When Tabernacles Had Wings

Abbot Suger was one of those monumental men whose lives and personalities would seem almost incredible had they not lived in western Europe during the High Middle Ages. Well known today as a pivotal figure in the development of Gothic architecture, he was in fact of such diverse and admirable abilities as to merit a term like “Renaissance man”—which of course raises the question of why this term even exists, when so many to whom it applies predated the Renaissance. Let us say quite simply, then, that Suger was a “medieval man.”

Part of the choir of the abbey of St Denys. Around the year 1135, the abbot Suger began the process of enlarging the original Carolingian church, during which the choir was rebuilt from 1140-44. Suger created the idea of having huge walls of windows which flood the church’s interior with light, the foundation of the architecture style which we now call Gothic, and this choir is the first example of it. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Guilhem Vellut, CC BY 2.0)

Born in 1081 to a relatively humble family, the young Suger showed enough intellectual promise to be sent to the abbey of Saint-Denis for a monastic education. He rose through the ranks, eventually becoming secretary to the abbot and a trusted adviser to the king of France. A devout and cultured but not particularly ascetic man, Suger worked as a successful diplomat, was elected abbot, reformed his monks, wrote prolifically on various subjects, led the king toward victory against the emperor Henry V (who retreated without a fight), collaborated with Bernard of Clairvaux (another one of those monumental “medieval men”), rebuilt the church of Saint-Denis, and as the capstone of an already extraordinary life, ruled France as regent—and very capably—while the king was away on Crusade. A lesser Christian might have felt that ruinous itch for power after two years on the throne, but when the king returned in 1149, Suger handed him the crown and went back to his abbatial life, which ended, after an illness, in 1151.

One thing that Abbot Suger never adequately understood—and in his defense, few understood this until the mid-twentieth century—was the spiritual benefit to be gained by employing pedestrian, mundane, materially impoverished, or aesthetically bizarre vessels in the worship of the Most High God. Indeed, his thoughts on the matter were decidedly pre-modern:

Every costlier or costliest thing should serve, first and foremost, for the administration of the Holy Eucharist. If golden pouring vessels, golden vials, golden little mortars used to serve, by the word of God or the command of the Prophet, to collect the blood of goats or the red heifer, how much more must golden vessels, precious stones, and whatever is most valued among all created things, be laid out, with continual reverence and full devotion, for the reception of the blood of Christ!

He also shows himself woefully ignorant of the immense dignity of man, who ought not kneel or otherwise abase himself—frankly, ought not inconvenience himself in any way—when approaching the sacramental Flesh, and with it the true and infinitely sacred presence, of his divine Savior:

Surely neither we nor our possessions suffice for this service. If, by a new creation, our substance were re-formed from that of the holy Cherubim and Seraphim, it would still offer an insufficient and unworthy service for so great and so ineffable a victim.

It turns out, though, that his society was not completely devoid of the minimalistic, primitivistic impulses that would reach such a vigorous state of fruition eight centuries after his death. Some, apparently, were so concerned that the soul be rich and radiant with virtue as to neglect the gleaming, golden objects whose visible perfections exist so that we might contemplate, through them, the invisible glories of the all-perfect God. To these forerunners of the modern spirit the abbot responded with wisdom that one would have thought perennial in the Church, but which succumbed—for a time—to the unusually harsh winter of a vain and discontented age:

The detractors also object that a saintly mind, a pure heart, a faithful intention ought to suffice for this sacred function; and we, too, explicitly and especially affirm that it is these that principally matter. [But] we profess that we must do homage also through the outward ornaments of sacred vessels, and to nothing in the world in an equal degree as to the service of the Holy Sacrifice, with all inner purity and with all outward splendor. [1]

---

Around the time of Abbot Suger’s death, a few days’ ride from the city where he lived, liturgical artisans were crafting some of the most charming and symbolically rich sacred vessels in the history of the western Church. Here is an example:

An object such as this is called a peristerium, from the Greek word for pigeon or dove. The more homegrown name is simply “Eucharistic dove.” This particular specimen, held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, is made of gilded copper, with the surface engraved and enameled so as to resemble feathers, though visual naturalism was clearly not the guiding principle in the choice of colors. If chains are attached to the plate underneath the dove, as shown here, it can be suspended near or even directly above the altar. As indicated by the letters “IHS,” the dove’s body includes a cavity, covered by a hinged lid, in which the Blessed Sacrament was reserved.

Below is another fine example, from the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.

Here the supporting plate has holes instead of thin extensions, and the shape of the chest and head is particularly dove-like and graceful.

The copper surface of this next piece, also from the Walters, is wonderfully vivid and golden, with etchings that appear simple yet are skillfully wrought and surprisingly reminiscent of a bird’s feathers. The artisan also created lovely and pleasantly subdued coloration on the wing.

---

The history of Eucharistic doves is not well understood. They are mentioned in passages from the Liber Pontificalis that date to the sixth or late fifth century [2], and we may presume that they were relatively common, at least in some regions of the western Church, during the early Middle Ages. But certainty here eludes us, because the artifactual record is highly restricted in both time and space: almost all of the surviving Eucharistic doves were produced in Limoges, France, in the first half of the thirteenth century.

