4Zheny o~ Pray- the Prayer ~ LOss

Transcription

I
::):::::i
::": :::::::::::::::::::::::::
: ::; '::
: :::::
:.::
: :
: ::::
: :'::
.:; ' : ,
:
::
:
:
•
:
; i ::a
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: :::::::::
:
::: 2.: . ....
:
:::::.:
:-;::[::;:::
:
::i:.:~::
::::
: :::::
!4Zhenyo~ Pray-thePrayer~ LOss
::.
:
i
EDITORS
James Walsh S.J. and George H. Earle S.J.
ASSISTANT EDITORS
Michael Ivens S.J. and William Yeomans S.J.
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
John Ashton S.J.
Thomas E. Clarke S.J.
Dennis J. McCarthy S.J.
John L. McKenzie S.J.
Ladislas Orsy S.J.
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
Denise Critchley
SUBSCRIPTIONS AND CIRCULATION
Elizabeth Byrne R. S. H. M.
SUBSCRIPTIONS
Postage induded
U.K. and other countries
U.S.A. and Canada
Annual Subscription: £2.8o
Single copies: 8op
Annual Subscription: $9.oo
Single copies: $2.5o
Published quarterly (January, April, July, October)
Pqyments direct to:
The Subscriptions Department,
London Nw3 5JT, England
THE
WAY
CONTEMPORARY
CHRISTIAN
SPIRITUALITY
J U L Y i975
THE POWER OF EVIL
POSSESSION AND EXORCISM
John Navone
Page
163
GOOD AND E V I L SPIRITS
Brian O'Leary
174
TRAGEDY
John Ashton
I83
T H E WAGES OF SIN
William Dalton
193
E V I L AND GUILT
William Yeomans
202
Theological Trends: The Humanity of Christ I
209
Christ and Sexuality
When you Pray: The Prayer ofLoss
225
Recommended Reading
235
EDITORIAL OFFICES: T H E
LONDON
WAY,
3 9 FITZJOHN'S AVENUE,
NW$ 5JT~ ENGLAND
JAMBS WALSH ~975
P O S S E S S I O N AND
EXORCISM
ByJOHN
NAVONE
ILLIAM PETER BLATTY, author of both the novel and
the script of the film, The Exorcist, had his finger firmly on
the popular pulse at the time he began writing his story
of demonic possession. The youthful counter-culture was
in flower, and one of its fads was satanism, described by Andrew
Greeley 'as partly a put-on, partly neurotic, partly an escape, and
partly dead serious'.
The devil, demons, and witches have not only fascinated mankind through the ages; they have, in more recent times, also
intrigued film makers. As far as the entertainment media are concerned, it is perhaps no exaggeration to say that the devil has
eclipsed God in popularity. He appears frequently on late-night
television (and occasionally in 'prime time') in one horrible form or
another. He was responsible for Rosemary's notorious baby; and in
The Mephisto Waltz his favourite theme-music was the familiar
Liszt composition for piano. But never has he assumed more
awesome and vivid form than in The Exorcist, described by William
S. Pechter as the Godfather of horror films. 1
Stanley Kauffmann takes issue with the moralistic critics of The
Exorcist, 'who invariably object when they happen not to like a
current instance of horror or violence, although they may have been
carolling the week before about Clint Eastwood or Hitchcock'3 Such
critics bemoan the fact that a child is called upon to mouth some
obscenities and to perform an obscene action. Kauffmann does not
see how the child's satanic possession could have been shown by
having her exclaim 'Darn !', and by breaking Mom's favourite vase.
Not even its most negative critics have denied the emotional
impact of The Exorcist. No one has dozed off or has claimed to be
bored during this film experience. J o h n Hartl, film critic of the
W
1 Commentary,Vol 57, (3, M a r c h i974). T h e theme of possession is an old reliable: it is
the basis of a chief work on the Yiddish theatre, Anski's The Dybbuk. The idea of a doomhaunted object has worked for dozens o f writers, including Lord Dunsany and W. W.
Jacobs.
2 Kauffmann, Stanley: The New Republic, Feb 9, I974.
I6 4
POSSESSION
AND EXORCISM
Seattle Times, acknowledges the impact of this film, which refuses to
violate the mystery with which it deals: 'Its implicit rejection of the
answers given by medicine and psychology, for which the film has
been heavily criticized, is simply an admission that man can never
entirely comprehend his own world, let alone the universe'? In this
sense, Hartl believes that the film evokes religious awe - not because
it advocates belief in the devil (it is actually quite ambivalent about
this point), but because it reminds us how little we really k n o w , of
how helpless we can be in the face of something that does not fit
into our narrow, conventional view of reality. Hartl concludes that
this film is 'a slapin the face to the kind of pride that lends support
to a sense of security and omniscience that man can never justify.
It is the shock Of that slap - not the devil, vomit o r the levitating
bed or the foul language - that is sending critics and audiences
reeling'.~
Demonic possession in the New Testament is often accompanied
or at least assimilated by disease, because disease, a consequence of
sin, 5 is another indication of Satan's domination2 The gospel
exorcisms therefore Often take the form of cures, 7 although there are
also cases of simple expulsions, 8 and of sicknesses that have no
features of possession and are still attributed to Satan. 9 Most of
Jesus's miracles are miracles of healing or nature miracles. The
gospels record only about five expulsions of demons; and they often
and clearly distinguish between the possessed by demons and the
sick. 1° Although the gospel may attribute to a spirit, in some cases,
what we would recognize as epilepsy or insanity, there is little doubt
that in many cases there is question of real exorcism of real devils.
Did Jesus really cast out demons from men? Some believe that
Jesus adapted himself to common popular belief. The texts seem to
indicate more than that. Jesus appears to share with his contemporaries the belief in the existence and operation of evil spirits. The
3
M a r 3, I974-
4 ibid.SR[World(x5June, i974),featuredtwoarticlesonTheExordst:'APsychoanalyst's
I n d i c t m e n t of The Exorcist' by R a l p h H. Greenson, M. D., a n d ' I n Answer to Dr Greenson', b y Hollis Alpert. Alpert believes t h a t Dr Greenson goes utterly w r o n g w h e n he
takes the film to be a story a b o u t a girl w h o developed bizarre symptoms, a n illness.
R a t h e r , this is a story a b o u t a devil of pre-christian origins (that prologue in I r a q was
n o t there for local colour) w h o uses a lovely child for his malevolent work. It is n o t about
a neurotic or a psychotic child. She is not a suitable case for treatment! T h a t is the whole
point, according to Alpert, a n d it was utterly lost on D r Greenson a n d those critics who
share his u n d e r s t a n d i n g of the film.
6 M t 9, 2.
6 Lk 13, 16.
M k 9, I4-29.
8 M k 5, i-oo.
9 Lk ~3, Io-I7.
10 M t 4, 23-25; M k i; 32.
POSSESSION
AND EXORCISM
I6 5
issue in the gospel narratives of exorcism is often more than mere
illness. This is implied by the unnatural signs of violence, 11 and the
religious knowledge exhibited by the expelled demons. 1-~ Exorcism
is an important New Testament theme. Furthermore, were the
belief in demons a fact based on religious error, it would seem that
Jesus would have to correct it? 3 Nevertheless, it is true that what is
primary in the New Testament account is that Jesus overcomes the
power of evil; the material conception of this power, manifested in
the action of personal evil spirits, is secondary, yet seems required
by the texts understood in the context of the total biblical revelation.
To explain Jesus's power over demons as due to a pact with the
demons is the sin against the H o l y Spirit that is unforgiven.14
When the disciples of J o h n the Baptist inquire of Jesus, 'Are you
the one who is to come or have we to wMt for someone else? '15
Jesus replies that his healings and announcing of the good news to
the poor are the signs that he is 'the one to come'. Again, in the
context of the suffering Servant of Isaiah, Jesus's mission is linked
with the healing of the whole person in body, mind, psyche and
spirit. In dealing with diseases and sicknesses of every type as well as
with human sinfulness and ignorance, Jesus performs exorcisms:
That evening they brought him many who were possessed by devils.
He cast out the spirits with a word and cured all who were sick. This
was to fulfil the prophecy of Isaiah: He took our sicknesses away and
carried our diseases for us. In
In his course of lectures, 'Christotherapy: Healing through Enlightenment', Bernard Tyrrell, s.j. notes the subtlety of Jesus's way
of bringing healing through enlightenment in the case of the
Gerasene demoniac, when Jesus and his disciples are confronted
with a possessed, insane man near a cemetery in the pitch dark of
night. 1~ Mark describes the man as being possessed by unclean
spirits, and psychologically the man appears twisted and torn in
many directions, divided and shattered in mind. Although Jesus
attempts to drive out the unclean spirits with the words, 'Come out
of the man, unclean spirit', the spirit would not leave. Jesus then
asks the spirit for its name, because knowledge of a name represented
the possession of power over the person with that name. Once the
11 Mk 5, 4-5; 9, 22; Lk 4, 25.
z2 Mk
a8 Lussier, Ernest: 'Satan', in Catholic Mind (Sept, 1974) , p ooff;
from the Spring, i974 issue of Chicago Studies.
14 M k
1~ Lk 7, I9--oo.
16 M t 8, I 6 - i 7.
1~ Mk
I, 24, 5, 7his essay is reprinted
3, °2-27.
5, 3-5.
166
POSSESSION
AND EXORGISM
name was uttered, the man was released from the control of the
spirits and his madness left him. Jesus's exorcism brought the man
to self-knowledge and hence to self-possession and healing. Jesus
remained with the man for some time. The people from the nearby
town came out to see what had happened, and were startled by the
total transformation of the demoniac who was now fully clothed
and in full control of his senses. The naked, howling, serf-wounding
demoniac had been restored to sanity. H e typifies the subtle way in
which Jesus often gradually led men in desperate need of wholeness
through various stages of enlightenment until full healing occurred.
Christ understood that it is never enough just to exorcize a devil.
He taught that the demonic power must be replaced by a power for
good and an inward enlightenment in the individual; otherwise, the
last stage of the individual may be worse than the first:
When an unclean spirit goes out of a man it wanders through waterless
country looking for a place to rest, and cannot find one. Then it says,
'I will return to the home I came from'. But on arrival, finding it
unoccupied, swept and tidied, it then goes off and collects seven other
spirits more evil than itself, and they go in and set up house there, so
that the man ends up being worse than he was before. 18
Exorcism is but the first step in the process of healing: the evil
spirit is cast out to be replaced by the holy Spirit. Mind-fasting the avoidance of those thoughts and desires which pollute the
mind and heart of man - and spirit-feasting characterize these
complementary aspects of healing, both of which occur in the
sacrament of baptism which initiates the life of the Christ-self and
the demise of the anti-Christ-self.
Exorcism must be understood within its authentic ecclesial
context. It is not an arcane, gnostic ritual, the mastery of a technique, a mystic expertise of the individual Shaman-like performer.
The exorcist is the minister of Christ and his Church: it is Christ
who exorcizes, whose power conquers and dispels evil, through his
minister and his body, the Church. The exorcist must be authorized
by the Church, because it is the Church which empowers him to
perform the work of Christ in the name of Christ. H e performs the
exorcism in the company of other holy Church members, who join
his prayers, recalling that wherever there are two or three gathered
in Christ's name, there too has been promised the e s p e c i a l l y
is
~Vltx2, 43-45"
POSSESSION
AND EXORCISM
I67
efficacious presence of Christ himself. This presence alone guarantees the successful outcome of the exorcism.
An exorcism is a prayer to God to drive out or ward off demons
or evil spirits from persons, places, or things that are, or are believed
to be, possessed or infested by them or are liable to become victims
or instruments of their malice. 19 In the performance of an exorcism
it is always the Church that prays through the instrumentality of
the exorcist, so that the efficacy of the rite is comparable to that of
the sacramentals. The exorcist's personal faith and integrity, as is
clear in the gospels themselves, 20 play a determining role in the
outcome of the exorcism. Hence the Church is especially cautious
in authorizing clerics who have received the power of exorcism
through Holy Orders to put it to use. This is not the case of exorcisms employed during the rite of baptism, but of those uses of the
power that an apparently authentic instance of possession has
required.
The foundation for a theology of exorcism is the New Testament's
witness to Christ's conflict with and victory over the powers of evil.
Christ himself proclaimed in word and deed such a victory. 21 T h e
authority and ability to cast out devils was entrusted to the Twelve ;~
and all 'those who believe' are also understood to share in this
power. 23 A continuing sign of man's redemption is Satan's loss of
power. ~4 This was the conviction of the Fathers, Tertullian and
Hilary of Potiers, and of the schools of the Middle Ages, including
St Thomas Aquinas. ~a
The Church recognizes the possibility of diabolical possession and
regulates the manner of dealing with it. The Code of Canon Law
allows authorized ministers (exorcists) to perform solemn exorcisms
not only over the faithful, but also over non-catholics and those who
are excommunicated. The Roman Ritual contains a solemn rite for
exorcizing.
Primitive christians exorcized demons. Justin Martyr speaks of
the many demoniacs who were exorcized by christians in the name
of Jesus, even though they could not be exorcized by those who
used incantations and drugs. ~6 Tertullian laments the ingratitude
of the pagans who accused the christians of being the enemies of the
10 Gratsch, E. J. : 'Exorcism', in New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol V (New York a n d London, 1967) , p p 748ff.
2o M t i7, i 4 - 2 o ; M k 9, I3-28; Lk 9, 37-43.
2~ C f L k l i , 2 0 ; J n I 2 , 3 i .
22 M k 3 , I 4 f f ; C f , M t IO, i.
2a M k I6, I 7 ; L k IO, 17-1 9.
24 I J n 5 , ~8.
.05 C f Summa Theol. I I - I I ae, 9 o, 2.
26 2 Apol. 6.
168
human race, even though the christians exorcized the pagans
without reward or hire. sT Origen observed that the name of Jesus
expelled myriad evil spirits from t h e souls and bodies of men. as
Lactantius writes that the followers of Christ, in the name of their
Master and by the sign of his passion, the cross, banished polluted
spirits from men. ~9 Cyril of Jerusalem writes that the invocation of
the name of God scorches and drives out evil spirits like a fierce
flame. These views reveal the attitude of the early Church, for
which an exorcism was an invocation of God against the harassment
of devils. Symbolic actions frequently accompanied the invocation:
breathing upon the subject, or laying hands upon him, or signing
him with the cross. The invocation might take the form of calling
upon the name of Jesus, of cursing the devil, of commanding him
to depart, of reading a passage from scripture.
The early Church not only exorcized demoniacs, but it also
exorcized catechumens as a preparation for baptism. Because of
original sin, and of personal sin in the case of adults, catechumens
were considered subject to the power of the devil, whose 'works'
and 'pomps' they were summoned to renounce. The exorcism
preceding baptism was a symbolical anticipation of deliverance
from the power of the devil through baptism; it was also understood as a means of restraining the devil from impeding the reception of the SaCrament? °
An exorcist is one who expels evil spirits from possessed persons
by adjuring them in the name of a more powerful spirit to depart. ~1
The english word, exorcist, derives from the greek verb, e x o r k i z o ,
which means 'to adjure'. This verb is employed by Matthew in the
juridical sense of making someone testify under oath. 3. In Acts,
mention is made of jewish exorcists at Ephesus, who vainly attempted 'to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had
evil spirits in them, saying, I adjure you by Jesus whom Paul
preaches'. ~8 Jewish exorcists were common at the time of Christ.
Josephus describes an exorcism by magical rites performed in
the presence of Vespasian by a certain Jew, Eleazar2 a According to
Josephus, this exorcist used incantations reputedly composed by
Solomon.
~ Apol. 37.
ao Summa Theol.
2s Contra Celsum, i : 25.
~9 Instit. 4, 27.
III, 7~, 2.
~1 Hartman, L. F. • 'Exorcist', in N e w Catholic Encyclobedia, Vol V (NewYork and London, I967), p 75o.
3~ Mt 26, 63.
~8 Acts io, i3-~6.
3~ Ant. Jud. 8, 42-49.
POSSESSION
AND
EXORCISM
~69
An exorcist, in ecclesiastical language, is a cleric who has
received the third of the four minor orders. Like the other minor
orders, the order of exorcist is not part of the sacrament of Holy
Orders, but is of ecclesiastical institution. This order has recently
been suppressed.
Today, the use of the power of exorcism is restricted by ecclesiastical law. The rite of solemn exorcism requires special permission
from the Ordinary, to be given only to priests of considerable piety
and prudence. There is assumed the need of personal victory over
the temptations of the evil spirits in those who receive the power to
expel them from others.
Although psychiatry has shown that the workings of the subconscious explain many, if not most, of the abnormal activities that
earlier generations had attributed to diabolical activity, psychiatry
does not claim to give the total explanation for such activities: it
can give only the psychological explanation. Even presuming that
such an explanation is correct in a particular case, it is always an
eXplanation made within the limits of that science. It does not, of
itself, exclude the concomitant causality that may possibly be
exerted by elements which are not the object of the science of
psychiatry.
Some who have worked with the criminally insane, although
accepting" as valid the psychiatrist's explanation of a case, are open
to the possibility of the diabolical as a concomitant cause, even
thohght this cannot be established with certitude in any particular
case. It is possibt~e to accept, for example, the view that Satan is an
indication of how the human mind copes with the problem of evil,
and yet to believe that such a creature as Satan actually exists.
In his article 'The Demonological Problem in the Bible', Silverio
Zedda, S.J., President of the Italian Biblical Association and Professor at the Gregorian University, held that the living tradition of
the Church is perhaps the strongest support for the doctrine of the
devil, devils, and angels. It is, he affirmed, within this context that
the biblical exegete works, and that a synthesis is attempted between
the results of his study and traditional teaching2 5
The bible did not 'invent' the notion of malign spirits. Church
teaching about demons and the devil represents the interpretation
of the natural experience of a variety of supernatural principalities
and powers. The findings of comparative religion show that this
s5
CfL'Osservatore Romano,
(Dee. 17, 1972 ).
• 170
POSSESSION
AND EXORCISM
natural experience is not restricted to the judeo-christian tradition.
The teaching of scripture and revelation on this matter seems to be
based on the natural presuppositions of h u m a n experience, which
scripture critically corrects and incorporates into the doctrine of
Christ's liberation of m a n from all 'principalities and powers'.
Despite his endurance of suffering and evil, the christian is an
optimist, convinced that Christ is Lord and that sin, death, and
Satan do not have the last word about man's ultimate fate.
Literature offers a secularized sense of the demonic in such works
as Kafka's The Castle and The Trial, which show us an almost
unbearable extreme of powerlessness in the face of an unknown evil.
Here everything 'means something'; we share the obsessive suspicions of the insane; everything whispers, cunningly cajoles,
promises hollowly, accuses and waits. In 'crime novels' we are
continually confronted with the 'victim'. What quiver of meaning
stirs in the hunting and 'detecting' malice, in the fugitive's panic
and guile with which our popular literature is saturated?
Such literature reflects the h u m a n consciousness of the numinous,
the fearful, the uncanny, the dauntingly 'other'. The gothic exploration of the 'night-side of Nature' and the romantic emphasis
upon a demonic, fatal, insatiable hero pointed inexorably to h u m a n
complexities and needs that eluded an adequate explanation.
Dread, in contemporary literature, has shifted from the outer to
the inner scene. Terrible events now take place in the most usual
surroundings to the most ordinary people. In Graham Greene we
encounter the hero, conscious of inner guilt, who draws to himself
the outer guilty situations as a magnet draws iron. ~6 The hero is
tested by a confrontation with a spiritual or physical evil he cannot
move, change or understand.
'Charlie and the Devil', an article by Ed Sanders, 37 explained the
consciousness of the diabolical in Charles 1Vianson's planning of the
Tate murders. Patricia Krenwinkel, one of the murderers under
Manson's influence, felt that she had been summoned by the devil
for this gruesome task. It was the claim of Manson that he was
merely a reflection of those around him, that he was 'dead in the
head', and therefore acted from the soul. Sanders claims that
Manson was influenced by the Process Church of the Final Judgment, an organization espousing 'End of the World' slaughter. At
3o CfBogaa, Louise: SelectedGrltidsra (New York, 1955) , p 3x5.
37 CfEsquire (Nov. I972), p Io9.
171
one stage 'processans' are required to enter into a prolonged worship
of Satan, involving satanic ceremonies.
The Process Church of the Final J u d g m e n t is an english occult
society dedicated to observing and aiding the end of the world by
murder, violence and chaos, and converted to the proposition that
they, the Process, shall survive the gore as the chosen people. 8s The
black-caped, black-garbed Process arrived in Los Angeles in early
i968. One of their commandments was 'thou shalt kill'. They
stayed in public view till a few days after Robert Kennedy's
assassination. The Process was active in I968 in the Santa Cruz
Mountains, San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, New Orleans,
as well as their home base, London. Ever since 1969, according to
one of his confederates, Manson had ranted in his murder lectures
about the Process. He and some of his family began to wear black
capes and black-dyed clothing like the Process.
Two other satanic cults which Sanders believes to have influenced
Manson are The Solar Lodge of the Ordo Templi Orientis, a magical
cult specializing in blood-drinking, in sadistic and sodomistic sexmagic and hatred of the blacks, and an obscure occult group called
tile Kirke Order of Dog Blood, devoted to the 'worship of evil'.
The existence of such cults is but one aspect of the recrudescence
of interest in the demonic. They suggest that perhaps those who are
seeking Satan have already found him. There is a revival of belief
in demons, evil spirits tempting and misleading men, in some cases
thought to be possessing them and more often believed to be
infesting places, making them frightening. It is in this context that
this author shares the view expressed in The Month:
It would seem that there is urgent need for new sacramental rites,
both for alleged possession and for alleged infestation, which primarily
demonstrate that the power and love of God are greater than any
adverse power, whatever it may be, and which re-integrate afflicted
souls into the normal life of the christian community assured of God's
protecting care. This is not to say that there is no place for direct
authoritative action dismissing the evil, but it is safer and wiser to be
reticent about the precise nature of the evil there. There is also the
gospel warning of the empty, dispossessed man whose last state was
eight times worse than his first. Exorcism can only be a first step to
rehabilitation, a9
Sanders, art. cir., p I o 9.
~9 See 'The Devilish Phenomenon', in The Month (May, I974), p 563 •
as
I72
If, on the one hand, we cannot have certitude about an authentically diabolical influence in a particular case, on the other hand we
cannot rule o u t the possibility of such an influence. Prayers for
deliverance from evil, whatever the evil may be, have marked
christian worship from t h e beginning; they are for man's benefit.
Such prayers, when seeking deliverance from alleged possession or
from alleged infestation, need not be based on a certitude of an evil
spirit's presence; the possibility of such a presence should suffice. In
any case, the evil is a reality, whatever its full explanation.
A particular case of possession and exorcism
An italian exorcist informed me that his peasant origins were an
affront to the devils he had exorcized. The proud devils generally
insisted that the Pope or at least a Cardinal perform the exorcism.
The same exorcist held that it would be risky for an individual to
attempt an exorcism. H e explained that it is Christ who conquers
Satan; hence, the exorcist must have the authorization of the
Church, of the Body of Christ, for the performance of the exorcism.
He is also accompanied by other devout christians w h o pray with
him during the exorcism, for wherever two or three are gathered in
Christ's name there is a special efficacy to their prayers.
The italian exorcist found performing exorcisms a most difficult
and exhausting task. After his last exorcism, he coughed up blood
for a month. His throat was raw after prolonged shouting at the
demon.
T h e voice of the demon, he stated, came from all parts of the
room, much like stereo. The body of one possessed person was as
white as a sheet of paper and his eyes were like balls of fire.
The exorcist prayed that there would be no harm done to himself
and to the possessed person. As a result of this prayer, a man whose
head smashed a church pew was not harmed by a blow that might
have killed him; similarly, another man, hurtled by a demonic force
from the top of an altar to the pavement far below him, was also
unharmed.
The exorcist produced a photo of a goat's head scorched upon
