LOGOS I Benedictine Deconstruction

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Self reconstruction of Greek Memoryby Darwin Leon

www.darwinleon.com

LOGOS I BENEDICTINE DECONSTRUCTION

BY

DAVID ARTHUR WALTERS

http://www.darwinleon.com/





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When Man is gone and only gods remain To stride the world, their mighty bodies hung With golden shields, and golden curls outflung

Above their childish foreheads; when the plainRound skull of Man is lifted and again

Abandoned by the ebbing wave, among The sand and pebbles of the beach, - what tongue Will tell the marvel of the human brain?Heavy with music once this windy shell,Heavy with knowledge of the clustered stars:

The one-time tenant of the draughty hallHimself, in learned pamphlet, did foretell,

After some aeons of study jarred by wars, This toothy gourd, this head emptied of all.(Edna St. Vincent Millay)

PROLOGUE

“The Christian Enlightenment would dismantle false dogmatism and shed theunfettered light of Reason on everything, that the secular and divine order of existence and being, from atom to supreme being, might be revealed, but bedeviledanti-humanists, such as the atheistic Jacques Derrida and his relativistic crew of literary terrorists, along with various and sundry theologians armed with a pluralisticrationale of liberation that smacks of anarcho-communism, not to mention themonotheistic Islamist terrorists with their anarchic orthopraxis, do not appreciate therational chains of hierarchical being no matter how loosely linked our logicalassociations might be for their sake. They have found weak links or contradictory sticking points in our careful rationalizations, which they use to make an obscene joke

out of all that is wholesome and decent if not sacred, in order to disorder anddismantle our high Western civilization. They have made a mockery of the rationalhumanism of our republican democracy and its imperial faith and monarchicalreligion. In fine, they have dampened the Light of our Enlightenment and wouldgladly extinguish it. Wherefore our youth, our very future, has been corrupted by their

wanton perversity. Reason led by Faith must be invoked to save humanity fromeventually being gassed and thrown into the bottomless pit prepared by skeptical



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deconstructionists and other deranged postmodernists of this so-called New Age thathas perverted our Western logic and inverted our sacred values.” (Professor BarnardKatzenbammer)

THE LIGHT OF REASON & THE FRACTIOUS FAULT

The Light of Reason is naturally identified with the one-god by persons whocast the special nature of humankind, its reasoning power, onto an idol named God.No less an illuminated personage than Pope Benedict XVI pointed out, in hisSeptember 12, 2006 speech at the University of Regensberg, that the Greek-modifiedGod is Logos, in contrast to the perverse notion of radical Protestants, Muslims,

dissident Catholics and iconoclastic Jews, not to mention mystics of all persuasions,that an omnipotent deity cannot be restrained by what amounts to our falliblereasoning power projected as an ideal or idol that is, after the final analysis of acidicreason, a mere name or word for our logolatry. The Pope alluded to the classical clashof religions West and East, particularly Judeo-Christian Europe and Islamic NearEast, corresponding to the so-called clash between civilizations. Predominantly Christian Europe is purportedly winning that clash; Islam, with its truly monotheistichence monolithic theocratic tendency, is reputedly a failed civilization in want of thereformation that the West thinks it needs to join the enlightened Western pursuit of

life, liberty and more and more property.

Taking Pope Benedict‟s Logos as our cue, let us take advantage of our leisureand draw an imaginary line or margin between East and West that we mightdistinguish and confuse them as the Light of Reason passes overhead.

The fundamental religious difference or fault can be traced in logical terms. Onthe right hand we have the analytical and dualistic Greek logic of Aristotle with itsrational law of identity (A is A), law of contradiction (A is not not-A), and law of excluded middle (A cannot be A and non-A, neither A nor non-A). Aristotelian logic

presumes that X is either this or that. On the left hand we have the synthetic andparadoxical hence presumably irrational logic that allows us to assume that A andnon- A do not exclude each other as predicates of X: “It is and it is not,” positspositive paradoxical logic; or, in the negative, “It is neither this nor that.”Paradoxically inclined sages claim that we can only perceive reality in contradictions,and shall never location the ultimate unity of reality, the One, in thought.



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I may infer from the law of contradiction that I think therefore I existindependently of my thoughts: I am not what I think about; to wit, the world, and thatincludes my own body. In any event there is nothing as certain to me, uponnarcissistic reflection, as my existence in relation to the world, the feminine aspectthat I would keep out of sight, perhaps hidden in a niche on the side of the vault.

Without that relationship, I cannot be defined as an existence; nevertheless,unqualified and indefinite egos, identical in their naked indefiniteness, are projected asa public god, a Category of One, the loneliest indefinitude of all for there is nothing like god. We might imagine that this vacuous loneliness motivated the creation of the

world out of the rib or arc of spacetime; yet the law of contradiction makes it clearthat the creator is not his creation, hence he remains forever absolutely independent.God might be clothed by the world, which is God‟s textile or text or Logos at work,but clothes do not make the man and are not the man.

On the other hand, where what is is not, the identity of the „I‟ or ego is not soclear cut and may even be denied as a unitary existent, as might the existence of a solegod be denied as well. On this hand, mind and body, and god and world, areconfused. God is not merely clothed by the world: God‟s body is the world. Folks

who are prone to this sort of logic, even if they profess belief in god, are pantheists,and they are called atheists by monotheists in dire need of an absolute godindependent of the world – in that contradiction they are dualists to boot.

Although the so-called Western mind appreciates works, its right-handedreasoning tends to intolerance due to its Cartesian separation of mind from body,

emphasizing the right way of thinking or orthodoxy over right action or orthopraxis.Indeed, the notion that absolute truths and even Truth as God is located in Westernthought tends to dogmatic By-Goddery bigotry, the burning of opinionated heretics,and, ironically, to science, where only correct thinking, obtaining to perceivableresults, counts.

In psychoanalytical terms, a thought is the same as a deed to the idealisticsuperego, the moral or judicial factor of personality. The superego does notdistinguish between subjective and objective: the conscientious and idealistic superego

will punish the realistic ego for bad thinking even if the thoughts are not translated

into action: if you think of committing adultery, you have done the dastardly deed.

The left-handed religions do not believe that unitary truth can be found incontradictory thought: If salvation is not to be had in self-righteous thinking that leadsto selfish personal survival, there is no reason to fight over contradictory ideas.Instead of dogmatic thought, the emphasis is placed on self-transformative lifestyle.



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Sexually speaking, Western thinking is dominated by Father Reason, thediscriminating patriarch who presides over irrational Mother Faith – she loves herchildren equally – so he may be certain of his private property in his brood. Father isof course a private capitalist, and Mother is a communist or state capitalist. Of coursethe ideal family is a mixed government: Father is monarch when at home – motherpresides in his absence; father and mother together are an aristocracy; their childrenconstitute a democracy.

