CHAPTER 39
Christina Rossetti
Rossetti’s statement, “Neither knowledge nor ignorance is of first importance to Bible students: grace is our paramount need” (FD, p. 114),1 is suggestive of her sense that any true understanding of the Bible is a gift from the Holy Spirit, a matter more concerned with spiritual growth than with intellectual pursuit. Not only did she claim a “devout meditative ignorance” (FD, p. 286) of the Bible, but she also suggested in her study of Revelation, The Face of the Deep, that she could do no more than “but quote” from its translations (FD, p. 113). Yet it is clear that Rossetti has a deft and profound grasp of these translations, often playing one version off against another in an attempt to find new theological meanings and interpretations. While she is generally dependent on the 1611 King James Version of the Bible in her poetry and prose, for example, she was also devoted to the Prayer Book Version of the Psalms, used at her own church, Christ Church, Albany Street in London, and recognized as more poetical and musical than other translations. Rossetti also compares the 1611 Bible to the 1885 Revised Version, claiming in The Face of the Deep that “the two translations combined kindle hope, gratitude, confidence, excite emulation” (p. 111).
Although this form of comparative study was unavailable to Rossetti for much of life, her earlier devotional poetry and prose exhibit the same passion for meditating on the specifics of the language of the Bible to inspire fellow Christians to emulate the self-sacrifice of Christ, his Old Testament predecessors, and the Christian saints of the New. This chapter discusses Rossetti’s relationship with the Bible by examining her hermeneutics, as filtered through the writings of Isaac Williams, John Keble, and Augustine; assessing her commitment to biblical tradition as that which she felt urgently compelled to uphold and defend; and by exploring her presentation of biblical characters as role models for her Victorian readership. While Rossetti’s work is drawn on widely here, I focus on her analysis of the book of Revelation, The Face of the Deep, and her introductory poem to Annus Domini, “Alas my Lord,” as indicative of her at once systematic but always devotional approach to the Bible as a source of spiritual comfort and intellectual strength.
Williams, Keble, Augustine
Rossetti tends to introduce her interpretations of biblical passages rather hesitantly, using words like “seems” and “appears” to exhibit caution and demonstrate her fear of appearing “overbold” (FD, p. 551) in her hermeneutics. Writing in a climate that forcibly discouraged, in John Ruskin’s words, women dabbling in the “dangerous science” of theology (Ruskin, 1900, pp. 79–80), Rossetti’s position as a female critic of the Bible was undoubtedly precarious. The constant reminders that what her devotional works offer is more meditative than interpretative underpins a careful negotiation with this position and grounds her words firmly within the structures set out by Scripture. By lifting words from the prayers uttered by the faithful believers of the Bible and by focusing on her own emptiness in light of the corresponding “immensity of God” (FD, p. 214), Rossetti repeatedly acknowledges her willingness to be remolded by God into a vessel that is able to effectively serve His kingdom. Conflating the words of Psalm 119:105, as translated in the Prayer Book Version of the Psalms, “Thy word is a lantern unto my feet, and a light unto my path,” and Proverbs 18:10, “The name of the LORD is a strongtower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe,”2 she writes:
O Lord, Whose Word is a lantern unto our feet, and a light unto our paths, I pray Thee make the law of Thy mouth dearer unto us than thousands of gold and silver. O Lord, Whose name is a strong tower to the righteous, I pray Thee give us wisdom to run into it and be safe. (FD, p. 113)
By highlighting the nature of the Bible as a guidebook of life, she acknowledges it to be the means by which men and women are to be trained in righteousness so that they become “perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works” (2 Timothy 3:17).
