Appearance Of Christ Research Articles

Demogogues or Mystagogues? Gender and the Language of Prophecy in the Age of Democratic Revolutions

ON MAY 19, 1780, ALL OF NEW ENGLAND was plunged into darkness. At midmorning, the sky turned an eerie yellow. Within an hour, it had become so dark that people had to dine by candlelight. In the afternoon, the clouds took on a higher and more brassy color with occasional flashes that resembled the Northern Lights.' We now know that the of 1780 was caused by the common New England practice of burning fields to clear the brush more effectively and provide a fertile, coating of ashes, but to men and women living amid the dislocations of revolution, the event had supernatural meaning. For some, it heralded the imminent appearance of Christ in the Second Coming; for others less certain of their ability to read celestial signs with such precision, it was at least a warning that these are the latter days.2 The millennial expectations unleashed by the Dark Day can be traced in numerous pamphlets, newspaper articles, and almanacs, and have been read by historians as evidence of the pervasiveness of millennial thinking in revolutionary America among all classes of people, from learned divines to ordinary farmers. Far from being the preserve of a small number of biblical scholars and theologians, prophetic exegesis was a vernacular genre in eighteenth-century North America, a way of interpreting past, present, and future events according to the narratives of biblical history. A people as literate and as well versed in millennial lore as the New England Puritans could scarcely avoid interpreting the Dark Day of May 1780 as a prophetic sign of the times. Thanks to the labors of intellectual historians like Ruth Bloch, James Davidson, and Nathan Hatch, we have a fairly good grasp of the extent and depth of millennial thinking (or at least of publications devoted to millennial themes) in North America during and after the revolutionary crisis. We know that, contrary to the situation in Great Britain, millennialism was a constant theme in religious literature from the

Editorial

In summers past one of my ministries consisted of serving as coordinator of an international, ecumenical team of guides for the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. In ten different languages, these university students and I gave hour-long tours of the cathedral, initiating visitors to its architecture, statues, stained glass windows, and their significance. As in other medieval cathedrals, its stone and glass work is a mini-Bible for those unable to read, as well as a summa theologiae for those not sitting at the feet of Peter Lombard, Bonaventure or Aquinas. Much to my astonishment I discovered that the tourists I personally guided — Christians and Jews — were more than just rusty about Bible history; they were ignorant. Jews from New York were often as vague about Jesse's root, David and Goliath, Ruth and her husband, and Jonah, as Christians, even evangelicals, were astonishingly unfamiliar with the wedding feast at Cana, the risen Christ's appearance as gardener to Mary Magdalene, and other biblical scenes.

A Pax by Guglielmo della Porta

Previous articleNext article No AccessA Pax by Guglielmo della PortaStefanie WalkerStefanie Walker Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Metropolitan Museum Journal Volume 261991 Sponsored by the Metropolitan Museum of Art Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/1512909 Copyright 1991 The Metropolitan Museum of ArtPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Apocalyptic and the Peace Movement

Based on a paper presented at the International Symposium on Sociology and Theology, Oxford, January 1986.What relationship, if any, is there between contemporary apocalyptic and the contemporary Peace Movement?Whatever it was in its original form, in its current form apocalyptic is the belief that God is moving in history to a violent climax in which he will defeat his enemies, both human and supernatural. The appearance of Christ will mark the end of this age and the beginning of a thousand- year reign of peace for the elect. We are now living in the End Times and it is possible to detect the signs of the End in natural disasters and political/military events. These signs are a warning to human beings. For those who have eyes to see, they have been clearly prophesied in the Scriptures. Repentence and belief in Christ is required for a person to be saved from the great tribulation which is about to come.Such beliefs are shared by a range of contemporary Christian groups, though these differ in important ways amongst themselves, especially over the interpretation of historical events and the nature of the final war: for instance, whether or not it will be a nuclear war. Such beliefs appear to be on the increase in the United States and perhaps also in Britain, even among members of the main-stream churches. It is not difficult to see the increased fear of nuclear holocaust as a major factor in the new popularity of apocalyptic beliefs.

