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Tag Archives: Aristotle

Casuistry, or how to sin without sinning

16 Monday May 2016

Posted by michelinewalker in France, Molière, Music, The Church

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Aristotle, Casuistry, Escobar y Mendoza, Henri IV of France, Henry VIII of England, Huguenot, Pascal's Lettres provinciales

King Henry VIII by Hans Holbein the Younger, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

King Henry VIII, by Hans Holbein the Younger, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Casuistry

The Fragmentation of the Western Church

When Antonio Escobar y Mendoza (1589 – 4 July 1669) published his Summula casuum conscientiæ (1627), the handbook of casuistry, the Roman Church had been severely fragmented. Escobar y Mendoza and Francisco Suárez (5 January 1548 – 25 September 1617), Jesuits, were therefore addressing an alarmed and vulnerable Western Church, a Church ready to use remedies it may not have otherwise contemplated. Casuistry all but took sinfulness out of sin.  Consequently, it was attacked by Blaise Pascal, in his Lettres provinciales (1658-1659), and ridiculed by Molière (Tartuffe) and La Fontaine. But it allowed the king to sin.

Let us assess the damage

  • Henry VIII of England (28 June 1491 – 28 January 1547; king: 21 April 1509 until his death), who was not allowed to divorce, ended up making himself head of the Church of England.
  • Martin Luther (10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546), had confronted indulgence “salesman” Johann Tetzel, with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517 and opposed other practices, had also fragmented the Roman Catholic Church.
  • John Calvin (French, Jean Calvin, born Jehan Cauvin: 10 July 1509 – 27 May 1564) and French Huguenots, Calvinist Protestants, could easily point a guilty finger not at Jesus of Nazareth, but at the Church as a human institution.  Calvin is the author of The Institutes of the Christian Religion, published in 1536.

To the above, we could add the Edict of Nantes, promulgated in 1598, by Henri IV who was both king of France and king of Navarre. The Edict of Nantes offered protection to the formerly persecuted Huguenots, which seemed the correct remedy, but Huguenots were not loyal to the Roman Church and were therefore a potential obstacle to absolutism in the eyes of cardinal-duc de Richelieu.

Richelieu may have been right when he suggested to Louis XIII that the Huguenots’ right to have “places fortes” (fortified communities), such as La Rochelle, could imperil absolutism, i.e. one king, one language, one religion. These “places fortes” could be turned into genuine fortified places. (See Siege of La Rochelle, Wikipedia.) However, did he have to let twenty-two thousand Huguenots starve to death?

Casuistry: origins

Casuistry, a recipe for ethical laissez-faire, does not find its origins in seventeenth-century Spain, or Escobar y Mendoza, Francisco Suárez and other casuists. In dates back to ancient Rome and ancient Greece.

Plato (left) and Aristotle (right), a detail of The School of Athens, a fresco by Raphael (6 or 28 March 1483 – 6 April 1520). Aristotle gestures to the earth, representing his belief in knowledge through empirical observation and experience, while holding a copy of his Nicomachean Ethics in his hand, whilst Plato gestures to the heavens, representing his belief in The Form.

For example, casuistry has roots in ancient Rome and, especially, ancient Greece, and the Renaissance had given greater access to the knowledge of ancient Rome and Greece. In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle (384 BCE – 322 BCE)[i] proposes an examination of certain actions, not all, before judgment is passed with respect to their moral acceptability.

Casuistry and Jurisprudence

I should mention that casuistry has often been defined as jurisprudence applied to morality. For instance, the Ten Commandments do not permit the killing of a human being, but during a war that restriction is lifted. It is also lifted in the case of self-defence. As well, many countries have retained what other countries look upon as profoundly unethical: the death-penalty. This would suggest that the sinfulness of an action depends to a smaller or larger extent on circumstances and location. Jurisprudence is the study of cases (casuistry).

In other words, moral relativism is not new.

—ooo—

However, with casuistry, a sin could be rendered innocent using “methods” that manipulated reality, which Blaise Pascal could not accept, nor Molière, nor La Fontaine.

