The recorded experience of Muad'Dib, of Alia and, partial as it is, of Leto II, has given new impetus to psychosomatic theological study and has also shifted the emphasis of concern from eschatological determination (whether seen in terms of Paradise, or Heaven and Hell, or Nirvana) to psychomachy (or "psychomachiavellianism" as my witty colleague Miiarz calls it) and its implications for this-worldly power politics. Ancestor worship and propitiation are also reviving. These problems were not, of course, stirring the minds of the C.E.T., for whom God was safely transcendent, not an actual living Vermicular Presence. I express myself so freely because I know that these words will be buried deep for generations. Then as now, however, all men were deeply and humanistically interested in the idea that they had some great destiny within the universe; the religious sought divine guidance and feared Shaitanic interference.
CONTENTS OF THE ORANGE CATHOLIC BIBLE. The O.C. Bible is more than a revised amalgamation of the ancient holy scriptures. It considerably extended the traditional canon, although it also abridged and reordered it. It came packaged with the Liturgical Manual and the Commentaries.
The O.C. Bible reflected the blendings of scriptural tradition that had already occurred for reasons of planetary convenience, and radically extended them. The dramatic new melding inevitably produced an impression of stark dislocation on many readers. In order to offset this, a comprehensive index and marginal collations were provided. Further, from the outset it was envisaged that each planet should have its own supplement, although it was of course impossible to produce all the requisite editions at once and this caused misunderstandings. The very vastness of the new compendium carried its ecumenical message: "Your faith has hitherto been too small."
The C.E.T. was particularly fond of the idea of harmonization which they saw as an ecumenical activity. They were also adept at covering their tracks, as it was no part of their purpose to suggest that previous texts and arrangements had special authority. As a consequence, they guaranteed labor for the next generation of scholars, who were engaged in assembling that bibliographic marvel, the Azhar Book, which preserves the great secrets of the most ancient faiths and traces the received texts to their origins.
With the help of the Azhar Book, we can see something of the process of harmonization which rendered the stiff old texts of the Bible, the Quran and so on, plastic enough to be mixed and twisted. Some of the texts (which, interestingly enough, remain among the most popular) proved highly resistant to change. The Book of Job passed through the furnace almost unscathed, for some reason, as did Preacher. Revelation (not to be confused with Revelations) was quite unchanged, whether because of C.E.T. exhaustion once the last book of the old Bible canon had been reached, or because of the dire threat in the last chapter, remains uncertain.
In the former Old Testament and New Testament, there was in general a great simplification, evident in the reduction of the number of books that remain from them, as well as the compression of their contents, when this can be observed in the unmelded texts. The books that remain are Genesis, Exodus, Laws, Promises, Kings, Refugees, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Preacher, Prophets, Gospel, Apostles, Epistles, Revelation. The most controversial omission from the canon is Canticles, also known as The Song of Solomon (or Song of Songs), which has nevertheless survived and is to be traced in various other O.C. Bible texts, including Blake Skul Visions and the Saari. We have a hint in the Bertoli Memoirs to explain the omission: "Bomoko hated the text which made Sheba say, 'I am black but comely' — his own wife was brown and remarkably ugly and suspected, more or less jokingly, of a secret attachment to Obeah rituals after she was once seen chasing a chicken into the jungle." It is more likely that many of the representatives were instructed by their congregations to nail a text which had often been embarrassing to the churches and that, in spite of their proclamation (which has, of course, been much misunderstood) about "producing an instrument of Love to be played in all ways," the delegates were careful not to produce a book that in any way expressed the idea of love as it is secularly regarded. It may be necessary in this connection, also, to remind those who know such religions as the Cathloa Church of Erzulie and the Vatsyayana Evangelicals only by their names that there is a great difference in religious matters between professions and practices.
The most difficult work of harmonization may be seen in the production of Gospel, the first diatessaron to establish itself beyond competition from the four evangelists, who now became relegated to mere names and symbols. The historical scholarship behind this attempt to establish the life of Jesus on a firm, incontrovertible basis was immense, but it had an effect in its context that may or may not have been well calculated by the C.E.T. It reduced the life of Jesus to one among several lives of saints and prophets and servants of God. Clearly the Maomethic faction in the C.E.T. had much to do with creating this impression, which was certainly in line with the C.E.T. claim to dispossess all disputant religions of the idea that they might have a uniquely valuable revelation. When they saw the effect of this claim in cold print, however, it is note worthy that the Sunislamic faiths were as shocked as the others by what their representatives had perpetrated in their names.
All the historical books of Judaeo-Christian scripture were harmonized as far as possible (if not farther) with the Quran. The legal books were augmented by the Tawrah, Quran, Confucian traditions, while the wisdom literature of Proverbs was assimilated to Taoist and Socratic dicta, at least.
The pure Quran was represented in the O.C. Bible by the books of Saari and Kalima, and the important Siret text should also be mentioned here, although it is suspected that this was in part augmented by the C.E.T. themselves who numbered some well-published poets among them. The Masnavi and Traditions are other books that seem largely Islamic in composition.
