“...And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.”
And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.1
A friend of mine remarked in conversation yesterday, that he perceived people were of two types: to wit, the ones who seemed to be making some kind of emotional demand on others’ attention, and those who weren’t. Earlier, he had commented that personal development is often the wages of tribulation whereas pleasant times yield little fruit, to which I had affirmed that, indeed, we almost never bother to extract a lesson from pleasurable experiences because we are too busy enjoying them. Meister Eckhart says that “if the only prayer you ever say is ‘thank you,’ that is enough.” And yet people often only pray when they want something to change. To illustrate his point, I offered the anecdote of an epiphany of sorts I experienced last summer, around this time. I was in the midst of a somewhat intensive fasting regimen and on the morning of the third day, I awoke feeling hungry and, moreover, feeling sorry for myself in my plight. Not unlike the hypocrites, who put on a long face, “that they may appear unto men to fast,”2 I suddenly saw that I was tacitly hoping someone would come and comfort me. Like a baby crying for milk, so I was tempted to make some outward sign of my anguish in the hopes that someone would notice and give me succor and meet my emotional needs. But, of course, the only person who could see me was God, and God always already knows my plight. And moreover, what did I expect? Why pretend to be affronted at feeling hungry after not having eaten for three days? When I beheld the absurdity of the situation was the moment that I felt I had “become a man,” emotionally speaking, and “put away childish things.” Then my emotions became vehicles of expression rather than tacit bids for sympathy.
Of course, in any situation, there are usually two ways to go wrong and only one way to go right, and that is by threading the needle between them, which is to say, by incorporating elements that, in isolation cannot be called virtues, but which when composed together, constitute the middle path. Just as it’s possible to be childish and pitiful, it’s also possible to be hard-hearted and callous, making it exceedingly difficult to establish any point of contact with other souls. As a result, any eventual conversation, as when a current is confronted with an obstacle in its natural path, is forced to veer off into flights of abstraction or into idle chatter. This much is clear, and is just one more instance of the perennial recurrence of Aristotle’s doctrine of the aurum mediocritas and Steiner’s threefold human. Enough of this for now.
My friend went further to suggest that he found it exceedingly difficult to get along with anyone who was looking for his sympathy, and, again, while I understood his position, I wouldn’t have given it the full-throated endorsement that he did. But the question of a division among humans remained on my mind, and it naturally evoked the memory of Jesus’ iconic description of the parting of the sheep from the goats. Christ indicates that the difference consists in those who are converted to him and those who turn away, and this subject has been the constant companion of this Substack.
But I’d like to explore what this bifurcation really consists in. I suggested in the last essay that the conversion represents a sort of awakening to the power of one’s own agency. Technically speaking, this is tantamount to winning through to the ability to wield the sword of the Archangel and cast out the dragons and sorcerers and whoremongers from the court of the soul. Here I would like to go further and hearken back to some key scenes from the Old and New Testaments to suggest that the most crucial axis around which the whole conversion pivots is the question of whether we take up the task that God is progressively delegating to us to accomplish in his Name.
Genesis begins with God progressively speaking the world into existence through his Word; a sequence that concludes with the Creation of Man on the Sixth Day. The next chapter of Genesis seems to take up the same narrative but with a sort of variation on the theme, and a retelling of the Creation of Man in much greater material intimacy; here, God gets his hands dirty, as it were, by forming Adam out of the dust of the Earth and inspiring into him the breath of life from his own mouth, and later carving Eve out of his very rib. Already in the second chapter, Man is collaborating in the ongoing process of Creation, as when Man as Adam names the animals after Man as Eve listens to them:
19And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. 20And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
In the third chapter, Adam and Eve, through their relationships and decisions are actually collaborating to weave the moral threads of destiny for humanity as such. By the eight chapter, Man as Noah is acting as the Creator’s surrogate on Earth, for the New Creation after the Flood is propagated entirely through the cooperation of Noah. Adam named the animals while Noah saved them.
