Blood Of Christ Research Articles

Precious Blood: Encountering Inter-Ethnic Issues in Oral History Research, Reconstruction, and Representation1

Shifting Gears: The Changing Meaning of Work in Massachusetts, 1920-1980 was an innovative humanities program that placed six scholars in Massachusetts's Heritage State Parks in Holyoke, Gardner, North Adams, Lawrence, Fall River, and the Blackstone River Valley. The purpose of the project was to research each community's recent history and to examine the impact on people of the changes in an economy shifting from a manufacturing to a service base. The scholars-in-residence were to develop public participatory humanities programs based on their research findings.2 I was selected as the scholar for Holyoke, and as an oral historian

Johannes 6 en die heilige Nagmaal

John 6 and holy Communion. It is often observed that the Gospel of John, in its account of the passion week, does not give attention to the Lord's Supper. John definitely does recount a final, special, climactic supper of Jesus with his disciples (John 13:21 ff). But what he fails to mention is the institution of the bread and cup which relate to the body and blood of Christ. Already in chapter 6 John had presented what clearly seems to be an interpretation of the bread and the cup in connection with the Lord’s Supper. In a long, interpretative discourse Jesus speaks about eating his flesh and drinking his blood. The heart of that interpretative discourse is that the believer is to eat and drink Jesus Himself. This is stated quite crassly in materialistic terms. The metaphor of eating his flesh and drinking his blood is however used by Jesus to explain the mystery of a continuing communion with Him as the crucified and resurrected Lord.

Galileo Heretic (review)

13o JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 28:1 JANUARY 1990 ceived scope of philosophy in the Renaissance, in comparison with the Middle Ages and early modern periods. Most impressive of all, aside from the extremely high quality of all its parts, is this volume's fidelity to its subject and the placement of that subject in an accurate historical context. For that we have to thank each contributor, and, most of all, the vision of Charles Schmitt. In addition to setdng a new standard for a reference work of this type, The CambridgeHistory of ReniassancePhilosophymay well prove to be his most enduring legacy. MARCIA L. COLISn Oberlin College Pietro Redondi. GalileoHeretic. Translated by Raymond Rosenthal. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987. Pp. x + 356. $29.95. The trial of Galileo by the Inquisition in 1633 is a classic episode that invites continual reinterpretation and reevaluation for all sorts of reasons. Karl yon Gebler's Galileoand the Roman Curia (1879) was partly a response to the availability of new documents; Giorgio de Santillana's Crime of Galileo (1955) was partly meant to shed light on the phenomenon of McCarthyism; Arthur Koestler's Sleepwalkers (1959) was partly intended to come to terms with the crisis of secularism; Jerome Langford's Galileo, Science, and the Church (1966) was partly an updating of the apologetic interpretation; Stillman Drake's Galileo(198o) was partly a personal synthesis of his and others' recent contributions to scholarship. Such reappraisals perform a valuable function, and so one welcomes this translation of a 1983 Italian book, for it advances a radically new interpretation. Redondi was motivated by his accidental discovery of a document in the Roman Archiv.es of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith--the current name of the Inquisition. The document is an anonymous complaint about Galileo's Assayer(1623). The complaint is that this book advances an atomic theory of matter, that this theory conflicts with the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist, and that therefore the book is heretical. The specific element of atomism that worries the writer is the distinction between primary and secondary qualities, including the thesis that secondary qualities do not really exist in the object but only in the subject. The doctrine of the Eucharist asserts that the consecration of bread and wine (which occurs during mass) involves the miracle of transubstantiation: the bread and wine retain all their accidental qualities, but their substance changes into the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The conflict is that atomism would make transubstantiation impossible, for all accidental qualities of bread and wine are sensory manifestations of their atoms. Thus, if the qualities do not change, neither do the atoms. But if the atoms do not change, neither does the substance. This complaint is anonymous only in the sense that the document lacks a signature, and there is no other way for us to know the identity of the author. But the complaint is written in the form of a letter to an authoritative churchman, and the author asks the addressee to let him know whether his accusation is correct and what action should be taken about the matter. Thus, it is obvious that the plaintiff was known to the addressee. BOOK REVIEWS 131 Normally such a discovery would lead one to search the archives in question to learn from other documents as much relevant information as possible: not only the identity of the letter's author and addressee, but its date, its repercussions, and so on. But the Roman Archives of the Inquisition are, understandably, not generally open to scholars. Redondi himself had been granted a rare privilege by being allowed to consult some specific manuscripts in connection with his project which, though related, did not involve Galileo's trial as such. Therefore, in the excitement of his discovery, Redondi did the next best thing he could do. He was led to the following. According to Redondi, the complaint's author was Orazio Grassi, a Jesuit with whom Galileo had a bitter dispute about comets, which occasioned The Assayer, among other works. The complaint was written in 1624 or a6~5, at which time no action was taken by the Inquisition, partly...

