Dragons in the Water: Hymns of the Forefeast of Theophany

Christmas is a wonderful time to be a medievalist. It's really the only time of year that society at large, however faintly, takes an interest in old songs and old traditions. Ours was a very liturgical Advent and Christmas, and it's only now that I find myself with time to sit down and write again (though I've done a bit of fiction writing over the holidays--but I don't usually post that here).

Before I get on with the subject of today's post, I wanted to go ahead and drop one small note about another project I'm working on: The Cave Dwellers Podcast. The Cave Dwellers has the potential to morph into something more as the year wears on, but for now it's simply a place for my daily narrations of my attempt to read through the complete works of Plato (spurious dialogues included) in a year.  Since we're only 3 days into the read (it's only weekdays; you get weekends off) it's not too late to join me. By "narration," I mean a simple-yet-effective technique used in Classical Education/Charlotte Mason Education circles of telling back information in my own words in order to synthesize it. Anyway, I'll be doing that for the rest of the year, in case you want to follow along.

Now, about those dragons.

---

Monday (January 6) is the Feast of Theophany in the Eastern Rite (usually known as Epiphany in the West, where the focus of the feast is slightly different). This is one of the ancient Church's great feasts of light, along with The Nativity (Christmas) and the Presentation of the Lord (Candlemas, aka Groundhog Day). After Easter, it's the most ancient of the Great Feasts, with the practice of keeping vigil all night before the feast day dating back at least to 140 AD. Alas, it's little known or celebrated in modern times outside of Orthodox and Catholic circles.

The Byzantine hymnography and iconography for this feast yields some rich examples of the traditional understanding of the feast in reference to ancient paganism, Old Testament typology, and the use of paradox which seems to be a defining note of Eastern Rite hymnography.

Fresco of the Theophany, St Seraphim Orthodox Cathedral, Dallas TX

Consider this Doxastichon (a special kind of hymn sung between the "Glory to the Father... Both now and ever..." following the chanting of Psalm 129 (LXX) during Vespers) of the Forefeast of Theophany:

Make ready, O river Jordan: for behold, Christ our God draws near to be baptized by John, that He may crush with His divinity the invisible heads of the dragons in thy waters. Rejoice, O wilderness of Jordan; dance with gladness, O ye mountains. For the eternal Life hath come to call back Adam. O voice that criest in the wilderness, O John the Forerunner, cry out: 'Prepare ye the ways of the Lord, make his paths straight.'

The reference here to "dragons in thy waters" might seem curious to modern ears, and downright puzzling to anyone who goes to any of the four Gospel accounts of Christ's baptism looking for any dragons in the story. This is not a scriptural reference, but rather a memory the Church's tradition preserved, through her hymns and iconography, until its source was recently discovered by modern archaeologists. As Fr. Stephen De Young points out in an article published this time last year, this reference to dragons or monsters in the water (present in almost all of the icons of the feast as well) refers to the ancient Semitic sea and river gods Yam and Nahar, whose subjugation to YHWH is an important part of both the Exodus narrative, but also to much of the later Hebrew prophetic works (see Isaiah 27). The Hebrew scriptures presented a direct challenge to the sacred stories of rival religions in the Levant (such as the Baal Epic), and for centuries before the modern rediscovery of Ugarit and the Baal Cycle, that challenge continues to inform the liturgical hymns and iconography of this feast.

Icon of the Theophany

And then there's this wonderful bit of juxtaposition from yet another Doxastichon, this one coming at the end of Psalm 92 (LXX) during Vespers:

Let the desert of Jordan rejoice exceedingly and blossom as the lily. For the voice of one who crieth hath been heard within it: 'Prepare ye the way of the Lord.' For he who weighed the mountains in scales and the wooded valleys in a balance, who fillest all things as God, is baptized by a servant. he who bestoweth rich gifts hath now become poor. Eve was once told, 'In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children,' but now the Virgin hears: 'Hail, thou who art full of grace, the Lord who hath great mercy is with thee.'

