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John James
Source: Studies in Comparative Religion, Vol. 11, No. 2. (Spring, 1977). World Wisdom, Inc. www.studiesincomparativereligion.com
or THE most famous European labyrinth is the great one set into the floor of Chartres cathedral measuring over 40' across.[1] It is one of many, for Matthews[2] lists twenty three in churches without including the many open-air labyrinths and mazes made of stones or cut into the turf of Ireland, Britain and Scandinavia. It is an extremely ancient device, as the story of the Cretan labyrinth shows. There was an Egyptian one at Hawara from about 1800 B.C., and if the idea hales from the Middle East it must be much older, for there is one at New Grange in Ireland dated seven centuries earlier.
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The prelates of the Middle Ages placed them in prominent positions in their churches as testaments to their faith, but it took the eighteenth century to recognise their essentially pagan originsfor they destroyed many of them: at Reims, Sens, Arras, Auxerre and St. Omer, and in the next century at Amiens and Caen. The brass plaque in the centre of the Chartrain labyrinth was pulled up at the same time. Yet would the Middle Ages have used a pagan motif without ensuring that it had been totally pervaded by a Christian message? And would they have given it such prominence and placed it in such an important position in the centre of the nave if its Christian qualities had not superceded its pagan ones? The material in this article convinces me that, after the sacred relics and the cathedral building itself, the labyrinth was the most meaningful if esoteric cult-object of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Its sacred nature is indicated by the names given it throughout Europe'Chemin de Jrusalem', 'Iherusalem', and 'City of God'. The one in San Savino, Piacenza, is inscribed The labyrinth represents the world we live in, broad at the entrance, but narrow at the exit, so he who is ensnared by the joys of the world and weighed down by its vices, can regain the doctrines of life only with difficulty. It is not a maze, but a single way. It is not a mindless trick but an ordered track. The design used at Chartres was repeated in many other places including Lucca, and the Mappa Mundi in Hereford; and with embellishments at Amiens and St. Quentin. This is why the Chartres labyrinth is so importantit is a canonic arrangement approved by the clergy, repeatedly used from one end of Europe to the other, and placed in conspicuous places in their churches. The most important ingredients are: eleven concentric rings split into four parts, a path which leads from the outside to the inside and passes once over every track, and a picture or an inscription. Equally basic is the arrangement of the pathway. It always enters on the left of the centre-line, and passes straight into the seventh ring counting from the inside; and it exits into the centre from the fifth. This order is standard, as is the arrangement of tracks in between. If you follow the path with your finger you will see that we first traverse the inside five rings on the left half, and then those on the right. The path continues right across the top of the sixth to join the remaining outer five circles, first passed on the left and then on the right. A clear and consistent pattern. There is a symmetry from one side to the other, and from the inside to the outside. In the centre of the Chartres labyrinth there had once been fixed a bronze plaquetaken up and melted for cannon during the Revolution on which was incised a most un-Christian tableau of Theseus killing the Minotaur with Ariadne holding the thread which was to show him the way home.[3] This motif was not unusual eitherAmien's was called the House of Dedalus, while Lucca and Cremona both depicted Theseus in the centre and many of the others were popularly known as 'Dardale'. In the Greek myths Daedalus was the legendary architect who invented many builder's tools, built a flying machine, and also designed the Cretan labyrinth. He is the archetypal mason, and was a byword for the master's craft. Can we therefore say that these many labyrinths were placed just to celebrate the master architects? Certainly the ones in Reims and Amiens commemorated the names of the building's masters, yet the other names given the labyrinths of Jerusalem and so onshow that this was not their only message. We must not forget that the clergy at Chartres were famous for their Platonic scholarship, and ranked, in the century before the cathedral was rebuilt, as the foremost centre in Europe for teaching these views. Their Way was the Gnostic one through knowledge rather than through faith. Their kindred order in the Moslem world, the Sufis, wrote Beware, for love alone without knowledge, remains unfocused, unaimed, undirected. The consequences of such a love is pointless, leading to a confused state of perpetual 'Hallelujah' comparable to the village idiot's perpetual good humour. Through the medicine of knowledge joy is anchored so that love is directed to the Subject of all love. [4]
