Article

1. The knowledge of the Medicine in the writings of Basil of Caesarea

   Eirini ARTEMI

   Published in Mirabilia Journal 

   Keywords: Basil of Casarea, Christianity, Diseases, Medicine.

   The medicine is a gift of God to people. Basil insisted that monks and many other people should use it in their daily life, because is quite useful for the flourishing of human life. He is well acquainted with the field of medicine, so that some of his references to medical problems or treatments are so close to today's descriptions of medical textbooks. In his commentary on the prophet Isaiah, he refers to definitions of surgery, bruise, wound. He underlines the medical problems of pregnancy and ophthalmological diseases. Did Basil consider medicine better than the grace of God? Can his teaching about the medicine persuade Christians of this era to trust doctors instead of miracles? Can his teaching and his general attitude to the pandemic diseases of the fourth century be an example for people and doctors to face the medical problems as they should be? Are there boarders between faith and medicine?

2. The epektasis [ἐπέκτασις] and the exploits of the soul (ἡ ψυχή) in Gregory of Nyssa’s De anima et resurrectione

   Elena Ene D-VASILESCU

   Published in Mirabilia Journal 

   Keywords: Gregory of Nyssa, Macrina, On the Soul and the Resurrection, Progress (epektasis), Resurrection.

   The paper refers to a notion central to Gregory of Nyssa’s theology – that of epektasis (ἐπέkτασις), i.e. progression of the soul (ἡ ψυχή) towards its Creator, as presented in the dialogue De anima et resurrectione/On the Soul and the Resurrection. he conversation between Nyssen and his sister Macrina, employing concepts peculiar to the most advanced science of their time, emphasizes that in the afterlife the soul does not leave the body (and neither does human memory). The interesting consequences of this state of affairs for both the resurrection of people and that of Jesus Christ are also discussed.

3. Christian iconography: The Great Power of God and its iconographic development in the Canary Islands. Art, History and Tradition

   Clementina CALERO RUIZ, Domingo SOLA ANTEQUERA

   Original title: Iconografía cristiana: El Gran Poder de Dios y su desarrollo iconográfico en Canarias. Arte, Historia y Tradición

   Published in Mirabilia Journal 31 (2020/2)  

   Keywords: Art and Tradition, Exvotes and Miracles, Great Power of God, Iconography, Promises.

   The Great Power of God is an iconography based on that wounded and pensive one called Humility and Patience Christ. This representation changed to another triumphant and glorious one throughout the 18th Century. This iconography was adopted in the Canary Islands, especially in the Tenerife town of Puerto de la Cruz, after the arriving of a statue with that advocation at the very beginning of that century. In 1754 an engraving of this sacred icon was done. Several paintings derive from it helping to spread its miraculous fame outside the Islands, even reaching Latin American territories.

4. The beginning of the path to equality: a comparison of medieval male and female texts about women in the Middle Ages

   Sheila ADÁN LLEDÍN

   Original title: El principio del camino a la igualdad: Una comparativa de textos medievales femeninos y masculinos sobre la mujer en la Edad Media

   Published in Mirabilia Journal 31 (2020/2)  

   Keywords: Comparison, Female, Male, Middle Ages, Misogyny, Writing.

   We are used to read medieval texts created by men, but there were not only male’s quills. There were also many documents written by women that have not been discussed so far, where they stand up for other women, speaking of their selves, their circumstances, their lives, their feelings, their sex’s conception, and their opinions, despite the prohibitions and impediments that were imposed to them. This is what this article aims to show: inspirational testimonies that stand for progress, change, fight, and equality. A comparison between what men in the Middle Ages wrote about women, and what women at that time wrote about women.

5. The manuscripts with works of Saint Jerome in the Library of the Colegio Mayor de San Bartolomé in 1433-1440 and in 1550

   Jorge JIMÉNEZ LÓPEZ

   Original title: Los manuscritos iluminados con obras de san Jerónimo en la Librería del Colegio Mayor de san Bartolomé en 1433-1440 y en 1550

   Published in Mirabilia Journal 31 (2020/2)  

   Keywords: Colegio Mayor de San Bartolomé, Diego de Anaya, Maître de Blanche de Castille, Patristics.

   The study shows the presence of the Saint Jeronimo in different moments of the school library, taking the only preserved documentary testimonies as reference: the 1433-1444 inventaries, the 1550 index and the registers before the closing of the School in 1798. From then, the manuscripts conserved nowadays are located and the analysis of his iconic repertoire is approached, with the objective of defining the ways and space of his creation. That is how the testimonies from the primitive laic ateliers in Languedoc or from the most relevant groups in the parisian setting are identified in the 12th century, Maître de Blanche de Castille. The contrast of these refined pieces with the copy promoted by Diego de Anaya also allows to understand the attitude and the relationship of the founder with the books and the bartolomea library.