Look at the contrasts here: A desert blooms; the one who weighed the mountains is baptized by a servant; the one who gives gifts is now poor; Eve's sorrow replaced by Mary's joy. This last contrast hints at one of the most important ideas of Theophany, its origins found as early as the writings of St Paul in the New Testament (see Galatians 3:27 and traditional understandings thereof): Christ's baptism is, in some sense, a re-creation of humanity (or at least enables the re-creation of human persons through their baptism). This is developed beautifully in the Troparion and Kontakion of the forefeast:

Prepare, O Zebulon, and adorn yourself, O Naphtali; River Jordan, cease flowing and receive with joy the Master coming to be baptized. Adam, rejoice with our First Mother and do not hide yourself as you did of old in Paradise; for having seen you naked, He has appeared to clothe you with the first garment. Christ has appeared to renew all creation.

Today the Lord enters the Jordan and cries out to John: “Do not be afraid to baptize me. For I have come to save Adam, the first-formed man.”

The "first garment" seems to be a reference to a very ancient tradition found in Rabbinical sources, as well as the Syriac Peshitta, of "garments of light" (perhaps a way of describing the unmarred imago dei in which they were made) in which Adam and Eve had been clothed before the fall. Fourth century Church father and poet St. Ephraim the Syrian vividly imagines Christ as having left the "garment of light" for us in the water during his baptism; by being baptized ourselves, we follow him down into the water and put on the garment of light (one might say, of righteousness) which he has left for us.

Finally, consider this imagined dialogue between Christ and the Baptist, sung at Matins on the eve of the feast:

Christ: Why dost thou doubt, O Baptist, concerning the dispensation that I fulfill for the salvation of all? Set now aside the old and think of the new. Believe in God who has come down to earth, and drawing near, obey me. For I have come as God, to cleanse in my compassion fallen Adam. 

John: Taking our sins upon thy shoulders, thou art come, O Jesus, to the streams of Jordan: and I am afraid at thy dread coming. How, then, dost thou bid me baptize thee? Thou thyself hast come to cleanse me, and how dost thou, the Cleanser of all, seek baptism of me? 

Christ: My nature is beyond understanding: but clothed in the form of a servant have I come forth to Jordan. Doubt not at all concerning me. Come, fear not, draw near me. Place thy right hand upon my head and cry aloud, 'Blessed art thou, our God made manifest: glory to thee.' 

John: Beyond all thought and without measure is thy poverty, O Word of God! I know that, for my sake who am fallen, thou has from pity clothed thyself in Adam, and all the posterity of Adam thou makest new again. Obeying thy command I cry to thee in faith, blessed art thou, our god made manifest: glory to thee!

All of the hymns of this wonderful, ancient feast, encourage us to dance with the mystery rather than define it. In the Gospels, Christ rather cryptically tells the Baptist that He must be baptized in order to "fulfill all righteousness" (Matthew 3:15). These ancient hymns, which document the Church's lived-out experience of Theophany, help us examine these mysterious words from a variety of perspectives largely lost to modern interpreters of Scripture.

VII. Tolkien and the Great Rood Screen

I shared this story briefly in my previous post, but as I continue my meditations on a Language of Beauty I thought it would be worth considering further here, since, with a few well-chosen words, Tolkien perfectly encapsulates a complex idea which I have been wrestling with. 

The setting is a conversation, early on in their friendship, between C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Like most good friends they had their ins and outs, their ups and downs, and like most men they came to certain boundaries within their relationship--certain rivers over which lay deeper intimacy, but beyond which one or the other were not able to cross. 

Both men were Christians, of course. Lewis was Church of England, neither as Anglo-Catholic as Anglo-Catholics would like to claim, nor nearly as Evangelical as Evangelicals would like to claim.* For Lewis, the Middle Ages held a great deal of beauty and attraction, but there seem to have been certain medieval ideas and practices with which he was willing to intellectually engage, but into which he was never able to fully enter. 

