1 - Light: Staging Divinity in the York Cycle
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2013
Summary
I shall spitt in his face, though it be fare shining
Towneley Play 22 of The ScourgingSix days after the first prophecy of his Passion, Jesus led his disciples Peter, James, and John up a mountain. He drew them apart in order to reveal to them something they had never before seen: his divinity, now visible in the sudden radiance of his face and clothing. Andreas Andreopoulos calls this event of the ‘Transfiguration of Christ’ the bible's ‘fullest theophany’:
there is no other place in the entire bible where the curtain between the material and the invisible world is completely lifted visually, and there is no other place where the manifestation of the divinity of Christ is witnessed in such a dramatic way.
Narrated in Luke 9: 28–45, Mark 9: 1–35, and Matthew 17: 1–9, the Transfiguration is also briefly mentioned in 2 Peter 1: 16–18. Matthew's version, however, was the most read in the pre-Reformation West:
And after six days Jesus taketh unto him Peter and James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into a high mountain apart: And he was transfigured before them. And his face did shine as the sun: and his garments became white as snow. And behold there appeared to them Moses and Elias talking with him. And Peter answering, said to Jesus: Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles, one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. And as he was yet speaking, behold a bright cloud overshadowed them. And lo, a voice out of the cloud, saying: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear ye him. And the disciples hearing, fell upon their face, and were very much afraid. And Jesus came and touched them: and said to them, Arise, and fear not. And they lifting up their eyes saw no one but only Jesus. And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying: Tell the vision to no man, till the Son of man be risen from the dead.
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- Inventions of the SkinThe Painted Body in Early English Drama, pp. 21 - 48Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2013