MDMD more re Christ & History

[Doug Millison]

http://waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l&month=9711&msg=21687&sort=date

Date:	Wed, 26 Nov 1997 21:12:11 -0800
To:	RR.TFCNY@[omitted] (RICHARD ROMEO), pynchon-l@[omitted]
From:	millison@[omitted] (Doug Millison)
Subject: Re: MDMD(12) Christ and History


At 4:48 PM 11/20/97, RICHARD ROMEO wrote:
>349.1 `Facts are . . . Wicks Cherrycoke, Christ and History' Anyone
>want to explain that title? (see my rambling commentary--RR)

Wicks provides a hint at 353.2, in his hope that in America "God might yet
return to Human affairs, that all the wistful Fictions necessary to the
childhood of a species might yet come true,...
a third Testament."

In the Old Testament (Genesis 9:8-17), God intervenes most dramatically
(after the Creation, of course) in human history with the flood, sparing
Noah, his family, the animals two by two, and the rainbow marks the
promise, the covenant, that never again will the world be destroyed by
flood ( but of course he didn't say anything about man destroying it with
ballistic missiles and that darn screaming in the sky). God intervenes
directly many more times -- Sodom and Gomorrah, Tower of Babel, freeing the
Israelites from Eqyptian slavery with the parting of the Red Sea and
subsequent drowning of Pharaoh's army, etc.

In the New Testament, Christ represents the second major intervention in
human history (and is  sometimes referred to as a "second Noah" in some
Christological circles), coming to emphasize the two commandments one of
which, at least, if practiced, would indeed make this world a paradise,
"love thy neighbor as thyself" and a new covenant (forgiveness of sins and
life everlasting for believers who do good).  In addition to the mystical
teachings which lead believers to find the Kingdom of God within
themselves, Christ also predicts the end of human history as we know it,
the fiery end-times, judgement, resurrection  (the bodily resurrection
Mason and Dixon so keenlyanticipate). Many subsequent intellectual and
political developments flow from that promise, of course, not all of them
pleasant in the past 2,000 or so years of history in the Christian era.

Chapter 35 begins with the discussion of history and truth. In this
context, it's worth noting that  "Christ and History" also recalls a
concept much in vogue now, the "historical Jesus", the object of much
scholarly research and debate as many credible and respectable historians
use the tools native to that academic discipline to ascertain what can
reliably be known about Jesus Christ as a historical figure. (One theory,
interesting in the light of Mrs. Edgewise the magician, 365.17, has been
put forth by historian, and non-believer, Morton Smith in his very
interesting but hard to find 1981 book, Jesus the Magician, where he makes
a brilliant case for Jesus as an itinerant miracle worker  trained in the
arts of Egyptian magic.)

Chapter 35 and 36 are riddled with allusions to this theme of Christ/God in
history. At 355.21, Wicks compares the Redzinger women to Eve (God created
the first man and woman). At 355.28, Edgewise calls Philadelphia (a
Biblical name, but I don't remember the allusion off the top of my head),
"Sodom-upon-Schuylkill", the tale of Sodom and Gomorrah being another prime
example of God intervening in human history; we've got Lot's wife turned to
a pillar of salt earlier, 127.16. Here's  Mrs. Edgewise's "expression or
twist of Phiz I daresay as old as Holy Scripture" at 360.31;  the "second
day of Creation" at 361.1; God's first Line setting the pattern for all of
human history. We have the "German Mysticks" (who took mystical
Christianity to an extreme) (362.9) and "Holy Land Bazaars and Zouks"
(362.16), and the "Book of Revelations" at 364.35. And we come back to the
theme of "God in flesh" at 367.30 in "the Sandwich, Eucharist of this our
age" (which reminds us of Mason's father's baker's oven and Mason's musings
thereon).

Wicks makes explicit the human inability to conceive of an end to life,
with heavy irony, at 364.13, giving us the Norman Rockwell painting scene
and asking "what are those Faces, gather'd before some Window, raising
Toasts, preparing for the Evening ahead, if not assur'd of life
forever?[....] how may Death come here?" (well, they all hope it doesn't
come the same way it came to the Indians massacred by the Paxton Boys down
the road, for starters; and I love it that Pynchon has followed "how may
Death come here?" with "Mr. Knockwood" on the next line!).  Wicks appears
to undercut completely  the lofty Christian promise -- reiterating his
belief that there is no "third Testament" in America -- in the final
paragraph of chapter 35, 361.5:  "What Machine is it" he asks "that bears
us along so relentlessly?"

The machine is time, isn't it? And at the end of our individual time on
earth, instead of trumpets and the opening of the seven seals, we "come
abruptly to a Stop...gather'd dense with Fear, shall we open the Door to
confer with the Driver, to discover that there is no Driver,...no
Horses,...only the Machine, fading as we stand, and a Prairie of desperate
Immensity." (Prairie a character in Vineland, too, of course.) Which all
puts an interesting spin on Emerson's watch in chapter 32, after R.C.
swallows it: "as the days of ceaseless pulsation pass one by one, R.C.
learns that a small volume within him is, and shall be, immortal" (324.31).
Time won't stop, but a human life will, whether Christ intervenes in
History or not. What comes next is a matter of faith. And I wonder if, in
addition to the wonderful tapestry he's woven for us here of history and
religion, of hopes and dreams and despair, we don't hear some of Mr.
Pynchon's own intimations of mortality?