Reflection: the Church, a Revelation to Angels and Men

Reflection on the Readings of Wednesday the 19th of September 2018

Ephesians, 3:8-21 and Luke 4:1-15

In the Epistle to the Ephesians we read: "Brethren, to me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all men see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things; that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made know the principalities and powers in the heavenly places" and further, "that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with might through his Spirit in the inner man, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with the fullness of God."

So we are taught here by the Apostle that it is only through the Church that knowledge of God's plans are made known to the powers and principalities of heaven. It is the teaching of the Church that the angels were not aware before hand of God's wondrous economy; that He would redeem the fallen creation by entering into it, the second person of the Trinity being born in the flesh and sharing in our nature, suffering on the cross, and by His divine nature rising from the dead and renewing fallen nature, seating it at the very right hand of the power that is on high. Of all of this the angels were unaware until it came to pass. How is this so? Paul tells us, because these things were "hidden from the foundation of the world." In another place Paul teaches us further that God, "has not put the world to come,..., in subjection to the angels (Heb 2:4)" and likewise, speaking of the prophets and the Church of the firstborn, which are the angels, Paul says, "all these having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us (Heb 11:40)." If the Lord desired to hide the mystery, even from the angelic hosts, how much more also should he hid it from "the principalities of the air," those hosts of demonic tempters who first aided our race in its fall? The devil who is the father of lies was not given to know the means of his own downfall; for he has been defeated by Christ in His resurrection and bound. It is in Christ that the mystery that was hidden consists, and further, in the continuing presence of Christ in His Church.

The Church herself is made known through Christ, for she is His body, in which he dwells in all His fullness. Through his presence and indwelling in that body we come to know his love "which surpasses knowledge," and by being rooted and grounded in Him who is love Himself (1 John 1:8), we gain the power, with all the saints, to comprehend "the breadth and length and height and depth" of the divine design throughout the cosmos. That is, in Christ's body, through His own activity, we come to not only knowledge but the true ground of all reality; we come to boundless love and communion with God in Christ Jesus, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. This occurs because, through the sacraments we have progressively entered into that mystery hidden from before the ages, even from the eyes of the angels. In baptism we have put on Christ (Gal 3:27), by the Chrism we have received the Holy Spirit, for the Lord said "except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God (John 3:5)." And what is more we have tasted, in the mysteries of the Divine Table, His very flesh and blood, for his flesh is food indeed and his blood is drink indeed (John 6:55). By these mysteries we have entered into the very life of Christ and are made, not only symbolically, but in our very flesh and blood members of Christ, for "we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another (Rom 12:5)." Before these things came to pass for us, not even the angels knew this mystery!

This is made all the more evident in the Gospel reading from Luke, where we hear of Christ's temptation by Satan in the wilderness. He who is chief of our enemies, for we struggle against the evil angels, "against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places (Eph 6:12)," had no idea who he was speaking to when he came to tempt the Christ of God. Listen to the Lord's answers to the demon and see. When tempting the Lord to turn stones to bread he responds, "Man shall not live on bread alone" and St. Matthew adds "but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. (Matt 4:4)" And who speaks these words but the Word Himself, by whom we live? When the devil tempts him with the kingdoms of the earth He responds, "You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve." The rebel servant is unaware that he dares to ask the King of Kings to bow down in worship! Christ Himself is the one whom we alone may serve. Having rejected the diabolic offer of power, the devil tempts the Lord one last time, bidding Him to tempt God by a marvelous sign, dangling Him from the temple roof and bidding Him leap. The Lord responds, "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God," and with this Satan flees, still thinking to catch Him at some more inopportune time. He is unaware that is his God who speaks, rebuking him in the very act of tempting. The devil is fooled by Christ! The archfiend, who fell by self-love and the longing to be as God, cannot perceive the "mystery hidden from the foundation of the world." The Lord at every turn revealed His presence, but the father of lies was deceived, "for the light shineth in darkness: and the darkness comprehended it not (John 1:5).

It is in this way, hidden but manifest that God chose to reveal the mystery. In this same way is Christ in his body; for He is both hidden and manifest in the Church. He is hidden because we see Him no longer, but He is manifest in the divine mysteries by which we partake of Him and become united to Him. It is in union with Christ's holy body, the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church that we are made partakers of the love of Christ. We receive him into our hearts, and this is not meant in any sentimental way. Rather by heart we must understand the very core and kernel of our being, physical and spiritual. The heart is the center by which life flows into the entire body, and it is in the heart that Christ makes his abode, for "a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump (Gal 5:9)." In the same way Christ, through the mysteries he left us, gives life to his entire body, the Church. At this mystery the angels tremble with us in amaze, the heavenly hosts with awe and love, the dark principalities in fear, seeing the greatness of the One God in Trinity, in whom, "we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28)."

The Unsleeping Glory of the Theotokos

Unsleeping Glory: A Homily for the Dormition

The feast of the repose of the Mother of God is celebrated with great solemnity by all the pious sons and daughters of the Church. How could it be otherwise? For we rejoice with the mother of us all at her transition from life, to death, into life again. In all ways the Blessed Virgin follows her Son, and in all ways she proves for us the model of things to come and the fulfillment of things hoped for. Her death sets the seal for the Church year, for it completes the story of salvation with a final note; an epilogue of great joy. Here we have the culmination of the restoration of paradise, the sign of the establishment of the order of the Kingdom which is to come. For in our Lady, and in her repose, we receive the end of that story which started in Eden, and we see in outline that glory which is to come for us through the Son whom she bore.

In the beginning, when Eve was deceived, she gave the fruit of death to all her generations, and she was placed in subjection to her husband for having led him astray, while Adam is set to toil in the earth from which he came. Such is what we have received in the inspired book of Genesis. But in our new Eve, we have the fulfillment of that which our fore-mother was meant to be. Mary the Theotokos has become truly the "mother of all the living."  In his first homily on the Dormition, St. Germanos of Constantinople, himself a tireless devotee of the Queen of Heaven and the defender of her sacred images and temples against the fury of the iconoclasts, we hear him describe beautifully this parallelism, calling out to the Queen; "You are the mother of the life that is real and true. You are the yeast of Adam's remaking; you are the one who liberates Eve from all shame. She was the mother of dust, and you of light; her womb harbored corruption, but yours incorruption. She became death's dwelling-place, but you release us from death. She made our eyes downcast, weighted towards the earth, but you are the unsleeping glory of eyes awake. Her children are grief, but your Son is joy for all ages. She who was earth came back to earth in the end; but you have given birth to life for us, and you have ascended to life, you are powerful enough to offer life, even after death, to your fellow men and women."

