Jean-Charles Pichon : un potlatch littéraire

En 1994, au cours d’un congé sabbatique, Jean-Paul Debenat effectue des recherches sur l’Homme Sauvage dans le Pacifique Nord-Ouest. Il séjourne dans l’état de Washington et rassemble des documents et informations sur le Sasquatch, « l’homme de la forêt », en langue des Indiens Salish.

Rattaché administrativement à l’Université d’Etat de Washington, il y prononce une conférence le 18 mai 1994, introduction à la vie et l’oeuvre de son ami Jean-Charles Pichon. Le titre, « un potlatch littéraire », renvoie à la tradition cérémonielle de distribution de cadeaux – le potlatch – en usage chez les Amérindiens du Pacifique Nord-Ouest. Pendant plusieurs jours, voire plusieurs semaines, un village recevait un village voisin et, tout en festoyant, chargeait les bras des invités de cadeaux parfois somptueux. A charge aux heureux récipiendaires d’organiser à leur tour un potlatch pour le moins aussi brillant. Les clans et les tribus faisaient ainsi assaut de richesses, créant un système d’échanges – que les autorités blanches s’efforcèrent d’interdire

Jean-Charles Pichon : a literary potlatch

I met Jean-Charles Pichon for the first time in the winter of 1980. At that time, I was working on my dissertation for a Ph.D. in Comparative literature which was centered on American S.F. writer Robert Anson Heinlein.

My topic was: the esoteric structures in Robert Heinlein’s four Hugo Award-winning novels, including the cult-book Stranger in a strange land.

A man of impressive stature was facing me, with his long silvery hair and beard, dark eyebrows and piercing eyes. He listened to me attentively. Then he said:

« You wish to know whether the works of Robert Heinlein contain the great myths, or ideas as Plato defined them, or structures as Levi-Strauss called them, or archetypes as Jung termed them, or even gods or deities if you prefer, the myths which are driving forces behind the historical avatars of humanity. Your problem is a simple one: through the ages what are the great works that have survived? Precisely the ones which tell the mythical story of humanity, the real story, that which is apparently hidden, esoteric. These books will never die while hundred of publications are still-born.

They are called: the Gilgamesh epic, the Popol-Vuh, The Bible, Homer’s Odyssey, the Coran, the Divine Comedy,Cervantes’Don Quixote, Shakespeare’s plays, part of Victor Hugo’s writings etc. You will only have to re-read them in order to decide whether Heinlein’s mythology in its modern guise compares favorably with the great ebb and flow of ancient mythologies ».

I was dumfounded, almost speechless. On my way back, I kept trying to assess the Herculean task which lay ahead of me.

Jean-Charles Pichon had lent me his trilogy La Vie des Dieux (The Lives of the Gods) published in 1972. I read it seriously during the following summer in the small farm-house I used to rent in the countryside. On my desk lay an encyclopedia and several dictionaries of mythology. Every minute I had to check who were Marduk, Apis, Horus, Brahma, Osiris or Baal to name but a few among the most well-known. Volume I dealt with the Gods of the elements (Les Dieux Phénoménaux), fire or light, water, earth, air or space.

Indeed, one is confronted with a unique God, under His various aspects or modalities, that Teilhard de Chardin called the Omega or Omega point.

The shamans, the wise-men, the Gnostics and the cabalists among others strove at identifying His many names.

The book is divided into four parts:

1 – The God of Fire: Yahweh speaks.

2 – The Goddess of Water: Wisdom speaks.

3 – The God of Air: Wind speaks.

4 – The Goddess of Earth: Mother speaks.

What do these gods have to say?

Let us listen briefly to the Goddess of Water, Wisdom:

« You put my very presence into question, for it is quite recent and many of you do not even know testimony that I have come back. However, one thousand signs bear testimony to my return: holism and atomism, nuclear science and psychoanalysis, the all-powerful technocrat and the cosmic spiral, the thirst for knowledge and above all the urge to comprehend which gets hold of everyone. As well as the cult for skin-diving, for baths and hygiene and the revival of all the virtues of water.

———————————————————————————————————-

Without knowing it clearly-although you will know it tomorrow – you are worshipping me. My name is Sophia ».

J.-C. Pichon says that in order to approach God – through His names – Man must renounce what he calls reason, invert all his previous concepts (i.e. must convert himself) and deny what he used to hold for certain.

I tend to believe that Pichon was either sufficiently humble or boisterous to apply this rule to himself. A number of writers were foolish enough to identify with God and very few succeeded. One notable exception was Thomas Mann with his own interpretation of the Old Testament. If Pichon felt assured enough to use the first person in Volume I, he dons the second person – in French « tu » – in Volume II, Les Dieux Humains (The Human Gods), thus establishing dialogues between the gods; for instance in part II entitled « The Messiah », the Virgin speaks to the Messiah. (The Messiah in question bore many names before settling for that of Jesus or Buddha. He once was Osiris, Apollo-dolphin, Job’s Leviathan, Jonah’s Whale, Vishnu’s Great Fish).

« Minute by minute, over a stretch of one thousand years, your peoples shared your baptism in the Water, your quest and your mission on the Earth, step by step, and your passion in the Fire and your ascent towards the Heavens, worshipping you in turn as a god of Air, Earth or Fire and more continuously as the Ichtus, the One who nourished, who suffered, who vanquished, from the first to the eleventh century.

Thus when I think of the two thousand years which preceded you, of the two thousand years when you came to reign, and then the two thousand years when your reign will dissolve, I simply think indeed of the three moments of the day when any of us comes to life, then shines in all glory and at last meets an inevitable form of decay… »

In these first two volumes, Pichon showed the extent of his erudition mentioning his sources through hundreds of notes and quoting authorized specialists as well as innumerable ancient texts. Everyone had to admit that from a historical point of view Les Dieux Phénoménaux and Les Dieux Humains were well documented. However, for some readers, Pichon proved critical, in a sense, when he commented on the Four Gospels. In Les Dieux Humains, he clearly shows the major differences in Matthew’s, Luke’s, Mark’s and John’s accounts of Jesus’ life.

Matthew remains close to Hebraic messianism which would not tolerate that the Law be abolished! Luke’s own symbol is Taurus, the Bull that the Sumerians called Marduk or God of Creation. Thus Luke who wrote under Nero’s reign, the emperor-artist, emphasizes the power and beauty of Jesus’ word. Mark spells like Mars almost, the God of War and Pichon compares his concise style to the arrow which flies straight to its goal. Under Luke’s pen, Jesus appears as a violent man whose furor is aimed at the Pharisees and the merchants of the temple.

Matthew’s portrait of Jesus is based on upon the gods of Air, Luke’s upon the Earth and mark’s upon the Archer or Sagittarius with his bow and arrow. Ultimately John was to depict Jesus in his proper perspective through an alliance between the Archer and the Serpent, or if one prefers, between Eros and Sophia.

John describes Jesus as born from Hermes and Venus-Aphrodite: a hermaphrodite whose maleness is revealed through the long beard and burning fire of the eyes and whose feminine side is reflected through the floating hair and long robe.

John stresses in Jesus the presence of the god of the unconscious, the inner word which is to be symbolized by the scorpion. He shares with women a quality, intuition, which helps him understand and consider them as sisters. Be they Martha, Mary or Mary-Magdalene. Although the latter may have been more than a sister… A trait that Pichon suggested in a novel Ceci est mon corps (This is my body) published at his own expense in 1947, and which compares favorably with Nikos Kazantzakis novel The Last Temptation of Christ.