Casuistry: a general definition

There were great advantages to casuistry in that allowed the “grands” among the faithful to sin without sinning, which constitutes an unacceptable form of moral relativism and, by and large, benefits only the “grands” or the rich and powerful.  Casuistry proposed “methods” that could be used to make a wrong a right. The most important of these “methods” or doctrines were:

  1. la direction d’intention, or the end [l’intention] justifies the means (Machiavellian);
  2. mental restriction (saying part of the truth out loud, but saying the rest silently, within oneself);
  3. the doctrine des équivoques: using ambiguous or equivocal terms, to transform a message;
  4. probability (one theologian who said “no” could be overruled by a theologian who said “yes” as both were theologians.

I am leaving out: easy devotion (la dévotion aisée), and dispensation from loving God (la dispense d’aimer Dieu) and there may be other “methods” or doctrines, but for a detailed account of the methods put forth by casuistry, one needs to read Escobar y Mendoza, Francisco Suárez and other proponents of casuistique, a task best performed by theologians.

Among the four “methods” or doctrines I have listed, the most disputed was the fourth: probability, which pitted one authority against another.

Henry VIII & Henri IV

The Church of England separated from the Roman Church because Henry VIII (28 June 1491 – 28 January 1547) was not allowed to divorce Catherine of Aragon and having separated from the Roman Church, Henry VIII went on to have wives decapitated.

But let us look a the life of Henri IV of France who was a good king, but a womanizer who did not honour his promise to marry Catherine Henriette de Balzac d’Entragues, should Gabrielle d’Estrées (1573 – 10 April 1599), his official mistress, pass away.  Henri IV probably expected Gabrielle d’Estrées to live a long time, but she died of eclampsia on 10 April 1599, at the age of 26. A few months later, Henri married Marie de’ Medici, not Catherine Henriette de Balzac d’Entragues, whom he had promised to marry.

Moreover, where was the Church, when Henri IV, a Protestant married Marguerite de Valois (14 May 1553 – 27 March 1615), a Catholic who did not want to marry him?Henri IV, king of Navarre, stood outside Notre-Dame de Paris while his wedding took place.

Henri IV abjured Protestantism on 25 July 1593, following the advice of his mistress, Gabrielle d’Estrées, a Catholic, but he did so unconvincingly: “Paris vaut bien une messe.” (Paris [the crown] is well worth a mass.) He converted five years after his becoming king of France. I surmise he had to convert in order to be crowned, which meant he was seeking power.

Finally, in 1599, ten years after he became king of France (1589), Henri had his marriage to Marguerite de Valois annulled on the grounds that she could not bear him children, which may not have constituted valid grounds for an annulment had Henri IV not needed heirs and had he not been a “grand.” He had also had Gabrielle d’Estrées’ marriage annulled. So what happened to Henry VIII? Why was his marriage not annulled?

Henri IV, king of France and king of Navarre, was no choir boy. He loved women. But he may well have been the best king France ever had.

Adultery

In other words, what we see here is adultery which, according to Judaism’s Ten Commandments, is a sin. Unlike Henry VIII, Henri IV did not break with the Roman Church to marry another woman. Nor did he have wives decapitated. But he had an insatiable sexual appetite which he obviously felt free to indulge perhaps given his “divine rights of kings,” a notion he and Henry VIII had probably never heard of.

Moreover, it was not uncommon for monarchs whose marriages were arranged to keep an official mistress. Henri II of France, Marguerite de Valois’ father, was married to Catherine de’ Medici, but he had a mistress, the powerful Diane de Poitiers.

Opposition to Casuistry

In his Lettres provinciales (1656-1657), Blaise Pascal[ii] (19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662), using a pseudonym, Louis de Montalte, condemned casuistry.  Molière mocked it in Tartuffe (1664, 1666, 1669) a play he often revised to please “le parti des dévots” and escape the death penalty. As well, La Fontaine, bequeathed a long list of poems where the “grands” do with impunity what is not allowed of the “petits.”

—ooo—

In other words, the rapid breakdown of the Roman Church justified robust recourses, but did it justify taking sinfulness out of sin in aristocratic rather than plebeian circles.  There can no doubt that circumstances play a role in determining whether some actions are ethically permissible. But can taking all sinfulness out of sinful actions be acceptable?

Pascal was not heard in his lifetime, but in 1679, “Pope Innocent XI publicly condemned sixty-five of the more radical propositions (stricti mentalis), taken chiefly from the writings of Escobar, Suárez (Catholic Encyclopedia) and other casuists as propositiones laxorum moralistarum and forbade anyone to teach them under penalty of excommunication.”[iii]

Ironically, if indeed casuistry was used to prevent further fragmentation of the Western Church, it was also an indictment of the Church, which can lead one to think that Pope Innocent XI perhaps saved the Western Church.
.

