Passion of the Western Mind

by Tarnas, Richard

  Athens and Jerusalem

  Another dichotomy within the Christian belief system involved the question of its purity and integrity and how these should be preserved. For the Judaic inclination toward religious exclusivism and doctrinal purity also passed itself on to Christianity, maintaining a constant tension with the Hellenic element, which sought and found evidence of a divine philosophy in the works of diverse pagan thinkers, especially Plato. While Paul at times stressed the need for complete differentiation of Christianity from the deceptive ideas of pagan philosophy, which for that reason should be carefully avoided, on other occasions he suggested a more liberal approach, quoting from pagan poets and tacitly infusing elements of Stoic ethics into his Christian teachings (Paul’s native city of Tarsus in Asia Minor was in his time a cosmopolitan university city, especially renowned for its Stoic philosophers). Later Christian theologians in the classical era were often imbued with Greek philosophy before converting to Christianity, and subsequently continued to find value in the Hellenic tradition. A syncretistic mysticism informed many early Christian thinkers as they eagerly recognized identical patterns of meaning in other philosophies and religions, often applying allegorical analysis to compare biblical and pagan literatures. The Truth was one, wherever it was found, for the Logos was all-comprehensive and boundlessly creative.

  As early as the second century, Justin Martyr first advanced a theology that saw both Christianity and Platonic philosophy as aspiring toward the same transcendent God, with the Logos signifying at once the divine mind, human reason, and the redemptive Christ who fulfills both the Judaic and Hellenic historical traditions. Later, the Christian Platonist school in Alexandria used as its basis the paideia, the classical Greek education system from Plato’s time centered on the liberal arts and philosophy, but now with theology as the highest and culminating science of the new curriculum. In this framework, learning per se was a form of Christian discipline, even of adoration. Such learning did not limit itself to the Judaeo-Christian tradition, but moved beyond it to encompass a larger whole, to illuminate all knowledge with the light of the Logos.

  A characteristic compromise position, at once employing the admired Greek culture for Christian apologetic purposes and yet keeping distance from it, was presented by Clement of Alexandria in his use of Homer’s Odyssey: Sailing by the island of the Sirens on his way home to Ithaca, Odysseus tied himself to the mast of his ship so he could hear their seductive singing (“have full knowledge”) without succumbing to their temptation and destroying himself on their rocky shores. So too could the mature Christian make his way through the sensual and intellectual enticements of the secular world and pagan culture, having full knowledge of them while tying himself to the cross—the mast of the Church—for spiritual security.

  Just as often, however, Christianity more fully resembled its Judaic parent in rejecting virtually all contact with non-Christian philosophical ideas and systems, considering them not only profane but valueless. In this view, the true core of the Christian mystery was so unique and luminous that it could only be blurred, distorted, or falsified by the infusion of other cultural streams. For the Hellenic side of Christianity, the Logos (as God’s wisdom, the universal Reason) was seen as operative in non-Christian wisdom preceding the revelation, and in the larger framework of world history outside the Judaeo-Christian tradition. But in the more exclusivist understanding, the Logos (here understood more particularly as God’s Word) tended to be recognized solely within the confines of Scripture, Church doctrine, and biblical history. Compared with the secular sophistication of pagan philosophy, the Christian gospel must seem mere foolishness, and any dialogue between the two would be futile. Thus Tertullian in the late second century emphatically questioned the relevance of the Hellenic tradition in his dictum “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”

  Theological variants and religious innovations—Gnosticism, Montanism, Donatism, Pelagianism, Arianism—were especially abhorrent to Church authorities, because they controverted matters close to the heart of Christianity, and were therefore viewed as heretical, perilous, and requiring effective condemnation. Christianity’s demand for uniformity of doctrine and structure, with its attendant intolerance, found part of its basis in the urgent primitive Christian imperative—seen especially in Paul—that the body of Christ (the Church community) be pure and undivided in readiness for the Parousia. Augustine presented, again, an influential stance containing elements of both sides—knowledgeable and respectful concerning classical culture and particularly Platonic philosophy, yet acutely conscious of Christianity’s unique doctrinal superiority and, especially as he grew older, forcefully active in repressing heresies. Christian thinking in the centuries following Augustine generally reflected a similar position. Despite constant influences, both conscious and unconscious, from other philosophical and religious systems, the Church officially adopted a restrictive dogmatic stance with little tolerance for other systems on their own terms.

  Thus Augustine’s sense of the need for restraining or negating (in both himself and others) the pluralistic and heretical, the biological, the worldly, and the human, in favor of God, the spiritual, the one true Church and its one true sacred doctrine, was crystallized in the final moments of the ancient world, and, through his enduring influence on major Church figures like Pope Gregory the Great, given institutional embodiment in the medieval Western Church. Because of the remarkable power of his thought, his writings, and his personality, and because Augustine in some sense articulated the nascent self-consciousness of an era, the development of the Christian sensibility in the West took place largely through his mediation. By the end of the classical period, the exultant and inclusive religious spirit visible in primitive Christianity had taken on a different character: more inward, otherworldly, and philosophically elaborate, yet also more institutional, juridical, and dogmatic.

