PASCHAL PROCLAMATION

Christ is Risen! This is the traditional Paschal Proclamation. My computer thinks it ought to be ‘Christ is raised.’ At least it’s not ‘Christ was risen.’ I’m not questioning ‘historicity.’ I’m thinking about eternity, which is what the resurrection has to do with. Christ Jesus doesn’t merely come back to history in resurrection but transcends time itself and every other created thing. The resurrection does not restore Christ to history, it restores history to Christ.

I don’t much care for Bible movies. A film is a thing I watch passively as a spectator. The word does not allow such passivity. The word requires engagement. The word calls for a dance partner and says follow me. A film seems a step removed from its subject, not closer. On the other hand there is no real distance between the word and the one who receives. A spectator may be acted upon but the word acts within.

If we are going to present the Christian faith as a motion picture then we’re going to need a suitable screen upon which to view it. I suggest mending the Veil of the Temple and projecting our images on it. Be warned, though. This won’t work with the word for the word is a lover and is not content merely to be seen but tears the veil of our soul’s inner sanctum and enters in to share himself with us, planting the seed of eternal life.

Happy Easter!

LOVE

In Plato’s ‘Symposium’ Socrates tells the story of how a priestess, Diotima of Mantinea, taught him about Love. My guess is not everyone learns of it this way.

According to Diotima, Eros/Love was conceived on a Feast of Aphrodite as a result of the coupling of the Spirit of Plenty (Poros) and the Spirit of Poverty (Penae). The Gods do not seek wisdom for they are already wise, but Aphrodite insured that her beloved Son would be a seeker. Edmund Spenser pictured it this way:

Or who alive can perfectly declare
The wondrous cradle of thine infancie,
When thy great mother Venus first thee bare,
Begot of Plenty and of Penurie,
Though elder then thine own nativitie,
And yet a chyld, renewing still thy yeares,
And yet the eldest of the heavenly peares?

(An Hymne In Honour Of Love)

As Diotima describes him, Eros/Love is not “delicate and lovely, but harsh and arid, barefoot and homeless, sleeping on the naked earth, in doorways, or in the very streets beneath the stars of heaven.” He always partakes of his Mother’s poverty and yet is also his Father’s son, the son of Resource/Plenty. “He is a mighty hunter and a master of device and artifice – at once desirous and full of wisdom, a lifelong seeker after truth.” Love, says Diotima, is “neither mortal nor immortal, for in the space of a day he will be now, when all goes well with him, alive and blooming, and now dying, to be born again by virtue of his Father’s nature, while what he gains will always ebb away as fast. So, Love is never altogether in or out of need, and stands, moreover, midway between wisdom and ignorance.”

When I read Diotima’s description of Love as a tough, barefoot, lifelong seeker after truth, at once desirous and full of wisdom, I did not think of Socrates, even though he matches the description. I didn’t make the connection until later, when Alcibiades showed up and spoke of his exploits with Socrates during wartime in the field of battle. Not only did Socrates acquit himself with honor and valor, his bravery made enemy soldiers leery of him. This fact helped him save the life of Alcibiades when the latter was injured. Socrates not only enabled Alcibiades to escape with his life but also retrieved his armor. We’re told that during the winter months of the military campaign Socrates continued to dress in the same simple cloak he always wore (and apparently slept in), and continued to go barefoot as he always did without the slightest complaint. When rations were scarce and they went hungry, no one put a cheerier face on things than Socrates. It wasn’t that he didn’t care for food, for when there was something to eat he enjoyed it right along with the rest of the soldiers, but it just seemed that whatever life sent his way he accepted with remarkable equanimity, so much so, he became a source of amazement to those around him. I suppose they wondered why he was so happy.

Diotima says, “Love is a lover of wisdom, and, being such, he is placed between wisdom and ignorance – for which his parentage also is responsible, in that his Father is full of wisdom and resource, while his Mother is devoid of either.” Philosophy is for lovers, and for Plato no one embodies this more than Socrates. He loves wisdom, and in wisdom he knows that he does not know. He does not think he knows the truth when he does not. And so, Socrates is at once rich and poor, always midway between wisdom and ignorance.

The word ‘pharmakos’ is a loaded term for the Greeks. In Ancient Greece it referred to a cleansing sacrifice made on the 1^st Day of Thargelia, a festival of Apollo observed each year in Athens. The pharmakos was similar to a scapegoat. A condemned prisoner was led outside the city and beaten to death. All the misdeeds, mistakes, sins, and grievances of the previous year were symbolically removed from the city with the pharmakos. The 2^nd Day of Thargelia was a joyful occasion, a time of freshness to celebrate the newness of life as games were played, songs were sung, and children recited the poetry they had learned.

‘Pharmakos’ (pharmakon) also referred to a recipe for a medicine in which a small amount of what is harming us is used to make us well. Jews, Christians, and Muslims might think of Moses holding up the bronze image of a serpent in the wilderness so that those bitten by serpents could be healed by looking at what hurt them. Socrates was a kind of pharmakon in that he used the arts of the sophists against them to demonstrate the inherent weakness and fault of their position. He skillfully used an exact amount of what was making Athens sick to cure her, or more precisely, to allow the body/politic to heal herself. It was nothing if not a labor of love.

Philosophy is not the acquisition of wisdom but the love of wisdom. Plato had such a deep and profound understanding of this he chose to write in dialogue form. Approaching wisdom through dialogue the way Socrates and his interlocutors did is to be involved with each other intimately. Most of us find it less threatening to toss opinions back and forth, but coming together as one in order to move through (dia) the words (logos) of an argument in order to arrive at a mutual understanding requires a level of unity appropriate to lovers. To begin again from a place of not knowing is to be naked and exposed in one’s ignorance, open to the exploring questions of our fellow lovers of wisdom. All of this takes a good deal of trust, and gentleness. It is the stuff of deep spiritual communion.

Love is why Socrates was utterly content as well as a tireless seeker (one might even say a mighty hunter) after wisdom. Love is always full and always emptying itself for its beloved. I’m reminded of the Invocation of the Isha Upanishad: “Fullness comes from fullness. When fullness is taken from fullness, Fullness still remains.” Eros loves not because he is in want; he wants because he loves. Eros loves because it is his nature to love. He is always full and always emptying himself, spending himself into poverty for his beloved only to be raised again according to his Father’s nature.

It was love which allowed Socrates to accept fate as he did. Trying heroically to accept God’s will in a sort of ‘Amor fati’ without self-emptying love is likely to end in suicidal despair. We need the kind of love with which we can see through our selves. It is why Socrates said that Philosophy – the love of wisdom – is about learning to die.

According to Diogenes, citing Apollodorus, Socrates was born on the 1^st Day of Thargelia, the day of cleansing when the sacrificial victim was taken from the city. Plato was born on the 2^nd Day of the Festival, the time for celebration and renewal. These philosophers were true lovers of wisdom, and in love they were led to seek a vision of “an everlasting loveliness which neither comes nor goes, and which neither flowers nor fades away.”