Divine Stone

For this final article in a series on the Martyrs Portal, we will lift up our eyes to the heavens as we examine the archivolts, the three ornamental bands of voussoirs on the underside of the arches spanning the portal from side to side. 

The archivolts are decorated with angels, as they are at many another cathedral. The architect intended that the three major portals of St. John the Divine should follow this longstanding Gothic tradition. To date, his intention is unrealized. The Martyrs Portal, completed 1935, is the only one with angels in its archivolts.

There are twelve sculpted angels on each band, thirty-six in all. It is worth craning one’s neck for a good look at them. Each angel is unique, and each has a job to do. My own informal census counted twenty-three angels holding scrolls, seven with trumpets, one with a lute, one with a censer, and four with hands folded in prayer or adoration.

There are enigmatic carvings of eight seated women interspersed with the angels on the lowest rank of archivolts. They sit directly above the eight full-length figures on the portal’s north and south sides. Visitors frequently overlook them or, if they do observe them, usually walk away wondering who they are and how they relate to the saints below them.

As to who they are – they are sibyls, ancient seers who lived in the age before the coming of Christ and were later believed to have prophesied his birth, crucifixion, and resurrection. 

As to how they relate to the martyrs in the portal, the answer is – not at all. The architect intended the sibyls for the central portal, where they would have been appropriate companions of other forerunners of Christ. Due to difficulties with the central portal project, the sibyls were installed instead in the north portal, even though they are unrelated to the portal’s theme of martyrdom. The sibyls do not really belong with the martyrs. One might think of them as squatters. Nevertheless, they do bring to the portal a vibe of the mysterious and exotic.

About Sibyls

Sibyls were prophetesses in the Greco-Roman world, with origins in the ancient Near East. Sibyls resemble oracles in that they were invariably female and uttered their prophecies while in an ecstatic state and in language that was often obscure and ambiguous. 

But while an oracle was the agent of a specific Greek god and was consulted at a temple dedicated to that god, sibyls were, in a sense, freelancers. They were not necessarily aligned with specific gods. They dwelt in caves and grottoes rather than temples. Their names derive from the locations with which they are associated.

The sibyl of Cumae in southern Italy is the most notable sibyl of the classical world, best-known for her role in the Aeneid. Vergil vividly describes the scariness of an encounter with a sibyl: … suddenly all her features, all her color changes, her braided hair flies loose and her breast heaves, her heart bursts with frenzy,  she seems to rise in height, the ring of her voice no longer human …(Aeneid VI.59-63, transl. Robert Fagles).

The prophecies of the Greek and Roman sibyls were written down in Greek hexameters and collected in the Libri Sibyllini (Sybilline Books). Romans revered the sibyls; the Senate would consult the Sybilline Books in times of crisis. In the fourth century, with Christianity having become the state religion, the Roman emperor Honorius ordered the pagan Sybilline Books destroyed.

Meanwhile, a new tradition of sibylline literature had begun among Hellenistic Jews as early as the second century BCE. Writing in Greek hexameters under the names of the classical sibyls, Jewish writers inserted prophecies for Israel and attacks on polytheism into the pagan oracles. By the second century CE, Christians authors had taken over, as scholar Anke Holdenried explains:

Christian authors thus placed Christian prophecies concerning both the Nativity and the Second Coming into the mouth of the Sibyls to use apparently pagan prophecies to undermine pagan polytheism from within its own ranks …

Another scholar, Jorge Guillermo, writes of how the pagan sibyls “acquired new identities as veritable Christian visionaries … They would come to enjoy the same level of legitimacy as had been previously granted only to the long-hallowed prophecies of the respected canonical prophets in the Hebrew Bible.”

The Judeo-Christian writings were collected into the fourteen books of the Oracula Sybillina (Sibylline Oracles). Many of the early Church Fathers treated the Oracula as authoritative when they cited it in their own writings. Guillermo points out that in the Divine Institutes, the third-century theologian Lactantius “makes more references to the sibyl than he does to all the Old Testament prophets combined.”

By the fifth century, interest in the Oracula was waning along with knowledge of Greek as the western empire dissolved and the Latin-speaking western church grew further away from its Greek-speaking brethren in the east. 

The rediscovery of classical literature and culture in the early years of the Renaissance reignited interest in sibyls. By the quattrocento, sibyls had become a familiar subject in art and would remain one throughout the Renaissance. Below, Perugino’s fresco demonstrates that the sibyls were once again on an equal footing with the Hebrew prophets. Their names appear in small letters at the bottom of the picture.

The most famous sibyls of all are those on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, where Michelangelo has them alternate with Hebrew prophets around the ceiling’s perimeter. 

Classical scholarship would eventually debunk the notion that Greco-Roman sibyls prophesied the Christian faith. The Gothic Revival of the nineteenth century brought about a resurgence of interest in sibyls, hence architect Ralph Adams Cram’s intention to include them in the iconographic program for the cathedral’s west front. 

The Sibyls of the Martyrs Portal

There are eight sibyls in the niches above the jamb figures. All but two of them hold books containing their prophecies. Each sibyl is accompanied by one or two attributes signifying the nature of her prophecy.

Starting on the north side and reading left to right, the sibyls are:

Cumana (aka Alamathea), the sibyl of Cumae, holds a sponge dipped in vinegar, a prophecy of the Crucifixion, echoing Psalm 69:21: “In my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” 

Europa holds a sword and an infant, a prophecy of Herod’s massacre of the Holy Innocents (Matt. 2:16-18).

Agrippa (or Agrippine) has in her lap a scourge, a prophecy of the scourging of Christ by Roman soldiers (Mark 15:15), the high priest’s men (Matt. 27-67, Luke 22:63), and by Pontius Pilate himself (John 19:1).

