Archiv für Religionsgeschichte
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Archiv für Religionsgeschichte Herausgegeben von
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ISSN 1436-3038 ISBN 978-3-11-019624-5 ” Copyright 2007 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin Printed in Germany Einbandentwurf: Christopher Schneider, Berlin Druck und buchbinderische Verarbeitung: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen
Contents
I. Religion, Mysticism, and Ethics: A Cross-traditional Anthology Christian Wildberg, Daniel Zelinski Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Christopher Key Chapple Disciplines and Vows (Yamas and Vratas): How the Mystical Yields to the Ethical in Yoga and Jainism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Jerome Gellman Jewish Mysticism and Morality: Kabbalah and its Ontological Dualities
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Paul L. Heck Noble Character in Islam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Beverly J. Lanzetta Contemplative Ethics: Intimacy, Amor Mundi and Dignificaton in Teresa of Avila and Julian of Norwich . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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William J. Wainwright Zelinski on Mysticism and Morality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Russ Nieli Mysticism, Morality and the Wittgenstein Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Daniel Zelinski From Prudence to Morality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Steven Heine The Role of Repentance—or Lack of It—in Zen Monasticism . . . . . .
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II. Varia Philippe Matthey Retour sur l’hymne « artalogique » de Karpocrate Chalcis . . . . . . . .
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Peter Jackson Venus erschlgt den Hund . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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Alfred Schfer Orte religiçser Kommunikation von Soldaten in der Provinz Dacia . . .
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Joachim Friedrich Quack Ein gyptischer Dialog ber die Schreibkunst und das arkane Wissen .
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III. Cecilia Ames, Richard S. Ascough, Andreas Bendlin, Ulrike Egelhaaf-Gaiser, Mareile Haase, Annemarie Kaufmann-Heinimann, Jçrg Rpke, Gnther Schçrner, Meriem Seba, Wolfgang Spickermann, Greg Woolf Forschungsbericht Rçmische Religion (2003 – 2005) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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IV. Rezension Christopher Gerard Brown Kai Brodersen, Amina Kropp (eds.), Fluchtafeln. Neue Funde und neue Deutungen zum antiken Schadenzauber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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I. Religion, Mysticism, and Ethics: A Cross-traditional Anthology
Introduction Christian Wildberg Daniel Zelinski More than one hundred years after the first publication of William James’ monumental The Varieties of Religious Experience, the implications of his insightful discussion of ‘religion’ are still being unpacked. James’ unrelenting emphasis on ‘religious experience’ and his free use of illustrations from diverse traditions, cultures, and ages defined a new approach to the academic study of religion. Something like a new consensus of methodology emerged, yet it failed to bring about a consensus in the conclusions drawn. Throughout the twentieth century, prolonged debates have raged in the field of religious studies in general, and in particular on the question of the significance of ‘mysticism’, where profound disagreements over the meaning, and meaningfulness, of terms such as ‘mystic’ or ‘mystical experience’ continue to vex our understanding— especially so when these terms are applied as categories that supposedly transcend the boundaries of specific religious traditions.1 In and of itself, the subject matter of mysticism, whether taken historically or conceptually, is an extraordinarily complex and difficult one, and it is not made any easier by restricting the question to mysticism’s possible moral implications. Mysticism, broadly understood, is the cultivation of mystical experiences or mystical awareness, whatever precisely that may be, and even when some sort of agreement obtains as to who counts as a mystic and what counts as a mystical experience, disagreement may well continue over the moral implications of mysticism. In fact, some argue that mysticism fosters immorality; others regard it as essentially non-moral; and others again consider it to be the very foundation of all morality. In one of his many prophetic insights, James insisted that the fruits of mysticism were too varied to afford meaningful generalizations.2 Since the publication of James’ seminal work, ‘mysticism’ has largely come to be associated with two characteristic traits of human religiosity: first, the 1
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James identified ‘mystical experience’ through four phenomenological characteristics, claiming that such experiences were: ineffable, noetic, transient, & passive; James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902). NY: Touchstone, 1997, pp. 299 – 300. For a recent argument for the meaningfulness of cross-traditional typologies, see Wainwright, William. Mysticism, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983, chapter one. James, p. 324.
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attitude of a pervasive form of ‘detachment’, and second, an awareness of ‘union’ with some particular conception of the divine. Prima facie, these traits lend themselves to a view of mystics as religious recluses, obsessed with their own spiritual experience and indifferent to broader social concerns; such a view will do little to convince critics of the moral significance of mysticism. However, embedded within the accounts of many mystics of diverse religious traditions is the insistence that ‘enlightenment’ does indeed bring with it not only a sense of personal spiritual maturity, but also a perfection of moral character of the individual mystic. Scholars of mysticism in the world religions have shown that intense mystical experiences (let them be events of pure consciousness, or the radiant perception of the unity of all things, or the unshakable awareness of being ‘safe’) alter one’s personality and change the hierarchy of values one espouses. Not counting a few black sheep in the family, mysticism conveys an air of virtue and moral superiority. In the light of these testimonies, we believe that the specific connections between ‘mysticism’ and ‘morality’ warrant closer analysis. There is another reason why it might be attractive and rewarding to link a reflection on moral conduct to the profound religious experiences of union with the divine identified as ‘mystical’. For if an essential link between mysticism and morality can be established, then mystical experiences, and our understanding of them, may possibly serve as a viable alternative to philosophical attempts to justify moral values and norms (such as appeals to ‘moral law’, to what is expedient and useful, to social and/or rational aspects of human nature, or to subjective or universal human emotions). To be sure, there is no unanimity among the contributors to this volume about the plausible fruitfulness of this ambitious hypothesis, but the project is a noble one, and the discussion well worth having. The present collection of essays grew out of the colloquium entitled Religion, Mysticism, and Ethics: A Interdisciplinary Colloquium on the Ethical Status of Mysticism in the World Religions, held at Princeton University in May, 2003. The presentations at that conference and the explorations which comprise this anthology were guided by questions such as these: 1. What are the main phenomenological characteristics of the pinnacle state described by a particular mystic in a particular mystic tradition? 2. How is the mystic’s perception of ‘self ’ and its relation to others affected by this state? 3. What virtues are instrumentally valued for their ability to foster this state? 4. Does the state result in or involve any shift in one’s values or one’s behavior? If so, have they shifted in a direction which could be consider more “otherregarding”?
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In general, the individual essays are unified by the central guiding question, how do mystics’ views of ethics (contained, e.g., in the set of values they profess and practice) relate to their views of mystical experience? The discussions in this anthology approach the central question in diverse ways as the scholars wrestle with the topic under suppositions of different conceptions of mysticism, different notions of morality, and with yet another set of ideas how these two might be related—or not related. Generally speaking, there seem to be four theoretical possibilities: 1. The two are unrelated. 2. Ethical behavior is a means to personal enlightenment. 3. Mystical experience reinforces the mystic’s prior (tradition-specific) values. 4. Mystical experience provides the mystic with a foundation for a transformed system of value. With the exception of Gellman’s analysis of classical Hasidic mysticism, all of the contributors deny (1) in the case of the particular mystics they consider. Given that morality is concerned with ‘value’, and that mystics frequently claim that their experience gives them privileged access to ‘the good’, this may seem hardly surprising. Possibility (3) is consistent with the generally held view that mystical experiences are largely constructed within the purview of specific traditions; hence, the values and virtues mystics associate with enlightenment are generally connected to the mystic’s religious tradition as well.3 Indeed, it seems nearly self-evident that the effects of an experience of “union with the divine” is going to be dependent upon one’s prior conception of the divine and its relation to morality and humanity. However, many mystics have drawn attention to specific, and sometimes radically non-traditional, values and virtues “arising from” the experience of enlightenment (4); in particular, they frequently highlight universal compassion and love, which crosses the boundaries of tradition. Moreover, many enlightened mystics have arrived at an understanding of ‘the good’ in such a way as to emboldened them to take up a stance of hypernomianism. Hope for any progress in this debate is held out only by careful analysis of the writings of the mystics themselves, the end towards which the individual essays of this volume are directed. To help the reader, we offer very brief synopses of the articles: 3
This position has been championed by Steven Katz who has defended what he has described as the conservative character of mystical experience. Katz, Steven. Mysticism and Religious Traditions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983. “Ethics and Mysticism” in Foundations of Ethics, edited by Leroy Rouner. Notre Dame University Press, 1983. “Ethics and Mysticism in Eastern Mystical Traditions”. Religious Studies 28, pp. 253 – 267.
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Christopher Key Chapple (Disciplines and Vows (Yamas and Vratas): How the Mystical Yields to the Ethical in Yoga and Jainism) offers an account of William James’ notion of ‘conversion experience’ within the Yoga and Jain traditions and elucidates the moral precepts which are seen as both necessary for and perfected by these experiences. Reflections on his own training in these traditions enrich his explication. Steven Heine (The Role of Repentance—or Lack of it—in Zen Monasticism) explores the de-emphasis on social responsibility (i.e. repentance and regret) within Zen monasticism, which stressed “formless repentance” through the cultivation of an awareness of the inherent emptiness of all things. He concludes with an account of recent developments within contemporary Japanese Buddhism which apply traditional Buddhist notions of ‘repentance’ to Buddhist institutions and social practices. Beverly J. Lanzetta (Contemplative Ethics: Intimacy, Amor Mundi and Dignification in Teresa of Avila and Julian of Norwich) provides an illuminating conceptual excavation of the biographies of Teresa of Avila and Julian of Norwich which counters the academic opinion that mystics are prone towards antinomianism and moral apathy. In contrast with the post-enlightened ethical emphasis on individual liberty and rights, Lanzetta paints a picture of a contemplative “ethics of perfection” centering around virtues of prayer, selflessness, and loving compassion. Paul Heck (Noble Character in Islam) focuses on major Sufis from the early and classical stages of Islamic history. Heck provides a portrait of Sufism as a moral complement to Islamic legalism. While legalism demarcates moral conduct, Sufi mysticism addresses the cultivation of moral character expressed through a sincere attitude and a “hypernomian” perspective. Jerome Gellman (Jewish Mysticism and Morality: Kabbalah and its Ontological Dualities) deals with Jewish mysticism centered around the kabbalah and explorers two ontological dualities, man/woman and Jew/non-Jew, which he sees as inherent within Jewish mystical theology. After an analysis of how these dualities operate on a moral level in traditional kabbalah mysticism, he examines some 20th century cases where they appear to be transcended. He concludes with an analysis of why Jewish mysticism lacked any developed unrestricted morality (i.e. moral values or norms which, at least in theory, apply equally to all humans). Russ Nieli (Mysticism, Morality, and the Wittgenstein Problem) argues that the via negativa solution is the best explanation for the existence of mystical themes within Wittgenstein’s Tractatus. Nieli continues to extract from Wittgenstein’s early works descriptions of three types of mystical experiences providing a vague but incorrigible sense of “the (ultimate) good”. He concludes with an examination of the impact of James’ Varieties of Religious Experience on
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Wittgenstein—noting that for both the religious life provided a sense of absolute safety and the means to transcend self-centeredness. Focusing on Dogen Zenji and Meister Eckhart, Daniel Zelinski (From Prudence to Morality: A Case for the Morality of Some Forms of Nondualistic Mysticism) offers a conceptual model of how, at least according to some mystics, an extrovertive non-dualistic mystical awareness grounds the virtue of compassion. Then, utilizing this model, he offers responses to charges that non-dualistic mysticism is essentially amoral because it is inconsistent with belief in morally relevant distinctions among persons and/or morally relevant distinctions among actions. Finally, William J. Wainwright (Zelinski on Mysticism and Morality) questions whether one is conceptually and historically warranted to draw clear connections between mystical experiences and moral norms that are supposedly superior and admirable. Taking the mystics’ humility and compassion as examples, Wainwright argues that their conceptualizations and practice are bound to be infused with the values and outlooks of a particular religion—and hence inherently problematic. The editors would like to thank the participants for their patience, the editorial board of the Archiv fr Religionsgeschichte for generously agreeing to publish the proceedings of the colloquium, and Princeton’s Center for the Study of Religion for its extensive support and ongoing encouragement.
Disciplines and Vows (Yamas and Vratas): How the Mystical Yields to the Ethical in Yoga and Jainism Christopher Key Chapple Conversion followed with a life-altering resolve to abide by high ethical standards constitutes a core piece of the process of religious experience. In this paper, I will first explore the contours of these two ideas as articulated a century ago by William James. I will then look at two traditions from India that offer an Asian counterpart to this process of self-discovery: Yoga and Jainism. I will include with some reflections on my own training on the spiritual path within these traditions. William James and Walt Whitman William James writes extensively about the process of conversion. He describes it in the context of several different religious traditions and defines conversion as follows: To be converted, to be regenerated, to receive grace, to experience religion, to gain an assurance, are so many phrases which denote the process, gradual or sudden by which a self hitherto divided, and consciously wrong inferior and unhappy, becomes unified and consciously right superior and happy, in consequence of its firmer hold upon religious realities.1
James states that this experience, regardless of the particular religious tradition, changes a person. Rather than considering religion to be extraneous or uninteresting, religious ideas move the core of one’s being: To say that a man is ‘converted’ means, in these terms, that religious ideas, previously peripheral in his consciousness, now take a central place, and that religious aims form the habitual centre of his energy.2
In conjunction with this transformation, James states that a purity arises that alters one’s actions within the world:
1 2
William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (London: Collier Boorks, 1961), p. 160. Ibid., p. 165
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The shifting of the emotional centre brings with it, first, increase of purity. … the cleansing of existence from brutal and sensual elements becomes imperative.3
In other words, an individual who has undergone the process of conversion feels a compulsion and responsibility to move away from one’s base impulses and develop a more elevated, more ethical lifestyle. James cites the life and work of Walt Whitman as an example of a modern American saint, an individual he considers to have been touched and transformed by conversion. He quotes William Bucke’s classic book, Cosmic Consciousness, in regard to Whitman: His favorite occupation seemed to be strolling or sauntering outdoors by himself, looking at the grass, the trees, the flowers, the vistas of light, the varying aspects of the sky, and listening to the birds, the crickets, the tree frogs, and all the hundreds of natural sounds. It was evident that these things gave him a pleasure far beyond what they give to ordinary people. … All natural objects seemed to have a charm for him. All sights and sounds seemed to please him. … He never spoke deprecatingly of any nationality or class of men, or time in the world’s history, or against any trades or occupations—not even against any animals, insects, or inanimate things, not any of the laws of nature, nor any of the results of those laws, such as illness, deformity, and death. He never complained or grumbled either at the weather, pain, illness, or anything else.4
Bucke writes about a link between immersion into cosmic consciousness and the moral life: The prime characteristic of cosmic consciousness is a consciousness of the cosmos, that is, of the life and order of the universe. Along with consciousness of the cosmos there occurs an intellectual enlightenment which alone would place the individual on a new plane of existence—would make him almost a member of a new species. To this is added a state of moral exultation, an indescribable feeling of elevation, elation, and joyousness, and a quickening of the moral sense, which is fully as striking, and more important than is the enhanced intellectual power.5
After citing Bucke’s descriptions of this relationship between conversion and ethics, William James then makes a direct connection between Bucke’s articulation of cosmic consciousness and the Yoga tradition. He writes that “In India, training in mystical insight has been known from time immemorial under the name of yoga.”6 Quoting Swami Vivekananda, he writes that in the highest states of Yoga:
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Ibid., p. 221. William Bucke, Cosmic Consciousness: A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind, Philadelphia, 1901, pp. 182 – 186, as quoted in William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, London: Collier Books, 1961, pp. 82 – 83. William Bucke, Cosmic Consciousness, p. 2, as quoted in James, p. 313. James, op. cit., p. 314.
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There is no feeling of I, and yet the mind works, desireless, free from restlessness, objectless, bodiless. Then the Truth shines in its full effulgence, and we know ourselves—for sama¯dhi lies potential in us all—for what we truly are, free, immortal, omnipotent, loosed from the finite.7
James notes that a profound religious experience can lead to the control of sexual impulses and sobriety, affirming similar statements in the Yoga Su¯tra. This brings us to a discussion of the first of the two Indian philosophical and religious traditions that we will explore in the course of this paper: Yoga. Yoga Philosophy and Ethics In the Yoga tradition, Sama¯dhi comprises the core conversion moment. In PataÇjali’s Yoga Su¯tra (ca. 200 C.E.), this is defined as a state where “one’s thoughts diminish and one becomes like a clear jewel, assuming the color of any near object, with unity among grasper, grasping, and grasped.”8 In other words, one becomes transparent to one’s surroundings, blending in with and taking on the qualities of others. Rather than applying one’s own standard to reality, one can fully experience things as they present themselves. Such a person becomes liberated from the influences of past karma and can dwell moment by moment, adapting to circumstance and situation. From this experience, one feels a connectedness between oneself and other beings, which can bring a heightened sense of responsibility and accountability. As a result, a desire to cultivate and abide by a higher moral standard, as suggested by Bucke, may ensue. Ethics plays a central, foundational role in the eightfold path outlined by PataÇjali. By the second century of the common era, PataÇjali had compiled an array of practices under the philosophical umbrella of the Sa¯m . khya metaphysical school and promulgated a system of Yoga that borrows from Vedic, Jaina and Buddhist schools of thought and practice. Unlike Sa¯m . khya, and like Jainism, Buddhism, and the Dharmasha¯stra materials of the Brahmanical Hindu tradition, PataÇjali emphasizes the importance of ethical practices in the practice of Yoga, both in preparation for states of Sama¯dhi and, in a sense, in affective response to the experience of Sama¯dhi. He suggests that one may cultivate “friendliness, compassion, happiness, and equanimity” as a means of achieving Sama¯dhi.9 He later lists five precepts that delineate the ethical practices of Yoga: nonviolence (ahim . sa¯), truthfulness (satya), not stealing 7 8 9
Swami Vivekanda, Raja Yoga, London, 1896, as quoted in James, p. 315. Yoga Su¯tra II:41, as translated in The Yoga Su¯tras of PataÇjali: An Analysis of the Sanskrit with Accompanying English Translation by Christopher Chapple and Yogi Ananda Viraj (Eugene P. Kelly, Jr.), Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications, 1990, p. 20. Yoga Su¯tra I:33.
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(asteya), sexual restraint (brahmacarya) and nonpossession (aparigraha).10 Interestingly, this list predates PataÇjali by at least five centuries and forms the core ethical system for the Jaina religious tradition, particularly as found in the A¯ca¯ra¯n.ga Su¯tra (ca. 300 to 400 B.C.E.). In this presentation, I will intertwine a discussion of the ethics of both Yoga and Jainism as found in these two texts. Additionally, I will explore the psychological and theological impetus for the practice of these ethical precepts, as summarized in karma theory. The theory of karma in Hindu thought can be found in the Upanishads and the Yoga tradition. One of the most technical accounts is contained in the Yoga Su¯tra, which specifies that karma comes in three colors (black, white, mixed),11 and that all karma presents itself as vitiated with a combination of five impurities or kles´as. 12 PataÇjali lists these impurities as ignorance, egoism, attraction, repulsion, and clinging to life.13 These five bind an individual within rebirth (sam . sa¯ra) and a blind repetition of prior action based on conditioning seeds (bı¯ja or sam . ska¯ra) deposited through routine, indiscriminate pursuit of desire. PataÇjali defines ignorance as anitya as´uci duh. kha ana¯tmasu nitya ´suci sukha a¯tma¯ khya¯tir avidya¯ Ignorance is seeing the transient as intransigent, a sullied thing as pure, a painful experience as pleasure, and the ego as one’s true self.14
Knowledge here refers not to knowing the size and shape of things but entails wisdom resulting from a process of introspection about the ultimate purpose of things. By seeing the evanescent quality of apparent reality, one develops the ability to stand aloof from the drama of catching and holding without pause or reflection. This analysis extends to the ego itself. By noticing that the attributes through which an individual holds to a fixed sense of self generally are subject to constant change, rigidity and fixity can be loosened. In the process, one comes to understand the twin dynamic of attraction and repulsion, the realm of opposites, of likes and dislikes, that often drives an individual to seek out preferences and avoid discomforts without a depth of understanding. This interplay of ignorance and ego, allurement and repulsion, repeats itself again and again, accustoming a person to a repetitive rhythm that lulls one into a 10 11 12 13 14
Yoga Yoga Yoga Yoga Yoga
Su¯tra Su¯tra Su¯tra Su¯tra Su¯tra
II:30 – 39. IV:7. II:12. II:3. II:5.
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sense of thinking the world could not be different or more important than a constant repeat of what has been played before. However, this ignorant worldview leads ultimately to discomfort. Our bodies age, our friends and relatives may predecease us, our expectations in life can lead to disappointment. As an antidote, Yoga karma theory suggests that we seek out an understanding of the origins of things and their ultimate purpose. PataÇjali states: Heyam . duh. kham . ana¯gatam . The pain of the future is to be avoided (through contemplation).15
By examining the seed causes of repetitive behavior, one can anticipate and restructure one’s comportment within the world and restructure one’s behavior in a manner enhanced by dignity. In the first section of the Yoga Su¯tra, PataÇjali states that the practice of concentration can wear away the seeds of past action 16 (sam . ska¯ra). In the second section of the Yoga Su¯tra, PataÇjali prescribes cultivating the opposite (prati-paksha-bha¯vanam . ), literally, using the other 17 wing. The prime tool to achieve this goal can be found in the ethical practices of the five great vows. PataÇjali’s Yoga Su¯tra describes these vows in a series of six aphorisms. He begins with an assessment of the need to control one’s thoughts and actions, pointing out that if one does not abide by these precepts, suffering and endless ignorance will result: Discursive thoughts like violence, etc., whether done, caused or approved, consisting in lust, anger, or delusion, and whether mild, medium, or intense, have as their endless fruits dissatisfaction and ignorance. Thus, cultivation of opposites is prescribed. (II:34)
He then states each of the five required practices, and indicates a benefit to each one: When in the presence of one established in nonviolence, there is the abandonment of hostility. (II:35). When established in truthfulness, there is correspondence between action and fruit. (II:36). When established in nonstealing, whatever is present is all jewels. (II:37). When established in sexual restraint, vigor is obtained. (II:38). When steadfast in nonpossession, there is knowledge of “the how” of existence. (II:39). 15 Yoga Su¯tra II:16. 16 Yoga Su¯tra I:50. 17 Yoga Su¯tra II:34.
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Swami Jyotir Mayananda, a 20th century Yoga teacher who resided in Puerto Rico and Florida for many years, has written that An aspirant must be able to understand that every negative thought process must be controlled the moment it emerges from the unconsciousness in the form of a tiny ripple. Just as a spark of fire can be easily crushed between one’s fingers, but, when it is allowed to grow, even the most advanced fire-extinguishing methods become ineffective. Forests are consumed in blazing fire. In the same way, an evil thoughtwave must be nipped in the very bud. It is easy to control it with the art of Pratipaksha Bha¯vana. But, when it is allowed to stay and grow in the mind, it assumes various perverse forms so that it is very, very difficult to recognize it, and it is further difficult to eradicate it. Thus, an aspirant must control and sublimate every thought wave that promotes violence, falsehood, impurity, greed, discontent, and lack of devotion to God.18
Through the control of thoughts by the practice of these five vows, a control of one’s thinking process emerges that enhances an ethical way of life. Jyotir Mayananda has given multiple reflections on how to practice each of these five disciplines, and quoted various others including Mahatma Gandhi and Ramana Maharshi regarding this topic. A few of his reflections are as follows: When you keep your mind free from developing thoughts of hatred and anger even under provocative conditions, you are practicing mental non-violence.19 There is no strength greater than Truth. There is no wealth greater than Truth. By the pursuit of Truth, one acquires boundless willpower.20 Stealing in the broad sense has many subtler implications. In its grossest expressions this vice manifests in thieves, robbers, swindlers and similar criminals. But it continues to exist in different forms in all people, until the Yogic insight eliminates it.21 On the human level, lack of control in seeking sex-pleasures, and lack of the recognition of social and moral restraint in sex-relationships, is an expression of degeneration and deterioration of personality.22 …[W]hen a Yogi develops the quality of non-covetousness, he becomes a true master of his possessions. He is no longer possessed by the objects that he possesses…. The virtue of non-covetousness holds manifold blessings for the individual as well as the world outside. To the individual it opens the ever-increasing expansions of the Self; and to the world it promotes harmony, economic balance, love and understanding…23
Swami Jyotir Mayananda has reflected on the broader ramifications of ethical practice and suggests an array of practical applications for non-violence, truthfulness, not stealing, sexual restraint, and nonpossession. 18 Swami Jyotir Mayananda, Yoga of Sex-Sublimation, Truth & Non-Violence (Miami, Florida: International Yoga Society, no date), pp. 22 – 23. 19 Ibid., p. 30 20 Ibid., p. 49. 21 Ibid., p. 99. 22 Ibid., p. 77. 23 Ibid., p. 105.
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From 1973 until 1985, my wife and I lived within a small spiritual community that practiced classical Yoga under the guidance of Gura¯n. i AÇjali, a woman from Calcutta. At Yoga Anand Ashram in Amityville, New York, students in the applied method (sa¯dhana) classes are given a discipline and/or observance to practice for the week. The first time I heard about this approach to spiritual practice was in conversation with Carole Zeiler in the Student Union at the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1972. A member of the Ashram, she said that she had received her sa¯dhana in the mail, and she was to practice nonviolence or ahim . sa¯, which meant, among other things, that she needed to find cookies made without eggs! I became intrigued with the detail of this practice, which was my first introduction to dietary orthopraxy. Several months later, after moving to Long Island, I entered a sa¯dhana class, and each week brought a new challenge. How could I make my life more austere? We routinely observed a weekly fast and weekly day of silence as an aspect of austerity (tapas). But what more could be done? We worked at not walking off with little things like pencils and or hording intangible things like time while practicing not stealing (asteya), another of the five ethical disciplines in the first stage of PataÇjali’s eightfold path. Truthfulness (satya), another discipline, was always a great challenge. How could I resist the temptation to exaggerate? Was my being in the world fully authentic? Though my wife and I shared these practices with one another, the bulk of our days were spent on a university campus where such topics were not appropriate to bring up in conversation. So we cultivated a life of ethical introspection rooted in PataÇjali’s yoga while engaged in our studies and campus jobs, enjoying the company of our fellow Yoga students while in class at night and on the weekends. In little and big ways, we forged a different path than that dictated by the culture, which, I think, was promoting disco dancing and the hustle. Perhaps the biggest culture gap came with the practice of nonpossession (aparigraha). For our teacher, this meant avoidance of debt. In India, lending policies have historically been draconian. Until recently, even houses were paid for with cash. We came to value and stretch our meager resources and live a truly simple lifestyle that has carried over to a certain extent in our adult years. In order to give a sense of the day to day nature of the practice of ethics in the Yoga tradition, I have found entries from some journals written in the 1970 s and 1980 s. Ahim . sa¯. When I drive on the Parkway I sometimes look at other people. And I see that they’re doing the same thing I am, using the same vehicles: automobile, sense and motor faculties. This example can be expanded to show that all people… are the same. And once I see that sameness I’m living the Golden Rule and doing ahim . sa¯. (1976) Satya is that part of me where I try to find words and yet I’m always questioning “Who do these words come from?” Is it possible for me to express my sat
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(existence), my truth, my being, my philosophy in original form, without all I have heard and read before? (1976) Asteya [is] physically not stealing, not taking, respecting others’ possessions. [It is] mentally not stealing, not harboring belittling thoughts which diminish another’s self respect; not stealing space from another person’s mood. Spiritually, there is nothing outside of one’s self to steal. (1976) With Brahmacarya I see sexual thoughts and in seeing them and breathing I can control them. (1976) Aparigraha or not possessing is freedom, freedom from clinging, freedom from bringing oneself down out of pure spirit into the psychological and physical. And yet, freedom lies in the body and the workings of the mind, as it is through these faculties only that we experience freedom. (1976) Ahim . sa¯, protecting bugs, seeing people. Satya, being firm with myself in the world; being honest with others and yet trying not to hurt them. Asteya, not taking time from others; not imposing myself. Brahmacarya: putting myself in situations of confrontation with thoughts. The purpose of brahmacarya on the physical level and the mental level is to conserve energy; on the spiritual level it is to see all beings of both sexes as the same as oneself, to see the light within and not the gross alone. Aparigraha: appreciating and not grasping. ( 1976) Aparigraha is a beautiful discipline. I usually work on it the most before going to sleep and when I wake up in the morning. Through it, situations are discriminated away until a silent space of non-possessiveness is felt, if only for a second. (1979) Satya. Through involvement with other, there is a release from self, simultaneous with naked honesty. (1980)
Reading this scant sampling from hundreds of pages of journal reflections, I am reminded of how the ethical mind can be cultivated through the practice of Yoga. Each week we would be assigned an ethical precept upon which to reflect. We were encouraged to post the word on the refrigerator, to repeat the word again and again, and to reflect and write about the experience. Sometimes we would be assigned a single practice for weeks on end. Other times we would be asked to write down the names of the five disciplines and pick a new one from a bowl each morning. The practice of these disciplines engages the memory. I struggled at times to remember which discipline I was practicing. I had to stretch to apply the vow on some occasions. On other occasions, it stood by me like a cherished friend. By creating a groove through repeated returns to the word and its meaning, a new way of engaging in the world emerged. The “cultivation of opposites” gave me permission to confront my fears, to understand my pettiness, and in some instances transcend what I had always assumed to be myself. In the Buddhist tradition, moral sensibilities arise via two avenues. The first, referred to as apatrapa¯, is practiced when others tell one to perform specific correct behaviors. The second, known as hrı¯, arises from the heart. One has
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learned and interiorized the path of making the correct choice. Rather than being imposed externally, this higher form of moral life arises from within oneself, through one’s efforts. The cultivation of spiritual practice or sa¯dhana begins with instruction from someone one respects and trusts. This person has dedicated herself or himself to giving advice to others based on personal experience. However, the actual experience of that person, that teacher, is far less important than the willingness of the sa¯dhak or spiritual practitioner to enter her or his own path. By taking the tools offered by a teacher, one takes the opportunity to reform, to remold, to refashion oneself. The daily or weekly practice of the five vows offers fertile ground for the planting of new seeds. The thoughts engendered by the remembrance of nonviolence, for instance, automatically begin a process of deconditioning and reconditioning. In the training received by wife and myself, our circumstances themselves provided the context for our make-over. Our marriage, our work, and eventually our children all became the ground through which we were able to apply these principles and practices. As I later trained to become a theologian, I often have drawn from this early training, particularly within the area of ethics. For instance, in a book titled Nonviolence to Animals, Earth, and Self in Asian Traditions, I attempt to apply the practice of the five great vows to environmental ethics: The first vow, ahim . sa¯, requires respect for and protection of all life forms, stemming from the premise that even a blade of grass is not different from oneself in its essential vitality. Advocates of vegetarianism claim that abstention from eating meat not only spares the lives of animals, but also helps contribute to a healthy ecosystem. The third vow, not stealing, means that one abstains from taking what does not belong to oneself. This can be particularly instructive for people of the ‘developed world’ who continue to consume the majority of the world’s resources, spewing forth pollution as a primary byproduct. The fourth vow, that of nonpossession, is tacitly environmental… The less one owns, the less harm has been committed to one’s ecosphere. On a practical level, the fifth vow, sexual restraint, can be seen as one way to hold down population growth. Psychologically, it can be used as an exercise in post-patriarchal interpersonal relations, in which regarding other bodies as potential objects for sexual gratification or the seeing of others as manipulable is transformed into seeing other people and other people’s bodies as not different from oneself.24
I have also employed reflection on the five great vows to other contexts in my professional life, such as protection of animals, responses to war, and the conduct of religious leaders. The application of these disciplines, rather than appealing strictly to the rational faculty, calls up an affective response, a response built on memories of past practice and experiences. Numerous memory points 24 Christopher Key Chapple, Nonviolence to Animals, Earth, and Self in Asian Traditions (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), p. 71.
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become activated in the process of making ethical decisions. By engaging the ideas and methods of the ancient yoga system as taught by traditional teachers for hundreds of years, some new solutions to contemporary issues might be found. Jainism and the Practice of Nonviolence The Jaina tradition refers to the William James conversion moment as samyak dr.sti, described as seeing things as equal or same. Both this term and the Hindu ˙˙ term sama¯dhi contain a variation of the word sama or sameness as well as variant that relates to vision (dhı¯, dr.sti). In both traditions, this experience can result in ˙˙ a profound change in a person. In the Yoga tradition, it is said that sama¯dhi can lead one to overcome past habits, eventually leading to a state of purity or seedlessness. In the Jaina tradition, it can enable one to progress up the ladder of spirituality (s´reni) toward the world of perfection (siddha loka). In both Hinduism and Jainism, we find extensive discussion of conversion, in the sense intended by William James. Having had a glimpse into the state variously known as cosmic consciousness, sama¯dhi, or samyak dr.sti, one then assiduously ˙˙ pursues an internally inspired ethical course that transforms action from mundane repetition of personal preferences or cultural conformity into a concerted effort to recapture the inspiration felt in the state of cosmic connectedness. In the Jaina tradition, the starting point for authentic spirituality begins with this moment of conversion. Dr. Padmanabh S. Jaini has described the state of samyak dr.sti, which is documented to last from a single instant up to forty˙˙ eight minutes, as a temporary experience of feeling liberated from all fettering karmas: So great is the purity generated by this flash of insight that enormous numbers of bound karmas are driven out of the soul altogether, while future karmic influx is severely limited in both quantity and intensity.25
This moment entails a leaving behind of preoccupation with the body, with psychological states, and with possessions. The gross forms of anger, pride, deceit and greed are “rendered inoperative.” One “no longer perceives things as ‘attractive’ or ‘desirable’ but one penetrates to the fact that every aspect of life is transitory and mortal.”26. At this point a resolve sets in to change one’s lifestyle and to adopt the purposeful observance of the vows (vrata) of Jainism. 25 Padmanabh S. Jaini, The Jaina Path of Purification (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), p. 144. 26 Ibid., p. 149
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One anthropological account of this conversion experience has been documented by James Laidlow. He records a moment in the life of a woman who subsequently decided to become a Jaina nun: The decision came one morning when she walked into the kitchen. There was a cockroach in the middle of the floor, “and I just looked at it and suddenly I thought, ‘Why should I stay in this world where there is just suffering and death and rebirth?’”27
This woman embarked on a changed life, renouncing her family, her name, any claims to wealth, all in order to begin a life of austerity designed to minimize harm to all living beings. The earliest full account of the five precepts that govern and define the life of both practitioners of Yoga and of the Jaina faith can be found in the A¯ca¯ra¯n.ga Su¯tra, the oldest surviving Jaina text, which was composed before the common era. Though the vows are identical to those listed above in the context of the Yoga Su¯tra, this particular listing is more generous with its language than PataÇjali. The A¯ca¯ra¯n.ga Su¯tra articulates the five great vows as follows: I renounce all killing of living beings, whether subtle or gross, whether movable or immovable. Nor shall I myself kill living beings, nor cause others to do it, nor consent to it.28 I renounce all vices of lying speech arising from anger or greed or fear or mirth. I shall neither myself speak lies, nor cause others to speak lies, nor consent to the speaking of lies by others.29 I renounce all taking of anything not given, either in a village or a town or a wood, either of little or much, of small or great, of living or lifeless things. I shall neither take myself what is not given, nor cause others to take it, nor consent to their taking it.30 I renounce all sexual pleasures, either with gods or men or animals. This vow also includes the following: not to “continually discuss topics relating to women,” not to “regard and contemplate the lovely forms of women,” not to “recall to his mind the pleasures and amusements he formerly had with women”.31 It also states that “a Nirgrantha does not eat and drink too much, or drink liquors or eat highly seasoned dishes” and that a “Nirgrantha does not occupy a bed or couch affected by women, animals, or eunuchs.”32
27 James Laidlaw, Riches and Renunciation: Religion, Economy, and Society among the Jains (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1995), p. 157. 28 Herman Jacobi, Jaina Su¯tras Translated from Prakrit (New York: Dover Publications, 1968), p. 202. First edition published by Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1884. 29 Jacobi, Ibid., p 204. 30 Ibid.p. 205 – 206. 31 Ibid., 207 32 Ibid., p. 208.
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I renounce all attachments, whether little or much, small or great, living or lifeless; neither shall I myself form such attachments, nor cause others to do so, nor consent to their doing so.33
Each of these five vows helps to encourage the monk, nun, or layperson to work diligently for self-perfection. By recognizing the inter-related nature of life, one develops a respect for other life forms. Mahavira himself, the fifth century teacher who standardized Jainism as it is practiced today, was considered a keen observer of nature: Thoroughly knowing the earth-bodies and water-bodies and fire-bodies and windbodies, the lichens, seeds, and sprouts, he comprehended that they are, if narrowly inspected, imbued with life.34
This perception of the beauty and complexity of nature formed the foundation for the great teaching of non-violence (ahim . sa¯) that so aptly characterizes the Jaina faith. Mahatma Gandhi gave voice to an ethical path that transformed the history of the world. Gandhi enacted not only the liberation of India from colonial British rule but inspired the Civil Rights movement in the United States during the 1960 s. Gandhi had a conversion experience while being ejected from a train in South Africa and from this jolt changed the political climate within the world for the latter half of the 20th century. Mahatma Gandhi built his campaign to free India of colonial rule in part with inspiration from his Jaina friends, most notably Rajchandra Bhai. Equipped with a resolve to be respectful to all beings, Gandhi explored all five themes in his work, most notably nonviolence (ahim . sa¯), holding to truth (satyagraha), sexual restraint (brahmacarya), and owning as little as possible (aparigraha). His selfless toil resulted in a free India and his core ideology shaped India’s self-identity and economic reforms until the liberalization of trade laws in the early 1990 s under Rajiv Gandhi. A core precept of Gandhian ethics is to examine oneself first. At a recent annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion in Atlanta, one of Gandhi’s grandchildren told the story of a young mother who implored Gandhi to tell her son, under doctor’s orders, to eat fewer sweets. Gandhi told her to come back in a week, at which time he lectured the young man to good effect. When the mother asked why Gandhi needed to wait so long to deliver this important message, Gandhi replied, “Why Madam, one week ago, I myself ate sweets daily. Before I could hope to alter your son’s habits, I needed a week to correct my own excesses.” In other words, the moral life begins with one’s own patterns and practices. 33 Ibid., p. 208 34 Ibid., pp. 80 – 81.
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Conclusion William James articulated an important insight. Authentic religious experience leads to a change in one’s behavior, ideally transforming an individual into a more empathetic, ethical person. For Yogis and Jains, this religious transformation stems from and leads to the adoption and ongoing practice of five vows: nonviolence, truthfulness, not stealing, sexual restraint, and nonpossession, applied according to each person’s place in life. Individuals in history have adapted, interpreted, and championed these vows for a variety of causes, most notably Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. By seeing how ethical behavior finds its roots in religious experience, and by exploring the various applications of these traditional and innovative pathways, one can more deeply appreciate the optimism and pragmatism and high regard in which William James held the religious quest.
Jewish Mysticism and Morality: Kabbalah and its Ontological Dualities Jerome Gellman Introduction In addressing Jewish mysticism and morality, I will be confining myself to the major historical phenomenon of Jewish mysticism, the kabbalah. Having its roots in earlier mysticism, kabbalah flourished in the 13th century in the Gerona school of mysticism and with the appearance of the Book of the Zohar, ascribed by tradition to the second century Rabbi Shimon Bar Yohai, but attributed by scholars to Moses de Leone, of Granada. It reached its most creative expression in Safed, Palestine, in the 16th century, in the mysticism of Rabbi Isaac Luria and his pupils and associates. It then flowed into the Hasidic movement starting in the 18th century, and continues to be studied and cultivated down to our day. Henceforth, when I refer simply to “Jewish mysticism” I will mean that chief form of mysticism in Judaism. I will be using the term “mysticism,” to refer first to unitive experiences, monistic, theistic, nature mysticism, or whatever, involving a phenomenological de-emphasis, blurring, or eradication of multiplicity. For example, in monistic mysticism, all (or almost all) distinctions disappear; in theistic mysticism, some form of union blurs the separation of the mystic from God; and in nature mysticism, all becomes an essential, complex, unity. Mystical experience, in this narrow sense, excludes numinous experiences, which are non-unitive, and (mere) theurgic practices. Secondly, I mean “mysticism” to cover theologies (in a wide sense, meant to include Buddhism) in which unitive experiences play (or: played) a central grounding role. Accordingly, my focus in what follows will be on the influence, or lack of it, of mystical experience upon the moral vision of kabbalah, as an instance of mystical theology. Unitive experience figures centrally in kabbalah in a number of ways, chiefly in the experience of the “unity of the worlds” and in the experience of the ayin, “Nothingness.” The kabbalah speaks of almah d’pirudah and almah d’yihudah, the “world of separation,” and the “world of unity.” These refer to conditions of the supernal divine emanation of ten sefirot, “aspects” of the Divine, and their constellations in layers of divine “worlds.” In the “world of separation,” the divine world-elements exist in disjointed isolation from one another, with no
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mutual support and interpenetration. In the “world of unity,” the divine elements are in a splendidly harmonious structure, in which each part contains within it elements of all other parts, ad infinitum. Human actions, more specifically Jewish actions, theurgically determine whether the worlds are chaotic and disjointed, or structured and harmonious. In turn, the condition of the upper worlds determines whether our mundane world is itself chaotic and fragmented, or harmoniously ordered. In mystical prayer, especially, a mystic can act to help bring about the world of unity as well as find himself in it experientially. Above the experience of structural unity, lies the highest experience for the Jewish mystic, that of the ayin, or the “Nothingness,” the source of all the divine emanations. In the ayin, all opposites and distinctions vanish. Prof. Elior has explored the concept of ayin, with special application to the Hasidism of Habad. In general, as Daniel Matt describes it in his study of the concept of Nothingness in Jewish mysticism, ultimate theurgic success returns the emanated multiplicity back to its source in the ineffable En Sof, the Infinite, of which the ayin is an aspect, without parts and without multiplicity. In the words of Azriel of Gerona (13th century), in mystical prayer one “gathers the multiplicity” and ascends with it into the undifferentiated unity of the ayin. The ability to reach these unitive experiences does not depend upon practicing an unrestricted morality, of love, compassion, respect, or whatever, as it does in some other traditions, such as Theravada Buddhism. (By an “unrestricted” morality I mean one directed equally toward all human beings.) Neither does an unrestricted morality issue from these unitive experiences, as it would in Christian mysticism. Instead, the morality of kabbalah is decidedly restricted, dominated as it is by two major ontological dualities standing in deep tension with the mystical themes: the duality of Jew and non-Jew and the duality of man and woman. These dualities, flowing from corresponding dualities in the kabbalah’s theosophic theology, have a profound effect on the behavior of the mystic toward other human beings. The point here is not only that these dualities exist in the life of the mystic. With that we are familiar enough in other mystical traditions. The point is, rather, that these dualities are built-in to the mystical theology from the start, and shape the mystic’s “official” mystical moral outlook. It is only in 20th century Jewish mysticism that these dualities have begun to be sporadically overcome by isolated figures, in addition by popularizing movements in contemporary Jewry. So, kabbalah does not fit a familiar picture of other mysticisms. In what follows, I will describe the dualities of Jew and non-Jew, and male and female in kabbalah, and explain how they are operative on the moral level. Then I will turn to examples in the 20th century where these dualities begin to be transcended. With these tasks accomplished, I will turn to a discussion of
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how we can best explain the deviation of Jewish mystical morality from that of other mystical traditions. Before beginning, two caveats are in order. The first: Kabbalah stretches over many centuries as a cultural phenomenon among Jews who resided in different lands and in very different cultural climates. The ways mystics worked out the details of the dualities of which I speak differ from time to time and from place to place. We also witness some counter-indications and attempts to soften the polarities. However, the latter are minor in both tone and impact. What I present will be the heavily predominant mainstream of Jewish mysticism, which has had the most impact on mystical circles and on Jewish history. The second: Against William Wainwright’s advice, I will be running together two kinds of questions: (1) An empirical question: Are there psychological connections between mystical experience and unrestricted morality? (2) An epistemological question: do mystical experiences provide warrant for an unrestricted morality? I do so because in my mind the issues intertwine in ways that I cannot go into here. At some future time, perhaps, I will try to untangle them.
Jew and Non-Jew In kabbalah, a controlling ontological duality runs across the distinction between unity and chaos in the mystical Godhead. This is the distinction between the sitrah d’kedushah and the sitrah ahra, between the “Side of Holiness” and the “Other Side.” The “Other Side” is the realm of the demonic, the Satan, and the devils; in Lurianic kabbalah (16th century) the side of the “shells,” the discarded refuse of creation. The “Other Side” is a complete negative reality parallel to the Side of Holiness. The Other Side has its own demonic structures of ten sefirot, aspects of the Other Side, and supernal worlds. The Zohar (13th century) states (3:41b): “Just as there are ten crowns of faith above, so there are ten crowns of black-magic of impurity below.” And Haim Vital (1542 – 1620), the major transcriber of Lurianic mysticism writes: “Know that just as there are four supernal worlds of holiness… so too there are in the realm of the shells…and they are the opposite of holiness (Etz Haim, Section 48, Chapter 3).” The only structural difference between the two realms is that on the side of holiness, the potency of the holiness increases as one ascends the supernal constellation, whereas on the side of Impurity, the potency of the impurity increases as one descends the supernal constellation. The Other Side and the Side of Holiness are actively opposing forces. When the Other Side’s worlds are chaotic and fragmented, weakened by Jewish good deeds, then the Divine ascends in its cohesion and all is well in our mundane world. When the Other Side is strengthened by Jewish misdeeds, the Divine
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chaos is increased. The world, our world, stands poised between these two competing realms, pulled in different directions, and the Jewish people are mandated to resist the pull of the impure sefirot, in dedication to strengthening the Divine inner harmony. Isaiah Tishby has noted that the Zohar avoids an ultimate ontological dualism, which would have been inconsistent with its theistic outlook, by recognizing the powers of impurity as “messengers” of the Divine. Lurianic mysticism, three centuries after the Zohar, avoids the threat of ultimate duality with its doctrine that divine sparks inhabit the impure “shells,” giving them their “life-force,” which they have none of independently. Hence, the duality is not ultimate, as befits a theistic mysticism. Nonetheless, I refer to this as an “ontological dualism” because consisting of disparate metaphysical realms that stand in profound opposition for all practical purposes. The ontological divide between the divine and the satanic, between the pure and the impure, impinges directly on the morality of Jewish mysticism when the same divide appears in our world in the guise of the divide between Jews and non-Jews. The source of the Jewish soul is in the realm of the divine, whereas the soul of the non-Jew is a part of the Other Side. Moshe Halamish, an Israeli researcher, quotes from the mystical work Shefa Tal (by Shabbetai Sheftel Horowitz, 1561 – 1619) that, “The Jewish nation is a part of the Godly above…. The nations are from the external powers, the powers of the shells.” Thus, non-Jews are ontologized into a separate, demonic reality from that of the Jews. The Zohar can thus deny the Image of God of non-Jews, saying that the non-Jew is blessed with the “Image of the Other Side” instead (Zohar, 3:104b). Indeed, “The Holy One Blessed be He” cannot tolerate the non-Jews (Zohar, 3:42b), where the “Holy One” is a name of the centrally located sefirah of Tif ’eret in the divine emanations. The shechinah, the Indwelling Presence, does not rest on the non-Jews (Tikunei Zohar, 69), and the non-Jews come from the “root of evil” (Zohar, 3:14a). On the other hand, the theme of mystical unity and harmony, that we saw earlier, applies to the People of Israel alone. They alone are “One body, one organism.” (Haim Vital, Pri Etz Haim, Section 12, Section on Repentant Prayer, Chapter 8.) The “nations of the world” float free from this mystical organic insight. This metaphysical view of the non-Jew contrasts sharply with the Medieval Jewish philosophical tradition. Maimonides, the greatest representative of that tradition, thought there was no ontological or racial difference between Jew and non-Jew. What accounted for the “chosenness” of the Jewish people, for Maimonides, was the fact that the man who reached the highest level of prophecy, Moses, and who then prepared a Law for his people, happened to be a Jew. While Maimonides’ moral outlook would not pass the inspection of a contemporary committee responsible for political correctness, it does display
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openness to non-Jews and Jewish culture that is far from the exclusionary ethnocentrism of the kabbalah. The immanent ontological difference between Jew and non-Jew has a profound affect upon Jewish mystical morality. In the Jerusalem Talmud (Tractate Nedarim, Chapter 9, Page 41c), we find the following dispute between two Rabbis: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 19:18).” Rabbi Akiva said: “This is a basic principle of the Torah.” Ben Azai said: “ ‘This is the book of the generations of Adam. On the day that God created Adam, He created him in the image of God (Genesis, 5:1).” This is a greater principle.“
Arthur Green, of Brandeis University, sees in this dispute a difference over the grounds of Jewish morality. Rabbi Akiva grounds morality in love. Ben Azai is more realistic. He grounds morality in the Image of God in all human beings, deserving of our respect whether we are capable of loving them or not. Jewish mystical morality undermines both grounds in the case of behavior toward the non-Jew. In a study comparing kabbalah literature before and after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, Moshe Halamish has shown that before the expulsion the verse in Leviticus: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself ” was rarely cited. After the expulsion, kabbalists cited this verse often, applying it, however, only to the love of Jews by Jews, and explicitly excluding non-Jews from being recipients of Jewish love. The application of the biblical verse to Jews is unvaryingly grounded in the organic unity of the Jewish people. NonJews participate, metaphysically speaking, in an opposing unity, that of the Other Side. So, love does not get directed to them. If love is the ground of Jewish morality, as Rabbi Akiva maintains, then the ground is pulled out from under the non-Jew. On the other hand, if being in the Image of God grounds Jewish morality, as Ben Azai contends, we have seen that not only do Gentiles lack the Image of God, they instantiate an opposing image. Thus does Jewish mystical morality make the two basic categories of traditional Jewish ethics, love of neighbor and the Image of God, inoperable toward the goy, the non-Jew. Halamish has uncovered some counter-sources in Jewish mysticism. For example, the same Haim Vital who says that Gentile souls are from the shells of Impurity (Etz Haim, Section 49, Chapter 3) declares, “One must love all people, even non-Jews.” Nonetheless, as I noted earlier, the great preponderance of kabbalistic mysticism is as I have reported. The ontologizing of the non-Jew into a separate, depraved category, and the consequent negative attitudes, has obvious moral implications for the Jewish mystic. Especially potent examples include the following. We find in kabbalistic writings resistance to the very possibility of conversion of non-Jews to Judaism. A non-Jew becoming a Jew is a metaphysical impossibility. Indeed, as Isaiah
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Tishby has noted, the very notion of conversion subverts the task of battling the forces of evil. When kabbalists believe conversion is possible, they usually wish to deny equal spiritual status to the convert after the conversion. Others claim that the only non-Jews who wish to convert are those who have covert ancestry among the Jews. In addition, concerning intermarriage between a Jew and nonJew, this entails a cosmic act of strengthening the Other Side at the expense of the people of Israel. Finally, the social rejection of the non-Jew reaches its most radical limits in the Zohar’s stricture not to approach physically close to a nonJew, because the non-Jew is impure and imparts impurity to those who come close (Zohar, 1:220a). This restricted morality of Jewish mysticism lives in a symbiotic relationship with traditional Jewish law. “Jew” and “Gentile” are legal categories in traditional Jewish law. Intermarriage is forbidden, there are laws about eating the food of Gentiles (laws abrogated by Peter for a new law that knew no Greek and no Jew), and there are laws governing relations with non-Jewish courts. And so on. The kabbalah morality was certainly influenced by that system of law. At the same time, it gave Jewish law a new grounding and a new rigidity, by ontologizing social categories into cosmic metaphysics. In turn, mystical morality impeded the modernization of Jewish law. What might otherwise have been regarded, in part at least, as social legislation given to possible change when social conditions shifted, became rooted in changeless cosmic principles that dictated rather than only reflected social realities. It was not until the 20th century that Jewish mysticism showed some small change in moral direction. I will mention here two developments, one major, and the other still in the making. The first can be found in the extensive writings of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook (1865 – 1935), the first Chief Rabbi of Palestine under the British Mandate, and the most celebrated Jewish mystic of the 20th century. While “Rav” Kook maintains a distinction between Jew and non-Jew, and a central theurgic role for the Jewish people, a new moral attitude, for Jewish mysticism, appears prominently in his writings. He grounds his new approach in his mystical theology of unity, a theology in which the Other Side does not make an appearance. For Rav Kook, the divine emanation encompasses all: How beautiful is the mystical conception of the divine emanation as the source of all existence, all life, all beauty, all power, all justice, all good, all order, all progress…. The divine emanation, by its being, engenders everything. It is unlimited in its freedom, there is no end to its unity, to its riches, to its perfection, to its splendor, and the influence of its potency and its diverse manifestations. All the oceans of song, all the diverse torrents of perception, all the force of life, all the laughter, the joyous delights,—everything flows from it.
Explicitly, this includes all nations:
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The love for people must be alive in heart and soul, a love for all people and a love for all nations, expressing itself in a desire for their spiritual and material advancement.
Rav Kook’s love for all nations includes Amalek, the very personification of the Impure Side in kabbalah. He writes: The degree of love in the soul of the righteous embraces all creatures, it excludes nothing, and no people or tongue. Even the wicked Amalek’s name is to be erased by Biblical injunction only “from under the heavens” (Exodus, 17:14)…. He may be raised to the source of the good, which is above the heavens, and is then included in the higher love. But one needs great strength and a lofty state of purity for this exalted kind of unification.
For Rav Kook, though humankind may not be prepared for it as yet, love is to extend to animals, precluding our eating them or sacrificing them to God in eschatological times. The second, more recent, development, away from the ontological categorization of the non-Jew and the accompanying moral implications, is in the contemporary theology of Rabbi Arthur Green, the scholar of kabbalah I mentioned earlier. Green, without claiming mystical illumination, consciously fashions his theology on the emanationist-unitive understanding of Jewish mysticism: The struggle of religious vision is always one of uplifting and transforming the mundane, of making our own separate lives vessels into which the light of unity may flow.
This divine light is, now, all encompassing: The divine light extends to all peoples, as it does to each individual soul.
As a result, every human being is created in God’s image: We encounter the divine through relationship with another person. We attempt to seek out the One through images of a person, through encountering God as another “person.” Both of these are made possible for us by the Bible’s most remarkable assertion that the human being is created in God’s image. The person—every person—is an earthly replica or small repository of the fullness of divine energy…. Humans somehow look like God, … the human form and the divine form, however we understand those phrases, have something in common. In particular, this seems to mean that the human face—every human face—is a copy or reflection of the face of God.
Green’s emphasis on “every person” and “every human face,” is meant to distance him from traditional Jewish mystical morality, while retaining its unitive character. Later I will return to these new developments and to what they can tell us about the complex relation between Jewish mysticism and Jewish morality.
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Men and Women In kabbalah, the supernal complex of emanations has both a male and a female character. The female character is best represented by the shechinah, the sefirah in immediate relationship with our world. The shechinah is feminine, the consort of the masculine Tif ’eret, or “Beauty.” The second wave of Jewish feminism saw the shechinah as a welcome feminine counter-balance to what was perceived of as an androcentric traditional concept of God. Feminists composed prayers to the shechinah and devised rituals of shechinah worship. Unfortunately, as some other feminists have pointed out, these practices do not well represent the place of the feminine in kabbalistic literature. Indeed, the feminine is ontologized subordinately to the masculine, with direct consequences for the moral status of women. Jewish mysticism ontologizes the normativity of the male, as it does the normativity of the Jew. The ten sefirot are mapped onto the figure of a supernal man in the way that a constellation of stars is mapped on to a human figure, except that here the mapping has mystical meaning. While mappings differ, here is a usual one: Crown—Top of Head Understanding—Left Brain
Wisdom—Right Brain
Judgement—Left Arm
Kindness—Right Arm Beauty—Heart
Majesty—Left Leg
Eternity—Right Leg Foundation—Phallus
Shechinah – Woman In some schemes, Majesty and Eternity are the two testicles instead of the legs, and in some, the Shechinah is none other than the corona of the penis, not quite a woman, but close. Within this male representation, there are male and female aspects. The male aspect resides in the right side of the anthropos, associated with grace and holiness; the left side is feminine, harsh, and judgmental, at the very edge of the demonic realm. The shechinah, as feminine, even when brought to the center by the male side, still tilts to the left, as I have represented her. The female side does not emanate in a direct line from the En Sof, the Infinite. Instead, it emanates from the right, male side, which issues in a direct line from the Infinite. Even after emanating from the male side, then, the female is contained within, as but a side of, the anthropos male. This is certainly so if the
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shechinah is none other than the corona of the male sexual member, and there is no female sefirah independent of the male. However, even if the shechinah is a woman, more precisely the woman’s sexual organs, the shechinah functions constructively in the system only when attached to the male body of God. On her own, the shechinah is powerless, dominated by whoever manages to subdue her. The shechinah is in constant danger of being captured by and turned into an instrument of the powers of impurity. The cosmic drama of female vulnerability and male domination reflects the patriarchal situation on the ground, no doubt. What Jewish mysticism has added to the story is that human male-female relationships are a subtext to an ontologized cosmic drama proceeding within the life of the Godhead. In a study of the feminine in kabbalah, Elliot Wolfson has shown that in this scheme there is no equality between the masculine and feminine. The theurgic aim of unifying the left side with the right side, aims to include the feminine within the masculine. When the female is autonomous, it falls into the dominion of the Other Side, the latter lurking just to the left of the Divine Man. When joined, “the female,” says Wolfson, “is absorbed in the male and the polarity of male and female is abolished (Page 169).” This motif is best expressed in the following passage from the Zohar, quoted by Wolfson: When the Holy One, blessed be He, created man, He created him perfect, as it says, “God made man straight (Ecclesiastes, 7:29). “Man”: male and female, and the female was contained in the male; thus is it written “straight” (Zohar, 3:18b).
The need to contain the feminine characterizes the kabbalistic ritual practice of “sweetening judgement,” judgement belonging to the female side. For example, prior to pouring the wine (whose redness embodies the left-side’s sternness and potentially uncontrollable nature) into his ritual cup, a kabbalist will first pour into his cup a bit of water, embodying the flowing of the right side’s grace, This accomplished, the feminine “redness” will be made docile. While the Jewish woman’s depleted ontological status cannot be compared to that of the Gentile there is an affinity between the two: the feminine is on the left and if we go leftward still we met the Impure Powers. “The People of Israel,” (!) on the other hand, “ is from the right side (Zohar, 3:77a). The conjunction, therefore, of Jewish women with non-Jewish men poses a particularly potent threat from the side of Impurity. It is no wonder that some kabbalists who believed in successive reincarnations for non-Jews, thought the latter could eventually reincarnate into Jewish women, but not into Jewish men. To summarize, I could do no better than to quote Wolfson’s citing of Moshe de Leon: “When one receives the holy covenant that is sealed and inscribed on his flesh, then he is included in the category of a human being.” Just as with the division between Jew and non-Jew, the polarity of male and female is a central feature of traditional Jewish law, and certainly reflects the
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legal history of Judaism. On the other hand, however, the ontologizing of women into an inferior metaphysical category created new extreme stringency in laws pertaining to women (For example, in Zohar, 1:126, 2:3, 3:127, and 3:248). It also hardened the man-woman categories into eternal principles and contributed to the resistance to a modernization in Jewish law in the direction of greater equality between the sexes. By forbidding women to study kabbalah, for example, Jewish mysticism strongly reinforced and perpetuated the exclusion of women from the learning culture of Judaism. Again, Rabbi Arthur Green (but not Rav Kook) deontologizes gender, which traditional Jewish mysticism turned into metaphysical categories. When Green departed from traditional Jewish mysticism concerning non-Jews, he did so in the name of the unitive character of that tradition. Here, however, that unitive tradition includes the uniting of the male and female into the domain of the male, weakening the female in male domination. Here, then, we have not only an erasure of the Other Side, but also a serious re-working of the unitive theme itself in Jewish mysticism. To summarize the picture I have presented, while traditional Jewish mysticism strives for the experience of the ayin, the Nothing, into which “all” distinctions are absorbed, and knows of the unity of the worlds and of the sefirot, it does not apply these categories to non-Jews, who remain outside the scope of these conceptions. Furthermore, in seeking unity between the feminine and masculine in the Divine, Jewish mysticism subdues the female under the subjugation of the male. The preoccupation is with controlling and preventing the feminine from allying with the Other Side. The subordination of women is thus frozen in metaphysical eternity.
Jewish Mystcism and Morality Well. We certainly end up with a picture far from the image of the mystic who knows only love, compassion, and respect for all human beings without restriction. What then of the connection between founding mystical, that is, unitive experience, and unrestricted morality in the case of Jewish mysticism? There are a number of possible approaches to this question, each of which I will now comment on. Jewish Mysticism is not strongly informed by mystical illumination in the first place. For me, it is an open question to what extent Jewish “mystical” theology articulates unitive mystical encounters and to what extent it reflects instead sheer metaphysical creativity, the elaboration of what was generated way back by some by mystical experience, or numinous, rather than mystical, experience.
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Undoubtedly mystical experiences live early in its pedigree, and undoubtedly there were figures in this movement who enjoyed bona fide mystical illuminations. On the other hand, there were intellectual borrowings from neo-Platonism and Gnosticism, as well as from Jewish philosophy and rabbinic literature with no grounding in mysticism. The Gnostic influence of the Zohar, for example, is especially marked, to the point of its vocabulary and phraseology. Besides Gnostic themes, Gershom Scholem found many key expressions in the Zohar used a great deal by Gnostics but not to be found in Jewish literature. Of course, borrowings may have proved useful precisely to express the content of Jewish mystical theology. However, as time goes by and the theosophical system becomes more convoluted and intricate, one justly wonders whether developments are any longer informed by original mystical illumination. A comparison could be made here to the Christian mystic, Jakob Boehme, who, it so happens, was influenced by kabbalah. Boehme professed that a direct illumination was the source of his writing, which tells of complex systems of Byss and Abyss, sets of triadic forces, flashes, and intricate connections between these and Lucifer. Since Boehme wrote only many years after his mystical illumination in 1600, we are entitled to wonder how much of what he wrote reflected mystical content and how much borrowings and imaginative elaboration. If we minimize the mystical impact on kabbalah, we could explain its restricted morality in terms of mystical illumination not “driving home” its unitive content, and thus not possessing the moral impact it would have otherwise. Mystical experience does not ground unrestricted morality at all. On this option, my problem doesn’t arise because there is no reason in the first place for thinking that unitive experiences will ground unrestricted morality. Wainwright expressed this view, perhaps in a more muted form. Various forms of mysticism that he considers, he claims, “support non-moral ideals, or reinforce moral ideals whose principle roots lie elsewhere.” On this conception, then, a Christian ethic of unrestricted love issues out of Christian mystical experience primarily because such an ethic belongs to the ethos of the mystic’s environment in the first place. And Jewish mysticism expresses a restricted ethic because of the severe ethnic definition and patriarchal legal system of the mystic’s religion in the first place and because of historical Gentile hostility to the Jews. The explanation, on this alternative, for departures from restricted morality by Rav Kook, for example, lies in the fact that his moral sense participates, to a degree, in modern liberal attitudes. Mystical illumination is a disengaged wheel in the mechanisms shaping the mystic’s morality.
