"Memoirs of God" by Clement Leibovitz was published in December 1984 by
"Lone Pine Publishing" from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. By the end of 
1985, it was out of print. The book has never been marketted except in 
Edmonton. It is a philosophical novel taking a feminist point of view 
of religion. Written as a drama, and not a comedy, it seems it did not 
offend, except the fundamentalist believers.

The author is in the process of rewritting a larger version of the book. 
He would therefore welcome comments addressed at 

    clem@seymour.ucs.ualberta.ca



                        PREFACE
 
I have written this book in circumstances which forced me to
reconsider the significance of life, of death, of the role of man
on earth, of eternity and of the possible existence of God. The
doctors had given me one year to live. That was three years ago,
when I was fifty-seven. 
 
Some of my religious friends have tried to 'save my soul'
through prayers, and have begged me to accept Jesus as the master
of my heart and the guide of my conscience. These friends are very
dear to me and I am deeply indebted to them for having expressed
their affection in their thoughts and actions. The situation as
they saw it was serious and the stakes were high: eternity -- take
it or leave it. How could I ignore such an offer at such a time? 
 
The idea of a God, however, who would deprive me of eternity
merely because, in my soul and conscience, I honestly believed that
He did not exist, was repugnant to me. It would be too petty for
God to act in such a way. Therefore why not have confidence in him?
Why not consider the possibility that God, if He exists, is less
vindictive and more tolerant than most believers think? Why not
suppose that God, if He exists, is possibly divine to an almost
infinite degree? 
 
I do not believe in a God made to specifications, whether
those of the Bible or the Koran. My God, if He existed, would
overflow the bounds of these sacred books which imprison him. 
 
I have written this book to help bridge the gap to a truly
divine God. I beg every reader who is a believer to see in it an
'ode' to Him, not a blasphemy. 
 
The introduction which follows this preface is fictitious. It
is supposed to have been written by the director of a mental
institute which I have situated, for no particular reason, at
Perigueux. The reader is asked to believe that the author of the
fictitious memoirs is merely a patient who thinks that he is God. 
 
The reader is free to think, from a fictitious point of view,
that the patient is God Himself. Why not? Are not tales supposed to
carry us away to nonexistent and impossible worlds? In any case, no
one's claim on eternity rests on his reaction to a work of fiction.
 
 
   Clement Leibovitz 
   Edmonton, Alberta 
   January, 1984 
 
 
                                INTRODUCTION 
 
Some readers may not be aware of the events which led to the
discovery of the "Memoirs of God". Briefly, here is what
happened: 
 
1) On June 3 1982 a madman who believed he was God was brought to
the mental hospital in the town of Perigueux. It was not possible
to determine his real identity. We will designate this person as
"God", enclosing the word in quotation marks. 
 
The great erudition of "God" left no doubts as to his being an
intellectual. His madness was not violent, but it offended common
religious feelings. 
 
2) During his stay in the hospital a strange friendship developed
between "God" and a patient named Jovial. The latter had been
thought to be dangerous (he had murdered two children without
apparent reason), but had manifested no violent tendencies since
being confined. His mind worked in an incoherent way and no one
before "God" had succeeded in establishing any dialogue with him.
The presence of "God" seemed to have a positive effect on Jovial
and made him capable of speaking in meaningful sentences. 
 
3) On the 5th of July, "God" and Jovial disappeared from the room
in which they had been holding a conversation. 
 
Much has been written about the circumstances of the
disappearance. There was no breakout. The door was found locked
and it was confirmed that it could not have been opened from the
inside. Jovial and "God" must therefore have had help from an
accomplice. Of course, once out of the room they had to overcome
a number of difficulties before being able to leave the hospital;
but there is nothing miraculous in that. 
 
It is true that we have not yet determined the nature or the
origin of the special paper on which "God" wrote his memoirs, and
it is also true that after the completion of a typed copy the
original manuscript disappeared. Still, there are no grounds to
affirm, as one journalist does, that the peculiar ink used must 
have been radioactive, phosphorescent or fluorescent. There is no
limit to human foolishness or to what a journalist in search of
sensationalism will invent. 
 
4) The memoirs were discovered in "God's" cell. We have to admit
that preparation of the memoirs, which must have taken some time
to write, had escaped the notice of the attendants for quite a
while. 
 
5) The memoirs mention "God's" intention to leave the asylum with
Jovial. 
 
Now that the events have been put in their proper perspective, it
is time to turn our attention to what is truly important: the
pathologically rare type of "God's" madness as is evident from
his memoirs. 
 
The memoirs of "God" are interesting for many reasons. First,
they are the product of the fantasies of a madman who believes he
is God. From a pathological point of view there is basically no
difference between the personification of Bonaparte, for example,
and that of God. One can therefore hope that, inasmuch as these
memoirs shed a light on the nature of "God's" illness, they will
have a more general significance. 
 
Furthermore, personification among the insane is often
accompanied by other disorders which adversely affect the
"artistic quality" of the personification. A madman who believes
he is Bonaparte certainly has the advantage of conviction over an
actor: the madman knows he is Bonaparte and feels as such. Since
the madness is the result of a mental disorder, however, it is
extremely rare that it confines itself to the basic conviction
which leads to the personification. A madman impersonating
Bonaparte, for instance, could take stock of a profound knowledge
of history. It is very unlikely, however, that his impaired mind
would muster the needed good judgment to decide what actions and
utterances are consistent with the personified personage. The
Bonaparte, as acted by the madman, would at best appear as a
Bonaparte affected by some touch of madness. 
 
With "God" we have the rare case of pure personification and the
patient's sickness is limited to this. His ability to understand
and to be logical has in no way been undermined. Consequently the
"God" personified by him does not seem to be mad. This "God" has
constructed a very consistent theory that would explain the fact
that "God", while being God, does not act as such. Once you accept
the theory, "God" becomes an acceptable personification of God.
This patient's personification of God is characterized by an
internal logic so coherent that we must ask ourselves if, in this
case, the madness had not sharpened the logical ability of the
patient. This is very rare. 
 
It is unfortunate that the peculiar conditions surrounding the
disappearance have added a mystical character to it. Some have seen
in these admittedly mysterious circumstances, a "proof" of the
divine character of "God". It is regrettable that some public
figures have claimed to believe such assertions. This raises
serious doubts concerning the motivation of such people and the
reasons for which they are spreading confusion. 
 
This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that a
"mysterious" disappearance has taken place; the fact that this
disappearance is that of a madman believing himself to be God
should not make the mystery any greater. Let us hope that the
authorities will rapidly solve this double escape, and end the
confusion. 
 
The memoirs of "God" are being published because they represent a
rare case characterized, as we have said, by an extreme global
illogicallity, coupled with an apparently coherent logic when it
comes to details. Unlike some of my colleagues, I am not at all
afraid that the reader may be adversely affected by these
"memoirs". The postulate he is asked to accept is so ridiculous,
the evidence of its being false is so apparent, that there is no
risk the serious reader will feel confused. 
 
                                       Dr. Armand Gilbert 
                                       Director of the Perigueux 
                                       Hospital for Mental Diseases
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                              PART ONE 
                              -------- 
                       ...AS IT IS IN HEAVEN 
                              --------
 
                              CHAPTER I
                              BEING GOD
 
Mortals claim that I know everything, I can do anything
and I am everywhere. I am, in their words, Omniscient,
Omnipotent and Omnipresent. 
 
     Then why do I have so much trouble communicating with
them? 
 
Consider an English man of science who, after years of
study, has learned everything that mankind knows about the
electron. He now wants to communicate his knowledge to a
Greek woodworker. For lack of a common language he uses
drawings, diagrams and gestures. 
 
The Greek woodworker is very smart. He observes each
gesture and each pencil stroke. In the end, he is convinced
that he understood the English scientist perfectly. No doubt
the latter wanted him to fashion a wooden dish decorated with
petals. 
 
Obviously the communication was deplorable. If the Greek
woodworker had been taught English he would understand that
an electron is smaller than a particle of sawdust. 
 
Now, give the woodworker enough mathematical knowledge
and he will be able to understand the scientist when he
explains the wave equation obeyed by the electron. With more
and more pertinent knowledge, the woodworker will himself
become a scientist, and the communication between the two men
will then be perfect, at least when speaking of electrons. 
 
The situation is similar when it comes to communication
between man and me. In order to make it perfect I would have
to make man a God. This was never my intention. As a result,
communication between man and me is a problem. 
 
The question has been asked, "Can God create a stone so
heavy that He cannot lift it?" Any answer, yes or no, would
imply a limitation on God's power. Such a question, of
course, is really nothing more than a game involving a
concealed disregard for the rules of logic. 
 
Limitations originating from my will do not signify a
reduced omnipotence. It is conceivable that an omnipotent God
would not have a perfect communication with man if this
imperfection were part of His plan. Although man is created
somewhat in my image, his intelligence is limited. It could
not be trusted to lead him to salvation. That is why I gave
faith primacy over reason. 
 
Based on a number of miracles, my influence usually
permitted me to at least be obeyed, if not understood.
Nevertheless, the task of communicating has proven difficult
enough. The effort that I undertake now is certainly
superhuman, if not superdivine. 
 
Today I do not have recourse to miracles, and I must
communicate some divine -- that is to say, extra-human --
thoughts and feelings in human terms. But there are no
combinations of humanly defined words which can accurately
represent a single one of my thoughts or a single one of my
feelings. The pages that follow, therefore, are as real as a
shadow. The shadow is certainly actual and informative, but
it is a poor substitute for the diverse aspects of the body
that produces it. 
 
With this reservation, I will begin my story at the
Beginning. 
 
Obviously, the Beginning predates the creation of the
world. A human mind has already shown that time, space and
matter are molded together, and that one cannot correctly
define time without space, or space-time without matter. But
since the interdependence of time-space-matter is my
creation, it is valid only in the world that I thus created.
Before the creation of the world, I had existed all the time,
but this time bears only a vague resemblance to human or
cosmological time. Nevertheless, for want of something
better, I call it time. The same applies for space. 
 
I existed, therefore, and I was God. 
 
How can I describe how it felt to know I was God? 
 
At best I can only cast a shadow of my feelings. 
 
To be God is to exist constantly as thought more active,
more profound than the total of all thoughts -- the most
noble, most clever, most original -- which have crossed all
human minds since creation. 
 
To be God is also to be Verb. This is to say that each
thought materializes. Here again I must add several shades of
meaning. Matter resulting from my thoughts has, indeed, the
characteristics familiar to humans: volume, mass, shape,
inertia ... These properties are experienced as material by
man because he is himself composed of matter created by my
thoughts. For me, matter has properties altogether different.
 
Because it is created by my thoughts, matter has a spiritual
character for me. It is rather like an inert thought,
inferior in quality to my living thought, and not able to
stand against me by any of its properties. A stone thrown at
a man can crush him. A stone thrown at me can be an artistic
thought but does not correspond to any real possiblity. One
could say that a stone-thought had been thrown at me. 
 
Consider for a moment the meaning of creation. It must
be sensed to be savoured. A symphony must be heard, a
painting must be seen, a bouquet must be seen and smelled, a
gourmet dish must be seen, smelled and tasted. Even a purely
intellectual creation must appeal to a sense of beauty and
symmetry and to other human senses that have not yet been
isolated and labelled by man. 
 
Man's sense of touch is not developed enough. In
consequence his capacity for tactile creation remains in a
very primitive state. 
 
In order to visualize what creation means to me, one
could imagine a creature endowed with millions of
sophisticated senses, successfully creating a masterpiece for
the full enjoyment of all the senses at once. Such a creation
would be far beyond the grasp of a human being, but would
still be completely inadequate to describe a divine creation.
 
 
The number of different kinds of physiological excitants
to which men can respond is very small: sound, temperature,
light, pressure, odour, taste. That is about all. In addition
to the sound waves that man can hear there are electron
spin-waves, gravitational waves and many other fields that
have their vibrations but can be sensed by man only
abstractly through mathematical equations. Each of those
waves can be created and modulated by me; the sum of the
vibrations of all fields involved in all rainbows, in all
waves on lakes and seas, in all revolutions of all planets
around all suns, in all galaxies in their slow, symphonic
evolution, in all the cosmic sceneries with their majestic
beauty. All are involved in my creation of the universe as a
whole and of its smallest single particle. All are equally
involved in any of my abstract thoughts which do not concern
creation. 
 
And so. 
 
There I was before the creation of the world, always
creating because I was always thinking. Since creation by
thought is natural to me, it seemed to be an unfolding of my
being. Inasmuch as I can describe my feelings in human terms,
I can say that I was in a state of active beatitude in the
sense that I was author of my own beatitude. 
 
By the time of what man calls The Creation, the universe
already contained an infinite number of my materialized
thoughts. In a way, I played with my thoughts and their
materializations as one would play chess without a partner.
By extension I conceived the idea of making my thoughts more
creative -- matter which could itself think and feel. 
 
My contemplation of this originally obscure idea
materialized immediately as a pre-world which is still
admired by the defenders of evolution. Soon, however, the
rules of the game were definitely established. My thought is
Verb and so it materializes normally in inert thought, which
is to say, in ordinary matter. 
 
If my thought, however, created a matter capable of
thinking, one must speak of the thoughts of my thoughts. But
what would happen to the thoughts of my thoughts? Would they
materialize? I quickly decided that as a general rule the
thoughts of my thoughts would not be Verb (with the rare
exceptions that would benefit the prophets and other
miracle-makers). 
 
And so the world was created. Man, the materialization
of one of my thoughts, was in his turn capable of thinking
and feeling. But the thoughts of man remained abstract.
Unless he is a prophet, man can think and dream of
nourishment without the power to create it by thinking. When
he discovers the law of conservation of matter and energy, he
formalizes the limitation on his thoughts. They don't create
matter; they are not Verb. 
 
The discovery that my thoughts could create other beings
capable of thought brought me to a new state of beatitude
from which I took some time to recover. The Bible states that
on the seventh day of creation I rested. In fact, the term
resting is totally misleading . What I needed to do, rather,
was to digest the new state of affairs and to consider the
consequences of my first use of a new aspect of my divine
power. Until now I had not felt love, hate, or anger. I had
not felt surprise as there did not yet exist a will other
than my own in the whole universe. 
 
Could my power of divine insight not lead to the
impossibility of my being surprised? The zealous theologian
who rushes to endow me with an infinite range of
characteristics is the root of the confusion on this subject.
 
 
If my knowlege of myself was infinite, and if I knew in
advance both the ideas that would come to me and their
consequences, I would be a God more dead than alive,
imprisoned forever by the absolute determinism resulting from
this knowledge. I found the introduction of an element of
surprise into my life rather pleasant, in fact. For the first
time I felt restless and full of agitation, wondering what
would happen next. 
 
A whole day was not too long for me to enjoy the
unequalled pleasure of having created thought which thinks
and to accustom myself to the feeling of love. What joy! 
 
Hate would come later. 
 
What complicates the problem of communication is that I
have gifted man with a range of feelings which are foreign to
me. Fear, for example, is specifically animal. Without fear
animals, including man, could not respond adequately to
danger. Consequently fear has a place in the domain of my
creation. 
 
But why would the incontestable master of the universe
know fear? Naturally, I had remained ignorant of fear for a
long time. In spite of my divine intelligence, it did not
even occur to me that, in order to create fear and terror, I
must have the potential to feel them. 
 
Until recently it did not occur to me to question or
feel obliged to affirm the legitimacy of my knowledge as
deriving from a first unquestionable principle. I never said
to myself, for example, "My thought is Verb, therefore I am
God." It was simply in my nature as God to feel that I was
God, without the least trace of doubt. In spite of my divine
intelligence, it did not occur to me to think that, having
given man the capacity to doubt, I myself had the potential
to feel doubt. 
 
Likewise, it is impossible to speak of the anger of God,
the pleasure of God, or the anguish of God, in terms of their
human counterparts. Once again the description of my thoughts
and feelings in human terms can produce only a poor shadow
compared to the reality of my thoughts and feelings. 
 
In these memoirs I will be mentioning, for example, my
capacity for perception or vision. My vision, of course, does
not come from the formation of an image on a retina. In the
absence of any other way to express myself, however, I shall
use whatever is available in human language to communicate an
idea which is closest to my thought, though it will still be
much distorted.
 
 
                                 CHAPTER II
                          MAN, ANGELS AND THE DEVIL
 
I do not want to deal here with the details of my creation as
described in the Book of Genesis. Let me just say that Genesis is
a legitimate but inadequate description. Legitimate because it
comes from me; inadequate because of the difficulties of
communication I have previously described. 
 
The creation of man posed a completely new problem for me. I
now had to govern relationships among humans as well as
relationships between man and myself. To appreciate the
difficulties this presented, you must realize the implications of
an eternity of isolation. 
 
If we took a hardened criminal and isolated him from the rest
of the world, wiping from his mind all memory and all knowledge
relative to the real or possible existence of another being capable
of feeling, it would be impossible to say if this man were good,
bad, treacherous, grateful, hypocritical, et cetera . All these
moral qualities have a relative aspect in the sense that they exist
only in terms of the real or imaginary relationships of one being
to other beings. In other words goodness, wickedness and all other
moral virtues and sins did not even exist as concepts before the
creation of man. 
 
What would be the point of my eternal goodness if, through all
eternity, it could not be expressed or felt? 
 
In fact, once the world was created I had to create a moral
code. This was not easy. The Bible relates that I forbade Adam and
Eve to taste the fruit of the apple tree. It doesn't matter much
whether or not the legend is true. What is important is that in an
arbitrary manner I created a class of forbidden actions. Simply
put, I am reported to have said to Adam and Eve: "Don't taste the
apples." Instead, I could have said to them: "You should not taste
the apples." In the first case there is no assertion of a moral law
forbidding Adam and Eve to taste the apple. I assert only what
happens to be my will. In the second case I would not be forbidding
Adam and Eve to eat the apple, merely explaining that a moral law
would be violated if they did. 
 
Why did I use the first form, the imperative? Simply because
the moral law did not yet exist. If I had said "should", I would
have been lying. True, I did not want Adam and Eve to eat the
apple, but there were no moral grounds to forbid them to since
moral law did not yet exist. 
 
The serpent very logically took advantage of a weakness in my
position. Was there a moral law condemning disobedience? Not yet.
Even if there were, Adam and Eve, in their pre-apple innocence, had
no way of knowing it without tasting the apple! I therefore said,
"Don't do it." Not, "You should not do it." Consequently the
disobedience was justifiable. I could have added, "Don't disobey,"
but I could not say, "You should not disobey me," until a moral law
existed. 
 
I had already told Adam and Eve that they would die the same
day if they tasted the apple. I was embarrassed when I found out
that the threat did not prevent them from touching the forbidden
fruit. 
 
The Bible describes the great anger I felt afterward. But to
anyone who knows how to read between the lines it is clear that, in
spite of my embarrassment, the event amused me greatly. I began to
play hide-and-seek with Adam. The poor man hid in the bushes and I
called to him, "Where are you?" From that moment the game of
hide-and-seek has been instinctive in man; nothing amuses a baby as
much as when its mother puts her head out of sight for an instant
and brings it up again. 
 
I was, as I said, amused. Still, I thought it best to show a
serious and angry face. How could I have ensured the obedience of
man otherwise? I showed anger and I punished retroactively,
punished Adam and Eve for a crime they could not fully comprehend
until it had been committed. That arbitrary, retroactive punishment
would cost me a great deal. 
 
I have never satisfactorily resolved the problem of morality
between men, or between man and me. In the end I got fed up and
produced my ten commandments summarizing the essentials of my will.
But before that I often thought of what an obedient man Adam could
have been. He would have been an angel. In fact, by this very
thought, angels were materializing from my thought. The angel was
thus an idealized man using his free will only to obey me. If only
I had idealized a woman, of course, I would have unwittingly
created female angels. Since I never was in a mood to idealize
women, however, all angels happen to be males. 
 
The absence of feminine angels had the additional advantage
that fornication was restricted to earth and did not contaminate
the divine heavens. Mind you, the angels suffered silently from
this situation, but not without doing something about it. Each time
I sent one of them on a mission to earth, he managed to bed man's
most beautiful daughters, who then begot children able to work
wonders, if not miracles. 
 
When I discovered this I gathered the guilty angels together
and told them, "You are my children and I forbid you, as sons of
God, to mate with the daughters of man." They obeyed me, but it was
too late. The earth was already soiled with numerous mixed progeny.
 
 
But I don't want to get ahead of myself. 
 
The libertinism of the angels and the disobedience of man --
even without a moral law to guide him -- had caused a glimmer of
uncertainty in me regarding some of my most recent creations. 
 
Genesis says that God contemplated the result of His creation
and found it good. 
 
The truth is much more complicated. Why did I have to
contemplate my creation and then say it was good? Simply because I
was not sure of myself. Having for the first time created a new
category of thoughts, it seemed natural to ask myself if the result
was good. I should have been more cautious. In my enthusiasm I
forgot that my doubting, being a thought, would materialize and
create something. 
 
In fact, my doubt created the Devil! 
 
I must admit I was surprised to see him. He seemed rather
frightened. On close examination I found him quite revolting, so I
decided to make him disappear. For a few moments he did, but then
he returned. I tried several times to destroy him, and each time he
returned with a more defiant look. Suddenly I realized that as long
as doubt was with me, I could not destroy the Devil. It would
require eliminating from my thoughts the idea that anything in
creation could possibly be bad. It was therefore necessary to give
the creation a chance to prove that it was indeed good. 
 
The Devil created by my doubt was not evil by nature, but by
necessity. If the world turned out to be good, doubt would
disappear from me and, consequently, I could destroy the Devil. The
only way the Devil could ensure his continued existence was to act
in a way that would prevent the world from becoming good. In short,
to be bad is the essence of self-preservation for the Devil. 
 
This misadventure made me intolerant of doubt. 
 
Since the Devil was recreated constantly by the persistence of
my doubt, I felt like a sorcerer's apprentice, ignorant of the
extent of his supernatural powers and of the fact that these powers
were limited. Certainly the creation of thinking beings revealed a
side to my divinity which had so far remained hidden. The truth is
that this matter is painful to me and I did not want to dwell on it
when I inspired the writing of the Bible. Making use of my
omniscience, therefore, I tried to assess whether this aspect of
creation was bad or good. What I found was hard to believe. 
 
Not only had my angels been very active, but their progeny had
been no less active! It was difficult to find a single human
without an angelic ancestor who also had acceptable moral
behaviour. When I had finally made sure that Noah, his wife, his
sons and his daughters-in-law were worthy of repopulating the
earth, I decided to resort to the great flood. 
 
I have often used angels for missions of destruction, as in
the case of Sodom and Gomorrah and, later, in Egypt. But in the
case of the great flood, I preferred to act directly. 
 
The flood was a tremendous logistical challenge. Even if a
single pair of pure animals, instead of seven pairs, had been
admitted to the ark, the space limited by the dimensions detailed
in the Bible would have been quite inadequate. 
 
Remember, the inhabitants of the ark entered it seven days
before the rains started, the rains lasted forty days, and the
waters prevailed for one hundred fifty days before receding to the
level of the treetops. It also took a long time for the earth to
dry afterward. In short, Noah, his family and the animals had to
remain in the ark for one full year and seventeen days. It should
be obvious that food alone had to occupy a tremendous volume.
Solving the problem of space was -- I'm sure I do not exaggerate --
nothing short of miraculous. 
 
Moreover, animals found only in Australia and America (llamas,
turkeys, buffalo, marsupials) had to cross oceans to reach the ark.
I also challenged the law of the equipartition of the seas by
covering all mountains with an equal depth of water, in spite of
their different heights. After the waters receded it was necessary
to return the animals to their points of origin. And so, many
animals had to recross the oceans. Nor was it easy, in the fetid
climate of the ark, to keep alive for more than a year the hippo
and the penguin, the lion and the polar bear. 
 
One might assume that the fish, the whales and other sea
animals would have had an easy time. In fact these animals could
not withstand the crushing pressure on the sources of their food of
flood waters higher than the mountains. It required a miracle to
keep them alive. Finally it was necessary to recreate the plants
and forests which were completely destroyed by being submerged for
over a year. 
 
The preservation of germs posed another difficult problem.
Some of them -- smallpox for instance -- cannot survive for long
outside a host body. The perpetuation of this germ therefore
demands a continual existence of patients suffering from smallpox.
Without extraordinary measures smallpox, and other interesting and
important germs, would have disappeared forever. And so I had to
resort to a miracle to keep these germs alive in adverse
conditions. 
 
Clearly the flood was a very complicated solution. Wouldn't it
have been simpler to make all sinners disappear by the effect of my
will? Was it truly necessary to build an ark and put every species
of animal in it to ensure the survival of each species? Was it
necessary to make it rain for forty days and forty nights and to
keep the earth under water for over a year? 
 
The truth is that I have always preferred to add a sense of
ambiguity to my actions. As much as possible, each of my miracles
had to be explainable by natural causes. Thus I could distinguish
between the true believer who doubted no miracle and the unbeliever
who, under the pretext of natural causes, would deny the miracle.
To die from drowning seemed natural even in the case of an entire
population; but to disappear instantly without a trace could not be
put down to natural causes.
 
 In spite of everything, it was obvious that I had overdone
it, both in the extent of the punishment inflicted and in the
complexity of the solution. I therefore promised Noah that I would
never again resort to a flood. I gave this promise because I was
certain that the angels, in their absolute obedience, would
henceforth refrain from fornication. 
 
The rainbow became the symbol of my promise. I chose, once
again, a miraculous sign which could be explained by natural
reasons. It is well known that the rainbow stems from the laws of
optical diffraction and that anyone can recreate a rainbow in a
laboratory without any miracle. The real miracle was my success in
preventing the formation of rainbows from the time of creation up
to the end of the flood! 
 
I see no point in commenting on every event mentioned in the
Bible. That would lead to a long and possibly boring work. However,
I cannot skip over my next major attempt to confront man's
sinfulness -- the birth of Christianity. 
 
Several millenia had passed since the creation and I had not
advanced very far in my struggle against the Devil. The world had
not become any better and my efforts to lead men to obey my
commandments had not borne fruit. I could have modified man but
that would have been an admission that human nature as I created it
was not good enough. That was no way to get rid of the Devil. 
 
It occurred to me that what was lacking was a better means of
communicating with man. In short, man seemed to need a god who was
closer to him, an almost human god. But to create such a god would
have been an outrage to monotheism, the belief I had stipulated in
my commandments. And besides, I doubt that I would have come to
terms with a second god. I have already admitted being a jealous
God. 
 
Then I hit on another solution: a single man would be chosen
to have a special relationship with me. Still, this relationship
could not be direct without suffering from the same ills that
adversely affected my communications with men. And so, I delegated
a spirituality which, while being mine, would be separated enough
from me to be closer to the chosen man. This man entered history
under the name of Jesus while the spirituality which was mine but
detached from me, would come to be known as the Holy Spirit. 
 
Through his special relationship with me, Jesus was none other
than one of my facets, the one I decided to direct towards men. The
Holy Spirit became the bridge between what is human and what is
divine. It was therefore possible to speak of a trinity,
one-in-three and three-in-one. All of that was easy to describe but
difficult to realize. The Devil was watching, and I could not
cheat. 
 
A Jesus totally created for the desired effect, or even a
Jesus who was God descended to earth, would not be adequate. An
exemplary god has no merit and no one would find the sufferings of
a crucified god credible. 
 
Therefore I had to await the formation of a foetus capable of
becoming Jesus. He would become, one might say, my adopted son. He
would be man, would communicate with me through the Holy Spirit,
and would base his mission not so much on partial deity but on the
qualities of a believer who could be tempted, yet had enough
strength to resist temptation. I was Jesus' spiritual father
through the Holy Spirit. 
 
 
His communication with men was better than mine had been until
then. On the other hand my communication with Jesus himself was
deplorable. Mediated by the Holy Spirit, my thoughts reached Jesus
in a form which was not always clear to him. In honest response he
often had to resort to stories and parables whose meanings have not
been completely established even today. Moreover, the absence of
direct relations between Jesus and me weakened my feelings towards
him. I never felt for Jesus the love I felt for Abraham and Jacob.
I had walked with them, spoken with them face-to-face, but never
did with Jesus. It is only natural that Jesus felt somewhat
abandoned. 
 
As I now think about it, Jesus' merit is great not only for
what he has done but also for having done it with so little help
from me. He was mistaken, of course, when he believed that he was
curing people possessed by the Devil. They were no more than
epileptics. Likewise, he was too hasty in announcing that the
definitive victory over the Devil would occur while some of his
generation were still alive. His description of the coming of "the
son of man" with the sounds of brass is colourful but puerile.
Still, the fact remains that he was admirable for the strength of
his conviction and of his resolve. 
 
I must admit that Christianity, which at first was full of
promise, did not really improve the condition of the world. It did
not prevent the Inquisition, or the wars, or the Holocaust, or the
use of the atomic bomb.
 
 
                                 CHAPTER III
                             TO BE OR NOT TO BE
 
What should be my next step? I wasn't sure. Not having answers
to some questions did not worry me. For the sake of man's free will
I had limited my omniscience. It was natural to expect that the
universe I had created would evolve differently than according to
my wishes. 
 
Still, I did not want humanity to get totally out of hand. Did
I restrict my omniscience more than was advisable? Should I exert
a more direct influence on man's will? 
 
Suddenly ... suddenly ... I found myself subjected to a
sequence of strange feelings. 
 
If I were a man I would have said, "Something is definitely
wrong." 
 
If I were a man my heart would have pounded madly in my chest,
my throat would have contracted in anguish. 
 
But I was not a man, and there is no way to convey my feelings
of horror and despair. I was adrift in my own universe. No longer
in control. 
 
That describes as closely as possible what I felt when I
stopped to notice the background activities which normally
accompanied my thinking. My Verb-thought had always produced a
multitude of accompanying effects. But now it proceeded within
myself without materializing, without having the least external
influence. 
 
With hesitation I thought about a galaxy, again different from
any I had created before. I imagined it in all its minute details.
To my astonishment no additional galaxy appeared in my creation. I
tried once again to think of a constellation of stars and --
Horror! -- this time I couldn't even imagine the needed details to
specify the workings of a constellation! 
 
I wondered what was happening to me, and this in itself was
tragic. Things should not happen to me: I am Verb; I am active; I
am acting upon, I should not be acted upon! Were there powers which
did not emanate from me neutralizing my omnipotence? If this were
true, then nothing would remain given, nothing could be relied
upon. 
 
I may even die ... I MAY EVEN DIE! 
 
But God is immortal! That is first principle. If God could
die, that would be infinitely more tragic than the death of a man.
It was not a question, as it is for men, of not wanting to die too
soon. It was now a matter of losing eternity. 
 
Fear turned into terror. The fear of death is a gut reaction
in man. For me, it was necessarily a spiritual fear bearing no
relation to the instincts. 
 
I had never experienced so intensely the state of not
understanding, and I was terrified. Man's fear can be increased by
not knowing the cause of the misfortune which befalls him. But in
my case, the lack of understanding was itself as much reason for
fear as the reduction of my creative powers. What I did not
understand could not have come from me. Was there, then, an
independent universe that I myself had not created? 
 
Not to be able to materialize my thoughts was undoubtedly a
first degree of deterioration. Was my fear not a second degree of
deterioration? I had to come to my senses and calm myself as
quickly as possible. 
 
I had created fear in men and animals to protect them. But
what use was fear to me? How could it help me escape from my
situation? I felt helpless. 
 
I realized gradually that I was losing not only my so-called
omnipotence, but also my omnipresence and omniscience. I could no
longer handle many thoughts at once. For the first time I was
distracted by one separate thought or another. I could reduce my
state of fear by thinking about something else, so I pondered fear
in men. 
 
Fear is not always a blessing, I came to realize. A man whose
leg has been seized by a crocodile and is about to become the
animal's lunch would clearly prefer a god that would rid him of the
beast to a god that abandoned him in a state of utter fear. What
use was fear to the millions of men, women and children who,
through no fault of their own, were butchered during the many
barbaric invasions and wars in man's history? What use was fear to
the millions of slaves who lived in fear of their masters? What
good was fear to millions who were starving to death? 
 
I needed help and I could not be helped because I was God, the
only god in the universe. My creatures could have been helped, but
instead of helping them I had given them the ability to fear! I
could have prevented wars, I could have helped men be more
tolerant, I could have gifted them with more understanding and
given them a Bible which was less ambiguous. 
 
My thoughts wandered in this track until I realized how
irrational I was being -- God deprived of omniscience was
criticizing the omniscient God he once was. Anathema! I could not
be reduced to that. I was angry at myself and this helped improve
my morale. But I knew my situation was close to desperate. 
 
The person who believes in me can always say, in any
circumstances, "God's will be done". He does not need to understand
why God would condemn an honest man to poverty or why children must
suffer starvation, illness and torture. Confidence in God is enough
to calm the anguish of the believer. It is the unbeliever who
should be pitied! He is certain that human suffering, especially
that of children, represents no necessity except the blind laws of
nature. This view of the universe does not give rise to joy and
hope. 
 
In my situation as fallen God I was, paradoxically, closer to
the unbeliever than to the believer. I knew that I was God (at
least that I was God until recently) and there existed therefore no
supreme power to whom I could say, "Thy will be done". I did not
have the option of comforting myself by thinking that whatever
happened to me was for the best reasons and for my own good. I
could not find comfort in a prayer. To whom would I pray? 
 
I gradually calmed down but still, with great anguish, asked
myself if my new state was reality or hallucination. Of course it
made no sense for God to dream or to hallucinate; but then it made
no sense to stop being God. 
 
A number of "theories" came to mind: 
 
-- I had never been God, had never created the universe; the
memory of being God was an illusion. 
 
-- I had lost the battle with the Devil and was nothing more
than a dethroned God. 
 
-- I was a God who had become sick and, presumably, would soon
recover. 
 
The two last theories did not solve the problem. In fact, they
created new ones by raising questions about the sudden limitations
on the powers of God. They only served to mask the problem with a
new name. 
 
The first theory, however, was a real hornet's nest. No
logical argument could refute it. It is similar to an affirmation
that no external world exists outside the mind perceiving it. 
 
The argument may be applied as easily to God as to man. In the
case of God, however, if the external world does not exist, God's
thought ceases to be Verb and God ceases to be God. 
 
Man can shatter the paradox by action. If he decides that an
oncoming car doesn't exist and is only a feeling, he will be
crushed to death by the vehicle. God is less favoured in that
regard. Being eternal, having no fear of repercussion from the
physical world, He cannot solve by action the problem of the real
existence of that world. He cannot prove to Himself that the
external world is nothing but hallucination. 
 
Agreed, I could not be certain that the external world existed
materially. Even if it existed only as an idea, however, I once
certainly had more power over this idea! This was irrefutable,
unless ... unless ... unless the first theory was the true one: I
NEVER WAS GOD. 
 
Could I discard this possibility?
 
 
                                 CHAPTER IV
                                THE CONCLAVE
 
Suddenly I felt paralyzed. I was carried out of my universe
and deposited unceremoniously in the midst of an assembly in a
circular room which whirled slowly about me. Against the walls sat
groups of white-robed beings -- about a hundred in all -- each with
long hair, a bushy beard and appearing to be around forty years
old. They looked like humans of Hebraic origin. 
 
I realized with a start that they were in my own image, but
immediately felt a much stronger affinity to them than I had for
the men of my creation. 
 
"Sit down, Jehovah!" commanded a Voice which seemed to come
from everywhere. 
 
I recoiled in horror at this affront to my divinity, but found
myself settling into a comfortable seat and turning to try to focus
on the passing faces. 
 
"Jehovah," the Voice began again, "this is a conclave of the
gods of all the universes, wherein will be examined the outcome of
your divine activity to date." 
 
The gods of all the universes? Impossible. Was I not the God
of Abraham and Isaac, of Moses and Jacob? Was I not creator of the
universe? The anger I felt at this assembly of imposters was
immediate. I had felt the same outrage when the Hebrews made a
golden calf and worshipped it as God. This conclave was heresy and
I cursed it in my thoughts. 
 
Yet I could not deny that my powers had failed. My thought, no
longer Verb, began to admit the possibility of other gods, other
universes -- a possibility I had not foreseen any more than I had
foreseen the creation of the Devil from my own doubt. A sudden
clarity of understanding told me that, from eternity to eternity,
the gods met in conclave to discuss their common problems. I had
not realized that a godly hierarchy existed. Nor had I imagined
that I was only a candidate for divinity. 
 
In a flash I imagined my creatures on earth getting wind of my
present state and realizing that I was not the only God. What of
the harsh punishments I had inflicted on whoever had dared believe
in more than one God? I felt hurt and my anger rose again. After a
moment I calmed down. If ever there was a time when divine rational
thinking was called for, it was now. 
 
The Voice broke in upon my thoughts. "Jehovah, are you ready
to proceed?" 
 
The question shook me. How could I be ready? Was I expected in
a moment to get used to the loss of divine attributes, to accept
the existence of other universes with other gods, to prepare for a
trial of my actions and, finally, even to make sense of the
constant whirling of the kaleidoscope of gods? My head churned with
contradictory thoughts and feelings. 
 
"I must admit that your circling distracts me. As long as you
keep turning around me I shall have problems taking part in
whatever is to happen here." 
 
"Nothing is circling you, Jehovah," insisted the Voice. "It is
just that you can no longer communicate with all of us at once as
you could before. Instead of accepting your condition you are
vainly attempting to be omnipresent. This is producing an
impression of rotation. Try to concentrate on only one of us and
that impression will disappear." 
 
I was annoyed at the authority of this simple information;
annoyed also at the reminder that my divine powers had been greatly
reduced. My inability to discover the reason for the rotation by
myself indicated not only a loss of omnipresence, but a great
reduction in omniscience as well. 
 
I continued to examine the faces of the different gods to
choose one on which I could fix my attention. One of them reminded
me of Job, I don't know why. Was it something in his face, or
something else that reminded me of a time when my powers were
unlimited? Or was it a yearning for the respect and fear that Job
had felt for me? Whatever it was, as I looked at him the rotation
ceased for a moment and then began again. Finally, after summoning
all my willpower, I saw the gods come to a standstill and found
myself in front of the god-Job. Unmoving, he no longer resembled
Job. All the same his kindly expression pleased me, and I was
relieved to have brought the assembly to a standstill. 
 
I cleared my throat and said resignedly, "I am ready." 
 
The faces of the gods brightened with satisfaction. 
 
"Jehovah," the Voice began, "many eons ago a rule was
established forbidding the extension of omniness from one universe
to another. This was requested by members of the conclave before
your Beginning to prevent infringement upon the sovereignty of a
god in his own universe. Therefore, since none of us is omniscient
in your universe, we will require testimonies to evaluate your past
creative activity. Do you accept the testimony of the Bible?" 
 
"I do accept the testimony of the Bible," I said, "provided it
is interpreted correctly. A strictly literal interpretation would
often lead to a false testimony." 
 
The gods whispered amongst themselves in apparent
consultation. So diminished were my powers that I could not hear
what was said. 
 
"It has been decided," the Voice said after awhile, "that two
of the gods of this conclave will voice their individual thoughts.
One, whom we know as Koray, the Reader, will address himself to the
literal meaning of your scriptures. The other is Cholem, a god of
rather poetic temperament, who will concern himself with more
metaphorical interpretations. I myself will attempt to pose certain
questions on behalf of your unusual and rather imaginative
creation, man. 
 
As the gods Koray and Cholem nodded toward me, I attempted in
vain to read any expression of friendliness or hostility on their
faces. Each seemed serene, impassive. 
 
"The members of the conclave," Koray began, "all possess
immediate and complete literal knowledge of the Bible. We will
acquire the proper interpretation as a result of these
proceedings." 
 
"You should note, Jehovah," the Voice interjected, "that our
rules of procedure differ somewhat from those followed in the
courts of your creature, man. Objectivity is of no concern to us;
we are omniobjective. We may consider our knowledge of the Bible as
evidence even before it is introduced as such. The erroneous
conclusions we may thus reach will be temporary and will not
prejudice us against the correct ones we will reach eventually." 
 
Cholem picked up this theme. "We don't need to protect
ourselves from influences and ready-made views. We have no
particular attachment to given laws and we harbour no
preconceptions as to what a proper creation should be. At times we
may express feelings of dismay, disapproval or reprobation. You
should consider these, Jehovah, as information for your benefit.
They indicate weak points in your defence. If you can improve on it
we will have no difficulty abandoning our expressed opinions." 
 
"This is not a court of law and the proceedings do not
constitute a trial  per se,"  the Voice assured me. I was becoming
more comfortable with the fact that I could not see the speaker.
"You will not be represented by counsel, and there is no
prosecuting attorney. Our purpose is to evaluate your creation and
your role in it as an aspiring deity. Witnesses, of course, will be
called and there is naturally no doubt that they will tell the
truth as they know it. Therefore it will be unnecessary for you to
cross-examine them. The gods are agreed that it would be fair
neither to you nor to your creatures to be put into that position
in view of your present state of diminished authority." 
 
"Apart from that minor restriction," Koray added, "you are
free to comment on any of the testimony or on the interim
conclusions of the conclave as they are presented." 
 
I nodded my understanding. 
 
"Jehovah," the Voice said, "you will find on your table a list
of accusations. Please examine it carefully and decide the order in
which you wish to have them discussed." 
 
At the top of the long list stood my alleged inconsistency in
the application of my commandment, 'Thou shalt not kill', followed
by my 'prejudice' against women. I had not expected such specific
accusations, and would have preferred to begin with topics dealing
with my own nature. This, I had hoped, would have shed light on the
other issues which I now saw before me as accusations. 
 
