Earthly Beauty and Divine Glory

1. On the definition of beauty and glory

Beauty, along with unity, truth and greatness, is one of the so-called transcendental qualities of all beings and, as such, of “being” itself. However, it must be immediately added that all created beings are merely analogs of the absolute divine Being and that the “difference” between the two is greater than the “similarity” (Fourth Lateran Council, DS 806). What is called the “beauty” of a created being is in consonance with the sublime attribute of the Divine Being that is known as “glory” (kābôd, doxa, gloria).

Whatever is said about this, it is essential to recognize that no adequate conceptual statements can be made about the transcendental categories of being. But as we necessarily think in concepts and have to give expression to these, we can come closer to the meaning of unity, truth, goodness and beauty only through roundabout, convergent thinking. These qualities are not unknown to us, because they are present—even though in varying degrees and appearances—in all that exists; but they cannot be expressed by limiting “definitions” because “being,” as such, transcends all specific “de⁠-⁠finitions.” Nevertheless, that these qualities are a trustworthy basis of all our judgments is evident from the fact that we can measure offenses against their “essence”: we define “lying” as an offense against truth, “malice” against goodness, “fragments” versus unity, “ugliness” and “trash” against beauty. Since the transcendentals penetrate all being, it follows that they are not delimited from each other but penetrate each other. Thus, there is an element of “goodness” in “beauty,” in “truth,” and so on. The medieval thinkers gave a central place to the concept of ordo (or else rectitudo) because it attempts to express the mutuality of the various basic aspects of being.

There must be in this some analogy with the Divine Being, from whom all created beings originate and who, we surmise, is the supreme reality that pervades all finitudes. He became more accessible to us by his self-gift in Jesus Christ (and in all that leads to him and comes from him). One can see this beautifully already in the Old Testament, in the way God’s basic traits interpenetrate and are mutually inclusive: God’s truth and his truthfulness ('emet) is always also his righteousness (sedek) and his lovingkindness (hesed); and in all these shines his singular divine glory (kābôd). This is not based merely on the concrete nature of the Hebrew language, but expresses objectively the unity of the Divine Being.

From the foregoing, both the affinity and the (greater) difference between earthly beauty and divine glory become evident. Earthly beauty always appears limited in a finite being or through harmonious coordination of finite entities, while God, viewed as the absolute Being and as infinite reality—both aspects of the sole Eternal Life—shines in other, all⁠-⁠transcending and all⁠-⁠pervading indivisible glory.

2. Glory surpasses beauty

The Bible, in describing God’s glory, tries to express its sublimity and uniqueness. It is significant that the word “kābôd” did not originally call forth the idea of radiant light (as do the Greek “doxa” and the Latin “gloria”), but indicated the importance of the person, his distinction, his honor, as well as his spiritual radiance, from which then the sensible radiance is derived. Heinrich Schlier, therefore, would translate “doxa” as “radiance of power.”

“Natural” religions, when they attempt to picture God, do not usually take an idealized human for a model, but something that is in some way “other,” perhaps intimidating, to

emphasize the distance rather than the closeness (some Chinese, Indian, Minoan, pre-Columbian and Oceanic representations of God). When the deity is conceived as an absolute ruler, his representations are superdimensional; for example, in Egypt where the pharaoh is represented as divine, he has to be made “strange” by being given a body that is part human and part animal. (We do not concern ourselves here with distortions of religion in the direction of fetishism or of anthropomorphism.)

Biblical religion has rightly forbidden pictorial representations in the beginning. Man, by himself, cannot grasp divine glory and should not attempt to incarcerate it in a finite form. He should leave the center of the holy place open for God’s presence or, at most, place there only some objects that remind the worshipper of the gracious covenant of God. This prohibition in Israel has nothing to do with the negations in some of the mythical pagan religions. The latter are products of human reflection that recognizes that it is better to leave alone all (even the most other-worldly) depictions of the absolute, formless Being.

In Israel the prohibition of pictures came from God himself, who claimed the right to choose the proper time and form in which he deigned to appear. The preliminary appearance on Sinai is, according to Deuteronomy, merely a formless fire (in a darkened sky) from which a voice sounds (4:11f.). “Therefore take good heed to yourselves. Since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a graven image for yourselves,” in the form of any figure, in the likeness of man or beast or heavenly body (4:15⁠-⁠19). The desire to have, like other peoples, a visible God has led Israel again and again into “adultery” against Yahweh; in the beginning quite crassly, but after the Exile by an anthropomorphic law that was an attempt to grasp God intellectually. This was emphatically rejected by Jesus, who was ultimately the “image” God chose, but who himself was sacrificed to this cult of imagery.

