Sárospataki Füzetek 17. (2013)

2013 / 1-2. szám - TANULMÁNYOK - Sawyer, Frank: Krisztus, egyház és világ T. S. Eliot Kórusok "A sziklá"-ból, 1934 c. versében

vellous piece of writing about conversion: that is, the turning from the world toward God. But Eliot understood that such turning is not an end in itself; it is part of our pilgrimage in the world.12 III. 8. Eighth chorus - Old crusades This section portrays the dialectical value of the crusades: Whole faith of a few, Part faith of many. Not avarice, lechery, treachery, Envy, sloth, gluttony, jealousy, pride: It was not these that made the Crusades, But these that unmade them. Remember the faith that took men from home At the call of a wandering preacher. Our age is an age of moderate virtue And of moderate vice When men will not lay down the Cross Because they will never assume it. Yet nothing is impossible, nothing, To men of faith and conviction. Let us therefore make perfect our will. O God, help us. [57] Eliot recognizes the two sides, positive and negative, of the Crusades. The motive was not necessarily born out of the sins he mentions, but what might have been a regeneration became a degeneration and indeed ruined any good to the Crusades. While we now understand the combination of the sword and the cross to be wrong, we must remember that this was also the way politics and nations functioned at that time. For the majority of people there was no separation between political, religious and ethnic identity. The situation was monolithic, not pluralistic as in today’s soci­eties. Today we have reached a stage in history when civic civilization no longer is monolithically identified with one religion. Both religion and politics should have peace as the priority on their agendas. Eliot, however, does draw attention to the op­posite problem today: we do not go forth in ‘holy wars’ any more (most of us don’t), but neither do we take up the cross — in other words, we live with little conviction and little earnest defence of truth. III.9. Ninth chorus — Bringing gifts to the House of the Lorá Out of the formless stone, when the artist unites himself with stone, CH ; : i Rio in r.$. Eliot's 1934 CHORUSES írom tke rock 12 Cf. F. Sawyer, A reading ofT.S. Eliot’s Ash-Wednesday, KOERS - Bulletin For Christian Scholarship (Potchefstroom), Vol.75. No.l, 2010 201 l /1 -2 SÁROSPATAKI FÜZETEK 75

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