Les larmes du Christ dans l'exégèse médiévale

The Tears of Christ in the Medieval Exegesis - According to the New Testament, Jesus wept three times during His lifetime, yet only once does the shedding of tears express His suffering. This paper purposes to examine the exegesis relating to these three occurrences in Christ's terrestrial life by exploring a corpus of texts reduced to their most important commentaries, which were widely diffused from patristic times to the thirteenth century. Two questions arise : what is the relationship between the suffering and the tears of Christ, and what significance did the tears of Christ hold for the man of the Middle Ages, who aspired to imitate Him ? Despite the growing systematization of exegetic methods, the interpretation of the shedding of the tears of Christ has changed little with time. The tears were considered by the commentators as a sign of Christ's humanity as well as an expression of His virtues. As a metaphor of suffering, the tears of Christ also add to the effectiveness of the Passion. The tears and the blood of Christ have reciprocal roles, thus offering man the possibility of sparing suffering by shedding tears. The tears appear as a remedy to suffering, rather than as the expression of it.Zombory-Nagy Piroska. Les larmes du Christ dans l'exégèse médiévale. In: Médiévales, n°27, 1994. Du bon usage de la souffrance, sous la direction de Piroska Zombory-Nagy et Véronique Frandon. pp. 37-49