The Elephant Glyphs at Copan

Among the most enigmatic pre-Columbian glyphs in Meso-America are the elephant images on Stela B at Copan. There are two of them carved into the upper corners of the stone and only the heads and trunks are represented. When they were first discovered and copied, over 150 years ago, there was a human figure riding on top of one of the elephants looking very much like an Indian mahout, or elephant driver. This image has subsequently been broken, or perhaps eroded off.

The reason the elephants are so enigmatic is because they are not supposed to have existed in America since their extinction some 10,000 years ago when either human hunters or changing environments are believed to have caused their demise.

These glyphs are not the only representations of elephants that have been found in America (see Totten for examples of elephant figures carved in bone, on a votive tablet, on a pipe, etc.). But they are the only ones that can’t be easily dismissed as forgeries. This doesn’t mean that non-elephant explanations have not been proposed - they have. The images themselves, though, are so evidently elephantine that the question remains unanswered: what do they mean?

Did the Maya, their neighbors, or their descendents have firsthand experience with elephants? The images seem to argue that they might have. In so doing they support either a diffusionist argument (that there were pre-Columbian contacts between the Old and New Worlds) or that elephants existed in the same environments as late pre-Columbian Americans (and validating the reference to elephants in the Book of Mormon: Ether 9: 19), or both. It is little wonder that there have been disagreements on the subject.

The first reproduction of the images was published in 1836 by Frederick Catherwood (see opposite page 156 in John L. Stephens’s Incidents of Travel in Yucatan – my Figure 1). Many details are missing in this drawing and it isn’t clear that the corner glyphs are of elephants. The representation of the elephant driver is likewise difficult to interpret. Stephen’s, however, in the text, recognizes that the images do look like elephants. He writes: “The two ornaments at the top appear like the trunk of an elephant, an animal unknown in that country” (Stephens, p. 156).

Sometime after Incidents of Travel in Yucatan was published, Alfred Maudslay in his monographic study of Meso-American archaeology reproduced the images in much more detail (Figure 2). These are more visibly representative of elephants. It’s interesting, though, that Maudslay suggests that the images might represent a tapir (an animal phylogenetically related to an elephant but appearing quite different). This is a bit odd and might be an understandable explanation of the Catherwood images; but Maudslay's own drawings make it hard to draw the same conclusion. One is left wondering if the original glyphs are not very well represented in his own work (although this seems unlikely given his accurate renderings of other extant glyphs). Another more likely explanation is that he was aware of the controversy that elephants would pose to his work; and, rather than having to deal with the negative publicity, conveniently side-stepped the issue.

In 1924 Elliott Smith (Chair of Anatomy at the University College London) criticized Maudslay and a handful of others for suggesting that the glyphs could be anything other than elephants. His book, Elephants and Ethnologists, is a careful argument for an Asian influence in Meso-America before Columbus.

Smith’s main evidence includes the distinctly Asian elements in Stela B itself (including the spiral images and the mahouts - assuming that there were, in fact, two of them) and the many other glyphs representing stylized creatures from Hindu mythology - the so-called makara images. These creatures are usually represented as crocodiles or dolphins but also as fish or elephants (see Figure 3). Very often a single image is made up of parts of more than one creature. Deities, such as the goddess Ganga, or other human figures are usually associated with these creatures. Often they are represented inside a creature’s mouth.

Smith argues that, not only are all these elements represented in comparable Mayan glyphs, but the Mayan glyphs also have the same overall sense of the Hindu makara, even down to the scales around the eyes. To argue for an independent development of these figures is, to Smith, nothing more than a veiled bias of preconceived notions.

Since Elephants & Ethnologists was published Smith’s arguments have been mostly ignored. They have not been convincingly disproved. Part of the reason for the academic silence has been that most diffusionist arguments have been out of favor in an increasingly nationalistic world that was eager to recognize contributions of individual cultures (see Mair). Another reason has been the uncertainty about Native American elephants themselves. When Smith made his argument, it was just coming to the attention of anthropologists that ancient humans even lived at the same time as extinct elephants (such as mammoths or mastodons).

Humans and Mammoths

The very idea that some kinds of animals and plants have gone extinct came to the world’s attention through the work of Georges Cuvier and his study of elephants (see Rudwick). Cuvier established that the elephant bones that were being discovered in Europe during the later part of the 18th Century were of different species than either the African or the Indian elephants. This suggested that extinctions had occurred prior to the advent of humans in Europe because there were no known records of a third species living in the northern hemisphere. There were occasional voices arguing that the third elephant might still be living in remote areas. Cuvier’s argument, however, was that there were no human remains or tools associated with any of the elephant remains and that humans had never known the extinct species.

Later, finds of mammoth paintings in caves throughout Europe clearly indicated that Cuvier was wrong. Not only had cave-dwelling humans known of mammoths but, as it turned out, they had hunted them as well. Proof of this was to be found in the Americas where extinct elephant bones were found with arrowheads.

Anthropologists and paleontologists then started asking themselves if humans had been the reason why the large animals had gone extinct, or were other factors, such as environmental changes, the cause of their demise. These questions still remain open. What is normally accepted, however, is that the American elephants went extinct around 10,000 years ago despite claims that it survived into historical times.

This date has been held inviolable by many authors for some time although earlier dates have been published. A comprehensive review of dated North American mega-faunal fossils (see Mead and Meltzer) shows a clear peak in the number of recovered fossils from around 10,000 years ago. But a few fossils do extend after this period. The most recent date for a mammoth was taken from Sandy, Utah and dated at 4,885 years ago. Some of the samples taken for these recent dates are of only average quality but enough extend past the 10,000 year mark to suspect that a major extinction, whatever the cause, did not eliminate all individuals at that time. From a strictly statistical standpoint the distributional peak is clearly around 10,000 years ago, but outlying data points would be expected earlier and later as Mead and Meltzer’s data indicate. The door is still open on this issue. A few surviving populations of mammoths in North and Central America may have survived into recent times.

There are two major groups of elephants known to have occurred in America - the mastodons (belonging to the family Mastodontidae) and the true elephants (belonging to the family Elephantidae). The two groups, though often similar in size and general appearance, are easily separated by their teeth. The chewing teeth of mastodons have conical projections along the grinding surface. True elephants, on the other hand, have a labyrinth of ridges. Other morphological characters undoubtedly occur but it is the teeth that resist decomposition and are more likely to appear in the fossil record. Both the African and the Indian elephants are true elephants as are the various mammoth species that have been discovered.

That said, there have been a number of mastodon species in America. Most of them lived before the periods of Pleistocene glaciation. The long-jawed mastodonts, for instance, lived on the plains as far west as the Rocky Mountains up until Pliocene times. Tetralophodonts and Serridentias, known to have migrated from the Old World, did as well. Other species included the short-jawed mastodons (true mastodons of the genus Mammut), the beak-jawed mastodons, and the notorostrines. The later two species occurred in Central America, although not into the glacial periods.

We only know of one mastodon species (Mammut americanum) that survived through the Pleistocene and lived concurrently with humans in America. It was a forest species and, as a consequence, did not lend itself to fossilization as readily as mammoths did (that seemed to frequent boggy areas more frequently). The first full skeleton of a mastodon was unearthed in 1845 south of New York City by a crew digging for peat. Since then, other remains have been discovered throughout North America and as far south as Honduras (see Polaco). It is unlikely that the American mastodon was the model for the Copan glyphs. It is unlikely to have lived as recently as the period up to or immediately prior to the rise of Central American civilization. Moreover, its low (or flatter) head is quite different than the heads of the elephants depicted in the glyphs.

The other elephants that were known to live concurrently with humans in America were the mammoths. The best known species is the woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) that lived in northern regions and is the mammoth species that commonly turns up in frozen burials. A dwarf form of the wooly mammoth survived on Wrangel Island (in the Arctic Ocean) up until 1700 BC.

The Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) had a more southerly distribution. It ranged throughout North America and as far south as Nicaragua. It was believed to have gone extinct around 10,000 BC along with many other species, although more recent dates have been reported. The Columbian mammoth is most likely the species represented on Stela B at Copan if, in fact, it represents an American species at all. Its demise is the most recent of all the American elephant species and its head rises above the eyes as depicted in the glyphs. It was a large animal, fully capable of carrying an elephant driver.

