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The Otherworld Journey as Miracle Story
The Dialogues of Gregory the Great
 Moving
beyond early Christian ,precedents, our next stop en route to the
medieval other world is with
Gregory the Great,
the sixth-century pope and spiritual writer whose
Dialogues
helped to set the standards for medieval discussion of miracles and
visions. [5] A collection of
entertaining and edifying wonder-tales, the Dialogues attempt to
demonstrate, in the face of epidemics, Lombard invasions, and schism,
that a providential order underlies events and that the age of great
saints and signs from heaven has not passed. The fourth and final book
of the Dialogues is devoted to "last things"; here Gregory offers
"proofs" of the soul's immortality and demonstrates -- through an
assortment of deathbed visions, ghostly apparitions, and eyewitness
accounts of the other world-the reality of postmortem punishment and the
efficacy of masses and pious works on behalf of the dead.
Of the forty-two anecdotes in book 4, three held a special fascination
for medieval readers. The first concerns a hermit who revived from death
and testified that he had been to hell, where he saw several powerful
men dangling in fire. Just as he too was being dragged into the flames,
an angel in a shining garment came to his rescue and sent him back to
life with the words (echoed in several medieval visions): "leave, and
consider carefully how you will live from now on."
After his return to life, the hermit's fasts and vigils bore witness,
Gregory tells us, that he had indeed seen the terrors of hell; this too
would become a common formula for the transforming effects of an
otherworld journey. [6]
A second memorable tale of return from death came to Gregory firsthand,
from a prominent businessman named Stephen, who died while on a trip to
Constantinople. [7] Stephen
confessed to Gregory that he had never believed the stories about hell
and punishment but that his brief visit to the infernal court had
changed his mind. Fortunately for him, the judge sent him back, saying:
"I ordered Stephen the blacksmith to be brought here, not this man."
[Webmaster note: This kind of "clerical error" in a
NDE also appears also in
Hindu NDEs.]
Stephen regained consciousness immediately, and his testimony was
confirmed by the death, in that very hour, of a blacksmith of the same
name. Although this story clearly belongs to the common stock of tales
of death by mistaken identity, Gregory insists that such apparent
mix-ups occur "not as an error, but as a warning."
[8] Gregory here shows his genius
for adapting such material to his own didactic purpose; without
significantly changing the story, he introduces a providential element,
thereby transferring it from the realm of folklore to that of religious
instruction. His example would be followed closely by later generations
of otherworld journey narrators.
The most influential of Gregory's anecdotes of return from death is the
story of a soldier who died and lived, and whose visionary testimony
sheds additional light on the destiny of Stephen the businessman. The
reverberations of this account in medieval vision literature will be
discussed in chapter 4 below; because it is such an important source, I
translate it here in full:
Three years ago, as you know, this same Stephen died in the virulent
plague which devastated this city [Rome], in which arrows were seen
coming down from the sky and striking people dead. A certain soldier in
this city of ours happened to be struck down. He was drawn out of his
body and lay lifeless, but he soon returned [to life] and described what
befell him. At that time there were many people experiencing these
things. He said that there was a bridge, under which ran a black, gloomy
river which breathed forth an intolerably foul-smelling vapor. But
across the bridge there were delightful meadows carpeted with green
grass and sweet-smelling flowers. The meadows seemed to be meeting
places for people clothed in white. Such a pleasant odor filled the air
that the sweet smell by itself was enough to satisfy [the hunger of] the
inhabitants who were strolling there. In that place each one had his own
separate dwelling, filled with magnificent light. A house of amazing
capacity was being constructed there, apparently out of golden bricks,
but he could not find out for whom it might be. On the bank of the river
there were dwellings, some of which were contaminated by the foul vapor
that rose up from the river, but others were not touched at all.
 On
the bridge there was a test. If any unjust person wished to cross, he
slipped and fell into the dark and stinking water. But the just, who
were not blocked by guilt, freely and easily made their way across to
the region of delight. He revealed that he saw Peter, an elder of the
ecclesiastical family, who died four years ago; he lay in the horrible
slime underneath the bridge, weighed down by an enormous iron chain.
When he asked why this should be, [the soldier] was given an answer that
called to our minds exactly what we know of this man's deeds. He was
told, "he suffers these things because whenever he was ordered to punish
someone he used to inflict blows more out of a love of cruelty than out
of obedience." No one who knew him is unaware that he behaved this way.
