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The glory of the cathedral schools (12th Century)

Fragment from Episode 4 of The Age of the Cathedrals

Georges Duby discusses the origins of science, with a particular focus on Pierre Abélard and the concept of ‘reasoning.’ During the broadcast, he pulls a sheet of paper from his pocket containing a quote from Historia Calamitatum about Abélard’s teaching method and reads it aloud. A standout moment on Antenne 2 (France) in 1980—still well worth watching, listening to, and reflecting on today. (English subtitles (cc) ; full text below the fragment.)

TRANSCRIPT (translation plus…)

“The construction of the cathedrals (at a rapid pace in the late 12th and early 13th centuries) was made possible by the growth of the urban economy. Certainly. But at the same time it is also due to another growth, which is inextricably linked to the first: the growth of knowledge (savoir). After all, every cathedral is flanked by a school, and the most dynamic schools are located around the cathedrals in Northern France. Certainly, lessons were also given in monasteries, but the monastery school was closed, the cathedral school was open. That has to do with its function. The cathedral is – by definition – the church of the bishop. The primary function of the bishop is (yes, really! DW) the proclamation of the Word of God and not only in his own church, no, in his entire diocese. He needs helpers, to preach with him. And therefore workshops (ateliers) to train preachers, to educate them. That implied good books (manuscripts), good teachers who could explain these books. And: in a society where travel became increasingly easy, we see intellectual adventurers roaming Europe in search of the best schools. These were precisely where the masterpieces of Gothic art were built: in Laon, Chartres, and Paris. I do not think it is a coincidence that the locations of these intellectual research centers coincide with the hotbeds of artistic creation (artistic = everything that man ‘adds’ to nature: skill, craft, artisanal art)

The cycle of study was the same as in the “first Renaissance” (under Charlemagne), the seven liberal arts – the artes liberales. These can be seen on one of the rose windows of the cathedral of Laon, where they surround the central flower where Wisdom sits enthroned. They form her court, enriching and enlightening. The seven artes consisted of three introductory disciplines: grammar (language), rhetoric (the art of speaking) and dialectic (the art of reasoning), followed by four more in-depth disciplines: the study of numbers, geometry, astronomy and the science of the ‘tones of music’ (and their mutual relationship).

Rose window with the 7 artes, cathedral of Laon (completed c. 1200)

These disciplines revealed the mysterious laws that govern the universe. This path, this road, this boulevard of knowledge, ultimately led to theology – the highest science because it helped man to fathom the secrets of God that he communicates in what he says (his Word) and in the visible signs, scattered in nature.1

In the second half of the 12th century, the schools of Paris were extremely successful. They became the breeding ground for skilled bishops; all the popes of that time came to study there. This success was largely due to the teaching of Abélard2). They started with the language, the words, but dialectics was central: understanding the meaning of the words through reasoning. Not by meditating on them in mystical contemplation, as in the monastery, but by analyzing them. The intellectual tools became increasingly refined. Clergymen traveled with the knights who reconquered Spain and Sicily from the Muslims, and they threw themselves into the magnificent libraries of Toledo and Palermo. They began – together with/at the same time as the Jews – feverishly to translate Arabic works into Latin – works that the Arabs had in turn translated from Greek. What they thus revealed was ancient science: Euclid, Ptolemy, and even more valuable to them: the logic of Aristotle.

The method was refined, perfected and enriched by Abelard. The first step? Doubting! Abelard said: “we arrive at inquiry through doubt, and through inquiry we discover the truth.” Pride, arrogance… Some fiercely condemned this attitude, notably Bernard of Clairvaux, who ultimately brought Abelard down. But what fertility there was in this approach! What enthusiasm arose in the schools. It was no longer a matter of simply listening to lessons, but of discussion. Dialogue, dialectic, debate! “My students,” said Abelard, “want to hear human reasons, explanations that they understand; not propositions and affirmations.” They believed that talking (teaching) was useless, unless one also conveyed the understanding of what one wanted to say, and also that one could not believe anything unless one first understood it.3

Ils disaient qu’il est inutile de parler si l’on donne pas l’intelligence de ses propos et que nul ne peut croire s’il n’a pas d’abord compris. Et toute notre science sors de là…

Georges Duby, Le temps des cathédrales – TV-series – 9 episodes, aired 1980.

