Archive for the ‘Beauty’ Category
Edward Young: ‘Devotion! daughter of Astronomy!’
From a French edition of Night Thoughts
The soul of man was made to walk the skies.
Nor, as a stranger, does she wander there;
But, wonderful herself, through wonder strays;
Contemplating their grandeur, finds her own;
~ Edward Young, Night Thoughts 9
IT was a nice to discover that the quote, ‘An undevout astronomer is mad,’ credited to an unnamed “poet” by Thomas Dick in the last post, comes from Edward Young. Young’s most famous work is the epic poem, Night Thoughts (The Complaint: or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death, & Immortality), published in several volumes from 1742 to 1745. Immensely popular for a century after its writing, it then strangely fell into obscurity. Night Thoughts is quite long, but Young’s mastery of iambic pentameter blank verse and talent for turning a memorable phrase make it reading enjoyable. The more intense and inspired sections crescendo into virtual hymns and litanies, where Young finds his Muse.
The quote appears in Night 9 — the final part — of Night Thoughts. Most of Night 9 (over 2000 lines) considers the spectacle of the night sky as a source of religious and moral inspiration. As some may not want to read it entirely, below are assembled the most inspiring lines. (I’ve taken the liberty of rearranging some sections.)
Two people are named here. Lorenzo is a worldly man the narrator addresses throughout Night Thoughts, whom he wishes to convert to religion and philosophy. Philander is a recently deceased, virtuous friend.
❧
ROUSE, rouse, Lorenzo, then, and follow me,
Where truth, the most momentous man can hear,
Loud calls my soul, and ardour wings her flight.
I find my inspiration in my theme:
The grandeur of my subject is my Muse.
At midnight, when mankind is wrapt in peace,
And worldly fancy feeds on golden dreams;
Night opes the noblest scenes, and sheds an awe,
Which gives those venerable scenes full weight,
And deep reception, in th’ intender’d heart;
While light peeps through the darkness, like a spy;
And darkness shows its grandeur by the light.
Nor is the profit greater than the joy,
If human hearts at glorious objects glow,
And admiration can inspire delight.
What speak I more, than I, this moment, feel?
With pleasing stupor first the soul is struck
(Stupor ordain’d to make her truly wise!):
Then into transport starting from her trance,
Stars teach, as well as shine. At Nature’s birth,
Thus their commission ran — “Be kind to Man.”
Where art thou, poor benighted traveller?
The stars will light thee, though the moon should fail.
Where art thou, more benighted! more astray!
In ways immoral? The stars call thee back;
And, if obey’d their counsel, set thee right.
This prospect vast, what is it? — Weigh’d aright,
’Tis Nature’s system of divinity,
And every student of the Night inspires.
’Tis elder Scripture, writ by God’s own hand:
Scripture authentic! uncorrupt by man.
The planets of each system represent
Kind neighbours; mutual amity prevails;
Sweet interchange of rays, received, return’d;
Enlightening, and enlighten’d! all, at once,
Attracting, and attracted! Patriot like,
None sins against the welfare of the whole;
But their reciprocal, unselfish aid,
Affords an emblem of millennial love.
Nothing in nature, much less conscious being,
Was e’er created solely for itself:
Thus man his sovereign duty learns in this
Material picture of benevolence.
I see His ministers; I see, diffused
In radiant orders, essences sublime,
Of various offices, of various plume,
In heavenly liveries, distinctly clad,
Azure, green, purple, pearl, or downy gold,
Or all commix’d; they stand, with wings outspread,
Listening to catch the Master’s least command,
And fly through nature, ere the moment ends;
Numbers innumerable! — well conceived
These, as a cloud of witnesses, hang o’er us;
In a throng’d theatre are all our deeds;
Perhaps, a thousand demigods descend
On every beam we see, to walk with men.
Awful reflection! Strong restraint from ill!
Yet, here, our virtue finds still stronger aid
From these ethereal glories sense surveys.
Something, like magic, strikes from this blue vault;
With just attention is it view’d? We feel
A sudden succour, unimplored, unthought;
Nature herself does half the work of Man.
With love, and admiration, how she glows!
This gorgeous apparatus! this display!
This ostentation of creative power!
This theatre! — what eye can take it in?
By what divine enchantment was it raised,
For minds of the first magnitude to launch
In endless speculation, and adore?
One sun by day, by night ten thousand shine;
And light us deep into the Deity;
How boundless in magnificence and might!
O what a confluence of ethereal fires,
Form urns unnumber’d, down the steep of heaven,
Streams to a point, and centres in my sight!
Nor tarries there; I feel it at my heart.
My heart, at once, it humbles, and exalts;
Lays it in dust, and calls it to the skies.
Who sees it unexalted? or unawed?
Who sees it, and can stop at what is seen?
Material offspring of Omnipotence!
Inanimate, all-animating birth!
Work worthy Him who made it! worthy praise!
All praise! praise more than human! nor denied
Thy praise divine! — But though man, drown’d in sleep,
Withholds his homage, not alone I wake;
Bright legions swarm unseen, and sing, unheard
By mortal ear, the glorious Architect,
In this His universal temple hung
With lustres, with innumerable lights,
That shed religion on the soul; at once,
The temple, and the preacher! O how loud
It calls devotion! genuine growth of Night!
Devotion! daughter of Astronomy!
An undevout astronomer is mad.
True; all things speak a God; but in the small,
Men trace out Him; in great, He seizes man;
Seizes, and elevates, and wraps, and fills
With new inquiries, ’mid associates new.
Tell me, ye stars! ye planets! tell me, all
Shall God be less miraculous, than what
His hand has form’d? Shall mysteries descend
From unmysterious? things more elevate,
Be more familiar? uncreated lie
More obvious than created, to the grasp
Of human thought? The more of wonderful
Is heard in Him, the more we should assent.
Could we conceive Him, God He could not be;
Or He not God, or we could not be men.
A God alone can comprehend a God;
Man’s distance how immense! On such a theme,
Know this, Lorenzo! (seem it ne’er so strange)
Nothing can satisfy, but what confounds;
Nothing, but what astonishes, is true.
The scene thou seest, attests the truth I sing,
And every star sheds light upon thy creed.
These stars, this furniture, this cost of heaven,
If but reported, thou hadst ne’er believed;
But thine eye tells thee, the romance is true.
The grand of nature is th’ Almighty’s oath,
In Reason’s court, to silence Unbelief.
How my mind, opening at this scene, imbibes
The moral emanations of the skies,
While nought, perhaps, Lorenzo less admires!
Has the Great Sovereign sent ten thousand worlds
To tells us, He resides above them all,
In glory’s unapproachable recess?
And dare earth’s bold inhabitants deny
The sumptuous, the magnific embassy
A moment’s audience? Turn we, nor will hear
From whom they come, or what they would impart
For man’s emolument; sole cause that stoops
Their grandeur to man’s eye? Lorenzo! rouse;
Let thought, awaken’d, take the lightning’s wing,
And glance from east to west, from pole to pole.
Who sees, but is confounded, or convinced?
Renounces reason, or a God adores?
Mankind was sent into the world to see:
Sight gives the science needful to their peace;
That obvious science asks small learning’s aid.
Would’st thou on metaphysic pinions soar?
Or wound thy patience amid logic thorns?
Or travel history’s enormous round?
Nature no such hard task enjoins: she gave
A make to man directive of his thought;
A make set upright, pointing to the stars,
As who shall say, “Read thy chief lesson there.”*
*A reference to Cicero’s notion that, unlike other animals, humans were created erect so they may raise their heads and see the heavens, from whence they learn religion.
The soul of man was made to walk the skies;
Delightful outlet of her prison here!
There, disencumber’d from her chains, the ties
Of toys terrestrial, she can rove at large;
There, freely can respire, dilate, extend,
In full proportion let loose all her powers;
And, undeluded, grasp at something great.
Nor, as a stranger, does she wander there;
But, wonderful herself, through wonder strays;
Contemplating their grandeur, finds her own;
Hence greatly pleased, and justly proud, the soul
Grows conscious of her birth celestial; breathes
More life, more vigour, in her native air;
And feels herself at home amongst the stars;
And, feeling, emulates her country’s praise.
Call it, the noble pasture of the mind;
Which there expatiates, strengthens, and exults,
And riots through the luxuries of thought.
Call it, the garden of the Deity,
Blossom’d with stars, redundant in the growth
Of fruit ambrosial; moral fruit to man.
Call it, the breastplate of the true High Priest,
Ardent with gems oracular, that give,
In points of highest moment, right response;
As yet thou know’st not what it is: how great,
How glorious, then, appears the mind of man,
When in it all the stars, and planets, roll!
And what it seems, it is: great objects make
Great minds, enlarging as their views enlarge;
Those still more godlike, as these more divine.
