Culture
The Passion fruit is so called because it is one of the many species of Passion Flower. ("Passion Flower" being the literal English translation of the Latin genus name, Passiflora). The name was given by missionaries because the parts of the flower seemed reminiscent of the torture (the Passion) of Christ prior to his crucifixion:
- The three stigmas reflect the three nails in Jesus's hands and feet.
- The threads of the passion flower resemble the Crown of Thorns.
- The vine's tendrils are likened to the whips.
- The five anthers represented the five wounds.
- The ten petals and sepals regarded to resemble the Apostles (excluding Judas and Peter).
- The purple petals representing the purple robe used to mock Jesus' claim to kingship (Mt. 27:28)
The flower of the passion fruit is the national flower of Paraguay.
Read more about this topic: Passiflora Edulis
Famous quotes containing the word culture:
“The hard truth is that what may be acceptable in elite culture may not be acceptable in mass culture, that tastes which pose only innocent ethical issues as the property of a minority become corrupting when they become more established. Taste is context, and the context has changed.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“Both cultures encourage innovation and experimentation, but are likely to reject the innovator if his innovation is not accepted by audiences. High culture experiments that are rejected by audiences in the creator’s lifetime may, however, become classics in another era, whereas popular culture experiments are forgotten if not immediately successful. Even so, in both cultures innovation is rare, although in high culture it is celebrated and in popular culture it is taken for granted.”
—Herbert J. Gans (b. 1927)
“Here is this vast, savage, howling mother of ours, Nature, lying all around, with such beauty, and such affection for her children, as the leopard; and yet we are so early weaned from her breast to society, to that culture which is exclusively an interaction of man on man,—a sort of breeding in and in, which produces at most a merely English nobility, a civilization destined to have a speedy limit.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)