Historians From Italy

"Great metaphysical creations always coincide with the golden age of a civilisation. Whereas the disappearance of Metaphysics is one of the most eloquent signs of a civilisation's decline. (prologue, p. 7)"

"Adrienne had a very high spirituality with many mystical manifestations (including stigmata). By conversing assiduously with her and noting down her confidences, B. slowly developed his own theological vision."

"The transition from one era to another is never instantaneous. Epochs are historical periods spanning several centuries, and cultural transitions last a few centuries. (p. 9)"

"There are two salient features of Renaissance culture that influence Metaphysics speculation: spiritual unrest and the secularisation of culture. (p. 10)"

"The God of Clement's Christian metaphysics is endowed with intelligence, will, freedom, power and goodness. (p. 32)"

"[Natural law] does not come from outside (and therefore is not heteronomous) but from within (and in this sense is autonomous: it is the law that reason itself gives to man or, better still, it is the law that man himself gives himself through his own reason): it is not the result of arduous and abstruse speculation and its perception is so easy that it appears almost intuitive. :*Quoted in Giuseppe Brienza, “”Who was Battista Mondin, missionary and theologian“”, “'Formiche.net”', 4 February 2015."

"The right-thinking are irritated by the nonconformist's lack of predictability, even by his occasional failure to show himself as such."

"While man is clearly a finite being, in self-transcendence he reveals himself to be “'capax infiniti”'. Self-transcendence “together with culture and freedom, is the third characteristic trait that clearly separates man from animals: man constantly surpasses himself ... in everything he does, thinks, says, knows, loves and achieves."

"My latest book is entitled La Trinità: Mistero d'Amore (The Trinity: Mystery of Love) and has been reprinted for a second edition. Of all the books I have written (more than a hundred), this is the most beautiful and the most original. I also consider it my ‘masterpiece’. The mystery of the Trinity is a mystery of Love, which is realised and expressed in the Three Divine Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is the basic idea of the book, the idea that inspired me: total Love; Love, in the strongest sense of the term, is truly everything!"

"Origen embraces the key principle of Christian metaphysics, the theorem of creation. With Clement, he affirms that everything that is not God was drawn from nothing. He is the only principle of all things. (p. 55)"

"The main merit of the school of Alexandria is that it created theological science, granting Christian citizenship to philosophy and building a solid Christian metaphysics. (p. 23)"

"Negative theology and positive theology are almost like the wheels of a bicycle. Just as a bicycle cannot move forward if the two wheels do not turn together, so there can be no valid theology if the negative and positive approaches are not used together. The positive path alone leads to anthropomorphism, idolatry, and blasphemy. The negative path leads to agnosticism and atheism."

"Parmenides reaches the highest peak: it is the peak of being, the culmination of metaphysics. Parmenides is the first to conquer this marvellous peak, which, after him, all the other great metaphysicians will also attempt to reach. Parmenides is aware of the greatness of his achievement. [...] Parmenides reached this highest peak not through the senses but through reason. (p. 70)"

"Only with God and in God can man hope to fulfil himself. The study and knowledge of God are the burning embers that (together with worship and prayer) fuel the flame of our hope."

"Humanism remains a deeply religious and essentially Christian culture. However, the shift in the cultural epicentre – from God to man – generates a new spirituality marked by tensions and anxieties unknown in the previous era. (p. 10)"

"Christianity is a religion and not a philosophy: an act of salvation (a Heilsgeschichte) and not philosophical speculation. Its goal is not, like philosophy, to provide an exhaustive explanation of reality, but to establish a relationship of communion between man and God. (introduction, p. 7)"

"There is a faith that is enriched by the concepts of reason, and there is a reason that is enriched by the gifts of faith. (introduction, p. 6)"

"The long and patient exploration of the spiritual world led classical Metaphysics, in its final phase, to the discovery of God: the one God (the One, the Good) of Plotinus, Porphyry and Proclus. (introduction, p. 5)"

"The entire work is a treatise on perception, on optimal cognitive modes that replace erroneous ones. (p. 55)"

"Israel is not Austria, which kept Lombardy-Veneto under its heel. It is like the constitutional Austria of 1867, which opened its Parliament to minorities, to the Italians of Trento, Trieste and Pola. No one denies the Palestinians living in the occupied territories the right to irredentism. I fully recognise that. But under that Austria, would Italian irredentists have done well to resort to terrorism? Even in Trieste, many distanced themselves from Oberdan's plan to assassinate the king. His attempt would have had dramatic consequences if it had been carried out."

"Of course, it would be good to evacuate the territories occupied in the 1967 war, with the exception of Jerusalem, which is a special case. But this cannot be expected if an organisation that practises terrorism against Israel and whose aim is the destruction of that state is established in these territories. No one can be asked to commit suicide."

"I am the first to criticise Israeli policy in the West Bank, the settlements, the restrictions on democratic freedoms, everything that is reactionary and repressive. I criticise Israel's very presence in those territories. But I do not demand its suicide."

