Mercy

MERCY. - A moral virtue, a potential part of justice, and it consists in feeling compassion for the misfortune of others and being moved to relieve it. The virtue of mercy has in common with charity that both tend to the good of one's neighbor; however, the motivating cause is different, since in mercy it is compassion, aroused by the neighbor's misery, that moves one to relieve him of the evil he suffers; in charity, on the other hand, it is the very benevolence toward one's neighbor that induces one to desire and procure his good.

The same natural law teaches us to do to others what we wish done to ourselves. The Divine Savior, during his mortal life, impressed upon his disciples to be merciful "as your Father in Heaven is merciful" (Lk. 6:36). There is therefore a correlation between the m. that man exercises toward his neighbor and that which God will show toward him (Mt. 5:7; 18:21). He was the first to have feelings of most vivid m. toward his own disciples, often rough and ignorant, toward sinners and the sick, bringing forgiveness and comfort everywhere, and working miracles out of compassion for the ills of others. His immeasurable m. shines through, barely covered by a veil, in the parables of the prodigal son, of the lost sheep, of the good Samaritan (cf. also: Mt. 6:12; 25:35 ff.; Mk. 4:24). Behind the teaching of Christ is that of the Apostles (Col. 3:12; Eph. 4:32).

The misery that m. intends to relieve embraces any sorrow or evil of one's neighbor; therefore the works of m. can be spiritual or corporal. By way of example, the Catechism enumerates 14 of them, 7 for each kind. The corporal ones are: 1) to feed the hungry; 2) to give drink to the thirsty; 3) to clothe the naked; 4) to shelter pilgrims; 5) to visit the sick; 6) to ransom prisoners; 7) to bury the dead (Tob. 6:12). The spiritual ones are: 1) to instruct the ignorant; 2) to counsel the doubtful; 3) to comfort the sorrowful; 4) to correct sinners; 5) to forgive offenders; 6) to bear with troublesome people; 7) to pray for the living and the dead. Among the works of corporal m. is to be included almsgiving (v.), understood in the strict sense, that is, as a material thing given out of compassion to the needy to relieve him of his misery. The greater the indigence, the more the obligation to help one's needy neighbor increases; the greater one's personal ability to relieve one's neighbor of the evil in which he lies, the more serious is the moral duty to bring help.

In extreme necessity and in grave necessity the obligation is undoubtedly grave; in common necessity, the obligation appears light.

Giuseppe Sirna

THE WORKS OF MERCY IN ART

Classified under this term in Catholic catechisms into two distinct groups — seven works of spiritual mercy and seven works of corporal mercy — only the second group received extensive figurative representation, and the first six, which derive from Mt. 25:34-36, [appeared] several centuries before the 7th, "bury the dead," which is first mentioned in G. Durand (Rationale divin. officiorum, VI, ch. 19), but appears in artistic figurations only in the 14th century.

