The Lutheran church in which I grew up and the Episcopal church I attend now have a number of things in common.  They both were constructed during the Gothic revival in the late 1800’s; both have good organs and organists; and both bear prominent images of Jesus as the Good Shepherd.  A large mural depicting Christ holding a lamb in one arm and leading a flock of sheep (photo 1) flanks one side of the chancel at St. Martini Lutheran Church.

The stained glass window in the chancel at Trinity Episcopal similarly shows Christ cradling a lamb with his right arm as he reaches down with his left hand to touch the head of an accompanying sheep in a reassuring gesture (photo 2). Both images draw on the work of an obscure German graphic artist and painter named Bernard Plockhorst who lived from 1825 to 1907. Indeed, many congregations in North America owe a debt of thanks to Plockhorst for the impetus his famous painting, “The Lord is My Good Shepherd,” gave to the artists who designed the stained glass in their churches (photo 3).

On this Good Shepherd Sunday when some Christian denominations shift the emphasis in their post-Easter liturgies from Christ as a metaphorical sacrificial lamb to Jesus as a shepherd who stands by his flock, I’ll share some photos of good shepherd windows in the United States and Canada, two countries where they are fairly common. All the windows visualize, in different styles and varying degrees of detail, readings heard in churches today from the gospel of John, chapter 10, where Jesus declares “I am the good shepherd,” and Psalm 23 where the psalmist observes, “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.”  After a short introduction to the history of the good shepherd image, we’ll look at the photos as illustrations of John’s gospel passage and the famous psalm attributed to David who, as both shepherd and king, prefigured Christ according to Christian tradition (photo 4).

Background   I was mildly surprised as I culled through my photos of stained glass windows, to see how broadly the image of a shepherd as a symbol for a loving and steadfast God cuts across denominational lines. One finds good shepherd windows in Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Episcopal, and other Protestant churches alike.  Why is it so common?  One reason could be that representations of the good shepherd belong to a common artistic heritage. The image dates to the earliest days of Christianity. Eduard Syndicus wrote in Early Christian Art that “the figure of the Good Shepherd was easily the most popular symbol of salvation” among second century Christians. It expressed concretely their sense of being “in distress yet not abandoned.”  A good shepherd fresco with Jesus holding a lamb on his shoulders appears at the Catacomb of Priscilla in Rome, and similar images appear in early baptisteries. The image spread to other parts of the Roman world. Walter Lowrie reports in Art in the Early Christian Church that some Christian communities in North Africa used glasses “adorned in gold leaf with the figure of the Good Shepherd.”

The good shepherd seems to have lost some of its popularity during the Middle Ages as the emphasis in Christian art shifted to other themes such as the theology of redemption, the life and miracles of Mary, and the lives of the saints. But the image has come back with a vengeance since Plockhorst’s good shepherd painting began to circulate. I’m posting examples below, organized by denomination. Enjoy!

Roman Catholic

 

Disciples of Christ

Episcopal

Presbyterian

United Church of Canada

Text and Photos Copyright 2018, by Michael Klug; mikejklug@aol.com; 04/22/18

 

 

I suspect that many people take the colors of Christmas for granted. We see green and red in poinsettia plants, frosting on cookies, ugly sweaters, elf costumes, greeting cards, and airport terminals (photo 1) without giving them much thought. Green and red are ubiquitous in December. But what do the colors mean aside from signaling that it’s Christmastime? In this post, we’ll consider how artists use color to convey meaning in the iconography of Christmas as we visit cathedrals and churches in France, England, and the United States. Keep in mind as we proceed that iconography means “writing with images” and that color is but one aspect of the “script” artists use.

Green and Red  Though the meaning of green and red displayed together may be lost on many of us moderns, its symbolic use in Christian art runs long and deep. A roundel in the twelfth century Passion and Resurrection Window at Chartres Cathedral shows how the color combination got started. The image depicts the crucified Jesus on a green cross with a red border (photo 2). Why are the colors of Christmas in a crucifixion scene?

According to George Ferguson’s Signs and Symbols in Christian Art, green is associated with living vegetation and spring, symbolizing the triumph of spring over winter and life over death. Red is associated with blood and in this case symbolizes sacrifice. Artists in the Middle Ages employed the two colors to connect Christ’s birth and impending death to make the theological point that Jesus was born to die so that others might live. The colors came to symbolize the belief, expressed by St. Paul in his letter to the Romans, that Christians share in Jesus’ victory over death. He wrote that “just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in the newness of life.”

Medieval theologians also used a verse from Paul’s letter to the Romans to forge an imaginative link between Christ’s birth and the beginning of time. Paul wrote, “Therefore, just as [Adam’s] trespass led to condemnation for all, so [Jesus’] act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.” Malcolm Miller, the venerable English-speaking docent at France’s Chartres Cathedral explains that 12^th century Christians “commonly believed that the ‘true’ cross was made from the Tree of Life, which had grown in Paradise. Thus, of the two trees of the Garden of Eden, one brought about death, and the other, life.” Christ, in this interpretation, is the “new Adam” whose birth represents a new start for humanity.

When did artists begin to use green and red in Nativity scenes?  I don’t know for sure. We do know, however, that some were using green and red in depictions of the stable scene, with images drawn from Luke’s gospel and the apocryphal Infancy Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew with its familiar ox and ass, by the year 1200. An altar frontal painting (photo 3) from the church of Santa Maria de Avia, now at the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalonia in Barcelona, is one of the earliest examples I’ve encountered. It contains five small scenes illustrating the Annunciation, Visitation, Nativity, approach of the Magi, and Presentation of Christ in the temple. Jesus sits on Mary’s lap in the larger central panel.  In the Nativity panel at the upper right, the baby Jesus is wrapped in green and red swaddling clothes. To the left, he wears green and red robes seated on the enthroned Mary.

White, Purple and Gold  Stained glass artists and painters have incorporated red and green in Christmas scenes ever since. Along the way, some added white to form a trio that symbolizes sacrifice, new life, and Christ’s inherent purity of spirit. Others added purple and/or gold to symbolize royalty and the Christian conception of Christ as a heavenly king. A set of four windows at Gloucester Cathedral in England offers a tenderly executed example (photos 4 and 5).  From left to right, the four panels picture Joseph, three angels with Jesus in a manger, Mary kneeling, and two shepherds with a herald angel above. Note the colors of the angels’ wings in the manger scene. They are red, green, purple, and white. The artist used the colors of Christmas to envelop the baby Jesus.

Similarly, an early 20^th century adoration window (photo 6, probably fabricated by a German studio) at St. Boniface Catholic Church in New Vienna, Iowa, shows angels wearing green, red, purple, and gold robes as they kneel adoringly before the babe lying in a manger. To the left, two Magi wear what appear to be red and white caps beneath their crowns, suggesting associations with Christmas candy canes and Santa Claus!

I’ll close this post with a good look at a modern, faceted stained glass window at Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, a few blocks from our home in Iowa City. It’s a favorite of mine because it combines in one elegant panel the main elements of the Christmas story entirely in symbols. Green, red, white and gold are all there. A golden manger is central. A red chi-rho rises from it. It’s an emblem of Christ because chi and rho are the first two letters in the Greek word for Christ. A circular white nimbus, perhaps suggesting a communion host, appears behind the crest of the rho. A green almond-shaped mandorla frames the chi-rho and manger. It symbolizes Christ’s dual nature through the intersection of two unseen circles that represent his humanity and divinity. Three crowns representing the Three Kings or Magi, a crook representing the shepherds, and a bright pentagonal star complete the symbolic story of a singular night, centuries ago, when light triumphed over darkness in a little town called Bethlehem.

Sources: Ferguson, Signs & Symbols in Christian Art (Oxford Press, 1961); Miller, Chartres Cathedral (Pitkin Pictorials, 1985); Barnstone, The Other Bible (HarperOne, 2005); Attridge, Harper Collins Study Bible (HarperOne, 2006)

Photos and article copyright by Michael Klug, mikejklug@aol.com, 12/24/2017

 

 

Martin Marty, the eminent Lutheran theologian, asks in October 31, 1517: Martin Luther and the Day that Changed the World, “Do days change the world?” It’s a timely question about the events in Wittenberg, Germany—500 years ago today—that opened the door to the Protestant Reformation. If Professor Marty had asked me if that day in 1517 when an obscure Augustinian monk tacked 95 Theses or propositions to a church door in distant Deutschland (photo 1) changed my world, the answer would be an emphatic, “Yes!”

 

I was raised a Lutheran and attended Lutheran schools. I learned the 10 Commandments in light of Luther’s Small Catechism. Had it not been for Martin Luther and his break from the Roman Catholic Church, it’s doubtful that my fifth grade classmates and I would have memorized this verse from St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians: For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. I can still recite it by heart more than fifty years later.  And without Martin Luther, these Latin words would not have appeared on a banner behind the dais at my Lutheran high school’s graduation ceremony:  Sola Fide, Gratia, Scriptura; Faith, Grace, Scripture Alone.

That Bible verse and banner represent in my mind the essence of Luther’s theology of salvation: faith and grace are what matter when we face the divine Judge at the end of our days. Building his case on scripture as the sole and ultimate authority in matters of Christian belief—not papal pronouncements or non-Biblical ecclesiastic tradition—Luther proclaimed that we are justified, that is, made right with the Almighty, through faith in God’s saving grace. That idea, and the way Luther doggedly pursued it, caused quite a stir in early 16^th century Europe where many people, Luther included, often felt powerless to prevent demonic spirits from tipping the scales of divine justice against them (photo 2).

This post marks the 500^th anniversary of the day most historians associate with the start of the Protestant Reformation. Our points of departure are stained glass and sculpture, mainly in the United States, featuring images related to Luther and his work. We’ll start with a statue and sculpted niche in one of the bays along the north aisle at the Washington National Cathedral (photo 3).

