"The Tears of Esau"

[Ripheus23]

In Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves, there is an obscure passage that reads something like, "The Messiah will not come until the tears of Esau have ceased." The footnote assigned to this quotation reads: "Lost," meaning that the compiler of the text couldn't find the reference. So I did some Googling and found a possible answer: Martin Buber's writings, specifically "The Rung of Redemption," which more or less opens with the quote, attributing it originally to "the Midrash" [emphasis added], which further Googling indicates to me is a classical midrashic corpus (i.e. the one going back to the 200 CE timeframe at the earliest).

The obscurity in HOL of this citation is doubled by the obscurity of the section in which it appears: an attempt to relate two brothers in the story (the interior protagonist Will Navidson and his brother Tom) to the Jacob-Esau mythos. For some reason, this analysis ended up distressing the author of the interior story so much that he ripped the section apart, and the compiler of the text was indeed only able to compile part of this section.

Now, when I converted to Christianity, I converted to a very fluid and mystical form thereof. So when I did scriptural exegesis, I thought I found some very peculiar typology therein: e.g. in the Jacob-Esau narrative, it appeared that Jacob was a type of Christ and his putting-on-an-animal-skin was a type of the Incarnation. The later issue of the flocks of sheep could be made to match to the Son's distilling His church from out of the mass of humanity under sin's power, etc. (thence Laban seemed a type of Satan or, at least, of political forces (under Satan) holding the flock hostage, so to say, in the first place).

Doing all this, though, means assigning a fundamental brother to the Son Himself, as it goes. The LDS of course do this with Lucifer (or Samael or whatever we think he originally was named). However, for various reasons I think that is a mistake. The metaphysically closest thing to a brother of the Son would be the Incarnation of a different person of the Trinity, I think. In my system of exegesis, I already had an answer for this: Apollyon. Hence Esau's default of his birthright and his murderous pursuit of Jacob correspond to Apollyon's fall and contribution to Satan's eternal plan to murder the Son upon the Incarnation (hence they are "the murderers in the beginning").

In the Ripheus story, the Earth of Christianity is actually a fictional world inside the "actual" world of the story. So Christian scripture is canonical for this "inside" domain, and characters refer to these words as mystically relevant to the goings-on "in fact." For example, there are infinitely powerful entities known as the Septatheon, who draw on the "magic of ethics" to become even more god-like as expressions of seven different moral theories (e.g. utilitarianism, intuitionism). A police officer (investigator) eventually uncovers a mystical link between the Septatheon and the seven-headed beasts in the Book of Revelation (the idea is that seven-headed monsters are symbols of sevenfold sets of false ideologies: the Beast from the Sea is the political representation of these sets, the Red Dragon is the more abstract representation (to refer to the difference of levels between politics and ethics, then)). And so on and on...

As Ripheus goes about his quest to understand what is going wrong with the machine that gives people magic (the Keyscape), he eventually learns that a critical point in the programming was left recursively incomplete: the so-called "absolute proof theorem" was not itself absolutely proven. The idea is this: it is possible to do the wrong thing knowingly, but not relative to absolute knowledge. Achieving absolute proof of a moral proposition rules out a violation of that proposition (though neutral inaction is still possible in relation thereto). More specifically, even if this condition does not hold of just any moral question-and-answer, it does hold with respect to the problem of transcendental delusion, which is the corrupt archetype of sin (the wrong of having the wrong standards of moral evidence in the first place). But so ultimately the condition should hold of itself, i.e. we should be able to absolutely prove the absolute proof theorem. And, unfortunately, the Host of Ripheus did not think to do so when constructing the Keyscape.

But even when Ripheus himself later knows that this is the problem, it's not like he can just wish it away, he has to actually come up with a real absolute proof of the theorem itself. The means of doing so dog him, and interrelate with his enigmatic suicidal impulses. He's not depressed, guilty, etc. but he feels spontaneous inclinations to kill himself, and he doesn't know why. He ends up thinking the source of the impulses has to do with the role of egoism in ethical theory, as if he subconsciously wants to be living proof that egoism is a morally insufficient outlook, and he could be such a thing if he sacrificed his life "just like that." OTOH, he also recognizes that his relationship with the Form of Destruction slants his thoughts in this case; so he is wary of giving in to his impulses...

The story takes place in a multiverse, the speciality of the case being that this is a finite multiverse: there are exactly 24 parallel realities total (along with an indefinite domain of demiplanes). Some of these universes are themselves finite (but unbounded), others indefinitely change size, and some are internally infinite. Some even have changing numbers of spacetime dimensions.

One universe is finite and fully mapped out by a city, known as the Veldaithemyr or "the Memorial." It is a vast monument to the "Last War" (the actually last war in history). In fact, the magic of the Keyscape uses this city to hold the finality of the Last War in place: anyone, anywhere, who tries to start a new war, will end up being magically teleported to the Memorial, where they are confined until their intentions change.

Another universe, one of the indefinite realms, is known as the Sea Alone. It is, more or less, an ocean with islands "here and there." The ocean is infused with an immense amount of magical energy. This energy has something to do with an infinite degree of sadness: there is some very large transfinite cardinal whose Keyscape-signature is imprinted on the Sea. There is, then, a way to draw on the Sea to feel the degree of sadness in question.

This, then, is the conclusion that Ripheus comes to: instead of committing suicide, he will drain the magic of the Sea into himself, and by this means "absolutely prove" the place of happiness and sadness in justice, contrary to the egoism/related attitudes he is arguing against. And so he thinks that this will fix the Keyscape, end the anomalous consequences of the machine's incomplete programming, and so on and on...

