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saint that brings about the healing effect. Where God’s sensory contact with humanity is mediated by Jesus in the New Testament, it is mediated by Cuthbert in Northumbria, who takes on the healing role of Christ within his own specific milieu. In her discussion 145 Assembling and reshaping Christianity 145 of body and voice in the Judaeo- Christian scriptures, Elaine Scarry points out that in the Hebrew scriptures the powerful God does not have the power of self-substantiation and therefore the wounded human body becomes the confirmation of God’s ‘realness’. Man
this scripture suying’, or 112 Participatory reading in late-medieval England ‘with this resoun’, and ‘with this reason folowyng’. This emphasizes the provision of verses in writing, as scripture, and through reasons, as mottoes, sentences, or verses.15 These descriptions attest to how the ‘Soteltes’ almost certainly offered their verses in a textual format.16 The textuality of subtleties accompanied by words is made even more explicit in records of the coronation feast of Henry VI’s mother, Catherine of Valois. Her coronation in the same place as Henry VI
, disgust is transformed into sorrow and pity. Yet there are two subtexts here which resonate beyond the local moment. When Josephus introduces this scene in his Jewish War with the claim that he will describe an act unparalleled in history, he is being more than a little disingenuously dramatic. This cannibalistic act, particularly when enacted by parent upon child, is part of the literature of prophetic warnings found throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Kings, Jeremiah, Baruch, and Lamentations all contain versions of cannibalism either prophesied
by plaintyng in uncerteyne stories, Legendes, Responds, Verses, vaine repetitions, Commemorations and Sinodalles’, and asserts that such additions ‘breake the continual course of the reading of the scripture’ (Aiir–iiir). The book of common prayer thus targets practices of textual organization that can be considered collative, relying on the collation of multiple external texts or excerpts drawn together into a single work.1 Perhaps the most commonplace example of such a work is one that dominated literary and devotional culture in the later Middle Ages, the book
danse: 148 Participatory reading in late-medieval England Ye folk that loken / vpon this scripture Conceyveth heer / that al estatis daunce Seth what ye be / & what is your nature Mete vnto wormys / nat ellis in substaunce And have this myrrour / ay in remembraunce Before your mynde / aboven al thyng To all estatis / a trew resemblaunce That wormes foode / is ende of your lyvyng. (Lansdowne MS 561–8) Accordingly, Poulys Daunce invites readers to engage with the text in ways that cast light upon late-medieval views regarding how readers should participate with and
, John Bale (1538–89) chooses to portray on stage the whole of human history divided by period – the time of Natural Law, the time of the Law of Moses, and the time of the Law of Christ. 3 Christ's Law represents the written Bible, itself a continuation and confirmation of the purity of natural teaching; the Scriptures taken as a whole are seen to subsume the role of Moses within them. So time in Bale's play is more complicated than simply one age succeeding another. The first scene shows all of the laws together
ha-Levi was deeply impressed by the quality and religious devotion of those Christians who decided to convert to Judaism. He describes with great emotion a certain proselyte, ‘R. Abraham son of Abraham,’ who underwent the transition from Christianity to Judaism in Speyer, then went to his own city (evidently Goldin, Apostasy and Jewish identity.indd 104 20/08/2014 12:34:47 Converts to Judaism 105 Cologne), where he lived with the local Jews for a considerable period of time and learned the way of life of the Jews, the Hebrew language, and the Jewish Scriptures
had converted in the wake of the influence of a certain nobleman had descended to abject poverty. Innocent analyzes the problem Goldin, Apostasy and Jewish identity.indd 69 20/08/2014 12:34:45 70 Apostasy and Jewish identity with great clarity. He first emphasizes the theological importance of Jewish conversion to Christianity. The more the people afflicted by Jewish blindness attend to the superficial meaning of Divine Scriptures and fail to understand the quintessence of purity which these spiritual doctrines contain, the more it permits in its obduracy and
earliest days, Christianity perceived itself as the sequel to and heir of Judaism, and as negating the need for it. Moreover, the promise that the Jews would eventually acknowledge the truth of Christianity and become Christians was already embedded in the Christian Scriptures in the words of Paul, ‘A remnant shall be saved’ (Romans 9:27), Goldin, Apostasy and Jewish identity.indd 1 20/08/2014 12:34:41 2 Apostasy and Jewish identity creating an ongoing missionary tension between Christians and Jews. In a period during which the ability of a given religion to recruit