January 3 I was back in the library, looking up some last minute citations for a paper called “Le problème de Jésus, le souverain absent dans Christus Triumphans de John Foxe” (”The Problem of Jesus, the Absent Sovereign in John Foxe’s Christus Triumphans.”). I might have felt sorry for myself having to jump back into things before the party was done (Shaelagh’s parents weren’t due to leave for another day and a half), except that it was this library:

and the book they brought me was printed in Switzerland a good 50 years before my ancestors left that area in the early 1600’s. The New Holland library is great (I first checked out the Silmarillion there 20 years ago, and Annalise and I once made an Autumn collage there, featuring an exceptionally agile squirrel), but for mystery and mustiness, it’s hard to compete with this:

The paper was due the next day, the same day I was rescheduled to give my Monsters, Marvels and Martyrs presentation. In the end, both things happened, and the Monsters presentation went as well as I could have hoped. Professor Iselin responded well (he went so far as to say it was a pleasure), and several of the students talked to me about it afterwards. One of them asked me to send him my bibliography on the meaning of Communion.

The semester doesn’t actually end until Jan. 15, and I have a pretty big meeting to get through next week with my advisor, but for now at least, it feels like 2011 ended pretty well. Not least, because of this photo. Here’s hoping 2012 ends just as well.

Lead the way, Mira.

As promised, here’s a short explanation of the presentation that I was scheduled to give on Dec. 14 to the “Shakespeare and His Time - The Anatomy and Aesthetics of Monsters in Elizabethan Theater” graduate seminar at the Sorbonne (for various reasons, the presentation was actually rescheduled for Jan. 4).

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Monsters and Marvels in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs - short summary

Throughout most of European history, the word “monster” (or the Latin equivalents) could refer to almost anything outside the normal order of things.”Freakish” is probably the closest modern (American) synonym. An animal with a birth defect, surprising weather or astronomical events, combinations of two things normally thought of as separate (such as in hermaphrodites): all of these things are “freakish” in modern usage, or “monstrous” in older English.

At the same time, “monstrosities” were also closely linked to the “marvelous”. Both were outside the natural order of things, so both were, in a sense, freakish. And being outside the natural order of things, both monstrosities and marvels were considered to be signs of something - either that something had gone wrong (or right) in the great scheme of things, or that something would go wrong (or right). The monstrous and the marvelous were portents, signs, wonders, and omens. And so, at least until the Enlightenment in the 17th century, strange events of any kind needed to be interpreted.

So when Christians began once again to be martyred in large numbers for their beliefs in the 16th century (both Protestant and Catholic), many theologians, especially Protestants, began to look for the meaning of these monstrous - sometimes marvelous - events. What was God doing, and what did the signs of the times mean? And to answer those questions, they turned naturally to the book of Revelation, with its framework for understanding world history (or future) and, interestingly, its network of monstrous and marvelous symbols - beasts and dragons and wild horsemen and, in fact, martyrs.

The most famous book about the Reformation martyrs is John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. Foxe actually titled his book, The Acts and Monuments of these latter and perilous days, and in keeping with that title, Foxe did not write only about executions. He wrote a church history extending from Christ to his own time (under the Catholic Queen, Mary Tudor, remembered now as Bloody Mary). One version of his title refers to the book as a “universal history” of the church.

At the same time, in a addition to writing history, Foxe was also to a certain extent writing a commentary on the book of Revelation. In his understanding of the book (and that of many others at the time), Satan was bound at the time of Christ’s crucifixion, and the millennium had therefore already come and gone. The loosing of Satan at the end of the millennium is what had unleashed the current corruption of the Catholic Church and, ultimately, the current persecution of Protestants. So church history and Revelation overlapped, and for Foxe, both culminated in the persecution of the martyrs and, soon, the return of Christ.

It was Foxe’s framework for understanding history and the End Times that gave him and his readers the keys to interpret the signs of the times, the monsters and marvels - and martyrs - of those “perilous” days. And, because so many others were asking similar questions, Foxe’s book soon became one of the most well-known books in Elizabethan England, helping to shape ideas and attitudes about the signs of the times and the place of persecution for centuries to come.

The purpose of this talk is to consider specific examples from Foxe’s text that show the relationship between the author’s eschatological framework and his interpretation of all sorts of “strange events”, including martyrdom. It is also to consider the significance of the text’s own hybrid - “monstrous” - nature for establishing that eschatological framework, and finally to mention briefly the influence of that framework on specific works of Shakespeare and Marlow, namely King Lear, the history cycles, and Tamburlaine the Great.

Last weekend was our semi-annual church retreat (we’ve done it twice - the first time was two years ago). Shaelagh’s been the official organizer both times, and this last time she pretty much arranged and planned everything herself (what with having a husband in graduate school and all).

At the retreat, she spent most of her time doing a sort of mini-VBS with the kids while the rest of us were having sessions and workshops on how to be a generously welcoming, inviting church community. I was sorry she couldn’t participate in the sessions, but at the same time, what could be more fun than helping a bunch of kids to understand the story of the love of the Father toward the prodigal son and then playing with a giant parachute and a teddy bear?

Shaelagh telling the story of the Prodigal Son to the Inattentive Daughter

Learning how to love like the Prodigal Father using a.... parachute?

