A man walked down the street.
The smell of corpses filled the air. He walked past a woman half-decomposed,
almost a skeleton already. Flies swarmed in the warm air, slightly dimming the
light of the sun. Some, not yet dead, lay on the sides of the street,
unresponsive to the world. No one had the energy to dispose of the dead, for
they themselves were dying. No command, divine or human, would move them. Thus
it was, across the whole of the world, since the great fast had begun.
Spontaneously,
in the weeks prior, people from across the globe had simply stopped eating.
“What was the point, anyway?” they thought to themselves, “we will all die
eventually. We have such little time. And this is such a small planet, compared
to the universe. Is it not apparent that none of it matters? Ozymandias has
been lost to time, except for his vain boast. Shall we strive, day in and day
out, to achieve pleasures that will be forgotten in a week, and forgotten
totally at our death? And what pleasure doesn’t come at the cost of others?
Should we be cruel to our fellow men, just for a moment’s respite from pain?
For what is pleasure but a break from the pain of boredom? That is the great
evil, boredom, which is merely another way of saying the pain of consciousness.
We may set it to rest for a little while, but it swings back all the stronger
after it has been held at bay. End pain altogether, and permanently, by the
mere recognition that continuing to desire is the very root and cause of our
misery. Even the pleasure of sex, unless held at bay, yields the beginning of
another lifetime of suffering. For we are born in suffering, and continue in
it. We must, therefore, end the pain of consciousness, end the pain of boredom
and the pleasure-seeking that merely strengthens it. And yet, what a great act
of desire suicide is. All the desire for the end of pain must be summoned, set
at fever-pitch, and by this force of desire one plunges the knife into one’s
own heart. Far better is this: just stop trying. Take no interest in doing
anything. Just lie there, taking no interest in oneself or others, gradually
letting the needs of the body turn on themselves, bringing death, not through
strong desire, but through no desire at all. Quench the flame. We must solve
all the problems of the world this way: by making ourselves less than we are.”
This was not the thought of
all of them. It was chiefly the thought of those who believed that there was no
God. Another portion, those who still, in this present age, held onto belief in
a God, proclaimed the following: “We affirm the infinite goodness of God. He is
to be desired above all things. Nothing is of value, when compared with the
goodness of God. Everything is defiled and evil in comparison with God. He is
the only thing that it is worth striving after. And, if he is the only thing
worth striving after, is it not most terrible sin to desire anything but God,
indeed a form of idolatry. Let us, therefore, renounce utterly the world. For
the world hides the face of God from us. Is not death true gain, for in it we
shall see God, freed from the shell of our bodies? Are not funerals the
occasions for greatest joy, knowing that the one dead has gone to God? Is this
not, indeed, why we cremate the bodies of the dead, treating the now empty
shell with all the respect it deserves: with all the respect given to garbage
sent to the incinerator? There is still the commandment of God that forbids
suicide. It is indeed the idolatry of worshiping freedom from pain. Freedom
from pain is nothing compared to the absolute desirability of God. But, there
is great value in the fast. In this do we not teach the body its place,
subservient to the soul? Let us, therefore, join in this great fast, holding
God as the only thing worthy of our desire, mortifying the flesh, denying the
world, and bringing us, in death, away from these mortal shells that are our
bodies and into the very presence of God.”
And so it had begun, the Great
Renunciation. Stores where food could be bought closed for lack of customers,
plentiful food lining the shelves. And very soon people began dying.
Communication ceased across the world, people drawing into themselves,
unresponsive on account of their hunger. Thus a great quiet came upon the
world. No music filled the air, for what was music but the most disembodied of
desires. The lights went out, for there was nothing to power them. Wild beasts
began to rove the cities, devouring those they came across with no resistance.
The man continued down the
street. He found a table at an abandoned café, and sat down. He took from his
bag a small loaf of bread, and began to eat. Growing thirsty, he drew from his
bag a bottle, filled with wine. Pouring it into a glass, he began to drink.
Soon, a woman walked up to the table, and joined him in this small feast. This
man and woman were engaged to be married. Soon another man, a priest at a
nearby parish, joined them. Last of all, a young student joined the party.
