“Nevertheless, sir, science——”
“Sir, no one can be a scholar without being a Christian.”
Science furnished a subject for sarcasms on his part:
“Will it make an ear of corn sprout, this science of yours? What do we know?” he said.
But he did know that the world was created for us; he did know that archangels are above the angels; he did know that the human body will rise again such as it was about the age of thirty.
His ecclesiastical self-complacency provoked Bouvard, who, through want of confidence in Louis Hervieu, had written to Varlot; and Pécuchet, better informed, asked M. Jeufroy for explanations of Scripture.
The six days of Genesis mean six great epochs. The pillage of the precious vessels made by the Jews from the Egyptians must be interpreted to mean intellectual riches, the arts of which they had stolen the secret. Isaiah did not strip himself completely, nudus in Latin signifying “up to the hips”: thus Virgil advises people to go naked in order to plough, and that writer would not have given a precept opposed to decency. Ezekiel devouring a book has nothing extraordinary in it; do we not speak of devouring a pamphlet, a newspaper?
“But if we see metaphors everywhere, what will become of the facts?”
The abbé maintained, nevertheless, that they were realities.
This way of understanding them appeared disloyal to Pécuchet. He pushed his investigations further, and brought a note on the contradictions of the Bible.