Category Archives: Theobabble

animaton

noun. < Gr psychikos in distinction to pneumatikos; allusively reminiscent of automaton.

A human being who avoids transformation. These are animated creatures motivated by their passions, and not transcending their basest nature. They act and react in set patterns to the stimuli of the passions, like automata of a sort, or animals.

I forget where I read it today, but someone quoted Hebrews 2.14-15:

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same nature, that through death he might destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong bondage.

Suddenly, I understood that italic section above, verse 15. I don’t know why I didn’t grasp it before, as it seems so obvious (and probably is to everyone else!). It really was something of a revelation to me. Here’s what came to mind.

We often live our lives doing all kinds of strange things, sinful things most of them, because we are afraid of death, trying to get in as much “life” as possible. These sinful practices are a kind of bondage in themselves, which is something repeatedly emphasized throughout the writings of the Church Fathers. Ironically, this grasping at life so-called is really only grasping at death, which is the wages of sin, as we’re told elsewhere. Not only does the poor person, inspired in these things by the evil one, think he’s avoiding a kind of death through non-indulgence of some compulsion or other while actually piling on more and more death, but also all this, without the intervention of repentance, keeps that person from the necessary preparation for an eternity of life in joy in the presence of God.

The author of Hebrews, whoever that was, had a deep understanding of what we now call psychology. The therapy anonymously prescribed is redemption and sanctification, resulting in the transfer of the prisoner from the dank, reeking dungeons of the evil one to the wards, peaceful and sunlit, of the hospital where all patients are healed: the Church, the Body of Christ.

Iyov has tagged me, and we await the same time, too, though in keeping with our different religious traditions. For me, the “impossible” dream whose fulfillment I await, the fulfillment of which men never will accomplish, is the remaking of all, and the death of death itself:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.”

Make it soon. Make it new.

And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief.

Mark 9.24

General Placidus had been hunting the great-antlered, magnificent stag, the finest he’d ever seen, for three days now. He and several of his servants had followed it through a wooded valley to the side of a mountain late in the day, just a great storm blew in. The proud general gained the distinct impression that he was being taunted by this haughty stag, which seemed to be leading them onward, waiting, and then bounding out of range of their javelins as soon as he or his men would close in. Now the rain began pouring down, and day seemed to turn to night. Lightning began to flash all around, and the thunder was deafening. Still, the general could catch glimpses of the stag further up, higher up, waiting, but then always moving toward the top of this rocky mountain. He looked for his men, but couldn’t see them, shouted, but they could not have heard him through the downpour and the thunder. For all he knew, they may have been felled by the lightning already or fallen down the steep slopes. In the prime of his life after many conquests in the far-flung empire of his lord the Emperor, Placidus continued uphill, pulling himself up the rocky face hand over hand, feet finding slight purchase on the slick rock, the rain running off his cloak. With a flash of lightning just above, he sees the mighty stag standing on a jutting rock just above him, very close, looking down at him. A little more climbing, and he finds himself exactly where the stag was, on a roughly level area, next to a craggy peak. More flashes of lightning illuminate the scene, and he sees the stag looking back at him and bounding up the peak itself. Placidus roars and bounds forward himself, javelin at the ready, knowing the stag will have little chance of escape. Lightning strikes dangerously close all around the general, and yet he scrambles onward and upward. He can no longer see the stag. There, near the peak, he sees what seems to be a cleft in the rock, and a glow coming from within it. He supposes his men to have found a cave and set up a fire within, the lazy slaves. Still, a warm fire in a dry cave without lightning flashing all about would be welcome. Yet he wondered where the stag went, if not into this very cleft. He heads toward the cleft in the rock, and then notices the strange quality of the light, how it is steady and bright, like sunlight, not flickering like a fire. He proceeds out of the rain, entering the cave cautiously, but then stops in his tracks, dropping his javelin. There, inside, stands the stag, magnificent, mighty, bigger than any stag should be, with the finest antlers imaginable. Placidus, the fearless general, commander of Rome’s legions, is suddenly frightened, for between the mighty antlers of the great stag shines the image of a man on a cross. The great stag stands, noble, impassive, staring directly down at Placidus, who falls face-down in worship, striking his fists on the floor of the cave, weeping. He knows the Crucified One. He hears a mighty voice, loud as the thunder, and is paralyzed, nearly fainting in fear. It says, “You have hunted Me long enough, Placidus. Now you have found Me.”

After his visionary conversion experience, the general Placidus and his family were soon all baptized as Christians, with him taking the baptismal name Eustachios, either late in the reign of Trajan or early in the reign of Hadrian. He gave most of his wealth away to help the poor. He and his family were martyred. The feast of St Eustachios, also known as St Eustathios and St Eustace, and his family, is 20 September. The place of his conversion, where he saw the vision of the stag, is called Mentorella, and is a place of pilgrimage.