Last Things

by Bynum, Caroline Walker; Freedman, Paul;

  Some other punishments deal with touch and with the pain that the body experiences when it is beaten and wounded. One of the most vivid examples is the seventh torment, where devils torture and slaughter the sinners’ bodies with severe cruelty: “They tear them limb from limb with tooth and talon, they worry them and jab them and bruise them with sticks, with fork and knife they cut them up bite-sized, just as butchers do on earth with pigs and sheep” (Black Sc., 11. 557–60).

  The last affliction of the Black Scripture consists of the sinner’s awareness that the Last Judgment will bring not the cessation but an increase of suffering because, Bonvesin tells us, all the punishments of hell that have been described will redouble with the resurrection of the body: “The unhappy man hopes for no improvement but always expects nothing but worse, namely, to be paid anguish twice over on the Day of Sentencing when the body (too) will have its torment” (Black Sc., 11. 845–48). After all the corporeal description of the infernal pains, Bonvesin feels the need to restate the theological principle that the punishment of the body will occur only at the end of time and that only then will infernal suffering be complete and definitive. The damned soul makes it clear at the end of the Black Scripture: “How I am ruined and how I am destroyed! How I have despaired of all good hopes! Nevermore do I expect to be consoled; I await the Last Day, when the body will be paid. I await the Day of Sentencing with great trepidation, when the body will be punished, miserable accursed me. It will be no use then for me to beat my breast or to say mea culpa; I await it in great fear” (Black Sc., 11. 869–76).

  In the Golden Scripture, Bonvesin describes first the death of the just (11. 25–80) and then the celestial condition of the separated soul before the resurrection.14 But, as in the Black Scripture, the subsequent description implies the presence of the body. Here the twelve glories of heaven are presented as the opposite of the twelve punishments of hell, but the contrast between them is often mechanical and inconsistent.15 In fact, the most striking feature of the twelve glories is that they describe a celestial realm that is presented as a place in which the imperfections and the limits of the earthly world are solved. This celestial reality has attained the purity that existed before the Fall, as though the world of Satan with its corruptibility, decay, sin, and pain had been completely overcome. The contrast stressed in the Golden Scripture does not really appear to be between hell and heaven but, rather, between the imperfect earthly condition described at the beginning of the poem and the regained perfection of the celestial one. The elements are exactly the same, but the essential transition is from decay to incorruptibility, from continuous change to stability. Even more striking is that this perfected physical reality of the celestial realm is described according to the contemporary theological discussion of the resurrection body.

  Bonvesin was aware of the contemporary doctrine of the dowries with which the beatified soul endows the body that it gets back at the Last Judgment. In the twelfth century these dotes decrease from seven to four: impassibilitas, inability to suffer; claritas, beauty; subtilitas, a sort of incorporeality; and agilitas, a sort of weightlessness that enabled the body to move with the speed of light. After the mid-thirteenth century these dowries tend to drop out of theological discussion, but the cultural lag between theological speculation and more popular dissemination remained.16 Lines 373–76 of Bonvesin’s De die iudicii read: “The bodies will be glorified with four gifts: they will be formed harder than diamonds, more shining than the sun and thinner than any sound, and they will be faster and quicker than the eye.”17

  Bonvesin applies the doctrine of four dowries to the whole celestial realm, depicting it in the Golden Scripture as a sort of glorious reality, of resurrection reality.18 The first glory gives a brief summary of the next glories and consists of “the great beauties of the land of the living, of the squares and the districts, which are shining and splendid beyond measure” (11. 82–84). A long part of the description underlines the incorruptibility of the celestial world, which is presented as the explicit counterpart of the earthly condition that was described in the Black Scripture: “There nothing is lost, nothing grows old, nothing changes or spoils or decays; there is no subject of regret there, no one dies there, there is neither filth nor vermin nor scorpions nor snakes. All things are safe there, fresh and youthful, always whole and lasting, enjoyable and neat” (Golden Sc., 11. 125–30).