It is in the third volume that Pichon gave rein to the poetic gifts which turned his trilogy into a remarkable combination of erudition and style. In Les Dieux Etrangers (The Alien Gods), Pichon considers that the gods did not only shape the past but that they are preparing the future. Especially one of them, the Alien, the Outsider who comes from elsewhere. His various components are already at work: the bird, the robot, the tree, the balance, the Mirror, the Holy Grail, all have their role to play whether it is negative or positive.

For the birth of the new god already proves arduous.

In fact, the question Pichon asks himself is: « Quel génie remplit l’amphore? » [What genius fills the jar?]. It is too early for us to see Him but everybody is longing for Him; « Him » is the god of liberty indeed. Still, liberty means something different for the rebel and the citizen, for the socialist and for the poet. Nonetheless the answers that Pichon provides are among the most inspiring one could ever expect.

A few years ago, while on a holiday in Algeria, the one and only book I brought with me was Les Dieux Etrangers whose short paragraphs I would read like poems.

I made a few enemies by letting some Algerian acquaintances browse through the book. It hurt their fundamentalist and nationalist feelings. They would have been angrier had they studied L’Islam dans le Coran (Islam within the Coran) published in 1981 by Editions Sophon/Coherence. Incidentally, this publishing firm was created by a French industrialist out of her admiration for Les Dieux Etrangers. The firm’s catalog includes four of Pichon’s esoteric works.

Pichon’s later works as published by Sophon/Coherence became more and more complex and require some serious esoteric initiation on the part of the reader.

However, L’Islam dans le Coran is an attempt at deciphering the sacred book of the Arabs. According to Pichon, the mysterious letters one finds preceding the Surats should be translated into numbers. These numbers then provide clues in order to understand the prophetic dimension of the book. For the Coran should not only be read as a spiritual guide but as a commentary on the various historical periods Mankind has been confronted with and will be confronted with.

Also published by Sophon/Coherence, Le Jeu de la Réalité (The Game of Reality), Volume I & II, analyzes works as different as The Book of Ezechiel, Franz Kafka’s, Alfred Jarry’s or even painter Marcel Duchamp’s works.

In them Pichon found a common structure, a sort of machinery whose interactive cog-wheels, if I may say so, and their layout constitute a complex figure. It is meant to represent the great cycles of Humanity. The courageous reader feels rewarded for his efforts when he comes to the conclusion that a number of works would be practically meaningless if Pichon had not exposed their underlying machinery or structure.

Mircea Eliade himself in one of his later books affirmed that only a historian of religions could trace the hidden motif which might render contemporary works of art or even phenomena meaningful (Occultism, witchcraft and cultural fashions – 1976). In his own demonstration, Pichon admits that he originally was inspired by Michel Carrouges’ fundamental study Les Machines Célibataires (The Bachelor Machines).

However, in spite of the admiration I bear to the trilogy La Vie des Dieux, I am bound to admit that the work which left the deepest impression is L’Homme et les Dieux (Man and Gods); first edition: 1965; second edition: 1968; reprinted in 1986.

One has to remark that this book was out of print for 16 years and there was good reason for it.

Nethertheless L’Homme et les Dieux is a formidable achievement extending over 560 pages. The subtitle indicates that it is a « thematic history of Humanity ».

The themes in question are the religions of mankind from the earliest cults of the cavemen (15 000 to 20 000 years B.C.) to the latest developments of spirituality as reflected by thinkers such as Freud, Jung, Gandhi, Krishnamurti, René Guénon or Teilhard de Chardin. In a concise and at times elliptical style, Pichon analyses hundred of major and minor religious beliefs. He devotes enlightening pages to the birth and growth of North-America considered above all as a religious and masonic nation. Pichon himself was a free-mason for some time and his views are all the more accurate and critical.

Of course, one is likely to find extensive details on the sects and secret societies in Pichon’s Histoire Universelle des sectes et sociétés secrètes (Vol. I & II 1968, reprinted in 1994). Still, one will pay special attention to the transformations which turned operative Free-masonry into speculative free-masonry after Anderson’s Constitution in 1723, for they help us to understand the shaping of the beliefs which led to the American and French revolutions.

L’Homme et les Dieux unfolds a succession of cycles which the author deciphers for us. The history of mankind then appears as a coherent whole with its climaxes and ages of darkness, depending on what point of the cycle one is considering.

Before Pichon’s attempt, every scholar, researcher or author, including Mircea Eliade affirmed that it was impossible to envision such a book; although Eliade had written Le Mythe de l’Eternel Retour (The Myth of the Eternal Return).

Only after L’Homme et les Dieux was published did Eliade dare undertake his gigantic study on the history of religions.

As usual with Pichon, his book met with a divided audience : those who wholly admired it and those who found it too poetic, too partial, too lyrical, in brief too far from academic standards. In my view, Pichon dared what very few writers achieved except R. Graves or Roger Caillois, a harmonious blend of poetic intuition and undaunted knowledge. It is worth noting here an anecdote which I hold from Professor Behler (chairman of the Department of Comparative Literature of the University of Washington in Seattle) to whom Eliade declared : « I consider myself as a novelist first and a historian of religions second ».

Pichon was a novelist first and perhaps he has never ceased to be one in a certain way.

Pichon’s experience as a journalist left him with a profound understanding of human nature. As a chief reporter he covered the main criminal cases of the post-war decade. He often witnessed imposture on all corners of the court-room and more than once sided with the accused especially when justice was but a pretext to revenge in the years following WWII.

Where were the monsters? On the bench between two policemen, testifying at the bar, presiding in long black robes, sitting among the jury or watching eagerly as spectators?

In Le Juge (The Judge), a novel of 1951, Pichon shows apt at describing the landscape, the inhabitants of a small mining town of Peru with its affluent families, hard-working miners and poor peons. The precision and veracity of the descriptions led me to ask the author: « I did not know you had ever visited South America. When did you stay there? » He answered he drew all his information from a Peruvian friend of his.

The main characters are Sam, the Indian judge who marries the daughter of a wealthy citizen, blonde and beautiful Margaret. The latter’s sister is almost a teenager, dark-haired and seductive Dalia. Very soon, Sam realizes that he is expected not to serve justice but to apply the laws as dictated by the important families of the town, everyone of which underlines that Sam may hold a university degree but that he remains an Indian, an outcast.

On his way to a hacienda where he knows the owner has hidden the criminal record file which he stole from the police-station, Sam is attacked by a half-tame puma set loose by the owner himself. Sam kills the beast with his bare hands, a feat which reminds us of the Book of Judges (14, 8): « And after a time he returned to take her and he turned aside to see the carcass of the lion: and behold, there was a swarm of bees and honey in the carcass of the lion ».

Let us quote Pichon now: « Nobody could understand him, unless one had eaten honey from the decaying carcass of an eighteen months lion ». Nothing could be clearer for bees are a symbol of Justice and there they feed on the rotting of a lion, a symbol of Hierarchy.

On the very day of his wedding, Sam puts forth a riddle while all the guests are assembled: Out from the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness ». But nobody could answer the riddle for everyone had forgotten the Book of Judges and thus paid no attention to the warning, the same Samson issued to the Philistines.

Then Sam takes justice into his own hands killing those who out of blackmail pushed Sylva, his best friend and the honest owner of a small mining operation, to commit suicide. Sylva is a Frenchman, an alien like Sam. His name comes from the Latin Silva, forest, and we all know that the tree is a symbol of Liberty.

Following Samson, the judge is bound in the end to be betrayed by the woman he has fallen in love with, Dalia.

The Judge follows very closely the story of Samson and Delilah, proving through the author’s transposition that the Old Testament still makes a fabulous – in the proper sense of the term – thriller and adventure story.