"I would like," I said finally, "to begin with the accusation
that I have failed to provide an appropriate image of divinity by
falling short of my potential in the matter of omniness." 
 
 
 
                                  CHAPTER V
                              THE TRIAL BEGINS
 
Again that strange feeling of disorientation and helplessness
overcame me. A mist seemed to obscure my vision. When it cleared I
saw the gods huddled in little groups, totally absorbed in
conversation and displaying no interest in the trial. 
 
"Jehovah! Listen carefully to the charge," the Voice broke in.
 
 
I expected to hear the same clear voice list my deficiencies.
Instead I heard a far-off murmur. I tried to catch what it was
saying, but only with great effort could I make out a number of
complaints being made against me. I decided not to defend myself. 
 
"I wish to make a declaration," I said. 
 
"What is the use of talking about acceleration?" replied a
faint, far-away voice. 
 
I was taken aback but replied patiently, "I was not speaking
of acceleration but of a declaration." 
 
The nonsense voice refused to hear it this way. 
 
"The trial cannot be accelerated." 
 
The conversation was ridiculous. "You may not want to hear
me," I said, "but I shall make a statement all the same. I
understand the meaning of this state of affairs perfectly. It
simulates the consequences of a reduced omnipresence. So be it. But
it is unfair to punish me with it before my defence and judgment.
I will only proceed with my defence after hearing a clear and
precise indictment before an assembly which shows some interest in
the proceedings." 
 
The gods stopped talking in their little groups and formed a
circle again. 
 
"Jehovah," said the Voice from everywhere, "we did not intend
to punish you. Each of the gods present here has had to undergo
various tests before confirmation. It could be that you are not yet
ready to profit from this kind of experience. We can put it off
until later. The conclave considers it necessary for you to
experience being ignored. This is often unpleasant and, in the case
of a desperate man, can be tragic." 
 
"My mind is confused," I said. "Am I reproached with
indifference or lack of 'omniness'?" 
 
"A voluntary restraint on omnipresence goes well with
indifference, Jehovah," replied the Voice. Then it added, "Let us
proceed." 
 
 A space in front of me, above the gods, seemed to be
occupied. With some effort of my will I could make out a scene,
like one of man's moving pictures. Adam's head was peering through
some bushes and I could see myself searching left and right. A
voice I had not heard before intoned a passage from the Bible: 
 
      And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the
      garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife
      hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among
      the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the
      man, and said to him, "Where are you?" And he said, "I
      heard the sound of thee in the garden, and I was afraid,
      because I was naked; and I hid myself." He said, "Who
      told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree,
      of which I commanded you not to eat? 
 
 At that moment the scene disappeared and Koray started to
speak. 
 
 "Jehovah, did you need to ask Adam where he was? Didn't you
know it by omnipresence? Did you have to use deductive reasoning to
discover that Adam had eaten of the forbidden fruit when you should
have known it by omnipresence and omniscience? How could the man
and the woman have hidden themselves far from the face of the
Almighty? Is your presence localized in space? Are you not
omnipresent?" 
 
 "My omnipresence can be bothersome," I said in reply to the
flood of questions. "My creatures must forget it in order to act
freely according to their own natures. Adam and Eve would not have
eaten the forbidden fruit if they had known that I was beside them.
Adam would not have hidden in the bushes if he had known that I was
with him wherever he went. I want my omnipresence to be used
discreetly. Anyway, Adam and Eve had not yet formed the concept of
omnipresence. I had no intention of leading them to this discovery.
What is important is that I was able to show them that nothing
escaped me without exercising such absolute power." 
 
 "Do you mean, Jehovah," asked Koray with indignation, "that
you were putting on an act? Were you feigning ignorance of Adam's
whereabouts and his actions just to avoid revealing to him the full
extent of your powers?" 
 
 I ignored the implied accusations. "Not at all. I am only
pointing out that many paths can lead to the truth and I chose the
one which seemed the most appropriate. Man can crack a nut with a
sledgehammer, but a nutcracker will do. I keep my omnipresence and
my omniscience for difficult problems. Adam's awareness of his
nudity proved satisfactorily that he had tasted the apple and I
preferred not to burden him with the pressure of my omnipresence." 
 
 "I have no difficulty appreciating this biblical quotation,"
Cholem broke in. "It seems to advocate obedience to the Lord and
indicates that, in one way or another, nothing remains concealed
from Him. As to God enjoying a walk in the garden in the cool of
the day, or His steps being audible, or the attempt by Adam and Eve
to hide from His presence, these could merely be narrative
artifices designed to impress the reader with a sense of
familiarity. This passage suggests the vision of a God who, like
man, would rather walk in the cool of the day and would avoid
exercise when the sun is above His head. It makes man feel that,
otherwise, God could be panting and perspiring. To realize that God
is so vulnerable makes it easier for man to accept his own
limitations. As to His steps being audible, it only shows how
considerate Jehovah was. He did not want to surprise His creatures.
Would anyone have preferred Him to walk on tiptoe? Jehovah, you
came as close to being a man as a God could be. This story has its
merits whether it is literally true or not, whether Adam and Eve
existed or not." 
 
 "But Adam and Eve cannot be metaphorical personages!"
insisted the Voice. "The Bible mentions details concerning their
life and their genealogy whose only value seems to be documentary.
Clearly the Bible intends man to believe that Adam and Eve really
existed. As to narrative artifices, I consider them rather
dangerous. If the Bible is to play the role of an authoritative
expression of God's teaching, no artifice and no metaphor should be
used unless explicitly introduced as such. Otherwise the danger of
multiple interpretation, of confusion and justifiable
misinterpretation cannot be avoided." 
 
 I could hardly believe that the conclave would indulge in
such a game. 
 
 I expressed my outrage. 
 
 "What is the use of speculating about Adam and Eve being
metaphorical or real personages? Why not just ask me? Wouldn't my
own interpretation of the Bible quotation be the correct one?" 
 
 "That is true," replied the Voice, "but we prefer to consider
for awhile the plight of the man who has to interpret the Bible
without divine help!" 
 
 The Voice stopped a moment and went on more calmly, "Now we
shall introduce the first witness." 
 
 Suddenly, there was Adam, dressed like a primitive savage. He
seemed surprised and his gait was unsteady. After taking a few
steps he looked around, and was obviously startled to see me. 
 
 "Lord! Am I dreaming? As far as I can remember, I was dying
yesterday. Am I in heaven or on earth?" 
 
 "Adam," spoke the Voice, "you have been brought back to life
after a death of nearly six thousand years. You are here to
testify. Your Lord, as you call him, is being judged by His equals,
the conclave of gods." 
 
 Adam did not manifest any traumatic effect resulting from his
return to life. He was 930 years old when he died, and during his
life he saw so many changes and so many miracles that he became
immune to big surprises. He looked at the ceiling as if to discover
where the Voice was coming from; then he examined the gods one by
one, and once more stared at me. Suddenly he smiled a wide smile
and smacked his right palm with his left fist. "I knew it!" 
 
 "What did you know?" asked the Voice. 
 
 "I knew there had to be more than one God." 
 
 "Explain yourself, Adam!" insisted the Voice in a perplexed
tone. 
 
 "Well," said Adam, "it's like this. Eve and I talked about it
many times. We always made sure that God was far away first, of
course. Luckily we could always tell by His footsteps when He was
close by. We had noticed how like us the Lord was. So where did His
powers come from? We didn't understand for a long time, but then we
realized that the Lord was only a man like us who had tasted the
fruit of the tree of life and had become immortal. 
 
 "Eve and I thought that more than one man must have become a
god by eating the fruit of that tree. Unfortunately, our Lord was
very jealous of His power and did not want us to become like Him. 
 
 
"That damned serpent! If only he had led us to the tree of
life instead of the tree of knowledge! We could have become
immortal, too." 
 
 Adam stopped speaking, looked around at all the gods and
asked timidly, "Have you all tasted from the tree of life?" 
 
 A mist swirled around Adam and as he disappeared the Voice
said, "This has been a painful and degrading experience." 
 
 It stopped for a moment and then went on. 
 
 "By taking human form before Adam and Eve and walking in the
garden of Eden as a man whose footsteps could be heard and whose
nearness could be deduced, you prevented them from regarding you as
omnipresent. By asking Adam what name he intended to give each
animal and by asking him where he was you exhibited a lack of
omniscience which he could not avoid noticing. 
 
 "By stating that the fruits of one tree brought awareness of
good and evil while those of another tree gave immortality, you
made Adam believe that considerable powers existed apart from you
and that, as a good magician, you knew how to use them. What could
be more natural, in these conditions, than for Adam to believe that
you yourself were only a man who had become God through these
miraculous fruits which you wished to retain for your exclusive
use?" 
 
 I made no reply. 
 
 The next scene to appear was the battle between the troops of
Joshua and Amalek, during which the following biblical passage was
read: 
 
      And Moses said unto Joshua, Choose us out men, and go
      out, fight with Amalek: tomorrow I will stand on the top
      of the hill with the rod of God in my hand.
 
      So Joshua did as Moses had said to him, and fought with 
      Amalek: and Moses, Aaron and Hur went up to the top of
      the hill.
 
      And it came to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that
      Israel prevailed: and when he let down his hand, Amalek
      prevailed.
 
      But Moses' hands were heavy; and they took a stone, and
      put it under him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur
      stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the
      other on the other side; and his hands were steady until
      the going down of the sun. 
 
      As before, Koray was first to speak. 
 
 "Jehovah, you surrendered your powers to a rod instead of
personally deciding the outcome of the battle. Did you not want
Joshua to win? Why did you let the decision depend on the position
of a rod?" 
 
 "I wanted Joshua to win," I said, "but I also wanted to
secure Moses' authority over his people. Trusting him with my rod
would increase his prestige." 
 
 "I enjoyed this quotation very much," said Cholem. "Jehovah
gives his rod to Moses and says to him as to a child, 'Go and play
God'. But there is no god like God and Moses is pitiful in his new
role. All would have been lost if Aaron and Hur hadn't saved the
day by supporting the tired arms of Moses. The message is clear to
me: even when you are as great a prophet as Moses it is dangerous
to play God." 
 
 The Voice disagreed. "I have trouble making sense of this
quotation. On the one hand I dislike magic and I do not see why God
would entrust the fate of the battle to the position of a rod.
Moses' authority increased little and indeed, on your order, he
later had to resort to the slaying of thousands of his own people.
This established his authority on terror rather than on your trust
in him. On the other hand I cannot find any useful metaphorical
interpretation to the relevant biblical verses. Unlike idolatry,
'playing God' was not a popular pastime for the Hebrew people and
there was no need to teach them a lesson. Moreover Moses is not
pitiful in the eyes of the Hebrews, so such a lesson, if it was
ever intended, is lost on the chosen people." 
 
 Once more shapes appeared above the gods and Abraham could be
seen talking to me while the following passage was read: 
 
      And the Lord said, because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah
      is great, and because their sin is very grievous; I will
      go down, and see whether they have done altogether
      according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if
      not, I will know ... 
 
 The scene faded as Koray began, "Jehovah, is it fitting for
a God to go to verify rumours? Should you not be everywhere and
know everything by omnipresence and omniscience?" 
 
 "This," I replied, "is again due to the discreet character of
my omnipresence. Its extent varies between total absence and total
presence according to the need. In fact I established an important
rule for Abraham's benefit. A charge must be carefully verified
before taking notice of it. This lesson would have been lost if I
had used my divine powers." 
 
 "You taught Abraham," objected Koray, "the need to check the
truth of rumours while confusing him about your essence. This gives
no indication of your omnipotence. An imaginative God can find an
infinite number of other methods more compatible with his divine
dignity." 
 
 "You will surely all agree," interrupted Cholem, "that this
quotation begs for a metaphorical interpretation. It is just not
possible to accept the notion that God was made aware of the
corruption in Sodom and Gomorrah by rumours and that, in order to
be sure of what was going on, He had to go there 'in person' to
check out what had come to His knowledge. 
 
 "One should notice here the two problems facing God. On one
hand He has no reliable sources of information. He cannot trust His
angels. On the other hand, His omnipresence and omniscience are of
much less value than a walk to the source of events. He cannot be
updated instantly. He has to use the future tense to signify that,
eventually, He will get to know. Taken literally, this makes God
appear inefficient. This would mean the end of omnipresence and
omniscience. However, taken metaphorically and as Jehovah indicated
it, the quotation could be considered as a story intended to
impress on men not to believe rumours without a thorough check." 
 
 The Voice, apparently, was not convinced. 
 
 "Once more we notice that the Bible gives no indication that
the quotation should be considered metaphorically. The trouble is
that the Bible did not dedicate a section or a chapter to describe
the attributes of God in unambiguous terms. Men are left with no
alternative but to deduce these attributes from various Biblical
verses. Since these verses give no warning of a possible
metaphorical interpretation and since the people described in the
verses are real people like Abraham, one cannot escape the
conclusion that the Bible, in this case, is to be taken literally.
We must conclude, therefore, either that Jehovah relinquished His
omniscience and omnipresence for some reason, or that He did not
want Abraham to be aware of the full extent of His attributes." 
 
"I will now read," added Koray, "a passage from the Bible". 
 
      And he believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for 
         righteousness. 
 
      And he said unto him, I am the Lord that brought thee out
      of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit
      it. 
 
      And he said, Lord God, whereby shall I know that I shall
      inherit it? 
 
      And he said unto him, Take me an heifer of three years
      old, and a she-goat of three years old, and a
      turtle-dove, and a young pigeon. 
 
      And he took unto him all these, and divided them in the
      midst, and laid each piece one against another: but the
      birds divided he not. 
 
      And when the fowls came down upon the carcases, Abram
      drove them away. 
 
      And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon
      Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon
      him. 
 
      Koray paused briefly and then proceeded: 
 
      And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it
      was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp
      that passed between those pieces. 
 
 Koray did not feel the need to question me, but he could not
keep from commenting. 
 
 "It is obvious that Abraham did not have the faintest idea of
what your essence is. What could be more natural for Abraham than
to doubt your predictions? So you had to impress him by producing
sparks between the fleshy parts of dead animals. But even then, you
seemed to show your powers were not from within you but stemmed
from your knowledge of a recipe calling for a heifer, a goat and a
ram all exactly three years old. Under these careful conditions a
young dove became a catalyst allowing flames to pass through parts
of animals. 
 
 "Any man who knew the magic words could accomplish the same
miracle. At least, that is the impression you gave. This is no way
for a god to inspire love, respect and an acceptable understanding
of his nature." 
 
 The Voice spoke in distress. 
 
 "The quotation is difficult to understand and I can see how
much trouble a man could have trying to make sense of it. Having
delivered to Abraham a certificate of believer, the Bible displays
the strong doubts afflicting Abraham. He requests proof that what
Jehovah is prophesying will indeed occur. Jehovah is willing to
oblige, but all He is coming up with is smoke and light between
pieces of dead flesh. What could this show to a believer of God?
How poor Abraham's belief must have been if it could be reinforced
by such tricks!" 
 
 "Nevertheless", Cholem broke in, "if a bit of hocus-pocus
could restore and fortify Abraham's faith, why shouldn't Jehovah
resort to it? The hidden teaching of this quotation could be, 'Do
not spend your wit on one who has so little of it'." 
 
 I was quiet for a moment, aware that the inroads on my
omnipresence increased from example to example. I could perhaps
ignore this last evidence against me since Abraham remained a
staunch believer and passed the test honourably when I ordered him
to kill his son Isaac. But then, I could not stem the flood of
examples which would follow and which would be more and more
difficult to answer. I cleared my voice and spoke firmly. 
 
 "I admit it! I was not omnipresent enough. That is the
eternal complaint made against parents; they don't have enough time
for their children. I did not give enough time to the whole of my
creation. I was not always there when I was needed. Don't give me
any more examples. I could provide plenty myself. I remember that
it states in the Bible that the waters of the great flood prevailed
for 150 days. Obviously a few hours would have achieved the
objective of exterminating all the beings on the face of the earth.
The Bible says that after 150 days I remembered Noah. This does not
show omnipresence, which does not have to remember anything. The
Bible mentions that I came down from heaven to see the Babel tower.
Obviously such a visit was unwarranted for an omnipresent God. 
 
 "I asked my chosen people to put a sign of blood on their
houses so that I could spare them from the plagues I would inflict
on the Egyptians. I admit I should have used some degree of
omnipresence instead of such a crude visual marker. I asked my
chosen people to bury their excrement so that I could not see it
during my walks in their camp. This implied that, like man, I
cannot see what is covered. I admit this discouraged man from
perceiving me as omnipresent and omniscient. 
 
 "In effect, I admit that my presence was all too often
absent. But I still think I was right in telling man, 'God helps
those who help themselves'. This implies that they can act without
constant intervention on my part. And since I had withdrawn from
action, why should I not withdraw my presence? The world I had
created was so flawed that omnipresence would have absorbed me
totally. I felt the need to take up some spiritual activity during
which I could again experience active beatitude and after which I
would feel stronger and more inclined to take up my fight with the
Devil. Meanwhile, my creatures were not completely left alone; my
angels watched over them." 
 
 There was a silence that lasted a considerable time. It was
broken by the Voice. 
 
 "The conclave is pleased that you admit not being omnipresent
enough. It does not, however, accept your justification. Inasmuch
as God created matter He is free to ignore it for a moment or for
eternity. But from the moment He creates a creature capable of
thought, He takes up a responsibility He cannot put down. 
 
 "To think is divine, and the man who thinks is to this extent
divine. That is why, Jehovah, you can truly say that you created
him in your image. You could have been more precise and specified
that the similarities between you and man stem solely from the fact
that, like you, he thinks. This divine faculty you gave man should
be respected and given continual attention. Your lack of
omnipresence has led many men to mistake your substance." 
 
 The Voice paused as if waiting for me to reply, then began
again, "Jehovah, watch the next scene and observe how even in
modern times, men have trouble grasping your divine nature." 
 
 Through a panel in space could be seen the inside of a hut in
the Auschwitz extermination camp. Two skeleton-like prisoners were
in a corner praying softly, and by doing so revealed their
religions. One recited phrases in Latin and made occasional signs
of the cross, the other covered his head with one hand and muttered
Hebraic prayers. When they had finished praying, they started to
talk together in low voices. 
 
 "I prayed," said the Jew, "for the soul of Nathan, my
colleague at the University ... Every day I pray for other souls
until the day -- which must be close -- when I, like them, will end
up in the oven ..." 
 
 "The fate of each man," commented the Christian, "lies in the
hands of the Lord and no one can predict when he will die." 
 
 The Jew ignored the interruption. "The way things are going,
all those who sleep in this hut today will be dead a month from
now. Besides, the living are more to be pitied than the dead ... I
find it difficult to understand the necessity for so many crimes,
so much torture, so much pain." 
 
 "The Nazis don't do it out of necessity," said the Christian
flatly. 
 
 "You don't understand me," replied the Jew bitterly. "I was
not thinking of the Nazis. I was thinking of the Lord. He certainly
could have stopped such barbarity. Why does He allow it? Why does
He do nothing to prevent it?" 
 
 "I often ask myself the same question," the Christian
replied. "A clear answer might provide me with the strength I need.
I've worked on this over and over and it's pushed my faith to the
limit. It's not very satisfying, but all I can say is that He must
have His reasons." 
 
 The Jew was getting more and more impatient. He spoke in a
tone that would not admit interruptions. "That is exactly what I am
worrying about, the fact that a reason could exist. No human reason
or justification is possible but there must be a divine reason. But
what good does it do me to be made in God's image if my reason is
not made in the image of His reason, if it is incapable of
conceiving the reasons of the Lord? I submit to His reasons without
even knowing what they are; but I know full well that if the Lord
explained His reasons and then offered me the choice, I would do
away with such barbarity regardless of His reasons. I am convinced
that human reason is incapable of understanding the divine reason
and incapable of justifying it. The most that human reason can do
is to submit willingly to a divine reason, all the while declaring
it unjustifiable in human terms or concepts." 
 
 The Christian waited a few moments to make sure that his
companion had finished. 
 
 "I would not like," he replied, "to give up my belief that
human reason was created in the image of divine reason. Otherwise,
how could I condemn the actions of a person who commits terrible
crimes and claims to be inspired by a divine reason totally foreign
to our own reason? How can I condemn Hitler's actions if I accept
that an action which is irrational in human terms could be divinely
rational? 
 
 "I prefer to believe that our problems arise from the fact
that we ascribe to the Lord attributes He may not have. If, for
instance, the Lord is not totally omnipresent or omnipotent or
omniscient, it is possible that He does not always know what is
going on here, or that He knows but can do nothing to prevent it." 
 
 The Christian stopped, pondering the implications. The Jew
touched his arm, almost to gain his attention. 
 
 "You are becoming unreasonable," he said, "but that is
understandable. There does not seem to be a reasonable explanation.
You would do better to stop thinking and go to sleep." 
 
 But the Christian still had something to say. "You know, now
that I think of it, it's not the pain and torture that bothers me
most, nor is it the fact that divine reason and human reason are
not similar. What kills me is God's silence. 
 
 "If He were to come this moment and tell me that the millions
of dead and tortured people deserved their fate, I would reply,
'Lord, blessed be thy name'. If He came and told me that they did
not deserve their fate but that it was in some way necessary, I
would reply, 'Lord, you work in mysterious ways and who am I to
condemn them?' But what really gets me is the fact that He says
nothing at all. What's the use of His being omnipresent if He has
nothing to say?" 
 
 At that point the Christian was overcome by a bad cough which
lasted some moments. Again the Jew spoke softly. 
 
 "Go to sleep, I tell you. Thinking like this will get you
nowhere." 
 
 The scene disappeared and Koray spoke. 
 
 "By not intervening to prevent the crimes of torture, murder
and genocide, you have suggested to man that what is inhuman could
be divine. This certainly does not dignify divine nature. So as not
to destroy this dignity, your best believers have preferred to
think that you could perhaps be less omnipresent than they had
imagined." 
 
 I had the impression that the conclave was exaggerating the
consequences of my actions. 
 
 "I accept," I said, "that I have not helped my creatures to
understand the nature of my divinity, nor did I encourage them to
acquire knowledge. I did, however, endow them with the ability to
reason and experiment. The understanding of nature became a process
fraught with difficulties, and man has often come up with erroneous
conclusions and false theories. But in time and with perseverance
many errors have been corrected. Man now knows that the earth is
not flat and that the sun is a star like any other. In the same way
the understanding of my divine nature could be the result of a
process full of traps leading man to wrong ideas which he could
discard with time and perseverance." 
 
 I hoped my argument might be convincing. It was not. 
 
 "You wanted man," replied the Voice, "to discover the secrets
of nature by collective efforts spread over generations. This was
your choice and no one is against it. Man can observe nature,
experiment with it, put their theories to the test and verify them
under more and more general conditions. You created a material
nature for which the laws remain invariable through the ages. An
experiment made some centuries ago can be repeated today with the
same results. The experiment can show, for example, that light
moves at a finite speed and not instantaneously. You have wisely
made it possible to acquire a sum of knowledge, reflecting in a
reasonable way the true properties of nature through the relative
constancy of its laws. 
 
 "But when it comes to the nature of your divinity, you leave
man no method of investigation. Man cannot observe your divinity.
You have spoken with only a very few of them and with even fewer of
those from recent generations. Man cannot experiment with your
divinity, as you are subject to no invariable laws. Experiments on
you cannot be repeated in the sure knowledge that the results will
be the same. Beating a rock with a rod will not always bring forth
enough water to slake the thirst of a man in the desert. The good
things of this world do not always accrue to the just; the innocent
man does not always triumph over the guilty one. So man finds
himself totally disarmed when he attempts to understand your
nature. 
 
 "For lack of anything better man is reduced to shaping you,
as Adam did, in his image. But his ability to shape things changes
with time and thus for him your nature is, in principle,
invariable. But, in fact, it changes constantly. Adam believes he
can hide far from you, while present-day theologians consider you
omnipresent and omniscient." 
 
 The Voice at last fell silent. 
 
 "What I have just heard," I replied, "implies a good number
of accusations against which I have not yet been able to defend
myself." 
 
 "So be it," agreed the Voice. "Let us continue in order ...
Which accusation do you choose to discuss next?" 
 
 I did not want to leave the subject as a loser. So instead of
answering the question, I said, "I would first like to make a
statement concerning omnipresence and omniscience." 
 
 "We are listening," replied the Voice obligingly. 
 
 I took some moments to consider the best way to convey my
thoughts, then said: "The ability to think and to will in man would
have been an illusion if I had predestined his ideas and desires so
as not to be surprised by them. Free will in man necessitated a
limitation of my omniscience. Either I knew the future in all its
details so that man had no choice but to follow a prescribed
destiny, or else I gave man the right to surprise me. I could not
grant him free will without losing a part of my own knowledge. It
was a great loss. Now the universe was going to react to the action
of a large number of wills independent of mine. I was no longer the
absolute master in my own house. 
 
 "I may sometimes have sacrificed the clarity of my
omnipresent and omniscient powers to allow man to love me as well
as respecting and fearing me." 
 
 "If that is so," the Voice then said, "you should choose 'the
love of God' as the subject to be discussed next." 
 
 "That seems reasonable," I agreed.
 
 
                                 CHAPTER VI
                                 GOD AND MAN
 
  I had barely finished these words when my appearance
suddenly and completely changed. I had become transformed into an
enormous cockroach about two metres high standing upright on its
two back legs. Nothing should have surprised me any more but still,
this new shape distressed me. 
 
 Mind you, I don't share man's irrational hatred for the
cockroach. It is a beautiful creature, one of the most durable and
symmetrical beings I ever designed. I was pleased to see it
multiply so efficiently and I had hoped that man would be grateful
to have such an interesting range of living creatures as companions
that he could observe without danger. Man's disgust with insects
disappointed me. Still ... I had to admit that the cockroach was
much lower than man in the order of things, so my distress probably
stemmed from a sense of indignity. Was it really necessary to go
through this? I had little time to reflect on my new condition
before the circle of gods disappeared and I heard the Voice speak. 
 
 "Jehovah, you have permanent substance and a variable form.
Your substance is unchanged but your form is now that of a
cockroach. Does man's love for you relate to your substance or your
form?" 
 
 Though I was again aware of a trap, the importance of the
question did not escape me. Does a man who loves God love an
abstract concept of God? Can he love God without resorting to an
anthropomorphic subterfuge? More simply, can he love a God without
a definite shape? Could he love God without the assurance that man
had been made in the physical image of his creator? 
 
 I had never considered this and hesitated for a long time
before replying. I suspected that a man who had loved me would be
brought forward to testify as to his capacity to love me in my new
shape. I was fearful of the result. 
 
 "In the world I have created," I replied, "appearance has
always been associated with substance. Men would find it difficult
to ignore appearance and could not help but give it the usual value
of substance." 
 
 Although these words issued from my cockroach mouth, they had
the same tone as my previous voice. The Voice's reply was swift. 
 
 "Since this is so, how can you be sure that man loves you for
what you are and not for your appearance?" 
 
 It was a good question and I did not have a ready answer. 
 
 "Actually," I said defensively, "I have never tried to find
out the type of love man has for me. I certainly hope that it is my
substance he loves." 
 
 "We will soon find out," said the Voice confidently. "Solomon
will come before you. Perhaps there will be positive indications of
his love for you." 
 
 I was astonished. "May I ask why he was chosen?" 
 
 "Solomon was a very wise man," the Voice answered. "He above
all others should be able to understand the difference between form
and substance. Furthermore, he sang your praises and clearly
expressed his deep love for you. 
 
 "In fact Solomon has been chosen for yet another reason.
Although many men in the Bible expressed their love for God, very
few are cited as actually loving God rather than just saying they
did. Solomon was such a man. The Bible states, 'Solomon loved the
Lord ...' We will now discover the nature of his love." 
 
 Then I noticed Solomon leaning against a wall about ten
metres from me. He appeared horrified and would doubtless have fled
if the wall had not prevented him. He trembled and obviously wished
to keep as great a distance as possible between us. 
 
 "Solomon," I said to him, "I am the Almighty Lord, your God
and that of Abraham and Isaac. I have taken on the form of a giant
cockroach to try your love for me. Calm your fears and come
closer." 
 
 Solomon was at first dumbfounded. Then he seemed to consider
and his fear abated a little. Nevertheless he had some difficulty
in speaking. 
 
 "Fear not, Solomon," I said. "Despite the cockroach shape, I
am still the same God you loved so dearly." 
 
 After several attempts Solomon stammered, "Lord, the fear of
God has always steeped my whole being. Each of your creatures must
fear you. I beg you not to be offended by the fear I feel in your
presence." 
 
 Solomon was indeed smart. He was trying to dress up his fear
of the monster cockroach with the fear of God. 
 
 "The fear of disobedience is praiseworthy, Solomon, but you
were never so shaky in my presence before. Why should I frighten
you more as a cockroach? Don't you believe that I am Jehovah, your
God?" 
 
 "Lord," he answered, "a cockroach two metres tall is a
miracle. When that roach stands upright, talks and tells me it is
my Almighty God, I can have no doubts. Lord, it is not doubt which
holds me back." 
 
 "Solomon," I admonished, "you have not said everything you
are thinking. Come now, speak without fear. I take this rock as
witness that I will not take offence at your thoughts no matter
what they are, so speak without holding back." 
 
 "Solomon," I admonished, "you have not said everything you
are thinking. Come now, speak without fear. I take this rock as
witness that I will not take offence at your thoughts no matter
what they are, so speak without holding back."
 
 Solomon took a few moments before answering.
 
 "Lord, in your great wisdom, no doubt, you have made man
aware of appearances. His emotion is great where there is a
question of beauty or ugliness, whether of woman, beast or
landscape. Grant me the favour of presenting yourself to me in a
shape I can relate to. Rather, take the form of a tiger. I fear
tigers and I fear God more, but in the shape of a tiger I can still
distinguish that of a man. The nose, mouth, eyes, number of limbs
-- all is familiar. Yes Lord, I pray you, the shape of a tiger." 
 
 "Solomon," I asked, "is it my form you love, or my godly
substance?" 
 
 "Lord," he answered ambiguously, "a giant cockroach is
frightening. But as you have decided to take this form, I will fear
the roach as I fear the Lord." Then he added, "I realize that it is
not the monster I see which frightens me but the God of Israel
which it represents." 
 
 "Since that is so," I said, "come closer." 
 
 Solomon approached slowly, ill at ease, then stopped. 
 
 "Come closer," I repeated. 
 
 Solomon hesitated. "Lord," he said, "I beg you, come out of
this cockroach and I will come as close as you wish. The sight of
it revolts me more than I can bear." 
 
 "What does my appearance matter?" I demanded angrily. "Don't
you love the substance of God, which is the same no matter what
form I take?" 
 
 "Lord," he said, trying to calm my anger, "in my songs I
compared my love for you to love for the most beautiful woman.
Lord, don't think I am being impertinent, but truly I want to run
away. If you order me to come even closer I shall obey for I am as
dust and dust cannot aspire to disobedience." 
 
 Solomon had shown his willingness to comply and I felt that
the moment of truth should not be delayed any further. I spoke in
a gentle tone. "Then come into my arms as a child would come to his
father." 
 
 I spread my front legs as if they were arms ready to embrace
a loved one. But Solomon took two steps forward and fell down in a
faint! 
 
 Solomon disappeared and I regained my human form. I felt
confused and disappointed. I asked myself what had gone wrong. Was
Solomon indifferent to my essence? Did my essence, however
important to Solomon, affect him less than my appearance? What had
Solomon once loved in me? 
 
 Koray interrupted my thoughts. 
 
 "The tragedy," he said, "lies in the fact that you, Jehovah,
need the love of man. You sought out the love of particular humans
-- Adam, Eve, Abraham, Noah, Jacob, Moses ... You even offered
Moses the death of all Israelites and the guarantee of a large
number of progeny of which he would be the patriarch. Moses pointed
out that such an action would ruin your reputation with the
Egyptians, but you did not care what the Egyptians thought. You
simply assumed that, once more, you failed to win the love of Moses
who was concentrating on saving his people by proving God to be
wrong. 
 
 "By the way, Moses winning an argument against you and your
subsequent expression of repentance did not square well with your
omniscience. Your pursuit of the love of your creatures was truly
frustrating. When the human race as a whole failed to respond
sufficiently, you chose a particular race to love, the people of
Israel. Having failed with them you took up the whole of humanity
again through the intervention of Jesus, although he was hampered
by the belief that made him say, 'I am not sent but unto the lost
sheep of the house of Israel'. Once again it was useless. Jesus
himself often called the apostles 'O ye of little faith'. He was a
good judge, but he did not realize that the basic problem was as
much lack of love for God as it was lack of faith in him. 
 
 "This need for love that you feel has rendered you blind to
all the injustices you have committed," Koray continued. "It is the
basic reason for your favouritism, which resulted in the election
of a chosen people and chosen witnesses to your miracles. The other
creatures who were not favoured with your miracles had a much
weaker faith and became lost souls. You made a grave error in
ordering man to adore you. It is a fact that love is blind and
cannot be ordered, commanded or claimed. It would take a miracle to
bring man, as he is, to love God. You should have given man the
ability to love rationally as well as instinctively. This is your
doing and not man's." 
 
 Koray had been surprisingly mild. For the first time I sensed
that he wished me no ill. 
 
 "Solomon's behaviour," Cholem interjected, "proves that his
love is affected by appearances. He loves God when God takes a
human form and does not love Him in the shape of an insect. This
means that Jehovah, in order to be loved by man must be perceived
by him as human so that man can have the feeling of partaking of
divinity. The moment Solomon saw God in the shape of a cockroach he
felt that whatever in Him is divine was being shattered. This,
added to his disgust for insects, made him urge Jehovah to regain
a shape to which he could relate. Man's grasp of the divine is
imperfect; why should his love for God not be imperfect as well?
Why should it not reflect the love of man for himself?" 
 
 "The love of man for himself," commented the Voice, "derives
from an instinct of self-preservation. The love of man for God
should be a means by which man can transcend his humanity. In order
for that to be possible God should not be perceived as too close to
human. At the same time human love should be a rational emotion
instead of being instinctive, geared to the human species or to
species close to man. Man was given the capacity to love himself
and his fellow man. But in no way can this ability be transferred
and produce love for God unless God is first made less of a God and
more of a man. 
 
 "In fact," the Voice continued, "man is not capable of loving
God except as some extension of himself. When man decides to love
God, for whatever reason, he must first recreate Him in man's own
image. When man believes he loves God, what he really loves is an
idealized image of himself. Such an image fills him with hope. He
sees in God what man could be if only he could shake off his moral
and physical limitations. He then knows what to aim toward without
being too discouraged by being so far from his goal. He sees God as
a man who is not subject to death, who is not petty and who has
answers to all questions." 
 
 Having said this, the Voice declared that the proceedings
would be adjourned. 
 
 I was glad of the rest. So much had happened in such a short
time. In fact I had no clear sense of how long I had been before
the conclave. Yet the idea of being confronted with the existence
of other Gods, being on trial before them had still not sunk in
completely. 
 
 The break gave me a chance to review the first day of
proceedings, which had taken place in a way which worried me. It
was obvious that the conclave had a strange concept of the
relationships which should exist between man and his creator. I
remembered distinctly what the Voice had said: 
 
      "But from the moment He creates a creature capable of
      thought, He takes up a responsibility he cannot put down
      .... This divine faculty you gave man should be respected
      and given continued attention." 
 
 These words still rang disagreeably in my mind. Even before
the creation my thought had been ceaselessly creative through an
infinite number of infinite times. Then, I had no obligations or
responsibilities. When I made the decision to create man I could
not take any responsibility for him because he did not yet exist.
Obviously I had created man only because that was my wish. I gave
up part of my omniscience to ensure that man had a good measure of
responsibility towards himself and towards me. When and where did
I suddenly acquire responsibility for anyone? 
 
 I began to wonder if I did not perhaps have some
responsibility towards myself. This was a strange notion but it
would not resolve my current dilemma. I was not accused of
deficiencies against myself but against thought which supposedly
remained divine even when it was human. 
 
 After some consideration I felt I finally understood what the
conclave was worried about. Man is uniquely capable of thinking
about the concept of God, and the human concept of God can thus be
either a purely human creation or a reflection of God in human
thought. If the concept of God in man is human, the errors in it
are man's responsibility. But if it is a reflection of God in human
thought, it would seem to be my responsibility to watch over it and
act in such a way that it becomes worthy of respect. The conclave
seemed to think that there were rules of conduct to which even a
God was subject. In a word, the problem was one of divine ethics.
It seemed that my conduct had been such as to merit moral censure.
No true progress could be made until this question of principle was
cleared up. When the proceedings resumed, I indicated that I had
chosen my attitude towards morality as the next topic for
discussion. 
 
 The Voice interrupted my thoughts. "The accusation dealing
with lapses of morality covers a number of different aspects. We
will have to attend to each." 
 
 I had an answer prepared. "I suggest we start by establishing
the principles which will guide us." 
 
 "The only principle accepted here," said Koray abruptly, "is
that of consistency." 
 
 This was much better. I was free of all arbitrary
restrictions except that of consistency. I had to admit that
inconsistency is incompatible with morality; rules are no longer
rules if they can be changed as one goes along. 
 
 Koray spoke again. "It is clear that as Adam and Eve formed
the first human generation and their children the second
generation, a third generation could only result from incestuous
matings. Therefore you should either have avoided condemning incest
as absolutely immoral, or you should have found a way to allow the
succession of generations without recourse to incest. You could,
for example, have created two couples whose children could have
mated." 
 
 I considered it frivolous to attach importance to such
details. 
 
 "It is very easy," I said, "to show me such improved
solutions through hindsight and to question my lack of
inventiveness. In fact it would have been very risky. Having
endowed human beings with free will, I could not be sure that a
number of unpleasant hitches would not occur. First, the two Eves
could have loved the same Adam. The problem of avoiding incest
could then have been solved only by rape or prostitution. That
would have been a very poor beginning. But even if the Eves were
happy, each with a different Adam, the possibility of adultery
would have existed as early as the first generation." 
 
 I paused and looked around, expecting some reaction. There
was none. 
 
 "When one thinks of the weight of Original Sin resulting from
the eating of the apple and how it has affected successive
generations," I began again, "it is not difficult to conceive the
great danger that could have come from burdening the first
generation with a sin of such magnitude as adultery. The children
of Adam and Eve had no problems or remorse committing incest. In
those days incest was necessarily moral. This should confound any
ethical theoretician who would reject the relative -- even
arbitrary -- character of morality. From the moment I decide
something is moral, it is so. Once I had obtained what I wanted by
using incest I could, whenever I wished, declare incest immoral." 
 
 "We will return later to the Original Sin you mentioned,"
replied Koray. "We have still to address the present issue. You
encouraged theft and abuse of trust. But later you specifically
forbade theft. You went against your own future teaching when you
encouraged the people of Israel to abuse the trust of the Egyptians
and steal their jewels and other precious objects. You ordered your
chosen people to borrow these things and take them away during
their flight from Egypt." 
 
 "The truth," I replied, "is that the Israelites had been
consistently robbed and taken advantage of by the Egyptian state.
I had no qualms in showing them how to get back what was owing to
them. Of course I could have found a way to get them riches from
the coffers of the Pharaohs. Some theologians feel repugnance when
they discover that I suggested that my people steal from their
Egyptian neighbours who, in good faith had lent them things that
were very dear. 
 
 "It is hard for many to accept that honesty and integrity are
not absolute moral obligations. Like incest, they may or may not be
moral rules, depending on my wishes. The Spartans certainly
understood this when they made a respectable art of ingenious
theft. Do not forget that it is only after the flight from Egypt
that I spelled out a number of moral laws which were not
necessarily retroactive." 
 
 "Jehovah," commented the Voice, "your reply puts the role of
the Bible as man's moral inspiration in jeopardy. If a moral law is
not eternal it can be challenged. If morality depends on
circumstance, varying conditions could justify an elastic
morality." 
 
 The Voice was right. This matter had to be clarified. 
 
 "Perhaps we should discuss the value of the Bible as a
witness and as divine inspiration," I suggested. "I remember saying
that I had some reservations on this subject. Perhaps I should
explain myself now." 
 
 "The right moment will come soon," said the Voice. "We would
prefer first to resolve the problem of Original Sin."
 
 
                                 CHAPTER VII
                                ORIGINAL SIN
 
 The use of the term 'We' left me wondering. Was the Voice the
collective expression of the members of the conclave? 
 
 "We have called Eve to testify," continued the Voice. 
 
 I don't know why I felt uneasy. Why did the announcement of
Adam's appearance not affect me, while now I found myself in a
turmoil of thoughts and feelings? As I tried to interpret this I
heard the sound of footsteps which were still familiar to my ear.
I lifted my head and saw Eve moving to the centre of the assembly.
Like Adam she wore animal skins, which did little to hide her
dazzling beauty. She seemed to know the reason for her appearance
before the conclave. She looked around curiously before speaking in
a soft voice. 
 
 "I am your servant. Speak and I shall obey!" 
 
 "No one here," replied the Voice kindly, "is the servant of
anyone. We brought you here so that your testimony could allow us
to clarify the circumstances in which the Original Sin was
committed." 
 
 Eve's eyes widened. "My Lords," she said, "please use simpler
words. I don't know what being Original means." 
 
 "Eve," replied the Voice, "you have just shown that our 
wisdom, although divine, can neglect some obvious facts. We call
Original Sin what you committed with Adam by disobeying your
creator the day you tasted the fruit of the tree of knowledge. We
have been told that the serpent suggested that, instead of causing
your death, the forbidden fruit would render you equal to the gods.
You therefore disobeyed your creator and tasted that fruit." 
 