The statue shows Luther as he prepares to nail his 95 Theses to the church door, mallet in hand. The pedestal below forms a triptych, with its central panel highlighting the 95 Theses on a door framed by a Gothic portal. The flanking scenes depict Luther as a writer working at a desk on the left, and as a preacher in a pulpit on the right. An open Bible underlies the three scenes and symbolically provides their foundation (photo 4).  The composition clearly implies that the 95 Theses are central to Luther’s story.

Martin Luther’s 95 Theses   What prompted Luther to post his 95 propositions on the church door of a small university in remote Saxony and invite others to join him in a debate about the nature of repentance? Or more simply put, what was the bee in his bonnet? The impetus, Professor Marty explains, was the Roman Catholic system of penance. A pervasive bureaucracy developed in the church during the late middle ages that had turned the forgiveness of sins into a money-making enterprise. Luther objected in particular to the sale of indulgences, a term rooted in the Latin word for “leniency.”

The practice of granting indulgences stemmed from a belief that penalties attach to sins and weigh against Christian souls, with heavier penalties for more serious sins. Consequently, anyone who hoped to enter heaven must do something beneficial to purge the stain of sin from one’s soul or, using the justice metaphor, tip the scales in one’s favor. One could give alms to the poor, join a Crusade, or rebuild a church among a wide range of “good works” that could offset the gravity of the sin. But if a person’s penitential acts were insufficient at death to clear the record and ensure a quick ascent to heaven, his soul would land in Purgatory where cleansing penance might continue indefinitely. An indulgence granted by the Church could count to a person’s credit after death, and thus facilitate the soul’s movement from Purgatory to Heaven.

At some point in the early 1500’s, Pope Leo sanctioned the sale of indulgences to raise funds for the construction of a new St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, begun in 1506, completed in 1626, and ever since the largest church in the world (photo 5). In 1514, 24 year old Albert of Brandenburg borrowed 21,000 ducats from the Fugger banking house in Augsburg to pay to become the Archbishop of Mainz. Since Albert already was the Archbishop of Magdeburg, holding two high church offices simultaneously violated canon law.  Pope Leo agreed to overlook the infraction if Albert made a sizable contribution to St. Peter’s building fund. Albert agreed and, with the Pope’s permission to sell indulgences, used half the money raised to repay the loan and the other half to make good on his deal with the Pope. One of Albert’s most effective front men in the indulgence sale was a Dominican friar named Tetzel.  Using clever jingles and making outrageous claims, he persuaded many of Luther’s neighbors to buy indulgences guaranteed to shorten their or their deceased loved one’s stay in Purgatory. “As soon as the coin in the coffer rings,” Tetzel assured, “the soul from Purgatory springs.” Tetzel’s indulgences were reportedly so powerful that they could even save the soul of someone who raped the Virgin Mary!

Luther was incensed. His 95 Theses scorched the church’s penance industry and its abusive exploitation of common folks’ fear for the fate of their souls. He minced no words about the malevolence of Albert’s and Tetzel’s fund-raising scheme when he wrote in thesis 32, “Those who believe that through letters of indulgence they are made sure of their own salvation will be eternally damned along with their teachers.”  Then, to drive home the point with the clergy and others in authority, he juxtaposed true compassion and self-interest in thesis 45, asserting that “Christians should be taught that those who see another in need and pass on by, and then give money for indulgences, are not purchasing for themselves the Pope’s indulgences, but rather God’s anger.”  Luther called out Pope Leo directly in thesis 86 as he wondered aloud, “Why does not the Pope, whose riches today are ampler than those of the wealthiest of the wealthy, build this one Basilica of St. Peter with his own money, rather than with that of poor believers?”

With his 95 Theses, Luther challenged the corrupt indulgence enterprise from top to bottom and, in the process, called the Pope’s authority into question. That didn’t set well with Leo. When Luther refused to recant at an imperial hearing in 1521, the Pope excommunicated him and the emperor declared Luther an outlaw. Luther avoided the fiery fate of earlier reformers who were branded as heretics, notably Bohemia’s Jan Hus (photo 7), largely because Frederick the Wise, Saxony’s ruler, came to Luther’s defense (photo 8). Frederick’s men took Luther into hiding at Wartburg Castle at Eisenach, where he stayed for nearly a year and wrote prolifically.

Writer and Preacher   Luther was indeed an accomplished writer and preacher. During his year-long hiatus at the Wartburg Castle, Luther translated the New Testament from Greek into German and wrote a slew of polemics against indulgences, the private Mass, monastic vows, and other non-Biblical accretions in church life. It was just the beginning. Over the course of his lifetime, Luther wrote Biblical commentaries, doctrinal statements, and various tracts under more than 600 titles. He was also a gifted hymn writer. He wrote A Mighty Fortress is Our God, the great anthem based on Psalm 46 that reverberates in Lutheran churches on the Sunday immediately preceding October 31 (photo 9).  The hymn became something of a call to arms in the wars of religion that followed the Reformation. Sweden’s King Gustavus Adolphus reportedly had his troops sing A Mighty Fortress as they marched off to battle Catholics in the Thirty Years War, a sad and unfortunate conflict that devastated parts of Europe and killed half the population of several German cities in the early 1600’s. As for preaching, one scholar estimates that between 1510 and 1546, Luther delivered nearly 7,000 sermons, an average of one sermon for every two days. Nearly 2,300 of them are still extant in writing.

Influence   The spark Luther struck on October 31, 1517, kindled a fire that spread quickly to Britain, Switzerland, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, and France, fanned by newly manufactured printing presses that churned out his pamphlets by the tens of thousands. His words freed many from the uncertainty they felt about the afterlife, and moved other reformers like Zwingli, Calvin, Cranmer, and Wesley to search the scriptures for fresh insights into the nature of the priesthood, sacraments, and saving grace. A stained glass window at the interdenominational Riverside Church in New York honors Luther and some of the reformers who followed him (photo 10) in Chartres-like scenes that depict (from bottom to top and left to right) Luther, Philip Melancthon, Zwingli, John Fox, Calvin, John Wesley,  Balthazar Hubmaier,  Hugh Latimer, and Roger Williams.

Article & photos (except #5) copyright 2017 by Michael Klug; mikejklug@aol.com; 10-31-2017

Blogger’s Note: Rick Legault of Ottawa, Canada and I share an appreciation for the multi-faceted symbolism in medieval cathedrals and especially Chartres Cathedral in France, a place we have both visited at different times. Since we first met online a couple years ago, we’ve traded emails about our questions, speculations, insights, and resources. Our correspondence has enriched me. Rick opened my eyes to the meaning of astronomical elements in Chartres Cathedral, helping me appreciate it and other cathedrals all the more. For all of that, I am grateful.  I’m pleased to share his guest post about the iconography of the zodiac at Chartres with you. It’s a draft of an article that will appear in final form at http://independent.academia.edu/RichardJLegault.

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Mandorling – I thank you Mike for accepting this article as a guest post on your blog. I owe you and yours a debt of gratitude not only for your inspiring work but for taking some superb photos for my series of draft papers on Chartres Cathedral. I can never really get to the bottom of sacred images. There is always another connection to pursue, another layer of meaning, another analogy, another allusion. In homage to your Mandorlas in our Midst blog, I’ve taken to using the word mandorling to designate the pursuit of these meaningful connections.

So now, I invite you and your readers to come along with me to a time: AD 1145, to a place: Chartres, to meet the Chartrians and do a bit of mandorling about some of the images they used depict the annual activities of their medieval way of life and, more importantly, their knowledge of time-tracking and astronomy.

The Zodiac and Labors of the Months – In Gothic art, the calendar cycle of annual activities is depicted so often in stone, glass and illuminated manuscripts that it is possible to define a fairly standardized iconography of images known as the Labors of the Months. Two examples are shown below in Figure 1 and Figure 2. To each month is assigned a typical rural activity such as pruning in April, hunting and falconry in May, planting and weeding in June, harvesting in July, threshing in August, pressing grapes in October, butchering livestock in November and, inevitably, feasting in December.

These activities and the iconography can vary a bit from place to place with different activities taking place earlier or later in the year depending on local climate, length of seasons and customs. The Labors of the Months images are always fairly easy to understand especially when the artists label each month with their names in letters, as in Figure 2.

Very frequently the Labors of the Months are accompanied by the even more standardized iconography of the twelve signs of the Zodiac, a medieval adaptation of the traditional astronomical lore of late Greek and Roman antiquity. Astronomy has always been essential to keep calendars on track with the natural cycles of time – the days, the months, the seasons and the years. In Gothic art the Labors of the Months and the Signs of the Zodiac are almost always arranged in the standard chronological order of the calendar, as shown in Figures 3 and 4. A major exception to this standard chronological order is displayed in the archivolt sculptures of the Royal Portal of Chartres Cathedral, shown and mapped in Figures 1a, 1b and 1c.

 

Zodiacs at Chartres – There are several Calendar and Zodiac images at Chartres Cathedral. The most prominent and well known are in the archivolts above two of the three doors of the Royal Portal. Here, the Signs of the Zodiac and Labors of the Months are in disarray, in nothing even close to their proper chronological order. They are also disconnected because only 10 zodiac signs are grouped with the 12 labors of the months over the leftmost door, while two signs – Gemini and Pisces – are split off from that group, and placed separately over the rightmost door. There, the central imagery of the Incarnation is surrounded by angels using censors to sanctify the medieval curriculum of the Seven Liberal arts represented by seven sages of antiquity and female personifications. The separate placement of Gemini and Pisces within this group seems oddly out of place – a curiosity arousing anomaly that taxes the observer for an explanation and makes the topic ideal for a mandorling.

