drain-express-london

Having mentioned that the Geneva Bible was used by Shakespeare, let me take this occasion to express my conviction that Othello is an extended pun on this pseudo-Pauline definition of faith. The word “faith”—in a variety of semantic contexts—punctuates that play from beginning to end, ever more intensely as Othello’s doubts about Desdemona’s faithfulness turn into false certainty. Through Iago’s manipulation of the evidence, Othello sees something that is not there. Yet it is Othello’s own lack of faith in her that causes him to see in Desdemona’s purloined handkerchief the material evidence of things not seen, i.e., her betrayal of him, which never took place.

I believe that the verse in question from the Letter to the Hebrews also seeped into the latent recesses of the opening sentence of the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” We should recall here that Jefferson and his colleagues made a minor revision to that sentence before presenting their draft to Congress. The prerevised version read: “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable….” The difference between “self-evident” and “sacred” is considerable. From the point of view of enlightened reason, a self-evident truth is manifestly true. Its veracity does not need to appeal to external authority. A sacred truth, by contrast, has a transcendent source that lies beyond the bounds of confirmation by reason.

Yet what could be less self-evident—when one looked at history, nature, or human society in the eighteenth century—than the equality of men or government by consent of the governed? Everywhere one turned one saw only inequality and oppression, nowhere inalienable rights and consent of the governed. To whom, then, are the Declaration’s truths self-evident? To those who are making the declaration—those who are declaring their faith in truths they deem self-evident. The Declaration of Independence is at bottom a declaration of faith in a certain type of government not yet seen on this earth.