When we trace the fractious fault between East and West, we notice thathuman beings have two hands – at least it takes two Western hands to clap; the soundof one Eastern hand clapping is absurd – and that the marginal line between East and

West is arbitrarily drawn and unheeded by the Sun that shines on every head. TheGreek style of thinking Pope Benedict dogmatically claimed for Europe in hisRegensberg speech is not as certain as he would have it be, as is evidenced by

Socrates, whose wisdom was in being the only one who knew he did not know. As the Taoists say, “To know and yet think we do not know is the highest attainment. To notknow and to think we do is a disease.” Heraclitus of Ephesus, whom the West claimsas one of the early fathers of Western philosophy, made a number of observations onthe contradictions that we perceive because perception depends on contradiction:

HERACLITEAN STRUCTURALISM

“People do not understand that that which is at variance with itself agrees withitself,” asserted Heraclitus of Ephesus. “There is a harmony in the bending back, as inthe case of the bow and the lyre.” And, “The bones connected by joints are at once aunitary whole and not a unitary whole. To be in agreement is to differ; the concordantis the discordant. From out of all the many particulars comes oneness, and out of oneness comes all the many particulars.” He spoke of the misunderstanding of theLogos: “Although this Logos is eternally valid, yet men are unable to understand it,not only before hearing it, but even after they have heard it for the first time. That is

to say, although all things come to pass in accordance with this Logos, men seem tobe quite without any experience of it, at least if they are judged in the light of such words and deeds as I am here setting forth.”

Heraclitus was an early proponent of the way of thinking modern academicshave dubbed structuralism, a philosophical discipline that examines the relationshipsbetween fundamental elements upon which higher mental or cultural functions are



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presumably based. Since human beings are part of a nature that appears from itschanges to be lawful or systematic, it follows that human behavior, including thoughtor symbolic action, would somehow correspond to the natural laws or ratios change – thus is human nature in accord with general nature rational, at least until the regularorder is punctuated unexpectedly by elemental calamities, attributed by thesuperstitious mind to unruly beings or the wrath of gods.

Structural analysis and synthesis proceed in every person at an early age.Perception depends on change. Child psychologist Jean Piaget observed that a child‟sattention is naturally centered on change: “The explanation of movement is thecentral point to which all the child‟s ideas about the world converge.” Things movedue to external forces and are also, like the child, self-moved. With guidance from histeachers, the child may develop the notion of a first-mover or causeless-cause to rely upon as an explanation for unexplained events at an early age. Otherwise one element

or the other will do: A child under the influence of adult authority might dogmatically uphold the notion that all things are made of dust, having heard that from dust wecome and to dust shall we return. That man is made of mud and water is a mythcommon to many cultures. But an authoritative identification of human beings withdirty dust might have quite a demoralizing effect on the impressionable child given hisexperience with the concrete substance and his misunderstanding of fine figures of speech. In Ethics of the Dust , Ten Lectures to Little Housewives on the Elements of Crystallization , John Ruskin, LL.D., Honorary Student of Christ Church and SladeProfessor of Fine Art, imagined that during the course of a lecture given at a girlsschool he had worked to correct the dusty old atomic notion, implanted in childhood,

that identifies the human being in general with its particulate material:

“No, children, I won‟t call you that; and mind, as you grow up, that you do notget into an idle and wicked habit of calling yourselves that. You are something betterthan dust, and have other duties to do than ever dust can do; and the bonds of affection you will enter into are better than merely „getting into order.‟ But see to it,on the other hand, that you behave at least as well as „dust‟; remember, it is only oncompulsion, and while it has no free permission to do as it likes, that it ever gets outof order; but sometimes, with some of us, the compulsion has to be the other way – hasn‟t it? (Remonstratory whispers, expressive of opinion that the lecturer is

becoming to personal) I‟m not looking at anybody in particular – indeed I am not.Nay, if you blush so, Kathleen, how can one help looking? We‟ll g o back to theatoms.”

According to our contemporary child psychologists, even the young child hasan autonomous hand in the logos of the first stage of logical development:



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“The root of these beliefs,” explains Monsieur Piaget in The Child’s Concepti on of Physical Causality , “namely the spontaneous element and that which alone isindependent of adult influence and of the question which as been asked, isanthropocentric finalism: the wind is „made for‟ the rain, the trees, the boats, etc.Under the influence of the question of the origin of the wind the relation expressedby the words „made for‟ gives rise in the child‟s mind to the idea that the wind is„made by‟ people or by God.”

It is as if the world were made in the child‟s image, each thing intentionally putin its place and in definite relation. A child of eight named Re seems to believe thatclouds, dust, air, and water participate with one another. As for the lighter things, theclouds might move the wind and the wind might move the clouds, but then again theSun or God might move them both. God‟s Logos, we might imagine, is God‟s breath:He weighs up his Scheme within, and then exhales the glorious universe. If he doesn‟t

mind us saying so, we say he is a bit of a blowhard when linguistically expressed - Thanks to Dragon Breath, this Worm or ours keeps swelling. “It is not because breatheventually plays a part in the child‟s conception of birth that it has become theprinciple underlying „spirit‟, „thought‟, or „soul‟ in this history of ideas . It is ratherbecause air plays a preponderant part in the child‟s ideas about the world, and aboutmovement in particular.” And of course it is inextricably linked with speech. Wemight ask our child psychologist, “Does not the child forever „remember‟ i ts first gaspof air?”

Mankind in its childhood has a religion natural to its youth. John Ruskin, famed

art critic and Gothic-art enthusiast, social theorist and Christian socialist of the Victorian Age, wrote another curious book, entitled Queen of the Air, Being a Study of the Greek Myths of Cloud and Storm , wherein he waxed enthusiastically on the “science of mythology” in regards to the “interpretation of myths relating to naturalphenomenon.” John Ruskin‟s aesthetic sentiment was averse to the morally degrading mechanisms of the Industrial Revolution and its tendency to standardize life, atendency that he attributed to classical structuralism. For him, Gothic architecture

wrote large the harmony of the affections of the heart and the inspirations of themind reunited in stone. He thought its picaresque and grotesque aspects expressed thestriving of thought for freedom, bore witness to the very liberty of the stonemason

and the manual worker‟s manumission, providing withal manure for the lofty mind,that its manacles be loosened and all manipulative hands, buttressed by what he calledthe Law of Help, be together inspired to manage the overarching task, that is to makehidden principles manifest and manifold in expression, for that is the maneuverproper to poetic Homo Fabricus, the articulate handyman whose hands teach him tothink well on things and to make do the best he can.



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All that, we might add in a footnote or appendix, is in accord with the advice of the imaginative wise wo-man, a witch if you please, the fe-male logos called Maya,

wife or feminine power of the god, in some parts of the world – Maya in triunalparlance is maker-making-made: her fashions are illusory to confounded men but arenevertheless effective. Mayadevi is the mother of the messiah; she is known as Mary to Christians. In any event, at least according to John Ruskin, who did not appreciatethe merely aesthetic man nor the merely economic man, the true artist should ignoresocial conventions and look to nature first of all, rejecting nothing, selecting nothing.

