The Courtesy of Deep Heaven, Part VII: Decorum

A brother who had sinned was turned out of the church by the priest; Abba Bessarion got up and went with him, saying, ‘I, too, am a sinner.’

—The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, trans. Benedicta Ward

Do ye not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple? and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar? Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel. But I have used none of these things: neither have I written these things, that it should be so done unto me … Verily, when I preach the gospel, I make the gospel of Christ without charge, that I abuse not my power in the gospel.

—The First Letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians, IX.xiii-xv, xviii

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After a long intermission, I’d like now to conclude my series on the Anglican patrimony, the specially English spirit that the Ordinariates bring into Catholicism. Finding the root of that patrimony in precision, and moving from there to magnanimity, irony, hierarchy, republic, and largesse, I turn to the final quality on my original list, what I have chosen to call decorum.

It was difficult to come up with a name for this quality (decorum is by no means a satisfying one), because it’s rarely exhibited and still more rarely spoken about in American culture, and I don’t know that it’s much more commonly discussed in British culture. Nevertheless its flavor is quite distinctive; its peculiar blend of humility and sensitivity and tact is, to my mind, a uniquely charming and obvious expression of mutual submission among Christians.

A vulgar way of putting it would be that decorum means never pulling rank; a marginally smarter, still vague way of putting it would be that decorum means taking no advantage of the powers you possess through hierarchy. But, because decorum (as I here use the term) is so unfamiliar, it may actually be easier to approach through a negation.

For many years, I’ve been bothered by the use of the Filioque in the Creed1 at Mass. Now, to be clear, I confess and indeed insist quite fervently on it, from a doctrinal point of view—I don’t see how anyone could admit that the Son is the image of the invisible God and the express image of his person without admitting the Filioque too; and it seems like the most natural way to interpret our Lord’s saying that As the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself. But the manner in which the Filioque was made binding upon the Church is, I believe, deeply objectionable; the high courtesy of the Church should have forbidden it. Let me explain.

The Nicene Creed, as the name implies, originated at the First Council of Nicæa in 325, and was altered slightly at the First Council of Constantinople in 381, to give a more explicit confession of the deity of the Holy Ghost. It was further agreed, at the Council of Ephesus fifty years later, that it is unlawful for any man to bring forward, or to write, or to compose a different Faith as a rival to that established by the holy Fathers assembled with the Holy Ghost in Nicæa. This could be read simply as a proscription of heresy, but it was taken back then, and for some centuries afterwards, to include a ban on any and all rewording of the Creed as it had been inherited from Constantinople; or, at minimum, that additions to the Creed had to be approved by the whole Church, gathered in council.

The reason the Filioque was put into the Creed at all was to strengthen the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity against Arian and Semi-Arian theologies,2 which remained popular among many of the Christianized Goths who ruled formerly Roman territories like Gaul, Spain, and much of the Balkans. Its earliest attestation in the Creed probably belongs to the Council of Toledo in 589, and was likely aimed at the Visigothic ruling classes of Spain, who long remained Arian. The Popes refused the interpolation, not doctrinally but liturgically, for centuries: in 810, Leo III, who pointedly declined to be pressured even by Charlemagne, had the Creed inscribed in its traditional wording in both Greek and Latin on silver plates and posted publicly in Rome. It wasn’t until the eleventh century that the Bishops of Rome finally introduced the Filioque into their recitation and chanting of the Creed.

Now, I am a fervent believer in the Catholic doctrine of the Papacy: when Protestantism had become intellectually and spiritually untenable for me, I considered Eastern Orthodoxy for a time, but ultimately I went to Rome, not despite but because of her understanding of the Petrine office. The Orthodox appeal to councils, lacking a defined reference point for which councils are to be considered authentic, was finally unsatisfying to me. Both the inner logic of epistemic authority and the actual words of Christ to Peter seemed to me to demand a single locus of authority and unity. So I do believe the Popes had the power to insert the Filioque without summoning an ecumenical council.

However. That doesn’t make pulling rank attractive behavior, and authority in Scripture pretty much always means authority to serve and to suffer for others, authority to wash the feet of the rest; God did not exempt himself from that model of leadership. It was a breach of courtesy of the first order that the Popes added the Filioque without resorting to a council; and courtesy, reciprocal submission, taking no advantage of one’s powers, is the spirit of decorum. Decorum would not deprive its fellows even of their ego, if it could help it; to cause pain or offense to another, even for a good and necessary reason, is dismaying to the decorous mind (though, if the mind is committed to precision as well, it’s still ready to do dismaying things when it has to).

