So to quickly sum up parts one and two, Cerebus began essentially without religion, with polytheistic gods mentioned primarily as oaths of surprise, then we discovered that some people had been worshipping since ancient times a god that looked like Cerebus, then "Tarim" became an analog for Christ as Dave Sim decided to turn his book into a forum for wider examination of political, social and religious issues through the satiric twist of his funny-animal-in-a-fantasy-world comic book.
In #13, we meet out first priest, the priest of Theyr. The religion followed by the people of Theyr is not established in any detail, but it certainly seems more like medieval European Christianity than, say, the worship of Zeus or Ganesha.
A couple of interesting notes regarding the later assertion that Cerebus is and always was an orthodox Tarimite:
1) When Cerebus is being "tried," he is accused of "consorting with dark demons, high crimes against natural law, making the crops mouldy, not looking like the rest of us . . . and anything else the Church of Tarim can think of in the course of this trial. . . " Asked how he pleads, Cerebus replies "Cerebus *demands* that you release him or he'll call upon his dark masters to turn you into a flock of pious pink toads." As one of the townspeople notes, it's not a half bad defense, but it doesn't sound like one that a true believer of an established orthodox religion would make when accused of heresy and worse by an official of that same religion. Of course, we already know that if Cerebus is really an orthodox Tarimite, he isn't a particularly faithful one.
2) On the other hand, when Necross insists that "None may enter the dark castle of Necross save that they are evil," the farmer, Despuess, immediately capitulates, claiming to be evil and detailing his horrible crimes (like "I take Tarim's name in vain" and "I shirk my chores"). After Necross blasts Despuess out of existence ("Evil, yes! But also incredibly boring!"), he demands to know if the "barbarian captive" is as evil as his captor -- and Cerebus successfully manages to deflect the question, first wanting to see his interrogator face-to-face, then changing the subject, "So you're Necross the mad?" so that he never actually has to either defy Necross nor claim to be evil.
Not pious, not particularly well-behaved, perhaps even only half-heartedly a believer at all, nonetheless, something keeps Cerebus from saying, "Yeah, sure, I'm evil. I stabbed to death an unconscious foe about a year ago, and once used a woman as a battering ram," which might not exactly impress a mad magician bent on world destruction but certainly would make him less boring than Despuess.
But Cerebus doesn't think of himself as evil -- few of us do. He's occasionally regretful that he's done bad things, but he usually thinks of the bad things he does as being necessary and not part of a pattern of wrongdoing that would actually make him a Bad Guy. After all, we are all the heroes in the movies going on inside our heads.
Of course, this last is true whether or not Cerebus was already thought of by Dave as having been brought up as an orthodox Tarimite.
#13 ends with the priest's "Sacred Amulet of the Living Tarim" being tossed aside by Necross, now inside the big stone Thrunk, with a dismissive "This is what I think of your gold trinket." Tarim does not protect the priest. He is squashed like a bug.
(By the way, the priest's amulet doesn't look quite like the Ankhs we will see later throughout the Church of Tarim, preparing in the background the Egyptian climax down the road, but more like the astrological/alchemical symbol for Mercury, which is basically the symbol for Venus -- very similar to an Ankh but with a circle rather than a pointed oval -- only with Mercury there's a crescent on top, opposite the cross. Here, there's no crescent, but there are horns, and the circular part is kind of triangular. Evidence, I think, that even though the Grand Vision had obviously occurred and he was moving toward the socioeconomic and religious commentary that would come to characterize the series, he hadn't yet worked out all the details of even the overall plot. So maybe it didn't "all come to him in a flash.")
The next priest we see is in #15, and he's a very different sort of fellow, even though they are both "priests of Tarim." We now get closer to Christianity, and in particular Roman Catholicism, with the clear implication that priests are expected to be celibate (Cerebus: "Any chance he'll show up at your festival?" Julius: "Probably not -- it's couples only").
On the other hand, there's a touch of the brimstone televangelist in the two priests we see in this issue (I used to think there was only one, but I'm now convinced they are two different characters). Unlike Catholics, but like Assembly of God (the denomination of most famous televangelists of the period, the Bakkers, Jimmy Swaggert, Oral Roberts), these priests are against partying on principle, against makeup and ornamentation in dress, and in general are very puritanical -- a trait Dave seems to assume is fundamental to religion and religiosity, both back when he rejected it at least partly for that reason and now that he has embraced it.
