Miracle Stories Research Articles

Lazarus and the Dogs: The Diagnosis and Treatment

This study explores the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, elucidating the details of Lazarus' worldly suffering – what it is that ails him, and whether the dogs are friends or fiends. Fresh evidence from the classical world is brought to bear, including medical texts, miracle stories and philosophical treatises, in addition to overlooked Jewish and Christian testimony. The results establish the plausibility of maladies unrelated to diseases or skin conditions, and reveal the dogs to be positive characters that highlight Lazarus' penury and the rich man's depravity. New avenues into several broader interpretive issues of the parable are explored.

Blood from the Sky: Miracles and Politics in the Early American Republic by Adam Jortner

Reviewed by: Blood from the Sky: Miracles and Politics in the Early American Republic by Adam Jortner Lily Santoro (bio) Blood from the Sky: Miracles and Politics in the Early American Republic. By Adam Jortner. (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2017. Pp. 264. $45.00 cloth; $45.00 ebook) In the January 1830 Palmyra (N.Y.) Reflector, Obadiah Dogberry assured readers that "we cannot discover anything treasonable" in the forthcoming Book of Mormon. To those familiar with the political and military challenges faced by Mormons in the 1830s, that readers would search for "treasonable" details seems likely. However, this [End Page 257] episode pre-dates the first publication of the Book of Mormon, and points to one of the central issues at the heart of Adam Jortner's Blood from the Sky: Miracles and Politics in the Early American Republic. Even as religious pluralism expanded in the era of disestablishment and democratization, "the immediate reaction to new religious revelation [or miracles] was the expectation of trouble" (p. 141). Focusing on the period between 1775 and 1838, this book unpacks the political and religious discourse regarding miracles, magic, and the supernatural in the early American republic, which, by the 1830s, seemed to conflate the miraculous with the treasonous. Highlighting a disparate group of religious movements that faced rabid opposition in the early United States, Jortner argues that miracles and the supernatural continued to hold (and pose a threat to) authority in American culture much later than most scholars have acknowledged. As described in part one, discussions of miracles, magic, and the supernatural were ubiquitous in early-national popular culture. For those purporting to have seen or performed them, miracles could serve as evidence of religious claims. Thus, miracles proved the religious truths taught by leaders as disparate as Ann Lee and Tenskwatawa. On the other hand, the threat of fraudulent miracles appeared to threaten the stability of the republic itself. Building on the work of historians such as David Hall and Jon Butler, the first third of the book makes the case for the continued prevalence of the miraculous in the early republic—in print, in practice, and in the public imagination. Yet, this was accompanied by a growing republican discourse that identified stories of miracles as dangerous because "they took advantage of the ignorant, they poisoned the morals, and they doused the fires of natural government" (p. 87). While this work also offers an interesting contribution to the growing scholarship on religious doubt, liberty, and politics in early America, Jortner joins authors such as David Holland in challenging historians of American religion to take belief more seriously. Instead of explaining why people followed certain groups, Jortner reframed the question to what those beliefs meant. Rather than looking at whether [End Page 258] miracles really occurred (or why people were fooled into believing in them), Jortner invites readers to consider what the belief in such a miracle (or lack thereof) can tell us about the politics of religion in the young nation. Sometimes Jortner's expanded discussion of the supernatural appears to lend a bit too much credence. Relying heavily upon print culture to demonstrate the persistence of supernatural practice, Jortner occasionally implies a greater influence for peddlers of magic and the miraculous than seems justified. Yet, in part two, this framework allows him to unpack some commonalities between some very unconnected movements and puts the rhetoric of early U.S. religion and politics in a new light. With chapters devoted to the Shakers, Native American prophets, Mormons, and smaller sects, Jortner demonstrates exactly how threatening miracles could be to the new political order, and vice versa. Telling the story of religious outliers from a new perspective, Jortner's narrative is engaging and his argument is very compelling. By taking his subjects' beliefs seriously, he is able to untangle a complicated discourse that helps explain why such disparate religious groups faced such similar suspicion and animosity. Lily Santoro LILY SANTORO teaches American history at Southeast Missouri State University. Her current research looks at religion, science, and citizenship in the early American republic. Copyright © 2018 Kentucky Historical Society