The Welcome-Teddy sitting this one out

It’s always nice to hear someone else say the thing you keep thinking (or saying, or trying to say, or trying to think). It’s especially reassuring to hear it from a stranger on your first day of classes in an old, scary building.

“Theologians are under-represented in this university,” our professor said, “So, it’s good to have one in this seminar.” He looked at me across the table. “Shakespeare’s all about theology, after all, so be sure to speak up.” Yikes.

I don’t exactly think of myself as a theologian (though here, if you’ve studied it, that’s what you are). But everything else he said - that Christians are under-represented in the universities, and that literature is full of theology - is what has been behind a lot of our important decisions (and work) over the past few years. I’ve said it to myself (and other people) so many times, it was really pretty strange to hear it said back to me. Especially by a professor at the Sorbonne.

So that’s one of the reasons I’m back in school this year. Literature needs theology.

The other reason is that theology needs literature. It was a much older professor who said that back to me this week.

“I am persuaded that without knowledge of literature, pure theology cannot at all endure. . . Certainly it is my desire that there shall be as many poets and rhetoricians as possible, because I see that by these studies, as by no other means, people are wonderfully fitted for the grasping of sacred truth and for handling it skillfully and happily. . . . Therefore I beg of you that by my request (if that has any weight) you will urge your young people to be diligent in the study of poetry and rhetoric.” Martin Luther

And after a week of classes, I can definitely say that to survive this year, “diligent” is going to have to be an understatement. So it’s good to know that, besides our family and friends, there are at least 2 people behind the project.

Reading about martyrs has never been my thing. Partly it just seemed morbid. Mainly it felt like emotional manipulation, not least because of this kind of picture above. These were stories (I figured) that were being told to make me into a better Christian. Look at these people. Look at this guy burn. And you can’t even do your daily prayers. Pathetic.

Besides not wanting to be guilt-tripped, I knew (or thought I knew) that a lot of martyr stories had been written as propaganda, and so they must be full of lies and exaggeration. Those ancient historians clearly had never had a history-writing class. Probably better to keep my distance.

So I was surprised and not very excited when my new graduate school supervisor suggested that I compare 16th century martyr histories for my literature thesis. I didn’t know that serious scholars even studied that stuff. On the other hand, I was just lucky to have found someone who wasn’t scared off by my background in evangelical theology. And here was a comparative lit professor who seemed to see it as an asset. Probably best to go along with whatever he suggested.

Go home and think about it, he told me. If you want to do it, great. If not, tell me what else you might want to do.

That was in April. Since then, I’ve spent the summer reading (and reading about) Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and Crespin’s Le Livre des Martyrs. Together they’re about 4000 pages, so needless to say, I haven’t quite read them cover to cover. (I did have a few other things to do this summer.) But I’ve already found that I had been mistaken on a few points.

For one thing, Foxe and Crespin were both careful to verify their facts whenever they could. For another, despite how they were abridged and edited in later centuries, the purpose of these histories wasn’t simple propaganda or spiritual inspiration, even if they were sometimes both. Their authors meant them to be historical, theological and literary “monuments” to God’s long-term plan of redemption for the whole world. And it happened that martyrs had a central role in that plan - starting, of course, with Jesus himself.

My project over the next few years will be to find the similarities and differences between the French and English approaches to these martyr histories. Was martyrdom a tragic event or a victory? How did the book of Revelation and its martyrs influence ideas about what was happening? And when was martyrdom considered worth it, necessary, or even desirable? (Or to put it in alt-country terms, in the end, what is “the right kind of Live Free or Die“?)

And with any luck, it might also make me a better Christian.

Almost 5 years ago, I compared my fear about taking my first oral French exam at the Sorbonne to the idea of fighting a cobra. As it turned out, in the 2 years of language school after that, I never once had an examiner that reminded me of anything poisonous. I did have one who was definitely a grouchy gray donkey, and there was one who reminded me of a chinchilla, but none of them seemed out to get me, like I assume a cobra would have been.

So, when I had to take another oral exam at the Sorbonne a few weeks ago (this time to qualify for a Masters program), I wasn’t sure I would pass, but I was pretty sure that I wouldn’t need my snake-charmer flute or my gun (which is good, because I can’t seem to find either one since we moved).  I was expecting even less to be told by the examiner that she thinks France needs more people here doing what I’m doing. But she did, which says a lot more about her than it does about me, or my French abilities.

Her point was that there aren’t very many Protestant (Evangelical) Christians here, at least not in the circles she moves in, and so people like her don’t even know what their options are. She made a choice about religion 25 years ago, and now she regrets it. France’s Christian heritage (both Catholic and Protestant) is receding into the background so quickly that even (especially?) many of the well-educated don’t remember it or know what it means. So we talked about that for a while.

For once, the end of the exam came faster than I would have liked. “Well,” she said, “we didn’t really talk about the assigned topic. But that’s OK. This was more interesting. In fact, you’ve given me quite a lot to think about.”

I walked out thinking, for more than one reason, that I hoped my French hadn’t been so bad that she had in fact misunderstood, and that she didn’t think we had been talking about poodles or pastry that whole time. I got my results back a few weeks later, and from the mark she gave, I guess she understood what I said.  And I’m hoping she meant what she said, too.