News Spike: Earth-Angel/Blue Devil

Friday 9 August 2019

Earth-Angel/Blue Devil

Black + White

Red + Green

The Funkiest Thang U Ever Seen —

(EYE'll Tell U What His Name Is :— )

Everyone Knows That The Science Station is on The Right Side of The Enterprise Bridge.

" Gene Roddenberry also wanted Spock's appearance to be very similar to typical portrayals of SATAN, The Devil. "I did purposely give him a slight look of the 'devil' because I thought that might be particularly provocative to women, particularly when his nature contrasted so greatly to this," Roddenberry stated.

The following character biography appeared in Roddenberry's original, 1964 series pitch Star Trek is... (and was reprinted in The Making of Star Trek):

"The First Lieutenant. The Captain's right-hand man, the working-level commander of all the ship's functions – ranging from manning the bridge to supervising the lowliest scrub detail. His name is Mr. Spock. And the first view of him can be almost frightening – a face so heavy-lidded and satanic you might almost expect him to have a forked tail. Probably half Martian, he has a slightly reddish complexion and semi-pointed ears. But strangely – Mr. Spock's quiet temperament is in dramatic contrast to his satanic look. Of all the crew aboard, he is the nearest to Captain April's equal, physically, emotionally, and as a commander of men. His primary weakness is an almost catlike curiosity over anything the slightest 'alien.'"

In the revised first draft script of "The Cage" (dated 6 October 1964), Spock was described thus; "The only exception to the familiar types represented by the crew, Mister Spock is of partly alien extraction, his reddish skin, heavy-lidded eyes and slightly-pointed ears give him an almost satanic look. But in complete contrast is his unusual gentle manner and tone. He speaks with the almost British accent of one who has learned the language in textbooks." The episode's revised final draft script (dated 20 November 1964) excluded mention of the "reddish skin" but otherwise remained the same. Later in the script, one of Spock's statements was directed to be delivered in an "excited" manner. "

"This is Ravenna in North Italy.

'This unassuming town was once just about the most important place in the world.'

It was the last capital of the Western Roman Empire and in the early days of the Christian church,

its citizens wrestled over the great religious questions.

'Was Jesus divine?'

A : CONCENTRATE AND ASK AGAIN

'What was his relationship to God and the Holy Spirit?'

A : BETTER NOT TELL YOU NOW

When the Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo was built in the sixth century, many of the main beliefs of what we recognise today as Christianity hadn't yet been decided - including who or what the Devil was.

A : Benedict Cumberbatch.

But I've come here because some people believe this is where his story begins.

So if you come through this little doorway, you enter the Basilica.

This is a spectacular church.

These splendid, glittering mosaics are how they would have been when they were first created.

The sixth century is a critical era for Christianity because the iconography of the religion wasn't yet secured.

There's no crucifixion here, for example.

Even the appearance of Jesus varies.

The important series of mosaics here for us is right at the very top -

up near the roof, about a metre high where there are 26 scenes from the life of Christ.

And somewhere in here - they say - is the first depiction of the Devil in Western art.

And you have to look around to find it.

It's not going to be on the side with the Passion.

It's somewhere up here.

In fact, here it is. If you look up there, there is a scene which may be the first Last Judgment in Western art and what we're looking at is

GOD

Christ in Purple in The Middle

and to

His Right is an angel dressed in RED

MICHAEL

and to

His Left is an angel dressed in BLUE

LUCIFER

and that angel dressed in blue may well be Satan.

Why do we think it's Satan?

The answer is because in front of him you have these 3 Goats.

Matthew's story in the Bible tells of when Christ comes in judgment at the end of the world

and separates out the nations and humankind into

The Good -

The Sheep, who he places to his Right -

and

The Bad -

The Sinners, The Goats, who go to the Left.

There you can see The Goats.

He's enacted that separation and it's bizarre because,...

instead of the grizzly ruler of Hell who we're all familiar with, you have, from down here, someone who looks radiant, he's glowing.

He is a beautiful angel.

He's quite ephebic.

And, of course, he's Blue not Red, which is exactly the opposite of what we might expect.

In modern minds, red is the colour of Hell,

but in the sixth century,

Blue was the colour associated with

darkness, with error.

What's so strange about this image in particular is that, in a sense, it's an exception. It's a one-off.

There are no depictions of the Devil that we know of which exist before this mosaic.

Which kind of makes you think.

Satan, supposedly central to Christianity -

The Personification of Evil itself - seems absent from the artistic world for hundreds of years.

And when he does turn up, he arrives with no ceremony, almost hidden amongst a grand programme of decorative mosaics.

And not only that, he looks like an angel.

But this Blue Angel doesn't convince everyone.

Arguments have raged for decades about his significance.

Giovanni Gardini is a local religious historian and writer.

[ And a Christian — The Arian Christians who made the mosaic are declared Heretics (although, the Basilica itself and its contents are still consecrated sites of Christian worship according to Rome, which is interesting in and of itself). ]

"But what about this bloke up here -

The Blue Angel, the Devil?"

[ He can't openly admit the Truth of a Heretical Teaching and remain in The Church - he could be excommunicated. ]

"No...

It's The Devil."

[ He accepted The Premise of The Question — Nobody mentioned Darkness. ]

"No —

I can see him. He has the goats."

This argument about the blue angel encapsulates a big problem with the Devil in early Christian art.

There's no clarity about his image because there's no clarity about his role.

I don't think art historians will ever agree on whether or not that blue angel is meant to be the Devil.

It seems accepted that his colour is about evoking shadows and the night to represent the erring ways of the goats or sinners in front of him.

It's in contrast to Christ who's associated with the light, but no-one could argue that he is the personification of evil.

He's got this mysterious, unsettling aspect.

He emanates an aura of error, but there are no horns, no tail or a cloven hoof or even the merest whiff of sulphur, so he seems to be almost more like a heavenly functionary.

He's a custodian of sinners and he's not Satan as we know him today.

But seeing the Devil as an angel isn't as surprising as it might seem when you think of the theological context - a century before the Ravenna mosaic was created, Christian thinkers had fixed upon an ambiguous passage in the Book of Isaiah.