{Supposed of Pamphylax the Antiochene:
It is a parchment, of my rolls the fifth,
Hath three skins glued together, is all Greek
And goeth from Epsilon down to Mu:
Lies second in the surnamed Chosen Chest, {5}
Stained and conserved with juice of terebinth,
Covered with cloth of hair, and lettered Xi,
From Xanthus, my wife's uncle, now at peace:
Mu and Epsilon stand for my own name.
I may not write it, but I make a cross {10}
To show I wait His coming, with the rest,
And leave off here: beginneth Pamphylax.}
！ 1-12. The bracketed prefatory lines, explanatory of the parchment on which are recorded the last hours and last talk of St. John with his devoted attendants, purport to have been written by one who was at the time the owner of the parchment. It appears to have come into his possession through his wife, a niece of the Xanthus who, with Pamphylax of Antioch, the supposed author of the narrative (he having told it on the eve of his martyrdom to a certain Phoebas, v. 653), and two others, is represented therein as waiting on the dying apostle, and who afterwards "escaped to Rome, was burned, and could not write the chronicle." (vv. 56, 57.)
4. And goeth from Epsilon down to Mu: the reference is to some numbering on the parchment.
6. terebinth: the turpentine tree. ！
I said, "If one should wet his lips with wine,
And slip the brst plantain-leaf we find,
Or else the lappet of a linen robe, {15}
Into the water-vessel, lay it right,
And cool his forehead just above the eyes,
The while a brother, kneeling either side,
Should chafe each hand and try to make it warm,！
He is not so far gone but he might speak." {20}
This did not happen in the outer cave,
Nor in the secret chamber of the rock,
Where, sixty days since the decree was out,
We had him, bedded on a camel-skin,
And waited for his dying all the while; {25}
But in the midmost grotto: since noon's light
Reached there a little, and we would not lose
The last of what might happen on his face.
！ 23. the decree: of persecution of the Christians, perhaps that under Domitian. The poet probably did not think of any particular persecution. ！
I at the head, and Xanthus at the feet,
With Valens and the Boy, had lifted him, {30}
And brought him from the chamber in the depths,
And laid him in the light where we might see:
For certain smiles began about his mouth,
And his lids moved, presageful of the end.
Beyond, and half way up the mouth o' the cave, {35}
The Bactrian convert, having his desire,
Kept watch, and made pretence to graze a goat
That gave us milk, on rags of various herb,
Plantain and quitch, the rocks' shade keeps alive:
So that if any thief or soldier passed {40}
(Because the persecution was aware),
Yielding the goat up promptly with his life,
Such man might pass on, joyful at a prize,
Nor care to pry into the cool o' the cave.
Outside was all noon and the burning blue. {45}
！ 36. the Bactrian convert: in vv. 649, 650, he is spoken of as "but a wild childish man, and could not write nor speak, but only loved." Bactria was a kingdom in Central Asia; the modern name is Balkh {a district in northern Afghanistan as of 1995}. having his desire: as a new convert, the simple man was eager to serve, even unto death.
41. aware: on the lookout; exercising a strict espionage. ！
"Here is wine", answered Xanthus,！dropped a drop;
I stooped and placed the lap of cloth aright,
Then chafed his right hand, and the Boy his left:
But Valens had bethought him, and produced
And broke a ball of nard, and made perfume. {50}
Only, he did！not so much wake, as！turn
And smile a little, as a sleeper does
If any dear one call him, touch his face！
And smiles and loves, but will not be disturbed.
Then Xanthus said a prayer, but still he slept: {55}
It is the Xanthus that escaped to Rome,
Was burned, and could not write the chronicle.
Then the Boy sprang up from his knees, and ran,
Stung by the splendor of a sudden thought,
And fetched the seventh plate of graven lead {60}
Out of the secret chamber, found a place,
Pressing with finger on the deeper dints,
And spoke, as 'twere his mouth proclaiming first,
"I am the Resurrection and the Life."
！ 60. the seventh plate of graven lead: one of the plates on which John's Gospel was graven. It contained, it appears, the 11th chapter, in which Jesus says to Martha, 25th verse, "I am the Resurrection and the Life." The Boy uttered the words with such expression as 'twere HIS mouth first proclaiming them. ！
Whereat he opened his eyes wide at once, {65}
And sat up of himself, and looked at us;
And thenceforth nobody pronounced a word:
Only, outside, the Bactrian cried his cry
Like the lone desert-bird that wears the ruff,
As signal we were safe, from time to time. {70}
！ 69. the lone desert-bird: the ruff may possibly be referred to. See Webster, s.v. ！
First he said, "If a man declared to me,
This my son Valens, this my other son,
Were James and Peter,！nay, declared as well
This lad was very John,！I could believe!
！Could, for a moment, doubtlessly believe: {75}
So is myself withdrawn into my depths,
The soul retreated from the perished brain
Whence it was wont to feel and use the world
Through these dull members, done with long ago.
Yet I myself remain; I feel myself: {80}
And there is nothing lost. Let be, awhile!"
！ 76. withdrawn into my depths: into the depths of his absolute being, of the "what Is"; see the doctrine of the trinal unity of man which follows. ！
{This is the doctrine he was wont to teach,
How divers persons witness in each man,
Three souls which make up one soul: first, to wit,
A soul of each and all the bodily parts, {85}
Seated therein, which works, and is what Does,
And has the use of earth, and ends the man
Downward; but, tending upward for advice,
Grows into, and again is grown into
By the next soul, which, seated in the brain, {90}
Useth the first with its collected use,
And feeleth, thinketh, willeth,！is what Knows:
Which, duly tending upward in its turn,
Grows into, and again is grown into
By the last soul, that uses both the first, {95}
Subsisting whether they assist or no,
And, constituting man's self, is what Is！
And leans upon the former, makes it play,
As that played off the first: and, tending up,
Holds, is upheld by, God, and ends the man {100}
Upward in that dread point of intercourse,
Nor needs a place, for it returns to Him.