These four, alone among human beings, were eating. Soon they began talking, and
laughter was heard among them. The student expressed great philosophies. The
priest talked of God. The couple talked of their plans to be married and have a
family. The man took from his bag a small instrument, and began to play a tune
upon it. Its sound filled the air, a lively dance tune.
A swarm of
flies arose several feet away, and then dispersed. Where it had been a person
now stood, seemingly having arisen from the swarm. He had a cheerful face. A
smile stood wide on his lips. I say “smile”, though “sneer” is probably the
better term.
The priest
arose from the table, and asked the smiling apparition who he was.
“I have been called by many names.
Some have called me Mephistopheles. Some have called me Sloth. Others have
named me “the blowing out”, as of a candle or a lamp, and have sought me under
that name. I am the Spirit of Negation. I am the dominion of this age. I seek
the destruction of the world. I seek the abolition of knowledge. Life is my
enemy. I laugh ironically at creators, including the Creator, who only make
what will fall to nothing in the end. I laugh at those who desire to know, for
they can never have true knowledge. They are ever left only with their own vain
imagining. I am the one who shouts an almighty ‘NO’ to the world, whistling in
derision. I am the spirit of mockery, denying simple unironic pleasure to men.”
“Away from us, you spirit of evil,” said the priest, making the sign of the
cross as protection against the demon before them.
“I will go, but I will tempt you
first. If then you still wish me to depart, I will. When the Creator came to
this earth, before he began to teach, he fasted for forty days in the desert,
alone among men in keeping from bread and drink. There he was met by a dread
and intelligent spirit, who tempted him with food and miracle and power. You
alone among men have spent these forty days eating, while all others have
fasted. Thus I, a laughing and ironic spirit, have come to tempt you with
famine and disbelief and renunciation.”
“If it is God’s will, we will
endure these tests. But we shall be faithful unto Christ, even to the end,” the
four of them said.
The Spirit
of Negation then arose, and placed his hand upon the priest. At that moment the
priest knew he had the power to transform objects into whatever form he desired,
through the power of this laughing Spirit.
“You are a priest. You will have heard the arguments from
those of human beings who still believe in God. How indeed can you stand there,
knowing that your allegiance is to God alone, and still partake in these
pleasures which you have here before you, bread and wine. How can you so value
something that is not of absolute value? Take then, this bread and wine, and
with the power I have given you transform them into stones and water. By this
you will show the greatest love for the Creator, for indeed, man does not live
by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
“I will not, for Christ’s sake. For
though he was God himself, he loved the world enough to become a human being,
die, and rise again for its sake. We must indeed have God as our sole object of
desire. We must indeed rightly order the soul so that we desire God above all
others. However, even so, God has given us the world, the goodness of matter
and the body, making it truly good in his resurrection. The body shall be
resurrected, as we affirm when we say the Apostle’s Creed. The body is no mere
shell, as is evidenced by the reverence given to the body by the fact that God
himself took on a body, and when he rose, rose in that very body. In that body,
in that flesh and blood, we live. I will transform this bread and wine, but not
by the power you have given me and not in the manner you desire. ‘For as often
as you eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he
come.’ I shall therefore, here and now, perform a Mass, by the power granted me
by the laying on of hands from the apostles and given them by Christ, not from
your subtle magic, making this bread and wine the body and blood of Christ. God
has here given us back the world through our love for him, for he himself
becomes the substance of bread and wine, the core of community, which ever has
its root in the sharing of common meals at a common table with other people. By
this means do we the Church become the Body of Christ. And water I also can
transform into the very means of salvation, the very river of Death through
which we walk with Christ, in Baptism.”
Then, facing east, he took the
bread and the wine, and blessed them. The engaged couple and the student knelt,
facing the same direction, as the priest brought the blessed Eucharist to them,
placing the bread on their tongues and guiding the cup of wine to each of their
lips.
The Spirit
of Negation then brought them in an instant to the height of a tall cliff.
Jutting out from the edge of the cliff was a thin sliver of rock, just wide
enough to walk upon. Engraved on a stone next to this sliver of rock were these
words, in a script more beautiful than any penman among humans, jinn, or angels
could have written: “Submit your images here, dare to step out, and they will
be made real. Thus promises the Spirit of Truth.”
