Religion and Its Monsters

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR RELIGION AND ITS MONSTERS

"Ranging from the lair of Leviathan to the mosh pit of The Misfits, Beal's exhumation and dissection of religious monstrosity and monstrous reli giosity is as entertaining as it is incisive." -Stephen D. 1\1oore, author of God:1 Gym "Timothy Beal has let the monsters out of our cultural and religious base

ment and allowed them to roam freely-to our great benefit, distress, and delight. His is a detailed, learned, and engrossing book, and our under standing of religious disorientation bounds forward because of it."

-Frederick J. Ruf, author of The Creatimz of ChatM

"Timothy Beal's book fascinates, just as the monsters who inhabit these

pages. The author guides us unerringly through a labyrinth whose entry point in the ancient world leads by unexpected turns to contemporary cul

ture. A richly illuminating book, attractively written, which sets the Bible in strange company and thereby makes us rethink the religious in both Bible and culture."

-David 1\\. Gunn, coeditor of Reading Biblu, Writin.q Bodied #

"Religion and h1 MmMterd

.

.

.

is particularly valuable to biblical scholarship

not only as a corrective to a too simplistic reading of the place of the chaotic in ancient Near Eastern religious thought but also as an eye open

ing account of the way Western culture has continued to recast the old

mythic themes in new forms."

-Carol. A. Newsom, coeditor of The New O.�:iwd Annotated Bible,

Third Edition "Tim Beal is a first rate reader. He knows how to read the Bible in the midst of its complex mythic, symbolic world. He knows how to read pop

ular culture clear to the bottom of its anxiety. He knows how to read at the interface of ancient tradition and current disorder. The outcome is a summons to candor among us, to the best and brighfest to face

down deep, to the 'keepers' of social order to move past moralism to the seething where truth boils. Beaf as

remarkable, engrossing read."

a

it is

and

reader gives us a

-Walter Brueggemann, author of The Prophetic lrnaq _ inalwn

RELIGION ITS MON T S ERS AND

TIMOTHY K. BEAL

Routledge

New York

•

London

Published in 2002 by Routledge 29 West 35th Street New York, NY 10001 Published in Great Britain by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane London EC4P 4EE Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group. Copyright © 2002 by Routledge Printed in the United States of Arnerica on acid free paper. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including any photocopy ing and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The publisher and author gratefully acknowledge permission to reprint the following: "Bela Lugosi's Dead" reprinted by permission of Bauhaus. Peter Murphy, Daniel Ash, David J. Haskins, Kevin Haskins © 1982 Bauhaus. All rights reserved. "Dust to Dust" Words and Music by Jerry Caiafa, Michael Emanuel, Daniel Rey © 1999 Zomba Sangs Ine., Cyclopian Music, Ine., Zomba Enterprises Ine., Vile of Venom and Daniel Rey (pub. Designee). All rights on behalf of Cyclopian Music, Ine., administered by Zomba Sangs Ine. All rights on behalf of Vile of Venom, administered by Zomba Enterprises Ine. All rights reserved. Lyrics reprinted by permission of Warner Bros. Publications. Librar y of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Beal, Timothy K. (Timothy Kandler), 1963 Religion and its monsters j Timothy K. Beal. p. cm. ISBN 0 415 92587 8

ISBN 0 415 92588 6 (pbk.)

1. Theodicy. l. Title. BT160 .B35 2001 291.2 dc21

2001019660

CONTENTS

IX

ACKl'\OWLEDGMENTS

ll'\TRODUCTIO:'\J Genesis l,TakeTwo l/ Religion and I ts Monsten�t Monsters-.�nd Their Religion// Paradox of the Monstrous// Demonizing and Deifying// MonstrumTremendum, MysteriumTremendum

PARTONE RELIGIONAND I TS MONSTERS

l. CHAOS GODS

13

Fragments from the Ancient Near East//To Order and Back// Chaos 1\lother// The Cloudrider and the Warrior Goddess // No Rest

2. THE BIBLE AND HORROR "

2�

Biblical Monsters and Mad Professors// Water Play or Water Fight// Disorientation andT heological Horror // 1\'lonstrous Enemies // Conjuring v

vi

3.

THE

SLtEP

OF \VISDOi\1

35

Job and theAbyss of Surfering//Absence ofAll Refuge// Desiring Chaos// Lyricism of Terror

4.

FR0.\1 THE \VIIIRL\\'1.:\'D

47

Rousing God Rousing Leviathan// Diapered Monster// Behold Behemoth// Drawing Out Leviathan// Wholly Other// Divine Abyss

5. DINXER AND

A

SHOW

57

Watching and Eating 1'\i\onsters in Rabbinic Tradition// Seafaring Tales of the Rabbis// Fresh, Frozen or Salt-eured// Is This Monster Kosher?// Jonah's UnderseaAdventure

6.

To

THE DEVIL

71

Apocalypse //lt's the Edge of the World as We Knowlt// Diabolical Dragon// The 1V1onster-maker's Bibie's Bible// From Beowulf to Dracula to Harry Potter

PART TWO MONSTERSAND THEIR RELIGION

7.

NEW

1\lOl'\STERS Il\'

0LD

SKIXS

89

Modern Chaos Batties// Hobbes' Mortall God// Theophany// But Why Leviathan? //Awe and Order// Heliraiser

8. O THE R Goos

103

Orientalism and Its Monsters// The Witch's l\1onkeys// Rama's 1\'\onkeys// Horrid Chambers oflmagery// Diabolical Monsters// Sublime 1'Ylonsters// Disoriental Monsters

vi i

9. THE BLoon Is

TI-IE

LTFE

123

Ritual Purity and Danger in Dracula 11 The Count's Religion// Laws Pertaining to Blood// Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood // Rituals of Resacralization// Transfusion// One Wedding and a Funeral// Last Battie

1 o. SCREE:'\11\G MO:'\S TE RS

141

Movie Time, Sacred Time// Monstrous Revelations (No,iferatu and

Shadow of the Vampire) 11 Stage Rite (Dracula) 11 Exorcism (Metmpoli1)

11.

159

Eco:v\ONSTER

I Arn Become Death// Ecohorror on Screen// Demythologizing the Monster// Shooting the Monster// These Are Ourselves

12. O uR

1\�o�STERS,

OcRSELVEs

173

,

I sland of the Misfit Boys// .Bela's Hideous Progeny// Cthulhu Mythos// Lovecraft's Hideous Progeny// From Scholars to the Campus Crusade for Cthulhu// Homesickness

CO!\CLUSIO�

193

Here Be Monsters// Warning

NOTES

19 7

l:'\DEX

229

A CKNOWLEDGMENTS

This has been unnerving work. So many horror stories are about professors and researchers going bad. Think of the budding Swiss graduate student Frankenstein in Mary Shelley's novel, the defrocked professor, Dr. Pretorius, in James Whale's The Bride o/ Franken.:Jtein, and the distinguished Semitic languages scholar, Professor Angell, in H . P. Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu," to name just a few. All went over the edge as they fol lowed-or ran from -their monsters into oblivion. Perhaps one reason was that they did not recognize themselves in their monsters. Beyond that, I am betting that a big part of their problem was that they worked in isolation. So I have attempted to secure myself against a similar ruin by surrounding myself with a community of friends and col­ leagues. I am happy to acknowledge them here. As ever, I am deeply indebted to those in Tel Mac in Diaspora, especially Bill Perman, Deborah Krause, Tod Linafelt and Brent Plate, who have engaged my work in p rogress with critical care that stretches beyond friendship and inte�est. I have also benefited much from the editorial savvy, broad intelligence and patience of my editor, Bill Germano. Thanks for the criticisms, \orrections, references and eneaur­ agement offered by many colleagues at Eckerd College, Case ix

x

Acknowleogmenl<�

tt

Western Reserve University and elsewhere, especially Carolyn Johnston, Gary 1Vteltzer, Constantina Rhodes Bailly, Chrissy Le Bel, David B ryant, Kri s Waller, Jan- Li.ider Hagens, Jim Flanagan, Bill Deal, Alice Bach, Peter Haas, Tim Murphy, J udith Oster, Tom Bishop and Catherine Scallen of CWRU 's Baker-Nord Center for the H u manities, Ted Steinberg, Ed Gemerchak, Geoffrey McVey, Joe Bethancou rt, George Aichele, Sue Hanson, Yvonne Sherwood, and Jim Goetsch. I am also grateful to several teachers and mentors: David Gunn for endlessly insightful questions and comic rel ief in more ways than one; Elie Wiesel for eneauragement and direction in rabbinic liter­ ature; Walter B rueggemann for theological insight and " deep vexa­ tion " that contin u e to drive my thinking, even when i t comes to monsters; and Carol Newsom, in whose graduate seminars I began getting to k now Tiamat, Behemoth and Leviathan in new and provocative ways, and w hose own work o n J ob shapes my i nter­ p retation in cou ntless ways. In many respects this book owes its start and its momentum to the college students whose often wonderfully undisciplined ques­ tions led our conversations about biblical and ancient Near Eastern texts i nto less charted territories. I am especially thankful to stu­ dents in " Ecology, Chaos, and the Sacred" and " Religion and the 1\'lonstrous " at Eckerd Col lege, and to students in " Religion and Horror" at Case Western Reserve University who read and helped revise the book manuscri pt. Thanks to my son Seth, who urged me to inelude the Powerpuff Girls. I probably should have. Thanks to my daughter Sophie, who, after hearing me read the poem on Leviathan in the divine speech from the whirlwind in J o b, declared, "That's crazy ! " Exactly. And thanks to my partner in marriage, Clover, who intends to smudge the house now that this project is finished, and who warns me, emending Nietzsche, "whoever writes about monsters should see to i t that in the process h e does not become a monster. " This book i s dedicated t o the memory o f Joel Clayton Hurd (1975 1997) . A student of religion and lover of monsters, he never got the opportunity to write his senior thesis comparing the terrify­ ing visions in the Tibetan Book of the Dead with the terri fying visions in the Apocalypse of John.

IN

MEMORY OF

JOEL CLAYTON

HURD

O nobly-born, the Great Glorious Buddha- Heruka, . . . with three heads, six hands, and four feet firmly postured . . . the body ernit­ ti ng f1ames of radiance; the nine eyes widely opened, in terrif}ring gaze; the eyebrows quivering like lightni ng; the protruding teeth glistening and set over one another; giving vent to sonorous utter­ ances of 'a-la-la' and 'ha-ha'; and piercing whistling sounds . . . will come forth from within thine own brain and shine vividly upon thee. Fear that not. - Tibetan Book of the Dead (Bardo ThoJo[), l, I I (trans. Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup) I saw one like the Son of Man . . . His head and hair were white as white wool . . . his eyes were like a f1ame of fire, his feet were l ike burnished bronze . . . and his voice was like the sound of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and from his mouth came a sharp, two-edged sword, and his face was l ike the sun shin­ ing with full force . . . He placed his right hand on me, saying, " Do not be afraid . " - Apocalypse o f J oh n l: 12-17

NTRODUCTION

GENESIS 1, TAKE TWO

"To a new world of gods and monsters ! " declares Dr. Pretorius in James Whale 's 1935 movie The Bru)e of Franken.Jiein. Pretorius, eager to create a female counterpart for the first monster, is count­ i ng himself and his co-creator Henry Frankenstein among the gods, and their creations among the monsters. Pretorius makes his divine aspirations c lear in biblical terms, identifying h imsel f with God in the c reation story of Genesis l: "I also have created li fe, as we say, in GoJ'cl own image .. Follow the lead of nature, or God male and femafe created he them . ..be fruitfu! and muftipfy." Pretorius seems to have no problem telling who and what the gods are, and who and what the monsters are. For the viewers, however, things are not so clear. We tend to identify with the un named monster p layed by Boris Karloff far more than we do with his creators and his killers. We understand the monster in a way that none of the characters in the movie do. When the monster declares, " I love dead, hate living, " for example, Pretorius hears only that the Creatu re wants a campanion who is l iving-dead l ike himself. We, on the other hand, understand this statement also as a lament in which the Creature expresses his .

.

.

.

2

RELIGION AND ITs MoNSTERS

FIGURE 1. The Bride of Frankenstein, Copyright 1935 Un iversal Stu d ios

loathing of life in this world of gods and monsters and his longing for death . The c reator god misses this more profound meaning, but we do not. l ndeed, everyone in The Bride l?( Franken.:fin i s caricatured e.Ycept the mon ster. As they chase after him, the frenzied mob of would-be monster killers con fi rms Nietzsche's warning that "whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. "1 As the monster is raised h igh on a stake, c rucifixion-style, i n order to be tried and executed, the camera e loses in on his face . We can almost hear him saying, " My God, my God, why have you forsaken me ? " (Figure 1 ) . But the mon ster's creator god , Henry Frankenstein, is a more discomfort­ ing divi ne image than even Pretori us: an indecisive, sel f-absorbed, grave-robbing fool . Like h i s far more eloquent counterpart in Mary Shelley's 1 8 1 8 novel Franketl.flein or the Modertz Prometheud, Whale 's god-forsaken,

lntroiJuction

3

posthumous monster i s something of a theologian . Not a theologian with all the answers but one who raises profound questions, ques­ tions that survive their answers. By playing God, does one inad­ vertently end up playing monster? More radically, does bein.q God end up being monstrous ? Who is more monstrous, the creatures who must live through this vale of tears, or the creator who put them h ere ? What does it mean to be "monstrous, " anyway? Are we not all rendered monstrous under God? Is our monstrosity in the image of God ? \Yhere i1 God in all this? Very quickly we find ourselves i n deeply u nsettling theologi­ cal territory, a territory traditionally called theodicy. Theodicy concerns divine j u stice in the face of u nj ustifiable suffering. Why do the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer? I n a world such as ours, how can we possibly conceive of a j ust God? l ndeed, Shelley's novel begins with an epigraph from the quintessential English theodicy, Paradite Lo,tt by John Milton, whose explicit although inevitably unrealized aim is to "ju stify the ways of God to men . " Shelley's epigraph draws us to the theodie question, which echoes far beyond any answer, and which will be posed again and again by the monster to Victor Frankenstein th rough­ out the novel: Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay To mold Me man ? Did I solicit thee From darkness to promote me? -ParaJite Lo.:�t X.743-52 The voice of the monster is the audacious voice of theodicy. lt is addressed not only to the creator Frankenstein but also to the cre­ ator God. Why did you make me? Why did you put me here ? What were you thinking? What kind of a world is this? What kind of d ivine j ustice is thi s? What kind o f God are you ? The monster in Shelley's novel, as in Whale's movie, stands for these questions and terri(ying religious uncertainties. His questions pry at cracks in the world 's faundations that open onto abysses of unknowing. In this u nhallowed space of theodicy, opened by the creature 's tragic appeals to its creator, clear distinctions between gods and monsters get awfully blurry. The horror of F'ranlcen.tlein is a profoundly theo­ logical horror.

RELIGIOJ\' AND

ITs MONSTERS

RELIGIO N AND ITS MO NSTERS, MO NSTERS AND THEIR RELIGIO N

Most of us do not go to monster movies or read Gothic monster tales in search of rel igion, at least not consciously. Nor do we go to churc h or tempie or ashram in search of monsters. Yet, as Frankenstein 's monster has already begun to indicate, religion and monsters have more to do with each other than one might initially assume. l ndeed, when it comes to gods and monsters, Pretorius' "new world" is not so new after all . This is a book about what religion has t o d o with monsters, and vice versa. Its basic starting point is a two-part proposition: that we can learn something about a rel igious tradition by getting to know its monsters, and that we can learn something about monsters by looking into their religious backgrounds. Part One of this book, " Religion and lts Monsters, " explores representations of the mon­ strous in Jewish and Christian biblical tradition and in other closely related religious texts from the ancient Near East. Part Two, " Monsters and Their Rel igion, " looks in to the religious background of some of our more popular twentieth-century monsters in order to explore relations between religion and the monstrous in today's ever-expanding popular culture of horror. Part One considers reli­ gion a.1 horror, Part Two horror a._ 1 religion . PARADO X O F THE MO NSTRO US

Monsters are in the world but not of the world. They are paradox­ ical personifications of otherne.M within .:�amene.:M. That is, they are threatening figures of anomaly within the well-established and accepted order of things. They represent the outside that has gat­ ten inside, the beyond-the-pale that, much to our horror, has gotten into the pale. One helpful way of thinking about this paradoxical sense of the monster as a horrific figure of otherness withi n sameness is by way of Sigmu nd Freu d 's concept of the wzheimfich, that is, the "unhomely" or "uncanny. " I f heimfu·b refers to that which belongs within the four walls of the house, i nspiring feelings of restfulness and security, then unbeimfich refers to that which threatens one's sense of "at-homeness, " not from the outside but from within the

In troduetion

5

house>1 The unheim!ich is in some sense what is in the house without belonging there, the outside that is i nside. The horror of the unhomely experience, then, involves the awareness that something that should be outside the house is in it. lt is an experience of oth­ erness within sameness. For Freud, " home " refers primarily to individual human con­ sciousness. For our purposes, we may extend the sense of " home " in the i dea of the heim!u�h to mean anything from self to society to cosmos. That is, this heim!ich feeling of security and "at-homeness" may refer to one's conf'idence i n the meaning, integrity and well­ bei ng of oneself as a subject (the body or self as "house ") . Or it may refer to one 's confidence in the meaning, i ntegrity and well-being of one's society or culture (the "house of culture, " as Herbert Marcuse puts it) .4 Or it may refer to one's confidence i n the meaning, integrity and well-being of the e ntire cosmos (the world ecology as " house ") . Taken in this very broad way, the wzheim!ich is that which invades one's sense of personal, social or cosmic arder and secu­ rity - the feeling of being at home i n oneself, one's society and one's world. The unheim!ich is the other within, that which is "there " in the house but eannot be comprehended by it or integrated into it. Monsters are personifications of the unheim!ich. They stand for what endangers one 's sense of at-homeness, that is, one's sense of security, stability, integrity, wel l-being, health and meani ng. They make one feel not at home at home. They are figures of c haos and dis­ orientation within arder and orientation, revealing deep insecurities in one 's faith in oneself, one 's society and one's world.

DE MO N l Z l N G AND DE l FY l N G

I n his glory days as the vampire i n Dracula , Bela Lugosi was a celebrity icon, idolized by fans from B roadway to Hollywood. He was not a monster, but he played one on stage and screen. In his last years, the aging star became, as they say, a mon
6

RELIGION AND

ITs MONSTERS

I n what ways can a monster be, or become, sacred ? We humans respond to the monster as a personif'ication of the unheimlich, of otherness withi n sameness, and our responses range from demonization to deification. Often we denwnize the monster as a th reat not only to "our" order but also to the order of the gods or God . In this way the monstrous other who threatens "us" and "our world " is represented as an enemy o f God and t hen is exorcized from the right order of things and sent to some sort of Heil. " Our" order is identified with the sacred order agai nst a diabolically mon­ strous chaos. Such is the fate of Apophis in Egyptian tradition, and of the sea monster Leviathan in Psalm 74 and lsaiah 27. Think also of the fate of the vampire in Bram Stoker's Dracula, as well as of many other monsters from the past centw-y of horror navels and movies. By demonizing our monsters, we keep God on our side. In other cases, however, the monster is deified as a revelation of sacred otherness. Its coming into the world is represented as a hiero­ phany, that is, a revelation of the holy. Here the monster is an envoy of the d ivine or the sacred as radically other than "our" established order of things. lt is an invasion of what we m ight call tacred chaoJ and disorientation within self, society and world. Such is the case with Tiamat in the Babylonian 1!-/uuna Elith, as well as with Leviathan and Behemoth in the divine speech from the whirlwind in the hook of Job. Such is also the case, I propose, with the vam­ pire in F. W. Murnau 's film .No<�(eralu, as well as with Cthulhu and other monster gods in the stories of H. P. Lovecraft. If demonizing the monster keeps God on ou r side, then deifying it aften puts us in a world of religious disorientation and horror. Often what we find is not simply one reaction or the other, but both. The monster if often hoth demonized and deified, revealing a deep sense of ambivalence about the relation between the mon­ strous and the divine, and intensi(yi ng the sense of paradox. <

MO NSTRU M TREMENDUM, MY STERIU M TREMENDUM

We are less accustomed to thinking of the monstrous as a figure of divine revelation or an envoy of the sacred than we are to thinking of it as demonic or "evil." Yet the monster's religious import is rooted in the word itself: " monster" derives from the Latin mon­ Jtrum , which is related to the verbs mmz.ttrare ("show" or " reveal ")

lntroduction

7

and monere ("warn " or "portend ") , and which sametimes refers to a divine portent that reveals the will or j udgment of God or the gods. In this sense a mon,1trum is a message that breaks into this world from the realm of the divine . Even in the ancient and cruel notion of "monstrous births" as revelations of divine judgment, the other­ ness of the monster is considered not only horrifically unnalural but also horrifically ,JUpernafura!, charged with religious import.5 Likewise, the e;-cperience of horror in relation to the monstrous is often deseribed in terms reminiscent of rel igious experience. Both are often c haracterized as an encounter with mysterious otherness that elicits a vertigo-like combination of both fear and desire, repul­ sion and attraction. Both religious experience and horror are char­ acterized as encounters with something simultaneously awesome and awful - a feeling captured in the older spelling, "aweful", which still retains its sense of awe . Nowhere is the affinity between hor­ ror and religious experience drawn out more fully than in Rudolph Otto's The [Jea of the Ho!y (Da.J Hei!ige, 1917). Working from the idea of the sublime in I mmanuel Kant and Edmund Burke, Otto describes religious experience as an encounter with the my,J/erium tremendum, that is, a radically other mystery that brings on a stupe­ fying combination of fascination and terror, wonder and dread . lt is "somethi ng inherently 'wholly other', whose kind and character are incommensurable with our own, and before which we therefore recoil i n a wonder that strikes us chili and numb."6 For Otto "the monstrous" (da.1 Un_qeheuere) , like the "uncanny" (unheim!ich) , is :·a fairly exact expression for the numinous in its aspects of mystery, awefulness, majesty, augustness and 'energy '; nay, even the fascina­ tion is dimly felt in it. "7 For him the monster is an aweful nwn.Jfru m tremendum. l ndeed, Otto interprets the monsters Leviathan and Behemoth in the book of Job as quintessential representations of the monstrous as a figure for the wholly other. Of course, Otto (and others who have read horror as religious experience a la Otto) presurnes that there is such a transcendent wholly other, a sacred that is not reducible to a cultural or psycho­ logical phenomenon. You need not agree. Although Otto, in his i ntroduetion to The Idea l ?( the Ho!y, discourages readers from read­ ing his book if they have not had such an experience of the sacred, l do not. This book is not an altar call to the church of the mon. strous. The connections we make between the monstrous and the

8

RELIGIO� AND ITS MOI\'STERS

divine, and between horror and religious experience, do not neces­ sarily mean that we have to conje.J.J monsters as revelations of the divine or the sacred. Because they are someti mes represented as such does not mean that we have to believe in them. lndeed, we may deeide instead, foliowing Freud, that the horror inspired by the monstrous, like other experiences of the unheim!ich, is best explained as the return tl the repre.Med. Whereas for Otto the unheim­ !i'ch is an experience of the radically transcendent other, a com­ pletely unhomely experience of the my.1/erium that has broken into the home from a wholly other realm, for Freud there i � no such thing as wholly otherness or radical transcendence. What Otto calls "wholly other" Freud would call "other" only insofar as it has been repressed. For Freud the unheim!ich is only "outside the house" (the house of the self, the house of culture, the house of the cosmos) insofar as i t is hidden withi n the house. lt is a revelation not of the wholly other but of a repressed otherness within the self.8 The mon­ ster, as personification of the unheim!ich, stands for that which has broken out of the subterranean basement or the locked eloset where it has been banished from consciousness. 1\'\y interest h ere is not in determining what the monstrous retz/Ly is (whether an envoy of the sacred, the returned of the repressed, or both, or something else) . Rather I want to explore those piaces where representations of the monstrous and the reli­ gious converge. In those points of convergence, the m onstrous becomes a site for religious reflection. I am not so m uch construct­ ing a theology of the monstrous as I am exploring the monstrous as a form of theological expression. What, for example, can we learn about theological discourse in biblical literature when we approach it through its monsters ? By the same token, how does the ostensi­ bly non-religious popular culture of horror often become a venue for doing theology? Both monsters and religions are always cultural ly specific. There are only particular rel igions, and particular monsters, and no one book can hope to be comprehensive of all that gets called reli­ gion and all that gets called monstrous. H ow do monsters and reli­ gion converse in other cultural fields ? How are they related, for example, in Japanese graphic novel s (man.qa.t) and animation ? My aim is not only to rethink the monstrous in terms of religion, how­ ever, but also to rethink religion in te rms of the monstrous. lt

ln troduetion

9

strikes me that exploring religion via its monsters presents a chal­ lenge to the common conception of rel igion as being exclusively about the establishment of order against chaos. This conception was given its classic (that is, normative) formulation in Mircea Eliade's Tbe Sacred and tbe Profane, a hook that has exercised power­ ful influence over many scholars and innumerable college students i n Introduetion to Religion courses over the past half century. Eliade describes rel igion as essentially co<mu�qonic, or world creative. Religion is about creating and maintaining a sacred cosmic order against chaos. 9 Religion is about establishing and maintammg sacred space and sacred time against the "formless expanse" of chaos surrounding it. 1 0 The former is the world (more precisely, our worl d) , the cosmos; every thing outside it is no longer a cosmos but a sort of 'other world, ' a foreign, chaotic space, peopled by ghosts, demons, 'foreigners' . . . lt is not d ifficult to see why the religious moment [i .e., the manifestation of the sacred] implies the cosmogonic moment. The sacred reveals absolute reality and at the same time makes orien­ tation possible; hence it founds the world in the sense that it fixes the limits and establishes the very order of the world . 1 1 Later Eliade reiterates this idea of religion in language that indi­ eates where he sees the monsters in this scenario of sacred order against demonic chaos: "An attack on 'our world' is equ ivalent to an aet of revenge by the mythical dragon, who rebels against the work of the gods, the cosmos, and struggles to annihilate it. 'Our' enemies belong to the powers of chaos. " 1 2 H ere religion is about the sacred and the sacred is about order, faundation and orientation over against chaos and disorientation, which are demonized. Certainly this is one aspect of religion in many cultural contexts, and we will see it operative in those instances where the monstrous is demon­ ized as a force of chaos that threatens "ou r" sacred order. One of those instances is the vision of the great dragon in the Apocalypse of John in the New Testament. In faet, this is the fallen angel turned d iabolic dragon to which Eliade is referring in the passage above. Much of contemporary horror functions in j ust the same

10

RELIGIO.:'I A N D ITS MONSTERS

way, as a shoring up and consecration of the established order of things (especially social orders that distinguish "us" from "them, " self from other) . Yet there are other cases in which the monstrous­ chaotic is ident�fied with the divine or the sacred against cosmic order. So it is in a number of ancient Near Eastern rel igious texts, as well as in some biblical texts about Leviathan, and throughout contemporary horror l iteratu re and film. As we get to know these monsters, what they often reveal is a divinity or a sacredness that is, like many of our religions and l ike many of ourselves, caught in endless, i rreducible tensions between order and chaos, orientation and disorientation, self and other, faundation and abyss. Religion is never without its monsters. Whether demonized or deifled or both, no matter how many times we kill our monsters they keep coming back for more . Not just Dracula but all monsters are undead. Maybe they keep coming back because they still have something to say or show us about our world and ourselves. Maybe that is the scariest part.

P

A

R

T

RELIGION ITS

O

N

E

AND

MONSTERS

CH APTER

1

CHAos Goos

FRAG MENTS F RO M THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST

Behind and around the religious traditions of the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament, is a rich and varied world of gods, monsters and monster gods commonly referred to as the ancient Near East. Covering the region from southwest Asia to northeast Africa and from the invention of writing (c. 3000 BCE) to the rise of He1lenism u nder Alexander the Great (c. 330 BCE), the ancient Near East i nelu des a very broad range of religions, languages and literary tra­ ditions, including Egyptian, Vedic, Sumerian, Babylonian, Canaanite, Assyrian, Phoenician, Israelite and Judean. Yet what we know about them comes mostly from piecing together frag­ ments, rel ics of what for the most part has not survived . Even when readi ng more or less whole texts, it is clear that the conceptual land­ scapes reflected in and generated by them are extremely complex and often unfamiliar to western ideas of self, society and world. lndeed, within a single literary history, such as that of ancient Egypt, there is a tremendous amount of diversity from city to city, from subculture to subculture, and from generation to generation . All this is to make clear from the outset that these stories do not fit together into some s ingle integrated "mythological " whole. Nor can 13

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RELIGIO:'\ AND lTS MO:'ISTERS

they be reduced to a handful of archetypal struggles and quests. Their gods and monsters are not simply the personae of a god with a thousand faces. Neither are they al l su rface manifestations of some deep under ly ing mythological st ructu re that reflects a univer­ sal "savage " mind. These sorts of interpretive clai ms about ancient myths and mythology ultimately deny the particularities of the dif­ ferent stories that are being studied . 1 Yet neither can we deny that the conceptual landscapes reflected in many of these texts are his­ torically related. Clearly there has been a great deal of cultural migration and intermingling among the various traditions of the ancient Near East over the millen nia. TO O R DER AN D B ACK

One espec ially common feature among ancient Near Eastern sto­ ries of cosmogony (world begi nni ngs) is the motif of creation out of chao,1. lVlany ancient Near Eastern cosmogonies envision the world as we know it taking form out of, and sameti mes agai nst, a primor­ dial chaos. In some texts, this primordial chaos is imagined as a kind of precosmic soup. I n several Egyptian stories, for example, the world begins as a small hill rising out of Nun, which is the bou ndless, undifferentiated watery abyss.� Likewise the cosmogony of Genesis l begins vvith "the earth being a formless void, with darkness over the face of the deep and a wind of God sweeping across the waters. " The words translated "formless void" (to/m '-l'ahohu) , "deep" (tehom) , and "the waters" (hammayim) combine to suggest an amorphous, wate ry chaos from which God will speak the world in all its complexity into existence. Later, in Genesis 6-8, God will try to undo the very same creation by opening the flood­ gates in the heavens above the earth and the deeps beneath it, thereby allowing these primordial chaos waters to return in drown­ ing torrents. In this story world, then, the primordial chaos waters are identi fied with both creation and destruction, cosmic birth and death: on the one hand, it is the maleria prt.ma, the origi nal material from which all life emerges; on the other hand, it is the deadly flood, whose violent in breaki ng would mean death and the end of a liv­ able world ecology. Already in this double meaning of the primor­ dial chaos waters (as source of, and th reat to, creation) , we see how

Chao.J God.J

15

cosmogonic beginnings and apocalyptic endings resemble one another: both take place on the edge of the world as we know it. Both i nvolve a transition between cosmos and chaos, cosmogony being about cosmos emet:qinq _ out o./ chaos and apocalypse being about cosmos returninq _ to c haos in order that a new cosmos may emerge. Both cosmogonic beginnings and apocalyptic endings are visions of the edge of the world. These days we are familiar with the idea of order emerging out of chaos and returning to it, thanks to c haos and complexity theory. Granted that entropy, the Second Law of Thermodynamics, holds true for the long ru n of thi ngs. Our now middle-aged cosmos is steadily ru nning out of energy and its structures are dissipating into chaos - a concept many of us can understand from personal expe­ rience. Yet along this irreversible road to heat death, we keep dis­ covering chance movement in the opposite direction: new complex structures are emerging out o./ chaos.3 l ndeed, that is what our liv­ able world is. That is what an ecosystem is. That is what l ife is. Entropy is not only the end of the world but also its sou rce. Chaos is both deadly and fecund. Less familiar but nonetheless fasei nating to those of us attu ned to the sciences of chaos is the idea that primordial diaos might take the form of divinity, or rather d ivine monstrosity. I n many ancient Near Easte rn stories, the chaos o u t of a n d agai nst which the world is created is personified as a "chaos god" or "chaos mon ster" who must be defeated by another god i n order to create or maintai n cosmic order. These monstrous c haos gods are paradoxical representations of radical otherness appearing within the order of things, the otherworldly withi n the worldly, the pri­ mordial within the ordial . They lurk on the th resholds of the k nown , at the edges of the cosmological map, reveali ng deep inse­ curities withi n a cosmos that trembles in the balance between order and c haos . lndeed, by personi(ying chaos in the form of a chaos god, these texts suggest that this sense of cosmic insecurity is rooted within divinity itself. Beneath faithful assertions in these stories that the cosmos is hospitable, secure and mean ingfu lly ordered - in a word, heim!u·h - one senses the presence of a Iu rk­ ing unheim!ich chaos within the divine that at any moment might come fl ooding back over everything.

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RELIGION

i\1\'D

ITS MONSTERS

CHAO S MO THER

This is the story of the chaos god Tiamat, primordial mother of all gods, even of the creator god 1V1arduk who k i lis her in orde r to form the world out of her corpse. Her story is told in the Babylonian Euwna Elith, one of the ful lest and most camplex surviving creation stories of the ancient Near East.4 The story begins befare the creation of earth and heavens, even befare the birth of the great Babylonian god Marduk, and even befare the birth of his begetter Ea, with the first divine couple, Tiamat and Apsu. The name Apsu, related to the Sumerian Abzu, suggests "watery deep" or "sweet water ocean . "'' Tiamat means "sea, " and in the opening lines of the story she is called Mummu Tiamat, that is, "mother" or "maker" Tiamat. Together they represent a dual per­ sonification of the primordial chaos waters out of which all else will be barn . I n thi s begi nning, very unlike Genesis l, there is no soli­ tary creator god speaking the world into existence with the open­ ing line " Let there be light. " Here it all begi ns with the intimate intermingling of the primordial pai r: as Tiamat and Apsu "mix their waters " together, the "gods were barn within them. " But with the birth of this second generation o f gods, the hon­ eymoon is over. Al most im mediately, the divine children begin trou­ bling their parents, especially their mother Tiamat. So much so, in faet, that Apsu determines to kill them off. Befare he can do so, however, the young gods learn of his intention and beat him to the punch : the wise god Ea puts Apsu to sleep with a spell and then kills him, setti ng up his own dwelling place in Apsu 's body. There, "inside pure Aps u, " Ea t hen creates Marduk, who soon gains pre­ eminence among the gods. The elder god Anu gives Marduk the four winds, which he uses to stir u p Tiamat further. Upon hearing of Apsu 's murder, Tiamat is convi nced by those gods still loyal to her to attack Ea and the rival gods who are dwelling in his corpse. Cloaked in radiant, godlike d ragons and sur­ rounded by a horned serpent, another dragon, a rabid dog and a nu mber of other animal-human combinations, Tiamat rages out of control. Terrified, the rival gods search for one among them who can face her and her armies. 1V\arduk rises to the occasion, and the other gods, overj oyed, ordain him their champion and king. They send him off to battle and commence getti ng drunk.

CbaoJ GodJ

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I n the battie that ensues, 1V1arduk ultimately defeats Tiamat i n a rather gory, even gratuitou s face-to-face battle. A s they close i n on o n e another, Marduk dispatches a fierce storm wind against her. When she opens her mouth to swallow it, she is u nable to close her lips, and the wind begi ns to d istend her l ike an over­ fil led balloon. Seizing the opportu nity, Mardu k shoots an arrow into her belly, and she explodes into two pieces. He then throws down her corpse, tramples her lower part, smashes her skull with his mace, cuts her arteries, and has the North Wind carry the smell of her death "as good news " to his compatriot gods back home in Aps u 's corpse. 6 While the other gods catch the whiff and begi n the vietory cel­ ebration (remember that they have been d rinking for some time already), Marduk proceeds to use her body to create the world. He slices her, "like a fish for drying, " and makes half of her into a roof for the sky. With the other half he forms the earth . He channels her chaotic primordial waters into springs and rivers, opening the Tigris and Euphrates from her eyes, and making her spittle into clouds. Marduk then turns his attention to other, less ecological and more religious-political matters. He establishes a religious order and rituals devoted to him, and makes Babylon the center of the universe and " home of the great gods. " Thus we see how the divine establishment and mai ntenance of cosmic order are intimately related to the divine establishment and mai ntenance of political and social order (as microcosmos) . Babylon is the a;-ci:t mundi, the center of the universe, the navel of the cosmic body. In faet, there is good evidence that the Enuma Elith was used in rituals related to the Babylonian Akitu new year festival, which served to reaffirm the divinely ordained and guaranteed order not only of creation but also of Babylon as the center of creation .7 Cosmie and political order are established and guaranteed through the overcoming and containment of primord ial chaos, here embodied in the figu re of Tiamat. The cosmos is i magined as her filleted corpse. On the one hand, the chaos god Tiamat is clearly conceived as a monstrous threat to both cosmic and social­ political order, and the su rvival of the world as well as the su rvival of the state depend on the creator god Marduk defeating her and keeping her from retu rning. On the other hand, that which

18

RELIGIO:'\ AND ITS MONSTERS

threate ns cosm1c and political order is also the sou rce of that orde r. The faet that the primordial chaos is personifled and monstro­ cized not only as feminine but as maternaJ (Mwnmu Tiamat, "Nlother Tiamat, " mother of the gods and source of all creation) seems to beg for psychoanalysis. lndeed, Tiamat might be consid­ ered a prototype of what Barbara Creed has called the "monstrous­ feminine" in modern horror.ll Tiamat is both maleriaprima and mater prima, original matter and original mother, and the story can be read as a story of the birth of her children and their subsequent denial of their - and the world's - original fu sion with her. Read from this angle, the story is not only about Babylon's champion god subdu ing the chaos monster god in order to create a livable world; it is about the creation of the cosmos as a violen t denial of its orig­ inal fusion with and continued (but largely repressed) dependence on the chaos mother. Notice, moreover, that the one who defeats the chaos monster in this story is also the one who most resembles her. Like Tiamat, Marduk is associated with images of cosmic turbu lence: he uses a flood wave "to stir up Tiamat, " he wields an "unfaceable" flood weapon, a tempest, a tornado, and a whirlwi nd . I n faet, iVlarduk's own description is monstrously and awesomely un natural, defying the imagination . His li mbs are said to be "beyond comprehension, impossible to u nderstand, too difflcult to perceive, " he has fou r eyes and four ears, and fire blazes forth from his mouth whenever he moves his lips. 9 Perhaps it takes a chaos monster to kill a chaos monster. 1V1arduk's defeat of Tiamat in the story may appear to be final. Yet on a deeper level there is a Iu rking sense that the watery mon­ ster of primordial chaos might sti r and rage out of control yet again if not conti nual ly kept under w1arduk's lordly Control. Tiamat is kil led but might not stay that way. Living on the (u ndead ? ) slaugh­ tered body of the chaos god who bore you produces at least a littie anxiety. I n the ancient world, as in the modern monster tale, it is difficult to keep a good monster down. They have a tendency to reawaken, reassemble their dismernbered parts, and retu rn for a sequel. Therefore l\1arduk is called upon toward the end of the fi nal tablet to keep up the good work of' mai ntaining the order and sta­ bility of the cosmos as well as t he order and stability of Babylon.

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Employing a kind of realized eschatology of "already-but-not-yet, " the text calls on Marduk to keep defeating the already defeated Tiamat: Let him defeat Tiamat, constrict her breath and shorten her l ife, So that for future people, till time grows old, She shall be far removed, not kept here, distant forever. 1 0 The desire of those Iiterally living on Tiamat's body to keep her "far removed " and "distant forever" is deeply ironic, and suggests, once again, the parado.x o/ the mon,tfrOLM as the other within. Tiamat, the radically other, the anti-cosmic and anti- Babylonian, is also the most i mmanent. Her body is the cosmos. Human and divine life come from it and return to it. Here, paradoxically, is an intimacy and immanence that induces horror. THE CLO UDRIDER AND THE WARRIO R GO DDESS

The cosmic horror that looms over the world in the Enuma Efi_,h pervades other ancient Near Eastern stories of monstrous chaos gods as well. In the Sanskrit hymns from the I ndian Rig Veda, for example, the creator god lndra must slay the chaos dernon Vrtra in order to release its primordial chaos waters as life source, thereby creating and establishing a livable cosmos, the order of which is integrally related to Vedic understanding of social order. 1 1 And in Egyptian tradition, the sun god Re 's battie against the d ragon-like chaos god Apophis is a daily drama of world re-creation. Apophis is a god of darkness that threatens the su n 's coming and going and, therefore, cosmic regularity. He must be confronted by Re at the cosmic threshold moments of dawn and dusk. An eyeless, earless, screaming embodiment of primordial chaos, Apophis stands for the retu rn of the cosmologically repressed. 1 2 This sense of cosmic horror is especially pervas" i ve in the cycle of stories about Baal and Anat in Ugaritic narrative poetry, a body of literature closely related to the Hebrew Bible.J.'5 The central theme in the Baal-Anat Cycle is theomachy, that is, the struggle of various gods within the Ugaritic pantheon for ascendancy under the supreroe but rather passive father god , El .14 The champion in

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RELIGI01\' AND ITs Mol\:STERS

the story cycle is the cloud-riding rai n god Baal ("Lord ") , who is often aided in his efforts to be enth roned over the other gods by the independent, wi ld-spi rited warrior goddess Anat. The fi rst adversary is Prince Yamm ( Hebrew yam, "sea") , a elivine personi f'ication of the primordial chaos waters who is called "beloved of El , " and who appears to be favored over Baal by the elivine mother Athirat. 1. :; He is an enemy of Baal and Anat, then, but not of the elivi ne parents. Yamm demands that El hand Baal over to him, and El does, which leads to a battic in which Baal is victori­ ous, thanks to a special weapon which leaps from Baal's hands "like a raptor" and strikes Yamm betwcen the eyes. Yamm callapses and his convu lsing body falls to the earth, where Baal dismembers him and is proclai med king. 1 r; At another point in the story cycle Anat, too, claims to have slain Yamm . "Surely I fought Yamm, the Beloved of El , " she asserts, "Surely I bou nd Tu nnan and destroyed him. l I fought t h e Twisty Serpent, l The Potentate with Seven I Ieads. "17 Apparently Yamm has been slain more than once, but keeps coming back for more. I t is hard to keep a chaos monster down . The second adve rsary is Divi ne lVlot ( Hebrew mawel, "death ") , also beloved of El . lYlot is the voracious god of death and the undervvorld whose gaping mouth reaches up to h eaven and down to heil. Upon heari ng of Baal 's earlier vietory and enthrone­ ment, he t h reatens to rip Baal to pieces and then eat h is Hanks, innards and forearms. "Surely you will descend into Divine lVlot's throat, " h e vows, " I n to the gul let of El 's Beloved. "'s In the fight that ensues, i\lot kills Baal, taking him "like a lamb in my mouth, like a kid crushed in the c hasm of my throat . " But then Anat rises in a vengeful rage. She seizes Mot, splits h i m in two with her sword, grinds him to powder with millstones, and sows him in an open fie ld so that birds devour him .1'J With Nlot defeated, Baal is resu r­ rected and returns to the throne, an event that the story associates wit h thc return of l i fe and fertility (perhaps signi(ying the comi ng of autumn rains) . As the chaos god who th reatens cosmic order is overcome, the world ccology is restored. But this is not the end of the s tory. Later, iVlot returns to battie Baal agai n. After a long, evenly matehed struggle, El intervcnes on Baal 's behalf and 1vlot su rrenders. Thus Baal maintains his throne, at least for the time being. By the end of the cyclc, thc sensc is that Baal's preeminence =

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Chao.1 GoJo�

21

and t h e related well-bei ng o f t h e world ecology are not entirely secure. There is always the possibility of a rematch. As i n the Enuma Efi.dJ, moreover, both chaos monster slayers, Baal and Anat, are themselves oft-en figures of chaos more than order. Baal brings not only rains but also storms and l ightning, which represent cosmic chaos more than they do peace, harmony and fertility. And just before Baal's messengers arrive at Anat 's palace, she is depicted batding in the val ley between two towns, "the people of the seashore " and "the populace of the sun rise, " which may be metaphors for the transition between day and night (i .e., when the sun meets the sea on the horizon) . Whether metaphorical or literal, her passion for the chaos of war is striking, as she adorns herself with severed heads and arms and revels in neck-deep gore: U nder her, like balls, are heads, Above her, like locusts, hands, Like locusts, heaps of warrior-hands. She fixes heads to her back, Fastens hands to her belt. Knee-deep she gleans in warrior blood, Neck-deep in the gore of soldiers. :w The "adolescent" warrior goddess Anat is turbulent, chaotic and anomalous. As Neil Wall s has made clear, moreover, her liminal identity represents a threat to established patriarchal gender norms. Neither mother nor daughter nor wife, a violent warrior goddess with her own palace, she may have represented "social chaos, " eliciting "androcentric fear of uncontrolled women. "21 Yet in the Baal-Anat Cycle she is also a champion of the chaos battie who is credited with the slaying of a figure whose ascendancy would have been the ultimate ecological catastrophe. Here agai n, as with Marduk versus Tiamat, it appears that in some sense it takes o ne to kill one. NO REST

Baal 's and Anat 's vietaries over Yamm and Mot are, like i\'larduk's vietory over Tiamat, entirely inconclusive, and therefore so is Baal 's

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RELIGro� AND ITs

Mo:-.�sTERS

lordship, and therefore so is the security of the world ecology. Taken collectively, there is in this story cycle a profound and abid­ ing sense of precariousness and insecurity built into the order of things. This insecurity is personi fied most vividly in the flgures of Mot and Yamm, who, like Baal , never seem to stay dead for long. Mot kills Baal . Then Anat kills Mot. Baal comes back to life. Then Mot returns. Mot and Baal battie once more, and Mot surrenders. But for how long? Likewise, the faet that Anat and Baal have each killed Yam m at least once suggests that it is i mpossible to keep a good chaos monster, or for that matter a good chaos monster killer, down . I f Baal can come back, and if Yamm and Mot have been k il led more than once, then clearly the battie for ascendency and stabil i ty within the di vine family is endless. As J. C. L. Gibson writes, this text "faces up the powers that be with both irony and circumspection, aware of the knife-edge that separates harmony from chaos and life from death . " 2 2 Recall, moreover, that Yam m and Mot are both "beloved of El, " and that Yam m i s allied with El 's divine consort "Athirat of the Sea. " Here again, the anti-cosmic, monstrous forces of chaos in this narrative cycle, as i n the Aluuna ELith, are not anti-divi nity or "evi l " i n some dualistic sense. Rather, these chaos monster gods are part of a divinity that is deeply divided within itself about the future via­ bility of the cosmos and of life as hu mankind knows it. Religion, in this context, is not simply cosmic, as is often asserted by modern theorists of religion . Rather it is a locus for negotiating between the cosmic and the chaotic, which are, paradoxically, both interde­ pendent and m utually exclusive. In these stories, cosmic horror is p rofoundly theological . The precariousness of the world as a l ivable abode for hu mankind is believed to be rooted in a divinity in which creation and chaos are in perpetual and ultimately unresolvable tension with one another.

CH APTER

2

TI-IE BIBLE AND HORROR

B I B LI CAL MO NSTERS AND MAD P RO F ESSORS

Ever:y fall, the conservative watchdog Young Arnerica's Foundation publishes a predictably damning assessment of the current state of h igher education, based on its yearly survey of current cou rses Iisted in college and university bulletins and catalogs. Timed to play on the anxieties of first-year college students and their parents and to cain­ cide with the special college issues of maj or magazines, the reparts and related press releases are dominated by terms of the bizarre, the outrageous and the horrific, highlighting "shocking and revealing courses " which supposedly indicate the "appalling nature of the cur­ riculum" i n Arnerica's hest schools . The rhetorical strategy employed here is that of making monsters out of political and intel­ lectual opponents. The YAF depicts these "outrageous " and "bizarre" courses as the awful brain-children of the monstrous fan­ tasies of leftist professors ben t on destroying "traditional values, " specifled in terms o f "Western culture, the U nited States o f America, the free market, and [conservative Christian] religion . " Along with the programs o f study typically targeted by conser­ vative eritics of higher ed u cation (women's and gender studies, gay and lesbian studies, African-American studies) , the 2000 report 23

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RELIGI O:\' A N D ITs MONSTERS

pays particular attention to courses m religion. lt bewails, for example, the increasing number of cou rses on folklore and magic . N ever m i n d that these have been central research and teaching topics in rel igion departments since the mid- 1 800s. I n a special section called "The Disease Spreads, " moreover, i t focuses on how this lamentable trend in the teac hing of rel igion has contaminated even religion and theology departments in top-ranked Cathelie colleges and universities. The report 's focus on religion is indicative of the special place that the academic study and teaching of religion holds in the latest rounds of the culture wars over the state and direction of higher education . What is at stake is no less than the legitimate place of the study of religion in American higher education. In faet, the YA F's report is symptomatic of a very broad and general expectation, among both conservatives and liberals, in and out of the academy, that a religion department ought to be the soul and moral con­ science of its institution. Religion professors are often expected somehow to represent religious traditions and serve as apologists for them - to profess rel igion rather than the study of it. To pre­ nounce the state of rel igion departments in our best church-affili­ ated col leges and universities as contaminated and diseased, there­ fore, is to declare that the very soul of higher cducation is sick. For those like the YAF who want to make these courses and thei r professors into monsters, the real horror of teaching religion in an academic context is not that the courses are "trendy, " " bizarre " or "i ntellectually vacuous . " Wishful thinking. The real horror is in the proposition that religious traditions considered normative be studied alongside other ideas, practices and institu­ tions in such a way that the normative will be contaminated by crit­ ical comparison , revealing similarities and differences that are not always orthodox. One of the cou rses presented in the 2000 repart and the related " Dirty Dozen " press release as a most telling symptom of the dread­ fu l state of higher cducation generally and religion studies specifi­ cally is a course called "The Bi ble and Horror, " taught by Tod Li nafelt at Georgetown University. In faet, this course topped the list in The lf/a,,f:Jin_qlon Time,,'s artide based on the YAF press release. That artide begins, "Students at Georgetown University this year can take a class called 'Thc Bi ble and H orror, ' which seeks to answer the

Tbe Bihle anJ Horror

25

question: 'What might religion and horror (or the monstrous) have in common ? ' " As the lead-off cou rse in the article, and as a high­ lighted course in the larger YAF report and press release, it is assumed that "The Bible and Horror" will immediately impress read­ ers not only as absurd but dawnright offensive, even blasphemous, the dreadful offspring of a mad professor's monstrous imagination. No doubt a l ittie thinking, perhaps with the help of a knowl­ edgeable student, would provide arnpie j ustification for the vast majority of courses in the YAF list. 1\'lore often than not, an aca­ demic question or topic strikes us as absurd when we have not thought ourselves into it far enough, either because we are not sure how to or because we refuse to. This is certainly the case in regard to the YAF 's vilification of "The Bible and Horror. " l ndeed, advo­ cating for the "biblical " in today's culture wars has littie to do with anything that is actually in the Jewish or Christian biblical canons. The "traditional values" that pass as "biblical " in the rhetoric of groups l ike the YAF do so primari ly on the gamble that almost no one actually readd biblical texts these days, and that when someone does, it is under the watchful eye of the right kind of theological and ecclesiastical authority. Given the YAF report's general tone of defensiveness about Christianity and the Christian Bible, its apparent biblical illiteracy on this point is nonetheless i ronic. There are indeed monsters in the Bible, inspiring not a littie horror. l n deed, one might say that the Bible i s Iiterally ruJfeJ with monsters. Riddled, because there are many stories, psalm s and prophetic visions in which they appear, their names and epithets often giving them away as close Hebrew relatives to the Ugaritic monster gods of the Baal-Anat Cycle (including Yam [Ugaritic Yamm ] , tannin or "sea monster" [Ugaritic Tu nnan] , and Leviathan [Ugaritic Litan] ) . 1 But also riddled because the biblical canon as a whole does not seem to know quite what to do with them . l ndeed, the relation between the biblical God and these monsters is particularly riddling and disturbing. WA TER PLAY OR WAT ER F IGHT

This biblical problem of what to do with monsters vis-a-vis God is made acutely apparent when we consider two very different visions from the Psalms of the sea monster Leviathan . In Psal m l 04,

26

RELIGION AKD ITS MOKSTERS

Leviatl1an is imagined as a playf� l part of God 's wondrous creation, whereas in Psalm 74, Leviathan is imagi ned as a monstrous th reat to the social and cosmic order and an archenemy of the God who establ ishes both . Psalm l 04 is a hol istic ecological vision of creation, praising the creator God who establishes and mai ntains an intricately balanced and integrated world ecology, laying its fau ndations over the watery abyss "so that it wil l never totter, " stretching the heavens like a tent, establishing mountai ns and val l eys, and appointing the right piaces and times for every living creatu re, incl uding hu mans. Within this vision of nature 's inspired economy, the psalmist high­ lights Leviat han as a froliesorne creatu re of divine delight. How many thi ngs you have made, LOR D ! All o f them, i n your wisdom, you made. The earth is full with you r creations. This is the sea, great and vast. There are its creeping thi ngs beyond counting, living beings, small and great. There the ships go. Leviathan - t his you formed to play with . All of them look to you to give them food in thei r ti me. ( Psal m l 04:24 27)2 The beautiful interrelatedness of sea ecology, and its total depend­ ence on its divine artisan-creator for sustenance, is powerfully reflected in the literary craft and integrity of this passage. Within it, Leviathan is presented as a centerpiece among the " many things " of God 's creation. Far from posing a t h reat to God or God 's created order, Leviathan has been created by God precisely for playful sparring. Here Leviathan is cause for rejoicing and praise. This Psalm is c losely related to the creation theology repre­ senred in the fi rst creation story in Genesis, in which God simply speaks and the various details of the world emerge out of the pri­ mord ial chaos waters without resistance. lndeed, in that story God creates "the great sea monsters [tawu"lll"m] " along with all other sea li fe on the f'i fth day of creation (l :2 1 ) . The word translated here as "sea monster" (lawzin) is the H ebrew equivalent for Tu nnan, a name associated with the chaos monster Yam m in the Baal-Anat

Tbe Bible and Horror

27

Cycle. Here in Genesis, however, as with Leviathan in Psalm l 04, the tannin is no chaos monster. lt may be " monstrous " in size, but it is clearly part of God 's divinely ordained world ecology, not opposed to i t. Both t his creation story and Psalm l 04 insist that there are no such things as monsters. All is part of creation, and all is easily governed by the creative and law-giving word of God. I n t h e beginning was nol the chaos monster.3 We get a very different pieture of Leviathan in Psalm 74 . In this psalm, Leviathan and a cohort of related monsters are personifica­ tions of primordial chaos, menac ing both the order of creation and its creator God. Psalm 74 is a lament spoken out of political and theological eri­ sis, namely the desecration and destruetion of the Jerusalem Tempie by the invading Babylonians in 587 BCE. In faet, it is this erisis that is most formative for the final form of the Hebrew Bi ble. l nsofar as Jerusalem is understood as the very center of the cos­ mos, the tZ.'l'M mundt� moreover, this theological erisis is not only political but also cosmic. If the m icrocosmic center of creation can be desecrated, then the order and stability of the cosmos as a whole are teetering if not already collapsing into chaos. lt is in this con­ text of national and cosmological disorientation that the psal mist recalls God 's creation of the world in terms of a chaos battle, and it is in this context that Leviathan, Yam, and the sea monsters (tan­ ninim) are recollected not as part of creation but as God's uncre­ ative archenemies: You yourself drove back Yam with your strength. You broke the heads of the sea monsters in the waters You yourself crushed the heads of Leviathan. You gave it as food for the seafaring people.4 You yourself cut openings for spri ngs and torrents. You made great rivers ru n dry. Yours is the day, and yours is the night. You yourself established light and the su n . You yourself fixed all the boundaries o f the earth. Summer and wi nter you yourself made. I n this passage, Leviathan, Yam and the sea monsters are all per­ sonifications of the primordial forces of chaos that God destroyed

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m order to create the cosmos. In sharp contrast with Psalm l 04, t his psal m o f lame n t represents these fi.gures - especial ly Leviathan, whose demise is deseribed in the most graphic detail ­ as chaos monsters that once threatened both creation and the c re­ ator God . In describing God 's work of creation, the psal mist faith­ fully remembers, and insists that God faithfully remember, God 's violent triu mph over these anti-cosmic monstrosities. In reminding God of this former chaos battle, the psalmist aims to motivate God once again to quash the monstrous heads of chaos, which are now rearing up in the form of a new monstrous enemy. Just as you did not allow chaos monsters to destroy you r creation in the beginning, the psalm ist is saying, so you must not allow this newly awakened chaos monster, Babylon, to destroy your people, your city and your temple, which together represent the social, political and rel igious center of that creation.

