Ceremony & Setting in the Sacraments, ch IV, part IV, concluded.

Continuation of Part IV Ch IV of Thesis – [ the Exposition of Moses and the Finding of Moses, the Moses and Aaron before Pharoah, Moses trampling on Phroah’s Crown, as they could have appeared to Poussin’s contemporaries who were familiar with the interpretative framework of Counter-Reformation Biblical commentary and antiquarian knowledge of Egyptian antiquities. Once this context is understood, it is no longer possible to make the common assumption of the 1950s and 1960s, that Poussin’s pictures were designed to appeal to an antiquarian audience that was somehow impervious to religion, because seventeenth century antiquarianism is at all points, as the thesis demonstrates, inseparable from religious concerns].

Poussin painted the Exposition of Moses twice and the Finding of Moses three times. The Exposition of Moses was [could be in Poussin’s time] interpreted as the [a] type of the suffering of Christ and his martyrs, while Moses in the basket among the rushes was compared to Christ in the manger. [The contemporary account would have gone on to show that:] He was discovered by Pharoah’s daughter. (Thermutis was her name according to Josephus). She gave Moses his name which signified ‘saved from the waters’, taken by commentators as meaning ‘saved through baptism’. His mother was interpreted as Synagogue, while Thermutis was the Churcbh of the Gentiles which accepted Christian baptism. Moses in the waters was understood by some as Christ in the ‘waters’ of his Passion and death. In a literal sense, it was believed that Moses was educated by Thermutis, a priestess of

Isis

, who instructed him in the common arts of the ancient pagans and also in the secret arts of the Egyptians, represented only by hieroglyphs.

The allegory is of the familiar type, that is met with frequently in the Fathers, in which the essential Christian beliefs are applied to the interpretation of a large number of different Old Testament episodes. All of this interpretation could be easily found in the commentary of Cornelis à Lapide and there was no need for Poussin to have known the many sources from which it was drawn. {Cornelis à Lapide, op.cit.p449}

The Egyptian antiquities in his Expositions and Findings of Moses are a reflection of contemporary interest not only in Egyptian religion, but in the relation between

Israel

and

Egypt

, between pagan culture and Jewish history, as it is told in the bible, and between the Church of the Gentiles and the Synagogue of the Jews in allegorical interpretation.

It ahs not been remarked that in the later versions of the Finding of Moses, that for Pointel of 1647 and that for Reynon of 1651, Moses’ hand is raised in blessing, while he is admired by the companions of Thermutis. Althouigh the pictures are full of antiquarian detail they must also have been intended to suggest a mystical interpretation, in which Moses is the type of the Christ child adored and accepted by the Church of the Gentiles to which he is giving his blessing.

The scene is given further significance by the hippopotamus hunt on the river. This motif is borrowed from the mosaic at Palestrina, but its significance can best be explained by reference to the hieroglyphs. Pierio Valeriano declard that the Hippopotamus was a hieroglyph for Iniquity. {Pierio Valeriano. Hieroglyphica.

Lyon

, 1556, but cited from Frankfrot, 1614.  p349}. The beast was the Oedipus of animals. He was believed to have fought his father and copulated with his mother. The hunt taking place on the

Nile

in Pointel’s picture seems to show the destruction of sin, by the baptism of Moses, the type of Christ. This is a complex fusion of antiquarian knowledge of ancient monuments, hieroglyphs and their humanist explanation, and typological exegesis of the Old Testament.

The complexity of thought in Poussin’s religious paintings began to appear in the moralities on biblical subjects of the 1630s. In the 1640s the Finding of Moses pictures are decidedly Christian in character and appear to have primarily a mystical sense, which the earlier pictures only touch upon lightly.

In the 1640s also, Poussin painted the Moses and Aaron before Pharoah and Moses Trampling on Pharoah’s Crown. Both of these are extremely unusual subjects in painting. The first subject was among the paintings in S.Paolo fuori le Mura and also among those in Raphael’s Loggias. It also occurred with some regularity in Bible illustrations. The second is an episode only recounted by Josephus. {Bk II,97, p267. Thackeray notes that there is a similar account in Midrash on Exodus, II, 10}. This does not mean that it was merely a secular history or that it had no Christian significance. It was included in Berthorius’ Bible Moralisée {Moralitates Bibliorum. In

Douai

, 1607 edition, pp66ff.} and was mentioned , in passing, by Cornelis à Lapide {op.cit, p384}. Berthoius, as apart of his polemic against wicked priests and worldly monarchs, interprets the episode as the Triumph of the true priest over worldly kings. This was clearly intended as an injunction to contemporary monarchs to obey and pay homage to the Pope. The companion piece was rich in patristic typological interpretation. It signified the triumph of the Cross (Aaron’s rod turned in to a serpent) either over the worldly wisdom of

Egypt

, or over the lies of the Antichrist. Cornelis cites the sources and quotes from them {op.cit. pp390-393}. It is clear that it could also signify in a moral sense the triumph of truth over heresy. The appeal of these two subjects to Cardinal Massimi in the seventeenth century is not hard to understand, with their papistic and Counter-reformation significance.

