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The highly controversial Russian Orthodox thinker Nikolai Fedorov founded his speculations, in part, on the relationship revealed by God between him and our ancestors.[2] Since they are with God, in some form or another, we owe them whatever good we can render to and for them because of the good they gave us by rendering us our life and our place in the world. And so Fedorov proposed that true religion and worship of God included veneration of our ancestors, and without such respect, without honoring them, we would end up rejecting an element of true religious faith. “Faithfulness to the God of the fathers, the God of Adam and of all the ancestors, is true religion; all others are a betrayal of God and of one’s forebears.”[3] Such fidelity is best manifested not by a mere sense of duty or obligation to our forebears, but with love. “Faithfulness to the God of the fathers and to each other is the expression of a faith inseparable from love, that is, from action, from service to God the Father, the God of the fathers.”[4] It is capable of being said to be a cult, that is, a form of ancestor veneration, an approved form of it, which recognizes and honors our ancestors because we know them to continue to live in and with God.[5] While there is a special obligation to be had for those who are our own progenitors, it is also a universal call, an obligation for and respect of all those who came before us, even those of other nations:
God Himself confirms the truth that religion is the cult of ancestors by calling Himself the God of the fathers. We have no right to separate our fathers from God, or God from our fathers; neither have we the right to merge them with Him, that is to say, to permit their absorption (which would mean merging God and nature), nor to limit the circle of fathers to our own tribe or race. [6]
Thus, when God tells us, “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land which the LORD your God gives you” (Ex. 20:12 RSV), we must keep in mind, if God is truly the God of the ancestors and they continue to live in and with him, we must then continue to honor and respect them, and indeed help them if they need it and we can render it to them after they departed temporal life and entered into eternity. St. John Chrysostom, reflecting with a piety similar to that found in the thought of Fedorov explained that our obligation to our parents indeed reflects the obligation due to God, because our parents, like God, are the source of our being. If we can’t show them our love, it is understandable, then, we would end up not knowing how to show it to anyone else:
When he would lead us away from wicked practices, and is just about to enter upon virtuous ones, this is the first thing he enjoins, honor towards parents; inasmuch as they before all others are, after God, the authors of our being, so that it is reasonable they should be the first to reap the fruits of our right actions; and then all the rest of mankind. For if a man have not this honor for parents he will never be gentle toward those unconnected with him.[7]
Clearly, it is best that we do what we can out of love, not out of fear, though as with worship of God, sometimes the foundation comes out of fear, where the reprisal for failing to follow our duty to God or our ancestors might motivate us to do what is right. “Let the godly man honor his father out of gratitude, and the ingrate do so on account of fear.”[8] Hopefully, for those who begin with such fear, the loving response which comes as a result of fulfilling our obligation should transform the fear to love and respect, to make the veneration proper instead of being a formal duty done to fulfill the bare minimum suggested by justice. And, as Solovyov explained, when looking to the actual practice of ancestor worship (understanding the term worship in the relative sense of veneration), clearly it developed out of the love which was engendered in the hearts of its practitioners:
It is only a subjective misanthropic mood that can reduce filial sentiments even in the primitive races to fear alone, to the exclusion of gratitude and of a disinterested recognition of superiority. If these moral elements are unquestionably present in the relation of a dog to its master in whom it sees its living Providence, they must a fortiori form part of the feelings of man to his Providence, originally embodied for him in his parents. When this interpretation is transferred to the dead ancestors, their cult also carries with it the moral element of filial love, which is in this case clearly differentiated from simple altruism and acquire a predominantly religious character.[9]
Historically, then, for Christians and non-Christians alike, there was a general understanding that we owed something to our ancestors, and for those who were more spiritually minded, such an obligation was fulfilled out of love. This obligation was to look after our ancestors, to do what we can for them in the realm of the dead, to help them make satisfaction for any wrong they did while alive, so that they could come purified to God and enter eternal beatitude.[10] But, of course, it also serves another purpose, for it helps preserve their memory, to honor their good deeds, by protecting the inheritance we received from them, to make sure it does not perish, not only in our lifetime, but in the future as what good they did should be able to be passed on for generations to come. Both the good and the bad of the past continue to affect us in our lives today. And so, while we live, we should always reflect upon the past, learn from both the good and the bad done by our ancestors, and use what we grasp to guide our actions today in and with wisdom. Thus, like many Native American tribes, we should consider the ramification of our actions not just for ourselves and our children, but up to and for “seven generations” to come, because as the past affects the future, so our actions will affect what happens on the earth for a long time to come.
