Judeo-Christian apocalyptic literature and
John Crowne's The Destruction of Jerusalem.
Comparative Drama - June 22, 2001
John B. Rollins
Word count: 6341.
citation details
John Crowne followed his
first comedy, The Countrey Wit (1676), with
the two parts of The Destruction of
Jerusalem, arguably two of his finest works.
The first part premiered on 12 January 1677
and the second part one week later. (1)
Neither play has received much critical
attention, and those critics who have
offered commentary have either condemned it
out of hand simply for being a rhymed heroic
drama or have been content with discussing
Crowne's sources. Capwell, who first noted
this tendency to criticize the genre rather
than the work, (2) chose to respond by
limiting his discussion to Crowne's
departures from his sources without ever
engaging directly with the implications of
the play itself. White demonstrates beyond
doubt that Crowne combined elements drawn
from Racine's Berenice, Josephus's The Wars
of the Jews, and Suetonius's account of the
relationship between Titus and Berenice.
Capwell criticizes White for simply listing
these sources and then attempts to explain
Crowne's alterations. However, he seems to
regard the romantic plots to be the chief
focus of the play: "The historical material,
however, primarily supplies merely
background for the love stories, and
Crowne's skill in weaving the fortunes of
Phraartes and Clarona and Titus and Berenice
into the historical material is notable."
(3) While these plots and characters are
significant and can certainly provide
insight into characters Crowne subsequently
created, the center of the play (4) is, as
the title suggests, the destruction of the
city of Jerusalem.
A cursory reading of
Racine's play or of Otway's Titus and
Berenice, (5) which is much closer to the
French original than Crowne's work, reveals
them to be works nearly devoid of dramatic
action. Indeed, Berenice has been held up as
an exemplar of the tendency of
seventeenth-century French drama to employ
simple plots. Racine himself noted that he
wished to follow the "simplicite d'action
qui a ete si fort du gout des anciens." (6)
Crowne's spectacular stage effects and
supernatural events could not be more
different. The prologue to the first part of
The Destruction of Jerusalem announces that
the purpose of the play (or, at least, the
purpose of the "damned playwright") is to
"reveal hid treasure" (a literal [GREEK TEXT
NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]), offering the
first hint that we should recognize the
strong element of apocalyptic literature
within the drama. Although it seems unusual
that Crowne's earlier critics chose not to
comment on this element, perhaps it is
simply the reemergence of apocalyptic themes
in the last days of the twentieth century
that make them stand out so clearly now. As
we enter the new millennium and have become
accustomed to apocalyptic themes in
virtually every area of popular culture, it
seems appropriate to look at an apocalypse
from an earlier period that was also known
for its political and religious schisms and
excesses.
Given this cultural
preoccupation with the ending of the second
millennium, it is not surprising that
scholars have recently turned their
attention to the question as well. Most of
these scholars have been theologians, but
literary critics have also been among their
number, often attempting to apply the
findings of the theologians to their own
discipline. Bernard McGinn is one such
scholar. In his historiographical survey of
the origins and current state of the
scholarship of apocalypse and
apocalypticism, he offers this method of
approaching the question of genre: "I would
suggest the following five questions as a
useful introductory tool for this task: who
reveals? to whom? how, or under what
circumstances? what? and for what purpose?"
(7) Likewise, Brian Stiegler's examination
of Cervantes' La Numancia (8) uses the
definition of apocalyptic vision set out by
the theologian Klaus Koch. These elements
are as follows:
1. Urgent expectation of
the overthrow of all earthly things in the
immediate future
2. The end a vast cosmic
catastrophe
3. Close relation of the
"end-time" to the rest of history
4. Angels and demons
5. Catastrophe followed
by salvation
6. Enthronement of God
and the coming of his kingdom
7. Appearance of a
mediator/redeemer with royal functions
8. The glory of the age
to come (9)
Beyond these schema, a
host of other approaches and categorizations
have been suggested. It is not the intent of
this discussion to contribute to the ongoing
debate about what constitutes a genuine
apocalyptic vision. Neither will I attempt
to argue that The Destruction of Jerusalem
is an example of apocalyptic literature when
it is so clearly a rhymed heroic drama. What
I do hope to explore is the extent to which
Crowne employs these apocalyptic elements in
shaping the play and to discuss the ways
that he may have used these to offer a
commentary on contemporary events and, in
particular, that coalition of interests that
had, by the mid-1670s, allied itself against
the Crown. The second section will examine
these elements themselves, and the next
section will address McGinn's fifth question
regarding their purpose. The final section
will consider the romantic subplots and the
characters involved in those plots.