And more divine than these, thou canst not see.
Dazzled, o’erpower’d, with the delicious draught
Of miscellaneous splendours, how I reel
From thought to thought, inebriate, without end!
An Eden, this! a Paradise unlost!
I meet the Deity in every view,
And tremble at my nakedness before him!
O that I could but reach the tree of life!
For here it grows, unguarded from our taste;
No flaming sword denies our entrance here;
Would man but gather, he might live for ever.
Aid then, aid, all ye stars! — Much rather, Thou,
Great Artist! Thou, whose finger set aright
This exquisite machine, with all its wheels,
Though intervolved, exact; and pointing out
Life’s rapid, and irrevocable flight,
With such an index fair, as none can miss,
Who lifts an eye, nor sleeps till it is closed.
Open mine eye, dread Deity! to read
The tacit doctrine of thy works; to see
Things as they are, unalter’d through the glass
Stupendous Architect! Thou, Thou art all!
My soul flies up and down in thoughts of Thee,
And finds herself but at the centre still!
I AM, thy name! Existence, all thine own!
What more prepares us for the songs of heaven?
Creation, of archangels is the theme!
What, to be sung, so needful? What so well
Celestial joys prepare us to sustain?
The soul of man, His face design’d to see,
Who gave these wonders to be seen by man,
Has here a previous scene of objects great,
On which to dwell; to stretch to that expanse
Of thought, to rise to that exalted height
Of admiration, to contract that awe,
And give her whole capacities that strength,
Which best may qualify for final joy.
The more our spirits are enlarged on earth,
The deeper draught shall they receive of heaven.
The mind that would be happy, must be great;
Great, in its wishes; great, in its surveys.
Extended views a narrow mind extend;
Push out its corrugate, expansive make,
Which, ere long, more than planets shall embrace.
A man of compass makes a man of worth;
Divine contemplate, and become divine.
As man was made for glory, and for bliss,
All littleness is in approach to woe;
Open thy bosom, set thy wishes wide,
Man’s mind is in a pit, and nothing sees;
Emerge from thy profound; erect thine eye;
See thy distress! how close art thou besieged!
If, then, on the reverse, the mind would mount
In magnitude, what mind can mount too far,
To keep the balance, and creation poise?
Defect alone can err on such a theme;
What is too great, if we the cause survey?
Of matter’s grandeur, know, one end is this,
To tell the rational, who gazes on it —
“Though that immensely great, still greater He,
The triumph of my soul is, — that I am;
And therefore that I may be — what? Lorenzo!
Look inward, and look deep; and deeper still;
Unfathomably deep our treasure runs
In golden veins, through all eternity!
Ages, and ages, and succeeding still
New ages, where the phantom of an hour,
Which courts each night, dull slumber, for repair,
Shall wake, and wonder, and exult, and praise,
And fly through infinite, and all unlock;
And (if deserved) by Heaven’s redundant love,
Made half adorable itself, adore;
And find, in adoration, endless joy!
Where thou, not master of a moment here,
Frail as the flower, and fleeting as the gale,
May’st boast a whole eternity, enrich’d
With all a kind Omnipotence can pour.
Thus, darkness aiding intellectual light,
And sacred silence whispering truths divine,
And truths divine converting pain to peace,
My song the midnight raven has outwing’d,
And shot, ambitious of unbounded scenes,
Beyond the flaming limits of the world,
Her gloomy flight. But what avails the flight
Of fancy, when our hearts remain below?
Virtue abounds in flatterers, and foes;
’Tis pride, to praise her; penance, to perform.
To more than words, to more than worth of tongue,
Lorenzo! rise, at this auspicious hour;
An hour, when Heaven’s most intimate with man;
When, like a fallen star, the ray divine
Glides swift into the bosom of the just;
And just are all, determined to reclaim;
Which sets that title high within thy reach.
Awake, then; thy Philander calls: awake!
❧
Bibliography
Young, Edward. Night Thoughts. Ed. George Gilfillan. London, 1853.
❧ ❧
Your Soul is the Crown of Creation
Bodleian Library MS Douce 322
THE more we understand the grandeur and beauty of the human soul (of our own soul), the more we will love and praise God.
Would you like to know how great the human soul is? It is more beautiful than all the beautiful works of nature combined. How can one say that? Because beauty itself is not in works of nature, but in their perception. Just as a tree falling in the forest, unwitnessed, makes no sound, nothing in nature is beautiful unless seen.
Beauty occurs within the human soul, when the higher mind combines with sense perceptions. The beauty we see in nature is a projection of our own inner beauty. If there were no sentient beings to appreciate them, the flowers, sea, mountains, sunsets, star-strewn skies would not be beautiful. (It would be a terrible waste!)
Now consider that there is no limit to how much and how many kinds of beauty a soul can experience. No two beautiful sunsets are the same; there is endless variation, each one uniquely beautiful. And this is only one form of natural beauty. There is no beautiful experience anyone in the history of the human race has ever had or ever will have that you could not experience and find beautiful. Every glorious spectacle of the natural world can be experienced by any human being. And we may experience greater beauty than any person ever has before.
❧
All the above concern the realm of aesthetics. In addition we may consider the divine grandeur of human intellectual and moral powers.
Concerning intellect, here is a revealing example. Even now, with today’s technology, the human race could easily prevent a killer asteroid from destroying the planet by diverting its course. What power and responsibility! Moreover, a single human being — virtually any one of us — could learn the mathematics and perform the calculations necessary to predict the course of such an asteroid, determine how to divert it, etc. In the future doubtless our powers will increase. We could, say, prevent two suns from colliding and wiping out entire planetary systems.
In morality, human nature is such that at least the finest examples of our species have a desire to become bodhisattvas — dedicating their existence to the ultimate enlightenment of all sentient beings. To love all human beings and all things is consistent with our nature. This again is a moral power worthy of a divinity.
❧
For this much we ought to be profoundly grateful to God. But there is more. We have observed that a single soul is greater than the whole world. Yet the painful reality is that we live in a fallen condition. Not only do we fall short of our divine potential, but in many ways, through sin, error, selfishness, vice and egoism, we operate at a level worse than all the rest of creation. Only we, because of our free choice, can choose to deviate from the natural order.
But precisely because of the divine grandeur of the human soul, it must be the case that God cannot accept our fallen condition as final. So much is at stake — the very integrity, completeness, and harmony of all Creation — that the human soul must be redeemable. A logical inference from all we have said is that the restoration or realization of the human soul is as important as the soul’s creation. Salvation of a even one soul is more important than all material creation in its entirety. God must wish for our salvation as intently as he wished for the creation of the Universe and the human soul, and must, it follows, providentially supply for it.
Our conclusion — one stated not for the sake of theory or argument, but in order to bolster our confidence: our salvation is possible and readily available. Immense powers must be operating to provide for it. It is something in which we should have utmost confidence.
Last, the greater and more divine our nature is, the more humility is due. First, because gratitude should be in proportion to gifts received. And second, because without God’s guidance we cannot possibility know how or hope to conduct ourselves in a matter commensurate with our divine status, powers and dignity.
❧ ❧
Beyond the Epiphany Experience
LATELY I’ve been thinking about epiphany experiences. I’ve written many posts about the subject — here and at my other blog, Satyagraha — sometime in connection with the theories of humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow. Maslow placed great emphasis on transcendent experiences (or ‘peak experiences’ as he sometimes called them). His work is important because it brings these experiences into the realm of ‘respectable,’ empirical science. Maslow makes no metaphysical claims. He simply observes that (1) most people have these experiences, (2) the experience of transcendence has many positive and productive psychological effects, (3) it enhances a sense of life’s meaning, and (4) it connects the experiencer with core values (including Truth, Beauty and Goodness).
So on the one hand I applaud Maslow’s efforts. Yet my praise is qualified. In bringing transcendence into the realm of academic psychology, it was necessary for him to ignore the essential religious aspect of these experiences. Secular transcendence is a half-step to genuine religious mysticism. The half-step is good as long as one continues to the next; but it’s a problem if one is content to remain at the secular level.
A secular epiphany proceeds as follows:
1. The experience itself (say, feeling of awe at a glorious sunset)
2. A feeling of calmness, completeness
3. A feeling of gratitude (but to whom?)
A complete, religious epiphany builds on these three:
4. Awareness of the greatness of ones soul such that one is capable of experiencing such a thing; the experience, even more than it reveals outer Nature, reveals one’s inner nature.
5. A recognition that God has made not only this experience, but your own capacity to have and appreciate the experience
6. A feeling of religious devotion; giving thanks and praise to God
Last is what I might call ‘an awareness of charitable duty.’ The purpose of the epiphany is not our enjoyment, but to remind us of who we are: an anamnesis. When one stands in Nature during such an experience, the culmination is that one sees oneself not simply as a spectator, but a participant in the great, glorious TAO of Nature. Your beholding the Beauty and Mystery of Nature completes Nature’s telos. Or actually, it’s telos is completed when you, beholding the spectacle, you assume the role of priest, and on behalf of all living things praise God.