DISO RIENTATIO N AND THEOLO GICAL HO RRO R

Psalm l 04 is a prime example of w hat Walter Brueggeman calls a "psalm of orientation. ":' In psalms of orientation, the voice of the psal m ist is firmly grounded and oriented, utterly confident in the order and sense of the world and thrivi ng within that order. The counter-voice to these psalms of orientation is found in the psalms of lament and complaint, or "psalms of disorientation . " These psalms, which are radically incommensurable to the psalms of ori­ entation, give voice to the experience of radical cosmic, political and psychological - always theological - breakdown and c risis. I n them, t h e sense o f orientation with regard t o God's reliable com­ mand over the cosmic, political and moral order of the universe expressed in psalms like l 04 no longer makes any sense. Solid grou nd crumbles away, and the flood waters return. Save me God, for the waters have come up to my neck. l am sinking into the deep mire, without foothold. I have come into watery depths, and the flood overtakes me. ( Psalm 69: 1 2)

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29

The voice of disorientation sees the primordial flood waters return­ ing. and along with them often come monsters who are by no means harmonious with the divine order of creation. So it is in Psalm 74. Indeed, we might well describe the voice of disorientation in the H ebrew Scriptures as the voice o f horror - psychological, polit­ ical, cosmic horror - i n which the order of things that is elsewhere asserted to be well established and steadfastly maintai ned by the God of c reation and justice appears to be falling apart at the seams. " God sits enthroned over the flood , " declares Psalm 29: l O, but the horrified voice of disorientation can no longer afford such confi­ dence. Might the floods be returning? I s the watery chaos monster really j ust a big water toy? Is God a chaos tamer or a chaos mon­ ster ? Or both ? These are the q uestions that are stammered out, in fear and trembli ng, by the voic e of disorientation . Whe n i t comes to God and monsters, Psalm 74 s hares less with the creation theology of orientation expressed in Psalm l 04 and more with the chaos battie m otifs of other ancient Near Eastern texts, such as the Baal- Anat Cycle and the Enuma E!iJh, in which a deity identified with the order of creation and the well-being of humankind defeats, at least for the time being, the forces of cosmic and political horror embodied by a chaos monster or chaos god . The references in Psalm 74 to God 's slaying o f Yam, Leviathan and the sea monsters are strongly remi niscent of references in the Baal­ Anat Cycle to the slayings of Yam m , Litan and Tu nnan . The brief description of God 's victoriou s battle with Leviathan, moreover, recalls the cosmic and political champion Marduk 's defeat of Tiamat, i n which Marduk cru shes Tiamat's skull and arranges her waters i nto streams and rivers. Without looking any furthe r than Psalms 1 04 and 74, we can see that the Hebrew Bible is no more univocal when it comes to monsters than it is on any oth e r theologically substantial topic. I n the beginning was not the chaos m onster (Genesis l :2 1 ; P sal m l 04; c f. Psalm 1 48) . In the beginn i ng was the chaos monster, and it appears to be reviving ( P sal m 74 ) . Leviathan is God 's partner for water sports ( Psalm l 04) . God c rushed the heads of Leviathan, along with Yam and the sea monsters who stood as primordial threats to God and God 's c reation ( Psalm 74) . These ambiguities _ with regard to chaos monsters and God 's relation to them are unre­ solvable, revealing a religious t radition whose inherent tensions

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RELTGIO:\' A N D ITS MONSTERS

between orientation and disorientation, between order and c haos, between ecological holism and ecological horror, go to the very core of its one God. MO NSTRO US ENEMIES

One way in which the Young Arnerica's Faundation is consistent with biblical tradition is in its practice of making enemies into mon­ sters. As we have already begun to see in Psalm 74, biblical texts often make chaos monsters out of enemy nations. Behind this is an understanding that God 's people, who are constituted and defined as a nation by their liberation from Egypt and by their adherence to divine law, are a social-political microcosm of the order of cre­ ation, a sociology of the cosmology. Therefore a threat against God 's people may be construed as a monstrous threat against the entire cosmos and its creator God. fi There are numerous biblical passages in which enemy nations, past or present, are represented as chaos monsters. Some texts, for example, represent Egypt as a chaos monster whom God defeated by means of the Exodus. In Psalm 89, God 's crushing and scatter­ ing of the monster Rahab ("proud" or "haughty, " considered by many scholars to be another name for Leviathan) represents both the defeat of the primordial chaos monster at creation and the defeat of Egypt: "You yourself crushed Rahab like a corpse. With you r powerful arm you scattered your enemies . " And in Isaiah 51, a text dating late in the Babylonian exile, the prophet recalls God's deliverance of Israel from Egypt in terms of a victorious chaos bat­ tie agai nst Rahab, the sea monster (tannin), and Yam, in hopes of rousing God agai nst a new monstrous enemy. Awake, awake, clothe you rself in strength, arm of the LO RD ! Awake as in the old days, as in previous generations. Was it not you who hacked Rahab to pieces, who pierced the sea monster? Was it not you who dried up Yam, the vvaters of the great deep, who made the depths of Yam

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a crosswalk for the redeemed ? So will the redeemed of the LORD return , and come to Zion with shouting. ( Is aiah 5 1 :9- l l a) In this bold, almost taunting passage, the prophet 's recollection of God 's former might - in contrast with what is experienced as God 's cunent slu mher in weaker dothing - fuses the cosmogonic lan­ guage of God's victorious battle (cutting, piercing, subduing) against personified chaos (hacking Rahab, piercing the sea mon­ ster, subduing Yam) with the language of the Exod us (parting or drying the Reed Sea so that the peopl e could cross) .7 In both of these texts, moreover, God 's victorious ctMnu�qonic (cosmos-creat­ ing) battie against the primordial chaos monster and God 's victori­ ous poLt:qonic (nation-creati ng) battie agai nst the monstrously oppressive Egypt are inextricably related . God 's cosmic order, which is established and mai ntained against the chaos monster, is i nextricably linked to God's social order, which is established and maintained against the people's experience of oppression under the law of the monstrous Egypt. In the prophet Ezekiel 's oracles agai nst other nations (chapters 25-32, dating immediately after the fall of Jerusalem in 587 BCE), it is not the defeated Egypt of days gone by but the present-day Egypt and its Pharaoh that the prophet represents as "the m ighty sea monster. " In this passage, however, Egypt's status as m onster is less a sign of its horrible threat and more an indication of its certain doom, because it did not come to J udah 's aid against Babylon. Here the prophet has God announce a gory death sentence for Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who is depicted as a sprawling and thrash­ ing sea monster. God vows to put hooks in its jaws, to haul it up in dragnets and fling it into an open field, coveri ng the mountains and filling the valleys with its rotting flesh and drenching the earth with its flowing blood (29:3-6; 32:2 6) . This Pharaonic sea m onster is about to be turned into j ust one m ore filet of fish, while God, l ike the warrior Anat in the Baal-Anat Cycle, revels in the blood and guts. In Ezekiel 's gory p rophetic imagin ation, to call a nation by the name of a chaos monster is to pronounce its death sentence. More often , however, to make a m on ster out of an enemy is to endow it with otherworldly power, there by eliciting a sense of per­ sistent, unstoppable, un-killable horror. I saiah 27, for example,

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A N D ITS MON STERS

imagines a day when "the LORD, with his cruel, great, and mighty sword, will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisti ng serpent. He wi ll slaughter the sea monster in the sea" (27: 1 ). In t his passage the prophet associates an enemy nation, pre­ su mably Babylon, with a broad repertoire of names and epithets for the chaos mon ster, all of wh ich appear as anti-cosmic adversaries (or different names for the same anti-cosmic adversary) in the Baal­ Anat Cycle and in Psal m 74.�> \Vhat distinguishes this text from the others, however, is that here the battie is antictjwted rather than remembered. Crucial to the psalmist's point in Psal m 74 is the claim that Yam, Leviathan and the sea monsters have al ready been slain by the creator God; indeed, the psalmist's present hope is based on this claim. Here, however, Leviathan remains alive and kicking. Similarly, �J eremiah 5 1 desc ri bes the Babyl onian King Nebuchadrezzar as a chaos monster devouring the inhabitants of Jerusalem: " He devou red me, he crushed me . . . he made me l ike an empty dish. I-ie swallowed me as wou ld a sea monster. He filled his belly with my precious ones, " perhaps a reference to slain chil­ dren. I n response to this lament, God promises to make the Babylonian monster king "disgorge what he has swallowed. " Wheth�r the monster's victi ms will come back u p i n one piece, and whether the world '\vill ever be the same again, is far less certai n . Although t h e enemy has yet t o be overeorne in these texts, there is at least some consalation in the insistence that God is siding with Judah rather than sporting or ragi ng against them with the mon­ ster. Elsewhere, however, there is no such consolation . I n l saiah 8, for example, Assyria is imagi ned as God 's monstrous means of pro­ nouncing judgment on Judah : " Behold, my Lord wil l bring up against them the mighty and massive waters of the River, the king of Assyria and all his glo ry. I t will rise over all its banks, and i t will sweep into Judah like a flash flood, reaching up to the neck. " Here the king of Assyria, who by th is time has al ready obliterated the northern kingdom of I srael, is personified as the flood waters of the great river Euphrates, which is associated with primordial chaos waters. l saiah 's audacious and horri (ying claim is t hat God is rais­ ing up these mighty and massive flood waters against Judah. God is taking sides wit h the monstrous enemy against Judah .'J

Tbe Bible and Horror

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CO NJ URING

Behind all these biblical representations of enemy nations as chaos monsters is the assumption that cosmic and social-political order and chaos are intimately related to one another. The world 's ecol­ ogy and the nation 's sociology are entirely interdependent, so that the invasion of chaos within the nation is also the invasion of chaos within the cosmos. This understandi ng of the interrelation of cos­ mic and political order is not unique to biblical tradition within the ancient Near East, nor is the strategy of representi ng one's e nemies as chaos monsters. Marduk 's defeat of Tiamat in the Enuma E!i.dJ, for example, led to the creation of the world as well as of Babylon as its cosmic center. The ever-looming possibility that Tiamat might reawaken and play havoc is a source of cosmic as well as political horror. .1\1aking enemies into monsters is a kind of conj uring, and con­ juring is always anxious and risky, becau se it is always more than one bargains for. To make another nation into a monster does more than simply mark it as a clear enemy. lnsofar as chaos monsters are the otherworldly within the worldly, such conjuring also endows the enemy with a kind of supernatural, primordial, mysterious oth­ erness, an agency that resists being reduced to an easy target, and that never stays down for long. To name an enemy after a chaos monster, especially when the same name is used for a chaos god in a closely related tradition (e.g., YamNamm and Leviathan/Litan) , is t o risk imbuing it with a k i n d o f sacred chaos - a sacred chaos with which God may even be allied, much to Israel 's and J udah 's horror.

l

FIGURE 2. Job's n i ght af terrors (Job 7 : 14 ) , an engraving by W i l l i a m B la ke , Illustrations af the Book af Job ( Lo n d o n : W i l l i a m B l a ke and J. Li nnel l, 182 6 ; N ew York: G . Putn a rn 's S a n s , 1902 ) , p l ate 1 1 , Kelvin Sm ith Li b ra ry, Special Col l ecti ons, Case Western Reserve U n ive rsity.

CH APTER

3

THE S LEEP OF WISDOM

J O B AND THE A B YSS O F SUF FERING

"All s u ffering is an abyss, " wrote the twenty-three-year-old Romanian philosopher E. Nl. Cioran in a 1 934 essay which he later deseribed as slander agai nst the universe, born out of a desperate insomnia. 1 Suffering is chaos that infiltrates my body, disarienting my sense of self� and shattering my world. "Suffering separates and dissociates; like a centrifugal force it pulls you away from the cen­ ter of life, the hub of the universe where all things tend toward unity. "2 lt alienates me from my established moorings, blurring what was once clear discernment of the order of things. As the microcosm of the body crumbles in pain, so does the cosmos itself. The world that once made sense, that was once meaningfully whole, fou nded and guaranteed by a God who sits enth roned over chaos, suddenly crumbles under overwhelming torrents. SuHe ring is radically uncreative. lt undoes the world .3 Pain is an abyss. To be in pain is to be in the abyss. And indeed, when l am in it, even when l am with anether who is in it, it is as though the abyss of suffering is overtaking the entire world. "The venom d rawn out from suffering would be enough to poison the whole world in a bloody eruption, bursting out of the volcano of • 35

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RELIGION Al\'0 ITS MONSTERS

our being. "4 This suggests an intimate relation between one 's indi­ vidual body and one's experience and understanding of the world as a whole. The breakdown of one 's subjectivity through surfering is a breakdown of one's entire world. lf suffering is an abyss, then the body in pain is an embodiment of chaos, a chaos monster, whose chaos spreads like poison from the i ndividual body to the entire umverse. You never suspected what lay hidden in yourself and in the world, you were living contentedly at the periphery of things, when suddenly those feelings of suffering which are second only to death itself take hold of you and trans­ port you into a region of infinite complexity, where you r subjectivity tosses about in a maelstrom.5 This is the story of Job. I n the biblical book of Job, the voice of pain is an eruption of chaos within the order of creation so carefully mapped out elsewhere i n biblical literature, especially in texts iden­ ti fied with wisdom and Torah piety. Wisdom thi nking in biblical lit­ erature emphasizes discernment of the meaning, i ntegrity and structure - in short, the H'ifdom - o f God 's creation through cl ose observation of daily life. The wisdom of the creator inheres within the intricate and i ngenious order of creation itself, and can be dis­ covered through study of it. Such wisdom teachings, found espe­ cially in Proverbs and i n a number of the Psal ms, find their orien­ tation in earlier biblical traditions of creation and Torah piety, which understand the divi nely ordai ned order of creation to be sta­ ble, rel iable and reasonable, and which understand the divinely ordai ned order of society to be closely related to it.6 Keep God's Torah and you , your society and your world will be blessed and thrive; disobey and you , you r society and you r world will break dovvn and retu rn to chaos. The sleep of wisdom produces chaos monsters. Or rather, the sleep of wisdom l eaves no one to guard against their return. In the book of Job, it is precisely wisdom's guard that breaks down . The story of Job is the story of the e;rbauAion ll wt:,Jom . I n this story, wisdom 's best and most vigi lant watchmen, Job 's so­ called " friends" are worn out by Job's disarienti ng voice of pain.

Tbe Sleep of Wi.1dom

37

His undeserved and unj ustifiable suflering presents a erisis of cos­ mic proportions, outlasting and exhausting wisdom in a night of theological unknowing, and putting Job in the company of c haos monsters. Nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible, indeed nowhere else in the known literature of the ancient Near East, is the particularity of the face of pain, and the theological horror written across it, so carefully attended to than in the book of Job. Nowhere else is the voice of urter disorientation, and the theological horror shrieking through it, so carefully sustained than in the book of Job. The book of Job is a giant breach in the biblical corpus, sending cracks through the rest of Scripture, interrogating the systems and strategies of Torah and wisdom for making theological sense out of pain.7 " Face me and be devastated," J o b declares to wisdom 's guardian s, who insist that there m ust be some reason in God 's good universe for Job's pai n and loss. " Put your hand over your mouth ! " (Job 21 :5) . A B SENCE O F ALL REFUGE

The philosopher and Tal mudic scholar Emmanuel Levi nas writes that "in suffering, there is an absence of all refuge . . . . The whole acuity of surfering Iies in the impossibility of retreat . . . . In this sense suffering is the i mpossibility of nothi ngness. "8 This experi­ ence of the impossibility of retreat is powerfully and acutely expressed by Job. There is no rest and no refuge for Job, especially from the oppressive, panoptic gaze of God. Job says, Why did I not die at bi rth ? . . . Now I would be lying down in peace. I would be sleeping. I would be at rest . . . . Why is light given to the miserable, and life to the bitter-souled, who long for death when it is not there, and d ig for it more than for hidden treasure, who are extremely joyful and glad w hen they find the grave ? Why is light given to one who eannot see the way, whom God has hedged in ? . . .

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Truly that which I f'ear is overcoming me, and what I dread is befalling me. I am not at e·ase, nor am I quiet. I have no rest, but trouble comes. (Job 3: 1 1 , 1 3, 2 0 23, 25 26) Job 's restless terror under the divine gaze, which he experiences as a sort of' divine panopticon, is far from the guiding, comforti ng gaze of' God in Psal m 1 39 . There the psal mist declares, You shut me in behi nd and bef'ore, and put you r hand on me. Such knowle dge is beyond me. l t is so high I eannot attain it. Where can I escape from your spirit? Where can I flee from your prese nce ? I f I go up to heaven, there you are. If I go down to Sheol, you are there too. If I take wing with the morni ng, and settie at the far limits of' the sea, even there your hand will lead me; your right hand will hold me tight. I f I say, " Surely darkness will hide me, and the light around me will become night, " even the dark ness is not dark to you. Night is as the daylight. Darkness and light are the same. ( Psal m 1 39:5- 1 2) I n a rabbinic discu ssion in the Talmud about the creation of hu mankind, the psal mist's joyfu l declaration that "you shut me in behind and bef'o re " i s cited in support of the idea that the original human (i n Genesis 2 : 7) was formed with two faces. That is, it had one face in front and one in back.'J God, the rabbi suggests, faces the human both comi ng and going. I n a leeture on this passage from the Tal mud, Levi nas offers this meditation: lt is i mpossible to escape from God, not to be present before his sleepless gaze. A gaze which is not experience d

The Sleep of Wi<�dom

39

as a calamity . . . I n the biblical passage, certainly God's presence means: to be besieged by God or obsessed by God. An obsession which is experienced as a chosenness . . . Everything is open . . . With only a single face, I have a place in the rear of the head, the occiput, in which my hidden thoughts and my mental reservations accumulate. Refuge which can hold my entire thought. But here, instead of the occiput, a second face ! Everything is exposed . . . YlJu are a!way.1 e.1:ptMed! Bul in thi1 .1pirited p.ta!m you are ditcovered with joy; it ,:, the e.1:a!tatimz ll divine pro.:cimity that thit p.1a!m ,1in.q.1: a hein,q e.\po.Jed without the !ea.t/ hint o/ ,thadow. 1(! The voice in Psalm 1 39 is the voice of wonder and praise from one l iving in an all-embracing divine panopticon, entirely exposed and entirely known . For the psalmist, the sleepless gaze of God arouses an i nsomnia without the least trace of restlessness or fear. For Job, by contrast, divine omnipresence means creaturely terror. Job experiences it as ceaseless pursuit, exposu re and torment, leaving him longing for sleep, even a final sleep. For Job, unlike the psalmist, death is refuge from divine besiegement and divine obses­ sion. In Job's vexed realm , you are d iscovered with terror; it is the dread of divine proxi mity that Job screams: a being exposed with­ out the least hint of shadow. The difference between the psal mist and Job, of course, is that Job has been singled out as the subject of a wager between God and 11the accuser, " or haJJa{an (with a definite article, not the proper name Satan) , who is something like the prosecuting attorney on God's divine council. ' ' Job is singled out, moreover, precisely because o f his righteousness. God says to the accuser, 11 Have you noticed my servant Job ? There is no one else like him on the earth, blameless and upright, feari ng God and turning away from evil" ( l :8) . The accuser replies, 11 Have you not put a fence araund hi m and his house and all that he has on every side ? " H ow hard is it to be righteous when all you know is blessing? Of cou rse, the accuser makes a good point, and leaves God with the burden of proving that Job's righteousness is not the result of blessing rather than vice-versa. So it is Job's perfectly law-abiding righteotldne,M that sin-

40

RELI G I O N A :\' D ITS MONSTERS

gies him out for testing. Cont rary to the way God 's ju stice is sup­ posed to work, then, the most righteous one is chosen not for bless­ ing but for curs�. In the first rou nd of devastation, his property is lost and his children are killed. When he sti ll holds fast to his piety, the accuser declares, "Skin for skin ! A man will give up all he has for his own l i fe. But touch his bones and flesh, . . . " (2 :4 5) . Job is then "inflicted . . . with terrible boil s from the sole of his foot to the top of his head " (2 :7) . l ronically, in Deuteronomy 28:35, this affliction is precisely what N\oses declares God \vill use to punish the lsraelites when they do not obey God 's justice: " lf you do not obey the LO RD your God . . . the LORD wtl! tl?(lid you at the knees and thighs witb terrible hoil1 from which you will never recover, from tbe .1o!e of your fool lo tl1e top {!f your head. " This passage uses the same H ebrew verb for "inflict" (nakab) that Job 2 : 7 does, and the lan­ guage describing the terrible boils from the sole of the foot to the top of the head is identical (except, of course, that Job 2:7 refers to "his" foot and head and Deuteronomy 28:35 refers to "your" foot and head) . Likely the description of Job's cursed affliction is drawn from the descri ption m Deuteronomy. But wh ereas m Deuteronomy the curse is supposed to be the result of unright­ eousness and disobedience, in the book of Job it is the result of J ob's exemplary righteousness. lt is as though his goodness in God 's eyes has pai nted a giant bullseye on his forehead. In Job's story, the moral un iverse affi rmed elsewhere in biblical tradition, according to which righteousness equals blessed wel l-being and disobedience equal s cu rsed suffering, is turned inside out and upside down . "Skin for skin ! " As Job's skin, his h ide, cracks and peels away, so does his theological hide. There is no more hiding, an absence of al l refuge. The old answers no longer hold water, or rather no longer hold back the chaos waters. As his trusty old theological hide cracks and peels away, he finds himself dreadfully exposed. DESIRI N G C H A O S

A t several poi nts m the dialogues (chapters 3 37) , Job cries for help. He cries out to be saved from the Hoods t hat are overtaking

The Sleep of Wi.1Jonz

41

h i s world, born out o f h i s own suffering. H e longs i n vai n for an answer, a word of God or from God that would justi(y his suffer­ ing, that would reinstate order against chaos. He longs in vain for a word that wou ld make theological sensc of his pai n, and that would thereby reorient him within God 's moral universe. Like the voice of disorientation in the psalms of lament, he cries out to be saved from the abyss and its monsters. At other points, however, Job's voice is far more radical and deeply distu rbi ng, ident�/yin_q with the mon,,lrou,, /otY"f<' ,!f' wzcreation a_qain1/ the creator God. I n such deeply disturbed and disturbing moments, Job desires an un making of the world, a chtu�qony, a return of chaos against cosmos. The most striking example is found in Job 's opening curse of "his day, " which he blurts out after seven days of silence, seraping his sores with potsherds. Job opened his mouth and cursed his day. And Job said: "Annihi late the day on which I was born, the eveni ng a male-child was announced. That day . . . let there be darkness. " (3:3-4a) Although Job's curse is explicitly airned only at "his day" (which refers to both the day of h is birth and the night of his conception), the language deployed in it is clearly ai rned at undoing all of God 's creation. Job's embittered declaration "let there be darkness " (yehi �ocJhelc) is a literal inversion of God 's own initial world-creative words in Genesis l :3, "let there be light" (yehi �w) , with which God spoke the first day into being and began creating order out of chaos. God 's first aet of creation called forth light ( 'or) from dark­ ness (�tMhek:) draws it back into darkness, undoing the first creative distinction God had made out of the formless void. As Job calls for the undoing of " his day" with the pronouncement " let there be dark ness, " then, he is al so calling for the undoi ng of God 's first day, that is, the birthday of creation. He continues, elaborating e xten sive ly on this desire for such an unworldly, formless void of ter ror and glo om . Let God above not seek it [that day] . Let dayl ight not shine on it.

42

RE LI GIO:\' A N D ITs MONSTERS

Let dark ness and deathshadow reclai m it. Let a clou d set tie o n i t. Let thc darkcn i ng terri (y it. That night, let gloom take it away. Let i t not be counted among the days of the year, Let it not cnter i nto the counting of months . Behold that n ight, let there be no life. ;\ 1ay no exulting be heard i n it. (3:4b-7) .J ob's language is dcnse vvith the vocabulary of abysmal darkness. lt is im portant to note, moreove r, that many of these words also inelude con notations of destruction , the callapse of order and the i nvasion of chaos. The word translated as "gloom " ( �fe[) , for exam­ ple, is Creq uently associated with calamity and cosmic breakdown; the word translated "deathshadow " (<jtz!ma wel ) , fu rthermore, is lit­ erally a compou nd of nou n s for "darkness " and "death"; and the verb .tJa �z/ (" reclai m ") , in some late Hebrew texts, carries the mean­ i ng oC "defile" or "pollute . " Anthropologist Mary Douglas has shown how systems of' purity i n the priestly codes of the Torah are rooted in a particular u nderstanding of the order of c reation. Therefore, that which defiles purity endangers not only the person or the community but the entire cosmos. 12 Finally, the phrase "let there be n o li fe " or "let i t be liCeless" (yehi_qa!mud) echoes the earlier declaration " l et there be darkness" (yehi /llMhek) , once again sub­ verting God 's own language of creation in Genesis l . In all this Job is cal l i ng forth chaos agai nst cosmos in a way that is directly sub­ versive o f God 's work as creator. God 's language i n Genesis is cos­ mogonic. Job's here is chaoponic. i\t this poi nt in his summoning of chaos against cosmos, Job seeks the company of the chaos monsters Yam and Leviathan . 1\l though Job himselC does not presurne to be able to rouse these monsters, h e ca.l is o n t hose who can . " Let those who cast spelis on Yam damn it [that day] , " he declares, "those who are skilled at rousing Leviat han " (Job 3:8) . " ' In the context of Job 's curse, Yam and Leviathan represent primordial th reats agai nst the order of cre­ ation and against the creator God, much as they did in Psal m 74 : 1 3 1 4, where t he psal mist dec lares to God that "you you rself drove bac k Yam with your strengt h . You broke t he heads of the sea

Tbe Sleep of Wi.�Jom

43

monsters m the waters. You you rself crushed the heads of Leviathan. " In Psalm 74, however, and in every other biblical text in which chaos monsters are enemies of God, they are also enemies of God 's people. Not so with Job, who in this passage is sicking them on his day and, indirectly, on God 's entire order of creation. Whereas other texts dread these chaos monsters, and either remember or hope for their destruetion by God, Job der1iret1 them, even identliec� wilh them, conju ri ng them as a destructive force against creation. Later, in c hapter 7, J ob re in forces his identification with chaos monsters, though with some trepidation, when he wonders aloud whether God is inElieting so much suffering on him because God thinks that he is a chaos monster that needs to be subdued. He cries out to God, "Arn I Yam or a sea monster [tannin] , that you set guard over me? " (7: 1 2; cf. 26: 1 2- 1 3) . Here again Job considers himself to be aLigned ""ith the chatM mon.Jiercl a.qaitldl God. There is, of course, at least one maj or difference between Job 's identification with chaos monsters here and his identification with them in chapter 3. At this point, J ob is not choosing to take sides with the monsters, as he was before; rather, he is suggesti ng that God has mistaken him for a monstrous opponent, and that is why God is crushing him. Nonetheless, in both cases, whether by choice or by mistaken iden­ tity, Job perceives himself to be aligned with chaos monsters against God. Still later, while complaining about his hopeless situation in which the defe ndant in his case (God) is also the judge, j ury and police, Job says, " God does not hold back his anger. U nder him Rahab's helpers are bought down. How then can I answer him, or choose my arguments agai nst him ? " (9: 1 3-14) . Here again, the suggestion is that Job's opposition to God is like that of a chaos monster. His challenge to God, doomed though it is, represents a potential invasion of monstrous c haos in God 's world. LY RICIS M O F TERRO R

Suffering is an abyss. And to suffer, to be in pain, is to be in the abyss. Sometimes the sufferer cries out for help, for an answer that will justify or make sense of the pain. I n such moments, the sufferer

44

RELIGIOl\' AND ITS MONSTERS

cries out for a word of reorientalum within God's universe, a word that can exorcize the monsters and restore the right order of things. Sametimes this is Job's cry. At other times, however, the chaos of suflering lead s J o b to identifY with primordial, uncreative chaos. Cioran 's suffering transported him, he felt, to a " region of infi­ nite complexity, where your subjectivity tosses about in a mael­ strom , " and thi s in turn opened up a new poetics for hi m, what he called "the lyricism of s uffering . . . a song of the blood, the Aesh, and the nerves . . . blooming in vital dislocations. " 1 4 As the abyss of suffering erupted within Cioran 's body, his slandering of the u ni­ verse, like Job's opening curses, became a lyricism of chaos: Let us return to original chaos ! Let us imagine the pri­ mordial din, the original vortex ! Let us throw ourselves into the whirlwind which has preceded the creation of form. Let our being tremble with effort and madness in the fiery abyss ! Let everything be wiped out so that, sur­ rounded by confusion and disequilibrium, we participate fully in the general delirium, retracing our way back from cosmos to chaos, from form to swirling gyres . . . How great my terror and my joy at the thought of being dragged into the vortex of initial chaos . 15 .

.

.

Cioran's lyricism is ultimately hopefuL for he envisions the return to chaos as a necessary prelude to a new, yet-unrealized creation: " I n every whi rlwind hides a potential form, j ust as in chaos there is a potential cosmos. Let me possess an infinite number of unreal­ ized, potential forms ! Let everything vibrate in me with the uni­ versal anxiety of the beginning, j ust awakening from nothing­ ness ! " 1 6 His is an apocalyptic imagination. H e longs to see this world, now alien to him as the result of his suffering, return to pri­ mordial chaos in order that a new world may be horn. For Cioran, reversi ng creation is not an end in itself but an end that creates the potential for a new beginning. In its shrillest moments, Job's lyricism of suffering is more rad­ ical than Cioran 's, though by the same token Jess sustainable. In his uncreative outbursts, I dare say that there is no detectable under­ current of hope that the retu rn to chaos will be a prelude to a new

The Sleep of Jf;{",�Jom

45

c reation. I n his subversively uncreative pronouncement "let there be darkness, " in his expressions o f a longing for death shadow and calamity to overtake his day, in his summoning of chaos monsters to aid in the accursed work, there is a lyricism of terror without retreat, without hope and without rest. And wisdom, whether wak­ ing or sleeping, is knocked off guard .

ri

/i

' il ,· ; 1

FIGURE 3. Behe moth a n d Leviath a n (Job 40-4 1 ) , an e n grav i n g by W i l l i a m B l a ke , Illustrations af t h e Book af Job ( Lo n d o n : W i l l i a m B l a ke a n d J. Li n n e l l , 1 8 2 6 ; New York: G. Putn a rn 's Sans, 1 902 } , plate 1 5 , Kelvin Sm ith Li bra ry, Special Col lections, Case Western Reserve U n iversity.

C

F ROIVl

H

A

P T E R

THE

4

WH I RL\V I N I)

ROUSING GO D RO U SING LEV IAT H AN

The book of Job is like a great fissure running across the biblical landscape. Whe n we follow it we find that it travels from the world-un making pain of Job to an aweful vision of God, whose terrible glory is most subli mely revealed through the monstrou s Leviathan . At his lowest points, Job's abysmal surfering leads him to desi re chaos agai nst God 's cosmos, even identi(yi ng with the chaos mon­ sters Yam and Leviathan, whom he assumes to be God 's anti-cos­ mic archenemies. In pain, without rest or retreat, under a divine gaze that he experiences as a torturer's surveillance, Job is drawn to the monstrous as a violent invasion of unaccountable excess within God 's establ ished order of creation. These monsters are forces of uncreation and, as such, potential threats to the creator. Still, Job has littie hope of seriously challenging the creator God with or without their help. Al though he identifies with chaos mon­ sters, even represent i ng his voice of pain as a monstrous em bod i­ ment of chaos \.Vithin God 's world, he f'u lly expects that God wi ll smash him down j ust as God has smashed down other chaos mon­ sters who threatencd divine ru le (7: 1 2 ; 9: 1 3 1 7; 26: 1 2 1 3) . Job 47

48

REL I G I O N A:\'D ITS MO:\'STERS

id ent i tles himsei C among the monsters but sees God as the ultimate monster killer. \Vhen God is Fi nally roused to respond to Job from the whirl­ \vind (c hapters 38-4 1 ) , however, Job's expectations are blown away. Job's conception of himsel f as a monstrous threat agai nst the divinc ly ordai ned order of things i s overwhelmed by a simul­ taneously vvonderful and terri (y ing revelation of a God who does not slay or ban ish the chaos monster but glories in it and identifies -vv ith it as an embodiment of cosmic horror. Job's identification with the monstrous against God l eads ultimately to God 's identifl­ cation with the monstrous against Job. God out- monsters Job, pushing the theological horror one monster step beyond Job's wildest expectat ions. DIA P ERED MO NSTER

The flrst part oC the divine speech from the whirlwi nd (38: 1 -40:2) em phasizes God 's supremacy as powerCul creator and intimate caretaker of all the overwhelmingly vast and wonderful details of the world 's ecology, from the deepest fou ndations of the earth to the heavenly vaul ts of hai l and snow, from the birth cycles of the moun­ tain goat to the hu nting patterns of the eagle. God opens by bar­ raging Job with a series of rhetorical questions centering on the t heme of creation out of chaos: "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth ? . . . Who set its dimensions? On what were its bases sunk? Who set its cornerstone ? " To which the obvi­ ous answers from an overwhelmed Job would be " No, I was not there and you were " and "I have no idea and you know it all . " As the barrage of questions conti nues, the creator God 's relation to prim01·d ial chaos, personified as Yam, comes to the fore: \Vho shut Yam behind doors when it burst forth f'rom the womb, when I made c louds its clothing, and dense c louds its swaddling? l made breake rs as my boundary f'or it, and set a bar and doors. I said, " This far you may come, but no farther. l le re your pro ud waves will stop. " (Job 38:5 - 1 1 ) 1

From the Whirlwind

49

Recall that, in his opening curse, J ob called upon those who cast spelis on Yam to help him slander God 's universe . A littie later, in chapter 7, he wondered aloud whether God was perhaps taking hi m to be a chaos monster: "Arn I Yam or a sea monster that you set guard over me ? " (7: 1 2) . God 's opening questions effec­ tively put Job back in his place, which is not among c haos mon­ sters. The message to Job is that h e was not there and that he is not Yam . Not close. Although God claims to have rebuked and restrained Yam, moreover, t here is no sense i n this passage that their conHiet was violent or that Yam was killed. Rather, the i mage here is of God scolding Yam the way a parent would scold a raucous and unruly toddler, after which it is swaddled in a fresh cosmic diaper. The adversarial Yam may think it is a monstrous threat, but it is really something eloser to i\'lax i n his wolf suit in Where tbe Wtld Thin_q.1 Are, that is, God 's child who is acting monstrous and needs scolding but also swaddling. lndeed, the i mage of Yam diapered in clouds suggests that this p rimordial, chaotic force has been integrated into the present world ecology, like chaos dothed in cosmos. And the image of the creator God doing the diapering may even suggest that God and Yam are something like family (remember that Yam m is El 's child, "beloved of El, " in the Ugaritic Baal-Anat cycle) . In ou r present, turn-of-the­ centu ry culture of psychotherapy, oriented toward reflection on family dynamics, some might go so far as to ask whether Yam is in some sense an expression of another, more chaotic aspect within the godhead (i.e., divine family) , or whether Yam is a revelation of God's inner c hild . We need not go that far, however, to see that in this passage the c haos monster Yam is not completely eradicated from the world, nor is it completely dissociated from the creator God. lt is a personification of primordial chaos within cosmos, inti­ mately related to the divine. B EHO LD B EHE MO TH

Foli owi ng Job's p redictably su bordinate tnidway response (40:3 5) , the divine s peech comes to its grand finale, which reveals the aweful glory of God through the aweful glory of two monsters of divine favor, Behemoth (40: 1 5 24) and Leviathan (40:25 26; or,

RELIGIO:'I

50

AND

ITS MONSTERS

in some versions of the Old Testament, 41 :1 34) .2 As centerpieces of the speech, these two monsters, especially Leviathan, constitute God's ultimate self-revelation to .Job:' The first, Behemoth ( literally the plural form of the Hebrew

f,e/.Jemah, "cattle") , is clearly part of God's creation: "Behold now Behemoth, whom I made as I did you" (40:1 5 ) . Behemoth is a crea­ ture. Indeed, it is preeminent within creation, "the first of God's· ways." This could mean that Behemoth is the greatest of God's creatures or that it is the first thing that God created, or both. Although clearly located within creation, however, the description of it inspires more dread than wonder at God's ways in the world. The emphasis is placed on its incredible strength and potency, and the final image is of it stopping the river's flood waters, "confident that the Jordan will burst forth into its mouth" (40 :23) . The verb translated here as "burst forth"

(na.qaM

was used earlier to describe

God's restraining of Yam "when it burst forth from the womb" ( 38:8) . The subtle suggestion is that Behemoth's haughty strength might even rival the bursting, chaotic Yam. Although a creature and not a primerdial chaos monster, then, Behemoth is not exactly an image of the arder and harmony of the world ecology. lt is not outside creation, but like Yam it represents a kind of dangerous otherness within creation.

DRAWING OUT LEVIATHAN Behemoth is the last precarious stepping stone

m

God's increas­

ingly frightful world befare Job is transported into the chaotic waters of Leviathan, who is the ultimate focus of God's speech. In faet, when God stops talking about Leviathan, God stops talking. lt is as though the divine voice from the whirlwind is Iiterally carried away in Leviathan's chaotic glory. Leviathan, like Behemoth, is deseribed as having been "made." But whereas God claims to have made Behemoth "as I did you," that is, a creature among other creatures ( albeit fantastic) , God describes Leviathan as a creation like no other, a creation that is, in a sense, outside creation. Indeed, at one point God declares that even other gods f'ear Leviathan: "At its rising, gods are afraid. At its breaking they are beside themselves" (41: 17 [or 41 :25]) . This Leviathan is

a

chaos monster who threatens other gods.

51

From the lf/hirlwind

We have seen how ditTerent biblical texts represent Leviathan in a variety of mutually exclusive ways. On one extreme, Psalm l 04 describes Leviathan as part of the order of creation, a sea beast whom God "formed to play with" ( cf. Psalm 148) . On the other extreme, Psalm 74 and lsaiah 27 envision Leviathan as radically outside the order of creation, a dreadful chaos monster who opposes the creator God and must be destroyed. Tryis latter con­ ception of Leviathan is shared by .Job in his opening curse, in which he desires that Leviathan be stirred up against creation. Here, in the divine speech from the whirlwind, we find a disturb­ ing combination of these two extremes. On the one hand, as in Psalm 74 and lsaiah 27 , Leviathan is an embodiment of primordial chaos within creation. On the other hand, as in Psalm l 04, God identifies with it. God 's incantation of this monstrous plaything begins with a series of direct challenges, in the form of rhetorical questions, addressed to Job (40:25 32 [or 41:1-8]). "Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook? Can you press down its tongue with a rope?" (40:25 [or 41:1 ]). "Can you fill its skin with harpoons and its head with fishing-spears? Place your hand on it. Think of the battle. You will not do it again" (40:31 32 [or41:7

8]). The rhetor­

ical effect of these questions and this last challenge is to convert Job's desire to rouse Leviathan into repulsion, causing him to draw back from the vertiginous edge of the abyss. Yet God is not similarly repelled. As the speech continues, the challenge of taking on Leviathan merges with the challenge of tak­ ing on God. Notice how the first-person divine subject ("l," "me") merges with its third-person monstrous object ("it"): See! Any expectation of /t will be disappointed. One is overwhelmed even at the sight of There is no one fierce enough to rouse

· , ,,

,·/.

Who can take a stand before mc? \Vho will confront mt''! l will repay him! Under all the heavens,

,·,

is nu"nc. (41: l

3a [or 41:9

1 1 a])4

As the subject of the poem shifts suddenly from "it" (L,eviathan) to "me" (God), the identity of the monstrous blurs with that of God, and vice versa. God identifies with the monster over against all

52

RELIGIO:'-J AXD ITs 1\lo:-sTERS

c hal lengers. The last line here, " u nder all the heavens, it is mine, " may be understood two difTerent ways. l t may be read as God 's claim on all of c reation, that is, "everyth ing in the world is mine . " B u t t h e more literal reading, which is also more consistent with the exclusive focus on Leviathan throughout this passage, takes it as God 's clai m on Leviathan, that is, " it is mine" or " for me" (lE hli'). Taken this way, God is here laying claim to Leviathan against all othe r claims, and thereby is remonstrating against J ob for his ear­ lier desire to conj u re Leviathan. By this poi nt God appears to be caught up in the incantation, u nable to stop si ngi ng Leviathan 's praises, declaring "l wi ll not keep silence concerning its parts . . . " (4 1 :4 [o r 4 1 : 1 2] ) . F oHowing another series of rhetorical questions� " Who can strip off its outer garment? Who can penet ratc its double coat of armor? Who can open the doors of its face? "� God begins an extravagant description of the monster that continues through the remai nder of the whirl­ wind speech (4 1 :5 26 [or 4 1 : 1 3 34] ) . This description overwhelms the imagination, piling featu re upon featu re to create an impossible image, t hereby conceiving an inconceivable monstrosity: its coat of mail . . . the doors of its face . . . terror surrou nds its teeth . . . its back is made from fusing together rows of shields . . . it sneezes light . . . its eyes glow like the dawn . . . flames and sparks spew forth from its mouth . . . smoke billows from its nostrils . . . terror dances before it . . . it is clad in immovable, hard-cast folds of flesh . . . its heart is hard as a stone . . . its bel ly is covered with sharp potsherds. This description of Leviathan is an impossibly over-determined amalgam of featu res (fire, water, smoke, armor, weaponry, animalia, etc.) stitched together into one monstrous body. As such the monstrosity of Leviathan is an example of what Noel Carroll cal ls "category-jam­ ming, " or "classificatory obfuscation. "5 Its descri ptive language com­ bines d ifferent elements that are categorically excl usive of one another, and thereby jams the imagination's ability to form a com­ plete pieture of the monster. As God declares tovvard the end of the speech, "on earth there is not its l ikeness " (4 1 :25 [or 41 :33] ) . The word translated here as "likcncss" (ma,tha [) can also mean " paral lel , " " parable" o r " representation . "<> That is, t herc i s n o language for it, no way to represent it. Failing to fi nd adequate words to describe the monster, this text uses language to go beyond language, to conju re something beyond imagining.

From the Whirlwind

53

As Leviathan trails off, leaving a churn i ng mass of ex hausted analogies in its hoary wake, so does the divine voice from the wh irl­ "vi nd, leavi ng in its wake a world boil ing over with chaos. W H O LLY O T H E R

In The ldea {!( the Holy, Rudolph Otto finds i n th is divinc whirlwind speech a prime example oC religious experience as aweful encounter with monstrous otherness. Against the typical modern western iden­ tif'ication of "the holy" (da,1 1/ei!t:qe) with moral good ness or purity, Otto characterizes religious experience as a non-rational encountcr with a wholly othcr my,1terium tremendum that is beyond reason and imagi nation and that el icits, simultaneously and irreducibly, an oscil­ lation between terror and fasci nation, fear and desire . I n many cases, h is descriptions of this kind oC rel igiou s experience cou ld just as easi ly describe the experience oC horror in the face of the mon­ strou s. In "the t ruly 'mysterious' object , " he writes, "we come upon something inherently 'wholly other', whose kind and character are incommensurable with our own, and before which vve therefore recoi l in a wonder that strikes us chili and numb. "7 lt "may appear to the mind an obj ect of horror and dread , but at the same t i me it is no l ess something that all u res with a potent charm, and the creature, who trembles before it, utterly cowed and cast down, has always at the same time the impu l sc to turn to it, nay even to make it somehow h is own . "8 l ndeed, at one poi nt Otto refers to "the monstrous " (da.1 Un.qeheuere) as "a fai rly exact expression for the numi nous in its aspects of mystery, aweful ness, majesty, augustness and 'energy'; nay, even the fascination is di m ly felt in i t. "9 I n the divine speech from the whirlwind as a whole, Otto f'inds a "sheer absolute wondrousness that transcends thought . . . thc mys­ teriu m . " 1 0 I ndeed, far from a rational answer to �Job's qu estions about divine j ustice, and far from an explanation oC the ingenious ecology of God 's creation, Otto reads the cntire speech as what he calls a " dysteleology, " t hat is, an anti-explanation or anti-j ustif'ica­ tion, a "negation of purposiveness. " 1 1 Within that speech, moreover, he sees Beh emoth and Leviathan as the ultimatc f'igu res of the my,l­ lert'um . All that come beforc t h em are " portents only, " whereas here the poem "gives us 'monsters ' - but ' the monstrous ' is j ust the 'mys­ terious' in a gross form . Assuredly these beasts would be the most

RELIGIO!\" A:'\0 ITS MONSTERS

54

unfortu nate examples t hat one could hit u pon if searching for evi dences ol' thc pu rposiveness oC the divine \visdom . ' " 1 2 Behemoth and Leviathan are thc "grossest expression " of a wholly other divi ne mystery. D IV I N E A BYSS

I n the creation t h eology of Psal m 1 04 , God and Leviathan were fou nd frol icking toget her in the sea. There Leviathan is not a c haos monster but rat her part of the divinely ordered and beautifully interrelated ecology of creation. l n the chaos batties depicted in Psalm 7 4 , on the other hand, God and Leviathan appear i n deadly conflict. There Leviathan is a c haos monster who radically threat­ ens thc order and well -being of creation as well as its c reator God . What has not been encou ntered until now, however, is God revel­ ing in and identifying with Leviathan a,1 chaos monster. Stephen King writes t hat horror " arises from a pervasive sense of disestablishment, that thi ngs are in the u nmaking. "L' This has certai nly been the case since �J ob fi rst opened his mouth to curse his day. The u n making of �J ob through abject suffering leads h i m to an u nhal lowed vision of the un maki ng of the entire order of c reation. l n deed, as Roger C. Sch lobin points out , the peak of horror i n J ob goes beyond this sense of disestabl ishment and u n making i nto a radical i nversion of m eaning: " the ' u nmaking' is followed by an u n natural and unholy makL·Il.lJ that no one, reader or c haracter, can understand or coerce. '' 1 � And the peak of this un making and i nver­ sion of meaning in the book of �Job is the divine self'-�evelation from t h e wh irlwind. \Ve might call it a holy unholy making, a divine self­ rcvelation made in the demolished ruins of the twi n fau ndations of wisdom and Torah . Job's voice declared the u n making of the world as he and his friends knew it. God 's voice declares the horrif'ic the­ ology that com es i n its wake. Nietzsche warned that "when you look long into the abyss, the abyss also looks in to you . " 1'' That would be terror enough - to !ose oneself in t h e deep dark eyes ol' the abyss. But in J ob the terror is also theological : when you look long into the abyss, you may find Go() looking back at you . T h e divine speech from t h e whirlwind forcefully subj ugates J ob's chaot ic , even monstrous voice of pain. But this subjugation is

From the WhirlwinJ

55

not accomplished by reimposing or superimposi ng divine order and authority; rather it is accomplished by overwhelming him with di vine chaos. J ob expected t hat his own chaotic outbursts and desires to rouse Yam and Leviathan would get him smashed just as God had smashed other threatening chaos monsters. But God does not squash Job like a monster. Rather, God ollf-11Wil.lter'-' h im, push­ ing the theological erisis brought on by Job's unju stifiable suffering to new, horrifYing extremes, opening up a vision of the world and its creator God on the edge. I n the divine speech from the whirlwind, Leviathan is a spectacle not of the grandeur of God 's well-ordered world ecology, but of the awesome and awfu l chaos that churns just beneath the surface. Likewise, it is a spectacle not of a God who sits enthroned over c haos, not of a God who subdues c haos, but of a God who rouses it, who stirs it up, who revels in it. The epiphany of Leviathan in the elimactic verses of the speech from the whirlwind elicits a sense of mystery i n God 's creation, surely, but it is a mystery t hat is radically d isarienting and u ngrou ndi ng, an wzheimfich encoun ter with chaos that touches on the divine. Wisdom, waking or sleeping, eannot guard against the welling up of the abyss of sufferi ng and the return of monsters. The wisdom of Job's friends can neither deny nor mend the crack in their theo­ logical faundations that is opened up by voice of u ndeserved, u njus­ tif1able suffering, as God readily acknowledges when addressing the lead friend Eliphaz at the end of the story: "l am enraged at you and your friends, for you have not spoken rightly about [or "to"] me as my servant Job has " (Job 42:7) . On the one hand, there is some consalation here, in that God licenses rage against God in the face of u ndeserved pain. God licenses theodicy as a questioning and c hal­ l enging of God 's j ustice against the friends ' defensive justifications of God . On the other hand , there is some terror here, insofar as the c hallengi ng and questioning that God e neaurages is a soliciting of chaos against order. Does the child who rages out of control neces­ sarily want the parent to encourage the rage or even to outdo her or h i m in it? This is a terri(yi ng freedom and a terrifying revelation, affirming Job 's theodie questions that open up abysses and awaken monsters, who tu rn out to be beloved of God, against the friends ' theodie answers that attempt to shut them u p and put them back in their place. We are left, like Job, i n a world that at any moment may cru mble into primordial c haos, even at God 's bidding.

C H A PT E R

5

DINNER AND A SHOW

W AT C H I N G A N D E ATI N G M O N S T E R S I N R A B B I N I C T R A D ITI O N

Clearly the H ebrew Bible is not in agreement wit h itself about what to do with its monsters. As a result i t canonizes their ambiguity. The amalgamation of mutually i ncompatible meanings embodied even in one monstrous name, such as Leviathan, is beyond sarting out or resolving in a way that takes accou nt of all the different texts i n which it appears: Leviathan is part of c reation; Leviathan is outside creation and a threat to it; Leviathan is the enemy nation; God crushed Leviathan 's heads and killed it l ong ago; God will pierce Leviathan and k i l l it in the future; God plays with Leviathan; God sings Leviathan 's p raises. Biblical monsters bear no single meaning, no overall unity or wholeness. They are theologically u nwhole­ some. As such they stand for the haunting sense of precariousness and uncertai nty that looms along the edges of the world, the edges of society, the edges of consciousness, and the edges of rel igious u nderstanding and faith. Different post-biblical traditions try to sort all this ambiguity out in diff'erent ways, though always inconclusively. If we are Ioak­ ing for the text that h as h ad the greatest influence on western cul57

58

RELIGIO:\" AND ITs Mo:-.:sTERS

tural h istory, including modern horror, the prize must go to the vision of the devil-dragon i n the Ch ristian Apocalypse of Joh n , also k nown as the book of Revelation . But if we are looking for the most i ngen ious and spectacular vision , nothi ng beats the rabbi s ' plans for a final dinner and show featu ring Leviathan and Behemoth i n the Talm u d and Nlidrash . S E A FA R I N G TA L E S O F T H E R A B B I S

The Babylonian Talmud, which was com piled arou nd the end of the sixth centu ry CE, is a series of extended rabbinic discussions cen­ tered around the text of the 1\:lishnah, a compilation of commentary on the Torah that was completed around 200 CE. Although com­ piled from a variety of rabbinic sources spann ing several centuries, the fi nal form of the Babylonian Tal mud, like that of the earlier Paiestinian Talmud (completed around the end of the Efth century CE) , often reads li ke a series of narrative accounts of conversations among rabbis. As with most conversations, they often move far afield of their designated subj ect. So it is i n the discussion of a 1\lishnah text concerning t he business of sell ing ships i n Tractate Baba Bathra (73a 77b) . The initial 1\'l ishnah simply clari fies the faet that when one sel ls a ship, the deal ineludes the ship's mast, sail, anchor and other implements needed for directi ng it, but does not necessarily inelude its crew or other things that the seller is storing in it (73a) . Ve ry q uickly, however, the rabbinic d i scu ssion (Gemara) of this 1\lishnah loses its mooring i n the business details of selling and buying ships and driFts into the less fam i l i�r and more fantastic straits of seafari ng and monster tales, winding up eventu­ ally with a vision of a future banquet for the righteous i n which Leviathan and Behemoth play a spectacu lar part. Rabbah bar Bar H ana makes the fi rst move in this direction: " Seafarers told me: The wave that sinks a ship appears with a white fri nge of fire at its crest, and when stricken with clubs on which is e ngraven , 'I am t hat I am, Yah , the Lord of Hosts, Amen, Amen, Selah, ' it subsides" (73a) . 1 The phrase "I am that I am " is what God says to lVloses from the burni ng bush when Jvloses asks who is send­ ing him and his people agai nst Pharaoh of Egypt in Exodus 3 . Very subtly, then, this seafari ng legend is picking up on the biblical tradi­ tion that associatcs Egypt and its Pharaoh with chaos waters and

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chaos monsters (e.g. , Psalm 89, Isaiah 5 1 , Ezekiel 29 and 32) . T he divine word t hat went with 1\loses agai nst Pharaoh is the word that subdues the deadly wave. This text assumes, moreover, that th is i s no ordi nary wave, but a wave that has agency and personali ty, that seeks to sink ships, that u nderstands Hcbrew and knows its Torah. Bar Bar Hana then tells the story of a conversation benveen two giant waves. I t was witnessed by seafarers who were lifted by a wave so h igh that they saw t h e resting place of the smallest sta r i n the heavens. " I f it h ad I i fted us up any higher vve would have been b u rned by its heat. " \Vhile up there, they heard one wave ask another of equal size if it had left anything in the world to destroy, so t hat it could go and wash i t away. The other wave answered, " G o and see the power o f the master [by whose command] l must n ot pass t h e sand [by] the breadth of a thread " (73a) . This text pick s up on the description of God setting limits for Yam or "sea" i n J ob 38, discussed earl ier ("You may come so far and no farther") . H ere, as in bar Bar Hana's fi rst comment, thc waves are not quite mon­ sters, but they are nonetheless personifications of vast, poten tial ly destru c tive power that is kept in c heck, chaos batti e style, by the creator God or by i nvok i ng t he name of t hat God . At t h is poin t attention turns more directly to monster tales. Bar Bar Hana bcgins by recou nti ng his many first-hand encou nters both a t sea and on land (73b 74a) . He once saw a giant antelope the size of 1vlount Tabor who cast a dung hall so big that it dogge d the River Jordan. He once saw a giant frog, as big as sixty houses . I t was swal lowed by a sea monster (Aramaic Iannina Hebrew tan­ nin) ,2 and the sea monster was then swal lowed by a rave n . After swall owing the sea monster that swallowed the frog, the raven then perc hed itself on a massive tree. " Come and see how strong was th e tree, " he declares, by way of proof of t h e size of the raven t h a t al leged ly perched on it. To which Rab Papa bar Samuel adds, " Ha d l not been there l wou ld not have believed it. " Another time, bar Bar l fana saw a fish so big t hat w hen i t w as cast u pon thc shore it destroyed sixty towns and provided food for sixty others. A ycar later, when he returned to the area, h e saw t h at the townspeople were cutting rafters from its skeleton in order to rebu i ld the towns that had been destroyed. On another occasion they cncountered a fish so big that it took the m t hree days and nights in a fast ship to t ravel from one of i t s '=

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f'i ns to the next with it going one way and them goi ng the other. And just in case anyone suspects that the ship was slow, bar Bar f I ana adds t hat w hen a horseman s hot an arrow the s hip out­ stri pped i t . Rab Ashi concludes t hat this f'ish m ust have been one of the ,1ma// sea monsters. Then there \vas the giant fi sh whose back was covered with sand and grass. Thinking it was solid grou nd, bar Bar H ana and his shipmates disembarked and began cooking their food. The heat from t heir cooki ng made the fish roll over and they j umped back aboard their ship in the nick of time. On another occasion, bar Bar Ilana recou nts, they met a giant hird, called the Ziz, whose ankles were i n the sea and whose head was in the heavens. Assuming that the water must be shallow, they decided to ta.ke a swim. But before they entered the water, a Bath Kol (divi ne voice) called out, " Do not go down here, for a carpen­ ter's axe was dropped [into this water] seven years ago and it has not reac hed the bottom. And this, not [o n ly] because the water is deep bu t [also] because it is rapid . " The wilderness, l ike the sea, can be a place o f fantastic mystery. Bar Bar Ilana tells wilderness tales along with his seafari ng tales. Once, for exam ple, an Arab merchant took him to see the Dead of the \Vi lderness, that is, those lsrael ites who died duri ng the wan­ dering in the wilderness without ever seeing the promised land . They slept o n t h e i r backs, a n d they were s o gigantic that t h e Arab rode his camel under the raised k nee of' one of them. Bar Bar Hana cut a corner of pu rple-blue f�1bric from one of their garments, and t hey f'o u nd that they were unable to move away The Arab explai ned that il' one takes anyth i ng from any of them one ean not move away. Foliowi ng bar Bar Ilana, and picking u p his preoccupation with the f�mtastically large, Rab Safra brings the conversation around to an encou nter with the monster Leviathan itself: " On ce we were traveling on board a ship and we saw a fish t hat raised its head out of' the sea. lt h ad horns on which was engraven : 'J am a mi nor c reatu re of' the sea. l am three h undred parasangs [over 900 miles longj and l am now goi ng into the mouth of Leviathan"' (74a) . T h e stories told t h u s far, i n c l u d i ng th is last one about I .eviathan, are monster legends t hat aim to inspire awe and d read,

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much like the kind of monster tales that might be told araund a campfire. The main vehicle for the fear i n them is overwhel ming size. I n what follows, however, the conversation begin s to mave away from the emphasis on size, and at the same time begins to focus on the purposiveness of certain monsters. That is, the focus begin s to shift from monsters as flgu res of what Rudolph Otto called "dysteleology, " or the negation of purpose, to monsters who exist to fulfill same larger d ivine wil l . T h i s shift begin s with two stories i n w h i c h divers try t o gai n treasure but are thwarted by sea monsters. I n the flrst story a Karisa tries to stop them from taking a treasure c hest of pu rple­ blue for the righteous in the world to come. In the second story a sea monster tries to swallow a ship when one of its divers takes the precious stone it protects. When a giant raven severs the sea mon­ ster's h ead for the second time, the salted birds that are on the ship come to l i fe and fly away with it (74a 74b) . I n both these stories, sea monsters serve as proteetars of treasu res that are being saved by God for a time to come. They guard against humans and othe r creatures w h o would otherwise steal t h e m away a n d thereby per­ vert their cosmic purpose. These monsters are opposed to human will but aligned with divine will. Next, a second-hand story about Rabbi Joshua's e n cou nter with Leviathan is passed along: Our rabbis taught: R. Eliezer and R. Joshua were travei ­ l i ng on board a s h i p . R. Eliezer was sleeping a n d R . Joshua was awake. R. Joshua shuddered a n d R . Eliezer awoke. H e said to him: " What is the matter, Joshua? What h as caused you to tremble?" H e said u nto him, " I have seen a great l ight i n the sea." H e said u nto h im: " You may have seen the eyes of Leviathan, for it is written : His eyes are like the eyelids of the morni ng. " The scriptural passage " h is eyes are like the eyelids of the morning" is from Job 4 1 : l O (or 4 1 : 1 8) , i n which, as discussed in the previous c hapter, God is singing the praises of Leviathan . In this story, an experience of horror i n which a great l ight appears where it should not appear is interpreted using a text from the H ebrew Bible. At the same time, the Hebrew Bible is inte rpreted using a text from

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seaf�tri ng lore : J oshua's shuddering at t h e sight suggests that the descri ption of Leviathan in .Job 41 is at least as terri(ying as it is fasci nati ng. F R E S H , F R O Z E N O R S A LT- C U R E D

This story of Joshua's encou nter with the luminous eyes of Leviathan bri ngs biblical interpretation i nto more direct relation to the tel l i ng of monster tales, and inaugurates a series of discu ssions that draw i n seve ral other biblical texts referring to Leviathan or " sea monsters " (lamzinim ) . I n the process, several different biblical texts are stitched together as a canvas for depicting Leviathan 's part i n a grand , indeed monstrous banquet for the righteous i n the world to come . First, t h e scripture on t h e creation of sea monsters i n Genesis 1 :2 1 is quoted: "And God created the great sea monsters . " H ere the sea monsters are not primordial chaos monsters that oppose God and God 's creation, but are asserted to be part of the order of cre­ ation and in keeping with d ivine i ntention ( com pare Psalm 1 04 : 7) . Of course there are a number of other bi blical passages that e nvi­ sion a much more hostile relationship between God and such mon­ sters. l nterestingly, the next rabbi to speak, Joh anan, im mediately turns attention to j ust such a passage , namely l saiah 27: 1 , i n which the sea monster, the hvisting and fleeing serpent, and Leviathan are identified as ditTerent names for God 's and J udah 's cosmic and political archenemy Babylon. But Johanan does not identi(y this sea monster with Babylon or any other archenemy. H e begins to envision a strikingly ditTerent meaning and purpose for the futu re slaying of L.eviath an anticipated by I saiah : R. Joh�man said: This [Genesis l :2 1 ] refers to Leviathan the fleeing serpent and Leviathan the twisting serpe nt, for it is written : I n that day the Lord with his cruel [and great and strong] sword vvill punish . . . [ Leviathan the fleeing serpent and Leviathan the hvisting serpent, and he will kil l the sea monster t hat is in the sea ( l saiah 2 7: l)] .'1 Thus Johanan places one text, Genesis l :21, in which great sea monsters arepari t?/ God 's created order, next to another text, I saiah

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27: l, in which a particular sea monster, Leviathan, is a ho,1ti/e oppo nent to t hat created order. I n thi s way he piaces an apparent biblical contradietion about Leviathan and the sea monster front and cen­ ter, as t hough the one text obviously refers to the other. How can this be ? According to this interpretation, Leviathan is a great sea monster (tannin ) , created on the fifth day (Genesis l :2 1 ) , w hose ultimate purpose will be fulfilled when it is killed by God in a time to come. Then why does Genesis say that great sea monsters, plu­ ral, were created ? Rab J udah provides the answer, and in the process brings another mon ster into the picture, namely Behemoth , whom God describes along with Leviathan in the fi nal whirlwind speech o f J ob: All that the H oly One, blessed be He, created in his world he created male and female. Likewise, Leviathan the flee­ ing serpent and Leviathan the twisting serpent h e created male and female; and had they mated with one another they wou ld h ave destroyed the whole world. What [then] did the Holy One, blessed be He, do? He castrated the male and killed the female preserving it in salt for the righteous in the world to come; for it is written : And he will slay the sea monster that is in the sea [ I saiah 27: l ] . And also Behemoth o n a thousand hills were created male and female, and had they mated with one another they would have destroyed the whole world .4 What did the H o ly One, blessed be He, do? H e castrated the male and cooled the female and preserved it for the righteous for the world to come; for it is written: Behold now its strength is in its loi ns [J ob 40: 1 6a] - this refers to the male; and its m ight is i n the museles of its belly [Job 40: 1 6br - this refers to the female. There also, [in the case of Leviathan] , h e should have castrated the male and cooled the fernaJe [w hy then did he kill the female] ?­ Fishes are dissolute. Why did he not reverse the process? - I f you wish, say: [It is because a] female [fish] preserved i n salt is tastier. I f you prefer, say: Because it is written: There is Leviathan "\vhom Thou hast formed to sport with, and with a female this is not proper. Then here also [in the case of Behemoth] h e should have preserved