It seems best, when
treating a subject such as this, to begin at
the ending. The final scene of the second
part of the play shows us Titus, having told
Berenice that they must part, declaring:
My self I'le longer on the wrack retain And at her Chariot see her once
again; Then gaze till wide and spacious Seas of Air Drown the last view,
and then for death prepare. (sig. P[2.sup.v]) (10)
But, of course, he does
not die, at least not within the time frame
of the play itself. The message, like the
answer to Kent's query "Is this the promis'd
end?" is that there is no real ending (or,
alternatively, there is nothing else but a
series of unsatisfying small endings without
any real significance). Of course, Titus
goes on to explain exactly what he means: "I
mean that tedious death, which men would
fain, / Gild with the specious title of a
Reign" (sig. P[2.sup.v]). By framing the
story of the destruction of the city of
Jerusalem within two nested love stories,
Crowne is able to offer a far more
complicated and compelling "conclusion" than
either Racine or Otway. The love stories
themselves are similarly complicated and
these complications will be discussed in
some detail below. This same feeling is
present at the end of the first play--of
course, we would not naturally expect much
in the way of resolution from a play whose
long title is The First Part of the
Destruction of Jerusalem by Titus Vespasian.
But Crowne is gently mocking his audience.
Note the opening lines of the epilogue:
So, Heaven be thank'd, the Play is at an end, The pretence it has to gain a
Friend. But this design's to draw another on. (sig. H[1.sup.r])
Thus, we are again teased
with the promise of an ending where there is
none. From these illusory endings flow the
other apocalyptic elements of the play.
One of Koch's
distinguishing marks of apocalyptic
literature is the "appearance of a
mediator/redeemer with royal functions." In
these plays, both Phraartes and Titus are
described in this way. In the opening scene
of part 1, Monobazus describes Jerusalem's
reaction to Phraartes:
They Idolize your name, and boast with Pride, To their great Race of Kings
you are ally'd. Exalted hopes they on your Valour build, Look to have
Prophecies in you fulfill'd (sig. B[2.sup.v])
Matthias reiterates this
position, declaring that "the mighty
Parthian King ... springs / Of Jewish blood
by a long Race of Kings" (sig. C[3.sup.r]).
In the second part of the play, the
connections become even more obvious. As
Titus prepares for the final assault on
Jerusalem, Malchus, Antiochus, and Tiberias
describe the attitude of the people within
the city:
Malchus: They talk of
nought but Heav'n, religion, gods, Of
conq'ring you, nay of enslaving Rome, Of
Empire here, and paradise to come.
Antiochus: Nay, every
moment they expect a King....
Tiberias: Some fondly
dream, the Parthian King is he; Think him
the eldest son of prophesie. Find him
inroll'd in their divine record, And see
strange wonders budding on his sword. (sig.
B[3.sup.v])
His accomplishments in
the rest of the play reinforce this
messianic role. After one of his many
battles, Clarona says to Phraartes that
"blood out of your Wounds begins to flow"
(sig. I[1.sup.v]), calling to mind Christ's
wounds. In the next act, Phraartes returns
from an expedition against the Roman forces.
He again frees Matthias and brings baskets
of provisions: "There I have brought rich
plunder for the Crowd.... Go scatter life,
throw Souls among 'em all!" (sig.
N[4.sup.r]). The parallel with Christ's
feeding of the multitude (Matthew 14:13-23;
Mark 6:30-46; Luke 9:10-17; John 6:10-13-the
only miracle recorded in all four gospels)
could not be more apparent. (11) The impact
of Phraartes' atheism on this
characterization is discussed in some detail
below.