More important for our purposes than their history is what they tell us about our Faith, and about the symbolical modes of belief and prayer that informed the entire Christian experience during the Age of Faith. To have a beautiful, golden dove suspended over one’s altar is to signify, with the sophisticated simplicity so characteristic of medieval culture, the presence and action of the Holy Spirit during the divine Sacrifice. It is also to suggest a world cleansed by the waters of the Flood, poured out in overwhelming abundance like the grace of God or like the Blood of Christ: “And the dove came to him in the eventide, and lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf that she had plucked, whereby Noah did know that the waters were abated upon the earth.” It is, furthermore, an allusion to the mystical continuity that joins the liturgical sacrifice of the New Covenant to the animal sacrifices of the Old: “He answered unto [Abram]: Take an heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a three year old ram, a turtle dove also, and a young pigeon. He took therefore all these unto him, and divided them in the midst, and laid every piece one against another: but the birds divided he not.” It is even, perhaps, to evoke the Holy Virgin, most blessed and beautiful above all women, and prefigured by the bride of whom Solomon sings in his Song of Songs: “Behold, thou art fair, my love: behold, thou art fair: thine eyes are as doves.”

And finally, when the Body of the Savior was placed within these winged tabernacles of the Middle Ages, symbolic realities converged in an artistic retelling of the Incarnation: the cavity within the dove signified the Virgin’s womb, such that the dove itself signified both the Virgin and her divine Spouse, whose union produced the sacred humanity of Jesus Christ and has now received it, to honor and protect, from the hands of the priest—whose labor at the altar is itself a sacramental incarnation. How profound, the unsounded depths of our Catholic Tradition; how sublime, the holy and poetic rites of our fathers. Behold, thou art fair, my love: behold, thou art fair, O liturgy ever ancient, ever new.            

NOTES

1. These three quotations are from Erwin Panofsky (ed., trans.), Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St.-Denis and Its Art Treasures, Princeton University Press (1946), pp. 65, 67.

2. See the entries for Popes Sylvester (314–335) and Innocent (401–417). 

---

For twice-weekly discussions of art, history, language, literature, Christian spirituality, and traditional Western liturgy, all seen through the lens of medieval culture, you can subscribe to my Substack publication: Via Mediaevalis.

William Shakespeare, Liturgist

The liturgical rearrangement—or in Peter Kwasniewski’s somewhat more colorful description, the liturgical bloodbath—that recently occurred in Tyler, Texas, has affected me on multiple levels. It affected me personally, because I have a family connection there. It affected me as a member of my local church, because I also live in a place where the Latin Mass seems to be rather unpopular among the diocesan leadership. It affected me as a member of the universal Church, because I love sacred Tradition and have for many years been devoted to the ancient eucharistic rite of western Christendom, which so fully and so poetically reifies that Tradition.

And there is yet another level, one which is not so widely shared as the first three I mentioned, and which perhaps has sent the emotional weight most directly into my heart. It has affected me—has wounded me—as someone who studies and teaches and writes about the dramatic literature of the English Renaissance. It has wounded me as someone who recently stood in front of a classroom full of college students, English majors among them, and spoke at length about Othello. This is a play in which the relentless manipulation of reality leads to appalling destruction. It is a play in which cunning words breed death.

As is my wont when lecturing on such topics, I searched for avenues of passion and beauty and timeless significance that might convince the next generation of parents and artists and scholars that this play—written over four hundred years ago, in language that is often unfamiliar and unclear to them—is still worth their time, is still worth reading and studying and talking about, is still worth pondering and admiring and loving. Imagine how strange, how disorienting, how deeply disturbing it would be if the president of the university walked into my classroom and calmly declared that Shakespeare would no longer be taught. “We have new plays now,” he explains, “and some people consider them simpler, and more relevant, and less likely to offend or exclude, and therefore Shakespeare is abrogated—for the sake of unity. We must all study the new plays now.”

“But Mr. President,” I protest “there are a great many students and faculty members who enjoy and value Shakespeare, and some have even discovered a transformative richness in his works.”

“Of course, yes, we would never—er, well, we will not now completely exclude those who believe themselves to have a preference for old things. An unused room in the basement of Ebenezer Hall will be made available once per month for Shakespeare studies. It seats nine people.”

“But Mr. President, Shakespeare is the most revered author in the history of the English language—and perhaps the most revered playwright in all the world! His works are the beating heart of the English literary experience. They are utterly irreplaceable!”

“And yet they are, as of today, replaced. And lower your voice, please—what are you, some kind of anarchist? Do I not have the authority to decide what will and will not be taught in my university?”

“But Mr. President, the university’s collection of scholarship on Shakespeare is a small library unto itself. Brilliant researchers and scholars of the past and present wrote these books, which help us to understand not only Shakespeare’s plays and poems but drama itself, poetry itself, literature itself—life itself!”

“Those books will not, in the foreseeable future, be disposed of. But you’ll have no need to assign them and no need to consult them. If they then gather dust and end up in storage, that merely confirms their irrelevance.”

“With all due respect, Sir, your logic there seems slightly—”

“Your compliance in these matters is greatly appreciated. It is the duty of the university to guard our intellectual traditions from the threat of disunity.”

“Mr. President, this classroom was united from the first day of the semester until you opened that door.”

“The stagnant unity of the past is not the same as the dynamic unity of the future.”

“But the dynamic unity of the future is, for me, no future at all. I teach Shakespeare. I read and study and esteem and cherish Shakespeare. You have destroyed my professional life, and you have broken my heart.”

“You will learn to cherish the new playwrights. Class is dismissed.”

If you are not able to imagine this scene, don’t worry. There’s really no need to imagine the unimaginable. Something like this would never happen, in a university.

---

Dr. Harold Bloom—professor at Yale, preeminent twentieth-century literary scholar, prolific author—was not the most progressive of academics, but he was a thoroughly modern man. He concluded that Shakespeare “wrote the best poetry and the best prose in English, or perhaps in any Western language,” and he saw Shakespeare’s plays as

the outward limit of human achievement: aesthetically, cognitively, in certain ways morally, even spiritually. They abide beyond the end of the mind’s reach.

