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Creed

Weirdness

20 June 2023

6 min read

Making vows: How binding promises can lead to true freedom

We make all kinds of vows - to marriage promises, to keep up subscriptions, some even make a vow to live a monastic life. Alex Hughes explores what motivates a vowed life and its often counter-intuitive commitments.

Alex Hughes

Alex Hughes is Archdeacon of Cambridge in the Diocese of Ely.

At Mucknell Abbey, an Anglican Benedictine community, Brother Michäel paints an icon.

Quid petis? (What do you seek?)

What will you commit to, and for how long, and at what cost or for what benefit? And how will you structure your life in order to fulfil your commitments?

These questions touch on the very mundane – gym membership, streaming subscriptions, etc. – and the most serious aspects of life, such as romantic partnerships and career moves. Do you decide these matters in accordance with an overarching philosophy of life or by some golden rules you follow?

The same questions are faced with momentous intentionality by people in religious communities. According to ancient tradition, admission to the religious life begins with a ritual answer to the question, “Quid petis?”, and the community rule ensures that its pattern of life supports and fulfils the quest.

The question of what we most want in life rarely leads people to become a monk or a nun. For most of us it seems impossible to believe that personal fulfilment could be found within the limits of a strictly vowed life. And yet, more people live under religious vows than you might first imagine.

The notion of a binding, life-long commitment is still quite an alien thought.

The most common vows in many Christian traditions are made at baptism, confirmation and marriage; as well as ordination vows for those who become clergy. But even if this makes the idea of a vowed life a little more familiar, the notion of a binding, life-long commitment is still quite an alien thought. However, a new book on The Vowed Life in the Anglican Church argues that not only do vows demand more attention within the church than they seem to have garnered recently, but they are actually a point of considerable interest and allure to those outside the Church and may be seen as liberating and life-giving for those who undertake them.

In his most famous sermon (the Sermon on the Mount), Jesus says:

“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

.At first, this seems counterintuitive. Surely he meant to say:

“Where your heart is, there will your treasure be also”?

I don’t think so. There is a romantic idea that people follow their hearts, but if that were the case, advertising would be a fool’s errand. Advertisers know very well that our hearts’ desires are unstable and that they are easily attracted by the treasures of beauty, wealth, fame and so on. And most of us will have had the experience of being led to desire something – a flashy car, a bigger house, a better job, a sexier partner – only to discover that the treasure that captured our hearts does not bring the lasting satisfaction for which we yearned. At the heart of religion is the belief that God is the treasure we seek; that only God can truly satisfy our deepest desire. For Christians, this does refer to the future - to “treasure in heaven” - but not only to that; or at least, not in a simple way. This is where vows come in.

Our identities, including the pattern of our desires, are to an extent given, not self-made.

Probably the most puzzling of all religious vows are the ones made by parents and godparents for children at their baptism. How can anyone make a vow by proxy? How can anyone dare to make a vow on behalf of someone else? Surely everyone, especially children, should be free to make their own decisions? Well, it is certainly true that vowing a child to Christian life goes against the modern ideal of the autonomous human subject who freely makes unconditioned choices for themself. But anyone who has ever raised a child will know that whatever its critical benefits, it is also a myth.

Parents make multiple significant decisions about how their child will grow up, and those decisions have a deep and lasting effect on the child, for good or ill. Such formation is inescapable and no one, not even with the help of skilful introspection or expert psychoanalysis, can step outside their personal history and make unconstrained choices about who they become. Our identities, including the pattern of our desires, are to an extent given, not self-made. This remains true even in the light of postmodern resistance to the idea that people have a fixed identity, rather than one that changes and shifts as it is performed, since the performance does not arise ex nihilo (out of nothing). We are, as Heidegger said, “thrown” into life: we are conditioned, contingent, and no achievement of individual can release us from that.

In the first act of King Lear, as his faculties begin to unravel, the king famously asks:

“Who is it that can tell me who I am?”

Christians answer this with reference to the voice of God discerned in the Hebrew scriptures:

“I have called you by name; you are mine.”

These words are spoken to those who are confirmed, when they renew their baptism vows, which (as I have said) were often made for them when they were too young to speak for themselves. The invitation at confirmation is to take mature responsibility for those solemn promises, which is easier to understand than the earlier vows made by proxy. But even this is not entirely straightforward, because while someone might joyfully receive the gift of a God-given identity – “I have called you by name” – which is not subject to successful performance, how could anyone agree honestly with the divine claim, “you are mine,” since even the greatest saint knows that their daily performance is largely governed by self-interest? This leads us to the crux of the vowed life, where we can begin to see how it is possible, and even desirable, to bind oneself to something despite the risk of failure.