“You, Student, see the writing
upon the stone. You have devoted your life to seeking after and desiring
knowledge. And what do you have to show for it? You have mere images,
representations, partial languages that will be ever supplanted by better ones.
You have no final vocabulary to describe the world. You will never have knowledge.
How could you? The purpose you have built your life around is, in the end,
hopeless. You long for certainty, yet none is given. Indeed, God may, in
heaven, provide you with the right answers, but for now, you are left with the
imaginations of your mind. There is nothing that can bridge that gap between
your mind and the world. You see this outcropping before you. It does not
exist. It is too long and thin to be supportable from the side of this cliff,
as you well know from your study of physics. It is an illusion, and the promise
on the stone is a lie. Nothing can make mere representations real. You will be
left ever with opinions.”
“But I, as Spirit of Negation,
have another conflict with you. You claim that it is worth it to continue
living, and you ground this in some philosophy. You say that, deep down things,
there is a purpose and final aim of all that is. One of my philosophers has
pondered the question of why anything at all should exist, rather than merely
nothing. You have dared to answer that there are things rather than nothing
because it is Good that there should be something. How terrible an answer that
is. You believe that there is some Good, even beyond Being (and thus out of any
possible direct knowledge), that is the very purpose of all that is. Prove it!
Show me this Goodness beyond all Being, and I shall believe. Show me that not
all desire is ultimately temporary and unfulfilled, and I shall desire this
Highest of all Goods. But no, you cannot. For life is merely pain, either of
boredom in not having pleasures or boredom in having them. Your optimism is
groundless, without root. It is the dream of a child, unwilling to face the
dark face of reality face to face. So this much is said: all is purposeless,
and you are left without either Knowledge or Goodness. How have you tortured
others, constraining them by your dogmatism. I know the secret that you hide in
yourself: all you want is power, and insist upon these delusions of ‘knowledge’
and ‘goodness’ as a mere means to control others. How base. How truly evil. And
in your mind you have this great imaginary friend whom you call God, and you
have made him the very font of “knowledge” and “goodness”. You have imagined an
almighty tyrant in your own image, and this you call a ‘Spirit of Truth’.”
“Cast aside this evil, cast
aside yourself. Throw yourself from this cliff in recognition of the
meaninglessness of the world, in repudiation of these hateful doctrines of “knowledge”
and “the highest good”. You know in your heart of hearts that these words
written on this stone lie, for this outcropping of stone is impossible, and
there is no Spirit of Truth.”
The student
stood there, trembling at these pronouncements, fearing indeed that she had
been wrong her whole life. And then she spoke:
“I cannot
contradict you. It is impossible, by all that is humanly known, that images
should be made real, that knowledge should be possible, that desire should have
some final resting place. You say that it is the dream of a child. So be it,
then. However, nevertheless, I will
stand by the child’s dream against all the ‘adult’ realities you offer me. I
will stand with the Spirit of Truth even if there is no Truth. Such a dream
world would be far better than the real one you offer. I turn your own power
against you, O Spirit of Negation. For you would negate the world, bring it to
nothing. Well then, I shall negate your nothing-world; I shall negate the
negation. I laugh at you, and pity you and the world you think you have brought
the real one to. I hunger, and there is bread. I thirst, and there is drink. My
soul cries for Goodness and Knowledge, the realization of images, and there is
Goodness and Knowledge, and the realization of images. These desires are the
very promises of the Spirit of Truth, of whom Christ promised that ‘when he,
the Spirit of Truth is come, he will guide you into all truth’. This promise I
trust. This stone bids me to dare to lay my images before God, and he will give
to them the fire of reality. I will so dare. I will thus do what you have
asked, stepping out beyond the cliff, but not in the in the manner you desired.
For I will walk out on the outcropping, trusting that it exists.”
And so the
student, still trembling, still fearing lest she be wrong, stepped out onto the
outcropping. Though all the thoughts of her mind pictured the outcropping
breaking off, leaving her to fall to the rocks below, she continued. It was truly
there, it did not break. As she reached its end, a peace filled her mind. She
knew that she would not jump. She had believed, even though she had seen. She
knew the very love and presence of he who is the Good himself, for the Spirit
of Truth entered her, bridging her mind with the world. For the world dwelled
in the Spirit of Truth, and the Spirit of Truth dwelled in her, and thus she
knew the world, having given it up for the sake of Christ.
