POTESTAS CLAVIUM

     Do you know what these words, potestas clavium, mean? Yes, no doubt, but probably not exactly, for who, apart from specialists, is nowadays concerned with Catholic dogmatic? But there is every reason to believe that we are wrong in imagining that Catholic dogmatic is alien to us. "Scratch" any European, even if he be a positivist or a materialist, and you will quickly discover a medieval Catholic who holds frantically to his exclusive and inalienable right to open for himself and his neighbor the gates of the kingdom of heaven. The materialists and atheists claim this right quite as much as do the faithful sheep of the great herd of St. Peter's followers. Referring to the well-known verse of the Gospel of St. Matthew (16: 19), "and I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven," the Catholics declare that God delegated His power to St. Peter who, in turn, delegated it to his successors up to the present Pope. From this it follows that the decisions of the Pope or of duly consecrated Catholic priests are unassailable to all eternity. God Himself, as the Catholic theologians put it literally, cannot change the decisions of the priests appointed by Rome. For He declared that He delegated His power to the Apostle; but God cannot contradict Himself just as, by reason of His invariability, He cannot change any of the decisions He Himself has taken. I emphasize that this line of reasoning reproduces almost literally the reflections of the Catholic theologians. I believe that I have even succeeded in preserving their tone, the positive tone of practical men breathing a healthy assurance. I do not cite any texts because I have no books at hand but, in short, quote from memory.

     So, then, spoke the Catholic theologians; so for centuries has the Catholic Church thought. Evidently Catholic theology could not feel at peace so long as it had not obtained that fullness of power which would guarantee it domination over human souls for all eternity.

     It would, however, be a mistake to believe that the idea of the potestas clavium was born at the beginning of our era and that it was Catholicism that invented it. No, it was not Christianity that invented this doctrine; long before the rise of Christianity it was proclaimed by the great prophet of a small people, Socrates. If we are to believe Plato, Socrates was the first to discover that man has at his disposal this immense and terrible power, the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Already in that distant time when human thought was still being formed, he declared that the keys of the kingdom are found not in heaven but on earth and that he who wishes to cross the threshold of paradise must concern himself with the keys while he is still on earth. Later, when he will have left our earth, it will be irremediably too late. The Catholics needed only to seize the talisman held by the pagans. "The keys exist and are found on earth, but in our temples and not in yours," Catholicism declared to the pagans with finality. Do you believe that your philosophy with its katharsis (purification) will open for you the gates of paradise? Never. Virtutes gentium splendida vitia sunt [the virtues of the pagans are only splendid vices]. Even though Denifle has demonstrated recently that this phrase is not found in St. Augustine, it is certain that he said almost the same thing and in almost the same terms. Consider the complete formula of Pope Innocent III: Corde credimus et ore confitemur unam Ecclesiam non haereticorum sed sanctam, Romanam, catholicam et apostolicam, extra quam neminem salvari credimus [With our heart we believe and with our lips confess one church, not of heretics but holy, Roman, catholic and apostolic, outside of which we believe no man can be saved].

     Catholicism, I repeat, only raised the question whether the philosophers had legally taken possession of the potestas clavium. But the idea of the limitless power that man possesses over heaven and earth came from Socrates' head. And this idea still lives today; it lives in each of us, no matter what our philosophical convictions may be. Each of us imagines that he has in his possession that great truth which opens for him the way leading to the final mystery and to eternal blessedness. Even Luther, who revolted against the Roman Church and whom the Roman Church condemned, claimed assuredly the right to final judgment. When Zwingli died, Luther said that his soul would be condemned and that if God saved him it would be extra regulam. Luther, as you see, does not grant much. Still more: it seemed to Luther that certainty was the very essence of Christianity. Nihil apud Christianos notius et celebratius quam assertio. Tolle assertiones et Christianismum tulisti [Nothing is better known and more celebrated with Christians than the assured statement. Take away these statements and you have taken away Christianity]. And each of us imagines that his truth is the real truth and that his keys are the real keys. And further, Carpe diem! Make haste while you are still alive to find the keys, the talisman, for afterwards it will be too late.

     Socrates and the Catholics speak of all this openly, making use of almost the same fantastic expression that I have employed here. Positivist minds, men of science, naturally avoid these expressions and use words that conform better to the modern taste for the "everyday," for the things of current life, which are called - one knows not why - "natural," while everything that is fantastic is called - again only God knows why - "unnatural." But this in no way changes the matter. Just as Catholicism once wrested the potestas clavium from paganism, so in our day positive science tries to wrest this so enviable prerogative from the hands of Catholicism. We wish to have these miraculous keys in our hands. We will not renounce for anything in the world the right to pronounce the eternal condemnation or justification of men. We judge what is good and what is bad, what should be and what should not be, with the same assurance as did our predecessors, the Catholic theologians.

