Fire or Fire - Part Three
A poem by T.S. Eliot presents a choice to all humanity
NOTE: This is the final in a series of three articles. You can read the previous ones here and here.
In this series, I began by examining how the fires of war ripped through humanity between 1939-1945, producing a conflagration of evil that consumed millions of lives. I declared this to be a typical example of evil in human history, such that it was most appropriate for Plato to declare this lower sphere the realm of fire.
Everyone who witnessed those flames ought to have lost their faith in humanity. (And yet, many of them did not.) Some also lost their faith in God, declaring that a deity who permits suffering cannot be good. It was easier for them to believe that there was no God than that God allows such things.
As I noted then, I say again now: These are not absurd conclusions to reach. We must ask how God could create a world of fire while remaining good.
But then I examined the Christian Scriptures and saw that they have much to say about fire. God himself is a consuming fire such that any sinful person who encounters him becomes subject to wrath. Yet, there are some who are not consumed by that divine fire, which prompts the question of how a God whose wrath does not consume sinners could be called just.
These are two sides of the same conundrum. How do we reconcile these aspects of God’s character in light of fire? I have hinted that a solution might be possible: a way for consuming fire to be made unconsuming. It has to do with the presence of God, which preserved Shadrach, Meschach, and Abed-nego in the flames. As promised, I will now turn to a great work of poetry to bring this series to what I hope is a climax.
Often considered the last great work of T.S. Eliot and among his most profoundly religious, the Four Quartets are a series of poems written mostly during the Second World War. They were heavily influenced by Eliot’s experience of that conflict, including his time as an air raid warden in London during The Blitz. Each of the so-called quartets represents one of the four primary elements of the classical Greek world: “Burnt Norton” is air, “East Coker” is earth, “The Dry Salvages” is water, and “Little Gidding” is fire.
It is to this last quartet that I now turn—“Little Gidding,” the poem of fire. Within its stanzas, we find all the types or aspects of biblical fire represented.
CONSUMING FIRE
“Ash on an old man’s sleeve
Is all the ash the burnt roses leave.”1
These two lines open the second verse of the poem. We can imagine Eliot sitting on a bench in a mostly abandoned St. James’ Park, with no children left to play, for they have all been evacuated, and few birds left to swim, for they have been frightened by the nightly bombardments. The sun is rising, and as he glances down at his watch to check the time, he notices something on the sleeve of the same tweed jacket he wore all yesterday at Faber and Faber and then throughout his night watch.
Gray ash is clinging to the fibers, unwilling to surrender its grip. He imagines it is the remnant of a fire in Covent Garden. One of the flower sellers was hit by an incendiary and their prized stock of roses immediately consumed. The ash floated upon the wind, shifted by strange currents until it came to rest upon his sleeve, proof of fire’s consuming character. For the roses of Covent Garden are not like the bushes of Sinai.
Roses are symbols of love, beauty, and purity. They are cherished the world over as proof of goodness on earth. One might even say they are objects of grace in a world that so often lacks it. But when contacted by fire, this rose has been consumed, leaving only the ash on Eliot’s sleeve. Later in the same section, Eliot again references consuming fire which, like its antipode water, possesses the power to destroy every achievement of humanity.
“Water and fire succeed
The town, the pasture and the weed.
Water and fire deride
The sacrifice that we denied.
Water and fire shall rot
The marred foundations we forgot,
Of sanctuary and choir.
This is the death of water and fire.”
While that last line might make it seem as if water and fire themselves are being put to death, I believe Eliot intends the opposite: the death of fire is the death that fire brings. It has the power to destroy not only our flesh, but also our creations, our imaginings, and all that is sacred to us. Yes, we will be consumed—of that Eliot is certain. No matter which direction we choose to walk, we are one step closer to our destruction. “And any action / Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea’s throat…” he writes in the poem’s fourth verse. Whether by violent execution, burning, or drowning, we will meet our end. Sooner or later, we will be consumed by fire.
REFINING/ENLIVENING FIRE
One theme of the Four Quartets is man’s quest for knowledge, and how this quest is often stymied by time, forgetfulness, and the like. The tendency of humanity to err leaves us in need of salvation. In “Little Gidding,” Eliot presents refining fire as the necessary process by which the human soul is restored. As he writes in the second verse, “From wrong to wrong the exasperated spirit / Proceeds, unless restored by that refining fire.”
I spoke in my previous article about the difficulty of differentiating between fire’s refining and enlivening aspects in the Christian Scriptures. The similarity is also clear in Eliot’s poem. The spirit must be “restored” by refining fire. When we speak of someone restoring something, we often say they have “breathed new life” into it, and that is the work of the Holy Spirit as Eliot sees it. In the opening stanza of the poem, he describes a sudden burst of warmth in the middle of winter that momentarily causes flowers to bloom, even as much remains frozen. Reflected off the ice of a pond, sunlight shines far brighter than it would in summertime. It is a sudden burst of flame seen in nature and felt in the human spirit.