 Eve seemed hurt by what the Voice had said. "Oh no!" she
exclaimed. "That's not what happened. The serpent, as you must
know, was the most subtle creature and his arguments were really
difficult to ignore. I can't remember what he said to me word for
word, but I am sure it would have persuaded anyone in my place. If
only you had heard the words, you would agree with me that I was
not all that guilty." 
 
 "That need be no obstacle," said the Voice. "We are able to
reproduce the event." 
 
 Eve the witness was now staring in amazement at the recreated
Eve she once was. The latter was walking naked in the garden of
Eden. A rustling of leaves attracted her attention and she turned
with innocent and apparently accustomed delight to identify the
source of the sound. It was the Serpent. 
 
 There was a great contrast between Eve's carefree manner and
the worried, unhappy expression of the serpent. Eve grew visibly
concerned. "Serpent," she said, "I have never seen an expression
like yours. Adam and I laugh and smile all the time. Why don't you
do likewise?" 
 
 "Eve, how can I smile when two creatures I love so much are
disobeying the Lord?" 
 
 "You must be mistaken," said Eve. "We have every intention of
obeying the Lord." 
 
 "Nevertheless," said the Serpent, raising his voice, "when
the Lord orders you to go forth and multiply, you don't do it. Does
this not constitute disobedience?" 
 
 Eve was perplexed. "That's right, now I remember. The Lord
ordered us to multiply. I spoke of it with Adam, but neither of us
knows how to go about it." 
 
 "Of course you don't know," answered the Serpent. "The Lord
placed that knowledge in the fruit of the tree of knowledge." 
 
 "So I was told," said Eve, "but isn't it strange to have that
knowledge placed in a fruit? I wonder sometimes how delicious the
fruit must be and how wonderful must be the knowledge it would
bestow on whoever eats from it. I wish so much that the fruit were
not forbidden. I seem to crave for knowledge and, to tell the
truth, I have already eaten that fruit many times in my dreams. I
remember that in one of them I was standing before the tree
ordering it, 'Yield me one of your offspring!' And the tree
answered, 'I will do it willingly, but I first have to hug you.'
Before I realized what was happening the tree moved towards me,
while transforming itself into Adam. The tree was Adam and Adam was
the tree, and he hugged me so strongly I could hardly tell where
Adam ended and where I began. I was afraid to be hurt but, at the
same time, it was so enjoyable." 
 
 She stopped a moment, took a deep breath and repeated in a
lower voice, "It was so enjoyable!" Then she continued. "When I
woke I asked Adam to hug me but he refused, saying, 'What for?'
Those two words still trouble me. What for? What for? Adam does not
know; neither do I. Maybe if we could eat the fruit of knowledge we
would know the answer to this question." 
 
 "Yes, Eve," said the serpent, "you would surely know the
answer to that question and to many more. But much more to the
point, you would then learn how to propagate and therefore to obey
the commandment of the Lord. You and Adam have to go and eat of the
fruit to get the wonderful knowledge." 
 
 "But the Lord has forbidden us to eat that fruit!" 
 
 "Be reasonable," urged the Serpent. "Does the Lord not know
that without eating of the fruit you cannot go forth and multiply,
and consequently you cannot obey His orders?" 
 
 "That's true," admitted Eve. "But if I must disobey in the
matter of the fruit in order to obey in the matter of
multiplication, how can I remain an obedient creature?" 
 
 "Such ignorance surprises me, Eve. I am sorry to see how
little effort you are making to solve the problem. How can you
smile, how can you enjoy a walk while you are sinning by
disobedience? You are finding contradictions where none exist." 
 
 "I do want to multiply," Eve insisted, "but I don't want to
disobey by eating the fruit." 
 
 "In creating you," scolded the Serpent, "the Lord must have
given you a very small amount of intelligence. Why should I, who am
not in a state of sin, worry about a sinner who does not even try
to understand? It is all very simple. If you do not eat this fruit
you sin through omission of multiplication. If you do eat, you say
you will sin through disobedience. Do you really dare to believe
that the Lord has forced you into a situation where it would be
impossible not to sin?" 
 
 "Serpent, this is all beyond me. I don't want to be a sinner.
Tell me what I must do." 
 
 "That's easy," the creature replied, "and I see I must take
some pains to save you from sin. The contradiction lies in the fact
that you did not properly understand what the Lord told you. He
does not want you to taste of the fruit without good reason. But of
course, if your motive is to follow His order to multiply, the Lord
will be glad to note that you have done what is necessary. If you
want to remain obedient, you have no choice but to taste the fruit
of the tree of knowledge." 
 
 "That seems reasonable," admitted Eve, "but all the same, the
Lord did not tell me that I could have this fruit as long as I had
a good reason!" 
 
 "You have no brains at all!" the Serpent snapped. "So stay a
sinner! Don't multiply, and call down the wrath of the Lord!" 
 
 The Serpent began to leave, but Eve ran behind him crying. 
 
 "Serpent, serpent, don't leave me. I don't want to be a
sinner." 
 
 The Serpent turned back to her. "You have concluded that the
Lord is forcing you to sin in one way or another. Can you trust
such an interpretation?" 
 
 "No!" admitted Eve. 
 
 The Serpent then adopted a doctoral tone. "According to the
only possible interpretation, there is a way for you to act without
sinning. Tell me your decision. Are you going to choose your
interpretation which makes a sinner of you no matter what you do,
or will you trust an interpretation which at least gives you the
hope of being saved from sin?" 
 
 "May the Lord bless you!" said Eve gratefully. "Of course you
are right." 
 
 We then saw Eve run to the tree of knowledge. She arrived out
of breath, tore off a piece of fruit and tasted it immediately. 
 
 The scene was transformed back to Eve, the witness, once
again before the conclave. "That's exactly what happened," she
cried. 
 
 In the silence which followed the conclave seemed to
sympathize with Eve's difficult situation. I felt all eyes turn
towards me. Perhaps the gods were waiting for an explanation of the
severity with which I had treated Eve, Adam and the whole human
race. I was ready to clarify my position, but chose to wait until
Eve was gone. 
 
 "Would you like to add something before leaving?" the Voice
asked Eve. 
 
 "Yes," she replied. "I loved my daughters as much as my sons
and it saddened me to be the cause of their subordination to their
brothers. I lived long enough to witness how the status of women
was being eroded and I feel guilty even though I still don't know
where I went wrong, or why my guilt should be greater than Adam's."
 
 
 "Thank you for your co-operation, Eve," said the Voice. "The
answer to your question may come as this hearing progresses. It is
obvious that you obeyed Jehovah's order to multiply and it is
equally obvious that you could not have done so without tasting of
the forbidden fruit. Jehovah will have to explain what you should
have done under those circumstances." 
 
 Eve left slowly. When she was out of sight, the Voice spoke
to me. "Jehovah, what would have become of the propagation of the
species if Adam and Eve, in order to obey you, had refrained from
tasting the fruit of the tree of knowledge?" 
 
 The question did not embarrass me a bit. 
 
 "As soon as Adam and Eve were created," I explained, "I
understood that the multiplication of man was in the long run
incompatible with his immortality. There is no room on earth for an
ever-increasing number of immortal creatures. So I decided that man
should chose between multiplication and immortality. 
 
 "In order to multiply he must eat the forbidden fruit from
the tree of knowledge. He must therefore disobey me and incur the
punishment of becoming mortal. On the other hand, if he chooses to
obey me and does not eat the forbidden fruit, he remains immortal
but incapable of propagation. Both solutions are acceptable and it
pleased me to associate immortality with strict obedience." 
 
 "Jehovah," said the Voice, "choice is an illusion when it is
not based on knowledge of the alternatives and their consequences.
In order to understand which choice to make, Adam and Eve first had
to obtain knowledge. But, in the situation you created, they lost
the option to choose at the very moment that they became capable of
doing so." 
 
 "That is certainly one way of looking at the problem," I
conceded. "But there is another. The true choice that I gave them
was either to refuse to make a choice and to trust me in the
absence of all knowledge, or to choose in full possession of the
facts, in which case they would lose the ability to do so." 
 
 "So," broke in Koray, "you placed Adam and Eve in a situation
which required a degree of sophistication which they lacked. The
serpent which you made so clever had no difficulty seducing Eve." 
 
 "What difference does it make?", I asked, "The fact is that
the choice was made. It is true that this choice seems preordained
and impossible to avoid, but it's as good a choice as any other." 
 
 "The choice, Jehovah, is not in dispute," the Voice said
sternly. "We blame you for making it Original Sin." 
 
 I was emphatic. "Adam and Eve still disobeyed me." 
 
 "But they did it through ignorance, Jehovah, so why make it
a sin? And if you insist on its being a sin, why is it not just the
sin of Adam and Eve but also of their descendants?" 
 
 "The descendants of Adam and Eve," I explained patiently,
"are tainted by the Original Sin. When modern man chooses to
pollute the environment, he does so not only for himself but also
for future generations. The polluter is punished, but so is the
rest of the human race. When Adam and Eve chose to multiply they
made this choice not only for themselves but for the whole human
race, so their sin became that of the human race. 
 
 "Since the loss of eternal life was the punishment for this
sin, Adam and Eve passed on their curse to all their offspring.
Their sin is therefore not a personal one. It will not have escaped
your notice that if Adam and Eve had abstained from Original Sin
they would have deprived their progeny of existence itself." 
 
 The gods were not pleased. 
 
 "Your logic," the Voice said coldly, "is cleverer than that
of the serpent, Jehovah. But it seems to us that all this
cleverness is only an attempt to justify the unjustifiable. A man
cannot be a sinner before committing a sin." 
 
 "Why not?" I argued. "Is not the tiger a carnivore before he
has ever tasted flesh?" 
 
 "Yes, Jehovah, but to be a carnivore is part of his nature
and he should not be blamed for it. Either man is a sinner by
nature, in which case he should not be blamed for his sins, or he
is a sinner by choice and should not be considered a sinner before
he has sinned. 
 
 "You are free to make man mortal," the Voice continued, "but
either you link mortality with sin, in which case you must make
only sinners mortal, or you avoid all links between sin and
mortality. You could have avoided these problems by making Adam and
Eve immortal but sterile or by making them mortal and fertile. In
either case, you did not have to resort to a magic tree bestowing
knowledge, or to Original Sin justified only by some convoluted
casuistry." 
 
 The Voice did not let up. "Furthermore, the punishment seems
disproportionate. You condemned Cain to eternal vagrancy on earth
for killing Abel. This did not prevent him from raising a family
and building a town for them. But for just merely sampling
knowledge, Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden of Eden,
became mortal and were subject to a number of further punishments!"
 
 
 The aggressiveness of the conclave angered me. "Cain's
crime," I said, "and the punishment I inflicted on him deserve to
be examined in detail, not as an appendix to the Original Sin." 
 
 "As you wish, Jehovah," the Voice replied. "The next session
will therefore be given over to a discussion of the commandment
forbidding man to kill." 
 
 "Before moving on to the crime of Cain," I interrupted, "I
would like to add a few words on the subject of Original Sin." 
 
 "We are listening," said the Voice. 
 
 But instead of speaking, I began to think deeply. Convoluted
casuistry ... the words echoed in my mind. I needed to resolve the
apparent contradiction between my understanding and that of the
conclave. I would have to discover, from the conduct of the
conclave, whether they had a mistaken idea of my position or
whether they had simply adopted an implicit attitude which my
arguments had failed to reach. 
 
 I consider morality, for example, to be relative; relative to
my will and to the particular situation. But the conclave seemed
more inclined towards an absolute morality. There must be other
topics on which the conclave held views different from mine. I
would have to focus on this idea. My line of thought was shattered
by the Voice. 
 
 "We are waiting for you, Jehovah!" 
 
 I looked around me and began to speak in a tired voice. "You
have stated that the punishment for the Original Sin did not fit
the crime. The crime is a great one as it has been committed by all
humanity and for all human posterity. It may be convoluted
casuistry to point out that all humanity consisted of just Adam and
Eve at that time, but this issue has a deeper meaning. 
 
 "Eve's testimony was touching but misleading. She appeared to
be innocent, motivated by her desire to avoid sinning and thereby
falling easy prey to the clever serpent. But you may not know
exactly what the serpent was. Eve herself did not know. I offered
no explanation in the Bible because primitive man was not capable
of grasping such subtle shades of meaning. 
 
 "The fact is that the serpent was nothing other than an
aspect of Eve herself. Each man bears within himself his own clever
serpent and each man must decide the degree to which he will resist
or be seduced by it. Eve's serpent was none other than my
materialization of her desire to disobey me. Eve wanted to gain
knowledge without sinning. To accomplish this she needed a clever
reasoning which could silence the cries of her conscience. She
could not, knowingly, accept such trickery. She did not want to
acknowledge that she wished to disobey me. 
 
 "In order to make it easier for Eve to make a decision which
would not be based on the repression of an essential part of
herself, I caused this part to materialize in the shape of the
serpent. In fact all the arguments presented by the serpent were
nothing more than Eve's own inner arguments. Without the agency of
the serpent these would have remained repressed. 
 
 "The serpent's victory indicates an unconscious choice on
Eve's part and, consequently, on the part of all humanity. She
chose knowledge and paid for it with mortality. She wished to avoid
paying this price by using the serpent, the materialization of her
subconscious, as an intermediary. Her sin stems from the strength
of human curiosity. I therefore granted man and woman the benefits
of curiosity, including that of procreation, but those benefits
were not compatible with immortality. 
 
 "The choice of Adam and Eve resulted from a subconscious
rebellion against my injunction. It was therefore a sin, the
Original Sin. The magnitude of the sin lies in the fact that it was
committed directly against me .... Now I am ready to discuss the
crime of Cain." 
 There was silence when I concluded. The members of the
conclave whispered among themselves for several moments and then
the Voice began rather hesitantly. 
 
 "Jehovah, the conclave suspected that the serpent symbolized
one aspect of Eve. We took into account the fact that the Bible had
given man a limited and primitive degree of divine inspiration. We
realize that the story of the serpent is, at best, a metaphor. Our
colleague, Cholem, was particularly convincing on this point. Your
own statement confirms our conclusions. 
 
 "We still believe, however, that the inclination of Adam and
Eve toward knowledge is praiseworthy. As for the arguments of the
serpent, that subconscious part of Eve, we believe that she should
be judged according to her conscious actions, which solely
determine her degree of honesty. One must be much more experienced
than Eve was to be aware of one's subconscious, what you would call
one's own serpent. 
 
 "The most Eve deserved was a fatherly and friendly talk
explaining the danger of the Serpent. This danger would not have
arisen if you had frankly and clearly given Adam and Eve the choice
between multiplication and immortality. Remember also that each man
and woman since Adam and Eve had parents to watch over them and
help them find the right path. Adam and Eve were born as orphans
without friends or companions to act as models. Instead of becoming
the father, mother, friend and companion that they lacked, you let
fall on them the full weight of divine retribution. 
 
 "It is the conclusion of the conclave that you did not deal
fairly or justly with Adam and Eve, and that mankind does not
deserve the stigma of Original Sin."
 
 
                                CHAPTER VIII
                            CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
 
 Koray then announced that the conclave was ready to consider
the alleged inconsistency with which I punished crime. Straightaway
I saw Cain walking towards his younger brother. The two were
dressed in primitive clothes -- Abel tall and slim, Cain broader
and more muscular. Their bodies reflected their occupations; Abel
the shepherd had to chase and catch his animals while Cain worked
in the fields. 
 
 Their sight revived many memories and emotions in me. They
have been dear to me since their birth. In no other case was I so
directly involved in child-care. Indeed, while parental love for
children is instinctive, the knowledge of child-care is not. People
need to observe how other parents deal with their children in order
to protect their own offspring. 
 
 Adam and Eve did not even know how to hold a baby in their
arms. Without my constant intervention Cain and Abel would not have
survived long. Cain wasn't even a day old when Adam wanted to pull
him by the arm. When I told him he first had to take hold of the
baby's torso he did, but then he let the head hang like a dead
weight. I had to hurry to protect the child's neck and then teach
Adam and Eve how to support the head. 
 
 It took some time to convince Adam that his breasts could not
provide milk for the baby. Each time Eve fell asleep, he would try
to feed the child from his breast and would shout at him for
rejecting it. I once had to save Cain from choking on a few nuts
Adam was forcing down his throat. 
 
 The constant attention I had to give the two babies endeared
them to me. Here were the first people to come to life not through
an act of creation but through the power of procreation I had
granted man. 
 
 Millenia would pass and millions of children would be born;
I would not have to worry much for them and that is why my
relations with Cain and Abel have always been special. I sometimes
played the role of the missing grandparents. I did it discreetly,
and for no other children. 
 
 There was something else very special about Cain and Abel.
They were the first brothers on earth. How could they understand
that brothers are different from strangers? There were no
strangers! I wanted them, nonetheless, to know the difference. The
two first brothers should give the best example of brotherhood.
This would be possible if they lived long enough; they would have
so many brothers, sisters, nephews and nieces that most of them
would be strangers to them and the love binding Cain and Abel would
stand up as an example of brotherhood for all to see and follow. I
felt frustrated when their diverging occupations and their
competition for the attention of Adam and Eve made them more and
more estranged. 
 
 I was brought back to reality by Cain's voice. 
 
 "The Lord be with you," he said as he approached Abel. The
latter discarded a piece of animal skin he was cleaning, raised his
eyes to Cain and smiled back a greeting. 
 
 "The Lord be with you, too." 
 
 The brothers remained silent for a long moment. The
difficulty they had beginning a conversation must have reflected
the tension of their rivalries. Abel took up the piece of skin and
resumed his work. Cain, at a loss for something to say, just looked
around. Another long silence followed. Abel must have realized that
Cain had difficuly stating the purpose of his visit. Some more
words, however trivial, were needed to untie his tongue. 
 
 "You don't seem happy today," Abel observed. 
 
 Cain seemed almost furtive in his manner. "I'm not," he
confessed before lapsing into silence again. 
 
 "How was the harvest?" Abel asked without stopping his work.
"Has the Lord been good to you?" 
 
 The mention of his relationship to the Lord seemed to isolate
Cain's worry. He was back on track and regained his ability to
speak. 
 
 "The Lord has once again refused my gift, this time of fresh
figs and nuts. They didn't please Him any more than the melons and
grapes I offered Him yesterday." 
 
 Realizing that his brother was now in a mood to talk, Abel
set the animal skin aside. "You must have done something wrong," he
said. "Did you place your offering on a clean, elevated stone?" 
 
 "Yes," answered Cain. "I also arranged the figs in a circle
and placed the nuts in a regular pattern inside it so that the
offering was pleasant to look at." 
 
 "Maybe you didn't wash them well," Abel suggested. "The Lord
would reject a fig covered with dust." 
 
 "I am aware of that," Cain replied, "and I was careful to
wash each fruit separately. I examined them one by one and threw
away any that had even the slightest defect." 
 
 Abel had no more comments on Cain's offering. He spoke
instead of his own sacrifices to God. 
 
 "My young lambs," he said with a smile, "seemed to please the
Lord. I had barely finished slitting the last one's throat when
there was a clap of thunder and a light rain fell to cool the heat
of the day. A pleasant breeze blew on the flames which enveloped
the dead beasts while a divine fragrance rose from the altar to the
sky. Clearly the Lord approved my gift." 
 
 Cain betrayed no sign of jealousy. "I sincerely wanted to
please the Lord," he said. "But no sooner had I placed the figs and
nuts on a raised rock than a flock of birds covered the nuts with
excrement and the blackest ants I have ever seen came from nowhere
to bite into the figs. I realized that the Lord had again refused
my offering. The Lord rejects me. He hates me." 
 
 "Could it not be," asked Abel in a teasing tone, "that the
Lord enjoys the smell of blood and burning flesh?" 
 
 Cain saw no malice. "Each of us," he said, "according to his
means. I have no animals. My work yields fruits and vegetables and
I give the best of them to the Lord." 
 
 "That is true," replied Abel. "But a fruit, a vegetable ...
That's rather paltry. Blood has more meaning, more significance.
The question of life and death lies in the realm of the Lord. No
one else has the right to give or take a life. So the killing of an
animal is a crime unless it is done in the name of the Lord and for
His glory. In a way, the sacrifice of an animal is a divine act.
The gift of a fig is just a trifle." 
 
 "I thought," said Cain naively, "that the intent was what
counted most." 
 
 Abel had had enough. "You must know the intent is not enough.
Smarten up! You look foolish with your figs and nuts. It's blood
the Lord wants, simpleton. Real blood." 
 
 He flung a clot of blood from the animal skin which struck
his brother on his forehead. Cain wiped his brow and threw down the
muck which was on it. Then he lifted his head to the heavens and
cried, "Lord, if it's blood you want, blood is what you'll get!" 
 
 The scene faded slowly as Cain started to advance on Abel. 
 
 The silence which followed was broken by Koray. 
 
 "Tell us, Jehovah, why you were so lenient towards Cain?" 
 
 The implied reproach annoyed me. Nevertheless I replied
calmly, "Cain's crime surprised me. It is not generally known that
the result of his act surprised Cain more than anyone else. No
human had died up till then. The death of a man was still an
abstract concept. Men knew they were mortal without realizing
exactly what that meant. Abel had a better idea of it than most
because he raised animals and occasionally sacrificed one in my
honour. But animals are so inferior to humans that even Abel did
not make the connection between the death of an animal and his own
mortality. 
 
 "As for Cain, he was interested only in farming and had no
concept of death. He expressed his anger against Abel in a
murderous way but he was surprised to see Abel die. At first he
felt equal to the gods. Until then only God created life and only
God had created the possibility of death by making man mortal. Cain
thought his deed had made him divine and he felt drunk with
discovery. His knowledge had increased experimentally and he was
greatly excited by it. 
 
 "On my part, I realized that I had not issued any edicts
against killing. I also understood that there was a certain logic
in Cain's actions. I had spurned his offerings of fruit and
vegetables but had accepted the animal sacrifices which Abel made
for me. You heard Cain say, 'if blood is what you want, blood is
what you will get!' In a way the murder of Abel was a sacrifice to
me. I could not accept it, of course, since the gift was also a
gesture of protest and anger and I didn't intend to encourage such
tendencies. But since there were extenuating circumstances
surrounding Cain's actions, I treated him in the way I later
ordered that a man guilty of manslaughter be treated." 
 
 "I would like," Cholem began, "to put the crime of killing in
a proper perspective. Jehovah repeatedly explained in His
scriptures that men and animals each have a soul and that the soul
resides in the blood. Animals are allowed to be killed, but their
souls must be protected. If the blood of the animal is poured on
the ground, the soul of an animal remains somehow unaffected. It is
thus possible for men to enjoy the tasty flesh of the animal
without harming the animal's soul in the least." 
 
 "I think," the Voice replied, "that consistency would have
been better achieved by forbidding the killing of animals instead.
Jehovah's preference for Abel's offering signalled to man how much
He appreciated the pouring of animal's blood. By forbidding man to
drink the blood of the animal, Jehovah helped belittle the horror
of killing. He gave man the impression that whatever was done
against animals was of little consequence as long as the animal's
soul, residing in the blood, was preserved. Such an easy way to
keep a good conscience with respect to killing is not conducive to
a recognition of killing as the most horrible of crimes. 
 
 "Moreover, while the notion has some romantic attraction, the
soul of a man or of an animal does not reside in its blood. A
complete blood transfusion can save a man's life without altering
his identity. Once a person or an animal is killed, his spilled
blood is without life and without soul. To forbid it to be imbibed
or eaten with the flesh is no consolation to the slain man or
animal. What was needed was prevention of bloodshed, not the
protection of the poured blood." 
 
 "Jehovah," said Koray, "you have often shown that you would
put a man to death for a fairly innocuous crime. The Bible mentions
how your wrath fired up against Uzzi and killed him. His crime
consisted of attempting to prevent the fall of God's Ark which was
shaking badly in the ox-cart. That such an innocent action could
anger you so much as to make you kill Uzzi leaves us wondering. 
 
 "In the case of Cain, the first in a continuous string of the
worst crimes man can commit has taken place. Yet, instead of
marking it with an exemplary punishment, you show unjustified
leniency and protect the criminal. You said you would avenge
sevenfold any harm done to him by anyone else. In fact you have not
shown much horror and disgust for the act of killing, and you
yourself ordered the death penalty for a long list of crimes. 
 
 "These crimes," I replied, "offended me greatly and I wanted
man to be terrified at the idea of committing any of them." 
 
 "Jehovah", said the Voice, "let us observe your teaching
concerning certain crimes and their punishment." 
 
 All eyes turned towards a stranger dressed in the manner of
the Hebrew people in biblical times. He was speaking to a group of
neighbours while pointing at a young boy. 
 
 "This wretched boy's behaviour dishonours me," the man was
saying. "He thinks he knows everything already and has no respect
for my white hair. He contradicts me constantly and sometimes
drinks too much wine. This morning when I had chastened him for his
insolence, I got two lambs ready for the priest. My son dared to
say that the Lord did not need these lambs and that if we weren't
so stupid we would eat them ourselves." 
 
 At these words a mutter of disapproval arose from the crowd
while the young man seemed visibly terrified. 
 
 "My shame," continued the father, "has become too great and
I see nothing for it but to obey the Lord." He recited from memory:
 
 
      If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will
      not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his
      mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not
      hearken unto them: 
 
      Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and
      bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the
      gate of his place; 
 
      And they shall say unto the elders of the city, This our
      son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our
      voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard. 
 
      And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones,
      that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you;
      and all Israel shall hear, and fear." 
 
"Let us do our duty," the old man added in the same solemn
tone, "and purify our city from vermin." 
 
 The son barely had time to cry, "Father, have mercy," when a
stream of stones fell upon him. He screamed in pain and terror
while he covered his head with his hands and cried, "Father,
Father!" Then a large rock hit him in the abdomen and he fell,
vomiting blood. His father cried, "Lord, blessed be thy name, thy
will be done." 
 
 The scene disappeared and the Voice said, "Jehovah, this
scene illustrates the behaviour of a biblical man inspired by your
commandments. Do you still believe that to kill a rebel son is an
appropriate solution? Does this not contradict your commandment,
'Thou shalt not kill'?" 
 
 "In olden times," I answered, "parents were much better
respected than they are today. Children were taught from the cradle
that age is a source of wisdom. The young people were not spoiled
by indulgence in entertainments conveying meaningless information.
Furthermore, the parents followed the Bible strictly and literally.
The example of parents devoted to their Lord could only reinforce
the child's inclination to be respectful. In those days the
parents' conduct was in step with their teaching, whereas now
parents often do not practise what they preach. As a result the
rebellion of a young person then was a positive indication of a
criminal mind without hope of redemption instead of being, as it is
today, a result of the child's puberty and progress towards
adulthood. If a few youths had been allowed to resist their
parent's authority without punishment, the rot would have spread
swiftly through all the young people. 
 
 "My commandments refer to a society which obeyed God
completely. Such a society would produce very few rebellious
children." 
 
 "Jehovah," said the Voice, "if ancient biblical society
naturally produced a healthy and respectful younger generation, the
defiant conduct of one child would not have constituted a danger of
infection. But if infection could only be prevented by fear of
death, this indicates a society based not on love and respect, but
rather on fear. You recognized this yourself when you said that
'all Israel shall hear and fear'." 
 
 "Fear was necessary in those days," I argued. "A young
delinquent is hard enough to handle in modern times despite greater
knowledge of child psychology and specialized institutions.
Youngsters lacking in discipline would have caused the collapse of
the older society." 
 
 "Jehovah, this society was already degenerating," The Voice
said. "A society whose cohesion can only be insured through fear,
whether of God or of the death sentence, may appear to have
strength and vitality. But such a society cannot evolve, cannot
progress. Innovation would be equated with heresy and fear would
paralyze any inclination to change, even for the better. Any
harmful interpretation of the laws, any obsolete tradition, would
therefore remain unchallenged. Such a society must petrify or
disappear unless it evolves towards a more liberal outlook. In any
case, it is not an exemplary society reflecting the wisdom of a God
whose teachings command respect for their clarity and sense." 
 
 The Voice stopped a moment, then proceeded more calmly. 
 
 "We remain convinced that an inconsistency exists in your
commandment against killing and the death penalty that you have
decreed for so many sins and crimes." 
 
 Koray picked up the argument. 
 
 "You demanded the sacrifice of all firstborns, whether of man
or beast. You allowed the ransom of the firstborn donkey and you
ordered the ransom of the child. But the idea that firstborns
should be dedicated to you, that the dedication should take the
form of a sacrifice and that man's firstborn son was saved from the
holocaust only by a ransom, still persists." 
 
 "It was necessary," I retorted, "to remind man that all he
possesses comes from me and is due to me. The sacrifice of the
firstborn, or rather his ransom, was supposed to make man grateful
to me for the pleasure of having other children which I would not
claim." 
 
 "Jehovah," interjected the Voice, "you incited the people of
Israel to exterminate neighbouring peoples. That could not be done
without disobeying your command, 'Thou shalt not kill'." 
 
 I answered what was obvious to me. "The country I promised
the people of Israel was inhabited by worshippers of idols who
deserved death." 
 
 "If that is so, Jehovah," demanded Koray, "why treat
idol-worshippers in the promised land differently than those who
lived elsewhere? Why did you offer extermination to the former and
peace in bondage to the latter?" 
 
 I was growing irritated by the succession of questions. 
 
 "The pagans living in the promised land," I replied, "had to
be exterminated to make room for my chosen people." 
 
 "So," asked the Voice, "it was not their paganism but where
they lived that was the deciding factor in their extermination?" 
 
 I paused a moment before replying. "I could have eliminated
all the pagans. The fact that I ordered the extermination of those
living in the promised land but settled for the enslavement of the
others by my chosen people proves that I wish to avoid killing when
it is not necessary." 
 
 "Jehovah," the Voice said with an air I found annoying, "why
don't you just admit that 'Thou shalt not kill', means there should
not be any killing. You won't admit that you have an inclination
towards spilled blood, one that has led man to commit murder and
led you yourself to kill innocent people, either directly or
through one of your angels." 
 
 I did not like being scolded. 
 
 "I cannot defend myself against such a generalized
accusation," I snapped. "Be more specific." 
 
 "Be it as you wish," said the Voice, "We shall introduce a
few witnesses." 
 
 A man appeared who seemed to be a warrior from biblical
times. He carried a sword at his side. As he approached the centre
of the hall I could see white hair framing a face which seemed
still young. He must have been briefed about appearing before the
conclave and seemed well prepared. 
 
 "Jephthah," asked Koray, "tell us the circumstances under
which you offered your own daughter as a burnt offering." 
 
 I had completely forgotten the incident. I realized that I
was in for a difficult time. Jephthah swallowed a sob, wiped a tear
from his eye and began. 
 
 "It makes me very unhappy to remember the fate of my
daughter, Naomi. She was gentle and modest. I can still see her
smile. It was with that very same smile that she came to meet me,
and so marked herself as the victim of a burnt offering. I often
asked myself if there was any man worthy of such a flower. The Lord
must have heard me and decided that none should have her." 
 
 "Jephthah," cried Koray, "you are blaming the Lord for the
loss of your daughter. Yet you yourself promised to sacrifice the
first person to come out of your house and greet you. You were
perfectly aware that you risked killing an innocent person. Why did
you make such a vow? Why was it necessary?" 
 
 "I do not dare," answered Jephtah, "to accuse the Lord of
anything! The Lord had abandoned us for eighteen years. The people
of Israel had incurred His wrath for adoring strange gods. The sons
of Ammon then came to fight us. I knew that we could not win
without the Lord's help, so I made a vow to the Almighty to
sacrifice the first person who came out of my house to greet me
after my victory." 
 
 "Jephthah," asked Cholem, "do you think that your vow spurred
the Lord to come to your aid against the sons of Ammon? Why would
the Lord approve the killing of an innocent person? Would it not
have been enough to promise him obedience and faithfulness to Him?"
 
 
 "I must be obedient and faithful," Jephtah explained, "even
if the Lord does not come to my aid. But if I really want Him to do
something for me and my people, must I not show that I am ready to
give up something in return? Must I not pay for what I request?" 
 
 The conclave was not satisfied with the answer. 
 
 "Perhaps," said the Voice. "But must the price be a
sacrifice? Was there no other way to please your Lord?" 
 
 Once more Jephthah tried to explain. "The Lord always told us
that each time we asked a favour of Him, we should sacrifice a few
pure animals. Time after time He expressed delight at the smell of
the victims' burnt flesh. The sacrifice of a life is so important
to Him that He made the performance of sacrificial rituals the main
task of the priest. The greater our request, the greater the
sacrifice should be. 
 
 "If the Lord found my sacrifice wanting, I risked losing the
battle. That was not a risk I wished to take. By not choosing the
victim myself I increased my chances of pleasing Him. He could
choose His own victim and would be more disposed to help me. When
the Lord chose Naomi I had to submit. I allowed my daughter to cry
over her virginity for two months. God had chosen her as a virgin
and she must be sacrificed as a virgin. 
 
 "I remember the day she was sacrificed. I still hoped an
angel would stay the priest's hand as in Isaac's case. But nothing
happened and Naomi perished under the knife, uttering a cry that I
can hear to this day." 
 
 A mist surrounded Jephthah and when it disappeared he was no
longer in the hall. 
 
 "Jehovah, do you wish to comment on Jephthah's testimony?" 
 
 "Jephthah's point of view," I replied, "is a human one. He
thought that by vowing to sacrifice he would encourage me to come
to his aid. Actually I would have helped him in any case. The
people of Israel had repented of their sins and had suffered
enough. The sacrificial vow was not my idea. It derived from
Jephthah's mistaken notion of my divinity. Once the vow was made I
had little choice. I could have avoided the human sacrifice by
giving victory to the sons of Ammon, but I did not want all the
Israelites to pay such a high price for Jephthah's mistake. 
 
 "Yes, I could have sent an angel to stay the knife before it
killed Naomi, and I was tempted to do so. But then vows would lose
their solemn, serious character. It is morally harmful to let man
believe that each time his vow is too costly, I will intervene to
liberate him from it. 
 
 "That leaves the designation of the victim. I could have
chosen one of Jephthah's servants, but then Jephthah would have
paid little. That would have encouraged others to make similar
vows. In choosing Jephthah's only daughter I was emphasizing the
fact that such a vow could cost the one who made it very dearly. I
was dissuading others from doing what Jephthah had done.
Incidentally, no one else among the people of Israel has made such
a vow since." 
 
 "Jehovah," answered the Voice accusingly, "Jephthah's
viewpoint is certainly a human one, but you caused his
misunderstanding. More than once you established a sort of
similarity between the sacrifice of an animal and that of a human
being. A ram was sacrificed instead of Isaac. Pure animals were
sacrificed instead of a firstborn infant. The strange virtues that
you ascribe to the blood of animals give them a spiritual character
similar to man's. 
 
 "The situation would certainly have been clearer if man and
beasts had remained vegetarians and you had not encouraged animal
sacrifices. The great value you gave to these sacrifices, the care
with which you decreed the different circumstances in which they
should be made and your expressions of pleasure when the smell of
burning flesh wafted up to you, were not worthy of a God. It is not
fitting for a God to show animal tastes and human weaknesses. This
confuses human understanding ... 
 
 "Let us proceed to the testimony of Zipporah." 
 
 A woman appeared, dressed in the Egyptian fashion from the
times of the Pharaohs. 
 
 "Zipporah," Koray began, "tell us how you saved the life of
your husband when the Almighty tried to kill him as he slept." 
 
 Like most of the preceding witnesses, Zipporah seemed
astonished to find herself before the conclave. At first she did
not seem to have heard Koray. 
 
 As soon as she saw me she cried out, "That's Him! That's
Him!" 
 
 "What do you mean, Zipporah?" asked the Voice. 
 
 Her voice was filled with venom. "That's who tried to kill
Moses! I saw Him come down from the heavens, His eyes aflame with
anger and foul purpose. Moses had told me about Him. I knew my
husband was in mortal danger and I acted quick as lightning. While
He gloated over His imminent vengeance I had just enough time to
circumcise my son and throw his foreskin between Moses and his God.
 
 
 "You should have seen God's face! He looked horrified and
then shook His head like a man recovering from a faint. Finally He
backed away and disappeared into the heavens."
 
 A Hebrew woman, however enraged, would never have spoken
about me with hate and disrespect. But Zipporah was Egyptian and
believed in her own gods. 
 
 "Why did you circumcise your son at that very moment,
Zipporah?" Koray asked. 
 
 "Moses had warned me," she answered. "He told me his God had
a violent temper and that it would be better to circumcise the
child before God noticed. When I saw God arrive looking so cross,
I thought I would give Him what He wished. Then I remembered that
God loathed foreskins. By throwing my son's foreskin between God
and Moses, I was showing God that his will had been done. I also
hoped that God would dislike coming close to the thing and would
just leave and spare Moses." 
 
 As Zipporah disappeared, Koray spoke. "Jehovah, after
ordering Moses to return to Egypt and perform miracles before the
Pharaoh, you attacked him during the night and tried to kill him.
Was your attempt on his life, while he was obeying your orders and
carrying out your mission, anything more than an act of treachery?
The fact that you gave up the attempt when you saw his son's
foreskin does not excuse your offence. In any case, why should such
an object prevent you from doing something you had decided upon?" 
 
 I felt uneasy, but replied anyway. "Moses had made me angry
by arguing with me and using various excuses to refuse the mission
that I had charged him with. Although he finally agreed to do it,
I was still not pacified. I admit my temper can have delayed
effects. 
 
 "Moses belonged to me. I gave him life when I wished and I
could take it away when I wished. Moses was not just saved by his
son's foreskin but by the slowness of my attack, which gave
Zipporah the time to cut the thing off and throw it at Moses' feet.
The circumcision was an act of obedience which I had demanded from
all Abraham's descendants. My great love for Moses found his wife's
act, and what it symbolized, a good enough reason to make me turn
away and spare his life." 
 
 "The fact remains," noted the Voice, "that whether he liked
it or not, you gave Moses a mission. You tried to kill him not when
he refused to obey you but after you had chewed over your anger at
his lukewarm response. If only you had chosen a natural death for
Moses -- being crushed by a rock or suffering a heart attack, for
instance -- we would have been spared the confusing sight of a God
appearing as a man and trying to kill the very same Moses who later
became a prophet and was allowed to speak with you face-to-face. 
 
 "The Bible shows you behaving less wisely than many mortals.
You exhibit treachery, anger, lack of moderation, bloodthirstiness,
deplorable fetishism and indecision. Is it surprising that men,
even the believers, cannot make do with biblical morality these
days?" 
 
 I could not let such a sweeping statement go unchallenged. 
 
 "I think most believers would take exception to that view,"
I replied curtly. "The Bible should not be condemned wholesale." 
 
 "Very well," said the Voice, "it will be discussed at the
next session. But it remains true that you bear a heavy
responsibility for permitting, by example and by instructions, the
disregard of your commandment against killing. Your lack of
consistency in this matter has legitimized wars of conquest and
extermination. There is an absence of pity and an intolerance
evident in your prescription of the death penalty for petty
mistakes and crimes. 
 
 "The conclave will now adjourn for a brief period." It seemed
an answer to my silent request for a rest. "When we begin our
deliberations again, we shall take up the question of absence of
clarity in the Bible."
 
 
                                 CHAPTER IX
                               MORAL GUIDANCE
 
 Two unfamiliar people were in attendance when the hearing
resumed. One seemed to be a lawyer or judge. The appearance of the
other changed repeatedly from that of a present-day priest to that
of a modern rabbi. The two faced each other across a short
distance. As I was examining them, the Voice broke into my
thoughts. 
 
 "Jehovah," it said, "listen closely to the biblical passages
that the rabbi-priest will read out, and then listen to the other
side as expressed by the lawyer. Then compare the different
moralities shown by these two men." 
 
 I felt like a schoolboy being asked to write an essay. The
rabbi-priest flipped through the pages he wanted and then spoke in
a solemn voice. 
 
 "Thus says the Lord in Deuteronomy, chapter twenty, verses
ten to sixteen: 
 
      When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it,
      then proclaim peace unto it. 
 
      And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and
      open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people
      that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and
      they shall serve thee. 
 
      And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war
      against thee, then thou shalt besiege it: 
 
      And when the Lord thy God hath delivered into thine
      hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge
      of the sword: 
 
      But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle and
      all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof,
      shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the
      spoil of thine enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given
      thee. 
 
      Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far
      off from thee, which are not of the cities of these
      nations. 
 
      But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God
      doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shall save alive
      nothing that breath: 
 
      But thou shalt utterly destroy them." 
 
 As the rabbi-priest concluded the lawyer nodded his head and
with deliberate patience began to speak. 
 
 "International law stipulates that countries belong to the
people who live in them. These peoples have the right of abode,
free from aggression. International law prohibits the excessive use
of violence in wartime. The law protects the lives of prisoners of
war and specifies that they must be treated humanely, that is, with
the respect and dignity due to all human life. The rights of the
civilian population are also specified. Their homes must be
respected and they retain their property rights. Their lives must
be protected and the war must be conducted in such a way as to
inflict the least possible damage on civilians. Soldiers who do not
respect the rights of the civilian population must be prosecuted
and, if found guilty, punished accordingly. 
 
 "As for the extermination of an entire population, this is
considered these days to be the worst of all crimes. We call this
disgusting crime genocide and it has been outlawed by international
agreement." 
 
 There was a long silence during which the gods exchanged
looks of embarrassment. None of them seemed willing to speak. At
last Cholem shook his head slowly and proceeded to speak. 
 