How wonderful are the words of the saint! and how beautifully he illustrates that deep reality in which the Mother of God becomes the Mother of our Life, for our "life is hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3)." The Lord who was born of her has become the new Adam. Where the old Adam sought to avoid censure and responsibility, the New Adam has taken every responsibility for our salvation on his own mighty shoulders. Greater than any Atlas, or any Hercules, or any Thor, greater than any feat of the myth-born heroes was the bearing on those mighty shoulders of the Cross. Mightier still was the bearing of the sins of the whole wretched earth, that earth which beneath his immaculate feet he could in his divinity hear groaning and in travail that the sons of God might be born (Romans 8). In this mighty feat, the Mother of Our Lord plays her part. Where the first Eve rebelled, our New Eve has been obedient. Where the first cried out in lamentation for Able, who has no generations, and was comforted by Seth, our New Eve has gained all the generations of the earth through her son. What was in the beginning, the generation of life without seed has been restored. For before Seth there came Adam, from whom Eve proceeded from the rib, and before Adam was God alone. Such a miraculous multiplication of the generations has come about for the Mother of the Word, for by her son she has gained the Church, gathered from all the nations of the earth and sanctified in the blood of her own lamb, for her inheritance. In her son the promise to Abraham is being fulfilled, for through her son Abraham's seed "is more than the stars of heaven." (Gen 15) Motherhood and virginity have come together in her own person, and her own life, her own blood, has been that which formed the flesh and blood of the Son of Man, and so nourishes and redeems the whole of the Christian race. In her offspring the curse has ceased, and the enmity of the children of the first Eve with the vile serpent, who by his evil words caused all the evils which have befallen man and the cosmos, has ceased also. For the serpent who deceived by a word has been trampled under heel by the Word, and his dominion over our race was broken like the gates of brass. For the gates of Hades shall not prevail against the onrushing Body of Christ, and the victory has already been won by the King of Glory.

Yet the Lord's grace did not stop there for her. The Church's memory, kept alive by the breath of the Holy Spirit, has preserved for us the feast of the repose of the Mother of God, and of her translation into life. For like all mortal flesh our Lady had to taste death, and she did not spurn the very medicine her Son had won for us; that death should no longer be terrible but should be the passage into life. St. Germanos, that God bearing confessor, again teaches us the wisdom of the Divine will, "You," O Queen, "have moved on from our earthly life, in order that the awful mystery of God's becoming human might be confirmed in more than mere appearance: in order that, as you are separated in this way from temporal things, we might come to believe that the God who was born of you came forth as a complete human being, the son of a real mother who was subject to the laws of natural necessity... in the same way, your Son, even though he is the God of all things, himself "tasted death" (Heb 2:9), as we do, in his flesh, because of the dying human being, if I may put it this way, formed by the whole of our race." So our Lady's own death witnesses to us the great and terrible mystery of the humanity of the God-man, Jesus Christ. 

Still further though our Lady's repose offers us a glimpse things to come. Again St. Germanos tells us, "Surely [our Lord] has performed miracles both in his own life-giving tomb and in the life-giving sepulchre where you were laid to rest: both tombs really received bodies, yet neither of them was a workshop of decay. For it was impossible that you [our Lady], the vessel which bore God, should be dissolved and decomposed into the dust of death. Since he who emptied himself into you was God from the beginning, and life eternal, the Mother of Life had to become a companion of life..." St. Germanos again shows us by his preaching (much greater than my own, and testified to by his sufferings) the wonders that are held for us in approaching the tomb of the Queen of Angels and Men. She is not allowed to taste corruption, because in her the principle of Life has been restored to the center. The life we know, that life where death is the ordinary fact and the procession of life to death is a painful struggle, full of blood and conflict, of which the birth pangs are only the beginning; that life is passing. For it was not so in the beginning. When we see the Mother of the Word taken up, transferred from our place to the heavenly places, we see the continuation of that process begun by Christ on the day of Pascha. This day of the Dormition of the Mother of God is our summer Pascha, when we relive the glories of that day in the mystery of this one. The miraculous is woven in this feast as to be inseparable from it, and we receive the tradition with joy. We like the Apostles are gathered from afar to be with our Mother and Queen this day. We like the Apostles rejoice at seeing her glorified. We like the Apostles have the assurance that she is still with us, our fervent advocate before the maker of all. With a mother's boldness she pleads for us before the throne of glory, and by her intercession our salvation is made the surer. For Christ our God honored her above all the creatures of the earth. Of all beings she is the one highly favored. For she became the means of the restoration of life to all creation. She became the means for the cessation of this life of manifold death. She is the mother of all the living in Christ, and she is for us the sign of our glory which is to come. The psalmist sings with us today, "The king's daughter is all glorious within: her clothing is wrought of gold," and he sings on the Lord's behalf to the Queen, "instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes in all the earth. I will make thy name to be remembered in all generations: therefore shall the people praise thee for ever and ever." (Psalm 44:13,16, and 17) Amen.

May the Panaghia accept these words of praise from a sinner.

Scriptural quotations are from the King James Version

All quotes from St. Germanos may be found in On the Dormition of Mary: Early Patristic Homilies, translated by Brian Daley, S.J. and published by Saint Vladimir Seminary Press, "Homily 1 On the Dormition by St. Germanus of Constantinople" pages 153-166.

Love and Penitence in the Scarlet Letter

The action in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter begins with the public shaming of the adulteress Hester Prynne. This scene introduces many of the themes of the novel, and sets the stage with all its major characters, Hester, her estranged husband Roger Chillingworth, her secret lover the Reverend Dimmesdale, and the child Pearl. All of them, one way or another, are bound in the relations of the titular sin, adultery. However the chief focus of the novel is not on the sin itself, but to the varied responses to it, the ways of coping with such a grievous transgression of the moral law in the harsh environment of Puritan New England. Each of the primary actors has a different response to the brand of the Scarlet Letter, each has a different take on the penance. This takes separate forms in Hester, in Rev. Dimmesdale, and in Dr. Chillingworth in particular.

