Christian Devotion Research Articles

From Idols to Icons: The Emergence of Christian Devotional Images in Late Antiquity by Robin M. Jensen (review)

From Idols to Icons: The Emergence of Christian Devotional Images in Late Antiquity by Robin M. Jensen (review)

From Idols to Icons. The Emergence of Christian Devotional Images in Late Antiquity by Robin M. Jensen (review)

From Idols to Icons. The Emergence of Christian Devotional Images in Late Antiquity by Robin M. Jensen (review)

Natural Religion, Isaac Watts, and Early Eighteenth-Century Evangelical Devotion

Abstract The early eighteenth-century English Enlightenment is a transformative period in the history of the Christian church. Among other paradigm shifts, the rise of natural religion and physico-theology became a common means by which theologians and churchmen of the era begin interacting with Enlightenment thought. Among these pastor-theologians, stands the well-known hymnwriter Isaac Watts. This article seeks to examine how Watts uses natural religion to frame a doctrine of heaven for purposes of Christian devotion. This will in turn further situate Watts among the figures within the early eighteenth century to begin integrating natural religion into devotional prose. Additionally, it will further our understanding of Watts as an important transitional figure between the English Puritans and eighteenth-century Evangelicals.

Church as a Geo-historic Archive -A Case Study of Greater Mumbai

The church is the center of Christian devotion and reflects local beliefs, practices and traditions. Ornate buildings and beautiful buildings sometimes become important landmarks of the world. These monuments echo the diversity of the region and often reflect local art, skill, and decoration. Churches serve as archives of history. Conservation and restoration is a commitment to preserving the cultural heritage of the future. Conservation activities include testing, documentation, treatment, and conservation protection, supported by research and education. The magnificent buildings of Greater Mumbai face a variety of challenges and are in dire need of a cost-effective discipline system. The precious places of worship of Mumbai should be celebrated and revered as spiritual centers and permanent places in our communities. Today, the owners of precious places of worship face many challenges. These may include parishioner’s declines, decreasing salaries, and increasing prices, outdated materials, civic security and approachability, accommodation burdens, adjustment to new features of reverence, and a change in approach. Spiritual areas are significant as they are storehouses of cultural inheritance and cater to the spiritual requirements of society at large. The current paper highlights the geo-history of Greater Mumbai and the importance of churches in the construction of the city sky. This paper is an attempt to instill a sense of heritage management and to honor these historical symbols in the minds of young people. It focuses on finding sustainable solutions to the survival of these historical wonders.

From Idols to Icons: The Emergence of Christian Devotional Images in Late Antiquity by Robin Jensen (review)

