Mystical wedding

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Wedding of Christ to the Church. Sheet from the Duke of Berry's Book of Hours , 15th century

The mystical wedding is a motif of Judeo - Christian literature , theology and art. The religious idea of ​​a union of God and man ( unio mystica ) is thought and represented under the image of engagement and marriage . In contrast to the marriage of two gods ( hierogamy ), the feminine side of the mystical wedding is an earthly bride.

In early Christian and rabbinical literature , commentaries on the Song of Songs gave rise to the image of the marriage of Zion , the church , the individual soul or a consecrated virgin with God or the Messiah.

The bridal symbolism of the prophets of the Old Testament complemented this marriage mysticism. In Kabbalah there is talk of a female manifestation of God, the Shechina , going out among the people and that people long for union with God. The New Testament speaks of Jesus Christ as the bridegroom. In this way a theology and piety arose in the Middle Ages in which a marriage of the allegorical bride with God was sought.

Already in early Christian times it was customary to consecrate virgins who were mystically betrothed to Christ and designated for the service of the church. In the course of time, the rite of the consecration of the virgin developed , which has been preserved in the Latin and Eastern churches . Iconographically diverse are artistic representations that modeled the mystical engagement of holy virgins to Christ. The mysticism of the bride continues to unfold in music and literature to this day.

Post-Biblical Commentaries and Tradition

Bridal mysticism in the comments on the Song of Songs

The Royal Couple of the Song of Songs, 12th century, miniature painting from Winchester Cathedral

The Song of Songs is a love lyric script of the biblical wisdom literature . In this erotic chant, a love affair between a young woman and King Solomon is portrayed, who is also named as the author of the book. In Hellenism , the erotic song was allegorically exaggerated, a tendency that lasted throughout the Middle Ages and was only broken through with Johann Gottfried Herder . Before that, almost all of the commentators rejected a secular, literal-erotic interpretation and interpreted the love poem as a description of the love between God and his chosen people (in Judaism) or between Christ and the Church as Christ's bride (in Christianity). A bride mysticism (also: nuptial mysticism) emerged from comments on the Song of Songs, which is an explicitly body-related, personal relational form of mystical experience.

Judaism has mapped out the path of a symbolic interpretation ( allegory ) of the Song of Songs by resorting to images of God's covenant with his people as love, bridal union and marriage and to prophetic bridal symbolism for the commentaries . For example, the post-exilic Isaiah texts, Deutero-Isaiah and Trito-Isaiah , use the image of the bride to describe Israel's new splendor in the restoration by YHWH after the lackluster time in exile.

Motifs from the New Testament were also used for the interpretation of the Song of Songs. The presence of the bridegroom Jesus with the disciples ( Mk 2.19 EU ) and the eschatological return of the bridegroom Christ ( Matt 25.1–13 EU ) express the intensive connection and loyalty of the community with the word field of bridal symbolism. Paul sees the church as the bride of Christ ( Eph .: 5,31–32 EU ), in ( 2 Cor .: 11,2 EU ) even with the word "virgin" ( Gr .: parthénos) instead of "bride" (Gr. : nýmphe) νύμφη .

In response to the question of whom the bride Sulamith of the Song of Songs should represent, the comments of Rabbi Akiba (approx. 50 / 55–135) and the ancient theologian Origen (185 - approx. 254) met in the second and third centuries AD . Akiba interpreted the song collectively as a representation of the relationship between God and the people of Israel. With Origen, on the other hand, the bride is individually the soul. Origen's interpretation of the Song of Songs is not yet related to Mary as the bride.

The church fathers Hippolytus (approx. 170–235) and Cyprian of Carthage (200 or 210 to 258) see the Ekklesia, the church, as the bride of Christ. In the interpretations of the Song of Songs by Methodios of Olympos († probably 311 or 312) and Ambrose of Milan (339–397) one finds an interpretation of the bride as a consecrated virgin. Since this tradition was continued in the Christian Middle Ages, the Song of Songs played a prominent role in the Marian piety of Christian mystics .

In the 40s of the 12th century the Trudperter Hohelied was written, an interpretation of the Hohenlied in early Middle High German rhythmic art prose. It contains a yearning union with God and is the first writing on mysticism in (Alemannic) German. Around 80 years earlier, the abbot Williram von Ebersberg (before 1010-1085) wrote a paraphrase of the Song of Songs.

