A recent local article mentioned that one Fairfax County School (Herndon HS) will cease allowing students to use their phones in class. Anyone familiar with reality knows that listening to one’s phone in class, or texting, or scrolling through Instagram, will hinder the learning process. Of course, the rule has loopholes that some will exploit. Perhaps more embarrassing for our civilization than the actual presence of phones in class–teachers may give students a 5 minute “phone break” during instruction if necessary. Most interesting to me from a cultural perspective, however, was the stated rationale for the policy: the phones need removed, for they may distract from other students learning. I applaud the school’s principal move to ban phones. The rationale for the decision, however, will not allow any real progress in education.

When we cannot state the obvious–i.e., students with phones out distract themselves far more than others–we have discovered a sacred cow of our times. But this fits in with other aspects of our culture. So strong runs our belief even in the power of a 15 year-old to define their lives ad nauseam, that parents, teachers, our society, will not attempt to define reality for them. We will not tell them that phones hurt themselves, for we likely would have no response for, “It might hurt others, but not me,” and no idea what kind of general embodiment we should ask for from our children.

If this reads so far like a cranky reactionary, well, that can be me at times. But I have far to go to reach the crankiness of Rene Guenon. He appreciated essentially nothing of modern life. But we should not dismiss him. The Crisis of the Modern World shows real prescience (he wrote this in 1927). His symbolic framing of the topics he examines make his work intuitive to understand and important for our times.

First, what failed to impress me about the book:

• Guenon has some brilliant insights in his critique of the modern west, but he ascribes nothing good at all to the West and finds salvation only in the East. I understand taking a big swing for effect, but in this case, the book made me want to think of ways to defend the west. His overreach has the opposite effect on me.
• I cannot tell quite where Guenon stands religiously, which I think important in a work like this. On the one hand, he has much to praise about Hinduism. On the other, we know he converted to Islam a bit after writing this work. He also argued that the West’s only hope lay in the faint possibility of revival of true Catholicism. Perhaps he dabbled in the idea of Perennialism, which seems to run counter to his main point of commitment to a tradition. Or–perhaps Guenon at the time of this writing lacked internal clarity himself, and if so it shows a bit in this book.

Now, on to the good stuff. . .

Guenon begins by critiquing the modern west’s view of linear progress. We see time functioning as a line, and our technological and political progress demonstrating that this line moves upwards. We no longer have the same attachment to the idea of inevitable progress as 100 years ago, but we still measure progress in material terms, i.e., how the economy functions, what new technology we invent, etc. But the core of our problem lies here. How we measure time and progress put us in continuously impossible situations that we cannot comprehend, due to the angle of our vision, akin to someone who scratches their irritation and wonders why it still itches.

Ancient and traditional societies put their focus on retaining meaning within their culture, not in increasing power or wealth. Our focus on power over our environment has led us “down the mountain” towards disunity of mind and society in general. The ancient world also tended to see time as cyclical, which Guenon thinks key to his thesis about time. I disagree, but it influences his view of how our culture has moved from “higher” to “lower” things. He writes,

It will doubtless be asked why cyclic development must proceed in this manner, in a downward direction, from higher to lower, a course that will at once be perceived as a complete antithesis to progress as the moderns understand it. The reason is . . . it implies a gradual increasing of distance fro the principle from which it proceeds; starting from the highest point, it tends downward, and as with heavy bodies, the speed of its motion increases continuously until finally it reaches a point at which it is stopped. This fall could be described as “progressive materialization.”

The project of the western world for the last 500 years or so has generally involved deconstruction of the world through a focus on gaining power over our environment. Rather than a circle, I prefer the image of a mountain to explain this process, something that I will not rehash in full here (I have written about this in other posts linked above). Of course mountains have a prominent role in almost every traditional culture, including ancient Israel (Mt. Sinai, Mt. Zion, etc.). The top of the mountain allows one a unity of vision, though it entails a necessary blending of various particularities. Descending down the mountain comes naturally. It’s easier than going up. This downward movement also gives you increased ability to see particular things with greater distinction and contrast to other things around it. But to accomplish this, one must sacrifice a unity of perspective. The methods western society employs lead us to chaos and disunity, which will manifest itself in our souls and our societies.

For example, we can take the idea prevalent in modern parlance that trade will unify countries and draw them together. The more trade, the more unity. Guenon argues that, in fact, increased trade between peoples will likely lead to more conflict, not less. Perhaps we see the pattern. Trade in goods means focusing on materiality, and focusing on matter means dividing reality–and we divide to conquer. Guenon wrote just shortly after the horror of W.W. I. But in the years leading up to that conflict, Germany and England were primary trading partners.

Thirty years ago many argued that the U.S. should increase trade with China to cement good relations between us, which would help China improve its record on human rights. In fact, what has happened is just as Guenon would predict–China and the U.S. like each other less, and trade in material goods has only served to increase China’s power. A more immediate example–Europe’s use of Russian oil and gas has done nothing to make them like each other more. Perhaps trade may make disparate cultures a bit more alike, but history shows that we tend to fight more with those who look a bit skewed to us, rather than those who are completely different. For example, lots of historians pour vitriol on the Middle Ages, which has similarities and differences to the modern world, but no one “hates” ancient Egypt, which maintains a proper, non-threatening distance from us. In any case, when we act against the pattern of reality, we suffer for it.

