English 83

That quote of course comes from what is perhaps the finest episode in Simpsons history, namely the golden age great “Homer the Heretic.” For any of you unfortunate enough not to know what I’m talking about, God appears to Homer to confront the yellow sloth about his newly formed religion, whose tenets largely consist of sleeping in front of a warm fire, reading copies of Playdude, and skipping work for the Feast of Maximum Occupancy. After a brief conversation, mostly focusing on the boring local Christian pastor, God gives Homer his imprimatur and disappears with the line above.

I quoted that because I was struck by the scene when Jesus appears to Galahad (in the vision with bishop Joseph). Not only did it trigger a caricatured idea of divine appearances in food as in the Simpsons, but it is definitely the most literal account of transubstantiation I can recall ever encountering. (I can’t believe I missed it when I read Malory before).

“There came a figure in likeness of a child, and the visage was as red and as bright as any fire, and smote himself into the bread, so that they all saw it that the bread was formed of a fleshly man, and then [the bishop] put it into the Holy Vessel again….Then looked they and saw a man come out of the Holy Vessel, that had all the signs of the passion of Jesu Christ. Then [Christ] took the Holy Vessel and came to Galahad, and [Galahad and all his fellows] received his Saviour, and they thought it was so sweet that it was marvellous to tell.”

I put in a tour of duty into my Jesuit high school, as well as independent theological reading. Even so, I’ve never read anything that is so explicit about its transubstantiation. They’re not eating bread that has been transformed into the body of Christ, but the other way around, and in an incredibly explicit manner. Transubstantiation has always had mildly cannibalistic implications (I can recall many a smug high school theology class discussion on the matter) but this is beyond anything I’ve encountered. It’s as if Christ turned himself into a big gingerbread man and then leaned over for the knightly kiddies to take a bite of his arm.

Malory has gone well beyond orthodox Catholic doctrine here (and it’s well before Henry VIII’s Defender of the Faith Catholic fanaticism, and obviously further before his divorce issues, the English Reformation, Queen Elizabeth I, etc.). I can’t think that Malory, as a country bandit and even member of Parliament, would have been in a position to deal with the isolated urban Lollard movement or other forms of proto-Protestantism. (Or if you’re aware of any historical reason or evidence that he might have, please chime in). Assuming that’s not the case, why might Malory have taken this unusual turn?