God did not intend to aggrandize his “wholly other” glory in its appearance to men, but rather diminished it—fulfilling the prophecy that the Servant of God will have no “form nor comeliness” (Is 53:2). Jesus took upon himself the blemish of the world’s sin, to “take it away,” so that the inconceivable, unfathomable glory of the absolute (triune) love may shine in the world and in its history. In the insolvable paradox of rejection by mankind (the cross) and vindication by God (resurrection) the divine kābôd illumines like lightning, once for all, definitively, eschatologically, that is, unsurpassably. Paul cannot cease pointing to this paradox in the glory that was manifested in Christ, and which from then on also becomes the basic sign of a witness to Christ, in whom God “imprints” his “image.” When John finally dares to state that God is love, for him this cannot be separated even for a moment from the Father’s sacrifice of the Son as a substitutionary atonement, dying for the sinner; and in no other way is the Holy Spirit of God given to a Christian in the world than by this spirit of self⁠-⁠gift.

3. Translation of glory into beauty

What we have said here leaves the abysmally deep problem of the transposition of this glory (of the cross and resurrection, and of all the manifestations of the absolute glory and love that are immediately connected with this center of salvation history) into earthly beauty. Essentially this beauty is beyond all utility, it “is its own justification” (Mörike) and is thus the supreme reflection of the divine absolute in the world. And now, this earthly beauty is expected to assume a “purpose,” to express the supreme, altogether-different glory of God—which, moreover, is manifested in the paradox of the “formlessness” of the cross. Can such a thing really exist as “Christian art?” Iconoclasm, that appears repeatedly throughout history, says “no,” or at least questions it emphatically. Yet God appeared in his true image (eikon: Rom 8:29; 1 Cor 15:49; 2 Cor 3:18; 4:4; Col 3:10), the Son, in human form. But this manifestation “in the likeness of men” was already an “emptying of self” that led “in human form” to “death on the cross” (Phil 2:7f.). This, too, must be made clear in the image of beauty. Is this possible?

A particularly keen discernment of spirits is needed here. When and how transparently does Christian art show what in truth should be represented through beauty: the glory of triune love? And when does it, as it were, draw this love into itself to enhance her altogether too earthly self⁠-⁠glorification? Making a diagnosis here is a fearful task.

There is a certain sphere where Christian attempts at art seem to assume credibility by their primitiveness (folk art) or naïveté (even the subtle naïveté of a Fra Angelico). There is the world of icons which reflect divine glory by paying the price with a certain “de⁠-⁠incarnation”; but even these need discernment when they reach the pathos of some Byzantine as well as Serbian art. We must also beware of judging a work of art according to the impression it makes on us in the twentieth century. We should evaluate it by the sensibilities of the times when it was created. A medieval chorale evoked completely different feelings in its time than it would now. Yet not everything in great art is ambiguous—as, for example, are all Christian “Titanisms,” and also all “sweetness” that pretends to let us taste heaven right now. From time to time there might appear an authentic and pious transparency, in which all registers of earthly beauty are pulled out: Bach’s Mass in B-minor, Mozart’s unfinished great Mass, Rouault, Messiaen… In between, however, there is a wide and unsettling range of masterpieces, which seem technically to achieve the transcendence from beauty to glory, while—and because of this—their power to enchant is a warning sign: it is as hard to resist the “Last Supper,” the “Crucifixion,” the “Moses” of Tintoretto (to cite only one of many examples) as it is to resist any of Shakespeare’s masterpieces whose religious, Christian components (“Measure for Measure”!) are just as little to be denied as for the others.

Discernment of spirits is not only necessary for viewing art, but objectively, for the artwork itself. This demands both aesthetic and religious training of the viewer. To close with a final example: the “Crucifixion” by Grünewald in Kolmar. Here is the highest skill (art is skill) in the service of deepest horror, which strangely enough makes—in contrast to many other horror-evoking depictions of the crucifixion—the humility of the painter evident: he disappears behind the unique masterwork of God. And this Christian virtue permits—through the ghastliness of the Crucified, the seeming absence of all beauty—the breakthrough of the flaming mystery of the glory of love: fulget crucis mysterium. This is achieved rarely, but it can be done.