The novel is interspersed with phrases which read like aphorisms. For instance: « The Spirit of Revenge is red, but the Spirit of Justice is the pillar of the Temple; it is a rock, erect and bathed in Golden Light ». Or one of Sam’s last thoughts: « I entered the world of injustice the moment I was able to distinguish good from evil ».

Pichon showed a marked preference for the format of the roman noir whose American exponents were popular in the 1950’s after the Liberation of France; the French readers and critics greatly contributed to give this genre its lettres de noblesse.

During the same year 1951, another of Pichon’s novels, La Loutre (The Otter) was published. The hero, a travelling salesman, meets a young woman, Claire, a childhood playmate and falls in love with her. He decides he will kill his current wife, a trustworthy and amiable lady.

He elaborates an intricate alibi for himself and comes back to his house to commit the crime. He pours poison into his wife’s customary aperitif. But the drug is not potent enough and she manages to drag herself to the bed-room. Spying from the garden, he sees her silhouette staggering to the bed. He enters the house, and while she is almost unconscious hangs her to the bed-post with the electric cord of the bed-lamp and leaves. Hardly has he left the scene that he decides he had better check on his deed. The figure on the bed is still moaning. So he stifles her with the pillow, killing her at last and one might say for the third time for good measure.

He then catches the train to reach his alibi-place and learns, later, that his wife has been arrested for the assassination of the would-be lover of her husband. Actually, Claire, a friend of the couple had paid a visit and drunk the poison while waiting for the wife, late from work.

The salesman explains how he made up his alibi but the police do not believe him. They think he is trying to protect his wife who serves a fairly short term in prison. When she is released, her husband faces the same dilemma: how to get rid of her, for good this time.

The Otter in Western mythology is evidently linked with water, with the Moon and is to be taken as a symbol of Womanhood and Love. But Love has seemingly lost its meaning. The hero of La Loutre is an ordinary man who conceives an elaborate plot in order to escape the dullness of his marital life. The atmosphere of the novel is characterized by the lack of spiritual interests on the part of the protagonists and at the same time one can feel and almost measure the depth of some form of spiritual longing.

What distinguishes Pichon’s novels from the roman noir (of a Dashiell Hammett or James Hadley Chase for instance) is that there is no private detective. In fact, the private detective is the reader placed in a position to observe and appreciate the various elements of the drama.

Also typical of Pichon’s bitter irony is Il faut que je tue M.Rumann, 1950 (I must kill Mr Rumann) which was awarded a literary prize, Prix Sainte-Beuve, and was made into a television movie in 1960.

The hero is a printing-press operator at Mr Rumann’s printing firm. He punches in every morning like every worker. However, the time-clock falls one minute and a half behind each day. On Friday morning, when the hero gets up, he benefits from 7 and a half extra minutes before going to work. He then enjoys his breakfast at leisure for he feels a free man.

But one day, Mr. Rumann whom nobody has hardly ever seen pays a visit to his factory and he orders the foreman to check the time-clock every day.

On the following Friday, the hero deprived of his extra seven and half minutes looks at himself in the shaving-mirror and says aloud : « Il faut que je tue M. Rumann » [I must kill Mr. Rumann]. And then adds: « But why? » as if the phrase had been dictated by someone else. The answer comes in a flash: « Because he is the boss and I have got a revolver ».

Still Mr. Roman habits are quite secretive and the hero begins an investigation in the manner of a detective in order to find where he lives. For even the executive secretary whom he tries to seduce will not reveal this secret.

At last, one day the hero is on his way to take his revenge. He manages to walk, with a group of guests, into the large home of Mr. Roman who is giving a party. When the master of the house momentarily leaves his guests, he follows him to his bed-room, pulls out his revolver and tells him he will kill him. Unfortunately the master of the house is not Mr. Rumann. This home is the wrong place. Discovering this, our hero runs away, pursued by the guests. Fleeing through various gardens, he climbs up a wall and rings at the door of an imposing mansion. He tells the man in an evening gown who opens the door: « The police are after me! » The man lets him in and asks him why.

The hero tells his story: his only passion is literature; he wants to become a writer. He doesn’t derive the slightest pleasure from his job as a press-operator. Besides, Mr. Rumann has robbed him of his degree of freedom, those seven and a half minutes.

The man answers: « When I was your age, I burned with the same fiery passion. I wanted to write, ideas filled my mind but my style was miserable so I gave up. Rumann could never have made a name as an author ».

Our hero is even more startled when Mr. Rumann, for this is him, offers him a deal: « you will keep your salary but instead of working at my factory I will give you my journal and you will write my autobiography which I will sign with my own name ».

Little by little, the book takes shape to the delight of Mr. Rumann for the young man has put all his passion and talent in the account of his boss ‘life. In the end, after much toil, the book is completed. Mr. Rumann could not have hoped for a more perfect rendering of his own thoughts. He hands his ghost-writer his last check, pours two glasses and picks up his fountain-pen in order to sign the manuscript. Then our hero realizes he is not only being robbed of his time. He exclaims : « Il faut que je tue M. Rumann » and pulls out his revolver.

This crime is to be committed in the name of Liberty and Creation. The murderer is certainly likely to serve a longer term than the one who kills out of jealousy.

Remember A. Camus’ The Outsider? Wasn’t the hero’s crime placed under the sign of the Burning Sun ?

What court of justice could consider such motives as Liberty and Creation?

Couldn’t they at least explain, give some reasons, in a word couldn’t they try to justify their acts? And what of their intolerable coldness? Don’t they have a heart? Not only are they guilty for their deed but all the more for their attitude. This is why those culprits should be punished with the utmost severity. Incidentally the American Heritage Dictionary says under the word culprit: origin unknown. It simply means like the adjective culpable that the culprit who has cut himself from society should be removed from it. At the time the Outsider was written, it could – and did – mean having one’s head cut off.

In one of his autobiographies – Un homme en creux (The Hollow Man) – Pichon wrote : « … despair (or the sentiment of absurdity) was not bred from the lack of coherence of the Universe, but from the will, stronger than evidence, to find a meaning to all of our deeds, and from the belief instilled in us that we need a set of values ».

There are many ways of cutting oneself from the rest of society.

For example if you are a creator, creating entities, called Sam, the judge, or the salesman of the Otter and then the ghost-writer of Mr. Rumann. For Jean-Charles Pichon affirmed and demonstrated personally that the unity of the I, the much celebrated ego, in French je, was but a lure or a fiction.

And he showed that he was multiple, or rather that he was born with a number of potentialities that he had to express, shedding them like skins after they were exhausted, until death comes, which is the only moment perhaps when the individual can say I, having at last reached his unity: a view that Pichon confirmed or destroyed when he wrote: « I refuse to die since I is another entity ». [Je ne veux pas mourir parce que je est un autre].

However, the student of literature might ask: « Is there any sort of unity in Pichon’s impressive literacy output? »

André Gide, Jean Cocteau and Colette might provide an answer. Pichon met A. Gide one morning strolling in the Jardin du Luxembourg. In his typical manner he did not say he was an aspiring writer; but during the conversation with the old master, Gide declared looking Pichon straight into the eyes that he could detect a stamp of strangeness about him.

Jean Cocteau who admired Pichon’s works wrote to him that strangeness was the most striking and appealing feature of his literary output.

And when Colette, the celebrated female writer died she left Pichon’s novel Les Clés et la Prison (The Keys and the Jail) open on her bed-side table at a page containing an aphorism on the strangeness of human condition.

The student and the researcher would find a wealth of information in The Hollow Man (Un Homme en Creux) for it covers one decade of French literary history from 1946 to 1956. In it, Pichon speaks of Antonin Artaud, André Gide, Samuel Beckett, Ionesco, Paul Valéry, Hervé Bazin, Roland Barthes, Albert Camus. He also describes the birth of the « Théâtre de Poche » founded by his wife, actress France Guy, and his participation as a playwright in its creation.

