Dr Sooraj Pittappillil

“Italiam non sponte sequor! (against my will I head for Italy)”: Christopher Marlowe’s play, Dido, the queen of Carthage, portrays an unromantic Aeneas shunning the appeal of Dido to stay at Carthage with her. Instead of luxuriating at Carthage, Aeneas dreamt of an epic undertaking of founding the empire of Rome, which later became the mistress of the ancient world. Those who are gifted with an ‘Aeneas gene’ would definitely resist the gravity that glues them to their hamlets. They would always entertain a James Bond attitude of “world is not enough”! They are indeed the men of destiny.

In both Hebraism and Hellenism, we encounter two men of destiny nonpareil. They are Abraham and Ulysses. Both of them have set out for big journeys and enterprises that would bring home glory. Abraham’s wandering through the Fertile Crescent, leaving his native city of Ur and seeking Canaan, was a totally transformative one. This journey might have changed the Mesopotamian flavours of his God-concept into a Biblical one. This exploration has also cemented his relationship with God. Søren Kierkegaard, a Danish philosopher, has an arresting narration of the transformation happened to Abraham, in his work “Fear and Trembling.” There he illustrates Abraham’s brinkmanship of attempting to sacrifice his one and only son Isaac. Isaac is admittedly the dearest one for Abraham and it is stupidity to risk his precious one for a God whom he had never met. Is an unseen God that worthy for Abraham to risk the life of his one and only son? Kierkegaard says that Abraham’s willingness to expose himself to such an existential danger makes him the unique father of faith. Accordingly, the title ‘Knight of Faith’ would suit him better than the title ‘father of faith,’ for he stood foursquare before God, listening to such a jeopardizing command that no one else could hear without ‘fear and trembling.’ But Abraham had absolutely no fear and trembling! It made him different.

Even with an alibi of God’s command, one cannot justify the attempt on life of another human being. However, Abraham had a better justification for his obviously unethical attempt. Since Abraham believed and knew from his own personal experience that God had been always good to him, Abraham could not even suspect that such a God would do any harm to Isaac and him. This conviction, that God would transform even the unethical act to a gracious one later, emboldened him to go for an obviously unethical act. This is called ‘teleological suspension of the ethical.’ In other words, the ethical boldness of Abraham to attempt the unethical makes him a stronger claimant of the title, ‘Knight of Faith.’

Ulysses, well known for his adventurous voyage and witty enterprises (his long journey back to his home town, Ithaca, is known as odyssey), is a bit different from Abraham. He is one of the greatest heroes Greece. His intelligence was, perhaps, more crucial in making queen Hecuba of Troy lamenting the loss of battle than the valour of Achilles. ‘Ulysses the cunning’ was his nickname! His odyssey was more eventful than that of Abraham. In lieu of the unconditional commitment of Abraham, we find a crafty approach in Ulysses, in bypassing the tribulations he confronted.  It is, perhaps, due to the difference between the religious approach of Abraham, in which he identified God with absolute truth, and the Greek sceptic approach to the accessibility of truth. What would you choose for, if asked: commitment or craft?

Adventurous commitment to the Gospel values proclaimed by Jesus, the peripatetic traveller, is the core identity of the Church. Constantinian and Carolingian institutional preferences do come, at times, at odds with Jesus, the peripatetic traveller. Dostoyevsky dramatically presents such an instance in his ‘Grand Inquisitor’ of Brothers Karamazov. The temptation of the Grand inquisitor is real. Pope Francis exhort the Permanent Synod of the Ukrainian Catholic Church thus referring to the Gethsemane night. “They had not prayed and they fell to the temptation, the temptation of worldliness: the violent weakness of the flesh prevailed over the meekness of the Spirit. Not weariness, not the sword, not flight (see Mt 26: 40, 52,56), but prayer and the gift of self-unto the end are the responses the Lord awaits from His people. Only these responses are Christian, and these alone will save from the worldly spiral of violence.”

soorajpittappillil@gmail.com