The exam period is underway and - boy oh boy - the pressure is mounting!
I might take a short break from blogging next week so that I am not distracted
from my revision plan, so please do not think that I have abandoned you if
there is radio silence for a short while.
Another postcard from Leonard arrived yesterday morning (my postman must
be wondering who on earth this Leonard person is by now). The picture was
Cezanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire and Chateau Noir and since it arrived on
the morning of my first exam I was expecting - and somewhat hoping for - an
encouraging word or two, but instead the message on the reverse rather
disappointingly read:
Did you know that when Cezanne was painting Mont S-V, he would move his easel only a metre or so, to the r. or l. and start another? It is possible to arrange perspectives on either side of a particular painting…I find that it is always good to have a fresh perspective…and a fresh canvas…
I called into Elmfield House
late yesterday afternoon to reassure Leonard that I had survived my first exam.
He was pleased to see me and he ushered me straight into the workroom to tell
him all about it, seating me in the cream leather armchair with a glass of
orange juice and a huge slice of carrot cake. It made a pleasant change to have
a casual chat for once without being stared at and repositioned every few
minutes. I felt more like a guest and less like an artist's tool.
Although Leonard was
interested to hear my account of that morning’s exam and he listened intently
to every word that I spoke, I could see that he was preoccupied with something and
I suspected that he had an appointment elsewhere that he was being too polite
to tell me about and so, after half-an-hour or thereabouts, I thanked him for
the cake and told him that I should be on my way home to revise for my next
exam. At that point he suddenly roused from his distracted state and asked if I
could stay for a few minutes longer as he had an exercise for me - not a
'run-around-the-room kind of exercise' he was quick to add but, if I was
feeling up to it, he would like to ask my opinion on a matter as his
'consultant theologian'. He said that there is a riddle that every reader of
the Bible has missed for centuries and he wanted to see whether I was clever
enough to spot it and, if possible, solve it. I could not resist the challenge so
I agreed to stay for a little longer and Leonard quickly grabbed his bible, flicked
through the pages and handed it to me opened on chapter eight of the Gospel of
Matthew. I recognised the passage from my New Testament classes; it was the
healing of the centurion's servant:
‘And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a
centurion, beseeching him and saying, Lord, my servant lies at home sick of the
palsy, grievously tormented. And Jesus said to him, I will come and heal him.
The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that you should come
under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. For I
am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go,
and he goes; and to another, Come, and he comes; and to my servant, Do this,
and he does it. When Jesus heard this he marvelled, and said to them that
followed, Verily I say to you, I have not found so great faith…. And Jesus said
unto the centurion, Go your way; and as you have believed, so be it done to
you. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour.’
I told Leonard that I was familiar with this story, to which he smiled
and posed me the following question: how does the healing of the centurion’s
servant take place at a distance and at the same time that Jesus gives his
blessing for the healing to be performed? I confessed that I had not considered
how Jesus was able to heal from a distance, so Leonard presented me with three possible
solutions: maybe it was just a coincidence and the servant had started the
natural healing process at the same time that the centurion approached Jesus? Or
perhaps Jesus performed a telepathic healing? Or did Jesus whisper a prayer
request to God that the author of the Gospel has failed to mention? A
telepathic healing sounded very odd indeed and a simple coincidence seemed doubtful
as Jesus’ response to the centurion implies that Jesus has the final and
decisive say in whether the healing takes place or not. But it was equally unlikely
that the words of a prayer would not be recorded. Unconvinced by any of these
theories, I told Leonard that I found these explanations to be unsatisfactory
and I pressed him for his own thoughts on the passage.
Leonard said that cures from a distance were reported of other healers
in antiquity and this type of healing was typically achieved using three different
methods: 1) through a form of sympathetic magic in which healing energy leaves
the body of the healer and travels to the location of the sick individual, 2)
as a result of the healer splitting himself into two halves - the physical self
and the spiritual self - and sending the spiritual half to perform the healing,
or 3) by employing gods or minor spirits to carry out the healing on the
healer’s behalf. I tried to question Leonard further on the first two options
but he quickly abandoned those lines of enquiry, telling me that they are
'fluff and distraction' because the central focus of the Gospel story is not
concerned with the innate healing powers of Jesus himself but rather on the third
point; his authoritative command over subordinates who will carry out the
healing on his behalf.
Leonard explained that the centurion compares Jesus’ position to his own
by saying that they are both acting under a higher authority and they both have
an authoritative, military-like command over others who will respond immediately
to their orders. Since the centurion knows that a word of command to his soldiers
can produce immediate results, he urges Jesus that it is not necessary for him
to attend the bedside of his servant as others will carry out the healing if he
will ‘speak the word only’, i.e. issue a command to others who will perform the
healing on his behalf. Jesus’ positive response reveals that the centurion is
correct in his observation and he is rewarded by the healing that takes place almost
immediately.
Leonard paused, leaving an
obvious question hanging in the air, so obligingly I asked: “who are these obedient
‘others’? Who are Jesus' soldiers?”
“No-one knows for sure,” he
answered, "and the mysterious comparison remains like this…”
He ripped a page from his drawing
pad and sketched the following diagram:
Antipas -> Centurion ->
Soldiers
God -> Jesus -> ???
Studying the diagram, I found
myself at a loss for an answer. “Who do you think these subordinate ‘others’
are?” I asked. Leonard blustered through a list of identities that have been proposed
by various commentators on the Gospels - some argue that they are the diseases
themselves that obey Jesus, some think that they are the demons that are responsible
for causing the diseases, some believe that they are the disciples who were coincidently
healing the servant at the exact time when the centurion encountered Jesus - however
I could tell that Leonard was dismissive of these theories, so I pressed him harder
for his own thoughts on the matter.
“And you? What do you think?” I enquired.
Leonard proposed that the
centurion is referring to spiritual beings that are under Jesus’ control and obedient
to his every command. More specifically, since the passage plays upon the
concept of willing servants - a dynamic that is emphasised by the author of
Luke who has the centurion physically send messengers to Jesus - Leonard argued
that these spiritual beings must be willing spirits rather than compelled demons.
I asked whether these willing spirits could be angels and Leonard agreed that
Jesus’ ability to summon angels to his aid is mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew
in which we read that angels served Jesus immediately following his temptation in the wilderness,
however he said that if the anonymous spirits
that are at Jesus’ disposal are to be recognised as angels or some other form
of divine subordinate then the reader of the Gospels is faced with a serious problem:
a command over demons was a skill that was ordinarily accredited to an
exorcist, but the mastery of good spirits was considered to be the work of a
magician.
Leonard then launched into a
very interesting lecture about the various spiritual intermediaries that
bridged the gap between humans and the gods in the ancient world. He told me
that whenever a worldview acknowledges the existence of malevolent or benevolent
spirits there is usually an accompanying magical worldview that teaches that wondrous
feats can be achieved through the magical manipulation of these spirits, hence the
prevalence of magical texts detailing how to exploit these spirits and secure
one as an attending spirit - or a ‘familiar spirit’ – that were in wide
circulation throughout the ancient world. Leonard said that magicians procured attending
spirits from a number of sources - some were angels, some were demons, some
were the souls of the dead and some were even the gods themselves – and they
were put to work in all manner of magical operations from curses to love charms.
Since the spirit world was a popular source of these magical servants and
employing these spirits to perform miracles on the magician’s behalf was a
common and widespread practice, Leonard said that Jesus’ contemporaries may
have considered it to be entirely plausible that Jesus could be employing
attending spirits from a variety of divine and/or demonic sources and manipulating
them in order to produce miraculous effects.
