Gabriel Ellsworth
English 125: Major English Poets
Professor Linda Peterson
1st May 2009

T. S. Eliot and the Spiritual State of Society:

The Propagation of the Christian Faith in “Mr. Eliot’s Sunday Morning Service”

Throughout his career, Thomas Stearns Eliot was concerned with the spiritual depth, or lack thereof, in the life of the modern man. Often in Eliot’s poetry, an everyday scene inspires reflection on the part of the speaker about his own spiritual state and that of those he observes. In “Mr. Eliot’s Sunday Morning Service,” Eliot describes his experience at a church service.¹ The images and the theological concepts that he considers while at church lead him to the realization that for the worshippers at church, and more broadly for the society of Eliot and his contemporaries, the Christian faith has lost the meaning and relevance that it once had and should have. In “Mr. Eliot’s Sunday Morning Service,” Eliot suggests that Christianity has become static in modern society and no longer produces its once characteristic sense of ongoing, self-renewing fulfillment; moderns do not know the vital, self-propagating power of Christian revelation.

At first, Eliot’s surroundings at church suggest the generative power of the Christian faith. Eliot opens the poem with what appears to be a description of the stained glass windows of the church: “Polyphiloprogenitive / The sapient sutlers of the Lord / Drift across the window-panes” (1-3).² Presumably, the “sutlers” are the saints depicted in the stained glass. A sutler is a supplier of an army; by describing the saints as sutlers, Eliot attributes a very active role to them. Eliot draws on the traditional Christian metaphor of spiritual warfare as the cause that animates the faith. He suggests that the saints in the stained glass are involved in this conflict even now, long after they died. These great figures of the faith are supporting those who should currently be fighting the battle, namely those in the pews where Eliot finds himself. The verb that Eliot attributes to the sutlers is also noticeably active. Rather than being confined to one spot, the saints are, as Eliot experiences them, drifting and thus drawing the worshippers’ attention to the models of active Christian behavior that they represent. The saints are not simply moving about for show; Eliot hints that their movement is generative with the opening word of the poem. “Polyphiloprogenitive” may or may not technically be a neologism, but even if there are uses of it recorded in the 19^th century, they are surely few enough that Eliot’s use of the word is no less striking for their existence. Because the word itself is original, it suggests that the saints propound a faith that is fundamentally renewing and transformative.

Eliot further suggests the active propagation of the Christian faith with his Biblical allusion. After describing the drifting of the sutlers, he declares, “In the beginning was the Word” (4). Eliot quotes the famous opening words of the Gospel according to Saint John. In this passage, John describes the Incarnation in very august terms that lay the ground for the rest of the story of Jesus. This passage is familiar enough to the Christian ear that Eliot can expect many of his readers to know what follows it.³ Eliot demonstrates an important function of his allusions with this reference: by the mere fact that John’s words are so recognizable, Eliot invites the reader to complete the sentence whose beginning he quotes. Eliot evokes the awe-inspiring language of John’s opening verses with only one line; his ability to do so shows the power that this passage of Scripture commands over the members of a culture with Christian heritage, such as Eliot’s. The reference, by reminding the reader of how influential John’s words have been, shows the power of the Christian message to be passed down and experienced actively through the ages.

In the second stanza, Eliot’s reference to Origen hints at a disjunction between Christianity’s essential message and its practice. After repeating the allusion to the Gospel of John, Eliot writes, “Superfetation of to en, / And at the mensual turn of time / Produced enervate Origen” (6-8). He continues to associate the revelation of Christian truth, especially the Incarnation, with fertility. This association is threatened, if not broken down entirely, when Eliot refers to Origen of Alexandria. Origen interpreted Christ’s words about “eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake” (Matthew 19:12) literally and castrated himself. In the context of “Mr. Eliot’s Sunday Morning Service,” in which Christian truth inspires generation, Origen’s self-emasculation seems questionable, if not thoroughly inappropriate. In the first stanza of the poem, the saints in the window and a passage from Scripture testify to the power of the Christian faith to propagate itself, which Origen literally prevents himself from doing. Eliot’s reference to Origen’s castration depends on an obsolete usage of “enervate.” In modern usage, the word generally means “weakened” or “lacking vigor.” Thus, Origen’s epithet suggests that, regardless of his intentions, Origen weakens the Christian faith because he cannot pass it on to progeny.⁴

Eliot further complicates the question of how and whether the Christian faith can retain its vitality with his description of a painting. At first, when he introduces the image, Eliot describes it almost as an art historian might: “A painter of the Umbrian school / Designed upon a gesso ground / The nimbus of the Baptized God” (9-11). He identifies the artist by a particular style known to connoisseurs of art, and he names the material on which the image is painted.⁵ This suggests that Eliot is at first removed from the painting, viewing it with an almost academic detachment. He is conscious of the fact that the nimbus was created within the context of a specific work of art by a historical painter. However, Eliot goes on to say, “The wilderness is cracked and browned. / But through the water pale and thin / Still shine the unoffending feet” (12-14). Eliot shifts to the present tense, which suggests that he is entering into a direct experience of the painting. It is as though he is watching Christ’s baptism directly with his own eyes. However, this experience is only momentary. Eliot finishes his description of the poem by completing the Trinity in the past tense: “And there above the painter set / The Father and the Paraclete” (15-16). Eliot is once again conscious of the fact that he is viewing a work of art created by a human being. He sees the Father and the Paraclete where he does because of a decision made by the painter, not necessarily because of any divine truth about the presence of the Trinity in Christ’s baptism. The scene of Christ’s baptism begins and ends in Eliot’s experience as an artifact to be viewed at a temporal distance.