The artist should communicate truth above all, for high art is moral art, essential tothe felicitous development of humankind in all its endeavors.

Impressionism was not John Ruskin‟s cup of tea, particularly in the the form of one of its famous efforts to paint Night: he published a review stating that the

American Impressionist in Europe, James McNeill Whistler, had, with his „Nocturne

in Black and Gold‟, thrown a pot of paint in the public‟s face. The artist sued him forlibel and won a farthing and much publicity, much to the critic‟s consternation overthe damage to his reputation. Furthermore, John Ruskin had an inordinate affectionfor young girls, an affection that sparked the debate over the probability of hispedophilia. His proposal to the very religious lady Rose la Touche after she came of age – he met her when she was nine - was rejected, and she died shortly thereafter. Hebecame mentally unstable, even subject to delusional visions, and soon turned fromart to invest his fortune in socialist projects and religion. He held that the Greek religion was naturally structured according to the four elements:

“Now, at the culminating period of the Greek religion, we fin d, under onegoverning Lord of all things, four subordinate elemental forces, and four spiritualpowers living in them and commanding them. The elements are of course the well-known four of the ancient world – the earth, the waters, the fire, and the air; and theliving powers of them are Demeter, the Latin Ceres; Poseidon, the Latin Neptune;

Apollo, who has retained always his Greek name; and Athena, the Latin Minerva.Each of these are descended from, more ancient, and therefore more mystic, deitiesof the earth and heaven, and of a finer element of aether supposed to be beyond theheavens.”

We recall that Athena‟s most common epithet is glaukopis, meaning “grey -blue-eyed,” which is usually translated “gleaming -eyed” or “bright-eyed.” Related tothe same root word is glaux, or the “owl” that sees in the night hence is wise,

wherefore Athena, bird-goddess and Queen of the Air, appears as an owl or with anowl. She also carries the deep blue shield or aegis lent to her by her father Zeus. JohnRuskin was profoundly impressed by a lecture on modern science, now outdated,delivered by one Professor Tyndall, a lecture that Mr. Ruskin thought proved, “in two



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important particulars, the evidence of an instinctive truth in ancient symbolism:showing, first, that the Greek conception of an aetherial element pervading space isjustified by the closest reason of modern physicists; and secondly, that the blue of thesky, hitherto thought to be caused by watery vapour, is, indeed, reflected from thedivided air itself; so that the bright blue of the eyes of Athena, and the deep blue of her aegis, prove to be accurate mythic expressions of natural phenomena which it isan uttermost triumph of recent science to have revealed.” We shall return to theQueen of the Air, if flighty Psyche sees fit.

It is a fine thing to observe nature and to divine its architecture, but thestructure conceived is rarely fitting. Now French philosopher Jacques Derrida hascriticized the purportedly postmodern philosophical fad called Structuralism; to hisclassically trained mind, Structuralism was not dynamic at all: Structuralism smackedof the metaphysical rigidity of the nebulous permanencies of ontology. Structure

( structura <strue re , „to build‟) was just another old name for a designer or final cause of fixed outcomes or buildings, of a presiding being or architect in itself unmoved but atonce the motivating principle from which all systems are supposedly derived. Take forexample, the principle of the line, which is in truth a non-dimensional point, whichdoes not really exist yet is somehow present throughout the extent of the line. Thehistory of an idea or object of thought is a series of such points or imagined beingsunder cover of different terms; in one word: Being – which implies Nothing. Whatthen is our point? Everybody wants us to get to the point nowadays. “Get to thepoint. Just give me the time and don‟t build me a clock.” We prefer the clock becauseit tells all times yet never gets to the Point because the Point is infinite and

infinitesimal. The most successful business persons build clocks that will outlast them;one famous banker said that it takes nearly two hours to make a good point; we say ittakes forever to make a perfect point, for there is nothing to it, and we would not bepinned down.

Now yet another scientist has written a book scientifically proving that Goddoes not exist; he does not understand that his book, although it might make him asmall worldly fortune, is entirely beside the Point, hence irrelevant from our mutualperspective at the center everywhere. In any event, if the a priori , top-down SupremeBeing does not presently exist as a fact positively and negatively defined, that shall not

deter humankind from continuing with the grass roots God Project; and that bottom-up project shall no doubt coincide with the Final Cause; that is, if there be a designing Creator in the first place; and if not, so what? For it is the meaning or being or pointat the centre of it all, and not the mundane facts of existence, upon which the merry-go-round turns.



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“The entire history of the concept of structure,” posited Derrida in Writing and Difference , “must be thought of as a series of substitutions of centre for centre, as alinked chain of determinations of the centre. Successively, and in a regulated fashion,the centre received different forms or names. The history of metaphysics, like thehistory of the West, is the history of metaphors and metonymies. Its matrix … is thedetermination of Being as presence in all senses of this word. It could be shown thatall the names related to fundamentals, to principles, of to the centre have alwaysdesignated an invariable presence – eidos, archê, telos, energia, ousia, essence,existence, substance, subject, alêtheia, transcendentality, consciousness, God, man,and so forth.”

Heraclitus outlined the structure of change that he intuited from observation of the transformation of physical elements: “Fire lives in the death of earth, air in thedeath of fire, water in the death of air, and earth in the death of water.” Hence we

have our campfire or circle of fire, a virtuous circle about which we might ritually dance both ways, keeping in mind that the universe or one and only verse or“turning” begins and ends and has its being in everlasting Fire; to wit: Fire-Air-Water-Earth-Fire. The ends of a line when infinitely extended are bound to meet, despite ourconception of the line‟s progress: “In the circumference of the circle the beginning and the end are common.”

Thus did Heraclitus, anticipating the particle-wave or matter-energy transformation theory, relate his Logos or scheme to elemental Fire, the energeticprinciple running throughout the elements: “There is exchange of all things for fire

and fire for all things, as there is of wares for gold and gold for wares.” As far as he was concerned, the universe is uncreated: “This universe, which is the same for all,has not been made by any god or man, but it always has been, is, and will be an ever-living fire, kindling itself by regular measures and going out by regular measures.”