“And glow more intense than blaze of branch, or brazier,
Stirs the dumb spirit: no wind, but pentecostal fire
In the dark time of the year.”
Note the use of the adjective “pentecostal” to describe these flames. Eliot wants us to think of the tongues “as of flame” that came to rest upon the Christian believers on Pentecost, signaling the presence and indwelling of the Holy Spirit. This is a fire that brings people to life. It has power to refine, yes, but also to resurrect dead things. Eliot describes the “dumb spirit” needing this pentecostal fire. In other words, it is a spirit which can do nothing and must be enlivened.
UNCONSUMING FIRE
In the third verse of “Little Gidding,” Eliot imagines he is in the middle of his warden duties when he comes across a ghostly figure whom interpreters universally hold to be Dante Aligheri, the man whose Divine Comedy followed man’s descent into the depths of hell and rise through the fires of purgatory to glimpse the beatific vision in heaven. They discuss what men choose to remember, and before their conversation is broken up by the sounding of an air raid siren, Eliot writes,
“Why should we celebrate
These dead men more than the dying?
It is not to ring the bell backward
Nor is it an incantation
To summon the spectre of a Rose.”
Earlier, Eliot had spoken of a rose reduced to ash. Now, he speaks of a rose that can be brought back across the chasm that divides the living and the dead, but only as a “spectre”. Eliot seems to ask why we should continually attempt to reawaken the memory of long-dead heroes rather than focusing on those who fall beside us now and whose hearts may still be warm enough to grant life to ours.
However, the fact that Eliot capitalizes Rose here seems significant. It is not a particular rose one might buy at a London flower market, but the universal idea of rose, or perhaps rose as a symbol of something else—goodness, beauty, grace. The best things we have seen, which we long to preserve, which we call “good.” I cannot know exactly what Eliot intended, but he appears to be presenting a notion of human yearning: a sense that roses really ought not be reduced to ash, and that the only way to make things right would be to bring them back.
In the fourth verse, Eliot freely mixes the various aspects of biblical fire, drawing upon the imagery of the Holy Spirit as a dove even as he summons memories of dive bombers descending over London with their Jericho trumpets blaring.
“The dove descending breaks the air
With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare
The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair
Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre-
To be redeemed from fire by fire.Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.”
There it is, friends: he has given us an answer of sorts to our conundrum. “How so?” you ask. Allow me to explain.
The fire of the Holy Spirit is compared to the consuming fire that swept through London. But unlike the flames of The Blitz, the fire of the Holy Spirit comes to bring salvation. The choice humanity faces is between “pyre or pyre.” We can only be “redeemed from fire by fire.” I believe he means that only the fire of God’s Spirit can redeem us from the consuming fire of his wrath. There is no escape for humanity: we will be “consumed by either fire or fire.”
Some will run from God their whole lives only to be consumed by his fire in the end. Others will be filled with the fire of his Spirit now and pass through the consuming fire unharmed. For consuming fire becomes unconsuming in the presence of pentecostal fire, which is the presence of God himself bound to humanity. Do we then choose the fire which kills or that which brings life? For the latter will free us even from death, redeeming us from the fires of this life and those of the life to come.
Eliot implies as much in his first verse when he writes, “And what the dead had no speech for, when living, / They can tell you, being dead: the communication / Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.” But how can dead men speak? With holy breath uttering words inexpressible. If the dead speak, they live. For the power of fire that God brings is the power of resurrection. Thus, Eliot brings “Little Gidding” to a close quoting the medieval mystic Julian of Norwich.
“And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flames are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.”
How could Eliot live through the horrors of the Second World War and still claim that “all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well”? Because he believed in unconsuming fire. The rose that began as ash on his sleeve is now reborn as a thing imperishable: “the fire and the rose are one.” Here is the flame which does not consume but preserves and resurrects. Man can live in contact with God through that divine miracle we celebrate at this dark time of the year.
Incarnation.
THE FLAME ETERNAL
“How could the Eternal do a temporal act,
The Infinite become a finite fact?
Nothing can save us that is possible:
We who must die demand a miracle.”2
W.H. Auden
Returning to the Scriptures, we see that a stark choice is presented between life in Jesus Christ or consumption by the wrath of God. “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”3 (John 3:36) While this consuming fire may be felt to a certain degree in this life, its final revelation comes at the end of time, as described in the Apocalypse of John, when those who worship the powers of evil are differentiated from those who are redeemed with the blood of the Lamb.