This disarray and disconnectedness is not the case with other calendar and zodiac images in the Cathedral. For example a second Zodiac in a stained glass window in the ambulatory, shown in Figure 2, ends with December and Capricorn at the top, after working its way up through the months and the zodiac in their proper chronological order with one exception. The exception is the transposition of April and May and of Taurus and Gemini – a transposition I can understand as neither an error on the part of the original glaziers nor a botched restoration. As we go along, you will see why I think this transposition is a later and secondary re-affirmation of the reason for the disconnection of the stone Zodiac in the Royal Portal.

A third and much later Zodiac Cycle in the outermost archivolt of the rightmost door of the North Transept Porch, shown in Figure 3, is in perfect calendrical sequence, as is the one in the much later Astronomical Clock, shown in Figure 4. An easily overlooked and less well known fifth Zodiac Cycle, shown in part in Figure 5, is delicately tooled into a slender colonette behind the statues in a jamb of the Royal Portal. As I have not seen it in its entirety I don’t know if it is in proper sequence with the calendar.

I think there can be no question that ignorance or error is the cause of the odd disorder and disconnectedness of the Zodiac of the Royal Portal. The correct chronological order of the signs of the Zodiac was too well-known in medieval culture of the 12^th Century. Their cosmology, astronomy and time reckoning methods, inherited from classical Greek and Roman teachings, were read in the Latin works of medieval natural philosophers such as Beothius, the Venerable Bede, Isidore of Seville, Abbo of Fleury and numerous others. The exceptional interest in and knowledge of astronomy among the Chartrians, from the days of Bishop Fulbert of Chartres (c. 1006) up to the chancellorship of Thierry of Chartres (c. 1145) is a well-documented fact of history. Accordingly, I am persuaded that the disarray and disconnectedness of this Royal Portal Zodiac was a matter of deliberate design. The designers, alas, left no written record of the reasoning behind their choices, no record of the teaching they intended to convey with this very peculiar design. We do not even know for sure who they were. We have only the sculptures to speak, as it were, for themselves.

Nevertheless, we do have considerable and reasonably reliable knowledge of the cultural context of medieval Christian theology, natural philosophy, cosmology and astronomy that the Chartrians read about, wrote about and taught in the mid-twelfth century at their Cathedral school. If we accept the idea that their cathedral is a stone and glass record of these teachings, then I think the best way to understand the meaning of the Disconnected Zodiac, is to look for clues in the Chartrian readings, writings and teachings of which the stone and glass version, is but a duplicate. Extracting the meaning of the Disconnected Zodiac in this way is the goal of this paper.

Medieval Astronomy – The understanding of the Chartrians of the structure of the cosmos and of astronomy, at the time they built the Royal Portal (c. 1145), followed the teachings of Plato and Claudius Ptolemy. Up to that time they had had only an incomplete Latin translation of Plato’s Timaeus and for Ptolemy, only second and third hand summaries, compilations and commentaries from other authors of late antiquity. Ptolemy’s actual books, however, were just beginning to become available, arriving from Latin translators of Arabic versions during this period of the twelfth century: the Tetrabiblos c. 1138 from Plato de Tivoli, the Planisphere c.1143 from Hermann of Carinthia, and the Almagest c. 1175 from Gerard of Cremona.

Medieval Zodiac – The stately procession of the fixed stars, including the constellations of the Zodiac, across the night sky was well known to medieval philosophers and astronomers. The name Zodiac comes from the Greek zōdiakos kuklos (ζoδιακoς κύκλος), meaning “circle of animals”. Perhaps the longest lasting game of connect the dots of all time, the constellations and Zodiac, to this day are still a convenient identification, mapping and memory tool. Following Plato and Ptolemy, these constellations were considered to reside on an outer-most sphere of fixed stars that never moved with respect to each other. The entire sphere with its stellar panorama revolved in an east-west direction around the Earth daily.

Inside this outermost sphere – and in front of the zodiac constellations to an observer on earth – they could also see the heavenly pageantry of a second procession. This was the wanderings of seven stars Plato and Ptolemy had called planets because they were not fixed and could be seen to move along from night to night, month to month, and even year to year, from west to east (prograde), against the background of the twelve constellations of the Zodiac. Their seven planets, each on their own sphere nested one inside the other, were the Moon, Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. This Ptolemaic Model, as we now call it, was frequently illustrated in manuscripts using a series of concentric circles as seen in Figure 6. While some of the planets were seen to sometimes reverse direction and move backwards (retrograde) through the Zodiac for short periods of time, in general, their movement was seen as an ongoing west-east procession, with each planet completing its zodiacal cycle in its own unique period of time.

The Disconnected Zodiac – The sculptures of the Royal Portal include the twelve signs of the zodiac, arranged in a strangely disordered manner. Ten appear in disarray over the left door, none over the middle door and two, Gemini and Pisces, over the right door. Many of the authors who describe this arrangement comment on the strange disorder without offering any satisfactory explanation. In 1964 Adolf Katzenellenbogen said the splitting off of the two signs “poses a particular problem for which no definite solution may be offered.” In 2008 Philip Ball said “We no longer know how to read this code.” In 2009 John James attempted a mystical New-Age astrological explanation the meaning of which, frankly, impedes a reasoned understanding. An exception is Margot Fassler who in 2010 said that Pisces and Gemini over the Incarnation doorway are symbolic of the annual feast days of the Annunciation on 25 March in Pisces and of John the Baptist on 24 June in Gemini. Her idea is indeed a meaningful calendrical and contextual fit with the Incarnation images. However, it does not help me understand why the Chartrians would have singled out and given greater prominence to the Annunciation and the Baptist rather than other liturgical dates of equal or arguably greater significance: Advent between 27 November and 3 December in Sagittarius, the Nativity itself on December 25 in Capricorn, Epiphany on 6 January also in Capricorn, the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple (Candlemas) on 2 February in Aquarius, or the Transfiguration of Jesus on 6 August in Leo. Fassler’s idea also gives no reason as to why the other 10 signs are displayed in such messy disarray.

I think we need to look elsewhere to find a better way to understand the disconnected zodiac. The two disconnected signs are placed among a double set of images that represent the wisdom in the teaching syllabus of the Trivium and Quadrivium of late pagan antiquity. Accordingly, rather than look to the liturgical calendar, I think it makes better sense to look for meaning in readings and texts of Theology and Natural Philosophy, subjects for which the Masters of the School of Chartres were then, and are to this day, most well known. I propose working with the idea that the disarray and disconnectedness of the sculptures intentionally fit with the overall theme of the entire portal as a depiction of the theological concept of time using the three key moments of time in Christian theology: Creation, Incarnation and Second Coming. In the context of the Quadrivium, the teachings of the four liberal arts that deal with numbers, order, quantity and measurement, it makes sense that the depiction of the zodiacal signs would have something to do with using astronomy to measure and quantify time. The additional depiction over the center door of astrolabes, shown in Figure 7, is consistent with this idea because astrolabes are instruments of astronomical measurement and computation associated primarily with orderly observation, timekeeping and way finding.

Hypothesis – I think the extraction of Pisces and Gemini for placement separately over the right door may depict a Chartrian representation of the amount of time elapsed from the moment of Creation to the moment of the Incarnation, in other words, the duration of the Old Testament period. The idea is that the Chartrians may have used the concept of astronomical precession and what we now call Zodiacal Ages to depict the estimated elapsed time as spanning from early in the Age of Gemini to the beginning of the Age of Pisces.

Year of Creation – The question of how old Creation was had preoccupied Christians from the earliest times. For instance, Mario Livio writes that, as early as the year 169, Theophilus of Antioch had concluded “that the world had been created some 5,698 years earlier),” in other words in 5529 BC. Many estimates of this kind were widely known in medieval times from Christian writers and traditions that had used biblical chronologies to calculate a variety of estimates of the time of Creation. Over a dozen of these estimates are listed in Figure 8. The average of this dozen puts the count between Creation and Incarnation at 5,449 years with a standard deviation of about 114 years or 2 percent of the average. This is a pretty good match with the traditional Anno Mundi (Year of the World) count of 5,500 years. Texts of many of these authors and of others who cited them were available for reading in Chartres at the time of Thierry of Chartres’ Chancellorship, as listed in Figure 9.

 

Astronomy and Precession – From the known contents of Thierry of Chartres’ book Heptateuchon, listed in Figure 10, there is additional good evidence that knowledge of the astronomy of Ptolemy, Hyginus, and Al-Kwarizmi was at hand among the Chartrians. This knowledge included the concept of astronomical precession, understood then as the very slow movement of the position of the equinoxes backwards (retrograde) through the constellations of the zodiac.

What is now called general precession in modern astronomy is the observation that the equinoxes – two points where the celestial equator intersects the ecliptic – slowly move backwards relative to the background stars. An equinox occurs when the Sun is on one of these two intersection points. Their movement takes place at a rate very close to 50.29 arc seconds per year or one full degree of arc in just over 71.5 years or one full 30-degree sign of the zodiac in about 2,145 years. Professor Roy Bishop provides an excellent and up to date description of precession in The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada’s Observer’s Handbook 2017: “As a result of the combined precession of the equator and precession of the ecliptic, the equinoxes (the intersection points of the celestial equator and the ecliptic) drift westward (retrograde) about 50.29ʺ per year (a period of approximately 25,800 years. […] The Vernal equinox was located in the constellation Gemini 7,500 years ago [c. 5483 BC], in Taurus 4500 years ago, and in Aries 3000 year ago. It moved into Pisces from the “first point of Aries” around the beginning of the Christian era 2000 years ago, at roughly the same time as Hipparchus discovered the precession of the equinoxes.”

Moreover, the entry in a NASA glossary for a Great Year or Platonic Year states, “the period of one complete cycle of the equinoxes around the ecliptic [i.e. 360 degrees around the zodiac] is about 25,800 years.”