Reviewed by: From Idols to Icons: The Emergence of Christian Devotional Images in Late Antiquity by Robin Jensen Katherine Marsengill Robin Jensen From Idols to Icons: The Emergence of Christian Devotional Images in Late Antiquity Oakland: University of California Press, 2022 Pp. xv + 244. $65.00. Robin M. Jensen's latest monograph on the emergence and development of Christian images over the first six centuries c.e is a clear and informative presentation on an important topic. Across eight chapters, Jensen describes the rise of Christian art within a culture filled with images of the gods and the tension in the endeavor of church authorities to deny or justify the use of images in their own religious environments. Jensen begins with essential historiography, reasserting what scholars over the last few decades have come to understand: contrary to early historians like Edward Gibbon and biased churchmen of the Protestant Reformation who misinterpreted the earliest Christian writings, early Christians were not, in fact, categorically anti-art, nor aniconic; they did not adhere to nor cite Hebrew Bible/Old Testament law, nor follow a perceived Jewish precedent. Jensen goes through the early texts condemning idols, clarifying the nature of the apologiae on worshiping false gods. Early Christians objected to idolatry on the grounds that pagans worshiped non-existent deities and thus, by default, worshiped man-made objects fashioned out of stone, wood, and metal. Idols were images of beings who did not exist, or, if they had existed, were regular people, long-dead, and mistakenly elevated to divine status out of misguided fondness or grief. Although rife with hyperbole and simplifications of pagan practices, the apologiae were aimed at persuading Christians about the danger of engaging with paganism and its associated vices. Arguments against worshiping images of the gods were not uniquely Christian, since non-Christian philosophers of the second and third centuries also recognized [End Page 255] the dilemma. Jensen's discussion of the matter provides larger context for a belief system that imagined a divide between the physical and spiritual worlds and the supremacy of an invisible and incomprehensible deity who could not be represented. Some early Christian writers did indeed shun images, believing that the physical world did not find parallels in the spiritual world and thus that representations of it had no use as substitutes for spiritual things. And yet, as Jensen reminds us, early Christians did have images. Surviving examples date to the early third century, while texts point to possibly earlier images. By the fourth century, Christian pictorial art was displayed in churches, shrines, baptistries, tombs, and private homes, despite some protestations. One justification can be found already in ancient Greek and Roman texts: images of the gods provided the means for the less sophisticated to worship their gods. Images were meant to honor them and to inspire worship but were not meant to be "portraits" of them. Defenses of Christian images well into the fifth and sixth centuries often have similar arguments, claiming that images are useful for instruction, especially for those who needed visualization to aid them in mental contemplation. However, as Christian authorities noted, from Eusebius to Iconoclasm-era writers, a confusion between the image and that which was represented was to be avoided. Jensen then explains how Christians admitted into visual art the representation of the invisible divinity in the form of Christ. Hebrew Bible/Old Testament encounters with an otherwise invisible God could be understood in Christian terms and depicted in art if one recognized these appearances as the divine Logos and pre-Incarnate Word—Christ—whose Incarnation made the divinity visible to humans. This fundamental shift valued seeing with one's bodily eyes as a means of obtaining knowledge of God. Christian art transformed from symbols, to standardized figures placed in abbreviated biblical scenes, to portraits of Christ and the saints believed to be based on real appearances. This brings the reader to the advent of two-dimensional Christian portraiture (icons) in the fourth century and the accompanying criticism by church authorities of congregants who may have been too adoring of such images. Jensen describes the various contexts in which such portraits would have been found—at tombs, at martyria, and...

The Reformed and Celibate Pastor: Richard Baxter’s Argument for Clerical Celibacy, by Seth D. Osborne

Richard Baxter was a dominant figure in seventeenth-century English religion, and his influence and importance are now coming into sharper focus with the publication of a splendid modern edition of his autobiography Reliquiae Baxterianae in five volumes in 2020, the prospect of a critical edition of his letters, and the creation of a global and aptly named Baxter Association which meets biannually online to share scholarly work on the man and his times. Seth D. Osborne’s book is an impressive contribution to the current reassessment of Baxter’s thinking. It addresses two central and linked questions. Why did Baxter advocate clerical celibacy, in contrast to many of his protestant contemporaries, and how should we best understand Baxter’s decision to marry in later life (which surprised many friends and foes), and his considered view after his wife’s death that, notwithstanding their happiness together, the case for ministerial celibacy still stood? Osborne demonstrates that Baxter prized matrimony and ‘the soul care’ it should provide for building up household units of Christian devotion and discipline. Where he differed from many was in his view that both clergy and laity should consider whether marriage or celibacy was the most expedient for exercising Christian piety. Matrimony was a sin for those who could foresee that it would limit their service to God, in contrast to the conventional protestant position that marriage was the default option and staying single required a clear call. Very few clergy, Baxter claimed, could serve God better as married men. Osborne sees Baxter’s celebrated ministry at Kidderminster (1647–60) as a decisive influence here. The minister should know the spiritual state of every parishioner, exercise ecclesiastical discipline and be active in local ministerial associations: in short, he should undertake tireless pastoral work which would be necessarily compromised by the distractions and competing demands of family life. To this Baxter added the standard argument that marriage would inevitably limit a minister’s charity. As he stated in Gildas Salvianus: The Reformed Pastor (1656), only now was the ‘kingdom of darkness’ beginning to totter, so there could be no rest or respite for his pastoral mission. Osborne identifies what he calls ‘particularities’ of Baxter’s character which, he argues, reinforced his views: among them were his awareness of time’s winged chariot, underpinned by recurrent illnesses, his emphasis on the comforts of heaven over earth, and his unswerving pursuit of truth, as he saw it, however singular or controversial that might be.