The Last Supper

“This is My body... This is My blood.” These words from our Lord have caused no shortage of heated discussions and disagreements throughout the history of the Church centered on the questions, “Are these words to be taken literally or figuratively?” and “What does “is” mean?” Roman Catholicism and Orthodox churches hold to a pure literal view, suggesting that the elements, the bread and the wine, are actually changed into the body and blood of Christ when the priest blesses them. This is known as transubstantiation, or the “Real Presence” of Christ. The great Reformer Martin Luther repudiated this teaching, but he could not let go of the “is,” “What does “is” mean?” Luther taught what is known as consubstantiation, meaning “alongside” the elements. Luther believed that the bread and the wine remained bread and wine while also, at the same time, being fully the body and blood of Christ. The Swiss Reformer Ulrich Zwingli, who many today get their understanding of the meaning of the Lord’s Table, suggested that the elements themselves, the bread and the wine, were merely symbols that represented the body and the blood of Christ. Luther strongly disagreed with Zwingli, suggesting that his merely symbolic view failed to account for the word “is.” John Calvin, serving as an intermediary between Luther and Zwingli, suggested that there is a real presence of Christ in the elements, that the Spirit of Christ is with the believer at the Table, serving as a means of God imparting of grace. Calvin said, “We must not dream that his substance passes, in a natural manner, into our souls [that is, by eating and drinking]; but we eat his flesh, when, by means of it, we receive life.” Jesus told His hearers, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink” (John 6:53-55). Concerning Jesus’ words, Phil Newton remarks, “This was no call for cannibalism but by the supernatural work of the Spirit, as we believe in Christ, we receive Him and all of His life on our behalf. So in the Lord’s Supper, we partake by faith, receiving anew the life and death of Christ on our behalf, finding our satisfaction in Him alone as our Savior and Lord.” 1

War and Peace in the Puritan Tradition

Between 1640 and 1660 the English nation experienced a political, social, and religious upheaval which in retrospect can only be called a revolution. So profound was this crisis, epitomized by the public execution of a duly anointed king, that not even the restoration of the Stuart monarchy could reverse the long-term effects of those turbulent decades. Historians long have noted the religious purpose and zeal which moved so many of the king's subjects, egged on by their ministers, to resort to insurrection against their lawful sovereign. For example, Stephen Marshall, parliamentary preacher, spoke to the House of Commons in February 1642 on the impending civil war: “If this work be to avenge God's church against Babylon, he is a blessed man that takes and dashes the little ones against the stone.” In August of the same year William Carter told the Commons that God sometimes commanded brother to fight against brother: “God hath put into your hands, a work of his, the greatest that hath been on foot for God in these islands for many hundred years … God hath called you to the purging of the land of those locusts and caterpillers.” Two years later, the war against the king still unconcluded, Edmund Staunton declared: “There is a fire of civill war kindled in England, still burning in the bowels of it … but two bloods will quench it, the blood of Christ and that of his desperate enemies.” Such statements, while prompted by the revolutionary stirrings of the 1640s, must be set in the larger context of Puritan theories of war and peace. From the 1570s when Puritanism emerged as a distinct party of reform within the Church of England until 1641 when the Long Parliament convened, English Puritans developed a considerable body of literature dealing with the nature, purpose, and limits of warfare. The purpose of this article is to examine in this literature what might be called a Puritan theology, or perhaps better, spirituality of warfare in prerevolutionary England.

