It is difficult to piece together the repertory of polyphonic music for the feast of the Annunciation to Mary in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. On the face of it, this seems a paradox: the celebration is one of the most important in Western Christendom, and, generally speaking, the more prominent a service in the Middle Ages, the more composers wrote for it. Dating from the fifth century in the Eastern Church and from the seventh century in the West, (...) the Annunciation was traditionally solemnized at a high level. In comparison with the three other great Marian feasts—Purification, Assumption, and Nativity—the Annunciation should rank first among equals. It recalls both the moment at which the Virgin learns she is to be the mother of Jesus and consequently the very beginning of his earthly existence. The feast is the turning point between Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah and the fulfillment of those promises. In short, to Christians the Annunciation embodies the central doctrine et homo factus est. (shrink)

Translation (French to English) of Jean-Luc Nancy's "L'Annoncée.".

Introduction -- Introducing phenomenology: Husserl and Heidegger -- Imagining the possible: hermeneutical phenomenology -- Experiencing transcendence: the "theological turn" of French phenomenology -- Letting be: the gelassenheit of the Annunciation -- Conclusion: Being-in-life: reading the Annunciation as theopoesis.

Among the elements which have gradually been complicating the countless representations of the Virgin Mary throughout history, this paper seeks to highlight and interpret conceptually one of special doctrinal significance in some Marian images during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries: the temple, in whose interior some artists place some actual or symbolic episodes of Mary, from her birth or her Annunciation to the Sacra Conversazione, to give a few examples. Even though at first sight it looks as a mere (...) scenographic or ornamental ingredient, without iconographic value, this precise shape of temple reveals in fact some profound Mariological and Christological meanings. In that order of ideas, this essay is based on a double methodological strategy: first and foremost, to analyze some Marian images which include in the aforementioned period the shape of a temple, in order to see what kind of role such a religious building plays in them; secondly, to discover the relevant keys for interpreting such images, by analyzing some specific texts of the Church Fathers and medieval theologians who identify with Mary the figure of the «temple of God». For this reason, after a brief introduction to the problem, the present study is structured into three main parts inextricably intertwined: in the first we comparatively analyze twelve Marian paintings of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in which the Virgin appears inside a temple; in the second we explain the many exegesis that, in a consistent and strong patristic and theological tradition, identify the analogy of the templum Dei directly with the Virgin Mary, or indirectly with the Christ’s human body conceived in her womb; on the basis of this double analysis of images and exegetical writings, the third part of the paper states as a synthetic conclusion that the artistic representation of a temple or a church building in some Marian images of this period offers a compelling plastic metaphor of Mary and, ultimately, of her virginal divine motherhood. (shrink)

In the Greek mythology the concept of annunciation has been often associated with the figure of “winged messenger”, in Greek “anghelos”, while in the Christian tradition it usually recalls the archangel Gabriel in his announcing to Mary the generative act per excellence: the birth. In this paper I take into consideration Botticelli’s Cestello Annunciation: the image represented in this painting suggests the interpretation of the annunciation from the viewpoint of transformation, i. e., of the crisis and the (...) birth of something that was not there before. What is special in the annunciation that transforms? In Botticelli’s masterpiece, Mary doesn’t only comprehend something that she didn’t know before, but she also feels the an-nouncement directly in her own flesh: the annunciation that transforms doesn’t exclusively let her understand something, but also allows her to feel it directly. If this is true, every transformation has its annunciation. (shrink)

The theoretical debate on the nature of narrative has been mainly concerned with literary narratives, whereas forms of non-literary and especially pictorial narrativity have been somewhat neglected. In this paper, however, I shall discuss narrativity specifically with regard to pictorial objects in order to clarify how pictorial storytelling may be based on the activation of mentally stored action and scene schemas. Approaches from cognitive psychology, such as the work of Schank, Roger C. & Robert P. Abelson. 1977. Scripts, plans, goals (...) and understanding. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum; Mandler, Jean Matter. 1984. Stories, scripts, and scenes: Aspects of schema theory. London/hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum; Schank, Roger C. 1995. Tell me a story: Narrative and intelligence. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, suggest that cognition crucially depends on the storage and retrieval of action scripts or schemata, that is, narrative structures, which may occur at various levels of abstraction. These schemas incorporate generalized knowledge about event sequences, such as the order in which specific events will take place; causal, enabling, or conventionalized relations between these events, and what kind of events occur in certain action sequences. There also are scene schemas that are characterized by spatial rather than temporal relations. Further kinds of schemas seem also to play a decisive role. Drawing upon considerations from schema and script theory, I will focus on some concrete examples of pictorial narration, more specifically depictions of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary, where narrative schema structures become involved and, indeed, the comprehensibility of the pictures as such presuppose mental script representations. (shrink)

Dopo gli annunci della 'morte dell'uomo', la dissoluzione del soggetto e la decostruzione dell'io, l'Autore, senza 'minimamente nascondere la sua identità di presbitero della Chiesa cattolica', ha messo a punto il suo impegnativo lavoro di docente e di raffinato studioso, per affrontare il gravoso e urgente problema della ricostruzione dell'io. Spesso la nostra cultura si limita a prendere atto della crisi antropologica e non propone vie d'uscita, alimentando un individualismo esasperato e la frattura interna dell'uomo. Con grande coraggio teoretico e (...) il pensare 'alto' l'Autore ci offre, attraverso un lungo percorso storico-filosofico, 'la rielaborazione e la messa a punto di uno sguardo non unilaterale e tendente alla riunificazione dell'essere umano, frantumato nell'estrema modernità con esiti che arrivano ai nostri giorni'. Il percorso ricostruttivo è alimentato nella prima parte del lavoro dalla rivisitazione e dalla lettura originale non solo di filosofi (Bergson, Husserl, Stein, Guardini, Karol Wojtyla), ma anche di artisti come Ungaretti e Stravinsky, scelti perché hanno contribuito 'ad uscire--per lo meno, ad indicare la strada per farlo--dalle secche del positivismo e della frantumazione dell'io'. La radice filosofica della scelta di questi autori sta 'nel nucleo concettuale generatore della coscienza, intenzionata verso ciò che è altro da sé'. Nella seconda e conclusiva parte, l'Autore mette sinteticamente in luce alcuni risultati rilevanti per delineare una visione antropologica, che affermi l'unicità e la dignità di ogni persona. Indubbiamente questo lavoro è un serio contributo all'affermazione del senso totale dell'uomo nella ricerca e nella prassi quotidiana."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

In a recent article, Jack Mulder, Jr., gives a Plantinga-style defense of the Virgin Mary’s free consent to bear Jesus at the Annunciation. Against Mulder, I argue that a theodicy (rather than a defense) is necessary to undermine my arguments, that Mulder’s Catholic appeal to Mary’s Immaculate Conception amounts to a kind of freedom-undermining metaphysical grooming, and therefore Marian consent remains invalid.

