The Age of Illumination

St. Genevieve by Nicholas Roerich

One of the great obstacles facing Christians today is the fact that our approach to history is indistinguishable from that of our irreligious neighbors. It is, essentially, naturalistic. Even when trying to determine the cause of a major event or phenomenon, we automatically, categorically exclude the supernatural.

The trouble is that, as Christians, we know that, when human beings are not solely (or even primarily) material beings. We are body and soul. We have spiritual needs as well as physical needs; we have spiritual motives as well as physical motives. This is true regardless of whether we consider ourselves religious or not. And it’s true of societies as well as individuals—again, regardless of whether they consider themselves religious or not.

This is not a matter of ideological purity. To put it bluntly: from a Christian perspective, any historical theory that does not account for man’s spiritual aspect is incomplete and almost certainly inaccurate.

This underlying flaw in our approach is most obvious regarding the role played by divine grace in the course of human events.

We say that, at Baptism, the Christian is adopted into God’s family. But this isn’t jsut an initiation ceremony. It’s the single most transformative event that a man may experience in this life. It’s not a matter of transferring legal ownership. A true, metaphysical transformation takes place.

At Baptism, the Divine Logos begins to retore His likeness within us. This process is known as theosis, or divinization. As part of this process, the new Christian is suffused with God’s energia (grace), sanctifying his soul and opening his nous (understanding). That’s why we refer to Baptism as a “Sacrament of Illumination.”

This reality holds tremendous importance, not only for individuals, but for all of civilization. Human beings have a natural desire for Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. Since the Fall, however, this desire has been “drowned out” by our concupiscence: our disordered attraction to evil.

Baptism is the normative means by which we begin to be purged of concupiscence. Our souls turn back to Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. By this same grace, we are strengthened against temptation, sloth, and despair in pursuit of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty—i.e., God. Thus St. Paul says, “To this end I also labor, striving according to His working [energeian] which works in [energoumenen] me mightily” (Colossians 1:29).

By the same token, we often say that a certain tradition—or even a whole society—has been baptized. For instance, when referring to the Christianization of Rome, even secular historians will say that Constantine “baptized” the Empire. Yet this is true in a way that even we Christians may not fully understand.

The Christianization of Europe isn’t merely political, intellectual, or even “religious” in the ordinary sense. We aren’t referring primarily to the fact that an increasingly large percentage of Roman citizens assented to the doctrines of Christianity; at least, we shouldn’t be. Because a spiritual transformation occurred as well. To be sure, the rise of these new beliefs, rituals, concepts and institutions was important, even on a natural level. What’s even more important, however, is the fact—the reality—that God’s grace was at work in Europe, in a way that it never had been before.

I’m calling this the Age of Illumination.

Of course, pagan Europe could boast a great many achievements in science, culture, and statecraft. As even many non-Christian historians (Steven Runciman, Tom Holland, et al.) will admit, those colossal leaps which Europe took beginning in the Medieval Era can’t be explained on naturalistic grounds. They don’t follow necessarily from introduction of a new cult based on the teachings and worship of a certain Jewish rabbi.

God’s grace is an objective reality. So is the efficacy of the Sacraments. Again, as Christians, we can’t exclude this data from our account of these historical events. We must confess that such a transformation necessarily follows from conversion to Christianity. Indeed, it can’t occur otherwise. As the Lord Himself said, “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

The same is true with the so-called Age of Enlightenment, only in reverse.

Now, Christians will disagree on when Europe began to cut itself off from God’s grace by forsaking the true Church and refusing the true Sacraments. The Orthodox would put the date at roughly 1054, with the beginning of the Great Schism. Catholics might say 1552: the year the Protestant Reformation began in earnest. Protestants themselves will usually date it sometime in the late 17^th century, with the beginning of the Enlightenment.

All traditional Christians, however, agree on two points. First: by 1789, when the French Revolution broke out, this “Great Apostasy” was already well underway. Second: while Orthodox, Catholics, and Protestants may have good-faith disagreements amongst ourselves, the Enlightenment was a very different kettle of fish. It sought to build a new, secular order.

As we Christians try to understand this period of history, we must begin by asking one question: What are the spiritual consequences of such a movement? What would we expect to happen to a people who abandoned the Church, denied her teachings, and refused her Sacraments? How does God respond when a society turns away from Him and rejects His grace?

What would happen if Europe ceased to strive (like St. Paul) according to the divine energy, which, until this point, had energized it mightily? Well, what happens to a car if you remove its battery?

This is the one and only point I’m trying to make here: A Christian historiography must account for the supernatural. It must account for God’s grace—the objective reality of the Divine Energies, particularly as they operate through the Sacrament of Baptism.

It’s a small point, but I believe it has far-ranging consequences.

To give one example: as regular readers know, I’m ambivalent about the concept of “Enchantment.” The term disenchantment was coined in the 19th century by Max Weber to define a sociological phenomenon: declining religious sensibilities in the post-industrial West.

Enchantment, then, was supposed to be a value-neutral term. And in that sense it’s extremely useful! But as I’ve written elsewhere, the pursuit of Enchantment as an end in itself (“Enchantement pour l’enchantement”) isn’t advisable.

After all, “Re-Enchantment” refers to Westerners’ rising interest, not only in Orthodoxy and Latin-Mass Catholicism, but also in witchcraft, occultism, and even devil-worship. From a Christian perspective, converting from atheism to Satanism definitely isn’t a good idea.

In other words, the while Enchantment paradigm can’t answer the three most important questions: Where did this “Enchantedness” come from, why did it go away, and how do we get it back? These are metaphysical questions, not sociological ones.

I think—I hope—this idea of the “Age of Illumination” will help us to develop a more useful metaphysical paradigm. Just to be sure, I’ll spend the next couple of posts trying to flesh these concepts out a bit more.

Glory to God for all things!