A Study Of “On The Character of Men And the Virtuous Life”: Part XIV

The text, once again, brings up the issue of freedom. We must not allow ourselves to be enslaved by “sensual pleasures,” but rather, we must use our intellect to discern what is good and, through self-control, follow that good.[1] When our soul is found in harmony with our intellect, then the soul is capable of overcoming the impulses of the flesh.[2] We must be satisfied with what we are given, to find peace where we are at, otherwise we will be easily led astray by the passions. “And just as tunics that are too large hinder runners in a race, so the desire for more than one needs does not allow one’s soul to struggle or to be saved.”[3] We must learn detachment from “worldly things” and contentment with what have if we want to be free, otherwise,  any circumstance which goes against our wishes will be a “prison and punishment” for us.[4]

Desire itself is not the issue, it is irrational desire, a desire which goes against what our intellect tells us is good for us, which leads to our downfall. “Desire, detached from the intelligence, begets sensual pleasure, and does not allow the soul to be saved or to attain union with God.”[5] And even then, we must be careful; it would be incorrect to say natural pleasures are bad in and of themselves; it is, however, when they are imbalanced and pursued in an unnatural fashion, in an unnatural way to excess, that they divert us from God and lead to perdition:

What takes place according to nature is not sinful; sin always involves man’s deliberate choice. It is not a sin to eat; it is a sin to eat without gratitude, and not in an orderly and restrained manner such as will enable the body to be kept alive without inducing evil thoughts. It is not a sin to use one’s eyes with purity; it is a sin to look with envy, arrogance and insatiable desire. It is a sin to listen not peacefully, but angrily; it is a sin to guide the tongue, not toward thanksgiving and prayer, but towards backbiting; it is a sin to employ the hands, not for acts of compassion, but for murders and robberies. And thus every part of the body sins when by man’s own choice it performs not good but evil acts, contrary to God’s will.[6]

One of the most misunderstood, even abused, concepts is that of freedom. So many people confuse mere choice as freedom. If this is the case, then prisoners, who are given all kinds of choices (what food they want to eat, what books they want to read, what exercises they want to do, et. al.) must be said to be free. If the only choices one has are choices which limit the person, which prevent them from being able to achieve their full potential, or the choices which come out of such limits, the presence of those choices does not indicate freedom. While one who is free might have those same choices (as one who is free might also figure out an exercise routine for themselves), they also have other choices, ones which provide them a transcendence from their present circumstance. The multiplication of choices which are dependent upon an imprisoned state, choices which reinforce that imprisoned state, is not an indication of freedom; rather, it is an attempt to mask the lack of freedom so that those imprisoned will not act so as to free themselves from their bonds. As long as a society bases itself on a false sense of freedom, a freedom to keep to the self in all of its fallen desires, that society can only end up creating more suffering; it reifies the bonds by delusion or outright lies, telling people that these bonds must be upheld if they want to be free. Any system which thrives on those bonds, which thrives on the multiplication of baseless desires for its upkeep, must in the end be deemed destructive to humanity, and the desire to uphold such a system must be seen as sinful. We cannot maintain the structures of sin by claiming they produce freedom, for the structures of sin, by their very nature, eliminate and destroy the natural good of the human person and seek to imprison people so they will not be free to follow their inherent good nature.

What is good and true the intellect is capable of knowing – though it might need to purify itself from the taint of sin in order to see the true choices which lie before it. Morality is established as a way to make sure one is free; moral laws delineate those actions which would lead one toward or away from self-imprisonment. Moral law must be used to help guarantee, not limit, freedom. Its purpose is for the betterment of the human person. Morality must, therefore, be understood, not in a legalistic sense, but in a functional sense, and its interpretation and application in part lie with the circumstances in which a person finds themselves in. This is how St Paul understood the law: it is a pedagogue, not an absolute, and its aim is our freedom, a freedom which could not be attained by itself;  the moral law needed to find its fulfillment in Christ:

Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made; and it was ordained by angels through an intermediary.  Now an intermediary implies more than one; but God is one.  Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not; for if a law had been given which could make alive, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.  But the scripture consigned all things to sin, that what was promised to faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Now before faith came, we were confined under the law, kept under restraint until faith should be revealed.  So that the law was our custodian until Christ came, that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a custodian;  for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.  For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.  And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. (Gal. 3:19 -29 RSV).

In a society where transcendent freedom is denied, what is left is the fleeting, false freedom to follow one’s inordinate desire to one’s doom. Without the transcendent, without grace, society is doomed to seek out a false freedom with a false god (presently, it is Mammon, and what Mammon promises is the freedom to follow one’s inordinate desires to their fullest if one is given Mammon’s blessing: wealth). It declares how things are, in the present, is how things are meant to be, and so freedom is misdirected as the desire to be free to choices based upon the bonds of the flesh without the spirit. Pope Benedict has rightly rejected this notion of freedom:

A freedom that consisted solely in the possibility of satisfying one’s needs would not be human freedom, since it would remain in the animal realm. An individual freedom without substance dissolves into meaninglessness, since the individual’s freedom can exist only in an order of freedoms. Freedom requires a communal substance, which we could define as the guaranteeing of human rights. We can put this in other terms: the very essence of the concept of ‘freedom’ demands that it be complemented by two other concepts, those of law and of the good. We might say that freedom entails the ability of the conscience to perceive the fundamental value of humanity, a value that concerns every individual.[7]

The non-Christian philosopher Slavoj Žižek also understands the problem of contemporary notions of freedom. He too sees that what is being proposed as freedom by (real) liberals, libertarians, is in reality a delusion which seeks to hinder true personal freedom by deceiving those who are enslaved by making them think they are free:

In a way, liberalism is here even the worst of the three, since it NATURALIZES the reasons for obedience into the subject’s internal psychological structure. So the paradox is that “liberal” subjects are in a way those least free: they change the very opinion/perception of themselves, accepting what was IMPOSED on them as originating in their “nature” – they are even no longer AWARE of their subordination.[8]

Modernity has turned desire into nature, thus making sure one’s true nature is not discerned. The system of sin which runs modern society demands our acceptance of our desire without question because it thrives on desire, and the pleasures which momentarily satisfy our desires. Those pleasure are impermanent and do not lead to the transcendent good which eternally satisfies. Thus those same pleasures can be used again and again as a goal, making sure people keep trying to attain them again and again. This means people will be consistently led to act on their lowest possible urges, thinking this is what freedom is about, while they no longer see beyond the limited choices before them, a vision which is necessary if one is to overthrow the structures of sin which imprison them.  Žižek explains how this can be seen on “reality” television:

The most popular TV show of the Fall of 2000 in France, with the viewer rating two times higher than that of the notorious “Big Brother” reality soaps, was “C’est mon choix” (“It is my choice”) on France 3, the talk-show whose guest is each time an ordinary (or, exceptionally, well-known) person who made a peculiar choice which determined his or her entire life-style: one of them decided never to wear underwear, another tries all the time to find a more appropriate sexual partner for his father and mother – extravagance is allowed, solicited even, but with the explicit exclusion of the choices which may disturb the public (say, a person whose choice is to be and act as a racist, is a priori excluded). Can one imagine a better predicament of what the “freedom of choice” effectively amounts to in our liberal societies? We can go on making our small choices, “reinventing ourselves” thoroughly, on condition that these choices do not seriously disturb the social and ideological balance.[9]

There must be rules which help regulate society. But, what is important, is that those rules must be based upon the preservation of human dignity and allow for, not hinder, personal perfection.  The use of our body and its senses is good. What is not good is the inappropriate use of our body; we must not believe that if its use is good, then any use of it is good. The good of the body lies in its proper, proportionate use: eating a little food to sustain oneself is good, eating too much transcends the good, violates the natural use of the body, and becomes evil. The choices we are given by society tend to be those which gear us to using what is naturally good in an inappropriate fashion. Balance is lost, and it is such balance which is necessary. Our body was given to us for our own good, and its proper functions are not to be disdained. But they are to be used, not independently, cut off from each other, but together as a whole, guided by our intellect, so that they can help serve us in our pursuit of the transcendent good and not be stuck with the constant pursuit of limited good as if they were transcendent. We must be grateful for who we are, and realize the good of our body is not, in itself, the ultimate good we are seeking, but will take part of what would be found in that ultimate good; without understanding this, we will keep choosing limited goods and trap ourselves in a perpetual cycle of imprisonment. The goods contained in our body are not in question; it is our appropriation of them through our choices which must be questioned. Are we limiting ourselves to a lesser good, ignoring the purpose of those goods we have been given, or are we using them to help us reach up and beyond ourselves to the absolute good which is able to be shared by them but is not limited by them?

There is much in this section of our text which works as a positive corrective for otherwise negative remarks about the body and worldly existence. We see in it that the world, and our bodily nature, and our basic nature, is good. We have already seen this before,[10] but it is reinforced here, making sure ascetic ideals do not become extreme. And, as this theme has already been discussed before, what was said in our previous discussion applies here as well – that one can find an association with this line of thought with other texts associated with Anthony. We have also seen the positive attribution of the body, that it should be given its necessities, showing that although Anthony believed that the body should be subject to the soul, he also believed that its rightful desires are to be met and not disdained.[11]

We do see, in the letters, Anthony’s interests in the pure use of the body and its senses, similar to what we see described here – though, in the letters, Anthony adds that it is the Spirit (the Holy Spirit) which helps raise us up to be able to use the body properly. Thus, talking about inordinate passions and our need to be purified from them, he begins by saying:

And the Spirit teaches the mind how to heal all the wounds of the soul, and to rid itself of every one, those which are mingled in the members of the body, and other passions which are altogether outside the body, being mingled in the will. And for the eyes it sets a rule, that they may see rightly and purely, and that in them there may be no guile. After that it sets a rule also for the ears, how they may hear in peace, and no more thirst or desire to hear ill speaking, nor about the falls and humiliations of men; but how the make rejoice to hear good things, and about the way every man stands firm and about the mercy shown to the whole creation, which in these members once was sick.[12]

Anthony then continues to explain how the tongue should be kept pure, that its expression and way of speech shows how sick one is or is not according to their soul; as one is raised up and healed, they will be seen to speak wisely, “without partiality and without self-will.”[13] The hands are mentioned as being purified when they are put to use “in almsgiving and prayer.”[14] The stomach is to be put under control so that it is fed, not excessively, but with “moderation,” so that concupiscence, like sexual thoughts, can be fought against.[15] The letter continues with the feet, that they should hold us upright, so that, with the help of the Spirit, “they should walk according to its [the Spirit’s] will, going and ministering in good works, so that the whole body may be changed and renewed and be under the authority of the Spirit.”[16]

While the examples of the body and how it is to be used properly differs somewhat in the letters and with our text, the similarity of theme and interest in helping to make the body pure so it can be used for worship of God is striking. Indeed, we find a similar interest in the ears being used “peacefully” and the hands for acts of charity (compassion/almsgiving), and, as is fitting for a monastic source, we are told our eating is to be restrained in both texts in order to combat concupiscence. The differences between the letters and our text on this theme seem complementary and represent a single thought being expressed in different occasions. This concordance between the letters with our text provides strong evidence for an Anthonite connection with “On the Character of Men and on the Virtuous Life.”