In spite of Phraartes'
heroics, in the end it is Titus who is the
triumphant king. As the general is making
his way through the vanquished city,
Tiberias tells him that an old inscription
has been found:
Where it was writ,--One day in Jewish Land A man shall rise, who shall the
World command. These foolish Slaves apply'd the Gods intent To their base
Nation, which to you was meant. (sig. O[4.sup.v])
Tiberias's application of
the prophecy to Titus is important, inasmuch
as the deliberate misinterpretation of signs
and prophecies is such a marked
characteristic of the Jews within the play.
Further defining the messianic role of
Titus, the next few lines evoke images of
death, resurrection, and ascension. In his
thanksgiving oration to his troops, Titus
says that he has "receiv'd the fatal blow"
and that he must go to "worlds of glory"
where "all joys" will be forever "out of
sight." This last phrase is directly
parallel to that in the book of Acts which
says that Christ was taken up "out of their
sight" (1:9). Thus, Crowne has applied
messianic imagery to both Phraartes the
atheist and Titus the pagan. (12)
Beyond these messianic
references and allusions, which are
scattered throughout the play, most of the
apocalyptic imagery is limited to a few
scenes, and most of these are found in part
1. There are practical reasons for this:
these scenes made great use of various kinds
of stage machinery that doubtless required a
great amount of time and effort to set up
and execute. Of these scenes, act 3 of part
1 contains most of the more spectacular
visions. These actually begin in the final
lines of act 2, as an unnamed gentleman
rushes onto the stage and addresses
Phraartes:
Haste, Sir, and see The stormy Air all fill'd with Prodigy; A numerous Army
in the Skye appears, And every Troop a bloody Banner bears. They march
along in the Moons timorous light, Then dive in air and vanish from our
sight. (sig. D[3.sup.r])
What follows in act 3,
scene 1 is a litany of signs and portents,
most a mixture of materials drawn from
Josephus and from the Apocalypse of John.
Those crafted from the latter also generally
have antecedents in the Old Testament. It is
as though Crowne, clearly possessing an
intimate knowledge of Scripture, hoped to
reflect the style as well as the content of
the book of Revelation, which also makes
extensive use of the prophetic language and
traditions of the Old Testament.
As the scene opens,
Phineas is describing his vision of the
"army in the air." This detail is found in
Josephus's account of the siege. (13) The
closest parallel in the Apocalypse is the
heavenly army of divine judgment that
returns in glory with Christ at his Second
Coming in chapter 19. However, the episode
is also an ironic version--especially when
one considers the deliberate misreading of
the events by Matthias and his followers--of
the deliverance of the prophet Elisha from
the Syrian king (Ben-Hadad II) recorded in 2
Kings 6. In that instance, the servant of
Elisha awoke to discover that the city of
Dothan, where the prophet was then living,
was surrounded by the Syrian army. Elisha
calmed his servant by praying that his eyes
might be opened to see that "those who are
with us are more than those who are with
them." The servant was then allowed to see
the heavenly army surrounding the Syrians.
In Crowne's play, however, the army of
Yahweh is prepared to assault Jerusalem
itself, although this is an interpretation
that Phineas refuses to make, choosing
instead to believe that this is evidence of
anarchy and rebellion in "the provinces
o'th' air." As noted above, this tendency to
misinterpret the apocalyptic signs emerges
as a characteristic of both religious
factions, those led by Matthias and those
led by the usurper John. Even though
Matthias, reflecting on the portents,
declares, "These divine riddles who can
understand?" he himself falls victim to his
own attempts at understanding.
Crowne seems to be
reflecting the political mood of England's
recent history. The 1670s had been marked by
rumors of plots of every kind, and therefore
even the most harmless of events was held to
hint at some great scheme to undo the
country and turn it over to its religious
and political enemies. The great strength of
Catholic France lent a sense of impending
danger. The Earl of Shaftesbury, as early as
1674, had publicly stated that he believed a
force of sixteen thousand Catholics in and
around London were poised to execute a
"desperate stroke." (14) Alleged plots led
to the "discovery" of stores of Popish
books, sinister documents, incriminating
letters, and gunpowder being made ready for
the rhetorical and physical destruction of
country and Parliament. The following year,
1678, would see two lunar and three solar
eclipses: astrologers delighted in assigning
the most malign of interpretations to these
events. (15) Crowne would continue to
exploit the political tensions of the period
in every play that he wrote until the waters
calmed in the mid-1680s. Lest we press the
analogy too far, however, the dangers facing
Jerusalem were real; England's fears were
largely imaginary. The real threat,
certainly as Crowne saw it, was the threat
of political chaos arising within the
country itself.