It is curious, in the Calvinistic circles of the Puritans, that public shame and punishment were so ubiquitous, at least in Hawthorne’s tale. In reference to Hester Prynne, the leaders of the Pilgrim state chose something peculiar to their form of religion: to brand Hester that she might repent. In the Calvinistic system of predestination this makes little sense, yet in their mercy the reverend fathers of the colony chose not to put the young woman to death. Hester’s internal response to this mercy is always, fundamentally, a form of pride. In her first arraignment she contrives to walk to the scaffold almost in a triumphal procession, her letter A conspicuously embroidered. This becomes increasingly more sullen, due to the weight of her isolation in her cottage outside the town and the scorn of the townsfolk. However she contrived to work so assiduously for the welfare of those around her, for the poor and the dying, that she certainly looks to the outside world like a penitent. However Hawthorne makes clear in discussing her internal state and in her relations to her former lover, Dimmesdale, that more than penitence she feels a sort of scarred conscience and resentment. He purposely says, for instance, that in other circumstances she may have been a reforming prophetess, and she broods on thoughts with broader horizons than her contemporaries.

Similar to Hester Prynne is her husband, the pseudonymous Dr. Roger Chillingworth. In him the action of the Demon is most apparent, and he, for most of the novel, represents best that “Black Man” of the woods whom the Puritans feared. He is the one most wounded by the adultery, because almost until the final denouement of the novel, his conscience is seared and he has the least hope. Even his physical description is as one burnt by his own inner fire. His quest for revenge against the man who made him a cuckold, in spite of his knowledge of that better man’s sensitive and high character, makes him truly diabolical. He is also the most consciously Calvinist of all the characters in the novel, and notably he is the only character who spent time in that Reformed stronghold, Holland, all the other characters being Anglicans. In his conversation with Hester at the beach he reveals that he believes himself among the damned, condemned by the Sovereign will of God.

This leaves only the Reverend Dimmesdale. By far the most consciously Christian, by nature of his calling in life and by temperament, Hawthorne gives this sensitive soul a rather curious character. In the strange but true to life amalgams that pertain to each character, Hester the free-thinking, philanthropic hermit, and Roger the Calvinistic, antinomian scientist, Dimmesdale is especially marked. Because of his sensitive constitution and his emotional character he is led into strange excesses. He is often described in terms distinctly Catholic, frequently being described as a priest, his love and interest for the Church Fathers being made manifest, a tendency towards asceticism in vigils and corporal penitence, all behavior markedly un-Puritan. The young Divine is given a saintly cast, which in his own heart he is pained by because he knows he is living a lie. Most interesting in the theme of penitence in the novel is his conversation with Hester in the wood. The sad babble of the brook portends the ultimate end of the novel, but for a brief moment the passionate fall of the sad couple is replayed, as they plan to strive for some manner of earthly happiness together. After this however comes Dimmesdale’s greatest trial, wherein he is tempted the most sorely. This corresponds well to what many spiritual authors describe, when the grace of God leaves the one who has submitted to passion.

In the denouement there is a catharsis of all the passionate relations in the novel and final real repentance on the part of at least two of the characters. Dimmesdale’s sudden confession on the scaffold, his recognition of his sin and of his family, free him finally. Likewise, as Dimmesdale frees himself from the emotional strain of his guilt, he is also freed from the persecution of his enemy Chillingworth, and in the last extremity the bitter physician too seems to have a last act of penitence, providing for the future of his estranged wife’s illegitimate child. The child Pearl seems to be a symbol of this penitence, uniting each of the characters, finally acknowledging her father, becoming less fierce towards her mother in response to this tragic event in her young life, and becoming the recipient of the charitable act of Chillingworth. For Hester the story seems more complex. One the one hand she is described as returning to her own exile after establishing her daughter in life. She, having lost temporal happiness for herself, at least ensures it for her child. Hawthorne describes her lonely life in the cottage, a life of service to her adopted people in the land of her shame, voluntarily chosen, yet he also describes her inner state in such a way that she seems to have no regret for the past. It is curious, but it seems that the scarlet sign affixed for her penitence results in such for everyone involved in the transgression save her.

It is common in discussions of this brilliant novel to exonerate Hester because her crime was prompted by love. Certainly there is a strong attraction between the Reverend Dimmesdale and Hester Prynne. Many are prepared, perhaps including Hawthorne, to excuse a girl abandoned in a strange land and the victim in some sense of a loveless marriage for pursuing love with a caring man. Certainly their fall is deeply understandable. And we see this love does not diminish over the years. At the meeting in the forest the two get very close, forming a plan and preparing to live a life abroad based on the genius of the young divine and the hardy ingenuity of his lover. It has the character of a popular romance, especially at the last sentimental attempt to reform the family by the brook. It is easy, especially for the people of the twenty-first, or even the twentieth, century to excuse behavior undertaken for romantic love. It is perhaps one of the few things we still hold sacred. And further we hold choice to be sacrosanct, and it is precisely this interference in the her free choice that one is tempted to exonerate Hester. Yet she really does commit adultery. At the least, thinking her husband dead, she is committing fornication. My contemporaries may not see a sin in this, between consenting adults. Yet it is. She is making a connection she is not yet free to give. Dimmesdale, the poor man, is likewise making a commitment, a deep one especially with the birth of the child. Yet he is not free to do so, for if he does he loses his vocation and his reputation. The chief evil is indeed the merciless Christianity of the Puritans, which does not allow for repentance to take full effect, that makes the man fearful to speak as he ought for fear of shame. He ought to be able to speak the sin, and be helped in overcoming it. She ought to be able to overcome it. Under the reign of Endicott’s puritans, this was impossible. The over-zealous cruelty of the Puritans, however, is in no way redeemed by the equally over-zealous toleration of the moderns. Things need precise names, and evils can only by excised by expelling them. The evil is adultery. It’s excision occurs when Dimmesdale acknowledges his family, and when Chillingworth offers his reconciliation. Hester’s external shame has robbed her of her freedom to be liberated by her own confession, and she becomes hardened.

