I said, “If one should wet his lips with wine,And slip the broadest plantain-leaf we find,Or else the lappet of a linen robe, {15}Into the water-vessel, lay it right,And cool his forehead just above the eyes,The while a brother, kneeling either side,Should chafe each hand and try to make it warm,—He is not so far gone but he might speak.” {20}This did not happen in the outer cave,Nor in the secret chamber of the rock,Where, sixty days since the decree was out,We had him, bedded on a camel-skin,And waited for his dying all the while; {25}But in the midmost grotto: since noon’s lightReached there a little, and we would not loseThe last of what might happen on his face.
— 23. the decree: of persecution of the Christians, perhaps that under Domitian. The poet probably did not think of any particular persecution. —
I at the head, and Xanthus at the feet,With Valens and the Boy, had lifted him, {30}And brought him from the chamber in the depths,And laid him in the light where we might see:For certain smiles began about his mouth,And his lids moved, presageful of the end.Beyond, and half way up the mouth o’ the cave, {35}The Bactrian convert, having his desire,Kept watch, and made pretence to graze a goatThat gave us milk, on rags of various herb,Plantain and quitch, the rocks’ shade keeps alive:So that if any thief or soldier passed {40}(Because the persecution was aware),Yielding the goat up promptly with his life,Such man might pass on, joyful at a prize,Nor care to pry into the cool o’ the cave.Outside was all noon and the burning blue. {45}
— 36. the Bactrian convert: in vv. 649, 650, he is spoken of as “but a wild childish man, and could not write nor speak, but only loved.” Bactria was a kingdom in Central Asia; the modern name is Balkh {a district in northern Afghanistan as of 1995}. having his desire: as a new convert, the simple man was eager to serve, even unto death.
41. aware: on the lookout; exercising a strict espionage. —
“Here is wine”, answered Xanthus,—dropped a drop;I stooped and placed the lap of cloth aright,Then chafed his right hand, and the Boy his left:But Valens had bethought him, and producedAnd broke a ball of nard, and made perfume. {50}Only, he did—not so much wake, as—turnAnd smile a little, as a sleeper doesIf any dear one call him, touch his face—And smiles and loves, but will not be disturbed.Then Xanthus said a prayer, but still he slept: {55}It is the Xanthus that escaped to Rome,Was burned, and could not write the chronicle.Then the Boy sprang up from his knees, and ran,Stung by the splendor of a sudden thought,And fetched the seventh plate of graven lead {60}Out of the secret chamber, found a place,Pressing with finger on the deeper dints,And spoke, as ‘twere his mouth proclaiming first,“I am the Resurrection and the Life.”
— 60. the seventh plate of graven lead: one of the plates on which John’s Gospel was graven. It contained, it appears, the 11th chapter, in which Jesus says to Martha, 25th verse, “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” The Boy uttered the words with such expression as ‘twere HIS mouth first proclaiming them. —
Whereat he opened his eyes wide at once, {65}And sat up of himself, and looked at us;And thenceforth nobody pronounced a word:Only, outside, the Bactrian cried his cryLike the lone desert-bird that wears the ruff,As signal we were safe, from time to time. {70}
— 69. the lone desert-bird: the ruff may possibly be referred to. See Webster, s.v. —
First he said, “If a man declared to me,This my son Valens, this my other son,Were James and Peter,—nay, declared as wellThis lad was very John,—I could believe!—Could, for a moment, doubtlessly believe: {75}So is myself withdrawn into my depths,The soul retreated from the perished brainWhence it was wont to feel and use the worldThrough these dull members, done with long ago.Yet I myself remain; I feel myself: {80}And there is nothing lost. Let be, awhile!”