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the fem ale in salt?- Salted f'ish is palatable, salted flesh is not. ( Baba Bathra 74b) All uding agai n to the c reation story m Genesis l, J udah here explains that God created all c reatu res female and male, including Leviathan, "the twisting serpent . . . the fleeing serpent . . . the sea monster that is in the sea. " So God had actually created two Leviathans in the beginning, one female and one male, and these are the "great sea monsters " refe rred to in Genesis l :21. But as soon as the words "be fruitful and multiply, fill the waters of the sea" were uttered, God realized that there would be trouble. For if Leviathan were allowed to reproduce, it would destroy the world. Leviathan, in this sense, is a part of the order of creation that, with God 's b less­ i ng to thrive in the world, would become a chaos monster, destroying everything else. Leviathan is within the world ecology even while being potentially destructive to it. The cosmos is an ecology of order and chaos, apparently to the dismay of the creator God. I n response to this dilem ma, according to Judah, God castrated the male and killed the female, preserving her in salt (why is she preserved? k e ep reading) . J ud ah then ties the te x t o f I saiah 27: l i nto the conversation : "and God will slay the sea monster that is i n the sea. " The castrated male Leviathan is still al ive a n d kicking in the world, but not forever. God will slay him i n the future. God has killed Leviathan (the female) and God will kill Leviathan (male) . So also, says J udah, with Behemoth, which he refers to in tan­ dem with Leviathan j ust as God does i n Job 40-4 1 . The two l ines quoted from Job 40: 1 6, accordi ng to Judah, refer to thc male and fem al e Behemoths, respectively, apparently taking the reference to strong loins in the fi rst part of that verse as a reference to male strength. Thus castration would appropriately d i minish the m ale Behemoth's strength. And the female Behemoth got the same raw deal as the female Leviathan . Except that the female Behemoth required a dif' ferent method of p reservation, that is, cooling i nstead of salting. Salting woul d not have been very tasty for the bee(y Behemoth (why does it need to be tasty? read on) . And given that a fish might sti ll be able to reproduce i n cold temperatu res, cooling would not have worked for the fernaJ e Leviathan . Perhaps God could have kil led the male instead o f the f'e male? Quoting from Psal m l 04:26, i n which Leviathan is presented as a play partner for

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· God , t h e rabbi i nsists that such a relationship wou ld not have been appropriate . A (presumably male) God shou ld not be splashing ara und wit h a female sea monster. Sexual discrimination aside for the moment, we are left with the rabbis sharing the world with a mal e Behemoth and a male Leviathan. The female Behemoth is in the cooler and the female Leviath a n is curing in salt. Drawing from I saiah 27: l, i t is expected that God will eventually slay the male Leviathan, that is, "the sea monster t h at is in the sea. " Conti nuing this same train of thought about a futu re slaying of Leviathan , another rabbi, Rab Demi, begins to explai n how this will come about. In the future the angel Gabriel will arrange a "wild beast contest" involving Leviathan, that is, a Ro man coliseum-style spectacle in which Leviathan wil l presumably be killed (74b 75a) .6 A s the conversation tu rns in this d i rectio n , we begi n to get same sense for why it matters that the fla­ vor of the female monsters be wel l preserved . l)rawing extensively, and most ingeniously, from the long desc ription of Leviathan in the divine whirlwind speech in J ob, bar Bar Hana provides several details concerning a banquet that will accompany the wild beast contest. First, based on Job 40:30 (or 4 1 :6) / h e says that the flesh of Leviathan will be given as food for the righteous at said banquet in the world to come (75a). At this feast of Leviathan , he explai ns further, God will make a tabernacle, or r�ukA.-ah, from Leviathan 's skin for every righteous person who is worthy of such an honor. As a basis for this claim, he quotes from Job 40:31 , but with a twist: Bar Hana quotes the passage as "Can you fill tabernades [he.lllkkot] with his ski n? " rather than "Can you fil l h i s head with darts? " readi ng the homonym he,,ukkot (with the l etter Janzek), " i n tabernacles, " rather than the standard 1\'lasoretic Heb revv text's beJukkol (with the letter .ll.n), "with darts " ! Bar Bar Han a goe s on to explai n that guests deemed not righteous enough to receive w hole genuine Leviathan hide tabernades will receive, i n stead, head coverings made of the same material . This is based on the second l i ne of Job 40:3 1 (or 4 1 :7) , which bar Bar Hana reads as "a c overing of fish [forJ his head " (reading \,if..,al da�qim as "a cov­ ering of fish" rather than "fishing spear") . Guests deemed u nwor­ thy of s u ch fi sh hats will receive Leviathan h ide necklaces, and g u ests unworthy even of those will receive, at least, amulets made fr om the same monster fabric. All the Jeftover skin from Leviathan,

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bar Bar H ana explains, will be used to decorate the walls of the banquet hal l . At this poi nt, attention turns from Leviathan t o various other matters concerning the fi nal banquet, and even tual ly even retu rns to the bu si ness of buying and selling ships (75b 77b) . But as the conversation moves on, we are left for the time being with a num­ ber of loose ends and monstrous leftovers. \Ve have a female Leviathan in salt, a female Behemoth in the cooler, and thei r respective male partners roving earth a n d sea for s o m e u ndeter­ mined time to come . We expect that Leviathan, "the sea m onster of the sea, " will be killed eventual ly, and that t his will involve some kind of spectacu lar contest arranged by Gabriel. Fu rthermore, the righteous will enj oy a banquet, related to the wild beast contest, in which the main course wil l be Leviathan (perhaps both fresh and salted varieties) . But how, speci fi cal ly, is the contest related to the banq uet? Is that where Leviathan will be killed ? By God, Gabriel or someone else? And where does Behemoth (dead and alive) fit into all thi s ? For some answers and a ful ler pietu re of the speeta­ de to come, we must pol itely slip out of this Tal m udic conversation and go e lsewhere in rabbini c t radition, to Mid rash Leviticus Rabbah. I S T H I S MO N S T E R K O S H E R ?

l\1idrash Leviticus Rabbah is an early (fifth-, sixth- or seventh-cen­ tury CE) Paiestinian compilarion of midrashic com mentary based on select passages from Leviticus. The discussions of the rabbis in Leviticus Rabbah often i nvolve extended in terpretive discussions that build outward through the incorporation of more and m ore biblical texts. In one such discussion (XI I 1.3) , concerning the dietary restrietions (kosher laws) in Leviticus 1 1 , J udah and Simeon provide addi tional detai ls about the wild beast contest involving Leviathan mentioned by Dem i and Bar Hana in Bavli Tal m ud Baba Bathra: the spectacle is to be held for the righteous, they explain, as a reward for refu sing to watch the Roman specta­ cles, and it will involve both Leviathan and Behemoth, who will kill one another in battl e . In addition to providing these hel pfu l details, however, they i ntroduce a problem concerning the melbod by which Behe moth and Leviathan will be slaughtered at this fi nal spectacl e

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and banquet for the righteous: will this monster meat be kosher? Wil l the slaughter be done in a kosher man ner? If not, how will the righteous be allowed to eat it? Behemoth and Leviathan are to e ngage i n a wild-beast contest before the righteous in the Tim e to Come, and whoever has not been a speetator at the wild -beast con­ tests of the heathen nations i n this world [or " nations of thi s world "] will be accorded the boon of seeing one i n the World t o Come. H ow will they b e slaughtered? Behemoth will, w ith its horns, pull Leviathan down and rend it, and Leviathan will, w ith its fi ns, pull Behemoth down and p ierce it through.� The Sages said: And is this a valid method of slaughter? Have we not learnt the fol ­ l owing i n a Mishnah: A l l may s laughter, and o n e may slaughter at all times [of the day ] , and with any i nstru­ ment except w ith a scythe, or a saw, or with teeth [i .e., w ith a j aw cut out of a dead animal] , because they cause pain as i f by choking, or with a nail [ of a l iv i ng body] ? (Xll1.3)

The expectation here is that Leviathan and Behemoth will slaugh­ ter one another i n the same instant, since they have no other worldly rivals. Behemoth will use its horns to pull down and tear apart Leviathan, while Leviathan will use its fi ns to slay Behemoth by "piercing" it (from the verb na�ar, related to " nostril " and refer­ ring to piercing the windpipe) . Eve n befare the sage responds, the terminology in this description invokes priestly concerns about whether or not their mutual slaughter in this manner fulfills kosher requirements. The term used by the rabbis in reference to their mutual "slaughter" is a form of the verb clha�a{, which appears pri­ marily in ritual contexts such as Leviticus 1 7 to describe the proper slaughter of animals for sacrifice. The sages ' question makes the concern explicit: " I s this slaughter valid, " or more li te rally, "is this slaughter ko.Jher?" I s it ritually permitted ? If not, how will the righteous be allowed to eat of it? Insofar as the Mishnah (Talmud Hullin 1 .2) says that anyone can perform the slaughter on any given day, it is acceptable that they kill each other at this time. The prob­ lem Iies in the metboJ of killing, for Leviathan 's fins are serrated, and

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there fore somet h ing like a saw, which is one of the instruments not perm itted for slaugh tering ani mals. Assu med here, of course, is that what is kosher for the routi ne killi ng of everyday ani maJ s should also apply i n such an extrava­ gantly spectacular scene as the fi nal battie benveen Behemoth and Leviathan . Beyond that, it is faseinating to note that the reason given Cor p rohibiting the use of these particular slaughtering instru­ ments is that they cause u ndue pai n. To be kill ed with one of these instru ments would feel like being c hoked or c lawed to death. Perhaps even a monster should not be slaughtered in such a cruel and un usual manner. I n response to this question from the sages, however, Abi n ben Kahana explai ns that this is an exceptional case, and therefore these extraord inary methods of slaughter are permitted. H e begins with a quotation, d rawn from l saiah 5 1 :4 , "a new law [torah 9ada.Jhah] shall go forth from me, " which he reads as, " a novel interpretation of the law [9t(Jdtt,_ID Iomb] will go forth from me."R That is, this enti rely novel case of slaughter call s for a novel interpretation of the perti­ nent law, one which will allow Leviathan 's slaughter of Behem oth with its saw-l ike fin to be kosher. The righteous will taste Behemoth. I n this same spi rit of exception, Rabbi Berekiah pushes both the kosher issue and the exceptional character of t his case even fu r­ ther. Beyon d the saw-like natu re of Leviathan 's killing tool, h e poi n ts out, the prohibition i n Leviticus 7:24 against eating any dead ani mal (ne/Je/al1) that h as been kill ed or torn by other ani maJs woul d suggest t h at ncL:ther Behemoth n o r Leviathan will b e kosher.9 As Berekiah i nsists, however, '\vhoever h as not ca.ten nebe/ah in this world will h ave the p rivi lege of enjoyi ng it i n the World to Com e. " J ust as the self-restrai nt o f the righteous i n refusing to participate in the Roman speetades of human and animal contests means that they will enjoy a far m ore spectacular monster contest, so their self­ restraint i n refusing to eat torn anima.l s i n this world means that they will enjoy torn monster in the world to come. 1 0 So save room. J O N A H ' S U N D E R S E A A D V E N TU R E

Another midrashic text, t he eigh th- or ninth-century Pirke de Rabbi E/iezcr, offers an alternative to t he m utual killing anticipated by the rabbis i n L.eviticus Rabbah . lt imagines that God has other plans

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for Leviathan in which J onah will be the hero. 1 1 This text offers an imaginative retell ing of the J onah story that focuses on w hat hap­ pens to him during his stay in the bel ly of the great fish that swal­ lows h i m . T h e fish that swallows Jonah, t h e text explains, was not j ust any old gian t fish who happened to be swi mming by when the sea­ men threw J onah overboard. lt had been ordained to do so since creation. J onah enters i nto it as though he is entering a synagogue. Inside, the fish's two eyes are l ike windows and a great pearl hangs in the belly, shining l ike the sun at noontime - a kind of "tactfu l ly lit, ,1chu/-submari ne, " as Yvonne S herwood puts it. 1 2 After showing Jonah many things in the sea and i n the abysses, the fish explai ns to him that the day has arrived for i t to be eaten by Leviathan . Terrible ti ming? Not at all . As soon as Jonah hears that this is the fish 's day to be monster meal, h e real izes why God has sent h i m on t h i s u ndersea adventure. Without pause he demands t hat the fish take him to Leviathan. When they arrive, .J onah declares to Leviathan that the reason he has come is to discover Leviathan 's dwelling place. For h e is the one who will put a rope th rough Leviathan 's tongue, haul it out of the sea, and slaughter it for the great banquet in the world to come. God had taunted J ob, " Can you d raw out Leviathan with a fishhook ? Can you press down its tongue with a rope ? " (Job 40:25 [or 4 1 : 1 ] ) . J onah wou ld have answered, "Yes I can and yes I will ! " After declari ng his u ltimate pu rpose, J onah then exposes his "seal of Abraham, " that is, his circu mc ised penis, and that frightens the monster away. With Leviathan gone for the time being, J onah and the fi sh conti nue their u nderwater sightseeing tour, including stops at the pillars of the earth , the deepest u nderworld of S heol, the palace of God , and below it the Shetiyyah Stone, which is the initial fau ndation stone sunk by God at the time of c reation . The fish tells Jonah that t h i s would b e a good time t o pray. agrees and does so, praying that God will now return him to life above sea l evel . God does not seem to be l istening u ntil J onah vows that he wi ll indeed return for Leviathan, and wil l hau l it up for slaughter for the banquet i n the world to come. As soon as the words leave ..Jonah 's mouth, God gives a sign to the fish , and th e fish spits Jonah out on dry land. Thus J onah 's ulti mate purpose as Leviathan butcher for the fi nal banquet receives divine confi rmation.

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Although they do not fit together into a single, seamless vision, the general impression given i n all these rabbinic stories and dis­ cussions is that the world, especially the sea, is Iiterally teem i ng with monsters. Although c learly part of c reation, c reated by God and i ntended by God for particular pu rposes, these monsters nonetheless represent a certain uneasy fragility and instability within the arder of thi ngs- what I earlier call ed cosmic horror. They represent an otherworldliness withi n the world. The faet that the chaoti c forces of Leviathan and Behemoth, i f left on their own to procreate, could have destroyed God 's creation suggests a world ecology in which order and chaos intertwine, often u np redictably, sameti mes surprising even God . Yet within these rabbi nic discus­ sions in Talmud and Midrash there is, along with a certai n fear and trembling, an undercurrent of excitement and fascination in the monster tales and i n the expectation of the final d i nner and show. Not so i n the early Christian text of the Apocalypse of John, to which we now turn.

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"An apocalypse, " or " revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place; he made it known to his servant J ohn, who testi fied to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw" (Apocalypse of John [a.k .a. Revelation] 1 : 1 ) . 1 "Apocalypse" is from the Greek verb apokafuplo: apo, " from " or " out of, " and kafuplo, "hide" or "cover. " Apocalypse: out of hiding; that which is reveale d when the covering, the hide, the ski n is peeled away; unhidi ng. The visions of the world to come in rabbinic tradition reveal a final dinner and show i n which the only one to lose his hide will be Leviathan , and this to adorn the righteous guests and deck the hall s . I n the early Christian New Testament vision of the Apocalypse of J ohn, on the other hand , it looks l ike the skin of world itself is c racking and peel ing away, open ing an abyss j ust below its su:face that teem s with monsters who rise up against God and God 's righteous ones in a bloody final battie of pol itical and cosmic proportions. This text was likely composed late in the Roman Emperor Domitian 's reign (arou nd 95 CE), and is hau nted by the earlier persecutions of the Jesus mavement under Nero i n 71

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the late 60s and by the destruetion of the �J erusalem Tempie i n 70.2 Rooted in this context of oppression, the Apocalypse of John peels back the h ide of Pa.'l: Romana , the " Peace of Rome " t h at is al so the i mperial order of Rome, reveali ng an alternative vision of it as the new Babylon, personi fied i n the form of reavvakening chaos mon­ sters. One of th ese chaos monsters, the great red dragon who appears at the begi nning of a long series of visions of the final chaos battie (chapters 1 2 22), bears a striking resemblance to represen­ tations of Leviathan and the sea monster i n the H ebrew Bible. Yet according to this new vision, in a new religious context in which t here is a pronou nced cosmic dualism of good versus evi l , this chaos monster is presented as an u ltimate person ification of evil, also known as the Devi l or Satan. In the Apocalypse of John, it is to the Oevil with Leviathan and the sea monster, i naugurating a new and Iong-lasting diabolical career for the biblical chaos monster. I T' S T H E E D G E O F T H E W O R L D A S W E K N O W IT

In many respects, the Apocalypse of Joh n has defined "apocalypti­ cism " for popular culture as well as for scholarship. The genre of apocalyptic literature is commonly defined as a revelation from a god, to a seer, through a mediator, concern ing im manent events. This defi nition is basically a synopsis of the fi rst verse of the Apocalypse of Joh n, which is the fi rst known visionary text to describe itsel f as an apocalypse: it is i ntroduced as "an apok:afup.tL:I of Jesus Christ which God gave him, " that is, a revelation from God through the mediator Jesus Christ, concern i ng "what must soon take place, " which Jesu s " made known to his servant �John , " who is now making known to his readers and hearers "all t hat he saw. " Yet i n many ways "all t hat he saw " runs cou nter to what con­ tem porary culture has come to expect from apocalypticism. This text does not envision the end of the world so much as its er�qe. Viewed t hrough .J oh n 's apocalyptic spectacles, the world is revealed as p rofoundly out of joint, off ki lter, teeteri ng on the threshold between birth and death, begi nning and end. In this apocalyptic spectacle, the cosmogon ic begi n n i ng becomes the chao­ gonic endi ng. Unlike many of the apocalyptic visions of our day, the spectac ular chaogony i n the Apocalypse of John is not an end

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in itself. I n it, the world is retaken by pri mordial chaos in order that a radically new heaven and earth may be born (2 1 :l) . The horror o f the Apocalypse o f J o h n is, as Tina Pippin astutely puts i t, "both intimate and global " in a way that contem po­ rary apocalypses often fail to captu re.'' The cosmic horror in this text is intensely personal, even palpable. One of the reasons for the intimacy of the horrors conveyed here is that they seem to have i nvaded the very subjectivity of the seer, J o h n of Patmos. One has the sense that as John sees the world fall i ng to pieces befare h is eyes, he is also experien cing his own selfhood falling to pieces. H is is a vision o/ the edge, but al so a vision on the edge- the cosmic edge, the political edge, but also John's own psychic edge. l n deed, some would say that he, like h is predecessor the prophet Ezekiel, is way over the edge . " l , John, you r brother, w h o share with you the persecution and kingdom and the patient endurance, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and testimony to Jesus. I was i n the spirit . . . " (Apocalypse l : 9 1 0) . " After this I looked and there i n heaven a door stood open " (4: l). " Then l was given a measuring rod like a staff, and I was told, 'Come and measu re the tempie o f God . . . ' (11: l) . "The firs t horror is over; there are still two horrors to come" (9: 1 2); "t h e second horror is over; the third will come soon" ( I l: 1 4). "Then I took a stand on the san d of the seashore. And I saw a beast rising out of the sea . . " ( 1 2: 1 8 13: l). "1, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fel l down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me" (22:8). Out of place (in exile, in heaven , on the seashore, in the tem ple) , out of kilter, out of joint, sametimes out o f body (in the spirit) , J oh n is perpetually dislocated and disoriented. John is politically, physically and psych ically u ngrounded, u nhomed, watching the horrors u n fold from the p ri­ mordial shoreline. I n t his state of disorientation it is often d ifficult to distinguish god from m onster, that is, to determine who is on whose side in the battle. Consider the fi rst actual "apocalypse of Jesus Christ'' given to John, which is not only an apocalypse from Jesus Christ or mediated hy him, but an aweful revelation tl him, one that is radi­ cally unlike any other i n the New Testame n t, and one that John h i mself is at a loss how to read: .

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Then l t u rned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the l ampstands I savv one like the Son of 1\lan, dothed with a long robe and with a golden sash across his chest. His head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; his eyes were l ike a Hame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, reflned as in a furnace, and his voice was l i ke the sound of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and from his mouth came a sharp, two-edged sword, and his f�tce was l ike the s u n shining with ful l force. (Apocalypse l : 1 2 1 6) This i nitial vision of the risen Jesus d raws much of its imagery and vocabulary from Dan i e l 's vision of a divine messenger dothed in linen and gold, who has eyes l ike lam ps of fire, l imbs l ike bur­ n ished brass and a voice like the voice of a m ultitude ( Daniel l 0:5 6) . But the faet that . J oh n 's vision is bui l t i n part from this ear­ lier bibl ical image of a divine messenger does not d i m inish the sense of terror embodied here.4 I ndeed, w hen the apparition had come to Daniel , none of the people near him saw it yet they were all over­ whelmed with terror and ran away to hide. Then Daniel, doubly isolated (seeing what others eannot see and remai ning while all the others flee) , lost all strength, went deathly pale and fel l face-first to the ground in a trance ( Daniel l 0 : 7 9) . 'Though the m essenger soon brings Daniel around, the initial epiphany is one of isolating terror. So also for Joh n at this new revelation of J esus. In response to i t he falls on h i s face "as though dead " ( 1 : 1 7) . Indeed , thi s i mage of the ri sen Jesus draws from Daniel not to identi(y or make sense of what John sees, but to com pound and accentuate the sense of dis­ orientation. 1\\uch l ike Daniel 's description of the messenger, and much l ike God 's description of Leviathan in . Job, m oreover, this text provides a written descri ption of something that defies visual depiction. It is a writing of the u n i magi nable, combining a series of m utual ly i n compati ble elements (images, sounds) i n such a way that one si m­ ply ean not compose a picture, i n the mind or on paper, that does not leave someth ing out , as n u merous i l l u strations of this vision since the i\liddle Ages dearly att est (e.g., the fou rteenth-century Cloisters Apocalypse, Figure 4 ) . l t is a revelation of something that

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(early fourteenth century), folio 3 versa, John's vision of Jesus Christ (Apocalypse 1:12-20), The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

FIGURE 4. The C/oisters Apoca/ypse

defies its own revelation . The parts add u p to more than any com­ prehensible whole. Joh n 's initial u ncertain ty, infused with both dread and fascina­ tion i n response to this overwhelmi ng spectacle of the risen Christ, is sim i lar to the responses of many first-time readers to the various epiphanies of God, monsters and angels throughout the great cos­ mic battie that takes place in the latter part of the book (chapters 1 2 22) . Each new vision, each new monstrous portent, distu rbs whatever certainty m ight have been achieved up to that point. Is that one of " us" or one of "the m '"? lt does not help matters that at least as m uch cosmic devastation and h u man su ffering is being meted out by God and God 's angels as by God 's monstrous oppo­ nents. I n c hapter 1 4, for example, two angels appear with sharp sickles, swi nging them across the earth, throwi ng the victims into the "wine p ress o f the wrath of God, " treading their bodies so t hat

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"blood flowed from the wine press, as high as a horse 's bridle, for a distance of about two hundred miles" ( 1 4: 1 9 20) ; and i n c hapter 1 6 seven angels pour seven bowls of wrath on the earth, causing great hu man suffering and death as wel l as ecological disaster. As with the four-eyed, giant-eared, " incomprehensible" Marduk, and as with the blood-and-gore-steeped Anat adorned i n the severed heads and limbs of her e ne mies, the balance between terror and fas­ cination tips with our conscious awareness of w hose side we are on. D I A SO LI CA L D RA G O N

With regard to the great red dragon i n Apocalypse 1 2, however, whose comi ng i naugu rates a cosmic battie that will rage through chapter 2 0, the text allows for very l ittie ambiguity. The scene opens with a "great porten t appearing i n h eaven : a woman dothed with the sun, with the moon u nder her feet, and on her h ead a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birthpangs, i n the agony of giving birt h " ( 1 2: 1 2 ) . This is a vision of both cosmic and political rebirt h and rej uvenation . That the woman is dothed i n the sun identif'ies her with other positive cosmic images (Jesus's face like the sun in l : 1 6; the herald angel ascending from the risi ng sun in 7:2; and the angel with a face l i ke the sun i n 1 0: 1 ) . Her crown signals royal status, and the twelve stars in it identify that royal status with the twelve tribes of I srael. Twelve is also a produet of three, which sym bolizes the spiri tual world, and four, which sym bolizes the order of creation . Thus she simultaneously embodies the divine order of creation and of Israel. She is an image of God 's cosmopolis against Rom e 's. While embodying that order h erself, moreover, she is also giving birth to it on earth . For the child she bears, the text explai ns, will rule (or "shepherd ") all the nations with an iron rod as part of the divine plan. At the same time, the description of her crying out i n the midst of labor pains indicates that this is a liminal moment, i n w hich the new birt h is precarious and vul nerable.5 Enter the dragon . "Then another portent appeared i n heaven : a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on its heads" ( 1 2 :3) . This dragon is immed iately iJentified as a chaos monster who threatens all that is represented by the woman dothed in the sun : with one sweep of its giant tail, it knocks down a third of

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the stars i n heaven, throwing them to earth, and then it positions itself in front of the woman in order to devour the child as soon as it is born. l t is anti-cosmic, anti- Israel and therefore anti-God. lts desire to devou r the newhorn child, however, is soon frus­ trated. As the child is born, it is snatched from the dragon 's waiting mouth and taken immediately up to God. The woman quickly flees into the wilderness "where she has a place p repared by God, so that there she can be nourished " ( 1 2 : 5 6) . lmmediately after the woman and her c hild are taken i nto divine refuge, the dragon and its angels engage i n a battie against the arehangel Michael and h is angels. 1\'lichael defeats the dragon and casts it down to earth . l t then chases after the woman i n the wilderness, pouring forth a flood of water from its mouth in order to wash her away. At this point the earth itsel f comes to the aid of the woman, openi ng its mouth and swallowing the d ragon 's flood waters. l nfuriated, the dragon gives up on her and goes after her children, who are identified as al l those "who keep the command­ ments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus" ( 1 2 : 1 7) . In what follows, he delegates au thority over the u nrighteous masses to the beasts who emerge i n his wake, one from the sea and one from the earth. This reign comes to an end when the dragon is locked into the abyss for a thousand years and finally thrown i nto the lake of fire along with its beastly cohorts (chapter 2 0) , after which a new heaven , a new earth and a new Jerusalem are horn (chapter 2 1 ) . Thus the great red dragon i n the Apocalypse of John is pre­ sented as a chaos monster t hat th reatens divine order on every level. l t is a personif'ication of cosmic and political horror, a chaotic threat to c reation and to the divine plan for a new counter- Roman empire. It sweeps dow n stars, thus uncreati ng w hat God had cre­ ated i n Genesis l . l t threatens the woman dothed with the sun, who embodies divinely ordained cosmic and political order. Primerdial flood waters pour forth from its belly. Both earth and heaven fight against i t. lts red color stands for war and bloodshed . I t wants nothing more than to devour the one who is meant to shepherd al l the nations, and when t hat desire is frustrated, it wreaks h avoc among t he righteous followers of Jesus. lt spends a thousand years in the abyss. And its destruetion leads immediately to the creation of the new heaven and earth with .J erusalem as its cosmic and polit­ ical center.

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In this early Ch ristian cont ext of cosmic dualism, moreover, this chaos monster is identificd with Satan , or the Devil , a fallen angel who comcs to personify cosmic evil against God i n a way that is u n p recedented i n earlier biblical texts. The dragon 's d iabolic identity is made explicit at two poi nts, once toward the beginning of the cosmic battle, when it is throvvn out of heaven by lV\ichael, and the other toward the battle's end, when it is Joeked u p i n the abyss: The d ragon and his angels fought back, but t h ey were deCeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven . The great d ragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devi l and Satan , the deceiver of the world - he was thrown down to earth , and his angel s were t hrown down with h i m . (Apocalypse 1 2 : 7b-9) He [an angel] seized the dragon , that ancient serpent, who i s the Devi l and Satan, and bou nd him for a thou­ sand years, and t h rew him into the pit [or 'abyss'J , and Joeked and sealed it over him so that he wou ld deceive the nations no more . . . (Apocalypse 20:2 3a) The d ragon in the Apocalypse of .J ohn is the Devil incarnate, God 's quintessen tial Other, i n a cosmic battie between the forces of good and the forces oC evil . T H E MO N S T E R - MA K E R ' S B I B L E' S B I B L E

Horror writer, director and producer Clive Barker said that there are at least two books i n every Amcrican household: "one of them is the Bi ble and the other one is probably Stephen King. " b It is i nteresting t hat he considers the presence of a Stephen King book to be prohah!e whereas the presencc of a Biblc is cerlain . In faet, he is su rely wrong to expect that either book is quitc so pervasive, in Arnerica or anywhcre else. But if there is a Bible in Stephen King's home , or i n Clive Barker's for that matter, it is likely a Christian Bible (including a New Tcstamcnt) , and i t p robahly Call s open to the Apocalypse of .J oh n . A-\any thi ngs to many people, this text is a veritable man ual for mon ster-making.

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Joh n 's apocalyptic i magi nation is the wel lspring of an ov e r­ whelming, primordial flood of monstrosities, climbing in and o u t of h eaven, in and out of the abyss, in and out of the world, a s the bou n daries between cosmos and chaos, h eaven and heil, sacred an d p rofane are washed away i n blood, gore, a n d bowls of plagu e and abo min ation. As such it is the sourcebook for innumerable m on­ sters i n subsequent Ch ristian tradition as wel l as i n today's os te n si­ bly i rrel igious popu lar cultures of horror.7 The Apocalypse of J o hn is i ndeed The Monster-maker's Bible . B u t the Apocalypse of John does n o t conj u re i t s monste rs o u t o f not hing. I n faet, t h e i r i mages are d rawn from a wide backgr o u nd of stories about chaos monsters, especially d ragons and serpe nts, who threaten the cosmic and social order and who are slain by hero gods. Look i n to the abysmal mouth of John 's great red d ragon, and you might see a number of ancient monsters and monster gods milling about i n the chaos waters of its belly: the G reek d ragons Hydra, slain by H ercules, and Python, who th reatens Leto 's son Apollo (and whom Apollo even tually slays) ; perhaps also the Vedic serpent-demon Vrtra;8 perh aps the Babylonian c haos m o t h er Tiamat; and the anomalous Egyptian chaos god Seth of th e Red Land, who i s defeated in battie by Horus; and U garitic Ya rnm or Tun nan or Litan, the " Potentate with the Seven H eads. " But m ost prominent among them wil l be Leviathan and the "sea mo n s ter" (tannin) from Jewish biblical tradi tion. l ndeed, John's p ri m ary source for making monsters - The Monster-maker's Bibie's B i ble _ is the Old Testament, especially those so-cal led "proto-apocalyp tic " texts such as Ezekiel, l saiah (esp. chapters 24 2 7) , Jo el and Daniel, which themselves are saturated with distu rbi ng visi on s of God and m onsters. J oh n 's vision of the great d ragon d raws explicitly from e arlier biblical refe rences to chaos monsters, especially Leviathan a n d the "sea monster, " both of which are consistently translated as drll k on i n t h e Septuagint (Greek) version of the O l d Testament. I n the Septuagin t text of Eze k iel 29, for example, the H ebrew "gre at sea monster" (hattaninz ha.tJ.qadol; 29:3) is translated i nto Greek a s "the great d ragon " (ton drakonta ton me._qan) , whom God will "cast d own " (katahaltJ, from the verb hallo, " cast ") . Likewise, the Apocalypse of John twice refers to th is monster as "the great d ragon " (ho drakon ho nze._qa
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(eMetbe, al so from hallo) of heaven by God ( 1 2 :9) . I n the Septuagi nt version o f' Psal m 74 : 1 2 1 4 , fu rthermore, both Leviathan and the " sea monster" (tannin) are translated i nto Greek as rJrakon . This psal m, moreover, describes the d ragon with multiple heads (ta,1 kepha /a,t tou drakonhM , "the d ragon 's head s ") , and so does Apocalypse 1 2 :3 (ta,1 kep/.1a/a,J outou, " h is heads ") . 9 The Septuagi nt text of l saiah 2 7: l also transiates both Leviath an and the "sea mon­ ster" (tannin ) , whom God will kill on a future day of judgment, as drakon . 1 0 In t hat text, moreover, the H ebrew epithet for Leviathan, napat�b (" serpent, " as i n " twisting serpcnt" and " fleei ng serpent") , is translated into Greek as op/.?,:1 ("serpent") . And the Apocalypse of John twice refers to the great d ragon with the epithet "the archaic serpent" (ho ophi.1 ho archtll(M; 1 2 :9; 20:2) . So Joh n 's d ragon is a transfigu ration of earlier biblical t radi ­ tions concerning c haos monsters. l t stitches together a new monster from old skins, a ncw "ancient serpent" for a ne\-v cosmic, political, always theological crisis, that of Roman persecution of the early Jesus movement at the end of the fi rst century, some twenty-five years after the destruetion of the Jerusalem Temple. This, of course, is a familiar biblical move, and the prophets l saiah and Ezekiel are masters of it. lt is no accident that John's d ragon is closest to the earlier bibl ical chaos monsters of Psal m 74, l saiah 27 and Ezekiel 29, because they, too, represented th reats not only to the cosmic which is supposed to order but also to the poli tical order of be a microcosmos of God 's c reation . I n Psalm 74, God's vietory over I.. eviathan was reason to hope for God 's futu re vietory over Babylon; in lsaiah 2 7, Leviathan is a personif'i cation of Babylon; and in Ezekiel 29, the sea monster personifies Egypt. In the l atter two cases, the monster sti l l l ives, but the prophet anticipates that God will kill it on a futu re j u dgment day. Ezekiel 's vision of this demise is especially gory, a feature which must have been a particul ar d raw for John of Patmos, whose text is similarly incl ined . I n the Apocalypse of Joh n, t hese ancient monsters and the former enemies they personifY (especially Babylon, which destroyed the fi rst Jerusalem tempie centuries earlicr) emerge as personifications of a new battie-red monster of destruetion and persecution, namely late f'irst-century Rome, its emperors and its armies. Yct the chaos monster's tran sfiguration as "the Devi l or Satan " is completely unprecedentcd in light o l' earl icr biblical trad ition. I n

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the H ebrew Bible, neither Leviathan nor the sea monster nor any other monster i s ever identified with the Devi l or Satan, a figu re who does not acquire the identity of u ltim ate anti-God u ntil l ater, post-bibli cal Ch ristian thought. As elsewhere in the Apocalypse, Joh n 's spectacle of the great red dragon sorts through various fragments of biblical and Greco­ Roman tradition in order to piece together a new version of t he monster. I n the p rocess, i t attempts to ,1orl out the biblical canon 's deep theological ambivalence with regard to this "ancient serpent" in terms of a theologically tidier, more systematic scenario of good versus evil, G o d versus Devi l . I n other texts from t h e H ebrew Bible, especially in t h e book o f Job, we have en cou ntered vision s of t h e world a n d of God i n which chaos and order intertwine. I n those texts, the chaos monster ( Leviathan, tannL.·Il, etc. ) e merges as a means of expressing that intertwini ng, e n gendering a sense of uncertain ty and cosmic horror that is deeply t heological , going to the very core of the c haracter of God with i n bibl i cal monotheism . The Apocalypse of Joh n works against such an intertwining, peeling Leviathan the twisting ser­ pent off the character of God and sending it to the Devil. This post-bib lical Christian apocalyptic vision of the dragon has some things in common with the rabbinic expectations of a fi nal bat­ tie and banqu et in the world to come. Both visions are largely col­ lective m ale fan tasies that do not seem to imagine the women in their communities as major participants. Both reveal a world to come that is radically othe r than the present world, and i n which it is good to be among the righteous "u s. " Both visions estrange hearers and readers from "this worl d , " and make them long for another, even if that longing i s accompanied occasionally by a cold shudder. And for both traditions, "this worl d " is the world of Roman domination. That is, both text traditions represent m arginal religious ideas and p ractices withi n the Roman Empire, and both are profoundly haunted by personal and collective traumas meted out in the name of the Pa.x Romana, including severe persecutions and the destruetion of the J erusa l e m Temple. Out of this situation of oppression, more­ over, both envision an u ltimate restoration of God 's people and of God 's city Jeru salem as the center of the new c reation. And last but not least, both e nvision a spcctacular final battie that i nvolves the return engagement of biblical c haos monsters.

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But there are two particularly striking differences. The fi rst has to do with the dual ism that operates in the Apocalypse of John. I n t h e rabbinic vision of t h e retu rn o f c haos monsters, a s i n other rab­ binic monster tales, one has the clear sense t hat these monsters are not opposed to God, even when they t hreaten humans, as when the sea monster attacks the seafarers who t ry to steal its treasure. In the Apocalypse, on the other hand, the biblical chaos monster returns as the Devil or Satan, personi(yi ng ultimate evil against God . The second difference has to do with the kind of violence these two different traditions imagine. On the one hand, the end-of-the­ world spectacle i magined i n the Talmud and Midrash i nvolves no h uman carnage whatsoever. There the final batti e ends in a nice dinner, and the only ones who get killed are Leviathan and Behemoth. I ndeed, the Midrash even shows some concern that these monsters not suf'fer undue pain i n the process of killing one another. The Apocalypse of J ohn, on the other hand, is neck deep in human b lood, much of it spil led by God and God's sickle-sw ing­ i ng, p lague-bearing angels. In its vision, the rise of the new J erusalem and the j oyful gathering of the righteous few withi n it can take p lace only after the p resent world is wash ed away i n tor­ rents of blood and plague. The ulti mate well-being of the righteous, who were c hosen by God from the faundation of the world ( 1 3:8; 1 7:8) , is i magined against the ultimate suf'fering of the unrighteous, whose fate likewise must have been set si n ce the beginning. F R O M B E O W U L F T O D R A C U L A T O H A R R Y P O TT E R

As Ch ristianity gai ns increasing cultural and imperial hegemony by the fourth century, and as the Apocalypse of Joh n is gradually rec­ ognized as canonical Scri pture within a slowly solidi(ying Christian New Testament, the spectacular vision of the great red d ragon i n Apocalypse 1 2 helps t o launch a new d iabolical career for t h e bib­ l ical c haos monster. I mages of i t as a figure of the Devil pervade the apocalyptic imagination of Christian visual culture throughout the .1\-1iddle Ages and i nto our day. As we will see, it also becomes a fig­ u re for European colanialist representations of the deities of other religions as monstrous ly diabolical. And t hose monstrous represen­ tations wil l , i n turn, feed the emerging popular cultures of the Gothic and horror.

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Likewise, the story of Nlichael defeating the great d ragon i n battie a n d thereby saving t h e woman dothed i n t h e s u n has inspired many other legends of saints slaying d ragons in order to save towns and/or damsels i n d istress. Certain ly it is an important narrative backgrou nd for the Bemvu/f poet's presentation of the hero slaying the abysmal fi re-breathing "earth d ragon " (eoro-rJraca , also called '-' 'ynn , " serpent ") in order to save the people it was torment­ ing. 1 1 Although this story i s set i n fifth- o r sixth- centu ry p re­ Christian Germania, its poet is well steeped in Ch ristian thought and bibl i cal tradition. 1 2 While the story's pagan c haracters use their own local p re-Ch ristian terms to describe the various monsters, the Christian poet u ses a biblical vocabulary. 1 ;) The Grendelkin, for example, are said to descend from a l i ne of monsters goi ng back to Cain i n Genesis 4 . 1 4 So al so the d ragon, who is c learly related to the Christian Bibie 's most famous d ragon of the Apocalypse (and whose "heathen hoard " also identifies it with accursed pagan reli­ gion) . By the same token, the heroic Beowul f, although undeniably pagan, is subtly identified with the d ragon-slayi ng arehangel Michae l and God 's armies. A more p rominent example of a revarnpi ng of Mic hael versus the d ragon is the legen d of Sain t George, dati ng back to the sixth centu ry, in w hich the hero kills a d ragon, thereby savi ng a pri ncess and secu ring a p romise from her father t hat all his subj ects woul d b e baptized. I n t h i s story, t h e dragon is a threat t o patriarchy, t o the nation and to eternal salvation. Early visual depictions of George defeati ng the d ragon are often strongly reminiscent of visual depic­ tions of the arehangel Michael d riving the d ragon from heaven ( Figure 5) . As George becomes patron sai nt of England, moreover, the d ragon comes to rep resent a diabolically monstrous threat against England, especial ly agai nst its Christianity and its patri­ archy. I n this l ight we will want to explore family resemblances between biblical chaos monsters l ike Leviathan, the d ragon of the Apocalypse, the gold-hoardi ng d ragon of Beowu(/: the d ragon of the Saint George legen d and B ram S toker's Dracula . Dracula, w hose name comes from the Romanian dracul, "the dragon " or "devil, " represents a monstrous invasion of England that especially th reat­ ens its religious faith and its women. He must be slain by the story's patriarchal heroes i n order to save not only the fatherland but the entire worl d .

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FIGURE 5 . The C/oisters Apocalypse

(early fourteenth century), folio 20 verso, Michael and his angels defeat the great dragon and his angels, who a re cast to earth (Apocalypse 12: 7- 12), The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Finally, one must wonder about Draco 1\\al foy, the diaboli cal bad boy in J. K. Rowling's tremendously popular Harry Potter novel series. With a name like Draco, and living in a house called S !ytherin that has a basil isk I u rking u nder its foundations, surely there m ust be a bit of the dragon of the Apocalypse i n h i m . (Is H arry Potter on its way to becoming a new British national myth ­ onc t hat, like so many others, millions of Arnericans hold dear? ) Although w e m ust acknowledge the great success and m any successors of John 's great d ragon of the Apocalypse in subsequent monstcr-making traditions, it would be a mi sta.ke to assume that this d ragon has u ndane the deep rcligious ambiguity of biblical monsters forever. Joh n 's d ragon does not erase or replace other l ess diabolical epiphanies of thc monstrous in bi bli cal tradition, but rather compou nds with them . l ndeed , there can be no fi nal revela-

To theDevil

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FIGURE 6. Th e C/oisters Apocalypse

(early fou rteenth century), folio 3 5 , the dragon a n d t h e beasts a re cast into t h e l a ke of fire (Apocalypse 20:9- 10), T h e Metropolitan Museum of Art.

tion or resol ution of the mC'nstrous in the biblical traditions of J udaism or Christianity. Those other monstrous figu res remai n there, pressing in from the margins of the biblical map, in t hose dreadfully unknown and infirm territaries where one's theological grou nding becomes disconcertingly shaky.

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When monsters go to bed at nigh t, or at su n rise as the case may be, to whom do they say their bedti me prayers ? i\:lonsters seem to be particularly fond of' rel igious spaces and decor, especially the kind t hat has not been modernized: decrepit graveyards fu ll of crumbling tombstones, dusty candielit cathed rals stre\:vn -vvith c rosses and com m u n ion goblets. \Vhy do they seem so comforrable there ? And w hy do these same sacred spaces so of't en give us moderns the creeps ? So f�ir wc have been scci ng what we can learn about religion by getting to know its monsters. Now wc will scc what wc can learn about monsters, especially the monsters of modcrn horror, by getting to know thcir religious backgrou nds. This will takc us as htr from Part One as Genesis is from l\lary Shcllcy's FrankelzAeilz, as f�tr as L eviticus is from Bram Stoker's Dracula , and as far as �J ob is from Clive Barker's He!lrm:ta movies. \Vhich is not so br as one might suspect. M O D E R N C H A O S B ATT L E S

As wc have seen, biblical trad ition is fraugl1 t with tensions t hat go to the very corc of' i ts conceptions of' the -vvorld and its c rcator God . 89

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On the one hand, it is confident in the stable, reasonable order of the cosmos, confident in ou r ability to articu late that order and l ive according to it, and confident in God as fau nder and guarantor of that order; on the other hand, it is hau nted by monstrous forms of profound disj u nction and d isorder, shadowy revelations on the edge between c reation and u nc reation, cosmos and c haos, and hau nted by the I u rk i ng anxiety that God, like the world God c re­ ated, is fraught with the same tensions. The biblical t radition is end­ lessly caught betwee n cosmogonic visions of the stable moral u n i­ verse, in which God h as c rushed the monsters and sits enthroned over c haos, and c haogonic visions of a world on the edg·e of cal ­ lapse, in which the monsters are alive and well and it is not always clear whether God is with them or against them . I n m any respects, modern horror is caught i n the same ten­ sions, and its monsters often stand for the same theological ques­ tions and anxieties. Some monster tales and latter-day monster e nthusiasts identi(y with their monsters, embracing them as figures of chaos again st cosmos. I n most cases, however, they appear i n something l ike a modern version o f the ancient chaos battie motif. As with the d iabolical d ragon i n the Apocalypse of John, they are rou sed and brought to l ight in order to be killed, thereby resancti­ f}ri ng cosmos, society and sel f, and rei nstati ng faith i n a monster­ free world i n which God smiles down upon u s in the rai nbow. T'his chaos battle motif, in which sacred order is pitted against the d iabolically mon strous forces of chaos, is deeply rooted in west­ ern c ulture. I n his essay on the rise of modern western conscious­ ness during the seventeenth century, Stephen Toul min shows how the h idden agenda of modernity was to reestablish cosmic and political order against chaos by establishing a new vision of ctM­ mopohl, that is, a new vision of the total coherence of all things in which "the divinely c reated Order of Natu re and the human ly cre­ ated Order of Society were once again illumi nating one another. " 1 This new vision was estab lished i n the aftermath of the old vision, which had been redu ced to chaos under the weight of assassina­ tions, executions, the Thirty Years ' War and other seventeenth-cen­ tu ry crises. This new cosmopol is was not simply soc ial-economic, moreover, but rel igious, a theo!t�qt(:al response to a tbeo!t�qical cri1L:1.2 I t uffered society a way of imposing order agai nst chaos, of stavi ng off the fl ood waters that threatened to oven-vhe l m it. It was an

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awakening o f reason that was intent o n keeping t h e chaos monsters down . In this sense, we might say that the more or less hidden agenda of modernity is thc same as the not so h idden agenda of the chaos batties found in biblical and other ancient Near Eastern sto­ ries: to establish and sac ralize order against chaos, from h eavenly bodies to individual bodies and everything i n between. H O B B E S ' M O R TA L L G O D

Thomas Hobbes' theory of the commonwealth m his treatise Leviathan ( 1 65 1 ), written in the wake of the Thirty Years ' War (ending 1 648) while Hobbes was in Paris during England's own Civil War, m ay be read as an exam ple of this modern battie for sacred order agai nst monstrous chaos in the political are na. For H obbes, the pri mordial chaos that p recedes the establishment of political order is the tecming pandemoniuro of individual wills, which, left to their own powers, tend toward a living nightmare of atomization, a state of war in which life is, as he famously put it, "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short . " The commonwealth he envisions is a means of su bordinati ng all t hat c haos of the state of natu re, which is a state of war, to a single sovereign authority which would embody and speak for all individuals. Leviathan is the name H obbes gives to this imagined sovereign lord to which all other chaotic, particular voices must submit. l ts authority signifies the l ack of authority of all civil subj ects. Without Leviathan, their frag­ men ting, atomizing individualities pull inevitably in the direction of anarchic c haos. Hobbes' commonwealth is i magi ned as an embodi­ ment of collective pol itical order established against the specter of political chaos. H obbes' political theory, then, i magi nes the c reation of the political order of the commonwealth in a way that parallels the cos­ mogonic narratives of bibl ical and other ancient Near Eastern tra­ ditions. J ust as those narratives i magi ne the cosmos emerging out of or against pri mordial c haos, so here the political order of the commonwealth emerges out of and against a primordial social c haos. Hobbes ' theory is poligonic in the same way those narratives are cosmogon1c. In faet, H obbes ' description of the procedu re for c reati ng a commonwealth in his opening paragraph is clearly drawn from t h e

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language of biblical cosmogony in Genesis l , especially the creation of h uman life. l ndeed, in this l ight he appears to be an early m od­ ern prec u rsor to another u nwi tti ng monster creator, Vic tor Frankenstei n . The human art of creati ng " artificiall life " in the form of an engine or a watch is, he writes, an i mitation of " NATU RE (the Art whereby God has made and gavernes the world) . "·' That is, the creations of modern technology parallel God 's own work not only as creator but also as sustai ner of the cosmic order. So also, Hobbes contin ues, in the realm of politics, h u m an artifice is able to create an " Artificiall lVlan " which he names Leviathan, a poli tical body made up of the i ndividual parts of society. Art goes yet further, imitating that Rationall and most excellent worke of Nature, Man . For by Art is created

that great LEVIAniAN called a COMi\10N- WEAI;fH, o r STJ\TE, (in Latin CIVITAS) which is but an Arti ficiall 1\lan; though of greater stature and strength than the NaturalL for whose proteetion and defence it was i ntended. Hobbes then presents something of an anatomy lesson o n this Leviathan creatu re, the condusion to which m akes most expli c it the paral lel between God 's creation of h u m ankind i n Genesis l :27 28 and the modern h u man creation of a su per-human political body which he calls Leviathan: the Soverat:qnfy is an Arti ficial l Soul, as givi ng life and motion to the whole body; The /Jfa.qiArafe,,, and other O.f(iar,, of J udicature and Execution, artificiall Joyn!J; Reward and Puni Jbmenl (by which fastned to the seate of the Soveraignty, every joynt and member is moved to per­ forme his duty) are the Ner!'e,l, that do the same in the Body Naturall ; The Wea!tb and Ru:be,J of all the part icular members, are the Stren_qtb; Sa!tL.J Popu/i (the peop/e,t Jajety) its BtMine.1.1e; Cowz,,e/!or,J, by whom all things needfull for it to know, are suggested u nto it, are the /�femory; E'quity and f.�a wed, an arti ficiall Rea.1on and Wdl; Concord, Healtb; Seditt�m , Sickne,lt�e; and Ci,•il! Wtzr, Deat/.1 . Lastly, the Pactd and Cm•enan/,1, by which the parts of t his Body Politique were at fi rst made, set together, and u n ited, resemble that

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Ftal, or the /;et LM make man, pronounced by God i n the Creation . 4 H e uses t h e bibiicai language of covenant-maki ng, moreover, to describe the method by which this great "Artifical l lYlan " will be created: "This is more than Consent, or Con cord; it is a reall U nitie of them all [all individuals] , in one and the same Person, made by Covenant of every man with every man . "5 Hobbes is clearly aware of the biblical li nkage of God's c reation of the world and God 's c re­ ation of Israel through covenant. l ndeed, for H obbes, this cutting of a covenant is the longhand for "that Ft{z/, or the Let u,1 make man, pronounced by God i n the Creation": l Authori1e and .lJLIY: up my R�qhl t?{ Gtwernin.q my ,1e((e, lo thi1 Man, or lo thi� A.1,1emh�v of m en, on l hi.1 conditum, t hat l hou .t;ive up thy R�qhl lo him, and Authori1e all hi1 Actimz,1 1.11 like mannet: Th is done, the i\1ultitude so u n ited in one Person, is called a COMMOI\'-WEAI:rH, in latine CIVITAS. This is the Generation of that great LEVI/\THJ\N, or rather (to speake more reverently) of that 1\-lortall God, to which wee owe under the I mmortal God, our peace and defence. For by this Authoritie, given him by every particu lar man i n the Com mon-Wealth, he hath the u se of so much Power and Stre ngth conferred nn him, that by terror thereof, he is i nabled to conforme the wills of them all to Peace at home, and mutuall ayd against their encm ies abroad.

HobGes thus conceives the com monwealth as a h um an c re­ ation, through covenant, of a sovereign " Body Politique" u nder which all particular human will s are subordinatcd . l ndeed , it gets its power by absorbing all individual power, thereby becoming the singular author and gavernor of state order. Hobbes expects, moreover, that this sovereign body politic, Leviathan, which stands for the order of the whole against the ter­ ror of individ uals i n the state of natu re, will be an object of re li­ gious reverence, a " lVlortall God " who is above all except the immortal c reator God . And his power as mortal god is a kind of sublime power. What Hobbes conj u res is an image of the pofitti·a f c�uh!ime, who rules by terror. " Peacc" i n this scenario is the absence

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of war at home and abroad, brought about by a j ustice t hat is syn­ onymous with the i mposition of social order at any cost. The ter­ ror of social c haos is overeorne only by the greater terror of this one sovereign lord . TH EOPHANY

The title page for Hobbes ' treatise provides a visual rendering of h is sovereign Leviathan (Figure 7) .6 l nsofar as Leviathan is to be a " Mortall God , " we might go so far as call this pietu re a theophany, that is, a revelation of the divine body pol itic t hat Hobbes envisions in his political theory. Behold the c rowned h ead of the great and sovereign Leviathan . He is gigantic, no doubt shaking the earth and trampling down the mou ntai ns as he walks, his arms span ning and his eyes gazing over town and country. His arms also span the series of symbols of c h u rc h and state which run down the left and right sides of the lower hal f of the page, indicating his complete dominion over both sph eres, from matters of war to m atters of reli­ gious orthodoxy and divine j udgment. This is an image of the polit­ ical sublime which lords over military as well as religious authority and power. On eloser in spection we notice that the body of this great "Martall God " is actually m ade from the bodies of t hose who give up their i ndividual wills and rights in order that their power may conform to h i m . Leviathan is I iterally a " Body Politique, " a si ngle figure that embodies all members of the polis. The bodies of those very individuals who are prone to anarchy when left to their own desi res are stitched together into the single body of the sovereign l ord. Th rough the suture of all individual subjects, this body politic rules out anarchy. This lord is, moreover, an unseen seer. H e oversees al l , yet none of those who are stitched in to his body can see either h i m or the world h e oversees. Their faces are turned inward, p ressed so closely agai nst one another and agai nst Leviathan 's splendid frame that they can see nothing. They com prise its very surface, its body armor, its ht.de. They l ive together as members of one pol itical body by faith that he is there, watch i ng over things for th em, assured of thi ngs hopcd for, conviered of thi ngs not see n . In an earlier draw­ ing for H obbes ' title page, vvhich served as the title page for the

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vel l u m p repu blication copy which H obbes sent to Charles I l (but which was blocked by his advisor, Edward Hyde, Earl of Clare ndon7), the h eads are several times larger and they, l ike Leviathan, face outward . Their faces overlook the landscape alon.q with Leviathan . This representation lends the individual m e mbers of the commonwealth a degree of agen cy that is altagether absent in the fi nal frontispiece image, in which they are tiny and faceless, turned away from all oversight and absorbed into the body of Leviathan. B U T W H Y L E V I AT H A N ?

Why on earth did H obbes name this sovereign overlord of political order against chaos after Leviathan ? Leviathan is anything but an image of political order in biblical tradition, even when it is rep re­ sented as part of God 's c reation . l ndeed, in most biblical texts Leviathan is a chaos monster, sametimes even a monstrous person ­ i fication of t h e enemy a s c haotic t hreat t o political order ( l saiah 2 7, P sal m 74 ) . Why, t hen, does H obbes choose thi s as a name for his " MortaU God " of political orde r? lt is not a m atter of biblical illiteracy. I n faet, Hobbes's Lel'iathan is as much a biblical-theological treatise as it is a political treatise, including well over six hundred biblical citations, and m aking several groundbreaking arguments about the n ature and authority of Scripture. lt comes as a surp rise to many that Hobbes' Le11iathan , like Benedict Spin oza's Trac/a/u,1 Theo!t�qico Po!itu·tM ( 1 670) , is an important early i nfluence on modern biblical c riticism as well as modern political theory and p hilosophy.8 Argui ng from the i nternal evidence of the biblical texts, for example, Hobbes poi nts out that parts of the Torah, or the book of 1\1oses, could not have been written by Moses (e.g., the accou nt of his death in Deuteronomy 34) . l ndeed, Hobbes antici pated that his eritics woul d attack his biblical-theological interpretations more than his political theories. In his dedication of fjevt(zthan to the brother of his deceased col league Sidney Godolphin, who "was pleas 'd to think my studies somethi ng, " h e writes, "That which may most of'fend are certai n Texts of Holy Scriptu re, alleged by me to other purpose than ordinarily they use to be by others. "'' Clearly, Hobbes u nder­ stood that there were political stakes i n biblical interpretation. But

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for him doing political theory meant doi ng bi blical i n terpretation as wel l . The two were in separable . Why, t h e n , if he knew his Bible, d i d h e n a m e t h i s lord of polit­ ical order agai nst chaos Leviathan ? A clue is found i n the text that run s across the top of the book 's frontispiece. l t is a quotc from one of the last verses of the divi ne speech from the wh irlwind in the Lati n Vulgate version of the book of J ob (4 1 :24) . There God is praising the incomparable power and glo ry of Leviathan : "Mm e,tt pote,t/a,t .)'uper Terram quae Comparelur ei, " that is, "there is nothing on earth to be compared with h im . "10 I n faet, although Hobbes refers t o h i s com monwealth by the name o f Leviathan from the fi rst page onward, this biblical quotation on the frontispiece is the only indication of what Hobbes means by his u se of this name u ntil we are wel l i nto the book. No biblical explication is given u ntil the end of chapter 28, as a condusion to his d iscussion of reward and punishment (which , you may recall , are the nerves and tendons of this great Body Politique), and as a lead-in to Leviathan 's susceptibility to certain discases (includ ing sedition, the desire to deeide for oneself concern i ng good and evil , and the sub­ j ection of the sovereign to civil laws) . There, he i neludes a transla­ tion of the last two verses of the Latin text of Job 4 1 , and explains how these verses are thc basis for h is use of the name Leviathan: H itherto I have set forth the nat u re of 'Vlan, (whose Pride and other Passions have competled him to submit h imselfe to Govern ment;) together with the great power of his Governour, whom I com pare to Lel'iathan , taking that comparison out of the two last verses of the one and fou rtieth of Jo/J; where God having set Corth the great power of LePtathan , cal leth him King of the Proud. There i.t not/.1in.q, saith he, 011 eart/.1, to /Je comparec) with him. He it made .to a,t not to /Je ,�(nu(). /Iee ,teet/.1 t'l'l'r'Y /.1z'ql.1 thin.q /Jelow 1.1 l'm; and i.t Kin_q of all thc c/.Jddren tlpride. But because h e is mortall , and subj ect to decay, a s a l l other Earthly c reatures are; and because there is that in heaven , (though not on earth) that he should stand in fear of, and whose Lawes he ought to obey; I shall i n the next foliowing Chapters speak of h is Diseases, and the eauses of his Nlortal ity; and of what Lawes of Natu re he is bou nd to obey. 1 1

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The Lev i at han that H obbes h as i n mi nd, then, is the one G od praises from t h e wh i rlwi nd, a Leviathan whose fearfe.f.J power i s superior to t h e rest of God 's c reation, i ncluding hu mankind . Fi re� breath i ng, sea-boil i ng an d other monstrous qualities aside, it is Leviathan 's i ncomparable , terri(yi ng and awe-inspi ring power t h at Hobbes fi nds s o com pel l i ng as a tigu re for h is sovereign poli tic al body. I n t h i s text from J o b, L.eviathan is d edared by God to be above all ex c ept God . S o too, explai ns H obbes, with h is polit ical Leviathan . J-l obbes read s the book o f J ob as a treatise o n theodicy, which questions God 's j u stice in the face of ,Jo b's u njustified and unj u sti� fiable suffe ri ng. T h e divin e answer from the whirlwind, accord ing to Hobbes, i s less an answer to J ob 's q uestion ing than i t is an over­ whel ming and s i l e ncing of ,J ob by force. The question of theodicy i n the book of J ob, H obbes writes, "is decided by God h i m se l fe, not by argumen ts d erived fr om Joh 's Sinne, but his own Power. For whereas the friends of Joh d rew their argu ments from his Affliction to his Sin ne, a n d he defe nded himsel fe by the con science of his I n nocence, God h i m selfe . . . j u stified the AHl iction by arguments drawn from h i s Power, s u c h as this, Where were you when l fayd the foundalti.m,l 4' t be earth . " 1 2 J ob 's q uestions concerning divine j ustice, or lack thereof. are not a n swered but obliterated by God . Recall that the quotatio n Hobbes gives as an exam ple ("Where were you w h e n I laid the faundatio n s of the earth ? ") comes at the begin n i ng of that ove rw h e l m i ng and subj ect-obliterating speech from the wh irlwind. God 's long poem in praise of Leviathan comes at the very end, as the elim ax of t hat speech. Leviathan, then, as H obbes reads it. is the elimactic tigu re of overwhel ming and terrif)ring dil'ine power a.qain,1l juAice. I t is an i m position of arder without j ustice that puts the i nsubordi nate, even subversive questioning of the i ndivid­ ual to rest. Placed in the c ontext of Hobbes' readi ng of the book of Job, his political Leviath an stands for the awful and awesome imposition of peace with o r without j ustice. AW E A N D O R D ER

So J-lobbes hooks Leviathan by the snout and draws it out of the book of J ob and i nt o a n ew political arena, where it becomes the privileged figure tor his "N\ortall God " who would, by terror as

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due and conform the potent ial chaos of ind.i � v i d u a l s i n n ece ss a ry' sub , . . of n atu re under the rul e of I t � � o � ere 1gn head . th e s tate . . Hob bes thereby lau nches a new hfe for Leviathan 1 1 n pol i t i c s .

s was Leviathan 's fi rst time on t h e pol i tical sc o e n e , b u t i t Not th at thi a rad ical d epartu re from earl i e r ap � e a ra n ce s . ce rt ai n ly was Leviath an has made appearances a s t h e monstro u s rep ir•- ese n ta t ive of th e enemy nation Babylon, w hose destruetion o f J u d a � was con­

ceived not only as a th reat to the existence o f G od 's P� o p l e a s a n ati on but also as a threat to the very ord e r of G odl '�·s c re a t i o n ( Psalm 74 a n d l saiah 2 7) . On those occasions Leviatha � n w a s the fu rth est thing from pol itical order. In H obbes ' text, b_yv cont r ast, Leviatha n i s not a chaos monster but the c ham pion ·� f pol i t i cal

order again st chaos. In this sense, Leviathan the " 1V1ort� l l G o d " is envi sioned in the rol e typ ically identified with the c reat - or Go d in bibli cal tradition . This god main tai n s political ord e r by s ut bd u i n g al l

chaotic forces under its ru le.