"The comparison between Yasser Arafat and Giuseppe Mazzini does not hold up. Mazzini was opposed to the terrorist plans of certain factions of the Carbonari. In fact, he generally disapproved of the Carbonari and broke with them. This is one of his historical merits. He wanted an association, the “Giovine Italia”, which would call for open political struggle. This also included the use of arms against absolutist and tyrannical governments that did not allow any freedom. But it was an armed struggle aimed at mobilising public opinion, not at physically suppressing opponents."

"Patañjali, or whoever wrote on his behalf, seems to follow a “Kantian” line of thought: it is necessary to understand that knowledge is attributable to a subject; but this activity is not creative, and must take into account an objectively existing world. (pp. 10-11)"

"In Yoga there is a precise correspondence between theory and practice. This is far from the case with those European philosophers who admired India, such as Schopenhauer, who limited himself to ethical indications, while Yoga goes into the details of a method of the body and mind, of consciousness. (p. 17)"

"They were just idealists. In addition to a political organisation, Arafat administers large financial interests under the banners of petrodollars, sheikhs and, in general, Arab states that are anything but democratic. Israel is much more so."

"After all, “'nibbàna”' is not a concept: this is why attempts to illustrate it through language and logic lend themselves to various misunderstandings. Some Buddhists understand it literally: as a state of “extinction”, comparable to the extinguishing of a flame. Yet the Buddha often criticised proponents of the nihilistic interpretation: “nibbàna” should not be conceived as pure nothingness. [...] It does not designate the abyss of a void, nor a worldly dimension comparable to those that exist: it can simply be said that pain is definitively eliminated there. (pp. 72-73)"

"His [Nietzsche's] criticism of the “herd” mentality and morality, his defence of what we might call a “right to excellence”, is an attempt to overcome the sterility of simple prohibition, self-denial and renunciation, which mortify life. Nietzsche wants life to be realised in all its potential. He therefore recommends a “creative” attitude that gives life its fullness, similar to that of the artist who imprints a beautiful form on his work. In this sense, his new morality is a kind of “aesthetics of existence” whose imperative recommends: “Become what you are!” And even if life is not beautiful, it is up to us to try to make it so."

"The Buddha was a proponent of simple, direct teaching aimed at liberation and free of theoretical frills: his intent was purely pragmatic. His distrust of various speculative positions, which could be reduced to mere opinions, is well known. (p. 26)"

"[The Buddha] advised bhikkhus to be an island (“'dìpa”') or a refuge for themselves. After his passing, their only support or bulwark would be the Dhamma. His legitimate successors would ultimately be only those who had managed to take refuge in the Dhamma, that is, in themselves. (p. 75)"

"Poor Nietzsche! He was the only philosopher who had the singular privilege of being held responsible for nothing less than a world war."

"The Master wanted to provoke our critical spirit so that, by studying his doctrine, we could probe ourselves. [...] In Great Vehicle Buddhism, the need for such an orientation was recognised. For example, an important passage from a collection of Ch'an, a school of Chinese Buddhism, points to the need to free oneself from attachment to the Dhamma as well. Until one forgets even the Dharma, one still cultivates a sense of self, that is, the illusion of constituting a separate individuality in relation to other creatures. One becomes attached to a vision, an opinion, and is incapable of uniting, in perfect compassion, with all beings. (p. 88)"

"If one wanted to summarise the essence of Buddhism in one sentence, it could only be this: everything that is transient is painful. In fact, after all, suffering (“”dukkha“”) is nothing more than transience. (p. 27)"

"The Doctrine (“”Dhamma“”) allows one to attain a state in which suffering can no longer take root, because one embraces eternity. “”nibbàna“”, liberation, is nothing more than this imperishable state, removed from the becoming of things. (p. 27)"

"After history has taught us that possession of the Truth often produces fanaticism, and that an individual armed with truth is a potential terrorist, one is led to ask: are relativism and nihilism really the radical evil that we are led to believe? Or do they not also produce an awareness of the relativity of every point of view, and therefore of every religion? And so, do they not convey respect for the point of view of others and, therefore, the fundamental value of tolerance? There is beauty even in relativism and nihilism: they inhibit fanaticism."

"Philosophy is an inventory of thoughts in the flow of life."

"Yoga implies objectless subjectivism, calling into question the transpersonal components of being. The self, the centre of an identity that is not only ours, is naked. (p. 44)"

"The cause of authority is sacred to the Church, inasmuch as a ray of God lives in authority. (II, III; p. 102)."