Libyica holds a torch in her right hand, a prophecy of Christ “the Light of the World” (John 8:12). Alongside her left foot sits a pair of pincers. Pincers are sometimes included in the Arma Christi, the objects associated with the Passion. Pincers would have been used to remove the nails from Christ’s hands and feet. Pincers do not appear to be a common attribute of the Libyan Sibyl and their inclusion here may be John Angel’s inspiration.

Continuing on the south side, again reading left to right:

Delphica is not to be confused with the famous oracle of Apollo in Delphi. A crown of thorns, another instrument of the Passion, encircles her raised left arm. Alongside her sits a horn. Other depictions of her have either a crown of thorns or a horn, but John Angel has included both. Scholar Robin Raybould, writing of a different depiction of Delphica, suggests that her horn is a cornucopia that has been transformed into a trumpet. 

Hellespontica holds a crucifix in her lap. Her left hand holds what appears to be the spikelet of a stalk of wheat, a symbol of the Eucharist, the Body of Christ.

Phrygia bears a cross and banner, a prophecy of the Resurrection.

Persica holds a lamp in her right hand as she rests her feet atop a dragon, symbolizing the overthrow of Satan and the “light that shineth in the darkness” (John 1:5).

The Law Bay Reredos

Sibyls can be found in only one other Cathedral location – the elaborately carved wooden reredos in the Law Bay designed by Ernest Pellegrini of the Irving & Casson Company. Pellegrini was on Cram’s A-team of artisans along with John Angel, Charles Connick, Ernest Lakeman and others whose work appears in the Cathedral

The central section of the reredos has three spires. On the left spire, St. Yves is flanked by Sibyl Agrippa, holding a scourge, and Sibyl Erythraea, with a sword.

On the right spire, St. Philogonius is flanked by Sibyl Persica, holding a lamp and standing atop a dragon,  and Sibyl Phrygia, with cross and banner.

The attributes of sibyls are not as standardized as those for saints. You will find images of sibyls with attributes different than these. For the sibyls they created at the Cathedral, both John Angel and Ernest Pellegrini generally followed the same iconographic vocabulary as did Dutch graphic artist Lucas van Leyden for his well-known woodcuts of the canonical twelve sibyls, c. 1530. The van Leyden sibyls can be viewed at the following site:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Woodcut_series_of_Sibyls_by_Lucas_van_Leyden

This is the tenth and final article in a series on the north portal of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, known as the Martyrs Portal. To the best of my knowledge, the series is the first detailed commentary on the portal’s sculpture and iconography since it was completed ninety years ago. I am deeply grateful to Divine Stone founder Roger Murphy for publishing my work, to Robert Rodriguez for enlivening my articles with his superb photography, and to Wayne Kempton for his faithful stewardship of the Cathedral’s archives and his kind assistance with my research. TF

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Sources

• Crestwood, Julian. “The Sibyls:  From Greek Prophetess to Sistine Ceiling.” https://www.romanmythology.com/comparative-mythology/roman-sibyls-across-cultures/
• Guillermo, Jorge. Sibyls: Prophecy and Power in the Ancient World (2013).
• Holdenried, Anke. The Sibyl and Her Scribes (2006).

Sisters pay tribute 

On a damp and rainy Sunday Angel Escobar’s sisters and other family members visited the Cathedral of St. John the Divine to pay tribute to the quiet and unassuming stonecutter who recently passed away.

Dina Chiclana, Olga Escobar, Cecilia Escobar and several cousins came together to literally touch stones that Angel worked on when the Cathedral started to build its towers and many dreams in the 1980s and early 1990s.

After the service the sisters and cousins met with Canon Steven Lee, Vicar of the Cathedral, who wrote:

“It is especially meaningful to remember someone whose hands helped shape the Cathedral and who was so valued by his fellow stonecutters and carvers.”

– Canon Steven Lee, entering the name of Angel Escobar in the Cathedral’s Prayers for the Dead.

A touching moment came when the group visited the Columbarium to visit Ruben Gibson’s niche. Ruben, one of the Stoneyard’s lead carvers, passed away in 1988. Angel credited Ruben’s support and encouragement for helping him overcome his hesitation to move into cutting and carving stones – where Angel excelled and displayed his artistic side. One of Angel’s sisters, Olga, said that Angel was always shy and preferred to stay in the background, adding that she was the one who defended him in the school yard against bullies.

The family group waded through puddles, wrapped against the heavy rain, to reach the pile of carved limestone blocks that were never set on the tower when work stopped.

Among the ashlars, column bases, pinnacles and elaborately carved stones, one block – part of a gablet with carved crockets – stood out. On one side, the initials ‘AE’ were clearly visible. This stone was Angel’s legacy that his family could touch to connect with their departed sibling.

“I remember being impressed by Angel’s native understanding of sculpture, we were looking together at historic sculptures in a book , and he was talking about them. I remember thinking that I had to go to school to know the things that he was saying off the top of his head. He was a very sweet man and I have many memories of him and his gentle ways.” – Amy Brier

“Apart from being one of the nicest guys you could hope to work with, Angel could always be relied upon to turn out a first rate, crisp and neat piece of finished work. Even the visiting French artisans of the Compagnons were impressed by his skill. Sincerest condolences to Eddie and Angel’s family” – Stephen Boyle

“Angel was very reserved. He had a quiet confidence that was especially important when it came to moving large stones. When I started on the saw, he was just joining the banker masons as an apprentice. I remember Jeep, Poni, Jose and Ruben all commenting on how easy stone cutting came to him. Angel was just a natural. The same went for carving. He just eased into it. Angel was extremely competent in anything he did at the stoneyard, but he liked to keep a low profile. Anyone who worked with him followed his lead, but he was a reluctant leader because he was humble. Joe Schiff said it right; he led by quiet example. Mostly though, I remember Angel for his sense of humor. He had a contagious laugh.” – Joseph Kincannon

“It saddens me each time I hear of the passing of one of our masons. It’s different. The impact of it is like brothers or sisters, from another mother has passed on. My condolences to his family and ours. May He Rest in StoneMason’s Paradise. I thank you for the memories.” – Carol Hazel

Angel’s Carving Days

By the spring of 1985 a carving shed was built along the Cathedral’s north wall. Nick (Master Carver Fairplay) moved in along with Ruben Gibson, Cynie Linton, Joseph Kincannon and D’Ellis “Jeep” Kincannon. Nick also had Angel Escobar do some carvings. Angel did not want to do carving full time but “I pulled him (in) a couple of times; he had a very natural ability,” Nick said.