Love to everyone. ♥

 _________________________

[i] “Aristotle.” Wikipedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle>

[ii] “Blaise Pascal.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 04 Mar. 2012.<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/445406/Blaise-Pascal>.

[iii] “Casuistry.” Wikipedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casuistry>

Thomas Weelkes (baptised 25 October 1576 – 30 November 1623)

© Micheline Walker
5 March 2012
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The Social Contract: Hobbes, Locke & Rousseau

13 Saturday Oct 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Political Philosophy, The Enlightenment

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Age of Enlightenment, Aristotle, De Cive, J. Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Social Contract, Thomas Hobbes

 
 
Imaginary View of the Grande Galerie in the Louvre in Ruins by Hubert Robert (Photo credit: Web Gallery of Art)
 
 
“I transfer my right of governing myself to X (the sovereign) if you do too.” (Thomas Hobbes)
 
English: Thomas Hobbes Македонски: Томас Хобс ...

Thomas Hobbes, John Locke & Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Although political thinking dates back to antiquity, the only political philosophers discussed in this post are closer to us and all express the need for a Social Contract. I will first provide a comprehensive definition of the Social Contract and suggest you that you complete this summary by clicking on Social Contract.

Du Contrat social (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Definition

Wikipedia defines the social contract as follows:

“In political philosophy the social contract or political contract is a theory or model, originating during the Age of Enlightenment, that typically addresses the questions of the origin of society and the legitimacy of the authority of the state over the individual. Social contract arguments typically posit that individuals have consented, either explicitly or tacitly, to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the ruler or magistrate (or to the decision of a majority), in exchange for protection of their remaining rights. The question of the relation between natural and legal rights, therefore, is often an aspect of Social Contract theory.” (Social Contract)

The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century

Thomas Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes or Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury (5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679), effected a revolution.  He broke away from Aristotle on the subject of human nature.  In De Cive Philosophical Rudiments Concerning Government and Society, written in 1651, he claimed that in the state of nature, man did not behave in a morally acceptable manner.  Hobbes better known work on political philosophy is his Leviathan, also published in 1651.  But in De Cive (The Citizen) Thomas Hobbes makes it clear that societies require a civilizing force he calls the Social Contract.  The full text of De Cive, in English translation and edited by Jon Roland is online.  To read it, click on De Cive.

According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, “[a]fter only a few paragraphs, Hobbes rejects one of the most famous theses of Aristotle’s politics, namely that human beings are naturally suited to life in a polis and do not fully realize their natures until they exercise the role of citizen. Hobbes turns Aristotle’s claim on its head: human beings, he insists, are by nature unsuited to political life.”[i]

Thomas Hobbes’s De Cive and his Leviathan (1651) open the debate on the notion of the Social Contract, a term he was the first to use.  Thomas Hobbes believed that “in a state of nature each person would have a right, or license, to everything in the world. This, Hobbes argues, would lead to a ‘war of all against all’ (bellum omnium contra omnes).”  In other words, in a state of nature, each person would be free “to plunder, rape, and murder.”  Hence the need for a social contract that ensures safety.  “The social contract was an ‘occurrence’ during which individuals came together and ceded some of their individual rights so that others would cede theirs.” (Social Contract, Wikipedia)

John Locke

John Locke (29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) held a kinder view of human nature.  According to Locke, human nature is characterised by reason and tolerance.  In a state of nature, all people were equal and independent, and everyone had a natural right to defend his ‘Life, health, Liberty, or Possessions’.”

Yet, Locke did not think that, in a state of nature, man could defend his life, health, liberty and possessions. He therefore advocated a Social Contract.  In other words,  although John Locke’s view of human nature is less pessimistic than Hobbes’, his political theory is nonetheless founded on a Social Contract ensuring the safety of individuals.  For John Locke, the innate rights of man were life, liberty and property.

