Enlightenment

The Ape.

A Brief Fable.

One night an ape set a grove | of cedars on fire, | and was then very pleased with himself, | as he found it so enlightening [(hell)]. | "Come, brethren:  see what I can do; | I, — I [can] change night into day!"

His brethren came, great and small, | admired the glare, | and all began to praise [him] clamorously in song [(singen an zu schrein)]: | ["]Long live brother Hans! | Hans [the] ape is worthy of renown, | [for] he has enlightened [(aufgeklärt)] the [whole] region."

     Berlinische Monatsschrift 4, no. 11 (November 1784):  480, translation mine.  I was put onto this by Rémi Brague, The kingdom of man:  genesis and failure of the modern project, trans. Paul Seaton, Catholic ideas for a secular world (Notre Dame, IN:  University of Notre Dame Press, 2018), 213, who, following Peter Pütz (Die deutsche Aufklärung (Darmstadt:  Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1978), 31-32), treats it as a commentary on the Enlightenment.

"true man": "the undiminished and perfect nature" that "the Creator established in us from the beginning" and assumed in order to restore

     "So the proper character of both natures [(Salva . . . proprietate utriusque naturae, the saving property of both natures)] was maintained and came together in a single person.  Lowliness was taken up by majesty, weakness by strength, mortality by eternity.  To pay off the debt of our state, invulnerable nature was united to a nature that could suffer; so that in a way that corresponded to the remedies we needed, one and the same mediator between God and humanity, the man Christ Jesus, could both on the one hand die and on the other be incapable of death.  Thus was true God born in the undiminished and perfect nature of a true man, complete in what is his and complete in what is ours [(In integra ergo veri hominis perfectaque natura verus natus est deus, totus in suis, totus in nostris)].  By 'ours' we mean what the Creator established in us from the beginning and what he took upon himself to restore [(quae in nobis ab initio creator condidit et quae reparanda suscepit, what, in repairing, he took up)].  There was in the Saviour no trace of the things which the Deceiver brought upon us, and to which deceived humanity gave admittance.  His subjection to human weaknesses in common with us did not mean that he shared our sins.  He took on the form of a servant without the defilement of sin, thereby enhancing the human and not diminishing the divine. . . .

". . . As God is not changed by showing mercy, neither is humanity devoured by the dignity received [(Sicut . . . deus non mutatur miseratione, ita homo non consumitur dignitate)].  The activity of each is what is proper to it in communion with the other [(cum alterius communione quod proprium est)]:  that is, the Word performs what belongs to the Word, and the flesh accomplishes what belongs to the flesh. . . . As the Word does not lose its glory which is equal to that of the Father, so neither does the flesh leave the nature of its kind behind.  We must say this again and again:  one and the same is truly Son of God and truly son of man."

     Pope Leo I, Letter (Tome) to Flavian (449), as translated in Tanner, vol. 1, pp. 78-79.  Latin from there as well.

"the effort of nature in the transition [so astonishing] from nothing to existence"

"The establishment of democracy in a nation that has languished in chains for a long time can be compared to the effort of nature in the transition [so astonishing] from nothing to existence, no doubt a much greater effort than the passage from life to annihilation."

"L’établissement de la démocratie chez une nation qui a longtemps langui dans les fers peut être compare à l’effort de la nature dans la transition si étonnante du néant à l’existence:  effort plus grand sans doute que le passage de la vie à l’anéantissement."

     Jacques Nicolas Billaud-Varenne, an architect of The Terror, addressing the National Convention in the name of the Committee of Public Safety, Primidi, 1 Floréal 2 =Sunday, 20 April 1794 Old Style, Gazette nationale ou Le moniteur universel no. 202 (Duodi, 2 Floréal 2 =Monday, 21 April 1794 Old Style), Réimpression de l'ancien Moniteur 20, 263.  I was put onto this by (and have taken this modified translation from) Rémi Brague, The kingdom of man:  Genesis and failure of the modern project, trans. Paul Seaton, Catholic ideas for a secular world (Notre Dame, IN:  University of Notre Dame Press, 2018), 135.

Changed, not ended

"Indeed, for your faithful, Lord, life is changed, not ended. . . ."

"Tuis enim fidelibus, Domine, vita mutatur, non tollitur. . . ."

     Preface (Vere dignum) to the Order of Mass for the Dead.  1 Cor 15:52 reads inmutabimur.  Tollo can mean also removed, killed, destroyed, done away with, abolished, as in the Thomistic axiom "grace does not destroy nature but perfects it."

