The Fifth Mountain

Coelho, Paulo. The Fifth Mountain. Trans. Clifford E. Landers. New York: HarperFlamingo, 1998.

From heaven, God smiles contentedly, for it was this that He desired, that each person take into his hands the responsibility for his own life.  For, in the final analysis, He had given His children the greatest of all gifts: the capacity to choose and determine their acts.

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In The Fifth Mountain, Paulo Coelho retells and expands the Old Testament story of the Israelite prophet Elijah.  The original tale, which appears in 1 Kings, describes the tyranny of the Phoenician queen Jezebel, who, upon marrying Ahab, king of Israel, imposed her polytheistic faith upon her adopted country.  All Israelite prophets and those who refused conversion were put to death, save Elijah, who, under the protection of God and His angels, managed to escape to Phoenicia.  There a widow cared for him, until it was time for him to demonstrate the power of the one, true God to the unbelievers.  Coelho’s story embraces all of these elements while simultaneously infusing the old tale with an interesting perspective on suffering and divine will.

The Elijah of The Fifth Mountain is visited by a guardian angel throughout his childhood.  He thus knows he is a prophet; however, the lonely and painful lifestyle of the self-flagellating prophets he sees in town frightens him, and he is glad when the visitations cease.  Later, though, an angel of the Lord comes to him, ordering him to deliver a message to Ahab and Jezebel, and when the monarchs respond less than kindly to Elijah’s prediction of sustained drought, he similarly follows the angel’s command to abandon Israel for Phoenicia. 

I have often wondered how one distinguished between prophecy and lunacy in biblical times.  I suppose it all depended on the outcome of a given situation.  If a far-fetched prediction came to fruition, the speaker was a prophet and his tale entered national lore; if it didn’t, the prophet was scorned and forgotten.  Coelho’s Elijah never doubts his sanity; he does, however, find it difficult to interpret and enact God’s often vague commands.  He knows he must go to Phoenicia and eventually return to Israel.  But why the wait?  Why does God withdraw Elijah’s ability to conduct miracles after raising just one person from the dead?  Why does God allow the hospitable widow, whom Elijah grows to love, to die amidst the burning rubble of her home?  Elijah commits himself to doing God’s will, but when that will is unclear, or when it permits extensive and seemingly purposeless suffering, what is the prophet to do?

After much suffering, struggling, and contemplation, Elijah realizes that all things God wills and permits — exile, invasion, death — are encapsulated in a single, existential question: “What is the meaning of thy struggle?”  Through his pain and confusion, the prophet learns to view suffering as an ongoing challenge that requires him to cultivate the best in himself — his emotional perseverence, his intellectual strength, his physical drive.  God presents us with lives of suffering so that we may better ourselves through struggle, so that we may think and grow and choose how to move forward, improving our judgment and ability in the process.  In blindly following God’s commands, Elijah “had acted in the selfsame way as those who at no time in their lives had ever made an important decision;” he later comes to understand that the Lord “had led him to the abyss of the unavoidable” in order “to show him that man must choose — and not accept — his fate.”  Thus suffering becomes a sign of the Lord’s generosity, for in presenting us with conflict and loss, God provides an opportunity for us to fulfill His will with intellect, feeling, and conviction.  In undergoing this process, Elijah progresses from blind faith to deliberate faith, and though his doubts and questions initially appear rebellious, he discovers that what he “thought was a challenge to God was, in truth, his reencounter with Him.”

I appreciate Coelho’s nimble unwinding of this complicated and controversial message — controversial in that such an argument could be used to justify suffering and deemphasize compassion.  However, Elijah’s experiences, though they strengthen him, do not harden him.  After reaching this deeper understanding of God’s intent, Elijah inspires the survivors of an Assyrian invasion to gather and grow food, to learn to write, and to rebuild their city.  He challenges them, as God challenged him, but he never abandons them.

Interestingly, while the Old Testament ends Elijah’s time on earth with his bodily assumption into heaven, The Fifth Mountain leaves Elijah mid-story, among the people he helped to restore, a human prophet in a human world.  The novel therefore remains relateable, and the intellectual challenge it presents appears doable.  Those up for a challenge should read this novel — not because I say so, but because you choose so.

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