SAINTS PRESERVE US? NO THANKS. . BY ARTHUR CHAPPELL
Some reputed saints that have been canonised ought to have been
cannonaded. (Charles Caleb-Colton)
The dictionary defines a saint as "Someone who after death attains a reputation
for holy deeds or behaviour." In the early Church, ‘saint’ was a euphemism
for all good Christians generally, rather than specific individuals.
The Holy Roman Empire leaders were worried by reports that people were not
only praying directly to Jesus or to God, but also to respected people who had
died generations before. Unofficial shrines were being established around some
personages. The Church attempted initially to quash such personality cults. To
pray to anyone other than God was regarded as heresy. If messages and prayers
needed to be forwarded through intermediaries then God was regarded as
depersonalised, distant, and reluctant to communicate with his followers.
People looked upon the dead as a more identifiable means of communicating with
the divine. The same origins may also apply to angels, visions, and the
prophets, (including Jesus). Why wasn’t the all-powerful God dealing with
matters personally, instead of sending boys out to do a man’s job? I’d prefer
to talk to the organ grinder rather than one of his monkeys too. When the
Church realised it wasn’t going to stop the rise of the saints, they chose to
exploit them instead. The Church drew up an official ‘canon’ of authorised,
legitimate saints, at first recognised by public consent, but later through
bishops organising official feast days and celebrations for certain personages,
and finally, it became the near exclusive duty of the Pope. The process is now
very formalised, and rigorous. People are first to be recognised as beatified, and
many saints are not officially recognised as such until hundreds of years after
they died. Mother Teresa might have to wait until 2098 for official
recognition. Some recognised saints have even been crossed off the official
canon later. I wanted the confirmation name of St. Christopher in my Catholic
childhood, but I had to settle for Jerome instead. Christopher got sacked.
MARTYRS - KAMIKAZE CHRISTIANS
Martyrs are the most exciting saints, as their stories depict courage under
fire and bravery in the face of death. Fox’s Book Of Martyrs was among my
childhood recommended reading. (and useful research material here). Roman
emperors from Nero onwards were exasperated to find that the Christians often
fell to the lions with smiles on their faces, rather than terror, or prayed
forgiveness upon their torturers and executioners no matter how bad the pain
inflicted. Take St. Sebastian; secretly a Christian, he gained entry to the
army of Emperor Carinus, to help rescue the victims of the persecution going on,
but quickly discovered, he was shot full of arrows and left for dead. Rescued,
he refused to flee, and went instead to shout to the Emperor directly;
"The words of thy priests are false, O Emperor, who say we Christians are
enemies of the State, for we do not cease to pray for thy welfare and that of
the realm." Sebastian was immediately arrested, cudgelled to death and
chucked in a sewer, in 303. Brave as he was, he was a fool. Caution, and long
term planning might have made him a better campaign leader in the resistance to
Roman oppression. While Sebastion may have coveted death and the afterlife, it
is safe to say that most so-called martyrs were merely unwilling murder
victims.
"Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable
that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to
be human beings." (George Orwell, in Death Of An Elephant).
Others took the desire for death in the name of faith to such a degree of
fanatical zeal that their worth as good Christians has to be rendered bogus and
void. Umberto Eco, in Travels in Hyper-reality, (Picador 1986) describes
the 3rd century Circoncillian Order who would "stop wayfarers and threaten
death if they refused to martyr them." They were also given to mass
suicides (precursors to the 912 suicidal cult martyrs and fanatics of the
Jonestown cult in 1978). Career martyrdom clearly blinds Its fanatics to life
in this world. Death becomes more enviable for them to life. In their zeal they
invariably forced many less willing victims, including their own children, to
share their doom.
HERMITS - ARE - US DO NOT DISTURB!
Many mystically minded Christians chose to follow Jesus’s example and sought
God & enlightenment in the desert wildernesses of the Middle East. They
pursued a hermit’s life of chastity and abstention There is a fallacy that they
cut themselves off entirely from the outside world, as most hermits did
communicate enough to let others know they still lived and attract alms and
vital food donations from passing well wishers. Such voluntary solitary
confinement was the root of visions and revelations. Hermits often proved to
have been high ranking clergymen who acted in protest to ecclesiastical power
taking over from spiritual, and spontaneous experience. Half-starved, and with
only their meditational faith to preserve them, it is no wonder the hermits had
such an intense, fervent notion of what religion meant. Hermitage gave rise to
the early monastic orders, which were effectively a means for hermits to work
together while maintaining the practice of asceticism and retreat into personal
isolationism. In the 1830’s there was a potty aristocratic English trend to
collect ‘ornamental hermits’ on large family estates. Edith Sitwell (English
Eccentrics Faber & Faber 1933) wrote of one gentleman in Preston who
offered a newspaper ad for a hermit willing to live in a prepared underground
chamber and who was not to cut his hair, or nails (fingers or toes) for £50 a
year for life. The job was taken right away & the contract was adhered to
for four years.
