On 25 January, the Church celebrates the Conversion of St. Paul on the road Damascus, June 29, she celebrates the martyrdom at the same time as that of St. Peter, and thus their joint entry into eternal life. Gold between his birth in the grace and glory to his birth, the Apostle Gentile had the privilege of a mystical experience quite unique, which he describes thus:
should boast? (Worth nothing yet) Well! I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago - was it his body? I do not know, God knows - that man was caught up into the third heaven. And this man - was it his body? Was it without his body? I do not know, God knows - I know he was caught up into paradise and heard unspeakable words it is not lawful for a man to repeat.
II Cor. 12, 1-4.
According to the Angelic Doctor, Saint Paul had then the vision of the divine essence, the very one who is eternal bliss and inamissible elected officials, but unlike them, it was only for a moment. The proof is in the oxymoron "unspeakable words" ( rrhta ¥ ∙ "mata ) qui caractérise ce que Dieu dit dans l’âme glorifiée, qui est Lui-même, qu’aucune créature ne peut dire [1] :
Sciendum est autem, quod secundum Augustinum, Paulus est raptus ad videndum divinam essentiam, quae quidem non potest videri per aliquam similitudinem creatam. Unde manifestum est, quod illud quod Paulus vidit de essentia divina nulla lingua humana potest dici, alias Deus non esset incomprehensibilis [2] .
Étant transient, this act of vision has not been attended by the body, as will be the case however for the blessed after the Last Judgement, and that's why Paul was found to be out of his body.
Chick tried the challenge to represent this event, including the object as well as the conduct intimate exceed any representation, and it was so successful that it produced one of his masterpieces, et même paradoxalement l’un des plus faciles à déchiffrer. Le cadre est déjà très expressif : en bas et à l’arrière-plan, la plus belle nature, celle de la campagne romaine avec ses couleurs chaudes ; de bas en haut et au moyen plan, ce que la culture peut produire de plus noble dans le monde visible, un temple à l’architecture rigoureuse et monocolore, dont on ne voit que la partie inférieure. Au premier plan se déroule la scène du ravissement - qui transcende la nature et la culture, et que Dieu seul peut accorder : trois anges vêtus de robes jaune, bleue et blanche, couleurs pures et surtout célestes - le contexte nous interdit de dire ici « apolliniennes » - volent juste au-dessous de la nuée, symbole des théophanies néotestamentaires, et soutiennent l’Apôtre en extase, vêtu de vert et de rouge, couleurs terrestres, car il n’est pas soustrait définitivement à ce monde, bien que son front soit irradié par un éclair venu d’en-haut. Contre le mur, deux emblèmes : le glaive qui, en lui tranchant la tête, lui donnera pour toujours la gloire qu’il entrevoit maitenant ; et le livre, celui des épîtres qu’il laissera à l’Église pour son pèlerinage à travers les vicissitudes du temps. Doctor Gentium, ora pro nobis !
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| Nicolas Poussin, The rapture of St. Paul from 1649 to 1650. Paris, Musée du Louvre. |
be found a few additions here and there:
[1] Cf. ST IIa-IIae, q. 175, a . 3, c: « Dicit enim [Apostolus] se audisse ineffabilia verba, quae non licet homini loqui: huiusmodi autem videntur ea quae pertinent ad visionem beatorum, quae excedit statum viae, secundum illud Is. 6, 4: Oculus non vidit, Deus, absque te, quae praeparantur diligentibus te. Et ideo convenientius dicitur quod Deum per essentiam vidit ».
[2] Lectura super secundam epistolam ad Corinthios XII, lect. 2 n. 461. Translation: "You should know that according to Augustine, Paul was delighted to see the divine essence, which can only be seen by any created similitude. It is therefore clear that what Paul saw the divine essence can not be said by any human language, but God is not incomprehensible. "
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