A Century of Miracles: Christians, Pagans, Jews, and the Supernatural, 312–410

BOOKREVIEWS 251 Tempest’s bookcan be readas ahistoryof the complicatedevents it narrates; it also offers a beautifully written, engagingly adventurous style of narrative that makes for compelling reading even by those who know the events so well (perhaps too well). Throughout, the author offers a remarkably fresh treatment of both sources and moments in history that continue to haunt those with even casual interest in res Romanae. By the end, if the Brutus that emerges from these pages is no more fully realized than he was before this book, at least the ancient appraisal has been revisited and redrawn in sharper relief. And with a figure as complex andeven polarizing as Brutus,that is nosmall achievement. LEE FRATANTUONO OhioWesleyan University,lmfratan@owu.edu * * * * * A Century of Miracles: Christians, Pagans, Jews, and the Supernatural, 312–410. By H. A. DRAKE. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. Pp. xvi + 312. Hardback, $35.00.ISBN: 978-0-19-936741-2. The 4th century remains integral for understanding early Christianity’s social, epistemological and political development. Scholars traditionally credit this century with the beginnings of Christian “historiography,” monasticism and its associated hagiography, a politically powerful bishopric, Christian “hospitals,” Christian monumental architecture, the Christian biblical canon and even Christianity qua religious identity vis-à-vis Judaism (see Daniel Boyarin, Border Lines, 2004). At the same time, this century contained what Ed Watts called The Final Pagan Generation (2015), within which classical culture flourished in figures like the sophist Libanius,the soldier-historian Ammianus Marcellinus and the Emperor Julian. Drake’s work operates at the confluence of these worlds, narrating fourth-century Christianity as being “at its most basic level, a story of a change in the meaning of what it meant to be a Roman” (3). As scholars of the 252 BOOKREVIEWS period have come to expect, Drake’s treatment is a humorous, learned and delightful romp that provides for long-embattled questions within the field answers that are intelligible,coherent andenjoyable toengage. The novelty of Drake’s approach is immediately evident in its structure. He begins with a chapter on the battlefield miracle Ambrose imputed to Theodosius I in his funeral oration for him in 395. He then goes back to the “beginning,” Constantine’s famous battlefield conversion, and proceeds to follow the century through to its end, where he began. The logic of both legends—“military victory proves that the Christian God is God”—embodies this 4th century, in which Christians appropriated this Roman maxim of “might proves right.” The question Drake’s book poses is the following: how was Christianity able, given this outlook, to “survive” ideologically the barbarian sack of Rome in 410? Such an event should have shown the Christian God not to be almighty after all. But it didnot,and Christianity’s overcoming of this contradiction constitutes for Drake “the great unansweredquestion of the age” (2). Drake begins his answer with a framing chapter. His insight here is that the 4th century has been reoriented by 20th -century Cold War thinking, which insisted upon black and white, good and evil dichotomies. This modern mode of thought “defined out of existence a period when religious identity was much more fluid than it became” (22). Thus, when Drake begins his analysis with Ambrose’s 395 funeral oration (Chapter 2), he aims to examine what changed in the century preceding it. It turns out that Ambrose embodies a shift in which Christian bishops (and emperors) had come to view/use religion in ways “grounded in ancient thought” (46) by portraying deity as attendant upon pious rulers. The “miracles” Drake signals in his title are thus the miracles interpreted by Christianly in the upper echelons of the Christian body politic. Subsequent chapters deal with what are arguably the major permutations of this phenomenon through the 4th century: Constantine’s obscure vision at the Milvian Bridge (Chapter 3),the narration of miracles byLactantius andEusebius (Chapter 4), the legend of the finding of the true cross in the Holy Land (Chapter 5), “Jewish” miracle stories found in authors like Epiphanius (Chapter 6), miracles in a monastic context, e.g. the Life of Antony (Chapter 7), the use of miracles in discourse by and about the Emperor...

China's Great Migration: How the Poor Built a Prosperous Nation by Bradley Gardner