Of course, as the advocates of typological exegesis have informed us, everything hereto mentioned is a harbinger of Christ, who is the consummation of Man’s collaborative relationship with his Creator. Now we’re back to where we began, with the statement that “conversion means turning towards Christ.” But of course, a statement like this will only be of significance to somebody who has already understood what it means, while to the one who hasn’t, it will be as only so much breath into the wind, or of no more value than the paper it is written on. Hence, in a sort of Catch-22, the ones who most need to hear this, cannot, whereas the ones who have the ears to hear this don’t need to. Is it then a sort of inexorable doom, like the Calvinists say, towards which we all march, with Christ as Judge already having ordained our fate since the foundation of the world? No, as is evidenced by the Parable of the Prodigal Son, and the Parable of the Lost Sheep.
21Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? 22Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.
7I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.
But Christ will never impose his will on us. Only we ourselves can loose the tight fist of our hearts that have so hardened against him.
Again, these florid metaphors speak untold volumes to the one who already understands them—that is, to the one who is already capable of indexing them to concrete configurations and movements of the soul. But they don’t ultimately need to convey a message to someone who already has it. That is not to say that they become worn out or tiresome. Quite on the contrary, when the water is finally tasted, and we perceive its sweetness and restorative virtue for the first time, we will continue to imbibe it on every occasion, though not out of thirst anymore, but as a method of prayer and jubilation.
21Those who eat of me will hunger for more,
and those who drink of me will thirst for more.
Meister Eckhart writes that “if you do not yourself become the same as the Wisdom of which we speak, then my words will mean nothing to you.”3 The one who hasn’t tasted from this well, however, and hears only empty words, is just the one to whom these very words are foremost addressed. On a prior occasion, I posed the question of how we can become “good ground,” which is to say, receptive to these teachings.
In that essay, I concluded that we ought to emulate Mary in our souls. Thus, the “sheep” consist of those who have striven for this while the “goats” consist of the ones whose distorted ideas of the Good immured their eyes and hardened their hearts against this injunction, and made them chase vain follies and idle pursuits instead of favor before God.
But I’d like to consider this dichotomy from another side now. In the most beautiful chapter from The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky writes:
Every blade of grass, every insect, ant, and golden bee, all so marvellously know their path, though they have not intelligence, they bear witness to the mystery of God and continually accomplish it themselves.4
Steiner observes, in chapter 9 of The Philosophy of Freedom, that Nature also accomplished this work in us. But while a certain stage of a human being’s development is fulfilled by Nature, then she hands off, as it were, the task to him for completion:
The plant transforms itself because of the objective natural law inherent in it; the human being remains in an incomplete state unless he takes hold of the material for transformation within him and transforms himself through his own power. Nature makes of man merely a natural being; society makes of him a law-abiding being; only he himself can make of himself a free human being. Nature releases man from her fetters at a definite stage in his development; society carries this development a stage further; he alone can give himself the final polish.5
As indicated, God made Man not to be a passive onlooker to Creation. Instead, God made Adam (i.e. as Adam-Eve) ultimately to be just what he made Eve to be for Adam: “an help meet for him.”6
Returning to the fundamental cleft between the right hand and the left hand of Christ the Judge, and drawing together this image with the statement relayed from the conversation mentioned at the outset of this piece, my view is that there is indeed a sort of dichotomy among humanity, and it consists in those who have freely resolved, as Steiner describes, to carry-forward from where Nature left off that one corner of Creation of which they are uniquely capable of doing this for—to wit, their own souls—and those who find every excuse not to do this. But I would stop far short of dismissing the latter or condemning them in some way: who granted that authority to me? There is only one person who has the authority to be the judge of souls and that is not me. It can indeed feel tiresome to interact with people who are always justifying themselves and making excuses and prevaricating and becoming defensive and living out their whole existence in bad faith, but I remind myself that I am one of those people and Christ has been infinitely patient with me, and any apparent forbearance that I can muster towards them will seem like callousness in comparison. But, yes, it is easier to get along with people who are seeking to progressively incarnate (the) Go(o)d into their own souls.
Matthew 25:32-33
Matthew 6:16
Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance: for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
Meister Eckhart, Selected Writings, 203.
It was a bright, warm, still, July night, a cool mist rose from the broad river, we could hear the plash of a fish, the birds were still, all was hushed and beautiful, everything praying to God. Only we two were not sleeping, the lad and I, and we talked of the beauty of this world of God's and of the great mystery of it. Every blade of grass, every insect, ant, and golden bee, all so marvellously know their path, though they have not intelligence, they bear witness to the mystery of God and continually accomplish it themselves.