Since Aegidius Romanus (1243–1316), in the interpretation of the Song of Songs , the church as bride has been understood for the first time as her minister ( praelati ).

The wedding of the Shekhina in Kabbalah

The Jewish Kabbalah also knows the idea of ​​a mystical wedding. Since Judah ben Samuel (approx. 1140 / 50–1217) there has been the teaching that one cannot unite with God, but with the Shechina , a kind of abode of the godhead. The show and the union (ziwwuga) with the Shekhina was expressed in erotic symbolism, especially from the 16th century, which was linked to the Kabbalistic representation in the Zohar , according to which Moses is depicted in mystical marriage with the Shechina. Gershom Scholem (1897–1982) delimits the Kabbalistic Shekhina doctrine from the mysticism of the bride from the commentaries on the Song of Songs. The Shekhina is a manifestation of God and the bride of the Bible is an allegorical representation of the people of Israel. But there is a connection between these two concepts. With the expulsion from Paradise , the Shechina was also expelled. This separation from God is described as 'Shechina in exile'. The Shechina dwells among Israel, so that the people of Israel are inclined to God in love like the bride of the Song of Songs.

Kabbalistic wall chart from Bad Teinach , exterior picture with wedding, around 1660

One theme of Kabbalah is the Tzimtzum , a kind of contraction of the En Sof (the infinite). Tzimtzum is partly interpreted as the creative nothing of God. This nothing is the life force of the world. The deity descends into nothingness and man ascends in an act of becoming one to the divine wisdom (Ḥochmā) of nothingness. In this ascent, people strive for contemplative non-materiality and a union with the godhead.

The first line of the hymn Lecha Dodi by the Kabbalist Schlomo Alkabez (1505–1576) reads: Come, my friend, meet the bride, let us greet the Sabbath . With this call, the Shekhina is identified with the Sabbath and viewed as a bride. In Jewish mysticism , the “holy moon” embodies the Sabbath bride or the Shechina in the world, which is identified with Israel. "The monthly periodic reduction in size of the moon (analogous to the monthly = lunar menstruation ) symbolizes the 'exile of the Shekhina', the restoration of the moon to its original size and luminosity, on the other hand, symbolizes the redemption of the body from exile."

In the Trinity Church in Bad Teinach there is a kabbalistic teaching board . It was donated by Princess Antonia zu Württemberg (1613–1679), the sister of Eberhard III. The hinged painting case represents a spiritual world system. When closed, the exterior picture shows a heavenly wedding. Here the Kabbalistic traditions are modified beyond recognition and reinterpreted in Christian terms. The mystical wedding here is a bridal procession that literally takes the metaphor of the ascent to heaven. The long procession of invited virgins ties in with the eschatological wedding stories of the New Testament. Princess Antonia von Württemberg herself is depicted here as the bride who is about to be crowned.

Mystical marriage in theology and church

The mystical union between God and man with the image of the spiritual marriage is also present in theoretical-theological mysticism and is still developing today in the ecclesiastical practice of engagement within the virgin consecration. In mystical theology, the symbolism of love is applied to the relationship of the individual believer to God and often even a unity of the believer with God is sought.

In contrast to the symbolic marriage of the priestess Basilinna with the god Dionysus , the epistles of Paul and the Gospel of John speak of an "inhabitatio" of God in man, which believers experience especially in the Lord's Supper as the union of man and Christ can. In the epiclesis of the Eucharist the wish is expressed that all believers come from the ends of the earth to celebrate the wedding feast of the Lamb in God's kingdom.

Mystical betrothal of consecrated virgins

Giovanni di Paolo : The mystical wedding of St. Catherine of Siena with Christ (around 1460)

Tertullian (after 150 - after 220) wrote about the first virgins who were betrothed to God.

"But one or the other is engaged to God"

- Tertullian: De oratione chap. 22nd

He wrote that these virgins, like the other engaged or married couples, must wear a veil in church because they are the bride of Christ. According to Marianne Schlosser (* 1960, University of Vienna), Tertullian was the first to transfer the concept of marriage in the New Testament from the church to the individual Christian.

Already at this time, the proposal of the consecrated virginity was understood as a spiritual marriage. If a virgin broke this vow, she was considered an adulterous woman and suffered excommunication as a result . This juxtaposition of marriage and vows as a spiritual marriage ( matrimonium spirituale) corresponds to the later elaboration of the rite of the consecration of a virgin in parallel to the wedding rites, which were also formed later, whereby the usual interpretative signs were adopted.

