Données sur le surnaturel
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Données sur le surnaturel
Macbesse Sam 9 Fév - 19:11
Je commence la collecte d'infos.
Commençons par les miracles attribués aux saints, d'après un article de Kazhdan :
1. Healings. Saints cured the sick by touch, by exorcism, by application
of material objects (parts of the saint’s gannent, olive oil from the lamp buming above the saint’s tomb, myron), by incubation, by the correction of bad behavior, and sometimes by illogical means, such as a stroke of a sledgehammer on the ailing member of the human body. The major achievement in healing was victory over death, which could take the form of resurrecting a dead person, or the passive preservation of a saintly body after the funeral; the peak in such miraculous activity was the
dead John of Polybotos’ annual participation in the commemoration of his
feast day.
2. Overcoming space and time. Some saints and some holy objects obtained an ability to move with extreme speed. Morefrequent, however, was the capacity to penetrate across time, to the past (revealing hidden circumstances,such as theft) and especially to the future: the saintwas usually able to foresee occurrences of a private life (including the day of his own death) and to prophesy political affairs and misadventures. The gift of vision (or sending a vision) belongs to this category of miracle, the highest of visions being the visit to paradise and to hell.
3. Providing food. The most typical miracle of providing food was the
multiplication of food by creating an inexhaustible store of grain or olive oil ; another means of overcoming a shortage of provisions was inciting a generous donation of food at the moment whenthe community was on the brink of starvation.
4. Struggle against natural disasters. Since the Byzantines envisaged numerous natural disasters, this category of miracle was especially variegated. A very substantial phenomenon was salvation on the sea. It had a double aspect: some saints were able to calm storms, thus saving ships from destruction, while some saints were miraculously saved from tempests or from the cruelty of persecutors who threw them (or holy objects) into the sea; dolphins appear as saviors of several holy men.
Another type of miracle is the crossing of a river—it could be a torrential
stream or a wide waterway.
Many categories of “salvage” miracles were connected with agricultural labors: the termination of a drought or the protection
of a threshing floor from an imminent rain; the extermination of insects, especially locusts; the increase of a harvest or of a fish catch; making barren soil or dried plants bear fruit. To this category belong also the saving of a building from an earthquake or fire.
5. Taming wild beasts. Saints had a close connection with nature and
therefore were capable of being on good terms with all kinds of animals: from
lions, hyenas, and bulls to small rodents that were dangerous to crops and gardens. Saints knew how to communicate with animals, how to castigate them for misdeeds, and how to make them serve people.
6. Endurance. The idea of sanctity is closely connected with denial of
mundane interests and sensuality. Miraculously, the saint is able to endure a harsh diet, long vigils, hard chores; his needs are minimal, his garment rough, his bed coarse; he lives in a cave or stays on an elevated platform, on top of a pillar—in rain and snow, in freezing cold or scorching heat. The saint is ready to suffer for the sake of the Christian faith; a special subgenre of hagiographical literature, martyria or passiones, praises those saints who were victims of persecutions but miraculously overcame their ordeals. They withstood their tortures, survived molten lead and red-hot iron, and emerged from the sea; even their cut-off members became reattached to their maimed bodies.
It is not yet possible to establish a hierarchy of miracles, even though some kinds of miracle were more highiy esteemed than others: thus healings were performed by each and every saint, whereas only the major saints were able to overcome time and space and to defeat the cataclysms of nature.
Commençons par les miracles attribués aux saints, d'après un article de Kazhdan :
1. Healings. Saints cured the sick by touch, by exorcism, by application
of material objects (parts of the saint’s gannent, olive oil from the lamp buming above the saint’s tomb, myron), by incubation, by the correction of bad behavior, and sometimes by illogical means, such as a stroke of a sledgehammer on the ailing member of the human body. The major achievement in healing was victory over death, which could take the form of resurrecting a dead person, or the passive preservation of a saintly body after the funeral; the peak in such miraculous activity was the
dead John of Polybotos’ annual participation in the commemoration of his
feast day.
