Karen Armstrong: The Great Transformation

Karen Armstrong: The Great Transformation: The Beginning of Our Religious Traditions (2006; paperback, 2007, Anchor Books)

This is a history of the development of religion in the Axial Age, ranging from 1600 BCE to 220 BCE, with a bit on the subsequent founding of Christianity and Islam. The periods are cut into nine time slices, and each chapter has four sections, one each for China, India, Israel (or Judaism), and Greece (or logos, not exactly a religion).

(pp. xviii-xviv):

This meant that you had to be ready to change. The Axial sages were not interested in providing their disciples with a little edifying uplift, after which they could return with renewed vigor to their ordinary self-centered lives. Their objective was to create an entirely different kind of human being. All the sages preached a spirituality of empathy and compassion; they insisted that people must abandon their egotism and greed, their violence and unkindness. Not only was it wrong to kill another human being; you must not even speak a hostile word or make an irritable gesture. Further, nearly all the Axial sages realized that you could not confine your benevolence to your own people: your concern must somehow extend to the entire world. In fact, when people started to limit their horizons and sympathies, it was another sign that the Axial Age was coming to a close. Each tradition developed its own formulation of the Golden Rule: do not do to others what you would not have done to you. As far as the Axial sages were concerned, respect for the sacred rights of all beings -- not orthodox belief -- was religion. If people behaved with kindness and generosity to their fellows, they could save the world.

We need to rediscover this Axial ethos. In our global village, we can no longer afford a parochial or exclusive vision. We must learn to live and behave as though people in countries remote from our own are as important as ourselves. The sages of the Axial Age did not create their compassionate ethic in idyllic circumstances. Each tradition developed in societies like our own that were torn apart by violence and warfare as never before; indeed, the first catalyst of religious change was usually a principled rejection of the aggression that the sages witnessed all around them. When they started to look for the causes of violence in the psyche, the Axial philosophers penetrated their interior world and began to explore a hitherto undiscovered realm of human experience.

The consensus of the Axial Age is an eloquent testimony to the unanimity of the spiritual quest of the human race. The Axial peoples all found that the compassionate ethic worked. All the great traditions that were created at this time are in agreement about the supreme importance of charity and benevolence, and this tells us something important about our humanity. To find that our own faith is so deeply in accord with others is an affirming experience. Without departing from our own tradition, therefore, we can learn from others how to enhance our particular pursuit of the empathic life.

(pp. 198-200):

The prophet Jeremiah was not deported, because he had consistently supported the Babylonians, realizing that rebellion was utter folly. Some prophets thought that because Yahweh dwelt in his temple, Jerusalem could not be destroyed, but Jeremiah told them that this was dangerous nonsense. It was useless to chant "This is the temple of Yahweh!" like a magic spell. If the people did not mend their ways, Yahweh would destroy the city. This was treason, and Jeremiah was almost executed, but after his acquittal he continued to wander through the streets, uttering his grim oracles. His name has become a byword for exaggerated pessimism, but Jeremiah was not being "negative." He was right. His unflinching and courageous stand expressed one of the essential principles of the Axial Age: people must see things as they really are. They could not function spiritually or practically if they buried their heads in the sand and refused to face the truth, however painful and frightening this might be.

(p. 208):

In his meditation on Yahweh Sham, Ezekiel expended a great deal of time on detailed discussion of sacrifice, vestments, and the measurements and proportions of the temple. In times of social uncertainty, anthropologists tell us, ritual acquirse a new importance. Among displaced people, in particular, there is pressure to maintain the boundaries that separate the group from others, and a new concern about purity, pollution, and mixed marriage, which help the community to resist the majority culture. Certainly Ezekiel's vision showed a fortress mentality. No foreigners were allowed in his imaginary city; there were walls and gates everywhere, barricading the holiness of Israel from the threatening outside world.

(pp. 242-243):

Like other philosophers of the Axial Age, Confucius felt profoundly alienated from his time. He was convinced that the root cause of the current disorder in China was neglect of the traditional rites that had governed the conduct of the principalities for so long. In the days of Yao and Shun and, later, under the early Zhou, he believed, the Way of Heaven had been practiced perfectly and human beings had lived together harmoniously. The li had encouraged a spirit o moderation and generosity. But these days, most princes never gave the dao a second thought. They were too busy chasing after luxury and pursuing their own selfish ambitions. The old world was crumbling, without anything of equal value emerging to take its place. In Confucius's view, the best solution was to return to the traditions that had worked so well in the past.