Reviewed by: China's Great Migration: How the Poor Built a Prosperous Nation by Bradley Gardner C. Cindy Fan (bio) Bradley Gardner. China's Great Migration: How the Poor Built a Prosperous Nation. Oakland, CA: Independent Institute, 2017. xii, 219 pp. Hardcover $27.95, isbn 978-1-598-13222-9. This book champions migrants, especially migrants in China. While Gardner's statement that "The value of an open labor market is one of the truisms of economics" (p. 165) is not exactly provocative, his notion that "China has embraced an idiosyncratic pro-migrant development policy" (p. 8) may surprise many, given a mainstream understanding, especially in the West, that China uses the draconian hukou policy to restrict migration. Moreover, his goal to show how China's experiences can help "policymakers elsewhere to consider solutions to some of the problems associated with large-scale migration and capture the substantial economic benefits" might be met with more than a few jaws dropped. What can the rest of the world possibly learn from China, when it is widely assumed that migrants there live in plight, like those in Foxconn factories who committed suicide? Refuting myths and challenging assumptions happen to be Gardner's strong suit. In the Introduction of the book, he tells us that China's success in lifting its population out of poverty is due to the "Great Migration." By his account, between 1978 and 2012, more than 260 million economic migrants moved from China's countryside to its cities, surpassing the total number of international migrants worldwide. Drawing from the growth accounting literature, which he admits is marked by considerable disagreements, he reports that rural–urban migration alone added US$1.1 billion to the Chinese economy over the twenty years between 1990 and 2010. The eight chapters that follow elaborate the case why migration should be embraced as a tool of development policy not only in China but in other parts of the world as well. Chapter 1, titled "Leaving the Countryside," is about how the Great Migration started. It details the early years of the Chinese Communist regime, focusing on land reforms, and the subsequent transition from an agricultural economy to an industrial economy, which also lowered barriers to migration. Gardner's narrative about historical changes is straightforward yet lively, filled with real-life stories. His explanation of hukou is among the best in the literature, due to its simplicity and its emphasis on what hukou means to real people. How the Chinese government adapted to the Great Migration is the subject of chapter 2, "Coming to the City." Here, Gardner highlights major changes that accelerated China's urban development, including the collapse of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), the 1994 fiscal reform, and increased liberalization of the labor market. He also shows convincingly the connections among conditions that explain the labor-heavy path of development, that is, China is capital poor, its intellectual property regulations are weak, but it [End Page 261] has plenty of flexible labor that could be mobilized to scale up production quickly. One of the two chapters on a specific city, chapter 3, is about the miracle story of how Wenzhou transformed itself from one of the poorest cities in China to where privatization first began and where millionaires were bred. The chapter tells an interesting story of how the Wenzhou people found a way out of poverty via informal-sector entrepreneurship in niches with low barriers to entry, high-volume demand, and extremely low margins. While Gardner attributes Wenzhou's success to migrants from the countryside and gives credit to diaspora and the local government's hands-off attitude, he also warns that Wenzhou needs to reinvent itself in order to remain successful. Chapter 4, titled "The Returns on the Great Migration," is concerned with the question "To what degree has the Great Migration been responsible for China's growth" (p. 70). Gardner estimates that by improving agricultural productivity and labor reallocation, migration has contributed 33 percent to China's gross domestic product growth. In addition, migration has advanced urbanization and labor market reforms, contributing to growth in industrial productivity, human capital, and capital investment. However, he also cautions that as China's...

Working Miracles: Seeing Active Supplicants in Marian Miracle Stories

This article expands on recent scholarship which treats miracle stories as not just facile devotional tales but complicated texts worthy of analysis. Specifically, it builds on the claims of schola...

『금석물어집』 소재 영험설화의 주제구현 : 외모 차별 모티브를 중심으로

『금석물어집』 소재 영험설화의 주제구현 : 외모 차별 모티브를 중심으로

Lipa Comes to Necedah

In the late summer and fall of 1950, Juliet Hughes, a self-appointed promoter of a Marian apparition at Lipa in the Philippines, joined the crowds assembling for apparitions of the Virgin in Necedah, Wisconsin. The story of Hughes’ visits to Necedah—including a miraculous rose petal she brought from Lipa as well as her meetings with visionary Mary Ann Van Hoof and a number of Necedah pilgrims—highlights the importance of person-to-person encounters at an active apparition site. Indeed, the events described here suggest that when miraculous objects and miracle stories are shared among various sites, these encounters can trigger powerful experiences of signs that enable devotees to perceive these apparitions as testifying to the same transcendent reality. These experiences function as building blocks for a global apparition network.

The Bible, religious storytelling, and revolution: The case of Solentiname, Nicaragua

Building on the storytelling, political storytelling, and religious storytelling literatures, I examined the role religious stories play in the formation of revolutionary convictions. This study’s primary sources of data are volumes I, II, and III of The Gospel in Solentiname, a historical record of religious discussions that took place in an isolated campesino community at a seminary-like setting under a growing national revolutionary scenario in 1970s Nicaragua. My analysis of these discussions reveals that religious discourse based on stories of prophecy, Christian virtue, miracles, and social challenges to revolutionary action allowed story-users to assert, explore, and promote models of action and moral orientation consistent with the making of revolution.