Some may object that this last point opposes the essentially passive nature of an epiphany experience. True, the experience comes not so much by ones own doing, but by not doing. But this re-emergence as agent of divine charity transcends the traditional distinction between passive and active: one acts in the world by being perfectly aligned with Nature, God’s plan and God’s will. One does not ‘do’: one enters the dance.
Thus added to the experience of Nature is an ‘inward turn,’ then an ascent, and finally a descent back into the natural world infused with a sense of divine charity. This is a basically Augustinian perspective on mental ascent, as, for example, most fully developed in St. Bonaventure and Richard of St. Victor.
❧
Cicero – Divine Grandeur of the Human Soul
PICO della Mirandola’s Oration on the Dignity of Man, an encomium on the greatness of the human being, is well known, and is often taken as a definitive statement of Renaissance humanism. Less familiar to many are the classical roots of the Oration and Renaissance humanism in general. One source is Plato, in whose writings several key ideas appear: (1) the Intellect (Nous) as a higher organ of cognition; (2) the immortality of the human soul; (3) the beauty and exalted nature of virtue; and (4) likeness or assimilation to God (homoiosis theoi) as a prime ethical goal, among others. But Cicero’s works are a second locus classicus. Cicero returns several times to the theme of the dignity and greatness of human beings, and especially their souls. The more important discussions are found in De legibus (Laws), Tusculan Disputations 1, De natural deorum (On the Nature of the Gods), and De officiis (On Moral Duties).
Each time Cicero works from the same basic list of reasons that point to the exalted status of human beings. (His main source may have been a lost work by the Stoic, Posidonius). The list includes:
a) The human mind is divine, especially Reason, a capacity only gods and human beings have.
b) The unlimited nature of memory. For Cicero, this means not so much a vast memory for facts, but that (per Plato) it appears as though (1) we have innate knowledge of principles and relations (mathematics, logic, forms), and (2) these seem unlimited in number.
c) Our capacity for extremely subtle judgments, including moral and aesthetic ones.
d) Virtue and moral excellence — again these are concerns we share with gods.
e) A unlimited capacity for invention and discovery.
f) Faculties of divination (prophecy, interpretation of oracles, etc.)
g) Finely attuned senses; for example, capable of subtle distinctions of hues, musical pitch and tones.
h) Marvelous adaptations of the human body to support our higher nature
i) The capacity for knowledge of God (e.g., from created things and the orderliness of Creation)
j) A bounteous earth, and dominion over animals and plants, which serve man’s needs.
k) Man’s soul is immortal (a topic to which Cicero devotes all of Tusculan Disputations 1)
The religious foundation of Cicero’s arguments here is insufficiently appreciated by modern commentators. He constantly returns to the idea that these exalted attributes are gifts of the gods and also demonstrate our kinship with them.
While his lists and discussions are similar across works, his purposes vary. His discussions of the topic and the broader context of each are summarized below:
De legibus (1.7.22−9.27)
Our divine attributes relate to the origin and nature of civil laws
Tusculan Disputations 1.24−28
How they derive from or are evidence for the immortality of the human soul
De natura deorum 2.54−66
Evidence that the gods exist and they are concerned with us
De officiis 1. 27, 30, 35−37
Moral excellence
These discussions are not of mere historical interest, but are helpful at a practical level. First (as the early Renaissance writer Petrarch noted in On Sadness and its Remedies), to remind ourselves of the grandeur of the human soul is an antidote for sadness and negative thinking. Second, they can form the basis of a contemplative or spiritual exercise — an ascent of the mind from considering natural phenomena, to attaining a religious state of consciousness, such as we see developed later by Richard of St. Victor and St. Bonaventure.
As Emerson said, “We are gods in ruins.” We are divine beings who continually get caught up in the mundane. Reminding ourselves of our exalted nature may stimulate an anamnesis, and an actual re-experiencing of ones divinity nature and immeasurable dignity. Then we will have little patience for letting our minds fall into negative and worldly thinking. Rather our concern will be to glorify God by having exalted thoughts.
Cicero understands the word dignity in a way somewhat different than the common modern usage. For us today, ‘human dignity’ connotes certain legal rights and respect before the law to which all human beings are entitled. Cicero goes beyond this, however, in seeing dignity as something it is our duty to preserve and cultivate. The great dignity of human beings is, then, both a gift and a responsibility.
Here is Cicero’s discussion on human dignity in his early work, De legibus. This lacks some of the scope, eloquence and polish Cicero devotes to the topic in his later works, Tusculan Disputations 1 and De natural deorum, but it serves as a good starting point.
❧
Cicero, De legibus 1.7.22−1.9.27
VII. [22]
Marcus. I will not make the argument long. Your admission leads us to this that animal which we call man, endowed with foresight and quick intelligence, complex, keen, possessing memory, full of reason and prudence, has been given a certain distinguished status by the supreme God who created him; for he is the only one among so many different kinds and varieties of living beings who has a share in reason and thought, while all the lest are deprived of it. But what is more divine, I will not say in man only, but in all heaven and earth, than reason? And reason, when it is full grown and perfected, is rightly called wisdom.[23]
Therefore, since there is nothing better than reason, and since it exists both in man and God, the first common possession of man and God is reason. But those who have reason in common must also have right reason in common. And since right reason is Law, we must believe that men have Law also in common with the gods. Further, those who share Law must also share Justice, and those who share these are to be regarded as members of the same commonwealth. If indeed they obey the same authorities and powers, this is true in a far greater degree, but as a matter of fact they do obey this celestial system, the divine mind, and the God of transcendent power. Hence we must now conceive of this whole universe as one commonwealth of which both gods and men are members.And just as in States distinctions in legal status are made on account of the blood relationships of families, according to a system which I shall take up in its proper place, so in the universe the same thing holds true, but on a scale much vaster and more splendid, so that men are grouped with Gods on the basis of blood relationship and descent.
VIII. [24]
For when the nature of man is examined, the theory is usually advanced (and in all probability it is correct) that through constant changes and revolutions in the heavens, a time came which was suitable for sowing the seed of the human race. And when this seed was scattered and sown over the earth, it was granted the divine gift of the soul. For while the other elements of which man consists were derived from what is mortal, and are therefore fragile and perishable, the soul was generated in us by God. Hence we are justified in saying that there is a blood relationship between ourselves and the celestial beings; or we may call it a common ancestry or origin. Therefore among all the varieties of living beings, there is no creature except man which has any knowledge of God, and among men themselves there is no race either so highly civilized or so savage as not to know that it must believe in a god, even if it does not know in what sort of god it ought to believe.[25]
Thus it is clear that man recognizes God because, in a way, he remembers and recognizes the source from which he sprang.Moreover, virtue exists in man and God alike, but in no other creature besides; virtue, however, is nothing else than Nature perfected and developed to its highest point, therefore there is a likeness between man and God. As this is true, what relationship could be closer or clearer than this one? For this reason, Nature has lavishly yielded such a wealth of things adapted to man’s convenience and use that what she produces seems intended as a gift to us, and not brought forth by chance; and this is true, not only of what the fertile earth bountifully bestows in the form of grain and fruit, but also of the animals; for it is clear that some of them have been created to be man’s slaves, some to supply him with their products, and others to serve as his food.
[26]
Moreover innumerable arts have been discovered through the teachings of Nature; for it is by a skilful imitation of her that reason has acquired the necessities of life.Nature has likewise not only equipped man himself with nimbleness of thought, but has also given him the senses, to be, as it were, his attendants and messengers; she has laid bare the obscure and none too [obvious] meanings of a great many things, to serve as the foundations of knowledge, as we may call them; and she has granted us a bodily form which is convenient and well suited to the human mind. For while she has bent the other creatures down toward their food, she has made man alone erect, and has challenged him to look up toward heaven, as being, so to speak, akin to him, and his first home.
[27]
In addition, she has so formed his features as to portray therein the character that lies hidden deep within him, for not only do the eyes declare with exceeding clearness the innermost feelings of our hearts, but also the countenance, as we Romans call it, which can be found in no living thing save man, reveals the character. (The Greeks are familiar with the meaning which this word “countenance” conveys, though they have no name for it.)I will pass over the special faculties and aptitudes of the other parts of the body, such as the varying tones of the voice and the power of speech, which is the most effective promoter of human intercourse, for all these things are not in keeping with our present discussion or the time at our disposal; and besides, this topic has been adequately treated, as it seems to me, by Scipio in the books which you have read. But, whereas God has begotten and equipped man, desiring him to be the chief of all created things, it should now be evident, without going into all the details, that Nature, alone and unaided, goes a step farther; for, with no guide to point the way, she starts with those things whose character she has learned through the rudimentary beginnings of intelligence, and, alone and unaided, strengthens and perfects the faculty of reason.
