#i love how schmidt shows the passage of time in this
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writing ask meme: 7, 17, 18 💜
7. What is your deepest joy about writing?
In real life, happy endings seem unachievable and few and far between. When I write, I get to guarantee that someone is happy. Even if it's not 'ride off into the sunset' happy, it's happy enough. It's now happy.
[usually]
17. Talk to me about the minutiae of your current WIP. Tell me about the lore, the history, the detail, the things that won’t make it in the text.
Truthfully, I started answering this yesterday and I had a much longer answer, but I closed the tumblr app in the middle of it. XD
My current WIP is a Nick and Jess surprise baby fic because they spend entirely too much time not being together, so I wanted to fix that. One thing that won't really make it in is the continued hesitance of Schmidt. I wanted to keep it fluffy and happy and, as much as I think that Schmidt especially, would have had some less than supportive things to say if they'd realized they were pregnant around the time they broke up in the show, I was NOT going to write that. :) Another thing that didn't make it in was a phone call with Jess and her sister or Nick and his brother. Their parents, yes. But I don't feel confident that it's not already too long and adding in their siblings would just make it longer.
18. Choose a passage from your writing. Tell me about the backstory of this moment. How you came up with it, how it changed from start to end. Spicy addition: Questioner provides the passage.
From Will My Love Grow?
"Did he call?" Richie shook his head and focused straight out of the windshield.
"No, he showed up in looking for Frank," Went answered. He looked over at his son, so much older and still, like this, so much the same little brat he'd been when he was 12. "Do you want to tell me what happened or do you just want me to drive you home?"
Richie hung his head, staring at the spot on his thumb he'd torn open. "Is there a third option?" It was a joke, really. He had planned on calling Went later anyway, but the fact that Went did, indeed, have a 3rd option- well, at the very least a stall before he had to pick one- made it easier.
The little diner was abandoned at that hour, too late for dinner, too early for late-night. Went pumped quarters into the jukebox and, like he always did when presented the opportunity, Richie punched in song after song. When he got to The Chordettes, he paused, flipping to the next record agitated.
Went let out a low whistle. "That bad, huh?" Richie looked at him, confused. "You've played Eddie, My Love on every jukebox you've touched that had it since you first saw it. You were probably 9? What happened?"
"I'm sure he told you," Richie said, flipping the card back and forth.
"He did." Went took a sip of his coffee, then folded his arms. "I want to hear it from you."
Richie stared up at the neon shadows chasing on the ceiling. “He scared me.” Richie told Went the whole story, how he felt, what they’d both said that morning. Went nodded along, following the story intently. “I didn’t know if something had happened and then this morning, I was so relieved that he was okay but I was so pissed because, then, why didn’t he let me know? If he had a project come up, there are payphones literally all over campus. We saved up to buy a cell phone for the car for just that reason.” Richie tapped at his napkin with his fork. He hadn’t meant to blow up, but Eddie had accused him of hovering and that was something he didn’t do. If that was what Eddie thought was hovering, what was he supposed to do. “So, I told him that if he didn’t want me around, I’d figure something else out.”
Went sighed, shaking his head at his son. “But you didn’t mean that.”
“Of course not.”
But that was where Eddie had gotten the idea that Richie was going to leave. “You know he thinks you do, right?”
He shook his head. “He can’t think that. He knows that I love him. He knows he’s my soulmate and I would never-” Richie took one look at his father and folded. “Is that what he thinks?”
“Don’t you remember what his mother said about you? About me ?”
Suddenly, it hit him. It all hit him. He didn't think about it much, at least not in a direct sense, but Eddie... Fuck. Eddie had gone through so much and, of course, him leaving when they had a fight was “Is he still at your place or did he go home?”
“I told him to go home. He might have stayed with Frank for a while, but that was hours ago. He’s probably home by now.” Went gave his son a soft smile. They’d figure it out. Still, it was nice to know that they still needed a little guidance, a swift kick in the ass every once in a while. “Do you want to get our food to go?”
“Yeah. And I should probably grab dinner for Eds.” Richie scooted out of the booth to go find their waitress. Went pumped in F8 on the jukebox and smiled as the familiar doo-wop song flooded the air. As Richie had done a million times since he was little, he turned around and stuck his tongue out pointedly at Went. Went returned it by blowing him a kiss off the tip of his middle finger.
This is actually thoroughly based off of a real life story for me.
My first crush was a boy named Eddie. I had a crush on him all throughout elementary school. Literally from kindergarten until the day I met [redacted for ick factor because you know me irl]. My parents used to take me to this little silver diner in Lancaster PA and Eddie My Love was on the jukebox. And, of course, me being me, I found it and, me being me, I would play it all the time. It was something I'd wanted to utilize in a Reddie story for ages and finally, I found a time for it. It's such a stupid little thing, but it's very true.
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Alpha City (Eckhart Schmidt, 1985)
#this is when she says she hasnt seen daylight in two years.. god#i love how schmidt shows the passage of time in this#ive had the guy on my mind since december and i dont know why!!!!!!#the music he uses in my beloved das gold der liebe was my companion while i was writing daily#alpha city#eckhart schmidt#caps
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ARC Review: Little Thieves by Margaret Owen
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Publishing Oct 19, 2021
Synopsis:
Once upon a time, there was a horrible girl...
Vanja Schmidt knows that no gift is freely given, not even a mother's love--and she's on the hook for one hell of a debt. Vanja, the adopted goddaughter of Death and Fortune, was Princess Gisele's dutiful servant up until a year ago. That was when Vanja's otherworldly mothers demanded a terrible price for their care, and Vanja decided to steal her future back... by stealing Gisele's life for herself.
The real Gisele is left a penniless nobody while Vanja uses an enchanted string of pearls to take her place. Now, Vanja leads a lonely but lucrative double life as princess and jewel thief, charming nobility while emptying their coffers to fund her great escape. Then, one heist away from freedom, Vanja crosses the wrong god and is cursed to an untimely end: turning into jewels, stone by stone, for her greed.
Vanja has just two weeks to figure out how to break her curse and make her getaway. And with a feral guardian half-god, Gisele's sinister fiancé, and an overeager junior detective on Vanja's tail, she'll have to pull the biggest grift yet to save her own life.
Margaret Owen, author of The Merciful Crow series, crafts a delightfully irreverent retelling of "The Goose Girl" about stolen lives, thorny truths, and the wicked girls at the heart of both.
My Review:
★★★★★
This book was SO GOOD. I love how it took a somewhat-obscure-but-still-familiar fairytale plot and turned it on its head so many times it was hardly recognizable by the end. Everything about it was so unique and fascinating, and I absolutely adored the characters.
Vanja is a force to be reckoned with, and her dry commentary was a joy to read. I highlighted SO MANY passages, especially the ones that contrasted the vaguely medieval Germany fairytale setting with some very modern phrasings.
Emeric, too, was a delight, especially when he and Vanja forgot to be annoyed at each other while sharing the joy of a chase/investigation and their own cleverness.
Ragne was wonderfully baffled at human customs, frequently disdaining them, and Gisele grew on me by the end, and I hope we get many more of this foursome's adventures.
I loved the taste we get of Death and Fortune and I hope they, too, will show up in future adventures. The villains (minor and major) were quite dastardly and it was so nice to see them get their comeuppance.
The writing is utterly gorgeous, with plenty of Margaret Owen's signature unexpected phrases that are devastating in their simple truth.
This is a story I know I will be revisiting.
*Thanks to NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for providing an e-arc for review.
Favorite Quotes
The piper she's interrupting looks both delighted and furious, and I have to agree with her earlier assessment: Her archnemesis is unreasonably handsome.
---
I am not going to smile at him. I refuse on principle. (The principle is: I've already met my emotional availability quota for the day.)
---
"Sorry--sorry--I'm not looking--" Emeric starts to back out of the room, spots the nachtmahr, and proceeds to visibly cycle through both fight and flight instincts at a speed heretofore unobserved in the common man.
---
(It might not surprise you to know the two most popular urns are copper and coal. Maybe that says something about human nature, but I also think it says something about personal budgeting. Buying good luck? In this economy?)
---
I want him to stay like this. Close to me, touching my face feather-light, like I am something precious, I am worth taking care. Like I deserve to live without wounds, not despite them. I want this moment trapped in amber, so I can hold it tight when I need it most.
---
There's a shimmering, intoxicating kind of thrill to it, this game between us. I am his puzzle and he is my lock, and it's an arms race to solve the other first. But somewhere in all the knots and twists and trapdoors, he turned to an arsonist, leaving his embers in my veins, smoke on my tongue, a fire burning softly in my heart. And it will not die easy.
---
I cannot believe I'm attracted to a human civics primer.
---
You would think the most formidable thing in Castle Reigenbach wouldn't be a reedy law library incarnate, but in that moment -- he is, because I believe him.
---
It's not a challenge; it's a quiet, immovable fact. For all my schemes and facades and artifice, I am not prepared in the slightest for the simple, devastating intimacy of being believed.
---
I don't know what's worse: that he's slipped into my heart like a knife, or that I like the feel of him there.
---
I'm at a loss for words. Probably because I'm having an extraordinary and overwhelming number of feelings right now, and chief among them is outrage that I am this attracted to a personified pocket ledger.
---
The oak door gives a surly rattle, creaking open with absolutely no regard for the heart attack I'm having.
"You're coming in, ja?" croaks the withered turnip of a doorman, before muttering something about frisky teenagers.
---
His voice echoes over the Gottenmarkt, which looks like someone sucker punched the treasury, and it spewed all over the plaza. (Adalbrecht. Adalbrecht was the one doing the punching.)
---
Above her floats Truth, who has taken the form of a wheel of eyes today. (As one does.)
---
Justice looks down, and while a skull can't frown, she is absolutely nailing the same feeling.
---
(This is where I have to admit I'm impressed he's coming up with the rhymes on the fly. Not bad for, you know, a horse.)
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People, May 25
Cover: Valerie Bertinelli Learning to Truly Love Myself
Page 1: Chatter -- Pete Davidson on a woman delivering drugs to his mother’s house during the pandemic, Regina Hall on looking forward to going to a salon after quarantine, Jake Gyllenhaal on his shifting priorities, Ryan Reynolds on isolating with wife Blake Lively and their three kids, Katy Perry on finding alone time while staying home with fiance Orlando Bloom, Cardi B on how she spent Mother’s Day
Page 2: 5 Things We’re Talking About This Week -- Tom Cruise prepares for takeoff, Cobie Smulders sparkles again, Robert De Niro wants to play Andrew Cuomo, Selena Gomez gets a cooking show
Page 5: Contents
Page 6: StarTracks -- Fun with Furry Friends -- Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas walking their dogs
Page 7: Priyanka Chopra Jonas and her dog Gino, Ryan Reynolds and a baby goat, Justin Theroux walks his rescue dog Kuma, Camila Cabello and Shawn Mendes walking her dog Thunder in Miami -- Please Adopt, Don’t Shop
Page 8: All About Family -- Lauren Akins and three daughters Ada James and Lennon Love and Willa Gray on Mother’s Day, pregnant Lea Michele and mom Edith Sarfati, Blake Shelton and sister Endy and their mom Dorothy, Mario Lopez and his sons Santino and Dominic
Page 9: Maren Morris and her first son Hayes Andrew, Chris Hemsworth and wife Elsa Pataky and his mother Leonie, Fergie and her mom Theresa, Kevin Hart and his pregnant wife Eniko and kids Kenzo and Hendrix and Heaven
Page 10: Sarah Michelle Gellar wearing the prom dress from the season 1 finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Brody Jenner on an electric surfboard in Malibu, Jessica Chastain FaceTimed a friend from a park in L.A., Prince Charles and Camilla Duchess of Cornwall placed flowers and a wreath at the Balmoral War Memorial to mark the 75th anniversary of VE Day
Page 12: Cute Couples -- Pregnant Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt gave husband Chris Pratt a quarantine haircut, Selma Blair and boyfriend Ron Carlson wore masks during a Mother’s Day coffee run, Eva Longoria and husband Jose Baston go for a walk, Jessica Alba and husband Cash Warren
Page 15: How Adele changed her life
Page 18: Heart Monitor -- Rob Giles and Caterina Scorsone separating after 10 years, Ariana Grande and Dalton Gomez going public, Cara Delevingne and Ashley Benson split, Ray J and Princess Love divorcing
Page 20: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s son Archie’s first birthday at home in Los Angeles
Page 21: Kristen Bell on pandemic parenting, Elon Musk and Grimes all about their baby’s wild name
Page 23: Katharine McPhee on love and a Smash reunion
Page 24: Passages, Why I Care -- Mackenzie Davis is helping educate girls in Kenya
Page 25: Lost to COVID-19 -- Roy Horn
Page 27: Stories to Make You Smile -- a beagle and a bunny forge an unlikely and unparalleled friendship, a tea shop turns TP’ing from a prank into a present
Page 29: People Picks -- Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. the Reverend
Page 31: The Great, One to Watch -- Never Have I Ever’s Maitreyi Ramakrishnan
Page 32: The Trip to Greece, Snowpiercer, Q&A Daveed Diggs
Page 33: Labor of Love, Lucinda Williams -- Good Souls Better Angels, The Story of Soaps
Page 35: Books, Star Picks: Quarantine Reads -- Katie Couric, Sebastian Maniscalco, Nikki Reed
Page 36: Cover Story -- Valerie Bertinelli loving the way I am today -- after decades of worrying about her weight the star, now 60, says she’s finally learning to find the joy inside
Page 42: Justice for Ahmaud Arbery shot dead while jogging -- he was killed while out for a run but it took 2 months and 1 viral video for authorities to make an arrest
Page 44: Double Talk -- Emma Thompson and Beanie Feldstein -- our funny friendship -- the Oscar winner and the rising star talk about accents, chocolate and their new movie How to Build a Girl
Page 46: Little Richard -- Rock’s Wild King -- the pompadoured star who launched classic hits like Tutti Frutti and Lucille was sexy, fierce and didn’t care about rules and good golly, what a performer
Page 49: Tracy Morgan can’t wait to hug everybody -- the proud dad and star of Scoob! and The Last O.G. is spreading love and laughter during lockdown
Page 52: DNA Expert CeCe Moore -- the woman who solved 109 criminal cases -- the genetic-genealogy supersleuth has turned murder into a science and forever changed the way law enforcement catches criminals
Page 57: When Stars Were Students -- High School Hopefuls -- as seniors these celebs aspired to do great things, now they hope to help inspire today’s graduates -- Yara Shahidi, Barack Obama
Page 58: LeBron James, Malala Yousafzai, Megan Rapinoe, Lena Waithe
Page 60: Jerry Stiller -- a life of laughs -- the comedian who became a superstar at 66 made a career from family, fatherhood and Festivus
Page 62: Andre Leon Talley -- in and out of Vogue -- he worked alongside fashion’s legendary Anna Wintour for decades and now he reveals what it took to win and keep his seat in the front row
Page 66: Creativity in Quarantine -- Masterpiece Makeovers -- people around the world are taking the Museum Challenge and reimagining iconic works of art
Page 70: Molly Sims finding joy and staying sane -- the actress and model talks about life at home with 3 young kids during quarantine and how a little humor always helps
Page 73: Face Masks We Love -- Andy Cohen
Page 75: The Best Drugstore Eye Creams -- Drew Barrymore
Page 87: Second Look -- Darius Rucker
Page 88: One Last Thing -- Wendi McLendon-Covey
#tabloid#tabloid toc#valerie bertinelli#ahmaudarbery#adele#archie windsor#little richard#ahmaud arbery#prince harry#meghan markle#justice for ahmaud#kristen bell#katharine mcphee#roy horn#emma thompson#beanie feldstein#tracy morgan#cece moore#jerry stiller#andre leon talley#molly sims#wendi mclendon-covey
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Required Reading
That was the first time in my entire life I had ever spent the afternoon in bed with a man, been rolled around and loved from head to toe, with no thoughts of anything or anyone else, with nowhere else to be. The first time my 46 year old body had ever received that much attention. It was heaven.
Vlad put me back in my body and back in touch with my sexual self. All of my parts came alive. He was an expert in technique and our chemistry was explosive. It is fair to say that it was the best sex I had ever had to that point, by a lot.
The passage above is from our beautiful friend Ronna Russell’s memoir The Uncomfortable Confessions of a Preacher’s Kid. You can read all about her experiences with Vlad in the captivating chapter posted here, and we feel certain that you will be as fascinated by her words and her story as we were! More from Ronna:
No one escapes religious cults without sexual damage and I was no exception, nor was my father. He came out as gay in mid-life, as did my own husband decades later. The oppression of religion tentacled into my self perception and took decades to unthread. This chapter shows how I got started reconnecting to myself. While I had no difficulty leaving religion behind as a teenager, I had no experience interacting in the secular world, like a real-life Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt without the humor and good looks.
Please visit Ronna’s blog here, and if you are so inclined, click here for the Amazon.com listing for the book.
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If You Were Here (2/9) [Tony Stark x Reader]
Read it on AO3
By: daphnethewriter
It’s hard to live this way… to only see someone through the other side of a screen.
Tony stumbles across a computer bug that’s more than just a bug. You need his help, but first you need to win his trust. Hopefully you can do it before time runs out.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
Words: 3,815 Chapters: 2/9 Language: English
Chapter 2
So, in his attempt to destroy it, Tony released the Cheshire into the rest of his system. Brilliant. And now it's making itself right at home. It's everywhere—the cameras, the PA system, the bots—wreaking subtle, but irritating, havoc. It watches him, tailoring its actions to his presence so it is all but undetectable for everyone but Tony.
Beyoncé blasts through the speakers in the background, as it does every time he's in the lab now. Tony stares at the holographic representation he created of the Cheshire's codebase. It's an approximation of what he trapped in the server, before it metastasized to the rest of the system. It's still… well… he wishes that he wrote it.
"Let's see what you're made of." He approaches the visualization to pick it into its components. Not that he knows where to start. The code is so intricately entwined, there's no easy access point to divide the functionality. He spins the visualization and enlarges part for easier access.
<You could at least buy me a drink first.>
The hologram shimmers and reforms, taking a human shape. Tony takes a step back. He recognizes you from your pictures, from the security video, from the hospital. Now you stand in front of him, shimmering with the reflected light of the hologram, as if you were really in his lab, barefoot in a Nirvana concert tee and ripped jean shorts.
<I think we got off to a bad start,> you say. <Though, in my defense, you were trying to kill me.>
"Amazing." Tony circles the hologram. You turn with him, so he's always facing you. Your expression is subtly amused, so lifelike. The program must be using the input from the security cameras to judge his behavior and adjust the hologram in response. But for it to create appropriate visual cues… there is a reason he never gave his AIs a visual form. The amount of coding would be monumental.
Tony returns to his workbench, pulling up a set of diagnostics to run over the program. Now that it's staying in one place, he might be able to get a handle on it. The monitor remains unresponsive.
<It's rude to ignore me when I'm talking to you. I need your help.>
"What could you possibly need?" he asks, trying and failing to elicit a response from FRIDAY. "You're a bunch of code."
<And a brain is just a bunch of neurons. Firing, not firing. Ones and zeros. Same difference.>
"So, you're a neural network." Of course it's a neural network. Groups all over the country were developing them. No one was close to anything like this, though. "Who made you? Caltech? Stanford?"
<No one made me.> Your voice contains a hint of impatience. <I'm a person, not a program.>
"So you say. Where are you based? How many servers do you need to run? They must have a massive cooling—"
<You've seen where I was based. I led you there.>
Tony's hands still over the keys. "The long-term care ward?"
<Gold star for you.>
"There was nothing there."
<There was me.>
"The girl?"
<Woman,> you correct him. <And, yes. You think I chose this visualization at random?>
"That's not possible."
<Yeah, I get that it looks that way.>
"That's not—"
<Look. I just need your help. I need you to get me back in my body.>
Every alarm bell in Tony's head goes off. An AI looking for a physical form. An artificial consciousness too powerful, too intricate to be manmade. A chill runs up his spine. He hits the command to flush the system without responding.
The room goes dark and the music cuts out. Your hologram flickers from sight.
#
To Tony's dismay, the system flush doesn't keep you out for long. You come back whenever Tony purges you, faster each time, as if you're learning the passages through the security by heart. He tries new tactics: guard dog protocols and a firewall with shifting defenses (that accidentally blocks Netflix and sends an irritated Clint into Tony's lab). You're persistent.
You favor the hologram view now, making your presence felt more forcefully than you had before. Sometimes you plead with him, always coming back to the same topic, but mostly you sit on the periphery of the lab, monitoring him as he looks for new ways to eliminate your annoyance.
That's what you are: an annoyance. You don't do anything to outright jeopardize anything, but Tony feels the red herring. You can be a distraction. He knows you're capable of stealth—you managed to stay off his radar for weeks. You could be employing a similar tactic this time.
<Why won't you help me?>
Most of the time, Tony ignores you, focusing instead on his work. Today he can't. Your holographic form lounges across the bench where he works, shorts and a crop top giving a generous view of your tattoos and a set of shiny dermal piercings along your ribcage that he had definitely not noticed when he saw you at the hospital. He stands to get away from you.
<You're just going to pretend I'm not here?> You reappear in front of him as he crosses to the suit.
He stops short, unable to suppress the reflex to keep from walking through you. "You're not here. You're not anything. And I'm getting sick of looking at you." He sidesteps you to reach the suit.
You reappear at his side, leaning against the shoulder of the suit, suddenly clad in nothing but lingerie. <You don't like looking at me?> you ask. You make a big show of looking yourself over, doing a spin for him. Tony… well, he can't really lie that it's appealing. The screwdriver slips from his hand. Normally, this would be all kinds of up his alley. Tony loves the assertive power play. And the lingerie isn't bad either. But you are a hologram of a woman who is lying comatose a hundred miles away. You're just there to manipulate him.
"Not my type." He turns away, abandoning the suit in favor of his workbench.
<What if I look like this?> The voice changes and a knife slices through Tony's heart. He doesn't want to look—he really doesn't—because he knows what he'll see. But he can't stop himself, so he turns. It's Pepper. Down to the last detail. From the tips of her stiletto heels to the hem of her perfectly pressed dress to the quirk of her lips to the stray wisp of hair that never stays in her ponytail. <You'd help me. Right, Tony?>
He swallows. "You're not real." The walls are suddenly much closer than they'd been before. There isn't enough air. Even if he goes, you'll follow him. You'll be waiting for him in his room or the kitchen, always there. It won't do any good, but he rises to leave anyway.
Blaire stands in the door to the lab, her hand raised to knock, a look of shock frozen on her face. Tony freezes too. Shit. She lowers her hand, eyes narrowing into discerning slits. [did I interrupt?] she signs.
Tony glares at your hologram. "Go away."
<Of course.> The Pepper Imposter smiles, hands on her waist. <Whatever you need, Mr. Stark.> You flicker out of view.
You little shit.
[you okay?] Blaire signs. [S-T-E-V-E is worried]
"Yeah, well, tell your boyfriend I'm fine."
[we haven't seen you in a while] Blaire comes further into the lab where normally she would stand on the edges. She isn't comfortable around Tony, never has been. It's not unusual for Tony to go for a few days without seeing anyone. It must have gotten really bad if Blaire noticed.
"Been busy."
Blaire hesitates, tucking some of her hair behind her ear. [did you make]—her fingers fidget over one another, a nervous tick as unconscious as a stutter—[girlfriend?]
Oh, fuck. Of course that's what it looked like. "No." The word comes out a little too fast, a little too sharp.
[S-T-E-V-E told me about P-E-P-P-E-R]
Oh man, Tony does not want to talk about this with Blaire. He can't handle the sympathetic look that crosses her face. It's… hell, it's a little like the look that Cap gives him sometimes. Maybe Rogers has been giving Blaire lessons on how to make Tony feel pathetic. "I'm fine."
[You broke your lab]
Boy, Blaire is chatty today. "It's none of your business," Tony snaps, then thinks better of it. He'll get an earful from Cap if he upsets his girlfriend. "FRIDAY has a bug. It's taking a while to work out."
[that why N-E-T-F-L-I-X broke?]
Tony rolls his eyes. These people. The security of their system is at stake and all they worry about is whether they can stream the new season of Kimmy Schmidt (apparently, Steve's new favorite). No, that's not fair. Tony hasn't told any of them about the breach. Mostly because if they knew…
"Did you have something you wanted?" he asks.
Her eyebrows pull together and, just like every time, Tony gets the feeling that she's looking through him. [S-A-M ordered pizza]
"Yeah, I'll be right there." It isn't a perfect solution, but at least the company will provide him with a much needed respite from you.
#
You wait until Tony is alone, which isn't until much later that night in his bedroom. Your hologram wears a tank top and pajama shorts, clothes you actually did wear when you were alive. Not that you're not alive, just that—things are confusing now. It's stupid, there's no reason for you to change the hologram's appearance, but you do, altering the clothing to suit the situation or your mood. It makes you feel… human. And when your brain pattern could be flattened down to a series of ones and zeros, that seems important.
<How was the pizza?> You try for light and breezy, an attempt to reclaim the good humor that you think will be most persuasive.
"Go away, Cheshire."
<I miss pizza.> you continue, flopping the hologram gracelessly onto the bed. <Were there anchovies? What about pineapple? Have you ever had them—>
"Stop it!" he snaps, throwing his phone at you. It soars through the hologram and shatters against the headboard behind. "Stop. You don't have favorite pizza toppings. You don't wear pajamas. You don't eat or sleep or breathe. Stop asking me to put you in that woman's body. I won't do it."