the wall of the bedroom of the possessed person whom he had
exorcized. He explained that at the end of the exorcism a flame
leapt across the room, accompanied by a sound like a thunderclap,
and scorched this image which indicated the departure of the
demon.
The exorcist had taped some of his exorcisms. One involved a
173
young man purportedly possessed by the spirit of a damned soul, of
a man named 'Matteo' who had lived at the time of St Philip Neri.
This spirit did not wish to reveal itself, and did so only after the
exorcist's insistence that he do so in the name of God and Christ.
His voice was that of an old man in the body of a young adolescent.
W h e n the exorcist asked Matteo what was the main obstacle to
the damnation of souls, Matteo replied 'grace', 'the divine mercy'.
Asked whether the Madonna had any role in the prevention of
personal damnation, the voice replied that she had been created
for that purpose. Given the context, these responses were quite
remarkable. The dialogue between the exorcist and the voice
('Matteo') revealed violent battle between two spirits: it is by no
means a tranquil exchange of view and information. Even those
who listened to the tape without understanding italian were deeply
impressed by the violence of the exchanges.
G O O D A N D EVIL S P I R I T S
By BRIAN
T
O'LEARY
HE TEMPTATONS of Jesus in the desert present us with the
dramatis personae of spiritual c o m b a t as seen by christian
tradition. I n the terse account left us by St Mark, we read:
The Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. And he
was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with
the wild beasts; and the angels ministered to him. 1
This surprising sequel to the baptism of Jesus and its accompanying
theophany~ is no mere interlude before the beginning of the public
ministry. It is the direct result of the coming of the Spirit u p o n
Jesus, a n d gives in capsule form a theological explanation of the
ministry of preaching a n d healing in which he is about to engage.
M a r k in particular interprets the mission and activity of Jesus as a
battle waged against Satan, a battle of cosmic proportions, even
though individual skirmishes m a y take place on a smaller and less
dramatic scale. As David Stanley has pointed out:
Mark has analysed the activities which engaged Jesus during his
public life, and has placed them in four main categories, each
representing a facet of this eschatological struggle with Satan. There
are, in the first place, the exorcisms; secondly, there are Jesus's
miracles of healing; thirdly, there are the debates or controversies
with his adversaries; and fourthly, there is Jesus's continual fight
against ignorance, tepidity, and obtuseness in his own disciples. These
constitute for Mark four areas of combat, so to say, in which the
battle against man's adversary, Satan, is waged by Jesus. 8
T h e scene in the wilderness, therefore, gives us in pictorial a n d
dramatic form a key to the interpretation of all the following
episodes in Mark's gospel. The choice of the wilderness as the scene
for the combat was quite n a t u r a l to the hebrew mind. Symbolically,
the desert represented the natural habitat of demons, 4 but it was
Mk I, i2-i3; cfMt 4, l - - I f ; Lk 4, I-I3.
z CfMk 1,9-ii;Mt3, i3-i7;Lk3,2i_2m
a Stanley,David M. : A Modern Scriptural Approach to the Spiritual Exercises (Chicago,
1967),p i35.
4 CfLev I6,8ff;Tob8,3;Mt I2,43;Lk II, 24.
GOOD AND EVIL
SPIRITS
I75
also the place where man met God, especially in a crisis. The desert
experience of the Israelites during the Exodus was a time when the
people found favour with Yahweh ;5 and for St Paul it became a type
of the christian experience, s Hosea too had depicted the restoration
of Israel as a new wandering in the desert, when Yahweh would
lure his unfaithful wife back into the wilderness to recapture the
days of her youth and make love to her there once more. ~ Against
the background of this double tradition, it is easy to understand the
presence of both the Spirit and Satan in the temptation story.
When, towards the end of the third century, anchorites appeared
in the egyptian and syrian deserts, their purpose in fleeing the
world was not to escape its dangers, nor was it Lebensuntiichtigkeit
(an inability to cope with life) ; rather they wanted to recreate, to
relive the combat which Jesus himself fought and won against
Satan after he had received the Spirit. 8 They took quite literally the
words of Paul: 'For we are not contending against flesh and blood,
but against the principalities, against the powers, against the
world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of
wickedness in the heavenly places'2 The Desert Fathers had no
need of a systematic theology of spiritual combat, although such
had been worked out by the great Origen. 10 They were engaging in
it themselves, deliberately carrying the war into the demons' own
territory, for it was this element of the biblical desert-symbolism
which dominated their thought.
The most well-known of these ascetics was St Antony, whose life
was written by St Athanasius in 357, about a year after the hermit's
death. But the Vita Antonii was not just a biography of a great man;
it conveyed in an arresting and colourful w a y a whole spirituality,
that which made the desert flower. Antony became known throughout christendom, and fascinated people from many different walks
of life. He was brought to the notice of Augustine, still struggling
towards his own conversion, by a certain Pontitianus:
5 C f A c t s 7, 36; I3, I8n C f I Cor Io, II.
7 C f H o s 2 , I4-23 .
8 C f Switek, G u a t e r ; 'Discretlo Spirituurn', in Theologle und Philosophic, 47 J a h r g a n g ,
Heft I (I972), p p 44-48.
0 E p h 6, x2.
10 C f Switek, op. cir., p p 41-44 . Origen uses E p h 6, 12 in Peri Archon I I I , 2, where he
distinguishes two phases in the spiritual c o m b a t : beginners only struggle against flesh
a n d blood, the more a d v a n c e d have to do so against principalities, etc. Origen's system a t i c working o u t of the spiritual life was b r o u g h t into the desert by Evagrius Ponticus
in the last decades of the fourth century. T h e r e is no certain evidence of a n y serious
influence before then.
I76
GOOD AND EVIL SPIRITS
When, therefore, I had declared to him that I bestowed myself much
in the reading of those scriptures, he took occasion, in the course of his
speech, to discourse unto us of Antony, the egyptian monk, whose
name was excellently famous amongst thy servants; but as for us, we
had never heard of him until that hour. But he, so soon as he perceived
this, insisted the longer in speaking of him, insinuating the knowledge
of so great a man to us who were wholly ignorant, and wondering
withal at that same ignorance of ours. We on the other hand were
amazed to hear that so lately, and almost in our own days, such
wonderful things had been wrought by thee in the true faith and the
catholic Church . . . . From this he went on to speak of the teeming
monasteries and of them who are a sweet savour unto thee, and of the
fruitful bosom of the barren desert, whereof also we had heard
nothing, n
I t is easy to get lost in the vivid a n d sometimes lurid details o f
A n t o n y ' s battles with the d e m o n s , a n d to miss the theological
overview w h i c h Augustine h a d of G o d w o r k i n g in A n t o n y 'in the
t r u e faith a n d the Catholic C h u r c h ' . T h e Vita, however, keeps rem i n d i n g us o f the source o f A n t o n y ' s strength a n d achievements.
H a v i n g described some e a r l y hostile encounters, it says: ' S u c h was
A n t o n y ' s first victory o v e r the devil, or r a t h e r the S a v i o u r ' s achievem e n t in h i m ' . 1~ T h e r e is a r e p e a t e d emphasis on the i m p o t e n c e of
the forces o f evil: ' T h e y are w e a k a n d c a n do n o u g h t b u t t h r e a t e n ' , is
T h e v i c t o r y has a l r e a d y b e e n w o n b y Christ, a n d one has only to
r e l y on h i m ; t h e n one c a n afford even to m o c k a n d scorn the d e mons. D e a l i n g w i t h one p a r t i c u l a r l y h a r s h experience, the V i t a
reports :
Antony, though scourged and pierced, felt indeed his bodily pain, but
rather kept vigil in his soul. So as he lay groaning in body, yet a
watcher in his mind, he spoke in taunt, ' H a d ye any power, one of you
would be enough to assail me; you try ff possible to frighten me with
your number, because the Lord has spoiled you of your strength.
Those pretended forms are the proof of your impotence . . . . Our seal
and wall of defence is faith in our Lord'. After many attempts then,
they gnashed their teeth at him, because they were rather making
themselves a sport than him. 14
T h e n , as the d e m o n s disengaged in defeat a n d A n t o n y ' s p a i n disa p p e a r e d , he t u r n e d in c o m p l a i n t to Christ a n d asked:
11 Augustine, Confissions, VIII, 6. (London i859 ).
1~ Vita Antonii, 7.
1~ Ibid., 27; cf 28 & 5 I.
14 Ibid., 9.
177
'Where art thou? Why didst thou not appear at the first to ease my
pain?' A voice answered, 'Antony, I was here but waited to see thy
bearing in the contest'. 15
Christ is always the m a i n protagonist, a n d a f e l t absence is not the
same as a real absence. H e promises to be with A n t o n y as 'an aid for
e v e r ' ; and this guarantee, shared by all christians, is the basis for
Paul's comforting words: ' G o d is faithful, a n d he will not let you be
t e m p t e d b e y o n d y o u r strength, b u t with the t e m p t a t i o n will also
p r o v i d e the way o f escape that y o u m a y be able to e n d u r e it'. in
W h a t one faces in the spiritual combat, however, is not just
brute force b u t the subtlety o f the demons:
There is need of much prayer and self-discipline to gain, through the
holy Spirit, the gift of discerning of spirits, to detect their nature,
namely, which of them are the less abandoned, which the more, what
is the aim of each, what each affects, and how each is overthrown and
ejected?~
H e r e is no simple-minded and naive a c c e p t a n c e of the d a t a of
experience at their face value, b u t a willingness to w o r k towards a
condition of i n n e r f r e e d o m (by p r a y e r a n d self-discipline) in which
the holy Spirit can operate, instruct a n d illumine. A n t o n y is far
f r o m the wild a n d masochistic fanatic p a i n t e d by his critics; a n d
N e w m a n , a sober and incisive judge, could write o f him as follows:
His doctrine surely was pure and unimpeachable; and his temper is
high and heavenly - without cowardice, without gloom, without
formality, and without self-complacency. Superstition is abject and
crouching, it is full of thoughts of guilt; it distrusts God, and dreads
the powers of evil. Antony at least has nothing of this, being full of
holy confidence, divine peace, cheerfulness and valorousness, be he
(as some men may judge) ever so much an enthusiast. 18
T h e Vita Antonii represents in a p o p u l a r a n d descriptive f o r m the
beliefs of the patristic age a b o u t good and evil spirits. T h e f o r m e r
are taken for g r a n t e d as existing and active, b u t they p l a y a less
direct p a r t in the spiritual c o m b a t itself. T h e y are m o r e in the n a t u r e
o f auxiliaries, g u a r d i n g and protecting a n d encouraging the soul,
while the main c o m b a t a n t s are Christ, present t h r o u g h his Spirit in
the christian, a n d S a t a n or his minions. T h e traditional doctrine o f
x~ Ibid., IO.
1~ i Cot io, 13.
17 VitaAntonii, 22.
is Newman,John Henry: 'Antony in Conflict', in ch 5 of Historical Sketches, Vol II,
(London, 19o6), part I xI.
~78
GOOD AND EVIL
SPIRITS
angels held that they form the court of God, that they are his
ambassadors, and that they are collaborators with divine providence.
It is in this last role that they become involved in the spiritual
combat. But one might note how very subordinate is their activity
in Mark's and Matthew's account of the temptations of Jesus, and
their presence is not mentioned by Luke. This is possibly significant,
given the importance of the temptation episode in the development
of later tradition.
The christian understanding of and attitude to spirits remained
more or less constant up to modern times. The middle ages, however, saw a great increase in devotion to the angels, for which St
Bernard was largely respons!ble. 19 This phenomenon formed p a r t
of that spiritual-cultural complex by which medieval man gave
expression to his new consciousness of reality, and his ways of
relating both to this world and the other. But it represented no
radical break with the past, and was in its turn strong enough to
last into the sixteenth century, the age of St Ignatius and the
Spiritual Exercises.
The existence of an invisible world, inhabited by spirits both good
and evil, was taken for granted by the men and women of sixteenth
century Europe. It was a belief, a conviction, a part of their cultural
imagination which they had inherited from the Middle Ages, and
which neither the Renaissance nor the Reformation had done
anything to undermine. If anything it had become exaggerated to
an unhealthy degree. One might speculatively try to expIain this
development in terms of the divorce of theology from spirituality,
or an emotional credulity leading to a longing for the extraordinary,
or the spontaneous reaction of a people who were fundamentally
pessimistic and insecure in the face of overwhelming h u m a n and
natural catastrophes. At least the central fact is evident: people
held it as obvious that spirits entered not only into their lives but
into their very beings, s° Man would do well, therefore, to take the
existence of these spirits into account in the regulation of his life and
affairs. As a result, the borderline between orthodox christian
devotion to the angels, coupled with vigilance in face of the devils,
on the one hand, and a wide variety of superstitious attitudes and
practices on the other, was vague and ill-defined. Magic, sorcery,
pacts with the devil and other such deviant activities were exciting
19 C f Duhr, J. : 'Anges', in Dictionnaire de SpiritualitY, I, cols 6 o i - 6 o 3.
2o Cf de Certeau, Michel: M~morial du Bhx Pierre Favre (Paris, 196o), p 5o.
179
interest a m o n g the e d u c a t e d as well as the illiterate31
I g n a t i u s was not p r o n e to excess in this or in a n y other area. But
he was a m a n o f his time, a n d so b y a n d large he a c c e p t e d its
world-view. H e was also t r u e to the m o r e ancient a n d o r t h o d o x
christian tradition on the existence a n d activities o f spirits, a n d
i n d e e d to the biblical doctrine of the cosmic conflict b e t w e e n Christ
a n d Satan. I t is therefore not surprising t h a t he should h a v e presented
such a key m e d i t a t i o n as t h a t on T w o S t a n d a r d s in the w a y he did. ~
N o r is it surprising t h a t w h e n i n t r o d u c i n g the G e n e r a l E x a m i n a t i o n
o f Conscience he should write:
I presuppose that there are three kinds of thoughts in the mind,
namely: one which is strictly my own, and arises wholly from my own
free will; two others which come from without, the one from the good
spirit and the other from the evil one. ~8
T h i s s a m e distinction is m a d e w h e n I g n a t i u s is offering advice to
the director:
While the one who is giving the Exercises should not seek to investigate
and know the private thoughts and sins of the exercitant, nevertheless,
it will be very helpful ffhe is kept faithfully informed about the various
disturbances and thoughts caused by the action of different spirits. ~
C o n t e m p o r a r y studies p o i n t out h o w I g n a t i u s considered t h a t
non-free t h o u g h t s a n d feelings, those w h i c h se causan ~5 within the
exercitant, r a t h e r t h a n those he d e l i b e r a t e l y a n d freely chooses to
initiate, are the p r o p e r m a t t e r for spiritual direction. ' T h e passive,
received c h a r a c t e r of these motions - w h e t h e r f r o m the side o f good
or evil - is supposed or i m p l i e d t h r o u g h o u t the Rules (for the disc e r n m e n t o f spirits)'. ~6 C l e a r e x a m p l e s are in the c o m p a r i s o n s
w h i c h I g n a t i u s m a k e s b e t w e e n the c o n d u c t o f ' o u r e n e m y ' a n d
t h a t o f a n a n g r y w o m a n , a false lover, a n d a m i l i t a r y leader intent
on seizing a n d p l u n d e r i n g a position he desires. ~7 T h e exercitant is
b e i n g acted on. I g n a t i u s puts the m a t t e r in so m a n y words w h e n he
says:
It is characteristic of God and his angels, when they act upon the soul, to
giTe true happiness and spiritual joy, and to banish all the sadness and
21 Cf Brouette, E.: 'La eivilisation chr6tienne du XVIe sikcle devant le probl6me
satanique', in Etudes Carmglitaines (i948), pp 352-38522 LouisJ. Puhl, s.j., (Maryland, i959) , cfExx i36-z47.
28 Exx 3284 Exx 17.
25 CfExx 313.
0_8 Bernardicou, Paul J., 'The Retreat Director in the Spiritual Exercises', in Reviewfor
Religious (July i967) , p 676. CfExx 313-336.
~7 Cf Ex.x 325, 326, 327.
180
disturbances which are caused by the enemy. It is characteristic of the
evil one to fight against such happiness and consolation by proposing
fallacious reasonings, subtleties, and continual deceptions3 s
For Ignatius, discernment is essentially the discovery of the origin
of non-free movements in a prayer situation. In this he was more in
line with patristic than with later tradition which, from the time of
Cassian, had gradually moved from investigating the charism of
discernment of spirits to teaching the virtue of discretion or prudence3 9 Ignatius was in fact close to Antony, experiential in his
approach, subtle in his investigations, calm in his reliance on God
our Lord, conscious both of the cosmic dimension and the inner
nature of life's spiritual combat. It is no accident that the temptations of Jesus in the desert can so well provide a scriptural presentation of the meditation on Two Standards.
Although m a n y people still hesitate to admit it, Ignatius taught a
spirituality of consolation. This means that for him, true consolation, coming from the good spirit, is the ultimate criterion and the
desirable confirmation in a decision-making situation; and in one's
ordinary living it is the n o r m a l way of experiencing God's good
pleasure. An illustration Of this can be found in that part of the
Spiritual Exercises devoted to 'Three times when a correct and good
choice of a way of life may be made'. ~° An election made in the
'first time' involves a certainty so strong that there Can be no
possibility of doubt or hesitation:
When God our Lord so moves and attracts the will that a devout
soul without hesitation or the possibility of hesitation, follows what
has been manifested to it? 1
This experience of being acted on by God is certainly a high and
intense form of consolation. More complex and difficult is an
election made in the 'second t i m e ' ,
when much light and understanding are derived through
experience of desolations and consolations and discernment of
various spirits3 ~
But after being led through the educational experience of submitting to the movements of opposing spirits, it is finally into
consolation that one must emerge, because that is the 'characteristic'
2s Exx 329 (italicsmine).
~o CfExx x75-x88.
29 Cf Switek, op. tit., pp 52ff.
81 Exx I75.
~ Exx I76.
GOOD
AND
EVIL
SPIRITS
I8I
work of the good spirit by w h o m we wish to be guided: ' I t is
characteristic of the good s p i r i t , however, to give courage a n d
strength, consolations, tears, inspirations, a n d peace'. ~3
Finally, even w h e n one makes an election in the 'third time', one
of tranquillity, ' a t i m e w h e n the soul is not agitated by different
spirits, a n d has free a n d peaceful use of its natural powers', 3~ one
ought still to seek confirmation t h r o u g h consolation when one is
offering the election one has m a d e to God.
After such a choice of decision, the one who has made it must turn
with great diligence to prayer in the presence of God our Lord, and
offer him his choice that the divine Majesty may deign to accept and
confirm it, if it is for his greater service and praise. ~5
T h a t such confirmation must be in the form of consolation, is clear
not only from the context, but also from the experiences of Ignatius's own life, on which the teaching of the Spiritual Exercises is
based. ~6
O n e could multiply examples of the role of good a n d evil spirits
according to the understanding of Ignatius. But it must suffice to
draw attention to the implication of the sixth annotation, t h a t one
cannot make the Exercises without experiencing the m o v e m e n t of
these spirits:
When the one who is giving the Exercises perceives that the exercitant
is not affected by any spiritual experiences, such as consolations or
desolations, and that he is not troubled by different spirits, he ought
to ply him with questions about the exercises. 3~
Ignatius presumes t h a t the absence of non-free movements is an
indication t h a t the exercitant is not doing his part, is not serious and
conscientious, and is in need of the director's firmness. ~8 In such a
case, the director m a y look on his task as that of stimulating inner
conflict in the exercitant, so t h a t real discernment m a y become
possible. Prayer during the Exercises is not m e a n t to be a continuous
experience of placidity a n d calm. In 'exercising oneself' one is
opening up to the influences of good and evil spirits, allowing oneself to become their battleground.
In the final analysis, we w a n t to experience the working of the
33 E x x 315 .
34 E x x I77.
a5 E x x I g S ; c f I S a .
8s C f G i u l i a n i , M a u r i c e : ' L e s m o t i o n s d e l ' e s p r i t ' , in Christus 4 ( I 9 5 4 ) , P P 6 2 - 7 6 ,
esp. 7 1 - 7 5 .
8v E x x 6.
3s B1 P e t e r F a v r e h a s a m o r e s u b t l e r e f l e c t i o n o n this p o i n t i n his Memoriale,n o s 3 ° 13o2.
182
GOOD AND E V I L SPIRITS
h o l y Spirit. ' T h e fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control'2 9 But h o w
are we to u n d e r s t a n d the reality of the ' o t h e r ' spirits? As p e r s o n a l ?
As psychological? As symbolic? F o r I g n a t i u s t h e y w e r e clearly
p e r s o n a l ; o u r c o n t e m p o r a r y p r o b l e m a t i c was not his. But it m u s t be
u n d e r l i n e d t h a t the experiential s t a r t i n g - p o i n t of I g n a t i u s is the
s a m e as ours: t h a t is, the effects of these 'spirits' in us. T h e w a y in
w h i c h he expresses this experience, the categories which he
uses, are of s e c o n d a r y i m p o r t a n c e .
We must distinguish between the intellectual category on which Ignatius
relied in using this term (esphitu), a category which is dependent on
the atmosphere (of his time) : ideas which were then held about spirits,
angels, etc., and that which he personally wished to express by that term.
The authenticity of his thought is not subject to an eventual proving
false of the realities implicit in that term, which were for Ignatius no
more than a support for his thought? °
W h a t is of p e r e n n i a l
the effects of 'spirits'
dealt w i t h i n a faith
ontological status o f
value in I g n a t i u s is his a c c u r a t e description o f
on m a n , a n d the w a y in w h i c h these are to be
perspective, not his presuppositions a b o u t the
these 'spirits' themselves.
For Ignatius the essential thing is I) that a spirit is something distinct
from a man's will, but which is nevertheless experienced within; 2)
that it moves and incites a man to some action - it is a movement,
an impulse; 3) that it can move a man in different directions and with
varying finalities. 41
Such a n experience c a n be recognized b y a n y b o d y w h o is reflectively conscious of his i n n e r life - w h e t h e r he live in the sixteenth
or the t w e n t i e t h century, w h e t h e r in the t i m e of A n t o n y the H e r m i t
or Jesus of N a z a r e t h . T h e 'spirits' are always present, a n d their
activities f o r m the basis for m a n ' s spiritual c o m b a t , for his exercise
o f discernment, a n d for the g r e a t e r a n d lesser elections w h i c h he is
called on to m a k e d u r i n g his life on this earth. 4~
80
G a l 5, ° 2 .
a0 Iparraguirre, Ignacio: Vocabulariode Ejercicios Espirituales (Rome 1972), p Io3.
41 Ibid.
a2 For an attempt at translating Ignatian categories into those of modern psychology,
cf lVLeissner, William: 'Psychological Notes on the Spiritual Exercises', in Woodstock
Letters 9° (I963) , pp 349-366; 93 (I964), PP 3I-58, 165-199•
TRAGEDY
By J O H N
ASHTON
HE YEAR following my ordination I used to say Mass
daffy in a small hospital run by a dedicated group of nuns,
one of an extraordinarily large number of religious communities clustered together on the hill of Fourvi6re, site of
the forum in the old roman town of Lugdunum. Most of the patients
had terminal cancer, many in very painful and virulent forms. One
I remember whose face was disfigured by a particularly hideous
lupus. H e received communion with an uncomplaining tranquillity
that astonished me. Never have I seen such serenity and faith.
Another man, much older, was blind. Born with a diseased eye, he
had to have an operation in early childhood and the surgeon
removed the good eye by mistake. As a result of this ghastly error
his life had been empty and unhappy, but even so he was comforted
by his faith.
O n Easter Sunday I returned to Fourvi6re from a supply in an
outlying parish, and decided to look in at the hospital and make a
rapid tour of the wards (which I visited regularly a couple of times
a week). Bonne Pdques, I greeted the patients, in one ward after
another, 'A h a p p y Easter !' They all returned my greeting in their
own way, except for a middle-aged man in the last ward of all. I had
never noticed him before, but I saw now that his throat was terribly
swollen and inflamed. He glared at me angrily and said, 'To hell
with your happy Easter. H o w can that help me? I am in pain. I've
been in pain for weeks'. Too taken aback to say anything in return,
I mumbled an apology and left.
Some people, then, aided by their faith, are able to accept
suffering quietly, others rebel against the meaninglessness and the
agony. These are those for whom life is truly 'a tale told by an idiot,
full of sound and fury, signifying nothing'. Some afflictions and
~disabilities can be overcome, others absorbed or disarmed. Stories
