Jeffrey
F. Hamburger.
St. John the Divine: The Deified Evangelist in
Medieval
Art and Theology.
Berkeley: California
University Press, 2002.
xxiv,
324pp.
Hardback ISBN
0520228774.
Publisher's
recommended price $60.00/£39.95
Throughout
the Middle
Ages, John the Evangelist, identified as the author of both the Book of
Revelation and the most profound and theologically informed of the four
Gospels, provided monks and nuns with a figure of inspiration and an
exemplar
of vision and virginity. Rather than the historical apostle, this
book's
protagonist is a persona of the Evangelist established in theology, the
liturgy, and devotional practice: the model mystic, who, by virtue of
his
penetrating insight, was seen as having become a mirror image of
Christ.
In St. John the Divine, Jeffrey Hamburger assemble a remarkable set of
images from the ninth to the fifteenth century that identify the
inspired
Evangelist so closely with the deity that he appears as his living
image
and embodiment. Hamburger explores the ways these representations of
St.
John in the guise of christ elucidate the significance of images as
such
in medieval theology and mysticism. Above all, he shows how these
artworks,
presented together for the first time, epitomize the relationship
between
the visible and the invisible: between ideas, however abstract, and the
concrete images that medieval Christians confronted face-to-face.
Drawing
on the
idea that mankind is made in the image of God, the illuminated
manuscripts
that hamburger discusses represent an extreme yet exemplary instance in
the history of the Christian image. By inviting monastic viewers to
look
beyond the rhetoric of imitation and strive for full identification
with
the deity in whose likeness they were made, representations of John in
the guise of christ embody a peculiarly Christian concept of the image.
Taking as their point of departure the opening chapter of John's
Gospel,
the images simultaneously articulate a theology and a theory of the
image
- subjects on which most medieval taxts remain silent. Hamburger
investigates
the concept and function of the Christian image as it is elaborated
both
in the images themselves and in commentary from Eriugena to Eckhart. In
underscoring the vitality and complexity of the iconographic
imagination,
Hamburger's study reframes the relationship between medieval art and
theology
and underscores the indispensable place of images within medieval
monasticism.
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