Now the unity of the opposition or strife by means of which all things move isin Fire, to which man is related by his soul, which is naturally airy. Now we beg Heraclitus‟ indulgence for a moment recall, for mythical effect, that Athena, theQueen of the Air, also known a Tritogenia or thrice-born, sprang fully grown andarmed from the head of Zeus, and was etymologically identified by Plato A-theo-noa ,

“the mind of God.” Athena‟s mother was crafty Metis, daughter to the Thetys whogave birth to a daughterly race including her and Europa among others. Metis was thefirst love and wife of Zeus, his great counselor in time of war against the Titans. Inone most famous incident, she, at the behest of Zeus, she drugged Cronus and gavehim the vomitive that caused him to regurgitate the children he had devoured. Metis

was the mother of thinking, the goddess whom Hesiod called the “worker of rightactions, beyond all the gods and beyond all mortal peop le in knowledge.” who, or so



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it was prophesied (mantis, mania), would bear children, one of whom who wouldoverpower the king of gods, and for that reason and upon the advice of Gaia andOuranos, Zeus turned Metis into a fly and swallowed her whole: “For s o they counseled,” wrote Hesiod of Gaia and Ouranos, “in order that no other everlasting god, besides Zeus, should ever be given kingly position, for it had been arranged that,from her, children surpassing in wisdom should be born, first the grey-eyed girl, the

Tritogeneia Athene… but then a son to be king over gods and mortals was to be bornof her and his heart would be overmastering.” But Zeus swallowed Metis too late: shehad already conceived Athene, and she proceeded to prepare an helmet and robe for

Athena. Zeus suffered a terrible headache from the hammering out of the helmet, wherefore Hermes, the messenger or messiah of the gods, perforce with theambiguous axe of Hephaestus, split open Zeus‟ head to release Athena, the ma -ma of man-the-thinker or human, much to his great relief but not so much to those men orminds (mens) who inherited his headache and were wont therefore to pursue

civilization for temporary relief.

In Bharat, or the ancient cradle of India, „ma‟ means „drawn out‟ or „extended‟ ,and Manu is prototypical man, or he who is drawn from his ma‟s womb, „he whodraws out thought‟; he who has, „manas‟, or mind. “Samsayatmika manah (the mindalways doubts).” But there is a dogmatic formula or mantra or manifesto to relievedoubt: “Mana trayati iti mantra (the mind that makes you free from the world, that is,mantra).”Athena, then, is the goddess civilization with all its devices and craftsincluding the fundamental craft of war spawned by a split-mind in search of monotheistic monopoly. Athena, mind you, is Logos manifested in its female form;

she is Sophia, that is to say, Wisdom. She is the Holy Ghost known to hercounterpart, the Son of God. But let us leave the narrative and return to themetaphysics of ancient science:

“Soul is the vaporization of which everything else is composed” claimedHeraclitus; “moreover, it is the least corporeal of things and is in ceaseless flux, forthe moving world can only be known by what is in motion.” We might agree with thatnotion providing that the moving standard is a unique inertial frame of reference. Inany case, the motion should be coherent, and to that end the more arid or closer toFire the person is, the better, for there is nothing more perverse, if humankind is

supposed to be reasonable or in accord with the Logos, than besotted drunksstaggering around the campfire. “Souls take pleasure is becoming moist,” but “it isdeath to souls to become water,” for “a drunken man has to be led by a boy, whomhe follows stumbling and not knowing whither he goes, for his soul is moist.” It isbetter to go on the wagon and dry out, for the arid soul is closer to the Fire: “A dry soul is wisest and best, or the best and wisest soul is a dry beam of light.” But no



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matter how dry he may be, on the whole, “Man is not rational; there is intelligenceonly in what encompasses him.”

Although the Logos is the principle that rations out the fluctuating forms, itappears that the material universe encompassed by the Whole is not admirable for its

ratios: “The fairest universe is but a heap of rubbish piled up at random.” The deadframe is worthless: “Corpses are more fit to be thrown out than dung. In any case, asane or presumably rational life is preferable to insanity.

We might ask: Would humankind survive without God symbolizing the Wholeor Sanity? Do not men and women need metaphysical as well as physical ground tostand upright on? We believe we need things to survive, and an underlying explanation of those things serves us well as reasonable beings. But do we need amysterious thing-in-itself, a Thingie? Would not the death of God, whether real orimaginary, render the race unholy or insane? Yea, the death of God is not aninsurmountable problem for members of the Death-of-God Christian cult: you see,God died and humankind became Jesus Christ when he died on the Cross, wherefore

we await not the advent of Christ but the resurrection of God.

Pope Benedict, given his affection for God‟s Scheme or dogmatic structure, would probably agree with Heraclitus‟ pronouncement that “Men should speak withrational mind and thereby hold strongly to that which is shared in common, as a city holds on to the law, and even more strongly. For all human laws are nourished by theone divine law, which prevails as far as it wishes, suffices for all things, and yet is

something more than they are.” And what do humans have in common? Apparently Logos: “Thinking is common to all.” That is not to say that their thinking is correct,for men, although “intimately connected with the Logos,” are wont to “set themselvesagainst Logos,” hence “what is divine escapes men‟s notice because of theirincredulity.” But all shall be put in their place: “Fire in its advance will catch all thingsby surprise and judge them.” Yes, justice is to each his own, yet “Justice will overtakefabricators of lies and false witnesses.” And in the end each and every one of us shallbe redeemed for a new beginning; that is, we shall all be redoomed or replaced: “Afterbirth men have the wish to live and to accept their dooms; then they leave behindthem children to become dooms in their turn.”

Heraclitus did not harp on peace like our popes are wont to do; quite to thecontrary: “The people should fight for their law as for their city wall.” And, “It shouldbe understood that war is the common condition, that strife is justice, and that allthings come to pass through the compulsion of strife. Homer was wrong in wishing that strife might perish from amongst gods and men, for if that were to occur, then allthings would cease to exist.”



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DOOMED AND REDOOMED

Ironically, most of what we know about Heraclitus is derived from Christiansources intolerant of his manner of thinking, which, as far as we know from theremains of his teaching, admits to divine spirituality but not to a substantial andsingular absolute person called God, who, by virtue of his Logos, created or breathedor inspired or spun the universe from Nothing, instantiating his unbegotten Sontherein to redoom humankind. Genesis does provide a chaos of elemental materialsfor the Creator to realize his scheme, that his original Word, weighed up by himbefore the creation, instantaneously becomes Deed – the Greeks, on the other hand,from whom we borrow the term hypocrita (actor), perceived a gap between talking (logos) and doing (ergon) in the Hellenes.

The personification of the Logos in the process of the realization of the ideal was enhanced by the Targums in the post-biblical period: the Aramic term „Memra‟(Hebrew dabar – „word‟) was their synonym for YHWH, thus did they say that Adamand Eve heard “Memra” stomping around in the Garden of Eden as they hid in thetrees. Memra was obviously not omniscient in those days, as he could not see them intheir hiding place. Memra had no objection to their sexual intercourse, for heexpected them to go forth and multiply; he objected to them having their own reasons

for doing what they did. Adam and Eve in their ignorance had ignored Memra: they neglected to give credit where credit was presumably due, to the arbitrary Reason of reasoning, the adjudicating Cause of causes, the dominus who sets his foot down(dom) in his domain, under his dome, over which he has absolute dominium.

