'A Tale' was long regarded as a satire on religion itself, and has famously been attacked for that, starting with William Wotton. The "tale" presents a consistent satire of religious excess, while the digressions are a series of parodies of contemporary writing in literature, politics, theology, Biblical exegesis, and medicine. The overarching parody is of enthusiasm, pride, and credulity. At the time it was written, politics and religion were still linked very closely in England, and the religious and political aspects of the satire can often hardly be separated.
"The work made Swift notorious, and was widely misunderstood, especially by Queen Anne herself who mistook its purpose for profanity." "It effectively disbarred its author from proper preferment within the church," but is considered one of Swift's best allegories, even by himself. It was enormously popular, but Swift believed it damaged his prospect of advancement in the Church of England.
The Three Coats
The three brothers' coats are the central symbol of A Tale of a Tub. (Tubs, despite the title, figure only incidentally in the work.) Outwardly plain and simple, the coats are the brothers' sole inheritance from their father, who promises that they will last for a lifetime if cared for properly. In his will, he warns them against altering the coats in any way. These coats represent the practices of Christianity as originally revealed and commanded by God and as stipulated in the Bible (the father's will). Like the early Church written about in the New Testament, the brothers initially do a good job of sticking to the rules laid down by the will. It isn't long, however, before they are finding ways to excuse themselves from following the will too scrupulously when it conflicts with their immediate desires. This behavior is dramatized as a gradual altering of the coats in spite of the father's express wish to the contrary.
The individual alterations represent the different ways in which Christianity, in Swift's view, deviated from the practices and beliefs given in the Bible. The "flame-colored satin" that makes up the coats' lining, for instance, represents the concept of purgatory, regarded in the Catholic tradition as a place of purification for souls not yet worthy of heaven but not condemned to hell. To Swift, an Anglican living in post-Reformation England, this was a false doctrine that lacked any demonstrable basis in Scripture. The "Indian figures" embroidered on the coats are the statues and stained-glass images present in many Catholic churches, which Swift (like many other Protestants) saw as incompatible with the Bible's warnings against graven images. By the time the brothers finally realize the error of their ways, their coats (i.e., their practice of Christianity) have become barely recognizable.
Midway through the main narrative, however, Martin and Jack undergo a change of heart when a breach erupts between them and Peter (who claims to be the oldest). By showing how the brothers react to this disagreement, Swift praises or criticizes the three main Christian traditions represented in the England of his day. In the pre-Reformation era, the brothers were all prone to the same extravagances, adorning their coats with lace, fringe, and many other ornaments. Peter, who represents Catholicism, sticks to those extravagances and even multiplies them; he deliberately avoids consulting the will to see whether he is going astray. Martin, named after Martin Luther, represents the moderate Protestant tradition. He carefully and diligently strips away the forbidden ornaments from his coat while taking care not to harm the underlying fabric. Where something cannot be removed without damaging the original coat, he reluctantly lets it remain.
Jack, in contrast, rips away every shred of embroidery and fringe, tearing up the original underlying fabric in the process. His brand of reform, which Swift identifies with the Dissenters, is aggressive, destructive, and haphazard. Ultimately, Swift condemns Jack as motivated more by his hatred of Peter (i.e., resentment of the Catholic Church) than by a concern to live a moral life. He is a reactionary anti-Catholic rather than a Christian in his own right. However and significantly, Jack's extremes end up closely resembling Peter's as the rags worn by the one man come to look like the fringed finery worn by the other. Thus, both are satirized.
The Father's Will
The father's will represents the Bible, which Swift regards as Christianity's fundamental instruction manual. Swift's paramount claim in A Tale of a Tub is that the Bible should be consulted for basic, immutable guidance on all Church matters. Practices prohibited by the Bible cannot and should not be embraced by the Church, while practices required by the Bible cannot simply be set aside. In their youth, the three brothers exemplify this kind of Christianity. The more closely the brothers adhere to the prescriptions of the will, the happier they seem to be and the more peaceful their consciences are.
All three brothers start off faithfully following the will, but they are gradually corrupted by outside influences. They stray from its obvious intent and, increasingly, from its directly stated rules, becoming ridiculous and superficial in the process. This behavior is provoked by a desire to fit in with the rest of the world, as illustrated in the middle of Chapter 2. There, the brothers realize that they will have to get creative if they want to give the appearance of following their father's wishes while actually ignoring them. They use Latinate terms to add an aura of respectability to their dubious behavior: failing to find permission to change their coats "totidem verbis" ("in so many words"), they start looking "totidem syllabis" ("in so many syllables"). Finally, they declare that their father's will allows them to add shoulder knots "totidem literis" ("in so many letters") because it contains the letters S, H, O, U, L, D, E, and R.
Peter, the most scholarly of the brothers, undergoes great intellectual contortions to avoid the document's clear restrictions. In addition to the "totidem literis" episode above, he declares that certain premises must be added to the will or else "multa absurda sequerentur" ("many absurdities will follow"). (He never specifies what those absurdities might be.) All of Peter's interpretive practices, along with the terms used to describe them, ultimately derive from a Catholic tradition that Swift views as legalistic, insincere, and self-serving.
The consequence of following this interpretive tradition is that both the clergy (Peter) and the congregants (Martin and Jack) grow further and further removed from the actual will. As early as Chapter 2, the brothers have agreed to "lock up" the will "in a strong-box, brought out of Greece or Italy," which symbolizes the use of Greek or Latin texts rather than vernacular translations. Here, Swift recalls and criticizes the Catholic Church's long history of forbidding vernacular Bibles, thereby preventing many adherents from reading Scripture for themselves. By the time the brothers go their separate ways in Chapter 4, Peter has begun to interpose himself as the will's sole interpreter, deciding its meaning on behalf of the others and pronouncing his decisions ex cathedra (with papal authority; literally, "from the chair").
Clearly, Peter (i.e., the Catholic Church) is not cast in a good light in A Tale of a Tub. That's not to say, however, that Swift viewed all reforms as equally salutary. Martin (moderate Protestantism) and Jack (Dissent) successfully obtain their own copy of the will, which gives them the all-important ability to read it for themselves and judge how well they are following it. In itself, Swift implies, vernacular access to the Bible is a good thing, but a person can still go overboard in relying on Scripture. To this end, Swift ridicules Jack in Chapter 11 for using his father's will as an umbrella, a nightcap, and a bandage—the implication being that the Bible should not be viewed as a universal guide to mundane matters, such as diet and health care. Swift's stance seems to be that the Bible is the ultimate authority on Church doctrine and discipline but that it is foolish to see it as a substitute for all earthly wisdom.
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