Rossetti begins Seek and Find: A Double Series of Short Studies of the Benedicite (1879) by emphasizing the devotion that fuels her interpretations. She claims that apart from using the biblical Harmony of Isaac Williams, the only source she relies on is the text of her Bible and the “valuable alternative readings” that are found in its margins (SF, p. 3). In the introduction to his Harmony, Thoughts on the Study of the Holy Gospels, Williams argues that “our way of interpretation should come from Christ” (Williams, 1842, p. 146) and subsequently examines Christ’s method of using Old Testament narratives to frame his parables and explain the nature of his being (ibid., p. 192). His Harmony itself contains barely any words not taken from the Bible. Indeed, it is structured throughout in the same way as the first few pages of Seek and Find, with parallel columns leading the reader toward a systematic, comparative reading of the gospels. Gisela Honnighausen points out that the attempts to “prove harmony in the Gospels” and articulate the “prefigurative interpretation of the Old Testament” was particularly influenced by medieval thought:
This retreat into the thought of a previous century, suggested by the tradition of Romantic medievalism, is understandable in the light of the philosophical crises of the nineteenth century which made the certainty provided by earlier absolute faith seem desirable. (Honnighausen, 1972, p. 2)
Stephen Prickett addresses these “philosophical crises” when he writes that if, for millions, the Bible was still the “Inspired Word of God,” able to speak directly to their hearts and minds, “more and more of those millions were becoming increasingly aware of the lengthy processes of mediation by which it had reached them” (Prickett, 2000, p. 64).
The theories of the German “Higher Critics,” which were becoming popular in Britain by the mid-nineteenth century, focused on the problem of the mediation of the Scriptures through the ages and discounted the belief in the unshakable holiness of Scripture. A huge controversy met Essays and Reviews, which was published in Britain in 1860. Included in this, Benjamin Jowett’s essay “On the Interpretation of Scripture” argued that the Bible should be read like any other work of literature. As the intellectual debates that culminated in Essays and Reviews were developing, John Keble proposed a return to the “tradition of Romantic Medievalism” of the early Church Fathers. In Tract 89, “On the Mysticism Attributed to the Fathers of the Church” (Keble, 1841, Part 1, p. 1), he writes of the Father’s articulation of the remarkable discovery that could be made of “future heavenly things” in the Old Testament, and, most especially, in The Song of Solomon. John Mason Neale reaffirms Keble’s claim when he speaks of the time when the early Fathers, including Clement, Jerome, and Augustine, who, being “holy men,” recognized the book’s typological importance and learnt more from it than from any other part of the Old Testament (Neale, 1872, p. 1). The influence of the interpretations of those “holy men” can be seen in the King James Version of the Bible, which positions The Song of Solomon in a Christian framework. The running titles it gives the book include: “The church’s love unto Christ,” “The calling of the Church,” “The graces of the church,” and “Christ’s love to the Church.” Despite a widespread reverence for the King James Version of the Bible, John Keble and Isaac Williams recognized that many nineteenth-century Christians held a deep-seated suspicion of the allegorical hermeneutics of the patristic Fathers. As a result, their Tracts seek to remedy the hard-heartedness of the “cold, sceptical, and self-indulgent age” (Williams, 1838, p. 25) that dismisses any allegorical interpretation as remote from “common sense and practical utility” (Keble, 1841, Part 1, p. 5). Acknowledging the typological exegesis of Christ and that of the apostles, both encourage a reverential attitude in approaching the works of the Early Fathers and an acknowledgment of the marvel of the numerous instances of typological symbolism they discover.
Considering the cyclical patterns and the double visions that emerge from Rossetti’s fluid typological methods, it is unsurprising that, among the works of the patristic Fathers, the one that most influenced her was St Augustine’s Confessions. She first demonstrates her familiarity with the book in Seek and Find when, after reflecting upon Paul’s assertion that we are all in desperate need of God’s mercy, she writes that “St Augustine has illustrated a kindred lesson: One prayed, Lord take away the ungodly man: and God answered him, Which?” (SF, p. 79). In Time Flies (1885), she gives a short biography of the life of Augustine as she celebrates his feast day and speaks of the effect of the prayers of Augustine’s mother, Monica, his recognition of divine grace, and his baptism by Ambrose (TF, p. 166–7). By imitating St Augustine’s technique of illuminating the words of one passage or phrase of Scripture by quoting extensively from another, and by seamlessly conflating her own words with those of the Psalmists and the Prophets, Rossetti integrates herself and her community into the biblical schema. Thus, she is able to establish a structure of hermeneutics easily accessible to her readers.
