TC's Most significant Novel, Part II:


There is an Open Road promotion of TC's Pillar of Iron. I have put that, and links to my previous newsletters on that volume in Part C of the six parts (with conclusion) of this – penultimate – TC-Descendants newsletter. That references its relevance to this particular newsletter, the second part on the four topics that erupted first in the publication of Dear and Glorious Physician (referenced as DAG below).

A. By the late '50s, TC's success allows her to make her own choices

Here again is the list from Part I of the changes from publication of DAG:
  1. How it represented, considering her success up to 1958, her chance to write what she really wanted to.
  2. Her quasi-Historical method, and the value of separating her literarily compelling inventions from some concerning aspects that dominated her novels ever after.
  3. What still resonates with modern America, personally valuable, and societically disturbing.
  4. Her take on mothers, and motherhood, in the face of the culminating accolades that wrap a halo around the relation between St. Luke and Mary the Mother of Jesus at the conclusion of the novel.
I handled #1: She had at first been thwarted by the tastes of publishers. They had strong concerns for her predilictions for getting an audience. Now she could write what clearly had been her heart's desire: to break magificently into the Mediterranean world of Jesus, before and during the time there was an actual person called Jesus.

I've reedited the Part I newsletter: here as a reminder of the significance of this 1959 publication to TC. In particular, I've added her 1947 letter to our grandfather Will Combs. None of my family have ever met him; only I have met his later children, and especially one of their children, a cousin of mine. It does well to explain why she didn't start out with such a publication.

I also documented the great success of GAD. While it likely would not be such a success today, my goal is to explain TC. That would be by showing the value of this success to TC, and among several possible reactions to the sucess, what she chose as the dominant character of many of her later publications.

How important were St. Paul and St. Luke?: Early Christianity, usually regarded as the century after that of Jesus produced many called heretics by the developing Roman Church. This period is so important because it shows – before there was orthodoxy – the natural way thoughts come to our minds (or rather, exceptional minds that cared about mankind) in waves. Something rises to the forefront, and something else recedes. (That doesn't mean there aren't new ideas, but the old ideas don't easily pass away.)

Around 140CE Marcion came to Rome intent on divorcing Christianity from Judaism, primarily by completing Paul's works. His vision of Christ of the Gospels centered on how Jesus viewed God: A God of tenderness, foregiveness and love, quite a contrast to the Old Testament God. Yes, quite a contrast to the the Jesus suggested in the last section of the New Testament: Revelations. Reminder: Jesus had not read the New Testament for the obvious reason. The Durants summarize this view:
To release the soul of man a greater god sent his son to earth; Christ appeared ... in a phantasmal, unreal body and by his death won for good men the privilege of a purely spiritual resurrection. The good [said Marcion] are those who followed Paul, renounce Yahweh and the Jewish Law, reject the Hebrew scriptures ... shun sensual enjoyment [accept asceticism]
Marcion then issued a new testament composed of Luke's Gospel and the letters of Paul. In response, the Church excommunicated him. How relevant is that to TC's volume? Well, without any particular engagement to anything but a list of myths, she concludes her volume with Mary, the Mother of Jesus, saying goodbye to Luke, him off to finish his gospel. TCconcludes this and the novel with this sentence:

Continued in the Holy Bible, Gospel of St. Luke, and Acts I and II.

That is, TC pretty much accepted the Marcion heresy. Combined with the letters of Paul, it is amazing just how much of the Gospels was the work of these two. It is equally amazing how litte TC actually took Luke's thoughts from the new testament.

Of course, the Arian heresy was without a doubt the most significant, Still, the typical Christian lets it pass without notice. The issue there was whether and in what way was Jesus actually God. Further, in what way was the Holy Ghost a necessity making a coherent and rational Christian life. TC never touched it, here or elsewhere.

Though Luke is isolated in his travels – through Greece – during this telling, TC illustrates her forte by weaving together images that appear to provide him succor from the many characters of his life to this point. This is 3/5ths of the way through the novel. I cannot doubt the sense of this. Like TC, I too have always had such images, way back to grade school.  For example, as if some gorgeous little girl – the first with whom I shared kisses [yes, I remember her name] – in early 5th grade was a Goddess in my life.

