Saturday, April 30, 2022

Let the sweating reaper refresh himself with psalms

Van Gogh
"Let the ploughman gripping the plough-tail chant the Alleluia; let the sweating reaper divert himself with psalms; and let the vinedresser, while with a pruning-hook he prunes the errant vinesprig, chant something Davidic.  Let these be your songs [(carmina)]; these, as they say in common [speech], your love songs [(cantiones)]; these the whistl[ed tunes] of the shepherds; these your instruments of cultivation."

"Arator stivam tenens Alleluia cantet; sudans messor psalmis se avocet; et dum palmitem curvum tondet vinitor falce, aliquid Davidicum canat.  Haec sint vestra carmina; haec, ut vulgo aiunt, amatoriae cantiones:  haec pastorum sibilus; haec instrumenta culturae."

     6th-century monastic Rule of Tarn (Regula Tarnantensis Monasterii) 8 (PL 66, col. 981A), trans. Steve Perisho.  Delsalle, writing in 1961 (Lucien-René Delsalle, "Comparaison, datation, localisation relatives des règles monastiques de Saint Césaire d’Arles, Saint Ferréol d’Uzès et de la «Regula Tarnantensis Monasterii»," Augustiniana 11, no. 1/2 (1961): 24 (5–26)), gave a terminus a quo of 520 and a terminus ad quem of 573, but others (for example Georg Holzherr, Regula Ferioli:  ein Beitrag zur Entstehungsgeschichte und zur Sinndeutung der Benediktinerregel (Einsiedeln; Zürich; Köln:  Benziger Verlag, [1961]) and presumably (???) Fernando Villegas, "La «Regula Monasterii Tarnantensis»:  texte, sources et datation, Revue Bénédictine 84 (1974):  7-65) have dated it later, Katharina Hauschild and Michaela Pzicha, to the fourth quarter of the 6th century (Klosterregel von Tarnant (St. Ottilien, Oberbay:  EOS Verlag, 2012), apparently.  (Needless to say, I have not conducted this investigation in any depth.)

The cowl doesn't make a monk

"Cuculla non facit monachum."

     According to H. Leclercq, a common proverb.  DACL 2.2 (1910), sv Capuchon, col. 2132.  Thus was the gravity only later accorded to what had been originally a garment of the poor and exposed (col. 2128) made light of.  Cf. George Fox, and the undoubtedly many other (surely even antecedent) forms of the same basic takedown.

Calling the "land acknowledgement" bluff?

". . . Of course, decolonization finds its ultimate test in the actual return of land and waters to precontact Indigenous who yet have feet on the ground or paddles in the waves. . . ."

     Description of Decolonizing ecotheology:  indigenous and subaltern challenges, ed. S. Lily Mendoza and George Zachariah, Intersectionality and theology (Eugene, OR:  Pickwick Publications, 2022), italics mine.

Friday, April 29, 2022

Pray without ceasing

"he prays too little, who is accustomed only to pray at the times when he bends his knees."

"perparum namque orat, quisquis illo tantum tempore quo genua flectuntur orare consueuit."

     St. John Cassian, Conferences 10.14, trans. Gibson (NPNF, 2nd ser., vol. 11, p. ).  Latin:  CSEL 13, p. 308, ll. 2-3.

"the entire substance of Catholicism, with the exception of . . . the element of externality"

"Luther’s simple doctrine is that the specific embodiment of Deityinfinite subjectivity, that is true spirituality, Christis in no way present and actual in an outward form, but as essentially spiritual is obtained only in being reconciled to God, in faith and spiritual enjoyment. These two words express everything. That which this doctrine desiderates, is not the recognition of a sensuous object as God, nor even of something merely conceived, and which is not actual and present, but of a Reality that is not sensuous. This abrogation of externality [(Aueßerlichkeit)] imports the reconstruction of all the doctrines, and the reform of all the superstition into which the Church consistently wandered, and in which its spiritual life was dissipated. . . .  The Lutheran doctrine therefore involves the entire substance of Catholicism, with the exception of all that results from the element of externalityas far as the Catholic Church insists upon that externality."

     Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Lectures on the philosophy of history, trans. J. Sibree, 4.3.1 (GBWW 46 (1952), 349).  The German from the 3rd 1848 edition of the edition ed. Eduard Gans and Karl Hegel is here, on p. 500 of vol. 9.  The somewhat different German of the critical edition ed. Lasse is here, on p. 878 of vol. 9.2.
     There are, however, indications that Hegel was not yet advocating an isolation of subjectivity from objectivity.  Thus,

If [1] subjectivity be placed in feeling only, without [2] that objective side, we have the standpoint of the merely natural will.

And, not long before that

[1] the heart, the emotional part of man's spiritual nature, is recognized as that which can and ought to come into possession of [2] the truth, and [1] this subjectivity is the common property of all mankind.  Each has to accomplish the work of reconciliation [between them] in his own soul.  [1] Subjective spirit has to receive [2] the spirit of truth into itself, and give it a dwelling place there.  Thus, that absolute inwardness of soul which pertains to religion itself and freedom in the Church are both secured.  [1] Subjectivity therefore makes [2] the objective purport of Christianity, i.e., [2] the doctrine of the Church, its own.  In the Lutheran Church [1] the subjective feeling and the conviction of the individual is regarded as equally necessary with [2] the objective side of truth

(GBWW 46 (1952), 350).  Add to this all of the "merely"s (and such) of the preceding paragraphs.
     And yet, if you add all of those no. 2s back in (as you would have to after "in no way", "only", and "not"), you've clearly failed to appreciate the fact that Catholicism, too, insists (and in Luther's time insisted) upon those no. 1s as well.


Wednesday, April 27, 2022

Work and pray without ceasing

      "Some of the monks who are called Euchites [(those devoted to prayer)] went to Enaton to see Abba Lucius.  The old man asked them, 'What is your manual work?'  They said, 'We do not touch manual work but as the Apostle says, we pray without ceasing.'  The old man asked them if they did not eat and they replied they did.  So he said to them, 'When you are eating, who prays for you then?'  Again he asked them if they did not sleep and they replied they did.  And he said to them, 'When you are asleep, who prays for you then?'  They could not find any answer to give him.  He said to them, 'Forgive me, but you do not act as you speak.  I will show you how, while doing my manual work, I pray without interruption.  I sit down with God, soaking my reeds and plaiting my ropes, and I say, 'God, have mercy on me; according to your great goodness and according to the multitude of your mercies, save me from my sins."'  So he asked them if this were not prayer and they replied it was.  Then he said to them, 'So when I have spent the whole day working and praying, making thirteen pieces of money more or less, I put two pieces of money outside the door and I pay for my food with the rest of the money.  He who takes the two pieces of money prays for me when I am eating and when I am sleeping; so, by the grace of God, I fulfill the precept to pray without ceasing.'"

     Sayings of the Desert Fathers, Alphabetical Collection, Lamda, Lucius, as trans. Benedicta Ward.  PG 65, col. 253.

Malebranche on attention

"the attention of the mind is the natural prayer by which we obtain enlightenment from God:  for all those who apply themselves to the truth discover it in proportion to their application."

"l’attention de l’esprit est la prière naturelle par laquelle nous obtenons que Dieu nous éclaire; car tous ceux qui s’appliquent à la vérité la découvrent à proportion de leur application."

Nicholas Malebranche, Treatise on nature and grace 2.2.37, as trans. Riley (Oxford:  Clarendon Press, 1992), 155).  Sub-critical French from here.  This is, of course, a common claim in Malebranche.