Bloom is but one voice among many in a chorus of praise that has been heard for centuries and continues to this day. Indeed, the monumental excellence of Shakespearean drama has become a commonplace in our culture; it is woven so thoroughly into the very fabric of modern existence that one might know nothing about Shakespeare and yet live a life that is profoundly enriched by his art.

But surely, multifaceted cultural brilliance of this magnitude doesn’t simply appear in a young Englishman’s restless and uniquely rhetorical mind. Only God creates ex nihilo. What were the antecedents? The residual dramatic energies? The formative influences? Let us not oversimplify; there were many. My intention here is to discuss only one, though it is one which you perhaps have not heard of, and which may be more significant than some would like to admit.

---

Though it saddens me greatly to say it, few have seen a Shakespeare play performed in anything approaching an ideal theatrical environment. Early modern theaters looked something like this:

The reconstructed Globe in London gives us an even better idea:

The style is known as a “thrust stage,” whereby the performance area projects out into the audience. The action on the stage can be seen from the front and from the sides. The arrangement is vaguely reminiscent of a traditional sanctuary, wouldn’t you say?

And though it again saddens me to say it, few people, historically speaking, have seen a Shakespeare production that sought to fully and faithfully reproduce the sensory and psychological experience of an Elizabethan theater—and we must remember, as the Shakespearean scholar Sir Stanley Wells pointed out, that Shakespeare was, “supremely, a man of the theater..., a man immersed in the life of that theater and committed to its values.” We learn from Coleridge that in a theater of Shakespeare’s time, “the circumstances of acting were altogether different from ours; it was much more of recitation”; thus, “the idea of the poet was always present.” What we call acting today is often a rather boisterous and busy affair; for Shakespeare, acting was fundamentally recitation, poetry, oratory. There was little need for extravagant scenery; ornamentation was achieved through language and music, with some help from what must have been exceedingly fine costumes and elegantly coordinated movements. The overall aesthetic was one of visual gravity and decorative simplicity offset by consummate verbal artistry; the mind was drawn, thereby, to the essence of the thing.

Can you imagine this? Does it not somehow resemble, in your mind’s eye, a traditional liturgical service? If it does, we need not be surprised: the medieval drama of sacred liturgy led, in the best possible way, to the early modern drama of the theater. That is to say, it led to Shakespeare.

Allow me to share three remarkable statements made by Dr. O. B. Hardison, who was writing not, I emphasize, as an apologist for the Latin Mass. He was writing as a mainstream scholar, and a highly distinguished one at that—an author, an esteemed educator, a professor at Georgetown, and a director of the Folger Shakespeare Library:

In the ninth century the boundary ... between religious ritual (the services of the Church) and drama did not exist. Religious ritual was the drama of the early Middle Ages and had been ever since the decline of the classical theater.

Modern Western drama is the product of a Christian, not a pagan, culture. Its forms, its conventions, and its characteristic tonalities are shaped by this fact. To study early medieval drama is to study the way in which these forms, conventions, and tonalities came into being.

Just as the Mass is a sacred drama encompassing all history and embodying in its structure the central pattern of Christian life on which all Christian drama must draw, the celebration of the Mass contains all elements necessary to secular performances. The Mass is the general case—for Christian culture, the archetype. Individual dramas are shaped in its mold.

I wrote in an earlier NLM article that “traditional Christian liturgy was the heart of Europe’s artistic genius.” We have here yet another example of this, and it is an example that should resonate throughout the artistic consciousness of the entire Christian world. Shakespeare was a playwright, a dramaturgical poet, a “man of the theater”; and the theater was a secularized descendant of the Church’s sacred liturgy—her medieval liturgy.

---

I have introduced a complex subject and cannot explore it with adequate length or nuance in this one essay. We will need to return to this topic in the future. Nevertheless, I hope I have at least provided some thought-provoking context for the following statement: marginalization or prohibition of the classical Roman liturgical rites is a grievous threat to human culture, not least because it is a threat to liturgical forms and experiences that served as archetypical precursors to early modern English theater—and from early modern English theater emerged some of humanity’s most compelling, cherished, influential, enlightening, and artistically virtuosic works of literature.

Cardinal Ratzinger said, quite boldly, that “the only really effective apologia for Christianity comes down to two arguments, namely, the saints the Church has produced and the art which has grown in her womb.” It is unthinkable that we should deprive future generations of the liturgical rites that for so many centuries breathed the breath of life into Christian art. The modernized rites, though currently favored by the ecclesial hierarchy, have demonstrated no comparable ability to inspire great artists, sublimate poetic sensibilities, and elicit artistic masterpieces; given their apparent effects over the past sixty years, we have no justification for assuming that they ever will.

The artistic, and therefore spiritual, crisis in Western Civilization has no simple solution, but a first and crucial step in this solution is simple: Let the Roman Church return full freedom to her ancient and everlasting Mass, which was described by the French playwright Paul Claudel—and perhaps would have been described in like terms by the English playwright William Shakespeare—as “the most profound and grandiose poetry, enhanced by the most august gestures ever confided to human beings.”

---

For thrice-weekly discussions of art, history, language, literature, Christian spirituality, and traditional Western liturgy, all seen through the lens of medieval culture, you can subscribe for free to my Substack publication: Via Mediaevalis.

