(1875.)
we have all heard the wonderful story, recounted by plutarch in his treatise on the cessation of the oracles, how, in the reign of tiberius c?sar, a ship sailing from greece to italy was becalmed for the night at the islet-rock of paxus in the ionian sea, between the echinades and ithaca, when a loud and terrible voice from the land called thamous the pilot. and he having responded at the third appeal, “i am here; what would you with me?” the voice, grown yet louder and more terrible, commanded him to announce on arriving at palodes that pan the great was dead. accordingly, when the vessel reached this place, whose site i believe the learned have not yet fixed, thamous stood on the prow and lifting his voice shoreward cried, “pan the great is dead!”—whereon were heard great moanings and lamentations, mysterious and multitudinous. not having plutarch at hand, i have refreshed my memory from rabelais, who repeats this well-authenticated story by the mouth of pantagruel, in the twenty-eighth chapter of the fourth book of his inestimable work, following soon on that tempest of all tempests wherein friar john and panurge so variously distinguished themselves. the good pantagruel goes on to expound the story after his own manner, thinking that it referred not to the heathen god pan, but to our lord and savior, jesus christ, “ignominiously put to death by the envy and iniquity of the pontiffs, doctors, presbyters, and monks of the mosaic dispensation....”
for with good right may he in the greek tongue be called pan, seeing that he is our all; all we are, all we live, all we have, all we hope, is him, in him, of him, by him. he is the good pan, the great shepherd.... at whose death were moanings, sighs, trepidations and lamentations in all the machine of the universe, heavens, earth, sea, hells. with this my interpretation the time agrees. for that most good, most great pan, our only savior, died at jerusalem, reigning in rome tiberius caesar.—pantagruel, these words said, rested in silence and profound contemplation. a little while after we saw the tears rolling from his eyes, large as ostrich eggs. i give myself to god if i lie in a single word.” notwithstanding the thrilling pathos of this close, and my deep reverence for rabelais, with whom no commentator in holy orders known to me can be compared, except dean swift, i am inclined on this point to follow the ordinary opinion that pan the great god whose death was thus miraculously announced was the pan of the heathen greeks. christ had died, but only pro tem; had descended into hell, but with a return ticket, and simply to harry that realm of old harry; in three days he had risen from the dead, in forty more ascended into heaven; his reign had begun and the reign of the old gods was ended; the spirit was exalted ana the flesh brought low, this world and life were contemned for the life and world to come; nature, the all, the great pan, was annulled, and the supernatural nothing throned supreme. the poets have chanted this momentous revolution according to their religion, their phantasy, or their mood. milton in his hymn on the nativity shouts harsh puritanical scorn on the oracles stricken dumb, and the deities overthrown. shelley in a magnificent chorus of “hellas,” “worlds on worlds are rolling ever,” contests not the justice of their doom, while in the final chorus he predicts the same doom for their conqueror in his turn, in our own day mr. swinburne in the “hymn to proserpine,” and elsewhere, has bewailed the dead immortals, with nothing but aversion and contempt for the pale galilean, the “ghastly glories of saints, dead limbs of gibbeted gods.” leopardi an early poem “to spring,” beautiful but not of his deepest, regrets the banished divinities, and since the halls of olympus are void, appeals to nature to restore to his spirit its first fire, if she indeed lives. schiller in his “gods of greece” passionately laments them; and mrs. browning more passionately answers him, crying, “god himself is the best poet, and the real is his song and the real we accept perforce in its fulness, but discern not how it can derive from an unreal god. novalis in his “hymns to the night” laments with schiller the unsouling of nature, “bound in iron chains by arid number and rigorous rule;” but goes on to celebrate the resurrection of humanity in christ. heine in his. “gods of greece,” after declaring in his wild way that he has never loved the old deities, that to him the greek are repugnant, and the romans thoroughly hateful, yet avows that when he considers how dastardly and windy are the gods who overcame them, the new reigning sorrowful gods, malignant in their sheep’s, clothing of humility, he feels ready to fight for the former against these. this change of the celestial dynasty is indeed a favorite theme with him. elsewhere he pictures the olympians holding high revelry, with nectar and ambrosia, with apollonian music and inextinguishable laughter, when suddenly a wretched jew staggers in, his brow bleeding from a crown of thorns, trailing on his shoulder a heavy cross, which he heaves upon the banquet table; and forthwith the revel is no more, the divine feast disappears, the everburning lights are quenched, the triumphant gods and goddesses vanish terror-smitten, dethroned for ever and ever. and again, in his incomparable “gods in exile,” he tells us what became of these dispersed olympians during the dark ages, in the thick night of the noontide of christianity; how they were transformed from celestial to infernal by the monstrous superstition of that baleful era; as we find the hoofs and horns of pan transferred to the devil himself; as we find venus in that legend of tannhauser which has fascinated so many poets, as well as great wagner,—
vénus, ma belle déesse,
vous êtes diablesse!
more than eighteen hundred years have passed since the death of the great god pan was proclaimed; and now it is full time to proclaim the death of the great god christ. eighteen hundred years make a fairly long period even for a celestial dynasty; but this one in its perishing must differ from all that have perished before it, seeing that no other can succeed it; the throne shall remain void for ever, the royalty of the heavens be abolished. fate, in the form of science, has decreed the extinction of the gods. mary and her babe must join venus and love, isis and horus; living with them only in the world of art. jesus on his cross must dwindle to a point, even in the realms of legend under prometheus on caucasus. for ages already the father has been as spectral as jupiter; for ages already the holy ghost has been but the shadow of a shade. and the last, not least, member of the divine royal family, satan the prince of darkness, prince of this world, and prince of the powers of the air, is no more alive than pluto, who also was born brother to the monarch of heaven. the hebrew dynasty of the gods is no more; it has done much evil in its long sovranty, which we will try to forget now it ceases to reign; it has done some little good, whose remembrance we will cherish when it is sepulchred, christ the great is dead, but pan the great lives again, as mr. maccall told us in some lines published in this paper several years ago. pan lives, not as a god, but as the all, nature, now that the oppression of the supernatural is removed. i may be told that christianity is yet alive and flourishing, that its priesthood and its churches hold possession of europe and america and australia. so the priesthood and the shrines of the olympians kept possession of the roman empire centuries after the crucifixion of jesus. when the spirit of a faith has departed, that faith is dead, and its burial is only a question of time. when the noblest hearts worship not at its altars, when the most vigorous intellects abandon its creeds, the knell of its doom has rung. at the risk of being thought bigoted or prejudiced, i must avow that to my mind the decomposition of christianity is so offensively manifest and advanced, that, with the exception of a very few persons whose transcendent genius could throw a glamor of glory over any creed however crude and mean, and whom i recognise as far above my judgment, i can no longer give my esteem to any educated man who has investigated and still professes this, religion, without grave deduction at the expense of his heart, his intellect, or his conscience, if not of all three. miraculous voices are not heard in these days; but everywhere myriads of natural voices are continually announcing to us, and enjoining us to announce to others, great christ is dead!
