Mirrors of the Divine

Mirrors of the Divine
Author: Emily R. Cain
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2023-01-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0197663397

Mirrors of the Divine brings into focus how four influential authors of the late ancient world--Tertullian of Carthage, Clement of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, and Augustine of Hippo--employ language of vision and of mirrors in their discursive struggles to construct Christian agency, identity, and epistemology. Early Christian authors described the vision of God through the Pauline verse 1 Corinthians 13:12: "For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face." Yet each author interpreted this verse differently, based on a diverse set of assumptions about how they understood seeing and mirrors to function: does vision occur by something leaving or entering the eye? Is one impacted by seeing or by being seen? Do mirrors offer trustworthy knowledge? Spanning the second through fourth centuries CE in both Eastern and Western Christianity, Mirrors of the Divine analyzes these four authors' theological writings on vision and knowledge of God to explore how contradictory theories of sight shaped their cosmologies, theologies, subjectivities, genders, and discursive worlds. As Emily R. Cain demonstrates, how the authors portray eyes reveals how they envisioned one's relationship to the world, while how they portray mirrors reveals how they imagined the unknown. Both have dramatic impacts on how one interprets what it means to see God through a mirror dimly. She shows that arguments about the phenomenon of visual perception are deeply intertwined with broader debates about identity, agency, and epistemology, and uncovers some of the most self-conscious ways that late ancient Christians thought of themselves, their worlds, and their God.

Divine Mirrors

Divine Mirrors
Author: Melissa R. Katz
Publisher:
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2001
Genre: Art
ISBN:

Through a unique and stunning collection of paintings, sculpture, rare books, and works on paper, Divine Mirrors examines the complex relationship between sacred imagery and secular identity in the art of the Madonna. This magnificent work--born from a multi-year project that included a museum exhibition, scholarly symposium, and reinstallation of a segment of the permanent collection of the Davis Museum and Cultural Center at Wellesley College--features the work of such renowned artists as Il Pintoricchio, Mantegna, Munch, and Leger, alongside fresh, undiscovered masters and little-known works of art. The book's fifty catalogue entries range from a rare thirteenth-century panel painting to a specially commissioned artwork exploring the intersection of religion and modern life. This volume investigates everything from non-Western perceptions of European religious practices to the Virgin Mary's voice in musical composition. In the opening essay "The Many Names of the Mother of God" noted scholar Robert A. Orsi considers why images of Mary offer contemporary Americans such a powerful visual experience. Unlike paintings and sculptures created solely for aesthetic contemplation, Orsi writes, images of Mary are more than just artistic representations--they become for us an embodiment of the Virgin Mother herself. Then, moving into the historical realm, editor Melissa R. Katz guides us on a twenty-century chronological tour that explores the intersection of art history and world history in representations of Mary. Katz's essay "Regarding Mary: Women's Lives Reflected in the Virgin's Image" takes the elements of Marian iconography most relevant to the study of art and weaves them together to provide a guide for modern audiences to engage with the religious origins of our common artistic legacy. Filled with fascinating information, this important work requires no particular background in art history, religion, or the Bible. Readers of all levels will be rewarded with an in-depth encounter of a remarkable and complex figure."

The Goddesses' Mirror

The Goddesses' Mirror
Author: David Kinsley
Publisher: SUNY Press
Total Pages: 348
Release: 1989-01-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780887068362

Discusses the cultural background and meaning of ten goddesses, including Aphrodite, Isis, Athena, Durga, Laksmi, and Sita

The God of Smoke and Mirrors

The God of Smoke and Mirrors
Author: Samuel Emerson Buntz
Publisher: Independently Published
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2020-09
Genre:
ISBN:

Simon Senlin, a sophomore at Wilbur College, discovers a dead professor when attempting to visit office hours. Despite the complacency of the local authorities, he soon finds that the reason for his professor's death is far darker than the merely sordid surface would indicate. Simon is drawn beyond the tranquil lawns of Wilbur College into a nexus of power, where budding techno-fascists lust after coveted Silicon Valley internships and ancient rites of dark magic fuse with modern technology. His investigations uncover an occult conspiracy, one that holds the attention span of the human race in the balance. Teaming up with his friend Emma and an eccentric professor who has harnessed the universe's fundamental forces, Simon attempts to prevent an apocalyptic reckoning. Together, they quest to save the integrity of human consciousness from the supernatural and technological forces arrayed against it.