He is not puritanical in his dealings with others -- while he does seem to look down on people who indulge in various ways he certainly doesn't try to insist that anyone not do so. But in his own life, he has removed himself from many of the things he used to find pleasurable, and believes that he is closer to God because he has done so. This does indeed seem to be something very fundamental to his notion of what it means to be religious, even though there are millions of religious people who find no conflict between worshipping god and going out dancing on Saturday night.
In #17, we see men (and an aardvark) pretending to be priests -- Commander Krull and his scribe, Grimes, are trying to sneak out of Fluroc disguised as priests. Cerebus, himself already in a white robe, confronts them. One problem with this issue is that Cerebus and the T'Gitans are all wearing what seem to be priests' robes in the very beginning -- they are not only close enough to fool Krull and Grimes but are very close to what they are wearing. Cerebus' hood is white and theirs is black -- and the hoods of the two Palnan priests were also black -- but if that's the only difference how could a T'Gitan sentry be so sure that he saw two priests leave the city and how could Krull and Grimes be fooled by Cerebus?
Anyway, with this issue we know for sure that Cerebus knows about the Tarimite religion. He knows more about priests than the T'Gitans, which is no great surprise, but also more than Krull, who may have a barbarian background but has been part of the Palnan empire for many years now and one would expect to be fairly familiar with the culture he's living in.
Of course, these could all be simple mistakes of a young writer who had not yet fully blossomed into his powers. Still, it's quite clear that Cerebus is familiar with Tarimism (would that be the right word) on a pretty intimate level to know off the top of his head, as soon as he heard the sentry say that two priests left the city that morning, that they couldn't really be priests, because "these are the High Holy Days from Midwinter to Concordance Eve . . . no priest is allowed to eat salted nuts, comment on the weather . . . or leave his place of meditation"
(see what I mean about the ellipses? Earlier in this essay, I had to elide and ellipsis, because he had a comment stretched across two word balloons, one of which ended in an ellipsis and the next began with one)
Cerebus' bluff does not in and of itself reveal a knowledge of priestly matters, only of the fact that Krull and his companion were themselves ignorant of them (as evidenced by their using this disguise at this time in the first place).
Out next encounter with religion takes us back to the notion that parts of Estarcion, at least, are indeed still pagan. The T'Gitans worship Stromm, God of Thunder, who happens to be Gudre's own son. The T'Gitans are primitive barbarians and apparently easily manipulated. Still, the idea that the god they worship is a real man who walks among them and is very much not really a god is part of Dave Sim's overall commentary on religion that is continuing through these stories.
In issue #19 we meet Perce, who is a fortune teller and a prostitute and, we later learn, a Cirinist who believes in Mother Terim, who makes her first appearance since #2 on the first page of #20, in a quote from "The New Matriarchy" by Cirin.
From this point, things begin to get really interesting.
(also posted to the Cerebus Yahoo group)
Monday, December 18, 2006
Monday, December 11, 2006
Religion in Cerebus - Part Two
In "Minds," Dave tells Cerebus that he once went through something like what he's putting his character through. It wasn't a voice in his head, though but something more like -- and then he makes a bright light not only blind Cerebus, but seem at one point to be *inside* his head, so that light comes *out* of his eyes, then grow to envelop his whole head before fading.
It's an interesting moment. It's something that could lead one to suspect one has indeed had an encounter with one's maker. It's also something one could understand as the result of spending a week on LSD. I suspect Dave's "borderline schizophrenic" diagnosis may have resulted from him trying to relate this experience to the doctor and insisting that it *wasn't* just the drug, that there really was something . . . there. But of course I don't know.
Still, it's obvious that he *didn't* write it off as just an interesting hallucination. He made it a major part of where his story was going, determined to write it into Cerebus' life somewhere down the road in his 26-year epic. I'm still not sure the extent to which the Cerebus we have matches the Cerebus mapped out in 1979, and whether or not that was originally supposed to be the climax (the "end of the story," as it were) or whether that was just so much sand thrown in the reader's eyes and something like the general outline of the last 100 issues was indeed always in place. But none of that is relevant to the topic at hand, which is to what extent Dave's vision is responsible for the way religion is presented in the book.
Dave tells Cerebus that this experience happened to him "shortly after you met the bug for the first time." One would tend to assume this means just after #11 was completed, but I began to wonder on my latest reread if it wasn't in fact while Dave was working on #11, literally just after Cerebus first met the bug.