Antonello da Messina’s Annunciation with the Blessèd Virgin sola breaks with iconic convention, so inviting new interpretations of the theme. The Rome exhibition of 2006 allowed one to compare Antonello with van Eyck: Antonello seemed pre-modern. This review discusses three important essays on the Annunciation (see the last three keywords). All three perceptive essays raise theological and phenomenological issues directly related to the almost unique iconic representation which Antonello gives us.

Botticelli and Tizian depict the Annunciation in two very different ways. Botticelli portrays a kneeling angel in an act of guiding from below, while Tizian represents an angel imposing himself from above with an authoritarian forefinger. Botticelli's painting suggests an intention of orientation that is not authoritarian yet able to bring about a transformation (Umbildung). It also suggests that an individual's transformation cannot be achieved in a closed solipsistic dimension, but requires a disclosure from otherness. My theory is that (...) at the origin of ethics there is a non-authoritarian way of orientation that comes from otherness and arises from the emotional sphere thanks to a "care of desire". The expression cura sui has often been interpreted as a care confined to a private and solipsistic dimension with the aim of strengthening the self-referential subject. By "care of desire" I mean a care not turned upon itself but made possible by a disclosure coming from otherness and addressed to the transformation of the individual and of society. In the human existence, emotions reveal an extraordinary plasticity. They are not already regulated by instinct but develop and get to maturity even many years after biological birth. Moreover, this maturation process does not follow a universal process identical for everyone, being different for every individual. In fact it finds its realization in the unique order of feelings (ordo amoris) that characterizes every individual. Emotions guide actions and the way we interact with the others and with the world. In the human existence they become plastic and don't have only a homeostatic function of self-regulation. They give flexibility to our way of perceiving, of existing and of taking our position in the world. The care of desire is dedicated to the plasticity of emotions and makes ethics, i.e. a person's formation process (Bildung) and flourishing, possible. It also allows the transition from the “environmental closedness” (Umweltgeschlossenheit) to the world-openness (Weltoffenheit). To sum up, the care of desire implies the transition from a solipsistic self-care to a “care for world-openness”. From this point of view, emotion is no more the secondary result of a cognitive process, but at the origin of every formative, perceptive and cognitive process: In the beginning was the emotion. Yet in this process of creative transformation not every emotion has the same significance: at the core of emotions’ plasticity there are love and wonder (thaumàzein), whose peculiar feature is “lack of envy” (aphthonoi). (shrink)

Intelligibility in the human sciences, as elsewhere, is born of tradition. The present inquiry is into the traditions currently deployed in the human sciences to achieve credibility. In particular, how are we to understand the character of voice in human science writings such that they achieve rhetorical power, and how do these writings variously position their readers? Four traditions of voice are identified: the mys tical, the prophetic, the mythic and the civil. These modes of annunci ation are contrasted with (...) two additional genres of more recent, postmodern vintage: the autobiographical and the fictional. Illustra tions are provided from major scientific writings. The modes of voice are contrasted in terms of the functions served within the sciences, along with their limitations in communicative capacity, and the cultural forms of life which the author-reader relationships variously invite. (shrink)

The TRUTH is announced to creation by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth. Here, when the consciousness rises above “the double bound of space and time” and enters into eternity, here at this moment of annunciation, the One Who announces the Truth and the Truth Announced coincide completely. In the appearance of the Spirit of Truth, i.e., in the light of Tabor, the form and the content of the Truth are one (Florensky, 1997, p. 106).

In this article, I show the semantic connection between one pictorial detail of the traditional Annunciation iconography in Christianity and an apocryphal detail of the Virgin Mary biography, dating back to the antique metaphor of the body as clothing or cloth. In the Annunciation scene, the archangel Gabriel and the Mother of God are present, while the Virgin is often depicted with a spindle and a purple yarn in her hands. This detail sends the viewer to the metaphor (...) of birth as the creation of flesh and blood, as the spinning of the body in the womb of the mother, and also symbolically means the entry of God into the corporeal world through the Virgin and the blood sacrifice offered for the salvation of the world. The described “apocryphal” detail of the Annunciation scene can be understood as a visualization of the metaphor, known in antiquity, of the body creation as spinning or weaving. (shrink)

This contribution aims at reactivating the charming idea of ‘angelic economics’ launched in a reflective note by Laszlo Zsolnai in 2015. In the first section we explore the role of angels in theology and arts and focus on the Annunciation as a paradigmatic scene to understand their meaning. The second section deals with the enigmatic presence of future generations who do not exist but, on the other hand, have a moral voice and a moral impact. Can we consider angels (...) as representatives of future generations? The third section distinguishes three models of exploring the future: scientific prediction models utopian and dystopian blueprints and spiritual methods of representing the future. The main point in this section is: to what extent do these models give space to the voice of future generations? (shrink)

While preaching in Siena in 1427, the Franciscan preacher, Bernardino of Siena referred to a celebrated painting by Simone Martini. The specific painting was the Annunciation now in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and originally located in Siena’s Cathedral. Bernardino referred to it in connection with schooling young girls in the virtue of modesty:You see she [the Virgin] does not gaze at the angel, but sits with that almost frightened pose. She knew well it was an angel, so why (...) should she be disturbed? What would she have done if it had been a man? Take her as an example, girls, of what you should do. Never talk to a man unless your father or mother is present.1Here Bernardino offered the image of the Virgin as a .. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:1. IntroductionThe scientific efforts of Jesuits were the hot topics of the history of science. It was said that you could find a Jesuit behind most of the scientific accomplishments of the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries. The idea was not far from the truth because Athanasius Kircher of Rudjer Josip Bošković proved to be among the best. But Jesuit studies seem to have passed their peak and it is (...) time to research the early modern science successes of other religious orders. The Parisian Franciscan Marin Mersenne with his worldwide correspondence was the German-Roman Jesuit Kircher’s match and several other Franciscans were not less important. Therefore it is time to give the Franciscan scientists of the past centuries the fame they deserve.We celebrated the 800th anniversary of the Franciscan order in the year 2009. The Franciscans of Ljubljana were mentioned for the first time in 1242 as already established and resident in Ljubljana, soon after the establishment of Franciscan order. Later they were unable to survive the protestant challenge in 1569,1 when almost all citizens of Ljubljana accepted Luther’s Christianity. Although they never really left Ljubljana, the Franciscans officially returned to Ljubljana after several decades.Between the years 1646 and 1660 the Augustinian church of Annunciation of Our Lady was erected on behalf of the Baron Konrad Ruessenstein from the Upper Carniola castle Strmol. The front walls were finished in 1700, and half of a century later the famous Italian sculptor Francesco Robba made the main altar. The Emperor Josef II suppressed the Ljubljana Augustinians in 1784 and somewhat later gave their friary and church to their Franciscan neighbors from the opposite side of Ljubljanica River. The Barons Ruessensteins were not offended by the change and still took care for the church. The Baron Alexis Ruessenstein gave his important alchemical manuscripts to the new friary owners, the Franciscans.2After the death of the Emperor Josef II, Gabriel Gruber’s best student Jožef Marija Šemerl redesigned a former Franciscan Friary for a Lyceum. Gruber, who later became the General of the Jesuit Order, was among the best engineers in Habsburg Monarchy. The church of the Assumption of Our Lady was removed and leveled.3 After the earthquake Ljubljana got the market place in the former site of the Lyceum.The church of Annunciation of Our Lady or simply the Franciscan Church remains one of the most typical sightseeing posts in Ljubljana, even if the name of the square in front of it passed from Mary to France Prešeren, the greatest Slovenian poet, in the time of Communist regime in 1949.Click for larger viewFigure 1. The first page of the index of the copy of alchemistic manuscript of Alexis Baron Ruessenstein’s, the son of Konrad Baron Ruessenstein from the castle Strmol, Ruessenstein, ibid. FSLJ-29 F 54, 234–35 .Click for larger viewFigure 2. Alexis baron Ruessenstein about the Quicksilver in the copy of his original handwriting kept in Ljubljana Franciscan Library .Škerpin’s booksThe Ljubljana Franciscan Library was established in 1233.4 Žiga Škerpin renewed the Franciscan Library which was located on the right side of the Ljubljanica River during his lifetime. He was the provincial of Croatian-Carniolan province between the years 1732–1735 and again between the years 1745–1748. He became the court’s secret advisor,5 and acting general definitor of all Franciscans. During his numerous foreign travels, including Italy and Spain, he collected books. Between the years 1733–1746 Škerpin brought to Ljubljana no less than 1668 titles of.. (shrink)