The monster H obbes fears most is an u n ru ly popul ace, g i ve n over to c h aos by their con fl icting in d i vidual w i l l s . For o t ., ers, h ow ever, the real pol it ical

monster is none oth e r t ha n. H o b bes ' Leviathan itself, whose p r imary means of ru l e is top-d o --w n po w e r, often without regard for q uestion s of j u stice. I n fae t , t h Qe i d e a that Hobbes ' Leviathan is the real mon ster, w hose ru l e '-V'- ill l ea d to political b reakdown and chaos, goes back to I-l o b be s ' o�rn ea r l i e st critics, who are ofte n as biblica l ly l i te rate as H obbes af'J d w h o d o

n o t miss th e more c h aotic a n d monstrous d im e n s i o n s o f Leviat han i n bibl ical l iterature . George Lawson ( 1 657) , for exam J: i e , ar ues g

against Hobbes that a commonwealth ought to b e " a

u l t i tu d e o f reasonable Men, n o t a Leviathan, w h i c h i s an i rrat i o i'J al b ru te, " m

and later characterizes Hobbes' Leviathan as " t h e great m o n st ro u s a n i mal . . . fou n d to consist of an absol u te power, an -d abs o l u te

slave ry " who keeps t h e populace in " awe and o rd e r " by the s h e e r te rror of its power alone . 1 3 P ie k ing u p o n the tradition t h at u n d e r

sta nd s Leviathan to be a b i b l i cal name for a w hale, a n o t h e r c o n te m po rary, B i s h o p J o h n B ramhall ( 1 658) , organ izes � i s c ri t i u e q a s a k i n d of chaos batt i e against H obbe s ' Leviathan, i f) wh i c h h e fi rst p i e rces i t s heart ( i t s rel igio n ) , t h e n its c h i n ( i t s i d ea o f t h e co m m o nwealth) a n d Fi nally i ts head ( i t s rat i o n a l i ty ) . B ra m hal l co nside rs that the pol i t i cal " order" Leviat h a n wou k:l mai n t a i n

w oul d be a nightmari sh reign of te rror u nd e r t h c ru l e o f a m on -

RELIG I 0 :\1 A:\ID ITS M O :"' STERS

1 00

strous s overeign who " m ay l aw fu l ly k i l l a thousand i n noce n t s every m o rn i ng fo r h i s b reakfast . " 1 4 l nde e d, i n contemporary pol itical d iscou rse, one rarely comes across a positive, H obbes ian use of the name Leviathan, as god l ike champion of order agai nst chaos. Rat h e r, as i n the works of H obbes' earl iest c ritics, Leviathan h as become synonym ou s with totalitarian state power that rules out al l part ic u l ar voices of di ssent or d i ffe re nce by terri b l e force. Leviathan has come to represent the m onster of h egem ony.

H ELLRAISER

This post- Hobbesian im age of Leviathan as a monster of poli ti cal hegemony has found its way not o n ly i nto contemporary political d i scourse but also i n to conte mporary h orror. I n Cl ive Barker's

llelfhowzd: Hellrai�er Il ( 1 988) , the se q uel to the e xtremely popu lar Helimiter ( 1 987) , Leviathan i s the name of the lord of the Labyri nth o f H el l . 1 s It i s a figu re of mon strous awe and order. Like the i m age of Lev i athan on the frontispiece of H obbes ' book, this sovereign Levi athan havers over its subj ects who wander its mazy h al l s l i ke lab rats ( F igu re

8) .

lts geometric diamond shape, its steely hard

ness, and its i ndu strial mac h i ne l ike appearance contrast sharply agai nst these weak, d isorderly, fl eshy h u man subj ects. l ndeed, the apparen t ly impen etrabl e h ard ness of this " God of flesh, h u nger and desire " exposes what everyone e l se lacks and desires. And i t does so in the most physical way, by messing with thei r ski n , that is, their

htf)e, pee l i ng back sections of their faces and tumm ies, p i n n i ng them to other spots, and exposing the soft vu l n e rable flesh i nside. The terror of Lev iathan with i n the story world of 1/ellraiter Iies i n its power to expose, to wz-hide the d read fu l mortal weaknesse s of its subord i n ate subj ects. I n the l abyri n th of Leviathan 's H e i l , there is no h i di ng. Yet i n the end, l i ke the great Wizard of

Oz,

Leviathan

and the underworld it rul e s tu rn out to be all in the m i n d . There i s nothing h id i ng b e neath Leviatha n 's own steely surfaces. l t gain s i ts power and its terror only from t hose subj ects who su bordi nate them selves to it. The Leviathan o f Heflhowzd is anything but a c haos monster in the trad ition of bi blical and postbib l ical tradition. Rather, its pre c u rsor is

H obbes ' Leviathan , a monster o f hege m o ny. T h i s

New ,11on.der,l in OM Skin.1

FIGURE 8 .

101

Leviatha n , Lord of the Labyri nth , i n Cl ive Ba rker's Hellbound: Heliraiser 11, Copyright 1 988 New World Pictu res.

Leviat h an is a modern ind ustrial monstros i ty of awe and order wit h i n w h i c h soft-sk i n n ed hu mans get caught and torn apart . l t is not a monstrou s figu re of ch aos but a monst rous f'igure of ordcr. H obbes bel ieved that h i s Lei'Ltlilhlll turned pol itics i n t o

a

science

in service of what Ri chard Tu c k cal l s " th e grand Hobbesian ente r prise of liberati ng men from terror. " l ti I n other words, 11ei 'Ltlil1a!l was intended to be an awakening of reason to stop thc prod uetion of monsters. Leviathan was not supposed to be a c h aos monster but a c h aos tam e r, a mortal god of political order against c h aos. For oth ers, h oweve r, on the o t h e r end of modern i ty, t h i s awake n i ng of rea son h as awakencd a ncw monster in old bibl i cal s k i n s : Leviathan the ord e r monste r.

C

H

A

P T E R

8

DS

O R I E N TA L I S M A N D I T S M O N S T E R S

Banqu eting plans of the ancient rabbis notwithstandi ng, most of u s do n o t knowi ngly i nvite monsters t o dinner. Generally speak i ng they are not very good guests . Not only are their table manners and d iets often atrocious, but they n ever seem q u i te abl e to avoid m ix­ ing rel igion and politics.

Sewn together from various cultural and political images of the u nknowable and unthinkable, the monster often appears

as

an index

of all that a particular culture projects as beyond its pale. 1 Monsters are conglomerations o f many diHerent forms o f otherness - cosmological, political, psychological and rel igious otherness. So i t is that one c u l tu re 's god s can become another c u l t u re 's monsters. Th i s is one way to look at the h i story of western colo­ nial i s m , maki ng monsters out of oth e r peopl e 's gods . Arnericans and western Europeans often have made their monsters from other people 's gods , that is, from the god s of u n fam i l iar, "other" rel igious trad itions. The faet that their t rave) narratives e mploy a vocabu lary

of the mon strous that is stri ki ngly close to that of G othic horror films and l iteraturc is no coincidence.

It

ind icates a deep h i storical

relati onship i n modern western cu l tu re betwecn rel igion, oriental1 03

RELI G I O N A l\ D ITS M ON ST

1 04

Eas

i s m and t h e popular c u l t u re of horror. I n faet, monsters on the sil� v e r screen of'ten re flect a l ong history of west ern Eu ropean reac� t i o n s to rel igious i deas and practices t hat d iverge from the fam iliar a n d n o rm ative . Let me begi n with the Wi nged lV\onkeys of The Wt:Za rd

( 1 939) ,

0( Oz

who w i l l provide a passage to I ndia which, while u nk nown

to most of O.z 's audiences even today, comes as no su rprise to any� o n e fam i l i ar with H i n d u rel igiou s traditions.

T H E W ITC H ' S M O N K EYS

For many o f u s growing u p i n the U n ited States d u ri n g the 1 950s,

'60s and '70s, the an n u a! television airing of T/.1e If/t:Zard of Oz was a

n ational ritual eve nt on par with Thanksgiving or the Fou rth of

J u ly. Every year in the late fal l , a maj o r n etwork (CBS from 1 9 56 to

1 967;

and

N BC from 1 968

to

1 976)

wou l d show the movie as a

p ri m e-ti m e fam i ly featu re . Every year I looked fo rward to it for weeks, hoping t h i s t im e to be able to make it through the entire m ovi e. The obstac l e : getti ng past the Wicked Witch 's Winged Mon keys ( Figure

9) .

As soon as they took to the ai r, even before

t h ey began rippi ng the stu ffi ng out of poor Scarecrow, I had to leave th e roo m . Those monkeys chased me out of the road to

Oz

a n d p u rs u ed me i n to my d ream s , their b l u e faces s m i l i ng and nod­ d i ng al l the way. For me, as for many others, the Wi nged Mon keys seern e d to stand for, or rather .f�v for, a terri ble a n d mysterious vio­ l e n c e I u rking along the edges of the right order of thi ngs and rust l i ng amid the forest bushes at every turn . S ti l l , every fall I wou l d approach the threshold of the Witch 's w i n d ow, the th reshold of that scene i n the movie once agai n , hop­ i n g fi nally to pass t h rough it and get to

Oz .

When l finally did, it

was a letdow n . I now know that those flying monkeys were not o n ly the m ost terri(yi ng; they were also the most fasc inating. They were t h e mystery that was not d issolved with water, the c u rious tug of a c u rtain or a reawak e n i ng i n the gray Kansas morn i ng. In ret­

rospect l t h i n k l was com i ng back to The Wt:Zard {l Oz eac h year not i n hope of getting past them but i n hope of meet i ng them one more

t i m e - in h ope of e ncou n t e ri ng someth ing monstrous, something that exceeded my own sense of security wit h i n the theological and moral system i n which l l ived and breathed and had my bei ng.

l OS

FIGURE 9.

Comma nder af the W i nged Monkeys in The Wizard of Oz, Copyright 1 939 M etro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

R E L I G I O :\ A:'i!D ITs Moi\' STER S

1 06

L i k e oth e r mon sters, the Wi nged 1\'l.on keys of The

U'/fzarrJ t?f' Oz

were c reated by stitching toge ther vari ous m u tual ly incompati bl e i d e ntities a n d othernesses i nto a s i ngle body. l n deed, they are c o m p lex embod i ments of category-j amming: ad mi xtu res of h u m a n , land ani mal and bird (monkeys, with wi ngs, in h u man c l oth i ng, w ho u nderstand h u man langu age) , thus blu rri ng tradi tional categories of zoological identi ty, not to mention fu ndamental modern west e rn d isti n ctions betwee n animality and hu man i ty, wilderness and c ivi l izatio n , i nvad ing chaos and m i l itary order. These m onsters, moreover, have religious precedents, that is, they are also d rawn from images of rel igious otherness. As has long been noted, they bear some resem blan c e to the mysterious wi nged , monkey-l ike gargoyles on t h e Cathedral of Notre Dam e . What h as been far less obvious to most western viewers, however, is t h e

degree t o w h i c h they are d rawn from a figu re of H i n d u religi o u s tradition, namely Hanuman, t h e heroic commander o f the m o n k ey army and helpmate of Rama who is celebrated in the later fol k l ore ( Figure

Ramayana a n d

l 0) .2 R A M A' S M O N K EY S

The

Ramayana (c. 400 BCE 300 CE) is the story of Rama's com i ng (Rama + yana, "the com ing of Rama") , the establi s h ­ m e n t of h i s d harmic rul e (ramarajya), and his fi nal retu rn to h eave n i nto the world

t o resu m e identity as Vi�nu. Hanu man enters the story when the chaos dernon Ravana kidnaps Sita, S iva's daughter, who is married

to Rama. H e carries her away from the Forest where he fou nd h e r

and ho l ds her captive in h i s island fortress, threaten i ng t o kill h e r i f she d o e s n ot subm it t o him with i n a year's t im e . Al ready we c a n s e e parallels between Ravana a n d t h e Wicked Witch, a n d between S i ta and Dorothy. B u t whereas in The

Wtzard t?( Oz the

Wi nged 1\'l.on k eys

kidnap Dorothy at the Witch 's bidding, this Hyi ng monkey Hanuman is the hero, sav i ng S ita and u l ti mately defeating the wicked Ravana. H an u man, the l eader of the monkey scouts who are sent to determ i n e Sita's whereabouts, goes to her by leap i ng across the s ea to her i sland prison . I n one of t h e most popu lar episodes, wh i l e o n

the island, Ravana sets Hanu man 's tai l on fi re (compare the Wi tch 's threats to torc h the Scarecrow in her cast l e ) and Hanu man p ro ­ c ee d s t o to rch the island with i t . U pon his retu rn , he explai ns t o

Other God.J

1 07

FIG U R E 1 0 . Hanuman. South I n d i a , Chola period, 1 2th centu ry. Bro nze, H . 58.4 cm.

Copyright The Cleveland M useu m of Art, 200 1 , John L. Severa nce Fu n d , 1980.26.

RELI GION A :\' D ITS MOi'\ STERS

1 08

Rama that the faithfu l S ita has o n ly two months to l ive. A great bat­ tie agai n st Ravana ensues, in which Rama and his al ly Lak mana are saved from certai n defeat when Hanu man bri ngs them an entire mou ntain of restorative herbs.'' They are revived, Rama slays Ravana, S ita i s rescued and Rama's d harm ic rule i s estab l i sh e d . H a n u m a n h a s saved the d ay, and the worl d . U n l i ke t h e Wi nged Monkeys of Oz, th e n , t h i s monkey fl ies, o r l ong-j u mps, for t h e good guys. Rather than captu ring Dorothy i n t h e forest a n d flying h e r back t o the Witch 's castle, h e leaves h i s forest com m u n ity and soars across the ocean t o fi nd Rama's part ner Sita who is a captive in Ravana's castle. And rather than scat tering Scarecrow 's straw guts al l over the trail t h rough the Hau nted Forest, H a n u man carrie s a mountain o f h ea l i ng h e rbs to the enchanted forest i n order to revive Rama's van q u i shed army.

H O R R I D C H A M B E R S O F I M AG E RY

Hanuman is much beloved and celebrated in I ndia. Stories about h i m are very popular among c h i l d re n and adults alike. I mages of h i m (oft:en colored blue and weari ng clot h i ng that i n elicates h i s position a s com man der of t h e monkey army) are among the most fam i l iar with i n H i nd u religious icon ography, from large pai nti ngs and sculptures to c h il d re n 's colari ng books. Yet in many popul ar j o u rnals, books, and l eetu res of western Eu ropean and American travelers to I ndia ove r the past few c e n turies, he has been represented as a monster th rough the deploy­ ment o f a vocab ul ary of horror t hat most of us are more accu stomed to seei ng in Gothic n ovel s . I n his

1 897

leetures on Ind ia, for exam­

ple, John L. Stoddard describes his visit to what he cal l s "the Monkey Temple, " a tempie to H an u man, in which he and his com panions, like Dorothy and her fel l ow t ravelers i n the Hau nted Forest, were su rrounded by "a mob of long-tai led, si mian deities . . . as they b l i nked th e ir eyes , fought and c h attered fo r the sweet meats, and p u lled each other 's tai l s i n a most u ngodly man ner. "4 Li kewi se, i n h e r

1 898

m i ss ionary travel j ou rnal,

Acro.t,l lnJia at the

Dawn tl the 2(!1.' Century, Lucy E. G u i n ness is appal led by the m any i mages of what she considers to be a monstrous god , "an i n con­ ceivably odious object . . . He is the monkey god, a shapeless scar let idol , big or littie as chance may choose, but always d i sgustingly

Other

GoJJ

1 09

ugly - a headless, l imbless, form less mass, with a d i stant approac h to the design of a sitting figu re, always dau bed with scarlet and re garded with reveren t awe . ":,

Such horror-stricken Ameri can and European reactions to

I nd i an religious v isual culture at the dawn of the twentiet h centu ry were not l i m i te d to Han u man, as Stoddard 's ge neral i mp ression of the images of deities in I nd ia c learly attests: All of the idols on the banks of the river are h ideous; some are obscene; w h i l e a few are d istinguished by the expres sion w h i c h one i s apt to assume when the p hotographer asks on e "to look p l easant " . . . 1\1any of those that have their origi n in I nd ia are too d i sgu sting to be i l l u strated , and s o m e of the carvi ngs on t h e temples of Benares are too v i l e to be described. Pictu red and read on the other side of the globe, viewed t h rough the long perspective of a score of centu ries, d i sc u ssed i n a tran scendental way in a " Parliame n t of Religions , " and j u dged of merely by its origin al sacred writings, t he Hindu faith appears to some a fine and wonderful rel igion . . . But scru ti n ize it practi cally, fac e to face, in I n dia, and it becomes the most repul sive exhibition of idolatry, fanaticism, and filth that one can wel l i magi n e . 6 Eve n Mark Twain , i n h i s

Foffowin.q t/.1e Equalor ( 1 897) , d iverges

momen tarily from his u su al sareastic style o f comme ntary on rel i ­ g i o n whe n h e describes th e vi sual theology o f t h e " H i ndoos": In faet, none of the i dols i n Benares are bandso rne or attractive. And what a swarm of them there i s ! The town is a vast m u se u m of idols - an d all of them c ru d e , mi s shapen , and ugly. They flock through one 's d reams at n ight, a w i l d mob of n ightmares. When you get tired of them i n the temples and take a trip on the river, you fi nd idol giants, flashi ly pai n ted, stretched out side by side on the shore.7 For these travel ers, l ndia's cxceedi ngly ri c h and varied rel i ­ g i o u s i magi n ation was t h e stu ff of n ightmares, a n d t h e sacred c i ty

RELIGIOJ\ A J\ 0 ITS M O N STERS

1 10

of Banaras was a rc l igious house of horrors . Deploy i ng a highly conden sed vocabulary of m o n strosi ty, d i sgu st and rel igious horror (focu sed through the b i b l i cal l e n s of proh i bitions against i dolatry ) , G u i n ness writes, Phantasmagoria - such as it seems, a strange i n c redible d ream -yet is i t a real i ty. Be nares ! . . . O I nd i a ! thy dark ness i s not the dark ness of mere ignorance, bu t the dark ness of Iies, fantastic I ies, fou l l ies, leprous Iies, diabol i cal I ies . . . thy gods are grove l i ng, bestial ; with swol l e n b e l ­ l i es, b l a c k faces, el ephant s n o u t s , and protru d i ng tongues, they gl ower on their worsh ippers from fi lthy shri nes; their name i s l egi o n , their lege n d s i n famous and monstrous . . . Who shall bri n g t h ee forth from thy d ark prison-house, from thy horrid c h ambers of image ry . . .

?13

F o r many Ameri can and Eu ropean travel e rs t o I nd i a a n d else where ove r the past several centuries (eve n today) , encounte rs with re ligious otherness, that is, with u n famil iar rel igious i d eas a n d prac tices, especially i mages of oth er god s , are translated for readers back home as e x periences of d read horror i n the face of mon sters. One might su spect t hat the use of this language of the monstrous i n such representations o f encounte rs w i t h u n fam i l iar rel i gions i s d u e t o the pervasive i n fl u e n ce of Goth i c horror l iteratu re i n the West s i n c e the begi n n i ng of the n i n eteen th century. One m ight suspect, that is, that this language i n t rave ! narratives has been borrowed from t h e Gothic ge n re . It is not so s i m pl e , however, because behind

hot/.J modern Got h i c horror and these horrified reacti ons of m odern travelers is a great c l oud of European witnesses ove r the past five centuries, who have demon ized non - Christian, non-western rel i gions by represe nti ng their gods as h orrif'ic mon sters of bibl ical proportions, espec ial ly i n terms of t h e d iabo l ical d ragon and i ts beasts from the Apocalypse of �J oh n .

D I A B O L I C A L M O N ST E R S

Fa ntastic tal es of e n coun ters "\vith mon s t ers wh i le trave l i n g i n Asia go bac k at least as 1�-t r as the late t h i rtee n t h and fou rteen th c e n turies, vvi t h t h e accou nts of Nlarco Polo, Odoric de Pord e none and

Other

God;�

111

Sir J oh n lVlan dcvi l l e . Their tal ! tales, given visual represe n tation i n the early fiftee n t h - c e n t u ry Livre de,, mcrveif/e,J a n d nu merous other popu lar book i l l u strations, conj u re frightful and faseinating i mages of strange piaces populated by monsters: 1Vlarco Pol o 's fabu lous dragon s of Caraj an and h i s l egen dary mon sters of 1\lerkites ( Figu res ( Figure

1 1 and 1 2) ; Odori c 's cycocephales on the N icobar i slan d s 1 3) , and h i s fam ous corpse-strewn " pe ri l o u s val l ey, " i n

wh i c h there l ives a wi nged devil - monster holding several s o u l s cap­ tive ( Figure

1 4) ,

and which 1\'landevi l l e wou l d later claim was o n e

of the mouths of H e l l . 9 Often these descriptions a n d d epictions are d rawn from the imagery of the dev il - d ragon and beasts in the Apocalypse of J oh n . Compare , for example, Pol o 's d ragon s with the d ragon of the Apocalypse of John d epicted i n the Cloisters Apocalypse (pictured earlier,

5) .

One of the most well-know n and widely copied representati ons of an I ndian deity as d iaboli cally mon strous was the so-cal led God of Cal icut deseribed by Lodovico de Varthema. F i rst publi shed i n I ralian i n

1 5 1 O,

over the n ext century his ltinerario was p u b l i shed i n

many d i tTe re n t editions a n d was t ranslated i n to every m aj or Eu ropean language . 1 0 l ndeed, for many Eu ropeans, Varthe m a 's God of Cal icut came to epitom ize l ndia's theological i m agi natio n a n d its i ndigenou s rel igious p racti ces a s d evotion to d iabol ical m o n strosity. Varthema descri bes an image o f " De u m o "

(dePan,

god l i n g

or local d e i ty) wh ich he p urports t o have e n cou ntered i n a small chapel at the home of his I ndian h ost, the " Ki ng of Calicut. " [ H ] is c hapel is two paces wide in each of the fou r sides, and three paces h igh , with a wooden door covered with devi l s carved i n rel i e f. In the midst of this c hapel there i s a devil made of m etal , placed in a seat also made of metal . The said devil has a c rown made l i k e that of the papa] ki ngdom, with th ree c rowns; and it also has fou r h orns and fou r teeth, with a very large mouth, nose and most terri ble eyes. The hands are made l i k e those of a fl esh­ hook, and the feet like those of a cock; so that he i s a fear­ fu l obj ect to behol d . All the pietu res aro u n d the sai d chapel are those of devils, and on eac h side of it there is a Sathanas [Satan] seated i n a seat, which seat is placed in a flame of fi re, wherei n are a great n u m ber of sou l s , of the

1 12

RELI G!Ol\' A l'\ D I TS MONSTERS

FIG U R E 1 1 . Le livre des merveilles, folio 55 versa, Marco Polo's dragons of Carajan.

FIG U R E 1 2 . Le livre des merveilles, folio 29 versa, Marco Polo's monsters of Merkites.

Other

God<�

1 13

FIGURE 1 3 . Le livre des merveilles , folio 106, Odoric's cycocepha les on the

Nicobar islands.

FIG U R E 1 4 . Le livre des merveilles , folio 1 1 5 , Odoric's " perilous va l l e(

RELI G I O:\'

1 14

AND

ITS MO\'\STE RS

le ngth of half a fi nger and a fi nger of t h e hand . And the said Sathanas holds a soul i n h is mouth with the right hand, and with t h e other seizes a soul under the waist . 1 1 Partha lVlitter rightly points out that Varthema's l anguage here d raws heav i ly on medieval H e i l and last j u dgment i magery. For the most part, he writes, this scene is " l ifted from popul ar pieture s of h e l l , where the toweri ng f'igure of Satan was often shown s i tting i n t h e m i ddle and devou ri ng s i nn e rs whi l e h i s attendant c reatu res tor t u red th e damned . " 1 2 l n deed, the woodcut i l l u stration by the Augsbu rg artist J org Breu the Elder represents the scene deseri bed by Varthema as a kind of diaboli cal l i tu rgy ( Figu re

1 5) .

The devi l 's

meal of devotees is set i n the context of a worship service i n which a woman wafts i nc e nse toward it with a censer remi n i scent of those u sed in the Roman Catholic Ch u rc h . Bre u 's i l l u stration combi nes common European visual signals for diabolical m o n s t rosity with common Eu ropean vi sual signals for Ch ri stian worsh ip. As a result the scen e becomes one of adm ixtu re, combining rel igious otherness (the bi blica l mon stro u s-diabolical-apocalyptic ) and re ligious sam e­

ness (Christian worsh i p ) . I. '

What m ight Varth ema actu ally have been seeing? Part of the mix appears to be i n spired by an i mage of Kal i , the fierce goddess of auspiciou s endings, often depicted with a biood - red tongue and ad orned with seve red h eads. But it i s i mpossible to determ i ne exactly what I ndian religious im age lay behind Varthema's descrip­ tion . The mai n reason is that what he d escribes i s far less I ndian t han i t is biblical . Wh at h e " saw " was h is own proj ection of a devil monster of the Apocalypse. Su bsequent

travel

accounts

freq u e ntly

appropriated

Varthema's God of Cal icut, often am p li(yi ng the bibli cal apocalyp­ tic i m agery in the process. I n h is popu la.r late sixteenth-ccntury itine rary, for exam ple, Jan H uygen van Li nschote n 's description of the "idol of Cal icut" is c learly an embellishment of Varthema's scene, a.ddi ng an extra face and a few other d read fu l featu res to the mon ster god, expand ing its tiny chapel i n to a fu l l - blown chu rc h ­ complete with a " Sancta Sanctorium, or rath e r Diabolori u m " - and mak i ng explicit the bi bli cal re ference to the Apocalypse o C J o h n .

1 15

Other GodJ

f Ca l i cut b Jo rg Breu the Elder in a 1 5 1 5 Augsburg y FIGURE 1 5 . I l lustration of the God o i ed i tion of Varthema, Die Ritterl ch un[d] lobwirdig Rayss , i i i i , John Carter Brown ' Li brary (repr. S cho l ars Fa cs i mi les & Repri n ts, 1992).

V At l ast wee came i nto a i l lage , where stoode a great Chu rc h of ston e, where i n Wee ente red, and fou n d noth ing i n it but a great [pictu re] that h u ng i n the m id d l e of the Chu rc h [with the I mage o f a P agode p ainted there i n] so m ishaped and deform e d , that m ore monsterous was n ever

seen e , for it had many h o rn s , a nd long teeth that h u ng out of h is mouth dow n to the k n e es, and ben eath his Navel and belly it had an other such like face, with many horn es

and t uskes . U pp o n the he ad t h ereof stood a [ tri p l e Crowned] Myte r, n o t m u c h u n like the Pop es triple cro wn , so that i n effe ct it seerne d t o b e a monster [such as are descr ibed] in the Apoc al ip s. 14

By the turn of the seven t e en th century, then, we fi n d a fai rly standard Europ ean rep resenta tion , i n word and image, of I n d ian religio n as worship of apocalyptic devi l - monst ers. This standard

RELIGION i\ :\' D ITS MONSTERS

1 16

reprc s e n t ation is based not on the wide - ranging historical and c u l tural parti c u lari ties a n d rich complexities of t h e rel igiou s vi sual cu l tu rcs of I n d ia, which are far from homoge neous, but on stock terms and c on v e n tional i m ages taken from Eu ropean traditions of b i b l i cal i n t e rp retat i o n , espccially from written descri ptions and i l lu strat i o n s o f t he ele vi l - d ragon and i t s beasts i n t h e Apocalypse of ..J o h n . 1 5 This k i n d of h o moge n i zation of a wide range of cu l tu ral d i fferences i n ter m s of a more b m i l iar i m age of monstrous othe rness is a c ommo n strategyr with in colon ial d iscourse. As Homi

K.

Bhabha points out,

such a strat egy "produces the colonized as a social real i ty which is at o n ce an 'other' and yet entirely knowable and visibl e . " 1 b The tran s lat i o n of c u l tural, espec ial ly re!ztJL�Jll�' d i ffe rences encoun tered by Eu ropean trave lers in I ndia i nto biblical apocalyptic terms of mon­ strosi ty ac h i eves preciscly this end: i t proj ects an i mage of j'ami!tizr

ot/.Jernt'•'·'· and thereby orients and stabilizes the identity of western, Eu ropean , Ch ristian, m odern , civil i zed (non-primitive, n o n-ritualis

tic) soc i e ty agai nst that proj ected i m age - at t h e expense, of cou rse, of ot h e r peopl e 's gods and their vital rel igious practices.

S U B LI M E M O N STERS

As i n other forms o f colon ial d i scou rse, representations o f "arien­ tal " re ligi o n s and their deities as mon strous works to orient weste rn, o c c i d ental rel igiou s identity. These representat i o n s supply western c u l t u rc w i th proje c t i o ns of an abso l u te and h om ogeneous oth er ness, an abso lutely not - u s , agai nst w h i c h i t can l ocate itself w ith greater stab i l i ty, h om oge nc i ty and pu rity. At the same ti m e , this colon ial d i scou rse identifies t h e coloni zers with t h e h o ly arm i e s of G od a nd t h e forces of l ight, e n l igh t c n m e n t and cos m i c rcd e m pt i o n , figh t i n g a chaos battic o f apocalyptic proportions. By d e m o n i z i ng thcse ot h e r rel igi ons, t h i s d i scourse h e l ps to j us ti fy colonial ex pan sion as holy war. Li ke t h e mon sters of Gothic horror, the representation of another god as monstrous has a discipli nary effect, pulling its v iewers away from it and back into the center of the order of things, encouragi ng them t o shore up their own identity i n te rms o f establi shed rel igious norm s . 1 ;- Yet the vert iginous space of t he monstrous solicits fascina tion as well as fear and repulsion. I n eigh teenth- and ni neteenth-cen­ t U I)' European reactions to I nd ian rel igious icon ography, for exam-

Otber God.J

1 17

ple, this desire manifests itself in a ncw category of aest hetic and rel i ­ gious experience, t h e sublime, espec ially a s devcloped by Ed m u nd Burke ( 1 754) and I m manuel Kant ( 1 79 0 ) . 1 8 The idea of the subl ime emphasizes the overwhelming sense of awe and wonder that one m igh t experience i n an encou nter with something t hat defies com prehen sion . Oft:en explicitly related to religious experience, the sub­ lime is c haracterized as that which defies comprehension by reason or i magination. Shrouded in power, vastness and obscurity, the sub­ lime sol ic its a non-rational combination of desire and fear. 1\li tter documents t h e e me rgence of the s u b li me as an alte rna tive category of aesthetic j udgm ent to beauty in Eu ropean descri p tions and depi ctions of I n d ian re l igious iconography from the m i d ­ d l e of the eightee n t h c e n t u ry onward , revea l i n g how a colonial d i scourse of ,1Llhlime nzondlrot�ily takes its place alongside the earl ier l anguage of d iaboli c monstrosity. The tone of this emerging d i s cou rse i s , moreove r, u n m istakably religi ou s . One early n i n eteenth­ century traveler, for exam ple, describes " mythological symbols and figu re s " that " l eave no room for doubt their owi ng their existence to re ligious zeal, the most povverfu l and most u n iversal agi tator of the h u man m i n d . " Another recou nts how the gloomy, gigan tic stone figu res at the tempie of El ephanta impress the m i n d "with that k i n d of u n ce rtain rel igious awe w i t h which t h e grander works of ages o f darkness are general ly contemplate d . " 1 9 I n faet, t h i s di scou rse of the monst rou s s u b li me is not only an al ternative category of aestheti c j u dgment, but also a wel l estab lished biblical category of religious experience, expressed, for example, i n psal ms t hat depict God leve l i n g mou n tai ns and s nap ping t i m be rs l i k e tvvigs, and in the divine voice from the whirlwind i n the book of J ob , p rai s i ng the incomprehensible glory of Leviathan . l t is, moreove r, essentially t h i s idea of the s u bl i me as overwhelmi ng, aweful mystery that Rudolph Otto, a post- Kantian rel igion scholar who traveled extensively in I ndia and throughout Asia, wou l d call the my,,ten.um tremendum .

D I S O R I E N TA L M O N S T E R S

I n the twe ntieth centu ry, the idea of the s u b l i m e oft-en merges w i t h a k i nd of exoti cism t hat romanticizes earl ier monstrous represe n ta

tion s of t h e gods and rituals of u n fam i l iar, " n o n -western " re l igi o n s . 20

R E LI G J O )\j A N D I T S MONSTERS

1 18

Although working large ly from in h erited c o lo n ialist projections of "orien tal " gods and ri tual s as m o n st rous, t h is d is cou rse of c o lon ial e xotici sm e mbraces and i d e n ti fies with those proj ection s as a m eans 0 f c riti q u i ng or rh:1orientin.q establ i s h ed rel igious and c u l t u ral n orms o f the " West. "

In

this d i scou rs e , then,

orie ntal monsters are

e mbraced as diloriental m o n sters. This exoticizing of colonial proj ections of other religions as mon strous is one pole of m odern primitivi s m . In modern primitivism, the responses of desire and fear, fascination and repulsion, are polarized into two cultural discou rses: fi rst, what lVlarie- Denise Shelton calls the "official " impe rial d i scourse, which affirms modern western cul­ ture " as the perfect and ultimate state of hu manity"; and second, the " poeti c " discourse, wh i c h identifies with these colonized, " p ri mitive " others as a means of condemning the modern West as "deficient and moribund. "2 1 The polarized d iscou rses of "offi cial " and " poeti c " prim itivism closely parallel the earlier di scou rses that I have deseribed as the monstrou s-diabolic and the monstrous-su blime. On the one hand, l ike those colon ial texts that make other gods i nto apocalyptic devil- monsters, "oflicial " primitivism conti nues to demonize u n famil iar religious deities and practices as i mages o f western h orror, thereby legitimati ng contin ued colonial expansion, which these days takes the form of post-national global i s m . On the other hand, " poeti c " primitivism i mbues these same colonial ist proj ections o f rel i ­ gious otherness with a k i n d of mon strous sublimity that i s inte nded to expose the West as desacral ized, abstract and alienati ng. As i n "official " pri mitivism, then, t h e gods of "prim itive" or "oriental " reli gions are often represented as monstrous, but with a rad ically d i ffer en t aim : not to orient but to disorient. H ere we fi nd a m odern poetics of i ncan tation, i n which the i m age of pri m i t ive and/o r oriental (these days c onve n i e n tly con Hated i n to the category of " non-western ") rel igious monstrosity is conj u red i n order t o c rack open a c al c i fi ed , depraved occid e n t . W e s e e this kind of " poetic " pri mitivism operating i n the v isual arts of Picasso and G augu i n , for exam ple. We also see i t in the i n te rwar period among t h i nkers l ike G eorges Batail l e , M i chael

Lei ri s , Roger Cai l l o is and the others i n volved i n the Col l ege de Socio logie and the j o u rnal Aciphale (" head l e s s " ) . Draw i ng h eavily from anth ropological studies of n o n -western myth s and "prim itive " re ligious practices, they pursued a sort of N i etzschian ,

post-

1 19

Chri stian " sacred soc iology ' ' t hat would break open the rigid ly repressive and i n c reasingly f�tsc i stic modern West.�� Throughout his writi ngs, Batai l l e i n part ic u l ar su stai n e d fe rve nt interest in non western rel igious practices, which he took to be expressions of a holy excess and e ffervescence, an "accu rsed share " of the sacred that was not red ucible t o use value within the arder of thi ngs. In his

Theory {!f'Ref�i;um, Batai l le dcscribes rel igion as a n expression of "the searc h for l ost i nti macy" wh ich is assoc iated with the sleep of rea­ son and the arou sing of monstrosity: "You are not any more d i Hc r en t from me than you r right l eg is from you r l e ft, but what j o i n s u s i s TH E S LEEP O F R EASON - \VI I ICH PRODL'CES MO:'\STERS. ":! .'i I n this passage, the s leep of reason, which sign i fies a l apse i n the vigi lant mai n tenance of the modern arder of things, and which i n Francisco G oya's famou s etc h i n g sign i fies the awake n i ng of terror, is here

embraced as the way to a sac red i ntimacy. The rel igious search for lost i ntimacy is thus assoc iated wi t h sac red monst rosity against modern western reason and obj ectivity. S i m i larly An t o n i n A rtau d 's cxube rant l 'he T heater and /t.t Double

( 1 938) call s for a " retu rn to p ri m i tive Myt h s " that can break through the abstracted, "cal c i n ated " forms of occide ntal l a nguage and l i fe, reawakeni ng a " conti n uous c reation, a whol ly magi cal action " with i n which "we have sacri fi ced our l i t t i e h u man i n dividu ality, l i ke Personages out o f the Past, with powers redi scovered in the Past. " :i -1 Artaud conceives t h i s reawak e n i ng as an embrace of vital , cosmogonic, myth i c languages i d e ntified with non -western c ult ures, wh i c h he describes i n terms t hat aften d raw toge t h e r the d i v in e, the sacred , the pri m itive and the monstrous as an objcct of n ostalgia. The theater m u st c reate n ew, old myt hs, " i n te rprctcd accord i ng to the most ancient texts d rawn from old 1v\exi can , H i n d u , J u daic, and I ranian cosmogonies . . . These gods or heroes,

the,te mon.tter,t, these natural and cosmic forces wi l l be i n te rp reted accord i ng to i m ages from the most ancient sac red texts and old cos­ mogonies. "2'' Popularized du ring thc fi rst t h i rd of the twe ntieth cen tury through publ ications l ike James Fraz e r 's Tbe Golden Boup/.1

( 1 890 1 9 1 5) and through a growing mass of a n t h ropological and mythological studies, these " m ost ancient sac red texts and old cos m ogon i e s " of god s, mon sters and m o n ster god s were seen by Artaud as a way of rej uvenati ng and resac ralizing what he bel ieved to be an i n e rt and oss i fl ed West.

R E u c r o ;-.; A N D

1 20

Li k e othe rs, Artaud tends to eq uate

ITs Mo;-.;sTERs

ancL�'nl rel igion with primi

fi�·e re ligion. The l ogic of t h i s equation is rooted i n ni neteenth-cen­ t u ry a n th ropology o f religio n , especial ly that of E.

B . Tylor.

Notic i ng s i m i laritie s among various myths and ri tu als t h roughout the world, Tylor posited his theory o f the essential " psychic u n i ty" of a l l h u man k i n d . Because o f this fun damental sameness o f al l h u man m i nds, all h u man c u l t u res must go through the same basic p h ases o f cultural evol ution. The refore, the l ogic goes, s i m ilarities between two d i ffe rent c u lt u res i n d i cate that these two c u ltu re s are at the same basic evol utionary stage . Likewise, maj o r d i fferences betwe e n two d i ffere n t cu l t u res wou ld indicate that they are at d i f ferent stages on the conti nuum of c u l t u ral evolution. Assu mi ng, as Tyl o r and oth ers d i d , that modern western cu ltu re was the most "advan c e d " along this developmental l in e , more "pri m itive " (that is, less modern ) c ul t u re s were interpreted to be more archai c . For A rtaud and others, then, i t fol lows that wc m oderns can d i scover in these so-calle d pri m itive c u lture s our own origi n , our own their myt h s and rituals w e can di scover the essential

arche. I n archetypes o f

h u m an ity. By t h e early twen tieth centu ry, m uc h o f Tylor's work had bee n thoroughly i nterrogated, compli cated and o ften ahan­ doned

by o t h e r an t h ro p o l ogists

and

h i storians

o f rel igi o n .

Non etheless, h i s ideas persist in the modern association of the prim itive with the archaic to this day. In th e poetic p ri m itivism of Artaud , Batai l l e and others, the religious otherness that is rep u l sed as monstrous i n earli e r colon i al discourse as a means of

orientin_q and stabi l i z i ng modern western society i s em braced as a means o f {)[:,orLentin,q and re,,acra!iiin,q that society, of break i ng i t up in order to open new possibi lities. I n many respects, then, "official " p ri m itivi sm and "poeti c " primitivism are two sides o f the same colonial c o in . For both sides, the gods and ritua l s o f " p ri m i tive " c u l tu res are oft e n represented as monstrou s threats to m odern western identity. The d i ffe re nce is that w h i l e one side condemns and banishes this m onstrous threat, the other h osts it. The monstrosity that you have rej ected is the monstrosity that I em b race. What is accu rsed to you is sacred to m e . This desire to em brace such projections of monst rou s otherness is in a way apoc­ alypti c , a solicitation o f chaogony expected t o '.lsher i n the end o f the w o r l d as westerners have come to kno"v it i n o r d e r t h a t some t h i ng radical ly new m ight be born . lt is a call for t h e u ng rou n d i ng

Other God.J

121

a n d u n homing of oneself, one 's c u l tu re a n d one 's worl d . H erc thc sacred i s associated not with order but with c h aos, not with the champion of the c haos battie who slays the monster but with thc chaos monster itself. In the course of these c u l t u ral transformations, no matter how radical, we m u st not forget that the i mage of d ivine mon strosity that is being e mbraced in these discou rses is an i mage of the "prim­ itive , " the "oriental " andfor the "non-western " that i s more a pro j ection of one 's own rel igious oth crness than it i s a retleetion of another rel igion. l t is not an e m b race of that rel igion i n its c u l t u ral and h i stori cal partic u l arity. Rather, it is a western proj ection of it. A lthough often pol itical ly rad i cal and transgressive, such e m b races of monstrous otherness are themselves caught in the embrace of the even wider arms of a l o ng and pervasive h i story of colonial i s m .

C

H

A

P T E R

9

I s THE L I F E

R I T U A L P U R I TY A N D D A N G E R I N D R A C U L A

[ Renfield] was lyi ng o n his belly o n the floor I ieking up, l i ke a dog, the blood which had fallen from my wounded wrist . . . " The blood is the life ! the blood is the l i fe ! " - Bram Stoker, Dracu!a 1 Only bc su re that thou eat not of the blood : for the blood is the l i fe . - Deuteronomy 1 2 :232 And the leper i n whom the plague is, his clothes shal l be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his u pper li p , and shall c ry, U nclean, unclean . - Leviticus 1 3:45 [i\ li na H arker J sank on her k nees on the floor in an agony of abasemcnt. Pulling her beautifu l hair over her face, as the leper of old his mande, she wailed out: " Unelean ! U nelean ! Even the Almighty shuns my pol ­ luted flesh ! " - IJmcu!a ' 1 23

1 24

R E LI G I O :'\ A :\ D ITs Mo:'I STERS

Bram Stoker's Dracula ( 1 897) is a story of English ri tual puri ty and dange r. I n this novel, i t is the purity of Victorian English cultu re, especial ly its modern gentleman patriarchs and their beloved and lovely women, that is e ndangered by the contami nating effects of Cou nt Dracula. Dracula is presented as a monstrous embodi ment of all that modern England projects as other, not-us. H is coming is represented as an invasion of u ndean otherness that threatens national purity one fernaJe body at a time. This monstrous threat of contamination is conveyed in the novel th rough p riestly biblical terms of purity and danger, and much of the story concerns the rit­ u al means employed by the monster-slaying heroes i n order to erad­ icate that contamination and thereby resacralize England as the sacred cosmic and pol itical center of c reation. TH E COU NT'S R ELI G I O N

Much like the novel itself, which is pieced together as a cal leetion of dated journal entries, transeribed audio recordings, letters and newspaper dippi ngs fro m a variety of sources, Stoker's monster is pieced together from various elements of cultural otherness, a con­ giorneration of t abooed and wzheim!ich identities and behaviors that would have been perceived as th reatening to modern Victorian English identity and national stability at the turn of the twen tieth centu ry. Dracula is a personification of an invasive cultural not-us, what Nina Auerbach calls "a compendi u m of fin-de-siede phobias. " 4 l ndeed, that D racula is nol ,qood f7n.q!t:th is signaled i n t he most literal way by his non-naturalized and arti ficial u se of modern English lan­ guage. Jonathan Harker's first impression when he visits Dracula at his eastie in Transylvania is that he speaks "in excellent English, but with a strange i ntonation. "5 Dracula wants to pass as English, he confides to Jonathan , but fears that someone will hear him speak and c ry out, " Ha, ha l a stranger ! "6 That Dracula's English is not good ind icates the more ominous sense in which this monster, who is about to take up residency in London, is not good English. But t h e heart and soul of this mon strous personification of cul­ t u ral otherness, t he heart and soul of Dracula, is deeply religious. That this monster has deep religiou s roots is i ndicated by his very name, which identi f'i es him with the biblical trad ition of diabolical m o n strosity, especially with the great devil -dragon of the

Tbe Blooo IJ tbe Ltfe

1 25

Ap o calypse o f .Jo h n . Cou n t Drac ula was narned after the Rom anian Pri nce Vlad of Wal lachia (d. 1 476) , f'a mous for impaling enem ies and his own nobility on stakes araund his castle. His f�tm­ ily c rest bore the Order of the Dragon, or dracul. His htther was Vlad D racul, or Vlad the Dragon, and he himself was called Vlad Dracula or Vlad the Son of Dracul.7 In Romanian, moreover, the word dracul can mean either "the dragon " or "the devi l . " Th is asso­ ciati on of dragon and devil p robably derives from the diabolical dragon i n the Apocalypse of John, who is introduced as "the great dragon [Greek drakon , Lati n {)raco] , that ancient serpent who is cal l ed the Devil and Satan " ( 1 2 :9; 20:2) . Thus the name of Stoker's monster identi fies him not only with a legendary ruler and his reign of terror but also with a long line of diabolical dragons in English literary and religious tradition: from the dragon that is killed by St. George, the patron saint of England, back to the gold-hoarding dragon (dram) that kills and is killed by Beowulf, and back to the great devil-dragon of the Apocalypse who is defeated by the arehangel Michael and ultimately sent to the abyss by God. Yet Dracula is by no means reducible to the diaboli cal . At sev­ eral poi nts, in faet, he is deseri bed in distinctly biblical terms that suggest a certai n divine semblance. When J onathan recou nts see­ ing Dracula c rawling along the outside wall of the castle, for exam­ ple , he asks in despai r, "What manner of man is this? "�' This is pre­ cisely the same question that is voiced by Jesus ' disciples in Matthew 8 when he awakes from his sleep aboard their boat and cal ms the stormy seas. Later in the novel, Dracula, too, demon­ strates his com mand over the elements (albeit stirri ng them up rather than calm ing them down) while s leepi ng aboard the ship bound for England. At another poi nt, lVlina describes his appear­ an ce in her bedroom as a " pillar of cloud, " which is one of the forms G od takes while guiding the people of Israel i n the wilderness dur­ ing their exodus from Egypt ( Exodus 1 3:2 1 ) . 1\'lina thus envisions the coming of D rac ula i n a traditional biblical form of divine pres­ en ce. These representations of Dracula i n terms of divinity work against redu cing h i m to a si m ple diabolical figure of the anti-God . H e i s , rather, a dangerous admixture good and evi l, divine and demonic, holy and accursed. " For i t is not the least of' its terrors t hat th i s evil thing is rooted deep i n all good; in soi l barren of holy mem ories it ean not rest. "9

1 26

RELIGIO:\ A:\ D ITs Mo�sTERs

Stoker's novel is, moreover, deeply embedded in the larger dis courses of late colonialism and primitivism , and his monster is in m any respects a projection of modern western representations of unfamiliar religious traditions. I n faet, the n ovel 's fi rs t fou r c hap­ ters are strikingly reminiscent of the late nineteenth-centu ry travel narratives discussed in the previous c hapter. I n the novel, we read Jonathan 's dated journal e ntries recou nting his in itial voyage into the u n fam i l iar, non-occidental and rel igiou sly pri m i tive Tran sylvanian homeland of the Cou nt. As the name of the region suggests (tran,1 + .lll,•a, "ac ross" or "beyond the wilderness ") , this region is presented as an unstable and d islocati ng threshold space between the occidental and the oriental . I n the first paragraph of his journal , Jonathan Harker writes, "The im pression I had was that we were leavi ng the West and entering the East, " c rossing over by way of a bridge whose architectu re he describes as " most Western . " 1 0 The particular district in which the Count's eastie is sit­ uated, moreover, is si m ultaneously in the easternmost region of the West and a borderland betwee n regions: " I f1 nd that the district he narned is i n the extreme east of the cou ntry, just on the borders of three states, Transylvania, iYloldavia, and Bukovina, i n the midst of the Carpath ian mou ntai ns; one of the wildest and least known por­ tions of Europe. " 1 1 As the story begi ns, J onathan 's trave! journal accumulates a disorienting col lection of terms con noting both east­ ernness and between ness. As a result, the geographical location of Drac u la's home is that of otherness within sameness: the East within the West, the Orien t within the Occident, accessible by a "most Western " bridge . lt is neither i nside nor ou tside. I t is both i nside and outside. The religious identity of Dracula's homeland likewise repre­ sents otherness withi n sameness. It is a land steeped in Christian religious traditions that are rep resented as primitive, non-western and non- English. Jonathan locates it i n a horseshoe of the moun­ tains that is commonly known to be the center of the storm of prim­ itive religious ideas and practices from arou nd the world: "I read that every known superstirion in the world is gathered into the horseshoe of the Carpathians, as if it were the centre of some imag­ i native wh irlpool . " 1 1 The geographical strangeness of Dracu la's region is thus linked to rel igious ideas and practices that are foreign to a modern Protestant " Engl ish Ch u rchman " like Jonathan but

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127

that are nonetheless Christian . As such, this foreign form of Christianity - i nduding its folk traditions of vampires and the u ndead, of which Dracula is presented as living dead proof- is a figure of the unheimfich withi n Christianity. I t is an other, non-west­ ern, primitive Ch ristianity that threatens Ch ristianity 's place withi n t h e m odern, scientific West. As Professor Van H el si ng later explains, "the old centuries had, and have powers of their own which mere ' modernity' eannot kill . " l. > Still later, he makes Dracu la's identification with the supernatu ral , non-rational powers of this threateningly pri mitive Christianity most explicit: "The very place where he have been alive, Un- Dead for all these centu ries, is ful l of strangeness . " 1 4 Dracula and his homeland are thus projected as primiiiile refigimt. otherne.M within, a dreadfully monstrous retu rn of the repressed withi n modern English Christianity that ean not be red uced to scientific explanation. Stoker's personification of Dracula i n terms of a monstrously threatening religious otherness is not limited, however, to his iden­ tifi cation with t h ese p roj ections of primi tive, non -western Christianity. As J u d ith Halherstam has shown, Dracula is also rep­ resented, i n certai n respects, as a personification of anti-Semitic caricatures of European J ewish identity. These stereotypes are particularly evident in references to Dracula's relation to money (especially gold) , to his parasitism, to his moral degeneracy, and to what Jonathan call s his "very marked physiognomy, " including a hooked nose, arehed nostrils, poi nted ears and an elongated body. 1 '' J onathan 's reference to physiognomy and later descriptions of Dracula i n terms of the pseudo-science of criminal and racial types suggest a m atching of Dracula's physical appearance with anti­ Semitic typologi es o f J ewish physical identity which were perva­ sive i n n ineteenth-century Europe and which were precursive to the pseudo-science of the Nazis. In this respect, Dracula may be read as a novel about the not so culturally repressed horrors of J ewish i m migration i nto England during the 1 890s, especially fro m Eastern Europe. Perhaps the m ost explicit identi fication of Drac ula with J udaism comes from one of the workers who haul coffins to Dracula's castle: "the place was so neglected that yer might 'ave smelled ole Jerusalem in it. " l lalberstam comments, "to him the smell is a Jewish smell. Like the diseases attributcd to the J ews as

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ITs

MON STE RS

a race, bod ily odors, people assu med, j ust clung to them and marked them out as d i fferent and, i ndeed, rep ugnant obj ects of pol­ lution . " ' (' Yet this is no simple associ ation of J udaism with poll u tion and repugnance Jerusalem i n l ate ni neteenth-century England was also, in a great deal or popular rel igious geography, represented positively as the s(!cred center of creation, the holy mountai n, and the pri m a.ry locus of' d ivine revelat ion. Given this cultural back­ ground, this passage seems to be identi (yi ng the abominableness of Dracula with a place that would carry both positive and negative rel igious con notations for many readers. I nsofar as this passage identifies Jerusalem with antiquity, m oreover, it also stirs up another kind of ambivalence with regard to the archaic: the archai c a s t h e arche, t h e sacred origi n of t h e world a n d t h e Word; but also the arc haic as t h e pri m it ive, savage, agai nst which modern Eu ropean civi lization Jefines itself. H ere .J erusale m and Judaism, identi fled with Drac ula, appear to stand for both . By identi(ying Drac ula with J udaism and p r i mi tive Ch ristianity, this monster comes to represent religious otherness within sameness. I ndeed, for modern Protestant European cultu res, often has posed a kind of identity c risis. On the one hand, theologically, Ch ristian identity relies on maintain ing its identifica­ tion with J udaism as i t s own religious heritage: the God of I s rael is the God of the Church, the God who calls Abraham and Sarah calls Christians, and so on. On the other hand, Ch ristianity has more often than not defined itself against J udaism, even clai m i ng to supersede Judaism by declaring that, by rejecting the gospel, Jews forfeited their status as the chosen people, and that the new Israel is therefore the Christian church. 1\lodern (especial ly Protestant) Ch rist ian discou rse often regards Judaism with deep am bivalence, as both "us" and "them, '' self and other. Thus .Jewish identity has often occu pied a particular i n-between space i n modern Eu ropean thought. As with Dracula's identifi cation with primitive, non-west­ ern Ch ristian ity, then , this identification of Dracula with anti­ Semitic stereotypes oC Je,vish ness adds to his representation as a monstrous personification of rcl igious otherness within sameness. 1 1 Stoker's monster is also identified with a more exotic figure of so-called prim itive rel igion, namely t he ancient G reek and Roman god Dionysus, the god of m adness, ecstasy, wine and blood, called "render ol' men " and " eater of raw f1esh. " '� In the Roman Empire, .

