Panurge

“ For, against all the counsel of Pantagruel and of Friar John, and indeed of all his friends, Panurge married in a fit of spleen and obstinacy the crooked and squinting daughter of the little old man who sold green sauce in the Rue Quincangrogne at Tours—you will see the very place in a few days, and then you will understand everything. ”

“ Panurge conducted the learned body into a large saloon, and each in his way hearing a clattering of plates and glasses, congratulated himself on his approaching good cheer. There they were left by Panurge, who took his chair by Pantagruel just as the soup was removed, but he made up for the want of that part of his dinner by a pint of champagne. The learning of the university had whetted their appetites; what they each ate it is needless to recite ”

“ Panurge had no sooner heard this but he was upon the high-rope, and began to rail at them like mad. ”

“ While they were busy with him, others of the frantic folk had built great platforms of wood, whereon they all stood and spoke at once, both men and women. And of these some wore red crosses on their garments, which meaneth 'Salvation;' and others wore white crosses, with a little black button of crape, to signify 'Purity;' and others bits of blue to mean 'Abstinence.' While some of these pursued Panurge others did beset Pantagruel ”

“ By the memory of the decretals, said Friar John, tell us, I pray you, what you honest men here live on? Could not a man take a chirping bottle with you to taste your wine? I can see nothing among you but parchment, ink-horns, and pens. We live on nothing else, returned Double-fee; and all who live in this place must come through my hands. How, quoth Panurge, are you a shaver, then? ”

“ By gold, quoth Panurge, 'tis a black mite or weevil which is born of a white bean, and sallies out at the hole which he makes gnawing it; the mite being turned into a kind of fly, sometimes walks and sometimes flies over hills and dales. ”

“ The pagans have contaminated the sanctuaries of God, and have poured out the blood of saints round about the altar; have laid waste the house of our hope, have trampled upon the bodies of saints in the temple of God like dung in the street. ”

“ Penitents upon penitents are walking and lashing themselves: but what I want to have erected and adorned, is an altar in my heart, and the blows and lashes I desire to feel, are the crucifixion and mortification of the old man and its deeds. Without this, all is mere parade. God be praised for opening your eyes, and teaching you the holy art of worshipping him in spirit and in truth. ”

“ The slow and solemn movements of the Priests, as grave as they are unmeaning, resemble the spells of necromancers; the pictures and statues of the dead contrast strangely with the faces of the living; the chaunt of the Priests sounds differently from the jargon of the common people; the little oratories and cells, with some lone mourner kneeling before a crucifix, every thing leads the thoughts to another world, to death, the resurrection, and a judgment to come. ”

“ No one was able to enter into the temple, until the seven plagues of the seven angels would be finished. 016:001 I heard a loud voice out of the temple, saying to the seven angels, "Go and pour out the seven bowls of the wrath of God on the earth!" 016:002 The first went, and poured out his bowl into the earth, and it became a harmful and evil sore on the people who had the mark of the beast, and who worshiped his image. 016:003 The second angel poured out his bowl into the sea, and it became blood as of a dead man. Every living thing in the sea died. ”

“ In the use of holy water it sprinkled repeatedly and indefinitely. According to the New Testament, baptism is submersion, as the symbol of death to sin and resurrection to righteousness. All beyond that was pagan-born.
[291]
The central point of the evil which came from pagan water-worship is found in “baptismal regeneration”; i. e., the idea that by virtue of the power and sacredness of water spiritual purity is produced, and the candidate is fitted for membership in the Church, and for heaven. In so far as this idea remains, paganism remains. ”

“ The pilgrims come, and chant, and depart, generation after generation; the bones and skulls of the fourteen thousand martyrs in this charnel-bin enjoy a sort of repulsive immortality. The monk, who was our guide, appeared to care no more for the remains of the martyrs than for the presence of the pilgrims. In visiting such storehouses one cannot but be struck by the light familiarity with the relics and insignia of death which the monks have acquired. ”