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DRAWING 1 As with the other analogous concepts the Salniter stands for the Prime Matter in its beneficent aspect, and was considered to be the mother and cause of all the metals and salts, and hence a first cause like the lapis philosophorum . It is from Salt and Nitri, or saltpetre; and as gunpowder is linked with Zeus's thunderbolta thing of destruction. These two parts of the orb form a duality which is central to the idea of the dorj, and like the Hu to be discussed later. Bohme draws his own version in his "Questions concerning the Soul" as the Zeus dumbell again (s ee Drawing J). Bohme is transcribing an ancient tradition in which the dorj/dumbell/orb represents the combination of body and soul in what Jung calls "the symbol for the creative union of opposites, a uniting symbol in the literal sense".[8] Being also the form of the labyrinth these other devices share the same basic ideas of peace, enlightenment and salvation. In the east the dorj is unthinkable without the saint who has achieved what it stands for. Man and state are inseparable. In mediaeval alchemy the lapis is always found together with the homo altus, the Perfect Man, which they naturally equated with Christ. The essential resemblance to eastern ideas remains. Thus the squared circle of the labyrinth stands for much the same idea as the dorj, the lapis and the Spirit in the Essencewhich is the union of opposites. It is drawn as a path, so it is the way man must travel if he is to find that 'still, calm centre'. Lapis is stone, as in pietra, or Pierre. Christ spoke to Peter"On thee shall I build my church"on rock which is the foundation, a place here called Jerusalem. Surely it is not unimportant in the history of ideas that in the early centuries the main threat to Christianity came from Mithras whose god came out of a rock, in the way that Christ disappeared into one at the end. In psychoanalysis Jung found that when his patients were beginning to be cured their drawings had certain elements in common, even though they knew nothing of these ancient myths and symbols. This convalescent or emerging stage would often be expressed as a snake arranged in a clockwise spiral moving towards a square at the centre. The snake is the unconscious, the square is the diamond/lapis which is the new self. Jung's interpretation was that these symbols represented the movement of the personality towards a new state, and therefore to a rebirth. This is the image of the labyrinth. In Mediaeval drawings the square in the centre is Mercurius (sometimes equated with the Salniter, and called the Square and the Circle) whom the alchemists called the "mediator making peace between the enemies or elements": which is the unifier of opposites again. Mercury was Wisdom or Sophia, which brings us back to the beginningHoly Wisdom and the snake, Mary as the "Throne of the Almighty" and patron of learning, the Gnostic idea that through her (or through knowledge if you prefer) you can be saved, or reborn. Hence the feminine aspects, and Ariadne with her thread. This common fund of symbolic language, repeated in so many ways across the globe, shows that man's path to God is essentially the same in all cultures. The labyrinth therefore represents the knowledge necessary to arrive at the 'centre'. The Chartrain path passes through eleven circles. Eleven is a rather non-Christian number, though Christ lived for 33 yearseleven times the Trinity. We could argue that ten is the most perfect number and that one is the Allso that eleven is the perfection of God. But this is a bit superficial in such a meaningful work. Lasterie quotes a fourth century labyrinth with the inscription 'Sancta Ecclesia' whose number by gematria would be 110.[9] But this will not do either, for most of the labyrinths at that time had seven rings, not eleven.[10] In classical times scholars like Plato and Macrobius arranged the universe into ten circlesthe five planets plus the sun and moon, the fixed stars, the Primum Mob ile which give the stars their motion, and the Empyreum or Rose of Paradise which is the abode of God and his saints. Dante probably represented the mediaeval version when he separated God from his saintswhich would have given eleven zonesbut then he also added a twelfth, a ring of fire. However, when Dante's eleven rings are arranged around the labyrinth the order of the tracks is not meaningful. If the eleven rings are Plato's ten plus one for God what is at the centre? If the eleven are Dante's with God at the centre, why do we enter into Jupiter and exit from the sun? They make no sense. Crichlow would place the earth at the centre, putting the entry into Saturn which is much more meaningful; but why should the pilgrim finish his journey at the beginning? One of his students, Jane Carrol, drew a most beautiful diagram for this arrangement which splendidly illustrates the labyrinth's rigorous symmetry, but without explaining its logic.[11] The only satisfactory reason I can find for the use of eleven circles comes from outside Christian areas. In early Hindu numerology the most important shrines had eleven roofs, as in Bali today. The Koran lists the 99 most beautiful names for God (32 x 11): the highest is the un-namable, called the 'State of Blindness'. It is the Creative Principle itself, in which God is undifferentiated, pure and formless: where he is the One = 1. The next highest state is the Hu. It is the first exhalation, the primordial outflow of the breath of the One when He first sees Himself as both object and subject. It is the first division into aspects before He continues to the definition of archetypes, then of matter, and so on until the whole of creation has become manifest. This state of Hu is as high as man can reach in his quest. He cannot become God, but can approach the Rose thus far. Hu is the most intimate name for God in Moslem prayers, and in the mantras is repeated eleven times. The flu is the unity of God divided for the first time, and as the first duality is one + one, usually drawn as two strokes one behind the other so it is still seen as one, but known as one/one, or eleven. Another dorj.