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The mystical ground for unrestricted morality can be reshaped by other experiences of the mystic. On this option, unitive mystical experience does create a prima facie ground for unrestricted morality in Jewish mysticism, but that ground is undermined or compromised by other experiences—numinous, especially—of, for example, a dualistic reality or of a demonic order. On this model, Jewish mysticism is grounded on conflicting experiences, mystical and numinous, and consists of an attempt to work out the relationship between the competing illuminations and insights. The explanation for Rav Kook’s innovative mystical morality regarding non-Jews then would be roughly something like this: He lacked personal experience of a demonic order and so the impact of his unitive experiences remained (partially) unchallenged with regard to non-Jews. The mystical grounds for unrestricted morality can be reshaped by cultural norms. On this option, unitive mystical experience does create a ground for unrestricted morality in Jewish mysticism, but that ground is undermined by the mystics’ culture. When the mystic articulates his experience, he passes it through the filter of his cultural setting. Jewish mystics lived under the historical impact of hostility from Gentiles, most famously under Christian rule, as in Gerona of the 13th century. Mystical literature was intended for internal consumption only. It would have taken a “strong poet” to subvert or even ignore the standing ethos of fear of and anger at the Gentile populace among which the mystics lived. On this option, the shift we saw in the thought of Rav Kook would be a result of a shift to more favorable cultural conditions and the consequent weakening of the filtering mechanism. The unitive experience has limited scope in the first place. On this option, when the Jewish mystic, such as Azriel of Gerona, talks about “gathering multiplicity” into the Godhead, in the first place this does not include all multiplicity. One sub-option is this: Although the Jewish mystic talks this way, in his discourse the non-Jew and women are essentially invisible. We are quite familiar with the invisibility of the “Other” in other contexts as a strong cultural determinant. This sub-alternative insinuates the same into Jewish mystical practice. A second sub-option is this: Despite all of my talk about ontologizing the non-Jew and women, the Jewish mystics think of the “nations of the world” as lacking substantive existence. Instead, they are a mere “outer clothing” of the Divine sparks within them, the covering deceptively suggesting substantive existence for the non-Jews. Therefore, when all worlds are united, the non-Jews
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have no distinct reality with which to be united. The category of “non-Jew” is not a real one, and so when all distinctions are dissolved, this one is not. The “ontologizing” of the non-Jew must thus be relativized to a level of practical mystical discourse. In a somewhat similar way, the ontologizing of women gives way to the absorption of the female into the male, in what Elliot Wolfson calls, “making the female male.” So here we have an explanation of how a unitive theology could cohabit with an exclusionary morality, provided we acknowledge that morality engages with the practical discourse. Options (1) and (2) are inconsistent. Options (3), (4), and (5) assume the falsity of (2). Option (2) seems grossly counterintuitive to me. I find (1) to be attractive, but it may be too radical on my slim historical evidence. That leaves us with (3), (4), and (5), which form a consistent triad provided we do not read each as providing the sole answer to our question. The explanation in (3) of how a change took place in Rav Kook’s writings lacks force on its own, unless we add that whether a person has experience of a demonic realm will depend much upon cultural influences and expectations. Which then means we will have to supplement (3) with (4) and (5). (5)’s second sub-option, denying ultimate reality to the excluded ones is to be found in Lurianic mysticism’s view of the theurgic removing of the inner sparks of the “ nations of the world,” at which point they disappear from the face of the earth. Lacking any self-substance, they are no longer to be found anywhere. To conclude, I propose we locate the explanations for the restricted morality of Jewish mysticism in the kabbalah in alternatives (3)-(5), with a gaze over to option (1) as well. A consequence of my discussion is this: Either Jewish mysticism is quite different from that of all other mystical traditions, or Jewish mysticism shows the tenuous hold of mystical illumination on moral vision.
Noble Character in Islam Paul L. Heck The goal here is to consider whether the mystical point of view contributes anything to the ethical outlook of Islam. The mystical point of view, when it comes to Islam, is decidedly God-centered, a theistic mysticism, as opposed to a nature- or drug-based mysticism (even if infrequent instances of these elements can be found within the mystical heritage of Islam). Mystical insight is a form of religiosity that lies beyond what is considered obligatory for all Muslims, namely affirmation of the doctrines and adherence to the practices of Islam. It involves seeing God for those in the first rank of mysticism, beholding the heavenly realm, and making such things the focal point of one’s earthly existence; or, if one cannot quite attain such a spiritual height, so as to see God at all times, a secondary rank of mysticism can be reached by realizing that God is always aware of the state of one’s soul. Thus, building upon a canonical hadith to this effect, the mystical heritage of Islam, known as Sufism, has formalized two understandings of the mystical experience, both of which go beyond doctrine and practice: either seeing God always or realizing that one is always seen by God. Both notions speak of a measure of communion of the heart of the believer with the divine, above and beyond what the mind assents to and the body performs as required by Islamic doctrine and law. It is nevertheless impossible to separate the mystical from the normative aspects of Islam. Already in the Qur’an, there are multiple perspectives on God. He is depicted as having ascended His throne in heaven, positioned to promulgate His will—commands and prohibitions—and to dole out justice on the final day. He is king, king of kings, but also merciful, most merciful, ready to pardon His subjects out of his bountiful magnanimity. Here, it is He who sets out the course for believers to follow, which in Islam is known as shari‘a, the Muslim way of life, which is often translated as the law of Islam, but includes more than strictly legal material: directives on praying, fasting, ritual purification of the body, pilgrimage, as well as norms for commerce and finance, divorce and marriage, family inheritance, land ownership, conduct in war, hunting, lost and found articles, punishment for crime, and so on and so forth. A complex corpus of precedents with a system of jurisprudence that allows for flexibility and adaptability, shari‘a represents justice for Muslims— both the rights of God to be worshipped and human rights to equitable treatment and fair-dealing. In this juristic sense, shari‘a has sometimes been deployed as a political slogan, apart from its content, by Muslims who have
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sought justice from authoritarian and arbitrary rule. The vast storehouse of shari‘a, embodied in volumes of compendia that leading jurists have compiled over the centuries, is about everyone getting their due, both God and humans, whatever the case at hand might be. The Qur’an also has another view of the divine, speaking of the face of God as omnipresent.1 Wherever one turns, east or west, there is the face of God. It is, in fact, the sole reality, since the Qur’an says that all perishes save the face of God. It also signals a willingness to sacrifice, i.e. to give and forgive, and also to endure patiently for the face of God. Here, the Qur’an offers another ethical viewpoint, one that is not limited to following God’s decrees as embodied in shari‘a but that springs from the realization that the God of Islam is no tribal deity or ancestral spirit, not the pride and possession of a particular group in a particular locale, but the Creator and Lord of all, unlimited and unbounded, the God besides whom there is none other, in echo of biblical material, such as the Book of Isaiah, where the prophets of ancient Israel came to the realization that their God was not one of many, even if the best, but the only one. The expansiveness of this qur’anic outlook on God is the starting point for an expansive ethical disposition, where one locates the face of God beyond tribal bounds, necessitating one to act always as if in the presence of God with all, the stranger no less than clan relation. The mystical point of view, then, even if formalized only later, cannot be said to be an add-on to Islam. It is there from the beginning when the revelation of God was communicated to the Prophet Muhammad and conveyed by him to a seventh-century Arab-speaking society, which was largely tribal in structure but also cognizant of the biblical heritage as well as the wider political context of the day as represented by the Byzantine and Sasanian (Persian) empires. This viewpoint, which begins and ends with the omnipresent face of God, in addition to the creedal and legal norms of Islam, had the effect of expanding the ethical heritage of Arabia, an ethical expansiveness that was eventually greatly developed within the heritage of Sufism, where it was combined with a neoplatonic view of existence in which this world, while not false, was only a reflection of a greater reality, a divine reality, in which all things shared; all existence—human and non-human, male and female, animate and nonanimate—was said to exist only insofar as it shared in true existence, which was the existence of God.2 All things, then, could be said to reflect something of the face of God and should be treated accordingly, breaking down mental divisions between friend and foe, believer and infidel, while also encouraging an ethical 1 2
See the entries on “Face of God” and “Attributes of God” in Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an, 5 vols., ed. Jane Dammen-McAuliffe, Leiden: Brill, 2001 – 2005. For a basic overview of the ideas and history of Sufism, see Paul L. Heck, “Sufism— What Is It Exactly?” Religion Compass 1 (2007): 148 – 164.
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disposition that made sense of sacrificing for the sake of others no less than for the sake of the face of God. In echo of a canonical hadith where the Prophet Muhammad reports God saying that He was a hidden jewel and thus created the universe in order that He might be known, Sufism came to see that all reality— not only qur’anic verse—is a kind of divine revelation; all things represent names of God in their true reality. The multivalent nature of ethics in Islam is already present in the Muslim appreciation of the Prophet Muhammad. He was messenger of God, divinely commissioned to deliver the news of God and the Day of Judgment, when all justice would be perfected. He was also a lawgiver, a mediator of tribal conflict, military leader, and head of the nascent Muslim polity in Medina. His life in all its aspects is understood by Muslims to have been oriented to God. It was his custom to pass his nights in prayerful vigil (tahajjad) above and beyond the five daily prayers prescribed by shari‘a. He was a friend of God in the sense that Abraham, his prophetic precursor, had been. He is reported to have enjoyed an intimacy and communion with God, and Muslims often refer to him as “the beloved of God” (habib allah). It is firmly believed that he not only acted with justice in all that he did but that he also exhibited a willingness to forego his rights to revenge and retribution when offended or wronged. The classic example of this is the conquest of Mecca, which happened peacefully and is in that sense considered to have been the greatest of the Muslim conquests. The Prophet, who had been maligned and attacked by the tribal leaders of Mecca, now commanded a superior force with which he could have easily taken the city by force. Instead, he chose to forego revenge and retribution for the sake of peace with very generous terms for his adversaries. Was this simply political stratagem or was this evidence of a noble spiritual character: action for the face of God, a willingness to sacrifice for the love of God, as encouraged by the Qur’an (3:92), “You will not attain righteousness until you sacrifice what you love.” A key hadith with wide circulation is one in which the Prophet is reported to have said, in response to a question about the essence of Islam, “Do not be angry and paradise will be yours” (la taghdab wa-laka l-janna).3 How are we to understand such an extraordinary statement? How is it possible not to be angry at times? It certainly bespeaks an ethics that goes beyond the justice of the law alone and that is at odds with normal expectations of give-and-take ethics. One expects to get one’s due—respect of one’s property and regard for one’s honor— and is angered if one does not. Here, Muhammad calls people to refrain from being angry, which suggests a high degree of self-transcendence, a lack of selfregard of the kind that usually leads one, sometimes angrily, to defend one’s 3
It is included, for example, as number sixteen in the famous collection of forty hadith by the thirteenth-century scholar al-Nawawi.
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property and honor, i.e. one’s material and social standing in this world. Here, then, is important evidence for an ethical attitude in Islam that requires a spiritual awareness of being in the presence of God, of cleaving to God, such that one has regard not for self but for God—later given the formal description of “absorption in God” (al-fana’ fi llah) in the mystical heritage. Awareness of being in the presence of God makes it possible, even reasonable, not to be angry when one’s reputation is slighted, and by not seeking retribution, one helps short-circuit the cycle of revenge that perpetuates disharmony, as epitomized in a Sufi statement on noble character, “The mark of kindliness is putting a stop to trouble by putting up with it.” The point is that one becomes so entranced by the presence of God, one relinquishes the impulse to anger, realizing that it is not the things of this world but the things of the next that constitute the final measure of success for believers. One can therefore forego rights and interests for the face of God as exclusive object of one’s mystical attention, which works to reduce the ego and its worldly attachment—and even self-attachment. This thinking is epitomized in various anecdotes found in the classical manuals of Sufism, which first appeared in the tenth and eleventh centuries.4 For example, in a thirteenth-century manual, the statement is made, “Getting along with all folk, children, neighbors, friends and all people entirely, constitutes the [noble] character of Sufism, for by enduring insult and injury, the essence of the soul is made manifest.”5 And in an eleventh-century manual, one finds, “Kindliness is patiently responding to reprehensible behavior with kind behavior.”6 Such exhortations to selflessness should not be seen as an abdication of justice— shari‘a is still there, but rather as evidence for a logic within the ethical heritage of Islam that is predicated upon a mystical awareness of being in the presence of God and of the names of God inscribed upon creation entire. Very early in Islam, then, there was both an ordinary and extraordinary understanding of ethical action. There were shari‘a norms related to ritual actions (‘ibadat) and social interactions (mu‘amalat) that set out basic standards of justice and right relations both 1) between humans and God and 2) between humans themselves. And there was also character (akhlaq), more specifically noble character (makarim al-akhlaq), perfection of which, a canonical hadith reports, was the purpose of Muhammad’s being sent to the world, as a mercy for creation (rahma lil-‘alamin) as affirmed by the Qur’an. This part of the ethical heritage of Islam, noble character, is vast and has worked its way deeply into 4 5 6
For Sufi manuals and their biographical element, see J.A. Mojaddedi, The Biographical Tradition in Sufism: The Tabaqat Genre from al-Sulami to Jami, Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 2001. Abu Hafs al-Suhrawardi, Kitab ‘Awarif al-Ma‘arif, Cairo: Maktabat al-Qahira, 1973, p. 245. al-Qushayri, al-Risalat al-Qushayriyya, ed. N. al-Jarrah, Beirut: Dar al-Sadir, 2001, p. 159.
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Muslim society through anecdotes and folktales that emphasize that adherence to the law alone without a formation in noble character can easily result in arrogance.7 It is meant to bring about harmony in society above and beyond what justice might demand, and for the spiritual virtuosi of Islam, the ennoblement of character depends on orientation to the face of God—the ethical fruit being an attitude of kindliness (ihsan) to all,8 as evidenced in a passage from one of the letters of Ibn ‘Arabi, a thirteenth-century mystical philosopher who remains as influential and controversial today as he was in his own age: Kindliness is obligatory… for the Prophet said, “Indeed I have been sent to perfect noble character (makarim al-akhlaq)… and [for that purpose] God introduced himself into companionship with humans…. So, you undertake noble character only through the companionship of God exclusively. Do what pleases God and avoid what displeases Him, whether towards Him or towards others, for conduct towards others is counted among the things that please God…. All Muslims and non-Muslims are edified by those who are attentive to the presence of God, and God has a claim on every Muslim in their conduct with all God’s creatures, without exception, from every class of angel, jinn, human, animal, plant, mineral, and inanimate creature, whether believer or not.9
The intellectual architects of Sufism have made much of a threefold appreciation of religiosity. The basic level is conformity to the ritual and moral actions stipulated by shari‘a; this is islam, but it is problematic since action without sincerity of belief or the conviction of the heart runs the risk of hypocrisy, throwing into question the integrity of the religion. The next level includes true belief, i.e. assent of the mind to the doctrines of the faith; this is iman, but is also problematic because it runs the risk of reducing religiosity to a scholastic endeavor, i.e. an intellectual affair, sowing the seeds of theological argumentation and thus skepticism about the religion’s teachings.10 The highest level is reached when the revelation is introduced into the heart, illuminating one’s view of reality and animating both body and mind; this is called ihsan, and results not only in spiritual serenity, a contented soul (nafs mutma’inna, Q 89:27), but also a deep sense of love for God. The teachings of the religion are no longer something to be grudgingly performed or scholastically debated, but now become an affair of the heart and thus object of one’s passions not one’s 7 For examples of this, see Paul L. Heck, “Mysticism as Morality: The Case of Sufism,” Journal of Religious Ethics 34 (2006), 2:253 – 286, esp. pp. 275 – 279. 8 The link between formation of religious character and orientation to the face of God was also made in early Christianity. See Robert Louis Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: Seeking the Face of God, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003, especially chapter 11. 9 Ibn ‘Arabi, al-Wasaya, Damascus: Dar al-Iman, 1997, pp. 57 – 58. 10 For this tendency in Islam, see Paul L. Heck, “The Crisis of Knowledge in Islam (I): The Case of al-‘Amiri,” Philosophy East and West 56,1 (2006): 106 – 135.
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scruples or doubts. The face of God becomes sole object of one’s longing, in all that one does, and so worship is no longer containable in shari‘a-prescribed norms but extends to all action. All that one does now results in divine favor of the kind expected from performing shari‘a duties, if undertaken with the conviction of heart that comes from being in communion with God, i.e. “the heart’s connection to God” (wisal al-qalb bi-llah). Something of this expansive ethics characterizes the Sufi-influenced Nur movement in Turkey, led by Fethullah Glen, where great emphasis is placed on moral action (aksyon) as a form of worship; the Nur movement is an outstanding example of a Muslim group that has, for example, made dialogue the hallmark of its inter-religious relations, emphasizing relational harmony rather than legality as the norm for its members’ interactions with others, both Muslims and non-Muslims. It is possible to conclude that this emphasis is not simply an appropriate ploy in a globalizing moment but the fruit of an understanding of religiosity that aspires to a relational orientation to the face of God as paradigm for all relations.11 The idea of noble character (makarim al-akhlaq), even if greatly developed within the circles of Sufism, is so widespread, so deeply rooted in Muslim consciousness, that it cannot be confined to Sufism. It is simply part of Islam, no less than shari‘a is. It is therefore important to note that the mystical dimension of Islam cannot be separated from its shari‘a heritage, even if some new-age movements do deploy Sufism in that sense today. Rather, spiritual awareness, mystical living, is the fruit of the law, i.e. perfection of the law: realization (tahqiq, as Sufism calls it) of the possibility that prophecy only speaks of but does not necessarily bring about, namely life in the presence of God. In that sense, mysticism does not add ethical content to that already announced in the prophetic message but allows for the possibility of carrying out, i.e. fulfilling, what the prophetic message—detailed as shari‘a—demands of believers. It is for this reason that Sufism talks of itself as a way (tariqa), which begins with shari‘a, but ends in truth, i.e. divine truth (haqiqa)—a sense of the omnipresence of divine reality as singular reality, a spiritual awareness induced especially by a vigilant recollection (dhikr)—both individually and collectively12—of the names of God. In this sense, Sufism, the mystical heritage of Islam, acts only to facilitate realization of religion, i.e. god-consciousness, which in turn constitutes the motivation for being ethical, noted in Sufi manuals by the correlated pair of terms, hope (raja’) and fear (khawf ), which together signal a 11 For the outlook of this group, see the various articles in The Muslim World 95, 3 (2005), which constitutes a special issue, “Islam in Contemporary Turkey: the Contributions of Fethullah Glen,” ed. Zeki Saritoprak. 12 As a partial counter to William James, who considered mysticism a decidedly private matter of the individual experience, Sufism offers a paradigm for the collective mystical experience.
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state of being constantly aware of God, i.e. fear of His majesty and hope in His mercy. In other words, the self alone has no motivation for being ethical; only with a measure of self-detachment, which in Islam is the fruit of realizing God, will one be ethical—for the sake of the face of God. The duties of religion as exemplified in the life of the Prophet, again, sent to perfect noble character, do not make sense if not undertaken for the sake of a relation.13 Being religious, then, requires a certain level of sacrifice, sacrifice for God, which in Muslim literature is spoken of as patience (sabr), i.e. enduring for God, for what God asks, a disposition which can, in turn, be transferred to all relations; sacrifice for others is a way to fortify our relation with them.14 Certainly, patience can also be a military virtue, i.e. endurance in the heat of battle, and one finds it affirmed in that sense in early—and later—Muslim literature, with the condition that the battle be undertaken for the sake of God, again, the idea of being patient, i.e. sacrificing, for the sake of God. The term, however, was used much more widely, being associated in general with performance of shari‘a obligations. One was patient, i.e. sacrificed, for God, but for this to make sense, an eschatological framework was necessary. What Sufism came to elaborate in terms of mystical insight, then, first appeared not in mystical categories per se but rather in terms of receiving divine favor, ultimately in the hereafter—i.e. anticipation of the eschaton (although, it should be added, not its realization in the political realm as featured in the reflections of Eric Voegelin in his study of political religions). I would like to demonstrate this point by turning to a work of the tenth century by Ibn Abi al-Dunya and entitled, not surprisingly, Marakim alAkhlaq. 15 This work shows, interestingly, that the early Muslims did not think of ethics of the kind we have been discussing as something unique to Islam but that they did believe that Islam had perfected it. In other words, the first Muslims saw Islam as completion of the Arab ethical heritage, just as early 13 One might ask of the relation of mysticism—or spirituality—to religion. Do they necessarily go together? There is empirical evidence that those who do not orient themselves to the face of God can be ethically upright, raising the possibility of the spirituality of atheists—the principles, deepest convictions, by which they lead their life, a spirituality that may not be grounded in God but still requires a critical— questioning—detachment from the world and its ways, a certain spirituality, even if a secular spirituality. Philosophical inquiry as a way of life (in the sense described by Pierre Hadot) can be no less spiritually enriching than religious devotion, and yet, spirituality is never finally dissociable, never finally separable, from religion. Spirituality can be achieved without religion, but it is always religion that sets the model for spirituality, for a worldview that refuses to take this world as the final standard. 14 For concrete illustration of this notion, see Kristine L Florczak, “The Lived Experience of Sacrificing Something Important,” Nursing Science Quarterly 19, 2 (2006), 133 – 141. 15 See James Bellamy, “The Makarim al-Akhlaq by Ibn Abi l-Dunya,” Muslim World 53 (1963), 106 – 119.
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Christians thought of Christian ethics as something not that Christianity had invented but that built upon the ethical heritage of the classical world. There was good reason for the first Muslims to distinguish their values as religious, not tribal, even though recognizing them as part of the wider tribal milieu of their day. The beginnings of Islam, even if embedded in the tribal context of seventhcentury Arabia, were primarily urban, and the call to faith was accompanied by a call to leave tribal life, tribal kith and kin, for citied life, first in Medina, for a new way of relating with others based not on blood and alliances, i.e. the stuff of tribes, but faith and piety. The values of tribal Arabia—generosity, magnanimity, clemency, endurance and fortitude—were to be adopted by Islam but with a new orientation, to the face of God and not as a function of personal and tribal reputation, group pride and individual honor. Ethics was now to have a religious purpose, namely heavenly reward, informing relations with all peoples regardless of affiliation. If Islam was to succeed as an ethical venture, it had to broaden the scope of ethics beyond the prevailing tribal assumptions of the day, and so with Islam a system of universal kindliness came into being, based on notions of neighborliness and friendship and driven by a longing for the face of God, i.e. a heavenly reward above and beyond strategies and calculations for maximizing tribal standing and personal reputation; in other words, the ability to take pride in oneself and one’s clan was no longer to be the mark of ethical life; that mark was now to be sacrifice for the sake of God. In short, a social system in which cohesion was based on a shared faith rather than blood ties and tribal alliance required that one’s relations with others closely correspond to one’s relations with God, who was no tribal deity, divine possession of a single clan, but Creator and Lord of all, greatly expanding the ethical horizon of the Arab culture of the day. The demand of God for exclusive devotion apart from any partners meant that wherever one turned, there indeed was the face of God, combining—in a single religious formula—worship of the one God with ethical dispositions of the heart that were necessarily universal in scope, since God was now understood to be universal in scope. Rightful relations with others were to be protected by shari‘a, which encompassed both the rights of God to worship and the rights of humans to justice, but mutual relationship, epitomized in kindliness, formed the lynchpin in a sliding dynamic between Muslims’ encounter of the merciful God and their merciful encounter of others. Ibn Abi al-Dunya begins his work, which is a collection of reports about the Prophet and the first Muslims, with a prophetic saying that “a man’s generosity is his religion, his virility his intellect, and his stature his ethical character.” Another saying by Muhammad describes God as “generous and loving generosity, magnanimous and loving magnanimity.” What is clear is that the prophetic disclosure of God—besides whom there was no other—required a new criterion of action, where self-denial actually made sense in light of one’s final destiny in God, as a hadith puts it, “Strive for truthfulness—even when it
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seems to lead to destruction [i.e. in this world], it brings salvation [in the next world]. Put aside lying—even when it seems to lead to salvation [in this world], it brings destruction [in the next world].” The fact that with Islam one’s standing in this world was no longer the final measure of success gave a new grounding to the soul in its relation to the world and the things of it, as noted by a statement attributed by Ibn Abi al-Dunya to an early Muslim, “The believer is not content to see his neighbor injured or a relation in need but is rich-hearted without possessing anything in this world. He is not misled in his religion or deceived. For him, this world is no compensation for the next, nor miserliness for magnanimity.” Gradually yet perceptibly, the moral norms one expected from tribal relations were reoriented in light of faith towards other believers and potentially towards all, as captured in a saying by Muhammad, “Whosoever believes in God and judgment day should honor his neighbor. No believer is full while his neighbor goes hungry.” The ethical disposition which the exclusive monotheism of Islam enabled and strengthened is thus a function of an interior freedom that looks beyond gain or loss in worldly terms, a notion epitomized in a prophetic saying reported by Ibn Abi l-Dunya: “A believer will not attain purity of faith until he repairs relations with those who shun him (lit. cut him off ), gives to those who have deprived him, excuses those who have wronged him, forgives those who have insulted him, and acts kindly to those who have harmed him.” Ibn Abi l-Dunya records the top-ten list of morals in Islam as given by ‘A’isha, beloved wife of the Prophet and leading figure in the development of early Islam: “honest speech, sincere fortitude in obeying God, giving to the suppliant, repaying good deeds, strengthening family ties, keeping faith, acting honorably to neighbors, acting nobly to friends, extending hospitality to guests, and chief of all is modesty (haya’).” Modesty, which it is better to translate in this context as humility, is a function of standing before God and giving Him His due as Creator and Lord of all, a spiritual orientation that transforms the heart of the believer towards others. In another prophetic saying, lack of humility is equated with unbelief— kufr. Humility is described by Ibn Abi l-Dunya as a kind of forbearance and clemency, even chastity, i.e. modesty in one’s dealings with others as opposed to immodesty and greed, traits which undermine relations in society, as summarized in another of Muhammad’s sayings, “Ask God for relief [i.e. from greed]… and so [be free] of discord, enmity, covetousness, and spite; be servants of God as brothers.” To illustrate by comparison, it is noteworthy that something akin to this was at work in early Christianity, which not only offered a new perspective on an ancient faith but also attempted to create a new kind of society based not on kinship ties but shared devotion to the face of God as revealed in the person of Jesus Christ. The sociologist of religion, Rodney Stark, makes a compelling case for this idea in The Rise of Early Christianity, arguing that early Christianity
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flourished largely for the new ethical vision it wrought in the morally troubled cities of the Mediterranean world then under Roman imperial sway. The focus of Christian ethics was mercy, commanded by God in this life and rewarded in the next. As Stark notes, a Christian ethics of love and charity that went beyond family and tribe was a tremendously attractive and galvanizing force against the chaos and misery marking the urban life of the day. It brought consolation, trust, solidarity, mercy—all the result of a willingness to sacrifice for the face of God, to view as small and inconsequential the things of this world alongside the promises of the next. The idea that God loves humanity demanded that Christians love one another if they were to cooperate with divine favor, not only witnessing to the claims of the Gospels but also creating the conditions by which society might more effectively cohere and flourish at a time of ethical ambiguity and social deprivation, conditions that might otherwise encourage selfishness rather than selflessness, bitterness and vengefulness rather than kindliness. The new orientation that Islam brought to the ethics of seventh-century Arabia was greatly expanded, elaborated, and consolidated in subsequent centuries. The great eleventh-century scholar of Andalusia, Ibn Hazm, who lived about a century after Ibn Abi al-Dunya, was one of many who brought a philosophical perspective to the question. The only thing of lasting value, he argued in a treatise on ethics (akhlaq), is God.16 Therefore, the only thing worth working for is God. Everything else ends in sorrow, but the person who is oriented towards God (al-tawajjuh lil-llah) and works for the next life (alakhira) is never the object of others’ envy and enmity. He is even gladdened by setbacks, obstacles in his way, trials and tribulations, because these too are counted towards the heavenly goal he aspires to. The point for Ibn Hazm is selftranscendence as key to life in this world, as he says (p. 338), “Expend your self only for a cause that is higher than your self, and that can be nothing but God.” If you choose such a path, you will no longer pay attention to the speech of people, who delight in accusing and shaming one another, but only to the speech of the Creator. In point of fact, he says, to be viewed as blameworthy is preferable to people’s praise, which leads to pride and self-satisfaction, while patient endurance of blame and insults will be rewarded in heaven. Ibn Hazm goes on to discuss the human faculty of discernment, i.e. the capacity for rational decision-making, which, he says, is the one thing that distinguishes humans from beasts and associates them with the angels. Religion, he says, commands us to avoid living according to our passions and instincts, and for this we must use our reason, the tool given to us to hold in check our 16 Ibn Hazm, “Risala fi Mudawat al-Nafs wa-Tahdhib al-Akhlaq wa-l-Zuhd fi l-Radha’il,” vol. 1, pp. 322 – 415, in Rasa’il Ibn Hazm al-Andalusi, ed. Ihsan Abbas, 4 vols., Beirut: al-Mu’assasa al-‘Arabiyya lil-Dirasat wa-l-Nashr, 1983.
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baser inclinations that come from the irascible and appetitive aspects of the human soul—i.e. emotions such as anger and physical cravings of the body. Human reason is thus integral to the ethical disposition that religion commands, empowering believers to resist acting according to natural inclinations. He sums this up anecdotally (p. 342), “Whosoever does bad to his family and neighbors is the most ignoble of them. Whosoever responds in kind to their ill treatment is like them. And whosoever does not respond in kind to their ill treatment is the noblest of them, the best and most virtuous.” Of course, such a moral disposition is identified with the ethics of the Prophet (p. 345), who, again, was sent for the purpose of perfecting noble character, makarim al-akhlaq. If you want to be virtuous, Ibn Hazm says, you should not accompany those who seek prestige, material comfort, and pleasure, for vicious dogs do the same. If it were not for worldly ambitions, people would not seek to bring down one another (p. 372); ambition is the cause of every anxiety, avoidance of which all peoples and nations agree is the goal of life; and the opposite of anxiety is the emancipation of the soul (nazahat al-nafs), a virtue that ennobles one with courage, generosity, justice, and understanding, i.e. understanding that there is no benefit to be gained in the corresponding vices— timidity, miserliness, and injustice (p. 371). A believer as far as Ibn Hazm is concerned is not led by his irascible and appetitive faculties, but is discerning— not simply discerning but discerning in light of the prophetic revelation of God (p. 370), “Whosoever affirms the vision of God [i.e. in the next life] has an intense longing for it, is greatly inclined to it, and is not content with anything that falls even the slightest degree short of it, because it is his ambition.” With Ibn Hazm’s treatise on character, we have a striking example of the Muslim understanding of the link between mystical awareness and an extraordinary ethical outlook that can put up with evil. Islam’s understanding of the relation between mystical awareness and ethical possibility reached a climax in the heritage of Sufism, which has had an inestimable impact on Muslim life and which closely combines intimate association with and deep longing for the face of God with an ethics of enduring the evil of the world in preference for a kindliness to all; such an ethical stance, Sufism would claim, is possible only by the empowering disclosure of the face of God. This did not mean that Sufism embodied a theology of tribulation, as if this world and all it contains is of no value and our existence in it simply an endurance test until we reach the hereafter. For Sufism, the ethics of patience with the world came not from its definition as a passing illusion but from the recognition of existence entire as the face of God. Sufism advanced the claim that all that exists can only exist if it shares in the existence of God, making creation the site of God’s self-disclosure no less than the prophetic message contained in the Qur’an. How could one ever spite others, seek revenge for suffering they inflicted, if they in some measure reflected the face of God—i.e.
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the names of God, actually countless in number, which formed the spiritual reality behind the world’s material appearance according to the intellectual architects of Sufism?17 To be so oriented to God necessitated spiritual training, refinement of the soul, the end being detachment not only from worldly concerns but even from one’s self, for it is in self-attachment that one is kept from total orientation to God and through Him to others as partial reflection of His image. For Sufism, the merciful face of God formed the departure point for both mystical and ethical existence. The cycle of existence, beginning with God’s qur’anic self-introduction as merciful, ends with Muslim acknowledgement of God, acting to refine their soul in godliness, which, in turn, is to mark their relations with all things, especially humans, since they represent glimmers of the face of God made manifest and reflected in creation. It is for this reason that we can say that it has been makarim al-akhlaq—not shari‘a—that gives Islam’s ethics its universalistic dimension; it is not adherence to shari‘a, however important that is for Muslim life, that endows a Muslim’s character with a universal outlook of kindliness to all but rather intimate relation with the unbounded presence of God, with the face of God which, as the Qur’an says, one encounters wherever one turns. A high stage of spiritual development is assumed here, as suggested by the great mystical poet of the thirteenth century, Rumi, who declared that God has given the world saints as an example of His mercy to all created beings, noting in particular the universal scope of their mercy which is also His, i.e. God’s, mercy.18 How could it be otherwise when one realizes that all indeed belongs to God, as Abu Hafs al-Suhrawardi, yet another mystical virtuoso of the thirteenth century, put it, “Whoever claims possession of something, his altruistic outlook is not sound, since he considers his self more entitled to the thing by possessing it. However, [true] altruism is the mark of those who see that all things belong to God.”19 The spiritual vision of Sufism, in other words, allowed for a tremendous sense of detachment, an extraordinary level of interior freedom (hurriyya), because the face of God that constituted exclusive object of one’s longing was universally accessible, as heralded by the Qur’an. It is here that Islam moved in a direction wherein the concept of enemy no longer existed, as illustrated by al17 This idea, “the oneness of existence” (wahdat al-wujud), is commonly associated with Ibn ‘Arabi (d. 1240) but is already present in the thinking of al-Ghazali (d. 1111), e.g. in his Mishkat al-Anwar (“Niche of Lights”). 18 “He [God] brought the saints onto the earth in order that He might make them a mercy to [all] created beings…. To the vulgar belongs [only] the particular mercy [i.e. limited]; the universal mercy (rahmat-e kull) belongs to the hero [i.e. perfect saint].” Rumi, The Mathnawi, ed. and trans. R.A. Nicholson, London: Luzac, 1940, 3:481, translated edition, p. 101. 19 Abu Hafs al-Suhrawardi, op. cit., p. 250.
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Qushayri, eleventh-century author of a popular manual on Sufism that continues to be widely read today, who says that spiritual realization occurs “when one finds no difference in eating with friend or infidel.”20 It is not only a question of a universal morality, extendable to all, but also the recognition that the quest for revenge is an illusion, and al-Qushayri describes kindliness, i.e. the height of noble character, as “patiently responding to reprehensible behavior with kindly behavior.”21 He illustrates this with a story about a Muslim tailor and his Zoroastrian client who would pay his bills with counterfeit dirham: The tailor would [always] take it. One day, when he had business away from his shop, the Zoroastrian came and paid counterfeit dirham to his assistant, who would not accept it, and so the Zoroastrian paid authentic dirham. When the tailor returned, he asked, “Where is the shirt of the Zoroastrian?” When the assistant related what had happened, he said, “What evil you have done! He has been treating me like that for some time, and I’ve borne it patiently, casting his counterfeit money in a well, lest another be harmed by it.”22
In other words, enmity, the desire for retribution, is an illusion that leads us to perpetuate the cycle of evil, but a spiritual disposition focused on the face of God creates the potential for one to absorb the world’s evil and refrain from seeking revenge, thereby putting a check on at least one part of the motivation to hate one’s enemy and removing a portion of evil from the cycle of revenge. This is not to suggest that justice is not to be served, but rather to point to the Muslim logic of ethical sensibilities above and beyond justice. In another story, this one related by Abu Hafs al-Suhrawardi about his uncle, Abu l-Najib alSuhrawardi, spiritual luminary of the twelfth century, it is related: I was with our sheikh [Abu l-Najib, i.e. his uncle] on his journey to Damascus when one of the villages sent food to him in the presence of Crusader captives who were in chains. The table was set and the captives were to wait until he finished, but he said to a servant, “Fetch the captives so that they might sit at the table and eat with the brethren.” He brought them, seating them at the table in a single row. The sheikh got up…, walked over to them, and sat with them as if one among them. He ate and they ate, and it was made manifest on his face the humility before God that was at work within him, the contrition and detachment from pride over them on account of his faith, knowledge, and action.
For Islam, then, the desire for revenge, the tendency to disdain others, especially one’s so-called enemies, cannot be overcome by human, i.e. natural, virtues alone, but needs a faith-filled mind, infused by a constant awareness of God, as suggested by Rumi:
20 al-Qushayri, op. cit., p. 46. 21 al-Qushayri, op. cit., p. 159. 22 al-Qushayri, op. cit., p. 159.
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Nature desires revenge on its adversary./ Mind is like an iron chain on the carnal soul [i.e. ego]./ It comes preventing it, restraining it./ Mind is like a police-inspector of good and bad./ The faith-filled mind (‘aql-e imani) is like a just police-inspector,/ the guardian and magistrate of the city of the heart (shahr-e del).23
To conclude: Since the mystical heritage of Islam, Sufism, has been an intrinsic part of the religious outlook of Islam, it cannot be said to add any content to the ethical norms of Islam. At the same time, it constitutes an ethical dimension that is not reducible to shari‘a norms. In that sense, mysticism in Islam acts in a way that goes beyond standards of justice to refinement of the soul (tazkiyat alnafs) for the purpose of shaping a character that is noble not base, magnanimous not miserly, free not enslaved. In this sense, then, Sufism has developed the qur’anic revelation of the face of God in a way that 1) permits one to be preoccupied with God alone and so be able, when deemed right, to forego the self and its attachments, i.e. its rights and interests, for the sake of a larger ethical goal, namely interpersonal, communal, and even universal harmony; and 2) expands the ethical horizon such that it is keyed to the omnipresent face of God—and thus all creatures, regardless of one’s ethnic or even religious affiliation to them. The ethical essence of Sufism—universal kindliness—is not a new idea per se, but is the expansive agent within a Muslim framework of ethics that must by its nature originate in God—both shari‘a and noble character. It is not therefore a function of stoic indifference, a rational mastery of the soul, but rather of a longing for life in the presence of God as revealed but not necessarily brought about by the Qur’an’s disclosure of God. In that sense, the ethics of Islam is not simply about knowledge of the standards of shari‘a, but a desire for the face of God for the sake of which one can sacrifice the ego’s natural inclinations and thus willingly (rather than grudgingly) adhere to the standards of shari‘a, which reach their fulfillment, according to Sufism, in noble character, i.e. kindliness to all. Sufism thus shows that the ethics of Islam is about noble character (makarim al-akhlaq) no less than shari‘a justice.
23 Rumi, op. cit., 4:721, translated edition, p. 382.
Contemplative Ethics: Intimacy, Amor Mundi and Dignificaton in Teresa of Avila and Julian of Norwich* Beverly J. Lanzetta Accounts within the Christian mystical tradition of moral behavior in the lives of the great mystics are manifold, among them the suffering gentleness of Francis who tended to beggars, lepers, and the crippled; the speculative incisiveness of Meister Eckhart who demarcated the importance of helping those in need from mystical piety; and the verdant voice of Catherine of Siena who shamed men and popes by speaking about the suffering of the masses. Yet many academic studies on the relationship of mysticism and ethics repeat the often-stated idea that mystics display an unfortunate tendency to antinomianism, amoral behavior, or ethical apathy.1 The dissonance perceived to exist between mysticism and ethics is due in part to the definitions of mysticism employed, and to its modern, academic appropriation. Scholars of mysticism have uncritically adopted the essentialist, universalist definitions first posed by William James and others, associating mysticism with highly subjective personal encounters, ecstatic states of consciousness, and transient, ineffable experiences of nonordinary reality, to the neglect of the whole of the mystic’s life of faith. A number of recent studies have critiqued this correlation of mysticism with extraordinary psychological states, and the privatization of the spiritual that emerges from it, as a
* 1
An edited version of this chapter has appeared in Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality (Johns Hopkins University Press) Spring 2005, vol. 5, no. 1: 1 – 18. Reprinted with kind permission of Johns Hopkins University Press. For scholarship on the relationship and tension between mysticism and morality, see James R. Horne, The Moral Mystic (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1983), especially chapter 1, “Mysticism and the Amoral Life;” Arthur Danto, “Ethical Theory and Mystical Experience: A Response to Professors Proudfoot and Wainwright,” Journal of Religious Ethics 4 (Spring 1976), 37 – 46; idem. Mysticism and Morality (New York: Harper and Row, 1972); Wayne Proudfoot, “Mysticism, the Numinous and the Moral,” Journal of Religious Ethics 4 (Spring 1976), 3 – 28; William Wainwright, Mysticism: A Study of its Nature, Cognitive Value and Moral Implications (Brighton, Sussex: Harvester Press, 1981); G. William Barnard and Jeffrey J. Kripal, eds. Crossing Boundaries: Essays on the Ethical Status of Mysticism (New York: Seven Bridges Press, 2002).
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philosophical construction that disregards or is blind to the overriding evidence of ethical concern in the lives and thought of the masters of religious history.2 Further, the field of contemporary Christian ethics focuses almost exclusively on the social dimension of moral conduct, and less on the mystical consciousness that may propel it; it is also based on an onto-theological assumption critiqued by many postmodernists, and on a post-enlightenment preoccupation with the individualized, autonomous self.3 Yet, the intrinsic unity of the spiritual and moral life was central to the patristic and medieval periods, and was even retained to a large extent in the Christian West until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when moral theology developed as a separate discipline distinct from dogmatic theology. The moral theology of this period “manifested not merely a process of developing theological specialization but a bifurcation in the inherent relationship of the moral and spiritual dimensions of Christian living.”4
2
3
4
For studies on the academic appropriation of mysticism see, Steven T. Katz, Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978); Grace M. Jantzen, Power, Gender, and Christian Mysticism (Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995, 1997); Louis Dupre, “Unio Mystica: The State and the Experience,” in Mystical Union and Monotheistic Faith: An Ecumenical Dialogue, Moshe Idel and Bernard McGinn, eds. (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1989), 3 – 23; Bernard McGinn, The Foundations of Mysticism: Origins to the Fifth Century (New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1992), “General Introduction,” xi–xx. A number of studies underscore the moral in mysticism, among them: Steven T. Katz, “Mysticism and Ethics in Western Mystical Traditions,” Religious Studies 28 (September 1992) 3: 407 – 423 and “Mysticism and Ethics in Eastern Mystical Traditions,” Religious Studies 28 (June 1992) 2: 253 – 267. Grace M. Jantzen: “Ethics and Mysticism: Friends or Foes?” Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden Rijksuniversiteit te Utrecht Universiteit van Amsterdam 39 (1985): 314 – 326; Dennis J. Billy, “Mysticism and Moral Theology,” Studia Moralia 34 (1996): 389 – 415; Howard Thurman, “Mysticism and Ethics,” Journal of Religious Thought 27 (1970) 2: 23 – 30; Janet K. Ruffing, ed., Mysticism and Social Transformation (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2001). The voices of feminist, womanist, mujerista, and postmodern theologians have critiqued the foundation of the Western ethical tradition. Among them are Grace Jantzen, Becoming Divine: Towards a Feminist Philosophy of Religion (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1999); idem, Power, Gender, and Christian Mysticism; Ada Maria IsasiDiaz, En La Lucha: A Hispanic Women’s Liberation Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993); Lois K. Daly, Feminist Theological Ethics: A Reader (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994); Emilie M. Townes, ed. A Troubling in My Soul: Womanist Perspectives on Evil and Suffering (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Press, 1995); Wendy Farley, Tragic Vision and Divine Compassion: A Contemporary Theodicy (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1990); John D. Caputo, Against Ethics: Contributions to a Poetics of Obligation with Constant Reference to Deconstruction (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993). See Mark O’Keefe, Becoming Good, Becoming Holy: On the Relationship of Christian Ethics and Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1995), 13.
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To disrupt these associations and shift attention away from the mysticalethical debate, I intend to focus in this paper on contemplative ethics in the thought of Julian of Norwich and Teresa of Avila. While in the history of Christian theology ethical thought often has been concerned with obligations, responsibilities, and acts, at the same time there exists another tradition within Christian moral thought that arises out of the contemplative life of prayer.5 Here, ethics comes from within, from the interior life of virtues in relationship with the world, yielding the fruits of responsibilities and deeds. It is from this mystical orientation that some of the greatest ethical precepts have been given form, and it is from them that we find a specific kind of ethical consciousness— an ethics of perfection—associated with deification and the virtues of prayer, humility, asceticism, selflessness, and loving compassion. As one of the most enduring strands of Christian mysticism, the term “contemplation” emerges in the West from the distinction made in the Platonic schools between the “description of the soul’s return to God through purification (askesis) followed by contemplative vision (theoria).”6 In contemporary usage, contemplation often is associated with the life of prayer and mysticism with “an immediate consciousness of the presence of God,”7 but in actual fact the two terms are used interchangeably in many Christian mystical texts, with the implication that all deeply spiritual persons are intrinsically mystic-contemplatives. Both terms refer to a quality of being associated with the mature spiritual life, and not just to the heightened, but temporary, altered states of consciousness that are sometimes associated with mystical experience in contemporary thought. In Christian literature a distinction is made between active and passive, sometimes also termed acquired and infused, contemplation. Although this distinction of active and passive is applicable to all modes of spirituality, the passive dimension is most consistently reserved for the higher stages of mysticism or contemplation. In Christian thought, the “active” life refers to all that we do to facilitate the journey—verbal prayer, good works, study, and practice of virtues. The “passive” reflects how God works in us, leading us through silence, receptivity, and openness to share in the intimacy of the divine life. It is the absence of self-willed activity, referring to the consciousness of surrender, vulnerability, and love. Teresa of Avila describes it best when she writes that active consolations in prayer “have their beginning in our own
5 6 7
On the relationship of spirituality and morality consult, Dennis J. Billy and Donna Lynn Orsuto, eds. Spirituality and Morality: Integrating Prayer and Action (New York: Paulist Press, 1996). Bernard McGinn, The Foundations of Mysticism, 24. Ibid. xix.
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human nature and end in God;” while the passive “begin in God and end in ourselves.”8 In the early monastic communities, ethical behavior was the natural outgrowth of the passive life; morality and spirituality were one. The primacy of contemplative silence in the life of the monk led to “charity and hospitality [which] were matters of top priority, and took precedence over fasting and personal ascetic routines.”9 This emphasis on ‘being’ over ‘doing’ was one of degree, a shift in perspective that allowed the monks to move from a deeper center than the one demanded by the world. It was movement into a certain quality of life, that Thomas Merton called the “third position of integrity,” and in which monastic communities followed a “lifelong commitment to the disinterested pursuit of the good and a willingness to enter a dark night of struggle so that they—and their enemies—might be born again: purged of demeaning social stereotypes and liberated from self-aggrandizing illusions.”10 Monastic Piety and the Ethics of Perfection From the beginning there has existed within Christianity a tradition of contemplative ethics that emphasized the attainment of deification, and was closely associated with the nascent monastic communities. Born out of constant prayer and reflection on divinity, this ethic of perfection was founded on the promise first established in Iranaeus of Lyons’ famous phrase, later repeated by St. Athanasius: “God became man so that man might become God.” (De Incarnatione 54). Imitation and participation in Christ’s divinity was the foundation of moral perfection, for it was only through the development of selflessness and ardor for God that one could become deified, divine-like. While primarily focused on the inner life of prayer and virtue, the monks were exhorted to practice perfection in order to mirror the divine in the world. The whole of the monastic charism was to participate in Christ’s life to the extent that one became a living example of God’s presence in human affairs. The quest for inner perfection was for the sake of outer theosis, love for the world and an ethical concern for the spiritual integrity of others.11 8 Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle, 4.1.4 and 4.2.4. All citations from Teresa of Avila are taken from The Collected Works of St. Teresa of Avila, 3 Volumes, Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriquez, trans. (Washington, DC. Institute of Carmelite Studies, 1987). 9 Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert: Sayings from the Desert Fathers of the Fourth Century (New York: New Directions, 1970), 16. 10 Robert Inchausti, Thomas Merton’s American Prophecy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), 92 – 93. 11 See John Meyendorff, “Theosis in the Eastern Christian Tradition,” in World Spirituality: An Encyclopedic History of the Religious Quest, vol. III. Christian
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Thus, a contemplative ethic was the result of a deep personal confrontation with God, and recognition that the monk was called to be a living representative of divine love. This ethic of perfection compelled the mystic monk to participate in and imitate the qualities of being that were revealed in the life of Jesus. The path to deification was through the development of virtues; foremost among these were humility, passionlessness, and love. The mystical “method” involved prayer, silence, solitude, compunction, direction, surrender, and reconciliation. The inner way was for the sake of a higher intentio: to be living representatives of Christ’s integration of divinity and humanity. The master was the one all could look to for guidance on conduct born out of true sanctity. While this ethic of perfection did not address explicit social concerns—a unique development of modern culture—it was nonetheless directed toward similar obligations and goals. It was an ethical code of conduct that marked the life of the monk as surely as moral strictures guide social contracts today. As pioneers in the contemplative desert, the monks were to bring souls to God, and to have respect for all seekers because like Evagrius they understood that “‘It is a part of justice that you should pray not only for your own purification but also for that of every man. In doing this you will imitate the practice of the angels.”12 For this reason Evagrius taught that progress in pure prayer should lead the monk to progress in love for all humanity: “Happy is the monk who views the welfare and progress of all men with as much joy as if it were his own… . and who considers all men as god—after God.”13 Ethical perfection developed an ascetical strand, in which the techniques of prayer were employed as a purgative process in order to deconstruct the concept of self, and to effect the reversal of social and spiritual oppression based on conventional notions of the real. Far from establishing the spiritual status quo, the heights of purgative contemplation were radically deconstructive to the person, leading through dark nights, renunciation of ego desires and religious norms, and confrontation with the selfishness, greed, fear, despair and worthlessness that grip the soul. This deconstructive function was directly associated with the cross and the reversal of the sensible and ordinary, in order to reveal the tragedy and exaltation of transcendence. Meditation on Christ’s life, death, and resurrection led the monks to reflect on selflessness and selfSpirituality: Post-Reformation and Modern, Louis Dupre and Don E. Saliers, eds. (New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1991), 470 – 476. For a study on the relationship of social ethics and Eastern Orthodoxy see, Vigen Guroian, “Notes Toward an Eastern Orthodox Ethic,” Journal of Religious Ethics 9 (2001) 2: 228 – 244. For an extended discussion of theosis and moral thought consult, Mark O’Keefe, Becoming Good, Becoming Holy, 59 – 72. 12 Evagrius Ponticus, The Praktikos, Chapters on Prayer, trans. John Eudes Bamberger (Spencer, MA: Cistercian Publications, 1970), Chapters on Prayer 39, 61. 13 Ibid. Chapters on Prayer 122 – 123, 75.
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sacrifice as primary foundations for ethical behavior. The close relationship between prayer and the moral life presupposed that any growth in prayer and holiness required a moral conversion, as is evident in the words of the nineteenth century monk Theophane the Recluse: Prayer is the test of everything; prayer is also the source of everything; prayer is the driving force of everything; prayer is also the director of everything. If prayer is right, everything is right. For prayer will not allow anything to go wrong.14
It also supported a unitive, contemplative intimacy with God, a direct infusion of divine love, in which the monk had attained such an integral orientation toward divinity that any actions that were contrary to perfection became a virtual impossibility. It is at this point that subject-object distinctions disappear and the mystic, speaking out of oneness itself, lays claim to having transcended moral dialectics. Yet, the apparent sublation of the moral life in passive contemplation is a temporary suspension of constructed discourse for the sake of a higher, and more intense flowering of spiritual gifts. True contemplation always overflows into creation—it becomes a creative act—as the monk participates in and lives out the fundamental dynamism toward the good that constitutes the inner Trinitarian relations. Both experiential and experimental, theosis honed and refined a contemplative ethic in which the primary motive was the surrendered, selfless-self given over to God. While the contemplative foundation of ethics in the West deserves a study of its own, I intend to focus in this paper on the specific contributions of two medieval women masters, Julian of Norwich and Teresa of Avila. We have in their journeys a rare insight into the phenomenology of moral-mystical consciousness; that is, how ethical response emerges directly out of contemplative experience. Specifically, it is possible to trace how their mystical experiences lead to recognition of the interconnectedness of all life and then to the development of specific social concerns for others. Teresa explicitly addresses how social reform is the direct response of the highest stages of infused contemplation in a commentary on the Mary-Martha story. “Martha and Mary,” she writes in her Meditation on the Song of Songs, “never fail to work almost together when the soul is in this state [mystical marriage]. For in the active—and seemingly exterior—work the soul is working interiorly. And when the active works rise from this interior root, they become lovely and very fragrant flowers.”15 From the offspring of the active and contemplative lives, “heroic deeds will be born” and did so in Teresa’s religious and social reforms.16 14 Cited in Billy, Spirituality and Morality, 75. 15 Meditations on the Song of Songs, 7.3. 16 See Carole Slade, “Teresa of Avila as a Social Reformer,” in Mysticism and Social Transformation, 94 – 95.
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Using the interpretive framework outlined above—that contemplative ethics emerges out of mystical states of consciousness, among them prayer, development of virtues, and silence; and that its intention is to transform or deconstruct traditional views of human behavior in order to bring the divine vision into the human sphere—I focus on how the suffering face of Jesus-Sophia calls these women to empowerment and dignity, freeing them to challenge existing social mores and develop their own ethical foundations. Contemplation on the Suffering Face in Julian and Teresa Although separated historically by almost two centuries, the spiritual lives and theology of Julian of Norwich and Teresa of Avila are remarkably resonant with each other, and with ethical concerns of contemporary feminists. As cartographers of the soul, they explored the contemplative process that took them from fragmentation, self-denial, and inequality to the formation of ethical principles based on intimacy, relationality, and dignity. As marginalized females in predominately male-dominated cultures, it was through their contemplative experiences and prayerful dialogues with God that they worked out their personal wounding and social concerns. In their struggles toward spiritual equality they mapped out the territory by which mysticism becomes the site of ethical reflection and responsibility. Julian and Teresa’s writings reject a static moral order in favor of a relational ethics, which derives its authority from a primary encounter with the suffering face of Jesus. In their experience of the visionary Jesus, they would find resonance with Emmanuel Levinas on the importance of the face, and would do doubt agree that “a face imposes itself upon me without my being able to be deaf to it or to forget it, that is, without my being able to suspend my responsibility for its distress.”17 It is always in relationship to the wounded face of the Other that they are pierced to the core of their being in solidarity for the suffering others of our world. In Julian and Teresa this intimate and intensely relational love of God forms the ground of their ethical behavior, establishing them as subjects in their own right. In order to situate their ethical responses, it is instructive to view how their identification with the suffering face leads them beyond their own spiritual oppression as women to identification with the suffering of humanity, their “fellow Christians,” and all creation. In the writings of Julian and Teresa there is a felt difference in the twenty years between their early expressions of worthlessness, inferiority, and debasement as women and their later, more 17 Emmanuel Levinas: Basic Philosophical Writings, Adriaan T. Peperzak, Simon Critchley, and Robert Bernasconi (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996), 54.
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mature, writings that boldly affirm women’s dignity and spiritual authority.18 Each of them struggled with their role as women, Julian in a more subtle manner, concealed within the textual differences between her Short and Long texts. It is noteworthy that references to the motherhood of God are completely absent in the Short Text, and are developed over the many years that Julian ponders Jesus’ message of love. What Julian accomplishes in a reasoned theological reflection from her anchor hold, Teresa experiences in a much more public and fiery fashion, through an anguishing twenty years of rejection, ridicule, and self-doubt. In a period spanning the middle of her adult life, Teresa struggles with issues involving her status as a woman and her achievement of her own style of contemplative prayer, with the ridicule and suspicions she aroused in those who felt her experiences were “from the devil.” Yet, mystically, they each arrive at a theology of integration and affirmation based on profound conversion experiences of personal and Divine suffering, and develop distinct contemplative vocabularies to describe the process by which a person achieves and fully accepts oneself as God’s beloved. This personal realization of divine selfacceptance is the foundation of their ethical concerns and of the battle that Teresa eventually wages to dignify the rights of women, girls, conversos, and others.19 Julian’s story is well known, how in her thirtieth and one half year she prayed for a vision of Christ’s passion, a bodily illness, and three spiritual wounds of contrition, compassion, and longing with the will of God.20 Her intention in these prayers was not for personal gain, but to experience Christ’s love as her own and to suffer His sufferings for the world. Julian’s entire theological corpus is based around her initial visionary experience in which she contemplates the textuality of Jesus’ thirsting face and crucified body. Soon after her vision she composes the first commentary, or Short Text, of her Showings, which she revises some twenty years later, after further thought and reflection, 18 See Beverly Lanzetta, “The Soul of Woman and the Dark Night of the Feminine” paper presented at AAR Western Region (WESCOR), UC Davis, March 23, 2003; idem, “Julian and Teresa as Cartographers of the Soul: A Contemplative Feminist Hermeneutic,” paper presented at AAR Annual Meeting, Atlanta Georgia, November 25, 2003; Constance FitzGerald, “A Discipleship of Equals: Voices from Traditions— Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross,” in A Discipleship of Equals: Towards a Christian Feminist Spirituality, edited by Francis A. Eigo (Villanova, PA: Villanova University Press, 1988), 63 – 97. 19 Throughout her works, Teresa makes reference to the dignity of women, social injustice, and ecclesial violence. But it is in The Book of Her Foundations that her most consistent analysis of social reform can be found. 20 Julian of Norwich, Showings, Edmund Colledge and James Walsh, eds. (New York: Paulist Press, 1978), Long Text (hereafter LT) 2, 177 – 179. All subsequent citations from Julian are from this translation.
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into her Long Text. In this vision of Christ crucified, Julian identifies with the wounds of the savior and focuses on the longing God has for our salvation and bliss, a suffering longing shown in his dying love. As “the foundation of your beseeching,”21 Christ is the matrix within which the human heart seeks consolation of sin and wounding, leading her to develop an integrative theology based on her understanding of the centrality of love in Jesus’ message. Far from being a desire for personal spiritual gain, Julian sought identity with Jesus’ self-giving love, so that she also could experience more directly the suffering of humanity. It is in the light of the suffering face of Christ that the true meaning and value of other things and actions can be correctly assessed. Through this intimacy of divine-human suffering (“for I wished that his pains might be my pains”), Julian recognized that all other interpretations must rest “with compassion which would lead to longing for God.”22 “Julian was aware that identification with Christ must include identification with those for whom he suffered,” writes Grace Jantzen, “and hence with their suffering; her prayer for illness represented a willingness to share the pains of the dying in such a way that her understanding and compassion for them would increase and she would be purged of any self-centredness in her responses.”23 Teresa, in her thirty-ninth year, also discovers the mystical link between her personal shortcomings and the conditions of the world through her encounter with the suffering face of Jesus. In 1554, during the season of Lent, Teresa is transported by a statue of the “wounded Christ” to identify with his pathos for humanity. Struggling with her attraction to gossip, honor, position, money, and trivial concerns, the vision of the wounded Christ incites profound compunction in Teresa, who experiences how her sins increase God’s wounds, and “how poorly,” she writes, “I thanked Him for those wounds that, it seems to me, my heart broke.”24 This felt pain for what he suffered on our behalf impacts on her sense of responsibility to her sisters and spiritual friends. This conversion experience is pivotal to Teresa’s future ethical stance, because it is through her identification with Christ’s agonized face and wounded body that she ignites the moral fiber necessary to change her life around. Taking Christ’s wounds into her heart, Teresa is no longer free to act of her own self-will, but must evaluate her subsequent behavior, response to moral issues, and responsibility for her growth in virtue and perfection against the horizon of Divine humility. The transformation of individual consciousness in their witness of the suffering face expands out from a personal, salvation ethic to include a wider 21 LT, 86, 342. 22 LT, 39, 180. 23 Grace Jantzen, Julian of Norwich: Mystic and Theologian (New York: Paulist Press, 2000), 60. 24 The Book of Her Life, 9.1, 101.
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social, contemplative ethic. The foundation of this ethic of perfection is prayer, specifically contemplative or, to use Teresa’s language, mental prayer. For both Julian and Teresa prayer is the vessel or enclosure within which God’s longing for our redemption takes root and grows. Perfection and intimacy with God are both source and fruit of the virtues, the former leading to the attainment of humility, compassion, and detachment of soul, while the latter overflows into an ethical concern for the well being of their fellow Christians, and especially, for Teresa, to the sisters in her charge. Inner theosis mirrors and strives to plant the seeds of justice and love in all relations. Christ’s suffering compels in them a desire to share in the world’s sufferings, to bear for him and for others in an outpouring of solidarity with those who are marginalized, ridiculed, and rejected: “I desire to suffer, Lord, since You suffered,” Teresa writes. “Let your will be done in me in every way, and may it not please your majesty that something as precious as your love be given to anyone who serves you only for the sake of consolations.”25 This contemplation on the suffering face takes on the marks of an inner moral compass by which Julian and Teresa evaluate their actions, and the world’s response, in light of Jesus’ loving passion. In their confrontation with the vulnerability of Jesus’ face, body, and wounds, their hearts are torn and whatever traces of self-centeredness remain are consumed by the fiery flame of sorrow for human arrogance and sin. Yet, this mystical emptiness of self initiates an unreserved responsibility in which they reclaim their dignity as women, and articulate a new feminine way of liberation for them and others. Julian, cloistered anchoress, and Teresa, foundress of contemplative communities, each finds in Jesus’ suffering face a mirror of their world. Through it they developed a distinctive contemplative ethic, born out of years of reflection and prayer, that will be developed according to three subthemes: the ethics of intimacy, amor mundi, and dignification. Ethic of Intimacy And the more our deeds show that these are not merely polite words, all the more does the Lord bring us to Himself … Not content with having made the soul one with Himself, He begins to find His delight in it, reveal His secrets, and rejoice that it knows what it has gained… And He begins to commune with the soul in so intimate a friendship that He not only gives is back its own will but gives it His. 26
In following the path of self-renunciation as it leads to divine longing, the role of intimacy becomes a central metaphor in the writings of both Julian and 25 Ibid. 11.12, 116. 26 The Way of Perfection, 32.12, 164.
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Teresa. Their identification with Jesus’ suffering leads them from mystical union to a deeper, ontological intimacy between the depth of their souls and God. The communion between God and the soul is “so intimate a friendship” that everything is shared equally and the soul experiences not only its own will, but God’s will. For Julian and Teresa, mystical intimacy involves identification with God’s longing and pathos for humanity, and a bearing of the two-fold wounding of Christ’s passion. The soul experiences the afflictions of its most receptive nature, both in terms of the negative wounding sustained from bearing the sin and violence of the world, and the positive touching of Divine Wisdom which opens it to deeper reserves of communion and oneness. Teresa contends these sufferings are felt “in the very deep and intimate part of the soul,”27 and mystically repeat the wounds borne by Jesus. Yet, she makes a radical departure from traditional theology when she states that his sufferings while alive were much greater than what he experienced in his passion, because “all things were present to Him and He was always witnessing the serious offenses committed against His Father.”28 For those who are intimate with God’s presence in the world, human sin strikes into the very core where God and the soul are one. She reflects on her own awareness of the suffering of a soul that is intimate with God and how difficult it is “to see the many offenses committed so continually against His Majesty….that I believe that only one day of that pain would have been sufficient to end many lives;”29 Yet, the intense suffering over the world’s afflictions is connected to the immense exaltation of love God offers to the soul. The inner soul wounding and outer worldly offense exist in reciprocal relationship to the overflowing love between God and the soul. The depth of the soul’s ability to bear God’s love for the world exists in proportion to the intensity of love’s wounding of the soul. In the highest reaches of mystic contemplation, Julian and Teresa experience how Jesus “begins to commune with the soul in so intimate a friendship that He not only gives it back its own will but gives it His.”30 The communion that takes place between God and the soul in its center teaches of the closeness God shares with all things and the manner in which they must bear for God the wounding and happiness of the world. The movement between suffering and exaltation follows the logic of loverbeloved, in which the “passion of Christ offers a principle for understanding what love really is; it is the standard by which love itself must be measured.”31 The intimacy achieved in mystic contemplation impresses on these women 27 28 29 30 31
The Interior Castle, 6.11.2. Ibid. 5.2.14. Ibid. Way of Perfection, 32.12. Jantzen, Julian, 92.
