II.—ETHICS AND ÆSTHETICS
The cut nails of machine divinity may be driven in, but they won't clinch.
Oliver Wendell Holmes,
The Professor at the Breakfast Table, Ch. IV.
There was no question that Gotham—wicked, wayward Gotham—was much stirred up by this production. It was generally accepted as a kind of religious ceremony, as to which no right-minded gentleman should deliver himself of critical comment. Yet there were some picturesque exceptions to the general state. A few ministers of the Gospel sprang to the pulpit or the interviewer, and descanted in glowing terms on the outrageous irreligion of the thing, or rather on the sacrilege of the representation by "painted actors" of incidents in the life of Christ. Of course these gentlemen had not taken the trouble to study the work in the original, and some of them showed conclusively that they were utterly ignorant of it.
But this chanced to be one of those cases in which the pulpit is not immune. The ignorance of the reverend utterers of sweeping statements was blithely exposed by some of the men whose business it has been for many years to study the works of Wagner. Let us, then, in all justice and humility, with due observance of the Grail adorers on the one side and the objecting pulpit orators on the other, ask ourselves how much of real Christianity is disclosed in "Parsifal." How much more of German mystic philosophy, of mediævalism, of the teachings of Siddartha, and lastly of pure paganism? What is this work, after all, but a summary of the blind gropings of the imaginative Wagner after a philosophy beyond his reach?
Why all this pother about the sacrilege of putting the Holy Grail on the stage? Was there ever a Holy Grail? Is the green glass chalice which now reposes peacefully in Genoa a holy vessel? Did the blood of Christ ever sanctify it? Did Joseph of Arimathea catch the precious drops in it; and was it really the vessel used at the Last Supper of Jesus and his apostles?
The ceremony of the Last Supper is unquestionably represented in a crude manner in Wagner's drama, where it is mixed with a pictorial representation of the legendary tale that the Christians may make objection with good ground. The place which the communion occupies in the ceremonies of the Church is such that to see it made part of a public theatrical performance, no matter how solemn, or how artistic, or how honest in its purpose to treat holy things reverentially, must be repugnant to every Christian mind.
As to this, nothing more need be said. Of the effect of the representation on an audience there can be no doubt. It is impressive in the highest degree. The emotions caused by the unveiling scene are a tribute to the power of theatrical art. But let it be thoroughly understood that the stage picture and the music are the most influential elements. Taking that scene as a point of suggestion, let us ask ourselves how much of real Christianity there is in "Parsifal." Let us examine the ethics of the drama and probe its philosophy.
The doctrine of enlightenment by pity, preached so insistently in this drama, has no relation to Christianity. The religion of Jesus Christ knows of but one enlightenment, that by faith. It is "he that believeth," not he that pitieth. The enlightenment of faith enables the Christian to conceive God. But what do we find in "Parsifal"? A man has committed a mortal sin, in that he has fallen from that state of personal chastity in which the servants of the Holy Grail are required to live. The outward and visible sign of his fall is an immediate physical (with accompanying spiritual) punishment, inflicted by the impious hand of the Tempter himself.
Here Wagner follows the story as told by Chrétien des Troyes, and not the version of Wolfram von Eschenbach. Chrétien made the spear that with which Longinus pierced the side of the Saviour. Wolfram made it simply a poisoned lance. Wagner accepted the sacred spear, because he was always an eager searcher after ethical significance, even when there was less virtue in it than there is in this one. The wound of the sacred lance is more than physical; it is a mortal hurt of the soul. Wagner tells us that for such a wound there can be but one cure, a touch of the selfsame lance in the hands of one who has successfully withstood the temptation to which the sufferer fell a victim.