This wasn't the reaction that you expected. Apparently, the Pepper Potts gambit had been a bigger misfire than you thought. Far from gaining his sympathy, you've pushed him back completely in the opposite direction. You pause, only a few seconds to give Tony some space, but the waiting feels like eternity. This is your fate that he holds in his hands. <What can I do to convince you that I'm telling the truth?> This is the most important part, the part that you hadn't realized would be difficult: making Tony Stark believe you. <I'm a person, Tony. I had a life.>
"No, you—"
<I lived with my grandmother after I turned twelve.> You hadn't thought you could feel things, but apparently desperation isn't a feeling. It pulses through you, even without adrenaline to push it along, a demanding alarm in the back of your mind. <The first time I held hands was in fourth grade. Chris Chester. Behind the cafeteria trashcans.>
"That's not—"
<In middle school, I made out with my best friend's boyfriend when we played Spin the Bottle and she never spoke to me again.> Your voice through the speakers speeds up as you try to get all the words out before he flushes you from the system like he always does. <My first tattoo! It was a butterfly. I got it on my sixteenth birthday using a fake ID I bought with money I stole out of the cheer captain's locker.> Tony turns away to leave, but you place your image in front of him again. He stops short, as he always does, as if you were really there and, for a second, you have hope. <How could I make this up?> You ask, slowing your speech to normal. <What would be the point? I'm not a great person, Tony, but I am a person. You're the only one that can—>
"I can't!" he snaps. "Why don't you understand that? I can't help you because you're not real."
The pause this time is not intentional. Your mind whirs over itself, searching for anything that could persuade him. An eternity stretches in front of you, not quite existing, but not dead either. <What am I supposed to do?>
"I don't care."
#
Missions are a distraction. You've been quiet since Tony told you off, but that doesn't mean that you're gone. Until Tony figures out what you are and what you're really after, he can't waste time on stupid things like fascist dictators. Not when it means leaving you with unattended access to his equipment.
<Tony,> Rhodey warns over the com, <You have hostiles coming in hot.>
Hostiles. Real, live hostiles. The kind that shoot missiles and blow things up. Not the kind that send flirty text messages when Tony's in debriefings or who turn on the coffee maker whenever he needs a break. Not the kind with pleading, wide eyes.
A missile explodes next to him and he dodges just in time. Shit. It's lucky you haven't invaded the armor or Tony would be in real trouble. Just the memory of you is distracting enough without having to deal with you now. Whispering in his ear. Teasing, laughing. Hell, if it were actually you—not that Tony has a type, but you'd fit the bill anyway—that would be a different sort of distraction. But it's not. It's an approximation, at best. An illusion conjured to torture him with his own failures.
Tony whirls in the sky, avoiding two more missiles and crashing one of them into an enemy drone. The firework of pride is quickly shut down when he sees three more.
It's not like there is anything that he can do to help you anyway. Even if you are telling the truth, which—no, you can't be.
Tony zig zags between the incoming drones, barely skimming by, but crashing them into each other in the process.
How would he even get you into your body? It's not like there's a USB adaptor in your occipital lobe.
FRIDAY warns Tony of another attack coming from below. He rockets up and his pursuer chases him higher into the sky until Tony drops flares on it and sends it into a death spiral.
A single point of entry wouldn't work anyway. Brain activity is spread over the cerebral cortex; there isn't a clearly marked entrance and exit.
Tony blasts through a cloud to return to Rhodey's position. War Machine has three incoming hostiles, two hidden by a cloudbank. Tony targets the first one.
And even if there were a way to make the connection… there would be no guarantee that you would be compatible with—Why is he thinking about this? He isn't going to do it. There's nothing to do. He made up his mind. He'll figure out how to get rid of you for good and then he'll—
<Shit, Tony—> Rhodey's com cuts out. The second hostile had avoided crashing into the first, doubling the explosion. The shock rocks the sky and blows Tony backwards. He struggles to regain his orientation, firing his repulsors in an attempt to right himself in a world gone topsy-turvy
"Eyes on War Machine?" he demands of FRIDAY.
<Lieutenant Rhodes has lost consciousness.>
"Initiate emergency procedures."
<Emergency procedures offline.>
Tony lets out a colorful string of curses. "Where is he?" He catches sight of Rhodey tumbling to the ground in an uncontrolled spiral. Too far for Tony to reach him. He tries anyway, rocketing toward the earth at a speed that's too high for him to pull out safely, much less with Rhodey's added weight. He needs to override the systems on the War Machine suit, but he doesn't have time—he isn't fast enough to—shit. He isn't that fast. You on the other hand…
He opens all the channels leading to the home system, ones that he kept firmly shut until now. Desperate times. "Cheshire!" he yells, still rocketing toward the ground.
Your telltale flicker flashes across the display on his helmet. <Already here.>
"Rhodey!"
<On it.>
Tony doesn't slow his flight, not trusting that you'll reach him in time. The repulsors on Rhodey's suit fire, at first randomly, then with more purpose. His fall slows, but not enough. Tony continues his headlong flight toward the ground.
<Tony, pull up. You won't have time.> you warn.
"Not until he's safe."
<Tony—>
"Not until he's safe."
You swear eloquently in his earpiece. War Machine's repulsors fire more urgently, finally catching the necessary angle to right him seconds before he would have crashed into the ground. He lands rough, but in relative safety. Tony pulls out of his descent in time to make his own not so graceful landing.
"Is he—?"
<He's good. He's fine.> You sound relieved, though you can't possibly be.
Tony checks for himself, releasing Rhodey from the armor. Rhodey's chest rises and falls with each breath. Tony slumps back, suddenly too heavy to hold himself up. "I need medical evac now," he says into the com to no one in particular, then lays back on the ground.
#
Bars have terrible security cameras. In fact, most everywhere has terrible security cameras. That is something that you've learned from your time trapped on the net. And since cameras are often your only window into the outside world, they're extremely important. The Avengers' compound is a blessed exception. There are cameras everywhere there—high quality with microphone equipment. You know everything that goes on in the Avengers' compound.
Which makes the fact that Tony has gone to an outside bar all the more frustrating. You only find him because he starts popping up on Instagram. God bless social media. People all over the world are constantly uploading surveillance data. It's the perfect crowd sourced way to stalk someone. But while it's great to help you find Tony, it's not so awesome at helping you keep track of how many drinks he's had. You're guessing that it's… a lot.
Tony tried to keep you out of the Ironman suit. And he was successful for a while. But there isn't a security system you can't find a hole in. It's not his fault. You see things differently. It's like a colorblind person trying to match an outfit. His electronic guard dogs are easily distracted. His walls have holes he doesn't even know about. Breaking into the suit was only a matter of time. But you didn't mess with it. Tony saves the world in that thing; it's not a toy.
So, when he opened it up, actually invited you in… that was… well, wow. You'd feel flattered, if you were capable of feeling anything. He doesn't trust you, per se. But you're in a weird middle ground of not-quite-friends. If you never really look at it, it can be both hostile and affectionate. Schrodinger's friendship.
You watch Tony put away two more glasses of whiskey in the background of a bachelorette party's Twitter video. Tony Stark can handle his liquor, that's not a question. The man could drink a distillery under the table. It's why he's drinking that bothers you. You saved Rhodey. He's battered, but he'll be okay. Yet Tony is taking the injury to heart.
And maybe it's somewhat your fault too. You've run him ragged trying to pester him into submission. He's sleep deprived, desperate, and (you're pretty sure) touch starved. He would have been more on the ball if it weren't for you.
When he stands, he sways.
You follow the lightning connections through the satellite feeds that form a web of phones, zipping between lines, stretched into infinity and back, and land in Tony's pocket. You like Tony's phone. It's posh. All the connections are smooth and clean. The tech responds to even your lightest touches. Some hardware is like swimming through a bog.
You monitor the passing connections through the Bluetooth array, keeping a light touch on where you are by pinging your anchor points in the Wi-Fi ether. Tony should have called a cab from the bar. It'll be easier than finding one on the street. Especially the way he's going.
You feel the familiar tingle of the Lotus, Tony's favorite car. Its system purrs to life, lighting up a new section of the grid and welcoming you back with open arms. Tony gets in the car.
That fucking idiot.
You race into the Lotus, spreading yourself across the speaker system. <You cannot drive home like this.>
"Go 'way, Chesh," he slurs. He misses the shift a few times as he tries to put the car in gear.
<You're drunk. Let me call you a cab.>
"I'm fine."
You activate the flashers and all the lights on the dash. <Tony. This is not safe.>
"Get out of my car!"
The trap comes out of nowhere, like vines tangling around you. Each time you cut through one, three more spring up. When the hell did Tony have time to make this? You're too busy trying to disentangle yourself from Tony's trap that you can't stop the car. He's driving. He's fucking drunk and he's driving.
You reestablish your connection to the speakers, but it's shaky, cutting out whenever the trap renews its assault. <Tony—stop— fuck—car—asshole>
You can feel the car zoom through traffic, going too fast, not staying in the lines. It's equipped with sensors for this exact purpose. It could practically drive itself and this asshole is—
Or… you could drive it.
You collect yourself, concentrating into the smallest form possible. The trap swarms you, trying to engulf you. You wait until it almost does, then explode outward. You shred the program and half of the Lotus's nonessential electrical fixtures. The speakers go out with a bang. Well, it's not like Tony was listening to you anyway.
You find the car's central control. God bless power brakes. You slam on them. Car horns blare through the Lotus's microphones. More importantly, there's the wumph of Tony's head hitting the steering wheel. Serves him right. You hope it breaks his nose.
You wait, letting the purr of the Lotus' system sooth you. No drunken cursing comes from the cab. No new traps spring. Good. It takes some practice to get a hold of the car's steering and engine—the mix of hardware and software tripping you up—but you find them and coax the car forward toward home.
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‘It’s just a dress’: Teen’s Chinese prom attire stirs cultural appropriation debate
By Samantha Schmidt, Washington Post, May 1, 2018
It’s that time of year in high school, the season of the highly anticipated, stress-inducing rite of passage called prom.
Like many other teenagers preparing for prom, Utah senior Keziah Daum wanted to find a dress that would stand out, “something that would be more unique and bold and had some sort of meaning to it,” she said in an interview with The Washington Post.
Daum decided to browse a vintage store in downtown Salt Lake City, where she came across a red cheongsam, also known as a qipao--the high-collared, form-fitting traditional Chinese dress.
“I thought it was absolutely beautiful,” said Daum, who is not Chinese. She appreciated its high neckline, a difficult trait to find in many prom dresses. The dress, she said, “really gave me a sense of appreciation and admiration for other cultures and their beauty.”
On a Sunday after the dance last month, like many other social media-savvy high schoolers, she posted a photo in her dress alongside her friends. “PROM,” she wrote.
She had no idea it would elicit such a response.
“My culture is NOT your …. prom dress,” a man named Jeremy Lam tweeted days later, sharing the photos she posted.
“I’m proud of my culture, including the extreme barriers marginalized people within that culture have had to overcome those obstacles,” Lam also wrote. “For it to simply be subject to American consumerism and cater to a white audience, is parallel to colonial ideology.”
The tweet, which has been shared nearly 42,000 times, spurred an onslaught of similar criticism of Daum’s prom dress, with many people on Twitter accusing her of cultural appropriation.
It was the latest example of the long-running debate over the fine line between appreciating and appropriating culture.
Similar controversies over cultural appropriation have erupted in fashion and in Hollywood, across college campuses and in response to advertising campaigns.
Daum responded to the barrage of criticism by saying she meant no harm in wearing the dress, and was “in no way being discriminative or racist.”
“I don’t see the big deal of me wearing a gorgeous dress I found for my last prom,” she tweeted. “If anything, I’m showing my appreciation to other cultures and I didn’t intend to make anyone think that I’m trying to be racist. It’s just a dress.”
The Twitter outrage also prompted a wave of support for Daum. Many, including scores of people identifying as Asian Americans, defended her choice of dress, saying they did not consider it offensive.
“I am a collector of cheongsams, with Chinese heritage and I think it is ridiculous other people are judging you!” one woman wrote on Twitter. “As Chinese, we are very proud and delighted to share our cultural fashions with anyone around the world. I love how you wear the dress with confidence! You rock!”
Others condemned the attacks on the high school student who just barely turned 18.
“So this dude found a random girl online and convinced 100k+ people to bully her over a prom dress,” tweeted Ethan Klein, the man behind the popular YouTube channel h3h3Productions.
Daum’s Twitter followers skyrocketed from a few hundred to more than 14,000 within about a week. She began receiving thousands of direct messages, some of them cruel but many of them positive, telling her she had nothing to worry about. Her classmates and teachers at school have reached out to her, expressing concern and offering support.
“We’ve had to pull her away from it because it has gotten overwhelming,” her mother, Melissa Dawes, told The Post Monday night. “These are adults attacking basically a kid. … She wasn’t looking for this at all.”
Her mother found it particularly unsettling that “an adult male has attacked her for what she’s wearing,” something that has nothing to do with “her talent or her mind.”
“I’m proud of her for standing her ground because she didn’t do anything wrong,” Dawes said.
In the days since the photos went viral, Daum said she has made a point of researching the significance of the dress in Chinese history and culture. She also says she has learned about the velocity and reach of messages on social media, and the importance of being able to see her own posts from a different lens.
“This does give me a better sense of choice and being careful in what I say in posts and how it can be perceived differently,” she said. “It’s taught me to be extra cautious because you don’t want people to see it the wrong way.”
But at the same time, she said, “there are people who are going to find something to offend them no matter what it is.”
“I’d wear it again,” she said of the dress.
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Cover Reveal For An Echo of the Fae by Janelle Leanne Schmidt
(The cover art/design was done by the amazing Savannah Jezowski with Dragonpen Designs.)
Book Blurb:
Echo enjoys the peace and solitude of the Faeorn forest, regardless of how strange spending time in the “haunted” wood seems to others.
But on the cusp of her thirteenth birthday, the discovery of a family secret reveals why Echo has never been drawn to the sea like her mother. This discovery shakes the foundations of her world and sends Echo on a quest, not merely into the forest, but into the heart of the fae-lands themselves, to rescue the sister she didn’t know existed.
Elves, dragons, and fairy courts will put Echo’s wit and resolve to the test. But with time running out for her sister, will Echo even be able to save herself?
A fairytale adventure perfect for fans of The Secret of Roan Innish and The Girl Who Drank the Moon.
Endorsements:
“Enthralled by the terror, charm, riddles, and beauty of a richly depicted fae world, I devoured this marvelous book in two sittings! Readers of all ages will love Echo, a heroine strong in her weakness, clever and resolute amid her doubt and fear. An Echo of the Fae is sure to satisfy lovers of adventure and faery!” — J.M. Stengl, author of The Faraway Castle Series
Author Bio:
Jenelle first fell in love with stories through her father’s voice reading books aloud each night. A relentless opener-of-doors in hopes of someday finding a passage to Narnia, it was only natural that she soon began making up fantastical realms of her own. Jenelle currently resides in the wintry tundra of Wisconsin—which she maintains is almost as good as Narnia—with her knight-in-shining armor and their four adorable hobbits. When she is not writing, she homeschools said hobbits and helps them along on their daily adventures… which she says makes her a wizard.
Follow Jenelle around the interwebs to get news about latest releases and her writing adventures:
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Excerpts (if you choose to share an excerpt, please choose just one to share, thank you!):
My earliest memory returns often in my dreams. My mother’s soft smile caresses me as she bends down to kiss my forehead, my own tiny hand reaching up and trying to capture a lock of her long red-gold hair between clumsy fingers that refuse to obey my wish. A soft, sweet humming fills the memory, a tune that is both dear and yet unfamiliar. Eyes filled with love gaze down at me, and a gentle laugh, a man’s laugh, fills the room. Strong arms encircle us both, my mother and me, and I know I am perfectly safe. Perfectly loved.
Another sound permeates the memory: a rhythmic, rushing, liquid sound I do not recognize, but which fills me with a deep longing that threatens to burst out of my chest and leave me completely hollow. In the dream, it is merely a subtle noise in the background, but when I wake I feel a desperate need to find its source. Sometimes the longing clutches me so tightly that it leaves me gasping, desperately sucking in each breath as if through a narrow reed, my lungs screaming as though they have forgotten how to breathe the very air I need to survive.
It is rare to have a memory from such a tender age, especially one so vivid. And yet, that moment is locked in my thoughts with perfect clarity. During the day it grows distant and faded, but it has haunted my sleep in full, vibrant detail each night for nearly thirteen years.
So why is it that the face in my dreams is wholly unfamiliar to me? Why is the mother from my memory a stranger?
***
Echo sat on a salt-smoothed boulder, her knees pulled up to her chin, watching the other village children playing along the beach. Some of them traversed the shore collecting shells in wicker baskets. The braver ones waded out into the water, splashing and swimming in the gently rolling waves. A shudder coursed through her. Even if it were not early spring and the waters were warmer, nothing would induce her to go any closer to that surging surf and those unfathomable depths. Who knew what untold terrors the placidly sparkling surface concealed?
A cluster of girls stood in the wet sand where the waves lapped about their ankles, baskets swinging from their arms, the foaming water swirling at their feet. She imagined ghostly, watery hands reaching out to capture them, pulling them beneath the surface, deeper and deeper until all memory of light and warmth was long forgotten.
***
She lay still, listening. All was quiet in the house below. Or was it? A voice filtered through the hammering rain—Dadai’s deep rumble, and then Mamai’s treble answered, though Echo could not make out the words. Another rumble of thunder, and beneath its rolling bass, she could just pick out the higher-pitched creak of the front door opening.
Quietly, so as not to alert her parents, Echo crept out of her bed, dragging her quilt with her, and tiptoed to her window that looked out over the front of the house. Before the open front door, she could make out a faint rectangle of light on the ground below. Gusts of wind buffeted the cozy house, and she squinted into the pelting rain to see who might be going out. Then the hinges creaked again and the light disappeared, plunging the outdoors into darkness once more.
Through the driving rain, a hint of movement drew her attention to a shadowy figure crossing the yard. Echo strained her eyes, but she could not make it out. Then, a flash of lightning, another, and another, lit the sky in quick succession. Echo caught her breath. Walking through the storm, hair long and flowing unbound around her in the tempest, her skirts fluttering in the wind, Mamai walked heedlessly into the rain toward the tip of the peninsula. Echo stared out the window, willing another lightning bolt to scatter the darkness. When it came, she saw her mother descending the rocky stairs that led to the beach. Her head soon disappeared below the cliffside, out of Echo’s view.
Her head spun as she leaned her elbows on the windowsill. Where had Mamai gone? Why could she possibly need to be out in such a storm? No houses lay that way, so it couldn’t be a sick neighbor. The docks were on the other side of the peninsula, and anyway, if there were a problem there, it would have been her father who attended to it. The mystery of it lay heavy on her thoughts as she awaited her mother’s return.
But she did not return.
Echo’s eyelids grew heavy. She struggled to keep them open, propping herself up in an uncomfortable position in an attempt to stay awake, but eventually she succumbed to the insistent embrace of sleep.
***
Do the fae read books? Echo wondered suddenly, and voiced the question before she had time to consider whether or not it might be rude.
“We don’t read about life; we live,” Malilia replied. “And we learn, not from reading, but from living.”
“That’s beautiful,” Echo said. “And yet… hollow.”
Malilia arched an eyebrow. “Hollow? What is in your books that is so wonderful?”
“Everything!” Echo enthused, warming to the topic. “Why, in books you can be anyone, go anywhere. There’s a freedom to reading unlike anything else. When you read, it makes you think differently about the world and your own life, and sometimes it helps you understand what’s going on around you by showing you a different perspective. And… well… there’s beauty to be discovered in books, more real and more true because it’s only limited by your own imagination. And besides, it’s…. it’s just… fun!”
Malilia grew thoughtful. “This is something you care about.”
“Yes.” Echo felt a little embarrassed. She did not usually speak so forcefully. “I like reading.”
“I can tell.” Malilia’s eyes twinkled with amusement.
***
“You dare steal from the King of the Winter Court?” The voice reverberated through the air, its sheer, palpable power pushing Echo to her knees. The lantern dropped from her nerveless hand and clattered on the ground.
Echo bowed her head respectfully, racking her memory for every snatch of folk-tale she had ever heard about the Winter Fae or the Dark Host. “Forgive me, my lord,” she whispered. “I did not intend to steal from you. I merely seek to save the life of my sister.”
She heard soft footfalls approach across the sable ground but she did not dare raise her eyes, not even when she felt the touch of hot breath on the back of her head.
“You smell of truth.” The voice sounded puzzled. “Rise, seeker.”
Echo stood, wincing at the pain in her feet. But that thought fled with the rest as she came face to face with the largest tiger she had ever seen.
Upon reflection, it was the only tiger she had ever seen. But she was reasonably certain that, should she ever see another, it would be quite different from the monstrous beast that confronted her now.
Her eyes were even with his shoulders, and he stared down at her from his impressive height, his long whiskers twitching inches above her face. His fur was utterly black, the color of coal. Instead of stripes, Ritioghra’s—for it could only be Ritioghra—body was covered in swirls and whorls of gleaming blue, the same color as the Everflame. His eyes gleamed like two massive stars of an identical shade, and he gazed down at her with an expression of ferocious curiosity. He was utterly terrifying and utterly beautiful.
Terror coursed through her veins like ice, but the light of intelligence in his eyes gave her courage. “For-forgive me, my lord.” Echo gave a wobbly curtsy.
The tiger stretched with a lazy nonchalance. Every line of his long body rippled with power and strength, like the unstoppable force of a river about to burst its banks.
Cover Reveal For An Echo of the Fae by Janelle Leanne Schmidt Cover Reveal For An Echo of the Fae by Janelle Leanne Schmidt (The cover art/design was done by the amazing Savannah Jezowski with Dragonpen Designs.)
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Hyperallergic: Beer with a Painter: Emily Cheng
Emily Cheng, “Stupa Axis” (2016), flashe on canvas, 84 x 78 inches (all images courtesy the artist)
I feel quieted in Emily Cheng’s studio — to the point where I wondered, afterwards, if I’d even posed questions. A fountain is gurgling, and she has set out beer and snacks. The paintings invite reflection more than commentary. I had visited her studio more than 10 years ago, and at the time felt that she was a painter whose work fell outside the buzz around contemporary art; looking back, I feel as if she has been gently challenging us for years.
The forms in her paintings are suggestive of the most primary elements: the landscape; the body; religious iconography. Large circular and floral forms are often positioned symmetrically on her canvases. These forms radiate outward into planetary orbs, tendrils, and vertebrae-like networks. However, many passages are stranger, more imaginary, and less regular than one might expect: dreamy, painterly occurrences that can be bodily and abstract.
The paintings have a lightness in tone and surface quality, but they are forceful in their suggestion of movement. They seem to chart energy channels, and push us into spaces that can’t quite be articulated or described.
Emily Cheng in the studio (2015) (photo credit by Wolf-Dieter Stoeffelmeier)
Cheng lives and works in New York City. She received her BFA in painting in 1975 from the Rhode Island School of Design and studied at the New York Studio School for three years. She has had solo exhibitions at The Bronx Museum, Winston Wachter Fine Art, and Bravin Post Lee Gallery, New York. She has also been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Shenzhen Art Museum, Shenzhen, China; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei; Hanart Gallery, Hong Kong; the Ayala Museum, Manila, Philippines; Zane Bennett Gallery, Santa Fe; Byron Cohen Gallery, Kansas City; and Schmidt Dean Gallery, Philadelphia.
* * *
Jennifer Samet: What was your introduction to art and painting? Did you start drawing or making art as a child?
Emily Cheng: I can remember that as a small child, I was happy if you parked my stroller in front of a wall with peeling paint. There are family photographs where everyone else is looking at the camera, and I am looking down at the snow. I was mesmerized by the different colors of the sparkles in the snow. These things still fascinate me — when I see special paint splotches on the sidewalk, I record them on my cellphone.
In the fifth grade, I started oil painting and looking at images of Van Gogh, Gauguin, Manet. I also saw abstract painting for the first time: de Kooning, early Guston and Pollock. My father loved Western painting, so art was always part of my everyday life. There was no question of what I was going to do.
Emily Cheng, “Into Pink” (2016), flashe on canvas, 84 x 78 inches
JS: You got your BFA from Rhode Island School of Design but also studied at the New York Studio School. I remember that Nicolas Carone was an important teacher for you. Can you tell me about him?
EC: Yes, Nick Carone was the teacher who had the most influence on me. He talked about the image. All of his students heard overlapping and different things from him. What I heard was that there is a potential for unseen things — an implied image — in painting. There is a possibility for that image to have power, which can resonate long after you’ve stopped looking at the painting.
I also remember Leland Bell, as a visiting artist at RISD, giving a lecture on a Chardin painting. Before his lecture, the Chardin was just a still life with a little dog. As Leland talked about it, it became a superhighway running in different directions, with all kinds of passages and ways to move through it. It opened up and became three-dimensional — dynamic.
I studied with Leland and Elaine de Kooning for a summer session in Paris. We spent a lot of time in museums and we would be trailed by museum-goers, picking up interested people along the way. Leland was a beautiful enthusiast of the joy of paintings. He spoke about artists who were not so popular, like Raoul Dufy.
Bell opened me up to structure in painting. When you go through a Chardin with Leland, he is not talking about composition, he’s talking about structure. Structure is bones, the spine; composition is where you place and arrange things.
If you want to think about structure in drawing you can think about Giacometti. Giacometti was all about making the unseen connections spatially connect. Things have many relational points. That also influenced how I thought about the body when I left school.
Emily Cheng, “CosmicHead3” (2017), flashe on canvas, 47 x 35 inches
JS: How does your work relate to ideas about the body?
EC: A lot of my work has to do with how we reside in our bodies, how our bodies relate to gravity, and how we can (or cannot) connect to the universe. It is about the subtle body.
A lot of what I’m painting doesn’t exist in the visible world. So, to capture its enormity and its suggestive power, you have to be able to go into your imagination, which is not always cooperative. You pull out what you can from it. I want to tap into some kind of energy that can’t be named, or that hasn’t been visualized. Silence is the moment when I see the next step, or an image waiting to materialize.
