Rita Grosse-Ruyken

English:

Deutsch:

No matter who you are wishing to praise the splendor of these gates:
marvel at the gold – not at the expense! – [and] at what this work has accomplished!
Nobly shines the work, but the work that shines here so nobly
is designed to illuminate hearts, so that through true lights
they may attain to that true light to which Jesus is the real gate.
It is the inner nature of this [true light] that the golden gate hereby proclaims.
The ponderous spirit uplifts itself to the Truth with the aid of tangible matter,
and although it had fallen first, it arises anew after beholding this light.

Suger von Saint-Denis, Abbot – 1140 on the main portal of the abbeys basilica.

(Speer, Andreas/Binding, Günther (Hrsg.): Abt Suger von Saint-Denis. Ausgewählte Schriften: Ordinatio, De consecratione, De administratione. Darmstadt 2005. There also the initial quotation p. 325)


Endlessly much has been written about the ministry of Suger (1081 Saint-Omer – Saint-Denis near Paris 1151), Abbot of the French royal cemetery. The highly complex philosophy of religion of this statesman, builder and doctor of the church stands at art history’s center of interest and is summarized in the inscription on the portal: May the ...