2. Overcoming space and time. Some saints and some holy objects obtained an ability to move with extreme speed. Morefrequent, however, was the capacity to penetrate across time, to the past (revealing hidden circumstances,such as theft) and especially to the future: the saintwas usually able to foresee occurrences of a private life (including the day of his own death) and to prophesy political affairs and misadventures. The gift of vision (or sending a vision) belongs to this category of miracle, the highest of visions being the visit to paradise and to hell.
3. Providing food. The most typical miracle of providing food was the
multiplication of food by creating an inexhaustible store of grain or olive oil ; another means of overcoming a shortage of provisions was inciting a generous donation of food at the moment whenthe community was on the brink of starvation.
4. Struggle against natural disasters. Since the Byzantines envisaged numerous natural disasters, this category of miracle was especially variegated. A very substantial phenomenon was salvation on the sea. It had a double aspect: some saints were able to calm storms, thus saving ships from destruction, while some saints were miraculously saved from tempests or from the cruelty of persecutors who threw them (or holy objects) into the sea; dolphins appear as saviors of several holy men.
Another type of miracle is the crossing of a river—it could be a torrential
stream or a wide waterway.
Many categories of “salvage” miracles were connected with agricultural labors: the termination of a drought or the protection
of a threshing floor from an imminent rain; the extermination of insects, especially locusts; the increase of a harvest or of a fish catch; making barren soil or dried plants bear fruit. To this category belong also the saving of a building from an earthquake or fire.
5. Taming wild beasts. Saints had a close connection with nature and
therefore were capable of being on good terms with all kinds of animals: from
lions, hyenas, and bulls to small rodents that were dangerous to crops and gardens. Saints knew how to communicate with animals, how to castigate them for misdeeds, and how to make them serve people.
6. Endurance. The idea of sanctity is closely connected with denial of
mundane interests and sensuality. Miraculously, the saint is able to endure a harsh diet, long vigils, hard chores; his needs are minimal, his garment rough, his bed coarse; he lives in a cave or stays on an elevated platform, on top of a pillar—in rain and snow, in freezing cold or scorching heat. The saint is ready to suffer for the sake of the Christian faith; a special subgenre of hagiographical literature, martyria or passiones, praises those saints who were victims of persecutions but miraculously overcame their ordeals. They withstood their tortures, survived molten lead and red-hot iron, and emerged from the sea; even their cut-off members became reattached to their maimed bodies.
It is not yet possible to establish a hierarchy of miracles, even though some kinds of miracle were more highiy esteemed than others: thus healings were performed by each and every saint, whereas only the major saints were able to overcome time and space and to defeat the cataclysms of nature.
Macbesse- Dragon de Bronze
- Nombre de messages : 214
Date d'inscription : 16/11/2006
Re: Données sur le surnaturel
Macbesse Sam 9 Fév - 19:24
Toujours recopié dans Kazhdan, la sorcellerie et les pactes avec le démon :
Les miracles impies d'Héliodoros :
A mortal was able to sell his soul to the devil and to acquire witchcraft. The Byzantines created a series of Faust-like legends which reach their peak in the story about Heliodoros, the anti-hero in the vita of Leo of Catania. Heliodoros, like his predecessors, struck a contract with the devil and became a magician: he arranges the victory of a chariot at the horse races; he sends an illusionary vision to women compelling them to take off their clothes; he transforms stones into gold and causes confusion in the market; he makes a design of a ship in the sand and sails on this ship from Catania to Constantinople, and, even more remarkably, he enters a bathhouse in Catania and, overcoming time and space, reemerges in a bathhouse in the capital.
Despite all the superficial similarity between Heliodoros’ activity and saintly miracle working, the difference is substantial: the main feature of holy miracles is their beneficial character, their usefulness. The saint rescues, feeds, and comforts people, creates good, and teaches how the Christian must comport himself or herself.