 
B. The analysis of the 1st reviewer I quoted in Part I revealed much about item #2.

Still, all of it is entirely made up. There is absolutely no way that the unlocatable three Magi who followed the star of Bethlehem could have been introduced to Luke by his physician mentor [Keptah] when he was 14 years old. I'd sooner believe that hydroxychloroquine could cure the effects of a coronavirus, in the mouth of someone who didn't have the slightest idea that there was no resemblance between a coronavirus and a flu virus.

The analogy is that there is no knowledge here of what the three Magi represented. Nor what was their relation to the world of Rome. For example, TC has no meaningful discourse from them. To that reviewer this mattered.

In chapter 20, Joseph Ben Gamliel says that the star appeared 13 years earlier. Therefore, Luke is 23 years old when he finishes his studies as a doctor in Alexandria, and we are in the year 6-11, also before the reign of Tiberius begins. According to Gamliel, the adventure of the Child lost and found in the temple took place a year earlier. This is another anachronism, related to the previous one.
Incidentally, Gamliel's name recalls that of Gamaliel (or Gamliel) the Elder, who died around 52, was a teacher of the Law in Jerusalem and taught Saul of Tarsus. Caldwell's Gamliel was a teacher of the Law in Jerusalem around the year 2 B.C., and a teacher in Alexandria around the year 11. It is, therefore, an invented character, who has nothing to do with the historical Gamaliel, except for his name.
Another important historical error [see below its relevance] is the presence of Julia in Rome in chapter 29, as the Empress and wife of Tiberius. She had been exiled by her father Augustus in 2BC, and never came back to Rome. In fact, her marriage to Tiberius was annulled at the same time. And she died on the year 14 AD, just after Tiberius became Emperor.
So, this reviewer dearly wanted TC's glorious physician to be authentic. He was disappointed that her proferred (totally factual TC insisted) version that funnelled together all the personages that her readers could assimilate into one telling. They came together as a child might have hoped.

Alas, this was counter to what he knew and to common sense. Not slightly counter, but without even providing a valuable memory device by which he could recount – with confidence – in discussion what TC painted of the context of Luke's life. [This reader took pains with a review of commanding length. I have seen such in no other comparable review of one ofTC's Mediterranean novels.]

C. What was TC doing and why did it work?

So, what was real enough that we could come away with something more than a story that could have been about anyone: a Mediterranean lark? Would the readers of those – probably – 5 million volumes sold of this novel been OK with it having been a fun/variant retelling of the new testament background? Who were those readers? Were they the same sort who found her On Growing up Tough happy with the retelling of a what a strong character she was? Was that because she had assimilated the lessons – tantamount to abuse, and so praised by the John Birch Society – taught her by her mother?

I'll backtrack a moment with my own relation to Jesus. I personally have always dispensed with rhetorical questions on Jesus's existence with this simple statement.
We surely believe Paul existed. And Paul surely believed Jesus existed. By transitivity, I can't doubt Jesus' existence.
Notice I don't use faith alone, for I would have to ask myself, faith in what or whom?

DAG is full of attempts on TC's part to have Jesus come alive in front of us. She does her best to tread a fine line between turning Luke into a god, with astonishing blonde looks, masterful physical agility, and great artistic skill (including that he painted an astonishing likeness of Mary). That included many seeming miracles.

She explains all these personal marvels as either tricks he learned from unnamed sources, or God working through him. One of her finest sub-stories, painting Luke's life lived in his loneliness, has him save a husband and wife beset upon by a mob. This culminates in his instanteneously removing all signs of the man's leprosy – the very reason for the mob's ire – also one of the most famous of Jesus's cures. Occasionally she has Luke uncertainly offering natural explanations for these. Sometimes she includes the effect of his personality. Yet, personalities are not her forte, and her goal is more dramatic.

Either TC has decided that Luke was receiving inspiration from Jesus even before he wholeheartedly accepted God. Or, she couldn't hold back her enthusiasm for his actually sharing some of Jesus' divinity. Alas, she also endows Mary with astonishing blonde looks, just as she gave all of her goddess like heroines, and Luke and even (in ''Glory and the Lightning'') Aspasia. I've lived in Israel. You can hardly find a blonde there who didn't come from either the US or far northern Europe.

