Saint Antony and the Devil

Saint Anthony and the Devil

Fränger’s idea that Bosch’s three large triptychs contain satire directed both against the Church and paganism led him to see somewhat different emphases in the paintings. Whereas the Earthly Delights stands somewhat between the polar extremities, Fränger presumed The Hay Wagon to be primarily anti-clerical and The Temptation of Saint Anthony to be “anti-occultist” satire. However, it is more likely in the latter painting that the occult would be a part of the main theme – that of the traditional conflict between Good and Evil – but presented according to late medieval ideography. Good is represented by the saint, Christ, and the monks who perform acts of mercy toward the saint.

Evil abounds through the demonic creatures that swarm over the panels – these representing the minions of a kingdom of Satan, the concept that objectified evil to the medieval mind. Satan and his demons were thought to operate on this earth through heretical activity, of which occult practices were believed to be a large part. This would explain why Bosch made allusions to pagan practices in this painting. When we examine the imagery against a knowledge of such activity, it is apparent that the artist did not pinpoint any specific idea or practice. There is not one symbol that could be said to come entirely from any single source. It is obvious therefore, that Bosch incorporated ideas from numerous sources in his imagery. The composite mechanisms that he developed are not complete within themselves. I believe that they make rational sense only when related to the main theme of the painting. If not convinced that Bosch created his scene of hallucinatory effects and hideous demons with responsible use of his faculties, we should take into account the world of ideas, universally held in his time, upon which he could draw.

As Heinrich Wölfflin observed, the art of the past “must not be interpreted as if it had been created today. Instead of asking ‘How do these works affect me, the modern man?’ and estimating their expressional content by that standard, the historian must realize what choice of formal [and ideational] possibilities the epoch had at its disposal. An essentially different interpretation will then result”. Before considering how our artist might have formed the images of this St Anthony painting, let us review the sources of possible elements that he fused to form his imagery.

Saint Anthony

The first source is that of the painting’s subject, Saint Anthony’s temptation by the Devil, seems to have been a favourite of the artist, since he devoted more works – drawings as well as paintings – to this theme than to any other, almost as if he felt a personal empathy towards the visionary saint.

The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail, right panel: Hell), c. 1500-1505. Oil on panel, 220 x 389 cm (triptych). Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail, central panel), c. 1500-1505. Oil on panel, 220 x 389 cm (triptych). Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

A reason why might be found in the observations of Carl Jung on a personality type that throws light upon both Bosch and the hermit. In Jung’s words:

Isolation by a secret results as a rule in an animation of the psychic atmosphere as compensation for loss of contact with other people. It causes an activation of the unconscious, and this produces something similar to the illusions and hallucinations that beset lonely wanderers in the desert, seafarers, and saints.

And, following shortly afterwards: “We are reminded of the visions of Saint Anthony in Egypt”. Jung emphasised that such “intuitive perception” is not the same thing as insanity, whatever the layman might believe. The difference, of course, is a matter of degree.

Whether or not Saint Anthony’s devils were imaginary or real, tradition and the Church held that they were real and a good part of the body of Church belief towards the constitution of the demonic world came from Saint Anthony’s story. Bosch probably had recourse to two sources for this story, both the Golden Legend(a compilation of the stories of the saints’ lives written by Jacobus de Voragine in the late 13th century), and the original story, which was written by Saint Athanasius shortly after Anthony’s death.

The saint’s lifetime was that of the waning power of the Roman Empire, in the 3rd century CE. Years of misrule in the provinces by military governments, wars, exhausting taxes, extremes in injustice and torture, slavery – plus the threat of barbarian invasion –had produced a state of unrelieved decay. The consequence of such despair was suicide among many of the heathens; but Christianity taught that the body must be preserved as a vessel for the soul. Christian men began to flee to the deserts and mountains of Egypt – each trying to save his own soul. It has been estimated that as many as 5,000 of these hermits were living at one time in the caves and tombs of the mountains that border the Nile. The word of their self-tortures, humility, faith, and miracles spread so far that learned and virtuous men from other countries submitted to unbelievable hardships in mountain and desert travel in order to visit them. They carried the report of these saintly men back to their own countries, and a movement, based on this eremitical pattern, spread irresistibly throughout the Roman Empire, even making it as far as Ireland.

Saint Athanasius, when fleeing from the persecution of the Christians, which was sporadically practiced in Alexandria, would take refuge with the hermits, often with Anthony. When he visited Trêves, in Gaul, he carried stories of these men, and conceiving Anthony to be the ideal of these Christian ascetics, wrote an “encomium” concerning him and his miraculous resistance to lifelong temptation by the Devil – the purpose being to inspire others to emulation. The major portion of Saint Athanasius’ biography is devoted to a long discourse delivered by Anthony, on the subject of the monk’s vocation, the powerlessness of Satan in the face of prayer, and the gift granted by the Holy Spirit, by which men could distinguish good from evil spirits. The descriptions in this section of the ways of Satan form the backbone of the Church’s later development of its structure of demonology. A brief outline of Anthony’s life and quotations from Athanasius’ presentation of the temptations follow, illustrated by works

of artists from the 12th through to the 20th century, who were inspired by various aspects of this saint’s life.

Anthony was born in 251, in the town of Coma, Middle Egypt, of Christian parents who were wealthy landowners. A quiet, devout youth, Anthony was devoted to his family, finding school and other companionship distasteful. His parents died when he was about twenty years of age, leaving Anthony their fortune and the guardianship of his younger sister. Upon being strongly moved by hearing the scriptural admonition of Christ to the rich young ruler, read in his church, Anthony sold his property and belongings, placed his sister in a community of pious women, and left his village to assume an ascetic way of life. For a while, he lived with an old solitary who had a hermitage a short distance from the village. Anthony observed this man in his holy practices, learning from him the virtues of a life devoted to prayer, meditation, fasting, and manual labour. When he felt himself ready for the solitary life, Anthony retired to a hermitage of his own. It was here that the “temptations” began.

Temptation by the recollection of the responsibilities and pleasures of his past life

The Devil, the hater and envier of good, could not bear to see such resolution in a young man, so set about employing his customary tactics against him. First, he tried to make him desert the ascetic life by putting him in mind of his property, the care of his sister, the attachments of kindred, the love of money, the love of fame, the myriad pleasures of eating, and all the other amenities of life. Finally, he represented to him the austerity and toil that went with virtue, suggesting that the body is weak and time is long. In short, he raised up in his mind a great cloud of arguments, intending to make him abandon his set purpose.

Temptation by the desires of the flesh

The enemy saw, however, that he was powerless in the face of Anthony’s determination and that it was rather he who was being bested because of the man’s steadfastness, vanquished by his solid faith and routed by Anthony’s constant prayer. He then put his trust in the weapons that are “in the navel of his own belly” [Job 40:16: “Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly”]. Priding himself in these – for they are his choice snare against the young – he advanced to attack the young man, troubling him so by night and harassing him by day, that even those who saw Anthony could perceive the struggle going on between the two. The Enemy would suggest filthy thoughts, but the other would dissipate them by his prayers; he would try to incite him to lust, but Anthony, sensing shame, would gird his body with his faith, with his prayers, and his fasting. The wretched Devil even dared to masquerade as a woman by night and to impersonate such in every possible way, merely in order to deceive Anthony.

The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail, right panel: Hell), c. 1500-1505. Oil on panel, 220 x 389 cm (triptych). Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail, central panel), c. 1500-1505. Oil on panel, 220 x 389 cm (triptych). Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail, central panel), c. 1500-1505. Oil on panel, 220 x 389 cm (triptych). Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

Temptation by pride

Finally when the dragon could not conquer Anthony by this last means either, but saw himself thrust out of his heart, gnashing his teeth [Psalms 112: 9,10. “… his horn shall be exalted with honour. The wicked shall see it, and be grieved; he shall gnash with his teeth, and melt away; the desire of the wicked shall perish.”]; he [the Devil] changed his person, so to speak. As he is in his heart, precisely so did he appear to him. He no longer assailed him with thoughts – for he had been ousted, the impostor – but now using a human voice, he said: “many have I deceived and very many have I overthrown; but now when I attacked you and your efforts as I have done with many others, I proved too weak.”