     Hawthorne’s symbolism helps us, and by two key details he makes us draw back from endorsing this course of action. The first is the behavior of the child Pearl. At no moment, until his public acknowledgement, does Pearl accept her father. And she is right not to, as he is not really and truly accepting her and what she represents: his sin and his responsibility. Likewise the entire interlude takes place in a forest, an ancient cosmic symbol of the unknown, and in this Puritan context especially an ill-starred place. Wild space have always been the place of demons and faeries, and the Puritans knew it to be the home of the pagan indians, the demonic Black Man, and the witches’ sabbat held in his name. Hawthorne uses the forest as a place of temptation and evil in other stories too, especially Goodman Brown and Hollow of the Three Hills. The same is the case here. And we see its hideous effects on Dimmesdale, who is wracked with his guilty conscience, and deeply tempted to various blasphemies. These should give us signs as we read. Our morality is in many ways decadent. It is all the more tragic that it is often inspired by the very best sentiments; by familial bond, romantic love, and the desire to forgive. Yet the only way to form the bond is the indissoluble bond of marriage, the only way for romantic love to reach its potential is in that self same bond of marriage, and the only way to forgive, and for the self to feel forgiven, is to admit of sin. We want out of compassion to forgive what is forgivable, but poor Hester never gets the chance of her own will to be forgiven, to restore or form new bonds of family. If we love Hester, we would admit her to a new society. One sensitive both to sin and to repentance. One in which she could hear the voice of the Master say, “go forth, and sin no more.” In short, the society of the Orthodox Catholic Church.

The Pitfalls of the Life of Adventure

The Pitfalls of the Life of Adventure

Reflections on the Desire for Adventure, and the Value of Homecoming

I want to start this set of reflections in a somewhat unusual place: a Japanese animated comedy that has recently become a favorite of mine, The Disastrous Life of Saiki Kusuo. 

Saiki Kusuo being thwarted in his hopes of normalcy.

The plot centers on the daily life of an extremely powerful psychic. In the very first episode, Saiki Kusuo addresses the audience, commenting that people probably think his life is fantastic and glamorous. He then bluntly informs the viewer that his life is miserable because he has all these powers. He feels cut off from normal experiences, like the joys of achievement, or even simple surprise. He can always hear people's thoughts which means he always hears their deepest thoughts. He has x-ray vision, which makes all but a casual glance or a view through a screen a gruesome parade of fleshless bodies. Neither does he take advantage of his powers for his personal profit (usually), as he has a strong sense of moral rectitude. He is left with ennui and the ever evasive goal of trying to live an absolutely normal existence in the midst of godlike power.

The entire tone of the show is obviously ridiculous, and it plays off many of the tropes of more standard anime genres. In particular it is kind of an inverse "slice of life" show, following a super-powered character living with extreme effort a very normal life. The show, while far from being anything like "high art" is successful as a comedy, and for our purposes it does offer a valuable insight into our nature: if we had super-powers and wish fulfillment at our finger tips we would likely not be any happier.

This brings me to my main theme, that of the naivete of the desire for a life of adventure. It is very common in our escapist fantasies to long to be heroes, demi-gods, and supermen. The problem is that this would not make us very happy, at least not for very long. There have been a great many reflections on this theme both historically and recently, the film Bruce Almighty furnishing another example, though not one we will here explore.

G. K. Chesterton put it very well in his book Heretics. While discussing the subject of progress and the Nietzschean superman, Chesterton extols the value of being small. He comments that, in the best of ancient popular literature, the giants are not heroes to be emulated. Quite the contrary, they are monsters, or in Chesterton's more insolent rhetoric, vermin, to be exterminated. That is the lesson of Jack the Giant Killer; the small and the brave conquers the big, strong, and wealthy. And most importantly, Jake is brave precisely because he is small and his adversary great. As Chesterton notes, human life is defined by paradoxes like this. Courage means something to us precisely because we are small. Likewise a real feeling of romance, of adventure, is only possible for the one who is small and humble. The great wit notes that it is only humility, that strangest of Christian virtues, that enables mankind to look at the stars with wonder, for if we exalt ourselves to a point of thinking we "understand" the heavens we become earthbound. By becoming giants we become impoverished. Likewise, by seeking adventures we enter monotony and disappointment.

It is just this reality that we often find hard to understand. We are surrounded by such banality, such monotony in our daily lives that we long for an adventure, a change of pace. It becomes easy to admire a life-style of adventure in such conditions. This is where Saiki steps in to say, "be careful what you wish for."

The problem with admiring the adventure is that we begin to lose sight of its temporal nature. In the life of the hero of a fantasy story it is the "most interesting piece". It is the height of the action of the heroes life, if the story is any good. Yet if we contemplate actually being in the thick of such a story we would be in torment. The adventure only gains its proper content when understood as the middle of a life, even a minor piece of a story that begins earlier, and often ends much later, if the story is not a tragedy. Truly, Bilbo Baggins was right to bother and befusticate burgling! Adventure is indeed a nasty uncomfortable thing that makes one late for dinner. An adventure is not valued for the danger and the daring do; it is valued for the homecoming.

Without seeking to be callous, I think this sheds some light on the recent celebrity suicides, in particular that of Anthony Bourdain. He had what appears to be an ideal life-style, filled with travel, adventure, and fame. Yet, I am here speculating, I think it likely that his deep depression stemmed from the lack of a home to return to. At the height of No Reservations, Bourdain was newly married with a young daughter. Yet at the end of his life he had lost this familial center. I don't know the circumstances or the darkness that led to his end, but it certainly makes sense that this may have contributed to his tragedy.

In Memoriam, Anthony Bourdain

Adventure then is a false goal. It is mistaking a means for an end. Adventures are the means to something greater: the return to peace and normalcy. We can see this in all the great adventure stories. In the Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship enters upon its mission not to gain glory but to win a peace, even if only for a space, for their families and friends. In the Oddysey the goal is to get back to Ithaca. Aeneas seeks a place to establish his household gods in fair Italia. We may say that the Grail Quest of Arthurian myth was in many ways an adventure for its own sake. Yet it is precisely this longing for unneeded adventure in Arthur and his knights that leads to the destruction of Camelot and the tragic end of its promise.