Source: Keyes, Clinton Walker (tr.). Cicero: De re Publica (On the Republic), De Legibus (On the Laws). Loeb Classical Library 213. New York: Putnam, 1928; pp. 323−329.
As noted, here Cicero is setting the stage for a discussion on the origin of civil laws. However the topic is so lofty and valuable that his interlocutor, Atticus, is prompted to exclaim:
You discourse so eloquently that I not only have no desire to hasten on to the consideration of the civil law, concerning which I was expecting you to speak, but I should have no objection to your spending even the entire day on your present topic, for the matters which you have taken up, no doubt, merely as preparatory to another subject, are of greater import than the subject itself to which they form an introduction. (Source: ibid.)
A nice way of summing up is to quote the North African Church Father, Lactantius (c. 250 – c. 325), sometimes called the ‘Latin Cicero.’ In a polemic against pagan philosophers titled, On the Wrath of God, he wrote:
Why God Made Man
It follows that I show for what purpose God made man himself. As He contrived the world for the sake of man, so He formed man himself on His own account, as it were a priest of a divine temple, a spectator of His works and of heavenly objects. For he is the only being who, since he is intelligent and capable of reason, is able to understand God, to admire His works, and perceive His energy and power; for on this account he is furnished with judgment, intelligence, and prudence. On this account he alone, beyond the other living creatures, has been made with an upright body and attitude, so that he seems to have been raised up for the contemplation of his Parent. On this account he alone has received language, and a tongue the interpreter of his thought, that he may be able to declare the majesty of his Lord. Lastly, for this cause all things were placed under his control, that he himself might be under the control of God, their Maker and Creator. If God, therefore, designed man to be a worshipper of Himself, and on this account gave him so much honour, that he might rule over all things; it is plainly most just that he should worship Him who bestowed upon him such great gifts, and love man, who is united with us in the participation of the divine justice. For it is not right that a worshipper of God should he injured by a worshipper of God. From which it is understood that man was made for the sake of religion and justice. And of this matter Marcus Tullius is a witness in his books respecting the Laws, since he thus speaks: But of all things concerning which learned men dispute, nothing is of greater consequence than that it should be altogether understood that we are born to justice. And if this is most true, it follows that God will have all men to be just, that is, to have God and man as objects of their affection; to honour God in truth as a Father, and to love man as a brother: for in these two things the whole of justice is comprised. But he who either fails to acknowledge God or acts injuriously to man, lives unjustly and contrary to his nature, and in this manner disturbs the divine institution and law.
Source: Lactantius, On the Wrath of God (De ira Dei) 14
Bibliography
de Plinval, Georges. M. Tullius Cicero: De Legibus. Paris. Belles Lettres, 1959. (Online Latin text).
Fletcher, William (tr.). Lactantius: On the Anger of God. In: Eds. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson and A. Cleveland Coxe, Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 7, Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1886; online version by Kevin Knight (ed.).
Keyes, Clinton Walker (tr.). Cicero: De re Publica (On the Republic), De Legibus (On the Laws). Loeb Classical Library 213. New York: Putnam, 1928.
Zetzel, James E. G. Cicero: On the Commonwealth and On the Laws. Cambridge University, 1999; translation based on: K. Ziegler (ed.), M. Tullius Cicero: De legibus, (3rd ed, rev. by W. Goerler, Heidelberg, 1979).
First draft: 17 Oct 2022
❧
Origen – Allegorical Meaning of the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins
John Melhuish Strudwick, The Ten Virgins (c.1884)
AS an earlier post on the allegorical meaning of Moses defending Jethro’s seven daughters at the well is one of the most-often visited here, I though I’d follow up with another on the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, which, as I mentioned before, seems similar. We’re guided here by several patristic commentaries on the parables, but of course need not restrict ourselves to the meanings they find.
The parable would have a simple and straightforward interpretation if it concerned only one wise and one foolish virgin. It would then affirm the ethical principle of ‘keeping ones lamp lit’ by remaining constantly vigilant and attentive to God. The specific reference to five (and not merely several), however, suggests to several commentators a reference to the senses.
We can parse the parable (shown below) into its main structural elements and their general meanings as follows:
Virgins. The patristic consensus is that these refer collectively a wise or foolish soul. However, since all are virgins (including the foolish ones), there is a also tendency to see them more specifically as souls of those who are at least make the effort to follow a religious life.
Bridegroom. The obvious Christian meaning here is Jesus Christ.
Marriage. Spiritual marriage with Jesus, also understood (as implied by verse 1) as attainment of the kingdom of heaven. Some commentators (e.g., Augustine) take the kingdom here in the most literal sense of attaining heaven in the afterlife, but that opposes meaning implied by Luke 17:21, the kingdom of God is within you. More likely then, the marriage symbolizes the soul’s union with God, a state of being constantly attuned and receptive to God’s Word as it directs and guides our minds.
Lamps. Conscious attention; vigilance.
Oil. That which keeps the lamps lit. Oil suggests grace or Spirit received from God. However the whole point of the parable is to suggest that effort on our part is required to obtain the oil. What distinguishes the wise from the foolish virgins, according to several patristic commentators, is that the former pursue good works (which might be broadly defined to include not only acts of charity, but prayer, reading of Scripture, meditation, etc.). Origen mentions sound doctrine as another form of oil that keeps the lamps lit.
Origen in his commentary on Matthew 1:1ff. understands the virgins as symbolizing “powers of perception,” which include for him both the physical senses and spiritual senses. (Origen is considered the father of the doctrine of spiritual senses.) Right use of sensation requires it being directed by the WORD of God. As with Augustine (Sermon 43 = Ben. 73), good works are needed to maintain this connection, i.e., to keep the lamps lit.
In the earlier post on Moses and Jethro’s daughters, I suggested that the story could be interpreted as either (1) describing a state of spiritualized physical perception — such that, quickened by grace and spirit, our physical senses may perceive material objects in a unitive, holy, and transfigured way, or (2) referring to purely spiritual senses, i.e., those which perceive immaterial things. Origen’s commentary of the parable of the virgins — which, it must be admitted, raises more questions than it answers — nevertheless does not seem inconsistent with either interpretation.
Hans Urs von Balthasar’s theological aesthetics (von Balthasar, 1982; McInroy, 2014) appears to affirm a link between Origen, spiritual senses, the virgins parable and transfigured physical perception. (McInroy, p. 159: “Balthasar calls for perception of a form that contains both sensory and ‘supersensory’ aspects (i.e. a material component and a ‘spiritual’ dimension).”
We add at the end a passage from Pseudo-Macarius’ Homily 4, which refers to the parable. He briefly connects the virgins with the physical senses within a more general discussion of how the mind in its entirely must remain fixed on God and spiritual things, and not lapse into worldly concerns.
❧
MATTHEW 25:1–13 (KJV)
[1] Then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom.
[2] And five of them were wise, and five were foolish.
[3] They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them:
[4] But the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps.
[5] While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept.
[6] And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him.
[7] Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps.
[8] And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out.
[9] But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.
[10] And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut.
[11] Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us.
[12] But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.
[13] Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.
Origen, Commentary on Matthew 25:1ff. (Latin translation = Klostermann Commentariorum Series 63−64)
“Then the kingdom of heaven shall be compared to ten maidens who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom and the bride. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise” (Mt 25:1−2)….
Not without reason do we say that the powers of perception of all who have come to know divine things, no matter how they have received the WORD of God, “whether by chance or by truth” (cf. Phil 2:18), are “virgins” — made virgins by the WORD of God in which they have believed or wish to believe. For such is the WORD of God that it shares of its purity with all who through its teaching have withdrawn from the service of idols or from the service of the elements of God’s creation (cf. 1 Cor 10:14; Gal 4:3), and have come to the service of God through Jesus Christ even if they have not carried out good works nor prepared themselves for beatitude. But just as, according to the WORD of truth, the individual virtues — which are, in substance, Christ — go together, so that whoever has one has all (for Christ cannot be separated from himself), so too do all the powers of perception go together; and wherever one of these senses has too little of the right teaching of the WORD, there will all the other senses be deceived, as it were, and turned into fools. By powers of perception or senses I mean both those ordinarily understood as such: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and those which the Book of Proverbs calls divine with the words: “You will find the knowledge of God” (cf. Prov 2:5). But again, the WORD of God is the cause of the right use of the senses, and it is not possible that, . . . someone use certain activities of the senses and neglect others. Thus if the Word has made one of the senses wise, so as to constitute it a virgin, it is necessary for it to pour out its wisdom into the other senses as well. Thus it is not possible that, of the five senses one has, some should be foolish and others prudent; they must rather all be prudent or all wise.