This paper investigates a curious Western iconographical detail on the famous 'Four-Part Icon' in the Moscow Kremlin Annunciation Cathedral: the winged Gnadenstuhl. Painted just after the 1547 coronation of the first Russian Tsar, Ivan IV the Terrible, the innovative Four-Part Icon became a major element of the Russian icon controversy in mid-sixteenth-century Moscow. The paper shows that the winged Gnadenstuhl in the first of the four parts of the icon combines Western iconographies of the Throne of Mercy and the (...) cruciform seraph. It is argued that they were appropriated not in order to introduce Western ideas to Russia, but to challenge them. Moreover, it is suggested that such appropriations, characterised as 'visual polemical quotations', were not unique to the Four-Part Icon; rather, they may have been of particular significance in the artistic interactions between Eastern and Western Christianity. Textual and iconographic analysis reveals that the image of winged Gnadenstuhl was appropriated and invented with the specific purpose of making the target of the Four-Part Icon's visual polemics recognisable. That target was Western compassionate spirituality, which the Orthodox linked with the use of unleavened Eucharistic bread in the West. The paper highlights the significance of the so-called 'Azyme Controversy' which erupted before the mutual excommunication of Rome and Constantinople in 1054, offering an introduction to this topic and tracing the divergent development of Western and Eastern Eucharistic Trinitarian iconographies in the light of the ensuing debates. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Humanism as Philosophia (Perennis):Grassi's Platonic Rhetoric between Gadamer and KristellerRocco RubiniToday's situation is such that in our desacralized and demythologized world we believe in no annunciations, in no purely directive statements, in no evangelist, be it a God or a prophet. We turn to rational thought, to proofs and reasons in order to free ourselves from the subjectivity and relativity of appearances.... Thus not only is every access to (...) religious sacred texts closed to us but so also is the possibility of a metaphysics, a science that tells us about the "essence of man" (Humanism).—Ernesto Grassi, Rhetoric as PhilosophyDonald P. Verene commemorated Ernesto Grassi by recognizing that his work allows for a fresh approach to Vico, Heidegger, Renaissance, and rhetorical studies (1996, 295–303). While Grassi's authority on Vico remains undisputed, examination of his relevance to other fields of study is still wanting. As for Martin Heidegger, his students have been too numerous and successful for Grassi to easily claim pride of place among them. In turn, as Verene notes, American Renaissance scholarship has failed to realize that Grassi's work represents a direct alternative to that of Paul Oskar Kristeller, another student of Heidegger. Kristeller's influential characterization of Renaissance [End Page 242] humanism as a rhetorical and thus, in his view, nonphilosophical tradition often causes Grassi to be simply dismissed.1 Finally, his reception in rhetorical studies remains problematic and limited in its own right.In his Foreword to the reprint of Grassi's Rhetoric as Philosophy (1980), Timothy W. Crusius clearly expresses the confused deference that has caused rhetoricians to steer clear of the "anomaly" Grassi represents. Crusius laments that scholars have not attempted to bring Grassi into conversation with partisans of rhetoric like Hans-Georg Gadamer and that very little attention has been paid to works such as The Primordial Metaphor (1994) or to the overall religious dimension of his thought. Crusius attributes this general neglect to the American rhetoricians' unfamiliarity with the Latin-humanist rhetorical tradition: Grassi, in direct opposition to Heidegger, would have fashioned his philosophy from Roman rather than Greek sources (2001, xiii–xviii).This essay closely narrates2 how Grassi's notions of metaphysics and "rhetoric" developed in his early writings in order to dispel some of the misconceptions that have prevented readers from entering what Grassi himself defines as the "originary tension" awakening his own and, indeed, any philosopher's concerns, interests, and pathos (1994, 5–6). For if Grassi often lamented Heidegger's philhellenism—an aversion to romanitas at which he and other "Latin" students such as José Ortega y Gasset took personal offense (1988, 347)—we shall see that his philosophy was originally grounded on a nontraditional reading of Greek sources. Indeed, a reader would be at pains to recover a sustained reading of Cicero or Quintilian in his entire corpus, while between 1932 and 1946 Grassi published three volumes dedicated to an original interpretation of Plato.3Whereas the following account might make Grassi's notion of "rhetoric as philosophy" even more idiosyncratic—originally founded neither on a recovery of Roman eloquence nor, as we shall see, on a rehabilitation of the Sophists—his early Platonism makes him conversant with Gadamer and provides insight into his religiosity. Grassi's distinctive Platonism also spurs consideration of his missed confrontation with Kristeller and of the mutual disregard between American Renaissance scholars and rhetoricians in the latter part of the twentieth century. The following pages place the reader in a position to appreciate the relevance of Grassi's work to current scholarship.Heidegger's Anti-Platonism and Recent Plato StudiesThe belated and ongoing publication of Heidegger's lectures prior to Being and Time (1927) has led us closer to the experience of his students and offered [End Page 243] clear insight into his preference for Aristotle over Plato. The WS 1924–25 lecture course on the Sophist—one of Heidegger's most sustained confrontations with Plato before his Plato's Doctrine of Truth (1942)—begins with the assertion "What Aristotle said is what Plato placed at his disposal, only it is said more radically and developed more scientifically" (1997, 8). By developing... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Sharing God’s Company: A Theology of the Communion of Saints by David Matzko McCarthyMark RyanSharing God’s Company: A Theology of the Communion of Saints By David Matzko McCarthy GRAND RAPIDS: WILLIAM B. EERDMANS, 2012. 182 PP. $28.00What is the meaning of “communion” as it occurs in Christian references to the “Communion of Saints”? It clearly implies a particular social bond, but of what sort? David Matzko McCarthy observes (...) that recent attempts to account [End Page 192] for the saints and Christians’ relations with them tend to thin out the meaning of communion. Modern approaches turn saints into exemplars intended to inspire us as we live within egalitarian, leveled societies, whereas postmodern approaches turn the lives of the saints into texts, subject to interpretive play. In both approaches the possibility of real relationship is left behind as the saints become subservient to our modern sensibilities. What McCarthy seeks to revive is substantial, real relationships with saints that can draw us out of ourselves.In chapters 1 and 2 McCarthy uses the family to indicate the strong bonds signified by the Communion of Saints (COS)—bonds that respond to our “social desire.” The COS extends such kinship across time and space, without banishing ordinary time and particular places. Yet the kind of social tie embodied in the COS has been rendered a problem by our modern biases with regard to knowledge, representation, and social life—in short, our sense of reality. If we are to enrich our participation in the COS, McCarthy implies, we must work the metaphysical ground to make it a little more hospitable to the lives of the saints. The remaining chapters consider how the reality embodied in the COS challenges modern sensibilities with regard to what is real. They do so by allowing literary and visual representations of the saints—in hagiography, scripture, statues, and painting—to interrogate modern forms of representation and the assumptions about reality and time that underlie these forms.McCarthy uses Beverly Donofrio’s Looking for Mary to exemplify the trajectory of his book. Donofrio weaves together her own life and her pilgrimage to Medjugorge with the story of Mary from the Annunciation to the present day. Of particular importance, she narrates a transformation whereby her personal stories are engrafted into the life of Mary, rather than the other way around. In this, her story illustrates how Mary becomes the key agent in de-centering the author’s life as an autonomous agent, and resituating it in the COS with Mary as her patron and route. It shows the difference between an approach to the saints that domesticates them for use in our world and one where we surrender and become part of theirs.McCarthy’s previous work is notable for its concern with family and neighborhood as the practical context, or “home,” for the Christian life. In this book, “the question of home goes deeper. Does our life together here and now have any connection to the course of things and to life as a whole?” (8) In his introduction to the inaugural issue of the Journal of Moral Theology, which he edits, he mapped out the terrain of moral theology between “hyper-enchantment,” which seeks a magic bullet for modern ills, and impersonal mechanism, which posits a “nature” abstracted from human meanings. In this book, he begins to present a fuller vision of this terrain in the form of a kinship that stretches across time and place. As he writes, “The saints and their lives embody an [End Page 193] incarnational reality; they populate the borderlands between the future and now, there and here, and heaven and earth. … They bring ordinary life and people into a real experience of communitas” (53).The book is relevant to Christian ethics, then, because of its account of what we want most, and the moral ecology in which such desire could be at home. It is tempting to treat the COS as an optional “extra” to be added to the “factory model” of moral goodness in the Christian life. McCarthy’s exceptional gift is displayed in showing us how ordinary and basic is our desire to be part... (shrink)