John Locke was influenced by Anthony Ashley Cooper, later 1st Earl of Shaftesbury, who “stood for constitutional monarchy, a Protestant succession, civil liberty, toleration in religion, the rule of Parliament.”[ii]

Locke believed in the divine right of kings and defines power as a “right of making Laws with Penalties of Death, and consequently all less Penalties, for the Regulating and Preserving of Property, and of employing the force of the Community, in the Execution of such Laws and in defence of the Common-wealth from Foreign Injury, and all this only for the Publick Good.”[iii]

Locke is considered the father of Classical Liberalism which advocates representative government and various civil liberties.  His major works on political philosophy are his Two Treatises of Government, published anonymously in 1689.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

For his part, Rousseau believed in innate goodness in man (see Émile, Or Treatise on Education [Émile ou De l’éducation]).  Yet he was also in favor of establishing a Civil Society.

For Jean-Jacques Rousseau (28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778), “[the Social Contract] can be reduced to the following terms: Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will; and in a body we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole. (Wikipedia)  Liberty is not otherwise possible. Man must be “forced to be free.” (The Social Contract)

Rousseau’s theory, the body, is called collectivism.  “The earliest modern, influential expression of collectivist ideas in the West is in Jean-Jacques Rousseau ’s Du contrat social, of 1762 (see Social Contract), in which it is argued that the individual finds his true being and freedom only in submission to the ‘general will’ of the community.” (Britannica)[iv] However, the ruler is the general will (la volonté générale) or the people viewed as a collectivity.  But the general will needs a government and laws.

Rousseau did not approve of a representative government.  He preferred a direct government.  The citizens of Geneva–Rousseau was born in Geneva–lived in a small city-state where representation could be direct, at least to a point.

So although Rousseau believed in innate goodness in man, he also believed in man’s corruptibility.  He therefore wished to avoid terrifying anarchy by entering into a social contract and insisted on legislation.  In other words, he agrees that men must “surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the ruler or magistrate (or to the decision of a majority), in exchange for protection of their remaining rights.”

Rousseau’s Social Contract is an online publication.  Simply click on Social Contract.

—ooo—

All of the above is inspiring, but it would be my opinion that most relevant at the moment is the notion of individual needs versus collective needs.  The two seem inseparable in a healthy social contract.  How brilliant of Thomas Hobbes to have used the words the social contract.

_________________________

[i] Political Philosophy, The Encyclopædia Britannica online, accessed on 13 October 2012
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/268448/Thomas-Hobbes/275880/Political-philosophy 
 
[ii] John Locke,The Encyclopædia Britannica online, accessed on 13 October 2012
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/345753/John-Locke/59085/Association-with-Shaftesbury
 
[iii] John Locke, The Encyclopaedia Britannica online, accessed on 13 October 2012
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/345753/John-Locke/280602/Two-Treatises-of-Government
 
[iv] Collectivism, The Encyclopædia Britannica online, accessed on 13 October 2012
 
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/125584/collectivism#ref256673
 
 
composer: Giuseppe Tartini (1692 – 1770) 
piece: Concerto for violin, strings, and basso continuo in A major D. 96, 2&3 mvt
performers: Venice Baroque Orchestra, Giuliano Carmignola, violin
conductor:  Andrea Marcon

430px-Jean-Jacques_Rousseau_(painted_portrait)

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13 October 2012
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Jean-Jacques Rousseau
by Maurice Quentin de La Tour
1753
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Casuistry, or how to sin without sinning

05 Monday Mar 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in France, History, Music, The Church

≈ 39 Comments

Tags

Aristotle, Casuistry, Escobar y Mendoza, Henri IV of France, Henry VIII of England, Huguenot, Pascal's Lettres provinciales

King Henry VIII by Hans Holbein the Younger, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

King Henry VIII, by Hans Holbein the Younger, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Casuistry

The Fragmentation of the Western Church

When Antonio Escobar y Mendoza (1589 – July 4, 1669) published his Summula (1627),  the handbook of casuistry, the Roman Church had been severely fragmented.  Escobar y Mendoza and Francisco Suárez (5 January 1548 – 25 September 1617), Jesuits, were therefore addressing an alarmed and vulnerable Western Church, a Church ready to use remedies it may not have otherwise contemplated.  Casuistry all but took sinfulness out of sin.  Consequently, it was attacked by Blaise Pascal, in his Lettres provinciales  (1658-1659), and ridiculed by Molière (Tartuffe) and La Fontaine.  But it allowed the king to sin.

