My daily newspaper is fond of analysing the speeches of politicians and decoding their true intent. Frequently blameless generalities cover aims that might look ugly if put in plain English. We often have to ask what is the real meaning behind the words we hear. This is not to say that coded language always has a sinister aspect; sometimes we resort to euphemism as a kindness when the truth may fall heavily on someone who is deeply upset by a loss or a family crisis. Sometimes it may happen that a rejection has to be couched in terms that soften its impact. But sometimes coded language is a literary form. We recognise this when we investigate Tolkien’s world or get carried away by the ancient mariner.
We should also recognise this as we read the last book of the Bible. When John in the second century CE wrote ‘Revelation’ or ‘Apocalypse’ he did not get very far before he was telling his readers that he had a secret meaning to share with them. The Greek word for this is practically the same word as our word ‘mystery’. And in its long history the word has amongst other things acquired the meaning of the secrets that are part of the day’s working life of a craftsman. A metal-worker, for instance, has at his disposal an array of procedures that the rest of us would not understand. He is a man with a mystery.
‘Revelation’ is a document that, as a reader discovers, has one secret meaning after another. It might almost be described as a classic mode of religious literature, an example of what religious writing ought to be. Stars, lamps, angels, trumpets, precious stones, seals (like most things in ‘Revelation’ they come in sevens), a woman in labour, a seven-headed dragon and finally a new heaven and new earth, a gigantic box full of light. Such is the overwhelming nature of the language of ‘Revelation’ that the rest of the New Testament seems dimmed.
To see what can happen when zealots allow this document to set the agenda, we need go no further than one of C.J. Sansom’s masterly historical novels. In ‘Revelation’ he probes untoward events in the Tudor period, that era when no religious opinion was too violent to be thought acceptable to impressionable readers of the last book of the Bible. In Sansom’s story a misguided ex-abbey employee attempts to enact what he finds in that book. There are damaging consequences.
Coded language? Secret meaning? Yes indeed. Understanding ‘Revelation’ is not a task for the naïve or the faint-hearted. Not even those with a broad acquaintance with imaginative literature down the ages can adequately grapple with what John wrote down on Patmos. Man’s reach should exceed his grasp but sometimes a mystery is best left to stun us.
CRYPTIC RELIGION
Cryptic cross-words are a harmless way of playing the de-coding game. Less innocent are the deductions made by extravagant explorers of religious novelties. Among these must be numbered Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), whose mother called him The Beast (‘Revelation 13.18). He came from a wealthy Brethren family, studied at Cambridge and joined the Order of the Golden Dawn from which he was later expelled. Travelling in Egypt, he had a religious experience that resulted in his belief that the individual has absolute freedom. He constructed his own religion Thelema involving elements from ‘Revelation’, magic and the repudiation of Christianity.
If you have a comment on this post please send an email to Revd John King at johnc.king@talktalk.net Edited extracts may be published. To forward this to a friend click on the chain icon below.
Comments