Classicism and Orthodox Christianity

Classical architecture describes a tradition of design and building that looks to the greatest examples of architecture as a means of accessing an intrinsic, transcendent truth. Over time, a long sequence of unique buildings and their designers were able to apply the concept of an ideal to particular and often wildly different places and circumstances around the globe and over thousands of years. The shared general qualities of the classical tradition work together to provide us with the mysterious understanding of an intrinsic and transcendent content that is more powerful and beautiful than the form of any one building. In this sense, classical architecture has no style. It is rather an accidental and particular representation of the universal and transcendent here on earth.

The architecture of early Christian churches was typically on a very small scale and took place in simple domestic buildings which allowed for discrete worship. However, as Christianity gained acceptance following Emperor Constantine’s conversion and proclamation of religious tolerance in the early 4th century, more expansive building programs became necessary. This new program in turn required a new architectural building type that could house a new liturgy and embody the authority of Christianity. The dominant religious building of the time, the pagan temple, was designed for ceremonies and sacrifices to take place outside on the portico. In contrast to this, the Church has from its earliest moments seen itself as an internal building with a door through which we enter at baptism. Thus, instead of looking to the pagan temple, the early Church, under the leadership of Constantine, took as its model another building type: the basilica. The basilica was developed by the Romans as a public courthouse and indoor place of business. Basilicas had a large central nave, often flanked by aisles, and were terminated in an apse were the magistrate or judge sat on a raised dais.

Domed basilica plan for a proposed Orthodox temple in Indiana

Here again, the liturgy and theology of Christianity dictated a new architectural language. In contrast to the highly ornamented exteriors of pagan temples, the exteriors of the first Christian basilicas were usually left quite plain in favor of highly ornamented and rich interior treatments. Expensive marbles, precious metals, and mosaics caught the downward rays of light from the clerestory windows located high above rows of columns and provided a radical shift from the mundane life outside to a highly concentrated realm of spiritual splendor and meaning. Eventually, the combination of the early Christian basilica and martyrium building types resulted in a completely new and uniquely Christian building type, the domed basilica, which reorients the building in a highly developed program of iconographic, liturgical, and chronological axes.

To build a new Orthodox temple is to invite God and the saints to dwell among us in single great icon. As Orthodox Christians we should be aware that, though classicism has existed prior to the founding of the Church and has been expressed in many forms, it has provided the vocabulary for the development of a truly Christian architecture capable of translating the transcendent glory of Heaven to our particular everyday life.

The Betrayal by Technology: A Portrait of Jacques Ellul

For a full version and transcript of the video click here.

S. Agnese in Agone

Sanguine grasse on smooth cotton paper

Video of Arion Press Printing Bible

An amazing and beautiful process, although I must say I agree with the type founder about the KJV. 

From the Meno

Men. O Socrates, I used to be told, before I knew you, that you were always doubting yourself and making others doubt; and now you are casting your spells over me, and I am simply getting bewitched and enchanted, and am at my wits' end. And if I may venture to make a jest upon you, you seem to me both in your appearance and in your power over others to be very like the flat torpedo fish, who torpifies those who come near him and touch him, as you have now torpified me, I think. For my soul and my tongue are really torpid, and I do not know how to answer you; and though I have been delivered of an infinite variety of speeches about virtue before now, and to many persons-and very good ones they were, as I thought-at this moment I cannot even say what virtue is. And I think that. you are very wise in not voyaging and going away from home, for if you did in other places as do in Athens, you would be cast into prison as a magician.

Soc. You are a rogue, Meno, and had all but caught me.

Men. What do you mean, Socrates?

Soc. I can tell why you made a simile about me.

Men. Why?

Soc. In order that I might make another simile about you. For I know that all pretty young gentlemen like to have pretty similes made about them-as well they may-but I shall not return the compliment. As to my being a torpedo, if the torpedo is torpid as well as the cause of torpidity in others, then indeed I am a torpedo, but not otherwise; for I perplex others, not because I am clear, but because I am utterly perplexed myself. And now I know not what virtue is, and you seem to be in the same case, although you did once perhaps know before you touched me. However, I have no objection to join with you in the enquiry.

Men. And how will you enquire, Socrates, into that which you do not know? What will you put forth as the subject of enquiry? And if you find what you want, how will you ever know that this is the thing which you did not know?