6. Jerome at the Light of his Epistolary: The use of Written Oratory for the conformation of his personality

   María Teresa MUÑOZ GARCIA DE ITURROSPE

   Original title: Jerónimo a la luz de su Epistolario: el uso de la oratoria escrita para la conformación de su personaje

   Published in Mirabilia Journal 31 (2020/2)  

   Keywords: Letters, Saint Hieronymus, Self-representation, Written Oratory.

   A careful reading of the epistolary confirms that in his most “personal” texts Hieronymus of Strido follows, with Paul as a model, the guidelines of the epideictic genre (and sometimes also the judicial one). Self-praise and humiliation, self-defense and confession are completed with isolated data on his origin, age, studies and physical appearance. All these elements − which in the classic prescriptive were applied to the speaker and which he adapts to impose a powerful self-portrait as a Christian intellectual − can help to explain how he managed to promote himself to be distinguished in the Christian community through the spread of his collection of letters.

7. The Hagiographical Relations between Byzantium and the West during the Middle Byzantine Period

   Spyros P. PANAGOPOULOS

   Original title: Las relaciones hagiográficas entre Bizancio y Occidente durante el período bizantino medio

   Published in War and Disease in Antiquity and the Middle Ages

   Keywords: Byzantium, Hagiography, Middle Byzantine Period, Pilgrimage-relics, West.

   In the present study a special reference is made to the hagiographical relations between Byzantium and the West. The first part is dedicated to the “communication” of Byzantium with the West, on the role played by the Lives of Byzantine Saints, the transfer and honor of their relics and pilgrimages. The phenomenon developed after the 4th century, when an attempt was made to create a liturgical and worship communication between the two Churches and the Roman Martyrologium was formed in the West. The second part is dedicated to the “communication” of the West in Byzantium through the honor of the western Saints. In the next paragraph, we talk about "communication" through the holy relics of the Saints, and it is found that the phenomenon mainly concerned Saints of the East. The paper closes with some introductory notes on translators’ translation options and techniques.

8. Much more than flesh and bones: the body and the relationship with God in the Hebrew Bible

   Renan FRIGHETTO, Willibaldo RUPPENTHAL NETO

   Original title: Muito mais que carne e ossos: o corpo e a relação com Deus na Bíblia Hebraica

   Published in War and Disease in Antiquity and the Middle Ages

   Keywords: Body, God, Hebrew Bible, Soul.

   This paper aims to analyze how the Hebrew Bible presents the human body, studying the biblical texts with particular attention to important terms for Jewish anthropology, like bāsār, usually translated as “body”, and nefesh, normally translated as “soul”, in order to highlight their particularity. This study intends to present not only the valuation of the body in the Hebrew Bible, but also its importance in the relationship between man and God according to the biblical perspective.

9. Dante (c. 1265-1321) and the Musical Aesthetics of the Divine Comedy

   Gustavo Cambraia FRANCO

   Original title: Dante (c. 1265-1321) e a Estética Musical da Divina Comédia

   Published in The Medieval Aesthetics

   Keywords: Dante Alighieri, Divine Comedy, Medieval Aesthetics, Music, Poliphony.

   The present article aims to analyze the figurative-musical aesthetics elaborated by the poet Dante Alighieri in the Divine Comedy, through the use of musical concepts, contemporary to the author, of monodia gregoriana and choral polyphony. The aim is to demonstrate how Dantian musical theory is applied in the Commedia using an imagetic and instrumental musical repertoire and a specific set of lexical and poetic expressions, whose function is to express, in a comprehensible way to the reader and interpreter, the sonorous dissonance, disharmony and the antimusical cacophony of Hell, the nature of the sacred, monodic Gregorian chant of Purgatory, and the symphonic and polyphonic musical nature of Paradise.

10. A contribution to the study of a scarcely known atín translation: The Life of John the Almsgiver [BHL 4392]

    Olga SOLEDAD BOHDZIEWICZ

    Original title: Una contribución al estudio de una traducción latina poco conocida: la Vida de Juan el Lismonero [BHL 4392]

    Published in The Medieval Aesthetics

    Keywords: John the Almsgiver, Latin hagiography, Leontius of Neapolis, Re-writing, Translation.

    Paris, BNF, Lat. 3820, copied during 14th century, is a liturgical manuscript, an homiliary-legendary, written for its use at the cathedral of St. Trophime in Arles. There the life of John the Almsgiver stands, as it is usual for byzantine martyrologies, in No-vember. The text appears to be a “re-adaptation” of the hagiography written by Leon-tius of Neapolis rather than a proper translation of it, for a selection of its chapters gets a new organization in order to fit the pattern of a more conventional vita. The purpose of this paper is to make a first approach to analyse this scarcely studied text by considering its translation and rewriting techniques.