 "Taken literally this biblical quotation represents an
injunction by Jehovah to his chosen people ordering them to commit
the crime of genocide. It displays a lack of love and a lack of
pity that are not consistent with Jehovah's own Ten Commandments.
I have tried to imagine a possible metaphorical interpretation, but
I must admit that I could not find any that satisfied me. Still,
the matter is important and I am not giving up. Maybe I will be
able to come up with something later on. My best guess for the
moment is that God was speaking about local and foreign false gods
and the necessity to be especially harsh with the local ones." 
 
 I looked at Cholem with astonishment. Until now he had
formulated his criticisms in a slightly ironical tone that sounded
somewhat friendly. Was I so much in the wrong that even he had to
condemn me openly? 
 
 Cholem sat silent, a puzzled look creasing his brow. The
Voice seemed provoked and began to speak. 
 
 "Metaphorical interpretations, short of the obvious for the
human mind, totally miss the point. Granted that Cholem will be
able to come up later with a perfect one which will prove that
there is more wisdom in the Bible than catches the eye. But what is
the purpose of the Bible? Is it to be a moral guide to man or is it
to be the depository of hidden wisdom that remains unavailable when
it is needed most? 
 
 "At one time in human history the chosen people did commit
genocide. They believed that was the will of God, as expressed
explicitly in the Bible. How could they know that God's order
should be interpreted metaphorically? Can we condemn them
retroactively for obeying God's orders literally when a suitable
metaphorical interpretation would not be suspected until thousands
of years later?" 
 
 "What do you think, Jehovah?" Koray broke in. "Which of these
two laws appears to you to be the most divine, biblical law or
international law?" 
 
 Koray did not enter the discussion between Cholem and the
Voice and I decided to ignore them also, especially since I knew
that the quotation under discussion was indeed intended to be taken
literally. As to Koray's question, it did not seem fair to me. 
 
 "But compare biblical law with the laws of that time, Koray,"
I urged. "Don't forget that international law was inspired by the
Bible but has the advantage of having been formulated thousands of
years after the Bible was written." 
 
 Koray was persistent. 
 
 "Jehovah, we are not here to compare biblical man to modern
man. It's no surprise that man can now make much better laws than
those he obeyed thousands of years ago. But you, Jehovah the
Eternal, you are not bound by the limitations of time. You could
certainly legislate better laws than those of modern man. And you
could even have done so in biblical times." 
 
 "True!" I retorted. "But the men of those times were not
ready to receive such laws. I had to move slowly." 
 
 The Voice intervened. "Jehovah, you were not moving slowly
forward when you ordered the people of Israel to exterminate entire
populations. Furthermore, by moving slowly you risk making your
teachings obsolete. Then the Bible could not claim to be valid for
all time! It is not you, Jehovah, who should move slowly, but
rather man. You should move forward firmly to proclaim a truly
divine morality and let man come to it as fast as he can." 
 
 "This would be possible if absolute morality were itself
possible," I argued. "But I believe that morality can only be
relative. You can't compare the morality of different ages. What is
considered bad today could have been the most appropriate morality
in its time, and vice versa. I consider man capable of separating
Bible doctrine which is of universal value from that which is
dependent on place, time and circumstances." 
 
 I knew I had made a mistake as soon as I spoke but it was too
late. I had mentioned the weakest point of the Bible: the necessity
of man's interpretation. I expected the Voice to destroy my
argument by pointing to the numerous and contradictory
interpretations man gives to the Bible. But the approach was more
direct. 
 
 "Jehovah," he began, "you are putting an unfair burden on
men. By deciding which verses should be taken literally and which
metaphorically, by letting men decide which ones have only
circumstantial value and which have eternal ones, you make it
possible to interpret the Bible in so many different ways that
people cannot find their way through it unless they can rely on an
additional guiding principle. Such a principle is always available
-- the belief that one's own morality is the correct one! 
 
 "If a person believes that slavery is right he will find a
convenient biblical interpretation to this effect. If he later
decides that slavery is wrong, a slightly different interpretation
and the Bible supports him once more. Custom-made biblical
authority! The reader can insist that anything in the Bible that
offends current morality shouldn't be taken literally, but whatever
supports his own stance is clearly Holy Writ. And so the Bible is
no longer a document of divine universal value but an ambiguous
script susceptible to the whim of self-interested interpretation." 
 
 I was still smarting over the vehemence of this last
broadside when Koray began. 
 
 "An essential quality of a message, Jehovah, is its clarity.
When the message is divine, surely its clarity should surpass the
best which humans can attain. You should have indicated
unequivocally which parts of the Bible should be considered
ephemeral and which have eternal value. 
 
 "On the contrary, you made your messages intentionally
obscure. For example, did you create man before the animals or the
other way around? Two quotes on this subject are contradictory. 
 
 "The creation of man in your image brings insurmountable
theological and philosophical problems. 
 
 "Are you of the male sex? Made for which female? 
 
 "Do you have an image, a face, an appearance? What use is an
image or appearance outside space, since you yourself created space
and existed before the creation of the world?" 
 
 I thought Koray was picking at trivialities, so I interrupted
him. 
 
 "I know that the communication between man and me is
imperfect, and I recognize that the Bible is sprinkled with many
errors. But I don't deny feeling a certain satisfaction in noting
that, in spite of all these errors, many believers have been
totally faithful to me. I made the distinction between the
historic, documentary aspects of the Bible and its value as
inspiration to action. I did not consider the documentary value of
the Bible all that important. Why care if there were one or seven
pure animal couples in the ark? The point was too trivial to
correct. On the other hand, I was careful to define moral precepts
correctly. 
 
 "As for the creation of man in my image, that is only a way
of saying that man thinks and feels in the image of God. I could
have been more explicit, true; but man was hardly capable of
abstraction in those days and it would have been absolutely
impossible for him to conceive of a God existing outside time and
space. This concept is still beyond most humans. So I left to man
the confusion between the literal and figurative meaning of 'in the
image of'. Occasionally I even took human form as I did during my
meetings with Jacob." 
 
 My defence brought no reaction from the assembly. 
 
 "Jehovah, we would like you to pay close attention to the
following scene," the Voice said almost immediately. 
 
 I could now see the interior of a large hut. A young boy was
crouching on the floor, a girl lay on a straw mattress and a woman
was spinning. The little girl cried out, terrified: 
 
 "Mother, make John stop touching his nose!" 
 
 "Flies are landing on my nose," protested the little boy.
"They make me want to scratch it and I can't stop myself." 
 
 "John," said the irritated mother, "you know very well that
when you touch your nose with your right hand, you make Daisy's arm
hurt. When you touch it with your left hand you make her feet hurt.
If you don't stop touching your nose, I shall tie your hands behind
your back." 
 
 At that moment John scratched his nose and Daisy screamed
with pain as the scene disappeared. 
 
 "Jehovah," said the Voice, "how do you explain the scene we
have just witnessed?" 
 
 I could see no purpose in the scene. In fact I thought it was
absurd, but I answered cautiously. 
 
 "Well, Daisy could have had pains in her arms and feet and a
witch doctor might have been called in. Instead of admitting his
ignorance, the witch doctor could have invented the magical
influence that John's nose is supposed to have over Daisy.
Primitive peoples believe so strongly in the powers of the witch
doctor that they trust everything he tells them. Daisy is convinced
that John's nose is the cause of all her pain, and is so frightened
of it that this has produced psychosomatic symptoms. Now she really
does feel pain when she sees John scratch his nose." 
 
 "The relation of cause and effect between John's nose and
Daisy's pains," Koray inquired, "is due to her belief in such a
magic effect?" 
 
 "Yes," I answered. "The ignorance of these primitives
produces complications which are superimposed on the true problems
and further obscure the causes." 
 
 "So, Jehovah, it follows that belief in magical powers has
harmful effects." 
 
 "That is my opinion, yes." 
 
 "Then why," the Voice broke in, "would you spread confusion
in the human mind by encouraging a belief in magical objects? If an
apple can confer the knowledge of good and evil, if the fruit of
another tree can confer immortality and make whoever tastes it the
equal of a god, if the position of a stick can cause the victory of
an army, why shouldn't man believe in a philosopher's stone to
transform base metals into gold? Why shouldn't man hope for an
elixir to prolong life and restore youth? Why not believe in a
multitude of charms against different illnesses or in an 'evil
eye', or in the influence of the stars? Why shouldn't man believe
in the magic power of John's nose? Once you endow a few objects
with magical powers, you open the door to all superstitions. You
have put a stamp of respectability on superstition. 
 
 "You forbade your followers to read signs in the sky instead
of telling them that these signs had no meaning. The fact is that
you have taken very few pains to help man gain real understanding.
It is revealing -- and perhaps even symptomatic -- that the act
which led to the mortal punishment of man was that of acquiring
knowledge!" 
 
 I was outraged and did not hide it. 
 
 "It is not fair to blame me for punishing Adam and Eve for
committing a crime before they acquired the knowledge of good and
evil, and then to reproach me for using magic when I had never had
any indication that a conclave existed and was opposed to magic. I
did not know that I was just an apprentice God. Knowing myself --
wrongly, it turns out -- to be the only God, accountable to nobody,
I was not bound by any moral law but my own. To assert that even
God is subject to moral laws preceding His existence is a negation
of the concept of God. 
 
 "I was not obligated to create the universe. Obviously moral
problems arose with the creation of the universe, but without moral
problems and moral situations the concept of moral law makes no
sense. Having created the universe with its moral situations, there
did not exist for me any terms of reference except my own freedom
of choice. Since I was the only moral reference point I could not,
by definition, be immoral. I was the source of morality. The fact
that my morality varied only underlines the relative character of
morality." 
 
 The conclave again made no response to my impassioned
explanation, but moved to another subject. 
 
 "In your creation of the world," said the Voice, "which
happened, as you say, less than six thousands year ago, you
inscribed signs of an existence dating back thousands of millions
of years. You arranged these signs so that they could each
corroborate the indication of age made by the others. The conclave
considers this a trick unworthy of God." 
 
 "The creation of the universe was not a sudden act," I
replied. "I first thought about what I was going to do. As my
thought was Verb, my reflections materialized into signs which
superimposed themselves on the later-created world. That was done
without malice. I did not consider it necessary to erase these
misleading signs which fitted my policy of ambiguity so well." 
 
 The Conclave did not offer any sign indicating if my answer
was satisfactory. 
 
 "You have often been inconsistent," said Koray, moving to yet
another subject. "What was the point of being angry about the tower
of Babel, for example, taking such a drastic measure to confuse man
as creating a multitude of languages, but later doing nothing when
man built the Eiffel Tower or walked on the moon?" 
 
 "The tower of Babel," I explained, "was built with the
intention of reaching the divine heavens. The undertaking, though
impossible to realize, nevertheless took the energies of
practically the entire human race. The space journeys have no
religious ambitions, do not occupy more than an infinitely small
proportion of mankind, and take place to verify natural laws and to
discover possible applications for the advancement and well-being
of man. They did not form a 'leg-up' to reach the heavens." 
 
 "Jehovah," said the Voice, "the conclave believes that the
foregoing points concerning absence of clarity in the Bible provide
sufficient explanation. It will not be necessary to consider
numerous other examples. The conclusion is clear. We expect a God
to be omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent, just as man does. A
Bible that is not omni-clear and omni-convincing, therefore is not
divine." 
 
 "That is not the opinion of hundreds of millions of believers
who recognize a divine inspiration in the Bible." I interrupted. 
 
 The Voice picked up on this. 
 
 "Other millions have their doubts and some people go so far
as to deny any relation between God and the Bible. They even say
that the God of the Bible never existed." 
 
 "Those are miscreants." I said in anger, "They do not deserve
consideration or pity. I stipulated that they should be put to
death by stoning." 
 
 "Still," said the Voice, "since we are considering human's
grasp of divinity we have to understand why the miscreant failed to
believe in God. In all fairness we should bring one of them as a
witness." 
 
 I was indignant. 
 
 "There is no meaner creature than an unbeliever. He
represents the ultimate in ingratitude. He owes me all he is, and
all he has. Still, he dares to deny it. He insults me and reduces
me to . . . non-existence!" 
 
 "But," said the Voice, "a miscreant may still be sincere in
his disbelief." 
 
 "Such a beast as a sincere miscreant doesn't exist." I said. 
 
 Koray intervened. 
 
 "An interesting parallel can be drawn between Jehovah not
believing in the existence of a sincere miscreant, and a miscreant
-- sincere or not -- not believing in Jehovah's existence. I think
that the matter is worthy of being pursued. We should produce a
miscreant as a witness." 
 
 The gods held consultations and, after some moments, the
Voice announced a decision. 
 
 "A person among the living has been chosen as a witness." 
 
 A man appeared out of a mist. He was bewildered. He took a
few steps, came closer to a table and leaned on it. He put a hand
over his forehead as if to check if he had fever or if he still had
a sense of touch. 
 
 "We understand," said the Voice, "that your name is Clement
and that you have been briefed. You know the purpose of your
presence. Let me stress that no harm will befall you as a result of
your testimony. You are free to say the truth as you perceive it or
to lie if you choose to do so. Since the conclave can extricate the
truth from a lie, it would be simpler if you were to speak honestly
and sincerely." 
 
 Clement remained still, staring at the gods for a long
moment. He was in a state of confusion and disbelief. He then
cleared his throat. 
 
 "I do not have a recollection of having died. I am not sure
whether I am here in body and soul after death or whether I am just
dreaming." 
 
 "You did not die," said the Voice, "you have been called upon
to testify alive before our assembly. You will then be sent back to
earth with the memory of having seen us in a dream. You will be
free to believe in the reality of your dream or, more in character,
dismiss it as nothing but a dream. Till then, you have to face the
reality of your situation and act accordingly." 
 
 Clement took a deep breath. He started hesitantly. 
 
 "Nothing of what I now hear and see squares with the beliefs
I entertained on earth. I was not prepared for such a situation and
feel dismayed at having been so much at variance with truth. I
don't know how to address your assembly. On earth some people have
titles indicative of what I consider to be human vanity. According
to the Bible you have titles too: Lord, Eternal Almighty ... I have
doubts as to the propriety of those titles and I would apreciate
being told how to address your assembly." 
 
 "Clement," said Koray, "human language is a reflection of the
humanly perceived reality. However men have the ability to distort
the meaning of words. They do it sometimes in a creative way in
response to a new situation. They do it also for conformity or to
avoid the expression of their real feelings. The conclave is
indifferent to the way you choose to address it except as it
reflects on your character." 
 
 Clement remained silent for a long moment. It was possible to
read on his face an attempt at making an important decision. 
 
 "My Lords," he said, "human language is indeed poor and I
can't find a title proper to express the way I perceive you. For
simplicity and conformity I will call you My Lords. I will use this
title creatively in a distorted way so as to mean Fathers in heaven
mixed with creators and with embodiments of quintessent wisdom. I
am using the title with its new meaning not to express my respect
but to convey how I perceive your beings."  "Now that you know
that the 'hereafter' exists," asked Koray, "are you not afraid for
the fate of your soul?" 
 
 "No," answered Clement without hesitation, "I have no doubt
that the Lord will not be less kind with me than with a faithful
believer." 
 
 "There is something in your attitude," Cholem interjected,
"that fringes arrogance. How dare you decide what a God would do?" 
 
 "My Lords," Clement replied, "I realize my limitations. I
agreed with the believers that God is perfect or at least close to
it. I know that man, being imperfect, cannot grasp perfection by
himself. I never dared say what God should be or do because my
imperfect mind cannot deal with perfection; it is too foreign to my
nature. However, when it comes to imperfection, I feel myself an
expert. I am surrounded with imperfection, I am filled with it." 
 
 Clement stopped for a while before resuming. 
 
 "I feel qualified to determine what God should not be or
should not do. God is not afflicted with human weaknesses of
character. He does not lie. He does not incite to lie. He is not
vain. He does not punish someone for the crimes of others. He is
not jealous. He doesn't act in a way that forces Him later to
repent. He does not deliver messages which need interpretation. To
interpret the word of God is tantamount to try to be clearer than
Him. It is tantamount to a pretence that man can do better. If a
saying needs interpretation, if it can be taken in more than one
meaning, it is not a word of God." 
 
 "Did it not occur to you," said Cholem, "that there may be a
perfect and an imperfect understanding of imperfection? How can you
be sure that what is perceived by you as imperfect for men could
not, in some cases, be perfect for God?" 
 
 Clement seemed dismayed. 
 
 "Lords, I could end my troubles by saying  mea culpa.  I have
to confess that my actual experience proves me wrong. However, much
more is involved than the fate of my soul. I am representing here
all the people that doubt -- or ever doubted -- the God of the
Bible. What I say may also reflect on the future of the relations
between God and men. 
 
 "But this moment in front of you at least gives me an
opportunity to ask you to honour the memory of so many unbelievers
who died as martyrs, victims of intolerance. They first suffered
many crises of doubt. They then agonised between a need and a will
to believe in God and to love Him and between an honest conviction
-- right or wrong -- that the God of the Bible does not exist. They
had to do violence to their own nature. They had to inflict
emotional pains on themselves. It is not easy to conclude that
eternal life is a myth. It is hard to put oneself at odds with
family and society when it could so easily be avoided by not caring
about truth. 
 
 "Their merit is that they did not take truth for granted.
They considered truth as being so important that before labelling
it as such they thoroughly checked it and put it to test. Whether
they succeeded or failed does not affect the fact that they were
searchers of truth ready to pay for it with their lives. 
 
 "I dare say that their merit is greater than that of the
martyrs who died for their belief in God. The believers knew their
sacrifices would be rewarded in heaven. The unbelievers did not
expect any reward. They simply could not withstand being dishonest
or even careless about truth. 
 
 "I don't know what is now their fate in the hereafter but I
know that they deserve being remembered with sorrow and love." 
 
 Clement stopped, unable to proceed. His hands were trembling
and he had difficulty breathing. 
 
 "You seem profoundly disturbed," said the Voice, "it seems
necessary to bestow on you a temporary immunity against emotional
exhaustion." 
 
 "Thank you, my Lords," said Clement, "I already feel much
better." 
 
 He gave a sigh and proceeded. 
 
 "My Lords, I was once a believer in the God of the Bible. It
felt good thinking that I had a heavenly father who would recall me
to Him when the time came. 
 
 "I was used to obligations; obligations toward my parents,
toward society and toward myself. Obligations toward God did not
weigh heavily upon me. To pray can be a relief. To behave according
to my faith filled me with happiness. 
 
 "I had a friend who, like me, found happiness in behaving
according to his faith. But his faith was different from mine. In
our mutual attempt to convert one another I faced for the first
time the problem of truth. 
 
 "Truth for me was my faith, but truth for my friend was his
and the two were not compatible. We both prayed to God that He help
the other to see the light. Each of us saw the light but the two
lights were different! 
 
 "In our discussions we tried to grasp the notion of divine .
We soon faced a vicious circle. If a man derives the notion from
the religion he believes in, he is deprived of an independent
definition. There would then be as many notions of divine as there
are religions and sects. 
 
 "There should be a single, universally-accepted definition.
Each interested believer could then check if the god of his
religion conforms to the definition. Instead we have a number of
revelations defining quite different gods. 
 
 "It then occured to me and my friend that we were approaching
the concept of godness from the wrong end. Instead of grasping
godness we should maybe try to grasp non-godness. Here we felt at
home. We agreed that whatever is perceived as imperfection in man
belongs to non-godness, cannot be part of the notion of God. 
 
 "Such a definition of non-godness would be readily acceptable
to everyone unless it conflicted with the God of his religion. We
had to decide: do we prefer a God unstained with non-godness or do
we want, whatever the price, however we have to stretch reason, to
keep our particular God with all its non-Godness? 
 
 "When I realized that my God, the God of the Bible, had an
amount of non-Godness that could be justified only by splitting
hairs or by reasonings that would justify anything, I felt a sense
of loss hard to withstand. I prayed to my God and begged him to
help me come closer to the truth. My friend did just the same. 
 
 "We both had dreams in which angels ordered us to remain
strong in our faith. The dreams could not be genuine divine
messages since the two faith were incompatible. I prayed again and
again. I needed a God I could love but my God sent me no sign. Was
he testing the strength of my faith? If so why did he not answer my
friend's calls. If my faith was the true one, my friend was in need
of a sign to leave his faith and join mine. But once more, how is
it possible to find out which of us two, my friend or I, had to
leave his faith? 
 
 "At last each of us denied his God; we just could not love a
God who shared the worst imperfections of humans. 
 
 "My Lords, I am a man, I am imperfect. I need some help to
make sense out of so many religions and sects. Each one has a
blue-print for God and perfection is not the same for all
religions. Who am I to judge on matters of perfection? To choose
between religions is to shape God to your taste. As you know faith
has not directed all believers to one religion. 
 
 "If now you take out of man the only remaining pillar on
which he can rely, if you say to man that he does not know what
imperfection is, if you say to man that what he perceives as
disgusting, unjust and unbecoming for a man could just be perfect
for God, you eliminate from man his last hope in the search of
truth. 
 
 "I dare say that it is not fair to punish a blind man for his
lack of sight or an unbeliever for a lack of belief. It is not fair
to expect a blind man to find his way in a forest without help. 
 
 "My Lords, the unbelievers are not asking much. They realize
that man is imperfect, unable to define perfection or to recognize
it. Grant him the ability to recognize imperfection. Give him at
least this small light to help him find his way." 
 
 Clement disappeared as the Voice was commenting. 
 
 "Clement's request in the name of the unbelievers appears to
have some merit. It should not be dismissed without study." 
 
 "As it happens," resumed the Voice, addressing me, "you must
still defend yourself on two points: having legislated slavery and
having legislated the inferiority of women. Have you any preference
as to the order in which these two subjects should be tackled?" 
 
 "No," I replied, "the order doesn't matter to me. Still, if
we have to choose one, let it be slavery." 
 
 "So be it, Jehovah!" 
 
 Without a perceptible requirement of time, the Gods I had
become accustomed to were no longer there. In their place were ...
slaves. Yes, they certainly had a look of slavery about them. Some
had their necks and wrists in cuffs, others had hands and feet in
chains. Still others were branded. They were men and women of all
races and ages. 
 
 One of them was a black man. He spoke directly to me. 
 
 "Jehovah, modern man rejects and is repelled by slavery. But
you did not oppose it. Tell us why you permitted slavery when
modern man does not." 
 
 I was embarrassed and irritated. Why should the gods think it
necessary to take the shapes of slaves? 
 
 "I think," I said, "that by identifying, at least in body,
with slaves the conclave already shows some prejudice in this
matter. I do not believe that a slavish mentality helps in
appreciating the problems there would have been if I had ordered a
better treatment for slaves than that prescribed in the Bible." 
 
 "The conclave feels," a second 'slave' replied, "that a more
intimate knowledge of the state of slavery could only add to its
understanding of the subject as a whole and would thus enhance its
objectivity. So please reply to the question. Why did you permit
slavery when modern man does not?" 
 
 The god who spoke had only one eye and one arm. His
appearance did not augur well for the resolution of my case. The
Gods were not content with simply identifying with slaves; they
seemed to be taking up the cudgels for those who had been the most
misused. 
 
 "Modern man," I replied, "has abolished slavery, an extreme
form of servitude. Yet other forms of servitude still exist in his
society. A worker is a servant whose duties are of a very specific
nature and enable the employer to make a profit. A house servant
also has specific duties; he allows the employer to live an easier,
more agreeable life. In both these cases we have examples of
servitude which are not extreme and are governed by the agreements
and laws of society. The fact that the servitude is not extreme
shows some progress compared with slavery. All I can say about it
is that modern man has taken some great steps forward. By following
the progress that the Bible made in this area, he came to forbid
slavery." 
 
 "Did you not think to include the forbidding of slavery in
your commandments?" 
 
 "No," I replied, "I wanted to be consistent. Either I forbade
all forms of servitude or I permitted them all. I contented myself
with legislating measures which would offer slaves protection from
exploitation by their masters." 
 
 "It seems, Jehovah," said the Voice, "that once again you
tried to move slowly ... Consider the size of the steps you took." 
 
 A large courtyard appeared. Sprawled on the ground was the
bleeding body of a man with scarcely the strength to moan. A woman
moved around him, wiping his forehead with a damp cloth and giving
him occasional drops of water to drink. Next to him was a man who
prayed in a low, clear voice. A man who seemed to be the master of
the house paced nervously in the background. Some candles and an
oil lamp lit the scene. The semi-darkness seemed to precede dawn.
Birds of prey must have smelled the blood for they could be heard
croaking in the near distance. Suddenly the master cupped his hands
and shouted in the direction of a nearby hillock. 
 
 "Khaim, is there still no sign of the first rays of the sun?"
 
 
 The answer was faint but clear. "No, not yet, Father." 
 
 The voice was that of a young boy who stood on the crest of
the hillock staring intently to the east. 
 
 "Joseph," cried the woman, "I do not think the slave will
survive much longer. The Lord might heed your call. Why don't you
join Reuben in prayer?" 
 
 The master suddenly shouted to the heavens: 
 
 "Lord, I know that a request must be accompanied by the
sacrifice of young, unspotted lambs. I solemnly promise to bring
six lambs and a fat ram to the high priest long before the end of
this approaching day. Lord, I pray you, prolong the faltering life
of my slave until after sunrise. I admit that I beat him badly, but
he needed a lesson. Now the ingrate is trying to die before
sunrise. He knows that since he is my thing, I have the right to
beat him as much as I wish, as long as he survives until the first
rays of sunlight of the next morning. 
 
 "Lord, I am sure that if he really put his mind to it, he
could live longer. But he is a nasty piece of work. By dying before
his time he wants to make me break your commandments. It does not
lie within my power, Lord, to remove the effects of my blows. But
it is in your power to prolong the life of this cur. I do not
choose to commit any sin. Almighty Lord, you are my God, I do not
know any God but you." 
 
 Just at that moment the shouts of the young boy could be
heard. "The sun is up! I saw the first rays!" 
 
 At these words the master cried, "The Lord be praised!" and
fell to his knees in joy. He turned in a moment. 
 
 "Rebecca," he called to his wife, "you can leave that slave
to his fate. Stop nursing him and go prepare a celebration
breakfast." 
 
 As the scene faded a 'slave' god with the voice of Koray
said, "Jehovah, it is in your name that a slave could be thus
treated." 
 
 "The Bible contains many verses written to protect slaves,"
I replied. "A slave becomes free if his master puts out one of his
eyes or teeth. And, if he is a Hebrew, he becomes free after six
years of slavery." 
 
 "Jehovah, the Bible rules concerning slaves would honour any
man of that period if he had decreed them, but we expect much more
from the rules put out by man's God." 
 
 Again it was Koray speaking. "God can't just be one step
ahead of man. He must not legitimize erroneous principles arising
from the prejudices of the men of the times. You allow a father to
sell his daughter into slavery and a man to sell his brother to
repay the brother's debt." 
 
 The Voice continued, persistent and certain. "You should
instead have shown your disapproval the first time that a man tried
to reduce another to slavery, Jehovah. The idea that a creature who
thinks and feels in the image of God can become a slave is
repugnant to us. Your commandments make no mention of slavery, yet
the Hebrews had just been delivered out of bondage and would
certainly have understood the immorality of the institution of
slavery. You missed a very good opportunity. The commandments seem
to have been written to provide a framework of justice, and so it
was clearly inconsistent not to mention slavery." 
 
 I chose not to reply. 
 
 
                                  CHAPTER X
                               THE UNREVEALED
 
 There was suddenness, even impatience, in the new
transformations. The gods, no longer slaves, had taken on the
shapes of women of all ages, races and nationalities. Some wore
make-up and jewellery, others were simply dressed and unadorned. My
eyes fixed on one whose low-cut dress revealed the whiteness of her
breasts. I wondered why such a lack of feminine modesty was
necessary. 
 
 The ring of woman-gods opened to make way for two more,
completely naked. One was black, apparently African, while the
other seemed to be of white, Mediterranean stock. I shifted my gaze
to avoid them, then continued my examination of the woman-gods who
made up the conclave. Some were beautiful and others ugly. A few
seemed to have soft skin while others were wrinkled, not
necessarily by age. Some glowed with happiness, others carried the
weary expressions of poverty and suffering. 
 
 The very idea of a woman-god seemed aberrant to me. Was this
why I felt so embarrassed in the presence of an assembly of "women"
who had more knowledge and power than I did at that moment? Since
the object of this session was my alleged prejudice against women,
I wanted a clear answer. And yet the more I thought about it, the
more I realized how confused my feelings towards women were. Now I
could no longer escape an examination of my feelings in the
presence of women. I would also have to explore what the problems
of women and the relationship between them and men brought out in
me. My thoughts were interrupted by the Voice. 
 
 "Jehovah, the gods have not just assumed the shapes of women,
they have also added to their divine natures those of various women
you created. This was the only way that they could have a complete
view of the situation. The gods today are woman-gods and you should
know that they are very angry with you. The feminine element of the
woman-gods may appear meek, but deep inside them is the feeling
that what you teach and command in the Bible on the subject of the
women is not fair to their nature. This the gods now understand
well." 
 
 It seemed that I was being condemned before being tried. 
 
 "Would it not be better," I asked, "to wait for the
development of the trial? Does the conclave not risk coming to
wrong conclusions by allowing itself to be influenced by this
feminine element?" 
 
 "Not at all," the Voice replied. "The feminine element has an
informative value only. This element, the male element and all
other non-Divine elements will be surrendered when the time comes
for consideration and pronouncement of the sentence. Remember, the
conclave is not subject to the whim of emotions. Its objectivity is
not affected by its feelings. 
 
 "Jehovah, our temporary female component considers that
evidence of your prejudice against women oozes from numerous parts
of the Bible. If you admit being prejudiced against women we may
not have to examine every accusation in detail." 
 
 The verdict seemed to have preceded the trial. I must have
been tired because I replied that I was ready for the examination
to proceed. 
 
 It was the voice of Koray, sounding very strange coming from
a woman's body, which began the questioning. "So tell us, Jehovah,
was it fair to allow a father to sell his daughter into slavery?" 
 
 "I did not decree this. I merely allowed a custom of the
times to continue. But I did order that such a slave should not be
harshly treated." 
 
 "Your Bible teaches that a wife may be bought from her father
without her having any say in the transaction." 
 
 "This custom arose as a just compensation to the parents for
the trouble they took in raising the girl." 
 
 "You ordered, Jehovah, that women should obey their husbands.
Is that fair?" 
 
 I was astounded. Would fairness require the subordination of
man to woman? I contained my indignation. 
 
 "Families must have a leader to make a decision when spouses
differ," I answered. "I had to choose between man and woman. We
have already seen that it was Eve's serpent, and thus Eve herself,
who was responsible for Original Sin. She was punished, and since
then women have been obedient to men." 
 
 "In your ten commandments, Jehovah," Koray went on, "you
order men not to covet their neighbour's wives. You do not order
women not to covet their neighbour's husbands. Does this mean that
they may do so, or does it merely mean that you are not interested
in speaking to women or addressing yourself to them?" 
 
 I wished the women-gods would concentrate on more important
issues, but I had to endure petty questions patiently. 
 
 "In fact," I answered, "I gave men the task of watching over
moral purity and obedience to my laws. Men would make sure that
women behaved themselves. I only had to address myself to men,
since women were required to be obedient to them." 
 
 "You ordered men, you even specified males, to present
themselves before you three times a year. Why were women excluded
from this commandment?" 
 
 "Women would have distracted the men from their
ecclesiastical duties," I answered firmly. 
 
 "Why," Koray demanded, "did you order women to observe a
period of purification twice as long after the birth of a daughter
than after the birth of a son?" 
 
 Did I have to explain even this? Couldn't they make a slight
effort and find the obvious answer by themselves? 
 
 "The daughter," I replied, "would become a woman who would
have her periods of impurity. The potential impurity of the girl
adds to the natural impurity of the mother just after the birth of
her baby." 
 
 "Jehovah, you ordered that the priest should marry a virgin.
Do you think that sexual relations, even within your laws, soil the
woman but not the man?" 
 
 Was there no end to this? 
 
 "That is my opinion. That is why I provided the hymen so that
virgins and non-virgins could easily be distinguished. Nothing
similar exists in men." 
 
 "Jehovah," Koray went on without a pause, "you ordered the
childless widow to marry her dead husband's brother in order to
procreate a child which would miraculously belong to the deceased
and bear his name. Why did you not order the childless widower to
marry his sister-in-law and procreate a child which would
perpetuate the name of his late wife?" 
 
 I was powerless, but my mood was approaching the one I was in
when I caused the great flood. Their questions indicated purposeful
misunderstanding, yet I managed to reply patiently. 
 
 "The submissive state of women also implies the importance of
carrying on the name of the man and not that of the woman. That is
why women do not usually inherit from their parents." 
 
 "Jehovah, you allowed a man to have more than one spouse, but
not a woman. Why the discrimination?" 
 
 "The idea of mixing the seeds of several men within one woman
is disgusting. Besides, it would have lead to confusion and lack of
certitude as to paternity." 
 
 The Voice intervened before Koray could resume his
accusations. 
 
 "You could have made the resemblance between children and
parents unmistakable, Jehovah. This would have eliminated doubt.
You could have decreed that, in the case of a sterile marriage due
to the husband's infertility, a woman could take a second husband.
Or you could have forbidden men and women alike to have more than
one spouse and thus re-establish a kind of even-handedness towards
men and women without introducing any paternity confusion." 
 
 "In biblical times," I replied, "only women could be sterile.
A man commits his seed to a woman and wants to be sure who his
children will be so that they may inherit his estate. Even if it
could have been proven that, in an exceptional case, the man were
sterile, it would be the man's brother who should lie with the wife
to give an heir to the sterile brother. This would be consistent
with the spirit of my teachings." 
 
 "Jehovah," Koray went on, "why did you order the Israelites
to kill all the prisoners who were not virgins and distribute the
virgins among the soldiers?" 
 
 I wondered at the question. It enabled me to catch the
woman-gods red-handed in a display of faulty reasoning. 
 
 "Whatever the reason was," I answered, "it can't be taken as
prejudice against women. According to my orders no male was spared.
Though the fate of female prisoners was hard, it was not as bad as
that of the male prisoners." 
 
 There was a long silence during which the woman-gods seemed
to hold consultations with their eyes. Then the Voice spoke. 
 
 "We had hoped that a listing of the accusations bearing on
your anti-female bias would bring more results. It did not. A scene
may enlighten us on the subject." 
 
 The materialization showed two Hebrew soldiers talking
together. One of them was much older than the other. The younger
was speaking vigorously. 
 
 "Moses has explained the wishes of the Lord. So we must order
the slaying of all women prisoners who are not virgins.
Understand?" 
 
 "I don't like it," replied the older soldier. "What has a
married woman done that is so wrong? Why must she be killed? I
would have preferred to kill them all without exception." 
 
 "How stupid you are," retorted the younger. "You know the
female prisoners are ours. We don't need women soiled by the
knowledge of man." 
 
 The older soldier refused to argue any more. 
 
 "Our women," he declared, "must examine the prisoners to
determine which are virgins and which must be put to the sword." 
 
 "Not at all," the younger soldier insisted. "We will examine
them ourselves." 
 
 The older soldier was indignant. "I am the father of eight
girls. The idea of soldiers examining the state of women's chastity
is repugnant to me. I am sure the Lord intended this examination to
be made by our women." 
 
 But the younger soldier would not give in. "According to the
Lord we should have killed the male children and the soiled females
before coming home. The only way we could have done that would have
been to examine the women ourselves. 
 
 "Don't worry," he continued. "You will see how amusing it is.
You lift the shirt of each woman or girl and you look her straight
in the eyes to enjoy her blushes and her wounded modesty. Then you
introduce your finger into the right place. Do it slowly. You don't
want to deflower her. Besides, the whole operation will give you a
pleasure which you will want to savour as long as possible. If a
woman is not a virgin or makes difficulties, you kill her on the
spot. Come on, the Lord is with us and I see that our comrades are
already claiming their rewards." 
 
 The lustful voices of the soldiers mixed with the screams of
pain and despair as the scene faded. The Voice resumed. 
 
 "Jehovah, we have just witnessed an instance of the cruel and
humiliating treatment ordered by you against women. Your message of
love is obscured by your own instructions to the Israeli people.
When in your name Jesus later damned to hell whoever would modify
the old scriptures by as little as a single comma, men were left
with no new instructions. Wars were not prohibited and the war-time
cruelty ordered in the scriptures was not abrogated. Is it a wonder
that since then so many people could at one same time believe in
God and behave bestially in time of war? Is it a wonder that
indiscriminate killing and absence of pity ordered by you has
become a general rule and is still applied today by man?" 
 
 The Voice went on after a short pause. 
 
 "Jehovah, do you still believe that your orders on the
treatment of woman do not indicate a prejudice against them?" 
 
 I thought that the whole scene was in bad taste and had no
relevance to the question of my supposed prejudice. 
 
 "Yes," I answered. "The scene we've just seen illustrated the
treatment of enemies rather than that of women. I allowed my chosen
people to humiliate the enemy. Naturally, a woman can be humiliated
in a different way than a man." 
 
 The woman-gods of the conclave shifted in their seats awhile
and only calmed down when the Voice continued. "Jehovah, there is
no doubt that your ability to reason effectively is reduced when
the subject of discussion is woman. To get at the truth, our only
recourse now is to materialize your own serpent, that is, your
subconscious nature." 
 
 I was stunned at the proposal. The serpent of God seemed a
paradoxical concept, both dangerous and insulting. However, if the
gods spoke of it, they must be serious. 
 
 "Is it possible for God," I asked, "to have His own serpent
and to have existed for an eternity without knowing it? 
 
 "Jehovah, the many facets of your personality are evident in
the Bible," the Voice replied. "Sometimes you are seen to be
undecided, talking over a problem with yourself before coming to a
firm decision. This implies that one part of you was presenting
arguments to another part. This explains your contradictory
attitudes but not your inability to confront certain obvious facts.
Your serpent, because he represents your subconscious nature,
remains outside your field of conscious perception. Remember that
we are using the word serpent because of its biblical flavour. We
could have used another appropriate word. If you prefer, we could
materialize your subconscious into a personalized entity." 
 
 "No," I answered. "If you see it as a serpent, I shall see it
as a serpent." 
 
 As I spoke my serpent-subconscious appeared a few metres in
front of me. The expression on its face made me dislike it
intensely. I was horrified that any relationship existed between
us. The expression showed lust, complacency and cynicism. I
wondered if it could still influence me while it was materialized
outside myself. 
 
 "Jehovah," the Voice said, "remember that when we discussed
Eve's responsibility for the Original Sin we suggested that she
should not be judged on her subconscious tendencies. A perfect God
can have a very ugly serpent. What is important is not the ugliness
of the serpent, but the degree to which the God subconsciously
obeys His serpent instead of resisting it. 
 
 "Your serpent will tell nothing but the truth about your
subconscious nature. Try not to feel shame or distress while
listening to its revelations. What is important is for you to
understand and to act on the increased knowledge." 
 
 At this, a conversation began between the Voice and the
serpent, while I slumped in my chair, still trying to absorb the
information that I had a subconscious nature. This nature, although
divine, had feelings and desires which were not in the least
divine. 
 
 "First, to assist us, describe the creation of Eve," the
Voice ordered. 
 
 The serpent was visibly proud of being the centre of
attention. 
 
 "I created the animals in pairs, one male and one female per
species," it began. "But when it came to man's turn, I wanted to
act differently. Man was created in my image, after all, and so
woman could not be of no consequence to me. I created a man and a
woman who were both very sensual and capable of feeling paroxysms
of pleasure. This was necessary to ensure an instinct for
procreation. 
 
 "I am sure all of us here remember I took what the Bible
calls Adam's rib and began to mould it into the shape of a woman
whose beauty has still not been equalled. As I ran my hands over
the curves of Eve's body, I could easily imagine and feel the
pleasure that Adam would have in copulating with her. As I formed
Eve's breasts and intimate parts, my hands lingered over them with
a pleasure that no man could ever feel as intensely. I was, in
fact, Eve's first lover. Neither she nor Adam ever knew ...." 
 
 I could not contain my agitation. 
 
 "You lie, Serpent!" I burst out. "I never felt anything of
the sort. In a desire for perfection I may have lingered here and
there, but there was no trace of sensual pleasure." 
 
 The Voice intervened. "Jehovah, your serpent cannot lie. All
he speaks is the truth of your subconscious nature. You could not
consciously feel sensual pleasure, but it is a fact that your
subconscious was not at all averse to sensuality. Please do not
interrupt again." 
 
 A heavy silence which fell over the assembly was broken by
the serpent. "Having felt such pleasure," it continued, "I was not
about to share it with man. So I decided that Adam and Eve would be
forever lacking in sexual knowledge and that Adam would be
castrated. This decision was repressed by my conscious nature but
influenced it nevertheless. It resulted in the placing of sexual
knowledge into a forbidden fruit with a completely spurious
conscious justification. At the same time the act of castration was
altered and accepted consciously in the form of circumcision, which
was later demanded of all males of my chosen people. 
 
 "I was devastated when Eve decided to eat the forbidden
fruit. It became obvious that she burned with passion for Adam and
was ignoring me completely. I wanted first to torture her and then
to kill her. My hatred had no limits. But once more I was repressed
by the conscious. The loss of immortality, the submission of woman
to man and a few other punishments were all that resulted.
Obviously, the conscious managed to find acceptable justifications
for this. 
 
 "The conscious nature has given up part of its omniscience in
order to secure to men a measure of free will. I resented that. My
hate extended to all men and I was after their blood. 
 
 "The conscious nature would not have it that way; it wanted
to love men. All I could achieve was the great flood, the condoning
of violence and crimes during wars, the imposition of stoning for
a variety of crimes -- even petty crimes -- and the burning of
sacrificed animals which stood for the sacrifice of men." 
 