Other American mammoth species are less likely candidates. The pygmy mammoth (M. exilis) from the Channel Islands of California was probably too small to support an elephant driver and it seems to have been restricted to the islands. The Jefferson mammoth (M. jeffersonii) and the imperial mammoth (M. imperator) did not occur as far south and may turn out to be the same species as the Columbia mammoth with further taxonomic evidence (the justification for recognizing the different species is primarily the size and shape of the tusks which are known to vary).

Asian Elements in America Before Columbus

Another explanation for the elephant glyphs is that they were made by emigrants from Asia who brought their cultural images (including images of elephants) with them to Central America. The difficulty with this explanation is that Asian peoples were not believed to have had contact with America before Columbus - at least that has been the scholarly consensus. Nonetheless, evidence for pre-Columbian contacts has been put forward from quite early in the history of American exploration.

Alexander von Humboldt, for example, noticed a handful of similarities between the calendars, legends and religious symbols of Asia and Central America as early as 1813. His work had a significant influence on both John Lloyd Stephens and William Prescott (The Conquest of Mexico) whose works were largely responsible for bringing early Central American civilization to the attention of the world (see Helferich).

Other influential arguments for early cultural contacts across the Pacific included Elliott Smith (as noted above), Betty Meggers et al., Joseph Needham, and Stephen Jett. Meggers showed remarkable similarities between the pottery of the Valdivia and Machalilla phases of coastal Ecuador and the pottery of the Jomon period in Japan. Joseph Needham showed several similarities between the two continents. One of his findings included the importance of jade in both places, where pieces (often painted red) that were placed in the mouth of the dead. Other findings included images of rabbits on the moon, sailing craft, etc. Stephen Jett’s work has revealed the sophisticated similarities in blowgun technologies.

These are just a few of the many examples that have come to light over almost two centuries now. John Sorenson’s exhaustive two-volume bibliography of trans-oceanic contacts before Columbus lists hundreds of sources discussing contacts between Asia and the Americas (see Sorenson and Raisch).

It seems that Smith’s arguments, that elephant glyphs at Copan are evidence of a transplanted Asian influence among the Maya, continues to deserve attention. Certainly the presence of mahouts on top of the elephants and the spiral element that is typical of the Hindu makaras suggest a cultural connection. The images of the elephants themselves also resemble Indian elephants.

Smith argued that these images were carved from artifacts that had been carried from Asia, and not that the artisans had carved them from living elephant models. His main argument for this was that there were morphological errors in the carvings. He believed that of the two openings in the mid-section of the head, that the posterior one represented an eye and the anterior one represented a nasal opening. Since elephants don’t have nasal opening in this position, it must be a mistake made by an artist without firsthand knowledge of elephants.

Smith didn’t consider the obvious possibility that the anterior organ represents an eye and the posterior one represents an ear. I say obvious because they are positioned where an eye and an ear should be. The only trouble with this explanation is that it makes the ear quite small - at least compared to the ears of living elephants.

Both living species of elephants have much larger ears. The Indian elephant has smaller ears than the African elephant but even these smaller ears are several times larger than the organ positioned where the ear should be on the Copan glyphs. If these glyphs do represent Indian elephants then Smith is right, they are stylized and were very likely reproduced either as a cultural memory or were copied incorrectly from a model carried from Asia.

Another possibility, however, is that the elephant glyphs do not represent Indian elephants at all but rather American mammoths. A century ago we didn’t know what mammoth ears looked like. We now do and it seems obvious in hindsight that they are small.

Mammoths are from a line of elephants adapted to colder climates where large appendages are maladaptive. This can be seen in living rabbits, for example. Species living in hot southern regions have large ears to dissipate heat more easily. Arctic species have much smaller ears. The same seems to have been the case for other mammals including mammoths.

In recent years, a handful of mammoths have been recovered from permafrost and the size of their ears is now known. They are small. Several images of these freeze-dried animals can be seen on-line, although caution needs to be taken when viewing their ears. Not all of them are in-tact or genuine. The ears of the Brerezovka mammoth, for example (on display in the Russian Academy of Sciences) have been reconstructed because they didn’t survive the excavation. Likewise the right (and most frequently photographed) ear of the baby Lyuba mammoth has been nibbled off.

So where does this leave us regarding the elephant glyphs at Copan? We do have quite a better view of ancient trans-oceanic migrations than we did when Smith wrote Elephants and Ethnologists. We also know a good deal more about American elephants. But the jury is still out. The Asian elements on Stela B make a strong case for an Asian influence. This has not changed since Smith’s writing. But it could very well be a mistake to presume that the Maya didn’t know about American elephants themselves.

Works Cited and Notes

Helferich, G. 2004. Humboldt’s Cosmos: Alexander von Humbolt and the Latin American journey that changed the way we see the world. Gotham Books, New York.

Jett, Stephen C. 1970. The Development and Distribution of the Blowgun. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 60 (4): 662-688.

Mair, H. Victor. Kinesis versus Stasis, Interaction versus Independent Invention; in, V.H. Mair ed. (2006) Contact and Exchange in the Ancient World. University of Hawai’i Press. Honolulu (see page 11).

Maudsley, Alfred. 1900. Biologia Centrali Americana (Archaeology, 1889-1902), Part II. Plates XXXIII to XXXIX. I have not seen this work. Figure 2 is taken from Smith’s monograph.

Mead, J.I and D.J. Meltzer. 1984. North American Late Quaternary extinctions and the radiocarbon record; in, P.S. Martin and R.G. Klein, Quaternary Extinctions, a prehistoric revolution. The University of Arizona Press. Tucson, Arizona.

Meggers, B.J., C. Evans and E. Estrada. 1965. The early formative period of coastal Ecuador; the Valdivia and Machalilla phases. Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology, No. 1:1-234.

Needhamm, J. and L. Gwei-Djen. 1985. Trans-Pacific echoes and resonances; listening once again. World Scientific, Singapore and Philadelphia.

Osborn, Henry Fairfield. 1925. The Elephants and Mastodonts Arrive in America. Natural History 25(1):3-23.

Polaco, O.J. et al. 2001. The American Mastodon Mammut americanum in Mexico; in, G. Cavarretta et al. The World of Elephants - Proceedings of the 1st International Congress, Rome.

Rudwick. Martin J.S. 1997. Georges Cuvier, Fossil Bones, and Geologic Catastrophism, New Translations and Interpretations of the Primary Texts. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.

Smith, Grafton Elliott. 1924. Elephants and Ethnologists. E.P. Dutton & Co. New York. 1315 pp. Smith was an Australian anatomist who was drawn into the early diffusionist debate from his work on Egyptian mummification, that he saw influencing cultures throughout the ancient world. During his career he also held a traveling scholarship at Cambridge, served as Chair of the Cairo School of Medicine, as Professor of Anatomy in Manchester, and later served on the British General Medical Council. A biography on Smith can be found under: Smith, Grafton Elliott, in P. Serle, Dictionary of Australian Biography. 1949.

Sorenson, John L. and M.H. Raish. 1996. Pre-Columbian contacts with the Americas across the oceans, an annotated bibliography. Research Press, Provo, Utah.

Totten, Norman. 1981.Precolumbian [SIC] Elephants - From Birds to Invisibility. The Epigraphic Society, Occasional Publications Vol. 9 (no. 215).

A Sympathetic Agrarian

There is a sizeable number of would-be agrarians in America that live in cities. I am one of them. We are a varied lot with different experiences and desires. I don’t pretend to represent all of us. Nonetheless, I do offer a few insights into how an agrarian at heart can be true to himself (and possibly herself too) even while living in a city or a town.

My insights come from over two decades of dealing with this conflict: between where I live and where I want to live. The formative years of my youth were spent on a small farm in Utah Valley. I grew up cleaning the barn, milking goats, and irrigating the orchard and garden at all hours of the day and night. I learned from experience not to lick an ice-covered fence post, and that one should take care in flaying a rabbit not to puncture the digestive tract. I didn’t enjoy getting up early to do the chores before school. But I did come to love the miracles of new life in the spring, of summer rain storms, and the wild mountains that started almost from our back yard.

Since then I have lived in a dozen cities and have fond memories of each place. Nonetheless, my desire for a simpler agrarian life has remained with me wherever I go. I make a living doing agricultural research and this has provided me with some rural opportunities. But it has also been a constant reminder to me that I no longer live a rural life.

