Toward Attention

Empirical Fidelity vs. Faithful Translation

One of the ways in which our modern preoccupation with rendering empirically accurate models is inappropriately brought into the study of ancient texts related to history is the way that we tend to judge the text based on whether it can supply a correspondence or be verified by other correspondences. This may not be the best way to approach the meaning and intention of ancient texts.

I am reading Anna Silvas' The Asketikon of St Basil the Great (New York: Oxford, 2005) right now for a paper on St. Gregory of Nyssa, and she cites a large chunk from St. Rufinus on his intentions in translating a work of St. Gregory's about another St. Gregory:

When experienced teachers of the Sacred Scriptures try to convey something from the Greek language for Latin ears, they take care not to translate word for word, but sense for sense. And well they might. For if Latin discourse intended to imitate the Greek idiom, it would quite choke both the rhythm of speech and the sense of meaning. And this is also true for us in translating the life of Gregory Thaumaturgus from Attic speech. In recasting what the holy Gregory of Nyssa composed in a foreign, that is, in the Greek tongue, we have made many additions and many omissions, as the most suitable meaning required, attending to the sense while fittingly accomodating Latin readers.

Silvas continues: "Rufinus, in short, sought to refashion his Greek source document as a Latin work of art in its own right." This freedom simply wasn't necessarily seen as deceptive, but could be an honest effort at faithfully translating the meaning of a text.

Think of what this means for the Gospels: we should not read them imagining them as corresponding empirically to things as though they were camcorder reels. That doesn't mean we shouldn't deal with the very concrete images of the text, but we shouldn't confuse that with history unless it intends us to locate the meaning in history, or in relation to history.

A.N. Wilson's Return to Christ

I finally found a book on the "Nous" about a month ago (which I hoped would dispel so much of the nonsense that a certain variety of Protestant converts to Orthodoxy say about it), and thought it looked to be worth reading. Then I came across this piece (three years old) by the same author. I must say, that when he simply offers his intuitions, I agree with him, but when he starts making stronger arguments, I don't think they hold up, even if the intuition that prompted the position being argued for is correct. How many of us are like this, though? --do we know ourselves, and see what we are really doing?

I think he has the right intuitions about academics. Unfortunately, they never come to the foreground. You just have to feel them out.

How to Make a Failed Attempt at Voting Saints Off the Island

So I was looking for St. Ambrose of Milan's commentary On the Song of Songs in English, but couldn't find it: I did find this, however.

I challenge the reader to tell me what's wrong with this sentence on this particular web-page:

ANCIENT CHRISTIAN COMMENTARY ON SCRIPTURE. Edited by Thomas C. Oden and Christopher A. Hall. This will be a 27 volume series of Patristic Commentaries on the Old and New Testament. This series gives the commentaries of the Church Fathers, as well as ecclesiastical writers like Augustine, Origen, Clement of Alexandria, on the Holy Scriptures.

I get tired of seeing these little jabs. No one does this for St. Gregory of Nyssa. 

Von Balthasar -- "Theology and Sanctity"

Some excerpts of Hans Urs von Balthasar's essay "Theology and Sanctity" in his "Explorations in Theology," Volume 1.

In the whole history of Catholic theology there is hardly anything that is less noticed, yet more deserving of notice, than the fact that, since the great period of Scholasticism, there have been few theologians who were saints. We mean here by "theologian" one whose office and vocation is to expound revelation in its fullness, and therefore whose work centers on dogmatic theology. If we consider the history of theology up to the time of the great Scholastics, we are struck by the fact that the great saints, those who not only achieved an exemplary purity of life, but who also had received from God a definite mission in the Church, were, mostly, great theologians. They were "pillars of the Church", by vocation channels of her life: their own lives reproduced the fullness of the Church's teaching, and their teaching the fullness of the Church's life.

    This is the reason for their enduring influence: the faithful saw in their lives an immediate expression of their teaching and a testimony to its value, and so were made fully confident in the rightness of teaching and acting. It also gave the teachers themselves the full assurance that they were not deviating from the canon of revealed truth; for the complete concept of truth, which the gospel offers us, consists precisely in this living exposition of theory in practice and of knowledge carried into action. "If you continue in my word...you shall know the truth" (John 8:32). "He that seeks the glory of him that sent me, he is true, and there is no injustice in him" (John 7:18). And even stronger: "He who says that he knows him, and keeps not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him" (1 John 2:4). "He that loves not knows not God, for God is charity" (1 John 4:8).