— 76. withdrawn into my depths: into the depths of his absolute being, of the “what Is”; see the doctrine of the trinal unity of man which follows. —
{This is the doctrine he was wont to teach,How divers persons witness in each man,Three souls which make up one soul: first, to wit,A soul of each and all the bodily parts, {85}Seated therein, which works, and is what Does,And has the use of earth, and ends the manDownward; but, tending upward for advice,Grows into, and again is grown intoBy the next soul, which, seated in the brain, {90}Useth the first with its collected use,And feeleth, thinketh, willeth,—is what Knows:Which, duly tending upward in its turn,Grows into, and again is grown intoBy the last soul, that uses both the first, {95}Subsisting whether they assist or no,And, constituting man’s self, is what Is—And leans upon the former, makes it play,As that played off the first: and, tending up,Holds, is upheld by, God, and ends the man {100}Upward in that dread point of intercourse,Nor needs a place, for it returns to Him.What Does, what Knows, what Is; three souls, one man.I give the glossa of Theotypas.}
— 82-104. The supposed narrator, Pamphylax, gives in these bracketed verses, on the authority of an imagined Theotypas, a doctrine John was wont to teach, of the trinal unity of man— the third “person” of which unity, “what Is”, being man’s essential, absolute nature. The dying John is represented as having won his way to the Kingdom of the “what Is”, the Kingdom of eternal truth within himself. In Luke 17:20-21, we read: “And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the Kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo here! or, Lo there! for, behold, the Kingdom of God is within you.” In harmony with which, Paracelsus is made to say, in Browning’s poem, “Truth is within ourselves; . . . there is an inmost centre in us all, where truth abides in fulness”; etc. See pp. 24 and 25 of this volume. {In this etext, see Chapter I, ‘The Spiritual Ebb and Flow, etc.’, of the Introduction. Excerpt is shortly before the poem ‘Popularity’.} “Life, you’ve granted me, develops from within. But INNERMOST OF THE INMOST, MOST INTERIOR OF THE INTERNE, GOD CLAIMS HIS OWN, DIVINE HUMANITY RENEWING NATURE” (Mrs. Browning’s ‘Aurora Leigh’). Mrs. M. G. Glazebrook, in her paper on ‘A Death in the Desert’, read at the 48th meeting of the Browning Society, Feb. 25th, 1887, paraphrases these lines: “The first and lowest {soul} is that which has to do with earth and corporeal things, the animal soul, which receives primary sensations and is the immediate cause of action —‘what Does’. The second is the intellect, and has its seat in the brain: it is superior to the first, but dependent on it, since it receives as material the actual experience which the animal soul supplies; it is the feeling, thinking, willing soul —‘what Knows’. The third, and highest, is the spirit of man, the very principle of life, the divine element in man linking him to God, which is self-subsistent and therefore independent of sensation and knowledge, but nevertheless makes use of them, and gives them existence and energy—‘what Is’.” —
And then, “A stick, once fire from end to end; {105}Now, ashes save the tip that holds a spark!Yet, blow the spark, it runs back, spreads itselfA little where the fire was: thus I urgeThe soul that served me, till it task once moreWhat ashes of my brain have kept their shape, {110}And these make effort on the last o’ the flesh,Trying to taste again the truth of things”—(He smiled)—“their very superficial truth;As that ye are my sons, that it is longSince James and Peter had release by death, {115}And I am only he, your brother John,Who saw and heard, and could remember all.Remember all! It is not much to say.What if the truth broke on me from aboveAs once and oft-times? Such might hap again: {120}Doubtlessly He might stand in presence here,With head wool-white, eyes, flame, and feet like brass,The sword and the seven stars, as I have seen—I who now shudder only and surmise‘How did your brother bear that sight and live?’ {125}
— 113. superficial truth: phenomenal, relative truth; that which is arrived at through the senses, and belongs to the domain of the “what Knows”. Essential, absolute truth can be known only through a response thereto of the essential, the absolute, the “what Is”, in man’s nature. John has attained to a measure of absolute truth, and smiles on reverting to the very superficial truth of things.
121-123. See The Revelation of St. John, chap. 1.