Let us assess the damage

  • Henry VIII of England (28 June 1491 – 28 January 1547; king: 21 April 1509 until his death), who was not allowed to divorce, ended up making himself head of the Church of England.
  • Martin Luther (10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546), had confronted indulgence “salesman” Johann Tetzel, with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517 and opposed other practices, had also fragmented the Roman Catholic Church.
  • John Calvin (French, Jean Calvin, born Jehan Cauvin: 10 July 1509 – 27 May 1564)  and French Huguenots, Calvinist Protestants, could easily point a guilty finger not at Jesus of Nazareth, but at the Church as a human institution.  Calvin is the author of The Institutes of the Christian Religion, published  in 1536.

To the above, we could add the Edict of Nantes, promulgated in 1598, by Henri IV who was both king of France and king of Navarre.  The Edict of Nantes offered protection to the formerly persecuted Huguenots, which seemed the correct remedy, but Huguenots were not loyal to the Roman Church and were therefore a potential obstacle to absolutism in the eyes of cardinal-duc de Richelieu.

Richelieu may have been right when he suggested to Louis XIII that the Huguenots’ right to have “places fortes” (fortified communities), such as La Rochelle, could imperil absolutism, i.e. one king, one language, one religion.  These “places fortes” could be turned into genuine fortified places.  (See Siege of La Rochelle, Wikipedia.)  However, did he have to let twenty-two thousand Huguenots starve to death?

Casuistry: origins

Casuistry, a recipe for ethical laissez-faire, does not find its origins in seventeenth-century Spain, or Escobar y Mendoza, Francisco Suárez and other casuists. In dates back to ancient Rome and ancient Greece.

Plato (left) and Aristotle (right), a detail of The School of Athens, a fresco by Raphael (6 or 28 March 1483 – 6 April 1520). Aristotle gestures to the earth,representing his belief in knowledge through empirical observation and experience, while holding a copy of his Nicomachean Ethics in his hand, whilst Plato gestures to the heavens, representing his belief in The Form.

For example, casuistry has roots in ancient Rome and, especially, ancient Greece, and the Renaissance had given greater access to the knowledge of ancient Rome and Greece.  In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle (384 BCE – 322 BCE)[i] proposes an examination of certain actions, not all, before judgment is passed with respect to their moral acceptability.

Casuistry and Jurisprudence

I should mention that casuistry has often been defined as jurisprudence applied to morality.  For instance, the Ten Commandments do not permit the killing of a human being, but during a war that restriction is lifted.  It is also lifted in the case of self-defence.  As well, many countries have retained what other countries look upon as profoundly unethical: the death-penalty.  This would suggest that the sinfulness of an action depends to a smaller or larger extent on circumstances and location.  Jurisprudence is the study of cases (casuistry).

In other words, moral relativism is not new.

—ooo—

However, with casuistry, a sin could be rendered innocent using “methods” that manipulated reality, which Blaise Pascal could not accept, nor Molière, nor La Fontaine.

Casuistry: a general definition

There were great advantages to casuistry in that allowed the “grands” among the faithful to sin without sinning, which constitutes an unacceptable form of moral relativism and, by and large, benefits only the “grands” or the rich and powerful.  Casuistry proposed “methods” that could be used to make a wrong a right.  The most important of these “methods” or doctrines were:

  1. la direction d’intention, or the end [l’intention] justifies the means (Machiavellian);
  2. mental restriction (saying part of the truth out loud, but saying the rest silently, within oneself);
  3. the doctrine des équivoques: using ambiguous or equivocal terms, to transform a message;
  4. probability (one theologian who said “no” could be overruled by a theologian who said “yes” as both were theologians.

I am leaving out: easy devotion (la dévotion aisée), and dispensation from loving God (la dispense d’aimer Dieu) and there may be other “methods” or doctrines, but for a detailed account of the methods put forth by casuistry, one needs to read Escobar y Mendoza, Francisco Suárez and other proponents of casuistique, a task best performed by theologians.

Among the four “methods” or doctrines I have listed, the most disputed was the fourth: probability, which pitted one authority against another.

Henry VIII & Henri IV

The Church of England separated from the Roman Church because Henry VIII (28 June 1491 – 28 January 1547) was not allowed to divorce Catherine of Aragon and having separated from the Roman Church, Henry VIII went on to have wives decapitated.

But let us look a the life of Henri IV of France who was a good king, but a womanizer who did not honour his promise to marry Catherine Henriette de Balzac d’Entragues, should Gabrielle d’Estrées (1573 – 10 April 1599), his official mistress, pass away.  Henri IV probably expected Gabrielle d’Estrées to live a long time, but she died of eclampsia on 10 April 1599, at the age of 26.  A few months later, Henri married Marie de’ Medici, not Catherine Henriette de Balzac d’Entragues, whom he had promised to marry.

