Athanasius Kircher: Patron of Polymathematical Nerds

On this feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, I exhort all of you to read up on Athanasius Kircher, SJ, one of the greatest polymaths of the Jesuit order (and the 17th century, for that matter).

I first discovered Kircher through a contemporary polymath, Umberto Eco, who treats him in his excellent little volume Serendipities: Language and Lunacy. In his quest to translate the hieroglyphics on Roman obelisks, Kircher became an example of a brilliant man whose errors led to real discoveries:

"When Kircher set out to decipher hieroglyphs in the seventeenth century, there was no Rosetta stone to guide him. This explains his double mistake, namely, believing that hieroglyphs had only symbolic meaning and the absolutely fanciful way in which he identified their meaning . . . Kircher poured elements of his own fantasy into these reconstructions, frequently reportraying the stylized hieroglyphs in curvaceous baroque forms . . . in the third volume of the Oedypus there is long analysis of a cartouche that appears on the Lateran obelisk, where Kircher read a long argument concerning the necessity of attracting the benefits of divine Osiris and the Nile by means of sacred ceremonies activating the Chain of Genies, tied to the signs of the zodiac. Egyptologists today read it as simply the name of the pharaoh Apries. Kircher was then wildly wrong. Still, notwithstanding his eventual failure, he is the father of Egyptology, though in the same way as Ptolemy is the father of astronomy: in spite of the fact that his main hypothesis was mistaken. By following a false hypothesis he collected real archeological material, and Champollion (more than one hundred fifty years later), lacking an opportunity for direct observation, used Kircher's reconstructions for his study of the obelisk standing in Rome's Piazza Navona."

(Umberto Eco, Serendipities, 61, 62-63)

In addition to founding Egyptology, Kircher also contributed to Linguistics, Physics, Mathematics, Music, Engineering and many other disciplines, though some of his theories (like the composition of the "subterranean world") have since been rejected. Kircher was also a pioneer in the study of electromagnetism.

More information on Kircher can be found at the Catholic Encyclopedia and this fun fan site.

Here are Kircher's obelisks, his cosmology, one of his inventions, and his subterranean earth:

































Athanasius Kircher, ora pro nobis qui scientiae studemus.

A Brief Consideration of Gagauzia

Moldova has been in the news a lot lately, at least if you read the kind of news I do. Not only did the Communists just lose the elections there, but the international press has been pointing out that this election was a key moment in deciding if Moldova will tilt toward Brussels and Washington or toward Moscow. Meanwhile, the Chinese have been working to elbow their way onto the scene as well.

For those of you familiar with Moldova, you may know about Transnistria, the break-away Russian-speaking micro-state run from Moscow, whose main economic drivers may be the illegal trade of weapons, women and cigarettes. But - let's be honest - this little Russian puppet statelet is kid's stuff in the world of esoterica. I have, however, recently discovered...

Gagauzia, a Turkish-speaking province of Moldova. You clever members of the blogosphere will be raising eyebrows: Turkish? Really? But Moldova doesn't border Turkey. But you more clever members will recall that Turkey once had an empire, a large empire.

To be precise, the people of Gagauzia, the Gagauz, are not Turkish, nor is their language quite Turkish, though it belongs to the Turkic family of languages and is closely related to Turkish, along with Azeri and Turkmen. One might guess that the Gagauz are Muslims, but one would be wrong: they are predominately Eastern Orthodox.

From whence, you ask, did these people come? Well, you're not the only one asking. One Bulgarian scholar complied a list of 19 different theories on the origins of the Gagauz. The theories fall into two general schools, one claiming that the Gagauz are ethnically Turkic, descended from a tribe which emerged from the Central Asian steppe, the other school arguing that the Gagauz are in fact Balkan in origin, having simply adopted a Turkic language at some point (and intermarrying with the occasional Turk). I leave that debate to the ethnologists.

The Gagauz (whose unofficial flag is seen on the right) show up on the radar of history in the 19th century, when they fled religious persecution in then-Turkish Bulgaria for their present location in then-Russian Moldova. In the winter of 1906 they declared independence for five days, but Gagauz nationalism has been relatively mild. When the Soviet Union was coming apart at the seams, some in Gagauzia pushed for independence, at much the same time that Transnistria was declaring it. Gagauzia declared independence from the Soviet Union on 19 August 1991 - the day of the hardliners' coup attempt in Moscow - but nothing much seems to have come of it. A few days later Moldova declared independence and in 1994 Gagauzia's status as a "national-territorial autonomous unit" of that country was recognized.

