Community Of Saints Research Articles

Introduction: Women Writing Disability

We were told of disabilities, -- a long array of these, Till one would think that womanhood was merely a disease; And maternal sacrifice was added to the plan Of the various sacrifices we have always made--to man. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Women Do Not Want It DISABILITY, INTERSECTIONS, AESTHETICS Rosemarie Garland Thomson observes, Many parallels exist between the social meanings attributed to female and those assigned to disabled bodies (19). In this regard it would be hard to imagine early-twentieth-century psychoanalysis without so-called women's diseases like hysteria or neurasthenia. Female sexuality and reproduction have, historically, been monitored by male-dominated medical and psychoanalytic professions. Fashion, building design, and juridical definitions of identity have reinforced the idea that, as Iris Marion Young says, in sexist society are physically handicapped (qtd. in Wendell 15). Concepts of aesthetic perfection and beauty are often figured around idealized (often naked) female despite their armless (Venus de Milo) and headless (le Victoire de Samothrace) forms. Much Western literature is constructed around the volatile of the Medusa, the madwoman in the attic, and the consumptive heroine. Feminist and queer theory have been at the forefront in recognizing how gender and sexual difference have been articulated through the nontraditional, excessive, or abnormal body, making gender and sexuality visible by positing an idealized norm of physical and mental perfection. This special issue of Legacy features scholarship on American women writers from the antebellum period to the 1930s. Essays in the volume foreground issues of race, illness, cognitive disability, deafness, blindness, mobility, deuendency, and the related reform movements in which women were often activists. Despite our focus on more modern periods, we can see the intersection of disability and gender in the inaugural formations of US literature. Anne Bradstreet, speaking of her anxiety over the publication of her 1650 book, The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, compared what she saw as her flawed poems with an unruly, crippled child: I wash'd thy face, but more defects I saw, And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw, I stretcht thy joints to make thee even feet, Yet still thou run'st more hobling than is meet. (The Author to Her Book 13-16) Bradstreet's comparison of her uneven meters to the limping gait of a child instantiates a feeling among many early settlers that a woman who writes violates her proper maternal role and thus produces a defective child.' Bradstreet's deployment of what Wendy Martin calls subversive piety expresses a woman's darker anxiety about agency in a frontier environment, an anxiety expressed through male fears of uncontainable sexuality or demonic possession. Female biology often becomes the site for fears of contamination, both national and theological. Cotton Mather's account of the Salem witchcraft trials is filled with references to the physical disabilities resulting from contact with women heretics and freethinkers. In his history of the antinomian controversy, John Winthrop remarks on one of the heretics interrogated by the synod of 1637, Mistris Dier forth her birth of a woman child, a fish, a beast, and a fowle, all woven together in one, and without an head. He then describes Anne Hutchinson, who similarly brought forth not one ... but ... 30. monstrous births or thereabouts, at once; some of them bigger, some lesser, some of one shape, some of another; few of any perfect shape, none at all of them (as farre as I could ever learne) of humane shape (214). If Native people and a hostile climate were external threats to settlement, women often provided an internal threat to the community of saints. A later antinomian, Emily Dickinson, rearticulated these fears of female agency and biology by rhetorically cross-dressing as male and in the process undergoing a disabling physical transformation: Rearrange a Wife's Affection! …

Still, the small voice: narrative, personal revelation, and the Mormon folk tradition