That is why I don’t listen to music when I’m painting. The way I explain it to my students is that when you have music playing in your studio, you have two artists in the room. But one artist is already articulating much more clearly than you are. It’s the same if you listen to books on tape or the radio. I understand that some people need to be out of their thinking minds. I get that. But I’m not thinking much when I’m quiet. I am listening to being.
JS: Your work can also have a map-like or diagrammatic aspect. It also often plays with symmetry — with geometric forms and symbols radiating out from the center. Can you talk about that?
EC: I’m very attracted to diagrams and maps because I like the correlation between going through something in your mind, and the physical activity of moving through that space. When you look at a map of a city you are running a system through your mind. Then you go into the city and you relive that template, that configuration.
The interest in symmetry goes back to the experience of being dyslexic, and it has to do with the standing body. Recently I was amazed to find that even in my paintings from the early 1980s, I was thinking about the body, symmetry, and Chakra-like points. I didn’t know anything about chakras back then. I was just creating a point system for the standing body. Then I took this whole other odyssey of working with planets, centers, and arabesques that were very non-symmetrical and gestural. Now I find myself back in symmetry.
I see the paintings as templates for the body, and if they were asymmetrical, they wouldn’t feel like the body. They are also about bodies in the world and universe. About ten years ago when I was working on a book, I was flying back and forth to China. There was something about flying halfway around the world, so many times per year, that I started thinking about what that meant and felt like — being above the world, detached from the planet for a short period of time. Every religious tradition discusses death as being above the world, or out of the world. It gives you a long vision of history, life, the planet.
JS: Recently, you have been exhibiting frequently in China. Can you talk about how your work is tied to your Chinese-American identity, and how that may have evolved over your career?
Emily Cheng, “Feeling at Home” (2016), flashe on canvas, 72 x 60 inches
EC: Growing up in the suburbs as an American, with Chinese parents, I accepted everything for what it was. In the 1990s, people started talking about their roots. I thought it would be very interesting to go back into Chinese culture and examine it. I found some Buddhist cave paintings that were really outside of my own experience. This began my studies into Chinese art.
As far as identity goes, when I started traveling to China, and reading sociological studies of the differences between Americans and Chinese, I would observe certain characteristics, and think, “Actually, that part of me is very Chinese.”
I began reading Buddhist and Taoist texts. After I got over my aversion to Confucianism’s sexism, I thought Confucius had a lot to contribute as well. He is very interesting socially and politically, in context with Lao-Tzu.
I was looking at a lot of Buddhist art, Silk Route painting and court figure painting, which is very different from the tradition of ink painting. Lately I’ve been looking a lot at Chinese landscape painting. In the past, I never thought landscape painting had anything to do with my own work. It is so much about the lexicon of a particular style of brushwork. Now I feel really lucky to have that link to another tradition — one in which the vastness of landscape can be expressed through the gesture of the mark.
I found out six years ago that I am related to Lin Yutang, the 20th-century writer. He wrote annotated translations of Lao-Tzu and Confucius, as well as his own ideas of living. I love how Buddhism addresses the very mental aspects of the self-consciousness, perceptions of reality, community, and one’s role in the world. The Tao gets you to look and think about yourself as a physical body in flow with the greater universe. So, together, it is quite rich.
I try to separate the institution from the original texts or ideas. In working on my Charting Sacred Territories project, I wanted to trace all this rich imagery that we have inherited from the world’s greatest religions and to show the complex interconnectivity and genealogies of each religion — branches of sects, denominations, and groups. There, you can’t help bump into the whole structure of institutions. That’s what they are. And the institutions are often at the root of our problems today. But the devotional and philosophic aspects of religion, at its best, are beautiful.
It was the same thing that made me gravitate to certain Renaissance paintings when I first traveled to Europe. Some paintings are just above and beyond others. Some paintings of Madonna and Child are sublime, while others are run of the mill.
JS: So you tie the success or sublime quality in painting to the devotional interests of the artist? That is so interesting.
EC: I can’t prove it, but yes. In some cases, the painter tapped into ideas larger than the commission. Maybe they saw the universal qualities of the mother and child and were able to express it through form in an inspired, touching way. It is difficult to talk about, because art historians generally approach Renaissance painting in an iconographic way. That is how they are trained. This discussion includes concepts of auras, and things that can’t be seen, but only felt. Our rational minds resist that, but a fresh eye can see it.
I will say that when a painting clicks, it is something akin to that devotional feeling. It is something greater than the self. That is when it makes the ultimate connection. Not every painting does that. That’s why, for me, a painting that works is so beside the point. If it doesn’t have that click, that energy, that force, then to me, it is nothing. It’s just another painting that works.
I don’t start with a concept; I start with a feeling. If that feeling is prevalent enough, it will manifest into an image. These are things that are not easy to paint, and it’s not part of our daily experience to think about them.
I have never thought of my work, or any artwork for that matter, as a reflection of our society or our culture. To me, that’s just like adding more junk into the junk. I am probably making these paintings at a particular time and place for very particular reasons. I am always thinking about the timeline from 20,000 BCE to the present. I want to be in the dialogue of all time, and not just my time.
Emily Cheng, “Hinterglem II” (2016), flashe on canvas, 72 x 60 inches
JS: You utilize a vocabulary of different kinds of painterly marks: lines, dots, arabesques and other gestural brushstrokes, even drips. How do these come together in your work, and how are they related to different painting traditions: Eastern and Western?
EC: I have recently returned, in my work, to joining the templates and the systems with gestural marks. For a decade, for me, gesture only existed in drapery and drips. I started working again with gesture through ink on paper. I was doing a residency in DaWang, China, and the artist who had the studio before me left a lot of cheap paper and black ink.
I had never really thought I had the right to work in that medium, because I am Chinese-American and don’t write calligraphy or even read the characters. But I was staying in a fairly remote place, in the mountains just above a little village. It gave me the freedom to pick up this ink and paper and experiment.
At first I started making drawings of statues — early, small Greek and Cypriot bronzes I had seen at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. I was trying to find a way into these mute figures, these strange little statues behind glass. I felt that they retained a lot to offer us in this contemporary time.
By painting them, I found a way into their being by loosening up the gesture. Ink led me to freeing up the mark and feeling that it could become part of my repertoire again. That was something I hadn’t done in decades, really.
Now I think of gesture and line as something that can work together, in and around each other. Drapery in Renaissance painting is so tactile. In Chinese figural paintings, the lines are about spirit. The figures walk with swirling drapery flowing behind. It is a way to animate and bring life to the figure portrayed. So it’s the difference between the eye moving through form and space tactilely and sensually, and the felt spirit moving through line.
With line, you can move through the painting at breakneck speed. The dots slow the eye down, like an ellipsis, a pause, so that you are not doing a “drive-by” on a painting. We are conditioned to size things up very quickly. When you can slow the eye down, it is always a good thing.
Emily Cheng, “After Shen Shicong 4” (2017), flashe on canvas, 35 x 47 inches
I’ve always loved drips in painting. Drips announce that it is a painting and bring the viewer into the experience of the moment it was made. That visceral connection is a joy ride.
I don’t feel like I am building on one tradition, because that would mean being an adherent. I have an allergy to that. I am finding my way in the dark. If I find a few little things to hold on to, along the way, I’m very happy for the experience. I’m open to many kinds of traditions and practices, which overlap. Finding the connections between them is what interests me. We don’t have to pick and choose one thing, or be monogamous in that sense. Life is too short.
The post Beer with a Painter: Emily Cheng appeared first on Hyperallergic.
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Season 6, Episode 17 - “Rumspringa”
Jess is nervous about starting her new role as principal, so Nick and Schmidt take her on a relaxing day trip to Solvang; Cece helps Winston try to finalize his divorce from Rhonda.
“Welcome to Big Dinner, where the news is big and the dinner is regular sized. Not be confused with Big Supper, where we eat dinner and we watch the movie Big.” Jess welcomes us to the episode and I welcome you to this breakdown. Let’s just ignore that they watch Big often enough that they have a name for when they do so. Anyways, Jess and Schmidt have gathered the remaining roomfriends to announce their new promotions and as Schmidt puts it, “celebrate [their] final weekend inside the chrysalis of professional mediocrity before Monday, when [they] burst forth in fully pupated positions.” Let’s all give Jess and Schmidt a round of applause for their new positions as Principal Day and the Director of Non-Television, Non-Radio West Coast Marketing, respectively. Congratulations!
Winston interrupts their proud announcement with an announcement of his own: he has to divorce his wife, Rhonda. To be honest, I totally forgot about her. But Cece clearly has not because she tells Winston that she hates her. “Hey, that’s my wife!” Winston growls back, catching me entirely off guard and sending me into a fit of laughter. Nick comments that it was, “Such a good Harrison Ford.” Great point. Nick then interrupts the celebration to complain that Raisin said his room is stupid. Schmidt is livid that everyone keeps interrupting with all of their common topics. This is why he proposed Common Lunch! Too bad nobody showed up.
Jess tries to put the conversation back on the rails. She points out that she’s so happy and has been preparing for this job ever since she was young enough to believe leprechauns were real. Nick interrupts again to argue that they are real, Winston caught one. Before they can get into the leprechaun debate, Schmidt declares that it’s time for the rites of passage. To the tune of Pomp and Circumstance, Jess presents Schmidt with a new set of business cards and Schmidt presents her with her principal’s blazer. The thought that these two had this entire performance planned out might be funnier than the actual act. It’s quickly made clear that her blazer doesn’t fit and we skip to the middle of the night when Nick finds a frazzled Jess crazily adjusting it.
The next day, Nick approaches Schmidt to get a second opinion on his bedroom. Schmidt agrees with Raisin that it looks like he lives in an abandoned daycare. Nick disagrees because he knows exactly what that looks like. Queue flashback of little Nicky left in an abandoned daycare which is totally plausible considering his dad. “Okay, we need to talk about that a lot more later,” Schmidt is alarmed, as if he was also transported into the flashback. Nick changes the subject to Jess and how she is freaking out about work because he’s still the sweet, attentive guy we know and love.
The pair check on Jess in the kitchen, where she’s still crazily working on her blazer. She unconvincingly tells them that’s she’s “gawd.” Concerned, Nick and Schmidt retreat to his room to figure out how they are going to help. Nick reminds Schmidt of when he helped Schmidt in college by taking him on boy rides Rumspringa. We’re also informed that Schmidt took an Intro. to Environmental Feminism class—what even? Anyways, the decide to take Jess on a little Rumspringa of their own.
Meanwhile Cece is at the bar with Winston and Aly as they wait for Rhonda. Aly cutely coos over her ring and Winston grosses us out by saying, “I love that ring on your finger. I want to bite it off, and swallow it, and then digest it properly. And give it back to you in a day and a half.” This moment is interrupted by Rhonda’s sudden entrance. She’s holding a baby. Hopefully everyone caught onto her prank immediately because if not, Winston’s, “Now you listen to me, baby. My father walked out on me, and I swear I will never do that to you,” line will break your heart. Hell, I even knew it was a prank right away and I was still in awe over Winston’s sweetness. Thankfully Rhonda doesn’t string Winston along and reveals her prank. As we know, Winston’s taste in pranks is terrible so he is the only one to laugh along with Rhonda. Rhonda explains that she borrowed the baby from her obstetrician cousin, Dave, who is also in the bar. Cece points out that that’s a felony, not the two police officers in the room. Aly tries to play nice and introduces herself to Rhonda. She congratulates the engaged couple, signs the divorce papers, and leaves. Can we all agree that despite how annoying her pranks are, her enthusiastic tone is hilariously perfect? Unfortunately, Winston opens to the folder to see that she used disappearing ink and effectively pranked them.
Back at the loft, Nick and Schmidt barge into Jess’ room where she has unknowingly added two additional sleeves to her blazer. How did that happen? Wasn’t she just letting it out? Anyways, the guys suggest a boy ride/Rumspringa to take her mind off of her first day jitters. Jess adamantly refuses, citing, “Rumspringa is a hallowed Amish tradition, not a one-day buddy comedy. Second of all, I don’t want to go to a casino or a sexual petting zoo.” Schmidt explains that’s why they’re going to an old-timey Danish town oddly located in California wine country called Solvang.
At the craft fair in Solvang, Jess continues to pout and tries to leave. Schmidt tells her he paid for all-day parking so she’s out of her mind if she thinks they’re going to leave. That statement is vaguely paternal so we better get a Schmece baby in season 7 (#reNewGirl). Nick encourages Jess to have fun and picks up a sign from a nearby vendor. “Look at this sign: “When has it become a crime to rhyme all the time?” So true! And it’s really funny.” “Somebody just thought of that,” Schmidt chimes in. Nick’s truly grasping at straws, but it’s so endearing, I wish Jess would open her unusually large eyes! Instead, she wants to go home and practice her morning announcement voice. Schmidt thinks she’s overthinking this and tells her to exude confidence all the time like him. Jess tells him he can’t skate by on confidence alone since he’s the boss now. This scares Schmidt so they’re both freaking out when Nick reappears with a folksy, old-timey reenactment guy. This somehow convinces Jess to stay—Nick knows her so well—and she springs into Leslie Knope mode and starts firing off questions. But if you ask me, I’m 99.9% that’s not the real Ben Franklin. Wait, what? Before she can get through all 87 of her questions, he offers them Aquavit, which is a flavored spirit from Scandinavia, according to a quick Google search.
I guess Rhonda is still close to the bar because she’s already back and laughing at Winston for falling for her disappearing ink trick. Aly is justifiably furious and demands that Rhonda grow up and stop acting like Dennis the freaking Menace. Rhonda thinks Aly’s dislike of pranks is basic and is worried about Winston marrying her. She goes on say she’s never going to give Winston a divorce and she’ll prank him for life. Winston tries to reassure Aly and they’ll figure something out. It turns out that that something is agreeing to help pull a group Rhonda so she’ll sign the papers with permanent ink.
At Solvang, Jess gets hammered on Aquavit and Nick buys a quilted jacket that he wants to make into a throw pillow. Nick is going full country-living. When Jess tries to buy more Aquavit, the vendor informs her that it’s 4:30 pm and they close early on Sunday. Nick tries to keep the party going by taking them to the Aquavit cellar and inadvertently locks them in. To be fair, he really does keep the party going. Jess immediately starts shouting out the tiny window in the door that they need to pupate. “They don’t know what that means. Say something more accessible. Help!” Yes, much better, Schmidt.
After over an hour of being trapped, Nick is still trying to distract Jess like the perfect boyfriend we all wish he currently was. “Our bodies are trapped in this cellar, but our minds can go anywhere.” He switches his attention to Schmidt, who’s shouting that he’s the Director of Marketing for Associated Strategies out the tiny window, and asks him to pick a number. Schmidt picks 23, which is wrong. Jess picks 19, which is right. Same wavelength, those two. Nick tries to entertain them by saying a bird is going to pop out from the cuckoo clock that is for some reason in the cellar. Jess rips out the bird in anger and yells at Nick that they’re adults and can’t handle their problems by forgetting about them. Nick finally cracks, saying, “You’re right. Maybe I handle my problems like a child. Maybe I decorate my room like a child. I mean, I even undress like a child.” His flashback of trying to kick off his pants has me in stitches. Does he do that every time? “I’m usually the rock of this group. Once you lose old Nicky Miller, the whole thing falls apart,” He continues and starts to drink a bottle of Aquavit.
We return to Rhonda’s prank where Cece and Winston, dressed as nurses, rush into a delivery room with Rhonda covering her face on the bed. Dave, our second favorite New Girl female health practitioner, is in the room and lifts up the sheet to take a look. Aly’s jelly-covered head is poking up through a hole in the cart and scares Dave. She deadpans, “Wah. I’m a baby. I’m coming out.” Rhonda then reveals herself and “Rhonda’s” Dave. Aly crawls out from under the cart and starts to freak out that her skin in burning. Winston rushes to Aly’s side, worried. Rhonda apologizes to Aly. Rightfully so, because she just got Aly’d. Rhonda is impressed with her prank game and agrees to sign the papers and gives the couple her blessing.
Back in the cellar, it’s now 4:00 am. The guys have been peeing in bottles for hours and Jess is sad that she’s missing her first day. Nick promises that once they get out, he’s going to start growing up. He says there’s so much he wants to do like try cilantro, figure out what NASDAQ means, and not shimmy out of his pants. He also apologizes to Jess for kidnapping her, he just hated to see her with first-day jitters. Can they just start dating already? Jess realizes she’s being silly, she’s been preparing for this job her entire life. Nick suggests they toast with a bottle of champagne, which Schmidt points out has a wire around the cork. He channels his inner Nancy Drew and picks the lock, allowing them to rush out. Upon arriving at their car, they realize that they’re all too drunk to drive. Thankfully, Schmidt exchanged numbers with the reenactment guy and he comes to the rescue with the promise of getting on The Price Is Right.
Cece, Winston, and Aly’s storyline wraps up back at the the loft. The divorce papers are finally finalized. Winston assures the ladies that they’re good since the longest disappearing ink on record is only 42 minutes. Shouts to the blog I follow who pointed out that Winston has that memorized. Aly admits that she actually had a good time pranking Rhonda and that they could get into it as a couple. They can prank, have sex, and pet the cat. #RelationshipGoals. Remember when Winston’s proposal included his complicated relationship with God? Well it’s true, because he goes off on a tangent about how we are pranks because God pranked the animals with us. Aly finds this endearing and they kiss. Meanwhile Cece notices that there are adoption papers among the divorce papers and that Rhonda adopted Aly in Liberia. I guess she got the last laugh…? I hope that’s just a throw away line because I’ve had enough incestual relationships this season.
Jess makes it to her school just in time for morning announcements, but when Nick encourages her to get out of the car and be principal, she suddenly gets nervous again. Nick, like the sweetheart he is, asks Schmidt for a minute alone with Jess. Schmidt exits, saying, “Sure. A grown man standing around a bunch of ten-year-olds, holding bottles of his own urine. What could go wrong?” Now alone, Nick tells Jess he knows what’s wrong with her. She’s scared that she’s reached her goal. Jess admits it’s stupid, but Nick disagrees. “And as a guy who has never had a path like that, I’m personally really excited to see what happens next.” Then they stare into each other’s eyes. Jess, freshly emboldened, gets out of the car. She takes a few steps before realizing she forgot her blazer. When she turns back to the car, Nick gives her his new, quilted jacket. “But I thought you were going to make a pillow out of that,” Jess tries to give it back. “Ah, it won’t fit in my room. It’s not a good style for me. It looks great on you.” Jess thanks him and says, “And, Nick, I… I like your room the way it is. It already has a style. It’s… it’s you.” They smile at each other again and my heart breaks that they’re not together yet.
Originally Aired 2/21/2017
#New Girl#Season 6 Episode 17#Rumspringa#Recap#Breakdown#Spoilers#Zooey Deschanel#Jake Johnson#Hannah Simone#Max Greenfield#Lamorne Morris#Nasim Pedrad#Episodes#simplyadorkable
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Beloved Community
Back in the days of the civil rights demonstrations, before and after the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, much of the discussion among activists centered around building the beloved community. At that time, the ways this was done centered around action: marches, boycotts, and various other kinds of protests. Every time someone put their feet in the street, designed and handed out a flyer, or spoke out against segregation, that person was in the presence of others who supported their cause. Even if they were by themselves, they were never alone. Going to register to vote, a person carried the weight of responsibility and the great joy of knowing that he or she was acting on behalf of others, building the beloved community.
The unique building block of the civil rights movement in the United States was nonviolent civil disobedience. Today, people act like non-violence is an "optional" part of protesting, like it doesn't really matter. But it does. Non-violent civil disobedience Is a symbol of love. It says, "I am willing to put my body on the line to fight for your rights and freedoms." Not just that, but when the police show up at a peaceful demonstration and you turn to the person next to you and say, "I'm scared" and they look back at you and say, "Me too," y'all are building the beloved community one interaction at a time.
I don't think that the movement was able to adequately transmit this notion of the beloved community to the greater population in part because our people kept getting killed. Martin King is the most obvious example. Had he lived, he would have brought the tremendous energy of his movement into protesting against the Vietnam war. That would have been something to see. Movement folks would have introduced the hippies to the lyrics of Ain't I Got A Right To The Tree of Life, while the hippies would have introduced the movement folks to Jimi Hendrix's version of the Star Spangled Banner.
Even more momentous than that, though, would have been the Poor People's March on Washington, where Martin King sought to bring together working class people of all races. Attacking the class base of this country would have really shook things up. King could see the bigger picture, that economic injustice was keeping the working class people down, and that these folks needed to be lifted up to be respected for their vital role in society. The voices of hate stole that opportunity from us, but we just kept on keepin' on.
I am glad that John Lewis and Rev. C.T. Vivan lived long enough to see the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement, where people of every class, color and creed are gathering to denounce racism. For me, the most significant sign in the protest is the one that read, All Mothers Were Summoned when George Floyd Cried Out for his Mama.
Yes, woman holding the sign, you understand that your children are my children and my children are your children. Even though I don't know you, we are together in the beloved community.
Now we have the Wall of Moms in Portland, a bunch of badass women, many of whom have never been to a protest in their lives, who stand between the protesters and the police. Police spray them full in the face with teargas, but they won't back down. As they link arms standing together, the statement they make is: "Get away from my children, Machinery of the State. These people belong to me and you motherfuckers can't have them.
Yay moms.
Even in the midst of a pandemic, there are still many ways other than protesting that people are building the beloved community. The artist Panhandle Slim in Savannah, Georgia paints portraits of people along with inspiring quotes from them. Along with James Baldwin, Flannery O’Conner and Prince, he has painted the faces and quotes of police officers, the mayor, and people who have done good in his hometown. He is building the beloved community.
Some people are streaming events like reading books from their favorite authors or performing music to raise people's spirits. DJs have online dance parties. Others turn to a little light social activism, like Steve Schmidt's daughters who danced around the living room with handfuls of tickets to Trump's Tulsa rally. Teens looking for a new hobby have taken over 45's hateful Twitter hashtags so that when you click on them, you get KPop music videos. They made a million reservations in Tulsa, too.
The beloved community is growing. Every time you reach out to someone with a positive comment or maybe a sassy new mask, you are making a worthy contribution to the world. Maybe you can't march on Washington, but you can shop at a local business. You can adopt a pet from the pound. You can call attention to the seriousness of the pandemic by relating a story about what happened to your sick friend. You can call BS when someone seeks to instill hate and fear.
Even if it's scary, you can do it. Lots of us are standing with you and we will tell you we are scared too.
This is how we overcome the partisan divide, working together in this time and in this place. Whether we are talking about babies on the border, LGBTQ+ rights, or running the current administration out of the White House, our bigger task is always building the beloved community.
We can do this.
Now GO.
July 20,2020
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In the footsteps of Vincent van Gogh: A day trip to Auvers-sur-Oise
Vincent Van Gogh, Self-Portrait, 1889. © Musée d’Orsay, dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Patrice Schmidt.
This may have been the final self-portrait painted by Vincent Van Gogh. He painted it in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence and took it with him to Auvers, where he showed it to Doctor Gachet, who thought the painting was “absolutely fanatical”.
Less than 30 kilometres outside of Paris, the quaint town of Auvers-sur-Oise is a pilgrimage of sorts for those on Vincent van Gogh’s trail. This was here that the painter spent the last seventy days of his life, living in a sparsely furnished room at Auberge Ravoux and producing eighty oil paintings and sixty-four sketches of the town and its people, before dying of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the age of 37. The artist’s body is buried in the town’s cemetery, alongside that of his brother Theo.
Vincent van Gogh, who had just left an asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence and was looking for a quiet place close to Paris where his brother worked and lived, arrived in Auvers in May 1890, having just left the asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Shortly upon his arrival, he wrote in a letter to his brother, “Auvers is really beautiful – among other things many old thatched roofs, which are becoming rare… I’d hope, then, that in doing a few canvases of that really seriously, there would be a chance of recouping some of the costs of my stay – for really it’s gravely beautiful, it’s the heart of the countryside, distinctive and picturesque.”
More than a century later, not much has changed in this ville fleurie (flowered city) as it continues to enchant the visitors with its old houses, narrow ivied passages and vast wheat and corn fields. Below, we take you through some of the historical sites and places of interest in Auvers-sur-Oise that inspired, or were the subject of, one of the most prolific phases of van Gogh’s career.
Auberge Ravoux (also known as Maison de Van Gogh)
Auberge Ravoux, Auvers-sur-Oise.
No trip to Auvers-sur-Oise would be complete without a visit to the Room no. 5 of Auberge Ravoux, the final address of Vincent van Gogh. His room, which has never been rented out since his suicide, has been restored and is open to public visits. Dimly lit, bare and unfurnished save for an old chair, a visit to van Gogh’s room fills one with a strange melange of emotions – awe, elation, sadness, loneliness – for being a part of the last, and perhaps, the most overwhelming moments of the artist’s life.
Vincent van Gogh’s Room, Auberge Ravoux, Auvers-sur-Oise
In the room next door, the visitors can see a slideshow presentation that explains the final days of van Gogh through his letters and paintings. Van Gogh’s body is buried in the village cemetery, a ten-minute walk from the railway station, next to his brother Theo, who died six months after Vincent’s death. Before the burial, van Gogh’s body was laid out on a table in the café downstairs, the coffin surrounded by flowers and his paintings. The funeral was attended by Theo, Doctor Gachet, the Ravoux family and some of his artist friends from Paris.
In one of his letters to his brother before the suicide, van Gogh wrote, “One day or another I believe I’ll find a way to do an exhibition of myself in a café.” The Van Gogh Institute, that runs the Auberge Ravoux, aims to fulfil this wish of van Gogh by acquiring one of his paintings painted in Auvers and exhibiting it in Room no 5.
