it is now a small step, I believe, to connect this sage also to the alleged ‘first user of the word philosophy’, Pythagoras – thought, however, to have been born at Samos in c. 570 BC.
As in the first part of the name Tha-les, so here again in the case of the name Pyth-agoras, the Egyptian divine name “Ptah”
has, I think, been Grecised.
Also once again, as with Thales, we appear to have the problem of a lack of first-hand written evidence [W. Guthrie, “Pythagoras and Pythagoreanism”, Ency. of Phil., Vol. 7, (Collier Macmillan, London, 1972), p. 39]: “The obstacles to an appraisal of classical Pythagoreanism are formidable. There exists no Pythagorean literature before Plato, and it was said that little had been written, owing to a rule of secrecy”.
Consistently though, Pythagoras, like Thales, was much influenced by Egypt.
I have suggested that, in fact, the great ‘Pythagorean’ contribution to mathematics (numbers, geometry, triangles) may also have been bound up with Egypt and with pyramid measuring and other activities of the architects.
Now consider the pattern of the life of Pythagoras and his descendants in relation to Joseph and the family of Israel (the Hebrews).
Pythagoras, like Joseph,
left his home country and settled in a foreign land, founding a society with religious and political, as well as philosophical aims. Compare the Hebrews settling in the eastern Delta of Egypt (Genesis 46:33).
The society gained power there and considerably extended its influence. Compare this with the growth of Israel in Egypt, and its spreading all over the country (Exodus 1:9, 12). After Pythagoras’ death,
a serious persecution took place. Likewise, about 65 years after Joseph’s death, the “new king” of Exodus 1:8, became concerned about the amount of Hebrews in Egypt and resolved upon a cruel plan.
Moses was born into this very era – the pyramid-building 4th dynasty era – at the approximate time that the founder-pharaoh Khufu (Greek Cheops)/ Amenemes I had resolved to do something about the increase of Asiatics (including Hebrews) in Egypt. The Prophecies of Neferti, “All good things have passed away, the land being cast away through trouble by means of that food of the Asiatics who pervade the land” (www.touregypt.net/propheciesofneferti.htm). The pharaoh thus ordered for all the male Hebrew babies to be slain (Exodus 1:10, 15-16).
(d) The (Pythagorean) survivors of the persecution scattered. This may equate with the Exodus of Israel out of Egypt (Exodus 12).
“I will rouse your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece”.
Zechariah 9:13
Tertullian: “… free Jerusalem from Athens and the church of Christ
from the Academy of Plato.”
(Tertullian, De praescriptione, vii).
This last comment, by Tertullian, will become a kind of mantra for this article, though not properly according to the context of Tertullian, but according to the context of my historical revisions.
For, as one will read as the description of my site,
“Much of Western culture, mythology and religion has been appropriated from the cultures of the Fertile Crescent region, especially from the Hebrews (Jews)”.
whose description is the same, but with reference to Eastern culture, etc.
Now this description, as it applies to the west, basically encapsulates the phenomenon that is the history of ancient philosophy, that has been presented to us as being entirely Greco-Roman (Ionian-Italian), but which I intend to argue was actually Hebrew (Israelite/Jewish) and biblical.
Certainly the Fathers of the Church appreciated at least the seminal impact that the Hebrews had had upon Greco-Roman thinking, though without their having taken the extra step that I intend to take in this article, of actually recognising the most famous early western (supposedly) philosophers as being originally Hebrew.
To give just a few examples from the Fathers and the early eastern and western legends:
“According to Clement [of Alexandria], Plato plagiarized revelation from the Hebrews; this gave the Athenian’s highest ideas a flavor of divine authority in the estimation of Clement”. (http://www.gospeltruth.net/gkphilo.htm).
“… Aristoxenus in his book the Life of Pythagoras, as well as Aristarchus and Theopompus say that [Pythagoras] came from Tyre, Neanthes from Syria or Tyre, so the majority agree that Pythagoras was of barbarian origin (Strom. I 62, 2-3).
Aristobulus was among many philosophers of his day who argued that the essentials of Greek philosophy and metaphysics were derived from Jewish sources. Philosopher Numenius of Apamea echoes this position in his well known statement “What is Plato but Moses speaking Attic Greek?” (1.150.4) Aristobulus maintained, 150 years earlier than Philo, that not only the oldest Grecian poets, Homer, Hesiod, Orpheus, etc., but also the most celebrated Greek thinkers, especially Plato, had acquired most of their wisdom from Jewish sages and ancient Hebrew texts (Gfrorer i. p. 308, also ii. 111-118) (Eusebius citing Aristobulus and Numenius Ev ix. 6, xi. 10).
The Arabic-Christian legends identify [the biblical] Baruch with the eastern sage, Zoroaster, and give much information concerning him.
Saint Ambrose (Ep. 34) “suggested that Plato was educated in Hebraic letters in Egypt by Jeremiah”.
Bahá’u’lláh states that the Greek philosopher Empedocles “was a contemporary” of King David, “while Pythagoras lived in the days of Solomon” (Cole, p. 31; Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh Revealed after the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, 145).
Some of these situations (e.g. Sirach influencing Heraclitus – thought to be centuries before Sirach – and Plato meeting Jeremiah, who presumably lived about a century and a half before Plato) are chronologically impossible, of course, in the present context of ancient history. However, in my revised scheme of historical philosophy, they may not be.
In this article I am going to take four of the key early, supposedly “Ionian” Greek and Italian, philosophers of antiquity, Thales, Heraclitus and Pythagoras (Ionian), and Empedocles (Sicilian), all prior to Socrates (hence ‘pre-Socratics’), and reveal what I believe to be their biblical prototype – of whom I claim these four were merely ghostly replicas, chronologically, ethnically and geographically misplaced.
Thales is most important as presumably having begun it all.
According to Bertrand Russell, “Western philosophy begins with Thales.”[2]
Thales of Miletus (c. 624 BCE – c. 546 BCE) was an ancient (pre-Socratic) Greek philosopher who is often considered the first philosopher and the father of Western philosophy. His approach to philosophical questions of course cannot compare to modern or even later Greek philosophers, however, he is the first known person to use natural explanations for natural phenomena rather than turning to supernatural world and his example was followed by other Greek thinkers who would give rise to philosophy both as a discipline and science.
Heraclitus is considered by some to have been the founder of metaphysics.
Heraclitus is in a real sense the founder of metaphysics. Starting from the physical standpoint of the Ionian physicists, he accepted their general idea of the unity of nature, but entirely denied their theory of being. The fundamental uniform fact in nature is constant change (πάντα χωρεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει); everything both is and is not at the same time. He thus arrives at the principle of Relativity; harmony and unity consist in diversity and multiplicity. The senses are “bad witnesses” (κακοὶ μάρτυρες); only the wise man can obtain knowledge.
Pythagoras was thought to be the one who coined the term ‘philosopher’.
This most famous philosopher was born sometime between 600 and 590 B.C., and the length of his life has been estimated at nearly one hundred years. …. Pythagoras was said to have been the first man to call himself a philosopher; in fact, the world is indebted to him for the word philosopher. Before that time the wise men had called themselves sages, which was interpreted to mean those who know. Pythagoras was more modest. He coined the word philosopher, which he defined as one who is attempting to find out.
Empedocles was said to have first named the four elements (earth, air, fire and water).
Thus these were four very significant individuals in the received history of early philosophy!
Yet historians admit to knowing so little about them.
That is apparent from these quotes, respectively, (mainly) from the above sites:
Thales: “Not much is known about the philosopher’s early life, not even his exact dates of birth and death”.
Heraclitus: “Little is known about his early life and education, but he regarded himself as self-taught and a pioneer of wisdom”.
Pythagoras: “The pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Pythagoras must have been one of the world’s greatest persons, but he wrote nothing, and it is hard to say how much of the doctrine we know as Pythagorean is due to the founder of the society and how much is later development. It is also hard to say how much of what we are told about the life of Pythagoras is trustworthy; for a mass of legend gathered around his name at an early date”. (Taken from: http://www.iep.utm.edu/pythagor/)
Empedocles: “Very little is known about his life”.
Given these stark admissions, it would not be surprising that the original version of each of these sages could have been lost in the mists of obscurity.
My purpose in this article will be to try to restore the original in relation to Thales, Heraclitus, Pythagoras and Empedocles {leaving aside at this stage the more important Socratics, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, whose proper identities will really need to be established}, and thereby to uncover the original artisans of wisdom, giving the precedence to Hebrew Hochmah (Wisdom) over Greek Sophia (from whence we get our word philo-sophy).
Why is it important to “free Jerusalem from Athens”,
to borrow Tertullian’s phrase?
Firstly, because (my belief) that the aforementioned great thinkers were Hebrews rather than Greeks.
And, secondly, because genuine wisdom thinking and writings could not have been generated by a thing so corrupt and perverse as pagan Greco-Roman culture.
To give just one strong example of its highly distorted nature
…. Philosophy was another area where the acceptance of homosexuality was obvious, and seemed to be representative of the thoughts of many people (or at least male thought) of the time. Most of the early philosophers seemed to thoroughly understand and discuss the actions pederasty and homosexuality, and Socrates … even described himself as being “experienced in the pursuit of men.” According to the dialogues of Plato – a student of Socrates – pederasty and homosexuality were a part of everyday life, at least for aristocrats.
Two of Plato’ s works, The Phaedrus and The Symposium, paint a brilliant picture of what the attitude toward pederasty was at the time. In the opening pages of The Phaedrus, Phaedrus and Socrates are discussing a speech that Lysias – a popular orator of the day – has written; a speech that was “…designed to win the favor of a handsome boy….” Socrates seems to understand why one would write a speech on this subject, and even states that man “cannot have a less desirable protector or companion than the man who is in love with him.” The Symposium goes into even greater detail about pederasty.
The setting is a symposium – a type of dinner party that only included males as guests, and had entertainment, wine, and discussion of politics and philosophy – in which several men are gathered and all give speeches about why a love of boys is a good thing. Phaedrus – the first to give his speech – states, For I can’t say that there is a greater blessing right from boyhood than a good lover or a greater blessing for a lover than a darling [young boy]. What people who intend to lead their lives in a noble and beautiful manner need is not provided by family, public honors, wealth, or anything else, so well as by love.