Why? Well, because that issue, #11, has the first clear appearance of Tarim as an analog to Christ, and of Dave Sim using the worship of Tarim to lampoon Christians in particular and religious people in general, and to do so making explicit reference to modern-day events.
Cerebus pretends to be the ghost of the Roach's father and tells him Tarim wants his gold -- to build "condominiums":
CEREBUS: Praise Tarim! I am here to bring you the Word -- the Word of Tarim . . .
COCKROACH: The Word, father?
CEREBUS: Condominiums! Tarim has a condominium just for you! Luxurious living in the afterlife . . . IF you believe!
COCKROACH: I do! I do!
CEREBUS: Praise Tarim!
Now it's clear that Dave is mocking certain kinds of evangelical Christian preachers here. And I'm pretty sure there's a particular evangelical Christian preacher being pointed to. The year before this was published, in 1978, Televangelist Jim Bakker announced the
creation of Heritage USA, which would include a theme park, luxury hotels -- and condominiums. We know that Dave was a "fan" of Jim and Tammy Faye (in the sense of enjoying watching their show with amusement), because he says so in the introduction to "Church & State" Vol. 1 (actually what he says is "I miss them already").
Depending on one's definition of "meeting the bug," Cerebus met him either on page 1 (as the Merchant) or page 5 of issue #11 (when the merchant actually transforms into the Cockroach -- although we don't discover the name until page 6). The little exchange quoted above is on page 15 of that issue (page 243 in my edition, should be the same in all since it's before "Silverspoon"). Is that what Dave meant by "shortly after you met the bug for the first time?" Or was the vision later, after #11 was completed, or even after #12?
There are two possibilities. One is that Dave's "breakdown" occurred while he was in the middle of doing #11 and sharply altered the direction that first Roch story took, as well as the series as a whole afterward.
The other is that the acid trip, the vision and the resulting "nervous breakdown" were not really the sole impetus for the changes the book took after its first two years, but more of a confirmation and vision for the overall structure of a new direction Dave was already considering, and indeed already moving toward.
After having believed most of the time since I found out about it that the vision created a clear break and changed the way Dave approached Cerebus, I am now being forced to rethink that. The fact that he was hinting at Cerebus' origin as early as #5, and introduced Jaka as a character who would obviously come back in #6, as mentioned last time, go a long way toward establishing that Dave was already thinking long-term even before the 26-year plan established itself.
And while #11 is the first *clear* example of Tarim-as-Christian-God, I now think he was leaning in that direction as far back as #9. When K'Cor says "With Tarim and anti-Venusians everywhere on my side . . . I cannot lose . . . " the statement could be taken either way. At the very least it is the first time that a pagan god is referred to in a way that relates directly to trust and faith that the god will protect one. But it could be the first sign that Dave was thinking in terms of "Tarim" representing not just a god but "God" and injecting contemporary attitudes about religion into his story.
So I now think that even before the "vision," Dave was already thinking this way. He had already decided that Cerebus was turning into a long term project, and that in order to keep that going he would have to abandon the basic "funny animal Conan parody" conceit, which was already wearing thin. He had already decided that what he really wanted to do was comment on contemporary society, reflecting for example his "genuine affection for the realities of political campaigning" and also his "genuine affection for and interest in the effect of power on belief and vice versa" (from the introduction to "Church & State" Vol. 1).
So it's possible that the scene in #11 referred to above was part of that, and happened before the Grand Vision outlining the next 24 years (he was already 2 years in at that point). That the Grand Vision was not so much "Do Cerebus for a long time; here's how" but more a confirmation and a structure "You've already decided to do Cerebus for a long time; here's how."
Although many people complain that Cerebus changed after Dave "found God" and religion came to overwhelm the series -- and it's obvious that Cerebus did indeed change and to some extent the "overwhelm" charge is valid -- the fact is that from at least #11 on religion would come to be one of the primary themes that Dave explored in Cerebus. Even the electoral politics in "High Society" is driven by religion to a degree that is not wholly apparent until the end, but on rereading is in fact telegraphed at every turn.
