The Criminal-King in a 19th Century Novel

Abstract

To dismiss this startling concordance as a mere coincidence is as 'unscientific' as to explain it mysteriously as an effect of historical 'action at a distance,' for which we have no experimental proof. The simplest way to solve the riddle is to study the means by which Michelangelo extracted the ancient equation between Christ and Haman from its parodistic or blasphemous distortion. It was not by going back to a primmval event which was not possibly known in the sixteenth century, but by accepting a complicated and profound theological doctrine which established between Law and Grace so close an association that the cruel execution of the Law on a criminal could be interpreted as foreshadowing a mystery of Grace, and the co-ordination of two figures which was transmitted as parody, could appear as a secret of revelation. To rescue the tragic ritual from its parodistic disfigurement is a typical event of religious life; and if this process is twice repeated with the same figure, it is no wonder if the final symbol comes frighteningly close to the original event. In a vague sense of the word, one might call this repetition 'remembrance.' It is necessary, however, to realize that in this case the person performing the act of remembering is not the individual (for whom it is impossible, though he be the greatest genius, to remember something which he never knew), but that anonymous being, the social community, which employs his consciousness as a particularly suitable instrument to register and express its ancient memories. What may appear as 'remembrance' in the collective being must, therefore, be called 'discovery' in the individual. In the case of 'Haman and Christ,' one must also consider that the memory or discovery did not occur with primitive spontaneity, but was aroused and supported by the fully developed Christian dogma of the relation between Law and Grace. Social memory thus depended in this case (and quite certainly depends in the majority of all cases which have as complicated a theme) upon the continuance of an external tradition, which, in the form of an intellectual dogma or pictorial image, challenges the individual to explore and discover what the community tends to forget. E. W. THE CRIMINAL-KING IN A I9TH CENTURY NOVEL