이적설화의 역사성과 기능에 관한 소고 : 마가복음을 중심으로

이적설화의 역사성과 기능에 관한 소고 : 마가복음을 중심으로

«Мера за меру» У. Шекспира и мистерии: сюжет о воскрешении Лазаря

<p>В настоящей статье предпринимается попытка проанализировать традицию средневековой мистерии в «проблемной» пьесе «Мера за меру». Несмотря на использование Шекспиром итальянского источника, новеллы Джиральди Чинтио «История Эпитии» из сборника «Гекатомити», пьеса не превращается в полной мере в неоклассическую комедию в итальянском духе. Важность таких противопоставленных тем, как неправедный мирской суд и высшая справедливость Божьего суда, закон и милосердие, связывают шекспировский текст с проблематикой средневекового религиозного театра, а через нее — с евангельской традицией.</p><p>Пьесы, посвященные воскрешению Лазаря, имеются в сохранившихся текстах Йоркского, Честерского и Таунлийского циклов, а также в цикле пьес «города N». Хотя их композиционное расположение различно в разных циклах, значимость драмы о величайшем чуде Христа для жанра мистерии неоспорима.</p><p>Монолог Клаудио о смерти восходит к средневековой апокрифической традиции Visio Lazari, повлиявшей также на тексты мистерий, — рассказа воскресшего Лазаря о загробных муках. В то же время загадочное молчание закутанного в плащ Клаудио в финале пьесы может быть связано уже напрямую с текстом Евангелия от Иоанна, где воскресший Лазарь предстает перед скорбящими родными с лицом, обвязанным платком, и воспринято как воплощение тайны смерти.</p><p>Поведение Изабеллы и Марианы в заключительном акте даже внешне напоминает о Марии и Марфе, преклонивших колени перед Христом. Однако на этот раз они молят пощадить Анджело, и дарованное ему помилование позволяет говорить о хотя бы потенциальной возможности его раскаяния и духовного воскрешения. Наиболее сложной для интерпретации оказывается фигура Герцога: хотя его роль в сюжете может быть сопоставлена с ролью Христа в мистерии, он становится лишь отчасти богоподобной фигурой, но не Богом, а его слишком человеческие слабости и промахи позволяют пьесе сохранять баланс между аллегоричностью и психологизмом.</p>

(Re-)Framing Bede‘s Historia ecclesiastica in Twelfth-Century Germany: John Rylands Library, MS Latin 182

This article offers the first comprehensive study of Manchester, John Rylands Library, MS Latin 182, a twelfth-century codex formerly belonging to (and possibly produced at) the Benedictine Abbey of (Mönchen-)Gladbach in Germany. I begin with a full codicological and palaeographical analysis of the entire manuscript, before moving on to a discussion of its contents. These include the Venerable Bede‘s Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum and the Continuatio Bedae, as well as two hagiographical works copied at the end of the manuscript. I then propose a new possible context of reception for Bede‘s Historia ecclesiastica during the twelfth century, one that interlinked with the prevalent discourses on secular ecclesiastical lordship and monastic reform at Gladbach, as well as, perhaps, in Germany more widely. In doing so, I essentially argue for the possibility that the Gladbach scribes and their audiences may have used and understood the Historia ecclesiastica not only in the conventional context of history and historiography, but also (and perhaps equally important) as an example of the golden age of monasticism which during the later twelfth century was re-framed and re-contextualised as both a spiritual guide and a source of miracle stories.

Editor's Note

Editor's Note Bruce R. Burningham The Spring 2017 issue of Cervantes brings a couple of significant changes to the journal's staff. First, after many years on our editorial board as one of our esteemed Associate Editors, George Shipley has retired from this position. Second, William Clamurro has also stepped down as our Book Review Editor following his recent retirement as a faculty member at Emporia State University. I would like to thank both George and Bill for their many years of conscientious service to the journal, to the Cervantes Society of America, and to the profession. With regard to our book reviews, I would like to extend a warm welcome to Ana Laguna, who has agreed to serve as the journal's new Book Review Editor. Congratulations, Ana! I look forward to working with you. We begin this Spring issue with an article by Aurora Hermida-Ruiz on Professor James March's pioneering use of "Don Quixote" in the pedagogy of economics, business management, and leadership training. Hermida-Ruiz's essay is followed by two articles that focus on the Novelas ejemplares. Amy Sheeran explores issues related to the significance of blood in "La fuerza de la sangre" in order to productively read this novela's primary genres—the miracle story and the romance—against each other. Sarah Gretter, for her part, examines "El celoso extremeño" within the context of Jerome Bruner's work in cognitive psychology and argues that this particlular novela ejemplar can be read as a paradigm of constructivism. Following these two essays on the Novelas ejemplares, we return to several more articles that focus on Don Quixote. Conxita Domènech examines the "Roque Guinart" episode in part two of the novel and its connection to the Moriscos of Cataluña. William Daniel Holcombe [End Page 7] explores Salvador Dalí's artistic representation of Don Quixote in a mid-twentieth-century US edition of Cervantes's masterpiece. Gabriele Eckart, meanwhile, analyzes the Japanese and German cultural contexts that underpin Yoko Tawada's 2000 play Sancho Pansa. And finally, Stephen Hessel provides a Cervantine reading of the US television program Homeland, exploring the extent to which Cervantes's experience as a captive in the bagnos of Algiers possibly colored his views on Islam and its relationship to the early modern Spanish state. Following this second cluster of Quixote-related articles, we are pleased to publish the script of Edward H. Friedman's solo-performer play Desocupado lector, which premiered in Nashville, Tennessee on 29 September 2014. As always, we end with several book reviews. For the Spring 2017 issue, these consist of a review article by James Iffland on Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda's unauthorized sequel, Segundo tomo del ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, and four other traditional book reviews: Tatiana Alvarado Teodorika on Ruth Fine's Reescrituras bíblicas cervantinas, Miguel Martínez on Isabel Lozano-Renieblas's Cervantes y los retos del Persiles, Brian Phillips on Valentín Núñez Rivera's Cervantes y los géneros de la ficción, and William Clamurro on Michael Harney's new English translation of the Novelas ejemplares. Finally, many thanks to our anonymous peer reviewers, to my Editorial Assistant, John Beusterien, and to our various Associate Editors for all their hard work and support. And a special thanks to Cristina González Martín. [End Page 8] Copyright © 2017 Cervantes Society of America