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masters how the soul in its essence is always one with God, despite its errors, omissions, and sins. So powerful was this understanding of the undefiled love between the soul and God, that it is not excessive to state that this equality of intimacy became the founding impetus of their lives and theologies. In various ways, Julian and Teresa address how the essential self is always one with God. Using images of fortified dwellings (Julian, citadel; Teresa, crystalline castle) to describe the soul, each distinguishes between the inner and outer soul. The inner soul remains pure and holy, turned toward communion with God, while the outer soul, turned toward the world, is susceptible to human desires, attachments, and sins. Julian names this distinction between inner and outer soul with reference to the terms substance and sensuality. 32 Substance is our essence, our pure nature made for God’s love; sensuality is the soul’s response to impulses and attractions that lead the person astray. It is not, for Julian, representative of a dualism between body and soul. Since the human person is a reflection of divine wholeness, the integration of sensuality and substance is the spiritual way to freedom, a way that requires a mending of the fracture in consciousness of Julian’s “even Christians” who are torn between sin and essence. Teresa also conceptualizes the soul as having an outer aspect that turns toward the world and is susceptible to its sins, and an inner pure and undefiled core that is turned toward God. In The Interior Castle, Teresa distinguishes the three outer moradas (dwellings) where a person confronts worldly limitation, suffering, and desire from the four interior rooms infused with supernatural love. Prayer allows entrance into the castle, and is the surest method by which the soul moves from oppression and fragmentation to freedom and wholeness. As the soul advances in grace, it moves from occasional touches of divine union to betrothal in which the soul’s “union with the Lord passes quickly, … [and] in the end the two can be separated and each remains in itself.”33 At the center of the castle, however, Jesus and the soul are united in “spiritual marriage” in a union “that is like what we have when rain falls from the sky into a river or fount; all is water, for the rain that fell from heaven cannot be divided or separated from the water of the river… . The soul always remains with its God in that center.”34 Prayer is the primary mode of communion between Jesus and the soul, but a specific type of nondual, infused prayer—Teresa’s prayer of quiet, union, betrothal, and marriage; the prayer of mothering and one-ing of Julian. This is not the prayer of subject and object, of Lord and damsel, but the fiery passion of lovers who share in the fullness of each other’s joys and sorrows. Through the 32 LT 57 – 59, 290 – 297. 33 Interior Castle, 7.2.4. 34 Ibid.
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wounds and suffering of Jesus, Julian and Teresa mystically re-enact the event of Christ’s oneness with creation. Oneness, interconnectedness, and integration are intrinsic in all intimate relations. Whether from the shelter of Julian’s anchor hold, or in the bustle of the Monastery of the Incarnation where Teresa served as prioress, intimacy was more than a transient and private mystical encounter or imaginative vision, it was an essential quality of being that demanded an equal ethical response. Reality was no longer viewed from the perspective of the individualistic self, but was grasped, and borne, from intimacy itself. As Julian and Teresa mature in their spiritual lives—and assert their authority—they speak more directly to the responsibility, or ethic, intimacy brings and the need to evaluate the problem of sin from the perspective of Jesus’ love for the world. In an especially important vision of the servant and the lord, Julian works out an urgent paradox that occupied her thoughts: how was she to reconcile the ordinary teaching of “Holy Church [in which] blame for our sins continually hangs upon us” with her spiritual understanding that “our Lord God show[s] no more blame to us than if we were as pure and as holy as the angels in heaven.”35 In the vision, the lord sits in rest and peace, while the servant stands before him ready to do his will. The lord sends the servant to a certain place, but the servant not only goes, but “dashes off and runs at great speed” and soon “falls into a dell and is greatly injured.”36 The fall causes the servant great distress because in his pain he is unable to turn his face or seek consolation from his lord who is very near him. Julian conceives the vision in Trinitarian terms; the servant is Jesus and Adam (“that is to say all men,)” the lord is “God the Father,” and “the Holy Spirit is the equal love which is in them both.”37 She thus interprets this teaching to signify how God looks upon his servants with such mothering mercy and tenderness. The lord does not blame his servant but realizes his fall is blameless, the result of excessive love and zeal. This excessive love told Julian how God looks upon our sins: “And then I saw that only pain blames and punishes, and our courteous Lord comforts and succours, and always he is kindly disposed to the soul, loving and longing to bring us to bliss.”38 Having pondered this vision for many years, Julian sees it as the essential manifestation of the incarnation—how through love, sin and evil are transformed. In this sense, Julian’s whole theology is an extended meditation on the question of integration, of joining the fragmented human self into wholeness, a wholeness that in turn teaches us about the interconnectedness of the world. The intimacy shared between lord and servant establishes guidelines for a 35 36 37 38
LT 50, 266. LT 51, 267. Ibid. 274. Ibid. 271.
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human response to the problem of evil and sin. It is exemplified in the feminine, in the bond of love between Jesus and his mother, Mary.39 Liz McAvoy’s interpretation that the whole of the vision can be seen through the closeness of the mother-child relationship, is worth quoting at length: Julian presents the mother-figure as the one who feels in her own body every hurt her child receives, both physical or psychological, and so this lord feels the suffering of his servant and is united with him in his anguish. The pain of the fall unites them both, just as the pain of childbirth and the suffering involved in the child’s acquisition of experience unites mother and child in a continuous cycle of reciprocity. The resultant effect of this feminization of language is the disruption of traditional masculinist absolutism embedded in the concept of vengeance and the assertion of the nurturing values of the maternal feminine both in a human and divine context as a solution to the problem.40
The mystical life drew Julian and Teresa into the dark night of their suffering savior’s pathos for human affliction. Constance FitzGerald asserts that this is the “point in life and prayer development [when] the images of the poor, the victimized, the oppressed, the exploited, and the suffering take on a clarity and significance that is overpowering.”41 Mystical intimacy defends the primary of divine benevolence—God loves the world, suffers over it, and desires to see all well. It is participation in God’s witness, seeing the world from God’s perspective that subverts and contradicts the whole individualistic perception of reality. Awareness and compunction lead to healing—a desire to heal the suffering of others and to lift up the collective longing and pain of humanity—bringing all to a deep knowledge of God’s love. Teresa writes how God showed her the experience of hell so she would understand the urgency of an ethical response to take action to mend the spiritual wounds. “I notice that if we see a person … with a great trial or suffering, it seems that our own very nature invites us to compassion; and if their trial is great, we ourselves become distressed… . No heart can bear it without great pain … this awareness also makes me desire that in a matter so important we don’t grow satisfied with anything less than doing 39 For Christ and she were so united in love,” writes Julian, “that the greatness of her love was the cause of the greatness of her pain…. For always, the higher, the stronger, the sweeter that love is, the more sorrow it is to the lover to see the body which he loved in pain. …Here I saw a great unity between Christ and us, as I understand it; for when he was in pain we were in pain, and all creatures able to suffer pain suffered with him. LT 18, 210. 40 Liz Herbert McAvoy, “‘The Moders Service’: Motherhood as Matrix in Julian of Norwich,” Mystics Quarterly 24 (1998) 4, 192. 41 Constance FitzGerald, “Transformation in Wisdom: The Subversive Character and Educative Power of Sophia in Contemplation,” in Carmel and Contemplation: Transforming Human Consciousness, Kevin Culligan and Regis Jordan, eds. (Washington, DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies, 2000), 311 and 314.
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all we can on our part; let us neglect nothing, and may it please the Lord that He be served by giving us the grace to do all we can.”42 Intimacy generates an ethic of mutuality and compassion, a desire to share in and bring healing to the sorrows of others. Ethic of Amor Mundi At the same time as I saw this sight of the head bleeding, our good Lord showed a spiritual sight of his familiar love. I saw that he is to us everything which is good and comforting for our help. He is our clothing, who wraps and enfolds us for love, embraces us and shelters us, surrounds us for his love, which is so tender that he may never desert us. And so in this sight I saw that he is everything which is good, as I understand. 43
Julian’s first revelation occupies nine chapters of her Long Text. It is a revelation of love in which all that follows is “founded and connected.”44 In a mystical commentary on “his precious crowning of thorns,”45 Julian expresses in these chapters the union between God and the soul, the joy of the Trinity as “our maker … our protector, and our everlasting lover,”46 and the familiar love in which God enfolds and embraces creation. While the vision is of Jesus’ bloodied head, the theology that emerges from it is one of flourishing, healing, and loving the world. Julian emphasizes that God wraps all of creation in love, caring for even our humblest bodily needs, so that “we, soul and body, [are] clad and enclosed in his goodness.”47 Her affirmation of the goodness of creation requires a different attitude toward the world, an attitude that champions what Hannah Arendt called amor mundi, love of the world.48 In emphasizing an ethic that is primarily concerned with the flourishing of others, rather than on the privatizing or spiritualizing of moral conduct, Julian displaces the relationship between theology and ethics. Instead of “theological or metaphysical doctrines forming the principles from which ethical rules and thus moral behavior can be derived,”49 it is her understanding that everything “lasts and always will because
42 43 44 45 46 47 48
Life, 32.6. LT, 5, 183. LT 1, 175. Ibid. LT 4, 181. LT 6, 186. See Amor Mundi: Explorations in the Faith and Thought of Hannah Arendt, James W. Bernauer, ed. (Boston/Dordrecht/Lancaster: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1987. Also Grace M. Jantzen devotes an extended treatment to Arendt’s concept of amor mundi in her book Becoming Divine: Towards a Feminist Philosophy of Religion, Chapter 6. 49 Jantzen, Becoming Divine, 153.
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God loves it”50 that forms the basis from which Julian’s thought and action are generated. The whole of this first revelation can be expressed in the juxtaposition Julian creates between the bleeding and suffering Jesus and the vision of a tiny object, “no bigger than a hazelnut,” that Julian ponders lying in the palm of her hand. She asks about the meaning of this tiny hazelnut and is shown how God loves it into existence. Love is at the center of being, it is love for which we are made; our essential core is pure, verdant, growing love—never stagnant or tainted. The sweetness and tenderness with which God loves creation overflows from the hearts of those who are God’s lovers into a concern for all others: “In all this,” writes Julian, “I was greatly moved in love towards my fellow Christians, that they might all see and know the same as I saw, for I wished it to be a comfort to them, for all this vision was shown for all men.”51 Julian develops her understanding of amor mundi through her mature reflections on the motherhood of God, a distinctive addition to her Long Text. The divine motherhood becomes the paradigm in which she “has come to recognize the crucial nature of the feminine, particularly the maternal, to the understanding of God’s love for humanity and his attitude towards sin, and for her, the divine and the feminine are inseparable.”52 The inseparable relationship between the divine and the feminine transforms the whole of her text, shifting “Julian’s exegetic emphasis from the meaning of sin to that of unconditional, maternal love as the universal principle upon which the relationship between the human and divine is predicated.”53 By associating the qualities of unconditional love and mercy with the mother figure, Julian conveys a more embodied, physical sense of the healing of sins and the unity of the soul. Because the mother’s service is ‘nearest, readiest, and surest,” writes Julian, “we are brought back by the motherhood of mercy and grace into our natural place, in which we were created by the motherhood of love, a mother’s love which never leaves us.”54 In 1388, more than fifteen years after her initial illness and revelations, Julian ponders the meaning of all that she has learned. At a time of social and political unrest, and under the scourge of the Black Death, Julian witnessed and was no doubt aware of the trials of those outside her anchor hold.55 It was, thus, her fervent desire to know more surely and profoundly the meaning of sin and suffering in the context of the mystical understanding she was given that “all will 50 51 52 53 54 55
LT 5, 183. LT 8, 190. McAvoy, “‘The Moders Service,’193. Ibid. LT 60, 297. For further analysis see Jantzen, Julian, Chapter 1.
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be well and every kind of thing will be well.”56 In the very last chapter of her Long Text, Julian writes, “and from the time it was revealed, I desired many times to know in what was our Lord’s meaning. And fifteen years after and more, I was answered in spiritual understanding, and it was said: What, do you wish to know your Lord’s meaning in this thing? Know it well, love was his meaning. Who reveals it to you? Love. What did he reveal to you? Love. Why does he reveal it to you? For love. … And so I was taught that love is our Lord’s meaning. And I saw very certainly in this and in everything that before God made us he loved us, which love was never abated and never will be.”57 Like Julian, Teresa is challenged to lift up sin and despair into an integrated theology of love. Her quest to embrace the whole world in the arms of love begins with a very personal struggle to reconcile her worthlessness with Jesus’ love for her. She battles this inner lack of self-love, due in large measure to her status as a woman in sixteenth century Spain.58 But reflected in her self-struggle is the fracture of those who do not love, and those who inflict loveless-ness on others. Teresa, as did Julian, learns that only in love can she cherish and empower herself, her monastic sisters, and her world. The self-hatred, selfloathing, and doubt that plague her inner thoughts must be given over to a higher acceptance, in which her personal failings are reconciled in the equality that love brings.59 Teresa understands God’s love primarily as a spiritual love that takes place in the depth of the soul. As God becomes intimate to the soul through loving union, Teresa is called to extend this ethic of healing to all souls brought into her fold. Interior love becomes the primary basis of all external compassionate acts. “Once while I was reciting with all the Sisters the hours of the Divine Office,” recounts Teresa, “my soul suddenly … seemed to me to be like a brightly polished mirror, … In its center Christ, our Lord, was shown to me, … as though in a mirror. And this mirror also … was completely engraved upon the Lord Himself by means of a very loving communion I wouldn’t know how to describe.”60 Yet, the spiritual love Teresa describes is not self-centered or otherworldly. It is an act of love that bears the essential work of compassion for others; Teresa is called to achieve this equality of spiritual love in order to assist others in progress for love of the world. It is a love with “no self-interest at all,” Teresa writes, because it imitates the love “which the good lover Jesus had for us.”61 Further, 56 Short Text (hereafter ST) 13, 149. 57 LT 86, 342. 58 Consult Antonio Perez-Romero, Subversion and Liberation in the Writings of St. Teresa of Avila (Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi Press, 1996). 59 One needs to read the whole of her Life to comprehend the depth of this struggle. 60 Life, 356. 61 Way of Perfection, 65 – 66.
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spiritual love is not dispassionate and unconcerned with another’s progress in love; no, according to Teresa, it is the most impassioned love that costs the soul who loves dearly. Prayers, tears, and penances are part of the longing the lover has for those who desire it, that they will find God and make progress in the growth of true love. The person pierced by the fiery arrow of love “does everything he can for the other’s benefit; he would lose a thousand lives that a little good might come to the other soul. O precious love,” Teresa praises, “that imitates the Commander-in-chief of love, Jesus, our Good!”62 Christ’s suffering is for love, we are made for love, are sins are held in love. Out of this mystical love, moral behavior bursts forth in a torrent of desire. It is love for the world, the foundational love of all creatures that unleashes pure action and thought. Love engenders wellness, flourishing, and is resplendent in the cycle of birthing, growing, and replenishing that brings forth the diversity of creation. This ethic of natality, of birth and growing, loves the world toward its highest potential.63 Straight out of the divine heart, again and again, Julian and Teresa are compelled toward Jesus’ mothering love, toward healing the fracture in consciousness that wounds love. Julian and Teresa arrive at a deeply feminine, gentle view of God. It is love that makes sin so painful, not punishment. Love cannot bear the punishment of the lover; their theologies lead to an ethic of amor mundi, the world embraced and surrounded in love, shouldered by love, and longing to love. Out of this vision, they each strive to embody humility and devotion as the clearest sign of grace. While the mystical writings of Julian and Teresa can be read as a repetition of the preoccupation with the salvation of the individual soul, this would be a misreading of the primary impetus of their lives and teachings. It was not individual freedom that they sought alone, but their desire to use this freedom in service of others. If one thing marks the writings of our two women masters, it is this intense compassion for the longings and pains of others, among them their sisters, neighbors, clergy, and friends. Infused into their texts, even amidst a rhetoric of dispassion and occasional contempt for the world (most prevalent in Teresa), is the importance of loving the world into being, celebrating its flourishing, and working to mend its fractures and wounds. “The important thing,” cautions Teresa, “is not to think much but to love much.”64
62 Ibid, 65. 63 See Jantzen, Becoming Divine, Chapter 6. 64 Interior Castle, 319.
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Ethic of Dignification [After they become nuns], they do not realize the great favor God has granted them in choosing them for Himself, and by rescuing them from being subject to a man in the outside world; a man who often kills their bodies, and God forbid, could also kill their souls.“ 65
As women mystics in societies acutely suspicious of females and contemplation, Julian and Teresa confronted their subordination and disempowerment as women. This confrontation becomes one of their most enduring ethical contributions, in which they reveal the soul wounds that generate moral weakness and failure, and the contemplative processes that move them from fragmentation to wholeness, dignity and empowerment. If the goal of the mystical life is becoming divine, something that Julian and Teresa both longed and prayed for with fervor and intention, then whatever impedes that realization is against ethics. The ethic of perfection that fuels their longing is dynamically related to and culminates in an ethic of dignification. To love as God loves requires a healing of the wounds that fracture self-love and divide a person against oneself. In becoming divine, they must suffer the reign of self-violence, of an internalized social self-hate. Julian and Teresa cannot share in the fullness of an integrated intimacy, without accepting their self worth and equality in the eyes of God. As discussed above, Julian conceptualizes this journey through Jesus-Sophia, the motherhood of God. Through the image of Jesus as our mother, Julian works out her equality and dignity of personhood, and the sinless-ness of her fellow Christians. During the period between the writing of Short and Long Texts, the harsh language Julian uses to describe herself as woman is greatly reduced, and in its place is a clear insight into her role and authority as a woman mystic. In the Short Text, Julian cautions the reader to “disregard the wretched worm, the sinful creature to whom it [revelation] was shown;”66 but the similar passage in the Long Text is changed, and the deprecating language substantially eliminated. Although she uses the rhetoric of frailty, weakness, and ignorance to describe herself, she also asserts “because I am a woman, ought I therefore to believe that I should not tell you of the goodness of God?”67 The subtlety and nuance of her awareness and critique of women’s status is illustrative of the importance Julian places on the empowerment that comes from embracing the feminine.
65 Foundations, 306; this translation taken from Perez-Romero, Subversion and Liberation, 178 – 79. 66 ST 6, 133. 67 Ibid. 135.
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It is in Teresa, however, that we can trace a women’s battle with spiritual oppression distinctive to her gender. In her negotiation of the soul’s journey, Teresa draws away from conventional definitions of women’s spiritual benefits as well as from traditional women’s roles. As she matures in her spiritual life, Teresa confronts a deeper, and more radical fracture that inhabits her consciousness, and battles to recognize the misogyny that is at the bottom of her self-doubt and worthlessness as a woman. This brokenness for Teresa is further instigated by the assault on her spiritual life by powerful male confessors intent on keeping her subordinated. The presumption of male domination over the most private and solitary aspects of Teresa’s life—her right to holiness and spiritual authority—was a manifestation of a deeper and more insidious spiritual oppression. Suspicions of heresy, accusations of being “from the devil” and other overt forms of violence against Teresa repeat on a physical level a prior spiritual privilege that was asserted by men over women’s interior lives.68 Codified in scripture and institutionalized by religious and secular law, rights granted men to invade Teresa’s inviolable solitude led to serious psychological, political, and spiritual consequences for her. Spiritual domination, which under girded the economic and social marginalization of women and their historical status as a permanent underclass in sixteenth century Spain, created hidden scars in Teresa’s soul— scars that could be healed only as she learns to map the contemplative process that takes her through her “dark night of the feminine” and into the blinding love of dignity and intimacy, alone with her Beloved.69 In her later works, Teresa introduces the theme of the empowerment and dignity of women through highlighting the great perfection and virtue that her nuns were able to achieve. Teresa wants her sisters to achieve spiritual discipleship, as she herself aspires to be an apostle who brings souls to God.70 Her longing to have her petitions of mercy and justice heard ignite her texts; at the same time she is acutely aware of the judgment inflicted on her and her sisters. “Is it not enough, Lord,” she writes, “that the world has intimidated us [women] … so that we may not do anything worthwhile for You in public or dare speak some truths that we lament over in secret, without Your also failing to hear so just a petition? I do not believe, Lord, that this could be true of Your goodness and justice, for You are a just judge and not like those of the world. 68 For a contemporary analysis of the issue, see Kathleen Fischer, “Violence Against Women: The Spiritual Dimension,” in Kathleen Fischer, Women at the Well: Feminist Perspectives on Spiritual Direction (New York: Paulist Press, 1988), 154 – 174. 69 For development of the term “dark night of the feminine”see Lanzetta “The Soul of Woman and the Dark Night of the Feminine,” paper presented at the AAR Western Region, University of California, David, March 23, 2003. 70 Interior Castle, 7.4.14.
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Since the world’s judges are sons of Adam and all of them men, there is no virtue in women that they do not hold suspect.”71 It is in her Foundations that her attempts to make actual the ethics of perfection and deification are most apparent. She wishes to lift up human reality to reflect the experiences of love, mercy, and compassion she perceived in her mystical visions. Against the harsh treatment of women and girls, she would pit the final test of love, in which she was taught by Love itself the worth God bestows on women. Through her community of sisters, she repels the injustice and violence against women and resists the social order by harvesting her mystical knowledge for political purposes. In response to the cultural preference for males, Teresa extolled the virtues of women and the shame of parents who do not realize “the great blessings that can come to them through daughters or of the great sufferings that can come from sons.”72 An astute observer and critic of the social order, Teresa chaffed under a system in which money, honor, and prestige were seen to be the heights of sophistication. She contrasted this ignorance with the truth of the soul’s equality in Jesus’ heart; and she actualized this insight by recognizing that “lineage and social status mattered not at all in the judgment of God.”73 Teresa describes a number of women who desire to be monastics who were whipped and punished by their families, or who disfigured themselves in order to avoid marriage. The conversion of one of these women, Catalina Godinez, gave Teresa “a new definition of lineage” that passed from the material and economic to the spiritual.74 Teresa recounts how after reading the inscription on a crucifix “the Lord worked a complete change in her. She [Catalina Godinez] had been thinking of a marriage that was being sought for her, which was better than she could have hoped for, and saying to herself, “With what little my father is content, that I become connected with an entailed estate; I am thinking of becoming the origin of a new line of descendents.”75 In addition to contributing to the renewal of the Carmelite Order and the founding of seventeen monasteries, Teresa also helped conversos—Jews converted to Christianity—by admitting them into her monasteries on the basis of their piety and suitability for the religious life.76 By accepting their financial and 71 72 73 74
Way of Perfection, 3.7, 51. Foundations, 20.3. 198. Foundations, 15.16, 175. Carole Slade, “Teresa of Avila as a Social Reformer,” in Mysticism and Social Transformation, 102. 75 Foundations, 22.5, 209. 76 A descendent of a converso family, Teresa maintained an awareness of social injustices all her life. This sensitivity was no doubt related to her family history and to the public confession her paternal grandfather was forced to make in 1485 over his secret practice of Judaism. A number of important works on the Jewish influences on Teresa’s spirituality
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logistical support, she afforded their families the social prestige and religious consolation that derived from endowing religious institutions.77 A spiritual foundation replaced the material basis for prestige and wealth; Teresa would have agreed with Julian that all our sufferings would be turned into honors.78 The radicalness of this insight bore “heroic deeds” in Teresa. Constance FitzGerald contends that Teresa’s contemplative life led her to be a champion of social and religious reforms, in which she: Envisioned, in fact, a new social order where all were to be equal. In her small communities of contemplative women, Teresa set in motion a reversal of the social and religious order by a spiritual one that would eradicate the highest principles of the established order and undermine the current images of social status. Her fearless struggle to destroy concern for honor and wealth, and therefore uphold the value of the person over money and ancestry, her unswerving struggle for the recognition of women’s rights to deep interior prayer and therefore to significant service in the Church at the time of great ecclesial danger and turmoil …79
Intimacy and love for the world exerted a powerful influence on healing the roots of violence that generated suffering and diminished Julian and Teresa as women in society and church. In effect, identification with Jesus’ suffering face becomes the force that compels them toward healing the wounds that inhabit their consciousness, as well as the spiritual and social pains of others. From mystical intimacy, they discover God’s equality of love as they reach out to uphold this ethic of loving the world into being. But deeper still, they confront the primacy of dignity as an ethic that must become part of the social good. It is not enough to experience the heights of mystical union; this experience must become the fire that burns away the dross of inferiority, self-loathing, and selfdoubt. Julian and Teresa risk bearing the theosis of the world. The ethics of perfection, as the journey toward deification, culminates for them in an ethic of dignification in which they assert their spiritual authority as the impetus for church and societal reform.
and thought have been written. Consult, Deirdre Green, Gold in the Crucible: Teresa of Avila and the Western Mystical Tradition (Longmead, England: Element Books, 1989); Catherine Swietlicki, Spanish Christian Cabala: The Works of Luis de Leon, Santa Teresa de Jesus, and San Juan de la Cruz (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1986); Gareth Alban Davies, “St. Teresa and the Jewish Question,” in Teresa de Jesus and her World, edited by Margaret A. Rees (Leeds: Trinity and All Saints College, 1981); Teofanes Egido, “The Historical Setting of St. Teresa’s Life, translated by M. Dodd and S. Payne, Carmelite Studies, I, 1980. 77 See Carole Slade, 100. 78 “He wants us to know that it [pain or humiliation] will all be turned to our honour and profit by the power of his Passion, and to know that we suffered in no way alone, but together with him, and to see in him our foundation.” LT 28, 227. 79 Constance FitzGerald, “A Discipleship of Equals: Voices from Tradition,” 91.
Zelinski on Mysticism and Morality William J. Wainwright I would like to begin by raising two general questions. The first concerns the status of the virtues that Daniel Zelinski attributes to monistic mystics. There are really two questions here. (1) Are the humility, say, or compassion, valorized by Dogen or Eckhart genuine instances of humility or compassion or are they borderline cases, or even counterfeits, of these dispositions? (2) If they are genuine instances of humility or compassion are they virtues, that is, excellences, fine or noble things? (Cf. Plato who argues in the Protagoras that courage as popularly understood, namely, a disposition to face dangers that others are afraid to face, isn’t itself a virtue because it isn’t always a fine or noble thing.) For an example of the sort of problem I have in mind consider nonattachment. Nonattachment is associated with a “God’s eye” morality which abstracts from my situatedness, my personal projects and personal relationships, counting these as no more (though perhaps no less) important than the projects and personal relationships “of a man far beyond the seas” whom I have “never set eyes on”.1 A similar attitude is enjoined both by the Christian love commandment and by classical utilitarianism. Nonattachment of this sort is clearly a moral (and not an immoral or amoral) attitude. But is it unqualifiedly admirable? Thomas Nagel and Bernard Williams argue that it isn’t. My point isn’t that Nagel and Williams are right. It is, rather, that whether nonattachment is morally admirable or not depends on which moral lens is most appropriate for viewing it, and that we can’t simply assume that the lens of “mystical morality” is superior. My second general question is whether mystical experiences are themselves sufficient to generate moral attitudes and moral activities or whether other contributing causes are also needed. For example, Professor Zelinski claims that under the right conditions (including a healthy self-regard) “nonattachment … and the perception of the pervasive unity” of the divine “causally induce … compassion and loving kindness.” (6, 4) But do mystical experience and nonattachment themselves induce these attitudes and the activities which express them or is the cause, rather, mystical experience and nonattachment as interpreted by, or infused with, a mystical or religious tradition which incorporates values of selflessness and altruism? 1
Edmond Colledge and Bernard McGinn, Meister Eckhart: The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises, and Defense (New York: Grove Press, 1981), p. 182.
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David Loy puts the problem this way: “… without our usual sense of a dualistic opposition between self and other, the concern to help ‘others’ arises … naturally and spontaneously … Such is the theory at least … Unfortunately, kensho [awakening to nonduality] does not automatically reveal the best way to help people.” So, in practice, “we tend to find ourselves back within the normative standards of our own group.”2 Loy then recounts the morally problematic history of Zen with its assimilation of and by the Samurai ethos, contrasting it with Pali Buddhism which absolutely prohibits killing. Loy’s point can be generalized. Even if her experiences provide the mystic with a new egoless or altruistic or other-regarding motivation, the conduct and specific attitudes in which this motive expresses itself may be largely shaped by the ethos or ethoi of the community or communities to which the mystic belongs (including, of course, religious ones), and these may be morally suspect. If these communities valorize duty or social justice, then the mystic will faithfully discharge her duties (the Sri Vaisnavas or the Virasaivas), or engage in social action (Vivekananda). If they don’t, she won’t. Or consider this example. In an earlier version of the paper included in the present volume, Zelinski argued that the enlightened mystic’s desire to alleviate suffering should lead her to eliminate or reduce invidious inequalities. But the fact of the matter is that, in practice, it usually hasn’t. (Cf. on this point, Jeffrey Kripal on the contrast between Ramakrisna and traditional Hindu mysticism in general, and Vivekananda). Furthermore, not all invidious inequality involves suffering. The Critical Theorists’ animadversions on false consciousness are instructive on this point. If morally questionable hierarchical norms have been fully internalized, women, servants, peasants, and the like may not be unhappy. Not only are they not conscious of any unhappiness, nothing in their behavior or responses indicates that their sincere avowals of happiness or contentment are self deceptive. The upshot is that the desire to alleviate suffering doesn’t appear to be sufficient for an ethics of social justice. Zelinski argues that his foundationalist model is consistent with “care” expressing itself differently within different mystical traditions since these differences can be explained by “divergent conceptions of the best means to foster … mystical values” like enlightenment and nonattachment. (14) Similarly, in responding to the relativism problem, Zelinski claims that “within the Prudential Generalization Model, enlightenment does at least make ‘the good’ clear. Hence the rightness of an action can be assessed via its likelihood of cultivating the good in comparison to the available alternatives.” (17) 2
David Loy, “The Lack of Ethics and the Ethics of Lack in Buddhism,” in G. William Bernard and Jeffrey J. Kripal, eds, Crossing Boundaries: Essays on the Ethical Status of Mysticism (New York and London: Seven Bridges Press, 2002), p. 273.
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Yet it seems to me that not only are there divergent conceptions of the best means to the goal (enlightenment and nonattachment), there are divergent conceptions of the goal itself. In certain forms of Buddhist nondualism, for example, the advice not to “cling” to nirvana makes good sense. In most (all?) forms of orthodox Christian mysticism3 the advice not to cling to God does not. In other words, I am doubtful that experiences of nonduality, together with their concomitant attitude of nonattachment, are themselves (when abstracted from the traditions which inform them) sufficient to define the good with enough clarity to provide an adequate target for teleological reasoning. A comparison with Aristotle may be helpful. Everyone agrees, says Aristotle, that the goal or mark to aim at is happiness (eudaimonia). But the goal which guides the deliberations of the phronetic person is an articulated goal. When the goal of happiness is filled in wrongly (as the life of pleasure, say, or the life of honor) we deliberate wrongly. Similarly here, if the goal of enlightenment and nonattachment is filled in wrongly (and the traditions seem to think it can be), our moral deliberations misfire. More generally, it seems to me that mystical experiences themselves are more loosely tied to morality than Zelinski and many others think. I do not for a moment doubt that the experiences can contribute to morality both by reinforcing a world view which incorporates moral values and by inducing the mystic to make these values part of the very fabric of his or her being. It does seem to me, however, that most attempts to show that mysticism either supports morality or is incompatible with it are actually attempts to show that mystical world views which are partly based on these experiences either support it or are inconsistent with it. Since these world views are underdetermined by the experiences, however, we should be cautious in inferring that the experiences themselves either underwrite morality or undermine it4 To flesh out this discussion a bit, let me focus on two virtues which Zelinski has singled out for special attention—humility and compassion. Humility. In an earlier version of the current paper, Zelinski characterized humility as follows. “One who is not attached, does not seek praise, does not 3 4
Including a Christian apophatic mysticism which speaks of the absence of distinctions in the “ground.” It is important to clearly distinguish causal questions from questions of justification. Whether or not mysticism causally induces moral attitudes and moral actions or, on the contrary, undercuts them is an empirical question and on this point I agree with Kripal: The evidence is mixed. Whether mystical experience or “mystical metaphysics” justifies morality or its rejection is a very different question, and the answer here depends on the experience and on the metaphysics. Advaitin metaphysics, for example might be incompatible with a robust social ethics even if the monistic experiences on which the metaphysics is partly based are not.
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gloat, nor does she seek to advance herself at the expense of others—in other words, she exhibits humility.” (My emphasis.) “Eckhart’s ‘poor soul’” for instance, “is a humble soul which cares not for external accolades or rewards.” But this, I think, is a rather thin concept of humility since one can exhibit these attitudes and patterns of behavior while retaining a sense of one’s superiority to at least some others. It is illuminating to compare a humility of this sort with the kind idealized in theistic mystical and devotional traditions. It has two strands that are missing from Zelinski’s characterization. The first is a sense of one’s own nothingness before God, of one’s utter poverty, emptiness, and worthlessness before divine majesty. Jonathan Edwards, for example, claimed that “evangelical humiliation is a sense that the Christian has of his own utter insufficiency and despicableness, and odiousness.” It is a response to “the transcendent beauty of divine things [God and his great work] in their moral qualities” which forces men and women to “see their own odiousness on the account of sin.”5 Or consider Rumi who argues that a person who has no sense of self is more humble than one who only sees himself as God’s servant: For the person who cries “‘I am the slave of God’ … affirms two existences, his own and God’s,” while the one who says “I am God” “has given himself up,” in effect confessing “I am naught, He is all: there is no being but God’s.”6 The second strand is a sense that one is less or lower than all others. Thus, the sixth and seventh degrees of humility in Benedict’s rule are “to believe and acknowledge oneself viler than all,” and “to think oneself worthless and unprofitable for all purposes.” Or, as Edwards says, “true lowliness of mind disposes persons to think others better than themselves.” (RA 320). “It is possible” that “an eminent saint” may know “that he has much grace … But he won’t be apt to know it: it won’t be a thing obvious to him: that he is better than others, and has higher experiences and attainments, is not a foremost thought; nor is it that which, from time to time, readily offers itself … he must take pains to convince himself of it … And if he be rationally convinced … it will hardly seem real to him … nor will it seem at all natural to act upon that supposition.” (RA 329) For the more sensible the saint is of God’s holiness, the more acutely conscious he is of his own infinite distance from what he owes God. “And so the more he apprehends [of God’s holiness], the more the smallness of his [own] grace and love appears strange and wonderful [to him] … and he is apt to look at it as a thing peculiar to himself …; for he sees only the outside of other Christians, but he sees his own inside.” (RA 324) Note how the second strand 5 6
Jonathan Edwards, A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections (The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 2), (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959), p. 311. Henceforth RA. Rumi, in R.A. Nicholson, Rumi: Poet and Mystic (London: Unwin Paperbacks, 1978), p. 184.
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depends upon the first. The sense that one is lower than others is a consequence of one’s awareness of the contrast between one’s own attainments and the divine’s terrible beauty. Because a sense of the divine transcendence and otherness is essential to it, there is no obvious place for it in Jainism or Theravada, say, or Madhyamika. But this has two consequences. The first is that there isn’t a single concept of humility. Religiously pregnant concepts of humility vary from one mystical tradition to another. (Although there will, of course, be overlaps between similar traditions.) The second is that the value of humility as defined in any one tradition becomes contentious. From the standpoint of orthodox Christian mysticism, for example, the sort of humility described by Zelinski will seem wanting. Many Mahayana Buddhists, on the other hand, would find the Christian mystics’s humility unattractive. Its fixation on sin and guilt would seem obsessive, and the attitudes it incorporates unduly “infected” with notions of substance and beliefs in the reality of distinctions. One can’t, then, simply take it for granted that the sort of humility a tradition valorizes really is a good thing and not a mere simulacrum of the genuine article. The upshot is that if someone claims that mysticism supports morality because (among other things) it leads to humility, the obvious question is: What sort of humility does it lead to, and is humility of that kind a good thing or, in any case, the best sort of humility.7 Compassion. In one of the present paper’s earlier versions, Zelinksi said that “‘Compassion’ is expressed through positive actions which seek both to alleviate pain and suffering, and to cultivate joy, nonattachment, and enlightenment,” and this is undoubtedly correct. But compassion, as ordinarily understood, also includes empathy or fellow feeling, and there is a question as to whether empathy and fellow feeling are fully compatible with nonattachment. On the face of it, they aren’t. Does my best friend really share my grief if he isn’t distressed by my suffering? And won’t I fault his response if I discover that, at the core of his being, he remains untouched by it? Or consider another example. The successful practice of karma yoga is a paradigmatic example of nonattached social action. So suppose that a woman is practicing karma yoga in fulfilling her role as a doctor and, in the course of her duties, attempts to save a small child’s life. Not only is she not attached to her action’s extrinsic consequences (wealth, honor, a fortunate rebirth, and the like), she is neither unduly elated by her action’s success nor unduly grieved by its 7
I do not mean to deny that the humility of the Zen adept or Christian saint may express themselves in similar behavior. But right behavior isn’t sufficient for virtuous activity. Right motives and inner attitudes are equally necessary and these motives and attitudes vary from tradition to tradition.
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failure. And I take this to mean that not only would she not be unduly grieved by her own failure to save the child, she would not be unduly grieved by the child’s death itself. Yet this sort of nonattachment can be morally problematic. For it is incompatible with the proper performance of at least some morally significant roles—that of a parent, for instance, or a spouse, or a friend. Think of my grand daughter’s reaction, for example, if she thought that not only would I not be unduly grieved over her early death, I would be no more grieved by it than I would by the death of a perfect stranger. It isn’t clear to me, then, that the sort of sympathetic grief which is consistent with nonattachment is compatible with the sympathetic grief we owe at least some others. Zelinski thinks it is, however, and asks us to consider the following analogy: “For many religious individuals … faith that their loved one is with God, that they will be reunited with them, or that they will be reborn … is so strong that they feel no sadness at the death of their loved one at all. We may consider such a reaction abnormal, but should we consider it immoral? And if we are not willing to make this judgment of the religiously faithful, then why should we so judge the religiously nonattached?” (31) This isn’t entirely convincing. Even if religious believers can properly face the death of a beloved daughter or son without grief,8 it is not clear that they (or anyone else) could properly view the prolonged and painful suffering of a beloved child without grief and distress, or that there would be nothing improper in one’s viewing the rape, torture, and consequent murder of one’s daughter with complete nonattachment, or that this would be an appropriate attitude to adopt toward a son whose misguided choices have resulted in a life so bad that it is no longer worth living. Another worry is whether (as Zelinski has put it elsewhere) “‘mystical unity’ is compatible with concern for others, since under it there are no others to be concerned for.” I argued in Mysticism that “genuine love or compassion presupposes a belief in the independence and reality of its object.”9 If it does, then any form of mysticism which identifies others with oneself, or denies that persons are real, is incompatible with it. I focused, for example, on the bodhisattva’s apparently inconsistent combination of a compassion which vows to save persons and wisdom—a recognition that persons are nothing but collections of momentary dharmas which themselves lack ultimate reality. Attempts to evade this difficulty seem to me to have been unsuccessful. For 8
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And this is at least doubtful. One won’t grieve over one’s child’s death if one doesn’t think that the loss is a real one. For the orthodox Christian, however, it is, since a fully human life is an embodied life. (Cf., e.g., Aquinas on the incompleteness or imperfection of the soul’s bodiless postmortem but pre-resurrection existence.) William J. Wainwright, Mysticism: A Study of its Nature, Cognitive Value, and Moral Implications (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1981), p. 212.
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example, Richard Jones objected that Mahayana doesn’t deny the reality of other persons but merely their status as independent self-existent beings, that is, it only denies a certain analysis of them.10 But this is misleading at best, for it fails to mention that the dharmas into which persons and their states are analyzed are also constructs or mental fictions. Perhaps “there is something not totally unreal” here (my emphasis), as Jones says, but whatever it is, it isn’t a person. It is important to note that the problem to which I have called attention has been recognized by Buddhists themselves. Thus, Dharmakirti suggests that there are two sorts of compassion. The first takes beings as its object. But the second, and superior, “takes as its object the particulars [dharmas] that constitute these objects,” for example, a state of suffering. To which the commentator Sakyabuddhi adds “that there is an even more subtle kind of compassion … that has no object at all.”11 But this merely restates the problem, it does not resolve it. For how can compassion take a feeling of pain, say, as its object, or nothing as its object? (When I pity Mary for her suffering, for instance, I pity Mary. I don’t pity her feelings, let alone pity nothing.) Or consider Candrakirti who argues that since a perfectly enlightened Buddha has no cognitions (of beings), he is only compassionate in the following sense. The dharmakaya causes the sambhogakayas and the nirmanakayas to teach because of compassionately motivated vows undertaken by the Buddha before reaching enlightenment. Yet this implies that perfectly enlightened Buddhas are not now compassionate although they were compassionate before they became perfectly enlightened. The problem of reconciling the simultaneous possession of wisdom and compassion hasn’t been resolved.12 10 Richard H. Jones, “Must Enlightened Mystics be Moral?”, in Richard Jones, Mysticism Examined: Philosophical Inquiries into Mysticism. (Albany, SUNY Press, 1993). 11 John Dunne, “Thoughtless Buddha, Compassionate Buddha,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 64 (Fall 1996), p. 535 12 And while this calls for further discussion, I don’t believe that Zelinski has resolved the nondualist’s problem of evil either. The problem is this: If “everything that happens will be the unfolding of the divine,” as Dogen and Eckhart believe, then “it seems that there can be no grounds for preferring any course of action over any other.” (25) Zelinski’s solution is to argue that “moral appraisal is (only) appropriate when directed toward the future…Anything that has become actual has been stamped [as an expression of the Buddha nature or] as God’s will but this does not preclude an individual from having preferences [that certain “possible future states of affairs” rather than others “be realized”] and attempting to realize them.” (26, my emphasis) I doubt that this is coherent. It isn’t, if moral appraisals are universalizable. For in that case, if a possible action A which is now in my future is bad, it will not become good when I perform it and A slips into the past. That moral claims are universalizable is generally thought to be part of the very meaning of “moral appraisal,” however, and their universalizability entails that, if they are true at all, they indifferently apply to all (past, present, and future) actions of the same type.
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But of course one can deny the otherness of persons without denying their reality. Is this too incompatible with genuine love or compassion? Zelinski thinks it isn’t. A belief “in the substantive distinctness of individuals” isn’t conceptually required for genuine love and compassion since we can meaningfully “talk about ‘loving yourself,’ ‘caring for yourself,’ ‘respecting yourself,’ ‘not getting down on yourself,’ and the like. Moreover, I can clearly love specific aspects or qualities of myself, for example, my patience.” (20, 21 f.) No doubt I can, but these examples introduce a new question—whether a love or compassion based on a belief in (or intuition of ) others’ identity with myself is unduly egoistic. As we have seen, Zelinski thinks that under the right conditions, nonattachment and the perception of the divine’s pervasive unity are causally sufficient to induce one to act with compassion. Among these conditions are a “prudentially healthy” concern for our own well-being. We value it “and perceive our own suffering as ‘to be alleviated.’” (32) Caring for ourselves, and recognizing that “others” in some sense are ourselves, we regard their suffering, too, “as ‘to be alleviated.’” But doesn’t including others within the scope of one’s prudential self concern because one views others as oneself seem unattractively egoistic—like the father who loves his daughter because he sees her as an extension of himself, or Aristotle’s friends who love each other because each views the other as an alter ego, another self ? Contrast this with Luther’s notion that in lovingly determining benefits and losses, one shouldn’t consider oneself at all; one’s own well being simply isn’t included in one’s “calculations”—an attitude which hardly evinces, or obviously presupposes, a healthy self regard. Or consider Zelinski’s claim that both Dogen and Eckhart think that the cultivation of enlightenment is the highest good. Yet for theists at least, including presumably Eckhart (?), this is false, even idolatrous. For the highest good is God. This is why both Madame de Guyon and Samuel Hopkins claimed that a person who truly loves God would be willing to be damned if (per impossibile) he should require it. For if one’s love of God is genuinely disinterested, one aims at God’s glory in all things, and is therefore “willing to be damned, if this be necessary for the glory of God.”13 In a similar vein, Abelard argued that our love of God should not be based on our desire for beatitude; a perfect love of God would be prepared to renounce even that for God’s sake. And Richard of St. Victor tells us that a purified soul would renounce its own blessedness if that would help secure the blessedness of others, and in that way fulfill God’s will.14 13 Samuel Hopkins, Works, vol. 1 (New York and London: Garland, 1987), p. 386 f. 14 The reply to this (by Bernard and others) is that since the love of God for his own sake is beatitude, one can’t (coherently) both love God for his own sake and renounce beatitude.
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My point in all this is similar to the one I made earlier. As in the case of humility, religiously significant conceptions of love or compassion are infused with the values and outlooks of particular religious systems. One can undoubtedly distill certain common features. But these will be largely behavioral (feeding the hungry, teaching the way to salvation, and the like) and, from a religious perspective, behavior as such—abstracted from motives and inner attitudes—has little or no value or significance. Religiously rich forms of love or compassion, on the other hand, are invariably contentious; their value appearing obvious only from the standpoint of the systems of beliefs and values that inform them.15 As a consequence, adequate defenses of the moral value of (e.g.) Buddhist or Christian humility or compassion must ultimately involve a defense of Buddhism or Christianity as a whole.
15 This is overstated of course. Buddhist compassion may seem defective from a Christian standpoint (and vice versa). But defective does not mean worthless or of little value.
Mysticism, Morality and the Wittgenstein Problem Russ Nieli “I had felt in his book a flavor of mysticism, but was astonished when I found that he has become a complete mystic. He reads people like Kierkegaard and Angelus Silesius, and he seriously contemplates becoming a monk. It all started from William James’s Varieties of Religious Experience and grew (not unnaturally) during the winter he spent alone in Norway before the war, when he was nearly mad. Then during the war a curious thing happened. He went on duty to the town of Tarnov in Galicia, and happened to come upon a bookshop, which, however, seemed to contain nothing but picture postcards. However, he went inside and found that it contained just one book: Tolstoy on the Gospels. He bought it merely because there was no other. He read it and re-read it, and thenceforth had it always with him, under fire and at all times. But on the whole he likes Tolstoy less than Dostoevski (especially Karamazov). He has penetrated deep into mystical ways of thought and feeling, but I think (though he wouldn’t agree) that what he likes best in mysticism is its power to make him stop thinking. I don’t much think he will really become a monk—it is an idea, not an intention. His intention is to be a teacher. He gave all his money to his brothers and sisters because he found earthly possessions a burden. I wish you had seen him. … “ Bertrand Russell (Letter to Lady Ottoline Morell, December 20, 1919) “He was above all a person in search of spiritual salvation.” Fania Pascal (from Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Personal Memoir) “The whole sense of the book might be summed up in the following words: what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence.” Ludwig Wittgenstein (from the Preface to the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus) “God is so much above all, that one can say nothing. You worship him better, therefore, through silence.” Angelus Silesius (from Cherubinischer Wandersmann)
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The Wittgenstein Problem In 1967 Ludwig Wittgenstein’s old friend Paul Engelmann published an intimate memoir1 describing the period he and Wittgenstein spent together during the years in which Wittgenstein was composing his Tractatus-LogicoPhilosophicus. 2 Besides his own personal reminiscences, Engelmann’s memoir contained many letters of Wittgenstein, which were extraordinary for both their depth and pathos. It was primarily from Engelmann’s memoir that outside observers first came to realize the full extent of Wittgenstein’s essentially mystico-religious personality, and the preeminent position which spiritual and ethical matters occupied in Wittgenstein’s hierarchy of concerns. Many years after Engelmann’s memoir, the British philosopher Ray Monk published an extensive biography of Wittgenstein, Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius,3 that added many more details to our understanding of Wittgenstein’s ethical and religious preoccupations, and his struggles throughout his life to attain a higher level of moral purity. It was primarily from Monk’s and Engelmann’s works that students of Wittgenstein came to realize the overwhelming effect upon Wittgenstein’s attitudes and thoughts of spiritualist writers such as Augustine, Kierkegaard, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, George Fox, Rabindranath Tagore, and the William James who wrote The Varieties of Religious Experience. 4 The mystico-religious Wittgenstein that could be gathered from extensive biographical material presented a problem for interpreters, however, that to this day has not been adequately addressed by Wittgenstein scholars. For the known facts about Wittgenstein’s inner spiritual life would seem to be difficult to reconcile with his philosophical writings, which most have seen as having little if anything to do with the sorts of moral and philosophical issues that typically concern mystics and spiritualists. The problem is well stated by Monk in the introduction to his biography when he speaks of two apparently inconsistent aspects of Wittgenstein, namely, “the spiritual and ethical preoccupations that dominate his life, and the seemingly rather remote philosophical questions that dominate his work” (xviii). Why would a mystic spiritualist write a book like the 1 2 3 4
Letters from Ludwig Wittgenstein with a Memoir (Horizon Press, New York, 1967). German text with English translation by D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness (Humanities Press, New York, 1961). The Free Press, New York, 1990. Also important for an understanding of the moral and spiritual dimension of Wittgenstein’s personality are the shorter recollections of his student M. O’C Drury and his Russian teacher Fania Pascal. Both are contained in the volume edited by Rush Rhees, Recollections of Wittgenstein (Oxford University Press, 1981). Drury’s remarks are particularly important: it is from Drury that we learn that Wittgenstein considered Kierkegaard to be “the greatest thinker of the 19th century,” and that he held St. Augustine’s Confessions to be perhaps “the most serious book ever written” (85, 87, 90).
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Philosophical Investigations or the Tractatus? One can speak here of a Wittgenstein Problem, and in this paper I will attempt to sort out some of the proposed solutions that have been given to this problem, and will endeavor to show that in the case of the “early Wittgenstein,” that is, the Wittgenstein who wrote the Tractatus, only one answer—what is called here the via negativa solution—is consistent with the known facts about Wittgenstein’s life and works. All other answers will be shown to be false. In the case of the “later Wittgenstein”—the Wittgenstein, that is, who wrote the Philosophical Investigations and related works—conventional answers to the Wittgenstein Problem will be seen as much more on the mark. Ordinary Language Philosophy and the Wittgenstein Problem The Wittgenstein Problem is certainly most tractable in the case of Wittgenstein’s later, so-called “ordinary language” philosophy. This is because his later philosophy was explicitly formulated in opposition to most of those features of his earlier thought that had proved so congenial to the logical positivists in their unremitting war against all moral and metaphysical discourse. In affirming the legitimacy of existing “language-games” practiced by the masses of ordinary human beings in their multifarious “forms of life,” later Wittgensteinian philosophy can be seen as an attempt to justify all those features of traditional morality and traditional religion that were still very much alive in the gewoehnliche Sprache of the ordinary man. As one can readily discern from his “Remarks on Frazer’s Golden Bough,”5 Wittgenstein had nothing but loathing and contempt for those enlightened intellectuals who sought to debunk the simple faith of uneducated people, and the so-called “populist” or “traditionalist” implications of his post-Tractatus philosophy, which a number of writers have commented upon, were no doubt at least partially intended by Wittgenstein as a means of halting what he saw as the corrupting effect of natural science-oriented intellectuals and philosophers upon the foundations of traditional morality and religion. The alliance between the mystic spiritualist and the common man in opposition to the corrupting influence of a university educated intelligentsia is an important theme in the writings of both Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, and Wittgenstein seems to have taken over from both of these authors his concern for preserving what he apparently perceived as the modicum of piety and decency still alive in the uneducated masses, who had not yet been fully corrupted by the secularizing spirit of the Enlightenment. One might quote in this context a remark by Father Zossima in The Brothers Karamazov, a 5
Edited by Rush Rhees, translated by A.C. Miles, Humanities Press, Inc., Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, 1979.
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novel which Wittgenstein read again and again and from which he could quote whole passages—particularly the speeches of Zossima—by heart: The salvation of Russia comes from the people. And the Russian monk has always been on the side of the people. … Of course I don’t deny that there is sin in the peasants too. The fire of corruption is spreading visibly, hourly, working from above downwards. … but God will save Russia, for though the peasants are corrupt and cannot renounce their filthy sin, yet they know it is cursed by God and that they do wrong in sinning. Our people still believe in righteousness, have faith in God, and weep tears of devotion. It is different with the upper classes. They, following science, want to base justice on reason alone. … they have already proclaimed that there is no crime, that there is no sin. And that’s consistent, for if you have no God what is the meaning of crime? … But God will save Russia as he has saved her many times. Salvation will come from the people, from their faith and their meekness.6
Bertrand Russell is most explicit in seeing Wittgenstein’s later philosophy in terms of a Tolstoyan-style retreat to the peasantry.7 While Russell himself had nothing but contempt for Wittgenstein’s later thought—he once dismissed the subject matter of ordinary language philosophy as the “silly things” which “silly people” say8—whether or not one agrees with this assessment, Russell must certainly be seen as correct in his recognition that much of the appeal that a focus on “ordinary language” had for Wittgenstein was moral and religious in nature. Besides offering foundational support for the moral, aesthetic, and religious dimension of “ordinary language” (Umgangssprache, gewoehnliche Sprache, alltaegliche Sprache), Wittgenstein’s later philosophy had the equally important effect of undergirding all those “forms of life” implicit in any ongoing moral and religious practice. Given this fact, it is certainly not hard to explain how a number of Wittgenstein’s later students, apparently seeking an alternative to the 6 7
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The Brothers Karamazov (Constance Garett translation, New American Library, New York, 1957), 290 – 291. In one of Russell’s autobiographical works he writes on this matter: “There are two great men in history whom he somewhat resembles. One was Pascal, the other was Tolstoy. Pascal was a mathematician of genius, but abandoned mathematics for piety. Tolstoy sacrificed his genius as a writer to a kind of bogus humility which made him prefer peasants to educated men and Uncle Tom’s Cabin to all other works of fiction. Wittgenstein, who could play with metaphysical intricacies as cleverly as Pascal with hexagons or Tolstoy with emperors, threw away this talent and debased himself before common sense as Tolstoy debased himself before the peasants … I admired Wittgenstein’s Tractatus but not his later work, which seemed to me to involve an abnegation of his own best talent very similar to those of Pascal and Tolstoy” (My Philosophical Development, Simon and Schuster, New York, 1959, 214). “Philosophy, as conceived by the school I am discussing, seems to me a trivial and uninteresting pursuit. To discuss endlessly what silly people mean when they say silly things may be amusing but can hardly be important” (Portraits from Memory and Other Essays, George Allen and Unwinn LTD, London, 1956, 156 – 157).
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general secularism of modern times—times which Wittgenstein himself saw as a Dark Age—could become practicing Roman Catholics. One could equally well imagine a student under Wittgenstein’s later influence becoming an Orthodox Jew, an Eastern Orthodox Christian, a Mormon, or a Muslim. (Wittgenstein himself, who believed he was compelled to live “without the consolation of belonging to a Church,”9 appears to have been most attracted by the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox mystic traditions and by 17th century Quakerism). By declaring that all established “forms of life” constitute cultural givens which the philosopher must accept just as they are (PI 124; PI II, 226), Wittgenstein’s post-Tractarian philosophy provided foundational support for all those traditional systems of meaning and value which the logical positivists and natural science-oriented intellectuals had tried so hard to discredit. The Divided Self Theory If the Wittgenstein Problem is one amenable to a fairly easy and straightforward solution in the case of the post-Tractarian philosophy, the same is certainly not the case for the ideas presented in the Tractatus. At one point in his biography of Wittgenstein, Monk describes the Tractatus as a “curiously hybrid work” that combines logical theory with religious mysticism,10 and since the late 1920 s when the Tractatus was first extensively discussed by the members of the Vienna Circle, many commentators have characterized the book in terms very similar to Monk’s. The logical and the mystical aspects of the book, many have thought, exist in a problematic and confusing juxtaposition, and many have had difficulty reconciling the two components. Commentators have had perhaps the greatest difficulty understanding the work’s apparently negative assessment of metaphysical discourse in view of its author’s strong attraction towards Christian spirituality and religious mysticism. With specific reference to the Tractatus, therefore, one might formulate the Wittgenstein Problem in the following manner: “How could a work which held metaphysical discourse to be meaningless nonsense and which seemed to lend so much ammunition to logical positivism in its sneering rejection of all moral, religious, and aesthetic philosophy, have been written by a man who at the time of writing the work was a Tolstoyan-style Christian?” This paper will endeavor to explore five different types of solutions to the Wittgenstein Problem that have been offered by various commentators, which shall be designated, respectively, a) the Divided Self Theory, b) the Foxhole 9 Rhees editor, Recollections of Wittgenstein, 114. 10 Monk, 116.
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Religion Theory, c) the Non-Discursive Language Theory, d) the No-Relationship Theory, and e) the Via Negativa Theory. An attempt will be made to demonstrate that each of the first four theories is in some sense fundamentally flawed, and that the fifth theory, the Via Negativa Theory, is the only one which accurately relates the logical and linguistic aspects of the Tractatus to its higher religio-spiritual and religio-ethical purpose. The paper will conclude with an extensive discussion of three types of transcendental experiences that Wittgenstein alludes to in key passages of his early work, and will explain how an understanding of the nature of these experiences is necessary to understand the message Wittgenstein was trying to convey in his Tractatus. A final reflection will be offered on how mysticism, meaning, and moral conduct are all interwoven in Wittgenstein’s early thought, and about the importance of William James’s Varieties of Religious Experience for understanding this early thought. We begin with the first named theory, the theory of a divided self. This theory finds its most comprehensive formulation in Rudolf Carnap’s “Intellectual Autobiography,”11 which is worth quoting at considerable length since it not only presents the Divide Self Theory in its purest form, but also provides us with an invaluable description of the nature of Wittgenstein’s essentially religioprophetic personality and how it was perceived by someone totally out of sympathy with it. Wittgenstein, Carnap believed, had a personality that was internally divided against itself, with a powerful rational component warring against a deeply ingrained and equally powerful religious and emotional aspect. Carnap had originally thought of the Tractatus as a radical statement of the antimetaphysical point of view later adopted by the Vienna Circle, but upon meeting Wittgenstein for the first time in the summer of 1927, he discovered that the Tractatus’s author actually had some kind of positive attitude—or at least an ambivalence—towards religion, theology, and metaphysics. Carnap describes his first meeting with Wittgenstein in the following words: When I met Wittgenstein, I saw that Schlick’s warnings [against engaging Wittgenstein in heated discussion] were fully justified. But his behavior was not caused by any arrogance. In general, he was of a sympathetic tempermant and very kind; but he was hypersensitive and easily irritated. Whatever he said was always interesting and stimulating, and the way in which he expressed it was often fascinating. His point of view and his attitude towards people and problems, even theoretical problems, were much more similar to those of a creative artist than to those of a scientist, one might almost say, similar to those of a religious prophet or a seer. When he started to formulate his view of some specific philosophical problem, we often felt the internal struggle that occurred in him at that very moment, a 11 See Paul Arthur Schlipp, editor, The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap (Library of Living Philosophers, Open Court Publishing Company, La Salle, Illinois, 1963), 3 – 84.
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struggle by which he tried to penetrate from darkness to light under an intense and painful strain, which was even visible on his expressive face. When finally, sometimes after a prolonged arduous effort, his answer came forth, his statement stood before us like a newly created piece of art or a divine revelation. … The impression he made on us was as if insight came to him as through a divine inspiration, so that we could not help feeling that any somber rational comment or analysis of it would be a profanation. (25 – 26)
It is important to keep in mind in interpreting Carnap’s remarks here that his comparison of Wittgenstein to a creative artist, religious prophet, or seer is not made merely to reflect on the intensity of Wittgenstein’s mode of thinking, or the manner in which Wittgenstein presented his ideas. As further remarks in his “Autobiography” make clear, it was the content of Wittgenstein’s thought, not merely the way he presented it or derived it, which distinguished Wittgenstein in Carnap’s view from natural-science-oriented intellectuals like himself and the other members of the Vienna Circle. Carnap goes on to explain how Wittgenstein seemed to have a fundamentally different attitude towards religion than either himself or Schlick, and seemed to have contempt for any ideas which smacked of “enlightenment”: Thus there was a striking difference between Wittgenstein’s attitude toward philosophical problems and that of Schlick and myself. … I sometimes had the impression that the deliberately rational and unemotional attitude of the scientist and likewise any ideas which had the flavor of “enlightenment” were repugnant to Wittgenstein. … Once when Wittgenstein talked about religion, the contrast between his and Schlick’s position became strikingly apparent. Both agreed of course in the view that the doctrines of religion in their various forms had no theoretical content. But Wittgenstein rejected Schlick’s view that religion belonged to the childhood phase of humanity and would slowly disappear in the course of cultural development. When Schlick, on another occasion, made a critical remark about a metaphysical statement by a classical philosopher (I think it was Schopenhauer), Wittgenstein surprisingly turned against Schlick and defended the philosopher and his work. (26 – 27) … All of us in the Circle had a lively interest in science and mathematics. In contrast to this, Wittgenstein seemed to look upon these fields with an attitude of indifference and sometimes even with contempt. (28)
Carnap thus came to realize that Wittgenstein had a fundamentally different view on matters concerning religion and the relative importance of natural science to human affairs than that held by himself and the members of the Vienna Circle, and he goes on to attribute this difference to a deep split which he believed existed within Wittgenstein’s personality between his rational and his emotional life. As we learn from other sections of his “Autobiography,” Carnap was familiar with—and apparently much impressed by—Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic explanation of religious beliefs as attempts to maintain in adulthood the sense of security that existed in childhood, and his own
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explanation of Wittgenstein’s attitude toward religion and metaphysics draws heavily upon Freudian formulations. In trying to explain how the author of such a work as the Tractatus could harbor some kind of positive attitude toward religio-metaphysical beliefs, Carnap formulated his Divides Self Theory in the following manner: These and similar occurrences in our conversations showed that there was a strong inner conflict in Wittgenstein between his emotional life and his intellectual thinking. His intellect, working with great intensity and penetrating power, had recognized that many statements in the field of religion and metaphysics did not, strictly speaking, say anything. In his characteristic absolute honesty with himself, he did not try to shut his eyes to this insight. But this result was extremely painful for him emotionally, as if he were compelled to admit a weakness in a beloved person. Schlick and I, by contrast, had no love for metaphysics or metaphysical theology, and therefore could abandon them without inner conflict or regret. Earlier, when we were reading Wittgenstein’s book in the Circle, I had erroneously believed that his attitude toward metaphysics was similar to ours. I had not paid sufficient attention to the statements in his book about the mystical, because his feelings and thoughts in this area were too divergent from mine. Only personal contact with him helped me to see more clearly his attitude at this point. I had the impression that his ambivalence with respect to metaphysics was only a special aspect of a more basic internal conflict in his personality from which he suffered deeply and painfully. (27)
How are we to assess Carnap’s theory here? Surely a deep split in a person’s inner being between, on the one hand, a religio-emotional impulse, and on the other, a logical-rational faculty, would explain why such a person might be both attracted towards religious and metaphysical discourse and yet repelled by it. But when taken as an explanation of Wittgenstein and his Tractatus, the Divided Self Theory which Carnap offers us is absurd on its very face, for it cannot begin to explain how anyone so painfully divided against himself could have summoned forth the “great intensity and penetrating power” that would have been necessary to analyze with the thoroughness and the precision that Wittgenstein has done the weaknesses in his alleged beloved. And even if so painfully divided a personality could have summoned forth such penetrating power, it is not at all clear why such a person would want to act out on a public stage in the form of a published book so distressing—and still so painfully unresolved—inner conflict. Wittgenstein we know went to great lengths to try to get his Tractatus published and was despondent when it was turned down by three successive publishers. If the logical and the mystical aspects of his book were really at war with each other, as Carnap believed, and if this war reflected a very deep and painfully internal conflict in Wittgenstein’s psyche which he was never able successfully to overcome, it is simply inexplicable why Wittgenstein would have been so eager to have his book presented to the world. On Carnap’s theory we would have to assume that Wittgenstein was some very peculiar kind of masochist-exhibitionist.