A lovely café-restaurant downstairs serves traditional French cuisine and is open for lunch and dinner.
Auberge Ravoux (also known as The House of Van Gogh), Place de la Mairie, 95430 Auvers-sur-Oise. For more information on tariffs and opening hours, please visit the official website.
The House and Garden of Charles-François Daubigny
Vincent Van Gogh, Daubigny’s Garden, 1890.
Vincent van Gogh painted ‘Daubigny’s garden’ three times. In his last known letter to Theo, he described one of these paintings as being “one of my most deliberate canvases… Foreground of green and pink grass, on the left a green and lilac bush and a stem of plants with whitish foliage. In the middle a bed of roses. To the right a hurdle, a wall, and above the wall a hazel tree with violet foliage. Then a hedge of lilac, a row of rounded yellow lime trees. The house itself in the background, pink with a roof of bluish tiles. A bench and 3 chairs, a dark figure with a yellow hat, and in the foreground a black cat. Sky pale green.”
Born in Paris in 1817, Charles-François Daubigny was a member of the Barbizon school of landscape painting, along with Jean-Francois Millet and Théodore Rousseau, who painted realistic landscapes and people working on the land. Seen as an important precursor to the Impressionist school, Daubigny painted ‘en plein air’ (outdoors) often using loose brushstrokes. He also had a boat (named ‘Botin’) converted into a floating studio, to be able to paint waterscapes from the vantage point of the river, a technique that was subsequently adopted by Monet and several other painters.
Charles Daubigny, Le Bateau Atelier, Charles François Daubigny, Musée Daubigny, Auvers-sur-Oise.
The house and studio of Daubigny in Auvers-sur-Oise, completed in 1871, was in many ways a pilgrimage for several artists of the era, including Paul Cézanne and Corot. Van Gogh, who had also long admired the work and style of Daubingy, came to Auvers partly for it being the residence of Daubigny and his family.
House and Studio of Charles Daubigny, Auvers-sur-Oise. © Colombe Clier-MCC.
Daubigny’s house-cum-studio and gardens, classified as a historic monument, are now open to public visits. The quaint house, which is still the home and property of the artist’s descendants, contain many of his works as well the models of his floating studio. The walls, decorated with paintings by Daubigny himself, his children and friends, Corot, Daumier and Oudinot, have also been impeccably preserved and, along with the family memorabilia, are some of the highlights of this ‘house of the famous’.
House and Studio of Daubigny, 61 rue Daubigny, 95430 Auvers-sur-Oise. For more information on tariffs and opening hours, please visit the official website.
Daubigny Museum
A few meters away from Daubigny’s house, is the Musée Daubigny (Daubigny Museum) which houses four permanent art collections. The major collection features a large selection of paintings, drawings and engravings from the end of 19th century to the beginning of 20th century. The central focus of this collection is Charles-François Daubigny’s work, which is further supplemented by the works of his son Karl Daubigny, Jules Dupré, Maximilien Luce, Norbert Goeneutte and Armand Guillaumin. The museum also has one of the largest collection of Naïve art in France, as well as a collection of contemporary artworks by Alechinsky, Corneille and Otto Freundlich. (Corneille, one of the founding members of the CoBrA group along with Karel Appel, spent the last years of his life in Auvers and is also buried in the village cemetery, a few meters from Vincent and Theo’s graves.)
Charles-François Daubigny, Windmills in Dordrecht, Musée Daubigny, Auvers-sur-Oise.
As part of the 2017 cultural season of Auvers-sur-Oise – Sur les pas de Daubigny (‘In the footsteps of Daubigny‘), the Daubigny Museum is also hosting a temporary exhibition titled ‘Aux sources de l’Impressionisme’ (‘The sources of Impressionism’) from March 26 to September 3, 2017. The exhibition examines the exceptional work and artistic style of Charles Daubigny through a selection of 84 paintings, etchings and drawings. The show also emphasises on the evolution of Daubigny’s artistic process with a special focus on how he painted the riverscapes, particularly those of Oise and Seine, from his floating studio ‘Botin’.
Daubigny Museum, Manoir des Colombières, Rue de la Sansonne, 95430 Auvers-sur-Oise. For more information on tariffs and opening hours, please visit the official website.
Doctor Gachet’s house
In Auvers, van Gogh was under the medical care of Doctor Paul-Ferdinand Gachet, who was recommended to his brother Theo by artist Camille Pissarro. On meeting Doctor Gachet, Van Gogh wrote to Theo, “I’ve seen Dr Gachet, who gave me the impression of being rather eccentric, but his doctor’s experience must keep him balanced himself while combating the nervous ailment from which it seems to me he’s certainly suffering at least as seriously as I am.”
Vincent Van Gogh, Marguerite Gachet in the Garden, 1890.
The eccentric doctor, a practitioner of homoeopathy and a specialist of sorts in psychiatry, was a friend to many artists at the time. Renoir, Monet, Cezanne, Pissarro, Sisley were either his patients or friends, or both, and Gachet himself owned a large collection of impressionist paintings, some of them given to him in lieu of payment for his medical bills. Van Gogh, who initially found the doctor to be eccentric, was soon friends with him, seeing him “something like a new brother, for we are so alike, physically and mentally.” Van Gogh painted two portraits of Doctor Gachet, two paintings of the terraced garden and a portrait of Doctor Gachet’s daughter Marguerite Gachet.
Views over Auvers-sur-Oise from Doctor Gachet’s house and garden. © Prashansa Poddar for Urban Mishmash
The house, with its discretely-lit small rooms, some of Doctor Gachet’s instruments and other medical paraphernalia, visiting cards, other family belongings and memorabilia, shed some light on the ‘fairly bizarre’ personality of Gachet. The terraced garden, which still resembles the one in van Gogh’s paintings, offers picture-perfect views over the rooftops and surrounding wheat fields of Auvers.
Aglaus Bouvenne, Dinners of Eclectic Society, April 8, 1872. Doctor Gachet’s House, Auvers-sur-Oise.
In 2017, the visitors will also have the rare opportunity to view a rather eccentric collection of some bizarre dinner invitations sent out to the members of a Parisian society called the Eclectics Society of which Doctor Gachet was also a member. Between 1872 and 1903, the society’s members, mainly artists and poets, gathered one Monday of each month for a dinner in a Parisian cabaret. To announce this monthly event, personalised invitations were sent out to the members. Each such invitation came in the form of an etching, produced by the member artists. Doctor Gachet’s collection of these irreverent and often satirical invitations, which are now in the possession of the ‘Society of Old Montmartre’, showcase thirty years of artistic styles (pointillist, impressionist, academic, caricatural, etc.) as also the social and political issues of the time. The temporary exhibition of some 300 of these dinner invitations titled “The Dinners of the Eclectic Society” is on view at Doctor Gachet’s house until June 25, 2017.
Maison du Docteur Gachet, 78 rue du Docteur Gachet, 95430 Auvers-sur-Oise. Free entrance. For more information on opening hours, please visit this website.
The Absinthe Museum
The Absinthe Museum in Auvers-sur-Oise. © Prashansa Poddar for Urban Mishmash.
Dedicated entirely to the ‘green fairy’ that fuelled many artists’ and writers’ imagination in the 19th and 20th century, the Absinthe Museum is a gem of a place to visit when you are in Auvers-sur-Oise. Created by Marie-Claude Delahaye, the museum houses an excellent collection of some rare artworks, posters, advertisements, old bottles, absinthe fountains and other paraphernalia and makes for an interesting side-visit for those interested in the history, traditions and socio-cultural influences of this pseudo-notorious drink. An absinthe-café, reminiscent of the Belle Epoque era France, has also been recreated where you can also taste absinthe prepared in the traditional French fashion.
Honoré Daumier, ‘Beer? Never, absinthe is the only thing that keeps a man going!’. Le Charivari, 1863. Absinthe Museum Collection
For the 2017 cultural season, the Absinthe Museum is also hosting a temporary exhibition of caricaturist, painter, lithographer and sculptor, Honoré Daumier’s caricatures on absinthe. Daumier lived in Valmondois, close to Auvers, and often visited Daubigny to help him decorate his house. He created more than five thousand drawings and over one hundred canvases and contributed his sketches and cartoons on contemporary social issues to La Caricature and Le Charivari.
Absinthe tasting at the Absinthe Museum, Auvers-sur-Oise. © Prashansa Poddar for Urban Mishmash.
A little bit of trivia – sale of absinthe, that was banned in France in 1915, was finally re-legalised almost a hundred years later in May 2011. Contrary to popular belief, it is now perfectly legal to drink, and be drunk on, absinthe but whether it resembles anything that the poets and artists drank back in the 1900s remains questionable.
Musée de l’Absinthe (Absinthe Museum), 44 rue Callé, 95430 Auvers-sur-Oise. For information on tariffs and opening hours, please visit the official website.
Other places of interest in Auvers-sur-Oise
Auvers Cemetery and the tomb of Van Gogh
The village cemetery, where the bodies of van Gogh and Theo were laid to rest, is a short ten-minute walk from the railway station. Painter and CoBrA founder, Corneille who lived in Auvers in his final years, is also buried in the cemetery a few metres away from van Gogh’s grave.
Van Gogh’s Tomb, Cemetery of Auvers-sur-Oise
Chateau of Auvers-sur-Oise
At the time of writing, the Château d’Auvers (Chateau of Auvers-sur-Oise) was undergoing modernisation and is scheduled to reopen in Autumn 2017.
Vincent Van Gogh, The Church at Auvers, 1890.
Eglise de Notre Dame d’Auvers
Immortalised by van Gogh in his painting The Church at Auvers, the Eglise de Notre Dame d’Auvers is a small Romanesque-Gothic church dating back to the 12th-13th century. Van Gogh’s painting of the church can be viewed at Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
The Municipal Gallery of Contemporary Art
The Municipal Gallery of Contemporary Art is run by an artists’ collective GRAPS (Groupe d’artistes plasticiens). A free exhibition by the collective’s artists, all of whom live and work in Auvers-sur-Oise, is currently on view at the gallery. 5 rue Montcel, https://graps-auvers.jimdo.com/.
OPUS 37
The 2017 edition of this annual classical music festival of Auvers-sur-Oise is scheduled to take place between June 9 and July 7, 2017, at the church of Notre-Dame. This year’s performers include Matheus and Jean-Christophe Spinosi, Karine Deshayes, Pascal Amoyel, Trio Wanderer, Thomas Enhco, Emmanuel Rossfelder, Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante,
Henri Demarquette, Insula Orchestra, Accentus and Laurence Equilbey, Lucas Debargue, Annie Challan, Moscow Virtuosi and Vladimir Spivakov, Daniel Lozakovitch, La Maitrise de Paris, Philippe Cassard and Nathalie Dessay. More details and bookings.
Eat and Stay
Restaurant at Auberge Ravoux, Auvers-Sur-Oise, France. © Prashansa Poddar for Urban Mishmash
Les Relais de Peintres and the restaurant-café at Auberge Ravoux serve excellent French food and are open for lunch and dinner. More options for eating and accommodation in Auvers can be found on Auvers Tourism Office’s website.
Getting to Auvers-sur-Oise from Paris by Train
The tourism season in Auvers-sur-Oise usually runs from April to March. During these months, direct trains leave on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays from Gare du Nord, Paris to Auvers in the mornings and from Auvers to Gare du Nord, Paris in the evenings. On weekdays and during the rest of the year, trains to Auvers leave from Gare du Nord and Saint-Lazare stations in Paris. Please consult https://www.transilien.com/ for train schedules.
Map of Auvers-sur-Oise with the House of Van Gogh (All the sites mentioned above are within walking distance of each other):
The post In the footsteps of Vincent van Gogh: A day trip to Auvers-sur-Oise appeared first on URBAN MISHMASH | Paris.
from URBAN MISHMASH | Paris https://www.urbanmishmash.com/paris/city-guide/van-gogh-auvers-sur-oise-day-trip-paris/
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Baptism for the Dead in Ancient Times -- Mormonism and Early Christianity -- HUGH NIBLEY 1987
Baptism for the Dead in Ancient Times
In 1895 there was found in Egypt a Coptic papyrus purporting to contain an account of the teaching of Christ to his apostles after the resurrection. The most learned church historian of modern times, Adolf von Harnack, was prompted to point out that this document was neither “a provincial production of the Egyptian Church” nor a brainchild of the Gnostics, but an authentic statement of certain important doctrines of salvation and resurrection common to the whole Christian church at a very early date. Shortly after, Carl Schmidt, second only to Harnack in his knowledge of early Christian documents, produced a number of ancient fragments, matching the Coptic text word for word in a half dozen languages and showing it to be derived from the Greek original of an apostolic general epistle which had enjoyed widespread authority and popularity in the church at least as early as the second century. The subject of this epistle was salvation for the dead, a doctrine which, as Schmidt demonstrated, was believed in the early church to have been the main theme of Christ’s teaching after the resurrection.
As the early texts were compared with each other and with the testimony of the oldest church writers, it became apparent that the main weight of early Christian doctrine was not on the cross (the Blut und Kreuztheologie of later times) but on the work of the Lord as a teacher, marking the way of eternal progress for the living and the dead according to a pattern first followed by Adam, to whom the texts attribute an importance out of all proportion to the teachings of the later church. This new light on the early Christian teachings was not hailed with enthusiasm by some people, who for obvious reasons preserve a discreet silence regarding the many discoveries of recent years which call for a complete readjustment of accepted patterns and concepts. For Latter-day Saints, however, the new findings should be thrice welcome, proving as they do the keen interest among the Saints of the primitive church in the subject of work for the dead. The purpose of the present paper is to pass in review those passages from early Christian sources which can shed some light on beliefs and practices connected with baptism for the dead in ancient times. We shall see how the early Saints answered the question “What is to become of the righteous dead who have never been baptized?” a question that sorely perplexed the doctors of the medieval church who, lacking the knowledge of earlier times, were forced to choose between a weak law that allowed the unbaptized to enter heaven, and a cruel God who damned the innocent.
The Moral Question
When the Jew, Trypho, discussing the New Jerusalem with Justin, a Christian convert, asked, “Do you actually believe that you people will be gathered together and made joyful with Christ and the patriarchs and prophets, both those of our race and those who became proselytes before the coming of that Christ of yours?” the latter answered emphatically in the affirmative,1 having shortly before pointed out that
those who have done that which is naturally, universally, and eternally good are pleasing to God, and shall be saved through this Christ in the resurrection just as much as those righteous men who were before them—Noah, Enoch, Jacob, and the like—or even as those who have actually known this Christ, the Son of God, who was before the morning star.2
Says Clement of Alexandria:
It is not right to condemn some without trial, and only give credit for righteousness to others who lived after the coming of the Lord.3
For, he observes:
Certainly one righteous man is not different from another as far as righteousness goes. . . . For God is not the God of the Jew alone but of all men. . . . Those who live righteously before the law are to be counted as faithful and reckoned among the just. . . . God is good and Christ is mighty to save, according to principles of justice and equality, those who turn to him, whether here or in the next world.4
Peter, in the straightforward and convincing Clementine account, has only contempt for Simon Magus’ doctrine of limited salvation:
He saves adulterers and murderers if they know him; but good and sober and merciful people who don’t happen to know him, simply because they have received no information concerning him, he does not save! A great and good god, forsooth, whom you proclaim, not only saving the wicked but showing no mercy to the good!5
Wrote Irenaeus in the second century:
Christ did not come for the sole benefit of those who believed in him at the time of Tiberius Caesar, nor has the Father a plan for those only who happen to be living today; but it is for all the human family (propter omnes omnino homines) who from the beginning by righteousness pleased God and feared him in their generations, and dealt justly and religiously with their neighbors, and yearned to see Christ and hear his voice.6
This doctrine of universal salvation of the righteous is matched by the contemporary teaching of the Jews that “all who die hoping for the Messiah will be resurrected to eternal life.”7
The most conspicuous pre-Christian candidates for salvation were, of course, the prophets of old. Says Ignatius:
They too have proclaimed the gospel, and hoped for him [Christ] and waited for him. Believing in him they were saved, through union with Jesus Christ, being worthy of love and admiration, holy men [or saints], borne witness to by Jesus Christ and counted among those who share our common hope in the gospel. 8
While it would be hard indeed to deny salvation to God’s chosen men of old, it was another class of the dead whose redemption concerned the Christian convert most closely: what about his own friends and family who had never heard the gospel? That is the natural and inevitable question.9 One of the first questions that Clement, the ardent investigator, puts to Peter is, “shall those be wholly deprived of the kingdom of heaven who died before Christ’s coming?” To this the apostle gives a most significant answer: he assures Clement that the people in question are not damned and never will be, and explains that provision has been made for their salvation, but this, he says, is “as far as we are allowed to declare these things,” excusing himself from telling more: “you compel me, O Clement, to touch upon things which we are forbidden to discuss.”10
The Reticence of the Apostles
Why was Peter forbidden to discuss salvation for the dead with an investigator? If this text is called in question, we need only point to the New Testament, where on a number of occasions Peter and other apostles are forbidden to talk about certain things. That work for the dead is one of these will appear from a brief examination of one of the best-known episodes in the book, the promising of the keys to Peter.
Being alone with the apostles, the Lord began to sound them out with the question, “Whom do people say that I am?” The ensuing discussion led to the next question, “But whom do you say that I am?” To this Peter gave the right answer and was assured by Jesus that that knowledge had come to him by a revelation from the Father.11 Having passed the test, the disciples were ready for more knowledge, but the momentous teaching to which they were introduced is merely hinted at in three short verses of Matthew, 12 and passed over in complete silence by Mark and Luke.13 Plainly the apostles had no intention of publishing this thing to the world at large, and all three of them emphasize the Lord’s insistence on secrecy, Luke14 employing a remarkable formula which has puzzled all translators and which rendered literally reads: “But he, having pronounced a penalty (epitimesas), instructed them not to tell it to any man.” The word for “instructed” used here is a military term meaning “to give a watchword” and has an air of great solemnity and secrecy.
Now whereas Matthew has the discussion end with Christ’s admonition to secrecy, Luke and Mark tell only what he said after that warning, that is, after the great things had been revealed, and in both these accounts the words of the Savior are almost exclusively confined15 to the strangely negative announcement that the work is to be utterly rejected by the world, and that only suffering and death can be expected by the apostles themselves, who are charged, moreover, not to be ashamed of Jesus and his doctrine. Why ashamed? It was certainly no conventional teaching that the Lord was imparting, and he certainly predicted no rosy future for it in that dispensation.
The extremely abbreviated nature of this account (Mark and Luke do not even mention the “rock,” though Eusebius tells us that Mark, Peter’s own secretary, omitted nothing of importance from his gospel)16 has led to much misunderstanding regarding the awkward and ungrammatical passage found in Matthew 16:18. But it may be assumed that if we do not understand everything, at least the apostles did. And that is exactly the point: they heard everything, but of what they heard they have left us but a few terse sentences which run no danger of divulging “the mystery of the kingdom” to the uninitiated. If we are to believe Eusebius or the Apostolic Fathers, the New Testament scriptures are little more than a sketchy outline which without a special interpreter are as a code-message without a key.17
But why this emphasis on secrecy? The great Migne was hard put to it to explain how Christ could order his disciples to be silent on a matter which he wished divulged to the world.18 The only possible answer is that he did not wish it divulged to the world, so Migne remains hesitant and vague, eschewing any positive answer, for to admit the obvious would be to admit that we have in Matthew 16:17—19 not the public proclamation which later ages made it out to be, but reference to a special doctrine. And that we have here the teaching of a very special doctrine. And that we have here the teaching of a very special doctrine indeed is sufficiently indicated by the significant association of “the keys,” the sealing, and “the gates of hell.”
The Gates of Hell
To the Jews “the gates of hell” meant something very specific. Both Jews and Christians thought of the world of the dead as a prison—carcer, phylake, phroura—in which the dead were detained but not necessarily made to suffer any other discomfort.19 In the Jewish tradition the righteous dead are described as sitting impatiently in their place of detention awaiting their final release and reunion with their resurrected bodies and asking, “How much longer must we stay here?”20 The Christians talked of “the prison of death” to which baptism held the key of release21—a significant thought, as we shall see.
It is the proper function of a gate to shut creatures in or out of a place; 22 when a gate “prevails,” it succeeds in this purpose; when it does not “prevail,” someone succeeds in getting past it. But prevail is a rather free English rendering of the far more specific Greek katischyo, meaning to overpower in the sense of holding back, holding down, detaining, suppressing, etc. Moreover, the thing which is held back, is not the church, 23 for the object is not in the accusative but in the partitive genitive: it is “hers,” part of her, that which belongs to her, that the gates will not be able to contain. Since all have fallen, all are confined in death which it is the Savior’s mission to overcome; their release is to be accomplished through the work of the church, to which the Lord promises that at some future time he will give the apostles the keys. In one of the very earliest Christian poems Christ is described as going to the underworld to preach to the dead, “And the dead say to him, . . . ‘Open the gate to us!'” whereupon the Lord, “heeding their faith,” gives them the seal of baptism.24 Baptism for the dead, then, was the key to the gates of hell which no church claimed to possess until the nineteenth century, the gates remaining inexorably closed against those very dead of whose salvation the early Christians had been so morally certain. In passing it should be noted that this poem in its conclusion definitely associated the release of the dead with the “rock.”
Thus thy Rock became the foundation of all; upon it didst thou build thy kingdom, that it might become a dwelling place for the saints.25
The same idea is even more obviously expressed by Ignatius in what is perhaps the earliest extant mention of the rock after New Testament times, making it equivalent to
the high priest . . . to whom alone the secrets of God have been confided. . . . This is the Way which leads to the Father, the Rock . . . the Key . . . the Gate of Knowledge, through which have entered Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, Moses and all the host of prophets. 26
From which it is clear that Matthew 16:17—19, with its combination of gates, keys, and rock, definitely hinges on the subject of salvation for the dead, and the work by which they are admitted to the presence of the Father.
Those who fondly suppose that “the gates of hell shall not prevail” is a guarantee of the security of the church on this earth27 are inventing a doctrine diametrically opposed to the belief of the early church. If there was one point on which the primitive saints and their Jewish contemporaries saw eye to eye, it was the belief that Satan is “the prince of this world,” 28 nay, “the god of this world.”29 It is here that men are under his power, and here that he overcomes the kingdom of God by violence.30 “The days are evil,” says the Epistle of Barnabas, “and Satan possesses the power of this world.”31 Beyond this earth his power does not extend: Jehovah alone rules in the spirit world, according to the Jewish doctrine, and his angels stand guard over the wicked ones.32 It is on this earth that the devil is to be conquered and his power finally broken—he has no other stronghold to which to flee.33 When he goes to hell, it will not be in triumph, but to be bound and imprisoned there.34 His bonds are the “snares and deceptions” that “bind the flesh of men with lust,” and which will be meaningless after the judgment, when none may enjoy the prerogative of being deceived.35 When the devil rules hereafter it will be only over those “sons of perdition” who willingly follow his example.
The medieval idea that the devil is the proper ruler of the dead is a borrowing from obvious pagan sources, popular and literary.36 In the earliest versions of what eventually became the medieval Easter drama, the Harrowing of Hell, Satan and Death appear as rulers of different spheres: in the dialogue between them Death begs Satan to retain Christ in his realm, which is the earth, so that he might not descend and cause havoc in the underworld.37 This idea appears in the very old pseudo-gospel of Nicodemus, wherein Satan, boasting that he has overcome Christ on earth, asks Death to make sure that the Lord’s mission is likewise frustrated in his kingdom below.38 No less a scholar than Harnack after prolonged searching declares that he knows of no passage in which “the Gates of Hell” signifies the realm of Satan, or is used to refer to the devil himself or to his hosts.39
“The gates of hell,” then, does not refer to the devil at all; though his snares and wiles might lead men sooner or later to their death, delivering them “to the destruction of the flesh,”40 his power ends there. The gates of hell are the gates of hell—the “holding back” of those who are in the spirit world from attaining the object of their desire.
There is a great wealth of oriental legend and liturgy recalling how a divine hero overcame Death in a knockdown and drag-out contest—the central episode of the famous Year-drama.41 Sometimes the hero smashes the door of the underworld as part of his campaign. Contamination from these sources was sure to occur in the Christian interpretation of Christ’s mission to the “underworld,” but as Schmidt has shown at length, the early Christians never connect the two traditions: there is no fight when Christ goes to open the way for the release of the dead; he meets absolutely no opposition, and does not have to smash the gates, since he has the key.42How incompatible the two versions are is apparent in those early accounts which, characteristically, attempt to combine them. Thus when Prudentius, the first great Christian poet, tells of Christ’s visit to the underworld, he includes the gate-smashing episode, derived not from any Christian source, however, but borrowed from the tragedy Hercules Furens of the pagan Seneca.43
Thus in the Odes of Solomon:
And I opened the doors that were closed; I rent asunder the iron bolts . . . and nothing appeared closed to me, since I myself was the gate of everything; and I went to all my imprisoned ones to free them, so that I left none in bonds; and I imparted my knowledge without stint . . . sowing my seed in their hearts and turning them to me.44
Christ would hardly smash the gate if he himself were the gate.
The Restoration of All Things and the End of All Things
The unfolding of the great plan of salvation with “the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven” was continued a week after the “gates of hell” discussion, when the Lord took Peter, James, and John with him up onto the mount.45 The two events are remarkably alike: there is the same great care to insure privacy, the same limited and selected number of participants, the same mention of a long and important coversation, with the same reluctance to reveal what was said; in each case there is an outburst by Peter, mention of a direct revelation from the Father regarding his Son, the same strict admonition to secrecy, and the same full and explicit declaration that the message is not going to be accepted by the world at that time.46 The whole thing reminds one strikingly of the restoration of the gospel in the latter-days, when the great key revelations came in just such quick, wonderful succession to just such a selected few and by the ministrations of the same heavenly beings. Could Joseph Smith have worked that all out?