•

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1 29

the religion of Dionysus was a promi nent rival to an emerging Christianity, and Christian tradition has n ever quite f'o rgotten that rival ry. l ndeed, Ch ristian identity has continued to define itself agai nst Dianysian rel igion , despite the faet that its rival has long since disappeared. Dracu la's appearance i n Stoker's England is, i n some respects, a n apocalyptic i nvasion o f t h e Dianysian simi lar to Dionysu s 's invasion of Thebes in Euripides' The Bacchae. Like Drac ula, Dionysus is most at home in the forests and mountai ns outside the city, as well as i n the margins of G reek, Roman , and, later on, Ch ristian religion. Like Dracula, Dionysus is strongly associated with an imal ity and gender am bigu ity, which in turn is associated with the transgression of established social and sexual norms. H e leads hosts of society 's most upsranding women to break with their patriarchal familial obligations as good wives and moth­ ers i n order to become ecstatic maenads of the wilderness, suekling an imals and ripping the prince oC Thebes to pieces. 1 9 And like Dracula, Dionysus req u i res the spilling of h uman blood. Dionysus thus provides yet another screen for proj ecting Drac ula as an image of monstrous religiou s otherness. LAW S P E RTA I N I N G TO B LO O D

Dracula's arrival in England represents a erisis of apocalyptic pro­ portions. His invasion threatens not only the i ndividual bodies and souls of those who come in contact with hi m, and not only London, which figures in the novel as a kind of new Jerusalem, the holy city of God 's England, but the entire cosmos. Dracula threatens to con­ taminate the sacred purity of all of creation, from body to house to nation to cosmos. Yet, although the impl ications are broadly cosmic, the means of contami nation is most personal and intimate: it travels from (monstrous male) body to (English female) body through the consum ption of blood, w h ich is conceived as the very essence of the life force and a means of immediate carnal knowledge. Behind this idea of contami nation via blood is a biblical prohi­ bition against consu m ing blood , and behind that a theological u nderstanding of' blood as life . The main Scriptu re lesson on blood is given by Ren field, the resident "zoophagous (life-eating) man iac " in Dr. Seward 's sanitariu m , who has a special hankering for insects, spiders and other small l ives.�0 One evening i n Seward 's study,

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Renfield storms in and attacks him with a kitchen knife, cutting his wrist severely. Seward 's blood trickles i nto a pool on the carpet, and Renfield, who has been k nocked to the grou nd, begins lapping it up l ike a dog. l\1oments later, as the attendants secure him and lead him back to his cell, Seward hears him repeati ng "The blood is the li fe ! the blood is the life ! "2 1 Later i n the story, Renfield explai ns to Seward and the others that the line he was repeating that day is the biblical text that p rovides the basis for his "zoophagous " practices: l used to fan cy that l i fe was a positive and perpetual

entity, and that by consuming a mu ltitude of living things, no m atter how low in the scale of c reation, one might indefinitely prolong l i fe. At times l held the belief so strongly that l actually tried to take hu man l i fe. The doc­ tor here will bear me out that on one occasion l tried to kill h i m for the pu rpose of strengthening my vital powers by the assi milation with my own body of his life th rough the medium of his blood - relying, of course, upon the Scri ptural phrase, " For the blood is the life . "n As elsewhere, Ren field is operating withi n a biblical rel igious idiom that appears distu rbingly alien to the modern, scientific m i ndset of Dr. Seward, who never seems to catch his references.2'3 Yet Renfield 's explication here only scratches the surface. We need to open u p his Bible and delve a l ittie deeper in order to tap into his vein of thought. The particular biblical passage to which Renfield refers is part of a dietary regulation p rohibiti ng the consum ption of blood: "Only be su re that thou eat not the blood: for the h!ood i1 the !�(e; and thou m ayest not eat of the l i fe with the H e s h " ( Oeuteronomy 1 2: 23) . This passage is part of a larger network of passages concerning meat-eating that identi(y blood with life ( Hebrew nephe,1h, someti mes translated as "soul ") as distinct from flesh (haJar) . This text permits one to eat flesh but not the life, that is, the blood, along with the flesh . So also i n Genesis 9 :4, after the f1ood, Noah is i nstructed that they may eat animal flesh, "but the flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. " Blood is li fe, flesh is not. While people are allowed to eat flesh, al l blood , that is life, is God 's and God 's alone.:!4 In contrast to the practices of other nations, the consum ption of blood is p resented i n

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b ib lical dietary laws a s an abom ination . Not only wou ld i t render th e blood-eater accursed, but it wou ld contami nate the Holy Land its elf and, by extension , the very order of c reation. So also in Dracula . N ot only does Dracula's consu mption of b lo od/l i fe render himsel f and his victims abomi nable, but it endan­ ge rs the enti re Holy Land of England as well as the entire ordcr of cre ation. In this l ight, moreover, ou r zoophagous maniac biblical scholar Ren field occupies a particularly significant place vis-a-vis Dracula and the others. Although he is i n freq uent comm u nication with Seward , Mina and Van Helsing, and although he ultimately tries to help them defeat Dracula, he is clearly identified with Dracula from the start by his biblically abom inable desire to consume life­ i n-blood . Beyond this, he is also li nked to Drac ula by his identity as insane, a term t hat suggests psychic impurity. To be called "sanc" is to be diagnosed by a c u ltu re and its psychological priesthood as psychically pure, clean, .wnitary . To be cal led "i nsane" is to be diag­ nosed as psychically impure, contaminated, wz,lalll·fary . The insane subj ect is kept from contact with others in a ,1anitan:um, which maintains and p rotects the sanitation of the society outside its wal ls. Dr. Seward 's failure to contain him within the walls of thc san itar ium, and his fail u re to keep him from getting through to 1V1ina, who shows great sympathy for him, represents a t h reat of contamination that parallels Dracula's th reat. Renfield, as psychically contami­ nated and communicable, is a harbioger of the lV1aster's coming. Like John the Baptist (another socially marginal m ad man who eats i nsects and i nvades mainstream culture with provocative procla­ mations) , the abominable Renfield prepares thc way for the coming of the Master of contami nation. F L E S H O F M Y F L E S H , B L O O D O F MY B L O O D

lf the blood is the life, then the blood of Dracula th reatens to con­ tam inate the distinction between life and death, relocating his sub­ j ects in the between state of u ndeath. At the heart and sou l of this novel is the ritual concern, simultaneously scientific and priestly, for proper and i mproper passage of blood between bodies, espe­ cially between male and female bodies. F'or blood is not simply li f'e , but also masculine potcncy, and Dracula's blood not only threatens

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A l'\ D

ITS MONSTERS

to contami nate the distinction betvveen life and death; it also endan­ gers the patriarchal order of fam ilial relations, which are at the heart and soul of l arger Victorian society (not to mention contem porary N orth American society) . As the blood of Dracula com mi ngies with that of Lucy Westen ra and iV\i n a Harker, they are stolen out from u nder the patronage of the men who love them (i\'\ ina's husband J onathan, Lucy 's f'iance Arthur, her fru strated cou rtiers Dr. Seward and Qui n cey Morris, and their grand father-figure Professor Van Helsi ng) and in to the bosom of the monster. Transfer of patriarchal possession is accomplished by the transfer of blood . The most revealing scene in this regard is the so-cal led "primal scene" i n which Seward, Van H elsing, Arthu r and Quincey catch Dracu la i n t h e aet o f n u rsing 1\1.ina o n h i s own blood while .J onathan I ies sleep­ i ng on the bed next to them . In contrast to Dracu la, who storms in through windows, these gentleman ly monster slayers only hesi­ tantly b reak the lock and enter Mina's room, concerned as ever with the conventions of appropriate social interaction between men 's and women 's spaces. What they see u pon entering elicits in Seward a most l iteral sensation of horror ( Lati n horror, "bristl i ng") : " I felt my hair rise like b ristles on the back of my neck. "25 The scene is a mix of maternal i ntimacy, sexual violence and adu l tery. Jonathan lay dazed on the bed , "his face flush, and breathi ng heav­ ily as though in a stupor, " while Mina k nelt beside him being force­ n u rsed from Dracu la's bosom: "his right hand gripped her by the back of the neck, forci ng her face down on his bosom. Her white nigh tdress was s meared with blood, and a thin stream trickled down the man 's bare breast, which was shown by the torn-open d ress. The attitude of the two had a terrible resemblance to a child forci ng a k itten 's n ose i nto a saucer of milk to compel it to drink. " 26 This scene is, moreover, suffused with terms of abomination, much of which echo bibl ical discou rse: lV\.ina's white dress stai ned with blood; blood consumption by both lY\i na and Dracula; gender ambiguity in Drac u l a as maternaJ male; suggestions of h uman-ani­ mal i ntimacy (lY\ina as kitten; Dracula, a few sentences later, as "wild beast") . Caught i n the aet, Dracula escapes i n a mist. And as the stupe­ tying blur of violcnce and ahorni nable intimacy disappear like vapor along with their u ndead harbinger, Jonathan awakens with

Tbe Blood l.J tbe Life

1 33

a shock and leaps out of bed . Hastily pul t i ng on his c lothes, he cries o ut indignantly, " My God, my God ! has i t come to t his l . . Guard h er while I look for bt"m l "27 Mina is now clearly torn between two worlds and two men: embraced by her beloved Jonathan while his comrades stand beside her, she notices that her lips, s meared with a m i ngli ng of Dracu la's and her own blood, have stained Jonathan 's n ight-robe. At this point she declares her own state of i m pu rity: " Un clean, u nclean l I must touc h him [Jonathan] or kiss him no more . " 2R The purity of her u nion to Jonathan now contaminated, she q uaran­ tines herself from him. Later, when her forehead is singed by a com­ m u n ion wafer that Van H el sing touches to it, s he makes a similar prenouncement on her own impu rity, and this ti me the biblical sub­ text is u n mistakable: " She sank on her knees on the floor in an agony of abasement. Pulling her beautifu l hair over her face, as the leper of old his mantle, she wailed out: 'U n clean ! U nclean ! Even the Al mighty shuns my polluted flesh l "'2'J Here her ahorni nable state is c learly identified with the state of leprosy as presented i n ritual purity codes o f Leviticus 1 3, where, once diagnosed, the leper must cover her or his upper lip and cal l out " unclean, u nc lean " while i n public. Not only does iVli na's leper-like uncleanness signi fy her n ew p hysiological state, which is now intimately com mi ngled with the blood of a monster. lt also sign i fies her m arital and theo­ logical state. Her u n cleanness centami nates the sanctity of her u nion with Jonathan and with God . The blood of D racula not only threatens to contami nate the d istin ction between l i fe and death, relocating his subjects in the between-state of u ndeath; it also endangers the sanctity of marriage, framed i n patriarchal terms as the right of the h usband to have sole proprietary access to his wife . She a n d Dracula are scandalous newlyweds, a s Dracula himself m akes most explicit i n a declaration of marriage that both d raws from and twists the biblical story of the world 's first marriage betwee n Adam and his " helper" or "companion " Eve: whereas i n that story Adam declares Eve to b e "bone o f my bone, flesh o f my flesh , " Dracula declares, "And you , their best beloved one, are now to me flesh of my flesh; blood of my blood ; kin of my kin; my hou n ­ tifu l winepress for a w hile; and s hall later on b e my campanion and my helper. "30 With this mangli ng of the first bibli cal declaration of marriage, Dracula's u n ion with lVl.ina is p resented not only as a con.

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A:"':D

ITS MONST E Rs

tami nation of the sanctity of marriage but also an u ndoing of cre ­ ation. H ere again, the cosmi c order of creation and the social ord e r of m arriage are intim ately related. The contami nation of one is rep­ resented as the contamination of the other. Dracula is a c haos mon­ ster who i nvades the divinely ordained order of the cosmos by i nvading the d ivinely ordained i nstitution of m arriage. R I T U A L S O F R E S A C R A L I Z AT I O N

Rituals often provide the means for an i ndividual or a com munity to pass from one state of being to another. So it is in Dracula . The con­ tamination introduced by Dracula, which fu ndamentally alters the state of Lucy and Mina, must be combated by the male heroes of the story with specific rituals that work to resacralize and reorient their women and their world. The purpose of these rituals is to pass the individual bodies and souls of Lucy and lVlina to the right order of things and, in so doing, to eradicate the chaos m onster who threat­ ens not only them and their society but the very order of creation. The men perform two kinds of ritual airned at resacralizing their wom e n and their world. One is the modern medical rite of blood transfusion, performed on Lucy, the i neffectiveness of which suggests the terri f}ring ineffectiveness of m odern western medical science i n the face of this unheimfich outbreak of the primitive and non western. The other is the ritual slaying of chaos monsters, first the u n dead monster Lucy and finally the king of monsters Dracula. U nlike the modern medical ri tes practiced i n itially on Lucy, these rites, which are identi fied with primitive, non-western religion, prove effective. But both kinds of ritual , the modern and the pri m ­ itive, are overseen by Van Helsing. Both professor of m odern med­ ical science and high priest of pri mitive occultism, he does not hes­ itate to wield garlic Howers, a communion wafer, a stake, or an occult missal when the ritual need arises. TRAN S FU S I O N

Transfu sions from the gentlemen i nto Lucy serve as a ritual means of repossessing the woman they all love (at the beginning of the novel, Qu ncey 1\lorris, Dr. Seward and Arthur Godal ming were all seeking to m arry her) . As with Mina, the passing of blood between

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D racu la and Lucy is construed as a sexual u nion that severs her b etrothai to Arth u r and her bonds with the other suitors. These blood transFu sions ai m to take her back. Each is represented as an i n timate u nion, aj[�..,ion, of two bodies. After Lucy 's f' rst transfusion from her Fiance Arthu r, a "transFer From ful l veins of one to the empty veins which pine for hi m , "·' 1 Lucy w rites i n her diary, "Somehow Arthu r feels very, very close to me. I seem to feel his presence warm about me. "·'2 Late r Arthur says "that he felt since then [the f'irst transfusion] as i f they two had been really married, and that she was his wife i n the sight of God. "·'·' Reflecting on his own transfusion oF blood to Lucy the next day, Or. Seward, who had al so sought her hand i n m arriage, writes, "I t was with a feeling oF personal pride that I could see a faint ti nge of colou r steal back into the pallid cheeks and lips. No man k nows till he experiences it, what it is to feel his own life-blood drawn away into the veins of the woman he loves. "·'4 Soon after, Van Helsing and then Quincey Morris also give blood to Lucy. (J onathan , who is married to another, does not. To do so would be adulterous.) After iVlorris gives blood, he wants to make sure that Arthu r was the f'irst to do so. Upon learning that he is the fourth i n ten days, he remarks, "then I guess, J ack Seward, that that poor pretty c reatu re that we all love has had put i nto her veins with i n that time the blood of fou r strong m e n . "3:' Recogn izing t h e scandalously intimate u n ions efl'e cted by these other transFusions, Seward m akes clear that none of the men will ever tell Arthur. These transfusions are a means of reclai m i ng Lucy not only from the borderland between life and death but al so from her u nion with Dracu la, which has been brought about by the i ntimate pass­ i ng of blood between them. They are rituals of marital union that aim to divorce her from her u ndead partner. Yet replacement of blood does nothing to undo its contami nation, and it soon becomes clear to the men that transfusions are not enough to repossess their woman and to reestablish the order of creatio n . These transfusions eannot repu ri(y their blood, now intermi ngled with the Count's. 1\'lodern , scientif'ic medical practice eannot filter out the archaic and primitive powers of this monstrosity. For "the old centu ries had, and have powers of their own which mere 'modern ity' eannot kill. "3(; I t gradually becomes clear t hat Dracula's archaic and pri m ­ itive powers must b e cou ntered with archaic and primitive rites.

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A :\' D I T S MO:-.JSTERS

ONE WEDDING AND A FU N ERAL

After her burial, the men discover that Lucy has hersel f become an u ndead monster, now ful ly wedded to Dracula. Since she is caught in a liminal state between life and death, Van Helsing explains, they must kill her once and for all in order to divorce her from Dracula and send her to heaven , where she will wait for her beloved Arthur. This killing of the monster in her is carried out under the h igh priest Van Helsing's direction according to a carefully preseribed ritual pro­ cedure that is presented as a combination of a mythic battie against a chaos monster, a wedding and the consu mmation of marriage. The procedure takes two nights. On the first n ight Van H elsing seals her into her tomb by packing a putty compou nd made from a comm u nion wafer into the cracks around the door, "the sacred clos­ ing of her means of entry, " while the others take their piaces around him "in respectful silence . " Thus her space, the monster space, is marked off from the rest of the world as the site for the sacred rite.37 The next day, after other cemetery visitars have left the area, they begi n the mai n procedure , which is deseribed i n extraordi narily m i n ute detail , even for Stoker. 'll As they cross into the demarcated tomb area, Van Helsing fli rther marks the ritual space by lighting it with a lamp and two eandies which are set on two nearby coffins. H e then removes fro m his bag a variety of i nstruments, some sig­ naling modern industry and medicine (a soldering iron, soldering wire) , others occult religion (a wooden stake with a sharp, char­ hardened poi nt, and a mallet) . With these objects laid out, he gives a brief homily on the nature and history of the undead, and explains the ritual procedure by which Lucy may fi nally "rest as true dead . " The text for this homily is not one that might b e found next t o the hym n al i n Westmi nster Abbey. Rather, he explains, "it is out of the Iore and experience of the ancients and of all those who have stud­ ied the powers of the Un- Dead . " Van H elsi ng's homily concludes with a n al tar call: the one who must be the cen tral actor i n this ritual , Van H elsing declares, is "hi m that loved her best; the hand that of al l she wou ld herself have chosen . . . Tel l me if there be such a one amongst us. " Arthur steps forvvard, of course, and Van Helsing assures him that as he carries out the task, "we, your true friends, are round you, and that we pray for you al l the time. "

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As Van H elsing opens and reads aloud his missal of prayers for the dead, and as Seward and Qui ncey follow along as best they can, Arthu r takes the stake and pou nds it into Lucy. Li kened to the story of Thor slayi ng the king of the frost giants with his ham mer, this ritual slaughter is presented as a I itu rgicaJ reenactment of a mythic battie agai nst a chaos monster: The Thing i n the coffi n writhed; and a hideous, blood-cur­ dling screech came from the opened red l ips. The body shook and quivered and twisted in wild contortions; the sharp white teeth champed together till the lips were cut and the mouth was smeared with a c ri mson foam. But Arthu r n ever faltered. H e looked like a figu re of Thor as his untrembl ing arm rose and fel l . . . the sight of it gave us courage, so that our voices seerned to ring through the littie vault. As the chaos monster is k illed, the p ristine, sacred body of Lucy returns, " Lucy as we had seen her i n l i fe, with her face of u nequalied sweetness and purity. " This is a resacral ized Lucy, the monster now as far removed from her as east is from west. And as a " holy calm . . . lay like sunshine" over the resacralized body, the tone quickly shifts from chaos battie to a morn i ng wedding. Like a minister p resenting the bride and groom to the congregation, Van Helsing declares to the monster k i lier, "And now, my c hild, you may kiss her. " Lucy is thereby divorced from the lord o f the undead and wed to Arthu r. As they leave the tomb, Seward sees "glad ness and m irth and peace everywhere, for we were at rest with ourselves on one account. " The ritual repossession and resacralization of Lucy is com plete, and once again all is right with the world. L A S T B A TT L E

But to resacralize lYlina - that is, to re store and repossess her from her state of abominable union with Dracula - is another matter. For this to be accompl ished, the king of chaos monsters himself must be slai n . 1\'lina is torn between two lovers, married and u n fail i ngly devoted t o Jonathan , yet flesh o f Dracu la's flesh a n d psych i ­ cally attuned t o him a n d his wil l . For t h e sake of her marriage, and

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RELIGIO:'\ A N D ITS M O N STE RS

for the sake of the w hole world, the chaos monster Dracula h i m self m ust bc dest royed . As with the ritual slaying of the undead Lucy, this fi nal slaying of Dracula begi ns as the reenactment of a mythic chaos battie and ends in marit al bliss. lt works not on ly to repossess and resacralize 1\lina but al so to recstabl ish and resac ralize the right order of c re­ ation as well as the right order of Engl ish marriage, family and other cl ose ly related social orders. I t is a chaos battie t hat fu nctions on every level, from body to house to cosmos. By the time of the fi nal chaos battle, our heroes have h u nted Dracula almost all t he way back home. Mi na, who recounts the bat tle, watches it with Van Helsing from a hollow i n a rock on the road lead i ng to Drac ula's castle. The scene is pervaded by a sense of apocalyptic edgi ness: Van l Ielsing descri bes the area as "so wild and rocky, as though i t were the end of the world, "·'9 and Mi na calls it "a perfeer desolation " yet "wild and u ncan ny. "40 At twilight, that precarious and u ncan ny th reshold between day and n ight, Van Helsing and 1vlina spy a grou p of horsemen racing toward the eas­ tie with a wagon carrying Dracula's coffi n . In hot pursuit are Arthur, Seward, Qui ncey lV1orris and J onathan . While the storm winds grovving ever fiercer, J onathan attacks "with a great strength that seerned i ncred ible. " He th rows the coffi n off the cart and onto the ground. H e and l\1orris tear off the lid and face their adversary, whose " red eyes giared with the horrible vindierive look which I knew too well . " l mmediately Dracula sees the setting sun, and the look of hat red turns to triumph. " But, on the i nstant, came the sweep and flash of Jonathan 's great k nife. I shrieked as I saw it shear t h rough the throat ; whi lst at the same moment lY1r lYlorris's bowie k n i f'e plu nged in t h e heart. l t was l ike a m iracle; but befare our eyes, and almost in t he d rawi ng of a breath, the whole body cru mbled into dust and passed from our sight. " Qu i ncey 1\ lorris is f�ttally wou nded i n the fray. But befare he breathes his last, he leads the men i n a final prayer of praise which explicitly links the resacralization of the cosmos, indicated by the beauty of the su nset after the storm , and the resacralization of 1\lina, i ndicated by disappearance of her mark of uncleanness: " Oh , God ! " [1\ lorris] cried suddenly, st ruggl i ng up to a s i tti ng posture and pointing to me fivli na] , "it was worth

The BlooJ !.t the Life

1 39

this to die ! Look ! Look ! " The su n was now right down upon the mountai n-top, and the red gleams fel l upon my face, so that it was bathed i n rosy l ight. With one i mpulse the men sank on their k nees, and a deep and earnest "Ame n " b roke from all sides as their eyes fol lowed the pointing of his finger as the dying man spoke:- " Now God be thanked that al l has not been in vai n ! See ! the snow is not more stai nless t han her forehead ! The cu rse has passed away ! " Notice that 1\'lina herself does not partiel pate m this concl uding prayer of thanksgiving and benediction: it is the man 1Y1orris who proclaims that her curse has been l i fted , that is, that she is no longer unclean, and it is the men who together fal l to their k nees for a uni­ son "Amen " as they look u pon her. As in the legend of St. George, the slaying of the dragon means that the nation and the world are safe agai n , but the real prize is the pri ncess. Whereas Arthur's reu nion with Lucy is signi fied by his kissing of the bride, this fi nal overcoming of the chaos monster and the restoration of family happiness is signified by a man c hild horn to Mina and J onathan. This child is an embodi ment not only of the u nion between h usband and wife but also of their union with the other men, Seward, Van H elsi ng, Arth u r Godal m i ng and the late Quincey 1\'lorris. " His bundle of names links all our littie band of men together, " J onathan remarks, " but we call him Quincey. " 4 1 H ere again it is throu_qh 1\'lina but not with her that the men are linked together as "a littie band of men . " Nli na is the vehicle of male bonding against the monstrous. I ron ically, des pi te her i nstru mental role throughout the story, the vietory over the chaos monster has led final ly to the restoration and resancti fi cation of �li na's subordi­ nate status as second sex, an object of exchange and relation between men. " The horror of D racula, " Anne Williams writes, " is the horror of man confronting a u niverse that no l onger confirms or conforms to the patriarchal structure of reality. ".J:! Qu ite so. Dracula is indeed unheimlu:h i n the most literal sense: he represents those things in modern English society that threaten to u nhome the patriarchal household . We might add that Dracula's relzi.;t�JLt,t identity, as a per­ sonification of modern stereotypes of' non-western primitivism

1 40

R E LI G I O I\' A N D ITS MONSTER S

(here including primitive Ch ristianity) , contri butes to this sense of patriarchal horror. Modern science, tech nology and nationalism i n t h e West are closely related t o patriarchal conceptions of masculine domination and potency. Since Francis Bacon at least, modern sel fhood has been conceived in masc u l i ne terms; and nature, the obj ect that the modern self seeks to dominate and control, has been conceived as feminine There fore, Dracula's roots i n primitive religion, or "heathen theology, " as Bacon called i t, identified with nature and conceived th roughout the novel i n terms of archaic reli­ gious forces "which mere 'modern ity' eannot kill, " make h i m a threat not only to modernism i n general but also to those patriar­ c hal ideals of masculine identity that are i nextricably related to modernism. And i n this light, we might even recognize, deep within Dracula's giaring red eyes, the reflected i mage not only of the great devil-dragon of the Apocalypse, but also of the ancient monstrous­ feminine Tiamat, whose chaotic waters are both sou rce of and threat to the cosmic and social order of thi ngs established by her divine sons. And with one impul se the men si nk on their knees, and a deep and earnest " Father i n heaven help us" b reaks from all sides.

C H

A PT E R

1

0

S CREENING MONSTERS

M OV I E TI M E , SAC R E D TI M E

We gather togethe r, seated i n pew-like rows, necks craned, silently facing the screen of l ight and revelation (the sou rce of which , we almost forget, is b e hind a curtai n in the back) . We share a common meal u niquely blessed for movie time: hyper-yellow popcorn, Good 'n ' Plenty, J u nior 1\'\ ints, which are passed down the row in special, movie-house-only vessel s and portions. We fol low a carefu l ly pat­ terned and widely famil iar liturgical sequence which moves us from the profane space and time of cars, parking lots, malls and food courts i nto the sacred space and time of the movie event and then back out. Passi n g through the narthex of concessions and bath­ rooms, we meet the well-dressed usher at the e ntrance, near the ticket- font. As w e settie into our seats and quiet ourselves, we attend to annou n cements of forthcoming events, fol lowed by a rem i nder to be still and keep silence. At the center of it all is the Feature Presentation, usually of a certain length, with certai n nar­ rative expectations. Afterward, accompan ied by roll ing credits, closing songs and raised lights, we quietly file out (except for a few 141

1 42

R E L I G I O � AND

ITS M ONSTERS

m ore fervent devotees who tarry a bit longer to read and meditate) . 1\\ovie time can be a kind of sacred time. Fil m artists often describe the i r films i n terms of religious ritual and rel igious experience. Pioneering fil mmaker .LV\aya Deren, for example, describes her film work as ritual because, "anthropologi cally speaki ng, a ritual is a form which depersonalizes . . . and, i n so doing, fuses all i ndividual elements i nto a transcendent tri bal power towards the achievement of some extraordi nary grace . . . and, above all, for some i nversion toward s l i fe . " ' For Deren , rituals have the power to break individuals out of themselves as discreet sub­ j ective u nits and put them i n to i ntimate communion with others. She sees ritual i n film as a primary means of transcending i ndivid­ u al consciousness and open i ng onto a sacred realm of inti macy and i ntercon nection. In a similar vei n but with far greater zeal, Stan Brakhage describes the relation ship betwee n fil m artists and fi l m lovers as a com m unity of spiritual seekers, "an ideal of anarchic religion where all are priests both giving and receiving, or rather witch doctors, or better witches, or . . . O, for the u n namable . " In con­ t rast to the " u nbelievers who attend the carpeted temples where coffee and paintings are served . . . the devout, who break popcorn together in you r h u m blest double-feature services, k now that you are stil l bei ng born . " 2 B rakhage is a religious reformer, cal l i ng for a cinematic p riesthood of al l beli evers, those devotees who u nder­ stand t hat movie going, as m u c h as m ovie maki ng, is not about detached spectatorship but ritual participation, a collective work of divination. Jean Epstein goes so far as to p roclaim that the cinema is " poly­ theistic and theogoni c . Those lives it c reates, by summoning objects out of the shadows of i ndifl'e rence i n to the light of d ramatic con­ cern, have little in common with hu man life. " For Epstein, the cin­ ema event, in which various film tec hnologies, fil mmakers and viewers converge withi n the space and time of the theater, is not only cosmogonic, "world-generative, " but theogonic, "god-genera­ tive . " " Al ie n to h uman sensibilities" and more akin to "the ominous, tabooed objects of certai n pri mitive religions, " the mysterious lives we watch on the screen " can i nspire respect, fear and horror, those three most sacred senti ments. ""

Screening i1n.Jter.J

1 43

M O N S T R O U S R E V E L AT I O N S

( N O S F E R A T U A N D S H A D O W O F T H E VA M P / R E )

l\1ysterious l ives . . . "alien to h u man sensibilities " . . . inspiring "respect, fear and horror, those three m ost sacred sentiments . " Sounds like the rec ipe for a monster m ovie. Recalling t h e basic meani ng of nwnArum as a showi ng or portent from a god or gods, monsters have oft en been presented on screen as revelations of dreadfu l and fasei nating rel igious otherness, a "wholly other" envoy of the sacred. So i t is with F. W. l\1urnau 's NtM/eralu, eine L��ympbonie de<1 Grauent� ("a symphony of horror"; 1 92 2 ) , the first and by many accou nts best film to be based on Bram Stoker's Dracula . No.:�fera tu is a theogony as moJMlrt�qony: its monster, Cou nt Orlok (1V1ax Schreck, the Dracula character) , is a revelation of the other within, an icon of desire laced with repugnance, an apocalyptic epiphany of the monstrosity latent withi n self, society and world. Orlok is an image of diabolical monstrosi ty. H e is a wal ki ng embodiment of plague and death, "from the seed of Belial, " doomed to live unredeemed "on the cursed earth from the graveyards of the Black Death. " First appeari ng as an abominable, carrion-eating hyena, h is primary form is that of a hu man rodent with rat teeth, poi nted ears, and ever-growing fl ngernail s dangli ng from arms that he holds in front of h i mself like paws. When his coHins are opened by the c rew of the Demeter (the name of a G reek goddess of c rops and fertility) , plague-carrying rats pour forth from the dirt therein . l ndeed, Orlok kills far more with plague than he does with fangs. His comi ng to Bremen, like Dracula's coming to London, threatens to contami nate "our" fertile land and society and selves. Yet Orlok is also an image of faseinating and terri(yi ng reli­ gious mystery. I n contrast to the other c haracters, he i n variably appears, disappears and reappears i n the center of the screen , often in Gothic archways which frame him as though he were a religious icon ( Figu re 1 6) . And only h e and the mad Knok are able to under­ stand the mysterious hieroglyphic text of the letter that leads to Orlok 's move to Bremen ( Figu re 1 7; "hieroglyph " means, most lit­ erally, sacred [bierot�] writi ng or carving [q�ypbl] ) .� I n the supernat­ urally sh ifting i mage of' Orlok, the fi l mmakers wcave together a socially impossible tanglc of awesome and a-vvful divinity. Orlok is

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R E L I G IO:\' A l\' D ITs Mo:- STERs

presented as a hierophany of d readfu l and faseinati ng rel igious oth­ erness, a "wholly other" envoy of the sacred. The ambigu i ty of the monster as demonic-divine is accentuated by h i s relat ion to El len Hutter (Greta Schroeder-1V1atray; the Mina Harker character) whose expressions of devotion to her husband Thomas (Gustav von Wangenheim) sometimes appear as expres sions of devotion to Orlok i nstead. In one scene, for example, we see her sitt i ng in her bedroom c hair read ing The Book ��l Vampirec�. There she learns that the only way to destroy a vampire i s for "a woman of pure heart" to give herse l f to him all n ight so that he will Corget to leave before sunri se. She is c learly thinki ng about Orlok and what she m ust do about h i m . The next scene in which she appears shows her in the same c hair, this time not readi ng about vampires but needlepoi nting a pillow case on which we read " Ich I iebe dich, " "I love you . " ( Figu re 1 8) . The scene eloses with her look ing ofT in the d irection of the window (th rough which Orlok 's house is visible) and sigh i ng. I n faet, the two scenes match quite precisely in shot seq uence: each i nvolves a s hot facing her on the chair, fol lowed by a shot focused on the text ( The Book tif Vampire.J and the text on the pillow, respectively) , and concluding with a s hot fac ing her once again as she looks toward the window. One assu mes that the pillow-talk and the night of seJf-surrender with Orlok are for her true love Thomas, but this assumption about the obj ect of her desire sits u neasily with what the camera allows us to see. This ambiguity is heightened in the fi nal scene: as Orlok kneels at her bed side, the shading and point of view makes i t diHicult to determ i ne whether he is feeding on her, kissing her or whispering i n her ear (Figure 1 9) . Screenwriter Henrik Galeen worked from Stoker's novel i n a very loose manner, d ropping most of the characters, changing all the piaces and names, and adding a n um ber of in novations to pop­ u lar vampire Iore in the process - most notably their susceptibili ty t o t h e dangers of sun exposure. I n faet, t h e only text that t h e fil m does take d i rectly from Stoker is the strange biblical pronounce­ ment t hat " The blood is the li fe ! the blood is the li fe ! , " which is given by Knok (Alexander Granach ; the Ren field character) from his cell i n the insane asylu m . T h e fae t t hat the only text Galeen retains from Stoker is a c ryp­ tic biblical passage reflecti ng an archaic, even " primitive " religious

Screening

Mon.•terc�

FIG U R E 1 6. Orlok i n a rc hway, Nosferatu, 1 922 Pra n a-Film G . M . B. H .

1 45

146

RELIGION AND l T S MONSTERS

FIGURE 1 7 . Hieroglyphs in Nosferatu, 1 922 Pra na-Film G . M. B . H .

conception of life-blood may i ndicate some of the religious interests of Galeen, who also co-directed Der Go/em in 1 9 1 4 and co-wrote the second Der Go/em: Wu er in du Well kam ("how he came i n to the world ") in 1 92 0.5 Both films concern pre- Frankenstein J ewish l eg­ ends about a hom u n cu l us that is brought to life through rites asso­ c iated with the read ing of an esoteric Hebrew text called the Sejer Yetdirah, which is an i mportant early text for the J ewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah.6 What do the biblical passage, the vampire legend s and the Go l e m legend s have i n common ? They all repre­ sent a paradoxical religious otherne.1<1 within; that is, they represent religious ideas and practices within Christian i ty and J u daism that are particularly out of place i n relation to late nineteenth-century modernism . Like Stoker's Count Dracula, then, part of what Galeen calls the "ambiguous thickness " of his Golem and Cou nt Orlok is drawn from forms of religious otherness that are latent (occult, "hidden ") within more or Jess fam i liar, mainstream Eu ropean Christianity and J udaism. Here, however, these ele­ ments are solicited in the interest of produc i ng an experience of

Screenin.tJ Mon.lter.l

FI G U R E 18. " l love you ;' Nosferatu, 1922 Prana-Fi l m G . M . B. H .

FIG U R E 19. Orlok and Ellen , Nosferatu , 1922 Prana-Fil m G . M . B. H .

147

1 48

R E LI C I O :\ :\ :\ D lTs M o N STERS

religious fascination and desire as much as repulsion and fear. l ndeed, they are images of the , ,e(/ as monstrous.;No. �/emtu 's producers, Albin Grau and Enrico Dieck man of the Berlin-based Prana- Film com pany, were themselves expl icitly i n terested i n making the monster movie i nto an alternative venue for religious refl ection. Their announcements declared t hat t h is fi lm was to be the first i n a series of fi lms and other artistic works t hat "Vou ld offer " m uch reflection on the occult aspects of li fe . " K ( Du e to bad budgeti ng and legal trou bles with widow Florence Stoker, it ended up being their fi rst and last produ ction . ) The com pany name, Prana, is itsel f a Sanskrit word mean ing "breat hing fort h , " which refers in early Vedic texts both to the li fe spi rit t hat i n fuses the entire cosmos and to the l i fe spi rit t hat ani mates the hu man body, and which is an im portant term in both Buddhist and Hi ndu tradition .') Thei r company logo, moreover, which appears on posters and other announcements for J\'o4�'ralu, is an i mage of the now wel l-k nown l �u· cht' disk, which visually represents the ancient Ch inese concept ofyin and yang as compleme ntary princi­ ples of cosm ic harmony and the interrelatedness of all things. And Grau , who did the i n itial design sketches and the posters for 1\'o.�/eratu as well as the occult- i n spired hieroglyph i c texts men­ tioned earlier, was especially incli ned toward myst ical religious ideas and practices. H is eclectic orientalist and occult interests suggest an affi nity with turn -of-th e-centu ry theosophy, a popular movement of comparative religion t hat was rooted primarily in "vestern myst icism and sought to d iscover a m_y"Etical u n i ty with in the diversity of the world 's religions. 1 0 Like other works identified with t h e German Expressionist art movement of the i nterwar period (sometimes called "apocalyptic adolescents ") , 1\'o. �kratu reflects the belief that cinema, like ancient myth , possesses cosmogonic and theogonic potential . lt gives form to new worlds in which, "at any one moment, i\ lind, Spirit, Vision and Ghosts seem to gush fort h . " 1 1 And i t gives form to a new god conceived withi n the h idden recesses of mind. lts vam pire is an icon of monst rous divin ity. Continuing to blur monstrosity and divin i ty, E. El ias i\ lerhige 's Sl.�adt'''' o/ the l �unpt're (2000) re- i magines the making of 1\'o. ,!�·ratu , suggesti ng that i\ \ax Schreck ( \Villem Dafoe) is not an actor who plays a vam pire but a vam pire v,:ho plays an actor. Drawi ng from a

Screenin.q J/on.der.t

1 49

variety of ancient mythologies and mystical religious p ractices, Shadou• � �/ thc l�zmpL.rt' presen ts Schrec k/Orlok as , among other thi ngs, a monstrous epiphany of thc sun-god . At one poi n t i\lu rnau ( J o h n 1\lalkovich) cal l s Se h reck " 1\\oonchaser. Blas p h e mer. 1\ lonkey. Vase of pre-history . . . Fi nally to Earth, fi nally born . " I n a n i n terview i\ \erhige commen ts, " I f you look a t early G nostic, Assyrian and Greek mythologics, those are all names for the su n , " which h e connects "to the G nostic sense that there i s this ' i nvisible' sun that ani mates everythi ng, that penetrates both the n ight and the day. " ' � l ndeed , akin to Grau and oth ers involved in making ,Yo4'cratu , 1\\erhige himself has deseribed filmmaki ng as a "cosmo­ logical ritual " and "shamanic experience, " conjuring new worlds of monster gods. Shadou• � �/ thc l{unpL.re is just such a world, and its vam pire is just such a monster god . S TA G E R I T E ( D R A C U L A )

From the experimental fi lms of 1\laya Dcren to the blockbusters of Hollywood , fi lm opens up possibil ities for the ritual t ran sformation of time and spacc. On thc most basic level, this is eviden t within particular scenes. Through lighti ng, fil m exposure, tinting, camera speed , the piacement of obj ects i n a scene, choreography, camera angle, fram ing, ed iti ng, iconography, sound and other fi l m i ng strategies, a com mon mcal arou nd a long dinner table is trans­ formed into a Passover Seder or the Last Su pper. A dip in the river becomes a bapt ism. A mosh pit full of dru nken col lege students rock i ng back and forth before a musical performer becomes a Bacc hanal of maenads \Vorshiping thc masked Dionysu s . And in the famous first n igh t scene i n Tod Brov-m ing's Dracula ( 1 93 1 ), a monster attac king his victim bccomcs a wedding ceremony. Having f�1inted at the sight of a bat at the window, the visitor from London, in this story Ren field ( Dwight Frye) rather than H arker, swoons and hd ls to the floor. "' He is on his back in the right-cen ter of the screen, in front of' a wall of windows and at the foot of two steps that stretc h like church altar steps across the scree n . From a side door in the lower left-hand corner, j u st off­ sc reen , Drac ula's thrce women attendan t s process toward him i n equal step, weari ng matching v,: hi t e flo w i n g gowns , t h e i r hands folded as though thcy are bridesmaids carrying bouquets in a wed-

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RE LI G J O :-.; A :'\J D I T S 1\\0NSTERS

d i ng processional . As they approac h him, Dracula ( Bela Lugosi) enters through the main vvi ndow door i n t he center like a groom , weari ng, o l ' course, his trademark tuxedo. He dismisses t h e three wome n with the sweep of' a hand , and they, in careful step and without trippi ng on the long t rai ns of thei r dresses, slowly recess to the lef't corner of the screen and out o f sig h t ( Figu re 2 0) . As the camera eloses i n , Dracula kneels before Ren field as though to kiss his bride, and then the camera cuts to black. The next scene is the honeymoon cruise to London, on which Re n field al ready begi ns showi ng signs of jealou sy over the atte ntion Dracula i s givi ng to others. \Vhether or not you think " the book was better than the movie , " even a quick ski m of Stoker's novel makes clear t hat l3row n i ng 's Dmcula , which was based on the theat rical adaptation (also starri ng l3ela Lugosi ) , does not even try to be faithful to the tex t . In Stoke r's novel, for exam ple, Drac ula uses both Renfield. and ,Jonathan i n order to get to London and establish good con­ tacts, but he br prefers the blood of women. H e victi m izes men not by taking their bl ood but by taki ng their wome n . Relatedly, i n the lirst night scene i n Stoker's novel, erotic energy centers on the th ree women \vho visit Jonathan in the n ight, in whom Jonathan sees "a deli be rate vol uptuousness which was both thrill ing and repul­ sive. " 1 4 Drac ula catc hes them j u st before they descend on ,J onat han , and drives them away, thus blocki ng desire : " How dare you tou ch hi m, any of you ? l l ow dare you cast eyes on hi m when I had forbidden i t '? 13ack. l te l l you all ! Thi s man beløngs to me ! " \Vhen they complain that he does not know how to love as they do, he responds, "Yes, I too can love; you you rselves can tell it from the past . . . now I promise you that when l am done with him, you shall kiss him at you r wil l . " l ' In these last li nes there are strong homo­ erol ie ove rtones, and these overtones were drawn out fu rthe r i n Stoker's th eat rical adaptation, i n which Drac ula takes his fainted visitor in to his arms and disappears i n to the shadows. But wit h i n the largcr plot it is clear t hat Dracula wants J onathan n o t a s flesh­ of-his-flesh, blood-of-h is-blood bride/victim, but as t he means to lan d i ng hi mself i n London where he will be a rival suitor for ,J onathan 's wif'e l\ \i na. I n I3rowning 's fi lm, on the other hand, D rac u la 's guest (here Ren field i n stead of ,Jonathan) is the fi rst pas­ sive object of' both the womcn 's and Dracula's desire.

Screenin.9 /Jfon.lfer.l

151

FIG U R E 2 0 . Dra c ula , Copyright 193 1 , 1 999 U n iversa l Stud ios.

lV\ore often than not , Browning's fil m de-ritua!t'.ze,, Stoker's most ritualistic scenes. I n the fil m there is no scene i nvolving the ritual kill ing of Lucy i n the tomb, for cxam ple, and Drac ula h i mself is killed offstage with whatever stuff just happens to be lyi ng arou nd his basement. (Van H elsing says to .J onathan, " Get me a piece of stone - anythi ng, " and t hen breaks olf a board from the coffin lid to serve as the stake.) I n this first- night bed room scene, however, Browning uses lighting, choreography and set design to proj ect Dracu la's attack on Ren tield as a kind of wedding ceremony and sacri fi cial rite, thereby t easi ng out a homoerotic element more or less latent i n Stoker's work (more so i n his novel, less so in his the­ atrical adaptation ) . 1 '; E X O R C I S M ( M E TR O P O L I S )

German fi lm maker F red Keleman (l�zle, 1 994) suggcsts that c i ne­ matic horror is abou t nam ing othcrncss so as to control and ulti­ mately exorcize it. l l e makes this suggestion by way of popular

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speculat ion about the primitive origins of religion in the desire to objecti(y otherness by depicting it as an image on a wal l : . . . in t h e ancient caves of ascaux, France, for example, the fi rst reason for mankind to make pietu res was to " ban­ nen " [ban , ban ish, exorcize] , to fi x it, to bring out, to cap­ ture the demons, because when you name them, they'l l !ose t h e i r power. That was t h e fi rst reason people started to pai nt. . . . I think that is a lot like fil m , becau se c inema is like a modern cave, people come together - that 's why the darkness is so important - and you have the screen like a wal l in the old caves. And the aim is to put a spell on the demons. To exorcise, ifyou want. 1 7 What horror fi lms do, for Keleman, is conj u re , then trap, then name our demons and monsters within the frame of projection. A new pictographic language projected on white screens i n theaters rather than stone vval ls in caves, fi lm is endowed with the magical power of redu ci ng the unk nowable and u n imaginable to a captu red Image. Fritz Lang 's classic science-tietion film Afetropoft:, ( 1 926) may be viewed as a conj u ring and ban ni ng, an exorcism, in this sense: in it the monstrous is conju red and captured on screen in order that it may be eradicated from the fantasies and nightmares of its viewers. I n faet, Afetropoft:, con j u res a pair of closely related monsters, repre­ sen t i ng what the fi lm suggests are two terri(ying political extremes that m u st be exorcized from society: un regu lated industrial capital­ ism and worker revol ution. In t h is way the fil m serves as a kind of a ci nematic Gospel for a chilli ngly conservative public rite whose fu nction is to establish a sacred order and homogencity by banning soc ial chaos. Both monsters are projected as images of religious otherness. First , u n hi ndered indu stry is proj ected as a cult of human sacrifice to the indu strial machine. \Vhen Freder (Gustav Frohlich), son of Jon Frederson, the 1\ \aster of i\\etropolis (Alfred Abel ) , fi rst descenels to the underground world of labor which fuels the city that rises from the grou nd above it, he fi nds hi mself facing a giant, steam -spewing industrial machine - the "central power house " ­ with a large stai rway i n the center ( Figu re 2 1 ) . O n its face are

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niches i n which workers rock back and fort h i n regu lar, pendulum­ like movements that make them appear to be parts of the machine. ' �' Although t h e fi l m is silent, Lang's use of light-dark contrasts and regular explosions from steam valves gives the impression of an overwhelming cacophony of industrial noise. Thus the image elicits incongruous feeli ngs of both vast structural sym metry and chaotic distortion. lt is an image of the industrial sublime: a monstrously overvvhel ming motor of productive efficiency which f'ills the screen and subsumes all particular human forms and movements into its deafeni ng, fearful symmetry. As Freder cowers before his father's machine in fear and trem­ bli ng, a worker i n one of the niches fails to open a pressu re valve, and there is an explosion, causing many to fal l from the face of the machine to their deaths. As other men blankly march over to remove the bodies, the camera reverses to face Freder, who cries out in horror, " 1\:\ 0 LOCH ! " The n ext shot reverses to Freder 's poi nt of view agai n , in which the machine has been transformed into the gaping face of a monster god of hu man sacrif'ice ( Figures 2 1 and 2 2 ) . Ascending the tongue-like stai rcase are men, costurned in 1 920s gen e ric "savage " wear (skirts, no shirts) , forcing boun d victims i n t o its f'iery gullet. Fol iowi ng them are rows of workers i n uniform, hu nehed over, marching a t a slow, even pace i nto the mouth of this i n satiable monster god . Lang has cast his indu strial monster i n terms of an amalgama­ tion of ancient biblical and contemporary primitivist f'igu res. O n the o n e hand, t h e monster's name, 1\\oloch (a.k.a. 1\\olech ) , is bib­ lical. l t refers to a non- lsraelite god associated with prohibited rit­ uals of child sac rif'i ce (e.g. , "causing one's son or daughter to pass over by fi re to 1\lolec h "; 2 Kings 23: l 0) . Within biblical tradition , 1\:loloch is a name for religious otherness, and Lang assumes that the fil m 's viewers will be fam iliar with it. On the other hand, the costu mes, choreography and iconography of the scene are based on modern western stereotypes of non-western, "savage " religious rites of blood sacrif'i ce. By combi n i ng the name of a biblically tabooed god with terrif}ring stereotypes of modernity's primitive religious other, this image of the industrial sublime is transformed into a cthonic monster god of the u nderworld who must be fed human lives i n order to proteet the 1\\etropolis above ground from chaos and calamity.

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FIG U R E 2 1 . Centra l power house , Metropolis , 1926 Ufa .

FIGUR E 2 2 . M O LOCH ! , Metropolis, 1926 Ufa.

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Sametimes it takes a monster to kill a monster, and so it is i n th i s fi l m . The 1\ \oloch machine i s dest royed by �mother monster mach i ne, this one embody i ng revolution ( Brigitte Helm) . Freder's father hires the mad i nventar Rotwang ( Rudolf Klei ne- Rogge) , whose small thatc hed h u t amid t h e skyscrapers o f 1\\etropoli s immediately identifies him with pre-modern Goth ic, t o c reate a robot t hat w i l l replace the story 's sai n t ly heroine i\ \aria, Freder's new soul-mate, who preac hes that t here must be a mediator between " the brai n that plans and the hands that build . " Freder's father, here prese nted as Pharaoh agai nst the i\ \oses-l ike liberator i\\aria, commands the robotic replica of' 1\laria to u ndo her teach ­ i n g a n d t o sow di scord a n d c rimi nal behavior among t h e workers. This revol utionary monster is projected as a tigure of Dionysus, an ecstatic embodiment of d read and desire, deat h and eros. 19 Like Oionysus, the robotic i\laria i ncites her mesmerized devotees to ecstat i c revelry and violence that transgresses social norms and is u ltimately self-dest ructive. l ncited by her entrancing sermon , the wome n and men rise up en masse and dest roy the central power house machine. A s they dance before its smoking ruins, the flood waters rise in the u nderground \vorker's city to destroy their chil­ dren. Retu rn i ng to t h e 1\letropolis above grou nd, t he robotic 1\ laria conti n ues i nciti n g her bacchic revelry among the elite, who dance around her beari n g lanterns on sticks that are remi niscent of the Dianysian thyrsi , the ivy spears that were carried by the Bacchic maenads d u ring t he i r ecstatic ritual dances. Soon bot h m o n sters have been destroyed in the flames that they themselves h ave sti rred up: with t he fl i p of a switc h by the robotic 1\\aria, t h e 1\loloch machine explodes u nder its O\vn pres­ su re and i s consurned by its own fi re . Soon after t hat she hersel f is burned by her O\V n mad maenads as a scapegoat for the death of t heir childre n (ever ignorant and prone to mass frenzy, they do not know that the c h i l d re n have been saved by the real 1\laria) . By the end, the n , the m o n sters are all gone. To borrow ritual termi nolog}' from Victor Tu rn e r, the time of monsters, the l i m i nal, in-between time of anti-com m u n ity, has been resol ved , de-mon strated . Signifyi ng that t h e world i s now safe again, the fi nal scene i s of a reconciliation on t h e cathedral steps between labor (" the hands that build "), represen t ed by the la bor foreman, and capi tal (" the brain that plan s ") , represented by ,Jon Frederson .

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Thus , 1/ctropoft: , con j u res for its congregation of viewers a pai r of' closely related monsters, u n h i n dered industl}' and revolution, i n order to exorcize them both from the metropolitan scene outside the th eat er. \Vithi n the ritual time and space of the movie , opened and closed with holy Scripture from Lang's co-writer and spouse Thea von Harbou ("the med iator between brai n and muscle must be the heart ") , these pol itical monsters are faced and overcome, and recon cil iation i s realized.�0 \Ve must not forget that the fil m 's mon ster of revolution, l ike its monster of i ndu stry, i s c reated by the master of capital , not by the masses of labor. The audacious suggestion here is that even the t h reat of revolution cornes from the mind of capital , not labor. l ndeed , the suggestion i s t hat revolution poses no real threat to cap­ ital but only to the workers themselves. ( Frederson wants them to rebel beGw se he is sure that their rebellion wi l l only harm them­ selv e s . ) By conj u ri ng and ban n i ng this monster the fi l m , we may ·well suspect, seeks to ban another, largely repressed, yet u n named and br more terri (yi ng monster: an u nderground revolution that d i rects its s u hversive force not inward but outward o n to its ,\ letropolitan lords - not o n ly a rage agai nst the mach i n e but al so a rage against its creator and overseer. And alt hough he can be a bit of a Pharaoh at times, the 1\-'laster o f' 1\ letropol is is never represented as a monster. The politically tame and tam i ng message of the fi l m for fellow masters of 1\ \etropolis is that they should show a littie more compassion for their slave laborers, which, of cou rse, l i ke you ng and noble Freder, they would do i f' give n the opportunity. pries at a c rack i n the vvorld that opens onto an abyss of c haos . \Vhen we peer in we are conCronted wi t h a monstrous i mage of' the demon ic-divine that eannot u l t i mately be erad icated from self. society or world. All'lropoft: , , by radi Gd contrast, ultimately sac ral izes social order and sameness agai nst the least trace of chaos o r otherness. l ts gospel assurance is t hat there are n o such thi ngs as mon sters i n t he i\ letropoli s , only malfu nction i ng machi nes i n n eed of' a caref'ul tune-up. I n the end, the fi l m 's senti mental moral that the heart m ust med iate between hand and brai n i s by no means u niversal , ah istor­ ic.:al o r bey o n d vested in te rests in class, despit e von H arbou 's

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utopian claim to the c o n t rary (" This fi lm is not of today or of the fut u re. l t tells of no place . l t serves no tendency, party or class " ) . I n faet, the time and place o f this fi lm is i nterwar Germany, i n the c hilling "stabilized period " six years before the rise of Nazism, when mass rage wou ld be i n c reasingly refracted through the dis­ torting lenses of anti-Semitism, homophobia and other monst rous self-proj ections, and wh e n m i llions of people would be forced i nto u n i forms and carried i n to t h e fiei)' mouths of new machine-like fu r­ naces of mass death . � ' By conj u ri ng t h e mon ster of i ndustry a s a machine w i t h n o maker (pay no attention t o t h e m a n behind t h e curtai n) a n d t he monster of revolution as a mac h i ne of self-destruction , and by rep­ resenti ng workers as docile, easily riled masses with vel)' littie dis­ cernment of the real ity of their surrou ndi ngs (strong hands, weak brains) , the film works to render real su bterranean revolutionary rage i m potent. I n this way, the fi lm ulti mately aHi rms the su bordi­ nation of all i ndivid ual wills to the absol ute aut hority of a metro­ politan regime. "Whenever H itler harangued the people, " Siegfried Kracauer writes, "he su rveyed not so much hundreds of thou sands of l isten ­ ers a s an enormous ornament consisting of hundreds o f thousands of partiel es. "�� Social c h aos i s ul timately c horeographed out, formed i nto a neat, ornamental whole i n which no i ndividual piece is out of place. Th is is precisely the scen e of the happy end ing on the cathed ral steps, the union of t he hands and brai ns i nto one single metropolitan , i ndeed cosmopol itan Body Politic. In this light, the precursor for this fi nal vision of i\ \etropol is is none other than Hobbes ' Leviathan , in which all individual vvills are sewn i nto t he body of t his one " 1\ \o rtall God , " w hose benevalent smile I S as hau nti ng and unset t l i ng as the happy e n d i ng of Aidropo!t:�.

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On J u ly 1 6, 1 945, mom ents after the detonation of the fi rst atomic bom b i n the Jornada d e l l\1uerto ("J ou rney of Death ") desert of New 1\lexico, w hen the d i rector of the 1\lanhattan Project, J . Robert Oppenhei mer, sought words to express his own sense of awe and fascination at t h e destructive power h e and his colleagues had u nleashed, he d rew language from a fam i l iar passage in the H indu religious t rad iti o n : " l am become Death, the shatterer of worlds. " Oppenheimer w as paraph rasing a passage from c hapter 1 1 of the Bha.lJtll'lU�lJL.Ia , in which Krishna reveals h imself to Arjun as a wonderfu l and terri ()ring figu re of cosmic begi n n i ngs and end­ i ngs, c reation and dest ruction, brighter than a thousand su ns. Other eyewitnesses al s o d rew from trad itional religious language in order to describe t h e i r experience, often employi ng a biblical apocalyptic mixture of cosmic dest ruet ion and new c reation. Recalling biblical passages i n which mou ntain s and hills rej oice at the glory of God (e.g. , Psalm 65: 1 2 ; Psal m 98:8; and I saiah 49: 1 3) , 1\'ew York 'Jl"me,, \vri ter William L . Lau rence deseribed the explosion as a subl i m e revelati on of d ivine power that was both awesome and awfu l : " The h ills said 'yes' and the mountains c himed 'yes ' . . . 1 59

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lt was like the grand fi nale of a mighty symphony of eleme nts, fas­ ei nating and terri(yi ng, u plifting and c rushing, ominous and dev­ astati ng, fu ll of great promise and grcat forebod ings. " 1 Put i n bib­ lical terms as both cosmogony and apocalypse , Lau re nce descri bes the explosion as an awakening of an ot henvorldly, su bterranean primordial c haos that signals bot h the end of the world and the fi rst moment of c reation : A n d j u st a t that instance there rose from the bowels of the earth a light not of t his world, the light of many suns in one . . . an clemental force freed from its bonels atter being chained for bil lions of years l t was as if the earth had opened and the sky had split. One felt as though he had been p resent at the moment of the Creation when the Lord said: Let There be Light . . . The Big Boom came about l 00 seconds after the G reat Flash the fi rst c ry of the newhorn world. .

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Another eye-vvitness, George B. Kistiakowski, told Lau rence that it was "the n earest thing to Doomsday that one could possibly imag­ ine I am sure . . . that at the end of the world . . . the last man will see w hat we saw ! "2 Likewise General Thomas Farre l i 's accou nt from the J u ly 1 6 War Department press release descri bes his expe­ rience in explicitly religious terms of horror, describing an "awe­ some roar which warned of doom sday and made us feel that we puny thi ngs were blasphemous to dare tam per with the forces heretafore reserved to the Almighty. "·' Like Victor Fran kenstein , who also identi fied hi msel f with the biblical God of c reation , these eyewitnesses express both giddiness and d read after tam pering "with the forces heretofore reserved to the Alm ighty, " forces that they identi(y not only with the elivine power of creation but also and especially with the e ivine power of chaos and destruction . And i n these accounts, as in Shelley 's novel and \Vhal e 's fi lms, the terrible implication is that the hu bris of h u mankind bent on messing with creation has awakened an eco­ logical catast rophe of apocalypt ic proportions. l ndeed, along with the fi res of' the I lolocaust, the bli nding Hash of the atomic bom b marked the twil ight of modernism , especially of its con fidence in human progress through the unhi ndered marc h of .

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science and technology. I n the same moment t hat laid modernism to rest, it awakened a new breed of' monster, the ecomonster. ECO H O R ROR ON SCREEN

I n movie theaters from New York to Tokyo, ecohorror gives popu ­ lar cultural expression to the ecological nightmare that has pursued us since the dawn ing of the atomic era. The undisputed king of ecohorror monsters is l nosh iro Honda's Gojira ( 1 954) and its Japanese-American version God�d/a, Kin.tJ tl tbe Afon1/t:t�l ( 1 956; Terry 1\\orse) . Like its many relatives in the fi l m i ndustry, Godzilla is an old mythological c haos god in newly i rradiated ski n , a pri­ mordial c haos monster known from the ancient Iegeods of native islanders who nearly dest roys Tokyo after being accidentally resur­ rected by nuclear explosions. Godzil la and its many cousins per­ soni(y ecological horror in two ways. First, in tandem wit h the moral urgency and apocalyptic fear of a new age of' ecology, these monsters stand for deep anxieties about the effects of modern sci­ ence and tech nology on complex ecological systems that we do not ful ly understand .� \Vhether the resu lt of nuclear explosions or genetic alterations, ecomonsters stand for what happens to our environment when we t ry to play God wit h it. I n this sense, eco­ horror movies present a moral lesson that is im possible to miss and as old as the oldest monster tale: pull back into you r proper place, let God be God and creat u re be creature, or you will pay for your hu bris. None of this wou ld be happening, none of these monsters wou ld be stomping you r cars, if' you v.:ou ld refrain from pressing li mits. I n this respect, the ecomonster represents a elivine message or portent, a llltlll.l/rltm in the most literal sense, warni ng us to retreat in to the established order of' thi ngs. This assu mes, of cou rse , as does the environmental movement that ru ns in tandem with it, that the onslaught of ecological chaos is entirely the responsibility of hu mankind and not inherent in ecology itself. On �mot her level . however, and despite t h e baggy rubber suits and fl i m sy model sets, t hese monstrous tigu res of natu re goi ng awry also represe nt som ething more dread fu l and largely repressed in contem porary environmental though t . As a retu rn of' the ecolog­ ical ly repressed , ecomonsters are personit'icat ions of' an ecological chaos that is and always has been in t h e world, however latent.

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1 6:!

T h cy a re not c reatcd but awak c n c d . l i e re in the twi l ig h t o f m od e r­ n i ty, it appears t h a t c c o l ogi cal o rd e r last s o n ly as l o n g as t h e c haos m o n s t e rs s l e e p . l t i s t he re fore not s u rp ri s i ng t ha t t h e m o n sters o f e c o h o rror ol't c n bea r strong fa m i ly rcse m b l a n c e s to pri m o rd ial c h aos god s a n d m o n s t e rs o f ,·a ri o u s rc l ig i o u s t rad i t i o n s , i n c l u d i n g t h osc o f b i b l i c a l l i te rat u re . L i k e w i se , t h c typ i cal p l o t o f t h e rise a n d fa l l o f t h e c h aos m o n s t e r i n ecohorror m o v i e s i s a t w e n t i et h - c e n t u ry version , made for· pop u l a r c o n s u m pt i o n , o f the a n c i e n t c h aos battic m o t i f. In t hese m (n- i e s t h e specter o f c c o l ogical c h aos ree n t c rs the worl d , u s u a l ly i n t h e f'o r m of' a n a n c i c n t myt h o l ogical c h aos m o n s t e r, a n d i s u l ti ­ matcly overcom c . I n t h i s '\vay, t h e c c o h o rro r m o v i e s e rves as a k i n d ol' p u b l i c rite w i th i n t h e pop u l a r c u l t u re of h o r ro r. Li k e t h c d ra­ m a t i c rc t c l l i ng o f i\ \ard u k 's v i e t o ry ove r Tia m at and t h e s u bseq u e n t e s t a b l i s h m e n t o l ' a d i v i n e ly o rdai n cd cos m i c a n d p o l i t i cal o rd e r i n t h c Baby l o n i a n ncw year 's fes t i va l , t h e t i m e a n d space o f t h e cco­ h o rror movie eve n t p rovide a s t r u c t u rcd c o n t e x t i n w h i c h l at e n t fea rs a b o u t ccological c h aos can be f�tced a n d exorc i zed . I n t h i s sc n s e , t h c ecohorror m o v i e i s a cos m ogo n i c rel igi o u s eve n t w h i c h rec reates a n d resacra l i zcs world o rd c r agai n s t t h c m o n s t rou s t h reat o f pri m o rd ia l c h aos. T h u s t hc m o n s t e r movie of'l'ers a ri t ua l c o n te x t i n w h i c h t o c n cou n t e r a n d ove reo rn e m o n s t ro u s o t h e r n e s s , ass u red by a w e l l -estab l i sh e d myth i c s t ru c t u re t ha t , a l t h ough t h e re w i l l be some c o l l at c ral c as u a l t i c s a l o n g thc way, in t h c end t h e m o n s t e r w i l l b e ,·a n q u i s h cd a n d t h e world w i l l be safc o n c e m o r e , a t least f'or t h e t i m e heing.

