Keywords:
Affect, annunciation, emotion, healing, magnificat, salvation
Abstract
Taking the model of salvation from the Latin
salus, this essay explores the emotional physiology of grace. Drawing upon contemporary work on emotion by affect theorists, cognitive- and neuro-scientists, the essay proceeds through a detailed analysis of the paradigmatic accounts of salvation and its effects in the Annunciation and Magnificat scenes from the Gospel of Luke. It concludes that salvation is a deep emotional concern and that, while there is no emotion that can be described as non-Christian, there are certain affects that are divine before they are human.
