Валерия Косякова – Apocalyptic Concepts in the Middle Ages (страница 10)

In connection with the six-day creation of the world, the cursed six in the number of the beast also acquired new meaning. Irenaeus believed that the world, created in six days, would last for 6,000 years. Accordingly, the number of the beast, consisting of " six hundred, six ten, and six units ," symbolizes the complete restoration by the Antichrist of all the apostasy that occurred during the 6,000 years of the world's existence: "And therefore in the coming beast there will be a restoration of all wickedness and all deceit, so that all the power of the apostasy, having gathered and confined itself in him, will be cast into the furnace of fire. And incidentally, his name will have the number 666, because he restores in himself all the mixture of evil that existed before the flood and that arose from the angelic apostasy 18. " In the interpretation of many medieval theologians, the number 666 symbolizes the threefold proclamation of creation without the Sabbath and the world without the Creator, which signifies the threefold and final renunciation of God.

Victory over the forces of demons and dreams of a thousand-year reign of the righteous were extremely popular and were based on a literal reading of Revelation: " They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years " (Rev. 20:4). The idea of this millennium is repeated six times in chapter 20. However, the Church Fathers differed in their interpretations of the details: whether the age of grace would come before or after the Resurrection, before or after the Judgment, and so on.

For the first time, the Alexandrian school of theology no longer perceived Revelation as a prophecy of a millennial reign on earth. Origen and Clement proposed an allegorical interpretation of the work, shifting the emphasis to the Christian's spiritual life not in the future, but in the present age. The theologian Tichonius, in his fragmentary extant commentaries, rejected the understanding of the millennial reign as a period following the Second Coming of Christ. It was Tichonius, who influenced Augustine's teaching, who interpreted the millennium as the period of the Church's existence on earth, the beginning of which had already been marked by the saving events of Christ's crucifixion and resurrection. Following this thought, Blessed Augustine believed in Chapter 20 of The City of God that the thousand-year kingdom of the righteous is the already existing Church, thus, the Last Judgment is the torment of the cross and the death of Christ, after which, for those who believed in him, and, consequently, the saved, the era of the Kingdom of Christ begins in this world, in the time and history that man lives through.

As persecution of Christians waned, and the Church became firmly established and fully recognized, interest in the Apocalypse also waned. By the fifth century, the Eastern Church Fathers began to doubt the very canonicity of the text, which became less popular in Orthodoxy than in the West, where the patristics rejected millenarianism and the idea of the End of the World as a predictable, imminent future.

Although John the Evangelist's text by no means lost its appeal in the eyes of Western theologians, it was read symbolically or as an allegory of spiritual life and the development of a Christian. Conceptually, the Apocalypse was connected to the problems of the individual soul and the paths to personal salvation in the writings of Bede the Venerable, Beatus of Liébana, Ambrose of Outpert, and Gaimon of Auxerre. Medieval intellectuals continually turned to the Apocalypse for inspiration, and new interpretations continually emerged. Some considered Revelation the only text written by Christ himself, while others considered it the most important book of all Christian doctrine 19, the "flower of theology 20. "

At the end of the 12th century, Joachim of Fiore (d. 1202) perceived Revelation as a prophecy about the course of human history, to which various sections of the book correspond. Believing that he lived during the opening of the sixth seal, Joachim boldly correlated individual images with contemporary realities: in the sixth king, corresponding to the sixth head of the beast, he saw Saladin, who recaptured Jerusalem from the Crusaders. In each of the seven heads of the dragon, he saw a sign of the devil, realized in history: seven kings, of whom " five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come " (Rev. 17:10), the five "fallen" kings-antichrists — Herod, Nero, Constantius, Muhammad, Melsemut, and the Antichrist, Joachim's contemporary — Saladin. The final Antichrist is identified with the "beast from the sea" who will come in the near future. In some cases, Joachim interprets the same series of visions in relation to events from different eras. According to Joachim of Fiore, Revelation maps the course of all human history and provides the key to understanding all of Scripture. Several decades after Joachim of Fiore's death, interpretations appeared by the Franciscan Alexander Minorite and then by Nicholas de Lyra: Revelation was no longer viewed as a multifaceted symbolic-historical text, but as a reflection of specific historical events in their strict chronological sequence. Only with the onset of the Reformation did a comprehensive textual analysis of the Revelation of John the Evangelist become relevant.