Still, the Small Voice: Narrative, Personal Revelation, and the Mormon Folk Tradition. By Tom Mould. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 2011. Pp. xi + 388, introduction, appendix, notes, works cited, index. Still, the Small Voice explores the cultural significance of personal revelation narratives in Mormon culture. While not a Mormon, Tom Mould carefully researched and clearly articulated an emic view of this pervasive, important practice and its relevance to Mormon worldview. Mould's study includes ethnographic fieldwork with a ward in North Carolina; access to three archives: the Fife Folklore Archives at Utah State University in Logan, the William A. Wilson Folklore Archives at Brigham Young University in Provo, the Utah Humanities Research Foundation Records at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City; and finally the published records of church members and leaders in journals and magazines. Mould admits to the regional limitations of his research, but does an excellent job broadly outlining this important practice in Latter-day Saint culture and offering interested scholars many avenues for further research. Chapter 1 situates personal revelation narratives within the Mormon tradition as both intensely personal and fundamentally public. Because these narratives recall religiously affirming experiences and act as such in their own right, Mould correctly identifies them as a significant and often overlooked source for studying Mormon culture. Mould mentions, and I agree, that folklorists have too often focused on the fantastical, monstrous, and superstitious rather than the far more common, though sometimes less spectacular encounters with the (55). And that is exactly why this kind of study is long overdue. For instance, three Nephite stories have been a mainstay of Mormon folklore scholarship for decades, but as a Latterday Saint myself, I can say these are rarely shared. Tom Mould's research, then, is more reflective of everyday Mormon experience. Personal revelation is central for Latter-day Saints because it sits at the intersection between their spiritual and temporal lives, in which they ask God for help in their daily lives. With his focus on writing the everyday reality of Latter-day Saints, Mould's analysis is rooted in Richard Bauman's performance theory. To uncover the framework, esthetic response, and culture-specific contexts, Mould relies on thorough rhetorical analysis of these memorates. The importance of the narrator, audience, and historical and cultural contexts that give rise to the narrative form are prominent in every chapter. While speaking of genre in Chapter 3, Mould shows how author and audience expectations center on proving the divine in everyday life. That concern connects to the founding of Mormonism and is itself a central tenet of belief: that God speaks to people today. It shows how Mormon tradition and cultural life are arenas for one's beliefs. In Chapter 4, Mould uncovers the various rhetorical purposes these memorates are put to: instructing, forming connections with ancestors or progeny, and performing one's membership in the Latter-day Saint community. These retroactive revelations in the narrative tradition show how Mormons interpret spiritual and deeply personal experiences in culturally informed ways. Mould notes how blurry the lines are between genres and how overlapping the functions of these narratives can be. The personal revelation genre blends aspects of personal experience, legend, and sometimes even myth. …

Transgression in the Latter-day Saint Community: The Cases of Albert Carrington, Richard R. Lyman, and Joseph F. Smith Part 2: Richard R. Lyman

Transgression in the Latter-day Saint Community: The Cases of Albert Carrington, Richard R. Lyman, and Joseph F. Smith Part 2: Richard R. Lyman

The future existence of the believers according to 2 Thessalonians

This article investigated the presentation of the future existence of the believers in Paul’s second letter to the Thessalonians. It analysed how the eschatological language of this letter reflects a situation in Thessalonica which has grown worse since the writing of 1 Thessalonians. It went on to explain to readers how this situation is handled by reflecting on it in terms of a divine plan and by portraying a future in which their suffering will come to an end. A close reading of some passages in 2 Thessalonians which speak of the dispensation which will follow on the glorious return of Christ at the end were presented during the course of this article. It investigated Christ’s glorification at his return and delineated the way in which this return affects and determines the existence of those who accepted Paul’s proclamation of the gospel. The future glory of the Lord is revealed, experienced and shared by believers in a mystical manner. The article ended with a brief discussion on the traditions which determined this perspective, the context in which the eschatological portrait must be understood and how the portrait of the future serves to support the community of saints in their time of suffering.

Staatsreligion, Volkskirche oder Gemeinschaft der Heiligen? Das Christentum in der Spätantike: eine Standortbestimmung

ABSTRACT The paper deals with ecclesiastical reality and ecclesiological reflection in Late Antiquity. The former self-definition of the Church as a community of martyrs was challenged by the fact that after the end of the persecutions, many people entered the Church, while it turned out to be difficult to evaluate their conversion in depth. In the eyes of many eager Christians, the Church became increasingly a part of the world instead of its counterpart. While on the one hand, asceticism gained prominence as alternative to the „worldly“ behavior of bishops and Christians, on the other hand the inner strength of the Church lay in the ability to cope with those „living saints“ as well as with the ordinary believers. The Church of Late Antiquity thus proved to be a Volkskirche, that is, a community with flexible frontiers but with a clear centre: the community of saints, that is, the community of saintly living men and women and of those who were no saints themselves in a proper sense but participated in the former's cult.

Less Crime, More Punishment

Recasting Durkheim's "community of saints" thesis, the authors argue that the severity of punishment is predicted in part by the prevalence of the deviant behavior of which the deviant stands accused. Although there is some curvilinearity at low levels of prevalence, the relationship is generally negative. Thus, all else equal, where a particular crime is frequent, any punishment applied to it is likely to be mild; conversely, where a crime is infrequent, its punishment ought to be severe. Using hierarchical regression models, the authors support this hypothesis with 1988 homicide conviction and imprisonment decisions in 32 U.S. counties.