For our powers (whatever they are) were not given to us for our own benefit. They were given to us for the practice of largesse, exchange, mutual self-gift. That’s why we’re annoyed when people pull rank in whatever way—not because they’re transgressing their rights (or if they are, what they’re doing is bullying, not pulling rank), but because they’re transgressing the delicate, usually unspoken code of respect that is a narrower and lovelier thing than simple justice. It’s offensive for the same reason honesty without tact is offensive.

And what makes this quality specially English, you may ask? Well, by way of illustration, look at the royal family: legally, the Queen of England has a quite fantastic amount of legal power, of which she makes no use whatever. And why? because there would be a revolution? because no one would listen? because she lacks confidence? No; I tell you with full confidence, she doesn't exercise her power because she is an Englishwoman.

Decorum thus embraces and perfects the other qualities of the Anglican patrimony I’ve addressed: the precision which adheres only to the truth; the magnanimity and largesse that delight in giving; the hierarchical and republican sensibilities that delight in respecting; and the irony that delights in the contrast between all these ideals and the actualities of humanity, yet laughs with affection rather than scorn. All these paradoxical brilliances are caught, dimmed, and harmonized in the stained glass of the decorous mind.

Nativity window, Chester Cathedral, England

Ere by the spheares time was created, thou

Wast in his minde, who is thy Sonne, and Brother;

Whom thou conceiv’st, conceiv’d; yea thou art now

Thy Makers maker, and thy Fathers mother;

Thou’hast light in darke; and shutst in little roome,

Immensity cloystered in thy deare wombe.

—John Donne, Annunciation ll. 9-14

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1The Latin word Filioque literally means ‘and from the Son,’ and refers to the Catholic doctrine that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son as well as the Father, in distinction from the Orthodox assertion that He proceeds only from the Father. This was at first a contrast between Latin and Greek styles of theology, eventually becoming a quarrel, and finally one of the principal reasons (or pretexts) for the Great Schism, which arose in 1054 between the Patriarch Michael Cærularius and Pope Leo IX—or, more exactly, his successor Victor II. The papal excommunication of the Patriarch was delivered after Leo’s death, and was thus canonically invalid (since the cardinal who delivered it was there as a legate of Leo IX, not in his own right), whereas the Patriarch’s responding excommunication of the Pope and removal of his name from the communion diptychs (intrinsically dubious though these actions were, since there was little precedent for Constantinople to judge Rome and plenty of precedent for Rome’s claims of universal jurisdiction) would therefore have applied to Victor II, who acceded the next year.

2Arianism was the doctrine that the Son was not God, properly speaking, but the highest created being and the one through whom God the Father made everything else. Semi-Arianism was a version of this theology which stressed the resemblance between the Son and the Father, an attempt at compromising with the theological accent of the orthodox party without actually surrendering Arian belief. Although condemned at both Nicæa and Constantinople in the fourth century, Arianism long flourished in many parts of the Roman Empire, and was brought by Arian missionaries to the Germanic peoples of northern Europe, among whom it throve for centuries; it was only effectively stamped out in the seventh century.

The Courtesy of Deep Heaven, Part VI: Largesse

‘Would I push my burden on to anybody else?’

‘Not if you insist on making a universe for yourself,’ he answered. ‘If you want to disobey and refuse the laws that are common to us all, if you want to live in pride and division and anger, you can. But if you will be part of the best of us, and live and laugh and be ashamed with us, then you must be content to be helped. You must give your burden up to someone else, and you must carry someone else’s burden. I haven’t made the universe and it isn’t my fault. But I’m sure that this is a law of the universe, and not to give up your parcel is as much to rebel as not to carry another’s. You’ll find it quite easy if you let yourself do it.’

‘And what of my self-respect?’ she said.

He laughed at her with a tender mockery. ‘O, if we are of that kind!’ he exclaimed. ‘If you want to respect yourself, if to respect yourself you must go clean against the nature of things, if you must refuse the Omnipotence in order to respect yourself, though why you should want so extremely to respect yourself is more than I can guess, why, go on and respect.’