The milestones in the development of theological polemics about the coming Last Judgment and the attainment of the Kingdom of Heaven were reflected in changes in Christian iconography 21.

Apocalypse in pictures: visualization

Depictions of the apocalypse are rare until the end of Constantine's reign. By the end of the fourth century, Christianity was established as the official religion of the Roman Empire under Theodosius (391): early Christian art flourished, doomed to adhere to Rome's good old imperial ambitions. The iconography familiar to Romans acquired new meanings, dissolving into Christian ritual 22. The one Christian God increasingly manifested himself in recognizable, solemn images of emperors and pagan gods. Fresco and mosaic were Christianized, and the Fayum portrait mimicked the icon. Just as the new invisible God became visible, so the coming apocalypse acquired its visible equivalent.

However, the catacomb frescoes and sarcophagi created before Constantine contain the origins of Christian iconography and elements that would later become integral to the visual program of the Apocalypse. Individual symbols—the Alpha and Omega 23, the lamb, the palm branch, the separation of the wise and foolish virgins, the good sheep and the wicked goats (Matthew 25:1–33 ) —would be compositionally combined on the walls of churches in the 5th and 6th centuries in Rome and beyond. And to them will be added new images that will enter the arsenal of the artistic language of Christian culture: a lamb standing on a throne, the preparation of the throne for Christ as a sign of the Second Coming ( Hetoimasia - the prepared throne), a scroll with seven seals, seven candlesticks, angels, the worship of Christ by 24 elders in the form of homage to the emperor, rooted in the court ceremonial of antiquity ( A urum coronarium ).

The mosaic of the Roman basilica of Santa Pudenziana from the late 4th - early 5th centuries, meticulously restored in the 16th century, nevertheless preserved the idea of representing the Last Judgment: Christ sits among the apostles, above him is depicted a vision of Jerusalem merging with Golgotha, on which stands a monumental cross - a symbol of death and resurrection, beginning and end, surrounded by the Four Living Creatures in the rays of the setting sun.

The appearance of the Four Living Creatures, quite common in Christian art, is unusual. It derives from the description of a single creature, the tetramorph, from the prophecy of Ezekiel (ancient Greek: τετρά-μορφος— "four-shaped, four-formed"), combining four faces: a man, a lion, a bull, and an eagle. In chapter 4 of Revelation, John the Theologian continued this tradition, but describing each of the four creatures separately—the guardians of the four corners of the Lord's Throne and the four boundaries of Paradise. These animals were later interpreted as symbols of the four evangelists.

The triumphal arch above the apse of the 5th- century Basilica of San Paolo fuori le Mura in Rome features the adoration of the Lamb by the 24 Elders at its center—just like the old façade of St. Peter's . And the mosaic of 24the 6th- century Church of St. Cosmas and Damiano abounds with signs of the Second Coming in numerous visual references to the text of the Apocalypse: a lamb on a throne, a scroll with seven seals, seven candlesticks, and the four living creatures.

sixth- century monuments continue the eschatological baton: in the dome of the Basilica di San Vitale, a lamb in a medallion, carried by four angels, recalls the Last Judgment. On the north wall, angels hold an apocalyptic cross. In Theodoric's Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, the Passion of Christ, the Resurrection, and the parable of the separation of the good sheep from the wicked goats capture the Gospel eschatology: to the right of Christ is a red angel, guarding the sheep (the righteous), and to the left, next to the goats (the sinners), is a blue one (Matthew 25: 31–33 , see Fig. 42) . The Basilica of St. Michael in Africisco (Chiesa San Michele in Africisco) depicts Christ seated on a throne, surrounded by seven angels with trumpets, complementing the apocalyptic narrative. On the façade of the basilica in Poreč, Croatia, from the sixth century, apocalyptic images of seven candlesticks testify to the anticipation of the Last Judgment.