Made-Up Messiahs before the Coming Christ
Christ will come in power, with a sword. Dune’s Paul Atreides gives *some* insights about what that’s like.
Paul Muad'Dib Atreides is a character in Frank Herbert’s Dune whom occupies a place in the history of science fiction and fantasy literature with Frodo Baggins of the Lord of the Rings series and Ender Wiggin of Ender’s Game.
Paul Atreides as he is introduced is a reluctant messianic character, born into royalty of an intergalactic House, known as House Atreides which is a sort of noble Rebellion against the injustice of the powerful House Harkonin and Padasha Emperor “of the known universe.”
His character might simply be another Luke Skywalker if Herbert did not take him in some unique directions for a young royal. First, his mother is a sort of spiritual woman, from a nun-like sect called the Bene Gesserit. The Bene Gesserit are not shy about their political and religious scheming. As an exclusively female order, they have marrried into the different royal houses in an attempt to shape interstellar politics, and with some unanswered reasons, the creation of a prophetic male spiritual messiah called the Kwisatz Haderach.
Herbert noted his inspiration for the mother of Paul came from his own spouse, a woman who seemed to have a spiritual intuition. It is interesting that the inspiration for this component of the story was to some degree real-world. To what extent Herbert noted this gift, or sensitivity is really not in the scope of this study. It is sufficient to say, that God, the author of events had it written into the story of Herbert, who wrote it compellingly into Dune.
I must note at this juncture, that Paul is a reluctant character in this story. There are events, mostly *happening* to him rather than his conscious participation or effecting of the events round about him. First his family is given the surface-level prestigious assignment of mining “spice” on “Dune” the desert planet. This is perceived by all involved as a trap, but the father of Paul, knowing it to be a trap but also a duty to play his providential and honorific role accepts.
The Harkonens play their part of schemer, and revengers, have the duke killed by an insider of unlikely source. Paul is spared by the traitor who ensures their death is by dumping in the desert with full expectation that they will escape with more than usual supplies and the ducal signet ring.
Paul escapes into the desert with his mother after a harrowing escape from a downed aircraft under the control of their captors. In the process they are intercepted by a desert tribe called the Fremen. The Fremen are a mixture of real-world Bedouin tribes, and perhaps pre-modern Arab warring tribes. They are skilled at hiding, combat, and survival in desert far more hostile than any on earth.
The Fremen are adherents to the spiritual manipulation of the Bene Geseret and have their version perhaps of a female pope or prophet. Paul’s mother replaces this woman, and Paul becomes a sort of Muhammad, or a non-Christian/ Jewish stereotype of a messiah (conquerer variety).
Paul sheds light on a few things. First, from Paul’s vantage, he can see the guile of the Bene Geseret in the spiritual lives of citizens and Houses of the galaxy and the Fremen. The problem for Paul, though, is that their tampering brought superstition into the lives of the Fremen and others had a nugget of truth in it. As a result Paul is swept into their prophecy of a male Bene Geseret messiah.
Paul is self-conscious of his fulfillment of this “prophecy,” but is also cautious not to become an instrument of the Bene Geseret.
The Bene Geseret were of the mind that the male messianic character would be subservient to their scheming, however at the moment that Paul most begins to occupy the spiritual influencer role of this prophecy, he is outside of their ability to manipulate his behavior, beliefs, or anything else.
Now…. Here’s an interesting point to stop and note how Paul was portrayed by different film-adapters of his likeness. The 1984 adaptation had Paul fully consenting and happy to be a sort of deliverer of the Fremen in this role. He rolls into the territory the Harkonnen conquered and litterlly eats them with giant sand worms amongst other weapons and skills that the Fremen used to subdue their occupiers.
Now this is interesting for one reason, the 1984 David Lynch adaptation captures the book’s portrayal of Paul’s character well. Paul in the books, is sort of a spiritual-untouchable. Nobody can beat him, out smart him, or overpower him. To some degree he’s like an Alexander or Caesar, he overcomes the odds, defeats his adversary but without the means and accoutrements that one is expected to be able to do this. The 1984 movie ends here, on a sort of triumphalist, optimistic, and heroic high note.
The movie by Denis Villeneuve released in 2021, takes the vantage on Paul Atreides that Frank Herbert took in the book sequels. In the sequels to Dune, Paul goes from a Jesus-like purity in the first book’s moral portrayal of him to a Hitler or a Muhammad-religious—conquerer-type. It becomes dystopian almost out of nowhere. And thus When Denis Villeneuve made the 2021 film, presumably from a French Canadian, post-modernist, materialist, religious perspective - religion is seen as inherently dangerous when coupled with power (not to mention that its is considered irrational, and technically false). As a result, any who delight in the idea of evil being forcibly subdued by a morally pure figure, are likely to be dissapointed. Especially if one enjoyed the book’s idea of Paul.
Now, why even discuss the movie adaptations, since the original book author really has the final word? Not to mention why talk about this on a Christian periodical? It’s because the messianic character of Paul Atreides seems to have parallels with the Scripture’s portrayal of Jesus the Messiah. First, Jesus is distinct from the Dune messiah-figure, Paul, because Jesus is non-violent in his actions. Now, Jesus words can almost be sharper than an uprising at times, but that is beside the point. Scripture’s Jesus = peaceful, suffering-servant-messiah in his first appearance, and Dune’s Paul Atreides = prophetic-conquer-messiah type.
