medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
By the 6th century, at the latest, pilgrims were visiting the house of
Elizabeth and Zacharias in the village of Ain Karim, 5 miles west of
Jerusalem, which was also taken to be the site of the Visitation. I
seem to remember, as well, a cave which was taken to be where Elizabeth
and St John the Baptist hid from the Herod's Massacre of the Innocents.
Pilgrims were also shown the very spot, between the temple and the
altar, where Zacharias was killed, which still apparently retained
traces of his blood, and the boots of his killers were also on display.
Relics of Zacharias, along with those of Simeon, were also mentioned in
the valley of Cedron at the tomb of James, Christ's supposed brother.
Cheers,
Jim
On 06/11/2011 6:59 PM, John Dillon wrote:
> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
> On 11/05/11, Terri Morgan wrote:
>
>> Zachary/Zacharias and Elizabeth (first century) were the parents of John the Baptist. According to the gospel account, they were elderly, past the time they could expect offspring. When an angel announced the upcoming birth to Zacharias, he was incredulous, and as a result was struck dumb until after John's birth. According to legend, Zacharias was later killed by Herod in the Temple in Jerusalem. Several Fathers declared Zachary died a martyr; Peter Damian (third sermon on the birth of Mary) said that to inquire about things the evangelists chose not to recount about these two shows an improper and superfluous curiosity. There doesn't seem to be any extra-biblical tradition about Mary. They are celebrated on February 11 in the Eastern Church.
>>
> Of course, there's abundant extra-biblical tradition about Mary. Back in 2003, when, in a pair of sentences the second of which has been re-worked into this notice, Phyllis Jestice said (<http://tinyurl.com/43s4q6o>): "Elizabeth was the mother of John the Baptist and a cousin of Mary. Oddly, there doesn't seem to be any extra-biblical tradition about her.", "her" referred to Elizabeth. Biblically, the priest Zacharias and his wife Elizabeth, also a descendant of Aaron, are familiar from Luke 1:5-79. Orthodox churches celebrate this pair on chiefly 5. September (the 11. February celebration noted above at least usually commemorates the Finding of Zacharias' Relics). Prior to its revision of 2001 the RM entered Zacharias and Elizabeth under today; it now commemorates them under 23. September (a day for which we did not have a "Feasts and Saints of the Day" this year).
>
> One of the more widely accepted extra-biblical traditions about Mary is that of her Presentation in / Entry into the Temple as recounted in the infancy gospel of Pseudo-Matthew and other texts, where the priest of the temple who receives Mary is usually identified as Zacharias. It's likely that we'll have some visuals to go with that when we come to the Feast of the Presentation on 21. November. In the meantime, though, here are a few portrayals of the matter in question:
>
> a) Mosaic (late eleventh-century), katholikon of the Daphni monastery in Chaidari (Athens prefecture):
> http://tinyurl.com/yeku4zl
>
> b) Fresco (ca. 1300), attributed to Manuel Panselinos, in the Protaton church on Mt. Athos:
> http://tinyurl.com/7gpz4wq
>
> c) Fresco (1303-1305), by Giotto di Bondone, in the Arena Chapel (a.k.a. Cappella dei Scrovegni), Padua:
> http://tinyurl.com/6ccv6o
>
> d) Fresco (betw. ca. 1312 and 1321/1322) in the sanctuary of the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending on one's view of the matter, Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or the Republic of Kosovo:
> http://tinyurl.com/yam5dg9
>
> e) Fresco (betw. ca. 1313 and ca. 1320) in the King's Church (dedicated to Sts. Joachim and Anne) in the Studenica monastery near Kraljevo (Raška dist.) in Serbia:
> http://tinyurl.com/yezz9d3
> Detail (the Theotokos before Zacharias):
> http://tinyurl.com/y88ar7f
>
> f) Mosaic (betw. 1315 and 1321), Chora church, Istanbul, vault in the exonarthex:
> http://tinyurl.com/yebthnd
>
> g) Icon (fourteenth-century) formerly in the church of the Peribleptos (or Sv. Climent Novi) at Ohrid, now in the Icon Gallery in the same complex:
> http://www.soros.org.mk/konkurs/019/eng/i38.htm
>
> h) Manuscript illumination in a later fourteenth-century _Speculum humanae salvationis_ produced at Bologna (Paris, BnF, Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, ms. Arsenal 593 [fols. 1-42], fol. 7r), at left:
> http://tinyurl.com/y8uz8sf
>
> Other portrayals of Zacharias:
>
> Non-narrative:
>
> a) Mosaic (earlier eleventh-century; restored between 1953 and 1962) in the katholikon of Hosios Loukas near Distomo in Phokis:
> http://tinyurl.com/2d5j2c9
>
> b) Fresco (betw. ca. 1312 and 1321/1322; September calendar portrait) in the narthex of the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending on
> one's view of the matter, Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or
> the Republic of Kosovo:
> http://tinyurl.com/63dulxv
>
>
> Annunciation to Zacharias:
>