The veneration of the saints seems to have been the biggest of these objections, especially in the early years after his conversion (or rather, reversion) to Christianity. Tolkien, on the other hand, was a fairly traditional Roman Catholic in every sense. For him, the faith of the Middle Ages seems to have been still a vibrant, living thing, and therefore not something which could be dissected piecemeal without killing it. This was the subject of one of Tolkien's earliest conflicts with Lewis, the first one of those "rivers" which could not be crossed. I will here quote a rather lengthy passage from Humphrey Carpenter's The Inklings, since some context is important lest I seem to paint too bleak a picture of their friendship:

‘We were coming down the steps from Magdalen hall,’ Tolkien recalled, ‘long ago in the days of our unclouded association, before there was anything, as it seemed, that must be withheld or passed over in silence. I said that I had a special devotion to St John. Lewis stiffened, his head went back, and he said in the brusque harsh tones which I was later to hear him use again when dismissing something he disapproved of: “I can’t imagine any two persons more dissimilar.” We stumped along the cloisters, and I followed feeling like a shabby little Catholic caught by the eye of an “Evangelical clergyman of good family”1 taking holy water at the door of a church. A door had slammed. Never now should I be able to say in his presence:

Bot Crystes mersy and Mary and Jon,
Thise am the grounde of alle my blysse
– The Pearl, 383-4;

and suppose that I was sharing anything of my vision of a great rood-screen through which one could see the Holy of Holies.’

Tolkien wrote this thirty years later, when other events had soured his recollections. In the early days of the friendship such moments were rare, and for the most part he was profoundly grateful for Lewis’s conversion. In October 1933 he wrote in his diary that friendship with Lewis, ‘besides giving constant pleasure and comfort, has done me much good from the contact with a man at once honest, brave, intellectual – a scholar, a poet, and a philosopher – and a lover, at least after a long pilgrimage, of Our Lord’.

Embedded within this somewhat painful recollection of Tolkien's is what I believe to be one of his most profound ideas, too often overlooked: the idea of the Pearl poem (which, according to Carpenter, Lewis especially disliked) and by extension the whole world of medieval language and literature to which it belonged as a kind of "rood-screen" through which one could glimpse a vision of holiness. 

15th-century rood screen from the chapel of St Fiacre at Le Faouet Morbihan. Note the saints beneath the cross.

In mulling over this metaphor of Tolkien's, I've conceived a sort of three-way (i.e. triangular) relationship between the rood-screen, the veneration of the saints, and medieval literature.**

Medieval art and literature*** seems to assume a world paradoxically characterized by what Lewis called the 'thick' and the 'clear':

We may [reverently] divide religions, as we do soups, into ‘thick’ and ‘clear’. By Thick I mean those which have orgies and ecstasies and mysteries and local attachments: Africa is full of Thick religions. By Clear I mean those which are philosophical, ethical and universalizing: Stoicism, Buddhism, and the Ethical Church are Clear religions. Now if there is a true religion it must be both Thick and Clear: for the true God must have made both the child and the man, both the savage and the citizen, both the head and the belly. ...Christianity really breaks down the middle wall of the partition. It takes a convert from central Africa and tells him to obey an enlightened universalist ethic: it takes a twentieth-century academic prig like me and tells me to go fasting to a Mystery, to drink the blood of the Lord. (C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock)

Medieval Christianity is full of both, in a way which truly must be experienced in order to be understood fully. It is why a theological titan like St Ambrose or St Augustine could compose hymns to jubilantly celebrate the miraculous finding of a martyr's relics, something I suspect most modern "theologians" would be too sober to do. It is why it was precisely the people who lived the 'clearest' existence--the hermits, stylites, and monks--who defended the 'thick' uses of incense, liturgical arts, and the veneration of the holy icons. It was a world that had rejected the extremes both of paganism and Platonism not because either was too much of something but because both were not enough of anything. 