Tekstoverlevering van een Middelnederlands ridderdicht

AbstractThe Middle Dutch verse romance Segheliin van Iherusalem has survived in the following known extant copies: a manuscript (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, MS. Germ. fol. 922, fos. 71r.-122v., on the basis of the watermarks dated by the present author c. 1412-15); an incunabulum (Ghent University Library, Res. 1405 (between 1483 and 1486)); five post-incunabula, all printed in Antwerp (1511-40) and now in The Hague (2 copies), Leiden, Vienna and Paris; and a mid fifteenth-century excerpt (Brussels, Royal Library, Hs. II 116, fos. 2v.-5r.). These sources, all rhyming texts, are described here, and the excerpt is given in full. The gap still facing students of the Segheliin has thus been filled. Both manuscript and incunabulum are incomplete at the end. The text in the sixteenth-century editions differs widely from that of the manuscript version. For its part the incunabulum departs from the text of the post-incunabula with a version (perhaps closer to the original?) which in very many places tends towards the manuscript version, being something of a watershed between the two traditions. Preliminary investigation of the linguistic levels in the text, carried out on the basis of changes in the rhyme words, points to a Flemish and probably more specifically west or south-west Flemish base level (possibly the area where Ingvaonic and Brabantish meet (the region of the Dender), above which there is at least a Brabantish level. This fact, combined with the possibility of an interpretation of the Segheliin to some extent in terms of the context of the medieval veneration of the Cross and the Blood of Christ, more than suggests that the story is of Flemish origin.

Topics in Clinical Microbiology

Serratia marcescenshas an interesting and many-faceted history. The presence of the red pigmented organism on starchy food products long had been noted and was thought to be blood; its presence on consecrated wafers was thought to be the blood of Christ. It was not until 1819 that Bizio, a pharmacist, demonstrated that a microorganism was responsible for the red pigment. He named this microorganismSerratia marcescens;Serratiain honor of Serafino Serrati, an Italian physicist who invented the steamboat andmarcescensfrom the Latin, “to decay.”Because of the pigment production and becauseSerratia marcescenswas believed to be a benign, saprophytic organism, it was used widely as a biological marker from 1906 to 1968. This use has been controversial in regard to experiments conducted by the US Army involving biological warfare techniques. In addition, the recognition in the 1950s of the ability of this organism to cause nosocomial infections has curtailed its use as a biological marker.Serratia marcescensis now recognized as a cause of serious infections in man. It has been implicated in practically every kind of infection and is a particularly serious problem with nosocomial infections.

Aanvullingen op: Maerten van Heemskercks Familiegroep te Kassel

AbstractFurther to an earlier article on Maerten van Heemskerck's Portrait of Pieter Jan Foppesz. and his family (PP. 13-22), two points require additioytal comment. From information kindly supplied by Mr Gerhard Fries it appears that, before being purchased under Holbein's name by Wilhelm VIII of Hesse-Kassel, the picture was in the collection of Charles Cressent, the well-known Paris cabinetmaker and sculptor. It was included in the sale announced for January 15th (but postponed to 23rd ) 1749. The author overlooked an article by Hans Ost (note 3), who challenged the current interpretation of the picture as representing a couple with three children and advanced the idea that what was thought to be the youngest child should be seen as the Christ Child. This view, hazardous though it may seem, is plausible and fits in well with an interpretation of the whole scene as even more pervaded by religious symbolism than was hitherto thought. The wine in the man's glass would seem to refer to the blood of Christ, and the idea of Passion and Redemption, already recognized in the symbolic fruits on the table, is manifest in the presence of the Christ Child holding a crucifix. What is known about the birth-dates of the two children (Jan and Cornelia; the latter stated her age to be about 50 in 1578) does not lead to any change in the date of c. 1530 already proposed for the picture.

