Beauty is always beyond the beholder. It can be as small as a solitary bluebonnet sprouting up through a blanket of snow, heralding springtime. Beauty can also be as grand as the dance we call the Milky Way galaxy. Do you see it? Trillions of planets and comets twirling around twinkling stars—indeed, like an ever-moving cosmic cèilidh (i.e. a Celtic dance). And, here we are, tiny creatures on the back of this swiftly tilting planet, spinning around the Sun, all the while the Moon is waltzing around us!

Beyond nature, we humans are the only organisms that create art as a means of communicating beauty. As an art historian I have had exceptional experiences all over the world studying human ingenuity. In London I once held the 1,400-year-old Sutton Hoo Treasure (fig.1). I remember being dazzled by how heavy its pure gold felt in my hands and how its red garnet and checkered-blue millefiori sparkled in my eyes—truly this was a royal bounty from the newly born nation called “England”! This gave me a fresh perspective when I was asked to study the mosaics at Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (modern Istanbul); here, Christian artists used glass and gold to create icons on the walls, fashioned like tiny reflectors, so that window-light would make the walls shimmer (fig.2). To Christian artists, gold was precious—not only because of its monetary value—but because it was the only metal that never tarnishes, symbolizing spiritual truths that never change. A few years later, in Egypt, I was given the chance to climb up the mysterious Pyramids, considered by the ancients (as well as engineers today) as the greatest wonders of humanity (fig.3). And, as a pilgrim, I remember standing on the Mount of Olives overlooking Jerusalem; there I noticed the height of the Holy Sepulcher’s dome marking the Hill of Golgotha (fig.4 – In this photo it is indicated by an arrow). As I contemplated our Lord’s crucifixion, I was moved to tears by the experience and remembered how Gospels reported that Jesus himself had wept on the Mount of Olives as he prayed over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41). Catholic art encodes not only virtue but beautiful memories of historical events.

I am currently writing a book called Christian Aesthetics where I recount how and why the Catholic worldview communicates beauty in art and architecture. This has led me down many paths of inquiry. Some tangents are dark and sublime, others are bright and glorious. Through my research I am now convinced that beauty is inherent in all of God’s creation—it is a reflection of his artistry, his Rules, and his Order. Ugliness is merely the absence of beauty. In that sense, all things are good and beautiful; however, in so far as they fall short of God’s purpose and his rules, they are ugly (i.e. bad) and disordered.

I recently rediscovered this relationship between beauty (order) and ugliness (chaos) in the earliest surviving story titled the Epic of Gilgamesh which is about 4,000 years old. The version we have was written in Old Babylonian cuneiform, based on earlier Sumerian tales, which were drafted at the very dawn of writing itself. I am amazed that even before the concept of literature was even conceived, we already have components of beauty and design, fully developed and understood. Here I retell part of the story (filling-in the lacunas) from Tablet IX (fig.5):

Figure 5. Epic of Gilgamesh Tablet IX

The hero struggled to open the portal that separated heaven and earth. Through the crack he could see only dense darkness where no light dwelt. His heart and breath fluttered; but he mustered the courage to take the first step into the cold abyss, not knowing what was before, under, above, or at either side of him. He walked for three miles into the dense darkness where no light dwelt. He then walked for six more miles into an even colder and denser darkness where no light dwelt. All was silent; even his breathing and footsteps were muted. Another nine miles he walked surrounded by heavier darkness where no light dwelt. His fingers and toes were so numb that they lost all feeling. His heart pulsed. Again, he walked for another twelve miles into an even denser darkness where no light dwelt. At that point, it was so dark that he did not know what was before, under, above, on either side of him and now he saw nothing behind him. So, he continued on for fifteen more miles where the darkness was even heavier and colder and where no light existed. He was freezing. It was so empty that he could not see even the darkest shade of black. For eighteen more miles he walked, where dense darkness engulfed him and where absolutely no light dwelt. He was so tired and his lungs and heart ached. He had no choice but to press on; he toiled another twenty-one miles deeper into the densest dark of the abyss where no light dwelt. And then, after another twenty-four miles of shuffling onward, he looked around but could not know what was before, under, above, behind, and on either side of him.

