Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Clivedurdle · 08-13-2005, 08:32 AM

Been away in Tuscany and of course saw this!

I have not come across the tripartite structures of christian buildings before - a baptistry where you are welcomed into the church, the duomo where you spend your life with the church, the campanile where you contemplate heaven. Thinking about it, the classic English church is a shorthand for this in one building, instead of three.

The museum behind the Duomo commented that the Duomo is dedicated to Mary and that when you enter the Duomo you are entering Mary!

Which makes me ask who has commented on these very Freudian images - birth and death, domes and thin tall objects?

Clivedurdle · 08-14-2005, 03:50 AM

Let's have another go!

The brief discussion earlier about semen and hair and the brain got me thinking. Maybe we have a completely wrong understanding of christianity because we are unaware of the basic assumptions people were making about themselves and their world then.

These are completely alien ideas to us now, and if they are not made explicit we will have a complete misunderstanding of what was going on.

We have interesting clues, like the writings of Paul, and possibly, the history of christian monasticism.

To the south of Siena is the Abbazia di Monte Oliveto Maggiore. Around the courtyard of this famous monastery are frescoes of the life of St Benedict, which were painted by Signorelli and Il Sodoma.

The frescoes tell the tale of Benedict receiving a classical Roman education and then rejecting it and going off and living as a hermit. He soon attracted followers to his ascetic lifestyle, and founded his order. Some of the frescoes show battles between good and evil, with demons, flagelation.

What was it like to live in a world where you truly believed in principalities and powers and things really did go bump in the night?

What are the reasons for this clear rejection of the flesh in favour of the spirit, and how come it didn't work out because the classic duomos are built around sexual motifs?

Has there been academic discussion of the reasons for this clear puritan streak in early christianity and is this the reason why xianity took off?

andrewcriddle · 08-14-2005, 08:40 AM

The excellent 'Body and Society' by Peter Brown, might be of interest in this context.

Andrew Criddle

Toto · 08-14-2005, 12:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

The excellent 'Body and Society' by Peter Brown, might be of interest in this context.

Andrew Criddle

What do you think of Uta Ranke-Heinemann's Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven (out of print but summarized here).

Wikipedia on Peter Brown

The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (1988) - ISBN 0231061013

Amazon US doesn't carry it, but you can find copies at various booksellers on the web and Amazon UK carries it: The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (Lectures on the History of Religions) and can be searched there.

interview with Peter Brown

Quote:

One of your best-known books is The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (1988). What is it about?

In 1978 I moved to the United States and began teaching at the University of California, Berkeley. I wrote the book at Berkeley at a time when “sexual politics�? were very much in the air. I found myself asking questions about how men and women in late antiquity had defined and sought sanctity, and how ascetic renunciation moved to the center of Christian life. Why had the church, from its early period right into the Middle Ages, opted to make sex and contact with sex one of the main benchmarks of the hierarchy of the Christian life? How had Christian notions of holiness affected sex, marriage, and social life? Why did celibacy for men and virginity for women take on such great importance?

In the book I don’t try to explain why this change happened; by this point I didn’t really believe anymore in giving explanations. Rather, I try to spell out the stages in which the change came about. I want the reader to understand the passions and fears pushing issues of sex to the top of the agenda in certain cases, and also to hear the voices of opposition--"for there was opposition. I try to get a feel for the texture of the debate. Very often when you study a historical development it all seems so obvious. But what makes it obvious? Is the Unionist decision that there should be a united United States obvious? The historian has to ask what forms of opposition gave way, what the alternatives were. In The Body and Society I was tracking the somewhat contingent rise to prominence of a set of values which, by the end of the story, were irreversibly dominant. That is, how do dominant values become dominant values?

andrewcriddle · 08-15-2005, 12:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

What do you think of Uta Ranke-Heinemann's Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven (out of print but summarized here).

I'm afraid I haven't read it but it seems from the summary to mix together some rather interesting analysis of the history of Christian attitudes to sexuality with a polemic against the current position of the Vatican.