“ The whole valley in which the shrine lies is held sacred. No impure thing is permitted within its holy bounds. No other than the high priest and the chiefs of the sect are buried near the tomb. Many pilgrims take off their shoes on approaching it, and go barefooted as long as they remain in its vicinity.
Such is the sanctuary of ‘Adi, where they offer him their homage. Their worship may be divided into two kinds, direct and indirect. The former consists of traditional hymns sung by the ḳawwals, the sacred musicians of the sect. They are chanted to the sound of flutes and tambourines. ”

“ It furnished abundant material for the corrupting process. We have seen in a former chapter that several minor elements of sun-worship mingled with pagan water-worship: such as turning to the west to renounce evil, and turning to the east to promise allegiance to Christ and Light, before baptism; “Orientation”—building [158] churches with the altar so that men should worship toward the east—was another element, while the extinguishing of a torch or a candle in the font, in the preparation of holy water, was a direct importation from this cult. ”

“ Benares, where the alien master steps into the gutter to let a swinging corpse pass on its way to the Sacred River, but where the priest behind it--his dark forehead barred with white, or smeared with a bold patch of ochre--steps into the opposite gutter, and clings to the shrine-set wall like a limpet, lest he be defiled by a touch, a shadow. ”

“ Do you the same; and believe it, though Purgatory fire is a kind of baptism, and is so styled by some of the holy Fathers, because it cleanses a soul from all the dross of sin, and makes it worthy to see God, yet is it your sweetest course, here to baptize yourself frequently in the tears of contrition, which have a mighty power to cleanse away all the blemishes of sin; and so prevent in your own person, and extinguish in others, those baptismal flames of Purgatory fire, which are so dreadful. ”

“ Hardly a day in the year on which we go out into the street that we do not see either a corpse being carried to the grave, or a priest going with the Blessed Sacrament to a dying person, or some one clad in mourning, or an altar in the church on which Mass is offered for souls departed, or else a grave-stone in the church-yard under which some one lies buried ”

“ Water from the Ganges is kept in the temples, and when the people are dying they often send from a great distance to obtain some of it. Before devotees put their feet into a river they wash their hands and utter a prayer.” [90]
These witnesses show us that water-worship and baptism, the water being variously employed, by immersion, sprinkling, pouring, etc., has formed a prominent feature in Oriental paganism from the earliest time until now. It passed from the Orient to Greece and Rome. Perhaps the stream from Egypt was an independent one, which came from the south. ”

“ All around are the confession-boxes, with the pierced plates, at which the priest within puts his ear, worn with the lips of penitents, and at one of the sides is a deep cave, far within which, as in a tomb, lies a representation on limestone of our Saviour, bleeding as he came from the cross, with the apostles, made of the same cadaverous material, hanging over him! ”

“ But then, because altars are erected for burnt sacrifices, and a burnt sacrifice is unsavoury, expensive, and unfashionable, we thrust a little coloured tin-foil in among the wet sticks, and protest how natural, how like real fire it looks, and we prostrate ourselves before it in mock homage. ”

“ And if the priest shall look, and, behold, the plague be not spread in the garment, either in the warp, or in the woof, or in any thing of skin; then the priest shall command that they wash the thing wherein the plague is, and he shall shut it up seven days more: and the priest shall look, after that the plague is washed: and, behold, if the plague have not changed its colour, and the plague be not spread, it is unclean; thou shalt burn it in the fire: it is a fret, whether the bareness be within or without. ”

“ Still, the outside can not be forgotten, even in the ecclesiastical atmosphere, and as the big bell up in the campanile booms the hour clear and mellow through the sound of voice and instrument, the world, the flesh and the devil stir the worshipers with a restless little movement of anxiety to get back into the sunshine again. ”

“ We are invited to enter with him a temple of worship—and praise and prayer become imprecations and curses. It is as if a hermit, telling his beads at the door of his cell, retired into its interior to hold converse with a blaspheming spirit. ”

