Why should one assume that Western Christianity was non-sensory?
Patristic and medieval Christianity are sacramental and incarnational.
Early on they struggled over Gnosticism and Manichaeanism, both of
which were rejected. Throughout the Middle Ages one finds a very
sensory and sensual Christianity. The modern world tends back toward
Gnosticism in many ways, primarily because technology permits us to
bypass a lot of processes that medieval people could not (family
handling/washing/dressing of bodies, digging out latrines instead of
flushing everything down a sanitary sewer, breastfeeding instead of
formula--elites could employ wetnurses, but someone somewhere had to
nurse every child, real darkness at night, being constricted by the
cycle of day and night etc.) We do a lot of "mind-over-matter" stuff
today; medieval Westerners could not. I see not appreciable
difference between Byzantine and Western Christianity on the question
of sensory/incarnational practices.
Dennis Martin
>>> Graham Williamson-Mallaghan
<[log in to unmask]> 01/28 3:45 AM >>>
>Wounds of Christ and John Wesley
What is the provenance of
this idea of Christ's wounds as a refuge from temptation
and sinfulness? It seems to me a very sensory and organic
image, too much so for Western Christianity.
----------------------
Graham Williamson-Mallaghan
School of Classics and Theology
Queens Building
Queens Drive
University of Exeter
EX4 4QG
01392-676239
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