# eben jetzt erst



## Löwenfrau

Checking my interpretation:

"Die Vereinigung mit Gott hat ihr Vorbild in der irdischen Liebe, die doch auch zum Selbstvergessen führt. (Man beachte, daß die antike Welt einen solchen Eros nicht kannte, daß eben jetzt erst der Liebesüberschwang und die Marienverehrung aufkam.)"

"... that only now the love fervor/ fervent love and the veneration of Mary have came about"

But I don't know which "fervent love" is he talking about, nor why the veneration of Mary should be related to Eros....


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## Kwistax

stop reading that book, it's better for your sanity!  

It seems to me like a patchwork of ideas that are awkwardly put together...


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## wandle

I suspect Mauthner is talking about romantic love and the troubadour tradition, which produced effusive love poetry. If so, I would suggest in English:

_The union with God has its prototype in earthly love, which also brings us to forgetfulness of self. (Note that the ancient world knew no such Eros: it was only now that romantic love and the veneration of Mary arose.)_

Depending on style, for 'knew no such Eros' you could say 'had no such concept of love'. The suggestion is that courtly love and the cult of Mary together represent a development in the expression of love which was unknown among the ancient Greeks and Romans.


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## Schimmelreiter

wandle said:


> I suspect Mauthner is talking about romantic love and the troubadour tradition


Fritz Mauthner was an atheist, of Jewish parents. He looked down on such things as Mariolatry. My take is he ascribed Christians' veneration of Mary to their keenness on having an object of _eros_, besides God as an object of _agape.

_Romantic love is centuries younger than the veneration of Mary.


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## berndf

Schimmelreiter said:


> Fritz Mauthner was an atheist, of Jewish parents. He looked down on such things as Mariolatry. My take is he ascribed Christians' veneration of Mary to their keenness on having an object of _eros_, besides God as an object of _agape.
> 
> _Romantic love is centuries younger than the veneration of Mary.


His relation to religion was rather complex. He is of Jewish decent but underwent a Catholic education in school (it shines through in some of his high-browed comments about Protestantism -> _die protestantischen Päpstlein_). Also he was indeed an atheist, his reflections on religion, especially the two he grew up with, were always earnest, respectful and serious.


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## wandle

Schimmelreiter said:


> Romantic love is centuries younger than the veneration of Mary.


Well, what period is meant by 'jetzt erst'?


> jetzt erst der Liebesüberschwang und die Marienverehrung aufkam


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## berndf

I would assume early second millennium.


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## Schimmelreiter

We progressed roughly as far as the year 500 in one of Löwenfrau's more recent threads: 

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2866972


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## wandle

Another thread dealt with Hugo of St. Victor (1096 -1141).

The Catholic Encyclopedia contains the following statement (my emphasis):


> In any case, the evidence of the Syriac manuscripts proved beyond all question that in the East before the end of the sixth century, and probably very much earlier, devotion to the Blessed Virgin had assumed all _those developments which are usually associated with the later Middle Ages_.


 That article, naturally enough from the Roman Catholic viewpoint, wants to link devotion to Mary to the earliest possible period. However, it is one thing to trace the implications of doctrine back to early origins and to find some early devotional practice.  It is another thing to establish when such devotion reached its full development.

If Mauthner was an atheist, I imagine he would have had in mind the period of the cult's flowering rather than its theological roots or its first manifestations.


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## berndf

This timeframe (Hugo) is more plausibile. The veneration of Mary is certainly older, probably late 3rd century when Christianity started to incorporate elements of other popular cults of the time in the Roman empire. This includes adoption of Dec 25th, the feast of the newborn Sol Invictus, as Christmas and elements of the Isis cult projected on Mary. But the very concept of romantic love did not develop before the early second millennium.


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## Schimmelreiter

berndf said:


> This timeframe (Hugo) is more plausibile. The veneration of Mary is certainly older, probably late 3rd century when Christianity started to incorporate elements of other popular cults of the time in the Roman empire. This includes adoption of Dec 25th, the feast of the newborn Sol Invictus, as Christmas and elements of the Isis cult projected on Mary. But the very concept of romantic love did not develop before the early second millennium.


Would you agree, then, that _eros_, as sensual love, was projected, albeit implicitly and subliminally, onto Mary, thereby contributing to her veneration and popularity in the popular cult? Up until then, the faithful had only had Jesus Christ, the man, to pray to, also God the Father, probably imagined as an old man in the popular cult, and the Holy Spirit, who was hard to imagine anyway and, at least grammatically, was of the masculine gender, too. In the Virgin, for the first time the faithful had a good-looking young woman to venerate, probably even to pray to, albeit in contravention of the doctrine. And young and good-looking she was, given all her representations in Christian art.



We are, after all, trying to find an answer to this:





Löwenfrau said:


> I don't know which "fervent love" is he talking about, nor why the veneration of Mary should be related to Eros....


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## Löwenfrau

berndf said:


> His relation to religion was rather complex. He is of Jewish decent but underwent a Catholic education in school (it shines through in some of his high-browed comments about Protestantism -> _die protestantischen Päpstlein_). Also he was indeed an atheist, his reflections on religion, especially the two he grew up with, were always earnest, respectful and serious.