In the nave of even the smallest medieval church, the altar--where the holy oblation was offered up day-in and day-out through the brightest days and darkest nights of the world--was the focal point of the whole building just as the elevation and sacring was the focal point of the Mass. But at the same time, the nave of even the smallest medieval church was full of beads and images, candles and whispered prayers--a whole world of personal and para-liturgical devotion, all oriented toward the altar and yet organic and growing, like the undergrowth of a great forest, in a way which the Reformation and Enlightenment would find unsanitary and chaotic. 

St Nicholas Orthodox Cathedral, Washington DC

It is a world in some sense crowded, just as medieval frescoes or illuminations are too busy for modern eyes or the interlaced plot of your average Arthurian legend has too many changes of character and story for the modern attention span to track. But its inhabitants did not find it crowded--they found it full. Full--but with plenty of corners which still needed filling in. They saw very little difficulty in telling and retelling their favorite stories (be it Arthurian legends, hagiographies, or the Romance of Alexander) with an attitude towards authorship which would curl the toes of a modern Intellectual Property lawyer. Whole worlds of the old pagan undergrowth could be repurposed as in Beowulf or the Prose Edda, just as the high philosophy of the Classical world could be reinterpreted for the local idiom as in the Anglo-Saxon Boethius. So too The Divine Comedy is likely to offend the modern reader by its 'thickness' and its 'clarity' all at once.

Lower screen detail from St Michael's Church, Barton Turf

This world might seem chaotic the way a great forest seems chaotic. And yet there is a logic--a grammar, a syntax, a musical leit motif--that underlies it all. Like the procession around the walls of the parish at the Paschal vigil, there is a clear order and goal to it all--and yet also a kind of organic pulse as sleepy children move about and people press and throng and try to keep up with the crowd. In short, this is what it looks like when something is alive.

This sense of a heaven--of a world--which was full, and always becoming more full, undergirds Dante's Paradisio, which manages to have both endless space and upward dimension in the blessedness of the saints, but which at the same time is radically centered around the Beatific Vision of the Holy Trinity, of Christ. These two things are not opposites; indeed, it is difficult to imagine a version of Paradisio which merely skips to the final canto, as various modern egalitarian theologies might suggest.

I have already made some stumbling attempts to discuss how the iconography--and particularly the iconostasis--of the Eastern Orthodox temple conveys this sense of fullness. In the medieval west--and, it seems, for Tolkien--the rood screen served a similar role. Historian Eamon Duffy describes it this way:

The screens were first and foremost Christological images, proclaiming the centrality of Christ's atoning death. The early sixteenth-century Rood-screen rail at Compsal near Doncaster had an inscription along it which hammered the point home:

Let fal down thyn ne & lift up thy hart
Behold thy maker on yon
Remembir his woundis that for the did smart
Gotyn without syn and on a virgin bor.
Al his hed percid with a crowne of thorn
Alas man thy hart ought to brast in two
Bewar of the dwyl whan he blawis his horn
And pray thy gode aungel convey thee fro.

These familiar facts are worth insisting upon when considering the saints painted on the dados or loft-fronts of Rood-screens, for they represent a powerful iconic and liturgical gloss on the perception of the role of the saints... The saints stood, in the most literal sense, under the cross, and their presence on the screen spoke of their dependence on and mediation of the benefits of Christ's Passion, and their role as intercessors for their clients not merely here and and now but at the last day. The whole screen was therefore a complex icon of the heavenly hierarchy, and many screens where clearly designed to underline this symbolism... representing... a sense of being surrounded and assisted by the "whole company of heaven."

Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars, p. 158

For Tolkien, medieval art and literature seems to have served this purpose--to place the heart, the imagination, in a world that was full to overflowing with wonders and glories, the ultimate purpose of which was to reveal the Source of wonder and glory--to veil and therefore reveal as holy that which takes place beyond the rood-screen or iconostasis, where the Singer enters the tale--where the great Story unfolds.