D E M YT H O L O G I Z I N G T H E M O N S T E R

Ol't e n w hat i m b u e s a n eco m o n s t e r w i t h a se n se o f mys t e ri o u s o t h ­ e rn ess i s i t s i d e n t i l'i c a t i o n w i t h a n c i e n t re l ig i o u s myt h ol ogy. I n s o m e case s , t h e i de n t i fi c a t i o n i s o n ly i m p l i e d , as i n /,cl 't�z//.Ja/1 ( 1 989 ) , w h e re t h e fi l m t i t l c a n d t h c bet t h at t h c s t or :v ta k c s place a t t h e hot­ tom ol' t h c ocean a rc t h c o n ly obv i o u s l i n k s betwccn thc fi l m 's m o n ­ s t e r a n d t h e Leviat h a n o f ' b i b l ical t rad i t i o n . I n m a ny o t h e r cases , h owc,·c r, t h e i d e n ti f i c a t i o n i s made c x p l i c i t by o n e o r m o re o f t h e c h a rac t c rs i n t h e fi l m . O f'te n , t h c i d e n t i fica t i o n o f ' t h e m o n s t ro u s w i t h t h c myt h o l og i c a l i s f'i rst m a d e by not so m od e rn , n o t so c os­ m o pol i t a n to'\v n s f 'o l k , a n d o n ly l a t e r ack n ow l edged by men ( ne a rly

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always men) of science, suggesti ng that such " pri mitive " folk are more mythologically inclined and that , as su c h , they may be able to give a name to that which modern consciousness has largely repressed. I n Goddl!a , for example, it is the natives of a small island who fi rst give Godzilla its name, thereby identi(ying it with their own cou nter-modern , prim itive legends and rituals concerning a primordial c haos god whose th reat is appeased by the annual sac ri­ fice of a you ng girl . Only later is this identi fication aflirmed by the sage scientist Dr. Yamane (Takashi Shimura) who, like van H elsing in Dracula , is a erossover figure, in touch with both modern science and the primitive religion . So also i n Eugene Lou rie 's The Gt�uzl Bebemol h ( 1 958) , in which a c haos monster is roused from its slumber in the deep by offshore atomic bom b testing." I n this movie the monster is identifi ed , albeit confusedly, with a mythological figu re from biblical tradition. As the monste r's first victim , a local fisherman narned Thomas Trevet han , breathes his last, he declares, " From the sea . . . burning like fire . . . Behemoth ! " Did h e mean Leviathan ? Apparently Thomas knows the book of Job well enough to identi(y this mon­ ster with one of the two deseribed there, but not well enough to avoid confu sing the marshy landlubber Behemoth in .J ob 4 0 with the sea mon ster Leviat han i n J ob 4 1 . This (mis) nam ing is soon rei nforced by the preacher in his graveside homily for Thomas: " Man that is born of woman is of few days and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower and is cut down " (Job, chapter 1 4 , the fi rst verse) . And if any man could know the sufferi ngs of J ob, it was Thomas Trevethan. Job, i n his suffering, tu rned to God for an answer. "Then answered the Lord u nto J ob and said, ' Behold thou t he Behemoth, which l made with thee. He moveth his tail like a cedar. Out of his mouth go burning lamps. And spouts of fi re leap out from the Behemoth. H e maketh the oceans to boil like a pot . His breath kindles coals and a flame goeth out of his mouth . "' Leaving aside whet her this is an adequate theological explanation for either Job 's or Thomas ' su fTering, the preacher here provides confused scriptoral backing for Thomas ' confusion of Behemoth

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\Vith Leviathan . I n the book of Job, only the fi rst two sentences quoted hcre ( from " Behol d " to "cedar") refer to Behemoth (Job 40: 1 3a and 4 0: 1 7a) ; the remai n i ng lines refer not to Behemoth but to the sea monster Leviathan, whose description fol lows that of Behemoth (4 1 : 1 9 2 1 ; " from the Behemoth " is not in the biblical text) . Nonethclcss, here as elsewhere we fi nd the local folk fi rst identi(ying the monster in tradi tional rel igious terms as an ancient chaos monster. Eventually, however, the American hero Steve Karnes and h is collcagues in science are able to demythologize it, and this signals its doom. They detcrm ine t hat it is a 2 00 foot "electri c " (like an eel) "paleosau ru s " which, after s ..val lowing a few too many radioact ive partic les, has acq u i red the power to " p roject the radiation " at its victi ms. This cxplanation, by which they come to k now the for­ merly unk nowable monster, provides the means to destroy it: they wi l l pierce it with a radiu m-tipped torpedo t hat will push its radia­ tion levels over the top, leavi ng i t to " b u rn itself out . " This is pre­ cisely what Karnes docs, and the chaos monster is vanqu ished . As i n Dracula , then, t h e battie is not simply man against mon­ ster, but science agai nst pri m i t ive mythology. The c haos monster is in i tially identified as a mysterious f'igu re of ancient religious tradi­ tions large ly foreign to the modern world. I t i s overeorne by being scienti lical ly c,\·plained away as much as by being Mown away. The means of destroyi ng the mon ster can be developed only after i t has been red uced to modern scientific terms. This is one reason why the big-budget American Godzilla of 1 999 was not i n the least bit scary: its monst rosity was scienti f'ically defi ned and explained almost bel'o re it had a chance to make landfal l . The mysterious and threatening otherness o f the monster within the modern world is signaled by its identification with ancient, cou nter-modern mythology (in the case of The Gi,znl Bc/.Jem, ,tlJ, biblical mythology) . By the same token , as soon as it has been explained and thereby objectif'ied by modern scientists in modern scientific terms, it is dead monster meat . Karnes ' scientific explanation de-monstrocizes the monster. l ts th reaten i ng monstros­ i ty, signaled by its iden ti lication with ancient, cou nter-modern reli­ gious mythology, is red uced to a zoological novelty. \Vhen the mod­ ern lord ol' cosmic order demyt hologizes the monster he t ransforms it from a subject ol' religious awe to an object of scientific knowl-

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edge. " The ocean is my provi nce, gentlemen , " Karnes declares. Like some modern-day i\\arduk batding Tiamat, or Baal batd ing Yamm, the man ol' science proves himself a worthy cosmic c ham­ pion agai nst the chaos monster. S H O OTI N G T H E M O N ST E R

The vietory over the monster by way of scientific obj ectification is expressed l't:llwl�v in the ecohorror movie by the gradual revelation of' the monster on screen. The mysterious and threaten i ng other­ ness of the chaos monster is maintained by resisti ng clear and steady visual ization . By the same token, its i nevitable appearance on screen is l i nked to its ulti mate obj ecti fication and destruction . I n the begi n n i ng, w e only see traces o f the monstrous other i n its ef'fects: boils on t he ski n , a c harred corpse, wreckage. Then we catch partial glimpses: a shadow, a rusd ing in the woods , a glowing eye, a tai l slithering back into the sea or around the corner.ti Yet the monster i nevitably crosses over into the visible world, and once it does its days are n u m bered. Once caught on camera, it will not be long before it will be caught i n the crosshairs and shot to pieces. The fu ll-fram e camera shot is fatal for the monster, reducing it to nothi ng more than big game. This progression toward fu ll visualization , which ru n s in tan­ dem with its fu ll scientific explanation , is carried out in T hc Gian/ Behemotb and many other monster movies pri marily through the use of two kinds of fi lming st rategies: thc ,,ofitary rcacft�J/1 ,thot and tåe ,,hotlrcl'Ct"r.tt: ,thot f;wllza!t�l/1 . To be more precise, the gradual visual iza­ tion and obj ectification of the monster begi ns with a single solitary reaction shot in the fi rst encounter, leaving the monster completely unsee n , and then pragresses through a series of shot/reverse shot formations toward its fi nal fu ll revelation and demolition . The sol itary reaction shot gives a elose-up view of t he face of someone reacting to somethi ng, but does not provide a subseq uent point-of-view shot to show us what the person is reacting to. I n monst er movies, the solitary react ion shot holds o n t he horritled face of the victim 'vvithout al lowi ng the viewer to see what the vic­ tim sees. Thus, although the monster is revealed to the victi m at this very moment, wc do not see it. In faet, our poi nt of view is more closely aligned with that of' the monster than it is wi th that of' the

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victi m . At the same time, the monster remains, for us but not for the victim, beyond visual ization . In The Gtiznt Be/.Jonoth, the monster's attack on the fi rst victim , Thomas Trevethan , uti lizes this c lassic shot. Thomas is k neeling at the water 's edge gutting a fish when a siren-li ke \'vhining starts to overtake the orchestral sou ndtrack. As the sou nd gai ns volume, he slowly looks up and his face contorts in a terrified, frozen scream while radiant l ight engulfs the �creen . Thomas sees the monster but we do not. l t is p resent without being presentable, uni magi nably " there . " l ndeed, as boil-ridden Thomas himse l f attests to his daughter and her friend im mediately before dying, he hi mself did not see the monster so much as i ts rad iant emanation : " From the sea . . . burning like fi re . . . Behemoth ! " Fol iowing this init ial solitary reac t ion shot, the p rogressive visualization of the Behemoth is accomplished t h rough a series of shot/reverse shot formations. In the shot/reve rse shot formatio n , the camera c u t s from an i n itial s h o t to a reverse s h o t (turned approxi mately 1 80 degrees) , so that we are give n the point of view of the c haracter( s) i n the in itial shot. In monster movies, t his formation typically ope n s with a shot of the face of someone react­ ing to the monster, and then reverses to show the monster, or part of it, as t hat c haracter sees i t. The e ffect of this shot formation is to align our poi n t of view with that of the c haracter in the first s hot, thereby encouragi ng us to identi(y with that character 's sub­ ject position and her/h is reaction to whatever s/he sees. This is the key shot formation for cinematic " suture, " by which the subjec­ tivity of the viewer is ide n t i fied wit h (su tu red to) a particular sub­ ject position within a particu lar scene.' I n T/.1c Gtiznl Behemoth, a series of cin ematic sutures takes us from identi(ying with the hu nted victi m s of a seeing but not fu l ly seen monstrou s other to iden t i (ying with the victorious hu nter as he (along with the cam­ era) targets a fu l ly visible, easily objectifiable, over- rad iated and ove rrated elec tric eel. There are several significant shot/reverse shot formations in the cou rse of the fil m , each of which adds at least a third shot, revers­ ing back to the initial camera posit ion . l n teresti ngly, each of these shot format ions is related in some sense to hunt i ng and/or shooting a weapon . I n t he fi rst, just after Karnes has determi ned to " track down this t h i ng, fi nd out what it is, and then dest roy it, " we see him in a fi shing schooner searc h ing for t he monster t h rough binoculars.

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FIG U R E 23. Partia l shot of the monster, Th e Giant Behemoth , Copyright 1958

Allied Artists.

A modern-day Ahab from Cali fornia, he is hot on the trail of the monstrous Leviathan . J ust after we hear that the Coast Guard is t rying to locate a large steamship that has d isappeared on its way to Hull, the Geiger cou nter on the wall begins clicking. As Karnes stares through the bi nocu lars in edgy fasci nation, the camera gives the reverse shot, framed i n bi nocu lar-vision, of the monster's scaly neck and part ot' its head as i t slips back into the churning sea ( Figure 23) , and then reverses back to Karnes ' face as he puts down the bi noculars. " That 's i t , " he tells the skipper with a fear­ lessly determi ned face, and the c hase begi ns. lt is soon over, how­ ever, as the monster quickly leaves them behind. Thus t h i s ti rst shot/reverse shot format ion identities the viewer with Karnes, the hu nter, and yet resists f'u lly visualizing the object of the h u n t . l ndeed , i nsot�tr a s t h i s shot formation is im mediately preceded by news t hat a steamship i n t h e same waters has recently been hunted down and destroyed by the monste1·, this scene plays in the tension bet\-veen identi fication with the monster-hun ter ( Karnes) and the monster-hu nted (other victims at sea) .

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The second shot/reverse shot format ion takes place "\vh e n a boy and his I�Hher go out side t o see why the bmily dog is bark i ng. The father grabs the shotgu n on his way out, and the boy u nc hai ns the dog. lt looks li ke a father-son hu nting trip. The dog goes arou nd a corner, we hear a yelp, and then silence. As the boy and his fat h er go al't er t he dog, they bot h look up in te rror. The father ai ms his gun and fi res, and then the camera reverses to catch radiati ng light and part of Behemoth 's hide. He has it in his gun sight, yet he, and we, eannot really see it; we are looking down the barre! at an impossible target . The camera then reverses to show the squinting father being swallowed u p by light. So also the son , l eaving him charred like the vic t i m of a nuclear explosion. As with Karnes on the schooner, the n , this scene begi ns with an image of the monster hunters; but whereas last time the monster escaped its hunters, here the hu nters suddenly become the hu nted. The effect of the suture here , then , is to identify u s with the hunt ing subject tu rned hunted obj ect, htce to face with something that is at most only partially imaginable. \Ve had it in ou r sights for a second but we never really saw it. Soon after, the monster emerges l'rom the t h reshold of the visi ble worl d , capt u red on camera as it stomps through t he London streets Godzilla-style, smashing cars, chasing down herds of com­ muters and toasti ng t hem in their t racks. Anticipati ng ju st such a con l'ron tation , military forces are on hand, and t h e c haos battie moves rapidly toward its conclusion. As is typical in monster movies, t h e fu l! appearance of the monster h e re leads to an i m me­ diate increase in col lateral damage and casualties, from isolated att acks to a l'u l l-blovvn m onster mash. Yet it will also lead rapidly to the monster's dem ise . l t s fu ll appearance, from head to tai l, signals not only the peak of its power but also its inevitable disempower­ ment . Now that the monster has been fu lly captu red on screen (and fu lly explained, demyt hol ogized , by Karnes and his scientific col­ leagucs) , its demise is not br off'. Though da ngernus game, it is game nonet heless. The last shot/reverse shot formation takes place in the cli mac­ tic scene of the undersea c h aos battle, in which Karnes c hases down and destroys the monster by firing a rad i u m -tipped torpedo into its body. thus givi ng it a t aste of' its own rnedicine. First, as the mon­ s l e t· s·wims i n t o thc c ross hairs, we see Karncs excitedly cal l out to

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FIG U R E 24. Fu l l shot, The Giant Behemoth , Copyright 1 958 Al lied Artists.

his submate, " Fire ! " T"he lever is pul led, and the camera reverses to the monster, who turns to face the speeding missile and catches it straight i n the mouth ( Figu re 24 ) . As the torpedo blows it apart, the camera reverses to the t ri u m p hant face of Karnes. Such is the common end for the chaos monster, in ancient chaos batties and in ecohorror a l i ke . I t is expelled from the cosmos with its tail between its legs, g u tted l ike a fish or blown to bits. l ndeed, by the time of the fi n a l b attle, t h e sense of horror that was experi­ enced previously in re lation to the monster has often been replaced by the adrenaline rush o f a stree t fight, even as the hero of the c haos battie takes on a certa i n d e m o nstrocizing bravado: " I got you ! You son of a bitch. " (Aft�'n) . . " Say aah, mother Iuc ker ! " (Le,·t�zthan) "Sm ile, you son of a bitch ! " (./a u •, 1 ) . I sabel Cristina P i n e d o i d entifies the two most important app earances of the rn o nster as its in itial birth, transformation, o r en trance, and its dest r u e t io n t hat is, its ti rst and last appearan ces i n the fi l m .�' In faet, th ese two appearances are inext ricably related. The monster's first fu l l a p p eara n ce marks the inevitability of its last. .

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The camera shot is fatal . The camera eye de-monstrates the mon­ strous and targets it for annih ilation. For the monster, looks kil! . For t he viewer, seei ng i s disbelievi ng. In the monster movie, then, the monster's u ncanny resistance to ex planation (often associated with pre- or cou nter-modern primi­ tive rel igious mythology) is expressed on screen as visual obscurity: out of focus, overexposed or double-exposed , partial . Likewise, its intellectual obj ectificat ion (associated with its demythologization ) , w h i c h leads inevitably t o i t s downfall, is expressed on screen through the sharp fcKus and objective clarity of the full-view shot. In the same way that explaining t he monster away leads i nevitably to biowing i t away, shooting it on fi lm leads i nevitably to shooting it with a torpedo. T H E S E A R E O U R S E LV E S

The ritual space and t i me of t he monster movie as chaos battie pro­ vides a more or less safe context in which to face and overeorne latent anxieties abou t the c haos ru m bling j ust beneath the su rface of the modern world ecology. i\ \ore or less safe, because narrative expectation assures us t hat by t h e end of the drama the monster will have been t'aced and overcome. I n another sense, however, there is always the I u rking awareness that the world can never be rid of its monst ers. As with Leviathan, Tiamat and other c haos monsters from anc ient religious traditions, the monsters of modern horror, once conjured, always seem to survive the end designated for t hem vvithin the narrat ive. The)' resist oblivion. No matter how many times we blow them up, gut them, send them back to the grave or jett ison them back i n to deep space, t hey keep creeping back into ou r world and under ou r sk i n . The vvorld ean not be de-monstrated . Perhaps neither can we. I n a sense, the fi nal s hot that blows away t he monster also shoots us in t h e foot. For the process of object i (ying and dest ro.ving the monster reveal s ou rselves as mon­ st rous. Aher the ope n i ng cred i ts in T/.1t' Gt�znl Bt:bmzoth, for example, the fi rst images are of nu clear bomb tests, fol lovved by images of f�tcel ess figures in leaded su its with Geiger cou nt ers, wandering through the ru i ns o f an explosion. These images, we soon real ize, are from a film that Karnes h i m self' is showing to a group of scien­ t ists. H e comments: " And a f 'terwa rd s [af'ter the bombing] , t hese

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mysterious figures, faces masked with lead , these are ourselves, men, the ki ngs of the earth , trying to measu re the extent of the destruetion they themselves have created . " Here in t he movie's ope n i ng lecture, "we " (men of modern science) are myste rious, masked monster-gods vvho have "created " i n turn an even more monst rous catastrophe, which will lead, Karnes prophesies, to a " rad ioact ive conglomerate " resu lti ng from a " biological chain reac­ tion , a geometrical progression of deadly menace. " " For all we know, " he says, "w hat vve have started may have al ready matu red, and who can tell when this, this whatever it is, will rise to the sur­ face and strike back at us. " The sense i s that "we " modern scie nti sts are monsters engendering monsters. The chaos mon ster that will soon rise to thc su rhKe m i rrors our very own monstrosity. In faet, as noted earl ier, the radioactive c haos monster i s ultimately destroyed by a torpedo that Karnes and his col leagues, work i ng i n a dark and mysteriou s laboratory, weari ng the same outfits a s those in Karncs' fi lm (" mysterious figures, faces masked with lead ") , have tipped with rad i u m . The implication is not only that fire is fought wi t h fi re, but that monsters are destroyed by monsters. In this sense, the monster projccted onto the si lver screen may be the pro­ jection of a latent chaos t hat is not only in ou r world but also in our­ selves. These are ourselves.

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O u R MoN STERS, O u RS ELVES

I S LA N D O F TH E M I S F lT BOYS

Hate you father, for you have sin ned Why did you , Lord, let this life begi n ? . . . Mother, Father, you an swer me Your sou l-less son, you r thing that should not be A brill iant demon, a monster god You gave me life but took the sou l away \Vith t hese fi nal words I pull the switch We t u rn to dust (dust to dust) - i\ \isfits, " Dus t to Dus t" (Famo11,, Afon.,ter,,) " So, w hat 's you r bvorite ' Fits song? " asks the Ticket master opera­ tor, breaki ng from his sales script . " I don 't really know, " I said. " I guess I l i ke '20 Eyes in i\ ly Head ' and a couple of' songs on the new albu m . " I am not a fan , or " Fiend " as they say, of the 1\ \isfits, a pio­ neering punk band whose songs are all about B-movie monst ers. 1\\uch of t heir early material from t he '70s and early '80s, "v ritt e n by forme r member Glenn Danzig, seerned t o m e the produet o f' you ng wh ite male angst, samet imes infused with sexual violence. But this was not so much the case with their latest album, l·�zmoll, , 1 73

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FIGURE 2 5 .

Cover art for M isfits, Famous Mons ters ( Roadru n n er Reco rds, 1999), by Basil Gogos. Pictu red from left to right: Jerry On ly, Dr. Chud , M ichael Graves, Doyle Wolfga n g von Fra n kenste i n .

�llon ,lct� ' ( 1 99 9 ) ,

and I h ad heard that i l ' I was i n terested in ritual performance in t h e popular cult u re of horror, t h e op e n i ng to their l i ve s h ow was not t o be missed . I t turns out t hat my Ticketmaster tic k et was a pass from the com­ m e rc i a l mai n st ream to a cou ntercultural e ddy where playing monster did not just happen on screen but was a way of life. The l"'' iends, most ly male and rangi ng in age f'rom 2 1 t o 50, come d ressed i n black \vith t�1ces and arms pai nted l ik e skeleto n s . As t h e shuw opens, the Cri mson G h ost, a kind ol' gri m reaper wea ri ng a silky red cape. cornes onto the stage area rol ling a s i x - f oot-h igh 1 950s style televi-

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sion . l t i s fam i ly time for the Fiends. The Cri mson Ghost turns the televis i o n on, and we watch a long series of' clips from B-monster movies, mostly d epicting the moment of the monster's revelation. Whe n the s h ow e nds, the television is rolled away, and the i\'\isfits the m s e l ves take the stage, replacing the TV movie monsters with live monsters. They look like monsters, and the lyrics to their songs are all about identi(ying with the monsters of the popular culture of hor­ ror, a s i n " Du st to Dust, " which is reminiscent of the final scene of self- d es tructio n in The Bni)e tl Fmnkentlein . l ndeed , the band mern­ hers t h emselves are famous monsters, especially bassist Jerry Only and his b rot h e r, gu itarist Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein ( Figure 25) . They even h ave their own action figures. Throughout the show, moreover, the l i n e between performer and audience blurred . At sev­ eral points Fie nds in the mosh pit, some dressed more outrageously than t h e Misfi t s themselves, were I i fted on stage where they sang the lyrics to the ban d 's high-speed punk songs without missing a beat. All were o n e in t h e i r e mbrace of monstrosity. O ft e n wi t h i n the story worlds of horror movies and l irerature we fi n d that m o n ster c reators and monster kil lers i nadvertently end up b ei ng m o r e m onstrous than the monsters they c reate and kill. The fae t that Frankenstein's unnamed monster is so often called Fran ken stein is t el ling. But with i n the popular cultu re of horror, in perfo r m a n c e s l i k e those of the lVlisfits, we often fi nd people identi­ fYing with t he s e m onsters i n the most tu)l'erlent ways. Our monsters become us. B E LA' S H I D E O U S P R O G E N Y

I n h e r 1 83 1 i n t roduetion to Frankentfet"n for the Standard Novels series, Mary S h e l ley sent her book off with a mother's blessing, claiming i t as t h e offspring of her own monstrous i magination: " I bid my h i d e ou s p rogeny go forth and prosper. " 1 With t his maternal blessi n g and c l aim, Shelley echoes a long tradition of interpreting " monstrous b i rth s " as man ifestations of dangerous materna.l fan­ tasies or desi re s.:� lVlany eritics had attacked the novel as precisely that. H e re S h e l l ey does not defend her monster as a misu nderstood beau ty, b u t i d e nt i fi es with it as such , claiming ;t as her own , hold­ i ng it c l ose t o h e r bosom bef'ore sending it out to face the c ruel gaze of a p u b l i c s k i l led at d ragon slaying. witch bu rning and exorcism.

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I n \Vhale 's T/.1e Bni)e t?f' Fmnken,fct'n , a similar identi fication of Shelley wit h her monstrous progeny is cast into the frame of the movie itself: t he same actor, Elsa Lan chester, appears both in the opening scene as 1\lary Shelley narrating her story to Percy Shelley and Lord Byron, and i n the fi nal scene as the monstrous bride her­ sel f ( Figu rcs 26 and 2 7) . The not so subtle suggestion is that Shelley is her own monster, and her own monster 's bride. To the best of my k nowledge, Bram Stoker never took his varn­ pi re to his bosom or c laimed him as his own , flesh of his flesh and blood of his blood . Perhaps that is why his monster seeks fam i ly elsewhere. l ndeed , al though he fou nd l ittie kinship among the mothers and fathers of England at the end of the n ineteenth cen­ tu ry, he has ccrtai nly borne his own monstrous progeny i n the more recent popular culture of horror, begi n n i ng with Bela Lugosi, whose crowning ac hievement as an actor was his rol e as the Count i n Tod Browning's Dracula ( 1 93 1 ). Lugosi remai n s Dracula's u nd is­ puted heir. Today one can hard ly read Stoker's novel without imag­ i n i ng its vam pire weari ng Lugosi 's black cape, pancake makeup and red lipstick. I n faet, when Lugosi died in August of 1 956, h e was bu ried, a t t h e req uest of his family, i n his Dracula makeup and costu me . lf Stoker's Drac ula has a family plot, i t is with Lugosi. Within Goth culture, Dracula has many grandeh i ldre n by the quintessential mon.,trc ,,acre, Lugosi , who was memorialized in the song " Bela Lugosi 's Dead " by the semi nal Goth band Bau haus: The bats have left the bell tower, The victi ms have been bled, Red velvet lines the black box , Bela Lugosi 's dcad U ndcad , u ndead , undead . The virgi nal brides File past his tomb, Strcwn with ti m e 's dead flowers, Bcrc h , in deat hly bloom. Alone, in a darkencd room, The Count, Bela L,ugosi 's dead U ndead ,

u ndca(l ,

u ndead :'

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FI G U R E 2 6 . Elsa La nchester as Mary Shel l ey, Th e Bride af Frankenstein , Co pyright 1 935

U n iversal Stu d i os.

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FIG U R E 27. Elsa La nchester as the monster bride, The Bride af Frankenstein, Copyright

1935 U n iversal Studios.

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As Lugosi's Hollywood mov1e set turns i n to a fu neral home, the pronou ncemen t of his death is cchoed by a con fessional cou nter­ pronou ncement, " undead undcad u n dead . " Al most twe nty-fi ve years after his death in relat ive obscu rity, the Bau haus song can­ onized him. Lugosi as Dracula has been rei ncarnated within Goth horror c ultu re as undead patron sai nt and, of cou rse, fashion authority on how to perform monstros ity, t hat is, ho\v to play m onster. Among Goth s, the monstrous forms t hat the builders of mai n­ stream culture rejected have become the cornerstones of a cou n te r­ cultu re t hat mi rrors that same mai nstream cultu re 's repressed mon­ strosity - a cou ntercu lture infused with a m ix of monstrosity and pre-modern Ch ristian religious iconography and architecture. Although inc reasingly diverse and difficult to defi ne (especially as Goth spills over into industrial. death rock, ambient, etc . ) , these two elements remai n its most disti nctive features. I n some cities, Goth nightclubs are even hou sed in the down town churc h build­ ings of "white-flight " congregations that f1ed to the suburbs. Within this iconographic and architect ural con text, which is a kind of sac red space, musical performances like Bauhaus and fashion performances by those in congregation fu nction as rites that lay claim to their inheritance as the true hideous p rogeny of "classic " cinematic and l iterary mon strosity. The broad popularity of mon sters like Lugosi 's Drac ula is important to such rites of self-defi nition, i nsofar as it makes them widely recogn izable signitiers of abomination and taboo. The embrace of classic mon strosity feeds on the ge neral public 's " u nc lean " parts. 1\\uch like the poetic pri mitivism of intellectuals l i ke Batai lle and Artaud i n the i nterwar years , the Goth counter­ cultu re of the late twe ntieth and early twenty-first century bears itself and nourishes itself on mai nstream culture 's most wel l-k nown projections of monstrosity. C T H U L H U M YT H O S

Goths may love their I3ela. But there is no more devoted group of monster enthu siasts than those who have consecrated t hemsel ves to the bte horror writer Howard Phill ips Lovec raft ( 1 890 1 937) . I n the years since his untimely death, Lovec raf't has been sain ted by

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cou ntless disciples worldwide who long fo r t he return of the mon­ ster god s of his " Ct h u l h u 1\\yt hos. " The "Cthu Ih u ;\ lyt hos " re f 'e rs to an artific ial myt h o l ogy devel­ opcd by Lovcerart du ring his last decade and a hall' ol' w riting for pulp horror zi ncs like !1'{·/rd };z/c, , and A,,/owuhn.tJ Ston�'· ' · begi n n i ng with " T he Call of C t h u l h u " ( 1 928) and " The Du nwich Horror" ( l 92 9 ) , and i n cluding " The Haunter of the Dark " ( 1 936) , " At the 1\\ou ntains of 1\ \adncss" ( 1 936 ) , and " The Shadow Out of Tim e " ( l 936) , a mong sevcral others.� I n each o f t hese tales, Lovec raft pro­ vides fragments of' a f'ragme nted mythosphere, a storied world that he pieces toge ther, according to his O\vn testimony in !etters, from child hood memories, from dreams and from various bits of myt hol­ ogy drawn from a wide range ol' ancient and contem porary sou rces. Lovec raft 's aim i n developing this myt h osphere in his stories is hest u nderstond in terms of his own t h eory ol' the pu rpose of su per­ natura! horror, namcly, to elicit co, ,/Ju�· f;·ar. I n his 1 92 7 essay, ..')upcnzaluml florror ,·n Lt't cmlure , which was fi rst published i n a small-ru n amateu r zine called 1/.Jc' Rcclu, ,c , Lovec raft argued t hat the truly horri(ying tale (as opposcd to what h e cal l ed " l iterature of mere physical fear and the mu ndanely gruesome ") awakens an awarcn css of the l i m its of the known and knowable world , "a pro­ faund sense ol' dread , and of contact vvi t h unk nown spheres and powers; a subtlc att itude of awed listeni ng, as il' f'or t h e beating of black wi ngs or t he scratching ol' outside shapes and entiti es on the known un iverse 's u t most rim . " Horror. for Lovec raft , is an awed and awful listen i ng for the rad i c a l ly ot hcr·, for t hat which is uni mag­ inably t here " i n t he def'e at of those fi xed laws of Nat u re which are our only sal'e guard agai nst t h e assau lts of chaos. " ' Lovec raf't attrib­ utes a certai n unimaginable agcncy to t h is rad ical ly anti-cosmic, c haotic otherness that t h reatens us i n horror: scratching, beati ng, assau lti ng, but a l w a y s from beyond, ncvcr fu lly w i t h i n the cosmic sphere. In the sleep ol' reason , as onc 's fragile 1�-tith i n a knowable, reas o n a bl e , a l l e m b rac i ng cosmic order t'alls away, monsters of supe rnat ural horror awaken. Lovecral't considered cosm ic fear to bc coe\·al with rel igious experience, but hc bel ieved t h at modern re ligion (especially mai n­ st iTam Ame1·ican Protestan tism ) had attuncd itsell' exclusively t o t h e m o re b e n e fi c e n t dimen sions of cos mic myst ery, ide n t i l�·ing t hem with a c o smi c a l ly be n e l i c e n t God , a n d had lel't t h e " da r k e r

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and more mal eficent side o f cosmic mystery" t o the popular culture of horror, which for him i nel udes literature as wel l as folklore. With i n the dualized, sterilized mai nstream of modern theology and rel igious practice, this " darker side, " this cosmic maleficence is not only ignored but d ivorced from the beneficent aspects of the unknown, setting up a clean opposition of moral and spiritual good versus evil . " The Call o f Cth u l h u " i s the hest known o f Lovecraft's Cthu l h u Mythos tales. T h e story i s presented a s an open letter found among the papers of the late Francis \Vayland Thu rston, and begi ns with his inheritance of the estate of his great-uncle George Gam mell Angel), Professor Emeritus of Semitic Languages at Brown University. Thus the reader, i nheriting Thurston 's papers after hit death, is in the same position he was in at the begi nning of the story, i n heriti ng Angell 's papers after his death. And in both cases death turns out to be the result of the revelation of a world on the bri n k of a monstrous c haogony. Among his great-uncle's papers, Thu rston discovers a smal l Joeked box containing news clippings, c ryptic notes, and a strange clay bas-relief, all bound together with a document titled " Cthu l h u Cult. " T h e d ippi ngs center on a series of "outre mental illnesses and outbreaks of group fol ly or mania i n the spring of 1 925, "6 and the bas-relief ineludes ancient text of unknown p rovenance along with an image of an uni magi nable monster: "a sort of monster, or sym bol representing a monster, of a form which only a diseased fancy could conceive. If I say that my somewhat extravagant i magination yielded simultaneous pietures of an octopus, a d ragon and a h uman caricature, I s hall not be u n faithful to the spirit of the t h i ng. ";- I t turns out that the bas-relief was made by a young art student based on d reams, and that his d reams and subsequent mad ness coi ncided with the other spring 1 925 outbreaks which were the focus of the clippi ngs. As Thu rston 's research conti nues, he soon discovers a broad and disparate col lection of sec ret rel igious grou ps located throughout the world, each of which is, like the monstrosity on the bas-relief, an adm ixture of u n familiar elements from various rel i­ gions, from Lou isiana Vodou sacrifice to proto-Su merian hermetics to Bacchanal i ncantations. Al l of these groups are seeking t h rough their rites "to shadow forth the prophecy " of the chaophany of the Old Ones and their great priest Cth u l h u .

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Lovecraft's " The Du nwich H orror" provides another window onto this abyssal mythos. I n this story, Dr. Henry Armitage, a l i n ­ guistics scholar a n d librarian from Lovecraft 's fabled Nliskatonic U n iversity, fi nds himsel f i nvol ved i n a case of i m maculate concep­ tion in which a you ng woman narned Lavi nia Whateley has given bi rth to twi n chaos monsters : one narned Wi lbur, who was fu ll­ grown by the age of fou r and a half. who had a gi ft for readi ng h ieroglyphic incantations of u n known provenance, and was i n the habit of perform i ng strange mou ntaintop rites that caused the earth to rumble and crack; and another whom we do not meet u ntil it makes its monstrous epiphany at the end of the story. The librarian scholar first meets Wi lbur when he tries to gai n access to an i n fa­ mous text called the i\'ecrononui.·on, Olaus Wormius' Latin transla­ tion o f the mad Abd u l Alhazred 's Al A��f. As Dr. Arm i tage sight­ reads over Wilbur's shoulder in the l ibrary, we l earn of the " Old Ones, " who were before h u mankind and who will be yet again. These monster gods are paradoxically in the world but not of it: Not in the spaces we know, but f,etween them . They walk serene and prima!, u ndimensioned and to us u nseen . . . they walk u n seen and fou l in lonely piaces where the Words have been spoken and the Rites howled through at their Seasons. The wind gibhers with Their voices, and the earth mutters with Their consciousness. They bend the forest and c rush the city, yet may not the forest or city behold the hand that smites . . . Their hand is at you r throats, yet ye see Them not; and Their habitation is even one with you r guarded threshold . " �' Rem iniscent of theological language about the paradoxical i m ma­ nence and tran scendance of God, the sense here is that these oth­ e rworldly c haos gods are inti mately near and yet wholly other. The cosmic horror I ies in the antici pation that this paradox will be resolved not in a tri u m phant chaos battie but in the an nihilation of human subj cctivity. Thc Old Ones ean not be seen , the text explai ns, ",,m•inp on�y in the j�·a!Ltrc,, ��l tho,,c Thcy ihl i 'C bl:qoltcn on manl.:ind, and of those are there many sorts, differing in likcness from man 's eidolon to that shapc without sight or substance which is Them . "') U pon readi ng

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t his, Dr. Ann itage turns to \Vi lbur, who suddenly appears as the very embod iment of t his paradox , part human and part abyss: " t he bent, goatish giant before him seerned like t h e spawn of another planet or dimension ; like something only part ly of mankind, and linked to black gu lt's of essence and entity t hat stretch like titan phantasms beyond all spheres of force and matter, space and time. " 1 0 Arm i tage soon real izes that \Vil bu r, old \Vhateley, and whatever is being fed bull-off'e ri ngs in their at tic (\Vi l bur's twin brother) are preparing t he way f'or the in break ing of an extraordial pantheon that will lay waste the eart h and hu manki nd. Simultaneously Di(mysian and Leviat han , Lovec raft's mon­ strous pan t heon endangers bot h the cosmic and soc ial-pol iti cal order of t h i ngs . On the one hand, l i ke Leviathan and other chaos monsters f'rom the ancient Near Eastern rcligious t raditions, Lovec raft 's chaos gods lurk along the edges of t h e known as pri­ mord ial t h reat s to cosmic order. They are the divine harbingers not of cosm ogony but chaogony. On the other hand, and at the same t i me, like Dionysus, whose f'o l lowers transgress normative sexual politics as 'vvell as basi c distinct ions between hu man and animaL civil and wild, Lovec raft's monster gods are known by the trans­ gressive behavior of their l3acchic devotees: hu man and animal sac ri fices, secret mou ntai ntop rites, erotic-ecstatic flopping hordes of " m i ndless and amorphous dancers, " " brayi ng" and " bellowi ng" l ike wild animals, threat en i ng legal authority and causing rep­ utable scholars to go off the deep end (so help me God) . The chaot ic, havoc-reek ing hierophanies of these monstrous deities are invariably li nked to soc ial tv and polit ically abh orrent groups of hierophants. Not only are these monstrous epiphanies represented as th reats to the cosmological and socio-political order of things; they are also physiological ly abominations: their prese nce in this world is sensed primari ly by t he smell of rot and filth , which clicits a sense of i nef­ fability and otherworldliness: "a touch of ineH�tble foetor, " 1 1 remi­ niscent of "alien things that festered in earth 's nether abysses. " 1 2 When they do man ifest themselves, moreover, they are extreme examples of impurity and abominat ion as defined by i\ lary Douglas: impossible combinations of species (an octopus plus dragon plus human caricat ure, for example ) , whose stinki ng, puss-til led i nsides are con tin ual ly ovedl ovving theit· bod ily boundaries. " Of gen u i ne

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blood there was none; only the foetid greenish yello"v ichor which trickled along the pai nted Hoor beyond the rad ius of the sticki ness, and left a c urious discolaration behind it. " i .> " There was a bu rsting of an exploding bladder, a slu shy nastiness as of a eloven su n fish, a stene h of a t housand opened graves. " 1 4 These monstrou s epiphanies are both scatological and eschatological, signi (y ing the end of the world as we know it in a sea of rot, puss and u ri ne . l t is clear from his vol u minous correspondence ( h e wrote thou­ sands of !etters) , as well as from a carefu l reading of any of his Cth u l h u 1\lythos stories, that Lovecraft himself did not believe in th ese or any other gods. At the same ti me, as Edward J . l ngebretsen makes c lear, Lovecraft's writings are steeped i n an American theological discourse of terror inherited from .J onathan Edward s, Cotton 1\lather, Nathaniel Hawthorne and others. l ndeed, Lovecraft is a theologian without God . " l t is a sign of Lovecraft 's intellectual complexity that the God den ied so thor­ oughly by his material ism retu rns so i nsistently in the areane hor­ rors of his fiction . " Lovecraft's tales are a representative guide to the American theological imagination in all its bristly contrari­ ness. Post- Pu ritan moralist, Lovceralt writes i n the trad i­ tional cadences of religious discou rse: salvation and dam nation; grace and sin; surface and interiority; faith and u nbelief. His is the widening abyss beneath the sheen of appearances, t he great fragility of things as they seem . h For Lovecraft, the language of theology and cosmology open toward a revelation of c haogony. The c haos monster gods of the Ct hulhu i\lythos, d rawn from nu merous theological and mytholog­ ical discou rses, are personificat ions of cosmic fear I u rking j ust beneath the pathetical ly thin anthropocentric cosmological veneers we have painted over u n p l u m bed abysses of u n k nowing. Lovecraft 's mythology is a monstrosity in and of itself, stitched together from m utually incompati ble religious discourses and ritual practices. l t seeks to bring about a fail u re of imagination and rea­ son by jamm ing together theological and mythological categories. Eac h of Lovec raft's mythos stories leads to a revelation of the fragility of' this veneer, a revdation that takes the form of a ru ptu re.

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Si nce Lovec raft's early death from i n testi nal cancer m 1 93 7, his writi ngs, especial ly those ident ified with the Cthulhu 1\\ythos, have become mainstays w i t h i n t h e popu lar culture of horror. Look t h rough the horror sect ion in al most any major bookstore, and you are l i kely to fi nd as many works by and about Lovec raft as you will Cl ive Barker and Stephen King combi ned . From pulp zi nes to com ics to bestselling navels to con cordances, there have been t hou sands of Cth ulhian \vorks publ ished since Lovec raft 's deat h , i ncltHl ing those by well-known writers l i ke Fred Chappel l , Robe rt Bloc h , Poppy Bri te and Stephen Ki ng. There are also doze n s of Ct hulhu-i nspi red fi lms, including Roger Corman 's Tbc Hawztcd Palace ( 1 963; based o n "The Case o f Charles Dexter \Vanl") , Daniel Haller's /)/'c, illon.,fo; lJt�'! \vith Bori s KarlofT ( 1 965, a.k.a . .�1/on,/t:r t l 7iTror; based on " The Colour out of Space") and T/.1c lJwzH'tdJ Horror vvith Sandra Dee ( 1 970) , Vernon Sewell 's Cur, ,t: t?f' thc Cl'l·m, ,on �ltar \vith Boris Karloff, Christopher Lee and Barbara Steele ( 1 968, a.k.a. ll1c Crt"m,,mz Cu/t; based on " Dreams i n the \Vitch House ") , Stuart Gordon 's Rc �nt"mator and nrt"dc 1?1' Rc �nt"nzator ( 1 985 and 1 990; based on " Herbert West Rean imator") , Howa1·d Hawks' and Christian Nyby 's 1Z1e Tbt"np Ji·om �notbcr n:�wld ( 1 95 1 ) and .J ohn Carpenter's remake, / /.Jc TIJt"n.tJ ( 1 982; both rem i niscent of "At the l\ lou n tai ns of i\lad ness ") , to name just a few. There are numerous other fil ms, moreover, whose mon sters bear st rong resemblance to his Cthulhu 1\lythos monst rosit ies, such as the one c reated by Lovec raft enthu siast H. R. Giger in t h e ����'Il fi lms. The Cthulh u ;\ \ythos has li kewise found its way i nto a great deal of popular and cou ntercu ltural music, i nclud i ng early Black Sabbat h , Blue Oyster Cu lt, l ron l\laiden and 1\ \etal lica, as well as an i nternational collection of lesser-known indust rial , Got h and u nclassi fiable groups with strong "cu lt " f'o l lowi ngs, such as Gwar, Deicide, I3lood Ritual, Cassandra Complex, Endura, Fields of Nephilim and The Darkest of the H i l lside Thickets. There are also many bands narned either af'ter Lovecraf't h i msel f (su ch as the 1 960s and '70s Ame rican band Lovecraf't/1 I. P Lovec raft and an Argentine band narned Lovec raf't ) or after an element from his myt!1os (e.g., the Span ish hardcore band Ktu lu, the German metal

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ba nd Necronorn icon , and t he Canad ian spirit ual death metal band �ecronorn ico i'\ ) . 1 '' F R O M S C H O LA R S TO T H E C A M P U S C R U S A D E FO R CT H U L H U

Si nce his u n t i mely death, Lovecrah has ac hieved sai nthood i n the works of his own progeny within the A rn eri can popular culture of horror, and his Cth ulhu i\\ythos storics have gai ned somet h i ng of a canonical status as sc riptu re. Stephen King speaks for rnany of Lovecraf't 's devotces whcn he con f'e sses, Lovecral't opened the way for me, as he had done for ot h­ e rs bef'o re me . . . The reader wou ld do well to remembe r that it is his shadow, so long a n d s o gau n t , and his eyes, so dark and puritan ical, which ove rl i e al most all of the i m portant horror fiction that has come since. 1 ;I n t h i s eu logistic expression of' debt a n d gratitude, Ki ng dwells on the i mage ol' LoveC I·aft 's face with the rel igious devotion of one standing before the icon of his sai ntly benefactor. The process of canonizi ng Lovecraft began shortly after his death, when his writi ngs were saved from pulp obl ivion by his f'ri ends August Derleth and Donald \Va n d re i , who f'o u nded Arkham House (Arkham was the name of' Lovec raft 's own Yoknapatawpha) i n order to publish Lovec r.:tft's works. Not only did t hesc and ot hcr fricnds and ad m i re rs canonize his writi ngs for posterity, but some also began to canonize part icular interpreta­ tions of' his myt hos. Glossaries were published along with attempts at syste matization, of't en supplern e n t i ng apparent gaps in the mythos and emendi ng its apparent i neongru i ties - assu m i ng, of cou rse, t hat Lo,·ec ral't meant the various cpiphanies of Cth ulhu and its cohorts in various storics to fit together i nto a larger mythologi­ cal whole. E\·e n more i n tl u e ntial on t he emerging Gmon of' Lovecraf't ian i n terpretat ion were t he writi ngs of one of Arkham l louse 's found i ng ed itors, August Derlet h . Dedeth wrote his own Cthulhu i\ \ythos stories, as well as " post h u mous col laboration s " using Lovec ral't 's o w n notebook jot t i ngs. I l e also vv rote ed itorial p r·e bces t o each A r·kham l l ouse collect ion ol' Lovecraft- 's works, i n

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which h e presented a particu lar apocalypt i c construal of Lovecraft's mythos. According to Derleth , Lovec raft intended to present a scene of cosmic battie betvveen good and evi l , in which the Elder Gods are the good gods who will save h u manity and the world by destroying the Old Ones who threaten total destruction . I n contemporary Lovecra ftian hagiography, Derleth is some­ ti mes rem embered disdainfu l ly as his well-meaning but misguided disciple who institutionalized certain m is u n d e rstandi ngs of Lovecraft 's life and work , which many contemporary canonical scholars of Lovec raft feel they are sti ll struggling to correct. What Bonaventu re was to Sai nt Francis, it appears, Oerleth was to Saint Lovecraft . Derleth tu rned Lovecraft's abysmal openings onto cos­ mic fear and theological madness into cathed ral windows that look onto an apocalyptic horizon of cosmic battie betwee n good and evil i n which good ness is sure to triumph on ou r behalf. l ndeed, there is a second generation of m ore scholastic criticism of the Lovecraft canon that is working with great diligence and devotion to get back to the true Lovecraft. As one learned Lovecraftian writes, Recent Lovecraft scholars, armed with a sure r feel for Lovecraft's art, have set about seraping away Derleth 's overlay and, with difficulty, sametimes tedious to bystanders , have begu n to lay bare the original vista painted so subtly by Lovecraft h imsel f. That vista, Lovecraft knew, would be a difficult one for m ost to view unflinchingly. Derleth flinched when he saw it and sought to soften the blow for subsequent viewers. Dare we con­ template the vision e rnbodied in Lovecraft's 'artificial mythology' as he intended i t ? I R These recent Lovecraft scholars see them selves a s a generation of reformers whose ai m is to peel back the layers o f the traditioning process to reveal the work of the master and thereby establish him firmly within the canons of American literature . They take great pains to emphasize that what distingu ishes the m from earlier Lovecraft aficionados is their ,1cholar/y character and methodology. At the same time, as the passage above makes clear, rheir work is a labor of love and devotion to the master's original intentions. They represent a movement of canonical scholarship on Lovecraft, secu r-

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i ng the Lovec raft corpus and its proper interpretation for future generat ions. But not all those dedicated to Lovecraft and the Cthulhu J\1ythos play so seriously. There is Oderus Uru ngus, for example, the lead singer for the monstrous performance art band Gwar, who wears as part of his costu rne an appendage called "The Cuttlefish of Cthulhu ". And there are the various col lege chapters of the international Campus Crusade for Cthulhu, a play on the Christian evangelical Campus Crusade for Christ. It-s mai n internet site opens with this invitation to join the ranks of Ct hulhian maenads: Bored by an ordinary, nothing life ? Searching for excite­ ment, power? Seeking a higher cau se, one worthy of you r very life ? The Campus Crusade for Cthu l h u offers all this, A N D 1\'lORE! H ow does Tal l , G reen, and Slimy sou nd to you ? Pretty scary. But you can handle it. You will have to learn how to. You will l earn to yearn for the soft squeezing caress of unelulating tentacles. Or you will be eternal ly sorry that you d id not. 1 'J This site also ineludes hymns to Cth u l h u sung to the tune of tradi­ t ional c h u rch camp sangs like " Old Time Religion " and " Lord of the Dan ce, " a special section on the Cthu l h u Scouts of America, and evangel ical posters p roclaiming " Cthulhu is coming ! Are you ready for the New Time ? " ( Figure 28) . A nother is the Chaos Cult of Cthulhu 33, w hose " i\1anifesto" an nou nces that it " has decided to appear befare the eyes of human­ ity as a Cult, incorporating all existing Iore, traveling the paths untrodden, illum inating and thus elimi nating the passing stranger. Hearken : The Chaos Cult of Cthulhu has risen . . . The dead should prove their death, and implode with a snigger. The living should join the Cult and explode with glee. " Throughout their materiais one encou nters a Judie, willfully absurd yet h ighly literate admixtu re of the Cthulhian li ngo with more traditional religious elements (for example, mystical recipes for Kabal lah Rabiata and Ganesh en Pied) . On these websites, as with bands l ike Gv,'ar, the performance of' monstrosity becomes a kind of' self-su bverti ng, soc ially trans­ gressive play whose superficiality and cheeki ness masks a deeper sense of irony.

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FIG U R E 28. "Cth u l h u is Com i n g ! Are You Ready for the New Time?" Campus Crusade for

Cth u l h u website ( by Joe Bethancourt, Wh ite Tree Prod uctions). Used by perm ission of Joe Bethancourt.

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H O M ES I C KN ESS

I n his assessment of the popular explosion of occu ltism and secret soc ieties in Eu rope and Arnerica in the 1 970s, especial ly with in "youth c u lture, " 1\\i rcea Eliade concl uded that, beneath the obvious dissati sfaction with mainstream western Ch ristianity and a corre­ sponding romanticization and exoticization of the "orie ntal, " " prim­ itive " and "archai c " expressed by such movements, there I ies a naively opti mistic hope for renol'aft�J. '2° That is, a hope for a resacral­ ization of humanity and the cosmos t h rough a return to or remem­ bering of mythic (pre- Ch ristian) origi ns which are revealed in ancient and venerable secrets passed down in the form of clandes­ tine texts and ritual practices. Consistent with Eliade's interpreta­ tion of myth and ritual in religion, the ritual remembering and reenactment of myth within these occult movements is u nderstood to be a means of marking present time and space as sac red . These movements, like their eighteenth- and nineteenth-century theo­ sophic p redecessors, give expression to a profound sense of nostal­ gia for lost origi ns, a homesickness rooted in the common experi­ ence of feeling not-at-home in the modern West. This diagnusis of homesickness may be apt with regard to the semi-hermetic societies of Cthu l h u i\lythos devotees in the Derleth circle: as they fi ll out and reorient Lovecraft's fragments i n order to create a fu ll blown mythology, from cosmogony to apocalypse , they sacralize ou r present situation as being on our way home. Far from pushing readers to the edge of an abyss of cosmic terror, as Lovecraft tried to do, they seek to c reate a mythology that locates the c u rrent h u man situation somewhere on the salvific road between remem brance of cosmic origins and hopeful expectat ion of apocalyptic re newal . Eliade's diagnosis of homesickness also makes some sense with regard to the many Lovecraft devotees vvho play monster with a straight f�tce, argu ing vehemently about the correct way to pro­ nou nce the name Cth u l h u and its ritual incantations, or search i ng for the original archaic Necronomt"con as for lost treasu re (despite the b.ct that Lovec raft himsel f made clear in letters that he just made it up along with its author, Abdul Al hazred) . This may also be a fair diagnosis of those Coths whose performance of Dracul ian mon­ strosity someti mes goes beyond black capes and pancake makeup

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to inel ude s l e e pi ng a n d eating patte rns. S u e h performances o f mon­ strosity exp rcss both senses of' homesickness: on the one hand , ach i ng for h o m e , and , on the other hand, bei ng utterly sick of this home. i\ly i d e r�t'i ficat ion with monst rosity signitles that this world is not my h o m e . That which is dread fu l and monstrous to you is beloved and sacred to me. Come Lord Cthulhu ! I n such seriou s performances, o ften devastat ingly bereft of i rony, mai nstream cul­ ture 's proj ecti o n o f monstrous otherness represe nts a longed-for wholly other vvorld. One cornes to personi(y the wz/Jet"m//clJ as an expression of o n e 's own experience of feeling not-at-home. Lovec raft 's own use of' mythology, however, could not be fu r­ ther from t h i s k i nd of nostalgie rel igious longi ng. Although he cre­ ated his Cth u l h u i\ lyt hos from a wide range of "arc haic " and " prim­ itive " religi o u s myt hs and ritual s - from Su merian to Egyptian to Pu ritan to Vodou - his mythos leads not to an u l ti mate sen se of home but to an u l t i m ate experie nce of being u n homed , u ngrou nded. F o r Lovecraft , nostalgia is only a symptom of t h e ter­ ri (yi ng existe n t ial reality of' human life , which is incurable. Neither i s h omesickness an apt diagnosis for those who pro­ nounce Cth u l h u 's incantations or i m i tate Lugnsi 's accent with tongu e i n cheek . This kind of rit ual recu perat ion of the monst rous end lessly s u bverts any sense of' nostalgia for home or origi n . Shot t h rough with heterodox amalgamations of religious language and image ry, such m onster play operates as a critique of more c u l t u rally main stream r e l i gious i nstitutions, ideas and practices. Li ke t he Judie masq u e rades of t he trad itional .J ewish Purim play, or t he transgressivc, d ecreat ive performances of' ri t ual clovvning within Pueblo and other Sou t hwestern Native American communit ies, this kind of ritual monstering i nvolves a "d iscontl rmation of bmil­ iar forms " a n d puts the performer and the speetator in a liminal space " betw e e n i nside and outside, sel f' and other, creati on and destruction, o rde r and c haos. "c l There a re many i nstances i n which no\·els and movies with in the popu lar c u l t u re of' horror provide the cent ral plot for a kind of social d rama o f monster killing. i\ luch like t he ancient reenact­ ments o f ,\ lard u k 's vietory ove r Tiamat o r Re 's vietory over Apophis, the ri t u al public shari ng of' the monster tale of't en provides a more or J e s s safe . predictable and str·uctu red context in which deep and often re p ressed l'e ars, u ncer·tai nties and insecurities about

RE LI G I O :\ :\ � D ITs M o :-.: sT E R S

1 92

FIG U R E 2 9 . The Bride

of Frankenstein , Copyright 1935 U n iversal Stu d i os.

the accepted order of' thi ngs are projected in the form oC monst rous otherness and then , in the last battle, are d ramatical ly overcome . But i n i nstances of' playing mon ster, i n vvh ich monstrosity i s em braced , e v e n taken on a s a f'o rm of one's o w n identity, somethi ng rad i cally d i fferent is at work. Such mon strous performance art works agai nst the ge neral tendency to use mon sters to mark the dis­ tance between normative and non- normative identity, pu shing us to get to know ou r monsters bce to face - an d perhaps, like t h e blind man i n Tl.h' Brt't)t' t/ Fmnkcn ,lt't'n ( Figure 29 ) , to share a good smoke and som e new music. Gwar, f'or exam ple .

C

O

N

C

L U

S

I

O

N

H E R E B E M O N ST E R S

This book began with F rankenstein 's monster, so i t seem s appro­ p riate to end with h i m too. We tend to forget that u nlike James Whale 's two-part fil m ver­ sion of the Frankenstein story, which begins in the graveyard and ends in the laboratory, Shelley's novel begi ns and ends at sea, on a voyage that is quickly slipping off the edge of the map of the known world. While on " pathless seas " heading toward the North Pole, explorer Robert Walton discovers Victor Frankenstei n paddling along by h imself in a di nghy, and brings him aboard his ship. Walton, still enchanted with his own romantic search for u ncharted territory, is im mediately drawn to Frankenstein, who is at the very end of his own tale. Sensi ng a kindred spirit, Walton shares '\vith Frankenstein his deep desire to push past the edge of the map, to venture beyond the bou ndaries of the known world. But as he speaks a " dark gloom " spreads over Fran kenstei n 's face. " U n happy ma.n ! Do you s hare my mad ness ? Have you d runk al so o f the intox­ icating draught? Hear me, - let me reveal my tale, and you will dash the cup from you r lips ! "1 Frankenstein im mediately recog­ nizes the essential simi larity between \Val ton 's adventure beyond 1 93

1 94

RELIGIO� A � D

I T S M O :\' S T E RS

accepted cosmological boundaries and his own adventure beyond accepted biological boundaries. Although their adventures involve the transgression of di flferent kinds of boundaries, both are ventur­ ing off the established c harts of the known and into rad ically unfa­ miliar territory. The main difference between them is that whereas Walton is at the beginning of his adventure, about to c ross the une rossable boundary, Frankenstein is at the bitter end, having al ready c rossed over and deeply regrett ing it. And that has made all the difference. What fol lows, then, in the bulk of the novel, is Walton 's recounting of Fran kenstein 's own monster tale, which he tel ls t o the you ng adventurer in a desperate effort to discou rage h i m from pushing any fu rther off t h e map, t o scare him back home. Then, as Frankenstein's tale ends and he dies, Walton meets the monster, who comes aboard to present his own version of the story. Walton hears the monster tale and then u ltimately meets the mon­ ster h i mself while in this uncharted territory. Nlaps plot the lay of the land, making it known and knowable. I n the process they also mark off what is unknown along their edges and within their deepest seas . On ancient maps, the lerra inct�lJill.l a , or "un known territory, " was someti mes marked by images of fantastical monsters accom panied by textual warni ngs, the most famous being ht�· , twzl dmcone. t , "h e re be dragons. "L These monstrous tigu res indicate regions of dangerous uncertai nty. They show where the limits of knowing are . They dwell on the th reshold between the known and the unknown , this world and its other­ worldly beyond. These monsters are interstit ial figures, markers of the inside/outside. Shelley 's novel is something of a literary cartography i n this sense , complete with a foreboding monster paddling along its edges. In faet, j u st as Fmnkcn.tlein is a story within a story, it is al so a map within a map. First, Wal ton 's story in the frame narrative is a literary cartography: far out from the center of the map, where home and loved ones are, he meets the monster and hears the mon­ ster story in the unknown , un mapped border regions of the north seas. Second , Fran kenstein's own monster tale, which he recou nts to Wal t o n , is also a map in narrative form , plotting out Frankenstein 's movement from the known geographical and cul­ tu ral landscapes of his child hood - in the center of the map and in the center of E u rope in to the unknown border regions where be

1 95

monsters, and where he hi msel l' is ul ti mat ely revealed as mon­ st rou s. In Shelley 's novel. the monster tale and t he monster h i m self, bot h of which \Valton meets in the unmapped , un known bonler regions of' the nort h seas, are portents and warni ngs agai nst \Valton 's desire to ve n t u re beyond the edge of' the map. WA R N I N G

Li ke t he monsters on ancient maps, the monsters with in biblical rel igious t raditions and the monsters with i n the popu lar culture of horror - as well as its various countercultures - stand on and for the threshold between world and abyss. They are personifications of t hat which i s in the world but not of it, appearing on the ambigu­ ous edges of the conceptual landscape, where the right order of thi ngs touches on a wholly other chaos, where in side and outside, sclf and other intertwi ne . \Vhether demonized or dei f'ied or some­ thing in betv.:een, monsters bring on a l i m i t expcrience that i s aki n i n many rcspects to rel igious experience, a n experience of bei ng on the edge of certai nty and sec u rity, d rawn toward and repulsed by a mon.t/rum lrcme1uhun . Thc monstrous is an em bud i ment of over­ whel m i ng and chaotic excess, a too- much ness that bri ngs on a ver­ tigo- like sense of fear and desire: stand ing on the threshold of an u n fathomable abyss, l am aware of myself' simultaneously pulling back and pull ing over. I n this teetering, an i rreducible ambivalence is revealed within me. The monstrous can elicit an u rge to pull back from the edge of order at which i t appears and, at the same t i m e , an u rge to c ross over, to t ransgress, to !ose grou nd. The pol itically and religiously conservative f'u nction of the monstrous is to encou rage one to pull back f'rom the edge . The monster is a warn ing or porte nt, dcmon ,lmtt"np what to avoid , and rcmon.t/ratt"n.lJ with anyone who would challenge establ ished social and symbolic bou ndaries. They Iiterally scare the heil out of us. Let sleepi ng leviathans I ie, as t hey say. \Vithout denying t hat t his is often the conservative aim of mon­ strous horror, and without denying that this is also ofte n its �h ieved eff'e ct , it ean not be den ied that horror swi ngs us both ways, solicit ing bot h con servat ive and rad ical i m pulses. Alth ough t he aim is ot't en to warn readers and \' iewers to pull back from t he margins and in to t h e cul t u r·al center, to send us home with ou r tai ls

1 96

REL I GI Ol\

1\ l\ D ITs

Mol\STERs

between our legs, our desi re for t he monstrous other often u n der m i n es th i s pu rpose. l t d raws us away from home and over the edge. Perhaps this is because the monster is neve r entirely outside or other, can never be a pu rely negative i mage of us and our world. Perhaps part of what makes monsters horri fi cally unhet'm !t�·h i s that we see ou rselves i n t hem . 1\lon sters blur l i n es betwee n i n s ide and outside, this worldly and otherworldly, self and other. 1\ly sense of vert iginous horror in the face of the monstrous emerges from the feel i ng that i t i s both with i n me and beyond me. lt reveals an abom­ i nable, m onstrous otherness with i n , without redu c i ng that other­ ness to sameness, without making it entirely fam iliar. l t tells me that l eannot be de-monstrated . ;1/ont�frum : a portent or warn i ng. T h e monster's warni ng is dis­ tress i ngly double. On the one hand, as a discipli nary figure, it warns against tampering with the order of thi ngs, u rging u s to pull back from the threshold of the known at which it appears, i n to the social and symbol i c cente r, exam i n ing ou rselves for any traces of its tou c h , re i nvigorat i ng a vigi lant reason, l etting s l e e p i n g leviathans I ie. O n the other hand, a s a sign of u naccou ntable and u n i magi nable excess, it warns agai nst the l i mitedness of ou r well­ constructed cosmologies and agai nst simpl istic but widespread u nderstandi ngs of religion as morality or ideological syste m . The monster Iulls reason i n to a n ight of u nknowi ng in which sleepi ng leviathans do not I i e .

