Religion in Cerebus - Part Six

Religion comes to the forefront of the Cerebus storyline in “Church & State,” when Cerebus becomes Pope again.

Again?

Cerebus was actually the acting pontiff during part of “High Society,” I refer the reader to pp. 427-428, when Cerebus has his conversation with the two drunken Bishops, where he learns the importance of the Albatross. On p. 428, we find the following exchange:

BISHOP: You were suppose’ a find th’ albatroz

CEREBUS: Cerebus was?

BISHOP: Yes! Yes! Yes! . . . With th’ inodux exward you technic’ly became th’ Eas’ern Pon’iff

The Bishop means “Exodus Inward,” of course, the Pope and all the top church hierarchy sealing themselves up and severing connection with the outside world.

This seems to have actually happened before the election, as it is later implied that Blakely and Filgate and the rest supported Cerebus specifically because of the Exodus Inward (when it ends, they decamp). So perhaps Gatson was “technically the Eastern Pontiff” for a short while. In any case, it’s another example of how “High Society,” ostensibly about politics, is in fact supported throughout by a superstructure of religion.

In any case, after trying to escape Iest and its intrigues and being dragged back by President Weisshaupt and made Prime Minister again, Cerebus is named Pope early in "Church and State" (technically, between issues 61 and 62, but we don't actually see him in his papal robes until #64). He immediately moves from the Regency, not to the papal palace and grand cathedral on the other end of the Upper City, but to a hotel "on the east wall." It's interesting to note that he chose a location that was neither in the Upper City nor the Lower City. He spends the next 85 issues in this neither/nor position, with time out for a trip to the Upper City for the Trial and, of course, his trip to the moon. Jaka and Rick's apartment is also on the wall, and Dino's Cafe is just inside the gate on the road to the Upper City. Cerebus is seen going out that gate into the Lower City on the penultimate page of Melmoth.

Clearly, the author of "Church & State" was extremely critical of the whole notion of religion and religious belief. The true believers in the story are the suckers who give their gold to Cerebus and the "limp-wristed pucker-faced sack of suet," Bishop Posey, a thoroughly ineffectual sort who ends up later martyring himself uselessly for his belief in Cerebus. The only believers in Tarim that we see who are not taken in by Cerebus are Powers and his fellow Western Church officials, who are not exactly presented as positive role models. Although before he became Pontiff we are twice told that Cerebus is an orthodox Tarimite and raised in the Church (once by Harmony IV, once by Sophia), once he ascends to the papacy he certainly acts like he has no real belief in Tarim -- wouldn't a believer be afraid that Tarim would strike him down for his misuse of His Name?

And yet, weirdly enough, he does act and speak as if he does believe, even though his belief is shallow and he remains self-centered. He seems to think that it must be Tarim's will that he be Pope, since he is, and therefore it's perfectly all right for him to do whatever he wishes and Tarim will approve. When he goes on the roof with Boobah to be "closer to Tarim" so he can say "the perfect things that come into Most Holy's head," he seems to be serious and sincere, even though the scene reveals just how shallow and simplistic Cerebus' thoughts are, and how self-centered he really is ("Most Holy has a feeling, Boobah, that Tarim wants to talk to Most Holy tonight. You must write down whatever Tarim says, because, in his own way, he is almost as important as Most Holy.").

Notice that "he," referring to Tarim, is not capitalized here. This is written down by Boobah, not the all-caps of captions and dialogue, so the non-capitalization is in the original -- and throughout Boobah's transcript. "Most Holy," on the other hand, is capitalized. Is this a mistake on Boobah's part? The result of instructions from Cerebus? Dave's own thinking on Tarim being a "god" not God so therefore not needing capitals (despite the Church of Tarim obviously standing allegorically for the Catholic Church that does worship God)? It's hard to say, but it's an interesting note.

