Love Puts the “Christ” in Christina

In the Middle Ages, there were at least two significant types of love—interpersonal love and love for God. While they were seen on different levels of holiness, the language used to understand the two were one and the same. Whether it is the burning desire that is controlled through marriage or Christina of Markyate’s interaction with God, the vocabulary used to describe relationships seems to be deeply rooted in lust and physicality. This dependence on worldly terms implies that there are no words that fully encompass the nuances of divine love. In fact, the only way to appropriately describe one’s love for God is through the more widely experienced idea of sex and mortal love. As a result, love for God in the Middle Ages becomes intrinsically tied to love between humans, and understanding human connection and emotions lends to a deeper appreciation and devotion to one’s relationship with God.

Despite Christina of Markyate’s vow to save herself for God, she is unable to fully devote herself to Him until she endures physical lust and overcomes her sexual desire for the unnamed cleric. While this relationship seems to be less spiritual than her previous relationship with the hermit, Roger, the placement of this story in the Life indicates that her internal struggle is a turning point that allows Christina to fully understand both the expansiveness of God and the sanctity of her love for God. When Christina is placed in the charge of the unnamed cleric, she becomes assailed by the devil and begins to feel lustful urges that are only kept at bay by strict asceticism. After much time had passed, Christ appeared to Christina in the form of a child and as she held him close to her, “she felt his presence within her even through the barrier of her flesh” (Talbot, 119). Upon feeling the touch of God, Christina is released from her lust and is able to cement her devotion to God. As it was necessary for Christina to encounter worldly desire and emotions, the story implies that experiencing carnal human relationships is essential to understanding the significance and divinity of God. By wanting sex, Christina is able to compare her experiences with the flesh to that of God and independently come to the understanding that carnal pleasures are incomparable to the love of God. Thus, she consciously rejects human passion and love in order to strengthen her devotion to God.

Just as Christina needed to experience human desire to uphold her vow to God, people in the Middle Ages were encouraged to treat marriage and human relationships as a means to continue serving God. In The Excellence of Marriage, Augustine discusses how despite the improperness of sexual incontinence, “sexual union in marriage achieves something good” and forces sensual desire to “[burn] more modestly” (Augustine, 35). In his writing, Augustine claims that marriage is honorable because it dampens sexual desire and aids people in avoiding sin and devoting themselves to God. Additionally, it produces good through offspring. Without marriage, it was believed that people’s sexual desires could run amok and force them to sacrifice their relationship with God in exchange for carnal pleasure. In this way, marriage and human connections allow people to strengthen their commitment to God. 

In today’s culture, marriage and one’s relationship with God are no longer consecrated in the same way they were in the Middle Ages. Specifically in America, interactions with God are less common and the notion of God often does not dictate how we understand and treat human relationships. Instead of committing to a relationship in order to mitigate sin and strengthen one’s relationship with God, the destigmatization of premarital sex and dating has allowed people to seek out relationships for their own sake. In general, God has become less intertwined with how humans perceive love—both human and divine. Therefore, rather than leading to loving God, interpersonal relationships can be sought out to explore the very physicality that they once tried to dampen. 

Works Cited

Augustine of Hippo. “The Excellence of Marriage.” 

Talbot, C. H., et al. The Life of Christina of Markyate. Oxford University Press, 2009. 

Sexy Saints and the Persistence of Piety

 The idea of devilishly desirable divine servants has been around for millenia. In Proverbs 31, the qualities of a capable wife are described in detail, specifically  “A woman who fears the Lord is to be praised”. Proverbs 31 additionally claims that commitment to the Lord is better than charm or beauty, describing charm as “deceitful” and beauty as “vain.”(Prov. 31:30). Piety has always been desirable for a spouse or a partner, and this theme has been expressed throughout documented Christian history. However, as we move away from Proverbs 31 and proceed to later writings, piety gains another layer of meaning. Self-control as is necessary for piety is featured in The Life of Christina of Markyate, but is also present in the recent TV series Fleabag, particularly in the second season. Perhaps the desirability lies not only in closeness to the Lord, but in the self-control it takes for one to be that close to the Lord. 

