Chastity in Theology and Art
In an ex tempore homily to the International Theological Commission meeting in Rome, Pope Benedict meditated on the need for theologians to serve the Word of God, and the temptation to revel in one’s own words. He said:
We find ourselves invited anew to this path of renouncing our own words, on a path of purification so that our words may only be an instrument through which God can speak, so that God is not the object but the subject of theology.
In this context, I am reminded of a beautiful sentence in the First Letter of St. Peter (1:22). In Latin it says, “castificantes animas nostras in oboedientia veritatis.” Obedience to the truth should make our souls chaste, and thus guide us to right words and right actions.
To speak in search of applause, to speak according to what we think others want to hear, to speak in obedience to the dictatorship of common opinion, may be considered a prostitution of words and of the spirit.
The Pope’s words came to mind as I read in today’s New York Times the account of an exhibit at the Frick Collection in New York City centered around two small paintings of Cimabue.
Now the Frick has always been one of my favorite places in Urbe. Its collection is small and exquisite. The setting does not overwhelm, but allows for concentrated attention, even contemplation. In contrast to the Mighty Met, it is — well — chaste.
Theologian and artist, art and theology at their best, call us to purification, to contemplation and to silence. As Augustine wrote, at the end of his great De Trinitate:
So when we do attain to You, there will be an end of these many things which we say and do not attain, and You will remain one, yet all in all. And we shall say one thing, praising You in unison, ourselves also being made one in You.
O Lord, the one God, God the Trinity.
Speaking of theology in general, we are conducting a World Series of Catholic Theologians in order to have a little fun. If you get a moment, please consider voting for who believe to be the most enduring and influential theologian of the past 150 years. Hopefully, you’ll like who we have in the competition.
To vote, use the following link:
http://evangelical-catholicism.blogspot.com/2006/10/world-series-of-catholic-theologians_06.html
Or click: World Series of Catholic Theologians
Robert,
Can you explain how chastity is used in this concept?
Bob,
Ditto to Bill’s question. And I’;ll raise him one. As I’m sure you have too, I have spent a good deal of time over the past years writing tenure letters for aspiring moral theolgians. One of the questions commonly asked in tenure letters what standing the candidate has in the field. Are they respected by those who are teaching in the field across the country? To gain tenure, an assistant professor knows he or she has to give a number of scholarly presentations, write in well-respected places, etc, to earn the respect of those already working in the field. Not the blogosphere, by the way! The academy is not a democracy. But neither is it a monastery.
I don’t think the pope thinks the theological academy ought to be a democracy (I think he would wince at the contest being run by Evangelical Catholics). But if you take the pope at his word, is there any place for theology in an American research university? Or ought it to be consigned to monasteries?
I won’t presume to “answer” Bill and Cathy, but merely offer some further ruminations which I hope others will take up and develop or emend.
“Chastity:” as an Augustinian, Cathy will remember that Augustine somewhere speaks of Mary as first having conceived in her mind, then in her womb: “prius mente quam ventre.”
I associate chastity with personal integrity, and thus applicable to young girls from Nazareth, Renaissance artists, and even, Deo adjuvante, university theologians.
I don’t think theology needs to be consigned to monasteries in the 21st century. But I’d love to hear others’ views of “the conditions for the possibility” of doing theology with integrity in the university setting, given the exegencies and politics of obtaining tenure, and the assorted and sometimes sordid compromises this may entail.
Perhaps only monastic disciplines (Bonhoeffer’s “disciplina arcana”) can facilitate the possibility. Along with the trust that “with God nothing is impossible.”
In my posting I intuitively tied together the three elements — Benedict’s homily, the Frick exhibit, Augustine’s prayer — with the golden thread of “contemplation.” Perhaps the question Cathy raises concerns the practice of contemplation, and how each of us attempts to give it place (and primacy?) in our non-monastic lives.
Cathy writes: “The academy is not a democracy. But neither is it a monastery.”
“But if you take the pope at his word, is there any place for theology in an American research university?”
I think the Pope would agree with you that academia is neither a democracy nor a monastery. But the better question is posed to you: How do the Pope’s words preclude gaining the respect of colleagues while maintaining a bit of humility in one’s choice and reference in delivery? In other words, one need not think that one’s theology cannot at once be reflecting God by being ‘chaste’ and garning the admiration of one’s colleagues. There is plenty of space to occupy between the vulgar and the sacred! The tenure process you describe and of which you partake, regrettably, sounds more oligarchical than anything else.
Cathy writes: “I don’t think the pope thinks the theological academy ought to be a democracy (I think he would wince at the contest being run by Evangelical Catholics).”