“Who are you to speak thus to me?” Anthony asked. The other was quick to reply with whining voice: “I am the lover of fornication. It is my commission to waylay the youth and seduce them to this, and I am called the spirit of fornication. How many have I not deceived who were determined to keep their senses! How many chaste persons have I not seduced by my cajoleries! Yes, it was I that tripped them up. I am the one who gave you so much trouble and as often was vanquished by you.”

Anthony then gave thanks unto the Lord and taking courage against him [the Devil] said: “Well, then, you are as weak as a child. For the future you cause me no worry at all, for the Lord is my helper and I will despise my enemies” [Psalms 117: 7]. Hearing this, the Black One fled at once, cowering at his words and fearing to even come near the man.

Anthony did not grow careless nor take this victory for granted merely because the demon had been brought to his knees; nor did the enemy, worsted as he was in the conflict, cease to lie in wait for him. He kept going around like a lion [I Peter 5:8: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour”], seeking a chance against him. So he [Anthony] more and more mortified his body and brought it into subjection, lest having conquered on one occasion, he should be the loser on another.

Temptation by physical torture

Thus did Anthony master himself. He left for the tombs, which lay at some distance from the village. He had requested one of his acquaintances to bring him bread at long intervals. He then entered one of the tombs, the aforementioned man locked the door on him, and he remained alone within. This was too much for the Enemy to bear; indeed, he feared that Anthony would fill the desert too with his asceticism. So he came one night with a great number of demons and lashed him so unmercifully that he lay on the ground speechless from the pain. By God’s providence – for the Lord does not overlook those who have faith in Him – his acquaintance came by next day with the bread for him. When he opened the door and saw him lying on the ground as though dead, he lifted him up and carried him to the village church and laid him upon the floor. Many of his

The Garden of Earthly Delights (left panel: Paradise), c. 1500-1505. Oil on panel, 220 x 389 cm (triptych). Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

kinsfolk and the people from the village sat around Anthony as around a corpse. But about midnight he regained consciousness and awoke. When he saw that they all were asleep and that his friend alone was awake, he beckoned him to his side and asked him to lift him up again and carry him back to the tomb without waking anyone.

So the man carried him back and the door was locked as before and once more he was alone within. Because of the blows received he was too feeble to stand, so he prayed lying down. His prayers finished, he called out with a shout: “Here am I, Anthony. I am not cowed by your blows, and even though you should give me more, nothing shall separate me from the love of Christ.”

All the demons of hell are unleashed

The hater of good, the Enemy, marvelled that after all the blows he had the courage to come back, called together his dogs, and bursting with rage, said: “You see that we have not stopped this fellow, neither by the spirit of fornication nor by blows; on the contrary, he even challenges us. Let us go after him in another way.”

Well, the role of an evildoer is easy for the Devil. That night, therefore, they made such a din that the whole place seemed to be shaken by an earthquake. It was as though demons were breaking through the four walls of the little chamber and bursting through them in the forms of beasts and reptiles.

All at once the place was filled with the phantoms of lions, bears, leopards, bulls, and of serpents, asps, and scorpions, and of wolves; and each moved according to the shape it had assumed. The lion roared, ready to spring upon him, the bull appeared about to gore him through, the serpent writhed without quite reaching him, the wolf was making straight at him; and the noises emitted simultaneously by all the apparitions were frightful and the fury shown was fierce.

Anthony, pummelled and goaded by them, felt even more severe pain in his body; yet he lay there fearless and all the more alert in spirit. He groaned, it is true, because of the pain that wracked his body, but his mind was master of the situation, and as if to mock them, he said:

If you had any power in you, it would have been enough for just one of you to come; but the Lord has taken your strength away, and so you are trying, if possible, to scare me out of my wits by your numbers. If you can and have received power against me, do not delay, but up and at me! If you cannot, why excite yourselves to no purpose? For faith in our Lord is a seal to us and a wall of safety.

So, after trying many ruses, they gnashed their teeth against him, because they were only fooling themselves and not him.

And here again the Lord was not forgetful of Anthony’s struggle, but came to help him. For he looked up and saw as it were the roof opening and a beam of light coming down

The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail, left panel: Paradise), c. 1500-1505. Oil on panel, 220 x 389 cm (triptych). Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid. to him. The demons suddenly were gone and the pain in his body ceased at once and the building was restored to its former condition. Anthony, perceiving that help had come, breathed more freely and felt relieved of his pains. And he asked the vision: “Where were you? Why did you not appear at the beginning to stop my pains?”

And a voice came to him: “Anthony, I was right here, but I waited to see you in action. And now, because you held out and did not surrender, I will ever be your helper and I will make you renowned everywhere.” Hearing this, he arose and prayed; and he was so strengthened that he felt his body more vigorous than before. He was at this time about thirty-five years old.

Temptation by constant hordes

So, having grown stronger and stronger in his purpose, he hurried to the far-away mountain (constantly seeking an ever-greater solitude).

On the far side of the river he found a deserted fort [this was at Pispir, fifty miles south of Memphis, at a place called the “Outer Mountain”] which in the course of time had become infested with creeping things. There he settled down to live. The reptiles left at once, as though being chased.

His acquaintances who came to see him often spent days and nights outside, since he would not let them come in. They heard what sounded like riotous crowds inside making noises, raising a tumult, wailing piteously and shrieking. At first those outside thought there were men fighting with him and that they had entered by means of ladders, but as they peered through a hole and saw no one, they realised that demons were involved; and filled with fear they called out to Anthony.

But he was more concerned over hearing them to pay any attention to the demons. Going close to the door he suggested to them to leave and to have no fear. “It is only against the timid,” he said “that the demons conjure up spectres. You, now, sign yourselves and go home unafraid, and leave them to make fools of themselves.” So they departed, fortified by the Sign of the Cross, while he remained, without suffering any harm whatsoever from them [the demons].

Further Temptations as recounted by Anthony himself

Once they came with threats and surrounded me like soldiers in full armour. Once when I was fasting, the Crafty One came to me even as a monk carrying phantom loaves. He counselled me, saying: “Eat and cease from your many hardships! You, too, are a man and you are bound to get sick.” But I, perceiving his wiliness, arose to pray, and he could not bear it. He left, resembling smoke as he went out through the door.

Feeling the need to live again in eremitical solitude, [Anthony] left the “Outer Mountain” for a retreat at the foot of a mountain near the Red Sea.

This, called the “Inner Mountain” (still called “Der Mar Antonias”), was to be his final hermitage. He again lived ascetically, growing the small amount of food he required and spending his time in contemplation and prayer. In this place he was again plagued by demons.

Final Temptations

When he was an old man and living alone on the Inner Mountain, those who visited him told how they heard tumults and many voices and clangour as of weapons. At night they saw the mountain alive with wild beasts. They also saw him fighting as with invisible foes, and praying against them. It was truly remarkable that, alone as he was in such a wilderness, he was neither dismayed by the attacks of the demons, nor, with all the animals and creeping things there, did he fear their savageness.

One day a monster visited him, resembling a man down to his thighs, but with the legs and feet of an ass. Anthony simply made the Sign of the Cross and said: “I am Christ’s servant. If you are on a mission against me, here I am.”

But the monster with its demons fled so fast that its speed caused it to fall and die. And the death of the monster stood for the fall of the demons: they were making every effort to drive him back from the desert, and they could not.