I find this study interesting because the Jews of the First Century AD expected the messiah to be a conquering type. They were conscious of the language of Isaiah 53 and Zechariah of a suffering servant type messiah, but given their state of occupation under the Romans and their storied history of autonomous rule from other nations made their primary expectation one of a political deliverer (conquered). As a result the most popular messiah type amongst the Jews tended to be the conquer-type-messiah.
Given the fact that none of these would be deliverer types (Judas the Galilean, Simon Bar Kokhba, Moses of Crete, The Egyptian) produced the fulfilllment of prophecy that the Hebrew or Old Testament Prophets had laid the framework for, many Jews are still waiting for their messiah.
One item not yet discussed, is that Jesus is expected to have another advent, another visitation, which encompasses the conquerer aspect of the prophecies of the Messiah. In addition, there appears to be room for a messiah who conquers, and then occupies physical land as a world ruler under YHWH. Paul Atreides in some ways reminds this writer of that aspect of messianic prophecy. The reason for this is because Paul Atreides in the later novels, does not merely conquer his planet and loose the oppressor. He goes on a religious war, which Herbert calls a Jihad (religious war, borrowed from the Islamic concept), to purge the galaxy of some kind of moral ill.
I note a historic longing in the people of God. The longing of the people of God is for God to be their king. If this longing has resulted in a misinterpretation of the Scriptures foretelling the messiah as a conquerer, it is of course a dangerous longing. This longing has resulted in heavy-handed Theocratic types of government in human history, with one or another theological vision being enforced with the power of a human government body’s sword and power.
From multiple visions of theocracy, the idea is in some sense to re-establish Eden, the garden of God on the earth. The only problem is that the same predilection which sunk man in that paradise (Eden), still infects his spheres of being: mind, body, soul, spirit (each being a component part of the “heart,” according to the Scriptures). With this basic handicap of man’s own making, no society has been able to achieve the longing for Eden. No government or religious movement has purged the world’s moral ills with lasting comprehensiveness. None has been able to create institutions of any variety (church, education, non-profit, government) or any other which has not been subject to the decay of moral filth known as sin. Across the board, these institutions have been infultrated from man’s predeliction to evil. Not to mention, outside invisible powers which play a greater or lesser role in this corruption or cleansing or renewal.
Paul Atreides is instructive in this study because Paul appears to be conscious of some of these difficulties. He is conscious that he is a prophetic character with a providential and cosmic role to play. He also resists his own desire to use power for evil or in a way that plays him into the control of power hungry persons. Paul is in some distant way, “pure” from the pollution of people’s manipulation, and from his own desires. His role in purging the galaxy of evil seems to have put Herbert at odds with his own creation. How after all can bloodshed produce cleansing? That I believe is why he pivoted with the character in the Dune sequels.
The Son of God, in his Old Testament portrayals is sometimes a scary, bloodletting figure:
“I have trodden the winepress alone;
from the nations no one was with me.
I trampled them in my anger
and trod them down in my wrath;
their blood spattered my garments,
and I stained all my clothing.”
Isaiah 63:3
Kiss the Son,
lest he be angry, and you perish in the way,
for his wrath is quickly kindled.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.
Psalm 2:12
This does not impugn his moral purity however since he is the servant of YHWH, the one who purged Canaan after forcing those he had promised, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, to wait hundreds of years for Canaan’s iniquity to be bad enough to warrant purging.
Some of the galactic sins that Paul appears to need to purge are manipulative power plays by the emperor and his armies, the different houses, and the Bene Geseret, etc. Jesus on the other hand, has a perfect view of moral iniquities. First, he paid in full the wrath due by God to his people by his death on the cross for each and every sin that his elect had or were to commit in their lives. He knew both the motivations, the full scope of evils that sin comprises. His elect or chosen are, after all, described variously as “enemies of God” and “wicked” before Christ redeems them. The atonement of Christ was for evil people rather than righteous.
Christ is also “God, very God.” He proceeds from the Father (YHWH) with no modifications in YHWH’s moral being or deity. So, as God is the only being pure enough to truly judge, Christ also occupies the purity to judge evil persons even with violent punishment. It is noteworthy that God the Father, had Christ suffer without reacting in violence at all in his first advent. This is clearly a sign of goodwill of the Father even toward those who are under threat of violent judgment by God and Christ. Christ himself bears the burden of judgement as a peace offering. But for those who have rejected Christ’s free offer of pardon, after he accomplished all that was required to pay the punishment of the wicked and receive them as perfect beings fully pleasing to the Father, the wicked who shrug at his kindness are to receive the same punishment Christ did on behalf of the redeemed-wicked, except the unrepentant-wicked will receive it for their own ungodly deeds.
Christ will come with a sword to repay those who rejected his offer of salvation. In some sense, the rejection of Christ was not the cause of death, for Christ remarks, those who are without his atonement are “condemned already.” Christ is, as it were, patient to see who is even remotely interested in escaping from their own just recompense. The Father has appointed a time in which Christ shall purge the cosmos with fire rather than human armies.
If it be so, Paul Atreides is really only a distant messianic-type to the glorious, impugnable, Second Advent of YHWH’s Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ. The revulsion both Denis Villeneuve and Frank Herbert had at a conquring messiah is silenced by the fact that the True Messiah first bore the wrath of God upon himself before he will pour it out on others. Thus Christ is qualified for he knows it’s bitterness and even now waits for you, sinner to turn and avoid it. As a result, he has waited some 2000 years. Still, I look right and left, there is opportunity for you to turn.