Soc. I know, Meno, what you mean; but just see what a tiresome dispute you are introducing. You argue that man cannot enquire either about that which he knows, or about that which he does not know; for if he knows, he has no need to enquire; and if not, he cannot; for he does not know the, very subject about which he is to enquire.

Men. Well, Socrates, and is not the argument sound?

Soc. I think not.

Men. Why not?

Soc. I will tell you why: I have heard from certain wise men and women who spoke of things divine that-

Men. What did they say?

Soc. They spoke of a glorious truth, as I conceive.

Men. What was it? and who were they?

Soc. Some of them were priests and priestesses, who had studied how they might be able to give a reason of their profession: there, have been poets also, who spoke of these things by inspiration, like Pindar, and many others who were inspired. And they say-mark, now, and see whether their words are true-they say that the soul of man is immortal, and at one time has an end, which is termed dying, and at another time is born again, but is never destroyed. And the moral is, that a man ought to live always in perfect holiness. "For in the ninth year Persephone sends the souls of those from whom she has received the penalty of ancient crime back again from beneath into the light of the sun above, and these are they who become noble kings and mighty men and great in wisdom and are called saintly heroes in after ages." The soul, then, as being immortal, and having been born again many times, rand having seen all things that exist, whether in this world or in the world below, has knowledge of them all; and it is no wonder that she should be able to call to remembrance all that she ever knew about virtue, and about everything; for as all nature is akin, and the soul has learned all things; there is no difficulty in her eliciting or as men say learning, out of a single recollection -all the rest, if a man is strenuous and does not faint; for all enquiry and all learning is but recollection. And therefore we ought not to listen to this sophistical argument about the impossibility of enquiry: for it will make us idle; and is sweet only to the sluggard; but the other saying will make us active and inquisitive. In that confiding, I will gladly enquire with you into the nature of virtue.

Men. Yes, Socrates; but what do you mean by saying that we do not learn, and that what we call learning is only a process of recollection? Can you teach me how this is?

Soc. I told you, Meno, just now that you were a rogue, and now you ask whether I can teach you, when I am saying that there is no teaching, but only recollection; and thus you imagine that you will involve me in a contradiction.

Classicism and Neoclassicism

What is the difference between classicism and neoclassicism, between great architecture and abortive attempts to return to it? Why am I interested in figuring out the difference between classicism and neoclassicism? The contrast sheds light on those tenets of traditional architecture which are most ambiguous to me, and which are perhaps, most essential. I am not interested so much in demonstrating the benefits of a classical architecture as I am in understanding how it can be successfully invoked once again. It appears to me from a survey of contemporary traditional buildings that one of the greatest pitfalls for the architect attempting to reestablish a connection with classical architecture is the error of revivalism. It will be my goal to describe how revivalism is in fact directly antithetical to the concept of tradition, and more significantly, how the essential conflict lies in our understanding of how man progresses through history. Perhaps this too is only symptomatic of a deeper contrast; regardless I will determine that as I continue the debate.

Is revivalism really the greatest pitfall for the classical architect today? There are a number of ways of approaching the question of what differentiates the continual awareness of the past, characteristic of classical architecture, from neoclassicism, a term used to describe movements such as revivalism, or eclecticism which seek to make a specific historical period, or period motif, the basis for all modern building and which have successfully been shown to be the progenitors of modernism. That modern architecture’s nature is akin to that of neoclassicism is symptomatic of the difference between classicism and revivalism. Several thoughtful expositions of the kinship between the ideals of neoclassicism and modernism exist, but these are merely similarities in the degree to which there has been a departure from a rational understanding of how we are capable of living.

The beginning of the question lies in the difference between classicism and neoclassicism just as I have phrased it, but it will be helpful to understand how neoclassicism and modernism are similar in order to distinguish the more essential contrast. More basic than the terms classicism and neoclassicism is an understanding of how the advent of historicism, or a shift in the way we have viewed progress has changed the process of imitation, the means by which we participate in tradition. Latent in the theory driving revivalism is the concept that contemporary architecture is in a different category from that of the past. This understanding of “the modern” is derived from the supposition that humanity is progressing toward a state of perfection on earth.

To begin to understand these ideas it will be necessary to understand how both Vitruvius and Alberti regarded history and the history of historicism. I propose to continue this exploration in the coming months.

Dixi, custodiam. Psalm xxxix.