All these senses now take their “lamps” . . . when they accept that the Word of God and the Son of God is the bridegroom of the church; “they go out” from the world and from the errors of many gods and come to meet the Savior who is always ready to come to these virgins so that, with the worthy among them, he might go in to his blessed bride, the church. And after the reception of the WORD, as long as the light of the faithful “shines before men, that they may see their good works and give glory to their Father who is in heaven” (Mt 5:16), they are prudent [maidens], the kind who take along the oil which nourishes the light which is always poured forth in good works, i.e., the WORD of doctrine. They fill the vessels of their souls from this WORD, buying it from the teachers and keepers of the tradition who sell it, as much as is needed, even if their end is late and the WORD coming to their fulfillment is delayed; for they hasten to him to be fulfilled and to be set outside the world. But those who, after becoming Christian, were concerned to receive only enough teaching to last them to the end, … these are “foolish.” They accepted their lamps, which of course were lit at first, but they did not take oil along for such a long journey to go meet the spouse.
“As the bridegroom was delayed, all the maidens slumbered and slept” (Mt 25:5). When the bridegroom delays this way and the WORD does not come quickly to make perfect their life, the senses suffer somewhat while they remain and sleep, so to speak, in the night of the world. For they sleep in that they lose something of their alert vigilance; but those prudent maidens did not lose their lamps nor give up hope of saving their oil. . . .
“But at midnight,” that is, at the high point of that remissness, and at the midpoint between the spent light of evening and the still-awaited light of day, “there was a cry” (Mt 25:6), the cry of angels, I think, wishing to awaken all the slumbering senses and call them to go to meet the bridegroom. Inside the senses of those sleeping they cry out: “Behold the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!” (Mt 25:6). . . . All indeed heard and got up, but not all dressed their lamps in the proper way … and at an inopportune time “the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil’” (Mt 25:8). For although they were foolish, they still understood that they needed to go meet the bridegroom with light, with all the lamps of their senses illuminated. And since this parable was spoken for everyone to hear, Christ added for his disciples the words: “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour” (Mt 25:13).
Source: von Balthasar, p. 190f.
Pseudo-Macarius, Homilies 4.6f.
6. Take, for example, the five prudent and vigilant virgins (Mt 25:1 ff.). They enthusiastically had taken in the vessels of their heart the oil of the supernatural grace of the Spirit — a thing not conformable to their nature. For this reason they were able to enter together with the Bridegroom into the heavenly bridal chamber. The other foolish ones, however, content with their own nature, did not watch nor did they betake themselves to receive “the oil of gladness” (Ps 45:7) in their vessels. But still in the flesh, they fell into a deep sleep through negligence, inattentiveness, laziness, and ignorance or even through considering themselves justified. Because of this they were excluded from the bridal chamber of the kingdom because they were unable to please the heavenly Bridegroom. Bound by ties of the world and by earthly love, they did not offer all their love and devotion to the heavenly Spouse nor did they carry with them the oil. But the souls who seek the sanctification of the Spirit, which is a thing that lies beyond natural power, are completely bound with their whole love to the Lord. There they walk; there they pray; there they focus their thoughts, ignoring all other things. For this reason they are considered worthy to receive the oil of divine grace and without any failure they succeed in passing to life for they have been accepted by and found greatly pleasing to the spiritual Bridegroom. But other souls, who remain on the level of their own nature, crawl along the ground with their earthly thoughts. They think only in a human way. Their mind lives only on the earthly level. And still they are convinced in their own thought that they look to the Bridegroom and that they are adorned with the perfections of a carnal justification. But in reality they have not been born of the Spirit from above (Jn 3:3) and have not accepted the oil of gladness.
7. The five rational senses of the soul, if they have received grace from above and the sanctification of the Spirit, truly are the prudent virgins. They have received from above the wisdom of grace. But if they continue depending solely on their own nature, they class themselves with the foolish virgins and show themselves to be children of this world.
Just as the souls who have completely given themselves totally to the Lord have their thoughts there, their prayers directed there, walk there, and are bound there by the desire of the love of God, so, on the contrary, the souls who have given themselves to the love of the world and wish to live completely on this earth walk there, have their thoughts there, and it is there where their minds live (Lk 12:34).
For this reason they are unable to turn themselves over to the kind, prudential guidance of the Spirit. Something that is foreign to our basic nature, I mean, heavenly grace, necessarily demands being joined and drawn into our nature in order that we can enter into the heavenly hridal chamber of the kingdom and obtain eternal salvation.
Source: Maloney, p. 52f.
First draft: 9 Oct 2022
❧
Bibliography
von Balthasar, Hans Urs. Origen, Spirit and Fire: A Thematic Anthology of His Writings. Tr. Robert J. Daly. CUA Press, 2001.
von Balthasar, Hans Urs. Glory of the Lord Vol. 1: Seeing The Form. Tr. Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis. T&T Clark, 1982.
Gavrilyuk, Paul L.; Coakley, Sarah. The Spiritual Senses: Perceiving God in Western Christianity. Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Klostermann, Erich. Origenes Werke: Bd. Origenes Matthäuserklärung, II. Die lateinische Übersetzung der Commentariorum series. J. C. Hinrichs, 1933.
MacMullen, R. G. St. Augustine: Sermon 43. In: Ed. Philip Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 6., Buffalo, NY, Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888. Online (New Advent) version by Kevin Knight.
Maloney, George A. Pseudo-Macarius: The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter. Classics of Western Spirituality. Paulist Press, 1992.
McInroy, Mark. Balthasar on the Spiritual Senses: Perceiving Splendour. OUP, 2014. [dissertation]
Rahner, Karl. The doctrine of the ‘spiritual senses’ in Origen, Theological Investigations 16.81−103; originally published as Le début d’une doctrine des cinq sens spirituels chez Origene, Revue d’ascétique et de mystique 13, 1932, 113−45.
❧
Thomas Browne − Soul Illimitable
Frontspiece, Religio Medici (1642)
THIS Neoplatonism-themed passage from the Religio Medici of Sir Thomas Browne (1605–1682) caught my attention unexpectedly while researching another topic. Especially as it relates to the subject of the greatness of the human soul — a topic of much interest to me — I thought I should share it.
Now for my life, it is a miracle of thirty years, which to relate, were not a history, but a piece of poetry, and would sound to common ears like a fable. For the world, I count it not an inn, but a hospital; and a place not to live, but to die in. The world that I regard is myself; it is the microcosm of my own frame that I cast mine eye on: for the other, I use it but like my globe, and turn it round sometimes for my recreation. Men that look upon my outside, perusing only my condition and fortunes, do err in my altitude; for I am above Atlas’s shoulders. The earth is a point not only in respect of the heavens above us, but of that heavenly and celestial part within us. That mass of flesh that circumscribes me limits not my mind. That surface that tells the heavens it hath an end cannot persuade me I have any. I take my circle to be about three hundred and sixty. Though the number of the ark do measure my body, it comprehendeth not my mind. Whilst I study to find how I am a microcosm, or little world, I find myself something more than the great. There is surely a piece of divinity in us; something that was before the elements, and owes no homage unto the sun. Nature tells me, I am the image of God, as well as Scripture. He that understands not thus much hath not his introduction or first lesson, and is yet to begin the alphabet of man. Let me not injure the felicity of others, if I say I am as happy as any. Ruat cœlum, fiat voluntas tua, salveth all; so that, whatsoever happens, it is but what our daily prayers desire. In brief, I am content; and what should providence add more? Surely this is it we call happiness, and this do I enjoy; with this I am happy in a dream, and as content to enjoy a happiness in a fancy, as others in a more apparent truth and reality. There is surely a nearer apprehension of anything that delights us in our dreams, than in our waked senses. Without this I were unhappy; for my awaked judgment discontents me, ever whispering unto me that I am from my friend, but my friendly dreams in the night requite me, and make me think I am within his arms. I thank God for my happy dreams, as I do for my good rest; for there is a satisfaction in them unto reasonable desires, and such as can be content with a fit of happiness. And surely it is not a melancholy conceit to think we are all asleep in this world, and that the conceits of this life are as mere dreams, to those of the next, as the phantasms of the night, to the conceit of the day. There is an equal delusion in both; and the one doth but seem to be the emblem or picture of the other. We are somewhat more than ourselves in our sleeps; and the slumber of the body seems to be but the waking of the soul. It is the ligation of sense, but the liberty of reason; and our waking conceptions do not match the fancies of our sleeps. At my nativity, my ascendant was the earthly sign of Scorpio. I was born in the planetary hour of Saturn, and I think I have a piece of that leaden planet in me. I am no way facetious, nor disposed for the mirth and galliardise of company; yet in one dream I can compose a whole comedy, behold the action, apprehend the jests, and laugh myself awake at the conceits thereof. Were my memory as faithful as my reason is then fruitful, I would never study but in my dreams, and this time also would I choose for my devotions: but our grosser memories have then so little hold of our abstracted understandings, that they forget the story, and can only relate to our awaked souls a confused and broken tale of that which hath passed. Aristotle, who hath written a singular tract of sleep, hath not methinks thoroughly defined it; nor yet Galen, though he seems to have corrected it; for those noctambulos and night-walkers, though in their sleep, do yet enjoy the action of their senses. We must therefore say that there is something in us that is not in the jurisdiction of Morpheus; and that those abstracted and ecstatick souls do walk about in their own corpses, as spirits with the bodies they assume, wherein they seem to hear, see, and feel though indeed the organs are destitute of sense, and their natures of those faculties that should inform them. Thus it is observed, that men sometimes, upon the hour of their departure, do speak and reason above themselves. For then the soul begins to be freed from the ligaments of the body, begins to reason like herself, and to discourse in a strain above mortality.
