About this book

The Social Cancer: A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere

José Rizal

her Charon and her Avernus, had anything like this idea. I won't speak now of the religions of northern Europe, for they were religions of warriors, bards, and hunters, and not of philosophers. While they yet preserve their beliefs and even their rites under Christian forms, they were unable to accompany the hordes in the spoliation of Rome or to seat themselves on the Capitoline; the religions of the mists were dissipated by the southern sun. Now then, the early Christians did not believe in a purgatory but died in the blissful confidence of shortly seeing God face to face. Apparently the first fathers of the Church who mentioned it were St. Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and St. Irenaeus, who were all perhaps influenced by Zarathustra's religion, which still flourished and was widely spread throughout the East, since at every step we read reproaches against Origen's Orientalism. St. Irenaeus proved its existence by the fact that Christ remained 'three days in the depths of the earth,' three days of purgatory, and deduced from this that every soul must remain there until the resurrection of the body, although the '_Hodie mecum eris in Paradiso_' [56] seems to contradict it. St. Augustine also speaks of purgatory and, if not affirming its existence, yet he did not believe it impossible, conjecturing that in another existence there might continue the punishments that we receive in this life for our sins." "The devil with St. Augustine!" ejaculated Don Filipo. "He wasn't satisfied with what we suffer here but wished a continuance." "Well, so it went" some believed it and others didn't. Although St. Gregory finally came to admit it in his _de quibusdam levibus culpis esse ante judicium purgatorius ignis credendus est_, [57] yet nothing definite was done until the year 1439, that is, eight centuries later, when the Council of Florence declared that there must exist a purifying fire for the souls of those who have died in the love of God but without having satisfied divine Justice. Lastly, the Council of Trent under Pius IV in 1563, in the twenty-fifth session, issued the purgatorial decree beginning _Cura catholica ecclesia, Spiritu Santo edocta_, wherein it deduces that, after the office of the mass, the petitions of the living, their prayers, alms, and other pious works are the surest means of freeing the souls. Nevertheless, the Protestants do not believe in it nor do the Greek Fathers, since they reject any Biblical authority for it and say that our responsibility ends with death, and that the '_Quodcumque ligaberis in terra_,' [58] does not mean '_usque ad purgatorium,_' [59] but to this the answer can be made that since purgatory is located in the center of the earth it fell naturally under the control of St. Peter. But I should never get through if I had to relate all that has been said on the subject. Any day that you wish to discuss the matter with me, come to my house and there we will consult the books and talk freely and quietly. "Now I must go. I don't understand why Christian piety permits robbery on this night--and you, the authorities, allow it--and I fear for my books. If they should steal them to read I wouldn't object, but I know that there are many who wish to burn them in order to do for me an act of charity, and such charity, worthy of the Caliph Omar, is to be dreaded. Some believe that on account of those books I am already damned--" "But I suppose that you do believe in damnation?" asked Doray with a smile, as she appeared carrying in a brazier the dry palm leaves, which gave off a peculiar smoke and an agreeable odor. "I don't know, madam, what God will do with me," replied the old man thoughtfully. "When I die I will commit myself to Him without fear and He may do with me what He wishes. But a thought strikes me!" "What thought is that?" "If the only ones who can be saved are the Catholics, and of them only five per cent--as many curates say--and as the Catholics form only a twelfth part of the population of the world--if we believe what statistics show--it would result that after damning millions and millions of men during the countless ages that passed before the Saviour came to the earth, after a Son of God has died for us, it is now possible to save only five in every twelve hundred. That cannot be so! I prefer to believe and say with Job: 'Wilt thou break a leaf driven to and fro, and wilt thou pursue the dry stubble?' No, such a calamity is impossible and to believe it is blasphemy!" "What do you wish? Divine Justice, divine Purity--" "Oh, but divine Justice and divine Purity saw the future before the creation," answered the old man, as he rose shuddering. "Man is an accidental and not a necessary part of creation, and that God cannot have created him, no indeed, only to make a few happy and condemn hundreds to eternal misery, and all in a moment, for hereditary faults! No! If that be true, strangle your baby son sleeping there! If such a belief were not a blasphemy against that God, who must be the Highest Good, then the Phenician Moloch, which was appeased with human sacrifices and innocent blood, and in whose belly were burned the babes torn from their mothers' breasts, that bloody deity, that horrible divinity, would be by the side of Him a weak girl, a friend, a mother of humanity!" Horrified, the Lunatic--or the Sage--left the house and ran along the street in spite of the rain and the darkness. A lurid flash, followed by frightful thunder and filling the air with deadly currents, lighted the old man as he stretched his hand toward the sky and cried out: "Thou protestest! I know that Thou art not cruel, I know that I must only name Thee Good!" The flashes of lightning became more frequent and the storm increased in violence. CHAPTER XV The