What Does, what Knows, what Is; three souls, one man.
I give the glossa of Theotypas.}
！ 82-104. The supposed narrator, Pamphylax, gives in these bracketed verses, on the authority of an imagined Theotypas, a doctrine John was wont to teach, of the trinal unity of man！ the third "person" of which unity, "what Is", being man's essential, absolute nature. The dying John is represented as having won his way to the Kingdom of the "what Is", the Kingdom of eternal truth within himself. In Luke 17:20-21, we read: "And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the Kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo here! or, Lo there! for, behold, the Kingdom of God is within you." In harmony with which, Paracelsus is made to say, in Browning's poem, "Truth is within ourselves; . . . there is an inmost centre in us all, where truth abides in fulness"; etc. See pp. 24 and 25 of this volume. {In this etext, see Chapter I, 'The Spiritual Ebb and Flow, etc.', of the Introduction. Excerpt is shortly before the poem 'Popularity'.} "Life, you've granted me, develops from within. But INNERMOST OF THE INMOST, MOST INTERIOR OF THE INTERNE, GOD CLAIMS HIS OWN, DIVINE HUMANITY RENEWING NATURE" (Mrs. Browning's 'Aurora Leigh'). Mrs. M. G. Glazebrook, in her paper on 'A Death in the Desert', read at the 48th meeting of the Browning Society, Feb. 25th, 1887, paraphrases these lines: "The first and lowest {soul} is that which has to do with earth and corporeal things, the animal soul, which receives primary sensations and is the immediate cause of action ！'what Does'. The second is the intellect, and has its seat in the brain: it is superior to the first, but dependent on it, since it receives as material the actual experience which the animal soul supplies; it is the feeling, thinking, willing soul ！'what Knows'. The third, and highest, is the spirit of man, the very principle of life, the divine element in man linking him to God, which is self-subsistent and therefore independent of sensation and knowledge, but nevertheless makes use of them, and gives them existence and energy！'what Is'." ！
And then, "A stick, once fire from end to end; {105}
Now, ashes save the tip that holds a spark!
Yet, blow the spark, it runs back, spreads itself
A little where the fire was: thus I urge
The soul that served me, till it task once more
What ashes of my brain have kept their shape, {110}
And these make effort on the last o' the flesh,
Trying to taste again the truth of things"！
(He smiled)！"their very superficial truth;
As that ye are my sons, that it is long
Since James and Peter had release by death, {115}
And I am only he, your brother John,
Who saw and heard, and could remember all.
Remember all! It is not much to say.
What if the truth broke on me from above
As once and oft-times? Such might hap again: {120}
Doubtlessly He might stand in presence here,
With head wool-white, eyes, flame, and feet like brass,
The sword and the seven stars, as I have seen！
I who now shudder only and surmise
'How did your brother bear that sight and live?' {125}
！ 113. superficial truth: phenomenal, relative truth; that which is arrived at through the senses, and belongs to the domain of the "what Knows". Essential, absolute truth can be known only through a response thereto of the essential, the absolute, the "what Is", in man's nature. John has attained to a measure of absolute truth, and smiles on reverting to the very superficial truth of things.
121-123. See The Revelation of St. John, chap. 1.
125. your brother: he means himself, of course. ！
"If I live yet, it is for good, more love
Through me to men: be naught but ashes here
That keep awhile my semblance, who was John,！
Still, when they scatter, there is left on earth
No one alive who knew (consider this!) {130}
！Saw with his eyes and handled with his hands
That which was from the first, the Word of Life.
How will it be when none more saith 'I saw'?
"Such ever was love's way: to rise, it stoops.
Since I, whom Christ's mouth taught, was bidden teach, {135}
I went, for many years, about the world,
Saying, 'It was so; so I heard and saw',
Speaking as the case asked: and men believed.
Afterward came the message to myself
In Patmos isle; I was not bidden teach. {140}
But simply listen, take a and write,
Nor set down other than the given word.
With nothing left to my arbitrament
To choose or change: I wrote, and men believed.
Then, for my time grew brief, no message more, {145}
No call to write again, I found a way,
And, reasoning from my knowledge, merely taught
Men should, for love's sake, in love's strength, believe;
Or I would pen a letter to a friend,
And urge the same as friend, nor less nor more: {150}
Friends said I reasoned rightly, and believed.
But at the last, why, I seemed left alive
Like a sea-jelly weak on Patmos strand,
To tell dry sea-beach gazers how I fared
When there was mid-sea, and the mighty things; {155}
Left to repeat, 'I saw, I heard, I knew',
And go all over the old ground again,
With Antichrist already in the world,
And many Antichrists, who answered prompt
'Am I not Jasper as thyself art John? {160}
Nay, young, whereas through age thou mayest forget:
Wherefore, explain, or how shall we believe?'
I never thought to call down fire on such,
Or, as in wonderful and early days,
Pick up the scorpion, tread the serpent dumb; {165}
But patient stated much of the Lord's life
Forgotten or misdelivered, and let it work:
Since much that at the first, in deed and word,
Lay simply and sufficiently exposed,
Had grown (or else my soul was grown to match, {170}
Fed through such years, familiar with such light,
Guarded and guided still to see and speak)
Of new significance and fresh result;
What first were guessed as points, I now knew stars,
And named them in the Gospel I have writ. {175}
For men said, 'It is getting long ago:
Where is the promise of His coming?'！asked
These young ones in their strength, as loth to wait,
Of me who, when their sires were born, was old.
I, for I loved them, answered, joyfully, {180}
Since I was there, and helpful in my age;
And, in the main, I think such men believed.
Finally, thus endeavoring, I fell sick.
Ye brought me here, and I supposed the end,
And went to sleep with one thought that, at least, {185}
Though the whole earth should lie in wickedness,
We had the truth, might leave the rest to God.
