Dear George (if I may): your article is really interesting. What I pity I had not knowledge of it some weeks ago! I sent a paper on Baptism and Epiphany that would greatly benefit from your work...

On Thu, Sep 4, 2008 at 1:42 AM, George H. Brown <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Ms. Filotas,

Here is an excerpt from my article on the subject, titled "From the Wound in Christ's Side to the Wound in his Heart,

Progression from Male Exegesis to Female Mysticism", in a Festschrift honoring Helen Damico. I will send you the whole article if you lwant more information.

First, the widespread patristic and non-canonical tradition that the lance pierced Christ's right side makes an entry of the lance into Christ's heart on his left side physiologically unlikely, although one physician has declared it feasible. The idea that the lance pierced the right side finds support in the Ethiopic version of John's Gospel and is nearly universal in the iconography of the crucifixion. But the physiological impediment was eventually ignored for the symbolic rectitude of right over left, and for typological analogies favoring the right side, such as water flowing from the right side of the temple in Ezekiel's vision (47:2, Vulgate).

GHB

medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

I noticed - to be truthful, it was pointed out to me - that in the Pietas at The Cloisters in N. Y., the wound in the side of Christ is invariably on the right-hand side, this not being specified in St. John. Is this the rule in all Pietas?Does any learned member of this group know why?

Bernadette Filotas
-- 
George Hardin Brown, Professor of English Emeritus
Department of English, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-2087
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