    From the standpoint of revelation, there is simply no real truth which does not have to be incarnated in an act or in some action, so that the incarnation of CHrist is the criterion of all real truth (1 John 2:22; 4:2), and "walking in the truth" is the way the believer possesses the truth (2 John 1-4; 3 John 3-4, etc.).

[...]

    It was by virtue of this unity of knowledge and life that the great teachers of the Church were able, as was required by their special office, to be true lights and pastors of the Church.

[...]

    In short, these pillars of the Church were complete personalities: what they taught they lived with such directness, so naively, we might say, that the subsequent separation of theology and spirituality was quite unknown to them. It would not only be idle but contrary to the very conceptions of the Fathers to attempt to divide their works into those dealing with doctrine and those concerned with the Christian life (spirituality).

[...]

    [...] Denis [Pseudo-Dionysius] does not shrink from the conclusion that only one who is himself a "light of the world" can communicate what is sacred, can illuminate.

[...]

    The early medieval thinkers in the West, under the aegis of Augustine, did not depart from this basic concept. Anselm, himself abbot, bishop and doctor of the Church, knew no other canon of truth than the unity of knowledge and life. The same may be said of Bede, Bernard and Peter Damian. But as theology increasingly took on a "scholastic" form, and Aristotelianism burst in like an elemental force, the naive unity hitherto accepted was gravely shaken. No one would think of denying that the gain in clarity, insight and mastery of the entire field was enormous.

[...]

    [After Albert, Bonaventure, Thomas, and Scotus]  The following epoch saw the disappearance of the "complete" theologian in the above sense, the theologian who is also a saint. In fact, spiritual men were turned away from a theology which was overlaid and overloaded with secular philosophy -- with the result that alongside dogmatic theology, meaning always thereby the central science which consists in the exposition of revealed truth, there came into being a new science of the "Christian life", one derived from the mysticism of the Middle Ages and achieving independence in the devotio moderna. On this byway, of course, we continue to find saints.

[...]

    [...] the means of expression at the disposal of [Francis de Sales and John of the Cross] differed from those of Ephraem, Gregory of Nyssa or Augustine. The Fathers found straightaway the appropriate dogmatic clothing for their very personal experience; everything became objective, and all the subjective conditions, experiences, fears, strivings, the "shock" in a word, were made to serve a fuller understanding of the content of revelation, to orchestrate its great themes.

[...]

    Theology and spirituality have become, as it were, each a world of its own, with hardly any point of contact, and so the saints and spiritual writers are more and more ignored by theologians. What modern treatise of theology, which adduces as its highest authority, next to the Bible, the great saints of the patristic and Scholastic ages, feels equally obliged to cite any of the three above-mentioned doctors, or to accord them equal weight, not to mention the numerous other later saints, such as John Vianney and Therese of Lisieux? Where theology is concerned, they hardly exist; they are left for "spirituality" to plunder. And spirituality hardly exists any longer for theology. We have seen that the modern saints themselves are not without their share of responsibility for this state of affairs. They are not taken seriously in theology because they themselves did not venture to be theologically minded.

Charles Taylor

"What can Orthodoxy learn from the Catholic intellectual tradition, and what can Catholics learn from Orthodox, specifically in light of the Secular cultural condition we find ourselves in, and given the vast heritage that we share?" --this is the question I asked Charles Taylor after his recent appearance at BC, making a straight line to the podium as soon as the Q&A session was over. Unfortunately I was late to the talk, and so I only got the Q&A.

His answer was interesting: he said that modern Catholics were very good at the active life, going going going, but that they often forget that it's not all there is (the way he said this almost suggested to me that he may have been inclining, at least in that moment, toward suggesting that the active life was somehow properly subordinate to the contemplative life) to the Christian life. He seemed to be suggesting that Orthodox should learn the active life better. I replied that "when it comes to works of charity and social justice, you have us beat there hands down." He laughed, seemingly charmed, but also seemingly in agreement. Contemplation, he continued, especially as this is seen in Iconography, is something that Catholics need to recover. He pointed to Pavel Florensky and Sergius Bulgakov as two models for how this should be done. He said that Roman Catholic thought is perhaps too juridical, and that we Orthodox can enrich it by emphasizing this organic and contemplative dimension. I could not tell if he was suggesting the opposite was true, but I didn't get that sense.

