Sep 24 2009
Hymn of Entry
p1/2 – Harakas pp82-104; Hymn of Entry pp17-40;
p2/2 – “Art, Music, Gossip”
This chapter from Harakas discusses ’Ethical Relations with the Self’. As he points out, as well as being explicit in the New Testament, this is also implicit in one of the most widely-known quotations from the Gospels: “love your neighbour as yourself” – the love of self being a given. However it is also clear that love of self can be unethical, for example in the case of pride, sometimes considered the “proto-sin”[1]. St Maximos the Confessor sees this sin as result of ignorance: a true knowledge of God and ourselves would leave no room for pride. Apart from this comment and a hint in the quotation from the Philokalia (“pride corrupts the whole soul”[2]), Harakas does not discuss the reasons why pride is a sin, nor the effects of the sin. It might have been useful to draw from this mention in the Philokalia of the corruption of pride the fact that as ‘corruption’, it is associated with death and antithetical to life, and from the comment of St Maximos, it is associated with a lack of knowledge of God – both of which facts clearly pit it firmly against any movement towards union with God. The proper aspect of self-love, as Harakas discusses in the subsequent section, is “heed thyself”[3]. A good spiritual self-love is a proper “attention to the virtues of the soul”[4] which in turn enables a loss of focus on the self, and an ability to focus on both God and neighbour.
Harakas goes on to discuss the proper context of life in the light of the life-giver, and the way in which spiritual life “in the world” plays itself out in a particular form of “obedience, purity and poverty”[5] involving ascesis, repentance and control of the passions. In order to live out this ethic, true self-knowledge is necessary (though very difficult to attain – Harakas speaks of the attentiveness, sobermindedness, discernment and humility which play a part in acquiring self-knowledge, though he could also perhaps have gone back here to obedience and made some mention of the role of the Church – the Christian community should play a significant role in enabling the individual person to come to self-knowledge given that in seeking to know oneself, the chance of self-delusion is so great).
Harakas notes, in considering emotional well-being, that it has often been too easy to see demonic possession in the mentally ill and fail to realise that “all disorders on the personal, social, and cosmic level are also the consequences of the condition of disorder that arises from our ontological separation from God.” Watchfulness is so important because not only our passions but our reason and intellect (nous) will lead us away from truth and life if they are separated from God. Hence the desirable state of apatheia, when the passions are so well disciplined that they do not disturb constant attention to God.
The beautiful thing about Hymn of Entry is the way Archimandrite Vasileios shows the essential unity of all aspects of the Christian life which we so frequently artificially divide into separate disciplines. “How beautiful it is for a man to become theology,” he writes.[6] From the beginning he points out that the Gospel is “not a systematic exposition”[7] of teaching because Christianity is not a philosophy nor a body of knowledge nor even a religion, but the content and locus of our faith is personal: “He left His body and sent His Spirit”. Thus a true understanding of Orthodox ‘ethics’ is the “unity of life and truth”[8] – there is a unity of theology and “reasonable worship” and “theology becomes holy action”. All of this is in the ecclesial context (the context of “His body”) – there is a continuity between the “personal consciousness” of each of the faithful and the Church as a whole[9] and through living in this life, one may become a theologian[10]. ‘Ethics’ are implicit in this life because there is no division between love and faith[11] and finally because of the life of Him who is Life: “Fortunate is the man who is broken in pieces and offered to others, who is poured out and given to others to drink.”[12]
Victor Keegan presents the “parallel universe” of virtual worlds in a largely positive light – or at least in terms of opportunities. Yet in a context where truth is largely irrelevant[13] how can love be possible? How can self-knowledge be attained? He comments that in the virtual world you are connect to those who share your interests rather than your geography. In other words, it is the ultimate in ghettoization. He acknowledges that it may be “partly” escapism, but this is accepted since “above all, it is fun, in three dimensions”. Keegan anticipates that children will grow up accepting “virtual worlds” to be “a normal part of their lives” – but is it a “part” of (real) life, or is it really a “second life”? Is it something that can be integrated into real life? The divorced couple he mentions did not seem to manage it. If one spends a lot of time in a “second life” in which one is masked, with the ability to present oneself not as one is but however one wants to be, what dangers are there spiritually and psychologically? What does it mean to relate to other faceless people when one is faceless, or worse, other masked people when one is masked? How can one have a personal relationship without the true person being known? Keegan comments on the business meetings that take place in Second Life – it would be interesting to know whether any studies have compared interaction in ‘virtual’ meetings with that which takes place in meetings where people are really face to face. Given the difference between emails and letters, and the difference between how people present comments on a blog or news item and how they discuss similar issues in real life, we should anticipate that there will be significant differences. Apart from all this, the economic questions are also significant. His comment “the production of extra units of virtual goods costs nothing” is telling – one could expect that the production of something without real existence would cost nothing; the remarkable thing is that it comes to have a value which can be priced in real currency: how perfect for a nihilistic age, materialism without even the material!
[1] p83, the sin that caused the fall.
[2] p83
[3] p84, in the discussion of St Basil
[4] p84, quoting St Maximos
[5] p86
[6] p35
[7] p17
[8] p18
[9] See pp20-21
[10] p23 – e.g. the thief: “Remember me, Lord, in Thy Kingdom”
[11] See p26
[12] p36
[13] It is a “parallel life in which you can shape the rules.”