Source: Henry Craik, ed. English Prose. Vol. II. Sixteenth Century to the Restoration. Sir Thomas Browne: The Soul Illimitable. 1916.
Reference
Browne, Sir Thomas. Religio Medici. London, 1682.
~ * ~
Beyond Stoicism
THE INTEREST shown in Stoicism in recent years has some definite pluses. One is that it shows people are finding the Freudian and other reductionist systems of materialist psychology insufficient for finding moral direction, personal satisfaction and happiness. Another is that it’s helping people to wake up to the beauties of Greek and Roman philosophy. Consider that before this Stoic revival, the prevailing attitude in university Psychology Departments was that nothing important had been written on human psychology before William James.
Nevertheless, I suspect that once they read and absorb all the excellent things Stoicism has to say about psychology, ethics, and the human condition, many will ultimately find something lacking. Stoicism excels in technical definitions and minute analysis of cognitive operations. But, ultimately, it fails to satisfy the deepest yearnings of the heart.
Platonism (which we may here to consider to include Neoplatonism) does more to satisfy these deep yearnings. Like Stoicism, it emphasizes the acquisition of virtue and the pursuit of dispassion (apatheia and/or ataraxia). But, unlike Stoicism, Platonism does not see apatheia as an end in itself, but rather as a means to an end: once the passions are quieted, the mind, now calm and still, can gain insight into deeper realms of truth. From dispassion it proceeds to theoria and noesis — the contemplation of Eternal Verities. From this contemplation the soul begins to learn important truths of its own nature, such as that (1) it is immortal, and (2) its destiny is to find fulfillment by degrees in ‘becoming godlike insofar as possible.’ The Platonist also seeks to ascend to a direct encounter with the Good, the source of all Truth and Beauty – which it cannot help but love.
But from this it is obvious that a still greater degree of personality development may occur: to make love of the Good – God – the central purpose of ones life. This is the realm of religion. Hence, while we have sketched this only in the broadest of strikes, the idea is that a natural progression would be from Stoicism, to Platonism, to religion.
These three correspond fairly well to the traditional stages of ascetico-mysticism, i.e., those of purgation (Stoicism), illumination (Platonism) and union (religion). In each later stage, the benefits of earlier stages are retained and built upon. Hence the Platonist may still be a Stoic, and the saint still a Stoic and a Platonist.
If we were to select as most important one thing that distinguishes a Christian from a Stoic, it is that the Christian recognizes a personal, loving God. Both the Christian and the Stoic may take as the ethical summum bonum or rule of life the accommodation of personal will to a higher will — to God’s will, for the former, and to Nature (or the Law of Nature) for the latter. The Stoic, moreover, may also understand Nature to be God — but not a personal God. Hence, while it may seem that the goals of the two are similar or the same, the way they seek to accomplish this are extremely different. The Stoic must rely on his or her own will to accomplish the abrogation of personal will! It is a matter of individual effort only. Hence, ironically, the struggle to achieve Stoic virtue, holiness, and resignation, because it is directed by the ego, necessarily contributes to egoism. For the Christian, however, progress in virtue comes from grace — it is the gift of a generous, loving, personal God. The Stoic seeks humiliation of will through pride, the Christian seeks humiliation of will in humility and gentle, childlike trust in God’s loving-kindness. The Stoic seeks to accomplish great psychological feats of asceticism and self-control, the Christian begins by praying for divine help.
❧
Psalm 45. The Mystical Marriage
Monastery of St. John the Baptist, Megara
PSALM 45 (Ps. 44 LXX) is another hidden gem. The Book of Psalms is a magnificent work — even by itself one of the greatest treatises on spiritual life we possess. The weakening of spiritual life in the West today is proportional to the loss in fervor with which people study and pray Psalms, which in previous centuries was a mainstay of Christian spiritual life. It’s not enough to read or hear isolated verses of Psalms during masses and liturgies. A thorough, attentive, and repeated reading of the whole work is needed. Only then may one recognize it as an organic unity with an express aim. That aim is to help effect a transformation of soul. Psalms not only give us a conceptual framework for understanding that process of transformation, but, insofar as we pray individual psalms (or perhaps sing them) devoutly and meditate on their meanings, it becomes a means of effecting that transformation.
The subject is a marriage involving the soul. The resemblance to the Song of Songs is evident and striking. It would be interesting to know which was written earlier: does the first epitomize the second, or the second expand the first?
To begin there is one verse of introduction, a masterpiece of economy and eloquence, and immediately rivets our attention on what is to follow:
[1] My heart is inditing a good matter: I speak of the things which I have made touching the king: my tongue is the pen of a ready writer.
There is no doubt — on this virtually all commentators agree — but that this psalm does not describe any historical event, but its meaning is found in symbolism and allegorical interpretation. There are two principal figures in the psalm: the King, and the Bride.
The King
[2] Thou art fairer than the children of men: grace is poured into thy lips: therefore God hath blessed thee for ever.
[3] Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty.
[4] And in thy majesty ride prosperously because of truth and meekness and righteousness; and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things.
[5] Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the king’s enemies; whereby the people fall under thee.
[6] Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre.
[7] Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.
[8] All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad.
The King here is almost universally understood to signify Christ. However, it’s also possible to understand the figure as symbolic of an Inner Christ within the soul. These two interpretations are not mutually exclusive, but to supply a satisfactory discussion of the relationship of Christ to the Inner Christ (however valuable that might be) is beyond the present scope. We may observe, though, that such a parallel is implied by the important Christian doctrine of theosis (becoming like God). Most unfortunate it is that this doctrine receives so little attention today outside the Orthodox Churches. We come to see, know and love God only to the degree that we become like Him. Our spiritual life is one of gradual coming to be like God, as we proceed from glory to glory. (2 Cor.3:18)
Of what, then, does the beauty of the King consist? We are told that He has the qualities of truth, meekness and righteousness. As we read and reflect on the psalm, we rediscover a great truth of our own soul: that we find this figure of supreme righteousness innately and irresistibly attractive. We cannot help but love deeply and intensely these divine virtues, because these also constitute the deepest nature of our own soul. We love in others what we treasure — sometimes without realizing it — in ourselves. Reading these verses and calling to our imagination a vision of this King, we are confronted with a great truth of our own soul: we love Righteousness and Moral Beauty — and far more so than anything related to the material world. This realization jolts us into a proper remembrance of our true nature.
Yet the King is not only great in moral beauty, but also awesome and sublime in a sense that is, we might say, terrifying. The very perfection of truth and righteousness which we admire in the King makes falsehood and wickedness perfectly unacceptable to Him. Hence He is also portrayed as taking an aggressive stance against evil. This creates a psychological paradox for us — one that, in a sense, is the same paradox inherent in that potent expression, fear of the LORD. The same pure King of Righteousness, whose beauty we find so irresistibly attractive, is also a source in like degree of great apprehensiveness. For we do not believe we are pure and holy. Even the best of us harbors a deep awareness of our carnal nature and selfish tendencies. As we are drawn toward the beautiful King, we recoil, as though feeling as St. Peter did when he said, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord. (Luke 5:8)
Therefore, while Christ, loving and patient, continually beckons us forward, saying, “Fear not! Come into your Father’s house, to the place that has been prepared for you,” we are divided. We wish both to proceed and to draw back, lest, coming into the presence of the Father, our sinful side will be seen and incur rejection and wrath.
This is an elemental conflict which must be resolved within the psyche of the devoted reader. The harder task, perhaps, is not so much the elimination of all sin, but to accept that God loves us completely despite our sins. This is a matter of great import. For insofar as guilt and shame dominates our mind, we will seek to by our own efforts to conquer sin — the polar opposite of what we need. But if we focus our attention on God’s generosity, understanding and love, we will see that it is by grace we are saved. So far from human understanding is this great truth!