The Apostles awoke from sleep to find Jesus conversing with “two men,” Moses and Elias. Of this consummately important discussion not a word is given. The first utterance reported on the mount is Peter’s ecstatic reaction to what he had heard, and the apostle is described as answering someone: no mere Hebraism, as the churchmen would have it, for we are told that a conversation was already in progress.47 On the mountain the three apostles saw Moses and Elias not as essences, historic allegories, or lovely old legends, but simply as “two men.” They also saw Jesus glorified, and he did not dissolve into an ocean of being; “The fashion of his countenance was altered,” as was his raiment, but he still had a countenance and wore raiment, and the apostles, though they had been sleeping, recognized who he was. He did not see the Father, however, because, we are explicitly told, a cloud came and “screened” or “shielded” them from the sight, as was indeed necessary, since they had already had as much as they could stand and “were sore afraid.”48 Even if one renders episkiazo “overshadow,” as the King James version of the Bible does, one has but to consider that a cloud can overshadow an object only when it is between that object and something brighter than itself: if it “overshadowed” the apostles, the cloud, brilliant though we are told it was, must have shut off a still greater light. It was by just such a cloud that Jesus at the Ascension was “caught up away from their eyes.”49 Is God the Father a cloud? If not, then this was either a gross misrepresentation, or else the cloud was provided to screen a presence so glorious that the apostles could not support the sight. The voice they heard through the cloud was not an inner voice or a rational conclusion or the clink of a chain of syllogisms, but something that actually came “out of the cloud”; the voice of the Father did not come, as it might have, from any other direction but from the same direction as the light, for in this revelation when the most privileged of the apostles were seeing Moses, Elias, and Christ in their glory as they really are, they were also allowed to experience as great a proximity to the real person of the Father as they could stand.
Is it not strange that in the endless philosophical speculation that has gone into forming the creeds of Christendom from Nicaea to the present day almost no mention is ever made of the one instance in which the true nature of the Godhead was plainly revealed? Until the days of Joseph Smith it apparently never occurred to anyone to take the scripture at its face value. Why has this most illuminating passage of scripture been consistently ignored? Plainly because the whole episode has not been understood. The whole story of the transfiguration passes for little more than a theatrical interlude—something for plasterers and painters to work on. Yet as the four descend from the mountain, their talk is of “the restoration of all things.” That explains why Moses was there, for to him had been entrusted the covenant of the Old Testament, while the mission of Elias, the Lord explains, was “to restore all things.” As in their former conversation, Jesus warned the apostles to tell no man what they had seen and heard, and announced again with the greatest emphasis that the work was to be completely rejected by the world, even as Elias had been rejected.50 It is hardly surprising, then, to find these same apostles announcing a few years later that “the end of all things is at hand” (Peter), that “it is the last time” (John), and that the Saints should be “an example of suffering affliction” with no hope of rescue save in the world to come (James).51 What was meant by “all things” coming to an end? The universe and heaven and hell were not coming to an end, and neither was the world itself, for John states that the antichrist is just beginning to take over the church, “whereby we know that it is the last time.”52 For the apostles, the beginning of the antichrist’s rule is the sign that something else has reached its end, and what can that be? “The restoration of all things” and “the end of all things” obviously refer to the same thing—the fulness of the gospel. What Elias restored, the antichrist, as the Lord predicted, put an end to, “until the times of restitution of all things” predicted by Peter53 as a future event, when the fulness of the gospel would again be brought to the earth (Peter speaks of “restitution” and “refreshment”) as it had been in the days of the transfiguration.
Here it is time to mention a third instance in which Christ insisted on secrecy. No more obvious allegory could be imagined on the face of it than the parable of the sower; and yet the gospels treat it as one of the greatest of mysteries, as “the mystery of the kingdom of heaven” itself, whose meaning the Lord divulged only to the Twelve when he was alone with them.54 In every gospel version the challenge, “he who hath ears let him hear!” announcing that something of great import has been said, follows immediately upon mention of the three degrees, thirty, sixty, and one hundred. They are “the three degrees of glory,” referring not to the world at all, but only to those who have heard the gospel, understood it, accepted it, brought forth fruit, and persisted in patience.”55 This is the gradation and arrangement of those who are saved,” says Irenaeus, citing a doctrine which he attributes to “the elders,” i.e., those who had been actual hearers of the apostles:
The Elders say that those who are deemed worthy of an abode in heaven shall go there, others shall enjoy the delights of Paradise, and others shall possess the splendor of the City; for everywhere the Savior will be seen, according as they shall be worthy to see him. But that there is a distinction between the habitation of those who produce one-hundred-fold, and that of those who produce sixty-fold, and that of those who produce thirty-fold; for the first will be taken up into the heavens, the second class will dwell in Paradise, and the last will inhabit the City; and that on this account the Lord said, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.”56
Clement reports that the Lord ordered the apostles to preach to the world “for the time being” no doctrine beyond that of baptism, of which Peter says:
Be this therefore the first step to you of thirty commands, and the second sixty, and the third a hundred, as we shall expound more fully to you at another time.57
The fuller exposition, if it was ever written down, has never reached us, and the whole doctrine, certainly an important one, has no place in the teachings of the later churches, ignorant as they were of the great plan of universal salvation.58
The Teaching of the Lord After His Resurrection
The Lord admonished the disciples to preserve secrecy regarding what they had seen, heard, and discussed only until his resurrection. Until that time they were “to tell no man.” But whom were they to tell after the resurrection? Certainly not everyone, if Paul’s deliberate reticence toward the Hebrews and Corinthians means anything.59 In what they write after the departure of Christ, the apostles, like the apostolic fathers, seem extremely reluctant to impart knowledge of higher things.60 This is painfully evident in the gospels themselves. The real nature of the Lord’s work escaped the apostles while he was with them before the crucifixion.61 Such being the case, can a modern or medieval reader of their fragmentary reports be expected to draw any wiser conclusions from the events they describe than the apostles themselves did? A full understanding first came to the disciples after the resurrection, when the risen Lord in a great sermon, “beginning at Moses and all the prophets, . . . expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.”62 Of this wonderful discourse which at last opened the eyes of the apostles, we are only given the opening words: “O fools and slow of heart!”63 It was what the Lord said and did after the resurrection that established his doctrine,64 yet we are told only what he said and did before. If the New Testament, written some time after the resurrection, is silent on those things, we can only assume that they are being deliberately withheld. A goodly part of the Sermon on the Mount has been transmitted to the world, showing that, had the apostles so intended, the infinitely more important sermons after the resurrection might also have reached us. But the Sermon on the Mount is a social discourse, containing nothing that any honest man could fail to comprehend: this is not the sort of thing which needs to be concealed from the world at any time. We may be sure that it was a very different sort of matter which could only be imparted to a few in private with strict admonitions of secrecy, warnings of danger, and injunctions not to be “ashamed.”
What lends weight to these considerations is the fact that it was the common belief in the early church that the subject of that last great discourse was nothing less than salvation for the dead: indeed, that was only to be expected, the Lord having just returned from his own mission to the spirit world.65 While it was a favorite device of the Gnostics to gain a following in the church by claiming to possess written accounts of the secret teachings of Christ after the resurrection66 the rest of the church was not backward in producing scriptures dealing with salvation for the dead and bearing such titles as “The testament which our Lord Jesus Christ made with his Apostles after his resurrection from the dead and the instructions which he gave them,” some of these texts being of great antiquity and held to be authentic by the strictest Christians.67 The mere existence of these works is indicative of the keen interest which the saints still felt in a subject which the later church ignored. The fact that the Gnostics were able to gain an immense and immediate success in the church by spurious versions of these “last and highest revelations,”68 shows that they were exploiting a genuine hunger which the central church could no longer satisfy. We shall deal with this problem later.
Christ’s Mission to the Dead
The early Christians believed that Christ after the crucifixion descended to the spirit world.69 They had no special term for the place but designated it very loosely by a variety of vague and general expressions as, the lower regions (infera), those below (ad or apud inferos), the place of detention, the guardhouse (phylake, phroura), the lowest places (katotata), hades, the place of Lazarus, the regions beneath the ground (katachthonia—because the dead were buried there), the land of the dead, etc. Such freedom shows that no definite locale is insisted on, all the expressions making it clear that Christ was to be thought of as being among the dead but not in heaven, while any attempt to specify the location of the place is deliberately avoided. 70 The early Christians were so averse to a geographical hell (wishing to describe only a condition) that they did not hesitate to use pagan terms which if taken literally would have very misleading, implying belief in all sorts of outlandish things. Having no understanding of these things, however, the Middle Age could only take them in the literal heathen sense, with the result that Dante’s hell is a faithful reproduction of wellknown pagan originals.
As to the purpose of Christ’s visit to the spirits in prison, the early sources are in perfect agreement. “What I have promised you,” he tells the Twelve in the “Discourse to the Apostles,”71
I shall give to them also, that when they have come out of the prison and when they have left their bonds . . . I shall lead them up into heaven, to the place which my Father has prepared for the elect, and I will give you the kingdom, and rest [anapausis, i.e. rest in the midst of work or on a journey, not a permanent stand-still], and eternal life.72
Elsewhere he says:
I have received all authority from my Father, so that I might lead out into light those who sit in darkness,73
telling the apostles:
You shall become fellow-heirs with me. . . . Such a joy has the Father prepared for you that the angels and the powers long to behold it. . . . yet it is not granted them. . . . [Cf. D&C 132.] You shall partake of the immortality of my Father, and as I am in him, so you will be in me.
And when they ask in what form they shall enjoy this blessedness, the answer is:
[As resurrected beings] even as my Father raised me from the dead, so you, too, will rise again and be received into the highest heaven.74
Irenaeus says that Christ came “to destroy death, point the way of life, and set up a common way of life between God and man.”75 “He himself opens to us who were enslaved by death the doors of the temple,” says the Epistle of Barnabas, “and introduces us into the incorruptible . . . spiritual temple builded for the Lord.”76 “Until Christ came and opened the door, no one, no matter how righteous, could enter the presence of the Father. Only after the resurrection was a common existence with the Father and Jesus Christ possible.” Thus Ignatius.77 The dead were to be liberated that they might reach eventually the highest state of exaltation, the presence of the Father, in a word, the celestial kingdom.
Eventually, we say, for the highest glory is not bestowed in an instant, but must be achieved through a definite course of action. Christ opens the gates and points the way; the spirits themselves must do the rest. “‘Come out of bonds,’ he cries ‘all ye who will,’ calling those willingly bound who sit in darkness,” writes Clement of Alexandria.78 “Descending to the other world,” says one of the oldest Christian hymns, Christ “prepared a road, and led . . . all those whom he shall ransom.”79 And Irenaeus: “The Lord destroyed death and . . . showed us life, pointing the way of truth and imparting incorruptibility.”80 He is the way, the gate, the key and instrument of salvation, providing the means of passing from one state to another.
Through the door there is a definite order of exit from the lower world, says Origen, each biding his time: first “the prophets, then all the rest of the just . . . and finally the gentiles.”81 Justin states a belief common to Christian and Jew that there are stages or waiting-places along the way from the world of the dead to final judgment,82an idea expressed likewise in a logion attributed to Jeremiah and quoted by Irenaeus,83 who further informs us of a teaching of “the elders,” that all spirits released from confinement had to progress through a definite “order of promotion,” the whole process of salvation for the dead taking place “in separate and definite steps.”84 All spirits must pass through various prokopai, according to Clement of Alexandria, a prokope being literally a stage or station on a journey: “everyone is in a particular station at any given time, depending on his knowledge of God.”85 He compares this progress toward exaltation with advancement in the priesthood on earth:
For even on this earth, following the order of the Church, there are definite stages of progress: that of bishop, priest, and deacon. Such also, I believe are the steps of angelic glory in the economy of the other world, according to which, so the scriptures tell us, those are temporarily detained who are following in the footsteps of the Apostles towards a fulfilling of all righteousness in accordance with the precepts of the gospel.86
Anselm is thus not without authority (though suspiciously reminiscent of Philo the Jew)87 when he writes:
For whoever is baptized in Christ, to him heaven is opened and God above is ready to receive him [note that it is baptism that opens the gate]; but he must ascend by the steps of a ladder, which reaches from baptism up to God. . . . Even so the children of Israel . . . reached the promised land only by a long journey. So let no one who is baptized be lazy, but let him strive to reach his promised celestial home by the road of God’s commandments, and by the steps of the ladder of generation let him ascend if he desires to reach God.88
Christ Preached to the Dead
Following 1 Peter 4:6, it was believed in the early church that Christ preached “to them that are dead.” “For this reason,” says the Lord in the “Discourse to the Apostles,” “have I gone below and spoken to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to your fathers, the prophets, and preached to them, that they might enjoy their rest in heaven.”89 To quote more fully a passage already cited from the Epistle of Barnabas, “He opens to us, who were enslaved by death, the doors of the temple, that is the mouth; and by giving us repentance introduced us into the . . . spiritual temple builded for the Lord.”90 Christ is the king “of those beneath the earth,” says Hippolytus, “since he also was reckoned among the dead, while he was preaching the gospel to the spirits of the saints [or holy or righteous ones].”91 The same writer says Jesus “became the evangelist of the dead, the liberator of spirits and the resurrection of those who had died.”92 The idea is thus expressed by the author of the Sibylline Discourses: “He will come to Hades with tidings of hope to all the saints, and [tidings] of the end of time and the last day.”93 Clement of Alexandria is thus following the accepted doctrine when he says: “Christ went down to Hades for no other purpose than to preach the gospel.”94
A great favorite with the early Christians was a passage from the apocryphal Book of Sirach: “I shall go through all the regions deep beneath the earth, and I shall visit all those who sleep, and I shall enlighten all those who hope on the Lord; I shall let my teaching shine forth as a guiding light and cause it to shine afar off.”95 Schmidt distrusts the claims that this was a genuine Hebrew scripture, since it is found only in Christian translations; 96 but for our purpose that fact only enhances its value. Whatever its source, the ancient church received it gladly, as it did another Jewish text attributed to Jeremiah and quoted by Justin and (no less than five times) by Irenaeus: “The Lord God hath remembered his dead among those of Israel who have been laid in the place of burial, and has gone down to announce to them the tidings of his salvation.”97 The Christians angrily accused the Jews of having expunged this passage from their scripture in order to damage the Christian cause, from which it would appear that the doctrine of salvation for the dead was a major issue in those early times, and a most precious possession of the church.98
In all these texts we are told that Jesus did not simply “harrow” hell and empty it with a single clap of thunder, as was later imagined. The whole emphasis in the Descensus was on the Kerygma, or the Lord’s preaching of the gospel.99 He preached the gospel in the spirit world exactly as he had done in this one. Our informants insist, in fact, that Christ’s mission below was simply a continuation of his earthly mission, which it resembles in detail. The spirits there join his church exactly like their mortal descendants, and by the same ordinances.
“Descending into the other world,” says the old hymn, Christ “prepared a road, and led in his footsteps all those whom he shall ransom, leading them into his flock, there to become indistinguishably mingled with the rest of his sheep.”100 “I made a congregation of the living in the realm of the dead,” says the Lord in the Odes of Solomon, “I spake to them with living lips . . . and sealed my name upon their heads, because they are free and belong to me.”101 Another Ode says: “I went to all my imprisoned ones to free them . . . and they gathered themselves together to me and were rescued; because they were members of me and I was their head.”102 “He went down alone,” writes Eusebius, citing a popular formula, “but mounted up again with a great host towards the Father.”103 Tertullian is more specific: “Christ . . . did not ascend to the higher heavens until he had descended to the lower regions [lit. lower parts of the worlds], there to make the patriarchs and prophets his compotes.”104 The word compos [singular form] in Tertullian always denotes “one who shares secret knowledge;”105 he made them his disciples in the other world.
Though rejected at his first coming, says Irenaeus, Christ nonetheless “gathers together his dispersed sons from the ends of the earth into the Father’s sheepfold, mindful likewise of his dead ones who fell asleep before him; to them also he descends that he may awaken and save them.”106 The philosopher Celsus, making fun of the strange doctrine, asks Origen: “Don’t you people actually tell about him, that when he had failed to convert the people on this earth he went down to the underworld to try to convert the people down there?” It is significant that Origen answers the question, for all its mocking tone, in the affirmative: “We assert that Jesus not only converted no small number of persons while he was in the body . . . but also, that when he became a spirit, without the covering of the body, he dwelt among those spirits which were without bodily covering, converting such of them as were willing to Himself.”107 According to this the dead not only have the gospel preached to them, but are free to accept or reject it, exactly like the living.
The resemblance between Christ’s earthly and other-worldly missions leads one to conclude with Clement: “What then, does not the same economy prevail in hades, so that there, too, all the spirits might hear the gospel, repent and admit that their punishment, in the light of what they have learned, is just?”108 A much older fragment offers a parallel to this: “I have become all in all that I might [establish?] the economy of the Father. . . . I have become an angel among angels.”109 In both cases the Savior fulfills the Father’s “economy” in other worlds even as he had in this one.
The parallel between the Lord’s earthly and post-mortal missions is preserved even to the extent of having his coming in the spirit world heralded by John the Baptist. Origen says John “died before him, so that he might descend to the lower regions and announce [preach] his coming.”110 And again: “For everywhere the witness and forerunner of Jesus is John, being born before and dying shortly before the Son of God, so that not only to those of his generation but likewise to those who lived before Christ should liberation from death be preached, and that he might everywhere prepare a people trained to receive the Lord.”111 “John the Baptist died first,” wrote Hippolytus, “being dispatched by Herod, that he might prepare those in hades for the gospel; he became the forerunner there, announcing even as he did on this earth, that the Savior was about to come to ransom the spirits of the saints from the hand of death.”112 Even in the medieval Easter drama, the “Harrowing of Hell,” the arrival of Christ in hell is heralded by John the Baptist.113
How the Dead Received Baptism
John’s function in the spirit world, like the Savior’s, was identical with his mission on this earth. Yet his very special mission here was to baptize. Likewise the worldly preaching of the Lord and the apostles was to prepare their hearers for baptism. It is not surprising then to read in the Pastor of Hermas, one of the most trustworthy guides to the established beliefs of the early church, that not only Christ and John but also “these Apostles, and the teachers who had proclaimed the name of the Son of God, after they had fallen asleep in [the] power and faith of the Son of God preached likewise to the dead; and they gave them the seal of the preaching. They accordingly went down with them into the water and came out again. But although they went down while they were alive and came up alive, those who had fallen asleep before them (prokekoimemenoi) went down dead, but came out again living; for it was through these that they were made alive, and learned the name of the Son of God.”114 The Latin version reads: “These Apostles and teachers who had preached the name of the Son of God, when they died in possession of his faith and power, preached to those who had died before, and themselves gave them this seal. Hence [igitur] they went down into the water with them; but they who had died before went down dead, of course, but ascended living, since it was through them that they received life and knew the Son of God.” 115
Needless to say, this text has caused a great deal of embarrassment to interpreters, ancient and modern. The source of the trouble is obvious: there are two classes of living persons referred to, those who enjoy eternal life, and those who have not yet died on this earth. The apostles (or whoever “they” were) belonged to the latter class when they went down living to be baptized for those who had gone before; a sharp contrast is made between their state—they being alive both before and after the ordinance—and that of those who were actually dead and yet received eternal life through the ministrations of baptism. What is perfectly clear is that the apostles while they were still living performed an ordinance—the earthly ordinance of baptism in water—which concerned the welfare of those who had already died. That it was an earthly baptism which could only be performed with water is emphatically stated in the sentences immediately preceding those cited: “It is necessary, he said, for them to come up through the water in order to be made alive; for otherwise none can enter the Kingdom of God . . . therefore even the dead receive the seal. . . . The seal is of course, the water.” 116
“I think,” says Clement of Alexandria, commenting on this passage, “that it was necessary for the best of the Apostles to be imitators of their Master on the other side as well as here, that they might convert the gentile dead as he did the Hebrew.”117 Elsewhere he says: “Christ visited, preached to, and baptized the just men of old, both gentiles and Jews, not only those who lived before the coming of the Lord, but also those who were before the coming of the Law . . . such as Abel, Noah, or any such righteous man.”118 In the “Discourses to the Apostles” Jesus says:
I went down and spoke to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, your fathers, and declared unto them how they might rise, and with my right hand I gave them the baptism of life and release and forgiveness of all evil, even as I do to you here and to all who believe on me from this time on.119
In hotly denying that the Hebrew prophets and patriarchs received the seal of baptism in the other world, the Marcionites only add to our evidence that the early church did believe.120
Are we to believe on the strength of these passages that the primitive church held that the Christ personally baptized all the disciples? That would make Jesus the only baptizer, and such in fact St. Augustine repeatedly insists he is: though acting through various ministers, it is always and only Christ himself who is baptizing.121 How is that possible? Long before the days of Augustine the “Discourses to the Apostles” gives us the explanation, telling how the Lord promised his apostles that they would become “fathers, and masters, and servants,” which he elucidates thus:
Servants [diakonoi] because they [the dead] will receive the baptism of life and the forgiveness of your sins from my hand through you, . . . and so have part in the heavenly kingdom.122
As the Apostles in all their work are simply acting for their Lord, so all the ordinances they perform in his name are to be regarded as his own but done vicariously.
This principle of vicarious work, running through the whole economy of the church, also unties another knot which has no other solution. Were the spirits of the dead actually baptized with water? There is indeed a baptism of the spirit, but as Cyril,123 Tertullian,124 and others125 point out, one simply cannot escape the physical element in baptism: indeed, Paul cites baptism for the dead as definite argument for belief in a physical resurrection.126 How then can the incorporeal dead be baptized? As we have seen, the Shepherd of Hermas describes the living as performing the rite of baptism in the interest of the dead, without saying exactly how it was done.127 One alternative was to explain the rite as the actual baptism of dead bodies—a counsel of desperation.128 Quite unsatisfactory also is the theory that “before the righteous can enter Paradise, Christ must lead them through a fiery river to receive baptism,” since our source (Origen) specifies that no one can be baptized in this river who has not been “first baptized with water and the Holy Ghost on this earth.”129 Quite as inadequate as this were theories of a sort of heavenly baptism to take the place of the missing earthly one; thus Albertus Magnus:
He to whom baptism has been denied not through contempt of religion, but by necessity, does not lose the fruits of baptism, but is to be considered as baptized by the baptism of the flame of the Holy Spirit.130
The early church, however, was not obliged to seek such vague consolations, for it had the solution.
Speaking of 1 Corinthians 15:29, Tertullian expostulates:
Now if some of them are “baptized for the dead,” can we not assume that they have a reason for it? Certainly he [Paul] is maintaining that they practised this in the belief that the ordinance would be a vicarious baptism and as such be advantageous to the flesh of others, which they assumed would be resurrected, for unless this referred to a physical resurrection there would be no point in carrying out a physical baptism.131
But later Tertullian has doubts (how far they already seem to be from the Primitive Church!):
I don’t believe that the Apostle was giving his approval to the practice, but rather signifying that those who practised it thereby indicated their belief in a physical resurrection, being foolishly [vane] baptized for the dead. . . . For elsewhere he speaks of only one baptism. Therefore to baptize “for the dead” means to baptize for bodies; for the body, as we have demonstrated, is really dead.132
All subsequent interpreters display the same perplexity and follow the same violent and arbitrary method of explaining how St. Paul said one thing while meaning something totally different. Because there is only one baptism, we are to be told forever henceforward, there can be no baptism for the dead. But that is the very reason why there must be baptism for the dead, which is not another baptism or another kind of baptism but in every detail the identical ordinance which is administered to the living and to them only, and therefore can profit the dead (who must have it if they are to be saved) only when done for them by proxy. Later writers, such as St. Ambrose, are not disturbed by the types and varieties of baptism practiced in their day because, they explain, there is after all really only one baptism, which is the baptism of Christ.133 By the same token the argument of one baptism would be worthless as a refutation of baptism for the dead, which is also the baptism of Christ. The Bishop of Bristol observed that Tertullian in changing his opinion on the subject apparently concluded that baptism for the dead was “an idle fancy, on which it was unlikely that St. Paul should found an argument.”134 How then do we explain the perfectly obvious fact that St. Paul did found an argument on it?
At the beginning of the fifth century Epiphanius reports:
From Asia and Gaul has reached us the account [tradition] of a certain practice, namely that when any die without baptism among them, they baptize others in their place and in their name, so that, rising in the resurrection, they will not have to pay the penalty of having failed to receive baptism, but rather will become subject to the authority of the Creator of the World. For this reason this tradition which has reached us is said to be the very thing to which the Apostle himself refers when he says, “If the dead rise not at all, what shall they do who are baptized for the dead?”135
It is significant to find this practice surviving in those outlying places where, as Irenaeus points out, the pure old Christian doctrine was best preserved. 136 As to the rest of the church, Epiphanius explains:
Others interpret the saying [1 Corinthians 15:29] finely [kalos], claiming that those who are on the point of death if they are catechumens [candidates for baptism] are to be considered worthy, in view of the expectation of baptism which they had before their death. They point out that he who has died shall also rise again, and hence will stand in need of that forgiveness of sins that comes through baptism.137
In the fourth century, St. Ambrose recalled, but did not approve, the practice:
Fearing that a dead person who had never been baptized would be resurrected badly [male] or not at all, a living person would be baptized in the name of the dead one. Hence he [Paul] adds: “Else why are they baptized for them?” According to this he does not approve of what is done but shows the firm faith in the resurrection [that it implies].138
Ambrose is following Tertullian: Paul doesn’t approve. Where does he disapprove? It is true that he wishes to emphasize the intention in this case, and not discuss the practice, which like Ignatius he takes for granted139 (in fact, his casual mention of it without explanation indicates perfect familiarity with it on the part of the saints), but only as a last resort would one pounce on that as proof that he disapproved the custom. He certainly does not cite a practice which he condemns, for that, of course, would weaken his argument: if baptism for the dead is wrong, why should it be cited to strengthen that faith in the resurrection which it illustrates? Oecumenius even suggests that Paul says “why do they baptize for the dead” instead of “why do you” for fear of offending his hearers and possibly causing them to give up the practice.140 Attempts to find in Paul’s words a condemnation of baptism for the dead were carried to their ultimate conclusion by Peter the Venerable in the twelfth century. His argument deserves to be quoted at length as an example of where this sort of thing leads to.