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The Divided Self Theory, moreover, cannot explain the fact that Wittgenstein himself always seems to have viewed the Tractatus as a unified and integrated work and not a hybrid of any kind. The unified nature of the Tractatus is clearly assumed by Wittgenstein in the Preface to the work, and on no occasion in his life is Wittgenstein ever known to have characterized the book as anything other than an integrated whole with a unified thesis, unified purpose, and unified point of view. This is true even in Wittgenstein’s later writings, when he subjects many of the major tenets of the Tractatus to unrelenting criticism and critique. The Divided Self Theory, finally, runs in the face of everything we know from intimate friends and observers about the actual nature of Wittgenstein’s personality. One of the most striking features of that personality, in fact, was its almost childlike absence of inner division. The inner pain in Wittgenstein which Carnap refers to was certainly real enough, as the testimony of many other observes confirm, but far from being the product of a self in conflict with itself in a Freudian manner, it would seem to be the product of Wittgenstein’s extreme moral, spiritual, and psychological sensitivities, which, as in the parallel case of Kierkegaard, produced in him a profound sense of social alienation, in part at least because these very sensitivities were so out of tune with the temper of most ordinary people and with the spirit of modern times. Fania Pascal, who tutored Wittgenstein in Russian in the mid-1930 s during a time when he sought to flee what he perceived to be a dying civilization in order to settle in the land of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, has given us a description of Wittgenstein’s inner self in Freudian terminology that surely comes closer to the truth of the matter than the Divided Self Theory which Carnap develops. Mrs. Pascal says of Wittgenstein: We can understand his cavalier attitude towards Freud … once we realize that he himself felt he had no need of Freud. I am reluctant to use Freudian terminology, but cannot put it more clearly and briefly than by saying that there was in him no perceptible split between the ego and the superego. For that matter, no split of any kind.12
The Foxhole Religion Theory If the logical and the mystical aspects of the Tractatus are seen to exist in some kind of problematic juxtaposition, and the Divided Self Theory as an explanation of this state of affairs is not tenable, what would appear to be a more plausible explanation can be found in the writings of Bertrand Russell, Ray Monk and Brian McGuinness, each of whom offers a variation on what has been designated here as the Foxhole Religion Theory. In broadest outline this theory holds that before the start of the First World War Wittgenstein was 12 Rhees, Recollections of Wittgenstein, 47.
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concerned primarily with technical problems in logic and the philosophy of mathematics, and that it was only as a result of his wartime service and his wartime reading of Tolstoy’s The Gospel in Brief that the interests in the philosophical work he was writing broadened out to include the realm of “higher things”—i.e. ethics, aesthetics, religion, God, the meaning of life, and the mystical. According to this theory, the wartime confrontation with death and suffering, in conjunction with his reading of Tolstoy, produced in Wittgenstein a profound change in the very core of his personality and this change came to be reflected in the nature and purpose of the Tractatus. From a very technical and rather dry treatise on logic in the tradition of Frege, Russell, and Whitehead, the Tractatus, according to this explanation, broadened out to include moral and spiritual wisdom. Bertrand Russell laid the groundwork for much of the Foxhole Religion Theory in his 1951 obituary article on Wittgenstein in the British journal Mind. In the last paragraph of that article Russell explained how Wittgenstein’s interests, which in the years he had known him at Cambridge between 1911 and 1914 had been almost exclusively in the realm of logic, changed during the war as a result of his chance reading of Tolstoy: He was in the days before 1914 concerned almost solely with logic. During or perhaps just before, the first war, he changed his outlook and became more or less of a mystic, as may be seen here and there in the Tractatus. He had been dogmatically anti-Christian, but in this respect he changed completely. The only thing he ever told me about this was that once in a village in Galicia during the war he found a bookshop containing only one book, which was Tolstoy on the Gospels. He bought the book, and, according to him, it influenced him profoundly.13
Ray Monk develops the Foxhole Religion Theory at considerably greater length than Russell and argues that Wittgenstein’s purpose in writing the Tractatus completely changed by 1916 from what it had been at the beginning of the war and that the change came about not merely because of Wittgenstein’s reading of The Gospel in Brief in the late summer of 1914, but also because of the dangers and hardships of the war itself and the religious-type conversion that these helped to produce in Wittgenstein. One of the major reasons Wittgenstein enlisted in the war, Monk contends, was because of the purification and spiritual transformation for which Wittgenstein yearned. “What Wittgenstein wanted from the war,” Monk writes, “was a transformation of his whole personality, a ‘variety of religious experience’ that would change his life irrevocably.” “In this sense,” he continues, “the war came for him just at the right time, at the moment when his desire to ‘turn into a different person’ was stronger even than his desire to solve the fundamental problem of logic” (112). 13 Mind, volume lx, number 259, July, 1951, 298.
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Monk stresses the impact on Wittgenstein’s spiritual development of Tolstoy no less than Russell does, but he sees this impact as affecting Wittgenstein’s philosophical writing only after an interval of two years. It was Tolstoy in conjunction with the crucible of his wartime experience, Monk contends, that ultimately transformed the Tractatus from a treatise on logic to a work combining logic and religious mysticism. On this Monk writes: During his first month in Galicia, he entered a bookshop, where he could find only one book: Tolstoy’s Gospel in Brief. The book captivated him. It became for him a kind of talisman: he carried it wherever he went, and read it so often that he came to know whole passages of it by heart. He became known to his comrades as “the man with the gospels.” For a time he … became not only a believer, but an evangelist, recommending Tolstoy’s Gospel to anyone in distress. … His logic and his thinking about himself being two aspects of the single “duty to oneself,” this fervently held faith was bound to have an influence on his work. And eventually it did—transforming it from an analysis of logical symbolism in the spirit of Frege and Russell into the curiously hybrid work which we know today, combining as it does logical theory with religious mysticism. But such an influence does not become apparent until a few years later.14 (115 – 116)
Monk is quite explicit on the impact of Wittgenstein’s confrontation with death and suffering during the war, and goes so far as to declare that if Wittgenstein had sat on the sidelines during the conflict and not seen action, the Tractatus would have been a radically different work than the work that has come down to us: If Wittgenstein had spent the entire war behind the lines, the Tractatus would have remained what it almost certainly was in its first inception of 1915: a treatise on the nature of logic. The remarks in it about ethics, aesthetics, the soul and the meaning of life have their origin in precisely the “impulse to philosophical reflection” that Schopenhauer describes, an impulse that has as its stimulus a knowledge of death, suffering and misery. (137)
Monk sees the major change in Wittgenstein and in the purpose of the Tractatus to have come about as a direct result of the Austrian Army’s bloody clash with the Russians in the summer of 1916. The logical and the mystical aspects of Wittgenstein’s thought were indelibly fused together, he claims, as a result of Wittgenstein’s confrontation with death during this violent campaign on the Eastern Front: In June [1916] Russia launched its long-expected major assault, known, after the general who planned and led it, as the “Brusilov Offensive.” Thus began some of the heaviest fighting of the entire war. The Austrian Eleventh Army, to which Wittgenstein’s regiment was attached, faced the brunt of the attack and suffered enormous casualties. It was at precisely this time that the nature of Wittgenstein’s work changed. On 11 June his reflections on the foundations of logic are 14 Monk, 115 – 116.
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interrupted with the question: “What do I know about God and the purpose of life?” He answers with a list [a list that includes reflections on the meaning of life, on the nature of God, the human will, and prayer] … It is as if the personal and the philosophical had become fused; ethics and logic—the two aspects of the “duty to oneself ”—had finally come together, not merely as two aspects of the same personal task, but as two parts of the same philosophical work. (141 – 142)
Brian McGuinnes, in the first volume of his biography of Wittgenstein, takes a position almost identical to that of Monk in stressing the transforming effect upon Wittgenstein’s personality and thought of his confrontation with death in battle in the year 1916. It was during the summer campaign of this year, says McGuinness, “somewhere between the shells and the bullets,” that the two strands in Wittgenstein’s philosophy, the Russellian and the Dostoyevskian, were joined together to produce the single body of thought that would be presented to the world in the Tractatus. Presenting the Foxhole Religion Theory in perhaps its pithiest formulation, McGuinnes writes: We have mentioned … that the implications for Weltweisheit—for the philosophy of life—of his technical philosophy were not always apparent to him, though no doubt they were unconsciously part of his motivation. But now, in this the worst summer of danger and defeat [i.e. the summer of 1916], somewhere between the shells and the bullets, he began to feel that the two were connected; that grasping the essence of propositions or of an operation had something to do with adopting the right attitude towards life. No longer does his attitude towards his philosophy merely exhibit the same structure as his attitude towards life: the two are now identified. The critic of Russell is fused in the reader of Dostoevsky. Wittgenstein’s first philosophy (and much of his later personality) is the fruit of that campaigning season.15
In seeking to evaluate the Foxhole Religion Theory it must first be acknowledged that it is beyond question that Wittgenstein’s experiences during the First World War, both in reading Tolstoy and in facing death at the front, heightened his spiritual sensitivities and his interest in those “higher things” concerning God, the mystical, and the meaning of life that are dealt with in the last pages of the Tractatus (and prefigured in his Notebook entries from June to November 1916). It is important to keep in mind, however, that Wittgenstein had had an interest in these matters long before the summer of 1916, indeed, long before the First World War ever began. He had read Tolstoy’s Hadji Murat, for instance, in the summer of 1912 and in a letter to Russell at this time he remarked on just how wonderful this work was.16 In an earlier letter to Russell (July 22, 1912), he had spoken of how much he had profited from his reading of William James’s Varieties of Religious Experience, and how this work had 15 Brian McGuinness, Wittgenstein: A Life (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1988), 245. 16 McGuinness, 33; Monk, 115 – 116.
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helped him to get rid of his Sorge (worry, anxiety, earthly cares). Perhaps more importantly, we know that the experience that Wittgenstein seems to have regarded throughout his adult life as the quintessential religious or religiomystical experience—the experience he describes in his 1929 “Lecture on Ethics” as one of being “absolutely safe,” of being “safe in the hands of God”— was an experience be apparently had for the first time in 1910 or early 1911 in conjunction with the viewing of a play by the Austrian dramatist Ludwig Anzengruber.17 According to remarks Wittgenstein once made to Norman Malcolm, it was this 1910/1911 experience that led to a change in his attitude towards religion, which up until that time had apparently been quite hostile.18 While Monk and McGuinness are well aware of this religio-spiritual interest of Wittgenstein existing prior to the First World War, and describe at considerable length Wittgenstein’s intense prayer life during the early months of the war as Wittgenstein has recorded it in his wartime diaries, they see this interest as having no impact on his philosophical work until his direct confrontation with death at the front in 1916. Besides other difficulties with this interpretation, however, it can be shown to be false on purely textual grounds, for on May 25, 1915—more that a year before the Brusilov Offensive—Wittgenstein made the following important entry in his Notebooks: The urge towards the mystical comes from the non-satisfaction of our wishes by science. We feel that even if all possible scientific questions have been answered our problem has not even been touched in the slightest. Of course there is then no longer any question and this is precisely the answer.
In these remarks we can see some of the major “higher” themes of the Tractatus including a) the limitations of scientific propositions in dealing with what is most important in human life, i.e. meaning, purpose, value, and communion with God; and b) the mystic-transcendent nature of the higher order reality that alone confers meaning, purpose and value on human life. The substance of these remarks would later be taken over directly in two propositions of the Tractatus—propositions 6.52 and 6.522—where they play a crucial role in setting forth its dominant religion-mystical theme. Wittgenstein says there: We feel that even if all possible scientific questions have been answered our life problems have not even been touched in the slightest. Of course there is then no longer any question and this is precisely the answer. There is, of course, that which cannot be put into words. It shows itself. It is the Mystical.
17 Monk, 51. 18 Norman Malcolm, Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Memoir (Oxford University Press, London, 1977), 70.
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Besides its textual and chronological problems, however, the Foxhole Religion Theory aslo suffers from one of the same defects as the Divided Self Theory, namely, Wittgenstein himself always seems to have seen the logical and the religio-mystical aspects of his Tractatus as forming a seamless garment (and not a chronologically-conditioned “hybrid”), and is never known to have revealed to anyone that the original purpose of his philosophical writing had undergone so radical a transformation as that which the Foxhole Religion Theory must postulate. One would suppose that if, as Ray Monk argues, “the Wittgenstein Engelmann met in 1916 was not the same as the Wittgenstein Russell had met in 1911,” and that, as a result of this change, his “purpose in writing the Tractatus” was also not the same (149), then no one would have been more aware of this, and understood it better, than Wittgenstein himself, who, after all, was a most reflective of human beings. Yet such a transformation was never part of Wittgenstein’s own interpretation of his philosophical endeavors over the period 1911 to 1918.19 Indeed, the opposite is the case. As W. Donald Hudson 19 Ray Monk and Brian McGuinness both claim (see Monk, 142, 145, 149; and McGuinness, 78, 145) that a brief one-sentence remark Wittgenstein entered in his Notebooks on August 2, 1916, is an acknowledgement on Wittgenstein’s part of the radical chronological shift in his interests during the summer of that year from logic to the “higher things” about God, morality, the meaning of life, etc. that would later be incorporated into the final pages of the Tractatus. Wittgenstein stated on that occasion the following: “Indeed, my work has expanded from the foundations of logic to the nature of the world.” This statement, however, will not bear the interpretation Monk and McGuinness have put on it. Indeed, it may not be a chronological statement at all but a statement about the very broad scope that Wittgenstein’s logical inquiries had always assumed, or at least had assumed from the time he dictated his extensive notes to G.E. Moore in Norway in April 1914. At least from the time of the Moore Notes, Wittgenstein had seen his inquiries into the logical properties of language as providing not only an insight into the nature of linguistic reality, but a key to understanding the basic nature and structure of the entire universe. The key Tractatus themes of the isomorphism between language and the world, and the claim that basic structural properties of the world are shown by the logic of language but cannot be stated in language is first developed extensively at this time. (The Moore Notes are reproduced in Appendix II of Miss Anscombe’s translation of the Notebooks). The remark which Monk and McGuinness want to read so much into, and which they claim is an acknowledgment of the radical reorientation of Wittgenstein’s interests resulting from his confrontation with death in battle on the Russian front, would seem to be saying little more than what Wittgenstein had said previously in much earlier Notebook entries, for instance, in the following from January 22, 1915: “My task consists entirely of this: to explain the nature of the proposition. That is, to give the nature of all facts whose picture is the proposition. To give the nature of all being.” McGuinness, it should be remarked, is much less satisfied with the Foxhole Religion Theory than is Monk, as he qualifies it considerably, and, as in the passage quoted in the text, indicates that the implications of Wittgenstein’s logical inquiries for his philosophy of life—i.e. his philosophy of the “higher things” that dominate the Tractatus from 6.4 to the end of the work—were at least “unconsciously” present from a period long before the
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so succinctly states the matter in his thoughtful book on Wittgenstein and Religious Belief, Wittgenstein himself “conceived of the argument of the Tractatus as a unity and saw his conclusions concerning the mystical in 6.4 to 7 as following from his discussion of the structure of language in the earlier part of the book.”20 Had Wittgenstein’s purpose in writing the Tractatus undergone a radical change in the 1916 – 1918 period, Wittgenstein surely would have understood this better than anyone else, and presumably would have explained this fact to at least some of those with whom he discussed the work at considerable length (e.g. Engelmann, Russell, Ramsey, Schlick, Waismann, Drury, Malcolm, Anscombe). Even if one were to accept the basic contention of the Foxhole Religion Theory that the religio-mystical interests of the Tractatus were largely the product of Wittgenstein’s experience during the First World War, one is still left with the problem of how to explain the existence in the same book of Tolstoyan mysticism with a theory of logic and language that appears to deprecate all discourse about God, ethical virtue, and the meaning of life by ascribing to it the status of nonsense. The Wittgenstein Problem, in other words, is not answered merely by saying that Wittgenstein’s philosophical interests from 1911 – 1915 were almost exclusively with logical theory and then broadened out in the 1916 – 1918 period to include religious mysticism and ethics, for one still would have to explain how the logical theory in the Tractatus—and particularly its logical positivist and anti-metaphysical features—is related to its ethical and bullets and the shells began to fly. Even though the implications of his logical inquiries for his philosophy of life first became clear to him only in the summer of 1916, McGuinness argues, “it seems,” he says, “that there was from the start a connexion between the interest he acquired in the philosophy of mathematics and the first gropings of his thought about the philosophy of life” (78). What was previously unconscious, or only partially conscious, was thus brought to full consciousness, McGuinness believes, as a result of the frightful experience of the war. Elsewhere in his biography McGuinness writes: “That [Wittgenstein] prayed during the First War and that his reading then was intensely Christian, we shall in due course see, but this was noted as a striking change by Russell, who had the impression before the war that Ludwig was hostile to religion. Russell was surely right in detecting a change, but as far back as we have indications of Ludwig’s inner life, his thoughts ran to sin and guilt and good and evil spirits, much of the machinery of religion and eschatology seemed to be for him the natural expression of moral realities” (43). In contrast to McGuinness, the claim of this paper (as well as of the author’s larger work on Witgenstein) is that the implications of his logical inquiries for the “higher things” embodied in his mystic, spiritual, and theocentrically-based moral philosophy were conscious from the very beginning, and that Wittgenstein’s very purpose in taking up the study of logic under Bertrand Russell was to preserve, against profanation and debasement, the “wholly other” sacrality and subliminity of the realm of the mystic transport. (See Russell Nieli, Wittgenstein: From Mysticism to Ordinary Language, State University of New York Press, Albany, 1987). 20 (The Macmillian Press, LTD, London, 1975, 69).
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religio-mystical strains. The Foxhole Religion Theory, in short, is not much of an answer to the problem that has been posed in this paper. The Non-Discursive Language Theory If neither the Divided Self Theory nor the Foxhole Religion Theory provide an adequate answer to the Wittgenstein Problem, a more promising possibility is offered by the Non-Discursive Language Theory. This theory received its most important formulation in Alan Janik and Stephen Toulmin’s Wittgenstein’s Vienna,21 a work which is worth considering at some length within the present context since it develops the Non-Discursive Language Theory in a manner that many have found convincing and the book continues to be one of the most influential works of exegetical revisionism on the Tractatus some thirty years after its first publication in the early 1970 s. In the Introduction to their work Janik and Toulmin identify “the central paradox of the Tractatus” as that of reconciling “the ‘ethical’ Wittgenstein with the ‘logical’ Wittgenstein.” “Anyone who tries to understand the Tractatus,” they explain, is “confronted with two contrasting views about the very subject matter of the book.” These, they say, “may be referred to, for convenience, as the ‘ethical’ and the ‘logical’ interpretations” (25). “After some seventy pages apparently devoted to nothing but logic, theory of language and the philosophy of mathematics or natural science,” Janik and Toulmin declare, “we are suddenly faced by five concluding pages (propositions 6.4 on) in which our heads are seemingly wrenched around and we are faced with a string of dogmatic theses about solipsism, death and ‘the sense of the world’ which ‘must lie outside the world’” (25). “Were these last reflections about ethics, value and ‘the problems of life’,” Janik and Toulmin ask, “mere claptraps, makeweights, or private afterthoughts? Or do they have some integral connection with the main text, which the familiar interpretation overlooks?” (23). In answering this question, Janik and Toulmin contend not only that the final discussion of “higher things” was intended as an integral part of the Tractatus, but that the earlier sections on logic, mathematics, and the philosophy of language were instrumental in developing the religious, ethical, and aesthetic themes with which the work concludes. The final pages of the Tractatus, they suggest, “were not intended as a string of obiter dicta thrown in as an afterthought or makeweight, but … are— as their position suggests—meant to be the climax of the book” (168). The Tractatus according to Janik and Toulmin’s interpretation is thus seen as a unified philosophical treatise with a unified ethical purpose, and this purpose, they contend, was one Wittgenstein intended from the very beginning of his 21 (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1973).
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work on the book. Indeed, the main problem with which the Tractatus deals, Janik and Toulmin hold, was one which preoccupied Wittgenstein even before he took up the study of logic under Bertrand Russell in the year 1911. What Wittgenstein wanted to do in the Tractatus, they contend, was provide a theory of language that would distinguish factual and scientific discourse, on the one hand, from ethical, religious, and aesthetic discourse on the other. The latter subject matter, they suggest, involves the realm of “subjective truth,” which Wittgenstein, like Kierkegaard, believed to be communicable only indirectly through poetry, fable, irony, satire and other non-discursive language forms. It was to protect the integrity of the subjective truth contained in poetry and these other non-discursive modes of language, Janik and Toulmin assert, that Wittgenstein elaborated his theory of the discursive proposition and of the representational nature of all factual discourse. Wittgenstein, according to this view, utilized the logical theories developed by Russell and Frege to grasp more clearly the nature of discursive propositions, but this desire to illuminate discursive language, Janik and Toulmin believe, was itself intimately connected with his more important aim of revealing the true nature of non-discursive language. Janik and Toulmin’s version of the Non-Discursive Language Theory is well-represented in the following remarks: Wittgenstein is trying to set the ethical off from the sphere of rational discourse, because he believes that it is more properly located in the sphere of the poetic. … Language can present experience, but it can also infuse experience with meaning. The former is possible because the propositions that represent facts are models with a logical structure. The latter is poetry. … Language can thus represent facts by means of propositions, or alternatively convey emotions in poems. The aim of the Tractatus is to distinguish the two, and thereby protect them from confusion. (193) The problem on which Wittgenstein embarked—according to our hypothesis—was that of constructing a general critique of language capable of showing, at one and the same time, both that logic and science had a proper part to play within ordinary descriptive language by which we produce a representation of the world analogous to a mathematical model of physical phenomena, and that questions about “ethics, value and the meaning of life,” by falling outside the limits of this descriptive language, become—at best—the objects of a kind of mystical insight, which can be conveyed by “indirect” or poetical communication. (191) … the problem with which Wittgenstein was originally preoccupied, and which determined the goal at which the writing of his Tractatus was directed … [was one of ] reconciling the physics of Herz and Boltzmann with the ethics of Kierkegaard and Tolstoy, within a single consistent exposition. (168) The philosophy of the Tractatus is an attempt to show, from the very nature of propositions, that poetry does not consist of propositions. In this world-view, poetry is the sphere in which the sense of life is expressed, a sphere which therefore cannot be described in factual terms. … In science, we want to know the facts; in the problems of life, facts are unimportant. In life, the important thing is the capacity to
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respond to the suffering of another. It is a matter of right feeling. … The vehicle for conveying feeling, which has the primary role in life, is the poem or the fable. (195) Subjective truth is communicable only indirectly, through fable, polemics, irony, and satire. This is the only way that one can come to “see the world aright.” (198)
As a solution to the Wittgenstein Problem the Non-Discursive Language Theory—at least the version developed by Janik and Toulmin—would seem to be a considerable improvement over both the Divided Self Theory and the Foxhole Religion Theory. Unlike either of these other two theories, it presents the Tractatus as a unified whole with an overriding religio-ethical purpose, which we know from an important letter Wittgenstein wrote to the publisher Ludwig von Ficker was how Wittgenstein himself saw his work. Moreover, we know from various sources that Wittgenstein had considerable sympathy for the view that the “higher truths” underlying ethics, aesthetics, and religion were best conveyed through various indirect means rather that presented directly in the form of factual propositions. This is made clear in remarks Wittgenstein once made in a letter to Paul Engelmann about a poem by Uhland,22 as well as in a remark he once made orally to Norman Malcolm concerning Tolstoy’s writings.23 Finally, the Non-Discursive Language Theory can explain, in a way that the Divided Self Theory and the Foxhole Religion Theory cannot, why Wittgenstein might want to deprecate metaphysical propositions, since metaphysical discourse, if carried out in the mode of factual/scientific language, might easily be seen as usurping the domain of the poetic and leading to great muddle and confusion as a result.
22 The poem by Uhland narrates the story of a count who clipped a tiny sprig from a hawthorn bush, placed it in his iron helmet, and carried it with him in battle and back home across the sea. He then placed the sprig in the ground and over the years watched it grow into a tree. In his old age the count sat under the tree, which would remind him of his youth and his earlier journey in a far-off land. Wittgenstein, who was sent a copy of the poem by Engelmann, was apparently moved by the delicate tone and texture of the poem’s narrative, and in a letter to Engelmann praised Uhland’s work for capturing the Unutterable (das Unausprechliche) without trying to express it directly. Wittgenstein wrote to Engelmann: “The Uhland poem is really magnificent. And this is how it is: If one doesn’t try to utter the Unutterable then nothing gets lost. But the Unutterable will be—unutterably—contained in what has been said” (Engelmann, 6). 23 Wittgenstein once told Malcolm that Tolstoy was more effective when his message was “latent” in a story—i.e. indirectly or obliquely contained in it—than when he talked to the reader directly. Didactic moralism and didactic religiosity always seem to have repelled Wittgenstein. To Malcolm he said: “I once tried to read [Tolstoy’s novel] Resurrection but couldn’t. You see, when Tolstoy just tells a story he impresses me infinitely more than when he addresses the reader. When he turns his back to the reader then he seems to me most impressive. Perhaps one day we can talk about this. It seems to me his philosophy is most true when it’s latent in the story” (Malcolm, 43).
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The Non-Discursive Language Theory, however, suffers from a fatal flaw, namely, the simple fact that the Tractatus itself says absolutely nothing about poetry, fable, satire, parable, or any other non-discursive mode of language. Moreover, it is clear both from the actual text of the work and from the extensive criticism of some of its core doctrines that Wittgenstein made in his later writings, that at the time of writing the Tractatus, Wittgenstein believed that language constituted a “formal unity”24 with “one comprehensive essence,”25 whose nature could be discovered through logical analysis. This one allembracing essence was seen to lie in a modeling or picturing function and all meaningful language was said to consist of factual-discursive propositions, which in their totality constituted the whole of natural science. All factual 24 In the Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein saw the attempt to grasp a single essence of language—what he himself had attempted to do in the Tractatus—as an illusion: “We are under the illusion that what is peculiar, profound, essential in our investigation, resides in its trying to grasp the incomparable essence of language. That is, the order existing between the concepts of proposition, word, proof, truth, experience, and so on. This order is a super-order between—so to speak—super-concepts. Whereas, of course, if the words ‘language,’ ‘experience,’ ‘world,’ have a use, it must be as humble a one as that of the words ‘table,’ ‘lamb,’ ‘door,’ …” (PI 97) “The strict and clear rules of the logical structure of propositions appear to us as something in the background—hidden in the medium of the understanding. … The ideal, as we think of it, is unshakable. You can never get outside it; you must always turn back. There is no outside; outside you cannot breathe. Where does this idea come from? It is like a pair of glasses on our nose through which we see whatever we look at. It never occurs to us to take them off ” (PI 102 – 103). “When we believe that we must find that order, must find the ideal, in our actual language, we become dissatisfied with what are ordinarily called ‘propositions,’ ‘words,’ ‘signs’. The proposition and the word that logic deals with are supposed to be something pure and clear-cut. … The more narrowly we examine actual language, the sharper becomes the conflict between it and our requirement. (For the crystalline purity of logic was, of course, not a result of investigation: it was a requirement). … We see that what we call ‘sentence’ and ‘language’ has not the formal unity that I imagined, but is the family of structures more or less related to one another. … The preconceived idea of crystalline purity can only be removed by turning our whole examination around” (PI 105, 107, 108). 25 “We now have a theory, a ‘dynamic theory’ of the proposition; of language, but it does not present itself to us as a theory. For it is the characteristic thing about such a theory that it looks at a special clearly intuitive case and says: ‘That shews how things are in every case; this case is the exemplar of all cases.’—‘Of course! It has to be like that’ we say, and are satisfied. We have arrived at a form of expression that strikes us as obvious. But it is as if we had now seen something lying beneath the surface. The tendency to generalize the case seems to have a strict justification in logic; here one seems completely justified in inferring: ‘If one proposition is a picture, then any proposition must be a picture, for they must all be of the same nature.’ For we are under the illusion that what is sublime, what is essential, about our investigation consists in its grasping one comprehensive essence” (Zettel 444).
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propositions in the Tractatus were seen as truth functions of elementary propositions, which were said to be logical pictures of atomic facts consisting of immediate combinations of objects. Within the Tractarian system, meaningful language was thus limited to picturing propositions, and what could not be said through propositional language, it maintained, could not be said at all. Far from being, as Janik and Toulmin suggest, a defense of poetry, fable, parable and other non-propositional language forms, the Tractatus ignores non-propositional modes of discourse entirely and confines the expressive capacity of meaningful language to descriptions of (non-transcendental) facts. Wittgenstein, it is true, believed during his Tractarian period that certain things which could not be said in language could nevertheless be shown in language, but the saying/showing distinction, which is of central importance to understanding the meaning of the Tractatus, has nothing whatever to do with any distinction between discursive and non-discursive language. The showing function of language that Wittgenstein describes in the Tractatus is always the showing of either factual propositions, logical propositions, or mathematical equations. There is no suggestion whatever in the Tractatus that there are certain forms of (non-discursive) language which have greater showing capacities than others. To use a metaphor from Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, one might say that in the Tractatus all meaningful language is seen as a tool for making simple factual descriptions, whether in natural science or in the everyday affairs of life, and there is only this one tool in the language-users toolbox. Janik and Toulmin are correct when they suggest that Wittgenstein was trying to contrast in the Tractatus lower order truths which can be expressed through picturing propositions with certain types of transcendental truths which cannot be so expressed, but the contrast Wittgenstein was making, as abundant evidence proves, was not between what can be expressed discursively and what can only be expressed through a non-discursive language medium, but between what can be expressed discursively and what cannot be expressed through any kind of language medium at all, and for this reason must be passed over in silence. That is, the contrast in the Tractatus is not between propositional language and non-propositional language but between propositional language and silence. The Preface and Conclusion to the Tractatus, as well as Wittgenstein’s important letter to von Ficker where he explains the overriding ethical purpose of his book, make this very plain: The whole sense of the book might be summed up in the following words: what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence. (Preface to the Tractatus) The correct method in philosophy would really be the following: to say nothing except what can be said, i.e. propositions of natural science—i.e. something that has nothing to do with philosophy—and then, whenever someone else wanted to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had failed to give a meaning
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to certain signs in his propositions. Although it would not be satisfying to the other person—he would not have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy—this method would be the only strictly correct one. (Tr 6.54) What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence. (Tr 7) The book’s point is an ethical one. I once meant to include in the preface a sentence which is not in fact there now, but which I will write out for you here, because it will perhaps be a key to the work for you. What I meant to write, then, was this: My work consists of two parts: the one presented here plus all that I have not written. And it is precisely this second part that is the important one. My book draws limits to the sphere of the ethical from the inside as it were, and I am convinced that this is the ONLY rigorous way of drawing those limits. In short, I believe that where many others today are just gassing, I have managed in my book to put everything firmly into place by being silent about it. And for that reason, unless I am very much mistaken, the book will say a great deal that you yourself want to say. Only perhaps you won’t see that it is said in the book. For now I would recommend you to read the Preface and the Conclusion because they contain the most direct expression of the point of the book. (letter to Ludwig von Ficker)26
Since the Non-Discursive Language Theory has been so influential in recent years despite its obvious weaknesses, it may be worthwhile in the present context to quote a statement from David Pears that reinforce much of what has been said here. When Wittgenstein, says Pears, “said that beyond the line of demarcation which he drew in the Tractatus there must be silence, he did not merely mean that there must be scientific silence.” Rather, says Pears, “he meant that any attempt to put nonscientific truths into words would necessarily distort them by forcing them into the mold of scientific discourse.” “So religion, ethics, and aesthetics … all slide into the limbo reserved for transcendental subjects, because factual discourse really does occupy the dominant position—indeed the only position.” Pears, however, goes on to explain that in Wittgenstein’s later work “the pressure exerted by those other kinds of discourse was going to change the map of logical space.” “In the Tractatus,” he says, “[Wittgenstein] had pushed them off the map, not, of course in any intolerant positivistic way, but in a subtle, sympathetic, transcendental way, and at least two of them, ethics and aesthetics, seem not to be amenable to this treatment.”27 What Pears says here is clearly correct and despite the considerable attraction of the Non-Discursive Language Theory it must ultimately be rejected as false.
26 Quoted in Engelmann 143. 27 David Pears, Ludwig Wittgenstein (The Viking Press, New York, 1969), 97 – 98.
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The No-Relationship Theory Before the publication of Janik and Toulmin’s work in the early 1970 s, the most common way of dealing with the Wittgenstein Problem was through what we might call the No-Relationship Theory. Interpreters of the Tractatus before Wittgenstein’s Vienna were generally aware of the fact that in addition to its ingenious system of logic and language, the Tractatus contained material on mysticism, ethics, the meaning of life, etc. But the tendency before Janik and Toulmin’s book, at least among interpreters in Britain and America, was to downplay what Wittgenstein had to say about “higher things,” and to view the logical and mystical aspects of his thinking as having little to do with one another. Although it was rarely stated openly, the No-Relationship Theory was in part an outgrowth of the general impression many people had of Wittgenstein from the 1930 s through the 1960 s as a highly eccentric figure if not a kook. Both Norman Malcolm and George von Wright have given testimony to the fantastic rumors and legends that often proliferated about Wittgenstein’s personality,28 and it would seem to be only a very small step from the view of Wittgenstein as a brilliant but eccentric genius to the belief that a few of Wittgenstein’s ideas were highly idiosyncratic and did not harmonize well with the rest of his body of thought. Just as Sir Issac Newton had his interest in alchemy, the genius logician’s interest in mysticism and the meaning of life could easily be passed off, given such an understanding, as an aberration of little consequence for assessing the true meaning and value of his work. The No-Relationship Theory, however, became increasingly untenable from the late 1960 s to the present as more and more biographical material on Wittgenstein was made known to the general public and it became clear that Wittgenstein was not only a man of great personal integrity and great seriousness of purpose, but that he was a person of extraordinary moral and spiritual depth whose moral and spiritual interests formed the very core of his existence.29 The No-Relationship Theory is really not a solution to the 28 In his memoir Malcolm writes: “Wittgenstein was widely regarded by people who did not know him, as a mysterious and eccentric figure. He was the object not only of hostility but also of innumerable fantastic rumors. Once in Cambridge I heard one undergraduate in earnestness inform another that Wittgenstein delivered his lectures while lying on the floor and gazing at the ceiling. When he was living in my house in the States it was reported that his residence was a barn and that I was the only person who could have access to him. And later when he was living in a cottage on the Irish coast I heard a grave rumor that he was herding goats in Turkey” (64). 29 Perhaps nowhere is this brought out better than in Wittgenstein’s introduction to his Philosophical Remarks: “I would like to say, ‘This book is written to the glory of God,’ but nowadays that would be chicanery, that is, it would not be rightly understood. It means the book is written in good will, and in so far as it is not so written, but out of
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Wittgenstein Problem at all but a claim that no such problem exists. Now that we know the preeminent place that moral and spiritual concerns occupied in Wittgenstein’s hierarchy of interests, and know too that Wittgenstein himself saw his Tractatus as a tightly integrated work with an overriding religio-ethical purpose, the Wittgenstein Problem persists, and we must look elsewhere for a solution. The Via Negative Theory Having examined four possible answers to our initial interpretive problem and seen each in one way or another to be fundamentally flawed, we are back at square one and are still left with trying to explain how a treatise on logic and language which consigned all moral and metaphysical discourse to the status of nonsense (and for this reason struck a very responsive chord with many members of the Vienna Circle), could have been written by a man who at the time of writing the work was a Christian-influenced mystic in the mode of the later Tolstoy. Why would anyone who could be so overwhelmed by a work like The Gospel in Brief, and drawn so heavily to thinkers such as Kierkegaard, Augustine, Silesius, Dostoyevsky and Blake, want to slight all talk about “higher things”? The answer to our problem is provided by a fifth theory, which has been designated here the Via Negativa Theory. Elements of the Via Negativa Theory can be found in the scattered statements of a number of writers, including Norman Malcolm, Maurice Drury, K. T. Fann, Karl Popper, and Brian McGuinness, but the fullest and most important elaboration of the theory is to be found in Paul Engelmann’s Memoir, as well as in the present writers own work on Wittgenstein. The Via Negativa Theory holds that from its very inception the Tractatus was an attempt to give expression to a higher level mystic-ecstatic experience (an experience Wittgenstein had for the first time in late 1910 or early 1911) from which the world and its contents, together with language, could be viewed sub specie aeternitatas (that is, from the eternal or divine perspective). The Tractatus according to this interpretation, was concerned with distinguishing a logical realm of “the world,” whose contents could be exhaustively described through picturing propositions of the kind that exist in the natural sciences— propositions that exist in the world and that share the same logical structure as the world—from a mystical-transcendental-noumenal order that is beheld in certain types of religion-mystic experience. Wittgenstein, according to the Via Negativa Theory, saw the mystical-transcendental-noumenal order as constituting a summun bonum, and as such, as providing the ultimate source and vanity, etc., the author would wish to see it condemned. He cannot free it of these impurities further than he himself is free of them” (Basil Blackwell, London, 1975).
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foundation of all that is good, beautiful, meaningful, and holy in human life. The higher order reality beheld in mystic vision could not be described in language, and should be passed over in silence, Wittgenstein believed, because, a) language in its depicting capacity is structurally limited to the description of non-mystical, inner-worldly reality (“facts in logical space”); and, b) the mystical-transcendental-noumenal realm, as it is encountered in higher-level religio-mystical experiences, is of such a sublime nature that any attempt to characterize it through ordinary descriptive statements would not only involve what is technically impossible, but would almost inevitably lead to trivialization, profanation, or debasement. Just as Kant wanted to do away with metaphysics in order to make room for religious faith, so Wittgenstein, according to the Via Negativa Theory, sought through his Tractatus to do away with all ethical, aesthetic and religious discourse in order to make room for mystic vision and a pious silence in the presence of this vision. The Tractatus according to this view was a work of “negative theology” closely akin in both structure and purpose to the fifth chapter of the pseudo-Dionysius’s Mystical Theology. Such, in brief outline, is the Via Negativa Theory. The evidence for the truth of this theory, at least as far as the present writer is concerned, is simply overwhelming, and what really needs to be explained—though no attempt will be made to do so on the present occasion—is why so many Wittgenstein commentators have failed to grasp it.30 The basic structure of the Tractatus as a “negative way” is set forth in the very meaning of the term “world,” as we learn from proposition 6.41 and several propositions following it. The world we are told in the Tractatus, is a realm of factual possibilities whose fundamental structure is determined by logical form, which also determines the basic structure of both language and thought. What goes on in the world, Wittgenstein believed at the time of writing the Tractatus, is explored most systematically in the natural sciences and stated most clearly in the kind of descriptive propositions that one encounters within the natural sciences. But Wittgenstein believed that for many purposes the inner-worldly realm of the linguistically describable and scientifically explorable was of less importance to human life than the indescribable realm of das Mystische, which lies “outside” and “beyond” the logically structured order of the world. The word “world” in the Tractatus, it is important to realize, is used as a contrastive term that is qualified by the key prepositions “in” and “out”. This is well illustrated in the following passages:
30 The failure of Wittgenstein commentators to grasp the spiritual meaning and purpose of his Tractatus—even commentators as sophisticated and knowledgeable of Wittgenstein’s work as Bertrand Russell—was a source of continuing anguish for Wittgenstein himself. See Nieli, 170 – 173.
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The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is, and everything happens as it does happen: in it no value exists—and if it did exist, it would have no value. If there is any value that does have value, it must lie outside the whole sphere of what happens and is the case. For all that happens and is the case is accidental. What makes it non-accidental cannot lie within the world, since if if did it would itself be accidental. It must lie outside the world. (Tr 6:41) So too it is impossible for there to be propositions of ethics. Propositions can express nothing that is higher. (Tr 6.42) It is clear that ethics cannot be put into words. Ethics is transcendental. (Ethics and aesthetics are one and the same). (Tr 6:421) The solution of the riddle of life in space and time lies outside space and time. (It is certainly not the solution of any problems of natural science that is required). (Tr 6.4313) How things are in the world is a matter of complete indifference for what is higher. God does not reveal himself in the world. (Tr 6.432) We feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been answered, the problems of life remain completely untouched. (Tr 6.52) There is, of course, that which cannot be put into words. It shows itself. It is the Mystical. (Tr 6.522) What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence. (Tr 7)
It is clear from these passages that Wittgenstein is both affirming the existence of, and pointing the way towards, the higher mystical-transcendental-noumenal order, which, he believed, alone endows human existence with meaning and purpose. Logical structure or logical form, Wittgenstein held, is what sets off the inner-worldly realm, including both language and thought, from what lies outside it, and it was the purpose of the logical system developed in his Tractatus to direct the mind to the higher realm by presenting clearly through a perspicuous symbolism those structural features that limit and define the lower. Logical structure or logical form, Wittgenstein believed, is precisely what one passes into and out of as one’s mental and experiential faculties shift from the world to its mystical-transcendental Beyond, and from the Beyond back into the world. The “negative” purpose of the Tractarian philosophy thus has a very positive end. This is set forth most succinctly in propositions 4.113 to 4.115: Philosophy [i.e. the Tractarian philosophy] sets limits to the much disputed sphere of natural science. It must set limits to what can be thought; and, in doing so, to what cannot be thought. It must set limits to what cannot be thought by working outward through what can be thought. It will signify what cannot be said, by presenting clearly what can be said.
Paul Engelmann is certainly correct when he claims that “logic and mysticism” in the Tractatus “have here sprung from one and the same root.” What Engelmann says in this regard is worth quoting at some length since Engelmann
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not only spent a great deal of time discussing the Tractatus with Wittgenstein during the critical period in which much of it was composed, but with the exception of Maurice Drury, he was the only person among those intimate friends and associates of Wittgenstein who have commented on the Tractatus who shared moral and spiritual interests similar to Wittgenstein’s own. “A whole generation of disciples was able to take Wittgenstein for a positivist,” Engelmann writes, “because he has something of enormous importance in common with the positivists: he draws the line between what we can speak about and what we must be silent about just as they do.” “The difference,” Engelmann continues, is that they have nothing to be silent about. Positivism holds—and this is its essence—that what we can speak about is all that matters in life. Whereas Wittgenstein passionately believes that all that really matters in human life is precisely what, in his view, we must be silent about. When he nevertheless takes immense pains to delimit the unimportant, it is not the coastline of that island which he is bent on surveying with such meticulous accuracy, but the boundary of the ocean. … the decisive significance of the book … consists in having established the irrefutable separation between the higher sphere, which exists, and its expression, which is problematical, and in having shown up the fundamental dubiousness of such expression. The real achievement of the Tractatus in this respect can be put in these terms: Even if language were nothing but a depiction of sensually perceptible reality together with the conclusions obtained from it by abstraction, and if accordingly it were impossible to speak in any language about the higher sphere … even then there exists the higher sphere, there is a sense in our existence, there exists that from which values derive their value (and which confers it on them “from the outside”). This is his one and ever-recurring thought: that the higher sphere, values, God, do not form part of the contents of the world, are not something within the world, to be found in it and proved to exist (not something then which the things, the facts, the world say): but are something manifested by the world seen from outside.31
K.T. Fann, in his excellent introduction to Wittgenstein’s thought, presents a picture of the Tractatus and its via negativa form similar in many ways to Engelmann’s. “Against the standard interpretation of the Tractatus,” Fann writes, “I contend that it is not anti-metaphysical.” “For Wittgenstein, metaphysics, ethics, religion and art all belong to the realm of the transcendental which cannot be said but only shown.” “The inexpressible (or the mystical) is everthing that is important in life. The whole point of the Tractatus is precisely to show the inexpressible by exhibiting clearly the expressible.”32 Fann offers a diagram of 31 Engelmann, 97, 98, 110. 32 K.T. Fann, Wittgenstein: An Introduction (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1971), 24.
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the Tractatus’s basic structure in the form of a rectangle drawn inside a more encompassing rectangle (24). The surface encompassed by the smaller rectangle represents the world and what can be spoken of through language, while the portion of the larger rectangle surrounding the smaller represents the mystical “outside-of ” or “beyond” that language cannot express. A second diagram is used by Fann to show that any attempt to say what lies within the mystical realm itself (i.e. beyond the world) must inevitably result in nonsense (though logical propositions about the limit of language—i.e. about the boundary that distinguishes the world from its translogical Beyond—are merely “without sense” rather than nonsense) (24). Norman Malcolm, in his article on Wittgenstein in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, offers a characterization of the Tractarian view of metaphysical discourse that reinforces the view of both Engelmann and Fann. “Wittgenstein did not reject the metaphysical,” says Malcolm. “Rather, he rejected the possibility of stating the metaphysical.” “Although one cannot say anything on these metaphysical topics included in the mystical, this is not because they are absurd but because they lie beyond the reach of language.” “The final proposition of the book (‘Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent’) is not the truism one might take it to be, for it means that there is a realm about which one can say nothing” (331, 333). Malcolm, however, seems to have little empathy or understanding for the higher level transcending experiences towards which the Tractatus points, and so his overall understanding of the work, and of Wittgenstein’s motivations for writing it, is in some sense inferior to that of the much less sophisticated account given by Engelmann (only a small part of which has been summarized here).33 Brian McGuiness also suggests in places an interpretation of the Tractatus similar to the via negativa view that has been sketched here. In his biography of Wittgenstein, for instance, he writes: … [the Tractatus] begins with a sort of creation-myth—“The world is everything that is the case. The world is the totality of facts, not of things”—and ends with a mystical adjuration to silence in the face of the ineffable, as it were with a form of negative theology (“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent”). … Also there is the impression of something revealed, as if some sage, some Zarathustra were speaking. It is not unfair to see his whole philosophy as a kind of mystic revelation, remembering that mystic means what cannot or should not be spoken. He himself says so [in proposition 6.53]: “There are indeed things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical.” The reading of the book, then, has a purpose: it is like an initiation into the mysteries, and when they are reached it can be forgotten. (pp. 299 – 302)
33 Malcolm’s most comprehensive statement of his views on the Tractatus is given in his book Nothing Hidden (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1986).
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Although McGuinness lacks Engelmann’s empathetic sensitivities for the full spiritual dimension of Wittgenstein’s thought, his biography nevertheless successfully captures a good deal of this dimension, particularly his chapter on the World War I period in Wittgenstein’s life (chapter 7). McGuinness’s description of the Tractatus and its “mystical adjuration to silence” as a “form of negative theology,” shows a clear awareness of the overall via negativa structure of Wittgenstein’s work,34 and in the passage quoted above, he captures the true revelatory and oracular tone of the Tractatus more forcefully—and more accurately—than any other commentator on Wittgenstein, Engelmann included. The Concern over Profanation and Debasement The fact that certain types of mystic-transcending experiences, a) give insight into what lies outside or beyond the world—i.e. outside or beyond the ordinary space-time matrix in which we think, act, speak and have our physical being— 34 Another short, though very precise account of Wittgenstein’s “negative theology” is offered by Donald Peterson in his Wittgenstein’s Early Philosophy (Harvester Wheatsheaf, New York, 1990). In a brief section of the book on “The Demarcation of the Mystical” Peterson writes: “Wittgenstein’s strategy in delineating the mystical is not to address it directly. His intention is rather to give an explicit description of what is not mystical, and so by the same act to draw a boundary on the other side of which lies what is mystical. A line has two sides, and the idea is to say what is on one side, and where it ends, and thus by implication indicate what is on the other side, without the error of directly talking about it. In the Tractatus he says of philosophy: “It will signify what cannot be said, by presenting clearly what can be said” (Tr 4.115, 159). The via negativa structure of the Tractatus was also well-understood by Karl Popper, as can be discerned from an important criticism he once made of the Tractatus in an autobiographical work. It is wrong, Popper held, to make so strict a distinction as Wittgenstein does, between an unspeakable realm of higher things and a lower order that can be talked about yet lacks all spiritual depth. While not challenging Wittgenstein’s view that some higher things may not lend themselves to articulation, Popper insists that what we can articulate in speech is not necessarily lacking in depth. He says on this: “Wittgenstein exaggerated the gulf between the world of describable (‘Sayable’) facts and the world of that which is deep and cannot be said. There are gradations; moreover, the world of the sayable does not always lack depth. It is his facile solution of the problem of depth—the thesis ‘the deep is the unsayable’—which unites Wittgenstein the positivist with Wittgenstein the mystic. Incidentally, this thesis had long been traditional, especially in Vienna, and not merely among philosophers” (The Philosophy of Karl Popper, edited by Paul Arthur Schlipp, Open Court, La Salle, Illinois, 1974, 180). Following this statement Popper directs the reader to a quotation from Robert Reiniger that reads as follows: “Metaphysics as science is impossible because although the Absolute is indeed experienced and for that reason can be intuitively felt, it yet refuses to be expressed in words. ‘If the soul speaks, then alas it is no longer the soul that speaks.’”
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and, b) are of such an unearthly sublimity and noumenal power that they cannot be adequately described through language is a matter Wittgenstein takes up quite directly in an important lecture he gave to a group of Cambridge undergraduates shortly after returning to academic life in 1929.35 The lecture purports to deal with “ethics” though this term may be misleading if one understands by ethics a set of principles determining right conduct, for the real subject matter of the lecture is not human conduct at all but certain types of noumenal religious experiences which are seen to give insight into the nature of what is ultimately or absolutely good, what is ultimately or absolutely sublime. Ethics, says Wittgenstein in the lecture, deals with “the intrinsically sublime,” with “what is above all other subject matters.” It deals—in an “absolute sense” rather than a merely relative sense—with “what is valuable,” with “what is really important,” with “what makes life worth living” (5, 7). Such exalted terms are used by Wittgenstein as the only appropriate means of describing certain types of experiences that he himself has had and that have struck him as revealing in some manner what is of supreme importance in human life. “What have all of us, who like myself, are still tempted to use such expressions as ‘absolute good,’ ‘absolute value,’ etc. what have we in mind and what do we try to express?,” Wittgenstein asks (7). He then tries to describe the three types of experiences that have led him to use these superlatives, and after commenting on the paradoxical or inadequate nature of the descriptions given, he then confesses: “Now the three experiences which I have mentioned to you … seem to those who have experienced them, for instance, to me, to have in some sense an intrinsic, absolute value” (10). He also speaks of the experiences having “supernatural value”. The overwhelming noumenal power of the experiences and the utter incapacity of language to describe them is well captured in the following remark: … we cannot write a scientific book the subject matter of which could be intrinsically sublime and above all other subject matters. I can only describe my feeling by the metaphor, that, if a man could write a book on ethics which really was a book on Ethics, this book would, with an explosion, destroy all the other books in the world. Our words used as we use them in science, are vessels capable only of containing and conveying meaning and sense, natural meaning and sense. Ethics, if it is anything, is supernatural and our words will only express facts, as a teacup will only hold a teacup full of water [even] if I were to pour out a gallon over it. (7)
Such images of a world-encompassing explosion, of a supernatural meaning that cannot be grasped by the mundane device of language, and of the small container that cannot begin to hold the deluge of water that is poured over it, 35 The lecture was published under the title “Wittgenstein’s Lecture on Ethics,” Philosophical Review (volume 74, 1995) 3 – 12.
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are Wittgenstein’s way of conveying through metaphor something of the explosive overpoweringness of the religio-mystical experiences he seeks to describe in the lecture. Such experiences, it is suggested, are of a mind-boggling sublimity and awe-inspiring majesty, and give insight into a truly unearthly order of meaning that extends beyond the order of the (natural) world and beyond the expressive capacity of human speech. At the conclusion of the lecture Wittgenstein takes up a hypothetical argument challenging his contention that the noumenal experiences he describes are facts of a radically different order than ordinary facts and that all attempts to describe them must inevitably fall short of their goal and end finally in nonsense. If the experiences occur, the hypothetical argument goes, then surely they can be described adequately and in a way that does not lead to nonsense. “Now when this is urged against me,” Wittgenstein says in reply to the hypothetical argument, I at once see clearly, as it were in a flash of light, not only that no description that I can think of would do to describe what I mean by absolute value, but that I would reject every significant description that anybody could possibly suggest, ab initio, on the ground of its significance. That is to say: I see now that these nonsensical expressions [i.e. the attempts to describe the experiences in language] were not nonsensical because I had not yet found the correct expressions, but that their nonsensicality was their very essence. For all I wanted to do with them was just to go beyond the world and that is to say beyond significant language. My whole tendency and I believe the tendency of all men who ever tried to write or talk Ethics or Religion was to run against the boundaries of language. This running against the walls of our cage is perfectly, absolutely hopeless. Ethics so far as it springs from the desire to say something about the ultimate meaning of life, the absolute good, the absolute valuable, can be no science. What it says does not add to our knowledge in any sense. (11 – 12)
The most important words in this often-quoted passage from Wittgenstein are the words “to go beyond the world.” To express the contents of certain noumenal experiences one would have to go beyond the world, Wittgenstein is suggesting here, precisely because the experiences themselves go beyond the world (or give insight into what lies beyond the world). Since language according to Wittgenstein’s belief at this time had both inner-worldly structure and inner-worldly reference, the contents of the world-transcending experiences he attempts to describe could not, he thought, be conveyed linguistically however hard one might try. The intense emotional tone of the above remark suggests that Wittgenstein has felt personally in the very depths of his own being something of the enormous gap that exists between the actual religio-mystical experiences he alludes to (“what I mean by absolute value”), and any attempt to convey their contents through speech. Although Wittgenstein in the lecture does not adopt the Tractatus solution and invoke a pious silence in the face of the Ineffable, the sentiments and feelings that had led to that solution are clearly in
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evidence. To try to express what is inexpressible, Wittgenstein seems to be saying here, is not only technically impossible but may border on profanation. Wittgenstein had throughout much of his life a mortal dread of debasing or profaning the sacred through improper verbalization, a fact which can be seen not only in the Tractatus and his “Lecture on Ethics,” but in an early confrontation he had with Bertrand Russell that is described by Russell in two letters he wrote in October of 1912 to Lady Ottoline Morell. The occasion for the confrontation was Wittgenstein’s reading of an article Russell had recently written for the Hibbert Journal on “The Essence of Religion,”36 an article in which Russell at times expresses himself in an uncharacteristicaly effusive manner on those aspects of religion he believed worthy of being retained in the modern world. Wittgenstein was deeply alarmed over Russell’s article, apparently believing that Russell had tried to express in writing something which it was wrong to try to express in such a manner, and that in doing so he had succeeded in producing a lot of mushy verbiage. Writing to Lady Ottoline, Russell explained: “Here is Wittgenstein just arrived, frightfully pained by my Hibbert article which he evidently detests. I must stop because of him.”37 A few days later in another letter to Lady Ottoline, Russell explained the reasons for Wittgenstein’s irritation: “He felt I had been a traitor to the doctrine of exactness and wantonly used words vaguely; also [he felt] that such things are too intimate for print. I minded very much, because I half agreed with him.”38 Wittgenstein’s opposition to Russell’s Hibbert Journal article, although only sketchily indicated here in Russell’s letters, would seem to be based on the very same grounds as his rejection of metaphysics and all talk about “higher things” in the Tractatus: certain things cannot be said without leading to vagueness, muddle, and nonsense, and they should not be said because piety dictates they be passed over in silence. One might compare Wittgenstein’s criticism of “The Essence of Religion” (1912) as Russell describes it here with the stated purpose of the Tractatus as set forth in its Preface (1918): The whole sense of the book might be summed up in the following words: what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence.
Clarity of expression concerning what can be said in words, together with a pious silence in the face of what cannot, are thus central themes linking the prewar Wittgenstein with the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus period (a fact which should cast still further doubt on the validity of the Foxhole Religion Theory). 36 Volume XI, 42 – 62. 37 Monk, 63. 38 Letter of Bertrand Russell to Lady Ottoline Morell, October 11, 1912; quoted in McGuinness, 109.
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The question of clarity concerning the expression of “higher things” is one, it would seem, that Wittgenstein had taken over directly from some of the standard criticisms of the obscurity and muddle-headedness that characterized much of the 19th century German metaphysical tradition. But Wittgenstein added to these critiques (the most important of which was Schopenhauer’s)39 his own very special concern with the unseemliness of trying to capture in speech what he believed to be only properly beheld in pious awe and speechless wonder. It is in this aspect of his critique of metaphysics and all attempts to describe the “higher things” in words that the intense strain of piety in Wittgenstein’s personality is most clearly in evidence. The Urge Towards the Mystical To understand what Wittgenstein was trying to say in his Tractatus requires not only an understanding of its logical and linguistic system,40 but an understanding of three types of closely interrelated experiences that Wittgenstein saw 39 Wittgenstein had been an early devotee of Arthur Schopenhauer and was undoubtedly familiar with Schopenhauer’s famous characterization of Hegel and the Hegelian style of metaphysics in Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung: “Kant’s style bears throughout the stamp of a preeminent mind, genuine strong individuality, and quite exceptional powers of thought … Nevertheless Kant’s language is often indistinct, indefinite, inadequate, and sometimes obscure. … He who is himself clear to the bottom and knows with perfect distinctness what he thinks and wishes, will never write indistinctly, will never setup wavering and indefinite conceptions. … The most injurious result of Kant’s occasionally obscure language is that it acted as exemplar vitiis imitabile; indeed, it was misconstrued as a pernicious authorization. The public was compelled to see that what is obscure is not always without significance; consequently, what was without significance took refuge behind obscure language. Fichte was the first to seize this new privilege and use it vigorously; Schelling at least equaled him; and a host of hungry scribblers, without talent and without honesty, soon outbade them both. But the height of audacity, in serving up pure nonsense, in stringing together senseless and extravagant mazes of words, such as had previously only been heard in madhouses, was finally reached in Hegel, and became the instrument of the most barefaced general mystification that has ever taken place, with a result which will appear fabulous to posterity and will remain as a monument of German stupidity” (from The World as Will and Idea, volume 2, HaldaneKemp translation, Kegan Paul, London, 1891, 20 – 22). 40 The logical and linguistic system of the Tractatus is competently treated in a number of important secondary works including G. E. M. Anscombe, An Introduction to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (Hutchinson, London, 1959); Erik Stenius, Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1960); Alexander Maslow, A Study in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1961); James Griffin, Wittgenstein’s Logical Atomism (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1964); Max Black, A Companion to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York, 1964); George Pitcher, The Philosophy of Wittgenstein (Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey,
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as central to grasping the nature of the world and of the higher order reality beyond the world that confers upon the world—and man’s place within it— ultimate meaning and purpose.41 We might label these three experiences, 1) the Urge Towards the Mystical, 2) the Ecstatic Mystical Experience, and, 3) the Creation Mystic Experience. The last two experiences are taken up by Wittgenstein directly in his “Lecture on Ethics,” while the first experience is alluded to in an indirect manner in both the Tractatus and Notebooks. Although only the second experience can unambiguously be described as “mystical” in the sense that this term is generally used in the voluminous literature on religious mysticism, an understanding of each of the three experiences is equally important for grasping the overall purpose of Wittgenstein’s Tractarian philosophy. To begin with the first experience—the Urge Towards the Mystical—this is perhaps better described as a vague yearning than a concrete experience, though it is a yearning that finds its satisfaction according to Wittgenstein’s analysis only 1964); K.T. Fann, Wittgenstein’s Conception of Philosophy (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1969); Anthony Kenny, Wittgenstein (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1973); Robert Fogelin, Wittgenstein (Routledge and Kegan Paul, New York, 1976) H.O. Mounce, Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1981); Richard M. McDonough, The Argument of the Tractatus (State University of New York Press, Albany, 1986); Donald Peterson, Wittgenstein’s Early Philosophy (Harvester Wheatsheaf, London, 1990); and Matthew B. Ostrow, Wittgenstein’s Tractatus (Cambridge University Press, 2002). With the exception of Fann’s works, however, none of these widely read secondary sources grasps the full importance of mysticism in the Tractatus or the book’s overriding religio-ethical purpose. 41 Paul Engelman has correctly attributed the failure of so many commentaors to grasp the meaning of the Tractatus to their failure to understand the psycho-spiritual states of mind from which Wittgenstein’s thinking emerged. Engelmann writes on this: “To the ordinary reader, even if versed in philosophy, Wittgenstein’s basic thoughts, as stated in the Tractatus-Logico-Philosophicus, often seem incomprehensible, because ‘too complex’. That they are not; but they are incomprehensible owing to the absence of the psychological conditions from which alone such thinking can spring and which must exist, though to a lesser degree, in the reader’s mind as well. … An understanding of the author’s intention seems to me the only key to the understanding of the book” (94). Engelmann attributes his own ability to grasp Wittgenstein’s meaning to the similarity of their “spiritual predicament,” and he says that the reason he is offering his reflections to the public is so that others might understand the inner motives that led Wittgenstein to write the Tractatus: “It was my own spiritual predicament that enabled me to understand, from within as it were, his utterances that mystified everyone else. And it was this understanding on my part that made me indispensable to him at that time.” “As for the problems of understanding the book as a work of logic and logically oriented philosophy, more than enough has been written. … It may be of advantage, however, to have a key to a deeper understanding of the reasons why he wrote the book.” “Now these letters and my recollections of our conversations are presented here in order to throw light on the motives that led him to write the Tractatus, seen in the context of his inner life at the time of completing the book.” (73 – 74)
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in a concrete experience. Human beings it is said in both the Tractatus and Notebooks find themselves placed in a space-time-matter world, a world of describable facts whose nature can be explored through the natural sciences and whose structural properties are revealed through the formal sciences of mathematics and logic. Human existence in the world, however, Wittgenstein’s analysis suggests, is profoundly troubling insofar as human beings seek some kind of higher meaning or purpose to their existence which cannot be found through the scientific exploration of the facts or events within the space-timematter world itself regardless of how thorough or systematic such an exploration might be. As Wittgenstein says in passages of the Notebooks and the Tractatus already quoted: The urge towards the mystical comes from the non-satisfaction of our wishes by science. (Nb 25. 5. 1915) We feel that even if all possible scientific questions have been answered our life problems have not even been touched in the slightest. (Tr 6.52)
Wittgenstein speaks of an “urge towards the mystical” rather than simply an urge to find meaning or to find a source of value in life because the urge he describes can only find its fulfillment in the vision of a higher transcendental order that reaches outside or beyond the normal space-time matrix of our everyday existence. Wittgenstein’s “urge towards the mystical” could be described as a kind of “transcendental yearning” and would seem to be closely akin to certain types of moods or feelings that theologians and existentialist philosophers have often written about. Reinhold Niebuhr, for instance, speaks of “the essential homelessness of the human spirit” in a manner that closely parallels Wittgenstein’s remarks about how the urge to the mystical proceeds from an unsuccessful quest to find meaning in the world through the vehicle of natural science. Human consciousness, says Niebuhr in one of his most important writings, “is a capacity for surveying the world and determining action from a governing center.” The human self, however, he continues, knows the world, insofar as it knows the world, because it stands outside both itself and the world, which means that it cannot understand itself except as it is understood from beyond itself and the world. The essential homelessness of the human spirit is the ground of all religion; for the self which stands outside itself and the world cannot find the meaning of life in itself or the world.42
Niebuhr’s “self which stands outside itself and the world” would seem to parallel quite closely Wittgenstein’s “metaphysical subject” which does not belong to the world but forms a boundary or border of the world (Tr 5.632, 5.633, 5.641; Nb 2. 8. 16; 2. 9. 16.). And Wittgenstein is even more emphatic than Niebuhr is in 42 The Nature and Destiny of Man (volume I, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1964) 13 – 14.
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the quoted passage in his insistence that the meaning of the world and of human existence within the world can only be found outside of the world— outside, that is, of the realm of the facts and of “all that happens and is the case.” The urge to find the meaning of the world in a noumenal order beyond it finds perhaps its most poignant expression in Wittgenstein’s Notebook entry of 11. 6. 16., where he asks, “What do I know about God and the purpose of life?,” and then answers: I know that this world exists. That I am placed in it like my eye in its visual field. That something about it is problematic, which we call its meaning. That this meaning does not lie in it but outside it. … That good and evil are somehow connected with the meaning of the world. The meaning of life, i.e., the meaning of the world, we can call God.
In a Notebook entry a month later the theme of transcendental meaning beyond the facts of the world is again brought up where it is identified with faith in a divine being: To have faith in a God [or “to believe in God,” an einen Gott glauben] means to understand the question about the meaning of life. To have faith in a God means to see that the facts of the world are not the end of the matter. To have faith in God means to see that life has a meaning. (Nb 8. 7. 16.)