From the taking of the veil of consecrated virgins , the rite of the consecration of virgins had for a long time the name Velatio virginum (veiling of the virgins), later Consecratio virginum (consecration of the virgins). It has been customary for the bishop to hand over the veil or to carry out the veil by hand since the 3rd century. The veil goes back to the Flammeum , a bridal veil from Roman times, which symbolized the final bond of a woman through marriage or vows, a sign that she was loyal and chaste to her husband or groom.

The Church's consecration prayer over the Virgin from the 5th century highlights the marital character of this mystical union (unio mystica) with Christ:

“Although they recognize the dignity of the marriage covenant that you have blessed, they still forego the happiness of marriage; for they only seek what the sacrament of marriage means: the union of Christ with his church. The virginity for Christ's sake recognizes in you, O God, its origin, it longs for the life that is proper to the angels and longs for the marriage to Christ. He is the son of the virgin mother and bridegroom of those who live in the state of virginity. "

- Pontifical for the Catholic dioceses of the German-speaking area II. The consecration of virgins.

The rite is embedded in the celebration of a holy mass and consists of the promise of the virgins , the chanting of the All Saints' litany , the renewal of the resolution of virginity, the consecration prayer and the presentation of the insignia: veil , ring and book of hours . The veil and the ring are symbols of the marriage bond with Christ. The ring , which is given by the local bishop at the time of consecration , has been one of the insignia of consecrated virgins since the 7th century . The virgin is an end-time image of the heavenly bride.

Well-known saints who belonged to the state of virgins are Agatha of Catania , Agnes of Rome , Cecilia of Rome , Scholastica of Nursia , Lucia of Syracuse , Catherine of Alexandria, and Catherine of Siena .

Theological Developments in the Middle Ages

The highest goal in the Middle Ages was the unio mystica , the mystical union with God, a “feeling of God” or in a broader sense “an awareness of the immediate presence of God”. This feeling of God is “also erotically charged in the Middle Ages and the knowledge of God is interpreted as an encounter between I and God in the sense of a 'holy marriage' between soul and God or Christ”.

The doctor of the church Gregor von Nyssa (approx. 335/340 - after 394) combined Plato's conception of philosophy as a resemblance to God and the Christian conception of man whom God created in his image. Gregory's mysticism, however, does not aim at a union but at a participation in God. Bernhard von Clairvaux (1090–1153) tries in his writings to illustrate an ecstatic connection with God, a deification of the soul . Since Bernhard, the mysticism of the bride has been combined with elements of the mysticism of the Passion and the Cross.

In the book The flowing light of the divinity , Mechthild von Magdeburg (1207–1282) designed the dynamic moment of the soul's mystical search for God as well as the divine devotion to human beings in a lyrical dialectic of searching and finding, separating and uniting lovers. In the Helfta monastery , the death of a nun was symbolically celebrated as her spiritual union with Christ, which in other southern German monasteries in the 14th century led to the adoption of this symbolism in grace lives .

The Flemish theologian Jan van Ruysbroek (1293-1381) developed the mysticism of the bride further with the work “The ornament of spiritual marriage” and Johannes Tauler (1300-1361) used the concept of nothingness for the path of union ( via unitiva ) with God: By attaining "the most truest knowledge of his own nothingness" (his nothingness), he becomes "one with God". Man and God meet each other, and then one abyss flows into the other, "the created nothing sinks into the uncreated nothing".

Modern times

The mystical wedding of Francis of Assisi with the "woman poverty". Sassetta , 15th century

The mysticism of St. John of the Cross (1542–1591) is based on a “salvation drama of the marriage: the love movement proceeds from God, who does not want to be alone, creates humanity as the bride of the Son and repeatedly woos her - up to the incarnation and surrender of his own Life “on the cross. “From the outset, creation is related to an intimate belonging to God, it is a gift to the Son and a gift for the sake of the Son, not the work of an omnipotent being turned away from the world as in deism . The son is the one who makes creation godly through his marriage. The Incarnation is ultimately understood as a redeeming marriage and a ' wonderful exchange ' between the son and the bride, whereby, as in the Trinity, an equalization of the beloved takes place. This configuration is the sign of perfect love. "

The Protestant pastor Valentin Weigel (1533–1588) places next to the “Christ for us” the “Christ in us” and thereby emphasizes the personal responsibility of the individual. Weigel's mystical theology, which is also usually pejoratively referred to as Weigelianism, includes the idea of ​​a complete merging of God and man. Post-Reformation theology is mostly reluctant to achieve complete unity and fusion in Christ (in Christ) and appropriates the unio mystica as unio cum Christo (with Christ).