The first six works of mercy, in the characterization of the individual Gospel statements, entered the iconographic repertoire of Christian art around the year 1000. Their first figuration is found in an Ottonian ivory in the British Museum: the cover of the Psalter known as that of Queen Melisende (1050), in which it is King David who performs the six works of mercy in the order indicated by St. Matthew. A more complete illustration of the Gospel passage is in Parma, in the exterior decoration of the Baptistery, the work of B. Antelami (12th century), in the portal known as that of the Redeemer. Here for the first time the six works of mercy form part of a grandiose allegorical-moral complex and, as in the Gospel of St. Matthew, are related to the Last Judgment depicted in the lunette and on the architrave. Opposite the works of mercy is depicted the Gospel parable of the vinedressers (Mt. 20:1-18) in the Augustinian interpretation of the six ages of man, which in theological writings are often made to correspond to the six works of mercy. Figures of Virtues complete the moral teaching. The works of mercy are performed by a figure in tunic and mantle in whom one cannot recognize, as some have done, Christ, because of the absence of the traditional symbols. In each scene there are admonitory captions. At other times, especially beyond the Alps, the works of mercy are related, but simply, to the Last Judgment. Thus in the cathedral of Basel (St. Gall's Gate, 12th century), in the church of Petershausen at Konstanz, in a rose window of the cathedral of Freiburg and in a stained-glass window in the atrium of the south tower of the cathedral of Strasbourg, in which Christ appears as a beggar and says: "Esurivi enim et dedisti mihi manducare... etc." Even after the Middle Ages the works of mercy retain their character of moral teaching indicated by the relation to the Last Judgment, as in a stained-glass window of the church of St. Florentius at Niederhasbach in Alsace, in the 15th-century frescoes of the church of St. Florentius at Bastia Piemontese, and, in the late 16th century, in the reliefs of the pulpit of the cathedral of Trier (where there is also the very rare figuration of the works of spiritual mercy). The vitality of the teaching is such that this theme manages to penetrate even into the East, which had never received it, and, with an almost unchanged iconography, the works of mercy appear together with the Last Judgment in a late 18th-century fresco in the church of Panaghia Phaneromeni on the island of Salamis. When they are not linked to the scene of the Last Judgment they are often represented as deriving from the figure of Mercy. Thus in the bronze baptismal font of the cathedral of Hildesheim, in which Mercy, represented as a queen on a throne, gives a loaf of bread to an old man and pours water for a young man, and around are a sick man, a prisoner, a pilgrim and a poor man clothing himself. An inscription says: "Dat veniam sceleri per opes inopem misereri," and the prophet Isaiah, who completes the ensemble, holds a scroll on which is written: "Frange esurienti panem tuum et egenos vagosque induc in domum tuam." A similar scene is also on a carpet (16th century) in the Museum of Cluny. In the miniatures of the 14th-century parchment codex containing the vernacular translation of the Pater noster made by ser Zucchero Bencivenni (Florence, Bibl. naz., cod. II-VI-16), Mercy is a maiden watering a tree (f. 47), and nearby is the scene of the almsgiving of St. Martin, which often in France (cathedrals of Amiens, Reims, Auxerre, Chartres) symbolized charity. In the Florentine codex only the scenes of "welcoming pilgrims" (f. 43), "visiting the sick" (f. 48), "visiting prisoners" (f. 49) and "clothing the naked" (f. 52) survive. At other times the works of mercy symbolize the spirit of charity that distinguished the life of some illustrious personage, who is then represented in the act of performing works of piety. Thus St. Elizabeth, Queen of Germany, appears in scenes of works of mercy in two colored stained-glass windows in the church of St. Elizabeth at Marburg and on the lid of the rich reliquary of the same church (a precious work of Franco-German goldsmithing from 1220), in which, as in the stained-glass windows, the works of mercy are interspersed with episodes from the life of the Saint. The most complete catechetical teaching, however, is on the portal of the church of St. Mary of the Salute at Viterbo, founded in 1330 as an oratory of the hospice for women in childbirth. There are represented for the first time the seven works of spiritual mercy and those of corporal mercy, of which the 7th, "bury the dead" (two monks lower a corpse into the grave and a cross-bearing acolyte observes the scene), entered moral teachings, perhaps for contingent reasons, well before the 14th century. It was in fact practiced predominantly by those institutions (confraternities, hospices, hospitals) for which charity is the purpose of life. The theme of the works of mercy thus completed also served to illustrate such works of assistance (an example is offered by the precious illuminated codex of the Hospital of the Holy Spirit in Rome, the Liber Regulae S. Spiritus of the 14th century, where the works of mercy are represented with greater iconographic freedom because they are related to scenes of hospital life) and as such it appears down to very late periods, keeping its moral language intact, even when stylistic forms differ according to the individual imagination of the artists.

Equal significance will therefore have the 6 panels with works of mercy (among them the scene of "burying the dead") painted by Lorenzo Monaco (Vatican Pinacoteca, nos. 196-201, Porcella catalogue) and the Byzantine-style fresco in the cathedral of Bergamo with one of the charitable "processions of the Brothers of Mercy" (a gentleman and two servants carrying bread and drink to poor naked men); the great frescoes of Domenico di Bartolo in the "Pellegrinaio" of the Hospital of the Scala at Siena, with scenes of assistance to the sick and needy, and the seven works of mercy painted in the oratory of St. Leonard (known as the S. Francescuccio) at Assisi, seat of a confraternity; the 15th-century frescoes of St. Martin of the Buonomini in Florence, where the scene of the almsgiving of St. Martin is related to the works of mercy, and the Robbiana terracotta frieze of the Hospital of the Ceppo at Pistoia, which Baglioni composed with popular taste, with a greatly renewed iconography, while still maintaining the ancient Gospel tradition of depicting Christ in the poor man and the pilgrim. Finally there came the great canvas by Caravaggio with the Seven Works of Mercy for the church of the Pio Monte della Misericordia in Naples, in which the freedom of pictorial language and iconography (the unique idea of placing as a symbol of "visiting prisoners" and "feeding the hungry" the scene of the daughter who nourished her old imprisoned father with the milk of her breast) takes nothing away from the theme of that charitable impulse which the Gospel passage has maintained through the centuries. - See pl. LXXI.

Maria Luisa Bonifazi