The spirit of the great sixteenth century Spanish novel, El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha, was beautifully captured by a song in the Broadway musical based on it, “To dream the impossible dream.”
Impossible dream is a good description of an ideal. A dictionary definition of an ideal is “an ultimate object or aim of an endeavor, especially one of high or noble character.”
Ideals are abstractions. An ideal is “the act of considering something as a general quality or characteristic, apart from concrete realities, specific objects, or actual instances.”
An attractive ideal is also a “carrot on the stick”—the metaphor refers to a cart driver dangling a carrot in front of a mule or donkey to induce and encourage it to move forward.
One of the great ideals that began to profoundly influence the development of Christianity, especially after it became an imperial state religion, was that of totally renouncing the world, the flawed and corrupt world, to live a life of extreme following of Christ.
Once the era of the heroism of the martyrs with their willingness to suffer and die was over, the new heroism that captured the Christian imagination was to choose to tame the body by radical austerity and solitude, to seek an imagined angelic purity of spirit.
The ordinary believers esteemed these amazing monks, sought their counsel, and aspired to somehow introduce some limited moderated elements of their spiritual discipline into daily life, especially prayer, fasting, and sexual continence.
Even if the extremism of these “quixotic” ultra-austere monks could not be fully imitated, this angelic ideal took firm root in Eastern Christianity and gradually spread throughout the whole church.
The ideal life-style of the clergy had been proposed by Saint Paul in his first letter to Timothy (3:2-13):
. . . a bishop must be irreproachable, married only once, temperate, self-controlled, decent, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not aggressive, but gentle, not contentious, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, keeping his children under control with perfect dignity . . .
Similarly, deacons must be dignified, not deceitful, not addicted to drink, not greedy for sordid gain, holding fast to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience . . . Deacons may be married only once and must manage their children and their households well . . .
The growing esteem for the monks’ ideals and life-style began to change the ideals of clergy life. Many bishops chose total abstinence and an austere life-style. Their example, in effect, began to be a reproach to others, even those living good and holy lives according to the counsels of Paul.
The traditions of the Eastern churches even today reflect this. Bishops must be selected from among monks or lesser clergy who live a monastic life style: however priests and deacons may be drawn from the married or celibate.
The radical, extreme ideals of the desert fathers and the Eastern monks are impossible dreams in that, except for a special grace of God, they are not humanly entirely attainable—but some still inspire, induce, and encourage us.
3 November 2019