attitude is similar to that of Stephen, the abbot in ‘The Eye of Allah’, who takes the decision to destroy the microscope-even though his mistress is dying of cancer. The possible benefits are outweighed by the immediate dangers – inquisition and execution (‘“You can hear the faggots crackle’”) and the longer-term threat to the Christian religion, whereby the war between Good and Evil would become merely an endless struggle between two morally neutral forces of creation and degeneration – without any hope of a final outcome. The short-term danger of ‘more torture, more division’ is clear enough, a transparent conclusion, but the route to it is subtle and any reading must account for the details of the story.
‘The Eye of Allah’ groups itself naturally with ‘The Manner of Men’, a story in which Kipling describes the progress of St Paul (described by one of the narrators, from his limited viewpoint, as ‘a Jew philosopher’) by sea from Myra to Rome, with a shipwreck at Malta
en route.
Like Browning’s Karshish, who witnesses the raisingof Lazarus by one he describes as ‘a leech’, Quabil and Sulinor are witnesses whose testimony is reliable as to fact, but perhaps unreliable as to interpretation. Sulinor is the more sympathetic to Paul, who has nursed him through dysentery and, more importantly, intuited Sulinor’s life-long fear of the Beasts in the circus. As an ex-pirate of dubious status, Sulinor is justifiably leery and the Beasts are a grumbling presence through the story: even the
‘hrmph-hrmph’
of the oars in a trireme reminds Sulinor ‘of an elephant choosing his man in the Circus’. The story poses the question: who has saved the ship? From a Christian standpoint, Paul is clearly responsible – with God’s help. From the seamen’s position, it is finally their skill which brings off the safe beaching of the boat. Kipling, I believe, doesn’t express a bias, unlike Browning, and the reader is left to adjudicate between the rival claims of miracle and pragmatic technique. Either way, Paul’s fearless calm, whether justified or not, plays its part in the operation. If, at the story’s outset, Kipling appears to incline towards Paul – since Quabil mistakes Paul much as he himself is mistaken for a land-lubber when he is actually a master-mariner – the finale’s emphasis is on technique, pure seamanship, as Sulinor and Baeticus indulge in a war game.
The theme of miracle versus the purely natural explanation of phenomena is central to ‘The Eye of Allah’, taking the form of medicine or metaphysics. Despite the monastic setting, sceptics are well represented. John of Burgos, the artist, is an unbeliever, although he is attached to St Illod’s:
“‘Thy
soul?” the sub-cantor seemed doubtful.’ Roger Bacon is a freethinker:
“‘Every
way we are barred – barred by the words of some man, dead a thousand years, which are held final.”’ Roger of Salerno also resents Church interference. The infirmarian, Thomas, won’t be other than a lay-member of the community because he fears his heresy: “‘I confess myself at a loss for the cause of the fever unless – as Varro saith in his
De Re Rustica
– certain small animals which the eye cannot follow enter the body by the nose and mouth, and set up grave diseases. On the other hand, this is not in Scripture.’”
The story shows, however, that the ‘certain small animals’
are
in Scripture, since they now form part of John of Burgos’s illustration for the Gadarene swine. How does Kipling want us to interpret this? Are we to believe that scientific discovery is inherent in the gospel once it is
illuminated?
After all, in a glancing reference to Colossians 4:14, Stephen reminds John that Luke is a physician. Similarly, when Roger of Salerno sees John’s picture of the devils leaving MaryMagdalene, he immediately recognizes what has been depicted-not a miracle but “‘epilepsy – mouth, eyes, and forehead –
‘The Eye of Allah’ groups itself naturally with ‘The Manner of Men’, a story in which Kipling describes the progress of St Paul (described by one of the narrators, from his limited viewpoint, as ‘a Jew philosopher’) by sea from Myra to Rome, with a shipwreck at Malta
en route.
Like Browning’s Karshish, who witnesses the raisingof Lazarus by one he describes as ‘a leech’, Quabil and Sulinor are witnesses whose testimony is reliable as to fact, but perhaps unreliable as to interpretation. Sulinor is the more sympathetic to Paul, who has nursed him through dysentery and, more importantly, intuited Sulinor’s life-long fear of the Beasts in the circus. As an ex-pirate of dubious status, Sulinor is justifiably leery and the Beasts are a grumbling presence through the story: even the
‘hrmph-hrmph’
of the oars in a trireme reminds Sulinor ‘of an elephant choosing his man in the Circus’. The story poses the question: who has saved the ship? From a Christian standpoint, Paul is clearly responsible – with God’s help. From the seamen’s position, it is finally their skill which brings off the safe beaching of the boat. Kipling, I believe, doesn’t express a bias, unlike Browning, and the reader is left to adjudicate between the rival claims of miracle and pragmatic technique. Either way, Paul’s fearless calm, whether justified or not, plays its part in the operation. If, at the story’s outset, Kipling appears to incline towards Paul – since Quabil mistakes Paul much as he himself is mistaken for a land-lubber when he is actually a master-mariner – the finale’s emphasis is on technique, pure seamanship, as Sulinor and Baeticus indulge in a war game.
The theme of miracle versus the purely natural explanation of phenomena is central to ‘The Eye of Allah’, taking the form of medicine or metaphysics. Despite the monastic setting, sceptics are well represented. John of Burgos, the artist, is an unbeliever, although he is attached to St Illod’s:
“‘Thy
soul?” the sub-cantor seemed doubtful.’ Roger Bacon is a freethinker:
“‘Every
way we are barred – barred by the words of some man, dead a thousand years, which are held final.”’ Roger of Salerno also resents Church interference. The infirmarian, Thomas, won’t be other than a lay-member of the community because he fears his heresy: “‘I confess myself at a loss for the cause of the fever unless – as Varro saith in his
De Re Rustica
– certain small animals which the eye cannot follow enter the body by the nose and mouth, and set up grave diseases. On the other hand, this is not in Scripture.’”
The story shows, however, that the ‘certain small animals’
are
in Scripture, since they now form part of John of Burgos’s illustration for the Gadarene swine. How does Kipling want us to interpret this? Are we to believe that scientific discovery is inherent in the gospel once it is
illuminated?
After all, in a glancing reference to Colossians 4:14, Stephen reminds John that Luke is a physician. Similarly, when Roger of Salerno sees John’s picture of the devils leaving MaryMagdalene, he immediately recognizes what has been depicted-not a miracle but “‘epilepsy – mouth, eyes, and forehead –
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