For Humanists integration with the community is essential, so hermitage and
separation, with its similarities to cruel ‘involuntary’ forms of exile, simply
won’t do.
SCHOLARLY SAINTS.
Early monks did do a great deal of scholarship and many valuable works of
literature and philosophical scholarship that might have perished were
preserved by their efforts. The influence of St. Augustine Of Hippo, through
his efforts to integrate Aristotelian cosmology with Christian doctrine is
profound, and serves as the basis of his canonisation (along with his remorse
at rejecting the worth of the Bible earlier in life). St. Jerome, canonised for
his translations of the New Testament into Latin, was more controversial for
his damming criticism of the Roman orthodox ministry. Other scholars have of
course caused the Church to fragment and split into dangerous schisms. Martin
Luther’s research lead to the rise of the Protestant Reformation, and he has
never been forgiven, let alone canonised for his dynamic influence on Western
religious history. Protestants generally frown on the use of saints by
Catholics, dismissing saint worship as idolatrous, especially when relics
associated with saints become commercially marketable. The graves of some saints
have been robbed, and their very bones sold as highly prized bounty to the more
gullible believers.
THE MISSIONARY POSITION.
Great charity work, and the missionary work that took Christianity to other
countries also proved to be a basis for canonisation (The Blue Peter boy scout
merit badge of faith). Mother Teresa wasn’t averse to accepting charity from
fascist dictators around the world. Missionaries taking Christianity to Africa
also took colonialism and capitalism there and fuelled the slave trade. We have
Saints Alban & Dunstan (not) to thank for promoting Christianity to
England. They deserve the title of our Patron saint more than St. George, a
Palestinian mercenary (who died in 303). George helped Christians being
persecuted by Rome’s Emperor Diocletian. He was a figure who inspired the
Crusaders serving Richard 1st, centuries later, and may never have even visited
England. The dragon he fought was probably just a crocodile.
MIRACLES: PICK A CARD, ANY CARD YOU LIKE ....
Claims of miracle healings performed by saints are all apocryphal. St.
Bernadette, who’s alleged visions of the Virgin Mary lead to the establishment
of the shrine at Lourdes, was disbelieved and cruelly treated by the clergy,
and died herself of chronic illness, aged just 35, while the church officially
recognises about a measly eight official miracle cures among the thousands
visiting Lourdes. Joan Of Arc may be a Saint to the French, but the British,
who's leaders called for her execution fire, find her an embarrassment to this
day. Christian saints were often more trouble than they were worth, but what of
non-Catholic saints? We think of India’s Gandhi as a saint more for his
politics than for his Hindu beliefs. Bob Geldof was referred to by the popular
press as St. Bob for the Live Aid Ethiopian famine relief work he did as
a mere pop star, though his subsequent relationship problems have rather
tarnished his image. Islam offers little support for saints, though some
shrines are established,. particularly in the Sufi tradition. Humanists
recognise that many people do sterling work in secular terms to match anything saints
have done; Oscar Shindler’s wartime rescue of the Jews is well documented. We
have John Stuart Mill’s Utilitarian assertion that happiness dictates moral human
worth more than religion. "Can one be a saint if God does not exist? That
is the only concrete problem I know of today." Albert Camus wrote in The
Plague. I hope Humanists don’t openly try to get themselves venerated as
saints, but simply get on with life. A saint by nature is something
ultra-human, and better than other people. Humanists should just be good
people, period. In Cornwall, there is a proverb that goes, "There are more
saints in Cornwall than in Heaven." Most surprising saint of all award -
Pontius Pilate, recognised by the Egyptian Coptic Church It’s believed that
Saints corpses remain uncorrupted after death, but monks kept food well
preserved. Today, we all have too many preservatives in our bodies, and we are
likely to decompose more slowly too, (if not cremated).
SOURCES: (Other than mentioned in the
text); Brockhampton Reference - DICTIONARY OF SAINTS. 1996 CHAMBERS DICTIONARY
OF BELIEFS & RELIGIONS 1992. Margaret Pepper (editor) DICTIONARY OF
RELIGIOUS QUOTATIONS. Andre Deutsche (1989) Gordon Thomas - THE TRIAL - Corgi
1987.
Arthur Chappell
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