Essay VI. On Similitudes.
MY youngest brother once asked me over dinner what I had done
with the day just passed. I replied that I had been reading the Bible. ‘A great
work of fiction!’ he exclaimed, with the relish of contention. I at once
retorted, ‘A great work, indeed, as you say.’ Yet regarding fiction, there is
to be seen beneath the title page of The
Pilgrim's Progress the passage 'I
have used similitudes' (Hos. xii. 13). A man of genius such as Bunyan knew that
this was the solemn and irrefutable answer to the incredulity of those who
perch on the promontories of analysis, who insist that translucency should be
opaque, and prefer the monotonous self-evident description to the colourful
phosphorous bewitchments of fable and metaphor.
For there is far
more of magic and mystery, of bewitchment and interest, of fascination and
delight, conjured by the dancing visions of vagueness than stirred by the sharp
vistas of clarity. A descendant mist animates in its obscurity the dullest of
scenes, and tinctures the blandest of features with its bedewed silver-gilded
shroud. Lights too illuminate more brilliantly in the darkness; and their
emanations glisten, refract, and dart, with increased effect amongst the
crystalline prisms of raindrops. Blankets of obscuration thus accentuate little
lights, and, to the human imagination, multiply their innate goodness with
imagined potential. To appreciate the power and place of the symbolic and the
metaphorical, and therefore of historic religion, must be to appreciate this
psychological fact. The methods of similitude, allegory, parable, and fable,
are always more directly affecting than those of logical contrivance. They
sublimate the mystery of faith in the fires of eloquence.
The magnificence of
so grand an inheritance as the Bible ought to be preserved, quite as a grand
building ought to be preserved, with as close an exactness as reasonably
possible. Indeed, in the parallel between grand religion and grand
architecture, religion has the inestimable advantage of its capacity to produce
new editions of its works. When a renowned building is altered from its
original state to a modified state, its alteration is irreversible. When a new
edition of the Bible is printed the original is yet intact, as it should indeed
ever remain so, and be always preserved so, for being an irreplaceable
treasure, the most valuable of the world’s artefacts. Yet, Christianity, or
Judaism, as the case may be, is as much a living religion as an ancient
tradition. It must therefore alter with the spirit of religion, or the spirit
of religion will alter without it. Biblical criticism has been felt harsh in
recent times but it has only been felt so because the devout are too sensitive.
The Bible will still be read when these criticisms are forgotten, what then
have the faithful to fear? The great literature is undefeatable, the little
points are unimportant.
The Bible is
literature not dogma, and what literature indeed! Its style is the most
comforting possible, it rocks like a cradle and sounds like a lullaby. It is
also one of the broadest and most thoughtful of books, yet somehow the very
opposite view is most often urged against it. The agnostics, wise in their
conceits and blithe in their vanities, call the Bible narrow. Is it not the
very reverse? How many are there to-day who only speak and write in dogma? They
do not illustrate, describe, rhapsodise, or chronicle, they only utter dogma,
they only think in certainties—the most doubtful of practices. Conversely the
Bible, for its part, furnishes in its leaves almost every form of literature
ever conceived.[1]
Can so creative and varied a book be doomed to the prosaic reproach of
dogmatism? On the contrary, it is untouched by even a single adamantine
prejudice. Its prejudices, where they occur, are half-hearted and short-lived.
There never is a vice in the Bible which is not redeemed by ten virtues.
Naturally there are passions in it, of love and hatred, vengeance and despair,
which is precisely why it is an authority, for who could believe that
two-thousands and three-thousands of years ago mankind were staid? Moreover,
its rough and sometimes appalling passages are never long-lasting, are usually
repented, and are always shrivelled in piety. No sooner is the reckless passion
of the one hundred and thirty-seventh psalm concluded but the sobered faith of
the one hundred and thirty-eighth begins, and no sooner is the settled calm of
the one hundred and-thirty-eighth concluded but the sublimated philosophy of
the one hundred and thirty-ninth is commenced. Even the one hundred and
thirty-ninth turns suddenly vengeful, yet it soon remembers itself and restores
its poise with a calm and dignified prayer, as though to upbraid its own sordid
lapse. Such is the profound sincerity of the Bible; its authors were as human
as we, but their thoughts bore gold. Our modern thoughts may be dross-allayed,
but they are of pyrite only.
Its heroes,
furthermore, are unsparingly described. King David is related as murderer and
adulterer, mighty Samson as monstrous and yielding, Adam as ignorant, Abraham
as petty, Jacob as crafty, even King Solomon in all his wisdom is reputed to
have ‘loved many strange women’.[2]
Nor is Christ excepted; His human weaknesses are exhibited as well as His Godly
strengths[3];
for the story of Christ is as nothing if it is not the story of God and man. It was a frank chronicler who
recorded those words of Jesus ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani’, ‘My God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me?’[4]
It is remarkable in
scripture that, amid its many varied prophecies, tales, histories, and poems,
there are only few theories which permeate it to any notable extent. That of
the soul is one such; that of the afterlife is but occasional; that of Satan is rare. In fact, throughout its
vast, ancient, and often blood-thirsty, record, there is truly only one
doctrine to be found which is held fast, irrevocable, and absolute, and that is
the doctrine of God. That is the true keystone of all the gorgeous variety of
the Bible, and it is its only keystone. There are other foundation stones of
high import, but none are necessarily doctrinal except for this: that there is
a God; that He is omnipotent, omniscient, and everlasting; He ‘fainteth not,
neither is weary’, He ‘turneth wise men backward, and maketh their knowledge
foolish’; He is the ‘Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and
the last’. Nothing signifies without this, but with this all things signify.
That and that only is the doctrine of the Bible, the One Commandment of wisdom.
It is purer, truer, simpler, and greater, than anything else in man. It is
without conceit, for it absorbs conceit; it is beyond contention, for it
displaces contention; it is without doubt, for it is the sole legitimate issue
of doubt. It is the trunk of the tree of life.
[1] The philosophical proof is a notable exception. Evidently none of the authors of the Bible ever doubted as to the evidence of God–which is existence itself. They only were undetermined in how best to interpret Him, to worship Him, and to magnify His holy name.
[2] 1 Kings. xi. 1.
[3] Matt. i. 1; John. xi. 35.
[4] Mark. xv. 34.
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