of astonishing fortitude and strength of purpose are not rare. One
thinks, for example of the carmelite nuns who went to their death
during the French Revolution chanting a latin hymn. Undoubtedly
they offered the world an object lesson in faith and submission to
the will of God. But who can say that Bernanos and Poulenc were
T
~84'
TRAOEDY
wrong in imagining among some of them a more agonized questioning than the world ever knew? Most of us resemble Iago in his
reluctance to wear his heart upon his sleeve, and I have often
wondered why we are so ready to assume simply from an absence
of declared pain that our friends and neighbours must be reasonably
happy and contented people.
By and large, christians have been brought up to accept uncomplainingly the trials a n d sufferings attendant upon h u m a n
existence and to see them as their share in the cross of Christ. Even
little children, grieving inconsolably over some early intimation of
mortality, are urged to 'offer it up', and their instinctive protest is
muffled by a thick blanket of cultural conditioning. The stiff upper
tip of public school british mythology is no doubt one of the threads
in this blanket, but the w a r p and the woof are basically christian.
Nor must the endurance commended in christian teaching be
confused with the grim fortitude inculcated by the stoics. The
resigned philosophizing of Epictetus a n d Montaigne is worlds
apart from the message of the cross. Where the stoic advises his
disciples to protect themselves from pain by a thickening of the
skin, an inner remoteness or aloofness, christianity urges that the
suffering be admitted, absorbed, assumed, not kept outside or
minimized in any way: 'In m y flesh I complete what is lacking in
Christ's afflictions, for the sake of his body, that is, the C h u r c h ' ?
The sufferer is not anaesthetized; and t h e suffering is not denied,
but somehow rendered tolerable by being set within a larger frame
of reference. St Paul expects his fellow christians to share his faith
and follow his example. He tells the Philippians that he is eager to
share in the sufferings of Christ, 'becoming like him in his death,
that if possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead'; and
then exhorts them, 'join in imitating me'. 2 This exhortation, one
should observe, is not delivered in a tone of helpless resignation.
The letter in which it occurs is in other respects the most hopeful
and cheerful of all Paul's writings, m a r k e d by a mood of spontaneous joy rare enough anywhere in the New Testament: 'Rejoice in
the Lord always, again I will say, Rejoice... And the peace of God,
which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your
minds in Christ Jesus'. 8
Now many critics of christianity, ted by Nietzsche, protest against
the anodNne qualities of this message. Christ himself is the great
1 Co11,24.
2 Phll 3, I°-I2, 17.
3 Phll4, 4-7-
TRAGEDY
185
seducer, and his teaching weakens men when they need to be tough,
softens them when they need to be hard, in order to put up with the
starl~ realities of life. Marx, too, protests that through being taught
to postpone their expectations of bliss until the next life, christians
have been duped into a passive acceptance of the miseries and
injustices of this religion as the opium of the people.
O f course some kinds of suffering carry with them benefits that
outweigh or at least balance out the pain. The maturity attendant
upon the acknowledgment and assimilation of failure in an individual's life can hardly be reached in any other way. And the startled
recognition of the degree of one's own responsibility in the pain
hitherto laid at someone else's door may be worth the experience of
that pain. But is this enough? In many cases, the grief is so intense
that a growth in insight seems poor compensation for the suffering
involved; in others, the objective situation is too appalling to allow
of an explanation within its own context. A young husband struck
down and bed-ridden by accident or disease: nothing he has done
in the past or can do in the future will make sense of this even for
himself or his wife and family; for here it is not just the event but its
continuing and awful consequences that have to be faced by all of
them.
We have already glanced at one facet of the christian solution.
Let us now turn back to the Bible and see what else it has to say.
One explanation it explores very thoroughly is the theory of divine
retribution. H o w often the prophets - up to and including Jesus urge their listeners to admit that the tribulations they are enduring
or are about to endure come as the proper punishment for their
sins. At the same time, right at the heart of the christian proclamation lies a refutation of the universal validity of this argument: 'we
are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done
nothing wrong'. 4 The word 'passion' has come to refer, not exclusively but predominantly, to the suffering voluntarily undergone
by Jesus in the full realization of his own innocence. True, this is an
exceptional case, for those who profess belief in the redemptive
suffering of Christ are traditionally encouraged to foster an awareness
of their own guilt. Even so, it is impossible to maintain that men
necessarily suffer precisely according to the measure of their own
sinfulness. (Not, at any rate, in this life, though such is the power of
the anguished demand for proportionate justice that the theory of
L k 23, 4 I.
I86
TRAGEDY
divine retribution has been transferred to the after-life, where it
functions better if only because it cannot be refuted by an appeal to
common sense and ordinary experience.)
In fact, long before Jesus began to preach everlasting punishment
(and liberal theologians might well be disconcerted by the frequency
of his allusions to hell), the Jews of the second century had begun to
reflect upon the problem of the suffering of the innocent and the
triumph of the wicked. One (possibly earlier) high-point of this
reflection is the seventy-third psalm, which continues to move us
despite its unmistakable vindictiveness. This is what the author
feels tempted to say:
Behold, these are the wicked:
always at ease, they increase in riches.
All in vain have I kept my heart clean
and washed my hands in innocence:
For all the day long I have been stricken,
and chastened every morning (vv 12-14).
H e resists this inclination, discovers instead a conviction that the
wicked are all set for ruin, and is consoled by a sense of the abiding
presence of God:
I am continually with thee,
thou dost hold my right hand (v 23).
Unlike christian writers, fortified by a belief in the resurrection of
the body, the psalmist does not look for a solution beyond the life he
knows. He is sustained both by the faith he shares with the community, his reluctance to be 'untrue to the generation of thy
children', and by his strong personal attachment to God:
Whom have I in heaven but thee?
and there is nothing upon earth
that I desire besides thee.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion for ever (vv ~Sff).
Later on, the terrible persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes prompts
a different kind of solution: it would seem that no sense could be
made of the suffering of the Maccabean martyrs without some hope
of future recompense: 'one cannot but choose to die at the hands of
men and to cherish the hope that God gives of being raised again by
TRAGEDY
~8 7
h i m ' . n J u d a s M a c c a b e u s himself, we are told, acted according to the
same conviction:
For if he were not expecting that those who had fallen would rise
again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the
dead. But if he was looking to the splendid reward that is laid up for
those who fall asleep in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. 6
I n a similar vein, the a u t h o r o f the c o n t e m p o r a r y W i s d o m of Solomon
criticizes the short-sightedness o f the wicked:
For they reasoned unsoundly, saying to themselves : Short and sorrowful is our life, and there is no remedy when a man comes to his end,
and no one has been known to return from Hades.
T h e conclusion is well-known:
the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment
will ever touch them. In the eyes of the foolish they seem to have died,
and their departure was thought to be an affliction, and their going
from us to be their destruction; hut they are at peace.
For though in the sight of men they were punished, their hope is full
of immortalityY
• . .
I f there is one book o f the Bible that goes into this p r o b l e m m o r e
deeply t h a n the rest, it is the Book of J o b . I t is easy to be misled by
the h a p p y ending: having emerged f r o m a series of trials and
misfortunes which would have m a d e a n y greek hero cower, J o b is
eventually r e w a r d e d b y receiving 'twice as m u c h as he h a d before'
(4~,io). This is e n o u g h to persuade George Steiner, for one, to
exclude J o b f r o m his survey of tragedy, for 'where there is compensation, there is justice, not tragedy', and 'the d e m a n d for justice is
the pride and b u r d e n o f the j u d a i c tradition. J e h o v a h is just, even
in his fury', s But Steiner is blinded by the artificiality of the ending
to the central insights of the book.
J o b is not r e p r o v e d for insisting on his innocence and u p o n the
u t t e r disproportion between a n y t h i n g he m a y have done and the
tribulations he has been forced to undergo. Even his bitter protest
against G o d goes unscathed. T h e vain attempts of his counsellors
to convice h i m of his guilt reinforce the reader's assurance that J o b
is right: the comfortable t h e o r y of divine retribution has no rele5 2 Mc7, I4-
6 2Mci2,44 f.
p 4"
8 The Death of Tragedy (London, I 9 6 3 ) ,
7 Wis2, ~,3, I-4-
I88
TRAGEDY
vance, no possible application here. The easy answers are repulsed.
What then is the t r u e answer? In the end, perhaps, there is none.
A few blind alleys are sealed off, that is all. If he is not being
punished for his sins, there is nothing else in his own life or that of
his family to provide an alternative explanation.
Such answer as there is begins with the wonderful h y m n to
creation in the twenty-eighth chapter. Its effect is to take the
spotlight off Job's own home, and direct it instead upon its surroundings. Job's life is now seen in perspective against the backcloth of all creation. Even so, the road to wisdom remains blocked,
at least to him, for he cannot see his way. All he is offered is a
starting point, the fear of the Lord, not because he has done
anything to deserve God's anger, but because the ways of God are
inscrutable and mysterious. After this the remote magnificence of
creation, far beyond h u m a n comprehension, continues to be
extplled , albeit a trifle perversely, by Elihu; but the true climax of
the book artistically and theologically, comes in God's final speech,
with its wondering delight in all those elements of creation that are
especially inaccessible to the h u m a n understanding. The ox, the ass
and the ostrich provide puzzles of their own, as do the hawk and
the horse; but the two beasts that conclude the catalogue, Behemoth
and Leviathan, are so utterly inscrutable and absurd, though known
and described in every detail, that no further reply is possible. Job
and his supporters (the readers), who are surely meant to laugh at
this point, are left with a vision of creation so huge and voluminous
that the personal pain clamouring for an explanation at the beginning of the book is simply lost sight of, engulfed in a mystery of
infinite dimensions. The problem, it might be said, is not solved but
shelved. Nevertheless, the pointer is unmistakable: retain your
blinkers, focus on nothing but the original question, and no answer
will be forthcoming.
The Book of Job, then, exceptionally within the Bible, rejects any
simple solution to the problem of pain. Its unknown author examines the theory of divine retribution from every angle, allowing
Job's interlocutors full room to state their case as powerfully as they
c a n . . , only to discard it. Moreover, unlike Wisdom and Maccabees,
he does not take refuge in the comforting idea that accounts may be
squared off in a future life. A third possible answer, that of Karl
Marx, characteristically jewish in his conviction that justice must
somewhere be found, is still a long way off. Marx was to place his
faith in the Ideal State, since for him the collectivity would make
TRAGEDY
18 9
sense of lives futile in themselves; but how many individuals are
strong or selfless enough to accept this ? Clearly, to a truly religious
spirit, this solution would be even stranger and more unacceptable
than the other two.
Still, the unflinching scrutiny of pain is no answer either. The
protesting sufferer cannot be allowed to stay immersed in his own
anguish. That way lies madness or dissolution, as it did for Lear.
T h e author of Job, following an old sapienfial tradition, realizes
that the ways of God are beyond man's understanding, and it is in
the mystery itself, the baffling multiplicity and enormity of creation,
that he finds his only answer. His consolations are hard, but they
force the individual outside his own pain: they must do this if they
are to offer any help at all.
This one book, then, if shorn of its prose ending, constitutes a
bridge between the judaeo-christian affirmation and the tragic
vision. The author treats the problem of pain with a greater
seriousness than any other in the Bible, but without closing the door
upon a real religious faith. His answer may seem inconclusive. But
the truth is that any tidy solution (such as the last chapter of the
Book ofJob itself) is false, and the consolations it offers spurious. For
suffering i n itself makes no sense. Death and disease, and their
psychological analogues, are evil, and their evil cannot be wished
or prayed away.
The genuinely christian answer, of course, is not to be found in
any adventitious doctrine of an after-life, but in the mysteries of the
passion of Christ: 'if any man will follow me, let him take up his
c r o s s . . . ' It is not that suffering presents no problem to those who
see it as redemptive. Jesus himself begged his Father, 'if it be
possible', to spare him the pains he saw looming up on him. But the
christian faith, even if it cannot make sense of suffering, furnishes
the sufferer with a motive for endurance that is rare: 'we preach
Christ crucified, a stumbling-block to Jews and folly to the Gentiles'2 St Paul was under no illusion as to the curious implausibility
of his message and the peculiarity of its good news. But although
the suffering itself rein ains unintelligible, and although the christian
is taught to look elsewhere for the truth, nothing is to be gained
by ignoring what is there.
One man who clung to his faith whilst continuing to gaze in hurt
and puzzlement at the problem of evil was Dostoyevsky. The
s
I C o r I, 23.
i9o
TRAGEDY
argument between Ivan and Alyosha was surely the expression of
the novelist's own inner conflict. Ivan's anguished rejection of a
God who could allow the murder and torture of innocent children
is met by the faith of Alyosha, whose overriding confidence in the
love of the suffering Christ overcomes the confusions stirred up in his
mind by Ivan's fierce attack. For all that, the 'poem' of the Grand
Inquisitor hardly admits of a simple response. And the attractiveness
of Dostoyevsky's own position is that he refuses a resolution; he will
not despair, but he rejects the alternative of an anodyne hope.
Ultimately, his only answer is on the level of his own art, wherein the
dramatic conflict itself is transformed into an object of contemplation that offers no consolation other than its own existence as a
source of peace. Dostoyevsky is not devoid either of rhetoric or of
sentiment, but he steers clear of the pitfalls of each:
The rhetorician would deceive his neighbours,
The sentimentalist himself; while art
Is but a vision of reality.
Not all writers - not all great writers - have the same answer as
Dostoyevsky. Chekhov's quiet yet sympathetic ironies, his simple
insistence that, come what may, life must go on, is one solution. /
Lawrence's passionate plea for a commitment to instinct and the
life-force is another. Eliot's search for a more sophisticated and
properly dressed response to p a i n is another. But it may be a
mistake to try to extract from art a hidden philosophy. Samuel
Beckett reiterates the meaninglessness of human existence from play
to anti-play, yet his art, until it collapses into complete silence, is
there to refute him, just as the absurdities underlined in L'Etranger
and La Waus& are held at bay in the very books that expose them.
The ability to project one's vision in a way that evokes even the
faintest 'yes' from audience or readers is what counts. This ability
we call 'imagination'.
' I f the philosopher's world is this present world plus thought,
then the poet's world is this present world plus imagination' (Wallace Stevens). (One might add that the theologian's world, ideally,
is this present world plus faith.) No doubt the precise force and
nature of the 'plus' would require to be elucidated separately in
each case. But only if (and this is where the arguments can begin)
the 'plus' implies falsification, either of rhetoric or of sentiment, can
any of the three answers b e rejected out of hand. And it m a y be
that the patterns of response are not essentially different in the three
TRAGEDY
I9I
cases. What is important is that they should be discovered rather
than imposed. Faith, thought, imagination will always breathe a
new life into material reality. But unless they ignore or replace it,
they will all rightly retain their hold upon the minds and hearts of
men. T h e y all offer a consolation that the realist or materialist might
repudiate as bogus. But, we are entitled to ask, has his steady scorn
any greater claim to general acceptance? For he too must set his
version of reality within a larger context; in this case the context of
his own scepticism.
O f course we are free to select the poet, philosopher or theologian
whose grasp on reality seems firmest, whose vision ranges most
widely and benignly. We can prefer Shakespeare to Beckett, Tolstoy
to Lawrence. We can follow St Paul rather than Sartre, Aquinas
rather than Schopenhauer. What we may not do (although most of
us are doing it most of the time) is to use faith or poetry or philosophy as a palliative, dulling our awareness of h u m a n suffering with
the opiate of illusion. 'Eschatology', remarks Walter Stein, 'is not
an alternative to history'; and this is true not just of falsely consolatory theologies but of revolutionary philosophies as well. A man
may sacrifice himself for the betterment of the h u m a n race, conceived either in religious or in political terms, if this makes sense
for him. But none of us has the right to impose his own sense upon
the suffering of others. Every protest against the meaninglessness of
pain deserves our full respect.
'Poetry', asserts Wallace Stevens, 'is a purging of the world's
poverty and change and evil and death. It is a present perfecting in
the irremediable poverty of life'. 10 For Stevens, poetry replaces
religion as a source of consolation; in the same breath he admits
that the poverty of life (that is, its raw reality ungraced by the
imagination) is irremediable and yet asserts that it can be purged.
True, the purging and the perfecting are evanescent reliefs: they
cannot disguise the structure of existence, tragically empty of any
built-in consolations. Even so, the respite it affords enriches our
otherwise poverty-ridden lives.
For all this, Stevens' attempt to replace religion by poetry as a
cure for the meaninglesness of life is surely doomed to failure except
for a privileged few. The consolations of inferior art are just as
spurious and deceptive as those held out by any religious sect,
however venal or bizarre. And great art is usually too demanding
io
Opus Posthumous (London, 1959) , p i67.
TRAGEDY
192
and difficult to provide an answer accessible to many. (What proportion of people in this country, I wonder, have seen or even read
King Lear?) No doubt there are fewer and fewer people in today's
world who find any form of religion a credible alternative. But
those with the gift of faith are helped not just intellectually but
emotively and imaginatively to admit a sense to their lives. By
being put into touch with God, the act of worship in which they join
enables them to locate themselves in the world they live in, and to
read some meaning into all their experiences, both glad and sad. It
is hard indeed to see how poetry could ever provide a substitute for
God.
B u t by way of proof that poetry can hold hands with religious
belief, and that neither need dull the poet-believer's sense or
experience of pain, here in conclusion are some lines from a sonnet
by Gerard Manley Hopkins. The poem begins:
No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,
More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.
Comforter, where, where is your comforting?
Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?
and concludes:
0 the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap
May who ne'er hung there. Nor does long our small
Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep ,
Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all
Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.
Surely there a r e n o false consolations here.
T H E W A G E S OF S I N
By WILLIAM
DALTON
ATHOLIC TRADITION would seem to speak with a very
faltering voice on the victory of good over the power of
evil. O n the whole, it has been haunted from the time of
Augustine with the fear of hell, that last dreadful abode of
the dead where evil persists eternally.
It is hard enough for man in his narrowness and hardness of
heart to believe the magnificent good news of God's love and
salvation. But even when the word has been heard, each individual
has to reckon with the possibility that this love for him personally
may be in vain. H e has to reckon with the possibility that this may
be the fate of those he dearly loves.
True, the horror of hell has been somewhat mitigated over the
centuries. N o preacher today would speak of Augustine's massa
damnata. We do not consign, almost automatically, all jews and
infidels to eternal damnation. The confidence with which we
insisted on eternal fire has been undermined. Most modern theologians would hesitate to affirm with certainty that any h u m a n being
will ever be consigned to hell. And~ within catholic theological
circles, it is now discussed whether hell is really a form of annihilation; whether a man alienated from God by unrepented sin in this
life has within him no seed of eternal life; and so, at death, simply
drops out of existence.
For all this, the doctrine of hell, when taken seriously, has had
and continues to have a tremendous influence on the thought and
feelings of the Church. It is not surprising that the picture which
dominates the Sistine Chapel is that of a majestic and pitiless Christ
pointing the w a y to eternal fire, while human beings (who are or
were his brothers and sisters!) cower and shrink in terror before
him. One thinks of the pious christian monk who holds out the
crucifix to the heretic at the stake until the fire becomes too hot:
better to retract now in these earthly flames and save your soul than
to be condemned forever to the flames of hell. One remembers
sermons given not so long ago which struck nothing short of animal
fear into the hearers - followed, no doubt, b y a great rush to the
C
I94
THE
WAGES
OF
SIN
confessional box. I can personally remember a horrible nightmare
caused by such horrendous but facile pulpit eloquence when I was a
child ten years old.
But even now, when a more refined doctrine of hell is prevalent,
the fear remains. The unnamed horror of eternal separation from
God and from all that is good is not much less than eternal fire. And
one can wonder whether annihilation is much of an improvement.
With man's inborn craving for life, one might be forgiven for
thinking that any form of existence, even the lowest form of life in
hell, is better than sheer nothing. The point of fear is that I have to
reckon seriously with this hell, whatever it is, both for myself and
others. For myself first. One can extol and celebrate God's tremendous love for me in Christ, but I personally remain free finally to
reject it. I cannot be sure that in my case his love will win through.
The slender link between me and my salvation is m y weakness and
sinfulness. If you like, it is myself I have to fear, not God; although
I m a y well ask why he has put me in this cruel situation. With some
inkling of my possibilities for evil, I have good grounds for fear. It is
a shattering thought.
And the thought of the eternal damnation of my human brothers
and sisters is equally shattering. Now more than ever in the history
of the world does mankind, in its more enlightened members, regard
itself as a unity. M y brother belongs to me and I to him. M y christian commitment calls me to love my brother, wherever I find him,
and even to d i e for him. I love him, not because he is moral or
pious, but simply because he is a man. I find it incredible that the
medieval theologians could teach that the happiness of the just in
heaven would be increased by the vision of their fellow-men
suffering in the torments of eternal fire. For me, it would be small
comfort to enter into eternal life if this part of me is damned or
simply falls into nothingness. This is made more acute when I think
of m y personal friends; but in principle it applies to all men. Would
it be too much to say that I can never be saved unless all my human
brothers and sisters are saved as well?
A n d it must be added that I, though finally saved, have added t o
the world's sin during m y earthly life. This is not merely a matter of
bad example, but of that context of human sin, the social environment in which we all live, the hamartia of Paul, which tends to lead
men astray from God and to destroy them. So it m a y well be that,
by m y sin, I have helped to destroy my brother. I must share some
responsibility for his damnation, and I have to live with this thought
T H E WAGES OF SIN
I95
for all eternity. H o w does this fit in with my perfect fulfilment in
eternal life?
Briefly, it would seem that the doctrine of hell, both in its brutal
ancient form and in its more sophisticated modern version, tends to