Sacred Rhetoric and the Question of Vernacular Liturgy: Súscipe Sancte Pater

Several weeks ago, in an article entitled “‘An Art Which Leads the Soul by Words’: Sacred Rhetoric in the Roman Liturgy,” I discussed the nature and significance of rhetoric in Western culture and in Christian spirituality. I encourage you to read that article if you haven’t already, but to ensure that all readers will have at least a bare minimum of theoretical foundation before we continue, I’ll provide some key excerpts by way of summary:

• “Rhetoric is, quite simply, the art of language. If my students remember only one definition—or even only one vague definitional idea—of rhetoric, I want it to be this one. Though it requires a bit of elaboration and qualification, it is accurate and pleasing to the ear, and it counteracts the ruinous tendency to equate rhetoric with the deliberate misuse or even abuse of language.”
• “The Church’s ancient liturgies [as well as Sacred Scripture] employed highly rhetorical texts. Indeed, rhetoric is so central to salvation history and the Christian experience that a new definition is called for, one that pertains specifically to Christian education and foregrounds the role of rhetoric in the spiritual and liturgical life of the Church. I will propose one: rhetoric is the sublimation of language.”
• “When we speak of persuasion in the Christian and rhetorical sense, we must look far beyond the impoverished modern sense.... Rhetorical persuasion is language in the service and pursuit of truth.”
• “There is one domain of Christian life” in which we find “a harmonious public ceremony that is persuasive in the fullest, most transcendent, most sanctifying and transformative sense that this word could ever hope to have. The domain of which I speak is the sacred liturgy, which glorifies the eternal God while marshalling every imaginable rhetorical resource to persuade fallen man that this God exists, and that His words are supremely true, and that His works are wondrously good.”

In the present article, we will examine the rhetorical qualities of one short prayer found in the Roman Mass. Our objectives are three: First, to appreciate the poetic excellence that informs our traditional liturgical texts, which emerged from an intellectual culture that, in its ability to craft language and achieve eloquence, far surpasses our own. Second, to explore a serious yet often overlooked difficulty surrounding the issue of vernacular liturgy. Third, to more fervently bemoan and bewail the fact that the Latin Church has lost the will to teach her children the Latin language.

---

The analysis below involves obscure rhetorical terminology. I understand that most people have not studied this terminology and do not find it enjoyable. If you have no interest in it, feel free to ignore it, but I have an important reason for including it: I want to demonstrate that the expressive techniques found in our inherited liturgical texts are part of a venerable and well-documented tradition of rhetorical education that extends through medieval culture and the Patristic era all the way back to Greco-Roman antiquity. These techniques have names because they were studied and taught and employed for centuries by societies that believed in the power of language to change hearts and reshape the world.

As Christians, we can understand this as the power of language to achieve “divine persuasion”—in other words, to achieve conversion, in the broad sense of the word. The good God wants us to convert to Him, that is, to continually turn back to Him with greater fidelity and obedience and affection. He does not compel us to do this, for we are intelligent beings with free will, but He does persuade us, and one of His most persuasive texts is the traditional Eucharistic liturgy of western Christendom, also known as the Latin Mass.

Today we will examine the Súscipe sancte Pater, which is currently the first fixed oration in the Mass of the Faithful. This lovely prayer signals a sacred crescendo in the liturgical drama, as we move from preparatory prayers and scripture readings to the sacrificial action of the Offertory and Canon. This is the text as it appears in the 1962 Missal:

Súscipe, sancte Pater, omnípotens æterne Deus, hanc immaculátam hostiam, quam ego indignus fámulus tuus óffero tibi Deo meo vivo et vero, pro innumerabílibus peccátis, et offensiónibus, et neglegentiis meis, et pro ómnibus circumstántibus, sed et pro ómnibus fidélibus christiánis vivis atque defunctis: ut mihi et illis proficiat ad salútem in vitam æternam.

And this is the English translation given in my hand missal:

Receive, O holy Father, almighty, eternal God, this spotless host which I, thine unworthy servant, offer unto Thee, my living and true God, for my own countless sins, offenses, and negligences, and for all here present; as also for all faithful Christians, living or dead; that it may avail for my own and for their salvation unto life eternal.

This prayer is, by the standards of traditional liturgy, quite new. Along with other Offertory prayers and the prayers at the foot of the altar, it was introduced during the Middle Ages, and it was in limited use until the Roman Rite, whence it originated, spread far and wide with the liturgical standardization decreed by St. Pius V. Let there be no mistake, though: this prayer existed long before the Counter-Reformation. The following example is taken from a French manuscript produced sometime before the middle of the thirteenth century:

And here is another, from the early fourteenth century:

This is how the prayer appears in a printed Missale Romanum published in 1607, thirty-seven years after the promulgation of Quo primum.

One thing we should observe about liturgical texts such as this one is that punctuation cannot be considered part of the original composition. Though the punctuation in the 1607 text is similar to that of the modern text, the punctuation—or “pointing,” to use a more medieval term—in the older manuscripts is sparse and not consistent with modern practices.

As you’re reading through the analysis, keep the following question—which we’ll discuss further in a future article—in mind: How successfully could all this rhetorical excellence be translated into another language, especially if that language is not closely related to Latin? (And let us remember also that from a stylistic perspective, the Romance languages are closer to one another than to Latin.)    