De la différence entre miracles saints et miracles impies :
The difference between the holy and unholy miracle becomes evident in the stories about contests between the saint and the magician. The contests — a frequent element of hagiographical literature — are usually limited to theoretical
discussion the purpose of which is to prove the advantage of the Christian creed over pagan, Jewish or Muslim systems of belief; it can be terminated by the execution of Christian martyrs whose death, followed by miracles, is a moral and religious victory, or it can be accomplished by a miraculous locking up of the mouth of the saint’s opponent—the saint just makes him mute and unable to continue his slander of the Christian faith.
Le Pape Sylvestre ressuscite un boeuf tué par sorcellerie :
The legend of Pope Silvester, known in Greek versions, makes the parties compete in the powerof magic. The Jewish magician Zambres performed a stupefying act: he murmured some words into the ear of a bull that fell dead, so that the companions of Zambres became triumphant — but too soon. Silvester announces that Zambres slaughtered the bull with the help of Satanic force, but he, Silvester, assisted by God,
who lives and gives life, will resurrect the animal. And so he did.
Magie et sexualité : charmes diaboliques contre huile sanctifiée
Beneficial magic competed with evil witchcraft on a specific terrain, that of sexual drive. Theodoret, in the Historia religiosa (chap. 8, 13.8—19). relates a story about a harlot who attracted a married man using bewitching charms.
The saintly man Aphraates intervened; he prayed, says Theodoret, and his prayer “obscured (or “impaired”) the energy of the sorcery.” Besides the prayer, Aphraates employed a typically magical means: he gavethe wife of the bewitched libertine a vial with olive oil and advised her to anoint the unfaithful man with the [holy] oil.
L'histoire de la novice envoûtée au moyen de figurines de plomb
The hagiographer of Irene of Chrysobalanton describes a similar episode.
A girl entered Irene’s convent leaving behind her betrothed; the man (certainly incited by the devil) headed to a magician who managed to bewitch the young nun: attacked by a frantic lust for her former fiance, she lost control
and, leaping and moaning, kept calling him by name, which naturally caused a scandal in the nunnery. Irene and the nunsprayed, but with no avail, until the Mother of God, St. Basil, and St. Anastasia came to help. The saints threw
“from the air” a parcel described quite “naturalistically”—it is said to have weighed about three pounds and contained, among other magic devices, the lead figurines of the two lovers. As in Theodoret’s story, the victim of the sex drive was anointed with oil, but it was not enough: the nuns bumed the evil figurines on glowing charcoal, magically liberating the sufferer from the unholy passion.
Mage païens et mages chrétiens, une opposition schématique ?
Unholy magic causes death, confusion, sexual misbehavior; holy miracles are creative, healing, and reviving. But was it always so ?
There is a little-known “vita and martyrdom” of two of St. Paul’s disciples, Jason and Sosipatros, the central episode of which represents a contest between a paganmagician and the Christian martyrs. Unlike the legend about Pope Silvester, in Jason and Sosipatros’ vita it is the pagan sorcerer who works a humane and creative miracle, plowing and sowing a field that within an hour produced a crop; from this grain the sorcerer immediately baked some bread.
By contrast, the Christian miracle was cruel and destructive: the saints burned a palace with its inhabitants and murdered the magician. Certainly, in this case the destruction and death could be justified since the victims were heathen; to them, probably, the words of Ezekiel (33:11), so frequently repeated by the Byzantines, did not refer: “I have no desire for the death of the wicked. I would rather that a wicked man should mend his ways and live.” Be that as it may, the pagan magician was here a provider of food, and the disciples of St. Paul arsonists and killers.
L'auteur conclue sur l'ambivalence de la magie
Les miracles impies d'Héliodoros :
A mortal was able to sell his soul to the devil and to acquire witchcraft. The Byzantines created a series of Faust-like legends which reach their peak in the story about Heliodoros, the anti-hero in the vita of Leo of Catania. Heliodoros, like his predecessors, struck a contract with the devil and became a magician: he arranges the victory of a chariot at the horse races; he sends an illusionary vision to women compelling them to take off their clothes; he transforms stones into gold and causes confusion in the market; he makes a design of a ship in the sand and sails on this ship from Catania to Constantinople, and, even more remarkably, he enters a bathhouse in Catania and, overcoming time and space, reemerges in a bathhouse in the capital.
