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Even when he’d digressed to lecture Perfect in a somewhat condescending tone, Maxim Prather had displayed a kindly and avuncular nature. As Perfect detailed the events that had brought their team together… the church fires, the runes of unmaking, the omens from various sources… his expression grew graver.
“This is very serious,” he said when she’d finished. “Creation and destruction… these are not things man was meant to tamper with. The laws of thermodynamics are not simply strongly worded suggestions. To meddle in God’s domain in a church strikes me as a deliberately provocative act.”
“Hold on,” Dani said. “Not to, you know, sideline the heroic stuff, but you keep talking about God. Doesn’t religion frown on the whole magic thing? I mean, isn’t that all meddling in God’s domain?”
“Well, the Bible warns against many specific acts, along with several examples,” Prather said. “But the point is rather more general, that one should shun iniquity and embrace God’s grace. The Lord says that none are righteous, not one of us, and yet through His grace we are redeemed.”
“So, in other words, it’s okay for you to break the rules because you’re willing to give the secret handshake to get into the club,” Dani said.
“Dani!” Perfect said.
Prather held up a hand to Perfect.
“Salvation is not a handshake or a secret password or a magic spell,” Prather said. “And yes, I do break God’s laws. None of us are righteous. But I do not do it specifically by engaging in alchemy. I do it through my vanity, through my greed, because of my simple human fallibility. God’s messengers have warned us against specific acts… including such exotic ones as consorting with demons and spirits, listening to false prophets… because we risk doing harm to ourselves, physically and spiritually, by doing so, not because it is some blow to His ego or because He has set these things as triggers for arbitrary damnation.”
“What about ‘thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’?” Dani asked. “They would have stoned you in the olden days. Or burned you.”
“Could you name an example of someone being stoned or burned for witchcraft in the Bible?” Prather asked. “‘Suffer to live’ sounds so overwrought, like a prescription to violence. If you came across a passage in a book that said instead, ‘It is not a good idea to give support to the existence of those who work to harm others’, would you consider that wisdom?”
“Yeah, but it doesn’t say that,” Dani said.
“The twenty-second chapter of Exodus is full of very highly specific punishments and remedies for the breaking of the law. Verse nineteen, which follows immediately after the one in question, specifies that one should be put to death for engaging in a form of animal abuse. Likewise verse twenty, on engaging in sacrifice to idols. Why dance around the subject for verse eighteen? Because it is not a commandment to do anything, it is offering a commandment against something: suffering… or toiling… to continue the existence of a ‘witch’.”
“Okay, but doesn’t that still suggest that it’s bad to be one?” Dani asked.
“The translation’s kind of contested,” Perfect said. “It seems to originated with the King James translation. Some people feel that ‘poisoner’ would be a better fit, as in the Greek, pharma… um…” She looked at Prather nervously.
He actually laughed.
“You’ve hit on it exactly,” Prather said. “The translation is imprecise to us because it was addressed to the people of Israel at the time of Moses. The concept referred to may not have a precise modern English translation at all, any more than samurai or boyar exactly means knight. It’s a different culture with different concepts. The ‘poisoner’ or ‘witch’ of the verse… either works with the understanding that it is a placeholder for a cultural concept… was most likely someone who claimed to have special knowledge and power to harm and cure. There being no accredited and trained doctors or pharmacists back then, such a person could set themselves up in a position of power by holding out hope and fear, extorting a living from people by offering dark services and using a mixture of trickery and anything from poorly understood herbal treatments and alchemy to outright diabolism to effect ‘cures’.”
“So, what? You’re telling me that part of the Bible is expired? Past its due date?” Dani asked sarcastically. “I thought it was supposed to be the inspired word of God.”
“It is,” Prather said. “That part of it is His inspired word of God to a specific group of people under a specific set of arduous circumstances. That isn’t to say it doesn’t contain very good lessons for us. If Hermes Pharmaceuticals worked more harm than good in the world, I would hope that our customers would not continue to support my livelihood through their sufferance. As I said at the outset: reject iniquity, embrace grace. The rest is all just illustrative examples, for none are righteous and all fall short of the glory of God… though none are beneath His grace.”
“Okay,” Dani said. “But the whole idea that ‘iniquity’ and ‘grace’ basically boils down to whether or not you’re willing to worship the right guy in the right way…”
“Dani… this isn’t the time for a theological debate,” Perfect said. “I mean, I share your objections there, but… we’re not trying to hash out a unified theory on religion here, so we can save it for another time and figure out what we’re actually doing here about the unmaking.”
“Excellent focus,” Prather said.
“Save the theology talk, save the world,” Dani said. “Got it.”
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