Because of its uncompromising categoricalness, death is a subject that often causes an anxiety in a person and thus burdens his entire life on the earth. Christianity is a religion that preaches a marry annunciation – euangelion – which is God’s redeeming intervention that saves man from being enslaved by sin and death. Even though the Christian eschatology is essentially directed towards the reappearance of the Christ at the end of days and thereby related last judgement, there are some (...) differences in the thought of individual Christian churches. These differences mostly appear in the concept of individual issues, related to the state of the deceased or his soul immediately after his death and in the interpretation of events, a person is subjected to until the last judgement. The protestant eschatology, significantly defined by the Luther’s doctrine of justification, categorically refuses the Catholic doctrine of purgatory, prayers for the dead (practiced by the Catholic and the Orthodox church) and any possibility of change in the state of the deceased. Since the Protestant church is pretty diverse, this paper shall focus on the Luther’s eschatological doctrine and thereby on the teaching of the Lutheran or Evangelical Church, which directly origins from the reformation and is most true to its founder’s teaching. (shrink)

Prologue 1. To begin with, the first principle from Whom all illumination descends as from the Father of Light, by Whom are given all the best and perfect gifts, the eternal Father do I call upon through His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, that by the intercession of the most holy Virgin Mary, mother of God Himself and of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and of the blessed Francis, our father and leader, He may enlighten the eyes of our mind to (...) guide our feet into the way of that peace "which surpasses all understanding", which peace our Lord Jesus Christ has announced and given to us; which lesson our father Francis always taught, in all of whose preaching was the annunciation of peace both in the beginning and in the end, wishing for peace in every greeting, yearning for ecstatic peace in every moment of contemplation, as a citizen of that Jerusalem of which that man of peace said, with those that hated peace he was peaceable, "Pray ye for the things that are for the peace of Jerusalem". For he knew that the throne of Solomon was nowise save in peace, since it is written, "His place is in peace and His abode in Sion". 2. Since, then, following the example of the most blessed father Francis, I breathlessly sought this peace, I, a sinner, who have succeeded to the place of that most blessed father after his death, the seventh Minister General of the brothers, though in all ways unworthy--it happened that by the divine will in the thirty-third year after the death of that blessed man I ascended to Mount Alverna as to a quiet place, with the desire of seeking spiritual peace; and staying there, while I meditated on the ascent of the mind to God, amongst other things there occurred that miracle which happened in the same place to the blessed Francis himself, the vision namely of the winged Seraph in the likeness of the Crucified. While looking upon this vision, I immediately saw that it signified the suspension of our father himself in contemplation and the way by which he came to it. 3. For by those six wings are rightly to be understood the six stages of illumination by which the soul, as if by steps or progressive movements, was disposed to pass into peace by ecstatic elevations of Christian wisdom. The way, however, is only through the most burning love of the Crucified, Who so transformed Paul, "caught up into the third heaven", into Christ, that he said, "With Christ I am nailed to the cross, yet I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me" ; who therefore so absorbed the mind of Francis that his soul was manifest in his flesh and he bore the most holy stigmata of the Passion in his body for two years before his death. Therefore the symbol of the six-winged Seraph signifies the six stages of illumination, which begin with God's creatures and lead up to God, to Whom no one can enter properly save through the Crucified. For he who does not enter by the door but otherwise, he is a thief and a robber. But if anyone does enter by this door, he shall go in and go out and shall find pastures. Because of this John says in his Apocalypse, "Blessed are they that wash their robes in the blood of the Lamb, that they may have a right to the Tree of Life and may enter in by the gates into the City"; as if he were to say that one cannot enter into the heavenly Jerusalem through contemplation unless one enter through the blood of the Lamb as through a gate. (shrink)

