What the Bible has never told
A major exhibition of art dedicated to the apocryphal books. That is, the stories and characters in the canonical Scriptures do not speak. Not to invalidate the Gospels and the Church, but to bring them closer to us
by Sandro Magister ROMA, April 28, 2009 - A year ago the show began in Genesis. The year before the Apocalypse. And both times drew a Illegio, a small mountain village in the Alps of meat, a large number of visitors, fascinated by the masterpieces of art were gathered from major museums in Italy and the world. It was such a success that the exhibition on the Apocalypse was even replicated in Rome, the Vatican Museums.
year, from April 24 to October 4, Illegio are on display in the Apocrypha. That is, the memories and legends are not written in the books of the Old and New Testament, but revenue in the Christian tradition, art and footage shown in many churches.
Beginning dall'asinello ox and next to the baby Jesus, there are many episodes and characters of sacred history passed beyond the canonical texts of the Bible. For example, the birth and childhood of Mary with her parents Anna and Joachim, her marriage with Joseph, the names and stories of the Magi, the details of the flight into Egypt, the "Dormition" of Mary and her assumption to sky.
Eighty works collected in Illegio subject with the Apocrypha and authors of the first magnitude, such as Bruegel and Guercino, Caravaggio and Dürer. Of the latter, in the first weeks of the exhibition, is shown the wonderful "Rest on the Flight into Egypt," preserved in the Galleria Doria Pamphili in Rome. With Mary and the sleeping child and an angel who accompanies the violin a motet with words of the Song of Songs. Joseph holds the musical score and the ass looks and listens, enraptured.
On the cover of the exhibition catalog published by Skira, is a painting by Guercino of 1628 (see above) with a meeting between the risen Jesus and his mother is also not told in the Gospels.
The decision to dedicate the exhibition to the Apocrypha is not without addentellati today with the use of certain texts extrascritturali. From the "Da Vinci Code" the story of Judah is now swarming with books and films aimed at substantially invalidate the Gospels: books and films that present themselves as having a "hidden truth", hidden from the Gospels and the Church. This
the "hidden truth" is a character that already belonged to the apocryphal texts of the early centuries of the gnostic footprint. It is not surprising that we find success, with the modern anti-Christian Gnosticism.
works of art on display in Illegio instead show that a large part of the Apocrypha have had and may continue to have a completely different function: to fight and do not invalidate the canonical Gospels, but to expand the story, to enrich understanding, to feed their devotion, in substantial continuity with the founding story of the Holy Scriptures.
And this is one more reason to explore the vast array of writings extracanonical. This is what is below in a convincing way the Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, world-renowned scholar of the Bible and literature related to it, president of the pontifical council for culture.
Ravasi is among those who submitted officially to the public exhibition of Illegio on Apocrypha, on 23 April in Rome, in the building of the Embassy of Italy to the Holy See. His speech was also released in "L'Osservatore Romano" on April 24, 2009, entitled: "The song roasted rooster and the conversion of Pontius Pilate. "
Ravasi focuses mainly on the extensions that the Apocrypha have made accounts of the Passion. The conversion of Pontius Pilate is one of these developments: in the tradition came to the point that the Church Ethiopian venerated as a saint, the Roman procurator who condemned Jesus to death
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Easter according to the Apocrypha. Judas, Pilate, Mary
Gianfranco Ravasi
is paradoxical, but it is not difficult to order a company exhibition which has the theme of the apocryphal gospels, just as is evidenced by the magnificent exhibition which opened April 24 in Illegio in Friuli, a town became known for his extraordinary artistic events.
This literature was, in fact, their extraordinary success in art and popular tradition. Under the term "apocryphal" - literally, from the greek, the books "hidden" - lies, in fact, an immense literary and religious, even of low quality, which runs parallel to but independent from the Old and New Testament which contain the books instead of "canonical", ie those recognized by Judaism and Christianity as sacred texts, inspired by God These documents will also distribute the final stage of Judaism Old Testament and are a chapter of the same religious literature Jewish.
