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.
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Some years ago the youth justice system in the UK tried to shock young offenders into reforming their lives by giving them an experience of what life in prison was really like. They were taken to visit adult prisons and allowed to meet and spend time with the inmates and to see the regimes there. The hope was that by seeing how unpleasant prison life was and how intimidating some of the inmates were, they might be so scared they would think again about committing crimes or causing trouble. Recently I heard on the radio that research has shown that these visits have proved to be largely ineffectual and the program is to be wound down. But whether it was successful or not it certainly wasn't a new idea when it was introduced. About 1000 years ago a young Irish knight who had seriously 'gone of the rails' wrote an account of just such a visit. Just as in the modern schemes he was shown the punishment that awaited him if he didn't reform, in the hope that he would be so terrified he would be shaken out of his wicked ways and change his life. But it wasn't a prison he was taken to, it was hell itself. He was shown and experienced the tortures of the damned and felt (and smelt) their pain! Unlike the more recent schemes this 'scheme' worked and he came back to this world a reformed character. Here and in subsequent posts I want to try to describe this vision of the tortures of hell and trace some of the influences it had in later versions of hell and paradise, in literature and in art.
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!
The Hours of Catherine Cleves is one of the most beautiful illustrated medieval books ever produced. The illustrations of hell and purgatory are revealing, showing how these 'places' were imagined in the 15th century. The illustrations would have had a very serious purpose in warning the reader about the fate of the ungodly. But the real joy of these illustrations is seeing how much fun the illustrator had depicting the terrible tortures of hell and the wonderful, demonic monsters responsible for them. I have captured some of the detailed images from the picture of hell in the book and put them in the slideshow below for your enjoyment! These are images of the most amazing imagination. Almost every demon is different, and they all horrify in their different ways. I don't believe that a place like this exists but if there is a place of torment and punishment in the 'next life' I really do hope it's populated by characters such as these. It would make the afterlife so much more interesting!
The Hours of Catherine of Cleves: Imagining hell and purgatory in Catherine's prayer book6/16/2015 Hell as a place of torment and punishment is fundamentally an horrific concept. And yet for centuries the idea has fascinated generations of believers and non-believers alike. In different ways, through literature, art and film, people have tried to depict what a place such as hell might look like and to imagine the fearsome creatures who might administer punishment in such a place. Just us we, in a more secular age, are still fascinated by monsters, aliens and mass murderers, so in the medieval era people were fascinated by the monsters from the 'other side' - the demons and terrible creatures who, they believed, populated hell. And surely the most brilliant visual depictions of the terrifying and fascinating creatures of hell were created by the unknown artist responsible for the illustrations in the Book of Hours of Catherine Cleves. In his illustration of hell's castle he (presumably a he . . . but who knows?) created a bestiary of weird and wonderful demons and devils of wit, invention and imagination unrivalled in medieval art. In his illustrations of hell and purgatory, he not only horrifies but manages to delight and amuse the viewer too. Those who first read the book would have been duly horrified and frightened by the depictions of the tortures in hell and the agony of purgatory but I am sure that like us they would also have closed the book with a knowing smile on their faces too. Whoever he (or she) was, the illustrator was having great fun! "But the point of the Hours of the dead was to pray for those who languished, not in hell (it was too late for them), but in purgatory. The belief in purgatory (which I will come to - I promise) had by this time become the main focal point of the church's teaching on the afterlife. Most people who died were thought to have gone to purgatory. Few were considered good enough to go straight to heaven, and similarly not many were considered bad enough to be consigned to the castle of hell for eternity without any chance of remission! So the great majority went to purgatory where through the torments and suffering they experienced there were purged of their sin until they were ready to be led to heaven. The more the living prayed for those in purgatory the shorter the time they stayed (potentially thousands of years)."
When we imagine heaven we think of somewhere remote and far away. Whether we imagine it (wrongly) as our eternal destination or (rightly) the abode of God and the angelic host, it is still somewhere of which we have no direct experience. But it is also true that we have all seen heaven, at least those familiar with the ministry of Jesus have. When Jesus began his ministry he proclaimed the arrival of the kingdom of God. Through his words and deeds people around him saw the will of God being done, God's kingdom in action. People were healed, the demons were exorcised, the lost sheep were saved. Jesus walked on the water and stilled the storm. Here, in these actions and in this man, God's kingship could be recognised. In other words what was happening around Jesus on earth was exactly the same as what happened in heaven all the time. The ministry of Jesus was 'heaven on earth', a glimpse of what the world would be like when renewed and restored at the end of history. So if we have seen Jesus we have all seen heaven, at least in sense that the kingdom of God on earth is a mirror reflection of the kingdom of God in heaven. When Jesus taught his disciples to pray "thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven", this is exactly what he had in mind, of the church on earth expressing the divine rule that takes place in heaven. 'Heaven' is not so far away after all. "Where and how will these things happen? When the earth is remade and reborn as the paradise of God. Then the meek, the powerless, the downtrodden, the victims of the ambitions and cruelty of others will inherit the earth. Their earth. The earth they were born into, the earth whose blessings they were not allowed to enjoy, the earth which was denied to them by violence and injustice. The gospel hope says nothing about going to heaven when they die. It is the earth, this earth, that is the focus of their longing and hope, and it is the earth that is the focus of God's promise and salvation. This is where the kingdom "happens" - now, through the life and work of the church of Christ, and "then" when all things submit to the will of God, when the creation will "be set free from its bondage to decay". In the meantime we wait and work and pray "thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven"
When the ancient writers of the Hebrew bible and the christian New Testament wrote about a place called heaven they really meant a place up above the sky. That was where God lived. If they wrote about people being dragged down to Sheol or descending to Hades they really did meant a place below their feet in the depths of the earth. For the writers of the bible, heaven and the land of the dead were real places that lay above and below them. Their writings may seem naive and even ridiculous to us because of that but the modern 'scientific' reader must understand that these ideas were shaped in a word that looked and felt very different from ours, a world which had a very different 'shape'. This post tries to describe that 'shape' and understand how a physical heaven above us and Sheol below us were very logical implications of their world view. Such a view of heaven was “upper-worldly” rather than “other-worldly.” Furthermore, the gulf between heaven and earth was constantly bridged by etherial beings. Angels and demons shared the same physical space as human beings. Far from being empty, the upper air was filled with boisterous, contending powers. Angels stood close to hand, to impart comfort and guidance to the faithful. Demons would frequently create chill pockets of moral and physical disorder in the everyday world. Demons, indeed, were believed to occupy distinct ecological niches on earth, lurking in out of the way corners within the settled world and claiming as their own the threatening silence of the desert spaces. In the words of an exorcistic prayer, scratched on a tile in northern Spain, that was where the demons should remain: “where no cock crows nor hen cackles, where no ploughman ploughs nor sower sows.” Peter Brown |
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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