Despite all the superficial similarity between Heliodoros’ activity and saintly miracle working, the difference is substantial: the main feature of holy miracles is their beneficial character, their usefulness. The saint rescues, feeds, and comforts people, creates good, and teaches how the Christian must comport himself or herself.
De la différence entre miracles saints et miracles impies :
The difference between the holy and unholy miracle becomes evident in the stories about contests between the saint and the magician. The contests — a frequent element of hagiographical literature — are usually limited to theoretical
discussion the purpose of which is to prove the advantage of the Christian creed over pagan, Jewish or Muslim systems of belief; it can be terminated by the execution of Christian martyrs whose death, followed by miracles, is a moral and religious victory, or it can be accomplished by a miraculous locking up of the mouth of the saint’s opponent—the saint just makes him mute and unable to continue his slander of the Christian faith.
Le Pape Sylvestre ressuscite un boeuf tué par sorcellerie :
The legend of Pope Silvester, known in Greek versions, makes the parties compete in the powerof magic. The Jewish magician Zambres performed a stupefying act: he murmured some words into the ear of a bull that fell dead, so that the companions of Zambres became triumphant — but too soon. Silvester announces that Zambres slaughtered the bull with the help of Satanic force, but he, Silvester, assisted by God,
who lives and gives life, will resurrect the animal. And so he did.
Magie et sexualité : charmes diaboliques contre huile sanctifiée
Beneficial magic competed with evil witchcraft on a specific terrain, that of sexual drive. Theodoret, in the Historia religiosa (chap. 8, 13.8—19). relates a story about a harlot who attracted a married man using bewitching charms.
The saintly man Aphraates intervened; he prayed, says Theodoret, and his prayer “obscured (or “impaired”) the energy of the sorcery.” Besides the prayer, Aphraates employed a typically magical means: he gavethe wife of the bewitched libertine a vial with olive oil and advised her to anoint the unfaithful man with the [holy] oil.
L'histoire de la novice envoûtée au moyen de figurines de plomb
The hagiographer of Irene of Chrysobalanton describes a similar episode.
A girl entered Irene’s convent leaving behind her betrothed; the man (certainly incited by the devil) headed to a magician who managed to bewitch the young nun: attacked by a frantic lust for her former fiance, she lost control
and, leaping and moaning, kept calling him by name, which naturally caused a scandal in the nunnery. Irene and the nunsprayed, but with no avail, until the Mother of God, St. Basil, and St. Anastasia came to help. The saints threw
“from the air” a parcel described quite “naturalistically”—it is said to have weighed about three pounds and contained, among other magic devices, the lead figurines of the two lovers. As in Theodoret’s story, the victim of the sex drive was anointed with oil, but it was not enough: the nuns bumed the evil figurines on glowing charcoal, magically liberating the sufferer from the unholy passion.
Mage païens et mages chrétiens, une opposition schématique ?
Unholy magic causes death, confusion, sexual misbehavior; holy miracles are creative, healing, and reviving. But was it always so ?
There is a little-known “vita and martyrdom” of two of St. Paul’s disciples, Jason and Sosipatros, the central episode of which represents a contest between a paganmagician and the Christian martyrs. Unlike the legend about Pope Silvester, in Jason and Sosipatros’ vita it is the pagan sorcerer who works a humane and creative miracle, plowing and sowing a field that within an hour produced a crop; from this grain the sorcerer immediately baked some bread.
By contrast, the Christian miracle was cruel and destructive: the saints burned a palace with its inhabitants and murdered the magician. Certainly, in this case the destruction and death could be justified since the victims were heathen; to them, probably, the words of Ezekiel (33:11), so frequently repeated by the Byzantines, did not refer: “I have no desire for the death of the wicked. I would rather that a wicked man should mend his ways and live.” Be that as it may, the pagan magician was here a provider of food, and the disciples of St. Paul arsonists and killers.
L'auteur conclue sur l'ambivalence de la magie
Macbesse- Dragon de Bronze
- Nombre de messages : 214
Date d'inscription : 16/11/2006
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