According to the pietistic theologian Johann Henrich Reitz (1665–1720), women have “through their simplicity” at the same time better access to the mystical and divine, so that they can more easily fit into their role as bride. According to a thesis of the mystic Jakob Böhme (1575-1624) reinterpreted by Gottfried Arnold (1666–1714) , the fall of man marked the division of man into a female and a male side. In analogies, the believer's soul has now been interpreted as female, which is looking for the bridegroom. Arnold, also a Pietist, describes in the text The Secret of the Divine Sophia (1700) in erotic images from the Song of Songs the union of the true believer with the personified wisdom . Here the gender relationship is reversed to a heavenly bride and an earthly bridegroom. If Philo of Alexandria (around 15/10 BC -40 AD), who also understood wisdom as a bride, had the groom still reason ( logos ), then with Arnold the bridegroom is in line with Böhme the individual believing soul. The reversal of the bride-groom relationship could already be seen in isolated cases in the Middle Ages - for example in pictures of Francis of Assisi , who as a human groom symbolically took poverty among the evangelical councils as his bride.

Art, music and literature

Mystical wedding in art

The heavenly royal couple

Coronation of the Virgin from the Passion Altar of Master Bertram (around 1390)

The mystical wedding is also represented in medieval painting and carving art. In the late Gothic period , pairs of scenes were created in the center of high altars : Christ and the crowned Virgin Mary sit on a common throne and face each other with symbolic gestures: Christ blesses Mary as the crowned queen in the heavenly palace. This thematic program can be found at the high altars of the Marienstatt Abbey and the Church of Our Lady in Oberwesel , as reredos in a church on the island of Poel and in the Marienkirche in Gudow .

The enthroned depictions of couples are usually understood and titled as the coronation of Mary . The art historian Christian Beutler was of the opinion that these heavenly palace scenes under the influence of the devotio moderna movement represent an allegorical wedding of the Messiah and reconstructs the Meister Bertram Altar in Hamburg in this sense. The "new piety" ( Latin devotio moderna ) was a mystical reform movement in the late Middle Ages that propagated a following of Christ ( Latin imitatio ). Beutler claims that Gothic art does not differentiate between the bride as soul, as church, or as Mary:

Heavenly depictions of couples of this kind are linked to sky scenes from the 12th century. A Byzantine depiction in the apse of the Church of Santa Maria in Trastevere , the oldest St. Mary's Church in Rome, shows the crowned heavenly couple as well as the St. Mary 's portal of the Cathedral of Senlis in northern France.

The engagement of St. Catherine

From the mystical marriage of St. There are many depictions of Catherine of Alexandria with Christ:

Tradition has it that Catherine had a vision of a sposalizio mistico , a mystical betrothal to Christ. Before that, a hermit told her that the best bridegroom was Jesus Christ. This vision is often presented in picture cycles, but is mostly missing in individual presentations.

In the 14./15. In the 18th century, after fundamental changes in popular piety, which had resulted from the rise of the mendicant orders , mysticism and religious women's movements, Katharina became one of the favorite saints of women's monasteries - also through the wedding depictions .

  • Giovanni dal Ponte, 1421

  • Barna da Siena, around 1340

  • Michelino da Besozzo, 1420

  • Hans Memling , 1479

A large number of the surviving first monuments to the wedding of Catherine use an ancient Roman picture pattern, the joining of the right hands (lat. Dextrarum iunctio ) of the bride and groom by the mother standing between them. In the picture of Giovanni dal Ponte, the mother of Jesus, Mary, takes Catherine by the right hand and acts as a witness of the ceremony in which Christ puts the ring on Katharina's finger. This is all the more important as women traditionally have not been able to testify.

The Gothic wedding depiction of Barna da Siena shows the ceremony without the maid of honor Maria. The adult Christ is also the bridegroom here. The painting is complemented below by Katharina's fight with the devil . In the iconic depiction of Michelino da Besozzo (1370–1455), which is also linked to Gothic painting , the groom is depicted as a child, with John the Baptist and Antony the Great as witnesses . The iconographic scheme of showing Mary with the baby Jesus and the historically later saints goes back to donor and dedication representations , as they have been in use since late antiquity. In the Renaissance painting by Hans Memling (before 1440–1494), Katharina, no longer recognizable by a red robe (as a symbol of martyrdom ), is distinguished by her attributes wheel and sword. As with Besozzo, Katharina kneels.