The Solitary Mind in the Anatomy of Melancholy

The Solitary Mind in <i>the Anatomy of Melancholy</i>

Eve’s Opinion: Spirit-Possession and the Witches’ Sabbath in Early Modern Europe

Abstract: This article argues that the historiographic tendency to see the demoniac and the witch as distinct has led scholars to neglect the relationship between demonic possession and the early modern witches’ sabbath, particularly with regard to western Europe. It suggests that if the definition of demonic possession is expanded to incorporate external possession or “ obsessio ,” the phenomenon moves from a peripheral to central position in the European sabbath complex. This positionality is then further strengthened and nuanced by contextualizing demonic possession within the broader networks of belief concerning possession by folkloric and divine spirits that informed both popular magical practice and Christian devotion. The article argues that this augmented “spirit-possession lens” provides us with a new way of mapping the evolution and impact of the witches’ sabbath stereotype across medieval and early modern Europe. It invites us to re-examine received assumptions about the way that sabbath narratives were created and evaluated in the courtroom and brings a new emotional logic to the victimhood of the European witch.

Prosperity Gospel Latinos and Their American Dream by Tony Tian-Ren Lin

Reviewed by: Prosperity Gospel Latinos and Their American Dream by Tony Tian-Ren Lin Justin Michael Doran Tony Tian-Ren Lin, Prosperity Gospel Latinos and Their American Dream (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020) The intersection of immigration, economic life, and charismatic Christianity has never felt so vital to understanding America as it does in the wake of 2020. Political coalitions have been reforged by the powerful popular response to these issues and these communities. And yet scholars and journalists have worked with a paucity of serious inquiries into the communities at the center of this whirlwind: Latin American immigrants to the United States whose Christian devotion has come to mediate the fraught promises of economic prosperity. Tony Tian-Ren Lin's book, Prosperity Gospel Latinos and Their American Dream, provides this much-needed detail. The study includes deep, qualitative research into three Spanish-speaking congregations in Virginia, California, and New York, bringing them into a single analysis of, as Lin calls them, "Prosperity Gospel Latinos." The reverend Lin immigrated from Argentina and received his doctorate in the sociology of religion, making his insight into these communities both methodologically rigorous and sensitive to the faith of his subjects. The idea that drives Lin's analysis is that "Prosperity Gospel Pentecostal" theology enables Latinos in the United States to experience the meaningful arc of the American Dream despite confronting the serious barriers to realizing it in their lives. Or as Lin puts it, "it keeps [End Page 119] the American dream alive, even when everything around them feels like an American myth or even nightmare" (17). The book is part of the new Where Religion Lives series by University of North Carolina Press, which has the stated goal of publishing accessibly written ethnographies from the discipline of religious studies. It is easy to see why Lin's book was published in the series, as it is exceptionally clear in both prose and argumentation. The book proceeds thematically around the animating, titular argument. It begins with an outline of the three churches and the communities cultivated by their prosperity practices. It then decodes the theological logic operating within these churches, especially those beliefs particular to the prosperity gospel. The following chapter explains how church members come to convert to this Christian devotion, and the final chapter describes the social (particularly the familial) structure that emerges from this devotion. In addition to being well-organized as an ethnography, Lin consistently roots his analysis in human stories that remind the reader that these religious structures are inhabited by real people living complex lives. The second and third chapters of the work (on theology and conversion) are both good candidates for assigning to students, as they would allow real conversation about the meaning this movement has in American society. As an ethnographic study, Prosperity Gospel Latinos and their American Dream is thoroughly humane. That is, Tony Lin treats his subjects compassionately and writes about them seriously. As the most indispensable element of any systematic study of a community, we should regard this work as a success. As a work of scholarship, the book succumbs to several pitfalls of ethnographic studies. Qualitative studies in the sociology of religion occasionally neglect rigorous historical background on the movements that appear in the context of their research, and that is the case here. There is only a cursory historical introduction to the Pentecostal movement that leans toward the synthesizing overviews of Harvey Cox and away from the detailed work of scholars such as Grant Wacker or Cecil Robeck. There are essential gestures to the most important scholars of Latino Pentecostalism—Gastón Espinosa, Daniel Ramirez, Arlene Sánchez-Walsh—but no extended engagement with the questions posed by those scholars. Instead, this is a book engaged with a narrower subset of scholarship within the sociology of religion. Lin's choice of conversation partners has clearly shaped the study—an informant given the pseudonym Gerardo seems like a nod to Gerardo Martí, whose influence is apparent in both the general feel of this study and a back cover blurb. Martí is the author of lucid qualitative studies of multiethnic churches as seen, for example, in A Mosaic of...

