Evolution – involution – revolution
The French Revolution, which marked the end of the medieval society divided into clergy, nobility and commoners, was in itself much more provoking than a revolution and much more dispersed than French as it spread to the rest of Europe and the world. It was designated as a revolution perhaps because, like all revolutions, it caused a lot of blood to flow. But in cultural and civilizational terms, the French Revolution was no more than a social and political rebirth, that is, a return to the classical antiquity of the Greco-Roman world.
As we have discussed in a previous article, the cultures and civilizations of the Fertile Crescent that gave rise to Western civilization (Sumer, Crete, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Syria, Babylon, Persia, Greece and Rome) succeeded each other in a linear manner and without great tumults, almost like a relay race where one athlete after receiving the baton from his teammate, runs and gives all he got to pass the prize to the next one in line, with an added value or the fruit of his effort, that is, with an advantage over other competitors.
The invasion of the Roman Empire by the Germanic peoples, like the Huns, Vandals, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Franks, Lombards and Anglo-Saxons, from north-east Europe all of them more primitive and for this reason were labelled as barbarians by both the Greeks and Romans, was a catastrophe for Western civilization. A disaster comparable to the meteorite that struck Earth over 60 million years ago that raised so much dust as to block the sun and plunged the planet into darkness and long winters, resulting in the extinction of dinosaurs and many other life forms.
After the winter darkness of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance was seen as the springtime of Europe. People of the Renaissance saw the Middle Ages as an accident, a parenthesis, a period in which the cultural and civilizational relay race was abruptly halted or frozen. Presupposing that they had little or nothing to learn from the Middle Ages, the Renaissance bypassed it altogether and linked itself directly to the classical antiquity of the Greco-Roman world.
Interestingly enough, like the myth of the Phoenix bird that is reborn from its own ashes, the Renaissance began precisely where the “meteorite” had fallen, on the Italian Peninsula. Commonly associated with a return to philosophy, art, science and classical world architecture, this peaceful revolution was more profound and lasting, with the French Revolution as its last manifestation in the area of structure of society and of political government.
After all, the French revolutionists did not invent the republic or democracy, in the analogy of the relay race, we can say that they came from behind: the Republic of the Romans and the democracy of the Greeks. The three ideals of freedom, equality and fraternity, also came from behind: our hypothesis is that they were taken from the Gospel.
Up to the end of the Roman Empire, the world had evolved linearly, but with its fall into the hands of primitive peoples, the world involuted during the Middle Ages. To stop this movement of involution, a revolution was needed.
The French Revolution and the end of the blue bloods
Culture and civilization do not belong in rural areas, but in urban centers. Polis in Greece, urbe in Rome, the quintessential place of culture is the city because this is where the greatest number of interactions and exchanges take place between classes and at all levels, from trades to ideas. The invading peoples of the last expression of Western civilization – the Roman Empire – were rough rural peoples who despised the city. That is why cities were dying out as feudal rural society was establishing itself.
During Middle Ages, the European society was structured into three social classes that somehow mimicked India’s caste system: clergy, nobility and commoners. However, later and with Europe’s greater openness to commerce, small population nuclei called boroughs were created that did not live off directly from agriculture.
As the result, a new social class was born – the bourgeoisie – that was basically made up of merchants and artisans, and those with economic prowess superior to that of the nobles or the clergy. However, unlike the latter two, the bourgeoisie had neither social nor political power much less status, that is, there was no room for them in a society of three distinct social classes.
In addition to the birth of the bourgeoisie, the French Revolution represented the outbreak of many other factors: the philosophies of Descartes, Espinosa and Locke, as well as the sociopolitical ideas of Montesquieu, Voltaire and Rousseau. The historical facts of the wars of the 18th century created the need to raise taxes, which led the king to call a meeting of the General Estates– the clergy, the nobility and the commoners – on May 5, 1789.
The commoners, greatest in number and energized by the bourgeois, demanded that the deliberations be voted by head and not by social class. In this way, the popular will would be imposed on the other two social classes or estates. As it’s well known, the event that triggered the French Revolution was the seizure of the Bastille on July 14, 1789. The Bastille was an impregnable castle that at the time served as a prison, like the Tower of London.