Once, when he was about to eat and stood up to pray he felt himself carried off in spirit, and – as strange as it might sound – as he stood he saw himself standing there, outside his own body, as though carried aloft by certain beings. Then he also saw loathsome and terrible things standing in the air and bent on preventing him from passing through. As his guides offered resistance, the others demanded to know on what plea he was not accountable to them. Then, when they set themselves to taking an account from his birth, Anthony’s guides intervened, saying to them: “As for the things dating from his birth, the Lord has erased them; but as for the time since he became a monk and promised himself to God, you can take an account.” Then, as they brought accusations but could not prove them, the way opened up to him and so he was the real Anthony again. He was astonished to see against how many we battle and what labours a person has to pass through the air.

There came a call from on high, saying “rise, Anthony, go out and look”. He saw a towering and frightening standing figure, so tall he was hidden by clouds, as well as certain beings ascending as though on wings. The former was stretching out his hands: some of the latter were stopped by him, while others flew over him, and having come through, rose without further trouble. At such as these the monster gnashed his teeth, but exulted over those who fell. Forthwith a voice addressed itself to Anthony: “Understand the vision.” He realised that it was the passing of souls and that the monster standing there was the Enemy, the envier of the faithful. Those answerable to him he lays hold of and keeps them from passing through, but those whom he failed to win over he cannot master as they pass out of his range.

The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail, right panel: Hell), c. 1500-1505. Oil on panel, 220 x 389 cm (triptych). Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

The Garden of Earthly Delights (detail, central panel), c. 1500-1505. Oil on panel, 220 x 389 cm (triptych). Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

Saint John on Patmos (exterior), 1504-1505. Oil on oak panel, diameter: 39 cm. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin. (p. 120)

The Garden of Earthly Delights (exterior panels: The Creation of the World), c. 1500-1505. Oil on panel, 220 x 389 cm (triptych). Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid. (p. 121)

Two monks came to live with Anthony when he reached a very advanced age. Saint Athanasius related that, when Anthony knew he was near death, he travelled to the “Outer Mountain” for a brief farewell to his friends, the monks who had come to live according to his example. Returning to his retreat, he made his last will and testament leaving a sheepskin and a cloak to Bishop Athanasius and a hair shirt to be shared by the two young companions. “With a final blessing for them, he gave up his spirit.”

Although Saint Anthony’s life was very influential upon the ecclesiasts who followed his precepts as revealed by Saint Athanasius, he did not become a popular saint until the late Middle Ages. Émile Mâle related how a relic of Saint Anthony had been obtained from Constantine VIII by the Dauphin Jocelin. It was carried in 1050 to the church of Saint Anthony in Venice. There, in 1095, a man was cured of gangrenous erysipelas (Ergotism)– called “sacred fire” at that time, but which was hereafter to be called “Saint Anthony’s fire”. This man founded the Antonite order, the members of which consecrated themselves to the treatment of skin diseases. Countless pilgrims seeking succour in the face of the plague converged on the church.

Anthony’s powers extended themselves from power over erysipelas alone to that of all contagious maladies and this healing work was extended all over Europe by the rapid growth of the Antonite order.

In the famous Chartres window devoted to the saint’s life, one section shows his being visited by a beautiful temptress. Anthony is seated before a chimney warming himself by the flames of a fire. The suggestion is that he overcame the temptation of lust by meditating upon the fires of hell and “the worm which does not die”, the allusion being to Isaiah (66:24) who says that the good “shall go forth, and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh”. Mâle suggested that it was this association of hellfire with the saint, combined with the appellation of the disease over which Anthony was given power, that caused him to be represented iconographically with flames beneath his feet – or with a burning city or house in the background. He soon became in the popular mind the master of fire, and could give spiritual aid against fire in all shapes – in this world or the next. He would also reduce anyone to cinders who had the effrontery to doubt his powers. At Saint Anthony’s Church in Venice, the calcined bones of those who dared offend him were shown. The helpful saint became grim-visaged, and because of the great age to which he lived, he was shown as a very old man bearded and with a crutch. As Mâle said, one does not see in these representations the one who considered himself “the athlete of Christ”, a man burned by the sun, with the stamina to overcome so much physical and mental hardship.

As father of monachism, Anthony was given the monk’s habit and cowl, usually black or brown. According to Anna Jameson, the tradition of marking the left shoulder of the saint’s habit or his cape (always blue) with the letter T came from Greek representations, or those influenced by the Greek. This had developed from this fact:

In Revelation XIV: 1, the elect, who are redeemed from the earth, bear the name of God the Father written on their foreheads: the first letter of the Greek word ‘Theos,’ God, is T, and Anthony and his monks are represented bearing the T. In a specimen of painted glass (from St Denis) a man in a turban marks another with the T on the forehead, and over the whole in Gothic letters is inscribed ‘Signum Tau’.

Anthony was given a bell, either in his hand, suspended from his crutch, or on a cross nearby, to signify that he had the power to exorcise evil spirits; according to an old tradition: “the wicked spirits that be in the region of the air fear much when they hear the bells ringing”. For this same reason he was sometimes given another instrument of exorcism, the asperges, or rod for sprinkling holy water. The gluttony and sensuality that Anthony was able to conquer were symbolised by the hog placed near or under the saint’s feet. It soon became a popular notion that the animal was dedicated to Saint Anthony and was under his protection. For this reason, the Antonites were allowed to keep herds of pigs believed to be so consecrated that they were fed at public charge and allowed to run unmolested in the streets. Thus arose the phrase, “as fat as an Anthony pig”. Sometimes Anthony was represented with a skull and crucifix nearby, general symbols of penitence.

He had a scroll with Greek inscriptions stating that he knew all the arts of Satan and possessed the power to vanquish them. Sometimes he carried a book, given to all the holy fathers who left writings behind them. In some references Anthony is called illiterate, but, nevertheless, seven extant books are attributed to the saint.

The representations in art that covered the saint’s life stressed the temptations, but at first these were presented with little elaboration. Temptations of a sexual nature were shown in separate scenes from those that dealt with physical tortures, as in the Chartres window. These scenes became elaborated in later treatments. In a presentation of the saint’s physical tortures, shown in a French Book of Hours of about 1380 (in the Bibliothèque Nationale, in Paris), Anthony is assailed by animals that (as in the Athanasius story) are those to be found in the natural world: the dog, lion, boar, wolf, and serpent. In an Escorial painting believed to be a copy of a pre-Eyckien Flemish painting, the scene of sexual temptation has become more elaborate. Saint Anthony is shown in five places in the one setting, standing or walking in a garden, surrounded by courtiers and ladies, or he can be seen through the window of a house – once besides a temptress, and once praying alone.

The saint’s garden companions are making various telling gestures in allusion to the attraction of “luxuria”. A painting of the physical torture theme (in the Doria Pamphili Gallery, in Rome, by the 16th-century Italian, Parentino) shows the demons as well-formed men whose only devilish aspect is the hair and wings that grow from their bodies. Hieronymus Bosch undoubtedly treated the theme more elaborately than any artist before or after him. His paintings allude to many kinds of temptations, in a single setting, which abounds with zoomorphic and anthropomorphic creatures. All later versions pale in comparison to the Lisbon altarpiece, Bosch’s most comprehensive treatment of the temptations.

Saint John on Patmos (detail, exterior), 1504-1505. Oil on oak panel, diameter: 39 cm. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin.

St. John the Baptist in Meditation, end of the 15th century. Oil on panel, 49 x 40.5 cm. Museo Lazáro Galdiano, Madrid. The Prince of Darkness

The exact nature of evil had been determined to the satisfaction of the late medieval church. Its theologians had modified the Jewish inheritance on this score, derived from the Persian theogony of the equation between Good and Evil. Jewish orthodoxy did not equate the two. It limited the power of Evil, personifying this force in Satan, a powerful creature but one who was obliged to concede the superior power of God (De Givry, 22).

As part of the “Good news” of its gospel, the Early Christian church preached the victory of Christ over Satan and the invulnerability to Satan of Christians who maintained their faith. The medieval church altered this concept, however, by replacing the single notion of the Christian Devil with heathen demonism. Saint Thomas Aquinas insisted upon the existence of a kingdom of demons under the authority of Satan that could, with God’s permission, contest with angels for the souls of the deceased, and if successful could then wreak a terrible vengeance for the sins that had been committed in life. The illiterate, who could not read the involved theological texts, could see the aspect and practice of the Devil and his cohorts sculpted on the church walls and painted on the windows and in the manuscripts – just as they could see images detailing the knowledge of God and his helpmeets.

