Albert Thelen - The Island of Second Sight

Such types as believing priests must actually exist, I went on, but it was difficult to fish them out of the mass of clergy because of their talent for camouflage. They were recognizable only by the radical colors that some of them wore, the ones who like Savonarola got swiftly burned at the stake. I added that she herself, Beatrice, the daughter of a pastor and patristic scholar, constituted a welcome confirmation of my theory that the children of Men of God can easily fall victim to the devil, atheism, and hypocrisy. How could it be otherwise? It was simply unthinkable for a man to produce children, go through the daily drudgery of heading a busy household and family, go for walks with a pregnant wife, and then climb into the pulpit every Sunday and break the sacred bread. To me this seemed like a form of blasphemy. Nevertheless, I explained, it was not my intention to cast aspersions on her esteemed father — at least no more aspersions than I was casting in her own direction.

I had read most of his books, and I had never forgotten what she once told me about this poignant incident in her father’s den, where the devout scholar was in the habit of writing at a stand-up desk. Sometimes when her mother wanted to be rid of her for a few minutes, she would let her enter her father’s study. On one such occasion, while Daddy was busy composing his History of Revival Movements , she began systematically removing the page slips from all the books she could reach on the shelves. Clueless in matters parental, yet always kind to children, her erudite father could think of only one way to handle this little intruder short of kicking her out of the room: he lifted the girl up to his stand-up desk, set her down on his manuscript, and went to another table to continue his work ad maiorem Dei gloriam . Fearful of falling down from her perch, the little tyke sat there as quiet as a mouse. We can ascribe to simple human nature what then ensued: Beatrice went about anointing the covenant that her father had entered into with his Creator. Later, Professor Adolf von Harnack, who often checked over his favorite student’s manuscripts before they were sent to the printer, noticed the strange aroma emitted by this particular sheaf of pages. Harnack, more acclimated to the refined fragrances of the German Kaiser’s household, probably interpreted the odor as the ordinary mustiness of a Swiss pastor’s dwelling.

I concluded my endorsement of this remarkable letter from the broker by saying that I myself had grown up in a totally unscholarly household devoid of books. Never, ever had I enjoyed the privilege of doing my business while sitting on a sacerdotal throne. At such a tender age I never committed transgressions against what was held sacred.

“And now you are making up for it, mon cher !”

“There is a time and a place for everything, ma chère . Sooner or later each of us will have his tongue rapped with a key, and then it will be obvious whether or not he will remain in divine tutelage. I left the State of Grace forcibly but willingly, whereas your departure had other reasons. Now we’re in this mess together, and we seem to be getting along okay — not brilliantly, but okay. That’s what happens when people are coerced into attending service on the day when the Lord took a breather. But that’s a whole different story. Can you imagine a God who designs and creates entire universes and then on the seventh day, like any upright citizen, takes the day off? Do your Papa’s posthumous manuscripts contain anything on this subject?”

“Vigo, you’re hallucinating! What’s all that got to do with this letter? It’s from Pedro or one of his henchmen. And in order to avoid admitting that once again you’re the fall guy, you start lambasting the two Christian religions, whose melancholy products we both are, and setting them one against the other. And in the process you get things all confused.”

“I am by no means getting things confused. It will very soon be apparent to you how all these things are connected. I’ve told you a lot about my uncle the bishop, who was in truth a great man whose mind was in no way affected by having to wear his precious miter cap. In his house in Münster, Am Domplatz 30, I got to see certain things that went on behind the scenes in the residence of a Higher Deputy of Jesus Christ. Let’s assume that all of these relatives of ours, each of them having his exclusive place amid the heavenly hosts contending for eternal salvation, were honorable men who put their intellectual and humane talents to work in the service of a cause that, to put it mildly, has very little that is intellectual or humane about it when politics demands its due. Just think: my Pope is already negotiating with Hitler, which means that belief in God and worldly expediency are in the balance. My Uncle Jean was well aware of the dilemma he would face as he was elevated to the rank of Bishop. In fact, he refused twice to accept the shepherd’s crook. When I asked him — he was by then a Bishop — whether he believed in God, he gave me a look that would have revealed all my misery to me — if indeed I felt miserable. He said, ‘I pray a great deal, my son.’

“Your Papa must have experienced similar crises of conscience, but soon enough he decided to get away from the sterile and musty air of Basel intellectual circles. Surely he felt uncomfortable there, for otherwise why would he have gone off to the pampas to spread the Word of God to the gauchos and the Indians of the savannahs? I’m impressed by the thought of the scion of an age-old scholarly dynasty abandoning his stand-up desk to lift himself up onto a mustang and start baptizing Araucans and Tehuelches. That cost him his life, but at least he escaped the fate of getting swallowed up by Nestlé Theology.”

“By what?”

“By Nestlé Theology, an important branch of Swiss seminary pedagogy. It’s concentrated, it’s germ-free, and if you keep a lid on it, it will stay useable for years. Every country brings forth its own special type of industry, with its own brand name and with no imitations permitted. This is a gripping story for which I have already found a title: God’s Gravediggers. I chatted a lot with Uncle Jean about these matters — always behind closed doors, so his butler wouldn’t hear what we were saying. One false word, and we would have a scandal on our hands. My uncle was a tolerant fellow, and he let me bring up any subject I wanted to. Only once did he get mad at me, and that was after I heard lectures by Barth and Mausbach. I recommended that he commission the writing of a modern theodicy, a justification of God not because of the evil and suffering in the world but because of the existence of theologians, who for me were convincing proof that God couldn’t exist, for otherwise He would have long since, using Old Testament techniques such as brimstone or plagues of locusts, got rid once and for all of these detractors.”

“That poor bishop! Did he come back at you by saying that God is immune to attacks by Men of God, especially when you consider that He Himself saw them coming, or even made them what they are? The gates of theology shall not prevail against God. I’ll bet your uncle blessed himself three times whenever you came to visit.”

“You’re mistaken there, too. He and I got along just fine. He never even tried to convert me, since he himself bore a heavy burden of respectability. That miter alone must have weighed ten pounds. One time he put it on my head, and it gave me a dashing look. Just imagine: Vigoleis as an episcopus, in partibus infidelium , with a princely wine cellar, with chamberlains, a personal confessor, confirmation ceremonies — or wait, let’s leave out the confirmation ceremonies, they can do any bishop in, they’re too much for even the strongest stomachs — and with a 13th century Lower Rhenish Madonna in a niche in the library…”