Sacramentum Mundi Online

1. For modern man with his belief in autonomy, obedience largely appears to be merely a necessary evil, not a virtue. In other words, people realize that without some obedience education and social life are impossible, but they would like to see it reduced to a minimum, on the ground that man’s goal should be maximum possible self-determination. This ideal can on this view only be attained if obedience is rendered superfluous. Such a conception of obedience stands in sharp contrast to the conviction, springing from Hellenistic philosophy, especially neo-Platonism, that man attains perfection only by giving up his own will and submitting to God’s heteronomy and to divinely-established authority, because only in this way is man’s dispersion overcome by recollection. Ideal obedience therefore carries out an order for the order’s sake. Some features of this metaphysics of unity have left their mark on the ascetical language of Catholic writing on obedience. For example, obedience …

1. The concept and the problem. The Latin terms oriens and occidens, together with septemtrio (north) and meridies (south), refer to the four points of the compass, oriens and occidens being understood, according to the Ptolomaic world-picture, of the rising and setting sun. From the time of Diocletian, East and West were administrative terms for the two parts of the Roman Empire. Sulpicius Severus (d. 420) assigned the oriens to Noah’s eldest son Shem, who was blessed in his seed, and the occidens to Noah’s youngest son Japheth, who shared in the blessing (the accu…