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¶ … mystical movement in the medieval and early modern period and examine how Christians, Muslims and Jews explored ways to draw closer to God. We will discuss how Christian mysticism, Islamic philosophy and Hasidism expressed this impulse in several ways. All of them depend upon transcendence to obtain perfect knowledge of the divine.
In the "Mystical Theology of St. Denis," Denis tells Timothy that divine grace allows a person to transcend the human body and its limited physical senses. This transcendence and ascension is due to God's grace. By going past the body and its senses, we are able to purify ourselves. For the Christian mystic, doing this allows them to know the first cause which is God. God then is the ultimate reality. Those who have not experienced this can not accomplish a true knowledge of God since they are not coming up on issues with the same dedication that those who transcended have.
Similarly, Hasidism as elaborated by the Baal Shem Tov promotes devekut to God by internalizing mystical knowledge about God which is gotten by contemplating the meaning of the eyn sof (the ineffable name). In this way, the can transcend the limits of the body and pass into a higher realm of higher worlds. In Hasidism, even the non-educated and unlettered could become conscious of God on a higher level. This knowledge in applied to the interpretation of the Bible in the context of the Kaballah and leads to daat, the ultimate knowledge of God and the elevation of the soul. The Hasidic approach differed from traditional mysticism and Jewish asceticism in that it emphasized joy and optimism. This came about through the intercession of the rebbe who mediates between his followers and the divine as an intercessor.
In the case of Al-Farabi, although he represented philosophical logic, he was under major influence by Sufi mysticism which transcended purely physical knowledge. Sufism is simply an umbrella term for the ascetic and the mystical movements within Islam. Further, Sufism is supposed to have incorporated separate elements of Christian gnosticism, monasticism and Indian mysticism. Two central Sufi concepts are the complete and total reliance upon God. There is also dhikr, that is, the perpetual remembrance of God. The middle ground for al-Farabi is the boundary between philosophical reality and this mysticism that a thinking person could achieve.
Medieval, Modernist and Post-Modernist Cite some variations in the Loathly Lady fabula across the three tales in your Reader. Focus on the conditions by which the lady is either beautiful or ugly, and the actions of the knight/king/"hero" The Loathly Lady motif was a common device in medieval literature, typified by the presence of a wise but unsightly old hag who is transformed into a beautiful maiden by the contextualizing narrative's resolution.
medieval romance has inspired literature for generations. The magic of the Arthurian romance can be traced to Celtic origins, which adds to it appeal when we look at it through the prism of post-medieval literature. The revival of the medieval romance can be viewed as an opposition against modern and intellectual movement that became vogue in modern Europe. These romances often emphasized the human emotions rather than the human
The windows for example would depict a large image of a saint, with smaller images from his or her life at the bottom. In this way, the windows could be seen as a conduit of the divine light bathing the congregation within. More complex themes were incorporated for rose windows, including prophets, apostles saints and angels. Another interesting component of the divine light brought to the citizenry in this way
The shifting perceptions of 1096, particularly when seen against the backdrop of the historical "reality, have much to teach us." The development of the Rhineland Massacres, often looked at in history as a linear first example of official Jewish mass persecution by the Christians, wavers in importance to the modern scholar, as well as the modern Jew and Christian. Was it a warm up for mass persecution, or a warm up
Price Beauty? 'For though beauty is seen and confessed by all, yet, from the many fruitless attempts to account for the cause of its being so, enquiries on this head have almost been given up" William Hogarth, The Analysis of Beauty, (1753) Not very encouraging words, but if the great artist William Hogarth felt himself up to the task, we can attempt at least to follow his lead. That beauty is enigmatic
Tess of the D'Urbervilles It is Stonehenge!' said Clare. 'The heathen temple, you mean?... you used to say at Talbothays that I was a heathen. So now I am at home.' This description of Stonehenge from Tess of the D'Urbervilles is not merely the poetic imagination at work. Stonehenge is indeed, by any definition, a 'heathen temple'. This great Neolithic monument, situated in an isolated part of Wiltshire in southern England, was constructed