Les Alyscamps: The “Pagan and Christian Cemetery”

Near the Rhône River in the south of France, in the city of Arles can be found a Roman necropolis called Les Alyscamps, the name itself a corruption of the Latin  Elisii Campi ("Elysian Fields"). Although I’ve never been there, I understand it is a beautiful place, as evidenced by the fact that both Gauguin and Van Gogh painted there. According to the early-twentieth-century historian of Christian folklore John W. Taylor, a wonderful legend grew up around this particular cemetary to facilitate the cultural transition from Roman Paganism to Christianity that occurred in the region in the third century. Arles was settled by Greek mariners in the sixth century BCE, and so Les Alyscamps had probably been a Pagan burial site for the better part of a millennium by the time Christianity arrived on the scene. The first Bishop of the region was named Trophimus, and as he  gathered a community of Christians around him, one practical question that emerged was, where should the members of the young church bury their dead? Many would have loved ones and family members interred at Les Alyscamps, but as Christians their hope was to be buried in ground that was disctinctively sanctified to their faith, not to the Pagan gods. According to folklore, Trophimus walked to the graveyard one summer evening, lost in thought as he mulled over this question that struck at the core of the faith (any anthropologist can tell you how in nearly every culture funeral customs lie close to the heart of religious and cultic practices). As he walked along the gorgeous tree-lined avenues of the necropolis, legend holds that Trophimus saw a light shining in the darknesss — and Christ himself appeared to the bishop. As Taylor puts it,

Kneeling among the tombs, as if identifying Himself with those whose bodies were resting underneath the soil, the Saviour was seen by St. Trophimus to raise His hands and to solemnly bless the Pagan burial-place. Henceforth no doubt was felt as to the reality of this heavenly consecration. On the spot where our Savior knelt St. Trophimus erected an altar… Whether this is the record of an actual vision or the poetical way in which [Trophimus] described to [his church] the light which God had given him, there can be no doubt of the result. Christian tombs lie side by side with Pagan, and  tradition tells us that so eager were many Christians for burial here that — something like the body of Elaine, which was sent down the river to the court of King Arthur in the Arthurian legends — bodies of saints from distant countries came floating down the Rhone in funeral barges, seeking for reception in the holy ground which Christ had consecrated.

Taylor himself calls Les Alycamps the "Pagan and Christian cemetery."

What I find so powerful and beautiful about this legend of inter-religious hospitality is that Christ knelt to give the Pagan dead his blessing. It’s kind of like when the president of the United States salutes the military: a practice instituted by Ronald Reagan, and technically a violation of military protocol, for as the civilian commander-in-chief the president is to be saluted, but need not salute in return. While I’m not much of a stickler for armed services protocol, this practice always annoyed me (truth be told, because just about anything Reagan did I found annoying). But now, thanks to this wonderful French legend, I must grudgingly look at the Reagan salute in a new light. Christian theology would hold that Christ need not kneel before anyone — not even the 1st Person of the Trinity, since he is "one with the Father before all worlds, God from God, light from light, true God from true God." Christ need kneel before no created thing, and yet Bishop Trophimus sees the Son of God kneeling to give a Pagan cemetary his blessing.

Wow.

If we are willing to put any credence in this tradition at all, an obvious question emerges: why should Christ only bless this particular piece of ground? Why not bless any and all Pagan cemetaries? And perhaps — just perhaps — this could be seen as a precedent for how Christ would have Christians relate to Pagan faith and practice, in many other areas of life as well: not with fear or hostility, but rather with a gracious and humble blessing?

It’s worth contemplating. 

Thanks to Wikipedia and John W. Taylor’s charming if not entirely reliable history of western Christian folklore, The Coming of the Saints, for the source material for this post.