Rood-screen of Croyland Abbey

*There is strong evidence to suggest that Lewis became more of a high churchman after his encounter with Fr Walter Adams, an Anglo-Catholic priest who served as Lewis's father-confessor and spiritual director from 1940-1952.  Adams convinced Lewis of the Real Presence in the Eucharist, and discipled Lewis in a love of liturgy, the Daily Office, and the monthly recitation of the Psalter. Lewis also subscribed to a certain understanding of the doctrine of Purgatory, though there are some nuances regarding that issue regarding which I'm not really qualified to speak.

**We should not forget that far and away the most popular genre of literature in the Middle Ages was hagiography, though these saints lives (some of which immensely fantastic, evocative, and entertaining; others of which are downright gory) now rarely catch the notice of modern readers.

***As though one could speak in any kind of an accurate, general way about a thousand-year period of human history.

A Gallimaufry for St John the Baptist

Today, on both the Eastern and Western liturgical calendars, is the feast of The Beheading of the Holy Glorious Prophet, Forerunner, and Baptist John. This is something of an odd "feast" (I use quotes here because it is in fact a strict fasting day in the Eastern Rite) in a number of respects, especially for those of us who are not native to a more medieval liturgical context. But given the importance of St John the Baptist to medieval Christianity, and given his especial important to Tolkien, I thought I might delve into the barrow of the past and produce a few treasures for consideration in honor of this remarkable man, the "greatest born among women" to quote one authority.

---

The Beheading of St John the Baptist, by Caravaggio

The Beheading is actually one of three feasts concerned particularly with the head of the Baptist: the other two (February 24 and May 25) commemorate the first and second, and third finding of the head, which according to tradition has been lost and recovered a number of times. Sorting through the various stories of the findings might be an enjoyable exercise for another blog post, but for now I only point this out to demonstrate that the figure of St John the Baptist loomed much larger in medieval Christianity than we often appreciate. In addition to the commemorations already mentioned, his nativity ("Johnmas" -- June 24), conception (September 23), and "synaxis" (primary feast day -- January 7th, the day after Epiphany or Theophany) are all commemorated on the calendar of the Eastern Rite. This is, of course, in addition to those events in the life of the Savior--the Theophany, the Visitation--which prominently featured St John. To top it all off, every Tuesday is dedicated to his memory.

To the medieval mind, the placement of these feasts and fasts were not arbitrary, nor merely the extraneous accretions of the centuries. As the medieval man or woman generally believed in a universe which was ordered by love, like an intricate dance (even if that order could be fully realized only beyond the circle of the moon), so too their experience of time reflected this belief. The intricate relationship between fixed and movable feasts alone would be the study of many lifetimes.

The feasts of the Baptist furnish some simple examples the kind of significance with which the whole year was imbued: his whole gestational period, from his conception to his nativity, is nine months and a day--one day longer than Christ's as the Virgin Mary's is one day less than Christ's, because only Christ was perfect man, you see. Then, too, his nativity comes around the time of the Summer Solstice, precisely that point where the sun will begin to turn and wane, and the days grow shorter as winter hastens on towards Christmas; for St John himself says "he must increase, but I must decrease."

Maybe these are the kinds of details which seem a little trite when they are removed from context and baldly stated in a blog post. Taken together, though, experienced within the whole world in which they belong, they are part of a beautiful dance which reveals a deep relationship between the story of redemption and the natural world. Today we are inclined to look at any correlation between the spiritual life and the natural cycle (for instance, the proximity of Christmas to the winter solstice) as either purely coincidental, or a suspicious vestige of some older pagan rite. Against both of these objections, the medieval person might ask "but when else could it have happened?"