Confucius was horrified by the constant warfare that threatened to obliterate the small principalities. Yet, to his dismay, they did not seem fully alert to the danger. Lu could not compete militarily with a large state like Qi, but instead of marshaling all its resources to meet this external threat, the baronial families -- all motivated by greed and vainglory -- were fighting a self-destructive civil war. If the "three families" had observed the li correctly, this state of affairs could never have come to pass. In the past, the rites had helped to curb the danger of violence and vendetta, and had mitigated the horror of battle. They must do so again. As a ritualist, Confucius had spent far more time on the study of ceremony and the classics than on the princely arts of archery and chariot driving. He now refined the role of the junzi: the true gentleman should be a scholar, not a warrior. Instead of fighting for power, the junzi must study the rules of correct behavior, as prescribed by the traditional li of family, political, military, and social life.

(p. 247):

Confucius was one of the first people to make it crystal clear that holiness was inseparable from altruism. He used to say: "My Way has one thread that runs right through it." There were no abstruse metaphysics or complicated liturgical speculations; everything always came back to the importance of treating other people with absolute sacred respect. "Out Master's Way," said one of his disciples, "is nothing but this: doing-your-best-for-others [zhong] and consideration [shu]." The Way was nothing but a dedicated, ceaseless effort to nourish the holiness of others, who in return would bring out the sanctity inherent in you. "Is there any single saying that one can act upon all day and every day?" Zigong asked his master. "Perhaps the saying about consideration [shu]," said Confucius. "Never do to other what you would not like them to do to you." Shu should really be translated as "likening to oneself." Others have called it the Golden Rule; it was the essential religious practice and was far more difficult than it appeared. Zigong once claimed that he had mastered this virtue: "What I do not want others to do to me, I have no desire to do to others," he announced proudly. One can almost see Confucius's wry but affectionate smile, as he shook his head. "Oh! You have not quite got to that point yet."

(pp. 248-249):

If the prince behaved toward other rulers and states in this way there could be no brutal wars. The Golden Rule would make it impossible to invade or devastate somebody else's territory, because no prince would like this to happen to his own state. Rulers could not exploit the common pepole, because they would see themselves as copractitioners in a beautiful ceremony and, therefore, "like themselves." Opposition and hatred would melt away. Confucius could not explain what ren was, but he could tell people how to acquire it. Shu taught you to use your own feelings as a guide to your treatment of others.

(p. 255):

By contrast, the oracles of Second Isaiah had a harsh message for the nations who opposed Israel in any way. They would be "destroyed and brought to nothing," scattered like chaff on the wind. Even those foreign rulers who helped Israel would have to fall prostrate on the ground before the Israelites, licking the dust at their feet. In these passages, Israel's role was not to be a humble servant of humanity, but to demonstrate the mighty power of Yahweh, the warrior god. There seem to be two contending visions in this text, and perhaps there were two schools of thought in the exiled community at this point. The servant triumphed by nonviolence and self-effacement; he saw the sufferings of Israel as subjection of others. One ethos was profoundly in tune with the Axial Age; the other straining to break free from it. This tension would continue within Israel.

(p. 274):

But Athens was not learning the lessons of history. For all its fine talk of freedom, the city was resented throughout the Greek world as an oppressive power. The Delian League of free city-states had become in fact the Athenian empire; any polis that tried to break away was brutally subjugated and forced to pay tribute. In 438, the Parthenon, the magnificent temple of Athena on the Acropolis, had been completed, but it had been built by humaniliating and exploiting fellow Greeks. The new shrine, which dominated the city landscape, was an assertion of communal pride and supremacy, yet Pericles warned the citizens that they had embarked on a dangerous course. It would be impossible for Athens to quash a widespread revolt. Its empire had become a trap. It had probably been wrong to establish it, but it would be dangerous to let it go, because Athens was now hated by the people whose lives it controlled.

(pp. 321-322):

Mozi's message was utilitarian and pragmatic, yet he nurtured utopian dreams. He believed that it was possible to persuade human beings to love instead of hate. As with Confucius, the single thread that held his philosophy together was ren, but he believed that Confucius had distorted this compassionate ethic by limiting it to the family. In his view, the clan spirit of the aristocracy was at the root of many of the current problems: family chauvinism, competitions for prestige, vendettas, and sumptuary expenses. He wanted to replace the egotism of kinship with a generalized altruism. Everybody must feel toward all others exactly what he felt for his own people. "Others must be regarded like the self," he said; this love must be "all-embracing and exclude nobody." Reform must come from the rulers: the only way to stop the Chinese from killing one another in these appalling wars was to persuade them to practice jian ai.

