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To: livius
Figures weren’t just themselves but represented something else

Indeed. This is why when Molanus says

‘Many painters show Mary and John the Baptist kneeling beside Our lord at the Last Judgment...But we may not think that at that day the Virgin Mary will kneel for us before the Judge, baring her breast to intercede for sinners. Nor may we think that John the Baptist will fall upon his knees to beg mercy for mankind in the way the painters show. Rather, the blessed Virgin and St. John shall sit beside the supreme Judge as assessors. The mercy which is extended now will have no place then. There will only be strict justice at that day.’
, he may be making a theological point -- all wrong, like his entire Protestant theological jumble -- but his point, such as it is, has nothing to do with what is and what is not a valid artistic expression of the Last Judgement.

In the Eastern Byzantine tradition one won't see Our Lady baring her breast, but one will see her and St. John the Baptist pleading for divine mercy, because that is the faith of our fathers East and West.

52 posted on 07/01/2008 8:34:39 AM PDT by annalex (http://www.catecheticsonline.com/CatenaAurea.php)
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To: annalex

Yes. St John the Baptist is much more important in the East. Actually, I shouldn’t say that - he was much more important in the West until fairly recently. It’s odd that he’s sort of disappeared in the West. I wonder why?


60 posted on 07/01/2008 9:14:15 AM PDT by livius
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