medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Dear John,
The earliest medieval theologian that I know of that speaks of the the four "robes" or "dowries" is Bonaventure (d. 1273) in his Breviloquium and the Sentences commentary. He is the theologian/hagiographer that makes these claims about the body of Francis (mentioned below) even though this was already hinted at in Thomas of Celano's First Life of Francis (1228). I am fairly certain that Thomas Aquinas also says the same. I do not know how far back this theme would go in history (Augustine or one of the other Patristic writers?).
On the topic of children, I think I read in some medieval source (Thomas?) that children would also experience the body of a 33 year old as a type of fulfillment of their potential in life - a life that was cut short by an early death. I will have to track this down....
Thomas does state that the martyrs would continue to manifest their wounds even in the resurrected body - based on Christ's body (with wounds) in the post-Easter appearances.
Steve
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From: medieval-religion - Scholarly discussions of medieval religious culture [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John Dillon [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 12:14 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [M-R] Resurrection Bodies?
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Dear Steve,
Way back when, at the start of this very interesting thread, you wrote:
> I am working on the death scene of Francis of Assisi in which his dead
> body miraculously is transformed into the "resurrection body", i.e.,
> it takes on the four endowments: impassibility (impassibilitas),
> clarity (claritas), agility (agilitas), and subtlety or elusiveness
> (subtilitas).
That formulation with four abstract nouns ending in _-tas_ is characteristic of scholastic discourse and thus seemingly later medieval. The medieval depiction of the resurrected Christ that comes first to mind as possibly representing these qualities is the early fourteenth-century Anastasis in the Chora Church in Istanbul (which latter, when it was a monastic church in Constantinople, was dedicated to the Savior):
http://tinyurl.com/yeojlvs
That too is later medieval but it derives from a tradition that I would not expect to have been influenced greatly by scholastic thought. How old are the "four endowments" as such? What late antique or earlier medieval theologians have a scheme of four attributes for the "resurrection body"? Or of three attributes or of five?
Best,
John Dillon
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