     Look closely at any philosophical system. What is the spirit that animates it? The philosopher who would be modest enough voluntarily to renounce the potestas clavium would become the object of deepest scorn: tolle potestatem clavium, sapientiam tulisti [take away the power of the keys and you have taken away wisdom]. Even if he should agree to hand this immense power over to the Creator. If you do not have this miraculous talisman, be silent! Hide your shameful poverty from the world! Men are so accustomed to the idea that they possess and must possess this limitless power over earthly reality as well as over all possible realities that they could not bear the idea that they do not have and could never have this power. If God Himself announced from heaven that the potestas clavium belongs not to men but to Himself alone, even the gentlest would rebel.

     The legend of the Grand Inquisitor in Dostoevsky makes us see this in striking fashion. With a perceptiveness that bordered on clairvoyance and appeared completely incomprehensible to his contemporaries, Dostoevsky laid bare in this legend the secret of Catholicism's pretensions. Catholicism believes not in God but in itself. If Christ descended to earth a second time, the Grand Inquisitor would have him burned, as he dealt with all heretics, i.e., all those who dared believe that power over heaven and earth does not belong entirely to the successors of St. Peter, for credimus et confitemus unam Ecclesiam Romanam, extra quam neminem salvari [we believe and confess one Roman Church outside of which no man is saved]. And the Grand Inquisitor would have acted very justly, that is, logically. No one can doubt - can he? - that rigorous logic is not only the condition but the very essence of truth. Indeed, once God delegated His rights to the Bishop of Rome, how could He Himself act on earth as judge and legislator? This would be equivalent to His renouncing His attributes of invariability and immutability! It is true that these predicates, as well as all the others, were attributed to God by men themselves. But despite this or, better, because of this, men will never permit God to renounce them. For if God renounced invariability and immutability He could end by renouncing the other predicates as well and appearing one fine day to the eyes of men under a completely different aspect from that under which they represented Him when they decided to believe in Him.

     God, says the Grand Inquisitor, has granted to men the right to bless in His name what they themselves will make and invent. God is only the supreme sanction of the order established by men. If He pretends to more, we must reject Him. It was thus that Dostoevsky understood the essence of Catholicism. One could, in formulating briefly the content of the legend of the Grand Inquisitor, say, making use of the terms not of Dostoevsky but of his great predecessor Luther, who lived four centuries before: the Pope is the Antichrist.

     So Luther said. The dispute between Luther and the Pope reduced itself finally to this: that Luther, after a long period of hesitation and torturing doubt, suddenly discovered that the head of the Roman Church, of which he himself was a part, had installed himself and his reason in the place of God. Luther's dispute with Rome burst forth four hundred years before the Vatican Council in which the dogma of papal infallibility was proclaimed for the first time. But in fact this dogma had existed since the Middle Ages under the form of the dogma of the infallibility of the Roman Church. For the Church was embodied, even in this period, in the person of the Pope - at least when the papal throne was occupied by a man sufficiently strong and daring to take upon himself the burden of representing God on earth. Conversely, in our day, after the Vatican Council, the spiritual power of the Pope over the Catholic world is much less formidable when the Pope does not dare or does not know how to make use of it. In brief what Dostoevsky tells us in his legend was discovered by Luther four hundred years ago. And if I have said that Dostoevsky's perceptiveness bordered on clairvoyance, as far as Luther is concerned one can speak of revelation. Luther himself was profoundly convinced of this. Dostoevsky stood outside Catholicism, and so it was relatively easy for him to discover in the eyes of his neighbor, and moreover of a neighbor whom he did not like, not only an enormous beam but even a splinter. His legend astonished the whole world, as if he were the first to reveal the goal to which the Roman Catholic Church's efforts tended.

     Imagine to yourself Luther's situation. He was a faithful and devoted Catholic. He was a monk and a priest. He became a monk only because he was convinced that the monastic life permitted him to serve God better. And this very Luther, after having spent ten years in a monastery, had to admit that he belonged to the army of the Antichrist, that it was not God whom he was serving but His eternal enemy.