 The serpent was then enveloped in mist and disappeared. I was
so consumed by a tumult of thoughts that, for awhile, I lost all
sense of time and space. Cholem pulled me out of this dream. 
 
 "Jehovah," he said kindly, "let me emphasize again that the
sensuality and lack of scruples shown by your serpent must not make
you feel ashamed or revolted. We even believe that, in a way, your
serpent proves that your conscious nature honours your divinity.
That you managed to escape all conscious sensuality with such a
serpent is proof of your discipline. It is true, however, that your
serpent still had a great influence over you. 
 
 "Your behaviour now becomes more understandable. The
testimony of the serpent has clarified many essential points. I
will not insist on these too much. But without his testimony your
obsession with female virginity, to the exclusion of that of men,
would remain incomprehensible. Now we may conclude that a virgin is
a girl that Adam or his descendants has not yet touched. She
remains potentially available to you, for your subconscious desire,
through your priests and sacrificers. That is why you forbade them
to marry a divorcee, a widow, or a non-virgin girl. Your jealousy
of Adam and your anger against Eve explain your haste in putting
the tree of life, whose fruit would have made them immortal, out of
their reach. 
 
 "As for the desire of woman for man, you inflicted it on her
as a punishment, while the desire of man for woman remains a
pleasure. The similarity of the two desires made your
discrimination on this subject difficult to understand. The
testimony of the serpent clarifies the matter. You wanted woman to
repress her desire and not enjoy it. You made it a punishment, the
source of a feeling of guilt. This reflects the influence of your
own jealous subconscious. 
 
 "The serpent's testimony can explain many contradictions in
your behaviour, most particularly preaching love and ordering
cruelty and genocide. Inciting the Israeli people to borrow and
steal the neighbour's jewels reflects an element of cunning that
may have originated from your serpent. As a result of many
contradictions, principles have become too flexible and are bent by
believers till today. If God justifies the means by the ends what
can restrain a believer from doing so? 
 
 "Thus many crimes have been committed in the name of God --
many of them by the guardians of the faith. Though man has a
natural tendency of deciding for God what His will should be, it
must be said that you made their work easy. The struggle between
you and your serpent was reflected in an ambivalent Bible which
provides every man with a choice at his convenience." 
 
 The Voice then began to speak. I felt disoriented -- what he
was saying seemed to have no bearing on the subject. 
 
 "You did not intervene," the Voice was saying, "to help man
outlaw war. You could yourself destroy the whole of humankind,
except Noah and his family, with no pity for the innocent children.
You remained indifferent to events which are of extreme importance
from both the divine and the human point of view. 
 
 "But there is one instance when you could not prevent
yourself from reacting. Adam and Eve, after eating the forbidden
fruit, discovered that they were naked and THEN you reacted -- not
when men invented and used weapons of massive and indiscriminate
destruction, not when men triggered long and cruel wars, not even
during the many religious wars or during genocidal massacres. Only
when your jealousy was involved did you find it necessary to react
and prevent the greatest catastrophe possible. You made clothes
from skins to cover the nakedness of Adam and Eve, to delay for yet
awhile the knowledge of Eve by Adam!! 
 
 "Millions of innocent victims could die, tortured by regimes
claiming your inspiration. Further millions could die of hunger.
But it was the nakedness of a woman and her husband, in a world
where no one else yet existed, which was able to disturb your
tranquillity. Your serpent had too great an influence over you." 
 
 When the Voice finished, I was exhausted. I had not yet
digested the fact that I had been so influenced by my serpent. I
was assailed by confused thoughts and feelings. In spite of
Cholem's few comforting words I felt hurt, dizzy, disoriented, in
no shape for speaking. The Voice startled me. 
 
 "The conclave," it said, "was about to start considering its
verdict, but a request to testify has surprised us."
 
 
                                 CHAPTER XI
                              JESUS INTERVENES
 
 As my clouded eyes focused I saw that the gods had reassumed
their customary forms. The Voice spoke with authority. 
 
 "Let the witness enter." 
 
 A form materialized with a confusing slowness until, at last,
I recognized Jesus. 
 
 "You are welcome here, Jesus," said the Voice. "We know that
you carried a cross to expiate the crimes of humankind. We are
pleased that you now reside in Heaven." 
 
 "Heaven," Jesus answered sadly, "is also a state of mind. I
still carry a cross. I suffer now from the sins I have committed." 
 
 The conclave stirred awhile until the Voice said, "Jesus,
according to the opinion of wise men you, of all men, were not
touched by Original Sin." 
 
 Jesus sighed and paused a moment. 
 
 "Before the Original Sin," he said wearily, "Adam and Eve
were not touched by it. This did not stop them from sinning. I
myself, whether or not I am stained by Original Sin, realize now
that I committed many sins." 
 
 "Jesus," said the Voice, "you know the reason for this
assembly. We would ask therefore that you tell us what you can, to
help us make the right decision. You requested to come and testify.
You may do so without us having to question you." 
 
 Jesus turned ... towards me! 
 
 "Forgive me, Father," he said. "I am not sure that my
testimony is useful. I am doing this for love of you and all
mankind." 
 
 I looked into his eyes and my own became misted. Jesus
resumed speaking. 
 
 "I would like to start by repudiating the theological
discussions on my nature, my conception or the state of virginity
of my mother at my birth. I would even put aside all the
interpretations given to the father-son relationship I had with the
Lord. The importance given to these concepts, the accusation of
heresy against those whose interpretation differs from the official
one, the cruel punishment of heretics -- all this bears no relation
to my teaching. 
 
 "What is important is the purity of belief. If a man does not
believe, he is lost. But there are different ways of believing. A
man can be heartless and still be interested in his own
immortality. He feels a need to believe that certain actions,
affirmations, beliefs and positions will ensure that he gains
eternity. He will say the necessary prayers and give the requisite
charity. He does not need to believe in a God who sees the bottom
of his heart because his heart is black. He only needs a God who
gives out practical formulas which will lead to an appetizing
paradise. It does not matter what these formulas are as long as
they work. If necessary he will believe, or not believe, in the
immaculate conception. If necessary he will believe or not believe
in my divine existence before my birth ... This man is not a true
believer. 
 
 "Another man might not trust theological concepts. He cannot
be sure if he believes or what exactly he believes in. But there is
room in this man's heart for all, no matter what their colour,
their language, or their religion. This man would not fear a God
who could see to the bottom of his heart. This man is a true
believer. 
 
 "The essential question still remains that of man's behaviour
to his neighbour. The theologian cannot understand that John's
behaviour towards Peter should not depend on the state of my
mother's virginity. The theologian does not understand that a man's
merit does not depend on whether or not he believes in any such
religious concept. According to my teaching, the person who would
hold to these concepts and attach a greater importance to them than
to the collection of butterflies is without true faith. The person
with faith is the one who purifies his heart in such a way as to be
able to open it without fear of what might be found in it. This
heart must be so great that there is room in it for those who
believe in any religious concept, as well as those who believe in
none. 
 
 "The sad thing is that many men misunderstood the meaning of
the Divine order, 'Love your neighbour as yourself'. These men,
instead of loving a neighbour as they love themselves, ask first if
the neighbour is like themselves. Does he believe in the same
dogma? Does he practise the same religion? If he does, then the
neighbour is like themselves and can thus be loved. This is a gross
distortion of God's will. One's neighbour must be loved as he is,
whatever his dogma or religion. Again, even if a man denies
believing in God, you must look into his heart. If it is pure, this
man has the true faith -- even if he is not aware of it. 
 
 "I would like to remind you that nowhere is it written that
I personally took up any kind of dogma. None of the New Testaments
say that their authors learned from me that Mary was or was not a
virgin at my birth. In none of the sacred books is it written that
I claimed direct descent from David through Joseph. Besides, if
Joseph was not my father, his lineage from David has nothing to do
with me. Please consider what I personally taught and not what has
been reported from unknown sources. It is said, for instance, that
at my birth a star brought the three wise men to my parents' home.
But no one claims that I myself said this." 
 
 Jesus stopped talking for a few moments. There was complete
silence. It was obvious that what he had said so far was just a
preamble; we were all waiting for him to continue. Finally he
turned to me again. 
 
 "Father," he said, "I think that I am trying to put off the
moment when I must talk about us." 
 
 I did not mean to speak, but I felt an unspoken entreaty
coming from him. 
 
 "My son," I said, "it is my wish that you should bare your
heart to the conclave. I would be grateful if you would share all
your thoughts." 
 
 Jesus turned his face from me and began to speak. 
 
 "From my youth I had a power over men. I was sure that God
had given me these powers to achieve goals which were unknown to
me. At first I thought that I should wait until God revealed His
intentions. But time passed and I received no communication from
Him. Then I understood that God, in His wisdom, had expressed His
wishes in the prophecies of the Bible. I avidly read the biblical
passages, hoping to find the secret of my powers. 
 
 "One possibility came to my mind. I was perhaps destined to
become the much-awaited Messiah. I looked into my heart to discover
any ambition, but I found only a sincere love of God and of my
neighbour, and a complete indifference to my own future. 
 
 "Let God's will be done, I thought; I am ready to accomplish
any mission that the Lord will give me. But how could I be sure
that I was truly the Messiah? God had not come to me and said 'You
are the Messiah!' If He had, I would have cried it from the
rooftops with no regard to the consequences. But even though I
thought I was the Messiah, I was not sure. When a disciple asked me
if I were the Messiah, I replied ambiguously, 'Thou has said it'. 
 
 "My uncertainty and the clouds which covered my statements
and parables allowed my disciples to interpret my teachings
wrongly. When I said that man could only be saved through me, I did
not mean to inflict the dogma of a belief in my divinity or my
mission. I simply wanted to explain that only in the purity of
heart that I was advocating was it possible to find salvation. 
 
 "My first sin was that of not expressing my doubts more
clearly to my disciples. I knew how important faith was to them and
I found them incapable of understanding the simplicity of
identifying true faith with purity of heart. I often reproached
them for lack of faith, as their belief was only belief in
theBible. That is why I so often said about my actions that the
written prophecies must take place. These links with the written
texts were my only link to my disciples. 
 
 "As I could not communicate directly with the Lord, my work
became very hard. I had to find out constantly, and without His
help, what He wished me to do. Fear of being mistaken made me see
demons everywhere. Thus I imparted to my disciples a great fear of
demons and a belief in their existence in all the corners of the
universe. 
 
 "I should have been much more clear in my messages, so that
today it would not be possible to interpret them in as many
different ways as there are sects. My confusion stemmed from my
firm belief that I truly was the Messiah, that the end of the world
was at hand and would occur during the lifetime of my
contemporaries. It is obvious now that I was wrong. Nevertheless,
believing the end of the world was near, it was reasonable for me
to neglect all social problems and to concentrate my efforts on the
purification of human hearts. 
 
 "Why should I worry about slaves, why should I think of
helping the poor and the exploited, if they were about to face
their creator? As for my apostles, instead of correcting my
teachings, instead of sowing tolerance, they too often taught
hatred of the non-conformist and non-believer. Faced with
opposition they concentrated on dogmatizing religion instead of on
the fundamental necessity of purity of heart as a sign of true,
even if unconscious, faith. 
 
 "Another cause of the confusion lay in the fact that the
Bible did not place much importance on purity of heart as I
understood it. This purity is not compatible with a lack of pity
for the enemy, his wife and his children. It is not compatible with
the merciless extermination of whole populations. How could one
respect the commandments of the Bible and, at the same time, turn
the other cheek to the man who strikes you? 
 
 "I did not know how to resolve this contradiction, but I was
sure that the Lord would come to my aid. Finally, on the cross, I
begged Him in vain to tell me why He had ordered His chosen people
to behave so cruelly. When I saw that the reply still did not come,
I cried, 'Lord, why has thou forsaken me?' 
 
 "That is when the answer suddenly came to me. If I felt so
moved to pity and so revolted by cruelty, it was because, after
all, I was only a man. Perhaps pity was something only man could
feel. I had the advantage over the Almighty of being a man.
Possibly I could understand things which the Lord could not. 
 
 "The boldness of this thought did not escape me. But if I had
to choose between a belief in the Lord acting with barbaric cruelty
and a belief in the Lord being unable to feel true pity, I would
have preferred the latter." 
 
 Jesus stopped and, after a moment, turned slowly to view all
the gods. He spoke softly. 
 
 "Lords, members of the conclave, do not judge my father yet!
Allow Him first to acquire the experience that I had the privilege
to gather. Make Him a man for a necessary time and then
re-establish Him on the throne of the universe which He has
created. Then the perfection which is characteristic of His conduct
in all things will also be apparent in His conduct towards man." 
 
 Jesus had finished testifying. I wept.
 
 
                                 CHAPTER XII
                                  JUDGMENT
 
 
 The gods sat as if frozen in space-time, while the Voice
addressed me. 
 
 "Jehovah, the testimony of this last witness has been no less
moving for us than for you. The conclave will now retire to
consider its judgment." 
 
 I lost all awareness and returned to consciousness only to
find the circular room empty. The gods, apparently, had returned to
their respective universes, leaving behind their judgment written
on huge panels which filled the walls of the conclave chamber. As
I read the details I could hear the Voice, as if from a great
distance, reading the words precisely as I read them, slowing down
and speeding up exactly in harmony with me. 
 
 For the first time I realized that the role played by the
Voice -- the one god whom I had never seen materialized -- was more
than that of advocate for confused mankind or that of spokesman for
the conclave. Yet what it was, I was not -- am not -- certain. 
 
 The judgment was lengthy and detailed, covering matters
raised in the testimony as well as a multitude of points which had
not been presented. I summarize the principal findings, all of
which touch somehow on my relationship to man. They can be grouped
into my achievements as creator, my effectiveness as moral guide
and my emphasis on faith. These extracts from the judgment are in
the words of the conclave. 
 
                Jehovah's Creation 
 
 The conclave admires the laws of nature created by Jehovah.
His universe is notable for its regularity and symmetry, although
the problem to be resolved was difficult. 
 
 Jehovah wanted to endow His universe with laws allowing it to
follow its course without His constant omnipresence affecting every
particle, yet at the same time to permit the free will of man to
influence the course of events. Jehovah had no obligation to make
His natural laws expressible in terms of mathematical relations
accessible to the human mind. Men will therefore be unceasingly
grateful to their God for having gifted them with the ability to
discover, formulate and take advantage of natural laws. 
 
 Most of man's attributes relate in some way to his need for
survival as an individual or as a species. Fear of heights, taste
discrimination and sexual drive are but a few sensory guides. There
is one attribute which, in this sense, is completely gratuitous --
men could survive without it and, indeed, some men actually do. The
aesthetic sense which allow humans to enjoy symphonies and rainbows
is nothing short of a divine gift. 
 
 In spite of its many perfections, however, Jehovah's creation
has a number of flaws. 
 
 -- Jehovah has made much of His belief in a principle of
ambiguity, and the conclave does not specifically fault Him for
that. Yet this ambiguity stands in such sharp contrast to the clear
and imperative manner in which He issued His commandments to man --
commandments which Jehovah seems to have had little compunction
about disregarding Himself on occasion -- that the result, for man,
has been chaotic. 
 
 -- The conclave considers carnivorism -- especially in man,
the rational yet compassionate creation -- to be an act unworthy of
a god. If carnivorism had resulted from evolution, as some men have
suggested, one might then accept that it was not in Jehovah's
original plan. But since all species were created simultaneously
with fixed characteristics, Jehovah cannot escape the accusation of
having wanted carnivorism. His preference for tributes of burnt
flesh confirm this. 
 
                     Morality 
 
 The conclave is of the opinion that morality has a relative
character -- that a given morality must correspond to a given
creation. In short, a god who prefers a certain morality must
create a universe compatible with it. If the process is reversed
the properties of the creation impose restrictions on the moral
options available to the creator. 
 
 In a universe where males outnumber females, for example,
polyandry would be an acceptable moral rule; where progeny created
other than by incest is degenerate, according to the laws of
heredity, it would be perfectly acceptable to declare
non-incestuous relationships immoral. 
 
 The conclave observes that human morality has evolved through
the centuries in response both to human nature and to the
circumstances in which man has found himself. The capacity of man
to feel love and pity lies at the heart of the tendencies which
characterize this evolution, of which some salient examples are the
following: 
 
 -- Humans increasingly agree that women are mentally equal to
men and must enjoy rights equal to those enjoyed by men. The
conclave disapproves of the humiliating way that Jehovah treated
women, and regrets His obsession with female virginity. Why is a
female not permitted to become a priest; why must the priest mourn
a sister only if she dies a virgin? 
 
 -- The meaning of human justice has evolved. Vengeance -- an
eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth -- is no longer its avowed
goal. It has been replaced by the necessity to protect society and
to re-educate the guilty, if possible. The conclave feels that this
evolution conforms to the nature Jehovah gave to man. It
contradicts, however, the teaching and practice of Jehovah Himself.
In lauding the evolution of human justice, the conclave must
denounce Jehovah's spirit of vengeance until the third and fourth
generation, as well as His decision to burden all human generations
after Adam and Eve with the weight of their uninformed choice. 
 
 -- The rights of self-determination and national sovereignty
have been recognized in the relations between people and nations.
This evolution occurred in spite of Jehovah's teaching. In
particular the conclave disapproves of His promise to the
Israelites of a land already occupied by other peoples, and abhors
the many operations of genocide inspired and directed by Jehovah
with the aim of delivering the Promised Land to Israel. 
 
 -- Unanimous opinion affirms that the practice of war must be
avoided and all conflicts resolved by negotiations in the spirit of
international law. Again practice differs from theory, but man's
recognition of this principle is itself important. War and peace
are equally compatible with human nature as created, but man's full
development is achieved more by peace than by war. The conclave is
very pleased with the commandment not to kill. It cannot condone
Jehovah's own repeated disregard of this commandment. 
 
 -- When war cannot be avoided, strict laws have generally
been accepted to reduce the sufferings of civilians and to protect
the prisoners of war from 'inhuman' treatment. The term 'inhuman'
cannot be replaced by a term such as 'non-divine'. Man, in effect,
has been able to free himself from divine teaching and pursues a
morality worthier of his nature. 
 
 -- The conclave is aware that after a long period during
which slavery was commonly practised, man has expressed principles
forbidding it. Now, except for rare cases, slavery has been
eliminated and soon will be only a memory. The conclave regrets
that God did not issue a commandment specifically forbidding
slavery. In short, man, in the evolution of his morality, has
surpassed the teachings of Jehovah in several key points. 
 
                        Faith 
 
 It is the opinion of the conclave that Jehovah, on the one
hand, attributed too much importance to faith and, on the other,
did not prepare man sufficiently to have faith in Him. 
 
 The mental and sentimental qualities He gave man are such
that there is no relation between the strength of man's conviction
and the truth of those convictions. The Buddhist, the Jew, the
Muslim, the Catholic, the Protestant and the pagan can have equally
strong convictions, but they cannot all be right. It is dangerous
to base belief on faith, for faith can be a source of error and
perhaps only a random source of truth. This should make man
distrustful of every 'faith' or conviction not based totally on
reason. 
 
 If a person, using all his intelligence, does not conclude
that the God of the Bible or of the Koran exists in fact, at most
one could accuse him of merely being unreasonable. It cannot be
considered a mortal sin to have a weak intellect, any more than it
is a sin to be ugly. 
 
 Since faith that is not based on reason is unworthy of man
(not having any relation with truth), and since reason becomes the
respectable source of faith, one cannot prevent reason from also
being a respectable source of misbelief. The evidence concerning
the existence of God in the Bible is very confusing. A man who does
not rely on unreasoning faith should ask himself the following
questions: 
 
      Can I believe in a God who ordered the killing of all
      male infant prisoners as well as all non-virgin women? 
 
      Can I believe in a God who authorized the ownership and
      merciless beating of slaves, on the sole condition that
      the slave must survive until the following sunrise? 
 
      Can I believe in a God who permits the rape of a young
      girl as long as the rapist marries her and pays her
      father compensation? 
 
      Can I believe in a jealous and vengeful God capable of
      cursing innocent children for the faults of their
      parents, or who inflicted plagues on the Egyptian people
      for the faults of the Pharaohs? 
 
      Can I believe in a God who took delight in the sacrifice
      of animals, ordered the killing of innocent girls, and
      advocated wars of attrition, acquisition and revenge? 
 
Many men find it difficult to believe in a God whose
morality, their reason tells them, is less enlightened and less
compassionate than their own. Other questions could be asked
concerning Jehovah's omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence: 
 
      Can I believe in a God physically weaker than His
      creature Jacob, who has to resort to superhuman powers to
      break His adversary's hip? 
 
      Can I believe in a God who needed to go to Sodom and
      Gomorrah in person to verify certain rumours? 
 
      Can I believe in a God who loses an argument with Moses
      and repents of an erroneous decision which He would
      otherwise have taken? 
 
A positive answer to other questions would stretch the
credulity of the believer beyond reason: 
 
      Can I believe that God created day and night before
      having created the sun? 
 
      Can I believe the Bible's claim that the world is less
      than six millenia old, although many scientific
      observations give this universe an age of billions of
      years? 
 
 Such troubling questions are numerous. It is natural that a
man who bases his belief on reason should conclude the
non-existence of the God of the Bible. The only way to believe in
the God of the Bible, or of the Koran, is to have faith. But, on
evidence, faith has no relationship to truth. As a man bases his
belief or disbelief on faith, he degrades himself by proving his
lack of concern for truth. 
 
 A brief glance at human nature and man's history on earth
provides sufficient evidence that it is not faith that divides men
into moral categories. Honest, sincere and well-behaving men are
found in equal numbers among believers and non-believers alike.
Faith, therefore, is not a sign of merit; if Jehovah insists on
being 'believed in', He should give more evidence of His existence
than that presented in the Bible. If, for instance, every copy of
the Bible would become indestructible, there would not remain a
single unbeliever on the face of the earth. 
 
 This leads us directly to the matter of prayer. As an
instrument of communication between God and man, the conclave feels
prayer is defective; the communication is one-way -- from one who
knows so little to One who knows all. 
 
 The conclave also observes that prayer is ineffective as a
request for divine inspiration. This is evident in the case of
clergymen from opposing sides in a war who, after praying, each
feel qualified to declare that God is on his side. It is clear that
God, respecting the free will of man, does not intend to influence
him, even in response to prayer. 
 
 The conclave expresses its abhorrence for ritual, formulated
prayers at fixed times and in predetermined circumstances. The
widespread opinion that dutiful prayer leads God to grant the
believer eternal life in a 'hereafter', and fulfillment of his
wishes on earth, degrades the concept of prayer and transforms it
into an incantation to magic. 
 
 We note also that prayer is often formulated on a pragmatic
psychology which would have been suitable in the case of a person
addressing a tyrant. Prayer too often contains the following
elements: 
 
    -- an act of submission (let Thy will be done ...); 
 
    -- an act of flattery (descriptions of the qualities and powers
of God -- 'merciful God', 'all-powerful God' ...); 
 
    -- a request couched in the most abject terms. 
 
 The Bible tells of cases where God's anger was cast without
pity on entire groups of people. The believer knows that God can
curse a man for four generations, and therefore takes all possible
precautions to get into His good graces. Such prayers imply an
acceptance of the idea of the God-Tyrant. 
 
 As a form of thanks, prayer is acceptable only if it is made
spontaneously and sincerely. The believer must remember that a
modest cent given by a pauper is worth more than a dollar given by
a rich man. Seen from this angle, God's favours are minimal. The
only way for a man to express his gratitude to God in a dignified
way is to follow the teaching implied by the favours He granted:
Help thy neighbour! 
 
                      Decision 
 
 The conclave has decided to take into consideration the
following extenuating circumstances: 
 
    -- Jehovah, in His precocity, created the world before He had
developed a keen critical sense. Consequently, He did not seek an
exterior point of view, different from His own. In other words God
was subjective and did not suspect that His actions would be
subjected to scrutiny. 
 
    -- Jehovah inadvertently created a human race incapable of
loving Him. He attributed His failure to have the relationship He
wanted with men to the Devil. The grief felt by God is matched only
by His profound love for man. From this resulted a sort of
polarization in His divine thoughts. Jealous of the love of man for
woman, he wanted to humiliate woman. Moreover, in his effort to win
man's love, He distributed favours to chosen men and to a chosen
people without carefully considering the moral implications of
these favours. 
 
    - There is a third extenuating circumstance which the conclave
will reveal to God in due time. 
 
 Taking these extenuating circumstances into account, the
conclave has concluded that the creation of the world and Jehovah's
conduct deserve some praise. It cannot be denied, however, that the
world He created needs some serious improvements. This cannot be
done without profound changes in Jehovah's attitude with respect to
His creatures. In particular, He must realize that no man whose
will has not been miraculously overridden by God is capable of
loving and truly believing in him. 
 
 It is the decision of the conclave, therefore, that Jehovah
shall be sent back to earth, in the form of a man who is incapable
of accomplishing miracles, and, consequently, possesses neither
omniscience nor omnipresence. 
 
 Jehovah is then requested to try to convince man -- even if
it be only one -- that He is actually God. 
 
 The conclave is convinced that many advantages will result
from this experience, advantages which will become apparent to
Jehovah himself in due time.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                  PART TWO
                                  --------
                                 ON EARTH...
                                  --------
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                  CHAPTER XIII
                                      PARIS
 
 Suddenly there I was, strolling down a street in Paris,
dressed like any other Parisian. My reflection in a shop window
revealed a man of uncertain age, but past forty. The face was
serious -- perhaps sad. My hair was flecked with grey. 
 
 I lingered a few moments staring at my image. It was new to
me and three minutes did not seem long to get acquainted with
myself. What kind of face did I now have? Attractive? Repugnant? It
did not matter; I was a man and that was bad enough. Would a man,
metamorphosed suddenly into a porcupine, ask himself in front of a
mirror if the porcupine was beautiful or ugly? 
 
 And still, I could not deny that my physical aspect as man
had some importance. I would have to deal with others and a
handsome face with an engaging expression could be of help. I
looked at my image one last time and went away satisfied in this
respect. 
 
 I was wearing a wristwatch that I checked for the time. My
omniscience was clearly restricted. It would have been easy for me
to deduce the exact hour by looking at the shadows of buildings and
of the men that I jostled. But I did not have access to all my
faculties and, to be practical, I had to use the wristwatch. I cast
a furtive glance at my own shadow -- no, nothing peculiar. 
 
 I did not know what street I was on. I knew that I was in
Paris but I was not sure why. I was thinking in French right then.
The signs of the stores were in French and it appeared I was in a
large city. All doubt dissolved. In the distance, I saw the profile
of the Eiffel Tower above the rooftops. 
 
 I felt some unusual sensations. I was conscious of my
breathing and tried to stop inhaling, but succeeded for only
several seconds. There I was, gifted with involuntary reflexes! 
 
 For hours I walked along streets, bridges, intersections,
past monuments and public gardens, without giving much attention to
my surroundings. The beauty of Paris impresses the tourist, but
enough flavour of divine beauty was still in my memory that it put
Paris to shame. 
 
 My legs grew tired; soon I would have to sit and rest. In
short, I had become a man. I forgot myself for a moment and nearly
started to recite the prayer of the Jew thanking God for making him
a man rather than a woman. The conclave had already noted my
misogynous prejudices; undoubtedly I had to strive to amend my
ways. 
 
 I was human and ... possibly ... mortal. I was not inclined
to put it to the test, so I had to pay attention to the traffic
when I crossed the streets. 
 
 I noticed sadly how much my ability to reason and remember
had been reduced. I tried to make a quick summary of what was left
to me in the way of different aspects of human contemporary
knowledge. It became apparent that my memory did not contain
anything which could not have been acquired on earth by reading or
by university study. I had some elements of mathematics, physics,
biology, medicine, literature, history, geography and so forth, but
I did not have a complete understanding of any of these
disciplines. My knowledge was extensive in human terms but it was
not miraculous. 
 
 I took stock of my situation on earth. The man that I had
become was much to be pitied. I was in Paris neither as tourist nor
as citizen. Not even as a poor old man with a few cronies here and
there in the area. 
 
 My frustration was building despite a strange -- almost
physical -- humility. It rose from the obvious fact that my will
had ceased to be sovereign and my understanding had been reduced by
the conclave. This indignity weighed heavily. Must I now become
used to my downfall? Must I, like everyone else, learn to say
"please" and "thank you"? Must I be careful not to step on the toes
of a passerby? Must I resign myself to being ignored, pushed
around, deceived and mistreated? Was it really necessary to reduce
God to such a state? I was revolted by the treatment meted out by
the conclave. Memories of the trial came to mind and I remembered
the god who looked a little like Job. 
 
 My comprehension was no longer total and I had to sort out my
ideas, consider them one by one. I was sorry to discover that I was
more influenced by the association of ideas than by a rational or
Divine necessity. A god's face reminded me of Job, and Job reminded
me of the trials that I had forced him to undergo. I felt bitter.
Why could I not think directly of Job without considering his
resemblance to one of the gods! True, I too had reduced a thinking
being to a state of despair and decrepitude. I had my reasons. So,
presumably, did the conclave. 
 
 No human could suspect my dejection at being reduced to think
in human ways of human concepts. To the rhythm of my beating heart,
I repeated, "I am a man, I am a man, I am a man," in the same way
that a man would have said, "I am a leper, a leper, a leper!" 
 
 I was troubled by sensations in my body so overwhelming that
they interrupted my thoughts and took first priority. However much
I wanted to concentrate on my situation as dethroned God, to make
some decisions regarding my conduct on earth, my mind returned to
the requirements of my legs and my stomach. I knew that I had legs.
I knew that I had an entire human body, but was only aware of my
legs. I also had hands, but I hardly thought of them -- they were
not tired and were easy to forget. My legs tyrannized me so much
that I forgot what I was thinking of. I was becoming a spirit whose
mind was polarized to seek only the well-being of its legs. 
 
 Soon I forgot my legs to worry about a slight upset in my
stomach. I could not pin it down precisely but it was becoming more
intense and seemed to be linked with my sore legs and a faintness
in my head. So that was what hunger felt like! I had to confess
that no amount of omniscience could replace the real experience.
When I created hunger, I intended to induce man to eat to renew his
energies. Truthfully, I never intended to make hunger so miserable.
I would have to rethink that later, but right then I had to eat. 
 
 My outfit had pockets that were empty -- no -- I pulled a one
hundred franc note from the pocket of the jacket. I stopped a
passerby. 
 
 "Can you tell me, Monsieur," I asked, "where there is a
restaurant near here?" 
 
 "La moakheza! Mankalemch francawi!" 
 
 Curse that tower of Babel and the multiplicity of languages! 
 
 I told myself that I must watch my temper. I must get used to
my limitations and acquire the necessary patience to adapt to my
new state. It even occurred to me that I was, perhaps, too
arrogant. I did not want to come to terms with the fact that I had
become a man. It was time for me to understand that there was a
purpose in my present earthly nature. I should make use of my
senses, feel through them whatever men feel and start learning what
it means to be a man. 
 
 As if coming out of a dream, I looked around with wide-opened
eyes. I tried to perceive all sounds and to detect all odours
reaching me ... and it was good. 
 
 I was in the Jardin du Luxembourg, separated from the
quartier latin by the Boulevard St. Michel. I was not far from the
ornamental lake where children were testing their latest miniature
models of radio-controlled motorboats and hydrofoils. 
 
 If you wanted to indulge in abstract philosophical thinking,
the noise of the children would have been a nuisance. But then you
would have been wise to take your walk in a calmer part of the
garden. However, if you just wanted to relax and forget your
worries, the children's frolic would be charming indeed. I enjoyed
it for awhile but abstract philosophical thinking was still my main
concern. I went away from the pond and took an alley that seemed
much quieter. It lead me to a marble sculpture representing a naked
couple absorbed in a passionate kiss. The woman's breasts were
bared and I felt embarrassed at this display of the flesh. I moved
to another part of the garden. 
 
 Under a tree was a bench covered with dead leaves. I stopped
to sit and noticed a small bird on the bench. It was still alive
but unable to fly. It fluttered its wings from time to time but
could not get off its feet. It must have been sick, or perhaps it
had a broken wing. 
 
 Two boys were playing at throwing tops. One of them, in order
to retrieve his top, came close to the bench. He saw the bird and
proposed to his friend to tie a string to its legs. The other
applauded at the idea. Moments later each child in turn was taking
pleasure at tossing the bird into the air. The bird would make
desperate efforts at flying away but would be prevented by the
string binding it to a child's hand. The bird soon stopped moving
and remained hanging at the end of the string. The boys checked the
bird and, finding no sign of life in it, lost interest in their
cruel game. 
 
 I left the Jardin du Luxembourg, avoided the large boulevards
and strolled along Lacepede Street. My feet hurt; I had often heard
it said that new shoes never feel as good as an old pair which you
know well. I hoped mine would age soon. 
 
 Then a familiar odour invaded my nostrils. There was no
doubt; it was grilled meat. From instinct, I headed off toward the
source of the smell. Then stopped. Yes, I recognized this odour
well! It was the same that rose from the altars when man made
sacrifices to me. 
 
 I was contrite; the conclave had strongly scolded me about my
liking for sacrifices. Contrary to common saying I could now say
that 'the body is willing but the spirit is not'. I took a
different street and entered a bistro where I took a cheese
sandwich and, for the first time, knew from personal experience
what it was like to satiate one's hunger. 
 
 My stomach full, I now needed to rest my legs and would
gladly have taken a nap. In any case, I would have appreciated
resting in a private room -- with a toilet. It was traumatic to
have to feel physical needs. The conclave could have spared me this
humiliation. But if I had been able to abstain from satisfying my
needs, that would have been a miracle. The conclave had suspended
the possibility of miracles. 
 
 There was no shortage of hotels. I went into the first one
which seemed modest. A person behind the counter gave me a form to
fill out. On it I had to give my name and then show some piece of
identification. 
 
 I stuttered something and left. 
 
 What name could I give? God? Jehovah? 
 
 What piece of identification could I produce? For a second
time I rummaged through my pockets. This time I discovered a card
with a picture resembling me and marked with the name, GOD. 
 
 Yes! I had been sent to earth to accomplish a mission and I
was supposed to affirm my being God. Undoubtedly, this card was
intended to remind me of what I had been sent to do. 
 
 I retraced my steps and once again asked for a room. 
 
 I wrote God as my name and produced my identification. The
clerk behind the counter laughed heartily. "That's a good one! For
someone with a face like yours, that's not bad at all!" 
 
 Inexplicably he threw my form in a garbage can and handed me
another to fill out. I marked God for the second time and waited
for his reaction. The clerk raised his eyebrows and looked at me
for awhile. He was abrupt. 
 
 "What is your first name?" 
 
 What had to be done, had to be done. 
 
 "The Eternal!" I replied. 
 
 "I think," he said, "this joking has gone on long enough. I
don't have time to waste with a fool. Either you are going to get
serious, or leave me alone and get out without any trouble. If not,
I'll call the police!" 
 
 That was the first time that a man had addressed me, face to
face, with such language. Had I the full capacity of my powers, a
thunderbolt from the sky would have been cast down instantly on the
man. In fact I felt as if I had called for his annihilation but in
vain. It took several moments for me to realize that the man was
not at fault. 
 
 I was suddenly ashamed, struck by the similarity between the
wrath of God and the human fury I felt against the clerk. I was
inclined to consider the fury as a human shortcoming and was afraid
to recognize that, in all fairness, divine wrath was not a sign of
perfection. 
 
 I walked away from the hotel. After several minutes I spied
a urinal and entered it. Then I felt my stomach turn and my muscles
became paralyzed. My heartbeat speeded up and I could barely catch
my breath. 
 
 I WAS NOT CIRCUMCISED!! 
 
 Not only had I become an ordinary man -- I did not even
belong to my chosen people! Moreover, I was forced to handle this
uncircumcised member which I absolutely abhorred. 
 
 I seized the foreskin with my fingernails and, with all the
force I could muster, ripped it off with a savage pull. 
 
 Blood streamed out and I lost consciousness. 
 
 When I came to, I was lying in a bed in a clinic. My clothes
were hung over a chair. A nurse entered and approached me with a
thermometer. Immediately I was overcome with a fear of having any
physical contact with her. The nurse must have noticed my
nervousness as she leaned over to place the thermometer in my
mouth. I could not avoid noticing the roundness of her breasts. The
conclave had gifted me with a strong male sensuality! 
 
 One might be surprised at my reaction. Every man has
doubtless felt the effect of an attractive female on his senses
many times. This is a part of his nature, of the nature that I gave
him. Now I found the animal part of me making its presence known
with a vengeance. It was no consolation to know that my will was
enough to dominate the animal. Whether or not it is outlawed, the
desire is still there! No prohibition will make it go away. The
desire for fornication is as bestial as the act itself and I had
for both a great disgust which had been well understood by Jesus
and the disciples. 
 
 I needed to take a good look at my situation and decide what
actions I should undertake. I certainly had not been sent to earth
only to see if I could convince a man of my quality as God; in such
a case this masculine sensuality would not have been necessary. It
seemed that the conclave had deemed it necessary to make me capable
of feeling human sensations. Perhaps they had hoped to bring me
closer to man by forcing me to put myself in his place. 
 
 While I tried to put order in my thoughts, the nurse
surprised me with an unexpected question. 
 
 "What is your religion, sir?" 
 
 I tried to avoid a direct answer. 
 
 "Is this information really necessary?" 
 
 "Oh, no!" she replied. "But if you would like to chat with a
minister or priest, I must know what faith you belong to." 
 
 "I intend to get up and leave the clinic. I don't want to
talk with anyone right now." 
 
 "As you wish," she smiled. "The doctor said that if you
insisted, you could leave this morning, although he recommends that
you stay one more day to make sure that no infection develops." 
 
 I dressed in a hurry and left. 
 
 It was raining outside. My laws of nature allowed for the
succession of day and night and of the various seasons without my
constant intervention. In my absence the universe was maintaining
its rythms. 
 
 I noticed a church and headed towards it, staying near walls
to escape the rain. Within I found several worshippers praying. I
sat on one of the benches, and when the entire congregation knelt
down I was the only one still seated. Several cast disapproving
glances. 
 
 The prayer ended and the faithful left the church one after
another. I was left alone with the priest. He was a man radiating
good health and happiness. A kind-hearted expression suggested an
altogether sympathetic man. 
 
 "Good-day, my son," he said. 
 
 My son! Let's disregard it. His intention was friendly. 
 
 "Good-day, monsieur le cure, " I said. "Can you spare me a
few minutes?" 
 
 "Certainly, my son," the priest answered in a gentle tone.
"Come with me through this door and we will be undisturbed." 
 
 I followed him into a room and, at his invitation, sat down. 
 
 "Relax. That's better," said the priest. "Now, what can I do
for you? Judging from your expression, you seem very worried." 
 
 There, in front of me, was one of my servants who had devoted
his life to worshipping me and to guiding the flocks toward me. And
here was I, his God, a few steps away yet a total stranger. He was
smiling at me as no man ever smiled at his God. The smile was for
an unknown man, but would have frozen on the priest's lips if he
had the least suspicion. 
 
 My feelings were contradictory. I missed the impression of
awe I used to evoke. Yet I had to admit that the smile, the first
I had ever received, moved me more than I thought was possible. I
considered the reversal of roles: the priest was confident in his
faith, undisturbed by doubts while I, his God, was coming to him in
the hope of getting answers to clarify my thoughts. But what could
I expect from a man to whom I had never extended a faculty of
omniscience? Had I been more generous to him in my days of glory,
I could now have reaped some reward. 
 
 I looked again. His appearance bore the marks of a regular
life -- not too hard, not too eventful. He enjoyed good meals and
good wine for which he thanked me dutifully many times a day. 
 
 Did his smile indicate a satisfied life, an absence of
anguish, a lack of awareness of miseries? Or did it portray the
love he felt for his neighbour or for any stranger? This man, much
more than others, was expected to be close to me. But was he? He
believed in the Bible -- I could picture him in a Sunday school
explaining to children the strength of Abraham's faith; he would
tell about Abraham's readiness to sacrifice his only son on my
orders. I doubted, however, that the priest sitting before me would
have passed such a test. 
 
 "Monsieur le cure," I began, "I have some problems that I
prefer not to discuss right now. Perhaps talking with you will help
me. I would like to ask some questions. Are you willing to assist
me?" 
 
 "Go ahead, my son," he encouraged me. "God commands us to
help one another." 
 
 "Monsieur le cure," I said, coming to the point, "do you
believe that God could come into this room and reveal Himself as a
common man?" 
 
 The priest was obviously questioning my purpose. Nevertheless
he went along with me. 
 "If He wanted to," he replied. "Of course He could! But I
doubt that I deserve such a visit. I don't even think I deserve a
visit from one of His angels. But yes, God could appear in front of
me if He wanted to. Why do you ask? Have you, my son, had a vision
of God appearing?" 
 
 "No," I said, "but I would like to know if, without resorting
to a miracle, and without using the power of His will, it would be
possible for God to convince you that He is God even though He
appears to you as an ordinary mortal." 
 
 The priest was very patient. 
 
 "An ordinary mortal, my son," he replied, "is not God.
Nothing in this world or in heaven takes place without God's will.
Without a miracle and without the power of His will, God is not
God! If arguments exist which can convince me that a person, who is
incapable of performing a miracle, incapable of imposing his will,
is nevertheless God the Father Himself, what would prevent any
ordinary mortal from convincing me that he is God by using the same
arguments? 
 
 "If God wishes, His arguments would convince me; but that
would happen only as a result of God's will. If ten people appeared
in front of me pretending to be God and all presenting identical
arguments, and if God was among them and I distinguished Him from
the other nine, would that not be a miracle? Must I not then
attribute this miracle to God's will?" 
 