So, we can't think that TC saw these peole as would an oracle. Still, she wanted to announce that the greatest chronicler of Jesus from somewhere in his century, stood up against Rome, seduced even the emporer Tiberius to value him, and personally revealed the corruption that would bring down Rome.

She tells you in no uncertain words her view of why Rome needed to fall. All her best people have exactly TC's view of Rome's nature and her pessimism toward democracy's future. Chapter 29 oozes her confusing ideas on femininity vs masculinity, strangely attributing to Rome and various of its subpopulations a femininity that spells its doom. Later she repeats this, like a setpiece as a theme in Pillar of Iron (1965, Cicero) Great Lion of God (1970, St. Paul), and Glory and the Lightning (1974, Pericles and Aspasia).

This simple view isn't akin to Edward Gibbon's The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. I actually have these volumes. Gibbon acknowledges Luke's existence, through reference to two tiny passages in Luke's gospel. One on the general view of Christians to the rest of humanity. The other on under what circumstances Jesus seemed to accept divorce. For example: recall the story of the Samaratan woman at the well, whom he knew to have been ''married'' five times.

The second reviewer I quoted last week agreed that TC's telling wasn't historically accurate. That woman, though, praised the historical sense that TC gave to Rome and those times. Many are impressed with TC's vocabulary, noting how often they have to turn to a dictionary. Example: I had never before heard/seen the word icteritious, not even considering that one of my common relaxations is completing serious crosswords. I couldn't even find it in my unabridged dictionary, though icterus (an organ associated with jaundice was there). Google actually had it as jaundiced or yellow. Just in case it didn't stick with you, TC uses it twice on p. 124 in these phrases: This storm which went on for three pages was apparently triggered by the death of Luke's early love (Rubria), unbeknownst to him at that moment. It was akin to the same meteorological cataclism that accompanied the crucifixion of Jesus later in the novel, as related by Mary.

D. Dialogs from her characters on the Meaning of Life, including with the Emporer Tiberius

TC's approach is to have very significant people discuss the search for meaning in life with Luke. Her goal is to tell all that she has decided could possibly have meaning, all the while setting Luke up as the most meaningful producer of the New Testament. Yet, for most of the novel he is resisting belief in God, though tentative about a straightforward denunciation.

TC's point is that Luke came to see Jesus and the meaning of life as bound together. Her insistence that there was no progress without religion can be taken to mean that man could not improve on finding the meaning of his life without religion. Jesus hoped to change the situation of man's civilization, his institutions and laws, by remaking men through their understanding of what God would do for them.

Ah, if they just believed. This is counter to our view, back to Hammurabi, of civilization coming from
higher legalisms and earthly punishments that force us to behave ''appropriately.''

In Chapter 17, Luke is in conversation with a practitioner of Buddhism, during which he reminisces on what the Jewish Joseph ben Gamliel said he personally got from reflecting on the Laws of nature, as if these were the laws of God. She twines this with thoughts of reincarnation, and what could be the purpose of this version of immortality. Luke rejects all this.

Indeed, she has Luke enter an infirmary. Therein, he comes upon physicians from the various Mediterranean countries. The conversation expands to include their complex views on pain, death, disease, truth, knowledge, the soul.

This is also the chapter in which we are given to concentrate on Luke's healing powers. Indeed, where he affects one of his miraculous cures of a negro slave, thereby demonstrating anew his great humanity. Soon after, through Gamliel's ministrations all the ingredients of the final plot of the novel fall in place (p. 204).

Another beautiful woman will follow Luke throughout the rest of his life. This is the daughter of a rich man – whom Luke did not want to treat – whose son Luke has been asked to find, just prior to that man's death. His involvement with this family then keeps him in a living world on his way to acknowledging his grand mission to serve The Unknown God whom he comes to recognize through his brother Priscus as Jesus. Yet, in Chapter 27 TC adds a grandeur to it all.