  • Master of the Lucia Legend, 15th century

  • Correggio , around 1525

  • Titian , around 1560

  • Anonymous, 18th century

In the painting Virgo inter virgines (Virgin among virgins) by the master of the Lucia legend, the betrothal of Catherine is integrated into a meeting of holy virgins with the Virgin Mary. The saints can be recognized by their saintly attributes.

Milena Palakarkina, Katharina, Bride of Christ , mixed media , 1990

In the picture by Corregio (1489–1534) that hangs in the Louvre , the scene is also relocated to nature, but the women present are no longer so formally gathered for a ceremony. In the case of Titian (approx. 1490–1576), the wedding ceremony is missing: instead of a ring, it depends entirely on the couple's sacred conversation ( Sacra Conversazione ). The baroque artist of the 18th century shows a richly animated scene in which the divine sphere is no longer differentiated from the earthly world within a constellation with John the Baptist as a child: the wedding is expressed by a kiss on the hand of Catherine and the angels and putti no longer hover above anything, but are integrated into the picture.

The large mixed-media work by the contemporary Bulgarian-American painter Milena Palakarkina, entitled Katharina, Bride of Christ (1990), shows another aspect . The installation is supported by an iron frame and moved by an electric motor. The naked, upward-looking martyr with the hand- wounds of Jesus can be recognized as Catherine of Alexandria by the wheel hovering over the three-part panel painting. The side wings show male heads with partly large staring eyes.

Musical-lyric baroque mysticism

In the mysticism of the Baroque , the ideas of becoming one with God are taken up again under the image of engagement and marriage. Angelus Silesius influenced this development and Johann Sebastian Bach reworked the mystical wedding texts musically in his cantatas , oratorios and passions. He also uses the poetry of the bride mysticism in Philipp Nicolai (1556–1608) ( How beautifully the morning star shines ), Gerhard Tersteegen (1697–1769), Paul Gerhard (1607–1676) or Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700–1760). The four evangelical pastors mentioned have also further developed the theology of the mysticism of the bride in texts and sermons.

The bride appears here as Zion or as an individual soul, but in the Protestant Bach not as Mary or as an allegory of the church. In the first part of Bach's Christmas Oratorio , composed in 1734, great things lie ahead; Zion here stands for the expectation of the Christian community for the coming Lord. In the alto aria, Prepare yourself for Zion , which follows a recitative , the reporting style changes to the prompting style: the bride is to prepare for the arrival of the loved one:

“Prepare yourself, Zion, with tender instincts,
to see the most beautiful, the dearest with you soon!
Your cheeks - must be much more beautiful today,
hurry to love the bridegroom dearly! "

In a soprano aria from Bach's St. Matthew Passion , which was premiered in 1727 , the soul sings with the words of Picander :

“I want to give you my heart,
sink into it, my salvation!
I want to immerse myself in you;
If the world is too small
for you , eh, you should be
more to me than the world and heaven. "

The Advent song, Daughter Zion, Rejoice, with the text by Friedrich Heinrich Ranke (1798–1876), is a memorable theme of Zion's wedding preparations when Jesus entered Jerusalem . Occasionally the texts of the Bridal Mysticism, for example in Zinzendorf or in the Marian Piety, are quite exuberant. The title of a sacred songbook by Æmilie Juliane von Barby-Mühlingen (1637–1706) reads: The Lamb's Girlfriend Spiritual Bride Jewelry To Christian Preparation For Lam [m] es' wedding (1714).

Examples of literary processing

Picture of a mystical wedding from the book Rosarium Philosophorum.

The theme of the mystical wedding was developed in a medieval didactic poem, an allegorical poem and a fairy tale. Even Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) pointed alchemical images of mystical marriage as a contribution to psychoanalysis .

In the poem Christ and the loving soul , which is based on a monastic picture sheet, there is a conversation between the bride and Christ. The love of the affectionate (loving) soul goes so far that the soul forces Christ to love in return with a shot arrow. Further illustrations show the heart of Christ, which was hit by the arrow, bleeding and wounded, and Christ is devoted to the soul. - The Franciscan Lamprecht of Regensburg wrote the allegorical poem Diu tohter von Syon ( The Daughter of Zion ) around 1250 . The Bride of Zion seeks union with Christ.

