Last Things

by Bynum, Caroline Walker; Freedman, Paul;

  Bernard focuses in these sermons on two kinds of experiences of the saints. The first is the experience—represented by rest or sleep—that is common to the saints but not shared by them. The second is the experience—represented by feasting—that is common to and, in a sense, shared by the saints. It is important to point out, however, that requies and somnus—as well as feasting—seem to represent not a single activity but the total experience of the saints in heaven. At the end of his Second Sermon, Bernard writes: “These are, I say to you, brothers, these are the whole affairs of the saints: this food, this sleep of theirs.”64 Rest—and feast—seem to mean taking delight in everything.65 There is, then, a sense in which each of these experiences (rest and feast) is the total experience of the saints in heaven; they are not, therefore, separate and distinct from each other. Nevertheless, one image, rest, emphasizes a sense of the individual soul (separate from other souls), the other, feasting, a sense of the union of all souls with one another—although there is no real sense of souls fusing with one another or of one soul substituting for or becoming another soul. We do not, however, find in these sermons an image that conveys the transport into heaven of that which was so important to Bernard: the special, particular friendships that he valued in this life. The focus throughout Bernard’s five Sermons for the Feast of All Saints is squarely on the self and on the self’s relationship to God—not on the self’s relationship to other selves. The question of relationship with other selves does not seem to have been foremost on Bernard’s mind. And the questions that he does not ask tell us a great deal about what his concerns were.

  Community of the Resurrection

  In his Third Sermon, Bernard describes three stages of the soul’s existence: in the corruptible body, without the body, and with the glorified body. The threefold stages of the soul’s existence might lead one to ask whether Bernard envisions three distinct forms of community, corresponding to each stage of the soul’s existence.66 Does Bernard have a vision of the resurrection community that is distinct from the community of souls in heaven before the resurrection?

  In the passage that closes the Life of St. Malachy, Bernard indirectly refers to reunion with Malachy, as he refers to Malachy’s burial. He talks about this reunion not in the context of a soul-to-soul meeting in heaven before the resurrection but as a coming together that takes place after the resurrection:

  Good Jesus! yours is the deposit which was entrusted to us. Yours is the treasure which is buried with us. We are keeping it to be transferred to you at that time when you propose to demand it. Only grant that he may not go forth without his comrades, but may we have him as our leader whom we had as our guest and grant that we may reign with you and with him too, for ever and ever [Rev. 22: 5].67 But the import of this passage is not that Bernard looks forward to meeting with Malachy at the resurrection instead of immediately upon entering heaven. Furthermore, in other writings concerning the dead whom he had known personally, Bernard does not talk about reunion at the resurrection. In his sermon on his brother, Gerard, and in his sermon on Humbert, he mentions the resurrection, but in neither case is it a scene of reunion.68

  It is true, nevertheless, that in a certain sense there is a new form of community at the resurrection. Although each individual’s battles are over the moment she or he enters heaven, the war is really not over until all who will be saved are there. In the following passage Bernard makes one of his strongest statements in these sermons on the importance of the resurrection community:

  For into that most blessed house they shall enter neither without us nor without their bodies, that is, neither the saints without the common people, nor the spirit without the flesh. Nor is it proper that complete blessedness be present until the person to whom it is given is whole nor that perfection be given to an imperfect church.69

  Certainly, then, the presence of the whole church makes the celestial city whole. But there is no indication in these sermons—and this is what is important for my concern—of any change in the relationship among the saints, of the flowering of a new form of community corresponding to the much-discussed resurrection.70 What then are we to make of Bernard’s avowal that saints yearn for us?

  That Church of the first-born await, and we are neglecting them; the saints desire us and we loiter; “the just await us” [Ps. 141: 8], and we pretend not to notice (dissimulas). Let us rouse [ourselves], brothers: let us rise with Christ, let us “seek those things that are above” [Col. 3: 1–2]. Let us desire those who are desiring us, let us hasten to those who are expecting us. With the desires of our souls, let us seize upon before hand those who are awaiting us.71

  Although Bernard asserts that the saints are waiting for the whole community of the saved and for the restoration of their whole selves, he spends more words and writes with far greater urgency about the resurrection body than about the resurrection community. The souls of the saints “want their bodies back.”72 They “solicit” their bodies, they “supplicate” God for their bodies, they “pray and cry out to the Lord for the consummation which is still withheld from their desires.”73 They do not cry out for the friends they had while on earth; they do not cry out for community. While it is clear that the souls of the saints await their bodies in order to experience fully the joy of heaven, it is not clear that they, for the same reason (if for any!), await their friends. The absence of body prevents soul from fully tending to God. Bernard makes no such claim about friendship or about community.

