Transcripts

Episode 3: Terrible Majesty

Bartholomew did not need to have faith, for in every waking moment he perceived the movements of the angels.

We laughed at him when he tried to tell us about it, although we were supposed to be servants of God, and after some time he just gave up and kept it all inside himself.

Years later, when the earth was sinking under the sea, I tried to find him, hoping that his visions could lead me back to some kind of faith. He'd moved out of the city to a remote village that needed a priest. People told me not to go. Some of the roads had been swept away by the rains, they said, the whole valley was soon going to be under water...

But there was something else beneath those warnings; something about Bartholomew that made them uncomfortable. Don't go near him, they seemed to be saying. There is something wrong with someone like that. 

We respect the people who believe in God, but anyone who claims to have seen him must be a lunatic. After all, most people who claim to have seen God are lunatics. So we go about our lives, even those of us who have faith, assuming that God is an abstraction, a feeling, a utopia we will reach some day in the distant future... but not something real. Not something that exists in our lives.

Imagine you could speak to God. Not as we do in prayer, begging at an empty sky and desperately hoping that every random thing that happens is some kind of response, some kind of sign; no, imagine you could look him in the eye - and be seen. Imagine yourself in a room with a God who is not in your head, not in everything, but right there, separate from you, a real entity.

He is as old as Time. He has killed billions of humans and trillions and trillions of animals. He has caused fires and earthquakes and storms, and now he is drowning the world. He created life. He created death. He made everything, but he chose to make it like this. A world of agony and misery and transcendence and hope.

What could you say to such a being? And if it said something to you, could you ever hope to understand it? Or would even a single glimpse of him destroy your mind?

Bartholomew left the city looking for peace. His angels tormented him with their messages, and he hoped that somewhere between the rivers and the trees their voices might mingle with birdsong. I followed the road that brought him to the valley in an old half-broken car borrowed from Jacob, but if there was some natural beauty here that soothed the mind, it was lost in the relentless rain. The gentle rivers had become raging torrents, and the only people I met were headed in the opposite direction.

When I asked about Bartholomew, they all said the same thing: don't you know what he's done? Some were outraged at his crimes and wished him dead; others pitied him, merely wanted him caught. But he was nowhere to be found; he'd wandered off into the rain, crying and screaming at God.

I thought about turning back. The car was struggling with all the water on the road, and I had no desire to die, but something someone had said about Bartholomew's church kept me going. Maybe I thought I could find an answer to how Bartholomew could have done these things. The man I'd known had been deeply compassionate, even when the world treated him poorly, as it often did.

As we often did.

I remembered that Bartholomew had been a painter, and a fiercely talented one: his paintings were striking in their intensity, their golden colours and processions of winged figures calling to mind the icons of the Eastern Churches. Perhaps, since none of us would listen to him, those paintings became the only outlet for the divine messages that flooded his mind.

When I stepped inside Bartholomew's church I finally realized the immensity of his talent and the depth of his madness. The entire interior of the church, from the walls to the ceiling, was a single, luminous painting of unsurpassed beauty and terror.

In rich hues of gold and red, punctuated by twisting, intertwining figures in deepest black, he had captured the full power of a divine vision. When I saw it, I fell to my knees; no other response was even conceivable. Then I saw the writing.

In small, delicate letters, it flowed from figure to figure, swirling around the room, ascending all the way to the ceiling. It was impossible to tell where exactly it began, so I picked a spot and began to read.

This is what it said:

The demon is not to be judged. It was there at the beginning of Time, and it understands the ways of God as well as any angel. In every terror, it perceives beauty. This is not a fault in its vision; it is the revelation of God's terrible majesty, and He intended it this way. He crafted the demon's horns as carefully as he made the angels' wings, so they might fulfil his purposes on Earth.

The demon is not to be hated, for it acts in accordance with its nature in the service of beauty. The demon is wise in its foolishness, pure in its abandon. The demon brings suffering, but it does not suffer. When the eagle tears the flesh of the dove, it proclaims the glory of the kingdom of God.

The demon is not to be pitied, for it is not broken; it is more whole than anything in the crumbling realm of the angels. The demon is evil, but active evil is better than passive good.

I have spoken to the demon many times since the beginning of the Flood, and it has shared much of its infernal wisdom. The price has been terrible, but the demon feels no remorse, for it does the work of God.

The angels do as they have always done; they are servants of the eternal. For a lifetime I sought to understand them, but in the end their words were meaningless. Their beauty is immense, their power beyond imagining; but they would let the world die.

The demon is a creature of Energy: it consumes, it destroys, and it changes. Because it understands change, it can see the truth which the angels fail to see. The demon knows how to save the world - and it has told me.

But I am only a man. The songs of the angels deafen me, and the wisdom of the demon burns me. I want to be whole and free, my soul lighter than a feather, not burdened with these endless visions. I cannot bear the weight of the truth, and every day I beg God to release me. Why have I been chosen for this?

That's where I stopped reading. The storm broke one of the windows and I realized I had to leave as quickly as possible.

But the text went on - there was so much more. What else did it say? Could Bartholomew be telling the truth? Did he know how to save the world? Under any other circumstances it would have seemed absurd, but in that church, surrounded by that remarkable painting, I almost believed him.

Or maybe it was all an excuse, a way for Bartholomew to explain his crimes away, to make himself a victim rather than a perpetrator. Or even more simply, he was just mad, and none of it meant a thing.

After all, what kind of God revealed the path to salvation to a broken man who has done such terrible things? It seemed like a bad, cruel joke. But perhaps the answer was: the kind of God who demands the death of his own son.

None of it made any sense, or if it did, the truth was too painful to bear. I understood Bartholomew's desire to be released.

And yet... the beauty of what he had created, the transcendence of those golden images... how could we deny all that? What if this was God's will made manifest? What if this was a miracle?

By the time I'd made it back to the city, the whole valley was lost beneath the waters.

—

Narrated by Peter Wingfield

Written & Directed by Jonas Kyratzes

Music & Sound by Chris Christodoulou

Violin - Kalliopi Mitropoulou

Violoncello - Zoé Saubat

Cover art - Daniele Giardini