There are other reflections of Poussin’s knowledge of Biblical commentary in some of the more unusual motifs in his pictures. In the Crucifixion, for instance, the figure of the resurrected Adam appears at the foot of the Cross. This picture, like the more cryptic pictures of the Moses subjects and the second set of Sacraments, was painted in the 1640s, and suggests even more strongly that in this period Poussin was making full use of the rich and varied information in contemporary Biblical commentary, and probably that of Cornelis à Lapide in particular. The burial of Adam, or, at the very least, his skull, is mentioned by most commentators. Cornelis, however, gives a long account of it. He says that a consensus of opinion of the Fathers acknowledged that Adam’s skull was buried at

Calvary

. The place used for the Crucifixion,

Golgotha

, meant ‘the place of the skull’. Adam’s bones were reputed to have been in the ark with Noah. They were then distributed among his sons. His body was later buried with care, since ‘

tanta

patribus fuit cura honorque sepulchri’, because they had sure faith and hope of immortality for the soul. The hope was fulfilled, for on a Friday, which according to Irenaeus, was the day of Adam’s death, Christ’s blood flowed from the Cross, washed Adam clean and revived him. Cornelis also quotes Tertullian’s verses on the same theme, and in almost exactly the same terms. {op.cit.p101}.

The resurrection of Adam in Poussin’s picture must have depended on the information provided by a commentary like this. It is dependent on the intensive revival of patristic mystical thought which originated with the Counter-reformation. Pousin’s motif is a spiritual addition to the picture, not a piece of historical or rational antiquarianism. Poussin’s Crucifixion is largely concerned with the triumph over sin and death implicit in the subject. The piercing of the side with the lance is a major motif of the picture and identifies the moment as that in which the Church and its sacraments were instituted, with the blood and the water that flowed from Christ’s side. Returning once more to the Moses subjects of the 1630s, it will be recalled that the Striking of the Rock and the Manna also refer to Divine Charity, that of Christ’s death, by which the redemptive sacraments were created.

The mode of thought in his pictures is not far removed from Bernini’s devotion to the blood of Christ. Perhaps Poussin’s religious iconography was stimulated by the devotional prayers on the Wounds of Christ. Theese appeared in Books of Hours and were illustrated by several different moments of the Crucifixion. These devotions were adopted by the Jesuits, and were included in some editions of the Shorter Catechism of St Peter Canisius. Not only did Poussin work for the Jesuits in his earlier years in

Paris

, but later in

Paris

for their protector in France Sublet de Noyers. Time and again his sourcs for his religious pictures are in the writins of the Jesuits. Whatever he may have learned from the Stoics, ancient and modern, he must have learned much else from the Jesuits, and from the Oratorians, many of whom were commentators, devotional writers, and  in their particular way historians and antiquarians.

[The following passage does not now seem to me to be entirely convincing, but I include it anyway]. It is very probable that with a mind in tune with contemporary religious thought, Poussin deliberately chose to use Raphael’s pattern of the anointing of David for the first version of Baptism. [There is also a close relation between Poussin’s painting and the Baptism in Raphael’s Loggias. Formally, however, the figures of

St John

and Christ are similar to the figures of Samuel and David, as I had pointed out in an earlier chapter.] The commentators would have supplied him with more than one hint that David was a type of Christ. In Maldonat’s commentary on the baptism of Christ, (Matthew, III, 14) he remarks on the ‘heretic doctrine’ that

St John

did not recognize Jesus as the Christ, until the Dove descended on him. Maldonat held that

St John

had recognized Christ while he was still in the womb, by Divine Grace. He also recognized him in the same way when he came to him to be baptized, although

St John

had never seen him face to face before. He remarks that Samuel recognized that it was David he should anoint in exactly the same way, by divine ‘afflatus’. There are several other instances in the Sacraments of the parallel between David and Christ. In the Marriage, in both sets, for instance, the subject is the Marriage of the Virgin. In both the rod of Jesse is prominently displayed, signifying Christ’s descent from David., a fulfillment of  God’s promise to David of an eternal kingdom. Maldonat cited this promise (Cf. Daniel, VII,14) in making the same parallel in his commentary on Luke, I, 33. Significantly he adds another verse on his own account, one which is taken from the account of the Handing of the Keys, Poussin’s Ordination subject, ‘Et portae inferni non praevalebunt’.

