The Road to Heaven
Author: Luiken, Jan, 1649-1712
Image Title: The Road to Heaven
Scripture Reference:
- Colossians 3 (further images / scripture text)
Description: A man climbs a ladder, which leads from the World to Heaven, where he is awaited by a number of angels with a palm branch and a wreath. Various persons, held back by Satan, remain at the foot of the ladder. The Dutch artist and poet Jan Luiken (1649-1712), whose initials are at the lower right, was responsible for drawing and etching this emblem and for the poem that accompanies it (below). The attendant scripture text is Colossians 3:1-2.
Poem:
He who wishes to enjoy eternal salvation in the Kingdom of Heaven,
Must, after deliberation, choose from two options the Best:
I know no other way, than to forsake the Earth,
As he who wants to go to the East, must come straight from the West.
Can someone else, so he imagines in his confidence
Along a better, and easier path,
Arrive at One, and also retain the Other,
It is by his reckoning, I do not see it.
Or, does a second one also not want to give up hope,
To leave, and choose, the One instead of the Other,
But take the world with him along the path to heaven,
I leave it also to him, the burden is too heavy for me.
Climb, oh my foot, on the rungs given to us,
Now is the time to climb, while the means stands there,
Affix your hands, and keep your eye raised,
Before this ladder arbitrarily departs.
Away Earth, coarse lump, who can bring you upwards?
The little flesh from you, burdens us still too much.
Who can mix the world and the heaven,
Who can bake good tasting bread from clay and pure flour?
Go away then world, who canst give proper human life,
With everything that thou doest contain, in thine encumbrance,
No real happiness of achieving true rest,
But take it finally to heart, as stone of pain and suffering.
Hell is beneath thee, each should flee from thee,
Before he like a stone sinks with thine weight,
And the helping hand is no longer offered,
That now during life’s entire day beckons and signs.
(Translation by Josephine V. Brown, with editorial assistance from William G. Stryker)
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