Pausanias – the second speaker – adds even more to this argument when he states Aphrodite only inspires love among men for young boys, and not women. Those inspired by Aphrodite are naturally drawn to the male because he is a stronger and more intelligent creature.
Socrates also comments on the importance of pederasty in his own life. He says, “My love for this fellow [Agathon- another member of the party who is a beautiful young boy] is not an insignificant affair.” Yet another member of the party, Alcibiades, also loves Agathon and tries to discredit Socrates when he says, “…Socrates is lovingly fixated on beautiful young men, is always around them – in a daze….” ….
[End of quote]
Gross impurity kills wisdom stone dead!
A genuine Christian perennial philosophy cannot properly be based upon corrupt pagan thinking and ethics, no matter how much the latter might have been enlightened by biblical wisdom. Hence, my purpose of re-orientating the philosophia perennis back in line with Hebrew wisdom (hochmah).
The question of who really were the original three sages who inspired the great philosophical triumvirate of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, is a most fascinating one.
And it is one that I should hope to answer with conviction in due course.
To achieve this should be made easier, at least chronologically, once I have secured the true identities of Thales, Heraclitus, Pythagoras and Empedocles, who apparently preceded the three ‘Socratics’ in time.
Now, this is how I suspect our four pre-Socratics stand in relation to real history (for I have already done previous work on this very subject):
Thales is, as I have argued in various articles now, the biblical Joseph of the Book of Genesis. See e.g. my article:
First philosopher, Thales, likely a Greek borrowing from Joseph of Egypt
His name ‘Thales” may derive from the semi-legendary sage Ptah-hotep in Egypt, who, like Joseph, lived to be 110 years of age, and who is thought to have inspired some of the biblical Proverbs.
Diogenes Laertius states that (“according to Herodotus and Douris and Democritus“) Thales’ parents were Examyes and Cleobuline, then traces the family line back to Cadmus, a prince of Tyre. Diogenes then delivers conflicting reports: one that Thales married and either fathered a son (Cybisthus or Cybisthon) or adopted his nephew of the same name; the second that he never married, telling his mother as a young man that it was too early to marry, and as an older man that it was too late. Plutarch had earlier told this version: Solon visited Thales and asked him why he remained single; Thales answered that he did not like the idea of having to worry about children. Nevertheless, several years later, anxious for family, he adopted his nephew Cybisthus.[7]
Unfortunately there is a complete absence of primary evidence for Thales, for (http://www.scholardarity.com/?page_id=2318): “No writing of his has come down to us; we have no primary sources”. It is even considered likely that he did not write anything at all. And this is where the problem lies. The real existence of Thales as an Ionian Greek of the C6th BC is wide open to doubt. By the time of the Greeks, the original sage, the biblical Joseph – as I believe – had mythologically drifted from Palestine to Ionia, from being a Hebrew to an Ionian Greek, and had been slid down the centuries to the tune of more than a millennium. As I wrote (Joseph as Thales):
…. To Thales is attributed a prediction in astronomy that was quite impossible for an Ionian Greek – or anyone else – to have estimated so precisely in the C6th BC. He is said to have predicted a solar eclipse that occurred on 28 May 585 BC during a battle between Cyaxares the Mede and Alyattes of Lydia [400]. This supposed incident has an especial appeal to the modern rationalist mind because it – thought to have been achieved by a Greek, and ‘marking the birthday of western science’ – was therefore a triumph of the rational over the religious. According to Glouberman, for instance, it was “… a Hellenic Götterdämerung, the demise of an earlier mode of thought” [450]. Oh really? Well, it never actually happened. O. Neugebauer [500], astronomer and orientalist, has completely knocked on the head any idea that Thales could possibly have foretold such an eclipse.
Heraclitus, who Saint Clement of Alexandria thought had been influenced by the biblical Sirach (i.e. Ecclesiasticus), may even originally have been this very Sirach. Thus I wrote:
Here occurs that same sort of chronological ‘difficulty’ (in a textbook context) with a Father of the Church as also in the case of Saint Ambrose’s conjecture (in De philosophia) that Plato had met Jeremiah in Egypt. Whilst, chronologically, this is an extraordinary statement by Saint Clement, considering that Sirach would be located centuries after Heraclitus, the presumed chronological problem may actually be due to the ignorance of the real identity of the supposedly ‘Greek’ philosopher. What if Heraclitus, whose special element was fire, were in fact the same person as the Hebrew Sirach(also known as “Siracides”, hence Heraclitus?), who wrote of fire (Sirach 51:3, 4): “You liberated me … from the stifling heat which hemmed me in, from the heart of a fire which I had not kindled …”. The ancient concept of Divine Wisdom, as written of by Sirach, was supposedly absorbed by Heraclitus, who, I think, may have been but a pale Greek version of the biblical scribe.
Pythagoras, based on traditions of the great antiquity of his doctrines; the possibility that he may even have hailed from Syria (Tyre) and was hence a barbarian (that is, a non-Greek); his being circumcised; his concerns with dietary laws; his abstention from illicit sex; and the very Egyptian looking first syllable in his name, Pyth (= Ptah?); was probably once again the biblical Joseph.
We have already considered the lack of sure knowledge about him.
Pythagoras … spent his early years on the island of Samos, off the coast of modern Turkey. At the age of forty, however, he emigrated to the city of Croton in southern Italy and most of his philosophical activity occurred there. Pythagoras wrote nothing, nor were there any detailed accounts of his thought written by contemporaries. By the first centuries [BC], moreover, it became fashionable to present Pythagoras in a largely unhistorical fashion as a semi-divine figure, who originated all that was true in the Greek philosophical tradition, including many of Plato’s and Aristotle’s mature ideas. A number of treatises were forged in the name of Pythagoras and other Pythagoreans in order to support this view.
There maya be some parallels here to the historically rather dubious genius Imhotep of Egypt, “a semi-divine figure”:
Imhotep was an ancient Egyptian genius who achieved great success in a wide variety of fields. Inventor of the pyramid, author of ancient wisdom, architect, high priest, physician, astronomer, and writer, Imhotep’s many talents and vast acquired knowledge had such an effect on the Egyptian people that he became one of only a handful of individuals of nonroyal birth to be deified, or promoted to the status of a god.
Clement of Alexandria … is not only a good source of the Pythagorean doctrines, which enhance our knowledge of the Pythagorean tradition.
….
What did Clement know about Pythagoras and the Pythagorean Tradition?
Pythagoras in Clement’s eyes was an ancient sage and religious reformer, a God-inspired transmitter of the spiritual tradition, which itself ascends to the most antique times.
…
Pythagoras from Samos, – says Clement, – was a son of Mnesiarchus, as Hippobotus says. But Aristoxenus in his book the Life of Pythagoras, as well as Aristarchus and Theopompus say that he came from Tyre, Neanthes from Syria or Tyre, so the majority agree that Pythagoras was of barbarian origin (Strom. I 62, 2-3).
He was a student of Pherecydes … and his floruit falls on the time of dictatorship of Polycrates, around the sixty-second Olympiad [ci. 532-529 BC]. …. But the real teacher of his was certain Sonchis, the highest prophet of the Egyptians. …. Pythagoras traveled a lot and even underwent circumcision in order to enter in the Egyptian shrines to learn their philosophy.
….
Clement is inclined to think that Pythagoras composed some writings himself, but gave them out as if they contained ancient wisdom, revealed to him.
….
Pythagoras in no means was a mere transmitter, he himself was a sage, prophet and the founder of a philosophic school: The great Pythagoras applied himself ceaselessly to acquiring knowledge of the future (Strom. I 133, 2). ….
Imagine now, that we are students at Clement’s Catechetical School and listen to his lectures. What shall we learn about Pythagoras (given that Clement is the only source of our knowledge)?
Clement would tell us that Pythagoras was a perfect example of righteousness ….
Pythagoras instructed to clean one’s body and soul before entering the road by means of strictly drawn dietary regulations. …. One of the reasons for this is that the burden of food prevents soul from ‘rising to higher levels of reality’ …. Maintaining self-control and a right balance in everything is therefore absolutely necessary for everybody entering the path of knowledge: ‘A false balance (zuga) do/lia) is an abomination in the Lord’s eye, but a just weight is acceptable to him.’ (Prov. 11.1) It is on the basis of this that Pythagoras warns people ‘Step not over a balance (zugo)n mh) u(perbai/nein)’. ….
It is said that the Pythagoreans abstain from sex. [Joseph and the wife of Potiphar?] My own view, on the contrary, is that they married to produce children, and kept sexual pleasure under control thereafter.
…. This is why they place a mystic on eating beans, not because they lead to belching, indigestion, and bad dreams, or because a bean has the shape of a human head, as in the line To eat beans is like eating your parents’ heads (Orphica, fr. 291 Kern), – but rather because eating beans produces sterility in women.
….
Pythagoras advised us to take more pleasure in the Muses than in the Sirens, teaching the practice of all form of wisdom without pleasure. ….
As I commented above: Gross impurity kills wisdom stone dead!
The goal of the Pythagoreans consists therefor not in abstaining from doing certain important things, but rather in practicing of abstinentia from harmful and useless things in order to attain to a better performance in those which are really vital. As in the case with marriage (above), Clement generally disagrees with those who put too much force on self-restriction. He has a good reason for doing this, as we shall see later whilst analyzing Clement’s critique of some Gnostic ideas that are closely connected with the Pythagorean problematic. Pythagorean abstinentia should be based on reason and judgment rather than tradition or a rite. Koinwni/a kai) sugge/neia unites not only all mankind, but also all living beings with the gods. …. This alone is a sufficient reason for abstinence from flesh meat.
Empedocles, though considered to have lived in the C5th BC and to have nonetheless been the first to have named the four elements, was way behind the Book of Genesis in this supposed achievement of his.
and (he) called – God – to the dry ground – earth and to collection – the waters – (he) called – seas – and (he) saw – God – for+good
The construction of this verse is familiar. See in particular this post on Genesis 1:4 regarding “seeing.”
Genesis 1:10 marks the last time in the creation narrative that God himself names things. Take a look at what he’s named: day and night (in 1:5), sky (in 1:8), earth and sea (here in 1:10). Are these meant to correspond to the four primal elements fire, air, earth, and water? Fire is perhaps a leap from day and night. But if the correspondence is intentional, God is shown to be the creator and fashioner of what was understood to be the substances from which everything else was formed until relatively recent history.