The Christian faith has lost its immediacy for the other worshippers at the church service as well as for Eliot in his viewing of the painting. He writes, “The sable presbyters approach / The avenue of penitence; / The young are red and pustular / Clutching piaculative pence” (17-20). Eliot describes the priests going through the motions of the service and the young people holding offerings for the collection plate. Both of these groups are performing actions that could be part of authentic Christian practice. However, Eliot does not describe the spiritual benefits that should flow from these actions; rather, they seem static and unfulfilling. The presbyters “approach” the avenue of penitence, but Eliot never confirms that they in fact reach it. The priests come close to walking the Christian path of true repentance, but Eliot does not show them actually participating in this essential part of the Christian life. The young people, for their part, are described with a neologism: “piaculative.” Unlike the saints in the stained glass, however, the youth do not seem more generative or awe-inspiring because of the use of an unfamiliar word. Eliot never describes the pence achieving any sort of redemption or renewal for the youth. Beginning in the second stanza, Eliot has suggested the failure of the Christian message to be passed on and carried out in the fullness of its essential vitality. In its context within the poem, the neologism “piaculative” suggests a lack of real meaning in the clutching of the pence; it does not correspond to true spiritual sacrifice or pardon. Eliot seems to confirm over the course of the rest of poem that neither the presbyters nor the youth achieve any meaningful spiritual result from their actions. The only further description of the worshippers is in the next stanza. Eliot describes them standing “[u]nder the penitential gates” (21) but never indicates that they pass through the gates or that they experience any kind of true penitence.

At the end of the poem, Eliot suggests that it is not just the worshippers in the particular church where Eliot finds himself who fail to see the profound implications of the Christian message; rather, this failure is societal. The bees of the penultimate stanza perform a “[b]lest office of the epicene” (28) by fertilizing the flowers in the garden. The bees serve as a reminder of the importance of propagation in the natural life cycle; Eliot likely describes their work as “[b]lest” because it contributes to propagation, which he associates with the continued presence and relevance of Christian revelation at the beginning of the poem. Sweeney is the first of two figures in the final stanza of the poem who contrast with the bees. Eliot writes, “Sweeney shifts from ham to ham / Stirring the water in his bath” (29-30). Whereas the bees’ motion serves to generate new life, Sweeney’s motion seems merely self-indulgent; he moves to make himself comfortable. The stirring of the water contrasts with the description of Christ’s baptism earlier in the poem, where Christ’s feet “through the water pale and thin / Still shine” (13-14). Jesus retains his radiance even when covered with water because the water of baptism is a sign of something greater: that his life has been consecrated to a purpose. Sweeney, on the other hand, seems comfortably ensconced in his bathwater, in which he moves for his own comfort. The image of Sweeney bathing is, by comparison to the painting, the image of a modern man failing to look beyond himself to the truth expressed in the mysteries of Christian tradition.

Eliot concludes the poem with a rather cryptic couplet that further suggests that modern society overlooks the importance of Christian truth. After describing Sweeney in the bath, he writes, “The masters of the subtle schools / Are controversial, polymath” (31-32). Eliot recognizes that the masters do know a great deal by calling them “polymath,” but he provides no indication that they are any more aware than the other figures in the poem of the continuing relevance of the Christian message. “Polymath,” in designating what the masters have learned, also calls attention to the knowledge that is missing for most of the poem, beginning perhaps as early as the mention of Origen. Eliot as he considers the painting, the worshippers at church, and Sweeney all contribute to the impression that society does not know the transforming power of Christian truth. They lack this knowledge because the process of self-propagation that characterizes this truth at the beginning of the poem has for some reason been halted. The masters may know much about specific fields with which polymaths are familiar, but they have not received the revelation of God in the Christian story. “Controversy” comes from a Latin word meaning “turned against.” Perhaps the masters are “controversial” in this etymological sense; for all that they know, they seem only to confirm that modern society’s attitude towards religion has turned against the nature of Christian truth, relegating it to the past rather than recognizing its continuing power for the present and promise for the future. Insofar as the masters presumably represent the highest levels of knowledge in society, they help Eliot advance a broader societal diagnosis, for they show that Eliot’s modern society as a whole lacks an appropriate awareness of the transformative, regenerative power of the true essence of the Christian faith.

1. For the purposes of my analysis, I will assume that Eliot himself is the speaker of this poem. The title suggests that Eliot is in fact describing his own experience. In any case, spiritual barrenness, a common theme in Eliot’s work, seems to be a general trend that he observes in modern society, and thus my analysis does not depend on the speaker’s having any exact identity.

2. T. S. Eliot, “Mr. Eliot’s Sunday Morning Service,” from Poems, 1920, in The Waste Land and Other Poems, ed. Frank Kermode (New York: Penguin, 2003), pp. 49-50. Some details about the text are drawn from Kermode’s notes to the poem, p. 95.

3. “… and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.” (John 1:1b-2, King James Version)

4. Whether Eliot is casting a judgment on the historical figure of Origen for the act of self-castration is a question that I have neither time nor space to treat here. At the very least, though, Origen in the context of the poem reminds the reader that Christians may find it difficult to live out and carry forward their faith authentically.

5. This painting is probably not in the church whose service Eliot is attending. Nevertheless, it is relevant for his analysis of the Sunday morning service, because it inspires reflection on Eliot’s part about a story and concepts that he might consider while sitting in the pews.