—Charles Williams, Descent Into Hell

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I pass now to the next aspect of the Anglican patrimony of courtesy, to a quality that I have called Largesse. I might, following my master Williams, have called it Exchange, and in general I think that is the better name. However, I chose the other term for two reasons. One is that exchange, in American English, is (to my ears anyway) a rather businesslike word: economical, impersonal, a little cold. Nothing could be further from what Williams meant by the word; another of its synonyms in his terminology is the practice of Substituted Love. This leads me into my second reason for using the word largesse: exchange, in Williams’ writings, could go very far indeed—he thought it possible, ordinary even, that any two souls could, under God, make an agreement that one would accept the pain of worry or fear or even physical suffering of the other, and the burden of those experiences would really be transferred. I can make little comment on this, since my only experience with such substitution is of that kind realized by the Incarnation and the Crucifixion, which, while glorious, shine with a light that dazzles the everyday intellect.

Beata Beatrix, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1870

But by largesse I mean something broader and simpler than any such mystical intercommunion of experiences. It’s something that we generally describe as generosity, but that doesn’t quite capture the spirit of the thing. For generosity only really covers one ‘side,’ that of the person giving; but the gratitude of the recipient is part of the same movement, as the humility of the penitent is part of the same movement of forgiveness as the pardon of the absolver.1 Likewise, the quality of largesse is not flat; it is fully three-dimensional; it is a whole attitude to giving, whatever is given—be it money or advice or forgiveness or a mother’s milk or a martyr’s blood—that is applied to each instance of gift, without any self-consciousness about the role one assumes. Though he was talking about something else entirely, C. S. Lewis gave a wonderful description of the lightheartedness that largesse implies.

If you devoted every moment of your whole life exclusively to His service you could not give Him anything that was not in a sense His own already. So that when we talk of a man doing anything for God or giving anything to God, I will tell you what it is really like. It is like a small child going to its father and saying, ‘Daddy, give me sixpence to buy you a birthday present.’ Of course, the father does, and he is pleased with the child’s present. It is all very nice and proper, but only an idiot would think that the father is sixpence to the good on the transaction.2

The long-faced ostentation of sacrifice evinced by some virtuous persons is the exact antithesis of the playfulness that characterizes largesse. This isn’t to say that we can always smile while we give of ourselves: sometimes we can’t, and that must be admitted honestly rather than covered up, which would transgress against the quality of precision. But the baseline, the center from which our generosities and gratitudes flow, should be one of joy, laughter, rapidity. The hesitation to accept someone else’s gift that comes from shyness can be appropriate and endearing, but the hesitations that come from guilt and pride are altogether alien to Christ and to the right-minded Christian.3

One of the marks of largesse is to be found in the fact that it regularly exceeds what may be asked of it, for the mere pleasure of giving to and delighting someone else. The prototypical example is that of our Lord changing water into wine at the wedding at Cana; based on how much the evangelist tells us the stone jars of water held, the amount of wine produced by Jesus here was around a hundred and fifty gallons.4 And not just a hundred and fifty gallons of wine, but a hundred and fifty gallons of a vintage that people could tell was top shelf stuff, even when they’d already been partying long enough that the wine they originally had was all gone.

In other words, the gestures of largesse have no concern with justice or need or anything of that kind; the delight of giving is at its heart, both enjoying it oneself, and having the humility to allow others to enjoy it, too. More, delight in the superfluous is at its heart. Largesse values what it gives and does not waste it, since giving what has no value isn’t much of a gift; but it is not cautious or austere. It is a divine prodigality.

This can be contrasted with the temper of other Catholic traditions, which of course have the same doctrine of generosity and mercy but display it with a different style. The character of the Roman Rite proper, for instance, is a magnificence of law: not law as a system of punishment or a substitute for grace (though those are its perennial temptations), but as a system of order, exactitude, clarity, rationality; it is, as it were, Baroque where the Anglican patrimony is Gothic. The generosity of the Roman spirit is, accordingly, expressed much more in a style of cancelled debts and effectual decrees than in terms of kingliness and largesse. What the Roman tradition expresses by declaration, the English tradition expresses by tact.

The contraries of largesse—waste, stinginess, greed, and (we are too susceptible to this) being too proud to receive from others—require little comment. There are a hundred different ways to refuse gift, and they’re all alike: boring.

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1I specify absolver here because forgiveness can of course occur outside the sacrament of Confession, but the operative principle of forgiveness is the same.

2Mere Christianity, Book III, Chapter 21: Faith.

