Clock of human life (detail), Anonymous Novohispanic Artist, 1775, National Museum of the viceroyalty, tepotzotlán, Mexico

aseantoo submitted:

António Godinho

Coat of Arms of the Manicongo Kings (i.e. the rulers of the Kingdom of Kongo)

Portugal (1528-41)

Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, Lisbon

The Jesus Question says:

[mod note]

I was looking into the book that’s reviewed in the link above, and it seems pretty interesting:

The Art of Conversion: Christian Visual Culture in the Kingdom of Kongo by Cécile Fromont

St. Moses the Black, Patron Saint of Ass Whooppin’

Also known as St. Moses the Ethiopian, St. Moses the Black is a saint in Catholic religion but most especially Orthodox Christianity.  Born in 330AD, he lived in Egypt as an early Christian monk and priest.  Before he lived a Godly life, St. Moses was outlaw, robber, bandit, and no good dirty rotten scoundrel.  When his nefarious life caught up with him he was forced to take sanctuary in a Christian monastery.  St. Moses grew to admire the simple, peaceful, and contented lives of the monks.  At first he was reluctant to join the monastery, believing that he was too sinful for such a life, but St. Isidore , abbot of the Monastery took him to the roof one morning to watch the rising sun.   Isidore told Moses, “Only slowly do the rays of the sun drive away the night and usher in a new day, and thus, only slowly does one become a perfect contemplative.”

St. Moses was known as an especially wise monk.  In one incident, St. Moses was called to attend a meeting to decide the punishment of a fellow monk who had broken a monastery rule.  St. Moses refused to attend.  Again the monks called upon him, and once again he refused.  Finally, when called upon a third time, he arrived at the meeting carrying a massive, heavy jug full of water behind his back.  When asked what he was doing, he responded, “I carry behind me the burden of my sins where I cannot see them, and I come to judge the sins of my brother”.  Catching the hint behind St. Moses’ actions, the other monks forgave the man.

While St. Moses was known as a wise and faithful monk, he was also known as a fearless adventurer who knew how to handle himself in the face of danger.  He was especially known for conducting missions to exceptionally dangerous places.  On his first mission, he was ambushed by a gang of ruthless and bloodthirsty bandits.  Unarmed, St. Moses beat the snot out of the bandits, tied them up, and dragged them back to his monastery.  He convinced the bandits to repent and reform their lives, and the former bandits became his first converts.

In 405 AD St. Moses was an old man (75 years), impressive considering most people were lucky to live past 30.  The monastery received word that a band of Berber raiders were on their way to raid and destroy the monastery.  The other monks wanted to take up arms and defend themselves, but St. Moses told them to flee instead.  St. Moses stayed behind with eight other monks, welcoming the raiders with open arms.  They were all martyred, but their sacrifice bought the other  monks time to escape to safety.

Today me, tomorrow for you. Today you are alive, tomorrow you will be dead.

You, who bragging of your false beauty, you are a scandal to others aiming your real portrait.

Always remember that soon you’ll be stuck in eternity. You with immodest eyes, you with the scandalous mouth, you with the blasphemous and sacrilegious tongue, What will become of your body ?.. Behold this skull!

And the soul… and eternity?

Fun History Fact

Jolly Old St. Nicholas (Nikolaos of Myra) often started fistfights with colleagues who disagreed with his religious beliefs.  The picture above shows him bitch slapping Arius of Alexandria in 325 AD at the Council of Nicea.  Considered a heretic, Arius did not believe in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity.  When presenting his beliefs to  the Roman Emperor Constantine and a council of bishops, St. Nick grew so enraged that he smacked Arius down! Oh Yeah!

‘A Child’s Book of Saints’ by William Canton; illustrated by Thomas Heath Robinson. Published 1898 by J. M. Dent & Co., London.

Source

About 100 miles north of where the pilgrims gathered, shepherds still guide their flocks through green unspoiled hills, and few give notice to the tucked-away village with the odd sounding name: Bethlehem of the Galilee. But archaeologists who have excavated there say there is ample evidence that this Bethlehem is the Bethlehem of Christ’s birth.

“I think the genuine site of the nativity is here rather than in the other Bethlehem near Jerusalem,” says Aviram Oshri, an archaeologist with the Israel Antiquities Authority which has excavated here extensively. He stands on the side of a road that now cuts through the entrance to the village. It was the construction of this road that led to the discovery of the first evidence that Bethlehem of the Galilee may have had a special place in history.