This same pattern is then taken over into the Tractatus where again it is stressed that the facts of the world, as they exist in space and time, cannot provide the answer to the ultimate riddle of human existence. “The facts,” says Wittgenstein, “all contribute only to setting the problem, not to its solution” (6.4321). The solution rather, must be sought in the revelatory disclosure of a higher order reality beyond space and time: The solution of the riddle of life in space and time lies outside space and time. (It is certainly not the solution of any problems of natural science that is required). (Tr 6.4321) How the world is, is for the Higher Reality (das Hoehere) a matter of complete indifference. God does not reveal himself in the world. (Tr 6.432)
The “riddle of life in space and time” that cannot find its solution in the natural sciences but in the disclosure of a higher level reality beyond space and time would seem to refer to the very same “transcendental yearning” that Wittgenstein calls the “urge towards the mystical” in the quoted passage from the Notebooks. Wittgenstein, however, objects to these deeper existential yearnings and disquietudes being called “problems” or “questions,” as is
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commonly done (and as he himself does at times), because the “answers” take the form not of propositions, but of noumenal experiences which cannot be adequately described in language (and which are more appropriately dealt with, he believed during his Tractatus period, through a pious and devout silence). He makes this point at some length in the last two pages of the Tractatus: When the answer cannot be put into words, neither can the question be put into words. The riddle does not exist If a question can be framed at all, it is also possible to answer it. (Tr 6.5) Skepticism is not irrefutable, but obviously nonsensical, when it tries to raise doubts where no questions can be asked. For doubt can exist only where a question exists, a question only where an answer exists, and an answer only where something can be said. (Tr 6.51) We feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been answered, the problems of life remain completely untouched. Of course there are then no questions left, and this itself is the answer. (Tr 6.52) The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of the problem. (Is this not the reason why men to whom the meaning of life has become clear after a long period of doubt, why these men could not say in what this meaning consisted?) (Tr 6.521) There is, of course, that which cannot be put into words. It shows itself. It is the Mystical. (Tr 6.522)
The most famous anti-metaphysical passage in the Tractatus immediately follows these remarks and this passage was probably more responsible than any other for the mistaken view that Wittgenstein was an anti-metaphysical positivist on the order of a Rudolf Carnap or an A. J. Ayer. “The correct method in philosophy,” Wittgenstein declares in proposition 6.53, “would really be the following: to say nothing except what can be said, i.e. propositions of natural science—i.e. something that has nothing to do with philosophy—and then, whenever someone else wanted to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had failed to give a meaning to certain signs in his propositions.” Wittgenstein, however, was not in this passage trying to stifle the human urge to reach out to the higher order mystical or metaphysical realm by limiting human awareness to the domain of the natural sciences. Rather, he was setting a boundary between the domain of the natural sciences and what lay beyond this domain so that science and metaphysics, the expressible and the inexpressible, would not get confused. It is probably safe to say that Wittgenstein intended by this procedure to intensify the urge towards the mystical by showing how unlike
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the mystical was to ordinary facts in the world and how inadequate language was for describing what lay beyond the world-defining boundary.43 The Ecstatic Mystical Experience The “urge towards the mystical” can find its satisfaction only in the actual experience of the mystical, and the two types of mystical experiences that are central for understanding the Tractatus, which have been labeled here the Ecstatic Mystic Experience and the Creation Mystic Experience, are both described by Wittgenstein in the form of first-person testimony in his “Lecture on Ethics.” The Ecstatic Mystic Experience, which is the more radical and the more clearly “mystical” of the two noumenal experiences Wittgenstein describes in the lectures,44 is identified by him as the “experience of absolute safety.” It is for him one of those experiences which represent in some way “absolute or ethical value,” and is described as the “experience of feeling absolutely safe.” It is, 43 Paul Engelmann is certainly correct on this when he writes: “The mischief against which the Tractatus is directed is the mingling of the sciences with metaphysics. It is never against science ‘in its right place’ for science, indeed, it reserves the entire field of ‘language’ as the realm of meaningful propositions. It is not against the universal (and legitimate) human urge to reach out for the metaphysical; but it is against the attempt to express it in meaningful propositions. For the metaphysical urge is ‘out of place’ when it poses an articulate question and attempts to give an answer, that is to say, when it takes shape as philosophy” (122 – 123). The “philosophy” Engelmann speaks about, is, of course, metaphysical philosophy, which every educated German or Austrian in Wittgenstein’s time would have associated with the writings of Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schleiermacher, Schopenhauer, Bergson, and (by the early 1930 s) Heidegger. Wittgenstein’s friend Maurice Drury suggests that by drawing a sharp demarcation between what can and what cannot be said in language Wittgenstein was clearly trying to heighten the universal human urge to reach out beyond the natural world to an absolute, world-transcending, supernatural Good that lies outside of space and time. On this he writes: “This drawing of a firm and unbreakable boundary around the sphere of what can be said significantly is not done to condemn or ridicule those who have tried to overleap this boundary; on the contrary, it is done to intensify the very impetus and desire to break out of our cage. To give an example of this. That deeply religious and truly wonderful personality, Simone Weil [writes]: ‘There is a reality outside the world, that is to say outside space and time, outside man’s mental universe, outside any sphere whatsoever that is accessible to human faculties. Corresponding to this reality, at the centre of the human heart is the longing for an absolute good, a longing which is always there and is never appeased by any object in this world’” (Rhees editor, Recollections of Wittgenstein, 83). 44 Brian McGuinness is surely correct when, in his article on “The Mysticism of the Tractatus,” he says that “the experience of feeling absolutely safe is perhaps the most clearly mystical of the three mentioned in the lecture” (Philosophical Review, volume 27, 1966, 327).
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says Wittgenstein, “the state of mind in which one is inclined to say, ‘I am safe, nothing can injure me whatever happens’” (8). Wittgenstein is at pains to distinguish this kind of experience from the more everyday experience of biophysical safety, where we feel sure that our physiological being will not be injured for this or that specific reason. The experience of being absolutely safe is something radically different than this: “We all know,” says Wittgenstein, what it means in ordinary life to be safe. I am safe in my room, when I cannot be run over by an omnibus. I am safe if I have had whooping cough and cannot therefore get it again. To be safe essentially means that it is physically impossible that certain things should happen to me and therefore it’s nonsense to say that I am safe whatever happens. (LE 9)
While the verbal description of the experience may be literally nonsensical, the experience the description tries to capture is real enough for Wittgenstein— indeed, it is seen by him as in some sense a revelation of what is ultimately real and ultimately meaningful in human life. Further on in the lecture he suggests that the experience of “absolute safety” is the basis of a certain type of religious allegory: Now all religious terms seem in this sense to be used as similes or allegorically. For when we speak of God and that he sees everything and when we kneel and pray to him all our terms and actions seem to be parts of a great and elaborate allegory which represents him as a human being of great power whose grace we try to win, etc. … The experience of absolute safety has been described by saying that we feel safe in the hands of God. (LE 9 – 10)
From remarks Wittgenstein once made to Norman Malcolm, we know that the experience of being “absolutely safe”—of being “safe in the hands of God”—was one Wittgenstein apparently had for the first time in 1910 or early 1911, and that the experience was largely responsible for the shift in his attitude towards religion, which he had apparently been contemptuous of before this time.45 The 45 In my larger work on Wittgenstein I have suggested that an overpowering personal religious experience around this time was very possibly the driving force behind Wittgenstein’s shift in interest from aerodynamic engineering to philosophy. “The tools of modern logic,” I wrote, “may well have appeared to Wittgenstein as the most promising method of preserving the ganz andere nature of the mystical religious experience, and the translogical Beyond which it reveals, against profanation and debasement” (96n). The reading of Ray Monk’s biography and realization that Wittgenstein throughout his adult life considered the experience of “absolute safety” to be paradigmatic of religious experience convinced me more than ever of the truth of this statement, which I originally put forth somewhat tentatively. A profound religious experience in the year 1910 or 1911 would also be consistent with the account of Wittgenstein’s sudden preoccupation with philosophy, together with his near pathological state of excitement, as these have been described to us by his sister Hermine in her memoir. To date not a single commentator on Wittgenstein—at least not one known to the present writer—has ever even attempted to explain what might have been going on
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experience occurred in conjunction with the viewing of the play Die Kreutzelschreiber by the Austrian dramatist Ludwig Anzengruber. Malcolm writes on this: He told me that in his youth he had been contemptuous of [religion], but that at about the age of twenty-one something had caused a change in him. In Vienna he saw a play that was mediocre drama, but in it one of the characters expressed the thought that no matter what happened in the world, nothing bad could happen to him—he was independent of fate and circumstances. Wittgenstein was struck by this stoic thought: for the first time he saw the possibility of religion. (LWM 70)
“For the rest of his life,” says Ray Monk commenting on this episode, “[Wittgenstein] continued to regard the feeling of being ‘absolutely safe’ as paradigmatic of religious experience.”46 In November 1912, for instance, at a meeting of the Cambridge intellectual circle known as the Apostles, Wittgenstein responded to a paper G. E. Moore had read on religious conversion by remarking that for him religious experience consisted of getting rid of worry and having the courage not to care regardless of what happened.47 Four months earlier, in a letter to Russell, Wittgenstein had explained how the reading of William James’s Varieties of Religious Experience helped him to get rid of his own Sorge (worry, fears, anxiety, earthly cares),48 and many years later, in a conversation with Maurice Drury, he said that only religious feelings are a cure for morbid fears of physical or psychological harm.49 Although Wittgenstein does not describe the experience with any degree of phenomenological detail, his “absolute safety” experience would seem to be an instance of an ecstatic religious experience wherein the sense of one’s personal identity—one’s sense of self of I—disengages from one’s body-self and is experienced as partaking of a transcendental order of meaning that stands outside the physical order of space and time. One experiences oneself as absolutely safe in such an instance precisely because one’s self is no longer bodyidentified, and thus no longer subject to the inevitable threats and dangers that accompany bodily existence within the psysio-temporal universe. One feels “a peace that passeth all understanding,” which brings with it the conviction that one has somehow touched an order of ultimate reality.50
46 47 48 49 50
inside Wittgenstein’s mind, when, as Hermine tells us, “he was suddenly seized so strongly and so completely against his will by philosophy, i.e. by reflections about philosophical problems, that he suffered severely under his double and conflicting calling and felt inwardly divided. One of several transformations which he was to undergo in his life had come over him and shaken his whole being” (Nieli, 96n). Monk, 51. Monk, 67; McGuinness 114. Monk 51; McGuinness 129. Rhees editor, Conversations with Wittgenstein, 100. Elsewhere I have described the ecstatic mystic experience, drawing heavily upon formulations of Rudolf Otto, Evelyn Underhill, and R. D. Laing, in the following
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We can perhaps get a better fix on the sort of experience Wittgenstein is alluding to by looking at a very dramatic instance of an “absolute safety” experience as recounted by Wittgenstein’s younger Viennese contemporary Arthur Koestler. Koestler’s famous religious experience during the Spanish Civil War, which he recounts for us in his widely read autobiographical work The Invisible Writing, may be of particular value in the present context since his experience would seem to be not only phenomenologically similar to the experience which Wittgenstein describes, but his interpretation and evaluation of the experience are aslo similar to Wittgenstein’s—indeed, they are virtually identical. The immediate circumstances surrounding Koestler’s experience was his imprisonment for espionage by the Phalangist army and his expectation of manner: “[The ecstatic mystic] experience may be divided for analytic purposes into two components or aspects. First, there is a radical shift in attention—the attending consciousness—away from the body to which it was previously attached as its unshakable spatio-temporal anchoring. The self or sense of ‘me’ becomes disembodied and delocalized. ‘In this position the individual experiences his self as being more or less divorced or detached from his body. The body is felt more as one object among other objects in the world than as the core of the individual’s own being’ (R. D. Laing). This self-disembodiment (ego loss) is accompanied by a feeling of freedom or liberation from the sense of weighted-downness with which embodied existence is characterized. Thus begins the second aspect of the experience: a sudden, enormous intensification of attention (consciousness), simultaneous with its redirection into, and absorption by, an ‘outside’ or ‘beyond’ of the space-time-matter world in which the body remains. Consciousness, no longer anchored in the world, peeks into the world as through a keyhole. The experience is pregnant with both emotion and meaning. It is a ‘breakthrough,’ ‘ascent,’ or ‘flight’ of the soul attaining in its culmination the mystery, wonder, and awe of a theophanic Encounter, of a miraculous union between God and man.” “It is just in the miraculousness of the attention shift (disattention of consciousness), that an experience of this kind imprints itself as something sui generis; in relation to events in the world of objects in space and time (i.e. the world to which the attending consciousness had adhered before it shifted, expanded, and was drawn ‘up’ and ‘out of ’) it stands as ganz andere. The transcendent realm, the ‘beyond’ which is ascended to, is, in its purity, something ‘outside of,’ and ‘wholly other than’ the mundane world of space and time. It is the kingdom of God which is not of this world, a Nirvana transcending the world of logic and multiplicity.” “Being ‘absolutely safe,’ or variations on the same theme, can be easily recognized as an expression of the [ecstatic mystic] experience in its disengagement of the self or ‘I’ from identity with the body. As a means of interpreting and expressing this aspect of the experience, it suggests itself quite naturally. An embodied self has (in Laing’s words) ‘a sense of being flesh and blood and bones.’ It will experience itself as ‘subject to the dangers that threaten [the] body, the dangers of attack, mutilation, disease, decay, and death.’ In the [ecstatic mystic] experience, however, the self or sense of ‘I’ is disembodied. Ecstatically removed from the body and all objects of the space-time-matter world, it experiences itself as beyond the dangers that accompany existence in such a world” (Nieli, 71 – 72; 91 – 92).
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imminent execution. With the consummate skill of a gifted and accomplished writer, Koestler describes the prelude to his experience in the following manner: I was never officially informed that sentence of death had been passed on me. The Franco authorities made ambiguous and contradictory statements, with the apparent intention of confusing the issue. … On February 19, three officers of the Phalange visited my cell. … they informed me that I was or would be (the alternative was left in suspense) sentenced to death for espionage, that General Franco might, however, commute my sentence to life imprisonment as an act of clemency. … [It was my expectation] that some night or other I would be taken out of my cell and stood against the cemetery wall. During the first few days after the fall of Malaga, prisoners in that town were taken out in batches and shot at any hour of the day; later on in Seville, things settled down to a more orderly routine, and executions were carried out three or four times a week between midnight and 2 a.m. The proceedings were as a rule smooth and subdued. The victims were not forewarned, and mostly too dazed or proud to make a scene when they were led out of their cells by the guards. … Sometimes the victims were fetched from the mass detention cells on the second floor, or from a different wing; sometimes from among the incommunicado on the death row where I was housed. … On one night, Thursday, April 15, the inmates of cells 39, 41, and 42 on my left and right were marched off, with only my cell No. 40 spared, after the warder had put his key, no doubt by mistake, into my own lock, and then withdrawn it.51
Koestler then describes how he was sitting in his death row cell, trying to pass away the anxious hours by scribbling mathematical formulae on the wall. As a schoolboy, Euclid’s proof that the number of primes in the universe is infinite had always filled him with a deep aesthetic satisfaction, and after writing out this proof on the wall he explains how he began to be stirred by thoughts of the infinite: The infinite is a mystical mass shrouded in a haze; and yet it was possible [through Euclid’s proof ] to gain some knowledge of it without losing oneself in treacly ambiguities. The significance of this swept over me like a wave. … I must have stood there for some minutes, entranced, with a wordless awareness that “this is perfect”; until I noticed some slight mental discomfort nagging at the back of my mind—some trivial circumstance that marred the perfection of the moment. Then I remembered the nature of that irrelevant annoyance: I was, of course in prison and might be shot. But this was immediately answered by a feeling whose verbal translation would be: “So what? Is that all? Have you got nothing more serious to worry about?”—an answer so spontaneous, fresh and amused as if the intruding annoyance had been the loss of a collar-stud. Then I was floating on my back in a river of peace, under bridges of silence. It came from nowhere and flowed nowhere. Then there was no river and no I, the I had ceased to exist. (IW 351 – 352)
Koestler would seem to be describing here a most radical and profound instance of being “absolutely safe”. He felt absolutely safe because his body-identified I 51 Arthur Koestler, The Invisible Writing (Macmillan Company, New York, 1954) 345 – 347.
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had ceased to exist: “The I had ceased to exist” would seem to be Koestler’s way of expressing, within the context of his death row cell, the same feeling Wittgenstein expresses when he says, “I am safe; nothing can injure me whatever happens.” At the deepest level of his being he felt one with an order of reality that transcended the normal psysio-biological plane of human existence. Koestler goes on to explain the ultimacy with which this experience stamped itself and the difficulty involved in trying to describe it through verbal means. The similarity in his formulations on these matters to those of Wittgenstein is indeed striking, and suggests that the two men not only had similar experiences, but that the experiences occupied similar places in their philosophical understanding of how we come to know what is ultimately meaningful and ultimately valuable in human life. Referring to the last quoted sentence Koestler writes: It is extremely embarrassing to write down a phrase like that when one has read The Meaning of Meaning and nibbled at logical positivism and aims at verbal precision and dislikes nebulous gushings. Yet “mystical” experiences, as we dubiously call them, are not nebulous, vague or maudlin—they only become so when we debase them by verbalization. However, to communicate what is incommunicable by its nature, one must somehow put it into words, and so one moves in a vicious circle. When I say “the I had ceased to exist,” I refer to a concrete experience that is verbally as incommunicable as the feeling aroused by a piano concerto, yet just as real—only much more real. In fact, its primary mark is the sensation that this state is more real than any other one has experienced before—that for the first time the veil has fallen and one is in touch with “real reality.” … What distinguishes this type of experience from the emotional entrancements of music, landscapes or love is that the former has a definitely intellectual, or rather noumenal, content. It is meaningful, though not in verbal terms. … Whether the experience had lasted for a few minutes or an hour, I never knew. In the beginning it occurred two or even three times a week, then the intervals became longer. … [These experiences filled] me with a direct certainty that a higher order of reality existed, and that it alone invested existence with meaning. (IW 352 – 353)
Koestler goes on to explain in a very moving passage how absurd life would be in the absence of this higher order reality: I came to call it [i.e. this higher order reality] later on “the reality of the third order.” The narrow world of sensory perception constituted the first order; this perceptual world was enveloped by the conceptual world which contained phenomena not directly perceivable, such as gravitation, electro-magnetic fields, and curved space. The second order of reality filled in the gaps and gave meaning to the absurd patchiness of the sensory world. In the same manner, the third order of reality enveloped, interpenetrated and gave meaning to the second. … Just as the conceptual order showed up the illusions and distortions of the senses, so the “third order” disclosed that time, space and causality, that the isolation, separateness and spatio-temporal limitations of the self were merely optical illusions on the next higher level. If illusions of the first type were taken at face value, then the sun was drowning every night in the sea and a mote in the eye was larger than the moon;
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and if the conceptual world was mistaken for ultimate reality, the world became an equally absurd tale, told by an idiot or by idiot electrons which caused little children to be run over by motor cars, and little Andalusian peasants to be shot through heart, mouth and eyes, without rhyme or reason. (353 – 354)
The experiences in cell No. 40 would eventually lead Koestler away from the materialistic outlook of Marxist-Leninism, and enabled him to look more sympathetically towards certain aspects of a religious world-view. Reflecting further on his prison experiences, he writes in his autobiography: Just as one could not feel the pull of a magnet with one’s skin, so one could not hope to grasp in cognate terms the nature of ultimate reality. It was a text written in invisible ink; and though one could not read it, the knowledge that it existed was sufficient to alter the texture of one’s existence, and make one’s actions conform to the text. I liked to spin out this metaphor. The captain of a ship sets out with a sealed order in his pocket which he is only permitted to open on the high seas. He looks forward to that moment which will end all uncertainty; but when the moment arrives and he tears the envelope open, he only finds an invisible text which defies all attempts at chemical treatment. Now and then a word becomes visible, or a figure denoting a meridian; then it fades again. He will never know the exact wording of the order; nor whether he has complied with it or failed in his mission. But his awareness of the order in his pocket, even though it cannot be deciphered, makes him think and act differently from the captain of a pleasure-cruiser or of a pirate ship. I also liked to think that the founders of religions, prophets, saints and seers had at moments been able to read a fragment of the invisible text; after which they had so much padded, dramatized and ornamented it, that they themselves could no longer tell what parts of it were authentic. (354)
The absolute safety experience (ecstatic mysticism) is a vision of the oneness or consubstantiality of our higher level self with an order of meaning outside or beyond the order of the world. Wittgenstein weaves this experience—or at least the truth about the higher self and the world which this experience is seen to reveal—into both the Notebooks and the Tractatus, where it finds direct expression in the remarks about the metaphysical subject, which is distinguished from both the human body and the subject studied in psychology by virtue of its transcendence of the world. The higher philosophical or metaphysical self, says Wittgenstein, does not exist as part of the world, and is not localized in a body. It constitutes rather, a transcendental border or boundary (Grenze) of the world, and partakes of a radically different mode of existence. Consequently, it is not affected adversely by anything that might happen in the world. The metaphysical self ’s transcendence of the body is stressed in the following remarks: There is no such thing as the subject that thinks or entertains ideas. If I wrote a book called The World as I Found It, I should have to include a report on my body, and should have to say which parts were subordinate to my will, and which were not, etc., this being a method of isolating the subject, or rather of showing that in
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an important sense there is no subject; for it alone could not be mentioned in that book. (Tr 5.631) The subject does not belong to the world; rather, it is a border (Grenze) of the world. (Tr 5.632) Thus there really is a sense in which philosophy can talk about the self in a nonpsychological way. … The philosophical self is not the human being, not the human body, or the human soul with which psychology deals, but rather the metaphysical subject, the limit of the world—not a part of it. (Tr 5.641) The human body, however, my body in particular, is a part of the world among others, among animals, plants, stones, etc., etc. Whoever realizes this will not want to procure a pre-eminent place for his own body or for the human body. (Nb 2. 9. 16.)
The ecstatic mystic experience is also interwoven into the Notebooks and Tractatus in the remarks about timelessness and eternity. The anxiety and fear of death that inevitably accompany life within the order of time is overcome, says Wittgenstein, not by the promise of a perpetual future existence after death, but by living now in an eternal present that transcends the temporal order of events. To live in harmony with this eternal dimension is to feel absolutely safe since death is only a threat to a temporally embodied self, not to a self that lives timelessly. To live in harmony with this eternal dimension is also to see the solution to the profoundest dilemma of human existence since it is this eternal dimension, according to Wittgenstein, which gives life its ultimate meaning. He says on this: But can one so live that life ceases to be problematic? That one lives in eternity and not in time? (Nb 6. 7. 16.) Only one who lives, not in time, but in the present is happy. (Nb 8. 7. 16.) For life in the present there is no death. (Nb 8. 7. 16) He who lives in the present, lives without fear or hope. (Nb 14. 7. 16.) If one understands by eternity not unending time (temporal duration) but timelessness, then the one who lives eternally is the one who lives in the present. (Tr 6.4311) The temporal immortality of the human soul, that is, its perpetual continuation after death, is not only not guaranteed, but what is more important, even if it were so, this fact would not at all achieve what people have always wanted to achieve by it. For is some riddle solved by my living on forever? Wouldn’t this eternal life be just as puzzling as our present life? The solution of the riddle of life in space and time lies outside space and time. (Tr 6.4312)
In his formulations here, Wittgenstein has obviously drawn heavily upon Tolstoy’s The Gospel in Brief, particularly chapters 7 through 10 of that work where Tolstoy addresses the theme of the true life only existing outside time. While Wittgenstein does not accept Tolstoy’s Hindu-like description of time as
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an illusion, he does take over directly from Tolstoy the idea that only in a timetranscending present which knows neither past nor future can human beings find the true meaning and fulfillment of their existence.52 In the eternal present outside of time we experience not only the cessation of all our worldly anxiety and fear, but the “solution of the riddle of life.” Tolstoy, like Wittgenstein, understood this present as an Eternal Now which stood above the world, and he believed one entered it through a combination of ascetic discipline, the silent bearing of one’s earthly suffering, and most important of all, through the performance of works of love. In his decision to give away all his inheritance after the First World War, to live in humble circumstances, and to take up the profession of a rural school teacher, Wittgenstein was no doubt influenced by this aspect of Tolstoy’s teaching.53 The Creation Mystic Experience The urge toward the mystical, which comes from the non-satisfaction of our wishes by science (Nb 25. 5. 15; Tr. 6.52) and the inability to find any value within the world (Tr 6.41), naturally finds its true satisfaction in the mystic experience itself (Ecstatic Mystic Experience). The solution to the ultimate riddle of human existence in space and time, which cannot be provided by temporal immortality (even if this were guaranteed), is found in the vision of an eternal reality outside of space and time (Tr 6.4312). The only value that really has value lies outside the sphere of all that happens and is the case (Tr 6.41). God, who is the source of ultimate meaning and purpose in human life (Nb 11. 6. 16; Nb 8. 7. 16.), does not reveal himself in the world (Tr 6.432). When we live in harmony with the vision of an eternal order outside of time and space, we live in a meaningful and happy present that knows no fear of death in time and space (Nb 6. 7. 16.; Nb 8. 7. 16.; Nb 14. 7. 16.; Tr 6.4311). In this meaningful present outside of the temporal order, we feel safe in the hands of God (LE 10). Feeling safe in the hands of God, feeling that we are safe regardless of what happens to us in the world, is the quintessential religious experience (remarks to Apostles). 52 In the Preface to The Gospel in Brief Tolstoy sums up the meaning of each of the book’s twelve chapters through a brief proposition. Chapters seven through ten are summarized in the following manner: “(7) This present life in time is the food of the true life. (8) And therefore, the true life is outside time; it is in the present. (9) Time is an illusion of life; the life of the past and the future clouds men from the true life of the present. (10) And therefore, one must aim to destroy the deception arising from the past and future, the life in time” (The Gospel in Brief, edited by F.A. Flowers III, translated by Isabel Hapgood, Univerrsity of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, 1997, 17). 53 See Nieli, 161 – 167.
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Such, in brief outline, is how Wittgenstein understood the Ecstatic Mystic Experience and its relation to the Urge Towards the Mystical. Had Wittgenstein’s understanding of “higher things” ended with these two experiences, however, his Tractarian philosophy would have been very different than what it turned out to be, for ecstatic mysticism is always in need of one or more of what we might call “incarnational principles” lest it end up—as historically it often has—without a way of relating the higher order to the lower in such a manner that would accord to human existence within the world some kind of moral meaning and purpose. Ecstatic mysticism (particularly in its “negative” or apophatic form), when not blended with a cataphatic or incarnational principle, has a tendency to deprecate or neglect human moral obligation within the world,54 and this is certainly something Wittgenstein did not want to do. Indeed, as suggested in his letter to von Ficker, the overriding purpose of the Tractatus was ethical in nature, as the transcendental order outside the world was always seen by Wittgenstein as providing the ultimate source and foundation for ethical obligation within the world. The most important “incarnational principle” in Wittgenstein’s early philosophy was supplied by a third experience, which has been designated here the Creation Mystic Experience. We might describe this experience in a preliminary fashion as a vision of the lower order as reflecting in some way the mystery and wonder of the higher. In the Ecstatic Mystic Experience, attention shifts from its involvement in the sensory world of space and time to view a breathtakingly sublime higher reality that partakes of a radically different structure and nature. The lower order is left behind in the ecstatic experience so that the human apperceptive faculties might ascend to a vision of the divine order in all its holiness and purity. In the Creation Mystic Experience, by contrast, the lower order once again becomes the object of attention, but only in so far as its very existence reflects the wonderous presence and miraculous creativity of the higher order. One might characterize Wittgenstein’s view in the Tractatus as an attempt to etch out a position regarding higher and lower order realities that would successfully negotiate between, on the one hand, the Scylla of mystic pantheism, with its inadequate God/world distinction, and on the other, the Charybdis of gnostic mysticism, where the divine order becomes so radically divorced from the world that the world takes on the character of an alien and hostile universe rather than the God-ordained home of man which it always represents for Jewish and Christian mystic thinkers. It must be said,
54 This is certainly the case in the ecstatic mysticism represented by a number of ancient gnostic thinkers. See on this topic the remarks in my Wittgenstein: From Mysticism to Ordinary Language, 142 – 143.
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however, that the Tractatus’s representation of God and world comes much closer to gnosticism than to pantheism.55 Like the Ecstatic Mystic Experience, the Creation Mystic Experience is described directly by Wittgenstein in his “Lecture on Ethics,” where it is seen by him as in some sense the paradigmatic ethical experience. It is an experience which reveals the divine or supernatural origin of the world—and by implication of human existence within the world—and although Wittgenstein doesn’t treat the matter adequately, the experience seems to establish for him a duty or obligation on the part of human beings to realize within the earthly order some kind of divinely sanctioned meaning or purpose. Like the experience of “feeling absolutely safe,” however, all attempts to describe the Creation Mystic Experience ultimately fall short of their goal, Wittgenstein insists, and will prove to be literally nonsensical. However, the inability to describe the experience adequately and the belief that all descriptions run the risk of unseemly debasements, does not prevent Wittgenstein from trying to do his best to convey through language a sense of what the Creation Mystic Experience is like and what truth into the human condition it reveals. “If I want to fix my mind on what I mean by absolute or ethical value,” says Wittgenstein, “… in my case it always happens that the idea of one particular experience presents itself to me which therefore, is, in a sense, my experience par excellence and this is the reason why, in talking to you now, I will use this experience as my first and foremost example.” “I will describe this experience,” he tells his audience, “in order, if possible, to make you recall the same or similar experiences, so that we may have a common ground for our investigation.” He goes on: I believe the best way of describing it is to say that when I have it I wonder at the existence of the world. And I am then inclined to use such phrases as “how extraordinary that the world should exist.” (LE 8) I will now describe the experience of wondering at the existence of the world by saying: it is the experience of seeing the world as a miracle. (LE 11) Now all religious terms seem in this sense to be used as similes or allegorically. For when we speak of God and that he sees everything and when we kneel and pray to him all our terms and actions seem to be parts of a great and elaborate allegory which represents him as a human being of great power whose grace we try to win, etc., etc. But this allegory also describes the experience which I have just referred to. For the first of them is, I believe, exactly what people were referring to when they said that God had created the world. (LE 10 – 11)
Wittgenstein also described the Creation Mystic Experience in conversations he had with Friedrich Waismann in late December of 1929, when he spoke of the sense of amazement or astonishment (Erstaunen) which we feel over the fact that anything should exist at all. He repeated to Waismann the contention that this 55 Nieli, 142 – 144.
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sense of profound wonder or amazement cannot be adequately expressed in language and that attempts to do so inevitably end up with propositions that are literally nonsensical: Man has the urge to thrust against the limits (Grenzen) of language. Think for instance of the sense of astonishment (Erstaunen) that anything exists. This astonishment cannot be expressed in the form of a question and there is certainly no answer. Everything that we might say is a priori nonsense. Despite this fact, however, we still thrust against the limits of language.56
In conversations with Waismann a year later, Wittgenstein again took up the theme of the Creation Mystic Experience, and as in the “Lecture on Ethics,” saw it as providing in some way the foundation of the ethical good. The experience of wondering at the existence of the world, Wittgenstein suggested to Waismann, was intimately tied to ethics, and this connection, he explained, has been expressed allegorically in religious terminology through the image of a God who creates the world, and of his Son—or his Divine Word—which provides a model for the ethical. Waismann has recorded this conversation as follows: Wittgenstein: For me the facts are unimportant. But what men mean when they say, “The world is there” lies near to my heart. Waisman: Is there a connection between the existence of the world and the ethical? Wittgenstein: Men have felt that there is a connection here and have expressed it in the following way: God the Father created the world [while] the son of God—or the Word that proceeds outward from the father—is the ethical. The fact that people have divided the Godhead and then thought it united indicates that a connection exists here. (WWK 118)
Wittgenstein incorporates the Creation Mystic Experience directly into the Tractatus in the important proposition 6.44 where he declares: It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists.” Commenting on this passage Norman Malcolm says that a “certain feeling of amazement that anything should exist at all, was something experienced by Wittgenstein, not only during the Tractatus period, but also when I knew him.”57 From what Malcolm says here it would appear that the feeling of wonder and amazement at the world’s existence remained central to Wittgenstein’s understanding of the intimate relationship between God, the world, and the ethical throughout most of his adult life. The feeling of wonder or amazement that anything should exist—the same feeling that philosophers, including Heidegger and Leibnitz, have sometimes tried to express through the metaphysical question, “Why is there something 56 Wittgenstein und der Wiener Kreis, edited by Brian McGuinnes (Basil Blackwell, Oxford) 68. 57 Malcolm, 70.
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rather than nothing?”—seems to have been closely linked in Wittgenstein’s mind with certain types of aesthetic experiences whereby individual objects are seen in their radiant beauty and this beauty is understood as related in some unspecified manner to higher noumenal-eternal reality that reaches beyond the order of the world. Just how close the association of ethical and aesthetic experience was for Wittgenstein is suggested by a comment in the Notebooks where he describes the Creation Mystic Experience as an “aesthetic miracle” (“The aesthetic miracle is that the world exists. That what exists does exist.” Nb 20. 10. 16.). The linkage between ethics and aesthetics is made even more explicit in the Tractatus where ethics and aesthetics are both said to be beyond the capacity of words to express and in some sense identical to one another (“It is clear that ethics cannot be put into words. Ethics is transcendental. Ethics and aesthetics are one and the same.” 6.421). Similarly, in the “Lecture on Ethics” Wittgenstein says that he uses the term ethics to encompass not only what is normally understood under that term (he quotes from a definition of G. E. Moore in the Principia Ethica: “Ethics is the general enquiry into what is good.”), but also “the most essential part of what is generally called aesthetics” (LE 4). The most important comparison of ethics and aesthetics, however, is found in a section of the Notebooks where Wittgenstein repeatedly uses Spinoza’s phrase sub specie aeternitatis (“under the form of eternity”) to explain how the ethical lens and the aesthetic lens both seek to view lower order reality from a God’s-eye perspective. “The work of art,” says Wittgenstein, “is the object seen sub specie aeternitatis. This is the connection between art and ethics” (Nb 7. 10. 16.). Creations of art—a beautiful painting or beautiful statue, for instance— and a moral life are thus seen as closely related to each other in so far as the latter involves a manner of living in harmony with a higher order perspective from which the whole world can be viewed in its created splendor, while the former captures a glimpse of a single object in the world whose radiant beauty would seem to represent at least a dim reflection of what is higher. Ethics and aesthetics are both transcendental for Wittgenstein to the extent that they view either the world as a whole (ethics) or individual objects in the world (aesthetics) from the standpoint of an eternal order that lies outside and beyond the world. He writes further on this topic: The usual way of looking at things sees objects as it were from the midst of them, the view sub specie aeternitatis from outside. In such a way that they have the whole world as background. Is this it perhaps—in this view the object is seen together with space and time instead of in space and time? The thought forces itself upon us: The thing seen sub specie aeternitatis is the thing seen together with the whole logical space. (Nb 7. 10. 16.)
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Similar remarks are made in the Tractatus. In paragraph 6.45, for instance, Wittgenstein also speaks about viewing the world “under the form of eternity”: To view the world sub specie aeterni is to view it as a whole—a bounded (begrenztes) whole. Feeling the world as a bounded whole—it is this that is mystical.
Here, when Wittgenstein speaks of a mystical feeling in which the world is perceived as a bounded (or limited) whole, he may be referring not only to the Creation Mystic Experience, but to the Urge Toward the Mystical as well, since the world in his symbolism is bounded by an outside and depending upon whether one is inside yearning to make contact with this outside, or outside gazing in upon the miraculous presence that is below, one can experience either the Urge Toward the Mystical or the Creation Mystic Experience. Although Wittgenstein saw the Creation Mystic Experience as in some sense the quintessential ethical experience, he really doesn’t develop very well in his work the connection between the noumenal experience he describes and “ethics” in the more usual sense of ethical duties, ethical virtues, or ethical goods. All we learn is that the experience involves a higher order vision of the world and that this vision reveals in some not-too-clearly-defined manner what is good, meaningful and valuable in human life in an ultimate or absolute sense rather than a merely relative sense. Other “incarnational principles” in Wittgenstein’s early philosophy, however, at least partially make up for this deficit, and these include the notion of conscience as the voice of God,58 the idea that the ethical good derives its goodness from the fact that God commands it,59 and the idea that the feeling of guilt has important ethical and theological significance.60 To 58 Nb 8. 7. 16. 59 In conversations with Friedrich Waismann Wittgenstein had the following remarks to make about two rival concepts in theological ethics: “Schlick says there are two conceptions of the nature of the good in theological ethics: according to the shallower interpretation, what is good is good because God so wills it; according to the more profound, God wills what is good because it is good. I say that the first conception is the more profound: good is what God commands. For this puts an end to any attempt to explain why it is good, while the second conception is precisely the shallower, the rationalistic one which acts as if the good could still be provided with some kind of further grounding. The first conception states clearly that the nature of the good has nothing to do with the facts and thus cannot be explained through any proposition. If there is any proposition that explains exactly what I mean, it is this: Good is what God commands.” (WWK 115) 60 After describing an allegorical expression for (a) the experience of seeing the world as a miracle (“what people were referring to when they said that God had created the world”), and, (b) for the experience of feeling absolutely safe (“we feel safe in the hands of God”), Wittgenstein describes a third kind of experience that represents for him absolute or ethical value: “A third experience of the same kind is that of feeling guilty and again this was described by the phrase that God disapproves of our conduct” (LE 10). Wittgenstein, however, does not discuss this experience any further.
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get a clearer picture of Wittgenstein’s early ethical philosophy, each of these ideas would have to be examined at greater length, though this cannot be done within the present context. Three Modes of Noumenal Experience The three modes of transcendental experience that have been interwoven into the Tractatus can be illuminated in the simple fashion shown in the following diagrams. The space-time-matter world, represented by each of the house icons, is the realm of describable facts, which, according to Wittgenstein’s analysis, can never by itself satisfy the generically human urge to reach out towards the mystical and the eternal. The Urge Towards the Mystical, however, can find satisfaction in the noumenal experience of “absolute safety” (Ecstatic Mystic Experience), where the self experiences itself as transcending its time-bound, body-bound, and world-bound mode of being; and it can also find satisfaction in the noumenal experience of wondering at the world’s sheer existence, wherein the entire psysio-temporal universe is seen as an overpoweringly sublime manifestation of divine creativity and divine presence. The difference between the Ecstatic Mystic Experience and the Creation Mystic Experience can be readily discerned from the diagrams in so far as the former is an ascent of the mind from the lower-level sensory order to a vision of the higher reality in all its ethereal purity and splendor, while the latter represents a noumenally heightened experience of the sensory order itself resplendent with an aura of beauty, wonder, mystery, and enchantment.
a) our deepest wishes not satisfied by science (Nb 25. 5. 15) b) existence in the world problematic (Nb 11. 6. 16) c) facts not the end of the matter (Nb 8. 7. 16; Tr 6.4321)
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d) no value found within the world (Nb 11. 6. 16; Tr 6.41) e) world as bounded or limited whole (Tr 6. 52)
a) absolute safety (LE 8) b) being safe in the hands of God (LE 10) c) living in eternity not in time free from fear of death (Nb 6. 7. 16.; Nb 8. 7. 16.; Nb 14. 7. 16.; Tr 6.4311; Tr 6.4312) d) subject does not exist in world but is border of world (Nb 23. 5. 15; Nb 2. 8. 16.; Tr 5.632) e) the “I” not human body, but metaphysical subject which borders world (Nb 2. 9. 16.; Tr 5.461) f ) the paradigmatic religious experience (remarks to Apostles)
a) seeing the world as a miracle, wondering at existence of the world, astonishment that anything exists (LE 8; LE 11; WWK 68; WWK 118) b) God created the world (LE 10)
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c) not how the world is but that it is as mystical experience, as aesthetic miracle (Nb 20. 10. 16.; Tr 6.45) d) viewing world sub specie aeternitatis (Nb 7. 10. 16.; Tr 6.45) e) the ethical experience par excellence (LE 8) The Wittgenstein Problem Solved The Wittgenstein Problem is readily solved once the Tractatus is seen not as an anti-metaphysical or anti-transcendental work, but as a work of mystic theology that develops its unique logical and linguistic system primarily for the purpose of distinguishing an inner-worldly realm, which Wittgenstein believed could be exhaustively characterized through clear and precise picturing propositions, from a noumenal-transcendent order that is seen to lie beyond the world and beyond the capacity of language to describe. In the millennial tradition of “negative theology” Wittgenstein sought through his Tractatus (to use Paul Engelmann’s metaphor) to delineate the coastline of an island only to get a better view of the vast ocean that lay beyond it. Acknowledging some value in the Monk-McGuinness emphasis on the importance of the 1914 – 1918 period in Wittgenstein’s life, one could readily concede that the noumenal experiences that form the key to interpreting the meaning of Wittgenstein’s early work were experiences that may well have recurred to Wittgenstein during the period of the First World War. But the historical evidence indicates that at least the experience of “absolute safety,” which is the most clearly “mystical” of the noumenal experiences Wittgenstein has described for us, and the most important for understanding the via negativa structure of his Tractarian philosophy, was an experience Wittgenstein had for the first time not only before the First World War, but before he ever took up the study of logic in the year 1911. Indeed, it seems most likely that it was precisely because of this very experience that Wittgenstein first became preoccupied with philosophical and metaphysical concerns, and decided to shift his early interests away from aerodynamic engineering to the study of modern logic.61 Once this is understood, the Wittgenstein Problem disappears 61 That some kind of overpowering personal experience or truly extraordinary state of mind was involved in Wittgenstein’s decision to study logic and the philosophy of mathematics is strongly suggested by the following recollection of his sister Hermine: (“After his matura, Ludwig went to the Technische Hochschule in Berlin and then occupied himself extensively with questions and experiments concerning aerodynamics. At this time, or a little later, he was suddenly seized so strongly and so completely against his will by philosophy, i.e. by reflections about philosophical problems, that he suffered severely under his double and conflicting calling and felt inwardly divided. One of several transformations which he was to undergo in his life had come over him and shaken his
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and the Tractatus can be viewed as the tightly integrated, religio-ethical work that its author always intended it to be. Mysticism, Morality, and Psychopathic Religious Genius: Wittgenstein through a Jamesian Lens In reading biographical accounts of Wittgenstein and his work—especially those of Engelmann, Drury and Monk—three features of Wittgenstein’s extraordinary personality clearly stand out. These are, first of all, his moral earnestness and sincere efforts to live his life on a higher moral plane than that of more ordinary people; secondly, his interest in Christian mystical and spiritual figures such as Augustine and George Fox, and in creative writers who incorporate moral and spiritual themes in their work, like Plato, Dostoyevsky, Blake, Tagore, and the later Tolstoy; and finally, his hypersensitive and extremely labile psychic constitution, which could produce morbid fears and suicidal depressions at one period in time followed by brilliant intellectual insights, noumenal illuminations, and religious assurances of being “absolutely safe” at other periods. Wittgenstein’s personality incorporated a complex combination of all of these features, and, as Paul Engelmann has remarked, a major problem that interpreters have had in understanding Wittgenstein and his work has been their inability to empathize with the moral and psychic struggles that were such an integral part of his life.62 Each of these three interrelated features of Wittgenstein’s personality can be better illustrated by a selective look at some of the themes in William James’s classic Varieties of Religious Experience,63 a book which had a profound influence on Wittgenstein at the time he first read it in 1912, and which he was still recommending to students many years later. In a letter to Bertrand Russell dated June 22, 1912, Wittgenstein explained how eager he was to continue reading James’s work and how valuable it was in elevating his moral vision and overcoming his deepest worries (Sorge):
whole being. At that time he was concerned with writing a philosophical treatise and finally decided to show the plan of his to a Professor Frege at Jena, who was involved with similar questions. Ludwig found himself in those days to be in a constant, indescribable, and almost pathological state of excitement, and I very much feared that Frege, whom I knew to be an old man, would not be able to muster up the patience and understanding to deal with the matter with the required seriousness.” (from Bernhard Leitner, The Architecture of Ludwig Wittgenstein, New York University Press, New York, 18) 62 See on this Engelmann, especially 70 – 79. 63 Collier Books, New York, 1961.
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Whenever I have time I now read James’s “Varieties of religious experience”. This book does me a lot of good. I don’t mean to say that I will be a saint soon, but I am not sure that it does not improve me a little in a way in which I would like to improve very much: namely I think that it helps me to get rid of the Sorge (in the sense in which Goethe used the word in the 2nd part of Faust).64
It is easy to understand why Wittgenstein, who viewed the experience of being “absolutely safe” as the quintessential religious experience, would be attracted to James’s account of religion and to the many personal testimonies in James’s work about the power of religion to elevate the soul above even the most perplexing and tormenting earthly cares. James himself lists “an assurance of safety and a temper of peace” as one of the five major features of the religious life (377), and he uses a metaphor to describe this special kind of religious tranquility similar to Wittgenstein’s metaphor of being “absolutely safe in the hands of God.” “Most religious men,” James writes, “believe (or ‘know’ if they be mystical) that not only they themselves, but the whole universe of beings to whom God is present, are secure in his parental hands. There is a sense, a dimension, they are sure, in which we are all saved, in spite of the gates of hell and all adverse terrestrial appearances. God’s existence is the guarantee of an ideal order that shall be permanently preserved. This world may indeed, as science assures us, some day burn up or freeze; but if it is part of his order, the old ideals are sure to be brought elsewhere to fruition, so that where God is, tragedy is only provisional and partial, and shipwreck and dissolution are not the absolutely final things.” (400) For religious people James explains, “the sense of God’s presence” can produce an “unaccountable feeling of safety.” “A paradise of inward tranquility,” he writes, “seems to be faith’s usual result.” How, he asks, “can it possibly fail to steady the nerves, to cool the fever, and appease the fret, if one be sensibly conscious that, no matter what one’s difficulties for the moment may appear to be, one’s life as a whole is in the keeping of a power whom one can absolutely trust?” (230) James provides many examples of this unshakable sense of safety and security that the religious dimension can provide. Wittgenstein, no doubt, empathized with many of them during his reading of the Varieties. Here is one account from a German author who describes the overcoming of fear that comes from the Christian’s self-surrender and submissiveness to a higher authority: The compensation for the loss of that sense of personal independence which man so unwillingly gives up, is the disappearance of all fear from one’s life, the quite indescribable and inexplicable feeling of an inner security, which one can only experience, but which, once it has been experienced, one can never forget. (222 – 223) 64 Rhees, Recollections of Wittgenstein, 219.
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Another writer James quotes makes the same point even more clearly, and his remarks come close to what Wittgenstein would tell his student audience in 1929 about the nature of being “absolutely safe”: It is the experience of myriads of trustful souls, that this sense of God’s unfailing presence with them in their going out and in their coming in, and by night and day, is a source of absolute repose and confident calmness. It drives away all fear of what may befall them. That nearness of God is a constant security against terror and anxiety. It is not that they are at all assured of physical safety, or deem themselves protected by a love which is denied to others, but that they are in a state of mind equally ready to be safe or to meet with injury. If injury befall them, they will be content to bear it because the Lord is their keeper, and nothing can befall them without his will. If it be his will, then injury is for them a blessing and no calamity at all. Thus and thus only is the trustful man protected and shielded from harm. (223)
Wittgenstein was subject throughout his early adulthood to morbid obsessions, deep depressions, and fears of going insane, and part of the “safety” that his religious experiences provided was not simply a sense of having overcome fears of physical danger but relief from the psychic torment and the chaotic states that his mind was periodically inclined to suffer. Parallels can be easily drawn to John Bunyan, George Fox, and the later Tolstoy, as well as, on the archaic level, to the labile psychic constitution associated with classic shamanism, as Eliade and others have described it.65 The type of hypersensitive personality that combines superior intellect with superior grasp of the deeper regions of inner space is a topic that James deals with quite thoroughly in his Varieties, and no doubt Wittgenstein took note of what James had to say on such matters. “The nature of genius,” says James, “has been illuminated by the attempts … to class it with psychopathical phenomena.” James goes on to explain: “Borderland insanity, crankiness, insane temperament, loss of mental balance, psychopathic degeneration (to use a few of the many synonyms by which it has been called), has certain peculiarities and liabilities which, when combined with a superior quality of intellect in an individual, make it more probable that he will make his mark and affect his age, than if his temperament were less neurotic. … The psychopathic temperament, whatever be the intellect with which it finds itself paired, often brings with it ardor and excitability of character. The cranky person has extraordinary emotional susceptibility. He is liable to fixed ideas and obsessions. His conceptions tend to pass immediately into belief and action: and when he gets a new idea, he has no rest till he proclaims it, or in some way ‘works it off.’” (36) This is at least a partially accurate description of Wittgenstein in the period in which he wrote the Tractatus. But what James says next about religious genius 65 See Mircea Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1964).
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and the psychopathic temperament is an almost uncannily prescient account of what Wittgenstein would go on to become in the years following his reading of the Varieties, and Wittgenstein doubtless found in James’s remarks in this regard a sympathetic understanding for his own spiritual and psychological condition: Thus, when a superior intellect and a psychopathic temperament coalesce—as in the endless permutations and combinations of human faculty, they are bound to coalesce often enough—in the same individual, we have the best possible condition for the kind of effective genius that gets into the biographical dictionaries. Such men do not remain mere critics and understanders with their intellect. Their ideas possess them, they inflict them, for better or worse, upon their companions or their age. … In the psychopathic temperament we have the emotionality which is the sine qua non of moral perception; we have the intensity and tendency to emphasis which are the essence of practical moral vigor; and we have the love of metaphysics and mysticism which carry one’s interests beyond the surface of the sensible world. What, then, is more natural than that this temperament should introduce one to regions of religious truth, to corners of the universe, which your robust Philistine type of nervous system, forever offering its biceps to be felt, thumping its breast, and thanking Heaven that it hasn’t a single morbid fiber in its composition, would be sure to hide forever from its self-satisfied-possessor. If there were such a thing as inspiration from a higher realm, it might well be that the neurotic temperament would furnish the chief condition of the requisite receptivity. (37 – 38)
The ecstatic experience that gave birth to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus was surely such an “inspiration from a higher realm,” and the type of hypersensitive and labile temperament that Wittgenstein possessed is well described here. One can also derive from James’s analysis a better understanding of the relationship between mysticism and morality in Wittgenstein. The hypersensitive psychopathic temperament, James believed—and the Quaker prophet George Fox represented the clearest example of this sort of temperament for James66—was 66 In speaking of those for whom religion exists “not as a dull habit, but an acute fever,” James writes: “But such individuals are ‘geniuses’ in the religious line; and like many other geniuses who have brought forth fruits effective enough for commemoration in the pages of biography, such religious geniuses have often shown symptoms of nervous instability. Even more perhaps than other kinds of genius, religious leaders have been subject to abnormal psychical visitations. Invariably they have been creatures of exalted emotional sensibility. Often they have led a discordant inner life, and had melancholy during a part of their career. They have known no measure, been liable to obsessions and fixed ideas; and frequently they have fallen into trances, heard voices, seen visions, and presented all sorts of peculiarities which are ordinarily classed as pathological. … If you ask for a concrete example, there can be no better one than is furnished by the person of George Fox. The Quaker religion which he founded is something which it is impossible to overpraise. In a day of shams, it was a religion of veracity rooted in spiritual inwardness, and a return to something more like the original gospel truth than men had ever known in England. … [But] in point of spiritual sagacity and capacity, Fox’s mind was unsound. Everyone who confronted him personally, from Oliver Cromwell down to county magistrates and jailers, seems to have acknowledged his superior power. Yet from
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often privy to a range of noumenal experience that gave insight into a transcendental order of being from whence derived mankind’s highest moral aspirations and desires to do good. On the far side of human consciousness, he believed, man was called to a higher vocation than a life of self-centeredness and self-indulgence, and in attunement to this higher call, human beings fulfilled a higher moral purpose and their highest destiny. In the Conclusion to the Varieties James writes on this: The further limits of our being plunge, it seems to me, into an altogether other dimension of existence from the sensible and merely “understandable” world. Name it the mystical region, or the supernatural region, whichever you choose. So far as our ideal impulses originate in this region (and most of them do originate in it, for we find them possessing us in a way for which we cannot articulately account), we belong to it in a more intimate sense than that in which we belong to the visible world, for we belong in the most intimate sense wherever our ideals belong. Yet the unseen region in question is not merely ideal, for it produces effects in this world. When we commune with it, work is actually done upon our finite personality, for we are turned into new men, and consequences in the way of conduct follow in the natural world upon our regenerative change. … God is the natural appelation, for us Christians at least, for the supreme reality, so I will call this higher part of the universe by the name of God. We and God have business with each other; and in opening ourselves to his influence our deepest destiny is fulfilled. The universe, as those parts of it which our personal being constitutes, takes a turn genuinely for the worse or for the better in proportion as each one of us fulfills or evades God’s demands. (399 – 400)
Wittgenstein’s understanding of the relation between mysticism and ethics would be very similar to that expressed by James here. As we have seen in his “Lecture on Ethics” (1929), he spoke of ethical inquiry as a search for absolute value, for what is intrinsically sublime, for the absolute good, and for what gives human life its meaning. This search, he said, culminates in a supernatural vision of the ethical good that reveals an order of meaning and purpose beyond the order of nature and the world. “God does not reveal himself in the world,” he proclaimed in his Tractatus; “ethics is transcendental” (Tr 6.432, 6.421). “The sense of the world,” he wrote, “must lie outside the world.” “In the world everything is as it is, and everything happens as it does happen: in it no value exists—and if it did exist, it would have no value. If there is any value that does the point of view of his nervous constitution, Fox was a psychopath or detraque of the deepest dye” (25). Needless to say, much of this description would fit Wittgenstein. [In a conversation with the present writer, Ray Monk explained that virtually everyone of the many dozens of people whom he interviewed for his biography who had had some kind of personal contact with Wittgenstein—including landladies and others with no academic or intellectual training of any kind—found the intensity and power of Wittgenstein’s presence to be something truly extraordinary. On Wittgenstein’s labile psychic constitution, his deep depressions, suicidal urges, and fears of going insane, see Nieli, chapter 4.]
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have value, it must lie outside the whole sphere of what happens and is the case. For all that happens and is the case is accidental. It must lie outside the world” (Tr 6.41). Like James, Wittgenstein saw human beings as having cognitive access to two realms—a natural order and a supernatural order—and for both thinkers morality was primarily a matter of establishing a right-relationship of living, acting human beings to the supernatural order. “If there is any proposition that explains exactly what I mean” Wittgenstein told Frederich Waismann in a discussion of the ultimate source of morality and ethics, “it is this: Good is what God commands” (WWK 115). For Wittgenstein, as for James, the supernatural order is made known through revelatory eruptions into a transmarginal region of the human soul, and these revelatory eruptions are most pronounced in experiences both labeled “mystical”. In the mystical depths of the soul the human reaches out to the divine and the divine reaches out to the human. “We and God have business with each other,” as James puts it; “in opening ourselves to his influence our deepest destiny is fulfilled.” One could hardly find a pithier expression to explain Wittgenstein’s own understanding of the relationship between mysticism and the moral life.
From Prudence to Morality A Case for the Morality of Some Forms of Nondualistic Mysticism
Daniel Zelinski [M]ystical consciousness should be, for those who possess it, a powerful motive and impulsion towards ethical, and therefore towards social, action. —Walter Stace, Mysticism and Philosophy [M]ystical-monistic experience…inevitably exists in tension with any socially defined ethical system. —Jeffery Kripal, Crossing Boundaries, “Debating the Mystical as the Ethical: An Ideological Map“
Since the advent of modern academic studies of mysticism, the moral status of nondualistic mysticism has been a center of debate.1 The charge that nondualistic mysticism is essentially amoral stems from a perceived conceptual tension between nondualistic mystical awareness, an awareness of some particular conception of the divine as an all-pervasive unity within which there are no distinct substances, and the social character of morality. Proponents of this position claim that in leaving behind all substantial distinctions between individual persons, these mystics also leave the realm of morality.2 1. Ideal Foundationalism The position that nondualistic mysticism is essentially amoral stands in sharp contrast to the views of many early scholars of mysticism, such as Walter Stace and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. They both saw nondualistic mystical awareness as providing a foundation for love and compassion. In the introduction to his cross-traditional anthology, The Teachings of the Mystics, Stace writes, 1
2
The term “mysticism” has been applied so broadly, covering such a range of individuals and traditions, that any generalizations concerning it are difficult. However, I believe that comparative mysticism is such an exciting area precisely because deep cross-traditional similarities can be identified. For a complete account of and argument for a crosstraditional typology, see Wainwright 1983, chapter 1. Albert Schweitzer, Arthur Danto, R.C. Zaehner, and William Wainwright, along with Jeffery Kripal, have all raised objections to monistic (and, I assume, all nondualistic) mysticism.
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[I]n the mystical consciousness all distinctions disappear and therefore the distinction between ‘I’ and ‘You’ and ‘he’ and ‘she’. This is the mystical and metaphysical basis of love, namely the realization that my brother and I are one, and that therefore his sufferings are my sufferings and his happiness is my happiness. This reveals itself dimly in the psychological phenomena of sympathy and more positively in actual love [Stace 1960b, 27].
While Stace’s perennialist conception of this foundation was visionary (if idealistic), the basic idea that love and hence morality is grounded in nondualistic mystical consciousness was not new. In his 1937 “Mysticism and Ethics in Hindu Thought,” written in response to Albert Schweitzer’s charges that Hindu monistic thought was essentially amoral, Radhakrishnan favorably quotes Dr. Paul Deussen on this exact point. The Gospels quite correctly establish as the highest law of morality, ‘Love your neighbour as yourselves’. But why should I do so since by the order of nature I feel pain and pleasure only in myself, not in my neighbour? The answer is not found in the Bible but in the Veda, in the great formula That art Thou which gives in three words the combined sum of metaphysics and morals. You shall love your neighbour because you are your neighbour [quoted in Kripal 2002, 30 – 33].
This quote is suggestive of why Radhakrishnan has been criticized for reading into Indian mystical metaphysics a Western ethical theory that “simply isn’t there” (see Kripal 2002, 30 – 31). Similarly, Stace’s perennialist foundationalism has received substantial criticism for both its perennialism and foundationalism. His insistence that all mystical experience can be neatly fit into a binary typology has been criticized for neglecting significant differences between various mystical experiences, while his hypothesis that mystical experience serves as the foundation for the moral sentiment via the mystics’ perceived dissolution of distinctions between themselves and others has been criticized as purely speculative (see Kripal 2002, 42). However, many mystics do talk of compassion, and for those who do we must inquire about their view of the relation between this virtue and mystical awareness. In this paper, I want to suggest that, within the writings of some nondualistic mystics, a case for a Stacean foundationalist hypothesis can be made. I will briefly sketch readings of the views of Do¯gen Zenji (1200 – 1253) and Meister Eckhart (1260 – 1328) that render this contention plausible.3 Then, I will suggest a conceptual model that attempts to elucidate how this grounding works. Briefly, I believe that many nondualistic mystics can be reasonably read as endorsing the following causal connection: 3
In an attempt to compensate for my lack of fluency with both Medieval German and Japanese, I have consulted and referenced various major translations of the works of both Eckhart and Do¯gen.
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Enlightenment (that is, nondualistic mystical awareness) causally induces the perfection of the virtue of compassion and loving-kindness within mystics, via extending the scope of their prudential concern for their own well-being to include the well-being of “others.”
Finally, utilizing this model, I shall suggest possible responses to two common lines of reasoning for the claim that nondualistic mysticism is essentially amoral. 2. Do¯gen’s Life of “Ceaseless Practice in the Buddha-mind” First, let me briefly sketch Do¯gen’s concept of Ceaseless Practice (Gyo¯ji), which formed one of the central themes of his principle work, the Sho¯bo¯genzo¯ (The Treasury of the Eye of True Teaching), a collection of essays primarily directed towards the instruction of monks under his supervision. It is clear throughout the Sho¯bo¯genzo¯ that the fostering of an extrovertive nondualistic mystical awareness via the cultivation of a continuous attitude of nonattachment (mujaku) is at the heart of Ceaseless Practice. Consider the following excerpt, perhaps the most famous passage of the entire corpus, from the fascicle “Genjo¯ko¯an” (“the Actualization of the Fundamental Issue”). Acting on and witnessing myriad things with the burden of oneself is ‘delusion’. Acting on and witnessing oneself in the advent of myriad things is enlightenment…. To learn the Buddhist Way is to learn about oneself. To learn about oneself is to forget oneself. To forget oneself is to perceive oneself as all things. To realize this is to cast off body and mind of self and others. When you have reached this stage you will be detached even from enlightenment but will practice it continually without thinking [Nishiyama and Stevens 1975, I: 1].
A perception of an all-pervasive unity (“to perceive oneself as all things”) is clearly prominent here, but notice also the connection which Do¯gen emphasizes between this perception and action (“Acting on and witnessing oneself in the advent of myriad things is enlightenment”). According to Do¯gen, enlightened Zen practitioners’ feelings and actions are altered in accord with this new perception of reality. Do¯gen is insisting that true realization of the pervasive unity of Buddha-nature (Bussho¯) was accompanied by a fundamental shift in one’s actions and, in particular, one’s relations with others. But what does it mean to “practice enlightenment continually without thinking”? Throughout the Sho¯bo¯genzo¯, Do¯gen emphasizes that an entirely different way of being flows naturally from a perceived sense of the entire universe as divine (for which Do¯gen had many names, including: Buddha-nature, Enlightenment, the Buddha-seal, the Body of the Tathagatha, and the Nature
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of Things).4 However, most pertinent for us is the sense of intimate union with others which this enlightened perception provides (here expressed as “the dropping off of body and mind of self and others”). In another fascicle of the Sho¯bo¯genzo¯, “Jippo¯” (“the Entire Universe”), Do¯gen offers the following elaboration of this unity, “‘In the entire universe everything has self.’ The entire universe is myself-as-it-is, myself as myself, yourself as myself, myself as yourself. Myself-is-yourself, yourself-is-myself and the entire universe form one unity” (Nishiyama and Stevens 1975, I: 105). It is not difficult to envision that this altered perception would affect the way the Zen practitioner treats others, and this is exactly Do¯gen’s claim. Do¯gen insists that nonattachment—chiefly as cultivated in zazen meditation—and the perception of the pervasive unity of Buddha-nature which flows from it instill within one the four virtues of Bodhisattvas which revolve around compassion: fuse (“giving”), aigo (“loving words”), rigyo¯ (“beneficial action”), and do¯ji (“identification”). Consider Do¯gen’s explications, within the fascicle “Bodaisatta shisho¯ho¯” (“The Four Integrative Methods of Bodhisattvas”), of the first three of these: Fuse…is not to covet or be greedy…. [Regardless of the gift or receiver, it] is the same as offering a flower that blooms in the far mountains to Buddha…. What is difficult to transform is the mind of living beings; this giving is to intend, from having put forth a single chattel and thus begun to transform the mind of living beings, to transform it even as far as attainment of enlightenment…there is a time when the mind transforms things, and there is giving which transforms the mind [Nishiyama and Stevens 1975, III: 124 – 25]. Aigo means that whenever we see sentient beings, our compassion is aroused naturally and we use loving words. We cannot imagine using coarse speech…. We should realize that aigo comes from aishin [the mind of love] and that aishin is based on compassion [Nishiyama and Stevens 1975, III: 126]. Rigyo¯ means that we take care of every kind of person, no matter whether of high or low position, for this gives our life merit. We should think about people’s present and future and about taking care of them that they will develop merit [Nishiyama and Stevens 1975, III: 127].5
There is much going on in each of these passages, but I want to focus on the compassion expressed in them. Where is this compassion coming from? Compassion is definitive of the Bodhisattva ideal, yet Do¯gen is not simply suggesting that we should emulate the ideal virtues of these exemplars of 4 5
Cook notes the view that “all things are Buddha” is a “consistent and persistent assertion” of Do¯gen’s (Cook 1989). This passage is especially interesting in that it indicates that a level of reflection and cognitive evaluation is called for, which is in strong contrast to the prevalent view within Zen scholarship that one who is enlightened has no need of “discriminatory thought” but acts spontaneously from “pure compassion” (see Whitehill 1987).
