A Fine Line between Sanctity and Sinfulness - Essay Example

A Fine Line between Sanctity and Sinfulness Jesus’s life was the prophet’s life. By definition it was supposed to be right between the sanctity and sinfulness. In order to not appear too godly as to drive away people Jesus was hanging right on the edge of sinfulness but never indulging. On the scale of sanctity he had to score high enough to attract people through his character. His life is full of examples that draw the line between sanctity and sinfulness. He was a social bandit and it was an implied responsibility of him to draw the line between sinfulness and sanctity. Jesus clearly pointed out the difference between right and wrong. Christ himself is the difference between sanctity and sinfulness. St. John, when addressing the masses, said that one should not sin, however, if a man sins he has an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ (Taylor, 1849, p. 418). Christ not only preached sanctity, he lived the life on his own principles. At the same time, he showed the world how to stay away from the sins. The Bible says “put to death what is earthly in you” (Colossians 3:5). It does not mean to rid the humanness. Earthly here refers to the sins and embracing the opposite, the sanctity. Earthly can be considered evil desires. These evil desires draw the line between good and evil. Say the desire to avoid people or to hurt them based on their ethnicity or the color of their skin, is an evil or earthly desire. Christ preached and embraced all of humanity. Just like the sun does not shine on a single neighborhood, Jesus was not the prophet for a certain race or nation. He did not sin by staying away from the people who were considered of low caste. He embraced sanctity and preached to all equally. It was this act that made him the favorite of the masses. They saw him as their leader, someone with mythical powers that healed their sick. A rebel who was fighting for the rights of poor. Pharisees considered Jesus’s actions as sinful because he condemned Pharisees and the teachers of Moses’s Law (“Bible Gateway”, n.d.). Jesus never criticized the Law of Moses but he showed his concerns about the character of its preachers. He said to the mass that they should listen to the Law of Moses but there is no need to take action upon it as its preachers are hypocrites. They keep piling restrictions and laws on people but they never abide by them. Their good deeds are just an act to impress people and not the God. Pharisees thrive on appearances and showing off their piousness. For instance, swearing by the altar did not hold any importance to the Pharisees. The only thing that mattered to them was the gift at the altar. Pharisees did not like the ‘spirituality’ in Christianity. Therefore they considered spiritual actions as sinful. On similar grounds Christ did not approve of their plans of becoming the ‘teachers’, ‘fathers’ and ‘leaders’. Christ never considered them worthy of teaching. The only father the people have is not on earth and the true leader is the messiah. You Pharisees and teachers of the Law of Moses are in for trouble! You’re nothing but show-offs. You lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. You won’t go in yourselves, and you keep others from going in. (Mathew 23: 13-14) For a social bandit it is almost necessary to have an adversary. Jesus had quite a few. His legendary status made him an icon for others to follow. Francis’s efforts of mimicking the life of Jesus is almost manic imitation. He imitates Jesus because he was unaware of the complex processes of reading the scriptures and not interested in discovering their full meaning. In Later Rule Francis tells all of his brothers to not only in a well-chosen and chaste language but to preach in easy everyday use terms. Keeping it brief was his way of preaching effectively. In his ways of mimicking the Christ, Assisi is sometimes considered the second Christ (Verbum, 2014). He also pointed at the fine line between sanctity and sinfulness through his life. He mimicked Jesus but surprisingly his early biographers never mention anything about the afterlife (Moreira & Toscano, 1969, p. 84). Assisi takes the action of defining the border between sin and sanctity to a step further by “active engagement in the material world” (Moreira & Toscano, 1969, p. 84). Francis’ world view is based on glory but his concern about the corruption is not mitigated by this perspective. He strongly believed that that the world was full of corruption and, lust and temptation. These things can easily destroy the salvation of a man. However, he also believed that the material world was only natural. The place for testing the faith of devout Christians. He mimics Jesus because he believed the Christ’s incarnation was the true map of salvation (Moreira & Toscano, 1969, p. 84). Jesus’ life was the model for Christian devotion. The way Francis saw Jesus, he imitated. He invented a new spiritual tradition mimicking the life of a poor nomad and a modest preacher, exactly the way he saw Jesus (Moreira & Toscano, 1969, p. 84). Which is why the living body is the vessel for spiritual transformation. God is perfect, the light, the happiness. There is no doubt that God is holy and clean from any sin. In Francis’ view of spirituality, one attains spiritual perfection by becoming one with God (Moreira & Toscano, 1969, p. 84). And that cannot be achieved without ridding one’s life from sins. The concept of social banditry defined by Eric Hobsbawm in his works Bandits (1969) and Primitive Rebels (1959), is the elementary form of social protest. However, the scent of real banditry cannot be washed away from this concept (Hobsbawm, 1972, p. 504). A bandit is not necessarily a conscious social protestor. Jesus and Francis probably offer the best example of attaining the legend of social