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

refers to the light of Christ which is brighter than the light in nature and also brighter than the little lights of our daily work and worship.

IV.3. The Divine Light is invisible

For Eliot this could mean that the Divine Light - also of Christ - only becomes visible to “those who have eyes to see”. This last expression was stated more than once by Jesus. We find this motif many times in Eliot. To give one example: in The Hollow Men (1925) he speaks of “Those who have crossed/With direct eyes, to death’s other kingdom”. The context has to do with ‘seeing’ false or true hope. We do not see or know everything about the Invisible Light, yet we have the mystical vision of God and of salvation.

As a side note we can remark that in the Old Testament the stones of the temple were not allowed to be engraved with designs or figures (Exodus 20:25). The temple points to the invisible divinity, and any human imaging is detractive of this. The less we see the better, because all concrete images and ideas, even when positive, also can easily detract from a true understanding of God. That is why the ‘holy place’ in the tabernacle and temple of the Old Testament did not have an image of God (in contrast to other nations). Eliot was well aware of this.

IV. 4. The Divine Light cannot be captured

In its own sovereign way this light relates, at times ambiguously, to our little lights and to our need for more light. But it gives us comfort...and changes our darkness so that even the “darkness reminds us of light” (85).

TV. 5. The Invisible Light does not originate with us

This light is appropriated subjectively, but is not merely subjective. Thus there is the question as to the way Eliot creates new phrases to speak about the truths he adheres to.15 We have already mentioned his penchant for engaging in, with, and also in critique of a variety of worldviews, philosophies, and religious insights. There is a dialectical movement in Eliot’s thought between divine truth revealed (as in the Incarnation) and subjective truth experienced and only half-defined. Our subjective experience of truth is only half-definable, because it so often is a juxtaposition of a variety of presumed truths, especially in relation to time (finite experience) and the interpreting of these by the self and by society. And all of this in relation to the whole of reality, because of our need for a perspective beyond our selves. We see this in all his poetry, culminating in the Four Quartets. The point to be stated here, is that our subjective experience of divine light gives us something beyond our own light. Divine light may be called Invisible, but Eliot also assumes that it actually enlightens us.

IV. 6. The Incarnation as point in time and point of enlightenment

The memory of the point in time of the Incarnation is enlightening in the sense of liberating. “This is the use of memory:/For liberation...” (Little Gidding, III. 156/7). Eliot understands this use of memory as including — indeed based on and

Christ, Church & World int.s. Eliot GRUSES from The rock

15 See James Olney, Four Quartets: ‘Folded in a Single Party, in Harold Bloom, ed., Modern Critical Reviews: T.S. Eliot (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1985), 36-39.

2013/1-2 Sárospataki Füzetek 79