The Biblical Churchill, Part 1
“In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” —St. John 14:2[1]
“Arm yourselves, and be valiant men, and see that ye be in readiness against the morning…For it is better for us to die in battle, than to behold the calamities of our people and our sanctuary. Nevertheless, as the will of God is in heaven, so let him do.” —I Maccabees 3:58-60[2]
“More than to any other book or group of books, Churchill alludes to the King James Bible,” wrote Darrell Holley in Churchill’s Literary Allusions:
It is for him the primary source of interesting illustrations, descriptive images, and stirring phrases. His knowledge of the Bible manifests itself in direct quotations, in paraphrased retellings of Biblical stories, and in his frequent, perhaps even unconscious, use of Biblical terms and phrases. The Tower of Babel, Belshazzar’s feast…the millstone around the neck, the “great gulf fixed” between Paradise and Hell [from Luke 16:26] the last great Battle of Armageddon—these occur often in Churchill’s writing.”[3]
All this may come as a surprise to casual observers, since it is well known that Churchill was not a religious man. Having read the leading anti-religious tracts of the late 19th century, weighing them against the Anglican teachings of his boyhood, he held a pragmatic attitude toward spiritual questions: “I adopted quite early in life a system of believing what I wanted to believe, while at the same time leaving reason to pursue unfettered whatever paths she was capable of treading.”[4]
What moved Churchill was the beauty of the King James English, badly mutilated by “new revised” Bibles ostensibly designed to make them more “relevant.” He had an ear for the memorable phrase, and he never hesitated to deploy Biblical allusions both famous and obscure. One of each is sufficient to demonstrate his expertise. See Part 2….
Footnotes
[1] Holy Bible, King James edition. The same verse in Basic English, which WSC championed as a lingua franca, is: “In my Father’s house are rooms enough; if it was not so, would I have said that I am going to make ready a place for you?”
[2] Apocrypha, King James Bible. Apocrypha: “1. a group of books not found in Jewish or Protestant versions of the Old Testament included in the Septuagint and in Roman Catholic editions of the Bible. 2. various religious writings of uncertain origin regarded by some as inspired, but rejected by most authorities.” —Random House Webster’s College Dictionary
[3] Holley, Churchill’s Literary Allusions, 7.
[4] Churchill, My Early Life, 131.
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This text is Appendix IV in Churchill By Himself, which is being deleted in the new edition, Churchill in His Own Words, to make room for an index of phrases.
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