Devotional Themes in the Violence and Humor of the Play of the Sacrament

Devotional Themes in the Violence and Humor of the Play of the Sacrament Richard L. Homan The Play of the Sacrament has long been regarded as a historical curiosity but not as a work of art worthy to be compared with the best English plays of the fifteenth century. William Davenport's assessment in his recent book, FifteenthCentury English Drama, exemplifies the position of most critics. After summarizing the plot, he says, "This material is presented in a very odd way; it sounds in outline like a devout miracle play, but in fact it is, for much of the time, farcical."! Davenport echoes the many critics who have interpreted the admittedly sensational events of the play as intentionally comic.2 Though Davenport applauds the author's effort to employ comedy toward teaching a lesson, he concludes that this playwright does so poorly: "When a dramatist controls the relationship between slapstick and exemplification better, as in Mankind, then it is no longer at all a matter of the 'addition' of comic effects to serious subject matter ..." (p. 76). This then is the gist of the complaint against the Play of the Sacrament, that its comedy is not integral. The scenes most at issue constitute the central third of the play in which Jonathas and his four companions witness a series of miracles occasioned by their torturing of a Host, and Doctor Brundyche and his boy Colle call upon Jonathas. Because the principals are Jews and because the events are so violent as to be gruesome, most critics have assumed an underlying tone of ridicule, and indeed the play derives from a traditional antiRICHARD L. HOMAN is an assistant professor in the Department of Fine Arts at Rider College, Lawrenceville, New Jersey. 327 328Comparative Drama Semitic tale. Also, the Doctor's scene appears tangential at best to the main action. Hence, critics have charged, the play's violence is unintentionally comical, and its intentional comedy is irrelevant. My analysis will concentrate on these three scenes: the dismembering of Jonathas (11. 385-524), the introduction of the doctor and his boy Colle (11. 523-652), and the climax which includes the appearance of Christ (11. 653-797).3 Preceding these scenes is the circumstantial sequence which results in Aristorius delivering the Host to Jonathas. Following is the sequence in which Episcopus takes over and performs a series of liturgical actions. I will suggest that the scenes with the Jews could have been taken quite seriously by the original audience, both because of the skill with which they are written and because they incorporate devotional sensibilities popular in the art and prose of the fifteenth century. Furthermore, I will show that the admittedly comic interlude with the doctor and his boy reflects the serious message of the main action in ways not previously detected. In doing so, I do not pretend to solve ultimately the problem of interpreting the play, but I hope rather to add another layer of meaning to our reading of it. A similar purpose was accomplished by Sister Nicholas Maltman, who traces the liturgical references throughout the scenes in which the Jews appear to show that their actions are not simple, physical farce, but a detailed re-enactment of the Passion with the Host taking the place of Christ himself. Her study is significant not only because it shows a pattern behind the Jews' actions (the banns which accompany the play explicitly call their actions a "new passyon "), but also because it establishes the continuity of the scenes of torture with the liturgical scenes which end the play. Though arguing that "The Croxton play deserves greater respect than it has received," these central scenes must, according to Maltman "strike the modern reader as crude and grotesque" (p. 162). Yet, perhaps like much that we admire in the Corpus Christi plays, they need only to be seen more fully within the sensibility of the fifteenth century. Any performance which hazards the use of horrific special effects risks appearing ludicrous. If the audience has any doubt about their justification in terms of the overall theme and action, the effects cause laughter or, if they are quite vivid, revulsion. Such apparently was the...

York Mystery Plays: A Selection in Modern Spelling ed. by Richard Beadle, Pamela M. King

STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER RICHARD BEADLE and PAMELA M. KING, eds. York Mystery Plays: A Selection in Modern Spelling. Oxford and New York: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 1984. Pp. xxxiv, 279. $29.95, £5.95. Richard Beadle's York Plays (1982) was, following Lumiansky and Mills's Chester Plays (1974), the second new full edition of the great English cycles, which are beginning to receive modern editorial treatment in the wake ofthe vast strides in scholarship which have occurred since the major nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century editions of the mystery plays. Beadle has now, in collaboration with Pamela King, followed up his edition with that most valuable of commodities, a volume of selections which is accessible in terms of price on the one hand and presentation of text on the other, in which all the benefits of detailed and up-to-date scholarship are brought to bear. This edition is designed "with the general reader and the student of medieval literature and early drama in mind," and there is also the understanding that it should be able to serve as a production text. It becomes patently clear in both the introduction and the texts themselves that the varied requirements of this wide range of read­ ership are always kept in mind. The general introduction not only prefaces the York Cycle but is some­ thing ofa primer to the whole area ofmedieval scriptural drama. Written with the utmost clarity, yet avoiding oversimplification, it deals concisely with the most significant aspects, both dramaturgical and literary, of the drama. The idea, alas, not entirely dead, that medieval drama was the na:ive product ofsimple men, is effectively challenged by discussion ofthe various practicalconsiderations like the financialand topographical organi­ zation ofperformances and the development oftexts, as well as the many details of the mise-en-scene on which modern research has been able to shed some light, such as acting, scenery and decor, costuming, and the use ofmasks and music. Literary and general artistic aspects discussed include typology and iconography. Others, such as verse and rhetoric, are sensibly (considering the variations within the cycle) consigned to the headnotes preceding each play. In an edition clearly intended to help broaden the reception of both this cycle and medieval cycle drama in general, the editors are at pains to promote the notion of the plays as living drama rather than just literary or antiquarian pieces. This is achieved through not only lively discussion of the aspects already mentioned but also some consideration of their impact on and significance for their contemporary 164 REVIEWS audiences. There is also a useful discussion of modern productions, though, whereas the editors are willing always to find things of which to approve in these productions, their comments are otherwise uncritical, leaving one with the impression of gratitude for any production, perhaps unnecessary in this time of increasing interest in early drama. The selectionconsists of twenty-two of the forty-seven extant plays in the cycle, and they were chosen with an eye to intrinsic artistic merit and to give some idea of the nature of the cycle as a whole. There are accordingly clusters around the two most significant episodes, the Creation and Fall and the Passion of Christ. In any such undertaking there will inevitably be some regrets about omissions-a personal one is the noninclusion of Christ's Appearance to Mary Magdalene, with its emotional impact and dramatic revelation-and there is perhaps a slight imbalance in that the only play to represent the considerable post-Resurrection sequence is the LastJudgement. On the whole, however, the selection is judicious and useful. It is the more so, for teaching purposes, in being an addition to the small range of selections confined to a single cycle, like Maurice Hussey's Chester selections or A. C. Cawley's Wakefield Pageants. Few editors of the cycle plays, whether full collections or selections, extend the recognition of the individuality of the component pageants to the provision of headnotes to each one, perhaps through considerations of space. The headnotes in this selection are probably the best in any edition to date. Without being overlong, they manage to cover a wide range...

