mortification

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Self-mortification of St. Dominic, fresco, Basilica Santa Maria Novella

Mortification or self-mortification (from Latin castigatio , “ chastisement ”, the “castling”), in medieval German denunciation , denotes voluntary privation and suffering for the sake of a higher good.

In historical contexts, however, the word mortification was by no means used exclusively for self-performed religious practice. Penalties for educational reasons were also given this name. The confessor of the mystic Dorothea von Montau (1347-1394) describes how she beat her children “sensibly and hard” (“sy casteyte sye [her children] in a vicious and harsh manner”).

Chastisement appears as a form of asceticism if one takes it upon oneself to limit or kill off instinctuality or even sensuality ("kill off the flesh") with the aim of becoming internally free for higher things. Such mortification occurs, for example, through the deprivation of food or sleep through fasting and nocturnal prayer or the wearing of hair shirts, penitential belts , or a silicon .

For the Christian religion, Dinzelbacher names five central forms of mortification: fasting, venia (squats), self-flagellation, waking (staying awake) and sexual abstinence.

Numerous experience mystics of the Middle Ages practiced hard forms of mortification. Heinrich Seuse wore underwear with built-in nails and poked the name of Jesus on his chest, Adelheid Langmann used a hedgehog skin to wound herself, Christina von Retters finally burned her vagina to kill the flesh . Mechthild von Magdeburg practiced her self-flagellation very extensively for 20 years: “I always had to be in great fear and hit my body with violent defensive blows throughout my youth; these were: sighing, crying, confession, fasting, watching, slapping the rod and perpetual worship. "

Catharina von Gebsweiler (1250–1330) describes everyday life in the monastery: "Some struggled to bend their knees frequently and beat themselves while worshiping the majesty of the Lord. (...) Others scourged themselves and tore themselves apart on individual days the flesh by strokes of the rod, others with knotted straps, which had two or three runners, but still others with thorn flagella. "

Mortification can also be a form of penance and atonement . Sometimes such practices involve enduring pain. In the public space, such mortification was practiced in a particularly spectacular form by the flagellants or flagellants .

In Christianity , mortification can also take place in the sense of compassio , the physical participation or understanding of the suffering of Christ . The compassio in the spiritual sense, which is about compassion for emotional pain, cannot be understood as mortification .

Hard forms of mortification also play a role in Christianity today, for example in the organization Opus Dei . The so-called numerarians, celibate members, practice, besides other forms of asceticism, wearing a penitential belt ( silicon ) for two hours a day and weekly mortification in the sense of self-flagellation.

Representation of Shiites who flagellated themselves on the 10th of Muharram . 1909, İstanbul, painted by the Ottoman court painter Fausto Zonaro.

There is self-mortification in Hinduism and Islam too. An example among the Shiites are the mourning and penance rituals on the occasion of the Shiite Passion Play , especially on Ashura Martyrs Memorial Day .

There are forms of mortification in the sense of asceticism in almost all cultures.

literature

  • Dinzelbacher, Peter (1996). This side of the metaphor: self-crucifixion and self-stigmatization as a concrete successor to the cross. In: Revue Mabillon, Nouvelle série, 7 (t. 68), pp. 157–181.
  • Dinzelbacher, Peter (2007). About physicality in medieval piety. In: Peter Dinzelbacher: Body and Piety in the Medieval Mental History. Schönigh (pp. 11–50)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Johann August Eberhard's Synonymic Concise Dictionary of the German Language. 1910, No. 844: Casting, Chastising.
  2. ↑ The life of St. Dorothea by Johannes Marienwerder. Edited by Max Toeppen. In: Scriptores rerum Prussicarum (The historical sources of Prussian prehistoric times). Volume 2. Ed. Theodor Hirsch, Max Toeppen, Ernst Strelke. Leipzig: Hirzel. (Pp. 179–374; quote: p. 220)
  3. ↑ Dinzelbacher, Peter (2007). Above you physicality in medieval piety. In: Peter Dinzelbacher: Body and Piety in the Medieval Mental History. Schönigh (pp. 11–50)
  4. ^ Heinrich Seuse, (1907, unaltered reprint 1961). German writings. Edited by Karl Bihlmeyer. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. (Reprint: Frankfurt am Main: Minerva, p. 39 ff .; see above all Chapters 15 to 18.). See on Adelheid Langmann: The revelations of Adelheid Langmann, nun of Engelthal. Edited by Philipp Strauch. Trübner, Straßburg, p. 53. Cf. to Christina von Retters (1965), p. 235: “To another mail name you eyn burnende hoiltze vnd struck daz the same so gluedich yn yren lyffe, thus daz typical for the fure yrer bekarunge myt groißen smertzen verleyst. “In: Biography of Blessed Christina, called von Retters. Edited by Paul Mittermaier. In: Archive for Middle Rhine Church History, 17, 209–252 and (1966), 18, 203–238.
  5. ^ Mechthild von Magdeburg (1955). The flowing light of the deity. Einsiedeln, Zurich, Cologne: Benzinger, p. 174.
  6. ↑ Catharina von Gebsweiler (1863). Description of the life of the first sisters of the Dominican convent in Unterlinden by their prioress Catharina von Gebsweiler. Edited by Ludwig Clarus. Regensburg: Manz. P. 54. On the subject of mortification, p. 84 f., 157, 209, 226, 296, 382 and 389
  7. ↑ Clemens Karpf, Brigitte Sindelar (2015): Thoughts on the guiding fiction of self-injurious behavior in religion, society and psychopathology. In: Journal for Free Psychoanalytical Research and Individual Psychology, 2 (2), pp. 54–69. (Document p. 59). DOI 10.15136 / 2015.2.2.54-69