But The Hollow Man is also a confession, most abrupt and devoid of any artifice, that of the terrible, violent and passionate relationship which marked his married life until his wife died in 1954 after a prolonged and mysterious illness dubiously termed tuberculosis.

Pichon confesses his liaisons with numerous lovers, women of letter, teachers and prostitutes. All the more politically incorrect, he invents a word: « carmiger » from the verb « charmer » (to charm, to seduce) and the verb « corriger » (to correct, to punish). « Carmiger » means to whip and « le carmige », this sweet sounding word means the whip that J.C. Pichon used for some years to satisfy the masochist desires of his lovers and his own sadistic tendencies. For another term could characterize his career: scandal. And it is true that his behavior, his approach of reality or realities were and remain scandalous. To the extent that some readers burnt their copy of Les Dieux Etrangers or Un Homme en Creux. For that matter, during the Second World War, let us remember that Pichon published his clandestine poems under the pen-name of Jean Noll (John the Devil in the Breton language).

But above all, one should consider, always, this other confession: « I lived the Judge from January to September 1951, Serum and Co. from September 1951 to June 1952. But between each experience, there was a crisis on which I can precisely put a date ».

The constant involvements, the utter poverty, the all encompassing meditation, the inbred need to pursue a long quest which led him to study the history of religions, appear to me as evidence of Pichon’s unquestionable sincerity and courage.

Seattle, 1994

Jean-Paul Debenat et Jean-Charles Pichon 1997

NERO

Encyclopedia Britannica

fifteenth edition

1974

History has branded the Roman emperor Nero with the reputation of being a monster of cruelty and has also credited him, on doubtful evidence, with the burning of Rome and the first persecution of the Christians. His appalling family background, stained as it was with incest and murder, no doubt accounted for his instability of character. This displayed itself in the unbounded vanity that caused him to nurse artistic and histrionic pretensions that seriously undermined his imperial dignity and helped to bring about his early death and, with it, the extinction of the Julio-Claudian line, which had descended from Julius Caesar. Proclaimed when he was not yet 17, he was the first boy emperor.

Nero was born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus in AD 37 in Rome. His father died in about AD 40, and Nero was brought up by his mother, Agrippina the Younger, great-granddaughter of the emperor Augustinus. After poisoning her second husband, Agrippina incestuously became the wife of her uncle, the emperor Claudius, and persuaded him to favor Nero for the succession, over the rightful claim of his own son Britannicus, and to marry his daughter Octavia to Nero. Having already helped to bring about the murder of Valeria Messalina, her predecessor as the wife of Claudius, in 48 and ceaselessly pursuing her intrigues to bring Nero to power, Agrippina eliminated her opponents among Claudius’ palace advisers, probably had Claudius himself poisoned in 54, and completed her work with the poisoning of Britannicus in 55. Earlier, Nero had passed his childhood under the menace of the mentally deranged emperor Caligula (Gaius Caesar), his mother’s brother, until Caligula was murdered and succeeded by Claudius.

Promising start. Brought up in this kind of atmosphere, Nero might well have begun to behave like a monster upon his accession as emperor in 54 but, in fact, behaved quite otherwise. When he was required to sign a death warrant for the first time, he cried « Why did they teach me how to write? » The testimony of his contemporaries depicts Nero at this time as a handsome young man of fine presence but with soft, weak features and a restless spirit, entirely under the influence of his terrifying mother, whom he censured and feared while he adored her. His first speech to the Senate was universally praised as heralding a new Golden Age. Up to the year 59 his biographers cite only acts of generosity and clemency on his account. Indeed, the measures he instigated were those of a wise and virtuous man: he forbade contests in the circus involving bloodshed, banned capital punishment, reduced taxes, and accorded permission to slaves to bring civil complaints against unjust masters. He pardoned writers of epigrams against him and even those who plotted him again, and secret trials were few. More independence was granted to the Senate. The law of treason was dormant: Claudius had put 40 senators to death, but, between the murders instigated by Agrippina in 54 and the year 62, there were no like incidents in Nero’s reign. He inaugurated competitions in poetry, and in athletics as counter-attractions to gladiatorial combats. He saw to it that assistance was provided to the city that had suffered disaster and at the request of the Jewish historian Josephus gave aid to the Jews. In all this, he was pursuing an intention that the philosopher Seneca, his old tutor and now his adviser, considered as mad – to remain innocent of any crime.

Artistic pretensions and religious mania. Although it must be admitted that his nocturnal rioting in the streets was a scandal as early as 56, the emergence of real brutality in Nero can be fixed in the 35-month period between the putting to death of his mother at his orders in 59 and his similar treatment of his wife Octavia in June 62. He was led to the murder of Agrippina by her insanity and her fury et seeing her son slip out of her control, to the murder of Octavia by his having fallen in love with Poppaea Sabina, the young wife of the senator (and later emperor) Otho, and by his fear that his repudiated wife was fomenting disaffection in court and among the populace. He married Poppaea in 62, but she died in 65, and he subsequently married the patrician lady Statilia Messalina.

Nero gave rein to inordinate artistic pretensions. He fancied himself not only as a poet but also as a charioteer and lyre player, and in 59 or 60 began to give public performances; later he appeared on the stage, and the theatre furnished him with the pretext to assume every kind of role. He dreamed of abandoning the empire in order to fulfill his poetical and musical gifts, saying « They would adore in me what I am ». But this puerile ambition took hold of him: « No one has known all that a prince could do », he said, desiring now to create God. This form of insanity was nethertheless in keeping with the messianic spirit of the age: all peoples – Jews, Greeks, Syrians, Romans, and even Indians and Chinese – were waiting for the new god. From about 63 or 64 Nero was drawn to preachers of novel cults, to Zoroastrian mages, esoteric Judaists, to such men as the Gnostic magician Simon Magus, the Neopythagorean sage Apollonius of Tyana, and perhaps even to St. Paul, who is depicted in a fresco from the Palatine Chapel conversing with the Emperor. His predecessors Caligula and Claudius had shown interest in Eastern religions, but Nero was to go further than they did. Obsessed by the misery-religion symbols of the sea and the fish, he became a devotee of the Syrian virgin-mother Atargatis, to whom the fish was sacred, then of the virgin-mother Juno-Canathos; the ecstasy that seized him in the Temple of Vesta in 64 showed that there was no limit to his bizarre delirium. Taking advantage of the fire that ravaged Rome in that year, he had the city reconstructed in the Greek style and built the most prodigious palace that a man had ever consecrated to the new god – the fabulous Golden House, which, had it been finished, would have covered a third of Rome. During the fire Nero was at his villa at Antium 35 miles (56 kilometers) from Rome and therefore cannot be held responsible for the burning of the city. Nor, despite the apocryphal additions made centuries later to the Annals of the Roman historian Tacitus and to the Nero of Suetonius, the Roman biographer and antiquarian, should he be charged with the first persecution of the Christians, because there were then so few Christians in Rome. Paul had just arrived in the city, and the Jews were anxious to learn from the Apostle the nature of this new sect, proof enough that no one had yet told them about it. Nero corresponded with Tiridates, the Armenian prince, and learned the religion of Mithra from him. He gave himself up to debauches and vice but also imposed the wearing of the white toga and had the floral festivals of the Field of Mars transformed into sacred proceedings.