…
"Truly, all things are good and fair, because all is truth. Look," said I, "at the horse, that great beast that is so near to man; or the lowly, pensive ox, which feeds him and works for him; look at their faces, what meekness, what devotion to man, who often beats them mercilessly. What gentleness, what confidence and what beauty! It's touching to know that there's no sin in them, for all, all except man, is sinless, and Christ has been with them before us."
"Why," asked the boy, "is Christ with them too?"
"It cannot but be so," said I, "since the Word is for all. All creation and all creatures, every leaf is striving to the Word, singing glory to God, weeping to Christ, unconsciously accomplishing this by the mystery of their sinless life. Yonder," said I, "in the forest wanders the dreadful bear, fierce and menacing, and yet innocent in it." And I told him how once a bear came to a great saint who had taken refuge in a tiny cell in the wood. And the great saint pitied him, went up to him without fear and gave him a piece of bread. "Go along," said he, "Christ be with you," and the savage beast walked away meekly and obediently, doing no harm. And the lad was delighted that the bear had walked away without hurting the saint, and that Christ was with him too. "Ah," said he, "how good that is, how good and beautiful is all God's work!" He sat musing softly and sweetly. I saw he understood. And he slept beside me a light and sinless sleep. May God bless youth! And I prayed for him as I went to sleep. Lord, send peace and light to Thy people!”
Dostoyevsky, Brothers Karamazov, VI.1
In a lecture, Steiner elaborates on the same theme:
We may say, therefore, that the insect has a certain direction in its life through spring, summer, autumn and winter. It does not give its development up to chance, placing itself as it does within certain laws in each succeeding phase of its life. Mankind, however, has left behind the age of instinctive co-existence with nature. In his case it was more ensouled than that of the animals, but still instinctive. His life has taken on a newer, more conscious form. Yet we find that man, in spite of his higher soul-life and capacity to think, has given himself over to a more chaotic life. With the dying away of his instincts he has fallen, in a certain way, below the level of the animals. However much one may emphasize man's further steps forward, towering above the animals, one must still concede that he has lost a particular inner direction in his life. This directing quality of his life could be found once more by seeing himself as a member of the human race, of this or that century. And just as, for a lower form of life, the month of September takes its place in the course of the year, so does this or that century take its place in the whole development of our planet. And man needs to be conscious of how his own soul-life should he placed historically in a particular epoch.
Genesis 2:20
Permit me an extended meditation provoked by your thoughts; there are always levels of meaning. There is much insight here. One cannot develop a theological anthropology in a terse message, but my view is that at the highest anagogic level, judgment is eschatological, and that as you also implicitly recognize, the sheep and the goats are intrapersonal as much as interpersonal. The division of the two is equivalent to the separation of the wheat from the tares.
I believe the burden of the wise man or woman is to preserve this awareness, and that the breath of prayer is the weaving spell of the Holy Spirit. I think relation is a primary constituent of Being, not merely elective, so that persons, indeed, the entire cosmos ultimately is the unbroken wedding robe of Sophianic beauty.
The act of division and separation is intimately a sword that pierces every heart. What this means is adverted to in Pavel Florensky's The Pillar and Ground of the Truth. There are effigies, dead letters, the evil mask of our fallen existence. We all bear them as burdens, these parasitic lies that feed upon vain desire with craven egoic weakness. In order to live, one must be broken, cured of attachment to the unreal shadows that nonetheless pretend at life.
This pretense has its own metaphysics, which like all error, proliferates into bad infinity, a wandering multiplicity. Living death is what modern and postmodern epigone champion as spontaneous, voluntarist choice, the caprine mimic of freedom. To choose life is pleromic abundance that can only be attained in obedience to the demands of Love. The mysterious sacrificial obedience of Abraham and Isaac prefigures the Christ who achieves victory over our sin and death on the Cross.
For the sake of Creation, which is called to theosis, the Christ bears our evil dreams into the abyss of oblivion. Only when ascesis separates us from identification with the evil dream does the wonder of Gifted Natures radiate Resurrected Life, the very goodness that God declares as the truth of our destiny.
This is an instant classic of Theoria, Max. It inspires me to read those stories again.