Folklore and Hagiography in Arngrímr'sGuðmundar saga Arasonar

The last vita of Bishop Guðmundar Arason of Hólar, Iceland (1161–1237) bears a distinctly learned character. Its author, Arngrímr Brandsson (d. 1361 or 1362), is predominantly interested in exegesis. Yet despite his display of erudition, he delights in the narration of a number of folktales. The question arises how these folktales contributed to the sanctification of a bishop, whose actions in office were controversial during the three decades of his tenure (1203–1236/37). Arngrímr's method was syncretistic. He transmuted traditional belief into the normative Christian mold, with some folktales carrying a political message superimposed upon the historical record. Guðmundr was both a member of the community of saints, emulating holy predecessors in character and in the performance of miracles, and akin to a hero of old, delivering the community from monsters. While his power and function were identical to that of a traditional hero, his attitudinal perspective and means of dispatch were dissimilar. Guðmundr was the agent of God, commanding a spiritual power that would, if necessary, manifest itself in corporeity, a physical force as potent and effective as the brawn of the hero. Accordingly, the folktales serve the same interest as did the miracles. Both were illustrative signs of Guðmundr's incontestable sainthood.

Healing Souls: Psychotherapy in the Latter-day Saint Community

Healing Souls: Psychotherapy in the Latter-day Saint Community

Healing Souls: Psychotherapy in the Latter-Day Saint Community

ERIC G. SWEDIN: Souls: Psychotherapy in the Latter-Day Saint Community. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2003, 272 pp., $34.95, ISBN 0-252-02864-3. In 1971 a senior at Brigham Young University (BYU) in Utah-the flagship of the Latter-day Saint educational system-informed therapist by telephone that she was going to commit suicide. She thereupon consumed a variety of pills. The therapist called the police and an ambulance arrived. The student refused to give the paramedics permission to administer medical care. They waited for to fall asleep, then took to a hospital, where stomach was pumped. She spent the next three weeks in the psychiatric ward of the hospital. She was diagnosed as suffering from severe depression and general confusion. Eric G. Swedin opens his book Healing Souls/Psychotherapy in the LatterDay Saint Community with this story to illustrate the circumvention of the Church's principles. The author is on the faculty at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah. He writes, Because religious feelings were such an integral part of how she defined herself, treatment included dealing with these feelings. She was fortunate to have competent therapists who shared religious background. She worked with bishop in his ecclesiastical role, and she worked with professional counselors. Eventually she entered a fulfilling marriage and left suicidal urges behind her (pp. 2-3). Some fifty years ago this anonymous woman would not have had the assistance of professionals in psychology. Before World War II, the Latter-day Saints (LDS) largely ignored the modern psychologies, and to some extent they still do. Mainline Protestants were the first religious groups to embrace psychodynamic psychotherapies that affected the training of ministers and the course of theological understanding. The LDS community's experience, on the other hand, was different. They rejected the philosophical foundations of mainstream psychiatry and psychology. The LDS community and other fundamentalist communities continued to believe in the objective reality of their theology and literal truthfulness of their scriptural stories. To use a metaphor, their theology was the glue of their collective personality. This book demonstrates that psychotherapy and religion perform the same set of functions for individuals in modern American society. It also demonstrates the extent to which the modern psychologies have substantially affected the modern LDS community. The LDS experience in integrating modern psychologies is different from the experience of other Protestant denominations. The mainline Protestant churches redefined the Bible as a moral work composed of symbols and myths, not a literal work as maintained by the LDS community. Early in the twentieth century religion in the United States was weakened by the forces of modernism, including urbanization and science. By moving away from the literalness of the Bible and transforming its stories into moral myths, mainline Protestants are said to have weakened their commitment to their traditional beliefs. Their religion became intellectual, and ceased to feed the spiritual hunger of its membership. The LDS community and other religious communities that clung to scriptural literalness, on the other hand, retained an emphasis on their traditional beliefs. The question arises, Why did LDS and similar religious communities not just ignore the modern psychologies altogether? This solution, the author explains, would have been possible only in communities that cut themselves off from mainstream society. …