125. your brother: he means himself, of course. —
“If I live yet, it is for good, more loveThrough me to men: be naught but ashes hereThat keep awhile my semblance, who was John,—Still, when they scatter, there is left on earthNo one alive who knew (consider this!) {130}—Saw with his eyes and handled with his handsThat which was from the first, the Word of Life.How will it be when none more saith ‘I saw’?“Such ever was love’s way: to rise, it stoops.Since I, whom Christ’s mouth taught, was bidden teach, {135}I went, for many years, about the world,Saying, ‘It was so; so I heard and saw’,Speaking as the case asked: and men believed.Afterward came the message to myselfIn Patmos isle; I was not bidden teach. {140}But simply listen, take a book and write,Nor set down other than the given word.With nothing left to my arbitramentTo choose or change: I wrote, and men believed.Then, for my time grew brief, no message more, {145}No call to write again, I found a way,And, reasoning from my knowledge, merely taughtMen should, for love’s sake, in love’s strength, believe;Or I would pen a letter to a friend,And urge the same as friend, nor less nor more: {150}Friends said I reasoned rightly, and believed.But at the last, why, I seemed left aliveLike a sea-jelly weak on Patmos strand,To tell dry sea-beach gazers how I faredWhen there was mid-sea, and the mighty things; {155}Left to repeat, ‘I saw, I heard, I knew’,And go all over the old ground again,With Antichrist already in the world,And many Antichrists, who answered prompt‘Am I not Jasper as thyself art John? {160}Nay, young, whereas through age thou mayest forget:Wherefore, explain, or how shall we believe?’I never thought to call down fire on such,Or, as in wonderful and early days,Pick up the scorpion, tread the serpent dumb; {165}But patient stated much of the Lord’s lifeForgotten or misdelivered, and let it work:Since much that at the first, in deed and word,Lay simply and sufficiently exposed,Had grown (or else my soul was grown to match, {170}Fed through such years, familiar with such light,Guarded and guided still to see and speak)Of new significance and fresh result;What first were guessed as points, I now knew stars,And named them in the Gospel I have writ. {175}For men said, ‘It is getting long ago:Where is the promise of His coming?’—askedThese young ones in their strength, as loth to wait,Of me who, when their sires were born, was old.I, for I loved them, answered, joyfully, {180}Since I was there, and helpful in my age;And, in the main, I think such men believed.Finally, thus endeavoring, I fell sick.Ye brought me here, and I supposed the end,And went to sleep with one thought that, at least, {185}Though the whole earth should lie in wickedness,We had the truth, might leave the rest to God.Yet now I wake in such decrepitudeAs I had slidden down and fallen afar,Past even the presence of my former self, {190}Grasping the while for stay at facts which snap,Till I am found away from my own world,Feeling for foot-hold through a blank profound,Along with unborn people in strange lands,Who say—I hear said or conceive they say— {195}‘Was John at all, and did he say he saw?Assure us, ere we ask what he might see!’
— 156. I saw, I heard, I knew: expressions which occur throughout John’s Revelation.
188-197. The poet provides, in these lines, for the prophetic character of John’s discourse, its solution of the difficulties destined to beset Christianity in the future, and especially of those which have been raised in our own times. The historical bulwarks which the Strausses and the Renans have endeavored to destroy, Christianity, in its essential, absolute character, its adaptiveness to spiritual vitality, and the wants of the soul, can do without. Indeed, there will be much gained when the historical character of Christianity is generally disregarded. Its impregnable fortress, namely, the Personality, Jesus Christ, will remain, and mankind will forever seek and find refuge in it. Arthur Symons, in his ‘Introduction to the Study of Browning’, remarks: . . ."it is as a piece of ratiocination—suffused, indeed, with imagination— that the poem seems to have its raison d’etre. The bearing of this argument on contemporary theories, may to some appear a merit, to others a blemish. To make the dying John refute Strauss or Renan, handling their propositions with admirable dialectical skill, is certainly, on the face of it, somewhat hazardous. But I can see no real incongruity in imputing to the seer of Patmos a prophetic insight into the future—no real inconsequence in imagining the opponent of Cerinthus spending his last breath in the defence of Christian truth against a foreseen scepticism.” —
“And how shall I assure them? Can they share—They, who have flesh, a veil of youth and strengthAbout each spirit, that needs must bide its time, {200}Living and learning still as years assistWhich wear the thickness thin, and let man see—With me who hardly am withheld at all,But shudderingly, scarce a shred between,Lie bare to the universal prick of light? {205}Is it for nothing we grow old and weak,We whom God loves? When pain ends, gain ends too.To me, that story—ay, that Life and DeathOf which I wrote ‘it was’—to me, it is;—Is, here and now: I apprehend naught else. {210}Is not God now i’ the world His power first made?Is not His love at issue still with sin,Visibly when a wrong is done on earth?Love, wrong, and pain, what see I else around?Yea, and the Resurrection and Uprise {215}To the right hand of the throne—what is it beside,When such truth, breaking bounds, o’erfloods my soul,And, as I saw the sin and death, even soSee I the need yet transiency of both,The good and glory consummated thence? {220}I saw the Power; I see the Love, once weak,Resume the Power: and in this word ‘I see’,Lo, there is recognized the Spirit of bothThat moving o’er the spirit of man, unblindsHis eye and bids him look. These are, I see; {225}But ye, the children, His beloved ones too,Ye need,—as I should use an optic glassI wondered at erewhile, somewhere i’ the world,It had been given a crafty smith to make;A tube, he turned on objects brought too close, {230}Lying confusedly insubordinateFor the unassisted eye to master once:Look through his tube, at distance now they lay,Become succinct, distinct, so small, so clear!Just thus, ye needs must apprehend what truth {235}I see, reduced to plain historic fact,Diminished into clearness, proved a pointAnd far away: ye would withdraw your senseFrom out eternity, strain it upon time,Then stand before that fact, that Life and Death, {240}Stay there at gaze, till it dispart, dispread,As though a star should open out, all sides,Grow the world on you, as it is my world.
