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Ethos. Kwartalnik Instytutu Jana Pawła II KUL (Ethos: Quarterly of the John Paul II Institute, KUL) is, first and foremost, a philosophical journal. However, what motivated its founders was principally the idea of creating a scholarly periodical addressing the issue commonly described as engagement with culture, or the dialogue between the Church and culture. I believe one might venture to say that the dialogue in question, continued in Ethos today, is marked by benevolence and prudence, the former being a hallmark of a gentleman, as characterized by St. John Henry Newman in his essays collected in the volume The Idea of University. He points out that “knowledge is one thing, virtue is another; good sense is not conscience, refinement is not humility, nor is largeness and justness of view faith.... It is well to be a gentleman, it is well to have a cultivated intellect, a delicate taste, a candid, equitable, dispassionate mind.... I repeat, they are no guarantee for sanctity.”
What matters, then, is benevolence combined with prudence, akin to that St. Basil famously described in his “Address to Young Men on the Right Use of Greek Literature” by saying: “Since [the poets’] writings are of all degrees of excellence, you should not study all of their poems without omitting a single word. When they recount the words and deeds of good men, you should both love and imitate them, earnestly emulating such conduct. But when they portray base conduct, you must flee from them and stop up your ears, as Odysseus is said to have fled past the song of the sirens.”
These present here know better than me that the late Professor Tadeusz Styczeń, SDS, showed prudence worthy of St. Basil the Great, which was all the nobler because it sprang not only from the wisdom we find in St Basil, and by no means from a concern for the so-called public image, but rather from a sincere love for his friend Pope John Paul II.
In this context, one should perhaps make a reference to poetry because it is of great importance for this dialogue with culture. We need to appreciate T. S. Eliot’s observation that the state of a language’s poetry reflects its cultural health and consciousness. Crucially, we need to determine whether the culture in question has something important to communicate: important inasmuch as it is not a silly parroting of what influential poets express in their languages, but also important because others find it interesting and untrammeled by a cultural isolationism. Let me note that, among the milieu of the editors of Ethos, precisely such a notion of poetry has been promoted by Professor Stefan Sawicki, who believes that the poetry of Cyprian Norwid provides us with a stable guideline.
Thus, with its benevolent attitude towards culture, Ethos, has only aspired to echo St. Augustine, who, when reflecting in his Confessions on the fascination with what he calls “the wine of error,” admonished his readers: “Woe to you, torrent of human custom! ‘Who can stand against you?’ (Ps. 75:8) When will you run dry? How long will your flowing current carry the sons of Eve into the great and fearful ocean which can be crossed, with difficulty, only by those who have embarked on the Wood of the cross (Wisd. 14:7)?”
Together with St. Augustine, let us then follow the exhortation, “Tolle, lege!”
dr hab. Tomasz Garbol
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