  

---

Súscipe, sancte Pater, omnípotens æterne Deus, hanc immaculátam hostiam: The prayer begins with a sense of grandeur and upward movement through auxesis (or in Latin, amplificatio), which is a general rhetorical strategy for achieving eloquence and richness of thought through expansive language. Various specific rhetorical figures can contribute to auxesis. In this case we have  antonomasia, because the descriptive phrase “holy Father” initially replaces the appellation “God”; appositio, where the descriptive phrase “almighty eternal God” builds upon the initial address to “holy Father”; and pleonasm, which is eloquent redundancy—the title “God” implies “holy,” “almighty,” and “eternal,” and therefore it is not strictly necessary to include these adjectives. Finally, note the overall structure of this clause: imperative verb → elaborate identification of the subject of the verb → object of the verb. This creates interest and emotion, since we must wait a few moments to learn what is to be received, and a sense of urgency in calling upon God the Father, whose grace and goodness make the offering of this “immaculate victim” possible.

quam ego indignus fámulus tuus óffero tibi Deo meo vivo et vero: Let’s focus here on rhetorical figures of sound, which I have indicated with underlining and which are remarkably abundant in this passage. We have assonance (general repetition of vowel sounds), with the particularly melodic phrases indígnus fámulus tuus and Deo meo vivo et vero; we also have dramatically rhythmical alliteration (repetition of initial consonant sounds) in vivo et vero and pleasing consonance (repetition of final consonant sounds) in indígnus fámulus tuus. The result is a sonorous and memorable phrase whose beautiful music contrasts, in paradoxical and therefore thought-provoking fashion, with the righteous self-abasement expressed on the semantic level (i.e., the level of direct meanings that the words convey).

pro innumerabílibus peccátis, et offensiónibus, et neglegentiis meis: The evils for which the Victim is offered—sins, offenses, negligences—are listed in order of decreasing severity. This is called catacosmesis, and here it creates a sense of alleviation and hope, as though our various moral failings in the service of God are diminishing as we approach the consummation of the expiatory sacrifice. We also see hyperbole (eloquent exaggeration), a favorite rhetorical figure in biblical and devotional literature. Many saintly priests have said these words day after day, year and year, and it would not be reasonable to repeatedly accuse them of “countless” misdeeds. And yet, the prayer reminds us that there is a certain immensity, a transgression that is somehow immeasurable, in every act that violates the laws of an infinitely loving God.

et pro ómnibus circumstántibus, sed et pro ómnibus fidélibus christiánis vivis atque defunctis: Elegance and emphasis are achieved through anaphora (repetition of initial words in nearby phrases), with the addition of sed in the second phrase imparting rhythmical intensity that I find highly effective. That one extra syllable, considered only on the level of sound, creates a sense of urgency that harmonizes with the words: the vast multitude of Christians everywhere, even those who have died and now languish in Purgatory, are in desperate need—the Victim must be offered; the sacrifice must be performed.

ut mihi et illis proficiat ad salútem in vitam æternam: Note the number of monosyllabic connecting words—ut, et, ad, in—placed between longer words. This resembles polysyndeton, which is defined as the use of many conjunctions between clauses; here we have two conjunctions and two prepositions, and they mostly join nouns or pronouns rather than clauses, but the effect is similar: pauses multiply, the reading tempo changes, and our thoughts slow down as we meditate upon this concluding idea with its crucial and resounding significance.

---

Let us recall that this is but one short prayer selected from the vast collection of writings in the Roman Missal. The traditional Latin liturgy is a rhetorical masterpiece of epic proportions, and the persuasive objectives of all this finely crafted language are the noblest imaginable: God’s glory, and man’s salvation.

---

For thrice-weekly discussions of art, history, language, literature, Christian spirituality, and traditional Western liturgy, all seen through the lens of medieval culture, you can subscribe (for free!) to my Substack publication: Via Mediaevalis.

Saint Michael, Sacred Liturgy, and the Restoration of Beauty

I have the good fortune of being obligated, for professional reasons, to regularly spend quality time with a wide variety of (digitized) medieval manuscripts. One result of this enlightening research is an appreciation for the diversity of artistic styles in pre-Renaissance Western culture. Sometimes we may find ourselves thinking in terms of an oversimplified dichotomy between highly iconographic modes in the East and a mildly symbolic proto-naturalism in the West. In reality, pre-modern religious paintings in East and West form a diverse continuum of artistic techniques, and a few outstanding artifacts can help us to reflect upon this.

One would be the Lindisfarne Gospels, with its enigmatic fusion of styles and astonishing decorations:

Another is the book of biblical scenes painted by William de Brailes, an English illuminator active during the thirteenth century. The example below, which depicts the Israelites worshipping the golden calf, has strongly iconographic features.

The Codex Calixtinus, dating to the mid-twelfth century and associated with both western France and northern Spain, is highly stylized and difficult to categorize:

Also from Spain, perhaps Segovia or Burgos, is the Hours of Infante Don Alfonso of Castile. The foliate ornamentation and grisaille-with-gold tonality in this book are deeply pleasing to me; there is an intriguing sense of mysticism in the serene faces and expressionistic scenes, along with a strong note of surreality in the surrounding details.

However, when it comes to reimagining artistic dichotomies, nothing quite compares to a twelfth-century masterpiece known as the Stammheim Missal. The illuminations in this manuscript—almost sui generis in style, and apparently the work of one extraordinarily talented monk—combine vibrant colors, curvilinear forms, strong geometries, simplified human figures, fascinating visual poetry, and profound visual theology into yet more compelling evidence that traditional Christian liturgy was the heart of Europe’s artistic genius.

The personification of Wisdom beneath God the Creator.

---

The Stammheim Missal emerged from that fundamental engine of medieval learning and creativity: the Benedictine scriptorium. It was made in the twelfth century at Hildesheim Abbey, in north-central Germany, and eventually found its way to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles; reproductions can be found on the Getty’s website. Despite the fact that it was produced over eight hundred years ago, all the pages are intact, the colors haven’t faded, and the precious metals still shine. Rarely do I see such vivid proof that skilled craftsmen working with authentic, natural materials can produce artifacts of astounding quality and longevity, even in the total absence of advanced technology.