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Georges Duby – the human predicament / la condition humaine

– Last pages of Georges Duby’s magnificent trilogy on medieval art (Foundations of a New Humanism – Albert Skira, 1966) – The human predicament in three images
– Dernières pages de la trilogie de Georges Duby sur l’art médiéval (Fondements d’un nouvel humanisme – Albert Skira, 1966) – La condition humaine en trois images

Van Eyck, Masaccio, Donatello (English commentary) 🇬🇧

The tragic burden of man’s estate
… In Eve’s body, which Van Eyck painted as if it were an intricate landscape, the smooth flow of light into shadow lends greater distinctness to the texture of every part. Not only does the artist pay minute attention to physical substance; he also combines discrete sensory experiences in a coherent whole, embracing every dimension of reality. Thus the Illumination of the Holy Ghost unites the souls of all men in bliss beyond compare; thus the Light reveals the universe in the act of continuous creation. In Masaccio, painting has become a mental process in itself. His frescoes are the offspring of architecture, an abstract, numerical art, measuring and begetting space, subduing matter to the intellect, heedless of physical likeness. The architect employs logic and mathematics to realise his concept. The new style of Renaissance architecture, initiated in Florence by Brunelleschi, discarded Gothic luxuriance and all extraneous ornament, reverting to the pure symmetry of the church of San Miniato. Masaccio, likewise, made of emptiness, of pure, abstract space the main element in his paintings. In it, he placed Man, present in the flesh. “That flesh,” as Leon Battista Alberti was soon to write in his Treatise on Painting, “will crumble to dust; but as long as it breathes, whoever spurnes the flesh, spurns life itself.” Masaccio built flesh as if it were a monument. All his figures, like the faces of the statues carved by Donatello, are imbued with the seriousness of a steadfast faith, uncompromising, rational and resolute, calmly assuming the tragic burden of man’s estate.

Van Eyck, Masaccio, Donatello (commentaire en français) 🇫🇷

Le tragique de la condition humaine
… Sur le corps d’Ève, que Van Eyck traite comme un paysage complexe, le glissement onctueux de la lumière vers l’ombre approfondit l’analyse du grain extérieur de chaque objet. Il explore attentivement la matière, mais il relie aussi chacune des expériences sensorielles; il fond leur dispersion dans un ensemble cohérent, étendu dans les trois dimensions du monde sensible – de même que l’illumination de l’Esprit réunit dans l’ineffable la communauté de toutes les âmes, de même que la lumière divine établit la réalité de l’univers dans une création continue. Alors que, pour Masaccio, la peinture est bien déjà «chose mentale». Ses fresques sont filles de l’architecture, d’un art de calcul et d’abstraction qui mesure l’espace et le crée, qui conquiert l’univers par l’intelligence et qui ne se soucie nullement de ressemblance. L’édifice réalise un concept, par le recours aux sciences mathématiques et par le jeu de la raison. Dans Florence, la nouvelle architecture, celle de Brunelleschi, repousse l’ornement gothique, toutes les parures superflues; elle tend à retrouver la pureté et l’équilibre de San Miniato. Dans la composition de Masaccio, l’élément majeur devient donc le vide, l’espace pur, abstrait. Il y place l’homme, présent par son corps. « Ce corps, » lira-t-on bientôt dans le Traité de la peinture de Leon Battista Alberti, « tombera en poussière, mais non longtemps qu’il respire, le mépriser, c’est mépriser la vie. » Cette présence corporelle est bâtie comme un monument. Tous ces corps d’hommes – comme tous les visages que sculpte Donatello – sont établis dans la gravité, celle d’un christianisme tendu, qui refuse toute complaisance, se veut lucide, fondé en volonté et qui assume, en pleine sérénité, le tragique de la condition humaine.