— 202. “Oh, not alone when life flows still do truth and power emerge, but also when strange chance ruffles its current; in unused conjuncture, when sickness breaks the body—hunger, watching, excess, or languor— oftenest death’s approach—peril, deep joy, or woe.” —Browning’s ‘Paracelsus’.
“The soul’s dark cottage, battered and decayed,Lets in new light through chinks that Time has made.Stronger by weakness, wiser men become,As they draw near to their eternal home.Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view,That stand upon the threshold of the new.”—Edmund Waller.
“Drawing near her death, she sent most pious thoughts as harbingers to heaven; and her soul saw a glimpse of happiness through the chinks of her sickness-broken body.” Fuller’s ‘Holy and Profane State’, Book I., chap. 2.
203. With me: connect with ‘share’, v. 198.
208-209. See p. 62 of this volume. {In this etext, Part II, Section 3 in the Introduction. It is shortly before an excerpt from ‘Christmas Eve’.}
221-225. See stanzas 9 and 10 of ‘Rabbi Ben Ezra’.
227. an optic glass: perhaps anachronistic. —
“For life, with all it yields of joy and woe,And hope and fear,—believe the aged friend,— {245}Is just our chance o’ the prize of learning love,How love might be, hath been indeed, and is;And that we hold thenceforth to the uttermostSuch prize despite the envy of the world,And, having gained truth, keep truth: that is all. {250}But see the double way wherein we are led,How the soul learns diversely from the flesh!With flesh, that hath so little time to stay,And yields mere basement for the soul’s emprise,Expect prompt teaching. Helpful was the light, {255}And warmth was cherishing and food was choiceTo every man’s flesh, thousand years ago,As now to yours and mine; the body sprangAt once to the height, and staid: but the soul,—no!Since sages who, this noontide, meditate {260}In Rome or Athens, may descry some pointOf the eternal power, hid yestereve;And, as thereby the power’s whole mass extends,So much extends the ether floating o’erThe love that tops the might, the Christ in God. {265}Then, as new lessons shall be learned in theseTill earth’s work stop and useless time run out,So duly, daily, needs provision beFor keeping the soul’s prowess possible,Building new barriers as the old decay, {270}Saving us from evasion of life’s proof,Putting the question ever, ‘Does God love,And will ye hold that truth against the world?’Ye know there needs no second proof with goodGained for our flesh from any earthly source: {275}We might go freezing, ages,—give us fire,Thereafter we judge fire at its full worth,And guard it safe through every chance, ye know!That fable of Prometheus and his theft,How mortals gained Jove’s fiery flower, grows old {280}(I have been used to hear the pagans own)And out of mind; but fire, howe’er its birth,Here is it, precious to the sophist nowWho laughs the myth of Aeschylus to scorn,As precious to those satyrs of his play, {285}Who touched it in gay wonder at the thing.While were it so with the soul,—this gift of truthOnce grasped, were this our soul’s gain safe, and sureTo prosper as the body’s gain is wont,—Why, man’s probation would conclude, his earth {290}Crumble; for he both reasons and decides,Weighs first, then chooses: will he give up fireFor gold or purple once he knows its worth?Could he give Christ up were His worth as plain?Therefore, I say, to test man, the proofs shift, {295}Nor may he grasp that fact like other fact,And straightway in his life acknowledge it,As, say, the indubitable bliss of fire.Sigh ye, ‘It had been easier once than now?’To give you answer I am left alive; {300}Look at me who was present from the first!Ye know what things I saw; then came a test,My first, befitting me who so had seen:‘Forsake the Christ thou sawest transfigured, HimWho trod the sea and brought the dead to life? {305}What should wring this from thee?’—ye laugh and ask.What wrung it? Even a torchlight and a noise,The sudden Roman faces, violent hands,And fear of what the Jews might do! Just that,And it is written, ‘I forsook and fled’: {310}There was my trial, and it ended thus.Ay, but my soul had gained its truth, could grow:Another year or two,—what little child,What tender woman that had seen no leastOf all my sights, but barely heard them told, {315}Who did not clasp the cross with a light laugh,Or wrap the burning robe round, thanking God?Well, was truth safe forever, then? Not so.Already had begun the silent workWhereby truth, deadened of its absolute blaze, {320}Might need love’s eye to pierce the o’erstretched doubt.Teachers were busy, whispering ‘All is trueAs the aged ones report; but youth can reachWhere age gropes dimly, weak with stir and strain,And the full doctrine slumbers till to-day.’ {325}Thus, what the Roman’s lowered spear was found,A bar to me who touched and handled truth,Now proved the glozing of some new shrewd tongue,This Ebion, this Cerinthus or their mates,Till imminent was the outcry ‘Save our Christ!’ {330}Whereon I stated much of the Lord’s lifeForgotten or misdelivered, and let it work.Such work done, as it will be, what comes next?What do I hear say, or conceive men say,‘Was John at all, and did he say he saw? {335}Assure us, ere we ask what he might see!’