Today Gagauzia (whose official flag is seen left) has a population of about 156,000 people, spread out over 707 square miles. Of those, most are Gagauz, though there are groups of Bulgarians, Russians, Moldovans and Ukranians, each making up between 3% and 5% of the population. There are approximately 100,000 Gagauz living outside Moldova, many of them in Ukraine, Greece and Turkey. Gagauzia's economy is primarily agricultural, with a strong emphasis on viticulture. Why is it that every small ethnic group around the Black Sea seems to make wine?


Many thanks go out to the Rogues, Rascals and Rapscallions, whose many Challenges - which are definitely worth perusing! - have helped fire my love of esoterica over the years.

A Crazy Roman Custom

I've been on a bit of a Roman history binge lately, so I thought I would share a rather bizarre fact.

The ancient Romans every year, from April 12 to April 19, celebrated the Cerialia in honor of the goddess Ceres. This feast, as far as modern historians can determine, had agricultural roots--Ceres was the goddess of farmers. The Romans, however, had one peculiar custom on the last day: they attached lighted torches to the tails of foxes and let them run around. Ovid mentions this bizarre tradition in his Fasti:

So I must explain why foxes are loosed then,

Carrying torches fastened to scorched backs.

(Ovid, Fasti, Bk. IV, ll. 681-682)

Who ever got the idea to put a torch on a fox's back and let it run around? Was there ever any deeper significance to this custom?

Life: Imagine the Potential - Take Three

Coinciding with the recent anniversary of the first lunar landings, Catholic Vote released a third video.

Internal Exile: Cicero

A couple months ago, I wrote a post about “internal exile.” At the time I was busy preparing for finals, so I never followed up on that post with an example of internal exile. The other day, though, I read one of Cicero’s letters to Atticus in which he poses a series of questions that show exactly what kind of a dilemma a man of action faces when he contemplates going into exile, whether internal or external:

Should one stay in one’s country even if it is under totalitarian rule?

Is it justifiable to use any means to get rid of such rule, even if they endanger the whole fabric of the state? Secondly, do precautions have to be taken to prevent the liberator from becoming an autocrat himself?

If one’s country is being tyrannized, what are the arguments in favor of helping it by verbal means and when occasion arises, rather than by war?

Is it statesmanlike, when one’s country is under a tyranny, to retire to some other place and remain inactive there, or ought one to brave any danger in order to liberate it?

If one’s country is under a tyranny, is it right to proceed to its invasion and blockade?

Ought one, even if not approving of war as a means of abolishing tyranny, to join up with the right-minded party in the struggle against it?

Ought one in matters of patriotic concern to share the dangers of one’s benefactors and friends, even if their general policy seems to be unwise?

If one has done great services to one’s country, and because of them has received shameful and jealous treatment, should one nevertheless voluntarily endanger oneself for one’s country’s sake, or is it legitimate, eventually, to take some thought for oneself and one’s family, and to refrain from fighting against the people in power?”

(Cicero, ad Atticum, IX.4; March 12, 49 B.C.; tr. by Michael Grant)

It seems that Cicero never found satisfactory answers to these questions for himself. In the years leading up to his death, he alternated between writing philosophy at his various villas (this is the period when he composed the Tusculan Disputations and De Oficiis, among other works) and listening to the political news out of Rome, waiting for a chance to emerge from his self-imposed exile.

Even right up to his death he vacillated. When Antony rose to prominence, Cicero denounced him to the Senate in a series of speeches known to history as the Philippics. Antony, then, once he consolidated his power with Octavian and Lepidus in the Second Triumvirate, demanded Cicero’s death. Antony sent his thugs to kill him. At first Cicero chose to flee, but then changed his mind and remained at his villa at Astura. At the last minute he again decided to flee. But it was too late; Antony’s men caught up with him before he could reach the sea. In life Cicero often hesitated, but on his last day he met his death bravely, robbing Antony of any glory from his murder.

Cultivating the Comedic Palate

I was going to post this reflection yesterday, but did not want to impede the heroism of German Catholic Nazi fighters (correct me if I’m wrong, Aaron, but wasn’t Bavaria—heart of beer-swilling German Catholicism and Caritas in Veritate—one of the few regions in Germany that did not support Hitler during his election?).

One of the great loves in my life is Comedy. I love comedy both personally (as either performer or audience member) and professionally (Aristophanes, Chaucer, and Shakespeare are three of my favorite authors to teach). Comedy is like a fine bourbon; most anybody who drinks a draught will appreciate its quality. It takes a connoisseur, however, to isolate the particular qualities and flavors and explain exactly why the bourbon is a fine one. The comedic connoisseur will have to sample a wide range of comedy, and along the way gain some appreciation for even the more broad and mundane varieties, just as a bourbon taster may grow fond of Old Fitzgerald while recognizing its profound inferiority to an 18-year-old Elijah Craig.