Healing Souls: Psychotherapy in the Latter-Day Saint Community

Healing Souls: Psychotherapy in the Latter-Day Saint Community

Healing souls: psychotherapy in the Latter-day Saint community

Healing souls: psychotherapy in the Latter-day Saint community

In the Community of Saints

In the Community of Saints

The Catholic Imagination in American Literature

In this well-written and comprehensive volume on Catholic writing in the United States, Ross Labrie focuses on works that meet three criteria: high intellectual and artistic achievement, authorship by a practicing Roman Catholic, and a focus on Catholic themes. Labrie begins with a discussion of the Catholic imagination and sensibility and considers the relationship between art and Catholic theology and philosophy.Central to Catholic belief is the doctrine of the Incarnation, wherein human experience and the natural world are perceived as both flawed and redeemed. This doctrine can be seen as the axis on which Catholic American literature in general rests and from which variances by particular authors can be measured. optimism implied in this doctrine, together with an inherited American political consciousness, allowed a number of Catholic authors, from a culture otherwise perceived as outside the American mainstream, to identify with a political idealism that granted dignity to the individual.Counterpointing this emphasis on the individual, though, is the doctrine of the church as an intermediary between God and humanity and the belief in the community of saints. In concert with the doctrine of the Incarnation, these teachings gave Catholic writing a communal and prophetic dimension aimed at the whole of American society.Separate chapters are included for each of the writers considered so that the distinctiveness of their works is elucidated, as well as the unity and the rich diversity of Catholic American writing in general. Some of the authors considered are Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, Allen Tate, Robert Lowell, Thomas Merton, and Mary Gordon.A concluding chapter examines the significance of the corpus of Catholic American writing in the years 1940 to 1980, considering it parallel in substance to the body of Jewish American literature of the same period. The Catholic Imagination in American Literature fills a distinctive place in the study of American literature.

Machine as Messiah: Cyborgs, Morphs, and the American Body Politic

On September 22, 1676, a Dr. Brakenbury conducted the first human dissection by Europeans in North America. Samuel Sewell's diary records that a Mr. Hooper, taking the [heart] in his hand, affirmed it to be the stomack.' As James Schramer and Timothy Sweet have remarked, this misrepresentation of the internal organs of a geopolitical enemy was necessary to that ideological apparatus whereby the Puritan community gained its sense of social cohesion. The community of saints had inherited from monarchical England a single image, the body politic, to legitimate coherence as a political organization. But this image was deeply problematic in the absence of a monarch as head. It was thus necessary to demonstrate the community's coherence as a body in relative and oppositional terms. In essence, the corporeal integrity of the Puritan community was confirmed by demonstrating the tangibly inhuman, bodily disorganization not only among but inside the savages. By this means, moreover, figural violence in the battle between good and evil legitimated physical violence.2 This structural necessity haunts us today: that section of the American population which both conceives of itself self-consciously as democratic and unconsciously as healthy cells and organs in the body politic requires a nonhuman other which it can eviscerate in order to confirm its own political and spiritual legitimacy.3 Real change occurs only insofar as there is politically opportune evolution in this Other: Native Americans, Redcoats, urban immigrants, Communists, and, since the end of the Cold War, drug dealers, feminists, homosexuals, PC academics, black jurists, and so on.4

Consorting with Saints: Prayer for the Dead in Early Medieval France.

In this book, Megan McLaughlin explores the social and cultural significance of prayer for the dead in the West Frankish realm from the late eighth century through the end of the eleventh century. She argues that the primary function of funerary and commemorative rituals in the early middle ages was to sustain the dead as members of the Christian community on earth, and to link them symbolically with the community of saints in heaven.

Christianizing death: the creation of a ritual process in early medieval Europe (review)