— 284. the myth of Aeschylus: embodied in his ‘Prometheus Bound’.
295. the proofs shift: see pp. 37 and 38. {In etext, shortly before two excerpts from ‘A Death in the Desert’, Chapter II, Section 1 of Introduction.} Objective proofs, in spiritual matters, need reconstruction, again and again; and whatever may be their character, they are inadequate, and must finally, in the Christian life, be superseded by subjective proofs— by man’s winning his way to the kingdom of eternal truth within himself —the kingdom of the “what Is”.
307-310. See Matt. 26:56; Mark 14:50; John 18:3.
326-328. what the Roman’s lowered spear was found {to be, namely}, a bar, {etc.,} now proved {to be, etc.}.
329. This Ebion, this Cerinthus: see ‘Gibbon’s History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’, Chaps. 15, 21, 47. And see, especially, the able articles, “Cerinthus” and “Ebionism and Ebionites”, in the ‘Dictionary of Christian Biography’, etc., edited by Dr. William Smith and Professor Wace. “‘Ebion’ as a name first personified by Tertullian, was said to have been a pupil of Cerinthus, and the Gospel of St. John to have been as much directed against the former as the latter. St. Paul and St. Luke were asserted to have spoken and written against Ebionites. The ‘Apostolical Constitutions’ (vi. c. 6) traced them back to Apostolic times; Theodoret (Haer. fab. II. c. 2) assigned them to the reign of Domitian (A.D. 81-96). The existence of an ‘Ebion’ is, however, now surrendered.” From Art. Ebionism in ‘Dict. of Christian Biography’.
And see Prof. George P. Fisher’s ‘Beginnings of Christianity’, 1877.
“Cerinthus, a man who was educated in the wisdom of the Egyptians, taught that the world was not made by the primary God, but by a certain power far separated from him, and at a distance from that Principality who is supreme over the universe, and ignorant of him who is above all. He represented Jesus as having not been born of a virgin, but as being the son of Joseph and Mary according to the ordinary course of human generation, while he nevertheless was more righteous, prudent, and wise than other men. Moreover, after his baptism, Christ descended upon him in the form of a dove from the Supreme Ruler, and that then he proclaimed the unknown Father, and performed miracles. But at last Christ departed from Jesus, and that then Jesus suffered and rose again, while Christ remained impassible, inasmuch as he was a spiritual being.” ‘The Writings of Irenaeus, transl. by Rev. Alexander Roberts, D.D., and Rev. W. H. Rambaut, A.B.’, Edinburgh, 1868. Vol. I., Book I., Chap xxvi. —
“Is this indeed a burthen for late days,And may I help to bear it with you all,Using my weakness which becomes your strength?For if a babe were born inside this grot, {340}Grew to a boy here, heard us praise the sun,Yet had but yon sole glimmer in light’s place,—One loving him and wishful he should learn,Would much rejoice himself was blinded firstMonth by month here, so made to understand {345}How eyes, born darkling, apprehend amiss:I think I could explain to such a childThere was more glow outside than gleams he caught,Ay, nor need urge ‘I saw it, so believe!’It is a heavy burthen you shall bear {350}In latter days, new lands, or old grown strange,Left without me, which must be very soon.What is the doubt, my brothers? Quick with it!I see you stand conversing, each new face,Either in fields, of yellow summer eves, {355}On islets yet unnamed amid the sea;Or pace for shelter ‘neath a porticoOut of the crowd in some enormous townWhere now the larks sing in a solitude;Or muse upon blank heaps of stone and sand {360}Idly conjectured to be Ephesus:And no one asks his fellow any more‘Where is the promise of His coming?’ but‘Was He revealed in any of His lives,As Power, as Love, as Influencing Soul?’ {365}
— 346. darkling: an old adverbial form; in the dark. See ‘Paradise Lost’, III. 39. “O, wilt thou darkling leave me?” Sh’s ‘M. N. D.’, II. 2. 86; “So, out went the candle, and we were left darkling.” ‘Lear’, I. 4. 237; also ‘A. and C.’, IV. 15. 10.
