Myth And Ritual In Christianity Part 17

As it fades from the light of day into the intense brightness of the Day all days illumining", the soul is immediately faced with its Particular Judgement. For Judgement comes in two stages-first, the Particular Judgement of the individual soul, and second, upon the Last Day when, at the sound of the Trumpet, all the bodies of the dead rise from their graves, the General or Last Judgement.

As soon, then, as the soul has left this world it goes with its guardian angel and its appointed devil of temptation before the Throne of Heaven. Hardly visible for light, there sits in the centre the white and radiant figure of the Father Almighty, surrounded by the eyed wings of the Cherubim and Seraphim. Hovering above him is the Dove of Fire, the Holy Spirit, with his seven descending flames. To his right is enthroned Jesus the Christ, and to his left the Virgin Mother, while lower thrones on either side seat the Holy Apostles and Martyrs. In the centre, before the Throne of G.o.d, stands the 1 The entire Order for the Commendation of the Soul will be found in the Rituale Romanum, which provides much more than this should the agony of dying be prolonged.

Archangel Michael, armoured and golden/winged, with the sword of divine wrath in his right hand, and the scales of divine judgement in his left. Here the virtues of the soul are weighed against anything that remains of unrepented and unforgiven sin. Mediaeval portrayals of the weighing vary in their symbolism, sometimes representing the soul as a vessel to be balanced against a batlike demon,' and sometimes making the guardian angel at one end of the balance struggle against the attendant demon at the other.

The object of the weighing is to decide whether the soul shall be sent immediately to Heaven or h.e.l.l, or delayed in Purgatory. When the soul has died in a state of "perfect contrition for all sins it goes straight to Heaven, because the fire of contrition is said to have burned away not only the possibility of ever. lasting d.a.m.nation but also the temporal penalties due to each sin. When the contrition has been imperfect, or when the soul-although forgiven-has not made adequate penance and satisfaction for its sins, the temporal penalties still remain to be exacted. For the Roman Church teaches that sin incurs both an eternal and a temporal punishment. The eternal punishment is wiped out by the Sacrifice of Christ, provided, of course, that its effects have been mediated to the particular soul through the sacraments. But the temporal punishment remains, and this must be remitted either by suffering in Purgatory or by works of piety and charity performed by the soul during its lifetime, or by others on its behalf after it has died. Ma.s.ses and prayers offered for the departed have, then, the effect of shorten/ ing their sojourn in Purgatory.

t As on the tympanum of Boutges Cathedral, where the vessel of the soul is strangely like the vessel of the Ab, or Heart, shown in ancient Egyptian versions of the Judgement. In the latter, the Heart is weighed against the Feather of Truth, and must balance with it, presumably because the heart is expected to be without weight. But, as might be expected, the Christian versions of the balancing suppose that the good must outweigh the evil 2 As on the tympanum of Autun Cathedral, where the soul in the pan of the scales is the upper part of a human figure.

If the weighing shows that the soul must be consigned to Purgatory, it is delivered temporarily to the tortures of the demons, or to the fires which burn upon the mountain of Purgatory standing above h.e.l.l on the other side of the earth. Purgatory, as its name implies, is primarily a place of burning, where a fire unbelievably hotter than anything known on earth consumes the remaining imperfections of the soul. The Golden Legend says that a single drop of sweat from a person suffering in Purgatory will instantly burn its way through a living hand, as if it had been shot through with an arrow. Yet the punishments of Purgatory are not always by fire. Some souls are sent to haunt the scenes of their crimes upon earth, or to undertake various labours symbolically connected with their misdeeds. Although their tortures are of an agony far more extreme than we can imagine, they nevertheless enjoy the consolations and ministrations of the angels, as well as the clear certainty of eventual Heaven. But as to those consigned to h.e.l.l we shall have more to say later.

The mitigation of the punishments in Purgatory is the immediate purpose of the obsequies now to be offered for the soul by the Church on earth, consisting primarily of the Requiem or Ma.s.s for the Dead. If the soul has actually been committed to h.e.l.l or Heaven, the effects of the Ma.s.s will, of course, redound to others able to profit from them. For the merits of piety and charity are transferable, and it is taught that there is a Treasury of Merits acc.u.mmulated by the saints far in excess of their own personal needs. Such surplus merits may be applied by the Church for the remission of temporal punishments due to the less holy, and are known as Indul gences. Thus the Church may authorize Indulgences involving the remission of so many days' punishment in Purgatory in return for the saying of certain prayers or visiting certain shrines.

1 This incredibly legal and commercial trade in rewards and punishments is not recognized in the Eastern Orthodox Church, and would seem to be a The Four Last Things a a S After death, then, the body of the deceased is laid in its coffin and taken to the church. Here it is set upon a bier before the altar, and covered with a black or purple pall, six large candles being placed around it. If the deceased is a priest, the head is pointed towards the altar, and away from the altar if a layman. Here the body rests until the time of Ma.s.s, and it may be that the faithful come to offer their prayers or to recite the Breviary Office for the Dead on the soul's behalf. For the Ma.s.s, the clergy come vested in black, and during the procession to the altar the choir sings the Subvenite

Make speed to aid him, ye Saints of G.o.d; come forth to meet him, ye Angels of the Lord...