Act 3, scene 1 continues
with descriptions of flaming swords,
earthquakes, and ominous birds wailing in
the night. All of these are common
apocalyptic images and make regular
appearances in the book of Revelation
("sword" [1:16]; "earthquakes" [16:17-18];
"birds" [12:14]) and, to a lesser extent,
the book of Daniel. The focus of the scene,
however, is on two divine announcements of
judgment: the first delivered by an unnamed
Prophet who has been tormenting the city and
the second delivered by an angel. The
Prophet declares:
A Voice, a Voice--a dreadful Voice is come. A Voice against our Elders,
Priests, and Scribes, Our City, Temple, and our holy Tribes; Against the
Bridegroom, and the joyful Bride, And all that in Jerusalem reside. Woe,
woe, woe.-- (sig. D[4.sup.r])
AS was the case with the
aerial army earlier in the scene, this
episode is drawn directly from the account
in Josephus. It comes close to being a
direct quotation: "A voice from the east, a
voice from the west, a voice from the four
winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the
Sanctuary, a voice against bridegrooms and
brides, a voice against the whole people.
... Woe again to the City, the people, and
the Sanctuary." (16) Like the character in
Crowne's play, this prophet has been
persecuted and tortured. However, the speech
also has certain alterations that suggest a
prophetic discourse from the New Testament.
The first line echoes the preaching of John
the Baptist who described himself as "the
voice of one crying in the wilderness"
(Matt. 3:4), which is itself a quotation
from Isaiah 40:3. That final line--"woe,
woe, woe"--is a quotation from Revelation
8:13 and is there directed against the
doomed inhabitants of the earth. Following
several other signs and portents--including
a replay of the rending of the temple veil
separating the Holy of Holies from the main
body of the Temple--an angel appears and
reinforces the Prophet's message by
pronouncing unambiguous judgment on the
city. After this declaration, Matthias and
Phineas immediately begin to reinterpret the
angel's message and then progress to an
outright denial of its clear intent. At the
end of the scene, there is a deliberate
misreading of the signs and prophecies.
Matthias even summons the Sanhedrin to
assist him in this reinterpretation: "We'll
find what fit constructions there can be /
Of this strange sight, and stranger
Prophesie." Note how steadfastly Matthias
refuses to see the end of Jerusalem as
anything less than the end of the cosmos:
Yes, on these Columns the whole Arch is bent, This Golden Roof supports the
Firmament.... That to say Heav'n will ruine on us send, Is to declare the
World is at an end; And Nature is disbanding all her Powers, Then falls the
Temple of the World, and ours. (sig. E[1.sup.r])
They are attempting to
write their own apocalyptic vision of the
end of the world. But it is finally only
their own end writ large. Absolutely unable
and unwilling to grasp the meaning of the
announcement, Matthias concludes, "It must
be some illusion then." Crowne certainly
must be credited with a very sophisticated
sense of the nature of apocalyptic
expectation and disappointment.
In something of a
parallel to this scene, part 2, act 5
reveals that the Pharisee John has hired two
prophets to declare, on the eve of total
destruction, that victory is near. Their
message is also filled with biblical
references and allusions:
1 Prophet: Lift up your
heads, ye People! for this hour Salvation
comes, from Heav'n, the seat of Pow'r.
2 Prophet: Salvation
comes! a flaming Sword she bears! Woe for
partakers with Idolaters! (sig. O[3.sup.r)
These two characters are
false representations of the two witnesses
of Revelation 11 who declared the final doom
of Jerusalem--not its coming triumph. One
additional apocalyptic reference is worth a
brief comment. Amongst the angel's
pronouncements is the statement "Thy weeks
are finish'd." The phrase derives from
Daniel 9. There, the angel Gabriel has come
to explain to Daniel the meaning of his
visions. However, the angel also adds to the
prophetic utterances the following:
Seventy weeks are determined For your people and for your holy city, To
finish the transgression, To make an end of sins, To make reconciliation
for iniquity, To bring in everlasting righteousness, To seal up vision and
prophecy, And to anoint the Most Holy. (Daniel 9:24, AV)
Thus, we can clearly link
Crowne's play not simply with Josephus and
Suetonious, but also with two of the chief
examples of Judeo-Christian apocalyptic
literature, Revelation and Daniel. This
certainly distinguishes this play from
Racine and Otway, whose plays lack anything
remotely like this kind of imagery.