The approaching end. The imperial government had had some success in the east. Their general, Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo, was able to impose an advantageous settlement on Armenia, which had long chafed under Roman suzerainty. Rome now recognized the Armenian ruler Tiridates, but he was now compelled to come to Rome to receive his crown from Nero. This secured Armenia as a buffer state against Parthia, Rome’s implacable foe in the east. Nevertheless, the provinces were increasingly uneasy, for they were oppressed by exactions to cover the imperial court’s extravagance. A revolt in Britain was headed by Queen Boudicca (Boadicea) in 60 or 61, and an insurrection in Judaea lasted from 66 to 70. Nero had many antagonists by this time. The great conspiracy of the Piso family in 65 reveals the diversity of his enemies – senators, knights, officers, and philosophers.  The Emperor did not give way to panic; the slaves kept him out of danger by warning him of plots hatching among their masters. And he did not altogether abandon his lenient attitude. Out of 41 conspirators, only 18 died (including Seneca and the poet Lucan), either by order or from fear; the others were exiled or pardoned. At the end of the year 66 he undertook a long visit to Greece, the « country of the gods », which was to keep him away from Rome for 15 months, and during his absence he entrusted the consulate to one of his freedmen. He freed Greek cities in honor of their glorious past, suppressed the pagan gods, and went everywhere garbed and ascetic, barefoot and with flowing hair. He returned to Rome to establish there the worship of Apollo in his manifestation as the dolphin god, to free slaves, and in his own way to instruct the young nobles, to distribute money among the people, and to surround himself with « priests of the sea » (followers of Neptune.

In the four months following his return (from February to June of 68) these delirious actions aroused the enmity not only of the Christian Jews, who called him the Antichrist, but also of the Senate and the patricians, whom he insulted openly, and especially the great Roman families who had been dispossessed by him. Even the soldiers of the legions were scandalized to see the descendant of Caesar publicly act the parts of ancient Greek heroes and re-create in Greek fashion the legend of a savior born of a virgin-mother (Canathos). « I have seen him on stage », Gaius Julius Vindex, the legate who rebelled against him, was to say, « playing pregnant women and slaves to be executed. »

At the news of revolts brewing throughout the empire – that of the principal governor Servius Sulpieius Galba in Spain, the rebellion of Vindex at Lyons in Gaul (France), and others on the eastern frontier – Nero only laughed. Instead of taking action, he composed hymns and had hydraulic organs made. Arming his priestesses with light shields, he said « I have only to appear and sing to have peace once more in Gaul ». Meanwhile, the legions made Galba emperor, and the Senate condemned Nero do die a slave’s death: on a cross and under the whip. The Praetorian Guard, his palace guard, abandoned him, and his freedmen left to embark on the ships he kept in readiness at Ostia, the port of Rome. He was obliged to flee the city. According to Suetonius, he stabbed himself in the throat with a dagger, and his Christian mistress Acte buried him piously in a white sheet in conformity with his wishes.  According to another version (recounted by Tacitus and almost certainly fiction) he reached the Greek islands, where the following year (69) the governor of Cythnos (modern Kithnos) recognized him in the guise of a red-haired prophet and executed the sentence passed by the Senate.

The emperors Otho and Aulus Vitellius honored his memory, and the people adored images of Nero for 20 years. The historians Plutarch and Josephus protested against the « calumnies that soiled his memory », but all in vain. Trajan and subsequent Roman emperors execrated his memory, destroyed his works, including the Golden House, as well as the many works in which Lucan, Plutarch, Rusticus, and many other writers commemorated the period of his reign. Under these emperors, Tacitus, Suetonius, and later Dio Cassius wrote the biographies of Nero known today. Lastly, the Christian Church, triumphant under the emperor Constantine I the Great, furthered the legend of Nero as a monster and even added to it in the 15th century by drawing upon the apocrypha of Sulpicius Severus, a Christian ascetic and historian of the early 5th century, to transform Nero into Antichrist, the first executioner of Christians.

Jean-Charles Pichon

Editions e-dite 2000

Présentation parue dans « Les Portes de Thélème »,

N°3, juillet 1999

En 1961, Jean-Charles Pichon signe un essai historique intitulé « Saint Néron » (Robert Laffont). L’ouvrage déchaîne les passions au sein de la critique francophone. En 1971, l’auteur poursuit sa quête audacieuse par la publication d’une version augmentée et révisée: « Néron et le mystère des origines chrétiennes » (Robert Laffont). En 1990, Jean-Paul Debenat se penche sur le texte de Jean-Charles Pichon et lui consacre une étude, « Néron ou le Combat des Dieux » (éditions Recto-Verso, Bruxelles, épuisé) avec une postface de Jacques Van Herp. Jean-Paul Debenat y effectue un travail de comparatiste, plaçant l’ouvrage de Pichon en regard des textes traitant de Néron – sous la plume d’historiens, de romanciers, voire d’auteurs de science-fiction – publiés depuis un quart de siècle. Voici un extrait de l’essai de Jean-Paul Debenat.  La notation (JCP) renvoie à des extraits de l’ouvrage paru en 1971.

Illustration Pierre-Jean Debenat

L’ouvrage complété et commenté [1971] apparaît dix ans après « Saint Néron ». J-C. Pichon y conclut comme suit son « avertissement »:

« Si je devais être encore (cet) objet de scandale, je donnerais à nouveau rendez-vous au lecteur dans une dizaine d’années »(JCP). A ce rendez-vous, J-C. Pichon n’est plus dans la même mesure, loin s’en faut, l’objet de scandale qu’il demeurait en 1971. Si « l’opinion commune ne s’émeut que lentement et après bien des refus »(JCP), les spécialistes considèrent en effet aujourd’hui que Néron ne fut pas responsable de l’incendie de Rome. Ne serait-ce qu’en cela, l’ouvrage a contribué à modifier le portrait d’un personnage qui restait immuable depuis dix-neuf siècles.

Il convient maintenant d’examiner cet ouvrage de plus près.

Tout d’abord, dans la préface de 1961, l’auteur définit sa méthode. Reporter enquêtant à l’occasion sur des causes célèbres, les assassinats de Lurs, l’affaire Paule Guillon, le procès de Marguerite Marty ou du curé d’Uruffe, il procède en journaliste:

 » – Ne pas rejeter une hypothèse, si surprenante ou scandaleuse qu’elle soit, lorsque seule elle permet de comprendre l’inexplicable.

– L’hypothèse trouvée, la juger moins en fonction des faits affirmés et des opinions reçues qu’en fonction des raisons qui purent y faire prétendre: par là s’explique la forme inhabituelle qu’emprunte cet essai. On le considérera comme un reportage parmi les morts, les textes mutilés et les ruines »(JCP). Puis l’auteur précise les circonstances qui l’amenèrent à rédiger « Saint Néron ». Il s’agissait à l’origine d’une commande de Robert Laffont destinée à sa collection Ce jour-là, portant sur un sujet classique, « l’incendie de Rome sous Néron, en l’an 64 de notre ère ». J-C. Pichon avoue qu’il pensait, comme tout un chacun, que Néron était « le génie créateur, dénaturé par le pouvoir, capable de tous les crimes et de tous les excès, placé sur la route du jeune christianisme comme tout exprès pour lui interdire le passage »(JCP).

Rédiger, après bien d’autres, un ouvrage supplémentaire sur Néron, revenait à se livrer à un exercice de style auquel s’adonna J-C. Pichon. Mais après avoir rédigé plusieurs chapitres – pages délirantes – il découvrit le livre de l’historien britannique Arthur Weigall « Nero, Emperor   of Rome », qui prend en compte, à partir des textes, officiels ou non, les actes de clémence et de générosité de l’empereur, l’oeuvre du constructeur, les mesures de tempérance vis-à-vis des impôts…

« Il faut bien s’étonner que trop d’historiens n’en aient pas tenu compte. Sans doute, chrétiens, préféraient-ils à ces documents sûrs mais imprévus le mythe commode de l’Antéchrist; universitaires, jugeaient-ils littéraire et dangereux de chercher à concilier de telles contradictions »(JCP).