Eve (man in paradise, Van Eyck)
(paradise lost, Masaccio)
The virtù of man (Donatello)

Virtù

In the body text of the same book he already worked toward this apothesis, but with a different focus. The human predicament is there (even in strong terms: ‘man cruficied on his own destiny’), but the focus is on the last image: the virtù of man (aware of the challenge of life, lucid, determined), and the freedom of the artist. When 10 years later the texts were published without images (Le temps des cathédrales, Gallimard 1976) this text remained as is. Below the extract

The birth of a new humanism – the emancipation of the artist 🇬🇧

In the circles of the dukes of Burgundy, in Dijon, then in the Netherlands, the sculptors outstripped the painters in audaciousness. In Florence too. Just as, about a hundred years earlier, Nicola Pisano had opened the trail for Giotto. But all the experiments culminated in painting, in Van Eyck and Masaccio. Van Eyck carried the analytical vision of Occamism to its utmost acuity, attentive to the singularity of each object. Yet, in the wake of the Limburg brothers, he succeeded in assembling his manifold observations and in uniting the diversity of visible appearances in a world which owed its coherency to the luminous principle of the Oxford theologians. Light, the breath of the Holy Spirit, the illumination of the mystics of Groenendael, which the painters of Cologne had already attempted to establish within the closed garden of the Virgin Mary, dispelled the mists of chivalrous escape. The play of the enveloping shadows, the changing reflection between mirrors and precious stones within the space of secluded rooms, the iridescence created in the open air when light pervades the atmosphere, gave truth and unity to the spectacle of the real. Whereas Masaccio, to express a stoic Christianity dissatisfied with reverie and mystic illumination, a Christianity of austerity, equilibrium, and self-control, returned to the majesty of Giotto. He discarded the superfluities of the arabesque, did not linger over the accidents of phenomena or the modulations of light. In his country, the architects who appreciated uncluttered masses and the dignity of bare stone, not only measured objects but space as well, or rather emptiness, arranging it with geometric simplicity. Like them, like Donatello, whose prophets express every human torment, Masaccio endowed virtù, as understood in Roman literature by the humanists, with the monumentality of the statues of the Empire. For him, painting was quite definitely cosa mentale [a thing of the mind]. And the reality he portrayed, as opposed to the view of Van Eyck, was the abstract world of Aristotelian concepts. His art showed a logical universe set out with rational clarity, itself measure and calculation.
Yet Van Eyck’s Occamism and Masaccio’s peripateticism converged in a common sense of human greatness. Both placed man at the center of their works. New man: Adam and Eve. For Van Eyck, the body of Eve was the visual discovery and acquaintance with the delights of sensible nature. His hills are converted into caressing shadows, his vegetation into a wonderful landscape even more persuasive than that of the Adoration of the Lamb. And Masaccio’s woeful pair offer to religious meditation the spectacle of man crucified on his own destiny instead of Jesus nailed to the cross. At that moment in the history of the arts, however, the real novelty still lay elsewhere. Jan van Eyck worked to commissions. He had produced the portraits of canons, princely prelates, and the financial magnates who directed the branches of the great Florentine firms in Bruges. One day he decided to paint a picture of his wife. Not as a queen, as Eve or as the Holy Virgin. But true to life. She was not a princess. Her image had no value except for its author. That day the court painter attained his independence. He had won the right to create freely, for sheer pleasure. At the same time, in Florence, while Ghiberti was preparing to write the Commentaries on his work, just as Caesar wrote about his victories, Masaccio placed his own image among those of the apostles in the Tribute. A man’s face. Also the face of the freedom of the artist.

🙤

In the film based on the book (with ‘moving pictures’, 1980) the translation in pictures follows the main text. Understandable, but not without loss. Below a link to that fragment, – and above (top of page) what is lost.

6 March 2025, Dick Wursten

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Lorenzo Sewell, Trump’s jester

Sewell’s speech (calling it a prayer would be blasphemous) was almost completely copy-past from Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech of 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial 4. He is doing his utmost to imitate his role model. His ‘act’ elicits an approving smile from the president: The new king is entertained by his jester.

BTW: The original parts of Sewell’s speech are few: the opening prayer (with the “millimeter miracle”) and the call for applause at the end. All the rest is plagiarism. But there is a catch: He adds a few cunning transtions to the text, proclaiming the president as God’s chosen instrument. In the text below I highlighted these words.

Fact-check it yourself.

L. Sewell (2025)  M.L. King (1963)
Inauguration Donald J. TrumpMarch on Washington for jobs and freedom






Let us pray for our 47th president. Heavenly Father, we’re so grateful that you gave our 45th and now our 47th president a millimeter miracle. We are grateful that you are the one that have called him for such a time as this. That America would begin to dream again.  		I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. … Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
We pray that we would fulfill the true meaning of our creed, that we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.