In my efforts to pull myself out of a recurring rural nostalgia, I have come to rely on three agrarian helps that are very applicable to city life. In fact they are keys for me (a sympathetic agrarian) to making city life meaningful.

The first and most important thing is to work. There are, of course, many kinds of work and not all of them are agrarian helps. Work in front of a computer, no matter how worthy the cause (such as writing an agrarian essay) doesn’t qualify. Work on the phone, in any of it’s modern forms, doesn’t qualify either. There are, however, a surprising number of other kinds of work that do qualify: washing the dishes by hand, planting and caring for a garden (no matter how small), repairing the lawn mower, polishing the silver, cleaning the shed (or garage). The list is nearly endless. The key part of qualifying work is to be doing it - and to be doing it with a conservative or a creative deliberation.

This may sound a bit too obvious but it needs to be emphasized. Work means that we’re not lost in mindless past-times that are the bane of our time (and the primary reason for the epidemic of our whole-body neuromuscular neglect). Mindlessly watching television or engaging in computer games neither conserves nor creates anything. As possible ways to relax after an honest day of work, they may be nice. But they should never be confused for agrarian helps.

Another important help is to develop trusted friendships. One of the givens of rural life is to know your neighbors. City life is quite a bit different. In fact I hardly know who the people are that live on our small street. We wave to each other to be courteous and at Christmastime we take each other treats. But they know next to nothing about us and we know next to nothing about them.

In the more rural area where I grew up, I knew who lived in every house along the street - not just the mom and dad, but everybody - including the dogs. Come to think of it, I even had lunch (at least once) in every one of those houses.

We got along as neighbors pretty well too (most of the time) and helped each other out when we found ourselves in need of it. One time our next-door neighbor Denny managed to rope our runaway cow Lulubell and bring her to heel. He somehow lapped the rope around a big cherry tree and slowed her down. I also remember helping my friend next door move a truckload of rocks so we could play basketball together. I ended up smashing my finger and couldn’t play after all. Life was usually a team effort, even with the accidents.

Less than a mile from where we lived was a subdivision. Houses there were on small lots (like the one I live in now). I only knew a few of the people who lived there. We had very little sense of community with them.

It is certainly one of the ironies of our time that the closer we live to one another, the less we seem to know of each other. But life in a city does not have to be that way. There are people in your neighborhood that you will like if you get to know them. The difficult part is getting to know them.

For us it helps to meet people at church, while walking the dog, or just picking up the mail. Taking an agrarian friendliness into the city may not be intuitive - especially considering how suspicious most people are - but it can be done. It’s also quite remarkable how helpful friends can be in making city life bearable for a sympathetic agrarian like me.

My final agrarian help is to live in the natural world as much as possible. The life of a farmer is almost completely determined by the order of nature. Many of us living in cities, on the other hand, have practically cloistered ourselves completely from anything that isn’t manmade.

A farmer expects to get his hands dirty and knows that a harvest only comes after planning, much work, and the contributions of the Creator. The office troglodyte, however, is content to nourish his body with fast food. He is also more than happy to contract-out the yard work in order to have more time for TV.

A farmer rises with the chickens in order to avoid the heat of the day. The contemporary urbanite doesn’t even get to work until 9:00 and then stays up long after the sun has gone to sleep.

The farmer is also very much in tune to the seasons and to subtle changes in the weather. At the end of the year he knows it is the time to gather wood and then to cozy-up to the fire and let the slumbering world alone. The city dweller, on the other hand, runs from a heated house to a heated car to a heated office in the middle of winter. If she owns a coat, it’s more for fashion than for keeping warm. Who wants to be out in the cold anyway? Not even a blizzard can slow her down.

It doesn’t have to be this way. The truth is that even those of us living a city life can still respect the cycles and rhythms of nature. Perhaps the stars are dimmer in town but we can still plant a garden - even if its only a few potted plants in a window. We can turn off the TV and take a walk in the park. We can even vacation in a forested retreat instead of at an amusement park. It is possible for a sympathetic agrarian to find sustenance for the soul in a city despite the distractions of demos.

There are a lot of us living on earth these days. Most of us have no choice but to live in a city. Sometimes this is frustrating when we know that we prefer a quieter and less frenetic living space. Fortunately, all is not lost. The virtues that inhere naturally to rural communities do not by necessity have to be riven from the fabric of urban life. A bit more thoughtful work, neighborly kindness, and natural engagement are all opportunities still open to us. If they don’t present themselves to us naturally in our artificial environments, they are at least part of our human natures. With a bit more care they can still do us a lot of good.

Boys are not Girls

A young man I know quite well - we’ll call him Casey - is a very talented gymnast and diver. When he was five years old he started doing rudimentary back flips off his mother’s organ. When he turned six, he started taking tumbling classes and his teacher soon discovered his abilities. Within a year Casey could climb the gym rope (without using his legs or feet) faster than any of the other students (of any age). In subsequent years, Casey would learn all of the men’s gymnastic events well. As a young teenager, he competed successfully in several state competitions. During one eventful meet at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Casey placed first in the state on rings - probably the most difficult of all the events. He had a bright athletic future to look forward to.

About a year later, just as Casey was starting his sophomore year in high school, his family moved to North Carolina. It was there he learned that there was no longer a future in men’s gymnastics in America. Casey couldn’t find a single gym anywhere with a men’s (boys) gymnastics program in the major metropolitan area where he lived. He practiced alone for a few months and then, sadly, gave it up. The problem he had run up against was Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. This (apparently appropriate) piece of legislation prohibits discrimination in any educational program receiving Federal financial assistance.

I understand if you’re confused by this. What do anti-discrimination laws have to do with men’s gymnastics, after all? Have men gymnasts been discriminating against minorities? Hardly. The problem comes down to something quite unexpected: misanthropic feminist activists and school budgets. It turns out that most schools have traditionally placed quite a bit more money into men’s sports than they have into women’s sports. This was a natural thing to do. Men’s sports have always had higher levels of participation and have drawn bigger crowds. Now this is all being interpreted as discrimination.

More damaging, however, is the attempt to use this difference in athletic participation as a tool in pushing forward a gender-neutralizing agenda. Men’s athletic programs should not be funded any more than women’s athletic programs these activists insist. If they are, lawsuits are threatened and institutions stand to lose all of their Federal grant money. Since nobody wants to give up their men’s football and basketball programs, other sports have to make up the difference. Men’s gymnastics is one of them.

For Casey this meant ending his gymnastics career many years before he wanted to. All was not lost, though. He joined his high school’s swim team and started diving. During both his junior and senior years he took first place in regional diving competitions. His training in gymnastics was serving him well - at least until he neared graduation. He then discovered that there was no use diving at the collegiate level. Title IX had taken away male scholarships for these events too. Casey’s future in competitive sports was over.

This is a sad story for those of us who know Casey. In fairness, I realize that similar sad stories must exist of frustrated women athletes who, prior to Title IX, were unable to fully develop their talents. The temptation is to ask for some kind of unbiased numerical comparison just to see how fair this whole thing really is.

Do women really want as many athletic scholarships as men do? I doubt it. It would seem much fairer to look at the total number of scholarships across disciplines (academic and athletic) if we’re really looking for equity. I am certainly not suggesting that we limit athletic opportunities for women who want them. But I am suggesting that we use better judgment in how we allocate resources.

Men are more physically competitive than women. This often turns out to be a problem for those men who haven’t learned how to express it appropriately. Most women, on the other hand, have a different perspective in potentially competitive situations because they are able to minimize confrontation. This has always been a feminine virtue. For men, virtue resides in mastering their competitive instincts not in pretending they don’t exist. Team sports, for instance, were originally promoted to help boys (and men) learn to channel their competitive instincts gallantly.

But this is not the main issue here. The bigger issue with the Title IX legislation is that we are letting gender-neutralizing advocates succeed in a campaign that is devastating boys. A big part of this campaign is the effort to minimize competitiveness.

There are very fundamental differences between men and women. This should be obvious. There are also important differences between boys and girls. And although most of these differences only become visible at puberty, differences at younger ages are also important. One of these differences that has been investigated quite a bit in recent years is Rough and Tumble (R&T) play.