Among the Hindu and Buddhist traditions may be placed the following books: Upanishads, Vedas, Puranas, Gita, Sutra, Bodhisatvara, Avatara; while the books of Koan Answers, Ohashi, Hui-Neng and Tao may be ascribed rather to the Zensunni traditions. From other ancient sources come the books of Analects and Pahlavi; while the books of Arran, Blake Skul Visions and Revelations are believed to be more recent in origin, and the book of Hymns is both ancient and modem.
A controversial but most helpful feature of the O.C. Bible is its addition to the canonical scriptures of the books of Holy Lives and Testimonies, without which we very likely should not have the histories of many saints, martyrs, sectarian founders and missionaries, and the records of miracles as remarkable as any of those recorded in ancient scriptures. The ordeals suffered by the faithful and their mixed experiences of sin and redemption are a great source of consolation as well as of inspiration in our own troubled times.
One of the hardest decisions for the C.E.T. was not merely to establish the contents of their Bible but to agree upon a title, one that would be brief yet broadly descriptive, one that would reflect the ecumenical spirit without appearing narrowly exclusive. In early fragments of his memoirs, Bertoli refers to it as the Koranjiyana Zenchristian Scriptures, or as the Zenchristian Navakoran, but after the fourth year it seems to be settled in his mind, at least, that Orange Catholic Bible was to be the name. We must suppose that a day or a week was given over to settling what may have become a matter of embarrassing dispute. The terms "orange" and "catholic" do, however, seem to have established themselves as reflecting the more innovative and rational as opposed to the more conservative and traditional schools of thought, sometimes being used quite lightly, if we may judge by odd remarks of Bertoli — "what a delightfully pompous catholic statement," "Catholic to a See," "utterly Orange is the only word to describe that nonsense," "for an Orange, that little acolyte of Bruin's is quite a peach," "all of those oranges are bananas" — remarks not at all clear to us now, but some were clearly meant as witticisms. The origin of the term Orange as applied to a religious sectarian is now obscure but its religious significance is so overwhelming nowadays that few remember it as the ancient name of a fruit now ca
lled portyguls.
The O.C. Bible Liturgical Manual was a natural outgrowth of the practice faithfully observed by the C.E.T. of attending morning and evening services every day according to the tradition of a different faith. On Wednesdays, which were defined as Honorary Sabbaths for the duration of the exercise, delegates were allowed to worship as they chose in the mornings, but in the evenings all attended an ecumenical service, for which an ever-changing committee was responsible. The experience of being subjected to some of the more elaborate and irksome liturgies and rituals ("They did everything except sacrifice virgins" was Bertoli's disgusted comment on a rite that is fortunately nameless), together with the difficulty of administering some of them, brought home to many of the delegates the advantages of "harmonizing" the best practices. The Liturgical Manual, then, while faithfully recording the various peculiar modes of worship practiced by the faiths represented in the C.E.T., also supplies several model ecumenical liturgies and endorses those, whether peculiar or ecumenical, considered most suitable for constituting a complete program of devotions for the whole year.
The O.C. Bible Commentaries constitute in many respects a more remarkable work even than the Bible, not only because of its brevity (less than half the size of the O.C. Bible), but also because of its candor and blend of self-pity and self-righteousness. Considered as a work of explication, the Commentaries is less than satisfactory. It is rather the product of philosophical meditation on the profound importance of the C.E.T. endeavor in the context of Universal Religion and the Galactic Imperium.
The beginning is an obvious appeal to the agnostic rulers:
Men, finding no answers to the sunnah [the ten thousand religious questions from the Shariah], now apply their own reasoning. All men seek to be enlightened. Religion is but the most ancient and honorable way in which men have striven to make sense out of God's universe. Scientists seek the lawfulness of events. It is the task of Religion to fit man into this lawfulness.
In their conclusion, however, the Commentaries set a harsh tone that very likely foretold their fate.
Much that was called religion has carried an unconscious attitude of hostility toward life. True religion must teach that life is filled with joys pleasing to the eye of God, that knowledge without action is empty. All men must see that the teaching of religion by rules and rote is largely a hoax. The proper teaching is recognized with ease. You can know it without fail because it awakens within you the sensation which tells you this is something you have always known.
RECEPTION OF THE ORANGE CATHOLIC BIBLE. There was an odd sense of calm as the presses and shigawire imprinters rolled and the O.C. Bible spread out through the worlds. Some interpreted this as a sign from God, an omen of unity.
But even the C.E.T. delegates betrayed the fiction of that calm as they returned to their respective congregations. Eighteen of them were lynched within two months. Fifty-three recanted within the year.
The critical reception of the O.C. Bible was on the whole more favorable. The C.E.T. representatives were likened in the Space Times to archeologists of ideas, inspired by God in the grandeur of rediscovery. The editor of the ecumenical column of the Church Standard, whose last contribution this was, said that the C.E.T. had brought to light "the vitality of great ideals overlaid by the deposits of centuries," that they had "sharpened the moral imperatives that come out of a religious conscience." So wrote the innocent Msgr. D. Macsutoc, while those about him sharpened their axes. More in tune with the reactionary mood of the congregations was the writer in the Suns, who denounced the O.C. Bible as a work produced by "the hubris of reason." "Its pages," he said, were "filled with a seductive interest in logic." (The review was a star item on the second page, opposite a seductive holograph of the latest Miss Universe.)