This is a pretty nifty observation, but it presents a small challenge to the historical-grammatical interpretation of Genesis 1. The problem is that the four primal elements idea is normally attributed to a Greek philosopher by the name of Empedocles who lived in the 5th century B.C. – about 1,000 years after Moses and the traditional date for the recording of Genesis. The Wellhausen hypothesis posits later dates for Genesis but is still 400 years before Empedocles.
We show our Western bias however when we focus on the Greeks. The Egyptians actually had a similar concept …. The Egyptian idea was embodied in a group of deities called the Ogdoad, and the four primordial substances were darkness, air, the waters, and infinity/eternity.
All of this is to say that even from a purely secular standpoint it is not unreasonable to grant that the Greek primal elements concept existed in the Ancient Near East well before the Greeks. ….
[End of quote]
Though I am no great fan of Sigmund Freud’s, I think that he was well on the right track when he considered Empedocles to have been a ‘reincarnation of Moses’.
…. Either they should have such an abundance of these metals, that they could if they would have made their shoes of them; but that is not usual; though it is said of Empedocles (g) the philosopher, that he wore shoes of brass”. ….
Moses had to remove his sandals on the fiery mountain (Exodus 3:5): “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” From the following quote we learn about Empedocles’ sandal on the fiery mountain.
Moses climbed Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments and ascended Mount Nebo (Jordan) to gaze on the land he would never reach. …. Empedocles, the ancient Greek philosopher, climbed the active volcano Mount Etna on Sicily and leaped into the flaming crater in 430 BC. According to legend, he intended to become an immortal god; the volcano ejected one of his sandals turned to bronze by the heat.
“The character of Empedocles [Hölderlin’s The Death of Empedocles] is in some ways a synthesis of Moses and Aaron: his wisdom and mystical powers of leadership both separate him from the people and lead them to offer him the title of King. The contradiction in this dilemma, however, leads him to spurn the people for their lack of comprehension and ultimately to his own destruction—the plunge into the volcano rather than life in exile”.
How did all of this happen?
We well know that when a story is related to someone else and then passed on from one to another that it soon becomes quite changed and different even amongst those living in close time and proximity.
How much more (a fortiori) would change occur when incidents and teachings pertaining to ancient peoples were passed down the centuries and across the continents!
…. The Hebrew wisdom would have filtered through to the Greeks last, only after having passed through pagan Canaanite-Phoenicia (entrepôts such as Ugarit, Byblos and Tyre) in the west, or Babylon in the east, then on to the Ionian Greeks in the north, or south, to Alexandria, and lastly to the mainland Greeks. It later evolved into the more systematised form of philosophy that we know today, though not necessarily even then at the hands of Greeks. For example, the Maccabean Jewish priest, Aristobulus (2 Maccabees 1:10), was supposed to have written a book on philosophy, arguing, for the benefit of the Macedonian ‘Greeks’ – most notably king Ptolemy himself – “that the essentials of Greek philosophy and metaphysics were derived from Jewish sources. Aristobulus maintained that not only the oldest [supposedly] Grecian poets, Homer, Hesiod, Orpheus, etc., but also the most celebrated Greek thinkers, especially Plato … had acquired most of their wisdom from Jewish sages and ancient Hebrew texts”. ….
“The Virgin Mary also looked up to the godly women
she discovered in the pages of Scripture”.
Fr. Joseph Gleason
Parallels can be found between the prayer (Magnificat)of the Virgin Mary and Hannah’s praying, as Fr. Joseph Gleason has shown in his article, “A Role Model for the Virgin Mary”:
“A meditation on Hannah’s contribution to the Magnificat . . .
Sometimes we forget that the saints do not arrive to us from heaven, fully-formed. Before Moses parted the sea, he was a little baby in a basket. Before David slew Goliath, he was an unknown little shepherd boy.
And before Mary became the mother of God, she was a humble, young Jewish girl, with godly parents, cousins, and friends. And just like any other young girl, she needed good role models to encourage her toward positive spiritual growth.
Her most obvious role models were her dad and mom, the saints Joachim and Anna. They both set a good example for their daughter, and they raised her up in the nuture and admonition of the Lord. Mary was also able to look up to her older cousin, Elizabeth.
Scripture tells us that Elizabeth was righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.
Her living relatives were not her only role-models. The Virgin Mary also looked up to the godly women she discovered in the pages of Scripture. As a young Jewish girl, she would have been familiar with the stories of Old Testament heroines such as Miriam, Deborah, Jael, Ruth, Hannah, Judith, and Esther.
These holy women provided guidance, by setting godly examples for young women to follow.
I have long been intrigued by the close connections shared between Hannah and Mary. They both are godly women who conceived holy children in miraculous ways.
After years of barrenness, Hannah fervently prayed for God to give her a child. He heard her prayer, opened her womb, and granted her to become the mother of Samuel, one of Israel’s greatest prophets.
As a virgin, Mary was approached by an archangel who told her she would bear a child. She willingly accepted his words and invited the miracle. God regarded her lowliness, and granted her to become the mother of the Lord . . . God incarnate.
Hannah’s response was a lovely prayer. Mary’s response was also lovely, and it closely resembles Hannah’s prayer:
Hannah’s heart is strong in the Lord. (1 Sam. 2:1)
Mary’s soul magnifies the Lord. (Luke 1:46)
Hannah rejoices in her salvation. (1 Sam. 2:1)
Mary rejoices in her Savior. (Luke 1:47)
Hannah praises the holiness of God. (1 Sam. 2:2)
Mary praises the holiness of God’s name. (Luke 1:49)
Hannah shuns pride and arrogance. (1 Sam. 2:3)
Mary says God regards lowliness. (Luke 1:48)
Hannah praises God for feeding the hungry, and for emptying those who were formerly full. (1 Sam. 2:5)
Mary praises God for feeding the hungry, and for causing hunger among the rich. (Luke 1:53)
Hannah praises God for exalting poor beggars, causing them to inherit the thrones of princes. (1 Sam. 2:8)
Mary praises God for exalting the lowly, and for casting the mighty off their thrones. (Luke 1:52)
Hannah says the most important thing is to know the Lord. (1 Sam. 2:10)
Mary says that the Lord’s mercy is reserved for those who fear him. (Luke 1:50)
Hannah prophesies the coming of Christ, the Lord’s anointed. (1 Sam. 2:10)
Mary’s entire prayer is in response to Christ’s coming, in her own womb.
Just think . . . over 1000 years before Christ, Hannah had already prayed the prayer which would one day inspire Mary to pray the Magnificat.
This teaches us that the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is not always a bolt from the blue, disconnected from the past. Instead, God routinely works through our families, through our worship, and through our role models. God did not wait until Mary prayed, to inspire the Magnificat. Rather, God started much earlier, when He inspired Hannah’s prayer.
He knew that 1000 years hence, a little Jewish girl named Mary would learn about Hannah, and would look up to her as a godly role model. Then, at just the right time, Hannah’s words would grace Mary’s lips.
This is how the inspiration of the Holy Spirit works . . . in an organic, long-term, familial way.
It is encouraging when we are given opportunities to pray with our children, teach them the Scriptures, and worship with them during the Divine Liturgy. If God is able to reach through a millennium, using Hannah’s example to inspire the heart of Mary, then He is able to do the same for us and for our children. The spiritual seeds we plant are watered by our prayers, and the Holy Spirit will cause them to sprout at just the right time. …”.
“Every human life, beginning with that of the unborn child in its mother’s womb, cannot be suppressed, nor become an object of commodity”.
Dignitas infinita
Vatican calls gender fluidity and surrogacy threats to human dignity
Story by Angela Giuffrida in Rome
The Vatican has described the belief in gender fluidity as “a concession to the age-old temptation to make oneself God”, as it released an updated declaration of what the Catholic church regards as threats to human dignity.
The new Dignitas infinita (Infinite Dignity) declaration released by the Vatican’s doctrinal office on Monday after five years in the making reiterates Pope Francis’s previous criticism of what he has called an “ugly ideology of our time”.
“Desiring a personal self-determination, as gender theory prescribes, apart from this fundamental truth that human life is a gift, amounts to a concession to the age-old temptation to make oneself God, entering into competition with the true God of love revealed to us in the gospel,” the 20-page document says.
Reiterating opposition to gender reassignment surgery, it adds: “It follows that any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception.”
The Holy See distinguished between these sorts of surgeries and procedures to resolve “genital abnormalities” that are present at birth or develop later. It said those abnormalities could be treated with the help of healthcare professionals.
The Vatican said Pope Francis had approved the document, which also reaffirms its condemnation of surrogacy, saying the practice represents “a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child”.
“A child is always a gift and never the basis of a commercial contract,” the document says. “Every human life, beginning with that of the unborn child in its mother’s womb, cannot be suppressed, nor become an object of commodity.”
The chief cardinal, Victor Manuel Fernández, said on Monday that the pope had asked for the Vatican’s doctrinal office (DDF) to include “poverty, the situation of migrants, violence against women, human trafficking, war and other themes” in its updated assessment of threats to human dignity.
The document says gay people should be respected and denounces the fact that “in some places not a few people are imprisoned, tortured, and even deprived of the good of life solely because of their sexual orientation”.
Fernández, a liberal theologian who was appointed to the DDF role – one of the Vatican’s most powerful positions – by Francis last year, said punishing homosexuality was “a big problem” and that it was “painful” to see some Catholics support anti-homosexuality laws.
The declaration also reaffirms the church’s position on abortion and euthanasia while strongly condemning femicide. “Violence against women is a global scandal, which is increasingly being recognised,” it says.
In a series of revelations to St. Maria Faustina Kowalska in the 1930s, our Lord called for a special feast day to be celebrated on the Sunday after Easter. Today, we know that feast as Divine Mercy Sunday, named by Pope St. John Paul II at the canonization of St. Faustina on April 30, 2000.