Consider for a moment the research of Vivian Paley, a former kindergarten teacher in Chicago (Sommers, 2000). Vivian observed her young students in many settings and often noted the differences between boys and girls. When they would enter the “tumbling room” the boys would run and climb the entire time they are in the room, or until they “fall down dead” to rest momentarily. The girls, after several minutes of arranging one another’s shoes, concentrate on somersaults. Then they stretch out on the mats and watch the boys. When the girls are left alone in the tumbling room, they run and climb for a while and then lose interest, moving to other activities like painting and playing with dolls. Boys, she noticed, when left on their own never lost interest in tumbling.

Rough and tumble play also occurs in other animals. One of nature’s more endearing scenes is the unexpected discovery of baby animals tumbling around in mock combat with their siblings. We understand intuitively that they are having “fun”. In the last few generations we have also learned from researchers that this behavior helps prepare the young for more serious and life sustaining activities later in life. A wolf pup needs to know how to grapple with a sibling before it can bring down a deer. This also makes intuitive sense.

In recent years, however, it has become fashionable to limit the play time of children - especially the R&T play of boys. Some schools have eliminated playgrounds altogether. The underlying argument for this is that rough play in boys leads to aggressive and criminal behavior in men. Aggressive men, so the reasoning goes, must learn their delinquent behavior somewhere. Since we know that boys are more physically active than girls, it seems logical that an excess of activity, if not corrected, will lead to crime.

The trouble with this reasoning is that it is based on guesswork. In reality boys, just like puppies, learn how to be true to their natures by wrestling with each other. Researchers are learning that it is the boy left out of physical games that is the one more likely to develop behavioral (including criminal) problems later on.

Pam Jarvis (at Leeds Metropolitan University) wrote that R&T play “forms the basis for male socialization, in that boys who successfully engage in mock-fighting… are creating neuronal pathways that will later be developed in rule-based sporting activities and language-based competition, while those who are unable to group concepts of play fighting in early childhood are at risk of becoming less socially successful, more aggressive adolescents.”

Gender activists, on the other hand, argue that these play differences are not natural - that parents are responsible for teaching their children to behave this way. If this is how boys and girls act, it is because boys are picking up discriminatory habits from their fathers. Girls should be, according to this reasoning, just as active as boys, all things being equal.

One has to wonder what closet these activists have been living in. Did they never go outside during recess when they were young? I don’t mean to imply that rough boys don’t grow up to be criminals. A few of them do. I do mean that if we deny boys a healthy active place to grow up, we’ll be creating bigger problems than we thought we were solving. A typical healthy boy is a competitive boy. A typical healthy girl is noticeably less competitive. This is part of the natural order of things. If we ignore this – or worse, if we legislate policies based on this ignorance – we will certainly come to regret it.

We wouldn’t, for example, agree to give air conditioners to Eskimos because we give them to Navajos. Such “fairness” may be equitable in one sense but hardly fair in any meaningful sense. In contrast, we do give library cards to all kinds of people regardless of any differences among them. The poor are benefited just as the rich are. It comes as no surprise that because of this equality, libraries have been one of the most effective government-funded programs ever implemented.

So what kind of legislation is Title IX then? On the surface it looks like it might be fair. In reality it has turned out to be much less so. Policies that go against nature will never be truly fair. The reason things have gotten to this point is something that should concern us all a great deal: special interest groups have become much more effective interpreters of our laws than have people with common sense. In fact special interest groups have tried to force equality where it doesn't exist - against nature.

This is bad news for American boys, who are being steered (even manipulated), into a gender-less society and asked to fare however they can. Those of us who care about boys and girls need to be aware of this and take every opportunity we can to encourage young men to get involved with boy-friendly programs such as Boy Scouts, competitive sports, church groups, etc. - even as we encourage girls to be involved in girl-friendly programs of their own. We also need to better prepare ourselves legally against the special interest groups who are out to diminish boys. As odd as it might seem, we need to affirm the obvious fact that boys are not girls.

Works Cited

Jarvis, Pam. 2006. “Rough and Tumble” Play: Lessons in Life. Evolutionary Psychology 4:330-346.

Sommers, Christina. 2000. The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism is Harming our Young Men. Simon & Schuster, New York and London.

Rethinking Chivalry for Boys

A number of years ago, while living in Columbus, Ohio it was my habit to ride a city bus to and from The Ohio State University campus each day. My normal route took me through an area of frequent crime. Some of the passengers that boarded the bus there often looked menacing. Some of them looked downright scary.

On one occasion a couple of these characters seated themselves right behind me and for several minutes carried on the most colorful conversation imaginable. They seemed incapable of uttering a sentence without an expletive. Usually there was more than one - piled on top of each other in adjectival abandon. Often they were very graphically offensive. I was quite upset by it but didn’t, at first, dare to say anything.

In the seat in front of me was an elderly lady. I had not paid much attention to her at first but as I became more and more uncomfortable with the vulgarities behind me, I noticed that she was uncomfortable too. It was then that I realized I needed to do something. For some reason unknown to me then, I felt a responsibility to protect her.

I then ran through in my mind a couple of ways I might confront the offenders. In the end I just turned around and asked them in a friendly way if they wouldn’t mind toning their language down a bit. To my surprise they apologized and then got off the bus a couple of stops later. When my stop arrived and I got up to leave, the woman thanked me for what I had done. I remember stepping down from the bus onto the street feeling like I had done something significant - something morally empowering. Later I would come to realize that I was feeling chivalrous.

Chivalry is a medieval word. It brings to mind a warrior spirit and a protective instinct for those that are weak - particularly women and children. It reminds us of a time when chivalrous men protected ladies and fought in defense of Christ. These days it seems to be quite out of favor. This may seem odd at first. After all, who doesn’t know of a teenage girl that dreams of being a princess, live in a castle, and be courted by a brave and handsome knight? One can even argue that the simple act of opening a door for a woman is a small nod to the spirit of chivalry. And most women still appreciate the gesture. At church the other day a gentleman offered his seat to a young mother carrying her child. She graciously accepted it, and I was glad that some women still allow men to watch out for them. How then can chivalry – even a modern version of it – be out of favor?

The problem is that our society is becoming more and more reluctant to acknowledge that men might be stronger than women. We’re even uncomfortable acknowledging that women might have greater endurance than men. Unless a situation is “gender-neutral” we get a little nervous - at least in mixed company.

The case for a manly defense of Christian morality is even more unacceptable in public. The separation of church and state - a policy that we established to guarantee religious liberty in a Christian nation - has become a bludgeon that is used to enforce public agnosticism. A boy that presumes to be motivated by his faith to care for the “weaker sex” is unacceptable on two counts. He is much too public about his religion, and he seems all too condescending to women.

Another concern with Christian morality in its chivalrous form is that it is thought to lead ultimately to imperialism with its suppression of minorities. Some authors have even gone so far as to suggest that terrorism has its roots in chivalry. One can begin to see that bringing chivalry back into such a world would involve a good deal of resistance.

The word “chivalry” itself traces back through Middle English to the French “chevalier” and ultimately to the Latin word for horseman. In its English form, chivalry has a long association with knights and there is an immense romantic literature about them. One aspect of the medieval knight that is usually forgotten, though, is that the knight was originally part of a lower class of society. Often knights were servants. In English (and German) the term for horseman also carried with it a sense of a young lad on the verge of manhood (Braudy, page 66). This was because becoming a horseman implied a great deal of responsibility. A horse is a powerful animal and, unless it is well trained, is not something that a boy can handle by himself. A man on a horse, on the other hand, regardless of his status in society, is capable of going into battle. In fact, such a man becomes a powerful part of a battle.

As a chivalric symbol, the man on a horse represented power and the epitome of manhood. No doubt there were examples of this power being used for evil purposes. But these examples never became the norm in medieval society. Instead the power of the horseman / knight was encouraged to the degree that it assumed to role of defending virtue. In fact the combination, of this strength coupled with principle, is what virtue actually meant. The words “virtue” and “virile” come from the same root meaning manliness. The phrase “virtuous manliness” would have been considered redundant many generations ago. This is certainly no longer the case. Manliness today can mean a lot of things other than virtue. To understand why and how this change took place, though, requires a better understanding of what we mean by the word chivalry itself.

Many people think of a gentleman when they think of a modern example of chivalry. This is because of a history linking the two words that goes back to the time of Sir Walter Scott, and the revival of chivalry in 18th and 19th Century England. The trouble with linking these two words today, however, is that the meaning of “gentleman” is no longer the same as it used to be. To us a gentleman is a polite and considerate man with high standards. Perhaps he is of noble birth; or, conversely, he could be just any male person referred to in polite society. A couple of centuries ago a gentleman was much more than this.