The political schisms the western world experiences now have their origin in our souls. Many marvel at why, despite unprecedented material opportunities and prosperity, we see such a spike in suicide, escapist drugs, depression, and other mental illnesses. Guenon sees an obvious connection. A focus on “materiality” inevitably means a focus on particularity, which means division. Two years ago many believed that the presence of COVID might at least have the silver lining effect of bringing us together and helping heal our political divisions. Of course, our intense focus on the particularity of tiny molecules and the various means of treating said molecules have driven us even farther apart, which again Guenon could have predicted.*

But because Guenon has a primarily cyclical view of reality, a degree of hope exists, for this is not the first time civilization has experienced this descent into “progressive materialization.” In the history of the world, he sees in the 6th century B.C. a period when unity descended into division. He writes,

In the sixth century [B.C.] changes took place for one reason or another amongst almost all peoples . . . for example, in China, where doctrine previously established as a unified whole divided clearly into two distinct parts: Taoism, reserved for the elite and comprising pure metaphysics . . ., and Confuscianism, . . . whose domain was that of practical and social applications. In India . . . this period saw the rise of Buddhism, that is to say, a revolt against the traditional spirit . . . Moving westward we see that for the Jews this was the time of the Babylonian captivity and perhaps one of the most astonishing of all these happenings is that a short period of 70 years should have sufficed for the Jews to forget even their alphabet . . .

. . . for Rome it was the beginning of the ‘historical’ period, which followed on the ‘legendary’ period of the kings. [In Greece also], the 6th century was the start of so-called ‘classical’ civilization, which alone is entitled–according to the moderns–to be considered ‘historical.’**

This moment in Greece inaugurated the discipline of philosophy, so dear to the western intellectual tradition. What began more or less in innocence devolved into an exaltation of the rational, and hence, the analytical side of man over and above all things.

The tendencies that found expression among the Greeks had to be pushed to the extreme . . . before we could arrive at “rationalism,” a specifically modern attitude that consists in not merely ignoring, but expressly denying, everything of a supra-rational order.

Christianity arose via the collapse of western civilization in the 5th century A.D., and reasserted more traditional ways of knowing. We can see this in how history got written, with the examples of Ammianus Marcellinus, writing at the time of Rome’s decline. His precise factual accuracy has high value in today’s world. But even Gibbon found him unreadably dull and shortsighted, commenting that, “The coarse and undistinguishing pencil of Ammianus has delineated his bloody figures with tedious and disgusting accuracy.” We can compare him with the author/s? of the roughly contemporaneous Alexander Romance, which had universal appeal, with eventual versions written in Greek, Latin, Syriac, Armenian, and Ethiopian, to name a few. Many dismiss the work as “fantastical” (it has Alexander encountering mythical beasts such as centaurs) but it had broad appeal for a reason. The work seeks to interpret the life of Alexander, and thus communicate meaning, not facts. Traditional cultures understand this difference in ways that elude us, making much of the “legendary” histories written in the past unintelligible to us.

With medieval culture Guenon believes that we see the turn of history’s wheel back towards the apex of the cycle. They focused on wisdom through inhabiting meaning over analysis. But the wheel keeps turning, which brings us to the Renaissance. For Guenon, moderns get it backwards. The “Middle Ages” was not merely a bridge between “civilization” (which the term “Middle Ages” implies), but a time of actual civilization in between decayed epochs. As for the Renaissance,

As we have said . . . . the Renaissance was in reality not a rebirth but the death of many things; on the pretext of being a return to Greco-Latin civilization, it merely took over the outward part of it, since this was the only part that could be expressed clearly in written texts; and in any case, this incomplete restoration was bound to have very artificial character, as it meant a re-establishment of forms whose real life had gone out of them centuries before. . . . Henceforth there was only ‘profane’ philosophy and ‘profane’ science, in other words, the negation of true intellectuality, the limitation of knowledge to its lowest order, namely the empirical and analytical study of facts divorced from principles, a dispersion of an indefinite multitude of insignificant details . . .^

All of this ends with the ‘Individual’ as the only form of reality left that we recognize, hence the problem one encounters in a public school when you want to ban cellphones. Our individuality has generated the chaos of defining one’s own reality through social media, or through simple assertions of will, as Neo lamely articulated in the third Matrix installment. Some try and plug the holes in the ship by earnestly urging us to focus on the “facts.” Alas, like those that focus on trade, or “the science,” to bring us together fail to see that the “facts” can never accomplish that task. Focusing on meaning by examining things outside of their context separates things from other things, and so it will divide selves from other selves.^^.

The distortions of the modern have created a reality that Guenon calls “monstrous.” A “monster,” by definition, is something that exists internally and externally out of proper proportion. We may think that we have traded unity for diversity, and since both have their place, we will at least have one even if we lack the other. Guenon disagrees, “since unity is the principle out of which all multiplicity arises.” So–we will be left only with a naked assertion of will whereby we seek to subsume all things into ourselves. This brings the flood, and a restarting of the cycle.

As powerfully as Guenon writes, I push back in one particular. Guenon, influenced by his possible religious Perennialism, hovers perhaps a bit too far above the mountaintop. He seemingly fails to see that the reality he wants to inhabit has irregularities. The orbiting of the planets, like our own bodies, lack perfect symmetry. Parts of reality are “weird,” and we occasionally see creatures and situations that defy categories. Exceptions to rules exist. Where Guenon is right, however, is that those exceptions don’t destroy the form, but merely give it room to breathe.

Dave

*Many social conservatives like myself who want to rein in society’s affirmation of school-children wanting gender reassignment surgery put the focus on biology–“there are only two genders,” and so on. I have seen Ben Shapiro, for example, consistently go to this well. But focusing on “the science” perpetuates confusion, for the same reasons discussed above. A focus on deconstructing physical matter will never answer this question, because one can always find exceptions when looking to deconstruct. Those that push back against him are wrong in their conclusion but at least partially right in their method. “Why should I submit to matter?” they seem to be saying. “Shouldn’t the lower serve the higher?”