The Silk Industries of Medieval Paris: Artisanal Migration, Technological Innovation, and Gendered Experience by Sharon Farmer

Reviewed by: The Silk Industries of Medieval Paris: Artisanal Migration, Technological Innovation, and Gendered Experience by Sharon Farmer Cristina Politano Sharon Farmer, The Silk Industries of Medieval Paris: Artisanal Migration, Technological Innovation, and Gendered Experience (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 2017) ix + 354 pp. The goal of this study is to establish that Paris really did have a silk cloth industry in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and that this industry played an important role in the local economy, particularly as a source of employment for women. The study also traces the long-distance immigration of skilled silk artisans from the Mediterranean basin to Northern France, and the attendant travel of luxury silk technology from ancient centers of silk production to Northern and Western Europe. As a result, it contributes to the growing body of academic discourse on issues of migration, cultural difference, and gender in the High and Late French Middle Ages, particularly as these issues dialogue with myths of national identity that continue to engage French society today. The study is grounded in a variety of sources, including hard prosopographical data collected from Parisian guild statutes generated between 1266 and 1365, seven Parisian tax assessments generated between 1292 and 1313, and household accounts and inventories from the courts of England, France, Artois, Savoy, Flanders, Hainaut, Sweden, Navarre, and Rome. Farmer supplements this data with narrative evidence from fragmentary civil and criminal court records of late fourteenth-century Paris, and also with miracle stories from the late thirteenth century, which offer windows into daily lives of immigrants, Parisian Jews, apprentices, and working women. Farmer has demonstrated great skill in deciphering both types of sources: in Surviving Poverty in Medieval Paris: Gender, Ideology, and the Daily Lives of the Poor (2002) she dexterously handled prosopographical data to uncover the lived realities of the urban poor; in Communities of Saint Martin: Legend and Ritual in Medieval Tours (1991) she demonstrated her ease with contextualizing [End Page 208] legendary hagiographical material. The originality of the present study resides in a measured reading of both types of sources, which blend to create a vivid picture of the major actors and centers in the medieval Parisian silk trade. In Chapter 1, Farmer establishes the historical context of the thirteenth-century advent of skilled luxury silk production in Paris by examining French ties to the Mediterranean through dynastic marriages and through the attraction of foreign scholars to the University of Paris. Turning to the Parisian tax assessments of 1292–1313, she demonstrates that Paris was not only a center of administration, scholarship, and aristocratic consumption, but also a haven of artisanal production. A strategic reading of surnames and other indicators of geographic origin listed in these sources reveals at least 200 non-elite heads of household of foreign origin, including 130 Northern Italians, 30 Iberians, 10 Cypriots, 19 people from Acre, and a handful of people from Islamic lands. Farmer indicates the limitations of her sources: tax assessments list heads of household without indicating the number of members; nobles and ecclesiasts were exempt from taxation; about 60% of the population was too poor to pay taxes; fewer than half of all taxpayers bore surnames or other indicators of their geographical origins, and thus their status as immigrants could not be assessed. With these limitations in mind, Farmer proceeds with her demographic analysis of these artisans, assessing the tissue of connections that moved them from the Mediterranean to Northern France. She also paints their varying degrees of assimilation once they arrived there, arguing that many shed their identities as foreigners and began to live as French. Chapter 2 proceeds with an examination of the production processes within the silk textile industry, tracing the evolution of silk from its origins as raw fiber in silkworm cocoons on the shores of the Caspian Sea, in China, in Greece, or in Southern Italy, through the intermediary processes of throwing, degumming, spinning, and dying, to the sale of the finished product in Paris. This chapter is instrumental in tracing trade networks linking Paris to the Mediterranean world, and to Central Asia and Asia. Similarly, Chapter 3 turns to guild statutes to trace immigrant networks, arguing that a subset of Parisian...

