A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

A Canticle for Leibowitz
Walter M. Miller, Jr.
October 1959, J.B. Lippincott & Co.

"And so it was in those days," said Brother Reader, "that the princes of Earth had hardened their hearts against the Law of the Lord, and of their pride there was no end. And each of them thought within himself that it was better for all to be destroyed than for the will of other princes to prevail over his. For the mighty of the Earth did contend among themselves for supreme power over all; by stealth, treachery, and deceit they did seek to rule, and of war they feared greatly and did tremble; for the Lord God had suffered the wise men of those times to learn the means by which the world itself might be destroyed, and into their hands was given the sword of the Archangel wherewith Lucifer had been cast down, that men and princes might fear God and humble themselves before the Most High. But they were not humbled."

At some point in my youth, I became aware of the fact that it was possible for the world to be destroyed. You see, being born in the early half of the 1980's, my formative years happened to overlap with the latter stages of the Cold War. I can't pinpoint an exact moment when it happened, have no specific memory of a particular relative sitting me down and patiently explaining the logic behind Mutually-Assured Destruction to my eight-year-old self, yet somehow I became aware of the concept, and it terrified me. It seemed absurd and horrifying

that the adults had decided to create a system where someone could push a button and blow up the whole planet.

I recall nights spent sleepless, mind consumed with the idea that perhaps that very night was to be the night when someone would decide that now, tonight, was the time to press that Big Red Button, launch the nukes, summon the midnight sun to commence Armageddon. What would become of us should this eventuality come to pass? Would it mean complete eradication, or would some survive? Would life find a way to go on in the face of utter devastation?

Of course, I was not alone, and far from the first, to be haunted by such thoughts. Post apocalyptic stories fill entire shelves of bookstores; countless television series and films have been produced on the subject. The entire Fallout video game franchise, to name a prominent example, is based on the "what happens after the nuclear holocaust?" premise. While modern audiences might find the premise thoroughly explored, an early example that helped break this ground is Walter Miller's 1959 offering, A Canticle for Leibowitz.

Miller published a pair of novella-length shorts in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, offering first A Canticle for Leibowitz in 1955 followed by And the Light is Risen in 1956. Later that same year, while beginning work on a third story for the series, The Last Canticle, he realized he had a novel on his hands; it would be the only novel written by Miller to be published during his lifetime. Returning to his previous two stories and re-working them in a fix-up with the third, he produced the work we now know as A Canticle for Leibowitz, a novel in three parts: Fiat Homo (Let there be man), Fiat Lux (Let there be light), and Fiat Voluntas Tua (Let thy will be done).

Writing during the early years of the Cold War, Miller envisions a world long after MAD has reached its inevitable conclusion, wiping out nearly all life on earth and leaving civilization in ruins, plunging the remaining few humans on earth back to the stone age. Fiat Homo tells the story of Brother Francis Gerard of Utah, a novice of the Albertian Order of Leibowitz. The Order was created by an electrical-engineer-turned-monk who had survived the conflagration by the name of Isaac Edward Leibowitz. Founded some six hundred years ago, placing the story somewhere in the mid-25th century, the order is dedicated to the preservation of what knowledge remains from the time before the "flame deluge," as it is now known. Most of what was not lost in the cataclysm was intentionally destroyed in a period referred to as "the Simplification," in which many turned against the institutions of science and learning having seen what such great knowledge had wrought.

The plot of Fiat Homo concerns Brother Francis who, while fasting in the desert as a novice preparing to receive his vows, discovers an ancient fallout shelter. Exploring the shelter leads him to discover a most rare find indeed - a specimen of ancient document known as a blueprint, and bearing the hand of none other than the Blessed Leibowitz himself! This discovery is timely, as the case for the canonization of Leibowitz is being considered in New Rome. We see years

pass in which Brother Francis becomes a copyist in the scriptorium, answers to both the Advocatus Dei and Advocatus Diaboli, growing old before finally learning that Leibowitz is to become Saint Leibowitz. Brother Francis travels to New Rome to attend the canonization mass, and part one ends with his ill-fated journey home.

Much of the story in Fiat Homo shows the immense effort required to preserve information in this age, with simple documents being elevated to the status of holy relics and treated with the utmost care. Monks slave away in the scriptorium making copies of documents they themselves do not understand in the faith that one day this gift will be returned to mankind. Brother Francis himself spends fifteen years of this period working on a gloriously illuminated copy of the holy relic of Blessed Leibowitz he had discovered, "Transistorized Control System for Unit Six-B."

