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We can all recall with vivid memory the thundering chariot race that was orchestrated by William Wyler in the 1950’s epic film, Ben-Hur. While the film explores the themes of revenge and Christ’s redemption, the novel plunges the reader into a much deeper experience. Ben Hur, written by Lew Wallace and published in 1880, revolves around the themes of vengeance, love, suffering and making God into what we want Him to be.
The novel follows the misfortunes of a young Jewish man as he is separated from his family and made a slave in the Roman galleys. In a turn of events, Judah Ben Hur is freed, spends time training as a solider and a gladiator, returns to Jerusalem to find his mother and sister and to satisfy his vengeance on the man who ruined his life, the Roman tribune Messala. In an act of public humiliation, the Jew beats the favored Roman in the amphitheater during a chariot race leaving Messala crippled in body and financially ruined for life. Thinking his remaining family to be dead, and his mission of revenge complete, Judah’s friends encourage him to prepare an army for the King Who is to come. Thinking that the Savior will be a worldly King who will destroy Israel’s enemy in the object of Rome, Judah gathers a force of arms and prepares to be the King’s right hand man. It is with disappointment that he realizes that the Man who can raise the dead to life and make lepers clean is none other than a carpenter from Nazareth. The ultimate struggle that Judah faces is accepting that this Man is the Son of God and His kingdom is not of this world.
The strongest themes of Ben Hur are that of revenge, war and hate. As a boy, Judah wants to be a soldier but he fears that this is a worldly desire. His mother assures him that there is nothing wrong with making that a profession as long as he serves God and not Caesar. In the course of the novel, Judah inadvertently serves first himself under the idea that any harm done to Rome is serving God. When the family is arrested by the legions and their old friend Messala does nothing to help, the author writes that all Jewish characteristics of gentleness, love or the desire to be loved left Judah. He would henceforth be recognized for the intensity of his hate. To all whom he would meet in his life he would tell them that he had nothing left but vengeance left for which to live.
I devoted myself to vengeance long ago. Every hour of the five years past, I have lived with no other thought. I have taken no respite. I have had no pleasures of youth. The blandishments of Rome were not for me. I wanted her to educate me for revenge…The arts essential to a fighting-man were my desire. I associated with gladiators, with winners of prizes in the circus; and they were my teachers…I am a soldier; but the things of which I dream require me to be a captain…I will be an enemy Roman-taught in all things; then Rome shall account to me in Roman lives for her ills.
Judah sets out to serve the God whom Moses referred to as a “man of war.” What Judah does not understand is that God reserves the right of revenge only for Himself. Ironically enough, at the time the novel takes place, God’s Son, the Prince of Peace, is walking the earth.
On the reverse side of the coin, Wallace shows us two characters who, despite receiving every suffering known to man, bear their injuries in love and hope. Judah’s mother and his sister, Tirzah, spend most of their lives in a dark, leprosy infested prison, outliving their jailers and eventually forgotten. Even Judah gives them up for dead. In the midst of their darkest hour, the author contrasts their suffering with that of Judah’s consumed hate,
At the same time we are helped to the knowledge that love is there yet, for the two are in each other’s arms. Riches take wings, the comforts vanish, hope withers away, but love stays with us. Love is God.
They are eventually discovered and released but they avoid Judah whom they wish to protect from the dreaded disease they have contracted. They are eventually driven out of Jerusalem to live out the remainder of their lives as the living dead.
Another theme that is apparent in the novel is that the old and helpless can take advantage of the youth, energy and emotions of others. Judah does not see that his savage bitterness is addictive and he surrounds himself with friends who praise him as a hero and ride on the coattails of his vengeance. After his victory over Messala, Judah’s invalid steward encourages him to seek out the King that is to come and serve Him by gathering an army thereby promising further glory to Judah,
See you not a broad road for my walking, and the running of the youth?—at the end of it glory and revenge for us both” “Thou flushed with strength, thou trained to arms, thou burdened with riches; behold the opportunity the Lord hath sent thee! Shall not his promise be thine? Could a man be born to a more perfect glory?
It is these friends that have handed down the false Jewish idea that the Savior will be a second King David and will stamp out Roman dominion.
Lew Wallace subtly reminds the reader that when the children of Israel told Samuel to ask God for a king and ruler, God was angry that they were not satisfied that He was their King and Ruler. God gave the people King Saul, then David. When God came to earth in the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity as their King, the Jews exclaimed that they had no king but Caesar. In Ben Hur, only the humblest of characters could see Our Lord for Who He really was, while the proud were consumed with making God “fit the bill”. One is reminded of Our Lady’s words in the Magnificat, He hath exulted the humble. He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
The humility of the three kings as they journey to find the King is what takes up the first few chapters. The reader is pained that throughout the novel, Judah admires Balthasar but takes his virtues to be inadequate and his ideas of the King inaccurate. If Judah had adopted the wiseman’s humility it would have saved him a lot of heartache. But as it is, Judah becomes the dream come true hero of his steward Simonides and friend Ilderim and the three of them serve a figment of an idea that borderlines as a false god.
The King implied a kingdom; He was to be a warrior glorious as David; a ruler wise and magnificent as Solomon; the kingdom was to be a power against which Rome was to dash itself to pieces. There would be a colossal war, and the agonies of death and birth — then, peace, meaning, of course, Judean dominion for ever.
When Judah meets Our Lord on the banks of the Jordon, as St. John the Baptist announces to the world Who He is, Judah is struck and disappointed with His simplicity. “Looking at that calm, benignant countenance, the very idea of war and conquest, and lust of dominion, smote him like a profanation.” While people sense that He is more than just a mere man, thanks to her miraculous healing, Judah’s mother exclaims that He could only be the Son of God. Judah follows Our Lord with the expectation that He will suddenly do something unexpected. In the confusion of His arrest and execution, Judah still waits for Him to save Himself. It is not until Our Lord utters His final words that Judah converts. When Our Lord forgives the good thief by saying, “this day thou shalt be with me in paradise” Judah finally understands that Our Lord was not going to fill an earthly throne nor was it His mission to destroy Rome. With the others at the foot of the cross, Judah admits, “This was the Son of God”.
Ben Hur explores the different outlooks one can have if he is humble, charitable, and accepts God’s Will. The author makes a point of showing how blinded Judah is by his own hate and pride. So much so that he can not even accept God for Who He is. Lew Wallace contrasts characters with Judah’s opposite outlook with Balthasar in his humility and Judah’s mother in her sure and accurate proclamation that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And therein lies the triumph of the novel.