In “A Christmas Carol for My Godchildren,” Rossetti compares herself to the wise men who followed God’s guiding star to their savior and demonstrates an adherence to Peter’s instruction to “take heed” of the “sure word” of prophecy until “the day star arise in your hearts” (2 Peter 1:19). “My life is like their journey,” she writes, “Their star is like God’s Book” (lines 37–8). Utilizing this same image, she concludes Annus Domini with the prayer:
O LORD Jesus Christ, the Bright and Morning Star, as once by a star Thou didst lead the Wise Men unto the sure mercies of David, so now by Thine Illuminating Spirit guide us, I pray Thee, to Thyself: that we with them, and by the Grace of the same Most Holy Spirit, may offer unto Thee gold of love, frankincense of adoration, and myrrh of self-sacrifice. Amen. (AD, p. 366)
The act of taking God’s “illuminating” book as the guiding “star” of her life and encouraging others to do the same serves as the central force behind Rossetti’s devotional prose and poetry. To a certain extent, as an interpreter, she considers all her readers “Godchildren” for whom she is responsible for guiding lovingly on their spiritual journey, helping them to identify the illuminating star that God has provided. In The Face of the Deep, she claims that saying “Give me children, or else I die” is foolish, since “the childless who make themselves nursing mothers of Christ’s little ones are the true mothers in Israel” (FD, p. 312). As Robert Kachur (1997, p. 202) argues:
By writing that “the childless who make themselves nursing mothers of Christ’s little ones are the true mothers of Israel,” Rossetti recalls Scripture’s many references to the fathers of Israel – men … who heard God speak directly and communicated his words to others. Rossetti’s metaphorical use of the term “mother,” then, allows her to posit an Apocalyptic reversal, re-envisioning women’s cultural roles as house-hold mediators and nurtures; here they are powerful mediators in the household of God itself, using God’s word to nurture God’s people.
Certainly, Rossetti’s depiction of nursing mothers as valid interpreters of Scripture challenges the construction of the ideal woman as domestic and reproductive. It also enables Rossetti to assert a greater, God-given, authority in her hermeneutics.
Upholding Tradition
In Christina Rossetti’s Feminist Theology, Lynda Palazzo links Christina Rossetti’s hermeneutical methods to those of modern feminist theologians. She claims that Rossetti was not unquestioning in her acceptance of Tractarian thought and Anglo-Catholic doctrine but instead sought to challenge them, only nominally disclaiming “a reputation for prevalent originality” (Palazzo, 2002, p. xvii). Palazzo also asserts that Rossetti’s desire to transform doctrinal concepts within theology went beyond the aims of her female contemporaries who sought to use theology for social reform. While I am keen to emphasize the distinctive elements of Rossetti’s feminist, albeit “domestic” hermeneutics, unlike Palazzo I do not consider her theology to be exceptionally original. Instead, I consider it to be consistent with her biblical antitypes; the Old Testament Psalmists who considered themselves vessels or, in the case of Hannah, Mary, and Elizabeth, “nursing mothers” and “household mediators” through whom God could nurture and speak to others. Meditating on John’s assertion of the sanctity of the Bible, Rossetti prays:
Fill us with reverence, I pray Thee, for Thy most holy written Word: give us grace to study and meditate in it, with prayer and firm adoring faith: not questioning its authority, but obeying its precepts and becoming imbued by its spirit. Teach us to prostrate our understandings before its mysteries; to live by its law, and abide by its promises. (AD, p. 314)
For Rosetti, that we should align ourselves with biblical characters as we apply scriptural precepts to our own lives is unquestionable: becoming “imbued” by the “spirit” of the text is a prerequisite for the believer. She writes of the sin of devaluing the holiness of the biblical text in Letter and Spirit: Notes on the Commandments (1883), claiming that:
It is, I suppose, a genuine through not a glaring breach of the Second Commandment, when instead of learning the lesson plainly set down for us in Holy Writ we protrude mental feelers in all directions above, beneath, around it, grasping, clinging to every imaginable particular except the main point. (LS, p. 85)
That the Bible is the book of life and the only place wherein humans can search for their true identity as children of God is apparent throughout Rossetti’s prose and poetry. Instead of “clinging to every imaginable particular” and concerning ourselves with such things as the “precise architecture of Noah’s Ark” or the “astronomy of Joshua’s miracle” (LS, p. 86), she advocates the Scriptures as the molding principle behind each individual believer, since it serves as the springboard for communication with the divine. However, in The Face of the Deep, Rossetti warns that “Interpretation may err and darken knowledge”: in spite of her acknowledgment that each individual may bring aspects of themselves to their hermeneutical analysis, she highlights the dangerous temptation of pride (FD, p. 549). A letter she wrote to Frederick Shields in 1881 (Rossetti, 1997–2004, vol. 2, pp. 308–9) indicates her eagerness to avoid this sin first by prayer, and, second, by actively participating in a communal, rather than individual, hermeneutical process. By appealing to figures such as Shields, Williams, and her confessor Dr Richard Frederick Littledale, Rossetti successfully warded off the charge of unfounded creativity.
