many mysteries are condensed and some are easily dissipated. It begins by addressing the Resurrection of Christ and his Christian inversion ... More

This chapter deals with the science of the Cross, where many mysteries are condensed and some are easily dissipated. It begins by addressing the Resurrection of Christ and his Christian inversion before turning to a discussion of the “folly of the Cross” in relation to the generic matrix. It then argues that the Cross is a question of a double death—the death of God through the death of the singular individual Jesus; and on the other hand we do not separate as two historical sequences the Crucifixion, leading to the Tomb, and what is usually called the Resurrection or the “rising” of the Son to the Father, the Ascension. It also considers the historical determinism of theology and how it transforms the sacrifice of Christ into a “first cause” of the Christianity of the Church. Finally, it examines the quantum theory of the Cross, messianity as the real content of the Crucifixion, and Christ as last instance and universion of the course of history.Less

The Analytic and Synthetic Approach to Buddhism

Jeff Wilson, Tomoe Moriya, and Richard M. Jaffe (eds)

in Selected Works of D.T. Suzuki, Volume III: Comparative Religion

This chapter contains an essay by D. T. Suzuki in which he describes two approaches to the understanding of Zen Buddhism: analytic and synthetic. Using God language and Christian concepts, he ... More

This chapter contains an essay by D. T. Suzuki in which he describes two approaches to the understanding of Zen Buddhism: analytic and synthetic. Using God language and Christian concepts, he discusses Buddhist ideas of negation and affirmation—that is, the logic of affirmation-in-negation. Suzuki illustrates God and other aspects of Christianity from his own Buddhist perspective, quoting an English translation of the Dhammapada by the Indian philosopher and president Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan to point out some subtle but crucial nuances in Buddhist concepts of not substantializing every entity. Suzuki argues that the analytic method stops at negation; it is the annihilation of desires, the dissolution of all existing objects, which is visankhara. He says we must go beyond this, into synthesis, so that everything we have killed, dissected, and reduced to lifelessness is resuscitated and resurrected. According to Suzuki, Resurrection is taking place at the same time with the Crucifixion.Less