The same might be said of Marcion‟s challenge to the Roman Church, achallenge we would be unaware of but for the Church‟s testimony to its intolerancefor Marcion‟s Christian perspective, deemed un-Christian in writing. The Catholicshad difficulty rooting out the Marcionite church because its liturgy differed little fromits own; therefore spies had difficulty detecting the heretics. Marcion, whose

congregation was considerably larger than the Catholic flock at the time, hadcompiled the first Christian canon, consisting only of Luke, and Paul‟s letters witheverything therein perceived as too Jewish excised. Not that Marcion the arch-heretic

was anti-Jewish: he loved Paul, for example, and deemed the rest of the Christianleaders frauds; but he was convinced that it was high time for the Terrorist Almighty of the Old Testament, the Old World Doom, to be replaced by the alien god, the



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Stranger, the god of Love whom Jesus represented, who first appeared on the Earthas a phantasm at the scene of his baptism by John the Baptist.

Since the Marcionites had set themselves against the Old Testament‟s MosaicLaw, they are known as antinomians, a tendency that reappeared full force at the

beginning of the Reformation and was quashed for fear of revolution; thus was it saidthat Christ came to fulfill the archaic law, not to abrogate it. The memory of Saul of

Tarsus, known as Paul the Christ to some heretics, author of the Christian Magna orepistle to the Galatians among other letters, helped inspire the Protestant revolutionagainst Church government; further redaction and reinterpretation of his seminal

works might inspire another protest to disestablish the archaic tribal laws of theHebrews and replace them with guidelines of love. Paul purportedly mentioned thehostility engendered by the Law in a letter to the Ephesians: “But now in Jesus Christ,you that used to be so far apart from us have been brought very close, by the blood of

Christ. For he is the peace between us, and has made the two into one and brokendown the barrier which used to keep them apart, actually destroying in his own personthe hostility causes by the rules and the decrees of the Law.”

THE GODDESS OF MARGINS

“Wisdom is one and unique; it is unwilling and yet willing to be called by thename of Zeus,” quoth Heraclitus. Furthermore, “Bigotry is a sacred disease.”Furthermore, “They pray to images, much as they were to talk to houses; for they donot know what gods and heroes are.” Heraclitus knew what he was talking about. Helived in Ephesus, home of one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the Temple of

Artemis, indeed one of the greatest religious and cultural centers of the ancient world.Bigger than a football field, the temple had 127 Ionic columns, gilded in silver andgold, each one 60-foot tall, and was home to the finest works of art from throughoutthe world – the temple was burnt down about B.C.E. 356 by a man namedHerostratus, allegedly an insane man who wanted nothing more than to make a name

for himself. Eight pillars from the temple would eventually be used to build the domeof the Church of Saint Sophia in Istanbul – the church was later converted to amosque and then a museum.

The goddess Artemis, twin sister to far-flung Apollo, was oriented to theOrient. She was Goddess of Margins and Borders and Crises – to this very day shepresides over the unruly metaphysical margin between East and West alluded to by



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Pope Benedict. Artemis is the virginal protector of women and young children andanimals of both sexes. She was sometimes called Mistress of Animals and Lady of

Wild Things by the ancients. Artemis Ephesia was most popular with rural folk on themargins of civilization; she was indeed an Earth goddess inclined to wildness and wasclosely associated with the high-hatted Persian goddess of wild mountains and forests,Cybele of Many Breasts – her globular adornments might have been eggs or bulltesticles instead of breasts.

Ephesus was originally named „Aphasa‟, meaning „city of the stream‟ or „city of the mother g oddess.‟ The city was reportedly founded by the Amazons („Antianeira‟or „those who fight like men‟) long before the Ionian Greek arrived from Athens – thecity sided with Persia in the Persian Wars with the Greeks. The Egyptian cult of Isisbecame popular in the city after the conquest of Persia by Alexander the Great.Ptolemy I took political advantage of the cult, using it to unite his Greek and Egyptian

and Hellenic subjects; he contrived a consort for Isis, Serapis, a conglomeration of Osiris, Apis, Dionysus, Zeus and other gods, but the synthetic counterpart of Isis wasunacceptable in Asia Minor.

The thriving city of gleaming white marble, replete with temples, statutes,fountains, covered pavements, colonnaded walkways, lights, sewerage and plumbing,had a population of about 300,000 at its zenith around the time of Christ. Despite itsfame, or rather because of it, Ephesus was the sort of seed-mixing harlot noblemillenarian desert prophets worth their camels were wont to defame to all eternity. It

was located in what is now western Turkey, the cultural crossroads that witnessed the

ancient political and economic strife between people from East and West.

THE VIRGIN SACRIFICE ON THE MARGIN

Homer made strategically located Troy the most famous example of the fightfor foreign markets and the cruelty of the Greeks in the pursuit of free trade. Enter

for romantic interests the flaming femme fatale of Greece, redheaded Helen, the mostbeautiful possession to be had in the world; and she was pledged with pursuant to a wager among her suitors – the gamblers agreed that all would guarantee the marriageof the one who won her as wife – Menelaus was the unfortunate winner.

We recall that Zeus becalmed the sea when the united Greeks tried to sail to Troy from Aulis in pursuit of free trade and Helen, who had run off to Troy with



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Paris; the gods had given the pair a fair wind, blowing them to Troy before stalling their pursuers: “If only Zeus had not breathed against the wind in Euripus that wouldha ve otherwise carried them away,” wrote Euripides. “He chooses which sails to fill

with strong gusts and what ships to stay unmoved.” They had apparently failed tosacrifice a goat to Artemis at the margin between life and death, peace and war. Theprophet Calchas told Agamemnon that the fleet would be allowed to sail if only young Iphigenia were sacrificed to Artemis, the goddess of maidens. The king capitulated atonce and claimed that Iphigenia would not really die, or so charged his enraged,cuckolded and jealous brother, calling his sibling a liar to gods and men, and chargedhim with being a self-deluded, high-and-mighty misleader who believed the people

were merely shadows of his will, a man incompetent to rule himself let alone theGreek host – the Chorus remarked on the animosity of the brothers, saying they werelike two mirror images emerged from the same womb yet venting Strife after seeing the light of day.

Aeschylus, in his play Agamemnon , explains Agamemnon‟s motive to sacrificehis girl: Agamemnon is damned if he does the deed and damned if he does not do it,but in the end god‟s law must prevail. “Calchas cried, „My captains, Artemis must haveblood!‟ So harsh the sons of Atreus dashed their scepters on the rocks, could not holdback their tears, and I still can hear the older warlord saying, „Obey, obey, or a heavedoom with crush me! Oh, but doom will crush me once I rend my child, the glory of my home – a father‟s hands are stained, blood of a young girl streaks the altar. Painboth ways and what is worse? Desert the fleets. Fail the alliance? No, but stop the

winds with a virgin‟s blood, feed their lust, their fury? – Feed their fury! – Law is law!

