Jupiter, Melchizedek, and the Christian Virtue of Being Jovial
“Instead of being grave and mysterious like most Calormenes, they walked with a swing and let their arms and shoulders go free, and chatted and laughed. One was whistling. You could see that they were ready to be friends with anyone who was friendly and didn’t give a fig for anyone who wasn’t. Shasta thought he had never seen anything so lovely in his life” (The Horse and His Boy, 60).
This isn’t a description of jesters or children, but of kings and queens walking through town with their court in C.S Lewis’ novel The Horse and His Boy. Having grown up as a slave with Calormenes, whose nobles have no humor and whose peasants have no joy, Shasta’s encounter with the Narnian court is a revelation of the effect that goodness and nobility are meant to have.
In his epistle, St. Peter identifies Christians as both kings and priests (I Peter 2:9). I’ve been reflecting on how this identity should shape how we live, and, after doing some research, an unexpected quality emerged: being jovial.
St. Pope Leo the Great wrote in a commentary on I Peter 2:9,
“For all, regenerated in Christ, are made kings by the sign of the cross. They are consecrated priests by the oil of the Holy Spirit, so that beyond the special service of our ministry as priests, all spiritual and mature Christians know that they are a royal race and are sharers in the office of the priesthood.”
The connection between priesthood and kingship goes all the way back to Melchizedek, the enigmatic priest-king of Salem who foreshadowed Christ’s roles as priest and king (Genesis 14, Hebrew 7). Fascinatingly, “Melchizedek” is sometimes translated “My king is Jupiter.” Jupiter’s other name is “Jove,” which is where we get the word “jovial.” And this is where it gets exciting.
In medieval cosmology, each planet was associated with particular qualities of behavior (or “influences). Jupiter was associated with being joyful, or jovial. As C.S Lewis writes in The Discarded Image,
“The Jovial character is cheerful, festive yet temperate, tranquil, magnanimous.”
Jupiter’s association with kingship goes back as far as the Greco-Roman myths where Jupiter (Jove/Zeus) is the king of the gods, and the Divine Comedy, where Dante places rulers in Jupiter’s sphere of Paradise.
What makes joviality a virtue of kings and priests? And what does it have to do with our vocation?
First, it’s a way to confront evil. Both priests and kings, in different ways, are called to defend their people. The king is in charge of protecting his land from invaders and the priest intercedes for the sinful, which means he needs to face evil to offer purification. If you laugh in the face of danger or keep a sense of humor in the midst of suffering, that means you aren’t under its power.
In The Return of the King, Gandalf and Pippin have a tense conversation with Denethor about Mordor’s looming invasion. Pippin leaves feeling discouraged, until he hears Gandalf laugh.
“Pippin glanced in some wonder at the face now close beside his own, for the sound of that laugh had been gay and merry. Yet in the wizard’s face he saw at first only lines of care and sorrow; though as he looked more intently he perceived that under all there was a great joy: a fountain of mirth enough to set a kingdom laughing, were it to gush forth.”
Not only does Gandalf have the courage to confront Denethor, but he is strong enough to see the humor in the Steward’s pettiness. Even though the larger situation is becoming dangerous, Gandalf’s joviality keeps him from despair, which in turn encourages Pippin. Being jovial is a signal of courage.
(A quick aside — kings are men and descriptions of joviality tend to be described in more masculine terms. But it’s not an exclusively masculine virtue. “King” here can be representative of all royalty-both male and female. In Proverbs 31, the ideal, virtuous woman is described as someone clothed with strength and dignity who “laughs at the time to come”).
Second, joviality is a sign of robust temperance. Lewis describes the jovial person as, “Festive yet temperate.” Joviality is not the same as drunken hilarity or constant comedy. It’s free and unstuffy, but not uncontrolled. As Pope Leo the Great commented,
“For what is more king-like than to find yourself ruler over your body after having surrendered your soul to God?”
A kingly person knows how to celebrate and enjoy life without being excessive. He is strong enough to be both powerful and peaceful — to drink without getting drunk, to fight without malice, or joke without becoming silly or degrading.
In a similar way, a priest has to understand evil in order to fight it. But that understanding has to be moderated to avoid either naivety or dangerous curiousity about the darkness. In joking, as in fighting, you have to be close enough to your opponent (or the subject of the joke) to see what it really is and engage with it, but far enough away to be secure from its clutches and not fall into defeat or despair.
Third, to be jovial is a sign of hope. The jovial person is “in the know” on the cosmic punchline — that no matter how bad things seem, the Devil’s days are numbered and evil will never last. There is a King on the throne who has won victory through His Blood. He has already faced the darkness and overcome it.
Hope exists because of the possibility of despair. We can laugh because we know that the light will overcome the darkness, although the darkness doesn’t comprehend it. (This is why I’d argue there’s a place for dark humor — in the appropriate context. We shouldn’t let anything stay beyond the reach of mirthful light). It’s the laugh of a king in battle who knows that victory is near, and the laugh of a priest who knows that his sacrifice will restore what has been broken.
Finally, joviality is a display of magnanimity. It’s an overflow and generosity of spirit. A good king uses his power and resources to provide for his kingdom. A priest, as Alexander Schmemann writes,
“stands in the center and unifies it in his act of blessing God, of both receiving the world from God and offering it to God.”
In doing so, a priest participates in the reconciling of sinners to God and the healing of the world.
The magnanimous person accepts what he’s been given and then gives it to others. The jovial person takes in the world, recognizes the humor in it, and offers that mirth to others. There is a generosity in being willing to laugh — it shows a surrender to delight and brings people together. The jovial person doesn’t keep his courage and humor to himself; he shares it to en-courage others.
Sometimes people become somber and melancholy in their pursuit of holiness. They miss the thing that really makes good priests, monks, and nuns attractive: their joy. The best religious have a spirit of nobility — of strength, goodness, honor, justice, joy, and good humor. They’re jovial. Despite their sacrificial and disciplined lives, their essential quality isn’t strictness, but vitality. To be jovial isn’t the exclusive quality of crowned kings and ordained priests. They are qualities that Christ has offered to all believers (I Peter 2:9).
To be jovial is to have both a sense of humor and sense of magnanimity. It’s an unselfish humor that pulls other people in, giving energy and life instead of laughing at their expense or stealing their joy with prudishness. To live our vocations as priest-kings, we should be jovial as we join in the laughter of Him who sits in the Heavens (Psalm 2:4).