174 Reviews lefttocreate their own debate. Given that Ousterhout has provided introductions to each paper, perhaps a litde more editorial intervention could have been used to expand this argument and forward the analysis of the role of pilgrimage in late antique society. Of the remaining papers in the second section, Cynthia Hann in 'Loca Sancta souvenirs: sealing the pilgrim's experience' emphasises the spiritual symbolism of the decoration on ampuUae and tokens. Gary Vikan in 'Pilgrims in Magi's clothing: the impact of mimesis on early Christian pilgrimage art' demonstrates how appropriate it is that those archetypal travellers, the Magi, are the figures most frequendy represented on pdgrim tokens. Robert Ousterhout in 'Loca Sancta and the architectural response to pdgrimage' discusses the motives and varying symbolism behind the construction elsewhere in Europe of architectural copies of the Anastasis Rotunda of Jerusalem that culminated in the numerous 'round churches' of the Templars and HospitaUars. There are useful points raised in aU these papers, though some, for example, Wilkinson's, Holum's and Vikan's read like footnotes to their authors' more substantial pubhcations elsewhere on similartopics.Others, especially Sivan's, cry out for more extensive treatment All reveal the constraints of their original twenty-minute format usual in the annual meetings of the American Byzantine Studies Conference. Despite one or two places where the computer has devoured lines, the book is nicely produced and well illustrated. Elizabeth M . Jeffreys Department of M o d e m Greek University of Sydney Paxton, Frederick S., Christianizing death: the creation of a ritual process in early medieval Europe, Ithaca & London, C o m e U University Press, 1990; cloth; pp. xiv, 229; R. R. P. US$31.50. The encounter with death is so fundamental to human society that it is perhaps surprising how little effort medievaUsts have made to understand the emergence in the early Middle Ages of elaborateritualsintended to cope with this moment offinalrupture. Paxton's book remedies this deficiency admirably. Liturgical texts present daunting problems of identification and interpretation to the nonspeciaUst and tend as a result to be ignored by aU except the assiduous liturgical scholar. Combining the great progress made in the last twenty years by liturgists in the identification and classification of sacramentaries with anthropological insights into the nature ofritual,Paxton documents and analyses the profound shifts that took place in the Church's attitude to sickness and death in the early medieval period. Only in relatively recent years have 'the lastrites'been re-named by Roman CathoUc authorities 'the sacrament of the sick'. A profound change in attitude Reviews 175 to sickness and death is involved. Paxton's book unfolds with great precision the process by which praying for and anointing the sick, a practice originaUy quite distinct in the early R o m a n Church from prayers for the dead, became fused together into a singleritualfor the dying by the ninth century. His chapter on the Mediterranean background to these subsequent changes, demonstrates how, in the R o m a n liturgy, prayers for the sick were intended to restore people to health. The central act of preparation for death was reception of the Eucharist. Only in the fifth century, above all with Caesarius of Aries in the early sixth, does Paxton see a shift away towards an emphasis on deathbed penance and the welfare of the soul. The Irish liturgy in particular, a strong influence on that of the Frankish Church in the seventh and eighth centuries, seems to have been responsible for combining prayers for the sick with prayers for the dying. In the more violent and less secure environment of the barbarian kingdoms, the Church was more concerned with devisingritualstoincorporate the dead into a wider community of saints than to restore the sick to life. The subject matter of Paxton's book is dense. H e does not skip over delicate and vital questions about the dating of individual manuscripts. Valuable tables Ust the contents of individual sacramentaries. As is inevitable in such a study as this, there is more one would like to know. What documentation do we have of actual ministry to the sick and the dying in the early...

A Transatlantic Community of Saints: The Great Awakening and the First Evangelical Network, 1735–1755

This homespun hymn serves as a reminder that the events of the late 1730s and 1 740s that historians have analyzed separately and severally as the American Great Awakening, the English Evangelical Revival, and the Scottish Cambuslang Wark, were perceived by many participants as parts of a single God-inspired phenomenon. Given the direction of the historiography during the past twenty years, the reminder is both timely and necessary. The religious revivals of the period 1735 to 1750 have attracted the attention of an impressive number of historians, but few have made more than passing reference to their broad appeal. Rather, as the historical literature developed, the focus of inquiry narrowed from national and denominational levels of analysis to detailed studies of the regional and local settings. As a result, historians have gained new insights into the nature, causes, and meaning of the revivals, but our understanding of a revival in one country has remained isolated from our

A Transatlantic Community of Saints: The Great Awakening and the First Evangelical Network, 1735-1755

A Transatlantic Community of Saints: The Great Awakening and the First Evangelical Network, 1735-1755

To Plant the Pleasant Fruit Tree of Freedom: Consciousness, Politics and Commonality in Digger and Early Quaker Thought , and: Quaker Testimony and the Lamb's War , and: The Persecution of the Quakers in England: 1650-1714 (review)

