The protagonists of the court
Now, all actors are in their place. The scene opens on the world. The liturgical drama of salvation will begin.
Curious Angels
The tympanum has three distinct worlds: the Tartarus, the Mansions (or Paradise) and Heaven.
Heaven must no more be confused with Paradise,
than hell with Purgatory (or here, Tartarus).
Heaven will welcome the chosen ones, resurrected in a "glorious
body", after the Last Judgement, while Hell will receive the
damned, in both cases for all eternity.
Quite different is the residence of the dead, especially after the individual
judgement delivered at their death, in wait for the last Judgement at
the end of times.
- Paradise, also called by theologians, Angelical Mansions or Paradise
Mansions, is the transient stay of the "Blessed" between the
two judgments;
- Purgatory is the place of penance for sinners who will eventually be
saved but who are till then subjected to purification tests;
- Finally, a certain region of the Tartarus could also be the place where
the souls that are found guilty and cannot be redeemed will wait from
their Individual Judgement to their eternal damnation until judgement
day, when they will really be thrown into hell. From this point of view,
apart from the demons that inhabit it, hell would be empty for the moment,
but not all theologians agree about this.
THE THREE LEVELS OF TIME
The tympanum represents the city or Mansion of God. It is composed
of Heaven, of the Mansions and of the Tartarus (because He rules over
all the worlds). All its people (the dead, the live ones, the sinners,
the saints, the chosen ones, the angels and the devils) are spread on
three vertically organized layers corresponding to the three levels of
time: past, present and future
The three time levels (Future, Present and Past)
- On
the ground floor, is the down on earth layer of the Past with:
- The characters of biblical times housed in Limbo* (ie place of the Old Testament Patriarchs) represented by six arches on the right of Christ ;
- The dead thrown into the Tartars* (place of the dead, which will soon be called purgatory*) on the left.
- On the central stage, it's the Present, the down on earth layer of
the living, with:
- The key figures of the Christian era and the church lined in procession on the side of the Mansions* ;
- The living, crammed with their depravity on the side of the Devil’s "warehouse".
- At the top: here is the Future, after the Judgment. It is Heaven, eternity, timelessness. It is represented with the Glorious Cross, the blooming stars of the new sky (or the sun and the moon before the rupture of the sixth seal of the Apocalypse (book of Revelation) that are not yet obscured or bloodied, the paternal waves, and the angels blowing their trumpets (wearing dresses embroidered with mysterious inscriptions).
One will notice that Christ opens a gap between the middle level (Present)
and the upper one (Future), belonging to one as well as to the other,
because the Parousia* could be considered also as "an eternal present",
or even both as an "already here and a not-yet-here".
Christ belongs at the same time to the earthly time (which is historical,
and human), and to the celestial time (which we can’t measure) ;
in the same way the distinct forces of justice and Divine Grace are inextricably
linked by his Incarnation. Heaven is presently (or at least that of the
terrestrial clock) inhabited only by the angels that appear bathed by
the waves of the Father.
The chosen ones, presently placed in Mansions, will only access Heaven
at the end of times, after the Last Judgement.
God’s
three levels Mansion is deployed in two side flaps: the "Mansions"*
and the Tartarus. Through the tympanum, a real eschatological timetable
of history unfolds before our eyes, a procession of characters who are
wisely aligned to the right of the Messiah. They suggest the work of the
Church, while building on the foundations provided by the Old Testament
patriarchs and prophets represented on the lower level, in Limbo*. It
is also a "baroque" and fascinating fresco of the present,
with the dense tangle of individuals in the hustle and bustle to the left
of Christ.
FIRST JUDGEMENT (or Private, but not "Last")
We’ll come back to the characters with more detail in the following pages (Judge, angels, intercessors, elected officials, tested ones in Tartarus*...), but for now, let’s witness the trial taking place before our eyes, for it is truly a Judgement which is delivered under the feet of Christ. But this one is the Private Judgement, the one that comes for every man at the point of death, we could say daily, anyway long before the Last Judgement* of the end of time. We are witnessing the first trial of a deceased person, chosen as example among others. It could be ours, and today. It is not yet the Christ who "will judge the living and the dead", ie all of humanity, at the end of time during the Last Judgement. But it is still a key trial, even if it is temporary, which results from a dispute between angels and devils, as noted by Le Goff (3).
THE VERDICT
Let’s witness this first trial: what will the sentence be? Damnation
or Grace*? What criteria will prevail: Law, or Faith?
Let’s look carefully...
Paradoxical weighing
Both weighing scales of the soul are engraved with figures almost invisible
to the viewer on the ground, but known by the initiates (which suggests
an oral commentary of the tympanum by a cleric presiding over some dramatic
liturgy).
On the plate leaning towards the side of the angel, these figures represent
two crosses potent;
The plate on the side of the devil is fully occupied by a man's face (very
burdened by his sins) (4).
