The boy Samuel

One doesn’t just read the Bible. One does so within a context. It’s very plain to me that I would not be undertaking it now, except as a process of retracing my steps: to revisit the ten-year-old Vincent and see through his eyes. It helps me see what I am now, and also how the world has come to be what it is. For the First Book of Samuel (my starting-point for this exercise) didn’t just spring into existence in 1952, as a newly-minted textbook for my generation. It had been known to Englishmen, in this same land, for four hundred years. That is why I use the now-archaic sexist apellation “Englishmen” which meant “men and women” or “men” depending on context. It is also why I still use the text of the King James version, as we did then, for its language is directly related to the English in which men (see above) were first able to read the Bible for themselves, in their own tongue. This was important at my school, for the education I received had a clear purpose, although I didn’t realize it at the time. I attended a “prep” (preparatory) boarding school. Its sole aim was to enable a boy (there were no girl pupils) to pass the Common Entrance Examination. This allowed him to be enrolled in a public school. I imagine it was called public because it was available to any boy who could pass the exam, and whose parent or guardian could pay the fees, or obtain a scholarship. If you didn’t go to a public school you went to a State school (run by the Government and provided free), or a Grammar school, which I eventually went to, but that is beside the point here.

The Public school, for which I was prepared at a prep school*, had an equally clear purpose. It was to prepare you for responsibility. Perhaps you might go to the Colonies, to help run the Empire. You might go on to enter the Army (as an officer) or the Church as a clergyman who might climb the ladder to bishophood. Most public schools were “C of E”, that is, Anglican. At any rate, Scripture was an important curriculum subject. Your teacher might or might not be a Christian, in the sense we use the word today. One kept one’s beliefs (as indeed one’s sexuality) to oneself, though an astute boy would learn to detect the identity of his schoolmaster by various little clues. In consequence of my education, then, I became steeped in the Bible, its stories and often its exact words, from an early age without ever, then or later, becoming a Christian. The criterion for Christianhood was crystal-clear to an intelligent child from the age of eight. Our service of Mattins on Sunday morning followed the Book of Common Prayer (first published 1549) which required that every member of the congregation face to the east (I think) and chant the Apostles’ Creed:

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth: And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary, Suffered under Pontius Pilate, Was crucified, dead, and buried: He descended into hell; The third day he rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

I know it off by heart. As I transcribe it, I hear the assembled congregation repeat it, hundreds of times. But I never believed, then or now.

So, that is my context. Had I been sent to Sunday School, I might have been exposed to the same texts, but in a context of declared believers, who would have been more selective as to what they taught young children. For as we shall see, the stories of Samuel, Saul, Jonathan and David are grimmer than Grimm’s Fairy Tales, full of smiting, slaying, betrayals, arbitrary tyrants (both fathers and The Lord) and wicked sons. We shall be looking to see what edification, if any, may be extracted therefrom. It starts beguilingly enough, with the boy Samuel given for adoption to the old priest Eli, and being woken in the night by a voice. He thinks it must be Eli, but it turns out to be that mysterious being: The Lord. Eli tells him, if it happens again, to say “Speak; for thy servant heareth.” Will we learn how God speaks to Man?

* Merrion House, Sedlescombe