Apocalyptic elements are
also evident in act 4, scene 1. Again,
Crowne mixes material from his historical
sources and from the Scriptures to fashion
the action. The first spectacle that greets
the audience is the drawing of the scene--a
technique Crowne had used to good effect in
The Countrey Wit (1676)--to reveal the
sleeping Sanhedrin. This detail may have
been crafted from a similar incident
involving sleeping guards in Josephus;
Capwell, at least, is convinced of it. (17)
However, there seems to be a reference, both
in the sleeping figures and the dimly
burning lamps, to the eschatological parable
of the ten virgins in Matthew: "Then the
kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten
virgins who took their lamps and went out to
meet the bridegroom. Now five of them were
wise, and five were foolish. Those who were
foolish took their lamps and took no oil
with them, but the wise took oil in their
vessels with their lamps. But while the
bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered
and slept" (25:1-5). The lesson of the
parable--"Watch therefore, for you know
neither the day nor the hour in which the
Son of Man is coming"--has clear import for
the events of the play, inasmuch as
Jerusalem is being destroyed because her
messiah, the bridegroom, had come and she
was found sleeping.
The final spectacle of
this scene is the rising of Herod's ghost.
There is no parallel for this in Josephus,
nor is there in either of the Jewish
apocalypses. Of course, rising ghosts
already had become a stock element English
stagecraft by this time. There is a single
reference in Herod's speech to having
"plac'd Esau's chains of slavery" on
Jerusalem, derived from the fact that he, as
an Idumean, was a descendent of Esau, rather
than of Jacob, as were the Jews. Aside from
the hiring of the two prophets discussed
above, the second part of the play contains
little of these apocalyptic spectacles but
confines itself rather to the twin tragedies
of the doomed lovers: Titus and Berenice,
and Phraartes and Clarona. Before turning to
these, however, it seems best to consider
the other religious and political aspects of
the work.
In the epilogue to part
1, Crowne tells us that we should note the
parallels between the Pharisees of his play
and the "Fanaticks" of his day:
The frantique part of all our Nation too, Fanaticks, who'll be angry with
us all, For ripping up their base Original; Shewing their Sires, the
Pharisees, from whom They and their Cheats by long succession come: Whom
they're so like, the diff'rence duly priz'd, Fanaticks are but Jews
uncircumciz'd. (sig. H[1.sup.r])
The conflict between the
Pharisees, led by John, and the party led by
Matthias is set out at the end of act 1.
There, John's designs to undermine Matthias
within the city and concurrently to betray
the city to the Edomites are revealed. It is
easy enough to see in these machinations the
activities of those who had allied
themselves against Charles in the rekindled
political firestorm in England. From this
point, Crowne uses every appearance of the
Pharisees to satirize the politics of that
party and their pretense of religion.
The next scene featuring
the Pharisees is act 4, scene 1. John begins
by spreading the falsehood that Matthias has
sold the city out to the Romans--a
suggestion that seems to reflect the
widespread rumors of the 1670s that Charles
was planning an alliance with Catholic
France. Of course, he had made something
like such an alliance in the secret Treaty
of Dover in 1670, but this had not yet
become known publicly. John uses this lie to
whip his followers into a frenzy. As the
tone of the rhetoric rises, Crowne places
overt religious references, used in
deliberately blasphemous ways, into the
mouths of the Pharisees. The first is the
cry of Eleazar that he is "thirsty for [the]
blood" of his enemies. This is followed
immediately by an unnamed Pharisee who
declares that "to eat their flesh were holy
gluttony": the blood and body of an unholy
communion. Later in the scene, the tools
that they will use to force their way into
the temple are referred to as "the blessed
instrument." The most obvious blasphemies,
however, are their shouted vows as they rush
to battle. They swear by Jerusalem, the
temple, the altar, and by "Corban." All of
these are a direct violation of Christ's
commands. Compare these to Christ's words in
Matthew: "But I say to you, do not swear at
all: neither by heaven, for it is God's
throne; nor by the earth, for it is His
footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the
city of the great King" (5.34-35).