Il est possible aussi que les spécialistes aient jugé suspecte l’ambition, avouée, d’Arthur Weigall: se faire autre par un retour en arrière, tenter de modeler sa sensibilité sur celle de l’époque étudiée tout en conservant la rigueur du véritable historien. J-C. Pichon adopte la même attitude: « Ainsi, quand je crus avoir compris Néron, j’ai commencé de l’écouter et de l’entendre, de le regarder dormir, alourdi de boissons, de mets et de fatigue, manger sans faim et sans retenue, approcher ses grosses lèvres d’un verre plein de Falerne ou refléter le visage surpris d’un de ses hôtes dans ses yeux de poisson »(JCP).

L’écrivain imagine les conversations entre Néron et ses invités: Josèphe, l’historien juif, Simon le magicien, l’acteur Aliturion, Pétrone. Il souligne la contradiction entre l’énergie infatigable déployée par l’empereur pour soulager les victimes de l’incendie et l’accusation monstrueuse portée contre lui. S’il n’est pas coupable du désastre, Néron s’en réjouit peut-être: il reconstruira une Rome conforme à ses rêves d’artiste.

« Il me fallait, m’appuyant sur tout ce que nous savons du caractère de l’empereur, expliquer « de l’intérieur » la scène insensée et y montrer l’aboutissement d’une lente évolution secrète… »(JCP)

En mars 1960, J-C. Pichon séjourne à Rome, où, dit-il, « j’allais découvrir une autre réalité ».

Comme d’autres avant lui, J-C. Pichon subit l’influence du décor. Maintenant, l’incendie de Rome se déroule sous ses yeux, mais cette fois, comme s’il y assistait vraiment. Devant l’ampleur de la catastrophe, le peuple cherche un coupable car le hasard ne suffit pas à expliquer les faits. Mais, s’il est plausible de supposer que Néron n’aimait pas Rome et rêvait de la remodeler, il est admis aujourd’hui qu’il n’en devint pas pour autant incendiaire. Qui donc avait intérêt à l’accuser de crime et à répandre cette accusation dans le peuple? Jean-Charles Pichon répond en citant le complot découvert en 65, à peine sept mois après l’incendie. Néron condamnera 18 conspirateurs sur 41 à mourir (parmi eux le consulaire Pison, le philosophe Sénèque et le poète Lucain). Des griefs divers unissaient les conjurés: mépris de l’empereur vis à vis d’un sénateur, insulte à un poète, offense à l’égard d’un général.

« Mais d’autres se sentent seulement honteux et las d’obéir à un prince qui préfère la déesse syrienne Atargatis à la Mère Primordiale et les succès – fort douteux – d’histrion aux honneurs que lui rend le Sénat. Tout est bon à leurs critiques: la taxation insuffisante du blé (qui permet à chacun de manger à sa faim); l’abaissement du poids des pièces d’argent (qui consolide l’or, universellement reçu); le droit latin accordé aux populations des Alpes maritimes (bien que, plus gravement, on ait vu Claude accorder le droit de cité à des provinces entières sans que les sénateurs s’en plaignissent). Ils reprochent à l’empereur, tantôt la mort de sa mère ou de sa femme, tantôt sa dangereuse faiblesse envers les poètes insolents, les consuls ambitieux, les généraux vaincus. Ils ont pincé les lèvres et froncé le sourcil la première fois que Néron a joué dans un théâtre – c’était à Naples; ils ont cru que la voûte du ciel s’écroulait lorsqu’ils ont entendu, cette même année, sur l’étang d’Agrippa, l’Empereur du Monde, chevauché par son bouffon, hurler comme une femme que l’on force… »

Les conspirés ne parviennent pas à soulever le peuple: Tigellin, le préfet de police reste maître du prétoire; le sénat est divisé et trop de généraux demeurent fidèles à Néron.

« Ils découvrent à la fois que le moment d’agir est venu et passé, car on peut exploiter le désarroi d’une foule mais non pas sa panique »(Tacite).

Imitant Arthur Weigall, J-C. Pichon insiste sur la mansuétude de Néron: 18 conjurés seulement périrent, les autres seront exilés, graciés ou acquittés, modération remarquable comparée à celle des autres empereurs.

Afin de détourner la rumeur infamante, Néron aurait inventé des coupables. Ainsi le prétend Tacite. L’empereur profita alors de la mauvaise réputation dont jouissait une petite secte juive, celle des chrétiens, « convaincus  moins du crime d’incendie que de haine contre le genre humain »(Tacite). Le texte de Tacite autorise J-C. Pichon à soulever plusieurs questions qui méritent d’être résumées ici:

1) Le peuple romain était-il capable de faire le partage entre les diverses sectes juives de cet an 64?

2) Comment Néron aurait-il pu massacrer des milliers de chrétiens alors qu’ils ne sont que quelques uns à Rome puisque la secte vient de naître?

3) Comment parler de répression romaine en 64, alors qu’aucune sanction n’est votée et qu’il faudra plus d’un siècle pour que la croyance en Jésus devienne un crime?

Jean-Charles Pichon, comme l’historien Charles Louandre, soupçonne Tacite de malhonnêteté et suggère en outre la possibilité d’un ajout apocryphe, concernant les persécutions, au texte de Tacite. De même, un passage de Suétone relatant les mesures rigoureuses édictées sous le principat de Néron, semble suspect:« taxées, les dépenses luxueuses, ramenés à des distributions de vivres, les festins publics; interdite, toute vente dans les cabarets, sauf de légumes et d’herbes potagères, alors qu’on y servait naguère toutes sortes de mets; livrés au supplice, les chrétiens, gens adonnés à une superstition nouvelle et maléfique; prohibés, les jeux de cochers de quadriges qu’un vieil usage autorisait à vagabonder en tous lieux, trompant et volant chacun; etc. »

J-C. Pichon se montre fort surpris de voir les chrétiens placés entre les herbes potagères et les cochers de quadrige! D’autant plus que l’ouvrage de Suétone abonde en passages consacrés spécifiquement aux religions du temps et aux excès de l’empereur. Il remarque aussi que le supplice des chrétiens peut difficilement entrer dans le cadre d’une énumération d’institutions nouvelles puisqu’aucun texte de loi n’est venu légiférer de tels supplices. C’est pourquoi l’hypothèse d’un ajout maladroit et tardif, par quelque copiste chrétien, lui paraît tout à fait défendable, et applicable également à l’oeuvre de Tacite. Le massacre des chrétiens, dans ce contexte, est incompréhensible: « les lois qui l’eussent permis ne font pas moins défaut que les victimes! »(JCP)

Qui Néron a-t-il persécuté? Les Juifs? Cela est fort improbable: « L’empereur aimait la compagnie des Juifs. »

En 63, il écoute le jeune historien Flavius Josèphe plaider la cause de ses compatriotes assignés à comparaître. Par la suite, il répond favorablement à la requête d’une délégation juive, soutenue par Josèphe, afin qu’un mur de Jérusalem soit préservé. L’historien dans les « Antiquités Juives », en 93 (soit 25 ans après la mort de Néron) continue de défendre l’empereur et s’élève contre les auteurs qui l’accablent de mensonges impudents.

La question demeure: qui fut la victime des persécutions?

« Pendant ces deux années 65 et 66 où la Ville s’inquiète, où les sénateurs s’irritent, où les patriciens se révoltent, où ses intimes l’abandonnent, que devient Néron? De moins en moins un empereur, de plus en plus l’un de ces hommes insaisissables que les historiens pour s’en débarrasser, prétendent atteints de folie.

