We interrupt the revolution to bring you an actual reflection on Orientalism. I promise I’ll get back to it next post — and I confess I’ve taken a bit of a hiatus from posting in real time (sorry for you regular followers) if only to manage my own stress levels — and keep my friends on Facebook and Twitter from killing me. Apparently, overposting can clog up peoples’ newsfeeds. So, hiatus. Just for now. And enough apologies.
Yesterday, I heard Mass with my grandmother (“Bopshee”) at the parish I grew up in — St. Andrew’s. I go to Mass every Sunday, and love it, though I always brace for the homily (which, for you non-Catholics out there, is a commentary on the three readings from Scripture at that Mass). Most of the time, the homily is a watered-down, feel-good sermon on hand-holding, and the worst of parishes don’t even give a good analysis of the passages read that day — I take that back. The worst parishes use the homily time (10 minutes, or thereabout) for announcements and school fundraising.
What does this have to do with orientalism? This week was the “turn the other cheek” passage that has confounded wannabe saints for centuries. It is, in my short experience, probably the most difficult commandment that Christ ever gave. Also: it’s really puzzling. Christian pacifists have long evoked this particular section of the Sermon on the Mount as their main bulwark against those advocating the more Augustinian “just war” theory. What really struck me, however, was the way that Fr. George provided a thorough exegesis of the Gospel, citing “the Jewish culture” (quote) as his authority. Here’s the passage:
You have heard that it hath been said, “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.” But I say to you not to resist evil: but if one strike thee on thy right cheek, turn to him also the other: And if a man will contend with thee in judgment, and take away thy coat, let go thy cloak also unto him.
And whosoever will force thee one mile, go with him other two, Give to him that asketh of thee and from him that would borrow of thee turn not away. You have heard that it hath been said, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thy enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies: do good to them that hate you: and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you: That you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven, who maketh his sun to rise upon the good, and bad, and raineth upon the just and the unjust.
For if you love them that love you, what reward shall you have? do not even the publicans this? And if you salute your brethren only, what do you more? do not also the heathens this? Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect. [Matthew 5:38-48]
Here, he pointed out, it was important to understand some elements of “the Jewish culture” that were present at the time of Christ.
- Turn the other cheek : because man is described in Genesis as being made “in the image and likeness of God,” striking or spitting on someone’s face was considered the most insulting thing imaginable. Fr. George here was at pains to point out that many people conflate the slap as an act of violence or belligerence, rather than an act of insult. By “turning the other cheek,” the idea is not to offer insult in return — which would lead to a genuine fight — but the commandment is certainly not to allow violence to happen — in fact, the Douay-Rheims Catholic commentary is specific about not adhering to the “letter of the passage” as Paul and Christ themselves have specific examples of not “turning the other cheek.”
- Give him your cloak also : this alludes to Deuteronomy 24:11, which says that if a man offers his cloak as a security on a pledge, and has only one cloak, you must return it to him by nightfall — the idea being that he has only one cloak to cover himself with at night, and that you can take the cloak back in the daylight hours. NOT that you must surrender all you have to those that ask you, merely give them the extra security.
- Go with him the “extra mile” : what I found the most interesting. Apparently, because of the Roman occupation, soldiers could press the Jews into carrying their equipment — but only for the distance of one mile (about 1000 paces).
Certainly, the differences are subtle, but I was left wondering what would happen if a rabbi walked into the Church and said, “Wait a minute! Jewish culture?! What are you talking about? No Jews were consulted on this homily!”
But we’re talking about Jewish Culture in the reign of Tiberius Caesar, not modern Reformed. There’s bound to besome discrepancy between the ‘then’ and ‘now’ of Judaism. But how would I feel about someone telling me about my religion — someone outside of it? This is one of the cornerstones of Said-esque Orientalism. It isn’t really anything new — it just clicked all of a sudden. For the founders, prescriptive reading of the older scripture is a legit way of looking at it — you’re simply looking through the newer lens of a new prophet or revelation — but illegitimate in the eyes of the older faith. Imagine Jewish responses to early Christian hermeneutics, or Christian responses to Muslim attacks on the legitimacy of the Gospels.
If you’re to build on an established tradition, you have to describe a connection to the previous one (maintaining its relevance), while simultaneously distancing yourself from it and discrediting it “just enough.” One of the greatest preoccupations of the first few centuries of Christian hermeneutics was scouring the books of the Prophets and the Torah, searching for allusions that confirmed Christ’s identity as the promised Messiah of old. What I love about Robert Irwin’s Dangerous Knowledge (the anti-Orientalism tablet of recent concoction) is that the first few chapters stress that most of the first “orientalists” were Biblical scholars looking to learn Hebrew and Aramaic to read the Bible in the original, yet (not being Jewish), inlaid a prescriptive reading of the Old Testament from a Christian perspective.
This seemed to me an uncanny parallel to a phenomenon I frequently experienced in Egypt on the opposite end.On learning that I was a practicing Catholic, inquiring Muslims in cafes or in discussions would like to air out their knowledge of Christianity — which for a vast majority, was one large lump religion with no different sects.
Walk into al-Azhar and you’ll pick up any number of pro-Muslim tracts on “debunking the Bible” or (my personal favorites) “arguments between a Muslim and a Christian.” Most of the time, these little books tend to be in Q&A format and have the Muslim protagonist quoting Bible passages back at a Bible-ignorant Christian, who gives half-baked answers (“the Bible says so”) that just land him in hotter and hotter water. The strategy, I think, is a bit of the same: appropriation of a shared text and re-aligning the analysis to fit a target response. More than a couple of times I’ve gotten these booklets from Muslim neighbors trying to be helpful:
“So you believe in the Trinity of a Father and a Son and Mary?”
No, not exactly.
“Yes you do. I’ve read it.”
That’s not the Trinity, basha.
“Yes it is.”
It’s an interesting approach. While those Azharite booklets (which are apparently written by the same guy — I’m going to check on this) are largely dismissed as shoddy scholarship, it’s interesting that even in the modern day — with modern-day scholarship — most people are more interested in producing polemics than reading what Christians have to say about Christians — or what Jews have to say about Jews, for that matter.
And don’t get me wrong: it was a GREAT homily. I just shudder when I hear someone evoke the power of “Jewish culture” as an all-encompassing, ever present, changeless tradition. I hear whispers of Said, and it creeps me out.
And suddenly, all this makes me remember that, when all is said and done, Christianity is a faith born of the Middle East. It is “oriental.”
Like Judaism.
Like Islam.
Truth.
the occidental orientalist - المستشرق الغربي 