Prophetic History and Agrippa D'Aubigné's Tragiques

CRITICISM PROPHETIC HISTORY AND AGRIPPA D'AUBIGNE'S TRAGIQUES Virginia Crosby "History [was] God's gift to Israel,"1 œnfirmed by the covenant and by his saving acts. These events were actual for each generation, locking together the time of God and the time of man in a joint venture which could be realized at any moment. The Old Testament Hebrews thereby eliminated all barriers between the self and God, and brought both the natural world and history into the existential field. The role of the prophets, as the witnesses of God's word was not only to judge the present—to exhort, to threaten, or to console Israel in God's name—but above all to keep God's promise and his saving acts from slipping back into the past, from losing their viability and activating power. From the eighth to the sixth centuries, beginning with the threatening expansion of the Assyrian empire, Israel felt abandoned by God: His magnolia had come to a standstill. Israel's guilt and God's judgments had created an abyss between His people and the Exodus, the covenant with David, and the other saving events. History, according to the Hebraic sensibihty, had therefore come to a stop. To get it started up again required "eschatological renewal."2 Using historical analogies, the prophets spoke of a new Covenant (Jeremiah xxxi:31ff.), a new Exodus (Isaiah xliii:16ff.), a new David (Isaiah xi:l), or a new Zion (Isaiah i:26) as part of a future that could break into the present at any moment. Isaiah called to the people to remember Abraham not by looking back, but by looking toward, or unto him, and brought the future into the present by announcing that God's salvation had already gone forth ("mon salut est venu en avant") (Isaiah ii:2, 5).s Saturated as he was with Biblical material, capable of reading "tout courant les Rabins sans poincts,"* Agrippa oYAubigné shared this Hebraic grasp of history. In the Tragiques, the poet-prophet uses the standard Calvinist procedure of identifying the Protestant elect with Israel's chosen people, and calls for a new Exodus: !James Muilenberg, The Way of Israel: Biblical Faith and Ethics, Harper Torchbooks (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1965), p. 44. 2GeTlIaTd von Rad, Old Testament Theology, trans. D. M. G. Stalker (2 vols.; New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1962 and 1965), IL pp. 112-119. 8Lo Bible, qvi est tovte la saínete escrture du vieil et du Nouveau Testament . . . (La Rochelle: Par les héritiers de Hierosme Haultin, 1606). The text is that of the Geneva Bible as revised in 1588.,,-,·. 4Se Vie à ses enfants, in Oeuvres complètes ... , ed. by E. Réaume and F. de Caussade (8 vols; 1873-1892; rpt. Geneva: Slatkroe, 1967), I, p. 11. 76RMMLA BulletinFall 1972 Qui voudra se sauver de l'Egypte infidelle, Conquerir Canaan et habiter en eue, O tribus d'Israël il faut marcher de rang Dedans le golfe rouge et dans la mer de sang Et puis à reins troussés passer, grimper habiles Les deserts sans humeur et les rocs difficiles. Le pillier du nuage à midi nous conduit, La colonne de feu nous quidera la nuict. (Fm, 11. 521-28)· In an oracle of promise that precedes the martyrofogy in Feux, d'Aubigné makes God's salvation manifest and shows Zion reconquered by the persecuted : Voici marcher de rang par la porte dorée, L'enseigne dlsrael dans le ciel arborée, Les vainqueurs de Sion, qui au prix de leur sang Portans rescharpe blanche ont pris le caillou blanc: Ouvre, Jerusalem, tes magnifiques portes; Le lion de Juda suivi de ses cohortes Veut régner, triompher et planter dedans toy L'estendart glorieux, l'auriflam de la foy. (H. 1-8) The New Covenant of the Gospel message, its promise of "joy and lightness ."* is glimpsed intermittently throughout the suffering of the martyrs in Feux and in Jugement, the final canto. However, d'Aubigné's emphasis throughout the main body of the poem is on the promise of redemption held out by the Old Testament, rather than on the well-defined fulfillment offered by the New.7 This lack of precise...