353. What is the doubt, my brothers?: He addresses his brothers of the far future. The eight following verses are very beautiful.
362-365. The question, “Where is the promise of His coming?” asked in John’s own day, gives place in the far future to which the ken of the dying Apostle extends, to the question whether God was indeed revealed in Christ, ‘As Power, as Love, as Influencing Soul’, or whether, man having already love in himself, Christ were not a mere projection from man’s inmost mind (v. 383)? If so there is nothing to fall back on but force, or natural law. This anticipated questioning and reasoning extends from v. 370 to v. 421. —
“Quick, for time presses, tell the whole mind out,And let us ask and answer and be saved!My book speaks on, because it cannot pass;One listens quietly, nor scoffs but pleads‘Here is a tale of things done ages since: {370}What truth was ever told the second day?Wonders, that would prove doctrine, go for naught.Remains the doctrine, love; well, we must love,And what we love most, power and love in one,Let us acknowledge on the record here, {375}Accepting these in Christ: must Christ then be?Has He been? Did not we ourselves make Him?Our mind receives but what it holds, no more.First of the love, then; we acknowledge Christ—A proof we comprehend His love, a proof {380}We had such love already in ourselves,Knew first what else we should not recognize.‘Tis mere projection from man’s inmost mind,And, what he loves, thus falls reflected back,Becomes accounted somewhat out of him; {385}He throws it up in air, it drops down earth’s,With shape, name, story added, man’s old way.How prove you Christ came otherwise at least?Next try the power: He made and rules the world:Certes there is a world once made, now ruled, {390}Unless things have been ever as we see.Our sires declared a charioteer’s yoked steedsBrought the sun up the east and down the west,Which only of itself now rises, sets,As if a hand impelled it and a will,— {395}Thus they long thought, they who had will and hands:But the new question’s whisper is distinct,Wherefore must all force needs be like ourselves?We have the hands, the will; what made and drivesThe sun is force, is law, is named, not known, {400}While will and love we do know; marks of these.Eye-witnesses attest, so books declare—As that, to punish or reward our race,The sun at undue times arose or setOr else stood still: what do not men affirm? {405}But earth requires as urgently rewardOr punishment to-day as years ago,And none expects the sun will interpose:Therefore it was mere passion and mistake,Or erring zeal for right, which changed the truth. {410}Go back, far, farther, to the birth of things;Ever the will, the intelligence, the love,Man’s!—which he gives, supposing he but finds,As late he gave head, body, hands, and feet,To help these in what forms he called his gods. {415}First, Jove’s brow, Juno’s eyes were swept away,But Jove’s wrath, Juno’s pride continued long;At last, will, power, and love discarded these,So law in turn discards power, love, and will.What proveth God is otherwise at least? {420}All else, projection from the mind of man!’
— 367. And let us ask and answer: John’s talk, it must be understood, is with future people, not with the attendants.
