Simone Weil Regards Christianity as a Religion for Slaves - Essay Example

Simone Weil regards Christianity as a ‘religion for slaves’. What does she mean by this, and is it a justified claim? Alongside Simone Weil’s opinion of the nearly unmatched cruelty and violence of Roman nationalism was their unique approach to the tradition of slavery. For Weil slavery not simply had a definite impact on the Western civilization’s political legacy but also on the Westerners’ religious sentiment too. A person’s view of God’s Providence, or his connection with the world, was generally essential: Faith in Providence consists in being certain that the universe in its totality is in conformity to the will of God… that is to say, that in this universe good outweighs evil… Thus the object of this certitude is an eternal and universal dispensation constituting the foundation of an invariable order in the world. Diving Providence is never represented in any other form, unless I am mistaken, either in the sacred texts of the Chinese, the Indians, and the Greeks, or in the Gospels. She believed that such pseudo-universal religious idea was significantly transformed by the Romans in their unique and odd acceptance of Christianity, with historic outcomes: “… when the Christian religion was officially adopted by the Roman Empire, the impersonal aspect of God and of Divine Providence was thrust into the background. God was turned into a counterpart of the Emperor.” Weil believed that the ideas of nationalism of the Jews and the Romans were the same—both were cruel, profane, and agnostic, both supported the exploitation and persecution of the inferior by the superior. Associated with this sameness of outlooks was a shared subject matter in the spirituality or worship of the two groups. Both the Romans and the Jews, regardless of their dissimilarities in other aspects, had a similar idea of slavery, essential to the cosmological beliefs of both people. The Jews believe that: In the texts dating from before the exile, Jehovah’s juridical relationship to the Hebrews is that of master to his slaves. They had been Pharaoh’s slaves: Jehovah, having taken them out of Pharaoh’s hands, has succeeded to Pharaoh’s rights… He orders them indifferently to do good or evil, but far more often evil, and in either case they have to obey. It matters little that they should be made to obey from the basest motives, provided that orders are duly executed. With regard to the Romans, “Such a conception as this was exactly on a par with the feelings and intelligence of the Romans. With them slavery had undermined and degraded all human relations.” Therefore, Weil claimed, in addition to the extraordinary political connection between the Romans and the Jews, there was an uncommon religious connection too. The Father of the Gospels that Christianity revered would appear to be somewhat unrelated to the Jehovah slave-master God, yet she argued that Christianity “owing to its historical origin, has been unable to purge itself” of the influence of Judaism. Hence Christianity was not merely incapable of thwarting such ungodly or blasphemous combination of awkward views of God; it was unfortunately debased by it from the very start. Weil believed, primarily, that the Romans were not genuinely drawn to Christianity. They were totally materialists and totally nonbelievers who were afraid of the religiosity of their fellow people: The Romans could not tolerate anything rich in spiritual content. Love of God is a dangerous fire whose contact could prove fatal to their wretched deification of slavery. So they ruthlessly destroyed spiritual life under all its forms… They wiped out the Druids in Gaul; destroyed the Egyptian religious cults; drowned in blood and brought into disrepute by ingenious calumnies the worship of Dionysus. We know what they did to Christians at the beginning. Hence the Roman people had an intense disrespect for religious ideals. Weil further argued that, as history shows, totally materialists and totally nonbelievers, though systematic, are rarely completely at ease with this standing among their neighbours. The Romans felt the same: … They felt ill at ease in their all too vulgar idolatry. Like Hitler they knew the value of a deceptive exterior of spirituality. They would have liked to take the outer coverings of an authentic religious tradition to act as a cloak for their all too visible atheism. Hitler, too, would be pleased enough to found a religion. Hence the purpose of the Romans with Christianity was, somewhat, contrived, in some ways, ruthlessly greedy. The Romans merely used Christianity as an effective disguise or smokescreen. Weil explained that the followers of Christianity surrendered because of Roman cruelty and their personal frustrations: The Christians consented when they were too worn out with being massacred, too disheartened at not seeing the arrival of the triumphant end of the world. It is thus that the Father of Christ, accommodated to the Roman fashion, became a master and owner of slaves. Jehovah furnished the necessary means of transition. There was no longer the least difficulty about welcoming him. There was no longer any dispute over property between the Roman emperor and him, since the destruction of Jerusalem. She believed that the metamorphosis of the God into a slave-owner was a cultural episode with huge repercussions, experienced hugely until the 20th century. Weil believed that the Romans corrupted Christianity with their viciously worldly or materialistic outlook toward religion. She specifically stated that, “…. Roman idolatry has defiled everything-- … it is the mode of worship… If a Christian worships God with a heart disposed like that of a pagan of Rome in the homage rendered to the Emperor, that Christian is an idolator also.” Her opinion with regard to the degree of this violation of Christianity by the Romans’ view of the Father of Christ created an uninviting image. It was not a simple mistake by the unknowing, gullible, and irrational masses. The Roman sickness infected every part of the Church. Weil was driven by the agony of a prophet over the desecration of Christianity to put her faith for the religion in mystics and mysticism. According to her, the misfortune of Catholicism was the momentous suffocation of the mystics’ instinct. Such suffocation, as a consequence, arose not from an interest in accepted belief or doctrine but from materialistic, earthbound aspiration and desire: … The spiritual influence of the Mystics was powerless to destroy this conception in the Church as it was destroyed in their own hearts, because the Church needed it as the Empire before had needed it. It was necessary for the Church’s temporal dominion. Such continuous loss of mysticism is the root cause of the continuous violation of Christianity: “…the Roman spirit of imperialism and domination has never loosened its hold over the Church sufficiently for the latter to be able to abolish the Roman conception of God.” ******* The first event Simone Weil recounts occurred when she was recovering from the time she devoted in a sweatshop from 1934 to 1935. In 1935, she went to Portugal for a vacation and there she saw the solemn parade of fishermen’s wives chanting as they encircled the fishing boats commemorating the patronal feast of the church. All of a sudden she realised the importance of the faith of these impoverished wives to her personal struggle and experience. Throughout her stay in the sweatshop, she had experienced the numbing consequences of exhaustion, its physical and mental tiredness, the panic of failing to reach the needed level of piece-work or quota; and the anxiety which gripped everybody over losing their employment. From then on, she saw herself and every labourer as mere slaves. She eventually recognised in Christianity the misery of the needy and destitute, of the contemporary slaves of industrialisation. The expression ‘the religion of slaves’ is mentioned by Friedrich Nietzsche; as he had written in Beyond Good and Evil, the Jewish people were ‘born for slavery’, or that it was the Jews who caused “the miraculous feat of an inversion of values” which signalled “the beginning of the slave rebellion in morals”. Christianity was described in the following manner: “[…] a sacrifice of all freedom, all pride, all self-confidence of the spirit; at the same time enslavement and self-mockery, self mutilation.” When Weil mentions ‘religion of slaves’ she is witnessing in the Christian belief of a Supreme Being who takes part in the misery of human being, and whose love endows power and fortitude. She remarked about the compassion, or absence of it, which people expressed to one another at moments of hardship. When a diseased woman was torn down, there was not much compassion expressed by those around her. Weil experienced the same cruelty from time to time, but there were several colleagues who were sympathetic. She was oblivious of any contribution of religion to the fight for survival, even in the ability which a number of individuals kept to respond to other people. The link between such response and God’s benevolent love for the people was revealed to her in Portugal. Her pursuit of knowledge of such relationship is the beginning of her spiritual journey, and of her uneasy relationship with Christianity. Read More