The Jewish apocrypha texts are at least 65 different compounds from the third century before the Christian era until the second century, due to areas and genres. Important, for example, are some apocalyptic writings such as the three books of Enoch, which offer a varied but decisive testimony of many conceptions of Judaism. Also significant are the "wills" put into the mouth of various biblical characters such as the various patriarchs, or Job, Moses or Solomon. Then there is a series of works by cutting or philosophical wisdom, as the ancient tale of Ahikar, of Babylonian origin, adopted and transformed by the Jewish world and became very popular. There are, moreover, prayers, odes, psalms, some come to light at Qumran, the Dead Sea coast in one of the most famous discoveries of the last century. There are also additions or more information to be recorded free of biblical texts as the "Life of Adam and Eve" or the love story between Joseph and Asenet.
Illegio The exhibition, however, depicts the apocryphal Christian artistic representations linked to "recreate, often very loosely, the life of Jesus giving rise to a new gospel - there are also various apocalypses or Acts of the Apostles and letters on the model than Pauline. This is a significant mass of Christian writings, especially created by popular piety but also cultivated areas: we think of the Egyptian Gnostic writings. They were challenged soon, despite claiming a desire to align and complete the canonical books. This exclusion, often for other reasons because of their questionable quality theological and imaginative creativity of their historical, it does not prevent the entry of popular devotion, the same history of theology, liturgy, and especially in the artistic traditions of later centuries.
Therefore, we enter also surprised us as wayfarers in this jungle of pages, images, sensations, symbols, fantasies. Here we find, for example, the "divine misdeeds" of a guy who does Jesus die and rise again, or change in the kids playmates, which paralyzes the teacher who is going to beat him because of his wisdom too pedantic, but who knows how to cure snake bites and extracts from the children miraculously fallen into wells or ovens, which adjusts effortlessly read a manual twist out of the carpenter Joseph.
Among the dozens of trails that open up before us in this forest of literature, we choose an event that leads us to the Passover of Christ, the liturgical period that is accompanying us. A huge mass of short stories follows, in fact, the hours of the week that would later be called "holy." Chase only a few actors of those days dark and glorious, then regardless of the various parties in the exhibit Friuli.
*** The first to come to us is Judas Iscariot, the traitor, a character who has continued to generate new "apocryphal" to this day with several novels and works of several modern authors. For the ancient apocryphal story of the traitor of Jesus has ancient roots and very imaginative.
Son of the priest, Caiaphas, Judas as a child - according to the "Arabic Gospel of the Savior of the Child", an apocryphal dear to the Eastern Christians and even Muslims - showed signs of diabolic possession. His wife, however, according to an Egyptian Coptic text, had gathered with him to nurse the infant son of Joseph of Arimathea, who had offered the family grave to lay the body of Jesus so, when Judas came home clutching in the hands of the thirty money of betrayal, that baby did not want to suckle. He was then summoned his father Joseph saw it just the small, incredibly he shouted: "Come, Father, take me away from the hands of this woman who is a wild beast. Yesterday, the ninth hour, they took the Just the price of blood. " In fact, again according to the apocryphal texts, the wife had been pushing for Judas to betray venality: her husband have long been forced to rob the common purse of the disciples who, as stated in the canonical Gospel of John (12, 6), was just managed by Judas.
But the most dramatic scene is told from memory or the Gospel of Nicodemus, a famous apocryphal greek, now us also in Coptic and Latin, perhaps the start of the second century. Judas, after betraying Jesus, he retires to his house, dark and decided to commit suicide. His wife tried to convince him not to hang himself, confident that Christ will never rise again. The woman is roasting a cock for lunch and a bet with her husband: "In the same manner in which the roasted rooster can sing, so Jesus will rise again. But, just as he was speaking, that rooster spread his wings and crowed three times. Judah , then, entirely convinced, he made a noose with the rope and went to hang himself. "
is clear the recovery in the form surreal and exaggerated the Gospel theme of the rooster that crows at the time of the betrayal of Peter. Other apocryphal will paint the death of Judas, however, like an explosion after his body had been blown out of proportion - there is a free reference to Acts 1, 18 - and represent his desperate soul wandering in the car , ie in the underworld.
