The Grief of God : Images of the Suffering Jesus in Late Medieval England.
Title:
The Grief of God : Images of the Suffering Jesus in Late Medieval England.
Author:
Ross, Ellen M.
ISBN:
9780195344530
Personal Author:
Physical Description:
1 online resource (239 pages)
Contents:
Contents -- Introduction -- Two Themes: Jesus as Agent of Divine Love and Power of Human Transformation -- Overview of the Project -- A Christ-Centered Culture? -- ONE: The Dynamics of Divine Appeal: The Suffering Jesus in the Literature of Spiritual Guidance -- Sermons and Spiritual Guidance Literature -- The Suffering Jesus and the Offer of Divine Mercy -- The Appeal of the Suffering Jesus -- Confession and the Individual -- Jesus as an Advocate for Humans and the Social Dimension of the Believer's Response -- Imitation of Jesus Christ in the Lives of Individual Believers: Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, and Spiritual Anguish -- The Spirituality of Suffering -- Three Types of Suffering -- TWO: The Aesthetics of Suffering: Figuring the Crucified Jesus in Manuscripts and Wall Paintings -- Psalters, Missals, and Books of Hours -- The Passion Narrative as Hermeneutical Key to the Reading of Scripture -- Suffering and Liturgical Time -- Polysemy of the Crucifixion -- Responding to the Wounds of Jesus -- Wall Paintings -- Church Art as Creating Christological Space -- Wall Paintings as Christological Narrative Cycles -- Responding to the Offer of Mercy -- THREE: Dramas of Divine Compassion: The Figure of the Wounded Jesus and the Rhetoric of Appeal in the Mystery Plays -- Testimony to the Immensity of Divine Love -- Varieties of Testimony -- Identity of Jesus Christ: Human and Divine -- Divine Compassion: Reconciliation of God's Justice with God's Mercy -- Models for Describing How Jesus Christ Effects Reconciliation -- Response to the Immensity of Divine Love -- The Appeal of the Suffering Savior -- Sacraments -- Love of Neighbor and the Cosmos on Stage -- FOUR: Body, Power, and Mimesis: Holy Women as Purveyors of Divine Presence -- Women's Bodies as Inscriptions of Divine Love: Margaret of Antioch and Katherine of Alexandria.
Margaret of Antioch and the Cosmic Stuggle with Evil -- Katherine of Alexandria and Eruptions of the Divine -- An Athlete of the Passion of Christ: Elizabeth of Spalbeek -- Mimesis and the Liturgical Hours -- Saint as Visage of Christ to the World -- The Body as Parable of Divine Sorrow: Margery Kempe -- Margery Kempe and the Medieval Milieu -- Margery Kempe: Representative of God to Humanity -- Margery Kempe: Representative of Humanity to God -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- V -- W -- Y -- Z -- Illustrations.
Abstract:
Graphic portrayals of the suffering Jesus Christ pervade late medieval English art, literature, drama, and theology. These images have been interpreted as signs of a new emphasis on the humanity of Jesus. To others they indicate a fascination with a terrifying God of vengeance and a morbid obsession with death. In The Grief of God, however, Ellen Ross offers a different understanding of the purpose of this imagery and its meaning to the people of the time. Analyzing a wide range of textual and pictorial evidence, the author finds that the bleeding flesh of the wounded Savior manifests divine presence; in the intensified corporeality of the suffering Jesus whose flesh not only condemns, but also nurtures, heals, and feeds, believers meet a trinitarian God of mercy. Ross explores the rhetoric of transformation common to English medieval artistic, literary, and devotional sources. The extravagant depictions of pain and anguish, the author shows, constitute an urgent appeal to respond to Jesus' expression of love. She also explains how the inscribing of Christ's pain on the bodies of believers at times erased the boundaries between human and divine so that holy persons, and in particular, holy women, participated in the transformative power of Christ. In analyzing the dialects of mercy and justice; the construction of sacred space and time; sacraments and ritual celebration, social action, and divine judgment; and the dynamics of women's public religious authority, this study of religion and culture explores the meaning of the late medieval Christian affirmation that God bled and wept and suffered on the cross to draw persons to Godself. This interdisciplinary study of sermon literature, manuscript illuminations and church wall paintings, drama, hagiographic narratives, and spiritual treaties illuminates the religious sensibilities, practices, and
beliefs that constellate around the late medieval fascination with the bleeding body of the suffering Jesus Christ.
Local Note:
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2017. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
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