The Last Judgement scene was the most frequently chosen to adorn the portal tympana and demons were shown there in their most hideous conformations. In the Last Judgement scene above the portal of the Cathedral of Saint Lazare, in Autun (11th century), the five demons who strive to weigh the scales in their favour or to plunge the damned souls directly into the dragon’s mouth (the entrance to hell) display a consistent ugliness – with fluted bodies and grimacing countenances. The demons of later tympana, such as those in Bourges, are more varied in aspect and exhibit a sophisticated mockery in visage. Here, the artist of the Judgement scene formed composite creatures of oddly associated human and amimal parts. For instance, two of these demons display grinning faces on their bellies; one demon has a tail that is also a snake; the behind of another sprouts wings; and another has dog-faced breasts hanging from its chest. Hell is presented as a hideous creature lying upside-down, with jaws spouting flames blown to great heat by two demons pumping bellows. As if being boiled were not torture enough for the unhappy sinners in the cauldron set upon the furnace, they are also being pitch-forked, pounded, and gnawed upon by even more repulsive demons.

Such scenes, repeated throughout the churches of Christendom, were varied according to the greater or lesser imaginative powers of their artists. Impressed upon the viewers was the awful consciousness that one day these punishments might be theirs. They had no reason to doubt the existence of a Prince of Darkness and his terrible powers. In fact, the Church made such belief an article of faith; to disbelieve was heresy.

All of the aforementioned representations of demonism were the inheritance of Bosch, living as he did both in a cathedral town and in the century of the first dispersion of prints. To understand more precisely what the artist might have believed concerning the Devil, we can cite Martin Luther’s belief, since the two men were contemporaries and Northern

“neighbours.” Luther’s writings are filled with the words “Teufel, Teufel” and such sentences as: “This thing will I do, in spite of all who may oppose, be it duke, emperor, priest, bishop, cardinal, pope or Devil” (Masson, 48). Most of these he saw as the Devil’s servitors against him, and the Devil, himself, as his own personal enemy. Luther believed the Papacy to be one of the great human agencies through which Satan operated and that this evil being was fighting his own movement so strenuously because it threatened to destroy that vast edifice – the likes of which Satan would never again be able to erect on earth.

Luther, too, shared his time’s belief in universal satanic instrumentality, and he conceived the Devil to be the general enemy of mankind – operating to produce evil through a plurality of demons. These, he believed, were actual creatures that inhabited dark swampy woods and did harm to the passer-by – or they lived in storm clouds, stirring them to poison the atmosphere and earth with winds and floods. The demons worked in men’s minds to delude the senses with hallucinations, dreaming, and somnambulism –they were responsible for sadness, melancholy, and insanity. Their more overt weapons were physical decimators, such as disease, famine, pestilence, and death. They needed human help, and thus worked through heretical activity of all kinds.

Of course, the stigma of stewardship to this embodiment of evil could be freely applied to one’s enemies, whoever they might be. To the orthodox Catholic, Luther was Satan’s chief advocate. It was agreed by Luther and churchmen alike, however, that the most powerful of the Devil’s human resources was witchcraft.

The Society of Witches

According to Grillot de Givry, belief in the practice of witchcraft had its great ascendancy in Europe from the 13th to the 15th centuries. The idea of a society of witches and the elaborate nature of their practices did not develop until the 14th and 15th centuries. However, the foundation for the witchcraft “delusion” was laid by Saint Thomas Aquinas. While seeking to define demonic operation on earth, he searched out scriptural passages concerning the Devil, and interpreted them according to certain beliefs of magic. These had been held in the West since Hellenistic times, and were newly introduced into Europe through the crusades and influx of Arabic learning. Saint Thomas drew upon beliefs already held in isolated form, of soothsaying, enchantment for good and evil effects, changing of humans into animals, the “spiritus familiaris”, or spirit of a dead person in the service of a magician.

From the scriptures, the saint derived the idea of demons as being angels who fell away from God’s grace by their sin. He conceived the practice of sexual relations between demons and humans as being implicit in Genesis 6:1-4, where it is written that “when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown”. These “sons of God” were interpreted to be the fallen angels and the voluptuous activities attributed to

Saint John on Patmos, 1504-1505. Oil on oak panel, 63 x 43.3 cm. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin.

Saint John on Patmos (detail), 1504-1505. Oil on oak panel, 63 x 43.3 cm. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin. demons and to the Devil, alike, were largely traceable to this passage. The ability of demons to fly through the air had scriptural origin from the story of Christ’s being carried to the pinnacle of the temple by Satan, for if the Devil could give this power to one body, he could do the same with any other.

These ideas of satanic practice were elaborated in the popular mind after Saint Thomas’ death and were increasingly attributed to humans who were thought to have made a pact with Satan. By the time of the energetic pope, Innocent VIII, witchcraft and magic had been branded the practical phase of heresy; the Inquisition was established to stamp them from the earth. Thus began the period of the greatest fear of witchcraft and the horror of the 15th- and 16th-century witchcraft trials.

Contemporary sceptics are likely to dismiss the notion of witchcraft too lightly; they think of it only as an appalling delusion resulting in the deaths of many innocent victims. Even if it were found to be only this, the psychological effects on the popular mind of the fear of witchcraft as a menacing reality are incalculable. Modern scholarship into medieval witchcraft is no longer sceptical. From the trial records, where the practices are admitted practically verbatim by one defendant after another, and from certain incontrovertible facts in the records, it has become increasingly apparent that there was some truth in the accusations. If fact can finally be separated from fantasy, it may be confirmed that witches were, as stated in that time, “the active members of a vast revolutionary body, (constituting) a conspiracy against civilisation”.

There is a growing amount of evidence to show that a society of these implicit proportions carried on espionage in every land, with servitors in both the highest courts and in bodies of the lowest import. Their determined purpose was to do harm on every level in order to upset and destroy the established order. To this end, they committed the foulest, most wanton acts of victimising and betrayal. Their high-placed masters lured them into these crimes by extravagant promises of reward. In turn, they deceived, harmed, and destroyed their victims. One of the most potent weapons they were believed to possess was a knowledge of poisons, both helpful and hurtful, the cherished formulas for which were passed down in their lore from century to century.

Whatever will be revealed as the truth concerning witches, it is the 15th-century belief in witchcraft as a favourite device of the Devil that is the concern here – particularly what Bosch might have understood of this practice. It was in 1484, a year when the painter was probably well established in his craft, that Pope Innocent VIII issued the famous Bull that for three centuries placed on European jurisprudence the onerous necessity of combating the Society of Witches.

The Malleus Maleficarum, written by Henry Kramer and James Sprenger at the Pope’s instigation and which contained the pope’s Bull as its introduction, is a compilation of all the existing knowledge of witchcraft. It is divided into three parts:

The First Part: Treating of the Three Necessary Concomitants of Witchcraft, which are the Devil, a Witch, and the Permission of Almighty God;

The Second Part: Treating of the Methods by which the Works of Witchcraft are Wrought and Directed, and how they may be Successfully Annulled and Dissolved;

The Third Part: Relating to the Judicial Proceedings in both the Ecclesiastical and Civil Courts against Witches and indeed All Heretics.

Published in 1486, this book achieved vast prominence – fourteen editions being printed between 1487 and 1520, and sixteen editions between 1574 and 1669. It is said that the book lay on the desk of every judiciary in Europe, accepted by Catholic and Protestant legislation alike. It is a marvellous record of medieval courtroom procedure, which is described in cases presented in greatest clarity – and thus is one of the world’s most important historical records. Since the Malleus Maleficarum appeared only fourteen years before Bosch is believed to have painted the Lisbon triptych, it is perfectly plausible that he would have been familiar with its contents. The references that he makes in the painting are so nebulously presented, we can assume that he was not a scholar of the book, perhaps had not even read it; nevertheless, discussion of the maleficent practices described in the book was undoubtedly rife throughout Europe, and the spirit of witchcraft – if not its precise nature – was surely common knowledge.