Considering her engagement with these key figures of the Oxford Movement, G. B. Tennyson (1981, p. 198) asserts that Rossetti was “the true inheritor of the Tractarian devotional mode in poetry” and that her poetry brings to fruition much of what the Oxford Movement advocated in theory and sought to put into practice. In spite of his introductory claim that the poetry of the Oxford Movement “is as much cause and symptom as it is result” (ibid., p. 8), Rossetti’s protestation against the charge of biblical scholarship has, for the most part, been taken at face value and her contribution to the doctrinal basis of the Movement’s hermeneutics and, indeed, to subsequent biblical interpretation has been overlooked. However, in light of the direct impact of her poetry on the works of Littledale and John Mason Neale, Rossetti deserves to be seen more as an upholder of the Movement than as its “inheritor.” Indeed, her poem “Alas My Lord” encapsulates Rossetti’s sense of fighting a spiritual battle, highlighting her hermeneutical practices, and attesting to her engagement with her scriptural predecessors who sought to know and obey God. It opens Rossetti’s first book of devotional prose, Annus Domini: A Prayer for Each Day of the Year:
Alas my Lord,
How should I wrestle all the livelong night
With Thee my God, my Strength and my Delight?
How can it need
So agonized an effort and a strain
To make Thy Face of Mercy shine again?
How can it need
Such wringing out of breathless prayer to move
Thee to Thy wonted Love, when Thou art Love?
Yet Abraham
So hung about Thine Arm outstretched and bared,
That for ten righteous Sodom had been spared.
Yet Jacob did
So hold Thee by the clenched hand of prayer
That he prevailed, and Thou didst bless him there.
Elias prayed,
And sealed the founts of Heaven; he prayed again
And lo, Thy Blessing fell in showers of rain.
Gulped by the fish,
As by the pit, lost Jonah made his moan;
And Thou forgavest, waiting to atone.
All Nineveh
Fasting and girt in sackcloth raised a cry,
Which moved Thee ere the day of grace went by.
Thy Church prayed on
And on for blessed Peter in his strait,
Till opened of its own accord the gate.
Yea, Thou my God
Hast prayed all night, and in the garden prayed
Even while, like melting wax, Thy strength was made.
Alas for him
Who faints, despite Thy Pattern, King of Saints:
Alas, alas, for me, the one that faints.
Lord, give us strength
To hold Thee fast, until we hear Thy Voice
Which Thine own know, who hearing It rejoice.
Lord, give us strength
To hold Thee fast until we see Thy Face,
Full Fountain of all Rapture and all Grace.
But when our strength
Shall be made weakness, and our bodies clay,
Hold Thou us fast, and give us sleep till day.
The publication of Annus Domini in 1874 was extremely well received: in its preface, H. W. Burrows writes that the prayers contained within are valuable for “their fervour, reverence, and overflowing charity, and also because they are suggestive of the use which should be made of Holy Scripture in our devotions.” Each little prayer, he writes, “may be considered as the result of a meditation, and as an example of the way in which that exercise should issue in worship.” The diminutive “little,” Joel Westerholm (1993, p. 13) suggests, “reveals how Rossetti’s praying has been safely contained within a domestic setting in Burrow’s mind.”
