The City and the City

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.
If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; yea if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.

In the Bible, cities are used as icons of cultures, peoples, faiths, sins and also as types of each other. In the Revelation of St. John, it is Babylon that stands as a type of Rome in particular, and worldly power in general; following St. John (who was, in turn, following the prophets of Israel), Christians of all ages have used “Babylon” as a type of corrupt and twisted secular power. The defeat of Babylon is followed by the revelation of the New Jerusalem, the Heavenly City, where God dwells with man.

In the 5th century, St. Augustine saw history as a conflict between the City of God and the City of Man. De Civitate Dei, however, was not simply a defense of Christianity against the pagan charge of its leading to the conquest of Rome by the Goths, but also a defense of the spiritual content of Christianity in the face of its newfound political power. While the eschatological nature of the conflict between to the two cities was certainly a theme of Augustine’s, so was the theme of their interaction.

It is in this interaction that I am interested in exploring with this site.

Tertullian asked: “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem, or the Academy with the Church?” Athens was the icon of pagan philosophy, and Jerusalem of the revealed religion of Christ. Tertullian answered this question in the negative, but his view has been in no way normative; the Church of God has found partisans of both extremes and of countless middle paths ever since. In the works of St. Gregory Palamas, the Church finds perhaps its last great exposition of this conflict, but the answers require ever-new application. How does Christianity converse with the world in the first days of the post-modern era? Can we find medicine in the flesh of our snakes?* What has Athens to do with Jerusalem, today?

These interactions of cities–not only the ones mentioned, but Rome & Constantinople, Antioch & Alexandria, etc.–form the vocabulary and space within which we discuss theology, politics and art. Even in the modern world, we are accustomed to speak of capitals as not only representing their nations, but in some cases as representing ideologies, as in the Cold War, when the battle was between Washington and Moscow. And in the life of the Church itself, an accident of history (sustained by the Holy Spirit!) means that bishops are identified with cities, and cities (ideally) with their bishops.

Between the City and the City, we find our lives.

I write here as a layman of the Orthodox Church, which I believe to be the Church which holds all the marks of the Creed. Basil writes as a layman of the Anglican Church. We both write, therefore, in the position of struggling Christians, not as teachers or authorities of any sort. If my writing helps myself organize and direct my thoughts, it has done its purpose, any assistance to others would be a gift from God, not myself.

The motto of this blog is from St. Ambrose’s Of the Christian Faith: “It is not by logic that it has pleased God to save His people.”** This is not meant as a comment on the question of Tertullian, but is more of a reminder to myself of the limits of these sorts of discourses. In an age such as our own, when people from near-incommensurable worldviews interact frequently, a certain amount of humility regarding the role of discourse is recommended. (More humorously, the motto could be a line attributed to Mark Twain: “Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.”)

I hope that the somewhat formal style of this “cornerstone” post will not define the limits of our conversation here, but I do hope its vision of cities defines the spirit of it.

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*”Is there anything of use to us in this philosophy? Certainly. For just as there is much therapeutic value even in the substances obtained from the flesh of serpents… so there is something of benefit to be had even from the profane philosophers–but somewhat as in a mixture of honey and hemlock.” –St. Gregory Palamas, The Triads

**I first encountered it in the following line from John Henry Newman’s Apologia Pro Vita Sua, and immediately read the work of Ambrose’s from which it came: “And then I felt altogether the force of the maxim of St. Ambrose*, ‘Non in dialectica complacuit Deo salvum facere populum suum;’–I had a great dislike of paper logic. For myself, it was not logic that carried me on; as well one might say that the quicksilver in the barometer changes the weather.” [emphasis mine–E]