Thank goodness he doesn’t, and neither does our blog, Evangelical Catholic-ism. Perhaps the Pope would wince at our little contest, but certainly not for the reason you imply. I think he’d be more insightful and notice that:
a) the contest has to do with who likes who rather than with who tenures who
b) the contest is more a polity than a democracy!
The point really is: what are the conditions one needs to do good theology? I have no idea who “Evan Cath” is — whether you have any relationship with a university or not. If your contest is fun for you, go ahead and do it. That’s democracy.
But the guild of professional theology just isn’t a democracy. No matter how popular she may be Mother Angelica is never going to get a chaired professorship in Catholic Studies at a major research United States university. You might win American Idol by popular vote, but not a chair of Catholic Studies at Harvard (or Notre Dame or Georgetown). To the extent it partakes of the rest of the academic power structure it may well be an oligarchy, as you say. And that’s the problem I’m concerned with. People in it can’t really opt out and succeed.
My worry is, what’s the relationship between the pope’s vision of what counts as a proper life for a theologian and the way most theologians actually live in a modern university?. The chaste life he describes works for a priest or a nun (maybe), or someone independently wealthy. You can say, OK, I’m going to take this year and just pray–and work with the poor, and write a book next year, or the year after. I’ll found a lay institute (like von Balthasar). I’ll do something incredbily daring or unpopular –but I’ll be ok.
But most theologians are lay theologians. They have jobs. They have families. They have committees. They don’t have fabulous salaries. And they have to earn tenure. And to earn tenure they have to jump through a series of hoops which require immediate production. In most research universities, people on tenure track — in whatever field — don’t have a heck of a lot of time for contemplation. There are frequently quantity requirements as well as quality requirements; publication with good presses and refereed journals are a must. So anyone wanting to spend the rest of their lives teaching theology in a research university is going to have to meet the standards of the guild as they are. And those standards don’t leave time for contemplation, or reward it very much.
So the question really is for most young theologians: how do you reconcile chaste contemplation with a mortgage, three kids, and a 3:4 load and a salary of $45,00 per year?
If it helps, when I read the original post my reflection was that perhaps the opposite of “chastity” in the sense it was used there was not “unchastity” but self-indulgence.
In response to Cathleen Kaveney’s post, the problem of the final question is hardly unique to theology. I’ve seen it be far more harmful in college literature departments than I suspect it does in theology departments.
If I may venture a further question, since most of the people who post on this weblog have a somewhat different Catholic experience than I, is theology really an interesting or fruitful subject? I look at theologians I have read with interest (Augustine, de Lubac, Rowan Williams) and realize that what I have found interesting in their work is usually not so much theology as either narrative of personal religious experience or church history.
Cathy,
I would be more than satisfied if lay theologians lived their lives as true disciples. Forget contemplation etc. In fact I would be just as happy if pastors,clerical theologians and bishops did the same. That would be outstanding church reform.
Unless I misunderstand I find Bob’s “I associate chastity with personal integrity” somewhat troubling. My question is what else does he associate with personal integrity?
It sounds like he is saying that chastity is the center from which integrity flows. There may be something to that as long as chastity does not slip into virginity, abstinence in marriage and non-sainthood. All of which seemed to dominate Basil, Jerome and Augustine who seemed excessively angry against sex.
Having looked at the Greek original and the Latin and checked a solid commentary I would render the words cited by Benedict so: “Having purified yourselves by listening to the truth”. “your souls” is here a surrogate for “yourselves”. Both the Latin “oboedientia” ob + audire and the Greek hypokoe (from hypo and akouo) indicate and attentive and respectful listening from which one learns.
I should have noted that hagnizo, the Greek verb here rendered by “castifico”, sugests moral purification but with no particular reference to sexuality, much less to the chastity of the religious life. Anyone can quote Scripture. The thing is to interpret it. There no refence to sex here, and the continuation of the passage makes that clear: “in the interest of an unfeigned brotherly love” or perhaps, using inclusive language, “in the interest of a sincere love as becomes brothers and sisters”
I think Benedict is, in some ways, onto something. We academics — in all fields, including theology –run from event to event, from deadline to deadline, from meeting to meeting, from class to class.
But theology is supposed to be something more. It’s supposed to be grounded in a relationship with God. It’s not just an academic exercise — or it’s not supposed to be.
So the chaste contemplation that the Pope thinks about — is not mainly about sex, as Joe says. But it does require as certain abstemious relationship with the business and baubles of the world.
I think the task for us lay theologians who are fortunate enough to get paid to do what we do is to figure out how to get some conetmplation. I think the task for the pope is to realize that the challenges in this regard for lay academic theologians isn’t the same as for, say, some ordered priest. (I say some– a couple of the busiest people I know are priest-academics)!