> a) Fresco (ca. 1320) by Giotto di Bondone in the Peruzzi chapel of Florence's basilica di Santa Croce:
> http://www.wga.hu/art/g/giotto/s_croce/1peruzzi/baptis1.jpg
>
> b) Fresco (betw. 1335 and 1350) in the prothesis of the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki
> Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending on one's view of the matter,
> either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and
> Metohija:
> http://tinyurl.com/3deafmz
>
> c) Fresco (betw. 1335 and 1350; September calendar scene) in the narthex of the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki
> Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending on one's view of the matter,
> either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and
> Metohija:
> http://tinyurl.com/3tpgahr
>
> d) Relief (betw. ca. 1424 and 1430) by Jacopo della Quercia in the baptistery of Siena:
> http://tinyurl.com/3j697c7(http://tinyurl.com/2cll7xv" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/2cll7xv
>
>
> Murder of Zacharias:
>
> a) Fresco (betw. 1335 and 1350; September calendar scene) in the narthex in the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
> http://tinyurl.com/2av98xq
>
> b) Fresco (1545-1546) by Theofanis Strelitzas-Bathas (a.k.a. Theophanes the Cretan) in the Prodromos chapel in the katholikon of the Stavronikita monastery on Mt. Athos:
> in an earlier fourteenth-century French-language collection of saint's Lives (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 185, fol. 72r):
> http://tinyurl.com/3xuyoo2
>
> b) Manuscript illumination (1348; Birth of St. John the Baptist) in an earlier fourteenth-century copy of the _Legenda aurea_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 241, fol. 141r):
> http://tinyurl.com/395754j
>
> c) Panel painting on Rogier van der Weyden's St. John Altarpiece (ca. 1455-1460) in the Staatliche Museen in Berlin:
> http://tinyurl.com/37w87qy
>
> d) Manuscript illumination (ca. 1480-1490; Birth of St. John the Baptist) in a late fifteenth-century copy of the _Legenda aurea_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 244, fol. 174r):
> http://tinyurl.com/284prg2
>
> e) Hand-colored woodcut (1493) in the Beloit College copy of Hartmann Schedel's _Nuremberg Chronicle_ at fol. XCIIIIr (third woodcut on this page):
> http://tinyurl.com/6wh8d3h
>
> f) Reliefs (betw. 1490 and 1531) on the choir screen of the cathédrale Notre-Dame in Amiens (several views here):
>
> http://tinyurl.com/3qxvvdn
>
>
> Portrayals of Elizabeth (without Zacharias):
>
> a) Mosaic (earlier sixth-century; carefully restored, 1890-1900; the Visitation) in the apse of the basilica Eufrasiana in Poreč:
> ttp://nickerson.icomos.org/euf/s/s-.jpg(http://nickerson.icomos.org/euf/s/s-.jpg)
> In this scene, who's the child? According to Luke, neither Mary nor Elizabeth had given birth at the time of the Visitation.
>
> b) Scene in relief on a later sixth-century pyx in the Musée du Louvre in Paris:
> http://www.bluetravelguide.com/oeuvre/photo_ME0000021908.html
>
>
> c) Fresco (eleventh-century; the Visitation) in the cathedral of St. Sofia in Kyiv/ Kiev:
> http://www.icon-art.info/masterpiece.php?lng=en&mst_id=1071
>
> Detail view:
> http://tinyurl.com/3t53pbj
>
> d) Manuscript illumination (ca. 1180; the Visitation) in a psalter from Normandy (The Hague, KB, ms. 76 F 13, fol. 15r):
> http://tinyurl.com/6cl8826
>
> e) Fresco (1191; the Visitation) in the church of St. George at Kurbinovo (Resen municipality) in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
> http://tinyurl.com/6uvz56w
> Expandable view:
> http://www.icon-art.info/hires.php?lng=en&type=1&id=3677
>
> f) Manuscript illumination (Birth of St. John the Baptist) in a late thirteenth-century copy of of French origin of the _Legenda aurea_ (San Marino, CA, Huntington Library, ms. HM 3027, fol. 65r); differently sized views are accessible from the top of this page:
> http://tinyurl.com/325nbau(http://tinyurl.com/l97wfz" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/l97wfz
>
> g) Mosaic (betw. 1315 and 1321; Flight of Elizabeth) in the exonarthex of the Chora church in Istanbul:
>
> h) Fresco (1330s; at left: the Visitation) in the vault of the diaconicon (a.k.a. chapel of St. John the Forerunner) of
> the church of the Hodegetria in the Patriarchate of Peć at Peć in,
> depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or
> Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
>
> http://tinyurl.com/3ncr286
>
> i) Fresco (1330s; Birth of St. John the Forerunner) in the vault of the diaconicon (a.k.a. chapel of St. John the Forerunner) of the church of the Hodegetria in the Patriarchate of Peć at Peć in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
> http://tinyurl.com/2frj7qk
>
> j) Manuscript illumination (Birth of St. John the Baptist) in a fourteenth-century gradual from an unidentified Dominican house (Karlsruhe, Badische Bibliothek, cod. St. Peter perg. 49, fol. 81v):
> http://tinyurl.com/2fc6kk9
>
> Best,
> John Dillon
>
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