Religion, belief, "the effect of power on belief and vice versa," the question of whether or not there is a God or gods and what He (or he/she/it, or they) might be like, and what one's moral responsibility may be in any of these cases is the fundamental root of the entire narrative, from the time Dave began to realize that it *was* a narrative, and not just a collection of comedic stories, up through "The Last Day." That is what Cerebus is all about. Throughout his time working on it, Dave was thinking, exploring, questioning, probing, ideas about religion and belief and spirituality. So it's really not surprising that he came in the end to find faith in God and use the book to try to portray that faith. If it's heavy handed, one could argue that it's no more heavy handed than his mockeries of faith earlier. Dave's view that most of his readers are atheists, and therefore dislike the heavy hand of the author promoting religion while they enjoyed the heavy hand of the author mocking religion, is not without merit, though I think it's overly simplistic and that there really is a bit of bombast and polemic in the last two books that really does overwhelm the story.
From Cerebus rousing the roach with "The Word of Tarim" about condominiums, through the priest of Theyr and the fanatical priest in Palnu, to Krull disguising himself as a priest despite not knowing enough about the Church of Tarim to know Cerebus is bluffing with his "Sacred greeting of the Grauzwerg," once the idea of Tarim as an analog to Christ and the Church of Tarim as an analog to Christianity is established it is firmly established well before it gets used full-strength in "High Society" and "Church & State." And even when the Church or Tarim is not present in the plot, morality is inserting itself as a theme even within the adventures of an amoral protagonist.
"Briefly, Cerebus thinks there might be more to life than wine, food, a warm bed and a sack of gold," says the narrator all the way back in #8, when Cerebus is about to escape being the god-king of the Conniptins and changes his mind, going back to the tent he just ran from. "Mayhap two sacks of gold?" wonders Cerebus in a word balloon. "That answer is so obvious, Cerebus is willing to bet it isn't the right one."
It's a joke, but it's a joke about the character's own amoral stance toward life, and the first indication of him questioning that stance. By the end of "High Society," he will tell the elf that he thought he could "make a difference."
An interesting difference between Dave Sim and his creation is that it's established in the storyline that Cerebus was brought up as an Orthodox Tarimite. Dave himself, of course, was brought up with almost no exposure to religion and with the idea that religious belief was essentially irrational and silly, at least according to his own account of his upbringing. By the time he was writing Cerebus, he was an amused observer of religion and something of a student of its history, but his knowledge was acquired in adulthood.
Cerebus, on the other hand, went to church every Sunday as a little boy, as we see in "Minds."
Now, there are some problems here. Dave tries to explain the whole Clovis thing with a scene between Cerebus and Cirin in "Minds," but in my opinion it doesn't work too well. There just really is no way to reconcile an Orthodox Tarimite upbringing with the barbarian Conan parody we see in the first few issues. Dave saw the disunity, knew that it was a fault and, in my opinion, made it worse by trying to patch things together. Better to just accept the disunity, acknowledge that Cerebus began as a pagan with Clovis and had his origin "retconned" in the manner of Jason Todd. It's a weakness, but not as large as the later weaknesses created by trying to weasel out on this fact.
However, once Dave decides to put religion into his book, the decision to make Cerebus knowledgeable, at least, in the Church of Tarim comes fairly early on. If one assumes that there are enthusiastic and emotional preachers in Estarcion not unlike televangelists like Jim Bakker in tone and substance, Cerebus seems to have their patter down pretty well. And of course when he hears that two priests left Fluroc he immediately knows something is wrong, because real priests wouldn't be traveling.
This, by the way, shows positively that by #17 Tarim was certainly the god-figure of a Christian-like Church and not just a god among many. The person who tells Cerebus that two priests left Fluroc doesn't say "Tarimite priests." In a polytheistic society, you would have priests of Tarim, priest of Terim, priests of Set, priests of Ashtoth, etc. Instead, from the time Dave decided to "do" religion on, "priests," alone and by itself, *always* means Tarimite priests (even the ones who are Cirinists or Kevillists and presumably worship Terim are still officially Tarimites and that's how they are "priests" per se). So when Cerebus hears that two "priests" left Fluroc, he knows that they were priests of Tarim, because the world has altered since he first came into existence, and as far as can be determined, "Tarimite" priests are the only kind there are. "Priests" now means "Church of Tarim," either Eastern or Western.
It's an interesting moment. It's something that could lead one to suspect one has indeed had an encounter with one's maker. It's also something one could understand as the result of spending a week on LSD. I suspect Dave's "borderline schizophrenic" diagnosis may have resulted from him trying to relate this experience to the doctor and insisting that it *wasn't* just the drug, that there really was something . . . there. But of course I don't know.
