# Judex tremebundus ante januam



## JiPiJou

In _*Mon Journal*_, Léon Bloy (an 'ultra' Catholic) mentions in his usual apocalyptic style the fire of *Le Bazar de la Charité*, in May 1897 in Paris, which killed 135 persons (130 women and children), largely from the French aristocracy, including Marie-Charlotte de Wittelsbach, duchess of Alençon, the Empress of Austria’s (‘Sissi’) younger sister _(numerous Internet sites on the subject including French Wikipedia)_. He rejoices in seeing God’s fire descending upon a charity which some called “Bazar de la Vanité” and goes as far as regretting there were no more victims.

His long rambling text (see http://lirenligne.free.fr/livre_ext.php?URL_ext=http://abu.cnam.fr/cgi-bin/donner_html?journbloy1 and search for "bazar") includes numerous Latin quotations from the Gospels, always with precise references. *Only **one *has no such indication and, using a search engine, I could not find it anywhere in the Bible. It concerns the visit of the papal nuncio who had come to give his blessing and the fact that the fire started soon after he had left (which Bloy took as a sign of God’s vengeance) :

*Le Nonce du pape était venu bénir "la Truie qui file"* *un instant avant le feu.  Il était à peine sorti que cela **commençait *_*“Judex tremebundus ante januam”*_. 

_Translation _: The papal nuncio had come to give his blessing to "La Truie qui file" * a moment before the fire. He had barely left that the fire started _"the frightening judge before the gate". [my translation of the Latin quote]_
_
* the name of one of the stalls in a mediaeval-looking street, which was the theme chosen for the jumble sale.__ Bloy found that name very shocking as, he says earlier on, it was that of a brothel in the Middle-Ages._

 I googled the Latin sentence in vain. Only the separate words appear. Could it be a religious, literary or historical reference ?

Thank you.


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## Cagey

By searching for _iudex tremendus_, I found a Wiki article on Prophecy of the Popes attributed to  Saint Malachy.  The list of prophecies includes one attributed to Pope Peter II. (Its authenticity is in question.)Petrus Romanus(_Peter Roman_) In persecutione extrema S.R.E. sedebit Petrus Romanus, qui pascet oues in multis tribulationibus: quibus transactis ciuitas septicollis diruetur, et Iudex tremendus iudicabit populum. Finis.

(_In extreme persecution, the seat of the Holy Roman Church will be occupied by Peter the Roman, who will feed the sheep through many tribulations; when they are over, the city of seven hills will be destroyed, and the terrible or fearsome Judge will judge his people. The End._)​The "Judge to be feared" is the Final Judge.  Is this likely to be the source of your author's allusion?  

Religious doctrine is not something I know much about. I am posting this information in case someone better informed can make use of it.


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## JiPiJou

Cagey said:


> By searching for _iudex tremendus_, I found a Wiki article on Prophecy of the Popes attributed to  Saint Malachy.  The list of prophecies includes one attributed to Pope Peter II. (Its authenticity is in question.)



Thank you. This is interesting. And the adjective "tremendus" would fit the situation.

Actually, there are a number of problems concerning my query.

1) the whole phrase "judex tremebundus ante januam" cannot be found *anywhere *on the Internet, which is rather unusual. *Could it be that* Léon Bloy made it up ? Of course, that sounds like an easy way out when one does not find the answer. Yet, it would explain why it is the only quote of the text which has no reference.

2) The translation of "tremebundus" seems to be "trembling". *Could it also mean *"_which makes one tremble" _? God, the Supreme Judge, who decides who will enter the gates, either of heaven or of hell does not tremble : he *makes *people tremble while waiting for His decision. Yet, Léon Bloy could read latin very well and constantly quotes the Bible in his books. I doubt he would make a vocabulary mistake.

3) I have found one instance of "*judex anten januam*" (without the adjective). It is in the Epistle of James (V, 9) : « Nolite ingemiscere, fratres, in alterutrum, ut non judicemini. Ecce *judex ante januam* assistit ». [Don't grumble, brothers, against one another, so that you won't be judged. Behold, the judge stands at the door.].
*Could it be* that Léon Bloy has added the adjective to give it the apocalyptic touch he wanted ? The nuncio giving his blessing at the entrance of the soon-to-be-burnt building as the image of a fearsome God hovering above humanity and throwing sinners into the fire of hell.


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## Cagey

I am only acquainted with classical Latin.  The following are my thoughts.

1 & 3) You know your author better than I, but in human terms, it seems to me very possible that he added the word he expected, without even realizing that it was an addition.  There is an interesting parallel in a comment in an EO thread.  The discussion is about articles that are absent where we would expect them:


> The odd thing is that this is one of my favorite poems, by my favorite poets, but when I recite it to myself, I slip in the missing articles. I had to check two or three sites to assure myself that Yeats had, indeed, omitted them.


The other possibility is that "judex tremebundus" was the usual phrase at the time.