They were baptized at that time for the unbaptized dead, with good intention but not wisely, supposing that since they had not received baptism while alive, they could help out the dead by baptizing living persons for them. Speaking of which work the Apostle temporizes, praising the intention of the baptizers while not approving the baptism. For as far as baptism is concerned he does not approve of the baptism of one person for another, living or dead, but he obviously approves and seconds the intention of those who are baptizing, who by the works of the living were able to help out the dead by such means as baptism. . . . But he recognizes that it is not the work of baptism (for there is only one baptism) but by various other works (and there are many) that the living are able to help the dead.141
St. Paul wants to say that the living can help the dead not by being baptized for them but by certain other works, so of course instead of mentioning any of those many other works he specifies only baptism. Word-juggling, the avocation of the Middle Ages, could hardly go further. Note that the stubborn Paul can only be handled if he is charged with temporizing! “Living or dead” is pure sophistry, since of course the living should not be baptized for the living, and by that very token must be baptized for the dead, who cannot (as the living can) be baptized for themselves. We have seen that the “one baptism” argument, far from condemning it, is in fact one of the strongest arguments in favor of vicarious baptizing for the dead. Elsewhere the Venerable Peter says:” ‘They were being baptized for the dead’ refers to the good works which the living were doing for the dead,” except, that is, baptism, “for it is not by baptism but by other good works of the living; . . . it is to these and not to baptism that the Apostle refers.”142 Which is precisely why he says baptism, for by strange logic when the Apostle says black he really means white, and that is why he says black.
To such extremes of wresting the scripture were the medieval churchmen driven in their determination to discredit an ordinance which the church had lost. Thus Oecumenius decides that “for the dead” really means “for those whom you falsely suppose to be dead;” falsely, because “dead” necessarily means perpetually dead, and if they are going to rise again, they cannot be that, so that Paul when he said “the dead” does not mean the dead at all.143 Just as when he said “baptize,” he of course meant anything but baptize. Chrysostom and Photius, following Tertullian, tried to show that “for the dead” dies not mean “for the dead” but for the body which, since it dies, must be considered as dead.144 Others (Theodoret, Zonaras, Balsamer, etc.) argued that it means “to be baptized for the dead works of sin.”145 It may mean that, according to St. Bruno, or else “the dead” may refer to “those who are to perish because of sin.” He even suggests that Paul is shaming the Corinthians by showing them that even people who are so wicked as to baptize for the dead have faith in the resurrection, so why shouldn’t they? He does not fail to mention, as all our other sources do, that baptism for the dead was actually practiced in the early church by certain members who “would baptize themselves in the place of a dead parent who had never had the gospel, thereby securing the salvation of a father or a mother in the resurrection.”146
St. John Damascene suggests that “the dead” means either the body or the works of sin,147 while Lanfranc was for it signifying “the works of death,” but goes on to point out that there are people who believe that the passage is to be understood literally, “but it is not to be believed on the authority of the stupid that the Apostle intended to approve a thing which has been a subject of so much uncertainty among the highest authorities.”148
By the seventeenth century a German savant was able to produce from the writings of the churchmen no fewer than seventeen different interpretations of 1 Corinthians 15:29.149
To return to early practices, an interesting aberration of the rite is found among the Marcionites. When a catechumen died, they would lay a living person under his bed; then they would ask the corpse if he wished to receive baptism, to which the living person under the bed would reply in the affirmative; then the living person would be baptized for the dead one.150 Theophylactus, commenting on this in the eleventh century, says that when the Marcionites were upbraided for this practice, they would cite 1 Corinthians 15:29 in their defense; but they were wrong, he insists, since what Paul really meant to say (here we go again!) was, what should they do who were baptized expecting their own dead bodies to rise again,151 i.e., who were baptized for themselves!
The Marcionite practice is a half-way point between baptism for the dead and the later rite of baptism of the dead. “Why do we not baptize the dead?” asks Fulgentius, and rightly points out that baptism is a rite requiring both body and spirit; if a disembodied spirit is not a fit candidate, neither is an inanimate piece of flesh.152 “Even though one should have displayed his will and intention in life,” he explains, “and shown faith and devotion, yet once dead, even though it means that he is to be without the sacrament of baptism, he may not be baptized; because the will, faith, and devotion which justify such a baptism belong to the spirit which has departed.” 153 Nothing could be more reasonable; baptism may only be performed on a living person. This of course is an unanswerable argument for baptism by proxy: if the dead may not be baptized and yet are to enjoy salvation, there is no other way out. Baptism of the dead misses the whole point: it is the exact opposite of baptism forthe dead, the one rendering the other perfectly useless. Yet in their need to find some official condemnation of baptism for the dead, churchmen have had to resort to citing those instances which deal with condemnation of its opposite, namely baptism of the dead.154 This deliberate confusion (the Latter-day Saints have been accused of baptizing the dead) is natural enough and seems to have been an early one, for Philastrius includes “baptizing the dead” among a number of false and exaggerated charges against the Cataphrygians in the fourth century.155
Who in the church performed the actual ordinance of baptizing for the dead? It was “those apostles and teachers” of the first generation, according to the Shepherd of Hermas, who “went down living into the water” in behalf of those who had died156 and in speaking of the whole affair as a thing of the past that source implies that the work was confined to those men and their generation. This is clearly borne out in our other accounts.
To begin with, it was not all Christians who baptized for the dead, for Paul reminds the Corinthians that “they,” namely someone else and not the Corinthians (who were “but babes”) did the work. But who were “they”? A very large class of believers is eliminated by confining the doctrine to the teachings of Christ’s second ministry, which were only received by a limited number of people. It will be recalled that in his discussion with the Apostles, the Lord promised them the keys at some future time; since this conversation took place shortly before the crucifixion, and since Jesus himself postponed any discussion of the mysteries of the kingdom “till the Son of Man be risen from the dead,”157 we can believe that nothing much was done in the matter during his first mission. In a passage of impeccable authority Eusebius quotes Clement as saying: “To James the Just, and to John and to Peter after the resurrection the Lord transmitted the gnosis; these passed it on to the other Apostles, and they in turn to the Seventy, of whom Barnabas was one.”158 Note the careful limitation of this teaching: Peter did not announce it to the whole church, nor the Apostles to all the world, nor is there mention of “the gnosis” being handed down any further than to the Seventy, though that would certainly be Eusebius’ main interest in the passage if it were so.159 “The gnosis” is that fulness of knowledge, which Paul always speaks of as the highest and holiest of God’s gifts, a rare, choice, and hidden thing, reserved for but a few. 160 Just how few were eligible to receive the risen Lord is painfully clear in all the gospel accounts of his second mission.
Christ’s second mission caught everyone, from weeping Mary to doubting Thomas, completely by surprise, “for as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead.”161 The news of the Lord’s return was heard by everyone, within the church and without, then as now, with incredulity, and Matthew can end his gospel with the discouraging words: “And when they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted,” while the closing scenes in Mark and Luke show the Savior rebuking the apostles with great severity for “their unbelief and hardness of heart.” The Gospels duly note the peculiar circumstance that it was apparently possible for some to doubt even in the presence of those who were actually beholding the risen Lord. One is forcibly reminded of the appearance of resurrected beings to witnesses in modern times, and by all accounts we must recognize that Jesus’ second mission was not a public preaching but a series of revelations, “not to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen.”162 In fact it soon became common in the church to doubt that this second mission had ever taken place: the phrases “they deny the resurrection,” “they say that he was only a man,” meet us from the very first in the writings of apostolic times, where they recur with the regularity of set formulas. Ignatius describes this attitude when he says that he hears people in the church saying, “If I don’t find it in the archives, I won’t believe it.”163 As Eisler has shown, the records in question were the Acta Passionis Jesu Christi, the official court transcript of the trial and sentence of Jesus, which did not extend, of course, beyond his death.164 To say that one would only believe what was in the archives was to say that one would only believe in the Savior’s first mission.
“If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not,” the Master had said, “how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?” 165 It is not necessary here to labor the point of “milk and not meat,” “pearls before swine,” “to you it is given to know . . . but to them it is not given,” etc., to show that knowledge of the gospel was anciently imparted only to that degree in which people could receive it. 166 But if only a few could receive it at first, did it not in time spread to many? Far from it.167 Eusebius explains the situation in a citation from Hegesippus: “When the holy chorus of the Apostles ended their lives in various ways, and that generation passed away of those who had heard the divine wisdom with their own ears, at that very time the conspiracy of godless error took its beginning through the deception of false teachers who, when the last remaining Apostle had gone, first came out into the open and opposed the preaching of the truth with what was falsely styled the gnosis.”168 The last expression is the identical term used by Paul when he warns Timothy to beware of the very class of people here described.169 With the passing of the apostles the teachers of false doctrine, as if they had been awaiting a signal, “sprang up like mushrooms,” to use Irenaeus’ expression, each claiming to the gnosis that Christ had given the apostles after his resurrection.
This outbreak of gnostic pretenders, which was no passing flurry but lasted for over a hundred years, never could have occurred had apostolic authority remained in the church to overawe the upstarts, or had the true “gnosis” been available to oppose their false ones. In taking the gnosis away from them, the apostles had left the field free to swarms of impostors; which is exactly what the apostles themselves had predicted would happen.170 As for the gnosis, Paul tells the Corinthians unequivocally: “the gnosis shall be taken away.”171 He explains that the three great gifts of prophecy, tongues, and the gnosis are all to be removed from the church, and in their place be left only the more general gifts of faith, hope, and love, “these three.” To soften or justify the loss of such great things he explains that at the time those gifts are only partial anyway: “We only know [possess gnosis] in part, and only prophesy in part” (or, “in proportion to our lot, or dispensation”), but he looks forward to the time “when the fulness shall come,” and things partial be done away with. “For the present moment,” he states significantly, “we see in a mirror [as] in an enigma. . . . For the time being there remain faith, hope, and love—these three.”172 To Paul’s hearers an enigma was a concealed teaching, not to be understood without a key: Jesus, it will be recalled, accused the Jewish experts in the law of hiding173 “the key of the gnosis,” while Paul charged that the law itself had become a mere parody of the gnosis.174
If nothing was lost of Christ’s teachings, why do the apostolic fathers, the immediate successors of the apostles, regard themselves as immeasurably beneath the latter in the knowledge of heavenly things? At the very beginning Polycarp protests: “Neither I nor any other such one can come up to the wisdom of the blessed and glorified Paul,”175 while Clement tells the Corinthians of his day that they are no longer under the direction of proven apostles or men appointed by such,176 and Ignatius tells the Romans: “I do not as Peter and Paul issue commandments to you; they were Apostles of Jesus Christ; I am but a condemned man.”177 This is no special deference to the Roman Church, as Catholic theologians claim, for the Trallians no less he says, “I cannot use a high manner in writing to you. . . . I do not issue orders like an Apostle,” and he adds significantly:
I would like to write to you of heavenly things [in some versions, “things more full of mystery”], but I fear to do so, lest I should inflict injury on you who are but babes. You would be strangled by such things. . . . For though I am able to understand heavenly things . . . yet I am not perfect, nor am I a disciple such as Paul or Peter.178
Yet Ignatius was perhaps the greatest living authority on doctrine. When soon after writing this he was put to death, what became of that knowledge of “heavenly things” which he refused to divulge to one of the oldest branches of the church? The Romans and Trallians had the Gospels, which thus cannot have contained the information he was holding back.
The bankruptcy of the church after the passing of the apostles became glaringly apparent in her struggle with the “Gnostics so-called.” In the first place, the sudden and immense success of the Gnostics showed only too plainly, as Neander has observed, that people were looking for something which the church could no longer supply.179 Then, too, the fact that the church yielded to the Gnostics on point after point, adopting many of their more popular practices and beliefs, shows that she had nothing to put in their place.180 The fact that the church finally denied that there ever was a gnosis, and defined the heresy of Gnosticism not as a false claim to possess higher revelations (the early writers are always careful to give it this meaning), but the mere belief that such revelations had ever existed—that shows clearly enough that the church no longer possessed “the gnosis” to which the New Testament repeatedly refers.181 When the church fights shy of the very word and is alarmed at the mere suggestion that there could be such a thing, it needs no argument to show how little of it she still possessed.
The Gnostic pretenders bear important witness to the nature of the thing they were copying. Just as they recognized that the name of Christ was essential to the work and accordingly “went about bearing the name of Christ,” so they recognized also that they should not be without the gifts of the Spirit, or baptism for the dead, of which they devised various spurious versions, as we have seen. More significant are those purist cults of the second century, striving to return to the original order of the church, who included baptism for the dead among their practices. Such were the Cataphrygian branch of the Montanists, mentioned above. It was the Montanists whom Tertullian joined when he left the big church in his vain search for the lost gifts and blessings of the church of Jesus Christ.
It should now be fairly obvious that work for the dead did not outlast that generation for which the “end” had been predicted, nor spread beyond the circle of those possessing what the ancient church called “the gnosis,” that is (to follow Eusebius) beyond those who shared the knowledge of those “many hidden things” which are not set forth in our present scripture. 182
Early Disappearance of the Doctrine
It is immediately after mentioning the preaching of the gospel “to them that are dead” that Peter ominously adds, “But the end of all things is at hand.”183 In the “Discourse to the Apostles” the Lord thus describes the fate of the great teachings he has given them:
Another doctrine will arise and with it confusion; for they will seek their own advancement and bring forth a useless doctrine. And it will cause vexation even unto death; and they will teach and turn away those who believed on me and lead them away from eternal life.184
This constant refrain of a complete falling away runs through all the apostolic writings, where the saints are repeatedly warned against assuming (as many modern Christians do)185 that such a falling away is impossible.186 This is not the place to examine the disappearance of the true church as a whole, but it is in order to point out that the saints had from the first been taught to expect it.
That the people of the primitive church were looking forward to an immediate end is granted by all students of church history, who usually interpret this as a mistaken and starryeyed expectation of the second coming of Christ.187 It was nothing of the sort. While the apostles and apostolic Fathers all keep repeating that “the end” is at hand, they not only refuse to commit themselves on any time, soon or late, for the coming of Christ, but denounce as deceivers those who do. Peter warns emphatically that “the end of all things is at hand,” yet when it comes to the question of “the promise of his coming” he counsels the saints to allow a possible margin of at least a thousand years.188 He is speaking of two events, the one immediate, the other absolutely indeterminate, as is Paul when he addresses the Corinthians as at the last extremity of a great emergency, with the time desperately short, 189 only to speak in a totally different tone when discussing the return of the Lord: “be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled . . . as that the day of Christ is at hand,” going on to explain that there must be a falling away first, and that that has just begun.190 In all their troubles the release that the saints expect is not that Christ shall presently come down to them, but that they shall presently go to him. Paul’s attitude is typical: the Lord is not coming down to rescue him, but rather he himself shall quickly depart, and after that departure things shall go ill with the world and the church; there are to be wolves on earth, not angels; love shall wax cold, error abound, the church turn away from sound doctrine; and the mystery of iniquity which “doth already work” shall come to its own. He describes himself as a man working against time:
. . . three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.191
Why the terrible urgency, and why the tears, if the church was to win in the end? It is not the coming of Christ that leads John to observe, “little children, it is the last time,” but rather the coming of the antichrist—the very opposite!192 “It is the wintertime of the just,” the Shepherd of Hermas proclaims, and it will be a long one, for the Lord “is as one taking a far journey”; at some future time is to burst upon the world “the summertime of the just.”193 Meantime the people of the early church were as likely to confuse winter and summer as to identify “the end of all things” with “the restoration of all things.” A clear and authentic statement of the situation is given in the closing section of the famous Didaché:
For in the last days the false prophets and the corrupters shall be multiplied, and the sheep shall be turned into wolves, and love shall change to hate; for as lawlessness increases they shall hate one another and persecute and betray, and then shall appear the one who leads the world astray as [the] Son of God, and he shall do signs and wonders and the earth shall be given over into his hands and he shall commit iniquities which have never been since the world began. . . . 5. Then shall the creation of mankind come to the fiery trial. . . . 6. and then shall appear the signs of the truth. First the sign spread out in heaven, then the sign of the sound of the trumpet, and thirdly the resurrection of the dead, but not of all the dead. . . . 8. Then shall the world “see the Lord coming on the clouds of Heaven.”194
He who is to come forthwith is not the Christ but a deceiver, and before the Lord can come again very special manifestations, “the signs of truth,” must precede him.
All this, of course, goes back to the Savior’s own teaching: “Many shall come in my name . . . and shall deceive many . . . but the end is not yet . . . these are the beginning of sorrows,” etc., with the promise, “he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.”195 Repeatedly the saints are told that they will be hated of all men, persecuted, and slain, and always a comforting promise is given. That promise is never, either in the New Testament or in the apostolic fathers, that the church will be victorious in the end, but always and only that a reward awaits the individual on the other side. Summarizing his career, Paul says, “I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course; I have kept fought a good fight; I have finished my course; I have kept the faith. Henceforth. . . .”196 What is to be henceforth? One expects the natural and heartening announcement that henceforth the church is secure, the work established, the devil overcome. But one looks in vain in any apostolic writer for such a hopeful declaration. Instead we are given the frightening promise that
the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. . . . And they shall turn away their ears from the truth . . .197
as the Galatians198 and “all they which are in Asia”199 had already begun to do.
It is highly significant that the hope of final triumph for the cause, that vision of the church filling and dominating the entire world which is the perpetual boast and comfort of the writers of the fourth and fifth centuries, is never so much as hinted at in apostolic times, even when the saints are most hard pressed and that would be their natural comfort.200 Were those people so self-engrossed that they could never find any cause for consolation or congratulation in the pleasing thought that others would some day benefit by their sufferings? Why this perfect silence regarding the ultimate triumph of the church? Simply because there was to be no such triumph.201
Astonishing as it seems, then, the immediate second coming of Christ, which everyone seems to take for granted as the basic doctrine of the early church, is not only not proclaimed among its writings, but is definitely precluded by the expected rule of evil, which also rules out completely any belief in an immediate end of the world. There was to be an end, and that end was at hand, with the winter and the wolves closing in: “the night cometh, when no man can work.”202 The modern Christian theory is that such a night never came, but the Apostles knew better.
Three things will be taken away, says Paul, and three remain; the former are prophecy, tongues, and the gnosis, the knowledge of Jesus Christ, compared with which, he tells us elsewhere, all other things are but dross. Now it is interesting that almost all Christians admit, nay insist, that prophecy and tongues were lost, but will not allow for a moment that the “higher knowledge” that went with them has disappeared. They claim in other words, that they still have that gnosis—which makes them Gnostics! False Gnostics, that is, since they profess to have the full teaching of Christ while admitting that they lack the gifts which the Lord promised would surely follow those who had his doctrine. The reason for claiming the knowledge without the power thereof is obvious: tongues and prophecies are not easily come by, while doctrines can be produced to order. But the doctrine without the other gifts is not valid; Irenaeus confounded the Gnostics by showing that they lacked those other gifts while claiming the gnosis—and then he gave himself away by conspicuously failing to produce any convincing evidence for those gifts in his branch of the church.203After him the great Tertullian argued that the lack of spiritual gifts in the main church of his day invalidated the claims of that church to possess divine authority.204
If church members were doubting the resurrection itself even in New Testament times and quite generally in the days of the Apostolic Fathers, is it surprising that the doctrine of salvation for the dead, so closely bound with the economy of the resurrection, should also be a matter of doubt and confusion? Or is it hard to believe that baptism for the dead should soon become a lost doctrine when from early times baptism for the living was a subject of the widest disagreement? The greatest fathers and doctors of the church profess a bewildering variety of opinions as to the proper time, place, manner, authority, subject, validity, durability, efficacy, and scope of the Christian baptism.205 One who would ask, therefore, what became of baptism for the dead need only contemplate the doctrinal shambles of baptism for the living to have an answer.
As early as the time of Justin the doctrine of salvation for the dead, though still preached, was a subject of serious uncertainty that can only reflect a general lack of information. When asked whether he really believes in the salvation of all the righteous Jews of the Old Covenant as well as the Christians Justin states:
I and others are of this opinion. . . . But on the other hand there are many who belong to the pure and pious faith, and are true Christians, who think otherwise.206
Where is the uncompromising stand of the early church? A few years later we find both Tertullian and Irenaeus hedging on the question of whether Christ ever visited the spirits in prison—a doctrine repugnant to philosophy. 207 Typical is Irenaeus’ statement that though he does not believe it himself, he will not condemn as heretics those who do,208 and he sounds a sinister note when he observes that in the church “there are some who even try to turn these things into allegories.”209 There was a period of hesitation after this when some versions of the Apostles’ Creed contained the phrase, “He descended into hades,” or “He descended to the inhabitants of the spirit-world,” while others did not, but in time this annoying fragment of antique arcana came to be generally condemned.210 With Origen and Clement “wavering between the old faith and Plato,”211 we are well on the way to the medieval church, where we presently arrive with St. Augustine.
In his younger days St. Augustine
dared promise not only paradise but also the kingdom of the heavens to unbaptized children, since he could find no other escape from being forced to say that God damns innocent spirits to eternal death. . . . But when he realized that he had spoken ill in saying that the spirits of children would be redeemed without the grace of Christ into eternal life and the kingdom of heaven, and that they could be delivered from the original sin without the baptism of Christ by which comes remission of sins—realizing into what a deep and tumultuous shipwreck he had thrown himself . . . he saw that there was no other escape than to repent of what he had said.212
The saint was in a trap, with escape blocked at both ends—a terrible dilemma, the only refuge from a cruel God leading straight to a weak law, which is no escape at all, but “shipwreck.” Only baptism for the dead can avoid these catastrophic extremes, but that is out. The Pelagians tried to dodge the issue by putting a soft seat, quasi medium locum, between the horns, positing a colorless limbo which satisfied no one and which Augustine brushes aside with the declaration that there is no middle region, and that the unbaptized will go to hell and nowhere else.213 Only this does not satisfy Augustine either; he characteristically tries to eat his cake and have it too with the declaration that unbaptized children must be damned, completely damned, and be with the devil in hell, only, he explains, they will be damned “most gently” (mitissime)!214 In such a liberal spirit, Bottom, the weaver, in order not to frighten the ladies while playing the role of a most terrible lion, promised to “roar you as gently as any sucking dove.”215 A “gentle” damnation, indeed!
It is interesting that Augustine can still report that there actually are
a few who believe that that custom was part of the gospel according to which the work of substitutes for the dead was effective, and the members of the dead were laved with the waters of baptism,216
thus confusing baptism for the dead (use of substitutes) with baptism of the dead. The universal opinion after Augustine is that there is no hope whatever for the unbaptized dead. Typical is the statement of his famous contemporary, St. Ambrose, that to die without baptism is to go to eternal misery,217 while another contemporary, St. Basil, says simply, “It is damnation to die without baptism,”218 and yet another, Gregory of Nyssen, draws the shocking but logical conclusion that
It is better to be found among the number of the wicked who have reverted to sin after baptism than to end one’s life without having received baptism. 219
This immoral doctrine that places ritual conformity before good works is simply one of the unavoidable consequences of denying baptism for the dead. “We cannot believe that any catechumen, even though he dies in the midst of his good works, will have eternal life,” wrote Gennadius, to whom the catechumen’s ardent desire for baptism counts for nothing.220 Compare this to the teaching of the Shepherd of Hermas, who concludes the passage referred to above with the words:
They died in righteous and great purity, and this seal was the only thing they lacked.
Gennadius and his church would damn them for that, but not so the early church. The Shepherd explains:
For this reason they [the Apostles] went down living with them into the water . . . and gave them life . . . and came up out again with them, and were gathered up together with them,
that all might share eternal life.221 The contrast is instructive.
And how about “the gates of hell”? They seem to be “prevailing” in fine style. Augustine wished “would that God had saved from hell” those good and great schoolmen of ancient times who from their chairs proclaimed the divine unity, but stern reason forbids it.222 Not long after him Ennodius
in his Libellus in defence of Pope Symmachus . . . pictures the Imperial City lamenting the fate of her famous and mighty sons . . . who, unredeemed by the Church, were doomed to hell, because they had lived before the coming of Christ.223
A famous poem of the Middle Ages tells how the apostle Paul was led to the grave of the poet Vergil, who had died just too soon to hear the gospel preached; the saint stands beside the tomb shedding tears of bitter frustration, the picture of helplessness: “What I could have made of you, O greatest of poets,” he cries, “had I only found you alive!”224 As it is, there is nothing the church can do about it, and poor Vergil is forever damned. If you doubt it, behold him in the fourth canto of the Inferno, conducting the dejected Dante into an horrible region “of infinite woes . . . deep darkness and mist . . . a blind world,” at the sight of which Vergil himself turns pale. “You ask what spirits these are that you see?” he asks the younger poet:
They are not here because of sin, and if they lack a sufficient boon of mercy, it is for not having been baptized. . . . Having lived before the days of Christianity they did not duly worship God; and I am one of them—we are lost for that one failing and not for any sin; for that offence alone we live in hopeless longing!225
He then tells indeed of Christ’s visit to that world, and of the release of the great patriarchs of the Old Testament, but adds, “Aside from them not another human spirit was saved!”226 One cannot resist saying with Peter in the Clementine account:
A good and great good indeed, who . . . damns the good . . . simply because they do not know him!