To Measure Is to Feel: The Mathematics of Middle English Metric Relics

Christian devotion often focused on holy measurements such as those of Christ's height, side wound, and the nails that pierced him. This article focuses on ones occurring in English manuscripts, primarily from the late fourteenth to the mid-sixteenth century. The devout touched, kissed, beheld, and wore these measures, drawn scaled or life-sized, in expectation of protections in life or indulgences after death. These metric relics are considered in light of the mathematics of medieval measurement, which essentially comprised laying one body against another to deliver some kind of ratio or relation. None of the textual amulets delivers a discrete statistic but instead requires a gauging operation, such as multiplying a length fifteen times, thereby placing the worshipper in the position of measurer. By imaginatively measuring the wounds and nails, as if present at the Passion, the votaries interrogate even as they touch.

From the Altar to the Household. The Challenging Popularization of Christian Devotional Images, Objects, and Symbols in 16th and 17th Century China

After the expeditions of wealthy merchants and Franciscan missionaries during the 14th century, the Chinese empire under Ming rule did not engage profusely with the European world, and vice versa. This period of artistic and intellectual silence and detachment was broken in the late 16th century when the Jesuit missionaries reconnected two worlds –Europe and China– reactivating previous medieval commercial, artistic, and intellectual routes. Silk –the product par excellence commercialized along the routes connecting China and Europe– was then accompanied by other precious products, including Chinese ceramics reaching various European courts and European paintings that reached the Ming court in Beijing. This paper addresses the complex and challenging popularization of Roman Catholicism through objects and images during the early modern era. In particular, it focuses on the diffusion of devotional images and objects used by Roman Catholic missionaries and the religious practices related to them.

Revelatory Beasts: Christina Rossetti on the Apocalypse and Creation's Worship

Abstract: This article explicates Christina Rossetti's view that the four beasts surrounding God's throne in Revelation disclose the worship of all creation. It examines Face of the Deep , her commentary on Revelation, alongside her related portrayals of creation's worship in poems included in that commentary and her other devotional writings. It thereby expands recent attention to Rossetti's ecotheology, showing how her view of creation's praise informs her resistance to anthropocentrism, as well as her insistence that Christian devotion and practice must anticipate the life of the world to come through compassionate kinship with other creatures as fellow participants in divine love.

The Magdalene in the Reformation

In the late sixth century, Pope Gregory the Great fashioned a single, polymorphous character out of Mary Magdalene, Mary of Bethany (Martha's sister who sat listening to Jesus's teachings instead of cooking for him), and the unnamed sinner of the Gospels who used her long locks to clean Jesus's feet with unguent. Medieval thinkers quickly identified the sin of this composite Magdalene as sexual, thus developing a paradoxical figure who was at the same time a revirginized prostitute, a contemplative, and the first witness to the Resurrection. They also gave her a history, with dramatic hagiographical descriptions of a Mary Magdalene who had spread the Gospel throughout Gaul and ended her days as a hermit in a cave outside Marseilles. This virgin/whore/apostle had been among the most popular medieval saints, but her legacy was challenged by Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples in the same year that Luther published the Ninety-Five Theses. Heated discussion of the “Three Maries” continued for several years, and Erasmus was a key figure in the debate, by the end of which only the Mary specifically called “the Magdalene” in the Gospels remained, shorn of her sexual history, her mission to Gaul, and her life as a hermit.Arnold's contribution to the intellectual history of Christianity traces how, although the composite Magdalene unraveled just as the Reformation began, the three women continued to provide food for thought for the most famous Protestant and Catholic reformers. Instead of three figures sharing a history ranging from the depths of sin to the height of apostolic fervor, the Protestant and Catholic Reformations produced a multiplicity of Magdalenes, Maries of Bethany, and unnamed female sinners who served a wide range of exegetical purposes. The ambiguity inherent to the medieval Magdalene, while rejected in almost every detail, returned as a result of sola Scriptura, with figures as wide-ranging as Luther, Calvin, Theodore Beza, Katharina Schütz Zell, Marie Dentière, Teresa of Avila, Marguerite de Navarre, Margaret Fell, and George Fox offering intensive readings of the individual episodes about the three women that, surprisingly, supported mutually exclusive expectations for female comportment, female devotion, and female power.Although Arnold asserts in closing that the early modern rendition of the three women “loses some of its flexibility” in comparison with the medieval Magdalene, the thoroughness of Arnold's research suggests otherwise. The difference may be that the flexibility no longer was available to an individual devotee, as each author's or preacher's theological predilections forced each of the three women into a static role. But on a broad scale, since none of the interpretations definitively foreclosed any other, the Magdalene retained her status as the premier “woman good to think with” in Christian devotion, despite Reformation polemics and the early modern querelle des femmes.