Summarily stated, the following was the makeup of the structure and activity of the Society of Witches. These personages were the feminine element of the larger category of sorcerers. According to the devious logic of the Middle Ages, it was believed that sorcerers and witches were the priests and priestesses, as well as minor servants of the Devil. The Bible presented the Devil as a fallen angel, but the fact that in Jobhe conversed equally with God and even wagered with Him suggested that he was God’s equal (De Givry, 56). Therefore, the Devil must control an earthly organisation of equal power to the Church. This organisation would probably be structured similarly to that of the Church, but since the ranks of the Church were largely closed to women they would surely be welcomed into the Devil’s congregation. By this reasoning, they were believed to outnumber men by an immense number in that company. The chief motivating force was the belief that, since the Devil was the master of earthly powers and material possessions, he would reward their services by raising them from the unhappy estate to which it seemed God had condemned them.

There were believed to be many kinds of sorcerers with functions as various in kind. The most powerful group consisted of those in the direct service of Satan as priests and priestesses. It was this group that conducted the Devil’s ceremonies, the largest of which was the Sabbath. This was attended by all the sorcerers of a certain district, and operated under the presidency of the Devil himself. The members of this group were divided into two categories: first, those who were in the actual physical service of Satan and obeyed his direct commands, and second, the sorcerers, or necromancers, who were empowered to call up demons, or the dead, and place these creatures in their own employ.

All sorcerers were believed to be endowed by the Devil with the same general powers of magic – of casting a “sors” or spell over those to whom they wished to bring some evil. There were those of lesser powers, however, who did not attend the Sabbath. Among these were the wanderers, known today as gypsies, who practiced the arts of

After Bosch

Marriage Feast at Cana, after 1550. Oil on panel, 93 x 72 cm. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam.

Ascent of the Blessed to the Heavenly Paradise (first and second panels of the triptych Visions of the Hereafter), 1500-1504. Oil on panel, 87 x 40 cm (each panel). Palazzo Ducale, Venice. divination by cartomancy (card reading), or chieromancy (palm reading). Also considered sorcerers were scholars who deviated from the Church and Aristotle in their teachings and investigations. Anyone who manipulated matter in a laboratory was believed to do so for an evil purpose. For want of a better explanation of the activities, it was said that this person had entered a pact with the Devil, who in exchange for the soul, had given power over matter. Such a belief is the basis of the Faustus legend and its manifestation in such other literary works as the Tales of Hoffman, Verne’s Maitre Zacharius, and the Coppelia ballet of Delibes. Placed among the ranks of sorcerers for what was believed to be their supernatural knowledge were monarchs, such as Henry III and his mother, Catherine de Medici. Even such monks as Roger Bacon and Albertus Magnus, and popes, such as Saint Leo the Great, Honorius, and Sylvester II were also believed to possess Satan’s powers. Solomon was considered the greatest sorcerer of the ancients. The Black Book is supposed to have originated with him and his powers were such that he is, to certain Orientals today, one of the most revered monarchs of the earth3 .

It was usual for sorcerers to conduct their evil work alone, but on occasion, the Devil would call the lordlings of his organisation to the Sabbath. They would be summoned by the painful tingling of some red spot on their bodies, supposedly imprinted by Satan on some secret part. In order to prepare themselves for the journey, they met together with a few other sorcerers in a “private Sabbath”. Here, after having removed their garments they prepared an unguent, or sorcerers grease, from “the blood of the lapwing, and the bat, the raspings of bells, and soot”. Favoured sorcerers would anoint themselves with the compound and thereby be transformed into animal form – often that of a he-goat like the Devil himself. The time of transformation from one form to another was while the witch was passing through the chimney, the favourite way of leaving the house.

Most of the witches would remain in human form and fly in the nude on their vehicles. These were pitchforks or brooms, which they anointed in order that the instruments would levitate and fly them to their destination. Vehicles were not necessary, however. The story was told of a witch who had brought her unguent pot to her Inquisitional trial and thus was able to escape her sentence by changing into a screech owl and flying off in the very presence of the judges.

Sabbaths were held in many places, but the most famous site was that of an ancient pagan altar on the Brocken mountain located in an untamed section of the Harz mountains in Germany. Geographers of this section would even include in their maps drawings of the witches hovering over the mountain on their brooms.

Satan was to be found at the ceremonial grounds, enthroned before revelling worshippers – sometimes preaching to them. If he had assumed the form of a he-goat at this ceremony, one of his horns would be alight, and all the Sabbath lights would be fired from this source (the Sabbath was always held in the deep hours of the night). The animal forms assumed by Satan (among which were the ass, wolf, dog, cat, toad, bat, raven, monkey, dragon, and goat) were those that had been worshipped by pagans of antiquity, and thus represented all that was anti-Christian. The goat was the most frequent and definitive symbol, since it had Egyptian, Greek, and Jewish origin – in the latter case

being derived from the scapegoat of the Israelites. Sometimes, if the Devil had taken a queen from among his favourites, she sat crowned beside him. Upon arriving at the Sabbath, the sorcerers and witches performed a ritual of homage to Satan by kissing his posterior (when brought to trial, they would protest that they kissed a face under Satan’s tail, thus giving rise to the representations showing Satan with one or more supplementary faces on various parts of his body). The Devil would mark newcomers with the imprint of his claw on their left eyelid.

Then he would require that they tread upon a cross, accept a Black Book in replacement of the Gospel, and be baptised with some foul liquid – all as evidence of a complete renunciation of Christianity. (In some representations of this ceremony, the novices are shown as having become blind, as they no longer can see “The Light”). Since Satan was especially eager for juvenile recruits, the witches on arrival would present before him their own children, which they were obliged to bring if they were not able to steal the children of neighbours.

The ceremony of the Sabbath took various forms. The worship service was supposed to be a reversal of the Christian mass. Satan would preside at an altar at which the crucifix was turned upside-down. He would make the sign of the cross with his left hoof, then read obscenities from the Black Book, and sprinkle “unholy water” (such as urine) in the direction of the assembly, who turned their backs upon the altar. In place of the Host, a turnip (painted black) was elevated.

After this parodied church performance, the carousing would begin. A feast was prepared, the fare for which was described variously as being delicious wines and foods; but, as quoted by De Givry from Pierre de L’Ancre’s Tableau de l’Inconstance des Mauvais Anges et Demons (1610), as “carrion, and the flesh of those that have been hanged, and the hearts of children not baptised, and other unclean animals strange to the custom and usage of Christian people, the whole savourless and without salt”. L’Ancre continued:

The belly filled, the dance begins; for after they have devoured meats either fleeting and illusory or most hateful and abominable every demon leads the witch who was his neighbour at table beneath the accursed tree, and there, one facing towards the centre of the dance, the next towards the outside, and so on for all, they dance in round, stamping and capering with movements the most indecent and obscene that they are capable of.” (De Givry, 81)

Some would perform acrobatic feats, finding themselves endowed with muscular prowess they did not possess in a normal state.

Since the purpose of the Sabbath meeting was presumed to be for the marshalling of the energies of the sorcerers that they might produce harm to Christians, they were thought to be constantly coming and going from the Sabbath on their nefarious errands.

They returned to re-equip themselves with a hurtful poison brew that was continuously being made by the witches who stirred and replenished a boiling cauldron

Ascent of the Blessed to the Heavenly Paradise (third and fourth panels of the triptych Visions of the Hereafter), 1500-1504. Oil on panel, 87 x 40 cm (each panel). Palazzo Ducale, Venice.

Saint Christopher, 1490-1505. Oil on panel, 113 x 72 cm. Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam.