Generally, precession is measurable by observation of long-term displacement of the Sun’s position in the Zodiac on the day of the equinoxes. Considering precession involves a displacement the of the Sun’s position, and the Sun was then thought of as a planet, precession may, following Plato’s definition, be taken as a legitimate marker to measure the passage of time. Today, a Zodiacal Age is the name used for the amount of time the vernal equinox spends in a given segment of the zodiac spanning 30 degrees of the ecliptic or about one twelfth of a Platonic Year (360/30 = 12). The duration of time you assign to a Zodiacal Age or to a Platonic Year depends directly on the rate of presession you use to calculate it. The inaccurate and excessively slow rate first found by Hipparchus and used by Ptolemy was challenged in the Middle ages.

The concept of astronomical precession was nothing new to Medieval Christianity. In the third century, Origen, who was read at Chartres, considered it so well-known that he used it to argue that astrological divination and prognostication was fakery and a heresy: “There is a well-known theorem which proves that the Zodiac, like the planets, moves from west to east at the rate of one part in a hundred years, and that this movement in the lapse of so long a time changes the local relation of the signs […]. We are thus taught that the most learned in these matters cannot show beforehand what the Lord intends to bring upon every nation (Origen The Philocalia XXIII, 18).”

In antiquity, Claudius Ptolemy, following Hipparchus, had put the rate of precession substantially slower than the modern value, at about 1 degree per 100 years, or one full 30-degree sign of the zodiac in 3,000 years. This was the rate known to Origen. Later in later medieval times, the Arab astronomer Al-Battani (c.855 – 929) found much of Ptolemy failed to agree with observations and had measured the rate of precession as being much faster, a value close to 54.5 arc seconds per year, which is one degree in about 66.1 years, or one full 30-degree sign of the zodiac every 1,982 years. This is much closer to the modern value of about 2,145 years. Al-Battani wrote about this in his book Kitab al-Zij. This book appeared in the Latin West in 1116, translated as De motu stellarum (On the Motion of the Stars) by Plato of Tivoli who is reported to have worked in Barcelona from 1116 to 1138 (O’Connor 1999 and Minio-Paluello, 2008).

Al-Battani at Chartres – There is solid textual evidence that Thierry of Chartres, Chancellor at Chartres during the construction of the Royal Portal, was familiar with the more advanced astronomy of Al-Battani. The evidence is written in Hermann of Carinthia’s Preface to his translation from the Arabic of The Planisphere of Claudius Ptolemy. In this Preface, Hermann dedicates his work to his former teacher – Thierry of Chartres – whom he describes as the greatest living master of the liberal arts and of natural philosophy in these words: “To whom, therefore, can I dedicate that which is the deepest principle and root of all studies of humanity rather than to you, who, I know, and therefore plainly confess, hold the first position in philosophy in these times, and are, as it were, an-unmoveably secure anchor in the turbulent storms of ever-changing doctrines? If it pleases the Gods, may envy not make me, like the indolent masses, voluntarily allow myself to lie, or hide the truth before you, most worthy teacher Thierry, in whom, I am convinced, the soul of Plato has once again been brought down from heaven and fitted to mortal man (Translation Burnett 1978, my emphasis).”

The fact that Hermann and Thierry shared knowledge of Al-Battani’s work in astronomy is also evident in the Preface. It contains a passage naming Arabic authors and texts of astronomical science, indicating these were well-known to of both of them: “From these, and `in the Greek tongue, he collected two volumes: the Sintasis for the first discipline, and the Tettastis for the second – in Arabic called the Almagest and the Alarba. Al-Battani has appropriately made the Almagest more concise (?), and Abü Marshar has, no less appropriately, expanded on the Alarba (Translation Burnett 1978).”

Al-Battani’s work, from its first arrival in Europe to this day, has been most well-known for its challenges to Ptolemy’s observational accuracy and especially for improving Ptolemy on the rate of precession. No modern biographer fails to mention it.

Dating Creation Using Precession – Anyone using Al-Battani’s rate of precession, Biblical traditions dating the time of creation at an average of 5449 BC and working backwards from the birth of Christ pegged at year AD 1, the dawn of the Age of Pisces, would place the time of creation early in the Age of Gemini. Accordingly, the interval of time between Creation and the Incarnation may have been depicted over the right door of the Royal Portal using the two signs Gemini and Pisces as symbolically corresponding to a Biblically estimated interval of time between the Age of Gemini and the Age of Pisces, as shown in Figure 11.

This explanation of the reason for disconnecting Gemini and Pisces from the rest of the zodiacal signs over the left door and placing them separately over the right door is, of course, a hypothesis. It follows on the facts of cultural context that the Chartrian community and Royal Portal designers, had access to the absolute most recent Latin translations of Arabic and Greek works of astronomy. As Peter Ellard says, “They were on the cutting edge of the natural sciences of their day, and this included the use of astrology [and astronomy] texts from Islamic sources which were only very recently made available (Ellard 2007).” Moreover, this hypothesis is also consistent with the Royal Portal depictions of the most recent astronomical technology, the astrolabe, which also had just recently arrived from the Andalusian Arabs.

An Ugly Fact? – Whether working in cultural history or in science, any damn fool can propose a hypothesis or theory to explain a puzzling phenomenon. It is the philosopher Sir Karl Popper who most often gets credit for formalizing, in the 1930s, the idea of falsifying hypotheses as the essential element of the scientific method. According to Popper no hypothesis can ever be proven, but one can be falsified, meaning that it can and should be scrutinized by decisive experiments, observations and tests. My favorite and I think the most eloquent phrasing of this idea is in Thomas Huxley’s presidential address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science for 1870. He hit the nail of the falsifiability principle squarely on the head, and much earlier than Popper, when he described the idea as, “the great tragedy of science – the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.”

How well does my hypothesis stand up to the rigors of falsifiability and testing? Well, to be intellectually honest and with great humility I must admit that there are strong opinions out there about the scarcity of primary sources from the late classical and medieval periods that show unequivocally that anybody ever used precession or Zodiacal Ages as a timekeeping method to delineate historical periods or to measure and quantify epochs of time. The ugly fact dangling like a guillotine blade above the neck of my hypothesis is that serious literature on the matter opposes my hypothesis. For instance, Nicholas Campion, a respected cultural historian and specialist in the history of astronomy and astrology, writes: “There is though, not a single extant example of the use of precession of the equinoxes to predict the future by astrologers until the late nineteenth century. There are indeed arguments that precession was used by astrologers in the ancient world, but they are based entirely on the retrospective interpretation of circumstantial evidence and lack any textual support. […] Literary evidence is not everything but, when it is entirely absent in the works of people who should have been most concerned with it, the fact does require some attention. Simply, there are no extant classical or medieval astrological texts which attribute any astrological or historical significance to precession. (Campion 2016, my emphasis).”

Accordingly, my hypothesis here would appear to be no better than any damn fool’s, unless there is a way to redeem it with solid historical or scientific evidence. I think the hypothesis is redeemable for two reasons. One is testability; the other is counter examples of Campion’s opinion.

Testability – One of the standard approaches to the scientific testing of hypotheses is to predict consequences that should be observable only if the hypothesis is correct. On this score, if my hypothesis is correct then further study of the sources for the curriculum of the Quadrivium at the Cathedral School of Chartres at the time of Thierry should find that knowledge of Al-Battani’s book De motu stellarum was a source preferred over Ptolemy in the matter of precession. On the contrary, if it is found that some other source was preferred, say Ptolemy or Origen, then that would falsify the hypothesis and justify it being rejected. The kind of evidence to look for would be a statement or comment of the kind made by Copernicus, cited below. Until this test can be performed, I turn my attention to counter examples to the opinion that “there are no extant classical or medieval texts which attribute any astrological or historical significance to precession.”

Calendar Reform and Precession – By 1582 when the Gregorian calendar was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in the papal bull Inter gravissimas (Latin for: Among the Most Serious), the earlier Julian calendar had fallen 10 days out of step with the true dates of the equinoxes, due to precession. The discrepancy arose because precession makes the tropical year shorter than the sidereal year, we now know, by 20 minutes and 24.5 seconds. The tropical year, on average 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 45 seconds, is the amount of time it takes to observe the Sun return to the same equinox position and this tracks the seasons. The sidereal year in mean solar time of 365 days, 6 hours, 9 minutes and 9.5 seconds, is the time it takes the earth to orbit the Sun exactly once, measured relative to the distant stars. In 2009 Ari Ben-Menahem, wrote in his Historical Encyclopedia of Natural and Mathematical Sciences that the growing calendar discrepancy, caused by precession, had been well-known since the early medieval period, specifically by Bede noting a three day error in the 8th century and Roger Bacon, c. 1200, a seven or eight day error. Moreover, Johannes Sacrobosco wrote in his book De Anni Ratione (Latin for: On Reckoning the Years), c. 1235, that the Julian calendar was out of step with the equinoxes by ten days and that some correction was needed. Even Dante Alighieri, writing c. 1300, was aware of the issue and the need for calendar reform. I’m not entirely sure how historians would make sense of historical periods without a reliably calibrated calendar of one kind or another. Considering the size of calendar discrepancies that can accumulate over centuries due to precession, I would say the issue, considered by the likes of Bede, Bacon, Sacrobosco and Alighieri, was indeed of rather substantial historical significance. Moreover, the issue of precession, when calendar reform finally came, was rather aptly named as “among the most serious”.