That's correct, but maybe it depends on which aspect of religion. Mauthner says he "loves Meister Eckhart" and other mystics, but how respectful was he about cults and about traditional Churches? Maybe Schimmelreiter is right in this regard.


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## berndf

Schimmelreiter said:


> Would you agree, then, that _eros_, as sensual love, was projected, albeit implicitly and subliminally, onto Mary, thereby contributing to her veneration and popularity in the popular cult? Up until then, the faithful had only had Jesus Christ, the man, to pray to, also God the Father, probably imagined as an old man in the popular cult, and the Holy Spirit, who was hard to imagine anyway and, at least grammatically, was of the masculine gender, too. In the Virgin, for the first time the faithful had a good-looking young woman to venerate, probably even to pray to, albeit in contravention of the doctrine. And young and good-looking she was, given all her representations in Christian art.
> 
> 
> 
> We are, after all, trying to find an answer to this:


Mauthner talks about "einen solchen Eros" not about any Eros. An Eros that leads to "Selbstvergessenheit" has to be a romantic and not just a sensual one.


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## wandle

> jetzt erst der Liebesüberschwang und die Marienverehrung aufkam


What does this statement mean? Mauthner seems to saying there were two distinct cultural phenomena, _der Liebesüberschwang_ and _die Marienverehrung_, the former (presumably) secular and the latter religious, and that they developed at the same time.

Given that that is the meaning, what is the apparently significant social and cultural phenomenon which Mauthner calls _der Liebesüberschwang_?

Given that the cult of Mary developed slowly over centuries, and reached its full flowering in the medieval period, that seems to allow a wide time-frame for the coincidence of the two phenomena.


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## berndf

Schimmelreiter said:


> We progressed roughly as far as the year 500 in one of Löwenfrau's more recent threads:
> 
> http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2866972


The paragraph from which the sentence is taken is about an 11th century Persian mystic.


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## Löwenfrau

The sentence is grammatically clear, though. It does mean 


> "... that only now the fervent love and the veneration of Mary have came about"


doesn't it?


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## manfy

Löwenfrau said:


> The sentence is grammatically clear, though. It does mean
> 
> doesn't it?



If you're curious what Mauthner really means with "Liebe" you might want to read his lengthy and varied definition first!
(towards the end he's elaborating on love in correlation to mysticism)


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## Schimmelreiter

From Mauthner's text, which manfy links to above:

_Jetzt muß ich aber doch darauf hinweisen, daß auch die Mystik ihre *Vereinigung mit Gott* wie den brünstigsten und geistigsten Liebesgenuß empfindet_

Let's now juxtapose the above with the one sentence, by Mauthner, we're discussing in this thread. The boldfacing, in either one, is by me:

_Die *Vereinigung mit Gott* hat ihr Vorbild in der irdischen Liebe, die doch auch zum Selbstvergessen führt. (Man beachte, daß die antike Welt einen solchen Eros nicht kannte, daß eben jetzt erst der Liebesüberschwang und die Marienverehrung aufkam.)_



Both sentences are dealing with the mystical concept of _*Vereinigung mit Gott*_. This is expressly likened to the oneness of the flesh: How else can *brünstiger Liebesgenuss* be taken?

We're dealing with mysticism! We're dealing with concepts that we "modern" people, post-Kant, find hard to grasp. But then, how is it not hard to believe in resurrection, the belief in which makes one a Christian?

Especially with the Virgin Mary mentioned in the same breath, I do understand that it's hard for *reason*able people not to think of





wandle said:


> romantic love and the troubadour tradition


and not to claim that





berndf said:


> An Eros that leads to "Selbstvergessenheit" has to be a romantic and not just a sensual one.



The _Selbstvergessenheit_ of carnal union is far from our minds, who, if anything, adhere to a sanitised version of the Christian creed, now that we have found the exit from our self-incurred immaturity. Mature at last but unable to grasp the core concepts of the Christian faith, let alone its more mystical ramifications.

Please excuse my repeating myself:





Schimmelreiter said:


> Would you agree, then, that _eros_, as sensual love, was projected, albeit implicitly and subliminally, onto Mary, thereby contributing to her veneration and popularity in the popular cult?





Schimmelreiter said:


> In the Virgin, for the first time the faithful had a good-looking young woman to venerate, probably even to pray to, albeit in contravention of the doctrine. And young and good-looking she was, given all her representations in Christian art.


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## berndf

SR, the question that was raised was if the sentence is about late Roman/early Byzantine or medieval mysticism (in order to understand _jetzt_ in relation to _die antike Welt_). My argument #13 was intendend to support my claim in #7. _Selbstvergessenheit _is not something I would associate with mysticism of the late Roman period. Late Roman mysticism was _escapist _in the sense that people felt living in a world of crisis and lack of orientation (which is probably a fair description of the state of the empire and of Roman society). I might call it but it _weltvergessen_ but not _selbstvergessen_.

Anyway, in the paragraph Mauthner discusses medieval European Christian mysticism (Meister Eckhart) in relation to Islamic, Sufi, mysticism (El Ghazali).