**Curiously, Guenon fails to note that at around exactly the same time in Greece and in Rome, we see a movement towards more democracy. I would not call the Roman Republic ‘democratic,’ but certainly it was more democratic than their previous era. I find it curious that he passes on a chance to point out another move away from unity towards diversity/particularity.

^Guenon later writes that philosophy, following this form, has grown obsessed with abstractions and “problems,” and multiplying difficulties rather than expounding “wisdom.”

^^COVID did indeed present us with an opportunity, but one that we missed. Rather than exclusively focusing on how to combat the disease, and whether or not this or that measure helped prevent it and by how much, we should have focused on how to preserve meaning and coherence amidst the disease. Instead, we were basically told to stay at home and watch Netflix.

David Gordon White’s Myths of the Dog-Man examines how cultures interact with the concept of the “other” in three major civilizational traditions: Christendom, India, and China. White has a number of keen insights and makes impressive connections across cultures. But a key aspect of his work bothered me greatly, and so first, a rant.

Before warming up, I acknowledge that the job of the academic involves risk. They should not just affirm the immediate cultural norms in a rote manner. The scholar who functions as they ought will always walk a tight-rope, which can feel lonely. Like anyone, they search for community, but perhaps have a harder time of it because of their partial cultural distance from many of those around them.

Perhaps that is why many academics feel their job involves the opposite–that of praising the “other” while critiquing one’s own culture. That, at least, puts them on the other side of the suspended rope. We can see this as a personal attempt to connect with something. Having started by crafting a respectful, and perhaps even appropriate, distance with one’s surrounding culture, perhaps even unconsciously, the academic seeks something new to connect with.

But at least the narrow-minded idiot disdained by the academic has built a thing that people can live in, however narrowly they live. The academic always in love with the “other” can offer critique of their home base aplenty, for sure. But could they navigate a monster-truck rally?*

White seems to treat the “other” in his work as an inherent moral good, which is extremely flat thinking. The “other” we encounter could be bad or good. It would depend. I elaborated at length about this dynamic, found in Christ and patterned throughout the world, in this post here, so I will not elaborate at length now. White seemingly has no cognizance that navigating the other brings great peril to one’s soul and one’s civilization. Union with the “foreign other” brought down Solomon, the wisest of kings, and his failure brought down Israel. Abraham made his servant swear to find a wife for Isaac only among his own people, and God showed him Rebecca by the well. It took Wisdom Himself to navigate to “marry” the “other” at another well with success many centuries later (John 4).

Of course the Old Testament takes care to avoid the sclerosis that possibly infected ancient Egypt and China. The Israelites were to take care to “leave” a day at the end of the week, to leave their garments and their fields with a fringe (Lev. 23:22), so that the edges of society could come right to your door. And of course, we see Ruth, and especially Rahab, who prefigures Photine.**. What White fails to see is that the “foreign” does not just change the core. The foreign “other” also must change–the change goes both ways.

So yes, I–perhaps unjustly–detected some know-it-all smarminess from White, who looks a fool for telling us that a quarter has a picture of an eagle on one side.

But I still absolutely liked this book. White teaches us a great deal about the symbolic role of the “other.”

First, regarding the title of this post, apologies and thanks to the wondrous Dav Pilkey, whose books about a half-man, half-dog crime fighter had great truck in the Mathwin household some years ago Pilkey’s books usually have at their core boring, stuffy, adult authority figures. His heroes come from the fringe to bring justice and order. Pilkey may not be pleased to hear it, but this pattern fits many biblical heroes, such as Ehud (left-handed), Samson, and the like. His use specifically of a “dog-man” certainly qualifies as a “symbolism happens” moment.^

For as White shows, different cultures across time and space have viewed the dog as an outsider, and “unclean.” At the same time, dogs guard boundaries, and they help protect the center. This paradox, this interplay between good and bad, outside and inside, shows in our experience in a number of ways:

• Dogs form the boundary between the human and the animal world. No other pet does this in quite the same way. Think of how having a dog will lead you to interact more with nature when you take them for walks, and how the dog will protect you from nature. Think too of how dogs, much more than cats, for example, function as a social lubricant between humans who might otherwise stand awkwardly beside each other.
• The Romans conceived of the “Lares,” the ancestral divinities who wandered borders protecting home and hearth, as dogs or men clad in the skins of dogs.

• Note how many many military veterans suffering from trauma work with dogs to help integrate them back into “normal” human society.
• Think of Cerebus, who guarded the passage of death, or Anubis in Egyptian civilization. Here again, dogs stand in the gap. For the Egyptians, Anubis had close association to the “Dog-Star,” Sirius. The rise of Sirius heralded the “dog-days” of summer, the terrible heat linked with death. But–the rise of Sirius also meant the Nile would soon flood, bringing life back to Egypt. Once again, we see the dog associated with boundary and transition, the bringer of death and life.
• In the Alexander Romance, of which versions exist across multiple different cultures, Alexander meets the “Cynocephalae,” men with heads of dogs, at the edge of his travels in the east.
• In Hindu tradition, there is the example of the great sage Visimitra. He shows up in story about “how to rule when time has arrived at a low-point, when all things have become slave-like.” In the story, a terrible drought has beset the land at the end of the Treta age for 12 years. Visimitra, known for his strict purity and asceticism, goes into the forest and eats the hind leg of a dog, over and against strong objections from those around him, for the dog was most unclean, “the vilest of all game.” After he eats, Indra sends rain and the earth revives. “Thus one who is expert and high-souled, and a knower of solutions,” the story concludes, ” . . . ought to maintain a firm conviction of dharma and adharma in this world.”
• Chinese culture generally closed itself off from the outside, yet they too have stories involving dog-men. But in an indirect way (no dog-men directly in the story) the following Taoist acecdote I find most illustrative:

The Emperor of the South was called Shu. The Emperor of the North was called Hu. And the Emperor of the center was called Hun-tun. Shu and Hu at times came together and in Hun-tun’s territory. Hun-Tun treated them very generously. Shu and Hu discussed how they could emulate Hun-tun’s virtue, saying: “Men all have seven openings in order to see, hear, eat, and breathe. He alone has none. Let’s try boring him some.” Each day, they bored one hole, and on the seventh day, Hun-Tun died.