David with companion musicians.

The Michaeliskirche—the abbey church of Hildesheim—is a superb Romanesque structure. It was dedicated to St. Michael the Archangel on his feast day, September 29th, in the year 1022, and rededicated to him on the same day nine years later, when construction was complete. When I reflect on the life expectancy of modern buildings and institutions, the longevity is almost breathtaking. The church you see below was built one thousand years ago.

St. Michael’s Church in Hildesheim, Germany. Photo by Heinz-Josef Lücking.

In the culture that produced the monastery that produced the Stammheim Missal, the feast of St. Michael the Archangel was a high holy day and a rich folkloric celebration. It was also, of course, a very special day for the monks of Hildesheim, who were careful to colorfully accentuate the celebration of their patron in the missal’s September calendar page:

And the historiated initial that introduces St. Michael’s feast day is a captivating and mysterious interplay of stolid rectangles, absorbing curves, bold colors, mischievous beasts, and diversely occupied humans.

As Gregory DiPippo explained in an NLM article published on this same day two years ago, this feast is of venerable antiquity and is not restricted exclusively to St. Michael:

The traditional title of today’s feast is “The Dedication of St Michael the Archangel,” a term already found ca. 650 A.D. in the lectionary of Wurzburg, the oldest of the Roman Rite that survives, and in the ancient sacramentaries....
Despite the fact that the feast’s title refers specifically only to St Michael, September 29th is really the feast of all the Angels, as stated repeatedly in the texts of both the Office and Mass.

That Michael shares his feast with other angels subtracts nothing from the honor that we give to him on this day. Rather, it reinforces his exalted role in salvation history and Christian spirituality, for his celestial renown was gained not as a champion in single combat but as the victorious commander of the angelic host. And indeed, this is precisely how the Stammheim illuminator portrayed him in the portrait that precedes the prayers for his feast:

You can further explore the historical context and theological resonance of this remarkable image in an article that I co-authored with my Substack colleague Amelia Sims McKee. It includes vibrant, wonderfully detailed images of the painting, and I hope that it might serve as an enjoyable and profitable meditation for this great feast, nowadays sadly understated, of the prince of the heavenly armies.

---

Dr. Ena Giurescu Heller, former professor of art history and specialist in medieval art, makes a crucial observation about artwork produced in the Middle Ages. She suggests that the modern “understanding of and response to medieval religious art is completely different (antithetical, really) to the response of its contemporaries.” Medieval Christians were surrounded by church buildings, stained-glass narratives, frescoes, statues, vessels, vestments, and illuminations that, despite their aesthetic magnificence,

were neither objects of any veneration (least of all aesthetic), nor ends unto themselves. They were tools—tools for the liturgy, and ... tools for transporting their beholders to the divine realm they symbolize and serve.

Furthermore, these tools for the liturgy were also inspired by the liturgy, which preceded them and which even in the absence of sumptuous visual or musical artwork was artistic in the most fundamental and transcendent sense of the word.

I say again: traditional Christian liturgy was the heart of Europe’s artistic genius. The artistic consciousness of Western civilization has suffered from long, dismal years of cardiac arrest. And yet, as the psalmist says, in the sight of God all these years are “as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.” For three days and three nights the heart of Our Lord was still. The resurrection will come, and in the meantime, let us pray that St. Michael press onward in his campaign against the Church’s ancient Enemy. We know, as Milton did, who the victor will be:

Now Night her course began and over Heaven
Inducing darkness grateful truce imposed
And silence on the odious din of war.
Under her cloudy covert both retired,
Victor and vanquished: On the foughten field
Michaël and his angels prevalent
Encamping, placed in guard their watches round,
Cherubic waving fires. On th’ other part,
Satan with his rebellious disappeared.

“An Art Which Leads the Soul by Words”: Sacred Rhetoric in the Roman Liturgy

My esteemed NLM colleague Peter Kwasniewski included the following observation in a recent series of Substack posts:

The liturgical reform rejected form and quality—the intricately developed offering of worship as handed down across the ages, with its exaltation of rhetoric, poetry, the sacred dance of rubrically dense solemn ceremonial, architecture and the panoply of fine arts—and chose, instead, to privilege quantitative ways of thinking.

It is remarkable how rarely one finds references to rhetoric in liturgical discussions and debates. Indeed, it is remarkable how rarely one finds any sort of reference to rhetoric in postmodern society, except when the term refers to the vacuous or manipulative speech that politicians often employ. We ought not drag the noble term “rhetoric” through mud that is more properly described as bombast, fustian, or demagoguery. And we ought not overlook the thoroughly rhetorical character of the culture that composed and nourished the Roman liturgy.

James Tissot, The Sermon of the Beatitudes (c. 1890).

---

Rhetoric is, quite simply, the art of language. If my students remember only one definition—or even only one vague definitional idea—of rhetoric, I want it to be this one. Though it requires a bit of elaboration and qualification, it is accurate and pleasing to the ear, and it counteracts the ruinous tendency to equate rhetoric with the deliberate misuse or even abuse of language.

Though the study of classical rhetoric is at low ebb in Western society, there are signs of a modest revival in secular educational circles, which means that a far more vigorous revival should be underway in Christian educational circles—because rhetoric cannot be filtered out of Christian life so easily as it can be filtered out of modern secular life. The culture at large may be resigned to hearing speeches that are merely informational, attending lectures that are merely sentimental, watching conversational (or downright childish) debates, reading novels that lack eloquence, writing poems that lack art, and so forth.