The Incarnation: An Exchange

You clearly enjoyed writing about The Myth of God Incarnate and I have enjoyed reading your review. I am sure you are right that if we are to get any further with the problems that the book raises, deeper insight into the doctrine of God is called for. But perhaps I should have said if I am to get any further, because you don't seem to think the book does raise any real problems for you; its problems are pseudo-problems, arising out of a fundamental misunderstanding, and in the light of a truer doctrine of God they will all simply melt away. The fact that you offer so quick-acting a panacea tends to make me suspicious and to discourage me from pursuing the road you propose for me. I want to tell you why I feel the problem is not patient of quite as ready a solution as you suggest. Let me begin with the parallel with eucharistie doctrine since you find that a useful one. If I understand you aright, you are convinced that the consecrated elements are the real body and blood of Christ; you are open to different ways of understanding that but can clearly distinguish theories which are saying the same thing in a new way from ones which see the elements as mere representations of Christ's body and blood. I amnot clear how you would understand 'real' here in terms of that 'clear analysis or critique of religious language' that you rightly desiderate. But the main issue between us is that I start from a different point. What I am convinced of is that the elements are spoken of as the body and blood of Christ and that that way of speaking of them conveys something of deep spiritual importance. What I would want to know from you is not only what you mean by the 'real' bit, but also how you know it in advance of any particular understanding. But since this is only a parallel and not the substantive issue, I must move on. For the same sort of thing is true in the case of the incarnation. Your starting-point is the knowledge that 'Jesus was ... a man who was God'. In starting there you are, of course, at one with so much of the best Roman Catholic scholarship and I tried to express my difficulty with taking that as the starting-point in my Remaking of Christian Doctrine pp. 42-3. And the way you develop your argument reinforces my sense of a fundamental dif-

The Middle English Judas: An Interpretation

The Middle English Judas seems to pose more narrative problems than it solves. The sympathetic characterization of Judas; the shift in dramatic focus from Judas to Peter's denial of Christ; the implausible bargain Judas strikes with Pilate—all are perplexing elements. They can be resolved, however, once it is understood that Judas explains a biblical scene not presented in the work itself: the moment when Christ asks the apostles to share bread and wine, his body and blood. The sympathetic portrayal of Judas and the final emphasis on Peter's denial diminish the moral range between the two disciples and imply the universality of human sinfulness. But Judas' transaction, in which Christ is sold for the money to buy food for Passover, gives an even more specific and ironic meaning to the offstage lines “This is my body” since the bread and wine will cost Christ's body and blood.

The two strangers

Therefore remember that at one time you were Gentiles in the flesh, called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands—remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh that law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you are also built into it for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

Calvin and Christ's Presence in the Supper—True or Real

Calvin is one with the other Christian communities in teaching a presence of Christ's body and blood in the Lord's Supper. To arrive at a conclusion other than this is to misread him, to misunderstand and misinterpret him. Certainly, the reformer cannot be numbered among the sacramentarians, as if he had taught that the partaking of Christ's flesh and the drinking of his blood were nothing more than merely believing in Christ. The sacraments are signs, it is true, but they are not merely signs, they are signs of a present reality.