     Having made vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, despite the advice of his friends and against his father's wishes, he hoped that he would accomplish a work pleasing to God; and lo, suddenly he discovered, as he later recounted, that in pronouncing his vows he was denying God. Ecce, Deus, tibi voveo impietatem et blasphemiam per totam meam vitam [Behold, God, I vow to you impiety and blasphemy for my whole life] - so Luther later formulated the true significance of his vows. I shall not examine here when Luther was right - whether when, crossing the threshold of the monastery, he imagined that he was entering upon a painful, sorrowful way but one which must lead him directly toward salvation or whether when, later on, it was suddenly "revealed" to him that what he considered the way to salvation led him to his ruin. I shall not raise this question for, despite all its importance and meaningfulness, it recedes to a secondary place before another no less terrible and difficult question.

     When Luther entered the monastery he was sincerely persuaded of the righteousness of his way; when he left the monastery he was no less clearly convinced that by remaining there he would be damning himself.

     It seems to us men of the twentieth century that in both cases Luther exaggerated considerably. Still more: the very idea that the accomplishment of this or that act can have the consequence of eternal salvation or eternal damnation appears to us fantastic, sick, almost insane. But it is precisely for this reason, it seems to me, that we should more often look back to those times when such thoughts could be born in the minds of men. In the Middle Ages man considered his existence - no, he did not "consider" it, it is we who "consider," but to characterize this epoch we must find other terms - in the Middle Ages man felt, experienced, lived his existence under the aspect of the Last Judgment. The meaning and importance of this or that particular action were not limited to their visible results. He always believed that somewhere, in another world, each of his actions acquired a value absolutely independent of the significance it had on earth. Human life is not simply a bubble which suddenly rose only to burst almost immediately afterward among millions of other bubbles on the surface of the earth. Human life has a mysterious meaning, and each of us bears the weight of a terrible responsibility. All the sorrows and joys of our earthly existence are nothing beside the sorrows and joys of the other life. Here on earth we can only have a weak presentiment of what this other, real life will be. Only in rare instants of inward illumination can we participate in this other, divine, no longer human reality. Nowadays we behave badly or well and can pretty well foresee the consequences of our acts, whereas then these consequences were regarded as infinite. Eternal damnation, eternal blessedness - these words that have almost lost their meaning for modern consciousness still shone for the man of the Middle Ages with a vivid light. When Luther entered the monastery he fled eternal damnation and hoped for salvation; when he left the monastery it was again for his salvation and in order to escape damnation. If one admits that man does not, indeed, live only amidst passing sorrows and joys, as is believed today, if one admits that it was our ancestors who knew the truth and that a terrible judgment, the Last Judgment, awaits us and that each of our actions can throw us into the depths of Hell - then one can imagine what the monk Luther must have felt when suddenly he discovered that the vows he had pronounced condemned him to impietatem et blasphemiam per totam vitam and that the Roman Church to which he was completely devoted was the church of the Antichrist. Such errors are possible, and no sincerity, no purity of soul, can protect man from them.

     Luther's own experience forced him to that confession which resounds in our ears like a blasphemous paradox: Hic est fidei summus gradus, credere illum esse clementem, qui tam paucos salvat, tam multos damnat, credere justum, qui sua voluntate nos necessario damnabiles facit, ut videatur, referente Erasmo, delectari cruciatibus miserorum et odio potius quam amore dignus. Si igitur possem ulla ratione comprehendere, quomodo si Deus sit misericors et justus qui tantam iram et iniquitatem ostendit, non esset opus fide (De servo arbitrio, ed. Weimar, I, XVIII, p. 633). That is, "the highest degree of faith is to believe that He is merciful who saves so few and damns so many men, that He is righteous who by His own will has necessarily made us guilty so that, according to Erasmus, it seems that He rejoices in the suffering of the miserable and is more worthy of being hated than loved. If I could understand with my reason how such a God can be righteous and merciful, faith would not be necessary."

     I cannot here quote other confessions of Luther's, but he who has understood the horror that a man forced to such confessions must have felt will also understand the meaning of Catholicism's potestas clavium.