He also saw a certain pilgrim priest approach the bridge and cross it
with as much self-command in his walk as there was sincerity in his
life. On the same bridge, he claimed to have recognized that Stephen of
whom we spoke before. [9] In his
attempt to cross the bridge, Stephen's foot slipped, and the lower half
of his body was now dangling off the bridge. Some hideous men came up
from the river and grabbed him by the hips to pull him down. At the same
time, some very splendid men dressed in white began to pull him up by
the arms. While the struggle went on, with good spirits pulling him up
and evil spirits dragging him down, the one who was watching all this
was sent back to his body. So he never learned the outcome of the
struggle.
What happened to Stephen can, however, be explained in terms of his
life. For in him the evils of the flesh contended with the good work of
almsgiving. Since he was dragged down by the hips and pulled up by the
arms, it is plain to see that he loved almsgiving and yet did not
refrain completely from the carnal vices that were dragging him down.
Which side was victorious in that contest was concealed from our
eyewitness, and is no more plain to us than to the one who saw it all
and then came back to life. Still, it is certain that even though
Stephen had been to hell and back, as we related above, he did not
completely correct his life. Consequently, when he went out of his body
many years later, he still had to face a life-and-death battle.
[10]
Compressed into this brief vision story are several motifs that recur
throughout medieval otherworld journey literature: the river of hell,
the flowery meadows of paradise, the white-clothed throngs in heaven,
the test bridge, and, above all, the externalization of deeds. Gregory
makes it plain that the vision should be understood symbolically: the
real meaning of the house built with bricks of gold is that those who
give alms generously are constructing their eternal abodes in heaven;
and the houses blackened by foul vapors were prefabricated, he implies,
by the unsavory deeds of those destined to dwell in them. It was thanks
largely to this widely read account that the bridge -- as the setting
for a psychomachia or symbolic confrontation with deeds -- became such a
prominent feature of the medieval otherworld landscape.
The anecdotes in book 4 of Gregory's Dialogues mark a turning point in
the history of Western otherworld journey narration. Even more than the
Vision of St. Paul, Gregory's vision stories focus on the interim
period between death and resurrection. This does not mean that
apocalyptic eschatology had relaxed its grip on the imagination of
sixth-century Christians; Gregory speaks with urgency about the approach
of Doomsday and suggests that otherworld visions are on the rise because
the world to come is drawing near and mixing its light with the darkness
of the present age. [11] In the
Dialogues, however, Gregory is concerned with the eschatological crisis
that begins with the hour of death; he seems to find more edification in
contemplating the purgatorial or punitive torments that await the
average sinner than in making apocalyptic predictions about the
experiences that will befall the human race in its last days.
[12]
Gregory also departs from the classic apocalyptic model of otherworld
journey narration in that the visions he relates come from relatives,
neighbors and fellow monks, rather than from remote biblical heroes.
These are cautionary rather than dramatically revelatory tales; the
protagonists are either sinners who revive only long enough to warn the
rest of us about the penalties awaiting transgressors, or penitents
mercifully sent back to amend their own lives. For this reason,
Gregory's visionary anecdotes cannot lay claim to the prestige that
attaches to
pseudepigraphic works. But Gregory compensates for the absence of
exalted credentials by offering corroborating details; almost like a
psychical researcher, he interviews witnesses, provides' character
references, and sets each story in familiar locales that will inspire
his audience's trust; wherever possible, he cites circumstantial
evidence such as the confirmation of Stephen's vision by the death of
Stephen the blacksmith. Indeed, it was partly through Gregory's
influence that empirical verification became a hallmark of the medieval
otherworld vision.
The Otherworld Journey as
Conversion:
The Vision of Drythelm
 While
Gregory could be described as father to the whole family of medieval
Christian otherworld journey tales, his influence is especially marked
in what I call the Drythelm line, a literary tradition that can be
traced back to the
Vision of Drythelm related by the eighth-century Anglo-Saxon monk
and scholar
Bede in his
Ecclesiastical
History of the English People. [13]
As Bede informs us, Drythelm was a pious Northumbrian family man who
died one evening after a severe illness but revived the next day at
dawn, terrifying his mourners by sitting up abruptly on his deathbed. He
related what he had seen in the other world to his wife, and later to a
monk who repeated the story to Bede.