UNPUBLISHED THESES Robert Krehbiel Goertz, "To Plant die Pleasant Fruit Tree of Freedom: Consciousness, Politics and Commonality in Digger and Early Quaker Thought." Ph.D. dissertation. City University of New York, 1977. Pamela Mary Clare Oliver, "Quaker Testimony and the Lamb's War." Ph.D. dissertation. University of Melbourne, Australia, 1977. William Wayne Spurrier, "The Persecution of the Quakers in England: 1650-1714." PhD. dissertation. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1976. The definition of the salient characteristics of early Friends has received more sustained scholarship than any other facet of Quaker history. The three dissertations summarized here show that many additional insights can still be gained by a careful analysis of sources. What makes these works more valuable is that the authors are not trying to justify the practices of any groups of contemporary Friends, but to determine the kinds of information obtainable from different kinds of writings, political pamphlets, theological tracts, and the records of sufferings. Robert Goertz focuses on the political theories of Quakers and the Diggers during the Commonwealth period and finds striking similarities. Both groups did not distinguish among religious, ethical, and political concerns. Both began with a radical conversion experience and their social concerns grew from an attempt to foster and maintain a community based upon a common knowledge of the inward light. Having witnessed the corruption of a seventeenth-century England, Quakers and Diggers wanted a reformulation of institutions including church, law, monarchy, and property which stood in the way of the experience of Christ. Their critiques contained dissections of the evils of existing society and provided guidelines and detailed suggestions for reform of society. Even where the Digger diagnosis was more far-reaching as on property, Goertz discovered Quaker parallels. Quakers and Diggers wanted a rule of the saints resting upon republican and theocratic principles and permitting autonomy and harmony. Both encountered difficulties in combining freedom for the light, individual initiative, opposition to personal and corporate sin, and liberty. Goertz makes a convincing case for the early Quakers' repudiation of basic tenets of liberal political theory (die sacred nature of property, the necessity of conflict, and interest groups) . The main element missing is a discussion of the nature of the church and its relationship to the community. For Goertz a key to early Quaker political theory was individual perfection. Conversion resulted in perfect persons, with their own measure of truth, creating a community of saints living by a rule of love. Pamela Oliver also stresses the importance of the Quaker experience of perfection, but she finds its significance in relation to Friends' distinctive typology and eschatology. Quakers divided history into three eras: the first dispensation was of Moses and the type was the law; the second was Christ from his birth to ascension and the figure was the outward church; the third, presently occurring in seventeenth-century England, was the second coming 123 124Reviews of Christ bringing an imminent end to time. Christ's return, fulfilling the prophecies of the earlier dispensations, was purely spiritual and inward and true religion had to partake of the same spiritual and inward qualities. Discovering Christ within brought to the believer deliverance from sin and liberation from outward or carnal observances like tithes, a hireling ministry, and religious persecution. The earliest Friends experienced an absolute separation of good from evil and felt compelled to witness what the Lord was doing. Conversion was a personal as well as cosmic event, the coming of the Kingdom. Since Friends were closely attuned to history, political and personal events after 1652 shaped changes in their interpretation of the spiritual return of Christ. The difficulties in living in a condition of sinless perfection, the necessity of supervising each other's writings, and Naylor's fall made reality more complex . Still, Quakers instructed Oliver Cromwell, a series of Parliaments, the army, and Charles II on God's requirements using a complex interweaving of direct revelation, scriptural prophecy, and current events. The occurrences of the 1660's—severe persecution, the character of Charles II, indiscriminate suffering in the fire of London and the plague—caused Friends to rethink their premises. The result was an internalization of die Lamb's War, downplaying of...

The Epiphany and the Eucharist: On the Interpretation of Eucharistic Motifs in Mediaeval Epiphany Scenes

The Adoration of the Magi by Hieronymus Bosch in Philadelphia (Fig. 1) is in many respects a remarkable painting.1 The main figures in the scene are shown in a ruined stable, gathered around a heavy, rectangular wooden table whose size and central position suggest a hidden meaning beyond mere genre. The first clue to the significance of the picture is given by the large figures embroidered on the sleeve of the doublet worn by the Moorish king. They depict the Gathering of the Manna, a scene that always appears in mediaeval typology as the Old Testament prototype of the Last Supper or the Eucharist exclusively.2 In the context of an adoration of the Christ Child by the Three Kings, therefore, the manna can only be an allusion to Christ as the true bread from heaven (John 6:32) which has appeared in the world. The Epiphany of the Lord is thus represented here with a eucharistic aspect, and the inclusion of the table, which has the appearance of an altar surrounded by the community of saints gathered to receive the true manna, may likewise be connected with this meaning.