Translator’s note: Isn’t this article a recommendation like the others in the series, but an analysis of a specific aspect of the novel?Also, read John Piper’s text O Talento by Victor Hugo, which I published on the Medium platform (link here).
Victor Hugo’s Miser-veis is always a topic of discussion, and for good reason.
- Christians.
- In particular.
- Rightly celebrated the portrait of the beauty of mercy and grace in this moving story of more than 150 years.
- Most theological analyses have pitted Javert.
- The law-obsessed inspector.
- Against Valjean.
- The thief transformed by grace.
Although many of these analyses have been absolutely accurate, it is important not to lose a biblical and theological reality. Let me put it this way: many regard Javert as an accomplished legalist, the embodiment of a stubborn concern for perfect obedience to God’s righteous. The problem is this: this is not the case.
Undoubtedly, Javert is a legalist from head to toe, but the law that shapes your obsession is not the law of God, the law of Moses, or the law of Christ. with a layer of religiosity, but it has only a fleeting resemblance to something biblical.
The Apostle Paul says that the law is holy, just, and good (Romans 7:12), but there is nothing holy about sentenced a hungry man to five years in prison for stealing bread. There’s nothing fair to stigmatizing this man like a dangerous man. out of the law for the rest of his life. There’s nothing good about a law (or law enforcement officer) obsessed with capturing a former thief on parole while tolerating stubborn criminals like Thenardier.
The law that loves Javert is a bureaucratic network that traps the poor and favors the rich. Javert’s society oppresses widows and orphans, pushing them into prostitution and theft as a means of survival. Javert’s law favors the affidavit of the rich rather than the affidavit of the rich. a trembling and helpless woman (at the same time as the powerful seek to please her lust in the marigot of the city). Javert’s law provides the poor with a vexing, animal and (fantine) life fortunately short.
So that this condemnation of the ruling class in Os Miser-veis is not regarded as an endorsement of “angry men” and their revolutionary ideology, let me say that I regard the glorification of revolutionary violence as one of the most central and subtle seductions in the book of Hugo, something that wise Christians will recognize and reject.
Miser-veis romanticizes the Revolution and the utopian radicalism in which it overestimated: the divinization of the “People”, the glorification of the “barricade”, the obsession with overthrowing the past and recreating the world. To reach heaven? his blood and martyrdom for the cause and for the “people” but the true “angry men” (or rather their predecessors in 1789) bequeathed to us the guillotine and the Temple of Reason on their way to “Freedom, Equality and Fraternity”. The old regime was appalling, but the revolutionaries turned out to be worse.
Differentiating Javert’s legalism from biblical law is more than a purely semantic interest. This can influence how Christians read the Old Testament. This can perpetuate the idea that attempts to faithfully obey God’s law are problematic and imperfect from the outset, when such efforts are truly worthy and commendable, provided that they are based on faith in Jesus and the certainty that we have been accepted by God.
Consider it this way: if Jesus (or Moses) came to Javert, he would not condemn him for his meticulous attempts to keep God’s law; I would condemn him for neglecting God’s law, especially his most important issues: mercy, justice, and faith (Matthew 23:23). In other words, Javert would be condemned as a Pharisee, because that’s exactly what he is.
But let us not forget the heart of Jesus’ condemnation of the Pharisees: he condemns them because they violate the law (Matthew 23:2-3), for their human traditions that surpass the law of God (Matthew 15: 3-7), because their love of money (Luke 16:14), for oppressing the poor and vulnerable (Matthew 23. 14), for not having sufficiently appreciated the Law (because if they did , they would recognize Jesus as their achievement. )
And let us not forget that it is Jesus who radicalizes the question of obedience in the Sermon on the Mountain, by calling it?What so-called guardians? They would have asked for forgiveness (convoitise, anger, oath). All this means, in the case of The Miserables, that we will not equate Javert’s obedience to obedience to God’s Law or Christian obedience (unlike Christian grace and mercy). In fact, if we think biblically, Valjean is the true guardian of the law. , which defends the most important issues, protects the vulnerable, the poor and the oppressed, and keeps the Great Commandments (love of God and neighbour) because it was bought by the grace of God (in the silver objects of the bishop).
I’m not saying the Wretched don’t communicate the beauty of mercy. Does he certainly? And he does it dramatically. Nor do I say that Javert is not an example of all that is wrong with humanity. Indeed, this analysis shows how widespread The human tendency is to establish false laws, be it the traditions of the Pharisees, the ethnocentric boast of the law of the Judaists, the bureaucratic minutiae of Javert, the excessive scruples of fundamentalists or the hate crimes of progressives, human beings like to break God’s law by erecting their own. We’re rebels, and that’s what we’re doing.
So, yes, use Miserable Bones as an illustration in Sunday school; present it as a way to initiate an evangelical dialogue with a colleague; but in doing so, be aware of what you are doing. Don’t equate Javert with the Law as God, destined to. Instead, try this as an exercise: criticize Javert and the society he represents based solely on the Old Testament. Limit yourself, who knows, even the Pentateal.
Remember that the God of all grace, the God of astonishing mercy, the God of redeemed sinners is revealed not only in Matthew and Romans, but also in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Remember that the world we aspire to see is a world in which to walk according to the Spirit, and thus the precept of the law is fulfilled in us (Romans 8. 4). Remember, it would probably be Valjean, not Javert, who would echo David’s song in Psalm 119: “Oh, how much I love your Law!”