This is the deep context of our lives, into which we are “thrown,” not by blind chance but by divine choice.

I have already alluded to the matter of choice in our lives and the conflicts that may arise between a religious, a modern and a postmodern perspective; but there is something more, and much more important, to be said from a Christian point of view. The Christian view is that it is not so much our choice about God that matters than God’s choice about us. God chose to create the world and God chooses each one of us, which is the only choice that matters ultimately. This is the deep context of our lives, into which we are “thrown,” not by blind chance but by divine choice. Fundamentally, therefore, all religious vows are about choosing to be who we already are; choosing to live as one who has been chosen by God. Every other choice is made in this light so that whatever happens, no matter what choices we make in the future, good or bad, God’s fundamental choice of us never changes. And the experience of living under this promise is one of liberation.

The (post-)modern ideal of complete personal freedom necessarily entails total responsibility, so that the overall success or failure of our lives lies in our hands alone. Perhaps a few narcissistic individuals can easily accept this – “He was a self-made man, and he worshipped his creator!” – but it is a heavy burden of responsibility. The religious alternative does not deny the importance of responsibility - the Bible is concerned from beginning to end with the demands of justice and righteousness - but it does not make our performance the final measure of our worth, and therefore of our identity. If we have bound ourselves to the identity God gives, any account of ourselves such as, “I am a failure … a loser … a disappointment” is covered by “I am a beloved child of God”. It is by living into the divine indicative – “I have called you by name” – that we can begin to let go of self-reliance and welcome and inhabit the sustaining power of God’s “you are mine”.

For sure, the idea of binding, life-long promises may be countercultural today but, rightly understood, they can be seen as joyful and liberating. Those who seek this way of life seek a heavenly treasure that enriches life at every step.

Further reading

The Vowed Life, eds. Sarah Coakley & Matthew Bullimore (Canterbury Press, 2023)

Article

Christmas culture

Creed

Middle East

Royalty

13 December 2024

6 min read

Magi: where did the wise men come from?

The origin story of the Middle East's ancient king makers.

Mark Gilbert

Mark is a research mathematician who writes on ethics, human identity and the nature of intelligence.

An arts and crafts image of the three kings adoring the new born Christ.

The Adoration of the Magi.

Edward Burne-Jones, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

You’ve probably heard they weren’t really kings, but the wise men or magi had some impressive royal connections. Far from being one-off royal visitors to the infant Jesus, the magi had a long history of involvement with monarchy, crossing paths with illustrious kings including Cyrus the Great of Persia, Alexander the Great and the Roman Emperor Nero.

Originally a tribe of the Medes who lived in Northern Iran 600 years before Jesus’ birth, the Persian magi were hereditary priests. Writing around 425BCE, Greek historian Herodotus tells us how these magi became known throughout the ancient Middle East for their ability to interpret dreams and knowledge of the stars. They were followers of the Zoroastrian religion, and were responsible for the holy fires central to Zoroastrian worship.

To the Greeks, the Zoroastrians and the magi were exotic objects of fascination. Many later Greek written philosophical and occult works claimed Zoroaster (or Zarathustra) as their author. Much like some twentieth century Western conceptions of Hinduism and Buddhism, the Greek and Roman conceptions of Persian religion often had only a passing resemblance to the original. This may have included the "mystery cult" of Mithras that would become popular throughout the Roman Empire in the first century. This also means that references to 'magi' may not refer to the Persian magi, but to other astrologers or dream interpreters who lived to the east of the Mediterranean.

A hundred years before Herodotus, we find the first mention of magi in the bible, in the Book of Daniel. This was the period of Jewish exile and captivity in Babylon. Jehoikim, King of Judea and descendent of Kings David and Solomon, was defeated in battle and killed by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon. Jerusalem and its temple were destroyed, and many Judean nobles were taken as prisoners. Daniel was one of these hostages and is taken to the Babylonian court, where God gives him the ability to interpret the king’s dreams. Impressed by his abilities, Nebuchadnezzar puts Daniel in charge over all his wise men. It’s unclear what relationship these Babylonian ‘magi’ had with the Medean ones, but strong Medean influence on the Babylonian court suggests that the Babylonian wise men could well have included Zoroastrian magi.