Coping with Pastoral Burnout Using Christian Contemplative Practices

Three Christian Devotion Meditation (CDM) practices—lectio divina, centering prayer, and the examen—will be offered to aid in coping with ministerial stress and to prevent burnout. CDM or Christian contemplative practices are uniquely suited to develop the emotional resources pastors need for coping with burnout. The office of the pastor faces pressures which can cause burnout and threaten their ministries and personal relationships. The experience of pastoral burnout consists of acedia. Pastors experience spiritual emptiness due to two unique aspects of pastoral life. First, because pastors often work alongside with their families in the church while simultaneously serving their congregants, they experience inter-role conflict due to the high level of boundary ambiguity between their vocational and family lives. Second, pastors need to rely on their psychological resources to provide for their church members due to the emotional labor required of their positions. Consequently, pastors must rely on emotional labor strategies to respond positively to their congregations, which in turn can lead to emotional exhaustion.

Divine designation in the use of the Bible: The quest for an ‘all-powerful God’ (the omnipotence of God) in a pastoral ministry of human empowerment

In our exposure to weakness, vulnerability, loss, anguish and different forms of impairment, the following pastoral theological questions arises: What is meant by divine almightiness within the human need for spiritual strength, empowerment, encouragement and well-being? The epithet of almightiness (omnipotence, pantokratōr) gave birth to fictitious and speculative associations, even fear and anxiety: The paralyzing fear of God Almighty – divine intoxicating and spiritual pathology. Instead of a pantokratōr-definition of God, a paraklēsis-infinition of God is proposed. This paradigm shift is based on the hermeneutical insight, namely, that the El Shadday of Yahweh is based on the respect in Jewish hermeneutics to render God not as a personified substance, but as an ‘operating verb’ – hjh. In the verbing of God, El Shadday points to encouragement, empowerment and a kind of pity and comfort based on the passio Dei. Contribution: How one perceives the power of God, determines the practice of Christian devotion and spirituality. Therefore, the emphasis on the notion of ‘God Almighty’ (omnipotence of God) and its link to the notion of the ‘weakness of God’ as exposed in the basic outline for a theology of the cross and as a source for hope in pastoral care and compassionate reaching out.

Heilsfiktionen

AbstractEven in a century so commonly associated with the stage as the Frenchsiècle classique, the theatre’s social, political and religious acceptance as a cultural practice remains highly contested. Hence, the recourse to the seemingly obsolete dramatic genre of the martyr tragedy that both Corneille (Polyeucte,Théodore) and Rotrou (Le véritable Saint Genest) take in the 1640 s must be understood as an attempt to secure a possible alliance between Christian devotion and the stage. Rather than effecting a reconciliation between the two, however, all three plays in question, in their attempt to adapt the martyr play to the emergent aesthetics ofbienséanceandvraisemblance, point to the irredeemable discrepancy of religion and the theatre instead, arousing doubts about the authenticity of conversion and potentially undermining the credibility of martyrdom itself. Small wonder then that the scathing Jansenist critique of the theatre, launched most forcefully by Pierre Nicole, takes this attempt to renew the martyr play as its point of attack. Yet, a closer examination of this polemic reveals that the seemingly stable ground of Christian faith finds itself haunted by the spectre of simulation.