Yet more influential was the holovisual interview with the famous Blue Bishop, Halloway, whose label for C.E.T.'s seven-year effort — "Galactophasic Determinism" — beamed throughout the galaxy, was snapped up by eager billions who interpreted the initials G.D. as "God-Damned." The G.D.O.C.s ("God-Damned Old Cranks") were crucified by the caricaturists in effigy and by the congregations in fact.
The immediate demands for an Authorized Revised Version were, of course, doomed to failure, since no ecumenical body of sufficient authority could again be assembled. This did not prevent the appearance of various Revised Versions that catered to popular bigotry. However, simply because it was so controversial, the original Orange Catholic Bible, in one or other of the special planetary or Guild editions that were soon distributed, was the version that everybody bought and everybody read. It awakened a new interest in scripture and in religious issues unprecedented since the first translations of the Bible into the vernacular.
The reactionary revisions leaned on accepted symbolisms (Cross, Crescent, Feather Rattle, the Twelve Saints, the thin Buddha, the horned Goddess, and the like) and it soon became apparent that the ancient superstitions and beliefs had not been absorbed by the new ecumenism. The compilers of the Azhar Book traced many of these beliefs back, sometimes, to surprisingly uncouth pagan faiths, long discredited officially.
C.E.T. Chairman Toure Bomoko appeared to admit finally that C.E.T. had erred in trying to manipulate the props of popular religion. "We shouldn't have tried to create new symbols," he said. "We should've realized we weren't supposed to introduce uncertainties into accepted belief, that we weren't supposed to stir up curiosity about God. We are daily confronted by the terrifying instability of all things human, yet we permit our religions to grow more rigid and controlled, more conforming and oppressive. What is this shadow across the highway of Divine Command? It is a warning that institutions endure, that symbols endure when their meaning is lost, that there is no summa of all attainable knowledge."
The bitter double edge in this "admission" did not escape Bomoko's critics and he was forced soon afterward to flee to exile, his life dependent upon the Guild's pledge of secrecy. He reportedly died on Tupile, honored and beloved, his last words: "Religion must remain an outlet for people who say to themselves, 'I am not the kind of person I want to be.' It must never sink into an assemblage of the self-satisfied."
It is pleasant to think that Bomoko understood the prophecy in his words: "Institutions endure." He himself passed into history as a symbol of religions integrity and foresight, part of the myth of "The Fourteen Sages" who never recanted and who keep reappearing even in the plays of Harq al-Harba.
Ninety generations later, the O.C. Bible and the Commentaries permeated the religious universe.
M.T.
ORANGE CATHOLIC BIBLE, FAITHS RESPONSIBLE FOR.
This list is taken from the flyleaf of the first edition. NOTE: only 101 religions are listed, because twenty of the original C.E.T. were recalled before the work was completed.
The Ahmadiyah Christian Council
The Assemblies of Allah
Astronomical Christian Observers
Baptismal Cosmotheists of Shingon
Belt Hypostatical Program
Ben Kalism in Gangishre
The Bhakti Votaries
Black Vedantist Conclave
The Buddhist Pali Movement
The Buddislamic Christian Church of Sikun
The Buddislamic Jain Faith of Lankivek
The Calvinistic Genetical Determinant Elect Body, Incorporated
The Cape Separatist Union
The Cathloa Church of Erzulie
The Catholic Protestant Tribe of Deri
The Catholic Zenvestran Council
The Christian Zionist Pilgrims
The Church of Eurasia
Church of the Holy Atta
The Church of Selene
Confucian Statists of the Imperium
The Congregation of Molitor
The Cosmic Charismatic Movement
The Cybernetic Reformed Churches
The Diasporic Council of Rabbis
The Ecumenical Sectarian Council
The Episcopalian Methodist Church
The Evangelical Missionary Campaign on Position I
The Faiths of Beulah
The Galacian Orthodox Church
The Galactic Spiritual Assembly of Bahais
The Great Mother Church
The Grummanian Orthodox Establishment
The Hasidic Lutheran Dynasty
Hasidislamic Union
The Hellenic Orthodox Ecclesia
The Hinayana Buddhist Way
Ikebana Shaktist Order of Anthos
The Jain Buddhist Assembly
The Jainite Foundation
Jerusalem Urbanite Citizens of Nework
The Jesuitical Evolutionist Church of Chardin
The Kubebe Cultists of Komos
The Latin Revivalist Ministers
Lican Universalism
Lutheran Amida Worshippers
Lutheran Catholic United Church
The Mahayana Buddhist Union
The Mahayana Christian Temple of Enfeil
The Mahayana Lankavatara Friends of Truth
The Modified Hanuman Church of Sinj
The Muadh Quran Faithful on Caladan
Muslim Fideists on the Naraj Worlds
The Navachristian Church of Chusuk
The Nebuloid Dervish Spire
The Dune Encyclopedia Page 88