While it makes dramatic sense, there's never a real explanation for why the populace becomes so overwhelmingly loyal to Cerebus. If previous popes had commanded that kind of loyalty, there wouldn't have been a need for an Inquisition. It's true that his popularity is largely among the "peasants and livestock," as Weisshaupt dismisses them early on, but Lord Draser is surely not the only member of the middle and upper classes to be withdrawing money from the bank, or the bank wouldn't be in such trouble. As Cerebus' demands for money are loosely based on televangelists like Jim Bakker and Oral Roberts, it's important to note that no single Christian leader -- even the Pope during the Middle Ages -- ever really had the hearts and minds of all the faithful, or even all the faithful in any large city, like Rome, to this extent.

Speaking of Oral Roberts, it's tempting to look back on Cerebus' "Tarim will destroy the world unless you give Him all your gold!" as lampooning Roberts' famous assertion that God would "call him home" if his flock didn't come up with $8 million in two months, but it is in fact one of those life-imitating-art instances. Cerebus #65 ("Anything Done for the First Time Unleashes a Demon," where Cerebus first makes his demand for gold, was cover-dated August 1984 (it may have come out in September or even October - Dave was running behind back then and would slip several months before finishing C&S, but still, certainly some time that year). Oral Roberts made his plea on January 4, 1987, with a deadline of March 1. (He claimed to have made it by the way, reportedly raising $9.1 million by the deadline, but of course, his books weren't open to the public so we have to take his word for it.)

Despite some indications of a sincere belief in Tarim, however, Cerebus seems to have no problem whatsoever using his new-found position in the most cynical and even vicious ways. Throwing the baby is almost accidental, an impulsive act without forethought, but kicking the old man off the roof is a deliberate and calculated act.

Cerebus apparently believes the words of the sermon he preaches in #65 that launches the influx of gold into his hotel:

Many of you have been told since you were small that Tarim loves you . . . That is NOT TRUE . . . Tarim loves rich people! That is why he gives them so much money . . . Tarim loves strong people . . . That is why he gives them enough strength to beat everyone up . . . Tarim HATES poor people which is why they don't have any money . . . Tarim hates weak people which is why they are always getting beaten up by strong people.

This sermon is intended to soften the huddled masses up for the pitch for gold, but it can also be seen as Cerebus' real beliefs. It seems certain that he is not orthodox in his beliefs, even if he is technically an Orthodox Tarimite. One can certainly see how what little we know of his early life would have led him to disbelieve the things he was taught about Tarim when he was small (and let's leave aside for now the probable upbringing of the barbarian we saw in the early episodes and accept as given that Cerebus was indeed brought up an Orthodox Tarimite in a small town in a place that more resembled Canada than some Conanesque barbarian hinterland).

Although this is the opening to a pitch, I think Cerebus is also being absolutely sincere here. He really does believe that it is self-evident that Tarim loves rich people, and that is why they are rich. Tarim loves strong people, and that is why Cerebus worked hard as a youth to make himself strong, to be the beater rather than the beaten. He believes that his elevation to the papacy is a sign of Tarim's favor. Whatever he does, Tarim approves of it. Tarim, after all, made him Pope. This even his explains his disregard of what many would consider his blasphemy -- he can't commit blasphemy. He's the Pope. Whatever he says, whatever he does, it's OK; Tarim has already approved it in advance by making him Pope.

Early on, he gets a warning that this may not be exactly true, when he tries to stop the rain. But Cerebus soon forgets this and gets caught up in his "perfection."

And what does Dave think of all this? It's often hard to tell, but I think the scene where he orders Bishop Posey around, orders his mother-in-law around, orders the rain to stop (actually, with his eyes cast skyward, he is literally ordering Tarim to stop the rain) and then settles for "two out of three" is a direct message from Dave -- not so much to the reader as to Cerebus, that he is not necessarily the Anointed of God, that his position is a fluke of circumstance and not the Choice of Tarim, and that he is about to get himself into deep, deep trouble.

Dave says that at this time he was an atheist. While I don't believe that's true, I think it's clear that his beliefs were extremely nontraditional, that he didn't believe in "God" as described by any mainstream religion. Church & State is intended, first and foremost, as a full-on critique of religious belief in general and religious power in particular.

In the middle of "Church & State," Cerebus' papacy is interrupted by Necross, the magician from issue #13, inside the big stone Thrunk, who shows up in papal robes claiming to be Tarim. He claims the gold and throws Cerebus off the cliff.