I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.    
We pray that you use our president, that we will live in a nation where we will not be judged by the color of our skin but by the content of our character.  I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.
   I have a dream that one day down in Alabama with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right down in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.  With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus, we are so grateful today that you will use our 47th president so we will sing with new meaning:
My country, ’tis of thee,
sweet land of liberty,
of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers died.
Land of the pilgrims’ pride.
From every mountainside,
let freedom ring.
And because America is called to be a great nation, we believe that you will make this come true.		This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning:
My country, ’tis of thee,
sweet land of liberty,
of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died,
land of the pilgrims’ pride,
from every mountainside,
let freedom ring.
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
And so let freedom ring
From the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire, let freedom ring. From the mighty mountains of New York, let freedom ring. From the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania, let freedom ring. From the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado, let freedom ring. From the curvaceous hilltops of California, but God, we’re asking you not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain, Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain, Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and every molehill in Mississippi, from every state, every city, every village and every hamlet.

And when we let freedom ring, we will be able to speed up that day where all of your children, Black men and white men, Protestant and Catholic, Jew and gentile will be able to sing in the meaning of that old Negro spiritual:

Free at last
free at last.
Thank you God almighty,
we are free at last,
 From the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that, let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:
Free at last.
Free at last.
Thank God almighty,
we are free at last.
  If you believe with the Spirit of the Lord, there is liberty. Come on, put your hands together and give your great God great glory.” 

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Christianity – the cultural matrix of our world (Marcel Gauchet)

Télérama (nr. 3178, 2010), interview with Marcel Gauchet, one of France’s leading intellectuals, who as a secularist (‘laïc’) says pertinent things about Christianity/religion:

Christianity is, after all, the cultural matrix of the world we live in, and if we don’t have this memory, I don’t really see what we can understand about it’.

« Le déclin du christianisme vous paraît-il inéluctable? »

Gauchet « Rien n’est inéluctable dans l’histoire et on ne compte plus les morts ressuscités qu’on a enterrés un peu prématurément. Ce qui a disparu dans les dernières décennies, c’est ce qu’il restait du christianisme politique, c’est-à-dire de l’ambition du pouvoir religieux d’exercer un rôle d’englobement normatif de la collectivité. A disparu aussi le christianisme sociologique, à l’orée des années 1960: le christianisme paroissial qui se vouait à l’encadrement des communautés et du cycle de vie. Mais il reste la vitalité de la foi chrétienne. La nouveauté, c’est qu’elle reste minoritaire, alors qu’avant elle était le cadre. Cela produit une situation intellectuelle totalement nouvelle: toutes les conditions dans lesquelles s’est défini historiquement le christianisme, sur un plan théologique ou pastoral, ont changé. Mais la place est ouverte pour une réinvention de la foi chrétienne dans sa manière de s’énoncer, dans les horizons qu’elle donne à ses pratiques, dans le rôle qu’elle entend jouer dans la cité. A beaucoup d’égards, tous les éléments sont réunis dans nos sociétés pour une réactivation du religieux, dans de nouveaux rôles très éloignés de ceux du passé. »

« Mais quel sens revêt votre dialogue avec la religion? »,

Gauchet: « Le christianisme est quand même la matrice culturelle du monde dans lequel nous sommes, et si l’on n’a pas cette mémoire, je ne vois pas bien ce que l’on peut y comprendre. Par ailleurs, le débat entre laïcs et religieux est derrière nous, sauf pour quelques acharnés. La vraie ligne de clivage, aujourd’hui, passe, au-delà des familles politiques, entre ceux pour lesquels la réflexion sur l’aventure humaine est plus que jamais nécessaire, et ceux qui la considèrent dépassée, pour lesquels la prospérité, l’hédonisme ou une certaine liberté apportent des réponses à tout. Tout laïc que je puisse être, je me sens beaucoup plus proche de l’esprit religieux que de beaucoup de laïcs qui me semblent à la dérive dans une sorte d’inhumanisme spontané, cette pente de nos sociétés à l’incuriosité, l’inculture et à la déculturation. Beaucoup appellent « spirituel » le fait de continuer creuser le mystère humain. C’est un mot dans lequel je me reconnais tout à fait. »

‘Do you think the decline of Christianity is inevitable?

