THE GOD OF SUFFERING
They strung him up there to die.
I’d like to talk a bit about the Isenheim Altarpiece -- a work of art that has had a profound effect on my psychology.
It was commissioned in the 1500s for a monastery belonging to monks who dedicated themselves to Saint Anthony. Saint Anthony -- who wandered shoeless and thirsty in the desert, fending off demonic torment through faith alone. Because of his association with endurance and pain, he is the patron saint of people suffering from a horrifically interesting disease called Saint Anthony’s Fire.
The ailment was crippling and painful. It caused gangrene, sores, and hysterical visions of the end of the world. Its source: prolonged exposure to the ergot fungus. The fungus infected primarily rye grain. Those who couldn’t afford to eat anything else ate rye. As a result, this hideous disease disproportionately affected the poorest in the medieval world. The diseased would seek care from the monks at this monastery, who washed their swollen limbs when no one else would.
The artist, Matthias Grünewald, drew upon the devastation caused by the ergot fungus. At the center of the altarpiece, the crucified Christ is a foul decaying corpse.
The crucifixion has always been about the idea of bodily suffering, but never is it so apparent than in this depiction. Jesus Christ has died on the cross, he has puncture wounds, gnarled limbs, open sores, a blue and blackened mouth. What kind of a god is this?
In a corner of the painting, a man dies from ergot poisoning -- belly bloated and bleeding. The god of suffering dies alongside him.
The most interesting thing about ergot, though, is its chemical relationship to lysergic acid diethylamide -- LSD. The drug was first synthesized from psychoactive alkaloids derived from ergot. The disease was called Saint Anthony’s Fire not only from the burning pain, but from the calamitous visions people would have as the fungus flooded their minds. They would be seized by waking nightmares, fueled by the monstrous images of their time -- horned beasts, torture, and the eternal fires of Hell.
For all this torment, though -- there’s a version of Christ that appears when you close the panels of the Altarpiece. It hides his grotesque and pitiful mortality. What’s revealed instead is resplendent, his divine ascension.
To me, this image is absolutely psychedelic. His physical boundary bleeds into the halo of light that surrounds him. His wounds no longer fester, but are holy and healed.
I don’t know -- I can’t help but imagine a mass of peasants, lying on cots with dead limbs and swollen stomachs, writhing from visions of demons and the fires of Hell. The monks who attend them wick blood from weeping sores and say a prayer for their pain. At the end of the day, they close the panels of the Altarpiece in the center of the hall. The dying Christ, who until this moment looked exactly like the tortured bodies around him -- is released from suffering and becomes light.
It’s something to look forward to, I suppose.