Rivers of Risk and Redemption in Gregory of Tours’ Writings

Rivers of Risk and Redemption in Gregory of Tours’ Writings

William of Malmesbury: The Miracles of the Blessed Virgin Mary trans. and ed. by R. M. Thomson and M. Winterbottom

William of Malmesbury: The Miracles of Blessed Virgin Mary. Edited and translated by R. M. Thomson and M. Winterbottom. [Boydell Medieval Texts.] (Rochester, NY: The Press, imprint of & Brewer. 2015. Pp. lxvii, 154. $115.00. ISBN 978-1-78327-016-3.)In 1120s and 1130s, English Benedictine monks produced an influential and remarkable set of collections of miracles of Virgin Mary. Unlike earlier Marian miracle collections produced on Continent and more usual type of miracle collection being compiled at English shrines in period, stories in these English Marian collections were cosmopolitan, ranging widely in time and place, with stories of Virgin's miracles in Italy, Spain, and eastern Mediterranean as well as in northern Europe. William of Malmesbury's lengthy text of some fifty-three chapters holds an important place within this flowering of Marian collections: it represents, as editors of this text put it, the culmination of this first creative impulse, before its spread to Continent and incorporation in much larger collections, from late twelfth century onward (p. xviii).William's collection has been edited twice before, once in 1959 in an unpublished Ph.D. thesis and again in 1968. This edition, including a facing-page translation, is first title in Boydell Medieval Texts series. It was undertaken by two scholars, Rodney Thomson and Michael Winterbottom, who have edited and translated nearly all of William of Malmesbury's other works. Their combined efforts have given William's Marian collection edition it deserves, and will make this important text far more widely available and accessible.Much of edition's introduction is taken up by a discussion of how editors decided to order chapters of collection, necessary because there are only two manuscripts that preserve William's text, and both have problems. The first manuscript is a preliminary version of collection which appears to include a pending file of stories that William planned to integrate into a text at a later date. The second manuscript, though it is clearly William's later, revised version of text, is missing quires and badly fragmented. In addition to their painstaking comparative analysis of these two manuscripts, editors draw on a number of other manuscripts that contain selections and abbreviations of William's stories to aid them in their reconstruction of text as a whole. …

The Theological Intentions of Mark's Literary Devices: Markan Intercalations, Frames, Allusionary Repetitions, Narrative Surprises, and Three Types of Mirroring by Dean B. Deppe

Reviewed by: The Theological Intentions of Mark's Literary Devices: Markan Intercalations, Frames, Allusionary Repetitions, Narrative Surprises, and Three Types of Mirroring by Dean B. Deppe Adam Z. Wright dean b. deppe, The Theological Intentions of Mark's Literary Devices: Markan Intercalations, Frames, Allusionary Repetitions, Narrative Surprises, and Three Types of Mirroring ( Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2015). Pp. xvi + 567. Paper $64. As the title suggests, this book is an attempt to elucidate various literary devices found in Mark's Gospel. The book is neatly divided into nine chapters that each cover a different device: two-level interpretations of Mark's Gospel, intercalations, Marcan framework, allusionary repetition, narrative surprises, temporal mirroring, geographical mirroring, ritual mirroring, and symbolic use of miracle stories. Each chapter is forty to fifty pages in length and is divided into subsections that are easy to follow. Deppe opens his first chapter with a discussion about the difficulties surrounding the interpretation of Mark's Gospel, especially what he calls the Marcan "irregularities" (p. 9), that will underlie the methodology of the book. D. posits that these irregularities can be explained when one considers how symbolism works in Mark's Gospel and that such symbolism can be explained only when one considers the literary devices outlined above. Such symbolism also allows Mark to communicate on what D. calls two layers: the historical layer and the Jesus-tradition layer––the former affirming the historicity of the Gospel and the latter reflecting the ideological positioning of the Marcan community (p. 16). With regard to the Marcan community, D. argues that Mark's content largely reflects the struggles of the earliest church, and he details four major struggles: the resistance of Jewish communities to belief in a crucified Messiah; enduring suffering as discipleship; the acceptance of gentiles into the church; and differences of interpretation between Jewish and gentile Christians with regard to ceremonial regulations (pp. 26-28). Each of these struggles addresses the ways in which the earliest Christians ought to respond to Jewish Scripture and ceremony in the light of their new beliefs. Mark's symbolism also places his Gospel into a category similar to that of John's Gospel, which aims to explain a more "profound symbolic plane" (p. 19). The parables in both Gospels are allegorical in nature, which allows the crowds (and reader) to ponder the things Jesus says both literally and symbolically, something that extends into themes such as blindness, bread, fig trees, and the temple. This establishes a two-level reading of Mark and John that can be interpreted only when one considers how the narrative devices operate. This book offers an interesting examination of various literary devices present in Mark's Gospel. I appreciate D.'s desire to explain a number of the apparent anomalies in this Gospel that have confused Marcan scholars for a long time. In particular, I enjoyed the ways that D. promotes a two-level reading that can elucidate the struggle of early Jewish Christians to establish their beliefs in light of their long-standing relationship with Judaism. This is clearly portrayed in D.'s discussion of Jewish purity laws and Jesus' attitude and actions in regard to them. In addition, this method makes clear the struggles of establishing and promoting Christian beliefs in a time when the temple institution was under duress, especially after the temple was destroyed in 70 c.e. Despite the book's many positive aspects, there are some potential issues with D.'s method. He claims that his method does not undermine the historical authenticity of the Gospel (p. 17), but one cannot be sure at which point history ends and Marcan redaction begins. This creates a problem for his two-level interpretation. Although D.'s exegesis is [End Page 520] quite convincing in places, the issue of Marcan redaction may create problems for those readers who accept the Gospels as a historical account of Jesus' life and ministry. In addition, I find D.'s explanation of certain aspects of Marcan elements lacking. For example, he outlines the challenges that a suffering Messiah posed to a Jewish community (p. 28). I expected a much larger discussion of the Son of Man sayings that relate to...