Adventures are for something, the go somewhere. It is in the very name; it is derived from advenio, to come into. They are a long journey to the place of rest. It is precisely the tragedy of a character like Saiki that he cannot in fact be normal, he is doomed to a life of perpetual pilgrimage towards a normalcy he cannot seem to reach. Yet it is precisely his adventures for the sake of normalcy that form much of the charm and humor of the show. He makes accidental friends with a variety of misfits and faces the ups and downs of social and family life including embarrassing parents and an annoying sibling. If the character were more self-aware he would realize how normal, in spite of everything, his life is. It is not hard to imagine that this is the case for many of us, only aware in tiny flashes of the achievement of our goals and content for but an instant in them. It is certainly Saiki's case, and will be however long his life (or merely the series) runs.

  

How does this relate to the earlier point about being small and humble? It enables the humble man to orient himself rightly. The proud and giantesque man incorrectly points his sails in the direction of greatness. In truth giving up greatness he would gain not only true greatness, but rest. For the hero is the one who achieves greatness in spite of his weakness, by his courage and strength in the face obstacles for the sake of putting aside his deeds of valor. This is the attitude especially of Christian life. In the life of the Lord, who is the model and archetype for all humanity, the adventures and perils are endured toward an end; the redemption of creation from corruption and death. It is a move from the dark perimeter, the place of destruction, to the center where peace and rest are restored. This is precisely, for Christians, the entire motion of history from the creation to the establishment of the Kingdom in glory. It is a grand adventure, and it ends like every adventure should: "and they all returned home happily ever after."

I hope the Saikis of the world, who are wearied by their greatness, find the strength to be small and to return home.

Tradition in St. John of Damascus: Scripture and Revelation

Scripture and Revelation in John of Damascus

Christ, the true and unique Word of God

The first and most important authority to which St. John Damascene appeals to is divine self-revelation. He always, as seen above, makes sure to mention to his reader that knowledge is from above, and that it requires a teacher. He most explicitly refers to the authority of Holy Scripture in this regard. In the Scripture Saint John sees the Word of God speaking. He says, “in sacred Scripture let us hear the voice of Him who is the wisdom and power of God the Father.” He likewise says that in our fallen state he, “schooled [fallen man] in many ways,... by the Law and the Prophets,...”1  He also refers to the hidden meanings of scripture, and encourages his reader, “let us read once, twice, many times.” He discusses the classical distinction between letter and spirit, saying “the gate is the letter, but the bridal chamber within the gate is the beauty of the thoughts hidden behind the letter,... the Spirit of Truth”2 So our understanding of the sacred writings is aided by Christ the Teacher, who sends us “another comforter”(cf. John 14:6) in the Scriptures, the Spirit of Truth, “who spoke by the prophets3” hidden within the words. And this quest, this journey into the scriptures is deeply personal and mystical, it is interactive. Louth says it well when he says, “[t]his reading and pondering the scriptures is a work of love: the one who pursues it enters into a bridal relationship with Christ, and delights in the truth discovered in the bridal chamber.”4 This loving relationship, and the quest for knowledge and truth in God as a loving end, makes the Scripture, as God's self-revelation, “embellished and adorned by the sayings of the divinely inspired prophets, and the divinely taught fishermen,”5 a primary source for authority for St. John, and a direct interaction with God's historical revelation. 

This latter is made clear in the way St. John prefaces his uses of scripture. He uses declarative statements; there is no ambiguity about their truth content and he doesn't question them or deny them. A brief sampling should suffice. In speaking of the creation of time, “He made the ages who exists before the ages, of whom the divine David says: 'from to eternity and to eternity thou art (Ps 89:2)', and the divine Apostle; 'By whom also he made the ages.(Heb 1:2)'”6 Regarding the creation of the earth, “Our God, who is glorified in trinity and in unity, Himself, 'made heaven and earth, and all things that are in them.(Ps. 145:6)'”7 In regards to God's ineffability, “'No man hath seen God at any time: the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.(John 1:18)'”8 Regarding Eden, “He prepared a sort of kingdom for [man], in which he might dwell and lead a blessed and blissful life. And this divine paradise prepared in Eden by the hands of God was a treasure house of every joy and pleasure (cf. Gen 2:8-15).”9 Regarding man's creation, “God made man innocent,... He made him a living being to governed here, and then to be removed elsewhere (cf. Gen 1:26-28).”10 This sampling is meager, but it gives the reader a sense of the authority with which the Scriptures are imbued. The saint declares Scripture, in its existence as the enduring revelation of God through Christ, is not the subject of debate as other forms of knowledge might be. 

Lest the saint be accused of a crude literalism, however, he emphasizes the Scripture's letter is not described as an end, but an entry, and the Damascene exhorts, “let us not be satisfied with arriving speedily at the gate, but rather let us knock hard, so that the door of the bridal chamber might be opened,” and he reveals that, “the bridal chamber within the gate is the beauty of the thoughts hidden behind the letter.”11 He points out also that, “in sacred Scripture we find many things said symbolically of God as if He had a body, one should know,... we are unable to think or speak of the divine, lofty, and immaterial operations of the Godhead unless we have recourse to images, types, and symbols,”12 and so we must be aware of the different kinds of speech in Scripture. Thus St. John strikes a balance between treating Scripture as literal and as symbolic. Both are integral to how he understands the Scriptures.

The the reality of the text must be emphasized, especially to a modern audience, as it is easy to dismiss Biblical texts as mythology, especially the Old Testament, but to do so would undermine St. John's essential worldview. Florovsky calls this attitude a commitment to the “hieratic realism” of the gospel.13 What is meant by this? It means the radical incarnational aspect of the scriptural text; that the Scriptures are to be taken as a serious revelation of the Truth, what C.S. Lewis has called the “true myth.” We shall see below that this is not, per se, a detailed explanation of the mechanical or structural aspects of the world, but it is a truthful, a real, account of things. To remove this from the equation is to relapse into a form of gnostic Christianity; a disincarnate reality. But the text of Scripture has a “literal,” a real value corresponding to factual truth. As we have seen St. John is categorical that God Himself makes the universe, he plants the garden in Eden, etc. This is “hieratic realism,” the sacred reality in which St. John is writing. It is the impregnation of reality by the acts of God, by His direct intervention which is revealed to us by the Scriptural histories, and most of all by the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. This is a reality suffused with sacred content by the action of God in history. That this historical content exists does not exhaust the Scriptural content, as we have mentioned above. Like the incarnate God-man, the Scripture has also a spiritual, divine content revealed in its symbolic understanding.

