Double portrait

Double portrait

After 2 long sermons comes this double portrait at the end of the book.

Under the man are two Bible quotes in Latin and German: »I am not as other men are« (Luke 18:11) and »I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing« (first half of Revelation 3:17)

If you turn the page 180 degrees, the cadaver says: »See, dear human, how I still have become nothing and didn't know it«. But first of all there has been tampered with the Latin quote: »ecce [=see, how] ad nihilum redactus"«, even if Psalm 73:22 is supposed to sound: »ego [=I] ad nihilum redactus"«, and secondly the verse sounds quite differently in English (King James), »So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast before thee«. So there's a great difference depending on which Bible you use.

The cadaver continues: »Alas, how wretched, how miserable I yet am. Poor, naked, blind and bare, and knew it not«, which is a creative rewrite of the rest of Revelation 3:17 (the same verse that the man just quoted): »and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked«.