Welcome back to the Age of Cathedrals.
The entrance to the Gothic cathedral is a place of great theological truth.
And the meaning of the parable of the wise and foolish virgins that we
saw in our last time together is continued on the lintels,
the linear spacees just above the top of the door,
the tympanum or half-circle above the lintels, and the voussoirs or archivolts,
which surround the lintels and tympanum on all three doors,
which reproduced in three dimensions,
the power of Christ as a door from the Gospel of John 10:1.
"Verily, verily, I say unto you,
He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold,
but climbeth up some other way,
the same is a thief and a robber.
But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.
To him the porter openeth;
and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name,
and leadeth them out.
And when he putteth forth his own sheep,
he goeth before them,
and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice.
And a stranger will they not follow,
but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers.
This parable spake Jesus unto them: but they understood not what things they were,
which he spake unto them.
Then said Jesus unto them again, "Verily, verily,
I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep."
Here, we see an image of the central portal of the west facade of Saint Denis.
And here, the semi-circular portion above the door
known as the tympanum from the Latin word for drum,
and which is filled with scenes of Christ's passion, resurrection and ascension.
Above Christ, we see four angels,
two supporting the arms of the cross and the one just above him,
holding the crown of thorns.
On the upper lintel,
Christ is surrounded by the 12 apostles.
Immediately to his right,
the virgin with raised hands is clasping the veil.
And at either end of the row of apostles, we find angels.
The one to our left with a trumpet and to our right,
an angel with a flaming sword as in Matthew 24:31.
Christ says, "And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call,
and they will gather his elect from the four winds,
from one end of heaven to the other."
At Christ's feet, we see naked figures of the dead rising from their tombs.
Among them at the savior's right foot,
the image of Abbott Suger,
who can also be seen on the door apparently at the last supper,
again, at the feet of Christ.
The three archivolts above Christ's head contain the Trinity.
That is, God the Father with head,
arms, hands and feet visible.
The rest of his body is covered by the disk he holds,
which contains the lamb,
representing Christ, and the cross.
The dove of the holy spirit hovers above both father and son.
The whole surrounded by 24 elders of the Apocalypse of St. John,
seated on thrones and holding harps and golden vials,
representing the ultimate state of grace or of damnation at the end of time.
The three souls in the bosom of Abraham on the paradise side of the inner archivolt,
and a small figure whose hands are in shackles being turned
back on the hell side are drawn from Matthew 8:11 and 12,
where Jesus says that,
"Many shall come to heaven,
from the east and from the west,
to feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
But many will be cast out with weeping and gnashing of teeth."
The top angel on the hell side of the archivolt may be casting out one such rejected soul.
The scene of last judgment upon entering the cathedral is not new to Gothic architecture,
but can be found in this spectacular example.
The tympanum of the Romanesque pilgrimage church of Saint Foy in the town of Conques,
built in the 11th century in southern France.
Here, we can see an enormous scene of judgment in which
Christ sits at the center at the time of the last judgment.
The saved to his right and the damned to his left.
This sculptural frieze, which still retains elements of the original paint,
contains a whole program for the afterlife and is
spelled out in the levels of writing from above Christ's raised hand,
to the roof of heaven on our left and the roof of hell on the right.
On our left and Christ's right, the script reads,
"The company of saints stands happy before Christ the judge.
Thus joy is given in heaven to the elect,
to those who have conquered,
together with glory, peace, rest, and eternal day.
Thus stand the chaste, the peaceful,
the meek friends of piety,
rejoicing, secure, fearing nothing."
On our right and Christ's left,
we read just the opposite in the fate of the damned.
"Perverse men are thus sent down to Hell.
They are tortured, burned in flames.
And they tremble at the demons and groan perpetually.
Thieves, liars, deceivers,
the greedy and rapacious and criminals -all alike are damned in this way."
Under the hole and at the bottom of the tympanum,
a long band beneath the whole length of the relic reads as follows.
"O Sinners, know that unless you change your ways there will be a hard judgment."
And the judgment is hard indeed.
As we see in this detail of the entrance to hell,
and the devil shoving souls into what was known in the Middle Ages as a Hell Mouth.
To return to Saint Denis,
we see that the scenes on the lintel,
tympanum and the first archivolt illustrate the last judgment,
according to the Gospel of Matthew,
and are all about the separation of the just from the unjust,
the saved from the damned at the time of the last judgment.
Matthew 25:32-33,
And before him shall be gathered
all nations: and he shall separate them one from another,
as a shepherd divideth his sheep from his goats.
And he shall set the sheep on his right hand,
but the goats on the left. "
As we see on the scrolls that unfurled from Christ's hands to his right side,
the inscription reads, venite benedicti patris mei,
"Come O Blessed of my father," based on Matthew 25:34,
"Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand,
Come ye blessed of my Father,
inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."
From his left hand,
the inscription from Matthew 25:41 reads discedite a me maledicti,
depart from me O cursed.
"Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand,
Depart from me, ye cursed,
into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."
Thus, we see all on both sides of the entrance to the first Gothic cathedral,
a drama of preparedness and unreadiness in the parable of the wise and foolish virgins.
And above the door,
a drama of final consequences for moral worthiness and
unworthiness in the dead who rise at the end of human time from their tombs,
and are either cast down the left side of Christ
or right along the first archivolt above the tympanum
into eternal damnation,
or the souls that are raised to Christ's right, our left into eternal salvation.
The message couldn't be clearer.
Make sure that you are on the right side of the moral equation as you enter the church,
which in all its splendor and light,
offers an aforetaste of heaven.
Howard BlochSterling Professor of French