“Alas My Lord” can be seen as a microcosm of Annus Domini in that its simple meditative surface masks a profound typological schema and a profession of an overwhelming desire to actively “hold fast” (line 38) to God. Like the poem, the book begins by quoting various extracts from Genesis before moving systematically through the Bible, offering short prayers based upon meditations of particular passages. As in the poem, where the speaker aligns herself with various biblical characters and subsequently experiences God’s protection and receives His strength, the prayers in Annus Domini serve to reinforce the message that contemporary readers are not so far removed from their biblical prototypes as might first appear. Rather than merely taking specific words and phrases from the biblical text and applying them to a particular personal situation, Rossetti engages with the situation of the characters she associates herself with as though she herself is working through the dilemmas they faced. The wording of the opening plea conflates at least two biblical episodes. The first, in Genesis 32, is that of Jacob wrestling with God until daybreak. This allusion can be confirmed when the poem speaks of Jacob prevailing as he held God “by the clenched hand of prayer.” Indeed, in her later explication of Genesis 32:28, Rossetti acknowledges the importance of coming to an understanding of our biblical precedents in order to reach an ontological conception of our own subjectivities. She prays, “O Lord Jesus Christ, with Whom Jacob prevailed, help us with that holy patriarch by prayer to hold Thee fast, and by love to cleave steadfastly unto Thee, our ever-present Aid” (AD, p. 6). In The Face of the Deep, she again suggests that we should all imitate Jacob, writing that:
Hands emptied by showing mercy to the poor, are set free to hold fast what God will require of us; hearts emptied of self are prepared to receive and retrain all He will demand. … Thus, Jacob said: “I will not let Thee go, except Thou bless me … And He blessed him there.” Yet because God Himself is to us more than all His blessings, let us rather protest with the Bride: “I found Him Whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let Him go.” (FD, p. 96)
The conflation of Jacob’s protestation with the words of the Song of Solomon’s Bride (Song of Solomon 3:4) is typical of Rossetti’s typological method, whereby passages that may at first seem incongruous are conflated. She had suggested the conflation between Jacob, the Bride, and the church in her earlier poem, “Advent” (PC, pp. 62–4) when she wrote “We will not let Him go / Till daybreak smite our wearied sight … Then He shall say, ‘Arise, My love, / My fair one, come away’” (lines 50–1, 55–6).
In light of the conflation between Jacob and Bride, then, the words of the penultimate verse of “Alas my Lord” can be linked to those of the Song of Solomon. Thus, the “Full Fountain of all Rapture and all Grace” (line 39) can be seen in terms of the “fountain” that the Lover in the Song describes when he speaks of his beloved as “a spring shut up, fountain sealed” (Song of Solomon 4:12). In “Three Nuns,” too, Rossetti’s utilization of the image of the hidden fount precedes a voiced desire for both the “Living Well” (line 142) of Paradise and the “living waters” (lines 145–6) that Christ claims he can provide (John 4:10). This selective and imaginative use of the biblical imagery that follows the patterning of the Old Testament book can be seen in terms of a struggle to construct an understanding of selfhood typologically in the context of the resurrection. Since Kachur (1997, p. 203) has suggested that Rossetti’s repeated links between real women and the Bride of Christ serves to “feminize” male believers, it could be argued that in conflating Jacob and the Song of Solomon’s bride, Rossetti appropriates his story for the sake of her female readers.
Reading the Bible
In certain instances Rossetti worked to erase gender boundaries, adhering to the argument in Galatians that “there is neither male nor female … in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Even when alluding to conventionally masculinized approaches to the Bible, such as Paul’s insistence that we develop a physical relation to God, Rossetti attempts to neutralize them and break down any barriers gender might pose to the reader. The importance of holding God fast, for example, is promoted by Paul in Ephesians 6:12 when he writes “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Although Jacob was wrestling with the ultimate power for good, not against “the darkness of this world,” by implicitly linking the episode to the “wrestling” that Paul speaks of in her allusion to the battles concurrent with our “breathless prayer” (line 8), Rossetti brings to the fore the message that we are to use our strength on the spiritual plain rather than the physical. Indeed, choosing to begin the poem with the reference to Jacob’s battle with God is significant in highlighting this truth because Jacob had to endure previous struggles with Esau and then Laban before coming to the realization that it was God with whom his ultimate battle lay.