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DRAWING 2 Hence the story of the labyrinth is this: the pilgrim begins by entering into Scorpio where he makes a first 'decision for Christ', as the modern evangalists will have it. He then passes through Libra on the left which is his ego/essence and which he must understand to some extent before he can appreciate the rest. The next series is Taurus to Leo: which is the study of the Creation of the Universe by God, and the genesis of our world as knowledge. He traverses this series three times, once on the left as a learning process followed by the reverse order in the east where, facing the altar, he sees the Creation with the help of Christ. Lastly he returns from Taurus to Leo on the right restudying the past with new eyes and thereby understanding it. The first pass on the left is like the message in the north doors of the cathedral, while the second pass on the east is influenced by the theological fundamentals illustrated in the western doors, and the third culminates in the understanding this knowledge gives him of God's purpose, as set out in the south door.[14] The message is that knowledge with guidance gives understanding. For the second time he enters into Libra, passing across the full half circle on the eastern or top side. The pilgrim now reappraises himself in relation to Christ and the Church, and just as this path lies symmetrically across the axis of the cathedral, so the pilgrim can now see his ego in a balanced way. From this firm position he follows through the five circles which lead him back to God through the same three-fold manner as he followed in the Creation. At the end he moves from Pisces/sainthood back to the right hand quarter of Libra through which he passes for the last time, throwing off his ego. In innocence he enters Virgo which is both God's concept of man and the Virgin Mother herself. The
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DIAGRAM 1 The diameter of the petals including the bands around them is the same as the distance from their centres to the middle of the labyrinth. (See Diagram 1). But we all know that if we were to draw a circle, and around that draw another six of the same size, they would all touch one another, forming a closed figure without an opening for the pathway. Yet there is an openingso how did they rearrange this perfect figure to allow for it? The clue lies in the actual dimensions. The six surrounding circles were moved around the arc of the central one without encroaching on it. They were allowed to overlap one another by 70.7mmone fifth of the Pes Manualisleaving a gap at the entry precisely the width of each of the eleven circles.
DIAGRAM 2 The Rose has been opened by five of those fifths, or one Pes, in a process which I find much more meaningful than the thirteen sided figure, for it represents Christ easing aside the perfection of Paradise to let us in.[26] Further, the width of the eleven circles measures precisely three times the radius of the core, while the radius of the circles forming the petals is just one third of that, so the pattern is of an overall geometry based on threes and sixes. (As shown in Diagram II, page 110). Unlike today, every step in designing a mediaeval building had to be made with geometry, and each of the figures and steps used had specific meanings appropriate to the building's use. The first step in setting out the work set the tone for what was to follow. So far we have only looked at the internal geometry, but not at the first act from which the rest was woven.