Yet now I wake in such decrepitude
As I had slidden down and fallen afar,
Past even the presence of my former self, {190}
Grasping the while for stay at facts which snap,
Till I am found away from my own world,
Feeling for foot-hold through a blank profound,
Along with unborn people in strange lands,
Who say！I hear said or conceive they say！ {195}
'Was John at all, and did he say he saw?
Assure us, ere we ask what he might see!'
！ 156. I saw, I heard, I knew: expressions which occur throughout John's Revelation.
188-197. The poet provides, in these lines, for the prophetic character of John's discourse, its solution of the difficulties destined to beset Christianity in the future, and especially of those which have been raised in our own times. The historical bulwarks which the Strausses and the Renans have endeavored to destroy, Christianity, in its essential, absolute character, its adaptiveness to spiritual vitality, and the wants of the soul, can do without. Indeed, there will be much gained when the historical character of Christianity is generally disregarded. Its impregnable fortress, namely, the Personality, Jesus Christ, will remain, and mankind will forever seek and find refuge in it. Arthur Symons, in his 'Introduction to the Study of Browning', remarks: . . ."it is as a piece of ratiocination！suffused, indeed, with imagination！ that the poem seems to have its raison d'etre. The bearing of this argument on contemporary theories, may to some appear a merit, to others a blemish. To make the dying John refute Strauss or Renan, handling their propositions with admirable dialectical skill, is certainly, on the face of it, somewhat hazardous. But I can see no real incongruity in imputing to the seer of Patmos a prophetic insight into the future！no real inconsequence in imagining the opponent of Cerinthus spending his last breath in the defence of Christian truth against a foreseen scepticism." ！
"And how shall I assure them? Can they share
！They, who have flesh, a veil of youth and strength
About each spirit, that needs must bide its time, {200}
Living and learning still as years assist
Which wear the thickness thin, and let man see！
With me who hardly am withheld at all,
But shudderingly, scarce a shred between,
Lie bare to the universal prick of light? {205}
Is it for nothing we grow old and weak,
We whom God loves? When pain ends, gain ends too.
To me, that story！ay, that Life and Death
Of which I wrote 'it was'！to me, it is;
！Is, here and now: I apprehend naught else. {210}
Is not God now i' the world His power first made?
Is not His love at issue still with sin,
Visibly when a wrong is done on earth?
Love, wrong, and pain, what see I else around?
Yea, and the Resurrection and Uprise {215}
To the right hand of the throne！what is it beside,
When such truth, breaking bounds, o'erfloods my soul,
And, as I saw the sin and death, even so
See I the need yet transiency of both,
The good and glory consummated thence? {220}
I saw the Power; I see the Love, once weak,
Resume the Power: and in this word 'I see',
Lo, there is recognized the Spirit of both
That moving o'er the spirit of man, unblinds
His eye and bids him look. These are, I see; {225}
But ye, the children, His beloved ones too,
Ye need,！as I should use an optic glass
I wondered at erewhile, somewhere i' the world,
It had been given a crafty smith to make;
A tube, he turned on objects brought too close, {230}
Lying confusedly insubordinate
For the unassisted eye to master once:
Look through his tube, at distance now they lay,
Become succinct, distinct, so small, so clear!
Just thus, ye needs must apprehend what truth {235}
I see, reduced to plain historic fact,
Diminished into clearness, proved a point
And far away: ye would withdraw your sense
From out eternity, strain it upon time,
Then stand before that fact, that Life and Death, {240}
Stay there at gaze, till it dispart, dispread,
As though a star should open out, all sides,
Grow the world on you, as it is my world.
！ 202. "Oh, not alone when life flows still do truth and power emerge, but also when strange chance ruffles its current; in unused conjuncture, when sickness breaks the body！hunger, watching, excess, or languor！ oftenest death's approach！peril, deep joy, or woe." ！Browning's 'Paracelsus'.
"The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks that Time has made.
Stronger by weakness, wiser men become,
As they draw near to their eternal home.
Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view,
That stand upon the threshold of the new."！Edmund Waller.
"Drawing near her death, she sent most pious thoughts as harbingers to heaven; and her soul saw a glimpse of happiness through the chinks of her sickness-broken body." Fuller's 'Holy and Profane State', I., chap. 2.
203. With me: connect with 'share', v. 198.
208-209. See p. 62 of this volume. {In this etext, Part II, Section 3 in the Introduction. It is shortly before an excerpt from 'Christmas Eve'.}
221-225. See stanzas 9 and 10 of 'Rabbi Ben Ezra'.
227. an optic glass: perhaps anachronistic. ！
"For life, with all it yields of joy and woe,
And hope and fear,！believe the aged friend,！ {245}
Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love,
How love might be, hath been indeed, and is;
And that we hold thenceforth to the uttermost
Such prize despite the envy of the world,
And, having gained truth, keep truth: that is all. {250}
But see the double way wherein we are led,
How the soul learns diversely from the flesh!
With flesh, that hath so little time to stay,
And yields mere basement for the soul's emprise,
Expect prompt teaching. Helpful was the light, {255}
And warmth was cherishing and food was choice
To every man's flesh, thousand years ago,
As now to yours and mine; the body sprang
At once to the height, and staid: but the soul,！no!
Since sages who, this noontide, meditate {260}
In Rome or Athens, may descry some point
Of the eternal power, hid yestereve;
And, as thereby the power's whole mass extends,
So much extends the ether floating o'er
The love that tops the might, the Christ in God. {265}
Then, as new lessons shall be learned in these
Till earth's work stop and useless time run out,
So duly, daily, needs provision be
For keeping the soul's prowess possible,
Building new barriers as the old decay, {270}
Saving us from evasion of life's proof,
Putting the question ever, 'Does God love,
And will ye hold that truth against the world?'