Still, it's obvious that he *didn't* write it off as just an interesting hallucination. He made it a major part of where his story was going, determined to write it into Cerebus' life somewhere down the road in his 26-year epic. I'm still not sure the extent to which the Cerebus we have matches the Cerebus mapped out in 1979, and whether or not that was originally supposed to be the climax (the "end of the story," as it were) or whether that was just so much sand thrown in the reader's eyes and something like the general outline of the last 100 issues was indeed always in place. But none of that is relevant to the topic at hand, which is to what extent Dave's vision is responsible for the way religion is presented in the book.
Dave tells Cerebus that this experience happened to him "shortly after you met the bug for the first time." One would tend to assume this means just after #11 was completed, but I began to wonder on my latest reread if it wasn't in fact while Dave was working on #11, literally just after Cerebus first met the bug.
Why? Well, because that issue, #11, has the first clear appearance of Tarim as an analog to Christ, and of Dave Sim using the worship of Tarim to lampoon Christians in particular and religious people in general, and to do so making explicit reference to modern-day events.
Cerebus pretends to be the ghost of the Roach's father and tells him Tarim wants his gold -- to build "condominiums":
CEREBUS: Praise Tarim! I am here to bring you the Word -- the Word of Tarim . . .
COCKROACH: The Word, father?
CEREBUS: Condominiums! Tarim has a condominium just for you! Luxurious living in the afterlife . . . IF you believe!
COCKROACH: I do! I do!
CEREBUS: Praise Tarim!
Now it's clear that Dave is mocking certain kinds of evangelical Christian preachers here. And I'm pretty sure there's a particular evangelical Christian preacher being pointed to. The year before this was published, in 1978, Televangelist Jim Bakker announced the
creation of Heritage USA, which would include a theme park, luxury hotels -- and condominiums. We know that Dave was a "fan" of Jim and Tammy Faye (in the sense of enjoying watching their show with amusement), because he says so in the introduction to "Church & State" Vol. 1 (actually what he says is "I miss them already").
Depending on one's definition of "meeting the bug," Cerebus met him either on page 1 (as the Merchant) or page 5 of issue #11 (when the merchant actually transforms into the Cockroach -- although we don't discover the name until page 6). The little exchange quoted above is on page 15 of that issue (page 243 in my edition, should be the same in all since it's before "Silverspoon"). Is that what Dave meant by "shortly after you met the bug for the first time?" Or was the vision later, after #11 was completed, or even after #12?
There are two possibilities. One is that Dave's "breakdown" occurred while he was in the middle of doing #11 and sharply altered the direction that first Roch story took, as well as the series as a whole afterward.
The other is that the acid trip, the vision and the resulting "nervous breakdown" were not really the sole impetus for the changes the book took after its first two years, but more of a confirmation and vision for the overall structure of a new direction Dave was already considering, and indeed already moving toward.
After having believed most of the time since I found out about it that the vision created a clear break and changed the way Dave approached Cerebus, I am now being forced to rethink that. The fact that he was hinting at Cerebus' origin as early as #5, and introduced Jaka as a character who would obviously come back in #6, as mentioned last time, go a long way toward establishing that Dave was already thinking long-term even before the 26-year plan established itself.
And while #11 is the first *clear* example of Tarim-as-Christian-God, I now think he was leaning in that direction as far back as #9. When K'Cor says "With Tarim and anti-Venusians everywhere on my side . . . I cannot lose . . . " the statement could be taken either way. At the very least it is the first time that a pagan god is referred to in a way that relates directly to trust and faith that the god will protect one. But it could be the first sign that Dave was thinking in terms of "Tarim" representing not just a god but "God" and injecting contemporary attitudes about religion into his story.
So I now think that even before the "vision," Dave was already thinking this way. He had already decided that Cerebus was turning into a long term project, and that in order to keep that going he would have to abandon the basic "funny animal Conan parody" conceit, which was already wearing thin. He had already decided that what he really wanted to do was comment on contemporary society, reflecting for example his "genuine affection for the realities of political campaigning" and also his "genuine affection for and interest in the effect of power on belief and vice versa" (from the introduction to "Church & State" Vol. 1).
So it's possible that the scene in #11 referred to above was part of that, and happened before the Grand Vision outlining the next 24 years (he was already 2 years in at that point). That the Grand Vision was not so much "Do Cerebus for a long time; here's how" but more a confirmation and a structure "You've already decided to do Cerebus for a long time; here's how."