Though similar in many respects to the narratives we have already
considered, the Vision of Drythelm is far more developed as a journey
and gives a fuller account of otherworld topography, even foreshadowing
the purgatorial landscapes of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It
therefore serves well as an introduction to the medieval form of the
otherworld vision. At the beginning of the story, Drythelm meets a man
"of shining countenance and bright apparel" who escorts him to an
enormous valley, one side of which roars with flames while the other
rages with hail and snow. [14]
Countless misshapen souls are tossed to and fro between fire and ice.
Appearances suggest that this is hell, but Drythelm's guide explains
that it is a place of temporary torments, reserved for deathbed
penitents who can be released from their punishments by masses, prayers,
alms, and fasts performed by the living on their behalf.
To reach the mouth of hell, the two travel through a land of darkness,
in which Drythelm can make his way only by keeping his eyes fixed on the
bright silhouette of his guide. Hell is a bottomless, stinking pit. From
it leap tongues of fire (in diabolic parody of Pentecost, perhaps) on
which damned souls are cast upward like sparks only to fall back again
amidst mingled sounds of laughter and lament. Drythelm sees malign
spirits dragging the unhappy souls of a priest, a layman, and a woman
into the abyss. The demons threaten Drythelm with their tongs, but are
put to flight by his guide, who appears just in time in the form of a
bright star.
They travel southeast to a realm of clear light, where they encounter a
vast wall. Suddenly they are on top of the wall, in a bright, flowery
meadow. Here Drythelm meets "many companies of happy people" and
supposes that he is in heaven, but learns that it is only an antechamber
for the not quite perfect. As he approaches the kingdom of heaven, he
hears sweet singing and enjoys a fragrance and light even more glorious
than before. Despite his longing to remain, Drythelm is dispatched back
to his body, with the promise that a life of vigilance will eventually
win him a place among the blissful spirits. Upon revival, he tells his
astonished wife: "Do not be afraid, for I have truly risen from the
death by which I was held fast, and have been permitted to live again
among men; nevertheless, from now on I must live not according to my old
habits, but in a much different manner."
Accordingly, he distributes his property, retires to a Benedictine
monastery, and takes up a life of austerity and devotion, fasting, and
cold baths.
For Bede, the most impressive part of Drythelm's story is its ending;
like Gregory, Bede holds that "it is a greater miracle to convert a
sinner than to raise up a dead man." [16]
And it is a greater miracle yet if the tale of a dead man's recovery and
spiritual transformation changes the hearts of its hearers; these
authors value the otherworld journey narrative primarily for its power
as a model for conversion and its usefulness in advertising the cause of
particular religious institutions and ideas. Whatever role Drythelm may
have played in the development of the narrative, Bede's account of the
vision can be read as a manifesto for Benedictine monasticism, ascetic
discipline, and intercessory masses for the dead. The vision also
reflects the eschatology of the Anglo-Saxon church of Bede's time; by
intimating a purgatorial state distinct from hell, it departs from
earlier Celtic Christian traditions and conforms to the orthodoxy of
Rome.
[17]
All of these features recommended the Vision of Drythelm to Anglo-Saxon
spiritual writers and homilists of the ninth to eleventh centuries, who
faithfully retold or creatively embroidered the return-from-death
stories related by Gregory and Bede and whose endorsement contributed to
the success of visions of the Drythelm line. The full flowering of this
tradition, however, occurred in the period from the tenth to the
mid-thirteenth centuries, which saw both the development of long; almost
novelistic accounts of journey to the beyond and back, and increasing
mention of otherworld visions in chronicles, sermons, and books of
exempla for preachers. During that time, the otherworld journey found
favor with monastic and clerical authors as a way of expressing their
views on penance, intercession, and religious vows. It also played a
part in what Jacques Le Goff calls the "spatialization"
of purgatory, which went hand in hand with standardization of the rites
by which the living purged their faults, prepared for death, and
petitioned for the welfare of their departed kin.
[18]
Despite such changes in its social function and eschatological content,
however, in many respects the return-home-death story remained the same,
preserved by literary imitation, by the pious conservation of
traditional forms of expression, and by the universality of its themes.
Thus it is possible to make some generalizations about the Christian
otherworld journey to identify groups or types that cut across regional
boundaries and persist throughout the long centuries that we loosely
call the Middle Ages.