One of Angel’s works shows a beast with glaring eyes and a broad mustache practically drooping onto the stone below. The other carving resembles a feline animal with curls sweeping away from its face and high arched eyebrows.

Angel Escobar’s two carvings (south face string course) both show fantastic beasts, something Newt Scamander from the Harry Potter films might be searching for.

Humble Beginnings

As a boy growing up in East Harlem, Angel Escobar would look across 112th Street at the looming structure rising on Morningside Heights to the West. “When I was small, I used to wonder what that big thing was,” he said. A few years later, he would pick up a mallet and chisel to help build the tower at The Cathedral of St. John the Divine. “I never thought I would be working at the church,” Angel adds. 

“I was hanging out a lot on the streets by the time I was in my teens. My mother had died and I dropped out of school,” Angel remembers. “I had to do for myself.” 

“Me, I didn’t like being in the street. So when I heard the Renegades had given up their chains and stopped fighting to do something for the community, I found out about it,” Angel continues. 

A New York Times article reported, “a youth gang called the Renegades (sometimes spelled Renigades) is using city loan funds and their own labor to create new homes for their families out of a battered and abandoned East Harlem tenement.” This was the beginning of “sweat equity” or “urban homesteading” and Angel started learning the building trades. The outfit he was working for went out of business and the owner recommended that Angel apply to the Cathedral’s Stoneyard program.

As a trainee, the soft spoken and introverted Angel moved limestone blocks around the machinery shop and drove the crane and forklift that transported finished stones from the cutting shed to the stacks by the side of the Cathedral for the first two years. 

Angel would occasionally be treated to homemade lunch brought to the Stoneyard by his wife Maritza and oldest daughter Angela, who remembers walking through the Cathedral to get to the Stoneyard. As a 5-year-old, “I was afraid of the huge stone statues,” she said.

Initially, Angel was intimidated by Master Mason Alan Bird, the primary instructor for the apprentices, and was reluctant to move into stone cutting. “I was scared to be a stonecutter,” he said, “because Alan was so strict, you made a mistake he’d get on your case. I didn’t want to cut stone; I was scared to cut it. I didn’t want to make mistakes.” 

Angel credits Ruben Gibson, a fellow apprentice who started shortly after Angel, for helping him overcome his fears. “Ruben put it in me, he put confidence in me. He made me a stonecutter. He believed in me. I loved Ruben,” Angel said.

Angel credits Ruben Gibson, a fellow apprentice who started shortly after Angel, for helping him overcome his fears. “Ruben put it in me, he put confidence in me. He made me a stonecutter. He believed in me. I loved Ruben,” Angel said.

Timothy Smith recalls that Angel could cut his stones exactly up to the zinc template measurements – but Angel needed some lessons in fractions. At first, Angel had trouble understanding that the larger the number of the fraction, the smaller the measurement actually was. Timothy gave Angel a tutorial on a whiteboard: ½ inch is larger than ¼ inch and 1/64 inch is smaller than 1/32 inch. Angel caught on quickly.

In the summer months when construction on the tower was the focus, Angel occasionally worked topside moving stones from below to the construction floor or helping to set stones. This may have been his least favorite job: “I’m afraid of heights,” he confessed.

Eddie Pizarro, another stonecutter from East Harlem, compliments Angel’s cutting skills: “To me, Angel had the best boasting pattern. Very neat. All his finished stones looked the same. He always had a steady hand for boasting the stone.”

Angel also got direction from José Tapia. “He taught me a lot,” he reminisces. 

Angel refers to José as “my brother” because José lived with Angel’s family after José’s parents died in an auto accident in Puerto Rico. Angel’s mother and José’s mother were sisters, so Angel’s mother “took him (José) in, a cousin, but raised by my family,” Angel explains.

José also brought in another member of the extended family to the Stoneyard when Eddie Pizarro, another cousin, came on board. All three share the same paternal grandparents who were from Ponce, PR.

According to Eddie, the cousins “all had different opinions; we were raised to use what you are good at and make a living in the construction field. The Stoneyard united us and Angel kept us focused,” he said. “I remember (Angel) telling us we are here (at the Stoneyard) to make history and we will always be remembered and, to this day, it is true.”  

As Angel’s skills and confidence grew cutting intricate blocks in the cutting shed, another opportunity came up and, once again, Ruben Gibson provided the necessary push.

The Cathedral program needed to start training some apprentice stonecutters in the art of stone carving. Following a blind carving competition, Master Carver Nicholas Fairplay, recognizing Angel’s potential, named him a candidate for the carving program. 

“I was scared to do carving, but then again Ruben came in and put confidence in me and started teaching me. It was kind of easy for me because I used to draw faces on the stones and Ruben picked up on that. Ruben had a way of getting to me,” Angel said. “The way Ruben explained stuff, he made it seem easy. Ruben wanted me in the (carving) shed bad!”

However, Angel was not ready to give up working in the cutting shed so he moved between cutting and carving as the needs dictated. Angel could just as easily cut a springer or tracery stone as he could carve foliage on a crocket or create a unique Gothic face on a cornice stone. Angel must have been very happy to work in the carving shed when his mentor Ruben became lead carver.