Part two, Fiat Lux, brings us forward to the year 3174. The dark ages are receding and a new renaissance is waiting to be born. Civilization has returned to the earth, along with all its attendant problems. War is brewing between Texarkana and Laredo, and the Empire of Denver may be next. Secular scholars once again walk the earth, knowledge and learning no longer confined to the walls of the monasteries. One such scholar, a Galileo-like figure named Thon Taddeo Pfardentrott, seeks access to the rumored archive of pre-deluge texts kept by the brothers at the Leibowitzian Abbey.

Here, we have a central conflict revolving around the discovery and use of scientific knowledge. Our Abbot in this age, Dom Paulo, is hesitant to release the carefully-guarded collection of Memorabilia to the world, realizing that it represents, essentially, the fulfillment of his Order's mission, and thus suggests the end of its usefulness. He fears the broader consequences, as well, fully aware that there is a possibility of history repeating itself, great knowledge coming with great responsibility which can be abused in the hands of wicked men.

Further driving this point home, Thon Taddeo traveled to the Abbey with a contingent of soldiers to act as guards, and we learn that they are very interested indeed in the monastery itself, going so far as to make drawings of the fortifications and tunnels. Having stood for centuries against the barbarians, the abbey is quite defensible and may well serve as a garrison for a future westward assault. A fortress of knowledge to some, a fortress of war to others, perhaps.

Our final act, Fiat Voluntas Tua, returns us to an age of scientific wonders and horrors in the year 3781. Mankind once again reaches for the stars, having harnessed the power of the atom, and it is immediately clear that all is not well. A warning message goes out from Leibowitz Abbey - "Lucifer is fallen." Tests show background radiation levels rising and this, combined with recent seismic readings, leads the monks to believe that an atomic weapon has been detonated somewhere in Asia. In response to this, the Pope instructs the brothers of the Order of Leibowitz to activate a secret program, known as Quo peregrinatur grex pastor secum ("Whither wanders the flock, the shepherd is with them").

Originally intended as a project to send an arm of the church into the stars alongside a colony ship, Quo peregrinatur was halted when the project was deemed impractical, but not before the church had acquired a suitable starship. With tensions mounting once again, the suspended project was retooled to serve as a lifeboat should the worst come to pass, as it seems may now be imminent. Twenty-seven of the brothers set out for New Rome, where they will join a sufficient number of Nuns, Bishops, and children to sustain the church on the Alpha Centauri colony.

Outer plot aside, most of this final act revolves around a conflict between church and state as it relates to wielding the power of life and death. Early on, a nuclear weapon is used against Texarkana, killing millions. Many more are sickened by the radiation and the hopeless cases are permitted to voluntarily choose euthanasia at government-run camps. Our final Abbot, Dom Jethrath Zerchi, spends much of this story butting heads with a Doctor Cors over this issue. Their conflict is embodied in two refugees sheltering in the monastery, a woman and her child. Both are severely burned from the blast and badly radiation sickened, unlikely to survive.

The question, then, is fundamentally one of life and death. Do their lives belong to the state, who may give them permission to end it? Or do they belong to God, therefore making the pious act to offer their suffering to heaven? The doctor, an atheist, fiercely believes they should mercifully end their suffering as soon as possible, and advises the woman to do so. The priest, of course, believes this will cast their souls into eternal damnation and counsels her against it[1]. A war is waged over the woman and her child, and in the end, the scientist - and the state - wins out; Dom Zerchi is presented with a restraining order forbidding him from sending his novices to picket outside the "Mercy Camps" just as he is making a desperate last bid to convince the woman not to enter one.

All of this quickly becomes moot, at least in the mortal realm, as history does indeed repeat itself in Miller's novel. A brief, final chapter shows the brothers in New Rome loading the spaceship and preparing to leave when the end comes.

The horizon came alive with flashes as the monks mounted the ladder. The horizons became a red glow. A distant cloudbank was born where no cloud had been. The monks on the ladder looked away from the flashes. When the flashes were gone, they looked back.

The visage of Lucifer mushroomed into hideousness above the cloudbank, rising slowly like some titan climbing to its feet after ages of imprisonment in the Earth.

They depart at once, never to return. Sic transit mundus.

Miller's prose displays a wide range, adopting a biblical tone when suitable for the monks, just as easily slipping into something like free verse when modernity is needed. Though many of the novel's subjects are bleak, there is plenty of humor to be found within the cast of characters. Brother Francis in act 1 is a bumbling youth with a complete inability to read a delicate situation

and a tendency to stick his foot in his mouth, so much so that he remains a novice for seven years. Act 2 provides us comic relief in the form of a poet taking far too much advantage of the brothers' hospitality, brandishing a sharp wit in return. Finally, Act 3 provides a healthy dose of physical comedy to break up discussions of the eternal soul as the day of Armageddon quickly approaches.

