Monsters, corporeal Deformities, and phantasms in the Cloister of St-Michel-de-Cuxa

If the ordered body reflected the harmonious nature of the godly soul, corporeal deformations furnished metaphors for the soul's potential degeneracy. Pope Gregory the Great set the tone for later Christian thought on this matter in his Moralia in Job by drawing an essential contrast between upright men, governed by reason, and sinners, or "deformed" men who behave like beasts. Commenting on Job 33:27, Gregory affirms, "[Scripture] calls those 'men' whom reason distinguishes from the beasts, that is, who it shows to be unaffected by the bestial influence of passions... For the Lord in truth feeds them, whom carnal pleasure does not affect as it does the beasts. But, on the other hand, they who yield to the desires of the flesh, are no longer called men, but beasts." (50) Anticipating Bernard's rhetorical contrast of "deformed beauty" and "beautiful deformity," Gregory goes on to suggest that the rational man will correct his bestial behavior by observing the contrast between his own sinful character and that of holy men. "For if a person is desirous of most completely learning his real character, he ought no doubt to look at those who are different from himself: so that from the beauty of the good he may measure the extent of his own deformity.... For by those who possess every good quality in abundance, he rightly considers what he himself lacks. And he beholds in their beauty his own deformity...." (51)

Perhaps the most highly developed theory of the relationship between man's rational and animal natures in the early twelfth century is outlined by William of St-Thierry, the Benedictine abbot to whom Bernard wrote his Apologia. In book 1 of The Nature of the Body and Soul, (52) William argues that man is distinguished from beasts principally by the faculty of reason, which "stands in the middle [of the brain] as queen and lady, differentiating us from beasts." William associates "animal power" or sensation with the forward part of the brain, where imagination is also lodged. (53) In book 2, which deals with the "Physics of the Soul," he emphasizes that because man is cast "in the image of him who created [the soul]," that man stands erect "reaching toward heaven and looking up [and this] signifies the imperial and regal dignity of the rational soul." By contrast, those who ignore the rational soul and "slavishly serve the lusts arising from the senses" are said to "have put off the image of the Creator and ha ve put on another image, one that looks at the ground like an animal, one that is beastly." (54)

The theory of a lower animal nature within man's soul made it possible to conceive that malevolent forces could deform man's perfect corporeal image. At least within the realm of the imagination, a man's carnal impulses could result in the demonic transformation of his physical body into beast or monster. Such thinking could spawn, in turn, the images of monsters, the "deformed beauty" and "beautiful deformity" captured so vividly by Saint Bernard.