DIAGRAM 3 There are three circles around the perimeter, (as shown in Diagram III ), each stemming from an important source, and each adding its meaning to the whole. By designing each step in three, and by using three different circles to 'complicate' the perimeter, a great richness has been added to the whole. The outermost one 'A' is invisible, for it passes through the centres of the circles of the cogs. It measures 36 Pes Manualisthe number of the BVM plus one. Each cog in the circle measures 3/4 of this foot, so that the diameter of 'A' is 48 of these units, while the overall imaginary circle 'B' measures 49 of them. 48 spells "INRI" while 49, as the important seven sevens, spells "IXS".[27] The second circle 'C' marks the actual outer circumference which cuts through the 114 small circles, and makes their cog-like shape. Its diameter is one tenth of the overall internal length of the cathedral from the western doors to the eastern chapel.[28] The actual error is so slight that this must have been the master's intention: the labyrinth was not only a symbol for the Way, but was also a model of the cathedral itself. The cathedral represents the image of Jerusalem on earth, and in the microcosm of the labyrinth is the expression of the church's role in guiding men along their journey. The last circle 'D' is derived from the crossing at the centre of the cathedral. In the first plan prepared by the same master who built the labyrinth, the crossing had measured 56' x 48', spelling the titulars for Jesus and Mary. Thus the central space of the church represented Christ the son with the Virgin Mary, which was the simplest expression for the Church's position at that time. The diagonal in mediaeval geometric parlance represents the union of the sides, and is therefore the repetition of the statement in the west portal of Christ enthroned on his Mother's lap.
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DIAGRAM 4 To calculate circle 'D' he took this diagonal (shown in Diagram IV), and on it drew a circle-the perfection of the whole as symbolised by the union of Christ and Mary. Within that circle he drew the triangle of the Trinity, the Godhead within the whole,[29] and the side of that gave circle 'D'. These three circles link the labyrinth to the rest of the building, and through their interaction give it that living quality which we so surely recognise. The last circle 'D' was the one mentioned earlier which was divided into twelve partsto signify that it was the totality of things. At the centre they drew the six circles of perfection and the central oneOmwhich was modified to provide an entry. (This process is shown in Diagram V).
DIAGRAM 5 The ring around the centre was then divided into eleven tracks, and the width of each was again divided into eleven parts, two of which made the solid strip between the tracks. The proportion of the tracks reinforces the numbers which created them. This is a simple and mature arrangement. Christ and Mary conjoined through the Spirit, the triangle, from which is formed the circle of the Way. The Way represents the whole and is there-fore divided by twelve, which includes three parts to describe the Rose of Paradise and its petals, and nine to form the eleven-fold pathway. Geometry and number express and respect the essentials, and if any of my readers doubt their dedication to these concepts, read Simson. Lastly consider the position of the labyrinth in the nave of the cathedral.[30] The word nave has the same root as naval, and like the Ark conjures up images of support midst the terrors of the deep the support of reason when the powers of the unconscious loom before us, and this is what the labyrinth is about.
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NOTES
[1] This study comes from an investigation begun seven years ago into the history of the Cathedral of Chartres, the masters w ho built it and the geometry (both structural and theological) w hich formed it. I have used all my skills as an experienced architect and historian to do this w ork, and the published material is listed in the bibliography. The monograph containing all my findings is in the hands of the publishers and the first part w ill appear in French and English some time in 1973. It is referred to here as The Contractors. The Labyrinth of Chartres w as made in 1200 or 1201. [2] Where authors are referred to, see bibliography. [3] Challine, C. "Researches sur Chartres", Chartres, 1918. [4] Quoted from a Pamphlet of Prayers collected at the Sufi Retreat of Beshara, Oxfordshire, 1972. [5] Jung, IX, p. 387. [6] Katzenellenbogan, A. The Sculptural Program of Chartres Cathedral , New York 1959. [7] Or perhaps, as discussed later, from 'laye', the French for the double-headed axe used by the masons to shape their stones. [8] Jung, IX, p. 174. [9] Gematria is the time-honoured technique of equating w ords and phrases w ith numbers by giving each letter a number. 'A' w ould be 1, 'B' w ould be 2, and so on. The sum of the letters is therefore the number of the w ord. Certain numbers therefore became more significant than others, and some w ords w ere re-spelt, or phrases rew orded so they w ould coincide w ith the most relevant numbers. See F. Bligh Bond Gematria, London, 1976. [10] Also Christ had only eleven true apostles. Another tack might be in magic squares w hich fascinated the middle agesthose arrangements of
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Original editorial inclusions that followed the essay in Studies: For a soul may not stand still always in one state while that it is in the flesh; for it is either profiting in grace, or impairing in sin. Walter Hilton
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