Out of the Flames: The Remarkable Story of a Fearless Scholar, a Fatal Heresy, and One of the Rarest Books in the World
by
by
Lawrence Goldstone (Goodreads Author),
The Origins of Brexit
Ideas have consequences. Some of these are detrimental to human welfare and should be resisted as a matter of principle. Others are merely conceits which are of no real consequence except for those who hold them. Suffering, even dying for, ideas of human importance might seem extreme but at least has an understandable purpose. Doing so for an abstraction suggests petulance rather than conviction. But human beings can apparently rationalise the most bizarre and self-destructive behaviour.
The Holy Trinity, the idea that there are three distinct ‘personalities’ in one God, is central to Christianity. It is an idea that has only the vaguest biblical support for such a radical alteration to the Jewish monotheism from which it arises.* It is also a logical contradiction which took several hundred years of theological debate to clarify, only to have it designated a ‘mystery of faith.’
The most interesting thing about the idea of the Holy Trinity, however, is that in itself it is entirely without human consequences. Certainly it is a mark of Christian identity; and its affirmation is a kind of tribal signal exchanged among believers. But it is as abstract as the equations of quantum mechanics and considerably less useful. It has no ethical, organisational, or other practical import. It doesn’t even have any of the emotional significance of, say, the Virgin Birth or the drama of the Resurrection. It is the damp squib of Christian doctrine. It wasn’t even formally commemorated until the establishment of Trinity Sunday in the 14th century, and even then not as a first class liturgical celebration.
So the Holy Trinity is among the class of ideas which includes such popular items as Platonic Forms, Cardinal Orders of Infinity, and the Higgs Boson. These are the kinds of things that get side bars in Popular Mechanics not prime time network specials. Except for a rather small number of specialists, the Trinity is either a vaguely poetic representation of an ancient divinity, or it is a term of reproach (as in the holy trinity of wine, women and song). And yet from time to time folk get exercised about it, both pursuing and suffering violence in either defence or attack of the doctrine. Why?
I think that although the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is intellectually and morally meaningless, it is the symbolon, that is, the token of Christian faith in its most nakedly nationalistic form. Indeed, it is because it has no discernible content that its affirmation is the perfect test for proving the faith of an individual. A willingness to believe an absurdity for no other reason than it is required for membership in a group, a congregation, a society is a typical price of entry to all civilisations. Roman society insisted upon the divinity of the emperor; Soviet society on the supremacy of the proletariat; American society on equality before the law.
It is crucial that this sort of token be not just above empirical verification but above moral debate as well. “We hold these truths to be self-evident... “ puts what follows beyond not just facts and logic but also right and wrong. It is clear that the participants in the 4th century Council of Nicaea had exactly this intention when they formulated the doctrine using language that was not just ambiguous, but that could imply the opposite of what it meant in one language (Greek) when it was translated into another (Latin). The doctrine was from its origin primarily a political not a theological statement, meant to maintain ecclesial, and therefore imperial, unity, that is to say, power.
Into this finely crafted and archaic political minefield stumbles the brilliant and brilliantly naive Iberian theologian, Michael Servetus, in the midst of the Protestant Reformation. This is a period when everything about Christian doctrine appears to be up for grabs. So everything is questioned and much of it is rejected, including the legitimacy of papal authority. What Servetus doesn’t comprehend in his youthful enthusiasm, however, is that, without the previous ecclesiastical hierarchy, the only real remnant of Christian Faith is the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. So he sets out to show it is wrong - unbiblical, illogical, and used to justify a self-seeking institution.
Servetus was, of course, correct. Anyone with a grain of historical understanding knows he is correct. The Nicaean documents are a fudge, a hoax. But in arguing his case as if it were a matter of right and wrong, Servetus was attacking not just an institution but an entire civilisation that had depended upon an obscure political compromise, a treaty really, that he was determined to ‘out.’ He was right and aimed to get everyone else to admit it. This could not be tolerated. The desire to be right often has this effect.
So he wrote a book. Not a great book. But a book which questioned the value of the civilisation which was to be reformed. This was intolerable.** Even his most radical fellow-reformers had a visceral reaction to his ‘unitarian’ conclusions and rejected him as... well as what? Nominally as a heretic; but then during the Reformation virtually everyone was a heretic of one sort or another. No, he was rejected as a traitor, a betrayer of what would ultimately be called the ‘European Project,’ or more accurately the continental version of this ideal. So John Calvin had him done in.
And they’re still fighting the same battle in the same place, Strasbourg, 400 years later. Nigel Farage, I suspect, escaped by the skin of his teeth. As I said, ideas have consequences... but not necessarily the ones we expect.
* The ‘components’ of the Trinity are traceable, at least poetically, to the Hebrew Scriptures. God the Father is recognised by Christians as Yahweh, at least in his more benign moods. There are many prophetic Sons of God scattered around as well, one or more of which might be a messiah, including Jesus (although the claim to divinity is a knockout). The Shekinah or Spirit of God as a manifestation of the divine presence on earth is frequently noted from the time of creation and throughout the history of Israel. The idea of Wisdom as a separate manifestation of God is also floated but Christians have tended to appropriate this as Mary, the mother of Jesus. Islam is theologically constructed with a similar poetic bricolage.
**The various Anabaptist sects originating in this period also strayed unwittingly into a political no man’s land when they thought they were discussing theology. They too were relentlessly persecuted not so much for heresy as for rejecting the idea of a Christian civilisation.