The comedic connoisseur will also be able to express, however inadequately, the specific qualities in a given comedic work that produce its kathartic effect (Aristotle’s book on Comedy, the second book of The Poetics, has been tragically lost, a loss mourned by Eco in The Name of the Rose). Though I could go on for volumes on this topic, let me suggest three of the many qualities that are routinely found in comedy, and a brief clip from the highly underrated mid-1990’s cartoon The Critic that illustrates what I find to be a harmonious blend of the three.

1. Mockery of Vice and Ugliness. Comedy from Terrance to Chaucer to Rabelais to Shakespeare to Swift to Gilbert and Sullivan to the Simpsons has delighted in taking vice and ugliness as its subjects. Our ability to laugh at the wicked and ugly demonstrates comedy’s social function, as well as the source of its cruelty. (This quality of comedy, by the way, is why Satan is almost always a comedic character in Medieval drama; see C.S. Lewis, English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, Excluding Drama.)

2. Parodic Love. Comedy often functions by parody—presenting exaggerated forms of earnest works and characters. In order to parody something well, however, the parodist generally needs some kind of knowledge of and affection for the subject parodied. The worst parodies are those in which the parodist despises the subject (consider how often the political satire of “Mallard Filmore” or “Doonsbury” drifts into the insipid); the best ones, like Christopher Guest movies, preserve affection for that at which fun is poked. In order for Chaucer to have parodied metrical romance in his Rhyme of Sir Thopas, he had to have understood works like Guy of Warwick backwards and forwards; in order for Joyce to have parodied the literary styles of Malory, melodrama, and the Catechism in Ulysses, he had to have intimate knowledge of, and some affection for, their stylistic limitations.

3. Audience Participation. When the audience is respected enough to put the pieces together on their own, the best comedy is born. I think that this is why great comedic works (like the Simpsons, seasons 3-6 or Shakespeare’s As You Like It) often throw in jokes that they know will fly over the heads of the majority of the audience (there are plenty of jokes that all will get); they know that those audience members who do get the obscure jokes will laugh all the harder for the surprise.

So, with these qualities in mind, here is Jay Sherman (voiced by Jon Lovitz), The Critic, showing his audience a clip from Disney’s The Cockroach King. The mockery of Howard Stern (a man worthy to be mocked) and the close parody of The Lion King’s cinematography should be clear. If you recognize the words used in the “African” chant, however, this clip will be all the funnier (and I know that The Guild Review’s Editor-in-Chief Aaron can enlighten us all on this matter).

Remembering the July 20 Plot - Again

Two years ago I wrote a post about the July 20 plot. This year, commemorating those who attempted to overthrow Hitler in 1944 is even more important to me.

This past semester, as part of my duties as a teaching assistant at Texas A&M, I led discussions on John Weiss' The Ideology of Death: Why the Holocaust Happened in Germany. Weiss' argument is easily caricatured: conservatives, traditionalists, big business and Christianity (in particular Catholicism) were responsible for the Holocaust. Only progressive, atheistic (or at least irreligious and relativistic) socialists are free of blame in Weiss' account.

The problems with The Ideology of Death are legion, too many to mention here. I shall concern myself with only one: Weiss all but ignores Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (pictured left) and the July 20 conspirators. Why? Because Stauffenberg represents everything Weiss abhors: a Catholic, an aristocrat, a nationalist and a military officer.

Weiss dismisses the July 20 plotters as johnny-come-latelys. The socialists, he says, had been opposing Hitler from day one, whereas the army only turned against Hitler when it was apparent that defeat was in store. Besides the fact that authors such as Allen Dulles have shown that the army had grave misgivings about Hitler and his band of unprofessional thugs even before the war began, Weiss overlooks a key point: the socialists never came close to toppling Hitler. The July 20 conspirators did.

As if to add insult to injury, Weiss claims that Stauffenberg has been shunned by a nation of proto-fascist Nazi sympathizers in the modern Federal Republic of Germany. His case is weak, at best. Stauffenberg's son Berthold became a general in the post-war German army; another son, Franz-Ludwig, became an elected member of both the German and European parliaments. The members of Germany's elite Wachbataillon take their oath of service on July 20, at the Bendlerblock, where the July 20 conspirators met and were later executed. The street on which it sits has been renamed Stauffenbergstraße and the building now houses the Memorial to the German Resistance.

The modern German army, created in 1955, is keen to sever any connections with its Nazi predecessors. Thus, in addition to post-1955 innovations, there are only two legitimate sources of tradition in the Germany army. One source is the military reformers of the 19th century, men like Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Clausewitz. The other source are the lives and heroic deaths of the July 20 conspirators.

Stauffenberg and his coconspirators were not the only people within Germany to oppose Hitler; brave men and women such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the White Rose movement did likewise. We would do well to reflect on their sacrifices and defend their legacy against the likes of John Weiss.