The Gospel passage for this Sunday has Jesus’ transfiguration at the top of the mountain while the disciples are trying to heal an epileptic child below. Both incidents deal with questions of identity. Jesus is confirmed in his because the prophets Moses and Elijah stand beside him and a voice from heaven speaks to him about his future. The epileptic, by contrast, is stripped of his identity because at the point of seizure he has no knowledge of who he or others might be. He is thrown onto his own elemental self, relying on blind instinct to guide him. Van Gogh was an epileptic. He was treated at a sanatorium in Arles. The treatment stopped his fits but dulled his senses to the extent that he could no longer paint. He discharged himself from hospital, went back to painting, madness and eventual suicide. The immediate moment is all of which the epileptic can be sure. He lives without memory of salvation or promise of paradise. He has nothing in him but to be faithful in a faithless world. We are left, as Foucault (1979:228) says, with a moment of silence. It is a question without answer - Do we pity or admire him?

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