White notes that the Taoists saw the greatest good in optimal potential, i.e., uncut stone, uncut cloth, etc., with the Tao preceding the regimentation of creation itself. This parable then, spoke against the Confucian school, the “meddling busybodies” who wanted all things ordered, classified, managed, and understood. One has to leave some room for the fringe.

But . . . the tradition that seems most open to the dog man comes from White’s very own backyard, that of Christendom. In your face, White! It seems as if the cat has been caught . . . by the very person trying to catch him

For sure, White spends plenty of time looking at the The Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius, a medieval text that emphasizes the role of the Church in keeping out the “other” from infecting the world. “Methodius” may have borrowed from stories about Alexander the Great building a wall to keep out the barbarians. Again, if we turn to the paradigm outlined above, we can say that the emphasis on the dangerous aspects of the other absolutely has its place. Another example of this emphasis comes from the Estonian Kynocephalae Daemon, similar in theme to the Apocalypse noted above:

The Dog Snouts live at the edge of the world, where the earth ends and heaven begins.  They must stand guard at this edge, so that no one may enter heaven there. . . . They dwell behind a great mountain.  The mountain forms a border between the land of men and that of the Dog Snouts.  By general consensus, a company of Russian soldiers stands guard here, lest the Dog Snouts come over the mountain.  Were they to come, they would tear every man limb from limb.  They have great strength so that none can resist.

The Dog Snouts threaten the world with destruction.  One need not fear, however, so long as the troops stand guard.  Those soldiers refuse to be trifled with, and victory always stands with them.  

In some regions it is believed that each town contributes a portion of the guard of this mountain, because all share in the burden of not wanting the end of the world.  Even so, one time the Dog Snouts did break through into the world of men.  They came to lay waste our land, but a violent hailstorm drove them back across the mountain, which we guard now more strongly than ever.

Though this idea of the other bringing destruction certainly has its role in the Christian tradition, a variety of Christian saints have strong associations with dogs. The birth of St. Dominic, founder of the Dominican order, took place after his mother dreamt she carried a dog with a torch in its mouth in her womb. His feast day in the west also took place in summer’s “dog days,” observed in the first week of August. Compostello in Spain still is one of the most traveled of Christian pilgrimages, and has very early roots. This has significance, for the Compostello site resides right at the western edge of medieval Christendom, the place where the sun sets, towards the land of the dead. One tradition states that on July 25, the rise of the Sirius star, St. James of Compostello opened the gates of heaven to the souls of the dead.

But the story of St. Christopher the Cynocephalae has pride of place. Different versions of the story exist, with some overlap. The first, from an Ethiopian text called “The Acts of the Apostles Andrew and Bartholomew . . .

Then did our Lord Jesus Christ appear unto Andrew and Bartholomew and say, “Now depart into the desert, and I will be with you; and be not afraid, for I will send unto you a man whose face is like unto a dog, and you shall take him into the city.”

And the apostles went forth with sorrow, for the people of the city had not believed.  They walked for a time and came to rest and fell asleep.  When they slept, the Angel of God lifted them up and brought them to the City of Cannibals.  Now there came from that city a man looking for another man to eat.  And the Angel of God said unto him, “O thou man whose face is that of a dog, behold–you shall find two men sitting under a rock, and when you arrive there, let no evil thing happen to them through you, for they are servants of God.

And the dog-man trembled and asked the Angel, “Who art Thou?  I know neither thee nor thy God, but tell me of whom you speak.”  

[Here follows a long discourse of the angel to the man about God, the gospel, etc.]

Then the man said, “I wish to see some sign so that I may believe in all His miraculous powers.”  Then at the same hour fire came down from heaven and surrounded that man with the face of a dog, and he was unable to withdraw himself.  He cried out, “O God whom I know not, have compassion upon me and I will believe.”  The angel answered and said, “You must go with the Apostles every place they go, and follow all of their commands.”  

“O my Lord, I am not like other men, and I have no knowledge of their speech.  And if I be hungry, where will I find men to eat?  I should certainly then fall upon them and devour them.”  The angel replied, “God will give unto thee the nature of the children of men, and will restrain thy nature.”  The angel stretched out his hands and brought the dog man out of the fire and cried out to him in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost.  Then the dog-faced man became as gentle as a lamb.

The dog-faced man rose up and went to find the Apostles.  Now–his appearance was terrible.  He stood 4 cubits in height, with teeth like that of a wild boar, and the nails of his hands were like great hooks, and his hair came down over his arms to resemble the mane of a lion.  When he came upon the Apostles, they became as dead men through fear of this man.  Then he laid hold upon them and said, “Be not afraid, O my spiritual fathers,” and God took the fear from Andrew and Bartholomew.

Then Andew said, “May God bless thee, my son.  But tell me thy name.”   “My name is Hasum [meaning ‘Abominable’ in Parthian].  And Andrew said, “You speak rightly, for a name is oneself.  But here is a hidden mystery, for from now on, your name shall be ‘Christian.’”  Then they journeyed back to the city.

