oa Jeroen Bosch: Katholiek of ketter

The problem of the orthodoxy or heterodoxy of Hieronymus Bosch has been intensively discussed in the literature about this great painter without having led to a consensus. The author does not claim to offer new material for solving this dilemma, but has investigated the arguments given using the methods of science of religion, his own discipline. Doing this he shows up all main arguments used pro and contra as invalid. This goes as well for the arguments for his having been a true son of the mother church, as for those for his having belonged to the sect of the Free Spirit (Fraengcr) or even the Rosicrucians (Wertheim Aymès). The available material is insufficient for a clear decision. Only his radical pessimism in the face of evil justifies us to place the painter in any case in the far margin of the church of his days.