368. My book speaks on: that is, to people of all futures, because it cannot pass away.
371. What truth, etc.: that is, truth is soon perverted, obscured, and often turned into positive untruth.
372. Wonders, that would prove doctrine: that is, whose purpose was to prove.
385. Comes to be considered as something outside of, and distinct from, himself. —
“Nay, do not give me wine, for I am strong,But place my gospel where I put my hands.“I say that man was made to grow, not stop;That help, he needed once, and needs no more, {425}Having grown but an inch by, is withdrawn:For he hath new needs, and new helps to these.This imports solely, man should mount on eachNew height in view; the help whereby he mounts,The ladder-rung his foot has left, may fall, {430}Since all things suffer change save God the Truth.Man apprehends Him newly at each stageWhereat earth’s ladder drops, its service done;And nothing shall prove twice what once was proved.You stick a garden-plot with ordered twigs {435}To show inside lie germs of herbs unborn,And check the careless step would spoil their birth;But when herbs wave, the guardian twigs may go,Since should ye doubt of virtues, question kinds,It is no longer for old twigs ye look, {440}Which proved once underneath lay store of seed,But to the herb’s self, by what light ye boast,For what fruit’s signs are. This book’s fruit is plain,Nor miracles need prove it any more.Doth the fruit show? Then miracles bade ‘ware {445}At first of root and stem, saved both till nowFrom trampling ox, rough boar, and wanton goat.What? Was man made a wheelwork to wind up,And be discharged, and straight wound up anew?No!—grown, his growth lasts; taught, he ne’er forgets: {450}May learn a thousand things, not twice the same.This might be pagan teaching: now hear mine.
— 424. Here John’s answer begins to the questioning and reasoning contained in vv. 370-421.
In vv. 424-434, is contained a favorite teaching of Browning. It appears in various forms throughout his poetry. See the quotation from ‘Luria’, p. 38.
428. This imports solely: this is the one all important thing.
428-430. A similar comparison is used in ‘Julius Caesar’, A. II., S. I., 22-27:
. . ."lowliness is young ambition’s ladder,Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;But when he once attains the upmost round,He then unto the ladder turns his back,Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degreesBy which he did ascend.”
452. This might be pagan teaching: that is, even pagan teaching might go so far as this. —
“I say, that as the babe, you feed awhile,Becomes a boy and fit to feed himself,So, minds at first must be spoon-fed with truth: {455}When they can eat, babe’s nurture is withdrawn.I fed the babe whether it would or no:I bid the boy or feed himself or starve.I cried once, ‘That ye may believe in Christ,Behold this blind man shall receive his sight!’ {460}I cry now, ‘Urgest thou, FOR I AM SHREWD,AND SMILE AT STORIES HOW JOHN’S WORD COULD CURE—REPEAT THAT MIRACLE AND TAKE MY FAITH?’I say, that miracle was duly wroughtWhen, save for it, no faith was possible. {465}Whether a change were wrought i’ the shows o’ the world,Whether the change came from our minds which seeOf shows o’ the world so much as and no moreThan God wills for His purpose,—(what do ISee now, suppose you, there where you see rock {470}Round us?)—I know not; such was the effect,So faith grew, making void more miraclesBecause too much: they would compel, not help.I say, the acknowledgment of God in ChristAccepted by thy reason, solves for thee {475}All questions in the earth and out of it,And has so far advanced thee to be wise.Wouldst thou unprove this to re-prove the proved?In life’s mere minute, with power to use that proof,Leave knowledge and revert to how it sprung? {480}Thou hast it; use it and forthwith, or die!
— 472. So faith grew, making void more miracles: the outward manifestations of spiritual powers (du/namis, ‘power’, ‘act of power’, and shmei^on, ‘sign’, ‘token’, are the original words in the N. T., which are translated ‘miracle’) gave place to subjective proof. Christianity was endorsed by man’s own soul. To this may be added, that even the historical bulwarks of Christianity may, ere long, be dispensed with.