One of the 19th Century’s most influential writers on chivalry was Kenelm Digby, author of The Broad Stone of Honour. Digby understood a gentleman to be a man with the qualities of chivalry which, to him, included: belief in God, generosity, high honor, independence, truthfulness, loyalty, hardihood, contempt for luxury, courtesy, modesty, humanity, and respect for women (see Girouard pp. 61-62).

Digby’s view of a gentleman was a bit grander than many of his time (or ours) felt comfortable with. He also had a penchant for hyperbole and, because of this, was often referred to as “silly”. Nonetheless, many serious writers were sympathetic to his ideals. Macaulay, Wordsworth, Ruskin and others all admitted that they liked reading his book.

What made The Broad Stone of Honour so popular was its placement of character above mere reason. This was a significant issue in the 19th Century, which saw the rise of Jeremy Bentham’s Utilitarianism. Bentham abhorred emotional appeals and looked with suspicion on people with idealistic motivations. In many ways, the differences between traditional faiths and the so-called methodological atheism of our time are similar to these differences of the 19th Century. For the Utilitarian, the highest end to which a good society could aspire was the greatest contentment for the greatest number of people. If this meant sacrificing traditional values, then so be it. An evolving world needed to be ready to change, even its basic principles, if circumstances required it.

A good number of Englishmen, however, were not so sure. Many felt that truth, beauty and honor were worth defending. To them Digby’s call to chivalry was profoundly resonating. What also made it immediately useful was the direction it gave to young men. His very definition of chivalry addressed its relevance to boys directly:

“Chivalry is only a name for that general spirit or state of mind which disposes men to heroic and generous actions, and keeps them conversant with all that is beautiful and sublime in the intellectual and moral world. It will be found that … this spirit generally prevails in youth than in the later periods of men’s lives; and, as the heroic is always the earliest age in the history of nations, so youth, the first period of human life, may be considered as the heroic or chivalrous age of each separate man …As long as there has been or shall be, young men to grow up to maturity, and until all youthful life shall be dead, and it’s source withered for ever, so long must there have been, and must there continue to be, the spirit of noble chivalry.”

This version of chivalry carried with it a contagious zeal that inspired a nation of young men with noble dreams. And, in fact, Digby‘s influence did not end with his generation. It has extended clear through the 20th Century into our own time in the organizations of the Boy Scouts. Sir Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of scouting most likely read from Digby in his youth, “and certainly went to it for ideas when he was forming the Boy Scouts” (Girouard, page 64). In early scout handbooks, there were sections comparing knightly errantry to daily good deeds. Pictures of knights were also included to inspire boys to virtuous acts of service.

Today this image of a strong Christian man going to war sends mixed symbols. Sadly, religion itself has become a synonym to many people of intolerance - even the cause of all the evils of war. The most influential atheists of our time use this argument as one of their chief exhibits in “proving” that God does not exist.

Where then does chivalry have anything helpful to say in such a world? The answer should be: everywhere. At the very core of chivalry is the insistence that there are some things that need to be defended. A society that ignores this - or worse, a society that tries to hide this - will soon find itself precariously vulnerable to enemies without.

Men are programmed to be defenders. Boys that are becoming men are too. This willingness to fight if provoked is not just a cultural artifact of a troubled society as some people think. It is hardwired into a man’s psyche. And there is real danger if we think we can remove it when it becomes a social problem - as it often does when we no longer know what we should be fighting for.

Chivalry should be our response to an ever more violent and virtue-less world. I don’t mean by this that we take up arms and suddenly become belligerent. (I believe that at its core, chivalry is defensive and not offensive.) Neither do I mean that we ignore the Christian virtue of turning the other cheek. True chivalry, after all, is able to take abuse. I do mean that we as a society should begin to recognize and encourage the man who will stand up for what is right - staking his honor on it. I also mean that we should encourage boys to defend young women at all costs against anyone that would threaten their virtue. This requires, of course, that we raise boys with moral courage. It requires that they learn about their birthright - which is to become men of honor.

We can easily make too much out of chivalry. One doesn’t have to dig too far to find examples of its abuse or of those that have wandered from its ideal. Those who are against any kind of manliness at all tend to focus on these deviations. Certainly we don’t need belligerent Christians or more honor-saturated gangs. But boys still need to have dreams. Should they be content to wile away their youth wishing to be nothing more than computer game champions or paint ball warriors? Are there no virtuous ideals left to fight for?

Where is the church or school sensible and willing enough to admit a curriculum honoring the dreams of chivalry – at least those dreams that inspire a boy to become a virtuous man? Where are the stories of the modern knight-errant: of a young hero befriending an unpopular girl, of the man refusing to act dishonestly, of a burly teenager giving his coat to a child? It’s time we started giving these stories a bit more attention.

We have been trying for too long to fix a criminally violent world by destroying manliness. What we should have been doing all along – and what we desperately need to do now – is to prepare virtuous and manly men to fix the problem. We need to raise boys that have valiant dreams.

Works Cited

Braudy, Leo. 2003. From Chivalry to Terrorism. Alfred A. Knopf, New York.

Digby, Kenelm Henry. 1846. The Broad Stone of Honour: or the True Sense and Practice of Chivalry. Kessinger Publishing’s Rare Reprints.

Girouard, Mark. 1982. The Return to Camelot, Chivalry and the English Gentleman. Yale University Press, New Haven and London.

One of Us

Right after Jesus was born He was wrapped in a crude little piece of cloth and placed in a feeding trough. That is, He was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. Wise men at some time after his birth - maybe many weeks after - brought Him the ointments of kings. But at the time of He came into the world, Jesus lacked any kind of a regal reception. He came into the world surrounded by the sights, sounds and smells of farm animals.

For over two millennia we have been trying to understand what it means that the Creator of the world became like one of us. Christian orthodoxy accepts that He was born like a human baby, that he grew up like we do, and that He experienced the joys and the pains of mortality - only without committing sin. Nonetheless, according to this same orthodoxy, God was not transformed into a man, nor for that matter, was man changed into a god. It all seems a bit confusing. He is like us and yet he isn’t. Why did He come to earth this way in the first place? It leaves one wondering if we haven’t left something important out of the “official version.”

Fortunately at Christmastime we celebrate the birth of Christ as related in the gospels and not as indicated in the official creeds. If we stop and reflect on these remarkable verses, we can still somehow hear the bleating of sheep and the lowing of cattle. We can imagine the farmyard steam rising around the baby Jesus in His morning manger, and breathe in the rural pungency of a warming spring day in Bethlehem.

Perhaps Baby Jesus had a lock of curly black hair, a freckle on his chin, maybe even playful greenish brown eyes. He probably puckered His nose for a noisome fly. And if you tickled His feet with a piece of straw, He very likely curled His chubby little toes. It seems to me that if these stories were written for any reason at all, they were written to make one thing perfectly clear: Jesus is one of us.

This turns out to be a troubling thought if you don’t have a very good perception of human beings. In fact it almost verges on blasphemy. How could a divine being - even living without sin - become a mortal being and still be God? Even worse is the conclusion atheists draw from a very mortal Jesus: “of course he was mortal, what else did you expect?”

The question that needs to be asked is: where did we come up with this poor perception of human beings to begin with? For “Ye are Gods; and all of you are children of the most High” (Psalms 82:6.). if we start with the understanding that we are created in the image of God and that He insists on calling us His children (for the very obvious reason that He is our father) why should we wonder that our older brother Jesus Christ was born a human being just like us?

We have trained our minds for too long imagining that we can never understand the condescension of god (or call it the incarnation if you like). As a result, we have lost sight of our own potential. We have lost sight of who we really are.

The little baby wrapped in swaddling clothes is our brother, and He has made it possible to return home. If we haven’t figured this out yet, it’s time to think again about the true meaning of Christmas.

Hope Abides

Some time ago in a class at church I listened as a comment was made about the principle of hope. “It’s an important principle,” admitted one of the class members, “but it’s kind of a weak one compared to some of the other principles of the gospel.”

This seemed rather sad to me, although I understood how someone might think so. Hope to many people is not much more than wishful thinking. In fact the dictionary considers hope to be just an optimistic desire about the future. And since the future is so ill-defined, how can hope be anything more substantial than a birthday wish made over candles on a cake?