Similarly, in Matthew 23.16-19, (18) we read
these words: "Woe to you, blind guides, who
say, `swears by the temple, it is nothing;
but whoever swears by the gold of the
temple, he is obliged to perform it'. Fools
and blind! For which is greater, the gold or
the temple that sanctifies the gold? And,
`Whoever swears by the altar, it is nothing;
but whoever swears by the gift that is on
it, he is obliged to perform it'. Fools and
blind! For which is greater, the gift or the
altar that sanctifies the gift?"
The reference to "Corban"
is also significant. Christ condemned the
Pharisees for refusing to help their aged
parents by declaring any money that might
have been so used to be Corban--in Hebrew,
literally "given to God." They were in
effect denying the spirit of the law by
following it to the letter--an apt
description of the fanatical party of
Crowne's day. (19)
The final Scriptural
reference in the scene is to the rebellion
of Corah. John first applies it to Matthias,
and then Matthias returns the designation.
In Numbers 16 the Levite Corah leads a
rebellion against Moses and Aaron. The
rebels questioned the leadership of those
two and argued for something like republican
rule: "Why then do you exalt yourselves
above the assembly of the Lord?" They were
destroyed when the earth opened up and
swallowed them. This incident may also have
suggested to Crowne the manner of Phraartes'
demise. The burning temple fell on him and
led to this description: "Thus down alive
into the shades he fell / And, stead of
dying, he invaded hell."
The rebels capture
Matthias in act 5, scene 1, and accuse him
of crimes against the nation as a prelude to
his execution. Among the charges leveled is
that Matthias and his followers indulged in
both religious and political idolatry: "Rome
was the idol which you worship'd here, /
Your Dagon, Ashtaroth, and Baal-Peor." The
story of Israel's involvement with
Baal-Peor, a Moabite deity, is also recorded
in the book of Numbers and includes yet
another rebellion against Moses and Aaron.
It may also be significant that the names
Phineas and Eleazar occur in the same
chapter. Inasmuch as Crowne refers to two
events from this book, it would seem that he
has drawn these names from it as well. (20)
However, the reference to Rome may have a
deeper significance. The political fear of
the Catholic Church of Rome was widespread
in the 1670s, and it was a particular
concern of those allied against Charles and
his Catholic brother, James, who was the
heir to the throne. Crowne, a dedicated
Royalist, could not have chosen a more
appropriate historical episode to highlight
the anxieties of his political opponents.
The second part of the
play is much closer to both Racine's
original and Otway's adaptation inasmuch as
the focus of the drama shifts to the
relationship between Titus and Berenice--or,
rather, to the implications of the ending of
this relationship. This is, of course,
perfectly in line with the apocalyptic theme
of part 1. As Titus overlooks Jerusalem (21)
at the beginning of part 2, little doubt
remains that the city will fall to him.
Likewise, there is little doubt that he will
follow through with his decision to end his
relationship with Berenice. In each case,
all that remains to be decided is the timing
of these actions. In part 1, the outcome
appeared to be in doubt. Phraartes seemed to
offer a genuine hope that Jerusalem night be
able to withstand the Roman army. In the
second part, little hope of this success
remains, and the inhabitants of the city
begin to behave like animals in their
despair. The dramatic tension is provided by
Titus's struggle to carry out the
inevitable. This lends a sense of prolonged
foreboding to the play from the outset. The
Pharisees and other players within the
doomed city remain a conspicuous part of the
action; however, this plot line is clearly
subordinated to the Titus-Berenice line. It
appears that by this stage of his career
Crowne had developed a keener sense of the
market: he was able to fashion two highly
successful plays from a single original.
