Maverick Philosopher

Perhaps I am reading my own experience into this, but I can't help but think that the popularity of Lipsius had to do with his ideas having offered something that was lacking in the Christianity of his day. Perhaps what it offered was the promise of a means of getting peace of mind, or a kind of temporal salvation that the Christianity of his time had de-emphasized. I say it had been de-emphasized, because peace of mind is not an alien concept in Christianity. There is "the peace that surpasses understanding", "the truth that will set you free", and "give no anxious thought for tomorrow." In fact if you look at the writings of the Desert Fathers of the 4th and 5th centuries, as compiled in a work such as the Philokalia, you find that they had essentially devoted their lives to the achievement of apatheia, although they believed that there were other modes of consciousness beyond apatheia, such as agape.

I wonder also if this has not occurred in our own time, and would explain the popularity of Buddhism. I know that the formal Christianity of my upbringing offered no clues as to the possibility of a salvation here-and-now. My parents were saavy enough to be aware of the Christian mystical tradition and brought it to my attention at an early age, and that provided a more expansive view of Christianity. But otherwise the emphasis was on avoidance of sin, guilt, and salvation after death.

There was a reaction in the Church, of course, with a new emphasis on "love" and "compassion" in the late 60's and 70's. But this movement always struck me as phony. Not phony as an ideal, but phony in the notion that one could just choose to love in this way; no clue that apatheia is a prerequisite of agape. I think Gurdjieff had the right assessment of this, when he said something to the effect that there are no Christians and it was impossible to be a Christian, because people had lost the esoteric methods needed to become Christians. (Maybe Malcolm remembers what G. said better.) Jacob Needleman, a follower of Gurdjieff, wrote in his book "Lost Christianity" that "all these high ideals have been let loose in the world like a pack of marauding dogs."