It is interesting to note that the castle, a symbol of the feudal world of medieval Europe and the power of the nobility, fell on that day. And with it, the status of the nobility also fell along with the privileges of blue bloods. This type of blood never existed, a myth invented by the same nobles from the fact that they had whiter skin, especially the maidens, because unlike the commoners they did not work from sunrise to sunset. Hence beneath their white skin blue veins could be seen, something that was not observed in the commoners with their sunburned skin.
In the Middle Ages, social status and political influence depended on birth, inherited title and land tenure. After the French Revolution, the idea was implemented that we are all born equal, and that merits and honours are won through individual effort; as the saying goes, equal gain for equal pain.
There are still some monarchies in Europe, however the kings do not have any real power, and they reign anachronistically but do not govern. There are still some nobles, that is, people who have inherited titles of counts and dukes; but nobility itself has lost its meaning: a person who is rich is worth more than a poor noble. Nowadays, it is money that grants people social status.
When will the "French Revolution" take place in the Catholic Church?
The French Revolution managed to do away with the nobility, but it did not get rid of the clergy. In the Church, the clear distinction between the laity and the clergy is reminiscent of the Middle Ages and the caste system in India. The Catholic Church looks more like an absolute monarchy, with the Pope as a Sun King with an entourage of Dukes (or Cardinals) and Counts (or Bishops). It is no coincidence that Cardinals designate themselves as princes of the Church.
The Second Vatican Council sought to soften this distinction between the clergy and the laity, as well as to democratize the Church more at the level of her government, through greater collegiality or participation. Therefore, between the Pope and the Bishops, synods have been instituted; between the Bishop and the priests, the presbyteral councils were created; and between the priest and the laity in parishes, pastoral councils have been formed.
However, since all these councils are only advisory, they are easily ignored by the authority that summons them who often picks members that agree with everything the ecclesiastical authority decides. Vatican II foretold a church of concentric circles, where the successor of Peter would occupy the center, truly being the “servo servorum Dei”. However, although the theory is correct, in practice the same pyramidal church still prevails, governed by an absolute monarch, more or less enlightened, we believe, by the Holy Spirit.
In a system where the key and engine of everything that happens in the Church is with the clergy, Protestantism is gaining ground because Catholic laity, unlike Protestants, are slow to realize that they are also evangelists. This happens because in the Catholic Church evangelization is carried out by the clergy.
On the other hand, because the clerics are relatively few in number or devoted themselves solely to the sacraments or the bureaucracies of a parish, they do not evangelize either. As proof of this, let us take a look at the statistics of Christians in Ethiopia where I was a missionary. Catholics who have been in the country since the Portuguese Discoveries make up 0.5% of the population while Protestants who only arrived in Ethiopia in the 20th century make up more than 2% of the population.
Freedom
The idea that comes to mind when we talk about freedom is that of living independently and autonomously, without constraints. Freedom, in the sense of autonomy, is inherent in every kind of life or organic matter; it means to do things for oneself, such as a tree by the process of photosynthesis produces its own food, as we have seen in a previous article.
Much more than for animal life, freedom is conditio sine qua non for human life. Animals or plants do what nature has predestined for them, and since they do not step out of these molds, they have no power over their own lives, no power to choose. Human beings, on the other hand, are not predestined by nature nor does nature exercise power over them. Unlike animals, a human being is not only alive, but he also lives because he can do of his life and with his life whatever he wants, he can direct it however he wants and even end it if he so decides.
“Give me liberty or give me death” were words spoken by Patrick Henry to gain support for the American Revolutionary War. Liberty is therefore an inherent value to human life. What did the theorists of the French Revolution understand by freedom?
The concept of freedom in the French Revolution
Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains. One thinks himself the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The concept of freedom that came out of the French Revolution was more political than anything else. It was above all, freedom from oppression that the state exerted on its citizens; an oppression that resulted in arresting and executing people without due process, which was what happened to Voltaire in virtue of using freedom of expression in his writings.
The French Revolution produced on August 16, 1789, a document called the “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen” that influenced not only the French society at that time, but also those in the rest of the world at that time and in the ensuing times.
The concept of freedom in the Gospel
If we ask a teenager what freedom means, immediately and without thinking much he will likely say, “It’s doing whatever I want”. However this is not the most important component of freedom. To be able to do what I want, I must be free; being able to do what I want is free will and it is freedom that gives me the ability to choose. Without freedom there is no free will, it is an illusion, a chimera. True freedom is the freedom of… free will is the freedom to…
FREEDOM OF... AND FREEDOM TO...