It then occurred to me that hope has an additional meaning in Spanish. It can mean “waiting” - esperanza. Is it possible, I thought, that waiting was originally an important part of the meaning of hope that we have lost - except by those speaking Spanish?

I looked in new dictionaries without much luck. Then I went to older dictionaries and still could not find any evidence for my hunch. Even the word elpida (in the Greek New Testament) and the Latin speranza (in the Vulgate) lacked this sense of waiting. I was about to give up when I decided to check my copy of The Complete Biblical Library (Gilbrant et al.). In the second volume of the Greek-English Dictionary (in the discussion of “elpis”) I found it. Hope at one time had everything to do with waiting.

“There is probably no area in which the contrast between the Greek and the Hebraic concepts of life appear more clearly than in the differences between their conceptions of hope.”

So wrote the editors of this dictionary. In ancient Israel, hope did mean waiting. In fact it sometimes meant longsuffering. Certainly it could involve an optimism about the future but this optimism was tempered with time. It could also be tempered with grief. I was beginning to learn that hope was not necessarily a weak principle at all. To have hope - to endure the trials of life while remaining true to a divine desire - is to prove one’s faith. If faith is central to religion, hope becomes its refining fire.

The Hebrew word that conveys this sense of hope is q­āwâh, and an important example of how it is used can be found in Isaiah 40:31:

“But they that wait [hope] upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

This word for hope is usually translated in our scriptures to mean waiting. This is, of course appropriate. The trouble with it, though, is that because it carries more than one meaning, translators ended up having to choose between them. It seems that the sense of waiting was lost.

Having made this discovery, I then looked in the New Testament to see if there was any of this Hebrew sense of hope there. I was pleased to find that there was, but one has to look for both words (hope and wait/endure) to find it.

One remarkable example is the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians. This is Paul’s famous discussion on charity and not the first place you would think to look for references about hope. But Paul understood charity as a culmination of faith and hope. Specifically, he saw both faith and hope as virtues that endure.

What stands out in his discussion of hope is his creative use of the Greek language and his expansion of the Hebrew concept of hope - with its sense of waiting and longsuffering - to include a Christian optimism in Christ.

There are primarily two words that are used in the Greek New Testament to convey the Old Testament meaning of hope. One is hypomeneo (the most commonly used) which means waiting or enduring. The other word is elpida which is very close in meaning to our word hope. In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, he uses both forms, although if you don’t read it in the Greek you will miss it.

“And now abideth [meneo] faith, hope [elpis], charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity” (1st Corinthians 13:13)

Paul uses the optimistic form of hope (if we can call it that for convenience) here - the Greek elpida. For him, hope in Christ is something to experience optimistically. But he is also sensitive to the Jewish understanding of waiting and also refers to it (he uses the word meneo - a less onerous form of hypomeneo). In this verse (from the King James Version) it is translated as “abideth”.

This may all seem a bit technical but the meaning is very simple. It is also significant: hope is much more than just wishful thinking.

This dual sense of hope continued into the early Christian period. The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians (written in the 2nd Century) pleads for both longsuffering and patience in hope (see Roberts and Donaldson).

“Let us then continually persevere in our hope, and the earnest of our righteousness, which is Jesus Christ … Let us then be imitators of His patience; and if we suffer for His name’s sake, let us glorify Him.”

Augustine, in his work on faith, hope and charity (the Enchiridion, written in the early 5th Century) does not have much to say about hope but does acknowledge Paul’s epistle to the Romans with it’s understanding of waiting.

“For we are saved by hope: but hope that is see is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.” (Romans 8:24-25)

By the time of Thomas Aquinas, however (mid 13th Century), the Old Testament understanding of hope is difficult to detect. His treatise on faith, hope and charity (in the Summa Theologica) is comprised of roughly 500 pages. But just over ten percent of this is given to any discussion of hope, and most of these pages are only a discussion contrasting hope with fear. The older concept of waiting is acknowledged briefly but ambiguously.

“The expectation which is mentioned in the definition of hope does not imply delay although longanimity may pertain to hope. But hope implies a reference to the Divine assistance, whether that which we hope for be delayed or not.”

Much of the problem seems to be that there just hasn’t been an adequate word that conveys both the senses of waiting and of wishing that the ancient authors appreciated. Translators have been left on their own to decide the best word to use in any given context, assuming they understood the language nuances to begin with. An alternative would be to describe both meanings in repetitive or contrasting ways like Paul did in 1st Corinthians. Fortunately we have a handful of places where this method does occur. The best examples happen to be in the Book of Mormon.

One of the key chapters on faith in the Book of Mormon is Alma 32. It is also an important, though rarely recognized, chapter on hope. In fact verse 21 (perhaps the most widely quoted verse in the chapter) shows that the two principles are interconnected in an important way.

…"faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true."

And what are these things that can’t be seen that we, with faith, will hope for? They are actually quite simple, but Alma first wants to explain something else. He wants to shows us that through experimenting on the word and nourishing it that we can look forward to the fruits of faith. And it is by looking forward to this fruit, coming from a tree that has become rooted and well cared for, that we can hope for eternal life (Alma 32: 41).

It is this journey of faith to the fruit of faith that requires hope. And it isn’t until the last verse of this remarkable chapter that Alma mentions how this is to be done. In fact he doesn’t even use the word hope at all - at least the word for hope that we’re familiar with. Instead he describes it in the words of his scriptural heritage where hope means waiting.

“Then my brethren, ye shall reap the rewards of your faith, and your diligence, and patience, and long suffering, waiting on the tree to bring forth fruit unto you” (Alma 32: 43).

Obviously Alma understood hope to be much more than wishful thinking.

It appears that faith is to be tried. It is to be experimented with - even proven. And it is this trying of faith that informs hope. The prophet Ether, in another important chapter on faith, teaches that if men will humble themselves before the Lord and have faith in Him, will He turn their weaknesses into strengths. And then will faith, hope and charity bring men unto Christ the fountain of all righteousness (Ether 12: 27-28). So it is that faith must endure through trials of its own. As it does so, it waits. It endures. In a word, it hopes. As it is refined, it knows charity and brings us unto Christ.

Finally at the end of the Book of Mormon, Moroni includes some of the teachings of his father Mormon about the interconnectedness of faith, hope and charity. He then adds his father’s prayer that God the Father will keep him through the endurance of faith on his name to the end (Moroni 8: 3).

Sadly, our generation, more than any other, is handicapped from being able to understand hope. Part of the reason for this is that we find it difficult to wait for, or through, anything. It’s truly revealing how agonized some of us become over a slow traffic light, a slow computer, or the delay of a package by a day. Our hope-less condition becomes almost a spectacle in the long frustrated lines of cars waiting for fast food at a drive-through window. Efficiency is the name of the game, and the innovator that helps us save a few minutes is our hero.

But who understands the Law of the Harvest anymore – the principle of reaping what we sow, the principle of working and waiting before we receive? Our ancestors used to know about waiting by the sheer necessity of living off of the land. They also knew that the planting of seeds was an act of faith that required a period of gestation – a period of patient maturation and care.

This is the way things are meant to be – both for seeds and for faith. The Lord doesn’t normally test our faith by requiring some immediately difficult task. He tests our faith in the prolonging of our trials. Without this period of testing we would never grow to understand the love of God.

This pathway to Christ - the pathway of faith, hope and charity - is quite a different pathway than we sometimes think. It is also different than our generation is able to easily understand. Faith is certainly much more than a blind rational belief when it is truly experienced. Charity, likewise, as a gift from God is much more than another word for love or for almsgiving. And hope - that “middle” virtue that so often gets lost in between faith and charity - is much more than a weak doctrine of wishful thinking. It is the very path of patience in faith that brings us to Christ. It is the connecting link that makes faith and charity understandable in a world of doctrinal semantics and temporal confusion. It is, most certainly, a crowning virtue. Faith, we are taught, is the evidence of things not seen that are true. And hope, as it should be properly understood, is the evidence of this faith. It endures. It abides.

Works Cited

Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica Part. II, Question 17, Article 5.

Gilbrant, Thoralf et al. eds. 1991. World Library Press, Inc. Springfield, Missouri.

Roberts, A and J. Donaldson eds. 1995 Anti-Nicene Fathers. Vol. 1, Chapter VIII.

