medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
> Does anyone know of women saints who possessed the gift of
> prohecy, defined as the understanding of the mysteries of
> the scriptures without ever had formal study? Any examples
> prior to Hildegard of Bingen?
I, too, mostly know examples post-Hildegard, but I'd recommend you check
Bernard.McGinn's article "Prophetic Power in Early Medieval Christianity,"
in _Lo statuo della profezia nel Medio Evo_ (Cristianesimo nella storia
17:2 (1996)), eds. Potestà and Rusconi, pp. 251-270. (There aren't that
*many* prophetic figures -- and even fewer about whom we know more than
their names -- in the early medieval period. The only female one who
occurs to me offhand is Theuda, in the ninth century, but the McGinn
article is much more exhaustive than my memory.) For miraculous
understanding of Scripture in late antiquity, you might look at the _Acts
of Paul and Thecla_ and the lives of some of the Desert Mothers (the women
around, say, Jerome tended to have extremely good formal training).
I wouldn't've thought that "prophecy" and "understanding the mysteries of
the scriptures without formal study" would be synonymous in the early
Middle Ages, but I'd be intrigued if that were the case. Is there a
specific instance in which they're equated?
Wendy Love Anderson home phone: (773)924-0553
The Divinity School e-mail: [log in to unmask]
The University of Chicago URL: http://home.uchicago.edu/~wlanders/
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