ADAM AND EVE AND A BOY CALLED JOE

A conversation between a priest and a boy with an enquiring mind

The Priest, cane in hand and quivering with rage, glared at the boy Joe.

"I tell you it's true, as true as we stand here, and if you think otherwise I'll have to let you have a dose of this stick, if only to save your immortal soul!" he shouted with what some might think was an unpriestly ferocity.

The boy stared back, a look bordering on defiance.

"It can't be true," he began, "babies aren't made like that. We did it in Biology. It's sperms and eggs and mummies and daddies who love each other...”

"I tell, you, not this time!" screeched the Priest. "The Angel came down, from the Lord, and told Mary she was going to have a baby, and that was that. It was special because God is God and shouldn't be questioned. God can make a baby any way he chooses and shouldn't be questioned by a small boy about to receive stripes on his bottom!"

"Without any sperms?" asked that small boy. "And without an egg being fertilised? With just words? The angel just spoke words, and Mary was pregnant? Just like that?"

"It says so in the good book, and its sacred pages are right about everything it says," said the Priest, calming down, though the boy noticed his cane still twitched in his hand, and he'd been on the receiving end of that cane before. He knew how much it hurt when it gave him stripes.

"Everything?" asked the boy.

"Absolutely everything. That much I know, you can be sure of that"

"About Adam and Eve?"

"Yes, even about Adam and Eve and the wonderful, marvellous truth that they were the first people."

"I don't get it."

That cane twitched again. "You don't get it?" The expression on the priest's face was dangerous again. He was in the mood for administering a sacred thrashing and this boy was a likely recipient.

"They had kids," said the boy. “You told me that, and anyway, if they hadn't had kids there wouldn't be any people anywhere by now.

"Yes, Adam and Eve had sons," agreed the Priest. "They had lots of children. Cain and Abel and Seth, and in their turn they had children too... It's how the human race began and don't listen to anyone who tries to gainsay that!"

"When they grew up?"

"Of course, when they grew up. They were hardly likely to breed when they were in nappies! That sort of thing isn't done now and it wasn't done then!"

"And so they had wives?"

That cane twitched again, dangerously this time. "Of course they did!" shouted the Priest. "A man needs a wife in order to make babies!"

"So were their wives angels, like the one who came to Mary?" asked the boy.

"What do you mean, boy? I'll give you six of the best on that nice round bottom of yours if you're having me on!"

"It's just that if Adam and Eve were the very first people anywhere on the world..."

"That they were! The Bible, that wonderful book of unquestionable truth, says so."

"Where did Cain and Abel and Seth find their wives?"

"In another land! It says so in the Bible! In another land! I'll have you bending over and receiving such a thrashing..."

Joe was desperate for understanding. "But you just said Adam and Eve were first. There was nobody in any other land - no men and women to produce the girls their sons would marry... It doesn't make sense..."

The Priest flexed his cane between his two hands and took a step nearer the boy. "Of course it makes sense! It's in the Bible!" he screamed. “The Bible is ultimate sense!”

"So was there another virgin birth back then...?" stammered the boy.

"It says nothing about that, so there was no such thing, wretched child!"

"But Mary ... the mother of Jesus..."

"That was different!"

"So where did all the wives come from, for the sons of Adam to marry?"

"They were there, wretched boy, there, in other lands, like it says. Like I say. Like my stick says!"

"I don't understand, sir..."

"Then, sonny Joe, I'd better beat the truth into you. Bend you over here, right here, right in front of me, and I'll thrash that arse of yours until it's black and blue all over, and you'll learn not to question the good book and its infinite wisdom! Just you bend down, nice and low, and we'll give this stick of mine an outing... it'll teach you to think straight, that it will...”

“No, sir … I only need to know...”

“And this cane of mine will teach you, have no fear. It will teach you good and well like once upon a time when I was your age it taught me...”

Reviews

[Peter Rogerson]

I don't like to post too many stories criticising the beliefs of others, but this one illustrates how I believe religion in one form or another can be forced into the minds of the young. There aren't so many cruel priests, though!!!