Notes on Constantine's Sword - by James Carroll

Carroll begins the book by recounting the Pope's (John Paul II) visit to Auschwitz and the wooden cross erected there in memory of Christian martyrs. His concern is that the death camp, which has come to stand for "the abyss in which meaning itself died" for the Jews has become "the sanctuary of someone else's recovered piety" (page 5). This is indeed a poignant symbol of the flavor of the rest of the book. Carroll is himself a Roman Catholic - having been a priest. His sympathy for the Jews makes the book an important effort of reconciliation between the two great faiths. I learned much from the book. There is much to be praised in it. The only significant criticism I have is that the author often seems to compromise his own faith in an overweening attempt to heal old wounds, to admit the errors of the Catholic Church.

There is a memorial in Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. It is the first memorial of the Holocaust. The legend reads, "Forgetfulness is the way to exile. Remembrance is the way to redemption." (See page 5.) This is powerfully true, especially as it refers to the God of Israel. Whether it was intended as such or not, it also implies the correct means of reconciliation that Carroll seeks. If the cross at Auschwitz is a symbol of how the Catholic Church has obviated reconciliation in the past, the memorial at Yad Vashem might be used as a truly effective symbol of reconciliation. Carroll does not mention (nor would the Jews probably admit) that it is Christ that seeks to gather Israel together "as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" (Mathew 23:37.) This is the scriptural affirmation of the Yad Vashem memorial. It is also a Christian affirmation. This symbol is from the New Testament and modern scripture, not from Israel's cannon. It is a reminder that Jesus' message has always been more redemptive of Israel than that of any, or all, of Israel's prophets. (It is primarily Isaiah that can be seen as a voice of redemptive optimism among them.) Israel's exile is a symbol of our universal mortal exile from God's presence. But like any exile, it is helpful only to the extent that there is remembrance - but remembrance of God, not just our many mortal sufferings.

But this is largely the problem. Many Jewish voices (especially Elie Wiesel and others) insist that the Holocaust (or the Shoah to the Jews) is without meaning. The murder of a million children requires this. To this accusation I can answer only from my own experience. I have never lost a child to such a horrible end. Nor do I impose my answer on others that have. But I do know that I have never been forsaken in my own, not insignificant, sufferings.

But Carroll is right that the cross at Auschwitz is wrong. It is the symbol by which Christians have indicted the Jews for centuries as Christ killers (see page 7). Even if this was not the intent of the Catholic Church in placing the cross there, the least suggestion that it might be so interpreted should have kept it away.

Carroll also suggests that the unspeakable events at Auschwitz, if viewed too closely with the cross, might infer their own expiatory significance - types of atonement themselves for having killed Jesus. This also brings up the problem of the very word "holocaust", which in Greek means a burnt offering. Accepting the word seems to imply to some that the murders were justly meted to the Jews for having killed Christ. Of course this interpretation is egregiously offensive. Jews have turned from this implication by shunning the very word in many cases. They prefer the word "Shoa" which is a Hebrew word meaning catastrophe. In its biblical sense, shoah means an absence of God's presence. It is the opposite of ruach, which is the breath of God. Ruach in Genesis is how God drew order out of chaos. Shoah is the undoing of this ordering (page 11). Of course I sympathize with this. I am pained at one of the implications though. It implies that God has abandoned part of Israel - at least in the eyes of the Jews.

This Jewish / Christian conflict of misunderstanding, as represented by the cross at Auschwitz, seems almost incapable of resolution. The centuries of hatred and accusations that Carroll's book narrates are examples of this. How can this be otherwise? The Jesus of Palestine was a Jew. The Christian Jesus after Nicea is a philosophical construct. They are clearly not the same being. I believe that the Jews, when they come to truly understand the nature of the divine son of a carpenter's wife from Bethlehem, will begin to feel again the breath of God. He will be, after all, one of them. Most certainly this will not be experienced before a cross at Auschwitz, nor will it be experienced before a papal tiara. When it happens, it will be in God's way. I look forward to that day.

But Carroll goes too far, I think, in his focus on the cross of Auschwitz. His comparison of the cross to the cross hairs of a spotting scope is offensive (page 20) to me and I'm not even a Catholic. Another reason for the perpetual misunderstanding through millennia has been the Christian perspective of the Jews. This perspective has been largely Biblical (page 19). The recognition of Jews as a legitimate contemporary culture, on par with any other culture, seems to be lacking. In a way this is inevitable for Jews have maintained their identity through centuries by remembering their roots. This certainly is impressive and may turn out to be a virtue if viewed strictly from a Jewish standpoint. For Christians, it would do better in many ways to recognize the legitimacy of Israel as a state, unencumbered by the past. This is true because the Jews have been seen as a primitive faith superseded by the higher Christianity. Or maybe better, the Jews, that at one time were a favored family among Israel, have forsaken the truth and rejected the higher and purer Christianity. This perspective clearly fails to recognize, let alone accept, the Jews as a people worthy of their own right. It also seems to have doomed the Jews to the chronic stigmatism of being "Christ killers".

It seems to me that this trap may also be the reason for the apparent abuse of evolutionary thinking about religion in our time – even strangely enough from Christians. A Christian church that has supplanted a less favored Judaism imagines a religion that must evolve, or supersede, a malingering past. The seeds of the reformation, and even the enlightenment, may have been sewn in a tradition of restoration or purification but they have been frequently understood subsequently in evolutionarily terms. The restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ, on the other hand, has significant implications for the validity of this mindset. First of all, it is a restoration of the ancient truth and not an evolution of it. Its claim is not that of superseding Judaism, but of restoring even the faith of Israel to its original true form. It is grounded on eternal principles and as such implies, and even testifies of, the reality of eternal truths. It also draws into question the validity of reformation, enlightenment, and evolutionary ideologies that seem to be outgrowths of the old Jews-as-primitive mindset that we have inherited from the Jewish / Christian misunderstanding that Carroll narrates.

A central point of the book is the responsibility for the holocaust that rests squarely on the Catholic Church. Part of this stems from the fact that Jew hatred was made a holy sentiment. In its more subtle manifestations we see the art, jewels, and even funds of the pre-holocaust Jews showing up in museums and banks, never having been acquired via just compensation. Apparently, even Volkswagen, Krupp, Ford and others benefited significantly from Jewish slave labor.

Another implication of the church is what it could have done to eliminate, or at least lessen, the significance of the holocaust. Hitler, at one point, eliminated 70,000 people in his euthanasia program. Many thousands more were also scheduled to be eliminated but were not because of the concerted effort of the Catholic Church. The historian Deborah Lipstadt suggests that, "had the Nazi hierarchy encountered unambiguous and sustained revulsion by non-Jewish Germans at their antisemitic policies, there would have been no Final Solution." (Page 30.) Similarly, Cynthia Ozick asks, "How is it, that indifference, which on its own does no apparent or immediate positive harm, ends by washing itself in the very horrors it means to have nothing to do with? Hoping to confer no hurt, indifference finally grows lethal; why is that?"

This is indeed a troubling question. No doubt, much of the answer lies in the truism that the sentiments of self-preservation are usually stronger than the sentiments of moral justice. We are, after all, mortal; and as such are constrained by our physical natures to avoid risks. Nonetheless, the awareness of our immortal souls does occasionally shine through. Unfortunately, this is usually only the case in a small minority of situations. Acts of life-giving altruism are uncommon, but they do exist. To many of these examples, scientists are incapable of giving adequate naturalistic explanations. These examples show that some extraordinary individuals can live by a higher law than those that constrain the rest of us. Sadly, these examples are uncommon. Most cases of altruism are explained as efforts of preserving our genes by saving those of our relatives. The fight against euthanasia in Hitler's Germany can be seen as an example of this. The efforts to save another people, the Jews, cannot. This would have involved those truly altruistic cases that science really has not adequately given naturalistic answers to. People with this kind of awareness are indeed rare. Far too few of these extraordinary people could ever be expected to have lived at once in Nazi Germany. Thus indifference can become lethal, because most of us fail to live by other than mortal laws.

Chapter five is a look at the Passion Plays of Germany, where they were particularly common and influential, especially around Good Friday. Carroll points out that these plays, though intended as reminders of Jesus' suffering (His passion), were also very much indictments against Jews. They were examples of how "the Church defines itself entirely by its enemy" (page 32). For Carroll's youth this seems to have been the case. For many years, he remembered only one Jew, other than his friend Peter Seligman, and that was Judas Iscariot. Judas' acts were particularly symbolic of Jews, at least in the eyes of Catholics, because he chose suicide instead of repentance. Perhaps stated more succinctly, Judas was a traitor. Carroll is right in denouncing this.