     Yes, Dostoevsky was right. Catholicism has indeed taken the place of God. But what could the Grand Inquisitor do when he confronted experiences like those that assailed Luther? What could the father confessor say in answer to the monk's doubts? If there is not on earth - the heavens are so far away - a person or institution which has full power to resolve finally the torturing doubts of those who have the gift of suffering from their doubts as the men of the Middle Ages suffered, existence would be a perpetual torture. The thing must be decided: either we must transfer the power of the keys to a person or institution, whether this be the visible Roman Catholic Church with its successors of St. Peter or a council of theologians; or we must accustom men to consider life in a more calm and positive spirit in order that the problems that are posed to them may not transcend their individual powers; or, finally, we must admit that the inward struggle that was imposed on Luther and on many others beside him is inevitable and even desirable, even though it will lead to no result that is comprehensible to us. But men cannot admit the last alternative or do not wish to do so (who can say what we can and cannot do?). No, those who have lived through these struggles have no need of our authorization; they do not expect it and, I would even say, do not wish it. We must then choose between the first two solutions or a combination of them. It is this, in short, that has been done. The potestas clavium still exists, but it is now found simultaneously both in the hands of the Catholics and unbelieving philosophers. The flock of both the former and the latter, that is, the immense majority of men, are accustomed to a life of regular, placid work whose consequences are evaluated in heaven almost in the same way as on earth. The Pope has found a compromise with philosophy. Philosophy, even Protestant philosophy, has ceased to argue with the Pope; it is almost ready to consider him its ally. Those, however, who await the Last Judgment are abandoned to themselves. Is this terrible? No, it is not terrible. It is in this that their immense and perhaps only prerogative consists - sit venia verbo [if one may use the expression].

THE FIXED STARS

     "Poetry, God forgive me, must be a bit foolish," said one of the most intelligent, perhaps even the most intelligent of the Russians - Pushkin. But he continued, nevertheless, to write verses and to introduce into these verses that portion of foolishness without which poetry, like food without salt, becomes unbearable. One can, then - if one wishes - simulate foolishness and do it in such a way that everyone takes this simulated foolishness to be sincere and true. I should say even more: one can also simulate intelligence and do it so well that it will not occur to anyone to see simulation in it. And we must say that the majority of writers, unlike Pushkin, need to concern themselves not so much with appearing foolish as with appearing intelligent. The facts prove that their efforts are crowned with brilliant success. It is probable that the very essence of literary talent consists in skillfully playing intelligence, nobility, beauty, daring, etc. For intelligent, noble, daring men are very rare, while there are ever so many talented writers. People succeed in counterfeiting even sincerity so well that the most expert eye is easily deceived. Perhaps Pushkin acts so strongly upon us precisely because he has no desire to be intelligent, because he understands how little intelligence is worth.

     In practical life, whether one wishes it or not, one must obviously obey the commandments of reason. The only privilege of poetry - and it is not a negligible one - is that it does not oblige anyone to think what he speaks. Say what ever comes to your mind, provided only that it be melodious and charming. Pushkin wrote: "We are born not for the tribulations of existence nor for gain nor for struggle, but for higher aspiration, gentle song and prayer."

     So sang Pushkin. But read his letters and his biography: cares, continual tribulations, petty struggles and always - without respite - worry about money, money, money. One wonders how he could find moments to create, to surrender himself to inspiration, to compose prayers and sweet songs. For this he was obviously forced to reduce his hours of sleep. This is why true poets work at night, for daytime life does not permit them to maintain relationships and "foolishness." During the day they must plunge into the cares of existence, win their bread, take part in the struggles of life. How cruelly fate mocked Pushkin, who dreamed of a poet's existence free of all struggle! For he died in fighting, in fighting a duel with an insignificant man who knew how to handle a pistol well. How could Pushkin bare his breast to the blows of the first simpleton who came along - he who, from his youth, understood men so well?

     Vladimir Soloviev, our famous philosopher, tried to decipher the secret of Pushkin's fate and explain his death. Naturally he did not explain anything, and thank God for that. There are things that it is better not to understand, not to explain. Strange as it may be, it is often better to weep, curse, and laugh than to understand. It does no harm not only for poetry but for prose as well to be, at times, not too intelligent and not to know everything. There is no spectacle more disagreeable and more repugnant than that offered us by the man who imagines he understands everything and can give an answer to everything. That is why a philosophy that is consistent with itself and rigorously logical ends at length by becoming unbearable. If one must philosophize, let it at least be from day to day - without taking into account today what one said yesterday. If poetry must not be too intelligent, then philosophy must be insane, like our entire existence. For in a rational philosophy lies quite as much malice and treachery as in ordinary common sense. Look at it a little closer: under its opulent garments the most common appetites are distinguishable. It aspires to what is indubitable and to the certainty that two is more than one, and it wishes always to obtain possession of two in order to be stronger than him who possesses one. Poor Pushkin with his sweet songs and prayers! He sang and prayed, but d'Anthès took aim and naturally killed the poet. Rational philosophy must certainly take the side of d'Anthès, in that - as always - it sends before its judgments a regiment of noble phrases. For philosophy, like d'Anthès, wishes to strike a sure, unfailing blow by orienting itself through the fixed stars.