In The Life of Christina of Markyate, we examine the life of a woman who wants nothing more than to live out her days as the wife of the Lord; she was described as having “devoted herself completely as a spouse to Christ the Lord” (The Life of Christina of Markyate, 69). Because of her absolute devotion to her faith, Christina makes a promise to God that she will remain a virgin for life. However, when she flees home and finds herself surrounded by abbots and monks such as Roger, Geoffrey, and an unnamed cleric with similar (if not the same) values as her, such as piety and self-control, she finds it increasingly difficult to hold to her declaration of celibacy. Knowing the connections she has with men such as Roger and Geoffrey later in her life, it is interesting to observe her reluctance for a relationship with men who were not pious and committed to the Lord such as her relationship with the man to whom she was married, Burthred. In the description of this relationship, she is uninterested in this man, but she is willing to marry him for her family and their reputation.

The contrast between this relationship, in which she is relatively uninterested emotionally in Burthred, and the relationships with pious men later in her life, in which she is interested in them emotionally, depicts how people, specifically Christina in this case, can view piety as a desirable characteristic for a partner. Christina was more interested in the pious men later in her life because of their commitment to the Lord and the fact that their commitment ran parallel to her commitment. This commitment brought with it a level of self-control that was unseen in Burthred and which Christina desired in a relationship with a man seeing as how she wished to remain a virgin which would require self-control from both her and her partner. The Life of Christina of Markyate is marked by the theme of piety throughout the entire story, or more specifically self-control through piety, as a sexy and desirable trait for a partner. Most of the men Christina was emtionally involved with were pious and, because she was as well, Christina and each of the men had the self-control they needed to abstain from sex. Season 2 of the show Fleabag explores this idea further. 

The show Fleabag follows the witty, irreverent main character, affectionately called Fleabag, as she moves from partner to partner while navigating her own small-business and familial troubles. In season two, her father is getting remarried and invites her and her sister to a dinner party to celebrate. Upon arrival, Fleabag meets the priest who will be officiating her father’s wedding (dubbed the Hot Priest) and the two hit it off. Throughout the following episodes, Fleabag attempts to seduce the Hot Priest and have sex with him, but he continually reaffirms his commitment to the Lord and to the church, thereby declining Fleabag’s advances. However, rather than extinguishing Fleabag’s desire, the Priest’s actions stoke the flame. Fleabag continually notes how his restraint and self-control makes her all the more determined to hook up with him, especially since it’s obvious he has feelings for her as well. She even notes that she has never felt this way about a man before because she had never seen a man show such restraint. Restraint, it can be argued, stems from piety and his commitment to priesthood. Without piety, these traits that Fleabag found to be so enticing and attractive would not be present. In the case of Fleabag and the Hot Priest, piety is sexy. 

The desirability of piety and closeness to the Lord has been a persistent theme in storytelling in the Judeo-Christian world, beginning with Proverbs 31 and coming all the way to 2019 with Fleabag. Piety itself can be sexy, as seen in Proverbs 31 and briefly in The Life of Christina, but the self-control and restraint that comes with piety is often found to be sexy, too, as seen in Fleabag. Either way, it is possible to be a sexy saint without purchasing the costume. 

That Heavenly Feeling: Piety as an Outlet for Repressed Eroticism

In 1837, a Belgian artist named Joseph Geefs was commissioned to create a statue of Lucifer for St. Paul’s cathedral in Liege, Belgium. 

                the statue                                                                        the cathedral

The installation was originally intended to have a statue of Lucifer surrounded by angels. Lucifer then turns his back to their overwhelming glory, symbolizing his defeat at the hands of the Divine. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, for our purposes), something went awry: Lucifer was too sexy for church. Citing distraction of the “sensitive” women of the congregation, the Church had Geef’s statue removed and commissioned his older brother, Guillame, to sculpt a new, less provocative statue. There was only one problem; Guillame’s statue was, somehow, even more erotically charged.

