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Volume 44:

The Sayings of Confucius (full text)

Though his Analects begin this first of the Classics' two volumes of Sacred Writings, Confucius was an ethical and political philosopher, rather than a spiritual leader as such. Like Machiavelli or Francis Bacon, he has little to say about the invisible workings of this life or the next, and much to say about navigating the world as we know it. But unlike these thinkers, he maps out a world of ethical and moral responsibilty rather than self-interest, which is one reason why his teachings are so easily conflated with religious traditions. An exchange like the following one would be unlikely to appear in Machiavelli:

Duke Ai asked: What should be done to make the people loyal?

Confucius answered: Exalt the straight, set aside the crooked, the people will be loyal. Exalt the crooked, set aside the straight, the people will be disloyal.

At times, Confucius sounds like an Eastern version of Socrates, as when he says, To know what we know, and know what we do not know, that is understanding, or To learn the truth at daybreak and die at eve were enough. But he also makes much use of figurative language, which may be why he often sounds mystical, even when he is being rather mundane: Without truth I know not how man can live. A cart without a crosspole, a carriage without harness, how could they be moved?

Job (full text), Psalms (full text), and Ecclesiastes (full text)

The Classic's selection from the Hebrew Bible includes nothing from the Torah -- the five books that begin the Bible and are unquestionably the most important documents for the Jewish faith. The more charitable explanation for this fact would be that the editors eschewed historical and theological importance for literary worth. The less charitable explanation would be that the editors chose those books that most strongly suggest something lacking in the divine order that might be addressed by the arrival of Jesus Christ. Both explanations are plausible: Job, Psalms, and Ecclesiastes are all among the most beautiful in the Bible; they are also all among the most disappointed. Many of the prophetic books include lamentations about the behavior of the Israelites, but very few contain anything like Psalm Thirteen:

How long, O Jehovah? wilt thou forget me for ever?
How long wilt thou hide thy face from me?
How long shall I take counsel in my soul,
Having sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long shall mine enemy be exalted over me?
Consider and answer me, O Jehovah my God:
Lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death;
Lest mine enemy say, I have prevailed against him;
Lest mine adversaries rejoice when I am moved.
Or the famous opening from Psalm Twenty-Two:

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou answerest not;
And in the night season, and am not silent.
But thou art holy,
O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.
Our fathers trusted in thee:
They trusted, and thou didst deliver them.
They cried unto thee, and were delivered:
They trusted in thee, and were not put to shame.
But I am a worm, and no man;
A reproach of men, and despised of the people.

Of course, most of the the Psalms take a more positive view of God's presence in the lives of his chosen people, but throughout this book there is no mistaking one central fact: things aren't going well on the ground for the Israelites. Even Psalms that praise God often begin as stark pleas for help:

Unto thee, O Jehovah, will I call:
My rock, be not thou deaf unto me;
Lest, if thou be silent unto me,
I become like them that go down into the pit.
Hear the voice of my supplications, when I cry unto thee,
When I lift up my hands toward thy holy oracle.
Draw me not away with the wicked,
And with the workers of iniquity;
That speak peace with their neighbors,
But mischief is in their hearts.
Give them according to their work, and according to the wickedness of their doings:
Give them after the operation of their hands;
Render to them their desert.
Because they regard not the works of Jehovah,
Nor the operation of his hands,
He will break them down and not build them up.

Blessed be Jehovah,
Because he hath heard the voice of my supplications.
Jehovah is my strength and my shield;
My heart hath trusted in him, and I am helped:
Therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth;
And with my song will I praise him.
Jehovah is their strength,
And he is a stronghold of salvation to his anointed.
Save thy people, and bless thine inheritance:
Be their shepherd also, and bear them up for ever.

The drama that is being enacted here on the political level -- the drama of the suffering of God's people -- is enacted on the personal level in the Book of Job. Ecclesiastes, too, is much occupied by the problem of evil under the sun. The book fascinates with its voice, which borders at times on nihilism:

Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher; vanity of vanities, all is vanity. What profit hath man of all his labor wherein he laboreth under the sun? One generation goeth, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth for ever. The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to its place where it ariseth. The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it turneth about continually in its course, and the wind returneth again to its circuits. All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full; unto the place whither the rivers go, thither they go again. All things are full of weariness; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. That which hath been is that which shall be; and that which hath been done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

Reading these books, one is tempted to conclude that their beauty and their uneasiness are in fact intimately related. Their is a profound poignancy to their disappointments, which are so utterly human. Eliot and his peers couldn't possibly have intended this, but these books speak more clearly than many others he might have chosen to an age that feels increasingly forsaken.

Luke (full text) and Acts (full text)

There's a rather startling narrative turn in the sixteenth chapter of The Acts of the Apostles. The book's early chapters concern Peter and the other apostles going out among their fellow Jews to preach the word of Christ. Along the way, we hear about the martyrdom of Stephen at the feet of a young man named Saul. Saul, of course, was among the leading persecutors of the early Christians before his dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus. After this conversation, he will arrive in Damascus to proclaim Jesus and to make a daring escape out of the hands of the Jews. From this point forward, Acts is taken up almost entirely by the work of Saul -- or Paul, as he is renamed. He will be called to preach to the Gentiles -- a calling that doesn't agree with many other leaders of the early Church. Which brings us to this moment:

And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: There was a man of Macedonia standing, beseeching him, and saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us. And when he had seen the vision, straightway we sought to go forth into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel unto them. Setting sail therefore from Troas, we made a straight course to Samothrace, and the day following to Neapolis; and from thence to Philippi, which is a city of Macedonia, the first of the district, a Roman colony: and we were in this city tarrying certain days.

This we and us are completely new developments. By now Luke -- the narrator of Acts -- has given us his entire Gospel and much of this history of the early Church without once acknowledging that he is a companion of Paul's. We look back now with fresh eyes at certain passages from his Gospel:

What man of you, having a hundred sheep, and having lost one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and his neighbors, saying unto them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you, that even so there shall be joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine righteous persons, who need no repentance. Or what woman having ten pieces 2 of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a lamp, and sweep the house, and seek diligently until she find it? And when she hath found it, she calleth together her friends and neighbors, saying, Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece which I had lost. Even so, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.

I don't think it's too much to say that Luke has been preparing us from the very beginning for the greatest prodigal son of them all, Saul of Tarsus. By the end of Acts, he has become a nearly God-like figure himself; one of the books last scenes involves Paul laying on hands to heal a dying man. A different writer might have told a very different story. And indeed, the three other Gospel writers did tell much of Luke's story differently. It's a striking reminder of how much perspective matters, even in books that some think of as the word of God.


--CRB, November 20, 2007

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