Figurative Cuts. Circumcision in premodern Christianity

Basic data for this project

Description

The 2012 political debate on circumcision proves that religious body marks even in secular societies could become the very focus in discourses on cultural identity and distinction. The project takes this observation as its starting point: From the Middle Ages until the early modern period the project outlines Christian patterns of interpreting and representing the Jewish ritual of circumcision; methodologically based in image theology and cultural history, anthropology and history of religions.Though Christianity has suspended circumcision as a ritual of initiation since the first century it has remained broadly present in Christian imagination until modern times: The Christian year started with the feast of the circumcision of Christ, the holy prepuce of Christ was venerated as one the most sacred relics, in exegesis circumcision served as a core hermeneutic figure justifying the Christian figurative mode of exegesis and in sacramental theology circumcision served as model of pre-Christian and Christian sacraments.Thus, circumcision can be considered as the lasting Jewish cut in Christian imagination. In exegesis and sacramental theology, liturgy and meditation literature the Jewish ritual survived as an essential part of Christian identity and self-definition, not at least in relationship to Judaism.Its latency, continuation and adaptation in Christianity based on a permanent medial and figurative recoding: from body mark to a hermeneutic figure, from circumcision of the body to metaphor (e.g. as circumcision of the heart), and from ritual to argument.Focusing on medieval and early modern artistic representations of the circumcision the project elaborates different visual models coping with problems of identity and distinction: such as continuity and discontinuity between Judaism and Christianity, exclusion and inclusion of Christians and non-Christians, of orthodoxy and heresy, body and spirit, outer and inner man.Aimed is a research monography also attracting a wider audience.