Religious Issues in Joseph Andrews
Table of Contents
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| Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews |
In Henry Fielding’s novel Joseph Andrews, the characters use Christian teaching to explain their thoughts and behavior. They zealously use the Bible and its content as rationale for their arguments and opinions. In some instances the characters using the Bible as their guide for behavior still come to conclusions tainted by outside influences and/or their own passions. Despite their successes and failures at interpreting the Bible accurately, Fielding’s characters are all the more realistic because of their subjectivity.
Matrimony, affection, reliance on God, and God’s sovereignty are key religious issues for the characters throughout the novel. The misunderstandings in the novel regarding marriage seem to arise from isolating one passage of scripture from its context in the rest of the Bible. A thorough reading of the entire text is necessary to correctly apply any one verse. Parson Adams correctly views God’s sovereignty and power over mankind, as supported by various passages in scripture. His failure to live up to the standards his doctrine calls him to leads him into hypocrisy in the plot of the novel.
Joseph Andrews, the pure and respectable young hero, adheres to many of the Christian virtues that were exalted in his society. His passion, however, especially for his fiance Fanny, cloud his correct view of Biblical teachings, if he did in fact ever really study them. His sense of ‘doing what is right’ or what ‘feels right’ may have taken precedence over the presumed authority of Biblical teaching.
Love Your Wife
Parson Adams must have an extensive knowledge of the Bible by virtue of his profession as a parson, but he sometimes takes scripture out of context or applies his own personal slant to the teaching instead of remaining faithful to the Biblical text. When Joseph claims to love Fanny, Parson Adams warns him about the sin of excess of love for one’s wife. Adams claims that loving a wife too much is wrong and foolish, a practice that feeds the earthly, and naturally sinful flesh. He says that love in marriage should be moderate and discrete.
“Yes, but such Love is Foolishness and wrong in itself, and ought to be conquered,” answered Adams, “it savours too much of the Flesh.” “Sure, sir,” said Joseph, “it is not sinful to Love my Wife, no not even to doat on her to Distraction!” “Indeed but it is,” says Adams. “Every Man ought to love his Wife, no doubt; we are commanded to do so; but we ought to love her with Moderation and Discretion.” “I am afraid I shall be guilty of some Sin despite all my Endeavours,” says Joseph; “For I shall love without any moderation, I am sure” (Fielding 243).
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A look at scripture, which Adams undoubtedly had read, shows more than just a faulty interpretation. He blatantly disregards the teaching found in the Bible, most strikingly, the teaching in Ephesians 5. Joseph’s assertion that he will love without moderation or restraint is actually closer to the Biblical ideal of love in marriage. The apostle Paul wrote:
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” Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church,
without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church.” Ephesians 5:25-29
Biblical scripture clearly paints a picture of a self-sacrificing love that loves and protects the other person – to the point of death. A husband is to love his wife as he loves his own body and is to nourish his wife the way he nourishes his own body, since they are, according to Genesis 2:24, “One flesh.” As the husband cares for his wife he is caring for himself, or in popular terms, “his other half.”
Adams may have been trying to explain love in the context of the first commandment or of Jesus’ warning in Luke 14. According to Scripture, love for anything that exceeds love for God is sin.
Jesus teaches in Matthew 22:37, ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment.”
In Luke 14:26 Jesus teaches his disciples, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” Because of other teaching throughout the Bible, it is clear that Jesus is not commanding hatred . Rather, the common interpretation is that Jesus is saying that his disciples should appear to hate their families and even their own lives compared to the overwhelming and consuming love they have for him.
Loving a wife above God, then, is sinful according to the Bible and is rightly condemned by Parson Adams. To love a human above God would be idolatry, or as Adams says, a desire “too much of the flesh,” and not a pure desire of the Spirit. However, if Adams meant to convey this particular warning against idolatry he missed his mark and only achieved irritating the young lover in his company.
God’s Sovereignty in Disaster
When Joseph is forced to wait before he can marry Fanny, he falls into despair, while Parson Adams remains stoic. He says to Joseph: “When any Accident threatens us, we are not to despair, nor when it overtakes us, to grieve; we must submit in all things to the Will of Providence, and not set our affections so much on things here, as not to be able to quit it without Reluctance” (Fielding 241).
In another incident he says: “…all Misfortunes, how great soever, which happen to the Righteous, happen to them for their own Good.–Nay it is not your Interest only, but your duty to abstain from immoderate Grief; which if you indulge, you are not worthy the Name of a Christian” (Fielding 208).
Many passages in the Bible support Adams’ philosophy here. Each part of Adams’ speech to Joseph can be paralleled to scripture.
Adams says “we are not to despair” when we are overcome by tragedy. The Bible reveals that God com
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mands the same. One of many verses addressing this is the well known Psalm chapter 23:
“The LORD is my shepherd; I have everything I need …
Even when I walk through the dark valley of death, I will
not be afraid, for you are close beside me. Your rod and
your staff protect and comfort me.” Psalm 23: 1, 4
Fanny provides an example of Parson Adams’ teachings to not allow her fears to get the best of her. Even though she had been kidnapped and threatened with rape, she trusts God to protect her virtue. While kidnapped, Fanny recognizes God’s power and asks him for help; “She lifted her Eyes to Heaven, and supplicated the Divine Assistance to preserve her Innocence” (Fielding 210).