Around 1993 funding for the program dried up and the stoneyard was forced to shut down. Looking back over his 13-year career at the Cathedral, Angel would have loved teaching the next generation of stonecutters if the program had continued, a role he saw for himself. “It’s a skill that you never forget,” he said.

Asked if he thought the Cathedral would ever resume rebuilding, Angel ponders, “perhaps…that’s the way churches work.”

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St. Denis occupies the last niche on the south side of the Martyrs Portal, directly across from another martyred bishop, St. Thomas Becket. 

Denis was born in Italy in the first half of the third century. “Denis” is the French form of his original name, Dionysius – a common name in the Greco-Roman world, and one that would later become the source of much confusion. 

Denis was one of seven bishops commissioned to travel from Rome to spread the Christian faith in the province of Gaul. Rusticus, a priest, and Euletherius, a deacon, accompanied him. They established a church on an island in the River Seine in the Roman settlement of Lutetia, now Paris. The three of them were martyred in the persecution initiated by the emperor Decian in 250-251. These bare facts are from Gregory of Tours’ sixth-century History of the Franks, the earliest extant account of Denis’s life.

In sculptor John Angel’s full-length figure, Denis wears a chasuble over an alb. Tall and gaunt, with the bishop’s miter atop his head, he fills the niche from top to bottom. A small angel sits on his left shoulder, a visual echo of the raven perched on St. Vincent, two niches away. The expression on his face seems pained. He presses his hands to his cheeks, as if he has a headache (in fact, he later became the patron saint of headache sufferers).

It takes a moment for an observer to realize that Denis’s head is not attached to his body and that he is holding it in his hands.

The pedestal shows his martyrdom. The scene is Montmartre, the “Hill of Martyrs.” Denis kneels between two Roman soldiers. The soldiers are anachronistically clad in the mail and armor of medieval knights. To ensure a clean cut, one soldier stabilizes Denis while the other swings the axe. As Denis’s head falls, an angel swoops down to catch it in mid-air as his miter tumbles to the ground.

To the right of the soldiers, Rusticus and Euletherius await their own executions. Behind them, an angel leads away Denis, who holds his head in the manner we see above. 

Legend has it that Denis proceeded to walk six miles to the site of what is now the Basilica of St. Denis with his disembodied head preaching a sermon of repentance. Denis thus became the first in a long line of saintly cephalophores (literally, “head-carriers”).

Denis and other cephalophores are usually depicted holding their heads in one of two ways. The most common is for the saint to hold the head between the hands at waist- or chest-level, as in the sculpture of St. Denis on the west front of Notre-Dame in Paris.

The other way is for the saint to nestle the head in the crook of the elbow, as in this illustration from a 16^th century devotional book. Bishop Denis strolls along with his head in his hands, accompanied by two angels, while his underlings sprawl on the ground alongside their own severed heads. Apparently, rank has its privileges even among martyrs.

John Angel was prone to make his own variations on centuries-old iconographic practices. His image of Denis has the saint holding his head where it belongs – above his neck and shoulders. I have come across only one similar sculpture. Dating from 1941, the statue stands alongside a fountain in a park in the Montmartre district of Paris. There is a legend that en route to his burial site, the saint paused to wash his head in the fountain.

I would note in passing that it is uncommon to see images of St. Denis that have his head still attached to his body, but there is one in the archivolts of the west entrance to the cathedral’s Synod House.

Denis and his companions were buried six miles north of Paris. In 630, Dagobert, king of the Franks, founded an abbey at the site of Denis’s burial and built a basilica over the grave, replacing earlier shrines. When Dagobert was interred there in 639, it established the abbey church as the burial place for the kings and queens of France for the next eleven centuries. With royal patronage, the abbey became one of the most important in France, with a large library and an active scriptorium. 

A curious thing happened to Denis during the centuries after his death – he became a composite character. He came to be confused with the Athenian Dionysius who was converted to the Christian faith by the apostle Paul (Acts 17:34). Because the conversion occurred during Paul’s sermon on the Areopagus (“Hill of Ares”), this first-century figure is known as Dionysius the Areopagite.

In the fifth century, an author of philosophical and mystical works, believed by scholars to be a Syrian, led readers to believe that his writings were the work of the first-century Dionysius the Areopagite. Perhaps the writer was hoping to bestow an aura of apostolic authority upon his work. This author, whose real name is unknown, is now referred to as Pseudo-Dionysius.

By  the ninth century, manuscripts of his works made their way to the abbey’s library. The abbot at that time, Hilduin, wrote a biography of Denis that conflated the third-century bishop of Paris not only with the Areopagite but also with Pseudo-Dionysius. It became widely-accepted that these three were the same person. Not until the Renaissance would humanist scholars begin to untangle the three identities. 

Thus, when the Benedictine abbot Suger read the works of Pseudo-Dionysius in the twelfth century, he believed that they had been written by the saint whose relics lay in the crypt of his abbey church. Suger’s encounter with Pseudo-Dionysius’s The Celestial Hierarchies and other works would change the course of architectural history.

When Suger became the abbot in 1122, the seventh-century basilica was showing its age. It was now too small to accommodate the crowds of pilgrims who came to venerate the relics of St. Denis. Suger’s vision of a transformed abbey church was guided in large part by Pseudo-Dionysius’s philosophy of light, as summarized in Otto von Simson’s classic intellectual history of the origins of Gothic architecture:

This thinker [Pseudo-Dionysius] blends Neoplatonic philosophy with the magnificent theology of light in the Gospel of John, where the divine Logos is conceived as the true Light that shineth in the darkness, by which all things were made, and that enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world. Upon this passage, the Pseudo-Areopagite bases the edifice of his own thought. 