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could not miss a flowering apocryphal also around another actor of the Gospel story of the last hours of Jesus' earthly: the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate. The writer and Christian martyr Justin in about 155 called "Acts of Pilate" Memoirs of Nicodemus to those we have just mentioned. In fact, they contain a vibrant Roman script for the trial of Christ, against which are advanced as counts of impure birth of fornication and the violation of the law, especially the Sabbath. But let the word old narrator enhances the already superhuman greatness of Christ. "Pilate called a messenger and told him: I brought you here is Jesus, but with kindness! The messenger came out and, when he saw Jesus, I love it, laid down his napkin in his hand and said, Lord, he goes above and come because the Governor is calling you. [...] When Jesus came before Pilate, the images held up on signs that the standard-bearers bowed themselves and worshiped Jesus. " Pilate then parade in front of witnesses on his behalf: blind, lame, a hunchback, the hemorrhaging woman, all healed by Jesus and Nicodemus, a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin.
comes into play here the same wife of the prosecutor of which also offer various apocryphal name, Claudia Procula or Procla: "You know my wife - Pilate said to the accusers of Jesus - to sympathize with you about Judaism. The Jews answered : Yes, I know! Pilate: Well, my wife sent me to say: There is nothing between you and this man right! Tonight, in fact, I suffered a lot because of him. The Jews, then, they said to Pilate : Have we said it was a magician? "It is he who sent your wife to the ghosts of dreams."
is also evident in this case as the basis of the narrative Canonical Gospel of Matthew (27, 19) is extended with the addition of color. At this point, Pilate - according to the Gospel of Peter, who has been called "the oldest non-canonical story of the Passion of Christ" (written around 100 in 1887 and found only in Upper Egypt in the tomb of a monaco) - "stood up; none of the Jews washed their hands, neither Herod nor any of its judges. " Only Pilate, therefore, symbolically washing his hands, declaring his innocence. Then, according to the Memoirs of Nicodemus, "ordered that the veil was pulled curule front of the chair and said to Jesus, Thy people accuse you of taking the title of king. So I have decreed that, in accordance with the law of the pious emperors, you are the first scourged and then hung on the cross in the garden where you were captured. Dismas and gestures, both criminals, will be crucified with thee. "They look so also the names of the two unlikely companions crucifixion of Jesus, anonymous, according to Luke 23, 39-43.
It is, however, especially on later life of Pilate unleash your imagination apocryphal, including modern we have the "Prosecutor of Judea" by Anatole France, to "point of view of Pontius Pilate" by Paul Claudel, the "Pilate's Wife" by Gertrud von Le Fort, the "Pontius Pilate "Roger Caillois, the" Pilate "by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, the" Master and Margarita "by Mikhail A. Bulgakov and so on.
There has come from ancient Christian apocryphal a report sent by Pilate to the emperors Tiberius and Claudius with the findings of the recipients, a letter from Pilate to Herod and a "Parade of Pilate, that hypothetical" tradition "of its historical vicissitudes. There were even apocryphal pagans on him, so much so that the Christian historian Eusebius of Caesarea complained that the emperor Maximinus Daia in 311 had done in schools of false memories of Pilate "full of blasphemy against Christ" and had ordered that boys learn by heart in order to instigate hatred against Christianity. But the Christian apocrypha and in particular attacked furiously on the death of Pilate, with contrasting results.
On the one hand, the cited "Parade" describes a tragic end during a hunting party with the emperor. "One day Tiberius, hunting, was chasing a gazelle, but when it came to the door of a cave, he stopped. Went to see Pilate. Tiberius meanwhile launched an arrow to hit the animal, but it crossed the entrance of the cave and killed Pilate. "
Most impressive is narrated by the end of another text which has become popular in the Middle Ages, that Pilate committed suicide in Rome with a blow of his valuable dagger. With a weight thrown into the Tiber, the corpse had to be rescued because it drew the evil spirits, making it dangerous to river traffic. Transfer to Vienne and immersed in the Rhone in France, had to be recovered for the same reason and was buried in Lausanne. But even here, because of his body infested with demons, you had to dig up and thrown into a natural well in the mountains.