But Christian culture is so interwoven with rhetoric that the two are actually inseparable: Old Testament literature is filled with rhetorical techniques, Our Lord integrated rhetoric into His preaching, the epistolary style of St. Paul—recently described by a biblical scholar as “one of the greatest communicators in history”—was enriched by his rhetorical skill, and the Church’s ancient liturgies employed highly rhetorical texts. Indeed, rhetoric is so central to salvation history and the Christian experience that a new definition is called for, one that pertains specifically to Christian education and foregrounds the role of rhetoric in the spiritual and liturgical life of the Church. I will propose one: rhetoric is the sublimation of language. As I have written elsewhere,

Despite the ... obscure, Greek- or Latin-sounding terminology, rhetoric comes not from Greece or Rome but from God. He not only created language but also taught mankind to use it dramatically and artistically, so that literature and preaching and conversation and all other forms of human discourse might fulfill their crucial and exalted role in His epic plan to ennoble our lives and save our souls.

Maurycy Gottlieb, Christ Teaching in Capernaum (1878)

---

You may be wondering why I haven’t said anything yet about persuasion. Isn’t that what rhetoric is all about—convincing others to share one’s opinion, perhaps through cunning and disingenuous language, perhaps even in opposition to right reason and legitimate authority? Didn’t Aristotle say that “rhetorical study, in its strict sense, is concerned with the modes of persuasion”?

He did, but Plato, speaking through Socrates in the Phaedrus, wrote that rhetoric is “an art which leads the soul by means of words.” To reconcile the thought of student and master, then, we must understand “persuasion” more broadly. Aristotle himself is quick to do this. In the next sentence he states that persuasion is actually a form of demonstration, “since we are most fully persuaded when we consider a thing to have been demonstrated,” and later he states unequivocally that “one ought not persuade people to believe what is wrong.” Thus, persuasion in Aristotle’s mind was strongly linked to truth, and etymology shows us that it is also linked to goodness: the English word “persuasion” reaches back to a Latin verb meaning “urge, recommend” and to a primitive root meaning “sweet, pleasant.”

Thus, when we speak of persuasion in the Christian and rhetorical sense, we must look far beyond the impoverished modern sense, whereby persuasion is little more than amoral or fallacious attempts to make others think as one wants them to think or do what one wants them to do. Rhetorical persuasion is language in the service and pursuit of truth; it is discourse that reveals the inherent goodness of an idea or action; and it is linguistic expression that beautifies these good and truthful things, thereby teaching us to find pleasure in that which otherwise might seem obscure, unreal, onerous, or even painful: “Learn of me,” says the divine Orator, “for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

James Smetham (d. 1889), Christ Preaching to the Multitudes

---

There is one domain of Christian life that is rhetorical above all others. Within it are found compelling exhortations from Scriptural epistles, poetry from the Old Testament, dramatic narratives from the Gospels, inspiring hymns, finely crafted prayers, eloquent benedictions, homiletic oratory, and a visual language of unsurpassed emotional intensity—all united in a harmonious public ceremony that is persuasive in the fullest, most transcendent, most sanctifying and transformative sense that this word could ever hope to have. The domain of which I speak is the sacred liturgy, which glorifies the eternal God while marshalling every imaginable rhetorical resource to persuade fallen man that this God exists, and that His words are supremely true, and that His works are wondrously good.

The judgments of the Lord are true,
      and in themselves are justified:
they are more desired than gold,
      than great supply of purest gold: sweeter than honey and honeycomb.

The psalmist knew the sweetness of the Lord. He also knew, as we see elsewhere in the Psalms, the monumental tragedy that befalls when desolation enters the house of God. The rhetorical richness of sacred liturgy is not a foregone conclusion. There are many ways in which “divino-apostolic” liturgical rites, as Dr. Kwasniewski aptly designates them in the concluding essay of the series mentioned above, may be deprived of their “millennial fecundity”—or to state a similar idea in rhetorical terms, of their power to effect divine persuasion.

To better understand the rhetorical excellence of the Roman liturgy is to more fully appreciate its splendor, and to more duly lament what has been lost. We will, therefore, continue this discussion in future articles.

---

For thrice-weekly discussions of art, history, language, literature, Christian spirituality, and traditional Western liturgy, all seen through the lens of medieval culture, you can subscribe (for free!) to my Substack publication: Via Mediaevalis.

The Prophet Elijah, Epic Hero of the Old Testament, Part Two

In Part One of this article, I outlined the historical literary genre known as the epic, and I suggested that we cannot “fully appreciate and honor the Prophet Elijah without consciously reading his life story as that of an epic hero.” (I also included a technical explanation for the different versions of his English name, if that sort of thing interests you. If it doesn’t, here’s the synopsis: The Hebrew name אֵלִיָּה would have sounded like “eleeyah,” the spelling “Elijah” has been around a long time but no longer encourages Hebraic pronunciation, and the spelling “Elias” came to English from Greek via Latin.)

Now it’s time to look at how we can understand and honor the Holy and Glorious Prophet Elijah, whose feast is July 20th in the Byzantine rite, through the lens of epic heroism.

“Into the Midst of Things”

One of the most well-known features of epic literature is the convention of beginning in medias res, which literally means “into the midst of things” and is used in literary theory for works that dive right into the primary narrative. The epic poet is expected to quickly capture the reader’s attention by dispensing with any sort of preamble and, at least initially, with events that led to the main action of the poem. The Aeneid gives us a fine example:

I sing of arms, and of the man who first
Came from the coasts of Troy to Italy
And the Lavinian shores, exiled by fate.
Much was he tossed about upon the lands
And on the ocean by supernal powers,
Because of cruel Juno's sleepless wrath.