This agenda does cause me some concerns for example I get the impression that the authors disapproval of the teachings of both Augustine and Aquinas leads to an exaggerated emphasis on their similarity.

(Again I must emphasise this is based on reading a summary of the book found at a site with its own priorities, and the book itself may for all I know be less polemical than the summary represents it.)

Andrew Criddle

Toto · 08-15-2005, 12:45 PM

The book is fairly polemical, but Uta Ranke-Heinemann was last in the news saying good things about the new Pope Benedict XVI (if I got those numbers right).

Clivedurdle · 08-15-2005, 01:11 PM

It had not dawned on me that I was discussing the first Benedict!!

Clivedurdle · 08-15-2005, 01:27 PM

Quote:

"Hostility to sexual pleasure is a Gnostic-Stoic legacy, which as far back as Clement was superimposed on the Christian Gospel ("Good News"), and which spoke of pleasure as if it were a source of pollution." page 50

There are some incredible quotes from Heineman above!

Having just overdosed on art, gold, and beauty (including rude bits of David!) in Italy it seems not all pleasure was frowned upon!

Very strange religion that can pay Da Vinci to paint the Annunciation and be burning midwives as witches...

andrewcriddle · 08-15-2005, 01:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

Very strange religion that can pay Da Vinci to paint the Annunciation and be burning midwives as witches...

According to modern historians midwives were a low risk group in terms of being killed for alleged witchcraft.

(The Malleus Malificarum is obsesed about satanic midwives but this is one of the obsessions in that obsessive and pernicious work that never really caught on.)

Andrew Criddle

Clivedurdle · 08-15-2005, 02:04 PM

I was commenting on this from the summary of URH.

Quote:

"In Cologne from 1627 to 1630 nearly all the midwives were wiped out. One out of every three women executed was a midwife." page 231

Clive

08-13-2005, 08:32 AM	#1
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	The Church of Santa Maria del Fiore Been away in Tuscany and of course saw this! I have not come across the tripartite structures of christian buildings before - a baptistry where you are welcomed into the church, the duomo where you spend your life with the church, the campanile where you contemplate heaven. Thinking about it, the classic English church is a shorthand for this in one building, instead of three. The museum behind the Duomo commented that the Duomo is dedicated to Mary and that when you enter the Duomo you are entering Mary! Which makes me ask who has commented on these very Freudian images - birth and death, domes and thin tall objects?

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08-14-2005, 03:50 AM	#2
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	Let's have another go! The brief discussion earlier about semen and hair and the brain got me thinking. Maybe we have a completely wrong understanding of christianity because we are unaware of the basic assumptions people were making about themselves and their world then. These are completely alien ideas to us now, and if they are not made explicit we will have a complete misunderstanding of what was going on. We have interesting clues, like the writings of Paul, and possibly, the history of christian monasticism. To the south of Siena is the Abbazia di Monte Oliveto Maggiore. Around the courtyard of this famous monastery are frescoes of the life of St Benedict, which were painted by Signorelli and Il Sodoma. The frescoes tell the tale of Benedict receiving a classical Roman education and then rejecting it and going off and living as a hermit. He soon attracted followers to his ascetic lifestyle, and founded his order. Some of the frescoes show battles between good and evil, with demons, flagelation. What was it like to live in a world where you truly believed in principalities and powers and things really did go bump in the night? What are the reasons for this clear rejection of the flesh in favour of the spirit, and how come it didn't work out because the classic duomos are built around sexual motifs? Has there been academic discussion of the reasons for this clear puritan streak in early christianity and is this the reason why xianity took off?

08-14-2005, 08:40 AM	#3
andrewcriddle Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Birmingham UK Posts: 4,876	The excellent 'Body and Society' by Peter Brown, might be of interest in this context. Andrew Criddle

08-15-2005, 12:45 PM	#6
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	The book is fairly polemical, but Uta Ranke-Heinemann was last in the news saying good things about the new Pope Benedict XVI (if I got those numbers right).

08-15-2005, 01:11 PM	#7
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	It had not dawned on me that I was discussing the first Benedict!!

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