“ We have an altar, whereof they have no power to eat, who serve the tabernacle. For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high Priest, for sin, are burned without the camp. ”

“ When old Pan was dead and Apollo's bow broken, there were many faithful pagans who would worship at no new shrines, but went out to the hills and caves, truer to the old gods in their discrowned desolation than in their pomp and power. ”

“ The priest 'held a relation to the Pawnees and their deity not unlike that occupied by Moses to Jehovah and the Israelites.' A feature in ritual is the sacred bundles of unknown contents, brought from the original home in Mexico. The Pawnees were created by Ti-ra-wá. They believe in a happy future life, while the wicked die, and there is an end of them. They cite their dreams of the dead as an argument for a life beyond the tomb. ”

“ These acts required no priestly aid; each man slew his own victim and divided the sacrifice in his own circle; the share of the god was the blood which was smeared upon or poured out beside stone (noṣb, ghabghab) set up as an altar or perhaps as a symbol of the deity. It does not appear that any portion of the sacrifice was burned on the altar, or that any part of the victim was the due of the sanctuary. ”

“ They burn sacrifices every new moon, mumbling over certain prayers in a kind of chanting voice, tingling a small bell, which they ring aloud at the close of each prayer. When any of them of good account lies sick and like to die, they sacrifice in this manner: Their altars are furnished with goats, hens, ducks, and various kinds of fruit, some dressed fit for eating, and others raw, which are all dressed and eaten ”

“ We must obey the dead. It was the last wish of Mother Crucifixion to be buried in the vault under the chapel altar, not to be placed in profane soil, and to remain when dead at the place where she had prayed when alive. ”

“ Every male of the priestly race shall eat of the flesh thereof, because it is holy of holies.
6:30. For the victim that is slain for sin, the blood of which is carried into the tabernacle of the testimony to make atonement in the sanctuary, shall not be eaten, but shall be burnt with fire. ”

“ AND now I desire you to imagine the worshipers gathered one morning in the little church at South Plains. The winter over and gone; the time of the singing of birds and of sweet-scented flowers had come. The marvel of the annual resurrection from the grave of winter was being lived over again in nature. But within the sanctuary it seemed more than resurrection, almost creation. Was it the same church at all? ”

“ Priests stood in readiness with paint and ashes and made upon their foreheads the mark of their caste, for which they received a compensation. At a time during the eclipse of the moon, 100,000 pilgrims often find their way to this holy water. It seems as if half their lives are spent in making these pilgrimages in these eastern countries, and if they die far from the holy stream, they are cremated and their ashes sent to some priest, whose office is to make the consecration before sprinkling them on the sacred rivers. ”

“ The night before the miracle hundreds sleep in different chapels and in the rotunda, in order to hold good places for the morrow, and during the day the churches are thronged to such an extent that people are often injured by the crush. In the morning everyone has a bunch of candles in his hand. There are ten thousand dozens of candles in the crowd, and all are to be lighted within an hour with fire from heaven, as they believe. ”

“ It is hardly necessary to recite in any detail the cruel and hideous sacrifices which have been perpetrated in this sense all over the world, sometimes in appeasement of a wrong committed or supposed to have been committed by the tribe or some member of it, sometimes in placation or for the averting of death, or defeat, or plague, sometimes merely in fulfilment of some long-standing custom of forgotten origin—the flayings and floggings and burnings and crucifixions of victims without end, carried out in all deliberation and solemnity of established ritual. ”

“ Take the censer, and putting fire in it from the altar, put incense upon it, and go quickly to the people to pray for them: for already wrath is gone out from the Lord, and the plague rageth.
47 When Aaron had done this, and had run to the midst of the multitude which the burning fire was now destroying, he offered the incense:
48 And standing between the dead and the living, he prayed for the people, and the plague ceased.
49 And the number of them that were slain was fourteen thousand and seven hundred men, besides them that had perished in the sedition of Core. ”