As the world has been left reeling by the large and continuous loss of human lives due to the current pandemic, Pope Francis offered "Urbi et Orbi" (To the City and the World) in his blessings. He led a recitation of the Lord's Prayer on the feast of the Annunciation which was live streamed around the world, renewing his invitation to pray incessantly for the cure of the sick as well for the medical caregivers. As places of worship across (...) the world are closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, people of faith need to either offer prayers within the restricted walls of their homes or make use of the virtual platforms available. One way to sustain communal worship is to rely on technology and that is how some of the temples and Gurudwaras in India are engaging with their communities. They have resorted to audio kirtan (call and response chanting) and songs through which they are delivering sermons and messages to their devotees. Whilst many temples have remained closed, some temples and Gurudwaras are still not ready to follow the restrictions implemented against gatherings. Flouting lockdown, several devotees have assembled outside the local temples of West Bengal and Patna on the occasion of Ram Navami and to offer Pujas (prayer rituals) seeking relief from COVID19. However, the annual festivals to honour Lord Ram at Ayodhya – where thousands gather – have been called off. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Deep Mysteries: God, Christ, and Ourselves by Aidan NicholsGerard T. MundyDeep Mysteries: God, Christ, and Ourselves by Aidan Nichols, O.P. (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2020), vii + 133 pp.Basic Catholic teaching declares that God's will must be trusted and that perfect knowledge of all that is resides in the Creator. An implication of this claim is that all of God's work within time and history—in man's linearly conception of (...) time and history—is meaningful. For, as perfect order himself God's work is neither random nor coincidental. God's perfect understanding means that he is able, colloquially speaking, "to connect the dots" perfectly. Thus, the historical particulars of the New Testament events are not random and coincidental, but they connect perfectly within God's plan.In terms of biblical events, then, what are the significances of the time periods during which, and places at which, they occurred? "Why was Jesus born on a particular date, at a particular time, and in a particular manger in Bethlehem? Why was the womb of Mary, Mater Dei, chosen at that exact time, and at that exact place? Why did Jesus stand on that particular mountain and not upon another? There are perfect answers to all of those questions and more, for, as Proverbs declares in this vein: "The LORD has made everything for a purpose" (16:4).In Deep Mysteries: God, Christ, and Ourselves, Father Aidan Nichols, O.P., meditates on questions related to the potential reasons for some of the historical particulars of "the principal Christological mysteries." Fr. Nichols defines the mysteries as these: "the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Baptism, the Transfiguration, the Passion and Death, the Descent into Hell, the Resurrection, the Ascension, Pentecost, and the Second Coming." (41).Attempting to understand how all of the parts of the New Testament fit together perfectly in an historical sense—as God's mind would see it—is a fascinating intellectual endeavor. The primary difference between the innocent inquirer and the vain one, however, is that the former understands that God's reason is infinite and that only the First Mover has the ability to see and to put together all particulars. Thomas Aquinas elucidates the essence of the endeavor to connect the particulars when, in reference to man's ability to understand "the truth of faith," he argues: "Yet it is useful for the human reason to exercise itself in such arguments, however weak they may be, provided only that there be present no presumption to comprehend or to demonstrate. For to be able to see something of the loftiest realities, however thin and weak the sight may be, is... a cause of the greatest joy" [Summa contra gentiles I, ch. 8).Posing the question of what the particulars of history might mean brings immediately another question. As Fr. Nichols asks: "How can the Eternal [End Page 386] and time be conjoined in a phrase, and the truth of such conjoining made credible?" (29). Indeed, if God transcends the man-conceived conception of time, how can man even understand God's movements if man can see time only in linear fashion? Fr. Nichols contends that Christ's "mystery-events are not just historical occurrences that, like all such events, belong to the human past" (31). Rather, argues Fr. Nichols, the mysteries "are permanently able to affect the intended beneficiary of the mysteries: namely, the human race" (31). In other words, contends Fr. Nichols, the mysteries are past, present, and future, in the human conception of time.Attempting "to connect the dots" in Christological historical particulars is a subjective endeavor that requires a great deal of individual deciphering, with reliance especially on the interpretation of perceived symbolism. Fr. Nichols's broad theme-based meditations can provide starting points for further study on more concentrated topics.The most exceptional part of the book is Fr. Nichols's discussion on how Jesus's mysteries exist, simultaneously, in the past, in the present, and in the future. This point is of great significance for both theology and philosophy. For, until the Second Coming, God, not being tied to man's limited experience of time, simultaneously, and... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response 3: Transgressive Utopianism and Direct ActivismHeather AlberroThis is an important time to revisit questions concerning the historical underpinnings of utopianism as a mode of praxis and theoretical endeavor, its potential oversights and where it ought to venture in the decades to come. The multidisciplinary Hispanic utopian project Histopia discussed by Ramirez-Blanco offers a helpful starting point for this discussion. Especially noteworthy, in my view, is Histopia’s recognition of (...) and interest in engaging with manifestations of utopianism beyond academia and examining the full spectrum of the utopian imaginary, from texts to social movements. Similarly important is what Ramirez-Blanco alludes to as Histopia’s laudable attempts to “decenter” the discipline toward the Spanish-speaking world. This recalls the wider, vital work of decolonizing utopian studies highlighted by Edwards and others in this piece so that it is inclusive of the immeasurably diverse array of utopian imaginaries and modes of praxis around the globe. To reduce such diverse manifestations to the lens of a single medium or cultural-historical context would be a profound intellectual and ethical misdeed.A related example of such decolonial work is Histopia’s emphasis on history as opposed to the canon’s traditional emphasis on texts. Here, I was [End Page 550] wondering if you (Ramirez-Blanco) could elaborate further on what this entails. That is, what is Histopia’s conceptualization of history vis-à-vis the now and “to-come,” and their relation more generally to the utopian impulse? Is this conceptualization akin to the (Western) utopian conception of time as a linear progression from an archaic past toward a radiant future toward some “advanced” end state?1 Or does it depart from this modernist construct and, if so, in what ways? What is the role of prefigurative (utopian) activist movements in the history of social transformation, in your view?With movements like 15M in Spain that you discuss, what do you see as the transformative utopian potential of their denunciations of the status quo, however fleeting? What of their annunciations? That is, what were they gesturing toward, and what did their imaginings of “a better” consist of? How do public assemblies as “performances” factor into these visions? I’m curious to know what patterns, if any, can be traced across contemporary left-social movements. My own research with radical environmental activists has found that they exhibit the former aspect of the utopian mode—denunciation—with immense power and potency. Like the 15M movement, their direct activism is postparliamentary given their profound disaffection with the capitalist state and its perceived collusion with extractive industries driving ecological breakdown. The aspect of annunciation for them, however, is much more complex and fragmented. They are similarly engaged in constant deliberations over the relative strengths and weaknesses of alternative modes of political organization and participation, particularly concerning which actors may be excluded. However, they do exhibit a consensus on certain things—especially their fervent desire for a renewed abundance of terrestrial life forms and an equally fervent refusal of the worst of possible worlds consisting of substantially diminished other-than-human life forms.The question raised by Antonis concerning blueprints, or utopian modalities that provide fleshed-out visions of better worlds, is a similarly pertinent one for two key reasons: (1) in connection with the aforementioned vital work of decolonizing the utopian canon and imaginary, and (2) as a possible response to the mounting socio-ecological depredations of late-stage capitalism and the theft of the now and to-come from growing portions of the earth’s inhabitants. As Antonis highlights, some have suggested that utopianism’s pursuit of human and societal perfectibility—especially “blueprint” modalities aiming to implement a particular conception of “the good society”—harbor seeds of totalitarianism and intolerance of difference.2 [End Page 551] Indeed, inklings toward domination can be seen within some totalizing/blue-printing utopias and their cultural-historical links to Enlightenment projects of universal conquest, namely the hegemonic “utopias” of Western modernity in the form of colonial-capitalism.3 These totalizing visions of progress and “the good life” have been systematically ending other-than-Western worlds for centuries, leading to our present state of ruination.Hence why subsequent modalities... (shrink)