Dans le même temps où il gracie trop de coupables, il se montre impitoyable pour des hommes du passé auxquels il ne reproche qu’une rigoureuse vertu. »(JCP)

Pourtant, ces persécutions insensées suffisent-elles, au regard de celles de ses prédécesseurs et de ses successeurs, pour que l’on qualifiât Néron d’ennemi du genre humain ? N’y a-t-il pas un crime encore plus impardonnable, que la destruction de ses créations – la Maison Dorée, ses textes poétiques et ceux de ses chroniqueurs (Rusticus, Cluvius Rufus) – nous interdit de connaître?

« … pourquoi, s’il a été un monstre, le peuple romain le vénéra-t-il pendant un demi siècle comme un bienfaiteur de l’humanité? »(JCP)

La réponse viendra lors du second séjour romain de J-C. Pichon, précisément dans les ruines de la Maison Dorée, car « toutes les routes mènent à l’architecture »(H-G. Wells)

La Maison Dorée

La troisième partie du livre, » L’Hypothèse », commence par la description du palais que l’empereur fit construire sur le Palatin et l’Esquilin. L’édifice évoque la patrie des dieux. Pourtant là où certains ne reconnaissent que la nostalgie de la tradition grecque ou l’expression de la démesure, l’auteur décèle en contemplant les peintures murales, les mosaïques ou les fresques, mutilées, l’empreinte du christianisme.

« J’ai vu ou j’ai cru voir des figures et des ombres où je reconnaissais les contours esquissés des premiers symboles chrétiens: des poissons et des palmes; et, dans la salle des mosaïques, le sentiment qui me tenait était exactement celui que j’avais ressenti dans les plus anciens lieux de la chrétienté. »(JCP)

Illustration Pierre-Jean Debenat

J-C. Pichon combat cette impression profonde où le raisonnement n’avait que faire, jusqu’à ce qu’en dépit de son absurdité, elle s’impose définitivement.

On admet, à la rigueur, que « Néron n’ignorait rien du christianisme », lui qui accueillait les devins et les astrologues, préférait à l’adoration des Lares les rites « étrangers », s’initiait aux religions perses, syriennes, égyptiennes. Cependant, l’hypothèse d’un Néron adepte du christianisme n’a pas fini de surprendre. Considérons les arguments qui la soutiennent. Parmi ceux-ci, la présence de Paul de Tarse à Rome pèse d’un poids particulier.

En 58, Paul, arrêté dans le temple de Jérusalem est accusé de susciter la rébellion du peuple juif. Il passera deux ans en prison, jusqu’en 59 ou 60. Transféré à Césarée, gouvernée par Festus, il demande à être jugé à Rome en tant que citoyen romain, et fait appel à l’empereur. Il est clair qu’il ne craint pas l’arbitraire de ce dernier. A Rome, en 62, on l’autorise à prêcher: « Paul demeura deux ans entiers dans une maison qu’il avait louée. Il recevait tous ceux qui venaient le visiter, prêchant le royaume de Dieu et enseignant Jésus-Christ en toute liberté et sans obstacle. »(Actes des Apôtres 28: 30-31)

Paul semble effectivement jouir de la protection de l’empereur et en se rendant à Rome, l’apôtre nourrissait certainement l’ambition de s’entretenir avec Néron. La tradition a d’ailleurs sauvegardé le souvenir des rapports entre Paul et Néron, puisqu’une fresque de la Chapelle Palatine à Palerme montre l’empereur arbitrant un débat entre Paul, Pierre et Simon le Magicien.

Pour J-C. Pichon, la rencontre de Paul et de Néron ne fait aucun doute. Paul lui-même fournit un argument irréfutable dans une épître où il laisse éclater sa joie: « j’ai de tout et en abondance » et qui se termine ainsi: « les frères qui sont avec moi vous saluent. Tous les saints vous saluent, particulièrement ceux de la maison de César. » (Epître aux Philippins 4: 21-22)

Ainsi Paul est reçu dans la maison de César, car l’empereur attendait la prodigieuse nouveauté de la parole de Jésus. Dans son entourage, l’influence de son indéfectible amie Acté le portait à entendre cette parole; l’enseignement  de Simon le Magicien et d’Apollonius de Tyane également. L’astrologie constituait une partie du savoir des hommes de ce temps. Par l’intermédiaire d’Apollonius, ou par d’autres, Néron connaissait la précession des équinoxes: tous les deux mille ans à peu près – l’ère de 2150 ans selon Platon – les constellations se déplacent sur la roue du Zodiaque.

« Au 1er siècle, les temps sont arrivés où les Poissons, avec leur double sens astrologique – l’amour, Vénus (le vendredi), et l’océan-humanité – allaient être le signe d’une religion nouvelle, appelée à porter témoignage de Dieu pendant deux mille ans. Misant sur les Poissons, Néron mise sur l’avenir. » (JCP)

On sait que les chrétiens ont fait du Poisson, en grec ICHTUS (initiales de Iesous Christos Theou Vios Soter: Jésus-Christ, le Fils Sauveur de Dieu), leur signe de ralliement.

Au printemps de 65, Néron donne son nom au mois d’avril (le mois de l’ouverture), « parce que ce mois, que nous plaçons encore sous le signe du Bélier comme le firent Jacob et Joseph, était en fait depuis un demi-siècle déjà recouvert par la constellation des Poissons, comme il doit l’être, en notre temps, par la constellation du Verseau. » (JCP)

Les déclarations de Paul éveillent des échos singuliers: il ne fait pas le bien qu’il veut et fait le mal qu’il ne veut pas; Romain, il ne s’attache pas à ce qui meurt car la mort doit être vaincue; les tours de Memphis, Ur et Babylone égalèrent celles de Rome, puis elles furent précipitées: la Parole seule demeure.

La passion de Paul dépasse de beaucoup les propos des stoïciens et des astrologues. L’empereur se lasse des dieux officiels du Panthéon romain. Avide de dépassement, il écoute Paul. « A quoi bon le pouvoir illimité de César, si César se contente de paver des routes en Thrace? C’est Rome qu’il faut réinventer; des provinces entières qu’il faut rendre libres; le ciel qu’il faut doter d’un Dieu! Cette joie fulgurante porte une montagne de rêves. Mais les rêves de César sont des réalités. Car vraiment, César, que ne peut-il pas? » (JCP)

Il faut renaître. Alors, le Prince, amant des Grecs, se fait comédien, car s’il faut changer pour vivre, l’acteur, lui, est immortel. L’acteur et l’architecte, ajouterons-nous: rêvera-t-on plus somptueux modèle que la Maison Dorée, modèle que l’empereur, artiste suprême étendra à l’empire tout entier?

« … comme un maître architecte, j’ai posé les fondements: un autre bâtit dessus. Seulement, que chacun prenne garde à la manière dont il construit. En fait de fondement, personne ne peut en poser d’autre que celui qui a déjà été placé: Jésus-Christ. Si maintenant sur ce fondement, on bâtit avec de l’or, ou de l’argent, ou des pierres précieuses, ou du bois, ou du foin, ou du chaume, l’ouvrage d’un chacun sera manifesté… Si l’ouvrage construit résiste, l’ouvrier recevra sa récompense. Si son ouvrage est consumé, il la perdra. Quant à lui, il sera sauvé, mais en passant en quelque sorte par le feu. » (1ère épître aux Corinthiens 3 : 10-15)

C’est Paul qui parle et Néron reçoit son enseignement à la manière d’un prince romain doté d’une âme d’artiste. Dion Cassius, l’historien, dit qu’il a vu l’empereur endosser tous les rôles légendaires, d’OEdipe à Thyeste, mais dorénavant, Néron se transforme en femme enceinte, en mendiant, en héros.