The Bride
[9] Kings’ daughters were among thy honourable women: upon thy right hand did stand the queen in gold of Ophir.
[10] Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father’s house;
[11] So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty: for he is thy Lord; and worship thou him.
[12] And the daughter of Tyre shall be there with a gift; even the rich among the people shall intreat thy favour.
[13] The king’s daughter is all glorious within: her clothing is of wrought gold.
[14] She shall be brought unto the king in raiment of needlework: the virgins her companions that follow her shall be brought unto thee.
[15] With gladness and rejoicing shall they be brought: they shall enter into the king’s palace.
[16] Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth.
[17] I will make thy name to be remembered in all generations: therefore shall the people praise thee for ever and ever.
The bride here has traditionally been given three alternative meanings: (1) the Church, (2) the soul, and (3) the Blessed Virgin Mary. Examples of all three interpretations can be found throughout ancient and medieval commentaries on the Song of Songs. The meanings overlap and are interact, so we need not worry overmuch about making an exact distinction among them. The Church, after all, is a collection of individual souls, and what applies to one, generally applies to the other. Similarly, the Blessed Virgin is frequently taken as a kind of ideal for the individual soul. This not withstanding, our focus of attention here is on the bride as an individual soul.
Why is the soul symbolized as a female figure, as it would seem to transcend distinctions of gender. Apparently what is symbolized is not the entire soul, but that part of it that is connected with such things as feeling, sensation, emotion and desiring. This affective soul (anima) would be the counterpart of another part of our soul, the intellective (animus). In that case, we might possibly interpret the King as a symbol of the animus, to which the anima soul is being united in some new and fundamentally improved way. Such an inner marriage has many archetypal counterparts in mythology (e.g., Martinus Capella’s Marriage of Philology and Mercury and Apuleius’ Marriage of Eros and Psyche), and some alchemical literature. A Jungian would see this as a representation of a conjiunctio or marriage of the conscious and unconscious psyche.
It is not correct for Christians to summarily and completely dismiss secular psychological or esoteric writers merely because they depart from orthodox Christianity. Even if they are merely half-right, we must pay attention to the half that is right. Just as St. Augustine in On Christian Doctrine reminds us to read Scripture charitably, so as to not miss important meanings, so the principle of charity applies to reading secular works and writings from other spiritual traditions.
That said, the orthodox Christian (or, for that matter Jewish) and the Jungian view produce two complementary psychological interpretations of the marriage. The former sees the mystical marriage as an ascent of human consciousness to God. The latter sees it as an integration of psychic functions that produce an intensification and revitalization of waking consciousness in and of this world — that is, attainment of what Abraham Maslow called Being-experience. Elsewhere I have suggested that Plato’s philosophy, as shown particularly in his myths, can be understood as helping to attain both: mystical ascent and Being-experience. These two meanings are not mutually exclusive, and there is much in the Gospel to suggest it is as much concerned with the latter as the former. The telos of Christian ethics must be complete and integral if it is to be satisfying and compelling.
To return to the psalm, the Queen has female attendants, which may symbolize particular powers or faculties of the soul. For example, they could mean the senses, or perhaps higher-level creative powers such as are symbolized in Greek myth by the Muses. Her garment of finest gold and its fine embroidery suggest a radiant and beautiful assortment of virtues.
The bride is told to leave her father’s land. Many commentators plausibly suggest that this refers to the soul leaving its natural homeland of attachment to sensory and worldly goods, and fixing its affection on spiritual things. (See excerpt from St. Ambrose below.)
In verse 11 we see that it is precisely because the soul rejects the worldly and turns to heavenly things that the King finds her beautiful. This is a key point, and a magnificent one. It addresses and solves the aforementioned paradox. Despite our fears and misgivings about being acceptable to God, we here are taught that we already possess, at least in potential, something that God treasures dearly. Our soul becomes not just good, but supremely beautiful — possessing the very kind of moral beauty that the King prizes — by making the moral choice to turn from flesh to spirit. We need not recoil from God due to an our awareness of sinfulness, for God has endowed us with a nature He finds supremely beautiful. We must constantly redirect our attention to that fact.
Attending the wedding as a guest is another female figure, the Queen of Tyre. Tyre is a Philistine (i.e., heathen) city — so this figure may indicate some ruling power or sub-personality (for clarification of these terms see my previous post on Philonic interpretation) concerned with worldly things. Significantly, this woman bears a gift. What that gift is we are not told, and it is up to us to learn experientially. It might involve the ability to enjoy sensory goods and pleasures to a far greater degree than we could before. That is, if we are attached to the senses, we cannot really enjoy their offerings, because we are divided: we are simultaneous aware of defection, of giving our allegiance to the wrong place, which degrades the integrity of consciousness and diminishes enjoyment. But if our allegiance remains in heaven, then we my touch the world of sense delicately, savoring it as we would the delicate scent of a rose, rather than dulling our senses with cheap perfume.
Princely offspring of the bride are also promised. Perhaps these would be intellectual activities, projects, and works initiated by the redeemed, reformed and divinized mind.
Conclusion
These are some possible interpretations. They are only tentative, approximate and suggestive — hints, hopefully to that fuller understanding attainable only by devout reading and meditation.
As said before, there is an important performative dimension to interpreting the psalms. Understanding comes more from praying than analyzing them. This is true generally of biblical exegesis, and perhaps especially the Wisdom Books. There is a self-referential or circular quality: by spiritual mindedness we understand the deeper meanings, and a main purpose of the Bible is to help us gain spiritual mindedness. Norris puts this well:
“[Gregory of Nyssa] says not only that the Song in some fashion narrates an exemplary soul’s progress in knowledge and love of God but also that readers of the Song may themselves, through their comprehension of it, be brought along as actual participants in the same progress. The text of the Song has a kind of symbolic or sacramental character, then, in that to understand it fully is to be involved with the reality it speaks of.” (p. xlv).
Similarly, Origen, in his Commentary on the Song of Songs, interprets the words behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves’ eyes (Song 1.15) to mean that the eyes of the exegete are illumined by the Holy Spirit and enabled to see spiritual meanings of Scripture. (Origen Comm. Cant. 3.1)
Thus it is not the purpose here or in other articles to replace the effort of each reader with formulaic interpretations.
Let us, then, simply close with a passage from St. Ambrose’s commentary on the Song (found in his work On Isaac, or the Soul) I encountered in preparing this article which seems very relevant:
(8.78) Let us then take up these wings, since like flames they aim for the higher regions. Let each man divest his soul of her baser coverings and approve her when she is cleansed of the mire just as he would approve gold cleansed by fire. For the soul is cleansed just like the finest gold. Moreover the beauty of the soul, her pure virtue and attractiveness, is her truer knowledge of the things that are above, so that she sees the good on which all things depend, but which itself depends on none. There she lives and receives her understanding. For that supreme good is the fountain of life; love and longing for it are enkindled in us, and it is our desire to approach and be joined to it, for it is desirable to him who does not see it and is present to him who sees it, and therefore he disregards all other things and takes pleasure and delight in this one only. …
Let us flee therefore to our real, true fatherland [cf. Plotinus, Enneads 1.6.5]. There is our fatherland and there is our Father, by whom we have been created, where there is the city of Jerusalem, which is the mother of all men. (8.79) … Let us flee with the spirit and the eyes and feet that are within. Let us accustom our eyes to see what is bright and clear, to look upon the face of continence and of moderation, and upon all the virtues, in which there is nothing scabrous, nothing obscure or involved. And let each one look upon himself and his own conscience; let him cleanse that inner eye, so that it may contain no dirt. For what is seen ought not to be at variance with him who sees, because God has wished that we be conformed to the image of His Son. … This is the eye that looks upon the true and great beauty. Only the strong and healthy eye can see the sun; only the good soul can see the good. Therefore let him become good who wishes to see the Lord and the nature of the good.
❧
References
Astell, Ann W. The Song of Songs in the Middle Ages. Cornell University Press, 1990.
McHugh, Michael P. (tr.). Saint Ambrose: Isaac, or the Soul (De Isaac vel anima). In: Michael P. McHugh (ed.), Saint Ambrose: Seven Exegetical Works, Fathers of the Church 65, CUA Press, 1972 (repr. 2010); pp. 9−65.
Lawson, R. P. (tr.). Origen: The Song of Songs Commentary and Homilies. Ancient Christian Writers 26. Newman Press, 1957.
Norris Jr., Richard A. (tr.). Gregory of Nyssa: Homilies on the Song of Songs. Society of Biblical Literature, 2012.
