[35] Matthew, chapter xxiv. verse 31.
[36] 1 Corinthians, chapter xv. verses 51, 52.
In the Middle Ages these passages were interpreted very literally and had a great influence over the people. At that time the Christian religion was a religion of fear rather than of love, and men were continually picturing in their minds God's angry separation of the good from the wicked.
How much such thoughts occupied them we may see from Dante's great poem describing a vision of the Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise. This was written in the thirteenth century, and in the same period appeared a short Latin lyric, or hymn, called "Dies Irae," or the Day of Wrath, from an expression used by the old Hebrew prophet Zephaniah. The author was a Franciscan monk named Thomas of Celano, and we may see how deeply he felt from these verses:—
"Ah! what terror is impending
When the Judge is seen descending,
And each secret veil is rending.
"To the throne, the trumpet sounding,
Through the sepulchres resounding,
Summons all, with voice astounding.
"Sits the Judge, the raised arraigning,
Darkest mysteries explaining,
Nothing unavenged remaining."
This vivid word picture forms the subject of many great paintings by the older Italian masters, known under the title of the Last Judgment. Michelangelo's was one of the last of these, and in general arrangement his composition resembles those of his predecessors.
From the upper air a company of angels descends, carrying a cross, a crown of thorns, and other instruments of the Saviour's sufferings. Below them is the Judge himself surrounded by the apostles and other saints. Underneath are the archangels blowing their trumpets. On earth, in the lowest part of the picture at the left, the dead rise from their graves and ascend through the air to the Judge. At the right, opposite the ascending dead, are the condemned sinners, descending to the boat which will carry them over the river Styx into the Inferno.