Sadly, this obligation, this connection to our ancestors – and their continued existence in and with God, has been lost to the modern world. We no longer feel responsible to uphold their good memory, to preserve and honor them for their goods deeds. We let history be forgotten. And, so by ignoring the past, we think we can avoid making restitution for the bad our ancestors before us have done. We feel we have no obligation to the past, and in the end, that means we have no obligation for the future. We have lost our sense of obligation and duty – and with it, our sense of community and love. We have become self-centered, rarely thanking our ancestors for the good they have given us, and even more rarely thinking we must fix the problems they have created, not just for their own good, but for ours. Thus, with great insight, St. Thomas More, giving voice to the dead, wrote of those whose obligations which were being forgotten in his time:[11]
In the most piteous way we continually cry out and call upon your devout charity and most tender pity for help, comfort and relief. We are your late acquaintances, relatives, spouses, companions, playmates, and friends – and now your humble and out-of-touch and half-forgotten suppliants, poor prisoners of God, the poor souls in purgatory, abiding and enduring here the agonizing pains and hot, purging fires that consume and burn out the fusty and filthy stains of our sin, till the mercy of God, the more quickly by means of your goodness and charity, deigns to deliver us from here.[12]
But, as St. Thomas More warned us, our neglect for the dead will end with similar treatment ourselves; if we ignore their needs, justice will render our just reward, and so we will find our needs will likewise be neglected:
We therefore find very true that old proverb, Out of sight, out of mind. And yet surely, to tell the truth, we cannot with good reason much grumble against you for this. For while we were with you out there, we, in our overindulgence in that wretched world, likewise forgot our good friends here. And therefore we cannot be too surprised if God in his justice allows us to be forgotten by you as others before were forgotten by us. But we beseech our Lord, for both our sakes, to give you the grace to rectify on your side that fault common to us both, lest when you come here later, God out of like justice should allow you to be forgotten by those that you leave there behind you, as you forget us that have come here before you.[13]
We have, as a society, forgotten the dead. What was started in the Reformation continues to this day. Even Catholics have lost the moral force which was contained in religious rites which worked for the benefit of the dead, the belief that we can and should help them make restitution for their sins, that indeed, we were obligated to do so out of love. It is actually a part of our inheritance from our ancestors – we received the good which they gave us, but such good comes with obligations, including the obligation to repair the evil they might have done. That is, we inherit the justice due for their sins, sins which we must somehow make restitution for so as to heal the damage our family has done to the world: “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” (Ex. 34:6-7 RSV).
Thus, we must remember those who came before us, blessing them and honoring them with proper veneration for the good they have done, but also working to overturn any harm they might have done, to deal with their whole legacy, not just the part which benefits us.[14] We easily showed them love when they were present with us on the earth, but we must remember, they continue to be present with us in and through God. And in and through God, our obligation to them continues. And when we recognize this and do due diligence to and for them, after they have gone before us to eternity, we show a high sense of morality, as Master Tsêng in the Analects of Confucius proclaimed: “Master Tsêng said when proper respect towards the dead is shown at the End and continued after they are far away the moral force (tê) of a people has reached its highest point.”[15] And this must be our moral position if we want to hold on to true Christian piety, a piety of love:
Now dear loved ones, remember how nature and Christianity binds you to remember us. If any point of your former favor toward us, an piece of your former love, any kindness for kinfolk, any care for acquaintances, any favor toward old friends, any spark of charity, any tender spot of pity, any regard for nature, any consideration of what it means to be a Christian, is left in your hearts, never let the malice of a few foolish fellows – malice borne by a few pestilent persons toward priesthood, religion, and your Christian faith – erase out of your hearts all care for your kinsfolk, all concern for your old friends, and all remembrance of all Christian souls.[16]
Let us once again call to mind our ancestors and our relationship to them. Let us honor them for the good that they have done, but also, let us work for their behalf, helping to right any of their wrongs so that, by our love, we can render to them the greatest service of all, aiding them in the purification of their souls so that they can enter eternal beatitude with God.
[1] To be sure, the state of their existence depends upon the state of their soul after death. Going over to eternity and being preserved in God does not tell us how they experience their new state of existence. We must not presume they immediately attain eternal beatitude: any injustice or sin which they have left unresolved will have an impact on them and their soul.