 

Guillame’s statue: obviously much hotter, especially to the modern eye

Where the first Lucifer was gracefully beautiful, with delicate features and musculature, the second was the exact opposite. Guillame, in attempting to make the Devil less beautiful, added extra muscles to make him look more rugged. Unfortunately, less beautiful did not translate to more ugly – it simply made Lucifer even more alluring. Bizarrely, St. Paul’s cathedral installed this statue with minimal fuss, admitting defeat to the statue’s hotness in the process. Aside from being utterly hilarious to the modern gaze, this historical event raises an interesting question about the Church’s struggle against the eroticism of divinity: why was there a struggle in the first place? Could it be that the repressed sexual desires of devout Christians, with no healthy outlet, were only able to find an outlet in the eroticism of the Divine? Let’s unpack that.

In The Life of Christina of Markyate, a seminal text in the field of medieval history, one scene seems particularly important. Despite using descriptors such as “grace,” “chastity,” and “charity” to describe the ensuing scenario, the imagery this scene presents is anything but. In the scene, Christina is lying “prostrate” on the floor of her close friend and spiritual mentor, Roger’s, chapel. Strangely, Roger chooses to step over her prone form, craning his neck to “see how modestly… she had composed herself for prayer,” (The Life of Christina of Markyate, 39). Obviously, that’s a strange image, and if that’s not also an extremely roundabout way to describe Roger’s leering at Christina’s submissive form on the ground, then I don’t know what is. This scene, for all of its religious language and overtones, has a strong undertone of sensuality and, even, eroticism. And it doesn’t end there. 

In Bernard of Clairvaux’s religious analysis of the Bible’s Song of Songs, he spends five speeches analyzing just the first line of the poem: the phrase, “kiss me with the kiss of his mouth,” (Clairvaux, 1). In a modern-day reading of the Song of Songs, most readers would assume it’s a sex poem – it possesses copious amounts of erotic imagery, most it centered around taste and smell, as well as suggestive, euphemistic language. To Clarivaux, though, this poem is about God’s kiss of salvation to Man, the kiss taking the form of Christ and literally representing the imparting of grace, rather than a physical kiss. But is this really the case? Or does even Clairvaux unwittingly contribute to the eroticism of the poem? At the end of his sermon, Clarivaux makes this statement: “And finally, when we shall have obtained these favors through many prayers and tears, we humbly dare to raise our eyes to his mouth, so divinely beautiful, not merely to gaze upon it, but – I say it with fear and trembling – to receive its kiss,” (Clairvaux, 9). I don’t know about you, but the phrasing of this sentence feels incredibly intimate and erotic. Especially the use of the words “fear and trembling” in regards to receiving the kiss; to put it mildly, “trembling” is a term with many less holy connotations than how it has been used here. But isn’t it strange how similar fervor for the Divine and sexual desire are portrayed? One can “burn” with love for God in the same way that one can “burn” with sexual desire for a lover (The Life of Christina of Markyate, 39). Maybe this seeming transitivity between the Divine and the erotic is due to the Church’s control of what is acceptable sexually and what is not. In a time period in which sexuality and the human body’s natural urges were relentlessly demonized and suppressed, it would not be surprising if some of that pent up sexual energy found its way into a socially acceptable outlet: religious fervor. After all, being “excited” about the Divine is the goal of religion, right? 

...

Alright, maybe not that excited.

Works Cited:

1. https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/artistry/2020/11/18/the-devil-is-too-sublime/

2. The Life of Christina of Markyates

3. Bernard of Clairvaux’s Sermon on the Song of Songs

Sex and the Church: Do it, but also don’t.

