Poetics of Wonder: Testimonies of the New Christian Miracles in the Late Antique Latin World

Description

The unexpected return of contemporary public Christian miracles in the late antique Latin west, after a centuries-long assumption that these had ceased after apostolic times, helped to create a religious mentality there that would continue to characterize the western European Middle Ages. While the social and political functions of the new miracles have been gaining greater scholarly attention, this study is the first in-depth treatment of their experiential dimension. It examines this dimension in the first reactions to the new phenomenon - enthusiasm, puzzlement, deep suspicion, and outright rejection - as they are reflected and, especially, imagined in the earliest contemporary narrative and poetic sources that describe them. And it traces how the new imaginative representations transformed, for many, the up to then precept-centered way of thinking about religion into one that immersed itself in the supralogical dynamics of symbolic images. The tendency of these image-clusters to precipitate transformations, not only in perception but also in physical condition, is examined for the period from 386, when a first public miracle caught everyone’s attention in the ostensibly flourishing Christian Roman Empire, to c. 460, when this empire was crumbling under the onslaught of Germanic tribes. Front Matter ("Contents", "List of Illustrations"), p. i Citation | PDF (465 KB) Free Access Prologue. Discovering and Imaging the New Experience, p. 1 https://doi.org/10.1484/M.SEM-EB.4.00132 Citation | PDF (494 KB) Introduction. Modern Views and the Early Christian Tradition about Miracles, p. 21 https://doi.org/10.1484/M.SEM-EB.4.00133 Citation | PDF (583 KB) 1. ‘The Miracles of Ancient Times Are Renewed’: Enthusiasm, Doubt, and Resistance Around the Year 400, p. 49 https://doi.org/10.1484/M.SEM-EB.4.00134 Citation | PDF (738 KB) 2. ‘Empty Superstitions’? Sulpicius Severus’s Defence of a Living Saint’s Deeds of Power, p. 119 https://doi.org/10.1484/M.SEM-EB.4.00135 Citation | PDF (718 KB) 3. ‘Conceive Divine Apprehensions’: Paulinus of Nola’s Envisioning of a Dead Saint’s Miracles, p. 183 https://doi.org/10.1484/M.SEM-EB.4.00136 Citation | PDF (629 KB) 4. ‘Healing the Eyes of the Heart’: Augustine’s Views on Miracles up to c. 424, p. 225 https://doi.org/10.1484/M.SEM-EB.4.00137 Citation | PDF (665 KB) 5. ‘A New Face’: Discovering/Dreaming a Saint in Early Fifth-Century North Africa, p. 277 https://doi.org/10.1484/M.SEM-EB.4.00138 Citation | PDF (696 KB) 6. ‘Instead of a Document, a Face’: Augustine on the Martyrs’ New Miracles, p. 339 https://doi.org/10.1484/M.SEM-EB.4.00139 Citation | PDF (561 KB) 7. ‘Let All Perceive What Mysteries Miracles May Teach our Souls’: The Miracle Story as Sacrament in Sedulius’s Paschal Song, p. 367 https://doi.org/10.1484/M.SEM-EB.4.00140 Citation | PDF (759 KB) 8. ‘You Will See Him Present Through his Power’: Refiguring Saint Martin’s Miracles in Troubled Fifth-Century Gaul, p. 431 https://doi.org/10.1484/M.SEM-EB.4.00141 Citation | PDF (657 KB) Epilogue. Poetics of Wonder, p. 487 https://doi.org/10.1484/M.SEM-EB.4.00142 Citation | PDF (431 KB) Back Matter ("Bibliography", "Indices"), p. 491 Citation | PDF (638 KB)