Politics and the passions: Addendum (free post)

William of St. Thierry speaks to the moment

A few short hours after sending out the previous post, entitled “Politics and the passions,” which dealt specifically with the vice of hostile anger, there came the news of the shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania (a small city I’ve passed through many times, as it happens). Former President Trump, of course, was nicked on the ear, two others were wounded but are now, we are informed, in stable condition, and one — Corey Comperatore, a fifty-year-old former fire chief — was killed while shielding his family. The shooter was killed. More than one reader commented to me that my post was, all too sadly, timely. But it certainly wasn’t a sign of prescience; I was just as surprised by the news as anyone (although I hasten to add, that my “surprise” was tempered by the fact that I’ve come almost to expect such acts of violence in contemporary politics).

My post was about how modern Christians behave angrily and aggressively in public (the misnamed arena of “social” media being the most prominent), motivated by politics and other issues, and chiefly how they frequently and scandalously direct it toward one another. As I stressed — citing St. John Cassian in particular — not only is such behavior in direct opposition to Jesus’ explicit teachings, but it also kills all hope of progressing in the prayer life and contemplation, or the life in Christ in general (Cassian details why this is so), especially if the behavior becomes habitual.

The Butler incident only tangentially illustrated some of the principal points in my post, but already I’ve seen some barmy things appear in my newsfeed, posted by Christians much too obsessed with “current events” as interpreted “biblically.” Conspiracy theories are making the rounds (more appropriate terms for these are “gossip” and “rumor”). We have been treated to memes depicting angels and Jesus himself guarding Donald Trump (I have no reason to doubt, incidentally, that Trump has a guardian angel; I’m quite a bit more doubtful that he’s a “special friend” of the Lord’s). That image comes from one political direction. From a directly opposing one — and not without some breathless hysteria accompanying it — comes the inevitable reference to Revelation 13:3: “And I saw one of [the beast’s] heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.” The unsubtle inference — well, actually, the straightforward assertion — is that Donald Trump must be the Antichrist, the Beast — as if his nicked ear can be described as “a deadly wound.” There are other examples, but I believe those two are quite enough to indicate the lack of reason that comes from mixing politics with the imagery of apocalypse. Instead of such nonsense, the Christian should practice reticence, silence, and deep prayer.

The great Benedictine/Cistercian abbot, William of St. Thierry (c. 1075/85 - 1148) — a spiritual father for whom I have long had a veneration — once wrote a short book (actually, a long letter), to be read to the Cistercian monks of Mont Dieu. It comes down to us in English translation as The Golden Epistle. In its two parts, it details how the monk — or the Christian — is meant to progress from the level of the “animal man” to that of the “rational man,” and finally to that of the “spiritual man.” I won’t say more about this worthwhile, very readable, and very helpful short work, except (1) to say that you would be doing yourself an immense favor to get it and read it, and (2) to quote from it two passages on the subject of the “rational man.” Because, before we can be “spiritual,” we must become “rational” as William means that word. Indeed, we need to be much more “rational” than the world, much wiser, less foolish, and altogether much more mentally fit and emotionally balanced. The world around us has steadily been losing its mind for generations; we need to be “noetic” lights in that world.

So, I leave you with two short passages from William of St. Thierry’s Golden Epistle for your rumination (ruminatio was, in fact, a favorite metaphor of William’s regarding reading):

(1) Man endowed with spirit becomes good and rational, loving the Lord his God with his whole heart and his whole soul and all his mind and all his strength, and, only in God, himself and his neighbor as himself. He has the good spirit which fears God and keeps his commandments: this is the whole of man…

(2) But no vice is natural to man, whereas virtue is. None the less the force of habit deriving from a corrupt will or a deep-seated carelessness tends to make a host of vices become as if natural to the conscience which has been neglected. As medical men say, habit is second nature.

Yet every bad spirit can be softened before it grows hard in evil; and even after it has become hardened it need not be despaired of. For the curse pronounced upon Adam means that the earth which we cultivate and the ground which is our heart or body produce harmful or useless growth freely in all directions, but what is useful and necessary only with hard work.

However, since virtue is a product of nature, when eventually it comes into the spirit it comes, not indeed without hard work, yet as to its own proper place, and there it settles down to stay. Nature is well pleased with it, for it knows no greater reward than to be aware of itself in God. *

I recommend going over those paragraphs slowly a few times — chew them. They’re rich in nutrients.

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*William of St. Thierry, The Golden Epistle, Translated by Theodore Berekeley O.C.S.O., Introduction by J. M. Déchanet O.S.B. (Kalamazoo, 1980), pp. 80, 84. (For an interesting ancient Chinese parallel to these passages, see my 4/11/24 post on Mencius here.)