Now Satan had gone ahead of them into the city.  Andrew prayed as they approached, “Let all the city gates open quickly.”  And as Andrew spoke, the gates of the city fell down, and the Apostles and ‘Christian’ (he who had the face of a dog) entered.

Then the Governor commanded the town to bring hungry and savage beasts to attack the men.  Then the man with the dog-face prayed, “O Lord Christ, who did take my former nature away from me, restore it now and strengthen me with thy power, so they may know there is no other God but thee.”

And then he became as he had been, and grew quickly in wrath and might.  He looked at all in great fury, and slew all of the beasts set against them, and tore out their bowels and ate their flesh.  When the men of the city saw this, they feared exceedingly, and set upon the men and each.  More than 700 of them died.  And God sent a fire to surround the city, and none of them could escape.  Then the people cried, “We believe that there is no other God but your God, and no other savior other than Christ the Lord.  Have compassion upon us!”  And so the Apostles prayed to God for them . . . 

And the Apostles came unto the dog-man, and prayed that his bestial nature would flee from him, and that the nature of the children of men would be restored, and Christian became as gentle as a lamb once more.  When the people and the governor saw this, they took olive branches in their hand and bowed before the Apostles, who told them of the grace of God.

The western version of the story . . .

Christopher was of the lineage of the Canaanites, and he was of a right great stature, and had a terrible and fearful cheer and countenance, and he was twelve cubits  of length.

And as it is read in some histories that, when he served and dwelled with the king of Canaan, it came in his mind that he would seek the greatest prince that was in the world, and him would he serve and obey. And so far he went that he came to a right great king, of whom the renown generally was that he was the greatest of the world. And when the king saw him, he received him into his service, and made him to dwell in his court. 

Upon a time a minstrel sang tofore him a song in which he named the devil, and the king, who was a Christian man, when he heard him name the devil, made anon the sign of the cross in his visage.  And when Christopher saw that, he had great marvel at what sign it was, and wherefore the king made it, and he demanded of him. And because the king would not say, he said: If thou tell me not, I shall no longer dwell with thee. 

And then the king told to him, saying: Alway when I hear the devil named, I fear that he should have power over me, and I garnish me with this sign that I have protection from him.

Then Christopher said to him: Can  the devil hurt you? Then is the devil more mighty and greater than you. I am then deceived of my hope and purpose, for I had supposed I had found the most mighty and the most greatest Lord of the world, but I commend thee to the Devil, for I will go seek him to be my Lord, and I his servant.

And then [Christopher] departed from this king, and hastened him to seek the devil. And as he went by a great desert, he saw a great company of knights, of which a knight cruel and horrible came to him and demanded where he was going. Christopher answered him and said: I go seek the devil for to be my master. And he said: I am he that thou seekest. And then Christopher was glad, and took him for his master and Lord. 

And as they went together by a common way, they found there a cross, erect and standing. 

When the devil saw the cross he fled, and brought Christopher about by a sharp turn. And after, when they were past the cross, he brought him to the highway that they had left. And when Christopher saw that, he marvelled, and demanded why he feared that sign.  And the devil would not tell him.  So Christopher started to take his leave.

So the devil told him: There was a man called Christ which was hanged on the cross, and when I see his sign I flee from it. 

Christopher said: Then he is greater, and more mightier than thou, when thou art afraid of his sign, and I see that I have chosen you in vain, when I have not found the greatest Lord of the world. And I will serve thee no longer, go thy way then, for I will go seek Christ.

And when he had long sought and demanded where he should find Christ, at last he came into a great desert, to an hermit that dwelt there, and this hermit preached to him of Jesu Christ and informed him in the faith diligently, and said to him: This king whom thou desirest to serve, requireth the service that you fast often. 

And Christopher said to him: Require of me some other thing, and I shall do it, for how can I fast?  I know nothing of this. And the hermit said: Thou must then wake and make many prayers. And Christopher said to him: What are prayers?  I can do no such thing. And then the hermit said to him: Knowest thou such a river, in which many be perished and lost? Christopher said he knew it well.

Then said the hermit, “Because you are strong and tall, reside by that river, and take them on your shoulders to the other side.  Do this and I pray our Lord will show Himself to you.”  Christopher agreed and went to the river.

Christopher took a staff to help him traverse the river, and he stayed there many days.  One night he heard a voice in his sleep.  He awoke and went out, but he found no man. And when he was again in his house, he heard the same voice and he ran out and found nobody. The third time he was called and came thither, and found a child beside the river, who asked Christopher to bear him across the river.

And then Christopher put  the child on his shoulders, and took his staff, and entered into the river. And the water of the river arose and swelled more and more: and the child was heavy as lead, and as he went farther the water increased and grew more, and the child got heavier, so that Christopher struggled mightily and thought himself and the child lost.  Finally he made it to the other side and dropped to the ground.  “Child, what is this, seeing that I almost died in carrying someone so little.”

And the child answered: Christopher, you have not only borne all the world upon thee, but also borne Him that created and made all the world, upon your shoulders. I am Jesus Christ the King, whom you serve at this river. And because you know that I say the truth, set your staff in the earth by thy house, and tomorrow it shall bear flowers and fruit, and then he vanished from his eyes. And then Christopher set his staff in the earth, and when he arose on the morn, he found his staff bearing flowers, leaves and dates.

And then Christopher went into the city of Lycia, and understood not their language. Then he prayed our Lord that he might understand them, and so he did. And as he was in this prayer, the judges supposed that he had been a fool, and left him there. And then when Christopher understood the language, he covered his face and went to the place where they martyred Christian men, and comforted them in our Lord. 