The book of 2 Corinthians is encouraging to Christians facing persecution. The apostle Paul reminds them that suffering is part of the Christian way of life. It is unavoidable. He writes; “We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet
not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as
having nothing, yet possessing everything.” 2 Corinthians 6:8-10
Paul describes a pitiful way of life in this passage , and yet the Christians have hope. They can and should live, as Joseph is, “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” Paul explains the basis for the Christian believer’s hope: “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.” 2 Corinthians 4:8-10
Christians believe that Jesus Christ (“the anointed one”) died so that naturally sinful men could be reconciled to God. Apart from faith in Christ no man has any hope of being in heaven with God when they die because of daily and habitual rebellion against God. But the believer can be assured that upon death he will go to heaven because Christ has died to bear his deserved punishment. So despite tribulations, Christians can and should be joyful and hopeful, knowing that their greatest need, that of salvation, has been met. Grief and despair is inappropriate in the Christian because it contradicts their belief in their eternal security. No matter what happens on this earth, the Christian has hope for a far more wonderful afterlife which should always be a cause for joy in their hearts.
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Because of this hope, the Christian calling is radical; they are not only to cease despairing, but are actually called to rejoice in suffering, for in suffering they are made more like Christ. “But rejoice insofar as you share in Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.” 1 Peter 4:13
Adams also reminds Joseph that men must “not set our affections so much on things here, as not to be able to quit it without Reluctance.” Scripture upholds this teaching.
In the first letter of John, the apostle warns Christians about loving the world. He writes, “Do not love the world or the things in the world… For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires.” 1 John 2:15
Parson Adams (quite ungraciously) tells Joseph that if he indulges in immoderate grief, “you are not worthy the Name of a Christian” (Fielding 208).
This is a bold statement, but holds truth beneath the surface. Trials are intended to test the Christian’s faith, and perhaps if one failed miserably he would be found to not be a Christian at all. In the first letter of Peter this insight is found; “…now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
In one instance though, Adams completely disregards his own message when he himself experiences grief. He explains to Joseph that
“All passions are criminal in their Excess, and even Love itself, if it is not subservient to our Duty, may render us blind to it. Had Abraham so loved his Son Isaac, as to refuse the sacrifice required, is there any of us who would not condemn him” (Fielding 243)?
Shortly before this speech, Adam receives news that his youngest child has drowned. When Joseph tries to comfort the parson, Adams blatantly rejects it, allowing himself to be blinded by his grief. He explains his hypocritical reasoning to Joseph, in the midst of bitter weeping, “‘Child, Child,’ said he, do not go about Impossibilities. Had it been any other of my Children I could have born it with patience; but my little Prattler, the Darling and Comfort of my old Age–the Little Wretch to be snatched out of Life just at his Entrance into it…” (Fielding 242).
Soon after, Adams discovers his son is alive. He displays amazing resilience to grief and resumes his lecture on excessive emotion to Joseph, reasoning; “Thou art ignorant of the Tenderness of fatherly Affection; when thou art a Father thou wilt be capable then only of knowing what a Father can feel. No Man is obliged to Impossibilities, and the Loss of a Child is one of those great trials where our Grief may be allowed to become immoderate” (Fielding 243). Though Parson Adams appears to be talking out of clerical authority, he is clearly speaking out of his emotions. The book of Genesis tells a different story about the expectation’s of a father’s love. When Abraham was asked to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice to God, he willingly obeyed–there were no exceptions to his obedience because of fatherly attachment. “Genesis Ch. 22. ” … “
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Parson Adams’ references to scripture reinforce the importance he places on obedience to the scriptures. His principles are accurate and supported by the Biblical text: Mankind is to rely on God in situations for distress. Yet the scriptures do not provide any exceptions towards fathers for these guidelines– as Parson Adams suggests–but man and woman are to uphold the statutes and in times of distress look to an omnipresent help.
God’s Power Over Mankind
Parson Adams explains to Joseph that God has the ultimate authority over the lives of men. As the created beings, men don’t have the right to complain to or question God in a challenging way. Adams says: “We did not make ourselves, but the same Power which made us, rules over us, and we are absolutely at his Disposal; he may do with us what he pleases, nor have we any Right to complain” (Fielding 207).
Scripture affirms the idea that God created each human individually. The psalmist writes, “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Psalm 139:13-14
In Colossians, the writer describes all existing things as being created by and for Christ, the Son of God. “By him [Christ] all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.” Colossians 1:16
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Romans 9 most directly parallels Adams teaching that humanity must not complain about God’s sovereignty over their lives. “But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? Romans 9:20-21. This passage from the Bible says almost exactly what Adams says to Joseph. God, like a potter, molds each person however he wishes. The scripture poses the idea; wouldn’t it be ridiculous for the clay pot, something which owes its very existence to the potter, to angrily question the way it was formed?
Works Cited:
Fielding, Henry. Joseph Andrews. 1st. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1987.
Contributers:
Charlene Taylor
Lauren Southard
Lindsay Milbourne