To me the suicide of Judas should never have been a symbol of Jewish cupidity. His end was indeed tragic, but it is also a testimony. It is evidence of at least a partial understanding of Jesus. After all, how does one go about asking forgiveness (as some have suggested he should) for causing the death of Christ? One might ask forgiveness, though with difficulty, for betraying a friend. But how does one do the same for the Son of God? To make out of Judas an example of venality, betrayal, and then unrepentant suicide only trivializes his understanding of Christ's deity and ultimately of the atonement itself.

Since the Holocaust, the Catholic Church has made significant efforts to make things more right with the Jews. In 1962, Pope John XXIII convened the Vatican Council, which brought forth the declaration Nostra Aetate (page 38). This declaration essentially shifted the Church's blame of the crucifixion from the Jews to the Romans. This seems to have been a jolt to Carroll at the time. He had been taught the difference between anti-Semitism, which the Church deplored, and anti-Judaism, which the Church taught as an important part of defending the Faith. Nostra Aetate seemed to compromise this apparently important distinction.

John XXIII’s efforts of reconciliation are strongly contrasted with Pope Pius XII, who has often been referred to as Hitler's Pope. Pius XII is most strongly criticized for his silence during the Holocaust. His supporters insisted that he could have done nothing to stop the Final Solution. His critics insist otherwise. They contrast his influence against communism where he excommunicated all communist members with a stroke of the pen. This is troubling enough, but Carroll shows that even the local Catholic authorities in Germany supported Hitler, either by encouraging submission to authority, or in outright support of the volk. Carroll cites Gordon Zahn on this (page 45). It seems to me that both authors are a bit tendentious on this subject, although I don't believe they are completely wrong in their assessment.

Judaism has without doubt been poorly understood by Catholics; and I might add, by most Mormons. Carroll explains his own early understanding of Judaism as that of an antiquated religion that had been superseded by the "new Israel", which of course, was the Catholic Church. This attitude conveniently vindicated the church in all condescending relationships with Jews. It also failed to recognize Judaism as a living faith. Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have also found it convenient to understand Judaism only in a Biblical sense. Carroll uses the example of Abraham Joshua Heschel as an example of recent Jewish thought that has not been adequately considered by Catholics. Heschel was a longtime professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. His two books: Man is Not Alone and God in Search of Man are important examples of the dynamism of actual Jewish thought. The central theme of these books is that of the living God (page 47). Heschel is cited saying. "The craving for God has never subsided in the Jewish soul."

This need of God should be compared to the traditional Catholic understanding of man seeking God, exemplified in Augustine's, "My heart is restless, Lord, until it rests in Thee." This Jewish contribution to our understanding of God is powerful, but I think the polarization between God needing man, and man needing God is misplaced. I certainly do believe that God greatly desires that we depend on Him. What a powerful concept that this need runs both ways. If this polarization is indeed a defining distinction between Catholics and Jews, then the truth of a mutual dependency, recognizing both beliefs, is also an important distinction of Latter-day Saints.

I certainly believe that self-sufficiency is an important gospel truth. So is a divine dependency. These two principles should not be mutually exclusive. To need God, to depend upon him, is really just another way of saying that we have faith in Him. This is the trusting part of faith that transcends mere belief. Heschel's understanding of God's need of His children certainly affirms the Biblical jealousy of God for man's religious attention. God does not want us to trust in manmade deities. Nor does he want us to trust alone in mortal technology. In this sense, divine jealousy requires self-sufficiency - a self-sufficiency that ultimately means our emotional and spiritual longings are not mortal.

Carroll then relates the reaction of Rabbi Heschel to the silence of American Bishops about Vietnam. Heschel called it blasphemy. Carroll equated the silence to the silence of German Bishops during the Third Reich. To me this brings up one of the most difficult and delicate religious issue confronting organized religion. To what extent are advocates of truth justified in compromising their advocacy out of political expediency? Two extremes of this question might be seen in the cases of Pius XII and Wilford Woodruff. Pius XII represented a powerful Catholic Church, and was not threatened politically by making strong statements against political regimes such as communism. By remaining silent about the Holocaust, his advocacy of truth must be questioned on moral grounds. Wilford Woodruff, on the other hand, was deeply troubled about the issue of plural marriage, yet was willing to stand behind it indefinitely if required to do so, even though it was politically unwise. He was the leader of a relatively small church and very susceptible to political leanings in America at the turn of the 19th Century. He stands historically vindicated in my mind because he refused to be swayed by uncomfortable political realities. It required a revelation before he changed the Church's practice of Plural Marriage. This revelation is very instructive. It shows that the Lord can withdraw, or temporarily stay, eternal principles or truths if this is politically necessary - especially if it would otherwise mean the destruction of the church. Those who seek truth in history have vindicated Wilford Woodruff. Pius XII does not stand vindicated. Should the American Bishops that were silent about Vietnam be vindicated? I'm not ready to say. I will say though, that this failure makes me wonder how much we have really learned from the Holocaust.

Carroll argues (on Page 54) that when the cross and the crucifixion became central to Christian piety, this focus also indicted the Jews, who were seen as being responsible for the death of Christ. The Cross and anti-Semitism developed together, perhaps inevitably. The cross became a symbol of contrast, defining Christianity in apposition to the Jews. This insight is useful. As a Mormon missionary in Catholic Spain, the cross represented apostasy. When asked, though, why this was so, we never really had a good answer. It sometimes implied a corrupt Catholic clergy. We also believed that it focused attention too much on the death instead of the resurrection of Christ.

Since my mission, I have become less critical of crosses and crucifixes. I suppose this is because I have become more sympathetic to the immense devotion that sincere Christians have expressed through these images - devotion that it is not my intent to destroy. But it has become clearer to me that the cross became important in church history as the Catholic Church lost divine direction. If crosses rankle with Jews, who see the centuries of abuse they have received from Christians in the symbol of Christ's death; I, as a Mormon, see it as a symbol of the corruption of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am much happier with the symbol of the fish - an older symbol, a symbol that the early Saints, still sincere followers of Christ's true gospel, recognized.

The issue of supersessionism is addressed on page 58. The word seems to come from the Latin 'supercedere' meaning 'to sit upon'. A footnote in the text lists eight points in which the Catholic Church has claimed to have advanced beyond Judaism as the chosen of God. In fact Catholicism partially defines itself by the faults of Judaism. There seem to be similarities between this contrast of faiths with comparisons and contrasts of opposing ideologies in science. It seems to me that the Mormon Church being a restoration is not plagued with this impulse of criticizing the roots from which it sprang in order to vindicate its own existence; an impulse typical of almost all faiths and ideologies. To be sure, Mormonism, like early Christianity started as a small group with a message contrasting with the religious milieu into which it was born. Both suffered persecution as a result. The difference between supersession and restoration is more easily seen when these faiths are successful. Christianity, even after Constantine, retained the impulse to criticize Judaism, that is, it continued the criticizing impulse of supersession. Mormonism, on the other hand, after having passed through its (major) period of persecution, retains no impulse to criticize the Christian community even though it continues to be criticized by many. I believe this must be due, in part, to the fact that the restoration does not need to define what it is by contrasting it with what it is not. Prescription as a means of political wisdom is clearly of value in a fallen world. The true gospel of Jesus Christ, on the other hand, is revealed at once and understands itself by this revelatory process, and not by a history of other faiths.

On page 60, Carroll indicates that the cross at Auschwitz was erected, in part, to show that the Jews did not have a monopoly on suffering. In fact Carroll suggests that suffering has been used as a source of identity among Christians and even as a source of imagined superiority. This is, of course, lamentable and involves a gross misunderstanding of suffering. It is true that many righteous people have suffered due to no sin of their own. Sometimes these individuals suffer so others don't have to. Sometimes they suffer for any number of other reasons. It is a source of comfort to me that both Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith suffered greatly even though they were clearly instruments in the hands of the Father. Certainly our suffering does not imply unrighteousness. In fact, I believe that suffering must be viewed neutrally in the abstract. Individually it can provide invaluable meaning to life and of our relationship to God. But to use it as a claim of pious superiority is to obviate any sanctifying power it might have. Followers of a faith that has epitomized martyrdom and holy suffering should know better.

Notes on later pages may be forthcoming.