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compassion, treating them as binding prescriptions. Rather, he is insisting that, with enlightenment, we would ourselves become Bodhisattvas and naturally exhibit these virtues, and that we should accept nothing less.6 Why does compassion flow naturally from enlightenment? Do¯gen offers a hint in his explication of rigyo¯ through two stories, one of a fisherman who aided a turtle and another of a boy who saved a sparrow. He informed his monks, When these people saw the turtle and the sparrow, they simply felt sorry; they did not expect any special merit. They could not stop themselves from helping; their minds simply caused them to do so. Foolish people think that if the other person’s merit comes first, their own will lose out, but this is not true. Rigyo¯ is the one principle where we find no opposition between subjectivity and objectivity. It is a deed which gives merit to both…. Naturally, such a mind considers foolish people and wishes to save them [Nishiyama and Stevens 1975, III: 127].
“Rigyo¯ is the one principle where we find no opposition between subjectivity and objectivity.” On one level this may be read through “karma”—by helping others, one accumulates good merit for oneself. However, enlightenment brings with it a deeper understanding of this “one principle”—beneficial action is simultaneously beneficial to self and others, because there is no substantial distinction between self and others. This understanding is, in fact, the final virtue which Do¯gen associated with Bodhisattvas, do¯ji (“identification with those that are to be helped”). In explicating do¯ji, Do¯gen informed his monks, When we know do¯ji, we are at one with ourselves and others…. The relationship between ourselves and others is as endless as is our relationship with time…. In all respects and wishes the Bodhisattva practices in order to save sentient beings. What is most necessary is that we face everything with an open and flexible mind. All these four virtues, fuse, aigo, rigyo¯, and do¯ji, posses and include each other [Nishiyama and Stevens 1975, III: 127 – 28].7
I will offer an interpretative model for the interrelation between identification and compassion below; right now, I merely want to suggest that Do¯gen is affirming that one who really identifies with others naturally acts compassion6
7
Do¯gen makes this goal clear throughout the Sho¯bo¯genzo¯ ; consider the following quote, “What you call bodhisattvas are all Buddhas. Buddhas and bodhisattvas are not different types of being…to become a Buddha (sabutsu) is the supreme model for the practice of the bodhisattva-way” (Kim 1975, 264). Emphasizing this link between identification and compassion even more emphatically, Cleary translates the first sentence of this passage, “When one knows cooperation [do¯ji], self and others are one thusness.” And where Nishiyama and Stevens read, “At times, we harmonize first ourselves, and, at times, first with others,” Cleary reads, “After regarding others as self, there must be a principle of assimilating oneself to others” (Cleary 1986, 119 – 20).
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ately towards them. Hence, for Do¯gen, compassion is grounded in a nondualistic extrovertive mystical awareness of pervasive interconnected unity.8 3. Eckhart’s “Life of Nonattachment and Possessing God” Interestingly, a remarkably similar account can be found in a remarkably different mystic, Meister Eckhart.9 Throughout his sermons and treatises, Eckhart strove to articulate and advocate what he referred to as a “Life of Detachment and the Possession of God.” Although I will once again only have time for a brief sketch, I hope to make clear that Eckhart parallels Do¯gen in his insistence that true spiritual practice is “ceaseless” and rests on (the cultivation of ) a pervasive attitude of nonattachment and the maintenance of a continuous nondualistic mystical awareness. Here is a paradigmatic illustration from Eckhart’s “Talks of Instruction”: Now if a man truly has God with him, God is with him everywhere, in the street or among people just as much as in church or in the desert or in a cell. If he possesses God truly and solely, such a man cannot be disturbed by anybody. Why? He has only God, thinks only of God, and all things are for him nothing but God. Such a man bears God in all his works and everywhere, and all that man’s works are wrought purely by God—for he who causes the work is more genuinely and truly the owner of the work than he who performs it…. And just as no multiplicity can scatter God, so nothing can scatter or diversify that man, for he is one in the One, where all multiplicity is one and is non-multiplicity… He who has God essentially, takes him divinely, and for him God shines forth in all things, for all things taste divinely to him, and God’s image appears to him from out of all things. God flashes forth in him always, in him there is a detachment and turning away, and he bears the imprint of his beloved, present God [Walshe 1987, no. 6, III: 16 – 18].
This is another rich and dense passage, but note that, paralleling Do¯gen, Eckhart emphasizes the cultivation of an attitude of detachment (Abegescheidenheit) together with a perception of all things as grounded in a divine unity, void of all individual distinctions (“all things are for him nothing but God”).10 8 Emphasizing this point, Cook writes, “[According to Do¯gen] compassion has to be rooted in a radically different kind of being who has dropped off body and mind, and has penetrated beneath the surface of…—‘them and us’—to a greater reality” (Cook 1989, 35). 9 In the contemporary literature there has been some debate about whether or not Eckhart can be properly classified as a mystic; for an overview of this debate and an argument that Eckhart is a mystic, see McGinn 2001, 21 – 22. 10 This continuous perception of all things as God is a hallmark of Eckhart’s seminal notion of “(Eternal) Birth” (see McGinn 2001, 64).
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While Eckhart was not a metaphysical nondualist, he consistently maintained that “in God,” or more specifically, in the ground of the “groundless Godhead” (gruntlsen gotheit), all things are one distinctionless unity.11 Moreover, even if this “oneness” (einicheit) only exists on a formal level, a direct and continuous awareness of all things as rooted in this divine ground (grunt) is, for Eckhart, the hallmark of spiritual maturity.12 In this life—that is, a life of Possessing God through nonattachment—all things are one and all things are common: all things are all in all and all in one. I will give you an example. In the body, all members are united and one, such that eye belongs to foot and foot to eye [Walshe 1987, s. 7, I: 64 – 65; also see s. 14(a), I: 121 and Fox 1980, s. 37, 533 – 34].
Although Eckhart believed in real distinctions of substance on a material level, he maintained that the formal unity of all things in God is perceived by the advanced mystic as if it were the unity of a single underlying substance. This unity in diversity has clear neo-Platonic echoes. God gives to all things equally, and as they flow forth from God they are equal…. To take things in their primal emanation would be to take them all alike. If they are alike in time, In God in eternity they are much more alike. Now all things are equal in God and are God Himself.13
Hence, while Eckhart was not a metaphysical nondualist, I believe he can be meaningfully classified as a phenomenological nondualist. Moreover, Eckhart echoes Do¯gen in insisting that this perception of unity has a tremendous effect on the entire being of the person: “Such a man bears God in all his works” and “God flashes forth in him always.” But how does God “flash forth”? How exactly is this person affected? Again, I wish to focus solely on the effect that this vision has on the way in which one perceives and treats others. Consider the following quote from one of Eckhart’s sermons with this theme. 11 Utilizing Eckhart’s Defense and his use of the Aristotelian distinction between formal and material classification (formaliter/actualiter), which Eckhart emphasized much more heavily in his Latin scholastic writings than his German vernacular sermons, McGinn has made this clear (McGinn 2001, chapter 1; also see Fox 1980, 78 – 79). In spite of Eckhart’s assurances and scholastic qualifications, contentions like “All creatures are pure nothing. I do not say that they are a trifle or they are anything: they are pure nothing. What has no being is not. All creatures have no being, for their being consists in the presence of God” (Walshe 1987, s.40, I: 284) were, unsurprisingly, troubling to the papal commission charged with investigating Eckhart’s work (see Walshe 1987, I: l, especially charges 23 – 26). 12 For an in depth analysis of Eckhart’s “mysticism of ground,” see McGinn 2001, chapter 3. 13 Walshe 1987, s. 57, II: 86. For an account of Eckhart’s sources, see McGinn 2001, Appendix.
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If you love yourself, you love all men as yourself. As long as you love a single man less than yourself, you have never truly learnt to love yourself—unless you love all men as yourself, all men in one man, that man being both God and man. It is well with that man who loves himself and all men as himself… If I truly loved him [another] as myself, then, whatever happened to him for good or ill, whether it were life or death, I would be as glad for it to happen to me as to him [Walshe 1987, s. 57, II: 84; also see Fox 1980, s. 37].
Eckhart clearly has in mind the Golden Rule here, but he is positing it as a descriptive rule for those with the ability to see God. He maintains that from such a perspective it becomes clear that I cannot really succeed in loving myself unless I love everyone as myself. Why not? Because to really love yourself and others you must love everyone as “one person that is both God and man.”14 True love, in other words, rests on a realization of unity; loving others as oneself rests on perceiving one’s own intimate connection with others in the divine unity of God.15 Hence, Eckhart notes that for one who has cultivated an attitude of detachment sufficiently to perceptually “breakthrough all things to the Godhead” (durchbruch zur Gotheit), the Golden Rule is not a rule at all, but a reward which one is given. It seems hard to do as our Lord commands, and love our fellow-Christians as ourselves. The common run of men generally say that we should love them for the good for which we love ourselves. Not so. We should love them exactly the same as ourselves, and that is not difficult. Properly considered, love is more a reward than a behest. The command seems hard, but the reward is desirable. Whoever loves God as he ought and must (whether he would or not), and as all creatures love Him, he must love his fellow-man as himself, rejoicing in his joys as his own joys, and desiring his honour as much as his own honour, and loving a stranger as one of his own. This way a man is always joyful, honoured and advantaged, just as if he were in heaven, and so he has more joy than if he rejoiced only in his own good [Walshe 1987, s. 40, I: 283 – 84].
For one who has satisfied this desire and received this reward, “love of his neighbor” is automatic and expresses itself in a sympathetic identification with their joys and suffering. In a seldom translated Latin sermon on the same theme, Eckhart adds, “‘Your neighbor as yourself.’ This is not a commandment, but a promise or reward…. Moreover, in such a situation there is no my nor your nor do I love or have affection for what is mine or yours. For this reason I rejoice no 14 Of this passage (and translation), McGinn points out that Eckhart’s view was a “necessary corollary to his belief that Sonship is one and the same for all sons of God” (McGinn 2001, 127). 15 This is a recurring theme in Eckhart’s sermons and appears in his Book of Divine Consolation, where he remarked, “The nature of love…flows and springs up out of two as one” (Colledge and McGinn 1981, 221). For a list of Eckhart’s references on love, see McGinn 2001, 249, endnote 63. For an analysis of Eckhart’s doctrine of love, see McGinn 1980.
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less at this person’s joy than at my own” (Fox 1980, s. 37, 533). Throughout his teachings, Eckhart takes pains to point out that this reward is not a divine gift, but rather the fruit of the cultivation of nonattachment (Abegecheidenheit). One need only release (gelzen) one’s will completely to God, and the perception of divine unity and the universal love which accompanies it will necessarily follow.16 4. A Foundationalist Model for Nondualistic Extrovertive Mystical Awareness These sketches suggest that both Do¯gen and Eckhart viewed a nondualistic type of mystical awareness as providing a foundation for the virtues of love and compassion. However, what exactly is going on here? How does perception ground virtue? Theories which posit a suprahuman wellspring of virtue which mystics somehow tap seem to run counter to nondualistic conceptions of the divine and find little support in the work of either of the mystics considered here.17 Hence, I would like to suggest that the following, ontologically simpler model is consistent with both Do¯gen’s and Eckhart’s views of this connection, which I refer to as the Prudential Generalization Model: Enlightened extrovertive nondualistic mystics come to perceive the world differently; in particular, they perceive others as essentially linked to themselves in the divine. This enlightened perception acts as a medium which extends prudential considerations, like motivations to enhance one’s own well-being and alleviate one’s own suffering, to genuinely moral ones by including the welfare of others under their scope.
If this model is reasonable, one would expect the two predominant prudential interests of pre-enlightened mystics (according to both Do¯gen and Eckhart), the personal cultivation of enlightenment and the attitude of nonattachment associated with it, to become trans-subjective values to be cultivated by the enlightened mystic wherever (or, in whomever) possible. And, in fact, this conjecture fits well with both Do¯gen’s and Eckhart’s account of ‘the good.’ The universality of the values of nonattachment and enlightenment are clearly emphasized throughout the Sho¯bo¯genzo¯. In the fascicle, “Awakening the Buddha-seeking Mind” (“Hotsu Bodai-shin”), Do¯gen insists, “Using right 16 See “On Detachment.” Although recent scholarship suggests that this treatise is probably not Eckhart’s own, it is clearly Eckhartian (see McGinn 2001). 17 Moreover, this hypothesis is unable to adequately address the Problem of Evil for Nondualism. Assuming that in letting go into “God’s will” or “Buddha nature” the enlightened mystic taps into a wholly new source of action, what assurance do we have that the acts which flow from this wellspring will conform to our intuitive notions of morality? Proclaiming the acts of the divine to be “good” axiomatically does not dissolve this concern, which is behind the critics’ worry that mystical morality comes from a dangerous place beyond (conventional notions of ) good and evil.
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speech, action, and thought as a means of arousing the Buddha-seeking mind in others is the Way of all who have themselves awoken this mind…. To merely satisfy another’s worldly desires is not the true Way” (Nishiyama and Stevens 1975, III: 90).18 This may appear to merely suggest that, in the spirit of the Bodhisattva, anyone on the path to enlightenment must assist others. However, one of Do¯gen’s central positions was that, from the perspective of enlightenment, there was no difference between the path to enlightenment (practice) and enlightenment itself (see Abe 1985). He continued, “Shakyamuni Buddha is always considering ways to lead all sentient beings to supreme enlightenment. This is the eternal life of Shakyamuni”(Nishiyama and Stevens 1975, III: 90). “Considering ways to lead all sentient beings to supreme enlightenment” is the guiding interest of the Buddha and, hence, it is the guiding interest for any individual who upon enlightenment manifests the “eternal life of Shakyamuni.” Hence, Do¯gen makes plain that these values are not just instrumentally useful for attaining one’s own salvation, but their cultivation in oneself and others is itself the path of those that are enlightened.19 Enlightenment just is the cultivation of nonattachment in oneself and others.20 In this same light, consider the following excerpt from Eckhart’s sermon on Luke 2:49 (“I must be about my Father’s Business”): St. Paul said to Timothy: “Beloved, preach the word!” Did he mean the outward word that beats the air? Surely not. He meant the inwardly born and yet hidden Word that lies secreted in the soul. That is what he bade him preach aloud, that it might be known to and might nourish the (soul’s) powers, so that a man might give himself out in all those aspects of external life in which his fellow men had need of it [Walshe 1987, s. 3, I: 28].
All Christians recognize the charge to preach “the Word” (wort). However, according to Eckhart, few interpret this correctly. For him, this is “the hidden Word,” with which he associated “the birth” (geburt) of God in the soul, a state of unshakable equanimity which is attainable through letting go (gelzen) of all one’s attachments (eigenschaft).21 Eckhart’s sermon continues with the insistence 18 Do¯gen continued, “Because monks come from the midst of purity, they consider good and pure those things which do not arouse thirst and craving on the part of man” (90). 19 For example, consider the following, “To say that after becoming a Buddha, one should discontinue spiritual discipline and engage in no further endeavor is due to an ordinary worldly man’s view which does not yet understand the way of the Buddhas and patriarchs” (Kim 1975, 264). 20 “Even the most ordinary acts become compassionate when, as expressions of enlightenment, they inspire and encourage others to seek the Buddha Way” (Cook 1989, 39). 21 See Eckhart’s, “Talks of Instruction,” Counsel 11. That one should strive to do God’s will is not a particularly radical Christian ideal, nor is the notion that the monastic should cultivate an attitude of complete self-abandonment. But in suggesting that each of us should completely release our individual will to the will of God, Eckhart is going beyond both of these claims.
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that a life of contemplation does not absolve one from this responsibility, but in fact heightens it. It must be within you in thought, in intellect, and in will, and it must shine forth, too, in your deeds. As Christ said: “Let your light shine forth before men” (Mat. 5:16). He had in mind those who care only for the contemplative life and neglect the practice of charity, which, they say, they have no further need for, having passed that stage [Walshe 1987, s. 3, I: 28 – 29].
There is no going beyond service. For one who “has God,” life is service. Moreover, serving the needs of one’s neighbor consists in aiding them in their own cultivation of nonattachment (“the secret word”). Hence, Eckhart interprets the “Good News” as an impulse brought about by enlightenment to assist others in this divine birth (Gottesgeburt), that is, in cultivating their own inner state of detachment, to “let your light shine forth before men.”22 I am not suggesting that the means by which the enlightened mystic expresses ‘care’ is exactly the same for Do¯gen and Eckhart. In fact, it seems reasonable to expect divergent expressions of ‘care’ and ‘compassion’ within their respective traditions, in part owing to divergent conceptions of the best means to foster these mystical values.23 Eckhart was unaware of Zen meditation practices, for example. What I am suggesting is that their notions of the good towards which care is directed are remarkably similar. They each conceive of the good in terms of their understanding of nonattachment and its accompanying mystical awareness; that is, for each ‘the good’ is consistent with a trans-personal generalization of the novice’s prudential interests. While novices seek to cultivate enlightenment via nonattachment in themselves, enlightened mystics seek to cultivate these values in general. 24
22 Eckhart clearly envisioned such a role for himself (see McGinn 2001, 31); McGinn quotes Haas on this point, “’the speaker [Eckhart] understands himself as a witness of the unity to which he directs others’” (Hass 1987, 147) McGinn 2001, 198, endnote 59. 23 That they may have held strikingly different perspectives on the relation between ‘care’ and ‘contemplation’ is suggested by the contrast between Eckhart’s instruction to leave contemplation whenever necessary to feed the hungry “a cup of soup” (“Counsels on Discernment,” Counsel 10; Colledge and McGinn 1981, 258) and Do¯gen’s insistence that a fabled monk who left his ailing teacher in order to pursue his own instruction in Zen elsewhere had chosen the “greater path,” as opposed to catering to “the misguided love and deluded passions of this brief life” (Kim 1975, 287 – 88). 24 Such a model is consistent with Cook’s analysis, “dropping off of body and mind [one of Do¯gen’s expressions for enlightenment] frees one from compulsive self-serving motives and deeds…to the expression of this understanding in ways that are essentially altruistic” (Cook 1989, 39).
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5. Assessing the Model I hope that I have made a clear case that the Prudential Generalization Model fits well with the views of both Do¯gen and Eckhart.25 There is, however, an alternative explanation for the occurrence of the themes of care and compassion within the sermons of these individuals which is worthy of consideration, namely: these virtues are embedded within each of their traditions—in the respective ideals of ‘Bodhisattva’ and ‘Christ.’ Moreover, while these virtues, expressed in a set of rules of conduct, begin for novices as prescriptive rules to be obeyed, with sufficient cultivation and habituation one would expect them to become second nature. Hence, both the Prudential Generalization Model and this Habituation Model can explain the effortlessness and spontaneity with which enlightened mystics express these virtues. In practice, these models closely coincide, since one generally expresses care for others by exhibiting the virtues which are consistent with—if not established within—a specific normative code. However, the Prudential Generalization Model offers a better explanation for the apparent necessary connection between the perfection of these virtues and enlightenment (that is, the attainment of a nondualistic extrovertive mystical awareness). In addition, the Prudential Generalization Model is consistent with enlightened mystics’ critique and transgression of their own normative tradition when necessary to cultivate enlightenment—such a hypernomianism was endorsed by both Do¯gen and Eckhart. Do¯gen acknowledged the legitimacy of transgressing the law in the service of others, while simultaneously admonishing his students that this did not imply that their normative code was irrelevant. It is very much an error for Zen monks to do evil under the pretext that they need not do good nor accumulate virtuous deeds. I have never heard of any old commandment which said that monks should do evil. Tanka Tennen the Zen Master burned a wooden Buddha-image. It may seem evil but it is one way to show the truth of the Dharma [from Do¯gen’s Sho¯bo¯genzo¯-Zuimon-ki; translated in Takahashi 1983, 21].
25 I have focused on Do¯gen and Eckhart, but, allowing for variation in expression, I believe that we may find echoes of this account throughout the mystical literature. However, explaining the lack of this prudential generalization in nondualistic extrovertive mysticism where it appears to be completely absent remains a challenge for this hypothesis. I can here only suggest that an explanation for this absence may be grounded in different conceptions of ‘nonattachment,’ different conceptions of ‘the divine’ and ‘enlightenment,’ different prudential interests, and/or strict normative conventions which survive the mystical path. The last of these options may go some distance towards dealing with the Samurai’s apparent mastery of Zen meditation techniques while seemingly being unmoved towards compassion (see Winston 1993).
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Similarly, Eckhart insisted that all external acts of virtue and even all spiritual vows must be seen as of secondary importance compared to the end of improving one’s inner relation to God, and thus may be set aside; “for any act that brings one nearer to God is best” (Blakney 1941, s. 3, 116 – 17). 6. The Relativism Objection David Loy has given an excellent summary of this mystical grounding of compassion in a perceived interconnectedness between oneself and others: ‘[T]husnes’ [in Do¯gen’s view] is the nonmoral morality of the bodhisattva, who, having nothing to gain or lose, is devoted to the welfare of others. Contrary to popular Buddhist belief, then, this concern for others is not a self-sacrifice. The bodhisattva knows that no one is really saved until we all are saved. When I am the universe, to help others is to help myself…in his [Ramakrishna’s] Vedantic terms, by helping others we are only helping our true self, the God in all. Far from being a reversal of the tat tvam asi (“that art thou”) ethic, this realization fulfills it. To become enlightened is to forget one’s own suffering only to wake up in or rather one with a world of suffering. This theory is not sympathy or empathy but compassion, literally ‘suffering with’ [Loy 2002, 273].
However, he goes on to suggest that while this view might sound good in theory, in practice it is hopelessly vague and is in danger of reducing to relativism. Such is the theory at least. It sounds good, doesn’t it? Yet there is nonetheless a serious problem with such compassion and responsibility, at least as I have described them above: they are too abstract and thus their consequences too vague. They too can manifest in very different and even incompatible ways of ‘helping’ the world. For example, one who has kensho¯ [Zen nondualistic awareness, literally “seeing one’s true nature”] may give more money to begging street people, or may decide to exercise ‘ruthless compassion’ to discourage this lifestyle. Unfortunately, kensho¯ itself does not automatically reveal the best way to really help people [273].
Hence, Loy fears that the theoretical moral promise of the nondualistic mystical awareness, in practice, degenerates into relativism; “insofar as Zen experience ‘transcends’ concepts and ethics…its practitioners seem more vulnerable to the prevailing ideology and more likely to be co-opted by the dominant social system…. Zen often ends up helping to sacralize secular authority” (281). This is, in fact, a common position among scholars of mysticism.26 I do not wish to argue that no Zen teacher advocated relativism. However, I do not believe that this charge can be reasonably leveled against Do¯gen (or Eckhart) and, in contrast with the Habitualization Model, the Prudential Generalization Model is capable of explaining why this is the case. 26 See, for example, Danto 1987, 81 – 82; Wainwright 1983, 209 – 10; Koestler 1986, 272 – 74
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Loy is right; in itself, enlightenment “does not automatically reveal the best way to really help people.” It would be nice if enlightenment brought omniscience with it, even if only with respect to morality. However, this cannot be a requirement for considering an agent moral. Within the Prudential Generalization Model, enlightenment does at least make the good clear. Hence, the rightness of an action can be assessed via the action’s likelihood of cultivating the good in comparison to the available alternatives. In this light, internal evaluation and self-reflection as well as external criticisms are consistent with, and even called for by, enlightenment. As are many contemporary scholars of Zen Buddhism, Loy was particularly concerned with the way prominent Zen leaders utilized the rhetoric of care via “the bringing of enlightenment” to justify Japan’s twentieth-century imperialistic aggression. He quotes Shaku Soen, a Zen master who denied Tolstoy’s request to join him in opposing military aggression. War is not necessarily horrible, provided that it is fought for a just and honorable cause, that it is fought for upholding humanity and civilization. Many material bodies may be destroyed, many human hearts broken, but from a broader point of view these sacrifices are so many phoenixes consumed in the sacred fire of spirituality, which will arise from the smoldering ashes reanimated, ennobled, and glorified…. In the present hostilities, into which Japan has entered with great reluctance, she pursues no egoistic purpose, but seeks the subjugation of evils hostile to civilization, peace, and enlightenment [Loy 2002, 278 – 79].
However, Loy fails to recognize that within these consequentialist “justifications” lie the seeds of their own critique—surely, Japan’s imperialist expansion and the tremendous loss of life which accompanied it were not effective or “skillful,” let alone necessary, means towards the fostering of enlightenment. Moreover, the roots of these aggressive acts lay not in care, but in attachments to material resources, power, and a sense of nationalistic superiority. 7. Responding to the Charge of Amorality Intuitively it seems that a nondualistic mystic, who does not perceive substantially distinct individual persons, could not be attributed many of the qualities that we normally associate with a moral person. The concept of moral responsibility, at least as a primitive quality, would seem to be beyond them, for example. However, the claim that they should necessarily be excluded from this class warrants an argument. Whatever you think of this foundationalist model, I hope that it is at least clear that, for both Do¯gen and Eckhart, extrovertive nondualistic mysticism is essentially connected with the virtues of love and compassion. Assuming that this is correct, any argument which purports to demonstrate that nondualistic
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mysticism is necessarily amoral must be unsound. Hence, I will end by suggesting responses to two such arguments. 7. 1 The Logical Argument The most direct argument for the essential amorality of nondualistic mysticism insists that there is a logical inconsistency between ‘morality’ and ‘nondualistic mysticism.’27 Here is a standardized form representation of the objection: L1) ‘Morality’ requires belief in the existence of real distinctions of substance between individuals. L2) ‘Nondualistic mystical awareness’ is inconsistent with the belief that there are real substantial distinctions between individuals. Therefore, L3) Nondualistic mystical awareness necessarily precludes an individual from being considered amoral.28 (L2) is straightforward, assuming that this type of awareness is given as noetic.29 However, what about (L1)? In his summary of Albert Schweitzer’s position, Jeffery Kripal writes, Schweitzer’s argument … is essentially structural and paradoxical, for it posits a basic logical incompatibility between monistic-mystical thought and social or dualistic thought…. In this model, mystical experience is seen as giving genuine epistemological status to the ontic, to the Real, but because this realm is experienced phenomenologically as monistc and recognizes no real difference between individual beings, knowledge of this realm can generate no adequate ethics or way of life for individuals living in the particularities of society” [Kripal 2002, 23].30
27 Schweitzer, Danto, and Kripal all levee this charge; see Schweitzer 1936, Danto 1987, and Kripal 2002. 28 Strictly, the inconsistency lies between the belief that there are real distinct individuals and the belief that there are not any. Extrovertive nondualistic awareness (in that it is noetic) is a sufficient condition for the mystic’s being ascribed the latter belief; this is not to say that it provides epistemological justification for the belief, though this is an interesting (and not prima facially unreasonable) possibility. 29 Again, Eckhart would only concur here in so far as we restrict our attention to the undifferentiated ground of the Godhead. 30 Later Kripal reiterates, “A genuine ethics demands a real difference between egos, an awareness of a kind of irreducible individuality that Schweitzer describes as ‘an enigma’” (Kripal 2002, 25). He concludes, “Structurally speaking, I believe that we can say that mystical thought, to the extent that it draws on monistic doctrines, inevitably exists in significant tension with any ethical system that presupposes a real agent, a real other, or a real world… [It is] ethically and socially dangerous” (58). Kripal is not completely unequivocal on this point. Addressing the possibility of constructing a moral doctrine from “Tat Tvam Asi,” he writes, “It is not so much that
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This is far from obvious (see Barnard 2002, 74, 95). In focusing on the social dimension of morality, Schweitzer and Kripal are in line with the recent debate within contemporary philosophy of mysticism, where other-regardingness is assumed to be a necessary condition of ‘morality.’31 Granted, one should not be considered moral, unless she is in some moral sense other-regarding. However, while it may seem prima facially reasonable that an individual cannot be considered (morally) other-regarding unless she believes in the real existence of others, this need not be the case. While there is no single precise understanding of the moral criterion, I submit that it can be reasonably associated with the following condition: taking the well-being of others into account within one’s values, intentions, deliberations, and behavior. 32 Under this analysis, no metaphysical commitment is necessary for the moral quality. In order to take the well-being of others into account an agent must be able to recognize (some conception of ) the well-being of others, but there is no conceptually necessary reason why one who does not believe in the substantive distinctness of individuals could not do this. If this is right, then (L1) is not self-evident, but requires justification. William Wainwright attempts just this sort of justification in his assessment of the Mahayana ideal of the Bodhisattva, when he claims, It would seem that a moral attitude necessarily includes a recognition of real obligations to other people. If it does, the Bodhisattva’s stance cannot be moral since it is impossible to have real obligations to non-existent people. (For example, I cannot have real obligations to Mr. Pickwick.) [Wainwright 1983, 212].
Granted, one cannot have a real obligation to a non-existent person, but does the moral sense of other-regardingness require that one has real obligations to others? If one is to be regarded as moral, one must take the well-being of others into account within one’s values, deliberation, and behavior; but, under my suggested reading of the moral sense of other-regarding, this is conceptually possible without a belief in the real existence of others. If this is correct, a nondualist may consider the well-being of what “we” take to be others as real and important without sharing our belief in the real independent existence of
Indian (monistic) mysticism could not be moral, but that it has not been” (24; also see 31). 31 The extrovertive nondualistic mystical awareness can have moral implications far beyond the social realm as its resonance with Deep Ecology attests. 32 In contrast, a self-centered individual is one whose values and behavior take no substantive account of the interests and well-being of others. I contend that Do¯gen’s and Eckhart’s versions of the enlightened nondualistic mystic, who affirms “there is suffering there which is to be alleviated,” is more properly aligned with the moral person than the selfcentered person. Moreover, according to each of them, enlightenment is a “cure” for this self-centeredness.
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others. Echoing this point, while focusing on the Mahayana Buddhist doctrine of Selflessness, Richard Jones writes: The suffering is there even if there are no self-contained centers of suffering. There may be no ‘beings,’ but something is there towards which compassion is deemed possible and appropriate. Thus bodhisattvas can internalize otherregardingness without a sense of independent existence [Jones 1993, 198].
Whether nondualistic mystics consider themselves to be other-regarding is not the relevant issue; the morally relevant consideration is whether or not the values, intentions, and behavior of these individuals are in line with what we would consider as other-regarding. In arriving at his contention that ‘morality’ requires the recognition of obligations towards real persons, Wainwright asserts, [A] ‘love’ or ‘compassion’ which refuses to recognize the independent reality of persons is somewhat removed from what we ordinarily regard as love or compassion. The latter is a relation between independently real persons [Wainwright 1983, 211 – 12; also see Zaehner 1961, 172].
Unless ‘acting from what we ordinarily regard as love or compassion’ is seen as a necessary condition for ‘other-regardingness,’ nothing follows from this observation. However, because ‘love’ and ‘compassion’ factor so heavily in the debate, this claim warrants closer scrutiny. Wainwright offers two examples which he claims suggest that ‘love’ presupposes a belief in metaphysical separateness, “Thus, it is odd to speak of having compassion for oneself, or for a character whom one knows to be fictional” (Wainwright 1983, 211). Let us consider each of these cases. We often talk about “loving yourself,” “caring for yourself,” “respecting yourself,” not “getting down on yourself,” and the like. Moreover, I can clearly love specific aspects or qualities of myself, for example, my patience. ‘Compassion’ may be different; Wainwright writes, Of course, I might say that when I look back on my adolescence, I feel compassion for the boy I was, but in doing so I distinguish my present self from my past self, treating the latter as if it were another person [211].
However, I can surely treat an aspect (a temporal slice, for example) of myself as if it were another person without any commitment to the real metaphysical independence of this other—while knowing all along that it is all me. In an exactly similar fashion, the nondualistic mystic can distinguish between aspects of the divine; in fact, this is a reasonable reading of precisely what is going on with the Bodhisattva who feels compassion towards all sentient beings while simultaneously maintaining the metaphysical conviction (and perception) that, in reality, there are no sentient beings. Moreover, I am not convinced that any level of metaphysical self-deception is required here. If an individual perceives the suffering of what we take to be others as to be alleviated, then I believe that
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we can meaningfully ascribe ‘compassion’ or ‘care’ to them, and this affective tag is clearly present in the views on enlightenment of many nondualistic mystics. What about Wainwright’s second case? He continues, [W]hile it is undoubtedly possible to be moved by the misfortunes of fictional characters, an impulse to relieve their distress or a wish to remove their discomfort would indicate that one had forgotten that they were fictional characters [211].
Again, I am uncertain how we are to regard the Bodhisattva ideal in this light, since it affirms the possibility of precisely the conjunction which Wainwright here denies, by insisting that one cannot simultaneous perceive an individual as fictional and desire to alleviate their suffering. The real issue seems to be the metaphysical status of suffering. From the unreality of a fictional character, we generally safely infer the unreality of all that character’s attributes. But at least some nondualistic mystics would contest the validity of the analogous inference concerning “real” persons—they deny the substantive reality of persons, but affirm the reality of the attributes which we associate with individual persons. If a nondualistic mystic claims that all distinguishable states of affairs (including all instances of suffering) are unreal, then there is a problem, but a nondualist may consistently affirm the existence of discernable states of affairs while simultaneously denying that these states inhere within metaphysically independent subjects.33 One criterion for assessing one’s commitment to the reality of suffering, for example, is the presence of a belief that this suffering can be alleviated. Bodhisattvas are morally other-regarding because for them suffering is real in that they take it seriously (that is, as something “to be alleviated”). 7.2 The problem of evil for Nondualism In addition to erasing morally necessary distinctions among persons, Nondualism is often charged with amorality owing to its alleged erasure of all morally relevant distinctions among actions. R.C. Zaehner quoted Charles Manson as having quipped, “If God is One, what is bad?” (Zaehner 1981, 44; quoted in Kripal 2002, 15). We may want to dismiss anything which comes from Manson’s disturbed mind, but many have felt there is a real problem here. If all actions are seen as flowing from or within a single divine unity, then every individual action is equally divine, but then how can any action be classified as ‘bad’? Where is there room for ‘evil’ in nondualism? Wainwright captured the
33 In his analysis of Do¯gen’s understanding of the consistency between compassion and emptiness, Cook paraphrases Do¯gen, “Beings may be empty, but that emptiness has the form of beings who bleed and weep…. [O]ne is said to ‘return to delusion’ willingly to aid suffering beings as if there really were such things as ‘beings’ and ‘aid’” (Cook 1989, 41).
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problem in terms of ‘cosmic consciousness,’ a type of extrovertive nondualistic mystical awareness: It is not clear that cosmic consciousness includes a sense of the coincidence of all distinctions or that it normally involves a sense of the divinity of specifically moral evil. However, if either of these two intuitions is an intrinsic feature of cosmic consciousness, it is possible to argue (with Zaehner) that cosmic consciousness, for that very reason, cannot be veridical [Wainwright 1983, 223 – 24].
Wainwright’s implicit reasoning here is that we are committed to morality and the concept of morality as such requires the meaningfulness of the category of moral evil. The way out of this chain of reasoning, which Wainwright leaves open, is the possibility of (a) affirming the existence of some form of nondualistic mystical awareness that does not provide a sense of the “coincidence of all distinction” and (b) maintaining that this awareness does not provide a sense of the divinity of moral evil. I believe that (a) is unproblematic, since the forms of mystical awareness which are of most interest to Eckhart and Do¯gen, and which I have here attempted to describe, are ones of differentiated unity and do not involve the absence of all distinctions—they merely involve the absence of all distinctions of substance and the unifying of all other distinctions within the divine.34 However, (b) is a problem, in as much as I do not believe that either Do¯gen or Eckhart would affirm the non-divinity of acts of moral evil. Hence, they could not avail themselves of Wainwright’s proposed solution. Consider the following standard form version of the reasoning: N1) ‘Morality’ requires the coherent evaluation of, and hence the possibility of distinguishing between, good/evil and right/wrong. N2) ‘Nondualistic mystical awareness’ involves a perception of the world as an all-encompassing divine unity, which is beyond all dualistic distinctions (including right/wrong and good/evil) and a sense that every individual action is a manifestation of this divine. Therefore, C) ‘Nondualistic mysticism’ is inconsistent with ‘morality.’ While acknowledging ‘moral evil’ on some level, I believe that ultimately both Do¯gen and Eckhart would have bitten the bullet here—insisting on the divinity 34 I believe that there are forms of nondualistic mystical consciousness which do involve the “coincidence of all distinctions”; Stace and more recently Robert Forman have made a compelling case for such an experience of “pure undifferentiated unity” (see Stace 1960a and Forman 1990). Note, the absence of all distinctions of substance is here qualified with “in the divine”; hence, this reading may apply to Eckhart even though he allowed for material distinctions which are not “in God.”
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of all actual actions, including all evil. Do¯gen insists, “all being is Buddhanature”; similarly for Eckhart, everything that is is all God’s will, even sin.35 However, if this is right, then why does it matter what one does? Whatever one does, everything that happens will be the unfolding of the divine; so, nothing we do matters. For the enlightened nondualist, it seems that there can be no grounds for preferring any course of action over any other. In popular vernacular, “it’s all good.” But if “it’s all good,” then the concept ‘good’ is meaningless; and, hence, the foundation of morality is lacking.36 The pure nondualist must pursue another objection to the argument, if they are to escape this charge.37 Fortunately, there is another way out—the argument is invalid. It does not follow from the inappropriateness of moral appraisal of the whole and the divinity of every action (including, “evil”) that moral appraisals, preferences of value which guide action, are inappropriate within the whole. Eckhart directly makes this point: If I say to you ‘God is good,’ that is not true. I am good, but God is not good. I can even say: ‘I am better than God,’ for whatever is good can become better, and whatever can become better can become best of all. But since God is not good, he can not become better…. For these three degrees are alien to God: ‘good,’ ‘better,’ ‘best,’ for he is superior to them all [Colledge and McGinn 1981, s. 83, 206 – 7].
God, Eckhart informs us, is beyond moral appraisal (“If I say to you that ‘God is good’, that is not true”), but this does not mean that all moral appraisals are meaningless. Why not? He continues, “I am good, but God is not good. I can even say: ‘I am better than God,’ for whatever is good can become better.” In other words, moral appraisals are appropriate when directed towards human beings—why? Because humans “can become better.” Here, I believe is the key: moral appraisal is (only) appropriate when directed towards the future—when indicative of a preference that a possible future state of affairs be realized. Anything that has become actual has been stamped as God’s will, but this does not preclude an individual will from having preferences and attempting to realize them. In fact, from the perspective of enlightenment, God’s will encompasses one’s preferences for oneself and others. 35 Unsurprisingly, this was one of the positions cited against him in the Papal Bull posthumously condemning him; see articles 14 and 15. 36 For example, in interpreting the fascicle ‘Kannon’ on the Bodhisattva of compassion, Cook writes, “if everything singly and collectively is Buddha, then everything is Buddhaas-Kannon” (Cook 1989, 37). That is, every action is compassionate, but this seems to remove any distinguishing correlative from ‘compassion,’ and, as a result, render it meaningless. 37 Several nondualists have attempted to deny (N1), but it is difficult to see how any meaningful notion of morality can emerge from such semantic destruction; Arthur Koestler had an interesting conversation with Zen Buddhist scholars along these lines (see Koestler 1986, 273 – 74).
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Do¯gen expresses the same point, albeit in typically cryptic Zen fashion, by utilizing a story of an interaction between a Zen Master and student: One day, when Master Hotetsu…was fanning himself, a monk approached and asked, “The nature of wind never changes and blows everywhere, so why are you using a fan?” The master replied, “Although you know that the nature of wind never changes, you do not know the meaning of blowing everywhere.” The monk then said, “Well, what does it mean?” Hotetsu did not speak but only continued to fan himself. Finally the monk understood and bowed deeply before him (Nishiyama and Stevens 1975, I: 3).
“The nature of wind,” Do¯gen instructs, is here standing in for “the experience of the Buddha’s Teaching” (or, ‘enlightenment’) which is “eternal and allpervasive.” However, hearing this, the monk then ponders the purpose in striving to actualize this reality by meditating (here expressed as “using a fan”) or any other means.38 The master retorts, “you do not know the meaning of blowing everywhere,” again, referring to the omnipresence of enlightenment. The monk seems open to this possibility and inquires, “Well, what does it mean?” In response, the master merely continues fanning. The monk bowed at this “answer,” but what about incalcitrant philosophers? Should we bow? What sense can be derived from the master’s fanning? According to Do¯gen, the story instructs that the mistake inherent in the monk’s question is in assuming that one’s own striving to increase awareness in the unity is somehow outside of the unity itself and therefore of no importance. Do¯gen concludes, “Because the nature of wind is eternal, the wind of Buddhism causes the manifestation of the earth’s being gold, and by participation develops the long river into butter” (Cleary 1986, 35). In other words, the project of cultivating realization in oneself and others (“the wind of Buddhism”) is perceived as an essential and valuable part of the omnipresent and eternal unity.39 However, wherein lies this value? Might the monk have not retorted,
38 This question, “If everything is innately enlightened, then what is the purpose of Buddhist practice aimed at cultivating enlightenment?,” by Do¯gen’s autobiographical account, caused him to leave his Tendai Buddhist order and go to China to study Ch’an. His personal answer became the center piece of his teaching: when understood correctly practice was enlightenment and enlightenment was practice. The mistake inherent in the question lies in assuming “enlightenment” to be a goal or state which was distinct from one’s practice. 39 Applying this reasoning to the Mahayana concept of ‘infinite compassion,’ Do¯gen instructed, “If you possess deep compassion for and a strong desire to save all sentient beings then the desire for fame and fortune cannot arise…. In order for compassion to flow everywhere we must know when and where to apply it” (Nishiyama and Stevens 1975, I, “Keiseisanshoku,” 97, 99).
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“even if you do not strive for increasing realization, the unity will no doubt remain. What grounds for this preference can one have?” We nod our heads with “fanning” or “spreading the wind of Buddhism,” but what about torturing? Would that preference not simply be part of the divine too (the unfolding of “the Nature of Things”)? Arthur Danto raises this exact point in his critique of Buddhist notion of selfless detachment: So [according to the Buddhist attitude of selfless detachment] in doing our ‘thing’, as it has become fashionable to say, we each attain the salvation we seek. This teaching is difficult not to respect. But I do not believe it will do as a moral philosophy. Since it permits the ritualization of everything, every act can be interpreted as a religious discipline…. Nor will doing one’s ‘thing’ selflessly and impersonally make an act ‘good’: for it was the boast of such figures as Adolf Eichmann, for example, that he was only doing his thing [Danto 1987, 81 – 82].
What reason can be given for preferring fanning over torturing? Here many Zen masters (and other nondualistic mystics) simply throw up their hands—“some prefer torture, I prefer to fan.” Note this is not to say that these mystics could not provide a moral justification for any specific action. Such justification, within the consequentialist system which I have been describing would take the form: Action A is right (or, preferable), since in comparison with the alternatives, A maximizes enlightenment and nonattachment.
The question here is whether or not any grounds can be provided for assigning ‘enlightenment’ and ‘nonattachment’ the role of the good. I believe that there are two possible responses here: Do¯gen and/or Eckhart may have simply insisted that no further grounds are necessary—all moral justifying must stop somewhere; or they may have defended these values in terms of their efficacy in instilling happiness (or equanimity) and hence endorsed a type of Eudaimonism.40 However, whichever path they would take, I suspect that the real worry behind this objection is that nondualistic mysticism reduces to subjectivism and, hence, is morally suspect, even dangerous. This seems to be Danto’s contention. While acknowledging that (D.T. Suzuki’s explication of ) Zen nondualistic awareness is consistent with moral action, Wainwright shares Danto’s objection that in as much as it lends itself equally to any course of action, this awareness cannot be considered “intrinsically moral.” It does seem to be the case that ‘emptiness’ and ‘no-mind’ are not, for Suzuki, a source of ethics or ethical behaviour, but something that enables the ‘Zen man’ to engage in social and ethical action in a radically different manner from the rest of 40 Here I believe that the enlightened nondualistic mystic could provide the only reason capable of reaching self-centered individuals—“you’ll be happier if you do.”
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us…. Furthermore, Danto appears to be correct in asserting that this style is neither logically nor psychologically tied to any particular type of activity…. Some attitudes are logically or psychologically tied to certain types of behaviour. Charity appears to be an attitude of this type…. Non-attachment, seeing into the emptiness of things, on the other hand, does not, or at least not so clearly. If this is correct, then, even though the Zen ideal can be combined with moral activity, it is not intrinsically moral [Wainwright 1983, 209 – 10].
Zen teachers may insist that there is nothing to worry about—the enlightened individual simply would act morally. But philosophers need reasons. Why need they act morally? What precludes them from acting immorally? It is precisely here where I feel that the Prudential Generalization Model is most fruitful, for without it I do not believe that there is any response. Eckhart admonished, Many people say “we have a good will,” but they have not God’s will: they want to teach our lord to do such and such. That is not good will. We must seek to find God’s own dearest will. God’s intent in all things is that we should give up our will [Walshe 1987, III: “Counsels on Discernment,” counsel 11].
So, Eckhart assures us, God prefers that we cultivate nonattachment and, hence, the “unshakable equanimity” which accompanies it both in ourselves and in others. But how do we know what God prefers/what God values? This cannot be gleamed from empirical observation. Remember, for Eckhart, all that is actual is God’s will; so, all the suffering and attachment—it is all God’s will. However, the enlightened mystic knows what God’s will for the future is (at least with respect to their own projects)—how? How do I know that God values nonattachment and enlightenment? Because I value these things and, upon enlightenment, I realize “my will is God’s will.” I do not see any other reasonable explanation within Eckhart’s view. Similarly, for Do¯gen, the enlightened Zen practitioners are concerned with enhancing enlightenment and nonattachment universally, because prior to their own enlightenment they are concerned with cultivating these traits within themselves. 8. Conclusion In a sense the mystical path is a dangerous one—it is a black box which takes one’s prudential interests and generalizes them. Conceivably a masochist who suddenly became enlightened would become a sadist.41 However, fortunately 41 Eckhart echoes Augustine’s concern in this regard, “‘One should seek to discover, therefore, whether the person who is committed to neighborly love loves himself so that he may love others as himself… How could you want to be committed to your neighbor and love him as you do yourself if you are busy destroying yourself ? For if you love
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most of us are not masochists; we value our own well-being and perceive our own suffering as “to be alleviated.” Moreover, the mystical paths espoused by Do¯gen and Eckhart involve the inculcation of a personal preference for the cultivation of enlightenment and the inner equanimity of an attitude of nonattachment. Hence, at least for prudentially healthy individuals, pursuing the cultivation of an extrovertive nondualistic mystical awareness via their teachings is not only consistent with morality, it is morally praiseworthy. I hope to have revealed that some common charges against nondualistic mysticism are clearly not as straightforward as they might first have appeared, at least not when applied to the forms of nondualistic extrovertive mysticism advocated by Do¯gen and Eckhart. And I hope that my suggested model for explaining the linking of ‘care’ and ‘compassion’ with ‘enlightenment’ by these thinkers is deemed worthy of further consideration. Moreover, I am confident that one can find echoes of this model throughout the mystical literature— especially, considering that a dualistic theistic sense of union with others through God may be sufficient to instill a similar prudential generalization, and taking into account that the model is consistent with care expressing itself differently within different mystical traditions.42 References Abe, Masao 1985 “The Oneness of Practice and Attainment: Implications for Relation between Means and Ends.” See LaFleur 1985. 1992 A Study of Do¯gen: His Philosophy and Religion. Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press. Barnard, William 2002 “Debating the Mystical as the Ethical: A Response.” See Barnard and Kripal 2002, 70 – 99. Barnard, William and Jeffrey Kripal, eds. 2002 Crossing Boundaries: Essays on the Ethical Status of Mysticism. New York: Seven Bridges Press. Blakney, Raymond B., trans. and ed. 1941 Meister Eckhart. New York: Harper Torchbooks. Cleary, Thomas, trans. and ed. 1986 Sho¯bo¯genzo¯, Zen Essays by Do¯gen. Honolulu, Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press.
yourself in this way, that is, as destroying yourself, I do not want to love anyone else as you do yourself ’” (Fox 1980, s. 37, 532). 42 This essay arose from work begun in my dissertation, Zelinski 1997, and continued during my research fellowship at Princeton University’s Center for the Study of Religion, 2002 – 3. A version of this paper appears in The Journal of Religious Ethics, Volume 35, Issue 2, pp. 291 – 317, June 2007.
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Colledge, Edmond & Bernard McGinn 1981 Meister Eckhart: The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises, and Defense. New York: Grove Press. Cook, Francis H. 1978 How to Raise an Ox. Los Angeles: Center Publications. 1985 “Do¯gen’s View of Authentic Selfhood and Its Socio-ethical Implications.” See LaFleur 1985, 131 – 49. 1989 Sounds of Valley Streams: Enlightenment in Do¯gen’s Zen; Translation of Nine Essays from Sho¯bo¯genzo¯. Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press. Danto, Arthur 1976 “Ethical Theory and Mystical Experience: A Response to Professors Proudfoot and Wainwright.” Journal of Religious Ethics 4.1 (Spring): 37 – 46. 1987 Mysticism and Morality, Oriental Thought and Moral Philosophy. 1972. Reprint, New York: Columbia University Press. Forman, Robert 1990 The Problem of Pure Consciousness. New York: Oxford University Press. 1991 Meister Eckhart: Mystic as Theologian. Rockport, Mass.: Element. Fox, Douglas 1971 “Zen and Ethics: Do¯gen’s synthesis.” Philosophy East and West 21.1 (January): 33 – 42. Fox, Matthew 1980 Breakthrough: Meister Eckhart’s Creation Spirituality in New Translation. Garden City, N.Y.: Image. Haas, Alois M. 1987 “Schools of Late Medieval Mysticism.” In Christian Spirituality: High Middle Ages and Reformation, edited by Jill Raitt. New York: Crossroads. Heine, Steven 1989 A Blade of Grass: Japanese Poetry and Aesthetics in Do¯gen Zen. New York: Peter Lang. Horne, James 1986 The Moral Mystic. Waterloo, Ontario, Canada : Wilfrid Laurier University Press. James, William 1997 The Varieties of Religious Experience. 1902. New York: Touchstone. Jones, Richard 1993 Mysticism Examined: Philosophical Inquiries into Mysticism. Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press. Katz, Steven 1983a “Ethics and Mysticism.” In Foundations of Ethics, edited by Leroy Rouner. South Bend, Ind.: Notre Dame University Press. 1983b Mysticism and Religious Traditions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kim, Hee-jin 1975 Do¯gen Kigen: Mystical Realist. Tucson, Ariz.: University of Arizona Press. Koestler, Arthur 1986 The Lotus and the Robot. London: Hutchinson. Kripal, Jeffery 2002 “Debating the Mystical as the Ethical.” See Barnard and Kripal 2002, 15 – 69. LaFleur, William R. editor 1985 Do¯gen Studies. Series: Studies in East Asian Buddhism (no 2). Honolulu, Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press.
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Zelinski, Daniel 1997 The Meaning of Mystical Life: An Inquiry into Phenomenological and Moral Aspects of the Ways of Life Advocated by Do¯gen Zenji and Meister Eckhart. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California-Irvine. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms. 2003 “Do¯gen’s ‘Ceaseless Practice’.” (Journal of Buddhist Ethics, 2000). Reprinted in Action Dharma, edited by Christopher Queen, Charles Prebish, and Damien Keown. New York: Curzon Press.
The Role of Repentance—or Lack of It— in Zen Monasticism Steven Heine Mysticism and Morality I will begin with some general comments about mysticism and morality before moving on to a specific case study involving Zen Buddhism. The premise of this conference is to celebrate and reflect on the centennial anniversary of the William James’ assertion that mysticism is not an abstract ideal realm of pure consciousness unaffected by the vicissitudes of time, but a matter of lived experience. The intention of the conference is to interpret the ethical implications and moral accountability of mystical traditions, which must take responsibility, for better or worse, for the impact of their teachings and practices on the social world. Interestingly enough it was Henry James, Sr. who provided the classic rationale for detachment from ethical concerns. Of James it was said that “As a Platonist and follower of Swedenborgian doctrine, he believed that there are two realms: a visible and an invisible, named Divine Love, the real one.” According to Louis Menand, “James therefore claimed to have no use for morality, a concept he regarded as bound up with the pernicious belief that people are responsible for the good or evil of their actions. People who believe this are people who think they can make themselves worthier than other people by their own exertions. But this is to worship the false god of selfhood. ‘All conscious virtue is spurious,’ James insisted…”1 The relation between mysticism and morality has been a challenging issue for traditional Zen figures such as So¯to¯ master Do¯gen and Rinzai master Ikkyu¯, who approached it from nearly opposite angles, with the former stressing strict regulations and the latter the need for a creative spirit to bend the rules. This also applies to modern thinkers in the Kyoto school such as Nishida Kitaro¯ and Nishitani Keiji, among others, who have been called to task for prewar nationalism in their writings. However, scrutiny regarding the moral implications of mysticism particularly concerning Zen Buddhism in Japan has emerged in the past couple of decades, stemming especially from two opposite but 1
Menand, pp. 85 – 86.
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intersecting forces. One force is increasing pressure from within Japanese society to recognize hidden forms of social discrimination and oppression, and the other force consists of external factors that seek to diagnose ailments underlying diverse historical phenomenon ranging from the arising of tenacious nationalism/imperialism in the prewar period to deficient social tendencies underlying the recent bursting of the economic bubble. Both forces point the need to reevaluate authoritarianism and inflexibility that contribute to a decline of moral commitment within the Zen institution. To retrace briefly the steps connecting the premise and intention, first, James’ point is to link mysticism and the world. The next step is to recognize that the world of concrete, everyday experience and how it is conditioned by historical circumstances, and then to understand there is a dynamic interaction and reciprocity between thought and impact. The following stage is to acknowledge, or challenge the mystics to realize they cannot escape from, an awareness of the influences their traditions do and do not have in a socialhistorical context. In one or two more steps, we get to the point of scrutiny of each and every aspect of the moral implications of mystical teaching in order to rid mysticism of its possible antinomian tendencies. In that context, I will explore what I consider at once great strengths and considerable deficiencies in the relation between the mystical ideas and concrete ethical effects of Buddhism, particularly concerning the role of “repentance” in the setting of Zen monastic practice. The Meanings of Repentance in Zen My main argument is that the Zen approach to the practice of repentance, which has been a key element of Buddhist rituals and self-regulating monastic rules since the time of Sakyamuni, at once contains the seeds of deficiency and social decay when used in a mechanical fashion stripped of genuine spirituality, and the seeds of an uplifting and reform-minded social religiosity when used in an authentic and transcendent fashion. In critically examining the role of repentance or confession in Zen monastic theory and practice, let us consider an assortment of criticisms leveled at the social and political implications of Buddhism, especially Zen, which have come from both within and outside of the tradition, including Zen scholars Ichikawa Hakugen and Hakamaya Noriaki and Pure Land philosopher Tanabe Hajime, Japanese writers Mishima Yukio and Oe Kenzaburo, as well as several modern Western philosophers and historians. These critics have focused on the passivity and complacency or status quo-ism of the social aspect of Zen, its complicity in nationalism and tacit endorsement of Japanese imperialism before and during World War II, and its apparent misuse or twisting of the traditional notions of emptiness and
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naturalism to support nihonjinron (cultural exceptionalism) theory and the “myth of Japanese uniqueness.”2 Despite these criticisms, it is possible to show, rather optimistically in following Tanabe’s work, that the notion of repentance as the sense of regret for and correction of wrongdoing could serve as a synthetic and dynamic conceptual and practical model for overcoming some of these problems and integrating Zen and Pure Land Buddhism with Western religious approaches toward social responsibility. In addition to Tanabe’s Pure Land view, Zen advocates and critics alike put a strong emphasis on the role of individual repentance (zange), change of heart, spiritual “turning,” or transformation in the religious quest that could be considered, if appropriately interpreted, to provide a key to an active, positive method of adjusting endless conflicts. The notion of repentance stems from early Buddhist Vinaya practice and is also highlighted in Tendai meditation as well as popular medieval Japanese setsuwa literature. The Zen meditative, selfpower path may not be particularly known for stressing the idea of repentance, which seems to be primarily associated with the devotional, other-power path. However, repentance does emerge as an important theme among Zen thinkers. Understood in its authentic self-reflective sense rather than as a facile, automatic confession, repentance can become the basis of a synthesis of the Zen and Pure Land, as well as the Mahayana and Theravada, and Buddhist and Christian world-views. This chapter takes a closer look at the historical context of repentance in Zen monasticism based on traditional and modern textual and social sources to better determine the viability and applicability of the notion for understanding the issue of the moral implications of mysticism. It focuses on two distinct but interconnected tendencies. First, except for a couple of prominent exceptions such as the Platform Sutra and the So¯to¯ sect’s “Shusho¯gi”—and perhaps due in part to the Platform’s emphasis on “formless (muso) repentance” and the nonproduction of evil—there tends to be a lack of evidence in traditional monastic codes or recorded sayings texts for Zen’s involvement in zange. The apparent disinterest is further highlighted by the absence of any sustained refutation of the practice that was so prevalent in many other kinds of medieval East Asian Buddhism. Although the Platform Sutra, as well as some passages by Do¯gen, could be seen as providing a justification for this disinterest, it is interesting to note that there is systematic critique in Zen comparable to Luther’s criticism of the sacrament of penitence. The second tendency I wish to highlight is that there has been a prevalence of references to the notion of zange in recent discussions by Zen writers of contemporary social issues such as the problem of social discrimination (sabetsu mondai) against former outcaste (hinin) and untouchable (burakumin) communities. 2
Dale.
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The first tendency may indicate an indifference or neglect of repentance based on the priority of spiritual transcendence over the need for ritual confession, but the second tendency supports the view that zange can, if appropriately interpreted, reflect an approach to conflict-resolution that may be considered applicable to peace. These tendencies appear to refer to two different, even conflicting, yet overlapping meanings of repentance. The first tendency refers to a ceremonial performance, which is used in Zen practice though not emphasized in its classical texts, in which repentance is ritually made toward Buddhism, as in the case of correcting oneself or suffering punishment after the violation of Buddhist precepts. The second tendency refers to a more general, socially-oriented sense of repenting for Buddhism, especially due to its lack of having corrected or taken full responsibility for its contribution to social discrimination and prewar imperialism.3 Whereas the first kind of repentance operates within the closed circle of the monastic institution, the second kind open-endedly extends traditional monastic ritual into the realm of social responsibility and commitment to reform. Clarification of the Two Tendencies Therefore, this chapter starts from the observation that although Zen monasticism does employ traditional Buddhist repentance rituals on a daily, monthly, and yearly basis, when compared to some other sects of East Asian Buddhism (as well as non-Buddhist religions), it appears that Zen literature and ritual have placed a relative lack of emphasis on this practice. There may be valid reasons for such a de-emphasis, and the notion of “formless repentance” in the Platform Sutra could be interpreted as offering a rationale for maintaining consistency with other aspects of Zen’s self-power ideology and skeptical view of the efficacy of formal, external ritual. Yet the Sung Zen texts which generally do not speak of the need for repentance also do not provide a follow-up to the Platform Sutra’s critique or a further explanation for the de-emphasis even when they endorse other forms of ceremonialism. An important implication of this apparent indifference is that the failure to view repentance as a sustained mechanism for self-reproach, self-criticism, and self-correction—not that it always functions in such a positive way—may have hindered the development of a cogent Zen moral code (as opposed to monastic rules of etiquette which are highly developed). This statement is not meant to imply the converse, that is, that an emphasis on repentance necessarily leads to ethical responsibility; it is true the Jo¯do Shinshu¯ sect has shown more interest and commitment than Zen in rectifying the discrimination problem beginning 3
Heisig and Maraldo.
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in 1920s suiheisha (equality) movements, but this may reflect the fact that the overwhelming number of untouchables were assigned to this sect, especially the Nishi Honganji branch in the Tokugawa era danka system, rather than an authentic commitment to zange. The implications of the ritual for other forms of Buddhism must be examined on a case-by-case basis. The point is that the de-emphasis in Zen has perhaps helped promote some antinomian tendencies, or at least tendencies that are non-ethical in the sense that they reflect a turning away from a direct confrontation with ethical responsibility and decisionmaking. Perhaps Zen has cultivated this attitude deliberately, at least on a rhetorical level, in the name of a “trans-ethical” perspective that transcends conventional standards of good and evil in a quasi-Nietzschean sense, but this rationale has a hollow ring in light of Zen’s now acknowledged participation in discrimination, nationalism, imperialism, and corporatism.4 On the other hand, in recent years zange has been evoked by some Zen thinkers as a means of coming to terms with the issue of Buddhism’s contribution to social discrimination against former outcastes and untouchables who have traditionally been defined as impure by religion, and persecuted and denied basic rights by society. The notion of repentance, which seeks to eradicate the roots of defilement and sinfulness, is closely linked to the way that the notion of karma as an explanation of the origin and consequences of evil and defilement as well as to methods for accruing merit is applied to the social structure. In the past, Buddhism had a tendency of defining outcastes as being burdened with evil karma because of their occupations which involve working with animal flesh, such as butchers, leather-workers, etc. Therefore—perhaps as an unintended and unexpected result of this identification—outcastes were perceived by society as worthy of victimization. Now, the tendency is to reverse the errors of the past by assigning to Buddhism itself the problematic karma, if any, as well as the need for repentance for having helped propagate attitudes which have, even if unintentionally, violated the rights of outcastes. Because the issue of discrimination is often interconnected with the issues of nationalism and militarism in modern Japanese society, which similarly reflect a suppression of minority or stigmatized groups, the development of a self-reflective and selfcritical attitude towards the former problem may well offer some clues as to how to apply Zen repentance-based ethics to social issues. In this chapter I am using the term zange in a generic sense to refer to a cluster of related ideas and terms stemming from early Buddhist monastic texts, a number of which are sometimes translated into Sino-Japanese in other ways, but all of which are closely affiliated with the way that zange refers to “remorse, regret, lamenting, repenting for deeds done or omission…[making] clear the 4
Victoria 1988, 2000.
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idea that repentance had rewards and the lack of it, punishments”.5 These terms include two main rituals followed by Buddhist monastics. The first is the ritual of uposatha (or fusatsu), or fortnightly (at the middle and end of the lunar month) confession in front of the assembly of monks during the recitation of the pratimoksa list of 250 precepts, a “monastic process of examination, confession and rectification for restoring those who had broken the rules [which] function[s] within a finite context of present human activity involving the mutual agreement of a group of practitioners”.6 During the uposatha the monks and nuns confess the wrongdoings in their external behavior and receive standard, prescribed punishments, although confession is also encouraged between the occasions of the ceremony. The second ritual is the pravarana or mutual, public confessing at the end of the rainy season (varsa), a time for monastics who have spent months together to clear the air before making contact with the lay community. Both of these ceremonies are generally followed in Zen practice though the timing of the pravarana cycle may vary from the schedule listed in the early canon. Zange also refers to the act of penance or contrition (ksama, ksamayati), implying a sense of patience and confession, and to the determination to make reforms (desana). It is also important to recognize that East Asian Buddhist views on repentance were no doubt influenced by and assimilated with indigenous approaches to eliminating evil and wrongdoing, such as Confucian ideas about shame and ritual, and the purification rites, exorcisms, faith healings, and memorial ceremonies practiced in Taoism, Shinto, and folk religions.7 In modern times, the Zen institution may have been influenced by zange practices in some Buddhist-derivative New Religions, such as Ittoen, which has, for example, a communal toilet-cleaning rite.8 In light of the various meanings mentioned above, as well as an intriguing typology of Buddhist repentance rituals developed by David Chappell,9 I suggest that zange can be understood by making several basic distinctions. One distinction is between zange in the general sense encompassing a remorse and punishment for wrongdoing and zange in an explicitly ceremonial, liturgical sense, as in the uposatha and pravarana rituals, which in turn also include distinctions between voluntary and required, and individual and communal 5 6 7 8 9
Lancaster, p. 55. Chappell, p. 254. Wu. Davis, pp. 189 – 225. According to David Chappell, five kinds of repentance are: (1) communal repentance to the sangha to ensure monastic conformity; (2) personal repentance of karmic history; (3) mythological repentance to a supermundane Buddha; (4) meditation repentance of incorrect perceptions and attachments; and (5) philosophical repentance of wrong concepts and discrimination (Chappell, p. 253).