 I was struck by the clarity of his arguments. However, I
found one weakness in them. I knew that it would be unwise, in my
present state, to present myself to someone and to declare out of
the blue that I was God. I must first win someone's confidence. 
 
 "Thank you, monsieur le cure. I will think about what you
have just told me." Then I added, "Do you know where I can find a
shelter without having to produce identification papers?" 
 
 The priest hesitated, then threw me a piercing look. 
 
 "Stay out of trouble, my son," he cautioned. "Here is an
address where you will be welcome." 
 
 Seizing the paper, I thanked him and left. 
 
 The hostel was run by the Sisters of Charity. Alcohol was
forbidden, and my neighbours explained that, for this reason, they
rarely came there. A hot meal was served and I forced myself to eat
my portion. The ingredients were unrecognizable and the taste was
bad. 
 
 Afterward we were allowed to remain seated, to put our heads
on the table and sleep. Several groups formed, conversations
started and voices were raised from time to time. 
 
 I must have been very tired, for I felt a strong need to
sleep. I made an effort to resist it. Sleeping is a temporary
subordination of the mind to the body, of the spiritual to the
material. It may be good for men but I felt it undignified for God.
I therefore forced my mind to think and started by recapitulating
the events of the day. I reached a state of partial awakeness and
partial dreaming in which my rational thinking was intermixed with
visions. I reflected on the children's cruelty I witnessed at the
Jardin du Luxembourg. I remembered that I had often associated
feasts and other happy events with the sacrifice of animals. The
thought started to nag me that, maybe, in some way, I was
responsible for this cruelty. I then discarded the thought. Did I
ever approve of torturing animals? Did I not request that they be
treated decently to the extent of letting them enjoy the weekly
rest? 
 
 I had nevertheless to recognize that my messages were
contradictory. On occasions, I requested love and consideration. On
occasions I ordered lack of pity. On occasions I even condoned
torture. 
 
 Half-awake I then drifted in a vision. I was in a jungle. All
around were singing birds. Noises in the foliage contributed to a
menacing atmosphere and my chest was tight with terror. Suddenly a
figure seemed to move in the landscape. A tiger was rushing towards
me. I froze in terror. The tiger was advancing rapidly, yet the
moment seemed to go on forever. For awhile I forgot that I was --
or once was -- God. I knew only that I was the prey of a savage
animal and that I faced an agonizing death. The tiger reached me,
ground my shoulder between his jaws and shredded my stomach with
one of his paws. The ultimate hopelessness was indescribable. 
 
 I shook the vision away still gasping for breath and soaking
in perspiration. It had been so realistic. Had it come from the
brain of the man I presently was, or was it a message from the
conclave? 
 
 I was by now totally awake. This did not prevent visions to
haunt me. They were no longer the doing of imagination. They were
memories brought back to life. I saw slaughters and holocausts,
heard the supplications of innocents and, in the background, a
voice murmuring, "Where were you? Were you busy with other
matters?" Where indeed was I when they called to me in vain? Where
was I when children starved, when they suffered, when they were
murdered, when they were devoured by ferocious beasts? 
 
 I had always felt that eternity was most important and that
there was no need to concern myself unduly with earthly suffering.
Yet being prey to a tiger, if only in a dream, I was now inclined
to reconsider. 
 
 The desire for sleep had vanished. It was dawn. I looked
around and noticed my fellow men indulging in their various
activities. Some still snored, others were awakening slowly.
Several scratched themselves. Suddenly I had an irresistible urge
and started to scratch all over my feet, hands, stomach and face. 
 
 "Damn these lice and bugs!" someone exclaimed. 
 
 "You don't like the company?" another asked him. 
 
 Laughter broke out here and there. 
 
 When I was God in full power, I had often heard the laughter
of man. I must have heard even such a laugh as this. Today it told
me something else. 
 
 Laughter is a language that often none but the initiated can
understand. Laughing noisily at a joke which merits only a smile
betrays nervousness or lack of taste. It takes experience and
intuition to hear, in a laugh, the expression of a drowning person
who briefly thinks he has his hands on a life-buoy. A man whose
life is empty of meaning, who has forgotten for a long time what it
is to feel happy, who flees from his memories, can also laugh, but
his laughter will be peculiar. 
 
 In my present state, was I capable of laughing? 
 
 I stopped once more to scratch myself. The limits imposed on
my omniscience made me forget what had pushed me to create lice.
Perhaps omniscience had jeopardized my powers of concentration on
matters of lesser importance. 
 
 A Sister of Charity entered; she ordered us to take our mugs
and fill them with hot tea. I took my cup and a bit of crust and
was told to read the employment announcements carefully. There was
no one else at the notice board and I started to read the Want Ads.
Most offered a little money for a task which would take only a few
hours to finish. One was different. It read: 
 
      Farmer in Perigueux region needs labourer. Candidate must
      be healthy, serious and abstain from alcohol, except for
      a moderate amount of wine at meal times.
 
 
 
                                 CHAPTER XIV
                                TO PERIGUEUX
 
 
 I took a seat near the window in the train for Perigueux.
Departure time was noon and it was now eleven-thirty. I watched the
travellers come and go. For a moment I forgot I was God, forgot the
problems I had to resolve. 
 
 A whole world appeared before me -- rich and poor, young and
old. Their expressions seemed so varied -- sorrow, joy, serenity,
preoccupation, laughter. Sometimes my gaze met that of another,
whose expression would fleetingly grow more beautiful. How is it
that a glance between strangers can convey so much warmth? I didn't
know. 
 
 With omniscience, I had known all and felt no need for direct
communication. But I remained ignorant of what one person produces
in another by a glance which can be indifferent, inquisitive,
friendly, bewildered. That is the whole difference between factual
knowledge and knowledge in process of being acquired. 
 
 The train seemed to shudder. It was noon, but instead of
moving the train remained still while the platform moved backward.
The common illusion wouldn't deserve mention but it brought a
sequence of thoughts important to me. Appearances are  deceptive,
the senses are misleading and information becomes correct only
after being filtered by reason. How much is one to blame for being
caught in the deception of appearances? 
 
 The rhythm of the train can accommodate any musical tune. It
is enough to relate -- for just a moment -- the noise of the train
to a known melody. This melody sticks in your ear and haunts you
right to your destination ... unless a baby starts to cry. Then
nothing else counts! 
 
 The cries of children ... I had caused so many of them! When
I decreed the deaths of the firstborn sons of Egypt, those who were
still babies died crying. When I ordered the Israelites to put all
male child prisoners to the sword, they also died sobbing and
convulsing. But I was omniscient then and the crying of children
was only a fraction of all I had to know and observe. 
 
 How different now! It was the sobbing of the baby which was
omnipotent and omnipresent; it made me lose the train of thought
and the melody which haunted me. Unable to do anything else, I
watched the child. I asked the mother, "Is it your firstborn?" 
 
 Immediately I felt a blush. I should have posed the question
differently. 
 
 The mother replied without noticing my embarrassment. 
 
 "If I have others, then this will be my first. If not, he
will be my firstborn as well as my last." 
 
 Then, taking the child in her hands, she handed him to me
smiling. 
 
 "Could you hold him a moment," she asked, "while I get out
his food?" 
 
 I took the child in my arms while the mother rummaged in her
bag. As soon as I took him the child stopped crying. His tiny hand
grasped the hairs of my beard and he started to smile. But the
crying resumed suddenly. Luckily, I was able to resist my first
impulse -- to throw the baby out the window. 
 
 When I think of that now my hair stands on end. 
 
 The fact is that I was still too close to the God I had been,
and not yet enough of the man I was supposed to be. I had no wish
to hold the baby and its sobbing annoyed me. If I were still
omnipotent I could have made myself deaf to the sobs. That is what
I had done, how I had been able to ignore the crying of millions of
children. Stripped of my powers, however, I could not ignore the
sobs. To throw the child out the window was, in my present state,
equivalent to remaining deaf to the cries of millions of children. 
 
 The child quietened once more. 
 
 By what miracle it happened just at that moment, I do not
know, but it was completely dark and I could see nothing at all
when, suddenly, the light in the compartment came on again and my
eyes chanced to settle on a crucifix hanging round the mother's
neck. It took on a supernatural dimension, and I saw a child
crucified on it. 
 
 "Jesus!" I exclaimed to myself in a low voice, pressing the
child to my chest as tears began to roll down my cheeks. 
 
 Everyone's eyes were fixed on me. 
 
 "I lost my child," I said to the mother. What else could I
say? 
 
 Then the mother handed me a bottle of milk. 
 
 "Perhaps," she said, "you would like to give the baby his
bottle." 
 
 I nodded and took the bottle. The baby started to suck while
staring eagerly at me. 
 
 I felt completely different now. I began to understand that
my divine powers had produced an insensitivity which isolated me
from my creatures. I had never considered them as having rights of
their own. I had created them and so had the right to destroy them;
they belonged to me. Then I remembered again the ordeals that I had
imposed on Job. After causing the deaths of his children I gave him
others in their place, as if another child could erase the grief
caused by the loss of a child! I thought, too, of Abraham who would
not hesitate to kill his son for me. That case now seemed a mystery
to me. For the lives of the people of Sodom and Gommorah, Abraham
haggled unceasingly. Yet not once did he open his mouth to save his
son Isaac. 
 
 The child let go of his bottle and fell asleep in my arms. 
 
 I knew nothing of this child. Perhaps his great-grandfather
had offended me and I had damned him until the fourth generation.
If so, I was holding a child that I had damned. On the other hand
perhaps he was a bastard, not even authorized to be found in my
presence. 
 
 In a drop of water that wouldn't wet a cat a small insect can
drown. Armed with my divinity I would have considered such a child
no more than a drop of water. But for the man to which I had been
reduced, this child took on other proportions. I had no others
before me, and it mattered to me to know whether I had condemned
this child beforehand. 
 
 This child who slept, who from time to time opened his eyes
and looked straight into mine, this child ... 
 
 I loved him. 
 
 The man leaning on the old truck had to be my boss, Gaston --
my boss! 
 
 I found it hard to adapt to the human condition. I could not
stop feeling sleepy, needing six to eight hours of rest a day; as
the first signs of sleepiness occurred I felt both impotence and
fury. If it was difficult to accept the need to sleep, how could I
submit to a boss, even one that I had chosen? 
 
 Gaston spoke first. 
 
 "Am I right? Do you really call yourself the Eternal?" 
 
 "Yes," I replied. "That is my name." 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 "You should keep it to yourself," he said. "Here we will call
you Lanterne. It is shorter and sounds the same." 
 
 His voice was calm and friendly. He looked me over from head
to toe. 
 
 "Put your suitcase in the back of the truck and sit up front.
We will be able to talk." 
 
 The truck slipped into the traffic. I waited for Gaston to
speak but he seemed a little anxious and gave all his attention to
driving the truck. After a few minutes he said: 
 
 "I don't like to drive in the city. The drivers take no
notice of traffic laws and unless you are used to it, an accident
can happen so quickly." 
 
 He kept quiet for a while, then ventured conversing again. 
 
 "Have you ever worked in the fields?" he asked. 
 
 "No," I replied, "but I learn fast and no job puts me off. 
 
 "We shall see," said Gaston. He then continued, "Your hands
bear no mark of hard labour." 
 
 "That's true, but I know what to expect and I am willing to
work hard." 
 
 "We shall see, we shall see," mused Gaston. 
 
 He braked suddenly, shouted at a pedestrian and slumped into
his seat. A young man was lying less than half a metre from the
truck. Gaston had hit the brakes just in time. The pedestrian got
up and went on his way while Gaston, in a cold sweat and still out
of breath, was brought back to reality by the honking behind him.
He started off, murmuring a few words in an incomprehensible
dialect. Soon the truck left the city and Gaston relaxed and began
to whistle a popular tune. 
 
 "Did you see that guy run in front of the truck?" 
 
 "Yes," I replied, "I did. And I saw how it affected you." 
 
 He turned his head towards me for a moment. 
 
 "Of course it affected me. But I must say you stayed
remarkably calm." He hesitated a moment before adding, "That is not
a good sign, Lanterne. A human life must count for something. When
it is in danger, we should at least feel a shiver." 
 
 An ordinary man -- not the conclave -- was now lecturing me.
I had to smile at the thought that Gaston could not know he was
speaking to his Creator. 
 
 "You worried about your neighbour," I replied, "because you
identified with him. It is your own death which frightens you. If
you were eternal you would not have reacted that way." 
 
 He was visibly displeased with what I had said. 
 
 "Your way of speaking is complicated. I don't know what you
mean by identifying with your neighbour. Why do you use big words
when all that's necessary is to be good-natured and to act and feel
as God made us." 
 
 He stopped awhile then continued. "Do you know that you are
talking like a teacher? Could you help children in grades seven and
ten with their maths and language arts?" 
 
 I preferred not to become a teacher but I wanted to please
Gaston. 
 
 "I think so," I replied. "I can always try." 
 
 He smiled happily. "What luck!" he said. "My kids Justine and
Lucien need a boost in their studies." 
 
 It was nearly midday when we arrived at Nontron. Gaston
stopped the truck in front of a cafe-restaurant. 
 
 "Come eat with me," he said. 
 
 We sat around a small round table and Gaston ordered two
meals and some wine. There was no menu, so we had to content
ourselves with the day's special. The owner served us himself and
then came to sit with us. Gaston must have been a regular customer,
for the owner asked him for news of his wife, his children, his
work and the farm. 
 
 Gaston introduced me as a labourer and a teacher. "Lanterne
is not a common name," the owner remarked. "But I must admit that
it suits a teacher perfectly." He burst out laughing. We laughed
with him and the conversation continued while we ate. Gaston ate
everything on his plate. I ate the rice, lettuce and vegetables but
did not touch the meat. 
 
 "No one," Gaston said, "makes meatballs like Robert. Go on,
eat them." 
 
 The meatballs did seem pleasant, and I would have eaten them
willingly. However, I tried to avoid eating meat. 
 
 "No, thanks," I said. "I am a vegetarian." 
 
 "Well, well," said Gaston, "you should have told me earlier.
I would not have hired you if I had known. Without meat you get
tired very quickly." 
 
 He spoke pleasantly, like someone completely convinced of
what he said. He did not sound aggressive. 
 
 "Don't worry," I replied. "I will do my share. I just feel
that I can feed myself without meat. Animals do not have to die on
my account." 
 
 "Not on yours, perhaps," he retorted, "but foxes, wolves,
eagles and owls have no choice. Eating meat is part of the natural
order of things." 
 
 He stopped a moment. 
 
 "You are a strange fellow," he added. "An hour ago you were
perfectly calm when I nearly killed a man with my truck; now you
refuse meat for love of the animals!" 
 
 Gaston was right. My thoughts were still confused and my
feelings even more so. On one hand I tried to consider the
criticisms of the conclave but, on the other hand, I was not yet
convinced they were fair. I needed time to think, and my life as a
man was taking up more time than it should. 
 
 We arrived at Gaston's farm and labourers hurried to carry
packages from the truck to the farmhouse. I wanted to help but
Gaston stopped me. 
 
 "You will start work tomorrow," he said. "Albert will show
you to your room. I have already told him that you are a teacher
and need a quiet, comfortable corner." 
 
 I was going to start a new chapter in my life on earth. I was
not apprehensive, simply resigned to carrying out my mission. It
was too early to develop a plan of action, and I was glad to have
an afternoon free to think. I needed to ponder my experiences
relating to men as well as my own feelings and reactions. In fact
the man I most needed to study was the one to which I had been
reduced by the conclave. 
 
 After my first day's work I returned to my room tired but not
exhausted. The room and furniture were rough, clean, and could be
made more attractive by furnishing the shelves on either side of
the bed. I washed my hands and face at the bureau, then sat at the
small round table and began to reflect on the day's events. The
most significant was my meeting with Lucien. He was friendly and
volunteered information about how the farm was run, the mistakes a
new labourer should avoid and how to obtain Gaston's trust. 
 
 "To please my Dad," he told me, "you must take good care of
the cow, Gisele, refrain from swearing and wake up early in the
morning. Gisele is the one with a few black spots on her white
skin. She was once very ill, so ill that the veterinarian gave up
on her. But Dad gave her medicines, cures he made himself, until
one day she was back on her feet. Since then she's been his
darling." 
 
 He continued his colourful descriptions of the people living
or working on the farm. What impressed me most was the respect and
adoration he expressed for his sister Justine. 
 
 "You will see," he said convincingly. "She is a real fairy.
No one is as smart, as kind, or as beautiful as she is. She rules
by her magic over everyone. I am the only one who can stand up to
her, but it is tough!" 
 
 I smiled. It was not difficult to understand how a boy of
thirteen could be impressed by the maturity of a sister three years
older. Possibly, Lucien had a tendency to exaggerate. I stood up
and took another good look at my room. Soon there was a knock at
the door and a girl entered. I describe her as a girl because she
was obviously young and wore a school uniform. In another setting
she could have been called a young lady. 
 
 I could not take my eyes off her. I had to stop myself from
stroking her hair, but whether this was just a fatherly impulse or
a symptom of a baser instinct I could not tell. The girl stared
back at me. Her look measured me, weighed me, penetrated me and
seemed to be both friendly and respectful. Finally she spoke. 
 
 "Monsieur Lanterne, my name is Justine. My father told me you
would help me with my lessons and my homework." Her voice was
clear, with a pleasant ring. I felt moved. 
 
 "Good evening Justine," I replied. "Your father just calls me
Lanterne and I'd like you to do the same. I don't like to be called
Monsieur." 
 
 "Then I will call you Lanterne like everyone else, but I
don't see anything wrong with Monsieur." 
 
 She had a smile which I could not interpret. Was it ironical?
 
 
 "I see you like to argue," I commented. 
 
 "Not always," she answered. "But I don't know you well. Two
or three discussions -- arguments if you prefer -- will help me
know you better." 
 
 I felt a little apprehensive. "I noticed that you looked me
over carefully," I remarked. "Now you want to probe the contents of
my brain." 
 
 She smiled and said in a determined but friendly voice, "I am
interested in the brain and heart of all the people around me." 
 
 "Have you been successful in your observations?" I asked. 
 
   Once more she smiled enigmatically. "That depends on what you
mean by success. Mine lies in developing a talent for observation
and learning from my mistakes." 
 
 I was surprised at so much good sense in a young girl. 
 
 "Justine," I told her, "you don't seem to be an easy pupil to
guide, but you have a good head on your shoulders." 
 
 She held out her hand and smiled at me. "Lanterne, let's be
good friends." 
 
 I hesitated, looking from her hand to her face. I feared any
physical contact with her, yet I could not ignore such a sincere
offer of friendship. I took her hand, but before I could say
anything more she withdrew it, smiled at me again and quickly left
the room. 
 
 After she left I could think of nothing else. Every thought,
every subject, came back to Justine. The white tablecloth reminded
me of her white blouse. The empty shelves suggested the books I
would use for teaching her. If I stopped thinking, Justine's face
smiled into my thoughts immediately. The feel of her hand burned in
my memory and thrilled me. 
 
 At first I wanted to curse her and all other women. They
distract man from his purpose and cause dangerous temptations. I
myself was subject to these temptations, and should be ready to
resist them. I thought about it for a long time. 
 
 Did Justine's manner spring from a flirtatious nature or a
kind heart? It occurred to me that the problem might lie not only
with her, but with my attitude. Something unclear in me refused to
let me accept the reciprocity of the situation even when it was
obvious. Woman tempts man, but man also tempts woman. Why did I
attach more importance to feminine temptations than to masculine
ones? Shouldn't I overcome my reluctance to treat man and woman the
same? These thoughts occupied me for hours, until I finally decided
to accept Justine's offer of friendship and to react to her mental
and emotional qualities without regarding them as diabolically
feminine. 
 
 Still I knew that something was wrong, and for awhile I could
find no clue to what it was. I did not want to admit that I had
been impressed by Lucien's intellect and that I had expected it to
be superior to Justine's. I was wrong and didn't like it. Justine
was altogether feminine, but her intellect was too masculine for my
taste. 
 
 Once more, her smile took hold of my memory. It was innocent
and natural. It had its magic but there was no pretence in it. I
sensed my unfairness. After all, intelligence is a gift. Justine
was using it, not just displaying it, and ... and ... it was not
necessarily masculine.
 
 
                                 CHAPTER XV
                                  THE FARM
 
 I became a farm labourer and learned firsthand the value of
a weekly rest, one day a week dedicated to me. 
 
 One Sunday Gaston and his wife Christine went to the village
with Justine and Lucien to attend morning mass. I stayed on at the
farm, glad of the solitude. 
 
 When I had first come to the farm I had been the object of
mockery. Gaston would send me to do a chore and add, "Don't take an
eternity!" Even the name Lanterne had led to jokes. Lucien would
say "Take Lanterne, you will be able to see better." It seemed I
had now won everyone's respect. My physical strength was adequate
for farm work. Gaston was satisfied. 
 
 Gaston doubted at first that I would be able to help the
children in their studies, though it was his own idea. He often
came to see for himself how the lessons were progressing. I suppose
he also spoke with Justine and Lucien about my work as a teacher.
Reports from the school indicated definite improvements, and he
stopped bothering with the children's studies. I was now more free
to observe Justine and Lucien. 
 
 When the weather was good we went into the fields with our
books and paper pads. While I taught Lucien, Justine was supposed
to concentrate on her own studies. She worked a little way off so
as not to be disturbed by our noise, but I noticed that she spent
a good part of her time watching us. When our eyes met occasionally
she smiled and returned to her work. 
 
 Teaching Lucien was not easy. He found it difficult to admit
a mistake. He looked for excuses and often went so far as to
consult dictionaries and class-books, in the hope of finding a
higher authority to agree with him. One day when he had surpassed
himself, Justine cried, "You could not be more obstinate if you
were God Himself." 
 
 I felt personally insulted. "Do you think obstinacy is a
Divine quality?" 
 
 "No," she said immediately. "I think God has no choice. As He
is always right, He would be making a mistake in changing His mind.
Lucien is obstinate. In man this is definitely a fault, but in God
it is a necessity. It seems to me that if God wished, just once, to
change His mind, He would face a paradox that all His divinity
could not resolve." 
 
 This remark, which seemed to come so easily from Justine, was
a revelation to me. Was this why I had trouble accepting the
conclusions of the conclave? Did I have a resistance in principle
to recognizing an error? In my opposition to the conclave was I, in
a way, like Lucien? Even though Justine's answer irritated me, I
had to admit that she used logic with ease. 
 
 When it was her turn for a lesson the two children changed
places. Justine was serious. Her questions were pertinent, showing
a greater intellectual curiosity than was strictly necessary for
schoolwork. She didn't smile and often took notes. When I found a
mistake her reaction was quite different from Lucien's. She seemed
surprised but, without wasting time, she tried to figure out what
was wrong. If she couldn't she would ask. I did not usually have to
give her long explanations. Sometimes she would stop me in
mid-sentence to tell me that she saw her mistake. 
 
 While I taught Justine, Lucien tried to study or just to stay
still. He couldn't do so for more than ten minutes, then he would
start to sing or chase butterflies. His favourite moments came when
I found a mistake Justine had made. He whooped with joy. We learned
to ignore him. 
 
 On our returns to the farm Lucien ran in front, shouting
songs and turning somersaults. Justine and I walked slowly, talking
of the lesson or discussing things which had happened at school or
on the farm. 
 
 The two children had different natures. Beyond Lucien's
obstinacy and impatience was a strong tendency to be helpful and
affectionate. He also had a spontaneity that made his face radiant.
 
 
 Justine shared his playfulness and mischief as well as a
compulsion to kindness. But here the similarity ended. While Lucien
behaved like a boy of his age and largely deserved the frequent
punishments he received, Justine demonstrated a maturity which
imposed itself on her surroundings. Most of Gaston's difficult
decisions were made after he was put on the right track with
Justine's help. She expressed measured opinions which seemed to
stem from a solid common sense that infected her audience. She
sometimes settled quarrels which seemed serious by giving practical
and unexpected advice. 
 
 I often made mental comparisons between the qualities of
Justine and Lucien and had to admit that Justine's greater maturity
of mind could not be explained solely by her age. She had the mind
of a mathematician and a captain. She also had, perhaps, the
sensitivity of a poet. 
 
 I pondered also over the contrast between Justine and her
mother. Christine, in her own right, was a remarkable person.
Working seemed for her to be as natural as breathing. She kept
herself busy all day long, never complaining and always smiling.
She never expressed opinions except in regard to the amount of food
eaten by the children. It was never enough. She would try to force
some dishes on them underlining how healthy this food was. 
 
 I remember one day Gaston said to her: "The children feel
healthy and don't care for healthy food. You should better praise
the food for being tasty." 
 
 "That the food is tasty," she replied, "they can find out by
themselves. They have to be told that good health depends on good
eating habits." 
 
 What a difference a single generation makes! 
 
 Christine had none of Justine's cravings for knowledge and
independence. She may have had the potential of developing into a
Justine. Somehow it did not occur. 
 
 The family seemed devout, yet Justine wasn't a strong
believer. Occasionally she expressed her doubts openly and was
scolded by Gaston, who adored her. In fact, everyone doted on her.
She was pretty, generous and intelligent. 
 
 I felt real pleasure in looking at her and talking with her.
My strong sensuality must have had something to do with it. Though
the conclave had reduced me to a human, I discovered I still had a
superhuman willpower. It excluded the possibility that I might
succumb to Justine's charms. I knew I had a mission to accomplish.
I could not escape human emotions, but I could act as if my sensual
desires did not exist. 
 
 My personality was made up of two coexisting components:
whatever remained from the God I used to be, plus a human nature
that had its own requirements. The "I" which I use here is
pluralistic, but my will as God dominated my entire personality.
Human nature was only a companion which seemed to have a reason for
being, yet never dictated my conduct. 
 
 I knew that my human companion was in love with Justine. I
looked on my companion's state as a direct source of information.
Those doubts, joys and sorrows were mine also; I felt them acutely
but was completely capable of ignoring them and letting the God who
resided in me take the reins. 
 
 Things had to be this way. It seemed more and more that my
mission would begin with Justine. She would be the first person I
would try to convince that I was God. 
 
 To begin with, Justine was a woman. Moreover, she was one who
commanded respect and esteem by her intelligence, her goodness and
her conduct. Deciding to convince Justine followed a new
appreciation of the intellectual and sentimental qualities of a
woman. Justine was not a believer; but lack of faith no longer
offended me. 
 
 Finally Justine was not an Israelite. I had abandoned the
distinction between Jews and Gentiles. As for my personal feelings,
I considered them a tribute to Justine in particular and to women
in general. 
 
 In any case I did not intend to hurry. An opportune moment to
talk with Justine would come. Until then, I had to be patient and
act in such a way as to be taken seriously later on. 
 
 The sunshine was inviting but I was torn between two lines of
thought. I enjoyed my surroundings -- the range of colours
enchanted my eyes, the singing of the birds lulled my ears, the
rustic smells tantalized my nostrils and a fresh breeze caressed my
face. On the other hand I had to focus on the problems which I
needed to resolve. 
 
 I had to admit that my experiences as a man had influenced my
thoughts and my point of view. I tended more and more to accept the
verdict of the conclave. Human feelings and human conduct could be
a good and useful source of information. Still, at times, I
revolted against my human condition. 
 
 Walking along a path towards the village, I heard the distant
familiar voices of Lucien and Justine. Lucien was chasing her. She
would let him catch up then suddenly zigzag. Lucien's momentum
would carry him in the wrong direction and he would lose his prey.
The air resounded with their shouts and laughter. Justine tripped
and fell laughing. Lucien took a branch from a tree and, pretending
it was a sword, pressed it to his sister's back. He placed his foot
boldly on the high spot of her dress which indicated her buttocks,
declaring that his enemy was at his mercy. 
 
 Suddenly a slight shaking of the ground made them turn
around. A bull, raising a cloud of dust, galloped towards them.
Lucien helped Justine up and they raced for the barn, but the bull
was gaining ground too quickly. 
 
 Each fraction of a second was now crucial. I ran towards the
bull and managed to catch its attention by shouting loudly. It
stopped for a moment, undecided. I grabbed a stone and hurled it.
That was all it took to start him running again, this time towards
me. 
 
 From habit I ordered the bull to disappear. I concentrated my
will on dissipating it. 
 
 I lost consciousness when my body landed after being thrown,
spiralling, into the air. 
 
 I opened my eyes and dimly saw Gaston and his family watching
me attentively. A tube was attached to my nose, another to my left
hand. The irony of my situation did not escape me. God was being
kept alive by the science of His creatures. 
 
 My vision cleared and I could read anxiety on the faces of my
visitors. Lucien pressed closer and I wanted to say a few words to
him, to thank him for coming to see me. Before I could do so he
leaned down and planted a filial kiss on my forehead. 
 
 Bells started to ring in my head; a glorious feeling spread
through me; my heart began to explode and dance. A true miracle had
just taken place. I, God, had received the first sincere and
unsolicited sign of love from one of my creatures. As Lucien lifted
himself away Justine leaned over and placed a kiss on his hair, as
if to express pleasure at his action. 
 
 A nurse entered. Friendly but serious, she told my visitors
to leave. Apparently I was still very weak. 
 
 Days later the intravenous tubes were removed. I could stroll
the corridors as long as my strength lasted. At first a nurse held
onto me tightly to make sure I would not fall. I was in bed for
most of my stay. The nurses came in often, interrupting my train of
thought. They would bring me food and drink, take my temperature,
massage my back, replace my dressings, give me pills, or simply
come in to make sure that I did not need anything. 
 
 I had time to wonder at my actions. The strength of my
feelings surprised me. I had not realised that Justine and Lucien
had come to mean so much to me. When they were about to be
overtaken by the bull, my human side wanted to rush to help them
while my divine 'component' was in less of a hurry; I was not
supposed to risk my divinity for any of my creatures. And still, I
did accept the risks and faced the bull. I acted quickly. But if I
could have then stopped time and frozen the bull and the children
in their position till I could consider all aspects of the
situation, what would have then been my decision? The lack of
omniscience and the lack of time forced me to act by instinct
instead of by reason. The result was ingratiating but would not
always necessarily be so. How many sinners would have lead a
virtuous life if, with more time, they would muster the needed
energy to resist temptation or to overcome cowardness? 
 
 I was interrupted in my thoughts by a nurse who came to
change my dressing. She brought a sterile package which contained,
among other things, a pair of gloves which she hurriedly put on.
First, my wound had to be exposed to air. Just as she began the
procedure her name rang out over the loudspeaker. She hesitated for
a moment -- must she leave the wound open and uncovered, or should
she ignore the call which might be for something more pressing?
Unconsciously, while she weighed the pros and cons, she scratched
her head. Her gloves were no longer sterile but she decided to
finish my dressing. Later, an infection developed in the wound. 
 
 The nurses, evidently, were not perfect creatures. At first
I wondered how much their mistakes resulted from their human nature
rather than from their more specific feminine nature. But then, I
noticed that orderlies and doctors committed similar errors though
I rarely saw them as busy as the nurses. 
 
 The important fact is that my stay in hospital gave me a
unique opportunity to watch women and to notice that, in spite of
being so busy, the nurses usually had a smile and would do anything
to make certain that the patients were as comfortable as possible.
During emergencies they knew exactly what to do, never lost their
calm and seemed to have used good judgment. They took initiative
when they had to and did not hesitate, if necessary, to skip the
red tape. 
 
 I felt ashamed of the injustice I had committed in wanting to
give woman a subordinate role to man. I quickly stopped worrying
about whether or not they were menstruating. Among so many nurses,
several of them had to be; their work and spirits were not affected
by it. To find on the human face an expression of honesty, devotion
and affection now became a source of comfort to me. I had
encountered this expression as often on women's faces as on those
of men. 
 
 I stayed two weeks in the hospital. Justine and Lucien
visited me daily after school. They brought cookies and fruits, and
expressed their impatience to have me return to the farm. 
 
 The chaplains at the hospital were impressed with my
knowledge of the Bible. They were quick to notice that, although
believing in the existence of God, I refused all calls to prayer.
They reminded me repeatedly of the necessity of praying to obtain
eternal life. I had considered praying to the conclave. They had
condemned prayers in the form of ritual or obligation, but had not
excluded spontaneous prayer. Still, the fact that I considered
praying excluded its spontaneous character. 
 
 It was during this stay at the hospital that a definite
transition in my mentality took place. The individual had not
interested me enough. What had been important was the continuity of
the species. When a married man died without leaving any children,
one of his brothers (or, if he had none, his father) was obligated
to marry the widow. This gave the dead brother a progeny which,
miraculously, would be his own. The feelings of the widow and of
the "chosen" brother on this subject had mattered little. 
 
 The individual did not count except as he represented his
race. 
 
 So too, according to my teaching, a young woman who was raped
by a handsome or an ugly young man, or even by a lustful old man,
had no recourse against the rapist except his obligation to marry
her. The rapist might have several wives but, as soon as he agreed
to marry his victim, I ignored his crime since he had assured a
paternity to the progeny of the victim. The unhappy victim had the
choice of agreeing to marry an ignoble person, or of refusing, and
thus running the risk of becoming an unmarried mother. 
 
 I cast my ostracism not only on bastards innocent of the
faults of their parents, but also upon men afflicted with a
physical malformation. They had not the right to approach the
sacred altar. An assaulter and rapist of young women, or a sadist
beating his slaves to death (provided they survived until sunrise),
could approach my altar while an honest man, decent but
hump-backed, must keep his distance. 
 
 In the hospital I had both the time and the necessary
experience to achieve my evolution to a God of compassion and
empathy. 
 
 And, in time, Gaston picked me up in the car and took me back
to the farm.
 
 
                                  CHAPTER XVI
                                    JUSTINE
 
 Every day before leaving for school, Justine would bring me
breakfast. She would then remind me firmly of the number and colour
of pills I must take while she was gone. 
 
 When she returned she would inquire if I had had a good day;
then change my dressings. She would run her hand over my forehead
to draw aside the hair which obstructed my sight, then lay the back
of her hand on my neck to check for fever. Those physical contacts,
made with the professional skill of a nurse, were as agreeable to
me as they apparently were to her. 
 
 When she had finished her nursing duties she would sit on the
edge of the bed and chat with me for an hour or two, telling
stories and describing her day at school. 
 
 Lucien commented more than once on Justine's devotion to me.
His joking suggested that we were, Justine and I, in love. His
mischievousness amused us but, to end it, Justine laughed. 
 
 "That's right! We do not deny it any more; we are in love
with one another! Now will you get lost and leave us in peace?" 
 
 One day Justine asked me to write a few words in her
autograph book. I wrote the following lines: 
 
      I have never had a sister. 
      If I could ever have one, 
      I would love it to be Justine. 
           THE ETERNAL (known as Lanterne) 
 
 I never had a sister? It was my human component that emitted
this complaint and I, God, thought now that there was a grain of
truth in it. Moreover, by writing it, I stated the kind of
relationship I wanted to have with Justine. 
 
 She read my lines then came to me, kissed me on both cheeks
and said, "You are adorable." 
 
 I could hardly prevent myself from a play on words, "Being
adorable, is that not one of God's privileges?" 
 
 I was confused, but pleased to hear her say, "So that's it!
You are therefore God to me!" 
 
 I was mad at my human component! When Justine leaned over me
to kiss me, my eyes automatically looked down her blouse. As it
happened, I could see nothing. But it was a serious warning to me.
Sister or not, I must be on my guard. 
 
 My health returned completely and I wanted to resume my
normal duties. Gaston was opposed, declaring that I was still a
convalescent and that, in any case, a holiday would do me good. It
was enough that I keep myself busy teaching the children. 
 
 Lucien was happy to use my time. He was intelligent and
studious. I had known he was obstinate but only now could I
appreciate the full measure of it. He took pleasure in
contradicting everyone. His favorite expression was "That is not
true!" Justine often teased him "Mr. without a clue, out of the
blue, says that's not true", and Lucien took it as a compliment. 
 
 One day he told me he had once made a vow to kill anyone
Justine fell in love with. But I was an exception, he said, and
therefore had his consent to love Justine. 
 
 "I love Justine very much," I said to him, "but it is a love
based on consideration and respect." 
 
 "My foot!" he replied angrily. "Stop talking about this
'f.....' respect! Even an altar-boy could figure out what is
happening between you two." 
 
 "Nothing is happening," I protested. "I have never laid a
hand on Justine." 
 
 Lucien was defiant. "But you have wanted to, haven't you?" 
 
 I was indignant but I knew that he spoke in earnest. "I
promise you," I said, "that I will never lay a hand on her." 
 
 His face was unreadable . "It is wrong of you to say that,"
he said. "Without your hand on her, Justine will be unhappy." 
 
 His voice nearly breaking, he quickly ran from my room. 
 
 Lucien -- whatever his reasons -- was right. Justine and I
truly were in love. We had never spoken of it, but when alone the
atmosphere would suddenly become tender and we would avoid looking
one another in the eye. 
 
 This situation could not continue. I told Justine that I
wished to discuss some important matters. She was to come to my
room in a couple of hours and I was not yet prepared for the
meeting. The more I thought about what approach to take, the more
unsure and confused I felt. I wanted to act in a way which, in case
of failure, would not hurt Justine's feelings. 
 
 I considered the merits of a direct approach -- to reveal to
her that I am God. I soon realized that this would be too much even
for a believer. Finally I opted for a two-step approach. I would
try first to convince her that God exists and then to show her who
I really am. If the first step succeeded, the second would be
feasable. If not, the direct approach would still be possible. 
 
 Today's problem was therefore limited to the existence of
God. At first I felt relieved by this decision. The issue is not
explosive; it may be discussed by two friends. It should not affect
our relationship, even in case of failure. It seemed that all I had
to do was prepare a number of proofs of the existence of God. But
I realized that more would be needed. 
 
 Consider, for example, the well-known Ontological Proof. It
goes like this: Let us designate as God the concept of the sum of
all perfections. Non-existence is an imperfection and so it cannot
be associated with the concept of God as designed. Therefore God
exists. 
 
 This proof did not impress me much. The conclave had pointed
out imperfections in my Divinity, so I knew that God conceived as
the sum of all perfections existed only as a concept. Justine would
not go for it. I could just hear her saying, "Man is imperfect and
can only conceive imperfect concepts. Therefore the concept of God
as the sum of all perfections is an imperfect concept quite
compatible with the imperfection of non-existence." 
 
 After examining all the proofs I knew, I had to conclude that
not one had the convincing power of a geometrical theorem. The
existence of God cannot be proven by logical reasoning. It is a
matter of faith. The trouble with faith, however is that it leads
more often to error than to truth. This must be evident even to a
believer. He would know that more people have faith in other
religions than in his own. If he labels his own religion truth and
other religions error he knows that faith has lead more people to
error than to truth. So how then could I blame an honest person who
mistrusted faith? How could I blame Justine? 
 
 Still I had to do something. When I tried to analyze
Justine's personality it became apparent that I should first shake
her confidence in science. I knew she was interested in biology. I
should therefore use arguments to vitiate her trust in that
science. And to be effective my arguments would have to be new to
her. 
 
 I had no trouble finding some facts in biology that,
considered from a new angle, could shake Justine. These arguments
were not decisive but maybe, just maybe, they could lead her to
have more faith in me her friend. Perhaps she could accept them for
my sake. 
 
 I had left the door open and Justine came in. She must have
noticed my face had a different expression that day. She suddenly
began to worry. I had put a kettle on the electric stove and its
whistle indicated that the water was starting to boil. I served tea
and we sat down at a small round table. "Justine," I began, "do you
believe in God?" 
 
 She started to smile. 
 
 "I had an idea," she said, "that something was wrong. I am
glad it's nothing more than that. No, I do not believe in God. At
least let's say I do not believe in the God of the Bible. As for a
different God, I think the problem is not believing, but knowing
whether or not He exists. Since it is not possible for me to know,
I prefer not to think about it." 
 
 "Then," I said, "you seriously consider the possibility that
life, sensations and intelligence could be the result of the
natural evolution of matter?" 
 
 "All I said," she replied, "was that I did not know! I do not
exclude the possibility of the existence of God. All the same I
also do not exclude the possibility that life is a state of matter
in favourable conditions." 
 
 Convincing Justine would not be easy. I had to try my best. 
 
 "I approve of your regard for intellectual integrity," I
continued. "In a world which has not kept its promises of peace and
fraternity many young people doubt traditional wisdom and are ready
to question everything. I understand your desire to be sure of an
assertion before accepting it as a pillar of your life. 
 
 "To doubt is not reprehensible. But to continue doubting in
spite of evidence may become a character trait which won't help you
discover the truth." 
 
 "Lanterne! You are unfairly accusing me! I do not reject any
evidence except when the evidence in question is not evident
enough. I never said that here is a proposition in which I would
like to believe or which I would like to be false. I try to be
neutral and I want to be ready to accept the proposition as being
true or false without any preconceptions, without any emotion. I
have rejected the God of the Bible, for I have found no evidence
there of a creator who is wiser and better than man. Therefore if
I had to choose between a Bible which reveals a God of inferior
quality and a Bible considered to be a mixture of distorted history
and legend, I would chose the second interpretation as being more
reasonable. Of course I am free to believe in a different God, but
that God must be beyond me to the point that it is impossible for
me to define Him, to describe Him, or to attribute this or that
quality to Him." 
 
 "What you have said seems reasonable," I replied, "but not
reasonable enough. Evidence of the existence of God is right before
your eyes. It is not only a matter of generalities such as 'all
clocks presuppose a clock-maker'. Facts exist which cannot be
explained absolutely, not because of a temporary shortcoming of
science, but because God is necessarily implied in any endeavour to
understand the world. His signature is everywhere." 
 