  The Holy Spirit and Its Vicissitudes

  The fundamental tensions inhering in Christianity from its outset come to clear focus in the extraordinary doctrine of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Christian Trinity with God the Father and Christ the Son. The New Testament stated that before Jesus died, he had promised his disciples that God would send the Holy Spirit to remain with them to continue and complete his redemptive task. The subsequent “descent of the Holy Spirit” into a group of the disciples who had gathered together on Pentecost in an upper room in Jerusalem was reportedly experienced as a numinous visitation of great intensity, accompanied by a sound “like the rush of a mighty wind filling the house,” with “tongues as of fire” appearing above each disciple. The event was interpreted by those present as an overwhelming and indisputable revelation of Christ’s continuing presence among them despite his death and ascension. Immediately afterward, according to the report in Acts of the Apostles, the inspired disciples began preaching ecstatically to the multitudes: Through the Spirit the Word was spoken to the world; now the fruit of Christ’s passion could be disseminated to all humanity. As Pentecost for the Jews had marked the revelation of the Law on Mount Sinai, so now for the Christians it marked a new revelation, the pouring forth of the Spirit. A new age had commenced with the Spirit’s coming upon all the people of God. This Pentecostal experience—apparently renewed in subsequent communal gatherings, and in other circumstances involving charismatic phenomena such as unexpected healings and prophetic ecstasies—later served as the basis for the Church’s doctrine of the Holy Spirit.

  This doctrine conceived of the Holy Spirit as the spirit of truth and wisdom (the Paraclete, or Counselor), as well as the divine principle of life manifest in both material creation and spiritual rebirth. In the first, or revelatory, aspect, the Holy Spirit was recognized as the divine source of inspiration that had spoken through the Hebrew prophets. Now, however, the Spirit was democratized, made accessible to all Christians and not just the few. In the second, or procreative, aspect, the Holy Spirit was recognized as the progenitor of Christ within Mary his m
other, and as being present at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry when he was baptized by John the Baptist. Jesus had died that the Spirit might come to all: only thus could take place humanity’s death and rebirth into the fullness of God. Through the continuing influx of the Spirit, a progressive incarnation of God into humanity was being effected, renewing and propelling the divine birth of Christ in the continuing Christian community. Although a human being’s mortal reasonings were valueless by themselves, with the inspiration of the Spirit one could attain divine knowledge. Although on one’s own resources a human being could not find sufficient love within oneself for others, through the Spirit one could know an infinite love embracing all humanity. The Holy Spirit was the Spirit of Christ, the agent of man’s restoration to divinity, God’s spiritual force acting through and with the Logos. The presence of the Holy Spirit made possible a sharing in the divine life, and a state of communion within the Church that was in essence a participation in God. Finally, because the Holy Spirit’s presence brought divine authority and numinosity to the Church’s believing community, the Spirit was seen as the basis for the Church itself, expressing itself in all aspects of the life of the Church—its sacraments, prayer, and doctrine, its developing tradition, its official hierarchy, and its spiritual authority.

  The spontaneous experience of the Holy Spirit, however, soon came into conflict with the conservative imperatives of the institutional Church. The New Testament described the Spirit as like a wind that blows “where it wills.” But as such, the Spirit possessed inherently spontaneous and revolutionary qualities that placed it, by definition, beyond any control. Individuals claiming the presence of the Spirit tended to produce unpredictably variable revelations and charismatic phenomena. Too often such manifestations—unrestrained and inappropriate activities in Church services, wandering preachers with diverse and unorthodox messages—seemed unconducive to the positive pursuit of the Church’s mission. For such phenomena, the Church did not consider the authority of the Holy Spirit to be genuinely present. If not more circumspectly defined, the principle of the Holy Spirit in its more extreme manifestations seemed to lend itself to a blasphemous, or at best premature, human deification that would threaten the traditional separation between Creator and creature, and would contravene the supreme uniqueness of Christ’s redemptive act.

  In view of these tendencies toward the disruptive and heretical, and mindful of the need to preserve an orderly structure of belief and ritual, the Church came to adopt a generally negative response to self proclaimed outbursts of the Holy Spirit. The charismatic and irrational expressions of the Spirit—spontaneous spiritual ecstasies, miraculous healings, speaking in tongues, prophecies, new assertions of divine revelation—were increasingly discouraged in favor of more ordered, rational manifestations, such as sermons, organized religious services and rituals, institutional authority, and doctrinal orthodoxy. A fixed canon of specific apostolic writings was carefully selected and permanently established, with no new revelations recognized as God’s infallible Word. The authority of the Holy Spirit, invested by Christ in the original apostles, now passed on in a sacredly established order to the bishops of the Church, with the ultimate authority in the West claimed by the Roman pontiff, the successor to Peter. The notion of the Holy Spirit as a divine principle of revolutionary spiritual power, immanent in the human community and moving it toward deification, diminished in Christian belief in favor of a notion of the Holy Spirit as solely invested in the authority and activities of the institutional Church. The stability and continuity of the Church were thereby maintained, though at the expense of more individualistic forms of religious experience and revolutionary spiritual impulses.