Moreover, where was the Church, when Henri IV, a Protestant married Marguerite de Valois (14 May 1553 – 27 March 1615), a Catholic who did not want to marry him?  Henri IV, king of Navarre, stood outside Notre-Dame de Paris while his wedding took place.

Henri IV abjured Protestantism on 25 July 1593, following the advice of his mistress, Gabrielle d’Estrées, a Catholic, but he did so unconvincingly: “Paris vaut bien une messe.” (Paris [the crown] is well worth a mass.)  He converted five years after his becoming king of France.  I surmise he had to convert in order to be crowned, which meant he was seeking power.

Finally, in 1599, ten years after he became king of France (1589), Henri had his marriage to Marguerite de Valois annulled on the grounds that she could not bear him children, which may not have constituted valid grounds for an annulment had Henri IV not needed heirs and had he not been a “grand.”  He had also had Gabrielle d’Estrées’ marriage annulled.  So what happened to Henry VIII?  Why was his marriage not annulled?

Henri IV, king of France and king of Navarre, was no choir boy.  He loved women.  But he may well have been the best king France ever had.

Adultery

In other words, what we see here is adultery which, according to the Ten Commandments, is a sin.  Unlike Henry VIII, Henri IV did not break with the Roman Church to marry another woman.  Nor did he have wives decapitated.  But he had an insatiable sexual appetite which he obviously felt free to indulge perhaps given his “divine rights of kings,” a notion he and Henry VIII had probably never heard of.

Moreover, it was not uncommon for monarchs whose marriages were arranged to keep an official mistress. Henri II of France, Marguerite de Valois’ father, was married to Catherine de’ Medici, but he had a mistress, the powerful Diane de Poitiers.

Opposition to Casuistry

In his Lettres provinciales (1656-1657), Blaise Pascal[ii] (19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662), using a pseudonym, Louis de Montalte, condemned casuistry.  Molière mocked it in Tartuffe (1664, 1666, 1669) a play he often revised to please “le parti des dévots” and escape the death penalty.  As well, La Fontaine, bequeathed a long list of poems where the “grands” do with impunity what is not allowed of the “petits.”

—ooo—

In other words, the rapid breakdown of the Roman Church justified robust recourses, but did it justify taking sinfulness out of sin in aristocratic rather than plebeian circles.  There can no doubt that circumstances play a role in determining whether some actions are ethically permissible.  But can taking all sinfulness out of sinful actions be acceptable?

Pascal was not heard in his lifetime, but in 1679, “Pope Innocent XI publicly condemned sixty-five of the more radical propositions (stricti mentalis), taken chiefly from the writings of Escobar, Suárez (Catholic Encyclopedia) and other casuists as propositiones laxorum moralistarum and forbade anyone to teach them under penalty of excommunication.”[iii]

Ironically, if indeed casuistry was used to prevent further fragmentation of the Western Church, it was also an indictment of the Church, which can lead one to think that Pope Innocent XI perhaps saved the Western Church.

 _________________________

[i] “Aristotle.” Wikipedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle>

[ii] “Blaise Pascal.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 04 Mar. 2012.<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/445406/Blaise-Pascal>.

[iii] “Casuistry.” Wikipedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casuistry>

Thomas Weelkes (baptised 25 October 1576 – 30 November 1623)

Give Ear Oh Lord

© Micheline Walker
5 March 2012
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From Bestiaries to… Harry Potter

29 Saturday Oct 2011

Posted by michelinewalker in Beast Literature, Myths

≈ 1 Comment

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Alienus, Aristotle, Herodotus, J. R. R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, Physiologus, Pliny the Elder, theriomorphism, zoomorphism

treasures_z_19_1_MS__Ashmole_1511__fol_jpg1400x1222

Ashmole Bestiary
MS. Ashmole 1511, F78v
Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
 
Online Manuscript:
http://treasures.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/The-Ashmole-Bestiary 
 

Beast Literature: other sources

Although Reynard the Fox remains in the collective memory of Europeans and is transformed into a rabbit in the Tales of Uncle Remus, beasts enter different narratives and stem from other sources.