  Apart from the fifth glory, which consists of the great joy that the blessed feel in the contemplation of the beautiful faces of the angels, Mary, and Christ, the remaining glories describe heavenly pleasures and delights that are similar to the earthly ones—such as perfumes, riches, servants, food, songs, or precious garments—but are finally redeemed of their mutability, temporariness, and decay.19

  I will focus on the tenth glory, that is, “the great beauty, the fine appearance of the just man, his pure clarity” (11. 601–2). Even though Bonvesin is still dealing with the separated soul, he seems to be describing the resurrection body. Bonvesin here resolves the limitations of the earthly body as expressed in the De contemptu mundi and finds a counterpart to its defects. The reference to the beginning of the poem is so explicit that the comparison is virtually required of the audience:

  The resplendent face sheds such light that beside it the sun would be worthless. The tongue is of surpassingly sweet speech, the delightful eyes of surpassing splendor. The hair is of gold, shining and fair, the teeth of whitest white, the complexion brilliant, the hands very lovely, the feet very finely molded, every limb very fair and well formed. In that place, there is no man sick or ailing or in pain or too short or too tall or crippled or ruptured or old or misshapen or mute or leprous or lame or crooked or blind or freckled—Instead, each one there is healthy and lively, of middling size, whole and beautiful and fresh and well-formed, active and graceful, straight and clean and young, perfect and joyous. There no one is slothful or foolish or unseemly or thin or fat or smelly or feeble; no one is rotten inside or ugly or unseemly, nor does their breath smell bad nor are they repulsive in any way—Rather, everyone there is fine-looking, lively and quick, well-behaved and temperate and nimble and very seemly; everyone is fine inside and out, sweet-smelling and gleaming; their breath smells good, marvelously fragrant. In sum, what I am saying is nothing compared to the great beauty of the just man which never fails. (Golden Sc., 11. 609–34)

  The elements of the celestial person remain the same as on earth: face, tongue, eyes, hair, teeth, complexion, hands, and feet. But now the imperfections of the earthly body are cured, its lacks are filled, and its disproportionate parts are leveled. Moreover, this flourishing perfection will never fade. In heaven the transition of the body is from ugliness to beauty, from pain to impassibility, from partition to integrity, from decay to incorruptibility. In this euphoric praise of the splendor of the resurrection body, Bonvesin stresses both its integrity and lack of change. He wanted to involve the emotions of his listeners, and the idea of maintaining their own body, of continuing to be the same but in a new purified way, must have deeply seduced them.20

  The poem places such importance on the body that body is everywhere, even when the author is aware of dealing with the separated soul. If it was possible to talk of the separated soul theoretically, it was very difficult to represent it without its body. Moreover, Bonvesin wanted to touch his audience, to make it feel the fear of hell and the seduction of heaven, to talk about something that would involve its deepest emotions. Only through such a corporeal reality, only through such emphasis on bodily pains and delights, could the listeners truly be involved and experience the description as real. Without such predominance of the body, they might have considered everything too abstract and too distant and would have not recognized the elements presented to them. Body was so important in the concept of the person as a union of soul and body that it was indispensable to both the idea of a frightening infernal punishment and the depiction of a seducing celestial glory. At the end of thirteenth century, Bonves
in is exploiting the potential of the somatomorphic soul that a long tradition of otherworldly journeys and visions had progressively developed, and he stresses that the separated soul experiences pain (in hell) and bliss (in heaven) immediately after death.

  At the same time, Bonvesin highlights the importance of the Last Judgment as the moment in which the soul will be reunited with its body throughout the poem, and especially in the description of both the last pain of hell and the last glory of heaven. If, as we have seen, the twelfth torment of hell consisted of the soul’s awareness that suffering will increase with the resurrection of the body, the twelfth joy of heaven is the knowledge that glory will endure or, rather, that it will be amplified after the Last Judgment. In spite of the splendor of the separated soul in heaven, complete bliss and “true sweetness” will be possible only with the resumption of the body:

  The just man never fears he will suffer any torment—rather, he expects to see improvement on the Last Day, for his body will be a glory and great rejoicing. Then the just man will be doubly repaid. In his great love he expects to have true sweetness, for the body will rise in peace on the Last Day. . . . Soul and body will be in double glory then, in disport and in comfort. Dear God, how fine it would be to come to that bliss, to receive such glory, once one had seen the light in time! Therefore the just man overflows with joy and is all delight, because he expects that hour will come when his body will rise again to such glory. (Golden Sc., 11. 689–707)21

  Likewise just before concluding the poem, Bonvesin shows the blessed soul waiting for the resurrection and the subsequent increase of bliss: “I await the Last Day when my body will rise again and have pleasure and joy here and shine and delight in the purest splendor. The enjoyment I await cannot be told” (Golden Sc., 11. 729–32). Body is fundamental and necessary for the fullness of glory, to the extent that Bonvesin’s poem seems structured in order to underscore its importance. The Book of the Three Scriptures opens with the De contemptu mundi, which is characterized by a strong emphasis on the decay of the earthly body and ends with the seducing image of the resurrection body whose splendid beauty is described in the last part of the Golden Scripture. But what happens in between?

  The Red Scripture describes Christ’s passion and is part of a very well-developed genre of late medieval devotional literature both in Latin and in the vernacular. In the first lines of this section, Bonvesin indicates that the red scripture is Christ’s passion, suggesting that it is red because the words are written with Christ’s blood:22 “Now I shall go on to speak of the red scripture, of the passion of Christ, to whoever would like to listen. It pleased him to bear it for us wicked men. These are wonderful words of weeping and fear. Now I shall tell you about the passion of the Son of the Queen—may she give me grace and excelling joy to speak properly of the divine passion, and save us thereafter from ruin in hell” (Red Sc., 11. 1–8). The great emphasis given to Christ’s physical sufferings represents the main characteristic of Bonvesin’s depiction of his passion and is connected with the focus that contemporary spirituality put on Christ’s humanity, stressing that it was the sacrifice of the cross that saved humankind and that the ransom for original sin was paid by Christ’s suffering flesh.23

  In Bonvesin’s poem, attention to Christ’s humanity is displayed with reference to his body. Two passages from other poems of Bonvesin show that Christ’s body was conceived, through the figure of Mary, as flesh and blood. In the Depeccatore cum Virgine, where Bonvesin takes explicit sides with those who defended Mary’s bodily assumption to heaven, the sinner talks to Mary and says: “By birth we are together with you, made of the same blood and flesh. And you and your Son lived with human flesh, and with our flesh you are now in the supreme court. This is a great friendship, supreme queen, that you must have with all the people of the world” (11. 111–16). Likewise, the poet says in the Rationes quare Virgo tenetur diligere peccatores: “Furthermore, the Queen has an excellent reason to help us sinners with great compassion: she is our kinswoman through her engendering, she dwells with our flesh in the eternal mansion. The glorious Virgin, and her Son as well, carried our flesh and blood hence. So she is our kin, nor can she say otherwise, nor can she wash it off herself whatever she does” (11. 29–36).24 Through Mary, Christ’s body is made of the same flesh and blood as every other human being. They are the same blood and flesh that were despised in the De contemptu mundi. But this decaying body, this flesh and blood, can suffer: they are, paradoxically, the instrument of salvation. On the cross, Jesus attempts to console his mother and says: “O sweet mother, who is groaning so, you know that I came into the world, as my father wished, to accept this Passion, dying on the wood of the cross. O sweet mother, you know that I came into the world, you know that I wished to take flesh from you so that the world which was lost might be saved through the cross on which I have now been set” (Red Sc., 11. 346–52). As these words amply suggest, God took human flesh in order to gain the possibility of suffering, of feeling corporeal pain.25

  In attempting to reach to the emotions of the listeners, the Red Scripture concentrates upon the moments in which Christ’s body is most tormented. What most vividly expresses the incredible acuteness of the pain that his body experiences during the passion is blood. In contemporary spirituality, bleeding was associated with pain and was the most powerful symbol for cleansing and expiation:26