LORD, let me know mine end, and the number of my days; * that I may be certified how long I have to live.
    Behold, thou hast made my days as it were a span long, and mine age is even as nothing in respect of thee; * and verily every man living is altogether vanity.
    For man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in vain; * he heapeth up riches, and cannot tell who shall gather them.
    And now, Lord, what is my hope? * truly my hope is even in thee.
    Deliver me from all mine offences; * and make me not a rebuke unto the foolish.When thou with rebukes dost chasten man for sin, thou makest his beauty to consume away, like as it were a moth fretting a garment: * every man therefore is but vanity.
    Hear my prayer, O Lord, and with thine ears consider my calling; * hold not thy peace at my tears;
    For I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, * as all my fathers were.
    O spare me a little, that I may recover my strength, * before I go hence, and be no more seen.

The Wicked Bible

Gandalf's resent penchant for defacing Bibles pointed me in the direction of the "Wicked Bible," now a valuable book published (for a short period) in 1631. It was intended to be a reprint of the King James, but owing to a crucial error in the composition of the type, omitted the "not" from the seventh commandment. Ooops... The error so outraged Charles I that he had the printers summoned to the Star Chamber where they were fined and lost their printing licenses.

King Charles's disgust with the event is made abundantly clear in this wonderfully nostalgic statement regarding the decline of the art of printing : "I knew the tyme when great care was had about printing, the Bibles especially, good compositors and the best correctors were gotten being grave and learned men, the paper and the letter rare, and faire every way of the beste, but now the paper is nought, the composers boyes, and the correctors unlearned." Oh what sad times are these...

The Babel Fish

Pieces of Picus

I just revisited this wonderful insight from Rainscape this evening, and, being an admirer of Pico della Mirandola thought it worth posting, especially with regards to the patrimony of Thomas More.

This (The Life of John Picus) delights and instructs, and is moreover good! I've had the feeling that this is important for while, but finally have read it and selected some notable passages for you, my friends. More translated/wrote this life of Pico della Mirandola, one of his earliest works, while discerning his vocation, studying and praying in a small cell within the Carthusian "Charterhouse". He chose Pico as a model man of recent times, and what a choice! Even though More chose a different path in life than the eccentric Mirandola, his endorsement of Pico represents something he adopted to his temper and certainly never let go of.

PIECES OF THE LIFE OF PICUS
Earl of Mirandula, a great lord of Italy, an excellent cunning man in all sciences, and virtuous of living ; with divers epistles and other works of the said John Picus, full of great science, virtue, and wisdom : whose life and works be worthy and digne to be read and often to be had in memory.

Translated out of Latin into English by Master Thomas More.
Selected by Scrivener Adam Cooper.

