Part 15 (1/2)
”Your creed is full of Levantine phrases and images, full of the patched contradictions of the human intelligence utterly puzzled. It is about those two G.o.ds, the G.o.d beyond the stars and the G.o.d in your heart. It says that they are the same G.o.d, but different. It says that they have existed together for all time, and that one is the Son of the other. It has added a third Person--but we won't go into that.”
The bishop was reminded suddenly of the dispute at Mrs. Garstein Fellows'. ”We won't go into that,” he agreed. ”No!”
”Other religions have told the story in a different way. The Cathars and Gnostics did. They said that the G.o.d in your heart is a rebel against the G.o.d beyond the stars, that the Christ in your heart is like Prometheus--or Hiawatha--or any other of the sacrificial G.o.ds, a rebel.
He arises out of man. He rebels against that high G.o.d of the stars and crystals and poisons and monsters and of the dead emptiness of s.p.a.ce....
The Manicheans and the Persians made out our G.o.d to be fighting eternally against that Being of silence and darkness beyond the stars.
The Buddhists made the Lord Buddha the leader of men out of the futility and confusion of material existence to the great peace beyond. But it is all one story really, the story of the two essential Beings, always the same story and the same perplexity cropping up under different names, the story of one being who stirs us, calls to us, and leads us, and of another who is above and outside and in and beneath all things, inaccessible and incomprehensible. All these religions are trying to tell something they do not clearly know--of a relations.h.i.+p between these two, that eludes them, that eludes the human mind, as water escapes from the hand. It is unity and opposition they have to declare at the same time; it is agreement and propitiation, it is infinity and effort.”
”And the truth?” said the bishop in an eager whisper. ”You can tell me the truth.”
The Angel's answer was a gross familiarity. He thrust his hand through the bishop's hair and ruffled it affectionately, and rested for a moment holding the bishop's cranium in his great palm.
”But can this hold it?” he said....
”Not with this little box of brains,” said the Angel. ”You could as soon make a meal of the stars and pack them into your belly. You haven't the things to do it with inside this.”
He gave the bishop's head a little shake and relinquished it.
He began to argue as an elder brother might.
”Isn't it enough for you to know something of the G.o.d that comes down to the human scale, who has been born on your planet and arisen out of Man, who is Man and G.o.d, your leader? He's more than enough to fill your mind and use up every faculty of your being. He is courage, he is adventure, he is the King, he fights for you and with you against death....”
”And he is not infinite? He is not the Creator?” asked the bishop.
”So far as you are concerned, no,” said the Angel.
”So far as I am concerned?”
”What have you to do with creation?”
And at that question it seemed that a great hand swept carelessly across the blackness of the farther sky, and smeared it with stars and suns and s.h.i.+ning nebulas as a brush might smear dry paint across a canvas.
The bishop stared in front of him. Then slowly he bowed his head, and covered his face with his hands.
”And I have been in orders,” he murmured; ”I have been teaching people the only orthodox and perfect truth about these things for seven and twenty years.”
And suddenly he was back in his gaiters and his ap.r.o.n and his shovel hat, a little black figure exceedingly small in a very great s.p.a.ce....
(10)
It was a very great s.p.a.ce indeed because it was all s.p.a.ce, and the roof was the ebony of limitless s.p.a.ce from which the stars swung flaming, held by invisible ties, and the soil beneath his feet was a dust of atoms and the little beginnings of life. And long before the bishop bared his face again, he knew that he was to see his G.o.d.
He looked up slowly, fearing to be dazzled.
But he was not dazzled. He knew that he saw only the likeness and bodying forth of a being inconceivable, of One who is greater than the earth and stars and yet no greater than a man. He saw a being for ever young, for ever beginning, for ever triumphant. The quality and texture of this being was a warm and living light like the effulgence at sunrise; He was hope and courage like a sunlit morning in spring. He was adventure for ever, and His courage and adventure flowed into and submerged and possessed the being of the man who beheld him. And this presence of G.o.d stood over the bishop, and seemed to speak to him in a wordless speech.