And then the judges smote him in the face, and Christopher said to them: If I were not Christian I should avenge mine injury. Christopher pitched his rod in the earth, and prayed to our Lord that to convert the people it might bear flowers and fruit, and it did so. And then he converted eight thousand men.

And then the king sent two knights to fetch him to the king. They found him praying. The king sent many more, and they set them down to pray with him. And when Christopher arose, he said to them: What do you seek? 

And when they saw him in the visage they said to him: The king hath sent us, that we should lead thee bound unto him.  And Christopher said to them: If I would, you should not lead me to him bound.  And they said to him: If you put it that way, we’ll say that we could not find you.

It shall not be so, but I shall go with you. 

And then he converted them in the faith, and commanded them that they should bind his hands behind his back, and lead him so bound to the king. And when the king saw him he fell down off the seat, and his servants lifted him up and revived him. And then the king inquired his name and his country; and Christopher said to him: Before I was baptized I was named Reprobus, and after, I am Christopher; before baptism, a Canaanite, now, a Christian man. 

The king said: You have the foolish name of Christ crucified.  He could not help himself–he cannot help you. So, cursed Canaanite, why not sacrifice to our gods?  Christopher said: Thou art rightfully called Dagnus, for thou art the death of the world, and fellow of the devil, and thy gods be made with the hands of men. 

And the king said to him: You nourished among wild beasts, your words are wild language, unknown to men. If you now sacrifice to the gods I shall give to you great gifts and great honors. If not,  I shall destroy you by great torments. Christopher refused.  The king killed the knights with him, and threw Christopher in prison.

And after this he sent into the prison to St. Christopher two fair women, of whom one was named Nicæa and that other Aquilina.  The king promised them many great gifts if they could draw Christopher to sin with them. 

And when Christopher saw that, he set him down in prayer, and when he was constrained by them that embraced him to move, he arose and said: What do you seek?And they were afraid of his cheer and clearness of his face, said: Holy saint of God, have pity on us so that we may believe in God.

And when the king heard that, he commanded that they should be let out and brought to him. “You women are deceived, but I swear to you by my gods that, if you do no sacrifice to my gods, you shall perish by an evil death.” they said to him: “We will sacrifice.  Command that people come to the temple to witness.”And when this was done they entered in to the temple, and took their girdles, and put them about the necks of their gods, and drew them to the earth, and brake them all in pieces, and said to them that were there: “Go and call the doctors to heal your gods!”

And then, by the commandment of the king, Aquilina was hanged, and a right great and heavy stone was hanged at her feet, so that her body broke severely. And when she was dead, and passed to our Lord, her sister Nicæa was cast into a great fire, but she issued out without harm all whole, and then he made to smite off her head, and so suffered death.

After this Christopher was brought to the king, and the king commanded that he should be beaten with rods of iron, and that there should be set upon his head a cross of iron red hot and burning, and then after, he sat Christopher on a stool of iron, and set fire under it, and cast therein pitch. But Christopher took no harm.

And when the king saw that, he commanded that he should be bound to a strong stake, and that forty archers pierce him with arrows. But try as they would, the arrows always missed. Then by the commandment of the king he was led  to be beheaded, and then, there made he his death. His head was smitten off, and so suffered martyrdom. 

Now the king had suffered a wound in his eye. And the king then took a little of Christopher’s blood and laid it on his eye, and said: “In the name of God and of Christopher!” and he was healed. Then the king believed in God, and gave commandment that if any person blamed God or St. Christopher, he should be slain with the sword.

Many icons of St. Christopher depict him with a dog’s head:

For many years, St. Christopher’s feast day occurred on July 25, which coincided with the rise of the Sirius star, so important to the ancient Egyptians.

My favorite St. Christopher icon comes from the East and shows him with St. Stephen the proto-martyr. The image reveals something crucial that White misses. Yes, Church acknowledges the importance of the other, that Christ reaches the outer-limits, and even that the beast in us can be used against evil if tamed and transformed. But it also shows St. Christopher on the left, and St. Stephen on the right, the place of honor, vis a vis the unseen Christ. Furthermore, it also shows that how what lies outside pays honor to the inside. Christopher shows deference to Stephen here. The fringe has legitimacy, but contra White, the center, not the fringe, gets pride of place. An addiction to the “other,” so common in so many today, will serve no one, and does no honor to the greatest hero of the Dog-Men. That’s not how St. Christopher would want it.

Your physique was overwhelming and your face horrifying. You willingly suffered trauma from your own people. Men and women tried to arouse consuming fires of passion in you, but instead they followed you to your martyrdom. You are our strong protector, o great martyr Christopher!

Prayer for the feast day of St. Christopher

Dave

*Perhaps this is unfair. I would have a hard time with this as well.

**St. Photine is the name of given by Catholics and Orthodox to the woman in John 4.

^I suppose I should say that it would be a mistake for the reader to get caught up in whether or not people with actual dog’s heads really ever had a physically observable existence. To ask the question in itself means that one fails to perceive in the manner of traditional cultures. Whether or not such creatures had a “physically observable existence” was not the point for them–it should not be for us. Rather, we can begin by thinking of the meaning of Dog-Men–they are bestial, they have lost something crucial of their humanity, they have become unclean and must be made whole once more.

I find it intriguing that American culture seems to value dogs more highly than almost any other culture. Why might this be–many theories no doubt exist. I am convinced, however, that a large part of the answer involves the fact that America itself lies at the “edge,” the farthest reaches of Western civilization. In a traditional concept of the world, America, the un-tapped “pure potential” functioned as the ultimate symbolic fringe. No surprise, then, that we would associate ourselves with the animal traditionally relegated to the fringe.