[2] Nikolai Fedorov (1829 – 1903) believed that God could be working with and through humanity, and its sciences, to establish the general resurrection of the dead. It was a duty which God opened up to us after the example of the resurrection in and through Jesus Christ. While Orthodox theologians rightfully questioned his understanding of the general resurrection, which seemed to follow a purely materialistic vision and did not recognize the transfiguration of the dead which occurs in and with Christ, they nonetheless thought many of his ideas were of interest and worthy of our attention once his overly materialistic interpretation of the resurrection was rejected. To be sure Fedorov did consider that if we did not fulfill the task ourselves, God could and would find other means to have it accomplished (although by being forced to act that way, there would be consequences for us if the failure was due to neglect). That is, he recognized God was capable of fulfilling the task himself if we did not follow his example and develop a “resurrection science” as the “common task” of humanity. While all of this is interesting, and helps put his words in context, nonetheless, our interest here is not the “common task” itself but the moral foundation which Fedorov used to promote it – the duty and obligation we had to work for the benefit of our ancestors, and how we can tie it with what Jesus said about God and his relationship with our ancestors.
[3] Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov, What Was Man Created For? The Philosophy of the Common Task. trans. and ed. Elizabeth Koutaissoff and Marilyn Minto (London: Honeyglen Publishing, 1990),169.
[4] Fedorov, The Philosophy of the Common Task, 169.
[5] While it took a centuries after Matteo Ricci and the emergence of “Chinese Rites Controversy” for the Catholic Church to consider all the implications of “ancestor worship” and the rites associated with it in China, Pope Pius XII in the instruction on Dec. 8, 1939, “Plane compertum est,” affirmed the validity of civic forms of “ancestor worship,” as long as such veneration was done in and with a Catholic spirit (i.e., the proper place and position of the dead in relation to God was properly retained, such as there was no absorption of the dead into the Godhead, rendering them gods by nature). The Pope affirmed with this instruction that images of great figures, like Confucius, could be given such veneration as well. From this we can extend what the Pope said further and say that we can and should honor the great dead of all peoples, recognizing what they have done and showing them due reverence. It should be noted that the spirit of this decree had been long lived out in Christendom as many of the great and noble pagans were often given such honor and respect (i.e., Aristotle, Cicero, Plato, the Sibyls, et. al.).
[6] Fedorov, The Philosophy of the Common Task, 66.
[7] St John Chrysostom, “Homilies on Ephesians” in NPNF1(13):153.
[8] St. Ambrose, “The Patriarchs” in Seven Exegetical Works. trans. Michael P. McHugh (Washington, DC: CUA Press, 1972), 243.
[9] Vladimir Solovyof, The Justification of the Good. trans. Nathalie A. Duddington (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1918), 83.
[10] To be sure, for some, like in the Buddhist tradition, we find the obligation as subsumed under the general obligation we have to render compassionate aid to all. Thus, when we read the kind of aid a bodhisattva is to give others, it universalizes the obligation we have for our ancestors (often with the view that those who are before us, in a sense, was our ancestor, our spouse, our child, in former lives), and so helps us understand the kind of work we can and should do for our ancestors:
“The bodhisattva who is thus correctly engaged [in the spiritual practice] attends to those beings who are endowed with virtuous qualities by venerating them and bestowing gain and honor upon them. One maintains an attitude of utmost compassion and pity towards those beings who are guilty of wickedness. With all one’s ability and strength, one undertakes to eliminate the faults of those [wicked beings],” Asaṅga, The Bodhisattva Path to Unsurpassed Enlightenment. A Complete Translation of the Bodhisattvabhūmi. Trans. Artemus B. Engle (Boulder, CO: Snow Lion Publication, 2016), 76.
Working to “eliminate the faults” of our ancestors, through temporal restitution for their acts of injustice, healing the damage they have done to others, as well as prayers for their soul, is a much neglected practice in the world today, and yet the realization that it is our duty to help repair the wrongs of the past would go a long way in improving and preserving the world for the future.
[11] This was due to the fact that Protestant Reformation, with its notions of justification leading to a rejection of the need for restitution for sins, led to a rejection of the notion of purgatory and the work those who are alive can do for their beloved dead. Clearly, this fundamental shift in social theory served as the foundation for the modern age, giving, as it did, a reason to ignore the past and its interdependent relationship to the present, where the sins of the past affect us to this day until they are healed by proper acts of justice.
[12] St. Thomas More, The Supplication of Souls in The Four Last Things, The Supplication of Souls, A Dialogue on Conscience. ed. and modernized Mary Gottschalk (New York: Scepter Publications, 2002), 69.
[13] St. Thomas More, The Supplication of Souls, 183.
[14] That is, while we might not have personally done some sin in the past, we still inherit the legacy given to us by our ancestors, the good and the bad. The bad must not be ignored, but rather, must be dealt with properly less its legacy stains us and harms us by our failing to be just ourselves.
[15] The Analects of Confucius. trans. Arthur Waley (New York: Vintage, 1989), 85.
[16] St. Thomas More, The Supplication of Souls, 193.
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