The Ma.s.s itself begins with the singing of the beautiful introit Requiem aeternam

Rest eternal grant unto them, 0 Lord; and let light perpetual s.h.i.+ne upon them

a refrain which is repeated again and again throughout the rites. For the Sequence Hymn, between the Lesson and the Gospel, they sing the celebrated Dies irae, the hymn which incarnates the whole mood of Christian dread in the face of the Last Things: Dies irae, dies ills SoIvet saeclum in faviila, Teste David c.u.m Sib ylla.

Day of wrath, that day, when'the world dissolves in glowing ashes, as witness David with the Sibyl.

rather late development in the West. It is difficult not to be rather cynical about it, and to see it as a clever way of ruling people and keeping up their interest in and dependence upon an established priesthood. An inst.i.tution which flourishes through the meJiirion of salvation, or any other desideratum, will not flourish for very long if it gives results too quickly. To remain necessary to the public, the process of attainment must be drawn out for as long as possible. Otherwise the Church will be (what it really should be) a bridge over which men will pa.s.s without building a house upon it.

rg 2.16 Myth and Ritual in Christianity Quantus tremor est futures, Quando judex est venturus, Cuncta stricte discussurus.

How great shall be the trembling when the Judge shall come to try all things exactly.

Tuba mirum spargens sonum Per sepulcra regionum, Coget omnes ante thronum.

The Trumpet swelling its wondrous sound through the place of the tombs, will gather all before the Throne.

Death, it continues, and the whole world of nature will be struck aghast when all creatures arise to plead before the Final Judgement. The Book will be brought forth, containing the exact record of all things meet for the worlds judgement, and the Judge from his Throne will bring to light every hidden secret so that nothing remains unavenged. And the remainder of the hymn is taken up with what is doubtless the most fervently abject plea for mercy in all the poetry of the world.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to convey the peculiar atmosphere of this hymn in an English translation and without its traditional music, which suggests not so much an apocalyptic and sensational shaking of the universe as a quietly contempla Live awe. For the Dies irae conveys the mood of the Church rather than of the individual. The quality of personal terror comes out more strongly in, say, Isaac Watts's hymn on The Day of Judgement:

Such shall the noise be, and the wild disorder (If things eternal may be like these earthly), Such the dire terror when the great Archangel

Shakes the creation;

Tears the strong pillars of the vault of Heaven, Breaks up old marble, the repose of princes, Sees the graves open, and the bones arising,

Flames all around them.

Hark, the shrill outcries of the guilty wretches! Lively bright honor and amazing anguish

Stare through their eyelids, while the living worm as Gnawing within them.

Thoughts, like old vultures, prey upon their heartstrings, And the smart twinges, when the eye beholds the Lofty Judge frowning, and a flood of vengeance

Rolling before Him.

Hopeless immortals, how they scream and s.h.i.+ver, While devils push them to the pit wideiyawning, Hideous and gloomy, to receive them headlong

Down to the centre!

The Requiem continues with its strange alternation of hope and dread, and yet somehow manages, in the end, to overcome anxiety with a mood of total serenity. At the Offertory, while the ministers prepare the holy elements, the choir continues the mood of dread:

O Lord Jesus Christ, King of glory, deliver the souls of all the faithful departed from the pains of h.e.l.l, and from the deep pit. Deliver them from the mouth of the lion, that Tartarus may not swallow them, and that they fall not into darkness; but let Michael, the holy standard bearer, bring them into the holy light.

But at the Communion the smoke of Tartarus has cleared away to reveal the brightness of the Eternal Day May light eternal s.h.i.+ne upon them, 0 Lord, with thy saints for evermore, for thou art gracious.

2 t 8 Myth and Ritual in Christianity Rest eternal grant unto them, 0 Lord; and let light perpetual s.h.i.+ne upon them, with thy saints for ever, more, for thou art gracious.

When the Ma.s.s proper has ended, the ministers come down from the altar to the bier, and all the choir and clergy gather about the body carrying lighted candles for the ceremony called the Absolution of the Dead. The priest stands at the end of the bier towards the altar, and at the other end the subdeacon takes his place with the processional cross. Incense is prepared while the choir sings the responsory Lira me:

Deliver me, 0 Lord, from everlasting death in that dreadful day when heaven and earth shall quake, when thou shalt come to judge the world by fire. I tremble and am sore afraid, at the judgement and the wrath to come; when heaven and earth shall quake. 0 that day, that day of wrath, of calamity and woe, a great day and exceeding bitter! When thou shalt come to judge the world by fire. Rest eternal grant unto him, 0 Lord; and let light perpetual s.h.i.+ne upon him.

