Original scientific paper
Marulić and the Dualist Temptation
Branko Jozić
orcid.org/0000-0003-2490-148X
; Marulianum, Split
Abstract
By nature man has always aspired for happiness and at the same time has constantly had to face up to various forms of unhappiness, and the problem of evil. In a philosophical and religious search for acceptable answers, the human mind has become entangled in an inextricable net of contradictions between the idea about the divine omnipotence, goodness, justice and wisdom on the one hand and suffering, injustice and evil on the other. A way out is sometimes sought in various dualist conceptions, visions in which the world of matter is opposed to the world of the spirit.
In religious history the concept of dualism implies a polarisation at the ontological level, i.e. it accepts two principles, two divinities with part of reality (matter and the body) being seen as negative and evil. This kind of vision required the condemnation and rejection of the world and the life on earth, a fight against the impulses of the body, mortification and an aspiration for martyrdom and death as a redemption from the painstaking sojourn upon this earth in which not only Christians but also many pagans felt aliens and exiles. It is not surprising then that in a practical sense the way towards a better and more beautiful reality would quite often lead to a flight from and rejection of the world, a liberation from everything earthly. Along the lines of the pre-Christian contempt for matter and encratism, asceticism developed very strongly, as a live revolt against the aggressive prodigality of the world and went on flourishing all through the medieval period.
Marulić too not only »lived a heavenly life on earth in the body but despite the body« but even »for the sake of a more peaceful life as a sixty year old man found refuge on the island of Šolta ... in a calm haven, safe from the most alluring baits and the most thorny byways of this world«. Instead of the Renaissance optimism, in him there is much more of a sense of the influence of the movement devotio moderna and the traditional contemptus mundi viewpoint, a reflection of the dualist polarisation that the Christian worldview has never entirely managed to escape.
Marulić, then, is a Christian Humanist, and in his works there is an understand-able opposition of body and soul, this world and that, in which of course the passing is subordinated to the eternal, for this »evil« world is but »a snare and vanity«. How-ever, he still remains within the framework of the ethical dualism generally accepted in orthodoxy. Even when he talks of sin and redemption, he does not lay any stress on Satan’s rule of the world, rather on the magnitude of the Divine love and grace. Skilfully balancing between extremes, he does not, like many reformers during history, sink into extremism: he does not describe the goods of this world as negative, only subordinates them to the higher, the eternal goods; they are inconstant, and they must not come between the Christian and God. Love for Him must surmount all other kinds of love. While he advises putting on the spiritual raiment of virtue, he does not forget to add that the body must be looked after to the extent that natural necessity demands. Along the lines of a similar Graeco-Roman philosophical ethic and Christian principles, he argues the straiter, steeper, more arduous way that leads to the eschatological purpose.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
35392
URI
Publication date:
22.4.2009.
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