Not only the vertical direction of images – perceptually subject to the law of gravity and its consequences – plays an important role in their interpretation; the horizontal direction left-right too seems to foster different interpretations from its converse. For this reason there are subjects and genres of painting, such as the Annunciation or the portrait, revealing some constants from this point of view, in their representation conventions. And for this same reason there are languages​​, like comics, where the (...) left-right direction is critical not only for the succession of panels – clearly bound to the direction of verbal writing – but also for the panel’s internal organization. These reflections suggest a cultural explanation of the differences in horizontal organization in pictures, linking it to the habits of writing, while ruling out the explanations making reference to the physiology of brain. (shrink)

Craig, Barry M The season of Advent is not well-defined as it flows almost seamlessly from the end-time themes of the Sundays late in Ordinary Time and turns to the approaching Nativity of Christ. Lacking an event-defining start, Advent in the Roman Rite is named as the four Sundays before Christmas, thus lasting twentyone to twenty-eight days, while in the Ambrosian Rite of Milan it is six Sundays. The elements common to each Sunday's gospel reading in the Roman Rite's three-year (...) Lectionary reveal this sequence: Stay awake; John the Baptist is a voice crying in the wilderness 'Prepare a way for the Lord'; John the Baptist is a witness to Christ; Annunciation to Joseph, or to Mary, or the Visitation -in any case Mary is with child. Although this year, B, we follow the Gospel according to Mark, after reading its opening on the Second Sunday of Advent we do not read from it again until the feast of the Baptism of the Lord. Thus the Lectionary for Advent and Christmastide presents a melange of all four Gospels, with Mark the least represented. This is unavoidable since Mark provides no information from before the emergence of Jesus in his public ministry. However, homilists need to remember that this socalled year of Mark will have several interruptions from John's Gospel. (shrink)

Engaging Eriugena, Eckhart and Cusanus contains two new essays and nine others published between 2005 and 2019. The essays explore Eriugena, Eckhart and Cusanus as bold thinkers deeply engaged with their times and culture. John Scottus Eriugena, Meister Eckhart and Nicholas of Cusa are key figures in the medieval Christian Neoplatonic tradition. This book focuses on their engagement with practical, experiential issues and controversies. Eriugena revises Genesis' Adam and Eve narrative and makes sexual difference and overcoming it central to his (...) Periphyseon. Eckhart's Annunciation sermons urge his hearers to give birth to God's son within their lives, and he develops a distinctive approach to pain and suffering. His radical preaching on the Eucharist and mystical union was judged heretical, but was later taken up by Nicholas of Cusa. Coins and banking became key symbols in Cusanus' exploration of humanity as created in God's image, and he used mechanical clocks in reflecting on time and eternity. 'Engagement' also describes these thinkers' reception of their predecessors and how later readers appropriated their works. Eriugena struggled with the legacy of Augustine and the Greek Fathers. Eckhart's theology of suffering provoked varied responses from his students Henry Suso and Johannes Tauler, and the twentieth-century therapist Ursula Fleming. Cusanus provides the volume's lynchpin as two articles analyse his reading of Eriugena and Eckhart, and a third discusses how he deftly countered Johannes Wenck's accusations of heresy. The book will be of interest to students of Medieval Philosophy, Theology, Spirituality and their place within Cultural History. (shrink)

Intelligibility in the human sciences, as elsewhere, is born of tradition. The present inquiry is into the traditions currently deployed in the human sciences to achieve credibility. In particular, how are we to understand the character of voice in human science writings such that they achieve rhetorical power, and how do these writings variously position their readers? Four traditions of voice are identified: the mys tical, the prophetic, the mythic and the civil. These modes of annunci ation are contrasted with (...) two additional genres of more recent, postmodern vintage: the autobiographical and the fictional. Illustra tions are provided from major scientific writings. The modes of voice are contrasted in terms of the functions served within the sciences, along with their limitations in communicative capacity, and the cultural forms of life which the author-reader relationships variously invite. (shrink)

Što se može očekivati od susreta i dijaloga između kulture i Crkve ? Polazna točka u ovoj raspravi je novum kojega je iznjedrio Drugi vatikanski sabor; kulturalno gledano, on predstavlja događaj kojim su srušene umjetne prepreke između kulture i Crkve . Upravo taj događaj čini se da je širom otvorio vrata susretu i dijalogu između Crkve i kulturalnog ambijenta u kojemu se i Crkva nalazi.Crkveno-teološko zauzimanje za dijalog sa suvremenom kulturom moralo bi, prema autorovu mišljenju, ispuniti neke zahtjeve ili pretpostavke, (...) kako bi taj dijalog ne samo bilo lakše ostvariti nego da donese i određene plodove svijetu i čovječanstvu. Jedna od prvih pretpostavki jest simpatija u odnosu prema svijetu i vremenu u kojemu se živi i djeluje; to je neophodan prvi korak u uspostavljanju »prvoga kontakta« između Crkve i kulture. Druga je pretpostavka ona koja se odnosi na snažniju valorizaciju uloge lokalnih crkava koje se čine primjerenijim subjektima što će lakše naći dodirne točke između općeljudskih pitanja i kulturalno elaboriranog navještaja vjere. Nadalje, unutar Crkve sve važnije mjesto i ulogu u vođenju dijaloga sa suvremenom kulturom trebaju imati vjernici-laici, tj. muževi i žene više uronjeni u razna svjetska životna područja kao što su politika, gospodarstvo, zdravstvo, itd. Unutar same Crkve valjalo bi sjediniti tzv. »benediktinsku duhovnost«, koja privilegira autoritet , s tzv. »franjevačkom osjetljivošću« koja je više usmjerena na bratstvo/sestrinstvo , ne samo među ljudima nego i sa svim stvorenim. Konačno, ne treba zaboraviti niti razlikovanje između vjere i teologije : to razlikovanje, koje ne znači strogo dijeljenje, otvara prostore da se različitim kulturalnim načinima izrekne vjera u Isusa Krista u različitim ozemljima i ambijentima u kojima ljudi obitavaju.What is to be expected from an encounter and dialogue between culture and the Church ? The starting point of this paper is the novelty introduced by the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican; culturally speaking, it represents an event with which the artificial obstacles between culture and the Church were pulled down. It seems that it was this event precisely that fully opened the doors to the encounter and dialogue between the Church and the cultural environment which the Church is also part of.The Church and theology’s advocating of dialogue with contemporary culture must, according to the author, meet a number of requirements or presuppositions not only for this dialogue to be conducted without unnecessary difficulty, but also for it to be fruitful for the world and humanity. One of the first presuppositions is sympathy in relation to both the world and times we live in; this first step is essential in the Church’s making “first contact” with culture. The second presupposition pertains to a more potent valorisation of the role of local churches , which seem to be more appropriate subjects to be able to more easily locate connection points between universally human questions and the culturally elaborated annunciation of faith. Furthermore, those who should have an increasingly more important role within the Church itself in leading this dialogue with contemporary culture are worshiping laymen, i.e. men and women who have been deeply and greatly involved in the various universal fields of life, such as politics, economy, health services, etc. Within the Church the so-called ‘Benedictine spirituality’, which privileges authority , should be merged with the so-called ‘Franciscan sensibility’, which is more directed towards a brotherhood/sisterhood not only between people but also with all that is created. Finally, the difference between faith and theology must not be forgotten either: this difference, which does not imply a strict division, creates space for the faith in Jesus Christ to be professed in the different ways of the cultures and environments that people live in. (shrink)