We have said the letter is an entry, it is a necessary means to understanding what lies beyond. This deeper meaning lying beneath the outer covering of words does receive primacy of place, just as in Christ the unseen divinity takes precedence to His humanity, so also in the relationship of the literal to the symbolic in the text. This divine content can only be perceived by the pure, or at least those undergoing purification. It is as one's eye becomes clean that one can discern the spirit behind the letter and pass the doorway. Yet how is this discernment to take place? Within the bounds of the Church, where holiness is tasted and the Word and Spirit are actively leading mankind into union with God. In that light we shall discuss the contribution of the Church Fathers and the Sacred Tradition kept intact by them in St. John of Damscus's understanding of knowledge.

1 John of Damascus. Saint John of Damascus, Writings. Translated by Frederic H. Chase, Jr. Vol. XXXVII. Washington, D.C.: CUA Press, 1970. pg. 267

2 Ibid pg. 9

3 Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed

4 Louth, Andrew. St John Damascene: tradition and originality in Byzantine theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. pg. 45

5 John of Damascus, Writings pg. 6

6 Ibid pg. 203

7 Ibid pg. 210

8 Ibid pg. 165

9 Ibid pg. 230

10 Ibid pg. 234

11 Ibid pg. 8

12 Ibid pg. 191

13 Florovsky, Fr. Georges Vasilievich. The Byzantine Fathers of the Sixth to Eighth Century. Vaduz: Büchervertriebsanstalt, 1987. ch. 7

Authenticity, Power, and Hobbits

Authenticity, Power, and Hobbits

Thoughts on Two Prominent Frenchman, and Bilbo Baggins

This odd set of musings is based on some side reading I have been doing on the subject of some prominent French left-wing philosophers guided by the critical essays of Sir Roger Scruton. The latter is a British philosopher, whose works I highly recommend, in the tradition of British Burkean conservatism. He is a brilliant analyst of the moderns and an excellent literary critic, with his main concerns being Kant, conservative ethics, and aesthetics. He is not typical in that he is not simply a laissez-fair capitalist and Christian moralizer, but rather he is concerned with the conservation of functional institutions which preserve the liberties and benefits which have made what can generally be called the West a generally good place to live. He has the air common to many of the great twentieth century British writers, a strong sense of home, a love of rustic living, and a keen aesthetic sense. His critique of the thinkers of what he calls the "New Left" is very thoughtful, and he is very keen both to give his intellectual opponents the benefit of the doubt concerning any planned malice,and to acknowledge their merits where they lie.

With this in mind, it has been interesting to read his critique of the twentieth century French giants Sartre1 and Foucault2. I personally have only a slight experience with the former and none with the latter, so my comments here are largely a reflection on the ideas exposed by Scruton.

In describing these two thinkers it has been interesting to see how Scruton intertwines their works with their lives. This important aspect of a thinker, his own behavior, relationships, and deeds, is not often enough discussed when dealing with the merits and origins of their ideas. Sartre, for instance, enamoured as he was by the French decadents like Baudelaire3 and Flaubert4, lived out many of their ideas, but to a new peak of expression because of his philosophical leanings. He lived a life of sexual extravagance, and won fame and notoriety in Parisian high society out of keeping with his professed and doggedly maintained Marxism. Likewise Foucault, a homosexual who frequented sado-masochist clubs, lived a life of licentiousness while also conceiving of his work as a great stand for liberty from oppression. These ideas and life-styles ought to seem familiar to anyone who has contact with current academia and the so-called "millenial" generation, and I presume a similar feeling exists in the now maturing generation.

A large part of the appeal of Sartre, Foucault, and their school is the way in which they adopted and individualized the Marxist class struggle. They were able to transmute this struggle against the "bourgeoisie" into a struggle against "bourgeois" morals and the structures of authority. Sartre in particular seems to have built up a notion of "authenticity" which centers on the liberation of the self from the other. This other is defined in the terms of conformity. Obviously in context of a Marxist system of thought this produces contradictory notions. Identification with the proletariat as class while also seeking to be authentic as identified against a "totalizing" moral and societal are inherently opposed notions. Scruton significantly notes that this is above all, in his estimation, a fiction made for the self, an internal almost mystical conviction being set up against the conventional. There is in the background a longing for truth, but the desire to arrive at a personal and entirely unique and unconditioned notion of reality and the truth thwarts its real pursuit: if it is enduring and external it looks too much like the much hated "other". This leads someone like Sartre to a constantly negative appraisal of the world. The French intellectual sneer is by now a caricature, but it is much involved in this attitude. Scruton puts it well when he notes, "since he has no values, [the gauchiste or leftist]'s thought and action can be given only a negative guarantee. He must fortify his position by unmasking the deceptions of others.5" This "unmasking" takes the form of the constant withering critique, the continual prying for the "real" motives, the "catch" in every deal.

Foucault follows up on this tendency. His contribution to the history of philosophy is his dubious contention that all human relations and the very language that enshrines those relations are relations of power. He has difficultly perceiving any reality beyond power, and that power itself is apparently ill defined. His history books are scathing condemnations of asylums, hospitals, and prisons, all of which impose the power structures of the so-called "classical", or pre-French revolution, and bourgeois social orders. He views the madman as someone with a truth which cannot be captured in speech, and therefore beyond the reach of bourgeois reason. This particular notion has begun showing itself in the current (2018) debates surrounding mental illness, physical health, and law. There is almost hanging in the air the threat, because of the fear of offense, of the repudiation of diagnosis, treatment, and the functioning of justice. It is from Foucault these, and all relativist modern notions, draw at least a portion of their origin. This suspicion all human structures as being somehow the support structures of tyranny corrupt much of our modern discourse, and indeed Scruton notes that, "paranoia is no more than localized relativism- a specific and focused manifestation of the desire that reality be subservient to thought, that the other have an identity entirely determined by one's own response to him." It is the authentic self's response to what Foucault calls the "gaze" of the other. One senses perhaps a repressed feeling of shame or conscience, but that may perhaps be going too far. Regardless the other is certainly a condemnatory and oppressive figure in this framework to anyone cultivating a sense of authenticity as defined by Sartre and further added to by Foucault.