Christianity in the eleventh to twelfth centuries CE redefined what it meant to be Christian in several aspects of life. If the Great Schism isn’t enough to point to the turmoil among the religious, then perhaps it can be signaled by the lack of consensus over the relationship between living a holy, God-fearing, Christ-loving life and sex. 

The Song of Songs, a unique set of poems within the Old Testament, approaches love in a positive manner, emphasizing the pleasures that can be gained through love. The relationship between two lovers is represented in a glorified manner, setting the foundation for what worldly love in a holy life should be. Or perhaps not.

In a series of sermons, Bernard of Clairvaux takes the time to reframe the Song of Songs (or at least a part of it). In the opening few sermons, he deals with one line found in the passages in particular: “Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth.” While one would assume that this line simply refers to the physical sign of affection between two people, Bernard goes out of his way to rebuke this notion. What is seemingly the bond between two lovers is in fact a representation of Jesus Christ, the joining of man and God: “...the kiss however...is a person that is formed by both, none other than ‘the one mediator between God and mankind, himself a man, Christ Jesus” (346). While it’s reasonable to look for a deeper meaning in the passage, such a stark difference between the apparent themes of the poems and Bernard’s interpretation frankly doesn’t align with the apparent meaning of the original poems. 

Bernard’s interpretation also leaves the reader with the question of how love fits into faith. No longer is there a Biblical text representing worldly love and union. Instead, what could have been a guideline is now the victim of a massive backtracking, changing the poem from the story of lovers to a message about God.

Perhaps there is a guideline for worldly love in a holy life in the Letters of Saint Paul? Or not. The Letters of Saint Paul to the Corinthians serve to further complicate the relationship between marriage, sexuality, and the church. In the letters, while married life can be just as “holy” as a life of virginity, it is largely a means to curb temptation. Marriage is permissible, but only while serving its purpose of stopping the worldly temptation of “sexual immorality”. A last resort of sorts.

We also see the expectation of Christians, especially women, to remain chaste. While sex during marriage is permitted (under a certain set of conditions), virginity, especially as a sacrifice or devotion to God, is honored and greatly preferred over marriage. “To the unmarried and the widows,” says St. Paul in chapter 6 of his letters, “I say that it is well for them to remain unmarried as I am.” 

The Life of Christina of Markyate honors Christina for her decision to devote herself to God and remain a virgin. She is praised for her rejections of worldly  love despite several different occasions of temptation. Christina is revered as a maiden of God, and is cited as having Jesus and the mother Mary interceding to protect her and her virginity on several occasions, including when Jesus (perplexingly, and somewhat horrifyingly) came down in the form of a child and made spiritual love with the virgin herself to curb her sexual desires. The impression is left that sex is something which one needs to be protected from or something which requires holy counseling to overcome, as with Christina.

In The “Older” and “Later” Life of Queen Mathilda, Mathilda is also honored for her decision regarding sex. While she herself did not remain a virgin, she is often regarded as being uninterested in worldly love. At one point, it is said that Mathilda preferred being in the church over her husband’s bed at night, and that is how she would spend the majority of her evenings (76). As Mathilda’s story is presented, rejecting indulgence in a worldly marriage over faith is the example to live by.

These works do not take a unified stance on the best way to experience love and also live a holy life. Reassurance over the holiness of marriage is constantly rebuked by praise of virginity or lack of interest in sex. At one point, marriage is acceptable, and love is to be coveted. At another, it’s a last resort to avoid sin, and virginity is the more honorable way of life. Looking at the constant backtracking and changes of opinion is mind boggling. It appears to be a messy coverup of a topic which remains no true consensus. So, the question remains: how does one walk this line of sinful love and Godly worship?

The Divine Kiss, in Three Parts

What is a kiss from a god?

    This is a question that veers into blasphemous territory, and one without a straightforward answer at that. Perhaps a kiss is a sign of divine favour, an indication that one has been blessed. Or perhaps a kiss is not really a kiss but a “gift of holy love, [a] sacrament of endless union with God,” as Bernard of Clairvaux believed (Walsh, 344). And then again it may not be an act of purely spiritual desire, but one of fleshly desire as well.