Novello, Henry The New Testament is undoubtedly a book of joy. The verb chairein, which means to rejoice, occurs seventy-two times in the New Testament and the noun chara, which means joy, occurs sixty times. The word chairein is found both at the beginning of the gospel story and at the end: at the annunciation the angel greets Mary by saying, 'Joy be with you', and on the resurrection morning the risen Jesus greets the women who had come to (...) mourn him by saying, 'Joy be with you'. The triumphant message of joy forms the framework of the gospel story and rings resoundingly throughout the pages of the New Testament. Paul makes it very clear in his letters to the Corinthians that he is committed to helping them in their progress and joy in the faith and almost the last thing that he writes to the Corinthians is: 'Joy be with you!'. When Paul writes to his Philippian friends, again joy is a constant theme: 'Rejoice in the Lord'. This command is repeated in Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians. In a key text in his letter to the Colossians, Paul prays that they may increase in their knowledge of God and live a virtuous life worthy of the Lord, and his prayer ends with the words 'with joy'. The hallmark of the Christian life for Paul is that every virtue and every tribulation and all knowledge should be irradiated with joy. (shrink)

Few medieval pilgrims' guides were written in English; even fewer were illuminated. This chapter examines Oxford, Queen's College, MS 357, a manuscript made in England in the late fifteenth century, which possesses both qualities. The manuscript contains a variety of texts written in Latin and English including pilgrims' guides, prayers to be said at holy sites in Palestine, travellers' tales, and descriptions of miracles that have taken place at shrines. It is also exuberantly illuminated. The miniatures begin with an (...) class='Hi'>Annunciation and end with Christ in Judgment. These two images form the parentheses around the others in the manuscript, which depict sites in the Holy Land. The miniatures and decoration unite the disparate texts, turning them into a scale model of salvation history and providing a prompt to virtual pilgrimage. (shrink)

The Christian and Islamic doctrine of the VIRGIN BIRTH claim God asexually impregnated the Virgin Mary with Jesus, Mary’s impregnation was fully consensual (VIRGIN CONSENT), and God never acts immorally (DIVINE GOODNESS). First, I show that God’s actions and Mary’s background beliefs undermine her consent by virtue of coercive incentives, Mary’s comparative powerlessness, and the generation of moral conflicts. Second, I show that God’s nondisclosure of certain reasonably relevant facts undermines Mary’s informed consent. Third, I show that a recent attempt (...) by Jack Mulder to rescue VIRGIN CONSENT fails. As DIVINE GOODNESS and VIRGIN CONSENT are more central to orthodoxy, Christians and Muslims have powerful reason to reject VIRGIN BIRTH. (shrink)

“The first thing discovered in the excavation begun on the Tower of the Annunciation was a painting eleven hands wide and four and a half hands high. It depicts two large festoons of fruits and flowers, a man's head, which is very large and jovial, a ram, an owl, various birds and other things. It seemed to me to be one of the greatest paintings found to date. Having stopped in with me to see it this morning, the sculptor (...) ordered it removed on Tuesday …“April 10: Detached from the wall and placed on a cart this morning, the great painting arrived at the royal palace in excellent condition.”. (shrink)

This handsomely produced volume contains 22 contributions from international scholars, which were originally presented at the 2000 Conference of the International Society for Phenomenology, Fine Arts, & Aesthetics. The papers center around the theme of gardens and include a wide range of topics of interest to phenomenologists but also, perhaps, to gardeners with a philosophical bent. A sampling of topics: Leonardo's Annunciation Hortus Conclusus and its reflexive intent; hatha yoga--a phenomenological experience of nature; the Chinese attempt to miniaturize the (...) world in gardens; conflating and compressing time in commodified space and architecture; constructing the deconstructive landscape (the ruin aesthetic); and a phenomenological-anthropological aproach to Zen gardens. The volume is lightly indexed by name (mostly philosophers). Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com). (shrink)

Illocutionary Force and Romanian Orthodox Sermons: An Application of Speech Act Theory to Some Romanian Orthodox Sermons The aim of the paper is to analyze religious discourse with the use of the instruments of semantics and pragmatics. Essentially, it sets out to identify the linguistic elements which enable the illocutionary force in the Romanian orthodox sermons, especially in the discourse of some important figures which have influenced and still influence the Romanian orthodox theology and the religious life in Romania: Father (...) Cleopa, Father Nicolae Steinhardt, and, nowadays, Father Teofil Pârâianu. It is usually assumed that a sermon implies, on the one hand, a kerugmatik action, that of annunciation, and, on the other hand, a translating action of the biblical induce the human will to practice the words in order to Christian precepts. Mutatis mutandis, the perlocutionary effect depends on the illocutionary act and of the illocutionary force. In theory, the illocutionary force of an utterance is strictly motivated by the pragmatic. But there are linguistic elements which function as efficient markers of the illocutionary force, for example performative verbs, verbal moods and some adverbs. The criteria proposed by Searle in order to differentiate the illocutionary acts resulted in the identification of several types inside this class. Searle's taxonomy serves the research purposes: the identification of illocutionary acts found in this kind of religious discourse and, finally, outlining a pattern of manifestation of the illocutionary force inside the sermon. (shrink)

