Lucas Blogs About The Harrowing of Hell
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| Abandon all hope, ye who read . . . |
As the title suggests, The Harrowing of Hell recounts the events between Jesus's death and resurrection, when he is said to have descended into Hell in order to save every righteous person who had predeceased him. This story is told in the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus (also called The Acts of Pilate), which I have not read. But Virgil describes it like this in Dante's Inferno: (please note: the translation I read was basically in prose, so that's how I'm quoting it):
"I was still new in this condition (ie-Dead and in the First Circle of Hell with the other righteous unbaptized. - Lucas), when I saw a powerful one come, crowned with a sign of victory. He led forth from here the shade of our first parent, of Abel his son, and that of Noah, of Moses, lawgiver and obedient, Abraham the patriarch and David the king, Israel with his father, and his children, and Rachel, for whom he did so much, and many others, and he made them blessed. And I would have you know that before them no human spirits were saved." Alighieri, Dante, trans, Robert M. Durling. Inferno. New York: Oxford University Press. 1996. Canto 4, lines 52-63.
Pretty triumphant, right? Jesus marches into Hell with a metaphorical crown and scoops up some prominent figures from the Pentateuch and peaces out. This is decidedly not the tone that Dahm strikes. At the risk of writing a hellish pun, Jesus's journey in this book is a much more harrowing experience. Ouch, I immediately regret writing that. Not enough to delete it, but still . . . I'm sorry you had to read that. Instead of triumph, the mood that Dahm cultivates is one of ambiguity. Although Jesus is able to free the condemned from their bonds, it doesn't quite feel like victory because. . . Actually, before we get to that let's talk a little about the Gospel of Mark.
Okay, so in the afterward, Dahm says a primary inspiration for his depiction of Jesus is the Gospel of Mark. So, of course, I went back to re-read it. Mark is the shortest of the canonical gospels, and although it lacks elements found in the others it does focus tightly on Jesus's ministry and teachings. There's a lot of healing, there're a lot of parables, there's a lot of people asking who Jesus is and what his purpose is, there's a lot of talk about tearing down the existing social, political, and religious order and building a new one, but there's almost none of the biographical detail that goes into the other gospels. Instead of beginning with his birth, it begins with his baptism by John the Baptizer, and instead of ending with him revealing his resurrection to the disciples it ends with Mary Magdalene being too afraid to tell anyone about meeting a stranger in the empty tomb (at least, in the oldest texts). In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus doesn't just want to save humans from sin, but change how they think about the world and their place in it. He rejects authority (even authority that claims to derive from God, like the priesthood and the Law) that does not serve the needs - physical and spiritual - of humanity.
And Dahm's portrayal of Jesus is largely in line with this. Interspersed with his descent into Hell are flashbacks to Jesus's ministry showcasing his rejection of authority. He tries to explain to Thomas that the Kingdom of God will not have the trappings of earthly kingdoms. He asks the blind man who begs for mercy if he's a king to grant it. He asks whose name is on the Temple, God's or Caesar's. And although he is easily able to shatter the chains and bars that bind the condemned in Hell, he finds that it is not so easy to break their belief that they deserve condemnation. This is most apparent in two sequences near the end.
First there's Jesus's confrontation with Satan. Satan sits on a throne mirroring Pilate at the start of the book. He wears Roman armor and a crown of horns. He towers over Jesus. He alone in the book calls Jesus the Christ and the Son of God. He tempts Jesus with a vision of himself riding out of Heaven leading a Host of conquering angels, saying that it's how Jesus's followers already see him. He says that it's impossible for humans to imagine a kingdom that is not rooted in conquest and violence. He taunts Jesus with the knowledge of the atrocities that will be committed in his name. And though Jesus rejects Satan's offer of a crown, Satan casts him down yet further.
In the darkest recesses of Hell, Jesus finds Adam and Eve alone in a cage. Jesus opens their cage and tells them that there is a new kingdom and that their sin is forgiven. They don't believe him, after all, how could God have made a mistake in punishing them, they broke his only law. They slam their cage shut after throwing a pomegranate in Jesus's face.