Triptych of the Hermits, c. 1505. Oil on panel, 86.5 x 120 cm. Palazzo Ducale, Venice. (pp. 138-139) with toads and serpents. The witches would leave on their journeys by way of their broom or pitchfork handles unless specially favoured, in which case they were allowed to fly on demons that had been transformed into he-goats. They would fly across land, “hurting or killing men and marring cattle” or “over the sea and elsewhere to stir up storms and tempests”.

Other Sorcerers and Necromancers

The sorcerers described above were those who placed themselves in the service of Satan. There were also those who held equal, if not greater power than the first group, since they could command the services of demons themselves. These sorcerers attended the Sabbath, where they were servile courtiers of the Devil-king. But they had the power to hold their own gatherings of demons, upon which they imposed strict obedience. Sometimes several of these sorcerers would meet together to evoke demons. If they preferred to work alone, it was with the aid of one or two assistants.

They met in some deserted outpost, unfrequented because of the superstitious fear in which the place was held by ordinary people. It would best be a ruined monument (such as an abandoned abbey, a cathedral, or castle) which was shrouded in overgrowth of brambles and vines; the time would be in the deep hours of the night when the earth was lit by the moon or lightning, as the demons could most easily be seen under such conditions.

The place reached, the sorcerers would attire themselves in white linen ephods covering priestly black bombazine robes, which reached the ground, the whole tied round the waist with a consecrated girdle. They wore shoes inscribed with the word Tetragrammaton (the name of God), ringed with crosses, a high crowned hat of black silk, and held in one hand a Holy Bible, written in pure Hebrew. One associate held a lantern, one a naked sword, and one a Black Book. Thus attired, the chief sorcerer, or master, drew a charmed circle upon the ground with a consecrated knife. The form of such signs varied, but a typical one consisted of a circle with a nine-foot diameter, another circle placed about a foot within it, the space between them inscribed with names of the Creator.

Inside the circles, but not touching them, was placed a square and another square turned within it at a 45 degree angle, so that its sides formed the bases of triangles with those of the first square. A smaller circle was placed about a foot inside the second square, and a square within it, whose sides were parallel to those of the second square. The spaces formed by the various straight and curved lines were filled with inscribed names of God. Then the encircled area was blessed and sprinkled with holy water in order to cleanse it of all impurity. Finally, the sorcerers stood or seated themselves inside the innermost square within the small circle – these forming a barrier so strong by virtue of their consecration that no demon could break through. Thus prepared, the chief sorcerer would proceed to evoke the demons, incanting the awful ceremony of exorcism

from the Black Book. Soon, the atmosphere would be disturbed with flashes, tremblings, and rumblings rising to ear-splitting yells and shrieks that would accompany the painful process by which the demons were rendered visible. At first, they appeared as a snarling mob of wild beasts roaring and spitting fire towards the sorcerers in the circle. These men dared not exhibit fear but continued to chant the magic words, which would draw the animals towards the charmed influence of the circle. There, in the holy presence created by the inscribed names of God, the beasts would change into submissive human form and be ready to do the will of the master. He should not ever lose his guard against them and be fooled by their benign demeanour to step out of his magical enclosure into their company. They were ever seeking to turn the tables on the master, and either place him in their power or destroy him. After the spirits had done the master’s will, he must exercise the greatest care in sending them away, he and the others waiting patiently within their protected place until the demons had disappeared from sight and their last shrieks could no longer be heard.

Even more terrible were the Necromancers who had the power to command the dead and have them come forth from the Underworld to reveal its secrets, foretelling the futures of human beings, as well. “Necromancy was practiced assiduously in the Middle Ages, either in making the dead appear, or if they were recalcitrant, in exhuming corpses and examining them.” This was done, sometimes in anticipation of feeding on their flesh in a “deathly feast”. These dreadful practices lasted until the 19th century, finally replaced by “spiritualism”, or communing with the dead through table-tapping or an unheld, moving pen.

The Tarot

There are other aspects of sorcery involving imagery that Bosch seems to have tapped for his demonological content. For instance, the symbols associated with the tarot cards are very similar to many of those that Bosch employed in the Lisbon triptych. The Tarot was a card game utilised by cartomancers, who were considered to be a party to sorcery. This was not a game, in our restricted sense of the word, but a systemic view of the universe through which one could read omens and ascertain his or her part in the whole scheme of things. Although its beginnings are murky, one view has it originating in 13th-century Fez, Morocco, a city that became the intellectual centre of the Near East after Alexandria’s destruction. The philosophers from many parts of the world who met there for learned discussion found themselves hampered by the lack of a common terminology, so they adopted a language of pictures expressing ideas through images instead of words. The images permitted further associations and, therefore, even more involved connotations. The Tarot is said to be in reality a book of wisdom but is presented in the form of a pack of cards, with each card corresponding to a page of the “book”. Of the Tarot’s seventy-eight “pages”, fifty-six are called minor trumps. These are divided into four suits, symbolised by four emblems: the staff, cup, sword, and coin. The four

Triptych of the Hermits (detail), c. 1505. Oil on panel, 86.5 x 120 cm. Palazzo Ducale, Venice.

The Temptation of Saint Anthony, after 1490. Oil on panel, 73 x 52.5 cm. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid. objects symbolise the four basic professions in medieval society: staff/peasant; cup/clergy; sword/soldier; and coin/merchant. Further aspects of medieval life are embodied in the four court cards that form a part of each suit. These are: King, or Lord/Spirit; Queen, or Lady/Soul; Knight/Ego; and Page, or Servant/Body. They are each followed by ten cards ranging from Ace to ten.

The most important part of the tarot pack is the remaining set of twenty-two cards, called major trumps. When the titles of these cards are said or illustrated in sequence, each noun calls to mind an image with which every human mind, regardless of language or race, makes basic idea associations. The major trumps, or cards of the Major Arcana, follow an immutable order, outlined by tradition: 1. Fool (sometimes shown as a man performing tricks before a table) 2. High Priestess (sometimes wearing a papal tiara) 3. Empress 4. Emperor 5. Pope 6. Lovers (sometimes called marriage) 7. Chariot 8. Justice 9. Hermit 10. Wheel of Fortune 11. Strength 12. Hanged Man (usually shown as suspended upside down by one foot, but with some dispute as to whether the traditional designation of this card as the “Man with the Suspended Foot” might not have meant, simply, a man prudently holding his foot in the air before taking a step, to assure his secure footing – some card packs used

Prudence for this number) 13. Death 14. Temperance (sometimes shown as a woman pouring liquid from one vase into another) 15. Devil 16. House of God, Hospital, or Lightning-struck tower (with confusion concerning the meaning of this image; some associated it with a place for the care of the sick-poor, but others saw it as the athanor of the alchemists, since it “had to receive a tongue of fire from heaven, at which the imprudent who could not foresee it fell, thunderstruck” 17. Star 18. Moon 19. Sun 20. Judgement 21. World 22. Fool (De Givry, 288, 284-286)

Cartomancers attempted to read the future by employing these cards, sometimes using the entire tarot series, calling it the Great Pack. It is apparent that if these cards were placed as they would fall by chance dealing, the combinations of numbers and suit

emblems of the minor trumps as well as the picture images of the major trumps (with all of the many meanings involved in each) would result in infinitely complex interpretations. Truly, the Tarot would be believed to be cosmological in scope.

Alchemy

The final large system of imagery employed by Bosch seems closely associated with the Tarot in its grandiose attempts to encompass universal thought. However, since fact was scarcely yet separated from fantasy in this embryonic stage of modern science, the realm of the alchemist was more that of magic than of reason. Alchemy had a history extending for over a thousand years, but its ascendancy seems to have been in the 15th century. Perhaps this is due to the development of the printing press and the resultant dissemination of ancient knowledge through the books chosen to be printed during that century. The system of alchemy discussed here was certainly accepted, if not formed, in the 15th century. It seems reasonable to assume that an artist like Bosch, who already took such liberties with traditional iconographic programmes, would be attracted by such imagistic material.