And then the priest walks around the bier, sprinkling it with holy water and swinging over it the thurible of incense. After some final prayers, the body is taken to its resting/place, to the accompaniment of the serenely joyous anthem In Paradisum:

May the Angels lead thee into Paradise; may the Martyrs receive thee at thy coming, and bring thee into the Holy City, Jerusalem. May the choir of Angels receive thee, and with Lazarus, once a pauper, mayest thou have rest eternal.

And the body is at last put to rest in its sepulchre to the words of the Canticle of Zacharias, the Benedictus, with the antiphon: I am the Resurrection and the Life; whosoever believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth, and believeth in me, shall not die in eternity.

While the soul has gone to its destiny-Heaven, Purgatory, or h.e.l.l-the corruptible body waits through the centuries in its grave for the dawn of the Last Day, which is to come at a time known only within the most secret counsels of the Holy Trinity-perhaps tomorrow, perhaps a thousand or ten thousand years away. Yet-sometime--there will come a day when there rises in the East, not the familiar sun, but the Sun of Justice, the Lord Christ, riding upon the clouds of heaven with myriads of angels. As he appears, the whole firmament will be shattered like gla.s.s by the shrilling Trumpeter of Heaven, and its sound, ringing through all the sepulchres of the earth and the very depths of the sea, will lift every by from its grave, rea.s.semble corrupt and scattered members, and cause each one, reunited with its soul, to stand up and face the Judge of the World. Priests, buried with their heads to the East, will stand up and face their flocks along with Christ, and yet be judged with them as to whether they have faithfully fulfilled their stry.

From the presence of the Terrible Judge there will go forth a fire of such heat that the whole earth will be reduced to ashes and the oceans dissolved in steam. The sun and the moon will be darkened, and the stars will fall from heaven. And then the Recording Angel will open the Book of Life wherein are written the names of all those to be saved and called to stand upon the Right Hand of the Judge. But all those not found in the Book shall be made to stand upon his Left Hand. To those upon the right he will say, "Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord! But to those upon the left he will say, "Depart from me, for I know you not! In that moment every secret of all hearts will be made utterly plain, for the resurrected shall ago Myth and Ritual in Christianity be naked in body and soul, and utterly defenceless before that Refining Fire which, to the pure in heart, is glory, but to the impure the most unspeakable torment.

By now the earth and the former heavens will have altogether dissolved, and out of the burning blue on high there will appear the Bejeweled City of the Mystical Rose, the New Jerusalem, "coming down from G.o.d out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. At the same time, the fathomless abyss below will reveal a lake of fire and sulphur. With the support of the old earth withdrawn, the swarming and blackened bodies of the d.a.m.ned will plunge down and down endlessly into that pit where they must writhe and shriek in unmitigated torture for ever and ever. Far above the smoke and stench of the inferno, Michael and his legions will fling Lucifer and his diabolic host into the uttermost depths of the pit to eat and be eaten, to torment and be tormented, on and on for the ages that will never end.

The Mediaeval mind exercised its most lively and creative imagination in conceiving the honors and abominations of what is, thus far, the most dreadful product of the human mind. By comparison, its imaginative descriptions of the delights of Heaven were extraordinarily tame. In contemplating h.e.l.l, however, the Christian consciousness has indulged itself in a sadom.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic orgy which makes all other h.e.l.ls, hot or cold, relatively cosy. One must remember that other traditions, such as the Buddhist and Hindu, have never contemplated an abode of everlasting punishment, so that their so-called "h.e.l.ls" are in fact purgatories. While the symbol of everlasting torment has its special mythological significance if it be understood in the sense of samsara, a circle from which there is no exit so long as one takes the path ofits circ.u.mference, the Christian imagination has not conceived it in this way. It has considered h.e.l.l as torment in a dimension of linear time without end, from which there is no possibility whatsoever of deliverance. It is true that some of the Fathers, in The Four Last Things zz 1 particular Origen and St. Gregory of Nyssa, taught the doctrine of "apocatastasis", of the ultimate restoration of all souls to the state of blessedness after many aeons of time. But this doctrine has been condemned in both the Eastern and Western Churches.

This profoundly sinister conception is by no means "merely Mediaeval". It remains, in all its literal horror, the explicit doctrine of the Catholic Church to this day, and has been defended by one who is, in other respects, among the most inspired and perceptive theologians of modern times, Matthias Scheeben. His great work, The Mysteries of Christianity, which is so obviously the production of a highly subtle, reasonable, and sensitive mind, nevenheless contains the following remarkable pa.s.sage:

As concerns the punishment itself, it must be clearly conceived ... as a state which is inversely proportionate to the glorification of the bodies of the blessed; it must be a punishment that qualitatively and quant.i.tatively is so great and terrible that it immeasurably surpa.s.ses all the forebodings and concepts of natural reason. It must be the result of a supernatural force which penetrates and devours the body without destroying it, and through the body dreadfully racks and tortures the soul fettered to it.