This, at once demonstrates anew the power of Luke's aura, his potential to shape the world. It also provides him safety during his lonely passage of discovery. She does this by having Tiberius himself be taken by Luke. The emporer gives Luke a ring, one by which all high Romans will know Luke is under the protection of the emperor. The scene of this enchantment felt by Tiberius is a private conversation in Tiberius' office that engages her favorite themes in all her Mediterranean novels.

Here it is for the first time: Her political hatred of democracy, the corruption of the Roman empire, and her discourses on femininity (weakness) versus masculinity (strength).

Tiberius (p. 297) in some exasperation at Luke for his naivete:
Must life have a meaning? Even the gods have not given man a meaning for his existence.
For Luke's response we must remember that he has yet to accept God:
But we can assign some meaning to our lives ourselves.
The meaning I have given to myself is to alleviate pain and suffering.
Tiberius challenges him as to what purpose was that, while mentally running through TC's list of deplorables: the rabble, senators, slaves. That conversation culminates in Tiberius coming upon Luke's lack of dedication to any (Roman) god. At this Tiberius switches his opinion of Luke again: he is grappling with a bigger issue, and Tiberius himself ends up discussing the legends around the birth of Jesus. This induces – remember, this is in front of the Emporer – Luke to recall a story Gamliel told him of how the young Jesus discoursed with the ''the learned doctors and scholars in the temple.'' Alas, again TC does not engage what Jesus said.

Tiberius caps this off with an offer to have (the reluctant) Luke live in his house for half a year, as Tiberius' physician, at which time we are given another lesson in Luke's healing powers applied to Tiberius.

F. The coup-de-gras: TC leads us to the final set-piece of her most significant novel.

This sojourn lasts a short time only. It does allow TC to show other god-like attributes of Luke; and to weave in other famous characters, which the previous reviewer noted could not have been there, even if Luke was. In particular, Luke receives an invitation to a dinner-baccanalia hosted by Tiberius's wife Julia, who attempts to seduce him in front of the gathered crowd. Thereupon Luke is forced to flee Rome, though still with the power of Tiberius protecting him.

So much, so fast, so many famous personages, so much at stake, and it doesn't end there. Truly this weaving is TC's forte in this novel which to this point she professes she has been writing all her life. Alas, I realize that I cannot put any finishing touches on the final great meeting of the novel, with this limited newsletter space. I don't want you to miss it.

For without a doubt the gorgeous Sara, the beautiful but licentious Julia and the purest woman of all, Mary the mother of Jesus, the one person who personally knew Jesus all are intended to resonate with their meetings of the literary purveyer who presented Jesus most directly to the gentile world.

You have to marvel at the chutzpah of TC to put this together. You also have to wonder why she insisted every word was true, when certainly it was all made up. Then, why were so many were taken with it?

Conclusion: By the late '50s, early '60s TC's success allows her to make her own choices

This sets up my still incomplete items #3 and #4 (above) for my Part III and final newsletter on this stirring saga, by which TC intended to lead you to another view of the New Testament. She did so without engaging its actual details.

The true-to-life TC had no problems with telling lie after lie: As with the daughter she wanted to prevent from getting any of Marcus Reback's inheritance. She swore to a court that Judy wasn't really his daughter. Rather, she said under court deposition, Judy was the daughter of my family's grandfather Will Combs. Well, damn! The courts eventually accepted that absolutely ridiculous statement!!! TC had a penchant for thrusting a ''!'' on you in strange places.

At the publication of GAD, TC was still under 60. She had previously had great success, aided by her husband and partner Marcus Reback, following a path pleasing to publishers but not her own. Now, with DAG she had proven – it seemed – her way would work.

In Most Significant Part III I will take on what she learned, what she did with these lessons and how her audience felt about it. As with others who manage to exude such command, she couldn't hide her dealings in her personal life. Those interactions, for her and others like her, are telling about the nature of their relations with the whole web and warf of the world. Yes, that includes God.

Here is where you can find Pillar of Iron, on offer for $2.99 today.

The four newsletters from the Descendants of TC on Pillar of Iron.
Michael Fried, Grandson
For the Descendants of Taylor Caldwell
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