Healing in the Gospel of Matthew: Reflections on Method and Ministry by Walter T. Wilson

Reviewed by: Healing in the Gospel of Matthew: Reflections on Method and Ministry by Walter T. Wilson Kay Higuera Smith walter t. wilson, Healing in the Gospel of Matthew: Reflections on Method and Ministry (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014). Pp. 240. $39. In Healing in the Gospel of Matthew: Reflections on Method and Ministry, Walter T. Wilson presents a practical theology of healing and disability with a strongly christological focus. He summarizes the Gospel of Matthew, chaps. 8–9, as a carefully narrated florilegium of miracle stories written for the purpose of laying out the “cosmic drama” of Jesus’ eschatological announcement of the reign of God (p. 112). He foregrounds a christological component in each of these narratives and also reads these stories as dramatizations of a variety of ways to be human in the world, all with particular limitations, which Jesus overcomes. Wilson employs several methodologies and critical approaches in his analysis. He utilizes form, source, narrative, and redaction criticism read through a classic, historical hermeneutical lens. He interweaves into those approaches the hermeneutical perspectives of feminist, reader-response, disability, and even medical anthropology disciplines as well. The book consists of fourteen chapters. In chap. 1, W. lays out his methodologies. He expresses his debt to earlier redaction critics in presenting Jesus as Messiah “in words and deeds” (p. 16, 294; e.g., Heinz Joachim Held, “Matthew as Interpreter of the Miracle Stories,” in Tradition and Interpretation in Matthew [ed. Günther Borkamm, Gerhard Barth, and Heinz Joachim Held; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963] 251–52). He also cites Saul M. Olyan’s “limits model” of disability studies (Olyan, Disability in the Hebrew Bible: Interpreting [End Page 723] Mental and Physical Differences [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008] 2), in which ability and disability are reconceived not as binaries but as points on a spectrum (p. 25). In chaps. 2–8, W. exegetes two literary triads that he finds in Matt 8:1–9:8. The first of the three triads of miracle stories includes the healing of the man with a scaly skin condition, the centurion’s boy, and Peter’s mother-in-law (Matt 8:1–16). He notes here that in each case a person on Israel’s social boundaries (a leper, someone associated with a gentile, and a woman) is restored in some way. The second triad consists of the rescue at sea, the exorcism in Gadara, and the healing of the paralyzed man in Capernaum (8:18–9:8). It is here, W. argues, in the rescue at sea, where we see Jesus as Son of Man and Son of God, the apocalyptic deliverer who is able to calm the primordial seas. In the story of the healing of the paralyzed man, W. notes the christological theme of Jesus as Son of Man—now additionally, eschatological judge (p. 148). In chaps. 9–13, W. discusses Matt 9:8–38. In chaps. 9 and 10, he interprets three pericopae about eating as pronouncement stories that prefigure the future eschatological banquet (Matt 9:9–17). These stories highlight another christological theme, Jesus as Wisdom/Sophia (pp. 177–79). In chap. 11, Wilson takes up the final triad of miracle stories, the synagogue leader’s daughter and the woman with the hemorrhage, the two blind men, and the demonized man who cannot speak (9:18–34). Again, his emphasis is primarily christo-logical, highlighting the role of Jesus as Messiah. Chapter 12 deals with the healing of the two blind men, which W. lays out as a christological statement about Jesus as Son of David. Here he also takes up the stigma of blindness in biblical narratives as well as the ramifications of such depictions (p. 233). In chap. 13, he addresses the final story in the third triad and wraps up his analysis of Matthew 8–9. In this final story, in which Jesus exorcises a demonized man who is mute (Matt 9:32–34), W. foregrounds Jesus as “Eschatological Shepherd” (p. 285). Finally, in chap. 14, W. returns to disability studies to argue for a theology of “limits.” What he means by this theology of “limits” is that Matthew 8–9 is about demonstrating the range of human limitations as...

The Function and Spirituality of Bonaventure's "Treatise" on the Miracles of St. Francis

The collection of miracle stories appended to Bonaventure's Legenda maior is a succinct adaptation of Thomas of Celano's Treatise on the Miracles of St. Francis. As such, it could be regarded as Bonaventure's own "treatise" on Francis' miracles. Until now, little scholarly attention has been given to this collection, particularly with respect to questions surrounding the redaction of Francis' story. In an attempt to address this lack of scrutiny, this article provides a close reading of the material that Bonaventure added to Celano's Treatise. It concludes that one prominent function of Bonaventure's "treatise" was to defend the Franciscan order from external criticism. In addition, it briefly explores how this apologetic function is connected to a theme that was central to Bonaventure's spirituality: the crucified Christ.