The doctrinal importance of the presence of the parallel with the

kingdom

of

David

in the sacraments, is that it underlines the point that the sacraments were believed to confer grace, and thus implied a real promise of the

kingdom

of

God

to the faithful.

Although

St John

recognized the Christ before the Dove appeared, the other persons present only recognized the significance of the event because of the Divine manifestations that accompanied it. The Dove was a real bodily manifestation, otherwise it would not have been visible to the bystanders, the commentators argued. {Maldonat, op.cit, Luke, pp26-27}. Its importance to this picture is therefore very considerable. Not only did it identify the Christ for all humanity, it also completed the presence of the Trinity at the baptism of Christ, and hence was connected with the invocation of the Trinity at baptism.

Thus there are liturgical and doctrinal reasons for the inclusion of the dove in this picture. It is one of the [few] manifestations of the supernatural in the second set of Sacraments and Poussin [would have] needed strong reasons for its inclusion. He adhered to the visible world throughout the pictures, as he did in his other religious pictures. He made of the visible an allegory of the invisible, through the actions of those present, through the inclusion of motifs that allow of a spiritual interpretation and through the use of symbols and hieroglyphs.

The use of iconographical patterns derived from Old Testament types of his New Testament scenes is a device for increasing the devotional significance of his scenes. Within his naturalistic presentation there are limitations on the ways in which such divine manifestations can be shown. It would have destroyed the credibility and therefore the unity of his pictures to include glories, just as it would have if he had included minor episodes that did not fit into the time-scheme of his scenes. In Penitence II and Eucharist II the unit of time is not rigid, but the narrative unity is. Although the various parts of the episode that he represents did not all coincide at one moment of time, all of them belong together as aspects of the same theme. He could not include the types of his scenes in a window-frame, as the sixteenth century illustrators had, and he could not use captions. He could only resort to the borrowing of iconographical patterns. These might or might not have been recognizable to his contemporaries, depending on whether they shared Poussin’s knowledge of the iconographical repertory on which he drew. The presence of his these patterns in his work shows his personal involvement in typological thinking. He must have known where to look for his borrowings. The baptism corresponded nointing of David, in meaning. The actions performed on the one occasion not only signified those performed on the other, they could actually look the same. The pattern of one could therefore be transferred to the other. Indeed, it had already been transferred from baptism to anointing by Raphael.

There were several types of ordination which Poussin could have known. He could have seen Moses consecrating Aaron in the Sistine Chapel cycle opposite the Handing of the Keys. He might have been struck by the typology of this in which the parallel was drawn between Christ’s action and Moses’. The same type [Moses consecrating Aaron] in the background of the genre Ordination scene in the

Antwerp

illustrated Catechism [1576]. The type was therefore still in use in the later sixteenth century. Richeôme in the frontispiece to Tableaux Sacrés showed the Levites carrying the ark across the

Jordan

. This was an even more important type and was the one most often used by the Fathers. Both of these types had the disadvantage that they did not look like St Peter before Christ receiving the promise of the keys. Poussin could not include these types in his picture. In [the nave mosaics of] S.Maria Maggiore the Levites carrying the ark across the

Jordan

is the lower part of the mosaic of Moses presenting the second Tables of the Law to the Israelites. The significance of the lower scene was well known and the coupling of the two scenes in the same frame may have been enough to arouse Poussin’s interest in the upper part, for here was a scene from the life of Moses that could be made to look like the the Handing of the Keys [I had argued earlier that it was a likely source for Poussin’s composition of Ordination I and especially of the profile figure of Christ].

In Poussin’s picture, Ordination I, Christ is shown as the Law-giver of the Church by Pousin’s visual transposition. The third of the the Eusebian paralles, it will be recalled, implied that ‘Legislator fuit Moses Pentateuch: Christus Evangelis’. The fist of his parallels was that Moses was the lawgiver of the Jews and Christ the law-giver of the whole world.       