2) In classical Latin, _tremebundus_ would generally mean "trembling", with _-bundus_ a suffix meaning "repeated action".  However, at the time your author was writing, it might also have been understood to have the meaning of a gerundive (_-endus_) "to be trembled at", or _tremere _itself may have had a transitive sense.  If it means "trembling", then the judge must be someone else, the nuncio, as you say. 

Later Latin has many changes of this sort, a tendency toward regularizing and simplifying the language.

There are participants in the forum who have more experience with later Latin.  If we are fortunate, one of them will notice the thread and add to it.


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## JiPiJou

Thank you, _*Cagey*_. What you say fits with the whole. 

Bloy was constantly making latin quotes from the Bible and was literally immersed in the Bible. So the idea that he might add, perhaps unconscioulsy, the missing (but adequate) words is very appealing, and the fact that people familiar with certain texts have been doing just that is most interesting. It may also be the whole sentence which had come naturally to his mind as best representing the situation he almost visualized : at the time (and for Bloy in particular) God was fearsome, sitting, Jupiter-like, on a throne with a flash of lightning in His hand ! Later on, to justify the catastrophe, he says "God strikes, and He strikes with justice."

Concerning the meaning of "tremebundus", it is out of the question that Bloy may have made a vocabulary mistake. So the possibility of the word having become a gerundive or the verb transitive in late church latin would solve that difficulty.

In this text, the "judge" is indeed the nuncio considered as the representative of Christ ; no doubt about that. I did not mention it because the quote would have been too long, but Bloy actually says that, later on. "_The sacrilegious benediction of he who is the Vicar of Jesus-Christ and therefore Jesus-Christ Himself has gone to where it always goes, that is to the fire which is the roaring world of the Holy Spirit_". (As you see, Bloy's style was rather... flamboyant !)

Thank you.


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## Kevin Beach

There hasn't been a Pope Peter II, of course. Malachi's prophecies are in the genre of Nostradamus'.

The judge of Christian scripture is Christ himself, I think, who will judge all souls at the end of time. Similar references can be found in the prayers of the Requiem Mass in Latin.

I suggest that the author intends it to be an allegory of the conventional Christian usage, and has applied it to the papal nuncio who was attending the immolation.

Papal nuncios have been standard representatives of the Vatican for centuries. Nowadays, they are the ambassadors of the sovereign state of the Vatican City to the countries with which it has diplomatic relations.


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## JiPiJou

_*Kevin Beach*_'s reference to the _Requiem _could be an answer if we suppose that "_*judex tremebundus ante januam*_" is not a real qutotation but a way of putting into words an image in Bloy's mind, which would sum up perfectly the_ Libera me_ :

"Libera me, Domine, de morte æterna, in die illa *tremenda*, quando coeli movendi sunt et terra, dum veneris *iudicare *sæculum per *ignem*. *Tremens *factus sum ego et timeo, dum discussio venerit atque ventura ira. Dies illa, *dies iræ*, calamitatis, et miseriæ, dies magna et amara valde."


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## Kevin Beach

I think there may be even more to this than meets the eye. Assuming that the fire spoken of is the burning of a heretic at the stake, then that in itself carries a strong theological message. As horrifying as we see it now, some medieval minds believed that the burning of a heretic's live body in a temporal fire could save his soul from the eternal fire of Hell.

There was also (and to some extent still is) the belief that the Church carries the power of salvation bestowed by Christ on His Apostles ("Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven; whose sins you shall retain, they are retained" [John 20:21–23] - and I'm setting this out to explain the theology, not to justify it).

Therefore, the Papal Nuncio's presence and blessing at the start of the fire may have been seen as the Church easing the heretic's way to salvation - standing on this side of the gateway to the next world and performing the role of judge in a sense, but more in the way of predicting Christ's merciful judgment on the other side of the gateway.

But please note the "may be"s !

_(By the way, your quoting the "Libera me" has had me humming Verdi's Requiem all evening!)_


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## JiPiJou

Kevin Beach said:


> _(By the way, your quoting the "Libera me" has had me humming Verdi's Requiem all evening!)_


 
In the present context, I can understand it ; very "tremebundus", that piece ! What the"libera me" makes *me* think of is Fauré's. So much more peaceful and reassuring.

To come back to the point : no, the fire was of a great wooden hall in which a parish jumble sale had been organized in Paris. 1200 persons were present and the stalls were managed by women of the highest French aristocracy (including Sissi's sister). The Lumière brothers were showing their first films and the gas used in the projector set fire to the whole building which was burnt to the ground in less thant fifteen minutes. Some 135 persons were killed (130 women and children). The fire started just after the nuncio had given his blessing to the venue.

Léon Bloy's anger came from the fact that he believed these women were *showing off* their generosity towards the poor as a testimony of their impeccable catholicity... and also that he believed nobody on this earth was catholic enough.


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