Christian Odyssey
If you visit the abbey church of Corvey, where St Ansgar was a monk, and climb up to the ninth-century choir of the west front, you make a fascinating discovery. On the north wall is a mural painted more than 1,000 years old portraying Odysseus battling Scylla. What’s he doing there? An example of medieval syncretism? A watering-down of the Gospel in terms of classical literature? No. In the ancient Church, Odysseus was widely seen as a type not only of the Christian journey (see Notebook 5 May 2022), but of Christ. Our ancestors in the faith were convinced that Christ was the answer to the ideals and noblest dreams of all peoples and periods, the recapitulator of culture. Their conviction was well-founded. We could do with reappropriating it, should we have lost it. One of the chief Christian tasks here and now is surely to demonstrate that Christ alone corresponds to the deepest longings and best aspirations of our own age, however confusedly they may be expressed.
