PASTEL – by Mihai Eminescu [16 April 1878]

Let us eat early in the morning and instead of myrrh let us bring songs to the Master, and let us see Christ, the sun of righteousness, the life of all, rising!

And at the sounds of the ancient legend about the sufferings, death, and resurrection of the Meek Nazarene, the hearts of millions of people rejoice, as if yesterday the proconsul Pilate of Pontius had washed his hands and uttered that great, eternal doubt of humanity: "What is truth?"„

What is the truth?

For almost two thousand years we have been preached to love each other, and we tear ourselves apart. For several thousand years Buddha-Cakya-Muni has been dreaming of the reconciliation of humanity, peace of heart and mind, mercy and non-confrontation, and yet for all these thousands of years, since the beginning of the world, wars have been strewing the earth with blood and ashes. In places where once beautiful cities flourished, flocks graze in waste, and what necessity erected, hatred has demolished; indeed, in the name of the One who preached love, the sword has been raised countless times, and even today the same cross, the same symbol of salvation, is on the eve of entangling (as a pretext, not a negain) Europe in a war whose end no mortal can foresee.

To the question that David Strauss, the writer of the life of Jesus, asks himself, are we still Christians or not, a question to which he answers negatively, we add another: have we ever been Christians? - and we are willing to answer no.

More true are the words of Callistus, the patriarch of Constantinople, who, in a fervent prayer for the end of the drought, describes human character:

Not only have we rejected your love, but like beasts we have carried each other and devoured each other's bodies through various forms of greed and through our unrighteous will. How then are we worthy to receive your good deeds? For you are righteous, we are unrighteous; you love, we are enemies; you are merciful, we are merciless; you do good, we are robbers! What communion have we with you, that we may also share in your goodness? We confess your righteousness; we know the judgment of our exhaustion; we preach your good deeds; we are guilty of thousands of deaths; behold, under your working and holding hand we spend all. It is easy for Your almighty wrath to destroy us in an instant, and as for our thoughts and lives, it is right for us to give ourselves up to destruction, O most just Judge! But… this is not at all worthy of Your invincible mercy and unspeakable goodness, O most loving of men, Master!

It has rarely happened to us to see lines written with such knowledge of human character: You are good, we recognize that we are the worst of the worst, but note that it is not worthy of You to reward us because it would contradict Your qualities of all-good, long-suffering, easily forgiving.

„"Video meliora proboqne, damage sequor"”

„"We see the good and approve of it, but we follow the bad."”

Thus, with great humility we cry out:

Breaking these commandments of Yours and following our desires and wills, we commit all sin every day with zeal: slander, blasphemy, keeping evil in mind, breaking oaths, lying, natural and unnatural shameful speech, and what is not found even in the speechless beasts, these very paganly, we again perform. Our days have passed away in vain; we have emptied ourselves of Your help; we have become a mockery and a laughingstock to those around us; Your most holy and worshipped name through us we have made to be blasphemed by the pagans. Growing old in wickedness; and limping in unwise paths, we have all gone astray, together we have become useless; there is no one who understands, there is not even one. Plague and slavery and crowding and poverty and many kinds of deaths and often us three times the villains, separated us as if by such beatings you would draw us to you even against our will; but even so they did not do anything more about us. You gave us to the pagans for slavery and for plunder and for slaughter and for plunder to the lawless, and we did not understand, nor did we turn away from our tricks and our lawless deeds. Neither by sorrows nor by evils have we become wise, nor by your good deeds and your gifts have we become better!

And that's how it's always been.

Instead of following the prescriptions of a morality almost as old as humanity, instead of following God, incorrigible humanity does not follow him at all; but, based on his goodness, it lies down on the ground in great need and begs for relief. And it has used all forms of begging in the face of that power before which the individual feels himself to be like a shadow without being and a dream of deception. Aware of the nothingness of the goods of the world, understanding that this life with its basic necessities is already hard enough to burden it with other vain goals than those it has from nature, man nevertheless places a special value on the circumstance of ruling over others, of enslaving others, of extending his dominion over the whole earth, if possible.

What good does it do Caesar that he was a great man? Today perhaps his ashes are sticking an old wall against rain and storm.

