Here is a difficult film but notable for the subject it touches: “Is it legitimate to oppose abuse, in front of the aggressor and the victim?” Or, “is there a difference between peace and non-violence?”, “What to do when a war breaks out?”. Let’s talk about a film that still is available for free on Raiplay: Malmkrog. The Romanian director Cristi Puiu he made it by describing three conversations that take place in a Russian villa, while outside comes the distant noise of marching armies. The text from which the film is based is called “Three dialogues on war, progress and the end of history”, and was published in 1899 by the Russian writer Vladimir Soloviev (better to use the spelling | Solov’ëv |, remembering that the correct pronunciation of the final “ev” is | Sòloviov |), avoiding the false pronunciation | iev |.
Solov’ëv is a decisive figure of modern Russian spirituality, with Pavel Florensky, refined theologian and scientist, author of a splendid essay on icons. The “Three dialogues” testify to an incredible depth of thought: the problem faced by the protagonists is dissected so mercilessly as to drag us to the parts of Friedrich Nietzsche. But in this case we are talking about a writer who has touched on sectarian adventurism andextremism sometimes hallucinatory of the Russian soul. We are talking about a deeply rooted spirituality in a society in which Leninist rationalism itself has declined in religious terms, with the mummy of Lenin and the theatricality of the Soviet and Putinian liturgy. The orthodoxy of the church led by the Kyrillwhich years ago was praised by all Western journalists and politicians (but not by myself: here you can read my article for Opinion of 2010), is nothing compared to Philokalia and the thousand other metareligious (or hyper-religious, which is almost the same) expressions that have produced masterpieces, and at times justified horrors (such as Kyrill, and not only). If we wanted to resume today the discourse opened by Solov’ëv and the director Cristi Puiu, combining the secular thread of the discourse on peace with that of the Gospels, one could observe that throughout the Bible there is a common thread.
What is the “peace“For non-ideological or catechized Christians and Jews? It is peace with God. Without making peace with God it is not possible for man to make peace with man. What is needed, however, is a journey of continuous individual introspection and improvement, which he saw in pietism one of his best maps. The book of Job it is an excellent example of contrast and pacification, since it even has a procedural structure towards God of a Dostoevsky style, since it deals with the suffering of a just person. Occurrences of the word |peace| in Bible there are almost 300. In the Tōrāh is used in salutation (shalom is the historical social greeting of the Jewish population) and in expressions such as “go in peace”. In the books of the prophets and in the New Testament, on the other hand, the word acquires a theological content. In Isaiah 9: 5 the Eternal Father is found to be the “Prince of Peace”. In chapter 32:17 we read: “The fruit of justice will be peace, and the effect of justice will be tranquility and security forever.” There Justice it is a secular anticipation of the figure of Jesus, the one sent by God who abolishes rites and the priesthood, indicating an objective of coexistence on earth, based on peoples of just people. Justice itself is a divine gift in social life.
If one has a broad vision of justice, one could perhaps arrive at the universal peace of the philosopher Immanuel Kant, unfortunately kicked (as the philosophers remembered Theodor Adorno And Max Horkheimer in “Dialectic of the Enlightenment”) In the Nazi, Stalinist and Maoist concentration camps. The inner and mature “sense” of justice can help the doubt highlighted by Solov’ëv on the contradiction between non-violence and necessary violence, if the victim’s life is to be saved by killing the aggressor.
“There is no peace for the wicked”Writes Isaiah (48:22). In the Gospels the theme is complicated. In the meantime, do it clarity: the only commandment of love does not exclude the use of force: the apostle Peter carried the sword and wounded a man. Jesus in Matthew 10:34 states: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but the sword ”. In Christian vision the separation between God and the universe has given humanity the freedom to distinguish good from evil. Being out of the garden of Eden (the life of the hunter-gatherer hominids who worked a tenth of the current working time), is not only a “hunt”, but a birth to a life of Nature in which the lamb does not graze with the wolf, but is subject to cruel laws of the strongest, or to random and undeserved misfortunes. The exit of Eden also marks the human path from being “animal creatures” to being “children of God”.
Translation errors and more
In Luke 2:14 we read: “Glory to God in the highest places e peace on earth to men of good will“. Unfortunately, an ideologized clergy changed the translation of the Greek lemma εὐδοκίας with “those whom God lovesWhich is falsify the text. The verb δοκέω means “Have a belief” (or an opinion, see the derivative noun “doxa”). If preceded by the preposition εὐ, it becomes “to have a good conviction”. There is no possible misunderstanding. Translating εὐδοκίας with “the men whom God loves” has no meaning whatsoever, neither in the letter of the Gospel text, nor in its content, which is the opposite. To have “Peace on earth” for those who have a good idea (of the Lord) ”he entrusts to them a free choicethat is, to take the path of peace with God, the only way – for Christianity not declined badly – to obtain peace on earth, which is the path indicated by Jesus.
On the other hand, “Peace to men whom God loves” transforms free human choice into a totally passive inaction. On the other hand, to obtain peace (with God), one must at least “have the intention”: nothing more, nothing less. Therefore, the recent modification in Protestant and Catholic Bibles is a serious translation, ethical, and theological error. I would add that it is – moreover – also a political error which is part of that declination of the “Christian peace” in an oriental way, as in the fundamentalist non-violence of Hinduism Jain. The correct translation of the sentence in the Gospel of Luke it tells us that universal peace is not a free gift: it is the fruit of having “good convictions” linked to the sense of justice of which the prophets write. “Good convictions” which are indicated by Messiah, which cannot be confused with laws or purifying rites. We need an individual path of improvement, which is (or should be) life itself.
Also interesting is a study on the Law as analyzed in the epistles of Paul of Tarsus, which refers to the Mosaic Law, but indirectly also to that Law of Caesar. The Law, according to Paul, serves people and peoples still in their infancy, who need rules and bureaucracy. But when peoples are weaned, they can no longer drink the milk of the Law: they must become subjects of a new sense of justice, which makes them responsible adults. Christ frees from slavery of the Lawadds Paolo. So just a homo novus it could have a form of accomplished peace. Pending this, it will be better to continue to behave according to the laws of liberal democracy, but not according to those of totalitarianism.
Ps: Today in the West there is a new form of cancel culture against Russian art. It is nonsense, apart from sport, in which the ban on participation of Russian athletes serves to avoid serious accidents and scuffles. But boycotting everything Russian is one fascist cultural form, even when applied from the left. It is Mr. P. the infamous, and with him his – unfortunately large and not only Russian – clique.