Athos 3: Can Paulinus Persuade?

Why does a man become a monk? What mind-set turns a man's eyes and thoughts inward, away from the world?

One clear and forceful answer is in a latin poem by Paulinus of Nola.

The story of Paulinus and Ausonius opens Helen Waddell's study of late Latin poetry - 'The Wandering Scholars'.

Ausonius: scholar, royal tutor, consul in 379, now old and in retirement on his estate near Bordeaux.

Paulinus, his favoured student, a short-time senator, who became an ascetic christian and the founder of a small monastic settlement at the tomb of St. Felix of Nola, in Italy.

Ausonius wrote to Paulinus, begging him to visit. Eventually Paulinus replies, explaining his choice of a secluded, contemplative life devoted to religion. Paulinus was married, and not himself a monk; but went on to become Bishop of Nola, and finally a saint.

Here is Helen Waddell's translation of Paulinus' response to Ausonius [the latin is appended]. 

>>

Not that they beggared be in mind, or brutes,

That they have chosen their dwelling place afar

In lonely places: but their eyes are turned

To the high stars, the very deep of truth.

Freedom they seek, an emptiness apart

From worthless things: din of the market-place,

And all the noisy crowding up of things,

And whatsoever wars on the divine,

At Christ's command, and for His love, they hate;

By faith and hope they follow after God,

And know their quest shall not be desperate,

If but the Present conquer not their souls

With hollow things: that which they see they spurn

That they may come at that they do not see,

Their senses kindled like a torch, that may

Blaze through the secrets of eternity.

The transient's open, everlastingness

Denied our sight; yet still by hope we follow

The vision that our minds have seen, despising

The shows and forms of things, the loveliness

Soliciting for ill our mortal eyes.

The present's nothing: but eternity

Abides for those on whom all truth, all good,

Hath shone, in one entire and perfect light.

<<

For those blessed by faith and hope, this is a powerful argument, maybe a final answer. These eloquent lines resonate even in the sceptical mind of this English physician:

"by hope we follow the vision that our minds have seen'.

Siegfried Sassoon speaks for me, unsure if Paulinus describes a reality which all may enter, if he is indeed describing a reality.

>>

Redemption

I thought; These multitudes we hold in mind -

This host of souls redeemed -

Out of the abysm of the ages came -

Out of the spirit of man - devised or dreamed.

I thought; To the invisible I am blind;

No angels tread my nights with feet of flame;

No mystery is mine -

No whisper from that world beyond my sense.

I think; If throughout some chink in me could shine

But once - O but one ray

From that all-hallowing and eternal day,

Asking no more of Heaven I would go hence.

<<

Yes, that plaintive poem with its elaborate rhymes also resonates in me.

But I have received in my later years the vision of the Autopoietic Kosmos, perhaps the grandest unifying theory. It suffices.

I enjoy access to a wealth of reliable knowledge and understanding, far beyond the hopes of Paulinus or the dilemmas of Sassoon. We in our times must follow the vision that our minds have seen.

"To the solid ground of Nature trusts the mind that builds for aye" - but Wordsworth speaks as a nature mystic, not intending his words to have quite the meaning I attribute them.

So once again, my favourite quotation, from Rhazes, Persian physician in 10th century Baghdad:

Human perception and cognition alone give reliable knowledge;

The way of philosophy is open to all abuses;

Claims of divine revelation are false;

Religions are dangerous.

Not even the advocacy of Paulinus will persuade me into the way of the monk.

[ Appendix. Paulinus' original latin.

Ad Ausonium

Non inopes animi neque de feritate legentes 

desertis habitare locis, sed in ardua versi 

sidera spectantesque deum verique profunda 

perspicere intenti, de vanis libera curis 

otia amant strepitumque fori rerumque tumultus 

cunctaque divinis inimica negotia donis 

et Christi imperiis et amore salutis abhorrent 

speque fideque deum sponsa mercede sequuntur, 

quam referet certus non desperantibus auctor, 

si modo non vincant vacuis praesentia rebus, 

quaeque videt spernat, quae non videt ut mereatur 

secreta ignitus penetrans caelestia sensus. 

namque caduca patent nostris, aeterna negantur 

visibus, et nunc spe sequimur quod mente videmus. 

spernentes varias, rerum spectacula, formas 

et male corporeos bona sollicitantia visus. 

attamen haec sedisse illis sententia visa est, 

tota quibus iam lux patuit verique bonique, 

venturi aeternum saecli et praesentis inane. ]