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Miracula Christi
Among the myriad currents swirling in the turbulence of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, two were especially relevant to the appearance of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. One current was a transition from the early Christian theology which emphasized the divinity of Jesus to a focus on Jesus’ humanity—one of the primary theological impulses leading to the Reformation. Starting in the early Middle Ages, the Passion of Jesus was the subject popular art and literature. Jesus’ suffering and death during his torture and crucifixion for the redemption of humankind was seen to mirror human suffering brought on by the Black Death in the 14th century and the scourge of syphilis in the 15th. Because Christian theology had both Jesus and Mary ascending bodily into heaven, there could be no physical relics for either, as there were for many saints whose skeletons, whole or in parts, were purportedly preserved. Instead, in the 15th century a number of shrines were established that claimed to have capsules of Jesus’ blood or Mary’s milk. A related current has been dubbed the “interiorization of faith.” According to Johan Huizinga (1872–1945), one of the founders of modern cultural history, in the Middle Ages the laity “lived in the lackadaisical corruption of an entirely externalized religion.” The traffic in indulgences, third-party transactions between a petitioner and the spiritual world, which infuriated Marin Luther and other instigators of the Reformation, epitomized religion preoccupied with public ritual over individual faith. By the 17th century the theological struggle brought on by the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, which a look at a map of Europe would suggest was a confrontation between north and south, had moved from the theological arena to the military and political. People on both sides of the confessional border grew weary of theological controversy. What they sought was not endless disputes on what Christian truths to believe, but how to live a truly Christian life. There was a new religious interest in the inner man, the “Homo interior,” thus a movement from external dogma to inner piety, from head to heart. This engraving is an illustration from Schola Cordis
(Dissertation on the Heart) written by Benedictus van Haeften
(1588–1648), published ca. 1629. Although van Haeften was
a Benedictine monk, his book, which located the interaction between
divine love and human action in the heart, was popular in Lutheran countries.
The engraving is by Hendrik Goltzius (1558–1617), a Dutch printmaker,
draftsman, and painter. A fall into burning coals when he was a child
left his right hand crippled, making it impossible for him to extend
his fingers fully. Nevertheless, he developed a new style of engraving,
with which he created painterly effects, notably three-dimensionality.
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