    In my effort to answer this question I will look briefly at three texts: The Life of Christina of Markyate, the Song of Songs, and Bernard of Clairvaux’s Sermons on the Song of Songs. I will examine the three different narratives of the “divine kiss” brought to light in these texts, each in correspondence with an artistic depiction of a divine kiss. Artwork concerning relationships between humans and gods is nearly infinite in number, but for brevity’s sake I have chosen three particularly well-known works: Titian’s Danaë, Canova’s Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss, and Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam.

I: The Kiss Of Desire

    In Titian’s Danaë, the eponymous subject occupies most of the frame, recumbent in a picture of languid sensuality. Her gaze is directed upwards, at a faint glimmer of gold in the air above her bed: this is the god Zeus, who, hearing of her beauty, has come to see it for himself. 

    Christina of Markyate would have understood the feeling. In a similar composition to Titian’s, Christina, looking up at the “mother of the Most High,” “gazed upon her beauty the more fixedly and was the more filled with delight as she gazed” (Talbot, 111). And just as Zeus frees Danaë from her prison because of her beauty, so does the queen of heaven grant Christina’s wish to live with her mentor Roger as a reward for her exceptional piety. Taken together, these two works suggest that a kiss from the divine is a blessing reserved for the most extraordinary humans.

II: The Kiss of Passion

    Canova’s Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss, depicting the god Cupid’s resuscitation of his human lover Psyche, is perhaps the closest of this collection to an actual kiss. Cupid bends over the reclining Psyche, one arm around her chest, the other hand on her upturned face. With both arms she simultaneously reaches up to grasp the back of his head. The pose is acutely reminiscent of the earthy eroticism of The Song of Songs. One might imagine Canova’s tender Cupid a mirror of the Song’s narrator’s musings: “O that his left hand were under my head/and that his right hand embraced me!” (The Song of Solomon, 2:6). 

    As a prominent artist of the Neoclassical movement, Canova looked most often to classical Greek art for inspiration. But, as this was a man who dedicated his entire estate to building a Catholic temple, perhaps it would not be too presumptuous to assume that the echoes of the Song of Songs in his work were purposeful. In the Song, and in Psyche, the divine beloved assumes tangible form and speaks in human language. Or, as Psyche remembers: “My beloved speaks and says to me:/‘Arise, my love, my fair one/and come away’” (Solomon, 2:10).

III: The Kiss of Life

    I will conclude with The Creation of Adam, which recalls the moment at which God breathed life into Adam. It is a strikingly physical depiction of God, his extended arm bared and muscular, one forefinger reaching for Adam’s.

    The twelfth-century CE abbot Bernard of Clairvaux likely would have embraced the Creation: it was Bernard who defined the divine kiss as not “an adhering of the lips” but a “marvelous and indistinguishable mingling of the divine light with the enlightened mind” (Walsh, 345). Indeed, he believed Christ to be the “one sole instance the mouth of the Word was pressed” (Walsh, 346). Michelangelo’s Adam is a similar figure: a kiss from God to the first human, a precursor to Christ. 

    Yet the instant of creation is not without fleshly sensuality, and both the ecstasy of Bernard’s sermon and the gesture of the Creation suggest a desire beyond the spiritual. Bernard seems at times overcome by an all-consuming passion, as when he writes: “even the very beauty of the angels can only leave me wearied. For my Jesus utterly surpasses these in his majesty and splendor” (Walsh, 346). With a similar expression does the exquisite Adam look, arm stretched out and fingers curled in languorous perfection, to his Creator.

 Apologies to our readers for the delay in dropping the newest edition of Love, Medieval Style. Fortunately, this one is worth the wait! Join us for "What's Love Got to Do with God?"--in which our intrepid writing team takes on the thorny equation L(ove) + R(eligion) = P(assion)x ...