– Let all go well!‟ And once he slipped his neck in the strap of Fate, his spirit veering black, impure, unholy, once he turned he stopped at nothing, seized with the frenzy blinding driving to outrage – wretched frenzy, cause of all our grief! Yes, he had theheart to sacrifice his daughter, to bless the war that avenged a woman‟s loss, a bridal rite that sped the men-of- war. „My father, father!‟ – she might pray to the winds; noinnocence moves her judges mad for war. Her father called the henchmen on, on witha prayer, „Hoist her over the altar with all your strength! She‟s fainting – lift her, sweeprobes around her, but slip this strap in her gentle curving lips… here, gag her hard, asound will curse the house‟ – and the bridle chokes her voice… her saffron robespouring over the sand, her glance like arrows showering, wounding every murder

through with pity….”

The king‟s daughter was lured to Aulis on the pretext of marriage to heroic Achilles; of course she was appalled to discover the true purpose, asking, “Why me?”But then, according to Euripides‟ recounting of the event, she willingly committedherself to the sacrifice for the honor of Greece: She had wondered what she had doneto deserve such a fate, but then the truth came to her as a fiery lighting bolt, that she



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must die because by doing so she would will the wind to fill the sails and thus save theGreeks from infamy. Who was she, a mere mortal, to defy Artemis? So to Greece shecommemorated her body, concluding her pledge with: “Barbarians are ruled by Greeks, who are born to be free, while barbarians are born slaves.” Artemismiraculously saved her at the altar, switching her with a goat and whisking her off elsewhere to attend to her rites: Everyone had heard the fatal blow fall, but when they looked the girl had disappeared, and upon the bloody altar was beautiful deer instead.Imaginative authors also tried to save Helen from infamy as an adulterer, claiming thatthe Helen who appeared at Troy was a phantasm, and that the real Helen had been

whisked away somewhere where she was really faithful to her husband; but few believed that tall tale.

PAUL AT EPHESUS

Now Heraclitus of Ephesus, the Amazonian city to the south of Troy, could beclaimed by the East as well as the West, for his philosophy rests on the marginprotected by Artemis. And so might mystically inclined Saint Paul, whose growth wasinfluenced by oriental Jews and occidental Greeks; that is, if it were not for his Jewishantipathy towards idolatry. For Saint Paul, who was born in Tarsus, a Hellenized city south of Ephesus, was chosen by the Creator before the world was created to deliver

Christ‟s message to Asia, there was only one Logos or mediator between Man andGod: Jesus Christ: “Before the world was made,” it was forever inscribed in Ephesians ,“he chose us, chose us in Christ, to be holy and spotless, and to live through love inhis presence, determining that we should become his adopted sons, through JesusChrist….”

We remember well the riotous behavior in Ephesus that might have led toPaul‟s death. The silversmith Demetrius, troubled by Paul‟s percei ved threat to theidol business, called his fellow workmen together at Ephesus to warn them that Paul

was going all over Asia, saying that their idols were not gods because they were

handmade. Not only was that a threat to their craft, but might cause people to despisethe Temple of Artemis along with the great goddess “whom all Asia and the world worships.” Of course that would surely ruin the tourist trade. The craftsmen wereenraged by Demetrius‟ speech, and demonstrated for two hours, shouting the slogan,“Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” Fortunately for the future of Christianity – someheretics believe Paul is the real Christ – Paul was saved from stoning, perhaps at thebehest of Artemis Soteira (“savior”), for the town clerk intervened and persuaded the



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assembly of workmen to disband, warning them that they could be charged withrioting, and assuring them that, “These men you have brought here are not guilty of any sacrilege or blasphemy against our goddess. If Demetrius and the craftsmen hehas with him want to complain about anyone, there are the assizes and theproconsuls; let him take the case to court.”

THE SCIENCE OF MYSTERIES

In any case, Paul, who called himself “the prisoner for Christ,” made himself scarce before eventually basing his mission in Ephesus for some time; the city alsoserved as headquarters for John the Evangelist and Timothy. And it was at councils in

Ephesus that the singular divinity of Jesus the Christ was pronounced, and theprimacy of the apostle Peter and his successors were affirmed, amongst other holy holdings. The triunal deity presented perplexing logically impediments for the early Christologists, who were ordained to make three into one. God was the father of thought, verily his son, and the son was wise by virtue of his father‟s consort in whomthe seed was planted, the mysterious holy ghost, best cloaked in a purdah and thuskept untainted by lusty stares.

The organic familial concept of the ancient Egyptian nuclear family came inhandy: The father and mother and son, although apparently three persons are one andthe same flesh and blood; they are of one vine, so to speak, and are essentially onesubstantial person. We note that incest was for royalty or the first family only inEgypt, where, as in India, some high priests believed that the wise mother of theuniverse was prior to the father, whom she immaculately conceived out the space of her womb; and this first-born father-son impregnated her for the sake of a spatially extended family. In any event a three-in-one deity can naturally be synthesized in thename of God (YHWH) the Father, Wisdom (Sophia) the Mother, and Christ (Logos)the Son, as One. Logos, or the Son, would of course be conceived as partly GrecianSophia and part Jewish Lord. Before ridiculing the ecclesiastical councils for their

fierce caviling over the structure of the hopefully one Supreme Being, we should keepin mind that the quibbling over quiddities or what-nesses had cultural and politicalramifications for the religious parties concerned.

The oft asserted fundamental difference between Eastern and Western humanbeings eludes careful scientific research into the depths of ambiguous human naturefor its obscured origin. As for modern science, as in quantum physics and the like: the



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working principles of its metaphysics, so to speak, are patently absurd, virtually incomprehensible to the old „Western‟ way of thinking so much admired by PopeBenedict. One cannot go beyond that way of thinking and really know what oneknows unless that way of thinking is methodically examined in its historical aspects intheir times and places, a method Ernst Mach and other scientists referred to as the“historical-critical” method of philosophical analysis; incidentally, Pope Benedict

would not have the so-called historical method applied to his theosophy for fear thatan isolated examination of Jesus in his particular epoch would cost him his eternalnature as the Christ, in which case Christians might throw out the old textile and donoutlandish garb; but the Pope is tolerant of its application elsewhere.

Albert Einstein, in his December 7, 1944 letter to Robert Thornton, an African-American philosopher of science who was just beginning to teach physics atthe University of Puerto Rico, wrote:

“So many people today – and even professional scientists – seem to me likesomebody who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest. A knowledgeof the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence fromprejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering. Thisindependence created by philosophical insight is – in my opinion – the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth.”

