The Origin of Fire

[Ed. note: Blogger finally wakens from its slumber. This was written last night, but wouldn't post until today. Anyway....]

Robert, my lapsed Catholic self has always interpreted the focus on the cross, the suffering, the death, as a means to frighten or guilt the faithful into behaving properly. I am unworthy of this, we declared at each Mass, Jesus died for me and I am not worth that kind of trouble.

I began to feel rather defensive of humanity, after a while. I wanted to give examples of ways we were worthy. Bach concertos, or a well-made batch of chocolate chip cookies.

Your final question is intriguing. Do we need salvation? Does it exist outside of our need for it and our idea of attainment?--A

Listening, as I type, to music by Hildegard von Bingen, sung by the quartet Anonymous 4. Their last album together (maybe), “The Origin of Fire.” It’s a perfect metaphor for the Spiritus Sanctus, the Heilige Geist, the pneuma agion. Listening and thinking about Athenae’s question. It was the “Bach concerti” that got me; but Anonymous 4 is my latest obsession, and it is a worthy substitute.

Do we need salvation? As always, there is a question behind any question, another question to be asked and answered first. In this case, the question is: salvation from what? What is "salvation"?

The term was in common usage in first century Palestine, and came to them from Rome. The Caesars were regularly presented as saviors. They saved their subjects from barbarism. By force of arms and organization of government, they saved the world from violence and for civilization. No mean feat, either. The Romans built roads and buildings that stand to this day, and brought literacy and learning to corners of the globe that had not known it before. But the people under Roman rule, especially the inhabitants of Jerusalem in 70 C.E., had reason to ask: salvation from what?

It became a term attached to Jesus of Nazareth, which is probably why he was crucified. The term had political meaning (clearly), and Rome jealously guarded its political power (witness Jerusalem, in 70 C.E.). But what did Jesus save people from? Rome?


God is named as savior, too, in the Hebrew Scriptures. This appellation has a different root, however. God's covenant was with Abraham, and the children of Abraham, throughout time and space. God created Israel, and named it, through Jacob. God made a promise, one God would not break. So God was both creator and preserver, savior, in that sense, of Israel. But that was so that Israel could be a light to the world, could be an example to the nations, could show all of humanity to "Be still, and know that I am God." But through example, through witness, not through evangelism.*

So God was savior of Israel because God was creator of Israel. God saved Israel from Egypt, and later from Babylon, and still later, was to save them from Rome. This was the expected promise of the Messiah. This is why Jesus was called the one who would come to set his people free. But free from what? Free to what? After the crucifixion, and in spite of the resurrection, or perhaps more clearly because of it, that freedom had to be re-identified, had to be spiritualized. And it has been a difficult matter ever since.

But it was not autmoatically a spiritual salvation from sin and depradation of the spirit. There were many doctrines in the early church, and the Augustinian one won out over the Pelagian one. One out, but didn't eliminate the more austere, but more hopeful, Pelagian "heresy." That tradition was represented in the Celtic church, the one which, ironically, saved the church as the Empire fell into barbarism; came from the edge of civilization back toward the center, bringing the church with it. It is too simple to say one was good, one was bad. It is certainly true that "salvation" became caught up, in the Roman church, with guilt and punishment and abasement and the absolute horrors of sin. But it didn't have to be that way. And salvation didn't have to be about the either/or of death, or life.

Salvation was real, to the first audience, the audience of Jesus. It was the revelation that God cared for the poor, and the widow, and the orphan, and the blind and lame and halt, and God wanted everybody else to, also. That was salvation. Salvation from misery, from outcast, from being marginalized. But that meant the rich were not in need of salvation, were not even offered it; and so they had to become poor in spirit, in order to become rich in the kingdom. That, at least, is what they thought; that is what they decided. And the richer they became in the kingdom, the more they wanted to insure poverty of spirit in everyone else. Because misery loves company; and human nature loves power, especially spiritual power. And the idea that the creation is good, but that people are bad, set up a contradiction they couldn't reconcile. The idea that people were good was anathema; it went against the Neo-Platonist leanings of Augustine; as did the idea that creation was good. Despite the first creation story in Genesis, it was the second story that was emphasized: the second, with its depiction of selfishness and greed and arrogance and punishment. Maybe good is harder to portray, and evil, since it's repetitive, is just easier to write. So creation could not be good, and humanity could not be good. All was tainted by the sin of Adam and Eve.

Because if creation was good, and humanity was good, what need did they have of a church? Much need, of course, if the church was to be a place of hospitality. But if it was to be an institution, it needed power first, so hospitality could be granted second. So the emphasis was on sin, and evil, and it was such an inspiring picture, that it took over.

Jesus teaches his followers humility; something that would have been second nature to most of them. But he knew that such humility would easily turn to arrogance, given the chance. We don't like humility, though; especially those of us who have never had to be truly humble; so we easily turned that into the mea maxima culpa of the breast beating and the flagellation and, when that went out of style, of the guilt and despair and unworthiness we didn't feel, but were told we must feel. We have never quite trusted grace by faith; we've always preferred it have some works involved in it, the better to secure our salvation, ourselves. If we left everything to God, how could we be sure we were saved?

And so guilt and despair and dismay, became institutional concerns. It resonated from the Catholics to the Protestants, until all shouted "Enough!," and threw out the baby with the bathwater. Even the most conservative of large churches today, doesn't preach the "hell fire and brimstone" of a generation ago. Even the most virulent of Catholic priests, I'm sure, doesn't preach the doctrine of damnation that Frank McCourt grew up with in Ireland, with the image of eternity in hell where one burns and burns and burns without being consumed, and eternity is so timeless that after a million years there you've only begun to spend one second of the endless, timeless time, you will spend in such agony. From one extreme to another we go, still chained to the shibboleth of "salvation," because, we fear, without it, we lose our Christianity.

And yet, most modern theologians will tell you the central doctrines of Christianity are the Incarnation and the Resurrection; that these are the distinctly Christian attributes that must be confessed in Christian doctrine. About salvation there is more to say, in connection with the American mania for evangelism. But in the answer to A's question (she of the lovely superfluous vowels): no. We don't "need" salvation. It does not exist outside us, for our attainment. It is given to us, in the peace of God which passes all understanding. In Bach concerti, or beautifully sung music; or even chocolate chip cookies (and if you can cook a good batch, send me some; I'm never happy with mine). It comes to us in the quotidian mysteries, as Kathleen Norris calls them. It comes in other people, and we know it in faith, and in prayer, and in spiritual discipline. And yes, even in worship, if we are capable of it. Which is another kind of spiritual discipline.

And three or four other topics. But salvation: that is about the origin of fire. And why we are so afraid of it. And why we erect such elaborate doctrines, to protect ourselves from it. When it is really as simple as acceptance. We don't need it. But it is nice to have it.



*(This touches on a different topic, which I'll post on before the night is over, hopefully).