Copernicus and Precession – The Polish priest and astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus lived on the cusp between the Middle Ages and Modern times, often pegged at the year 1500. He was born in 1473 and died in 1543. In about 1530 he completed his book De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (Latin for: On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) that would not be published until 1543. This work shows not only his knowledge of Al-Battani but expresses a preference for Al-Battani’s rate of precession over Ptolemy’s: “Venus, although bigger than Mercury, can occult barely a hundredth of the sun. So says Al-Battani of Raqqa, who thinks that the sun’s diameter is ten times larger [than Venus’], and therefore so minute a speck is not easily descried in the most brilliant light […] I said, however, that the annual revolutions of the center and of inclination are nearly equal. For if they were exactly equal, the equinoctial and solstitial points as well as the entire obliquity of the ecliptic would have to show no shift at all with reference to the sphere of the fixed stars. But since there is a slight variation, it was discovered only as it grew larger with the passage of time. From Ptolemy to us the precession of the equinoxes amounts to almost 21°. (Copernicus, De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium Book I, my emphasis).”

This passage is clear evidence of the use of precession – the displacement of the equinoxes by 21° – in relation to measuring a defined historical period, “from Ptolemy to us.” Al-Battani’s precession rate of 54.5 arc seconds per year for the 1,362 years between Copernicus’ book and the death of Ptolemy in 168 CE gives 20.62 degrees. Ptolemy’s much slower rate would give only 13.75 degrees. The preference of Copernicus is clear. Moreover, the above passage on precession comes at the beginning of the book where precession is introduced as part of the core evidence that helps prove the Earth revolves around the Sun. In fact Book III or fully one sixth of the entire work is devoted exclusively to a discussion of precession. Considering this is the book most often credited as terminating the medieval period by triggering the greatest scientific revolution in history, it is difficult to imagine a discussion of precession in a context of greater historical significance.

The Data in the Disarray – Considering the presence in the Royal Portal of at least two Zodiac Cycles and of six or seven astrolabes, I think there is enough data or information in the sculptures to trigger in the mind of an astronomically informed observer, the idea of instrument-aided observational astronomy as a legitimate and beneficial pursuit and as a matter of natural philosophy. This connects meaningfully with the sanctification of the Seven Liberal Arts depicted over the rightmost door. Moreover, I find it most meaningful that the data in the Zodiac sculptures are astronomically inaccurate and presented in messy chronological disarray: it connects perfectly with the theological idea of disruption in the Heavens. Disarray of the heavens in the context of the end of times and of the Second Coming is fully consistent with Biblical teaching. These teachings and centuries of commentary on the theology and eschatology of Adventus warn that disruption and disarray in the heavens will be signs of the Second Coming. A few New Testament quotes illustrate the point:

But in those days, following that distress, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.  At that time people will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. Mark 13: 24-26  

Immediately after the distress of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. Matthew 24:29-30

There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. Luke 21:25

I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. Acts 2:19-20

In addition, because the zodiacal information in the sculptures is in such disarray it also connects well with Scriptural emphasis on the idea that the timing of the Second Coming can be neither known nor predicted:

But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only. Matt 24:36

Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. Matt 24:36

Be on guard, keep awake. For you do not know when the time will come. Mark 13:33

Now, brothers and sisters, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. 1 Thessalonians 5

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. 2 Peter 3:10

In the language of modern media communications, the sculptures are ‘on message.’ They are consistent with and reinforce traditional Christian teaching associated with the end of time.

The Gemini Taurus Transposition – And lastly, why do I think Gemini and Taurus were deliberately transposed in the Zodiac Window? It is really quite simple. Once you replace Ptolemy’s rate of precession with Al-Battani’s, it makes sense for a Chartrian to sideline Taurus and emphasize Gemini because now he knows it as the age in which God created the universe.

Consider the May/Gemini pane in the Zodiac Window, shown in Figure 12 below. The monthly labor for May is supposed to be hunting. However, the knight has interrupted his hunt. He has dismounted and placed his lance at rest. Instead of stalking game, he gazes wide eyed and in rapt attention at a pole standing against a blue sky, planted vertically upon the horizon line. His horse has found something worth munching at the precise point where the pole intersects the horizon. The Gemini Twins both gesture with their hands in a downward direction toward their feet. Is it just my imagination or could the body language of the knight, the horse and the twins be a glazier’s way of directing an observer’s attention to something important lower, or rather, earlier in Gemini? Could the intersecting pole and horizon line in this image somehow represent an important intersection, say of the equator with the ecliptic, at the feet of Gemini? Considering the pole and horizon intersect at 90°, while the equator and ecliptic do so at 23.5°, would there be any value in tracing lines to connect various points in this image, just to see if any interesting 23.5° angles pop-out? Well, maybe. But that could just as easily be an exercise in projecting meaning rather than extracting it. Moreover, however much fun you can have with geometrical doodling to connect the dots, I really think there is a much more important historical connection to be made in all of this.

The Mathesis Connection – My hypothesis of connecting the disorder and disconnectedness of the Royal Portal Zodiac to the astronomy of precession and to numerically measured time keeping is grounded on the keen interest of the Chartrians in the business of applying numbers – the teachings of the Quadrivium – to theology and to natural philosophy. We know how keen they were to do this from their written work. The concept of ‘numerizing’ or mathematicising knowledge is known today by the word mathesis, derived from the Greek μάθησεως. It is used primarily in discussions of the historical quest for a scientia mathematica universalis or a universal science grounded in mathematics. The historical outline of this quest usually starts with Pythagoras and Plato and their late classical followers. Generally ignoring the Middle Ages completely, it then jumps straight to the Italian renaissance with the work of Marsilio Ficino and Galileo, in a rush to get to Descartes, Leibniz and then to perhaps the greatest work of mathesis of all time, Newton’s Principia, the full title of which is Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, Latin for Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. Make no mistake: it is to the multi-generational journey of mathesis that we owe the debt of transforming what the Chartrians knew as Natural Philosophy into what we know today as Astronomy, Cosmology and Physics. And whoever overlooks the role of the Chartrians on that long and arduous journey through time, fails in connecting the dots.

Richard J Legault

26 May AD 2017 (Gregorian), Ottawa

 

Richard J Legault is a freelance journalist who lives with his wife Lynn in Ottawa, Canada. Some of his astronomical work has appeared in the Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. Some of his unpublished work-in-progress on Chartres is posted on the Academia.edu web-site. Legault welcomes questions, comments and feedback at richardjlegault@gmail.com.

References:

Ball, Philip 2008 Universe of Stone–A Biography of Chartres Cathedral Harper Collins New York.

Ben-Menahem, Ari 2009 Historical Encyclopedia of Natural and Mathematical Sciences Springer, New York. Consulted 31 May 2017 at URL:

https://books.google.ca/books?redir_esc=y&id=9tUrarQYhKMC&q=precession#v=snippet&q=calendar&f=false

Bishop, Roy L. and Turner, David G 2016 “Astronomical Precession” in Observer’s Handbook 2017, James S. Edgar, Editor, Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, Toronto 2016.

Burnett, Charles S. F.  1978 “Arabic into Latin in Twelfth-Century Spain: the Works of Hermann of Carinthia”, in Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch, 13, 1978, pp. 100–34. Consulted 26 April 2017 at URL:  http://www.mgh-bibliothek.de/dokumente/a/a053253.pdf

Campion, Nicholas 2016 Astrology and Popular Religion in the Modern West: Prophecy, Cosmology and the New Age Routledge, New York.

Copernicus Nicolaus 1530 De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, manuscript digital copy consulted 25 May 2017 at URL: http://pka.bj.uj.edu.pl/bjmanus/revol/plist_e.html

Copernicus Nicolaus 1543 De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium, (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) translator Charles Glen Wallis, in Hawking 2002

Edgar, James 2016 Observer’s Handbook 2017, The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, Toronto, Ontario.

Ellard, Peter 2007 The Sacred Cosmos–Theological, Philosophical and Scientific Conversations in the Twelfth Century School of Chartres, University of Scranton Press, Chicago Illinois.

Fassler, Margot E. 2010 The Virgin of Chartres – Making History through Liturgy and the Arts Yale University Press, New Haven.

Hawking, Stephen 2002 On the Shoulders of Giants – The Great Works of Physics and Astronomy Running Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Hermann of Carinthia 1143 Preface of The Planisphere of Claudius Ptolemy in Burnet 1978.

Huxley, T. Henry 1873 Critiques and Addresses MacMillan and Co., London

James, John 2009: In Search of the Unknown in Medieval Architecture Pindar Press, New York.

Katzenellenbogen, Adolf 1964 The Sculptural Programs of Chartres Cathedral W. W. Norton & Co, New York.

Knitter, Brian John 2000 “Thierry of Chartres and the West Façade Sculpture of Chartres Cathedral” San Jose State University Master’s Theses, Paper 2052.

Legault, Richard J 2015a Chartres – Adventus, draft monograph posted at URL: https://www.academia.edu/11801856/Chartres_-_Adventus

Legault, Richard J and Powell, Martin J. 2015b Chartres – The Guardians of Time draft paper posted at URL: https://www.academia.edu/19747483/Chartres_The_Guardians_of_Time

Legault, Richard J 2017a A Close Encounter of the Medieval Kind draft monograph posted at URL: https://www.academia.edu/30679872/A_Close_Encounter_of_the_Medieval_Kind

Legault, Richard J 2017b Chartres Royal Portal – Ascension or Creation? draft monograph posted at URL: https://www.academia.edu/32400373/Chartres_Royal_Portal_Ascension_or_Creation

Lewis, George 1911 The Philocalia of Origen – A Compilation of Selected Passages from Origen’s Works made by Gregory of Nazianzus and Basil of Caesarea Charles Scribner’s and Sons, New York. Digital copy consulted 25 May 2017 at URL: http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/origen_philocalia_01_intro.htm

Livio, Mario 2013 Brilliant Blunders From Darwin to Einstein Simon and Schuster New York.

Mâle, Emile 1958 The Gothic Image: Religious Art in France of the 13th Century, translated by Dora Nussey, Harper & Row, New York.

