Angels in the Architecture: A Protestant Vision for Middle Earth

by Douglas M. Jones III

It is a basic principle of spiritual integrity that only light can incarnate. In fact, according to Thomas Aquinas, only in radiance can truth, beauty, or goodness be known. Light-both physical and moral-was thus a central concern to the men and women living in the medieval age. They attempted to explore its properties in the colors of a stained glass canopy, in the tenor of a brisk saltarello, in the lilt of a Jongleur's ballad, in the sweet savor of a banqueting table, in the rhapsody of a well planned garden, indeed, in every arena and discipline of life. It is therefore more than a little ironic that their culture has commonly been described as the Dark Ages as if the light of civilization had somehow been unceremoniously snuffed out for a time. It has similarly been dubbed the Middle Ages-as if it were a sort of gaping parenthesis in mankind's long upward march to modernity. It was in fact anything but dark or middling. Perhaps our greatest fault today is that we limit ourselves by a chronological parochialism. It is difficult for us to attribute anything but backwardness to those epochs and cultures that do not share our goals or aspirations. The medieval