So much for those unfortunates “who lived before his coming.” As for those who came after, a writing to Peter the Deacon states that
from that time when our Savior said, “Except a man be born of water,” etc., no one lacking the sacrament of baptism can either enter the kingdom of heaven or receive eternal life.227
“O grave where is thy victory, O death where is thy sting?” Where indeed! By a conservative estimate, the unbaptized should represent at the very least ninety percent of the human family—a substantial victory for the grave and a most effective stinging of God’s children. Says Fulgentius:
You are to believe with the utmost firmness that all . . . who end this present life outside the Catholic Church are to go to the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels.228
It is cold comfort for any church to claim that the gates of hell do not prevail against its small minority, but only against those who do not belong to it; that is the very doctrine which, as we saw at the outset of this study, the Christians of an earlier day found simply unthinkable and immoral. Even the stern St. Bernard when faced with the cruel logic that would damn “good persons, who meant to be baptized but were prohibited by death,” balks at it; “God forgive me!” he cries, but he cannot admit they are damned, though his church offers him no alternative.229
Some divines have maintained that the human race was brought into existence for the express purpose of filling the void left in heaven by the fall of the angels, a doctrine impressively set forth by the preacher in Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; yet we are to believe that the overwhelming majority of human spirits were condemned even before their creation never to see heaven at all, but to spend eternity in those nether regions which, so far from having any vacancies to fill, are, to follow the same enlightened guide, indescribably overcrowded! And they defend their inhuman doctrines in the name of “reason”!
When Christ “went down and preached . . . overcoming death by death,”230 he delivered those who were in bondage because they had never completely fulfilled the law of obedience, including baptism in particular. Yet that is the very class of dead whom the later Christian churches regard as beyond saving. When the Roman Church, to the loud dismay of Paul, Ennodius, Dante, St. Augustine, etc., is absolutely helpless to open the gates of hell—and hence of heaven—to her beloved Vergil she fails to fill in the most important qualification of the church of Jesus Christ; and that very verse of scripture upon which she rests the full weight of her vast pretentions, letting the world think against all knowledge that “the gates of hell” is but a poetic generalization, that verse condemns her utterly.231
At present the justification of the Christian churches for denying baptism for the dead may be found in the statement that “the church believes that baptism operates only on the person who receives it.”232 To be sure, and is there anything wrong with receiving it by proxy? Is it not a far more extravagant arrangement to have an infant at baptism accept the gospel by proxy, as most churches do? Those offering the child for baptism, we are told, answer for it,233 and the little one believes “through another” (in altero) “because he sinned through another.”234 Not only is the purely spiritual act of believing (instead of the physical act of immersion) done by proxy, but the baptism itself is administered vicariously. How is it possible, St. Augustine asks, that Jesus baptizes and yet does not baptize? 235 The explanation is that “it is not the minister but Christ himself who baptizes,”236 for “the authority [potestas] of baptism the Lord always keeps to himself, but the ministry of it he transfers to anyone, good or bad.”237
In a like manner the vicarious principle runs through the whole economy of the church: through Christ’s vicarious sacrifice every member is thought to have paid the penalty for sin and satisfied the demands of justice, while the Lord’s own work is carried out by his earthly delegates. If it is possible for the Father and Son to be presently represented through the ministrations of men in the flesh, is it outrageous presumption for men to stand proxy for their own kin in the spirit world? Do not Christian churches today require that every candidate for baptism be “according to most ancient usage” accompanied by a vicarious parent?238 All that men can do for themselves they must do, the gospel preaches, but whatever they cannot possibly do for themselves must be done for them; hence the great atonement.
Can there be any serious objection then to a vicarious baptism which makes it possible to satisfy all the demands of the law, enjoy the mercy of God without qualification, and retain the ordinance in its purity, intact and unaltered? It should be remembered that in the very matter of baptism the Christian churches will waive all their careful rules in an emergency, and allow anyone to baptize anyone else at any time or place and in almost any manner, lest some poor soul in extremis be eternally damned.239 Thus the churches are willing to distort the rite of baptism beyond recognition for the laudable purpose of making it as universal as possible; but as the price of being universal it ceases to be a baptism at all. And so the dilemma remains, with only one escape: baptism for the dead.
In summing up the data at hand, we note three aspects of the documentary remains: their adequacy, their paucity, and their distribution. The three support and explain each other and lead to certain obvious conclusions.
In the first place, the evidence is more than sufficient to establish the presence and prominence in the early church of belief in the salvation of the dead through ministrations that included preaching and baptism. The actual practice of vicarious baptism for the dead in the ancient church is equally certain, even the hostile commentators, with their seventeen different interpretations, agreeing on that one thing alone.
Yet if they are clear and specific, references to baptism for the dead are nonetheless few. How is that to be explained in view of the extreme importance of the subject and the obvious popularity of the doctrine with the saints? For one thing the apostolic literature is not extensive; one volume could easily contain it all. Yet it is in these fragments of the earliest church writings that virtually all our references are to be found: the earlier a work is, the more it has to say about baptism for the dead. After the third century no one wants to touch the subject, all commentators confining themselves to repeating the same arguments against baptism for the dead and supplying the same far-fetched and hair-splitting explanations of what Paul really meant. After the second century the vast barns of the Patrologia are virtually empty, and the fathers who love nothing so much as spinning out their long commentaries on every syllable of scripture pass by those passages of hope for the dead in peculiar silence. As Lanfranc put it, how can one presume to cope with a problem which has baffled the greatest minds of the church? It was the early church that preached and practiced work for the dead, that no one denies; 240 the later church, condemning the work, confesses at the same time that she does not understand it.
It has not been the purpose of this discussion to treat baptism for the dead as practiced by the Latter-day Saints. No one having any acquaintance with that system, however, can fail to notice the essential identity of the ancient with the modern usage and doctrine. This close resemblance poses a problem. Where did Joseph Smith get his knowledge? Few if any of the sources cited in this discussion were available to him; the best of these have been discovered only in recent years, while the citations from the others are only to be found scattered at wide intervals through works so voluminous that even had they been available to the Prophet he would, lacking modern aids, have had to spend a lifetime running them down. And even had he found such passages, how could they have meant more to him than they did to the most celebrated divines of a thousand years, who could make nothing of them?
This is a region in which great theologians are lost and bemused; to have established a rational and satisfying doctrine and practice on grounds so dubious is indeed a tremendous achievement. Yet we are asked to believe that Joseph Smith produced out of a shallow and scheming head the whole great structure of work for the dead that for over a century has engaged thousands of quite sane people in an activity which has been the chief joy of their lives. To design such a work would more than tax the powers of the greatest religious leaders of the past, but to have made it conform at the same time to the patterns of the primitive church (not brought to light until the last seventy years) is asking far too much of genius and luck. Compared with such an accomplishment the massive and repetitious productions of the ecclesiastical mind from St. Augustine to the present are but the mechanized output of the schools, requiring little more than “patience and a body.”
Work for the dead is an all-important phase of Mormonism about which the world knows virtually nothing. Not even the most zealous anti-Mormon has even begun to offer an explanation for its discovery, which in its way is quite as remarkable as the Book of Mormon. The critics will have to go far to explain this one.
* “Baptism for the Dead in Ancient Times” first appeared as a series of articles in the Improvement Era 51 (1984): 786—88, 836—38; 52 (1949): 24—26, 60, 90—91, 109—10, 112, 146—48, 180—83, 212—14. Discussed by Bernard M. Foschini, “Those who are Baptized for the Dead; I Cor. 15:29,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 13 (1951): 51—53, 70—73. This study was also published as a pamphlet, Dap for de dode i Oldtidere, Forithz of Fluge, Trans. (Oslo: Drammdnsveren, 1957).
1. Justin Martyr, Dialogus cum Tryphone (Dialogue with Trypho) 80, in PG 6:664.
2. Ibid. 45, in PG 6:572.
3. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata VI, 6, in PG 9:272.
4. Ibid. VI, 6, in PG 9:269.
5. Recognitiones Clementinae (Clementine Recognitions) II, 58, in PG 1:1276.
6. Irenaeus, Contra Haereses (Against Heresies) IV, 22, 2, in PG 7:1047, 259.
7. 2 Baruch 30:1; 85:15. A treatment of the Jewish doctrine may be found in August F. von Gall, Basileia tou Theou (Heidelberg: Winter, 1926), 303—8.
8. Ignatius, Epistola ad Philadelphenses (Epistle to the Philadelphians) 5, in PG 5:701.
9. St. Bruno notes the eagerness of the primitive Christians “to secure the salvation of a father or mother” who had died without hearing the gospel; Expositio in Epistolam I ad Corinthios (Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians) 15, in PL 153:209.
10. Clementine Recognitions I, 52, in PG 1:1236.
11. Matthew 16:13—17; Mark 8:27—30; Luke 9:18—21.
12. Matthew 16:17—19; also R. V. G. Tasker, “An Introduction to the Mss. of the New Testament,” Harvard Theological Review, 41 (1948): 77. Such an obscure and puzzling text as Matthew 16:17—19 would be just the one to receive such helpful treatment.
13. See Adolf von Harnack, “Der Spruch über Petrus als den Felsen der Kirche,” in Sitzungsberichte der preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philologisch—Historische Klasse (918), 637.
14. Luke 9:21.
15. As also in Matthew 16:21—28.
16. Eusebius, HE III, 39, 15; V, 8, 3, in PG 20:300, 449.
17. Eusebius, HE III, 24, 3—7, in PG 20:264—65; cf. Clementine Recognitions I, 21, in PG 1:1218: “Which things were indeed plainly spoken by Christ but are not plainly written; so much so that when they are read, they cannot be understood without an expounder.”
18. Jacques-Paul Migne, ed., Scripturae Sacrae Cursus Completus, 25 vols. (Paris: Migne, 1840) 21:823—24; cf. 22:795—96, 106—7, suggests that the Lord commanded secrecy as to his true nature lest men afterwards beholding his death, “being offended by the infirmity of his flesh should lose their faith.” As if all the disciples did not do that very thing, the lesson of the resurrection receiving particular force when it came as a rebuke to the doubters. Migne also gives his opinion only, that Christ withheld this information “lest people be offended at his calling himself the Son of God”—the last motive in the world to attribute to Jesus, whom the world hated because he made no concessions to its prejudices, the whole gospel being a “rock of offense.”
19. 1 Peter 3:19; Tertullian, De Anima (On the Soul) VII, 35, 55, in PL 2:697—98, 753—54, 787—90; The Wisdom of Solomon 17:15; Book of Enoch (1 Enoch) 10:13; 69:28; Jerome, Commentarius in Osee (Commentary on Hosea) 1, 13, in PL 25:938: “a lower place in which the spirits are confined, either in rest or punishment, according to their deserts.”
20. 4 Esdras 4:35—36; 7:75—99; cf. Josephus, Jewish Antiquities XVIII, 1, 3.
21. Tertullian, On the Soul 55, in PL 2:790: “From the prison of death, thy blood is the key of admission to all paradise.” He is speaking of the blood of the martyrs, with which they are baptized. It has been common at all periods of the church to speak of baptism as “the gate.”
22. Isaiah 45:1.
23. Matthew 16:18.
24. Odes of Solomon 42:15—20.
25. Odes of Solomon 22:12, quoted at length in Carl Schmidt, Gespräche Jesu mit seinen Jüngern nach der Auferstehung: Ein katholisch-apostolisches Sendschreiben des 2. Jarhhunderts (Leipzig: Hinrich, 1908), 565—66.
26. Ignatius, Epistle to the Philadelphians 9, in PG 5:836; the same combination as in Hermae Pastor (Shepherd of Hermas), Similitudo (Similitude) 9, 12, and 16, in PG 2:992, 996; cf. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata VI, 6, 46, in PG 9:269.
27. Thus Migne, Scripturae Sacrae Cursus Completus 21:814: “There is no doubt that ‘the gates of hell’ refers to all the power of the devil.” He then proceeds to cite in support of this only the following: Psalm 147:13; Genesis 22:17; 24:60; Judges 5:8; 1 Kings 8:37; and Psalm 107:16, none of which refers to “all the powers of the devil,” but every one of which refers to the real gates and the functions of gates.
28. Matthew 12:26—29; Luke 10:18; 11:18; 13:16; 22:31; Mark 3:23—27; John 12:34; 14:30; 16:11; 1 John 2:13; John 14:4—6; 5:19; Ignatius, Epistola ad Ephesios (Epistle to the Ephesians), chs. 9, 17, 19, in PG 5:656, 657, 660, 745, 752—53.
29. 2 Corinthians 4:4.
30. John 12:31; 16:11.
31. Barnabas, Epistola Catholica (Catholic Epistle) 2, in PG 2:729—30.
32. 1 Enoch 20:2. This subject is fully treated by Schmidt, Gespräche Jesu, 547—48, 507, cf. 285—87.
33. John 12:31; 16:11; Schmidt, Gespräche Jesu, 549—50, 556, 573, 462, 571; Gall, Basileia tou Theou, 290—301, treats the subject at length.
34. Matthew 25:41; Schmidt, Gespräche Jesu, 548, 550, 576.
35. Romans 2:16; Psalm 44:21; Jeremiah 23:24; 49:10; Ezekiel 28:2, etc.
36. The literary motif is frankly pagan, as in Dante. In folklore it is no less of popular pagan origin, cf. Stith Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk-Literature (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1934) G 303.25.19. Cf. Gall, Basileia tou Theou, 290—301.
37. Schmidt, Gespräche Jesu, 572 cites a text of this in use in the Syrian Church as early as A.D. 340.
38. Gospel of Nicodemus 15; virtually the same dialogue is found in Ephraim and in a Descensus of the 2nd or 3rd century, K. von Tischendorf, Evangelia (Leipzig, 1876; reprinted Hildesheim: Olms, 1966), 394—97.
39. Harnack, “Der Spruch über Petrus als den Felsen der Kirche,” 638—39.
40. 1 Corinthians 5:5; Luke 13:16.
41. For the best general treatment of this much-handled subject, see Samuel H. Hooke, ed., The Labyrinth (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1935).
42. Ignatius, Epistle to the Philadelphians 9, in PG 5:836; the “keys of the kingdom of the heavens” of Matthew 16:19 would be useless unless “the gates of hell” of the preceding verse were opened to give up their dead. Indeed, the first words of verse 19 show a wide variety of readings in the manuscripts, with a strong indication that Christ said, “I shall also give you the keys to the kingdom of the heavens.”
43. The references to Prudentius and Seneca are given by F. J. E. Raby, A History of Christian-Latin Poetry (Oxford: Clarendon, 1937), 70.
44. Odes of Solomon 17:8—15.
45. Constantin von Tischendorf, Synopsis Evangelica (Leipzig: Mendelssohn, 1864), xxxvi—xxxv, calls attention to the significant emphasis of the gospels of the time of this event as a continuation of the former.
46. Matthew 17:1—13; Mark 9:2—13; Luke 9:28—36.
47. Migne, Scripturae Sacrae Cursus Completus 21:837 explains that this is a Hebraism, simply the equivalent of “Peter said.” Only he fails to note that verse 4 is an immediate continuation of verse 3. Even the Hebrew never uses “answered” for “spoke” with the first utterance in a story; of course, if Peter answered, he spoke—”answered” necessarily means “spoke,” but it also necessarily means something more.
48. Matthew 17:5—6; Mark 9:7; Luke 9:34.
49. Acts 1:9 following the Bezae (D) manuscript.
50. Matthew 17:9—13; Mark 9:9—13; Luke 9:36.
51. 1 Peter 4:7; 1 John 2:18; James 5:7—11.
52. 1 John 2:18.
53. Acts 3:21.
54. Matthew 13:10—15; Mark 4:10—13; Luke 8:9—10.
55. Matthew 13:23; Mark 4:20; Luke 8:15.
56. Irenaeus, Against Heresies V, 36, in PG 7:1221—23.
57. Clementine Recognitions IV, 35—36, in PG 1:1330—32.
58. Thus St. Augustine doubts the idea of “many mansions,” noting that there is but one house of God and but one salvation: there are no degrees of salvation, De Anima et Eius Origine (On the Soul and Its Origin) II, 10; III, 11, 13, in PL 44:503, 518, 520.
59. 1 Corinthians 3:2; Hebrews 5:12.
60. John 16:12: “I have yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now.” Acts 10:41: “Not unto all the people, but unto witnesses chosen.” Acts 15:28: “For it seemed good . . . to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things.” Clementine Recognitions I, 21, in PG 1:1218: “Which things were plainly spoken but are not plainly written.” Clementine Recognitions I, 23, 52, in PG 1:1236, 1282; III, 1: “I [Peter] . . . endeavor to avoid publishing the chief knowledge concerning the Supreme Divinity to unworthy ears,” Clement of Alexandria, Stromata VI, 7, 61, in PG 9:284; Eusebius, HE II, 1, 4—5 (citing Clement), in PG 20:136. Innumerable passages on this head might be cited.
61. Matthew 15:16; 28:17 (even after the resurrection, “some doubted”); Mark 9:32; 16:14; Luke 8:25; 9:45; 18:34; 24:16; John 2:22—24; 3:32; 6:36; 6:60—67; 7:5; 11:13; 12:16; 13:7; 16:25—33. This last is another lost teaching: in verse 25 the Lord promises that the time will come when he will speak plainly to the apostles; after three short verses, announcing nothing new, they declare: “now speakest thou plainly. . . . Now are we sure that thou knowest all things.” What brought on such a change? What was it he told them? That we are not told.
62. Luke 24:27.
63. Luke 24:25.
64. Acts 1:3.
65. Schmidt, Gespräche Jesu, 304—36.
66. Ibid., 201—8.
67. Ibid., 156—68, gives an extensive list of these; they were strictly orthodox, ibid., 168—72, 190, 204—5.
68. Ibid., 205: It was universally believed in the early church that “the last and highest revelations” were those given by the Lord after his resurrection, and that these dealt with “the kingdom of God.”
69. For references, PL 2:787—88, n. 70.
70. On various terms designating the spirit world, see Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, 3 vols. (New York: Harper, 1919), 1:21, n. 6; 2:46, n. 2. Others may be found scattered throughout Schmidt, Gespräche Jesu. The geographical hell first appears in Tertullian, On the Soul 55, in PL 2:787—88; in On the Soul 7, in PL2:998, he notes that since suffering must be physical, the spirits in prison must have corporeal bodies; a true African, he cannot believe that mere detention of the spirit could cause suffering: it is matter alone that suffers, he says.
71. By this title we shall henceforth refer to the second-century Coptic manuscript found in 1895 and eked out by later texts, the whole edited and published by Carl Schmidt and Isaak Wajnberg, under the title Gespräche Jesu mit seinen Jüngern nach der Auferstehung: Ein katholisch-apostolisches Sendschreiben des 2. Jahrhunderts, see above note 25. The passage cited is from pp. 89, 84—85 (xxii, xxi of the Coptic text).
72. See lexicons. In Plato’s Timaeus XXIV (59) anapausis is an agreeable activity, devoid of any coercion.
73. Schmidt, Gespräche Jesu, 74—75.
74. Ibid., 63, 66, 71—73.
75. Irenaeus, Epideixis (Proof of the Apostolic Preaching) 6, in PO 12:664; cf. Irenaeus, Against Heresies II, 20, 3, in PG 7:778.
76. Barnabas, Catholic Epistle 16, in PG 2:776.
77. Ignatius, Epistola ad Magnesios (Epistle to the Magnesians) 8, 1; 9, 2, in PG 5:765—66; Ignatius, Epistola ad Trallianos (Epistle to the Trallians) 8, in PG 5:788.
78. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata VI, 6, in PG 9:265.
79. Acta Thomae, 265, cited in Schmidt, Gespräche Jesu, 557—58.
80. Irenaeus, Against Heresies II, 20, 3, in PG 7:778.
81. Origen, Contra Celsum (Against Celsus) II, 56, in PG 11:885—88.
82. Justin, Dialogue with Trypho 5, in PG 6:488; 45, in PG 6:573.
83. Cited in Schmidt, Gespräche Jesu, 489: The logion states that the Lord visited the dead and brought the Fathers and prophets of old from a lower to a higher anapausis.
84. “Ordo promotionis, ordo resurrectionis.” Irenaeus, Against Heresies V, 30, 1; V, 31, 1, in PG 7:1203—5, 1208; cf. Irenaeus, Proof of the Apostolic Preaching 56 and 78, in PO 12:702, 717.
85. Clement of Alexandria, Ex Scripturis Profeticis Eclogae (Selections from the Prophetic Writings) 56—57, in PG 9:725. Prokope expresses the idea of a temporary rest even better than anapausis, cf. above note 72.
86. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata VI, 107, 2, in PG 9:328—29.
87. Philo, On Dreams 1, 23 (643).
88. Anselm, Homiliae (Homilies) 8, in PL 158:637.
89. Schmidt, Gespräche Jesu, 86—87, 315.
90. Barnabas, Catholic Epistle 16, in PG 2:776. It was extremely common in the second and especially third centuries to “spiritualize” actual practices, e.g., baptism, marriage, feasting, etc., without in any way implying that the real thing was done away with.
91. Hippolytus, Demonstratio de Christo et Antichristo (On Christ and the Antichrist) 26, in PG 10:740.
92. De Elcanam et Annam fragment 4 (Hippolytus 1, 2) quoted at length in Schmidt, Gespräche Jesu, 509.
93. Sibylline Oracles 8:310—11.
94. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata VI, 6, in PG 9:268.
95. Sirach 24:32, in Schmidt, Gespräche Jesu, 473.
96. Schmidt, Gespräche Jesu, 473.
97. Justin, Dialogue with Trypho 4, 6, in PG 6:645; Irenaeus, Against Heresies III, 20, 4, in PG 7:945; IV, 22, in PG 7:1046; IV, 33, 1, in PG 7:1208; it is also cited by Jerome, Commentarius in Evangelium Mattheum (Commentary on Matthew) 4, 27, in PL 26:213.
98. Justin, Dialogue with Trypho 4, 6, in PG 6:645; cf. Jerome, Commentary on Matthew 4, 27, in PL 26:213.
99. Though he is inclined to separate the two traditions, Schmidt must nonetheless admit that the decensus and the kerygma are found inseparably joined from the first.
100. Acta Thomae, p. 265, in Schmidt, Gespräche Jesu, 558.
101. Odes of Solomon 42:14, 20.
102. Odes of Solomon 17:12, 15—16.
103. “And he was crucified, and went down to Hades, and broke through the barrier which till then had never been breached; and he awoke the dead, and went down alone, but came up with a great host toward his Father.” Eusebius, HE I, 13, 19, citing the letter of Thaddeus to Abgar, one of the most ancient of all Christian documents.
104. Tertullian, On the Soul 55, in PL 2:788.
105. References in “Index Latinitatis,” in PL 2:1372, s.v. “compos.”
106. Irenaeus, Against Heresies IV, 33, in PG 7:1081.
107. Origen, Against Celsus II, 43, in PG 11:864—65.
108. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata VI, 6, in PG 9:272.
109. Schmidt, Gespräche Jesu, 49, 51.
110. Origen, In Lucam Homiliae (Homily on Luke) 4, in PG 12:1811.
111. Origen, Commentaria in Evangelium Joannis (Commentary on John) 2, 30, in PG 14:181.
112. Hippolytus, On Christ and the Antichrist 5, 45, in PG 10:764.
113. Thus in the Anglo-Saxon version, “Höllenfahrt Christi,” in Richard Paul Wulker, Bibliothek der Angelsächsischen Poesie, 3 vols. (Leipzig: Wigands, 1897), 3.1:177.
114. Shepherd of Hermas, Similitudes III, 9, 16; we are following the various texts given in Max Dressel, Patrum Apostolicorum Opera (Leipzig, 1863), 548—49, 631.
115. Codex Vaticanus 3848.
116. See note 114.
117. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata III, 6, in PG 9:268.
118. Ibid. II, 9, in PG 8:980; Clement cites the entire passage from Shepherd of Hermas, Similitudes 9, 16; he also quotes Deuteronomy 32:21; Isaiah 65:1—2; Romans 10:20—21; 2:14.
119. Schmidt, Gespräche Jesu, 315; cf. 317—18: “Christ not only appears as a preacher in the lower world, but also as one administering baptism; and here, too, his activity runs parallel to his earthly mission.” Cf. John 3:22—26; 4:1.
120. The Gnostics would not tolerate the idea that any who lived under the Old Law could be saved, but instead they insisted that Christ went to the lower world and liberated only the enemies of the ancient prophets and patriarchs! Thus Theodoretus, Haereticae Fabulae (Heretical Tales) 1, 24, in PG 83:373, 376; Epiphanius, Adversus Haereses (Against Heresies) 42, 4, in PG 41:700—701; Irenaeus, Against Heresies I, 27, 3, in PG 7:689.
121. Augustine, Epistolae (Letters) III, 89, 5, in PL 33:312; “Minister . . . non iste sed . . . ipse Christus qui baptizat.” So likewise in Augustine, Contra Epistolam Parmeniani (Against the Letter of Parmenienus) II, 16, 35, in PL 43:77; Contra Litteras Petiliani Donatistae (Against the Writings of Petilianus the Donatist) III, 35, 40, in PL 43:368—69; Against the Donatists I, 18, 47, in PL 43:427; I, 21, 58, in PL 43:435.