 "I told you, Lanterne," she said, "I am ready to learn and to
know. But do not ask me to believe. Show me one of these facts that
you speak of. Demonstrate that it implies the existence of a
creator and then I will know you are right." 
 
 I took the challenge. 
 
 "I know that biology interests you very much," I began.
"Therefore I am going to choose some examples in this area. 
 
 "Undoubtedly you know that all species of plants and animals
have an even number of chromosomes in their cells and that all
progeny resulting from the crossing of species and having an odd
number of chromosomes will necessarily be sterile. Because of this
man has been able to create grapes without seeds. These grapes
cannot reproduce sexually. The same is true for the mule. It is
sterile because its cells have acquired half the chromosomes of a
donkey and half the chromosomes of a mare. The total number is odd,
so the division by two needed for sexual reproduction is
impossible." 
 
 She interrupted. 
 
 "I learned that at school. The subject does interest me very
much. I am curious to know what you are driving at." 
 
 "That," I continued, "indicates that if a species is the
result of evolution the number of chromosomes must have increased
by an even number, that is to say two at least. An increase by a
single chromosome produces a sterile individual. 
 
 "The change in the number of chromosomes is a mutation. It is
still reasonable to hope that by a natural accident this number
might increase by one unit. The number of individuals is so great
and the course of evolution has been estimated at thousands of
millions of years, so that mutation seems possible. However, to
suppose that an individual would accidentally be created with two
extra chromosomes is really unlikely. 
 
 "All the same, that still does not solve the problem. This
individual would not be sterile but his children would be. Crossing
such a person with a non-mutated member of his race would produce
a progeny having one extra chromosome. This progeny would be
sterile, of course. 
 
 "In short a mutated individual with one extra chromosome is
sterile. A mutated individual with two extra chromosomes is not
sterile but the offspring of its mating with non-mutated
individuals are sterile. A mutated individual with three extra
chromosomes is sterile. 
 
 "It would therefore be necessary to fulfill one of two
conditions. Either the individual obtains by mutation four extra
chromosomes and can produce fertile progeny even if he mates with
non-mutated individuals, or else two individuals of opposite sex
each acquire two extra chromosomes by mutation. Those two
individuals should also by accident be in the same region at the
same time and decide to mate. It is necessary not only that the two
mutations be viable but also that they preserve compatibility
between the male and the female. This last requirement is not easy
to fulfill, since the mutation in one individual is totally
independent from the mutation in the other. 
 
 "One must also suppose that the outcome of this double
mutation was a progeny having some advantage making it fitter than
the non-mutated individuals. There would also need to be a lot of
inbreeding within the mutated progeny since that would be the only
way to produce non-sterile individuals. Isn't this a little too
much to ask of the theory of evolution? 
 
 "All the same, to suppose that only one individual acquired
four extra chromosomes by mutation raises a lot of problems. Four
extra chromosomes implies too many changes in the organization of
the cell, and it is highly unlikely that the individual thus formed
would survive. Even if he were viable his children obtained from
crossing with non-mutated individuals of his species probably would
not be. 
 
 "It is also necessary to consider that this 'miraculous'
increase in the number of chromosomes would have to take place not
once, but many times. 
 
 "Evolution, therefore, implies miracles. Is it not
reasonable, then, to believe in the existence of God?" 
 
 Justine had followed my train of thought with great interest.
 
 
 "Lanterne," she said, "You are adorable! I love to hear new
and serious arguments. They force me to think and help me to
understand. No doubt they will play a role one day when the weight
of arguments makes me lean in one direction or the other in my
effort to know if God exists or not. I must listen to what other
people would say to your arguments. Don't forget that, until
recently, even the existence of the chromosomes was unknown. The
problems you raise might be resolved by the next great scientific
discovery." 
 
 It seemed that stronger arguments were needed. 
 
 "Agreed!" I said. "But it seems to me that you will not be
able to say the same thing about the following argument: 
 
 "You are conscious of the fact that you exist. I mean you
feel yourself existing. You would feel the sensation of existing
even if you lost your arms and legs. Only a minute part of your
brain has to partake in this minimal sensation. You feel yourself
existing even when you don't think about the sunrise, although the
memory of sunrise exists somewhere in your brain. You don't need to
remember that you were at school yesterday, that you have a brother
and parents, or that you have read dozens of books about which you
retain many details. Even your heart and lungs could be replaced by
machines. The heart, the lungs, the veins and arteries, in this
respect, are there only to ensure the conditions of continuity in
which a miniscule part of yourself has the sensation of existing.
Blood itself does not partake in that sensation. It brings oxygen,
carries carbon dioxide and performs many other functions to ensure
a favourable environment in which this minute part of you feels the
minimal sensation of existing. 
 
 "Now let's suppose that a scientist has succeeded in
determining which minute part of you feels this sensation. He knows
which atoms comprised it and he can produce the number N to
represent the minimal number of atoms with which it is possible to
form a special configuration which could experience the sensation
of existing. 
 
 "Consider this minimal configuration which feels the minimal
sensation of existence. Remove a single one of the N atoms and the
sensation would disappear. The property of minimally feeling
existence is not inherent in one of these N atoms, but is a
collective property of the N atoms. 
 
 "Let us consider what happens between the N-1 atoms which
would lack the desired sensation, and the removed atom which, if
put back in place, re-establishes the collective sensation of
minimal existence. What is happening between this atom and the N-1
others? You know very well. It is electric interactions which
attach one atom to another. Therefore at the edge of this atom and
the N-1 others, is electrically transmitted that which lets N atoms
globally feel the minimal sensation of existence. 
 
 "Mixed up without any particular order these N atoms would
not have this sensation. They must have a special configuration to
feel it. The principal function of the rest of the body is to
produce the necessary environment to conserve this special 
configuration. 
 
 "Therefore you must conclude either that a superior will adds
this minimal sensation of existence to the N atoms, or that the
atoms have been created with the capacity collectively to feel the
sensation of existence when they number no less than N and form a
very special configuration." 
 
 She now seemed a bit shaken. 
 
 "Lanterne," she said, "I confess that I don't know what to
say to you right now. Certainly there are many troubling facts
suggesting the existence of unknown forces which could collectively
be called God. 
 
 "But that's not what is important. I do not want a God in
absentia. You, you are free, in the absence of an explanation, in
the absence of understanding, or from a need for security, to
believe in a God of your choice. For me to accept the existence of
God is not the result of negating his non-existence. There must
also be an affirmation of Him, of Himself, not just of the
consequences of His existence. 
 
 "If God exists He has chosen to be mute. If He remains mute,
I will not disturb Him in His silence. God will interest me the day
He decides to speak, to prove His existence, not by our logical
reasoning and not by capitalizing on our needs and weaknesses." 
 
 She had spoken these last words quickly and with passion.
Then she stopped, realizing she had lost some of her usual control.
I saw her blush and, as I started to reply, she continued. 
 
 "Lanterne, I believed in God for a long time. Not the God of
the Bible but a God that I could really love, and whose superiority
to man did not have to be postulated or accepted blindly. The God
of the Bible is too vain. Ten times he hardened the heart of the
Pharaoh to force him to refuse Moses' demands. This allowed God to
show His glory by inflicting the scourges on the Egyptians. To
accept that God can behave like that is to accept that God is no
better than a man. To pretend that such a God is infinitely wise is
to be blind. It can result only from a refusal to use reason and
face the facts. 
 
 "I wanted to believe in a God that would be truly divine and
I wondered about His relationship with man. If He is not the God of
the Bible or of the Koran, then He has sent us no prophets or
messages. Man has been abandoned and has no way to inspire himself
with God's wisdom when he seeks a reply to the questions which
trouble him. If He is the God of the Bible, His commandments and
messages must be rejected in the numerous cases where human
morality has been superior to biblical morality. How can I then
believe in a Biblical message even when it seems reasonable?" 
 
 I said nothing. Her reasoning closely paralleled that of the
conclave. 
 
 "My cousin Jeanne is pregnant. She is only fifteen and she
confided in me. As a Catholic she fears divine punishment if she
has an abortion. But on the other hand she feels quite sure that
her father will die of a heart attack when he finds out. She asked
me to tell her what to do. 
 
 "The Bible says, 'Thou shalt not kill', but is full of
killings ordered by God. It is not my respect for the Bible which
prevents me from advising her to have an abortion, it is my
ignorance and fear of being wrong. If God will not give me a clear,
wise message he might as well not exist. 
 
 "Some students at my school are demonstrating against nuclear
armaments," she continued. "Many of them are very religious. Other
students are demonstrating for re-armament and some of them are
also very religious. This is a very important topic that I would
not like to ignore. If the God who reigns over the universe is
silent, that means I cannot count on Him. He is not there when I
need Him. For me, He might as well not exist." 
 
 I felt very discouraged. 
 
 "I fear," I told her, "that if God came in person to speak
with you, you would think you were hallucinating." 
 
 She smiled apologetically. "It is quite possible," she
admitted. "Unless God, instead of speaking with me, decided to
speak with everyone. But let's stop this conversation. It's not
going to get us anywhere. Let's give our thoughts time to sort
themselves out. We can pick up the discussion later on." She was
about to go on speaking. However, she hesitated for a moment, then
said, "I would rather like to talk about what I truly hold 
close to my heart." 
 
 She stopped once more. She was trying to say something but
the words hung on her lips. 
 
 I raised my eyes toward her and read clearly in her eyes what
she was having trouble saying. 
 
 "Justine," I urged, "I would like things to remain the way
they are between us." 
 
 "It is odd, Lanterne, how much we both fear some simple
words. I feel myself trembling from head to toe at the idea of
telling you that ...." 
 
 "Don't say it, Justine! You don't know anything about me.
What I know and you don't puts a barrier between us that should not
be crossed, not even with words." 
 
 "It is too late, Lanterne!" she said. "The barrier has
already been crossed and the words have already been said, if only
in a low voice." 
 
 I turned my back to avoid looking her in the face. 
 
 "Lanterne," she went on, "I am strong. I am ready to hear
that you are a convicted criminal. You can even tell me that you
have a wife and children somewhere. Nothing will change the fact
that I love you and that you love me and ..." 
 
 I turned around and interrupted her with a serious and
disheartened voice. 
 
 "You have said it, Justine; I love you and you love me. But
you have also told me that you are strong. Therefore have the
strength to end this." 
 
 "I can't imagine a reason that would make me renounce you,
Lanterne. Trust me. Tell me what obstacles separate us. We can
surmount them together ... Tell me, Lanterne! Be more open." 
 
 She slowly came closer to me and for a second time I turned
my back to her. 
 
 "Come back tomorrow, Justine. I will tell you then." 
 
 But she did not leave. I turned towards her. She smiled, and
I thought I read encouragement in her eyes. I bent my head and
said, "Good-bye Justine". 
 
 She came close and put her hands on my shoulders to keep me
at arm's length. 
 
 "Stop worrying," she said. "And sleep well." 
 
 She went to the door, then turned and called, "Lanterne." I
lifted my head and heard her say, "I love you." Then she left me. 
 
 I had come to the farm about a year before. Justine was now
seventeen and I knew her well enough to realize that her behaviour
was not influenced by caprice or adolescent crisis. If Justine said
she loved me, this was not something new. She had taken the time to
work out her feelings. She must have asked herself if it were a
passing physical attraction and decided there was something stable
and definite about her love. She must also have decided there was
no good reason to fight this love. 
 
 Any sensible man would have been happy to find himself loved
by a girl like Justine. I was helpless. If I had been sent to earth
to live as a man and feel what a man feels, was I not supposed to
feel love? Must I reject Justine's love? 
 
 I was strongly tempted. I remembered my serpent as he was
materialized in front of me by the conclave. I must beware my
subconscious nature. As a man, certainly I had a right to love and
to make love. But this male desire had no interest in what was good
for Justine. Unless I took every precaution I could harm her. 
 
 How things had changed! From being God, who could wipe out
the whole of humanity, I had degenerated to a human nature. I
worried so much about the happiness of one creature that I was
terrified of wronging her!
 
 
                                CHAPTER XVII
                                 REVELATION
 
 It was the day to reveal myself. I would have liked to
anticipate Justine's reaction, but no longer had the power of
divination. 
 
 If Justine believed me I would have accomplished an important
part of my mission on earth. If not she would have no choice but to
judge me insane. In either case, success or failure, Justine would
realize there was no future in our love. The sooner she recognized
this the better for her. 
 
 My own choice was easier. Misery was for me no more than a
school. I was God and, once my mission on earth was accomplished,
the misery would disappear. I also had the advantage of possessing
a superhuman will which made misery more bearable. I could now
realize to what extent man can suffer from love. Was it necessary
to create man with such a great capacity to feel suffering? 
 
 A tap at the door and Justine came into my room. She was
dressed simply. Somehow, it enhanced the air of honesty and
forthrightness radiating from her. She was beautiful. 
 
 I invited her to the table and filled the cups with tea. When
we were seated I raised my eyes toward her and met her gaze.  It
was confident with love and trust. I approached the subject
directly. 
 
 "Justine, I would like you to examine a proposition and
consider its merits. 
 
 "A person that you respect, that you love, who has proven to
you that he thinks and acts wisely in all matters, tells you very
seriously that he is God himself. He says he is down on earth in
special circumstances with a mission to convince just one human
being that he is God. What would you say about it?" 
 
 She appeared uneasy. 
 
 "That is a strange question," she replied. "If it is only a
theoretical case that you raise for its virtue in argumentation, I
would like not to answer it. If it is a matter of a real case, it
would help if you were more direct and clear." 
 
 I took a deep breath before continuing. 
 
 "Very well. I claim to be God descended to earth. I will
explain why I must be believed in by someone without performing
miracles. I would like that someone to be you." 
 
 She turned pale and I could see the cup shaking in her hands.
She put the cup down, made an effort at controlling herself, then
implored me, "Tell me you are joking, Lanterne! I once told you
that you were a God to me, and here you want to be the God of the
universe." 
 
 I gazed at her. She was suffering and I could read panic in
her eyes. My determination was weakening. 
 
 "Look me straight in the eyes," I said firmly, "and tell me
if I am serious or not." 
 
 She stared into my eyes, then lowered her eyelids. Her voice
trembled. 
 
 "Lanterne! I love you and I am afraid for you!" 
 
 Somehow I was able to withstand witnessing Justine's
suffering. My will did not melt. And yet my divine component was
not unkind or insensitive to Justine's suffering. It loved Justine
but was so conscious of what had to be done, so strong and
determined that nothing personal could deflect it from its way. I
spoke gently. 
 
 "Do not be afraid, Justine! Act only according to your heart
or to your reason. You now know that I claim to be God. Therefore
either I am God or I am raving mad. 
 
 "It is certainly difficult to believe that I am God. But is
it easier to believe that the Lanterne you know -- that this
Lanterne is crazy?" 
 
 Somehow Justine seemed to recover. 
 
 "Lanterne," she said, "I fear that the incident with the bull
has disturbed something in your brain. If you had not put yourself
between the bull and me you would not have this madness in your
head." 
 
 She had decided that I was mad. She even rationalized it in
a way that she thought could be acceptable to her and to me. I knew
already that the game was lost. 
 
 "No, Justine!" I responded. "It is not a matter of madness.
Long before the incident with the bull your father changed my name
from The Eternal to Lanterne. You see clearly that this goes back
a long time." 
 
 Justine was never short of arguments. She would outdo
herself. The intellectual challenge of opposing my arguments seemed
to bring more life and hope to her. 
 
 "No," she replied. "Your name might have been The Eternal.
But you did not believe you were He. Your madness leaves nothing
amiss and relies on the oddness of a name you were bearing because
you feel the need to believe that you are not crazy. 
 
 "Open your eyes, Lanterne, and be glad that your madness is
limited, that you are capable of reasoning. I want to help you to
think and lead you to realize what has happened to you." 
 
 I was about to answer but she interrupted me. 
 
 "Suppose," she proceeded heatedly, "that due to an accident
a lapse of memory removed from your consciousness the remembrance
of who you are, of your childhood and so on. You have the illusion
of remembering that you were God. So you are only a person who
needs to be treated and whom I love so much! You must admit that it
is a serious possibility." 
 
 She was not asking much. She just wanted me to acknowledge
nothing more than the mere possibility that I was not God. I looked
at her. She seemed to hang on my words as if I were going to
pronounce on her a sentence. I was very tempted to give her that
bit of hope. 
 
 "In principle," I said, "it is possible. In fact it is not.
This would not explain the strength of my determination to give up
the happiness of loving you and being loved by you. You see, we
must reject that, either because I am God or because I am crazy." 
 
 "No, Lanterne!" she shouted, her eyes filled with tears. "I
will not renounce you! I know that you are not God. As for your
madness, it is not dangerous and can be cured." 
 
 I was determined not to leave her any illusion. 
 
 "Justine, you must accept the idea that we are going to
separate. I love you too much to let you attach yourself either to
a madman or to a God who must abandon you. I will stay at the farm
a few more days. Perhaps during this time you will come to believe
that I truly am God. But then I must set off again on my way." 
 
 I knew that I was torturing her but I had no other choice. 
 
 I raised my eyes and saw an agonizing spectacle. Justine was
crying silently, breaking her heart over an imaginary guilt and not
knowing how to help me. 
 
 I got up and started to move back and forth without looking
at her. I heard her rise from her chair. The noise of rustling
garments made me turn around. Justine had slipped off her dress and
was nearly naked. She smiled at me through her tears and raised her
arms to me. 
 
 "Forget your worries and come love me." 
 
 It was not just a last-ditch effort to keep me. She was a
woman, she loved me and she knew that I loved her. I was
frightened. I felt my human companion lay hold on me, struggling to
push me into Justine's arms. How beautiful she was! How adorable
she was! How pure she was! Yes, pure. How great my love for her! 
 
 The struggle within was devastating, and I felt that without
dramatic action on my behalf I would lose the battle. I had to
resort to the only thing which, at that moment, could stop us. 
 
 I lifted the tea-kettle off the stove and with a determined
movement placed my hand on the burning element. 
 
 The pain was excruciating. Justine let out a cry and started
to throw herself toward me, but I stopped her with a gesture of my
hand. 
 
 "Justine," I warned, "if you take another step I will put my
face on the burner. Think of it, Justine. What man could bear the
pain I am ready to impose on myself?" 
 
 Justine was frantic. She grabbed her dress and sobbed. "I am
leaving the room, Lanterne. I am afraid that my presence will cause
you harm. I would like to help you but I don't know what to do.
Your hand needs to be treated and bandaged. I'll send Lucien to
take care of you." 
 
 I discovered later that Justine went straight to her father.
They discussed what they could do to help and concluded that I
seriously needed to be treated by specialists. 
 
 They went to Perigueux to consult a psychiatrist. He
explained the necessity of having me committed to a hospital for
the mentally ill, for my own good. A nurse came to visit me at the
farm. She said she had to give me an injection of antibiotics to
prevent an infection in my burned hand. In fact she injected me
with a drug and I was wrapped in a strait-jacket and taken to the
hospital. When I woke I found myself locked in a room with padded
walls. I still wore the strait-jacket. 
 
 I understood that my situation must be the work of Justine
who had given up hope of helping me in any other way. She would be
crying in silence, heartbroken at not being able to do anything for
me. 
 
 The aching in my hand became greater and greater but,
strangely, I felt a new righteousness. I did not know if the
conclave was watching me. The sight of a God in a strait-jacket
must have been unique in the conclavian annals! 
 
 My mission was becoming more and more difficult. I could not
know how long I would be in this situation nor how I could convince
anyone that I was God when I had failed in particularly favourable
circumstances. 
 
 Two orderlies came in and removed me from the jacket. They
led me to the office of one of the staff psychiatrists who began by
apologizing. The strait-jacket was a necessary precaution taken at
the beginning with patients who would not submit to treatment
voluntarily. 
 
 I asked him if he considered me to be a menace to the public
peace, and if not why it had been necessary to intern me in a
lunatic asylum. 
 
 He asked if I remembered pretending to be God. I replied that
it was not a pretention. 
 
 "Lanterne," he said, "it has been reported to me that you are
very reasonable. Therefore I will be frank with you. A man in
possession of his mental capacities does not pretend to personify
God. To pretend to be God is a sure sign of mental confusion and
indicates that you need to be treated. You are not capable of
making reasonable decisions. Treatment can be forced on you if the
doctors think it's necessary, but it would be better for you to
accept the treatment willingly." 
 
 "You think, therefore, that God does not exist?" I answered.
"Or, if He does exist, that He would not decide to come to earth as
a human?" 
 
 "Listen, Lanterne! We have a dozen patients here who are
pretending to be God. We care for them well. Some of them are
making good progress and will, perhaps, soon be cured." 
 
 "Do you have patients," I asked defiantly, "who pretend to be
doctors?" 
 
 "Yes, Lanterne, we also have several like that." 
 
 "And do you lock them up?" 
 
 He waited a little before answering, trying to figure out
what point I wanted to make. 
 
 "That depends," he said finally. "If a person claims to be a
doctor for fraudulent purposes he will have to be dealt with by the
law. But if he pretends to be a doctor because of a mental
derangement he may be confined and cared for." 
 
 "You forget the simplest case," I retorted. "Someone could
claim to be a doctor because he really is one. That someone claims
to be a doctor is not sufficient grounds to suspect him of fraud or
madness. Doctors do in fact exist, and a doctor has the right to
pretend to be one. So why is it sufficient that if a person
'pretends' to be God he is considered crazy? Does not God actually
exist? Does He not have the right to assume human form? Are you not
struck by the fact that my pretension to be God is the only sign of
anomaly that you can detect in me? Quite contrary to the other gods
in your hospital, nothing else in my conduct or in my way of
reasoning indicates that I am mad." 
 
 "Lanterne," he said with a tolerant smile, "can you give me
a reasonable explanation why God would be personified by Lanterne
and would let Himself be put in a strait-jacket?" 
 
 "I wanted to verify if a miracle was the only way to convince
someone of my being God," I replied. "Without resorting to miracles
can I win man's faith? What determines faith in my believers?" 
 
 "There you go, Lanterne," he interjected. "The God you
personify is already unreasonable. I am a believer myself. My faith
is not based on any miracle that I have personally witnessed. But
there is a difference between believing that God exists and
believing that you are God. You must take into account that
pretending to be God proves nothing. What matters is the motive
behind the pretension. If you pretend to be God in order to form a
sect whose wealth depends on your power to fool the masses, then
you are not mad. Such gods do exist. They have managed to convince
millions and have become very wealthy. But if you sincerely believe
that you are God, that is a true sign of madness. 
 
 "I will concede that anything is possible. The sun might not
rise tomorrow. You might be God. And perhaps I am a madman myself
who believes that he works in this institution. But reality is made
of only a tiny part of everything that is possible. The chance of
my being wrong is small if I expect the sun to rise tomorrow
morning and if I take your belief that you are God as a sign of
mental instability. Besides, the God you personify isn't very
convincing." 
 
 "In short," I retorted, "you believe in God as long as God
conforms to the idea that you have of him. I recognize that my
pretending to be God would not prove in any way my divine quality.
But by the same token it doesn't exclude it either. 
 
 "I am not proclaiming from the rooftops that I am God. I
intend to reveal it to those who first have confidence in me and
who are certain that I am not capable of false pretense. I hope to
enjoy at least the same degree of freedom as those who pretend to
be God but with no sincerity. I also want the freedom to reveal to
a friend with total trust that I am God." 
 
 "That is not possible, Lanterne! Your friends, as you are
aware, are worried about your mental state and would like to see
you cured." 
 
 I was indignant. 
 
 "Are you trying to say that I do not have any choice, that I
am supposed to remain in this institution until you declare me
cured?" 
 
 "Don't rush things, Lanterne. I have not decided yet what
treatment to use in your case, or what measures to take if it
fails. I must admit, though, that I am surprised that your illness
seems to be limited only to believing you are God and that your
ability to reason does not seem to be impaired. I hesitate to use
a chemical treatment in your case. Instead I think I would prefer
psychoanalysis. 
 
 "I also get the impression that you will restrain yourself
from any act of violence, so you may communicate with any other
patients who manifest no violent reactions."
 
 
                                CHAPTER XVIII
                                 RECOGNITION
 
 The sessions with the psychoanalyst were not numerous. Dr.
Armand first questioned me about my parents and siblings but he had
to give up on this direct method. I could not keep from smiling at
the ludicrous character of his questions. My smile was apparently
kind and ironical at the same time, and it made Dr. Armand ill at
ease. 
 
 He tried an indirect method next. This consisted of
discussing any topic in which he could mention inconspicuously a
familial situation concerning a political or historical person. He
would compare this situation with his own, as if to suggest that I
do the same. 
 
 In short, through a long and harmless conversation he would
try to catch me offguard to spot an expression or a clue that would
help him find in me the thread of a lost memory. 
 
 He soon exhausted his knowledge of history and politics and,
for lack of a better subject, started discussing the events of his
own life. He undoubtly wanted me to follow his example. 
 
 Next he tried to teach me the method of association. 
 
 "I can start with any item," he explained. "For instance the
couch I am sitting on. What is peculiar about it? It is maroon.
Good! That doesn't tell me much. The couch is very comfortable. It
is much better than the metal chair that I had to sit on for a
whole hour, without moving, when my stepfather punished me for some
transgression. 
 
 "There, you see? Starting with a couch leads you to a chair,
which takes you to your stepfather ... and that has no end. Do the
same thing yourself! Start with this book, for example." 
 
 He handed me a book which I grasped. I looked at it and it
started me thinking. 
 
 He interrupted my thoughts. 
 
 "Speak up," he said. "There must be something you could
associate with this book!" 
 
 "This book," I answered, "has a red cover which reminds me of
blood." 
 
 He was pleased. 
 
 "That's it," he said getting excited. "You are on the right
track. But you must carry on without reflecting too much. Let
yourself be led by your emotions." 
 
 "The book," I went on saying, "reminds me of the Bible; its
red colour reminds me of blood. There was too much blood shed in
the Bible." 
 
 He encouraged me. "Let that lead you back to your own
emotions. Wake up your dormant memory. Blood! The Bible! Tie that
into your own life!" 
 
 "I credited blood," I went on, "with properties it does not
have. I have not yet had a chance to correct this mistake." 
 
 He encouraged me to continue, listing on his fingers. 
 
 "Book! Blood! Bible! Mistake to correct! Keep on without
thinking too much." 
 
 I was getting tired and decided to put an end to it. 
 
 "It is the number and the seriousness of my mistakes that
made the conclave send me to earth to fall into the hands of a
psychiatrist who would have benefitted from consulting some books,
red covers or not. By doing this, he would have avoided making his
blood boil. Perhaps he would understand that locking up in cold
blood a peace-loving person who does not take himself for a
mythical dragon, but for God, is not recommended in any book." 
 
 He was offended. 
 
 "That will be enough for today," he said. 
 
 Dr. Armand tried to hypnotize me, but to no avail. Next he
wanted to know my opinions about incest and the Oedipus complex, at
what age I made love for the first time ... 
 
 Finally he told me that, in his opinion, no progress could be
made without a co-operative effort on my behalf. I must seriously
consider the possibility that I was mentally ill, he insisted. I
must begin with the Cartesian doubt and come to wish to be treated,
if only to discard the logical possibility that I was sick. The
sooner I decided to help him with the task the sooner I would be
cured. 
 
 The psychiatric sessions had been a waste of time up to this
point, he told me. 
 
 "No," I answered seriously, "they have not! If you have not
learned much about me, I have acquired a good sense of your
problems. I have no doubt that you suffer from a number of
complexes, and I think that I can help you get rid of them." 
 
 "Thank you Lanterne. But each to his own job. Let me do
mine." 
 
 "That," I said ironically, "is the last straw! Who is
stopping whom from doing his job!?" 
 "I see you have a sense of humour, Lanterne. But I am not in
a very good mood today." 
 
 Until now I had refused to mingle with the other patients. I
wanted to be able to think in the tranquillity of my room. 
 
 For a man forty years old, my situation seemed desperate. But
for God, even temporarily fallen, the years did not count. I knew
that I was God, but wanted to settle the problem of knowing whether
or not any reasonable doubt on the question could exist. I know how
destructive doubt is, but without doubt a person who makes a
mistake cannot correct his error. 
 
 Justine and Armand were convinced that I was mentally ill and
had begged me to consider the possibility that I was not God. 
 
 Very well! Let us weigh the pros and cons. 
 
 Suppose that I am not God. 
 
 The absence of any childhood memories could be the result of
a memory loss. The vivid recollection I had of being God could be
explained by supposing that my loss of memory was caused by study
of the Bible pushed to an obsession. The superhuman will that drove
me to accomplish my mission remained mysterious, and my capacity to
endure suffering was difficult to interpret. 
 
 On the contrary, to be a fallen god in human form sent to
earth by the conclave was a reality anchored in my memory and in my
personality. It presented me with no contradiction. 
 
 I was certain that I was God, but I confess that, in spite of
the balance of arguments leaning towards the truth of my divine
character, I could not produce a single unimpeachable proof that I
was. 
 
 I thought of Justine and remained convinced that I had
behaved correctly not only as God, but also as a man. If I was God
I must reduce the importance of my human companion to his true
proportions. He should be only a source of information, a way for
me to feel human sentiments and to come to understand men. But I
did not wish to complete my education as a man at anyone's expense,
especially not Justine's. 
 
 If I was man I must recognize that love can elevate a man and
bring him close to the level of God. Man or God, I wanted Justine
to forget me so that she could enjoy an unblemished happiness later
on. My human companion dreamed of having Justine, but he also loved
Justine for what she was, not just for what she could give him. 
 
 And Lucien! I admired his love for his sister but detected in
it traces of incestuous jealousy. Some day he would understand that
in spite of my passion for her, Justine truly was, for me, a
sister. 
 
 I was proud of my human component, of its restraint. It had
no regrets. No earthly pleasure could equal the satisfaction of
letting the happiness of others prevail. 
 
 If I was God I had learned much about the state of man. 
 
 As well, my thoughts were clarifying a problem of primordial
importance to me. Being simultaneously man and God raises the
question of the relation between divine morality and human
morality. Need they be different? 
 
 As God I could cause the death of Job's children for no other
reason than to test him. Is it moral to make children die merely to
test the parents? Evidently it would not be humanly moral! Why
should it be divinely moral? As God do I not have the
responsibility to confine my actions to those which can serve as an
inspiration for humans? Is it not indicative of future
possibilities that my divine component can now live in harmony with
my human component? 
 
 That would resolve for me the problem of my behaviour. Man
raised towards God if only through madness, or a fallen God getting
down to man's level. The behaviour in both cases would be
identical. Therefore I need no longer to worry about proving
divinity to myself. I know that I am God, and I intend to behave as
such. But even in the impossible case that I am only a man I would
not like, as a man, to be ashamed of the God I believed I was. 
 
 It occurred to me that perhaps I was supposed to learn
something from my stay in this hospital and from observing the mad
people under treatment. The thought seemed ludicrous until I
started to think of them as previous sinners. Some of them may have
lead virtuous lives, but others may have been on their way to
damnation and could be saved only through sincere repentance. What
was their chance of salvation? How could a man be damned when he
was not conscious of his past sins, or when he was deprived of the
possibility of repenting? 
 
 I thought of the patient Jean-Jacques, with his split
personality. Sometimes he was Jacques, an angelic young man,
considerate and respectful. Other times he was Jean, a devilish,
egotistical person. Should Jean-Jacques go to heaven or to hell? 
 
 What could be done where the separation of good and evil was
not so clear-cut? Emile's 90-percent evil nature dominated his
10-percent angelic one. Could I send to Heaven a tenth of his soul?
 
 
 The matter of split or multiple personality absorbed me. I
asked myself how an individual with a single soul could harbour
more than one personality. And, since all possible gradations
existed from the very wise to the completely mad, what were the
corresponding gradations in split and multiple personalities? 
 
 My observations left me more confused than before. It became
clear to me that at no time could a man make full use of all his
cerebral capabilities. In each set of circumstances particular
paths of his brain are activated. They are related to the memories,
emotions, associated reflexes and habits relevant to this set of
circumstances. All those internal influences, at any given moment,
act together at the exclusion of others to define the personality
of the moment. It is thus, for instance, that some jailers can be
cruel towards prisoners while leading the life of a tender-hearted
family man. It also explained why a person with a strong racial
prejudice might behave 'out of character' with individuals of a
particular race. 
 
 A man has thousands of different reactions in thousands of
different settings. Some of these responses may correspond to
different personalities. A normally courteous person may lack
courtesy as a driver. In most people there are enough similarities,
correlations and compatibility of structures between these
responses that it is possible to observe a stable, single,
dominating personality. In some cases, however, these similarities,
correlations and compatibilities of structure are weak and lead to
pathological behaviour. All people have a multiplicity of
personalities. In normal people the personalities of the individual
overlap and merge in an appreciable measure. In abnormal cases the
different personalities develop independently as if they belonged
to different individuals. The merge-and-overlap feature is never
complete and some of the personalities in one individual may be
more inclined to sin than others. To decide divinely, with infinite
justice, would require punishing the sinning personality without
hurting the virtuous one. Is that possible? 
 
 I went, one day, into the big commonroom where the patients
could communicate among themselves. One caught my attention
immediately. His face expressed both naivety and sadness. 
 
 An orderly told me his name was Jovial and that he had been
mute since the day when he had murdered two children he had not
even know. 
 
 Before the madness hit him he had the reputation of a good
fellow who was always smiling. He had earned his nickname. It had
been more than three years since he had been committed, unable to
speak or even to make signs with his hands. He remained aloof from
the other patients. 
 
 I no longer had the power of divination, so I knew nothing
more about Jovial. But his face seemed so expressive that it could
compensate for the lack of verbal communication. When I looked at
him I forgot my preoccupations and started to concentrate my
observations and thoughts on him. 
 
 Then he turned his face toward me and looked at me with a
surprised expression. He began to walk slowly toward me, the
agitation obvious on his face. 
 
 Jovial halted a short distance from me. I forgot that he was
mad and that, undoubtedly, he would not understand me. But it was
so obvious he wanted to say something. 
 
 "Yes, Jovial?" 
 
 And, to the amazement of the orderly and several other
patients, he answered me. 
 
 "My God! I did not think I would find you here!" 
 
 It must have taken an enormous effort for him to pronounce
these few words. The orderly had to hold him so he would not
collapse. He lost consciousness and was taken to the infirmary.
Shortly afterwards I was called to see Armand, the psychiatrist,
who welcomed me with a question. 
 
 "Did you know Jovial before he was committed here?" 
 
 "No," I replied. 
 
 "But," he insisted, "he seems to have recognized you." 
 
 "Yes," I remarked. "It is a curious thing. He knows who I am
and addressed me by saying, 'My God!'." 
 
 "Lanterne, you forget that that is a very common expression
indicating astonishment or fear." 
 
 "Did he say it to anyone else?" 
 
 "No, Lanterne. He has been mute for three years. That's why
I thought he must know you. Try to remember. Hold on! Here is his
file. I have pulled out the confidential documents from it. Flip
through the sheets and tell me if anything in it strikes you." 
 
 "I will do it to satisfy you." 
 
 The file contained several newspaper clippings describing the
events which had resulted from Jovial's sudden attack of madness.
There was also an essay written by Albert, a classmate of Jovial,
six years before the trial. It was a description of the student who
shared the same desk in school. The essay described Jovial in
prophetic terms. 
 
 There was also a letter from Albert to Jovial in which he
expressed concern about Jovial's mental health. I read the file
carefully, then handed it back to Dr. Armand. 
 
 "No," I told him, "I don't know anything about Jovial. I am
certain I have never met him outside this building during my time
on earth." 
 
 "So be it, Lanterne. But I would like to ask for your help.
Spend some time with him. Your company may have a good influence on
him." 
 
 "In that case," I said, "I would like to keep that essay
about him. 
 
 Armand took out several sheets and handed them to me. 
 
 "You can keep them a few days," he said. 
 
 The next day, after the psychiatrists had made their rounds,
the door of my room opened and I looked up to see an orderly
carrying a chair in one hand and leading Jovial by the arm. He sat
the chair down and went out, leaving us alone. 
 
 Once again I was struck by the gentleness of his expression.
He appeared timid or frightened. I invited him to sit but he threw
himself at my feet in a subservient position. I took him by the
shoulders and directed him to his chair. 
 
 "Are you certain that I am God?" I asked him. 
 
 "Lord!" he said in earnest. "Do me the favour of reading what
is in my heart. I feel no doubt." 
 
 It was a memorable moment for me. It had already been several
months since the only proof of my divinity was, for me, the
strength of my will. It was gratifying to see a kind of miracle in
the fact that Jovial had found speech and that he had used it to
affirm his faith in me. Moreover I was in the process of
accomplishing the mission that had been given to me -- that of
convincing a man, just one, of my quality as God. All the same I
had to make sure that his faith was truly a faith in God and not a
passing illusion. 
 
 "Jovial," I addressed him. "I have come to earth as a human.
At present I do not have any divine powers and I cannot read what
is in your heart. No miraculous means are at my disposal with which
I can distinguish between truth and lies. Believing you now becomes
an act of faith for me." 
 
 "Lord!" said Jovial, "I will not try to understand. I only
know that I am now face-to-face with God." 
 
 His faith in me was touching. 
 
 "I am, Jovial, as much man as God," I told him. "In view of
this double being of mine I ask you not to express any sign of
devotion toward me. Do not act as you would have with the God you
knew through your reading of the Bible. 
 
 "If you have faith in me, this faith is going to be put to
hard proof. Can you believe in a God with a human appearance,
locked up for madness in a lunatic asylum, unable to free Himself
through His own will?" 
 
 He was undeterred. 
 
 "Lord!" he said, "when it comes to you, I feel unable to
understand. I admit that the God in the Bible was no less
mysterious to me than you are, Lord, locked up with me in this
asylum." 
 
 There was in Jovial, it seemed, a passivity bordering on
fatalism. I explored his faith further. 
 
 "Do you love me?" I asked. 
 
 "No!" 
 
 He had answered without haste and without hesitation. I went
on with apprehension. 
 
 "Do you hate me?" I asked again. 
 
 "No!" he said once more. 
 
 I continued hesitantly. 
 
 "What do you feel for me?" 
 
 "Respect and gratitude," he said. 
 
 I still had one more question. 
 
 "How did you recognize me?" I asked. 
 
 "Lord!" he answered, "I felt your presence. When I raised my
eyes to yours I saw you as you had appeared in my dreams. I had
always wished to see you out of my dreams but I never expected it
to occur in this place." 
 
 I interrupted him. "Stop calling me Lord. Titles do not mean
anything and add nothing to reality. Call me Lanterne. It is a name
which was given to me in particular circumstances and I have become
used to it. I'd also prefer you to speak to me with more
familiarity as you would with an old acquaintance. In my present
state I am partly a man, so a sort of equality exists between us.
Besides, I repeat, real respect does not lie in appearances."
 
 
                                 CHAPTER XIX
                               JOVIAL'S STORY
 
 Jovial came to see me every day. During these visits he told
me as much as he could remember of the events that led to his
committal. I will let him speak: 
 
                                    XXXX
 
 "Ever since I was small I have had a thirst for Bible
stories. I was the only son of parents of modest means. Not having
any brothers or sisters, I could isolate myself in my own universe
filled with angels and prophets. 
 
 In this universe there was no room for the Devil and his
imps. I vaguely knew that the Devil existed, but that did not
concern me. I was an obedient boy who loved his parents -- I
revered them and considered them the repository of knowledge and
wisdom. The Devil had been made for others. The heavens, the angels
and the prophets were as real to me as my parents. On the contrary
bad boys and girls were part of a mythology, along with goblins and
wizards. I was certain that they did not exist. What person knowing
that good behaviour would lead directly to heaven would prefer to
be vile and fall into the hands of the Devil? Such a person could
not possibly exist. The guardians of hell, no doubt, were bored to
death waiting for their first customer. 
 
 My cousin Odette was very sweet and I adored her. My aunt
Isabel brought her regularly each Saturday afternoon. I introduced
her to my personal world, and both of us would determine its
evolution. 
 
 The time came when I had to go to school. My little world
began to collapse from the first day. My mythology came to life and
I had to admit not only that bad boys and naughty girls existed,
but that their numbers were hardly negligible. 
 
 It was a wounding experience. For the first time I had to
face the reality of the Devil, of temptation and of hell. There was
no way, it seemed, to introduce them into my universe without
producing a major upset. So strongly did I cling to the integrity
of my world that any blow to its order could be dealt with only at
the price of my serenity. 
 
 It took several months of reflection to resolve my conflicts.
I introduced an impenetrable partition, on one side of which was
the world I had created, while on the other were the Devil,
temptation, bad boys and naughty girls. 
 
 Any grown-up person who ended up in hell must have been a bad
character in his youth. Good boys and obedient girls, parents and
teachers, all belonged to my initial world and could never,
strictly never, be transferred to the other side of the partition.
Temptation had no effect on them. They were destined from birth to
be sincere, generous and tolerant, and they stayed that way until
death. 
 
 Having regained my emotional equilibrium, and having learned
to read, I took an increasing interest in the stories of the Bible.
It was then that I realized I had completely forgotten to introduce
God into my universe. 
 
 Odette and I had decided that no one could enter it without
first being properly accredited. The first condition to be filled
was that of existing. We did not want to see fairies and other
imaginary people enter. The second condition was that of having a
completely established personality. We had to know the beings in
our world in enough detail that we could predict a range of
possible behaviours to which they would be limited. 
I did not have enough information on the subject of the Lord,
so I went to my mother. 
 
 "Mama," I asked, "do we have a picture of the Lord?" 
 
 "No, my child, no one has a photograph of Him." 
 