Creation is to him an act of illumination…

Suger envisioned a church filled with illumination – sunlight filtered through stained glass, candlelight reflecting from liturgical objects, polychromatic flashes of light glinting off gemstones. He described the effect such objects had on him in his writings on his reconstruction of the abbey church: 

… then it seems to me that I see myself dwelling, as it were, in some strange region of the universe which neither exists entirely in the slime of the earth nor entirely in the purity of heaven, and that, by the grace of God, I can be transported from the inferior to the higher world in an anagogical manner.

To achieve his vision of a light-filled worship space, Suger’s master builders and masons – their names now lost to us – employed design features that would become standard for Gothic cathedrals: pointed arches, cross-ribbed vaults, complex piers composed of colonettes, expansive fenestration, a large round window on the west wall, columnar jamb figures and a kings’ gallery on the exterior. 

Von Simson describes the effect of the basilica’s interior on visitors:

In the physical light that illuminated the sanctuary, the mystical reality seemed to become palpable to the senses. The distinction between physical nature and theological significance was bridged by the notion of corporeal light as an “analogy” to the divine light. Can we marvel that this world view called for a style of sacred architecture in which the meaning of light was acknowledged as magnificently as it was in Gothic?

During his lifetime, Suger oversaw the rebuilding of the church’s west front, narthex, choir, and ambulatory. The spacious double ambulatory is a brilliant, breath-taking realization of Suger’s vision. An ingenious interplay of pointed transverse and rounded diagonal ribs enables the large chapel windows to flood the ambulatory with light.

The Basilica Cathedral of St. Denis (it was upgraded to diocesan status in 1966) is generally recognized as the first church built in the architectural style now known as Gothic. Nine centuries later, there is a satisfying symmetry in seeing the namesake of the style’s first flowering grace the west front of what may be the last of the great Gothic cathedrals.

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Sources:

• Bloch, R. Howard. Paris and her Cathedrals (2022).
• Farmer, David Hugh. The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, 2^nd ed. (1987).
• Gregory of Tours. The History of the Franks, O.M. Dalton, translator (1927).
• Panofsky, Erwin. Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St. Denis, 2^nd ed. (1979).
• Simson, Otto von. The Gothic Cathedral (1956).
• Stoddard, Whitney. Art & Architecture in Medieval France (1972).
• Stracke, Richard. “Saint Denis: The Iconography.” https://www.christianiconography.info/denis.html
• “Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pseudo-dionysius-areopagite/  

St. Joan of Arc occupies the third niche on the south side of the Martyrs Portal.

She stands erect, like the soldier she became, gazing outward from her niche with an expression of intense concentration. She is listening, raptly, to the voices that spoke to her from age thirteen until her martyrdom at age nineteen. She believed them to be the voices of the archangel Michael, St. Margaret of Antioch, and St. Catherine of Alexandria, whose image faces her from across the portal.

The pedestal beneath the full-length figure is a panorama depicting four scenes from Joan’s life with ten individual figures, four of whom are Joan herself. Sculptor John Angel confronted a daunting challenge in composing a visual narrative of Joan’s eventful life within a severely limited amount of space. He accomplished this without overcrowding the surface or disrupting the narrative’s flow and clarity. The pedestal is a tour-de-force for John Angel, who modeled it in clay, as well as for the Ardolino carvers, who realized it in stone down to the most intricate detailing.

John Angel’s full-length jamb figure of Joan includes three objects – kirtle, sword, and book – each signifying one of the three eras of her brief life – childhood, military campaigns, and trial and execution. 

The Kirtle

The first object is her short-sleeved, front-laced peasant dress known as a kirtle. She would have worn such a dress when she tended sheep in the fields of her native village, Domrémy, in the region of Lorraine. It was in these fields that, at age thirteen, she first heard the voices calling her to liberate France from foreign armies and install the uncrowned Dauphin to his rightful place on the throne. 

On the pedestal below, the first scene on the left-hand side shows Joan listening intently to an airborne being whose face appears above her. 

Julien Bastien-LePage’s painting depicts the same scene in colorful, dramatic detail. The saints are translucent images behind Joan, who stands frozen, transfixed by their voices. An interesting detail is the loom with its chair toppled on its side, signifying that Joan will no longer do the work traditionally done by women. The painting was created in the wake of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. As part of the settlement, France ceded part of Joan’s home province of Lorraine to the German Empire. 

The Sword

The second object, signifying her military campaigns, is the sword that she enfolds with her arms. There are five crosses on its blade. Joan never used the sword as a weapon and never killed anyone. She led her troops into battle with her standard rather than her sword. After battles, she would comfort all who were wounded, both ally and enemy, and pray for the souls of all the slain. On the pedestal below, we see two scenes from Joan’s military career. 

Joan in battle

On the pedestal’s left and center faces, Joan, now seventeen, shouts commands to her troops on the battlefield. The scene is mostly likely the breaking of the English siege of Orléans, her most celebrated military success. Joan wears a man’s belted tunic and hose. Her insistence on wearing male attire would enrage the prelates at her trial.

Coronation

The next scene, center-right, is the coronation of Charles VII as rightful ruler of France. Joan, in armor, kneels as the bishop of Reims crowns the king. Charles, enthroned, sports an ermine cape and grasps a scepter in his right hand. 

A significant detail – the position of the throne, which places Charles with his back to the image of Joan at the stake. When Joan was later captured, imprisoned, and put on trial, Charles made no attempt, either diplomatic or military, to win her release. He literally turned his back on the woman who put him on the throne.

Behind Joan, a soldier bears her battle standard. The standard featured a white field with many fleur-de-lys, an image of Christ in Glory accompanied by two angels, and the names Jesus and Maria. It was created at Tours while Joan’s army was preparing for the assault on Orléans. James Power, a Scottish painter, made it at Joan’s direction. Joan, at her trial, testified that the design was dictated to her by Saints Catherine and Margaret. She also testified that she always carried it into battle herself so that she would not have to kill anyone. 