The Lord expressed His will with regard to this feast in His very first revelation to St. Faustina. The most comprehensive revelation can be found in her Diary entry 699:
My daughter, tell the whole world about My inconceivable mercy. I desire that the Feast of Mercy be a refuge and a shelter for all souls, and especially for poor sinners. On that day the very depths of My tender mercy are open. I pour out a whole ocean of graces upon those souls who approach the fount of My mercy. The soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion shall obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment. On that day are opened all the divine floodgates through which graces flow. Let no soul fear to draw near to Me, even though its sins be as scarlet. My mercy is so great that no mind, be it of man or of angel, will be able to fathom it throughout all eternity. Everything that exists has come from the very depths of My most tender mercy. Every soul in its relation to Me will contemplate My love and mercy throughout eternity. The Feast of Mercy emerged from My very depths of tenderness. It is My desire that it be solemnly celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter. Mankind will not have peace until it turns to the Fount of My mercy.
In all, St. Faustina recorded 14revelations from Jesus concerning His desire for this feast.
Nevertheless, Divine Mercy Sunday is NOT a feast based solely on St. Faustina’s revelations. Indeed, it is not primarily about St. Faustina — nor is it altogether a new feast.
The Second Sunday of Easter was already a solemnity as the Octave Day of Easter[1].
The title “Divine Mercy Sunday” does, however, highlight the meaning of the day. ….
“… Haaretz reportedthat during a dig in Tiberias, archaeologist Moshe Hartal “noticed a mysterious phenomenon: Alongside a layer of earth from the time of the Umayyad era (638-750), and at the same depth, the archaeologists found a layer of earth from the Ancient Roman era (37 B.C.E.-132). ‘I encountered a situation for which I had no explanation — two layers of earth from hundreds of years apart lying side by side,’ says Hartal. ‘I was simply dumbfounded”.”
Gunnar Heinsohn
The major Caliphates of Islam are listed as these five (1-5):
1 Rashidun Caliphate (632–661)
2 Umayyad Caliphate (661–750)
3 Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258)
4 Mamluk Abbasid dynasty (1261–1517)
5 Ottoman Caliphate (1517–1924)
It will be my purpose here – abstracting from the immense problems already associated with the Qur’an (Koran) itself (e.g.):
Dr Günter Lüling: Christian hymns underlie Koranic poetry
– to show that virtually none (if any at all) of this presumed history of the successive Caliphates is properly historical, and, hence, underpinned by a reliable archaeology.
Abbasid Caliphate
Aiming right at the centre, the middle one (No. 3 above), the famed Abbasid Caliphate: “The Abbasid caliphs established the city of Baghdad in 762 CE. It became a center of learning and the hub of what is known as the Golden Age of Islam”:
I have already disposed of this supposedly the most glorious age of Islam by arguing that early Baghdad (not the modern city of that name), known as Madinat-al-Salam, “City of Peace”, was actually Jerusalem, meaning just that, “City of Peace”:
In the same article I noted that the imagined early Baghdad had, unsurprisingly, left no discernible archaeological trace. There I wrote:
The first thing to notice about ancient Baghdad is that it has left “no tangible traces”:
“Built of the baked brick, the city’s walls have long since crumbled,
leaving no trace of Madinat-al-Salam today”.
“While no tangible traces have yet been discovered of the eighth-century
Madinat-al-Salam, and as it is currently impossible to conduct excavations in Baghdad, one can only hope that one day material evidence may be discovered”.
It never recovered;[b] its walls were destroyed by 912,[c] nothing of
them remains,[d][6] there is no agreement as to where it was located.[7]”
[End of quotes]
And just as I have shown, time and time again, that the Prophet Mohammed was a fictitious, largely biblical, composite, so, too, basically, I believe, were the luminaries of the so-called Abbasid Golden Age.
And in the names of a handful of presumed Islamic scholars of the Golden Age, the polymathic Al-Kindi (c. 800); Al-Farabi (c. 900); Avicenna (c. 1000); and Averroes (c. 1150), I found what I would consider to be elements of Ahikar’s (Tobit’s nephew) Assyro-Babylonian names: respectively, Aba-enlil-dari and Esagil-kinni-ubba.
Thus:
Al-Kindi – Esagil-Kinni;
Al-Farabi – Enlil-Dar-Ab(i);
Avicenna – Ubb-kinni(a);
Averroes – Aba-(d)ar(i)
In these famous names is largely encompassed Islamic philosophy, science, astronomy, cosmology, history, demography, medicine and music for the Golden Age.
Melting down the fake Golden Age of Islamic intellectualism
If the glorious and lengthy Abbasid Caliphate can be thus expunged from history, and the very originator of Islam, Mohammed, found to have been an artificial construct – not to mention Loqmân and Abu Lahab (see below) – then we appear to have no firm archaeological foundations upon which to erect a plausible history of the Caliphate.
And things, apparently, do not get much better.
Rashidun Caliphate
Let us go back for a moment to Mohammed and his presumed era, more than a century before the so-called Abbasids.
Not only has Mohammed been shown to have been a non-historical entity, a fictitious composite based upon real historical (biblical) characters:
Mohammed, a composite of Old Testament figures, also based upon Jesus Christ
but the historicity of some of Mohammed’s supposed contemporaries, too, is highly suspect.
Mohammed’s very uncle, Abu Lahab, for instance, has been found to have had suspiciously (biblical) Ahab-like traits, as, correspondingly, does Abu-Lahab’s unbelieving wife, Umm Jamīl, somewhat resemble Queen Jezebel:
And their (Mohammed and Nehemiah’s) contemporary, the Byzantine emperor, Heraclius, is a most bizarre character, somewhat like a frog in a blender, whom I have described as being “a composite of all composites”:
Again, there is the Islamic sage Loqmân (Luqman) of the Qur’an (31st sura), who quotes from the wisdom of Ahikar, an Israelite nephew of the biblical Tobit:
With so insecure an archaeologico-historical base, beginning with Mohammed himself, the entire Caliphate period, from, say, 650-1250 AD (Rashidun to Abbasid), must needs be looking very shaky indeed.
At this stage I have not analysed the four caliphs closely associated with Mohammed (the Rashidun Caliphate), Abū Bakr (reigned 632–634), ʿUmar (reigned 634–644), ʿUthmān (reigned 644–656), and ʿAlī (reigned 656–661). But, based on the cases of Mohammed and Abu Lahab, I would strongly suspect that these four, too, can be identifiable with one or more biblical characters ranging from, say, Moses to Tobit (possibly also embracing the New Testament).
Let us switch now to the Umayyads (661-750 AD).
Umayyad Caliphate
As with the 1 Rashidun Caliphate (632–661), so, too, in the case of the 2 Umayyad Caliphate (661–750), I have not yet analysed the various caliphs with an eye to biblical comparisons.
But the great shock about the Umayyads came at the very beginning of this article, with archaeologist Moshe Hartal’s observation that the Umayyads existed on the same stratigraphical level as the Romans of the period approximating to Jesus Christ.
How shattering!
According to professor Gunnar Heinsohn’s interpretation of the Umayyads, these were none other than the Nabataeans (era of Maccabees and Jesus Christ):
I do not necessarily agree with every detail (e.g. date) of the following.
….
“Archeologists have no way of distinguishing Roman and Byzantium buildings from Umayyad buildings, because “8th-10th Cent. Umayyads built in 2nd Cent. technology” and followed Roman models”.
In Heinsohn’s SC chronology, the rise of Christianity in the first three centuries AD and the rise of Islam from the 7th to the 10th century are roughly contemporary. Their six-century chasm is a fiction resulting from the fact that the rise of Christianity is dated in Imperial Antiquity while the rise of Islam is dated in the Early Middle Ages, two time-blocks that are in reality contemporary. The resynchronizing of Imperial Antiquity and Early Middle Ages provides a solution to some troublesome archeological anomalies. One of them concerns the Nabataeans.
During Imperial Antiquity, the Nabataean Arabs dominated long distance trade. Their city of Petra was a major center of trade for silk, spice and other goods on the caravan routes that linked China, India and southern Arabia with Egypt, Syria, Greece and Rome.
In 106 AD, the Nabataean Kingdom was officially annexed to the Roman Empire by Trajan (whose father had been governor of Syria) and became the province of Arabia Petraea. Hadrian visited Petra around 130 AD and gave it the name of Hadriane Petra Metropolis, imprinted on his coins. Petra reached its urban flowering in the Severan period (190s-230s AD).[18]
Mackey’s comment: I actually date the Trajan-Hadrian period to the Maccabean age, not c. 106 AD:
Hadrianus Traianus Caesar – Trajan transmutes to Hadrian
And yet, incredibly, these Arab long-distance merchants “are supposed to have forgotten the issuing of coins and the art of writing (Aramaic) after the 1st century AD and only learned it again in the 7th/8th century AD (Umayyad Muslims).
” …. It is assumed that Arabs fell out of civilization after Hadrian, and only emerged back into it under Islam, with an incomprehensible scientific advancement. The extreme primitivism in which pre-Islamic Arabs are supposed to have wallowed, with no writing and no money of they own, “stands in stark contrast to the Islamic Arabs who thrive from the 8th century, [whose] coins are not only found in Poland but from Norway all the way to India and beyond at a time when the rest of the known world was trying to crawl out of the darkness of the Early Middle Ages.”…. Moreover, Arab coins dated to the 8th and 9th centuries are found in the same layers as imperial Roman coins. “The coin finds of Raqqa, for example, which stratigraphically belong to the Early Middle Ages (8th-10th century), also contain imperial Roman coins from Imperial Antiquity (1st-3rd century) and Late Antiquity (4th-7th century).” …. “Thus, we have an impressive trove of post-7th c. Arab coins lumped together with pre-7th c. Roman coins of pre-7th c. Roman times. But we have no pre-7th c. Arab coins from the centuries of their close alliance with Rome in the pre-7th c. periods.”
….
The first Islamic Umayyad coins, issued in Jerusalem, “continue supposedly 700 years earlier Nabataean coins.”
….
Often displaying Jewish menorahs with Arabic lettering, they differ very little from Jewish coins dated seven centuries earlier; we are dealing here with an evolution “requiring only years or decades, but not seven centuries.”
….
Architecture raises similar problems. Archeologists have no way of distinguishing Roman and Byzantium buildings from Umayyad buildings, because “8th-10th Cent. Umayyads built in 2nd Cent. technology” and followed Roman models. …. “How could the Umayyads in the 8th c. AD perfectly imitate late Hellenistic styles,” Heinsohn asks, “when there were no specialists left to teach them such sophisticated skills?”
….