474-481. These verses may be taken as presenting Browning’s own conclusion as to the whole duty of man, in a spiritual direction. And see the quotation from ‘Christmas Eve’ and the remarks which follow, on pp. 63 and 64. {In etext, Chapter II, Section 3 of Introduction.} —
“For I say, this is death and the sole death,When a man’s loss comes to him from his gain,Darkness from light, from knowledge ignorance,And lack of love from love made manifest; {485}A lamp’s death when, replete with oil, it chokes;A stomach’s when, surcharged with food, it starves.With ignorance was surety of a cure.When man, appalled at nature, questioned first‘What if there lurk a might behind this might?’ {490}He needed satisfaction God could give,And did give, as ye have the written word:But when he finds might still redouble might,Yet asks, ‘Since all is might, what use of will?’—Will, the one source of might,—he being man {495}With a man’s will and a man’s might, to teachIn little how the two combine in large,—That man has turned round on himself and stands,Which in the course of nature is, to die.“And when man questioned, ‘What if there be love {500}Behind the will and might, as real as they?’—He needed satisfaction God could give,And did give, as ye have the written word:But when, beholding that love everywhere,He reasons, ‘Since such love is everywhere, {505}And since ourselves can love and would be loved,We ourselves make the love, and Christ was not’,—How shall ye help this man who knows himself,That he must love and would be loved again,Yet, owning his own love that proveth Christ, {510}Rejecteth Christ through very need of Him?The lamp o’erswims with oil, the stomach flagsLoaded with nurture, and that man’s soul dies.“If he rejoin, ‘But this was all the whileA trick; the fault was, first of all, in thee, {515}Thy story of the places, names and dates,Where, when, and how the ultimate truth had rise,—Thy prior truth, at last discovered none,Whence now the second suffers detriment.What good of giving knowledge if, because {520}O’ the manner of the gift, its profit fail?And why refuse what modicum of helpHad stopped the after-doubt, impossibleI’ the face of truth—truth absolute, uniform?Why must I hit of this and miss of that, {525}Distinguish just as I be weak or strong,And not ask of thee and have answer prompt,Was this once, was it not once?—then and nowAnd evermore, plain truth from man to man.Is John’s procedure just the heathen bard’s? {530}Put question of his famous play againHow for the ephemerals’ sake, Jove’s fire was filched,And carried in a cane and brought to earth:THE FACT IS IN THE FABLE, cry the wise,MORTALS OBTAINED THE BOON, SO MUCH IS FACT, {535}THOUGH FIRE BE SPIRIT AND PRODUCED ON EARTH.As with the Titan’s, so now with thy tale:Why breed in us perplexity, mistake,Nor tell the whole truth in the proper words?’
— 514-539. John anticipates another objection that will be made to his Gospel, namely, that so many things therein are not cleared up, that the whole truth is not told in the proper words, the sceptic claiming that everything should have been so proved
“That the probation bear no hinge nor loopTo hang a doubt on”;
that all after-doubt, impossible in the face of truth—truth absolute, uniform, might have been stopped.
523. Had stopped: would have stopped.
530. the heathen bard’s: Aeschylus’.
531. famous play: ‘Prometheus Bound’.
532. ephemerals’: mortals’.
537. Titan’s: Prometheus’. —
“I answer, Have ye not to argue out {540}The very primal thesis, plainest law,—Man is not God but hath God’s end to serve,A master to obey, a course to take,Somewhat to cast off, somewhat to become?Grant this, then man must pass from old to new, {545}From vain to real, from mistake to fact,From what once seemed good, to what now proves best.How could man have progression otherwise?Before the point was mooted ‘What is God?’No savage man inquired ‘What is myself?’ {550}Much less replied, ‘First, last, and best of things.’Man takes that title now if he believesMight can exist with neither will nor love,In God’s case—what he names now Nature’s Law—While in himself he recognizes love {555}No less than might and will: and rightly takes.Since if man prove the sole existent thingWhere these combine, whatever their degree,However weak the might or will or love,So they be found there, put in evidence,— {560}He is as surely higher in the scaleThan any might with neither love nor will,As life, apparent in the poorest midge(When the faint dust-speck flits, ye guess its wing),Is marvellous beyond dead Atlas’ self— {565}Given to the nobler midge for resting-place!Thus, man proves best and highest—God, in fine,And thus the victory leads but to defeat,The gain to loss, best rise to the worst fall,His life becomes impossible, which is death. {570}
— 540-633. All that John says in these verses, in reply to the anticipated objections urged in vv. 514-539, are found, substantially, in several passages in Browning’s poetry. See remarks on pp. 36-38 beginning, “The human soul is regarded in Browning’s poetry”, etc. {Chapter II, Section 1 in this etext.} An infallible guide, which would render unnecessary any struggles on man’s part, after light and truth, would torpify his powers. And see vv. 582-633 of the present poem.
552. Man takes that title now: that is, of ‘First, last, and best of things”, if, etc. See sections 17 and 18 of ‘Saul’, and stanza 10 of ‘Rabbi Ben Ezra’. And see the grand dying speech of Paracelsus, which concludes Browning’s poem.
554. “A law of nature means nothing to Mr. Browning if it does not mean the immanence of power, and will, and love. He can pass with ready sympathy into the mystical feeling of the East, where in the unclouded sky, in the torrent of noonday light, God is so near