The fact that Jacob’s wrestling match is spoken of as lasting “all the livelong night” (line 2) can also be read as symbolically significant when read in the context of Rossetti’s works as a whole. Throughout her writings, she alludes to the life that we are now experiencing as occurring in the nighttime of the eschatological schema and the emergence of the New Heavens and New Earth that will occur at the Second Coming as a day break. Indeed, this meaning is established in the last line of the poem when she prays “give us sleep till day” (life 42). Alongside Ephesians, another typological counterpart to Jacob’s night of wrestling can be identified in Peter’s response to Jesus’ instruction to “launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draft.” Peter’s response was to complain “Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net” (italics added). Needless to say, they managed to catch a “multitude of fishes” (Luke 5:4–6).
After asking why “such wringing out of breathless prayer” is imperative in moving “Thee to Thy wonted Love” (lines 8–9), the poem moves on to remember biblical characters – Abraham and Elijah, for example – who passionately strove to receive God’s blessing and whose faithfulness and prevalence proved successful. Elijah, for example, is used to highlight the power of prayer, James referring to the narrative of 1 Kings 17–18 to underline the affect of his faith: “Elias [Elijah] was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit” (James 5:16–17). Although, as James writes, Elias was constituted of human passions, Rossetti acknowledges that his appointed task was unique: “Elijah stood alone: his … were deeds of vengeance in a day of vengeance … A few are charged to do judgment: every one without exception is charged to show mercy” (FD, pp. 292–3). She makes it clear, however, that his power and his strength were derived from God alone and were in no way intrinsic to his being. As his channel of communication with the Divine, prayer was his ultimate weapon. Hence, the words “Elias prayed” (line 16) convey more than is immediately apparent.
Rossetti also uses “Alas My Lord” to present her conviction that studying the Bible should naturally lead to prayer. In the seventh and eighth verses, she turns to the book of Jonah to showcase the importance of using Old Testament characters as templates for Victorian readers. From the start of the poem, Rossetti makes it clear that, in the lives of the Old Testament characters, there is a lesson for contemporary believers, beginning the poem with a “How should I”? (line 2) that culminates in a communal “our” in the last verse. The switch from individual to shared concern is particularly apparent in those verses concerning Jonah. As God forgave Jonah for his disobedience, so too he forgave “all Ninevah” (line 22) after they repented of their evil ways. The model of prayer that Rossetti alludes to by her mention of Jonah’s “moan” (line 20) reads as follows:
Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish’s belly, And said, I cried by reason of mine afflication unto the LORD, and he heard me … I am cast out of thy sight; yet I will look again toward thy holy temple … I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O LORD my God … I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord. And the Lord spake unto the fish, and it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land. (Jonah 2:1–2, 4, 6, 9–10)
The importance of praise and thanksgiving, as well as lament, is reiterated throughout the Bible and repeatedly reaffirmed by Rossetti. Indeed, her approach to studying the Bible can be aligned with the Psalmist who writes “I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies, as much as in all riches … How sweet are thy words unto my taste! yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth” (Psalm 119:14, 103, italics in the original).
Exemplifying the continuity and harmony between the two testaments and contemporary Christian living, verse 9 further emphasizes the importance of thanksgiving. The book of Acts recalls how “Peter was kept in prison: but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him” (Acts 12:5). As a direct result of this prayer, an angel is sent to free Peter from his chains and lead him to freedom: “they came unto the iron gate that leadeth unto the city; which opened to them of his own accord: and they went out, and passed on through one street; and forthwith the angel departed from him” (Acts 12:10). Earlier on in Acts, a similar incident is recalled where the apostles, locked in a public jail, are released by an “angel of the Lord.” After opening the prison doors for them the angel instructs them, “Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life” (Acts 5:20). In an analogous fashion, when Peter is freed, he is not brought to a place of worldly safety but placed in the midst of Roman persecution where he was to ensure “the word of God grew and multiplied” (Acts 12:24). Understood in the context of the “freedom” bestowed on the apostles and Peter, Rossetti’s allusion to the Christian journey as “So agonised an effort and a strain” (line 5) should be read as indicative of her allegiance to the realities of the New Testament Church rather than of her own personal struggles.