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aspects of repentance. Another distinction is between zange metsuzai, to borrow the term featured in numerous scriptures as well as the So¯to¯ Zen “Shusho¯gi” text, which implies the purification of evil karma through the power of forgiveness of compassionate buddhas, bodhisattvas, and patriarchs, and Zangedo¯, to borrow the term which forms the center of Tanabe Hajime’s postwar philosophy which implies a personal, existential struggle with one’s sense of wrongdoing. Zangedo¯ can also be referred to as self-reflection and selfcriticism (jiko hihan). Ironically, the “Shusho¯gi,” which was created in the Meiji era by the So¯to¯ sect’s lay and clerical leaders’ culling and editing of Do¯gen’s sayings, seems to suggest a mechanical and devotional model of repentance, whereas Tanabe’s Pure Land approach appears more individualistic and intuitive, keeping in mind that his message was directed to the nation as well as his fellow philosophers whose prewar writings contributed to a militarist ideology which suffered defeat and humiliation in the war. The distinction between zange metsuzai and Zangedo¯ can also be used to encompass the distinction mentioned above between repentance toward Buddhism due to preceptual transgressions and repentance for Buddhism because of its wrongdoings vis--vis society at large. Uses, Abuses, and Non-Uses As indicated above, Zen monasteries generally observe the basic Buddhist repentance rites on a monthly and annual cycle, and also include remorseful reflection as part of daily sutra-reading or meditative walking exercises (kinhin). Yet, except for some famous exceptions, Sung Chinese and Kamakura Zen texts, including transmission of the lamp histories of lineal succession, recorded sayings of individual masters’ sermons and lectures, and ko¯an collection prose and verse commentaries, do not speak extensively of the need for or benefits— or lack of same—of repentance in depicting Zen hagiography, practice, or philosophy. Even the main monastic code, the Zen’en shingi contains only brief references10, and the plans of the typical monastic compound contain no repentance hall.11 Among the exceptions to this absence or de-emphasis on zange are Northern school texts such as the Ta-sheng wu-sheng fang-p’ien men and Leng-ch’ieh shihtz chi; two Sho¯bo¯genzo¯ fascicles, the “Keisei-sanshoku” and “Sanjigo”; Ming dynasty monastic revival texts by Chu-hung12 ; and anecdotal, monogatari-like writings referring to social leaders, such as samurai in Tokugawa Japan, who saw 10 Kagamishima 1972, pp. 169, 307. 11 Foulk; Collcutt. 12 Yu.
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the error of their ways and repented before converting to Buddhism.13 Nevertheless, Zen stands in contrast with several other medieval Buddhist traditions that did strongly emphasize repentance: T’ien-t’ai in China, which, integrated repentance involving ritual ablutions in sacred chambers into the practice of the Four Samadhi meditations based on Chih-i’s distinction in the Fa-hua san-mei ch’an-i 14 between formless repentance in the realm of principle (ri) and form repentance in the realm of phenomena (ji)15 ; repentance practices based on a variety of mythological sutras dedicated to the supernatural powers of bodhisattvas who have the capacity to grant mercy, as followed in devotional and esoteric Buddhism16 ; and folk Buddhist setsuwa tales of religious awakening.17 What is the reason for the de-emphasis in Zen? It is possible to see two of the texts, which put an emphasis on repentance at the same time providing a rationale to turn away from the need for confession, particularly in the phenomenal sense of zange. This is especially the case in the Platform Sutra’s focus on formless repentance. At first, this text’s view, which stresses that evil karma must be seen as originally empty and thus part of the purity of self-nature (jisho¯), seems to coincide with the Tendai distinction between ji-zange, or repentance for misdeeds committed in the realm of phenomenal reality, and rizange, or recognition of the absolute nature of reality, which is that all things are empty of own-being, including sin. The main difference, however, is that whereas Tendai acknowledges the role of ji-zange while advocating its transcendence, the Platform Sutra denies ji-zange as part of delusion that prohibits a realization of transcendence. The main sections dealing with the theme of formless repentance in the Platform Sutra are nos. 22 and 33. Section no. 22 “explains the formless repentance that eradicates the sins of the triple world.” According to this passage: If your past, present, or future thoughts as well as moment-to-moment thoughts are not stained by delusion, and if in a single instant you cast aside previous evil actions by virtue of self-nature, this itself is confession (zan, seeking forgiveness)….What is 13 An example of the last category is the case of Kume Heinai, enshrined at a sub-temple of Senso¯ji temple in Asakusa, Tokyo, who repented for his life of killing people by converting to Zen and practicing meditation. At his death he donated his zazen-image made by a sculptor for burial at the temple so that people could tread upon it before it was properly set up. Eventually, Heinai became a folk deity that people pray to in search of a future spouse by writing down their wish, based on a pun as both “treading upon” and “writing upon” are pronounced fumi-tsukeru. 14 Taisho¯ 46:949a-955c. 15 Re., Stevenson. 16 De Visser, pp. 249 – 409. 17 Childs.
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repentance [made up of two kanji, zan and ge, regret]? Confession (zan) is the nonproduction [of evil] throughout your life. Regret (ge) is to realize your previous evil karma and never let this slip from your mind. There is no reason to make a verbal confession before buddhas. In my teachings, forever to engage in non-production is the meaning of repentance.18
This passage emphasizes the need to discard any trace of form repentance as so much distraction and delusion; that is, verbal confession is counter-productive because the key is to realize the non-production of evil based on the original purity of self-nature. The view that self-nature is inherently free from defilement is further highlighted in Lewis Lancaster’s translation of several important lines in the above passage: Remorse [ge] is being free of purposeful action (Skt. apranihita) for the whole of your life. Repentance is knowing that with regard to the past there is no evil action and never let this slip from your mind.19
Section no. 33, “a verse of formlessness that will eradicate the sins of deluded people,” continues this theme: Though [the ignorant person] hopes that making offerings and attending memorial services will bring boundless happiness, This only perpetuates the three karmas (of past, present, and future) in his mind. If you seek to eradicate sins by practices based on the pursuit of happiness, Then even if happiness is attained in the future the sins will not be eliminated. If the mind is liberated from the very causes of sin, This is the true meaning of repentance within each self-nature. If you awaken to the great vehicle and truly repent, Then you will surely attain a state of sinlessness. Contemplation of the self by those who are studying the Way Is the same as the awakening of those already enlightened.20
Here, the Platform Sutra argues that true repentance is to awaken to a state of sinlessness, resembling the notion of innate enlightenment (hongaku shiso¯), prior to the production of evil karma. According to Chappell’s insightful analysis, the Platform Sutra creates a reversal from earlier notions of external, ceremonial repentance by stressing the priority of the internal, mental world, from which vantage point offerings and memorials appear trapped in the pursuit of worldly benefits, which only perpetuates karma in the name of terminating it. In addition, Chappell sums up the differences between the uposatha/pravarana ceremonies and the Platform Sutra: the former are based on rectifying wrongs in the sense of incorrect external behavior with regard to the Buddhist precepts in 18 In Yampolsky, pp. 144 – 45, Chinese version, p. 10; trans. altered. 19 Lancaster, p. 58, a revision of both Yampolsky and Wing-tsit Chan; emphasis added. 20 In Yampolsky, p. 153, Chinese version, p. 15; trans. altered.
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the immediate present through penance, exclusion, probation, restitution, or confession, whereas the Platform Sutra is based on casting aside wrong thoughts and attitudes throughout the past, present, and future by realizing the purity of self-nature and that the true precepts stem from the threefold buddha-body within each person.21 Furthermore, the Platform Sutra points to the identification and equalization of those still practicing and the already enlightened, or of the unity of practice-attainment (shusho¯ itto¯) in Do¯gen’s terminology. Do¯gen similarly stresses that the realization of authentic spiritual attainment requires going beyond the ritualization of repentance when he cites his mentor Ju-ching’s utterance: “To study Zen is to cast off body-mind. It is not burning incense, worship, recitation of Amida’s name, repentant practice (shu¯zan), or reading sutras, but the singleminded practice of zazen-only.”22 However, the message of “Shusho¯gi,” a short text compiled from Do¯gen’s writings by Meiji era So¯to¯ leaders, is somewhat different. The aim of this text is to provide an accessible theological framework in modern times for monastics and laypersons alike. Although the content of “Shusho¯gi” does not necessarily correspond to the intentionality of the source materials, it is very important for understanding contemporary So¯to¯ thought. Section no. 2 titled “zange metsuzai” seems to stand in contrast, or even opposition, with the Platform Sutra in that it supports repentance in the conventional ritualistic sense, yet its message can also be seen as converging with the T’ang text in providing a rationale that vitiates the need for a systematic approach to ji-zange confession:23 Although karmic retribution for evil actions must come in the past, present, or future, to make repentance transforms things and accrues merit, and it results in the destruction of wrongdoing (or sin, metsuzai) and the realization of purity… If you repent in the manner described, you will invariably receive the invisible assistance of the buddhas and patriarchs. Keeping this in your mind and following the rules for your bodily behavior, you must repent before the buddhas whose power will lead to the elimination of the causes of wrongdoing at their roots.24
This passage emphasizes the virtue of repentance in transforming evil deeds based on the power of forgiveness and the compassion of buddhas. It appears close to a mythological, supernatural perspective yet still requires self-discipline and meditative training. Yet, like the Platform Sutra, “Shusho¯gi” suggests that wrongdoing can be fully eliminated and a state of sinlessness attained. In other words, both the Platform Sutra’s notion of non-production of karma and the 21 Chappell, p. 255. 22 Do¯gen I, 217, “Gyo¯ji” fascicle; also cited in the “Bendo¯wa” fascicle, Eihei Ko¯roku, and Ho¯kyo¯ki. 23 Heine 1999. 24 In Azuma, pp. 147 – 49.
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“Shusho¯gi” notion of the destruction of karma (metsuzai) imply that ultimate human nature (Buddha-nature or bussho¯, original enlightenment or hongaku) remains untainted and unaffected by the effects of evil actions. The underlying ethical problem is that by giving priority to transcendence these approaches may overlook some of the unintended consequences that arise from a de-emphasis on recognizing and feeling remorse and repentance for actual wrongdoings in the phenomenal realm of karmic causality.25 The Roots of Social Discrimination The Vinaya rituals of uposatha and pravarana function within a closed circle in the sense that they refer to repentance for transgressions committed against the Buddhist sangha and its pratimoksha rules. Correction of behavior is based on confession and punishments that encourage a return to strict adherence to the rules. Both the Platform Sutra and “Shusho¯gi” seek to move beyond the ritual circle by highlighting the transformative capacity of self-nature or Buddhanature. As indicated above, the strength of these approaches lies in their clarification of the soteriological significance of formless repentance, but the weakness lies in their neglect of the ethical implications of de-emphasizing form repentance based on the zange metsuzai approach. Recent reflections by concerned Buddhists on the issue of discrimination, however, suggest the emergence of another view of repentance that transcends the ritual circle by virtue of a broader awareness of ethics, that is, it transmutes the notion of jizange repentance into an open-ended commitment to social rectification and responsibility based on the enactment of Zangedo¯ (literally, the “way” of repentance). For example, a report on discrimination commissioned by Eiheiji temple, titled “Sendara mondai senmon i’inkai hokoku,” speaks of the need for Zen to undertake an intensely profound repentance (fukaku-kibishii zange) for the mistreatment of the burakumin community.26 This report and other analyses of the impact of discrimination generally begin with a specific focus on abuses in the practice of kaimyo¯, the practice of bestowing posthumous ordination names at the time of a funeral. The next step is an investigation of the roots of discrimination in basic Buddhist doctrines and attitudes that gave rise to a wide range of abuses. Most sects of Japanese Buddhism, which is often referred to by the general populace as “funeral Buddhism” (so¯shiki Bukkyo¯), are now involved in examining the hypocrisy of the kaimyo¯ practices. The kaimyo¯ system is an 25 Stone. 26 “Sendara mondai,” p. 31.
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important part of funerals in which laypersons are treated once they have died as if they were monks through the use of external symbols (shaved heads, robes, ablutions, etc.). Although kaimyo¯ do not identify social status directly, they have a built-in hierarchical approach in that different kinds of names are given to advanced and junior monks, monastics and laypersons, males and females, as well as to a variety of ranks and roles in society, from nobility to poverty.27 In some cases the more prestigious kaimyo¯ can be purchased or obtained through political influence. The naming of burakumin people further corrupts the hierarchical process by deliberately identifying their untouchable status in a disguised way during a ceremony that purports to guarantee their salvation in democratic fashion.28 The following illustration dramatically demonstrates this point:
Buddhist commentators have begun to consider what has given rise to such a hypocritical application of Buddhist ceremony. There have been several important accounts of the historical and ideological roots of discrimination. For example, in Sei to sen (Sacred and Profane) Noma Hiroshi, a renowned 27 Shimada, pp. 67 – 71. 28 As show, a prime example is using two kanji, gen and da, which, when written as a single kanji becomes chiku, beasts. Also, the kaimyo¯ is not the only aspect of discrimination; other rituals, such as nanoka-gyo¯, which memorializes the deceased for forty-nine days after death, are similarly affected.
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modern novelist and follower of Shinran who befriended and supported several prominent writers from the burakumin community, stresses two main points: the impact of the caste system and practices of untouchability in India and other countries on Japanese Buddhist conceptions of karmic defilement and social stratification; and the influence of Shinto views on ritual contamination (kegare, the kanji for which is also pronounced as e in the derogatory term, eta) and an abhorrence of death. Zen scholar/thinkers such as Ichikawa Hakugen (in Rinzai) and Hakamaya Noriaki and Matsumoto Shiro¯ (in So¯to¯) have focused on the notions of original enlightenment and nonduality in traditional Mahayana and Zen texts which can ironically foster social discrimination in the name of pointing to the attainment of liberation through epistemological non-discrimination. Matsumoto, for example, shows how the rhetoric of equality and universality in the doctrine of Buddha-nature is undercut by the category of icchantikas, exceptions to the rule who are said to be incapable of spiritual attainment. Another key topic has been an analysis of the transition form the ambiguous role played by outcastes in medieval times, when they were often given comfort by Buddhism, especially in Eizon’s Ritsu sect, to the institutionalized and rigidified discrimination in the Tokugawa era. At this point Buddhism tended to become a source of rather than a possible release from oppression, in part because of the role the religion was assigned in the danka system for which functioned as an administrative arm of the shogunate.29 In addition, the question of repentance, or lack of it, has become an important focal point. Much of this discussion is related to the topic of sendara (Skt. candala), a term for untouchables in the Indian caste system that was appropriated in Buddhist texts as a designation for those whose evil karma prohibits them from being receptive to the Buddha’s teachings. This category is discussed in the Lotus Sutra, chapter 14 (“Peaceful Practices”), and in the Sho¯bo¯genzo¯ “Sanjigo” fascicle as well as in Dogen’s Eihei ko¯roku (3.66, 6.24, 7.47). The term may have been initially intended as a way of evaluating the evil karma of murderers and mercenaries. But eventually in Japan the term became a tool to identify and discriminate against those who perform legitimate social functions in killing or handling dead animals even if these activities are not necessarily sanctioned by the sangha. This issue is further complicated by the historical situation that many untouchables were further “tainted” by being forced by the Tokugawa shogunate into the role of torturers, executioners, or disposers of corpses. An interesting example of how the traditional terminology has been used on behalf of discrimination is a koan cited in the Eihei ko¯roku (9.67) in which a butcher, asked for the best slice of meat, responds that all slices are equally 29 Nagahara.
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valuable. The conventional interpretation highlights the notion of nonduality and the innate equality of each portion of the whole object. Yet in Japan the ko¯an anecdote has been extracted out of its original philosophical context and used—even though the term may not have fully carried the same stigma in the original Chinese setting—in an insidious fashion to label burakumin as “butchers.”30 Thus, the Buddhist approach to personal liberation has been somewhat subverted and reduced to a “you get what you deserve” or a “blame the victim” justification for social oppression, providing a pseudo-historical mythology that rationalizes the devaluation of “vile occupations.” (According to the writings of B. R. Ambedkar, untouchables in India were long reluctant to convert to Buddhism because of this tendency). As recent critics note, “Although from the Kamakura period on one could find Buddhist writings on the idea of spiritual equality among people, Tokugawa Buddhism in no way opposed the official status structure of feudal society, including the segregation of its outcaste segments.”31 Repentance for these deep-seated trends requires a wholehearted and open-ended investigation of the roots of discrimination, and a willingness to challenge and change, rather than merely apologize for, the problematic Buddhist doctrines and institutions. Yet the continued existence of so-called etadera (outcaste temples) and eta-za (outcaste seats) in many areas, well over a hundred years after burakumin were legally “liberated” in 1871, testifies to the great difficulties involved in weeding out centuries of ingrained behavior. The issue of discrimination is very much related to the problem of nationalism/imperialism in Japan. In both cases, Zen has had a tendency to comply tacitly and at times overtly, or at least to fail to resist and protest, the manipulation and exploitation of minority and stigmatized groups imposed by a hierarchical, authoritarian order. In a similar vein, in the 1920 s the Jo¯do Shinshu¯ sect made an appeal for egalitarianism based on a notion that conflated Buddha-nature theory with the imperial ideology that all followers of the Emperor are indistinguishable. It appears that through much of the twentieth century, with some exceptions, Zen has preferred to cloak itself in the ideology of the “great (imperial) family” (dai-kazoku)32, and it now needs to to exercise confession and self-criticism by examining and correcting the abuse of its ideals. Overturning these social problems at their roots involves a sustained examination that can learn from Tanabe’s postwar Zangedo¯, which in contrast to the Platform Sutra stresses the inseparability of form and principle repentance. According to Tanabe’s call, genuine repentance covering both of these realms may not only liberate Buddhism but it will enable Buddhism to help liberate the 30 “Sendara mondai,” p. 14. 31 De Vos and Wagatsuma, p. 88. 32 Ichikawa 1970.
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society through a genuine moral call to action: “The turning point for a new beginning lies in zange. Without it, we have no way to rebuild [society].”33 Therefore, the transformation of zange metsuzai into Zangedo¯ requires an authentic encountering of social problems in a way that demands an abandonment of the traditional Zen de-emphasis on form repentance. This in turn responds to the demand of William James, which is not only to passively acknowledge but also to dynamically foster and cultivate the profound connection between mysticism and morality. In that sense the ahistorical view with its antinomian implications as proposed by Henry James, Sr. would be overcome and the commitment to social responsibility would be fulfilled. Bibliography Azuma Ryu¯shin, 1993. Sotoshu¯ : waga ie no shu¯kyo¯ [Soto Sect: The Religion of Our Families] (Tokyo: Daihorinkaku). Bukkyo, tokushu¯ : sabetsu [Buddhism, Special Issue on Discrimination], 1991. 15/4. Chappell, David, 1990. “Formless Repentance in Comparative Perspective,” in Report of International Conference on Ch’an Buddhism (Taiwan: Fo Kuang Shan), pp. 251 – 67. Childs, Margaret Helen, 1991. Rethinking Sorrow: Revelatory Tales of Late Medieval Japan (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press). Collcutt, Martin, 1981. Five Mountains: The Rinzai Monastic Institution in Medieval Japan (Cambridge: Harvard University Press). Dale, Peter N. 1986. The Myth of Japanese Uniqueness (New York: St. Martin’s). Davis, Winston, 1992. Japanese Religion and Society: Paradigms of Structure and Change (Albany: SUNY Press). De Visser, M. W., 1935. Ancient Buddhism in Japan, vol. I (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill). De Vos and Hiroshi Wagatsuma, 1966. Japan’s Invisible Race: Caste in Culture and Personality (Berkeley: University of California). Dogen, 1970 and 1972. Sho¯bo¯genzo¯, 2 vols., eds. Terada Toru and Mizuno Yaoko (Tokyo: Iwanami). –– 1978. Eihei ko¯roku, ed. Yokoi Yu¯ho (Tokyo: Sankibo¯ busshorin). Dutt, Sukumar, 1960. Early Buddhist Monasticism (Bombay: Asia Publishing House). Eberhard, Wolfram, 1967. Guilt and Sin in Traditional China (Berkeley: University of California Press). Faure, Bernard, 1993. Chan Insights and Oversights: An Epistemological Critique of the Chan Tradition (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Foulk, T. Griffith, 1993. “Myth, Ritual, and Monastic Practice in Sung Ch’an Buddhism,” in Religion and Society in T’ang and Sung China, eds. Patricia Buckley Ebrey and Peter N. Gregory (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press), pp. 147 – 208. Hakamaya Noriaki, 1989. Hongaku shiso hihan (Tokyo: Daizo¯ shuppan). –– 1992. Do¯gen to bukkyo¯ : Ju¯nikanbon Sho¯bo¯genzo¯ no Do¯gen (Tokyo: Daizo¯ shuppan). Heine, Steven, 1993. “On Repentance (Zange): A Zen Synthetic Approach to Peace,” Sixth Seminar on Peace, Dae Won Sa Buddhist Cultural Insitute, East-West Center, Honolulu. 33 Tanabe, p. 296.
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–– 1994. “Critical Buddhism (Hihan Bukkyo¯) and the Debate Concerning the 12Fascicle and 75-Fascicle Sho¯bo¯genzo¯ Texts,” in Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 21/1, pp. 37 – 72. –– 1999. Shifting Shape, Shaping Text: Philosophy and Folklore in the Fox Ko¯an (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press). –– 2007. Zen Skin, Zen Marrow: Will the Real Zen Buddhism Please Stand Up? (New York: Oxford University Press) Heisig, James W., and John C. Maraldo, 1994. Rude Awakenings: Zen, the Kyoto School, & the Question of Nationalism (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press). Ichikawa Hakugen, 1970. Bukkyo¯sha no senso¯-sekinin [Buddhists’ War Responsibilities] (Tokyo: Shunju¯sha). –– 1967. Zen to gendai shiso¯ [Zen and Modern Thought] (Tokyo: Tokuma shoten). Ives, Christopher, 1992. Zen Awakening and Society (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press). Kagamishima Genryu¯, Sato¯ Tatsugen, and Kosaka Kiyu¯, 1972. Yakuchu¯ Zen’en shingi [A Japanese Translation of the Zen Monastic Rules] (Tokyo: So¯to¯ shu¯shu¯mucho). Kagamishima Genryu¯ and Suzuki Kakuzen, eds., 1991. Ju¯nikanbon Sho¯bo¯genzo¯ no shomondai [Issues on the 12-Fascicle Sho¯bo¯genzo¯] (Tokyo: Daizo¯ shuppan). Lancaster, Lewis, 1990. “The Terminology of the Platform Sutra in the Chinese Buddhist Canon,” in Report of International Conference on Ch’an Buddhism (Taiwan: Fo Kuang Shan), pp. 51 – 59. Matsumoto Shiro¯, 1989. Engi to ku¯ : nyoraizo¯ shiso¯ hihan [Dependent Origination and Emptiness: A Critique of Tathagatagarbha Thought] (Tokyo: Daizo¯ shuppan). Menand, Louis, 2001. The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Nagahara Keiji, 1979. “The Medieval Origins of the Eta-Hinin,” Journal of Japanese Studies 5/2, pp. 385 – 403. Nakao Shunbaku, 1985. Bukkyo¯ to sabetsu [Buddhism and Discrimination] (Kyoto: Nagata bunshodo¯). Noma Hiroshi and Okiura Kazuteru, 1983 – 86. Sei to sen [Sacred and Profane], 4 vols., Ajia, Nihon no Chu¯sei, Kinsei, Kindai (Tokyo: Ninbun shoin). Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko, 1987. The Monkey as Mirror: Symbolic Transformations in Japanese History and Ritual (Princeton: Princeton University Press). “Sendara mondai senmon i’inkai hokoku” [Report of the Research Group on the Problem of Candala], 1994. No. 10, ed. Eiheiji Sendara Mondai Senmon I’inkai, Sansho 606, pp. 8 – 31. Shimada Hiromi, 1991. Kaimyo¯ : Naze shigo ni namae o kaeru no ka [Posthumous Initiation Names: Why are Names Changed Posthumously?] (Kyoto: Ho¯zo¯kan). Stevenson, Daniel, 1986. “The Four Kinds of Samadhi in Early T’ien-t’ai Buddhism,” in Traditions of Meditation in Chinese Buddhism, ed. Peter N. Gregory (Honolulu: University of Hawaii). Stone, Jacqueline, 1999. Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press). Tamamuro Taijo, 1963. So¯shiki Bukkyo¯ [Funeral Buddhism] (Tokyo: Daihorinkaku). Tanabe Hajime, 1986. Philosophy as Metanoetics, trans. Takeuchi Yoshinori with Valdo Viglielmo and James W. Heisig (Berkeley: University of California Press). Victoria, Daizen, 1988. “Japanese Corporate Zen,” in The Other Japan: Postwar Realities, ed. E. Patricial Tsurumi (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe), pp. 131 – 38. –– 2000. Zen at War (New York: Weatherhill).
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Wu Pei-yi, 1978. “Self-Examination and Confession of Sins in Traditional China,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 39/1, pp. 5 – 38. Yampolsky, Philip B. 1967. The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch (New York: Columbia University Press), includes Chinese text. Y, Chn-fang, 1990. The Renewal of Buddhism in China: Chu-hung and the Late Ming Synthesis (New York: Columbia). Zengaku daijiten [Zen Studies Dictionary], 1985. Ed. Komazawa Daigaku Zengaku Daijiten Hensanjo (Tokyo: Taishu¯kan shoten).
II. Varia
Retour sur l’hymne « artalogique » de Karpocrate Chalcis1 Philippe Matthey Le philologue allemand Richard Harder raconte, dans un article des Abhandlungen der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften publi en 1944, comment il mit au jour pendant l’t 1939 toute une srie de nouvelles inscriptions Chalcis en Eube, certaines sur le terrain, d’autres dans le muse.2 Il prit la dcision de repousser la publication de l’ensemble de ces inscriptions, afin d’inclure leur dition dans le cadre de recherches topographiques sur la cit antique de Chalcis qu’il prvoyait de mener par la suite avec un autre chercheur (R. Stauffer, alors en service dans la Wehrmacht). Il dcida cependant de faire une exception et d’diter en avant-premire une stle du muse (fig. 1), dcouverte auparavant en 1938 lors de travaux de constructions prs du cimetire de Ayios Ionnis3 (fig. 2) : on peut y lire ce qu’il est depuis convenu d’appeler « l’artalogie » de Karpocrate Chalcis, un hymne rdig la premire personne et prcd d’une ddicace plusieurs divinits gyptiennes, dont le dieu Karpocrate (qui en est aussi le narrateur). Dans ce texte, le dieu se prsente ses fidles, en numrant ses qualits et ses pouvoirs, ainsi que les bienfaits qu’il a apports l’humanit. Cette inscription posait, comme les autres, des questions lies la topographie de l’antique Chalcis, notamment celle de la localisation du sanctuaire des dieux gyptiens, mais Harder estima que l’intrÞt de son texte tait tel qu’il fallait le traiter sans attendre d’un point de vue purement philologique.4 1 2 3
4
La prsente tude doit beaucoup aux remarques et indications de Ph. Borgeaud, L. Bricault, S. Fachard, A. Kolde, J. Leclant, M. Malaise, R. Turcan, P. Schubert et Y. Volokhine. Qu’ils soient ici remercis pour toute l’aide qu’ils m’ont apporte. R. Harder, Karpokrates von Chalkis und die memphitische Isispropaganda (Abhandlungen der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften = APAW 1943, no. 14), Berlin, 1944, Vorbemerkung, p. 2. Pour une localisation plus prcise du lieu de la trouvaille, cf. S. C. Bakhuizen, Studies in Topography of Chalcis on Euboea, Leiden, 1985, p. 77, fig. 49, p. 80 et surtout p. 89. R. Harder nous dit que la stle en tait son troisime remploi (Karpokrates, p. 7 : « (Stele) rechts zu neuer (dritter) Verwendung gleichmssig abgehauen »). Pourtant, R. Harder laisse entendre que l’histoire de cette stle mriterait d’Þtre claircie : « Der spteren Publikation behalte ich nicht nur die topographischen Dinge vor, sondern auch das, was mit dem Stein als Monument und seiner verwickelten Geschichte zusammen hngt. » (Harder, Karpokrates, p. 2).
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Fig. 1 : Stle du muse de Chalcis (in : R. Harder, Karpokrates von Chalkis und die memphitische Isispropaganda (APAW 1943), Berlin 1944, p. 9, abb. 1)
Le rapport complet de fouille ne vit cependant jamais le jour.5 L’article de R. Harder dans les APAW reste donc le seul prsenter une photographie de la stle qui nous intresse, dont l’histoire reste encore un vrai mystre. Cette inscription mrite cependant qu’on s’y intresse nouveau et qu’on tablisse un tat de la question, la lumire des avances effectues dans le domaine de l’tude des cultes isiaques dans le monde mditerranen. Seul vestige d’un culte isiaque en Eube postrieur au 1er s. av. J.-C. (aprs quatre sicles de silence complet dans les sources), l’hymne qu’on y lit est le plus tardif au sein du corpus des « artalogies » isiaques.6 Que peut donc nous apprendre cet artefact sur le culte et la thologie des divinits isiaques Chalcis pendant la fin de l’Empire romain ? La stle tant bien dcrite par R. Harder, on rappellera simplement ici qu’il s’agit d’une grande plaque de marbre bleu la surface brche (94,5 x 141,5 x 5
6
Pour une brve description des publications de Harder, cf. notamment P. Chantraine, Revue de Philologie XXXV (1961), pp. 328 – 9 et O. Regenbogen, Gnomon XXXIII (1961), pp. 433 – 39, l’occasion de la parution d’un volume de Kleine Schriften de R. Harder en 1960 (lequel ne contient aucun article ayant trait l’pigraphie chalcidienne). Cf. Grandjean, Isis, pp. 8 – 9 pour une liste de ces « artalogies »: stle mentionne chez Diodore de Sicile I, 27, 3, et inscriptions de Marone (RICIS 114/0202), Andros (IG XII, 5, 739), Kym (RICIS 302/0204), Thessalonique (RICIS 113/0545), et Ios (RICIS 202/1101).
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Fig. 2 : Plan de la ville de Chalcis et emplacement (flche) o la stle a t dcouverte (in : S. C. Bakhuizen, Studies in Topography of Chalcis on Euboea, Leiden, 1985, p. 77, fig. 49)
22 cm), dont le bord droit prsente une brisure rgulire (fig. 1).7 Elle est toujours visible dans la cour du Muse archologique de Chalcis (fig. 3). R. Harder suppose que la stle, l’origine, devait mesurer environ 2 m de large, mais les lments qui l’ont conduit mettre cette hypothse nous sont malheureusement inconnus. Selon son analyse, si la marge droite de la stle tait semblable la marge gauche – c’est--dire si le texte de notre inscription tait centr au milieu de la stle –, on peut supposer que 30 40 lettres manquent droite dans chaque ligne.8 Elle est date de la fin du 3me s. ou du dbut du 4me s. apr. J.-C.9
7 8
9
Harder, Karpokrates, p. 7 : « Mchtige Platte aus blulichem Marmor, 94,5 x 141,5 x 22 cm. Oben, links und unten Rand erhalten ; rechts zu neuer (dritter) Verwendung gleichmssig abgehauen. Oberflche rissig. » R. Harder ne donne aucun dtail sur les informations qui lui permettent de parvenir cette conclusion (Karpokrates, p. 7) : « Vielleicht betrug die ursprngliche Breite des Steins, wie es seine Geschichte nahelegt, rund 2 m ; war rechts derselbe Rand wie links, so wrden rechts etwa 30 – 40 Buchstaben je Zeile fehlen ». Robert, Bulletin, p. 345.
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Fig. 3 : Stle du muse de Chalcis aujourd’hui (Photographie de S. Fachard, secrtaire scientifique de l’cole suisse d’archologie en Grce)
Un problme de dfinition. Hymne ou artalogie ? L’hymne de Chalcis a t class par Y. Grandjean (et par d’autres avant lui) dans le corpus des textes apparents ce qu’on appelle aujourd’hui les « artalogies » isiaques10 : l’artalogie d’Ios, la plus rcente, date du 3me s. apr. J.-C., tandis que les autres datent du 2me–1er s. av. J.-C. (Marone ; artalogie rapporte par Diodore), du 1er s. av.–1er s. apr. J.-C. (artalogie en hexamtres d’Andros ; Kym) ou enfin du 1er–2me s. apr. J.-C. (Thessalonique).11 Les autres textes apparents, hymnes isiaques et « artalogies » d’autres divinits gyptiennes, sont dats au plus tard du 3me s. apr. J.-C. L’hymne de Chalcis est clairement le plus tardif de l’ensemble de ces textes. Ce point nous amne, par un chemin dtourn, la question de la classification du texte de la stle de Chalcis. Sans se lancer dans une discussion
10 Grandjean, Isis, p. 10 – 11. 11 Cf. Grandjean, Isis, pp. 8 – 9. Datations selon Bricault, Atlas.
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sur la dfinition exacte de ce que la recherche moderne a appel artalogie 12, il faut peut-Þtre prciser qu’on a certainement affaire dans le cas du texte de Chalcis un instrument de propagande cultuelle inspir du modle plus ancien des « artalogies » isiaques. Il me semble tout de mÞme prfrable d’en rester l’appellation d’hymne. 13 En allemand, la dnomination la plus approprie reste le terme de Selbstprdikation, ou Selbstoffenbarung (en anglais Self-Revelation), qui met l’accent sur le discours de la divinit la premire personne plut t que sur les areta qu’elle aurait accomplies. Texte et traduction 14 Les diffrentes ditions de l’inscription de Chalcis sont toutes bases sur l’editio princeps de R. Harder : L. Vidman (SIRIS, 1969), M. Totti (Texte, 1985) et L. Bricault (RICIS, 2005) ont propos, dans leurs recueils de textes concernant les cultes isiaques, une relecture de l’inscription tablie en 1944. La prsente dition s’appuie sur ces travaux, et sur la lecture du texte qu’il est possible de faire partir de la photographie de R. Harder. En ce qui concerne les commentaires principaux, A.-J. Festugire (1949) et A. D. Nock (1949) se sont oppos dans leurs articles l’ide de l’origine gyptienne des artalogies isiaques, mais sans reprendre l’dition de l’inscription de Chalcis (A. D. Nock en propose seulement une traduction anglaise). On 12 Le problme porte sur ce qu’on entend exactement par le terme arete¯´ : « miracle », et en particulier « gurison miraculeuse » (cf. V. Longo, Aretalogie nel monde greco, Genova, 1969, pp. 11 – 27 et R. Becker, « Mystery and Religion, Aretalogy and the Ancient Novel », dans : G. Schmeling (d.), The Novel in the Ancient World (= Mnemosyne, Suppl. 159), Leiden-New York-Kçln, 1996, pp. 131 – 150, surtout p. 137), ou plus largement « action glorieuse » (cf. Grandjean, Isis, p. 5) ? L’hymne de Chalcis ne rentre dans la catgorie des artalogies que selon la deuxime acception. 13 C’est l’option retenue par J. Leclant, « Aegyptiaca et milieux isiaques. Recherches sur la diffusion du matriel et des ides gyptiennes », ANRW II 17.3 (1984), p. 1700 et par Malaise, « Harpocrate », p. 405. 14 Rsum des ditions, traductions et commentaires : L. Bricault, RICIS, vol. 1, p. 55, no 104/0206 (dition, traduction et commentaire) A. J. Festugire, « A propos des artalogies d’Isis », tudes de religion grecque et hellnistique, 1972, p. 138 – 163 = Harvard Theological Review XLII (1949), pp. 209 – 234 (commentaire). R. Harder, Karpokrates (dition et commentaire). A. D. Nock, Gnomon (commentaire et traduction, reprise dans F. C. Grant, Hellenistic Religions. The Age of Syncretism, New York, 1953, pp. 133 – 134). J. et L. Robert, Bulletin (commentaire). M. Totti, Texte, no. 6, pp. 15 – 16 (dition). L. Vidman, SIRIS, no. 88, pp. 40 – 41 (dition et commentaire).
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trouvera enfin une revue commente en dtails de J. et L. Robert dans le Bulletin pigraphique de 1946 – 1947. Jaqpojq²t,, Saq²pidi, !joa?r t/r ]sidor, ise¸qidi 1pgjº\, 9st¸ô jouqotqº[v\ - 2 Jaqpojq²tgr eQli 1c¾, Saq²pidir ja· ]sidor rºr, D¶lgtqor ja· Jºqgr ja· Diom¼sou ja· Y²w[wou - 3 ~pmou ja· IwoOr !dekvºr7 p÷r jaiqºr eQli 1c¾, p²mtym pqolgh¶r, ¢q_m erqet¶r7 !qw[ - 4 jatesjeuas²lgm 1c¾7 %duta ja· !m²jtoqa heo?r pq_tor eQqcas²lgm7 l´tqa ja· x¶vo[ur - 5 1pemºgsa7 se?stqom ]sidi jatesjeu²salgm 1c¾7 f]ym pamtodap_m h¶qar 1pemºgsa 1c[¾ - 6 !e· pºkesim %qwomtar 1c¾ jatestgs²lgm7 to?r !matqevol´moir paid¸oir 1v´stgja7 vlmour j[a· - 7 woqo»r !mdq_m ja· cumaij_m let± Lous_m 5stgsa 1c¾7 oUmou ja· vdator jq÷sim exqom7 aqk_m ja· suq¸c[cym - 8 to?r dij²fousim !e· Vma lgd³m %dijom c¸cmgtai7 b²wwoir ja· b²wwair !e· sumhias¾tgr eQl¸7 ty[ - 9 !m/ja7 p÷sam 1j²hgqa c/m7 aqesid¸aitor, hakassod¸aitor, potalod¸aitor7 hqomºlamtir, !stqºlamtir, e[ - 10 jeqatºloqvor, )cue¼r, Bassaqe¼r, )jqa?or, Ymdojtºmor, huqsojkºmor, )ss¼qior jumac´tgr, ameiqºvoitor, rpmod[ºtgr - 11 !podewºlemor, to?r !d¸jyr 1q_sim meles_m7 1mace?r leis_7 p÷sam vaqlaje¸am Qatqo?r eQr sytgq¸am [ - 12 Teit²mior 9pida¼qior7 vac. Wa?qe, W²kji, cem´teiqa elμ ja· tqov´. vac. Kicuq¸r
1
2 Y²w[wou - - : Y²w[wou p²qedqor uel s¼mmaor Robert 3 p²mtym pqolghμr, ¢q_m erqet¶r7 !qw[ - - Totti : p²mtym pqolghμr ¦qym (sic), erqetμr !qw[/r ja· t´kour Robert ; p²mtym pqolghμr ¦qym (sic), erqetμr !qw[ - Harder, Vidman 4 x¶vo[ur - - : x¶vo[ur ewqom Totti ; x¶vo[ur 5deina Harder, Robert 8 ty[ - - : t_[m j¾lym Harder 9 e[ - - : 1[mupmiºlamtir Robert, Festugire 10 rpmod[ºtgr - - : rpmod[ºtgr - - - - Rjes¸ar Totti 11 eQr sytgq¸am [- - : eQr sytgqRam [t_m !mthq¾pym Harder ; eQr sytgq¸am [t_m !mhq¾pym 1pemºgsa Totti 13 Kicuq¸r = Kic¼qior Robert
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(1) Karpocrate, Sarapis, aux oreilles d’Isis, Osiris qui exauce (les prires), Hestia la nourrice d’enfants, […]. (2) Je suis Karpocrate, fils de Sarapis et d’Isis, le […pardre ?] de Dmter, de Cor, de Dionysos, de Iacchos, […], (3) le frre d’Hypnos et d’cho. Je suis toute saison, celui qui se proccupe de toutes choses, l’inventeur des priodes de l’anne […]. (4) C’est moi qui ai labor […les fonctions et les magistratures ?]. Je suis le premier avoir construit des sanctuaires et des temples pour les dieux. […j’ai invent ?] les mesures et les dcrets […]. (5) J’ai conÅu […]. C’est moi qui ai labor le sistre d’Isis. C’est moi qui ai conÅu la chasse de toutes les sortes d’animaux vivants […]. (6) J’ai toujours appoint les dirigeants pour les cits. Je m’occupe de l’ducation des enfants. […] les hymnes […]. (7) C’est moi qui ai tabli les chœurs d’hommes et de femmes avec l’aide des Muses. J’ai invent le mlange du vin et de l’eau. […] des hautbois et des syrinx. (8) Je suis toujours prsent auprs de ceux qui jugent pour qu’aucune injustice n’advienne jamais. Je suis toujours le partenaire de thiase des Bacchants et des Bacchantes. […] (9) J’ai permis […]. J’ai purifi la terre tout entire. (Je suis) habitant des montagnes, habitant des mers et habitant des fleuves, devin par le tr ne, devin par les astres, [devin par les rÞves ?…] (10) la forme cornue ( la forme de corne ?), Agyeus, Bassareus, (celui qui vit) sur les hauteurs, tueur d’Indiens, secoueur de thyrse, chasseur assyrien, celui qui r de dans les rÞves et qui dispense le sommeil […], (11) (celui) qui approuve […], qui s’irrite envers ceux qui ne sont pas justes dans leurs amours. Je hais ceux qui sont sous le coup d’une maldiction. […] chaque remde aux mdecins pour la sauvegarde [des hommes ?…]. (12) (Je suis) Titanien, pidaurien. Salut, Chalcis, ma gnitrice et ma nourrice ! Ligyris. Datation et contexte Le contexte archologique de cette stle nous tant inconnu, les seuls lments notre disposition pour dfinir la datation de cet hymne sont la palographie et les ventuels indices que peut nous livrer le texte lui-mÞme (surtout sa langue et la manire dont il a t compos). Harder, par une tude minutieuse de la graphie de la stle, avait conclu qu’elle devait dater de la deuxime moiti du 3me s. apr. J.-C., mais J. et L. Robert, dans leur compte-rendu du Bulletin pigraphique, penchaient mÞme pour la fin du 3me s. – dbut du 4me s. apr. J.C.15 Cette datation tardive surprend et pose un rel problme par rapport l’histoire des cultes isiaques en Eube. Elle n’a jamais t remise en cause depuis, 15 Robert, Bulletin, p. 345.
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mais il vaut la peine de passer rapidement en revue diffrents lments qui, outre l’analyse de l’criture du lapicide, peuvent aider mieux situer chronologiquement ce document. Le nom « Karpocrate » pour dsigner le dieu Harpocrate, par exemple, est relativement rare et n’appara t que dans des documents datant du 2me s. apr. J.C. ou plus tard. De plus, la ddicace au dbut de l’hymne est, entre autres, adresse Osiris, alors que c’est en gnral Sarapis qui le remplace dans la terminologie grco-romaine en tant qu’poux d’Isis et pre d’Harpocrate (et souvent d’Anubis), l’exception notable des artalogies isiaques. En fait, selon Y. Grandjean, Osiris semble occuper une place plus importante dans les inscriptions et les textes se rclamant d’une tradition gyptienne plus « authentique ».16 En outre, la graphie utilise pour le nom de Sarapis dans ce texte mrite qu’on s’y attarde : on l’crit Sarapis, Saq²pir17, dans ses premires attestations en Grce, mais les textes montrent trs vite, entre le 2me et le 1er s. av. J.-C., une hsitation entre cette orthographe et Serapis, Seq²pir.18 P. Bruneau a fait remarquer que l’apparition en Eube de la forme en « e » semble s’Þtre aussit t heurte un courant « conservateur » tentant de maintenir l’orthographe ancienne Sarapis rtrie ainsi qu’ Chalcis entre la fin du 2me et le dbut du 1er s. av. J.-C.19 On peut considrer l’utilisation de l’orthographe Sarapis dans l’hymne de Chalcis comme le rsultat d’une tradition « archa sante » propre l’Eube, mais il ne s’agit pas d’un critre de datation dterminant en soi.20 16 Cf. Grandjean, Isis, p. 54 (toutes les artalogies isiaques, cf. infra, mentionnent le couple Isis-Osiris la place d’Isis-Sarapis, sauf celle de Marone), Vidman, Isis und Sarapis, p. 13 (Plutarque a crit son trait sur Isis et Osiris plut t que sur Isis et Sarapis), et Malaise, Conditions, p. 207. 17 RICIS 101/0201 et 101/0202. 18 Bruneau, rtrie, pp. 100 – 101 et L. Threatte, The Grammar of Attic Inscriptions. Vol. I : Phonology, Berlin-New York, 1980, pp. 122 – 125 : d’aprs L. Threatte, p. 122, ce changement n’est pas d une hsitation dans la transcription d’une voyelle trangre, mais plut t une confusion entre le « a » et le « e » cause d’une dissimilation. 19 Bruneau, rtrie, p. 79, d’aprs trois cas de corrections de la forme Serapis en Sarapis dans des inscriptions eubennes du 2me s. av. J.-C., l’une de Chalcis (RICIS 104/0202 = SIRIS 85), les deux autre d’rtrie (RICIS 104/0108 = SIRIS 79 et RICIS 104/0114 = SIRIS 83a). La mÞme remarque s’applique l’orthographe plus rcente Eisis, EUsir corrige en Isis, ]sir au 2me av. J.-C. dans les inscriptions RICIS 104/0108 et 104/0202 (= SIRIS 79 et 85) : cf. Bruneau, rtrie, p. 79 (l’hymne de Chalcis porte Isis). 20 Selon L. Threatte, The Grammar of Attic Inscriptions. Vol. I : Phonology, Berlin-New York, 1980, p. 122 et Grandjean, Isis, p. 54, n. 106, la forme Sarapis n’est quasiment plus utilise l’poque romaine. Mais un relev dans le RICIS des diffrentes orthographes utilises en Grce continentale montre au contraire que, si les formes Eisis et Serapis n’apparaissent effectivement pas avant le 2me s. av. J.-C. (sauf rares exceptions, cf. p. ex. RICIS 102/1301 ou 112/0101), les orthographes Isis et Sarapis continuent quant elles Þtre utilises tout au long de l’poque impriale.
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Concernant une autre question de langue, il faut aussi attirer l’attention sur la prsence d’une particularit orthographique : l’pithte kunagte¯s la l. 10 (jumac´tgr, « chasseur ») devrait s’crire jumgc´tgr, ou ventuellement jumac´tar en dialecte dorien. La forme utilise dans notre texte n’est apparemment atteste nulle part ailleurs. Peut-on conclure une faute d’orthographe ? L’auteur commet-il une erreur en pensant que le mot jum-ac´tgr vient de %cy plut t que de Ac´olai ? On a dj dit que l’objet de notre tude constituait l’unique document attestant d’une continuit du culte isiaque en Eube sous l’Empire. L’implantation de sanctuaires de divinits gyptiennes est en effet bien atteste Chalcis et surtout rtrie pendant la priode hellnistique, ds le 3me s. av. J.-C.21, avec notamment la prsence d’Harpocrate dans une ddicace du 1er s. av. J.-C. Mais leur activit semble par contre diminuer drastiquement par la suite (apparemment au moment du dclin conomique de l’Eube) : on ne conna t dans l’ le aucun document relatif au culte des dieux gyptiens qui soit postrieur au 1er s. av. J.-C.22 A Chalcis, on suppose qu’un sanctuaire ddi aux divinits gyptiennes devait exister, comme celui dcouvert rtrie, mais le seul indice en faveur de son existence se limite une ddicace Isis, Sarapis, Anubis et Apis « en temnei », dans leur sanctuaire, au 2me s. av. J.-C.23 Lors de fouilles menes par l’archologue Papavasiliou la fin du XIXme sicle, on aurait identifi les ruines de ce suppos Isieion l’est de la cit, au pied des collines. Mais cette hypothse est aujourd’hui mise en doute, faute de preuves.24 Seul l’hymne de Karpocrate tmoignerait, si sa datation est exacte, de la prsence d’un culte isiaque Chalcis pendant la priode romaine. Enfin, on ne conna t que trs peu de documents permettant de reconstruire une image claire de l’activit isiaque dans le reste de l’Eube et dans les rgions avoisinantes de la Grce centrale cette poque : part Chrone (Botie), o un culte d’Isis est attest au milieu du 3me s. apr. J.-C.25, c’est surtout Athnes qui, au-del du 2me s. apr. J.-C.,
21 Premires attestations de la prsence d’un sanctuaire d’Isis au dbut du 3me s. av. J.-C. rtrie. L’implantation d’un culte gyptien semble se faire un peu plus tard Chalcis, dont le plus ancien document isiaque date du 2me s. av. J.-C. Cf. Dunand, Isis en Grce, p. 21 (rtrie) et 28 (Chalcis). 22 Cf. Dunand, Isis en Grce, pp. 153 – 155 ; Bruneau, rtrie, pp. 131 – 134 et Bricault, Atlas, p. 10. P. Bruneau estime que l’Isieion d’rtrie n’est plus utilis ds l’poque impriale. 23 RICIS 104/0201, l. 2 ; SIRIS 84. 24 Cf. le commentaire propos de la rgion IV de Chalcis (cf. fig. 2) par S. C. Bakhuizen, Studies in Topography of Chalcis on Euboea, Leiden, 1985, p. 77, fig. 49. Cf. ibid., p. 114, n. 179 : « It is uncertain whether the remains observed by Papavasiliou in area IV, Athena VI (1894), p. 176, cf. PAAH 1900, p. 62, represent the Iseion. » 25 RICIS 105/0895 : inscription la gloire de l’Isis de Taposiris.
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livre quelques preuves de la prsence de cultes isiaques en Grce centrale.26 Plus au nord, Harpocrate est par ailleurs mentionn au 3me s. apr. J.-C. Larissa (Thessalie), Philippes (Macdoine) et Marone (Thrace).27 La question des origines. Composition de l’hymne Dans quelle mesure l’objet de notre tude appartient-il vraiment au mÞme courant que les artalogies isiaques ? La discussion principale sur laquelle l’opinion des spcialistes diverge depuis longtemps reste surtout celle de l’origine gyptienne ou grecque de ce genre de texte. A propos des artalogies d’Isis, Th. M. Dousa et J. F. Quack28 ont dernirement procd un salutaire tat de la question et tabli de manire convaincante que ces textes taient au moins en partie d’origine gyptienne, en dmontrant qu’elles exprimaient certaines conceptions qui n’taient pas grecques, et que l’on pouvait mÞme essayer d’en reconstruire une version originale dmotique partir des formulations grecques utilises. Mais il faut tudier cette question de plus prs avant de se prononcer sur le cas de l’hymne de Chalcis : Harder voyait la composition de notre hymne, qu’il qualifiait de « confuse », comme la consquence d’une traduction directe depuis la langue gyptienne29 ; mais il ne prenait pas en compte le fait qu’il nous manque les fins de ligne. Nock rfutait cette thse en voquant un style « plein de nologismes et rappelant par de nombreux aspects Nonnos de Panopolis ou les hymnes orphiques ».30 La prsence de huit hapax legomena 31 dans cet hymne permet en effet de penser que son auteur l’a compos en grec, en inventant pour l’occasion des faÅons nouvelles et recherches de dcrire le dieu qu’il voulait honorer. On pourrait cependant retourner cet argument et suivre le raisonnement inverse, en interprtant cette propension de l’auteur forger de nouveaux 26 Cf. Dunand, Isis en Grce, pp. 131 – 155 et 167 – 178 pour un examen des cultes isiaques en Grce et surtout RICIS 101/0216 pour la mention Athnes d’un prÞtre d’Harpocrate au 3me s. apr. J.-C. 27 RICIS 112/0506 (Larissa), RICIS 113/1002 et 1003 (Philippes) et RICIS 114/0204 et 0206 (Marone, fin du 2me – dbut du 3me s.). Cf. Malaise, « Harpocrate », pp. 413 – 419 pour une brve analyse du culte d’Harpocrate dans le bassin mditerranen d’aprs les documents du RICIS. 28 Th. M. Dousa, «Imagining Isis : on Some Continuities and Discontinuities in the Image of Isis in Greek Hymns and Demotic Texts», in K. Ryholt (d.), Acts of the Seventh International Conference of Demotic Studies. Copenhagen, 23 – 27 August 1999 (CNI Publications 27), Copenhagen, 2002, pp. 149 – 184 ; Quack, «Ich bin Isis». 29 Harder, Karpokrates, p. 18. 30 Nock, Gnomon, pp. 221 – 222. 31 L. 9 oresidaitos, thalassodaitos, potamodaitos, ainsi que thron mantis ; l. 10 kerat morphos, Indokt nos, thursokl nos et oneir phoitos.
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termes en grec comme une volont de traduire au plus prs le vocabulaire d’un document original gyptien. C’est le processus que suit l’auteur de la version grecque de la lgende de Tefnout quand il traduit « singe-chacal » en inventant le terme lycolynx (kujºkucn).32 Karpocrate se dcrit en utilisant des conceptions parfois typiquement hellniques, en reprenant entre autres le r le de divinit civilisatrice habituellement rserv Dmter et Dionysos.33 Ainsi, jusqu’au milieu de la l. 3, le compositeur de l’hymne prsente une courte gnalogie du dieu, prcisant ses relations avec diffrentes divinits (Sarapis et Isis, puis Dmter, Cor, Dionysos, Iacchos, Hypnos et cho). La fin de la l. 3, « Je suis toute saison, celui qui se proccupe (prome¯the¯´s) de toutes choses, l’inventeur des priodes de l’anne (ho¯ro¯ˆn) », constitue une sorte de dclaration prliminaire du dieu dclinant son identit, qui prsuppose, pour qu’on la comprenne dans toute sa subtilit, une connaissance de son double nom d’origine gyptienne, Karpocrate/Horus, ma tre des rcoltes et des saisons (ho¯ro¯ˆn, cf. infra propos de Karpocrate/Horus). Il est possible qu’il s’agisse aussi d’une allusion Promthe (cf. l’adjectif prome¯the¯´s) et au concept du pro¯ˆtos eurete¯´s, abondamment illustr dans la suite : l’hymne encha ne en effet avec un inventaire des innovations dont Karpocrate se rclame dans le domaine de la civilisation (inventions cultuelles, lgislatives, musicales, agricoles, etc.), groupes par deux pour certaines34, mais dont les thmes se succdent d’une manire quelque peu chaotique. L’numration change de rythme au milieu de la l. 9 pour laisser la place une rapide succession d’pithtes plus ou moins isoles, qui affinent la description de Karpocrate en prcisant ses pouvoirs et ses domaines de comptence. L’auteur semble avoir cherch des adjectifs rares ou originaux, n’hsitant pas les crer lui-mÞme dans de nombreux cas (les hapax legomena mentionns plus haut) , ou les « emprunter » d’autres dieux (cf. la plupart des pithtes de la l. 10). L’adresse finale de l’hymne, « Salut Chalcis, ma gnitrice et ma nourrice ! », confirme qu’il a t grav, sinon compos, dans la cit eubenne. R. Harder tait d’avis que cette salutation faisait de Karpocrate un dieu local, « citoyen » de la ville de Chalcis. L’auteur chercherait ainsi accentuer le particularisme local de son dieu par rapport aux autres divinits gyptiennes : c’est l’gypte qu’Isis s’adresse par une formule semblable dans trois artalogies, rappelant ainsi qu’elle 32 Cf. S. West, «The Greek Version of the Legend of Tefnut», JEA 55 (1969), pp. 161 – 183. 33 Les pithtes utilises (surtout les hapax mentionns) prsentent de nombreuses ressemblances avec celles utilises dans les hymnes orphiques, comme on le verra plus bas (p. 212 et suivantes). 34 Le dieu a invent « les fonctions et les magistratures » (l. 3, peut-Þtre arch[e¯ˆs kai tlous]) ; « les sanctuaires et les temples » et « les mesures et les dcrets » (l. 4) ; « les hautbois et les syrinx » (l. 7).
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est ne ou qu’elle rside en gypte.35 Cette interprtation s’accorderait bien avec la datation tardive de notre hymne. Mais on pourrait aussi comprendre que c’est ici le compositeur de l’hymne qui s’adresse sa cit natale, comme la sparation observe par le lapicide entre la fin de l’hymne et le dbut de l’adresse Chalcis semble le confirmer.36 On ne sait par ailleurs rien de ce Ligyris 37, dont le nom peut dsigner l’auteur de l’hymne ou son ddicant.38 L’auteur devait toutefois Þtre un lettr qui avait une connaissance approfondie la fois de la mythologie grecque et des traditions isiaques (c’est--dire des conceptions gyptiennes passes au filtre de l’hellnisme). S’il n’a pas directement consign son texte partir d’un original rdig en langue gyptienne39, de nombreux exemples qu’il donne des bienfaits apports l’humanit par le jeune dieu semblent Þtre inspirs par les formules des artalogies isiaques.40 35 Cf. l’artalogie de Diodore (I, 27, 4 : « Salut ! Salut ! gypte qui m’a nourrie ! »), celle de Marone (l. 34 – 35: « l’gypte t’a plu comme lieu de sjour ») et celle de Kym (l. 57 : « Salut toi, gypte qui m’a nourrie »). 36 Je remercie M. Malaise et J. Leclant qui m’ont suggr cette interprtation lors de la prsentation de mon expos au 3me Congrs International des tudes Isiaques de Leyde en mai 2005. 37 Aucune mention de ce nom dans les index de l’ensemble des SEG, pas plus que dans les volumes du Lexicon of Greek Personal Names de P. M. Fraser et E. Matthews (eds.), Oxford, 1987 – 2000. Harder, Karpokrates, p. 17, pensait que ce nom tait peut-Þtre driv de K¸cuqor ou de K¸cuqom, et mentionnait l’existence d’un Kicuq[¸]mor dans une autre inscription de Chalcis date du 3me s. apr. J.-C. (IG XII, 9, 1044, 2 ; lecture corrige dans IG XII Supp. p. 195). 38 Harder, Karpokrates, p. 17 et Robert, p. 344, pensaient avoir affaire au ddicant, Nock, Gnomon, p. 221 l’auteur. 39 C’est l’avis de Robert, Bulletin, pp. 554 – 555, ainsi que de Dunand, Isis en Grce, p. 154. 40 Ces passages ayant dj t analyss par Harder, on se contentera de les citer sans s’attarder dessus : l. 4 « Je suis le premier avoir construit des sanctuaires et des temples pour les dieux », fait cho aux artalogies isiaques de Kym, l. 23, et d’Ios, l. 20, o Isis a « montr comment honorer les statues des dieux », et celle d’Ios, l. 21, o elle a « fond les sanctuaires des dieux ». l. 6 « J’ai toujours appoint les dirigeants pour les cits. » montre Karpocrate comme garant d’un pouvoir politique autoris par les dieux, comme Isis dans Kym, l. 25, et Ios, l. 22, o elle annonce qu’elle a « dfait le pouvoir des tyrans ». l. 8 « Je suis toujours prsent auprs de ceux qui jugent pour qu’aucune injustice n’advienne jamais », comparer avec Kym l. 16 et Ios l. 13, o Isis a « rendu la justice plus puissante », ainsi que Kym, l. 28, et Ios, l. 24, o elle a « rendu la justice plus puissante que l’or et l’argent ». Cf. aussi l’aide judiciaire que Sarapis accorde ses prÞtres sur Dlos dans l’hymne de Maiistas (RICIS 202/0101 ; P. Roussel, Les cultes gyptiens Dlos du IIIme au Ier s. av. J.-C., Paris-Nancy, 1916, pp. 71 – 83, no. 1, l. 23 – 75). l. 9 « (je suis) habitant des montagnes, habitant des mers, habitant des fleuves », comparer avec l’hymne de Kym (l. 39), o Isis dit Þtre « la ma tresse des fleuves, des vents et des mers ».
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Harpocrate/Karpocrate : sens et attestations Caractristique remarquable de l’hymne de Chalcis, l’appellation « Karpocrate », est apparemment une interpretatio graeca du nom du jeune dieu Harpocrate, dont la consonance est grecque (terminaison en -crate) mais qui n’a aucune signification dans cette langue : en prenant le nom de Karpocrate, le dieu rvle instantanment son r le agraire, karpos signifiant « fruit » et par extension « fruit de la terre », « crale », « rcolte », etc. Karpocrate peut donc se traduire aux oreilles d’un Grec par « Ma tre des crales » ou « Seigneur de la rcolte ». Le mot karpos est en outre souvent utilis dans la construction d’pithtes pour dsigner des divinits ayant un r le agricole, en particulier Isis.41 Par ailleurs, cette invention n’est peut-Þtre pas la seule dformation porteuse de sens que les Grecs ont fait subir au nom d’Harpocrate. Une inscription d’poque impriale provenant de l’ le de Samos42 le nomme )kvojq²tgr, Alphocrate. S’il ne s’agit pas d’un simple passage d’une liquide une autre (transformation du q en k), R. Merkelbach pense que ce nom pourrait se traduire par « Seigneur du Pain », lphi tant un mot homrique, trs rare, pour dsigner le pain.43 Sans ncessairement aller chercher un lien aussi subtil, on relvera que de nombreux mots grecs sont construits sur la racine alphit-, qui fait rfrence l’orge ( lphita). L’hymne de Chalcis n’est ni la seule ni la premire attestation de cette forme particulire du nom d’Harpocrate. On en conna t d’autres dans quelques documents, dont deux en provenance d’gypte : le premier est une liste de comptes d’un temple d’Arsino du Fayoum date de 215 apr. J.-C.44, mentionnant une fÞte consacre Karpocrate. C’est sur ce papyrus qu’on a pu lire pour la premire fois ce nom de faÅon certaine.45 L’autre document est un autel du 3me s. apr. J.-C. provenant du Delta (peut-Þtre d’Alexandrie ?), ddi « Isis aux belles boucles, Amon cornu et Karpocrate qui se manifeste sous une double forme (Karpokr tou te diplo s edesi phainomnou) ». 46 Ce que le compositeur de la ddicace entendait par cette dfinition de Karpocrate reste obscur. Il se rfre 41 Cf. par exemple une pigramme de Philae datant du 2me s. apr. J.-C., donne dans A. et . Bernand, Inscriptions grecques de Philae, Paris, 1969, II, 166, adresse Isis karpotoko¯ˆi « mre des fruits ». Cf. aussi l’artalogie d’Isis chez Diodore de Sicile, I, 27, 10 – 11, qui prsente deux illustrations du thme maternit/fcondit : « Je suis celle qui, la premire, a invent les rcoltes pour les hommes » (Isis assimile Dmter), et juste aprs « Je suis la mre du roi Horus ». Passage similaire dans l’hymne de Kym, l. 11 – 12. 42 RICIS 204/1301 ; SIRIS, p. 133, no. 254. 43 Merkelbach, Isis-Sarapis, p. 88, § 153. 44 BGU II, 362, fragment VIII, 6. 45 Cf. la remarque fondamentale d’I. Lvy, REG 26 (1913), p. 262. 46 . Bernand, Inscriptions mtriques de l’gypte grco-romaine : recherches sur la posie pigrammatique des Grecs en gypte (Annales littraires de l’Universit de BesanÅon, vol. 98), Paris, 1969, pp. 408 – 413, no. 107.