  The relation of the Holy Spirit to the Father and Son was not precisely defined in the New Testament. The first Christians were plainly more concerned with God’s presence among them than with meticulous theological formulations. Later Church councils defined the Holy Spirit as the third person of the triune God, with Augustine describing the Spirit as the mutual spirit of love uniting the Father and Son. For a time in early Christian worship, the Holy Spirit was imaged in feminine terms (symbolized, as it would be later as well, by a dove), and was sometimes referred to as the divine Mother. In the long run, the Holy Spirit was conceived rather in more general and impersonal terms as a mysterious and numinous power, whose intensity seemed to have radically diminished as time grew more distant from the generation of the first apostles, and whose continuing presence, activity, and authority were lodged chiefly in the institutional Church.

  Rome and Catholicism

  The Judaic influence on Christianity in the West—the sense of a divinely mandated historical mission, the stress on obedience to the will of God, the moral rigor, the doctrinal conformity and exclusiveness—was further amplified and modulated by the influence of Rome. The Church’s conception of humanity’s relationship to God as a judicial one strictly defined by moral law was partly derived from Roman law, which the Catholic Church, based in Rome, inherited and integrated. The effectiveness of the Roman state’s religious cult was based upon meticulous observance of a multitude of regulations. More fundamentally, Roman legal theory and practice were founded on the idea of justification; transposed to the religious sphere, sin was a criminal violation of a legal relationship established by God between himself and man. The doctrine of justification—of sin, guilt, repentance, grace, and restitution—was set forth by Paul in his Letter to the Romans,12 and was taken up again by Augustine as the foundation of man’s relationship to God. Similarly, the Judaic imperative of subordinating the highly developed but refractory human will to that of divine authority found supporting cultural patterns in the political subordination demanded by the immense authoritarian structure of the Roman Empire. God himself was generally conceived in terms reflective of the contemporary political environment—as commander and king, lord and master, inscrutably and unquestionably just, a stern ruler of all who was ultimately generous to his favorites.

  The Christian Church, mindful of its spiritual mission and the great responsibility it bore for the religious guardianship of mankind, required an unusually durable form to ensure its survival and influence in the late classical world. The established cultural patterns and structures of both the Roman state and the Judaic religion—psychological, organizational, doctrinal—were particularly suited to the development of a strong and self-conscious institutional entity capable of guiding the faithful and enduring through time. As the Christian religion evolved in the West, its Judaic foundation readily assimilated the kindred juridical and authoritarian qualities of the Roman imperial culture, and much of the Roman Church’s distinctive character was molded in those terms: a powerful central hierarchy, a complex judicial structure governing ethics and spirituality, the binding spiritual authority of priests and bishops, the demand for obedience from Church members and its effective enforcement, formalized rituals and institutionalized sacraments, a strenuous defense against any divergence from authorized dogma, a centrifugal and militant expansiveness aimed at converting and civilizing the barbarians, and so forth. The bishop’s authority was declared to be God-ordained and unquestionable. He was the living representative of God’s authority on earth, a ruler and judge whose decisions regarding sin, heresy, excommunication, and other vital religious matters were considered binding in heaven. Christian truth itself under Rome’s influence became a matter for legislative battles, power politics, imperial edicts, military enforcement, and eventually assertions of divinely infallible authority by the new Roman sovereign, the pope. The fluid and communal forms of the primitive Church gave way to the definitively hierarchical institution of the Roman Catholic Church. Yet within such a firm and comprehensive structure, Christian doctrine was preserved, the Christian faith disseminated, and a Christian society maintained throughout medieval Europe.

  In the period after Constantine’s conversion in the early fourth century, the relationship of Rome to Christianity had undergone a co
mplete reversal: Rome the persecutor had become Rome the defender, progressively uniting itself with the Church. The Church’s boundaries now coincided with those of the Roman state, and its role was now allied with the state in maintaining public order and ruling the activities and beliefs of its citizenry. By the time of Pope Gregory the Great—the exemplar and architect of the medieval papacy, who reigned at the turn of the sixth century—Western society had changed so drastically that what had been Augustine’s dialectical statement against the spirit of the late pagan era had now become the governing norm of the culture.13 The public theater, circuses, and festal holidays of paganism had been replaced by Christian sacramental celebrations and processions, holy days and feast days. A new sense of public responsibility entered Christianity as it moved onto the world stage with an unprecedented consciousness of its mission to spiritually master the world. The centralized and hierarchical institution of the Church, the religious counterpart to the Roman Empire, increasingly absorbed and controlled the focus of the Christian spiritual quest. As the Roman Empire became Christian, Christianity became Roman.