Moreover, “Umayyad structures were built right on top of Late-Hellenistic structures of the 1st c. BCE/CE.” …. One example is “the second most famous Umayyad building, their mosque in Damascus. The octagonal structure of the so-called Dome of the Treasury stands on perfect Roman columns of the 1st/2nd century. They are supposed to be spolia, but . . . there are no known razed buildings from which they could have been taken. Even more puzzling are the enormous monolithic columns inside the building from the 8th/9th c. AD, which also belong to the 1st/2nd century. No one knows the massive structure that would have had to be demolished to obtain them.”
….
Far from rejecting the Umayyads’ servile “imitation” of Roman Antiquity, their Abbasid enemies resumed it: “8th-10th c. Abbasids bewilder historians for copying, right down to the chemical fingerprint, Roman glass.”
The millefiori technique, which takes its name from the Italian word meaning “thousand flowers”, reached a culmination in the Roman period. . . .
The technique seems to have been rediscovered by Islamic glassmakers in the 9th century, since examples of millefiori glass, including tiles, have been excavated in the Abbasid capital of Samarra. ….
I included in “How Long Was the First Millennium?” one of Heinsohn’s illustrations of identical millefiori glass bowls ascribed respectively to the 1st-2nd century Romans and to the 8th-9th century Abbasids. Here is another puzzling comparison: ….
Heinsohn concludes that, “the culture of the Umayyads is as Roman as the culture of early medieval Franks.
Their 9th/10th century architecture is a direct continuation of the 2nd c. AD. The 700 years in between do not exist in reality.” …. “The Arabs did not walk in ignorance without coinage and writing for some 700 years. Those 700 years represent phantom centuries. Thus, it is not true that Arabs were backward in comparison with their immediate Roman and Greek neighbours who, interestingly enough, are not on record for having ever claimed any Arab backwardness. . . . the caliphs now dated from the 690s to the 930s are actually the caliphs of the period from Augustus to the 230s.”
….
This explains why archeologists often find themselves puzzled by the stratigraphy. For example, Haaretz reported that during a dig in Tiberias, archaeologist Moshe Hartal “noticed a mysterious phenomenon: Alongside a layer of earth from the time of the Umayyad era (638-750), and at the same depth, the archaeologists found a layer of earth from the Ancient Roman era (37 B.C.E.-132). ‘I encountered a situation for which I had no explanation — two layers of earth from hundreds of years apart lying side by side,’ says Hartal. ‘I was simply dumbfounded.’”
….
Heinsohn argues that the Umayyads of the Early Middle Ages are not only identical with the Nabataeans of Imperial Antiquity, but are also documented in the intermediate time-block of Late Antiquity under the name of the Ghassanids. “Nabataeans and Umayyads not only shared the same art, the same metropolis Damascus, and the same stratigraphy, but also a common territory that was home to yet another famous Arab ethnicity that also held Damascus: the Ghassanids. They served as Christian allies of the Byzantines during Late Antiquity (3rd/4th to 6th c. AD). Yet, they were already active during Imperial Antiquity (1st to 3rd c. AD). Diodorus Siculus (90-30 BC) knew them as Gasandoi, Pliny the Elder (23-79 AD) as Casani, and Claudius Ptolemy (100-170 AD) as Kassanitai.” …. In the Byzantine period, the Ghassanid caliphs had “the same reputation for anti-trinitarian monotheism as the Abbasid Caliphs now dated to 8th /9th centuries.” …. They also, like the Islamic Arabs, preserved some Bedouin customs such as polygamy. ….
[End of quotes]
In a most interesting twist, Taycan Sapmaz identifies:
with more, hopefully, to be written on this subject in the future.
Conclusions
The Prophet Mohammed is clearly a non-historical, composite entity based on a bunch of real historical figures from a vast range of eras.
Mohammed’s relatives, contemporaries, likewise are biblico-historically-based, e.g. uncle Lahab as Ahab; Nehemiah ben Hushiel as the biblical Nehemiah; emperor Heraclius as possibly literature’s most composite of composites.
This necessitates that the closely associated Rashidun Caliphate could have no real historical reality in AD time. This view being totally reinforced by the next Caliphate,
The Umayyad as belonging archaeologically to a Roman period, some six centuries prior to the supposed era of Mohammed. This being totally reinforced by the next Caliphate,
The Abbasid, as having no archaeological trace for its epicentre, ancient Baghdad, Madinat al-Salam, which is really ancient Jerusalem.
“How much suffering we see in the eyes of the children:
the children in those lands at war have forgotten how to smile!
With those eyes, they ask us: Why? Why all this death?
Why all this destruction?
War is always an absurdity, war is always a defeat!”
Pope Francis
URBI ET ORBI MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
EASTER 2024
Central loggia of the Vatican Basilica Sunday, 31 March 2024
________________________________________
Dear brothers and sisters, Happy Easter!
Today throughout the world there resounds the message proclaimed two thousand years ago from Jerusalem: “Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified, has been raised!” (Mk 16:6).
The Church relives the amazement of the women who went to the tomb at dawn on the first day of the week. The tomb of Jesus had been sealed with a great stone. Today too, great stones, heavy stones, block the hopes of humanity: the stone of war, the stone of humanitarian crises, the stone of human rights violations, the stone of human trafficking, and other stones as well. Like the women disciples of Jesus, we ask one another: “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” (cf. Mk 16:3).
This is the amazing discovery of that Easter morning: the stone, the immense stone, was rolled away. The astonishment of the women is our astonishment as well: the tomb of Jesus is open and it is empty! From this, everything begins anew! A new path leads through that empty tomb: the path that none of us, but God alone, could open: the path of life in the midst of death, the path of peace in the midst of war, the path of reconciliation in the midst of hatred, the path of fraternity in the midst of hostility.
Brothers and sisters, Jesus Christ is risen! He alone has the power to roll away the stones that block the path to life. He, the living One, is himself that path. He is the Way: the way that leads to life, the way of peace, reconciliation and fraternity. He opens that path, humanly impossible, because he alone takes away the sin of the world and forgives us our sins. For without God’s forgiveness, that stone cannot be removed.
Without the forgiveness of sins, there is no overcoming the barriers of prejudice, mutual recrimination, the presumption that we are always right and others wrong. Only the risen Christ, by granting us the forgiveness of our sins, opens the way for a renewed world.
Jesus alone opens up before us the doors of life, those doors that continually we shut with the wars spreading throughout the world. Today we want, first and foremost, to turn our eyes to the Holy City of Jerusalem, that witnessed the mystery of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus, and to all the Christian communities of the Holy Land.
My thoughts go especially to the victims of the many conflicts worldwide, beginning with those in Israel and Palestine, and in Ukraine. May the risen Christ open a path of peace for the war-torn peoples of those regions. In calling for respect for the principles of international law, I express my hope for a general exchange of all prisoners between Russia and Ukraine: all for the sake of all!
I appeal once again that access to humanitarian aid be ensured to Gaza, and call once more for the prompt release of the hostages seized on 7 October last and for an immediate cease-fire in the Strip.
Let us not allow the current hostilities to continue to have grave repercussions on the civil population, by now at the limit of its endurance, and above all on the children. How much suffering we see in the eyes of the children: the children in those lands at war have forgotten how to smile! With those eyes, they ask us: Why? Why all this death? Why all this destruction? War is always an absurdity, war is always a defeat! Let us not allow the strengthening winds of war to blow on Europe and the Mediterranean. Let us not yield to the logic of weapons and rearming. Peace is never made with arms, but with outstretched hands and open hearts.
Brothers and sisters, let us not forget Syria, which for thirteen years has suffered from the effects of a long and devastating war. So many deaths and disappearances, so much poverty and destruction, call for a response on the part of everyone, and of the international community.
My thoughts turn today in a special way to Lebanon, which has for some time experienced institutional impasse and a deepening economic and social crisis, now aggravated by the hostilities on its border with Israel. May the Risen Lord console the beloved Lebanese people and sustain the entire country in its vocation to be a land of encounter, coexistence and pluralism.
I also think in particular of the region of the Western Balkans, where significant steps are being taken towards integration in the European project. May ethnic, cultural and confessional differences not be a cause of division, but rather a source of enrichment for all of Europe and for the world as a whole.
I likewise encourage the discussions taking place between Armenia and Azerbaijan, so that, with the support of the international community, they can pursue dialogue, assist the displaced, respect the places of worship of the various religious confessions, and arrive as soon as possible at a definitive peace agreement.
May the risen Christ open a path of hope to all those who in other parts of the world are suffering from violence, conflict, food insecurity and the effects of climate change. May the Lord grant consolation to the victims of terrorism in all its forms. Let us pray for all those who have lost their lives and implore the repentance and conversion of the perpetrators of those crimes.
May the risen Lord assist the Haitian people, so that there can soon can be an end to the acts of violence, devastation and bloodshed in that country, and that it can advance on the path to democracy and fraternity.
May Christ grant consolation and strength to the Rohingya, beset by a grave humanitarian crisis, and open a path to reconciliation in Myanmar, torn for years now by internal conflicts, so that every logic of violence may be definitively abandoned.
May the Lord open paths of peace on the African continent, especially for the suffering peoples in Sudan and in the entire region of the Sahel, in the Horn of Africa, in the region of Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in the province of Capo Delgado in Mozambique, and bring an end to the prolonged situation of drought which affects vast areas and provokes famine and hunger.
May the Risen One make the light of his face shine upon migrants and on all those who are passing through a period of economic difficulty, and offer them consolation and hope in their moment of need. May Christ guide all persons of good will to unite themselves in solidarity, in order to address together the many challenges which loom over the poorest families in their search for a better life and happiness.
On this day when we celebrate the life given us in the resurrection of the Son, let us remember the infinite love of God for each of us: a love that overcomes every limit and every weakness. And yet how much the precious gift of life is despised! How many children cannot even be born? How many die of hunger and are deprived of essential care or are victims of abuse and violence? How many lives are made objects of trafficking for the increasing commerce in human beings?
Brothers and sisters, on the day when Christ has set us free from the slavery of death, I appeal to all who have political responsibilities to spare no efforts in combatting the scourge of human trafficking, by working tirelessly to dismantle the networks of exploitation and to bring freedom to those who are their victims. May the Lord comfort their families, above all those who anxiously await news of their loved ones, and ensure them comfort and hope.