I really hope that I'm not making this sound lame or heavy-handed, because both of these scenes gave me chills. They both cut to the heart of the matter: the scariest thing about trying to make the world better isn't the resistance you'll face from the people in power who benefit from the current order; it's the resistance you'll face from people with no power who are harmed by the current order. The desire to believe we live in a just world forms a bias towards the status quo. It can be comforting to think that you are living the life you deserve, even if that life is miserable. The Harrowing of Hell illustrates this with Adam and Eve's insistence that their punishment is just. If they could be forgiven for breaking the only law that God set for them, what does that say about the justice of their punishment in the first place? There's also Thomas's crestfallen realization that Jesus doesn't desire retribution against the Romans, IE doesn't want to institute an equally oppressive regime with the power dynamic reversed. After all, as Satan later reminds Jesus, humans have never known rule without violence and oppression. This raises the question of whether a commitment to pacifism is equal to the task of creating a more equitable world. This ambiguity is one of the driving tensions of the story; and Dahm leaves it unresolved, forcing the reader to think through their own position.
The brilliance of The Harrowing of Hell isn't just in the way Dahm's writing frames Jesus's story to address questions of faith, authority, and doubt; but in how Dahm visually frames the story. There's so many angles to talk about this from, but we'll start with his use of color. Everything in the book is black, white or red. In the first few pages, detailing Jesus's interrogation at the hands of Pilate, red only appears on the uniforms of the Roman soldiers. Then it appears on the crown of thorns, and the scourge, and the cross, and word "REX" on the tablet mockingly referring to Jesus as King of the Jews. Nearly all of Hell is red. The priest who confronts Jesus at the temple wears a red sash. The pomegranate is red. Jesus's oft-sworn-by wounds are red. It's oppression. The things that are red are all associated with oppression, authority, law, and violence. It's most explicit in the image of the conquering Christ in Roman armor who has a crown of red horns and bears a banner with a red cross. It's great. It's not subtle, but it's a striking, easily identifiable visual cue.
Then there's the visual composition of Dahm's artwork, which is spectacular. The simple color palate means that there are a lot of pages awash in white or black or red, but this helps with the visual framing immensely. Whether it's individual panels focusing tightly on faces or beautiful two-page spreads, Dahm demonstrates a skillful command of visual storytelling and characterization. He often draws Jesus as a small, vulnerable figure, dwarfed by Satan or swept up by a pack of demons with jagged jack-o-lantern mouths. Jesus is clearly traumatized by his crucifixion and his ordeal in Hell, emerging from the tomb with deep lines on his face, tears streaming down his face, and his garment torn and ragged. Dahm makes the most of his sparing use of detail, particularly in facial expressions: Pilate's benign condescension, Thomas's disappointment, Satan's rictus grin, are all conveyed with the the minimum necessary line work and shading.
Although I read it (several times) in September, this book was on my mind a lot last week when it looked like Donald Trump (whose fondness for overlong red ties perhaps makes the comparison too easy) might manage to win re-election (again, the now ubiquitous use of red for Republicans on the electoral map makes the comparison a bit too on the nose). A man who has separated families at the border, sought to strip millions of healthcare protections, deployed unmarked federal officers to attack and harass non-violent protesters, stripped protections for LGBTQ+ people, used the presidency to enrich himself and his family, expressed admiration for dictators, signed a tax bill with permanent tax cuts for the wealthiest and temporary tax cuts for everyone else, can only be bothered to half-heartedly condemn white supremacy among his voter base after days of cajoling, and whose incompetent handling of the COVID-19 pandemic has lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of his countrymen still won nearly forty-eight percent of all votes cast. Meanwhile, a lot of people who voted for Joe Biden seem to view it as a chance for the country to return to normal. And, obviously, I voted for Joe Biden, but let's face it, the normality that he represents is still a system that is fundamentally unfair. And people who believe that have a lot of work to do to convince our fellow voters that we can dismantle injustice and build a better world.
I'm getting sidetracked. I hope I've made it clear that this book is — as the Zoomers might say — a mood. It cuts to the heart of the tension that arises when a religion whose core texts advocate radical pacifist anarchism becomes the religion of the powerful. And even without the religious aspect, it grapples with the question of whether principles matter more than goals. As I said before, it doesn't offer any answers, respecting the reader enough to work through their own response. And seriously, even if you read this blog without reading the book first, it's worth checking out.
The Harrowing of Hell by Evan Dahm, Iron Circus Comics hardcover edition, January 2020, 125 pages, pairs well with fishes, loaves, and somber reflection
Links:
Here's the artist's website, if you're into that kinda thing.
He's also on twitter, where he has tweeted the best tweet.
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