CHAPTER XIV
Tasio: Lunatic or Sage
The peculiar old man wandered about the streets aimlessly. A formerstudent of philosophy, he had given up his career in obedience tohis mother's wishes and not from any lack of means or ability. Quitethe contrary, it was because his mother was rich and he was saidto possess talent. The good woman feared that her son would becomelearned and forget God, so she had given him his choice of enteringthe priesthood or leaving college. Being in love, he chose the lattercourse and married. Then having lost both his wife and his motherwithin a year, he sought consolation in his books in order to freehimself from sorrow, the cockpit, and the dangers of idleness. Hebecame so addicted to his studies and the purchase of books, that heentirely neglected his fortune and gradually ruined himself. Personsof culture called him Don Anastasio, or Tasio the Sage, while thegreat crowd of the ignorant knew him as Tasio the Lunatic, on accountof his peculiar ideas and his eccentric manner of dealing with others.
As we said before, the evening threatened to be stormy. The lightningflashed its pale rays across the leaden sky, the air was heavy andthe slight breeze excessively sultry. Tasio had apparently alreadyforgotten his beloved skull, and now he was smiling as he looked atthe dark clouds. Near the church he met a man wearing an alpaca coat,who carried in one hand a large bundle of candles and in the othera tasseled cane, the emblem of his office as gobernadorcillo.
"You seem to be merry?" he greeted Tasio in Tagalog.
"Truly I am, senor capitan, I'm merry because I hope for something."
"Ah? What do you hope for?"
"The storm!"
"The storm? Are you thinking of taking a bath?" asked thegobernadorcillo in a jesting way as he stared at the simple attireof the old man.
"A bath? That's not a bad idea, especially when one has just stumbledover some trash!" answered Tasio in a similar, though somewhatmore offensive tone, staring at the other's face. "But I hope forsomething better."
"What, then?"
"Some thunderbolts that will kill people and burn down houses,"returned the Sage seriously.
"Why don't you ask for the deluge at once?"
"We all deserve it, even you and I! You, senor gobernadorcillo,have there a bundle of tapers that came from some Chinese shop, yetthis now makes the tenth year that I have been proposing to each newoccupant of your office the purchase of lightning-rods. Every onelaughs at me, and buys bombs and rockets and pays for the ringing ofbells. Even you yourself, on the day after I made my proposition,ordered from the Chinese founders a bell in honor of St. Barbara,[53] when science has shown that it is dangerous to ring the bellsduring a storm. Explain to me why in the year '70, when lightningstruck in Binan, it hit the very church tower and destroyed the clockand altar. What was the bell of St. Barbara doing then?"
At the moment there was a vivid flash. "_Jesus, Maria, y Jose!_Holy St. Barbara!" exclaimed the gobernadorcillo, turning pale andcrossing himself.
Tasio burst out into a loud laugh. "You are worthy of your patroness,"he remarked dryly in Spanish as he turned his back and went towardthe church.
Inside, the sacristans were preparing a catafalque, bordered withcandles placed in wooden sockets. Two large tables had been placedone above the other and covered with black cloth across which ranwhite stripes, with here and there a skull painted on it.
"Is that for the souls or for the candles?" inquired the old man,but noticing two boys, one about ten and the other seven, he turnedto them without awaiting an answer from the sacristans.
"Won't you come with me, boys?" he asked them. "Your mother hasprepared a supper for you fit for a curate."
"The senior sacristan will not let us leave until eight o'clock,sir," answered the larger of the two boys. "I expect to get my payto give it to our mother."
"Ah! And where are you going now?"
"To the belfry, sir, to ring the knell for the souls."
"Going to the belfry! Then take care! Don't go near the bells duringthe storm!"
Tasio then left the church, not without first bestowing a look of pityon the two boys, who were climbing the stairway into the organ-loft. Hepassed his hand over his eyes, looked at the sky again, and murmured,"Now I should be sorry if thunderbolts should fall." With his headbowed in thought he started toward the outskirts of the town.
"Won't you come in?" invited a voice in Spanish from a window.
The Sage raised his head and saw a man of thirty or thirty-five yearsof age smiling at him.
"What are you reading there?" asked Tasio, pointing to a book theman held in his hand.
"A work just published: 'The Torments Suffered by the Blessed Soulsin Purgatory,'" the other answered with a smile.
"Man, man, man!" exclaimed the Sage in an altered tone as he enteredthe house. "The author must be a very clever person."
Upon reaching the top of the stairway, he was cordially received by themaster of the house, Don Filipo Lino, and his young wife, Dona TeodoraVina. Don Filipo was the teniente-mayor of the town and leader of oneof the parties--the liberal faction, if it be possible to speak so,and if there exist parties in the towns of the Philippines.