In the lifestyle and thought of both these figures, the notions of authenticity in distinction with the other and the hidden relations of oppressive power at work in all human institutions, we sense also in their lifestyle and sentiments a love for the transgressive. This love has deep roots in French thoughts, but we shall concern ourselves here only with the decadents. The poetry of Baudelaire and the novels of Flaubert present a love for the real, but it is tainted by the movement towards pleasure and a certain sardonic cynicism towards convention. This is certainly true of the work of our two philosophers. Their work is in many ways the systematization of the "poetic" or image based insights of the decadent writers of the 19th century. The identification of someone like Foucault with the madman, the diseased, the criminal, identifying them as the victims of oppression and a system in which they don't fit, seems airily unreal, the musing of someone far removed from the realities of disease and crime. Similarly Sartre's identification with the poor, despite the poor's general lack of identification with him and their suffering under the former's cherished Marxist ideals, is especially odd considering his popularity in Paris's social high life and his constant presence in the cafes and salons of the Paris elite. It is symptomatic of what the Brazilian philosopher Olavo de Carvalho calls cognitive parallax; their manner of living contradicts their ideas and their very assumptions render their theories untenable.6

These thinkers, my intuition tells me, deep down wanted a great adventure out of their lives, a heroic struggle against evil and oppression, to be fighting for the freedom of the masses. They found themselves in our own disenchanted age with no dragons to fight or evil kings to cast down. They were faced with the much more banal enemy of the bourgeois businessman and bureaucrat, who funnily enough was often happy enough to support his own critics. Scruton notes that the middle and upper classes of modernity "extol the gauchiste as the absolver of his corrupted conscience. The gauchiste therefore becomes the redeemer of the class whose illusions he has been appointed to unmask." By his transgressions, his attempted courageous stand against the world, he has come to be "born aloft on the shoulders of the bourgeoisie whose habits he tramples, and to enjoy again the aristocrat's place in the sun." He has not achieved what he desired and his transgression becomes bitter to him. Sartre ended his life, contrary to his own perception of himself, as a French institution. Foucault died of AIDS, receiving hospital care, ironically in a former asylum he had critiqued. Scruton notes that at the end of Foucault's life, he had begun, while writing his history of sexuality starting from the ancient world, to be changed by his studies and his illness. He discovered no ancients believed pleasure to be the most important element of sexual relations, and he began to see the importance of the family. Scruton ends his chapter on these two intellectuals by saying, "I was constantly drawn to the thought that Foucault's belligerent leftism was not a criticism of reality, but a defence against it, a refusal to recognize that, for all its defects, normality is all the we have."

This last insight, in addition to a familiarity with the Marxist project, leads me to my own principle thoughts on this subject. The longing for adventure amidst the disenchanted world is deep. We have a lack of the transcendent in our modern western societies, a lack of that which makes a simple spring of water a holy well, or a ring of toadstools into a fairy ring. These are small superstitious examples, but they are emblematic of a worldview that accepts the entrance of the light of eternity into modern life, of something that gives the deeds of each man or woman an eternal significance. What we have instead is our view of progress, of either advancing or regressing humanity. This is a wearying task, because one is constantly being buffeted by the winds of time, and inevitably your own work becomes the dross to be purified by a later generation. Veneration for you and your deeds is conditional to its continued utility toward forward movement. And the vast mechanization, the great isolation of the modern city and the great invisible expanse of the internet, makes one feel lost. These French intellectuals show the struggle in modernity for heroism, but their notion of the hero rejects all that is small and familiar for the vague and undefined future, for the ever delayed day of fulfillment in full authenticity when the intellectual will finally be reunited with the renewed and authentic humanity and cease his lonely wandering.

In the last moments of this post I would like to integrate the small figure of Bilbo Baggins, and his similarly unprepossessing creator J.R.R. Tolkien. I mentioned earlier that the English writers of the twentieth century have had a talent for bringing out simple pleasures and the rustic life. Nowhere is this more evident than in The Hobbit. Bilbo Baggins's story is the story of someone swept into the extraordinary and the uncomfortable. His only thought during the dangers? Bacon and eggs, and the kettle singing! His horizons are opened in the course of his travel, such that in the later novels he can desire mountains and travel, yet it is his grounding in the ordinary joys that makes him appreciate his experiences. Bilbo's travels help him gain an appreciation for the normal that he took for granted in his former life, they made him, as we see in the Fellowship of the Ring more generous and hospitable. His encounter with the world, with want and terror, gave him a part in the final end of physical evil in Middle-Earth, by his finding of the Ring of power. Tolkien's love of the homely is fascinating in parallel with his equally strong sense of adventure and romance. It is perhaps unsurprising in a man who had really known want and terror in the trenches of the First World War. But perhaps more important, he was bequeathed by his Catholic faith with the knowledge of all classical Christians; that ordinary things are the vehicle for the extraordinary. The transcendent works through what looks meager. Bread becomes the bread of angels, a virgin's womb is made wider than heaven, the Son of Man slays death and reveals Himself to be the Son of God. Bilbo is an example of this, one of the smallest and least remarkable persons who becomes the instrument of victory over evil. The adventure of this life is not to be found in the trangressive authenticity and Utopian dreams of the melancholy French philosophers. It is to be found in being small, loving the normal things which are constantly under threat, and being ready when called upon to defend them.

1. Jean-Paul Sartre is a well known philosopher often associated with existentialism and Marxism, his most well know work is probably Being and Nothing, and many have heard his terse maxim, "Hell is other people."
2. Michel Foucault is famous for his theories of power and he is immensely influential in the modern social sciences.
3. Charles Baudelaire is famous for his poetry, especially the book Fleurs de Mal. I also highly recommend this First Things article on the decadent poets, "The Cursed Poets and their Gods"
4. Gustave Flaubert was a novelist, particularly famous for subverting the moralizing and activist trend of French literature, his most famous works being a Sentimental Education and Madame Bovarie
5. All quotations in this text are from chapter four of Scruton's Fools, Frauds, and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left. I have the kindle version and so cannot supply page numbers.
6. Olavo de Carvalho is a Brazilian philosopher, particularly critical of Marxist thought. In this instance I'm referencing one of his ideas, an explanation of which may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Y_SQBdVHQk&t=6s

Tradition in St. John of Damascus,Knowledge and Truth

This is part of three of my essay on the worldview of John of Damascus.

