The Centaur by José Saramago
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Hybrid Vigour?

It seems an historical constant that any religion which achieves societal dominance seeks to erase all residue of previous religions. Thus Christianity, upon reaching official status in the Roman Empire, set about destroying the literature of what it termed paganism and also coopted Greek and Roman temples into service as Christian churches. No doubt the pagan edifices had often been built on the sites of even more primitive places of worship in which had been stored documentation of even more primitive practices.

But the transformation of buildings and the elimination of competing scriptures don’t guarantee the suppression of long-held religious instincts and stories. The ancient theologies persist, mainly in myth and liturgical practice. And they re-emerge in often interesting ways if one knows where to look. I think Saramago‘s understanding of Christian doctrine suggested, correctly, the Centaur as a persistent avatar which continues in Christian thought.

A central problem of religious thought about Jesus among his followers is how the ‘nature’ of a human being can be combined with the very different ‘nature’ of an infinite God within the single entity of Christ. The official line is that he was ‘both fully God and fully man’ as it says in the creed. But this simple declaration hardly mitigates the inherent theological, not to say logical, tension it implies. How is it possible for the human, with its desires and incapacities, to co-exist with divine perfection?

Saramago turns in his story to the ancient Greeks in order to explore a problem which they had already articulated in the Centaur, a beast half-human (and consequently in some sense divine) and half-horse. The latter has instinct and urges but lacks an independent will; the former is intelligent but cannot act except through the formidable, and vulnerable, body of the horse. So the continued existence of the Centaur depends on a continuous series of compromises between its two natures.

One can of course consider the Centaur in purely secular terms, but the perennial issue remains the same: the uneasy compatibility of the rational and the instinctive as it exists in all human beings. It is a beast which is constantly hunted; but it is shy and afraid of discovery. And with good reason - it can easily be killed by those who misunderstand its actions and motives. Which is to say everyone, even itself.

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