  The weighty consideration Bernard gives to the resurrection in these sermons indicates that he is finally more concerned with the whole self than with the whole church. Or, rather, when Bernard thinks of the community after the resurrection, he thinks about it as the context within which souls get their “bodies back.” That Bernard should focus on the resurrection community with the resurrection body in mind makes sense. The very purpose of establishing community between the holy souls in heaven and the monks at Clairvaux is primarily to rouse desire for heaven and to spur the individual monk on in his individual battle for heaven.74 The perfecting of the relationship between inner and outer person that is begun within the monastic community is not achieved until after the resurrection, when the soul receives its glorified body. It is true that Bernard insists that the happiness of the saved will increase at the resurrection. But this seems to be because on that “last grand festival day” the happiness of the saints will increase because distracting desire for their bodies is stilled—a desire that now keeps their souls from fully tending to God. Furthermore, their happiness will increase on the “dawn of that new day,” when the saved will for the first time see “God as He is.”75 But, it remains unclear what kind of causal relationship—if any—exists between experiencing the beatific vision and the gathering of the entire community of the saints.76

  Conclusion

  None of Bernard’s Sermons for All Saints contains a treatise on community among the saintly dead, and he has not produced such a treatise anywhere in his writing. Bernard does, however, refer to community again and again throughout his writings, and the topic would appear to be an important one for any study of his spirituality. Scholars have long noted a burgeoning in the twelfth century of new groups and structures that multiplied the ways one could “live religiously.”77 Caroline Walker Bynum has called attention to the studied equilibrium between self and community fostered in this period. She has argued that this century is characterized in part by a concern to think about self in relation to groups and vice versa—a concern, she contends, that is without parallel in the earlier Middle Ages. Bernard holds a position of pivotal importance in the twelfth century; his influence on his contemporaries was enormous. My research into Bernard’s sermons reveals, however, the surprising conclusion that—for all his emphasis on self, desire, friendship, and the common life—Bernard does not elaborate a theory of the heavenly community.

  Bernard’s conception of community among the saints in heaven is limited: although he does talk about common
experience among the saints and about reciprocity, or sharing of experience, interaction among the saints simply does not figure prominently in his thought. It appears that Bernard has not fully worked out the relationship between self, God, and the other who is a friend. Longing for the ecstatic loss of self in God in heaven, he nevertheless betrays some trepidation about what that loss of self seems to imply for the precious relationships we have established on earth. Known for the fervent friendships he carefully cultivated in life, Bernard’s heaven is not, as I noted above, restitution for the toll on friendship that death takes. Although memory guarantees the continuation of self, the way we love in heaven seems to move us away from the self we were on earth as our wills dissolve into the will of God. Nor does Bernard have a conception of community after the resurrection that is distinct from the community among all souls before the Final Judgment. Indeed, Bernard has a far greater interest in the resurrected person than in the resurrection community. In his vision of the glory of eternity, it is this self—whole at last and tending to God with a desire that will never diminish and that will be bathed in utter satisfaction always—that enthralls Bernard.

  Heaven in View

  The Place of the Elect in an Illuminated Book of Hours

  Harvey Stahl

  For the Faithful in the later Middle Ages, the afterworld was not the place it used to be. It was larger and in many ways nearer. Although the bliss of heaven, which the righteous hoped to enjoy after the Last Judgment, was still the distant ideal, the living were increasingly occupied with the fate of the human soul on the long road between death and the general resurrection, with an intermediate stage in which purged souls could benefit from prayers recited in this world and in which the righteous already enjoyed the company of saints. This shift in interest, which is evidenced in theological and visionary texts as well as in penitential and funerary practices, is also registered in the visual arts. From the late thirteenth century, it not only appears in scenes of purgatory but is elaborated in a large and varied group of images showing Christ and Mary enthroned with multitudes of saints and the blessed faithful. Where is this place in the afterworld? What is experienced there? How does it differ from the Jerusalemic ideal? This essay responds to these questions as they are raised in the illuminated frontispieces to a Book of Hours made in France about 1315–20. The illumination suggests that unlike the imagery of purgatory, which developed primarily within Last Judgment iconography, these scenes of the heavenly court arose largely from the imagery of the Triumph of the Virgin, a subject that also had eschatological implications. And because these frontispieces employ the imagery of reliquaries and utilize their characteristic strategies of presence and revelation, they raise issues of bodily continuity and perception at a time when both were central to debates about the soul’s knowledge of God before the general resurrection.

  The two frontispieces that are our subject are found in a richly illuminated Book of Hours preserved in the Bibliothèque Municipale at Cambrai.1 The illuminations are preceded by the usual liturgical calendar and followed by the Hours of the Virgin and other prayers in Latin and in French.2 Several initials in the text show the patrons—a lord and lady—and their arms. They are usually identified as Isabeau de Rumigny and Gaucher de Châtillon d’Autresche, châtelain de Bar, who were married in 1312, a date that accords with the style of the initials.3 That style is also found in manuscripts created in Cambrai, Thérouanne, and Amiens.4 Although the two full-page miniatures are contemporary with the rest of the book, they are on heavier parchment and were each painted by artists who did not work in the rest of the book. Thus there is no way to know if the two full-page miniatures were planned from the outset or added soon afterwards, possibly in response to the unusual program of text illuminations, as has recently been suggested.5

  Figure 1. Infancy scenes. Book of Hours, Cambrai, Bibl. Mun. ms 87, fol. 16v. Photo: author.