EROS AND THE IDEAS

     All men seek the truth, and all are certain that in seeking the truth they know perfectly well what it is they are seeking. Many also are those who have already found the truth and who are surprised or even indignant that others are unwilling to share their joy in this happy discovery. Indeed, why is this? Why is it that I see so clearly that I am right while others believe that I possess no truth that is particularly precious and that my "convictions" offer no advantage over those of others? And, above all, why is it that I am so stubbornly bent on making others recognize that I am right? Is this "recognition" really indispensable to me? Probably it is not so indispensable as all that. For since the world has been in existence no one has ever succeeded in making himself "recognized" by everyone. And yet men continue to live and to believe in themselves. It is not only Catholicism, which counts hundreds of millions of faithful followers, that has proclaimed quod semper ubique et ab omnibus creditum est [what is believed always, everywhere, and by all]. We often see that a man who has succeeded in gathering around himself a small group of faithful disciples enjoys, thanks to them, complete satisfaction and imagines that his little world is all of humanity - indeed, not only humanity but the entire universe; it is not some dozen poor human beings who have consecrated him a prophet but all men, all reasonable beings - and only the obstinate enemies of the light and the truth refuse to recognize him.

     How is such blindness to be explained? Does it not come from the fact that man finally does not at all need to be unanimously recognized, as the philosophers imagine, and that by its very nature the truth not only can not but does not even wish to be a "truth for all"? I know that such a supposition will be judged unacceptable; I know also that it contains an insoluble contradiction. But I have already indicated more than once - and I repeat again - that if a judgment is contradictory, this does not suffice to overthrow it. Obviously one can not invert this statement and say that the contradiction which a judgment contains is the proof of its truth. It may be, if you please, that contradiction is one of the signs that make us recognize that we are approaching the final truth, for it shows that man no longer feels the fear which ordinary criteria inspire in him. In any case, it is certain that one cannot say that every judgment that carries a contradiction in itself is altogether superfluous for us. If men believed that, half at least - and the more beautiful, the more interesting half - of human thoughts would never have been expressed and humanity would be spiritually much poorer than it is.

     Many "truths," and the most important ones, cannot obtain recognition by all, and most often do not even pretend - this is the most significant point - to this recognition. An example will make my thought clearer. In his Metaphysics of Sexual Love Schopenhauer brilliantly develops the idea that love is only a fleeting illusion. The "will" desires to realize itself once more in an individual, and so it suggests to John that Mary is a rare beauty and to Mary that John is a great hero. As soon as the goal of the "will" is achieved, as soon as the birth of a new being is assured, the will abandons the lovers to themselves and they then discover with horror that they have been the victims of a dreadful mistake. John sees the "real" Mary - that is, a dense, stupid, and ill-natured woman; Mary, on her side, discovers the real John - a dull, banal, and cowardly fellow. And now, after the delusions of love have been dissipated, the judgments Mary and John pronounce on each other agree perfectly with the judgments of all, with what semper ubique et ab omnibus creditum est. For everyone always thought that Mary was ugly and stupid and John cowardly and foolish. Schopenhauer does not doubt in the least that Mary and John saw true reality precisely when they saw what everyone else saw. And not only Schopenhauer thinks so. This is again quod semper ubique et ab omnibus creditum est. But it is precisely because this truth appears so unquestionable that there is good reason to raise the question of the legitimacy of its pretensions. Did John and Mary really deceive themselves during the short time when, the "will" having kindled its magic flame in them, they abandoned themselves to the mysterious passion that drew them together and they saw each other as so beautiful? May it not be that they were right precisely when they were alone in their opinion and appeared to all others as poor idiots? May it not be that at that time they were in communion with true reality and that what their social natures oblige them to believe is only error and falsehood? Who knows!

     When their judgments are accepted by everyone, when they become understandable, accessible, self-evident and consequently indisputable - is it, perhaps, then precisely that they become flat, poor, empty, and of further use only to statistics or to some other positive science that takes its origin from mathematics and for this reason calls itself "royal"? You do not agree to admit this? But your agreement is of no consequence here. Whether or not you admit this supposition in no way changes the matter, and it will not make the white and uniform light of daily life more brilliant or alluring than the brief and enchanting flame that is kindled in us from time to time by an incomprehensible force - whether this be Schopenhauer's "will" or some other mysterious power. And when such a flame burns in the soul of a man, it is completely indifferent to him whether or not others agree with him and whether his truths are justified by such or such a theory of knowledge.