Sacristans The thunder resounded, roar following close upon roar, each preceded' by a blinding flash of zigzag lightning, so that it might have been said that God was writing his name in fire and that the eternal arch of heaven was trembling with fear. The rain, whipped about in a different direction each moment by the mournfully whistling wind, fell in torrents. With a voice full of fear the bells sounded their sad supplication, and in the brief pauses between the roars of the unchained elements tolled forth sorrowful peals, like plaintive groans. On the second floor of the church tower were the two boys whom we saw talking to the Sage. The younger, a child of seven years with large black eyes and a timid countenance, was huddling close to his brother, a boy of ten, whom he greatly resembled in features, except that the look on the elder's face was deeper and firmer. Both were meanly dressed in clothes full of rents and patches. They sat upon a block of wood, each holding the end of a rope which extended upward and was lost amid the shadows above. The wind-driven rain reached them and snuffed the piece of candle burning dimly on the large round stone that was used to furnish the thunder on Good Friday by being rolled around the gallery. "Pull on the rope, Crispin, pull!" cried the elder to his little brother, who did as he was told, so that from above was heard a faint peal, instantly drowned out by the reechoing thunder. "Oh, if we were only at home now with mother," sighed the younger, as he gazed at his brother. "There I shouldn't be afraid." The elder did not answer; he was watching the melting wax of the candle, apparently lost in thought. "There no one would say that I stole," went on Crispin. "Mother wouldn't allow it. If she knew that they whip me--" The elder took his gaze from the flame, raised his head, and clutching the thick rope pulled violently on it so that a sonorous peal of the bells was heard. "Are we always going to live this way, brother?" continued Crispin. "I'd like to get sick at home tomorrow, I'd like to fall into a long sickness so that mother might take care of me and not let me come back to the convento. So I'd not be called a thief nor would they whip me. And you too, brother, you must get sick with me." "No," answered the older, "we should all die: mother of grief and we of hunger." Crispin remained silent for a moment, then asked, "How much will you get this month?" "Two pesos. They're fined me twice." "Then pay what they say I've stolen, so that they won't call us thieves. Pay it, brother!" "Are you crazy, Crispin? Mother wouldn't have anything to eat. The senior sacristan says that you've stolen two gold pieces, and they're worth thirty-two pesos." The little one counted on his fingers up to thirty-two. "Six hands and two fingers over and each finger a peso!" he murmured thoughtfully. "And each peso, how many cuartos?" "A hundred and sixty." "A hundred and sixty cuartos? A hundred and sixty times a cuarto? Goodness! And how many are a hundred and sixty?" "Thirty-two hands," answered the older. Crispin looked hard at his little hands. "Thirty-two hands," he repeated, "six hands and two fingers over and each finger thirty-two hands and each finger a cuarto--goodness, what a lot of cuartos! I could hardly count them in three days; and with them could be bought shoes for our feet, a hat for my head when the sun shines hot, a big umbrella for the rain, and food, and clothes for you and mother, and--" He became silent and thoughtful again. "Now I'm sorry that I didn't steal!" he soon exclaimed. "Crispin!" reproached his brother. "Don't get angry! The curate has said that he'll beat me to death if the money doesn't appear, and if I had stolen it I could make it appear. Anyhow, if I died you and mother would at least have clothes. Oh, if I had only stolen it!" The elder pulled on the rope in silence. After a time he replied with a sigh: "What I'm afraid of is that mother will scold you when she knows about it." "Do you think so?" asked the younger with astonishment. "You will tell her that they're whipped me and I'll show the welts on my back and my torn pocket. I had only one cuarto, which was given to me last Easter, but the curate took that away from me yesterday. I never saw a prettier cuarto! No, mother won't believe it." "If the curate says so--" Crispin began to cry, murmuring between his sobs, "Then go home alone! I don't want to go. Tell mother that I'm sick. I don't want to go." "Crispin, don't cry!" pleaded the elder. "Mother won't believe it--don't cry! Old Tasio told us that a fine supper is waiting for us." "A fine supper! And I haven't eaten for a long time. They won't give me anything to eat until the two gold pieces appear. But, if mother believes it? You must tell her that the senior sacristan is a liar but that the curate believes him and that all of them are liars, that they say that we're thieves because our father is a vagabond who--" At that instant a head appeared at the top of the stairway leading down to the floor below, and that head, like Medusa's, froze the words on the child's lips. It was a long, narrow head covered with black hair, with blue glasses concealing the fact that one eye was sightless. The senior sacristan was accustomed to appear thus without noise or warning of any kind. The two brothers turned cold with fear. "On you, Basilio, I impose a fine of two reals for not ringing the bells in time," he said in a voice so hollow that his throat seemed to lack vocal chords. "You, Crispin, must stay tonight, until what you stole reappears." Crispin looked at his brother as if pleading for protection. "But we already have permission--mother expects us at eight o'clock," objected Basilio timidly. "Neither shall you go home at eight, you'll stay until ten." "But, sir, after nine o'clock no one is allowed to be out and our house is far from here."