"On a historical level, what is communism if not the last heir of the Reformation, Romanticism and classical German philosophy? By definition, it is the sworn enemy of the Church. Its foundation is the state; its principle is revolution; its method is struggle; its ideal is immanence; its goal is justice. (I, III; p. 64)"

"In the eyes of the Enlightenment thinkers themselves, it was clear that the revolt against authority, the basis of their polemic, could only escape the temptations of anarchism by falling back on the contemplation of an absolute model of justice that would frame human life, giving it meaning and justification. It is the unlimited faith in the “'law”', in the equality of all before the law, that alone legitimises the function of the State and elevates it from the political to the moral plane, rightly making it “part of the heavenly”. The “general will”, the powerful idea that must justify the source of power, will coincide with a law of nature and become the very expression of natural fatality. Thus was born the “mystique of democracy”, which found its point of origin in The Social Contract and its historical conclusion in universal suffrage. Law and freedom became one and the same: absolutism no longer had any reason to exist. (II, I; p. 78)"

"Religious criticism denies mystery; historical criticism destroys legend; literary criticism dissolves creation: it is the era in which secularism reacts to ancient traditions and conventions in the name of “fully explained reason”. Salvation is sought in erudition, which demolishes prophecies and ghosts. The demands of faith are resolved in the thirst for knowledge: the problematic nature of life allows the unity of religion to be overcome. Dogma, the unity consecrated in dogma, is answered with faith in antinomy, with an awareness of multiplicity, with the torment of contradictions that are at the basis of the human spirit and are only resolved on the plane of history. (II, II; p. 91)"

"It is the bourgeoisie that has opposed its morals to those of the Church, its philosophy to that of Catholicism, its politics to that of Christianity, within the framework of an entirely secular and earthly conception of life. The “people”, who represent the antithesis of the bourgeois spirit, the “moral protest” against the law of force, are best qualified to embody the values of Christian ethics, which alone, by devaluing the world, ideally allows for the peaceful coexistence of men on earth. It is no coincidence that “populism” is the socially permanent tendency of the Church: only the people can implement Christian teaching, which is one of renunciation and poverty. (I, I; p. 32)"

"But by abolishing property, the Church would legitimise an overly vivid hope in an overly “just” world. Catholic socialism has an insurmountable limitation: Christian pessimism. The idea of happiness is beyond this perspective. But not that of balance, with the mediation of charity. Christian socialism is ultimately nothing more than this: the search for a social balance that saves charity. (I, I; p. 33)"

"So what? Is not Christian socialism the most powerful explosive charge against bourgeois society, which is based on the idea of confrontation and the reality of luxury, enjoyment, pleasure, vain and superfluous things? When Leo XIII praises the worker, he always takes as his example “the frugal and well-behaved worker”. (I, III; p. 57)"

"This is why the Reformation, which frees man from authority on the religious level, creates the conditions for Marxist rebellion, in that it frees men from all fear of higher forces regulating social life and launches them into a conflict without rules and without restraint, aimed at conquering humanly perfect orders. (I, I; p. 27)"

"Nothing contrasts more with the Christian conception of hope in the earthly paradise, in the kingdom of freedom and justice. None of the liberal and secularist philosophies escapes the sin of Adam. Every revolution hides the temptation of Eden. On the contrary, the only freedom left to the believer is that of ascending to God to achieve justice. (I, I; p. 21)"

"The Reformation, through Calvin, had laid the foundations of capitalism, legitimising individual initiative aimed at any goal, sanctifying the effort and daring of the individual even if it aimed at greatness and domination, consecrating gain and success as signs of predestination and divine election. By rejecting the modern State and capitalism, the Papacy rejects the very principle of “struggle” that underpinned both. The new social order, conceived by Catholic socialism, resolves the struggle and dissolves the state itself. It is a challenge to Protestantism. The Church, which has always opposed the Faustian conception of life, the reduction of existence to the category of war, the idea of progress and becoming, the principle of competition, selection and class struggle, and action as the measure of the world, the Church aims to achieve its greatest victory by once again launching and imposing its message of peace, love, brotherhood, and charity. (I, III; p. 59)"

"(About Bettino Ricasoli) Grumpy, reclusive, wild: almost always shut away in his Brolio, from which he rarely descended, and with the calculated slowness of a sovereign. But the only one who exercised undisputed authority over all the other notables of Tuscany: “the only eminent individual known, revered and esteemed in Italy and abroad” (as Celestino Bianchi, his devoted secretary and incomparable collaborator, would say a few years later, even though he would not grant him the intimacy of “tu” in return for his many services). He was also the court of last resort in all doubtful or difficult cases, such as during the days of bloodshed and tension that followed the Aspromonte incident. (I partiti politici nella Firenze capitale, Ch. II, pp. 82-83)"

"Ricasoli embodied the concept of the modern state, which does not tolerate limitations and competition from other powers, which is based on the irreplaceable and pre-eminent values of civil morality, which replaces religious morality with military discipline, which attributes to the authority of the officer the value of priestly authority, which contrasts combatants with missionaries, the armed forces to the regular clergy, and universities to seminaries and convents. (Appendix, 1. Ricasoliana, Ch. I, p. 262)"

"If Mazzini is the prophet of the left, Ricasoli can rightly be considered the prophet of the right: among all the successors of Cavour, among all the politicians who governed the new state in the fifteen years from 1861 to 1876, among all those who appeared “moderate” and in reality carried out the only profound revolution in our history, the Tuscan baron is the only one who inspired his political action with a religious conception of life, the only one who instilled in the acts of power a secret “reformist mysticism”, such as to justify all his audaciousness and allow all his conquests. (Appendix, 1. Ricasoliana, Ch. I, p. 277)."