 The Damascene on Knowledge and Truth

In this vein we shall turn to our primary subject, the prefatory letter and introductory chapters of the Dialectica. In these texts we recieve a sense of how the Damascene conceives his task. Fr. Florovsky has described the Damascene's thought well when he describes it as a “dogmatic code”.1 To understand this code we shall first discuss the saint's conception of knowledge. In the first chapter of the Dialectica, he declares, “Nothing is more estimable than knowledge, for knowledge is the light of the rational soul,” and he goes on to clarify what he means by knowledge by defining it as “ the true knowledge of things which are.”2 We are not however immediately capable of all knowing. In order to discern truth from falsehood it becomes necessary to have a teacher, and to be taught by, “the Teacher in whom there is no falsehood” who speaks with “the voice of Him who is the wisdom and power of God the Father,” who alone is infallible. So knowledge, for the Damascene, is trained in us by listening to the Word of God, Who reveals the mysteries of God, man, and the world to us, and by this knowledge we become filled with light.

In addition to this light of knowledge however, the Damascene reveals another prerequisite to true knowledge, to the perception of the surpassing light. This is purity of heart. “Let us approach” he proclaims, “with attention and in all sincerity, and  proceed without letting the spiritual eye of our soul be dulled by passions,...”3 Our soul must be pure in order to perceive the light and goodness of the Truth. The saint references the Lord's own saying, “If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matt 6:23) If the mind, which is the eye of soul, be filled with the darkness of sin, how can it be relied upon to see? So the saint makes clear the ascetic prerequisites to the work of knowledge, especially since all Truth is God's own. He also makes reference to this when he discusses his reluctance to undertake his work on the Fount of Knowledge, comparing himself to Moses, who feared to speak to the people, “then how am I, who am defiled and stained with every sort of sin,... and who have purified neither my mind nor my understanding that they may serve as a mirror of God and His divine reflections...?”4 While this is, of course, tropaic rhetoric, he utilizes this device in order to show the seriousness of that task he has undertaken; "to be a mirror of divine truth, to reflect the light of the Godhead."5 He is stating his weakness in order not to lead his reader into thinking his reflection is a perfect one, and further to confirm in his audience the necessity of the “mirror” being clean in order to reflect the divine light. In the light of both his idea of knowledge and of the necessity of purity, we can examine his program.

We have observed above that this program is made the most explicit in the Prefatory Letter to Cosmas, bishop of Maïuma. The passage in question is as follows:

"First of all I shall set forth the best contributions of the philosophers of the Greeks, because whatever there is of good has been given to men from above by God,... If however there is anything that is contrary to the truth, then it is a dark invention of the deceit of Satan and a fiction of the mind of an evil spirit,... In imitation of the method of the bee, I shall make my composition from those things which are conformable with the truth and from our enemies themselves gather the fruit of salvation. But all this is worthless and falsely labeled as knowledge I shall reject. Then, next, after this, I shall set forth in order the absurdities of the heresies hated of God, so that by recognizing the lie we may more closely follow the truth. Then, with God's help and by His grace I shall expose the truth- that truth which destroys deceit and puts falsehood to flight and which, as with golden fringes, has been embellished and adorned by the sayings of the divinely inspired prophets, and the divinely taught fishermen, and the God-bearing shepherds and teachers- that truth, the glory of which flashes out from within to brighten with its radiance, when they encounter it, them that are duly purified and rid of troublesome speculations. However as I have said, I shall add nothing of my own, but gather together into one those things which have been worked out by the most eminent of teachers and make a compendium of them..."6

There are several points that should be emphasized at the outset. First, the saint's notion of truth is, like his idea of knowledge, external “coming from above”. Second that he views this truth as having an absolute character, indeed a personal one, being coterminous with God Himself, as he displays in calling heresy “hated of God,” and error an “invention of the mind of an evil spirit,” and which is implicit when he describes truth as making the pure radiant.  This is further emphasized in the Dialectica when the saint makes Christ necessary as the teacher of truth to the, as yet feeble, mind.7 Third, we see that he chooses his material in such a way that it is “conformable to the truth,” and that he aims to show the lies of heresy to “ more closely follow the truth.” Lastly we should notice that this truth, revealed from God, has been “embellished”, or elucidated and clarified, by those who have lived holy lives. These persons are closely associated with the writers of the sacred scriptures. He enumerates the prophets and fishermen, the writers of the Old and New Testaments, and he adds to their number the later shepherds and teachers, the saintly bishops and theologians. So we see he aims at applying a consistent standard, namely conformity to a received external truth which is absolute and personal, to all information from the outside, the works of the philosophers and human reason. This standard is received by purifying oneself and listening closely to the divinely inspired teachers in scripture and the fathers, but foremost by being instructed by God Himself. This is how he means to supply “nothing of [his] own” while still enumerating those “things which are”. Having discussed the method, it is important next to see it in action in how the Damascene treats his sources.

1. Florovsky, Fr. Georges Vasilievich. The Byzantine Fathers of the Sixth to Eighth Century. Vaduz: Büchervertriebsanstalt, 1987. Ch.7
2. John of Damascus. Saint John of Damascus, Writings. Translated by Frederic H. Chase, Jr. Vol. XXXVII. Washington, D.C.: CUA Press, 1970. Pg. 7
3.John of Damascus, Writings Pg. 8
4. John of Damascus, Writings pg. 4
5. This is known as the modesty trope, in which the author downplays his own skill. This writer does not believe this to mean the saint was speaking "rhetorically" in the negative sense. St. John likely believed in his own insufficiency as well as writing it according to to the rules of style. The saintly men of times past felt that, even in their deficiency, they could, and indeed were bound, to contribute what they had in order to be good stewards of the talents given them. In the opinion of this writer it is unhelpful to read the Holy Fathers as if, because they write according to convention, that they therefore lack sincerity in their writing.
6. Emphases my own, John of Damascus, Writings pgs. 5-6
7. John of Damascus, Writings pg. 8