Sparks of the Divine

Sparks of the Divine
Author: Drew Leder
Publisher: Sorin Books
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2004
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9781893732810

The notion that the world is filled with holy sparks is shared by religious traditions around the world. Learn to uncover this sacred dimension and you will begin to both hallow the world and be healed by its powers. These 101 lively reflections will help you learn to look outward and discover a spark of the divine in everyday objects, activities, experiences, and the glories of the natural world.

The Greatest Mirror

The Greatest Mirror
Author: Andrei A. Orlov
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2017-09-19
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1438466927

The idea of a heavenly double—an angelic twin of an earthbound human—can be found in Christian, Manichaean, Islamic, and Kabbalistic traditions. Scholars have long traced the lineage of these ideas to Greco-Roman and Iranian sources. In The Greatest Mirror, Andrei A. Orlov shows that heavenly twin imagery drew in large part from early Jewish writings. The Jewish pseudepigrapha—books from the Second Temple period that were attributed to biblical figures but excluded from the Hebrew Bible—contain accounts of heavenly twins in the form of spirits, images, faces, children, mirrors, and angels of the Presence. Orlov provides a comprehensive analysis of these traditions in their full historical and interpretive complexity. He focuses on heavenly alter egos of Enoch, Moses, Jacob, Joseph, and Aseneth in often neglected books, including Animal Apocalypse, Book of the Watchers, 2 Enoch, Ladder of Jacob, and Joseph and Aseneth, some of which are preserved solely in the Slavonic language.

Mirror, Mirror: A Workbook for Recognizing Your Divine Reflection

Mirror, Mirror: A Workbook for Recognizing Your Divine Reflection
Author: Megan Wilcken
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 125
Release: 2012-04-19
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1105523071

"Mirror, Mirror" is a workbook designed to help readers better understand and gain strength from the knowledge that they are children of God. The suggestions and invitations in the book will enable readers to more fully discover who they are and how to use that knowledge to overcome discouragement and temptation in their lives.

Dark Mirrors

Dark Mirrors
Author: Andrei A. Orlov
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2011-12-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1438439539

Dark Mirrors is a wide-ranging study of two central figures in early Jewish demonology—the fallen angels Azazel and Satanael. Andrei A. Orlov explores the mediating role of these paradigmatic celestial rebels in the development of Jewish demonological traditions from Second Temple apocalypticism to later Jewish mysticism, such as that of the Hekhalot and Shi'ur Qomah materials. Throughout, Orlov makes use of Jewish pseudepigraphical materials in Slavonic that are not widely known. Orlov traces the origins of Azazel and Satanael to different and competing mythologies of evil, one to the Fall in the Garden of Eden, the other to the revolt of angels in the antediluvian period. Although Azazel and Satanael are initially representatives of rival etiologies of corruption, in later Jewish and Christian demonological lore each is able to enter the other's stories in new conceptual capacities. Dark Mirrors also examines the symmetrical patterns of early Jewish demonology that are often manifested in these fallen angels' imitation of the attributes of various heavenly beings, including principal angels and even God himself.

Divine Aporia

Divine Aporia
Author: John Charles Hawley
Publisher: Bucknell University Press
Total Pages: 356
Release: 2000
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780838754498

The essays in this book bring together postmodern theory, philosophy, psychoanalysis, anthropology, literature, cultural studies, and women's studies to show how a persistent and classical theme in western theological studies (the alterity of the divine reality) has become creatively transcribed and theorized within the postmodern landscape.

Divine Madness

Divine Madness
Author: Harry Eiss
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 525
Release: 2011-08-08
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1443833290

Lila is Sanskrit for play, the play of the gods. It is the self-generating genesis of Bliss, created by Bliss for the purpose of Bliss. It is the uninhibited, impulsive sport of Brahman, the free spirit of creation that results in the spontaneous unfolding of the cosmos to be found in the eternity of each moment. It is beyond the confining locks and chains of reason, beyond the steel barred windows looking out from the cages of explanation, beyond the droning tick-tick-tick of the huge mechanical clocks of time. Come, let us enter the realm of the madman and the finely wrought threads of Clotho as they are measured out by Lachesis and cut by Atropos to create the great tapestry of life, including the intricate, intertwining designs of dementia with the trickster, the shaman, the scapegoat, the shadow, the artist and the savior. Come, let us join in the divine madness of the gods.