In her much more articulate treatment of the subject, Eleanor Parker writes:

It strikes me (once again) that however much many people today, in their ignorance of all but the broadest stereotypes about the Middle Ages, stigmatise the medieval church as worldly, rigid, and oppressive, it was in some ways immeasurably more humane and creative than its modern successors. It was happy to see human life as fully part of the natural world, shaped by the cycles of the sun and moon and the seasons; it was able to articulate a belief that material considerations, convenience, and economic productivity are not the highest goods, and not the only standards by which life should be lived. When confronted by calendar clashes with the potential to be a little awkward or inconvenient, the medieval church could have the imagination not to simply suppress them or tidy them away, but to find meaning in them - meaning which springs from deep knowledge of the images and poetry of scripture, the liturgy, and popular devotion.

---

Eastern Orthodox icon of St John the Baptist. The Baptist is often shown with wings in Eastern iconography, indicating his angelic ministry.

For my money, the hymnography surrounding this feast is some of the most "metal" in the history of liturgical composition. Although the history of this feast goes all the way back to the Fourth Century, the earliest I've been able to positively date the following hymns is back to the Seventh Century. Either way, they're solidly medieval and so well within the purview of this blog.

The basic setting of the celebration is outlined in the following verses, sung at Vespers in the Eastern Rite:

During the celebration of shameless Herod’s birthday,
the terms of the oath to the wanton dancer were fulfilled,
for the Baptist’s head was cut off and carried like food on a platter
in the presence of those reclining at the loathsome banquet.
Truly they feasted on wickedness and murder.
But let us bless the Forerunner as is his due,
and honor him as the greatest born of women!

We're already a long way from Hillsong. Subsequent stanzas are poetic elaboration on the story. Like much festal hymnography, the chief interest seems to be in elaborating what is set down in sacred Scripture and church tradition, examining the story from the perspective of the various characters involved. In that way, such hymns take their cues from the many Psalms and canticles within Scripture itself, and serve as a sort of poetic sermon which invites us to imaginatively engage in the story of salvation. The following verses are sung, alternating chanted verses from the Psalms:

The dance of the devil’s disciple
was rewarded with thy head, O Forerunner.
Oh, banquet of blood!
Would that thou hadst never sworn, deceitful Herod!
Better that thou lie than shed righteous blood!
But let us bless the Baptist as is his due,
and honor him as the greatest born of women!

In demonic love and fiery passion, O Herod,
thou didst condemn him who reproved thine adultery.
For the sake of an oath to a dancing girl,
thou didst deliver his holy head to that Jezebel.
Woe to thee! How hast thou dared such murder?
Why was the wanton dancer not consumed by fire?
But let us bless the Baptist as is his due,
and honor him as the greatest born of women!

 Again Herodias raves with raging lust.
Oh, dance of deceit and feast of murder!
The Baptist is beheaded, and Herod is troubled.
Through the prayers of Thy Forerunner, O Lord, grant peace to our souls!

 During the celebration of shameless Herod’s birthday,
the terms of the oath to the wanton dancer were fulfilled,
for the Baptist’s head was cut off and carried like food on a platter
in the presence of those reclining at the loathsome banquet.
Truly they feasted on wickedness and murder.
But let us bless the Forerunner as is his due,
and honor him as the greatest born of women!

I really love the juxtaposition of the banqueting imagery to the image of St John's head on a platter. This dark, grotesque side of the concept of feasting helps account for the fact that this is the only "feast" of the Church which (to my knowledge) calls for strict fasting. 

Eastern Orthodox icon of the beheading of St John the Baptist (c. 1600). Imagine walking into a church and seeing this in the center of the nave!

Then these stichera, which come after the Old Testament readings for the feast (which are themselves quite instructive):

What shall we call thee, O Prophet?
Angel, apostle, martyr?
Angel, for thou hast spent thy life like those who have no body.
Apostle, for thou hast taught the nations,
and martyr, for thy head has been cut off for the sake of Christ.
Pray to Him then that our souls may be granted great mercy!

Let us celebrate the memorial of the beheading of the Forerunner;
at that time thou didst gush forth blood upon the platter,
and now thou pourest forth healing to the ends of the earth!