condemn us to fear, to paralyse our hope and to close our hearts to
the good news. It may seem to keep us moral through the motive of
fear; but what sort of morality is this ? Surely the basis of a morality
which is christian is trust in God and in one another, j o y and unconditioned self-giving to the good news. Whatever departs from
this towards sadness and mistrust, no matter what laws are kept and
what morality practised, is sin. Thus we have the paradoxical
conclusion that the doctrine of hell, invoked to keep man moral,
helps to keep him enslaved to sin.
Yet this doctrine of hell seems to be based firmly on the scriptures
and on the official teaching of the Church. There is no need to
discuss all the relevant texts of the New Testament. They are listed
in any of the older theological manuals. The great judgment scene
in Matthew can stand for all. 1 There Jesus passes judgment on all
the nations. The good, who have fed the hungry and cared for the
poor and the afflicted are called into the kingdom of the blessed;
while the wicked, who have neglected these least brothers of Christ,
are cast into eternal fire.
W h a t is more important, the Church, in its official pronouncements, has presented as catholic faith the literal understanding of
this and other biblical texts. According to its creeds and conciliar
statements, 'the wicked are forever tortured in the fires of everlasting gehenna'3 Again, there is no need to cite all the references.
They, too, can be found in any theological manual.
So we find ourselves in deep trouble. The scriptures, supported by
official Church statements, seem to present a teaching which is
abhorrent to the sensitive christian of today.
Is this a case of bowing one's head, submitting to God's revelation, and leaving all to the mystery of God and his ways ? I do not
think so. The christian who finds it hard, even impossible, to accept
the doctrine of hell, is not necessarily being self-willed or disobedient.
H e m a y well be inspired, directly or indirectly, by another concept
of God, his Christ and his ways, found also in these same scriptures.
This God is the God of love, the God who is love. The Old Testaa CfMt25, 3I-46.
First Council of Lyons; cf Denzinger-Sch6nmeister, 837.
I96
THE
WAGES
OF SIN
merit gives us an admirable picture of this God in the story of Jonah.
J o n a h had, no doubt, good precedent in his religious tradition for
hating the Ninevites and looking forward with satisfaction to their
destruction. But God, who is not man, whose thoughts, then as now,
are so generous and wide as to shock his self-righteous holy men,
had other ideas:
And the Lord said, 'You pity the plant for which you did not labour,
nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night, and
perished in a night. And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city,
in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons
who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much
cattle? '~
This God is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is
revealed through his Son, not as a God partly saving and partly
damning, but only as Saviour. This salvation comes through the
death and resurrection of Jesus, and when this death and resurrection are celebrated, the christian believer is invited to look past the
ambiguities and shadows of judgment and hell to the God who
loves and is powerful to save himself and all men.
This is the message which a number of New Testament texts
bring out strongly. One such passage is the great chapter on the
resurrection in Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. Replying to the
doubts of his christian converts, Paul can state unwaveringly: 'But
in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those
who have fallen asleep. For as by a m a n came death, by a man has
come also the resurrection from the dead. For as in A d a m all die,
so also in Christ shall all be made alive'. 4 The final picture of man's
eternal destiny is a triumphant one.
Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the
Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.
For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The
last enemy to be destroyed is d e a t h . . . When all things are subjected
to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all
things under him, that God may be everything to everyone,s
For Paul, 'death' is not merely bodily death, but includes the
spiritual death of alienation from God. And Paul's idea of final
salvation goes beyond men to the whole of the material universe:
8 Jon4,
Io-ii.
~
I Cor I5,2o-22.
5
I ( ] o r x5, 2 4 - 6 , 28.
THE
WAGES
i97
OF SIN
'creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain
the glorious liberty of the children of God'. 6
In case we might feel that Paul has not fully taken into account
the power of evil to seduce and destroy, it might be useful to refer to
another text. The beginning of Romans can scarcely be thought of
as a pretty picture of human goodness. In the whole of christian
literature there is hardly an account of human sin and depravity
which is more devastating. Yet, once given the saving entry of God
into h u m a n history in Jesus Christ, the scene is changed completely.
For himself and his christians, Paul has no doubt that the love
of God will triumph in their lives: he insists that nothing whatsoever
can separate them from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 7
But what about the non-christian? In a much discussed passage
in the same letter, Paul seems to imply that those who follow their
conscience can find final salvation, 'on that day when, according to
my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Jesus Christ'. s But
there are other texts where he speaks quite simply of general
salvation: 'Then as one man's trespass led to condemnation, so one
man's act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all m e n ' ?
What is more significant, Paul brings together, in one powerful and
audacious statement, the two contradictory themes, sin and salvation: 'For God has consigned all men to disobedience, that he may
have mercy on all'. 1° In the great doctrinal exposition of Romans,
this is his final word, followed only by an outburst of wonder and
praise. It must be taken seriously.
The multiplication of texts favourable to a point of view is not
necessarily a valid theological argument; but there are in fact,
elsewhere in the New Testament, indications of an optimistic
understanding of the end of h u m a n history. In the pauline tradition, we read: 'For in him all the fulness of God was pleased to
dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether
on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross', n
Again in Ephesians: 'For he has made known to us in all wisdom
and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which
he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fulness of time, to unite all
things to him, things in heaven and things on earth'. ~2 What
meaning can this peace, this reconciliation of all things have, if men
G C f R o m 8, 2I.
R o m 5, I8.
1~ E p h x, Io.
7
lO
C f R o m 8, 3 5 - 9 .
R o m I I , 3m
s R o m 2, 6 - I 6 .
11 C o l I, t 9 - 2 o .
I98
THE
WAGES
OF SIN
persist forever alienated from other men and their God? O r if~ by
annihilation, the brotherhood of man is ruined for all eternity? T h e
fourth gospel, in a remarkable passage, also links judgment and
salvation together: 'Now is the judgment of this world, now shall
the ruler of this world be cast out; and I, when I am lifted up from
the earth, will draw all men to myself'. 1~ In johannine terms, 'being
drawn to Jesus' means sharing eternal life. There is another passage
often cited in this context 'First ofaU, then, I urge that supplications,
prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men . . .
Tiffs is good, and is acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, who
desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the
truth'.~
We would seem then to have in the scriptures two streams of
tradition, one which speaks of judgment, damnation and eternal
fires, and one which at least encourages the hope that all men,
despite sin and human weakness, will be saved. Where do we go
from here? It will not do to cite simply the official documents of
Church teaching, since the teaching of the Church relies on the
exegesis of biblical texts prevalent at the time. If one wants an
example of this sort of thing in the history of the Church, it would be
instructive to follow the evolution in meaning of the well known
doctrinal statement: 'Outside the Church there is no salvation'.
No, the only method available is to go back and have a hard look
at the texts and to ask whether we have interpreted them aright.
Basic to this discussion is the interpretation of eschatological statements. It is accepted in biblical circles today that such statements,
about heaven, hell, final judgment, are not to be taken as literal
predictions of the future. All references to this mysterious future
must be symbolic. In fact, they bear primarily on man's present
life, but open up, in symbolic terms, to God's future, which he still
preserves as his secret.
Take, for example, the picture of the last judgment which we
have already considered. Men are exhorted to visit prisoners, to
care for the needy: this is fundamental to christian life. The man
who is compassionate will enter into eternal life: the man completely lacking in compassion cannot share this life and will be
rejected. The black and white picture must be understood symbolically. It does not mean that a certain number will enter into
life and a certain number will go to eternal fire. W h a t man is
1~ J n I2, 3x-2.
~
I T i m 2, I-4.
T H E WAGES
OF SIN
199
completely and perfectly compassionate, and what man is absolutely
lacking in all compassion? Who can claim that they feed the hungry,
visit prisons, care for the needy as they should - and this includes
theologians and churchmen] And what right have we to exclude all
compassion from the hearts of other men? No doubt, if God can
find goodness even as small as a grain of mustard seed, he can build
this into eternal life. Thus hell is a symbolic picture of where sin, of
itself, leads to. Given God's grace and aU-powerful mercy, we have
no need to suppose that he will permit any of his children to end
there.
But what of human freedom? It is often stated that the doctrine
of an eternal hell is the only one which respects man's dignity: he
can, if he wishes, choose to damn himself. This seems to me a
strange concept of freedom. SurelyJesus was a man and he was free;
yet there is no question ill christian tradition that he could have
been finally damned. In catholic teaching , there is place for a
legitimate predestination of the just, although a parallel predestination to damnation is totally unacceptable. Thus, if men are finally
saved, they are saved through God's grace and power, not through
the correct use of their free will. H o w God works in man to bring
about what he wants without taking his freedom away is a wellknown theological problem. God's initiative and grace must be
preserved whether we find a satisfactory answer to this problem or
not. One thing is clear: God enters into the heart of man as creator
and Lord; he acts from within in a w a y which is proper to himself.
And, if God can act in this way in saving some men, why cannot he
do the same for all?
But what do we say about those men who appear deeply and
incurably wicked ? Well-known historical figures could be cited at
this point, depending on one's political and religious views. The
simplest answer is to say that we do not know them; we do not
know to what degree they were responsible, to what degree sick.
Often they have been erected by human prejudice into emblems of
evil. Nor need we take too seriously the pictures of utter human
depravity found in the more gloomy pages of literature. By a
strange and less admirable h u m a n kink, we find it easier to depict
evil than good.
Possibly the greatest difficulty in re-interpreting the meaning of
hell is to be found in the uneasy feelings of the g o o d christian
believer that such a radical change is not right, that the old belief
was more secure, and that all is threatened when deeply-held
200
THE
WAGES
OF SIN
traditional views are changed. Such feelings must be respected. Yet,
in fact, this development is not a radical or sudden change. Within
the catholic Church, within the last three decades, there has been a
considerable evolution. We have become far more m o d e s t in our
claims to know the eschatological future. Even though for most
scholars, the possibility of hell remains, the general picture of hope
is brighter. But going beyond the theologians and scholars is the
christian instinct of m a n y believers, particularly thoughtful and
sensitive young people who want to live their christian faith to the
full. For m a n y of these, the older understanding of hell, even in its
mitigated form, is a non-doctrine. This is not necessarily a wateringdown of the severe demands o f revelation. It could well be a
consequence of discovering the gospel as unconditional good news,
the basis of celebration and joy even in the murk of h u m a n pain and
sinfulness.
Again, through the strong control which the authority of the
roman catholic Church has exercised over its scholars, development of theology has been slower here than in some other christian
bodies. This is not necessarily bad. But it is true that catholic
professors were insisting on the material nature of the fire of hell
when most scholars of other christian traditions had long abandoned
such ideas. When we look at protestant theology, we see that there
has been within it quite a ferment for m a n y years. The Decline of
Hell provides an intensely interesting discussion of the debate in the
seventeenth century. 15 The controversy in England between F. W.
Farrer and E. B. Pusey is well known. The former's Eternal Hope
was countered by the latter's What is of Faith as to Everlasting Punishment. Among the great names of modern protestant theology, a
significant number opt directly or indirectly for universal salvation.
Karl Barth's interpretation of Romans (i 1,32), and his treatment
of reconciliation in his Church Dogmatics, mark him as belonging to
this group. Emil Brunner, though critical of Barth for his apparent
universalism, ends up in his own Eternal Hope with a similar view.
Paul Tillich's solution to the problem of salvation and judgment is
presented in his Systematic Theology.~6 It is clear that, from the
background of his own philosophical thought, he adopts a fundamentally optimistic attitude to final h u m a n destiny.
I n England, Bishop Robinson expressed the feelings and thoughts
15 Walker, D. P. (London, 1964).
16 Vol 3, Life and the Spirit: History and the Kingdom of God.
T H E W A G E S OF SIN
20I
of many christians in his work, In The End, God. 1~ While not
everything in this little work is clear or acceptable, its heart and
general direction seem to be right.
One can well ask if this pretty firm direction among non-roman
scholars has anything to say to the catholic Church. I think it has.
What we are offered is not just easy salvation. Sooner or later the
self-centred man, who has little concern for his brother, will have
to experience a conversion of heart, both radical and painful. But
it is suggested that the God of love and power, who works in the
depths of his children's hearts, has shown us, through Jesus Christ,
that he has no intention of letting the weakest or the least of them fall
utterly from humanity into the power of evil. Yes, all will be well,
all manner of things will be well. We, all of us, can rejoice in the
good news without the torturing thought that it m a y not be good
news for us personally. Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ.
1~ London, 1968.
EVIL A N D G U I L T
By WILLIAM
I
YEOMANS
HAVE LONG felt that what is commonly experienced as guilt is a
most unchristian and unhuman sentiment. Did Jesus suffer and
die in order to put a 'guilt trip' on humanity? Certainly, an
impartial reading of the Improperia in the Good Friday liturgy
could lead one to answer that question affirmatively. ' O my people,
what have I done to you? O r in what way have I afflicted you?
Answer me'. Such phrases can only too easily take on the overtones
of the parents who instil guilt into their children by constantly
harping on how much they have sacrificed for them. Is it the
privilege of the christian to bear a double weight of guilt: first to
feel guilty about existing at all because of Adam's sin in which we
share, and secondly to feel really terrible because of what we made
Jesus suffer? Is the purpose of the Good News to make us feel
guilty or to free us from guilt? Unfortunately, only too many of our
contemporaries have the firm impression that christianity begins with
sin and guilt. Instinctively, they turn away from a god who finds
his happiness in making us miserable, and in this they reveal a very
basic religious common sense. This is not the place to analyse the
reasons for this gross misunderstanding or to feel guilty about our
own responsibility in the matter. It is useful to remember that the
only apostle who felt guilty was Judas. In all the resurrection
narratives there is not one word ofreproac h in all that Jesus says and
does. H e asks for faith, not for apologies.
Whether or not guilt feelings are innate or acquired, they should
be carefully distinguished from the sense of sin, of having done
wrong. The confusion between~ the two has its roots in a society
which, in many ways, still demands that those who have done
wrong should be made to feel guilty about what they have done.
Those who were appalled by the genocide in the concentration
camps were even more appalled to learn that many of those who
were responsible did not feel the slightest guilt about what they had
perpetrated. More recently, the horror of the Manson murders
was heightened when it was revealed that the murderers felt no
guilt for their crimes. But it is dangerous and fallacious to suppose
that we should feet guilty when we have done something wrong. I f
EVIL AND GUILT
203
we presuppose that wrong-doing should be accompanied by some
feeling of guilt, we are setting up a purely subjective criterion for
what is good and what is evil. Furthermore, it is only a step from
that premise to the conclusion that because I do not feel guilt then I
have not done wrong. It is but one further short step to saying that
the wrong-doer must be made feel to guilty if he is to be corrected.
Then we are back to a religion that belabours its followers with their
sins in an attempt to make them feel guilty. Socially, we are back to
a penal system that attempts to humiliate the criminal in order to
'bring him to his senses'. The futility of both systems can be seen in
the massive swing away from organized religion and the rising
crime rate.
In recent times, certain 'liberated' people have attempted to
exorcise the demon of guilt. Only too often they have left the house
swept and tidied for the entrance of seven worse demons whose
name is also guilt. The consulting rooms of any psychiatrist bear
abundant witness to this. Guilt seems to be so deeply ingrained in
us that we can feel guilty about not having guilt feelings. This in
itself is a valuable insight into the nature of guilt, which is an evertightening stranglehold on true personal liberty. It kills the relationship of love to which Jesus invites us. For, if it were God's
business to make us feel guilty and our business to respond with
guilt feelings, what possible relationship can result other than a
religion of neurotic self-flagellation, self-reproach and self-depreciation? There can be no love where there is no real trust; and guilt
sows a poisonous seed of doubt that kills love. This is true of any
human relationship as well. The child who feels guilty about not
living up to his parents, expectations will never grow as a person,
and may be compelled to rebel in order to get rid of the burden of
guilt.
Obviously, an ethic based on the principle that an action is only
wrong if I feel guilty about it can be used to justify anything. The
exploiters of humanity do not feel guilty about what they are doing.
Those who manipulate finance and politics do not regard themselves as criminals, and sleep well at night. Conversely, an ethic
based on the principle that if I feel guilty about an action there
must be something wrong in it is equally hazardous. Such an ethic
:is the highroad to neurotic scrupulosity, and leads to as subjective a
morality as its counterpart. The point is that the presence or ab:sence of guilt feelings can never be the starting point for any
:investigation into the nature of good and evil.
20Z~
E V I L AND G U I L T
Hence, a guilty conscience can never be a reason for approaching
the sacrament of penance. The purpose of the sacrament is not to
relieve me of m y guilt feelings and make me feel better. Rather, it
is a sacrament of forgiveness and healing, an experience of a love
that can forgive all without reproach and set me on the road to
greater unselfishness. The understanding love of Christ in the
sacrament should certainly banish guilt by making me realize how
unworthy and selfish a response it is to his forgiveness. Similarly,
the fact that I do not feel guilty about anything in m y life is not a
reason for abstaining from the sacrament, whose other purpose is to
foster an awareness of what might be called our passive involvement
in the mystery of evil; our sin not of action but of non-action.
Here we face the delicate task of heightening the awareness
without at the same time instilling guilt. A good example is the
reactions of a group of school children to a dramatic film on world,
hunger. Some were so incapable of supporting the burden of guilt
evoked by the film that they blocked the whole question out of their
minds. Others felt guilty but w a n t e d t o do something about the
starving millions in the world. T h e y wanted to get rid of their guilt.
But any movement, no matter how worthy its aims, which begins
from guilt feelings is off to the worst of starts. If I feel guilty about
the steak on m y plate because of the hungry in the world, the odds
are that if I do not eat it I shall expect the hungry to feel grateful
towards me for m y sacrifice. I am merely transferring m y guilt to
them. Here we are back with the victorian charity institutions,
whose benefactors were so insistent that the children who received
their bounty be grateful for what they had received. Furthermore,
to begin with m y personal guilt feelings can lead to over-indulgence
towards those about whom I feel guilty. The parents who feel
guilty about what they have not given their children are precisely
the ones who end up by spoiling them.
But turning away from a problem because of guilt, or using guilt
as a motive ibr action, alike prevent m y taking up a mature and
free responsibility to a problem like world-hunger or world-poverty.
Responsibility and concern are born of a liberty that is not selfishly
trying to assuage its own feelings. The resultant action will be all the
more realistic and constructive, since it will seek to confront evil a t
its source and not merely attempt to eliminate the manifestation of
evil that makes me feel guilty. Peace is not merely the cessation of
hostilities, and world-hunger is not really eliminated by free gifts
of food to the hungry. Guilt has the unhappy ability to focus our
EVIL AND GUILT
205
attention on the symptom rather than the disease. This is because
guilt is essentially a self-centred feeling, which makes me concerned
about evil only in the measure in which the evil makes me feel bad
about myself.
Perhaps the most common form of guilt is the vague feeling that
I have done something wrong, but I cannot say exactly what it is;
or the guilt which comes from an undefined awareness that I am
not doing something I should do. This guilt gives rise to fear and
anxiety and a diffidence about self which cramps m y personal
liberty and creates an insatiable hunger for reassurance. This is a
regression into a child-state of feeling that we have done wrong
without understanding what that wrong is or how it is wrong. It is
interesting to note how much advertising relies on the technique of
instilling this sort of guilt. We are made to feel that there is something wrong in our lives which will be eliminated if we buy this
that or the other product. We are depriving ourselves or our
families of something essential and should feel badly about it. The
result is a whole segment of society who feel guilty every time they
sweat.
I f we allow ourselves to be swayed by this undefined guilt we
shall inevitably slip into an ethic of approval. We will base our lives
on what makes us more approved and accepted by the particular
society ill which we find ourselves: whether right-wing and conservative, or left and liberal or any of the many shades in between.
Peer pressure does not end in school. The fear of not being approved
by the righteous and respectable has its equivalent in the fear of
being known as 'straight'. Both fears are the product of this undefined guilt and mean that I can never become my true self. M y
life is dictated largely by what the neighbours will say, no matter
who those neighbours may be. Evil becomes non-conformity. Good
is what is approved and accepted. The policies by which Hider
implemented his famous statement that 'Our organization only
admits into its ranks those whose psychological make-up is such
that they do not threaten to become an obstacle to the further
spread of our idea', involved the instilling of a powerful guilt about
not conforming to the party ideal and a complete absence of guilt
about conforming to the evils of race-hatred.
The experience of undefined guilt arising from some undefined
wrong undermines the right esteem that we ought to have of ourselves, and erodes a right self-confidence. It also eliminates the
possibility of a truly loving relationship, since approval is substituted
206
EVIL AND GUILT
for love; and the real oppositions that so often lead to a deepening
of love are avoided. We are as afraid to disapprove as we are of
being disapproved of by others. On the religious level this saps that
complete trust in God that is at the heart of christianity. So often
our religious upbringing leaves us with the vague feeling of guilt
about ourselves and our lives. Basically we have a bad self-image