Ye know there needs no second proof with good
Gained for our flesh from any earthly source: {275}
We might go freezing, ages,！give us fire,
Thereafter we judge fire at its full worth,
And guard it safe through every chance, ye know!
That fable of Prometheus and his theft,
How mortals gained Jove's fiery flower, grows old {280}
(I have been used to hear the pagans own)
And out of mind; but fire, howe'er its birth,
Here is it, precious to the sophist now
Who laughs the myth of Aeschylus to scorn,
As precious to those satyrs of his play, {285}
Who touched it in gay wonder at the thing.
While were it so with the soul,！this gift of truth
Once grasped, were this our soul's gain safe, and sure
To prosper as the body's gain is wont,！
Why, man's probation would conclude, his earth {290}
Crumble; for he both reasons and decides,
Weighs first, then chooses: will he give up fire
For gold or purple once he knows its worth?
Could he give Christ up were His worth as plain?
Therefore, I say, to test man, the proofs shift, {295}
Nor may he grasp that fact like other fact,
And straightway in his life acknowledge it,
As, say, the indubitable bliss of fire.
Sigh ye, 'It had been easier once than now?'
To give you answer I am left alive; {300}
Look at me who was present from the first!
Ye know what things I saw; then came a test,
My first, befitting me who so had seen:
'Forsake the Christ thou sawest transfigured, Him
Who trod the sea and brought the dead to life? {305}
What should wring this from thee?'！ye laugh and ask.
What wrung it? Even a torchlight and a noise,
The sudden Roman faces, violent hands,
And fear of what the Jews might do! Just that,
And it is written, 'I forsook and fled': {310}
There was my trial, and it ended thus.
Ay, but my soul had gained its truth, could grow:
Another year or two,！what little child,
What tender woman that had seen no least
Of all my sights, but barely heard them told, {315}
Who did not clasp the cross with a light laugh,
Or wrap the burning robe round, thanking God?
Well, was truth safe forever, then? Not so.
Already had begun the silent work
Whereby truth, deadened of its absolute blaze, {320}
Might need love's eye to pierce the o'erstretched doubt.
Teachers were busy, whispering 'All is true
As the aged ones report; but youth can reach
Where age gropes dimly, weak with stir and strain,
And the full doctrine slumbers till to-day.' {325}
Thus, what the Roman's lowered spear was found,
A bar to me who touched and handled truth,
Now proved the glozing of some new shrewd tongue,
This Ebion, this Cerinthus or their mates,
Till imminent was the outcry 'Save our Christ!' {330}
Whereon I stated much of the Lord's life
Forgotten or misdelivered, and let it work.
Such work done, as it will be, what comes next?
What do I hear say, or conceive men say,
'Was John at all, and did he say he saw? {335}
Assure us, ere we ask what he might see!'
！ 284. the myth of Aeschylus: embodied in his 'Prometheus Bound'.
295. the proofs shift: see pp. 37 and 38. {In etext, shortly before two excerpts from 'A Death in the Desert', Chapter II, Section 1 of Introduction.} Objective proofs, in spiritual matters, need reconstruction, again and again; and whatever may be their character, they are inadequate, and must finally, in the Christian life, be superseded by subjective proofs！ by man's winning his way to the kingdom of eternal truth within himself ！the kingdom of the "what Is".
307-310. See Matt. 26:56; Mark 14:50; John 18:3.
326-328. what the Roman's lowered spear was found {to be, namely}, a bar, {etc.,} now proved {to be, etc.}.
329. This Ebion, this Cerinthus: see 'Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire', Chaps. 15, 21, 47. And see, especially, the able articles, "Cerinthus" and "Ebionism and Ebionites", in the 'Dictionary of Christian Biography', etc., edited by Dr. William Smith and Professor Wace. "'Ebion' as a name first personified by Tertullian, was said to have been a pupil of Cerinthus, and the Gospel of St. John to have been as much directed against the former as the latter. St. Paul and St. Luke were asserted to have spoken and written against Ebionites. The 'Apostolical Constitutions' (vi. c. 6) traced them back to Apostolic times; Theodoret (Haer. fab. II. c. 2) assigned them to the reign of Domitian (A.D. 81-96). The existence of an 'Ebion' is, however, now surrendered." From Art. Ebionism in 'Dict. of Christian Biography'.
And see Prof. George P. Fisher's 'Beginnings of Christianity', 1877.
"Cerinthus, a man who was educated in the wisdom of the Egyptians, taught that the world was not made by the primary God, but by a certain power far separated from him, and at a distance from that Principality who is supreme over the universe, and ignorant of him who is above all. He represented Jesus as having not been born of a virgin, but as being the son of Joseph and Mary according to the ordinary course of human generation, while he nevertheless was more righteous, prudent, and wise than other men. Moreover, after his baptism, Christ descended upon him in the form of a dove from the Supreme Ruler, and that then he proclaimed the unknown Father, and performed miracles. But at last Christ departed from Jesus, and that then Jesus suffered and rose again, while Christ remained impassible, inasmuch as he was a spiritual being." 'The Writings of Irenaeus, transl. by Rev. Alexander Roberts, D.D., and Rev. W. H. Rambaut, A.B.', Edinburgh, 1868. Vol. I., I., Chap xxvi. ！
"Is this indeed a burthen for late days,
And may I help to bear it with you all,
Using my weakness which becomes your strength?
For if a babe were born inside this grot, {340}
Grew to a boy here, heard us praise the sun,
Yet had but yon sole glimmer in light's place,！
One loving him and wishful he should learn,
Would much rejoice himself was blinded first
Month by month here, so made to understand {345}
How eyes, born darkling, apprehend amiss:
I think I could explain to such a child
There was more glow outside than gleams he caught,
Ay, nor need urge 'I saw it, so believe!'
It is a heavy burthen you shall bear {350}
In latter days, new lands, or old grown strange,
Left without me, which must be very soon.
What is the doubt, my brothers? Quick with it!