The Christ Child as Sacrifice: A Medieval Tradition and the Corpus Christi Plays

IN one of the most bizarre, yet very common miracles of the Middle Ages, the bread of the Eucharist is transformed between the very hands of the priest at Mass into a small living child, then slain and dismembered before the eyes of the congregation. Commentators identified the child as the Infant Jesus and often cited such miracles as proof that the Mass is an actual re-sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ. But why should He appear as a child rather than the adult who died on Calvary? This question is more than a minor doctrinal quibble, for it widens out immediately into a much larger issue the issue of just what impact the myriad pictorial and verbal images of the Christ Child had, or were expected to have, on a medieval popular audience. Works like the pseudoBonaventura's widely-read Meditationes Vitae Christi emphasize the Child's humanity. They seek to kindle a joyous form of devotion by bringing Him to life as a winsome infant and inviting the reader to a sentimental response. But the miracle of the host become child is based on a harsher parallel tradition. Medieval writings, from early Latin tracts to late English popularizations, persist in conflating the Incarnation and the Passion, in fusing the Babe of Bethlehem and the sacramental Victim of the Mass. Materials from this tradition regularly appear in the English Corpus Christi Cycles, but have been just as regularly ignored by critics.' It would be easy to overemphasize the sacramental motifs in English medieval drama, thus freezing a living art form into the rigidity of a theological treatise. But to bypass these themes entirely, however fleetingly they appear, is to miss subtle overtones which would reach any fifteenth-century viewer at all familiar with vernacular sermons and devotional manuals. The Second Shepherds' Play makes particularly skilled use of the child-host motif. By approaching the play through this tradition, we can more clearly recognize the artistry of the Wakefield Master and more fully appreciate the thematic unity which critics as recent as Eleanor Prosser have denied his work.2 The Vitae Patrum tells of an aged and saintly Egyptian monk who found himself unable to believe that the bread of the Sacrament is indeed the body of Christ. Two of his fellow monks expostulated with him in vain, then prayed for divine revelation and accompanied him to Mass. When the loaves were placed on the altar, it seemed to the three monks that a little Boy lay there. As the priest stretched out his hand to break the bread, an angel of God came down from heaven and stabbed the Child with a knife, catching His blood in a chalice. When

Grundtvigs udfordring til moderne theologi

Grundtvigs udfordring til moderne theologi

Egner on the Eucharistic Presence

The interesting and provocative article entitled ‘Some Thoughts on the Eucharistic Presence’, which appeared in the issues of New Blackfriars for August and September under the name of G. Egner, lead one to anticipate with eagerness the forthcoming book on which it is based. In the mean time I am glad to be allowed to make some comments upon it, and if these are largely critical it is simply because there is not much point in endorsing passages (of which there are many) with which one is in entire or almost entire agreement.I think that a consecrated host is still bread’, Egner writes on p. 354, ‘bread in precisely the way that an unconsecrated host is bread.’ If what is meant is that all the natural properties of bread remain, I fully agree, and I would emphasize that I have just said ‘natural’ and not (using words in their modern sense) ‘physical’ or ‘material’. There has been, from time to time, a lamentable tendency in Christian thought to assume that sacramental realities are concerned simply with the spiritual aspects of man’s being (his ‘soul’) and that his material aspects (his ‘body’) need only natural nutriment. In the Catechism of the Anglican Prayer Book of 1662 there is a most unfortunate statement that, in receiving Holy Communion, the benefits are ‘the strengthening and refreshing of our souls by the Body and Blood of Christ, as our bodies are by the Bread and Wine’, in other words that, while our souls need supernatural nutriment, natural nutriment is sufficient for our bodies.

Bernini's Death

A remarkable picture of Bernini's death emerges from the biographies by Filippo Baldinucci and the artist's son, Domenico. They mention two works of art in this connection. One is Bernini's Sangue di Cristo composition engraved by Francois Spierre, which can be dated to the year 1670 (Fig. 1). The Crucified Christ is shown with the Virgin, God the Father and a host of angels, suspended above a sea formed by the blood pouring from His wounds. Two texts referring to the blood of Christ are inscribed at the bottom of the print, one from Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews, “The blood of Christ, who offered himself without spot to God, will purge our conscience,” the other from St. Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi, “I offer you, eternal Father, the blood of the incarnate word; and if anything is wanting in me I offer it to you, Mary, that you may present it to the eternal Trinity.” The second work is a bust of the Savior, the last sculpture by Bernini's hand. He began it in his eightieth year, in 1679, and willed it to hi...

