(no subject)

[tree_and_leaf]

Sometimes, even when you know what the logic behind a particular 'revelation' of a late medieaval visionary, you just... are forcibly reminded that different ages see things differently.

Nuptial mysticism: fine and dandy. And I've got used to all the 'drinking from the wounds of Christ stuff', up to and including the breast-feeding parallels. But then I read the 'VIta et Revelationes' of Agnes Blannbekin, and her vision in which - in the context of a Eucharist - she swallowed the foreskin of Christ. As they say over at deleterius, that sporks itself.

Actually, I'm still not TOTALLY sure what the logic behind that vision was, other than the obvious sharing in the suffering of Christ, and the connection between the shedding of Christ's blood and Communion. I suppose it's a conveniently detatched body-part which is roughly the same size as a small wafer...

Comments

[aervir.livejournal.com]

O_O

Is this entry a sort of contribution to Holy Week...? :D

[tree_and_leaf]

It's the wrong season, really, isn't it? It should obviously be posted for the Feast of the Circumcision.

Or perhaps Corpus Christi?

No, it wasn't intended as such - I could post the whole thing, but I don't think it would be particularly edifying.

I love the icon. Very appropriate (Heaven alone knows what Stephen, as natural philosopher and Good Catholic Boy would have made of it...)

[tree_and_leaf]

I mean, what would he have made of the vision, not the icon. Dear Lord, I can't even write English any more.

[aervir.livejournal.com]

I suspected as much. Referring to Stephen and the vision, not to your relationship with the English language, of course.

And Stephen would probably deliver a lengthy and very edifying lecture full of Latinisms, while the rest of the gunroom starts making bawdy jokes about Papist women visionaries...

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

Well I never...

Nothing erudite to add to this at all - just thought you might like to know I saw it, and was boggled.

[tree_and_leaf]

It takes most people that way...

[themolesmother.livejournal.com]

Now I really have heard everything.

I have to say words fail me.

MM

[tree_and_leaf]

Yes... the sad thing is that this is the only thing anyone ever remembers about Agnes, though she actually had some quite cool things to say about seeing all of creation held within God. I don't know, one bad day and you're 'that crazy foreskin woman' for the rest of recorded time.

(And I'm not really helping, am I?)

[mrs-wolf.livejournal.com]

I suppose it's a conveniently detatched body-part which is roughly the same size as a small wafer...

Nice comparison. Or bad one. Depending on if one considers foreskins tasty or not.