Ideas have consequences. Some of these are detrimental to human welfare and should be resisted as a matter of principle. Others are merely conceits which are of no real consequence except for those who hold them. Suffering, even dying for, ideas of human importance might seem extreme but at least has an understandable purpose. Doing so for an abstraction suggests petulance rather than conviction. But human beings can apparently rationalise the most bizarre and self-destructive behaviour.
The Holy Trinity, the idea that there are three distinct ‘personalities’ in one God, is central to Christianity. It is an idea that has only the vaguest biblical support for such a radical alteration to the Jewish monotheism from which it arises.* It is also a logical contradiction which took several hundred years of theological debate to clarify, only to have it designated a ‘mystery of faith.’
The most interesting thing about the idea of the Holy Trinity, however, is that in itself it is entirely without human consequences. Certainly it is a mark of Christian identity; and its affirmation is a kind of tribal signal exchanged among believers. But it is as abstract as the equations of quantum mechanics and considerably less useful. It has no ethical, organisational, or other practical import. It doesn’t even have any of the emotional significance of, say, the Virgin Birth or the drama of the Resurrection. It is the damp squib of Christian doctrine. It wasn’t even formally commemorated until the establishment of Trinity Sunday in the 14th century, and even then not as a first class liturgical celebration.
So the Holy Trinity is among the class of ideas which includes such popular items as Platonic Forms, Cardinal Orders of Infinity, and the Higgs Boson. These are the kinds of things that get side bars in Popular Mechanics not prime time network specials. Except for a rather small number of specialists, the Trinity is either a vaguely poetic representation of an ancient divinity, or it is a term of reproach (as in the holy trinity of wine, women and song). And yet from time to time folk get exercised about it, both pursuing and suffering violence in either defence or attack of the doctrine. Why?
I think that although the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is intellectually and morally meaningless, it is the symbolon, that is, the token of Christian faith in its most nakedly nationalistic form. Indeed, it is because it has no discernible content that its affirmation is the perfect test for proving the faith of an individual. A willingness to believe an absurdity for no other reason than it is required for membership in a group, a congregation, a society is a typical price of entry to all civilisations. Roman society insisted upon the divinity of the emperor; Soviet society on the supremacy of the proletariat; American society on equality before the law.
It is crucial that this sort of token be not just above empirical verification but above moral debate as well. “We hold these truths to be self-evident... “ puts what follows beyond not just facts and logic but also right and wrong. It is clear that the participants in the 4th century Council of Nicaea had exactly this intention when they formulated the doctrine using language that was not just ambiguous, but that could imply the opposite of what it meant in one language (Greek) when it was translated into another (Latin). The doctrine was from its origin primarily a political not a theological statement, meant to maintain ecclesial, and therefore imperial, unity, that is to say, power.
Into this finely crafted and archaic political minefield stumbles the brilliant and brilliantly naive Iberian theologian, Michael Servetus, in the midst of the Protestant Reformation. This is a period when everything about Christian doctrine appears to be up for grabs. So everything is questioned and much of it is rejected, including the legitimacy of papal authority. What Servetus doesn’t comprehend in his youthful enthusiasm, however, is that, without the previous ecclesiastical hierarchy, the only real remnant of Christian Faith is the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. So he sets out to show it is wrong - unbiblical, illogical, and used to justify a self-seeking institution.
Servetus was, of course, correct. Anyone with a grain of historical understanding knows he is correct. The Nicaean documents are a fudge, a hoax. But in arguing his case as if it were a matter of right and wrong, Servetus was attacking not just an institution but an entire civilisation that had depended upon an obscure political compromise, a treaty really, that he was determined to ‘out.’ He was right and aimed to get everyone else to admit it. This could not be tolerated. The desire to be right often has this effect.
So he wrote a book. Not a great book. But a book which questioned the value of the civilisation which was to be reformed. This was intolerable.** Even his most radical fellow-reformers had a visceral reaction to his ‘unitarian’ conclusions and rejected him as... well as what? Nominally as a heretic; but then during the Reformation virtually everyone was a heretic of one sort or another. No, he was rejected as a traitor, a betrayer of what would ultimately be called the ‘European Project,’ or more accurately the continental version of this ideal. So John Calvin had him done in.
And they’re still fighting the same battle in the same place, Strasbourg, 400 years later. Nigel Farage, I suspect, escaped by the skin of his teeth. As I said, ideas have consequences... but not necessarily the ones we expect.
* The ‘components’ of the Trinity are traceable, at least poetically, to the Hebrew Scriptures. God the Father is recognised by Christians as Yahweh, at least in his more benign moods. There are many prophetic Sons of God scattered around as well, one or more of which might be a messiah, including Jesus (although the claim to divinity is a knockout). The Shekinah or Spirit of God as a manifestation of the divine presence on earth is frequently noted from the time of creation and throughout the history of Israel. The idea of Wisdom as a separate manifestation of God is also floated but Christians have tended to appropriate this as Mary, the mother of Jesus. Islam is theologically constructed with a similar poetic bricolage.
**The various Anabaptist sects originating in this period also strayed unwittingly into a political no man’s land when they thought they were discussing theology. They too were relentlessly persecuted not so much for heresy as for rejecting the idea of a Christian civilisation.
posted by The Mind of BlackOxford @ February 17, 2020
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