Throughout the three acts, there is one character that seems to persist. We first meet him as an old pilgrim wandering the desert in the opening pages of act 1, where he has a humorous interaction with young Francis, inadvertently helping him discover the fallout shelter before wandering back out of the narrative. It is heavily implied that he is none other than Leibowitz, though that can't be, as Leibowitz was martyred centuries ago. Or can it?

He returns in act 2 as Benjamin Eleazar bar Joshua, no longer wandering, now camped on top of a mesa that overlooks the monastery below. Miller is a bit coy as to whether or not this is in fact the same person six hundred years later, but it is clear upon consideration that this is intended to bethe Wandering Jew, still waiting for the return of the Messiah. This act is where the character is most fully realized, engaging in a long exchange with the Abbot on the nature of man, of the burden of faith, of both of their long waits for the return of their Lord. At the conclusion of Act 2, he declares that the great scholar ushering in a new age of discovery is not the one he awaits.

A background character again in Act 3, having resumed his wandering ways, he is identified in this era as "latzar shemi," or Lazarus, if you prefer. His brief appearance in the denouement seems to signal that the Wandering Jew is still waiting, the messiah still not returned.

Throughout the novel, there is a clear connecting line of conflict between church and state. As the story opens, the state is nonextant, the church seeming to be the only semblance of civilization, keeper of the flame. As the narrative progresses through its history, we see the church coming into conflict with the state as it re-emerges, finally being forced to submit the the authority of the state (notably, in the person of a dull bureaucrat). At the last, the circle is completed as civilization consumes itself, leaving only the church to once again bear the burden of knowledge.

Miller seems to be articulating a conflict centering around the gift and attendant responsibility of knowledge, reason, and learning. In Act 2, we see a conflict between the church and the secular world for custodianship of knowledge. In Act 3, we see a conflict between the church and the state over human life itself. If it seems that these are separate, unrelated issues, then it's likely that you, modern, probably non-religious reader, view the conflict in Act 2 as trivial and not the concern of the church in the first place. However, I believe it is possible to view these as the same issue, regardless of your particular views of religion, and in fact the lens of religion is perfectly suited to study the problem.

First, let's go back to Genesis:

Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

• Genesis 2:15-17, New King James Version

Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

• Genesis 3:4-5, New King James Version

Now, there are roughly a million different ways one could interpret this bit of scripture, and I'm certain it's been hashed out endlessly over the centuries, but a) I'm not a priest, and b) this is a book review, not a theological seminar, so I'm just going to suggest a fairly standard reading. God creates man without the gift of knowledge, reserving this part of creation for himself. "The knowledge of good and evil" are one in the same, one cannot know the good without also knowing the bad. Knowledge of the good being withheld, man is beatific, spared from the knowledge of evil. When Lucifer deceives Man into stealing knowledge for himself, Man is cast from grace.

Amongst all the beings in the universe, in this conception, two alone possess the gift (or curse) of knowledge: God and Man. One could argue that this is what makes us human, sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom; Reason being the seat of the soul, if you will. Cogito, ergo sum. Hence the conflict explored between the Abbot and the Doctor in the final act is really the same question, in substance if not in form, as the conflict between the Abbot and the Scholar in

the second act. Knowledge and humanity become inseparable.

Whether one believes in the existence of a higher power or not, that conflict, the central theme of A Canticle for Leibowitz, points to a difficult question, particularly relevant in the age of modern technology. We have seen, repeatedly, throughout history, scientific advancements showing themselves as double-edged swords. In many ways, the splitting of the atom represents the greatest and simultaneously most terrible of these achievements.

What, then, is to be done? Does mankind's soul, his Reason, belong to him alone, or should it be entrusted to God? (Oran international councilif you prefer a more worldly solution.) Perhaps the luddites, the anti-tech activists, and the "simplifiers" of our novel had the right idea after all. Or perhaps there is no answer to the question; once we have tasted the fruit of the tree of knowledge, we are indeed fated to die.

Walter Miller does an excellent job of posing a surprisingly insightful philosophical problem, especially considering its original presentation in the pages of a 50's sci-fi pulp magazine. At the time of this writing, sixty-plus years after its original publication, A Canticle for Leibowitz has never been out of print, and for good reason.

1. A brief note to would-be readers. Part of this argument (in Chapter 28) involves an anecdote about Dom Zerchi, as a youth, killing a sick cat to end its suffering. It's somewhat detailed and rather disturbing. Given the context of human suffering surrounding the scene, it shouldn't be that shocking, but I felt compelled to mention it.↩︎