If I meet a consul or a praetor, I shall pay him all the honor which his post of honor is wont to receive: I shall dismount, uncover, and yield the road.
What, then? Shall I admit into my soul with less than the highest marks of respect Marcus Cato, the Elder and the Younger, Laelius the Wise, Socrates and Plato, Zeno and Cleanthes?
I worship them in very truth, and always rise to do honor to such noble names. Farewell.
What, then? Shall I admit into my soul with less than the highest marks of respect Marcus Cato, the Elder and the Younger, Laelius the Wise, Socrates and Plato, Zeno and Cleanthes?
I worship them in very truth, and always rise to do honor to such noble names. Farewell.
—from Seneca, Moral Letters 64
I especially enjoy the closing to this letter, and while I imagine many people will gloss over it as a merely rhetorical conclusion, I dwell upon it for a moment to remind myself of how important it is to practice sincere reverence.
I once expected both theologians and philosophers to be filled with awe for the true, the good, and the beautiful, and yet I sadly found that most of them were too busy bickering with their colleagues, their smug faces and dismissive sneers betraying an enslavement to their “professional” pride. I now make it a point to avoid such petty vanities as best I possibly can.
In all walks of life, we immediately wish to be respected by others, but find it quite difficult to offer them respect in return. I therefore force myself, each morning when I wake, to reflect upon what I properly owe, not upon what I feel I am owed. A genuine piety, whether it be for institutions, for people, or ultimately for God, is only possible for me when I recognize why I am not the center and measure of all things.
What is equal cannot exist outside of what is also greater or lesser. We do ourselves a disservice when we focus on the horizontal at the expense of the vertical.
How can I expect to become better, if I foolishly believe I am already the best? Philosophy points me to universal and necessary principles that give meaning and purpose to all of reality, and so it is right for me to defer to them. By bowing down to what is greater than myself, I thereby also become most fully myself.
Even as I can be quite the annoying radical, and I will not hesitate to cross the man who considers himself to be entitled, I am also quite happy to show honor when it is surely due. If you have earned a position, you have my submission; if you have achieved great deeds, you have my admiration. As long as it isn’t just about the show, it is fitting to freely give way to my superiors.
And if it is suitable to show respect for a worldly station, how much more I am called to respect those who serve the glory of the soul! I owe everything of value in my life to the gifts of wisdom and virtue, and so the teachers of wisdom and virtue are the highest in my esteem.
My Catholic friends might not be happy calling it worship, or even veneration, so let’s just stick with reverence. I am afraid that a man who cannot revere is accordingly incapable of any of the other virtues, for he acknowledges nothing beyond his own self-conceit.
I especially enjoy the closing to this letter, and while I imagine many people will gloss over it as a merely rhetorical conclusion, I dwell upon it for a moment to remind myself of how important it is to practice sincere reverence.
I once expected both theologians and philosophers to be filled with awe for the true, the good, and the beautiful, and yet I sadly found that most of them were too busy bickering with their colleagues, their smug faces and dismissive sneers betraying an enslavement to their “professional” pride. I now make it a point to avoid such petty vanities as best I possibly can.
In all walks of life, we immediately wish to be respected by others, but find it quite difficult to offer them respect in return. I therefore force myself, each morning when I wake, to reflect upon what I properly owe, not upon what I feel I am owed. A genuine piety, whether it be for institutions, for people, or ultimately for God, is only possible for me when I recognize why I am not the center and measure of all things.
What is equal cannot exist outside of what is also greater or lesser. We do ourselves a disservice when we focus on the horizontal at the expense of the vertical.
How can I expect to become better, if I foolishly believe I am already the best? Philosophy points me to universal and necessary principles that give meaning and purpose to all of reality, and so it is right for me to defer to them. By bowing down to what is greater than myself, I thereby also become most fully myself.
Even as I can be quite the annoying radical, and I will not hesitate to cross the man who considers himself to be entitled, I am also quite happy to show honor when it is surely due. If you have earned a position, you have my submission; if you have achieved great deeds, you have my admiration. As long as it isn’t just about the show, it is fitting to freely give way to my superiors.
And if it is suitable to show respect for a worldly station, how much more I am called to respect those who serve the glory of the soul! I owe everything of value in my life to the gifts of wisdom and virtue, and so the teachers of wisdom and virtue are the highest in my esteem.
My Catholic friends might not be happy calling it worship, or even veneration, so let’s just stick with reverence. I am afraid that a man who cannot revere is accordingly incapable of any of the other virtues, for he acknowledges nothing beyond his own self-conceit.
—Reflection written in 7/2013
IMAGE: John William Waterhouse, The Shrine (1895)
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