Fauvelus wrote:As a matter of fact, i just came across a more striking parallel for the pedestal of our devil : the idol of Cupid standing on a column upon the lovers of the Visconti-Sforza tarot.
Looks like the devil card somehow mimicked the structure of the image.
Augustine considered the question of happiness as a matter of two different loves, he used the words "Cupiditas" and "Caritas" to distinguish between these two loves.
"Cupiditas is human love looking for happiness in the field of mortal and transitory things. As these things are likely to disappear, they leave us vulnerable to loss and our love for them inevitably tinged with fear.
"Of course, that love is imperfect, morally" the root of all evil, "but it is understood, all the same, as nothing less than love: love loving the wrong thing and, therefore, love caught in the web of misfortune it has spun for itself. " (Neuhas)
But it is love nonetheless and love is the essence our soul shares with the divine. Being the essence of God, it can not be satisfied with the mortal and transitory, the insatiable need of its eternal appetite can only be met by the infinite. The consequence is the desire of transitional things alone brings sorrow and pain.
It is not the love of Cupiditas which is in error, but its object. It is a love for creation that is blind to the creator. Creation placed on a pedestal like an idol, love for the shell of the thing and not its essence. Your connection between cupid and the devil on their pedestals is thus IMHO spot on.
Caritas is divine love, of man for the divine, of the divine for man. In Augustine the final judgement, the resurrection, is the ultimate expression of divine
caritas; Caritas is the motivating force of providence acting through history to lead man from his fall (XV) to his restoration in the world to come (XXI).
"The love represented by the term caritas seeks fulfillment where it can be found. Its object is not subject to loss and love, therefore, is not affected by fear. This is clearly the man with ability to think, reason, knowledge is the way in which this love reaches its object."(Neuhas)
The challenge is not to choose between two, but to unite by knowledge and reason, to restore creation with its creator, to restore ourselves in paradise. Love, human and divine, in a sacred marriage, hierogamy.
The object of our poet lover (the juggler_I) is beauty (that is the good _XXI); to become a worthy groom (VII) of beauty (XXI) he must transform himself from unregenerate man (that is, Old Adam) to a new Man (VII), from a fallen man of vice to triumphal man of virtue; transformation is affected via love; from love of the wrong things to the right things; from being a citizen (I) of the City of Man (XV) to a Citizen (VII) of the City of God (XXI - new Jerusalem, the bride).
According to Augustine, body is ruled by the soul: wherefore it is entirely due to his soul that a man make good use of his body: "For instance, if my coachman, through obedience to my orders, guides well the horses which he is driving; this is all due to me." Thus 'virtue is not in the body but in the soul', and as the soul perfects the body, so virtue perfects the soul; and virtue "is nothing else than perfect love of God."
"...temperance is love keeping itself entire and incorrupt for God;fortitude is love bearing everything readily for the sake of God; justice is love serving God only, and therefore ruling well all else, as subject to man;..."
Between our lover old Adam and the devil in a 3x7 layout of the cards (Tarot de Marseille pattern) lies Justice:
44. What of justice that pertains to God? As the Lord says, "You cannot serve two masters," (Matthew 6:24) and the apostle denounces those who serve the creature rather than the Creator, (Romans 1:25) was it not said before in the Old Testament, "You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve?" (Deuteronomy 6:13) I need say no more on this, for these books are full of such passages. The lover, then, whom we are describing, will get from justice this rule of life, that he must with perfect readiness serve the God whom he loves, the highest good, the highest wisdom, the highest peace; and as regards all other things, must either rule them as subject to himself, or treat them with a view to their subjection. This rule of life, is, as we have shown, confirmed by the authority of both Testaments. St. Augustine
Between new Man in Christ, our Groom the charioteer and his bride XXI lies temperance:
On temperance:
"Let us consider temperance, which promises us a kind of integrity and incorruption in the love by which we are united to God. The office of temperance is in restraining and quieting the passions which make us pant for those things which turn us away from the laws of God and from the enjoyment of His goodness, that is, in a word, from the happy life. For there is the abode of truth; and in enjoying its contemplation, and in cleaving closely to it, we are assuredly happy; but departing from this, men become entangled in great errors and sorrows. For, as the apostle says, "The root of all evils is covetousness; which some having followed, have made shipwreck of the faith, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows." 1 Timothy 6:10 And this sin of the soul is quite plainly, to those rightly understanding, set forth in the Old Testament in the transgression of Adam in Paradise. Thus, as the apostle says, "In Adam we all die, and in Christ we shall all rise again." 1 Corinthians 15:22 Oh, the depth of these mysteries! But I refrain; for I am now engaged not in teaching you the truth, but in making you unlearn your errors, if I can, that is, if God aid my purpose regarding you.
36. Paul then says that covetousness is the root of all evils; and by covetousness the old law also intimates that the first man fell.
Paul tells us to put off the old man and put on the new. Colossians 3:9-10 By the old man he means Adam who sinned, and by the new man him whom the Son of God took to Himself in consecration for our redemption. For he says in another place, "The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven, heavenly. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, let us also bear the image of the heavenly," 1 Corinthians 15:47-49 —that is, put off the old man, and put on the new. The whole duty of temperance, then, is to put off the old man, and to be renewed in God,—that is, to scorn all bodily delights, and the popular applause, and to turn the whole love to things divine and unseen. Hence that following passage which is so admirable:
"Though our outward man perish, our inward man is renewed day by day."
St. Augustine
Of the Morals of the Catholic Church
SteveM
Ref:
"Augustine Today" published by Eerdmans, edited by Richard John Neuhaus.
"Of the Morals of the Catholic Church" St. Augustine.