May the light of the resurrection illumine our minds and convert our hearts, and make us aware of the value of every human life, which must be welcomed, protected and loved.
“Francis explained that the foot-washing was “not folklore” but a “gesture
which announces how we should be toward one another.” He lamented that
“others profit off each other, (there is) so much injustice … so many ugly things”.
Pope washes feet in Holy Thursday rite at Rome youth prison
BY FRANCES D’EMILIO
Published 1:02 PM GMT+11, April 7, 2023
VATICAN CITY (AP) — In a Holy Thursday ritual symbolizing humility, Pope Francis washed and dried the feet of a dozen residents of a Rome juvenile prison, assuring them of their dignity and telling them “any of us” can fall into sin.
The Casal del Marmo facility on the outskirts of Rome is the same juvenile prison where Francis performed the first feet-washing ritual of his papacy, demonstrating his belief that the Catholic Church should give attention to people living on society’s margins.
On Thursday, Francis repeated the ritual on 10 male and two female residents who are serving time at the facility. He leaned over and poured water on one foot of each, then used a white towel to gently pat the foot dry before kissing it.
When Francis looked up at them in turn to smile, they shook his hand and kissed it. Many of the young people whispered into the pope’s ear, and he chatted with them briefly in return.
The ritual recalls the foot-washing Jesus performed on his 12 apostles at their last supper together before he would be taken away to be crucified.
Jesus “washes all our feet,” Francis told several dozen residents assembled in the prison chapel. “He knows all our weaknesses,’’ the pope said in a completely improvised homily.
Among the 12, six were minors while the others had become adults while serving their sentences. The dozen included a Muslim from Senegal, as well as young people from Romania, Russia and Croatia, the Vatican said.
Francis explained that the foot-washing was “not folklore” but a “gesture which announces how we should be toward one another.”
He lamented that “others profit off each other, (there is) so much injustice…so many ugly things.”
Still, he said, “any one of us can slip” and fall from grace. The foot-washing “confers on us the dignity of being sinners.” The lesson, he added, should be to “help one another, so life becomes better.”
The pontiff, who has a chronic knee problem, navigated the small spaces of the chapel either unaided or with the help of a cane, although he used a wheel chair to leave after the roughly 90-minute appearance.
On Saturday, Francis was discharged from a Rome hospital where he was treated for bronchitis. The Vatican said at the time that he would carry out the complete Holy Week schedule, including the Good Friday late-night Way of the Cross procession at Rome’s Colosseum and Easter Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square.
Earlier Thursday, he presided over Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica as part of his stamina-testing Holy Week appointments.
At Thursday’s basilica Mass, dozens of rows of priests in simple white cassocks sat in front of rank-and-file Catholics in the packed church.
Francis used the homily as a pep talk to priests, after decades of scandals involving sex abuse of children by clergy caused many faithful to lose trust in their pastors.
The pope didn’t cite the scandals or church hierarchy cover-ups. But, he spoke of “crisis” affecting priests.
“Sooner or later, we all experience disappointment, frustration and our own weaknesses,’’ Francis said. “Our ideals seem to recede in the face of reality, a certain force of habit takes over, and the difficulties that once seemed unimaginable appear to challenge our fidelity.”
The basilica ceremony traditionally includes the blessing of ointments and priests’ renewal of promises made when they were ordained to the priesthood.
Highlighting the spirit of renewal that the pope indicated the priesthood needs, added to the ointments at this year’s Mass was bergamot perfume that came from trees in southern Italy on land confiscated by authorities from mobsters.
In off-the-cuff remarks during the homily, Francis admonished priests not to “forget being pastors of the people.”
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Peter Kreeft, a full professor in philosophy at Boston College, loves philosophy in its radical root as “the love of wisdom.” So it’s no wonder that his book about the “greatest philosopher who ever lived” is a rich tome about … the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Yes, Mary lacks a doctoral degree and is a bit short on publications, her longest lecture (the Magnificat) not filling a full page. That said, Kreeft still considers her the preeminent philosopher.
Why?
Philosophy means “love of wisdom.” Jesus is Wisdom Incarnate. And the Blessed Mother loved him more than any other human being.
“Mary was the greatest philosopher (wisdom-lover) who ever lived. For she had the greatest love for the greatest wisdom,” as Kreeft explains in the “Introductions” section.
“Mary is such an archetype of wisdom that the Church applies to Mary the attributes of wisdom itself …” he adds.
Mary’s philosophy is eminently practical, meant to apply to real living — and offers profound, beautiful insights.
“I write this book, not as an academic philosopher, but as a child who thinks he sees something profound and beautiful in Mary’s largely silent wisdom and who wants to call out to others: ‘Oh, look!’ — like a child seeing a rainbow or a cathedral for the first time.”
Throughout, Kreeft examines Mary from the perspective of the many branches of philosophy. Her metaphysics is most interesting. Metaphysics deals with being, and Kreeft makes an illuminating argument that (which he admits comes from Gabriel Marcel) that sanctity is really the fullness of being.
“‘[T]he study of sanctity … is the true ontology [metaphysics].’ This startling conclusion follows from two premises: that saints are the standard for personhood, because they actualize and thus reveal the meaning of human personhood better than any others, and that personhood is the standard for being. …. I predict that future theistic philosophers will be more surprised that no one before Marcel articulated this principle than they will be surprised by the principle itself” (p. 134).
This book performs a twofold task: It provides a thorough overview of basic principles of Christian philosophy while using the Blessed Virgin Mary as the best illustration of those principles. Consider, for example, the problem of suffering, a classical problem in philosophy. Mary suffered. Kreeft argues that, in fact, the more morally pure one is, the more intense is joy … and suffering (and Mary was Immaculate). But suffering is not an excuse for her to blame God or even deny his existence, but to recognize that everything comes from his good and providential will, everything to which she assented in her fiat. That “let it be” is not just the metaphysical starting point of a new creation (in which Mary is the new Eve) nor an assent to whatever God willed, but also a philosophy of history: The instrumental cause for all human history begins there.
“Because history is His story, because only He is its lord, and not any Caesar, any warlord, or any other military, political, philosophical, scientific, or even religious revolutionary, therefore no mere man or woman who has ever lived has ever performed a more revolutionary work than Mary. No one has ever changed human history more than she. No one has ever more crucially changed the life of every person who has ever lived, both in this world and in the next, than Mary” (p. 250).
The sheer breadth of issues Kreeft covers by reflecting on Mary and her life surveys not just the issues of our time but the issues of every time, wherever thinking men and women (which is what philosophers are) have reflected on the meaning of life. What makes Kreeft doubly rewarding are his erudition and brilliant turns of phrase: A man who can combine great thinkers and literature with pop music (“c’mon and dance with me”) is worth the read.
Far from being marginal to our lives, a saint on a pedestal, Mary is very much the answer to the problems of our day and all days.
As ancient Israel believed, to live as God wills is wisdom — not to is folly.
Mary, the Seat of Wisdom, is the practical philosopher teaching us true wisdom.
“We have had enough of immorality and the mockery of ethics, goodness, faith and honesty …. There can be no renewal of our relationship with nature without a renewal of humanity itself,” the Pope writes.
———————————————————————————————
A superficial reading of pope Francis’s 2015 Encyclical Letter, Laudato Si’ (“Praise be to you” – On Care For Our Common Home), has led many to jump to the conclusion that this letter, addressed to all the people on earth, is entirely about the topical subject of climate change.
But those who have read it more closely have appreciated that Laudato Si’ is only partially about that.
Stephen P. White, for instance, a fellow in the Catholic studies program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC., has observed that it is more about something else:
Given the media coverage since its release, and the political implications of the pope throwing his moral weight behind one side in a high-stakes debate about climate policy, one could be forgiven for thinking that Pope Francis’s new encyclical is mostly about climate change and what we need to do to combat it.
Except it is and it isn’t. In fact, mostly it isn’t.
What makes this encyclical controversial is its reading of contested questions of science, economics, and politics. What makes it radical — in the sense of going to the root — is the pope’s reading of the profound human crisis that he sees underlying our modern world. Abuse of our environment isn’t the only problem facing humanity. In fact, Pope Francis sees the ecological crisis as a symptom of a deeper crisis — a human crisis.
These two problems are related and interdependent. And the solution is not simply to eliminate fossil fuels or rethink carbon credits. The pope is calling on the world to rediscover what it means to be human — and as a result, to reject the cult of economic growth and material accumulation.
Reading the encyclical, one quickly realizes that the “pope fights climate change” narrative is far from the whole story. In fact, that line leaves out the most fundamental themes of the encyclical: the limits of technology and the need for what he calls an “integral ecology,” which “transcend[s] the language of mathematics and biology, and take[s] us to the heart of what it is to be human.”
[End of quote]
And Miranda Devine, a columnist with The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), depicts the Pope somewhat as a cagey fisherman, luring the Greens with a bait, before giving it a sharp twist. (“Thought Pope Francis was a warmist? Think again”):
CLIMATE alarmists are cock-a-whoop over Pope Francis’s much-anticipated call to action on global warming.
Yes, the leader of the world’s 1.8 billion Catholics, agrees with Kevin Rudd. The planet is in crisis, and climate change is one of the greatest moral challenges, the Pope has written in his first solo encyclical. Man is to blame and fossil fuels are bad.
It couldn’t be a more political document, designed to influence the upcoming UN climate summit in Paris later this year. Christiana Figueres, the UN’s climate change head, has called it a “clarion call to guide the world”.
Looks like everyone’s a papist now.
Alarmists are revelling in what they hope is the discomfort of the climate sceptic, or agnostic faithful, especially the Prime Minister.
“Hopefully this is Tony Abbott’s come to Jesus moment on climate change,” Greens leader Richard Di Natale said.
“If Tony Abbott won’t listen to the science, I only hope he will listen to the leader of his church and see the light on climate change,” said independent MP Andrew Wilkie.
The same people who have flayed Abbott for taking orders from Rome, supposedly, when it comes to women’s ovaries or same-sex marriage are now demanding he obey the Pope and start spraying windmills across the landscape.
But now for that sharp twist of the lure. Devine continues:
But, as a Catholic and an optimist, I suspect the Pope is engaging in Jesuitical trickery.
When you read the encyclical, you see that climate change is a minor player, despite the media hype.