Mâle, Emile 1983 Chartres Harper and Row, New York.

Minio-Paluello “Plato of Tivoli” Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography 2008. Encyclopedia.com, retrieved 29 Oct. 2013 http://www.encyclopedia.com.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Aerospace Dictionary, web site consulted 10 May 2017 at URL: http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/hqlibrary/aerospacedictionary/aerodictall/g.html

O’Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., 1999 “Muhammad ibn Jābir al-Harrānī al-Battānī”, in MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews, retrieved 29 October 2013 from: http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Al-Battani.html

Origen c. 250 Philocalia in Lewis 1911.

Plato, Timaeus, cited in Ellard 2007.

Thierry de Chartres et al. La Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres (Our Lady of Chartres Cathedral), lithoscript monument, Cathedral School of Chartres, Chartres, in phases from circa 1145 to circa 1219.

Van Der Meulen, Jan and Nancy Waterman 1981 The West Portals of Chartres Cathedral: The Iconology of the Creation University Press of America.

In the fall of 2010 when I was between jobs, I went to France on a self-styled pilgrimage to visit some of its Gothic cathedrals. Knowing of my desire to learn more about the history and iconography of the famous cathedral at Chartres, my wife, Mercedes, encouraged me to go despite my precarious employment status. Her argument went something like this: “If not now, when you have more time than money, then when?”  It didn’t take much convincing.

Using money left over after refinancing our home for an improvement project, I happily set out for a two week sojourn in northern France with stops in Paris, Rouen, Amiens, Chartres, and Reims. I visited abbey churches (photo 1, above), cathedrals, and museums. I walked a lot, rode trains, and ate simple meals (fresh baguettes made every sandwich seem extraordinary). I enjoyed the slower pace and quiet, reflective, moments that enabled me to ponder a range of possible answers to a question that anyone who’s entering his 57th year, when it seems that time is running out, would be well-advised to ask: What’s waiting in the wings?

One of my answers to that question led indirectly to this blog. When I thought about what I’d like to do with the time that remains, I wrote in my journal that I’d like to be “Malcolm Miller’s protégé.” Malcolm Miller has been the resident English-speaking guide at Chartres Cathedral for decades. He knows the cathedral—its history, art, and meaning—like the back of his hand. He’s also very good at communicating it. I first saw Miller in action in 1991, and thought at the time that he has the ideal job; one that would get me out of bed every morning. I wanted to do what he does. So, with all this in mind, I decided to spend six days at Chartres just to hear Malcolm Miller talk about its wondrous cathedral (photo 2).

But on my fourth day in France, before I got to Chartres, something else caught my eye. I learned at a small museum in Rouen, 80 miles northwest of Paris, that Mark Twain was a big fan of St. Joan of Arc (Sainte Jeanne d’Arc in French).  The Joan of Arc Museum displayed a letter where Twain wrote that Joan was the “world’s supremest heroine.” It also had an early edition of the author’s last novel, Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, a fictional account of her life written from the perspective of a lifelong friend. Twain published it in 1896 when he was 61 years old. What’s more, I learned that he spent the better part of a decade researching background information for the book. I’d never heard of it, nor did I know that Twain considered it his finest literary achievement.

In retrospect, I now see that my brush with Mark Twain and Joan of Arc marked the start of a course correction. Did I really want to be Malcolm Miller’s protégé? I learned during my trip that protégé literally means “protected one.” I sensed that I didn’t need protection beneath an older man’s wings as much as I needed inspiration to lift my own, and for that I had cathedrals and churches all around me including a historic chapel dedicated to Joan of Arc in my hometown (photo 3).

Twain’s deep interest in Joan of Arc’s story helped to broaden my view, and incidentally validated my desire to delve into the stories and symbols one finds in sacred structures everywhere, and follow them where they lead deep into the rich soil of the spirit where the seeds of timeless ideals and enduring principles like love, courage, and self-sacrifice mysteriously start to grow. So, on the 586^th anniversary of her death, I am happy to post this article as a tribute to Joan of Arc whose extraordinary life inspired a novel, films (love that Ingrid Bergman!), countless works of art, and my decision to stay put and write about what I’ve been so fortunate to see on my travels. As we revisit Joan’s story, I’ll illustrate it with photos I’ve taken in France, Quebec, and the United States.

Voices of Saints   Joan of Arc was born in the Champagne region of France in 1412 at roughly the three quarters mark of a drawn out conflict that historians would later call the Hundred Years War. The war stemmed from a dispute about who was the legitimate ruler of the Kingdom of France. Intermarriage among the royal families of England and France had led to competing claims over the French crown. When Joan was seven years old, the English and their Burgundian allies had the upper hand, occupying entire regions of France and major cities such as Rouen, Caen (photo 4), Reims and Paris.

It was a rough time for France. People had lost hope. One writer notes that many residents of Domremy, Joan’s village, were forced to leave their homes as the war threatened them.  The French peasantry suffered under English rule, perhaps none more than the small farmers whose crops and livestock were appropriated without compensation to feed the occupiers. Joan’s father was a tenant farmer, and her mother was a devout Catholic who, it is said, conveyed her deep love of the Church to her daughter. Artists sometimes portray Joan as a pious French farm girl, as in a window at the Cathedral of Notre Dame of Quebec (photo 5).

When she was 13 years old, Joan began to hear saints’ voices. She believed that Michael the archangel (photo 6), Catherine of Alexandria, and Margaret of Antioch wanted her to embark on a divine mission to deliver France from its English enemies and install Crown Prince Charles (i.e., the Dauphin), son of the deceased Valois King Charles VI, as the King of France. Consecrating herself to the cause, Joan took a vow of chastity and later refused an arranged marriage. In January 1429, without a formal education or military training, 17 year old Joan presented herself to the Dauphin and convinced him to place an army under her command to relieve the besieged city of Orleans.

Before the army set out, someone asked about Joan’s sword. Where was it? She didn’t have one, yet. She replied that a sword would be found in a church a few miles from Charles’ encampment at Chinon, and so it was. The sword would later become Saint Joan’s acknowledged attribute, as we see in statuary commemorating her and other martyrs on the North Portal at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York (photo 7).

The Maid of Orleans   Joan and her army arrived at Orleans on April 29, 1429. On May 4, she led a successful assault on one of the English forts. Joan led another attack on May 7 and was wounded. She persisted in battle and urged the French troops forward. By May 8, the English had abandoned the siege and were in retreat.  The lower panels in the Joan of Arc window at the Washington National Cathedral show Joan on her horse leading the French infantry in a charge against the English (photos 8 & 9, click to enlarge).

After breaking the siege at Orleans, Joan urged the Dauphin to proceed quickly to Reims where, for centuries, French kings were crowned in its cathedral (photo 10, below). Joan, who reportedly had uncommon common sense, understood the symbolic value of a traditional coronation ceremony for French morale. Charles hesitated at first, but after the French defeated an English army at Patay on June 18—as Joan promised they would—the Dauphin set out for Reims with Joan at his side. The coronation of Charles VII took place in Reims Cathedral on July 17, 1429. Joan was present at the ceremony and afterwards knelt before Charles to pronounce him her king, as depicted in the pedestal beneath the Joan of Arc statue at St. John the Divine (photo 11).

In the ensuing months, several towns north of Paris turned from the English side to the French. In early September, the French forces with Joan in the lead made an unsuccessful attempt to take Paris. She was wounded again and retired to the Abbey Church at St. Denis where she paid homage to one of France’s patron saints (photos 12 & 13). By this time Joan’s compatriots had begun to idolize her and Charles may have been wary of her growing power. Nevertheless, after the army disbanded in December for the winter, King Charles VII decreed that Joan and her family would become members of the nobility.

Heretic, Hero, Saint   In spring 1430, the Burgundians captured Joan at Compiegne.  The Oxford Dictionary of Saints summarizes what happened next:  “The duke of Burgundy imprisoned her; Charles made no attempt to save her; the Burgundians sold her to the English, who attributed her success to witchcraft and spells.  She was imprisoned at Rouen and tried for heresy by the court of the bishop of Beauvais (a French cleric aligned with the English) who carefully chose her judges. She was examined repeatedly, but made a spirited and shrewd defense, single handed.”

Joan spent a year in captivity, most of it under close guard in a drafty tower in Bouvreuil castle in Rouen (photo 13, above).  During her trial, the judges pressed her on the question of her submission to church authority, given that she claimed to communicate with saints directly. She did her best to avoid the trap, maintaining that she held herself answerable to God and the saints. She responded, “I am relying on our Lord, I hold to what I have already said.” When the judges threatened to torture her into submission, she declared that she would reply no differently even under threat of torture.  On May 23, 1491, the court convicted her of heresy and handed her over to the secular authorities for punishment. A week later, English executioners burned her to death in Rouen’s market square (photo 14). The record of Joan’s trial was a primary source for Mark Twain and his book.

In 1450, when King Charles VII entered Rouen after his army drove out the English forces, he ordered an inquiry into Joan’s trial. After a thorough investigation by a papal legate, the Pope revoked the findings of heresy against Joan. The French faithful were free to regard her as a national heroine and centuries later, in May 1920, Pope Benedict XV canonized her as a martyred saint.

Voices of Saints, Revisited   Did three saints really speak to Joan?  It seems to be the source of some controversy among skeptical theologians and psychologists. Let’s take a look at some evidence. It’s obvious that the voices Joan heard inspired her to take extraordinary risks and accomplish unprecedented feats for the love of God, king, and country. It’s also clear that many of her compatriots never doubted that she was a divine messenger, sent to restore their faith in themselves. A prophecy had been gaining traction among the French populace at the time of Joan’s birth, that a young virgin would deliver the country from its English oppressors. Joan, who vowed perpetual chastity at an early age, was thought to be that deliverer. Those who knew and fought beside her took heart in her example and encouragement, and they carried on bravely after she died. They sensed something transcendent about her.

