Contrary to popular belief, the medieval religious imagination
did not restrict itself to masculine images of God but envisaged
the divine in multiple forms. In fact, the God of medieval
Christendom was the Father of only one Son but many
daughters--including Lady Philosophy, Lady Love, Dame Nature, and
Eternal Wisdom. "God and the Goddesses" is a study in medieval
imaginative theology, examining the numerous daughters of God who
appear in allegorical poems, theological fictions, and the visions
of holy women. We have tended to understand these deities as mere
personifications and poetic figures, but that, Barbara Newman
contends, is a mistake. These goddesses are neither pagan survivals
nor versions of the Great Goddess constructed in archetypal
psychology, but distinctive creations of the Christian imagination.
As emanations of the Divine, mediators between God and the cosmos,
embodied universals, and ravishing objects of identification and
desire, medieval goddesses transformed and deepened Christendom's
concept of God, introducing religious possibilities beyond the
ambit of scholastic theology and bringing them to vibrant
imaginative life.Building a bridge between secular and religious
conceptions of allegorized female power, Newman advances such
questions as whether medieval writers believed in their goddesses
and, if so, in what manner. She investigates whether the
personifications encountered in poetic fictions can be
distinguished from those that appear in religious visions and
questions how medieval writers reconcile their statements about the
multiple daughters of God with orthodox devotion to the Son of God.
Furthermore, she examines why forms of feminine God-talk that
strike many Christians today as subversive or heretical did not
threaten medieval churchmen.Weaving together such disparate texts
as the writings of Latin and vernacular poets, medieval schoolmen,
liturgists, and male and female mystics and visionaries, "God and
the Goddesses" is a direct challenge to modern theologians to
reconsider the role of goddesses in the Christian tradition.
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