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The Darwinian fundamentalists say that human beings are of no more significance in the deterministic process of nature than pieces of rock or puffs of dust. But at least a chunk of rock has a kind of individuality. So I suppose, briefly, has a raindrop or teardrop. But an undifferentiated drop of water — constantly mingling with other drops of rain, or in streams and lakes, then becoming vapour and clouds, running with countless other drops into oceans for thousands of years of liquid nonentity — can have no such persona. Yet the Darwinians say we are essentially the same as those minute dribbles of liquid. How do people who believe such things live with themselves? What do they think about last thing at night or when they first wake up in the morning? Perhaps their thoughts are no odder than other fundamentalists’ — an Islamic suicide-bomber, for instance. But I wouldn’t like to be one of them, would you?
Fundamentalists — by whom I mean all belief-obsessives, whether deists, atheists or militant agnostics — have peculiar notions about water, and often use it for weird ceremonies. It’s true of course that water and magic go together. Or rather still water. Running water was supposed to make enchantment ineffective. In Burns’s marvellous poem ‘Tam o’Shanter’ (1791) Tam is at one point chased by witches. But he is able to escape from them once he is halfway across the Brig o’Doon because it is a fast-rising river.
In the Book of Numbers, in the Old Testament, there is a sinister water ceremony described in Chapter V. This chapter begins with the Lord telling the Children of Israel to expel from their camp all lepers, and all women with an issue, and ‘whosoever is defiled by the dead’. But it then gets on to the perennially fascinating subject of sex, and adultery in particular. It discusses the case where ‘a man’s wife go aside and commits a trespass against him’; and ‘a man lie with her carnally, and it be hid from the eyes of her husband, and kept close’, yet the husband is suspicious, ‘and the spirit of jealousy came upon him’. In this case, says Numbers, the priest must ‘take holy water in an earthen vessel; and of the dust that is in the floor of the tabernacle the priest shall take, and put it into the water’. The suspect woman is then brought before the Lord, with a ‘jealousy offering’ (unspecified) which is burnt on the altar. Then the woman drinks the special water. If she is guilty, ‘her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot, and the woman shall be a curse among the people’. But if she is innocent, ‘she shall be free, and shall conceive seed’. This is known as the ‘bitter water’ test, the mixture as ‘the water of jealousy’. In the Bible, water is sinful or a sign of evil only when it is mixed with impurities. Pure water is invariably holy, fruitful and innocent. The righteous man is like a tree planted by streams of water, and the longing of the soul after God is likened to thirst for water. Psalm 63 says, ‘My soul thirsts for thee …in a dry and weary land where no water is.’ Jesus says in St John’s Gospel, ‘If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.’ Hence the ceremony of baptism by water. The Book of Revelation says that, even in the Heavenly Jerusalem, there is water. The rivers of the water of life, ‘bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb, through the middle of the Street of the City’. When I read this passage, I always think of Damascus, where streams indeed flow through the middle of the streets, for this beautiful city is perched between the desert and the snowy mountains of the Lebanon.
But I am rambling, as I tend to do when I get on to the topic of the Scriptures: they are so mysterious, and often difficult to fathom, even with the help of learned commentators. For instance, in St Paul’s first letter to Timothy — the pious young man whom the Apostle had appointed to look after the affairs of the church in Ephesus — much of the text consists of sound spiritual advice and sensible pastoral hints about dealing with difficult elders or flamboyant widows. Then, suddenly, between a verse condemning physical assault and one warning against those who sin openly, there occurs the only statement in the entire Bible, Old or New Testament, condemning water, and in a medical context too: ‘Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine other infirmities.’ Needless to say, the comments on this odd verse are unsatisfactory. When I was enjoying myself in Ephesus some years ago — it is one of the finest of all ruins — I inquired whether the water there was particularly bad, which might explain Paul’s injunction. I was told that, on the contrary, it was especially good, and always had been. Obviously, if Britain really is running out of water, we’ll have to look again at St Paul. Meanwhile, I wonder if Timothy took his advice?
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