Now, speaking about contemplation in identity life, we have ascended, as it were, right into the highest regions of the Divine Trinity, and we saw there the archetype of that contemplation of that together of the two Templar in the together vis a vis of the Father and the Son. The the divine full realisation of the idea of contemplation. We also saw then this contemplation, as it were, descending here upon earth. And then our Lord, the word of God made man was the templum, where the divine word of the heavenly nature

[01:17]

as united to the human nature in the unity of the one person. Now, I think it would help us if we from now on descend a little, consider the idea of contemplation in its historical and human origins, because then we get a better picture of the proper meaning of contemplation, contemplative life and active life, and the terminology which is connected with it, also the change which these concepts have undergone in the development of history. Now, I think one can start there from a very evident fact which was in fact one of the basic experiences of the people of the antiquity, Mediterranean and the Near East.

[02:25]

And that is that evident difference between this earth on which we live and the heavens above. The heavens are as it were, in a region or seemed to be in a sphere of harmony, the harmony of the spheres, as we put it. And they seem to have the character of permanency, or at least of a well-ordered cycle of predetermined roots on which to the heavenly bodies march. Their existence seems to be an unperturbed existence of radiating light.

[03:28]

There is the sun, there are the moon, there are the stars. And this entire world has a stamp of happiness, of peace, and of order, and of eternity. While when the eye turns down to this world, to this earth, then we see the opposite. Let us say not exactly the opposite because this world is not exactly a chaos. But there we see that movement is the predominant element. We see our earthly sky. That's what the Old Testament, you know, the lower sky. We see that perturbed during constant motion.

[04:32]

The clouds are wandering. Along the sky, the winds are blowing in various directions. And the clouds that pass by, driven by the wind, they change for us. The light of the sun and of the moon, the stars, sometimes we see it, sometimes we are not able to see it. Then there is this earth. and there is the elements, the water and the fire. All these elements which make the life here on Earth, fill the Earth, are unstable. There's the Earth, but that's so evident in the Mediterranean world, so often disturbed by earthquakes and the eruptions of the volcanoes. And then there is the water, the sea, the ocean, so terrifying.

[05:38]

And under the influence of the storms and hurricanes threatening the life of man, to boats which is, they are drifting along on the high waves of the ocean, an experience like that which was the daily experience of so many sailors in the antiquity is a terrifying gives us the feeling of complete insecurity an insecurity which comes from uncontrolled movement the storms and the waves and then on this earth the life which develops there threatened by death threatened by sicknesses epidemics and the wars that disturb the peace of mankind so this earth here an earth full of trouble a veil of tears and man then

[06:53]

living here able to lift his eyes up to the sky, and there sees that immovable peace and harmony and radiant blessedness. So he is, as it were, a citizen of two worlds. And then his first step is, of course, in astrology and in the observance of the movements of the stars to discover, as it were, the stable laws that direct the course of human and earthly events. So his desire is to ascend from the moon and from this trance world into a stable one where the law is being obeyed, where order reigns.

[07:57]

But at the same time one has to remember also that this earth also being disturbed in so many ways still reflects in some way the order and stability of heaven, not completely a chaos. because the ocean, for example, certainly is exposed to all the differences and varieties of weather. It can be peaceful and it can be stormy, but it remains within its pre-set boundaries. It does not flood and destroy the land. So there are certain firm points evidently also here in this world. And there are certainly wars here. But then after the war also comes victory.

[09:02]

And the victory is followed by peace. And peace, Pax, is the order, the being, put into, as we heard it yesterday, be dovetailed, you know, human existences into a clutter, into an order. It's the pax, peace. So that exists here too. Human society has laws. And I say power imposes peace, the pax romana. So here on earth there is a mixed world, and man is the citizen of these two worlds. But one thing, of course, is evident, and that is that the desire of man is towards that stability, towards that eternity. That is for our longing, that security. That's especially strong in the manner of the antiquity, the Mediterranean.

[10:06]

That's to aspire to harmony and peace. So there we have two regions, and in these two regions, two kinds of life. One kind in the heavenly region, and there is the region of the gods, the stars considered as gods. And that region as one of light and of peace. And then here on earth we have the conflict. There is the battle, the war. And a life, therefore, which has to deal with the defects and with the evil that reigns that is so evident here in this lower world. Now the life of the skies and of the gods in a quiet tranquility of order in that piece

[11:17]

That is a rare picture of the happiness of the contemplative life. Down here on earth, the dealing with the evils of this world and with the disturbances and the attempts to impose some kind of order here or to create for man in an order in a in a it is in a city a a section where law and order reigns that is can be called the active life and to say the type of most evident type man who serves battles and fights for order here in this world is the soldier.

[12:21]

It's that Roman legend of this, who is it, Marcus Cortius or somebody like that. I don't know why you sound like this. And he, I can't guarantee for it. But there was, you know, there are the two battle lines. There are the Carthage and Hannibal on one side. There are the Romans on the other side. And then the Roman determined by a lot, the Roman soldier or the Roman general is... rose, you know, with horse and his entire armor, jumps into the pit. And there in this pit he is buried and offered in that way as a sacrifice to the Stonic deities, the gods of the earth.

[13:34]

Because these gods of the earth, these Stonic, deities that are the gods powerful in war. And so this Roman soldier jumping into the pit, he is the offering of the whole Roman army, of the whole Roman res publica, of that stronghold of law and order and peace, to the chthonic gods, the gods of the netherworld. in that is, in the type, let us say, of what we may call the active life. Man, anyway, offers, sacrifices his life to the gods of war, that in every peace for the whole community may be established or saved in victory. And that is what that conflict, one can see that right away already in the beginnings of the civilization of antiquity is then the evaluation of these two.

[14:47]

We have the soldier with the active life and then we have the philosopher, philosopher who rises above the variety and the motion and the battles and fights of this life to the discovery of the eternal lasting laws. And there is then the conflict which life is the higher life, the life that offers itself, say, to the gods of the netherworld in order to establish peace here on earth, or the scholar or the philosopher who withdraws to try to reach with a pure mind the eternal truth. of which the heavenly bodies and the heavenly world is a sin.

[15:49]

About that, the next time.

[15:53]

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