Western political liberalism as an establishment of religion

Princeton University Press

     "There are two fundamental ways in which states relate to organized salvation professionals.  The first is to assume a position of neutrality and treat various claims to a monopoly of the sacred with more or less equal condescension. . . .  As Gibbon said of the Antonines, 'the various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful.'  This does not mean that such states are 'secular' in the sense of being indifferent to sacred legitimacy; this means that they are self-confident enough about their own claim to sacred legitimacy not to need reinforcement from prophets unrelated to the divinity of the ruling lineage.  The Western liberal states are no exception in this regard:  by calling other would-be monopolies of the sacred 'religions' and not calling their own anything in particular, they demonstrate the un-self-conscious strength of the official faith."

     Yuri Slezkine, The house of government:  a saga of the Russian revolution (Princeton:  Princeton University Press, 2017), 180-181.  "The other way . . . is to identify with one of them" (181).  Cf. chap. 3, "The faith."

On the right side of history

"'Recall the French Revolution and the struggle between the Vendée and the National Convention. . . . the troops of the Convention committed terrible acts—terrible from the point of view of a particular human being.  But the acts committed by the troops of the Convention can only be understood in the light of class analysis.  They are justified by history because they were committed by a progressive class [(прогрессивный класс)] that was sweeping its path clean of the survivals of feudalism and popular ignorance.  The same thing is happening today.  You, too, should have understood this.'"

     The twenty-six-year-old Ivar Tenisovich Smilga, "the highest-ranking commissar in the Red Army" and public prosecutor at the 1919 show trial of forty-seven-year-old Filipp Kuzmich Mironov, as quoted at Yuri Slezkine, The house of government:  a saga of the Russian revolution (Princeton:  Princeton University Press, 2017), 174.  Russian from Teodor. Shanin, V. P. Danilov, and N. Tarkhova, Filipp Mironov: Tikhiĭ Don v 1917-1921 gg., Rossii︠a︡. XX vek (Moskva: Mezhdunarodnyĭ Fond "Demokratii︠a︡", 1997), 422 (document no. 276, dated 5 October 1919).

"the painful exercise of the mystic septenary"

New Liturgical Movement

Prayer to be said before the seven canonical hours

"Seven times this day will I praise Thee, O Lord, being mindful of Thy exceeding great and wonderful works, by which in the beginning Thou didst found the universe in seven days; mindful also of the sevenfold grace of Thy Holy Spirit, at each of the seven Canonical Hours, which I, unworthy, propose, according to the sacred rule and institution of Thy Church, to say in Thy presence this day to the praise of Thy Holy Name. Deign, I entreat Thee, to bestow upon me the singular gifts of grace, that being abundantly filled by that Thy most Blessed Spirit and His sevenfold gifts, and supported as on the seven pillars which Wisdom hath hewed out for the building of her house, throughout the cycle of the seven days of the week, by the succession of which times fulfil their course; and throughout the seven ages by which the frailty of man continually goeth on its way towards death, I may in such wise please Thee, that, through the painful exercise of the mystic septenary in practice of the seven works of the Spirit, I may be enabled to avoid the seven deadly sins, which are the seven devils cast out of that Mary of the Gospel by Christ; and to vanquish those seven more wicked spirits which the strong man armed taketh to himself for the ruin of man, and may at length be brought unto the triumph of the eight-ranked Virtues after the warfare of this present life is ended. But I ask of Thy most merciful loving-kindness, that whilst I fulfil these Canonical Hours to the praise of Thy Majesty, Thou wilt deign ever to assist my heart; guide my tongue, that fitly, entirely, perfectly, intelligibly, and distinctly it may utter words; deliver my soul from wandering and distracted thoughts, and cause her without ceasing to attend upon Thee whilst she speaketh with Thee, lest whilst through worldly imaginations she goeth forth and departeth from Thee, Who delightest in the secret of the conscience, she may have cause to weep bitterly because Thou hast also justly departed from her. Receive, therefore, at my lips the saving sacrifice of praise, to the end it may do honour unto Thee, and present me before Thee a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable, and well-pleasing to Thee; and pour out Thy grace upon my lips, that out of a good heart I may indite a good matter, and by reason of the grace of my lips may have Thee, the King, for my friend; and whilst I open my mouth unto Thee in the voice or joy and thanksgiving, do Thou deign to fill it with Thy benediction. Amen."

     Sarum missal according to "19PO".  A. Harford Pearson, The Sarum missal done into English, 2nd ed. revised and enlarged (London:  Church Printing Company, 1884), 270-271.  Latin:  Missale ad usum insignis et praeclarae eccleslae Sarum:  labore ac studio, ed. F. H. Dickinson (Burntisland:  E Prelo de Pitsligo, 1861-1883), cols. 561-562.