But along with what we can see of her impact on others, I think it’s important to consider what the three saints might have meant to young Joan. To put it another way, what did they symbolize? It’s a key question because symbolism, says theologian Huston Smith, is the “technical language” of religion; of human correspondence with the divine.

When we look closely at the traditions involving Saints Michael, Catherine, and Margaret, we find some interesting connections between their stories and Joan. She embodied qualities associated with each of them. The Bible’s Book of Revelation describes St. Michael as the principal fighter against the forces of evil who was thought by the Church to lead the armies of God. He’s the patron saint of the military and is often depicted, as in photo 6 above, as a powerful warrior. Joan too, was a warrior and leader.

St. Catherine of Alexandria declared herself to be a “bride of Christ” and is one of the early church’s virgin saints. Legend has it that she turned down the emperor’s marriage proposal. He didn’t take kindly to being spurned so Roman authorities tortured her on a spiked wheel, ever after called a “Catherine wheel.” She survived the torture and was martyred by beheading, signified by the palm branch and red blade in a window at Albany’s Roman Catholic cathedral (photo 15, below). Joan too, refused marriage.

St. Margaret of Antioch also was a beautiful virgin who, according to legend, for the love of Christ refused a Roman official’s marriage proposal. As punishment, he had her put on the rack, beat with rods, and had her flesh raked with iron combs. She survived these horrible tortures and was thrown into her cell where a monstrous dragon suddenly appeared and began to swallow her whole. Margaret made the sign of the cross and the dragon disintegrated. The dragon lies at Margaret’s feet, likely symbolizing the evil of her oppressor, in a 19th century stained glass window at the cathedral in Albany, NY (photo 16). Joan too, withstood oppression.

A fascinating window at St. Roch’s church in Quebec City pulls it all together through the symbolic use of flowers (photo 17). It depicts Joan with her emblematic sword standing  in a garden with a cathedral in the background. Flowers associated with three saintly virtues appear in the composition. The lilies stand for innocence and purity; roses symbolize self-sacrifice; and irises, sometimes called sword lilies, signify divine messengers. The fleurs de lis on her skirt signify devotion to France. I’m inclined to think that Mark Twain, who wrote that Joan “was unfailingly true in an age that was false to the core,” would have liked the window as much as I do.

Copyright 2017 by Michael Klug, mikejklug@aol.com, May 30, 2017

Sometime in the summer of 1990, Mercedes, my wife, and I visited Philadelphia. We lived in Washington, DC at the time, making Philadelphia an easy weekend getaway. The Philadelphia Museum of Art with its famous “Rocky steps,” immortalized in the 1976 film Rocky starring Sylvester Stallone, was on our list of sights to see. The museum’s extensive collections impressed me, but the thing I remember most is a thought that crossed my mind when I saw four marble plaques bearing the images of four winged creatures,  including a flying bull (photo 1). Accompanying placards identified the images as symbols for Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the evangelists who authored the four gospels. I remarked to Mercedes, “I’ve seen these symbols my whole life long, and never knew what they meant.” My lack of awareness and curiosity bugged me.

Growing up, I spent a lot of time in churches, most of it in a back pew at St. Martini church where small Christian symbols discretely surrounded me. St. Martini is a Missouri Synod Lutheran church built by German immigrants in 1887.  The building, designed by local architect Herman Schnetzky, is typical of late 19^th century Gothic revival structures in Milwaukee with its brick façade, lancet windows, and lofty spire (photo 2). Mr. Schnetzky undoubtedly drew inspiration from the soaring pointed arches and windows that first appeared in Europe’s abbeys and cathedrals around 1150. In doing so, he created a simple, yet elegant, sacred space for St. Martini’s working class congregation. I was baptized at St. Martini in 1954 and confirmed there on Palm Sunday 1968.

During Sunday morning services, sitting with my mom and dad, I had plenty of time to ponder the symbols embedded in St. Martini’s modest stained glass windows. I knew they were there, but honestly, I mostly ignored them. Every week, for example, I saw the image of a snake hanging from a T-shaped cross and never asked myself, “What does that mean (photo 3, above)?” But a week ago last Saturday, I returned to St. Martini for the first time in more than 20 years to attend a special “Return to Your Roots” service and to look more closely at the windows that prompted my embarrassed admission to Merce at the Philadelphia museum. So after the service, I turned my camera with its telephoto lens to an oculus high above one of St. Martini’s doorways. I clearly saw for the first time the attributes of three apostles, a chalice, and the black silhouette of St. George’s dragon (photo 4).

It’s easy to overlook the symbols in St. Martini’s stained glass. Set in large sheets of opaque glass, they seem understated. (photo 5, above). But it’s a mistake to ignore them. Each contains a tiny cache of meaning that links viewers to stories and ideas that comprise a faith tradition with roots in Christianity’s distant past and the more recent Protestant Reformation which celebrates its 500^th anniversary this year. When I looked closely at St. Martini’s symbolic windows, I was delighted to see that they quietly, and with great economy, allude to some of the same themes that one finds in the stained glass and sculpture of the great cathedrals. But in today’s post, we’ll focus on just one theme: St. George, the dragon, and evil.

Why St. George?   To say that the presence in a Lutheran parish church of a stained glass window honoring St. George intrigued me would be an understatement (photo 6, above).  It flat out mystified me. That’s because the only saints one usually sees in the stained glass of Missouri Synod churches are those with a biblical pedigree. It’s common to see the four evangelists, the twelve apostles, and St. Paul. But I never expected to see St. George, in large part because his legend very likely derives from a myth with origins in ancient Phoenicia or Greece (photo 7). So, if St. George isn’t in the Bible, what is his dragon doing at St. Martini?

The Martyr and the Legend   St. George of Cappodocia, historians are reasonably sure, was a soldier and Christian martyr who died in 303, C. E. during a purge of Christians who served in the Roman army. Beyond that, we don’t know much about him. At some point, an enduring story of combat with an evil dragon attached to St. George. We can thank Jacob of Voragine for perpetuating it. His Golden Legend, written in the 1250’s, tells how George saved a young princess from a sacrificial death in the clutches of a pestilential dragon. The beast lived in a lake near the city of Silena in the Roman province of Libya and “would venture right up to the city walls and asphyxiate everyone with its noxious breath.” Silena’s citizens temporarily mollified the dragon with the daily sacrifice of two sheep. But they soon ran out of sheep and then started to sacrifice the city’s youth. Finally, the king’s only daughter was the last youngster remaining.

George enters the story on horseback as the distraught maiden stands at the lakeside, weeping (photo 8, above). The hungry dragon soon appears and George springs into action. He thrusts his lance into the dragon’s side and throws the wounded creature to the ground. The Golden Legend notes that the subdued dragon followed the princess through the city’s streets “like a puppy.” But when people saw it, they began to head for the hills. George calmed the panicked citizenry, saying, “Do not be afraid. The Lord has sent me to free you from the tyranny of the dragon.” He vowed to kill the dragon if everyone agreed to be baptized. They were baptized, and the dragon met its end.

Early Christians venerated St. George as a Christian martyr who died at the hands of the brutal Emperor Diocletian. But the saint’s popularity as the personification of chivalrous knighthood boomed in medieval England and elsewhere during the crusades to the Holy Land. It started for England when a vision of St. George appeared to someone before a battle in 1098 that ended the siege of Antioch in the crusaders’ favor, during the first crusade.  About a century later, King Richard I (the Lion Heart) placed himself and his army under George’s protection during the third crusade. By the early 1400’s, George was England’s official patron saint. St. George’s historic association with England is signified today by the red crusader’s cross superimposed on the United Kingdom’s “Union Jack” flag, along with St. Andrew’s X-shaped cross representing Scotland.

St. George in Art  As St. George’s cult grew, churches throughout Europe were dedicated to him and artists increasingly depicted his legend in a variety of media, including sculpture, stained glass, and liturgical art. In England, St. George stands with a host of saints in the Great East Window, installed at Gloucester Cathedral in the 1350’s (photo 9, above). An anonymous stained glass artist depicted the saint as a medieval knight wearing full body armor with his lance and sword in hand. St. George’s cross is emblazoned in red on his breastplate and shield (photo 10).

Around the same time, a talented French goldsmith crafted a scene of St. George vanquishing the dragon on the reverse side of a fascinating artifact called the Holy Thorn Reliquary (photo 11, above). The vessel’s facing side displays a single thorn that came from the reputed crown of thorns or Holy Crown (photos 12), a relic of Jesus’ crucifixion, brought to France by King Louis IX around 1240. Look for the thorn at the center of the elaborate scene depicting the Biblical judgment day, where the dead rise from their graves, below, and Christ sits with the thorn surrounded by the apostles in heaven. The Holy Thorn Reliquary was likely used in private devotion by the Duke of Berry and his close relatives in their family chapel. The rare piece is among the British Museum’s most prized treasures from the medieval period.

St. George also appears frequently in the sculpture and decorative arts of Catalonia where he’s the country’s patron saint and is named, in Catalan, Sant Jordi. A sculpture in the 15^th century cloister at Barcelona’s Cathedral is illustrative. It shows St. Jordi wearing chain mail as he whacks the dragon with a sword. He holds a shield bearing St. George’s cross in his left hand (photo 13, above). Note the row of sculpted roses above the battle scene. The flowers signify a Catalonian tradition in which men present roses to their lady loves on April 23, St. Jordi’s feast day. Capitals in the medieval cloister at Vic Cathedral, about 40 miles north of Barcelona, charmingly honor this long-standing gifting custom with a sculpted rose bed (photo 14).