In the painting below, the artist closely followed Joan’s description of the standard.

After the coronation, Joan and her troops returned to the task of driving out the English but suffered reverses. An arrow lodged in her thigh during a failed attack on Paris. Burgundian forces, allies of the English, captured her as she was attempting to break a siege at Compiègne. The Burgundians sold Joan to the English for the enormous sum of 10,000 livres, which modern estimates equate to millions of dollars.

The Book

The third object Joan holds is the book in her left hand. Joan was illiterate, so it likely signifies the gospel book on which she swore an oath during her lengthy trial. She swore to testify truthfully, while reserving the right to keep secret the divine revelations she received from the voices.

Joan was put on trial in Rouen for sorcery and heresy. During the trial, she was imprisoned in a tower of Rouen Castle. An earlier Divine Stone post describes how a stone from that tower came to rest in the Cathedral’s Chapel of St. Martin.

https://divinestone.org/blog/the-joan-of-arc-stone/

Prosecutors grilled her endlessly about the voices she heard, suspecting they were demonic in origin. To them, her reliance on private revelations reeked of what would become known as Protestantism. They also harassed her about her insistence on wearing male attire, which they found quite aberrant, though Joan plausibly claimed it was a defense against sexual assault in prison. 

Joan held her own on the witness stand, but week after week of badgering wore her down. With someone guiding her hand, she signed a recantation. But she quickly withdrew the recantation, cognizant that by doing so, she was sure to be sentenced to a heretic’s death – burning at the stake.

Execution

The pedestal’s final scene, on the right face, is Joan’s execution in the plaza fronting Rouen Cathedral. As the flames rise, Joan seems to merge with them. She looks heavenward, hands clasped in prayer. Eyewitness accounts report that she repeatedly cried out “Jesus!” Afterwards, the English executioner threw her ashes into the Seine, lest they become the object of veneration by the French.

In 1452 – twenty-one years after Joan’s execution – Pope Callixtus III granted a request from Joan’s mother and brothers that her conviction be reexamined. Four years later, the allegations in the original trial were given a new trial and the first trial’s verdict was overturned. Joan was exonerated. But not until 1920 did the Roman Catholic Church declare her a saint, and then with a surprising hitch.

Was Joan of Arc really a martyr?

If this strikes you as an idle question with an obvious answer, then you may be as surprised as I was to discover that Joan of Arc is not designated a martyr in the Roman Catholic canon of saints. In Pope Benedict XV’s papal bull announcing Joan’s canonization, Divina Disponente (“By Divine Provision”), the word “martyr” is conspicuous by its absence. 

Rather, the document identifies her as Beata Ioanna de Arc, Virgo (“Blessed Joan of Arc, Virgin”). Note – “virgin,” not “virgin martyr.” Saints Margaret and Catherine, whose voices spoke to Joan, are designated virgin martyrs. So are many other female saints. Why not Joan?

Catholic author Bert Ghezzi explains the church’s position in his book Mystics and Miracles:

The church officially remembers Joan of Arc not as a martyr but as a virgin – the Maid of Orleans. Of course, Joan was a martyr, but not in the technical sense. Yes, she died because she did what she thought it was what God wanted her to do. But she was killed for her politics, not for her faith. Pagans did not execute her for refusing to worship their gods. Infidels did not slay her for defying them. Political enemies burned her at the stake for defeating them at war.

Divina Disponente’s stated justification for Joan’s canonization is: “… her innocence, faith, holiness, and obedience to the commandments of God, for which she endured all things to the point of a terrible and unjust death.” While he avoids the word “martyr,” at one point in the lengthy document the Holy Father appears to forget himself, writing “the small men (nani, lit. “dwarves”) responsible for Joan’s martyrdom (de martyrium Ioannae) died a most ignominious death.”

Author Mary Gordon, in her insightful article “Desperately Seeking Joan,” asserts that Joan is beyond category, so uniquely multifaceted as to defy the limitations of a term like “virgin martyr:”

… a look at her [Joan] in the clear light of her words and actions creates an image not of singleness but of fascinating complexity. She was a virgin and she died for what she believed, but she does not fit the type of the virgin martyr. Ardent, impatient, boastful, resistant, implacable, she is like all great saints, a personality of genius.

The Anglican churches echo the Roman Catholic skepticism about Joan’s status as a martyr. For her feast day of May 30, the Episcopal Church’s liturgical calendar lists Joan not as a martyr but a “mystic and soldier” while the Church of England designates her a “visionary.” The Anglican Church of Canada dodges the question, listing her only by name, and the Anglican Church of Australia simply ignores her.

The Superstar Saint

If the Roman and Anglican communions do not recognize Joan as a martyr, then why is her image in the cathedral’s Martyrs Portal?

It was only a few years after Joan’s canonization that Bishop William Thomas Manning, architect Ralph Adams Cram, and the other members of the Iconography Committee decided that the Cathedral should have a portal dedicated to martyrs. They also decided that Joan of Arc should be in it, ecclesiastical hairsplitting notwithstanding. 

The committee was listening to the public, not the prelates. For by then, Joan had become a superstar among the saints, recognized, admired, and revered by millions. The depth to which her story stirred the popular imagination is reflected by numberless biographies, novels, plays, films, paintings, sculptures, and other media, both highbrow and lowbrow, even the performance art known as the circus.

The aura of Joan’s sanctity touches not only the faithful but also the irreligious. Two of the best literary treatments of her story are by notably irreligious writers: Mark Twain’s biographical novel Joan of Arc and Bernard Shaw’s play Saint Joan. In fact, in 1924, Shaw’s play was having a long run on Broadway even as the cathedral’s leadership was preparing to resume construction and launch a major fundraising campaign.