Some think the origin of alchemy was in Egypt, or the land of Ham, called Khem. The name passed into Arabic writing as Al Khem and eventually was transliterated into its present form (Read, 5). Twelfth century Latin translations of Arabic writings were the media through which the knowledge was brought into Europe. Fifteenth-century printing of the old translations, together with contemporary writings on the subject, fostered the interest prominent in Bosch’s time. Based on a postulation similar to that of Aristotle, alchemists believed that matter was composed of four fundamental qualities conceived in Pairs – hot and moist and their contraries, cold and dry. These properties were identified with what were believed to be the four basic elements: fire, water, air, and earth.

They were considered to be present in various quantities in all substances of matter. An inevitable observation was that transmutation occurred when these elements were added to one another. When fire was applied to water, hot moist steam resulted –retaining qualities of the parent elements. It followed that any substance could be made by adding together substances with the proper combination of elements – but the parental elements were not always so obvious in the result as in steam. Therefore, it was only experimentation that could discover by what combination of unknown substances a third, known substance could be produced. The “Philosopher’s Stone,” being perfect matter, would serve as a medicine for humankind, repelling disease and old age. With the stone, one could achieve the secret of life, health, and good fortune.

This would explain the extraordinary motive power that occupied the alchemist’s life with experimentation, and – if we believe the Bruegel engraving on the subject (The Alchemist, c. 1558), reduced his family to starvation. The alchemist’s patient study of matter became formularised; in the medieval fashion it was translated from direct experience into allegorical

The Pedlar, c. 1505. Oil on panel, 71 x 70.6 cm. Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam.

Triptych of Job (exterior), c. 1500-1524. Oil on panel, 98.3 x 132.8 cm. Groeninge Museum. terminology. By this means it was both communicated to other alchemists and concealed from the uninitiated. The provocative symbols, whether understood or not by the popular mind, found their way into literature and art.

A large part of the alchemists’ “language” concerned the processes by which they performed their experimentation. By the Middle Ages, the theory of the Four Elements had taken the practical form of the Sulphur-Mercury theory of the composition of metals. Observing that substances were either dry (and subject to burning) or liquid, it was assumed that the most important element of the first group was fire and of the second group was water. Therefore, fire and water were named the most important of the Aristotelian elements. The name sulphur denoted those substances of a dry base. Similarly, mercury connoted the liquid substances. If mercuric and sulphuric substances were joined in the proper quantities and qualities, metals would result. Thus, if impure sulphur and mercury were combined, base metals such as tin, lead, and quicksilver resulted. If the two materials were combined in a state of ordinary purity, gold was the product; if the “quintessence” of sulphur and mercury were used, the superfine gold known as the philosopher’s stone was achieved. The latter was believed to exceed the quality of ordinary gold by such an extent that it would transmute, or “tinge”, base metals into gold (Read, 14).

Sulphur and mercury were symbolised in various ways, but primarily as male and female entities. The solidity and combustibility of sulphur were considered masculine properties; therefore, it was often shown in the form of a man. The liquidity and fusibility of mercury prompted its denotation as feminine, or woman. Since these principles had acquired human characteristics, a human attraction leading to marriage was assumed to exist. The offspring of the marriage would be the philosopher’s stone, often represented as an infant or as an egg. Sometimes the maleness of sulphur and the femaleness of mercury were represented in fusion as an androgynous creature (De Givry, 367). Sulphur and mercury were combined in a complicated series of operations, the exact number of which is not clear. Sometimes twelve processes were given in the writings, namely; Calcination, Congelation, Fixation, Solution, Digestion, Distillation, Sublimation, Separation, Ceration, Fermentation, Multiplication, Projection. There were just as often said to be seven or fourteen. If twelve, they were “suggestively represented by the signs of the Zodiac”, as for instance; Distillation was shown as a virgin (Virgo), Multiplication as a water-carrier (Aquarius), and Projection as a fish (Pisces) (Read, 136).

The “Great Work,” as this system of processes was called, involved the use of certain vessels and pieces of apparatus. The most important were the furnace, or athanor, sometimes represented as a tower, and the hermetically sealed vessel of an ovoid shape, represented by the egg. The latter was the vessel in which sulphur and mercury were fused. They were mixed with a menstruum containing salt, sealed in the vessel, and placed in the matrix of the furnace. This was constructed in such a way as to produce different degrees of heat, nine each of which would result in a certain stage of fusion within the vessel. These degrees were named and symbolised in various ways. Because

the belly of a horse was of the same temperature as one of the degrees of the furnace heat, the horse’s image would often be used to depict this stage of the process.

Colour was very important in the operation. John Read wrote:

The appearance of red before black showed that the material had been overheated, and the Work had then to be started afresh. Fire was denoted by such terms as sword or scissors: thus, to cut off the head of the Black Crow meant to continue the heating, digestion, etc., until the black colour changed to white. If a black colour put in an unwanted appearance later in the process, the alchemist exclaimed irascibly to his ‘yeoman’ or ’minister’ that the young ones of the crow were going back to their nest, and then “there had never been such woe or anger or ire” in the laboratory. All the colours of the Great Work were supposed to reappear, in a more rapid and transitory manner, during the operation of multiplication. Sometimes the stages of the Work denoted by the appearance of characteristic colours were known as regimens: such were the regimen of Saturn (black), the regimen of the Moon (white), the regimen of Venus (green and purple), the regimen of Mars (rainbow), and the regimen of the Sun (red or golden). These regimens were sometimes represented by flowers.

The colours mentioned were already identified with the four elements – red with fire, white with water, citrine with air, and black with earth. These colours were supposed to manifest themselves in the various stages of the operation. They were sometimes represented by birds, such as the phoenix for red, the swan for white, and the crow for black. Winged creatures, such as serpents, dragons, and lions with wings, were also used to portray the volatile materials (sulphur and mercury) and wingless creatures the fixed material (salt) of the process. The conjunction of volatile and fixed principles was often shown as a griffin (half lion, half eagle). At times, a serpent or dragon represented the menstruum in which sulphur and mercury were mixed. Sometimes, the Great Work was referred to as a fort, or citadel, surrounded by a moat of water. Many false roads led to the citadel, but it could only be reached by way of the drawbridge – open only to those of unimpeachable personal qualities. Once inside the citadel, this adept found various chambers in which the operations of the hermetic process took place. He had to perform all of the processes before being allowed to enter the chamber where the philosopher’s stone could be found. This place was guarded by a huge dragon, which would yield the stone only to the one who had accomplished all of the prerequisites (De Givry, 349).

Even the minor implements used in the process had their symbolic substitutes. For instance, the ostrich stood for the flask and the stork for the retort. A pelican was depicted for a vessel called by this name because it resembled the bird. The pear was used for the aludel – a vessel shaped like this fruit – and the gourd for the cucurbite, a vessel shaped in this manner. Fire was of such importance to the procedures that the alchemist was often called “the child of fire”. Fire had its animal guise, the dog; it was

Triptych of Job, c. 1500-1524. Oil on panel, 98.3 x 132.8 cm. Groeninge Museum, Bruges.

Triptych of the Temptation of Saint Anthony (left exterior panel: The Arrest of Christ), 1505-1506. Oil on panel, 131.5 x 53 cm (wing). Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon.

Triptych of the Temptation of Saint Anthony (right exterior panel: Christ Carrying his Cross), 1505-1506. Oil on panel, 131.5 x 53 cm (wing). Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon.

The Temptation of Saint Anthony (triptych), 1505-1506. Oil on panel, 131.5 x 119 cm (central panel), 131.5 x 53 cm (each wing). Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon. (pp. 152-153) also revealed in the form of cutting, penetrating, and wounding implements (Read, 143). The whole process described above was given such cosmic significance by the adepts, that it was likened to Creation itself. Alchemists believed that its greatest testament was the first chapter of Genesis (De Givry, 350). Allied with this concept was the ancient doctrine of hylozoism, or belief that all matter is living and subject to the laws of growth (Read, 12, 94). Since animal gestation was said to follow the same progression as the formation of the world, then there must be metallic gestation that followed the same order. The hermetic vessel was conceived, therefore, as the universe, and the alchemist was playing out its creation in a microcosmic echo.