The Louvre drawing with the TraditioLegis iconography confirms that the parallel was intentional on Poussin’s part. Severani had explained that the scrolls which Christ and the Apostles hold on the sarcophagi and in the catacomb paintings signified that Christ revealed the mysteries of the faith to the Apostles. {Boio, p622} These were made plain by Christ in his life and words. The Bible, which contained the Law, had not been fully understood until Christ cm to fulfil it. The contrast between the New Law and the Old is implicit in Moses breaking the first tablets of the Law in the Golden Calf. The contrast between Synagogue and Church is a theme of the Finding of Moses. The idea of the revelation of the mysteries of the Old Law by Christ in Ordination is a closely related notion.

When Moses presented the Israelites with the second tablets of the Law, hje was allegorically showing them the New Law, which replaced the Old, destroyed eith the breaking of the first tablets. On this second occasion Moses’ face shone with ‘horns’ or ‘rays of light’. He had to cover his face with a veil because the Israelites were blinded by the light which emanated from him. This was interpreted as the blindness of the Israelites, who could not see the truth directly. They could only be shown God’s Law in figures, metaphorically, through a veil.{ Cornelis à Lapide. pp596-597}.

The seventeenth century interpretation of the scrolls and the interpretation of Poussin’s type coincide completely. The inclusion of the scroll hand is vital in providing the clue to Poussin’s meaning.

The Moses type is still present in both versions of Ordination, although the scroll was changed for keys. The motif of the scroll might have been too difficult to understand, even for Poussin’s learned contemporaries. It represented a radical departure from traditional imagery. Further, it only indicated one aspect of ordination. It only showed that Christ gave the apostles the understanding to interpret the Bible and thereby the right to preach. Much else was involved. The powers and rights of the priesthood were more extensive, in particular the power either to remit sins or not remit them. {I.Lorochius. Thesaurus Novus utriusque theologicae theoricae et practicae.

Freiburg

, 1609. Article: Claves pp.607-609.} The scroll gave no indication of this. This right was of far-reaching importance, because it gave the priesthood the power to administer all the redemptive rites. The keys alone were the symbol which could convey this. Poussin could hardly have omitted them from the sacraments, because it was the keys which conferred the sacramental powers shown in the other pictures.

Fr. W. von Löhneysen {Die ikonographischen und gesitesgischichtlichen Voraussetzung der “Sieben Sakramente” der Nicolas Poussin. Zetschrift für Religions und Geistesgeschichte, IV,2,1952,pp133-150}claimed that the pictures were papistic, that they did not represent ordinations, that they were rational histories,and that they had no mystical or typological significance. [Anthony Blunt told me he did not think well of this article, but without explanation. It appears to attempt a construction of historical contexts: from which the meaning of the paintings had then to correspond. His analysis of the paintings – and this is slight – simply fits them to these constructs. And the supposition that typology had disappeared in the seventeenth century is quite unfounded.] In effect Poussin’s pictures depend [consistently and heavily, as I have shown] on typology in a way which Löhneysen did not suspect. They have a spiritual or at least symbolic meaning, which is not at first apparent. They are therefore not ‘rationalist histories’, as he claimed. They represent Ordination scenes, in which the meaning of ordination is more fully expressed than in any possible genre scene, or in any of the possible Biblical ordinations. It is, however, true that they take the side of the Roman church in the question of the primacy of St Peter, and hence of the Pope.

This was one of the most hotly debated of all controversies between Catholic and Protestant. The Protestants had argued that the passage in St Matthew’s Gospel on which Poussin’s picture is based demonstrated that Christ had ordained each of the Apostles, not only St Peter. All the apostles, therefore, could be said to have keys. They all had the same rights by this argument. The Catholics admitted that the other Apostles acquired rights and powers like those of St Peter in most respects, because after being ordained, St Peter then ordained the rest. The primacy argument hinged on the interpretation of Christ’s words ‘tu es Petrus, & super hance petram aedificabo Ecclesiam meam’. {Matthew, XIV,18}. The linguistic complexities of this phrase occupied many pages in the famous (or infamous) ‘De Primatu Papae’ of C. Salmasius,

Leiden

, 1645. RThe nub of the question was: did Christ mean to identify ‘Petrus’ with ‘hanc petram’? The only evidence that Poussin’s pictures are Roman Catholic in character is that St Peter [alone] kneels before Christ to receive the promise of the keys. Although the primacy of the Popes was founded on this motif, so was the foundation of the priesthood in general, along with the completer Roman hierarchy.

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