Although the story is supposed to make note of the fact that Vyrian Armirex is running around the multiverse, the Artificer doesn't meet up with Ripheus until near the end of everything else. They meet, then, in the Veldaithemyr, in a theatrical crowd, i.e. a group of people putting on a play in public.

Two notes before the prototype of the scene: Armirex knows how to use magic to torture people. Another Fallen Artificer, historically, used torture to bring about magic. He taught his methods to Armirex when the two worked together long ago, so now Armirex knows how to first magically torture someone, and then go and use that torture to invoke even more magic. Second: "the Broken Ones" are a group of people mutated by the Form of Evil such that, unless they are killed, then on the day of the Final Power's advent, Apollyon will be prevented from receiving the gift of that Power indirectly. (Everyone else will directly receive the gift, and minus the added seal, anyone of these could go on to give Apollyon their share, so...) But moreover, as long as none of the Broken Ones have died yet at all, the Final Power will be delayed. Unfortunately or not, the Broken Ones end up killing themselves in order to unseal both Apollyon and the Final Power (if I remember my notes on the scene in question rightly; the computer with the file for this scene is lost to me...)

Quote

"There is a power in this city," Armirex begins, "of immense and unrequited guilt... A thing of the apex numbers..."

Ripheus agrees: the depths of the Tears of Esau reach that high, even unto 4-aleph, but he wonders, "Does it come to pass, then, that this measure of sorrow shall be placed upon us at all?"

Armirex bows his head, but says, "Its immensity is eternal not in duration but intensity---whosoever accepts the Tears unto their hearts shall see the trees that grow from those waters..."

"...like branches in the aleph-forest, alive in friendship with our world to the last," Ripheus remembers suddenly, finishing what Armirex was about to recite. "The incarnation of paradise, the wish of the axioms come true."

And when he looks into his own heart, he witnesses the symmetry of joy and grieving like a mirror of saudade ablaze before the name of merit there; Ripheus knows that he wants to endure even this---

One jolt of shock catches him. What if the Tears drown him? And no one would be ready, then, for the day on which Apollyon escaped its prison... Am I making a mistake?

"Pardon my feelings, but... something is missing..." Ripheus addresses the Artificer and the other figures in costume around them. The half-silhouettes and masqued shapes dance or shrug vaguely, some murmuring in a makeshift sequence of numerical ciphers. One steps forward. "And what is missing, then?" she asks.

Finally, Ripheus understands the question afflicting him. "It's just... the Final Power... drawing from the Sea Alone to shed the Tears of Esau: why before...?"

Armirex grimaces. "There is an extreme danger in our undertaking, yes. I am unsure whether it is within my power to prove that this ritual will work correctly. Yet my reasoning exists: though of itself our work will not hasten the advent of the Final Power, yet it may aid us in breaking the hold on that advent such as the Broken Ones testify to."

Without the Final Power, the Anomalies won't be stopped, Ripheus thinks. "Granted. So..."

While the audience circles the interlocutors, they pass before the slow-moving sun. The inmates of the Veldaithemyr drift or trudge to sleep, their automobiles and elevators and footsteps growing quieter and quieter. Echoes of dusk reflect across the horizon.

"The ritual is simple," Armirex begins again. "All of us here perform a scene in a play about the Messiah, the trial before His sacrifice. You, Ripheus, must play His part. When the Messiah suffers His final agony, you will call on the light of infinity to witness this in yourself. Then I will bridge your light to the light of this city, to use this radiance to intercede against the darkness coming to pass."

... or will they? Ripheus thinks abruptly. The Form of Evil had waited ages for an Anomaly to arise that it could use to affect the Final Power, delaying it altogether, strengthening the seal on Apollyon. Though they do not guarantee that the Final Power's advent will never take place, the Anomalies make threats of this kind greater than otherwise. Ripheus has to do something about that...

More than that, even.

Who else can endure this?

Setting the Shield down, Ripheus thinks about to the day he acquired it. The ancient foundation of the legend that he was the Son of Atropos.

Ages before the Last War, but not so many for him by now, Ripheus had come to stand before Apollyon. The City of Destruction had pursued him, having met him as he wandered the universes, but rather than fight him, Apollyon had handed the Shield of the inset to Ripheus instead. And then, in a harrowing moment, the man of Troy first heard the Destroyer's own words in his heart and his mind, like coughing and laughter:

You shall never sin,

so you shall never die by My hand...

---a promise that Ripheus now appreciates as a source of his altruistic self-confidence, if not the only source, though...

For if even Death itself swore not to take your life...?

The audience starts humming.

Ripheus knows the words of this scene in the play very well, so as he assumes his role in time with Armirex's recitation of the judge's lines, the melody of their discourse evokes the magnitude of an endless dirge, the threnody of redemption---

---the city's sunset paints the dawning night with red and gold that trembles as immortal grace surges from the Memorial's skyline---

---so they all sing,

Why do you stay quiet?

I don't believe you understand...

---the anchor of infinity breaks---

---is reforged in its own eternal image, at the same time---

--- {... the shadow of the Erev Halaeon [the choice made using the Final Power]...}---

... in...

... falls...

---braced to an upright cross, Ripheus strains under the gravity of the Sea's Tears washing over and through him---

---the anchor holds, the savagery and reeling of the world ceases, there is no more pain---

---he is empty---

---Ripheus slouches off the cross, onto his back, wracked with fading torment.

The city trembles much more than before.

Exhausted, Ripheus thinks that he might fall asleep unless he fixes his eyes and his will sharply enough. As other power thrums rhapsodically around him, he finds himself snapping his eyes open in dread.

"Armirex... what is going on?"

 

Edited May 31, 2020 by Ripheus23