The “freedom of...” is synonymous with emancipation, with conquest. In this sense, I am not free at birth, freedom must be acquired like all the good things in life, with effort and hard work. The epic of the Hebrew people in freeing themselves from slavery in Egypt, the passage through the desert of purification to enter into the Promise Land of freedom flowing with milk and honey, is a paradigm of the conquest of freedom, the long journey to freedom.
If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. John 8:31-32
The message of Christ is composed of three parts: by his preaching or doctrine, that is, by everything he said and did, by his miracles and works because as he said himself, people are known by their works just as trees are known by their fruits (Cf. Matthew 7:16) and finally, by the way he behaved in all situations of his life. All this is normative to us, all this is “the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6), all this is human nature.
The Creator became a creature to teach men to be men. In his life, Jesus reveals human nature and the way to live it; he is the benchmark of human nature: whoever wants to be authentic and genuinely human measures himself against Him. It is in this sense that we must interpret “the truth will make you free”. Knowing is power and control, to know the truth of things means to be able to control them, to have power and to exercise that power over them.
In psychology, we say “what you know about yourself, especially about your subconscious or past life, you can control; what you don’t know, controls you”. The knowledge of nature around you, of human nature itself at the physical, spiritual and psychological level, gives you freedom because you can master it and therefore know what can happen. You also know the limits and within these limits you are free, because absolute freedom does not exist; you know how far you can run, what you can or cannot eat, how much alcohol you can drink, etc. The knowledge of truth of things emancipates you from them, ceasing to be at their mercy; you are no longer dominated by them, you are free, independent and autonomous.
Things are made to be used and people are created to be loved. This is the truth of the nature of things and people. Given this truth, you are free because you know what to do, how to relate to people and things in order to be happy. Not knowing this truth would make you fumble like a blind man who can’t see where he is going and therefore is not free: at any moment the lack of knowledge can be fatal.
Consequently, the “freedom of...” refers to two realities that can enslave us to things, or to material goods and people. In order to gain my freedom from things and people, I must render my fidelity to the Creator of things and people, the Lord of everything and everyone. When I love God all in all, I gain my freedom from everything and everyone.
“Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” Mark 12:29-30
Freedom in relation to things
(...) if riches increase, do not set your heart on them. Psalms 62:10
The psalmist makes it very clear that the problem is not being rich or being poor, but rather the relationship we establish with things. A poor person who grabs onto the little that he has, is rich in a negative way according to the Gospel. Similarly, a rich man who is detached from his wealth, is poor in a positive way according to the Gospel. Love is due to people not to things. Whoever has a loving relationship with things perverts his human nature, because every loving relationship presupposes a symbiotic exchange or a mutual self-disclosure; I give myself to you and you give yourself to me, so that part of me goes to you and part of you comes to me.
That’s the way between people. However, if the same loving relationship is established with material goods, these things gain spiritual values, that is, they are spiritualized as if they were people, and they gain a soul. In the same manner, a person who falls in love with material things gains material value, that is, he materializes himself, and becomes a thing. This is what we mean when we define a person as materialistic.
In true love between people, once you give yourself and surrender, you no longer possess yourself. However, since the person to whom you give yourself shares your nature and also gives himself to you, you can be free. This no longer happens when you give your heart to something and not to someone, to a thing that is not of the same nature which can dominate you and make you into its slave. It is in this sense that money is said to be a good slave, because you can do many things with it; but it is a bad master, because it demands a complete surrender before its majesty.
This is exactly what we see in the story of the rich young man who went to the Lord to ask whether, after having observed all the commandments that merely say what not to do, there was anything he still lacked to acquire eternal life. The Lord liked him, as the Gospel says, but was wrong about him because this man was not free. Materially he possessed many riches, but from the psychological point of view, as we have explained earlier, he was possessed by them. Therefore he was not free, and even though he would have liked to follow the Master, he could not because he was married to his wealth and the latter never granted him a divorce, did not let him leave (Cf. Matthew 19:16-25).
What we said about material goods “mutatis mutandis” applies to the relationships many people establish with addictive substances, such as tobacco, alcohol, drugs, etc., and with addictive behaviours, such as anger, gluttony and lust.
