Further thoughts on To Treasure
When I wrote my first paper on
Treasures in Heaven
I was already wondering about whether the substitution of the word
Love for
Charity
in 1 Corinthians 13 was really such a good idea. In the King James Bible the Greek word
Agape was translated as
Charity as in
Faith Hope and Charity. But in modern versions, it became usual to translate it as
Love. Greek has four words which could be, and often are, all translated as
love. The one defined by 1 Corinthians 13 is
Agape. Of the others
Eros will be familiar, and the remaining two refer to
affection and
friendship.
When St Francis embraced a life of poverty, he described himself as getting married to Lady Poverty and then invented sisters for her, to describe the other virtues. There is only one word for love in Italian: Amore and even to our ears it would seem totally inappropriate to have a Signorita Amore, she is in fact called Sister Charity. Some translations of the Italian get around the problem by calling her Lady Holy Love, but that seems unnecessary to me. It delights me that St Francis also invented Sister Courtesy, younger sister to Lady Charity.
As I said in my earlier paper I would prefer, in English, to use some form of the verb to treasure to translate Agape
and at that time regretted that treasuring was too clumsy to use as a gerund (or verbal noun?). No matter I have now recast
1 Corinthians 13 to be a definition of To Treasure. So with apologies to St Paul:
If I treasure nothing and noone, then even if:
- I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, I am become just a sounding gong, or a
tinkling cymbal.
- I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have
all faith, so that I could remove mountains, I am actually nothing.
- I give away all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, it profits me
not at all.
To treasure others means:
- to be long-suffering and kind;
- to avoid envy, self congratulation and arrogance;
- to never behave in a way which is unseemly or self seeking;
- to avoid being provoked or thinking in evil ways;
- to avoid cynicism and instead to rejoice in the truth
;
To treasure creation means:
Bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things, enduring all things and never giving up.
Prophesies will fail, tongues will cease and knowledge will vanish away, for we know partially and we
prophesy partially, but when perfection comes, that which is partial shall be no more.
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became
an adult, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face.
Now I know in part; but then shall I know perfectly even as also I am known.
We maintain faith and hope but the greatest thing we can do is to treasure humanity and the whole of creation.
It is rather easier to recast the Commandments of Jesus:
- Treasure the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength
- Treasure your neighbour as you treasure yourself.
- Treasure each other as I have treasured you, then the World will know that you are my disciples.
It is possible to dismiss all this as
mere semantics, but language is very important indeed. The action of
creating is described in Genesis by God speaking: God said: "let there be....". In John's Gospel Jesus is described as The Word of God. And of course many describe the Bible itself as The Word of God. But words alone are not enough, we must act upon what they say. Saint Francis said Preach the gospel always and if necessary use words. So we should treasure first and speak only when appropriate.