David F. Noble’s The Religion of Technology starts with an intriguing premise. Many, he argues, assume that religion and technology have a long standing enmity with each other. This narrative, bolstered by the urban legend of the church’s opposition to Columbus, and a misunderstanding of what happened with Galileo, runs deep in our cultural mindset. The triumph of Enlightenment thinking for some seals the deal in religion’s ultimate defeat by the march of progress and reason. Noble’s book sets out to show the opposite, that the creation of technology has always stemmed from a religious impulse, and that many of the world’s great technological pioneers created with a distinctly religious aim in mind.

Noble makes a few interesting claims. On the one hand, he points out that the church sponsored, or helped create certain technologies, such as the heavy plow in the Frankish empire, and a variety of other things. He also attempts to show such sponsorship meant a departure from established Orthodoxy, assuming that such ‘orthodoxy’ stood against technical development, and then traces this religious impulse down to the modern day. I can appreciate any attempt to help understand and heal the divide between religion and science, and Noble’s work accomplishes this to a slight degree. His problems stem from his lack of understanding of the meaning of technology, and the Scriptural tradition related to the topic. He misses crucial nuance and context.*

For starters, how anti-technology can Christian orthodoxy be if

• The Old Testament has a variety of sections in which craftsmen are praised, especially those who build the temple.
• Adam was told to tend and develop the garden. One might suppose that he would do so with more than just his hands.
• Jesus was the (earthly) son of a carpenter

But Noble rightly points out ambiguity in the text and tradition, for we also see

• That Cain’s line was the first to develop technology
• That the early chapters of Genesis show that those that develop technology use it first for bad ends
• That cities get a bad rap in OT at least, with Cain, Babel, Sodom, Egypt, and the like.

Noble makes no attempt to resolve these seeming contradictions and place technology in its proper context.

First we need to understand the meaning of mankind in creation, and why Cain developed tools and cities.

One can read Genesis 1 in a variety of ways. I think it best read as, at its core, an explication of the meaning of creation. Mankind comes last, but throughout the process of creation we see continual duality, first cosmically between light and dark, and then later between sea and dry land, fishes and birds, plants and animals, and so on. This dualities get closer together until we get the creation of man and woman. Mankind has the role of mediating between heaven and earth, of being the center point of the ladder of meaning that travels between what lies above and below.

The picture deepens when we see the Garden in Genesis residing on a mountain. The idea of a mountain bursting with life–this kind of paradox permeates the Christian faith, a paradox that we need to understand to interpret technologies role correctly. When Adam and Eve leave the garden, they descend down the mountain, a descent away from heaven toward earth, from meaning to fact. This “fall” downwards also gives one more earthly power, which makes sense as a kind of parody of heavenly wisdom.

In the Old Testament, as well as in other mythic traditions, the problem with technology comes not with the thing itself, but mankind receiving or grasping it before the proper time. We see this in the myth of Prometheus, for example. In the Garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was declared “good” along with the rest of creation. To help destroy man the snake tempts them to take it before the proper time.** Cain’s subsequent wandering takes him down under the mountain, in fact. He begins to look not up to heaven but under the earth. He and his descendants build cities, tools, and even musical instruments. All of this has its roots in death–even the earliest instruments came from the horns or skins of dead animals. Naturally, actual physical death comes right on the heels of these technologies (Gen. 4:23-24).

Alienated from God, mankind no longer can properly unite heaven and earth. Many have speculated on the proper interpretation of Genesis 6:1-4. The early church saw these verses as the Book of Enoch interprets them. Fallen angels have, likely through demonic possession of some sort, join with women and their offspring become the Nephilim, a race of giants. Others see it in simpler terms, with the godly line of Seth intermarrying with the ungodly line of Cain. I prefer the former option, but either way, we see again the same problem, that of improper mixing, and mankind failing to properly mediate between heaven and earth. Once again, this results in violence and the flood. The flood represents chaos and a return to a formless void, but it only mirror the chaos already introduced by mankind who fell to the temptations of technology.

Science participates in the same pattern of uniting heaven and earth as other areas of life. No contradiction should exist between science and religion. Scientists take an idea, a hypothesis, and try and coherently unite that idea (what is ‘above’) to observable phenomena (what is ‘below’). One might argue that the power Science grants has a kinship with the power of words properly structured in a great speech. But, science seems to operate on a different scale. We many not initially see that the increase of power granted by technology serves in turn to make us more vulnerable. This shows itself in any number of ways in our experience. For example, if in traveling from New York to California we

• walked, it would take us a long time, but the worst that could happen more or less is that we would sprain our ankle, or
• ran, we could go a bit faster, but in falling, with the extra momentum, we could do more damage to our legs and feet, or
• drove, we would get there faster still, but if something went wrong with the car we could get badly hurt in an accident, or
• flew in a plane, we would go fastest of all, but if even a small thing goes wrong with the craft, death would be the likely outcome.

This quick sketch no doubt leaves many unanswered questions, but hopefully this shows that reticence the Church expresses about technology has nothing to do with fear of change, or control, but in something far deeper and more important. However, the biblical narrative develops another parallel track regarding the use of technology that begins just as the detrimental effects of the Fall take root. With Adam and Eve now naked and ashamed, God makes them a “garment of skin,” a covering, that allows them to encounter the world and each other. Such garments come from the death of animals, and we can see them as the first “technology.” This technology allows mankind to interact with the world. The garments come from death and are a concession to death, but serve a good purpose.

