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The amount of damage at churches, after the French Revolution, is ample proof of the dubious role Religion has played through the ages. I mean, they could have just burnt houses down, raped and robbed and murdered just like any ordinary victor used to do. But no, all over France the lovely saints at churches were being attacked.
The tympanum, the front of the church, in Autun wasn’t attacked. Not because there was no anger, other parts of the church were heavily damaged, but because one crazy bishop thought the main work of Gislebertus was a little bit overdone. He had the whole front of the cathedral plastered. The plunderers of Robespierre had no clue about the sublime portrayal of the Last Judgment underneath. A local archeologist, Abbe Devoucoux, found evidence of the sculptures in some archives and had the plaster removed. Of course the bishop who had plastered the sculptures was sent to hell. But with hindsight it is hopeful that he first had to spend some time into Purgatory, which was invented at about the same time Gislebertus was making his sculptures. Because with hindsight his act of cultural murder was the cause for the fact that the sculpture of Gislebertus could survive. Based on that insight the guy deserves Heaven.
The concept of Heaven and Hell, masterly portrayed by Gislebertus – Julie will surely write about that – is brilliant. When it isn’t true it should be invented, as I think Voltaire claimed. I full-heartedly agree.
It just makes sense. Good behaviour is rewarded, bad behaviour punished. That’s how it should be.This is not true, of course, for daily life. One of the brilliant movies of Woody Allen, Crimes and Misdemeanour’s, asks the question if a crime is a real crime if nobody finds out whoever committed the crime. Dostojevski had some interesting things to say about that subject too.
Well, in daily life many people get away with all kinds of crimes, or with all kinds of sins. Some kind of sinning is probably even very useful in order to become ‘successful’. Greed is good, said Gordon Gekko in Wall Street, and the financial industry is supposed to be full of these kind of shortsighted monsters. But I am sure you can find them everywhere in all kinds of degrees.
Well, I am getting ahead of myself. I just think it is clear that in normal life not every vice is punished and not every virtue rewarded.
God, in theory, does not make these kinds of mistakes The dutch poet Gerard Reve understood this very well in a poem, that I used to know completely, but which says in general that every unshaven guy who is against this or that gets his face on television, while the dutiful nurse who graciously cleans and helps old and sick people everyday never gets mentioned. Good there is a God, the poet ends.
I like that, and I do know he exists, taking his judging job very seriously, here in Autun at the Tympanum of the St Lazare cathedral. Gislebertus created him.