I see you stand conversing, each new face,
Either in fields, of yellow summer eves, {355}
On islets yet unnamed amid the sea;
Or pace for shelter 'neath a portico
Out of the crowd in some enormous town
Where now the larks sing in a solitude;
Or muse upon blank heaps of stone and sand {360}
Idly conjectured to be Ephesus:
And no one asks his fellow any more
'Where is the promise of His coming?' but
'Was He revealed in any of His lives,
As Power, as Love, as Influencing Soul?' {365}
！ 346. darkling: an old adverbial form; in the dark. See 'Paradise Lost', III. 39. "O, wilt thou darkling leave me?" Sh's 'M. N. D.', II. 2. 86; "So, out went the candle, and we were left darkling." 'Lear', I. 4. 237; also 'A. and C.', IV. 15. 10.
353. What is the doubt, my brothers?: He addresses his brothers of the far future. The eight following verses are very beautiful.
362-365. The question, "Where is the promise of His coming?" asked in John's own day, gives place in the far future to which the ken of the dying Apostle extends, to the question whether God was indeed revealed in Christ, 'As Power, as Love, as Influencing Soul', or whether, man having already love in himself, Christ were not a mere projection from man's inmost mind (v. 383)? If so there is nothing to fall back on but force, or natural law. This anticipated questioning and reasoning extends from v. 370 to v. 421. ！
"Quick, for time presses, tell the whole mind out,
And let us ask and answer and be saved!
My speaks on, because it cannot pass;
One listens quietly, nor scoffs but pleads
'Here is a tale of things done ages since: {370}
What truth was ever told the second day?
Wonders, that would prove doctrine, go for naught.
Remains the doctrine, love; well, we must love,
And what we love most, power and love in one,
Let us acknowledge on the record here, {375}
Accepting these in Christ: must Christ then be?
Has He been? Did not we ourselves make Him?
Our mind receives but what it holds, no more.
First of the love, then; we acknowledge Christ！
A proof we comprehend His love, a proof {380}
We had such love already in ourselves,
Knew first what else we should not recognize.
'Tis mere projection from man's inmost mind,
And, what he loves, thus falls reflected back,
Becomes accounted somewhat out of him; {385}
He throws it up in air, it drops down earth's,
With shape, name, story added, man's old way.
How prove you Christ came otherwise at least?
Next try the power: He made and rules the world:
Certes there is a world once made, now ruled, {390}
Unless things have been ever as we see.
Our sires declared a charioteer's yoked steeds
Brought the sun up the east and down the west,
Which only of itself now rises, sets,
As if a hand impelled it and a will,！ {395}
Thus they long thought, they who had will and hands:
But the new question's whisper is distinct,
Wherefore must all force needs be like ourselves?
We have the hands, the will; what made and drives
The sun is force, is law, is named, not known, {400}
While will and love we do know; marks of these.
Eye-witnesses attest, so declare！
As that, to punish or reward our race,
The sun at undue times arose or set
Or else stood still: what do not men affirm? {405}
But earth requires as urgently reward
Or punishment to-day as years ago,
And none expects the sun will interpose:
Therefore it was mere passion and mistake,
Or erring zeal for right, which changed the truth. {410}
Go back, far, farther, to the birth of things;
Ever the will, the intelligence, the love,
Man's!！which he gives, supposing he but finds,
As late he gave head, body, hands, and feet,
To help these in what forms he called his gods. {415}
First, Jove's brow, Juno's eyes were swept away,
But Jove's wrath, Juno's pride continued long;
At last, will, power, and love discarded these,
So law in turn discards power, love, and will.
What proveth God is otherwise at least? {420}
All else, projection from the mind of man!'
！ 367. And let us ask and answer: John's talk, it must be understood, is with future people, not with the attendants.
368. My speaks on: that is, to people of all futures, because it cannot pass away.
371. What truth, etc.: that is, truth is soon perverted, obscured, and often turned into positive untruth.
372. Wonders, that would prove doctrine: that is, whose purpose was to prove.
385. Comes to be considered as something outside of, and distinct from, himself. ！
"Nay, do not give me wine, for I am strong,
But place my gospel where I put my hands.
"I say that man was made to grow, not stop;
That help, he needed once, and needs no more, {425}
Having grown but an inch by, is withdrawn:
For he hath new needs, and new helps to these.
This imports solely, man should mount on each
New height in view; the help whereby he mounts,
The ladder-rung his foot has left, may fall, {430}
Since all things suffer change save God the Truth.
Man apprehends Him newly at each stage
Whereat earth's ladder drops, its service done;
And nothing shall prove twice what once was proved.
You stick a garden-plot with ordered twigs {435}
To show inside lie germs of herbs unborn,
And check the careless step would spoil their birth;
But when herbs wave, the guardian twigs may go,
Since should ye doubt of virtues, question kinds,
It is no longer for old twigs ye look, {440}
Which proved once underneath lay store of seed,
But to the herb's self, by what light ye boast,
For what fruit's signs are. This s fruit is plain,
Nor miracles need prove it any more.
Doth the fruit show? Then miracles bade 'ware {445}
At first of root and stem, saved both till now
From trampling ox, rough boar, and wanton goat.
What? Was man made a wheelwork to wind up,
And be discharged, and straight wound up anew?
No!！grown, his growth lasts; taught, he ne'er forgets: {450}
May learn a thousand things, not twice the same.
This might be pagan teaching: now hear mine.
！ 424. Here John's answer begins to the questioning and reasoning contained in vv. 370-421.
In vv. 424-434, is contained a favorite teaching of Browning. It appears in various forms throughout his poetry. See the quotation from 'Luria', p. 38.
428. This imports solely: this is the one all important thing.
428-430. A similar comparison is used in 'Julius Caesar', A. II., S. I., 22-27:
. . ."lowliness is young ambition's ladder,
Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;
But when he once attains the upmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend."