On the other hand, the Christian apocryphal tradition instead enhances the conversion of Pilate who dies as a martyr, beheaded by order of Tiberius, and is welcomed into heaven by Christ. Not for nothing that the Ethiopian Church as a saint venerated in the Roman procurator's liturgical calendar.
The same fate will befall his wife Claudia Procula. Here, in fact, another version of the order of Pilate in accordance with the "Parade" that we mentioned above. "The commander Labio, responsible for capital severed head of Pilate and the angel of the Lord picked it up. His wife Procula saw the angel come to take the head of her husband, was a transport of joy and let out his last breath. It was thus buried with her husband want to Pilate and kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ. "The prosecutor's conversion had occurred in coincidence of the resurrection of Christ, the Gospel of Gamaliel, the work of the fifth century Coptic. In fact," entered the tomb of Christ, Pilate took the bandages mortuary, and embraced them in her love burst into tears. He then turned to his captain who had lost an eye in the war and thought: I'm sure these bands will return the light to his eye. She brought him the bandages mortuary and said: Do not you hear, brother, the scent of these bands? It is a smell of a corpse but steeped in royal purple sweet aromas. [...] The captain took the cloths and began to kiss her, saying, I am sure that you have wrapped the body that was resurrected from the dead! The moment he touched his face, his eye healed and saw the joyous light of the sun as before. It was as if Jesus had put his hand on him, just as had happened to the man born blind. "
*** A special chapter in many apocryphal gospels is for witnesses of the resurrection that multiply compared to the canonical Gospels and become spectators of epiphanies sensational. Here's how Pilate himself narrates his experience according to the Gospel of Gamaliel said: "I saw Jesus at my side! His brightness exceeded that of the sun and the whole city was illuminated, with the exception of the synagogue of the Jews. He said to me, Pilate, crying maybe because you had scourged Jesus? Do not be afraid for I am Jesus who died on the tree of the cross and I am the Jesus who was resurrected from the dead. This light you see is the glory of my resurrection that radiates with joy the whole world! Run, therefore, to my grave you'll find the burial bandages that are still there and the angels that guard, thrown in front of them and kiss him, he becomes champion of my resurrection, and you will see great miracles in my grave: the lame walk, the blind see and the dead will rise again. Be strong, Pilate, to be enlightened by the splendor of my resurrection that the Jews deny this. "And in fact, Pilate comes to the tomb of Christ - as we have seen - will go from surprise to surprise, encountering the thief also risen.
C 'is, therefore, an "other" Risen Christ that meets in the apocryphal writings to a crowd of people, compared to the more sober and thorough narrative of the canonical Gospels.
An appearance is reserved, for example, the apostle Bartholomew homonymous apocryphal Gospel: On that occasion Jesus reveals the secrets of Hades, where he spent the period between his death and the dawn Easter. In another text is Joseph of Arimathea to meet the Risen Lord. Arrested by the Jews for having offered to Jesus's tomb, he sees progress with the penitent thief Jesus in the darkness of his cell: "In the room shone a blinding light, the building was suspended at the four corners up, opened a passage and I went out. We took our trip to the Galilee, and a light shone around Jesus unbearable to the human eye and the robber gave off a pleasing scent that was the "paradise." Peter, too, beyond the Easter appearances "canonical", has an extraordinary meeting recorded in the Acts of Peter, an apocryphal composed between 180 and 190, on the road to Rome, and became the substance of "Quo Vadis?", the famous novel that the Polish Henryk Sienkiewicz wrote between 1894 and 1896.
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Especially lively is the tradition concerning the apocryphal Jesus' mother, Mary. The canonical Gospels are silent on the meeting of the Risen Christ with her. In fact, after the scene of Calvary (John 19: 25-27) goes to the Acts of the Apostles according to which the disciples of Jesus are devoted themselves to prayer "with Mary" on the top floor of the house [of Jerusalem] where they lived "(1, 13-14) and you can not improve on the encounter between the mother and the Risen Lord. In this vacuum make up for plenty of the Apocrypha.