“It was inhabited by Jews. I know it was Jews because we found here remnants of an industry of stone vessels, and it was used only by Jews and only in the period of Jesus,” Oshri says.

He also found artifacts which showed that a few centuries later the community had become Christians and had built a large and ornate church. He says there is significant evidence that in early Christianity this Bethlehem was celebrated as the birthplace of Christ. The emperor Justinian boasted of building a fortification wall around the village to protect it. The ruins of that wall, says Oshri, still circle parts of the Galilee village today.

He thinks many early scholars would have concluded that this Bethlehem was the birthplace of Christ.

“It makes much more sense that Mary rode on a donkey, while she was at the end of the pregnancy, from Nazareth to Bethlehem of Galilee which is only 7 kilometers rather then the other Bethlehem which is 150 kilometers,” Oshri says.

He adds there is evidence the other Bethlehem in the West Bank, or what Israelis call Judea, was not even inhabited in the first century.

Paula Fredriksen, an American scholar of the historical Jesus, says that early Christianity only started to pay attention to the Judean Bethlehem in the fourth century, when the Emperor Constantine declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire.

According to the Old Testament, Judean Bethlehem was the City of David where the future messiah would be born. Fredriksen says that it would make sense for early Christianity to focus on that Bethlehem

“The Bethlehem that’s the only Bethlehem that matters for the tradition is David’s Bethlehem,” Fredriksen says. “And David’s Bethlehem quite specifically is in Judea.”

Oshri draws similar conclusions. He says that for devout Christians, the story of Jesus and his birth is inextricably linked to the internationally known city of Bethlehem.

How does Oshri think Christians would react to finding out that Bethlehem that they thought about is wrong?

“I don’t think it will have any influence,” he says. “The tradition is one thing. People will go on believing. And I can understand it.”

I have a real problem with “biblical archaeology.”  First of all, it’s damn near impossible to identify any individual from history even in the most ideal of circumstances, so it’s doubly suspicious when it’s a religious or important political icon (see: King Richard III).  Secondly, if the researcher is of that religion, of course he or she is going to want to find evidence that supports that religion’s veracity.  Even if the researcher is not religious, they almost certainly have an agenda that hinges on the outcome of this research, whether it’s a religious one or a political one.  Thirdly, even if the research is not selfishly motivated, anything they find will be ignored at best or reacted to violently at worst, because that’s what religious people do.  It’s just not a scientific approach.  

Also, I can’t even begin to list all the problems with specific to the idea of finding Jesus Christ, of all people.  First of all, his real name, Yeshua (i.e. Joshua), was extremely common at the time.  But I’ll leave it at that.

(Still, this is a really interesting article.)

How To Get A Kingdom

The Merovingian kings had been ruling France for quite a long time, but they slowly lost all their power to the head of their royal household, a sort-of butler called the mayor. This became a hereditary position held by the Martel family. The famous one, Charles Martel, is known for keeping Muslim invaders from gaining territory outside of Spain. His son, Pippin III, asked the Pope Zacharias in 751 if it was okay that the Frankish kings (aka Pippin III) had no power. The pope, who had aggressive Lombards surrounding his territory that he needed Pippin’s help to hold off, easily agreed it was wrong. Pippin III deposed the last Merovingian, and began the official reign of the Carolingians. In return, he forced the Lombards to give a bunch of cities they had conquered back to the pope. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the right way to take over a country: by asking an outside authority to give you permission.

Poor Pieta. First Mary lost four fingers when the statue was moved in 1736. The statue was restored, but then Laszlo Toth, a geologist, attacked the statue with a hammer, screaming “I am Jesus Christ — risen from the dead!” He took off Mary’s arm at the elbow, chipped an eyelid, and broke off a piece of her nose. Now Mary, and her so-far unhurt son, reside behind bulletproof acrylic glass in St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City.

November 27, 1095: Pope Urban II Orders First Crusade

On this day in 1095, Pope Urban II gave rise to the Crusades by calling all Christians in Europe to wage war against Muslims in order to reclaim the Holy Land. Pope Urban’s brutal and bloody war was the first of seven major military campaigns, known as the Crusades, fought over the next two centuries.

Check out FRONTLINE’s interview with Norman Kohn, a Fellow of the British Academy, who explains the how the Crusades got started.

