Promiscuous Grace: Imagining Beauty and Holiness with Saint Mary of Egypt (Class 200: New Studies in Religion)

**A meditation on holiness and beauty through the study of Saint Mary of Egypt.** Saint Mary of Egypt has fascinated theologians, poets, and artists since the seventh century. Her story is richly evocative, encompassing sin and sanctity, concupiscence and asceticism, youth and old age. In __Promiscuous Grace__, Sonia Velázquez thinks with Saint Mary of Egypt about the relationship between beauty and holiness. Drawing on an archive spanning Spanish medieval poetry, Baroque paintings, seventeenth-century hagiography, and Balzac’s __Le chef-d’œuvre inconnu__, Velázquez argues for the importance of the senses on the surface of religious texts on her way to revealing why the legend of Saint Mary of Egypt still matters today. "Theologians, poets, artists, and laypeople alike have been fascinated by Saint Mary of Egypt's legend since it was first recorded in the seventh century. Mary's prominence is religious and symbolic, encompassing sin and sanctity, the excesses of nymphomania and asceticism, the charms of nubile youth and the wrinkles of old age. In Promiscuous Grace, scholar of religion Sonia Velázquez thinks with Saint Mary of Egypt about what beauty has to do with holiness. With an archive spanning medieval Spanish poetry, Baroque paintings, a seventeenth-century hagiographic drama, and Balzac's treatment of Saint Mary in Le chef-d'oeuvre inconnu, Velázquez argues for the relevance of the appeal to the senses and the importance of the surface in religious texts. She draws on insights from philosophy, literary history and theory, and religious, visual and gender studies, and pays close attention to the texture of the words and images that make the legend of Saint Mary of Egypt come alive and remain relevant today"-- Provided by publisher Contents List of Figures On Translations and Spelling In a Chapel: An Invitation to Imagine 1 Image Theory according to Saint Mary of Egypt 2 The Seductions of Hagiography 3 The Shoes of the Sinner and the Skin of the Saint 4 Neither Venus nor Venerable Old Men 5 Appearances Are Everything Epilogue: In the Artist’s Studio Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index