3Nothing, maybe, is more unlike largesse than that part of Aristotle’s concept of μεγαλοψυχία (megalopsuchia: ‘greatness of soul, proper pride, magnanimity, grandeur’) which makes the man who is both great and virtuous reluctant to accept things from others. Insofar as it means only an unwillingness to impose on others, there is much to be said for it, but the Nichomachean Ethics seems definitely to suggest that a generalized aversion to being a recipient is part of this proper pride that he called the crown of the virtues. The truth is that this disguises a vice which may or may not have been at work in Aristotle, though it definitely seems characteristic of ancient Greek culture: an inability to endure being less than others, a jealousy of one’s dignity, a determination not to be vulnerable or receptive or in need, that is utterly incompatible with Christian religion. Even apart from the economy of forgiveness, the fact that no creature could deserve to participate in the divine nature makes ‘proper pride’ a very petty refusal of God.

4Or around 570 liters, if you’re some kind of socialist.

The Courtesy of Deep Heaven, Part V: The City

And thys shewyng I toke singularly to myselfe. But be al the gracious comforte that folowyth, as ye shal seen, I was leryd to take it to al my even Cristen, al in general and nothing in special. Thowe our Lord showid me I should synne, by me alone is understood al. And in this I concyvid a soft drede; and to this our Lord answerid: I kepe the ful sekirly. This word was seid with more love and sekirness and gostly kepyng than I can or may telle. For as it was shewid that I should synne, ryth so was the comforte shewid, sekirness and kepying for al myn even Cristen. What may make me more to love my evyn Cristen than to seen in God that He lovyth all that shal be savid as it wer al on soule?1

—Lady Julian of Norwich, Revelation of Love, The Thirteenth Showing

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Hierarchy is, for most people today, a much less intuitive idea than republic, i.e. the notion that every human being is equal, in dignity and rights, to every other. Obviously histories, talents, and circumstances differ dramatically from one man to the next, but when the Declaration of Independence, for example, said it was self-evident that all men are created equal, they were talking about the intangible nature of humanity. And at any rate in the Euro-American West, that does seem self-evident. At least, it’s hard to come up with another reason for thinking it’s true than ‘Well, uh … ’cause.’

'Yeah. This is gonna go great.'

'Well, if anybody gets nosy, just, you know, shoot 'em.'

'Shoot 'em?'

'Politely.'

For the Christian, this vague sentiment is crystallized into a serious conviction by two beliefs: first, the doctrine that man is made in the image of God—man, just as such, without any qualifications of age, sex, ethnicity, intellect, goodness, or anything else; and second, the doctrine of the Incarnation, which posits a New Adam who is God as well as man, and through whom, or in whom, or with reference to whom, all men must now be known—he is the metaphysical center of humanity.

This makes republic a very serious business, and indeed, the demands made on us by a serious belief in the equality of men are much bolder than we usually realize. What would our lives be like if we seriously treated the adolescent waiter, the homeless woman, the screaming toddler, the friendly cashier, and the neighbor with the bad BO as our equals? as people with exactly the same importance and worth that we have to ourselves?

Combining hierarchy with republic sounds like a serious difficulty on the surface of it, but actually it can be surprisingly easy. The maxim that governs their interrelation is one given in Downton Abbey, one I quoted in my previous post: We all have different parts to play, and we must all be allowed to play them. Why should there be any indignity in obeying, or any embarrassment in directing, if that is our part to play?—for the word play should be given its full force. The commander does not command because he is better (he rarely is) but because it is his role, and he must say his lines like the rest; if he loses touch with that truth by paying attention to himself, whether in shyness or arrogance, he risks spoiling the play. The equalities of the republic are distributed among the asymmetries of the hierarchy because they allow for beauties to exist that would have no place otherwise: loyalty, devotion, discipline, generosity, protection, awe, adoration. There is nothing democratic in obstructing the role that someone else has been appointed to, any more than there is anything artistic in Hamlet killing all the other characters in the first act. For the point of hierarchy is that it is a diversity of function, not a diversity of importance. And if we seriously believe that differences in purpose or calling are not differences in individual worth, then the mechanic, the housewife, the President, the parish priest, and the screenwriter are genuine equals, even if the social honor that we pay their functions varies. For all those honors are paid with a smile, of irony as well as of delight.

The English, at their best, seem to have a peculiar talent for this double vision—better to say, binocular vision. The famously misinterpreted Magna Charta asserted the rights of the nobles against the king, and the famous misinterpretation that made it an assertion of the rights of the common man against the state was nevertheless in keeping with the democratic spirit of England; yet at the same time, the United Kingdom remains precisely a kingdom to this day, and the mythical glory of the monarchy has been retained, despite the habit of tactfully ignoring the practical power associated with it.