452. This might be pagan teaching: that is, even pagan teaching might go so far as this. ！
"I say, that as the babe, you feed awhile,
Becomes a boy and fit to feed himself,
So, minds at first must be spoon-fed with truth: {455}
When they can eat, babe's nurture is withdrawn.
I fed the babe whether it would or no:
I bid the boy or feed himself or starve.
I cried once, 'That ye may believe in Christ,
Behold this blind man shall receive his sight!' {460}
I cry now, 'Urgest thou, FOR I AM SHREWD,
AND SMILE AT STORIES HOW JOHN'S WORD COULD CURE！
REPEAT THAT MIRACLE AND TAKE MY FAITH?'
I say, that miracle was duly wrought
When, save for it, no faith was possible. {465}
Whether a change were wrought i' the shows o' the world,
Whether the change came from our minds which see
Of shows o' the world so much as and no more
Than God wills for His purpose,！(what do I
See now, suppose you, there where you see rock {470}
Round us?)！I know not; such was the effect,
So faith grew, making void more miracles
Because too much: they would compel, not help.
I say, the acknowledgment of God in Christ
Accepted by thy reason, solves for thee {475}
All questions in the earth and out of it,
And has so far advanced thee to be wise.
Wouldst thou unprove this to re-prove the proved?
In life's mere minute, with power to use that proof,
Leave knowledge and revert to how it sprung? {480}
Thou hast it; use it and forthwith, or die!
！ 472. So faith grew, making void more miracles: the outward manifestations of spiritual powers (du/namis, 'power', 'act of power', and shmei^on, 'sign', 'token', are the original words in the N. T., which are translated 'miracle') gave place to subjective proof. Christianity was endorsed by man's own soul. To this may be added, that even the historical bulwarks of Christianity may, ere long, be dispensed with.
474-481. These verses may be taken as presenting Browning's own conclusion as to the whole duty of man, in a spiritual direction. And see the quotation from 'Christmas Eve' and the remarks which follow, on pp. 63 and 64. {In etext, Chapter II, Section 3 of Introduction.} ！
"For I say, this is death and the sole death,
When a man's loss comes to him from his gain,
Darkness from light, from knowledge ignorance,
And lack of love from love made manifest; {485}
A lamp's death when, replete with oil, it chokes;
A stomach's when, surcharged with food, it starves.
With ignorance was surety of a cure.
When man, appalled at nature, questioned first
'What if there lurk a might behind this might?' {490}
He needed satisfaction God could give,
And did give, as ye have the written word:
But when he finds might still redouble might,
Yet asks, 'Since all is might, what use of will?'
！Will, the one source of might,！he being man {495}
With a man's will and a man's might, to teach
In little how the two combine in large,！
That man has turned round on himself and stands,
Which in the course of nature is, to die.
"And when man questioned, 'What if there be love {500}
Behind the will and might, as real as they?'！
He needed satisfaction God could give,
And did give, as ye have the written word:
But when, beholding that love everywhere,
He reasons, 'Since such love is everywhere, {505}
And since ourselves can love and would be loved,
We ourselves make the love, and Christ was not',！
How shall ye help this man who knows himself,
That he must love and would be loved again,
Yet, owning his own love that proveth Christ, {510}
Rejecteth Christ through very need of Him?
The lamp o'erswims with oil, the stomach flags
Ld with nurture, and that man's soul dies.
"If he rejoin, 'But this was all the while
A trick; the fault was, first of all, in thee, {515}
Thy story of the places, names and dates,
Where, when, and how the ultimate truth had rise,
！Thy prior truth, at last discovered none,
Whence now the second suffers detriment.
What good of giving knowledge if, because {520}
O' the manner of the gift, its profit fail?
And why refuse what modicum of help
Had stopped the after-doubt, impossible
I' the face of truth！truth absolute, uniform?
Why must I hit of this and miss of that, {525}
Distinguish just as I be weak or strong,
And not ask of thee and have answer prompt,
Was this once, was it not once?！then and now
And evermore, plain truth from man to man.
Is John's procedure just the heathen bard's? {530}
Put question of his famous play again
How for the ephemerals' sake, Jove's fire was filched,
And carried in a cane and brought to earth:
THE FACT IS IN THE FABLE, cry the wise,
MORTALS OBTAINED THE BOON, SO MUCH IS FACT, {535}
THOUGH FIRE BE SPIRIT AND PRODUCED ON EARTH.
As with the Titan's, so now with thy tale:
Why breed in us perplexity, mistake,
Nor tell the whole truth in the proper words?'
！ 514-539. John anticipates another objection that will be made to his Gospel, namely, that so many things therein are not cleared up, that the whole truth is not told in the proper words, the sceptic claiming that everything should have been so proved
"That the probation bear no hinge nor loop
To hang a doubt on";
that all after-doubt, impossible in the face of truth！truth absolute, uniform, might have been stopped.
523. Had stopped: would have stopped.
530. the heathen bard's: Aeschylus'.
531. famous play: 'Prometheus Bound'.
532. ephemerals': mortals'.
537. Titan's: Prometheus'. ！
"I answer, Have ye not to argue out {540}
The very primal thesis, plainest law,
！Man is not God but hath God's end to serve,
A master to obey, a course to take,
Somewhat to cast off, somewhat to become?
Grant this, then man must pass from old to new, {545}
From vain to real, from mistake to fact,
From what once seemed good, to what now proves best.
How could man have progression otherwise?
Before the point was mooted 'What is God?'
No savage man inquired 'What is myself?' {550}
Much less replied, 'First, last, and best of things.'
Man takes that title now if he believes
Might can exist with neither will nor love,
In God's case！what he names now Nature's Law！
While in himself he recognizes love {555}
No less than might and will: and rightly takes.