Mount Ucka and the shrine of our Lady of Trsat : mithology, tourism and popular religiosity in northern Croatia

espanolSe aborda la relacion entre el macizo croata conocido como monte Ucka, la mitologia eslava, el turismo y la religiosidad popular en el norte de Croacia. Para ello, se realizan entrevistas informales y observaciones antropologicas de campo en los contrafuertes y la cumbre del pico Vojak, en el refugio de montana de Poclon, en las aldeas de Veprinac y Volosco; y en el santuario de Trsat, importante lugar de peregrinacion y devocion popular cristiana, situado en una colina cercana al monte Ucka. Ademas, se analiza la construccion simbolica de la montana sagrada y su importancia en el robustecimiento de la identidad croata, teniendo en cuenta la recreacion de la mitologia eslava por medio de su representacion en la folleteria turistica de la Riviera de Opatija. Asimismo, con fines comparativos para la presente investigacion, se ascendio a otras montanas sagradas de Croacia tales como el monte Vidova Gora en la isla de Brac o el macizo de Biokovo en Makarska. El monte Ucka participa en la universalidad del mito de la lucha entre deidades celestes y del inframundo, por mediacion de la figura de Perun, el dios atmosferico eslavo, cuya morada se identifica con uno de los contrafuertes costeros del macizo. Otras entidades mitologicas, tales como las brujas que habitan en los pinaculos carsticos, o el llamado Babbo Natale, remiten al folclore de montana caracteristico de Europa del Este y del oriente del arco alpino. El proceso de cristianizacion de este monte queda reflejado en la toponimia local y en la dispersion de iglesias, santuarios marianos y abadias. La investigacion se completo con un ascenso a la colina de Trsat, para documentar la actividad de los peregrinos en la iglesia y las ofrendas depositadas en la capilla votiva. El mas antiguo santuario mariano de Croacia se encuentra erigido en una pequena elevacion al otro lado del golfo de Kvarner, que ofrece una vista privilegiada hacia el macizo de Ucka y la riviera de Abadia. EnglishThe relationship between the Croatian massif known as Mount Ucka, Slavic mythology, tourism and popularreligiosity in northern Croatia is addressed in this paper. For this, informal interviews and anthropological fieldobservations are carried out on the buttresses and the summit of Vojak Peak, in the Poclon mountain refuge, inthe villages of Veprinac and Volosco; and in the sanctuary of Trsat, an important place of pilgrimage and popularChristian devotion, located on a hill near Mount Ucka. In addition, the symbolic construction of the sacredmountain and its importance in strengthening the Croatian identity are analyzed, taking into account the recreationof Slavic mythology through its representation in the tourist brochures of the Opatija Riviera. Also, for comparativepurposes for the present investigation, other sacred mountains in Croatia such as Mount Vidova Gora on theisland of Brac or the Biokovo massif in Makarska were ascended. Mount Ucka participates in the universalityof the myth of the struggle between celestial deities and the underworld, through the figure of Perun, the Slavicatmospheric god, whose dwelling is identified with one of the coastal buttresses of the massif. Other mythologicalentities, such as the witches who inhabit the karst pinnacles, or the so-called Babbo Natale, refer to the mountainfolklore characteristic of Eastern Europe and the east of the Alpine arch. The process of Christianization of thismountain is reflected in the local toponymy and in the dispersion of churches, Marian sanctuaries and abbeys.The investigation was completed with an ascent to the hill of Trsat, to document the activity of the pilgrims inthe church and the offerings deposited in the votive chapel. The oldest Marian shrine in Croatia is located on asmall elevation on the other side of the Kvarner Gulf, which offers a privileged view of the Ucka massif andthe Abbey riviera.

Passion Relics and the Medieval Imagination: Art, Architecture, and Society by Cynthia Hahn