The Physiologus

Since we have introduced Bestiaries, I must also reveal some of these other sources. Writers of Bestiaries find their main source in the Physiologus, an anonymous Greek–language text, probably written in the second century CE. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, “The Physiologus consists of 48 sections, each dealing with one creature, plant, or stone and each linked to a biblical text.” Among animals featured in the Physiologus, many are borrowed from India, which attests, once again, to the universality of ‘stories.’

Zoomorphic and Theriomorphic animals

  • Mythological animals.  In an earlier blog, I quoted Machiavelli who wished his prince were like the Centaur, half human, half beast. Greek mythologies’ Centaur is half horse and belongs to Greek Mythology as does the Minotaur, the son of Pasiphaë and a bull. The Satyrs are also part human. In Roman mythology, Satyrs are part goat. In this category, we also find animals that combine the features of many animals. Cerberus is a three-headed dog, used by J. K. Rowling. Pegasus is a winged horse. So mythologies are very rich source of animal figures.
  • Mythical animals.[i] Bestiaries also incorporate mythical animals, such as the Unicorn and the Dragon. As for the Griffin and the Phœnix (see Herodotus), they straddle the mythical (i.e. legendary and symbolic) and the mythological.  Mythologies are aetiological texts. They tell about origins.
  • http://www.abdn.ac.uk/bestiary/translat/1r.hti.
  • The dragon and the Unicorn are very popular in Western best literature, but they also appear in Eastern mythologies. In India, the Unicorn is a mythological animal and if Western dragons are feared, Oriental dragons are friendly. In children’s literature, the Unicorn literally missed the boat, Noak’s Ark.

Allegories or Animals as Symbols

These animals are not necessarily humans in disguise, but they can be used to represent humans. In Richard de Fournival‘s (1201-1260) courtly Bestiaire d’amour, an allegorical text, animals are used to symbolize women. Richard de Fournival was also the composer of love songs. These animals may also be used as emblems and in heraldry (blazons, coats of arms, etc.).

Le Blason de Saint-Lô

Historians and Naturalists

Finally, content is taken from historians and naturalists.

  • Aristotle (384 BCE – 322 BCE) wrote a History of Animals, De animalium. Herodotus (c. 484 BCE – c. 425 BCE) is the first historian, and he includes animals in his Histories.  For instance, he describes the hippopotamus, the crocodile and the phœnix.
  • Pliny the Elder or Gaius Plinius Secundus (23 BCE – 25 August 79 BCE) wrote a Natural History. Pliny the Elder died on 25 August 79 CE, trying to rescue a friend when Mount Vesuvius erupted.
  • Claudius Alienus, (ca. 175 – ca. 235  CE) a Roman author, wrote De Natura Animalium (in 17 books) and Historia.  On the Characteristics of Animals (De Natura Animalium) is still available, in 3 volumes.[ii]

Among historians and naturalists, not all have seen the animals they depict. They simply use descriptions given to them by travellers. For instance, in Greece, the monoceros is the Unicorn, not a rhinoceros. The existence of an animal having one horn had been reported to historians and from this report emerged the Unicorn. Similarly, Herodotus described the Phœnix and he made it ‘real.’  Yet, the Phœnix is as imaginary an animal, as the Chimera.

The Chimera

In modern literature, Latin American authors often introduce imaginary creatures into contexts that may be fictional, but not imaginary.  An example of “magical realism” is Jorge Luis Borges’s (24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) El libro de los seres imaginarios, (The Book of Imaginary Beings), 1957.  J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings is also deemed “magical realism.”

Bestiaries originate in many traditions and often feature imaginary or fantastical animals.  But later these animals will be found in high fantasy works, such as J. R. R. Tolkien’s above-mentioned Lord of the Rings. As well, these animals will also be found in  J.K. Rowling‘s extremely popular Harry Potter series.We have a Harry Potter and the Order of the Phœnix (2003). However, I am looking a little too far in the future.

In short, animals are everywhere, telling what might otherwise have remained, or would remain, unsaid and when they inhabit mythologies, they also serve to give us a past. But there is more to tell…


[i] “Ælian.” Encyclopædia Britannica.
Encyclopædia Britannica Online
. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2011.
Web. 29 Oct. 2011. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/7081/Aelian>.

[ii] In certain cultures, mythical animals are mythological animals.

img9131The Antelope
The Ashmole Bestiary
F14r
 
© Micheline Walker
29 October 2011
WordPress
 
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