Meaning+of+Holiness+During+Medieval+Times

The King James Edition of he Holy Bible states that holiness is the state of being holy, pure, hallowed and sacred. Holiness also speaks of being set apart from others, seperated from the common and taking on the Nature of God. Many may look at this definition and begin to ask such questions as "how is one set apart from others?", "what is being seperated fom the common?", and "how do you take on the Nature of God?". Leviticus Chapter 20 versus 24-26 say's But I have said unto you, Ye shall inherit their land, and I will give it unto you to possess it, a lnd that floweth with milk and honey: I am the Lord your God, which have seperated you from other people. 25. Ye shall therefore put difference between clean beasts and unclean fowls and clean: and ye shall not make your souls abominable by beast, or by fowl, or by any manner of living thing that creepeth on the ground, which I have seperated from you as unclean. 26. And ye shall be holy unto me; for I the Lord am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine.(**King James Version, Holy Bible**) This scripture helps with the understanding of all three questions listed above. My intent however is to define and explain the meaning of holiness durng Medieval times. In the article The Pursuit of Holiness in Late Medieval and Renaissance Thought the Editor Trinkaus states, in this period those in hot pursuit of holiness " found ways of reinforcing the traditional ecclesiastical means of offering and aiding salvation and at the same time continously prompted the exploration and election of rival ways which brought laity or individual closer to the divine with or without clerical leadership and asistance " and that "it was a time of testings and experimentations." ( Trinkaus, C., & Oberman, H. The Pursuit of Holness in late Medieval and Renaisance Thought. 10, 712-716) Holiness during this time took on different meanings during different times throughout Medieval History. For example, during the circa 1300-1050 era holiness was considered to be your closeness to or with God and the way to obtain this closeness was through seperation. Which is stated above as the definition of holiness. During thetime of 1400 some medieval saints or people felt as though holiness did not have a significant role. This is not really surprising, since holiness, an objective condition of things or places or people or institutations conveyed to them by derivtion from the godhead, entaling seperation from the normal, inviolability, immunity, is a notion difficult to introduce into social history.( Bossy, J. Holiness and Society, 75, 120-137) The Jewish Faith also believes that holiness is a closeness to God and the way to reach this closeness is also through separation. Exodus 34:14 states "Though shalt worship no other God" even one. (Efros, I. Holiness and Glory in the Bible An approach to the history of Jewish thought. 363-377)

Analysis 1: Efros, Israel HOLINESS AND GLORY IN THE BIBLE An approach to the history of Jewish thought Focus: The purpose in this essay is to present two fundamental concepts which, though they tend in opposite directions, always operated in the history of Jewish philosophy. Indeed their very opposite stimulated Jewish thinking and steered it’s course. The concepts we may call holiness (qedushah) and glory (kavod) the first lifting the God-idea ever higher and the second pulling it back and bringing it down nearer to man. (363)

Evidence Main Idea

**Holiness** || It is not just one God that the Bible emphasizes, but a unique God.(363) “Thou shalt worship no other God” (Ex.34-14) even one. (363) || Two concepts that we may call holiness (queshah) and glory (kavod) the first lifting the God-idea ever higher, and the second- pulling it back and bringing it nearer to man. (363) ||

Kavod



Not only does man crave for the nearness of God, but also God craves for the nearness of man. In no other religious work of antiquity does one find God calling incessantly to man as He does in the Bible. He pleads time & time in varied phrases that man should know & understand Him. (366) || Together with this process of sublimation there was also the opposite tendency to bring the deity back into the world, a tendency born out of the longing for nearness and for a responsiveness to our cries in distress. (365) || Related Ideas || 1. The 13 attributes Ex-34:6-7 really resolve themselves into two: mercy and justice.(368) 2. In the Glory passage of Ex- 33:12-23 God yields to the plea of Moses: My face shall go with the (Ex-33:15. (368) || These two concepts constitute focal points, around each of which cluster attitudes on such problems as the chief attribute of God, the existence of angels, and the selection of Israel. (368) ||

Implications: This article attempts to explain the difference between two concepts that refer to holiness in the Bible. In my opinion the Author Efros, is simply stating that holiness is a closeness to God. He is also stating that drawing closer to God is the way to obtain holiness. Perhaps the way to obtain holiness is by drawing near to God. Efros uses several scriptures in the Bible as a reference for one to gain their own understanding. Being a Christian I can say that keeping God first and only looking to Him in all things not only brings about holiness but also brings you closer to Him.