“If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His anger; and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.” (Revelation 14:9-11)
This is terrifying. We see what occurs when unredeemed sinners encounter a holy God: they are made to drink the cup of his wrath. Earlier, we discussed how the “consuming fire” of God is associated with that wrath. But through Christ, humanity can be saved from those flames. “Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.” (Romans 5:9)
This is only possible because Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the second person of the eternal Trinity, took humanity upon himself and became Immanuel—“God with us.” He is not “with us” simply as a comforter or companion. He actively enters consuming fire with us, enduring the flames of God’s wrath on our behalf.
I have just presented one of the most controversial and despised theological ideas of all time, but I think it is hard to come to any other conclusion after a careful examination of Scripture. For we read clearly that Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Suffering Servant “poured out Himself to death, / And was numbered with the transgressors.” He “bore the sin of many.” (Isaiah 53:12) St. Paul goes so far as to say that, “He [God the Father] made Him who knew no sin [Christ] to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)
Jesus once asked his disciples, “Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?” (Matthew 20:22) That cup was none other than the cup of God’s wrath: the flames of consuming fire. We hear people speak of “baptisms of fire,” and thus Christ lamented prior to his death, “I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished!” (Luke 12:50) In the final moments before his arrest and eventual crucifixion, he prayed, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” (Luke 22:42)
Jesus Christ entered the flames of God’s consuming wrath along with humanity in order to save humanity from consumption. By taking on our sins and drinking the cup of wrath, he made us inflammable. We may be consumed by the fires of man, but no fire of God will hurt us. For where the presence of God is, the fire does not consume, and those who trust in Christ are now filled with the Holy Spirit of God, brought through their union with Christ into the very life of the Trinity. Though it remains mysterious to all and monstrous to some, this is the method through which God chose to make consuming fire unconsuming.
Yet, the Scriptures still suggest that some will be consumed by that fire. Why should this be if Christ has endured God’s wrath on humanity’s behalf? Put simply, because many reject Christ and refuse to accept his salvation. Like the ancient Egyptians whose doors were not painted with the blood of a lamb, they will not be sheltered from the coming of the angel of death.
Why should one person be saved and another not? That answer, I am afraid, lies within the deepest recesses of God’s person. It has not been revealed to humanity, though St. Paul provides some guidance when he tells us to focus on those who are shown mercy rather than those subjected to wrath.
“What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles.” (Romans 9:22-24)
A God who surrenders himself to consuming fire for the sake of humanity is not evil: of that I am certain. He is goodness itself and grace upon grace, providing sure salvation to humanity. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews instructs followers of Christ to have confidence that unlike the ancient Israelites, they will not be consumed by the presence of the Lord, but rather preserved by it.
“For you have not come to a mountain that can be touched and to a blazing fire, and to darkness and gloom and whirlwind, and to the blast of a trumpet and the sound of words which sound was such that those who heard begged that no further word be spoken to them. For they could not bear the command, ‘If even a beast touches the mountain, it will be stoned.’ And so terrible was the sight, that Moses said, ‘I am full of fear and trembling.’ But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel.” (Hebrews 12:18-24)
This is the salvation that has been revealed. The secret things belong to God alone, but to us and to our children are given this profound mystery: the union of God and man, justice and grace, fire and rose. The rest belongs to eternity. “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.” (1 Corinthians 13:12)
The solution to the problem of evil, now as always, is the atoning death of Jesus Christ and the resurrection of the dead. What could ever make right the fires of human history? What could redeem us and our suffering, restoring life to the consumed ones?
Resurrection.
Sub-Creations is now on hiatus until 2025.
SUB-CREATIONS IS OFFERING NEW SUBSCRIPTION PLANS!
Free Plan - Access to all articles and ability to comment
$5/month or $50 annually - All the above plus access to quarterly video calls with the author, first date TBA
$150 annually (Founding Member) - All the above plus a signed copy of a Mantravadi novel of your choice
PUBLISHED ELSEWHERE:
“Life in the Bleak Midwinter” at 1517
“Conclave and the Certainty of Faith” at Mockingbird
My latest book, Broken Bonds: A Novel of the Reformation, is now available for purchase here.
Eliot’s entire poem can be read here: https://www.columbia.edu/itc/history/winter/w3206/edit/tseliotlittlegidding.html
Auden, W.H. “For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio” in W.H. Auden: Collected Poems, Modern Library Centennial Edition, ed. Edward Mendelson (New York: Random House, 2007), 353.
All Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible (1995 edition), copyright The Lockman Foundation.
Thanks for highlighting the truths contained in this poem by T.S. Eliot. Which fire will we choose?