"Did you meet in the cemetery the son of the deceased Don Rafael,who has just returned from Europe?"
"Yes, I saw him as he alighted from his carriage."
"They say that he went to look for his father's grave. It must havebeen a terrible blow."
The Sage shrugged his shoulders.
"Doesn't such a misfortune affect you?" asked the young wife.
"You know very well that I was one of the six who accompanied the body,and it was I who appealed to the Captain-General when I saw that noone, not even the authorities, said anything about such an outrage,although I always prefer to honor a good man in life rather than toworship him after his death."
"Well?"
"But, madam, I am not a believer in hereditary monarchy. By reasonof the Chinese blood which I have received from my mother I believea little like the Chinese: I honor the father on account of the sonand not the son on account of the father. I believe that each oneshould receive the reward or punishment for his own deeds, not forthose of another."
"Did you order a mass said for your dead wife, as I advisedyou yesterday?" asked the young woman, changing the subject ofconversation.
"No," answered the old man with a smile.
"What a pity!" she exclaimed with unfeigned regret.
"They say that until ten o'clock tomorrow the souls will wander atliberty, awaiting the prayers of the living, and that during thesedays one mass is equivalent to five on other days of the year, oreven to six, as the curate said this morning."
"What! Does that mean that we have a period without paying, which weshould take advantage of?"
"But, Doray," interrupted Don Filipo, "you know that Don Anastasiodoesn't believe in purgatory."
"I don't believe in purgatory!" protested the old man, partly risingfrom his seat. "Even when I know something of its history!"
"The history of purgatory!" exclaimed the couple, full ofsurprise. "Come, relate it to us."
"You don't know it and yet you order masses and talk about itstorments? Well, as it has begun to rain and threatens to continue,we shall have time to relieve the monotony," replied Tasio, fallinginto a thoughtful mood.
Don Filipo closed the book which he held in his hand and Doray satdown at his side determined not to believe anything that the old manwas about to say.
The latter began in the following manner: "Purgatory existed longbefore Our Lord came into the world and must have been located inthe center of the earth, according to Padre Astete; or somewhere nearCluny, according to the monk of whom Padre Girard tells us. But thelocation is of least importance here. Now then, who were scorchingin those fires that had been burning from the beginning of theworld? Its very ancient existence is proved by Christian philosophy,which teaches that God has created nothing new since he rested."
"But it could have existed _in potentia_ and not _in ac
tu_," [54]observed Don Filipo.
"Very well! But yet I must answer that some knew of it and as existing_in actu_. One of these was Zarathustra, or Zoroaster, who wrotepart of the Zend-Avesta and founded a religion which in some pointsresembles ours, and Zarathustra, according to the scholars, flourishedat least eight hundred years before Christ. I say 'at least,' sinceGaffarel, after examining the testimony of Plato, Xanthus of Lydia,Pliny, Hermippus, and Eudoxus, believes it to have been two thousandfive hundred years before our era. However that may be, it is certainthat Zarathustra talked of a kind of purgatory and showed ways ofgetting free from it. The living could redeem the souls of those whodied in sin by reciting passages from the Avesta and by doing goodworks, but under the condition that the person offering the petitionsshould be a relative, up to the fourth generation. The time for thisoccurred every year and lasted five days. Later, when this belief hadbecome fixed among the people, the priests of that religion saw in it achance of profit and so they exploited 'the deep and dark prison whereremorse reigns,' as Zarathustra called it. They declared that by thepayment of a small coin it was possible to save a soul from a year oftorture, but as in that religion there were sins punishable by threehundred to a thousand years of suffering, such as lying, faithlessness,failure to keep one's word, and so on, it resulted that the rascalstook in countless sums. Here you will observe something like ourpurgatory, if you take into account the differences in the religions."
A vivid flash of lightning, followed by rolling thunder, caused Dorayto start up and exclaim, as she crossed herself: "_Jesus, Maria,y Jose!_ I'm going to leave you, I'm going to burn some sacred palmand light candles of penitence."
The rain began to fall in torrents. The Sage Tasio, watching the youngwoman leave, continued: "Now that she is not here, we can consider thismatter more rationally. Doray, even though a little superstitious,is a good Catholic, and I don't care to root out the faith from herheart. A pure and simple faith is as distinct from fanaticism as theflame from smoke or music from discords: only the fools and the deafconfuse them. Between ourselves we can say that the idea of purgatoryis good, holy, and rational. It perpetuates the union of those whowere and those who are, leading thus to greater purity of life. Theevil is in its abuse.
