Volume > Issue > Sherlock Holmes & Jesus Christ

Sherlock Holmes & Jesus Christ

IS CHRISTIANITY JUST A GAME?

By Paul C. Fox | May 2000
Paul C. Fox, M.D., is a family physician in Blairsville, Pennsylvania, and a member of St. Mary's Byzantine Catholic Church.

“Excellent!” I cried. “Elementary,” said Holmes.Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Crooked Man

For a few luminous months during my sophomore year in high school I came to believe in the Full Personhood of Sherlock Holmes. That is, I became persuaded that the “world’s first consulting detective” had been, after all, not a mere fictional device, but a living, breathing man.

The instrument of my conversion to this faith was W.S. Baring-Gould’s marvelous Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street, which purported to be the authentic biography of the great detective. From his birth to Siger and Violet Holmes in the North Riding of Yorkshire to his death among his beehives in Sussex, Sherlock Holmes and his life and times were presented with such a wealth of believable circumstantial detail (complete with footnotes) that I felt compelled to believe in his existence.

The world seemed a larger and more wonderful place with the knowledge that Sherlock Holmes had had a life outside the reports of his cases written by his associate Dr. Watson and published through Watson’s “literary agent,” Conan Doyle.

Enjoyed reading this?

READ MORE! REGISTER TODAY

SUBSCRIBE

You May Also Enjoy

Six-Day Fast for Life at an Abortion Clinic

To women and men alike, just passing by or going into the clinic, I’d repeat my 22-second message with no nuance. You come quickly to the point. You have to.

Briefly Reviewed: September 1985

The Presence of Grace and Other Book Reviews... St. Vincent Pallotti: Apostle of the Laity... Marriage: The Mystery of Faithful Love

When Radical Turns Out To Be Reactionary

Why are young people these days increasingly marrying outside their race?