  Both frontispiece miniatures are illuminated on the verso. The first is divided into four separately framed compartments illustrating the Annunciation, Nativity, Adoration of the Magi, and Presentation in the Temple (Figure 1). Each of these scenes is painted on a separate piece of parchment that has been pasted onto the page and then surrounded by a common frame. I shall return to this unusual composite page shortly.

  The page facing the Infancy cycle is blank, but on its verso is an illumination showing an elaborate building with contemporary Gothic details, seen in a kind of transverse cross-section (Figure 2). Its interior is divided into three stories with central, intermediate, and lateral spaces, all filled with figures. These figures and their arrangement warrant careful inspection. In the top central compartment are Christ and Mary, both nimbed, crowned, and wearing golden robes.6 Mary holds a book and gestures with an open hand to Christ, who sits to her right and blesses her. In each of the adjacent spaces stands an angel, one bowing a vielle and the other playing a portable organ. Beyond them to the left is a large group of nimbed male saints and, to the right, crowned female saints, all gesturing toward the center. Below Mary and Christ, in the second level, is a large central figure who wears a papal tiara and faces outward, his hands together in prayer. The surrounding figures, largely ecclesiastics, all turn toward him.7 In the adjoining spaces are angels, one plucking a guitern and the other a psaltery, and, beyond them, male saints at the left and female saints at the right.8 At the lowest level, the central compartment is divided into two, again by gender, this time with unclothed men and women, all with tiny red and blue flowers penned over their bodies. Next to them angels play a harp and a bagpipe. At the extreme sides are saints on horseback, each riding toward the center. The left one is dressed in full ceremonial armor and is probably St. George; at the right St. Martin cuts his cloak for the beggar.9 Other figures are outside this structure. Just above the roof line are two censing angels. Four corner medallions overlap the frame: in the two upper ones are seraphim; in each of the two lower ones an angel stands between small trees and lifts a bird up toward the main compartment. In the lateral medallions, which the frame overlaps, are Ecclesia with her chalice and banner and, at the right, the blindfolded Synagogue.

  Figure 2. Mary, Christ, and the faithful elect. Book of Hours, Cambrai, Bibl. Mun. ms 87, fol. 17V. Photo: Médiathèque Municipale, Cambrai.

  The subject of the painting has been variously interpreted. It has been identified as a Coronation of the Virgin, but Mary is not being crowned—she already is—nor is she offered a scepter or other regalia. Moreover, she is at Christ’s left, whereas in Coronation scenes at this time she is usually at his right. Nor is this a traditional All Saints picture, for then we would expect to see a hierarchy of saints beginning with the apostles, not one with such prominent churchmen and with the anonymous resurrected. Nor can this be an image of the Second Coming or Last Judgment, for the twenty-four elders and the resurrected Christ are absent, and neither theme would account for the range of musical instruments the angels play, which do not include the traditional trumpets signaling the general resurrection. And if these are the resurrected already enjoying paradise, then one would expect traditional attributes, such as the Fountain of Life, or to see the landscape elements within the architectural structure rather than outside of it. The Catalogue general refers to the subject as the City of God and in many ways Augustine’s text does form the basis for this painting which represents, I believe, the union in time of Christ and the earthly Church, as represented by Mary and the congregation of the faithful elect.

  A City of God manuscript created about 1120 at Canterbury will serve to introduce several of the most important themes at play.10 This manuscript also has two consecutive frontispieces (Figures 3, 4). The first is divided into three registers and shows, from below, men peacefully at work in the fields, or good regimen, then violent death, or bad regimen, and finally angels and devils competing for the souls of the deceased. One angel already lifts up a soul. Its presumed destination, seen in the second miniature, is a multilevel structure enclosed
by towers and a roof. At the top is Christ enthroned and blessing, with music-making angels in a landscape to either side; just below, at a second level, are the twelve apostles holding palms and seated between cities with open gates. The lower two levels form a distinct structure within the larger one, a building shown in cross-section, with niches defined by wide arches carried on heavy columns with detailed bases and capitals. This part is dominated by an enthroned and crowned female figure, presumably Ecclesia, holding a scepter and open book.11 Alongside her are two women who gesture toward holy figures with scrolls. Beneath are prelates and kings, also with palm branches, who face a central seraph before the open gates of paradise, with its four rivers extending into the margin below. I take the image to represent the Heavenly City to which the blessed enter to reign with Christ and the saints. It is not a straightforward illustration of the New Jerusalem for, in spite of the scales and the references to paradise, nothing in this two-page sequence suggests that the general resurrection and Last Judgment have taken place. Rather, following Augustine, it is the joyous place where the blessed reside in the spirit until the general resurrection, when they will be united with their bodies. But what then is this lower structure? It would have to be the Church that sojourns on earth but “even now is the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of heaven.”12