Gauchet ‘Nothing in history is inevitable, and there are countless examples of the dead being resurrected after being buried a little prematurely. What has disappeared in recent decades is what was left of political Christianity, that is to say the ambition of religious power to exercise a role of normative encompassment of the community. The 1960s also saw the disappearance of sociological Christianity: parochial Christianity, dedicated to providing a framework for communities and the cycle of life. But the vitality of the Christian faith remains. What’s new is that it remains in the minority, whereas before it was the framework. This produces a totally new intellectual situation: all the conditions in which Christianity has historically defined itself, from a theological or pastoral point of view, have changed. But the stage is set for a reinvention of the Christian faith in the way it is expressed, in the horizons it gives to its practices, in the role it intends to play in the city. In many respects, all the elements are present in our societies for a reactivation of the religious, in new roles far removed from those of the past.

‘But what sense does your dialogue with religion make?

Gauchet: ‘After all, Christianity is the cultural matrix of the world we live in, and if we don’t have this memory, I don’t really see what we can understand about it. Furthermore, the debate between the secular and the religious is behind us, except for a few die-hards. The real dividing line today, beyond political families, is between those for whom reflection on the human adventure is more necessary than ever, and those who consider it outdated, for whom prosperity, hedonism or a certain freedom provide the answers to everything. However secular I may be, I feel much closer to the religious spirit than to many secularists, who seem to me to be drifting into a kind of spontaneous inhumanism, this inclination of our societies towards incuriosity, unculture and deculturation. Many people call the act of continuing to delve into the human mystery ‘spiritual’. It’s a word with which I completely identify.

Le christianisme est quand même la matrice culturelle du monde dans lequel nous sommes, et si l’on n’a pas cette mémoire, je ne vois pas bien ce que l’on peut y (sc. notre monde) comprendre…

Het christendom is per slot van rekening de ‘culturele matrix’ (moederschoot) van de wereld waarin wij leven, en als we ons daarvan geen rekenschap geven, zie ik niet goed in hoe we onze wereld kunnen begrijpen…

 

Further reading: Jean-Luc Nancy about the same topic : The deconstruction of Christianity (two quotes in Dutch)

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Arthur Honegger: psalm 138

Trois psaumes (1940-41), nr. 3: Il faut que de tous mes esprits.
Superb Psalm poem by Clément Marot (1543), joyful tune by Guillaume France (1543), and captivating composition by Arthur Honegger (1940/1). Dedicated to Eliette Schenneberg (contre-alto / mezzo) . But this performance with Jean-François Gardeil is my favorite.

Score (All three psalms) – from IMSLP. Enjoy.

IMSLP14501-Honegger_-_3_Psaumes_(voice_and_piano)Download

Text (Fr-Eng)

Psaume 138 Psalm 138
(poem by Clément Marot, 1543)(English – Book of Common Prayer)
Il faut que de tous mes esprits
ton los et prix
j’exalte et prise:
Devant les grands me présenter
pour te chanter
J’ai fait emprise.
En ton saint’ Temple adorerai,
célèbrerai
ta renommée,
Pour l’amour de ta grand’ bonté,
et féauté
tant estimée.		I will give thanks to you, O LORD,
with my whole heart;

Before the gods I will sing your praise.

I will bow down toward your holy temple
and praise your Name,

Because of your love and faithfulness;
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Religion…

