Celestial Salem
A. N. Wilson
Religion does funny things to the mind. When you think of the ceaseless misery caused to the human race by the very ex- istence of Jerusalem, it seems odd that religious people should have chosen that town, of all others, to be their emblem of celestial peace. If I wanted to think of a place which seemed like an image of heaven, it might be Bruges on a warm October day, the tourists all departed, golden leaves falling on the canals, bells ringing out from Gothic towers as one sat in a restaurant eating oneself sick on moules marinieres. Or perhaps one would choose the image of Babylon, as seen from some Hanging Garden. Failing that, for an image of pleasantly Dickensian somnolence, one could do worse than snow-covered London as seen from the offices of 56 Doughty Street, the gas-fire hissing and the xerox machines emitting their friendly mechanical bleeps. Or, for a more elegant after-life, you could think of Heaven as a perpetu- ation of the Pump Room at Bath, pretty waitresses bringing you doughnuts and hot chocolate throughout the ceaseless morning while the angelic crones (or Dominations or Powers) who compose the Palm Court Trio saw away at 'The Lost Chord' or 'The Londonderry Air.'
But instead, time out of mind, men and women have thought of the Other Side in terms of Jerusalem. And perhaps it is partly because you can not be indifferent to the place. Those who visit it invariably' ex- perience extremes of emotion, ranging from disappointment to ecstasy; from visions of divine love to excesses of outrageous anger. And, for every one who has set foot in that enchantingly beautiful hill-town, there must be a million who, from their earliest childhood, have learnt its name, sung about it, been taught about it in their mosques and synagogues, in Welsh Chapels called Sion and Salem, and (until the RCs went barmy) at Catholic altars where daily reference once was made to the bread and wine offered by the King-priest Melchisidech. If I forget thee, 0 Jerusalem: let my right hand forget her cunning. Anglican choir-boys in ruff and surplice trill the line mindlessly with one eye on the Beano; but their little Jewish coevals are taught the words as a political reality.
In the introduction to this most remark- able anthology, Graham Greene brings out the contradictions in this unique city, whose name has traditionally been understood to mean 'Vision of Peace'.
`Those who come to pray and go away to mock are seeking the wrong Jerusalem. They expect, I think, to find peace there the peace of a church, even of a museum. But Jerusalem was founded by a warrior- king, it was the death-place of Christ who foretold he would not bring peace but a sword, and it was the legendary scene of the Ascension of Mohammed who was hardly a peacemaker!'
But for Graham Greene, the most remarkable fact about Jerusalem, which has been the scene of so many wars, sieges, burnings and sackings, is that it has surviv- ed. 'Perhaps that is what has drawn Miron Grindea to make this anthology in celebra- tion of its survival. He founded his magazine Adam in the midst of the greatest massacre the world has yet known and he has fought over forty years to keep it alive with some of the obstinacy of those old trees in the Garden of Gethsemane that are more ancient, so it is said, than Hadrian's Wall'.
The range, the good taste and good sense of the anthology must all be commended, though they will be no surprise to Mr Grindea's too-few admirers and subscribers. The book is divided into two parts. In the first, the passages chosen allude to the chief historical associations of the City: the building of Solomon's Tem- ple; its destruction and rebuilding and destruction again; the coming of Our Lord, who said He would destroy it and rebuild it as the Catholic Church in three days; the long mourning of the Jews in exile, who did not understand His words. Then there is the coming of the pilgrims: Christians scaveng- ing for bits of the True Cross; Jews wailing at their wall; finally, Moslems, venerating the rock on which the promise was made to their forefather Abraham, and from which the Prophet Himself was carried to Heaven on the winged steed al-Borak. And then, because there were pilgrimages, there were quarrels and because there were Holy Places there were wars. And a heart- rending and embittering section of the an- thology is devoted to the holy wars which have been fought in that place ever since the seventh century.
In the second part of the book, we con- front the extraordinary potency of the im- age of Jerusalem in the religious and poetic imagination of the world. G. K. Chesterton is quoted as saying, 'I can understand a man who had only seen in the distance Jerusalem sitting on the hill going no fur- ther and keeping that vision for ever'. It is the fact that so few people have got even so far as the hills outside the place which has enabled the splendid flood of divine ideas to flood the consciousness of three major world religions: 'Seeking Jerusalem, dear Native Land/Through our long exile on Babylon's strand'. No delight in the hang- ing gardens for Abelard.
In a wonderful passage, Bunyan says, 'Blessed is he whose lot it will be to see this holy city descending and lighting upon the place that shall be prepared for her situa- tion and rest. Then will be a golden world ... It will be then always summer, always sunshine, always pleasant, green, fruitful and beautiful to the sons of God. "And Judah shall dwell forever and Jerusalem from generation".' It is the same thought which St Augustine had had, homesick for the City of God, and which led Blake to write his perfect quatrain: I will give you the end of a golden string, Only wind it into a ball, It will lead you in at Heaven's gate Built in Jerusalem's wall.
The wonder of the Heavenly Jerusalem becomes more poignant and more remark- able, the more you contemplate the earthly one. A certain sect of devout Jews regard it as so much their happy home, name ever dear to them, that they will stone you if you try to ride a bicycle through their quartier on the Sabbath. Jews of less fanatical mien have nevertheless been taught to regard Jerusalem as their rightful possession and home, a sacred truth which has entitled them to invade a Jordanian city, full of Palestinian arabs, and desecrate the skyline with hideous Germanic architecture. Mean- while, in the calm centre of this earthly Salem, Franciscans still occasionally inflict G.B.H. on Armenians or Copts for step; ping an inch out of line at the Sepulchre of Our Lord; as if to remind us, in a trivial way, that Christian barbarities in the Holy City have been just as bad, and as blas- phemous, as anything that the Jews get up to now, or the Saracens got up to in the past. One of the passages in this anthology which will stay in my mind comes from Havelock Ellis: 'Had there been a Lunatic Asylum in the suburbs of Jerusalem, Jesus Christ would infallibly have been shut up in it at the outset of his public career. That in- terview with Satan would alone have damn- ed him, and everything that happened after could but have confirmed the diagnosis. The whole religious complexion of the modern world is due to the absence from Jerusalem of a Lunatic Asylum'. A City of the Mad with no Loony Bin sounds like an idea of Hell. But the more you think about it, people being what they are, you can see why it became their idea of Heaven.
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