He was of feature and shape seemly and beauteous, of stature goodly and high, of flesh tender and soft, his visage lovely and fair, his colour white intermingled with comely reds, his eyes grey and quick of look, his teeth white and even, his hair yellow and not too picked.
. . .
Under the rule and governance of his mother he was set to masters and to learning, where with so ardent mind he laboured the studies of humanity that within short while he was (and not without a cause) accounted among the chief orators and poets of that time, in learning marvellous swift and of so ready a wit that the verses which he heard once read he would again both forward and backward to the great wonder of the hearers rehearse, and over that would hold it in sure remembrance; which in other folks wont commonly to happen contrary, for they that are swift in taking be oftentimes slow in remembering, and they that with more labour and difficulty receive it, more fast and surely hold it.
. . .
He was of cheer always merry and of so benign nature that he was never troubled with anger, and he said once to his nephew that whatsoever should happen (fell there never so great misadventure) he could never, as him thought, be moved to wrath, but if his chests perished in which his books lay that he had with great travail and watch compiled. But forasmuch as he considered that he laboured only for the love of God and profit of His Church, and that he had dedicated unto Him all his works, his studies and his doings, and since he saw that, since God is almighty, they could not miscarry but if it were either by His commandment or by His sufferance, he verily trusted, since God is all good, that He would not suffer him to have that occasion of heaviness.
. . .
Some man hath shone in eloquence, but ignorance of natural things hath dishonested him; some man hath flowered in the knowledge of divers strange languages, but he hath wanted all the cognition of philosophy; some man hath read the inventions of the old philosophers, but he hath not been exercised in the new schools; some man hath sought cunning, as well philosophy as divinity, for praise and vainglory and not for any profit or increase of Christ's Church. But Picus all these things with equal study hath so received that they might seem by heaps as a plenteous stream to have flowed into him. For he was not of the condition of some folk (which to be excellent in one thing set all other aside) but he in all sciences profited so excellently that which of them soever ye had considered in him, ye would have thought that he had taken that one for his only study. And all these things were in him so much the more marvellous in that he came thereto by himself with the strength of his own wit, for the love of God and profit of His Church, without masters; so that we may say of him that Epicurus the philosopher said of himself, that he was his own master.
. . .
And oftentimes in communication he would admonish his familiar friends how greatly these mortal things bow and draw to an end, how slipper and how falling it is that we live in now; how firm, how stable it shall be that we shall hereafter live in, whether we be thrown down into hell or lifted up into heaven. Wherefore he exhorted them to turn up their minds to love God, which was a thing far excelling all the cunning that is possible for us in this life to obtain.
. . .
"But now behold, 0 my well-beloved Angel [his friend], what madness holdeth us. Love God (while we be in this body) we rather may, than either know Him or by speech utter Him. In loving Him also we more profit ourselves, we labour less and serve Him more ; and yet had we liefer, always by knowledge never find that thing that we seek, than by love to possess that thing which also, without love, were in vain found."
. . .
Liberality only in him passed measure : for so far was he from the giving of any diligence to earthly things that he seemed somewhat besprent with the freckle of negligence. His friends oftentimes admonished him that he should not all utterly despise riches, showing him that it was his dishonesty and rebuke when it was reported (were it true or false) that his negligence and setting naught by money gave his servants occasion of deceit and robbery. Nevertheless, that mind of his (which evermore on high cleaved first in contemplation and in the ensearching of nature's counsel) could never let down itself to the consideration and overseeing of these base, abject, and vile earthly trifles.
. . .
His lovers and friends with great benignity and courtesy he entreated, whom he used in all secret communing virtuously to exhort to Godward, whose godly words so effectually wrought in the hearers that where a cunning man (but not so good as cunning) came to him on a day for the great fame of his learning to commune with him, as they fell in talking of virtue he was with two words of Picus so throughly pierced that forthwithal he forsook his accustomed vice and reformed his conditions. The words that he said unto him were these : "If we had evermore before our eyes the painful death of Christ which He suffered for the love of us, and then if we would again think upon our death, we should well beware of sin."
. . .
Wedding and worldly business he fled almost alike. Notwithstanding, when he was asked once in sport whether of those two burdens seemed lighter and which he would choose if he should of necessity be driven to that one, and at his election; which he sticked thereat a while, but at the last he shook his head and a little smiling he answered that he had liefer take him to marriage, as that thing in which was less servitude and not so much jeopardy. Liberty above all he loved, to which both his own natural affection and the study of philosophy inclined him; and for that he was always wandering and flitting and would never take himself to any certain dwelling.
. . .
“Nephew;" said he, “ this will I show thee, I warn thee keep it secret ; the substance that I have left, after certain books of mine finished, I intend to give out to poor folk, and fencing myself with the crucifix, barefoot walking about the world in every town and castle I purpose to preach of Christ."
. . .
In the year of our Redemption, 1494, when he had fulfilled the thirty-second year of his age and abode at Florence, he was suddenly taken with a fervent access which so far forth crept into the interior parts of his body, that it despised all medicines and overcame all remedy, and compelled him within three days to satisfy nature and repay her the life which he received of her.
. . .
After that he had received the holy Body of our Saviour, when they offered unto him the crucifix (that is the image of Christ's ineffable passion suffered for our sake, that he might ere he gave up the ghost receive his full draught of love and compassion in the beholding of that pitiful figure as a strong defence against all adversity and a sure portcullis against wicked spirits) the priest demanded him whether he firmly believed that crucifix to be the image of Him that was very God and very man: which in His Godhead was before all time begotten of His Father, to Whom He is also equal in all things, and Which of the Holy Ghost, God also, of Him and of the Father coeternally going forth (which three Persons be one God) was in the chaste womb of our lady, a perpetual virgin, conceived in time; Which suffered hunger, thirst, heat, cold, labour, travail, and watch; and Which at the last for washing of our spotty sin contracted and drawn unto us in the sin of Adam, for the sovereign love that He had to mankind, in the altar of the cross willingly and gadly shed out His most precious blood :-when the priest inquired of him these things and such other as they be wont to inquire of folk in such case, Picus answered him that he not only believed it but also certainly knew it.
. . .
He showed also to the above-named Albertus and many other credible persons that the Queen of heaven came to him that night with a marvellous fragrant odour, refreshing all his members that were bruised and frushed with that fever, and promised him that he should not utterly die.
. . .
Now since it is so that he is adjudged to that fire from which he shall undoubtedly depart unto glory, and no man is sure how long it shall be first, and maybe the shorter time for our intercessions, let every Christian body show their charity upon him to help to speed him thither where, after the long habitation with the inhabitants of this dark world (to whom his goodly conversation gave great light) and after the dark fire of purgatory (in which venial sins be cleansed) he may shortly (if he be not already) enter the inaccessible and infinite light of heaven, where he may in the presence of the sovereign Godhead so pray for us that we may the rather by his intercession be partners of that unspeakable joy which we have prayed to bring him speedily to. Amen.
Here endeth the life of John Picus, Earl of Mirandula.