based on the guilty feeling that somehow or other we must be doing
wrong. This goes with the feeling that God has a whole list of sins
with which he is going to face us one day. In other words God may
at some time turn nasty on us. And if God does not fully approve of
us how can we approve of ourselves? We forget that 'love bears all
things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things'.
In that state we tend to become so anxiously preoccupied by this
undefined guilt that we never come to grips with the real evil in us
and the world. I f we are to be blamed for something of which we
are unaware, then evil is not a mystery but a mystification. But
what about praying to be forgiven for our unknown sins? What,
too, of the great parable in Matthew's gospel, where both the just
and the unjust are surprised: 'when did we see you hungry and
t h i r s t y . . . ? ' I f we limit our understanding of that parable to the
aspect of last judgment, we merely feed our guilt. The point of the
parable is not to instil guilt or make us anxious. Its point, like that
of the parable of Dives and Lazarus, is to heighten our consciousness
of what is happening here and now. It invites us to become more
aware of who we are and what we are about here and now, and of
the abiding presence of Jesus among us in the least of his little ones.
This is the very antidote to the guilt that blunts the edge of our
awareness and distracts us from the here and now with vague
presentiments about the undefined future. Lack of confidence in
myself as a creation of the love of God can lead only to despondency,
an acceptance of myself as a mistake on the part of the Creator, as
one who might just be saved on sufferance. Or it can lead to neurotic
attempts to make up for myself by engaging in pseudo-religious
activities that cost me great sacrifice and effort; and the more they
hurt the better they are.
But what about guilt feelings that come from a very well-defined
source: from an awareness of specific personal sin, where we can
point to some particular act of selfishness that has harmed another
or ourselves? Surely it is right and proper that we should feel guilty
about that? Guilt, however, is essentially self-centred. It breeds and
is bred on an anxious fear about what is going to happen to me
]~VIL AND GUILT
207
because I have done wrong. Guilt is concerned not with evil in
itself, but with what evil has done or may do to me. I f my relationship with God has remained on a legalistic level, I shall feel guilty
because I have broken the law and fear punishment. The answer is
to put myself right with the law before the lawgiver can catch up
on me and notice my guilty look. This is of course the reduction of
religion to law. But should I be able to look at the crucified Christ,
the image of the destructive power of sin; should I be able to look at
the face of the crucified Christ in those whom I have wronged and
feel no guilt? I m a y certainly feel guilt, but if I go with it I shall be
ted like Judas to some form of self-destruction. Guilt leads us to believe that our sin is too great to be forgiven. It makes us so involved
with ourselves that we are blind to the forgiveness of God. Guilt
makes us prisoners of our own wrong-doing. It locks us into a
vicious circle of self-reproach and self-disgust which makes us
incapable of either forgiving ourselves or of fully accepting the
completeness and immensity of God's forgiveness. Furthermore, it
makes true reconciliation with the one we have wronged impossible
because we cannot really believe that he has forgiven us.
The antithesis of the suicide of Judas is the tears of Peter. The
christian response to the awareness of personal sin is repentance and
change of heart. Repentance is the responsible admission of our
personal involvement in evil, a vivid awareness of the depth of that
involvement, but one that is accompanied by a complete abandonment of ourselves into the arms of God's forgiveness. I f the arms
nailed to the cross make us aware of our sin, they are at the same
time the arms that are ready to embrace us in loving pardon. T h a t
pardon has nothing of reproach; it is a true inner renewal in which
we are born again out of love and into love. Repentance means that
we receive ourselves back from God who is love. Where guilt leaves
us scratching open old wounds, refusing to let them heal, repentance
heals and strengthens us and sets us out again on the road of becoming ourselves. Guilt weeps over the graves of dead sins, but
repentance leads us to a life where we can confront evil. To be truly
repentant is to accept ourselves with all our possibilities for good and
evil with a realism that is poles apart from the neurotic world of
guilty self-introspection.
But such repentance is born of the Good News of salvation. The
paradox is that we, as sinners, must first of all have our eyes opened
to the forgiving love of God in Christ if we are to be able to admit
and face up to our sin without the selfishness of guilt. Christ
208
EVIL AND GUILT
revealed the evil in the world, but he only revealed k in the context
of that incredible affirmation of the goodness of h u m a n nature
which is his own becoming man. Jesus did not go round accusing
people of their sins; he preached the Good News of salvation first.
In his own person he renewed the image of m a n for all mankind.
He restored to us an image full of hope and trust and love.
But if guilt is so pernicious, why is it so widespread? Has it no
role to play other than a destructive one in the development of the
h u m a n person? Q u k e simply, guilt is as widespread as sin itself
because it is a by-product of the selfishness that is the root of sin.
And what can any of the children of sin do but destroy the h u m a n
person? The destructiveness of guilt can be seen in the barriers it
erects in our relationships with God, others and ourselves. Guilt
leads us to run away and hide like A d a m and Eve in the garden. It
makes us unable to share our nakedness with others. In the same
way it alienates us from ourselves, since it makes us incapable of
accepting ourselves realistically and in truth. There can be no future
for us if we allow ourselves to be hag-ridden by guilt and remorse.
All we can do is to eat our hearts out in anxious fear and self-disgust.
I f we have done wrong and are aware of it, there is no point in
wishing we had not done so or kicking ourselves mentally for having •
done wrong. But there is most certainly a point in looking to the
future and seeking the truth of ourselves which will avoid t h e
repetition of the same mistake. Real sorrow does not consist in
continually raking up a murky past, or perhaps trying to persuade
ourselves that we did not derive some self-satisfaction from our
wrong-doing. Sorrow leads to a renewed future in the full awareness
of all its possibilities for good and evil. Where guilt never allows sin
to die, sorrow allows sin to be swallowed in the immensity of God's
mercy and looks to the renewed life of the resurrection.
No one was more aware of evil than Christ himself. No one came
to grips with it as he did. Yet it would be absurd t o suppose that
Christ in any way felt guilty. Only he could ask, 'which of you will
convict me of sin?' Far from making us aware of evil, guilt blinds
us to the real dimensions of evil. Far from being a criterion of good
and evil, guilt is the most subjective and fallacious measure of real
evil. Our relationship with God invites us to trust him as one who
understands us completely, more than we think we understand
ourselves, Were we itl this life to catch evetl a glimpse of the loving
acceptance God has of each and every one of us, guilt would be
banished for ever. In the meantime it remains a demon to be
exorcized.
THE HUMANITY OF CHRIST I
CHRIST AND SEXUALITY
THE u m b r e l l a title of ' T h e H u m a n i t y of Christ' I propose to
U NDER
discuss two subjects: 'Christ a n d Sexuality' a n d ' C h r i s t a n d A n x i e t y ' . I
I o u g h t p e r h a p s to apologize for the title of this first article. 2 A few years
ago, it w o u l d certainly h a v e s e e m e d shocking a n d irreverent. E v e n t o d a y it
contains a n e l e m e n t of challenge; b u t it is a challenge t h a t I t h i n k w e o u g h t
to try a n d meet. C o n n e c t i o n s b e t w e e n theology, spirituality a n d psychology
c a n n o l o n g e r be neglected, a
U n t i l recently, w h a t the gospels h a d to say a b o u t t h e h u m a n i t y of J e s u s
satisfied us well enough. T h e b a b y , the child, the adolescent (mostly hidden)
a n d the g r o w n a d u l t m a d e their r e g u l a r a p p e a r a n c e s in our liturgical a n d
p r a y e r calendar. E a c h t i m e one of those figures c a m e r o u n d , it was a f a m i l i a r
alter ego. But it was a n alter ego with a n occasional t o u c h of unreality. T h e r e
was o n e question a priest m i g h t h e a r in counselling or in the confessional,
a n d it r a n like this: ' H o w c a n I p r a y to, or m o d e l myself u p o n , even expect
u n d e r s t a n d i n g a n d s y m p a t h y from, a sexless Jesus? Unless he knows m y
difficulties f r o m within, it is u n r e a l a n d e v e n useless for you to propose h i m
to m e as friend, or m o d e l , o r forgiving Saviour'. T o d a y the t h e question often
has to be m e t in the f o r m of a flat denial of faith. ' I f y o u r J e s n s was as sexless
as the C h u r c h has p r e s e n t e d h i m , t h e n h e is j u s t n o t n o r m a l , n o t h u m a n ' . 4
T h e situation is a serious one. J e s u s was, it is true, p r o p o s e d as a n alter ego,
because h e was fully h u m a n ; b u t s o m e m a y n o w believe, t h a t w h e n it comes
to the a l l - i m p o r t a n t question of sexuality Jesus a p p a r e n t l y c a n n o t h e l p t h e m .
R i c h a r d E g e n t e r puts his finger on one factor w e should not neglect. 5 T h e
x Both contributions will be, in fact, a continuation of my article 'The Man for All
Seasons', in The Way (April i974) , p i29-i4o.
In i95i , that much respected spiritual authority, P~re Bruno de J~sus-Marie still
wrote apologetically and, as he mentioned, with an eye on the then Mgr Ottavlani of
the Holy Office. See his 'St Jean de la Crolx et la Psychologle Moderne', in l~tudes
Carmdlitaines (Paris, x95i), pp 9-24.
a 'The psychology of religion is in its early stages as an independent scientific discipline
and there is immense scope for development'. D. Stollberg, in the Encyclo#ediaof Psychology, vol 3 (eds H . J . Eysenck, W. Arnold, R. Meili, London, 1972), p 139.
Antoine Vergote, PsychologicReligieuse (Brussels, i966 ) can be much recommended as
a reflective introduction from a catholic source.
4 CfRobinsonJohnA. T.; The HumanFace of God (London, i973) , esp. pp 56ff, 63ff, 80.
s Cf The DesecrationofChrlst, (trans E. Q uinn, London, i967) , pp 77-8. Egenter's symptomatology of the Our Lady of Lourdes statues is almost certainly not exhaustive. I
would see the symbol also, if not primarily, as a bright figure of light which is (a) a
diurnal symbol of ascent and thus divides good from bad, pure from impure, healthy
2 IO
THEOLOGICAL TRENDS
complaining believer, for one, is reacting against the artistic sentimentalizing
of the figure of Jesus, a process which is very m u c h in need of analysis. T h i n k
of H o l m a n H u n t ' s The Light of the World. T h i n k of the mass-produced statues
of the Sacred Heart, tasteless, poor-spirited a n d above all sexless objects.
T h e observation even holds good for the vastly popular a n d brilliantly
meretricious painting, The Christ of St ~ohn of the Gross by Dali. Popular piety
h a d until recently been fed for about one h u n d r e d and fifty years u p o n
Kitsch - a n a r t style you do not define, b u t you do recognize it. Religious
Kitsch, especially catholic versions of it, litter the planet. I t is of course
different from folk-art or pop, in which life a n d vigour are sustained. T h e
social effects of Kitsch need to be studied, a n d its implicit effect u p o n sexuality.
Kitsch is weak, save in two respects. It encourages submission a n d obedience,
a n d it is strong in repressing or infantilizing sex, which is different from
sublimating it. I t has been unmistakably powerful a n d popular. W e must
not forget that in religious houses such statues were for decades the object of
regular private, if not community, cultus.
I see the question of Kitsch as a particular, b u t common, condition which
introduces us to more general problems. I t must do so because as a religious
conditioner it is m e a n t to affect the individual subject a s a whole. These
'pious' objects were m e a n t to encourage our 'zeal', our 'sorrow for sin', our
'love of the rule', our 'desire for the missions'. These are orientations for the
whole person; and, as with religious objects generally, they are normative
a n d prescriptive: in t h a t the example embodied in the object is held up as a
p a t t e r n for conduct, s I t is clear that individual as well as social sexuality
were, a n d are, involved in such a situation. T h e y were involved in the variety
of lily-bearing statues, a n d indeed in the m a n y sexual ambiguities implicit in
the Kitsch versions of the Sacred Heart. ~ Modesty powder a n d special
garments for the b a t h are still within living m e m o r y of convent life. T h e use
of chains a n d disciplines has been entirely reconsidered ill non-monastic
orders a n d congregations; b u t that still leaves the problem of co-existence
among generations of religious whose outlook a n d 'formation' now differ
widely. Religious, who have to move freely in the sex-permeated atmosphere
of the city, are aware as never before of a pseudo-ideology of sex, through
advertising a n d the mass media, which is in conflict with an ideology of
chastity that has yet to be rebuilt as an ideology. Until then, Kitsch, with its
drained h u m a n i t y a n d hidden violence, will r e m a i n suspect.
Herzog, quoted b y Egenter, is of course right when he points to the strong
from diseased, and (b) as the euphemization (that is, making benign) the otherwise dark,
chthonic, threat of the feminine with which religion also has to come to terms. The legend
above the statue, ~e suis l'ImmaculdeConception,tends to confirm both these observations.
8 Much of Egenter's reasoning seems to me to be on the right lines: cf especially ch.V,
'Tile Breeding Ground of Kitsch and its Moral Effects' and Ch. VI, 'Moral Ineptitude
as the Heart of Kitsch'.
Readers ofJosefa Men6ndez, The Way of Divine Love (Westminster, Md., t965), will
remember how such ambiguities abound there.
T H E O L O G I C A L TRENDS
31 I
subconscious influences of sex on the most widespread pieces of Kitsch. O u r
L a d y of Lourdes, or the I m m a c u l a t e Conception, 'here almost always
appears as a sweet girl, more precisely a curious combination of courtesan
a n d goddess, for these images make nothing of M a r y , the M o t h e r of G o d . . .
b u t rather the feminine p a r t of man's soul - still in a primitive state - his
undifferentiated a n i m a ' . 8 T h e particular theory behind these remarks does
not matter. W h a t does m a t t e r by w a y of introduction to our theme is that
Kitsch is an expression of a totally inadequate response to the christian faith.
I n its weakness it displays fear of total doctrine, here the maternity of O u r
Lady. I n its hidden violence it flees from independent a n d m a t u r e moral
decision; hence also from grace. I n its fear of the h u m a n body a n d of
sexuality it is patently docetic in tendency. I t preaches a n d teaches a Jesus
who was not even recognizably human.
I
T h e situation is not as well-established as it was; and from time to time
one can hear extravagant reactions, which do not help us in our m a i n task.
O u r commitment is to confirming others in their faith in Christ. If, in some
merely secular fashion, we were simply trying to restore to honour some
historical lay-figure more or less accurately portrayed, we could then afford
to be disinterested in how he was represented. W e could afford such an
attitude, so long as it did not interfere with a substantial loyalty to the
institution in question. W h e t h e r even then we should be so disinterested is
another matter. But we christians take it u p o n ourselves to go so far as to
a i d in the search for a mystic counterpart to the individual believer, a
counterpart who will be thought of as the object of the believer's whole
unitive life, a n d in whom he will, so far as m a y be, come to be totally
absorbed. W e dare to hope as we busy ourselves with our apostolate,
that the motivation of our fellow-believers will be determined b y the Jesus
they find in this spiritual a n d in some degree mystic union. W e will insist
on the necessity of learning from him, of listening to his inspiration at all
times, a n d indeed of being so conformed to him, that he becomes a kind
of control in our lives. W e will be satisfied when we hear of the need which
is felt for the spiritual alter ego, or spouse, especially in the celibate believer's
life. W e shall recommend that a certain presence of Jesus be felt in the
community so that it m a y remain at peace with itself in face of a n y form of
external aggression. I t is true that, since we are ourselves believers, we
shall by the same t o k e n absolve ourselves from any suspicion of 'm~mipulating' others through the type of Jesus-figure we present, since we are
convinced t h a t in our sincere obedience to gospel and tradition we are
entirely guided b y an objective state of affairs.
T h a t last phrase could obviously be discussed at length, but would take
8 CfEgenter: The Desecrationof Christ, p 77-8.
212
us too far away from the present subject. It is enough to say that there is no
way of helping the brethren except through the various religious and
cultural environments in which we encounter them. We can do no other but
start with our own cultural equipment and use what means of creative
criticism we possess. T h a t is why I mentioned Kitsch to begin with. It would
be good to think that, though we m a y have to give way to folk or pop in
religions art, and perhaps in theology, we need never again give way to
Kitsch. We cannot in fact continue to disseminate it, and at the same time not
be conscious of 'manipuiation', once we have seen something for ourselves of
the critiques of psychological anthropology (that is, the overlapping interests
of psychology and anthropology) and cultural psychiatry (that is, the relationship between socio-cultural factors and emotional disorder, or emotional
organization in general).
But if progress has been slow, that is partly because in the catholic Church
we have dragged our feet. When the practice of psycho-analysis became
generalized, and while the chief works of the freudian corpus were making
their appearance, a negative reaction took place. As Michel Mestin remarks,
we were first treated to a violent denunciation offreudian materialism. Then,
in so far as frendianism made an impact as a coherent theory it was declared
to be unacceptable reductionism of the christian faith. Polemic was shocked
and vigorous. T h e danger seen in psycho-analysis seemed, however, to
diminish when priests and n u n s appeared to benefit from treatment. T h e
polemic cooled off; but, and this is the important point for us here, it still
seemed quite impossible 'that the love which a believer had for his God
could, in the slightest degree, depend upon his urges or his sexuality'2 It is
here that the question of sexuality in our Christ-faith and Christ-devotion
has to be thought through with tranquillity. I quote Meslin again: 'it is clear
that after Freud, "believing" (or "living the life of faith", croire) no longer
means exactly what it had meant before'? °
I suggest that at first sight the problem breaks down into four areas, though
they overlap, especially areas one and two. Area one has to do with the question
whether or not we can make any historical statements about sexuality in the
life of Jesus. Area two is concerned with statements of our historic faith about
Jesus, when we say, preach and teach that he was concretely thus and thus
in his life on earth, or is concretely thus and thus as the risen and eternal
Christ. Area three concerns the meaning of the humanness of Jesus for us in
our faith; that is to say, the meaning, that on reflection and interpretation,
we think he ought to have for us, rather than the meanings which may be
foisted on him. Area four has to remain a programmatic and interpretative
one. We are still at the stage of reviewing the questions which have to be
explored, rather than coming up with a set of answers.
0 Cf Meslin, Michel: Pour Une Science des Religions (Paris, 1973), p I22.
lo Ibid., p 123.
2i 3
II
Area one can here be dealt with shortly. I t asks the question, 'Did the
Nazarene prophet-carpenter, called Jesus, have a sex-life like ours?' The
question obviously begs a n u m b e r of others, but Bishop J o h n Robinson
settles the matter satisfactorily for our purposes:
I n all this, of course, the issue is not what historical remarks we can
confidently make about Jesus of Nazareth. T h e answer is quite
clearly, None. We do not know anything for certain about his sex-life.
As Dennis N i n e h a m has reminded us, the gospels 'do not even think
to tell us definitely whether or not he was married', though a book
has recently appeared with the rifle W a s J e s u s M a r r i e d ? , which is not
in fact as m a d as it sounds. T h e gospels do not exist to provide answers
to these questions. ~1
There is really no difficulty with the arguments against saying that Jesus was
married. First, the gospels say nothing about it. Secondly, the anti-erotic
bias of the New Testament churches came early into christianity; a n d we
can suppose that if Jesus had been married that tendency would have been
checked, or at least that there would be some sign of dissent. Lastly, when
Paul invoked his right 'to be accompanied by a wife (Greek, sister as w i f e ) , as
the other apostles, a n d brothers of the Lord a n d Cephas', any tradition that
Jesus h a d been married would have clinched the point he was making. 12 (I
tend to think there is something in this last argument, though catholic
exegetes have in the past preferred to suppose that Patti was m a i n t a i n i n g his
right to subsidiary female help; translate then, w o m a n as religious sister.)
I t is h a r d to see that much more can be said about area one. Questions like
these: W h a t was the emotional stance that Jesus took towards the women in
his life? Could he have had latent homo-sexual affects? Was his relationship
with his mother satisfactory from the point of view of his emotional developm e n t ? H a d he, as is not rare in religious figures, no trace of an Oedipus
complex? Such questions certainly do not belong to m y area one. Is
III
Area two is more complicated. Mainline christianity, in its statements of
as Cf Robinson, John A. T. : The Human Face o f God, p 56. The references are to D. E.
Nineham, St Mark (London, 1963) p 35, and William A. Phipps, Was ~Tesus Married?
(New York, i97o).
13 Ibid., p 56, n 92.
18 Statements about the love ofJesus for Mary, Martha and Lazarus do not necessarily
belong to my area one. One could write about Jesus in the way that P6re Bruno de J6susMarie does about St John of the Cross: 'son energie vibrante.., sa sexualit6 dlraient les
psychanlystes - ffeonde les contacts humain ~t l'avantage du Seigneur'. In the same
article there is a short report by a graphologist which speaks of: St John's 'capacity for
love'; and that he 'appears to have experienced everything andto have reacted to it';
also of'ardour without aggression' (efart. dr. pp 15-x6). None of this could be area one.
214
THEOLOGICAL TRENDS
faith in Jesus, has held to an historical Jesus; a n d in its high-point, Chalcedon,
it held that the historical Jesus was 'co-essential' or 'consubstantial' with us.
Nicaea h a d already said he was 'co-essential' or 'consubstantial' with the
Father. I t is worth noting that at the time of Chalcedon the commoner
phrase was 'co-essential' or 'consubstantial' with Mary. T h e 'historicalness'
a n d reality of this particular m a n Jesus is thus brought out strongly by his
singtflar a n d individuafing relationship with M a r y . But in its stand against
Eutyches, the Council went further. Eutyehes h a d already agreed that Christ
'was from the flesh of the Virgin a n d that he was Perfect M a n ' . Now the
council d e m a n d e d that Eutyehes commit himself to saying: ' I f the mother is
co-essential with us, [Christ] is also.. 714 T h e r e was a n implication here which
Eutyches could not face, namely that Jesus was fully co-essential with us.
T h e hesitations of Eutyches survived him, a n d as late as 1442 the credal
section of the Decree for the Jacobites insisted that Christ was passible? 5 T h e
common view was that he took on corporal infirmities such as hunger, fatigue,
p a i n a n d death. But those were, so to speak, 'clean' infirmities. Diseases were
different. Theology a n d medicine get mixed u p in St Thomas's view of the
matter. F o r him disease has to be excluded from the list of Christ's possible
infirmities, because diseases are partly caused by original sin and sometimes
b y the fault of the individual, such as inordinate eating h a b i t s ? n I t was also
c o m m o n doctrine that as a h u m a n being Christ was not ignorant, t h a t he d i d
not sin, indeed that he was radically incapable of sin. All that is a second area
picture of Christ. And, as we noticed, the contemporary world-view,
including the medieval idea of w h a t constituted h u m a n perfection as well
as health, were contributory factors. O n e cannot ask of a world-view that it
shall be in advance of its time.
After the Reformation a n d the Enlightenment, theologians h a d to struggle
a n d are still struggling to produce a picture of Christ which is h u m a n l y
credible. Here, it is enough for us to satisfy ourselves t h a t there is ground for
hope that they will one d a y succeed. W h y ? T h e answer is in p a r t a methodological one. J u s t because area two statements are different from area one
statements, there is r o o m for manoeuvre without disloyalty to the gospel
t r u t h a b o u t Jesus. Area two gives room for manoeuvre because, as we can
n o w see, different thought-models in t h a t area are not only legitimate b u t
necessary, z~ But we need not fear that such models a n d their implicatious
