One of the big questions is how complex a recipe for violence is. Many people would believe that violence is an acquired taste, but there are ways to make it taste good. With the right spices, violence can be more palatable. An important spice is the idea of the just war theory which was harvested even during ancient times. Beginning in ancient Greece, philosophers were utilizing this…
The Old English Life of St. Margaret is a martyr narrative—an echo of Christ’s passion, (resurrection), and ascension. The text (Cotton Tiberius version) begins with the narrator, Theotimus, establishing the setting as a time when many martyrs were suffering. Some prevailed and endured, achieving eternal rest, while others were led astray by the devil’s teachings. So we take suffering for granted and begin as participants—witnesses—to how Margaret herself came to…
Derrida may be understood to use the image of a mask to think about the relation between testimony and reality. A testimony is like a mask that “covers” an objective reality in that a witness’s testimony is an affirmation of their claiming to have been present in some space at some time (76). Consequently, a testimony cannot be guaranteed because once it is, its sense of reflecting a witness’s presence…
By Julia Liu, Wren McMillan, Ann Rayburn In our group discussions, we started by understanding the commonalities between different visions and thinking about why they are in common. One aspect we found across multiple visions is the aspect of retelling. The vision is not just for the visionary to keep, but to spread it to other people so they can witness it too. The visionary is in a sense only…
by Kaedy Puckett, Clare Kemmerer, Dannie Griggs, and Maya Ordonez
The search for a “perfect moral system” to live one’s life by is a question that has baffled philosophers since the beginning of time, and the question of how to create a set of laws to bind a just society often follows. Throughout history religious texts have acted as moral codes and stand-in legal systems, the Bible is no exception. Its stories and messages have been used as a…
Of all the fascinating passages in The Life of St. Margaret, the passage that most gave me pause was Margaret’s interaction with Rufus (the “brother of the devil”) in the form of a dragon. As a student who has had relatively little interaction with hagiography, I had rarely encountered dragons in Christian texts; as such, I decided to dig a little deeper into the tradition of battling dragons within Christian…
While Andreas’ account of Jesus’ miracles in parts V, VI, and VII is certainly not the most gripping passage of the poem, it is indeed one of the most fascinating in terms of scriptural interpretation. In these scenes, Andreas is confronted by “The Lord of the angels, Saviour of Men” (engla þeoden, / neregend fira)1 in the form of a “Sentinel of the sea” (weges weard: the “ward of the journey/‘way’”),…
As society evolves so do the ways in which we convey different imagery. In this post, I tracked artwork depicting “The Expulsion,” from the year 1000 AD all the way to 2012.
Examining the role of gender in The Old English Life of Saint Margaret sheds light on many expected notions of martyrdom, femininity, and masculinity. “True” femininity seems to take place in Margaret, a pure, virginal woman. When discussing her holiness, Margaret’s connection to God seems to be very contingent on two things. One, she is above overly-humanistic feelings such as desire and anger. As someone who seems to be free…