Today the mother of murder,
acting with more wickedness than has ever been seen,
has roused to evil her utterly wanton daughter
against the divinely-chosen and greatest of all the Prophets.
For while hateful Herod was celebrating his ungodly birthday,
she contrived according to the oath he had given her for her dancing,
to beg for the precious head of the herald of God
that gushed forth miracles.
And he, in his madness, fulfilled his promise
and gave it to her as reward for her brazen dancing.
But the initiate of the coming of Christ
ceased not after death to rebuke them for their repulsive union,
but reproved them loudly, saying:
“It does not become thee to commit adultery with the wife of thy brother Philip.”
Oh, birthday, killer of prophets!
Oh, banquet full of blood!
Let us, arrayed in white, piously celebrate the Beheading of the Forerunner,
and rejoice on this day as on a great feast!
And let us ask the Forerunner to beseech the Trinity for us,
that we be delivered from dishonorable passions, and that our souls be saved!

The reference to Herodius here as the "mother of murder" seems a fitting contrast to St Elizabeth, the mother of the Baptist, who has already been referenced in scripture readings earlier in the service. 

The hymnody is extensive, but one more example will suffice draw out the theological importance of this feast:

Come, O people,
let us praise the Prophet and Martyr and Baptist of the Savior!
For being an angel in the flesh, he thoroughly reproved Herod
by condemning his act of unlawful adultery;
and through the impious dance, he endured the cutting off of his precious head,
that he might proclaim to those in hell
the good news of the Resurrection from the dead;
and he earnestly intercedes with the Lord, that our souls may be saved.

This verse alludes to a common patristic understanding of the ministry of St John the Baptist: that, just as he had been the Lord's forerunner on earth, going before him to "prepare the way," so too he was the foreunner in Hades, going ahead of his kinsman to announce the defeat of Death and the triumph of the Son of God and Son of Mary. Once again, John is about six months ahead of his cousin (give or take, depending on the date of Easter and the usual mixup with the Julian/Gregorian calendars). Thus, martyrdom--an ever-present reality within the Church's memory--becomes a means of understanding, and even announcing, the final consummation of all of our hopes and fears, as Christ descends to our lowest place and brings us out in triumph.

---

12th c. Anglo-Saxon illumination depicting the Harrowing of Hell. Note St John the Baptist is the first to come out of Hell's mouth to greet his kinsman.

This idea of the Baptist as the herald and forerunner of Christ into Hades is one of the major themes of the body of Anglo-Saxon poetry around the "Harrowing of Hell." In this context, John the Baptist is Earendel, the "morning star" (i.e., the star which presages the coming of the dawn). The following couplet from Christ I, justly famous for inspiring J.R.R. Tolkien's own mythopoeic imagination, is one I often find myself whispering when I see Venus shining high over the elms:

Eálá Earendel engla beorhtastOfer middangeard monnum sended.

Hail, Earendel! Of angels brightest
Over Middle-earth to mankind sent.

Tolkien himself seems to have had a special devotion to the Baptist--hardly surprising all things considered. He once tried to share this side of himself with his close friend C.S. Lewis. Lewis (who, while not exactly an Evangelical, was still at the end of the day a Protestant) shot him down--probably with a bluff, boisterous comment which he did not intend to wound his more sensitive friend. But it did. Humphrey Carpenter records Tolkien's recollection of this painful moment in his biography, quoting from a letter which has otherwise never made it into any official publication:

“We stumped along the cloisters, and I followed feeling like a shabby little Catholic caught by the eye of an ‘Evangelical clergyman of good family’ taking holy water at the door of a church. A door had slammed. Never now should I be able to say in his presence:

Bot Chrystes mersy and Mary and Jon,Thise arn the grounde of alle my blysse (The Pearl)

. . . and suppose that I was sharing anything of my vision of a great rood-screen through which one could see the Holy of Holies.”

More about this "great rood-screen" when we return to our regularly scheduled programming.

Currently reading: The Stripping of the Altars

Current audio book: The Return of the King

Currently translating: The Dream of the Rood