« Si quelqu’un parmi vous se prend pour un sage, à la manière de ce siècle, qu’il se fasse fou, afin de devenir sage. » (1ère épître aux Corinthiens 3 : 18)

Puis, en 66, lors de cérémonies grandioses, l’empereur dépose le diadème de souverain sur le front de Tiridate, qui devient ainsi roi d’Arménie sous le protectorat de Rome. Il ferme également les portes du temple de Janus, symbole de la guerre. Ainsi il acquiert la paix pour l’empire et un ami politique en la personne de Tiridate. Il en profite pour se faire initier par ce dernier à la légende et à la doctrine du Dieu Mithra.

Au travers des rôles qu’adopte l’empereur au théâtre, de ses engouements pour divers dieux et déesses, transparaît l’histoire miraculeuse du Christ: « Le Christ ainsi devra naître d’une vierge – vierge et mère comme l’Eau – et dans une grotte ainsi que Mithra. Comme le dieu de Tiridate, d’humbles bergers d’abord l’adoreront. Aux mages et aux grands prêtres des diverses religions, venus d’Egypte et de Chaldée, de Phrygie, de l’Inde lointaine, les étoiles du ciel désigneront le lieu de la naissance. Alors porté par un tel mythe, le christianisme pourra devenir l’Eglise Unique, promise aux deux mille ans où règnera le Poisson! » (JCP)

Néron se veut le metteur en scène du spectacle grandiose: la création du Dieu universel. Dans ce but, il recrute des agents: il s’entoure d’étranges prêtresses vêtues de blanc; en 68, il prend aux riches pour donner aux pauvres, et les esclaves, les affranchis tiennent le haut du pavé. Il les enrôle dans des cohortes bizarres, qui s’ajoutent aux Augustiani. En 68, après le long voyage en Grèce – pendant lequel il osa confier le consulat à Hélius, un affranchi -, il crée un corps de prêtres de la mer.

Les agents de Néron – que l’on pourrait qualifier de Jeunesses néroniennes – dénoncent le maître injuste, l’avare, le citoyen qui ose porter une toge pourpre au mépris du règlement. Leurs excès, et ceux de l’empereur, mécontentent les dépossédés.

A l’extérieur, la révolte gronde, menée par Vindex, Galba, Othon, Rubrius Gallus. Mais l’empereur se contente de perfectionner ses orgues hydrauliques! Paul réprouve la parodie de la foi, la folie mystique qui pousse Néron à se présenter comme Dieu.

Galba investit la capitale. Il massacre des milliers de soldats sans armes, les fidèles de Neptune, les pêcheurs d’hommes de Néron. Rome ne s’appellera jamais Néropolis. La comédie est terminée. Néron, réfugié dans la villa d’un de ses affranchis, Phaon, se perce la gorge à l’aide d’un poignard, le 9 juin 69.

Paul mourra peu après Néron, sans doute le 29 juin, victime des épurations.

« L’empereur n’avait agi ainsi que par orgueil, si humains que fussent parfois apparus ses actes. Si douteux que les siens aient semblé aux jeunes communautés chrétiennes, l’apôtre n’avait cessé d’agir comme « hors de lui », dans le plus parfait désintéressement. L’un ambitionnait sa gloire et l’autre la gloire de Dieu. Le vrai créateur, dont les oeuvres durent, n’est-il pas celui qui s’est renoncé pour sa création, sans s’inquiéter d’en être applaudi? » (JCP)

Un quatrième et dernier chapitre, de dix pages seulement, intitulé « L’Histoire », précise le sort réservé à la mémoire de Néron. Le peuple, après avoir adoré, puis haï l’empereur mort à 33 ans, espère son retour – ou sa résurrection.

Parmi les qualités de l’ouvrage, certaines méritent d’être soulignées.

La première est d’avoir pris Néron au sérieux, en tant que bon administrateur d’abord, en tant qu’artiste passionné ensuite. Musicien, poète et comédien, Néron ne fut pas un bouffon – même si certains de ses contemporains jugèrent sa présence sur les planches incompatible avec ses fonctions. J-C. Pichon le montre se livrant à des exercices astreignants afin d’améliorer sa voix; angoissé, comme il est fréquent chez les acteurs avant le lever de rideau.

Néron

Rassemblant les chefs-d’oeuvre (peintures et sculptures, grecques pour la plupart), s’entourant d’écrivains, Néron ne se contente pas de cultiver l’art pour l’art. L’intuition qui le guide se reflète dans les personnages qu’il incarne à la scène; elle transparaît de même dans son attirance envers la déesse Attargatis, Dea Syria, que les esclaves vénèrent dès le 2ème siècle av. J-C., et pour laquelle le poisson est un animal sacré; envers la vierge-mère Junon-Canathos; envers Apollon enfin, sous sa forme de dieu-dauphin.

Cette intuition se nourrit en outre de rencontres: avec les ésotéristes juifs, le mage gnostique Simon, le sage néo-pythagoricien Apollonius de Tyane, Tiridate, instrument de la conversion au zoroastrisme, et Paul de Tarse.

J-C. Pichon insiste sur les mesures significatives prises par l’empereur: l’interdiction de la mise à mort lors des combats de gladiateurs (mesure fort impopulaire), l’importance sociale, politique et religieuse grandissante accordée aux esclaves et aux affranchis.

On remarquera, incidemment, que lorsque Néron favorise les pauvres – s’aliénant ainsi les notables – il les prive également, dans un monde avide de brutalité, du spectacle des effusions de sang dans les arènes.

Les mesures adoptées par l’empereur sont trop nombreuses à aller dans le même sens pour qu’on continue à les ignorer.

Le second mérite de l’auteur consiste à décrire avec minutie l’évolution de Néron, qui balayant le Panthéon romain, tente d’instaurer le dieu nouveau.

L’humanité connut une tentative similaire, également malheureuse: celle d’Akhénaton, au 14ème siècle av. J-C., qui brisa avec le polythéisme de son époque, et essaya d’établir par la force le culte d’un dieu unique, dont le Soleil aurait été la manifestation. Comme Rome après la mort de Néron, Akhénaton à sa disparition laissa l’Egypte – pays pour lequel Néron nourrissait un profond intérêt – en proie au chaos. Comme Néron, Akhénaton suscite toujours les réactions les plus violentes et les plus contradictoires: « Pour certain savant moderne, c’est la première personnalité que l’histoire enregistre; pour tel autre, c’est un excentrique, un maniaque, à demi-fou, peut-être même débile. » (C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms)

Chez Néron, le renversement des valeurs mène aux pires excès: J-C. Pichon décrit, sans l’atténuer, la démence religieuse qui envahit un homme dont l’ambition ultime n’est rien moins que de créer Dieu.

Enfin, J-C. Pichon a mis toute son énergie à déchiffrer Néron dans son contexte, et cela est primordial.

« Ceux qui parlent de lire la Bible comme si c’était de la littérature, veulent dire, je suppose la lire sans se préoccuper de l’essentiel; comme si on lisait Burke sans s’intéresser à la politique ou l’Enéide sans s’intéresser à Rome. » (C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms)

On ne traite pas, en effet, la Bible comme un roman. On n’aborde pas un homme de guerre comme un poète.

Il fallait appréhender l’émergence d’une nouveauté singulière par le truchement de Paul et de Néron, faire le compte-rendu de leur double échec, dans un monde de complots et de massacres.

Il fallait saisir et rassembler, au travers des ruines et des textes fragmentaires défigurés, les liens à la fois émotionnels et logiques.

Jean-Charles Pichon, croyons-nous, y est parvenu.

Jean-Paul Debenat

Document audio (26′) :

Néron