❧❧
Thomas Chalmers: On Loving God for His Moral Goodness
Rev. Thomas Chalmers, by John Watson Gordon (National Galleries)
THOMAS CHALMERS (1780–1847) was an astronomer, preacher, economist, humanitarian and moral philosopher — part of the Scottish Enlightenment (along with such figures as David Hume and Adam Smith). An example of his sophisticated moral thought is his sermon, The Affection of Moral Esteem Towards God. Its main premise is that, both to be happy in this life and to prepare ourselves for Eternity, we must learn to love God not for gifts bestowed, but for the sake of God’s inherent loveliness, beauty and goodness.
Parts of the essay are bit marred (in my opinion) by Chalmers’ allusions to a God who, as part of his perfect justice and holiness, must punish sinners and enemies of religion. This is a problem often found in Calvinist sermons — something perhaps to address in a later post. But putting that aside, the sermon is making a valuable point.
And here let it be most readily and most abundantly conceded, that we are not perfect and complete in the whole of God’s will, till the love of moral esteem be in us, as well as the love of gratitude — till that principle, of which by nature we are utterly destitute, he made to arise in our hearts, and to have there a thorough establishment and operation — till we love God, not merely on account of His love to our persons, but on account of the glory and the residing excellence which meet the eye of the spiritual beholder upon His own character. We are not preparing for heaven — we shall be utterly incapable of sharing in the noblest of its enjoyments — we shall not feel ourselves surrounded by an element of congeniality in paradise — there will be no happiness for us, even in the neighbourhood of the throne of God, and with the moral lustre of the Godhead made visible to our eyes, if we are strangers to the emotion of loving God for Himself.
As a practical problem, then, we want and must learn to love God for His innate goodness. And in particular, here, Chalmers is concerned with our loving God for His moral beauty.
These days it may sound odd to suggest that we have an innate tendency to love moral beauty. This wouldn’t have seemed so strange to ancient writers like Cicero, though, who took the reality of this love as a given. Our attraction to moral beauty is at the basis of much of Cicero’s social philosophy.
But, whereas Cicero had many illustrious human examples of moral virtue he could look to, today we seem less fortunate. Where are the modern counterparts of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Demosthenes, not to mention great heroes, military leaders and statesman like Scipio Africanus!
If we had shining examples of moral heroism in modern society, then we would realize how naturally and greatly we love moral virtue. And then it would a relatively easy step to love the perfect moral goodness of God — who is the source of these earthly instances of moral virtue.
Fortunately, even if there are few people today we can admire in this way, there is no shortage of historical exemplars we may find to inspire and enlighten us. As an example, let me share with you one such example I find particularly inspiring.
It seems that when the great English essayist, Joseph Addison, was on his deathbed, he summoned a younger poet with whom he’d had some dealings decades earlier. Addison told him that early in that person’s career, he (Addison) had the opportunity to assist him, but — in part from jealousy — failed to do so. Having confessed this, he now asked the man for forgiveness. This story to me is incredible. Addison is on his deathbed — yet his concern is to make amends for a relatively minor wrong to another. It wasn’t to clear his own conscience, but rather to help that other person by winning their forgiveness. On another occasion (I hope I remember the details correctly), Addison is said to have clasped his son’s hand and said, calmly and benevolently, “See here how a good Christian man faces death.”
These have always struck me as a singularly pure and beautiful moral actions. They amaze me — and makes me love Addison for his moral virtue. Had I never heard of them, I might never have loved moral virtue so much. And without that love, I would not be able to love God as the source of such beauty.
Consider how God worked on my behalf. Had Addison never been born, had he never done these things, had they not been recorded and had I (like the vast majority of even well-educated people) never heard of them, I would be less equipped to love God! So how grateful I should be for this. And how much more grateful that God has designed me to find joy in the moral beauty of others!
Chalmers concludes his essay with general advice we would do well to heed:
Nevertheless, the chief end of man is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever. This is the real destination of every individual who is redeemed from among men. This should be the main object of all his prayers, and all his preparations. It is this which fits him for the company of heaven; and unless there be a growing taste for God in the glories of His excellency — for God in the beauties of His holiness — there is no ripening, and no perfecting, for the mansions of immortality. Though you have to combat, then, with the sluggishness of sense, and with the real aversion of nature to every spiritual exercise, you must attempt, and strenuously cultivate, the habit of communion with God.
❧
My new book
Christian Platonism 
St. Augustine: On Desire to See God
leave a comment »
St. Augustine of Hippo (stained glass; location unknown)
1John 3
[1] Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.
[2] Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
[3] And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.
St. Augustine of Hippo, Homilies on the First Epistle of John 4.5−6
5. For us then, what are we? Already we are begotten of Him; but because we are such in hope, he says, Beloved, now are we sons of God. Now already? Then what is it we look for, if already we are sons of God? And not yet, says he, is it manifested what we shall be. But what else shall we be than sons of God? Hear what follows: We know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is. Understand, my beloved. It is a great matter: We know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is. In the first place mark, what is called Is. You know what it is that is so called. That which is called Is, [c.f. Exod 3:14] and not only is called but is so, is unchangeable: It ever remains, It cannot be changed, It is in no part corruptible: It has neither proficiency, for It is perfect; nor has deficiency, for It is eternal. … and the Lord Himself says, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. (Matt 5:8) Therefore, we are to see a certain vision, my brethren, which neither eye has seen, nor ear has heard, nor has entered into the heart of man: (1 Cor 2:9) a certain vision, a vision surpassing all earthly beauty, of gold, of silver, of groves and fields; the beauty of sea and air, the beauty of sun and moon, the beauty of the stars, the beauty of angels: surpassing all things: because from it are all things beautiful.
6. What then shall we be, when we shall see this? What is promised to us? We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. The tongue has done what it could, has sounded the words: let the rest be thought by the heart.
For what has even John himself said in comparison of That which Is, or what can be said by us men, who are so far from being equal to his merits? Return we therefore to that anointing of Him, return we to that anointing which inwardly teaches that which we cannot speak: and because ye cannot at present see, let your office be in desire.
The whole life of a good Christian is a holy desire. [Tota vita christiani boni, sanctum desiderium est.] Now what you long for, you do not yet see: howbeit by longing, you are made capable, so that when that has come which you may see, you shall be filled.
For just as, if you would fill a bag, and know how great the thing is that shall be given, you stretch the opening of the sack or the skin, or whatever else it be; you know how much you would put in, and see that the bag is narrow; by stretching you make it capable of holding more: so God, by deferring our hope, stretches our desire; by the desiring, stretches the mind; by stretching, makes it more capacious.
Let us desire therefore, my brethren, for we shall be filled. See Paul widening, as it were, his bosom, that it may be able to receive that which is to come. He says, namely, Not that I have already received, or am already perfect: brethren, I deem not myself to have apprehended. (Phil 3:12−13)
Then what are you doing in this life, if you have not yet apprehended? But this one thing [I do]; forgetting the things that are behind, reaching forth to the things that are before, upon the strain I follow on unto the prize of the high calling. (Phil 3:13-14) He says he reaches forth, or stretches himself, and says that he follows upon the strain. He felt himself too little to take in that which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man. (1 Cor 2:9)
This is our life, that by desiring we should be exercised. But holy longing exercises us just so much as we prune off our longings from the love of the world. We have already said, Empty out that which is to be filled. With good you are to be filled: pour out the bad. Suppose that God would fill you with honey: if you are full of vinegar, where will you put the honey? That which the vessel bore in it must be poured out: the vessel itself must be cleansed; must be cleansed, albeit with labor, albeit with hard rubbing, that it may become fit for that thing, whatever it be.
Let us say honey, say gold, say wine; whatever we say it is, being that which cannot be said, whatever we would fain say, It is called — God. And when we say God, what have we said? Is that one syllable the whole of that we look for? So then, whatever we have had power to say is beneath Him: let us stretch ourselves unto Him, that when He shall come, He may fill us. For we shall be like Him; because we shall see Him as He is. [Source: Browne (slightly edited)]
❧
Bibliography
Browne, Henry. (tr.). St. Augustine: Homilies on the First Epistle of John. In: Philip Schaff (ed.), Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 7, Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888; online version: ed. Kevin Knight.
Ramsey, Boniface (tr.). St. Augustine: Homilies on the First Epistle of John. New City, 2008.
Roman Catholic Office of Readings. From a treatise by St Augustine on the first epistle of John. Our heart longs for God.
Latin: In Epistolam Joannis ad Parthos tractatus X. J. P. Migne, Patrologia Latina vol. 35 1977−2062. Paris, 1841.
❧ ❧
Written by John Uebersax
February 18, 2023 at 4:53 pm
Posted in ascetical psychology, Augustine, Beauty, Bible, Commentary, Contemplation, Mysticism, New Testament, Theosis
Tagged with seeing God, vision of God