The hero tried to cry out just to hear something, but his tongue was swollen and his mouth was frozen shut. In such dense darkness neither light nor sound dwells. He still could not see what was before, under, above, behind, and on either side of him. He did not know what to do. He lost all of his senses—or so it seemed. He still had awareness of his thumping heart and heaving lungs—these comforted him. So, again, he mustered the only virtue he had to go on. He walked for another twenty-seven miles into even deeper darkness. But here something was different. He felt the cold wind brush his face, though he was surrounded by darkness. He felt something. This gave him hope, because something was better than nothing. He walked thirty more miles, having faith that this tunnel of darkness would end. After walking thirty-three more miles he could see a faraway speck of light, perhaps, the sunrise peaking in-between a crack where the sable earth met a starless void above.

Encouraged, he walked another thirty-six miles until, all of a sudden, he was blinded by shimmering light. Beyond the aureole was a majestic city. Surrounding it was an immense wall built of multicolored jasper, and towards the center were dwellings with enormous towers built of pure gold, surrounded by water fountains and rivers clear as glass. Its foundations were adorned with every kind of jewel; the first were earth-toned jaspers, the second were blue sapphires, the third were multi-patterned agates, the fourth forest-green emeralds, the fifth were multi-textured onyxes, the sixth were cherry-red carnelians, the seventh yellow chrysolites, the eighth pink beryls, the ninth

orange topazes, the tenth apple-green chrysoprases, the eleventh dark-vermillion jacinthes, and the twelfth was built of deep-purple amethysts. Piercing the wall were twelve gates covered in iridescent mother-of-pearl and the streets beyond were pure gold and reflected the blue sky like mirrors. In the midst of the city was a beautiful garden full of green foliage and multi-colored flowers. Nourishing this oasis was a river as clear as crystal, flowing towards an enormous tree, bearing twelve different kinds of luscious fruit. Other trees flanked the garden, evergreens and red cedars, and shrubs that produced leaves resembling blue lapis lazuli.

This passage showcases a deep understanding of aesthetics. The hero could only fully appreciate the beauty of heavenly paradise by first experiencing the lack of color, warmth, smell, and all feeling in the Tunnel of Death. To ancient storytellers, night enhanced the day while suffering provided meaning in times of joy. The repeating words and phrases created a pattern and cadence. This formed a sense of rhythm, echoing the voyage of the hero, so that the reader sympathizes with, or even places themselves in the place of, the hero. The hero’s heartbeats, gasps for breath, and footsteps become the reader’s. Notice also the sharp tenebrism, contrasting the light and dark, the lifeless and the lively, and simple colorless austerity and complex colorful ornamentation. By translating the visual and audio into the textual, the ancient storytellers were employing what later Greek rhetoricians called ekphrasis—a powerful tool that captures the listeners’ and readers’ imagination. That is the true power and beauty of storytelling.

In terms of 21st-century theology and literature, the ancient narrative of the Epic of Gilgamesh has become even more intriguing as a topic of research. In 1971 the Polish priest and archaeologist, Józef Milik, identified a manuscript written in Aramaic titled the Book of Giants among the Dead Sea Scrolls, predating the New Testament. In it, the hero Gilgamesh is listed as one of the Nephilim (giants)—thus, confirming that there is, indeed, a relationship between the biblical book of Genesis with earlier Babylonian and Sumerian literature. The epic also includes analogical stories of the Garden of Eden, the Tree of Life, and the great flood of Noah. As a Catholic, I came realize that in order to fully appreciate and understand the concept of beauty and the Holy Scriptures, we must first examine the entire history, literature, and archaeology of the ancient Middle East.