Resume in her hands the Gospel of Gamaliel. Mary, prostrate with grief, remains at home, and John that the news reports on the burial of her Son. However, it is not resigned to stay away from the tomb of Jesus and, through tears, said to John: "Although the grave of my son was glorious as the ark of Noah, I do not I would have no comfort if the I could see my tears to pour. John answered: How can we go? front of the tomb are four army soldiers guard the governor! [...] The Virgin, however, does not hold back and left on Sunday, good morning, came to the tomb. junta running, looked around and fixed his gaze on the stone had been rolled away from the tomb! Then said: This miracle happened to my son! He leaned forward, but he saw the body in the tomb of the Son. When the sun rose, while Mary's heart was melancholy and sad, he felt into the tomb from outside an aromatic scent: it seemed that the tree of life! The Virgin and turned up at a clump of incense, he saw God wearing a beautiful dress in purple blue.
Mary, however, does not recognize this glorious figure in his Son. So begins a dialogue similar to the Gospel of John (20, 11-18) weaves between Mary Magdalene and the Risen Christ and eventually the dissolution of the riddle was: "Do not be dismayed, Mary, looks good My face and convince you that I am your son. "And Mary replicate wishing him a" happy resurrection, "kneeling down to worship him and kiss his feet.
Another witness, even more sumptuous, the apparition of the Risen One to his mother is kept in a Coptic fragment of the V-VII century translation of a text more archaic. "The Savior appeared on the big chariot of the Father from all over the world and, in the language of his divinity, said: Marica, Marim, Tiath. Which means: Mariam, Mother of the Son of God! Mariam understood the meaning, so he turned and said, Master, Kathiath, Thamioth. Which means: Son of God! The Savior said: Hello to you, you brought life to all the world! Hi, my mother, my holy ark, my city, my home, my garment of glory which I dressed up coming to the world! Hi, my pitcher full of holy water! All heaven rejoices because of you. I assure you, Mary, my mother, who loves you, loves life. Then the Savior said, 'Go to my brothers and tell them,' which have risen from the dead and I'll go to my Father and your Father, my God and your God. [...] Mary said to her Son, Jesus, my Lord and my only Son, before you go from your Father in heaven, bless me for I am your mother, even if I do not want to touch you! And Jesus, our lives, he replied: You will be seated with me in my kingdom. Then the Son of God soared in his chariot of cherubim, and myriads of angels sing: Alleluia! The Savior extended his right hand and blessed Virgin. "
now with this text we find ourselves in another region, one of Marian devotion, especially dear to the churches of the East. The emphasis on Mariology slips, leaving the background Christological reference.
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The rich examples that we have offered - although it refers to only one phase in the history of Jesus Christ - does not account for everything about the multiplicity of themes and reflections of the various situations that are revealed by the Church pages apocryphal. However, they are able to show unequivocally the quality radically different, both for historical accuracy for both the theology of the canonical New Testament writings, such as simplicity of their theme and narrative simplicity.
Significantly, in contrast, is the development of the "gnosis" - that salvation is offered only by knowledge - especially widespread in Egypt. It will introduce, for example, in the Gospel of Thomas, a collection of phrases or sayings of Jesus non-evangelicals and evangelicals, some of great historical interest, but also open the floodgates to questionable theological speculation, often very elaborate and sophisticated, and very extravagant.
On the positive side, we could say that, however, dominated by a strong sense the size of the Christological event and a vivid sense of Christian identity. In an apocryphal Gnostic Egyptian, known as the Gospel of Philip, says: "If you say I am jew! Nobody complains. If you say: I am Roman! No shakes. If you say, Greek, barbarian, slave, free! Nobody shakes . But if I say I am a Christian! The world trembles. "
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The site of the exhibition. with all the information:
> Apocrypha. Memories and legends over the Gospels
Promoter of the exhibition is the Committee of San Floriano, animated by Don Alessio Geretti, curate of the parish and scholar of Christian art.
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service Dedicated www.chiesa the previous shows on Genesis:
> Miracle at Illegio, a small mountain village (30.5.2008) __________
www.chiesa Other articles on related topics:
> Focus on ART AND MUSIC
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http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1338201
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