banditry. Social bandits are not really social or political rebels. Being a revolutionary is also a bleak possibility. They are the peasants that refuse to submit and as a consequence appear the leaders of their fellows (Hobsbawm, 1969, p. 19). They do not necessarily choose this path for them, being excluded from the usual career of their kind and as a consequence, forced into unlawful means, is usually the cause for social banditry. Hence, banditry is not a tool or weapon for the natives or the peasants, it is usually more of self-help for escaping certain circumstances. Jesus and Francis both were social bandits according to Hobsbawm definition. They were ordinary men, peasants who did not confirm to the conventional authority. They were discontent with the norm and customs. However, they were not deranged or distant from the peasantry ways of life. Their circumstances turned them into champions of peasant discontent. They were a ‘part’ of the society that wanted to separate from the conventions. The lives and teachings of both Jesus and Francis are open to interpretations. There are so many variations of the true interpretations of their teachings. This is the beauty of a social bandit; “the crucial fact about the bandit’s social situation is its ambiguity” (Hobsbawm, 1969, p. 76). Both Jesus and Francis were rebels in their own way. They lived on the outskirts of traditions. They were both poor and refused to accept the ways of living like a poor. This made them the leaders of poor. The masses related with them because they were one of them. However, at the same time both of these men worked towards attaining power; something that is absent from the lives of poor peasants. This makes their lives ambiguous. One of the best examples of social bandits is the legend of Robin Hood. There is more myth to this legend than mystery because there are two conditions that a man of such stature needs to adhere to; to avoid the temptations of power a man of such responsibility requires political consciousness (which is very rare among bandits), and the role of social banditry also requires shunning the support and protection of the local power structure (Hobsbawm, 1972, p. 504). Having all these qualities in a man is a very rare occurrence. Hobsbawm also gives a distinction between bandits; there are good bandits and bad bandits. Their goodness or badness depends on the public opinion about them. The late ‘Mate Cosido’ of Argentina was a good bandit but the late Velasquez did not have such reputation (Hobsbawm, 1972, p. 504). The former never robbed good Argentinians, he only robbed foreign businesses and helped the widows. Jesus and Francis were also good bandits as they had a positive public reputation. Jesus and Francis gave comfort and solace to the poor and talked of equality. They challenged the norms that suppressed the poor. Both of them acquired the characteristics of mythical stereotypes, the heroes. Jesse James is another example that helps understand how a person becomes a social bandit. He operated in a comparable socio-economic environment. The myth making ability is not only specific to bandits. The act of distorting human memory serves well in this regard. Certain behaviors are applied to create bandits or myths (Hobsbawm, 1972, p. 505); a) the bandit myth itself, there are good ones and bad ones, b) the social bandit having some good deeds or actions to prove (Jesus freed his people from oppression, Francis mimicked him and Cosido the policemen fought the bandits), c) the mythology of good bandit is compatible with a close acquaintance of a legend or hero. There needs to be some relation between bandit’s actual behavior and the myth that is created from his character or created out of comparison. This makes it easy to understand why real people do not live up to the legends or social bandits. There is only one Jesus, one Francis and one Robin Hood. People try to imitate these legends but no one comes close to them. These bandits gain the status of fantasy, something that the masses aspire to become but they can never reach the stars. In fact many bandits have tried to genuinely play the role of Robin Hood (Hobsbawm, 1972, p. 505). As the time passes the views about social bandits shift. There are versions of myths that the people close to the bandits in real life create. And then there are those who are distant from the bandits in space and time. There is an active bandit now and the bandit that is remembered (Hobsbawm, 1972, p. 504). Jesus and Francis are probably the classic examples of social bandits. There was a different public opinion about them in their own time. Jesus was cherished and admired by only a small population in his time. After his crucifixion, there was a new mythical legend carved out of his life. This bandit became distant from the masses through time and space which transformed the perceptions of his followers. It also created a new line of followers. Which is why Christianity has spread far and wide through the world. The social bandit lives the life of a saint among sinners. It is probably an implied requirement of the bandit to define the line between sanctity and sinfulness. References "Bible Gateway Passage: Matthew 23 - Contemporary English Version." Bible Gateway. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 June 2014. . Hobsbawm, E. J. Bandits. New York: Delacorte, 1969. Print. Hobsbawm, Eric. "Social Bandits: Reply." Comparative Studies in Society and History 14.04 (1972): 503-05. JSTOR. Web. 3 June 2014. . Moreira, Isabel, and Margaret Merrill Toscano. Hell and Its Afterlife: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2010. Print. Taylor, Jeremy. The great exemplar of sanctity and holy life described in the history of the life and death of the ever blessed Jesus Christ: The savior of the world. W. Pickering, 1849. Print. Read More