He seemed to suggest, if I understood him correctly, that we must not react to the secular world we live in by seeing our faith as somehow separate from our secular life, or the vision of our faith as separate from our secular vision, but that the two should overlap, and by synchronous. He again mentioned Florensky and Bulgakov in this regard.

Unfortunately, some priests peeled us away from each other before I could continue to ask him questions. I then cornered him again at the end to get him to sign a copy of Sources of the Self that I bought at the book-display case.

Books

Spouse: Can you please disable 1-Click ordering on your Amazon.com account?
Me: I can't, but don't worry, I'm pretty chaste about it.
Spouse: <scoffs> Chaste like a male dog.

Reviews of Frederick Beiser's Introduction to Hegel

One review of Beiser's book on Hegel; another review. Seems to be well thought of.

More Beiser on Hegel and the Romantics

"The classical ideals of Hegel and the romantic generation came into sharp conflict with modern reality. While the classical ideals demanded unity, modern society seemed to create division, and on every level: division within oneself, with others and with nature. For Hegel and the young romantics, the fundamental challenge was how to legitimate their ideal of unity of life in face of the growing divisions of modern life. The need for philosophy arose, as Hegel famously put it, from division.

    "Each ideal of unity seemed to be undermined by some aspect of modern life. The ideal of unity with oneself was threatened by the growing division of labor, the need for each individual to specialize and devote himself to a narrow task. The more production became rationalized or efficient, the more he would have to cultivate specific skills and talents. Rather than realizing all their powers, people could develop only one narrow side of themselves. Acutely aware of this problem, the romantics agreed with Schiller's famous lament:

Always chained to a single little fragment of the whole, man himself develops into only a fragment; always in his ear the monotonous sound of the wheel that he turns, he never develops the harmony of his being; and instead of putting the stamp of humanity upon his nature he becomes nothing more than the imprint of his business or science.

    "Of course, in classical culture the division of labor had not been such a danger. This was not only because of the lack of technology, but also because of the entrenched institution of slavery. Free from the realm of economic necessity, the citizens of the Greek and Roman republics had more time and energy to spend on civic affairs. But slavery was not acceptable to teh modern world; and so the claims of the economic world became inescapable. The problem for Hegel and the young romantics was how to achieve the classical ideal of excellence without the classical institution of slavery. This seemed all but unattainable when modern forms of production and exchange seemed only to enslave everyone.

    "The ideal of unity with others also faced grave dangers in the modern world. The fundamental trends of modern civil society seemed to be toward atomism and anomie, the decompositoin of society and the state into a multitude of separate individuals who sought only their self-interest. Rather than joining together for the common good, individuals were forced to compete in teh market place. There was no hope for participation in teh community of a republic because of the sheer size and scale of the modern state, its increasing centralization and bureaucratization. The modern individual saw the state as a hostile and alien being, whose purpose was to dominate and control him. These atomistic trends of civil society were clearly perceived in Germany toward the close of teh eighteenth century. Writers complained about the decline of the village community and parish from growing urbanization, and they deplored unemployment among urban masses.

    "Finally, the ideal of unity with nature also seemed unattainable. The ancients would identify themselves with nature, because they saw it as a living whole of which they were a part. But the whole realm of nature had become disenchanted through teh growth of modern science and technology. Rather than seeing nature as an object of contemplation, as a realm of beauty, mystery and magic, the technologist gave it only an instrumental value. He was engaged in a struggle against nature, which he wanted to dominate and control by a machine. Since nature is only a machine, it can be controlled to serve us.

    "How, then, was it possible to achieve unity in life if modern society only creates divisions? For Hegel, and the young romantic generation, that was the crucial issue of the age."

St. Ephraim the Syrian on Books

"Let books be your dining table, / And you shall be full of delights. / Let them be your
mattress,/And you shall sleep restful nights" (St. Ephraim the Syrian).

Philip Pullman Interview

Can be read here.