This sets us up for Michele's commentary early in the second volume:

For some reason you all apparently want to be Tarim. Not a pope or a prophet or even a messiah . . . you want to be the creator of all things . . . Well you can't be can you? I mean what would you do? Create the heavens and the earth again? You don't have to . . . they're already here

Of course, an interesting subtext here is that by now everyone who says "Tarim" means pretty much the same thing we mean by "God" with a capital G -- an eternal, unchanging being so far above the level of human experience, not at all like the small-g gods of pagan mythology ("He who is eternal . . . unchanging" says Powers at the trial), yet it's quite clear that there was a human being named "Tarim" who lived sometime long ago, probably about 1400 years ago, and is somewhat, at least, analogous to Jesus Christ. It's as if Christians never, ever said "God" but referred to Him only and always as "Jesus." But as logical as Michele's statements are, they are also contradictory, because Tarim himself did indeed do what she's saying can't be done, at least in the beliefs of the Church of Tarim, and if she's not a believer, then why does she use the name "Tarim" to refer to God?

Cerebus eventually meets George, the Judge, who says he's not Tarim and tells a story about Tarim that could only be true of some infinite being that George apparently calls Tarim for convenience but is obviously not the human being of that name. Eventually, it is clear that "Tarim" as a word is less analogous to "Jesus" than it is to "Yahweh" or "Jehovah" -- it is simply God's name. Dave will use this idea to establish his position that God does not have a name, that it is indeed blasphemous to put a name on God, but that's a ways down the road.

Part of the message in Cerebus' downfall and return is the fickleness of followers, for the people who cheered Cerebus' ruthlessness (calling for him to throw another cripple) now cheer his removal and turn their worship to the big stone Thrunk. Later, when Cerebus kills Necross they will cheer him from saving them from the "false pope" and go back to believing every word he says.

(Cerebus says, "Anyone who moves before Most Holy comes back out will spend the rest of eternity sipping lava through an iron straw!" Several hours later (the next day?) Cerebus comes out with Lord Julius, who refers to the still motionless crowd as a "rhapsody in rags still-life" and points out that one fellow was balanced on the big toe of his left foot. "I'll wager you could build a mighty fine suspension bridge with his tendons about now.")

The ending of "Church & State" seems to posit an almost wholly atheistic world, one in which any God that might exist doesn't concern himself with human affairs at all. Tarim is the Void. Terim has been exploded into all the suns and planets (this idea is actually not so far from Dave's eventual ending place in his spiritual search, with YHWH as the Earth and other YHWHs out there as other planets). The universe is a lonely place. The moon is not Vanaheim, but "a dead and nearly airless hunk of rock."

Of course, Dave still exhibits a serious lack of understanding about the fundamental nature of religion, based on his limited experience (apparently primarily from televangelists). According to George, after each and every one of the many "great floods" that have occurred, "The religious leaders tell them that . . . as long as they never have fun . . . Tarim will never make it rain that hard again." I suppose "never have any fun" could be an accurate-enough-for-satire depiction of American Protestantism and perhaps even the Judeo-Christian tradition as a whole, but it's hard to align it with, say Hinduism, with its Kama Sutra and Tantric sex practices. And although there's a long tradition of making fun of fundamentalist Christians that way, they would assure you that one doesn't need to engage in sinful practices like drinking and whoring in order to have "fun."

But let that go. Dave is obviously striving to tackle the Big Issues here, and doing a good enough job that he engages the reader on a far deeper level than mere entertainment, making you think about things and consider the positions Dave is outlining here. Even if you end up finding yourself at odds with his destination, following his journey is fascinating.

Religion in Cerebus - Part Five

In 1983, in the introduction to #19 written for Swords of Cerebus Volume 5, Dave Sim came up with an analogy to explain the intricacies of the secret societies and intrigues and power struggles he was dealing with:

I tried to explain the problem a while ago by explaining that most of the factors involved are secret societies -- to put it in a more modern context, it is like a secret cell of Soviet spies in the U.S. government hiring North Vietnamese and Cuban infiltrators to find out if the Red Chinese embassy in Japan is really spying for the Lithuanians in an attempt to find out if the KGB was behind the plot to kill the Pope and hire more Afghanistan refugees to doublecheck the rumours about the John Birch Society joining forces with the Mafia to break the stranglehold the Teamsters have on the underground network of solidarity supporters in Moose Jaw.