Since if man prove the sole existent thing
Where these combine, whatever their degree,
However weak the might or will or love,
So they be found there, put in evidence,！ {560}
He is as surely higher in the scale
Than any might with neither love nor will,
As life, apparent in the poorest midge
(When the faint dust-speck flits, ye guess its wing),
Is marvellous beyond dead Atlas' self！ {565}
Given to the nobler midge for resting-place!
Thus, man proves best and highest！God, in fine,
And thus the victory leads but to defeat,
The gain to loss, best rise to the worst fall,
His life becomes impossible, which is death. {570}
！ 540-633. All that John says in these verses, in reply to the anticipated objections urged in vv. 514-539, are found, substantially, in several passages in Browning's poetry. See remarks on pp. 36-38 beginning, "The human soul is regarded in Browning's poetry", etc. {Chapter II, Section 1 in this etext.} An infallible guide, which would render unnecessary any struggles on man's part, after light and truth, would torpify his powers. And see vv. 582-633 of the present poem.
552. Man takes that title now: that is, of 'First, last, and best of things", if, etc. See sections 17 and 18 of 'Saul', and stanza 10 of 'Rabbi Ben Ezra'. And see the grand dying speech of Paracelsus, which concludes Browning's poem.
554. "A law of nature means nothing to Mr. Browning if it does not mean the immanence of power, and will, and love. He can pass with ready sympathy into the mystical feeling of the East, where in the unclouded sky, in the torrent of noonday light, God is so near
'He glows above
With scarce an intervention, presses close
And palpitatingly, His soul o'er ours.'
But the wisdom of a Western 'savant' who in his superior intellectuality replaces the will of God by the blind force of nature, seems to Mr. Browning to be science falsely so called, a new ignorance founded upon knowledge,
'A lamp's death when, replete with oil, it chokes.'
To this effect argues the prophet John in 'A Death in the Desert', anticipating with the deep prevision of a dying man the doubts and questionings of modern days. And in the third of those remarkable poems which form the epilogue of the 'Dramatis Personae', the whole world rises in the speaker's imagination into one vast spiritual temple, in which voices of singers, and swell of trumpets, and cries of priests are heard going up to God no less truly than in the old Jewish worship, while the face of Christ, instinct with divine will and love, becomes apparent, as that of which all nature is a type or an adumbration." ！Prof. Edward Dowden in his Comparative Study of Browning and Tennyson (Studies in Literature, 1789-1877). ！
"But if, appealing thence, he cower, avouch
He is mere man, and in humility
Neither may know God nor mistake himself;
I point to the immediate consequence
And say, by such confession straight he falls {575}
Into man's place, a thing nor God nor beast,
Made to know that he can know and not more:
Lower than God who knows all and can all,
Higher than beasts which know and can so far
As each beast's limit, perfect to an end, {580}
Nor conscious that they know, nor craving more;
While man knows partly but conceives beside,
Creeps ever on from fancies to the fact,
And in this striving, this converting air
Into a solid he may grasp and use, {585}
Finds progress, man's distinctive mark alone,
Not God's, and not the beasts': God is, they are,
Man partly is and wholly hopes to be.
Such progress could no more attend his soul
Were all it struggles after found at first {590}
And guesses changed to knowledge absolute,
Than motion wait his body, were all else
Than it the solid earth on every side,
Where now through space he moves from rest to rest.
Man, therefore, thus conditioned, must expect {595}
He could not, what he knows now, know at first;
What he considers that he knows to-day,
Come but to-morrow, he will find misknown;
Getting increase of knowledge, since he learns
Because he lives, which is to be a man, {600}
Set to instruct himself by his past self:
First, like the brute, obliged by facts to learn,
Next, as man may, obliged by his own mind,
Bent, habit, nature, knowledge turned to law.
God's gift was that man should conceive of truth, {605}
And yearn to gain it, catching at mistake,
As midway help till he reach fact indeed.
The statuary ere he mould a shape
Boasts a like gift, the shape's idea, and next
The aspiration to produce the same; {610}
So, taking clay, he calls his shape thereout,
Cries ever 'Now I have the thing I see':
Yet all the while goes changing what was wrought,
From falsehood like the truth, to truth itself.
How were it had he cried 'I see no face, {615}
No breast, no feet i' the ineffectual clay?'
Rather commend him that he clapped his hands,
And laughed, 'It is my shape and lives again!'
Enjoyed the falsehood, touched it on to truth,
Until yourselves applaud the flesh indeed {620}
In what is still flesh-imitating clay.
Right in you, right in him, such way be man's!
God only makes the live shape at a jet.
Will ye renounce this pact of creatureship?
The pattern on the Mount subsists no more, {625}
Seemed awhile, then returned to nothingness;
But copies, Moses strove to make thereby,
Serve still and are replaced as time requires:
By these, make newest vessels, reach the type!
If ye demur, this judgment on your head, {630}
Never to reach the ultimate, angels' law,
Indulging every instinct of the soul
There where law, life, joy, impulse are one thing!
"Such is the burthen of the latest time.
I have survived to hear it with my ears, {635}
Answer it with my lips: does this suffice?
For if there be a further woe than such,
Wherein my brothers struggling need a hand,
So long as any pulse is left in mine,
May I be absent even longer yet, {640}
Plucking the blind ones back from the abyss,
Though I should tarry a new hundred years!"
But he was dead: 'twas about noon, the day
Somewhat declining: we five buried him
That eve, and then, dividing, went five ways, {645}
And I, disguised, returned to Ephesus.
By this, the cave's mouth must be filled with sand.
Valens is lost, I know not of his trace;
The Bactrian was but a wild childish man,
And could not write nor speak, but only loved: {650}
So, lest the memory of this go quite,
Seeing that I to-morrow fight the beasts,
I tell the same to Phoebas, whom believe!
For many look again to find that face,
Beloved John's to whom I ministered, {655}
Somewhere in life about the world; they err:
Either mistaking what was darkly spoke
At ending of his as he relates,
Or misconceiving somewhat of this speech
Scattered from mouth to mouth, as I suppose. {660}
Believe ye will not see him any more
About the world with his divine regard!
