ABSTRACT
Christian ideas about human body are complex and ambiguous. The core of these ideas is Jesus Christ, the son of God incarnated in the body of a man. Thomas Aquinas formulated the doctrine of transubstantiation, which states the continuity between the communion bread and Christ in heaven. The saints were made into martyrs as a result of the Roman persecutions of Christians. Blood that is given up voluntarily was sacred. Nuns in medieval monasteries fits the model that there were virgins who had sacrificed their ordinary lives and lived in seclusion. Virgins menstrual blood was a sign of the holy life they were living, and it could therefore be compared to Christ's sacrificial blood. Saint Clare had a vision of Christ, that Christ had placed his cross in her heart. After her death in 1308, nuns in her monastery dissected her heart in order to find evidence, and they found a cross formation.