The last few years have seen an explosion of medieval images in digital form, chiefly as a result of photo-library and manuscript digitisation projects. An entire corpus of images, even selected solely by scene or iconography, becomes an unwieldy object of study by traditional art-historical means. This is even more the case for medieval images, where authorship and dating are often cloudy and unclear, and the image itself is in many cases the first resource for scholarly inquiry.We take the digital (...) image – in particular, the digital image of the body – as our object of study in a wide-ranging computationally-augmented reading of an image-corpus; ours is made up of thousands of depictions of the ‘Annunciation’ and ‘Baptism’, selected not only for their primacy in Christian art but for their dialogical interaction. Our corpus of 6,564 ‘Annunciations’ and 883 ‘Baptisms’, whilst not necessarily representative in density, includes a wide range of stylistic, theological and historical tendencies.We computationally extract not only body images but poses, gestures and interactions. Such a range of gestures allows for a morphological treatment of bodily motifs, whose multi-dimensional, quantitative nature allows us to complicate and problematise iconographic taxonomies, populating the spaces between categories. Finally, our gestural manifolds provide a morphological pointer to dissecting the microtemporalities of the scenes, and their relative dynamics and inconsistencies. (shrink)

Over the last years the association ‘the Christian articles of faith’ in which protestant and catholic dogmatic theologians working at various Dutch universities participate has organized a autumn-conference. The theme of the 2005 conference was: the notae ecclesiae especially the holiness. One of the guest speakers was Robert Jenson, who read his paper Can holiness be a nota ecclesiae?. He starts with a critical examination of the qualifications ‘proprietas’ and ‘nota’, but the main burden of the paper is a discussion (...) of ‘holiness’. Taking his clue from the use of holy in the story of the Annunciation Jenson argues that holiness is to be understood in a Trinitarian way: ‘actual holiness and the triune God are, by an extension of an ancient theological rule, the very same thing. From which it follows that creatures can be holy only by sharing the triune life.’ Since the holiness of the church is the holiness of the Body of Christ, decisive for understanding the holiness of the Church is the understanding of the holiness of Christ. Instead of the traditional ‘metaphysical’ interpretation of Chalcedon, Jenson puts forward a ‘somewhat riskier’ Christology: the humanity of Christ is not just the receptacle for some created graces , but is the holiness. As with Christ the holiness of the Church is visible sub contrario. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Four Prose PoemsRosmarie Waldrop (bio)Conversation 9 On Varieties of OblivionAfter bitter resistance the river disappears into the night, he says. Washes the daily war out into tides of wounded dream. I know no word to dive from, the dark so dense, so almost without dimension, swallowing the sounds back into eclipse while making love to my body. Fish smell travels the regions of sleep, westward like the dawn. Then (...) I wake, too early to bring anything back, unsure of what I want, terrified I’ll fail to seize it by a hair.We need a grand decor for oblivion, she says. But the sea takes all with equal tenderness. As the past does. Already it suffuses the present with more inclusive tonalities. Not constraining it in melodic sequence, but setting a rooster next to the silence that molds my words. Or injured flesh. Impersonal. Only an animal could be so.An avatar of the holy ghost, he chuckles. Or the angel of the annunciation beating his wings against a door slammed shut. Behind it, love already plays the organ. With or without him. He is invisible because we have rejected his message.On old photos, she says, I see a stranger standing in my skin. As if an apple could fall too far from the tree. Yet she is called my past and functions as near-certainty. The way some beliefs are exempt from doubt, are as it were the hinges on which my doubts and questions turn. So that I seem the same to you while I’ve already moved through the next door. From left to right. [End Page 63]Conversation 10 On SeparationMy separation from the landscape started even earlier, she says. In my mother’s mirror, which staged dialectic and confused my instincts. There are few trains in the thick smoke, the run-down station, more waste of grain, more images lost. I carry a mirror in my cortex, but cannot inhabit my womb. Or the silence that is the matter between parts of speech.A pebble in an eddy, he says, reveals the course of the current. Sometimes it’s a small difference that makes our closeness arch, for a moment, into a solid vault, a space thick with birdsong and green sun. Then it again slips through my fingers. I search for a word, and nothing exists but the gap beckoning me to some strange horizon without event.Only out of body could we be out of the panic of time, she says. Momentarily bracket it maybe, in illness, degrees of withdrawal. But hours reproduce, days go by consumed by heat, the flimmer above the lake. I can’t distinguish gravity from other distortions of space, or sign from symbol. My sense of time begins six billion years ago, when the fish stretched their fins onto dry land though the sea groaned in their belly, or forty, with breasts and monthly bleeding. The now always already darkening, the way a sentence anticipates the period it will stiffen in.The galaxies avoid collapsing onto each other by virtue of their recessional motion, he says. Father and son walk away from the bed in opposite directions. But sweat clings to our names, the secretions of closeness. As if we were submerged in one and the same sleep. If I withdraw into more impermeable regions, your shadow grows. All respiratory passages lead to you. As if you were the certainty the game of doubting presupposes. The niggling voice of death. [End Page 64]Conversation 11 On DepthIt would take more than a pebble, she says, to sound your undertones. Something slips away as you speak, tense with life, like a startled beast in the woods. Is it a lizard, snake, or unused thought that runs alongside your words, while the rustling vines close over the trace of flight?Isn’t this a case, he says, of deep breathing pulled into spasms of interpretation the way children are pulled into the future by the very gravity of their innocence. And with a speed unlimited by the young space. The joints between future and present swell and sweep apart whole galaxies, but even the... (shrink)

Proceeding from the statement that «reading» images is not at all analogous to any culturally codified lecture of written texts, Sigrid Weigel develops a crucial critic of the anthropological paradigm linked to the left-right problem in the visual arts. Focusing on various examples of painted and sculpted Annunciations, the author argues how the decline of the traditional orientation, based on the figure of God in central position, leads to a growing importance of the spectator gaze and to a new relation (...) between iconic narration and symbolic meaning. (shrink)

the domain of Art critique and becoming a philosophical argument. How can we think of Perspective as symbolic Form? Is Perspective really a symbolic form? Why is Perspective so important? Because at the beginning of the Modern Age, Perspective as spiritual figure grounds many symbolic or even many scientific constructions. We could we say that perspective open the foundation of modern science as such. The “Geometrization” of Vision, beginning with perspective, will be for us the interpretative key in order to (...) understand the Modern Age as a whole. This understanding will allow us to understand the anthropologic dimension arising from the Modern Age, called „Perspectivism“. Assuming that perspective was neither only an invention of painting nor of geometry nor of philosophy, taken as singular fields of human inquiry, we will try to sketch the genesis of “perspective” from an interdisciplinary point of view. By doing so, we will also try to fix its deep significance for the anthropology of the Modern Age. Living and feeling in a perspectival world is the real invention of the Modern Age, one that overcame the closed Cosmos of the Middle Ages in order to reveal to mankind its own potential. Our interdisciplinary approach will proceed from many points of view and converge on the idea of a new kind of human experience. Such an interdisciplinary approach will open new questions about our present time. Are we justified in thinking of our experience today as perspectival? What does it mean today to think from perspectives in the manifold dimensions of our living and to face to the complexity of our times? (shrink)