The fairy tale The Heavenly Wedding by the Brothers Grimm tells of a poor boy who thinks the church is heaven and gives half of his food to the image of the baby Jesus in the church because he thinks it is too thin. One day the baby Jesus invites the boy to the heavenly wedding on the following Sunday. When the boy receives the sacrament on Sundays, he dies and comes to the heavenly wedding.

In his article: The Psychology of Transference (1946), CG Jung further developed the Freudian concept of transference . Using mystical wedding pictures from the alchemical book Rosarium Philosophorum , Jung interprets the phenomena of transference and countertransference in the therapeutic process .

literature

  • Elke Axmacher: “My Heyland wants to die for love”. Investigations into the change in the understanding of the Passion in the early 18th century . Hänssler, Neuhausen-Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-7751-0883-1 (contributions to theological Bach research 1).
  • Ulrike Bechmann : “Bridal symbolism. I. Biblical " . In: Lexicon for Theology and Church . tape 2 , 1994.
  • Christian Beutler: Master Bertram The high altar of Sankt Petri. Christian allegory as a protestant nuisance . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1984, ISBN 3-596-23912-5 .
  • Otto Gillen : Bridal mysticism . In: Reallexikon zur Deutschen Kunstgeschichte , Vol. 2, 1942, Sp. 1130–1134.
  • Karl Erich Grözinger : From Medieval Kabbalah to Hasidism . In: Jewish Thinking. Theology - Philosophy - Mysticism . tape 2 . Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-593-37513-3 .
  • Marianne Heimbach-Steins : “Bride symbolism. II. Bridal mysticism " . In: Lexicon for Theology and Church . tape 2 , 1994.
  • Ulrich Köpf : Song of Songs III. Interpretation history in Christianity III / 1. Old church to Herder . In: Theological Real Encyclopedia . tape 15 . De Gruyter, Berlin 1986, p. 499-514 .
  • Karsten Lehmkühler: Inhabitatio: the indwelling of God in people . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2004.
  • Columba Marmion : Sponsa Verbi, The virgin consecrated to Christ . B. Herder, 1925.
  • Ludwig Münster: Wedding of the Lamb: The Christ mysticism of the consecration of the Virgin . Patmos, 1955.
  • Kurt Ruh : Women's mysticism and Franciscan mysticism of the early days . In: History of occidental mysticism . tape 2 . CH Beck, 1993, ISBN 3-406-34499-2 , pp. 547 .
  • Eva Johanna Schauer: Jewish Kabbalah and Christian Faith. The school chart of Princess Antonia zu Württemberg in Bad Teinach. In: Freiburg circular. Journal for Christian-Jewish Encounters 13 . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2006, p. 242–255 ( online at freiburger-rundbrief.de ).
  • Gershom Scholem: Shekhina; the passive feminine moment in the deity. In: On the mystical figure of the deity. Rhein-Verlag, Zurich 1962, p. 135-191 .
  • J. Schmid: Bride, holy . In: Real Lexicon for Antiquity and Christianity . tape 2 . Anton Hiersemann Verlag , Stuttgart 1954, p. 528-564 .
  • Johannes Tauler: Tauler's sermons . Ed .: Ferdinand Vetter. Berlin 1910 ( digitized UB Düsseldorf ).
  • Meinrad Walter: Johann Sebastian Bach: Christmas Oratorio . Bärenreiter, Kassel 2006, ISBN 3-7618-1515-8 .