a r e merely an excogitated mental spin-off of our own. T h e New Testament
itself carries within it a variety of christologies, as is now generally accepted.
za Cf Bindley T. H. and Green, F. W.: The Oecumenlcal Documents of the Faith (London,
i95o), p z96, note to line zz 3.
a5 The Council of Florence, Deer. pro Jacob., 'passibilis et temporalis ex condltione
assurnpta'. Denzinger-Sch6nmeister, z337.
x~ For St Thomas, Christ could not have had leprosy or a fatal disease. Cf Summa
Theologiea III, 14, 4"
17 On thought models in Chrlstology see John MeIntyre, The Shape of Christology (London, 1966).
2I 5
T h e y complete each other of course, a n d are not in contradiction. W e thus
find that area two overlaps within a n d without the limits of New Testament
thinking. I n seeking to correlate our views of m a n a n d the world with those
of the New Testament writers, we thus have a n open-ended situation on both
sides. But w h a t we have to respect, a n d where the danger signals will be
hoisted, is in those places where the New Testament writers have a better
hold on area one t h a n we have, when they make area two statements. W e
cannot go behind that.
T h e r e is at present no r e a d y - m a d e area two set of conclusions about the
sexuality of Christ, or indeed of the psychic background of the beliefs of the
early churches in Christ. All the d a t a of the p r o b l e m cannot be satisfied. But
the open-endedness we have mentioned is encouraging in a situation which
contains m a n y a paradox. Professor C. F. D. M o u l e opens up one of them
for us. I t is the p a r a d o x of the h u m a n 'continuity a n d discontinuity' in Jesus.
According to the New Testament writers, the humanity of Jesus is both
'continuous a n d discontinuous from the rest of mankind'. 18 As being the
entire h u m a n race, as 'this m a n ' , as the 'new m a n ' , the 'sinless' man, even in
the language of the New Testament he is discontinuous with the h u m a n race.
H o w then should we see this in terms of the emphatic statements implying
continuity? M o u l e does not say, for example, that Jesus could never have
'looked lustfully on a woman'. H e does say that the sinless side of Jesus is in
p l a y because 'the set of the will will negate w h a t might have been looking
lustfully on woman'. H e r e is an area two a r g u m e n t (in p a r t conditioned b y
historic New Testament faith, in p a r t conditioned by a theory of the h u m a n
will), which attempts to supply for a blank among the area one statements. T h e
result remains at the stage of an open-ended paradox.
H o w does that affect us? I t means, I thinly, that statements of historic
faith from any period of our doctrinal history still leave us with a task of
interpretation. W e have to interpret the humanness of Jesus not by means of
a n ancient instrument from some museum of psychology appropriate to New
Testament, patristic or medieval times, a n d not in the long r u n with some
mint-new instrument of our own d a y (though in the short term I see no reason
why that should be neglected, if it helps). W h a t we have to interpret is the
humanness of Jesus as a religious symbol. I t must emerge as a symbol that
speaks a n d 'gets through'. I quote Meslin again:
. . . . . it is absolutely evident t h a t today we can no longer talk of
symbols in merely historico-cultural terms. If, as Ricoeur rightly felt,
the symbol gives us ground for operational thinking, then there is all
the more reason to find out why a n d how we can make the transition
f r o m our analysis of the properly h u m a n symbolizing function to the
xs Cf Moule, C. F. D.: 'The Manhood of Jesus in the New Testament', in Christ,
Faith and History (eds S. W. Sykes and J. P. Clayton, Cambridge, i972), p lO2 (my
italics).
216
result of the operation which m a n forever practises in the different
cultures. 19
T o p u t that into the terms of our p r o b l e m we can say this. W e know Jesus
as Saviour, Redeemer, King, Teacher, Shepherd, Mystic Bridegroom,
Sacred H e a r t and Infant Jesus of Prague. A t any rate we think we do. But
none of those symbols is native to us today. W e know that with some of them
we can make the transition of which Meslin speaks. W e do not advert too
closely to the difference between those that do work, a n d those that do not;
and, perhaps worse, we have not specifically inquired why Saviour a n d
Shepherd apparently do make the transition, w h i l e Sacred H e a r t now does
so less, a n d Infant Jesus of Prague hardly at all. T o keep the right symbols
alive we must know w h a t we are doing from the h u m a n end: t h a t is, we must
have a sexually intelligible Jesus, if the transition is to be m a d e to the 'properly
h u m a n symbolizing function'. T h e idea of sexual intelligibility rather t h a n
the idea of mere sexual similarity seems to m e to be the relevant one. W e
shall come back to this. I n the m e a n t i m e let us open up the question of area
three,
IV
Area three could be labelled his humanness and us. I t is the area in which we
must try a n d take a stand, whilst it draws on the New Testament. T h e Jesus
of the New Testament, we must remind ourselves, even when its theologies
are highly post-resurrectional, was a man with a genetic history, a biological
a n d psychological history interacting with other h u m a n beings. Even his
most glorious-sounding titles relate to one who should make sense to us,
in so far as the meanings of these titles are enfleshed in his concrete existence.
T h a t existence attracts a n d polarizes us, even though its inner psychological
drives a n d structures are largely concealed from us.
I n trying to make u p our minds about the religious meaning for us of the
p r o b l e m of Jesus a n d sexuality, we must after all look for a soberly religious
answer which is governed by the New Testament. I t will incidentally b e
necessary to see whether we continue to p u t anything in brackets, a n d to
state why we do so. So first of all a general remark: from all our evidence
concerning the religious movements of first-century Palestine, one thing is
clear, n a m e l y that any religious teacher or leader s h o ~ n g the slightest sign
of 'permissiveness' could never have become plausible, a n d attracted a
following. O n any sane interpretation of the historical tradition surrounding
Jesus of Nazareth, he was both p o p u l a r a n d plausible. Fasting a n d the
desert p l a y e d a p a r t in his life; a n d as a result he could afford to shrug o f f t h e
efforts at a smear campaign against him. I n the c o m p a n y he kept he ensured
that his respect for the law should not interfere in any bigoted fashion with
his social relationships. His respect for h u m a n beings contradicted the
10 Cf 1V£eslin,1VI.: Pour une Science des Religions, pp 203-4.
THEOLOGICAL
TRENDS
217
t e n d e n c y of his t i m e to relegate w o m e n to a n inferior status. S° As D o d d says
o f t h e passage o n the w o m a n t a k e n in a d u l t e r y : "Compassion for the w o m a n
is n o less m a r k e d t h a n scorn for h e r accusers, b u t the final words h a v e a n
astringency w h i c h rules o u t a n y suggestion of 'permissiveness'. ~1 All t h a t we
shall e v e r k n o w in a direct factual w a y is t h a t i n d e e d h e was n o t 'permissive'.
N o w t h a t fits in w i t h t h e rest, for sex obviously was then, as it still is, a
c e n t r a l religious issue. I t is true t h a t there h a v e b e e n times in t h e history of
t h e C h u r c h , w h e n a h o r r o r of the flesh has obscured Christ's role as healer,
de-alienator a n d L o r d of a m a n ' s body. T h a t does n o t fit the N e w T e s t a m e n t
v i e w a n d will n o t do as a g e n u i n e area three v i e w o f Christ. But still there a r e
factual blanks a b o u t the N e w T e s t a m e n t Jesus, as we k n o w h i m . W e should
n o t forget t h a t in s o m e ways we k n o w h i m best as a teacher. As a t e a c h e r h e
c o u l d be stricter t h a n his religious opponents. W h e n he h e l d t h a t divorce
a n d oaths w e r e sinful, he was stricter t h a n strict jewish practice. ' W e should
n o t get a true p i c t u r e of h i m if w e failed to h e a r p e o p l e w h o w e r e shocked by
his severity exclaim, W h o t h e n can be saved? ~ But w h e n all t h a t is said, we
should r e m e m b e r also t h a t it is a Jesus w h o takes his o w n line t h a t we h e a r
as a teacher. O n l y m i n i m a l l y does h e engage in casuistry. I n g e n e r a l h e
appears as a religious liberator. But, for o u r purpose, in w h a t sense a liberator? 'Permissiveness' has b e e n e x c l u d e d ; a n d it has n e v e r b e e n shown t h a t
'permissiveness' is a g e n u i n e a n d h u m a n f o r m of liberation anyway. But he
m u s t be a religious l i b e r a t o r e v e n in respect o f sex. I n w h a t sense? I think
h e does two things b o t h as t e a c h e r a n d healer: (a) he liberates from sin, w h e r e
sin, a religious m a t t e r , is i n v o l v e d ; a n d (b) h e liberates for love of God, o u r
Father, for love of the brethren, and for the realization of the project of self
w h i c h is disclosed in h i m . T o t h e m o d e r n t h a t m a y seem restrictive a n d in
p a r t m y t h o l o g i c a l . But, if area three reflections a r e to keep their N e w T e s t a m e n t aspect, t h a t is t h e only honest answer. F r o m a b r o a d e r theological
s t a n d p o i n t also w e m u s t say the s a m e ; for, while w i t h the bible a n d m u c h of
christian t r a d i t i o n w e c a n see a n o v e r l a p b e t w e e n sex a n d sin, we c a n n o t
possibly see a n o v e r l a p b e t w e e n love (in the religious a n d p r o f o u n d sense)
and sin.
T o go back to speculation about Jesus himself, what w e say excludes any
possibility that Jesus could be alienated from himself. Lostness from G o d in
Jesus would contradict the N e w Testament and all our understanding of it.
Are w e then definitely excluding anything which must find its place within
the sphere of what constitutesm a n ? Did he then possess that dark, irrational
area of existence in which, and even more through which, w e grow in grace?
20 Gf an excellent section in Joachim Jeremias, oFerusalernin the Time ofoTesus (London,
x969) , pp 359ff; and esp. p 356 for a summary of the attitude of Jesus. 'Jesus was not
content with bringing women up onto a higher plane than was then the custom; but as
Saviour of all (Lk 7, 36-5o), he brings them before God on an equal footing with men'
(Mt 2x, 3z-32).
,1 Gf Dodd, G. H.: The Founder of Chrlstianity (London, 1973) , p 58.
22 GfK~isemarm, Ernst: oVesusMeans Freedom (London I969) , p 23.
218
I think he did, a n d I think that such an opinion can legitimately be made
within area three a n d its regard for the New Testament. I f he was hungry,
thirsty, sad, ignorant, a n d liable to that crisis in m i n d a n d resolve which is
implied by Gethsemane, then he was not a stranger to the dark, irrational
region.
Here it would be easy to embark upon a guessing game, b u t it must be
excluded. W e can reflect rather u p o n the consistency of his non-aggressive
attitudes where his personal interests are concerned. (His zeal for his Father
is another matter, for it is that of the authentic adult collaborating with God,
rather t h a n appropriating him, a n d there is no doubt as to where Jesus's
ideal lies.) His inner concentration seems positive a n d relates to something
which has to be said or done later on. And, if we add to that the consistent
balance of Jesus in his relationship with women, we can say that we have a
convergence of sigus which suggest that in him we can see a very high degree
of successful adjustment to reality. 2s Now, if I a m asked, does that not m e a n
that area three has simply brought us back to the plaster a n d paint of Kitsch
with which we started, I a m b o u n d to reply, No.
V
Let us now move away from the three areas discussed a n d try in area four to
reach some tentative interpretations which will keep what we have said in
mind. A n y interpretation must be religious. I t is not enough to say that, as
Jesus showed no signs of guilt, anxiety, tension or aggressivity over sex,
therefore he must be a suitable antidote to what we think are disorders in
ourselves. M a n y schools of christian spirituality have proposed a doctrine of
the imitation of Christ. W e are not in a doctor fish situation, on any theory
of grace or conformity with the divine exemplar. T h e effect he produces can
therefore be neither magical nor automatic. Such a n idea is not even a
religious one.
I n a n obscure way it somehow underlies two opposed tendencies from
which mainline christianity has h a d to recoil. We have on the one h a n d the
prurient believers who have recoiled from the flesh, a n d on the other the
reductionist humanist, who must at all costs see some measure of sex in the
life of Jesus, so that we can all feel better on recognizing ourselves i n him. I t
would seem that a similar psychological mechanism, the projection of guilt, is
at work i n each case. T h e mechanism is a device by which the afflicted can
come to terms with the reality they need in their lives. I t is, however, not
compatible with the christian belief in Jesus. But the dilemma which such
christian variants have tried to meet is relatively simple: either we feel so
guilt-ridden in the experience of our own sex-lives or i n being deprived of
za My friend and colleague, Robert Murray speaks of Christ 'who lived in celibacy but
(mostly unusually for a rabbi of his time) in close friendship with women as well as
with m e n . . . ' CfR. Murray, 'Spiritual Friendship', in Supplement to the Way I% Celibaoy
(Summer 197o), pp 62-3.
219
sex, that we can only bring ourselves to worship an unreal K i t s c h - t y p e of
Christ, or we are so sex-gnilty that we must have a sex-laden or sex-joyous
Christ as our own familiar surrogate. Neither position allows for the particular
Nazarene carpenter, who is the historic figure of our worship. Making Jesus
i n h u m a n in the first alternative is as mistaken as making him, in the current
vernacular, 'sexually normal'. T h e latter phrase is, in the sense intended,
quite inapplicable to a religious leader such as Jesus was.
Such conjectures are also b a d thinking about christianity. W h e n we
insist that the question of Jesus a n d sexuality is a religious one, we are not
suggesting that it is religious in a merely individualistic way. Faith in a
reality called Jesus of Nazareth is a faith in the context of historic believing
communities. Nor, to find a n easy solution to the problem, can we desacralize Jesus, a n d then weave a sexual fantasy around him. T h e larger
context of belief in Jesus includes the p h e n o m e n o n that sex and sin overlap,
a n d that sex can symbolize sin. ~ We have to be cautious here. T h e symbol
does not have to be the thing, a n d historically the connection between sex
as a symbol a n d sin as a reality, has sometimes been stronger a n d sometimes
weaker. There is no need to canonize the whole of the tradition. W h a t we
still need is a n understanding of why the symbol works. There is a paradox
here, for the Church has in fact stood firm against manicheeism, catharism
a n d jansenism, a n d has not denied that sex a n d the flesh are a h u m a n good.
But on the other hand, where theology has so far feared to tread, has been
over a principle of the greek Fathers about the reality of the h u m a n i t y of
Christ. W h a t was not assumed (by Christ) was not healed, they held. Later
theology never inquired ff that was true of h u m a n sexuality.
This is where there is speculative work stiU to be done; a n d it must be
done on a jointly h u m a n a n d religious stand. It is possible that the western
sex ideologies of protest (for example, 'sexual politics'), a n d of a sexualmystical character (the neo-freudian sex mystics of the 'sixties) will stimulate
some genuine thinking on more realistic lines.~5
T o d a y it is important, I think, to relate the general perplexities in this
field to the basic gospel situation. T h e person of Christ a n d his message can
more clearly convey to m a n what his potentiality is than can the do's a n d
24 For a powerful example of such symbolism at work in the interpretation of the Fall
narrative, see Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Creation and Temptation (London I966), who wrote:
'Unrestrained sexuality, like uncreatlve sexuality, is therefore destruction par excellence.
Thus it is an insane acceleration of the Fall; it is serf-affirmation to the point of destructlon. Passion and hate, rob and r a . . . these are the fruits of the tree of knowledge' (p 79) ;
and further, 'If the dogmatics of the Church saw the essence of sin in sexuality, this is not
such nonsense as protestants have often said from the point of view of moralistic naturalism. The knowledge of rob and ra is originally not an abstract knowledge of ethical
principles, but sexuality; i.e. a perversion of the relationship between persons' (p 80).
~5 Two chapters can be especially recommended in John Passmore, The Perfectibility o f
Man (London I97o) ; ch I3, 'Perfection Renounced: the Dystopians' (pp 26o-285), and
ch i5, 'The New Mysticism: Paradise Now' (pp 304-327).
220
dont's of a morality which is in any case looked u p o n as shifting. T h e r e are
several reasons for this. First a Christ-mysticism is a communicable reality.
Such a mysticism is securely based, and, as the life of St Paul, its greatest
propagandist, shows d e a r l y , there is no need to lose touch with the reality
principle in living out such a mysticism. I n its acceptance, a n d even in the
concomitant wish for death, there is an implicit acceptance of the fact that
gross sex-deviationism is a pseudo-existence. I n freudianism, the role of the
death-wish is controverted. As one of the symbols of Christ-mysticism, it has
a n assured balancing role once it is projected through the cross onto a death
shared w i t h Christ. Here the ideal Son with whom we identify is accepted b y
his Father, a n d the perfect sublimation becomes an ontological as well as a
psychological structure.
A t the same time we are enabled to come to terms with t h e fact that there
is no paradise now. Today's culture suffers much a n d struggles m u c h to
disguise that reality from itself. Sex a n d drugs are one formula. But against
this, mainline christianity stands firm. I t has no mystical form of a paradisefor-now to proclaim. T h e task is always to renew the gospel of growth in
grace, love a n d union with God, and m a n a n d the world; but growth
implies a term not reached. Hence there can be no h u m a n perfectibility which
leads merely 'into that simple health that animals enjoy b u t not m a n ' . ~6
Christianity could obviously not say that; a n d even Freud held a m u c h more
sober view of perfection. O n reflection, it was even more sober than the
somewhat static or mechanical view of 'christian perfection', which, after
debasing the dynamism of Aristotle, settled down to a snug existence in
manuals of spiritual perfection. F r e u d rejected the view that it is even
possible fully to free a person from internal conflicts to perfect him. But the
mirage has long been with us a n d we have projected a schematic normality
upon Jesus, which we know that we ourselves shall never attain. T h e really
religious aspect of the m a t t e r should have told us that we were looking in the
wrong direction. T h e Epistle to the Hebrews repeatedly associates the
perfection of Jesus with his suffering a n d the resolution of his life crisis. 2~
Here, if ever, we are talking about the concrete Ego of experience, which is
also the concrete T of e v e r y d a y life. Here, in the realm of theological
conclusions, we find ourselves m u c h nearer to Jesus as healer. I t is the
concrete ' I ~ in sexual distress with which religion is concerned.
~ CfBrown, Norman O. :Life Against Death (London, 1959), P 311 quoted by Passmore,
The Perfectibility of Man, p 305 .
~ In a much discussed text of Hebrews, Christ, the High Priest, is able to be compassionate
with the weaknesses of the brethren: 'He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward,
since he is himself beset with weakness' (Heb 5~ 2). The argument supposes that he has
shared human misery and trials. It is especially the 'obedience' in his Passion which
gives Christ's priesthood its perfection. 'He learned obedience through what he suffered'
(5, 8; see also 2, 17-18 and 4, I4-16).
22I
VI
T h e reason why we can involve the Jesus of our religion with the problem
of sexuality in m a n must therefore be viewed along the line of person and
personhood. Those who try a n d make Jesus a talisman or magic touchstone
fail, because they take Jesus out of the context of religion. There are of
course resemblances between sexual attitudes a n d religious attitudes. Sexual
attitudes help to structure the person; a n d the believer and lover of God is
none other t h a n the concrete structured person. T h a t does not m e a n that all
sexual attitudes can be related to religious attitudes. Some are destructive.
Oral sadism is in the end destructive of h u m a n love. Religious oral sadism of
the Savonarola type is destructive by its bigotry a n d violence. H u m a n sexual
Iove, considered as a personal endowment, is quite different. I n this perspective there is a vertical line transcending the finite h u m a n relationship:
now sexual love relates through the other to the One, God our Father. This
vertical line is surely disclosed in Jesus in such a way that sexual affectivity
is neither distorted nor denied. T h a t seems to me most important, a n d one
must look for a n illustration.
Jesus, after all, is liberator as well as healer. H e promises that his yoke will
be a light one. ss T h a t must hold good for sexuality as for the rest. I n the first
instance, Jesus liberates from the casuistical thraldom of the sabbath law. I n
that he shares his lordship with God. s" T h e point is that it is precisely with
God, our Father, that this lordship is shared. Authority is now taken away
from the rabbis. Jesus is thus himself the liberator, a n d the one who is
c o m m a n d i n g Lord. But he gives a n enabling command. T h e result therefore
in the realm of h u m a n sexuality cannot be a licence for perversity as a form
of liberation. It can only be the establishment of a relationship in sexuality
which is open to the basic possibility of personal encounter, a n d through
that to the possibility of the essentially religious relationship with the Father.
T h a t is how the enabling c o m m a n d must work out. ' T h e living Christ', said
T . W. Manson, 'still has two hands, one to point the way a n d the other held
out to help us along'. 8° Such a process is no form of sex homoeopathy. I t is
still, however, what this m a n Jesus does; a n d he does it as a man; that is, with
all the characteristics of the race in compassion a n d love.
So we must reject the argument that only like cures like. ~1 I see nothing in
28 CfMt II, 3° .
29 CfMt I2, 8.
3o Manson, T. W. : Ethics and the Gospel (London i96o) p 68.
3x The classic form of the principle of affinity is that like seeks after like (Aristotle) : in
theories of knowledge, like is known by like (Plato), and there is knowledge by connaturality
(St Thomas). Almost as ancient is the principle that contraries are cured by contraries (Hippocrates), which supplements and forms a dialectic with the previous principle, and
which had had its place in ascetical writing. For the theological relevance, see Jfirgen
Moltmann, The Crucified God (London 1974), PP 26-7; 3o-3 I, nn 2o-2 i. After a long and
varied history, the principle of affinity comes down to us in astrology, which only parted
company from medicine two centuries ago. Cf Naylor, P. I. H. : Astrology, an Historical
Examination (London i967) , p i69.
'~2~2
well-considered christology which ought to make us think that the incarnation ought to be a sort of philosopher's stone for sex. I f we turn again to St
Paul, we can see that it is not likeness, b u t sameness on which he relies. F o r him
the graced condition of any man, and, as we are talking about a personal
relationship with God, through our sexuality in a large or narrow sense, t h a t graced
condition is a total negation of any h u m a n boast (kauchOsis). T h e likeness of
sex in Christ to heal s e x i n us is a h u m a n projection; in other words, it is our
doing, not God's doing. N o w the principle, already mentioned, that what
was not assumed was not healed relies on sameness, not likeness, with us. Christ's
consubstanfiality or co-essentiality with us points, not to a situation within
h i m of incoherence or perversity, b u t rather to the possibility of realized
structuration. H e is therefore not merely schematic normality. H e is in his
h u m a n structurafion perfected personal love. T h e man, our Saviour, was the
same as we are in the sameness of structured personality, in that which
relates us as sons in the Son.
T o anyone who says: 'Ah, b u t you have now p u t the question of sexuality
in brackets a n d have forgotten it', I must honestly reply, Yes a n d No. No in
the sense that the m a t t e r remains subsumed in the vertical line of personality,
a n d in the sense that it is left ad agonem. A t the same time, I must say, Yes, in
the sense that crisis a n d struggle are the n o r m a l ways in which we think
about sexuality from d a y to day. I have not suggested that liability to guilt,
anxiety a n d aggressiveness are removed, nor that it is through those factors
t h a t our distress impinges u p o n us.
I t is p r o b a b l y true that the element of aggressiveness is the one which
appears to us to be the least compatible with our idea of Jesus as healer. I t
goes with domination and, when imposed, in a n y circumstances in which
sadism m a y be suspected, can have no place in the perfected structuration of
love, especially of love which involves the divine. Non-violence is surely of
the essence o f w h a t we call the supernatural. W e are here in a n area of
considerable ambivalence. T h e neurotic subject projects his inner conflict on
his religious outlook and becomes socially aggressive. God or Christ will then
always be r e a d y to punish. T h e r e is no denying that sickness m a y lead in that
direction. But for our present purpose this must remain another topic. I n our
