Local scholar pictures a kinder, gentler St. Paul |
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Written by LAURIE STEVENS BERTKE, Chronicle Writer
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Friday, 06 March 2009 08:59 |
TOLEDO—In light of St. Paul’s writings and joyful witness to the Christian faith, Pauline Gentle objects to the dour demeanor with which he has been portrayed throughout history.
The parishioner of Toledo Little Flower set out three years ago to debunk this adverse characterization, arguing that artists have treated this champion of the early church unjustly over the centuries.
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| Pauline Gentle |
St. Paul is typically depicted as an authoritative, bald-headed man with a "cranky" look on his face, according to Dr. Gentle, who says the apostle even appears "sour-looking" in imagery found in 4th-century catacombs.
"It wasn’t because they didn’t know how to paint someone with a smile," Dr. Gentle adds, noting smiles were utilized in paintings, sculpture and mosaics of other figures as early as the archaic period of ancient Greece.
"It had to have been purposely done to give him that ascetic look," she says.
"To have attracted so many people to the faith, he couldn’t have been this mean guy, or he would have turned them away," she continues. "There had to be some charisma about him. So I picked up on that and I ran with that — that he had to have smiled."
Dr. Gentle pursued the idea for her doctoral studies in cultural arts history, which she completed last fall through Warnborough College in Ireland. Long before Pope Benedict XVI declared a special jubilee year dedicated to St. Paul from June 2008 through June 2009, she had chosen the topic for her dissertation: "Word of God, Sword of the Spirit — St. Paul in Illuminated Manuscripts: A New Visual Perspective."
Dr. Gentle reviewed hundreds of images dating from about 1000 B.C. until the invention of the printing press in the 15th century, focusing particularly on the ornate illustrations found in illuminated manuscripts. She contrasts these grim representations of St. Paul with the actual life and words of this missionary apostle.
Dr. Gentle also looked at St. Paul from the perspective of other world religions, including Judaism, Islam and Hinduism.
"This study was undertaken to validate a view of St. Paul the Apostle quite different from the one in which the world of art has portrayed him for the last 20 centuries," Dr. Gentle writes in the abstract for her dissertation.
"In a seemingly depressing time, St. Paul attempted to offer hope and salvation to all," she writes. "Having been rebuffed by his own people, the apostle turned to the Gentiles. He turned to them with gentleness, charity, patience and love: above all, he offered them joy and happiness."
Dr. Gentle observes St. Paul often used phrases like "I’m happy," "I’m pleased" and "I’m proud" in his 13 epistles to the early Christian communities.
"That’s not this mean, scruffy guy talking," she says. "This is a different person coming through."
Dr. Gentle completed her doctoral studies through a distance-learning program and conducted much of her research at university libraries in Ohio and Michigan, but she also traveled to Great Britain to spend five days reviewing 5th-, 6th- and 7th-century illuminated manuscripts at the London Library and the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford. The manuscripts are called "illuminated" because they have initial letters "enlightened" or embellished with gold or bright colors. Monasteries produced many of these decorated handwritten books to preserve Christian texts like the Bible before the printing press was invented.
"I had the opportunity to hold an 8th-century Bible," she recalls. "It was just phenomenal that this thing was written 1,300 years ago and it’s still perfectly legible, because they’ve taken such good care of them."
Once she completed her research, Dr. Gentle commissioned a friend from her parish, Martha Nasset, to create a new image of the apostle. Designed to Dr. Gentle’s specifications, the sketch depicts St. Paul with a gentle demeanor, upturned eyes and a hint of a smile.
As the church spotlights St. Paul this year, Dr. Gentle says she hopes people will give the apostle another chance and take a closer look at his writings.
Dr. Gentle, 66, plans to walk in her graduation ceremony at Canterbury Cathedral this May and hopes to one day publish a book from her dissertation.
She is completing a long journey that began when she enrolled at Lourdes College in 2000, four decades after her high school graduation.
Though she always wanted to go to college, she explains, her father had discouraged her from doing so. "So I waited until my youngest one was graduating from Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh in 2000, and said, ‘OK, it’s my turn,’ " says Dr. Gentle, who has three children with her husband, John.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in multicultural studies in 2002 and went on to earn a master’s degree in liberal studies at The University of Toledo.
Her interest in art and illuminated manuscripts developed when she took a course at Lourdes College called Christianity in Art, taught by Sylvania Franciscan Sister Jane Mary Sorosiak. "She just put the spark there that got me going," Dr. Gentle recalls.
At UT she took a course in writing about the visual arts, and her fascination with illuminated manuscripts eventually dovetailed with her interest in St. Paul, who she calls her hero.
Though her friends know her as Pat rather than Pauline, Dr. Gentle says her patron has always fascinated her.
"I feel like I’ve been keeping steady company with him for the past three years," she adds with a laugh.
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Last Updated on Wednesday, 06 May 2009 09:09 |
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