HERE FOLLOWETH IN PART AN EPISTLE OF THE SAID JOHN PICUS

But here ye will say to me thus: “I am content ye study, but I would have you outwardly occupied also. And I desire you not so to embrace Martha that ye should utterly forsake Mary. Love them and use them both, as well study as worldly occupation." Truly, my well-beloved friend, in this point I gainsay you not; they that so do I find no fault in nor I blame them not, but certainly it is not all one to say we do well if we do so, and to say we do evil but if we do so . . . Shall a man then be rebuked because that he desireth and ensueth virtue only for itself, because he studieth the mysteries of God, because he ensearcheth the counsel of nature, because he useth continually this pleasant ease and rest, seeking none outward thing, despising all other thing, since those things are able sufficiently to satisfy the desire of their followers? By this reckoning it is a thing either servile, or at the leastwise not princely, to make the study of wisdom other than mercenary. Who may well hear this, who may suffer it? Certainly he never studied for wisdom which so studied therefor that in time to come either he might not or would not study therefor. This man rather exercised the study of merchandise than of wisdom. Ye write unto me that it is time for me now to put myself in household with some of the great princes of Italy, but I see well that as yet ye have not known the opinion that philsosophers have of themselves, which (as Horace saith) repute themselves kings of kings; they love liberty; they cannot bear the proud manners of estates; they cannot serve. They dwell with themselves and be content with the tranquillity of their own mind; they suffice themselves and more; they seek nothing out of themselves; the things that are had in honour among the common people, among them be not held honourable. All that ever the voluptuous desire of men thirsteth for, or ambition seeketh for, they set at naught and despise. Which while it belongeth to all men, yet undoubtedly it pertaineth most properly to them whom fortune hath so liberally favoured that they may live not only well and plenteously, but also nobly. These great fortunes lift up a man high and set him out to the show, but oftentimes as a fierce and a skittish horse they cast off their master. Certainly always they grieve and vex him and rather tear him than bear him. The golden mediocrity, the mean estate, is to be desired, which shall bear us as it were in hands a more easily, which shall obey us and not master us. I therefore, abiding firmly in this opinion, set more by my little house, my study, the pleasure of my books, the rest and peace of my mind, than by all your kings palaces, all your common business, all your glory, all the advantage that ye hawk after, and all the favour of the court. Nor I look not for worldly business, but that I may once bring forth the children that I travail on; that I may give out some books of mine own to the common profit which may somewhat savour if not of cunning yet at the leastwise of wit and diligence. And because ye shall not think that my travail and diligence in study is anything remitted or slackened, I give you knowledge that after great fervent labour with much watch and indefatigable travail I have learned both the Hebrew language and the Chaldee, and now have I set hand to overcome the great difficulty of the Arabic tongue. These, my dear friend, be things which do appertain to a noble prince, I have ever thought and yet think. Fare ye well.

Civic Marginalia?

Movie Update: Bella

I just saw Bella. It wasn't that bad. I thought I was in for an all out anti-abortion movie from what I had heard. I'd say there are some serious plot issues, but overall I was amazed at how graceful the film was. Rather than coming at the issue defensively, or with a fight in mind the film was about more than the simple choice to have a child or not. I haven't seen any of the rescent movies that are out, which apparently seem to lean toward the pro-life camp (Juno, Knocked Up), but this one certainly handled it in a way that at least allowed for discussion.