122. Schmidt, Gespräche Jesu, 133—35.
123. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesis 3 de Baptismo (Catechetical Lecture on Baptism) 4, in PG 33:429: “For since a man is two-fold, consisting of body and spirit, so must be the purification. . . . The water cleans the body, the spirit seals the soul.” See also 418, in PG 33:432, 440, and Catechesis 13 de Christo Crucifixo et Sepulto (Catechetical Lecture on the Crucifixion and Burial of Christ) 21, in PG 33:797—800.
124. Tertullian, De Baptismo (On Baptism) 4, 7, in PL 1:1312, 1315—16.
125. Thus Fulgentius, Epistolae (Letters) 11, 4, in PL 65:379; Letters 12, 9, in PL 65:388: “Once one has died without the sacrament of baptism, he may not be baptized, because the spirit, to which belonged that will and faithful devotion (which justify baptism) has departed.” Cf. Crisconius, Breviarium Canonicum (Canonical Epitome) 247, in PL 88:925.
126. 1 Corinthians 15:29; see below note 138.
127. Catholic commentators regard the status of living and dead as referring only to spiritual or eternal life. This completely ignores the fact that the dead receive a real baptism in water, no explanation being offered as to how the “mortui baptizandi erant [dead were to be baptized].”
128. See below notes 157—60.
129. Origen, Homily on Luke 24, in PG 13:1864—65.
130. Albertus Magnus Ratisboneus, De Sacramento Eucharistiae (On the Eucharist) 6, 2, 1, cited by Elmhorst, in PL 58:1042, who gives a list of medieval writers holding the same opinion, PL 58:1043.
131. Tertullian, De Resurrectione (On the Resurrection) 48, in PL 2:864.
132. Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem (Against Marcion) 5, 10, in PL 2:495.
133. Ambrose, Epistolae (Letters) I, 72, 18, in PL 16:1302; Ambrose (dubia), De Sacramentis (On the Sacrament), in PL 16:443; on the same subject, St. Peter Chrysologus, Sermones (Discourses) 171, in PL 52:647.
134. Tertullian, Against Marcion, 5, 10, in PL 2:526—27, cited in John Kaye, The Ecclesiastical History of the Second and Third Centuries Illustrated from the Writings of Tertullian (London: Farran, 1894), 272.
135. Epiphanius, Against Heresies I, 28, 6, in PG 41:384.
136. Irenaeus, Against Heresies III, 4, 2, in PG 7:855—56.
137. Epiphanius, Against Heresies I, 28, 6, in PG 41:384—85.
138. Ambrose, Commentaria in Epistolam I ad Corinthios (Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians), in PL 17:280.
139. Ignatius, Epistle to the Magnesians 8, 1 and 9, 2, in PG 5:699, 765, 768, assumes like Paul that his readers know all about the work of baptism for the dead, as Schmidt demonstrates, Schmidt, Gespräche Jesu, 476.
140. Oecumenius, Commentaria in Epistolam I ad Corinthios (Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians) 15, 29, in PG 118:877.
141. Peter the Venerable, Adversus Patrobrusianos Haereticos (Against the Patrobrusian Heretics), in PL 189:831—32.
142. Ibid., in PL 189:832.
143. Oecumenius, Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians 15, 29, in PG 118:876—77.
144. W. Henry, “Baptême des morts (Le),” in DACL 2:380.
145. Ibid.
146. St. Bruno, Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians 15, 29, in PL 153:209.
147. John of Damascene, In Epistolas ad Corinthios (Commentary on the Epistles to the Corinthians) 116, in PG 95:693.
148. Lanfranc, Commentarius in Epistolam B. Pauli Apostoli ad Corinthios Primam (Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians) 15, 29, in PL 150:210.
149. It was Henri Müller, in 1656; see Henry, “Baptême des morts,” 380.
150. John Chrysostom, In Epistolam I ad Corinthios Homilia (Homily on the First Epistle to the Corinthians) 40, in PG 61:347.
151. Theophylactus, Expositio in Epistolam I ad Corinthios (Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians) 15, 29, in PG 124:768.
152. Fulgentius, Letters 12, 9 (20), in PL 65:388.
153. Ibid., cf. PL 65:379.
154. Henry, “Baptême des morts,” 381, produces no laws or regulations against baptism for the dead, but cites as having the same force those specifically directed against baptism of the dead, e.g., Third Council of Carthage, in PL 140:734; Canon law 19, in PL 96:1049; cf. Theodoretus, Heretical Tales 1, 111, in PG 83:361, which they also cite.
155. Philastrius, Liber de Haeresibus (On Heresies) 49, in PL 12:1166; the Cataphrygians were a branch of the Montanists, noted, if nothing else, for their sobriety. Yet Philastrius mentions rumors of savage and bloody sacramental rites.
156. See above note 114.
157. It is precisely in ordering the apostles “to tell no man that thing” that the Lord tells them how he is presently to be put to death. Mark 8:30—31; Luke 9:21—22; Matthew 16:20—21. The injunction to secrecy is the same in the “gates of hell” discussion as on the Mount, when “they kept it close and told no man in those days,” Luke 10:36, since they were commanded to “tell the vision to no man, until the Son of man be risen again from the dead.” Matthew 17:9; the same in Mark 9:9.
158. Eusebius, HE II, 1, 4—5, in PG 20:136.
159. Eusebius describes as the purpose of his history “to record the successions of the holy apostles . . . down to the present, and to tell . . . what individuals in the most prominent positions eminently governed and presided over the church.” HE I, 1, 1. The “most prominent�� offices in the church of his own day he regards as four great bishoprics of Jerusalem, Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria, which are the main lines of succession from the apostles, yet he is unable to furnish an instance in which “the gnosis” is given to one of these. Tertullian is very clear and specific in this matter: “You are reversing and altering the manifest intention of the Lord in endowing Peter personally . . . for he says . . . ‘I shall give to thee the keys,’ not to the Church, and: ‘Whatsoever thou shalt loosen or thou shalt bind,’ not whatsoever they shall loosen or they shall bind.” He then goes on to show that Peter’s authority was not “handed down,” but if it still exists in the church must come by direct revelation and not through the mere episcopal office (sed Ecclesia Spiritus per spiritalem hominem, non ecclesia numerus episcoporum). Tertullian, De Pudicitia (On Modesty) 21, in PL 2:1078—80.
160. Thus Romans 11:33, noting Romans 2:17—20 that the Jewish law preserves but a shadow (morphosis) of the gnosis; 1 Corinthians 8:7: “Not in everyone is the gnosis” which is (12:8) “given through the spirit” to particular individuals; in 1 Corinthians 13:2 it is described as the most rare and wonderful of attainments, in 1 Corinthians 13:8 it is predicted that “it shall vanish away.” It is an inspired thing, 1 Corinthians 14:6, known to the world only very indirectly by its effect on the lives of the Saints. God “making known the odor (osmēn) of the gnosis of Him through us in every place,” 2 Corinthians 2:14. It is the gnosis that sets Paul apart from other teachers, 2 Corinthians 11:6. The love of Christ is the greatest of all things, since it excels even the gnosis, he tells the Ephesians (3:19); and to the Philippians (3:8) he says that all earthly things are as nothing compared to the value of the gnosis of Jesus Christ. The gnosis is again described, Colossians 2:2—3, as a treasure and a mystery, hidden in Christ, and a thing which must be carefully guarded and not exposed to “that which is falsely called the gnosis,” 1 Timothy 6:20.
161. John 20:9.
162. Acts 10:41.
163. Ignatius, Epistle to the Philadelphians 8, in PG 5:833.
164. Robert Eisler, Iesous Basileus ou Basileusas (Heidelberg: Winter, 1930) 1: xxix—xxxiv, 298, 353.
165. John 3:12.
166. Instances in which an actual limitation is placed on the preaching of the gospel are very numerous in the scriptures, e.g., Matthew 7:6—7; 11:14—15, 25—28; 13:11—16; 13:34—36; 19:11; 24:3; Mark 4:9—12; 9:33—34; 11:33; Luke 8:10; 9:36, 43—45; 10:21—23; 12:41; 18:34; 22:67—71; John 1:11—12; 3:11—12; 6:60—66; 8:43—44; 10:24—27; 16:12—18, 25, 29—30; Acts 10:41; 15:28; 19:2; 20:20; 28:26—27; Romans 6:19; 11:30—34; 1 Corinthians 2:14; 3:1—3; 7:25; 14:2, 9—10; 14:22; 15:34; 2 Corinthians 1:13; 3:3; 12:2—5; Galatians 2:2; Ephesians 3:1—5; Colossians 1:26; 1 Peter 2:2; 2 Peter 3:16; 2 John 1:12.
167. In this connection should be cited the much-discussed remark of Jesus to the Pharisees (Luke 17:20—21) that the kingdom of God was in their midst, but that it was not for them to see. The word rendered “observation” in the King James version has in all contexts the meaning of an intense, expectant watch, a spying out (parateresis)—much stronger than mere observation, so Christ tells the Pharisees that no matter how hard they look (paratereo always means to look very hard) they will not see the kingdom, which in fact (idou gar) is already among them. The word “within” (entos) can only be rendered so when used with a singular noun; here it is used with the plural and must of course be read “among” or (literally) “in the midst of.” This has often been pointed out by scholars ever since the Renaissance. But the more philosophical and sentimental, if less accurate, King James version is usually preferred as avoiding embarrassing questions of doctrine.
168. Eusebius, HE III, 32, 7—8, in PG 20:284.
169. 1 Timothy 6:20.
170. First the apostles themselves should depart (“God hath sent forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death”), and then would come the wolves, against whom the flock is denied immunity, 1 Corinthians 4:9—15; Acts 20:29—31, God himself sending “a strong delusion” (2 Thessalonians 2:11, the “falling away” of verse 3 shows that this applies to the church), since they would not endure sound doctrine, 2 Timothy 4:3—4.
171. 1 Corinthians 13:8; the King James version correctly preserves the future indicative; the independent “whether” (eite) implies, “to whatever degree they exist,” i.e., it is indefinite; but there is nothing indefinite about the result clause: whatever their present status these three are to be taken away.
172. 1 Corinthians 13:9—13. The King James “and now abideth” is very weak in comparison to the Greek nuni de menei, etc.: “but now these three remain.” “These” is the proper subject of the verb, which, since the subject is neuter, should be translated in the plural.
173. Luke 11:52.
174. Romans 2:20.
175. Polycarp, Epistle to the Philippians 3, in PG 5:1008.
176. Clement, Epistola I ad Corinthios (First Epistle to the Corinthians) 47, in PG 1:308; neither are they under Clement’s authority, as the Roman Catholics claim, for we learn in the introduction that this letter is written at the request of the Corinthians, and we know from the other apostolic letters that it was common for bishops to communicate with other congregations than their own if those congregations requested letters. Decisive in this matter is the remark at the end of section 46 of this epistle in PG 1:305: “Your falling out has turned many aside, has plunged many into despair, caused many to vacillate, and brought sorrow to us all, and your disorder (statis) is chronic (epimonos).” From this and other sections (3, 14, 16, 46, in PG 1:213—16, 236—37, 240—41, 305) it is clear that the evil is far advanced and has been going on for some time; yet it is not until he receives a request from the Corinthians themselves that Clement presumes to give them words of advice, which would not possibly be the case had he the right and duty to intervene in Corinthian affairs. When like crises arose in Rome, Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, and Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, laid down the law to the Roman congregation even more emphatically than Clement spoke to the Corinthians, Irenaeus, Against Heresies III, 3, 4, in PG 7:85—88; Eusebius, HE V, 24—28, in PG 20:493—517.
177. Ignatius, Epistola ad Romanos (Epistle to the Romans) 4, in PG 5:689.
178. Ignatius, Epistle to the Trallians 5, in PG 5:781; cf. 3, in PG 5:780: “Shall I . . . reach such a pitch of presumption . . . as to issue commands to you as if I were an Apostle?” Here is a man who obviously knows the difference between a bishop and an apostle; for Ignatius was “the third Bishop of Antioch after Peter.”
179. August Neander, Antignostikus, Geist des Tertullians und Einleitung in dessen Schriften (Berlin: Dümmler, 1849), 3—14.
180. Among Gnostic teachings condemned by Irenaeus and later adopted by the Catholic church are celibacy, Against Heresies I, 24, 2, in PG 7:675; veneration of images, ibid., I, 25, 6, in PG 7:685—86; allegorical interpretation of the scriptures, ibid., II, 27, 1, in PG 7:802—3; proof by demonstration, ibid., II, 22, 6, in PG 7:785; appeal to philosophy and use of philosophic terms, ibid., II, 14, 2 and 7, in PG 7:750, 754; transubstantiation of water into blood, ibid., 1, 13, 2, in PG 7:579; extreme unction, ibid., I, 11, 5, in PG 7:665; use of chrism, ibid., I, 13, 2, in PG 7:644; vileness of the flesh, ibid., I, 15, 4, in PG 7:683—84; irresistible Grace, ibid., I, 25, 5, in PG7:685; the incomprehensibility of God, ibid., II, 2, 4, in PG 7:714. This is not to say that these were all taken over from the Gnostics, but rather from the same source that supplied the Gnostics: the popular teachings of the day.
181. Irenaeus expresses this idea: “Even if the Apostles had possessed hidden mysteries . . . they would certainly have transmitted them to those to whom they committed the churches.” Against Heresies III, 3, 1, in PG 7:848. Against this we have the word of those men themselves, given in our preceding paragraph, that they did not share all the knowledge of the apostles and that they did not pass on what knowledge they did share.
182. Eusebius, HE III, 24, 5, in PG 20:264—65: Besides Paul “the other disciples of our Savior were not ignorant of the same things, both the twelve Apostles and the Seventy, and besides them a great many others. Nevertheless out of all the things the Lord did, only Matthew and John left records, and they only wrote down what they were forced to, according to the report. . . . The three evangelists [the Synoptics] only wrote an account of his doings for one year.”
183. 1 Peter 4:6—7.
184. Schmidt, Gespräche Jesu, 116—18.
185. Thus Bishop John Kaye of Lincoln, Ecclesiastical History, 276: “The promise of the Holy Spirit, made by Christ to the Church, precludes the possibility of an universal defection from the true faith.” Apparently the good bishop is oblivious to the fact that the promise of the spiritual gifts to accompany the Holy Spirit—prophecy, tongues, etc.—precludes the possibility of any modern church possessing it. The fact that the scripture is the sole source of “revelation” in all the synods and councils of the Christian church cancels any claim it might make to being the recipient of the promised Paraclete.
186. Both Apostles and Apostolic Fathers are careful to point out to the church that even the angels “kept not their first estate.” 2 Peter 2:4—22; Jude 1:5—19; Clement, First Epistle to the Corinthians 39, in PG 1:285; Ignatius, Epistola ad Smyrnaeos (Epistle to the Smyrnaeans) 6, in PG 5:847; as a warning that no one is ever out of danger, typical is the statement of Clement, Epistola II ad Corinthios (Second Epistle to the Corinthians) 4, in PG 1:336: “For the Lord said, ‘Even though ye were gathered together to my very bosom, should you fail to keep my commandments I would cast you away.'” The Jews, the covenant people who lost the covenant, are repeatedly mentioned as an object lesson to the Christians: thus Barnabas, Catholic Epistle 4, in PG 2:734: “Beware lest resting at ease as being God’s chosen ones, we fall asleep in our sins. . . . And especially take heed when you observe what marvelous signs and wonders were had among the Jews, in spite of which God deserted.”
187. As an authoritative statement of this point of view we may cite Alfred Fawkes, “The Development of Christian Institutions and Beliefs,” Harvard Theological Review 10 (1917): 144: “The belief in the literal and immediate Coming of Christ is the key to the Church of the First Age.” He discusses the subject at length.
188. 1 Peter 1:5—6, 20; 4:7, 12 speaks of an immediate end. 2 Peter 3:4—12: They say, “Where is the promise of his coming? . . . all things continue as they were. . . . But, beloved, be not ignorant of this, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years. . . . The Lord is not slack concerning his promise.”
189. 1 Corinthians 7:29—31.
190. 2 Thessalonians 2:1—7.
191. Acts 20:31.
192. 1 John 2:18: “Even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.”
193. Shepherd of Hermas, Similitudes 3 and 4, in PG 2:955—56. As to Mark 13:34, “the absence of the Lord of the vineyard is the time that must pass until his coming.” Shepherd of Hermas, Similitudes 5, 5, in PG 2:961—62.
194. Didache 16:3—8.
195. Matthew 24:5, 6, 8, 13.
196. 2 Timothy 4:7—8.
197. 2 Timothy 4:3—4.
198. Galatians 1:6.
199. 2 Timothy 1:15.
200. In Clement, Second Epistle to the Corinthians 5, in PG 1:335, the Lord tells the Apostles: “‘Ye shall be as lambs in the midst of wolves.’ And Peter answered him and said unto him, ‘What then if the wolves shall tear the lambs to pieces?’ Jesus said to Peter: ‘The lambs have no cause after they are dead to fear the wolves; and in like manner fear ye not them that kill you.'” This passage is typical in its absolute refusal to grant the church the slightest glimmer of hope in the matter of earthly success. Ignatius’ entire Epistle to the Romans is a document of profoundest pessimism. He takes no comfort in the church and expresses no interest in her future, but wishes only to die; a less helpful attitude could not be imagined, but the saint explains that he is sick of living “among men” and seeks joy and illumination that come from the presence of the Lord: was it living “among men” to live in the church? and was there no joy or illumination to be enjoyed any longer in the church on this earth? Ignatius answers in the negative.
201. It is easy looking backward to claim that the blood of the martyrs was meant to guarantee the integrity of the church for all time; but the evidence is exhaustive that the martyrs themselves never thought of their sufferings in such terms. It cannot be too emphatically repeated that the survival of the Christian name, far from proving the survival of the church and the gospel, may be taken for evidence of the very opposite, since the Lord and the apostles repeatedly pointed out that the “deceiver of the world” would come in Christ’s name. All apostolic writers describe the great danger to the church as coming from within it, and never express the slightest concern about the activities of those outside. That victory of the church over paganism, in which the ministry are wont to glory, is thus seen to be a hollow victory indeed, since paganism as such presented no danger. Such pagan writings as Cicero’s De Divinatione are far more devastating attacks upon the old state religion than anything ever produced by a Christian writer.
202. John 9:4.
203. Irenaeus, Against Heresies II, 32, 4, in PG 7:828—29.
204. Tertullian, On Modesty 21, in PL 2:1077—82, noting that the power to do miracles and that of forgiving sins have the same source, observes, “If the blessed Apostles enjoyed such power it was by a special gift of God, . . . and not by virtue of any special training. . . . Show me then some examples of such power today, and I will concede your right to forgive sins. But if you claim your authority simply by virtue of your office . . . and cannot show the power of Apostle or Prophet, you must be lacking in the authority you claim.” On Matthew 9:4: “If the Lord himself took such pains to put his power to the proof, not presuming to forgive sins without a power great enough to heal the sick, certainly I may not claim power to forgive sins without at least an equivalent demonstration of divine power.”
205. For evidence we refer the reader to the extensive indices of the Patrologiae, wherein few subjects are more extensively treated than baptism.
206. Justin, Dialogue with Trypho 80, in PG 6:664.
207. Their doubts are discussed by Schmidt, Gespräche Jesu, 519—20.
208. Irenaeus, Against Heresies V, 32, 1, in PG 7:1210.
209. Ibid. V, 35, 3, in PG 7:1220.
210. The Aquileian, Athanasian, and some Eastern versions of the Apostles’ Creed contain the phrase which is further defended by Augustine and (in the late sixth century) by Venatius Fortunatus, according to Philip Schaff, Creeds of Christendom 1:21, n. 6; even the Roman creed adopted the clause, 1:19. Rufinus (Bishop of Aquileia A.D. 410—415) interprets the phrase as being simply equivalent to “he was buried,” Commentarius in Symbolum Apostolorum (Commentary on the Creed of the Apostles), in PL 21:356, but then cites a number of scripture passages which he regards as supporting a literal interpretation, ibid., in PL 21:363—64. The Arminensian and Acacian versions of the creed both contain the phrase “descended to the regions beneath the earth,” Socrates, HE II, 37, and II, 41, in PG 67:305, 348. As late as the twelfth century the anonymous writer of a Symboli Apostolici Explanatio (Explanation of the Apostolic Creed), in PL 213:734, includes the clause and the comment: “He descended to the lower regions that he might liberate the saints who were there by the first penalties (debita) of death.”
211. Schmidt, Gespräche Jesu, 25—27; 521, 541. Origen is the first to conclude that no one who lived before Christ can possibly enjoy full salvation, a doctrine in which the persuasion of pagan philosophy is stronger than scripture, Homiliae in Librum Regum (Homilies on the Book of Kings) 2, in PL 12:1013—28.
212. Augustine, On the Soul and Its Origin 9, in PL 44:480—81.
213. Ibid., in PL 44:188—89, 503, 518, 520.
214. Ibid., in PL 44:120, 140, 188—89.
215. William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, act 1, scene 2, 82—83.
216. Augustine, Contra Julianum Pelagianum (Against Julian the Pelagian) 57, in PL 45:1596—97.
217. Ambrose, in PL 55:235.
218. Basilius, Liber de Spiritu Sancto (Writings on the Holy Spirit) 10, 26, in PG 32:113.
219. Gregory of Nyssen, On Baptism, in PG 46:424.
220. Gennadius, De Ecclesiasticis Dogmatibus (On Church Doctrines) 74, in PL 58:997. This doctrine precludes any belief in the “baptism of desire,” a vague device by which modern Catholics attempt to provide baptism for the unbaptized. No one could be more eligible for such a baptism than the pure and desirous catechumen, whom Gennadius describes as lost.
221. Shepherd of Hermas, Similitudes IX, 16, 6—7.
222. Augustine, Epistolae (Letters) III, 164, in PL 33:708—18. Augustine finds it “absurd” to believe that one who lacked faith in life can “believe on Christ in hell,” ibid., in PL 33:714. As to those who were disobedient in the time of Noah, 1 Peter 3:20, the scripture does not say that they ever lived in the flesh! Ibid., in PL 33:713. By such rationalizations Augustine upholds a doctrine which he describes as “hard” (durum), ibid., in PL 33:712.
223. Raby, Christian-Latin Poetry, 117.
224.
Ad Maronis mausoleum ductus fudit super eum piae rorem lacrimae
Quem te, dixit, rededissem si te vivum invenissem, poetarum maxime!
(“When brought to Vergil’s tomb he shed the dew of a tender tear over him, saying, ‘If I had found you alive, of all poets I would have restored you.'”) See Domenico Comparetti, Vergil in the Middle Ages, tr. E. F. M. Benecke (New York: Macmillan, 1895), 98.
225. Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto IV, 7—12, 31—45. The poet says (43—45) that “great sorrow seized his heart” at the sight, for he knew many of the sufferers to be “people of great worth.”
226. Ibid., 52—63.
227. Gennadius Massiliensis, De Fide ad Petrum Diaconum (To Peter the Deacon on Faith) 3, folio 159, cited in PL 58:1043.
228. Fulgentius, De Fide (On Faith) 38 (Reg. 35), in PL 65:704.
229. Cited by Elmhurst, Notae in Librum de Ecclesiasticis Dogmatibus (Notes on the Book of Church Doctrines), in PL 58:1043.
230. A common formula, thus Hippolytus, On Christ and the Antichrist 26, in PG 10:748.
231. Prof. Sidney B. Sperry brings to my attention the Coptic rendering of “gates of hell” as “the gates of Amente,” The Coptic Version of the New Testament in the Southern Dialect, 7 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1911), 1:172—73. This is the well-known Egyptian word meaning “the West” and hence “the realm of the dead,” Kurt H. Sethe, “Untersuchungen über die ägyptischen Zahlwörter,” Zeitschrift für ägyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde 47 (1910): 31; it retains both meanings also in Coptic, see William Speigelberg, Koptisches Handwörterbuch (Heidelberg: Winter, 1921), 5, 25; also in Spiegelberg, “The God Panepi,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 12 (1926): 35, where it has nothing to do with Satan or the devil. It is a fact of decisive importance that the earliest translators of the New Testament, and those nearest to the primitive church in time and in knowledge, chose this word instead of those expressions (such as te or noun) which mean “hell” in the bad tyrannical sense. Amente is simply the land of the dead, and regularly a word of good omen.
232. Henry, “Baptême des morts,” 381.
233. Augustine, De Baptismo contra Donatistas (Against the Donatists on Baptism) 4, 24, in PL 43:175.
234. Augustine, Sermones (Sermons) 294, 11 and 18, in PL 38:1342, 1346.
235. Augustine, In Johannis Evangelium (On the Gospel of John), in PL 35:1511.
236. “Minister . . . non iste sed . . . ipse Christus qui baptizat,” Augustine, Letters II, 89, in PL 33:311—12.
237. Augustine, On the Gospel of John, in PL 35:1419, 1428, 1437; Augustine, Against the Writings of Petilianus the Donatist III, 35, 40, in PL 43:368—69; III, 40, 46, in PL 43:371—72.
238. Pius X, Codex Juris Canonici (Rome: Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1918), can. 793.
239. Ibid., can. 742, 746, 747, 758, 762; these rules allow for two types of baptism which differ widely in their manner of being carried out.
240. As an example which we failed to include in the preceding article, a belated citation from the ninth century Bishop Almon (Haymon) of Halberstadt may be allowed at this point. Speaking of the primitive church, he says: “If their loved ones (friend or relative: propinquus) happened to depart this life without the grace of baptism, some living person would be baptized in his name: and they believed that the baptism of the living would profit the dead.” The bishop must deny, of course, that Paul approved the practice, and has the usual difficulty explaining why the apostle chose an improper practice to illustrate and support (ut suadeat et ostendat) his doctrine. Haymon Halberstatensis, Expositio Sancti Pauli in Epistolam I ad Corinthios (Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians), in PL 117:598.
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