These are the first lines of the poem, and Virgil’s song is already recounting Aeneas’ tempestuous voyage away from Troy. The narrative does not begin with the Trojan War or even the fall of Troy; we will, however, hear about some of that action later, in a flashback. (By the way, I’m using Christopher Pearse Cranch’s 1872 translation here; I’ve sampled many Aeneid translations, and this is my favorite. It’s truly excellent, and not well known.)

The opening lines of the Iliad have an even stronger in medias res feeling, and they also give you an idea of the stylistic differences between Virgil and Homer. (In fairness, though, this is from the Robert Fagles translation, which is superb but probably amplifies those differences.)

Rage – Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles,
murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,
hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,
great fighters’ souls, but made their bodies carrion,
feasts for the dogs and birds,
and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end.

This is how the story of the Prophet Elijah begins:

And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the sojourners of Gilead, said unto Ahab,
As the Lord, the God of Israel, liveth, before whom I stand,
there shall not be dew nor rain these years,
but according to my word. (1 Kings 17, 1)

No prelude, no family history, no tales of his previous life, not even the typical prophet-introducing phrase “The word of the Lord came to...” (this comes after his introduction, in the next verse). Elijah simply bursts onto the scene, and before the end of the first verse in which he is mentioned, he is already defying the wicked King Ahab. Biblical scholars puzzle over this abrupt entrance. They observe that we never learn his parentage or tribe, and the epithet “Tishbite” deepens, rather than clarifies, the mystery of his origin.

From a literary standpoint, though, this technique makes sense, as the German commentators Keil and Delitzsch at least partially recognized: “This abrupt appearance of Elijah ... is rather a part of the character of this mightiest of all the prophets.” It is an appearance in medias res, eminently appropriate for an epic hero.

Sacred Digressions

Epic poems are carefully enriched by digressions from the main storyline. This occurs as a story-within-a-story that narrates prior events, as prophecies uttered by a seer, or as episodes that are connected rather loosely to the principal action.

Elijah is fundamentally a prophet, so that connection already exists, and furthermore, his life is episodic, consisting of sudden, brief appearances within the larger frame of a grand mission to defend the cause of God when Israel was drowning in its own iniquity. We feel this especially in the homely stories of the ravens and the widow of Zarephath, which directly follow an introduction that portrays his prophetic mission as intense and momentous.

And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning,
and bread and flesh in the evening;
and he drank of the brook.
And it came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up,
because there was no rain in the land. (1 Kings 17, 6–7)

So he arose and went to Zarephath;
and when he came to the gate of the city,
behold, a widow woman was there gathering sticks:
and he called to her, and said,
Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink. (1 Kings 17, 10)

Digressions bring variety and interest to a narrative, and more importantly, they allow an author to communicate themes and character traits that might be lost amidst the primary action of the epic story. Elijah is not only the bold, fiery prophet of Mount Carmel; he is also a humble, compassionate Israelite who promised the widow that her cruse of oil would not fail, and raised her son from the dead. And that brings us to our next epic moment in the prophet’s life.

The Underworld

The katabasis, from the Greek word for “descent,” is a distinctive feature of epic literature. It refers specifically to a descent into the underworld—that is, the world of the dead. The paradigmatic example occurs in Book 6 of the Aeneid, but not until Dante’s Inferno would epic katabasis reach its poetic and theological summit.

Elijah never descends to the underworld, but we hear echoes of katabasis in the story of the widow’s son, when Elijah confronts death and overcomes it. There are only three instances of someone being raised from the dead in the Old Testament, which suggests that great significance is involved in such events. The detail of Elijah stretching himself upon the dead child three times emphasizes his participation in the death, as though he mystically entered the realm of the dead in order to draw the child out of it.

And he stretched himself upon the child three times,
and cried unto the Lord, and said,
O Lord my God, I pray thee, let this child’s soul come into him again.
And the Lord hearkened unto the voice of Elijah;
and the soul of the child came into him again,
and he revived. (1 Kings 17, 21–22)

The Heroism of Faith

The last epic moment that I’ll mention requires little comment. It radiates the heroic energy that we naturally sense in the feats and conquests of ancient heroes, while also utterly surpassing them—for this is a feat of the spirit, not of the body. This is not a conquest of valor and strength and martial skill, however good and noble those things may be, but a conquest of one who prays, and who trusts—against overwhelming odds—that his prayer will be heard.

The passage is simply a masterpiece of epic literature. Saint Elijah the Prophet, defender of Israel against the impious tyrant Ahab, pray for us.

And he put the wood in order, and cut the bullock in pieces,
and laid it on the wood. And he said,
Fill four barrels with water, and pour it on the burnt offering, and on the wood.
And he said, Do it the second time; and they did it the second time.
And he said, Do it the third time; and they did it the third time.
And the water ran round about the altar; and he filled the trench also with water.
And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening oblation,
that Elijah the prophet came near, and said,
O Lord, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel,
let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel,
and that I am thy servant,
and that I have done all these things at thy word.
Hear me, O Lord, hear me,
that this people may know that thou, Lord, art God,
and that thou hast turned their heart back again.

Then the fire of the Lord fell,
and consumed the burnt offering,
and the wood, and the stones, and the dust,
and licked up the water that was in the trench.
And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces:
and they said, The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God. (1 Kings 18, 33–39)

---

For thrice-weekly discussions of art, history, language, literature, Christian spirituality, and traditional Western liturgy, all seen through the lens of medieval culture, you can subscribe (for free!) to my Substack publication: Via Mediaevalis.