We note in act 1 the
pattern that persists throughout the play:
long sequences of dialogue, chiefly between
Titus and Berenice or Phraartes and Clarona,
interrupted by episodic violence. Early in
this act the dialogue is between Titus and
Tiberias, who is urging Titus to act, to
bring to an end the long siege that has
postponed the moment of crisis. He further
urges Titus to tell Berenice about his
decision to end the relationship. It is
clear that these are envisioned as a single
act, the destruction both of Jerusalem and
of Berenice herself. Act 1 is a single
scene: Titus in his tent the morning of the
final assault on Jerusalem. Tiberias enters
and gets confirmation that the battle will
proceed and that Titus has determined to
break with Berenice. Tiberias is dearly more
bloody-minded and practical than Titus, and
he suggests that the prisoners taken early
in the battle be crucified into order to
terrify those who remain barricaded within
the city. By contrast, Titus is inward
looking, preparing, in the words of
Tiberias, to end his mortal life in order to
ascend "new worlds of glory" Berenice enters
but Titus cannot bring himself to tell her.
He rushes out into battle, and there is
certainly the suggestion that he would
rather die than have to make this decision
or announce it to her.
The penultimate scene
involving the Pharisees reinforces what we
have observed regarding their connection
with the political party of Crowne's day.
Having captured Matthias, John, employing
the unadorned language used to refer to
Catholic priests, describes him as a "Romish
priest." We also discover another connection
to apocalyptic literature in John's urging
of Matthias to "Behold the desolations you
have made" The "abomination of desolation"
is a phrase used in Daniel (11:31). Most Old
Testament scholars agree that this refers to
an event that occurred during the invasion
of Jerusalem by Antiochus Epiphanes in 167
B.C.E., when he ordered a statue of Zeus set
up in the temple and slaughtered a pig on
the altar. (22) Christ himself refers to the
event in Matthew 24 and recasts the image as
a foretaste of calamities to come. The final
scene involving the Pharisees--save their
silent appearance as Titus's captives near
the end of the play--sees John about to kill
Matthias. He calls him "the vile Achan"--a
reference to the Israelite who took the
spoils from Jericho after this had been
forbidden by Joshua. This resulted in
Israelite defeat during their next battle at
the city of Ai. Before the nation could
prosper again, Joshua was required to expose
and then kill the man and his family. The
episode again highlights both the cruelty of
the Pharisees and the irony of their own
role in the downfall of Jerusalem.
Berenice is featured in
the play's fourth act. After Tiberias offers
to take the fell news to Berenice that she
must part from Titus, the scene changes to
her tent. There, Monobazus declares his love
for her. Then Antiochus and Malchus enter.
Malchus recognizes Monobazus and tells
Berenice that it was he who had slain her
brother. She orders that he be seized and
executed. Before this can be carried out,
Tiberias enters with news from Titus.
Tiberias's attitude is interesting. He
disagrees with the laws ("The Roman laws
were made ere I was born") and wishes that
they could be changed: "I wish Rome paid
crown'd heads the honour due, / At least
from all her laws exempted you." She spares
Monobazus, but he promises to go into the
town and die in the final battle. The scene
shifts again to Titus's tent where he
prepares for the "combat" -- Berenice's
visit. As Berenice lashes out at Titus, she
flings herself down into a chair. She goes
out threatening to kill herself. Titus
follows, but Tiberias is certain that he
will decide in favor of Rome in the end.
Crowne thus reiterates the connection and
the contrast made by both Racine and Otway
between love and duty--a theme to which
Crowne returned in his final three
tragedies, Darius, Regulus, and Caligula.
Given what we have just
discussed, we can propose at least a
provisional answer to McGinn's fifth
question: what is the purpose of the
apocalyptic revelation in The Destruction of
Jerusalem? It would appear that Crowne has
fashioned this apocalyptic vision with a
clear political purpose. Certainly, other
examples of apocalyptic literature have a
political component. What distinguishes this
play from these, however, is its strong
prescriptive element. Other apocalypses
attempt to comfort the audience by offering
hope that beyond the immediate crisis a new
age of glory will be ushered in. There is
nothing like this sense in Crowne's
play--there is no hope for Jerusalem, for
the glory has genuinely departed. It would
seem that this play is a warning about the
consequences of political unrest--a theme to
which Crowne would return in his next two
plays, The Ambitious Statesman (1679) and
The Misery of Civil War (1680).