He goes on to note that "300 issues may not be enough" and as it turns out his inability to portray this effectively (in the same intro he says he deliberately chose to do "High Society" partly in attempt to deal with all these things, and also says that as he's writing this he's half done with #50 and it has "one helpful line of dialogue"), combined with his eventual waning interest in the fantasy/adventure/conspiracy plot compared to using Cerebus as a vehicle to comment on contemporary reality meant that we would never really be able to make much more sense of it all than one can of that analogy.

Still, for what it's worth, here is something like a scorecard with the players in this high-stakes game:

The Eastern Orthodox Tarimite Church: headed by the Eastern Pope, who must be a native Iestan, this group is apparently the successor to a matriarchal society that once ruled Iest, though it's not certain whether they worshipped "Tarim" or "Terim" (see Oscar's discourse on Guffins in "Jaka's Story"). In its structure and socio-political role in society, this seems more-or-less based on the Roman Catholic Church in the late Middle Ages, just before the Reformation (in other words, at about the time of the Italian Renaissance, our 15th Century, which is roughly about the same time it is in Estarcion during our story), but in doctrine it sometimes seems more like the puritanical Protestant Churches like Assembly of God that have produced most American televangelists.

The Western Empire: headed by an Emperor/Pope in one person who rules by right of conquest, literally killing his predecessor in order to claim the title of Pope. Other than that bit of weirdness, this church is similar in doctrine to the other Church of Tarim, but even more puritanical and less tolerant. Think of the leadership of the Eastern Church as Jesuits, intellectually flexible and capable of almost atheistic devil's advocate positions in argumentation, for instance, while the Western Church is more Calvinistic and dogmatic.

The Cirinists: led by an aardvark who calls herself "Cirin" but was born "Serna." There are hints that there was an earlier Cirin, perhaps even multiple earlier Cirins, as there have been many people named Suenteus Po. Certainly Cirin (the real Cirin, Serna's friend and the real founder of the movement) was not the first to envision a matriarchy. As I pointed out earlier, Iest had once been ruled by a matriarchy, and early on ("Mind Games II," issue #28) Po says that Cirin is trying to "restore" the Corn-King rituals. The Cirinists are, like the Tarimite, monotheists, but they believe that God is Terim, a Great Mother, rather than Tarim, a Great Father.

The Kevillists: founded by Astoria in rebellion against the Cirinists, they share many of the Cirinists core belief (such as worshipping Terim), but reject the rule of Mothers and seek freedom for Daughters, including the freedom to reject Motherhood through birth control and/or abortion. In many ways, Kevillists mirror modern feminists, as Dave sees them.

The Eye of the Pyramid: a group supposedly run by Lord Julius' social secretary and taken care of during the Palnu Trilogy (issues #14-16), it later resurfaces and seems to be in fact an organization run behind the scenes by Astoria and her Kevillists, using bureaucrats and secretaries to infiltrate and undermine governments.

The Illusionists: the movement founded by Suenteus Po the First, about whom we learn very, very little through the course of the story, and yet whose way of thinking, what little we can discover of it, seems to be largely in line with Dave's own up until his conversion to monotheism. I'll explain shortly.

Weisshaupt's minions: these must be quite numerous by the time of the climactic Trial in "Church & State," when even after death he is able to place a gold sphere in the Papal Throne Room. Weisshaupt may be an Illusionist. Cirin certainly thinks so, and Pope Harmony calls him a Magician.

Dave has recently stated categorically that Lord Julius was an Illusionist, although it's not certain whether that is the monotheistic Dave looking back on what he has created and giving his opinion or that is what he had in mind from the beginning. Certainly "Mind Games II" discusses the possibility that certain political leaders in Estarcion may be Illusionists, and at the time Julius was the most prominent such leader that we knew.

