Customer Reviews

Scenting Salvation: Ancient Christianity and the Olfactory Imagination (Transformation of the Classical Heritage)

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Perfume - The Story Of A Murderer
This book is a "must read" for anyone interested in the spiritual senses or early Christian mysticism--a subject I have been reading and reflecting on for over ten years. Dr. Harvey's book is well written and easy to understand touching on most of the important issues regarding the spiritual senses, and as the title indicates, focusing largely on the sense of smell. Since most of my studies have dealt with visual and auditory senses, her approach and focus were welcome perspectives helping to broaden my understanding and introduce me to new material from Syria, apparently a treasury for information on spiritual senses.

The book is largely a thematic investigation tracing the Church father's use of smell in teaching and liturgy as well as its use in spiritual and theological understanding. Olfaction was an important aspect in determining good and evil, the virtuous from the vicious, the link to Heaven and the distractions of worldy temptations, and when honed and reformed through asceticism, could allow for spiritual insights and relationships with the "Bridegroom" in the deeper contemplations. The "Song of Songs" and patristic commentaries on the text are explored here.

Though Dr. Harvey does not leave out the other four senses in her study, I could not help but feel a little "cramped" by the limits of her book, and I kept wishing she would have expanded her study. While I was grateful for the material on Syria, I couldn't help but feel that Origen and the Alexandrian school were undervalued, and Augustine, who admittedly was uninterested in smell, served mostly as a contrast for Ephrem. Though the book was clearly a religious study, she did mention some "classical" authors like Theophrastus and Galen, which left me hoping for the inclusion of more philosophical material from John Philoponus, Stephanus, and Simplicius, which would have broadened the book's epistemological explorations, but I understand the need to keep a workable scope.

For anyone not familiar with spiritual senses, chapter four, especially pages 169 through 186, could serve as an excellent introduction to the subject. The author also dealt with the issue of a sensing Resurrection body. It is a theological theme I feel is terribly neglected and was really happy the author included it in her study. The senses we have now are perhaps (hopefully) a seminal form of what we will have in paradise.

In an odd coincidence I feel compelled to mention, I purchased Dr. Harvey's book shortly after seeing the film "Perfume: Story of a Murderer." During certain poignant moments in my reading, my mind would wander back to the film, and I would have a visual recollection of Jean Baptiste Grenouille, excellently played by Ben Whishaw, running around France with his nose in the air. The more I read Dr. Harvey's book, the more creative my recollections became, until the movie became, in an odd way, a Christian allegory. I would encourage the purchase of both items.