Are there any correlations between the means we put into motion and the results we achieve?

Indeed, viewed too closely, what does life present to us but the normal fulfillment of some of the simplest needs? To drink, to eat, to sleep, to clothe ourselves, that is, to nourish our existence and to defend it against the elements. In accordance with this purpose, the bee gathers in the summer to have the winter; the ants build their simple dwellings, piling up provisions in them; the badger gathers its provisions for the winter, and from then on each of these animals leaves God's world as it is, taking no further interest in politics or anything else.

Man, in order to fulfill all these primary needs, needs a state with tens of thousands of civil servants, an army with hundreds of thousands of men, railroads, communication routes, universities and schools, diplomats, legislative assemblies, tax offices, lawyers, academic societies, newspapers, fashion retailers, theaters, paper money, cannons, ships, tooth powder, gloves, hunting dogs, libraries, barracks, philosophers, coffee, hospitals and the like.

Isn't this a stupid calculation?

That is why Faust, in whom humanity is embodied with its lusts, ambition and vanity, but also with its genius and thirst for knowledge, standing before the last problem, pours poison from an old vial into a glass and wants to drink it... when suddenly the bells and songs of the Resurrection ring softly... and the glass falls from his hand... he is regained for life.

Resurrection- rebirth?

Parallel to the real history of the deed, war, cruelty and malice, parallel to that fabric of selfishness, cunning, street tyranny and personal tyranny, of which the latter is preferable, together with the will of that kind of people whom Callistus describes so well in his prayer - the brain of humanity lives a small part of a special life, subject neither to politics, nor diplomacy, nor wars and, in those few moments of its own, it measures the distance of the stars and the depth of the sea, the weight of the earth and the lightness of the ether, hears the flowers growing, embodies in marble the beauty of lines and in painting the colors, decomposes the sunlight, finds out the language spoken by the Assyrians, counts the library of Ptolemy and unties an ancient papyrus containing Egyptian remedies.

Is this... salvation?

Will educated humanity, knowledgeable humanity, be better than ignorant humanity? According to what we know from the past and see today, no.

It will indeed remain a treasure trove for generations, but still, the man of arms and the man of cunning, the soldier and the diplomat, will mean more in their time, will be more alive than the painter Raphael or the musician Mozart or the astronomer Newton.

Therefore, to the lure of heavenly music, Faust responds:

„"I hear the message, but I lack faith in it!"”

Days of resurrection come and go. Here people greet each other with Surrexit! Vero Surrexit!”, here with Christ Voscres!” and in all the languages of the earth this word is repeated, but we say like Faust: „Die Botschaft hör'ich wohl, allein mir fehlt der Glaube!”

We believe that He rose again in the sincere hearts that sacrificed themselves for His teaching, we believe that He rose again for the just and good, whose number is small; but for that black crowd, with great pretexts and small goals, with sweet words on their lips and hatred in their hearts, with smiling faces and evil souls, He never rose again, although they too worship the same God. The tyrant who leads hundreds of thousands to death without any scruple, the demagogue who through deceitful words awakens the blackest and most hateful passions of the crowd are often more faithful to the old religious legend than Faust; perhaps, after every crime they commit, they throw themselves before the icon and whisper the words of Callistus, begging forgiveness from the easily forgiving God. But with these called, who are many, infinitely many, the Christian community does not increase: few are chosen and few have been chosen.

But the tradition and its sacred meaning remain, as they have for a long time; and, if that day will never come when the golden age of truth and love for people will begin, it is still good to believe in its arrival, so that the good may rejoice on the "day of resurrection," when we are enlightened by the feast and welcome one another and call those who hate us brothers and forgive all for the sake of the resurrection, all crying out:

„"Christ is risen!"”

[April 16, 1878 ]

MIHAI EMINESCU

POLITICAL WORK, November 1, 1877 – February 15, 1880

TIME, CRITICAL EDITION FOUNDED BY PERPESSICIUS

CRITICAL EDITION EDITED BY THE MUSEUM OF ROMANIAN LITERATURE

Coordinator DIMITRIE VATAMANIUC

RSR Academy Publishing House, 1980

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