Humility and Love

 Humility and love are considered two of the primary Christian virtues. They are present in other religions, of course, but not emphasised to the same degree. It is this insistence on humility and love that sometimes gets Christianity accused of being an effeminate religion that promotes a slave morality, a religion that makes men less manly.

But what if there was a deeper reason behind this? What if the emphasis on these two virtues was because Christianity was a religion intended for a masculine people with a strong sense of self? Then, far from being an effeminate religion, it would be a spiritual corrective, something that counterbalanced innate tendencies and raised the qualities of its destined group of people to a spiritual plane. Christianity is often claimed to be a universal religion but really for most of its existence it has been a European one. Even the near Easterners and North Africans of its early days had a strong European component in their makeup, and for the bulk of the last 2,000 years Christianity has been an almost exclusively European religion, lived and developed by Europeans wherever they might be in the world.

Religions are not the same but most have similar recommendations for behaviour. None, though, stress humility and love as Christianity does, and certainly not the Judaic religion from which Christianity emerged. I believe that Christianity was always intended for the European people, and though these people adapted it for their purposes, the core of it was fundamental. Firstly, the focus on Christ the resurrected Son of God, and secondly, the essential teachings of humility and love. These were there partly because they are true, that goes without saying, but also because they could temper the warrior spirit of the Europeans and transform that into a spiritual energy. The blood stained sword of battle becomes St Michael's gleaming sword of light. St Michael may be an archangel but he is also a chieftain or war leader in the Indo-European style. Warriors become soldiers of God who battle against evil and we see this in various groups throughout the Middle Ages from the Templars onwards. Believers are not just monks who retire from the world. They are also active in the world to a degree you do not see with Hindus or Buddhists or even Muslims. However, their activity is under the aegis of God, and it is the religious focus on humility and love that transforms the fighting mentality of the pagan Europeans into that of a warrior for truth.

The Heliand is an epic poem from the 9th century written in Old Saxon. Heliand means saviour and the poem is a version of the Gospel story that presents Jesus in a form acceptable to the Northern European mind so he is something like a chieftain while his disciples are the band of warriors that surround and support him. For example, the unknown author used the word treuwa to describe faith. This word must be related to our word true and it means faithfulness rather than faith or loyalty rather than belief. So the poet is saying that you are saved by faithfulness to Jesus not simply by believing in him. This would appeal to the pagan mindset of the time much more and, to my way of thinking, is a better way of describing how spiritual transformation may be brought about. 

I mention this to show the type of person early Christianity had to deal with and, so to speak, bring to the table.  If Jesus had been presented as a soft pacifist who was captured and crucified by his enemies that would not be appealing, but show him as a king and warrior who voluntarily underwent torture and death to redeem his men and you make him worthy of being followed and, if necessary, of dying for. Once your leader is revealed as a valiant hero you are more open to his teachings of humility and love.

 The trouble now is that humility and love have been weaponised and used to undermine a more complete or properly developed spiritual consciousness. The victim becomes the hero and the hero the oppressor. Humility and love are certainly primary spiritual virtues but so are wisdom and strength, and the former must be seen in the context of the latter if you are to reach a true spiritual state of being. The soft virtues without the hard ones become spiritually corrosive.

Christ came as the revealer of divine love. He, the greatest of all, humbled himself, allowing himself to be killed on the cross, a shameful end. His teaching of humility and love is the key that opens the door to heaven. But that does not mean that we should focus on these to the exclusion of other qualities which are equally important. Besides, all real love derives from love of God which is love of truth so you cannot use supposed love to deny truth as often happens in these times. As for humility, that is only there to remove pride. It is not a matter of encouraging weakness but points out that true strength is in God.

Humility and love were enjoined on the Europeans not because of any defects they might have but to balance their positive qualities which were to do with a developed sense of the individual self. This is then lifted up to become a creative contributor to spiritual life. The European type is not interested in passive absorption into oneness but wants to be an active participant in the glories of creation, but for that to be his ego must be made clean. Hence humility and love.