Money and the Church in Medieval Europe, 1000-1200: Practice, Morality and Thought ed. by Giles E. M. Gasper and Svein H. Gullbekk

Reviewed by: Money and the Church in Medieval Europe, 1000-1200: Practice, Morality and Thought ed. by Giles E. M. Gasper and Svein H. Gullbekk Joel Kaye Money and the Church in Medieval Europe, 1000-1200: Practice, Morality and Thought. Edited by Giles E. M. Gasper and Svein H. Gullbekk. (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company. 2015. Pp. xii, 292. $124.95. ISBN 9781-4724-2099-2.) We have come a long way in the last half-century in our understanding of the Church’s involvement in and influence on medieval economic life and thought. The thirteen essays in this volume present excellent examples of this sophisticated understanding. The contributors come from a range of disciplinary backgrounds: economic history, economic theory, numismatics, religion, and literature. Although the collection is admirably focused on the subject announced in its title, the presentations are decidedly heterogeneous. Some provide bibliography for the kind of general information useful to college students, some provide only technical monographs on their particular subject, some no secondary sources at all. Some essays provide extensive citations from primary sources, with the Latin in the footnotes, and some, whether citing directly or paraphrasing, provide no Latin in the notes. Some are clearly pointed toward a general introduction of use in college classes, while others, [End Page 115] primarily those with a numismatic focus, assume a background in the subject. Some essays are three or more times longer than others. As the Introduction notes, the focus is entirely on Northern Europe, with Scandinavian studies well represented and none venturing south of Normandy. This is fine, and it serves as a balance to the more common southerly focus, but it would have been helpful, and I think advisable, to have included the word “Northern” in the book’s title. Given the period that the essays cover, it is not surprising that most are directed toward the active role of the Church in the momentous process of European monetization. As virtually all the authors are aware, this theme sits somewhat awkwardly beside a parallel development, which saw churchmen expressing a growing suspicion (often shading into a fierce critique) of the ever-expanding place and power of money in their world. Recognition of the awkward balance between these dual (and dueling) processes is one of the strengths of recent work in medieval economic history, and it adds a level of intriguing complexity to many of the essays in this collection. A few examples can illustrate the place of this theme in the collection overall. At a number of points in the book’s final chapter, “The Church and Money in Norway c. 1050-1250,” Svein Gullbekk describes the Church as the “driving force” in the process of monetization, providing evidence to support the claim that in this process, “a commodification of religion, monetization of vocabulary, and an increasing awareness of financial matters from an ecclesiastical and vernacular perspective can all be observed” (p. 238). Rory Naismith’s contribution, “TurpeLucrum: Wealth, Money and Coinage in the Millennial Church,” makes use of a wide range of source—miracle stories, saint’s lives, chronicles—to provide evidence that a profound fear in church circles of money’s power grew right alongside the ever-increasing rationalization of monetary management and collection on the part of ecclesiastical institutions of all kinds. Giles E. M. Casper illustrates other aspects of this theme in his essay, “Contemplating Money and Wealth in Monastic Writing c. 1060-1160.” His investigation of a half-dozen monastic chronicles reveals their author’s increasing concern with and consciousness of the economic changes affecting their institutions, leading to their evolving attempts to anticipate and “navigate market fluctuations” to the benefit of their houses. But he goes one step further when he writes (p. 42) that monastic writing of this period “highlights not only the monetisation of the economy, but also of contemporary conceptual frameworks. …” Greti Dincova-Bruun’s essay, “Nummusfalsus: The Perception of Counterfeit Money in the Eleventh and Early Twelfth Century,” takes this insight yet further by tracing sharp shifts in the metaphorical uses of the coin in theological writings. In “A Herald of Scholasticism: Alan of Lille on Economic Value,” Odd Langholm gleans evidence of Alan’s...

Landscapes of devotion: the settings of St Swithun's early uitae

AbstractAlthough post-Conquest uitae of St Swithun narrate the saint's earthly life, the original tenth-century accounts relate only his post-mortem miracles, professing ignorance of his life as bishop of Winchester. Most of the miracles in these pre-Conquest uitae take place in or in some way revolve around the site of the saint's relics at the Old Minster, Winchester. Late-tenth-century Winchester, along with the Benedictine Reformers who had taken up residence there, thus figures prominently in these miracle stories; indeed, Winchester comes to be the true protagonist of Swithun's pre-Conquest uitae. Moreover, each of Swithun's three pre-Conquest hagiographers – Lantfred, Wulfstan the Precentor and Ælfric – writes a different Winchester according to his relationship to that place. This phenomenon illuminates these writers’ differing relationships to the Benedictine Reform, as well as how the Reformers sought to write their own histories.