line of thinking we have opted for the non-violence of moral strength a n d
love to be found in the structures graced b y Christ. W h a t happens then to
the aggressive element latent in sexuality. 'Aggressiveness', says J e a n
Lhermitte, 'can become the most effective motive in spiritual progress'. 3~
W o u l d that be true even in the area of Christ and sexuality? I take an
illustration from the personal study of that massive a n d constructive theologian, Paul Tillich, written after his death b y his psychiatrist friend, Rollo
M a y . Paulus, as his friends called him, loved women sensually b u t not
sexually. N e v e r t h e l e s s . . .
32 Lhermitte, Jean: 'Les Sentiments de Sympathie et d'Aggressivit6', in Amour et
Violence; l~tudes Carmdlitaines (I946), p 20.
223
I-Ie could talk about sexuality in public so long as it was not personal
confession. A n d talk about it he did, with a frankness a n d honesty
which stood out radically indeed in faculties where most professors
spoke as if they h a d never heard the word sex. It was in Paulus'
lectures that I first heard of the 'love bite', that m o m e n t of hostility
a n d aggression which occurs at the climax of sexual intercourse. H e
believed that, even though partly aggressive, the sexual act in the
orgasm is still a giving of the persons to each other. I t is the tension
between the aggressiveness a n d the giving which produces the ecstasy
of sex. From Paulus I also heard of the ' u n i o n of opposites', of which
sexual intercourse is a symbol - the straining of the totality of one
person to become wholly absorbed in the other person, aa
W h a t is said there can be taken as symbolic expression of what I a m trying
to suggest from a theological point of view. As we know from the Song of
Songs a n d from m a n y high points in history of mysticism, h u m a n love is a
symbol of the divine-human encounter. 34 O u r residual, but sublimated
aggressiveness, may yet contribute to the ' u n i o n of opposites'. I t would take
us into a theology of the cross to show how this can be verified. For the
m o m e n t let us return to the thought that in a n d through sexual tensions on
the part of the believer, the offer of Christ is still for a mystic u n i o n of
persons. St Patti had no hesitation about mixing Christ mysticism a n d sex
to insist on the need for sublimation,s5 It is clear that the u n i o n in question
excludes paradise now, the lapsing into perversity, a n d regression into
infantilism. I t would also be true, as I wrote i n a sacramental context, 'that
the use of such symbolism' [as that of sexual love] 'for the ordinary believer
as for the mystic has to be accompanied by a sense a n d practice of sensual
purification. There would be nothing odd in that. T h e christian as well as
the freudian traditions recognize that there is always a role for Thanatos'.86
VII
I t may be felt that I have argued a severe view over the humanness of
Christ a n d sexuality. If I do so, it is because I see no substitute for the objectivity of the Church's faith in Christ. Questions can be asked only about
ss May, Rollo: Paulus, a Personal Portrait of Paul Tillieh (London I974), p 55s4 Besides St Bernard, William of St Thierry was a proponent of a mystical theology
based upon the Song of Songs. The question is whether such a theology shows signs of the
concept of a pathos in God. Condren for example can speak of'Jesus Christ... offered ..
to the Father also to be consummated in us'. See Henry Bremond, A Literary History of Religious Thought in Franse, III, The Triumph of Mysticism (London, I936), p 316 (my italics).
There was of course such a notion as the intra-Trinltarian mystical kiss. Cf Dictionnaire
de Spir#ualltd, III, 888ff.
35 Cf I Cor 6, 15ff.
88 yon Balthasar, Hans Urs: Love Alone: The Way of Revelation. ch 6: 'Love as Revelation' sketches a theologia crucis for catholics which ends in the universality 'of both forms
of death in Adam' and the universality of the divine mercy (cfRom I I, 3~)-
22~
THEOLOGICAL TRENDS
the real, objective Jesus Christ of Church faith who was the Nazarene
carpenter. N o r can any offer to relieve sufferers from anxiety, guilt, or a n
aggressiveness connected with sexuality be anything b u t a religious placebo
unless it is grounded in the being of the Christ who was a n d is.
All that could be done here was to sketch a line of thought. M u c h remains
to be worked out. T h e techulcal casuistry of the past concerning sex is no
longer helpful a n d is falling into desuetude. Christians still ask for help in
avoiding humarfist reductionism, a n d from folk-lore concepts ofgnilt ranging
from ritual impurity to socially secular transgressions. T h e holy touch view
of Jesus was simply wrongly focussed on a not-given sex-factor in his life. I t
was equally unhelpful to concentrate exclusively on the all-pure sinlessness
of Jesus at the expense of the far m o r e communicable fact that his life was
wholly one of h u m a n l y personal love. T h e r e is no need to think that our
relationship with h i m is merely a psychological identification. I t is far more.
T h e force he communicates, the offer of surrender to G o d that he makes - all
this adds u p to the situation of a Christiform grace-relationship. W e can then
say that the sex-liberation offered b y Christ is to be freely embraced in the
sublimating death-life of the cross. I t is there that love speaks a n d discloses;
it is there that we find communion in deed, a n d it is there that love, to use
the language of yon Balthasar, gives of itself as form.
Bruno Brinkman S. aT.
THE PRAYER OF LOSS
HRISTIANITY IS concerned with death a n d resurrection, the fall a n d the
C redemption. I t is of the essence of Christ's teaching that the grain of
wheat fall into the ground a n d die, else it remains alone; b u t f l i t does die it
can bear much fruit ( J n 12, 24). As followers of Christ we are called upon to
recognize, underline a n d face the consequences of sin - which are summed
up b y everything that is signified b y death - a n d then to go forward to Life
in the glory of the redemption a n d the resurrection. Always there is for us
this double aspect a n d choice: to be or not to be. Life a n d d e a t h are the
greatest symbols we have, a n d we must always remember that in the way we
experience them now they are symbols. There is to be a second life or a
second death to follow on our present existence. A n d what we now have are
the two ultimate choices worked into the very fabric of our being. Life on
this earth is its own justification: it is not good because of anything else, it is
good because it is what it is. T h e agonies a n d trials and failures of life are
precisely where life is not full: they partake of the essence of death. A n d death
must be horrible in itself because it is simply the negation of life. I t is the
summation of evil, it signifies the loss of all good. T h e awfulness of suicide is
simply this, that life is no longer significant, the light has gone out of the
world for the one who takes his own life. W e remain alone to ourselves, we
look for the comforter a n d there is none.
I t would seem therefore that the true christian is the one who not only
experiences the fulness of life, but who also dares to die to it all. H e is not
anaesthetized from the agony of it: rather, he drinks that chalice to the very
dregs. W i t h Christ he takes upon himself the death of the world. But of
course the d e a t h is swallowed up in victory (I Cot I5, 54), a n d the victory
which has overcome the world is our faith (I J n 5, 4)- A n d thus he knows the
• truth, a n d the truth will set him free (Jn 8, 32).
All this m a y be fairly simple, b u t it is not easy, a n d the world still divides,
like the Areopagus, into those who mock at the idea of resurrection, and
those who would hear more, a n d go on to change the world (Acts 17, 32).
Because the effect of the christian message has been so powerful a n d all
pervasive in the western world, there is a tendency to forget the black
awfialness of the pre-chrisfian despair in the face of d e a t h : ' O Charidas, w h a t
of the underworld?' ' I t is a thick darkness'. ' W h a t of the resurrection?' ' I t is
a lie'. "And Pluto?' ' T h a t is a fable: we perish utterly'. 1 O f course there are
plenty in our post-christian world who reject the idea of resurrection, b u t I
still feel that their thought is in fact coloured b y the christian experience:
there is for most of them at least some idea of progress a n d achievement
through the generations of this world which was denied to the hopeless
1 Anthologia Graeca... Palatini: ed. F. Jacobs, (Leipzig i813-i7) , VII, 5~4.
226
W H E N YOU PRAY
cyclical existence of the ancients. Even Socrates could only say to his judges
that when the m o m e n t came for them to go their separate ways, he to death
a n d they to fife, only God could say who had the better part. T h e Emperor
Hadrian's fitfle piece to his soul shows no real glimmer of life in its gentle
course:
Animula, vagula blandula,
Hospes comesque corporis,
Quae nunc abibis in loca
Pallidula, rigida, nudula,
Nec ut soles dabis iocos.~
(Soul of mine, pretty one, flitting one
Guest and partner of m y day
Whither wilt thou fly away
Pallid one, rigid one, naked one
Never to play again, never to play?)
A n d the stoic considerations offered to Cicero by his friend Servius Sulpicius
move me not at all, apart from the h u m a n concern they reveal:
W h e n I received the news of the death of your daughter Tullia I was
as m u c h grieved a n d distressed as was to be expected a n d I regarded
it as a calamity in which I also shared. A n d if I had been at home you
would have had evidence of m y sorrow face to face. But still, this kind
of consolation causes pain a n d distress because those who should be
offering it are themselves overwhelmed by it. They can only sympathize with tears in their own eyes, so that they seem to require consolation themselves. But why are you so distressed at a private grief?.
T h i n k what else you have lost, a n d what ought to be no less dear than
children - country, honour, rank. O r is it for her sake that you
m o u r n ? But in times like these it is not the worst of fates to exchange
life for a painless d e a t h . . . I f she h a d not died now, it would have
come hereafter, for she was mortal anyway . . . T h i n k of all the
ancient cities once in glory a n d now in ruins, a n d would we little m e n
rebel if one of us perishes when the remains of so m a n y great towns
lie in helpless ruins? 3
I n all of this there does not seem to be the remotest possibility for what a
christian would m e a n by prayer.
T h e O l d Testament is a very different matter, for here are the roots a n d
inklings of all that is to follow; a n d indeed the whole idea of resurrection
seems to grow inexorably from the recognition of God's concern for his
people, who are themselves on a journey. Somehow even the despair has
another seed within it, and can be used by the christian in the light of
revelation.
Baehrens: Fragmenta PoetarumRomanorum p 373.
8 Cicero: AdFam. IV, 5.
W H E N YOU PRAY
227
I t is you who have kept m y soul from the pit of nothingness. F o r Sheol
does not praise you, D e a t h does not extol you. Those who go down to
the pit do not go on trusting in your faithhtlness. T h e living, the living
are the ones who praise you, as I do today (Isai 38, 17)T h e y say that J o b h a d no belief in a resurrection. But the christian tradition is surely right to take his words a n d resurrect them for h i m :
I know that m y R e d e e m e r lives,
a n d that he shall stand u p at the last upon the earth.
After m y awakening he will set m e close to him
a n d from m y flesh I shall see m y God,
w h o m I shall see for myself,
m y eyes will look u p o n him, a n d no other (Job 19, 25).
A n d w h a t of D a v i d in his passionate mourning for Saul a n d J o n a t h a n ?
Saul a n d J o n a t h a n , loved a n d lovely;
in life a n d in death they were not divided.
O J o n a t h a n , in your d e a t h I a m stricken.
I a m desolate for you, J o n a t h a n m y brother (2 S a m I, o3).
I think David still talks to him.
N o w none of the agony of death's inheritance is removed by Jesus, b u t his
message starts by proclaiming that the hour is coming, a n d now is, when the
d e a d shall hear the voice of G o d a n d those who h e a r it shall live. T h e d e a d
will leave their graves at the sound of his voice (Jn 5, 25)- W e are reminded
of Ezekiel's prophecy to the bones:
T h e House of Israel keep saying ' O u r bones are dried up, our hope
has gone; we are as good as dead'. But the Lord Yahweh says this:
' I a m now going to open your graves, m y people . . . a n d you will
know that I a m Yahweh; a n d I shall p u t m y Spirit in you a n d you
will live (Ezek 37, 12-14).
A n d we r e m e m b e r the Lord's t r i u m p h a n t claim: ~Now he is the G o d not of
the d e a d but of the living; for to him all men are in fact alive' (Lk 2o, 38).
But Christ's soul could be sorrowful even unto death, a n d he could weep
with the other mourners at the t o m b of Lazarus. Here is the redemption
still being worked out in this vale of tears; here is h u m a n i t y acknowledging
its frailty.
St Paul can call u p o n the sleeper to wake a n d rise from the dead for
Christ to shine on him (Eph 5, 14); but even he has his melancholy u p o n
him with those same Ephesians when he tells them that they will not see his
face again (Acts 2o, 36). H e is torn in two as he sees that to live is Christ and
to die is gain (Phil I, o i). H e tells the Corinthians who mourn, that it should
be as though they did not (I Cor 7, 3o). A n d because of Christ he has come
to consider all his advantages as disadvantages. F o r Christ he has accepted
228
W H E N YOU PRAY"
the loss of everything, a n d looks on everything as so m u c h rubbish if only he
can have Christ (Phil 3, 8). A n d Christ h a d himself turned things topsyturvy
by saying that they are blessed who m o u r n (Mt 5, 4), for their comforting
shall be greater than was ever their loss. I t was better for the apostles that he
should leave them, for otherwise they would not have the power to receive
the holy Spirit (Jn 16, 7).
I n all of this were set the lines of the christian t r i u m p h as it broke upon the
despairing graeco-roman world. T h e y could rejoice in the h a p p y fault which
brought so great a redeemer a n d his triumph, a n d the martyrs could now
astonish the world b y going singing to their deaths, seeing only the goal set
before them of glory in Christ. R e m e m b e r the Passion of SS Perpetua a n d
Felicity:
N o w dawned the day of their victory, and they went forth from the
prison into the amphitheatre as it were into heaven, cheerful a n d
bright in countenance; if they trembled at all it was for j o y . . .
Perpetua followed behind, glorious of presence as a true spouse of
Christ a n d darling of God. ~
St Cyprian can say:
W e ought not to sorrow for those of our brethren who b y the Lord's
summons have been set at liberty from the life below; assured t h a t
they are not gone away, b u t gone forward; in departing from us they
are b u t leading the way, as is men's wont in a journey or u p o n a
voyage. W e owe t h e m our affection rather t h a n our l a m e n t a t i o n s . . .
we must not give occasion to the gentiles for the just reproach that
while we say of m e n they are alive with G o d yet we m o u r n for them
as extinct a n d perished. 5
A n d in answer to the best of the stoic epitaphs a n d to the p a g a n despair let
m e quote from that magnificent inscription coming from Lyons in the fifth
century:
Hic gemini fratres iunctis dant membra sepulchris :
quos iniunxit meritum, consociavit humus.
Germine barbarico nati, sedfonte renati,
dant animas celo, dant sua membra solo.
Advenit Sagilae patri cum coniuge luctus,
defungi haud dubie qui voluereprius.
Sed dolor est nimius Christo moderanteferendus :
orbati non sunt; dona dedere Deo2
(Here lie twin brothers, united again in the tomb: m u c h they
deserved w h o m the soil embraces as one. Born of b a r b a r i a n stock, b u t
The PassionofSS Perpetua & Felicity, trans. Win. Shewring (London, i93i), p 37.
5 Cyprian: De Mortalitate, PL 4, 6~8.
6 CorpusInscriptorumLatinorum, XIII, 24o2.
W H E N YOU P R A Y
229
in baptism given new birth, they give their bodies to earth but their
souls to the heavens.
Well m a y their father, bereft, a n d his spouse now lament, a n d who
need d o u b t that they gladly h a d died before? But Christ comes to
conquer their grief a n d assuage it; robbed they are not who have
given these gifts to the Lord.)
T h e parents, for all their sorrow, are not bereft: they have b u t given their
gift to God.
But the three great names to go to among the Fathers for an account of
their feelings under the sting of the death of one close to them are SS A m brose, Augustine a n d Bernard, each being so personal a n d yet so consistent
with the tradition.
Nothing among things of earth, m y dearest brethren, was more
precious to me, or more worthy of love than m y brother S a t y r u s . . .
But I cannot be ungrateful to G o d ; for I must rather rejoice that I
h a d such a brother than grieve that I have lost him, for the former is
a gift, the latter a d e b t that has to be paid. A n d as long as I could I
enjoyed the loan entrusted to me, now he who deposited the pledge
has taken it b a c k . . . A n d why should I weep for you, m y most
loving brother, who were torn from me that you might become the
brother of all? F o r I have not lost, but have changed m y intercourse
with you; before we were inseparable in the body, now we are
undivided in affection; for you remain with m e a n d ever will remain.
While you were living with me our country never tore you from me;
a n d now you are become surety for that other country, for I begin to
be no stranger there where the better p a r t of me already is. I was
never wholly engrossed in myself, b u t the greater p a r t of each of us
was in the other, yet we were each of us in Christ, in w h o m is the sum
of e v e r y t h i n g . . . But we have not incurred a n y grievous sin by our
tears. Not all weeping proceeds from unbelief or weakness. N a t u r a l
grief is one thing, distrustful sadness is another, a n d there is a very
great difference between longing for what you have lost a n d lamenting
that you have lost it. Not only has grief got tears, b u t j o y also. T h e i r
friends m a d e a great mourning over the patriarchs when they died.
Tears, then, are marks of devotion, not producers of grief. I confess,
then, that I too wept, but the L o r d also wept, a n d for one not related
to him, while I wept for m y brother. H e wept for all in weeping for
one, I will weep for all in weeping for you, m y brother. H e wept for
w h a t affected us, not himself; for the godhead sheds no tears; he wept
in that nature in which he was sad, in which he was crucified, in
which he d i e d . . . So then I hold you, m y brother, a n d neither d e a t h
nor time shall tear you from me. Tears themselves are sweet, and
weeping itself a pleasure, for by these the eagerness of the soul is
assuaged, a n d affection being eased is q u i e t e d . . . A n d now to you,
230
W H E N YOU PRAY
almighty God, I commend this guileless soul, a n d to you I offer m y
sacrifice; accept mercifully a n d favourably the gift of a brother a n d
the offering of a priest. I offer beforehand these first libations of
myself. I come before you with this pledge, not of money b u t of lifeY
St Augustine, remembering long afterwards in his Confessions t h e last days
of his mother Monica, gives first that most remarkable description of the
high mystical experience shared with her at Ostia, a n d then writes thus of his
reactions to her death:
+._
I closed her eyes, a n d an immense sorrow welled u p in the depths of
m y heart a n d was beginning to break out in tears, b u t m y eyes u n d e r
the strong c o m m a n d of m y spirit held back the flow, b u t it went ill
with me in that s t r u g g l e . . . For we did not think it right to greet
that death with the lament of sighs a n d tears, because this is the
normal way to bewail death when it is seen as sheer misery or complete extinction. But she did not die unhappily, indeed it was no
absolute death that she suffered. W h y then was I so sorrowful in my
heart? Unless it was because of the newness of the w o u n d as the sweet
way of life shared with her was suddenly broken off. Because I was
now bereft of her great comfort a n d m y soul ,was wounded, m y very
life torn u p : one life h a d been made &hers a n d mine. I was disturbed
that these h u m a n emotions could have such power over me - even
though in the order of nature it must be so - a n d thus I was wracked
with a double sorrow, from grief over my grief.
But now that m y heart is healed, in which perhaps there was a n
excess of h u m a n affection, I can pour out to you, m y God, a very
different kind of tears for that servant of yours - these now flow from a
spirit struck with the thought of the danger for every soul that dies in
Adam. For although she had been brought to life in Christ a n d had so
lived while still in the flesh that your n a m e was praised in her faith
a n d character, yet I do not presume to say that from the regeneration
of her baptism no word issued from her m o u t h contrary to your
precept. For your Son has said: ' I f anyone says to his brother, "You
fool", he is fiable to hell fire'. But because you do not examine us too
stringently we can hope to have some place with you.
Therefore, God of my praise, God of m y heart, setting aside her good
actions, for which I give thanks in joy, I now pray to you for the sins
o f m y mother. H e a r me through the true Medicine of our wounds,
which hung upon the cross, a n d now sits at your right h a n d to
intercede for us. I know that she was merciful of heart a n d forgave
from the fulness of her heart those who trespassed against h e r . . .
A n d I believe that you have already done what I now ask for. So may
she rest in peace)
7 PL 16, ~345.
B Confessions, IX~ io & 13.
W H E N YOU P R A Y
531
St Bernard, in his commentary on the Song of Songs, breaks down over
the death of his brother G e r a r d a n d says:
W h a t have I to do with this song of joy, who a m myself in bitterness
of soul? T h e indignation of the Lord drinks u p m y spirit, for he by
whose means m y studies in the ways of the Lord used to be wholly
free has been taken away, a n d with him m y very heart has left me. But
u p to now I have restrained m y soul a n d concealed m y feeling, lest
affection should seem to overcome f a i t h . . . I was able to c o m m a n d
m y tears b u t not m y sorrow, as it is written: I was so troubled I could
not speak. But m y grief, thus suppressed, shot deeper roots into m y
h e a r t a n d became the more bitter because it h a d no e x p r e s s i o n . . .
I will assist the Lord's hand, for it is the h a n d of the L o r d that has
touched me. F o r he has slain me in cutting short the life of m y
brother, for that which has been to h i m the gate of life has manifestly
been to me the gate of death. Flow forth, you tears, long since brimruing o v e r . . . But we see d a y by d a y that those who are dead in the
spirit lament for their dead, b u t with them there is much weeping a n d
no fnlit. W e do not blame their distress a n d grie~ b u t the cause of it.
Affection is from nature, a n d the distress it causes is p a r t of the
penalty of sin; b u t the cause is vanity a n d sin. F o r in the world w h a t
is lamented is the injury inflicted by death u p o n carnal glory a n d the
advantages of this life. A n d those who weep thus are themselves to be
wept for. But it is not so with me: I do not complain at all of the loss
of the things of this world, b u t that I have lost that faithful help in the
things of God. Let no one say that I a m wrong to afflict myself, since
Samuel m o u r n e d without restraint over his a b a n d o n e d King, a n d
D a v i d over his parricidal son, a n d that without wronging their faith
or questioning the divine judgment. I t is thus with m y tears also:
they are not a sign of unbelief, but an indication of our h u m a n
condition. 9
Perhaps in this piece St Bernard was aware of the lament of St Ambrose
for Satyrus, a n d of the three passages here quoted it does seem to be the most
artificial; b u t all such laments must have an element of artificiality when p u t
down in cold print, though m a n y have been the stronger for reading it.
W i t h the passing of the M i d d l e Ages, an element comes to the fore t h a t
has always been there (and can be seen in Perpetua's two visions of her
brother Dinocrates) of the fearful dread of sin a n d its consequences in
p u r g a t o r y after death. T h e Dies Irae is a fine example of how far this can go:
' W h a t then, in m y misery shall I say, when even the just m a n is h a r d l y safe?'
I n the shadow of w h a t seems to be an exaggerated dread, we can find St
Teresa of Avlla saying of her recently d e a d brother, when writing to some of
her nuns: ' T h e sympathy he bore for your trials and his love for you all were
Sermon ~6 on the Song of Songs. PL i83, 903.
232
W H E N YOU P R A Y
wonderful. Now you can r e p a y him by praying for his soul, on the condition
that if he no longer needs prayers - a n d I believe he does not, and our f a i t h
allows such a b e l i e f - your suffrages m a y avail those in greater w a n t of them'. ~°
A n d yet she has said earlier that everything wearied him that was n o t the
direct service of God, a n d that he h a d of set purpose in his last years lived out
of the town so that he might practise perpetual prayer a n d always be in the
presence of God. So strong can become the fear of God's threatening power.
W h e n we come to the twentieth century we can still find the same strands
running through the christian experience, a n d perhaps Hilaire Belloc comes
as close as a n y to combining a feeling for the old p a g a n despair with the
t r i u m p h of the cross:
T h e y that have been beside us all the day
Rise u p ; for they are summoned to the gate.
N o r turn the head b u t take a downward way;
Depart, a n d leave their households desolate.
But you shall not depart, although you leave
M y house for conversation with your peers.
Your a d m i r a b l e Ghost shall not receive
M e r e recollected vows a n d secret tears.