She walked
back, and was greeted by the other three. The sneer on the face of the Spirit
of Negation had diminished, but he had one more temptation to offer. In an
instant they stood at the top of a high mountain. From here the Spirit of
Negation showed them all the kingdoms of the world. He then turned to the
engaged couple, and spoke.
“Here are
all of the kingdoms of the world. These your parents Adam and Eve gave to the
devil when they fell, and yet they were regained by mankind in the sacrifice of
Christ. These are yours, and more besides, for you are now the very judges and
kings even of angels. All of these kingdoms, at present, are populated by those
under my command. Soon, therefore, there shall be no human life upon this
earth, for the fast is continuing. You two alone have the ability to continue
the human race. But, I will ask you as I have asked the other two, is the
suffering worth it? Is life worth the suffering that it contains? Look at these
kingdoms, the pain, misery, suffering, death, tyranny, torture, war, and all
other evils that have arisen from the continuation of human beings. Is this a
world to bring a child into? You plan to marry, and to have children. Do you
really choose to continue life itself, despite all the evils that will be
present in any society of human beings? And did not Saint Paul himself argue in
favor of remaining unmarried, for by that means one could give one’s focus truly
and properly to God, without the distractions of spouse and children. Do you
really love your potential children, by condemning them to this suffering, by condemning
them to existence? How tyrannical of you to wish it so. Or if you do, do you
really want the inconvenience of a child to what you desire to do? Such needy
creatures, infants and children. Separate, and set up lives for yourselves of devotion
and prayer to God, and cast these abominable kingdoms of the world into the
abyss from which they came.”
So spoke
the Spirit of Negation, tempting the couple to the destruction of all of the
kingdoms of the world. Then the couple, engaged to be married, answered:
“We will
indeed, set up a life of devotion and prayer to God. As the priest and student
have already done, we will submit our desires unto God, that he might give back
a hundredfold. But we shall not do so in the manner you desire. Saint Paul did
not condemn marriage for those who are called to it. And indeed, our Lord
worked his first miracle upon this earth for the joy and celebration of a
wedding. Even though it may be impossible that the continuation of life, and
the continuation of will at its root, should lead to anything but suffering, we
say, along with Christ, an almighty ‘YES’ to marriage and to life. For in this
we form the foundational community of the world, the family. For in this we
serve the God who is life. And this life is indeed one of devotion and prayer
to God. And so we say this: we have seen the pain of the world, and we know our
desires, and we offer them up to God, he who created the world in the overflow
of his love: he knows the desire for children. God will, though it be
impossible, make all of this right. We ask, therefore, for the Priest to guide
us even now in joining in marriage, which is the image of Christ and his
Church, in which we will have knowledge of each other as united by the power of
of God, and in which we shall serve the Lord of Life by not bringing the
destruction of the human race.
And there
and then the marriage ceremony took place. Crowns were brought forth, and they
were made the King and Queen of this new society that was there produced, the
new family, from which all humanity thereafter would continue. Though the flies
still buzzed around the corpses of those who had negated the world, here there
was the affirmation of God and his goodness. And after, such music was played
in celebration of the new community there formed.
At this sight, The Spirit of
Negation let forth a mighty scream, knowing that his plan for the destruction
of the world had truly been destroyed. He then fled, vanishing into the
shadows.
Several
months later, these four alone remained alive of all human beings. They did
what they could for the proper burial of those dead around them. They tended
and named the animals, grew food from the earth, learned of the world that God
had made for them, and continued the two great societies of the world, the
Church and the Family. In this time the season of Lent arrived, and in it they
fasted, not unto death and not of all food, but a partial fast unto the right
ordering of the soul. And then Easter arrived, in which was celebrated the
victory of life over death, and then they had a great Feast, all the more sweet
for their having fasted.
The time came for the son of the
new King and Queen of the world to be born, the young Prince of the human
family. Here, at least, did life continue. He was baptized by the Priest with
the transformed waters, bringing him into the body of the Church. Indeed, by
this water, and by the bread and wine made Divine Flesh and Blood, had the
Extinguisher been extinguished.