 Part
II of this book will pay special attention to a group of long narratives
from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries that follow the Drythelm
pattern of death, revival, and conversion. Among them are the
visions of
Adamnan,
Alberic, the
Boy William,
Tundal, and the Knight Owen (St.
Patrick's Purgatory). Although they depend on sources shared by all
medieval otherworld journey narratives (the Bible, apocalypses, legends
of martyrs and desert saints, Gregory's Dialogues, and classical works
such as Vergil's
Aeneid and
Plutarch's
Moralia),
the narratives in this group display a remarkable similarity in their
choice of which set phrases and images to borrow. Typically the
visionary is told, after viewing purgatorial torments and mistaking them
for the punishments of the damned, that there are far worse sights to
come (Drythelm, Tundal, Owen); he sees souls tossed between fire and ice
(Thespesius, Drythelm, Tundal) and rising like sparks horn the pit of
hell (Drythelm, Alberic, the Boy William, Tundal); he is temporarily
deserted by his guide (Thespesius, Drythelm, the Boy William, Tundal);
he finds paradise surrounded by or on top of a wall, which he surmounts
without knowing how (Drythelm, Adamnan, Alberic, the Boy William,
Tundal, Owen); at the end, after a brief taste of heavenly joys, he is
compelled against his will to return to life (Drythelm, Tundal); and
after he revives, his newly austere mode of life testifies to the
authenticity of his vision (Drythelm, Alberic, and Tundal borrow
Gregory's phrasing for this). In addition, the test-bridge, whose
history will be discussed in chapter 4, recurs with many similarities in
the visions of Adamnan, Alberic, Tundal, and Owen.
These and other parallels suggest the presence of a literary tradition
that is at least partly deliberate in its conformities. Yet the
"Drythelm line" is far from an exact designation. One cannot determine
the sequence of literary transmission or discover its causal mechanism
merely by arranging similar narratives in chronological order.
[19] Nor would such a linear history
of motifs do justice to the complexities of interpretation. Each text
has a unique functional significance within its particular social
milieu. Beyond that, it seems likely that at least some of these
narratives reflect actual experience and as such cannot be reduced to a
matter of mechanical literary dependence; I will have much more to say
in future chapters concerning the experiential basis of vision
literature.
References
[5] My translations from this
work are based on the Latin edition by Umberto Moricca. An English
version, by
Odo John Zimmerman,
is available in the Fathers of the Church series.
[6]
Dialogues 4:37
[7] Ibid.
[8] Evidence for the
universality of lore concerning death by mistaken identity can be found
in
Stith Thompson's
Motif Index, vol. 3, F0-F199. In our own day, the story has come to
life on the screen in "Here
Comes Mr. Jordan" and "Heaven
Can Wait."
[9] Stephen who died and
revived, not Stephen the blacksmith
[10]
Dialogues 4:38.
[11] Dialogues 4:43.
[12] On Gregory's eschatology,
see Milton M. Gatch, "The
Fourth Dialogue of Gregory the Great: Some Problems of Interpretation."
[13] I am using the
dual-language edition by
Bertram Colgrave
and R. A. B. Mynors, but supplying my own translations of the Latin
text.
[14]
Bede's
Ecclesiastical History, ed. Colgrave and Mynors, p. 488.
[15] Ibid., p. 488.
[16] In the Dialogues; quoted by
Benedicta Ward, "Miracles and History," in
Famulus Christi, ed. Gerald Bonner (London, 1976), pp. 70-76.
[17] See St. John D. Seymour,
Irish Visions of the Other World and "The
Eschatology of the Early Irish Church." On Anglo-Saxon eschatology,
see Milton M. Gatch,
Preaching and Theology in Anglo-Saxon England: Aelfric and Wulfstan
(Toronto and Buffalo, 1977). On the difference between a purgatorial
state and purgatory as a place, see Jacques Le Goff,
The Birth of Purgatory.
[18] See The Birth of
Purgatory, p. 228.
[19] In
Tours of Hell, Martha Himmelfarb points out that studies of
apocalyptic literature early in this century were flawed by the
assumption that the chronology of known texts is equivalent to the
history of a literary tradition; Himmelfarb maintains that this fallacy
helped to support a habitual overemphasis on classical precedents for
the motif of visits to hell. |
Dr.
Carol Zaleski is the author of the NDE classic