Bernini's Death

A remarkable picture of Bernini's death emerges from the biographies by Filippo Baldinucci and the artist's son, Domenico. They mention two works of art in this connection. One is Bernini's Sangue di Cristo composition engraved by Francois Spierre, which can be dated to the year 1670 (Fig. 1). The Crucified Christ is shown with the Virgin, God the Father and a host of angels, suspended above a sea formed by the blood pouring from His wounds. Two texts referring to the blood of Christ are inscribed at the bottom of the print, one from Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews, “The blood of Christ, who offered himself without spot to God, will purge our conscience,” the other from St. Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi, “I offer you, eternal Father, the blood of the incarnate word; and if anything is wanting in me I offer it to you, Mary, that you may present it to the eternal Trinity.” The second work is a bust of the Savior, the last sculpture by Bernini's hand. He began it in his eightieth year, in 1679, and willed it to his friend and patron, Queen Christina of Sweden (cf. Figs. 9–14). It was more than life-size (103cm high) and represented Christ with His right hand slightly raised, as if in the act of blessing. Bernini evidently attached particular importance to “this divine simulacrum,” which he called his “favorite” and to which he devoted “all the forces of his Christian piety and of art itself”; in the Savior he “summed up and concentrated all his art.” Although technically weak, it demonstrated for him the triumph of “disegno” over the physical depredations of old age. Both works were regarded by contemporaries as extraordinary achievements, even for Bernini, and fitting capstones to the artist's extraordinary career.

Bernini's Death

A remarkable picture of Bernini's death emerges from the biographies by Filippo Baldinucci and the artist's son, Domenico. They mention two works of art in this connection. One is Bernini's Sangue di Cristo composition engraved by Francois Spierre, which can be dated to the year 1670 (Fig. 1). The Crucified Christ is shown with the Virgin, God the Father and a host of angels, suspended above a sea formed by the blood pouring from His wounds. Two texts referring to the blood of Christ are inscribed at the bottom of the print, one from Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews, “The blood of Christ, who offered himself without spot to God, will purge our conscience,” the other from St. Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi, “I offer you, eternal Father, the blood of the incarnate word; and if anything is wanting in me I offer it to you, Mary, that you may present it to the eternal Trinity.” The second work is a bust of the Savior, the last sculpture by Bernini's hand. He began it in his eightieth year, in 1679, and willed it to his friend and patron, Queen Christina of Sweden (cf. Figs. 9–14). It was more than life-size (103cm high) and represented Christ with His right hand slightly raised, as if in the act of blessing. Bernini evidently attached particular importance to “this divine simulacrum,” which he called his “favorite” and to which he devoted “all the forces of his Christian piety and of art itself”; in the Savior he “summed up and concentrated all his art.” Although technically weak, it demonstrated for him the triumph of “disegno” over the physical depredations of old age. Both works were regarded by contemporaries as extraordinary achievements, even for Bernini, and fitting capstones to the artist's extraordinary career.

The Origin of the Penitente "Death Cart"

have various names, among them Los Hermanos de la Sangre de Cristo (Brothers of the Blood of Christ) and Los Hermanos de la Luz (Brothers of Light). The history of these brotherhoods is unclear. In general, however, it is believed that they are offshoots of the Third Order of Saint Francis, a lay organization which was introduced into New Mexico by the Franciscans in the sixteenth century.' Among their activities, members of the Order practiced self-flagellation on Good Friday. This, a common practice in Europe during the Middle Ages, was still popular in Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and was introduced into New Mexico during that period. However, because of the isolation of this area, flagellation was still practiced by laymen and clergy alike up to and during the early nineteenth century. After Mexico's independence from Spain in 1821, the New Mexican clergy, who had never been very numerous, began to return to Spain. And by the middle of the century, the last of the Spanish clergy had left. With the departure of the clergy, penitential practices among the brotherhoods in northern New Mexico became exaggerated, rather than dying out as generally happened in the rest of the world.

SIMBOLO, MIRACOLO, TENTAZIONE. IL CIBO NELLA LETTERATURA AGIOGRAFICA MEDIEVALE PRIMA E DOPO IL SECOLO XII

The Christian religion is characterized by an ambivalent relationship with food. On the one hand, the liturgy is centered on the bread and wine, body and blood of Christ; on the other, the body, that you are forced to feed, has often been seen as an intolerable burden on the path of salvation. Despite this ambivalence, in the hagiographic literature of the early Middle Ages seems to be predominantly a negative conception of food, the trámite of every vice, to which man can not give up, while the twelfth century dominates a new idea of the body and, consequently, a different consideration of food and nutrition. Some hagiographic exempla regarding the primary foods, including bread, wine and milk, illustrate this evolution.