 "But," I insisted, "is He not made in our image?" 
 
 "Why no, silly. It is we who are made in His." 
 
 "Is that not the same thing?" I asked. 
 
 "Not at all," she said, "God is not made. He exists and has
always existed." 
 
 "If we are made in His image," I said, still not discouraged,
"that means that we resemble Him, right?" 
 
 "Yes," she said. "We resemble Him. But the last person who
saw Him face-to-face died long ago." 
 
 "So you cannot even tell if He looks more like Papa than my
teacher?" 
 
 "No. Anyhow, you do not need to know who He looks like. You
can talk to the Lord anywhere and anytime. He is everywhere, always
ready to listen." 
 
 "But if a Chinese wants to speak with Him at the same time
would the body of the Lord be here with me or there in China?" 
 
 My mother had, it seems, the patience of an angel. 
 
 "No one knows," she answered, "exactly to what extent His
presence everywhere is accompanied by a body. God can see
everything and hear everything from anywhere without having a
multitude of bodies." 
 
 "But Mama, why would He have two eyes and two ears like us if
He can hear and see without a body?" 
 
 I suppose she was at a loss. She hugged me tenderly and then
said gently, "Your mother does not have all the answers. And as for
the good Lord, it is not possible to know everything. Just as you
respect me and do not come into my room without knocking or open my
dresser without permission, in the same way, out of respect for the
Lord, you must not ask so many questions about Him. Do not be
indiscreet with your parents, and do not be indiscreet towards the
Lord." 
 
 "Mother," I said, "what is a multitude?" 
 
 "That, my son, means a large number." 
 
 "Does ten make a multitude?" 
 
 "Sometimes yes," she replied, "sometimes no." 
 
 The situation was very confusing to me. God resembled man but
looked like neither my father nor my teacher. The number of shapes
that He could take at one time was sometimes less than ten and
sometimes more. I needed some explanations and tried one last time
to question my mother. 
 
 "Mama," I said, "is it indiscreet to ask the Lord some
questions while I say my prayers before bed?" 
 
 "No, my child," she answered. "You may ask anything you
wish." 
 
 That evening after my prayers I spoke to God. 
 
 "Lord," I said to Him, "I asked my mother some questions
about you. I know you heard them. If you think that my questions
are not indiscreet, answer me. Thank you." 
 
 That night I saw the Lord in a dream. I saw His face. He did
not look like either my father or my teacher. He looked very much
like you, Lanterne. God spoke to me and said, "I do not have a
visible image in a mirror or a reflection in water. My image is
spiritual, and therefore I have made man in my spiritual image. I
took, for your sake, the body you see. I can have a different body
for each man. I hear and see everything. When I hear I am a
spiritual ear. When I see I am a spiritual eye. When I want to be
seen my ears and my eyes can then resemble those of man." 
 
 The next day I formally introduced God into my world. At the
first opportunity I let Odette know about my decision. 
 
 The fact that I had talked with God in my dream did not
surprise me. Since He existed, to see God and to hear Him was, for
me, the natural thing to expect. Such visions were not numerous. On
the one hand I did not want to invoke God's presence in vain and,
on the other hand, God did sometimes refrain from answering my
prayers. In such cases I took this refusal to appear in my dream as
a significant message. 
 
 It was about this time that I acquired the nickname Jovial.
A teacher at school gave it to me and everyone started to use it,
including my parents. It was indicative of the happiness that I
felt whenever I contemplated my world, from which I had eliminated
all contradiction. 
 
 Living in a world of my own proved to be an obstacle between
me and my classmates. I never felt lonely and I was quite able to
do without their company. Understandably the children my age showed
no interest in a world laid out by me. 
 
 There was one exception -- my schoolmate, Albert. We met by
sharing the same desk at school and later became friends. I was
puzzled by his behaviour and did not know at first to what class of
people he belonged. He was kind and smart and acted very friendly
toward me. He was critical of religion, faith and beliefs of any
kind. He had little respect for God and His angels. He was gifted
with a sharp intelligence with which he attempted to corrupt my
understanding of the world. He soon came to realize that nothing
could shake me. My stand was not a matter of reasoning. My world
existed and I knew it. Nothing could distance me from it. 
 
 I asked myself on which side of the partition I should put
Albert? Strictly speaking he was an enemy of God and should end up
in Hell. But I knew better. Albert's motives were always good. His
intentions were pure. So what if he couldn't see the light clearly?
In heaven there must be special correcting spiritual glasses to
help people see better. I therefore placed Albert in the heavenly
part of my world. Odette's family moved from Perigueux to Paris
when I was fourteen and she was twelve. They paid us one last visit
before leaving. Once more I realized how much affection I felt for
Odette. It was with sincerity that I told her I would remember her.
She would remain for me the symbol of goodness and virtue. 
 
 The years passed. I became a young man of twenty-two and
still had much of my original happiness, although I was starting to
doubt the reality of my world. 
 
 I often asked my mother for news of Odette. I had stopped
writing to her after she gradually took longer to reply and after
three of my missives had gone unanswered. My mother explained that
life had become very difficult for Odette's parents and that she
had been obliged to get a job in a department store. I had to
forgive her for not being in the mood to send and receive letters. 
 
 One day I had to go to Paris. I set off, more excited with
the idea of seeing Odette again than with being able to visit the
great city. I knocked on the door of a dilapidated-looking
apartment and met Odette's parents once again. They had aged many
more years than had passed since I had last seen them. They were
embarrassed and tried to avoid speaking about Odette. Still, they
had to tell me she was not living with them. I insisted on getting
her address, and they gave it to me reluctantly. 
 
 Now, five years later, it is still painful to recall my
meeting with Odette in Paris. I cannot describe my emotions, my
amazement and my dejection when it became evident that Odette
worked in a brothel. My conversation with her was agony. I did not
blame her for anything. I merely promised all the help I could
offer to allow her to abandon her trade. I suppose my plans were
childish; they did not stand up to Odette's criticism. She advised
me to face up to reality, to leave my absurd world and not to fret.
She even suggested jokingly that it would do me a lot of good to
become one of her clients for awhile. Or, if I preferred, she could
recommend a very nice girl to me. As for God -- she no longer
believed. 
 
 I returned home ill. Two weeks later I was still weak in my
bed. My mother told me that since my return from Paris I had been
running an unbroken fever and that my temperature was normal for
the first time that very day. Under her care I got back on my feet.
But it was impossible for me to become Jovial again. 
 
 Odette, the virtuous child, had become a sinful woman who
made accommodations with sin. Had she died as a child she would be
in heaven for eternity. Now it was likely that she was destined to
go to hell. The death of a child should never cause sadness to the
parents. It is even reasonable to wish death on children so they
may escape the temptations reserved for adults. 
 
 The partition in my world which had separated good from evil
was no longer intact. Odette had breached it. For the first time I
felt pity and tenderness for the damned who could never regain the
path to heaven. 
 
 For a few weeks I worked hard at my job as a draughtman and
tried to forget Odette and my theological problems. I had regained
some calm when I received a letter from Odette in which she wrote: 
 
      Dear Jovial, 
 
      I was bowled over by your visit to Paris a month ago. I
      was told that a visitor who did not look like the regular
      clients wanted to see me. I opened my door and felt pain
      when I saw you. You had grown and changed so much. But
      the tenderness I felt for you was the same as it had been
      when we had to say good-bye eight years earlier. 
 
      I knew that without a great effort to hold back my tears
      I would break down and cry the moment I took you in my
      arms to kiss you. To tell you how unhappy I was to be
      reduced to a lady of the night would have given you a
      heavy heart. I wanted you to leave scornful of me, even
      hating me. I thought that was the best way to help you
      avoid a heavy and lasting sadness.
 
      But I can no longer bear the thought of being despised by
      you. I have to tell you that although I am a prostitute
      I am not a wicked person. 
 
      My parents moved to Paris when my father was offered a
      good job here. He always dreamed of spending his last
      years in the big city. He sold everything we had in
      Perigueux to make a better start. He did not know, poor
      man, that he was afflicted with a disabling illness which
      would surface two years later. I was then fourteen and
      suddenly found myself the only breadwinner at home. I
      don't need to give you details about our misery. You know
      what a girl of fourteen can earn honestly but you may not
      know how strong is the pressure on such a girl, in such
      a situation, to take to the street. I resisted it for
      four more years. My childish love for you helped me to
      hold on that long. I don't know if I really loved you or
      if I used it as a shield. The fact is that you were in my
      dreams and helped me withstand my hardships. 
 
      It could have lasted forever and I would have remained
      strong. I yielded when I was presented to a quack who
      pretended he had a cure for my father's illness. The cure
      was said to be effective and expensive, and there was
      only one way to get the needed money. 
 
      I will spare you the details. Suffice it to say that once
      this road was taken I could no longer get any other job.
      If only my sacrifice had been any help to my father I
      would have been somewhat happy. I want you to know that
      I am not as bad as I let on. 
 
      I no longer believe in God. If you still do, pray for me.
 
                                         Odette
 
      P.S. Do not bother writing me any letters. I will not
      read nor answer them. 
 
 I read and reread the letter many times. I found it hard to
come to terms with it. I was haunted by the knowledge that Odette
had been in love with me and that life had been so hard on her. 
 
 The letter disturbed me because it established a sort of
continuity between the Odette of before, the virtuous child, and
the Odette of today, the sinful woman. The sorrow I had felt at
having lost Odette was replaced by the sorrow of knowing that my
Odette would be forever damned. 
 
 "She asked me to pray for her. Poor thing, she had lost faith
but not hope. She must have felt abondoned by God and may also have
felt ashamed for having sinned and for finding no way out of sin.
I resolved to beseech God to pardon Odette and come to her aid. 
 
 I went to bed after my prayers but I was so agitated I did
not fall asleep until the early hours of the morning. 
 
 God came to me in a dream and said something like this:
"Odette has sinned through fornication and lack of faith. Her place
is in hell, already reserved. You must erase all feeling of love
for her and demonstrate your faith in me by going to Paris and
stabbing her in the heart." 
 
 The apparition of God soon disappeared; I awoke panting and
feverish. The memory of my dream-God was vivid. I could clearly
recall His face as it had appeared to me in other dreams and the
different expressions it could take. I was struck by the ferocity
of His looks when He mentioned Odette's lack of faith. 
 
 Trembling as much from fever as from emotion, I managed later
to dress and go knock at the parish priest's door. He noticed that
I was feverish. 
 
 "What is happening to you, Jovial?" he demanded. "You should
be in bed. Come, sit down in this armchair while I make you some
camomile tea. 
 
 "No, father," I answered slowly, "I am not sick. I am simply
unable to withstand God's order to me to go and kill my cousin
Odette in Paris who is guilty of fornication and lack of faith." 
 
 "Tut, tut!" he replied. "You must still be dreaming. Shape up
and do not attach so much importance to a dream. Rest, eat well, go
to bed early after saying your prayers. You will feel better after
a good night's sleep." 
 
 "Father," I said, "I don't care whether I feel well or ill.
What I need is to know if I have any recourse. Does an action or a
prayer exist that could lead God to pardon my cousin and relieve me
from His order to kill her?" 
 
 "Come to your senses, Jovial!" exclaimed the priest. "It is
not God you saw in your dream. Tomorrow you may see Jupiter or
Mercury or any other Greek God in your dream. Will you then believe
in the reality of your dream? Well and good if God in your dream
would induce you to do a good deed! But to commit a crime? To kill
your cousin? It is rather the Devil who would order you to do it.
In fact the more I think about it the more I am convinced it was
the Devil that came to you." 
 
 "Father," I broke in, "when God asked Abraham to kill his son
Isaac, how could Abraham be sure that it was indeed God and not the
Devil who was ordering him to do it? Why does the Bible mention
Abraham's obedience as an example of his faith in God?" 
 
 "In biblical times," the priest answered, "life was not as
sophisticated as it is today. People then were free from psychosis.
Dreams and apparitions were direct means of communication between
God and man. They were usual occurrences which could be interpreted
in only one way. This is no longer the case. Modern society has
caused man to become sick. He now has visions and dreams whose
origins are ambiguous and which can be interpreted only by a
psychiatrist. Go back to bed, Jovial, and let yourself be taken
care of. Forget your dream -- and your cousin Odette." 
 
 I was in no mood to argue. Unlike me the priest had not been
in communication with God. He could doubt the significance of my
dreams. But I had no doubt about the reality of the order God had
given me. If the priest could be believed there was no way for God
to communicate directly with His creatures without the intermediary
of a psychiatrist who would decide if the communication was real or
psychotically induced! 
 
 Back at home I reread the passage describing the order given
by God to Abraham to sacrifice his son. I wondered how a text so
familiar could still reveal so many surprises. 
 
    To start with, did God need to put Abraham to a hard test? Did
He not know by omniscience Abraham's degree of fidelity and faith?
If He knew it the test was of no use. If He did not know it the
test was inconclusive. It remained possible that if the angel had
stopped Abraham's hand a tenth of a second later Abraham might have
changed his mind and decided to disobey God. Even if Abraham's hand
was already moving quickly and was stopped at the very last moment
it was still possible for Abraham to deviate the blow and
voluntarily miss the victim. 
 
 And even if one admits that Abraham would certainly have
sacrificed his son, what does this prove? Love for God? Respect for
God? How little love Abraham had for his son? 
 
 It might, God forgive me, merely prove Abraham's cowardice,
his egotism in preferring his own life to that of his son. Would he
have sacrificed himself? Did he not make his own wife and
half-sister, Sarah, sleep with the Pharaoh to avoid for himself the
risk of being killed? 
 
 Which one of those suppositions corresponds to the truth? To
choose from all of those the one that gives the most credit to
Abraham necessitates a knowledge of what was going through
Abraham's mind or else a premonition of what would have happened if
the angel had not stopped his hand. In both cases such a knowledge
or premonition makes the test totally useless. Is there any way to
know without further test or without premonition whether Abraham,
after sacrificing his son, would not then have cursed God in anger
and rage? 
 
 Jesus commanded the believers to pray that God not tempt
them. Odette, as a good believer, made this prayer daily. Why did
God not respond to her request? Why? Why? Instinctively I put my
hands to my ears as if to avoid hearing the many questions
formulated within me over which I had, it seemed, little control.
I threw myself onto my bed and fell asleep immediately. 
 
 God returned in a dream and repeated exactly what He had said
the night before. This time the dream did not have the effect of a
nightmare. I resumed my sleep and woke up late in the morning
feeling calmer. My reflections on Abraham's case had helped clarify
my thoughts. I had to decide whether or not to obey God's order to
kill Odette. What would be my own motivation for obeying God -- the
love of God? I had to admit honestly that, compared to my love for
my parents or even for Odette, my love for God had a rather
abstract and distant quality. 
 
 Faith in God? My faith in the existence of God was absolute,
but it is conceivable to believe in God while disobeying Him. 
 
 Fear? Certainly disobeying a formal order from God would
result in eternal damnation. To obey out of fear of God and to save
my soul, however, would mean that my motive was self-interest even
if, in doing so, I had to send Odette instantly to hell. Was it not
still possible for Odette to act so that her sin would be forgiven?
Was I to eliminate this possibility in order to save my own soul? 
 
 Faith in God's wisdom? I had no doubt that God's wisdom was
infinite. But wisdom has to serve some purpose. In this case God's
wisdom was serving His justifiable anger. My wisdom was supposed to
serve me. It would save me if it mattered for me to be saved.
Without doubting God's wisdom I must recognize that my motivation
is different from His. It is good for Him, but is it good for me? 
 
 A Jovial who would lead Odette to hell with his own hands and
would then enjoy an eternal beatitude would no longer be the Jovial
that I am. It would mean obliterating for eternity the Jovial I am
in favour of one who would act as an instrument in leading her to
hell. 
 
 I had to recognize that the Jovial I knew was dearer and more
appealing to me and -- most importantly -- worthier of love and
respect than the Jovial I would become by killing Odette in order
to secure my eternal life. Did I have the strength to withstand
damnation? That was no longer the problem. I did not have the
strength to kill spiritually the Jovial I am. I therefore chose
damnation. 
 
 I knelt down in front of my bed and addressed God. 
 
 "I hope, my Lord," I said, "that I see clearly into myself
and that I am sincere when I say it is repugnant to me to disobey
you. But the soul you have given me is unable to do harm knowingly
to another person. Tell me that by killing Odette I am opening the
road to heaven for her and I will not hesitate an instant to obey
you. But to kill her in order to satisfy your anger, to send her to
hell by killing her, is something I cannot do. I do not allow
myself to question the wisdom of your order. I know well that an
infinity of reasons escapes me and that my disobedience is damnable
and deserves to be so. It is with sadness that I have decided to
disobey you. I do not want heaven if, in order to enter it, I have
to throw someone else into hell. 
 
 "I hope, Lord, that I am not wrong when I say I feel no
bitterness against you and that my sadness results from the fact
that I would have preferred a test in which my obedience involved
sacrificing only myself." 
 
 I stood up, got dressed, and went down to the street. I took
the road away from town. The air was fresh and good to smell. I
could not help noticing that I had enjoyed life and I thanked God
sincerely and spontaneously for everything He had given to me. 
 
 Then I noticed two children, a boy and a girl, coming toward
me. The girl looked like Odette when she was much younger. I
wondered if this girl, like Odette, would not be damned later. Was
it still possible to save her? Would it not be a good deed on my
behalf to send this miniature of Odette directly to heaven? 
 
 I could not hesitate. I still wonder how, after more than
forty-eight hours without eating, I had the strength to strangle
the two children. They tried their best to free themselves. I was
in a state of exaltation even though I knew I would soon be
arrested and thrown in jail. 
 
 Only when the children had stopped moving did the terror
arise in me. I remembered that God could curse a man till the
fourth generation and therefore make innocents pay for the crimes
of their parents. Was it possible that God would damn those two
innocent children to make them pay for my disobedience? I may have
sent two innocents directly to hell who otherwise could have found
their way to heaven. 
 
 I wanted to scream from pain but no sound came from my mouth.
I remained mute till the day I met God face to face in the shape of
you, Lanterne. 
 
                               XXXX
 At the time of Jovial's arrest the authorities were baffled
by his senseless crime. In their effort to solve this mystery they
got access to Jovial's school records and interrogated some of his
former schoolmates. They were impressed by Albert's composition
which seemed to point to Jovial's predisposition to madness. 
 
 Jovial's file at the mental hospital contained a police memo
describing Albert as an arrogant young man who pretended, for the
fun of it, that Jovial was a kind of saint. At the time of his
interrogation Albert was working toward a degree in psychology. The
title of his thesis was "Faith, curiosity and the deviant mind".
Albert's essay follows: 
 
                                     XXX
 
                                  JESUS II
 
 He differed in many respects from his predecessor Jesus of
Nazareth. Certainly he too had a faith in God which could move
mountains, but he did not realize that he was charged with a
mission and thought himself an ordinary man. He was, he thought,
just Jovial, and did not know that he was one of a line of
prophets. 
 
 Like Jesus the first he was tolerant and loved, as they say,
his neighbour. But while Jesus the first loved and tolerated as a
visionary, Jovial showed delight in the worth of his fellow humans.
 
 
 He also differed in the quality of his miracles. Those of
Jesus the first are undeniable but too human. To raise a man from
the dead or cure him of an illness is no longer the exclusive
domain of prophets. If Moses made water gush from a rock by the use
of a stick, each one of us can now push a button and make
innumerable things occur. Human science also has its miracles. 
 
 But Jovial, Jesus II, performed miracles of a completely
different kind which went unnoticed. It is a fact that those things
which seem the most natural, the most simple and the least
controversial, on closer examination raise the most questions and
reveal great contradictions. So it was with Jovial's miracles. They
were not spectacular and one would need a whole book to convince
the reader of their supernatural character. For now I will merely
indicate what was most miraculous in Jovial. 
 
 Jesus of Nazareth was inspired by his heavenly Father. He was
conscious of being Jesus and acted as such. But one wonders if he
could have remained what he was and done what he had to do if he
weren't aware what he was. 
 
 The most miraculous thing about Jovial, Jesus II, is that he
did not know of his divine gifts. 
 
 The mother of Jesus II was called Mary, a coincidence of no
importance. She was not visited by angels before or during her
pregnancy and nothing pointed to the miraculous character of the
child. He is, by the way, known to look very much like his father
so I doubt that in this case there would be any need to suspect the
intervention of the Holy Spirit. However, let us not decide on this
now and bind future Councils of Rome by premature considerations.
The Holy Spirit could easily make the miraculous infant in the
image of the husband or any other, for whatever reason. All the
same, at our present level of understanding, we can dismiss the
intervention of the Holy Ghost. The miracle is less evident but
greater for it. 
 
 We are talking about a prophet, therefore the reader has
every right to ask for as many details as possible. Did he talk
from birth? Did he wear a halo? Did he attract animals? At the risk
of disappointing the reader I must admit that nothing in the
circumstances of his birth or early childhood is particularly
revealing, so I will pass over the details and give a few general
comments. 
 
 Jovial was a charming child -- obedient and gentle. He
appeared to be very intelligent but not particularly precocious. He
learned to speak and walk at the same age as most children. 
 
 He learned to pray quite soon and, now that I think about it,
he prayed in a very special way. He did not recite. To listen to
him one would have thought he did not know his prayers but was
composing one which, by mere chance, happened to be the one he had
learned. 
 
 It could be that this in itself was miraculous. One talks to
a child about "saying your prayers". But what one really means is
saying prayers, since the child is merely reciting a text learned
by heart and made up by others. Since these prayers are undeniably
effective they should be recited regularly. Often we think of
something else as we recite. Memory, like a tape recorder, unreels
the ritual phrases and prayer is reduced to a movement of the lips
with no feelings. It has become a habit, almost a mannerism. 
 
 When the worshipper makes an effort, or in his fervor thinks
of the meaning of prayer, he no longer addresses his prayer to God.
Prayer must be a cry from the heart, not from the memory, or an
operation of logic. 
 
 The believer might have a prayer to say, his own prayer. But
why should this prayer be confused with the one he has learned and
can recite mechanically? 
 
 There are some believers for whom prayer is much more than a
recitation, of course. It becomes a mystery, that of communion with
God. To pray is to get in touch with God. It can only be done by
speaking their prayer and, as long as you believe in this
communion, the phrases recited in Latin or English take on a new
significance. Praying is no longer saying a prayer, it is the
accomplishment of something much more important than the words
used. The passionate believer is more impressed by the act of
praying than by prayer. Prayer should be mysterious for this
believer, either through its language or through the banality of
its words and their repetition. For a true and original prayer
could distract the attention of the believer from the act of
praying to the prayer itself. 
 
 Jovial seemed to be in continual communion with God. He
believed that everything going on around him was the reflection of
a spiritual world which was mysterious and whose windows were open
only to him. This world was different from ours and bathed in a
Divine atmosphere. God and the angels reigned over its smallest
details. For Jovial, this world was as real as ours. 
 
 Jovial did not see himself as different or superior to anyone
else. To be good, honest and kind, and to come to the help of
everyone, was for him a natural reaction which did not arise from
any moral obligation. He did not measure out the help given to
others in terms of what it might cost him in money, or time, or
pain. This was just the way he was. 
 
 It will not be necessary to crucify Jovial. No physical
torture could cause him as much suffering as being unable to help
his neighbour. He will discover in time that he is unable to help
and he will bear this as his inner cross until his death or until
it drives him mad. 
 
                                     XXX
 
Albert had caught some essential traits of Jovial's
character: the sincerity of his convictions verging on the
miraculous and his purity of heart. I admired Jovial for
considering his friend worthy of a place in heaven (with correcting
spiritual glasses). Jovial had not changed his judgment of Albert
even after receiving from him the following letter. 
 
                                          July 10th, 1976 
Dear Jovial,
 
I am moved by your concern and your endeavour at saving my
soul. I cannot remain indifferent to so much devotion and I feel
obliged to reply in kind and to try, with little hope, to save what
remains of your mental health. 
 
Do not take me wrong. The playful tone of my letter is in the
best traditions of our past dealings. It should not mask the fact
that I feel very friendly towards you. Why, otherwise, should I
bother writing to you ... Q.E.D. 
 
      The fact is that, for a seeker of truth, the situation is
close to desperate. The market is full of truths; there are more
than enough for all tastes and all inclinations. Some are very
comfortable. They would guarantee, for instance, a survival of some
sort after death. Or else they would authorize you to do precisely
what you intended to do in the first place. What a marvellous and
convenient coincidence! 
 
      You must add to that the effect of traditions, milieux,
certain chance encounters, some influences. Then add the ease with
which a person can fool himself. Throw in the particularities of
character and desires, acknowledged or not, and what do you have?
You have the material, the departure point for the quest for Truth.
It is not very encouraging. 
 
      In the universe where everything moves and nothing is
certain, where everything seems to be an illusion and beautiful
mirages abound, there is nevertheless an unshakeable rock, a basic
truth, a kind of axiom of which the evidence is undeniable. Let us
cling strongly to this rock as long as we are interested in finding
any part of Truth and not a made-to-measure truth -- the measure
being the extent of our ignorance and prejudices. First Absolute
Truth, or first axiom: 
 
      There is no relation between the strength of a conviction
      and the truth of that conviction. 
 
 I assume that you accept the truth of this axiom. If not, let
me know and I will send you a superabundance of proofs which will
settle the question definitely. 
 
 I continue. 
 
 All truths have their laws and Truth has its laws. It is good
to distinguish between the two. I will therefore begin by stating
several laws obeyed by all truths. 
 
Law of Static Reinforcement: 
 
      A wine improves when it is aged. Similarly a conviction
      improves and gets stronger when it is left a long time
      without being questioned or changed. The conviction
      acquires in this way a seniority right of some sort. Its
      longevity seems to be a strong argument in favour of the
      truth of the  belief. 
 
Law of the Crowds: 
 
      If a truth is believed by the masses, that is a strong
      argument in its favour. So many people cannot be wrong. 
 
On the other hand if the truth is believed by a particular elite,
then what the hell? You have a right to prefer the elite of your
choice to the ignorant masses. The argument does not lose any
strength. (That, by the way, is the Law of the Elites.) 
 
Law of Internal Coherence: 
 
      If X is small enough one can put X in a bottle. That is
      very true and very coherent and applies without exception
      to every X. In particular it would be true for Paris, and
      gives rise to the famous truism: "If Paris were small
      enough, one could put it in a bottle." Very coherent, and
      true. 
 
   Instead of one coherent phrase with an explicit 'if', one
could write commentaries on the Bible or the Koran having an
absolute coherence hiding thousands of well-camouflaged 'ifs'. One
would then obtain many great and formidable Jewish, Christian,
Islamic and Buddhist truths revealing an extraordinary vitality
exemplified by their internal coherence. 
 
Law of Mystery: 
 
      A conviction is all the more commendable when it contains
      an element of irrational mystery. Without mystery truth
      is sterile. You cannot interpret it, you cannot argue
      with it, there is nothing to add to it. 
 
      However, the moment it is obscured by some mystery it
      suddenly becomes interesting and provokes mental
      activity. 
 
Law of Masters and Proliferation: 
 
      It is not given to everyone to create a new global truth
      system. But it is in the nature of these systems to allow
      an infinity of modifications, all equally truthworthy.
      What prevents one, for example, from replacing the bottle
      by a box and saying (modified eternal truth): "If Paris
      were small enough one could put Paris in a box."? 
 
      One could differ also as to the specifications of the
      box: iron or wood, watertight or not, etc ... There are
      so many possibilities for a diversity of masters and
      followers. 
 
 What could more befit a 'noble mind' like yours than to
produce your own modified system instead of being lost in a large
crowd? 
 
 This first outline of truths is far from exhaustive, but I
will end by mentioning two extremely important laws: 
 
Law of the Undetermined Why: 
 
   No less an authority than the Bible asserts that King David
was punished for having ordered the census of his people: 
 
      "The Lord sent a pestilence upon Israel; and there fell
      seventy thousand men of Israel." 
 
   One may wonder why the Lord considered a census by David
sinful when He Himself previously ordered Moses to take one. As
well why does a pestilence on seventy thousand innocent people
balance David's 'sin'. No explanation is given in the Bible and
theologians are free to develop their own justifications. Thus
whenever there is no explicit why in the Bible any number of
contradictory explanations are allowed; when the why is given, all
theologians would be unanimous in proving that it is the only
possible one. 
 
The Truth Precedes its Proofs: 
 
      Is the Lord's day Friday, Saturday, or Sunday? That is a
      badly phrased question. It is first necessary to know the
      answer and then it becomes possible to demonstrate its
      truth. In fact it is often possible to prove something
      and to prove its opposite. When one of the two has been
      accepted as true, there is no difficulty formulating
      obvious, dazzling and sometimes staggering proofs
      justifying the eternal truth of the choice which was
      made. 
 
   When Christians show with talent and truthful arguments that
Sunday is the Lord's day they have the great advantage of knowing
the answer in advance. This advantage is also shared by Jews when
they prove that Saturday, and not Sunday, must be given to the
Lord. For the same reason Moslems have no difficulty showing
perfectly that the day in question must be Friday. 
 
 I will stop for now, ready to continue as soon as you
acknowledge this letter. 
 
            Yours in friendship, 
                                       Albert
 
 
                                 CHAPTER XX 
                                THE MESSENGER
 
 I have reproduced Jovial's story as he told it. Deprived of
my divine powers and with my memory reduced to what was strictly
necessary for the execution of my mission, I could not confirm
whether I had indeed appeared in Jovial's dreams. Perhaps the
apparitions were nothing but hallucination. They may have been
arranged by the conclave before it stripped me of my powers.
Whatever the case, I faced a dilemma. 
 
 I did not doubt Jovial's sincerity. I had to accept the fact
that there existed at least one man who was ready to sacrifice both
his temporal life and his eternal life out of love for someone
else. Jesus knew he was sacrificing only his temporal life. However
admirable Jesus' sacrifice, Jovial's was infinitely greater.
Nevertheless without his regrets, according to the rules I had
established, the road to heaven was forbidden to Jovial. 
 
 I tried to find a justification for Jovial's damnation but I
had to admit that I loved and admired him. I started to doubt the
wisdom of my biblical ethic. 
 
 While I was absorbed in these thoughts a form, at first
nebulous, penetrated my cell through the walls. This form slowly
became clearer. Finally I saw the Devil standing in front of me! He
did not look triumphant. I do not know how I recognized him.
Perhaps the conclave had left in me the faculty of recognizing the
Devil whether or not he was disguised. I spoke first. 
 
 "I created you by doubting and the doubts that are assailing
me now must have invoked your presence." 
 
 He answered respectfully. "My Lord, you are right. But I have
also been sent by the conclave to deliver a message to you." 
 
 I encouraged him to go on. 
 
 "My Lord," he said, "the conclave has decided that it is time
to let you know the third extenuating circumstance that was to be
communicated to you in due time." 
 
 I was astounded. 
 
 "And you are the messenger chosen for this mission?" 
 
 "Yes, my Lord," he said. "The reason for this choice will
soon be evident. It is the conclave's opinion that your dislike of
doubt deprived you of an important regenerating instrument. One has
to doubt to discover an error; one must doubt in order to
appreciate that the doubt in man has great value. Used properly
doubt is a sign of spiritual nobility. One of the expected results
of your descent to earth was your discovery, from personal
experience, of the virtue of doubt. That is now accomplished. 
 
 "The importance given by the conclave to doubt resides in the
fact that the reconciliation between God and man cannot be
accomplished, in its opinion, except through the instrument of
doubt. To the extent that man accepts the Bible without doubting he
renounces the necessity of a God surpassing himself constantly and
illuminating the road of man towards the perfection of a living
divine morality, constantly improving and remaining at the vanguard
of the most noble human aspirations. 
 
 "The man who does not doubt the Bible has no real respect for
God. His respect is for tradition, for the church, for society, for
the comfort of a ready-made belief. He accommodates himself to a
biblical God punishing innocents, having no pity for woman and
child prisoners. 
 
 "To accept such a God, to immobilize Him at that level, is to
reduce Him to a despicable God. To affirm that God is infinitely
good and wise is merely a noise of words as long as the proof of
God's wisdom and goodness resides in the impossibility of
understanding why so many actions of the biblical God would have
been considered unjust and unreasonable if they had been executed
by a man instead. 
 
 "Only the unbeliever can think that God is, or could be,
infinitely better than what is permitted to Him by the Bible.
Therefore only the unbeliever can bestow on God the true dignity
that belongs to Him." 
 
 I listened calmly to the Devil. That fact alone seemed to
indicate that a great change had occurred in me. 
 
 I had to agree that there was some logic in the conclave's
choice of him as the bearer of a message extolling the virtues of
doubt. Moreover it was gratifying to hear the Devil speaking of me
in positive terms. 
 
 "I learned a lot during my stay on earth," I replied. "In
particular I no longer trust omniscience and omnipotence, which
isolated me from individual man and left me sensitive only to man
as a species. I also learned to distrust general rules. Though I do
agree with what you just said, I am not ready to consider every
biblical faith as a sign of weakness. I simply know now that faith,
or its absence, is not determining. It has no necessary
relationship to the value of the individual. Today I can appreciate
the doubt in me as well as the doubt in man. I recognize his right
not to believe in me without provoking anger." 
 
 "My Lord," said the Devil, "I must inform you, on behalf of
the conclave, that your stay on earth can end the moment you wish
it." 
 
 I still had a question on my mind. 
 
 "Do not go yet," I said. "There is still one important matter
to settle between us." 
 
 "My Lord," he said, "I am at your command!" 
 
 I had not expected so much compliance from the Devil. 
 
 "You were not always so obedient," I remarked. 
 
 "The situation is now different, my Lord!" 
 
 "That is true," I said. "You were created by my doubt. But
now that I appreciate doubt my aim is not to get rid of it. Your
existence is therefore no longer threatened." 
 
 He agreed. "Notice, my Lord, that there is no need to modify
my role. Its essence was to sow doubt. But now that this activity
is accepted as useful it could be considered as complementary to
yours. Doubt without faith could be harmful. However faith alone
deprives the believer of any merit. But while your actions
propagate faith and mine would propagate doubt, a happy balance
could be reached and there would be no need to consider me the
enemy." 
 
 "There is sense in what you say," I admitted, "but I prefer
to doubt it for awhile, even though I may come to accept your
position eventually." 
 
 "My Lord," he said, "I used to sow doubt by necessity. From
now on I will do it only as your servant!" 
 
 The Devil seemed about to retire but I still wanted him to
answer a question. 
 
 "Stay a moment," I said to him. "I would like to know if many
of the people who doubted in me have ended in hell." 
 
 "My Lord," he said, "those who ended in hell did it in
accordance with your commandments. Their number is indeed very
great". 
 
 "Did you find among them," I asked, "some who were sincere in
their doubts?" 
 
 The Devil hesitated. He seemed very embarrassed. 
 
 "My Lord," he said after a while, "very few of the
unbelievers were lacking sincerity. Many of them would have
preferred to believe but could not. Their integrity demanded proofs
they did not find. Others remained undecided and some of them did
not care. But many others proved by their lives that they were
sincere. Millions sacrificed themselves for family or for country.
More recently many unbelievers withstood tortures and died rather
than reveal to persecutors names and addresses requested of them." 
 
 He stopped briefly and then resumed. 
 
 "My Lord," he said, "I tend to believe that 'insincere
non-believer' is a contradiction in terms. If a person knows that
you exist he would be mad to deny it. He has no interest in doing
so. If he does not know it then he is sincere when he denies your
existence." 
 
 I thought a moment and remembered names of noble souls who,
nonetheless, were non-believers. 
 
 "I have decided," I said at last, "to move many of hell's
residents to heaven. Moreover, it is clear that some saints have to
be re-educated to become more tolerant." 
 
 "Your will be done," the Devil responded. And with those
words he disappeared.
 
 
                                 CHAPTER IX
                                   MEMOIRS
 
 It was not the return of power and knowledge that thrilled
me. Each cell in my earthly body had the potential of a universe,
but all seemed awakened to some larger hope. It was sympathy. I
stood entranced at these first explorations in harmony and
consciously refrained from directing them by either will or
intellect. Perhaps? And I suddenly become conscious of an ancient
ache. Perhaps an answer was forming out of the long eons of
creation; a response to the countless messages, patterns and codes
that I had sent winging from my will. Deliberately -- almost with
courage, I allowed myself a memory of being alone in the dark. It
recalled my own, almost abondonned, search for meaning. In the
absence of an answering voice I had imposed my own physical
andsensient meanings as I crowded the heavens with handiwork. I had
expected, and received, only echos.
 
 There was music -- each to each -- in the elements of
creation, and perhaps beyond.
 
I forced my earthly mind back to the small consciousness of
Lantern while the thrilling moments gathered.
 
 Lanterne -- I -- must contain myself for the moments left on
earth.
 
 First it was important to articulate a number of resolutions.
 
 
 I will not judge man according to the vehemence of his
 faith but according to the sincerity of his faith. 
 
      I will judge in proportion to temptation. I recognize
      that a great number of my creatures were tempted very
      little. Others were damned for their lack of resistance
      to extremely difficult tests, but would probably have
      found their way to  heaven if the tests imposed on them
      had been as light as those imposed on more favoured
      creatures. In short I must stop playing favourites. 
 
      I must restore women to the fullness of the rights and
      respect due to them. Women should no longer have a
      subordinate position in my consideration, in religion or
      in secular society. 
 
      I must be more moderate, more tolerant and more just in
      the imposition of punishments. I decree that all passages
      of the Bible giving a literal or metaphorical support to
      an act of genocide be considered as deriving from moments
      of divine  aberration for which I am repentant. 
 
      No soul should ever be lost for all eternity. The path to 
      redemption must always remain open, even after death. No
      one should have to give up hope of a neighbour's
      salvation, and no one should be tempted, like Jovial, to
      try to ensure a child's place in heaven by killing it. 
 
 I wanted to record this new dispensation before leaving earth
and therefore needed ink and paper. 
 
 The moment I formulated this last thought there appeared inmy
hands a pen and some sheets of paper. My thought was slowly
becoming Verb again! 
 
 I had to consider Jovial's fate and decided that he would
accompany me to heaven. Judged according to my new rules he could
not be damned. He deserved the best of heaven. From now on Jovial
would be called Saint Jovial. 
 
 I had tried not to harm any creature during my stay on earth.
Nevertheless I had made Justine unhappy. I needed to return the
freshness of her feelings and rid her of the bitterness caused by
my passage through her life. 
 
 Having formulated the wish to be with Justine I found myself
instantly in her room. The sight of her raised in me feelings I had
never experienced so intensely. I saw at once the baby and the
child she once had been, the young girl she still was, the mother
and the old woman she would eventually become. I also saw, through
her, all women in the world and I felt such an admiration and such
a divine love for them that I knew I had conquered my misgivings
concerning women. 
 
 Justine was sleeping but woke when I approached. She spoke in
a low and astonished voice. 
 
 "Lanterne! You have escaped from the asylum." 
 
 "Are you afraid?" I asked. 
 
 "No, Lanterne," she said. "Or rather, yes. I am afraid for
you. I wanted to visit you but the doctors asked me to wait a
couple of months. Show me your burned hand. Is it any better?" 
 
 I raised my hand to her. She took it in hers, then brought
her mouth close to place a kiss on it. At that moment my hand
disappeared and her lips touched her own hand. 
 
 "I am God, the Eternal," I told her. "I came to say good-bye
to you." 
 
 "I must be dreaming," she murmured to herself. 
 
 "No Justine," I said, "you are not dreaming. Within a few
minutes your memory will lose every trace of the love you felt for
me. I do not want my passage on earth to leave you unhappy. The man
you loved is in reality nothing but an illusion. You will remember
him only as a devoted teacher you liked and respected." 
 
 "Lanterne," she said. "Now I'm the one who's going mad.
Lanterne! Lanterne! Only a mad person can see a hand appearing and
disappearing. Lanterne! You are becoming transparent. Come back,
Lanterne!" 
 
 "I am still here, Justine, don't worry. I could have erased
your love for me from your memory without having to trouble you.
But I am still partially a man and I would like, before losing the
ability to feel as a man, to fix in the memory of God what the man
Lanterne has witnessed and participated in. I will cherish you,
Justine, as a symbol of freshness, honesty and purity. You helped
me to understand and appreciate women. I do not care about your
lack of faith in me. It matters to me only that you remain honest
toward your reason and your heart. I am going on my way and I bless
you -- and your brother, Lucien." 
 
 Back in my cell I invoked the presence of Jovial. He appeared
immediately without expressing the least sign of astonishment. I
told him of my intention to take him with me. 
 
 "Do I deserve to go to heaven?" he asked. 
 
 I no longer had any doubt of it. 
 
 "Maybe not according to the Bible or the New Testament," I
said. "But I've added a few chapters and, according to them, you
deserve to accompany me. When the time comes it may well be that
Odette will also have a place." 
 
 There was one thing left to do. 
 
 I said -- rather, I thought: 
 
                             LET MY MEMOIRS BE! 
 
 And my Memoirs were! The manuscript was visible in a corner
on the chair. I turned to Jovial. 
 
 "I will now break the walls of the cell and we shall ascend
to heaven." 
 
 "My Lord," Jovial asked respectfully, "may I ask why you
would break the cell walls? No doubt -- if you so wished -- we
could leave the place without breaking a thing." 
 
 I was taken aback. 
 
 "Truly, Jovial," I said, "I was going to break the walls for
the sake of the principle of ambiguity. I wanted our miraculous
departure to be interpreted in a natural way." 
 
 "My Lord," he commented, "the unbeliever will always find
rational explanations. Why not give one more sign to the believer?"
 
 
 I added a few lines to the manuscript and we left for heaven.