Although many people complain that Cerebus changed after Dave "found God" and religion came to overwhelm the series -- and it's obvious that Cerebus did indeed change and to some extent the "overwhelm" charge is valid -- the fact is that from at least #11 on religion would come to be one of the primary themes that Dave explored in Cerebus. Even the electoral politics in "High Society" is driven by religion to a degree that is not wholly apparent until the end, but on rereading is in fact telegraphed at every turn.
Religion, belief, "the effect of power on belief and vice versa," the question of whether or not there is a God or gods and what He (or he/she/it, or they) might be like, and what one's moral responsibility may be in any of these cases is the fundamental root of the entire narrative, from the time Dave began to realize that it *was* a narrative, and not just a collection of comedic stories, up through "The Last Day." That is what Cerebus is all about. Throughout his time working on it, Dave was thinking, exploring, questioning, probing, ideas about religion and belief and spirituality. So it's really not surprising that he came in the end to find faith in God and use the book to try to portray that faith. If it's heavy handed, one could argue that it's no more heavy handed than his mockeries of faith earlier. Dave's view that most of his readers are atheists, and therefore dislike the heavy hand of the author promoting religion while they enjoyed the heavy hand of the author mocking religion, is not without merit, though I think it's overly simplistic and that there really is a bit of bombast and polemic in the last two books that really does overwhelm the story.
From Cerebus rousing the roach with "The Word of Tarim" about condominiums, through the priest of Theyr and the fanatical priest in Palnu, to Krull disguising himself as a priest despite not knowing enough about the Church of Tarim to know Cerebus is bluffing with his "Sacred greeting of the Grauzwerg," once the idea of Tarim as an analog to Christ and the Church of Tarim as an analog to Christianity is established it is firmly established well before it gets used full-strength in "High Society" and "Church & State." And even when the Church or Tarim is not present in the plot, morality is inserting itself as a theme even within the adventures of an amoral protagonist.
"Briefly, Cerebus thinks there might be more to life than wine, food, a warm bed and a sack of gold," says the narrator all the way back in #8, when Cerebus is about to escape being the god-king of the Conniptins and changes his mind, going back to the tent he just ran from. "Mayhap two sacks of gold?" wonders Cerebus in a word balloon. "That answer is so obvious, Cerebus is willing to bet it isn't the right one."
It's a joke, but it's a joke about the character's own amoral stance toward life, and the first indication of him questioning that stance. By the end of "High Society," he will tell the elf that he thought he could "make a difference."
An interesting difference between Dave Sim and his creation is that it's established in the storyline that Cerebus was brought up as an Orthodox Tarimite. Dave himself, of course, was brought up with almost no exposure to religion and with the idea that religious belief was essentially irrational and silly, at least according to his own account of his upbringing. By the time he was writing Cerebus, he was an amused observer of religion and something of a student of its history, but his knowledge was acquired in adulthood.
Cerebus, on the other hand, went to church every Sunday as a little boy, as we see in "Minds."
Now, there are some problems here. Dave tries to explain the whole Clovis thing with a scene between Cerebus and Cirin in "Minds," but in my opinion it doesn't work too well. There just really is no way to reconcile an Orthodox Tarimite upbringing with the barbarian Conan parody we see in the first few issues. Dave saw the disunity, knew that it was a fault and, in my opinion, made it worse by trying to patch things together. Better to just accept the disunity, acknowledge that Cerebus began as a pagan with Clovis and had his origin "retconned" in the manner of Jason Todd. It's a weakness, but not as large as the later weaknesses created by trying to weasel out on this fact.
However, once Dave decides to put religion into his book, the decision to make Cerebus knowledgeable, at least, in the Church of Tarim comes fairly early on. If one assumes that there are enthusiastic and emotional preachers in Estarcion not unlike televangelists like Jim Bakker in tone and substance, Cerebus seems to have their patter down pretty well. And of course when he hears that two priests left Fluroc he immediately knows something is wrong, because real priests wouldn't be traveling.