In 44,000 words, the word “climate” appears just 18 times. This is illustrated in a word cloud by the Catholic News Service, in which the size of a word correlates with the frequency of its use: “climate” is not visible. “Human” is the largest word, followed by “God”.
That is the cleverness of this popular, enigmatic Pope. He has used climate change as the “bait” to lure the chattering classes, the godless and the Gaia worshippers.
He gives them a bit of climate sustenance, then whacks them with a full-frontal attack on moral relativism.
“We have had enough of immorality and the mockery of ethics, goodness, faith and honesty … There can be no renewal of our relationship with nature without a renewal of humanity itself,” the Pope writes.
He is down on abortion, contraception, embryonic research, sex changes and digital media, which gives “rise to a new type of contrived emotion which has more to do with devices and displays than with other people and with nature”.
He is all for the family, which he calls “the heart of the culture of life”.
So now that the Pope has the ears of the world, he’s relentlessly hammering us with unabashed Catholic teaching, sugar-coated with populist environmentalism.
Genius bait and switch.
[End of quote]
Restoring Human Dignity
“I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned,
and revealed them to little children.
(Luke 10:21)
The Pope recently chose an audience of ‘little children’, and not the ‘wise and learned’, to speak of war and to reveal a dark secret (http://rt.com/news/257545-pope-francis-war-arms/): “Many powerful people don’t want peace because they live off war,” the Pontiff said as he met with pupils from Rome’s primary schools in the Nervi Audience Hall.
Talking to children during the audience organized by the Peace Factory Foundation, he explained that every war has the arms industry behind it.
“This is serious. Some powerful people make their living with the production of arms and sell them to one country for them to use against another country”. ….
The head of the Catholic Church labeled the arms trade “the industry of death, the greed that harms us all, the desire to have more money.”
“The economic system orbits around money and not men, women,” he told 7,000 kids present at the audience.
Despite the fact that wars “lose lives, health, education,” they are being waged to defend money and make even more profit, the Pope said.
“The devil enters through greed and this is why they don’t want peace,” 78-year-old Francis said.
But why tell this to children?
And why did Our Lady of the Rosary, at Fatima (Portugal) on July 13, 1917, also speak of war and reveal a dark secret to three shepherd children (Lucia, Jacinta and Francisco), and not to adults?
After showing them the terrifying vision of Hell – {Lucia: “That vision only lasted for a moment, thanks to our good Heavenly Mother, Who at the first apparition [May 13] had promised to take us to Heaven. Without that, I think that we would have died of terror and fear”} – the Lady told them:
‘You have seen hell where the souls of poor sinners go.
To save them, God wishes to establish in the world devotion to my Immaculate Heart. If what I say to you is done, many souls will be saved and there will be peace. The War is going to end; but if people do not cease offending God, a worse one will break out during the pontificate of Pius XI. When you see a night illumined by an unknown light, know that this is the great sign given you by God that he is about to punish the world for its crimes, by means of war, famine, and persecutions of the Church and of the Holy Father’.
Well, did not Jesus himself reply to those who had asked him: ‘Do you hear what these children are saying?’ ‘Yes’ … have you never read, ‘From the lips of children and infants you, Lord, have called forth your praise’?’ (Matthew 21:16)?
Now, Pope Francis is a teacher who has modelled himself on Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ was one who had, directly against the customs of his time, exalted little children. This is how G. K. Chesterton told of it back in 1925, in his chapter “The Strangest Story in the World” (The Everlasting Man):
The exaltation of childhood is something which we do really understand; but it was by no means a thing that was then in that sense understood. If we wanted an example of the originality of the Gospel, we could hardly take a stronger or more startling one. Nearly two thousand years afterwards we happen to find ourselves in a mood that does really feel the mystical charm of the child; we express it in romances and regrets about childhood, in Peter Pan or The Child’s Garden of Verses. And we can say of the words of Christ with so angry an anti-Christian as Swinburne:
‘No sign that ever was given To faithful or faithless eyes
Showed ever beyond clouds riven
So clear a paradise.
Earth’s creeds may be seventy times seven
And blood have defiled each creed
But if such be the kingdom of heaven
It must be heaven indeed.’
But that paradise was not clear until Christianity had gradually cleared it. The pagan world, as such, would not have understood any such thing as a serious suggestion that a child is higher or holier than a man. It would have seemed like the suggestion that a tadpole is higher or holier than a frog. To the merely rationalistic mind, it would sound like saying that bud must be more beautiful than a flower or that an unripe apple must be better than a ripe one. In other words, this modern feeling is an entirely mystical feeling. It is quite as mystical as the cult of virginity; in fact it is the cult Of virginity. But pagan antiquity had much more idea of the holiness of the virgin than of the holiness of the child. For various reasons we have come nowadays to venerate children; perhaps partly because we envy children for still doing what men used to do; such as play simple games and enjoy fairy-tales. Over and above this, however, there is a great deal of real and subtle psychology in our appreciation of childhood; but if we turn it into a modern discovery, we must once more admit that the historical Jesus of Nazareth had already discovered it two thousand years too soon. There was certainly nothing in the world around him to help him to the discovery. Here Christ was indeed human; but more human than a human being was then likely to be. Peter Pan does not belong to the world of Pan but the world of Peter.
[End of quote]
Francis, like the popes before him – and John Paul II particularly comes to mind here – is all about restoring ‘the dignity of the human person’, in the face of global exploitation and the indifference of the rich. This is a pontificate that has put the poor again front and centre, recalling the Gospel’s mantra of preferential option for the poor.
It is a re-telling of the parable of ‘Dives and Lazarus’.
Stephen White well sums it up when he writes:
Pope Francis sees the ecological crisis as a symptom of a deeper crisis — a human crisis. As for who is responsible for all this, he places the burden at the feet of the developed world: “Many of those who possess more resources and economic or political power seem mostly to be concerned with masking the problems or concealing their symptoms, simply making efforts to reduce some of the negative impacts of climate change.”
Francis warns especially of the damage that our “culture of waste” does to the poor. He dismisses attempts at population control while leveling broadsides against financial markets, inequality, and the indifference of the rich. Moreover, he sees all these disturbing trends as interconnected. A casual attitude toward material goods leads to a casual attitude toward people. A willingness to exploit creation is deeply connected to a willingness to exploit human beings.
[End of quote]
Such is the harsh reality of the modern, industrialised world, whose protagonists do not seem to care about – or sometimes even notice – its uglification of what was formerly beautiful. “The earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth,” the Pope writes. On climate change: “A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming of the climatic system.” He goes on to warn: “If present trends continue, this century may well witness extraordinary climate change and an unprecedented destruction of ecosystems, with serious consequences for all of us.”
Some nine decades ago, G. K. Chesterton was uttering similar sentiments, when writing of:
… the wage-slaves of our morbid modern industrialism, which by its hideousness and in-humanity has really forced the economic issue to the front. ….
….
The human unity with which I deal here is not to be confounded with this modern industrial monotony and herding, which is rather a congestion than a communion. …. for that is characteristic of everything belonging to that ancient land of liberty that lies before and around the servile industrial town. Industrialism actually boasts that its products are all of one pattern; that men in Jamaica or Japan can break the same seal and drink the same bad whiskey, that a man at the North Pole and another at the South might recognise the same optimistic level on the same dubious tinned salmon. But wine, the gift of gods to men, can vary with every valley and every vineyard, can turn into a hundred wines without any wine once reminding us of whiskey; and cheeses can change from county to county without forgetting the difference between chalk and cheese.
[End of quote]
For those driven by the spirit of mammon, rather than by the Spirit of Charity (Luke 16:13), financial expediency, or ‘the bottom line’, is the only thing that matters – not truth, or beauty, or goodness, or kindness, or humanity.
Modern commerce, says Chesterton again, is about savagery of the rich, the hunger of the satisfied, and the sudden madness of the mills of the world. You cannot serve God and Mammon because — obviously — loving Mammon keeps you from loving God, thus breaking the first Great Commandment of Christ, but you neither can you love your neighbor if you are a slave of that blind and bogus god of money and materialism. Your neighbor becomes your competitor in that system, and your enemy.
[End of quote]
Obviously, this is not a state of affairs that a kindly pope such as Francis can support. And so: “There can be no ecology,” he writes, “without an adequate anthropology.”
G. K. Chesterton, writing in less scientific and more paradoxical terms, contrasted “the flat creatures living only on a plane” with the multi-dimensional ideal of the Gospels pertaining to ‘the lilies of the field’:
There is perhaps nothing so perfect in all language or literature as the use of these three degrees in the parable of the lilies of the field; in which [Jesus] seems first to take one small flower in his hand and note its simplicity and even its impotence; then suddenly expands it in flamboyant colors into all the palaces and pavilions full of a great name in national legend and national glory; and then, by yet a third overturn, shrivels it to nothing once more with a gesture as if flinging it away ‘ . . . and if God so clothes the grass that today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven-how much more. . . .’ It is like the building of a good Babel tower by white magic in a moment and in the movement of a hand; a tower heaved suddenly up to heaven on the top of which can be seen afar off, higher than we had fancied possible, the figure of man; lifted by three infinities above all other things, on a starry ladder of light logic and swift imagination. Merely in a literary sense it would be more of a masterpiece than most of the masterpieces in the libraries; yet it seems to have been uttered almost at random while a man might pull a flower. But merely in a literary sense also, this use of the comparative in several degrees has about it a quality which seems to me to hint of much higher things than the modern suggestion of the simple teaching of pastoral or communal ethics. There is nothing that really indicates a subtle and in the true sense a superior mind so much as this power of comparing a lower thing with a higher and yet that higher with a higher still; of thinking on three planes at once. There is nothing that wants the rarest sort of wisdom so much as to see, let us say, that the citizen is higher than the slave and yet that the soul is infinitely higher than the citizen or the city. It is not by any means a faculty that commonly belongs to these simplifiers of the Gospel; those who insist on what they call a simple morality and others call a sentimental morality. It is not at all covered by those who are content to tell everybody to remain at peace. On the contrary, there is a very striking example of it in the apparent inconsistency between Christ’s sayings about peace and about a sword. It is precisely this power which perceives that while a good peace is better than a good war, even a good war is better than a bad peace. These far-flung comparisons are nowhere so common as in the Gospels; and to me they suggest something very vast. So a thing solitary and solid, with the added dimension of depth or height, might tower over the flat creatures living only on a plane.