Daniel remained in the Babylonian court, until the Babylonians were invaded by Cyrus the Great, who allowed the Jews to return from exile and to begin restoring Jerusalem.

Cyrus' Persian Empire lasted for two hundred years, until it was invaded by Alexander the Great and his army in 331BCE. Alexander sought the advice of magi, but had many of them violently killed and extinguished their holy fires when he razed the Persian capital, Persepolis in revenge for the Persian destruction of the Acropolis by Xerxes 150 years earlier. Alexander’s Greek successors were characterised by bloody rivalries and in-fighting and were later overthrown by the Parthian empire, which would become Rome’s most formidable rival to the east. The magi consolidated their king-making reputation during the Parthian period, with a council of magi (the Megistanes) responsible for choosing Parthian kings.

The knowledge they have is broken, it’s a messy blend of wacky occultism, astronomy, maths topped up with an unhealthy obsession with royalty. The knowledge we have is broken too.

By Jesus' day, there were ‘magi’ throughout the Middle East, and it was in this context that Roman historian Pliny the Elder records the journey of Armenian magi to visit Emperor Nero in 66CE. By this time Parthia and Rome were a century into their protracted struggle and had just fought a five-year war over the Armenian succession. Despite suffering a humiliating defeat, Rome saved some face through a very one-sided treaty that had Parthia choose the next Armenian king, but with the Roman Emperor getting to place the crown on his head! Nero turned this to his advantage by having the new King Tridates I come to Rome to receive his crown. Tridates, who was a Zoroastrian priest as well as a king, came with a huge retinue including other magi and thousands of horsemen to receive his crown. The huge procession culminated in the magi king bowing before the emperor and acknowledging him as his god.

The visit of the Armenian magi has clear resonances with the familiar account of magi visiting the infant Jesus found in Matthew’s gospel. Given the many embellishments added to the magi story over the centuries, it's hardly surprising that some have suggested that the magi story was a fabrication and a remixed version of King Tridates’ visit to Emperor Nero. It’s a compelling theory, but I’m not convinced by this. If magi were stock characters in the ancient near east, and were also really interested in monarchs (who were often also treated as gods), then it wouldn’t be that surprising that there’d be more than one royal magi visit with emotionally charged religious overtones. What makes a fabricated magi story less likely to me is what the gospel writer Matthew’s Jewish audience would have thought of the magi. Although the Greeks and Romans were enthusiastic about foreign gods and exotic wisdom, first century Jews were not. To them and to early Christians, the magi would have been charlatans and followers of a false foreign god. A visit from some foreign astrologers would have been an embarrassment rather than the type of story you'd choose to make up.

So, who were the magi in Matthew's gospel? The two dominant theories have been that they were either Persian or else they were a later fiction. More fanciful theories include origins in India, China and even Mongolia. Another perhaps more realistic possibility, convincingly argued by Fr Dwight Longernecker in The Mystery of the Magi is that the magi were from the Arabian kingdom of Nabatea. The Nabateans were known for using irrigation to farm the desert and for controlling the trade routes across the Arabian desert. Two cash crops in which Nabatea dominated trade were frankincense and myrrh. The wealth generated from this lucrative trade was used to build Petra, the world-famous valley city of rock-face monuments. The Nabateans had close connections with Israel and may have been familiar with the prophecies of Daniel and Isaiah. They would also have been interested in the Judean monarchy and would have been natural visitors to the paranoid king Herod. Herod's mother was a Nabatean princess and the Nabatean king Aretas IV needed to shore up favour with Herod so the Nabateans would have had an interest in any new King of the Jews.

Barring some improbable Indiana Jones style archaeological discoveries, we’ll never know for sure who the wise men from the east were. But to me there’s something deeply fascinating about these mysterious visitors to the infant Jesus. Partly they seem to represent higher things – with their wisdom and wealth correctly put in divine service. It can seem as though their excellent learning and astronomical skills have cracked a cosmic puzzle, with the magi following the star and dodging a despot to find the baby at the end of the treasure hunt. This doesn’t hold up - the magi’s knowledge isn’t the object of wonder. The knowledge they have is broken, it’s a messy blend of wacky occultism, astronomy, maths topped up with an unhealthy obsession with royalty. The knowledge we have is broken too. But God uses the foolish things to confound the wise, and inside the crackpot mess of horoscopes and divination, God leaves the magi an invitation. To accept the invitation is to take a risk – to risk the long journey, the wrath of Herod and even to risk being wrong. But as they accept this invitation, they realise its an invitation to meet God Himself.