"But let us now see where Catholicism got this idea, which does notexist in the Old Testament nor in the Gospels. Neither Moses nor Christmade the slightest mention of it, and the single passage which iscited from Maccabees is insufficient. Besides, this book was declaredapocryphal by the Council of Laodicea and the holy Catholic Churchaccepted it only later. Neither have the pagan religions anythinglike it. The oft-quoted passage in Virgil, _Aliae panduntur inanes_,[55] which probably gave occasion for St. Gregory the Great to speakof drowned souls, and to Dante for another narrative in his _DivineComedy_, cannot have been the origin of this belief. Neither theBrahmins, the Buddhists, nor the Egyptians, who may have given Romeher Charon and her Avernus, had anything like this idea. I won't speaknow of the religions of northern Europe, for they were religions ofwarriors, bards, and hunters, and not of philosophers. While they yetpreserve their beliefs and even their rites under Christian forms,they were unable to accompany the hordes in the spoliation of Romeor to seat themselves on the Capitoline; the religions of the mistswere dissipated by the southern sun. Now then, the early Christiansdid not believe in a purgatory but died in the blissful confidenceof shortly seeing God face to face. Apparently the first fathers ofthe Church who mentioned it were St. Clement of Alexandria, Origen,and St. Irenaeus, who were all perhaps influenced by Zarathustra'sreligion, which still flourished and was widely spread throughoutthe East, since at every step we read reproaches against Origen'sOrientalism. St. Irenaeus proved its existence by the fact thatChrist remained 'three days in the depths of the earth,' three daysof purgatory, and deduced from this that every soul must remain thereuntil the resurrection of the body, although the '_Hodie mecum eris inParadiso_' [56] seems to contradict it. St. Augustine also speaks ofpurgatory and, if not affirming its existence, yet he did not believeit impossible, conjecturing that in another existence there mightcontinue the punishments that we receive in this life for our sins."
"The devil with St. Augustine!" ejaculated Don Filipo. "He wasn'tsatisfied with what we suffer here but wished a continuance."
"Well, so it went" some believed it and others didn't. AlthoughSt. Gregory finally came to admit it in his _de quibusdam levibusculpis esse ante judicium purgatorius ignis credendus est_, [57] yetnothing definite was done until the year 1439, that is, eight centurieslater, when the Council of Florence declared that there must exista purifying fire for the souls of those who have died in the love ofGod but without having satisfied divine Justice. Lastly, the Councilof Trent under Pius IV in 1563, in the twenty-fifth session, issuedthe purgatorial decree beginning _Cura catholica ecclesia, SpirituSanto edocta_, wherein it deduces that, after the office of the mass,the petitions of the living, their prayers, alms, and other piousworks are the surest means of freeing the souls. Nevertheless, theProtestants do not believe in it nor do the Greek Fathers, since theyreject any Biblical authority for it and say that our responsibilityends with death, and that the '_Quodcumque ligaberis in terra_,'[58] does not mean '_usque ad purgatorium,_' [59] but to this theanswer can be made that since purgatory is located in the center ofthe earth it fell naturally under the control of St. Peter. But Ishould never get through if I had to relate all that has been saidon 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 freelyand quietly.
"Now I must go. I don't understand why Christian piety permits robberyon this night--and you, the authorities, allow it--and I fear formy books. If they should steal them to read I wouldn't object, butI know that there are many who wish to burn them in order to do forme 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 amalready damned--"
"But I suppose that you do believe in damnation?" asked Doray witha 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 manthoughtfully. "When I die I will commit myself to Him without fearand 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 themonly five per cent--as many curates say--and as the Catholics formonly a twelfth part of the population of the world--if we believewhat statistics show--it would result that after damning millionsand millions of men during the countless ages that passed beforethe 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. Thatcannot be so! I prefer to believe and say with Job: 'Wilt thou breaka 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 thecreation," answered the old man, as he rose shuddering. "Man is anaccidental and not a necessary part of creation, and that God cannothave created him, no indeed, only to make a few happy and condemnhundreds to eternal misery, and all in a moment, for hereditaryfaults! No! If that be true, strangle your baby son sleeping there! Ifsuch a belief were not a blasphemy against that God, who must bethe Highest Good, then the Phenician Moloch, which was appeased withhuman sacrifices and innocent blood, and in whose belly were burnedthe babes torn from their mothers' breasts, that bloody deity, thathorrible 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 thestreet in spite of the rain and the darkness. A lurid flash, followedby frightful thunder and filling the air with deadly currents, lightedthe old man as he stretched his hand toward the sky and cried out:"Thou protestes
t! I know that Thou art not cruel, I know that I mustonly name Thee Good!"
The flashes of lightning became more frequent and the storm increasedin violence.