Культурология. Горелова А.В - 52 стр.

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5. ADDITIONAL TEXTS
5.1. By Custom: Hands Joined in Prayer
For our ancestors, one of the most ancient and reverential gestures that
accompanied prayer was the spreading of arms and hands heavenward. In time,
the arms were pulled in, folded across the breast, wrists intersecting above the
heart. Each of these gestures possesses an intrinsic logic and obviousness of
intent: Good resided in the heavens; the heart was the seat of emotions.
The still practice of joining hands in an apex seems less obvious, if not
puzzling.
In is mentioned nowhere in the Bible. It appeared in the Christian Church
only in the ninth century. Subsequently, sculptors and painters incorporated in
into scenes that predated its origin - which, it turns out, has nothing to be with
religion or worship, and owes much to subjugation and servitude.
Although the binding vines, ropes or handcuffs continued to serve their
own law-and-order function, the joined hands came to symbolize man’s mission
to his creator.
Substantial historical evidence indicates that the joining of hands became
a standard, widely practiced gesture long before it was appropriated and
formalized by the Christian Church. Before waving a white flag signaled
surrender, captured Roman could avert immediate slaughter by affecting the
shackled-hands posture.
For the early Greeks, the gesture held the magic power to bind occult
spirits until they complied with a high priest’s dictates. In the middle Ages,
feudal lords adopted the joining of hands as an action by which their vassals did
homage and pledged fealty.
From such diverse practices, all with a common intent, Christianity
assumed the gesture as sign of man’s total obedience to divine authority.
Later, many writers within the Christian Church offered, and encouraged,
a more pious and picturesque origin: joined hands represented a church’s
pointed steeple.
5.2. The Mysterious Gift of the Prodigy
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart will be remembered as one of history’s most
famous child prodigies. By the age of eight, he had performed in half the great
cities of Europe and was about to write his first three symphonies. He died
shortly before his 36
th
birthday, but the world recognizes him as one of the finest
composers who ever lived.
For centuries, people have been amazed by prodigies. Mozart’s fourth
opera was produced in Berlin when he was only 18. John Stuart Mill, the 19
th
century British philosopher, read Greek at three and had worked his way
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