George and Martin   St. George is regarded as the patron saint of Portugal, Ethiopia, Georgia, and many other nations. He’s the patron saint of soldiers, archers, armorers and, oddly enough, farmers due to the original Greek meaning for his name. But he’s not the patron saint of the region in Germany where the Missouri Synod Lutherans originated, nor is he Martin Luther’s patron. Another Christian soldier, St. Martin of Tours, holds that distinction. So, what’s the connection between St. George and a Lutheran church on Milwaukee’s south side?

I think it is about Martin Luther, a seminal figure in the Protestant Reformation who lived from 1483 to 1546 and for whom Lutherans are named. Between 1498 and 1501, young Martin attended St. George’s Latin School in the town of Eisenach. I assume that St. George was Eisenach’s patron saint because he appears in knightly attire on the city’s coat of arms.  But that’s not all. In 1521, Luther returned to Eisenach following his excommunication from the Roman Catholic Church. He stayed in nearby Wartburg Castle for the better part a year to escape a death sentence. Safe in the castle, Luther translated the New Testament from Greek into German and was inspired to write the great hymn of the reformation, A Mighty Fortress is Our God. Thus, his time in Eisenach was culturally and spiritually significant for Luther’s followers and Germany.

But could there be even more to the St. George window at St. Martini than meets the eye? There’s no doubt that symbols evolve and acquire new and multiple meanings. Did the artist who designed the window or the churchmen who commissioned it see Martin Luther as something of a latter day St. George? After all, Luther jousted long and hard with Rome over the sale of indulgences and ultimately rid Germany of the evil he perceived in the noxious idea that a person can buy his or her way into heaven. We may never know the answers to those questions. But we can be sure of one thing. St. George belongs at St. Martini, where his roots run deep.

Copyright 2017 by Michael J. Klug, mikejklug@aol.com, 05/23/17

I decided a week ago to write a post about the symbolism of flowers when crocuses, hyacinth, and daffodils—the heralds of spring—began to appear here in Iowa City. The use of flowers as symbols in sacred art has been an interest of mine for some time.  It took off in 1998 when I played an unwitting part in a remarkable coincidence involving a rose. For one of my friends, that flower represented an answer to a prayer.

A Purple Rose  The story in a nutshell, is this. My friend’s job was ending so I decided to give her a rose as a sign of friendship and support. I stopped at a florist to buy one long stemmed rose and have it wrapped in paper, on my way to say goodbye to her. When I presented the rose, my friend looked stunned and was silent for what seemed like minutes. Then she asked, “Is that a purple rose?”  I nodded yes and said apologetically, “But it was supposed to be red.” The flower looked red when I selected it. The lighting in the flower shop must have tricked my eyes. My friend choked up and, with tears welling in her eyes, said, “I’ll talk with you later.” I left, perplexed.

A week later, I received a handwritten note in which my friend explained that she and her prayer group were praying for a terminally ill man.  Among their petitions, the group asked St. Therese of Lisieux to intercede with God on their friend’s behalf. Seeking reassurance, they also asked St. Therese to give a sign to confirm that their prayers were heard. Unknown to me, the purple rose is St. Therese’s emblem (photo 1) and the flower I presented was amazingly the sign they asked for. Growing up in a Lutheran denomination that dismissed prayers to saints as idolatry, I knew nothing of St. Therese of Lisieux or her attribute. As far as I was concerned, the purple rose was a mistake!

I could easily see how that purple rose and its timing rendered my friend speechless. The power of the coincidence boggled my mind too. It shook some long-held beliefs and opened me to a sense of wonder, which has only intensified with time, about the astounding scope of humanity’s unseen interconnections. These days, I find myself wondering, “Who else in other places, times, and religious traditions found divine presence in a flower?  Did Hera and Venus answer the prayers of ancient Greeks with flowers too? Is that how lilies and roses came to symbolize these goddesses?”  The mystery in these flowers, no less than their sweet scent, draws me to the garden.

In today’s post we’ll investigate the symbolic use of lilies in Christian iconography.  I’ve learned that floral symbolism can be complex. The lily, for example, has multiple associations with Mary, Joseph, the Archangel Gabriel, virgin saints and Easter, to name just a few, as well as multiple meanings.  As with other posts on this blog, I’ll illustrate the narrative with photos of stained glass, sculpture and painting that I’ve taken at cathedrals, churches, and museums on both sides of the Atlantic.

Lilies and the Annunciation   On March 25th Christians of various denominations—Roman Catholics, Orthodox, Episcopalian, and others—celebrate the Feast of the Annunciation. The holiday commemorates the Archangel Gabriel’s appearance to Mary, described in Luke’s gospel,  when the angel announces that Mary will give birth to a boy. Mary asks how a virgin could conceive a child and Gabriel responds, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy….”  Tradition has it that Mary conceived Jesus at that very moment. The white lily, symbolizing purity and chastity, has long been tied to this episode (photo 2, above).  How did it become one of Mary’s attributes?

As with many questions involving the evolution of symbols, the answer is not entirely clear. It seems that early Christian artists chose not to use the lily to suggest Mary’s virginity. Raffaela Fazio Smith, in a series of informative articles she wrote for the Global Dispatches, notes that a fresco in the catacomb of Priscilla near Rome, dated to the 3^rd century, is the oldest representation of the Annunciation in art. It shows Mary without a veil and with her hair down. Unmarried women wore their hair that way at the time so her hairstyle symbolizes virginity. Lilies don’t appear in the scene, and there’s probably a good reason for it.

At the time of Christ and for many years later, the lily was popularly tied to the Greek goddess Hera whom the Romans called Juno. Hera was a major figure in the Greek and Roman panoply—the queen of the Olympian gods—and her cult would have been active throughout the Roman Empire in the first three or four centuries of the Common Era. She was known as the patron of marriage and women, and one classical poet called her the “Mother of all.” Artists sometimes depicted Hera with a lily to distinguish her from other goddesses, as in a 1^st century BCE frieze from Italy, now at the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore. The sculpture shows Hera holding a staff topped by a stylized lily (photo 3).

The connection between Hera and lilies bears a brief description. It stems from a myth that’s relevant for linguists and star gazers alike. One version of the story has Zeus tricking Hera, his wife, into nursing the infant Herakles (i.e., Hercules) late one night. Herakles is Zeus’ son, born by a woman named Alcmene. When Hera discovers the trick, startled and upset she pulls the babe away from her breast. Her milk continues to spill and, according to legend, the droplets that fell to earth became lilies. Those that dispersed into the night sky formed the Milky Way. It’s worth noting that gala, the Greek word for milk, is the root for the English words galaxy and galactic. Similarly, galaxie is the French word for the Milky Way.

Ms. Fazio Smith wrote in one of her articles that the lily began to appear in the 14th century as a symbol for Mary’s purity in painted Annunciation scenes produced by Italian workshops. It’s possible that French artists started the trend about a century earlier, perhaps as an allusion both to Mary’s chastity and her growing stature as Christianity’s Queen of Heaven. A roundel in the Life of Mary window at Chartres Cathedral, dating to the early 1200’s, depicts a tall vase, apparently containing lilies, standing between Gabriel and Mary (photo 4, above). About 30 years later, artists who designed the north rose window at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris depicted Mary holding in her right hand what appears to be a lily plant with three white blooms (photos 5 and 6).

In a similar vein, Pere Oller carved and painted a large retablo altar piece in the early 1400’s for the Cathedral of Vic, north of Barcelona in Catalonia. It contains an Annunciation panel with a lily and vase prominently placed in the foreground between Gabriel and Mary (photos 7 and 8).

Altar pieces like the one in Vic and similar depictions of the lily in late medieval paintings eventually became models for the 19^th and 20^th century artists who designed stained glass Annunciation scenes for Gloucester Cathedral in England, Notre Dame Cathedral in Quebec City, and the Riverside Church in New York (photos 9–11).

Gabriel and the Lily  Since Gabriel appears with Mary in most Annunciation scenes, the lily and a scepter symbolizing divine authority often appear as the Archangel’s main attributes. Examples abound, as in a window at St. Matthew’s Church (now a public library) in Quebec City where he holds a royal scepter in his left hand with an adjacent lily, and roses surround Mary, perhaps symbolizing her reputed perfection (photo 12). In a window at All Saints Cathedral in Milwaukee lilies distinguish Gabriel from the Archangel Uriel with whom he is paired (photo 13).

Joseph and the Lily  We’ll close this post with a look at an early 20^th century window in the St. Joseph chapel at St. Paul’s Cathedral in St. Paul, Minnesota. I like it especially for the subtle connections it makes. The window displays a tall flowering lily plant in an ornate vase. A long scroll inscribed with a Latin verse entwines the plant (photos 14 and 15). The inscription reads, “Justus Germinabit Sicut Lilium et Florebit in Aeternum Ante Dominum.”

What motivated the artist? Certainly the traditional image of a lily in a vase is a common source of inspiration and inscribed scrolls often appear in Annunciation scenes, typically bearing Gabriel’s “Ave Maria” salutation. But I’ve not seen a scroll embedded in a lily plant anywhere else. By the window’s placement in a chapel dedicated to Joseph, the lily could symbolize the saint himself, his care for Mary and Jesus as a child, or one of his other qualities. I think it’s the latter.

The inscription loosely translated in English means, “May justice sprout like lilies and bloom before God into eternity.” Its source is a lovely Gregorian chant written in the 9^th or 10^th century. The window connects Joseph’s reputation as a model of fairness—given his decision to wed Mary even though she was pregnant when they married—to a prayer for the propagation of justice sung by medieval monks. A window at St. Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal supports the connection between Joseph and justice (photo 16). It declares him to be tres juste, “very just,” and invites us to follow Joseph’s lead and be the answer to a prayer. [Use this link to listen to the chant:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MN6TTp24io].

Copyright 2017, Michael J. Klug; mikejklug@aol.com; March 25, 2017