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peut-Þtre certaines terres cuites qui figurent deux Harpocrates jumeaux47, voire un Harpocrate masculin avec une sœur jumelle48, que certains interprtent comme une forme enfantine d’Isis appele « Harpocratis », pardre d’Harpocrate.49 Ce pourrait Þtre ces formes jumelles que ferait allusion l’pithte de cette ddicace. Mais l’interprtation la plus logique serait de voir dans cette « double forme » celle de l’enfant (Harpocrate/Karpocrate) et de l’adulte (Horus)50 : nous reviendrons plus bas sur l’importance de cette pithte qui rapproche Karpocrate de Dionysos. En Grce, le seul document connu est l’artalogie fragmentaire d’Isis Ios51, date du 3me s. apr. J.-C., qui commence par une ddicace « I]si[is, Serap]is, Anubis, Ka[rpocrate ». Enfin, il est extrÞmement intressant de constater que les manuscrits du Isis et Osiris de Plutarque donnent la graphie de Karpocrate aux chapitres 65 (377 BC, tous les manuscrits sauf un)52 et 68 (378 B-C, presque tous les manuscrits).53 Les diteurs modernes, – pour des raisons de simplicit ? –, ont prfr corriger ce nom en Harpocrate en s’alignant sur la seule autre mention du jeune dieu par 47 P. Perdrizet, Les terres cuites grecques d’gypte de la collection Fouquet, Nancy–Paris–Strasbourg, 1921, (Introduction) p. XIX et XXI, ainsi que no. 86 ; F. Dunand, Religion populaire en gypte romaine (=EPRO 76), Leiden 1979, pl. CIV, nos. 320 et 321. 48 P. Perdrizet, op. cit., pl. XXII et XXV, par exemple. F. Dunand, op. cit., pl. CV, nos. 322 et 323. 49 Interprtation qui s’appuie sur un passage de la litanie d’Isis (P. Oxy. XI, 1380, l. 35 ; IIme s. apr. J.-C.) : Isis y est appele « Harpocratis des dieux » (te¯``n to¯ˆn theo¯ˆn Harpocr tin), ce qu’il est possible de comprendre comme une allusion ces terres cuites d’Harpocrate accompagn de sa « sœur ». Mais selon le commentaire de Grenfell et Hunt, p. 217, il faudrait plut t traduire cette pithte d’Isis par une expression telle que « la chrie des dieux », car il ne s’agit ici pas d’une vritable pardre d’Harpocrate (comme il peut en exister pour d’autres dieux, par exemple Amonet pour Amon) ; le fminin d’Harpocrate construit d’aprs un nom gyptien devrait davantage ressembler « Hartsheris » (Hr-t3˙ h-rdt, Her-ta-cheredet). Mais le nom Harpocratis peut aussi Þtre une cration purement grecque. Pour des images d’Harpocrates jumeaux, cf. encore V. Dasen, Jumeaux, jumelles dans l’Antiquit grecque et romaine, Zrich, 2005, p. 213 et fig. 147 – 149. 50 I. Lvy en corrigenda dans RHR 67 (1913), p. 319. Selon P. Roussel, Les cultes gyptiens Dlos du IIIme au Ier s. av. J.-C., Paris–Nancy, 1916, p. 278, n. 4, la forme adulte serait celle d’Horus/Apollon/Hracls, celle de l’enfant Harpocrate/ros/Apolloniskos/Hracliscos. 51 RICIS 202/1101 ; IG XII, 5, n. 14 avec addition p. 217 et la correction d’I. Lvy, REG 26 (1913), p. 262. 52 J. G. Griffiths, Plutarch’s De Iside et Osiride, Cambridge, 1970 : « jaqpojq²tgm Y, corr. edd. ex 358 W » ; W. Sieveking, Plutarchi Moralia, vol. II, Leipzig (Teubner), 1971, 65 (377 B-C) : « jaqpoj. Y corr. ex 358 e » ; C. Froidefond, Plutarque. Isis et Osiris, Paris (CUF), 1988 : « "qpojq²tgm L2 et edd. (ex 358 E) : jaqpojq²tgm codd. (etymologiae causa) ». 53 J. G. Griffiths, op. cit. : « jaqpojq²tgm Y (j1 punct. del. L2) » ; W. Sieveking, op. cit., 68 (378 B-C) : « jaqp. vaAeb » ; C. Froidefond, op. cit., « *qpojq²tgm edd. : jaqpojq²tgm codd. (j1 punct. del. L2) ».
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Plutarque, au chapitre 19 (358 D-E), alors mÞme qu’ils avaient connaissance des autres attestations de la forme Karpocrate.54 Il est difficile de dfinir avec exactitude si c’est Plutarque qui appelle intentionnellement le dieu de cette manire, nous permettant ainsi de faire remonter l’apparition de ce terme 120 apr. J.-C. au moins, ou si ce sont les copistes de son texte qui ont prfr le nom « Karpocrate » (ce qui serait moins probable, puisque cette orthographe se retrouve dans quasiment tous les manuscrits). Dans le premier passage, Plutarque donne un aperÅu de certains rites populaires en gypte : Ils prtendent expliquer ainsi pourquoi on dit qu’Isis, quand elle s’aperÅut qu’elle tait enceinte, s’attacha autour de la taille une amulette protectrice le sixime jour du mois de Phaophi, qu’elle accoucha, vers le solstice d’hiver, d’Harpocrate/Karpocrate, un enfant imparfait et prmatur comme le sont, la mÞme poque, les fleurs et les pousses venues avant leur saison, d’o, selon eux, l’offrande qu’on fait ce dieu des prmices des lentilles nouvelles et qu’on fÞte les relevailles d’Isis aprs l’quinoxe du printemps. 55
Mais il ne s’agit l, dans la vision de Plutarque, que de vulgaires interprtations inventes par le peuple. Plus loin, l’auteur explique ce que reprsente rellement Harpocrate/Karpocrate ses yeux : Quant Harpocrate/Karpocrate, il ne faut voir en lui ni un dieu avorton, ni un enfant encore balbutiant, ni non plus un dieu-lgume, mais celui qui surveille et dirige le discours thologique parmi les hommes, discours balbutiant, chtif et mal membr. 56
Plutarque admet en particulier dans le deuxime passage que le jeune dieu est perÅu par ses contemporains comme un dieu li aux graines et aux lgumes, en rappelant les rites qu’il a critiqu un peu plus haut : le nom de Karpocrate semble avoir t utilis intentionnellement dans ces deux passages thme « agricole » la place d’Harpocrate, preuve d’une certaine vivacit de la croyance en Harpocrate dieu du grain. On notera que l’unique autre mention 54 Commentaire de J. G. Griffiths propos du chapitre 65, op. cit., p. 530 : « The MSS give Carpocrates, not only here but also in p. 224, 19 (where L2 alone deletes the initial j) ». Griffiths renvoie ensuite l’tymologie populaire propose par Harder. Cf. aussi C. Froidefond propos du mÞme chapitre 65, op. cit., p. 310, n. 5 : « Les MSS. portent Jaqpojq²tgm, forme utilise parfois pour dsigner le dieu et qui sert d’argument pour voir en lui un dieu-graine (j²qpor), moins qu’elle ne dcoule de cette croyance mÞme. Cf. 378 BC ». 55 Plutarque, Isis et Osiris, 65 (377 B-C), trad. C. Froidefond : « di¹ ja· k´ceshai tμm _sim aQshol´mgm fti j¼ei peqi²xashai vukajt¶qiom 6jt, lgm¹r Rst²lemou Vayv¸, t¸jteshai d³ t¹m *qpojq²tgm peq· tqop±r weileqim±r !tek/ ja· meaq¹m 1m to?r pqoamhoOsi ja· pqobk²stamousi (di¹ ja· vaj_m aqt` vuol´mym !paqw±r 1piv´qousi), t±r d³ kowe¸our Bl´qar 2oqt²feim let± tμm 1aqimμm Qsgleq¸am ». 56 Plutarque, Isis et Osiris, 68 (378 B-C), trad. C. Froidefond : « T¹m d’ *qpojq²tgm oute he¹m !tek/ ja· m¶piom oute wedqºpym tim± molist´om, !kk± toO peq· he_m 1m !mhq¾poir kºcou meaqoO ja· !tekoOr ja· !diaqhq¾tou pqost²tgm ja· syvqomist¶m ».
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d’Harpocrate dans le trait (au chapitre 19, 358 D-E) est celle o Plutarque se contente de le dcrire comme le fils prmatur et faible d’Isis : son nom est ici orthographi sans kappa dans tous les manuscrits : D’une union posthume d’Osiris avec Isis naquit un enfant venu avant terme et faible des membres infrieurs, Harpocrate. 57
Malgr la raret des exemples de ce nom, on peut supposer que la transformation d’Harpocrate en Karpocrate date de l’poque romaine impriale, et que son emploi s’tait diffus aussi bien en gypte que dans le reste de la Mditerrane. L’utilisation de cette forme dans l’inscription de Chalcis signifie peut-Þtre que Karpocrate n’tait plus connu l’poque de notre texte que sous ce nom-l, ou simplement que l’auteur tait soucieux d’utiliser des concepts facilement comprhensibles pour les habitants de la cit eubenne. Le nom d’Harpocrate n’appara t jamais sous sa forme Karpocrate lorsqu’il est mentionn dans la littrature de langue latine, argument tendant prouver que cette orthographe n’est porteuse de sens qu’en grec. A part le nom thophore de l’alexandrin Carpocrate, fondateur de la secte « gnostique » du mÞme nom (2me s. apr. J.-C.)58, on ne conna t aucune autre attestation de la forme Karpocrate. Harpocrate « seigneur de la rcolte » en gypte et ses fÞtes Ainsi que le laissent entendre les explications de Plutarque, la conception d’Harpocrate/Karpocrate en tant que dieu de la fertilit et des moissons n’a pas t invente de toute pice par les Grecs. L’Horus enfant gyptien, Her-pachered (Hr-p3-h-rd)59, prsente dj un aspect en troite relation avec les rites ˙ la fertilit de la terre en gnral : c’est ainsi qu’il peut Þtre appel agraires et « Seigneur des Aliments » (nb k3w ou nb d-f3w) dans le temple de Kom Ombo, l’instar de nombreux autres dieux-fils au sein de leur triade.60 De rcentes recherches ont par ailleurs montr que le principal r le des dieux-enfants dans les rituels des temples de l’gypte grco-romaine est li l’approvisionnement 57 Plutarque, Isis et Osiris, 19 (358 D-E) : « Tμm d’ _sim 1n is¸qidor let± tμm tekeutμm succemol´mou teje?m Akitºlgmom ja· !shem/ to?r j²tyhem cu¸oir t¹m *qpojq²tgm ». 58 Cf. Clment d’Alexandrie, Stromates III, 2 ; Irne de Lyon, Contre les hrsies I, 25, 6. 59 Sur Horus l’Enfant, « ancÞtre » gyptien d’Harpocrate, cf. l’article « Harpokrates » de D. Meeks dans le L II (1977), coll. 1003 – 101 et S. Sandri, Har-pa-chered (Harpokrates). Die Genese eines gyptischen Gotteskindes (OLA 151), Leuven 2006. Pour une rflexion sur l’laboration de l’Harpocrate grco-romain, les bases sont poses par Malaise, « Harpocrate », pp. 401 – 431. 60 Cf. A. Gutbub, Les Textes fondamentaux de la thologie de Kom Ombo, BdE 47, Le Caire, 1973, pp. 186 – 191 (monographie 820) et 204 – 210 (monographie 766, qui dit d’Harpocrate : « de toutes bonnes choses, Seigneur des Aliments est appel son ma tre, il en donne sa guise, il en accorde selon son bon plaisir »).
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en nourriture, aussi bien liquide que solide.61 Dans ce domaine, Her-pa-chered emprunte pourtant beaucoup un dieu-enfant en particulier, Nper.62 Ce dernier est la personnification de la jeune pousse de bl, du grain de crale peine sorti de terre : assimil trs t t Osiris dans le concept de sa rsurrection vgtale annuelle, il est parfois appel « celui qui vit aprs Þtre mort ».63 Dans le Fayoum, la date de naissance de Nper est clbre en mÞme temps que la fÞte de la (premire) moisson le 1er Pachons64, premier mois de ˇsmw, la saison sche, qui commence en mars-avril dans le calendrier gyptien idal. Il finit par Þtre confondu avec Her-pa-chered l’poque grco-romaine, qui est ainsi parfois nomm « le grain-Nper, celui qui donne la vie au pays ».65 Les dates et le caractre des fÞtes clbres en l’honneur d’Harpocrate, les Harpocratia, dans l’gypte grco-romaine et dans l’Empire romain se rvlent par ailleurs Þtre d’excellents indices pour nous permettre de mieux saisir dans quelle mesure le jeune dieu est li aux domaines de l’agriculture et du renouvellement de la vgtation. Ces fÞtes en l’honneur du dieu devaient avoir lieu la moiti du mois de Tybi66, qui, dans le calendrier alexandrin, s’tend du 27 dcembre au 27 janvier, soit peu prs au dbut de l’hiver. Or, le mois de Tybi est traditionnellement celui des premires germinations, le premier mois de « l’hiver », en gyptien prt, c’est--dire « sortie », sous-entendu des graines hors de la terre. Plutarque, dans le premier extrait mentionn ci-dessus67, nous parlait galement de la naissance d’Harpocrate/Karpocrate « vers le solstice d’hiver », et cette occasion de « l’offrande qu’on (= les gyptiens) fait ce dieu des prmices des lentilles nouvelles ».
61 Cf. D. Budde, « Harpare-pa-chered. Ein gyptisches Gçtterkind im Theben der Sp tzeit und griechisch-rçmischen Epoche », dans Kindgçtter im gypten, p. 56, n. 164, et S. Sandri (OLA 151), p. 172 – 178. 62 Cf. L IV, 1982, s.v. « Neper », col. 454 et D. Meeks, « Gnies, anges et dmons en gypte », dans Sources Orientales VIII, Paris, 1971, pp. 31 – 33. 63 Textes des Sarcophages (trad. franÅaise de P. Barguet, Textes des sarcophages gyptiens, Paris, 1986), II, 95e. 64 Cf. D. Meeks dans Sources Orientales VIII (op. cit.), p. 71, n. 77 et F. Dunand, Le culte d’Isis dans le bassin oriental de la Mditerrane (EPRO 26, I), Leiden, 1973, p. 219. A la mÞme date, Kom Ombo, la naissance d’Harsisis, Horus fils d’Isis, est par ailleurs jumele avec celle de Nper. Cf. A. Gutbub, Textes fondamentaux de la thologie de Kom Ombo, BdE (IFAO) 47, Le Caire, 1973, p. 337. 65 Cf. D. Meeks, Sources Orientales VIII (op. cit.), p. 72, n. 91 pour les rfrences de Nper en enfant. 66 Cf. p. ex. Stud. Pal. XXII, 183 (papyrus de Socnopaiou Nsos dat de 138 apr. J.-C.) et P. Fayoum 117 (lettre date de 108 apr. J.-C.), ainsi que les remarques de F. PerpillouThomas, FÞtes d’gypte ptolmaque et romaine d’aprs la documentation papyrologique grecque (Studia Hellenistica 31), Louvain, 1993, p. 88, n. 103 et p. 89. 67 Plutarque, Isis et Osiris, 65 (377 B-C).
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D’autres documents laissent penser que l’on distribuait de la nourriture lors de ces fÞtes : un papyrus des archives de Znon68 mentionne le don de plusieurs rations de bl des enfants (ou des esclaves69) l’occasion des Harpocratia, tandis qu’une lettre de 108 apr. J.-C. provenant du Fayoum70 parle de nourriture offerte pour attirer les bonnes grces d’un personnage officiel pendant les mÞmes fÞtes. A-t-on affaire dans ces documents des changes de cadeaux, ou des offrandes de nourriture dans le cadre des Harpocratia ?71 Un tmoignage littraire tardif permet de souscrire cette dernire interprtation : la vision dnigrante d’une fÞte d’Harpocrate prs de Bouto dans le Delta par le chrtien piphane, vÞque de Salamine ds 367 apr. J.-C., dpeint les prÞtres du jeune dieu « se comportant de manire intolrable avec des bouillies (athe¯´ rais), farines et autres prparations triviales : aprs en avoir d’abord enduit leur extrieur en se plongeant le visage dans le chaudron effervescent et aprs avoir avec leur visage, soi-disant en vue d’un miracle, trompeusement surexcit les masses, ils procdent une distribution, en prenant sur leur visage qu’ils ont racl de la main, au bnfice de chacun de ceux qui l’ont demand, pour une participation ayant comme objectifs la sant et un remde aux souffrances ».72 M. Malaise, en tudiant ce passage dans le contexte des terres cuites reprsentant le type iconographique d’« Harpocrate au pot », avance l’hypothse que l’on distribuait lors de rituels lis Harpocrate une sorte de bouillie base de farine et de lentilles, l’athra, plat d’ordinaire rserv aux enfants.73
68 Sitomtrie date d’avant 256 av. J.-C. : PSI VII, 861, 9 – 11, revu et corrig par R. Scholl, Corpus der ptolemischen Sklaventexte, Stuttgart, 1990, I, 103. 69 Le terme paisn est traduit par « esclaves » par R. Scholl, op. cit., p. 439, mais il comprend ensuite « enfants », pa des, dans le commentaire p. 440. Les deux traductions sont possibles. 70 P. Fayoum 117, dj ci-dessus propos de la date prsume des Harpocratia. 71 Hypothses de F. Perpillou-Thomas, FÞtes d’gypte ptolmaque et romaine d’aprs la documentation papyrologique grecque (Studia Hellenistica 31), Louvain, 1993, p. 89 ; et de D. Frankfurter, Religion in Roman Egypt. Assimilation and Resistance, Princeton, 1998, p. 54, n. 48, qui pense des offrandes de nourriture et de douceurs faites aux enfants : une hypothse qui s’accorderait tout fait avec la description de Karpocrate, qui « s’occupe de l’ducation des enfants » (l. 6) ; cf. Malaise, « Harpocrate », p. 411. 72 piphane de Salamine, Contre les hrsies, III, 2, 11. Traduction et commentaire par M. Malaise, « Questions d’iconographie harpocratique », BdE (IFAO) 106/3 (1994), pp. 373 – 383. Sur le sujet, cf. aussi id., « Harpocrate au pot », dans U. Verhoeven et E. Graefe (ds), Religion und Philosophie im alten gypten. Festgabe fr Ph. Derchain (OLA 39), Leuven 1991, p. 219 – 232. 73 M. Malaise, op. cit. p. 376 et id., « Harpocrate », p. 410. Contra G. Nachtergael, « Terres cuites de l’poque grco-romaine », CdE LXX, 139 – 140 (1995), pp. 275 – 276. Cf. galement les remarques du CdE LXXII, 143 (1997), pp. 373 – 374.
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Karpocrate/Horus et Promthe : jeux de noms En plus de l’utilisation de la forme Karpocrate pour dsigner le dieu-enfant dans son r le agraire, l’auteur de l’hymne a recouru d’autres jeux de mots pour le dcrire et l’associer d’autres dieux : c’est en particulier le cas la l. 3, quand Karpocrate dit qu’il est « toute saison (kair s), celui qui se proccupe (prome¯the¯´s) de toutes choses, l’inventeur (eurete¯´s) des priodes de l’anne (ho¯ro¯ˆn) ». Le terme kair s a de nombreux sens, mais peut se traduire dans ce contexte par « saison », dont un autre synonyme est ho¯´ra 74, utilis dans la suite de la phrase. C’est l’emploi de ce dernier terme qui permet le jeu de mots avec le nom d’Horus, l’alter ego d’Harpocrate, dont le nom n’avait besoin d’aucune modification pour prendre sens aux yeux des Grecs : de nombreux auteurs avaient dj relev cette homophonie entre ho¯´ra et Ho¯ˆros et s’en taient servi pour l’une de ces pseudo-tymologies dont les Grecs taient si friands : « Horus, c’est le climat (ho¯´ra), qui, en temprant l’atmosphre, prserve et fait pousser toute chose » chez Plutarque75, et « Mais comme le soleil parcourt les saisons (ho¯´ra) du monde, qu’il fait les temps et les instants, on l’a pour cette raison nomm Horus » chez Porphyre.76 Tout se passe comme si le compositeur de l’hymne rappelait ici subtilement que son dieu possde dans ses deux noms la ma trise des rcoltes (Karpocrate) et des saisons (Horus).77 On retrouve galement ces deux domaines lis en des termes similaires dans un hymne orphique aux Saisons (Ho¯ˆrai), celles qui « amnent sans faute au bon moment (kairo¯ˆn) la croissance des beaux fruits (euk rpous) ».78 La suite de la dclaration de Karpocrate recle une autre allusion base sur une homophonie : quand l’auteur fait dire au jeune dieu qu’il est le prome¯the¯´s de toutes choses, n’a-t-il pas l’intention de faire un jeu de mot avec Promthe ?79 L’utilisation du terme suivant, eurete¯´s pourrait voquer au lecteur antique le concept du dieu pro¯ˆtos eurete¯´s, la divinit qui « dcouvre » ou enseigne pour la premire fois les arts et les techniques l’humanit, un thme prsent tout au 74 Selon le grammairien Moeris, 2me s. apr. J.-C., kair s tous est une expression grecque tardive qui remplace l’attique ho¯´ra tous pour dsigner les « saisons de l’anne » (Moeris, 424, d. J. Pierson, Leiden, 1759, d’aprs le LSJ s.v. « kair s », III. 2). Cf. aussi une citation de Porphyre : « Hlios, Horus, Osiris, seigneur Apollon fils de Zeus, distributeur des heures (ho¯ro¯ˆn) et des saisons (kairo¯ˆn) (…) », chez Eusbe de Csare, Prparation vanglique, III, 15, 3 (trad. . des Places, Sources Chrtiennes, Paris, 1979). 75 Plutarque, Isis et Osiris, 38 (366 A-B). Trad. C. Froidefond. 76 Porphyre chez Eusbe de Csare, Prparation vanglique, III, 11, 27. Trad. . des Places. 77 lien, Sur les particularits des animaux XI, 10, rappelle d’ailleurs qu’Horus est « la cause de la production des fruits et de l’abondance des rcoltes ». 78 Hymnes orphiques 43, 11. Trad. P. Charvet, La Prire, Paris, 1995. 79 Cf. Harder Karpokrates, p. 12 et Robert, Bulletin, p. 343, qui rappelle qu’Isis est la fille de Promthe dans Plutarque, Isis et Osiris, 37.
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long de notre hymne et des artalogies isiaques en gnral. Or, ce concept s’applique dans la pense grecque en premier lieu Promthe, celui qui « pense l’avance », qui « prvoit ».80 Il semble donc qu’on puisse voir dans le dbut du discours du jeune dieu une construction chiastique qui lie d’un c t la ma trise de Karpocrate/Horus sur le temps (ps kairs eimi ego¯´, p nto¯n prome¯the¯´s, ho¯ro¯ˆn eurete¯´s) et de l’autre le thme de Karpocrate assimil Promthe comme premier civilisateur (…, p nto¯n prome¯the¯´s, ho¯ro¯ˆn eurete¯´s).81 Dieux attentifs et oraculaires On a dit que l’emplacement o se dressait l’origine la stle de cet hymne nous est aujourd’hui inconnu : il pourrait s’agir de l’ancien sanctuaire isiaque de Chalcis, dont nous ne savons rien. En tudiant de prs plusieurs passages du texte, on peut cependant trouver quelques indices montrant que le cercle des divinits isiaques voqus ici tait particulirement proche de ses fidles. Cela peut voquer, en filigrane, un possible oracle que rendaient Chalcis Karpocrate et les dieux qui lui sont associs. La ddicace de l’hymne est adresse « aux oreilles d’Isis »82 et Osiris epe¯´koos. L’pithte epe¯´koos est bien connue dans le contexte des divinits isiaques, qu’on qualifie souvent ainsi pour mettre l’accent sur leur disponibilit et leur bienveillance envers leurs fidles.83 La mention des akoa s d’Isis pourrait dsigner un type de sanctuaire o des voix surnaturelles se font entendre, surtout 80 La notion remonte en tout cas Eschyle, Promthe encha n, 436 – 506, o c’est Promthe lui-mÞme qui a apport aux hommes tous les arts. Selon Isocrate, Pangyrique, 28, c’est plut t Dmter ( laquelle Isis emprunte de trs nombreux aspects dans les artalogies). Cf. aussi A. Henrichs, « The Sophists and Hellenistic Religion. Prodicus as the Spiritual Father of the Isis Aretalogies », dans : Actes du VIIe Congrs de la Fdration Internationale des associations d’tudes Classiques, Budapest 1984, t. I p. 339 – 353. 81 R. Harder a une vision diffrente du dcoupage de la phrase (je dois la mienne l’dition de M. Totti) : selon lui (Karpokrates, p. 12), pamt_m s’accorde avec ¦qym de la mÞme manire que P÷r avec jaiqºr. 82 Cf. O. Weinreich, « Heo· 1p¶jooi », AM 37 (1912), p. 50, propos d’une plaque votive offerte Isis, dcore de deux oreilles (cf. un semblable ex-voto adress aux theo s epe¯´koois dans la Pise antique, 2me s. apr. J.-C., chez M. Cristofani, « Un rilievo votivo da Pisa con dedica ai HEOI 9PGJOOI », Studi Classici e Orientali 19 – 20 (1970 – 71), pp. 343 – 346). 83 Cf. les index du RICIS et du SIRIS. L’article de base reste celui d’O. Weinreich cit supra, AM 37 (1912), p. 50 : il s’agirait selon lui d’une pithte d’origine proche-orientale. Cf. aussi Grandjean, Isis, p. 30, n. 33 (bibliographie dtaille), et W. Hornbostel, Sarapis (EPRO 32), Leiden, 1973, pp. 193 – 199 (Sarapis comme thes epe¯´koos).
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dans un contexte mdical.84 On pourrait imaginer que l’expression fasse allusion un sanctuaire o Isis rendait une sorte d’oracle et gurissait les malades en leur « parlant » dans leur sommeil. Mais la mention des oreilles d’Isis nous renvoie avant tout aux nombreux documents provenant d’gypte qui mettent l’accent sur l’coute dont font preuve les dieux face leurs suppliants. Cette proximit et cette attention sont exprimes par la prsence d’pithtes prcisant que le dieu est « celui qui coute » (sdm)85, ainsi que par la multiplication des reprsentations ¯ d’oreilles sur de nombreux documents pigraphiques.86 L’oreille divine en vient mÞme Þtre personnifie en gypte sous le nom de Mestasytmis, de l’gyptien msdr.wy-sdm « les oreilles qui coutent », dieu reprsent sous l’aspect d’une face ¯ ¯ aux oreilles accentues, sans yeux ni bouche, portant la barbe postiche et le nmes.87 Plus loin, Karpocrate est qualifi de « frre d’Hypnos et d’cho » (l. 3). Le rapport que le jeune dieu peut entretenir avec Hypnos est quelque peu clairci par les pithtes « celui qui r de dans les rÞves et qui dispense le sommeil » (oneir phoitos, hypnod te¯s, l. 10), qui font rfrence une fonction salvatrice de Karpocrate, exerce par le biais de gurisons obtenues dans des rÞves incubatoires comme pidaure. Mais c’est surtout l’existence d’une possible identification d’Hypnos avec le dieu-sphinx Tithos (l’gyptien Twtw) qui nous permet de mieux comprendre sa prsence au sein de la famille de Karpocrate. Divinit qui jouissait apparemment d’une grande ferveur populaire dans l’gypte grco-romaine cause de son caractre bienveillant88 et des rponses
84 C’est par exemple le cas pidaure dans une inscription d’poque impriale, IG 4, 955.10. 85 Cf. le relief cultuel de Kom Ombo, sur lequel un naos abritant une statuette de Mat reprsente de face est flanque de deux yeux oudjat et de deux oreilles appartenant une inscription disant « Seigneur des yeux oudjat, aux nombreuses oreilles, qui coute les prires de tout homme » (cf. A. Gutbub, « Kom Ombo et son relief cultuel », BSFE 101 (1984), pp. 21 – 48 et D. Devauchelle, « Un archtype de relief cultuel en gypte ancienne », BSFE 131 (1994), p. 51). 86 Cf. D. Devauchelle, op. cit. (BSFE 131), pp. 42 – 47 ; R. Schlichting, « Ohrenstelen », L IV, 1982, coll. 562 – 566 ; F. Kayser, « Oreilles et couronnes. A propos des cultes de Canope », BIFAO 91 (1991), pp. 207 – 211 ; RICIS 607/0101 (chapiteau de Lyon aujourd’hui perdu, adress aux Edias Isidis, les « oreilles d’Isis »). 87 G. Wagner, J. Quaegebeur, « Une ddicace grecque au dieu gyptien Mestasytmis de la part de son synode », BIFAO 73 (1973), pp. 41 – 60 et Y. Volokhine, La frontalit dans l’iconographie de l’gypte ancienne, Genve, 2000, pp. 100 – 101 (« Le dieu-visage »). 88 Cf. l’article «Tithoes», L VI, 1986, coll. 602 – 606. Cette qualit est illustre dans l’iconographie du dieu par sa face tourne vers le spectateur, qui montre sa capacit d’coute (de la mÞme manire que les oreilles d’Isis et le dieu Mestasytmis tudis supra). Cf. Y. Volokhine, La frontalit dans l’iconographie de l’gypte ancienne, Genve, 2000, pp. 97 – 101 («La frontalit dans les reliefs cultuels : un lien avec l’adorateur»).
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qu’il donnait ses fidles par le biais d’oracles89, Tithos est en effet appel « Hypnos » dans une inscription grecque d’Amphipolis en Macdoine90 mais il s’agit l de l’unique document permettant de lier directement les deux divinits. On sait par ailleurs que ce dieu avait une fonction apotropa que, et plus spcifiquement qu’il tait cens garder le sommeil de ses fidles.91 Or, Tithos et Harpocrate sont parfois troitement lis : on conna t par exemple une fresque du 3me s. apr. J.-C. dans un btiment civil de Karanis (Fayoum) reprsentant Harpocrate et Tithos c te c te, et quelques monnaies o un Harpocrate chevauche un sphinx androcphale portant le disque solaire (identifi comme Tithos).92 On peut ajouter ces exemples le dcor de la faÅade arrire du temple de Chenhour en Haute-gypte, l’endroit o tait peut-Þtre installe une petite chapelle oraculaire : l’empereur Tibre y est reprsent devant Min-R de Coptos, Harpocrate, Isis, Toutou et une desse.93 Quelques attestations des noms thophores Hr-twtw (Her-toutou, HorusTithos) et *qpatohºgr (grec pour Hr-p3-twtw)˙ semblent aussi indiquer une assimilation entre Horus et Tithos.94 ˙Si « Hypnos » est dans notre hymne le nom grec utilis pour dsigner l’gyptien Tithos, comme le pense M. Totti, alors sa prsence auprs de Karpocrate signifie qu’ils avaient en commun un r le prophylactique dans le cadre des rÞves et une fonction oraculaire (par incubation, cf. infra). Les dieux-enfants dont fait partie Harpocrate (ainsi que les enfants en gnral) sont troitement lis toutes sortes de pratiques
89 Dans au moins un temple : cf. J. Quaegebeur, «Tithos, dieu oraculaire ?», Enchoria 7 (1977), pp. 103 – 108 ; id., «L’appel au divin : le bonheur des hommes mis dans la main des dieux», dans : J.-G. Heintz (d.), Oracles et prophties dans l’Antiquit. Actes du Colloque de Strasbourg, 15 – 17 juin 1995, Paris, 1997, pp. 15 – 34 ; Kaper, Tutu, pp. 154 – 155 (Toutou Chenhour). 90 Cf. C. Picard, «La sphinge tricphale dite » panthe « d’Amphipolis», Monuments et Mmoires publis par la fondation Eugne Piot 50, (1958), pp. 49 – 84 ; Kaper, Tutu, pp. 311 – 313, stle S-16, provenant d’Amphipolis en Thrace (sic). 91 J. Quaegebeur, «Tithos», L VI, 1986, col. 604 ; Kaper, Tutu, pp. 199 – 200. 92 Les rfrences sont indiques par M. Totti, «Der griechisch- gyptische Traumgott Apollon-Helios-Harpokrates-Tithoes in zwei Gebeten der griechischen magischen Papyri», ZPE 73 (1988), pp. 287 – 296 : p. 295, n. 19 et p. 296, n. 22 ; inventaire dtaill chez Kaper, Tutu, pp. 113 – 114 (treize documents figurant Toutou/Tithos et Horus ou Harpocrate), et surtout pp. 255 – 257 pour la fresque de Karanis (Caire, JdE 65544). 93 J. Quaegebeur, «L’appel au divin : le bonheur des hommes mis dans la main des dieux», dans : J.-G. Heintz (d.), Oracles et prophties dans l’Antiquit. Actes du Colloque de Strasbourg, 15 – 17 juin 1995, Paris, 1997, p. 23. O. Kaper ajoute que Toutou, dans la thologie de Coptos, est si proche d’Harpocrate qu’il peut parfois prendre sa place, comme dans d’autres fresques du temple de Chenhour : Kaper, Tutu, p. 114, pp. 132 – 136 et pp. 241 – 244. 94 Cf. M. Totti, op. cit. (ZPE 73), p. 296, n. 23 et Kaper, Tutu, p. 185.
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mantiques95 : il est trs vraisemblable que Karpocrate de Chalcis a au moins en partie hrit de telles conceptions. Mais pour quelle raison cho serait-elle alors la sœur du jeune dieu dans notre hymne ? Peut-on supposer un lien avec la fonction oraculaire du jeune dieu, comme le fait M. Totti96 ? On a plut t l’habitude de rencontrer la nymphe en compagnie du dieu Pan, dont Karpocrate pourrait galement Þtre rapproch par l’pithte kerat morphos mentionne plus bas dans le texte (l. 10). L’activit oraculaire de Pan est bien atteste97, et cho appara t elle-mÞme Dodone dans le cadre de l’oracle de Zeus98 : tout porte donc croire que l’association Hypnos/Tithos et cho – le visage attentif du protecteur des rÞves accompagn par la voix dsincarne des rponses oraculaires – fait allusion un r le mantique de Karpocrate Chalcis. Une autre srie d’pithtes, « devin par le tr ne, devin par les astres, […] » (thron mantis, astr mantis, e[…], l. 9), dsigne clairement Karpocrate comme une divinit prophtique. Thron mantis fait sans doute rfrence un mode de vaticination semblable celui de la Pythie (sur un trpied), et rappelle aussi la thr n sis du nophyte dans le rite initiatique des Corybantes (qui renvoie des pratiques tant mantiques que thrapeutiques).99 La troisime pithte pourrait Þtre restitue en e[nupni mantis], « devin par les rÞves », ou par un autre mot en -mantis (enter mantis, eggastrmantis, « devin par les entrailles »).100 Les fonctions oraculaires d’Horus/Harpocrate ne sont d’ailleurs pas inconnues : la litanie d’Isis Oxyrhynque prcise que la desse a rendu Horus thr nou kfflrion ka chre¯smo¯idn basila, « seigneur du tr ne et roi prophtique »101. De mÞme, Hrodote (II, 83) mentionnait dj un oracle d’Horus/Apollon en gypte ; Diodore (I, 25, 7) dit qu’Horus/Apollon y est connu pour ses talents de mdecin et ses oracles, et Harpocrate est l’un des dieux qui forment l’oracle auquel est 95 Le dossier ce sujet est immense, aussi me contenterai-je de renvoyer un article rcent de M. A. Stadler, «»Das Kind sprach zu ihr.« Ein Dialog der Isis mit einem gçttlichen Kind im Papyrus Wien D. 12006», dans Kindgçtter im gypten, pp. 301 – 322 (surtout p. 312). 96 M. Totti, op. cit. (ZPE 73), p. 295. 97 Pausanias, VIII, 37, 11 ; Dion Cassius, XLI, 45 ; P. Borgeaud, Recherches sur le dieu Pan (Bibliotheca Helvetica Romana XVII), Genve, 1979, pp. 164 – 165. 98 Philostrate, Tableaux, II, 33, 2 ; H. W. Parke, The Oracles of Zeus, Cambridge, MA, 1967, pp. 89 – 90. 99 Cf. Platon, Euthydme 277d et I. Linforth, «The Corybantic Rites in Plato», University of California. Publications in Classical Philology 13 (1946), pp. 121 – 162. 100 Propositions de Robert, Bulletin, et d’A. J. Festugire, «A propos des artalogies d’Isis», tudes de religion grecque et hellnistique, 1972, p. 169, d’aprs le passage prcdent o trois pithtes sont construites en -diaitos. 101 P. Oxy. XI, 1380, 265 – 6.
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pose une question inscrite sur un billet oraculaire provenant probablement d’Oxyrhynque.102 A propos de l’pithte astromantis, enfin, M. Totti suppose que le terme fait allusion certains rituels divinatoires analogues ceux qu’on trouve dans les papyrus magiques grecs. Harpocrate y appara t en effet plusieurs reprises sous l’identit du jeune dieu solaire (le soleil tant l’ stron de l’pithte selon M. Totti) pour aider le pratiquant lors d’oprations magiques diverses, telles que l’obtention de visions divines dans son sommeil, de « visions directes » en regardant dans une lampe (lychnomantea), ou encore d’invocation d’un esprit « alli », un p redros, qui n’est autre qu’Horus apparaissant sous la forme d’une toile tombe du ciel.103 Les donnes archologiques et pigraphiques nous ont rvl que Sarapis rendait un oracle dans l’Isieion d’rtrie104, mais nous ne disposons malheureusement pas de dossier analogue pour Chalcis. Les informations connues suffisent toutefois prouver que Harpocrate, comme de nombreux autres dieux, endosse souvent des fonctions oraculaires dans diffrents contextes. Assimilations et syncrtismes : Dionysos et Karpocrate Comme on a pu s’en apercevoir, l’auteur de l’hymne de Chalcis a voulu dfinir Karpocrate en multipliant les pistes d’identifications possibles dans l’esprit de ses lecteurs. Il convient de passer en revue les diffrentes assimilations qu’il a proposes, et de nous arrÞter plus longuement sur le dieu dont Karpocrate se rapproche le plus, Dionysos. La lacune la fin de la l. 2 nous empÞche de conna tre la nature exacte des liens qui unissent Karpocrate Dmter, Cor, Dionysos et Iacchos, mais le terme restituer doit Þtre suffisamment gnral pour s’appliquer tous.105 La prsence de ces dieux donne par ailleurs l’hymne une connotation mystrique
102 PSI XVII Congresso, 14 (= M. Manfredi (a cura di), XVII Congresso Internazionale di Papirologia. Napoli, 19 – 26 maggio 1983. Trenta testi greci da papiri letterari e documentari, Florence, 1983), 2me ou 1er s. av. J.-C. 103 M. Totti, «JAQPOJQATGS ASTQOLAMTIS und die K£WMOLAMTEIA», ZPE 73 (1988), pp. 297 – 301 et H.-D. Betz, The «Mithras Liturgy». Text, Translation and Commentary, Tbingen, 2003, pp. 146 – 150 ; Cf. aussi PGM I, 72 sqq. (invocation d’un p redros) ; PGM II, 101 – 115 ; PGM XII, 87 – 93 (visions oniriques du dieu solaire) ; PGM LXI, 1 – 38 (fabrication d’un philtre d’amour avec l’aide du dieu solaire) ; rituels de lychnomantea : PGM III, 633 – 731 ; PGM IV, 475 – 829 ; PGM IV, 930 – 1114. 104 Cf. Bruneau, rtrie, p. 141. 105 Harder, Karpokrates, p. 11 et Robert, Bulletin proposent sfflnnaos (« dieu associ ») ou sfflnedros (« pardre »).
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voquant le milieu leusinien.106 Ce dtail n’est pas dnu de signification quand on conna t les nombreuses similitudes iconographiques qui existent entre Harpocrate et le jeune Ploutos, fils de Dmter, ou encore avec Triptolme.107 L’pithte kerat morphos « la forme cornue » ou « la forme de corne (?) », l’un des termes invents par le compositeur, pose un certain problme d’interprtation : Dionysos possde de nombreuses pithtes similaires (taurokros « aux cornes de taureau », kerasph ros ou keratas « cornu »). Mais il faut probablement chercher du c t d’un rapport avec la corne d’abondance, en lien avec son r le de divinit de la fertilit agricole. Le type iconographique de l’Harpocrate la corne d’abondance est en effet bien connu.108 On peut en outre se rfrer aux hymnes orphiques, comme par exemple l’hymne ddi Pan qui identifie le dieu-chvre Dionysos en le dcrivant l’aide d’pithtes qui rappellent le style utilis dans la stle de Chalcis : « compagnon des Saisons », v. 4, « Bacchant », v. 5, « qui rside dans les toiles » (astrodaite), v. 5, « chasseur » et « ami d’cho », v. 9. Pan y est en particulier qualifi de « vrai Zeus cornu », v. 12.109 De mÞme, l’hymne orphique 30 donne Dionysos le titre « deux cornes » (dikro¯ta). On peut encore citer le fragment orphique 168 qui dcrit les deux cornes de taureau que porte Zeus cosmique, dsignant le Levant et l’Occident (son visage reprsentant le ciel, ses cheveux les toiles et ses yeux le soleil et la lune).110 Le motif de la corne renvoie ainsi tour tour chacun de ces trois dieux, Zeus, Dionysos et Pan, dont Karpocrate reprend de nombreux aspects. Une longue srie d’pithtes, ds la l. 10, permet d’identifier sans trop de problmes Karpocrate d’autres dieux encore : Apollon protecteur des routes et 106 Le mÞme milieu leusinien est voqu dans l’Hymne orphique 42 Mis, Dionysos androgyne invoqu dans cet hymne sous le nom de Iacchos (seule mention de ce dieu dans les Hymnes orphiques, v. 4) et prsent comme le fils d’Isis (v. 9). Le vocabulaire utilis par l’hymne (thesmoph ron) le lie aussi Dmter et Cor, selon A.-F. Morand, tudes sur les Hymnes orphiques (RGRW 143), Leiden–Boston–Kçln, 2001, pp. 170 – 171. 107 Les trois sont reprsents aussi bien en tant que petit enfant qu’en tant que jeune homme, et la corne d’abondance est un attribut caractristique de Ploutos, ainsi que d’Harpocrate ds le 3me s. av. J.-C. Je renvoie en dernier lieu J. Fischer, «Harpokrates und das Fllhorn», dans : Kindgçtter im gypten, p. 157. 108 V. Tram Tan Tinh, B. Jaeger, S. Poulin, s. v. «Harpokrates», LIMC IV, vol. 1, Zrich, 1988, pp. 415 – 445 pour un aperÅu du dossier iconographique, vol. 2, ill. 23 – 121 (corne d’abondance) ; comparer avec F. Dunand, Religion populaire en gypte romaine (= EPRO 76), Leiden 1979, p. 224, pl. LXXX et p. 230, pl. LXXXII. Cf. toujours l’analyse rcente de la question chez J. Fischer, op. cit. (dans Kindgçtter im gypten), pp. 147 – 163. 109 Hymnes orphiques, 11. 110 Cf. P. Charvet, La prire. Les hymnes orphiques, 1995, p. 53, n. 2.
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des chemins (Agyeffls)111, auquel Horus et Harpocrate sont frquemment assimils dans la pense grecque112 et Adonis (Assy´rios kunagte¯s), qui a en commun avec Karpocrate de nombreux aspects lis la fertilit et au renouveau de la vgtation.113 Plus bas, l’expression « qui s’irrite envers ceux qui ne sont pas justes dans leurs amours » (l. 11) fait sans doute allusion au r le de Karpocrate en tant qu’ros.114 Harder rappelle qu’Isis, l’poque impriale, est identifie Aphrodite, tandis qu’Harpocrate est son ros115 : on conna t par exemple une inscription de Dlos ddicace « Isis Salvatrice Astart Aphrodite qui donne une heureuse navigation et qui prÞte l’oreille, et ros Harpocrate Apollon ».116 Isis est aussi la protectrice des amours pures dans la littrature des romans grecs.117 Les dernires sries d’pithtes, enfin, assimilent le dieu-enfant Asclpios notamment dans son r le auprs des mdecins (l. 11). Comme Karpocrate (l. 12), le dieu gurisseur est appel « Teit nios » dans une inscription de Titania118, prs de Sicyone. A Lebena (Crte), une autre inscription date entre le 3me et le 4me s. apr. J.-C. est ddie « au dieu Srapis Asclpios mdecin Teitanios Lebnaios (…) ».119 Toutefois, tit nios (sans le epsilon) est aussi la forme ancienne de l’adjectif se rapportant aux Titans, et il est souvent utilis sous sa forme ionienne (tite¯nos) chez Nonnos de Panopolis.120 C’est probablement ce qui amne d’autres chercheurs comprendre cette pithte comme une allusion 111 Cf. p. ex. M. Detienne, Apollon le couteau la main, Gallimard 1998, Index, s.v. «Apollon Agyeus». 112 Cf. p. ex. Hrodote, II, 123, 137 et 156 par exemple ; ou Diodore de Sicile, I, 25, 7, ou Macrobe, Saturnales, I, XXI, 13 – 14. Ou encore une ddicace faite par un Romain Isis d’une statue reprsentant « Apollon Horus Harpocrate », CIG 5793 (sanctuaire d’Isis Neapolis). 113 Cf. p. ex. la conclusion de l’article du LIMC I, s.v. «Adonis», p. 222, et Adonis comme symbole de la fertilit de la terre et de la rcolte des fruits m rs chez R. Merkelbach, IsisSarapis, pp. 43 – 44, §§ 71 – 73. 114 Assimilation rpandue l’poque romaine : pour les reprsentations d’Harpocrate-ros, se reporter Malaise, Conditions, p. 200, n. 1 (qui renvoie V. Tran Tam Tinh, Essai sur le culte d’Isis Pompi, Paris, 1964, nos. 104, 107, 109, 110 et 111). De manire gnrale, on rapproche d’ros toutes les reprsentations d’Harpocrate ail (sans doute tort). 115 Harder, Karpokrates, p. 16. 116 P. Roussel – M. Launey, Inscriptions de Dlos nos 1497 – 2219, Paris, 1937, p. 240, no. 2132 ; date incertaine, mais postrieure 166 av. J.-C. 117 Harder, Karpokrates, p. 16, renvoie notamment aux phsiaques de Xnophon d’phse, III, 11, 4 ; IV, 3, 3 ; V, 4, 6 et V, 13, 4, o l’hro ne Anthia supplie plusieurs reprises la desse de l’aider prserver sa virginit. Cf. les pithtes sur le sujet runies dans L. Bricault, Myrionymi. Les piclses grecques et latines d’Isis, de Sarapis et d’Anubis (= Beitrge zur Altertumskunde 82), Stuttgart et Leipzig, 1996. 118 IG IV 436. 119 Cf. L. Bricault, Myrionymi (op. cit.), p. 98, qui renvoie L. Vidman, SIRIS n. 161, l.5. 120 Nonnos de Panopolis, Dionysiaques IV, 86 ; 19, 203 et 26, 358.
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l’ascendance divine (« titanienne ») de Karpocrate.121 La prsence de l’pithte suivante (Epidafflrios) et les deux inscriptions mentionnes plus haut incitent dfinitivement y voir un rapprochement avec Asclpios. Mais plus que cela, l’pithte teit nios permet au pote de jouer avec de multiples rfrences, puisqu’elle fait aussi allusion Promthe – la Sicyone voisine de Titania n’est autre que Mc n, o le Titan opre son partage dans le rcit hsiodique – et au Dionysos orphique, dvor par des Titans qui s’taient camoufl le visage en se barbouillant de gypse blanche.122 En effet, la localit de Titania, ou Titan, doit son nom la blancheur clatante de sa terre qui fait penser de la chaux vive (ttanos en grec, souvent confondue avec le gy´psos qui dsigne le pltre) ; chaux que la pense grecque dfinit comme « la poudre blanche que l’on obtient par la combustion des pierres. Son nom de ttanos lui vient des Titans du mythe que Zeus frappa de la foudre et rduisit en cendres »123 pour les punir du meurtre de Dionysos. On a ici un bel exemple de la richesse polysmique de cet hymne, et ce premier contact de Karpocrate avec Dionysos nous permet d’aborder la plus importante des assimilations utilises par l’auteur de l’hymne de Chalcis pour dcrire le jeune dieu. Les pithtes que nous n’avons pas encore tudies, les plus nombreuses, sont en effet celles qui permettent d’identifier Karpocrate Dionysos. Karpocrate est celui qui a « invent le mlange du vin et de l’eau » (l. 7), le « compagnon de thiase » (l. 8), « Bassareus, tueur d’Indiens, agitateur de thyrse » (l. 10) : pain et vin allant de pair dans la pense grecque en tant qu’lments fondateurs de la civilisation, l’assimilation avec Dionysos124 constitue naturellement l’tape qui suit sa description en tant que ma tre des rcoltes et de toutes les saisons, dans sa prsentation en tant que pr tos eurets et dieu civilisateur. Harpocrate est d’ailleurs souvent figur, dans l’art grco-romain, avec des attributs dionysia-
121 Cf. R. Merkelbach – M. Totti, Abrasax. Ausgewhlte Papyri religiçsen und magischen Inhalts. Band 2 : Gebete (Fortsetzung), (= Papyrologica Colonensia, vol. XVII 2), Opladen, 1991, p. 73. 122 Les dtails de cette affaire complexe sont exposs chez P. Ellinger, La lgende nationale phocidienne. Artmis, les situations extrÞmes et les rcits de guerre d’anantissement (BCH suppl. XXVII), Paris, 1993, pp. 62 – 76, 95 – 104 et 147 – 179. 123 Eustathe, Commentaire l’Iliade, 332, 23 (traduction de P. Ellinger, op. cit., p. 147). 124 Lui-mÞme assimil Osiris dans la pense grecque. Cf. Hrodote II, 123 et 156, et la dcouverte de la vigne par Osiris-Dionysos chez Diodore I, 15, 8. Par ailleurs, pour ajouter encore la complexit de ce jeu d’quivalence, Sarapis est couramment identifi avec Dionysos Ancien au 2me s. apr. J.-C. (cf. infra propos des deux formes de Dionysos Dmorphos). Cf. R. Turcan, «Dionysos Dimorphos», MEFR 70 (1958), p. 282.
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ques, tels qu’une couronne de lierre, la nbride ou un ceps de vigne sur lequel il s’appuie.125 Mais au-del d’une simple reprise des attributs civilisateurs du dieu bachique, Karpocrate, dans son lien Dionysos, introduit un rseau symbolique sur lequel il vaut la peine de s’arrÞter ; en ce qui concerne le domaine orphique dj annonc par Karpocrate teit nios, on relve chez Diodore de Sicile une trange confusion entre le jeune Horus (Harpocrate) et Dionysos/Osiris, dans un passage o il est dit qu’Isis avait dcouvert un remde confrant l’immortalit et qui lui permit de « faire relever son fils Horos, assailli par les Titans et trouv mort dans l’eau ».126 La mort d’Horus aux mains des Titans renvoie au meurtre par cartlement de Dionysos Zagreus, tandis que son corps trouv dans l’eau fait plut t rfrence au cadavre d’Osiris flottant sur l’eau. Cet pisode rappelle aussi une curieuse mention faite par Plutarque d’un « dmembrement d’Horus », dont l’auteur ne parle pas plus en dtail.127 Quelques spcialistes s’accordent croire qu’il se rappellerait ici d’un mythe gyptien128, mais il pourrait tout aussi bien s’agir d’une allusion au mythe orphique. Plus proche du jeune Karpocrate et de son r le dans le domaine de la fertilit agricole, on trouve Dionysos Liknte¯s invoqu en tant que « jeune pousse aimable » (rnos erastn) dans les hymnes orphiques129 : on ne peut s’empÞcher de penser ici aux passages de Plutarque comparant Karpocrate aux fleurs et aux pousses tout juste sorties de terre.130 Il faut rappeler que Chalcis, ainsi que l’Eube en gnral, a une certaine importance dans la mythologie dionysiaque : la tradition place en effet dans l’ le certains pisodes de l’enfance du dieu.131 Et 125 Quelques exemples sont relevs par Malaise, Conditions, p. 199, n. 6 – 8 et V. Tran Tam Tinh, Essai sur le culte d’Isis Pompi, Paris, 1964, no. 104 ; 107 et pl. XII, 1 ; 109 ; 110 ; 111 et pl. XII, 3 ; 136 et pl. IX, 1. 126 Diodore I, 25, 6. Traduction M. Casevitz (La Roue Livres), Paris, 1991. 127 Plutarque, Isis et Osiris, 20 (358 E). 128 C. Froidefond (commentaires au Isis et Osiris de Plutarque, p. 272, n. 4) pense un pisode connu par le P. Jumilhac, la mise mort d’Anty pour un sacrilge commis dans un temple d’Hathor. J. G. Griffiths, Plutarch’s De Iside et Osiride, Cambridge, 1970, p. 355 penche plut t pour une rminiscence du chapitre 113 du Livre des Morts o Isis tranche les deux mains d’Horus, qui sont ensuite repÞches par Sobek. MÞme interprtation dans les commentaires du livre I de Diodore de Sicile par Y. Vernire (Les Belles Lettres), Paris, 1993, p. 62, n. 3, qui ajoute une rfrence la formule 158 des Textes des Sarcophages. 129 Hymnes orphiques, 46, 3 (rnos dsigne aussi bien la jeune plante que le petit enfant). 130 Cf. supra, Plutarque, Isis et Osiris, 65 et 68. 131 Le pote Euphorion place une Nysa, lgendaire lieu de naissance de Dionysos, en Eube, Aigai (cf. aussi Sophocle, Thyeste, fr. 255 P). Dionysos aurait en outre eu une nourrice eubenne, Macris (autre nom donn l’ le) : Apollonios de Rhodes, Argonautiques, IV, 540 – 543 et Nonnos de Panopolis, Dionysiaques, 21, 194. Rfrences exhaustives rassembles par P. Chuvin, Mythologie et gographie dionysiaques. Recherches sur l’œuvre de Nonnos de Panopolis, Clermont-Ferrand, 1991, p. 42.
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les Corybantes eubens, qui montent la garde autour du berceau de Dionysos enfant, sont les enfants de Comb, aussi appele Chalcis, une fille de l’As pos : il s’agit de la figure ponyme de notre cit de Chalcis.132 Il faut souligner le rapport particulier qu’entretient Karpocrate/Horus avec les saisons, rapport qui fait cho la situation de Dionysos la mÞme poque : les Saisons figurent volontiers au nombre des divinits reprsentes dans les cortges des liturgies dionysiaques.133 Les Gnies des Saisons, parfois habills comme des Bacchants, les bras chargs des fruits et des rcoltes qu’apporte chaque moment de l’anne, sont en outre reprsents autour de Dionysos sur les sarcophages du Bas-Empire.134 Ils voquent le renouvellement perptuel de la vgtation ainsi que la renaissance du raisin en vin, mtaphore promettant aux dfunts une autre vie aprs la mort, mais symbolisant aussi la ma trise de Dionysos sur la nature.135 On peut enfin revenir sur une particularit fondamentale de la conception de Dionysos dans la pense grco-romaine, savoir sa double nature de dieu jeune et de dieu ancien, qui permet peut-Þtre de penser qu’une identification d’Harpocrate/Karpocrate avec Dionysos pouvait Þtre une constante rpandue dans le milieu isiaque, indpendante des particularits cultuelles locales. On conna t bien, en effet, le Dionysos Dmorphos, « aux deux formes », que dcrivent entre autres Diodore136 et un hymne orphique137, et qu’on peut retrouver figur dans l’iconographie funraire d’poque impriale.138 Or, cette double nature est un lment essentiel de la figure d’Harpocrate, que son nom gyptien dsigne comme « Horus l’Enfant ». Dans le Isis et Osiris, les deux figures d’Horus et Harpocrate sont inextricablement lies, mÞme si Plutarque les prsente ensuite
132 Cf. encore P. Chuvin, op. cit., pp. 44 – 45, qui renvoie une scholie d’Hsychios et un fragment d’Aristonios de Salamine de Chypres. 133 Cf. Turcan, Sarcophages, p. 465, n. 2 : Apollonios reprochant aux Athniens de se dguiser en Saisons pour chanter des hymnes orphiques dans Philostrate, Vie d’Apollonios de Tyane, IV, 21. 134 3me et 4me s. apr. J.-C. Cf. Turcan, Sarcophages, pp. 298 – 305 et p. 592 sqq. (surtout p. 618) ; id., Messages d’outre-tombe. L’iconographie des sarcophages romains, Paris, 1999, p. 129 et fig. 148 et 149. 135 Turcan, Sarcophages, pp. 604 – 610. 136 Diodore de Sicile, IV, 5, 2 : « On pensait qu’il possdait deux formes (dmorphon d’autn doke n hup rchein) parce qu’il existait deux Dionysos, l’ancien portant une longe barbe, parce que ceux des temps anciens portaient tous une longue barbe, le plus jeune tant charmant et plus effmin et jeune, comme on l’a dit auparavant. » 137 Hymnes orphiques 30, 3. 138 Cf. p. ex. Turcan, Sarcophages, p. 383, n. 2 et p. 533, n. 7 ; id., «Dionysos Dimorphos», MEFR 70 (1958), pp. 243 – 293.
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comme deux divinits distinctes pour les besoins de sa dmonstration noplatonicienne.139 Nous avons rencontr une allusion cette mÞme double forme dans les premires lignes de notre hymne (les jeux de mots entre Karpocrate et Horus de la l. 3) ; il semble galement possible d’en trouver quelques chos dans d’autres documents mentionnant Harpocrate : le meilleur exemple en est la ddicace « Karpocrate qui se manifeste sous une double forme » dj mentionne plus haut. Ce lien qui unit Karpocrate/Horus Dionysos travers leur double identit se retrouve exprim de manire complexe dans un passage des Saturnales de Macrobe, o l’auteur explique qu’Apollon se confond en gypte avec le soleil diurne, tandis que Dionysos-Liber (c’est--dire Dionysos l’Ancien) se confond avec le soleil nocturne, et que l’astre peut Þtre reprsent tant t la fleur de l’ge, tant t l’ge adulte : « ces diffrences d’ge se rapportent au soleil. Il est considr, au solstice d’hiver, comme un tout petit enfant, et, sous cette forme, les gyptiens le sortent du sanctuaire une date indtermine. C’est qu’ l’poque du jour le plus court, il semble pour ainsi dire un enfant en bas ge ».140 Plus loin, il prcise que « chez les mÞmes gyptiens, Apollon, qui est le soleil, est appel Horus (…). Les gyptiens, encore, voulant attribuer au soleil mÞme une statue, l’ont figur avec la tÞte rase, mais conservant sa chevelure sur la partie droite ».141 Cet Horus/ Apollon solaire est ici dcrit avec les caractristiques typiques de l’enfance (tresse de c t), qui sont aussi celles du dieu que les Grecs et les Romains identifient comme Harpocrate.142 Macrobe nous prcise de plus que ce jeune soleil est fÞt en gypte une date indtermine (le solstice d’hiver), mais proche de celle laquelle se droulent les Harpocratia clbrant la naissance d’Harpocrate qu’on a rencontres plus haut (au mois de Tybi, entre le 27 dcembre et le 27 janvier). Ce tmoignage de Macrobe semble unir dans une interprtation savante le dieu « qui se manifeste sous une double forme » au Dionysos Dmorphos. Cette « double nature » de Karpocrate/Horus ne semble pas Þtre perÅue de la mÞme manire dans toutes les rgions de la Grce.143 Dans la cit de Chalcis 139 Plutarque, Isis et Osiris, 18 (357 F) ; 38 (366 A) ; etc. (Horus) ; 19 (358 D-E) (conception et naissance d’Harpocrate). Plutarque mentionne encore un troisime Horus, Arouris, « qu’on appelle Apollon et quelquefois Horus l’Ancien » (ibid., 12 (355 E), trad. C. Froidefond, CUF 1988), qu’il ne faut pas confondre avec l’Horus fils d’Isis et d’Osiris (Plutarque dmontre ici une connaissance assez prcise de la thologie gyptienne). 140 Macrobe, Saturnales, I, XVIII, 10. Trad. de C. Guittard, Paris (Les Belles Lettres. La Roue Livres), 1997. 141 Macrobe, Saturnales, I, XXI, 13 – 14. Trad. de C. Guittard. 142 Pour les dieux-enfants, dont Harpocrate, en tant que soleil naissant, cf. d’abord S. Morenz et J. Schubert, Der Gott auf der Blume, Ascona, 1954. 143 Quelques inscriptions laissent penser qu’Horus et Harpocrate sont perÅus comme deux divinits distinctes dans certaines rgions de la Grce, notamment Athnes : cf. RICIS 101/0216 (3me s. apr. J.-C.), qui mentionne un prÞtre d’Harpocrate aux c ts d’un
P. Matthey, Retour sur l’hymne « artalogique » de Karpocrate Chalcis
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l’poque de la rdaction de notre hymne, cependant, c’est probablement elle qui a servi de point d’attache majeur entre Dionysos et Harpocrate dans le contexte isiaque. En conclusion, l’hymne de Karpocrate Chalcis est un document qui reste unique en son genre, surtout en regard de l’poque laquelle il a t compos. Il est le seul tmoin de la survivance d’un culte isiaque et de l’existence d’une petite communaut de fidles Chalcis pendant la priode romaine, une poque o le culte des grandes divinits gyptiennes cde de plus en plus le terrain face l’essor du christianisme.144 Qu’il soit adapt d’un autre hymne, plus ancien, Isis ou qu’il relve d’une cration locale, l’hymne de Karpocrate est en tout cas un des derniers exemples, aux portes de l’antiquit tardive, de la qualit et de la vitalit de la littrature hymnique isiaque. Abrviations utilises dans l’article Les abrviations des priodiques sont celles de l’Anne Philologique Borgeaud-Volokhine, «Sarapis» P. Borgeaud et Y. Volokhine «La formation de la lgende de Sarapis», ARG, 2. Band, Heft 1, 2000, pp. 37 – 76. Bricault, Atlas L. Bricault, Atlas de la diffusion des cultes isiaques (IVme s. av. J.-C. – IVme s. apr. J.C.), Mmoires de l’Acadmie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres 23, Paris, 2001. Bruneau, rtrie P. Bruneau, Le sanctuaire et le culte des divinits gyptiennes rtrie (EPRO 45), Leiden, 1975. Dunand, Isis en Grce F. Dunand, Le culte d’Isis dans le bassin oriental de la Mditerrane. Volume II : le culte d’Isis en Grce (EPRO 26), Leiden, 1973. Grandjean, Isis Y. Grandjean, Une nouvelle artalogie d’Isis Marone (EPRO 49), Leiden, 1975. Harder, Karpokrates R. Harder, Karpokrates von Chalkis und die memphitische Isispropaganda (APAW 1943, no. 14), Berlin, 1944. Kaper, Tutu O. E. Kaper, The Egyptian God Tutu. A Study of the Sphinx-God and Master of Demons with a Corpus of Documents (OLA 119), Leuven, 2003. prÞtre d’Horus. Voir aussi les diffrentes interprtations de M. Malaise, «Harpocrate», p. 418 et de L. Bricault, RICIS I, p. 169 propos de trois ddicaces de la Macdoine grecque (RICIS 113/0525, 0905 et 1002 ; 1er s. av. J.-C. et 3me s. apr. J.-C.). 144 L’empereur Thodose incendie le Srapeum d’Alexandrie en 391, d’aprs Rufin, Histoire Ecclsiastique II, 24, soit environ un sicle aprs la date probable de notre document. Cf. Malaise, Conditions, pp. 450 – 455.
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Kindgçtter im gypten D. Budde, S. Sandri, U. Verhoeven (hrsg.), Kindgçtter im gypten der griechischrçmischen Zeit. Zeugnisse aus Stadt und Tempel als Spiegel des interkulturellen Kontakts (OLA 128), Leuven, 2003. Malaise, Conditions M. Malaise, Les conditions de pntration et de diffusion des cultes gyptiens en Italie (EPRO 22), Leiden, 1972. Malaise, «Harpocrate» «Harpocrate. Problmes poss par l’tude d’un dieu gyptien», Bulletin de la Classe des Lettres et des Sciences Morales et Politiques. Acadmie Royale de Belgique 7 – 12 (2000), pp. 401 – 431. Merkelbach, Isis-Sarapis R. Merkelbach, Isis regina-Zeus Sarapis. Die griechisch-gyptische Religion nach den Quellen dargestellt, Stuttgart–Leipzig, 1995. Nock, Gnomon A. D. Nock, «Harder, Karpokrates von Chalkis», Gnomon 21 (1949), pp. 221 – 228 ; r