[End of quote]
We are still in the Gospel realm of Luke 12 that titles this article.
Human industry cannot replicate the beauty of God’s nature (v. 27): ‘Consider how the wild flowers [or ‘lilies of the field’] grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these’.
Sadly, were he to appear today, the fabulously wise and wealthy Solomon, instead of being clothed, perhaps, like his queen, “in gold of Ophir” (Psalm 45:9) and the like, would probably be wearing labels titled
and
For it seems that even the more artistic or beautiful aspects of life (e.g. fashion, clothing, architecture) have become, so to speak, ‘industrialised’.
Earlier in Luke 12, in vv. 13-21, Jesus gave a disturbing parable most relevant to all of this:
The Parable of the Rich Fool
Someone in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.’
Jesus replied, ‘Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?’ Then he said to them, ‘Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.’
And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’
Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, ‘You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’
But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’
This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”
Here the Gospel labels the Mammonite a ‘fool’.
Now just as Jesus was, in this parable, urging a simpler life, one free from excess worry and anxiety, so today pope Francis seems to be calling for a return to simplicity. As White puts it: “We need to take up an ancient lesson, found in different religious traditions and also in the Bible. It is the conviction that “less is more”.”
And G. K. Chesterton was of the same mind-set, here (The Everlasting Man) echoing Luke 12:
But there is a deeper fallacy besides this obvious fact; that men need not live for food merely because they cannot live without food. The truth is that the thing most present to the mind of man is not the economic machinery necessary to his existence; but rather that existence itself; the world which he sees when he wakes every morning and the nature of his general position in it. There is something that is nearer to him than livelihood, and that is life. For once that he remembers exactly what work produces his wages and exactly what wages produce his meals, he reflects ten times that it is a fine day or it is a queer world, or wonders whether life is worth living, or wonders whether marriage is a failure, or is pleased and puzzled with his own children, or remembers his own youth, or in any such fashion vaguely reviews the mysterious lot of man. This is true of the majority even of the wage-slaves of our morbid modern industrialism, which by its hideousness and in-humanity has really forced the economic issue to the front. It is immeasurably more true of the multitude of peasants or hunters or fishers who make up the real mass of mankind.
[End of quote]
Quality Over Quantity
What appeals to me personally about the pope’s Laudato Si’ encyclical letter is the resonance I find in parts of it with my favourite book on the philosophy of science, Dr. Gavin Ardley’s Aquinas and Kant: The Foundations of the Modern Sciences (1950). The book can be read at:
Whereas the ancient sciences (scientiae) involved a study of actual reality, the more abstract modern sciences (e.g. theoretical physics), involve, as Immanuel Kant had rightly discerned, an active imposition of a priori concepts upon reality. In other words, these ‘sciences’ are largely artificial (or ‘categorial’) – their purpose being generally utilitarian.
Ardley tells of it (Ch. VI: Immanuel Kant):
Kant’s great contribution was to point out the revolution in natural science effected by Galileo and Bacon and their successors. This stands in principle even though all the rest of his philosophy wither away.
Prior to Galileo people had been concerned with reading laws in Nature. After Galileo they read laws into Nature. His clear recognition of this fact makes Kant the fundamental philosopher of the modern world. It is the greatest contribution to the philosophia perennis since St. Thomas. But this has to be dug patiently out of Kant. Kant himself so overlaid and obscured his discovery that is has ever since gone well nigh unrecognised.
We may, in fact we must, refrain from following Kant in his doctrine of metaphysics. The modelling of metaphysics on physics was his great experiment. The experiment is manifestly a failure, in pursuit of what he mistakenly believed to be the best interests of metaphysics.
But, putting the metaphysical experiment aside, the principle on which it was founded abides, the principle of our categorial activity. Later, in Ch. XVIII, we will see in more detail how this principle is essential to the modern development of the philosophia perennis.
Kant was truly the philosopher of the modern world when we look judiciously at his work. As a motto for the Kritik Kant actually quotes a passage from Francis Bacon in which is laid down the programme for the pursuit of human utility and power. [Footnote: The passage is quoted again in this work on [Ardley’s] p. 47.] As we saw in Ch. IV, it was Bacon above all who gave articulate expression to the spirit behind the new science. Now we see that it was Kant who, for the first time, divined the nature of the new science. If Bacon was the politician of the new régime, Kant was its philosopher although a vastly over-ambitious one.
It appears to be this very sort of Baconian “régime” that pope Francis is currently challenging, at least, according to Stephen White’s estimation:
While much has been said about the pope’s embrace of the scientific evidence of climate change and the dangers it poses, the irony is that he addresses this crisis in a way that calls into question some of the oldest and most basic assumptions of the scientific paradigm.
Francis Bacon and René Descartes — two fathers of modern science in particular — would have shuddered at this encyclical. Bacon was a man of many talents — jurist, philosopher, essayist, lord chancellor of England — but he’s mostly remembered today as the father of the scientific method. He is also remembered for suggesting that nature ought to be “bound into service, hounded in her wanderings and put on the rack and tortured for her secrets.”
Descartes, for his part, hoped that the new science he and men like Bacon were developing would make us, in his words, “masters and possessors of nature.”
At the very outset of the encyclical, before any mention of climate change or global warming, Pope Francis issues a challenge to the Baconian and Cartesian view, which sees the world as so much raw material to be used as we please. Neither Descartes nor Bacon is mentioned by name, but the reference is unmistakable. Pope Francis insists that humanity’s “irresponsible use and abuse” of creation has come about because we “have come to see ourselves as [the Earth’s] lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will.”
Not truth, but power lust, will be the prime motivation of these, the Earth’s “lords and masters”, or, as Ardley has put it, “not to know the world but to control it”:
What was needed was for someone to point out clearly the ‘otherness’ of post-Galilean physical science, i.e. the fact that it is, in a sense, cut off from the rest of the world, and is the creation of man himself. The new science has no metaphysical foundations and no metaphysical implications. Kant had the clue to this ‘otherness’ in the categorial theory, but he took the rest of the world with him in the course of the revolution and hence only succeeded in the end in missing the point.
Most people since then, rightly sceptical about Kant’s wholesale revolution, have been quite hostile to the Kantian system in general. Others, perhaps without realising it, have rewritten the revolution in their own terms, and thus have perpetuated Kant’s principal errors (as e.g. Wittgenstein in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus).
A thorough sifting out of Kant has long been required in order to separate the gold from the dross.
….
Kant’s mistake was to think that the world had to be transformed to know it. The truth is that the world may be transformed, if we so dictate, and then it is not to know the world but to control it. ….
[End of quote]
From what follows, I wonder if the pope – or at least White in his comments – may have read Ardley’s book. Dr. Ardley had (on p. 5) pointed out that there are two ways of going about the process of analyzing or dissecting something, depending on one’s purpose. And he well illustrated his point by comparing the practices of the anatomist and the butcher. When an anatomist dissects an animal, he traces out the real structure of the animal; he lays bare the veins, the nerves, the muscles, the organs, and so on. “He reveals the actual structure which is there before him waiting to be made manifest”. The butcher, on the other hand, is not concerned about the natural structure of the animal as he chops it up; he wants to cut up the carcass into joints suitable for domestic purposes. In his activities the butcher ruthlessly cleaves across the real structure laid bare so patiently by the anatomist. “The anatomist finds his structure, the butcher makes his”.
Thus White: “Put another way, Pope Francis insists that the material world isn’t just mere stuff to be dissected, studied, manipulated, and then packaged off to be sold into service of human wants and needs”.
And again:
“The utilitarian mindset that treats creation as so much “raw material to be hammered into useful shape” inevitably leads us to see human beings through the same distorted lens”.
White continues:
The pope repeatedly warns against the presumption that technological advances, in themselves, constitute real human progress. In a typical passage, he writes, “There is a growing awareness that scientific and technological progress cannot be equated with the progress of humanity and history, a growing sense that the way to a better future lies elsewhere.” The pope writes critically of “irrational confidence in progress and human abilities.” He writes hopefully of a time when “we can finally leave behind the modern myth of unlimited material progress.”
Nevertheless:
This isn’t to say that Pope Francis is anti-technology or even, as some have suggested, anti-modern, but he is deeply critical of both our technological mindset and modernity’s utilitarian propensities. While he acknowledges with gratitude the benefits humanity has derived from modern technology, which has “remedied countless evils which used to harm and limit human beings,” he also calls into question — forcefully — the idea that utility is the proper measure of our interaction with creation.
[End of quote]
There may be a better way of doing things in the pursuit of what pope Francis calls an “integral ecology [which] transcend[s] the language of mathematics and biology, and take[s] us to the heart of what it is to be human”.
A too rigid mathematics can make for a cruel master.
Stephen White well sums up the Pope’s outlook:
An integral, human ecology
“Everything is connected” is a constant refrain in this encyclical, and it serves to underscore the way Pope Francis understands the vocation — the calling — of the whole human race. We were made by God and for God. His gift of creation is also part of that vocation and comes with responsibility for its care and development. We’re part of creation, but also is custodians. Creation’s greatest beauty is in its ability to reflect the glory of its maker.
Christians believe in a God who entered into his own creation in order to redeem it Most religions understand that reality is not limited to physical existence; there are also spiritual realities. But Christians, and Catholics in particular, have always insisted that while the spiritual and physical are distinct, they aren’t so easily separated. Even material reality is more than just material.
Many Christians, and certainly Catholics, take a sacramental view of reality: a view in which mere things are never just mere things. All that exists is shot through with meaning, since it bears the fingerprints of the one who made it. Pope Francis quotes Scripture to this effect: “Through the greatness and the beauty of creatures one comes to know by analogy their maker” (Wisdom 13:5).
Moreover, Christians believe in a God who took on human flesh — entered into his own creation — in order to redeem it. “For Christians,” Pope Francis writes, “all the creatures of the material universe find their true meaning in the incarnate Word, for the Son of God has incorporated in his person part of the material world, planting in it a seed of definitive transformation.”
This sacramental view of the world changes the way Catholics estimate the worth and value of things, which have their own intrinsic worth and meaning apart from any utility they might hold for us. Because creation is the gift of a loving God, entrusted to us all for its care and maintenance, we are not free to simply do with it as we please. For Pope Francis, the world is most definitely not what we make of it; it’s much more.
Philosophy and Theology 