“Et Prima Vidit”: The Iconography of the Appearance of Christ to His Mother

THE problem of Roger van der Weyden's Granada-Miraflores Altarpiece has long held a fascination for students of Flemish painting, and has been the subject of a number of penetrating studies, the most recent and definitive being that in a section of Panofsky's Early Netherlandish Painting.1 Panofsky has here supplied a more comprehensible analysis of the meaning of the triptych as a whole than had hitherto been discerned; as one aspect of this, he has pointed out new facts revealing the central importance of the New York panel2 both in the interpretation of this triptych, and within the broader framework of the general development of Northern painting in the fifteenth century.

"Et Prima Vidit": The Iconography of the Appearance of Christ to His Mother

"Et Prima Vidit": The Iconography of the Appearance of Christ to His Mother

German Philosophy

A New Philosophy of History for our age of transition from the Christian era to the period of world-unity, combined with a penetrating analysis of our present situation, is offered by Karl Jaspers' Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte (Artemis-Verlag, Fr. 14.80). Jaspers is, however, more post-Hegelian than post-Christian, and in fact anti-Hegelian, but pro-Christian. Rejecting Hegel's dictum that the appearance of Christ is the “axis of world history,” i.e. the aim of the preceding, and the origin of the subsequent, centuries, Jaspers tries to discover the real axis of history empirically at about 500 b.c. Eager to find a common historical origin for East and West, he claims the time from 800 to 200 b.c. as axis-time. He believes that in these centuries, man as we know him to-day, with his religion, art, philosophy, and science, emerged in China, India, Iran, Palestine, and Greece. He further believes that a new axis-time is approaching, and the analysis of the three tendencies leading to it, i.e. of socialism, world-unity, and faith, forms one of the most valuable parts of the book. Like Toynbee he believes that a return to a transformed Biblical faith is necessary, if the West is to be saved. Pessimistic about the immediate future, he is optimistic concerning the remote future. History, as the history of single nations, states, or civilizations, is at an end. World History is only just now beginning. This is a book of European importance. It formulates the crucial question, whether Europe has still the spiritual strength to avoid a relapse into its Asiatic background with its despotism, uniformity and loss of personal liberty. In Jaspers' development, it marks a transition from reflecting upon mere possibilities to a consideration of historical reality. His booklet, The Spiritual Situation of our Time (1931) concluded with a chapter on “What may become of Man,” but what really did happen to man in the meantime proved that reality is much richer in possibilities than the liveliest imagination could possibly foresee. Does he now actually reach reality, or rather a “possible” History, as the stage on which man reveals himself in all his potentialities, and which moves from one fictitious axis-time to another equally fictitious? Jaspers' Einführung in die Philosophie (Artemis, Fr. 7.90), most enjoyable and a masterpiece of book-production, is the best introduction to his own philosophy. It emerges here as a possible form of philosophizing in an age of transition; original, sincere, cultivated and stimulating. His method is still the way of reflection, but this now includes meditation and self-examination. Jaspers rightly demands of-a philosopher (1) a thorough knowledge of one special science, (2) an equally penetrating knowledge of at least one great philosopher, and (3) sincerity in his daily conduct and acceptance of responsibility for whatever he is doing. Should he succeed in educating a generation of philosophers on these lines, that would indeed give new hope for the future of European philosophy. Jaspers' Inaugural Lecture, Philosophic und Wissen-schaft (Artemis, Fr. 1.30), discusses in a clear and competent manner this important problem and clearly exposes the confusion of some contemporary conceptions of science, e.g. in Marxism. His lecture, Unsere Zukunft und Goethe (Artemis, Fr. 3.–), rejects a Goethe cult, but stresses the new manner in which Goethe could be appreciated by the present generation. All in all, Jaspers represents the best in German tradition, and is now one of the leading European philosophers.