{"title":"My Friend the Cross: Cross-Directed Prayer in Seventh-Century Monastic Communities and New Media Studies","authors":"Daniel An","doi":"10.3390/rel15060708","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"While scholars have long recognized the central importance of the cross within Syriac-speaking Christian communities in late antique Mesopotamia, the question of how physical crosses functioned as aids for prayer has only recently begun to be explored. The present article addresses this question with respect to East Syrian monastic communities in seventh-century Mesopotamia, focusing on the context of the monastic cell. Bringing together accounts of cross-directed prayer in Syriac monastic literature with archaeological evidence for crosses from the region, the article concludes that physical crosses played an important role as mediating devices of divine presence that were both always at hand and the frequent objects of monastics’ sensorial attention. These conclusions are subsequently discussed through the lens of recent research from the field of new media studies toward the goal of understanding how cross-directed prayer may have served to bridge monastic spirituality and sociality in Mesopotamia.","PeriodicalId":38169,"journal":{"name":"Religions","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7000,"publicationDate":"2024-06-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Religions","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15060708","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"N/A","JCRName":"RELIGION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
While scholars have long recognized the central importance of the cross within Syriac-speaking Christian communities in late antique Mesopotamia, the question of how physical crosses functioned as aids for prayer has only recently begun to be explored. The present article addresses this question with respect to East Syrian monastic communities in seventh-century Mesopotamia, focusing on the context of the monastic cell. Bringing together accounts of cross-directed prayer in Syriac monastic literature with archaeological evidence for crosses from the region, the article concludes that physical crosses played an important role as mediating devices of divine presence that were both always at hand and the frequent objects of monastics’ sensorial attention. These conclusions are subsequently discussed through the lens of recent research from the field of new media studies toward the goal of understanding how cross-directed prayer may have served to bridge monastic spirituality and sociality in Mesopotamia.
期刊介绍:
Religions (ISSN 2077-1444) is an international, open access scholarly journal, publishing peer reviewed studies of religious thought and practice. It is available online to promote critical, hermeneutical, historical, and constructive conversations. Religions publishes regular research papers, reviews, communications and reports on research projects. In addition, the journal accepts comprehensive book reviews by distinguished authors and discussions of important venues for the publication of scholarly work in the study of religion. Religions aims to serve the interests of a wide range of thoughtful readers and academic scholars of religion, as well as theologians, philosophers, social scientists, anthropologists, psychologists, neuroscientists and others interested in the multidisciplinary study of religions