This interplay of republic and hierarchy is a favorite theme in Charles Williams, and its delicate mutual courtesies are often called by him ‘the acts of the City,’ or simply ‘the City.’

What is the characteristic of any City? Exchange between citizens. What is the fact common to both sterile communication and vital communication? A mode of exchange. What is the fundamental fact of men in their natural lives? The necessity of exchange. What is the highest level of Christian dogma? Exchange between men and God, by virtue of the union of Man and God in the single Person, who is, by virtue again of that Manhood, itself the City, the foundation and the enclosure. … This office of substitution did not need Christendom to exhibit it, nor to show of what hostility as well as of what devotion it might be the cause. Christendom declared something more; it declared that this principle of substitution was at the root of supernatural, of universal life, as well as of natural. … If the City exists in our blood as well as in our desires, then we precisely must live from, and be nourished by, those whom we most wholly dislike and disapprove. Even the Church, forgetting that sacred title given to Mary, anthropotokos,2 has too often spoken as if it existed by its own separate life. So, no doubt, sacramentally and supernaturally, it does; but so, by the very bones and blood of its natural members, it very much does not.3

Or, more compactly:

Lancelot came to the Canon; my household stood

around me, bearers of the banners, bounteous in blood;

each at the earthen footpace ordained to be blessed and to bless,

each than I and than all lordlier and less.

Over the altar, flame of anatomized fire,

the High Prince stood, gyre in burning gyre;

day level before him, night massed behind;

the Table ascended; the glories intertwined.

The Table ascended; each in turn lordliest and least—

slave and squire, woman and wizard, poet and priest;

interchanged adoration, interdispersed prayer,

the ruddy pillar of the Infant was the passage of the porphyry stair.4

The Golden Tree and the Achievement of the Grail, Edwin Austin Abbey, 1895

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1‘And this showing, I took to be true of myself in particular. But by all the grace-filled strengthening that follows, as you will see, I was taught to take it true of all my fellow Christians in general, not of any one alone. Though our Lord showed me that I would sin, by me is to be understood all. And in this I conceived a soft dread; and to this our Lord answered: I keep you, full surely. This word was said with more love and surety and spiritual protection than I can or may tell. For as it was shown that I would sin, just so was the strength shown, surety and keeping for all my fellow Christians. What could make me love my fellow Christians more, than to see in God that He loves all that will be saved as if they were one soul?’

One of the aggravating things about all translation, including translation from Middle to Modern English, is that it’s nearly impossible to get the feel of any specific word exactly right from the source text to the rendering. (Oddly enough, I’ve found this to be truer if the languages are related, since the history of a word is so intimately connected with its meaning.) For instance, I’ve translated the word even in the Middle English here as fellow; but equal, like, impartial, and level would all be equally good translations in differing contexts, as would the modern word even itself; and I find that Lady Julian’s language when left un- or half-translated has a curious charm, so that when certain authors quote her as speaking of her ‘even Christians’ it always makes me smile. One reason I sometimes quote Middle English passages in the epigraphs here, and only translate them in footnotes, is because I’d love for more people to be acquainted with the language, because it’s just so delightful.

2‘Mother of man.’ This corresponds to the other ancient title applied to the Virgin Mary in devotion, Theotokos, ‘Mother of God.’

3Charles Williams, The Image of the City, ‘Anthropotokos,’ pp. 112-113.

4From Williams’ poem ‘Taliessin at Lancelot’s Mass’ in Taliessin Through Logres. The High Prince and the Infant are references to Galahad, who is one of just three knights to achieve the Holy Graal, and was assumed into its resting place (the other two were Percivale, who died in the achievement, and Bors, who alone returned to Camelot). His supernatural purity make him a messianic figure: the word Infant is doubtless a deliberate pun, since on the one hand Galahad has been called the ‘Alchemical Infant’ by Williams in an earlier poem, a symbol of the process of procuring both gold and everlasting life; and on the other, the infant Christ as well as the crucified are regularly associated with the Graal and the Eucharist in Arthurian legend. The porphyry stair is an allusion to the throne room of the Emperor at Byzantium, porphyry being a deep crimson-purple stone used in its construction; meeting the Emperor, in Taliessin, symbolizes the vision of God and of creation’s existence in God.