For all was as I say, and now the man
Lies as he lay once, breast to breast with God.
！ 652. Pamphylax tells the story to Phoebas, on the eve of his martyrdom.
654-660. See Gospel of St. John 21:20-24.
662. regard: look.
"To whom thus Michael, with regard benign:" P. L., XI., 334.
"From that placid aspect and meek regard."！P. R., III., 217.
De Quincey remarks (Milton vs. Southey and Landor) in reply to Landor's demurring that "meek regard conveys no new idea to placid aspect": "But ASPECT is the countenance of Christ when passive to the gaze of others; REGARD is the same countenance in active contemplation of those others whom he loves or pities. The PLACID ASPECT expresses, therefore, the divine rest; the MEEK REGARD expresses the divine benignity; the one is the self-absorption of the total Godhead, the other the external emanation of the Filial Godhead." ！
！！！！！！
{Cerinthus read and mused; one added this:！ {665}
"If Christ, as thou affirmest, be of men
Mere man, the first and best but nothing more,！
Account Him, for reward of what He was,
Now and forever, wretchedest of all.
For see; Himself conceived of life as love, {670}
Conceived of love as what must enter in,
Fill up, make one with His each soul He loved:
Thus much for man's joy, all men's joy for Him.
Well, He is gone, thou sayest, to fit reward.
But by this time are many souls set free, {675}
And very many still retained alive:
Nay, should His coming be delayed awhile,
Say, ten years longer (twelve years, some compute)
See if, for every finger of thy hands,
There be not found, that day the world shall end, {680}
Hundreds of souls, each holding by Christ's word
That He will grow incorporate with all,
With me as Pamphylax, with him as John,
Groom for each bride! Can a mere man do this?
Yet Christ saith, this He lived and died to do. {685}
Call Christ, then, the illimitable God,
Or lost!"
But 'twas Cerinthus that is lost.}
！ 665. Cerinthus read and mused: It must be supposed that an opportunity had been afforded Cerinthus of reading the MS. by the one who added the postscript, which is addressed to him, and who sought his conversion.
683. That is, 'With me as {with} Pamphylax, with him as {with} John': See Gospel of John, 17:11,21-23. ！
！！！！！！
"In the critical examination of the evangelical records, the fourth Gospel suffered most. Strauss！in this instance following his early master and later antagonist, Baur！denied that St. John had anything to do with its composition. The author, he held, was neither St. John nor any one else who had personally known Christ: nor, in accordance with a widely accepted theory, did he believe it to be the work of a pupil of St. John, who, after the death of his master, related, from memory or from fragmentary notes, traditions and sayings which had been taught him, and made out of them a continuous history. Strauss pronounced it to be a controversial work, written late in the second century after Christ, by a profound theologian of the Greek Gnostic and anti-Jewish school, whose design was not to add another to the existing biographies of Christ, not to represent him as a real man, nor to give an account of any human life, but to produce an elaborate theological work in which, under the veil of allegory, the Neo-platonic conception of Christ as the Logos, the realized Word of God, the divine principle of light and life, should be developed. With this purpose, the writer made a free selection from the sayings and doings of Christ as recorded in the three Gospels already written, and as freely invented others. All the events, all the words, of the Gospel thus composed, are subordinate to the main design, which was worked out by the author with an artistic completeness most ingeniously traced by his German interpreters. Each miracle symbolizes some important dogma, and its narration must be understood to mean that it embodies some deep spiritual truth, not, necessarily, that it ever actually took place. The author manifests, throughout, his ignorance of Jewish customs, and his antagonism to Jewish sentiments."
"The general purport of the poem can scarcely be doubted, as we look back upon it as a whole and consider its main conclusions. The tendency of the argument is to diminish the importance of the original events！historical or traditional！on which the Christian religion is based. 'It is not worth while,' the writer seems to say to Strauss and his followers, 'to occupy ourselves with discussions about miracles and events which are said to have taken place a long time ago, and can now neither be denied or proved. What we are concerned with, is, Christianity as it is now: as a religion which the human mind has through many generations developed, purified, spiritualized; and which has reacted upon human nature and made it wiser and nobler. Shall we give up this faith which has been so great a power for good in the world, and which, its whole past history justifies us in concluding, will continue its work of improvement, because our belief in certain events is shaken or destroyed? It would be vain, indeed, thus to build our religion on a foundation so unstable as material evidence. For human sensations are not infallible; they very often deceive us; we think we see objects, which are really the illusions of our own brain; others we see in part only, or distorted; others we fail to perceive at all. Our faith, essential as it is to the well-being of the deepest parts of our nature, must not be dependent on such controlling powers as these.'"
"He {Browning} was, we may suppose, offended by Strauss's ruthless attack on much that mankind has held sacred for ages. His religious sense was revolted by the assumption that there was nothing in Christianity which could survive the destruction of the miraculous and supernatural elements in its history. He desired to represent Christianity as an entirely spiritual religion, independent of external, material agencies. In order to make his argument as powerful as possible, he chose for his mouth-piece one of the personal followers of Christ, on whom, it might be supposed, the actual human life of his master had made a permanent and lively impression. With the details of Biblical criticism he had nothing to do; his principles were unaffected by discussions about the authenticity of the various parts of Gospels; so, in defiance of Strauss, the disciple he chose was that very John, whose personality, as recognized by long tradition, had been so much discredited. He showed how even in one of the disciples the recollection of wonders and signs could be transcended, and at last obliterated, by a spiritual faith which was sustained by the needs and faculties of the soul. The poem is, in effect, an eloquent protest in defence of 'the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge'."
From Mrs. M. G. Glazebrook's paper on 'A Death in the Desert', read before the London Browning Society.
This book is provided by FunNovel Novel Book | Fan Fiction Novel [Beautiful Free Novel Book]