Photo: The battle between the Hussite warriors and the Crusaders, Jena Codex, 15th century

The Infant Jesus in a Baby Walker

The Holy Family at Work … From the Book of Hours of Catherine of Clèves, containing the prayers and litanies of the Mass in Latin, decorated with 157 lavishly colored and gilded illuminations by the Dutch artist, the Clèves Master, c. 1440, in Gothic style.”

Funerary stele of Licinia Amias on marble. One of the earliest Christian inscriptions found, it is from the early 3rd-century Vatican necropolis area, Rome.

A Medieval View on Women

The first question to trouble the medieval scholars was whether Woman was also created in the image of God. It was generally believed, however, that Woman was not created in the image of God but in the image of the Man. There was even the suggestion that differentiation between the sexes originated out of Original Sin.

By the 12th century the general consensus was that Man and Woman formed a duality, with Man being the more spiritual and intelligent, while Woman was more human and sensual. Natural Law therefore dictated that Woman was subservient to Man. Man was strong while Woman was weak.

The great medieval philosopher, Peter Abelard, claimed that the term Woman indicated a deficiency of spirit. Man, on the other hand, was characterised by soundness of reason and spirit. Man, he said, has by nature greater wisdom than Woman, while Woman must submit to Man as a punishment for Original Sin. Moreover, the weakness in Woman made her more susceptible to temptation. Although Woman does possess reason and an immortal soul, Man has more reason and, therefore, more wisdom.

The Great Doctor (Thomas Aquinas) said that although both Man and Woman were created by God, the image of God is only found in Man. Man, he said, is the beginning and end of Woman, just as God is the beginning and end of every creature. Man was not created for Woman although Woman was created for Man.

Alan of Lille said that Woman was weak by nature, feeble in spirit and incapable of firm judgement. Andrew of St Victor said that, had the Woman not fallen into sin, she would have been Man’s equal. Her subjection and child-bearing capacity was therefore her punishment for sin.

Ambrose said Woman was made for the purpose of propagating the species. She was, however, the origin of evil and lies, and was responsible for Man’s fall. Women, he said, tend toward pleasure and not virtue.

Adam of Courlandon added that , because Woman is sensual, it was natural that she should have been tempted and not the Man. Had Adam have been approached first, he would have resisted temptation through his greater power of reason.

A classic statement on the status of Woman is found in the Malleus Maleficarum, a document produced in 1486 at the request of the Pope to explain the link between women and witch-craft. “A woman is more carnal that a man,” the Malleus stated, “as is clear from her many carnal abominations.

“And it should be noted that there was a defect in the formation of the first woman, since she was formed from a bent rib, that is, a rib of the breast, which is bent as it were in a contrary direction to a man. And since through this defect she is an imperfect animal, she always deceives.

“It is not good to marry. What else is a woman but a foe to friendship,” the book stated, “an unescapable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a desirable calamity, a domestic danger, a delectable detriment, an evil of nature, painted with fair colours … All witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which is in women insatiable … Wherefore for the sake of fulfilling their lusts they consort even with devils.”

Because Woman was seen as the source of all temptation and sin, medieval women were urged to keep their virginity and not marry. As the idea of monasteries gained ground, therefore, virginity began to be encouraged as a way of life.

Women were also encouraged not to wear ostentatious garments or jewellery. Jewellery and make-up, said Tertullian, were introduced into the world by the devil. If God had wished people to wear coloured clothing, he would have produced purple sheep.

By the advent of the High Middle Ages, women had been banned from a whole host of activities. Only university trained people could perform as doctors and teachers. Since universities only admitted male students, it meant that women could no longer practice as either doctors or teachers. Indeed, even the use of women as mid-wives was frowned upon.

Although by law women could inherit property and continue their deceased husband’s business, social pressure made this very difficult. There was intense pressure on widows to marry, probably to bring their wealth into male control.

Early Germanic women, on the other hand, appeared to have a more prominent place before the advent of Christianity but that was gradually eroded. Since, however, the countryside usually retained its traditions often for centuries, one finds that the status of women in the countryside was often superior to the status of women in the towns.

Country women often were considered equal to men, and had an equal place in agricultural life. By the 16th century, therefore, when the various Christian sects within the towns were insisting that women play an inferior role in society, country women were still playing leading roles in religion, medicine, etc.