Paradoxically, the balance leans on the angelic side which is the lightest.
Although the soul on the empty plate is almost devoid of merits, the cross
of faith is heavier than the sins. The devil tries to restore the logical
order of the weight of sin, which is expected to tilt the beam on his
side, not on the angelical side. But it will not be so because in the
eyes of Divine Justice, the faith of the deceased and the graces of the
Lord* represented by the cross, far outweigh the weaknesses of the dead.
Here, the victory over the devil is not deferred to the end of times.
It is acquired now, at the time of death
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It
falls at the feet of Charon, who, as in Etruscan mythology was armed with
a club and who stuffs the dead in the jaws of Cerberus. (5)
Yes, but this is not the only way out!
Behind Charon, the door separating Tartarus* from the Mansions* is not
airtight. The granting of divine mercy is renewed and again, an angel
saves a soul from the clutches of Charon. This angel also cheats a little,
when stealing the soul of a deceased under the nose of Charon! It is the
zeal mentioned by J. Le Goff. (see footnote 3)
In the words of a theologian of the time, even if the angel was mistaken
in his choice, Saint Peter would not blame him for doing so in favor of
a soul condemned to the tests of Tartarus*. The angel guiding the chosen
one whom he takes away from the devil turns around and faces Charon, who
himself turns, cheated, angry but powerless.
Pass mouse over details so you can see the details and captions
Next chapter: 2) the triumphant Parousia
and the diagonal of Grace
(1) N. B. The tympanum is a mirror. Tartarus which
appears to the left of Christ is therefore on our right. (go
back)
(2) The word Tartar
will still be used a century after the erection of the tympanum of Conques,
by Geoffroy de Poitiers (dead in 1231) whose description of Purgatory
is quoted by Jacques Le Goff: "There are several Mansions in
Purgatory: some are called obscure places of darkness, others hand of
hell, others mouth of a lion, and others Tartarus." (J. Le Goff,
The Birth of Purgatory, University Of Chicago Press). In Conques,
one will also notice the plural use of Tartarus (Tartara). See the definition
in the glossary. (go back)
(3) One can find in the writings of Jacques Le Goff,
a definition of the private Judgement which is an excellent summary of
Conques tympanum : "(the) future Judgment, the last one, the
global one offers usually only two possibilities: life or death, light
or eternal fire. Purgatory will depend on a less formal verdict; an individual
judgement immediately after death. Medieval imagery often represents it
as a struggle between good and bad angels, demons and angels, for the
soul of the deceased. As the souls in Purgatory are chosen souls that
will eventually be saved, they depend on the angels but are subject to
complex legal proceedings. They can indeed benefit from a reduced sentence,
an early release, not for their personal conduct, but because of the external
interventions, the votes. The sentence length depends thus, apart from
the mercy of God, symbolized by the zeal of the angels to rescue the souls
from the devils, on the personal merits the deceased acquired during his
life and the votes of the church obtained by parents and friends of the
deceased." (Jacques Le Goff, La naissance du Purgatoire,
Gallimard, Folio Histoire, 1981)
Furthermore, you will find in the FAQ section, question 5 a summary of
the arguments that plead in favor of Private Judgement. (go
back)
(4) The presence of a human face in the balance will
become a classical theme, often repeated in the Gothic period.
Thus, for example, in Chartres Last Judgement, "there are two
human heads on the plate, one expresses serenity and the other terror"
(Yves Delaporte, Review of Chartres Last Judgement). This coincidence
justifies the opinion of Emile Male, who saw in Conques tympanum the origin
of the Gothic Tympana in Ile de France. One also finds the same bias in
favor of salvation in the psychostasies* of Paris or Amiens cathedrals.
However, unlike for example the representation of the portal of Amiens
Holy Savior, the face of the man in Conques does not express the terror
of the Judgement (see illustration), it simply highlights the mystery
of Divine Grace* that outweighs the weight of evil.
About balance, vacuum and counterweight, one is struck by the appropriateness
of Simone Weil‘s writings about the genius of Oc and Romanesque
art: "[The essence of Occitan inspiration] shines in Romanesque
art. Architecture [...] has no concern for power or strength, but only
for balance. [...] The Romanesque church is suspended as a scale around
a point of balance, a point of balance that is based only on vacuum. [...]
This is what it takes to enclose that cross which used to be a scale in
which the body of Christ was the counterweight of the universe."
(Simone Weil, under the pseudonym of Emile Novis, in "The genius
of Oc", Cahiers du Sud, 1943) (go back)
(5) We prefer to call the monster that watches over
the gate of the Tartarus Cerberus rather than the Leviathan, because we
will see that the references to Greco-Roman antiquity are numerous in
the tympanum. (go back)
Next chapter: 2) the Parousia triumphant
and the diagonal of Grace
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