Web links

Commons : Mystical Wedding  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Marianne Heimbach-Steins: Bride symbolism. II . Bridal Mysticism 1994 Col. 665f.
  2. ↑ Johannes Niederhuber, Introduction to About the Virgins three books . In Des holy church father Ambrose selected writings Vol. 3; Library of the Church Fathers, 1st row, (Volume 32) Kempten; Munich: J. Kösel, 1917.
  3. ↑ On the Virgins three books (De virginibus ad Marcellinam sororem libri tres) ( Ambrosius of Milan (340–397))
  4. ^ Ulrich Köpf: Song of Songs. Interpretation history in Christianity III / 1 Old Church to Herder. TRE, Volume 15, p. 512.
  5. ^ Marianne Heimbach-Steins: Bride symbolism. II. Bridal mysticism. 1994, Col. 665 f.
  6. ^ Ulrich Köpf: Song of Songs. Interpretation history in Christianity III / 1 Old Church to Herder. TRE, volume 15, p. 509.
  7. ^ Bechmann: Bride symbolism. Sp. 664. Isaiah points: (49.18 EU 54.5 EU 62.5 EU ).
  8. ^ Bechmann: Bride symbolism. Sp. 665.
  9. ↑ παρθένος : "[the] virgin". The term was previously used as an epithet for the goddess Athena in ancient times .
  10. ^ Bechmann: Bride symbolism. Sp. 665.
  11. ^ Tremper Longman: Song of Songs. 2001, p. 20 ff.
  12. ↑ Otto Kaiser: Introduction to the Old Testament - An introduction to their results and problems. 2nd Edition. Gütersloh publishing house Gerd Mohn, Gütersloh, 1970, p. 286.
  13. ↑ Hans von Campenhausen: Early Christian and Old Church: Lectures a. Essays. 1979, p. 128.
  14. ↑ Cyprian of Carthage: 69th letter , 2nd chapter, and the same: On the unity of the Catholic Church (De catholicae ecclesiae unitate), 4–6
  15. ↑ Kaiser: Old Testament. 1970, p. 286.
  16. ^ Ulrich Köpf: Song of Songs. Interpretation history in Christianity III / 1 Old Church to Herder. TRE, volume 15, p. 509.
  17. ↑ Ulrich Köpf: Song of Songs III / 1. TRE, p. 510.
  18. ↑ Gershom Scholem: Shechina; the passive feminine moment in the deity. In: Ders .: On the mystical figure of the deity. 1962, pp. 135-191.
  19. ↑ G. Scholem: Schechina 1962, p. 179 f
  20. ↑ Grözinger, p. 818.
  21. ↑ Grözinger, p. 849.
  22. ^ Karl Erich Grözinger: Jewish thinking, theology, philosophy, mysticism, Volume I, From the God of Abraham to the God of Aristotle, Campus Verlag GmbH, Frankfurt a. M., 2004, p. 302.
  23. ↑ Klaus W. Hälbig: The Tree of Life: Cross and Torah in Mystical Interpretation , Würzburg 2011, p. 285.
  24. ^ Eva J. Schauer: Kabbala Lehrtafel 2006, pp. 242-255.
  25. ↑ Heimbach-Steins, Brautmystik, SP. 665
  26. ↑ K. Lehmkühler: Inabitatio, 2004.
  27. ↑ Lutheran Liturgical Conference of Germany, United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany: Agende for Evangelical Lutheran Churches and Congregations, Lutherisches Verlagshaus, 1955, pp. 75f.
  28. ^ Tertullian: De oratione chap. 22 online version German About the prayer of Dr. KA Heinrich Kellner
  29. ^ Tertullian: De oratione chap. 22nd
  30. ^ Marianne Schlosser: Old, but not out of date. The consecration of a virgin as a way of following Christ. Cologne 1992, p. 17.
  31. ^ Marianne Schlosser: Old, but not out of date. The consecration of a virgin as a way of following Christ. Cologne 1992, p. 17.
  32. ^ Marianne Schlosser: Old, but not out of date. The consecration of a virgin as a way of following Christ. Cologne 1992, p. 43
  33. ↑ Ludwig Münster: Marriage of the Lamb - The Christ mysticism of the consecration of women. Patmos Verlag 1955.
  34. ↑ Pontifical for the Catholic dioceses of the German-speaking area - Ordo consecrationis virginum - The consecration of virgins . Pontificale II, first printed in 1970, current status 1994, p. 97.
  35. ↑ Because of their consecration by the diocesan bishop, they [consecrated virgins] acquire a special bond with the Church, to whose service they devote themselves, even if they remain in the world. Alone or in community, they present a special eschatological picture of the Heavenly Bride and the life to come, when the Church will at last live the love for her Bridegroom Christ in fullness . John Paul II : Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Vita Consecrata - on the consecrated life and its mission in the Church and in the world (No. 7) of March 25, 1996.