NOTES
(1) The London Stage:
1600-1700, ed. W. B. Van Lennep, E. L.
Avery, A. H. Scouten, G. W. Stone Jr., and
C. B. Hogan 11 vols. (Carbondale: Southern
Illinois University, 1960-69), 1:252. It
would appear that the play's popularity led
to the reprint of Thomas Dekker's Canaan's
Calamitie, Jerusalems Misery; and England's
Mirror (London: Edward Thomas, 1677).
(2) Richard Capwell, "A
Biographical and Critical Study of John
Crowne" (Ph.D. diss., Duke University,
1964), 214.
(3) Ibid., 221.
(4) For the purpose of
this discussion, I will treat parts 1 and 2
as a single work (or, as Crowne suggests in
the epilogue to part 1, "damn 'em both now
under one").
(5) It was in fact the
production of this play by the Duke's
Company that sent Crowne to their rivals at
the Theatre Royal. See Capwell "A
Biograhphical and Critical Study" 57-59, for
a full discussion of the legal issues
involved.
(6) Quoted in James J.
Supple, Racine: Berenice, Critical Guides to
French Texts (London: Grant and Cutler,
1986),10.
(7) Bernard McGinn,
"Early Apocalypticism: The Ongoing Debate,"
in The Apocalypse in English Renaissance
Thought and Literature, ed. C. A. Patrides
and Joseph Wittreich (Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 1984), 4.
(8) Brian N. Stiegler,
"The Coming of the New Jerusalem:
Apocalyptic Vision in Cervantes's La
Numanci," Neophilologus 80 (1996): 570.
(9) Klaus Koch, The
Rediscovery of Apocalyptic, trans. Margaret
Kohl, Studies in Biblical Theology Series 22
(Napierville, Ill.: Alec R. Allenson, 1972),
28-33.
(10) All citations are
from John Crowne, The Destruction of
Jerusalem by Titus Vespasian: in Two Parts.
(London: R. Bentley, 1693). Wing C7386.
(11) It also bears a
remarkable similarity to an episode in
Cervantes' La Numancia. Morandro makes a
foolhardy raid on the Romans who are laying
siege to the city. He is mortally wounded in
the fight and returns with only a piece of
blood-soaked bread (4.1). However,
Cervantes' play circulated in manuscript
only until a printed edition appeared in the
mid-eighteenth century. It seems that Crowne
knew something of this play, but this cannot
be demonstrated conclusively.
(12) Although, it should
be noted that Crowne may have been following
the medieval tradition that Titus was, in a
sense, the first crusader. See especially
the alliterative poem The Destruction of
Jerusalem (Cambridge University Library, MS.
Mm.V. 13-15) where Titus is cured of his
cancer ("a canker vnclene") when he
expresses his outrage at the treatment of
Christ.
(13) Josephus, The Jewish
War, trans. G. A. Williamson (Middlesex:
Penguin Books, 1959), 327; also cited in
Capwell, "A Biographical and Critical Study,
221.
(14) David Ogg, England
in the Reign of Charles II (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1955), 561.
(15) Ibid., 559.
(16) Josephus, The Jewish
War, 327-28.
(17) Ibid., 221.
(18) Interestingly, this
chapter immediately precedes Christ's
extended eschatological discourse in chap.
24.
(19) Mark 7:9-13.
(20) Capwell suggests
that Phineas is an alteration of Josephus's
"Phannias."
(21) This is a parallel
to the opening of part 1. There, both
Phraartes and Mozambus praise Jerusalem for
its beauty and grandeur. In part 2, Titus
remarks:
Yet I would fain this splendid city save.
Methink it does a noble town appear;
Gods might forsake their heaven t' inhabit here. (1.1)
(22) These events are
also reflected in I Macc. 1:44-45.
John B. Rollins
Prairie View A&M University
Citation
Details
Title:
Judeo-Christian apocalyptic literature and
John Crowne's The Destruction of Jerusalem.
Author: John B. Rollins
Publication:
Comparative Drama (Refereed)
Date: June 22, 2001
Publisher: Comparative
Drama
Volume: 35
Issue: 2 Page:
209(16)