N

O T E S

I NT R O D U CTI O N

l . Fr·iedrich I'\ ietzsc h e , Bcyo11d Good a11d E,•d: Prc/udc to a Phi!o.1ophy ��/t/.Jc Future, trans. \Valter Kaufman ( New York : Random H ouse, 1 966) section 1 46. 2. 1\\ary \Vollstonecraft Shelley, Frallkctz.l/t'lll or Thc ,;]/odcrll Prome!ht'/1,1 , ed. 1\ l. K. ,J oseph (Oxford : Oxford U niversity Press, 1 969) l. 3. Sigmund Freud , "The U n can ny, " 7 /.Jc ,",'tandaf'() L(h!L�'Il tl thc Colllpldc P. �ycf.,o/,�q,�·al lf�wk. � ��/ s,:qm11nd Freud, XV I I ( 1 9 1 7 1 9 1 9) , tra n s . J ames Strachey cl a l ( London : Hogarth Press, 1 955) 222, 226. 4. Herbert ,\ \arcuse, h·o, 1 and Ci, •di.:a!L�I!l: 11 P/.Ji/,,,ltlpi.JL�·al flltjlllt:v illfo I·i·cud ( Boston: Bea c on , 1 955) 72 . 5 . O n early co n ceptions of the idea of " monst rous bi rths " (lcra,1 in G reek , llltlfl.l/rllm in Lati n ) , see 1\ \arie- I-le Iene l I u et, ,�1/on.l/rolt, l lma.tJL.IllliL�I/1 ( London : Harvard U niversity Press, 1 993), w hose lar;-ge r f'o cus is on the closely related history of t he idea t hat " m on­ stro u s b i r t hs" were divine revelations of t he mother's i m agi nation, especially of' her u n fulfilled des i res (esp. 1 1 O, 6 1 78) . Thi s led to i d eas about art as the offspri ng of' an art i st 's monstrous i magi na t ion. 197

1 98

Note,,

Sec also c hapter 1 2 , below, on Shelley 's description of' her novel as " h ideous progcny. " 6. Rudolph Otto, 7lJt' /dm � �/ ti1e Ho�v: An hztJlltt:lf inlo tbe JVon Ratiotza! l·�zcltw ,·n tbc ldca ol ti.Jt' JJit•inc al/{) /1,1 RelalL�J/1 lo 1/.1e Rational,

trans. John \V. Harvey (2d ed . ; New York: Oxford U niversity Prcss, J 950) 28. See the discussion of Otto and t he book of Job i n chapter 4 , below. Otto 's essay has had tremendous i n fluence i n st udies o f horror a s religious experience. S e e , e.g. , S. L. Varnado, Htuuztcd Prc,,ctzcc: Tbc i\'llminolt,, in Got /.1/c Fictio11 ( Tu scaloosa: U nivcrsity of' Alabama Press, 1 987) . See al so the critical discussion of t his t rend in Noel Carroll, Thc Pbilo,1opl1y � �l Hormr 111" Parmhw.1 t?f' thc Hcarl ( New York and London: Routl edge , 1 990) 1 65 67. 7. Otto 40. 8. Freud 24 1 . There are many recent studies of modern horror as the ret u rn of the repressed, includi ng, most recently, Vald i ne Clemens, 7lJt' Rdlll'll ��l t hc Rcprc,,,,cd: Go! b,�. Htlf"ror.fmm The Castle o f Otranto lo Alien ( New York: S U NY Press, 1 999) ; see al so Eve Kosofsky Scdgwick, Tbe Cobcrcnce t?f' Got/.JL�· Com•cn!L�Jil,l ( New York and London: 1\\ethuen , 1 986) . I n fil m studies, particu lar attention has bcen paid to horror as the return of repressed sexual ity that threatens established social norms of heterosexual ity, monogamy and Camily. Robin Wood (" An I nt roduetion to the American H orror Fi l m , " Plank,, t?f' Rea,,on: E_,,,ll_lf.l on ti1c Horror Film , ed . Barry Keith G rant [1\\etu chen: Scarec row Press, 1 984] 1 77) sum marizes the sociological implicat ions: " . . . t hat in a society built on monogamy and f'a mily there vvill be enormous surplus of sexual energy that will have to be repressed ; and that what is repressed must always strive to ret u rn . " See also \Vood, " Retu rn of the Repressed , " Film Comment 1 4 (J uly-August 1 978) . A particularly infl ue ntial psychoanalytic study of t he horror of abj ection is J ulia Kristeva, Pou •ct� ' � �/ l!ot'!'tlr: An E,,,ay 011 A/JjeciL�IIl , trans . Leon S. Roudiez ( New York : Columbia U n iversi ty Press, 1 982) . 9 . 1\ \ircea Eliade, Thc Saacd and l bc Prt�/;uzc: Tl1c i\'a lllrc t?f' ReiL:tJL.o n , trans. \Vil lard R. Trask ( New York : Harcou rt Brace & Cornpany, 1 959) . l O . Eliade 20. J l . El iade 29 30. J 2 . E.l iade 48.

1 99

Notect

C H A PT E R

1 , C H AO S G O D S

l. For a critical analysis of the history of modern theories of " myt h " and " mythology, " see Bruce Lincol n , T/.Jeortzt·ll.tJ ��fvth: 1\larrative, ldeo!t�qy, and Scho!ar,,btjJ (Chicago: U niversity of Chicago P ress, 1 999) . Lincoln 's theory of myth as "ideology' in narrative form " ( 1 47 49) is suggestive, even while it invites fu rther theoriz­ i ng of the term " ideology. " 2 . Leonard H . Lesko, "Ancient Egyptian Cosmogon ies and Cosmology, " Relt:qt�m in Ancienl E_qypt: God,,, !tfyth,,, and Per,,ona! Practu·e, e d . Byron E. Shafer ( l thaca: Cornell U n iversity Press, 1 99 1 ) 92; Richard A . Parker and Leonard H. Lesko, "The Khonsu Cosmogony, " Pyramid Studti.',J and Other E,,,ay,, Pre,,ented to !.E. S. Edward,t, ed . John Baines el al ( London : Egypt Ex ploration Society, 1 988) 1 68 75 . For a broad com parative study of this and related motifs as they relate to the legacy of western apocalypti ­ cism, see Norman Cohn, CtJ..IIJZO,J, Chao,, and the Wtw!d to Come: The Anci'enl Roo/,1 of Apoca!yptu· Faith (New H aven: Yale U niversity P ress, 1 993) . 3. E.g. , I lya Prigogi ne and I sabel l Stengers, Order out ��l Chao,1 (Toronto: Bantam, 1 984) ; IV\. lV\itc hell \Vald rop, Compfe.vity: Tbe Eme1:qin.q Science at the E�qe t?/ Order and Chao,, (New York: S imon & S c h uste r, 1 992) ; and J o h n Briggs and E David Peat, Turindeni

Mirror: An !1/u,,frated Guide to ChatM Theory and tbe Science ��f Who!ene.t..f (San Francisco: HarperCol l i n s, 1 990) , which d raws

explicitly from ancient N ear Eastern and Ch inese cosmogonic narrative s . 4 . A l th ough t h e earliest surviving Akkadian cuneiform tablets d ate to the begin ning of the fi rst millennium BCE, the Enuma Eft:,!J (wh ose t itle comes from the sto �y's first two words, which mean "when above ") was composed much earlier, probably between the nineteenth century, when King Ham m u rabi ( 1 848 1 806 BCE) established 1\;\arduk as the king of Babylonian deities, and the twelft h century BCE, when King Nebuchadnezzar l ( 1 1 25 1 1 04 BCE) restored �t\ arduk as a central figu re . Translations are from Step h a n i e Dalley, Afyth,, from Afe, 1 opotamia (Ox ford : Oxford University Press, 1 989) 232 77, supplemented on occasion by my own exegesis of the Akkadian text. Parallels between t his text and biblical accounts of creation and apocalypse have been studied

200

NoteJ

exte nsively since H erman n Gu nkeL Schåp/un.lJ und Chao,, in Ur.zeit und },'n dzcit: l!.'L'nc reiLfJL�JJl,l,tJe.,chichtfiche l 1nlet.._,uchun.q fif,cr Gen l und Ap Jo/.1 12 (Gottingen : Vandenhoeck & Ru precht, 1 895) . 5 . Gwe ndolyn Leick, Se.\.· and EmtLi'L;,m in Aft:.,opotamt�uz Litaature ( London and Ne'vv York: Routledge, 1 994) 1 3 1 4. 6. Tablet I V; i n Dall ey 2 53 54 . 7. A. Sachs, t rans., " Temple Program for the New Year's Festivals at Babylon , " Anct'cnt 1\'ear Ea,,lern Te.\·/,, Refated to the 0/d Te, 1 /ament , ed . J ames B. Pritchard (3d ed . ; Princeton: Princeton U niversity Press, 1 969) 33 1 334, ineludes instructions for read i ng the Enuma Efi.,f.? to the god Bel i n the afternoon of the fou rth day of the month of N isan . 8. Barbara Creed , The A:fon,,fmu,, Feminine: Film, Femini,m, P.tychoana�V·'';, ( New York: Routledge, 1 993) . 9 . Tablet l ; Dalley 236. l O . Tablet V I l ; Dal ley 2 73. I l. E.g., R�; Veda l 0.50; l0.55; l 0.89. By the creative force of l nd ra, the chaos monster Vrtra is remade in to a divine figure of f,oth cosmic and social law and order. See Calve rt Watkins, How to Kil! a Dra_qon: A.,pecl,t tl lndo f7uropean Poetic,t (Oxford : Oxford U n iversity Press, 1 995) 446. The hymns of the RL.�J Veda were probably fi rst col­ lected and written down early in the fi rst millenium BCE, but were no doubt circulated orally for centuries befare. 1 2 . Excerpts concerning Apophis are t ranslated and discussed by J o h n A. Wilson , " Egyptian 1\lyt hs, Tales, and N\ortuary Texts, " Ancunt 1Vcar A'a,,lern Ilw!,t Refatin_q lo the O/d Te, , l a ment, ed. Jam es B. Pritc hard (Th ird edition with supplement; Pri nceton : Pri nceton U n iversity Press, 1 969) , 1 1 1 2 ; cf. 6 7. One of the texts concerning t h e overth row of Apophis inel udes ritual i nstruc­ tions t hat make c lear how such monsters can stand s i multane­ ously for cosmic, pol it ical , and personal threat: as the story of Re 's ove rth row of Apoph i s , is recited at dawn and dusk, an image of Apophis is d rawn on a green sheet of papyru s, which is put in a fi re box beari ng Apophis name and then bu rned and stamped out; i n addition, the names of Pharaoh 's enem ies and their fam i lies are to be p u t in wax and b u rned in the fi re box along with Apophis (Wilson 7) . 1 3. Collective ly known as the Baal-Anat Cycle, the six tablets that contai n this story series date t o the fou rteenth centu ry BCE,

Note,1

20 1

several centuries before most scholars wou ld date the earliest bibli­ cal texts. The tablets are damaged to such an extent that it is not enti rely clear whether they should be read as a single coherent nar­ rative or as a col lection of related stories. A new edition of the transliterated Ugaritic text along with new t ranslations of t hese maj or texts and other i m portant fragme nts is i n Simon B. Parker, l �qarilti· JYarmli,•e Pol'lt:lf. trans. i\lark S . Smit h , Simon B. Parker, Edward L. Greenstein, Theodore J . Lewis and David �larcus (Atlanta: Society of' Biblical Li terature, 1 99 7) , abbreviated [ 1JVP. U n less otherwise noted , the discussion here is based on these translite rations and tran slations. Other editions i nelude M. Dietrich, O. Loretz and J. Sanmartfn, The Cuned;wm Alphabetic Ttwt,1 from l �qaril, Ra,t lim IIani and Ot/.1er Place.t ( 1liinster: U garit­ Verlag, 1 995) , abbreviated Ci-.I T; and A. H erd ner, Ctwpu,t de,1 taMette,t en cwzl�lorme,1 alpha/Jltiqtu',t dlcOLll't'r/e,t

å

Ra,t .._)'/.J amm - l�qaril de 1929

å

/9)9 ( Paris: l m primerie Nationale, 1 963) , abbreviated Cli-1.

1 4 . J . C. L. Gibson, " The Theology of the Ugaritic Baal Cycle, " Orientalia 53 ( 1 984) 202 1 9 .

1 5 . Athirat is sameti mes called At h i rat o f the Sea, " o r o f Yam m " (atrl ym ) , as i n the sixt h tablet, U1VP 1 2 ( CA T 1 .6 ) l , 43-47 and 53. The context i s Anat 's an nouncement t o El and Athirat that Baal (who ascended afte r k i l l i ng Yam m ) is clead , which Anat assu mes will be cause for rejoicing by Ath i rat and her sons. 1 6. Smith, trans., U1VP 8 (CA T 1 .2 ) IV, 1 1 -33; the challenge from Yam m is related in l '1YP 8 I I ( C·-.I T 1 .2 l ) . 1 7. Smith, trans . , l '1YP 9 (Ci- T 1 .3) I I I , 36--42. l t i s not enti rely clear how to understand the relationship between the name Yam m and t h e other names or epithets ment ianed i n this and other pas­ sages, especial ly Tu nnan ( Hebrew tannin , " sea monster") , the Twisty Serpent, the Potentate wi th t h e Seven Heads, and Litan (related to the H ebrew name Leviathan; also mentianed in 1\1ot 's tau nt) . Although it is possible that they are distinct monstrous opponents to Anat and Baal , recent researc h on this text and a rel ated fragment suggests that they may be paral lel references to the same figu re, who is variously cal led Yam m , Tu nnan and Litan. Wayne T. Pitard , " The Binding of Yam m : A New Ed ition of the Ugaritic Text KT U 1 .83, " Journal l�/ 1Year F,a,t/ern ..�'tudie,t 57 ( 1 998) 26 1 80, argues convinci ngly t hat Yam m/River r NaharJ in lines 4 7 and 8 l O of t his fragment are parallel to Tu nnan in lines 8 1 O. 11

=

11

202

Then, retu rning to Anat 's speech in CA T 1 .3 I I I , 38 46 ( l 1A;P 9 ) , quoted above, he argues for a l i n e division that vvould identi(y Tu n nan as a paral lel to Yamm/River in a tricolon . In faet, these same monstrous names wi l l reappear in si milarly serpent ine tangles of identity confusion in the Hebrew Bible, on which see the next chapter. 1 8. Smith, trans . , l'.NP I l ( CA T 1 .5) I , l 8, repeated 2 7 35. 1 9 . Smith , trans . , l '1YP 1 2 (CA T 1 .6) I l , 30 35. 20. Smith, trans . , l '�YP 9 ( CA T 1 .3) I I, 9 1 5. Afvth (Atlanta: 2 1 . Neil H . Walls, Jf.,e Go{h)e,t, t Anal ,·n l Scholars Press, 1 992) 220. \Valls makes clear that Anat "consis­ ten tly acts on her own desires and is submissive to no one i n the extant l iterature " ( l 07) . Alt hough she appears to be com mitted to Baal and his initiatives in tablets 4 6 of the Baai-Anat Cycle, for example, she works against Baal i n the story of Aqhat. 22. Gibson 2 1 8 1 9. C H A PT E R 2 , T H E B I B L E A N D H O R R O R

l . The relationships between these terms are discussed at length in 1\'lary K. Wakeman , God :, Battie wt"th t/.Je Afon.tler: A Study ,·n Bt'h/ical lma_qery ( Le i d e n : B ri l l , 1 973 ) 56- l 05. Fol i ow i ng Wakeman 's general conclusions, I treat tannin not as a proper noun but as a generic term for c haos monsters associated with the sea (" sea monsters ") . Leviathan and Rahab (which does not appear in any of the extant Ugaritic texts; on which see below) are proper names that fu nction in similar ways in different contexts (but never appear toget her) . The H ebrew yam is particu larly sl ippery, insofar as it is both a proper noun (Yam) , representing a monstrous per­ sonification of the sea, and a generic noun (" sea, " especially w hen it appears with a definite article, i.e., hayyam , "the sea ") . On the relationship between the H ebrew nam e Leviathan and t he Cgaritic name Li tan , see �J . A . Emerton , " Leviathan and l t n : The Vocal izati on o f the Ugaritic Word for the D rago n , " Vetu,1 Tt:,t/amenlum 32 ( 1 982) 32 7 3 1 . 2 . U nless othenvise ind icated , all translat ions of bibl ical pas­ sages are my own . LO R D is used in place of thc divine namc Yhwh. 3. Another hym n in praise of creation that clearly locates fig­ ures known el se\vhcrc as chaos monsters wit hin the divinely

!Vote,,

203

ordai ned ecology is Psalm 1 48. Here the psalm ist summons "all sea monsters " (lawu'n/m ) and all of " the deep" (or "abyss , " tebom ) to praise God who is their e reator and sustai ner. 4 . The H ebrew here i s u n certai n , depend i ng on the me<.m i ng of ·.'':vim , which ean be taken as plural of " s h i p " (,_,,:v; cf. N u m bers 24:24) , "desert-dwel ler" (also ��L:lf) , or "drought" l " desert" (._-t);yal1 ) . I f w e go with the fi rst , then the phrase transiates most I i te rally as " for people for ships, " suggest i ng it as food for seab.ri ng people, perhaps even w halers. I f wc go with the seeond or the thircl, then i t mig h t be translated as " for desert-dwel le rs lani maJs o r people] , " " for the people i n the desert, " or " for t he people for drought. " 5 . \Valter Bruegge man n , lwaef:, Pl"lu: ,c: /Jo,\"o!t�tJY a_qat·n,,t ldolatry and ldco!t�tJY ( Phi ladclphia: Fort ress Press, 1 988) ; and '/ I.Jt: , 1/e,,,,ll_(Jt' t !!' tl1c p, ,a/m,,: A Tl1t'olo.tJ t�·al Commcnlat:v ( i\ l i n nea pol is: Augsbu rg, 1 984 ) . 6 Day, God:, Cot�/lt�·t w/tb tbe Dm_qon and tbe .._!.,'m: t,(·/.Joc,, t�/ a Cat za a tu./e , 1/ytlJ in l bc O/d Tt', ,/amcnt ( Ca m bri dge : Ca m bri dge U n iversity Press, 1 985) 88 1 4 0, presents t h is " historic ization " of the c haos battie motif pri marily as a development in the ehaos bat­ tie mot i f, in whie h t he historical-political plane replaces the cosmie plane: " That t h is eou ld be done is indicative of the faet that t he powe rs of chaos, though subdued at the creatio n , were sti l l liable to manifest t hemsel ves i n the present on t h e hi storieal plane " (88) . 1\ly read ing d iverges in sofar as I see the eosmie and pol itieal planes as i ntegrated from the start •ith i n the coneept ual landscape of t he H ebrew Bible as man ifest i n the ehaos battie motif. As i n similar Egyptian , Vedie and Babylonian stories discussed i n chapter l , t he monster's t h reat always t rave rses the cosmie, t he pol itical and the pe rsonal . 7. Ot her texts t hat refer to Egypt as the defeated Rahab or the primordial chaos wate rs inelude Psalm 87:4, i n which Rahab is a name for Egvpt I i sted as one of the nations "who acknowledge me [Godl "; Psalm 77: 1 7 2 1 , i n which the cosmogonie ehaos bat t i e of God versu s t he raging c haos waters i s l i n ked to the Exodus (" t he waters saw you and eonvulsed . . . you r way was th rough the sea �l1ayyam ] . . . you led you r people like a Hock u nder the care of i\ loses and Aaron ") ; and l saiah .._) 0:7, a t ext dated after the f�d l of the nort h ern ki ngdom ol' I srae l to Assyria ( c . 72 1 BCE) and before Assyria 's at tack on .Jerusalem ( 70 1 BCE) , in which the prophet

Note.•

scolds t h c so u thern ki ngdom of .J u da h f'or considering assistance ! 'r om Egypt. rccal ling Cod 's "silenc i ng " or " t hwarting" (emend i ng bmz . • baf,d to f,alll!Jlt'· 'MJtzl ) of Egypt i n and after the exodus as a vie tory over t he monst rous Rahab, who is now " worthless and empty" ( Day 89, \\ 'akeman 5 8 , Gu nkel 39 ) . Crist iano C rot t a n el l i , K/np. • a 1uJ Prop/1d,•: , 1/onarchic Powo; ln •pire() /,ca()t'f� 'hti'· and ,)'aowJ /;',\'/ in B/Mt�·al 1\'arral/,•e (Oxford : Oxford L n iversity Prcss, 1 999) 4 7 72 , ident i fies four biblical sto­ ries i n which a defeated enemy king or dcity is identi fled wi th a defeated c haos monster without ever bei ng explici tly cal led Rahab, Lcviathan , Yam , ltlllll/n or the l i ke: ;\ \oses ' destruet ion of the golden calf in Exod us 3 2 ; Eh ud 's slayi ng of' King Egl on of' ;\ \oab i n J u dges 3; Sau l 's/ I srael 's vietory over Nahash (naf:1a, •h, "serpe n t ") and the Arnmoni tes i n l Sam uel I l ; and Samuel 's slaying of Ki ng Agag of A rnalek in l Samuel l 5. 8 . In add i tion to Leviathan ( U gar i t i c Litan) and ltlllll/n ( Ugari tic Tu n nan ) , compare l saiah 's " fleeing serpe n t " and "twisting serpen t" (n f:'·' /Jr{1 and 'q/1 11 '11 ) with the " Heeing serpen t" and "twisty serpe nt" (f,(n f,1{1 and ·,;/t n ) associated with Tu n nan, Litan and Yarn m in the Baal-1\nat Cycle. 9 . In this context, i t is worth noti ng that " river" (nahar) is con­ sistently used as an epithet for Prince Yam m (Lapal nahar, " J u dge River") in the Ba�d - Anat Cycle (e.g. , l 11\P 8 f C / l T 1 . 2 ] ; and in U1VP 9 [C / l T 1 . 31 I I I , ,)9 , Anat c�-dls him " River, the Great God " lnh,: tl.rlmz ] , which is close to l saiah 's " t h e m ighty and great waters . . . ,, •chartZ/J/J/m ] ) . Given t he use of' Ugaritic of t h c River" parallels elsewhcrc in l saiah (esp. 2 7 : l ) , it is not unreasonable to ask whet hcr the u se of 11abar in this passage is mean t to recall Ya m m 's e pit h et in the Baai-Anat Cyc le. C H A PT E R 3 , TH E S L E E P O F W I S D O M

l . E. i\ \ . Ciora n , On t!Jt' Hct:qht. • ti/ /Jc. •pair, t rans. I l i nca Zari fopoi -.J oh nston ( Chi cago: L n ivcrs i ty of Ch icago Press, 1 992 ) 5 5 . ,\ \any years la ter, i n an in terview with Zari fopoi-Johnston, he said t hat hc no longer wrote bccausc " l don 't want to slander t he un n·ersc anymore; I 'vc done it long enough . don 't you thin k so ? " (xiv).

NoteJ

205

2 . Cioran l 09. 3 . Elai ne Scarry, T/.Je Body in Pat.n: TIN .�Hakin.tJ and ( 1wnakt"n.tJ t !t' the Wtw/{) (New York and Oxford: Ox ford U niversity Press, 1 985) esp. 4 5, 1 6 1 63, 1 72 . Scarry f'o cuses on the relation between pai n 's unmaking of the world and its unmaking of language. 4. Cioran 1 2 . 5 . Cioran 5. 6. On the relation between wisdom and creat ion in the Hebrew Bi ble, see esp. Roland E. 1\\urphy, " Wisdom and Creation , " Journal tl Bw!ica! Lt"terature 1 04 ( 1 985) 3 1 1 . \Vhether one agrees or dis­ agrees with the argument that wisdom influences Deuteronomy (so Mosh e Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the f)eulcrononui· Schoo! [Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1 972] ) , it is clear that there are strong relations between Deuteronomic and wisdom traditions. 7. Tod Linafelt, " The U ndecidability of !Jf'k in the Prologue to J ob, " Bih!ietzf lnterprdaft�m 4 ( 1 996) , describes J ob a s a fault line that runs to the very character of God . Also Carol A. Newsom, Job, The New lnterpreler,1 BiMe I V (Nashville: Abingdon, 1 996) 358 6 1 . 8. Emmanuel l..evi nas, " Su ffering and Death " (excerpt from 'fl"me and the Other [ 1 946--47] ) , trans. R. A. Cohen, The Lci'ina,, Reader, ed. Sean Hand (Oxford : Blackwel l, 1 989) 40. 9. This interpretation of the c reation of the fi rst h u man as hav­ i ng two faces is based in part on the faet that in the Hebrew text of Genesis 2:7 the verb ya..ur occurs with two initial yods rather than one. Thus it is read as an i ndication of a double creation , form ing a hu man that is two-in-one. l O . Emmanuel Levi nas, " And God Created \Voman , " 1Vinc Ta!mudic Readin.q,, , trans. A. Aronowicz ( Bloomi ngton: l ndiana U n iversity Press, 1 990) 1 67; ital ics mine. The passage from the Babylonian Talmud is Tractate Berak hot 6 1 a. 1 1 . The idea of Satan as an embodi ment of absolute evil or anti­ god is not present i n the H ebrew Bible, but rather develops during the intertestamental period . l Ch ronicles 2 1 : l is t he only Hebrew Bible text in which the noun Jatan (without the definite article) could be taken as a proper name. In t hat text, however, it may j ust as well be translated "an accuser" or " i nciter. " A su m mary discus­ sion of the various meani ngs and t ransformations of this figure in J udaism and Ch ristian ity may be found i n Victor P. Hamilton,

Note,1

206

" Satan , " J!,ZL·bor Rt'Mc /Jictt�l!Wt'.lf, 5, ed . David Noel Freedman et al (New York : Doubleday, 1 992 ) 985 89 . 1 2 . i\ l a ry Douglas, " The Abomi na.tions o f Leviticus, " Purt'ty mu) Dan.qcr: J!n J l na�V· ''; , o/ Concepl. , � �/ Polfult�m all() Ta/Joo ( London: Rou t ledge & Kegan Pau l , 1 966) . For uses of ��la ("gloom ") in the sense of calarn i ty or cosrnic breakdown, see , e.g. , .J ob 23: 1 7; 30:26; Arnos 5 : 2 0; e t'. sirn ilar uses of the fe minine noun form in I saiah 8:22; 58: l O and 59:9. For uses of .qa 'a l as "defl l e " or " pollute , " see I saiah 59:3; 63:3; Lamentation s 4: 1 4 ; Zephaniah 3: l ; l\ lalachi l : 7; Ezra 2 :62 and Neherniah 7:64 . 1 3 . Read ing yom (" day") as yam , foliowi ng Gu nkel 59 62 and others. On thc problems wi t h this rcadi ng, see Newsom 368. 1 4 . Cioran 5 , 1 2 . 1 5 . Cioran 90. 1 6. Cioran 90. C H A P T E R 4 , F R O M T H E W H I R LW I N D

l . Note the remarkable simi larities bctween the I mage ry ernploycd in t his passage and t hat found in the Enuma E!t:th, when 1\la.rd uk set hal t' of Tiarnat 's body "to roof the sky" and "drew a bolt ac ross and made a guard to hold i t, " arrangi ng " her waters . . . so thcy could not escape , " and grou ping her s pittic in to littie clouds (see I V and V in Dal ley 255 57, discussed in chapter l ) . 2 . 1\ lost Engl ish translations f'o l low the chapter and verse n u m ­ bering of t h c Grcck Septuagi nt and Lati n Vulgate of the Old Tcstamcnt , which somctimes d i Hers f'rom t hat of the Hebrevv text and thc Tanakh t ranslation . \Vherever they diverge, as in Job 40 4 1 , I use t he H ebrcw text versi fication and indicate the alterna­ tive c hapter and verse nurnbcrs in parentheses. 3. Sam uel E. Balentinc, '"\Vhat Are H u man Beings, that You 1\lake So 1\ luch of Them ? ' Divine Diselosure from thc \Vhirlwind : ' Look at I1ehernot h ', " God t'n t/.1c Fmy, ed. Tod Li nafelt and Ti mothy K. Beal ( Phi ladelphia: Fortress Press, 1 998) 269; al so J ohannes Hempel. " The Contents of the Litcrature , " Record alU ) Rc, •cla!L�I!l , cd. H . \V. Robinson (Oxford : Ciare ndon Press, 1 938) 73. Balentine provocativcly argues t hat God presents Behcrnoth and Leviathan, "who are celebrated as near equals to God , " not in ordcr to subj u-

207

gate J ob, as is com monly believed , but to c hallenge him to be like them. 4 . 1\\any translations, fol iowing the Septuagi nt, emend t h e fi rst­ person pronouns in this passage to third-person, so t hat the text read s , "w h o t hen can stand before il [o r in'm J '! , " and change the last line from " it [or h e J is mine " (li å/1. ) to an interrogative "who ? " (mi h/i ) . E.g. , 1\\arvin l-I . Pope, Jo/J: lntroductt�lll, TraJ�t�!att�m, and 1Yote,t (Anchor Bible 1 5; New York : Dou bleday, 1 965) 335 38. 5. Carrol l 1 94 95. 6. Some modern versions take it as a form of the verb ma.thal (" ru l e " or "dominate ") , thus "there is no one on earth who can domi nate it. " I f' read thus, Leviathan is bei ng deseribed not as beyond captu re by language or analogy, but as beyond domi n ation by any other earthly creatu re (including h u mans, whom God com­ mands to subdue and domi nate the rest of c reation i n G enesis 1 :2 7 28) . 7. Otto 2 8 . 8. Otto 3 1 . 9 . Otto 4 0 . I O. Otto 79 . I l . Otto 79. 1 2 . Otto 80. 1 3. Stephen King, Da n te Afaca/Jre ( New York: Everest, 1 98 1 ) 22; i n Roger C. Schlobi n, " Prototypic Horror: The Genre of the Book o f J o b, " Semet�l 60 ( 1 992) 28. 1 4 . Schlobin 28. 1 5. Nietzsc he, section 1 46. Th is is the second part of his '\varn­ ing, q uoted i n the introduction, that "whoever fights monsters shou ld see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. " C H A PT E R 5 , D I N N E R A N D A S H OW

l . Except where noted , translations of passages fro m the Babylonian Talmud and lYlidrash Rabbah are from the Soneino editions ( The Ba/Jylont�uz J(zfmud, SerJer Ne.dkin, 1•o/. Il, Ba/Ja Batbra , trans. l sidore Epstein et al [ London: Soncino, 1 935J ; .�J!t"dra.,h RaM,ah Lei'L.It�·u,, , trans. J. Israel stam and J udah .J . Slotki [New York : Soncino, 1 983J ) .

208

Noted

2 . The Soneino edition transiat es t he Aramaic lawu"na ' as "snake . " In keeping with my earlier t ranslations of the bibl ical H ebrew tannin, I translate it here and t h roughout the discussion as "sea monster. 3. Soneino translation has " slant se rpent " and " tortuous ser­ pen t '' for these two ph rases from Isaiah 2 7: l. On t hese ph rases in bibl ical and Ugaritic texts, see c hapters l and 2. 4 . The phrase " Behemoth on a thousand hills" is fro m Psalm 50: l O. 1\lost modern translat ions read /Je/Jl'!lltJI in t h is psal m as the plural form of ål'hemah (thus " beasts" or " cattle on a thousand hills ") . The rabbis in Talmud and 1\\id rash (see below), however, took it as the proper name Behemoth , as in Job 40. For several i n terpretations of " u pon a thousand hills" (does Behemot h feed from a thousand hills? does it actual ly span a thousand hills ? ) , see 1\lidrash Leviticus Rabbah X X I I . 5 . l have replaced the Soneino translations o f these two l ines from Job 40: 1 6 with my own , so that their biblical source i s clearer in English. The H ebrew here is ident ical to that of the 1\lasoretic H ebrew text of ,Job 40: 1 6. 6 . An early (second centu ry CE) pseudepigraphal text, 2 Baruc h 29: 1 5, anticipates t hat Leviathan and Behemoth are being preserved for a fu t u re banquet. I n the fi nal days, " Behemoth will reveal i tself from its place, and Leviathan wi l l come from the sea, the two great mon sters which I c reated on the fifth day of c reation and which I shall have kept u ntil that time. And they will be nour­ ishment for all who are left " (" 2 Baruch, " trans. A. E J . Klijn, Tbe O/d Te,,tamozt P,tl'tuJept:qrapba , l , ed. J arnes H . Charlesworth [Garden City and New York : Doubleday, 1 983] 630) . Cf. the fi rst century BCE text l Enoch 60:7 1 0, which refers to the female Leviathan and the male Behemoth as a pair who m ust be separated (see also 4 Ez ra 6:49 52 ) . 7 . l\lodern t ranslations o f t h is verse (Job 40:30 [o r 4 1 :6] ) make n o sense as a basis for bar Bar Hana 's claim h ere. The 1\lasoretic te x t , for exam ple, read s " Shall t raders t raftic i n h i m ? \Vi l i h e b e di vided u p among merc hants ? " Bar Bar Hana, h ow­ ever, is readi ng the yd,·ru ( from krb ) as an i m pe rfect verb meaning " t h ey will banq uet " ( not as an i n fe rred rh etorical q uestion) , thereby prod ucing t he statement " t raders \vi l ) make a banquet of

Note,1

209

him, " instead of the qu estion , "will trad ers t raftic in h i m ? " Likewise the second l i ne of' the verse is read as "they will divide [not \vi l l they di vide ? '] hi m up among the kcna �znt'm , " "vhich they take to m ean "sc holars " rather than " m erehants. " Thus the sUtte­ ment " th ey will divide him up among the kena �111t'm [i.e., the right­ eous se holars] . " 8 . This translation is based o n the discussion of ��t'(Jr)u.l/.1 Iomb in 1\\arcus Jastrow, J),�·tt�mary tlt/.1c ];u:qumt'm , Talmad Bab!t', }�·ru. 1/.1a/mt' and Aft'()ra. �ht�· !Jt.lcrature ( New York : J udaica, 1 982 ) 427. The Soneino translation is: " The Holy One, blessed be he, said: hz,l/ruclt�m ,lha/f .qoj;,,.,/.J from 1lfe ( I sa. LI, 4), i.e. an exceptional tem­ porary ru l i ng will go forth from me . " In faet, the passage i n the 1\\asoretie text of l saiah has neit her �ti)du.�h torah nor torah �ada,1hah but simply lorah, t h at is, " Torah will go forth from me. " lt is not clear whether the 1\\id rash is working from a dif'ferent version of I saiah 5 1 :4 or is si mply misquoting it . Given t hat this diseussion eoneerns Leviathan, moreover, it is probably no coineidenee that Abin ben Kahana quotes from l saiah 5 1 , for it is in this same e hap­ ter that I saiah eal ls on God to awaken, as i n previous generations, when God " h acked Rahab to pieees " and " pierced the sea monster " ( l saiah 5 1 :9 l 0) . A s discussed in ehapter 2 , this text remembers both God 's eosmogonie defeat of the primor·dial c haos monster and God 's ereation of I srael by defeati ng its monstrous oppressor Egypt/Rahab. Although neither Behemoth nor Leviathan are per­ son i fications of Rome, that empire 's atrocities agai nst Jerusalem and the J ewish people do loom large in the backgrou nd of this text. 9 . See also Levitieus 1 7: 1 5; 22 :8; Exodus 22 :30 (or 2 2 :3 1 ) . l O . A s i m i l ar l i ne o f thought eonce rn i ng the eating of Leviathan, Behemoth and other monstrous tigu res (e.g., the Ziz) is found in Levitieus Rabbah XXI 1 . 1 0: "As recompense for the prohi­ bit ion of certai n tish you will eat Leviat han , a c lean fish; . . . as rec­ ompense for the prohibition of certain cattie (bchmwtb ) you shal l eat Behemoth on a t housand mou ntai ns. " That Behemot h is on a thousand mou ntai ns, it is asserted, means that it eats the herbs of a thousand mou ntai ns, suggesting that its meat will be particu larly ta.sty. I l . Chapter l O of Pt'rkc de Ra/J/Jt' Efea�er ( The Chaplt:t�� ��/ Ra/J/Jt' Elt'e�cr the Great act'tlf'(hll.lJ lo tl�t· matllt,ICI'LJII /Jelon.qt'ny to ,1/Jra/1am l•,jJ, I/et'n

210

NoteJ

��/ Viouza ) , trans. G. Friediander ( New York : Bloc h Publishing

Company, 1 98 1 ) . See the excellent interpretation by Yvonne Sherwood , A BLf,ft'ca l 1iwt and it,1 ,Vierft', •e, l: Tf.,e Suri'L·, ,af t ?/' Jonah ,·n (g'tllern Cu ltu re (Cambridge: Cambridge U n iversity Press, 2000) 1 08 1 6. l 2 . Sherwood l 09. C H A P T E R 6 , TO T H E D E V I L

Except where noted, translations are from the New Revised Standard Version . 1\:ly own comments on and occasional transla­ tions of the Greek text are based on the twenty-sixth edition of the 1\Te,l//e Jl!and ,Vol'll/11 Te,1lamentum Graece ( S tuttgart : Deutsche Bibelgesell schaft, 1 979) . 2 . The l iterary history of the Apocalypse of John is not clear. lt is likely that some form of it, though not necessarily the fi nal form, was in circ u lation by the end of the Roman Em peror Domitian 's reign (by arou nd 95 CE) . l t is also possible t hat its composition began d u ring the reign of Nero i n the late 60s and conti n ued dccadcs or more after Dom itian . lts status within the Ch ristian canon of' the New Testament was disputed in some cireles as late as the fou rth century. Authorship, composition date and canonical sta­ t u s are discussed in Adela Yarbro Col l i n s , " The Book of Revelation, " Anchor Bd,fe Dictti.mat:v 5:698 99; and esp. Criti.1 and Catl.hu��L:I: 'll1e Power t!t' the Apocalyp.1e ( Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1 984 ) 54 83; and Elisabeth Schu ssler- Fiorenza, The Book t!/ Re,•ela!L�m ( Ph iladelphia: Fortress Press, 1 985) . 3. Ti na Pippin, Apoca�vptic Bo{h�',l: The BiMical End tl the W�wld in Te,\'/ and lma_tJe ( London and New York: Routledge, 1 999) 1 1 2. 4 . This image o f t h e risen Jesus in Apocalypse 1 : 1 2 1 6 also d raws imagery from Daniel 's vision of God as "the Ancient of Days " with clothing as white as \Vool , hai r as white as snow and su rrou nded by fi re ( Daniel 7:9 1 0) . 5. This image of t h e woman dothed in the sun, about to give birth, also echoes the story of Leto known in Greek and Roman tra­ dit ions. Leto is hidden on the island of Delos along with her new­ born son , who is threatcned by a d ragon narned Python . See Adela Ya rbro Col lins, 7l7t' Com!Jtzt Afvth in thc Bo,,f. ,?f' Re, •clatti.m ( 1\lissou la: l.

Note.J

21 1

Scholars Press, 1 976) 57 85. On the u se of symbolism in the Apocalypse see David L. Barr, " The Apocalypse as a Sym bolic Transformation of the World: A Lit erary Analysis, " fnlt!ty.wdalt�m 38 ( 1 984) 39 50. 6. Clive Barker, " On Censorship, " C/i,•c Barker :, Sbadow, , ,·n Edt!n, ed. Stephen Jones ( Lancaster: Underwood-i\ lil ler, 1 99 1 ) 402; i n lngebretsen x i . 7 . A s Pippin h a s made particularly clear, not only does the Apocalypse of John conti nue to have tremendous i n H uence on the late twentieth and early twenty- first-centu ry popu lar culture of horror, it is i nextricably part t�/ that cultu re. lVlost striking i n this respect is the central role that this text has within certai n subcul­ tu res of Christian fu ndamental ism. Pippin 's account of a class visit to " Tribulation Trail , " offered by a suburban At lanta church as an alternative to Halloween hau nted houses, is a remarkable example ( Pippin 78-99) . 8. Watkins, How to Kil/ a /Jra.qon , provides val uable etymological backgro u n d to t h e d ragon-serpent slaying form ula in l ndo­ European traditions. The Greek word opht:,, " serpent, " is etymolog­ ically related the Vedic dht·-, a term associated with the chaos dernon Vrtra and the primordial Serpent of the Deep, Abi Budhnyå ( Watkins 460 63; cf. 360-64, 370) . 9. Verse 1 3 of the Psal m refers to "the head s of the d ragons, " whereas verse 1 4 refers to "the heads of the d ragon . " The d ragon of the Apocalypse has seven head s, j u st like Litan ( = H ebrew Leviathan) , "the Potentate with the Seven H eads " in the Baal-Anat Cycle, discussed in chapter l . l O. The Hebrew proper name L eviathan is also translated into G reek as drakon in Psal m l 04 ( LXX l 03) and Job 4 1 . But i t is trans­ lated as me_qa keto,1, "great whale " or " sea monster, " i n Job 3:8. H ebrew Yamlya m is consistendy depersonified as tbtz!!a,,a , " se a, " los­ ing its monstrous con notations. Rahab is translated in various ways (most notably as keto,1 i n Job 9: 1 3 and 26: 1 2 , thus identi(yi ng it with Job's monster [mc:qa kdtM , Heb. Leviathan] in 3:8, and dist i nguish­ ing all these references from God 's dragon [drakon , I feb. Leviat han] i.n Job 4 1 ). Rahab is not used in the LXX as a proper name. I l . Lines 22 00 2846; Seamus H eaney, Beoll'u(/- A 1\"cw l{>r,.lf TranAa lt�m , Bilingual Ed ition (New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2 000) 1 49 9 1 .

212

Note.•

1 2 . ,J . R. R. Tolkei n , " Bt't '" 'u(/: lts "\ lonsters and I ts Cri tics, " PrtiCt't'(hll.lJ. ' ��/ the Brt"tt;,f, 1 Icadcmy 22 ( 1 936) 245 95; and Fred C. Robi n so n , Bt'OH 'u(/ il/l() thc lipptl. •tlti 'C .Sty!c ( Knoxville: C n iversity of Te n n essce Press, 1 985) . 1 3. The Lat i n Vu lgatc Bible, which soon gains ascendanc�v in western Christendom , also calls it a dragon ("draco mapnu.• rt{/it. • [great red d ragon l d/c . •t'tf.lt'flt' anlt�;uu. • tjllt I 'Ocalur lh�z/Jo!u.• cl Satana.• [that ancient serpent who is called Devil and Satan]"; I 2 :3, 9) . 1 4 . Ro binson l O and 3 1 ; and R u t h i\ le l l i n koff'. " Ca i n 's 1\ lon strous Proge ny in I3eowult'. " J lnpf,, Sa,\'011 Fn.qland 8 ( 1 979) 1 43 62; and 9 ( 1 9RO) 1 83 97. •

•

•

C H A PT E R 7 , N EW M O N ST E R S I N O LD S KI N S

Stephen Tou l m i n , Co.,mopo!t;,_. ll.�t• Ht'ddcn li.qcnda tl Aiodcrm.ly (Ch icago: U n iversity of Ch icago Press, 1 990) 98; also 1 07 1 1 5 on the " i ntel lect ual scaffoldi ng" of this cosmopolis. 2. Toulmin 7 1 . 3. Thomas Hobbes, /,cl't�ztban, ed. Richard Tu ck (Cam bridge Tex t s in t hc I l i story of Pol iticaJ Though t ; Cambridge: Cam bridge U n iversity Press , 1 996) 9. All quotations are from this edition of f lobbes ' text, which is based on the copy in the Cambridge U n iversity Library ( .��lfl/ . 3 .65. l ) . 4 . I l obbcs 9 1 0. 5. Hobbes 1 2 0. 6. Hobbes did not do the e ngraving for t he frontispiece i mage , but hc certai nly influc nced its design . An earl ier d rawi ng for the vel! u m edition that l lobbes had com m issioned for Charles I I (see below) was probably d rawn by \Venceslas Hollar. A revised ver­ sion of t hat drawi ng \\'as then used as the basis for the e ngravi ng on the pri n tcd book. See Keith 11rown , " The Artist of the Leviathan Ti de-page , " l�ritt: ,f.� /,tlwat:lf Jourtw! 4 ( 1 978) 24 36; and Tuck, " l n t rod uction " lii. 7. Rccount ed i n Edward l {yde , Earl of Clarcndon , " A Su rvey ' ol i\ \r l lobbes fft: , Le\·iathan " ( 1 670 ) , Ln·t�zthan: Contcmporat:lf Re.•pt '!l. 'l'· ' /ti tbc Po!t'tti·a! Tl.'t't lt:lf o( Tl.'t 'llltl, , f-!o/J/Jc. • , cd. G . A. ,_j . Rogers ( B ri stol: Thoem mes Prcss, 1 99:S) 1 80 85. i\c cording to Tuc k , "A note on t h c t cxt " l i i 1 \· i , l lobbes probably had intended to dedicate l.

LVote.t

213

the book t o Charles I I (the Godol phin dedication was added late i n the print process) . 8. Gerald Reedy, T he Rt"Me and Rca,,on: An_qlt"can., and �'cniJture ,·n La te Se, •enft't:llfh Coztw:v Fn_qland ( Ph i lade l ph ia: U niversity of Pen nsylvania Press, 1 985) ; also Christopher H ill, Thc En_qfi,/.J BdJie and the Se,•entanth Century Re,•olutL�J/1 ( New York : Pengu i n , 1 993) 425 28. 9 . H obbes 3 . l O. T h e Lati n text printed here di ffers from the establ ished text of the Lati n Vu lgate for Job 4 1 :24 . In the Vu lgate, " potestas" appears atter "terram" and before "quae . " H obbes ' title-page quo­ rat ion , which has " potestas " before " S u per Terram, " may have been drawn from a di f'fe rent copy of the Lati n text, or, more likely, is a m isquote. 1 1 . H obbes 220 2 1 . H obbes ' versification fol lows that of Ch ri stian Bibles, which correspond to the Vulgate. H obbes' English translation here is not from the King James Version ( 1 6 1 1 ) , but appears to be his own . 1 2 . H obbes 247. 1 3 . George Lawson, " An Exami nation of t h e Pol itical Part of Nlr. Hobbs His Le,•Lizthan, " in Rogers 1 9, 90, 9 1 . 1 4 . John Bramhal L " The Catching of Leviathan, or the G reat Whale, " in Rogers 1 5 1 . Al luding to the rabbinic tradition, discussed earlier, in which Leviathan is to be killed and eaten by the righteous in a fi nal banq uet, Bramhall concludes his critique of H obbes with the suggestion ( 1 79) t hat i f he were given the c hance to i m plement his political theory, " h is supposed su bjects m ight tear their mortal God in pieces with their teeth, and entomb his Sovereignty in their bowels. " Hobbes' l.�e i'Ltz!ban was otten criticized by contemporaries as a work of political theory whose weak ness was the author's own lack o l' experience and his inclination toward speculation. This is evident in Bramhall 's critique, as well as in the well-k nown com­ mentary of Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, "A Su rvey of 1\lr H obbes H,:, Leviathan , " in Rogers 1 1 5 300. 1 5 . Although the seq uel to Clive Barker's Helimiter ( 1 987) , Hcllåound: Hellnu:,cr 11 ( 1 988) was directed by Tony Randel and written by Peter Atkins. 1 6. Tuck, " l ntroduction" xliii. ..

Note.•

2 1 o.l

C H A PT E R 8 , OT H E R G O D S

l . J u dith Halberstam , Skin S/.Jou•,t: GothL·c HtNTor and t /.1e Tt:chno!t�lJY ��{Aion.,ter,, ( Durham: Duke U n iversity Press, 1 995) l 27 on the tech nology of monster making. 2. In the Ramayatza narrative itself. Hanu man is not a deity but a lege n dary h e l pe r o f Rama. ( I n some popular i m ages of Hanuman, Rama and Sita are pictu red on his c hest . i ndicati ng h is devotion to the m . ) Alt hough he is not a deity i n the Ramayana , i n contem porary H i nd u practice he is a v e ry popular figure and sometimes even serves as a Vai !?l!ava i mage. In these cases, "deity is focused through a beloved animal rep resentation, oft:en a cult object i n its own right " (Julius Li pner, lh/U)u,t: Thcir Relt.qt�Jil,, BelL�/:, and PractLi:e,, [ London and New York: Routl edge , 1 994] 283) . 3. H e had been sent to the mou ntain i n order to get a particu­ lar heali ng herb, but "vhen he was u nable to find the particular herb he brought back the whole mountai n . This demoostrates his great strength and devotion, if not intellect or discernment. 4 . John L. StoddarcJ :, /Jcctw·t'•'• I V ( Boston: Balch B rothers, 1 897) 89 . On Banaras, com pare 1\\ .A. Sherring's reactions to "the wor­ ship of u ncouth idols, of monsters, of the J i nga and other i ndecent flgu res, and of a m u ltitude of grotesque, ill-shapen, and hideous obj ects " in The Sacred City ��f thc HL'n du., ( London: Tru bner & Co. , 1 868) 37; c ited i n Diana Eck , /JarJan: Seein_q the /Jil'ine lma_qe in f/U)L(z , 3rd ed . (New York : Col u m bia U n iversity Press, 1 998) 1 7- 1 8. For examples of similar reactions from earlier western travelers, see Wi ll iam Foster, ed . , Aizr�v 7/m•ef., ,·n !tuh�z 1 58'i /6/9 ( London : Oxford U niversity Press, 1 92 1 ) . 5 . Lu cy E. Guinness, Jlcro,,,, I/Uh�z a l the Da ll'n t/ 1/.Je 20//.J Cen tw:v ( New York: Flem i ng H . Reveli Company, 1 898) 75 76. 6. Stoddard : , Lee/ure,, 83 84 . 7. l\ \ark Twain, l;�,flou•in.lJ l he h'tJLLlllor: f� Journcy 1"1 round t/.1e lY� w/d ( Hart ford : The American Publi shing Company, 1 897) 504 . 8. Guinness 1 99-2 00. 9. These and others are discussed at lengt h i n Partha 1\\ itter,

Afuch A!aiL!Jnl'd , 1/ontfet�': f� 1/i.ory t/ European Reac/L�I/1,, lo lndL�lll 1"-lrl

(2d edition; Chicago: U niversity of Chicago Press, 1 992 ) . The sub­ seq uent discu ssion of early European reactions to I ndian religious

Note.t

215

iconography, especially o n t h e legacy of Varthema, is greatly indebted to i\litter's research. l O. The flinemt:v tl Lodo,•ti:o {)e Vart/.Jcma tlBolo.qnafrom /502 1 508,

trans. John Winter Jones, ed. N. 1\l. Penzer ( London : The Argonaut Press, 1 928) . Varthema's flinemrL�J was first translated in to Lati n in 1 5 1 1 , and Richard Eden 's 1 577 Engl ish translation, The .LYa P�qalion and !{Jya.qc,, tl Lewt:, lf/elomannu,,, was based on the Lati n rather than the ltalian. The German edition is Die Ritter!ti·h un[d] lohu•ir{h.iJ Ray,,,, (Augsburg, 1 5 1 5; repr. o f the edition in .J oh n Carter Brown Library by Scholar's Facsimi les and Repri nts, 1 992) . Calicut appears to have been located on l ndia's southwest coast, south of lVlangalor and Can nanor and north of Pon nani and Coc h i n . 1 1 . flinerary 55 56. 1 2 . i\llitter 1 7 1 8. 1 3. G iven the h istorical context (the manuscript m which it appears is dated 1 5 1 5, j ust two years before the Protestant reformer lVlartin Luther presented his n i nety-five theses against Pope Leo X 's use of indulgences) , it is just possible that the Augsburg artist Breu, who would later identi(y expl icitly with the Reformation, intended to put an anti-papal spin on the scene. On Breu 's rel igiou s and political h istory, Pia F. Cuneo, Art and Polilti·,, in Ear�v Afodcrn Germany: .få"t:q Brcll thc f,'/dcr and l he Fa,,ht�min_q tl Polilica! Idenlily ca. 1475 /5)6 ( Leiden: Bri l l , 1 998) 1 5 8 1 . 1 4 . The VtJ.va.qe tl John H"Y.tJDen l 'llll Lin,choten lo lhe A(z,,f !tuJie,1: from the 0/d En.qft:,IJ Tmn,,fatt�J/l tl 1 598, val urne l, trans. Arthur Coke

Burnell ( London: Hakluyt Society, 1 885) 296 97. Burnell inelicates that the Dutch text describes the teeth hanging over the chin rather than down to the knees. 1 5 . Eu ropean representations of h u man sacrifice and of I ndian gods devouring people may also all ude to another bibl ical figure of religious otherness, namely i\lol ech , a god identified with h u man sacrifice in several passages of the Hcbrew Bible. 1\lolech (same­ times spel ied i\loloch ) is a rival deity mentianed at seve ral poi nts i n biblical literature , especially in prohibitions against child sacri­ fice (2 Kings 23: l O; Leviticus 1 8:2 1 and 2 0:2 5; l Ki ngs l l :7; J erem iah 32:35; Acts 7:43) . Discu ssed i n George C. H eider, Thc Cu!t t�/!IIolech: 1t Rea, ,,,c,,,,ment ( Shdfield: ShefTield Academic Prcss,

216

Notec�

1 985 ) ; and .J ohn Day, ;7/o/ech : il God tl Human Sacrdi�·e in the 0/d Tt.', t/amml ( Cam bridge : Cambridge U niversity P ress, 1 990) ; sum­ marized i n H eider, " 1\lolech, " Anchor Bt'f,fe !Jt�·ft�lllary, ed. David Noel Freedman ( New York: Doubleday, 1 992) 895 98. Another

tigure of religious otherness that is sameti mes proj ected onto u n fa­ mi liar religious practices (and that may be part of the p rojection i n these texts) is Dionysus, t h e Greek god identiEed w i t h social transgression , mad ness, ecstasy, Hesh, wine and h u man sacri fice, cal led " render of men " and "eater of raw flesh " (\Valter F. Otto, Dt� l ny,tu,t: ;Jyth and Cu!t , trans. Robert B. Palmer [ Bloomington: l ndiana U n iversity Press, 1 965] 1 1 3 ) . In the Roman Empire , the rel igion of Dionysus was a prominent rival to an e mergi ng Ch ristian ity. There is evidence that Ch ristian ity was sti l l strug­ gl i ng to define itse l f agai nst the Dianysian religion as late as 692 C E , when the Truilian Synod of Constanti nople warned against Dianysian danci ng, transvesti sm and litu rgical masks. See Albert H ei n richs, " Loss of Self, Suffe ring, Violence: The Nlodern View of Dionysus from Nietzsche to Girard , " 1/an•ard Studie,, in C/a,l,tu·a/ Pl.ldo!t�lJY 88 ( 1 984) 2 1 2- 1 3 . 1 6. Homi K. Bhabha, The Locatt�m ,�f Calture ( London and New York: Routledge, 1 994) 70 7 1 . 1 7. O n the monster as "d iscipli nary sign , " see H al berstam, esp. 72 . 1 8. Edmund Bu rke, A Phi/o,topl.lt�·a/ lnquity info Our ldea�' t?{ the SuMime and Beaut�/ul, ed . Adam P h i l l i p s (Oxford : Oxford U n iversity Press, 1 998) ; I m manuel Kan t, " Analytic of the Sublime, " Critt'que t?{ Ju(�qmenl , ed 1\\eredith (Oxford : Oxford U n ivers ity Press, 1 987) . The pri mary precu rsor to the eighteenth­ century discu ssion of the sublime was the Greek essay On the SuMime (peri huphou,,) trad itionally attributed to Longi nus but of

un known authorsh ip. l nterestingly, that essay refers to Eu ripides ' Tl.lt' Baccbae and Dianysian religion as examples of the sublime's ability to carry one away with emotion ( On the SuMt'me: The Greek ]{w/ Edited t�/ter tbe Pari., Afanu,,cniJt , ed. and trans. \V. Rhys Roberts [Cambridge: Cam bridge U niversity Press, 1 899] 89) . 1 9 . " Desc ri ption of t h e Caves or Excavations on the i\ lou ntain . . . eastward of t he Town of Ellora, " A,,[att'c Re,,earche,, V I ( 1 80 l ) 382 83; Wi l l iam Ersk ine, " Account of the Ca ve-Tempie

217

Note<�

o f Elephanta, " 7i·a!ltltlc/t�m,l ��/ t/.1e /,,·/ erat:v �l.'oct't'ly 1l Bti/Jz/Jay ( 1 8 1 9) l , 1 98. These and many other exam ples are give n i n i\ litter 1 2 0-70. 20. This exoticism may be latent even in su ch n egative

accounts as those of the mission-oriented Lucy E. G u i n ness, q uoted earlier. On eloser readi ng, what appears initially t o be pure disgust in response to t h e "phantasmagoria" and " horrid c hambers of i magery" of I ndia may in faet be someth i ng far more ambivalent. At one poi nt, frustrated with her i nabi lity to describe h e r experi­ ence, she focuses on her d ressmaker as an object of' desi re pul led out of the profusion : " I lay hold o f hi m as the last and t h e re fore u ppermost object i n this world of nove l , stard ing objects and sen­ sations - lay hold of hi m as something to captu re for you , out of the sea of strange impressions that makes me almost d espair of ever tel ling you one-thousandth part of what we see and feel. Can you see and feel it with me? Can you fancy you rsel f snat c h ed away from foggy littie England . ? " (58 59) . Here, as in oth e r texts from the same period , a poetics of disgust and demonization is intertwined with a poetics of fasci nation and desire. 2 1 . 1\'\.arie-Denise Shelton, " Primit ive Self: Colon ial l m pulses i n 1\lichel Lei ris 's ' L'Afrique fantome ', " Preht:�tort'e,l ��l the Future: 7/.Je Primt'tt'l'ill Project and the Cu!turc 1l Afodenu:�m . Elazar Barkan and Ronald Bush, eds. (Stan ford : Stanford U niversity Press , 1 995) .

.