A Living Scripture
Consistently through her devotional prose, Rossetti is careful not to attribute any divine power to the figures involved in Jesus’ ministry but is eager to reserve all praise and thanksgiving for Christ himself. Thus, following the recollection of Peter’s escape from prison, she refocuses on the sacrificial love of God. The agony that Christ went through on the cross is emphasized throughout her poetry. Indeed, several of her early poems are voiced through the mouth of Christ as he articulates his suffering and his passion. For instance, in “The Love of Christ which Passeth Knowledge,” she has Jesus speak of the “six hours” on the cross, “alone, athirst, in misery” (line 22) while he waited for God to “smote” his “heart and cleft / A hiding-place” (lines 23–4) for each believer. In “A Bruised Reed Shall He not Break,” she similarly has Christ tell a struggling believer “For thee I hung upon the cross in pain” (line 19). By associating the crucified Christ with the God of Isaiah 42:3, who would neither break a “bruised reed” nor quench “the smouldering flax,” Rossetti both highlights his Messianic place as the fulfiller of the Scriptures and offers a method of biblical typological interpretation her readers can utilize and a pattern they can imitate. Instead of merely focusing on the crucifixion of self-centeredness and bodily desires that Jesus claims is necessary in the process of being born again in Him, in “Alas my Lord,” Rossetti highlights the preparation involved in the emptying of finite selfhood. As Christ made himself “like melting wax” (line 30) in the Garden of Gethsemane, believers should, she suggests, “hold Thee fast” (line 35) as they do likewise. Her cry “Alas, alas, for me, the one that faints” (line 33) highlights the desperation and urgency of her prayer and her need for an understanding that supersedes her circumstances. It is perhaps this consistent striving for a deep understanding that most aptly characterizes Rossetti’s meditations on the Bible. Considering Scripture as “living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12), Rossetti’s conviction of the urgent need to pray for protection from the Holy Spirit in her hermeneutics is unwavering.
Notes
1 Abbreviated references to Rossetti’s works are: FD, The Face of the Deep; SF, Seek and Find; TF, Time Flies; AD, Annus Domini; LS, Letter and Spirit; PC, Poems, Chosen and Edited by W. M. Rossetti. See the reference list for details.
2 Both the King James Version and the Authorized Version read “Thy word is a lamp.”
References
Daniel, E. (1901) The Prayer-book: Its History, Language and Contents. Wells, Gardner, Darton & Co, London.
Honnighausen, G. (1972) “Emblematic tendencies in the works of Christina Rosetti,” Victorian Poetry, 10, 1–15
Jowett, B. (1861) “On the Interpretation of Scripture,” in Essays and Reviews, 5th edn. Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, London.
Kachur, R. M. (1997) “Repositioning the Female Christian Reader: Christina Rossetti as Tractarian Hermeneut in The Face of the Deep,” Victorian Poetry 35:2, 193.
Keble, J. (1841) “Tract 89, On the Mysticism Attributed to the Fathers of the Church,” in Tracts for the Times by Members of the University of Oxford, 6 volumes. J. G. F. & J. Rivington, London, p. vi.
Neale, J. M. (1872) “Sermon XXII: How Christ Is a Bundle of Myrrh,” in Sermons on the Black Letter Days Or Minor Festivals of the Church of England. Joseph Masters, London (in http://anglicanhistory.org, accessed April 9, 2006).
Palazzo, L. (2002) Christina Rossetti’s Feminist Theology. Palgrave, Basingstoke.
Prickett, S. (2000) “Purging Christianity of Its Semitic Origins: Kingsley, Arnold and the Bible,” in J. John, A. Jenkins and J. Sutherland, eds, Rethinking Victorian Culture. Macmillan, Basingstoke, p. 244.
Rossetti, C. (1874) Annus Domini: A Prayer for Each Day of the Year. James Parker and Co, London.
Rossetti, C. (1879) Seek and Find: A Double Series of Short Studies of the Benedicite. SPCK, London.
Rossetti, C. (1881) Called to Be Saints, The Minor Festivals Devotionally Studied. SPCK, London.
Rossetti, C. (1883) Letter and Spirit: Notes on the Commandments. SPCK, London and Brighton.
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