Analysis 2: Trinkaus, Charles & Oberman, Heiko- Book Review The Pursuit of Holiness in the Late Medieval and Renaissance Thought Focus: This article review attempts to explain the harvest of a conference on the pursuit of holiness in late medieval and Renaissance religion which was hosted by the University of Michigan in April 1972, raises valuable questions about per iodization and methodology and makes substantial contributions to our knowledge of religious doctrine, behavior, and symbolism during the years circa 1300-1550. (713)

Evidence Main Idea Modern Era || Oberman stresses the seminal contributions of nominalism to the Reformation and moves on to argue that the later Middle Ages, which he arbitrarily sets as the two centuries between 1350 and 1550, was a period of birth as well as death: the birth of inductive methods, scientific investigation, of balance of power diplomacy of a new conventional relationship between God and man, & above all, of the bridging of the sacred and profane-all signaling the birth of pangs “Modern Era”. (712) || During the last decade Oberman brilliantly and provocatively combated the view that the nominalist theology and philosophy of the fourteenth centuries was a form of Black Death, leaving in it’s wake a spiritual and intellectual wasteland, and thus necessitating Reform & Counter reform. (712) || Deviating || The chilling image of the church “bringing guilt down upon people who deviate”, which will delight the disciples of H.C.Lea, is so elliptical as to be meaningless. Deviate from what: rules, norms, laws? If so from where do these rules, norms, and laws emanate? || Tentler writes: :when we reconstruct the moral, sacramental, and ecclesiastical theology of the summas, we discover immediately that they are intended to bring guilt down on people who deviate. ||

Humnism and the Arts || This essay supplements Trinkaus’s magnum opus. “ In Our Image and Likeness published in 1970. Paul Oskar Kris teller (“The Role of Religion in Renaissance Humanism and Platonism,”pp.367-70) reminds us that many humanists were members of the religious orders as well as members of the secular clergy. (715) ||                          Charles Trinkaus (“ The Religious Thought of the Italian Humanists, and the Reformers: Anticipation or Autonomy?” cautiously discusses the filiation between the rhetorical theology of the Italian humanists and the ideas and style of the religious thinkers of the Protestant and Catholic Reform. (716)                        ||

Implications: Although this Book Review was very tough for me to understand I would assume that this review is attempting to show how The Modern Era, Humanism and Arts, and Deviating all play a role in Medieval Holiness. In my opinion as times became more modern so did the pursuit of holiness. When laws, rules, and norms were formed this is when people began to deviate and seek to find holiness for themselves or in other cities and faiths. Much like what we experience today in the church world.

Analysis 3 Bossy, John- Review Article Holiness and Society

Focus: This article starts out with two quotations, one from the twentieth-century British anthropologist quoted by a contributor, the other from a seventeenth-century Swedish Statesman. “Religion can be looked upon as an extension of the field of people’s social relationships beyond the confines of purely human society”. Religion “is the great vinculum communis affectus et societatis humanae; and there is no stronger nexus concordiae ac communitatis than unitas religionis” (120)

Evidence Main Idea Holiness || Holiness does not figure very much in that part of it with which I have been chiefly concerned, despite the implausible claim on the jacket that “everywhere, in many forms, a powerful urge torwards the achievement of sanctity is seen as asserting itself as the highest concern of all elements of the population”. This is not really surprising since holiness, an objective condition of things or places or people or institutions conveyed to them by derivation from the godhead, entailing separation from the normal. (129) || We have not heard much about holiness which is partly my fault and partly the fault of the volume. (129) || Social Relationships ||

A timely invitation to distinguish society, meaning human relations, from” society”, meaning things in general or “everybody, considered as divided into classes”, or “everybody somewhere, considered as forming a whole for some reason other than common submission to a political authority”. || As Natalie Davis remarks, in an essay which concludes the central part of the volume, “the history of confraternities might better be related, not economic contraction and short-range political disorder, but to more slowly changing features of life that influence people’s sense of community, of boundaries between the self and others, and of the character of social relationships” (122) || Salvation || Friendship entailed enmity, and brotherhood- to borrow a phrase from Benjamin Nelsons The Idea of Usury- otherhood. Hence the effort to construct a collective and territorial solidarity which occupied so much of the visible manifestation of latte medieval Christianity. (121) || Since the means of salvation were not in principle subject to the laws of supply and demand, there may seem no reason why all these groups should have existed happily side by side; yet they rarely did. (121) ||

Implications: In my opinion this Review Article links salvation, social relationships, and holiness as one and all meaning some what of the same thing. However there is less emphasis on holiness in my opinion due to the Author or Author’s not wanting to venture in to the meaning of holiness which is to separate. This article gives the impression that to separate would mean you would have to separate your self from society and life as you know it. Perhaps the definition of holiness should have been researched more in hopes of grasping a better understanding of the term.

__References__

1. Trinkaus, C., & Oberman, H. The Pursuit of Holiness in Late Medieval and Renaissance Thought. 10, 712- 716

2. Bossy, J. Holiness and Society. 75, 120-137

3. Efros, I. Holiness and Glory in the Bible An approach to the Hisory of Jewish Thought. 363-377

4. King James Version, Holy Bible