The seven metals, base and fine, produced in the process of the “search” were identified (in the typical medieval fashion of contriving an alliance merely because of the similarity of the numbers involved) with the seven heavenly bodies and their attributes acquired in the astrological system. Sulphur was linked with gold and the sun, and mercury with the moon and silver – thus harking back to a sun-god and moon-goddess of ancient theogonies. The heavenly bodies had acquired mythological names, because they were believed to be gods of the heavens. Their names were derived from the association with certain attributes of the gods for which they were named. Venus, considered a warm friendly star, was thereby named for the love-goddess.

The red (fiery) Mars was named for the war-god. Similarly, Saturn, the highest of the stars, was named for the oldest of the Olympians, the father of Jupiter. Dethroned by his son and imprisoned in the depths of the earth, Saturn recalled estates of disability, misery, and death.

The names of the heavenly bodies suggested a mythological significance of alchemy. The story of Saturn took on a special significance to the adepts since the stone which Saturn was given by Rhea to swallow, instead of her child Jupiter, could be interpreted as being the philosopher’s stone. Therefore, alchemists were believed to be so-called “children of Saturn”. This planet, thought to be slow-moving (explaining the alliance with the heavy metal, lead), was often depicted in the guise of an old crippled man (sometimes wooden-legged). Often this image was used to represent alchemy as a whole. The “old man” was sometimes given a scythe (the cutting instrument that could be interpreted as fire), and, often, he would be shown in the act of cutting off the feet of a man holding a caduceus (signalling Hermes, or mercury). Saturn was sometimes shown with instruments of measurement, such as the hourglass, scales, or compass – probably in reference to the doctrine borrowed from the Wisdom of Solomon – that in all things inhere “measure, number, and weight”. Since the mythological Saturn had swallowed his own children, children at play were often shown with, or near-by, the old man. They also referred to a dictum of the alchemists who believed that once the primitive materials of the stone had been obtained, the rest of the operations of the Great Work are “only a labour fit for women, or child’s play” (Read, quoting Isaac of Holland, 134).

To illustrate the “labour fit for women”, they were often shown as washing clothes in a stream. Even the watery setting was significant, because water was believed necessary to counteract the effect of the melancholic dryness associated with saturnine mysticism. To

explain this mysticism, with which it was believed all alchemy was imbued, we must explain the Four Humours theory, closely associated with alchemy.

According to Erwin Panofsky: “This theory, fully developed by the end of classical Antiquity, was based on the assumption that both the body and the mind of man were conditioned by four basic fluids which in turn were supposed to be coessential with the four elements, the four winds (or directions of space), the four seasons, the four times of day, and the four phases of life.”

It was reasoned that the material aspect of human beings combined the elements, but not in perfect proportions, since there was no perfect human being (this privilege having been forfeited by the “Fall”). The disproportionate amount of one element over the other determined the nature of each person. The element in question would take the form in the body of over-abundance of some bodily fluid. For instance, an excess of blood produced the sanguinary person – correlated with air, the soft gentle west wind, spring, morning, and youth. An excess of yellow gall would produce the choleric temperament; associated with this humour were the element of fire, the southwest wind, summer, midday, and maturity. Black bile would produce the melancholy personage, identified with earth, the north wind, autumn, evening, and middle age. Phlegm produced the phlegmatic personage, related to water, the south wind, winter, night, and old age.

All creatures (including humans) and substances were believed to be under temperamental influences according to which of the elements predominated in their makeup. Since the planets were believed to be of the same matter as earth, they must be formed of combinations of the elements and dominated by the humours, even as were earthly bodies. Saturn was designated as the melancholic planet because of the unhappy connotations of the Saturnine story; all that was associated with the temperament of melancholy was also attributed to the planet and vice versa. All human beings, animals, plants, minerals, etc., believed to be governed by this temperament belonged to Saturn. In turn, all that was given to Saturn was influenced by melancholy.

This included, among the human beings, not only those of the most unfortunate of dispositions, but also those of the most unfortunate situations in life. Prisoners, beggars, grave-diggers, privy-cleaners, fools, and the insane were all melancholics. But the story of Saturn implied a contradiction. Even as he was the most unfortunate of Olympians, he was at the same time the oldest and the sagest – having thought out the world which Jupiter had only inherited. Therefore, he could give power, riches, or wisdom to those of like identity. Such people, if they could be called fortunate, as philosophers, geometricians, alchemists, and the solitary models were also included among the “children of Saturn”; they were melancholics as well. In fact, if these people could bring their unfortunate predisposition to states of depression and over-excitability into control, they would be the most superior of beings. To accomplish this equilibrium, they would have to escape from the pernicious influence of Saturn, through developing the capacity for divine contemplation, which Saturn had possessed.

The Temptation of Saint Anthony (triptych, detail, central panel), 1505-1506. Oil on panel, 131.5 x 119 cm. Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon.

The Temptation of Saint Anthony (triptych, detail, central panel), 1505-1506. Oil on panel, 131.5 x 119 cm. Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon.

By using certain talisman they could call upon the aid of Jupiter, the only heavenly body with a counter-influence over Saturn. They could also make use of music, considered antidotal to melancholy. As has been pointed out, alchemy was considered under the special aegis of Saturn, therefore imbued with saturnine mysticism and the spirit of melancholy. The alchemical allusions in Bosch’s Lisbon triptych can be explained by the fact that, as a heretical operation, alchemy would belong quite as naturally as any other heresy in the devil-versus-saint theme. However, there may be a stronger motivation for the saturnine-melancholic quality of the painting than merely that these influences were related by deductive reasoning to alchemy.

In an article called “The Temptation of Saint Anthony, or the Dream of Melancholy”, André Chastel mentioned the social importance and prosperity of the hospital order of the Antonites, which flourished during this time. He stated, however, that there is another reason, more important psychologically, perhaps, that of the connection of the saint with saturnine mysticism. It has already been mentioned that monks (particularly the hermits devoted to solitary study) were included among the melancholics. The writer said that it was a commonplace of the iconography of the temperaments to represent melancholy by the image of a solitary monk. Moreover, he referred to an astrological manuscript of the Library of Tubinque that contains as a sign of Saturn, the image of a monk with a Tau impressed upon his shoulder – in other words, Saint Anthony.

There would be definite iconographical precedence, therefore, for linking the saint with the humour and its planet. A more compelling psychological reason for Bosch’s having done so in the Saint Anthony triptych would be the ambivalence expressed in this dual influence, which could at once throw the spirit into stupidity and discouragement and exalt it to metaphysical meditation. Furthermore, since melancholy was often represented by reference to the vice of Acedie, or Sloth, this would emphasise the sin to which a solitary monk would be most prone – and would consider, therefore, the most formidable of the sins. At the same time, melancholy epitomised the heights to which a holy man could attain. When Dürer embodied the temperaments in his painting of the four Apostles, he gave the darkened mien of melancholy to Saint Paul, personifying this temperament on the highest level.

Saint Anthony’s drama, with its alternating states of crisis and serene contemplation, would find expression in the saturnine-melancholy theme. At the same time, the saturninemelancholy drama would translate into religious language through the conflict of good with evil – or the saint with the devil. This theme could be symbolised by many hagiographical stories – but most clearly, indeed, by that of Saint Anthony. There might have been another more topical reference that Bosch was making in employing the theme. The mounting tensions within the church in the pre-Reformation era would make obvious, even to the profoundly orthodox, that there was a conflict between the elements of traditional humility, simplicity, and purity and the elements of defection and exploitation. This conflict within the Church would find its allegory in the saturnine mysticism, which enveloped alike those of such opposing nature.