(pp. 398-399):

Not only was Lord Shang unconcerned about the morality of the prince; he believed that a virtuous sage would make a disastrous king. "A state that uses good people to govern the wicked will be plagued by disorder and destroyed," he declared. "A state that uses the wicked to govern the good always enjoys order and becomes strong." The Confucians, who preached peace, were dangerous. If everybody practiced the li, they would become so moderate and restrained that a prince would never persuade anybody to fight. Lord Shang was openly contemptuous of the Golden Rule. A truly effective prince would inflict upon the enemy exactly what he would not wish to have done to his own troops. "If in war you perform what the enemy would not venture to perform, you will be strong," he told his officials. "If in enterprises you undertake what the enemy would be ashamed to do, you have the advantage."

(pp. 454-455):

Rabbi Akiba, who was killed by the Romans in 132 CE, taught that the commandment "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" was "the great principle of the Torah." To show disrespect to any human being who had been created in God's image was seen by the rabbis as a denial of God himself and tantamount to atheism. Murder was a sacrilege: "Scripture instructs us that whatsoever sheds human blood is regarded as if he had diminished the divine image." God had created only one man at the beginning of time to teach us that destroying only one human life was equivalent to annihilating the entire world, while to save a life redeemed the whole of humanity. To humiliate anybody -- even a slave or a non-Jew -- was equivalent to murder, a sacrilegious defacing of God's image. To spread a scandalous, lying story about another person was to deny the existence of God. Religion was inseparable from the practice of habitual respect to all other human beings. You could not worship God unless you practiced the Golden Rule and honored your fellow humans, whoever they were.

(p. 459):

The gospels, written between 70 and about 100 CE, follow Paul's line. They did not present Jesus teaching doctrines, such as the Trinity or original sin, which would later become de rigueur. Instead they showed him practicing what Mozi might have called jian ai, "concern for everybody." To the dismay of some of his contemporaries, Jesus regularly consorted with "sinners" -- prostitutes, lepers, epileptics, and those who were shunned for collecting the Roman taxes. His behavior often recalled the outreach of the Buddha's "immeasurables," because he seemed to exclude nobody from his radius of concern. He insisted that this followers should not judge others. The people who would be admitted to the kingdom would be those who practiced practical compassion, feeding the hungry and visiting people who were sick or in prison. His followers should give their wealth to the poor. They should not trumpet their good deeds, but live gentle, self-effacing lives.

(pp. 463-464):

During this dark time, some of the revelations of the Qur'an instructed Muslims about conduct on the battlefield. Islam was not a religion of ahimsa, but the Qur'an permitted only defensive warfare. It condemned war as "an awesome evil," and forbade Muslims to initiate hostilities. Aggression was strictly prohibited; there must be no preemptive strikes. But sometimes it was regrettably necessary to fight in order to preserve decent values. It was permissible to defend yourself if you were attacked, and while the war lasted, Muslims must fight wholeheartedly, pursuing the enemy vigorously in order to bring things back to normal. But the second the enemy sued for peace, hostilities must cease, and Muslims must accept any terms that were offered. War was not the best way of dealing with conflict. It was better to sit down and reason with the enemy, as long as arguments were conducted "in the most kindly manner." It was much better to forgive, and be forbearing, "sine God is with those who are patient in adversity."

The word jihad did not mean "holy war." Its primary meaning was "struggle." It was difficult to put God's will into practice in a cruel, dangerous world, and Muslims were commanded to make an effort on all fronts: social, economic, intellectual, and spiritual. Sometimes it might be necessary to fight, but an important and highly influential tradition puts warfare in a subordinate position. It is said that on returning from a battle, Muhammad told his followers: "We are leaving the Lesser Jihad [the war] and returning to the Greater Jihad," the infinitely more momentous and urgent challenge to reform our own societies and our own hearts. Later Muslim law elaborated on these Qur'anic directives. Muslims were forbidden to fight except in self-defense; retaliation must be strictly proportionate; it was not permitted to make war on a country where Muslims were able to rpactice their religion freely; civilian deaths must be avoided; no trees could be cut down; and buildings must not be burned.

posted 2008-06-21