  36. ↑ There is the state of virgins who, as an expression of their holy plan to follow Christ in a particularly close manner, are consecrated to God by the diocesan bishop according to a recognized liturgical rite, and are mystically betrothed to Christ, the Son of God, and appointed for the service of the Church. ( KKK 923)
  37. ↑ Bernard McGinn : Die Mystik im Abendland (translated from English from the original: The presence of God;) Herder Freiburg 2010.
  38. ↑ Saskia Wendel: Christian mysticism. An introduction , Kevelaer 2004, p. 118.
  39. ^ David L. Balás, Art. Gregor von Nyssa. In: Theological Real Encyclopedia. Volume 14, de Gruyter, Berlin 1985, p. 178.
  40. ^ Oswald Schwemmer: Bernhard von Clairvaux Mittelstraß Encyclopedia 2005²
  41. ↑ Heimbach-Steins, 1994, column 665
  42. ↑ Heimbach-Steins, 1994, column 665
  43. ↑ Ursula Peters: Vita reliosa and spiritual experience. Women's mysticism and women's mystical literature in the 13th and 14th centuries In: Gisela Brinker-Gabler (Ed.), German literature by women , Volume 1, Darmstadt / Munich 1988. ISBN 3406331181 . Pp. 88-109
  44. ↑ Jan van Ruysbroek: Die chierheit van der gheestelijcker brulocht , (Latin: De ornatu spiritalium nuptiarum)
  45. ^ Tauler, Sermon 41 (Vetter, p. 175f.); Sermon 44 (cousin p. 331). The psalm passage in the Vulgate reads : abyssus ad abyssum invocat in voce cataractarum tuarum .
  46. ↑ Mariano Delgado, “There you alone, my life!” The God-drunkenness of John of the Cross. In: ders./ AP Kustermann (ed.): God's crisis and God drunkenness. What the mysticism of contemporary world religions has to say , Würzburg 2000, 93-11, here p. 95f and p. 97.
  47. ↑ Horst Pfefferl: Weigel, Valentin in: Metzler Lexikon Christliche Denker, Metzler 2000, p. 726
  48. ↑ K. Leimkühler: Inhabitatio 2004, p. 159.
  49. ^ Theodor Mahlmann: The position of the unio cum Christo in the Lutheran theology of the 17th century. In: Matti Repo, Rainer Vinke (ed.): Unio, God and man in post-Reformation theology. Publications of the Finnish Theological Literature Society 200. Helsinki 1996.
  50. ↑ Jeannine Blackwell: Heart Conversations with God. Confessions of German Pietists in the 17th and 18th Centuries. In: Gisela Brinker-Gabler (Ed.), German Literature by Women , Volume 1, Darmstadt / Munich 1988. ISBN 3406331181 . P. 269 f.
  51. ↑ Jürgen Büchsel: Gottfried Arnold: His understanding of church and rebirth. Dissertation. Marburg 1968. Witten 1970, p. 169ff.
  52. ↑ Chr. Beutler: Bertram high altar pp. 15–26.
  53. ↑ The bride is anima, ecclesia and Maria. Christ is the bridegroom. All three interpretations and meanings apply simultaneously, and each is correct. Chr.Butler: Bertram high altar p. 23
  54. ↑ Peter Schill: Iconography and Cult of St. Catherine of Alexandria in the Middle Ages. Dissertation Munich 2005, p. 300.
  55. ↑ P. Schill: Ikonographie p. 69f.
  56. ↑ P. Schill: Ikonographie p. 298.
  57. ↑ P. Schill: Ikonographie p. 294; Peter Bloch: Dedikationsbild, Lexikon der Christian Ikonographie , Vol. 1 (1968), Sp. 491–494.
  58. ↑ Milena Palakarkina, Märtyrer, Jean Tinguely, Gespenster & Collaborations, Gallery Hans Mayer, authors and Benteli Verlag, Bern 1991.
  59. ↑ Dimensions 350 × 350 × 100 cm
  60. ^ Francis Parent, Analyze de l'œuvre de Milena Palakarkina, Artension 11/2009, pp. 76-77.
  61. ↑ Heimbach-Steins 1994, column 665.
  62. ^ Walter: Johann Sebastian Bach . 2006, p. 55.
  63. ^ Badische Landes-Bibliothek Karlsruhe, Cod. Donaueschingen 106, 26r.
  64. ↑ Einsiedeln Abbey Library, Cod. 710 (322), 13v
  65. ↑ Carl Gustav Jung: The Psychology of Transfer. Explained using an alchemical series of pictures. dtv: 4th edition. January 2001, ISBN 3-423-35178-0 .
  66. ↑ compare also: Carl Gustav Jung: Mysterium Coniunctionis. Collected Works, Vol. 14, 3 Vols., ISBN 3-530-40714-3 (Vol. 3 by Marie-Louise von Franz, ISBN 3-530-40799-2 )
  67. ↑ presumed author Arnaldus de Villanova