This, by the way, shows positively that by #17 Tarim was certainly the god-figure of a Christian-like Church and not just a god among many. The person who tells Cerebus that two priests left Fluroc doesn't say "Tarimite priests." In a polytheistic society, you would have priests of Tarim, priest of Terim, priests of Set, priests of Ashtoth, etc. Instead, from the time Dave decided to "do" religion on, "priests," alone and by itself, *always* means Tarimite priests (even the ones who are Cirinists or Kevillists and presumably worship Terim are still officially Tarimites and that's how they are "priests" per se). So when Cerebus hears that two "priests" left Fluroc, he knows that they were priests of Tarim, because the world has altered since he first came into existence, and as far as can be determined, "Tarimite" priests are the only kind there are. "Priests" now means "Church of Tarim," either Eastern or Western.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
"Tarim and the Other Gods" (Religion and Spirituality in Cerebus, Part One)
In the beginning, Cerebus was conceived by Dave Sim as taking place in roughly the same world where the Conan comic books by Roy Thomas and Barry Smith, based on Robert E. Howard's famous barbarian, took place: a lost ancient world where magic worked and multiple gods were not only believed in but actually existed.
Gods mentioned in the first six issues, that is the first year of bi-monthly publication, include Clovis, Terim, Tarim, Tauran, Set, Ishtar and Ashtoth (in order of first appearance)
Dave says "Terim" began as a misspelling of "Tarim" (although "Terim" actually appears first). After the first two issues it does not appear again until it is used in a completely different context.
"Terim" first appears as part of a spell spoken by the Wizard in the first issue: "Ak-Aman ra taak se Terim sera" I'm guessing about the capitalization, as of course all letters are in all caps, just like most comic book lettering.
What's interesting is that this is just *before* the first appearance of "Tarim," when the spell goes awry and misses its target and the Wizard says, "Tarim! My aim is getting lousy, too!"
We next see Terim in "The Eye of Terim," a valuable and presumably sorcerously powerful gem guarded by the Demon Khem. We know that Terim here is meant to be a god of some kind, because the narration mentions "priests of Terim" in describing the Eye and its history.
The thing that makes one wonder whether Dave is telling the whole truth (I can see no motive for him to lie, but it may be a case of not remembering correctly), is that two pages after the introduction of the Eye of Terim, Cerebus sees it -- or what he thinks is it, and the narration says:
"The Eye of Terim, the most precious of the Five Spheres of the Gods!"
Yet reacting to it, Cerebus says, "Tarim! What a prize!"
There seems to be a clear delineation here, and both times "Terim" occurs there's a "Tarim" right nearby
In any case it's very clear that Terim was not a female version of the all-encompassing God of monotheists, as she became. Indeed, she does not seem to have originally been a she. Carrying what he believes to be the Eye of Terim, Cerebus is described by the narrator thusly:
"The aardvark soon learns that the eye of a northern god is weighty indeed . . . "
So Terim was originally a northern god -- not goddess. Of course, eventually the Tarim/Terim dichotomy grew into something more, a bone of contention between the Orthodox Tarimites and the Cirinists/Kevillists, who were likewise monotheistic but believed God to be female.
But all that came later. Originally, these were just names thrown around. "Tarim" is, from the first, by far the most common god name in the early issues of Cerebus, appearing 25 times. Clovis is next with 12. But Tarim is clearly not THE GOD in the early days, but one of many. You can tell this not only by the oaths that are thrown around, but by statements lumping him together with others. In #5, the narrator describes Cerebus looking at the idol that looks so much like him:
"He stands before the idol. It seems diminished at close quarters -- a decoration, perhaps . . . But a god? Tarim, Ashtoth, these were gods -- they brought war, pain, they killed without reason or apology . . . "
And in #8, there is the son of the Conniptin King, Hezzreth, who says early on "I am the son of a god in-car-nate! My personal mystic has declared me a god as well . . . " Later, the following exchange occurs between Hezzreth Jr. (who is not actually given a name) and the Conniptin Commander (likewise):
JR: Tarim!
COMMANDER: Your Lordship?
JR: Not now, idiot -- Tarim and the other gods are in need of my aid in a great god war! I'm coming Tarim!
That sums up Tarim's position in the early days of Cerebus: "Tarim and the other gods."
There is also "Demonhorn," which falls between issues #5 and #6 and describes an encounter between Cerebus and a minor god called M'isly. This establishes pretty firmly that in Cerebus' world, gods are real entities, taking usually humanoid form and subject to human-like emotions and capable of being harmed. They are absolutely, positively NOT the all-powerful, all-knowing, somewhat abstract and ultimately unknowable God of Abraham on Whom the Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths are all based.
As we shall see, Tarim would come to be a rough analog for Christ, a "living God" who once walked the earth as a man and is worshipped by a Church with a hierarchical structure of priests headed by a Pope (actually two Popes, but that's a story for another time). But there can be no mistaking the fact that this is an evolution of the original idea and the idea of Tarim in these early stories really doesn't mesh with the later Tarim-as-Christ analogy that allowed Dave to lampoon modern televangelists and the like.