Nothing did more than World War I to inject Joan into the national consciousness of Americans. Like all the other Allied countries, the U.S. exploited Joan’s image for propaganda purposes. The poster below was ubiquitous – Joan as both Savior of France and the All-American Girl.

Reflecting the scope of the public’s fascination with Joan, Cecil B. De Mille’s epic biopic Joan the Woman was the second-highest-grossing film released in 1916. The film begins and ends with scenes of British soldiers in the trenches, drawing an explicit parallel between Joan’s martyrdom and the sacrifices of soldiers on the battlefield. 

Bishop Manning’s high regard for soldier saints undoubtedly influenced the decision to include Joan in the Martyrs Portal along with St. Alban, another soldier saint. Manning was an early critic of President Wilson’s policy of neutrality and an outspoken advocate for the United States joining the French and British in the fight. His service as a wartime Army chaplain made his admiration for the military all the more ardent. His biographer notes that “his voice was clear and persuasive in contradicting the assumption that religion and pacifism go hand in hand.” 

In our own time, for her rejection of traditional female roles and her cross-dressing, Joan has been adopted as a patron saint by those who fight for transgender rights. Leslie Feinberg, discussing Joan’s trial in her book Transgender Warriors, argues that “the core of the charges against Joan focused on her cross-dressing, the crime for which she ultimately was executed.” Feinberg regards her as a martyr: “Joan of Arc suffered the excruciating pain of being burned alive rather than renounce her identity.” The image below, an icon from Katy Miles-Wallace’s Queer Saints series, is a fresh take on a familiar saint.

John Angel’s sculpture of Joan has intrigued and inspired visitors for the ninety years it has stood in the Martyrs Portal. Six centuries after her martyrdom, the aura of her superstardom is undimmed. During the many years I’ve been introducing visitors to St. John the Divine, I’ve taken hundreds of them to the Martyrs Portal. Few can identify the other sculpted figures, but rare is the visitor who does not immediately recognize St. Joan of Arc. Such is the saintly celebrity of the woman whom Mark Twain characterized as “easily and by far the most extraordinary person the human race has ever produced.”

■

Sources

• Atwater, Donald. The Penguin Dictionary of Saints 2^nd ed. (Penguin, 1983).
• Ballan, Anna. “Joan of Arc: Warrior Muse” in Commonweal, December 28, 2023.
• Bychowski, M.W. “The Patron Saint of Dysphoria: Joan of Arc as Transgender.” in http://www.thingstransform.com/2019/05/the-patron-saint-of-dysphoria-joan-of.html
• Farmer, David Hugh. The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, 2^nd ed. (OUP, 1987).
• Feinbeg, Leslie. Transgender Warriors (1996).
• Ghezzi, Bert. Mystics and Miracles (Loyola Press, 2004).
• Gordon, Mary. “Desperately Seeking Joan” in Commonweal, June 21, 2004.
• Holy See. Divina Disponente, Papal Bull, May 16, 1920.
• Hughes, W.D.F. Prudently with Power: William Thomas Manning, Tenth Bishop of New York (1969).
• “Joan of Arc – Her Battle Standard.” https://saint-joan-of-arc.com/banner.htm
• “Joan of Arc – Her Sword.”  https://saint-joan-of-arc.com/sword.htm
• Kilgore, Jennifer. “Joan of Arc as Propaganda Motif from the Dreyfus Affair to the Second World War” in Revue LISA v. 6,no. 8 (2008).
• Kittredge, Cherry. “New Icons of Queer Saints created by artist Katy Miles-Wallace.” https://qspirit.net/queer-saints-katy-miles-wallace/

St. Vincent was martyred during the Diocletian persecution of Christians (303-311). He was a deacon in the Roman settlement of Caesaraugusta, which today is the Spanish city of Zaragoza (aka Saragossa). Instead of a deacon’s customary dalmatic, he wears a cape-like chasuble over an alb. Another signifier of a deacon is draped over his left arm – the short scarf known as a maniple.

We find Vincent engaged in a conversation with his neighbor, St. Lawrence, which Vincent is enlivening with his expressive hands. Perched on his left shoulder, a raven, with its own role to play in the narrative of Vincent’s martyrdom.

Little is known about Vincent’s life aside from the colorful accounts of his martyrdom. The narrative in the Golden Legend appears to be based principally on the hymn to Vincent in the Peristephanon (“Crown of Martyrs”) of Prudentius, a late fourth century Christian poet who composed in Latin and may have been, like Vincent, a native of Caesaraugusta. The  Peristephanon has been translated into delightful English verse by Len Krisak.

According to these accounts, Vincent served under Valerius, bishop of Caesaraugusta. Valerius had a speech impediment and often relied on Vincent to speak on his behalf. During the Diocletian persecution, Valerius and Vincent were arrested for refusing to sacrifice to the pagan gods and brought before Dacian, the Roman governor of Valencia. 

The Pedestal

The left and center sides of the pedestal depict Vincent and Valerius coming before Dacian. (Dacian could be the twin brother of the emperor on St. Lawrence’s pedestal. Perhaps John Angel employed the same model for both figures.)

The elderly Valerius clings to Vincent. Vincent stands erect before Dacian with his hand on his heart as he states emphatically that neither he nor Valerius will deny their Christian faith. 

Vincent’s response angers Dacian. With fist clenched and face contorted with rage, he threatens Vincent with the bone-crushing horrors of the rack. Vincent responds:

O unhappy man, how weenest [expect] thou to anger me? The more grievously that thou tormentest me, so much more pity shall God have on me. Arise up, thou unhappy man and cursed, and by thy wicked spirit thou shalt be vanquished, for thou shalt find me more stronger by the virtue of God to suffer thy torments, than thou hast power to torment me.

