In Johannes Herolt's mid-fifteenth-century compilation of Marian
miracles called the _Promptuarium Discipuli de Miraculis Beatae Mariae
Virginis_ (translated by C. C. S. Bland as _Miracles of the Blessed Virgin
Mary_; London, 1928) he tells a story (no. 82) taken from Vincent of
Beauvais about citizens of Avignon calling on an image of the BVM to
defend them from an attack by a neighboring town. One archer-citizen
stands behind the statue of Mary raining arrows on the enemy. He is spied
by an attacker who hurls a javelin at him, but the statue of Mary raises
her knee and "takes the bullet," if you will, for her devotee. News of
the miracle brings peace between the two towns. In Johannes account, the
image protects the town "to this day" and still carries the javelin stuck
in its knee.
The story John Parsons relates is also in Herolt's collection:
story 25, taken from Caesarius of Heisterbach's _Dialogue on Miracles_.
On Sun, 15 Nov 1998, Phyllis Jestice wrote:
> I've gotten involved in a comparative religion project. The members of the
> group have come up with some very interesting cases in which a holy image
> takes on wounds, etc. in place of a loyal devotee. For example, The Record
> of Lineages of Buddhas and Patriarchs (C. Fozu tongji)tells of a man named
> Sun Jingde who was guarding the northern frontier from 535 to 537. He
> was a faithful devotee of Guanyin and kept a golden image of the bodhisattva,
> to which he offered daily worship. He was wrongly imprisoned and sentenced to
> death. After praying to Guanyin fervently one night, Sun dreamed of a monk who
> promised to save him from death if Sun would chant a thousand recitations of
> the sutra that the monk would dictate. But Sun only chanted it nine hundred
> times when he was taken out of the prison to be executed. He managed to finish
> the last one hundred recitations just as he arrived to the execution grounds.
> When he was struck with the executioner's blade, he was miraculously unharmed,
> but the blade broke in three pieces. Twice a new knife was produced, but the
> same thing happened. When this was reported to the King, Gao Huan, he pardoned
> Sun and promoted the sutra. When Sun looked at the statue of Guanyin, he saw
> three impressions on its neck that looked as if they were made by a knife
> (italics added).
> This passage is taken from Chun-fang Yu, "Guanyin: the Chinese Transformation
> of Avalokiteshvara," in Latter Days of the Law. Images of Chinese Buddhism
> 850-1850, ed. Marsha Weidner, Hawaii, 1994, p. 158.
>
> Are there parallels in medieval Christianity to this case of miraculous
> rescue with the added element of wound transference? I can remember a few
> hagiographical cases in which the devotee of a saint sees a vision of the
> saint bearing the wounds from which he or she saved the loyal follower, but
> most of my research has been on a period too early for this sort of thing,
> especially for holy images that suffer miraculous wounds. I'd appreciate
> any examples of such occurrences or insights on this.
>
> Phyllis
>
> Phyllis G. Jestice
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
--
John R. Shinners e-mail: [log in to unmask]
Associate Professor Phone (office): (219) 284-4494
Humanistic Studies Program Phone (dept.): (219) 284-4485
Saint Mary's College Fax: (219) 284-4716
Notre Dame, IN 46556
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