  There was no spot two fingers broad on His entire body that was not broken and bruised to such a degree that the flesh looked almost as black as a kettle. They had no mercy on Him but laid it on with a will. The race of the Jews beat Him so violently that all His limbs were lacerated. His whole body seemed to be leprous, and His blood fell to the ground on every side. His flesh was everywhere battered and torn. The blood dripped down from His limbs to the ground. That renegade race had no pity but only kept laying it on and lacerating Him all over. (Red Sc., 11. 53–64)

  On the cross Christ’s body becomes a piece of bleeding flesh and his four wounds are described as a “living fountain” that spills blood incessantly. Christ’s blood flows like a river and is so prevalent that it is easy to visualize the script as red:

  Both His feet and His hands were pierced with nails, from which He bore enormous suffering. So strong and sturdy, they were greatly tormented, the vigorous limbs nailed up there. Because His limbs were strong and vigorous, they bore all the more agonizing suffering. His hands hurt Him dreadfully, His feet were wracked, blood flowed out of the holes at four points. . . . Nails were driven into the limbs of the Lord, the feet, laid one atop the other, were pierced with a single nail. His sensitive limbs felt great anguish. From the living fountain, His precious blood flowed like a river from hands and feet; from the head to the feet, all the living flesh was seen to be torn and bloody. From His head to His feet, there wasn’t a limb in His body from which blood did not drip and which was not twisted. (Red Sc., 11.153–70)

  This representation of the wounded body of Christ on the cross inspired love and pity in the public, but also stressed the reality of Christ’s flesh and suffering, thereby connecting the body of Christ with the rest of humankind. The extremity of Christ’s suffering is explicitly connected with the vigor of his body. Lines 157–58 affirm that “Because His limbs were strong and vigorous, they bore all the more agonizing suffering.”27 This concept was a commonplace in thirteenth-century scholastic analysis.28 Bonvesin is not as explicit as Bonaventure or Thomas Aquinas, but the idea is the same: the “role” or—we might say—the “mission” of the body is the experience of pain, and the more perfect the body, the better it can suffer.

  As is made clear in the introductory lines to the Red Scripture, Christ’s passion is not only incredible pain that must induce the listener to tears and fear, but it is also incredible love, the generous sacrifice that saves the world and that should induce humanity to consolation and hope.29 In Bonvesin’s poem Christ himself tries to console his sorrowing mother and underlines the contrast between unsurpassable sufferi
ng and the certainty of salvation:

  Although I die under this torture, the third day will be my resurrection; you will see me then with great rejoicing; I will appear to you and to the disciples at that time. I will reveal myself before you then, O mother, you who are so prone to lament and grieve—dismiss your sorrow and your groaning; I will go and receive the high glory of the Father. You should rejoice, instead, O sweet mother mine, because I have found the sheep that was lost. Through this passion that I now bear the whole world will be saved, and so this must be. O sweet sweet mother, why are you upset if I die the death my Father wishes? Don’t you want me to drink the cup that he has given me in peace, so that I may undo the work of Satan? (Red Sc., 11. 357–72)

  Through his passion, Christ rescues humankind from the “work of Satan.” If we remember that in Black Scripture, lines 165–66, the “sin of Adam” was the cause of man’s liability to pain, of the limitations and decay of his body, we understand that what Christ’s passion attains is the possibility for humankind to eliminate all the imperfections and limitations of the earthly condition and to find again the lost purity of glory.

  It is human suffering that induces redemption. And human suffering is possible through our body, which is—as we have seen—flesh and blood. Paradoxically, the same miserable and decaying body that was despised in the De contemptu mundi contains the means of redemption through the experience of pain. The “high glory” that Christ gains through his corporeal pain is the redemption from the imperfections that allowed his body to suffer and to be saved. Bonvesin explicitly shows this possibility with the figure of Christ: the beauty and the splendor of his resurrection face as described in the fifth glory (Golden Sc., 11. 373–88) are an obvious counterpart of the humiliations and debasement that it had suffered during the passion (11. 101–12).30