A saint for our times

On this week’s ‘The Religion and Ethics Report’ on ABC Radio National, there was an interview with American author Tara Isabella Burton. The interview can be streamed on the ABC website: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/religionandethicsreport/tara-isabella-burton-on-strange-rites/12288422

In early May, Burton wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times titled: ‘Christianity Gets Weird’ in which she talks about the virtual religious activities she has engaged in during the coronavirus lockdown. Burton is a committed and devoted Christian and is interested in the changing face of religion that she has seen develop in recent times and, more particularly, as people have sought solace from religion since the onset of COVID-19.

What Burton has noticed is that expressions of faith have hearkened back to old-school forms of worship with the inclusion of historical pageantry, Gregorian chanting, and the use of Latin instead of English in church services. The return to a more fundamental form of structured spirituality is thought to be a reaction against both the increasingly secular culture in the west (with its emphasis on individualism) and the ‘happy-clappy’ melding of religion with pop culture. For Burton, this emerging ‘weird Christianity’ is equal parts traditionalism and punk. The ‘traditional’ comes from the fondness for older, more liturgically elaborate practices; and the ‘punk’ relates to a rebellion to contemporary modernity and a desire to find a more meaningful transcendent form of connection.

The pursuit of a transcendent form of connection is something that has affected people for centuries. In the Christian tradition, saints or holy ones are not merely good pious people, mystics blessed with visions or miracle-workers (although the performing of miracles became a benchmark of sainthood). The early saints were either politically subversive rebels put to death for their refusal to acknowledge the pagan gods of the Roman Empire (martyrs) or people who bore public witness to their faith through heroic hardships and perils, persecution, ascetic practices and extraordinary piety (confessors).

One of the first books to describe the early martyrs and confessors of the church was the ‘Golden Legend’ (c. 1259-1266) by the Dominican Jacobus de Voragine. This accessible tome of almost 1000 pages, initially written in Latin but translated into many languages with the advent of printing (the English version by William Caxton appeared in 1483), was probably the most influential book among Medieval and Renaissance Christians. The book compiled traditional stories about saints venerated at the time of writing, ordered according to their feast days.

Although the book was written for preachers – Voragine was a member of the Order of Preachers – it became extremely popular with artists and artisans as it provided a lexicon that could be used for the depiction of saints. According to one scholar, there are 81 different types of martyrdom described in its pages. When we think about ‘saints in art’ and wonder about attributes or other identifying characteristics, this is the ‘go to book’. A recent translation by William Granger Ryan was published by Princeton University in 2012.

The most commonly depicted saint in the NGV Collection is St Jerome who is represented by forty works.  St Jerome is a confessor saint as well as a priest, theologian, historian and Doctor of the Church. His story is told in volume five of the ‘Golden Legend’. Based on his description in the Golden Legend, he is depicted in a few recognisable episodes from his life.

Born Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus (Jerome) around 347CE at Stridon near Dalmatia, he was educated first by his father and then studied rhetoric, philosophy Latin and Greek with the grammarian Donatus in Rome. His student escapades while in Rome caused him great guilt, which he appeased by spending time in the Roman catacombs. The time in the ‘crypts, dug deep in the earth’ reminded him of the terrors of hell, however he was initially sceptical of Christianity, and it wasn’t until he was round 20 years of age that he was eventually baptized.

From this time on, he travelled extensively through Asia Minor. During a serious illness in his mid-twenties, he had a vision in which he dreamed he appeared before God’s judgement seat and was condemned for his Ciceronian (pagan) beliefs. A second vision was of a visitation by an angel trumpeting the Last Judgement. These caused him to lay aside his secular studies and devote himself to God and an intense study of the scriptures which he undertook as an ascetic hermit for five years in the desert of Chalcis in Syria. His time spent in penitence in the desert gives rise to the first common series of images of St Jerome.

The NGV has versions of Saint Jerome in the wilderness by Albrecht Dürer, Jacques Callot, Albrecht Altdorfer, Titian, Rembrandt, Palma il Giovane, Jonas Lievens, Agostino Carracci, and Jusepe de Ribera. While all the images highlight Jerome’s solitude, several deal particularly with his communion with God. The simplest and most poignant of these are by Rembrandt, Carracci and Lievens which focus directly on Jerome’s intense contemplation.

Many of the depictions of Jerome in the wilderness locate him outside his cave kneeling in the dress of an ascetic with a long beard. He is holding a rock which he has used to strike himself with as a form of atonement in order to overcome the temptations of the flesh. In the landscape, which references the vastness of the heavenly kingdom, the rocky environment indicates the strength and determination required while the climbing plants symbolise loyalty and steadfastness of faith. The crucifix (or cross-shaped foliage) is the object of meditation and the skull and the hourglass acknowledge the transience of earthly things.

Several other images of Jerome in the wilderness show him studying and reading. Dürer, Ribera, Palma il Giovane and Rembrandt each depict how Jerome used his time in isolation to learn Hebrew which allowed him to translate the Hebrew Gospel into Greek. The other invariable element is the inclusion of the lion. This references the popular hagiographical belief that Jerome tamed a lion in the wilderness by healing its paw. While the source for the story may have been the Roman tale of Androcles, symbolically the lion speaks to the victory of compassion over brute force.

After the time spent in the desert, Jerome returned to Antioch where he was ordained, and then to Constantinople to pursue further study of Scripture. Following this, he moved to Rome where he began a revision of the Latin Bible. In 385CE Jerome left Rome for good ‘under a cloud’ as his educational involvement with well-educated patrician Roman widows and his unsparing criticism of the secular clergy in Rome created growing hostility.

For the remainder of his life, Jerome moved through the Holy Lands and worked incessantly on his literary production. Over this time, he translated the Old Testament from the original Hebrew, he wrote scriptural commentaries, catalogued Christian authors, and completed historical and hagiographic works.

The other common representations of Jerome show him in his study cell with his books, a crucifix and sometimes with the lion at his feet. Dressed in the garb of a cardinal, the vanitas symbols of the skull, hourglass, candle are present. In the NGV this image of St Jerome is seen in the works of Dürer, Rembrandt, Noone and van Cleeve. The office of cardinal did not exist in Jerome’s lifetime but as a papal adviser he is normally given a cardinal’s red hat and cloak.

Jerome died near Bethlehem on 30 September 420CE. He was originally buried there but his remains were later said to have been transferred to the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. A final image in the NGV collection is an engraving from the 17^th century after a painting by Domenichino which is now in the Pinacoteca Vaticana. The original painting, The Last Communion of Saint Jerome (1614), was commissioned for the church of San Girolamo della Carità in Rome, and considered a masterpiece until the artist was accused of stealing ideas from Agostino Carracci’s painting of the same subject matter.

It is not surprising that St Jerome is the most commonly represented saint in the NGV collection. He has been painted numerous times with his earliest representations dating back to manuscript inclusions (not surprisingly) from the 9^th century. Images of the saint were particularly popular from the 15^th to 17^th centuries and were a favourite subject for small pictures for homes because of their focus on devotion and learning. Attesting to the influence of this saint is a photograph by the Australian photographers, Rose Farrell and George Parkin from 1988.

St Jerome’s most notable achievement is his translation of the Bible into Latin – known as the Vulgate – which was to become the Catholic Church’s officially promulgated Latin version during the 16^th century and is still used in the Latin Church in its liturgical rites. I suspect this is what Tara Isabella Burton is tuning into when she enjoys hearing the Mass in Latin.