While Valerius is sent into exile, Vincent’s audacious challenge to Dacian earns him a triathlon of tortures. His bones are broken on the rack. (In some accounts, a wine press replaces the rack, which explains how Vincent became the patron saint of winemakers.) His flesh is lacerated by iron hooks, then seared on the gridiron. The pain he has suffered only strengthens Vincent’s resolve, as the Legend recounts: And for all this, he was unmovable, but he prayed our Lord Jesu Christ with joined hands up to heaven.

The exasperated Dacian then has Vincent taken to a dark prison cell where he is placed atop a bed of pottery shards with razor-sharp edges – the death of a thousand cuts. Dacian assumes that Vincent cannot possibly survive. But when Dacian’s henchmen peek into the cell, they find it filled with light, the shards transformed into fragrant flowers, and the air filled with the music of angels. 

Dacian then orders that Vincent be transported to a soft bed where he hopes Vincent will recover sufficiently to be subjected to a new round of tortures. But this scheme also goes awry, for Vincent at last gives up his spirit to God.

The pedestal, which leaves the visualization of Vincent’s gruesome ordeals to the viewer’s imagination, now picks up the narrative after Vincent’s death. Directly behind Dacian, we see a bird – a raven. The Legend tells the story:

Then the body of St. Vincent was cast in a field for to be devoured of the beasts and fowls, by the commandment of Dacian, but it was kept by angels from touching of any beasts, and after came a raven which drove away all other birds and fowls, greater than he was, and chased away also a wolf with his bill and beak…

Wishing to be rid of Vincent for good, Dacian commands that Vincent’s body be recovered, placed in a sack, attached to a millstone, and buried at sea. On the right side of the pedestal, we see a sailor preparing to hoist the sack into the sea. In an amusing detail, fish gather to feast on the corpse. But by the time the boat returns to port, Vincent’s body has miraculously floated back to shore, intact.

Vincent then receives a proper burial, but this is just the beginning of Vincent’s further peregrinations. At some point, Vincent’s relics were interred in a basilica in Córdoba. During the Moorish invasion of the Iberian peninsula in the 8^th-century, the relics were moved to Portugal for safekeeping. One account has them interred for a time on Cape St. Vincent, the extreme southwestern point in Europe. Today, with exception of his left arm, Vincent’s relics rest in Lisbon Cathedral in a silver reliquary depicting the casting of Vincent’s body into the sea. 

The saint’s purported left arm can be viewed in a reliquary in the ambulatory of Valencia Cathedral.

Vincent’s Raven

 The life-size raven perched on his shoulder makes Vincent stand out from the other figures in the portal. The raven is one of Vincent’s standard attributes, but one wonders if its prominence indicates a symbolic purpose beyond that of mere identification. I suggest that we might regard Vincent’s raven as a sign of God’s grace.

Ravens, by nature, are scavengers. Like vultures, they feed on decaying flesh. They are also one of the most intelligent species of birds, legendary for their cleverness. According to ornithologist Stephen Moss, “ravens have a larger brain relative to their body size than most birds.” 

Moss reports that ravens are known to find food by cooperating with human hunters and mammalian predators such as wolves. Though ravens are too small to kill large prey like deer, they have one big advantage over humans and wolves – they fly. Moss explains:

Only the raven can reconnoiter a large area of ground, locate potential prey, and then return to guide the hunters towards the target. If the hunters succeed in making a kill, they will feast on the animal’s flesh. But when they are done, they leave the remains behind, with enough meat on the bones for the ravens to scavenge a hearty meal.

If we consider how courageously Vincent endured the most excruciating torments with unwavering faith in God, it is unthinkable that a loving God would be so ungracious as to allow Vincent’s lifeless body to suffer the final indignity of being ravaged by predators. Instead, God sends a raven to drive the predators away.

That the raven should be chosen for this task is as ironic as it is extraordinary, for the raven is itself a flesh-eating predator. To abstain from feasting on Vincent’s corpse is contrary to every one of a raven’s natural instincts. Just as remarkable is how fiercely the ravens defend the corpse from other predators. The ravens even turn against the wolves, their hunting partners, as Prudentius recounts in Len Krisak’s translation:

This bird, from nearby bushes, drove

Away a savage wolf by beating

With its raucous wings and cries,

With feathers slashing at the eyes.

Prudentius compares Vincent’s ravens to those in an Old Testament passage depicted in the central portal above the figures of Elijah and Elisha. 

Here we see ravens again serving as agents of God’s grace. When the kingdom of Judah turns to the worship of Baal under the evil king Ahab, God withholds the rain. At God’s direction, the prophet Elijah escapes the wrath of Ahab and the drought by traveling to a brook in the wilderness. There “the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook” (I Kings 17:6).

Ravens are uncommon in New York City. Perhaps it was God’s grace that brought a pair of living, breathing, squawking ravens to join the sculpted stone ravens on the west front last year. To the delight of local birders, the ravens built a nest in the gable of the south portal, high above the traffic roaring by on Amsterdam Avenue. When five chicks appeared this spring, the birders keeping watch on the nest rejoiced in much same spirit as did the psalmist many centuries before:

Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving; 

Make melody to our God upon the lyre!

He covers the heavens with clouds, 

He prepares rain for the earth, 

He makes grass grow upon the hills.

He gives to the beasts their food, 

And to the young ravens which cry. (Ps. 147:7-9)

Sources

• “St. Vincent of Saragossa” in The Golden Legend, William Caxton translation, 1483. E-text by Paul Halsall. https://www.christianiconography.info/goldenLegend/
• Moss, Stephen. Ten Birds that Changed the World (2023).
• Prudentius. Prudentius’ Crown of Martyrs, Ken Krisak, translator (2020).
• Stracke, Richard. Saint Vincent of Saragossa: The Iconography. https://www.christianiconography.info/vincent.html