Soul scales
In Christian iconography, the soul scales are considered one of the iconographic saints attributes of the Archangel Michael . The archangel Michael is considered to be the leader of the heavenly hosts and the conqueror of Satan in the form of a dragon or lindworm (cf. Hell's Fall ).
The Archangel Michael also plays a role in Christian iconography at the particular judgment and the Last Judgment . According to popular belief , he draws up a list of the good and bad deeds in the life of every person and presents it to God on the day of his death at the particular judgment and on the day of the Last Judgment to God for his judgment of people ( paradise or eternal damnation ). As an attribute he carries a balance in his hand, the "soul scales", with which he weighs good and bad (see psychostasy ).
Representations
An early example of the representation of the weighing of souls can be found on the tympanum of the Saint-Lazare cathedral in Autun, Burgundy . There the sculptor Gislebertus created a depiction of the Last Judgment around the year 1130 , in which the motif of the weighing of souls can also be found. In the church of Vamlingbo on the island of Gotland , the so-called ' Michaelsmeister ' created the wall fresco depicting the weighing of souls of Emperor Henry II, who was canonized in 1146 .
A representation of St. Michael as a soul weigher can be found in the parish church of Maria Gail (South Carinthia), on the outer wall of which a stone sculpture with a representation of the Last Judgment is attached. The archangel with sword and scales as well as another angel with trumpet and cross are shown. The relief sculpture is likely to have been made before 1300 and in this constellation represents an art-historical rarity (whereby the attribution of the soul scale to the Archangel Michael is secondary, as the equal representation of the two angels shows - the trumpet was later not assigned to an archangel).
The Dutch painter Rogier van der Weyden (15th century) takes up the theme in his altarpiece The Last Judgment (in the Hôtel-Dieu , Beaune ). Michael weighs the souls who, awakened by the sound of the trumpets , rise from their graves to face judgment. The archangel wears the vestments of a deacon , with alb , stole and a splendid choir cloak made of red gold brocade , which is closed with a fibula . The blessing gesture of the archangel directs the blessed to the gate of paradise - depicted as a Gothic portal with porphyry columns and gilded tympanum - where they are received by the archangel Gabriel , the guardian of paradise. In contrast, the judge's gesture, underlined by the blood-red sword of judgment, shows the damned the way to hell, from whose wide-open black maw the flames blaze up.
In the country churches on Gotland there are various representations of the balance of the soul, for example in the Church of Silte and the Church of Vamlingbo .
Even in the Baroque period , depictions of the Archangel Michael with the soul scales were widespread as panel paintings and frescoes (more rarely in sculptures).
- Illustrations
Autun Cathedral (around 1130)
Saint-Nectaire priory church (around 1165)
Pilgrimage church Maria Gail - angel with balance and trumpet (before 1300)
Sankt Katharina in Breien Völs am Schlern (16th century)
Zurich Carnation Master: Michael as soul weigher (Kunsthaus Zurich)
Church in Aulzhausen (18th century)
Vitus Chapel in the parish church of St. Vitus in Kottingwörth , Upper Bavaria
Premonstratensian Church , Roggenburg (Bavaria) (18th century)
Silte Church, Gotland
Soul scales of Emperor Henry II in Vamlingbo, Gotland
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literature
- Leopold Kretzenbacher : The balance of the soul. On the religious idea of the afterlife judgment on the scales of fate in high religion, visual art and folk belief (= book series of the State Museum for Carinthia. Vol. 4, ZDB -ID 541452-0 ). Publishing house of the State Museum for Carinthia, Klagenfurt 1958.