3 2 7. 2 2 . Bruce Lincol n poi n ts ou t an im portant genealogical con­

nection between the College de Sociologie and Georges Dumezil ( 1 898 1 986) , a scholar of mythology whose early works were espe­ cially i nclined to the same kind of poetic pri mitivism, and who had a tremendeus influence on both Claude Levi- Strauss and i\lircea El iade. Roge r Cal lois w as Dumezil 's fi rs t doet oral s t u dent ( Li neal n , Theort'.dn.lJ Afyt/.J, 1 43) . 23. Georges Bataille, Theory 1l Rc!t.�JL�'Il , trans. Robert H u rley (New York: Zone Books, 1 989) 1 1 2 ; l l.�t�ll'l�' de la reft:qL�IIl ( Paris: Ed itions Gal li mard , 1 973 ) . Though not published until 1 973 , it was written in 1 948. 24. Antonin Artaud, l/.1c 7 /.7m/cr and /!, 1 !Jt,uMc, trans. 1\lary Caroline Ric hards ( New York : G rove Press, 1 958) l 03, 1 1 6 . 25. Artaud 1 23 ; ital ics added .

218

Note.1 C H A PT E R 9 , T H E B LO O D I S T H E L I F E

l . Bram Stoker, Dracula (Oxford : Oxford C n ivers i ty Press, 1 996) X I . G i ven the many editions ol' this novel, al l refere nces will be to chapter n u m hers. 2 . All biblical refere nces i n this c hapter are from the King .James Versio n . 3. Stok er X X I l . 4 . �ina 1\uerbac h , Our l �mzp/rt', t, Our, ,el�·e,, (Chicago: U n iversity of' Ch icago Press, 1 995) 7. 5. Stoker I l . 6. Stoker I l . 7. R . ;\ \cNally and R. R . Floresc u , In Search 1l Dracula: TIN ffL: ,Iol:l! ��/ Dracula and l �unpt.re, , ( Boston : Houghton 1\\iffl i n , 1 972 ) ; and Lloyd \Vorley, " l m pali ng, Dracula, and the Bible, " T/.1e illon t/rou, , a/1() thc ( 'n ,peakaMe , ed. George Aichele and Ti na Pippin (Shef'ficld Academic Press, 1 997) 1 73 75 . 8. Stoker I I l . 9 . Stoker XXV I I l . l O . Stoke r l . I l . Stoke r l . O n folk legends and ritual practices related to vampires and the u ndead , see Paul Barber, l �zmp/re,,, Burt�zl, and fJmt/.1 ( New Haven : Yale U n i,·e rsity Press, 1 990) . 1 2 . Stok er l . 1 3 . Stoker I I l . 1 4 . Stoker X X I V. 1 5 . Halherstam 86 99. 1 6. Ha.l herstam 9 6 . 1 7. H oward Eil be rg- Schwart z , 'f l1t' Sa 1 'a/7t' /n Juda t:,m: An J lntbropt,lt �IJY t'( /. ".acf/te Relt:IJ'�'n and Anct�·nt Judat:,m ( Bloom i ngton: I nd iana U n iversity Press, 1 990) 1 86, shows how t h is '\J ewish problem " (a problem , that is, for modern weste rn Ch ristian iden­ tity) plays out i n t he n i neteen th-ce ntury anthropol ogical discou rses on " pri mitive " religions. On the one hand , great efTort was exerted to avoid identi(ving ,J udaism with th e " primitive , " because mai n ­ tai ning a privi leged status f'or , J udaism as t h e locus o f G o d 's special revelat ion was l i n ked to mai ntai n i ng the same st atu s for its heir, Christia nit,\'. To study ,J udai srn i n light of t he " pri mit ive" might open the door t o studying Ch ristia nity in the same l ight. On the

Note,,

219

other hand , bolstered by a nti-Semitic discou rses i n crimi nology and other bu rgeoning n i n eteenth-ce n t u ry quasi-sciences, and tying i nto earl ier Eu ropean ru rnors of bloody Jewish rel igious practices, J udaism was o f'ten identified with the religion s of other so-called "savages. 1 8. \Valter Otto, Dt�l!l_l.lll,d 1 3. See also the note i n c hapter 8. 1 9 . On associations o f the name Dio-nysos with n u rsing and with the ll.lf.laL· (nurses) who attend to him as a c hild and as his devo­ tees, see \Valter Otto, Dt�my.llt,l 60 62 . 2 0. Stoker V I . 2 1 . Stoker X I . 22. Stoker XXVI I I . 23. Elsewhere i n conversation with Seward , Ren field makes another obscure bi blical reference, comparing hi mself to Enoc h, mentianed briefly i n a ge n ealogy i n Genesis 5:2 1 24. " And why Enoc h ? " Scward asks. Ren field answers " because he walked with God " (XX, 296) . Seward says that he " could not see the analogy. " But Ren field did not i ne l u de the ful l verse, " And Enoc h walked with God : and he was not; for God took h i m " (5:24 ) , which has sametimes been taken to suggest that Enoch never died. Thus Ren field may bc i nd icati n g his own hope for immortality, reflected l ikewise in his incessant d esire to consume the l i fe force of other creat u res. 24. I ndced , some passages i ndicate that God alone consumes the blood of sacriticed ani maJs ( Psal m 50: 1 3; I saiah l : I l ; Ezekiel 44: 7 ) . Leviticus 1 7: l O l l suggests t hat the reason God takes the blood is for the pu rpose o f atonement, or coveri ng, of hu man sin. Other bibl ical prohi bition s agai nst biood-eati ng i nelude Leviticus 3: 1 7, 5:9, 7:26 2 7 and 1 9: 2 6 2 7. 25. Stoker XX I . 26. Stoker XX I . 27. Stoker XX I . 28. Stoker XX I . 29. Stoker X X I I . 30. Stoker XX I . 3 1 . Stoker X. 32 . Stoker X. 33. Stoker XI I I . 34. Stoker X.

220

Note,l

35. Stoker X I l . 36. S to ker I I I . 37. Stoker XV I . 38. Stoker XV I . 39. Stoker XXV I l . 40. Stoker X XVI I . U n less otherwise noted, all subseq uent quo tations are from the scene of the battle. 4 1 . Stoker XXVI l. The faet that they cal l their son Qu incey for short h ighlights how the process of the monster hunt h as led to a reconcil iation of England to its rebel lious progeny in the U nited States of America. With the sacrificial death of the Texan Qui ncey 1\lorris in the battie to save London from Dracula and restore 1\lina's purity, England and Arnerica are effectively u nifled a_qm"n.1 t those th reatening borderlands and foreign religiosities of Eastern Eu rope and beyond. 4 2 . Anne Wil liams, Art t?J' Darkne,1,1: A Poe!Lt'tl t?J' Gothic ( Chicago: U niversity of' Ch icago Press, 1 995) 1 34 . 4 3 . E.g. , Evelyn Fox Keller, Reflec!L(m,l on Gender and Science (New Haven : Yale U niversity Press, 1 996) ; Carolyn lVlerchant, The Death tl iVatare: u;;mzen, }( o!t�tJY and the SCLent�lii· Rei'olutt(m (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1 980) . , :

C H A PT E R

1 0 , S C R E E N I N G M O N STERS

l . i\\aya Deren, program notes for Ritaa/ ,·n 7/·an,�fi!Jared Time, repri nted in Film Calture 39 ( 1 965) 6. See also Rudol ph Arnheim, " To 1\ \aya De ren , " Film Calture 24 ( 1 962) . 2 . Stan Brakhage, Afetaphor,1 on Vt:lt(m , in Film Theory and Crilti·L:IIn , ed . Gerald 1\\ast, N\arshall Cohen and Leo Braudy (4th ed . ; Oxford: Oxford U niversity Press, 1 992) 72 73. 3. J ean Epstein, "Bon;�JLLI' CL.n/ma and Other \Vriti ngs , " trans. Tom 1\\ilne, A_lit'n.ma.tJt' l O ( 1 98 1 ) 22; i n Rac hel O. 1\loore, Sat'll.tft' ll1eory: Cinema a,1 AJodan ,Jfa.tJLi· ( Du r ham : Duke U niversity Press, 2000) 22. Similarly Charles Bou ltenhouse, " The Camera as a God , " Film Calture 29 ( 1 963) , declares that good film-making " is engaged (consciou sly or u n consciously) in preservi ng and perfecting the dernon in t he camera; the very best film -maker is he who is engaged in transf'o rm ing the dernon in to the god . "

Note.1

22 1

A-\oore shows how early film artists like Epstei n often envi­ sioned fil m as a kind of magic that mixes modern western tech nol­ ogy and the non -western " primitive " rel igion. Remin iscent of Artaud 's writing on the theater, and like other neo-prim itive artis­ tic and intellectual movements, fil m makers and theorists often e mbrace exoticized stereotypes of non-western savage otherness as a means of resacralizing what is perceived as a desacralized, degen­ erated industrial modern West. Thus the cinematic event is envi­ sioned as a retu rn of modernity's repressed , a " modern primitive " rel igious ritual . 4. A d iscussion of the letter vis-a-vis occult mysticism of the period is found in Silvai n Exertier, " La lettre oubliee de Nosferatu , " PtJ.ILt�j: 1\larc h 1 980, 47 5 1 . O n the history o f mystical ideas about the begi n ni ngs of language , especial ly as it relates to Egyptian hieroglyph s, see Erik I verson, The ;t(vth 1l A_'qypl and Jt,, fhi.•rt�qf.vph,, in European Tra(h/L�I/1 ( Pri nceton: Princeton U niversity Press, 1 993) . 5. Galeen wrote and co-directed the first Der Go/em with Pau l Wegener; t h e second was directed by Pau l Wegener and Carl Boese. 6. See i\1oshe Idel, Go/em: .lc·wi.1h ,tfa.qical and ,:'11y,,tical Traditu111,, on the Artdi'cial AnthropoL() (New York : S U NY Press, 1 990) . 1\/o,�(eralu may also be seen as part of a back-and- forth conversation between Galeen and Freud. On the one hand, Rank and Freud developed the idea of doubl ing in relation to the 1 9 1 3 fi l m Der Student 1•on Pra.que ( The St u dcnt tl Pra que) , for which Galeen had served as assis­ tant director to Stel lan Rye . On the other hand, Galeen studied Freud 's writings and was clearly intlue nced by them i n his writing of 1Yo4'eratu ; moreover, i n 1 926, Galeen directed the h ighly acclaimed remake of Der ..�'tuden/ l'tlll Pra que , which he wrote i n col­ laboration with the origi nal film 's au t hor, Hanns Heinz Ewers. Given Galeen 's other in te rests in, for example, the legend o f the Gole m , his work may represent an early cinematic convergence of religion - especially late ni neteen t h- and early twent ieth-century occu ltism - and Freudian though t . 7. Siegfried Kracauer, Fm m CaiL.�Jan' l o Hitler: A ���yc/.Jo/t�lflt'al HiAory t?{ t/.1e German Fdm ( Princeton : Pri nceton U niversity Press, 1 947) 3 1 33, offers early i nterpretations of the monster in the 1 9 1 5 Da Go/em and t he 1 9 1 6 Homwzculu,, as retleetions of German sel f­ understandi ng. .

.

222

NoteJ

8 . The announcement is quoted in 1\l. Bouvier and J . - L. Leutrat , 1Vo4eratu (Cahiers du Ci nema; Gal li mard , 1 98 1 ) 230. The fu l ! story of the legal ordeal with Florence Stoker is recou nted by David J . Skal . " The English \Vidow and the German Cou nt, " Htll�vu•ood Gotht�· (New York : W. \V. Norton , 1 990) 43 63. For a thorough account of the rise and fall of Prana- Fil m , see Bouvier and Leutrat 230-36. 9 . The Vedic concept of prana is sim ilar in some respects to the Hebrew rua�. "breath " or "spirit, " which hovers ove r the deep before t he c reation of the world in Genesis l : l , and which God breathes into the fi rst earth c reature in order to bring it to life in Genesis 2 : 7. l O. A central text of this movement i n the late ni neteenth and early twentieth centu ries was Helena Petrovna Blavatsky's two­ volume work , Tbe Secret Doctrine: The L)�yntbe,lt:l tl .Science, Religimz, and P/.Jt"/o,lophy ( London: The Theosoph ical Publish ing Company, 1 888) . Prana was also a central term and concept in Blavatsky's work (e .g. , vol . l, 95, 1 53, 1 57, 2 24 , 526) . l l . Lotte H . Eisner, The Hawztcd Screen: },\-·pre,I,IL�Itli.lm ,·n the German Cinema and the !t?flucnce ,�{ ;J/a,\· Reinbardt, trans. Roger G reaves ( Berkeley: U niversity of Cal i fornia Press, 1 973) 1 5. 1 2 . Chuck Stephens and E. Elias l\'1erhige, " S u n rise, Su nset, " Filmmaker 9, l (2 000) 58 6 1 , 1 0 1 1 04 . 1 3 . Ren field will su bsequently go mad and fi nd himself i n

Se\-vard 's sanitariu m . I n cidental ly, Dwight Frye, who plays Ren field here, was cast as the mad lab assistant Fritz i n James Whale's Fmnken.1tein ( 1 93 1 ) . 1 4 . Stoker I I I . 1 5 . Stoker I I I . 1 6. Note that i n both the approved script and the Span ish ver­ sion of the fil m , the t hree women (rather than Dracula himself) attack Renfield. 1 7. Quoted in John Gianvito, " An l nconsolable Darkness: The Reappearance and Rede fi n ition of Gothic in Contemporary Ci nema, " in Ch ristoph Gru nenberg, ed. Gotbt�·: Tmn.I!JlUtatt�m.1 tl Horror in /Ja/c Tll 'cntLeth Century rlrt (Cambridge: ;\ 1 I T Press, 1 997) 48. 1 8 . U n til the revol ution begins, Lang's u se of generic u ni forms and strict, geometric patterns of choreography suggests a subsu m-

Note.;

223

i ng of human i ndividuality in to the larger arc hitecture of the under ground space. Once the revolution begi ns, as we shal l see, i ndivid­ uality is not recovered but rather is lost in a di l'ferent manner, sub­ sumed in a bacchic revelry agai nst arch itectu re. On Lang's use of choreography vis-a-vis architectu re in the i nitial scenes, see esp. Eisner, The Hawzted Screen 2 23 36. 1 9 . Though i nvented to bring about violence and death among the workers, her initial public epiphany is as an erotic dancer on a stage i n the Metropolis. At the same time, wh ile she dances, Freder dreams blissfully of her. When he reaches out to touch her, how ever, h is vision suddenly shifts to the cathedral statues of the Seven Dead ly Sins coming to life and the G rim Reaper dancing befare h i m , sickle in hand. Remin iscent of the machine becoming 1\:loloch, this sequence shows the powerful attraction and repulsion of the robotic Maria. 2 0. The full text (in Engl ish translation) by Thea von H arbou, quoted befare the opening scene, is: "This fil m is not of today or of the future. I t tells of no place. I t serves n o tendency, party or class. lt has a m oral that grows on the pillar of u nderstanding: 'The medi ator between brain and muscle must be the lu'art. "' 1v'laria con­ dudes her sermon in the ancient catacombs with a variation on the same text: " Between the brai n that plans and t he hands that build there must be a mediator. l t is the heart that must bring about an u nderstanding between them . " And i n the last scene, as the fore­ m an and Frederson face one another on the cathedral steps, lV'laria reph rases it once again to Freder in order to encourage him to join their two hands together: "There can be no u nderstanding between the hands and the brai n un less the heart acts as mediator. " 2 1 . Th roughout the rise and fall of the Nazis, von Harhou m ai ntained p romi nent standing in the fil m busi ness, and was highly regarded by Joseph Goebbels, the lead propagandist of the Third Reich and a cinema aficionado. Goebbels also had great apprecia­ tion for Lang's films and for Lang hi mself, at least until he Hed Germany i n the summer of 1 933 (also t he year he and von Harhou d ivorced) . Lang's own relation to the Nazis and Goebbels is unclear. Did Lang Hee Germany beGwse of his own growing anti­ N azi senti ments (as he often i nsisted, though with con fl i cting d etai ls, i n i nterviews with American reporters) , or ou t of profes-

224

Note<�

si(mal and personal sclf i n terest (he had Jewish bac kground and w as a:ware ol' the large r "0Jazi plan ol' genocid e ) , or out of "h u rt male pride, " as a 1 99 0 /)er .�/ni.:qel art i cl e argues '? Probably all o f the abov e , as Patri ck i\ \cGi lligan , Il·t"t� Lan.tJ: The 1\'atw·e t�/ tbc Bca,1/ ( New York : St. 1\\art i n 's Press, 1 997) 1 7 1 85, suggests. Eisner, on the other hand , tends to attribute rac ist and classist orientations i n Lang's fi lms t o h i s collabora tion w i t h von Harbou , whose "senti­ mentalism and deplm·able taste for false grandeur were to make her lapse quickly in to t he darkness ol' Nazi i deology, " (232 33 ; c f. Eisner, Fn't.z Lan.tJ r London: Secker & Warburg, 1 976 1 ) . \Vhether or not Lang i ntended them to be, som e of his fi lms were arnenable to the propaganda i n terests of emerging Nazism. In this regard , Siegfried KraGtuer's From CaiL:qart" ftl 1/t"t ler: ri P,,ycf.?o/t�tJLi·a/ 1h 't01:v tl t/1e German Ftlm ( Princeton: Princeton U n i versity Press, 1 947) , remain s convi nci ng, espec ially his anal.J,rsis of Lang 's 1 924 German nati onal ist fi lm /hi., ,\ 't"/Jclw zpen , which was formati ve for the 1 934 offic ial Nazi fi lm lhump/.1 t�/ tbe U/Il/ (9 1 95) . Also convincing i s his analysis oLI!ctmpoh , as a "youth fi l m " that, i n its fi nal sham alliance between labor and capital , serves ulti mately to "affl rm fixation to authoritarian behavior" ( 1 62 64 ) . 2 2 . Kracauer 94 95, with regard t o Lang's /),(., 1\'d,elw z.tJl'l l . C H A PT E R

1 1 , E C O M O N ST E R

l . \Vi l l iam L. Lau re nce, " D rama of the Atomic Bom b Found Cl i max in J u ly 1 6 Test, " 1\'cu• }�wk ll'mt', , , Sept. 26, 1 945, 1 6. All sub sequent quotat ions from Lau re nce a.re from page 1 6 of' t his article. Lau rence had been detac hed for service by the \Var Department i n order to explain the atomic bomb t o t he " lay publi c . " H e not only witnessed the lirst explosion i n New i\ \exico, but al so saw its use i n war o n Nagasaki. 2 . Quoted in Lau rence 1 6. ,) . Statement of G eneral Thomas Farrcll, from t he press reJease 1 6, 1 945. of' the \Var D epart m e nt on the New i\ \exico Test , 4. Donald \Vorster, .\ 'a t u rt' : , Fcollt 'lllY: ,t H,; ,lory t/ Eco!t�tJLi·al !dca,, (second edition; Cambridge : Ca mbridge U niversity Press, 1 994) , shows how nu clear tech nolog_v i naugu rated a new age o f environ­ mentalism "whose pu rpose ·was to use t he i nsights of ecologv to

225

Note.•

restrain the use of modern science-based power ove r nature" (343 44 ) . This new int erdiscipli nary field emphasized balance and order within ecological systems, and warned against the mon­ strou sly destructive potential of human technological i ntervention and industrial exploitat ion. Left to itself, they argued, nature tends toward a mature state of interdependence and harmony. Often this conception o f ecologi cal orde r was - and still is expressed in ex plicitly religiou s terms, as sacred or even as divinely ordai ned. By the same token, ecological chaos, b rought on by (sac ril egiou s) hu man intervention, was i ncreasingly presented with a sense of urgency " bordering at times on apocalyptic fear" (353) . 5 . See also my article, " Behold Thou the Behemoth: l magin ing the u nimaginable in 1\lonster 1\lovies, " lmap (in) in.lJ Otherne,,,, .. Fdnui: v,:,tim,, (l L[,.,·IZ/J Tt�qether, ed. S. Brent Plate and David Jasper (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1 999) . 6. This sense of a monstrous subj ectivity that sees 'vvi thout being seen is fu rther heightened in many horror fi lms by use of the u ndai rned point of view shot, which identi fi es the viewer's point of view with that of t he impl ied monster as it stalks its unaware vic­ tim. The viewer looks through the eyes of a monster. See esp. Isabel Cristina Pinedo, Recreattimal Terror: w";mzen and th,· Plea,,ure,, (?f' Horror Film Vtell'in.q (Al bany: S U NY Press, 1 997) 5 1 55. 7. The concept of suture was first developed not i n fil m but in psyc hoanalytic discou rse, by ,J acques-Alai n i\liller, a student of ,Jacq ues Lacan . See esp. Kaja Silverman, The Su/Jject ll Semt(,ttl.·,, (Oxford : Ox ford U niversity Press, 1 983) 1 99 236. 8. Pi nedo 56. C H A PT E R

1 2 , O U R M O N S T E R S , O U R S E LV E S

l . Shelley l O.

2 . See esp. Huet 1 29 62 . 3. " Bela Lugosi 's Dead " was first released in 1 979 on a 1 2 i nch single record , Bauhau,,: Bela Lu.qo,,[;, /Jead, and has been re-released

several times since. Cover art ine ludes images of' Bela Lugosi as Dracula in the movie and as Dracula in his coffin. 4 . For bibliography and literary history of Lovecraft, and of his early interpreters and critics, see J. T. Joshi , /,o,•ecrt�/i and Lol 'ecn�(l

226

Notec�

CritL�.,:,m: Jin Awwtated RiML��tJI·aphy ( Kent: Kent State U n iversity P ress, 1 98 1 ) ; and Ch ris Jaroc ha- Ernst, J1 Cthu!ha Afytho, t BihiL��qrap/.1y and Concordance ( Seattle: Arm i tage H ouse, 1 999) . i\lost

of Lovecraft 's Cthulhu iV\ythos stories are published in two collec­ tions: l'he Dww·t�·h Horror and Other,t, ed. S. T. J oshi (Sauk City, W l : Arkham H ouse, 1 984) ; a n d At the Alowztm'n., t?f' Aladne. t, t, mu) Other JVm•el. t , ed. J . T. Josh i ( Sau k City, W I : Arkham House, 1 984) . Also J oyce Carol Oates, ed., ]{z/e,, t/ 1/.P. Ltwecrt�/f ( Hopewel l : Ecco Press, 1 997) . 5. H oward Phill ips Lovecraft, Sapernatamf Horror in Literafwy ( New York : Dover, 1 973) 1 5 1 6. 6. H . P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cth u l hu , " ]{z/e, t t?( H.P. Lol 'ecrt�(t , ed. J oyce Carol Oates ( Hopewell: Ecco Press, 1 997) 54 . 7. "The Cal l of Cth ulhu " 53 54. 8. H . P. Lovecraft, " The Dunwich H orror, " 7iz/e,, t?f' H. P. Lo, •ecrt�(t , ed. J oyce Carol Oates ( Hopewell: Ecco Press, 1 997) 1 1 3 . 9. "The Dunwich H orror" 1 1 3 . 1 0. " The Du nwich Horror " 1 1 3. 1 1 . " The Dunwich Horror" 1 28 . 1 2 . " The Shadow Out of Ti me" 308. 1 3. " The Dunwich Horror" 1 1 7. 1 4 . "The Cal l of Cthul h u " 75. 1 5. Edward J . I ngebretson, 1Ua1M t?f' Hea 1•en, 1Ua1M t?f' Hel/: Religuw,, Terror a,t Afemory .ti-om the Puraan,t to Stephen Kin.q ( New York: i\l. E. Sharpe, 1 996) , 1 33. 1 6. There are also nu merous Lovecraftian and Cthulhian board , card , computer and role-playing games, including Ca// t?( Cthufl.lll, published by Chaosiu m , which is set in Lovecraft 's world and which has remained popular si nce its reJease in 1 98 1 . Apparently Chaosium was able to acquire the gam ing rights to Lovecraft 's works, thereby keeping most other pri nt-based role­ playing game publishers out. Another popu lar pri nt-based role­ playing game is Cthu//.1apwzk by Generic U n iversal Role Playing Games in cooperation with Chaosium ( 1 995) . 1 7. Quoted in Cft',•e Barker:, A -Z t?{ Horror, ed. Stephen J ones (New York : HarperCollins, 1 997) 47. 1 8. Robert 1\\. Price, " Lovec raft's 'Artificial 1\lythology, "' An ' Fpt(·ure f;w t/.1e l{,rriMe: A Ccntewu( zl Anthoft�lJY t{ Et,ta.w in I/onor t?f H. P.

227

Lol'ecrt�/l, ed. David E. Schultz and S. T. .J oshi ( London and Toronto: Associated U niversity Press, 1 99 1 ) 255 56 . 1 9. Campu s Crusade for Cthulhu has several chapters world­

wide, but the largest website, and the source for the material dis­ c u ssed here is < li ' H'u'. lock,,ley. comlcthulhu > , designed by J oe Bethancourt. The website for the Chaos Cu lt of Cth ulhu is . i\\any Lovecraftian and Cthulhian sites are given at <wu•u•.cthull.lll.tlt:q > . 20. lV\ircea El iade, " The Occu lt a n d the 1\\odern World, " OccultL:,m, WL"tchcrt�/t, and Caltuml f'"z,,hL�m,,: E,,,ay,, in Comparati1•c Rel�qL�m., (Chicago: U niversity of Ch icago Press, 1 976) 64 65. 2 1 . Barbara A . Babcock, " Arrange 1\\e i n to Disorder: Fragments and ReHections on Ritual Clowni ng, " Rm(hn.q,, in RL'tual St[[(hi:,, , ed. Ronald J . Gri mes ( Upper Sadd ie River, NJ : Prentice

H all, 1 996) 2 , 1 5. First published i n RL'tc, Drama, F'e,,ti,•al, .)'pectacle: Rehmr,,af., Toward a Theory t?f' Caltuml Pet�/;wmancc, ed John J . MacAloon ( Phi ladelph ia: l nsti t u te for the Study o f Human lssues, .

•

1 984) .

CONCLU S I O N l . Shelley 28. 2 . Although many earlier maps inelude images and warni ngs of

various monsters in u n familiar regions, it appears that the earliest known map to inelude the famous line the /1eno.\' Glof,c (in the col­ lection of the New York Public Library) , which dates to the begin­ n i ng of the sixteenth century. There the warni ng appears on the east coast of Asia.

N

D

E X

Abe l , A l fred 1 52

Baal l 9-22 , '26-2 7, 1 65 , 2 0 1

A i c h e l e , George 2 1 8

Baa l - A nat C,vcle 1 9-22 , 2 5 , 2 9 , 252 , 4 9 .

,.Ikt'tu ( 13a by l on ia.n Nevv Year l'c sti, a l )

2 00-2 0 2 . 2 0-1 . 2 1 l Babcock, Barbara A. 2 2 7

1 7, 1 62 , 2 0 0

JJ.It'cn (ti l m ) 1 69 , 1 85

Baco n , Fra n c i s 1 4 0

A nat 1 9-2 2 , 76, 20 l

Bal e n t i n c , Samuel E. 2 06-2 07

a n t i - S c m i t ism 1 2 7-29 , 1 57 , 2 1 8- 1 9

Barber, Pau l 2 1 8

ap o cal,vpse 1 4- 1 5 , 44, 78-82 , 1 43 ,

Barker, Clive 78. 89, 1 00- 1 0 1 , 1 85 ,

1 48 , 1 6 0-6 1 , 1 87 , 1 99-2 0 0 ; t h e l i t

2 1 I . 2 1 3, 226

erary ge n re o l ' 72 ; a s u n h i d i ng 7 1 ;

13arr, David L. 2 1 1 13aru c h ( Pseudcpigra p h a l ) 2 08

of and on t h e edge 72-7.3 , 1 38 Apo p h i s 6, 1 9 , 1 9 1 , 2 0 0

Batai l l e , Ceorges 1 1 8- 1 9 , 1 2 0 , 1 79 ,

Apsu 1 6 . 1 9-2 2

217

A rj u n 1 59

Ba u haus 5 . 1 76 , 1 79 , 2 2 5

A r k h a m H o u se 1 86

beasts of t h c r\poca.lypsc 77, 85. I l O

A rn h e i rn , R u d o l p h 2 2 0

B c h e m o t h 6. 7. 49-50, 53-54 . 62-68.

A rta u d . A n t o n i n 1 1 9-2 1 . 1 79 , 2 1 7,

1 63-64 . 2 06-2 07. 2 08 . 2 09

22 1

Bemvu l f' 83 . 1 2 5. 2 1 1 , 2 1 2

Assyria 3 2 , 2 04

13et hanco u r t , .J oe 1 89 , 2 2 7

:\ t k i n s , Peter 2 1 3

Bhabha. H o m i K. I l 6, 2 1 6

a t o m i c bo m h 1 59-6 1 , 224

8ba.lJ
t\ u e rbac h , N i na 1 24 . 2 1 8

B i b l c and b i b l i cal l i t e ra t u rc , g e n e 1 a l

229

1 59

JnJe.-\·

230

d i sni s s i o n s ol' l ,3 , 24 2 5 , 29, 3 7 ,

Ca l ic u t , god of 1 1 1 - 1 6

5 7 58, 78 , 8 2 , 90, %-9 7; G e n e s i s l ,

Cam p us Crusade for Cth u l h u 1 88-8 9 ,

14

1 5 . 1 6 , 2 6 28 , 2 9 , 38, 4 1 -4 2 ,

6 2 63 . 7 7 , 8 3 , 8 9 , 9 1

9 2 , 1 30 , 1 33 ,

2 05 , 2 1 9 , 2 2 2 ; Exod u s 58-5 9 , 1 2 5 , 2 04 , 2 09 ; Le, i t i c u s 66-68, 8 9 , 1 2.3 ,

227

Carrol l , 0Joel 5 2 , 2 0 7 c h aos 9

1 0, 1 4

1 5 , 4 3 , 4 5 , 1 53 , 1 56 ,

1 60 62 , 1 80 , l 9 l , 1 95 , 2 0 3 ; "v a t e rs

1 3.3 , 2 09 , 2 1 5 , 2 1 9 ; :\' u m be rs 2 0 3 ;

of 1 4- 1 5 , 1 9 , 2 1 --2 2 , 28-29 , 3 2 ,

Deu teron omy 4 0 , % , 1 2 3 , 1 30 , 2 05 ;

58 5 9 , 77, 1 4 0 ; w i l d ern ess as 6 0 ;

.J u dges 2 04 ; S a m u e l 2 04 : K i ngs

d e s i re l'or 4 0-4 5 , 4 7 ; c haogony

2 1 5 ; l sa i a h 6 , 30 3 2 , 5 1 , 5 9 , 62, 79,

4 1 4 3 , 1 8 1 ; as sacred l O, .33 , 49, 50,

8 0 , 9 6 , 9 9 , 1 59 , 2 03-2 04 , 2 06 , 2 08 ,

54 5 5 , 64 , 70; .•cc al•o cosm ogony,

2 09 , 2 1 9 ; ,J e re m i a h 3 2 ; Ezek i e l 3 1 ,

as c haos bat t i e

5 9 , 79 8 0 , 2 1 9 ; .Joel 79; A m os 2 06 ;

c h a o s t h cory 1 5 , 1 99

. J o n a h 68-69 ; Zephaniah 2 0 6 :

Chaos Cu lt of Ct h u l h u 1 88 , 2 2 7

Mal a c h i 2 06 ; Psa l m s 6 , 2 5-29, 3 0 ,

Charles I I 95-9 6 , 2 1 2

3 2 , 38 3 9 , 4 2 4 3 , 5 1 , 54 , 5 9 , 6 2 ,

C i o ra n , E. i\\ . 35 3 6 , 44 4 5 , 2 04 , 2 0 5 ,

64 65, 8 0 , 9 6 , 9 9 , 1 59 , 2 0 3 , 2 07,

2 06

2 1 1 , 2 1 9 ; .J ob 6 , 7, 34 55 , 6 1 ,

eloi sters i\pocalypse 74 75, 84--5

64 66. 74 , 8 1 , 89, 97-98, 1 63 64 ,

c l ow n i ng 1 9 1 9 2 , 2 2 7

2 05 , 2 08 , 2 1 1 , 2 1 3 ; Larn e n ta t i o n s

Coh n , ":\'orman 1 99

2 06 ; Da n i e l 74 , 79, 2 1 O; Ezra 2 06 ;

Col l ege de Soc i o l ogie 1 1 8- 1 9 , 2 1 7

N e h e m iah 2 06 ; Ch ron i c l es 2 05 :

Col l i n s , Adela Yarbro 2 1 O

i\ \at t h ew 1 2 5 ; Acts 2 1 5 ;

c o n j u ri ng 3 3 , 4 3 , 1 48 4 9 , 1 52 , 1 56-57

Reve l a t i o n/Apocalypse ol' . J o h n 9 ,

cosrn i c ard e r, l i n k ed to soc i a l - p o l i t ical

5 8 , 7 1 --5 , 90, 2 1 0 D l a k e , \Vi l l i a m 3 4 , 4 6

orde r 1 7- 1 8 , 2 7-2 9 , .3 0 3 3 , 90 9 1 , 1 2 9 , 1 30 3 1 , 1 38 , l fJ6-57, 1 62 ,

Bl avatsky, H e l e n a Petrovna 2 2 2

1 83-<.�4 ; .•t't' al·�� cosmopolis; body

b lood 1 2 3 , 1 2 9-,35, 1 44 , 2 1 9

p o l i t i c ; cosm ogon,v

body p o l i t i c 9?i 96, 1 57 13oese , Carl 2 2 1

cosm ogony 9 , 1 4- 1 9 , 2 6-2 8 , 4 1 4 3 , 4 8 -4 9 , 6 9 , 90 94 , 1 42 , 1 48-4 9 ,

Dou l t e n h o u s e , Charles 2 2 0

1 59 60, 1 99 ; as c haos battie 1 4

Bou\· i e r, ;\ \ . 2 2 2

2 6-28 , 90 9 1 , 99

1 9,

1 00 , 1 36 4 0 ,

B ra k h age , Stan 1 4 2 , 2 2 0

1 62 -70, 1 82 ; and the Exod u s

Bra m ha l L B i s h o p . J o h n 99 1 00 , 2 1 3

30 3 1 ; a n d pol igony .3 l , 9 1

Driggs, . J o h n 1 99

th eogony 1 4 2 , 1 48 4 9 ; ,,,.,. al•tl cos­

Brow n , Ke i t h 2 1 2

m i c arder

Brow n i ng, Tod 1 49-5 1 , 1 76

cos m opol i s 76 , 9 0 9 1 , 1 57 , 2 1 2

B r u e , . J o rg 1 1 4 , 2 1 5

Creed , Ba rbara 1 8 , 2 00

Bru eggema n n , \Valter 2 8 , 2 0.3

Ct h u l h u ,\ \y t hos 6, 1 79 9 1

B u rk e , Ed m u nd 7, 1 1 6 1 7, 2 1 6

Cu n co , Pia F 2 1 5

Byro n , George Gord o n 1 76 Dal l ey, S tep han ie 1 99 Ca i l l o i s , Roge r l 1 8 , 2 1 7

Da n z i g , G l e n n 1 73

Ca i n 8.3

l hy . . J o h n 2 0.3 , 2 0- t 2 1 (:)

93; and

lnde.Y

23 1

Dead oF the \\' i l d e rn ess 60

c x i l e , Baby l o n i a n 2 7, 3 0 . 3 1 -3 2 , 80

d e rnythologiz ing the m o n ster 1 62-65

exorc i s m 1 5 1 -5 2 , 1 56-57

/Jer Go/em ( fi l m ) 1 46 , 2 2 1

Ex prc s s i o n i s m 1 48

/Jer �'ltudm/ ''''11 Pmpuc Oi l m ) 2 2 1

Ez ra ( Ps e u d epigraphal ) 2 08

Dere n , :\laya 1 42 . 1 4 9 , 2 2 0 D e rl eth , August 1 86-87

Fan·e l l . Thomas 1 6 0 , 224

De\ i l 72 , 78 , 80-(� 2 . 1 2 5 , 2 1 2 ; ,•et' al.•o

F l o resc u , R . R. 2 1 8

Satan Dieck m a n , E n ri c o 1 48 lhc ,Yt/,elun.lJm ( f i l m ) 224

Dionysus 1 2 8-2 9 , 1 49 , 1 55, 1 83 , 2 1 6 , 219

Foster, \Vi l l iam 2 1 4 Fran k e n stei n , Doyle \Vo l f "g ang , on 1 74-75 Frtlllk,·n•lcin ( n m e l ) 2-3 , 89, 1 60 ,

1 75-76, 1 93-95

d i sori e n tat ion 28-3 0 , 1 1 8-2 1

Frazer, . J a m e s 1 1 9

Douglas , ;\\ary 4 2 , 1 83 , 2 06

Fre u d , Sigm u n d 4-5, 1 97 , 1 98 , 2 2 1

IJramla ( n m el ) 6, 8 3 , 89, 1 23-4 0 , 1 4 .) ,

Fro h l i c h , G u stav 1 52

1 50-5 I . 1 63 , 1 64

Fr:ve , Dwi g h t 1 49 , 2 2 2

/Jmmla ( 1 93 1 fi l m ) 5, 1 49-5 I . 1 76-79

d ragon oF t h e Apocalypse ol" .J o h n 9 , 5 8 , 76-85, 2 1 1 ; a s c h aos m o n ster 76-77; as Satan and t h e Devi l 72 ,

G a l ee n , H e n ri k 1 44 -4 6 . 2 2 1 gen d e r 1 8 , 2 1 . 1 24 , 1 3 1 -4 0 , 1 5 0 , 1 62-63

77-82 ; t races ol" Lev i a t h a n i n

Ge o rge town C n iversity 24-25

79-8 1 ; t races i n Drac u la 8.) ,

giant a n t e l o pe 59

1 24-2 5 , 1 40; other related d rago n s

(J't�llll Be/Jt'llltlti', l1.1e Ui l m ) l 63-7 1

79, 83-85, 2 1 1

g i a n t f "rog 59

D u m e z i l . Georges 2 1 7

G i a m i t o , ,J o h n :! 2 2

dyst e l e o l ogy 53, 6 1

G i bso n , ,J . C . L. 2 2 , 2 0 l . 2 02 G i ger, I l . R. 1 85

Eck , Diana 2 1 4 ecological h orror l 6 1 -6 2 , 1 70-7 1 , 2 24-2 5

God , b i b l i ca l . i d e n t i �ied w i t h m o n s t e rs 25-2 8 , 2 9-3 0 , 32-3 3 , 4 7-55. 6 2 . 75, 1 60-6 1 ; opposed to m o n st e rs

Edward s , , J o nathan 1 84

2 5-28, 2 9-.) 0 , .3 2-3 3 , 4 1 ' 47 -4 9; .•t'l'

E i l berg- Schwart z , l l oward 2 1 8- 1 9

a l. •o m o n sters , d e m o n i z i ng a n d

E i s n e r, Lotte H . 2 2 2 , 2 2 3 , 224 El iad e , 1\l i rcea 9- 1 0 , 1 9 0-9 1 . 1 98 , 2 1 7. 2 2 7 Em e rto n , ,J . A . 2 0 2

d e i b·i n g Gt�li.dlla ( 1 956 �i l m ) 1 6 1 . 1 63 Gt�ll.:dla ( 1 999 �i l m ) 1 64

Goebbe l s, J oseph 223

E n o c h ( P s e u d e p igra p hal ) 2 08

G o k· m 1 4 6 , 2 2 1

e n t ropy 1 5

Goths 5, 1 76 , 1 79 , 1 90-9 1

��·1 /1111/ll [,'(,; ,;) 6 , 1 6- 1 9 , 2 1 . 2 2 , 2 9 , ,),) ,

Goya, Fra n c i sco I l 9

1 99-2 00, 2 06

G ra n a c h , A l e x a n d e r 1 44

Eps t e i n , . J ean 1 42 , 2 2 0

C ra u , i\l h i n 1 48

Ers k i n e , \Vi l l iam 2 1 6

G re e n s t e i n , Edwar d l ,. 20 l

Eur·ipides 1 2 9 , 2 1 6

G rotta n e l l i , Cri s t ian o 2 04

Excrt i er, S i lv a i n 2 2 1

C u i n n e s s . Lucy E. 1 08- 1 1 0 , 2 1 4 , 2 1 6

232

C u n ke l . I I e nn a n n 1 99-2 00, 204, 2 06

I d e l . ;\ \oshe 2 2 1

c \\ ;u· 1 88, 1 92

i m p u rity a n d co n tam i na ti o n 4 2 ,

l Ld l w rs t a m , .J udi t h 1 2 7-28 , 2 1 4 , 2 1 6 ,

l n ge b r e t se n , Ed\.\ ard . J . 1 84 , 2 1 1 , 2 2 6

1 23-2 4 , 1 2 9-.) 4, 1 4 .) , 1 83-84 218 . Ja rocha- E rn s t , C h r i s 2 2 6

l la m i l t o n , Victor P. 2 06

l la n u m an 1 06- 1 09, 2 1 4

.J asper, Davi d 2 2 5

l l a rhou, Thea \ On 1 56-57, 2 2 .3-24

.lt1 11', 1 ( l i l m ) 1 69

l l a ny Pot t er· 84

. J e ru s a l e m 2 7 , 6 2 , 77, 80, 8 1 -8 2 , 1 2 7-28

l bw t h o rn e , Natha n i e l 1 84

. J e s u s , J oh n 's t e r r{v i ng vision ol'

H e a n ey, Seam us 2 1 1 H e i d e r, George C. 2 J 5

7.3-76 ,J o h n ol' Patmos 73

l l e i n ri c h s , Al bert 2 1 6 //,·lll�t•lltlll l!elltm:�er Il ( fi l m ) 89,

, J o h n t h e l3ap t i s t 1 3 1

l 00- J o l . 2 J 3

, J o n a h 68-69

H e l m , B rigi t t e 1 S5

,J osh i , ,J . T. 2 2 5-26

H em p e l . .J ohan nes 2 06

,J u d a i s m and J ew i s h id e n t i ty 1 2 7-2 9 , 1 46, 2 1 8- 1 9

l l e rd n e r, A. 20 J

f.,t'c , lUII! (1/'II,'IIIIC,I

(" h e re be d ra go n s " )

J 9.3-96, 2 2 7

Kabbala h 1 4 6

h i d e/h i d i ng 4 0 , 7 1 . 94-95, I OO- J 0 1

Kal i 1 1 4

h i e rog lyph s 1 4.3-44, 1 48, 1 52 , 1 82

K a n t , I m ma n uel 7, 1 1 6- 1 7, 2 1 6

H i l ! , Christopher 2 1 .)

Ka r l o fl, Boris l , J 85

H i nd u \' i s u a l c u l t u re 1 08- I J 7, 1 48 ,

Ke l e m a n , Fred I S J -52

2 1 4- J 5

Ke l l e r, Eve lyn Fox 2 2 0 K i ng , S t e p h e n 54 , 7 8 , J 85 , J 86 , 207

H i t l e r, A d o l f ' 1 5 7 H ohbes, Tho ma s 9 J - J O l . 1 5 7, 2 J 2 ,

K istiakowsk i , George 13. 1 60 K l e i n e- R o gge , R udo lf' l 55

2 1 .3 H o l ocaust 1 60

kosher monster 66-68

l!.'munmlw Ui l m ) 2 2 1

K racaue r, S i e g fr ie d 1 57, 2 2 1 , 224

H o n d a , I n o s h i ra 1 6 J

Krishna 1 59

horror. t h e o l ogical 28-.) 0 , .36-4 0 ,

Kriste\ a, J u l ia 1 98

- F-48 , 53-55, 7 1 -75 , J 84 ; c o s m i c J il , 1 8- 1 9 , 2 1 -2 2 , 2 7 , 2 9-3 0 , 4 7 5:) ,

Laca n , ,J ac q ues 2 2 5

7 0 , 1 29 , 1 .1 8, 1 80-8 1 . 1 84 ; as

La n c h e ster, E l s a 1 76- 1 78

t'or re l i g i o n 4 , 1 84 ; a n d re l i g i o u s e x p e r i e n ce 7, 1 80-8 1 , 1 95-96;

, l ,'t'

,z/.1,, ecological horror

La n g , Fri t z l S2 , 2 2 2-24 La u re n c e , \Vi l l ia m L. 1 59-60, 2 2 4 Lawso n , C eorge 99, 2 1 .)

H o rus 79

Le i c k . C we n d o ly n 2 00

! l u e t . ,\ \arie- H e l e n e 1 97-98, 2 2 5

Le i ri s , ,\ \ i c hael 1 1 8

h u n t e r a n d h u n t ed 1 6 7-69

/,t'/1{1,\ (;f,f," 2 2 7

! lydt• , Ed wa rd , Earl of' C ia re n d o n 9(i,

Lesko, Leo n a rd I L 1 99

2 1 2-2 1 .)

l ly l l ra 7<)

Lcto 2 1 0 Le u t r at , . J . - L. 2 2 2

Inde:c

233

Leviat han 6, 7, 2 5-33 , 4 2 -4 3 . 4 7 , 50-54 . 5 5 , 5 7-58 . 6 0 - 7 0 , 72 . 74 , 79--<.1) 2 , 1 62-65. l 8.), 20 I . 2 0 2 , 2 04 . 2 0 8 . 209, 2 1 1 ; a m biguo u s i n rela

,\ \ ic hael ( a rc h a n ge l ) 77-78, 83. 1 2 5 ,\ \id rash Lev i t i c u s Rabbah 66-68 , 8 1 -8 2 , 2 07. 2 08, 2 09

,\ \ i l l c r, . J acques A l a i n 2 2 5

tion t o God 25-28, 2 9-3 0 . 4 7 -4 8 ,

;\ \ i l t o n , , J o h n 3

57-58. 62-63 , 2 06-2 07; f'o r d i n n er

,\ \ i s fi t s 1 73-75

65-70, 7 1 ;

,,,·c

af.,,, /,,·, ·t�lllltlll ( fi l m )

a n d /,e, ·t�lllltul ( Thomas H o bbes) /,c,·t�lll>an (Thomas ! l obbes) 9 1 - 1 O l , 1 5 7. 2 1 2 . 2 1 3

/,c, ·t�ltlltl/1 Ul l m ) 1 62 , 1 69

Levi - S t rau ss , C l a u d e 2 1 7 Levi n a s , Emman u e l 3 7-39, 2 05

;\ \ i s h nah 58 ,\ \ i t t e r, Part ha 1 1 4 , 1 1 7 , 2 1 4- 1 5 , 2 1 6 modern i ty 90-9 1 , l O l , 1 39--4 0 , 1 53

;\ \olech/M o l oc h 1 53-5 5 , 2 1 5- 1 6 m o n s t e r m o v i e s as religious eve n t s 1 4 1 --4 2 , 1 48 , 1 4 9 , 1 5 1 -5 2 , 1 6 1 -62 , 1 65-7 1

l ,ew is , Th e()(lore , J . 20 l

mon•! re , •an ! S, 1 76

Lin af'e l t . Tod 24-2 5 , 2 05

m o n s t ro u s , paradox of t h e 4-6 , 1 9 ,

L i n col n , Bruce 1 99 , 2 1 7

1 24-2 9 , 1 46 , 1 82-8 3 ; d e rn o n i z i n g

Li n sc h ote n , . J a n H uyge n van 1 1 4- 1 5

a n d d e i f�ri n g 5-6 , 84-8 5 , 1 1 8 ,

Li p n e r, . J u l i us 2 1 4

1 2 5-2 6 , 1 4 3--44 ; as conglomera

L i t a n 2 5 , 2 9 , 79 , 2 0 l , 2 04 , 2 1 1

tions of o t he r ness l 03, l 06, 1 24-2 9 ,

/,/,.,.,. rlc, • lllt'l'l 'l'lllc,• l l 1 - 1 1 3

1 80 , 1 94 ; ca.tegory-jam m i n g 5 2 .

L<m g i n u s 2 1 6

74 - 7 5 , l 03, 1 83-84 ; as revelation

Lore t z , Dietrich O . 2 0 l

a n d war n i n g 6 8, 1 4 3 , 1 96 ; a s reve­

Lovec ra h , Howard Phi l l i ps 6, 1 79-9 1 , 2 2 5-2 6

lation of the d i v i n e o r t h e h o ly 6-8, 4 7--4 8 , 5 0-55 , 94-9 6 , 1 2 5 , 1 4 3--44 ,

Lovec raft - i n s p i red movies, m u s i c and g a m e s 1 85-8 6 , 2 2 6

Lugo s i, Bela 5 , 1 50 , 1 76 , 1 79 , 1 9 I . 225

L u t h e r, ,\\art i n 2 1 5

1 48--49 , 1 83 ; fear a n d d e s i re in rela­

t io n t o 7, 1 2 5-2 6 ; 1 95-9 6 , 2 1 7; as

re t u r n ol' the repressed 5-6 , 8 , 1 5 , 1 2 7 , 1 62 63 , 1 70-7 1 . 1 9 1 -9 2 , 1 98 ;

m o n s t ro u s b i r t h s 7, 2 3 , 24-2 5 , magi c 2 4 , 1 52

1 75-76, 1 97-98 ; o n a n c i e n t maps

;\ \and e,·i l l e, S i r �J o h n I I I

1 93-96, 2 2 7 ; u n d ead I O , 1 8- 1 9 , 2 2 ,

;\\an h a t t a n Project 1 59-60

1 33 , 1 36-3 7; ol' hege m o ny 99- 1 O l ;

;\\a re o Polo I l O- I l

ide n t i f:v i n g 'v i t h ,)2-3,), 4 7-55, 9 0 ,

,\ \an.- u s , David 2 0 1

1 1 7-2 I. 1 48 , 1 70-7 I . 1 73-79,

,\ larc u se , l l crbe,-t 5, 1 9 7

1 90-9 2 ;

,\ \ a rd u k 1 6- 1 9 , 2 1 . 2 9 , 3 3 , 76 , 1 62 . 1 65 , 1 9 1 . 206

•'<'t'

al.•o unf,ct'mlt�·/,

,\ \oore, Rachel O. 2 2 0-2 1 ,\ \orse, Teny 1 6 1

;\ \at h e r, Cot ton 1 84

,\ lot 2 0-22

,\\c G i l l igan , P a t r i c k 224

,\ l u r p hy . Roland E. 205

;\le N a l ly.

my t h and myt h o l ogy 1 3- 1 4 , 1 1 9-2 0 ,

R.

218

,\ \eh rige . Elias 1 4 8 --4 9 , 2 2 2

1 48 . 1 62-6 5 . 1 80 . 1 90 . 1 99 , 2 1 7

0 \ e l l i n k o fl'. R u t h 2 1 2 ,\ \erc h a n t , Carolyn 2 2 0

, 1/c/,.,,p,,f,;, ( f i l m ) 1 5 1 -5 7 , 2 2 3 , 224

:\' a z i s m 1 2 7, 1 5 7, 2 2 3-24 ,\',•t'f'tl//tllll/.t'tl/1 1 82 . 1 90

lnJe.T

234

Newso m , Carol A. 2 0 5 , 206

Ravana l 06- 1 08

N i etzsc h e , Friedrich 2, 5 4 , 1 97, 207

Reedy. Gerald 2 1 3

.\'o. •/;·m/11 ( 1 92 2 fi l m ) 6 , 1 4,) 4 9 , 1 56 ,

rel igi o n , c o m m o n ideas of 8- 1 O, 22 . 1 9 0-9 2 . 1 95-96; a n d h ig h e r ed u ca­

22 1

tion 23-2 5 ; ·'<'<' al.•o pri m i t ive re l i giOn

Oate s , J oyc e Carol 2 2 6

Re nlleld 1 2 9-3 1 , 1 49-50, 2 1 9 , 2 2 2

Od aric d e Perd e n a n e I l O- l l Odorus U ru ngus ! HH

revo l u t i o n 1 56-57

O n ly, , J erry 1 74-75

Ht:q

Oppe n h e i rn e r, Robert 1 59

ritual 1 .)4-40, 1 4 1 -4 2 , 1 4 9-5 2 , 1 55 ,

! �·da l 9, 2 0 0

1 62 , 1 70 , 1 82 , J 9 1 -9 2 , 2 1 H , 2 2 7

ori e n ta l i s rn and colon ial ism 82 , 1 03- 1 04 , 1 08- 1 1 7, 1 2 0-2 1 . 1 2 6-28,

Robi n so n , Fred C. 2 1 2

1 53 , 2 1 7; . •ec al.•o p r i m i tive re ligion

Rowl i ng, J . K. H4

O t t o , R u d o l f 7-9 , 53-54 , 6 1 . 1 1 7, 1 98 , Sac h s , A. 2 00

207

O t t o , Wal t e r 2 1 6 , 2 1 9

Sai n t G eo rge and t h e d ragon 8 3 , 1 2 5 ,

pai n 3 5-3 7, 4,)-45 , 54-5 5 . 205

san ity/sa n i tari u rn l ,) l

1 39

Panuh: ,c /,o, •t 3

Sanrn a rtfn , ,J . 20 l

Pa rker, Ric hard A. 1 99

Satan a n d Ja/a n 39-4 0 , 72 , 7H, HO-H2 ,

Peat, F. David 1 99

1 2 5 , 2 05-2 06 . 2 1 2

P i n e d o , I sahela Cristi n a l 69-70, 2 2 5

Scarry, Ela i n e 205

Pipp i n , Ti na 73 , 2 1 0 , 2 1 I . 2 1 8

Sc h l o b i n , Roge r C. 54 , 2 0 7

Pirke eJ,· Ra /JI,i r:/,�·.::a 68-69,

Sc h rec k , Max 1 43 , 1 48-49

2 09- 1 O

Pi tard , Wa,v n e T. 2 0 1 -202

S c h roeder-i\latray, G reta 1 44

Plate , S . B re n to n i o 225

S c h ii ss l e r- Fiore nza, El isabe t h 2 1 O

Pope. i\la rv i n H . 2 0 7

Sedgv.: i c k , Eve Koso f'sky 1 9H

pmna 1 48 . 2 2 2

Sept uagi n t ( G reek O l d Testa m e n t )

Pra n a- F i l m J 48 , 2 2 2

79-HO. 2 06 , 2 07

P r i c e , Robert 2 2 6-2 7

S e t h 79

Prigog i n e , I lya 1 99

Sf.,,u)ou • "{ t/.1<' l �unpir<' ( fi l m ) 1 48-49

pri m i t i ve re ligion 1 1 H-2 1 , 1 2 6-2 7,

S h e l l ey, i\ \ary \\'o l l s t o n e c ral't 2-,), H9,

1 35-3 6 , 1 39-4 0 , 1 44-4 6 . 1 53 , J 62-6 3 , 2 1 7. 2 1 H- 1 9 , 2 2 0-2 1 ;

l 6 0 , J 75-76 , 1 93-9 5 , 1 97, 225. 227 .•ce

il;,,,� oricn tal ism and c o l o n i a l i s m

S h e l l ey, Pe rcy Bysshe 1 76 S hel ton , ;\ larie- Den ise l J H, 2 1 7

Protest a n t i s m 1 2 6-27, 1 28 , 1 80 , 1 84

S h erring, ;\ \ . A . 2 1 4

P u r i m p l ays 1 9 1

S h e nvood , 1\ on n e 6 9 , 2 1 O

Pyt h a n 79 , 2 1 O

S h i rn u ra, Tikas h i 1 63

Rahab 30-3 1 , 4 3 , 2 0 2 . 2 0 3 , 2 04 , 2 09 ,

sh ot/reverse shot for m a t i o n 1 65-69

S h i tiyyah S t o n e 69 21 1

S i lv e rma n , Kaja 2 2 5

Rama l 06- 1 08, 2 1 4

S i ta 1 06- 1 08, 2 1 4

Ramay
Ska l . David , J . 2 2 2

Ra n d e ! . Tony 2 l ,)

S pi n o z a , l3e n e d i c t 9 6

lnde.1.·

235

Steng ers, I sabel l 1 99

lllzi1t'tlll!td1 4-5, 7--8 , 1 5 , 1 24-2 7, 1 34 '

Ste\'l' ll S , C h u c k 2 2 2

1 39-4 0, 1 9 1 , 1 96

S t oddard , , J o h n L. 1 08- 1 09 , 2 1 4 Stoker, B ram 6, H9, 1 24 , 1 2 9 , 1 44-4 6 ,

l SO, 1 76 , 2 1 8, 2 2 2

Vart h c m a , Lodm·ic o de 1 1 1 - 1 4 , 2 1 5 V lad Drac u l a 1 2 5

S t o k e r, Flore n c e 1 48, 2 2 2

Vodou 1 8 1 , 1 9 1

s u b l i m e 7, 93-94, 1 1 6- 1 7, l I H , 1 53 , 216

V!·tra 1 9 , 79 , 2 00, 2 1 1 Vu lgate ( Latin B i b l c ) 2 06 , 2 1 2 , 2 1 3

s u t u re , i n f i l m 1 66, 2 2 5

Wak e m a n , ;\ \ary K. 2 0 2 , 2 04 l :u· c .1[ 1 48

Tal m ud Ba vl i , Baba Bat h ra 58-66,

\Va l d r o p , ,\\. 1l i tc hc l l 1 99 \Val l s . 0l c i l 2 1 , 202

8 1 -82 , 2 07; l l u l l i n 67; De rak hot

Wa n d re i , Donald 1 86

38-3 9 , 2 05

\Van gc n h c i m , Gu stav von 1 44

ltlllfltll (" s c a m o n s t e r " ) 25-.) 2 , 4 3 ,

\Va t k i n s, Calvert 2 0 0 , 2 1 1

59-60, 62-64 , 72 , 79-8 2 , 2 0 l ' 2 0 3 ,

\Ve g e n e r, Pau l 2 2 1

2 04 , 2 08

\Vc i n ld d , Moshe 205

t eac h i ng in re l igion 2 3-25

TIN Bridc

o{ Fmnkm,,tcin ( ti l m )

\Vhale, ,James 1 -3 , 1 60, 222 1 -4 ,

1 75-76, 1 77-78

lr'/.1o·c t/.1c

IP/ld

Tåin_IJ•' r.lrc 4 9

w h ol l,v o t h e r 8, 53-54 , 1 95

t h eat e r 1 1 9-20

\Vi l l ia m s , A n n e 1 39 , 2 2 0

t h eod icy 3 , 39-40, 9H

\Vi l s o n , . J o h n A . 2 0 0

t h eomac hy 1 9-20, 22

\Vi n gcd 1\lo n k cys 1 04- 1 06 , 1 07

t h eo p h a ny 94-95

wisd o m , biblical 36-37, 4 5 , 2 05

t h eosophy 1 4H , 2 2 2

Wl:.:-atYi o( 0.: ( f i l m ) l 00, l 04- 1 06, l 0 7

T h o r 1 37

\vo m a n c l o t h e d i n the s u n 76 77

Tiamat 1 6- 1 9 , 2 1 , 2 9 , 33, 79, 1 4 0,

\Vood , Robin 1 98

1 62 , 1 65 , 1 9 1 , 206 Tol k e i n , ,J. R. R. 2 1 2

\Vo rl cy, Ll oyd 2 1 8 \Vorst e r, Donald 2 24-25

Tou l m i n , S t e p h e n 90-9 1 , 2 1 2 Transylva n i a 1 2 6

t rave! n arrat ives l 08- 1 1 7, 1 2 6 7/·iunzp/.1

tl( t/.1c

Wtl/ ( fi l m ) 2 2 4

Tue k. Ric hard l O l , 2 1 2 , 2 1 3

Tu n n an ( U gari t i c ) 2 0 . 2 5-26, 29, 79 , 20 l , 204

Ya m/yam ( l l eb rew) 2 5 , 2 7-28, 2 9 , 33, 42-4 3 , 4 7-49 , 55, 2 0 2 , 204, 2 1 1 Ya m m ( L' garit i c ) 2 0 , 2 1 -2 2 , 2 5 , 2 9 , 3 3 , 4 9 , 79, 2 04 You ng 1\ mcrica's Fou n d a t i o n 2 3-2 5,

30

Tu r n e r, Vi ctor 1 55 Twai n , ,\\ark 1 09 , 2 1 4

Zari f'o pokJ o h n s t o n , I l i nca 2 04

'(vlor, E. B . 1 2 0

Z i z 60, 209