Reviewed by: Passion Relics and the Medieval Imagination: Art, Architecture, and Society by Cynthia Hahn Sarah Luginbill Cynthia Hahn, Passion Relics and the Medieval Imagination: Art, Architecture, and Society (Berkeley: University of California Press 2020) 176 pp., 52 ills. Relics of Christ's Passion present scholars of medieval Christianity with a fascinating paradox. According to the New Testament, Christ's body ascended into heaven shortly after his resurrection. Therefore, apart from a few alleged relics of Christ's blood and circumcised foreskin, there are no bones or body of Christ to venerate. In the absence of primary relics, medieval Christians collected and enshrined objects that came into contact with Christ—specifically, those items that interacted with his body during the Passion (the whip, crown of thorns, True Cross, holy nails, sponge, and lance, among others). The medieval dissemination and popularity of these relics are the subject of Cynthia Hahn's latest monograph, which surveys the cult of Passion relics in western Europe from the time of Constantine to the sixteenth century. Hahn's book is taken from two public lectures, given at the Spencer Museum of Art (University of Kansas) and the Nelson-Atkins Museum (Kansas City). Following the division of these lectures, Passion Relics consists of only two chapters, with micro-discussions embedded in each. The first half of the book traces the development of the cult of what Hahn deems the "greatest" Passion relic: the True Cross. Hahn recounts the True Cross's origin story (found by Helena, the mother of Constantine), examines the various medieval records of the dissemination of splinter relics, and analyzes practices of enshrining fragments of the True Cross in Western reliquaries. She discusses the cross as both a material object and as a shorthand for faith, redemption, and sacrifice in text, liturgy, and art. One example of the latter includes the poem "The Dream of the Rood," wherein the True Cross appears to an anonymous viewer as a living tree that has been both attacked and bejeweled by human hands. The second half of the monograph focuses on medieval Passion relics as a group, both in theory and in physical collections. Hahn outlines the major relics, including the holy nails, the lance, and the sponge, and their significance to medieval Christians as [End Page 278] objects that touched Christ's skin, blood, and mouth. Hahn notes that Passion relics appeared to surface in social and political settings in which they served a purpose, emphasizing that the material culture of belief was never far from secular ambitions. In this way, Hahn's second chapter analyzes Passion relics "as holy material but also as social phenomena—as barometers of Christian devotion and its processes" (5). Passion relics were utilized by rulers, such as Constantine and Raymond of Toulouse, to solidify diplomatic ties. Louis IX, Charles IV, and the Savoy dynasty created extravagant architectural works to house their Passion relics and underscore their personal connections to the objects. Passion relics, however, did not just circulate in the elite circles of medieval Europe. While Passion relics first traveled from east to west relatively slowly and mostly through diplomatic channels, the crusades opened up a much broader network for relics of the True Cross, the holy lance, and others to enter western Europe in larger amounts. The lay populace interacted with Passion relics in the context of grand architecture or elaborate civic processions, which further elevated the status and splendor of the items on display. In addition to this kind of public devotion, Hahn explores the role of Passion relics in female spirituality and imagination. She discusses the images in the Passional of Abbess Kunigunde and the devotion of Gertrude of Helfta, a mystic who used the veil of Veronica as a focus in her meditations. Hahn mentions the sexualized nature of some female devotions to Christ's wounds, but does not analyze them in depth. A second paradox regarding Passion relics emerges in Hahn's work: items associated with physical pain and torture also become conduits of spiritual redemption and loving devotion for believers. Hahn notes this juxtaposition manifests itself visually through the contrast between the relics themselves (iron or wood) and the materials of their reliquary...

The Johannine Renaissance in Early Modern English Literature and Theology. Paul Cefalu. Oxford University Press, 2017. Pp. viii+352.

<i>The Johannine Renaissance in Early Modern English Literature and Theology</i>. Paul Cefalu. Oxford University Press, 2017. Pp. viii+352.

The Sacred Heart of Jesus as the revelation, source and agent of the Divine Mercy

From the theological point of view today there is a need of focusing on the question of the mutual relation between the theology of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the theology of the Divine Mercy. The Issue has to be considered mainly because of the growing veneration of the Divine Mercy, which in many aspects evidently adopts certain elements which traditionally belong to the worship of the Sacred Heart. The connection between these two cults can only be perceived after a profound theological analysis. Therefore, in this item I propose a theological perspective on the teachings of Saint Pope John Paul II, included in encyclicals Redemptor hominis (4th March 1979) and Dives in misericordia (30th November 1980), since these two significant and current documents contain valid and inspiring statements allowing the reader to grasp the relation between the theology of the Sacred Heart and the theology of the Divine Mercy. This authoritative and theologically profound background will indicate explicitly the close connection between the two cults and the respective theologies and how they complement each other. The proposed view deeply rooted in the teachings of Saint John Paul II may constitute a guideline for coherent combination of these two kinds of worship within Christian devotion. The growing cult of the Devine Mercy should be allowed to merge with other types of worship. The intention is to place the cult of the Divine Mercy within the tradition of the Church devotion, and at the same time to discover its hidden spiritual possibilities of the actualisation of the Church cult and adaptation of it to the new spiritual condition of the present times.