God is back, and with a vengeance. Only sociologists of religion were surprised by his return, ordinary people always have known that God never left the building. ‘Secularization’ was the code word for scholars: Religion was losing its relevance, the impact of faith and faith organizations on society would decline. Max Weber: rationalization and a ‘disenchantment of the world’.  Nothing to be done about it. Or to pay tribute to the most famous sociologist of religion of the second half of the last century, Peter Berger: The sacred canopy that had sheltered us from external threats for centuries is broken, gone. Now, we must survive under the open sky, on our own, whether we like it or not. In 1968, Berger had predicted that by the year 2000 religion would be completely marginalized in society. Only in the form of small sectarian groups, which would come together to protect themselves against the evil effects of secularization, it would survive (NY Times, Sunday, February 25, 1968, ‘A Bleak Outlook is Seen for Religion’). Well, scientists can be wrong. Berger freely admitted it, long before the year 2000. Quote: “If I look back on my earlier work, I would say that I was wrong about secularization, but right about pluralism. I misunderstood the relation between the two: the latter does not necessarily lead to the former (vide the American case). What pluralism does (and there I was right) is to undermine all taken-for-granted certainties, in religion as in all other spheres of life. But it is possible to hold beliefs and to live by them even if they no longer hold the status of taken-for-granted verities. In other words, I would now say that pluralism affects the how of religious belief, but not necessarily the what.” 5 The secularization theory was common among scholars looking at things from the outside (sociologists) but also within the church. There, too, ‘secularization’ was the main theme.

Continue reading…

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System failure in the roman-catholic church

church operating systems (COS) – helpdesk

On TV (23 september 2023) the Bishop of Antwerp, Johan Bonny, admitted that the never-ending story of sexual abuses in Belgium (and other anomalies) were symptoms (signals) of a ‘systemic error‘ in the Church. What he didn’t realize, however, was the gravity of the situation. He still believes a ‘restart’ (albeit in ‘safe mode’) is still possible. But the ‘error’ does not originate in isolated programs (bugs, software), which can be repaired, but in the ‘church operating system’ itself, called ‘the Roman-Catholic Church’: Some critical elements

  • The dichotomy of the members in ‘clerics’ (priests) and ‘laity’, the latter being totally dependent on the first for access to Gods grace.
  • The ‘hierarchical’ power-structure (priests>bishops), on the top of which resides the pope, ‘who has to answer to no one’ (canon-law).
  • Who controls the judges? Answer: the judges. No divide between lawmakers and lawinforcers.
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Cyril of Alexandria, the Song of Solomon and Mary Magdalene

A prefiguration of Easter (chapter 3)

Preparing an Easter sermon about Mary Magdalene wandering about in the garden early in the morning, desperately searching for the Lord, a scene from the Song of Solomon came to mind, in which the bride (the maiden) at night is looking for her beloved. She can’t find him, and – wandering through the city – she addresses the guards, and then – suddenly – she finds him, grabs him and does not want to let go of him anymore… 1600 years ago Cyril of Alexandria saw the same connections as I did (and you, reader). Hypertext. The text in question is Song of Solomon ch. 3:1-4 (translation below). The story of Mary in the garden can be read in John 20:1, 11b-18. I wondered: Did the evangelist use the story from the Song of Solomon as a matrix to tell his story of Mary? A kind of literary device?

Cyril of Alexandria, d. 444

Canticle of canticles (Song of Solomon), chapter 3

Translation of the Vulgata (Douay-Rheims)

1 In my bed by night I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, and found him not. 2 I will rise, and will go about the city: in the streets and the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, and I found him not. 3 The watchmen who keep the city, found me: Have you seen him, whom my soul loveth? 4 When I had a little passed by them, I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him: and I will not let him go, till I bring him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that bore me.

Commentary of Cyril of Alexandria

Commentary of Cyril on Canticum canticorum ch. 3, 1: On my bed, during the night, I looked for my beloved… Below the original Greek with latin translation and below that a translation of Cyril’s remarks in English, turning Ch 3, 1-4 into a allegoric description of the meeting between Mary of Magdala and her Lord. NB: koitè (cubicule, lectum) denotes not only the bed, but also the room (bedroom, resting place); mnèma (monumentum – both use the same root: “mnm” = rememberance), memorial, tomb.

Patrologia Graeca, vol. 69, column 1285 – works of Cyril of Alexandria – fragments from a commentary on the Song of Solomon, also in PG 87/2, column 1620 (catena in the Song of Songs by Procopus of Gaza), only minor differences.

English translation

Translation of the Greek text. The quotes from Song of songs ch. 3 are underlined. I made the scriptural quotes explicit (adding the reference).