Moreover, in a 1916 memorial note for Ernst Mach, Einstein stressed theimportance of the science of knowing what we can know, the subject known as

epistemology: “How does it happen that a properly endowed natural scientist comesto concern himself with epistemology? Is there no more valuable work in hisspecialty? …When I think about the ablest students whom I have encountered in my teaching, that is, those who distinguish themselves by their independence of judgmentand not merely their quick wittedness, I can affirm they had a vigorous interest inepistemology…. Concepts that have proven useful in ordering things achieve suchauthority over us that we forget their earthly origins and accept them as unalterablegivens…. For that reason, it is by no means an idle game if we become practic ed inanalyzing the long commonplace concepts and exhibiting those circumstances upon

which their justification and usefulness depend, how they have grown up, individually,

out of the givens of experience. By this means, their all-too-great authority will bebroken. They will be removed if they cannot be properly legitimated, corrected if theircorrelation with given things be far too superfluous, replaced by others if a new system can be established that we prefer for whatever reason.”

The proper arena for the application of the historical-critical method to thephilosophy of any science would be metaphysics, of which Aristotle‟s afterwords to



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his physics – dubbed “metaphysics” by later academics because these lectures tostudents followed his physics class – is an early Western example. “It became clear tome that metaphysics,” wrote philosopher R.G. Collingwood in his An Autobiography ,“is no futile attempt at knowing what lies beyond the limits experience, but isprimarily at any given time an attempt to discover what the people of that time believeabout the world‟s general nature; such beliefs being the presuppositions of all their„physics‟, that is, their inquiries into its detail…. The question what presuppositionsunderlie the „physics‟ or natural science of a certain people at a certain time is aspurely historical a question as what kind of clothes they wear. And this is the questionthat metaphysicians have to answer.”

The history of everything was Professor Collingwood‟s favorite subject. His father, W.G. Collingwood – secretary and biographer of John Ruskin, and a painter,historian, and archeologist – took him to an excavation of the Roman fort at

Hardknott Castle when he was three weeks old. He was home-educated until he wasthirteen years of age: young Collingwood developed his interest in archeology,philosophy, and natural sciences; he read ancient and modern languages, learned to

write, played the piano, painted, sailed, and bound books. By the age of eleven he hadalready written, illustrated and bound several books. As a consequence, he came tobelieve before he died at the young age of 44 that parents ought to be the primary educators of children, and that the sustained experience of history and philosophy should not be restricted to professionals at the university but should be enjoyed by everyone everywhere; indeed, in his opinion, everyone has a duty to study history andphilosophy, and to ask themselves, as he did, “How good an historian shall I be?” The

good historian knows himself . “

All history is the history of thought,” thought he. “There is nothing else exceptthought that can be the object of historical knowledge.” To know what was thought,the historian must think the thoughts, reenact the thoughts for himself. He realizedfrom his own practice that “historical problems arise out of practical problems. Westudy history in order to see more clearly into the situation in which we are called toact.” The historian discovers what he is able to do in his ability to think the thou ghtsof others. “And finding out what he is able to do is finding out what kind of man heis. If he is able to understand, by rethinking them, the thoughts of a great many

different kinds of people, it follows that he must be a great many kinds of man. Hemust be, in fact, a microcosm of all the history he can know. Thus his self-knowledgeis at the same time his knowledge of the world of human affairs.” As far he wasconcerned, “The science of human affairs was history.”

Of course the study of the history that is thought leads us to know what weknow and to wonder if more can be known and understood. To that philosophical



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end Professor Collingwood‟s trade secret comes in handy: Ask questions. Ask of thehistory: What would I have done in this person‟s place given these conditions? Ask the key question of the philosophers when reading their statements: “To whatquestion did So-and-So intend this proposition as an answer?” A proposition to befully understood should be traced back through the layers of questions and answersthat led to it, and at bottom will be found a fundamental presupposition. “According to my own „logic of question and answer,‟ a philosopher‟s doctrines are his answers tocertain questions he has asked himself, and no one who does not understand what thequestions are can hope to understand the doctrines. The same logic committed me tothe view that any one can understand any philosopher‟s doctrines if he can grasp thequestions which they are intended to answer.” We should be mindful of t he fact thatmetaphysics, our notions about the why of things, goes hand in hand with ourpragmatic studies of how things work, lest our philosophy become a straightjacket.

Professor Collingwood found fault with analysts who did not know the history of the questions they proposed to answer for themselves, and therefore did not realizetheir own answers were relative to their own time and circumstances. Relativism nodoubt is perceived as a great threat to insecure people who cannot stand doubt – Pope Benedict has lately identified relativism as the curse of our time. People haveassumed that Einstein‟s theory of relativity, despite the fact that it is a theory andnotwithstanding its universal standard, the speed of light, proved that anything goes inthe moral realm. In respect to Einstein‟s theories of relativity, Professor Collingwood,in whose philosophy we find the historicism that smacks of the relativism abhorred by absolutists, made this most amusing philosophical wisecrack: “I could not but see, f or

example, when Einstein set philosophers talking about relativity, that philosopher‟sconvictions about the eternity of problems or conceptions were as baseless as a young girl‟s conviction that this year‟s hats are the only ones that cold ever have been wornby a sane woman.”

In The Tao of Physics , Fritjof Capra, like Pope Benedict, maintains the differencebetween East and West, yet he roots modern physics in the Eastern mode of thought

– Pope Benedict, by the way, noticed a curious linking of Christianity with the religionof the Indian subcontinent. Mr. Capra, commenting on Werner Heisenberg‟sobservation that our common concepts cannot be applied to the structure of atoms,

writes: “From a philosophical point of view, this has certainly been the most interesting development in modern physics, and here lies one of the roots of itsrelation to Eastern philosophy. In the schools of Western philosophy, logic andreasoning have always been the main tools used to formulate philosophical ideas andthis is true , according to Bertrand Russell, even of religious philosophies. In Easternmysticism, on the other hand, it has always been realized that reality transcends



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ordinary language, and the sages of the East were not afraid to go beyond logic andcommon concepts.”

Neither were notable sages of the West afraid of pointless mysticism or itsinfinitesimal points: If they were learned in quantum physics they still would fain

transcend not only common sense, but the nonsensical reality of modern physics as well, in order to freely embrace the unstained or virginal One for oneself, despite thedanger of emasculation. Of course attempts shall always be made to rationalizeunseemly intercourse after the fact. In this context we do not mean to ridicule PopeBenedict, who is simply doing what a conservative pope must do, and who at hisadvanced age would rather be retired to write books in Bavaria, but are not hispontifications on reason rather absurd in retrospect? Is not his Herculean reasoning the rationalization of a lot of hocus-pocus? Is he not himself a rational relativist, whocannot see his own intolerance in his formula for tolerance, that everyone in Christ

alone is equal, or has an equal portion, therefore let us incorporate him? The HeadChef, may God bless him, doth wear the pre-historical garb of Hercules; the sacrificialrite ceremonially sanctifies or sublimates the unholy inclinations of the beast: “Night -

walkers, magicians, bacchantes, revelers, and participants in the mysteries,” listedHeraclitus, “What are regarded as mysteries among men are unholy rituals.”