Next, we'll examine this evolution, and how it may have been already underway before the Big Vision -- and if not, was put into action IMMEDIATELY after.
Gods mentioned in the first six issues, that is the first year of bi-monthly publication, include Clovis, Terim, Tarim, Tauran, Set, Ishtar and Ashtoth (in order of first appearance)
Dave says "Terim" began as a misspelling of "Tarim" (although "Terim" actually appears first). After the first two issues it does not appear again until it is used in a completely different context.
"Terim" first appears as part of a spell spoken by the Wizard in the first issue: "Ak-Aman ra taak se Terim sera" I'm guessing about the capitalization, as of course all letters are in all caps, just like most comic book lettering.
What's interesting is that this is just *before* the first appearance of "Tarim," when the spell goes awry and misses its target and the Wizard says, "Tarim! My aim is getting lousy, too!"
We next see Terim in "The Eye of Terim," a valuable and presumably sorcerously powerful gem guarded by the Demon Khem. We know that Terim here is meant to be a god of some kind, because the narration mentions "priests of Terim" in describing the Eye and its history.
The thing that makes one wonder whether Dave is telling the whole truth (I can see no motive for him to lie, but it may be a case of not remembering correctly), is that two pages after the introduction of the Eye of Terim, Cerebus sees it -- or what he thinks is it, and the narration says:
"The Eye of Terim, the most precious of the Five Spheres of the Gods!"
Yet reacting to it, Cerebus says, "Tarim! What a prize!"
There seems to be a clear delineation here, and both times "Terim" occurs there's a "Tarim" right nearby
In any case it's very clear that Terim was not a female version of the all-encompassing God of monotheists, as she became. Indeed, she does not seem to have originally been a she. Carrying what he believes to be the Eye of Terim, Cerebus is described by the narrator thusly:
"The aardvark soon learns that the eye of a northern god is weighty indeed . . . "
So Terim was originally a northern god -- not goddess. Of course, eventually the Tarim/Terim dichotomy grew into something more, a bone of contention between the Orthodox Tarimites and the Cirinists/Kevillists, who were likewise monotheistic but believed God to be female.
But all that came later. Originally, these were just names thrown around. "Tarim" is, from the first, by far the most common god name in the early issues of Cerebus, appearing 25 times. Clovis is next with 12. But Tarim is clearly not THE GOD in the early days, but one of many. You can tell this not only by the oaths that are thrown around, but by statements lumping him together with others. In #5, the narrator describes Cerebus looking at the idol that looks so much like him:
"He stands before the idol. It seems diminished at close quarters -- a decoration, perhaps . . . But a god? Tarim, Ashtoth, these were gods -- they brought war, pain, they killed without reason or apology . . . "
And in #8, there is the son of the Conniptin King, Hezzreth, who says early on "I am the son of a god in-car-nate! My personal mystic has declared me a god as well . . . " Later, the following exchange occurs between Hezzreth Jr. (who is not actually given a name) and the Conniptin Commander (likewise):
JR: Tarim!
COMMANDER: Your Lordship?
JR: Not now, idiot -- Tarim and the other gods are in need of my aid in a great god war! I'm coming Tarim!
That sums up Tarim's position in the early days of Cerebus: "Tarim and the other gods."
There is also "Demonhorn," which falls between issues #5 and #6 and describes an encounter between Cerebus and a minor god called M'isly. This establishes pretty firmly that in Cerebus' world, gods are real entities, taking usually humanoid form and subject to human-like emotions and capable of being harmed. They are absolutely, positively NOT the all-powerful, all-knowing, somewhat abstract and ultimately unknowable God of Abraham on Whom the Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths are all based.
As we shall see, Tarim would come to be a rough analog for Christ, a "living God" who once walked the earth as a man and is worshipped by a Church with a hierarchical structure of priests headed by a Pope (actually two Popes, but that's a story for another time). But there can be no mistaking the fact that this is an evolution of the original idea and the idea of Tarim in these early stories really doesn't mesh with the later Tarim-as-Christ analogy that allowed Dave to lampoon modern televangelists and the like.
Next, we'll examine this evolution, and how it may have been already underway before the Big Vision -- and if not, was put into action IMMEDIATELY after.
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