I agree. But all Catholics should be trying to live distinctively Christian lives, theologians and everyone else. I realize that this may seem unrealistic. But I think it agrees with the mindset of Vatican II. I think this view is neither progressive nor conservative. I also think Benedict has a point. I always feel better when I find myself agreeing with the Bishop of Rome.
I hadn’t noticed that Benedict was quoting 1 Peter, which contains my Lieblingstueck in the entire Bible, hws artigennhta brephh to logikon adolon gala epipothhsate, or as I heard it when I first fell under its spell 50 years ago, crave as newborn babes pure spiritual milk. Except that the Greek is very specific that the milk is first rational/logical/of words and then without deceit, which I guess is implied in purity.
I guess Augustine had a less happy experience of the carnal desire of babies for milk.
Cimabue, the name by which we know the artist, is a nickname meaning “bull-headed.” Perhaps there’s a chastening involved in being displayed within the serene confines of the Frick, an appropriate contrapasso.
Cathy writes:
“But theology is supposed to be something more. It’s supposed to be grounded in a relationship with God. It’s not just an academic exercise — or it’s not supposed to be. ”
This is true and problematic at the same time. Particularly when it comes to the history of the church, facts must overrule devotion. Much too often the sinfulness of the church, as made clear by history, is forgotten as too much is made of the nebulous purity and sanctity of the church.
In my view there is a clear and pressing need for theology to follow the facts wherever they may lead and not to fear that one would lose one’s faith in the process.
Losing one’s faith is a life decision. It cannot come from a so called rational decision. Despite the insistence of Dominic Crossan and Bart Ehrman that their loss of faith is rationally based.
Unfortunately, Crossan and Ehrman scare people who believe their losing faith is due to scholarship. It is not the scholarship. It is the individual person’s decision.
This is crucial, I believe. Much of the opposition to critical thinking has fear of losing faith behind it. Not so.
Bill,
I think is is possible to lose faith because you, let’s say, become convinced that something isn’t so that was part of what you believed by faith. For example, I believe that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead by the Father, as Paul puts it. If someone could prove that this is not so, I would at least be in some difficulty. I hasten to add that I do not think that this could happen.
But suppose someone believed as a matter of faith that Jesus was born in December of the year 1 BC in our calendar. Then she discovers that there is strong evidence that this is not true. She becomes convinced. Could she not lose her faith? Of course the problem would be that she had been misinformed about Church teaching.
Thanks to Fr. Imbelli and Ms. Caveny for the invitation to comment on “the conditions for the possibility of doing theology with integrity in the university setting.”
It seems to me the heart of the matter is the theologian’s (or artist’s) own relationship with God. Only if the relationship lives and is lively, will the theologian have the good sense to, as Fr. Imbelli suggests, get out of the way and let God work. I think that artist and theologian both are properly “stewards of the mysteries of God” (1 Cor. 4:1). In my experience (at Catholic universities in Europe), the main problem with theology departments is not that the faculty are overburdened with work and (largely secular) professional expectations, which are certainly here as they are in the US, but that the core belief is often missing within the individual faculty member. As a result, the work and research takes on a very different form and focus. The reference frame becomes sociology and anthropology, with God (and even moreso the Catholic tradition) present as a question mark. All boldness of witness disappears.
I have long been annoyed by the tendency of “practical theology” departments in Holland to do research on why people don’t go to church and formulate market-attuned strategies for winning them back, while Jesus goes unmentioned. I know a professor is something other than a preacher, but a theology surely has responsibilities that emerge from personal faith and involve some form of profession of faith.
The problem I speak of is not limited to theology departments, of course. Personally, I believe the greatest challenge the Church faces is not the presence in the world of other religions or of atheists, nor even of Church haters: it is “unbelief among the believers.” By this I mean the discovery of unbelief (at worst, masked as belief) in precisely those people from whom we might rightly expect guidance.
I don’t mean to be uncharitable or question people’s sincerity when I voice this intuition. I believe most people are sincere. But I am burdened in my own work of evangelization, knowing what a great responsibility it is to speak on behalf of the Church (let alone God!) and how fragile faith can be. Awareness of these vulnerabilities is one more reminder to us to call on the One for whom nothing is impossible.
Oops, sorry, Cathy: Ms. Kaveny, with a K!
It’s amazing to me how long it has taken you people to understand the very clear statement of Benedict XVI. And it is equally amazing to me that you don’t understand the need for contemplation in your oh-so-busy lives. Have any of you ever read Josef Pieper’s Leisure: the Basis of Culture? Pieper sets forth the philosophical and theological reasons for the necessity of contemplation. Benedict sets them forth every day of his life by example.