Freedom in relation to people
Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matthew 10:37
The commandment to love God, as described both in the book of Deuteronomy and the Gospel of Mark, chapter 12 cited above, establishes priorities and hierarchies. If we love God, He should come first; to Him, the Creator, we must love above all creatures, whether they be things or persons.
It costs us to love God as a personal and spiritual being; since we need concrete, palpable and visible things to make this happen, the temptation to abandon God in order to idolize some physical reality or person is constantly with us. The people of Israel saw in Moses a tangible sacrament of God. When he went up Mount Sinai and stayed there for a long time, the people were left without this sacramental presence of God in their midst, as Moses was their closest connection to God. They felt alone and abandoned, and sought to build a golden calf to replace God and Moses (Cf. Exodus 32:21-24).
The same thing happened to Abraham after he obtained from God the gift of Isaac who was the beginning of the fulfillment of God’s promise to give him descendants as numerous as the stars of the sky… Abraham clung so tightly to Isaac that he forgot about God. God seeing this asked to have Isaac back and this became Abraham’s trial, to test whom he loved more, God or Isaac who he had somehow worshiped. Abraham passed the test because he was willing to sacrifice Isaac, he did not kill him because God did not allow it, but the intention was to do so and the intention is what counts. Abraham proved that he loved God more than Isaac. If he had not been willing to hand Isaac over, the latter would not have been the son of the promise, and Abraham would not have been our father in faith.
After emancipating myself, that is, winning my freedom, autonomy and independence from things and people or disorderly affections, then I am “free to…” dedicate myself or to give myself, heart and soul, to people or to a human cause. We give only what we have; therefore I can only give myself if I possess myself, and to possess myself I must gain my freedom, my sovereignty. To control others is easy, to control oneself is the greatest of empires. We often seek to control others because we cannot control ourselves, we are not lord of our own nose, we don’t possess ourselves.
Equality
With the first value of the French Revolution concerned with the relationship between the individual and society, the second is concerned with the relationship between individuals within society. A human being is a personal individual being, he is not an island but always part of a family, clan, tribe, or nation. As we have reflected in a previous article, a human person is one and triune, like God and his creation. It takes two human beings to give rise to one, so that one does not exist, but coexist with two others.
The basic value of a human being as a personal and individual being is freedom; the value on which a human being is seated as a social being is equality. Let us look at what the French Revolution said in this regard.
The concept of equality in the French Revolution
In the context of the French Revolution, equality was far less idealistic than one might think. The new social class, the bourgeoisie, which in not having an official status was largely confused with the commoners, sought equality with the first and second social classes, the clergy and the nobility, respectively.
The bourgeoisie favoured meritocracy, that is, a society where status and privileges were defined and attributed according to the merit, talents and works performed by the individual and not by virtue of rights inherent to the cradle he was born. Regarding this point, the French revolutionaries were inspired by the country that had just formed, the United States of America – where a revolution had transferred the power of government to the men of talents and skills: an imitation of government of sages in ancient Greece.
It is clear that the bourgeois at that time sought to equate themselves to the clergy and the nobility, but they did not judge themselves as equal to the commoners, and certainly did not want to share power with them. Proof of this is the fact that they did not fight for universal equality nor for the democratic principle of “one individual, one vote”; they regarded voting as the privilege of wealthier classes.
The concept of equality in the Gospel
You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbour as yourself: I am the Lord. Leviticus 19:18
The second is this, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these. Mark 12:31
There is no better definition of equality in the world than this. The neighbour is viewed as an alter ego, that is, another self; not a ‘you’, an external, strange, foreign, distant entity, but my neighbour, so close to me that he is another ‘I’, an alter-ego, from which comes the word altruism.
Whatever is due to me is also due to him, because he is a human being like myself, we all came from the same common trunk born in the Rift Valley 5 million years ago. Equality and coexistence in society are based on the principle that my rights are the duties of my neighbour and my duties are the rights of my neighbour.
-- A Canadian missionary discovered in all religions a version of this maxim, and therefore named it the “rule of another”; he found that while in other religions, including Judaism, the rule was formulated in the negative, that is, “Do not do to others what you do not want to be done to you”. Rabbi Hillel said, "In Christianity however this same rule that we see from the gospel quotation, is positively formulated: (…) So, in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets." Matthew 7:12
The Gospel does not exhort us not to be peaceful, but to be peacemakers; not to avoid evil, but to do good and to be the first ones in taking the initiative.
Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgement you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Matthew 7:1-2
-- It is a divine exhortation to equality not to put ourselves above others, judging them, because we are all equal. No one made us judges, and we could only be that, be the one to throw the first stone, if we have not sinned. But we have sinned and often judged others by the same sins and defects we have, so our judgment is hypocritical.
There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28
-- Jesus healed strangers and often exalted their faith. He treated men and women as equals, and was the only rabbi who had female disciples. In his parables, he sought a balance between men and women as protagonists. He fought the cliché that a woman had to dedicate herself exclusively to housework, with the sole vocation of being a mother. In so doing two thousand years ago, Jesus was already in favour of integrating women in the workforce alongside men (Cf. Luke 10:38-42, 11:17).
Fraternity
This third value of the French Revolution seems qualitatively distinct from the other two. While freedom and equality are principles of law, normal rules that appeal to reason, fraternity seems to appeal more to feelings, emotions than to reason. In this sense, while the first two have a certain degree of obligation and appeal to concrete and verifiable rules, fraternity is less normative and left more to the free will of each individual, because it is more a matter of feelings than reason. As we all know, feelings cannot be forced or commanded. What did the French Revolution understand by fraternity?
The concept of fraternity in the French Revolution
In the context of the French Revolution, this is the most idealistic and utopic concept of the three. Difficult to define because it is more abstract, and to materialize because it is more idealized. In those days, it meant brotherhood, unity and solidarity among all social classes and citizens around the value of the homeland, France. This ideal over the course of the Revolution went up in smoke as it did not have great historical achievements. It remained merely as the third value of the ex libris or motto of the Revolution: freedom – equality – fraternity.
The concept of fraternity in the Gospel
But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all students. And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father – the one in heaven. Matthew 23:8-9
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”, wrote George Orwell in his satire of the animal revolution that can be seen as a critique of the French Revolution. Theoretically and only theoretically, men are all equal before the law. In practice, however, some are more equal than others. There are practices of justice for all types of purses: often the one with the most reason does not win the case, but the one with the most money.
It is not because there is no one above the law that makes us all equal, but because God is the Father of all, of the good and the evil, He is the only one who does not distinguish between persons and makes rain fall on the just as well as the unjust.
Equality before the law is a myth because as it’s been sarcastically said, there will always be some who are “more equal than others”.
Love is born between equals or makes people equal – Like this proverb, we could discard the value of fraternity because as the principle of communicating vessels tells us, when two containers with unequal amounts of water become connected, the one with more water gives way to the one with less water, leveling the water between the two containers.
On the social level, this occurs when a rich person marries a poor one, as in the popular fairy tale of the prince who marries Cinderella. The rich prince marries Cinderella and shares his wealth and even part of his status with her by making her a princess. When God sent his Son to marry humanity, He also elevated it, through adoption; with Christ we became his brothers and sisters, and heirs to the Kingdom (Cf. Mark 2:18-20 and Ephesians 1:5).
On this same principle, Karl Marx, in some way the inspirer of social security, based his ideology on the idea of each according to his abilities, and each according to his needs. This is the fraternity that allows for those who have no job because of the system to still be able to fulfill their basic needs inherent in the dignity of the whole human person. This same solidarity is inter-generational, that is, it exists between generations in a modern society. Those who are now working are paying the pensions of those who no longer have the strength to work, but need their daily sustenance.
(...) Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.” (…) Matthew 20:1-16
The characters in this parable are daily labourers who work as temporary workers during the harvest season, and the landowner notes that everyone needs a full day’s wage to feed his family. It is not their fault that they have not worked the whole day. In fact, when the landowner asked them why they had been idle all day, they replied that no one had hired them. In my view, this parable is as or more inspiring to the idea of social security than Karl Marx’s maxim.
Conclusion
The human value at the individual dimension of a human being is freedom and the human value at the community dimension of a human being is equality. Freedom and equality are the values on which human life rests and on which the political and economic systems of society rest.
Capitalism exacerbates freedom, socialism exacerbates equality. The balance or harmony of freedom and equality is as difficult to internalize for the individual as it is for the society. The mundane world does not have an ideal formula to harmonize the two dimensions; but Christianity does: the commandment of love.
The cross, the symbol of Christianity, is where the verticality of love of God above all things and the horizontality of love of others as ourselves meet and harmonize. Without freedom there is no human life, without equality there is no social life, without fraternity there is neither.
Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC
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