Paul, as we know from the Epistle to the Ephesians, a letter that must havebeen written by someone familiar with Paul‟s mission and composed as if it had beenpersonally drafted by Paul to the church in Ephesus, was “appointed by God to be anapostle of Christ Jesus.” “I have been entrusted by God with the grace he meant for

you, and that it was by revelation that I was given the knowledge of the mystery…. This mystery was unknown to any men in past generations; it means that the pagansnow share the same inheritance, that they are parts of the same body, and that thesame promise has been made to them, in Christ Jesus, through the gospel.” It wasrevealed to God‟s elect that, even before the world was created, “He chose us, choseus in Christ, to be holy and spotless, and to live through love in his presence,determining that we should become his adopted sons, through Jesus Christ…, in

whom, through his blood, we gain our freedom, the forgiveness of our sins…. He haslet us know the mystery of his purpose, the hidden plan he so kindly made inChrist…. And it is in him that we were claimed as God‟s own, chosen from the

beginning, under the predetermined plan of the one who guides all things, as hedecides by his own will; chosen to be, for his greater glory, the people who would puttheir hopes in Christ before he came.”

Thus did the god of the chosen people, for his greater glorification, provide forthe establishment of a mysterious monopoly over things mysterious and magicalthrough persons of his nomination. “So remarkable were the miracles worked by God



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at Paul‟s hands that handkerchiefs or aprons which had touched him were taken tothe sick, and they were cured of their illnesses, and the evil spirits came out of them.But some itinerant Jewish exorcists tried pronouncing the name of the Lord of Jesusover people who were possessed by evil spirits; they used to say, „I command you by

Jesus whose spokesman is Paul‟…. The evil spirit replied, „Jesus I recognize, and Iknow who Paul is, but who are you?‟ and the man with the evil spirit hurled himself atthem and overpowered first one and then another, and handled them so violently thatthey f led from the house naked a badly mauled. Everybody in Ephesus, both Jewsand Greeks, heard about this episode; they were greatly impressed, and the name of the Lord Jesus came to be held in great honor.”

Such was the power of names thus invoked over the spell-casting Ephesiansthat they staged a public book-burning – books valued at fifty thousand pieces of silver were lost to the bonfire of the old vanities. What good were such books against

the Logos or Word of God? It seems that Paul was a man of few words, andpersuasive ones at that. “Life to me is not a thing to waste words on,” he said,“provided that when I finish my race I have carried out the mission the Lord Jesusgave me – and that was to bear witness to the Good News of God‟s grace.” Theauthor enjoins wives to regard their husbands as the Lord, and husbands should lovetheir wives just as Christ loved the Church “and sacrificed her in water with a form of

words, so that when he took her to himself she would be glorious, with no speck or wrinkle or anything like that, but holy and faultless.” Thus do we have the immaculateconception of the concept of the virginal Christian church, the bride formally

whitewashed with a form of words or wedding dress, designed no doubt by the

Logos.

Although Jesus the Christ was unique in history, the notion of a personal savior who magically or miraculously healed afflicted people was by no means peculiar. TheSun-god who saved people with his rays or hands was popular throughout theprimitive world – Akhenaton may have received the notion of his many-handed sun-disc from the Oriental women who attended to him during childhood. Such primalmysteries were nothing new nor were they unholy. They were especially awesome atthe very outset: the holiness of the sacrificial rite around the Fire or Sun on Earthdates from the use of fire as a human tool – the Fire is the Logos of Heraclitus, a

notion taken to heart by the Stoics and then the Christians, who identified Logos withlaw of God‟s creation.

DIVIDING THE SPOILS



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The sacrificial spoils of were divided as was customary even among the higherapes, according to their power and social status, from the chief and his warriors, whogot the lion‟s share of leaner meat, to the weaker sort on the fringes, who got charity

in the form of scraps. The cooks or priests would accept, on god‟s behalf, certainchoice cuts, perhaps fat, liver, and kidneys, as their incantations arose with holy smokeincensed with spices. Utensils were sacred for their utility. A bowl dug in the groundand lined with skins, into which heated stones were cast, sufficed until the stabletripod was invented, and it served as a seat in turn, and as a bowl into which dies werecast to determine the will of the fire-god. The sacred tripod was also a trophy forGreek athletes over whom poets waxed eloquent. The altar or sacred table was aconsiderable improvement over the dirt.

The hunters hunted and the warriors occupied themselves similarly, with thenoble occupation of killing and stealing. Competitors who did not participate in theso-called Aryan ritual around the campfires in India were deemed demons – they deserved death for that reason alone. The sacred cooks or priests partook of spoiledstew one day, and were duly intoxicated; eventually the priests would swear off drinking holy water to keep their heads together, but the warriors took to power-drinking because its disinhibiting effect suited their aggression, blunting their fear andpain.

Agriculture suits brewers well. More sedentary divisions of labor evolved to

manage the plundering and plunder. The pursuits were sacred to begin with, butnovelty wears off, especially with backbreaking labor and monotonous repetitions of tasks, some of which have fallen into disuse with technological development arenevertheless habitually performed. In fact, when the operations and causes and effectsof everything are understood, hardly anything seems absolutely sacred anymore,except for the unclean and prohibited things such partying late into the night, drinking and fornicating, or to take up some exotic New Age religion to restore the sixth senseto its mysterious state. The holiness of the original tasks was ritually conserved, buteven the priests and monks grew bored, especially when their expectations were notfulfilled on this Earth. The debased culture seemed doomed, in need of some sort of

spiritual revival, and some people return to the “pagan” things long ago abandoned.

Anything goes, whatever works for me is good enough, and justice in particularis for each his own to have, so everything should be tolerated equally by all as they live and let live, although my way is obviously the best way for me – thisabandonment of the absolute or universal is of course the very relativism the Popedeplores in his effort to save Christianity and therefore the world.



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Indeed, people do tire of mandatory repetitive work within their respectivedivisions of labor, whether or not the product for consumption is tangible orintangible. “It is weariness to keep toiling at the same things so that one becomesruled by them,” Heraclitus opined. To produce and consume unto death does seemmeaningless, and to deliberately do just that with relish might suffice to avoid facing the meaning of life. But even in this cynical secular age of ethical relativism, one may bring The Work to works of even the menial sort and realize that meaning in them.

Yul Brynner did not tire of performing The King and I . An aged pope may seem to fallasleep at his staff and might even die in the sacred kitchen before dinner is served, buthe never tires of the mass. Why? Because he has faith in God, wherefore God‟smasses shall be fed. “It is by grace that you have been saved,” reads „The Letter of Paul to the Church at Ephesus,‟ “through faith; not by anything of your own, but by agift from God; not by anything that you have done, so nobody can claim the credit.”

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LOGOS I Benedictine Deconstruction