Meant are the women who, very early in the morning on Sabbath, went to the tomb of Jesus, and did not find him. – ‘On the bed’ or ‘from the bedroom’; ‘her bedroom’ is what she calls the tomb of the Lord in which we are buried with him. (Rom 6:4) But she did not find him, but instead heard, “He is not here, for he is risen.” (Lk 24,6) And the angels/guards found her, whom she addressed, “Where have you put the Lord?” (Jn 20,15). And as she passed by the men whom she was addressing, the Lord appeared, saying: “Greetings” (Mt 28:9). That is why she says: “No sooner had I passed by them than I found him, and I did not let go of him” (Canticum 3:3,4). For she caught hold of his feet, and he said, “Do not hold me.” (Jn 20,17 – feet = conflation with Jn 12,3). And the ‘house of the mother‘ (= Canticum 3:4) is what he calls the assembly (synagogue in Greek) of the apostles, where he sent her in order to bring the gospel of Christ’s resurrection. (Jn 20,18)

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Understanding Bach’s Saint Matthew’s Passion: three clues

Three classic typologies you need to know to understand the opening Chorus of the SMP, and the role of the dramatis personae in the Passion. All three typologies are neatly presented to the listener in the Opening Chorus. They all refer to Christ and suggest an interpretation of the events that will be told in the ‘Passion’:
– The Lamb
– the Groom (+ Bride[smaids], the daughters of Sion)
– Isaac, Abraham’s son.

Come, ye daughters, help me lament,
Behold! Whom? The Bridegroom.
Behold him! How? Like a lamb.
O lamb of God, innocent
slaughtered on the stem of the cross,
Behold! What? Behold his patience.
always found patient,
although you were despised.
Behold! Where? Behold our guilt.
you have borne all sin,
otherwise we would have to despair.
Behold Him, out of love and graciousness,
Himself carrying the wood of the cross.
Have mercy on us, o Jesus!		Kommt, ihr Töchter, helft mir klagen,
Sehet – Wen? – den Bräutigam,
Seht ihn – Wie? – als wie ein Lamm!
O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig
Am Stamm des Kreuzes geschlachtet,
Sehet, – Was? – seht die Geduld,
Allzeit erfunden geduldig,
Wiewohl du warest verachtet.
Seht – Wohin? – auf unsre Schuld;
All Sünd hast du getragen,
Sonst müßten wir verzagen.
Sehet ihn aus Lieb und Huld
Holz zum Kreuze [selber] tragen!
Erbarm dich unser, o Jesu!
  1. The Lamb is the Paschal Lamb, a sacrificial animal slaughtered at Pesach. Its blood – so the story (‘haggadah’) tells us – rescues the Israelites from the Angel of Death who roamed through Egypt, ushering in the Exodus. In Christian theology this meaning (“salvation throuhg the blood of the lamb”) including the imagery is transferred to Christ when he is called the Agnus Dei qui tollis peccata mundi (German choral: “O Lamm Gottes unschuldig…”).
  2. Jesus as the Bridegroom, whose fate is bemoaned by the women along the road (Gospel of Matthew). These women are addressed by Jesus as the Daughters of Sion/Jerusalem. They are invited to help telling the story of Jesus’ passion correctly. It’s a reference to the friends of the girl/Bride, the bridesmaids from the Song of Songs. The allegorical reading of this Bible Book was quintessential to the Spirituality of the (Lutheran) Church. There is also a reference to the parables of the bridesmaids waiting for the Groom to arrive. The Bride has a twofold reference:
    A. Community of Believers (collectivum), the Church;
    B. The Soul of the believer (individual)
  3. Isaac, Abraham’s son, carrying the ‘wood’ for his own sacrifice (typos of Christ carrying his cross), also quoted for his willingness to comply with his F(f)ather’s command, to be sacrificed.
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Two birds with one stone…

A song for Christmas and Easter by Samuel Scheidt

Samuel Scheidt must have thought: why not publish a simple ‘Hallelujah’ that can be used for the two main celebrations of Christianity, Easter and Christmas, alike. Above the Easter version ‘Surrexit Christus hodie – Humano pro consolamine’ (‘Christ is risen to comfort human kind’). The Christmas version sings ‘Puer natus in Bethlehem’ – ‘Unde gaudet Jerusalem’. When you teach/learn this by heart, you kill two birds with one stone: a festive opening chorus for both feasts.

Here you can download the PDF: https://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Surrexit_Christus_hodie_(Samuel_Scheidt)