There are presumably other factions we know even less about. Sir Gerrick, for instance, must have his own group of followers, and Theresa, though not an entirely reliable narrator, tells of factions within Cirinism other than Astoria's nascent Kevillism and Cirin's attempts to control dissent. However, these are the main branches that are interwoven into the story that is Cerebus, only to be dropped precipitously two-thirds of the way through (except for the triumphant but somewhat changed Cirinists).

The two Tarimite Churches are contrasted with the two movements that worship (or at least celebrate) Terim, but the joker in the deck is Illusionism. We learn less about Illusionism than we do any of the others, and its fundamental tenets remain elusive, but I believe that in many ways it is closer to the outlook Dave Sim had at the beginning of creating Cerebus than any of the other available views of the world.

Why do I believe this? One reason is Suenteus Po. Although it's clear that he is a character in his own right and not just a mouthpiece for the author, it's also clear that Dave uses him not only to deliver information to the reader through his conversations with Cerebus, but also to impart a certain attitude about that information which I think in general Dave shares.

Of course, when we first meet Suenteus Po he seems to be a not-very-bright stoner, more like Sean Penn's character from "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" than the founder of a religious-social-political movement. Less than a year later, he's having a high-level discussion about political strategy. These two personalities seem contradictory, indeed I've argued that Dave's view of Po fundamentally changed in between them, and yet to some extent they do both represent Dave himself, during that period in his life (well, except for the "not-very-bright" part, and any of us can seem not-very-bright when we're stoned). And Po would, I believe, would continue to be more like Dave than any of his other characters through the first 200 issues. When Po tells Cerebus the best way to live is to live simply, I believe that is a decision Dave had already come to, and has continued to believe. Indeed, in many ways his personal lifestyle now is even more like Po's.

Another reason is that I don't think Dave was ever sure just exactly what it was he believed. Po tells Cerebus that Illusionism is a discipline, which Cerebus later in the conversations restates as a "way of thinking," but we never get a really good idea of what that way of thinking really is. Cerebus says that he already has his own way of thinking, one presumably different from that of the Illusionists, but of course he has studied under Magus Doran, understands what Po means by "second meditation," and the difference between "complex structurally or manifest?" so it's not certain whether or not his outlook is all that different from Po's at the time of "Mind Games II." It's true that when Cerebus is asked what he believes and responds that it is easier to see during the day than during the night "and not much else besides," Po responds in turn that there are other things to believe in, but it's also pretty clear that Po doesn't believe in Tarim or Terim, or "God" as Dave would later come to conceive Him, either.

What *do* Illusionists believe? Or believe in? We never do know for sure, and the hints we get are mostly in "Mothers and Daughters," which I haven't gotten to yet in my reread. But one reason for that may very well be that Dave thought of the Illusionists rejection of Tarim/Terim as being "right," because he himself rejected the standard traditional religious concept of "God." However, since he didn't really know what to replace "God" with -- and he *did* believe that there was, as he quotes Neil Gaiman later, ". . . something there" -- he never really figured out exactly what the Illusionists believed.

Or not. In the long run, it's too simplistic to think that Dave ever intended the Illusionists to have "The Truth." The Dave who began Cerebus didn't believe in The Truth as a concept, or at least didn't believe that one could ever know what it was. To some extent, this is still true, as evidenced by a recent Blog & Mail entry (#106, December 26, 2006), where Dave quotes and then comments on a Mormon Devotional someone gave him on his trip to Salt Lake City:

There are but very few beings in the world who understand rightly the character of God. If men do not comprehend the character of God, they do not comprehend their own character.


How can you say things like that with a straight face without adding "in my opinion" or "it seems to me"? First of all, whoever you are, you don't know and can never know more than a handful of "beings in the world" so how can you say definitively whether or not they "understand rightly the character of God"? You're making yourself into a judge of people that you've met and their innermost awarenesses and stating definitively that you know whether or not those innermost awarenesses are accurate or inaccurate. Excuse me, but that's, at the very least, extremely presumptuous.

So even though Dave now believes he has found The Truth (and despite this disclaimer does in fact himself often say things in the same dogmatic way he is criticizing here), it's clear that he still believes that the search for Truth is one that is never going to be fully completed for anyone, that certainty is not available to anyone in this life.

