Thursday, February 7, 2008

Blog Assignment #3

"'Your piety as a holy man has all this time been just a cover for your depraved habits,' they cried.  'God no longer permits us to defile ourselves by kissing your unworthy hands.' Bricius stoutly denied the charge.  'Bring the child to me,' he commanded.  The baby was carried in, still only thirty days old.  'In the name of Jesus Christ, the son of God the all-powerful,' said Bricius to the infant, 'if I am really your father, I order you to say so, with all these people listening.'  'You are not my father,' answered the baby." (Book II, page 105)
I found the passage about Bricius to be particularly fascinating due to the fact that it is absolutely unbelievable.  The people automatically blame Bricius for the pregnancy of the woman who washed his clothing, which reveals that word used to spread fast and people are not considered to be innocent until proven guilty at the time.  More obviously, a thirty day old baby was able to comprehend the words of a Bishop and respond to them in the same language.  The people witnessing this event most likely credited this astonishing occurrence to the sheer power of God, but it does not make sense to me.  Individuals were blinded by their faith and totally disregarded all common sense that they might have.  Once the baby admitted that his or her father was not Bricius, something he or she could not have possibly known, the townspeople accepted the baby's words as the undeniable truth.  This nonsensical event discredits this account in my opinion and proves that citizens at the time were gullible and truly believed that God could do anything.

1 comment:

emswensson said...

I appreciate your incredulity, but we can't choose the documents that are left for historians. The purpose of this exercise is to try and find some way in which to use something that seems so foreign to our experience. I think you need to return to this passage and try to decipher how this might be historically useful.