Reading Saving Paradise: The Prologue, Part II

..... We arrived at St. Giovanni during Mass. It was conducted from a high baroque altar - residue, to modern eyes, of one of the more incongruent restorations of the seventeenth century - placed where the nave and transept intersect. The altar displayed a triptych painting with the Crucifixion in the center. It completely hid the apse….  We walked quietly down the right aisle, tiptoed up the transept stairs, ignored the velvet rope blocking further progress, and sneaked behind the altar. When we spotted the apse, we gasped in wonder. 

Behind the high altar of St. Giovanni in Laterano, Rome  

 (mosaics from the 4^th-6^th centuries)

 “This image penetrated our consciousness until, at last, we understood: we stood in paradise. The image depicted a vision found in a popular third-century Christian text called the Apocalypse of Paul:   

 

I entered Paradise and saw the beginning of waters, and the angel beckoned me .... And when I had gone inside I saw a tree planted from whose roots water flowed out, and from this was the beginning of the four rivers. And the Spirit of God rested on that tree, and when the Spirit blew, the waters flowed forth, and I said, "My Lord, is it this tree itself which makes the waters flow?" And he said to me, "From the beginning, before the heavens and earth appeared, the Spirit has been resting upon this tree; wherefore, whenever the Spirit blows, the waters flow forth from the tree."

“As we looked at other early church interiors, we saw more clearly how each captured dimensions of paradise. The spaces placed Christians in a lush visual environment: a cosmos of stars in midnight skies, golden sunlight, sparkling waters teeming with fish, exuberant fauna, and verdant meadows filled with flowers and fruit trees. Punctuating such scenes were images of the great cloud of witnesses, many dressed in purple robes of nobility. Others wore white robes of baptism as brides of Christ. They wore or carried bridal wreaths of victory. Many apse images included exactly four rivers flowing from a lamb, globe, or golden cross. 

The golden cross: detail of the apse mosaic

St. Giovanni in Laterano 

“Paradise, we realized, was the dominant image of early Christian sanctuaries. This both disconcerted and intrigued us. On the one hand, we were dismayed to think that early Christians appeared to be obsessed with the afterlife. On the other hand, we wondered why they covered every inch of church walls with such beautiful sights. We contemplated what it felt like to worship in such spaces. We studied ancient  liturgies, ritual practices, prayers, and hymns that may have been used in these churches. We tried, in other words, to feel and sense our way into their visual and liturgical worlds. We also explored early commentaries on Genesis. Reading early church texts on paradise, we sought to understand the ideas worshipers held as they daily prayed, processed, stood, sang, and partook of the Eucharist in such spaces. 

The cosmos of stars

Galla Placidia Mausoleum, Ravenna

"To our surprise and delight, we discovered that early Christian paradise was something other than 'heaven' or the afterlife.  Our modern views of heaven and paradise think of them as a world after death.  However, in the early church, paradise - first and foremost - was this world, permeated and blessed by the Spirit of God.  It was on the earth.  Images of it in Rome and Ravenna captured the craggy,  scruffy pastoral landscape, the orchards, the clear night skies, and teeming waters of the Mediterranean world, as if they were lit by a power from within.  Sparkling mosaics in vivid colors captured  the world's luminosity.  The images filled the walls of spaces in which liturgies fostered aesthetic, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual experiences of life in the present, in a world created as good and delightful. 

 Jesus the Good Shepherd

Mausoleum of Galla Placida, Ravenna

"Like the breathing of a human body, the images said that God blessed the earth with the breath of Spirit.  It permeated the entire cosmos and made paradise the salvation that baptism in the Spirit offered.  As the most blessed place imaginable, paradise was also where the departed saints rested from their earthly labors and returned to visit those who loved them.  In early Christian understandings, even heaven was a dimension of this life; it was the mysterious abode of God from which blessings flowed upon the earth.  Nearby to heaven, the dead rested in their own neighborhood of paradise." 

 

Brock and Nakashima continue,

“Nearly everything we had previously understood about Christian history, theology, and ritual began to shift as we delved deeper into the meaning of paradise. We felt as if we had been climbing a long, steep mountain trail. We could see behind us the terrain we had trudged through an arid Golgotha landscape of sharp, barren rocks that had left us thirsty, sore, and spent. At a sudden turn, the switchbacks opened onto a new vista. Opening before us were vast meadows, lush and green. When we began to look at early Christianity through the lens of its visual and ritual worlds, we found that much of what we'd been taught had to be reexamined – beginning with our modern assumptions that doctrinal texts provided a primary orientation to early Christian faith. We worked to understand the world of early Christianity not as the literate few knew it but as the visually literate many knew it when they worshiped in churches and recited memorized scriptures and creeds. For them, visual art and poetic and narrative literature, found in prayers, stories, psalms, and hymns, shaped Christian life and sustained it. 

The garden of Paradise

Apse mosaic at St. Apollinaire Nuovo, Ravenna

 “Beauty and art –in all its forms – engage the more holistic, emotional, and sensory-laden dimensions of experience and memory. They capture multi-layered experiences of imagination, feeling, perceiving, and thinking. Through art, the aesthetic, emotional, sensory, and intellectual dimensions of life can come together and be mixed in fresh ways… We have tried to capture the experience of the liturgical spaces of the early Christian world.  Though we recognize that these are inadequate to convey the sensory spaces and  experiences of a distant time, we have sought to communicate something of the aesthetic experience of paradise."

Some thoughts for reflection:

HEAVEN  according to Webster’s:

(from the Old English heofon, heaven)

(1) The expanse of space that seems to be over the earth like a dome

(2)  The dwelling place of the Deity and the joyful abode of the blessed dead

(3)  A spiritual state of everlasting communion with God

(4)  A place or condition of utmost happiness

PARADISE  according to Webster’s:

(from the Greek paradeisos, literally ‘enclosed park’)

(1) The garden of Eden

(2) An place or state where the righteous departed await resurrection and judgment

(3) A place of bliss, felicity, or delight

THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN  according to Jesus:

(from the Gospels)

The kingdom of heaven has come near... Matthew 4:17

The kingdom of God is among us…  Luke 17:20

The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed… Matthew 13:31

SAVING PARADISE  describes how early Christians saw paradise/heaven:

In the early church paradise, first and foremost, was this world, permeated and blessed by the Spirit of God. It was on the earth. Images of it in Rome and Ravenna captured the craggy, scruffy pastoral landscape, the orchards, the clear night skies, and teeming waters of the  Mediterranean world, as if they were lit by a power from within.  (p. xvi)

When you picture heaven/paradise, 

what do you see?