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## wandle

The extended discussion of love and mysticism is interesting and insightful, but I for one, looking at this as a language issue, still feel the want of a term or short phrase to render the expression _Liebesüberschwang_ and thus enable us to pin down whether it really represents an identifiable cultural phenomenon and, if so, whether it belongs to the alleged historical context.


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## Schimmelreiter

wandle said:


> _Liebesüberschwang_


The question is whether there's anything erotic about Eros here.

_Then Neptune loosed her virgin zone, and shed_
_Sleep's sweet oblivion o'er her bridal bed :_
_And when the God, *love's ardour* had suppress'd,_
_He hung upon her hand, and thus address'd:_
_[...]_

Iliad


feelings of great intensity and warmth


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## berndf

wandle said:


> The extended discussion of love and mysticism is interesting and insightful, but I for one, looking at this as a language issue, still feel the want of a term or short phrase to render the expression _Liebesüberschwang_ and thus enable us to pin down whether it really represents an identifiable cultural phenomenon and, if so, whether it belongs to the alleged historical context.


_Exuberance of love_.


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## berndf

Schimmelreiter said:


> _And when the God, *love's ardour* had suppress'd,_


_Love's ardour _is _Überschwang der(=hervorgerufen durch die) Liebe_. That's something else.


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## Schimmelreiter

berndf said:


> _Love's ardour _is _Überschwang der(=hervorgerufen durch die) Liebe_. That's something else.



_The mind of the Blessed Virgin was always wrapped in the *ardour of love*._

St. Bernardine


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## berndf

Schimmelreiter said:


> _The mind of the Blessed Virgin was always wrapped in the *ardour of love*._
> 
> St. Bernardine


What do you want to say with that quote? That my _Exuberance of love_ is as wrong a translation of _Liebesüberschwang _as your _love's adour?_ Maybe you are right, I am not sure.

Anyway, what is important is that is is not love that causes exuberance or ardour but that there is exuberance/adour in loving, i.e. there is an exuberant preoccupation with _love _as a concept.


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## Schimmelreiter

berndf said:


> What do you want to say with that quote? That my _Exuberance of love_ is as wrong a translation of _Liebesüberschwang _as your _love's adour?_ Maybe you are right, I am not sure.
> 
> Anyway, what is important is that is is not love that causes exuberance or ardour but that there is exuberance/adour in loving, i.e. there is an exuberant preoccupation with _love _as a concept.



_exuberance of love_ and _ardour of love _are equally valid translations in my opinion.

What did I want to say with that quote? That religious language does include expressions that subliminally allude to erotic territory.


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## berndf

Schimmelreiter said:


> What did I want to say with that quote? That religious language does include expressions that subliminally allude to erotic territory.


You are turning away from Wandle's question again (the meaning of _Liebesüberschwang_). Let's try to be a bit consistent and don't mix the sub-questions all the time.


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## Löwenfrau

> The question is whether there's anything erotic about Eros here.


I wouldn't say erotic in the common connotation of the word.
In my own language, "ardent love"/"fervor/ardor of love" are very usual expressions for religious contexts. One can be a "fervent Christian". He intensively loves his religion and Jesus Christ.

SR's #18 is indeed insightful and helps to solve the issue.

As to "exuberance" instead of "fervent", I think we  lost the stress on the intensity of love. In Portuguese, at least, "exuberance" (exuberância) would make one think of "beauty".


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## berndf

_Fervent _does not sound quite right. That would be rendered as _feurig, inbrünstig, glühend _in German. It expresses intensity of a conviction or a preoccupation with something. _Überschwänglich _more specifically expresses strong, even excessive, _enthusiasm _for something or in doing something. It has certainly a "softer" connotation than _fervent_. Especially aggressiveness or hostility is never compatible with _Überschwang._ It implies joyfulness.


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## Löwenfrau

berndf said:


> _Fervent _does not sound quite right. That would be rendered as _feurig, inbrünstig, glühend _in German. It expresses intensity of a conviction or a preoccupation with something. _Überschwänglich _more specifically expresses strong, even excessive, _enthusiasm _for something or in doing something. It has certainly a "softer" connotation than _fervent_. Especially aggressiveness or hostility is never compatible with _Überschwang._ It implies joyfulness.



I see, but then again, "exuberance" won't work in Portuguese.
Could it be "effusive"?


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## berndf

That sounds about right, yes.


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## wandle

'Exuberance of love' or 'effusive love' both sound to me like terms describing personal experience. No doubt there was a link, conscious or otherwise, between descriptions (or depictions: cf. Theresa of Avila) of mystical devotion on the one hand and sexual ecstacy on the other.

What Mauthner seems to be saying, however, if I have understood it, is that there was a cultural phenomenon which he calls _Liebesüberschwang_, which arose at the same period as the veneration of Mary. If it was a cultural phenomenon, it was something public, an aspect of shared consciousness actually or potentially experienced by large numbers of people at a particular period, and recognisable by us now as an historical occurrence.

Is there or was there really any such thing, or is it a figment of his analytical mind?


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## Löwenfrau

What about 'Verzückung' und 'Begeisterung'? Engl. 'rapture'?


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