ON KEEPING ONE'S OWN COUNSEL

Crates, ut aiunt, huius ipsius Stilbonis auditor, cuius mentionem priore epistula feci, cum vidisset adulescentulum secreto ambulantem, inerrogavit, quid illic solus faceret? "Mecum," inquit, "loquor." Cui Crates "Cave," inquit, "rogo, et diligenter adtende; cum homine malo loqueris."

"Crates, a student of the same Stilbonis I have made mention of in a prior epistle, once beheld a young man walking alone. He asked the young man, 'What are you doing all alone?' The young man replied, 'I am keeping counsel with myself.' Crates then answered him, 'Be careful, I pray, and take heed; you are keeping counsel with an evil man!"

- Seneca's Moral Epistle X

A comment I received on the last post brought to mind the passage above, and so I decided to simply publish a new post altogether. Last time I pointed out that the discipline of tracing every evil to its root deep within our own nature drives one to "hatred of self," odium se. This hatred of self in turn causes one to despair of oneself and to cast oneself on another.

For Christians, the proper response to hatred of self is contrition and repentance. In the story cited in his tenth epistle, Seneca indirectly points out the danger in keeping counsel with oneself: when we do so we must remember that our company is not to be trusted. Why is contrition and repentance best expressed in community (in my own tradition in the Rite of Private Confession and Absolution)? Well, as hatred of self grows and suspicion of one's own inner nature grows with it, even the Word of God promising forgiveness can be swallowed up within us.

Perhaps individuals who feel no need for contrition and repentance in community (in whatever form their respective tradition practices it) have not yet learned to despair of themselves thoroughly. Instead, they take God's forgiveness as their own possession and prefer to "keep counsel with themselves." Crates warns: "You are keeping counsel with an evil man!"

On a related note, this is a very rational reason that "me and my Bible" is a dangerous tendency in Christianity. While the Bible is to be trusted, I absolutely must warn you against this "me" fellow you keep counsel with! When any aspect of the Christian life is taken out of the context of the community of faith, a warning is in order. St. Augustine referred to sinful men as curvatus in se, "curved inward on themselves." Is such an evil, selfish nature to be trusted to correct itself, counsel itself, and interpret God's Word for itself? Of course not!

Even the Word of Gospel can be lost in the depths of such an endless yawning black hole of self-centredness, and here is where community is most helpful. Turned in on myself as I am, I can very quickly believe that God's forgiveness does not apply to me - I'm special: I can despair of myself in the depths of an otherwise useful odium se to such a degree that I become sure that if God sees me as I see myself, there can be no hope for such as I.

Community keeps us from falling off one side or the other - esteeming ourselves too highly on the one hand and allowing our self-despair to trump our God-trust on the other.

In a society that glorifies the sovereignty of the individual, a warning is in order: Beware of yourself! You can't trust that person with whom you are taking counsel.

-Lucilius

"If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!" - Ecclesiastes 4:10, ESV

Seneca's writings are available from Harvard University Press' Loeb Classical Library: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/loeb/

THE BLAME GAME

Caeci tamen ducem quaerunt, nos sine duce erramus et dicimus: "Non ego ambitiosus sum, sed nemo aliter Romae potest vivere. Non ego sumptuosus sum, sed urbs ipsa magnas inpensas exigit. Non est meum vitiam, quod iracundus sum, quod nondum constitui certum genus vitae; adolescentia haec facit." Quid nos decipimus? Non est extrinsecus malum nostrum, intra nos est, in visceribus ipsis sedet.

"The blind desire a guide; we, without a guide, wander around and say: 'I am not ambitious; nobody can live in Rome by any other way. I am not sumptuous; the city itself requires great provision. It is not my fault that I am irascible and that I have not settled down in any one way of life; it is the fault of adolescence.' Why do we deceive ourselves!? Our evil is not outside of us; it is rooted in our very own inner parts!"

-Seneca's Moral Epistle L

Even Seneca, a pagan philosopher, could conclude that "our evil is not outside of us." Our evil is rooted in our very selves. It is amazing how difficult it is for human beings to take responsibility for the evils they commit. It is certainly difficult for me to identify my own evils! It is so much easier to simply suggest that the evil deeds I commit are somehow involuntarily elicited from me by outside forces.

Christians of my persuasion (Lutherans) use a Latin phrase to describe the dual nature of the Christian: simul justus et peccator; "simultaneously saint and sinner." We are both 100% saint and 100% sinner! We don't HAVE a sinful nature and a divine nature, we ARE both; in the same way, we don't HAVE a body but ARE a body.

What does this mean? We don't HAVE a sinful nature; we ARE 100% sinful. Our evil is bound up in our very selves. It is not external to us. This means that the proper attitude of the Christian is not blame, but responsibility; with responsibility, the acknowledgment that we ARE the very thing we hate - odium se, "hatred of self." This is not a sense of depression, low self-esteem, or any other psychologically negative mindset. It is rather a realistic, reasonable (even Stoic?) assessment of oneself. Such an escape from the blame-game leads one only to despair of one's own goodness.

What is the result? According to Seneca, it is universally understood as obvious that only a foolish blind man would not seek a guide. He is, after all - blind. What is the result of despairing of one's own goodness? We seek goodness outside ourselves, just as a blind man seeks sight outside of himself. He would be foolish to do otherwise. He would be foolish to blame the light for failing him when the blindness is in himself. It is a waste of time. Likewise, it is only a fool that blames others for the sin that is in his very own inner parts.

For Christians, Seneca advises a reasonable, conscious discipline of thought - a metacognitive discipline of tracing each evil deed and thought back to its root deep within us. When I lose my temper, I must trace my loss of control to some fault in myself; I cannot blame it on the person who angered me. Likewise with every fault, sin, and evil.

For Seneca, the constant gardening of one's own nature - constantly finding the roots of evil and pulling them up - takes place under the guidance of another better than oneself. For Christians, this painful removal of evil's tendrils is entirely the work of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Still, the discipline of tracing our evils into our very own selves, acknowledging them, owning them, and hating them drives us to despair of ourselves and to confess honestly our sinful acts and even nature with genuine repentance.

It is a difficult discipline, this taking responsibility, but its necessity is obvious to any reasonable person - even a pagan. Only a blind fool refuses to admit his blindness and take the hand proferred to guide him.

-Lucilius

Jesus said, "For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind." Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, "Are we also blind?" Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, 'We see,' your guilt remains.

-St. John's Gospel (9:39-41, ESV)

Seneca's writings are available from Harvard University Press' Loeb Classical Library: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/loeb/