The Healing Power of Beauty Flashcards

A comprehensive vocabulary flashcard set defining key theological, literary, and historical terms from Jennifer Newsome Martin's essay 'The Healing Power of Beauty'.

The Rock

A 1934 pageant play by T. S. Eliot about rebuilding a Church, which laments the modern trade of genuine wisdom and mystery for data and information.

Hans Urs von Balthasar

A modern theologian known for his sixteen-volume trilogy and theological aesthetics, which seeks to reinstate beauty as an objective category for theology and Christian living.

Ur-form

Hans Urs von Balthasar's term for Jesus Christ as the primary, concrete instance of the infinite expressed in finitude, serving as the generative source for all beautiful things.

Das Ganze im Fragment

A German concept meaning 'the whole in the fragment', used by Balthasar to describe how finite forms of art, nature, and language participate in the mystery and beauty of God.

Species and Lumen

Medieval aesthetic terms translating to 'form' and 'splendor' (interior luminosity), which Balthasar identifies as the complementary junction where beauty is objectively located.

Cathedral

A short story by Raymond Carver about an irreligious, obstinate narrator who experiences a moment of spiritual vision while drawing a cathedral on paper alongside a blind guest.

Robert

The blind guest in Raymond Carver's short story 'Cathedral' who acts as an agent of vision, enabling the sighted narrator to experience spiritual rebirth and healing.

Isenheim Altarpiece

An enormous polyptych created between 1510 and 1515 by Matthias Grünewald for an Antonite hospital chapel, depicting scenes from the Crucifixion to the Resurrection.

Ergotism

An infectious skin condition caused by ingesting poisoned rye—also known as 'St. Anthony's fire'—suffered by patients at the Antonite hospital where the Isenheim Altarpiece was housed.

Antonite Community

A monastic hospital order that cared for patients suffering from ergotism, in whose chapel monastery Grünewald's Isenheim Altarpiece was originally installed.

St. Sebastian and St. Anthony

Two saints associated with healing and protection from epidemic disease depicted on the exterior panels of Grünewald's Isenheim Altarpiece.

Nikolaus Hagenauer

The sculptor who carved the gilded wooden figures of St. Augustine, St. Anthony, St. Jerome, and the Apostles in the innermost open position of the Isenheim Altarpiece.

Poiēo (ποιέω)

The ancient Greek verb root meaning 'to make,' from which the word 'poetry' derives, highlighting the act of creating and shaping new life and form.

Johannine Theologia Crucis

A theology of the cross grounded in the Gospel of John and Revelation that views the Crucifixion as the doxological moment where God's glory shines through suffering and formlessness.

Christian Form

A mode of existence described by Balthasar as the most beautiful thing in the human realm, achieved when a believer's life is attuned to Christ and situated ecclesially in the Church.