Abstract

SIDGWICK, Emma. Between Limit and Threshold: The Hem in the Early Christian Haemorrhoissa Motif. Tóp. Sem [online]. 2013, n.29, pp.73-107. ISSN 2594-0619.

From the early fourth century CE onwards, Christian legends and apocrypha elaborate on the biblical miracle story of the healing of the Woman with the Flow of Blood (Mark 5:24b-34parr), and connect her to an image of Christ. Moreover, they give account of a particular detail: in a manner similar to the hem of Christ's garment in the miracle story, the hem of Christ's sculptural garment transfers healing power (dunamis). Over the span of many centuries, this early Christian image of Christ was narratively transformed into the cloth of Veronica, imprinted with the Holy Face. Known as the "Veronica", this latter image constituted an absolute paradigm for Christian visual culture. This article contends that the notion of the "hem" in the initial legends on an image of Christ already contained the quintessential image-paradigmatic content that eventually constituted the "Veronica". Hence this article will delve the articulation of the "hem" in the initial biblical miracle story on the healing of the Haemorrhoissa, precisely to lay bare its anthropological and entwined image-paradigmatic content.

Keywords : haemorrhoissa; image of Christ; hem.

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