We are justifiably afraid of fire. Fire burns and when things burn they are damaged or destroyed. Fire has ravaged powerful cities such as ancient Rome and seventeenth century London. Wildfires have recently destroyed huge areas in drought-stricken parts of the world, bringing destruction, death and terror to the people who live there. Fire hurts and burns, leaving terrible scars and injuries. Fires destroy our homes and possessions. But the destructive power of fire is also something that can produce life. I was struck recently by the comments of a friend here in Sweden talking about the positive impact of a large forest fire which swept through the forests in the north of Sweden some years ago. It was horrendously destructive, destroying tens of thousands of trees and injuring and killing wildlife and people. And yet my friend, who at that time worked for the organisation that manages the forests, explained to me (an ignorant city dweller) that the forests depend on fires like these to grow and develop. Usually of course the fires are managed and kept within safe bounds and clearly this one wasn't! But the effect of such fires, controlled or not, is to is strip away the dead and old material in the forest, to allow new, young life to emerge. And the trees grow back, stronger and better and the wildlife returns and and forms a new ecology. And life goes on and flourishes better and stronger because of the fires. Something like this effect of fire, the rooting out and burning up of the old and tired, lies as the background for the trial scene in the Testament of Abraham, the ancient Jewish comic novel which describes the attempts of Abraham to escape the inevitability of death. Abraham's angel guide, Michael, shows Abraham what happens to souls after they die and Abraham passes through the gate of heaven at the East of the world, where he sees the souls of the dead being judged. He discovers that their eternal fate is decided partly on the basis of how the record of their lives responds to the divine fire blown from a trumpet held by Puriel, the 'angel of fire'. Their record of actions while alive, their 'works', are subjected to a 'trial by fire'. Good deeds survive the flames. They are clearly made of solid stuff, worthy and true, like a precious metal. Bad deeds are consumed by the flames, burnt up entirely, reduced to ashes. These are the deeds done in disregard for God's Law, the deeds born of selfish desire and Godless passions. So, as the dead and ancient material of the forest which inhibit the growth of the new are stripped away by the forest fires, here Puriel's fire consumes the dead and dying parts of individual human lives. The Testament of Abraham of course is not trying to say that the souls so-judged pass through to Paradise, better and wiser people; rather that those who see their life's work burn up pass directly to a place of horrendous torment and punishment (without passing go!). There is no sense here that these flames are intended to purify the souls who pass through them but, like the Sorting Hat in Harry Potter, they decide where the souls belong, in Paradise or in the 'other place'. But it was this very idea of flames that consume the dross, the old, the broken and the godless and leave the good and the new and the Godly unharmed that led some in the early church to imagine that what might happen after death is that souls would face the fire of judgement, not to destroy them but, like the beautiful forests of Sweden, to make them better. It was ideas like those we find in the Testament that led eventually to the birth of the idea of purgatory, to the idea of the flames that purify. In this post we come close to that place where such powerful ideas began to emerge.
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As he passes through the gates with their terrible message of warning Dante sees an unsettling sight And I, all eyes, saw a whirling banner INFERNO Canto 3:52-69 [Translation Robert and Jean Hollander: the Princeton Dante Project] 'Making your mind up'Sometimes it's hard to make choices. Either we don't quite know what we want (will we have the beef or the chicken) where we are trying to balance the merits of two things we like, or we are worried about the consequences of our choice (if I have the chicken with the creamy sauce I will be putting on more weight than if I have the lean beef) where we are weighing up our desire (creamy chicken) against the outcome (calories). Usually finding it hard to choose isn't a big problem (unless for our spouses, who are sitting outside the changing room growing increasingly frustrated at the time it is taking to choose a new pair of trousers/shoes etc) but sometimes, when our choices really matter, indecision can be fatal. Sometimes not choosing is simply not a option and is in fact a form of surrender. When we refuse to take sides when one of those sides is clearly wrong, when we stay neutral when existential issues are at stake, when we stay silent and hide behind our newspaper when someone is being sexually harassed in our train carriage, when we 'opt out' of the discussion when the future of the community or the family is being decided, then we are denying something fundamental about ourselves, our necessary involvement and responsibility. When we opt out in this way we become less than what we should be, as Dante would see it, less than human, For Dante the refusal to decide for or against the Good was the worst sin that a person could commit. In his view each person creates his or her own identity through the decisions they make, be they good or bad. Being is a function of doing and doing involves decision-making. Those who refused to take sides, to commit themselves in the necessary moral choices of life were, in his view, opting out of life itself. In his own day Dante thought that far too many people were playing safe and 'sitting on the fence'. At that time there was a fierce battle raging over who should have supreme political authority over the city-states of Italy such as Florence, between the supporters of the papacy based in Rome, and those who supported the authority of the Holy Roman Emperor, who claimed to be the direct successor of the original Roman emperors. Dante was on the side of the Emperor and critical of the church and papacy. The Emperor, he believed, was the divinely appointed ruler over the material world and his rule would bring peace and safeguard the rights and prosperity of his home city of Florence. The papacy on the other hand, was responsible for the spiritual good of the citizens, guiding them to eternal happiness. Even in that regard, Dante thought, the Popes had failed, becoming as he saw it hopelessly corrupt. But Dante saw that the rapid growth and increasing prosperity of Florence and other italian city states led many to opt out of involvement in the big issues of the day. For some there was too much to lose. In his life