This turning of death into life also forms part of the pattern of creation, for “Christ was slain from the foundation of the world.” For, while the OT shows us the problem of cities within the patterns, the NT shows us that even the idea of the city becomes part of the glorification of all things (Rev. 20-21). We see hints of this in the OT as well, with the construction of the Tabernacle, which can be seen as a “covering,” a means for us to encounter God, since seeing Him directly would destroy us. The Temple later serves something of the the same purpose, but interestingly, many of the materials and craftsmen for the Temple came from foreign nations. such as Tyre and Lebanon, which allows to see two things simultaneously:

• A foreshadowing of the gathering in of all nations to under the coming Messiah, of God reconciling all things to Himself in Christ, and
• That these coverings come from Outside, they are not quite part of the “core” of kingdom culture, that the Temple is “tainted” in some way.

Noble makes the great point that our technological impulse is essentially religious. Done rightly, it can manifest our calling to unite Heaven and Earth properly. But a wrong application leads toward a potentially demonic path, where our worst impulses to make ourselves into one of the old gods. Noble fails to see this pattern and so he cannot coherently organize his thoughts to make a point beyond mere observations of particulars. To say that technological development cuts against “religious orthodoxy” is too strong a claim. To say that Church tradition has usually expressed a wariness with new inventions puts us nearer the truth. We need such caution on today’s rapidly expanding digital technology to give us a chance to navigate it rightly, and give us the best chance avoiding violence and destabilization.

In War and Civilization, a short work compiling Arnold Toynbee’s thoughts on the relationship between war and society, Arnold Toynbee quotes from a prominent biologist that,

One seductive and ultimately fatal path [of Evolution] has been the development of protective armor. An organism can protect itself by concealment, by swiftness in flight, by counter-attack, by uniting for counter-attack by others of his species and also by encasing itself within bony plates and spines. The last course was adopted by ganoid fishes of the Devonian with their shining armor. Some of the great lizards of the later Mesozoic were elaborately encased. Always the experiment of armor failed. Creatures adopting it tended to become unwieldy. They had to move relatively slowly. Hence they were forced to live on vegetative matter compared to living on more “profitable” animal food. The repeated failure of armor shows that, even a somewhat low evolutionary level, mind triumphed over mere matter. It is this sort of triumph which has been supremely exemplified in Man.

Toynbee used this analogy of armor as a reference point to the David and Goliath story. David’s rejection of armor gave him more than a potential tactical advantage over Goliath. We can see David refusing armor as a putting off of the Garments of Skin, as a return to something like the Garden. Jesus cursing the fig tree accomplishes much the same thing, which we can see as Christ reversing the fall–fig leaves formed the first covering for man (Gen. 3:7). And, when Jesus tells us that “the Son of Man has no place to lay his head,” He refers directly to the humility of His poverty. But he also hearkens back to the fact that He has no covering, that He shed his garments, so to speak.

With his commitment to seeing history through a spiritual lens, Toynbee arrived, perhaps unwittingly, had some of these same hesitations regarding power–another “covering” akin to the Garments in Genesis. He writes about the Roman Empire:

In the downward course of a civilization there is truth in the saying of the philosopher Heraclitus: “War is the father of all things.”  The sinister concentration of the resources of a civilization upon the business of fratricidal warfare may generate a military prowess that will place their neighbors at their mercy, may create a military technique that may grant them a far reaching technical mastery over the merely “Material World.”   

Since it is common to reckon success primarily by power and wealth, the opening chapters in the decline of a civilization will be hailed as times of blessing and growth, and this misconception can persist even for centuries.  Sooner or later, however, disillusionment is bound to follow, for a society that is hopelessly divided against itself is almost certain to try and double down on military might, for that is what seemed to work initially. 

For example, we see the money-power and man-power won for Greek society by Alexander the Great, and these same vast resources used to intensify the civil wars between Alexander’s successors.  This same power swept into Roman hands through the meteoric rise in Rome’s land and wealth ca. 241-146 B.C.  was just as quickly spent in the various civil wars that wracked Rome before the rise of Augustus and the Pax Romana.  For Spain, the treasure gained in the new world and the free labor of the essentially enslaved native populations was the food for their wars in Europe during the late 16th and early 17th centuries–the same wars that brought them into second-rate power status in Europe.

Thus the increasing command over the environment gained is apt to bestow upon a society a disintegration that puts a greater driving power into the suicidally demented society’s chosen work of self-destruction; and that story turns out to be a simple illustration of the theme that, “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23).  And again, the empires of industrialized Europe in the late 19th century gained the material resources to nearly destroy European civilization in our great Western civil war of 1914-18.  

War and Civilization centers around Toynbee’s examination of Assyrian civilization. Assyria stands as the poster child of how a quick, massive expansion of power actually can bring about a swift ruin and complete dissipation of that power. Such near instant bursts of physical growth bring with them commensurate problems, hence Toynbee’s chapter entitled, “The Burden of Nineveh.” With this in mind, we have a possible lens through which we can know whether or not we choose our garments well or poorly. We can begin by realizing that whatever coverings we put on will not actually solve our psychological, spiritual, or physical longings, though they can deceive us not thinking so. Sometimes these coverings hinder and obscure the best parts of us. But at times they are a necessary expedient to cope with challenges we face. Different people, and different civilizations might need to choose differently depending on circumstance. We should walk these paths with caution. The only way to avoid the deception of our garments of skin is to wear them with humility.

Dave

*Noble annoyed me early on by quoting with approval Max Weber’s idea that Christianity revived Roman polytheism. I can appreciate that Christianity is not strictly monistic as is Islam and perhaps Judaism, but Noble should know better. I suppose he left it in for supposed shock value, since it adds nothing to his thesis.

**We can see this same element in human sexuality. It is good, created by God. Only when we are properly prepared, in the right context (marriage between a man and a woman) can this “power” be wielded in a good and proper manner.