But on that brink of Heaven where lingering stand
T h e still-remembrant spirits hearkening down,
Go, tower among them all, to hear the land,
T o hear the l a n d alive with your renown.
N o r strength, nor peace, nor laughter could I give,
But this great wages: after death, to live. n
Yet I find a real development in the writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.
H e picks u p the secular idea of evolution (for evolution came to its vigour, at
least, in a very secular context) a n d plants it firmly a n d fully alive in the
christian tradition of growth through suffering a n d death to the t r i u m p h of
the Last Day.
Lord, w h a t is there in suffering that commits me so deeply to you?
I t is because, among your gifts, w h a t I hanker after is the fragrance of
your power over me. F o r w h a t exhilarates us h u m a n creatures more
t h a n freedom, m o r e than the glory of achievement, is the j o y of
finding, a n d surrendering to, a beauty greater t h a n man, the r a p t u r e
of being possessed.
Blessed then be the disappointments which snatch the cup from our
lips. Blessed, above all, be death a n d the horror of falling b a c k
through death into the cosmic forces. A t the m o m e n t of its coming a
power as strong as the universe pounces u p o n our bodies to grind
lo
The Letters of St Teresa, edited and translated by the nuns of Stanbrook (London,
n Sonnets & Verse (London, I954), p 4o.
i924), p 48 .
W H E N YOU PRAY
233
them to dust a n d dissolve them, a n d a n attraction more tremendous
than a n y material tension draws our unresisting souls towards their
proper centre. Death causes us to lose our footing completely in
ourselves so as to deliver us over to the powers of heaven a n d earth.
This is its final terror - b u t it is also for the mystic, the climax of his
bliss.
God's creative power does not in fact fashion us as though out of soft
clay: it is a fire that kindles life in whatever it touches. TM
I n itself death is a n incurable weakness of corporal beings, complicated,
i n our world, by the influence of a n original fall. I t is the sum a n d
type of all the forces that diminish us, a n d against which we must
fight without being able to hope for a personal, direct a n d immediate
victory. But the great victory of the Creator a n d Redeemer i n the
christian vision is to have transformed what is in itself a universal
power of diminishment and extinction into a n essentially life-giving
factor. God must, in some way or other, make room for himself,
hollowing us out a n d emptying us, if he is finally to penetrate into
u s . . . T h e function of death is to provide the necessary entry into
ourselves a n d in that way its fatal power to decompose a n d dissolve
will be harnessed to the most sublime operations of life.
I t was a joy to me, O God, in the midst of the struggle, to feel that in
developing myself I was increasing the hold you have upon me; it
was a joy to me too, u n d e r the inward thrust of life or amid the
favourable play of events, to a b a n d o n myself to your Providence. Now
that I have found the joy of utilizing all forms of growth to make you,
or to let you, grow i n me, grant that I m a y willingly consent to this
last phase of communion in the course of which I shall possess you by
diminishing in you.
After having perceived you as he who is ' a greater myself', grant when
my hour comes, that I m a y recognize you u n d e r the species of each
alien or hostile force that seems bent upon destroying or uprooting
me. W h e n the signs of age begin to mark my body (and still more
when they touch m y m i n d ) ; when the ill that is to diminish me or
carry me off strikes from without or is born within me; when the
painful m o m e n t comes when I suddenly awaken to the fact that I am
ill or growing old; a n d above all at that last m o m e n t when I feel I am
losing hold of myself a n d a m absolutely passive within the hands of
the great u n k n o w n forces that have formed me; in all those dark
moments, O God, grant that I m a y understand that it is you (provided
only my faith is strong enough) who are painfully parting the fibres of
m y being in order to penetrate to the very marrow of my substance
a n d bear me away within yoursel£13
la Hymn of the Universe (Collins London, 1965), p 117.
la Le Milieu Divin (Collins London, I96o), p 68.
234
W H E N YOU P R A Y
T h a t is the point: in the christian economy all loss can be turned to gain,
even sin. Therefore let me end this essay with a personal prayer, d r a w n once
out of great anguish:
Lord, must all things go? Must I be led into that abyss you once
showed me where all meaning is left behind? Must sight a n d h e a t i n g
go? All ease of body? All strength of limb a n d certitude of m i n d ? All
sense of achievement, all power to help a n d sympathize? All sense of
support a n d comradeship? All love given a n d received? All life?
Yes. T h e y must go if you are to be received utterly. A n d if not utterly,
then not at all. But when they have g o n e - as they must go, a n d will g o they do not vanish beyond recall, b u t they return to that home from
whence they came; a n d their home is our home, a n d our home is you.
So when I say that they must go I m e a n rather that they go before,
leading m y h e a r t onwards. T h e y must be consumed now, b u t their
secret stands. Nay, it shines out to beckon m e on. A n d whatever is in
them of reality only leaves me that it m a y p r e p a r e a place for me.
Every particle of j o y and fulfilment to which I have given myself is not
to be lost. Rather, it is to be enhanced by the interaction of the
unimaginable wealth of all creation, a n d all the experiences of all
men. W h a t I have seen of beauty and glory in those I love must
surely be confirmed a n d continue to shine through. T h e r e will be no
difficulty, a n d only surpassing joy, in recognizing and holding w h a t
has been so long p a r t e d from m y eyes and arms.
All of reality that I have experienced must rise With me L o r d when
you summon me to Life. T h e whole colossal drive of creation is
b u t the out-pouring of your generosity, a n d since you know it a n d
love it how can any of its true essence be lost?
Therefore I find even in myself this power to inject all of creation with
the thrill of resurrection. A n d with the certitudes of faith I know
that on that Great D a y when I come home all will be there to greet me.
Lord, this is not loss, b u t gift indeed.
Philip Jebb O.S.B.
RECOMMENDED
READING
S C R I P T U R E . The Psalms explained is a simple, unassuming introduction to
praying the Psalter in the context of the new 'Prayer of the Church'. It is a
safe prediction that even 'educated' religious communities will be grateful
for Fr Kelleher's care in condensing his obviously wide knowledge without
over-simplifying.
All that can be said about Desmond Leslie's The Jesus File is that fanciful
'James Bond' methods of reconstructing the Passion and Resurrection ofJesus
are highly unsuitable.
T H E O L O G Y . Peter de Rosa's Jesus who became Christ is in many respects a
helpful and satisfying exposition of a deep faith in Jesus the Incarnate and
Risen Word. It is also a terrifying book, in that the author presumes that a
cursory reading of the christology of Aquinas, as set out in part I I I of the
Summa, is sufficient justification for ignoring any christian reflection on Jesus,
between the editing of the New Testament and the advent of form-criticism.
Gerald O'Collins' Has Dogma a future? might fill in the more glaring gaps
in Peter de Rosa's expos~ of 'radical' christianity. He begins by stating the
most outrageous objections to christian dogmas, goes on to analyse their
functions, their particular and perennial utility and limitations, and judges
that the value of every dogmatic formulation lies in its ability to lead the
believer to the disclosure of God in Christ. An enriching and rewarding book
for those h o n e s t y seeking to understand the changes in the Church.
Women and Orders - a collection of essays of unequal value - repeats and
refutes the many objections, theological and sociological, against the ordination of women. It hardly adds anything, however, to the present impasse
which discussions on this topic have arrived at, at this point of time, in the
evolution of sacramental doctrine. It would appear that until there is a more
satisfactory understanding of the changes occuring in the Church with regard
to ministerial office and function (a topic which is briefly but carefully dealt
with in A. E. Harvey's Priest or President), it is unlikely that the problem of
women's ordination will be seen in its proper perspective.
S P I R I T U A L I T Y . I n his biographical note on Fr Pedro Arrupe, author of
A Planet to Heal, Fr J o h n Harriott points out the marked resemblance between St Ignatius and the present Superior General of the jesuits. St Ignatius
included his own self portrait in part I X of the Jesuit Constitutions when he
described 'the kind of person the Superior General should be'. There is
much that is tacitly autobiographical in this fine collection of addresses and
letters, perhaps most clearly expressed is Fr Arrupe's portrait of the m o d e m
superior, "capable of withstanding future shock, but strong enough to keep the
timeless and discard the obsolete; men with such powers of discernment that
they can judge the signs of the present times'. Fr Arrupe is no mere administra-
236
RECOMMENDED READING
t o r drawing the attention of his subjects to neglected rules. He is a visonary
presenting his experience of God, his union with Christ, his sensitivity to the
holy Spirit, his conviction that God is at work challenging us in the world as
it is today. 'Nothing is solved by denunciations', says Fr Arrupe. Although he
is under no illusion about the self-inflicted wounds in religious life and in the
twentieth century, this is a wonderfully encouraging book. Confidence in
God enables him to look with interest, compassion and positive support at a
planetary range of topics: crisis of faith, the cold laws of sociology and economics based on man's selfishness, education, ecumenism, racism, indigenization in local churches. The book will be of special value for those religious
who look to the Society of Jesus for their inspiration. Having read Fr Arrupe
on apostolic mission they will never again refer to the Jesuit Constitutions as
Rules. It will also be of interest to the Society's kindly lay collaborators, whom
Fr Arrupe so warmly appreciates, when they ask: 'and what are you Jesuits
up to these days?'
Bernard H~tring, in Prayer: the integration of faith and life, is a m a n with a
message. It is this: 'A person who has found his integration in prayer can do
more for the evangelization of the world of today than can hundreds of restless activists and well trained functionaries and administrators who lack
spiritual experience of a deeper sort'. To propagate this message Fr Haring
gives us a large number of short passages in which there are m a n y sound
observations about prayer, which lead into prayers of his own.
For the message to take hold in the Church, the power of prayer must be
experienced by a growing number of men and women. Individuals, in the time
they regularly set aside for prayer, and groups in their weekly meetings, may
find Fr H~tring's set pieces and ready-made prayers constricting. It would be
a pity if this well-intentioned book were to prevent them from going straight
to the scriptures, from feeling the fulness of silence, and from realizing that
the holy Spirit can and does move their hearts and lips. It is a book whose
absorption calls for more leisure than many people possess. Fr H~tring may
want us to take his book away with us when we spend a few days in a house
of prayer. Those who can do this will certainly be rewarded.
Anyone who reads I will be there, by Fr Michael Hollings, slowly and obediently, is likely to experience what it means to come into contact with God.
This is a simple, practical introduction to prayer. Fr Hollings does not simply
talk about prayer. He persuades the reader to stop and pray; and feel the
effects of pausing and pondering. T h e beginner - and we are all beginners will soon learn from the book that there is much to be changed in his own
life and in the society for which he is responsible. Fr Hollings is training contemplatives who are socially active. His book is as valuable for individuals
as for groups, for lay folk as for priests and religious. We hope that in the welldeserved second edition, Nathanael will take the place of Nicodemus on page
5~, and tl~at the english can run more smoothly in such places as page 73. And
yet the very lack of smoothness helps to accentuate the sense of urgency which
can only come from a h u m a n voice.
RECOMMENDED
READING
237
O n the first page of Simplicity: the heart of Prayer we read: 'This sin usurps
God's g r a n d e u r for does n o t his infinite majesty consist precisely in his inalienable possession as his own by right of this infinite fnlness of perfection,
dignity a n d power, which no one else can lay claim to without sacrilegious
p r i d e ? ' This book cannot be recommended for its simplicity. I t is a n odd
c o m p o u n d of long tortuous sentences, of which we have given one example,
a n d short cryptic sentences which could often be rearranged in another order
without altering the sense. There are a b u n d a n t abstractions, gallicisms a n d
unexplained religious words. T h e author's b a l d statements seem to emanate
from a stratosphere where the difficulties of ordinary mortals can be dismissed
in such sentences as: ' O u r trust is in God's infinite love a n d knows no conditions or limits. I t is an absolute'. T h e best thing in the book is the brief foreword by F r Simon Tugwell.
Even readers of The Way are unlikely to be familiar with Hesychius of
Bathos, or be able to distinguish easily between Guigo I and Guigo I I .
Andrd Louf in Teach us to pray, with its delightful sub-title, Learning a Little
about God, introduces us to the wisdom of the monks and to the scriptures
which feed them. His aim is never to be learned for the sake of being learned,
b u t rather to set d r y wood ablaze. H e makes it clear that the monastic vocation is not an esoteric one, practised only by extraordinary people at exceptional moments in history. I t is simply one of living out the essential conditions for approaching God. W h a t he has to tell us is just as valid today as it
was ten or fifteen centuries ago, just as true in a busy city as in a remote
trappist monastery. Prayer must always be p r a y e r of the heart, the inward
man, the whole person. Prayer must always be the p r a y e r of Jesus Christ. I n
the light of our p r a y e r with Christ, Andr6 Loufre-assesses the psalms, celibacy, solitude, prayer at night, fasting, p r a y e r in everyday life and in the interaction between personal a n d public prayer. This book can confidently be
recommended to anyone who wants to pray.
' H e is only a convert'; one used to hear this pitying r e m a r k m a d e b y
those who were pleased with themsleves because they h a d been members of
the Church from infancy. R a l p h Martin, author of Hungryfor God, was born
a n d grew u p in a good catholic family. H e is a convert a n d p r o u d of it. I n the
first p a r t of his book he tells us w h a t Jesus, his F a t h e r a n d his Spirit have come
to m e a n to him. T h e second p a r t is a description of prayer, which M r M a r t i n
rightly believes to be necessary for those who want to go on with God. Both
parts are simple, practical a n d attractive accounts of his own experience.
This is a book for those catholics, whether they practise or not, whose religion h a d gone dead on them. I t will reassure loyal catholics who have lost
heart a n d a sense of perspective. I t will enlighten those who think that pentecostals are neurotics or heretics or both. I t will help those, at whatever stage,
who find p r a y e r difficult. W h a t this catholic family m a n is trying to say and
do is a d m i r a b l y summed u p by the Pope in a sympathetic statement which
M r M a r t i n quotes on page i56.
I n parishes, classrooms a n d religious communities there are m a n y disheart-
238
RECOMMENDED READING
ened apostles who feel that they no longer have anything to offer. So m a n y of
us have friends who have problems - loss of faith, depression, broken marriages, alcoholism, isolation - which are beyond us. Desperately we look around for expert counsellors or psychotherapists, fail to find them and so
give up. Fr Michael Scanlan's Inner Healing should convince us to start again.
His book is brief, simple and based on a wealth of personal experience. No
one should expect a 7 ° page short-cut to perfect inner health. Fr Scanlan
stresses that the minister must recognize his own weakness and need for healing. H e also believes that the creation of a healing community is indispensable.
We are in danger of falling back on discouragement if we imagine that it is
enough simply to read Fr Scardan's book.
M a n y priests and lay people must often think that spirituality is a luxury
they cannot afford. They have neither the time nor the training. Michael
Wright, author of New Ways for Christ, is the anglican vicar of Ormesby, a
large urban parish on Teeside. H e would not accept that spirituality must remain the possession of the few. I n a short, rather costly, book he makes practical proposals which could be used with profit in any parish council or discussion group.
I n The Latin Poems of Richard Ledrede, O. F. M., this fourteenth-century
bishop of Ossory (hitherto notorious for his share in the irish politics of his
day - into which Fr Colledge in his valuable introduction gives us some fascinating insights), is shown as a gifted and sensitive writer of marian and
eucharistic songs, steeped in medieval franciscan traditions, but making his
own, often highly original contributions to the already rich store, on which
he drew freely, of the latin hymnody of the late Middle Ages. The editor has
also provided a translation of the poems.
Probably the most important question in religious life over the next few
years will be that of community. Until now there has been no book that dealt
specifically with the historical development of the idea of community
within a religious order. Fr Osuna's book Friends in the Lord (Amigos en el
Se~or), which appeared originally under the auspices of the Centrum Ignatianum Spiritualitatis, Rome, in 1971 , as part of his doctoral thesis, and in a
revised form (based on the english translation) earlier this year, remedies
this defect impressively. The subject of the book is the origin and development
of commlmity in the Society of Jes,us from Ignatius's conversion in 1526 until
1541 when the earliest texts of the Constitutions appeared; it is a very clear
and careful account of how the first Jesuits evolved, through prayer and reflection on their experience, a life-style appropriate to their apostolic vocation. It is also quite exciting and contains a penetrating analysis (the dearest
we know) of the early Jesuits' Prima Deliberatio, which should serve as a
model for any community deliberation. This is the third volume to appear in
our newly-revived Way Series and it is only fair to admit to certain blemishes,
particularly in the first part, in which over-literal translation has made for
slightly tedious readings; and despite making large cuts in the originals, the
translator has not quite succeeded in dispelling the smell of a doctoral thesis.
RECOMMENDED READING
239
F o r all that, it is not a difficult book, a n d anyone who is interested in the
evolution of religious communities will find it both readable and profitable.
L I T U R G Y . Daily Prayer from the Divine Qfice is a one volume abridgement
of the 3 volume Divine Offce published last year. (The first volume was reviewed in The Way, J u l y 1974.) I t contains all the hours except the Offce of
Reading a n d is the definitive replacement of the Interim Prayer of the Church. A
highly satisfactory production in all respects except, perhaps, the price.
Missalettes in various shapes a n d sizes have plagued the catholic in the pew
on sunday mornings over the last three or four years. H e or she will be grateful
to Collins for publishing in a h a n d y form The Sunday Missal for the entire
three-year cycle.
SCRIPTURE
Kelleher, Scan, B.: The Psalms Explained (Asian Trading Corporation, Bangalore, n.p.
pp I 19 paperback).
Leslie, Desmond: The ~TesasFile (Sidgwick & Jackson ~3.75, pp °o7).
THEOLOGY
De Rosa, Peter: 3esus who becameChrist (Collins ~3.5 o, pp 287).
Harvey, A. E.: Priest or President (SPCK ~I.25, pp 74 paperback).
Heyer, Robert J.: Women and Orders (Paulist Press $1.65, pp lO4 paperback).
O'Collins, Gerald, S.J. : Has Dogma a Future? (Darton Longman & Todd £L7o , pp I :o
paperback).
SPIRITUALITY
Arrupe, Pedro, S. J. : A Planet to Heal (Centrum Ignatlanum Spiritualitatls, Rome, Lire
3,ooo, pp 343).
Colledge, Edmund, O. S. A. (ed): TheLatin Poems ofRishardLedrede O. F. M. (Pontifical
Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto, $14.5o , pp i64).
H~iring, Bernard: Prayer, the integration of Faith andLife (St Pauls Publications £ I .75, PP
145 paperback).
Hollings, Michael: I will be there (Mowbrays 6op, pp 125, paperback).
Lefebvre, George, O. S. B.: Simplicity: the Heart of Prayer (Darton, Longman & Todd
£1.3% PP 73, paperback).
Lotff, Andr6: Teachus to Pray (Darten, Longman & Todd £ 1.25, pp i 12 paperback).
Martin, Ralph: Hungryfor God (Collins £2.5% pp I57).
Osuna, Javier, S. J. : Friends in the Lord (The Way Series 3, ~ i .5o, $5.oo, pp 145).
Scanlan, Michael: Inner Healing (Paulist Pi"ess$2.5% pp 85, paperback).
Wright, Michael: New Ways.for Christ (Mowbrays, £1.25, pp 87, paperback).
LITURGY
Daily Prayerfrom the Divine Office (Colllns/E. J. Dwyer/Talbot Press ;~I i.oo, pp 643 ).
Winstone, Harold (ed): The Sunday Missal (Collins £1.9% £3.o0 de luxe, pp 78o).
GOD AND MARY
Supplement 25 ( J u l y x975) will publish papers read at the
Third International Conference of the Ecumenical Society of the
Blessed Virgin Mary, held at Westhill College, Birmingham in
April this year. The planning of the programme owed much to
the General Secretary of the Society, Martin Gillett, and to
Canon Eric Mascall. These papers form a collection that is
ecumenical in two senses.
First, the speakers came from m a n y different traditions.
Dr. Isaacs is a Baptist; Dr. Heron a Presbyterian of the Church
of Scotland; Professors MacQuarrie and MacKenzie are
Anglicans from a Presbyterian background; the remaining
speakers are R o m a n Catholics. (In addition, both the Moderator-Elect of the United Reformed Church, and the Metropolitan in Great Britain of the Greek Orthodox Church, preached
at the Eucharist, but there is unfortunately no space for the
inclusion of sermons in this collection.) The speakers came
from the United States and the mainland of Europe as well as
from the British Isles. T h e y included laity as well as clergy,
a psychiatrist as well as theologians; and (as she herself remarked) there was even the token woman.
Secondly, despite this great variety among the speakers, an
impressive consensus was achieved - so impressive, indeed, that
some of the participants thought it too good to be true, and
felt obliged to search for points of disagreement. However, let
the reader of these papers judge for himself the extent to which
agreement Call be achieved among christians of different
traditions about the place of M a r y in God's plan of salvation.
God and thefeminine
The grace of Christ in Mary
Predestination and Mary
Born of the Virgin Mary
The theme of Eve and Mary
in Christian thought
The relationship between
Christ and Mary
On true devotion to the
Blessed Virgin
Mary in the Lucan Infancy
Narrative
Rev. J o h n MacQuarrie
Rev. Edward Yarnold
Rev. Alasdair Heron
Bishop Alan C. Clark
Rev. J o h n A. Ross MacKenzie
Dr. J. Dominian
Rev. J o h n M c H u g h
Rev. Marie E. Isaacs
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
FR. JOHN NAVONE, S.I. , a priest of the Oregon Province of the Society of
Jesus, currently lectures at the Gregorian University in Rome, where he took
his Doctorate in Theology in I963 . His most recent publications are The
Theology of Failure and Ever~man' s Odyssey.
FR. BRIAN O'LEARY, S.J., completed his doctoral studies in the Institute of
Spiritual Theology at the Gregorian University, R o m e in summer 1973 .
Since then he has been involved in retreat work and is also assistant to the
novice master in the Irish Province of the Society of Jesus.
FR. JOHN ASHTON~ s.J., a graduate of Oxford University, studied theology at
FourviSre, France, and sacred scripture at the Pontifical Biblical Institute,
Rome. H e is now lecturer in N e w Testament Studies, Heythrop College,
London University.
FR. WILLIAM DALTON, S.J., is professor of New Testament at the U n i t e d
Faculty of Theology, Melbourne. His doctoral dissertation at the Biblical
Institute in R o m e was published by the Institute under the title Christ's
proclamation to the Spirits. H e has been working for some time on the problems
of N e w Testament eschatology, and will be teaching in this area at the
Biblical Institute this year.
FR. BRUNO BRINKMAN, s.J., is professor of Dogmatic Theology at Heythrop
College, London University, and is a m e m b e r of the editorial board of The
Heythrop Journal.
FR. PHILIP JEBB, O.8.B., is head of the Religious Education D e p a r t m e n t at
Downside School, Downside Abbey, Bath. H e was editor of the eighth
Downside Symposium on Religious Education, and his book for Widows is to be
published shortly.
SIGLA
OLD TESTAMENT
Gen
Exod
Lev
Num
Deut
Jos
Jg
Ruth
1,2 Sam
1,2 Kg
I,~ Chr
Ezr
Neh
Est
Job
Ps
Prov
O oh (Eccl)
Mt
Jn
1,2 Cor
Mk
Lk
Acts
Rom
Gal
Eph
Cant
Isai
Jer
Lain
Ezek
Dan
Hos
Joel
Amos
Obad
Jon
Mic
Nab
Bar
Hab
Tob
Zeph (Soph) Jud
Hag
Wis
Zech
Sir (Ecclus)
Mal
1,2 Macc
NEW TESTAMENT
Phil
Col
r,2 Thess
1,2 Tim
Tit
Phm
Heb
Jas
1,2 Pet
1,2,3 Jn
Jude
Apoc
Printed in the Netherlands by N. V, Drukkerij Trio, The Hague

4Zheny o~ Pray- the Prayer ~ LOss

Transcription

Similar documents

Sales Sheet

1 – Bread of Life

Death To Life Part 3: I Thank My God Pastor Troy Jones August 15

April 2015 newsletter - Central Christian Church

Israel Holy Land Tour

here

City Reformed Presbyterian Church

Deepak Chopra

April 18, 2007 - Covenant Presbyterian Church

Psalm 127 Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that