A Response to "Religion In Cerebus - Part Two"

Since I'm also posting these to the Cerebus mailing list, most of the comments and responses I'm getting are over there. This one provoked enough of a response from me that I decided to post it here as well.

--- In cerebus@yahoogroups.com, "Jeff Tundis" wrote:
>
> When was the first mention of Tarim as the minter of
> coins? That, to me, really solidifies the whole "Tarim as Christ"
> idea. The coin maker analogous to the carpenter. Tarim was a "real"
> person, and a God on Earth.

First mention of Tarim as a real historical figure: "High Society," the interview between Astoria and Suenteus Po who's being hired as a speechwriter (this is the Suenteus Po who is presumably the historian writing the text pieces in "High Society"). On p. 434 Astoria says:

"It could be argued that Tarim didn't instigate the Tarimic Disciplines since the sacred texts were not set down for one hundred years after his death . . . "

to which Po responds:

"Or *her* death?"

Astoria stares at him, and he says, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to provoke you . . . "

(Which is of course a lie, since that's *exactly* what he intended, hoping I think to draw her out on the question of her own allegiance, which as we learn early in "Church & State" is a subject of much discussion.)

Anyway, I think this seals it that Tarim is a Christ analog, WAY before we hear of coinmaking in "Church & State." And it also brings up the Tarim/Terim dichotomy by oblique reference -- apparently the Cirinists (and presumably the Kevillists as well) believe that it was a woman, Terim, who walked the earth and was later worshipped as God(dess).

Indeed, the coinmaker thing moves *away* from a direct analogy and makes Tarim sound more like a Pharaonic figure, a deified king rather than a common person (we'll later get hints that the aardvarkian Suenteus Po may have been a Christ-like figure in his coinmaker incarnation that enacted the echo of the Trial, but that person, whatever his name may have been, was a "devout Tarimite" so he couldn't have been the original Tarim).

First mention of Tarim as a coinmaker: "Church & State," volume one, p. 406, Cerebus and Bran in the lobby of the hotel with the piles and piles of sacks of coins and Bran is telling him how you can read history in the coins and picks one up and says:

"Ah! This one."

Next panel: "This one was struck by Tarim himself"

Later, in C&S Vol. 2, in a chapter called "Talking to Tarim," Cerebus encounters a or the) Big Round Glowing White Strange Thing on a platform in space and the BRGWST is recounting previous lives, previous attempts at The Ascension, during most of which, at least, he seems to have been in charge in Iest. At one point, he says:

"Another time I made a hundred thousand little spheres pounded them flat and stamped my picture on them . . . that was how coins were invented . . . " (p. 801)

Combined with the title of the chapter, this *seems* to point at the BRGWST as having been "Tarim" when he invented coins, although the BRGWST speaks of Tarim not only in the third person (after all, Cerebus does that) but specifically as someone else, someone he himself seems to know little about.

This could be just Dave's way of saying "Look, Jesus wasn't God," something he would have believed as an "atheist" (which he never was, but let's let that go) and still believes as a monotheist. If you were to meet Jesus as a BRGWST on a platform in space and talked about going to Heaven to meet Jesus, he might understand that you meant God and use your own language to speak of "Jesus" as someone other than himself in just the way that "Tarim" might be doing here with Cerebus.

On the other hand, Bran doesn't say that the coin struck by Tarim is the oldest of the coins, nor specifically that Tarim invented coins, so this implication could be a deliberate misdirection and whoever it was Cerebus talks to on the platform might have no relation to Tarim.

But then why the chapter title?

In any case, there is no doubt in my mind that by the time Dave Sim first introduced dating into his world (with the account of the election of 1413 in "High Society") he had firmly established in his own mind that the Church of Tarim was at least to some extent analogous to the Christian Church and that a real man named Tarim had walked around about 1400 years previous. Whether he was a king who invented coins or a humble coinmaker like the aardvarkian Suenteus Po or someone quite different from either we will probably never know -- don't bother to ask Dave, because this is the kind of question to which he always gives answers that are at best evasive and at worst downright maddening: "Well, what do *you* think?"