before his exile, Dante had committed himself to one of the political factions within Florence, the so called 'White' Guelf party, which ultimately led to his exile in 1302 when, at the instigation of the then Pope, Boniface VIII, the 'Black' Guelf party took over control of the city. Although he eventually renounced membership of any factional party or group, calling himself a 'party of one', Dante knew what it was to make choices, take risks and suffer the consequences out of conviction. He believed that everyone who was able to should take responsibility for working towards the common Good, i.e. the revelation of God's will on earth (which he associated with the victory of the Emperor and the limitation of the powers of the Pope). But he believed many, motivated by greed and self interest, avoided doing so. For such as these, the moral cowards of his day, he created a very special place in his hell. In the ante-chamber of hell, he locates the people who refused to choose, who, in the afterworld as in life, hardly seem to exist at all. They spend eternity chasing a banner (flag) which has no emblem, represents no cause. Those who in this life chose no cause, who believed in nothing, are now seen as they really are; the devoted, committed supporters of nothing! As they chase the banner, they are gnawed at by worms and their blood, running to the ground, provides the nourishment for the maggots beneath their feet. In other words their pointless lives have become a form of death. These are the people as Dante puts it, 'who never were alive'. Centuries later, another poet trying to express his impression that the modern world was devoid of the commitment and passion that gave it meaning, found inspiration in this terrible vision. In The Wasteland T.S. Eliot describes his own vision of the living dead, the great crowd 'who never were alive' Unreal City, It's amazing how there really is 'nothing new under the sun', as the saying goes. If I said that in this post I was going to write about people being impregnated by horrific creatures whose offspring then burst violently out of their bodies or about hybrid dragon monsters, living creatures made from metal, you would probably think I was talking about something from the realm of science fiction, about face-hugging aliens or Transformers. But I am not. About a thousand years ago these were the horrors dreamed up (literally perhaps) by the author of the remarkable Vision of Tundale which recounts the three day journey of the Irish knight Tundale to hell and then heaven. The journey is arranged by God to cure Tundale of his sinful ways and put him back on the right track and his guide for the journey is his guardian angel. The 'alien offspring' and the hybrid monster are the next steps in the 'program'. It just goes to show - the best 'horrors' reflect our deepest fears, and these have been with us from the very beginning.
In the previous post I looked at some of the illustrations from Le Livre de la Vigne nostre Seigneur, a 15th century French manual describing the end of the world, the last judgement and the punishment of the wicked in hell. It's an amazing document and the illustrations are quite remarkable and beautiful. The illustrations show the activity of the Antichrist, the signs of the Apocalypse and the Last Judgement. After the Last Judgement the illustrations show in graphic detail the terrible punishments and tortures that lie in wait for the damned. In this post I want to show you these illustrations, not just to revel in the twisted imagination of these Renaissance monks as they imagined the unspeakable horrors of damnation (although I do!) but to think about what they tell us about the Renaissance view of sin. A warning before we begin - this is not for the faint hearted or the sqeamish!
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Archives
April 2016
GalleryThis blog is as much about images as it is about text. Below is a slideshow of the pictures and images used in this blog. Click on any of the pictures to go to the post where that image is featured.
PostsLocating Paradise #1 In a Garden, Far, Far Away
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #5 'Stuck in the Middle With You'
The Resurrection According to Rahner
Today You Will Be With Me in Paradise
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #4 'And Who by Fire'
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #3: Held in the Balance
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #2: Once, Twice, Three Times a Sinner
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #1: The Broad and Narrow Gates
Daily Dante 7: Many Rivers to Cross
Daily Dante 6: 'You Gotta Serve Somebody'
In Hell Everyone Can Hear You Scream. The Vision of Tundale #3
Teeth, Spikes and Cleavers: At the Sharp end of Hell. The Vision of Tundale #2
'No Pain No Gain': The Vision of Tundale #1
'Hellzapoppin':
Illustrations from Le Livre de la Vigne nostre Seigneur, #2 'It's The End of the World as We Know It (and we feel fine)'. Illustrations from Le Livre de la Vigne nostre Seigneur, #1
Visions of Heaven. Botticini's Assumption of the Virgin #2 Blinded by the Light
Visions of Heaven. Botticini's Assumption of the Virgin #1: Glorious and Immortal
Daily Dante 5: What the gates said.
Daily Dante 4: When I find myself in times of trouble
Daily Dante 3: I'll take you there
Daily Dante 2: Fierce creatures
Daily Dante 1: If you go down to the woods today
In Seventh Heaven or 'What Enoch Did Next'
A World of Fire and Ice: Heaven according to Enoch
The Power and the Glory: Visions of God as king in the Hebrew bible
The Beautiful Bestiary of Catherine Cleves: Monsters and Demons in detail.
Heaven is for Real: Heaven as a physical space up above the sky
Resurrecting the Dead or Reviving the Flowers? The loss of resurrection faith in Judaism.
The Defeat of Death #1: The promise of resurrection in the Isaiah Apocalypse.
The Defeat of Death #2: Death as a hostile power and promise of God's victory in Isaiah
Scary Monsters and Super Creeps: The 'Last Judgement' according to Stefan Lochner
Hell in the Hospital: The 'Last Judgement' of Rogier van der Weyden in the Beaune altarpiece.
'Hell' in the New Testament #2: The gates of Hades shall not prevail
The Hours of Catherine Cleves: Imagining hell and purgatory in Catherine's prayer book
'On Earth as in Heaven': The kingdom of God as a revelation of heaven
'Hell' in the New Testament #1: Gehenna
Lost in Translation #1: How the King James version got it so wrong about hell
Heaven is not our home
Domes, Depths and Demons: The cosmology of the Hebrew world
A Bigger God
"See you in Sheol" - Sheol, the common destination of all
Heaven, Hell and Christian Hope
BooksBelow are some of the books which have helped me the most in the research and writing for this blog. Click on any image to find out more about that book at its page on Amazon uk.
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