Kevin Tortorelli OFM
Introduction
With his enthusiasm for life, its energy and impulse, Henri Bergson cuts a genial figure. Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1927, he was a lecturer at the College de France. Marcel Proust, for one, heard him lecture and, in fact, was his best man at his wedding in 1891. They shared a lifelong interest in matters of time and memory.[1] Bergson stresses that life has meaning, and that human existence reaches its deepest fulfilment in union with God.[2] We call such people saints (or heroes as Bergson also calls them). They are armed with a love that stamps their personality. This love is a new emotion capable of transforming human life. This union with God attracts other people either in person or through the memory of these saints or heroes that allows one to form one’s own life on their pattern. This indicates there is a dormant saint or mystic in everyone awaiting its own awakening through exposure to the saint or hero. Mysticism is not an instinct or an idea, neither is it a product of the senses or reason. Mysticism sublates the senses and reason as it goes beyond them with a love that lies at the very root of feeling and reason. It is a love that holds the secret of creation. With God’s help, that love hopes to complete the creation of the human race.[3] I propose in these pages to trace more closely Bergson’s philosophy of life (his elan vital) to see what view of St Francis of Assisi emerges.[4]
Morality
Bergson identifies historically two kinds of morality. The first consists in the universal acceptance of a law. It tends toward impersonal obligation, to an impersonal system of orders and rules. It defines a group as closed … In primitive societies, this morality is found together with religion. Their goal is social preservation and strong confidence building. Religion is complex. It appears together with magic and myth. In a sophisticated way, religion, magic and myth together protected society from the dangers of intelligence with its dynamism to reach beyond the group and its boundaries.[5]
Bergson characterises the second kind of morality as human whereas the first is social. The difference between them is not one of degree but of kind.[6] The first morality incorporates a pressure to conform while the latter encourages one to aspire to what attracts one. Its emotion lies in the enthusiasm of a forward movement, an enthusiasm of joy.[7] This second kind of morality lays emphasis on the imitation of a model and in particular the model of a saint or hero. They appeal to us, and this brings about a desire on our part to look within and imitate them. Imitation shapes and changes one’s personality. For example, such a personality may be drawn by the saint’s charity which would persist in the saint even if there were no other living creature on earth. The appeal and attraction of the saint engenders a feeling or an emotion that enhances in one a spirit of creativity.
The Mystic
Instead of remaining within the limits of the group, the mystic is borne on a great surge of love toward humanity.[8] The appearance of mystics augured a new species of humanity that expresses a direction of creative evolution[9] Mysticism is defined by its relation to the vital impulse. The great mystic is one capable of transcending the limitations imposed on the species by its mortal nature, thus continuing and extending the divine action.[10] A complete mysticism is not renunciation but action. Its action sets mysticism in another direction entirely – an opening of the soul to a universal love.
This complete mysticism characterises the great Christian mystics. They pass beyond the mystical phases of a Plotinus, for example. They burst the dam connected with a vast current of life with its extraordinary energy, daring, power of conception and realization. Despite instances of morbid and unhealthy states, Bergson’s definition of the great mystic defines an exceptional mental healthiness easily seen in their bent for action, their resilience in difficult circumstances, their firmness combined with suppleness and their prophetic discernment of what is possible. The mystic stops only at union with God which seems always to lie further on and ahead. This fact is expressed in a disquietude, even an agitation of the soul in which the mystic is alone and desolate without the blinding light. The mystic is unaware of the profound change at work within. The saint has lost something of previous experience but does not yet realise it was in order to gain everything. Here is the shared, mystical tradition of the ‘dark night’ which is perhaps the most significant thing, the most instructive thing in Christian mysticism.[11]
The mystic throws off anything that is not pure enough, nor flexible and strong enough for God to use. We can see here the outline of the change in personality. One effect of this union with God is simplicity and humility. Simplicity is seen in the mystic’s words and conduct and guides one through complexities often unperceived.
The love of God is all consuming and with this love the mystic loves everyone. This love lies at the root of feeling and reason. The best way for the mystic to share one’s gifts is to form a spiritual society that can grow to a point of radical transformation. In a memorable observation, Bergson speaks of the mystic going over the letter of dogma in order to retrace it in characters of flame.[12] The essence of Christianity was to be the diffusion of mysticism and the mystic’s mission is to intensify religious life to effect a radical transformation of humanity by setting an example. Christian mystics share similar experiences but each one is unique and original as well. God is love and the object of love. This is the whole contribution of mysticism.[13]
In the dynamic religion of the mystic, prayer is independent of verbal expression. It is an elevation of the soul that can dispense in particular with the kind of speech in which prayer is understood as careful repetition to ensure its efficacy before God. Finally, Bergson sets mysticism in terms of mechanics. Mechanics here means the modern (turn of the century) tools and skills that affect the conditions of mystical life, its appeal and imitation. In the setting of turn of the century politics and economics it is clear that the origin of war is ownership. Therefore, war is natural and the instinct for war is strong, indeed inevitable.[14]
A Portrait of St Francis based on Bergson’s Saint
Bergson analyses the form of the Saint or Hero or Mystic rather than particular historical contents. One will sense the difference. We will not find here a portrait of Francis in connection with the high doctrines of faith like Incarnation, the Church, the sacraments, the grace of the Holy Spirit, death and Resurrection. Bergson’s analysis of the form can be generously applied to all the Saints. His special contribution lies in directing our attention to a particular saint who may appeal to us by focusing our search. His approach highlights prominent features of a saint’s life in terms of his typology of dynamic religion. This typology lifts into view some basic elements in the saint’s life. In what follows, I wish to develop a Bergsonian portrait of Francis.
Many people feel an attraction to St Francis. They are not compelled to do so. We are drawn by his person, his personality. There is first of all the joy of this jongleur de Dieu.[15] It is an emotion of enthusiasm and energy that generates a kind of forward movement into what the Lord has promised, a promise rich in reconciliation and peace. This remarkable vitality is the fruit of Francis’ encounter with Jesus, an encounter that purifies one and whose fruit is joy, simplicity and humility. But imitating Francis has proved a challenge. What the Rule meant, how it was to be observed, what was the status of Francis’ Testament, the clash of hagiographies over the true St Francis indicate the difficulty of imitating Francis in his radical encounter with Jesus.[16] Alongside this history, however, there is Francis’ widespread personal appeal and the effort of new generations to join him in becoming a new species of more and more people in love with God.
Bergson maintains that Christian mysticism favours action over renunciation. He has in mind here the renunciation associated with Hindu Brahmanism. Francis clearly renounced acquisitive desire as we can see in the form of the destructive mimetic rivalry outlined by René Girard.[17] It is clearly an important renunciation. The poverty of St Francis also renounces things, sine proprio, but Bergson challenges us to see in Francis principally a man of action as, for example, in his extraordinary visit to the Sultan of Egypt al-Malik-al-Kamal. Franciscan renunciation leads one to action.
Bergson places the highest value in Christian mysticism on the experience of the dark night. We may recall he describes it as a deprivation of light during which the saint does not know what is happening. The saint experiences a great loss but does not know that the loss is a preparation to gain everything. Bergson may help us set Franciscan poverty here. It is not so much renunciation but the emptying in the dark night for the sake of being filled. In this emptying and in the being filled lies the principle of all action. Francis enters this dark night several times – the time between his role as knight errant to his encounter with Brother Leper, his concern over the friars’ genuine observance of the Rule, the run up to the incomparable experience of the stigmata. Once again, I think Bergson encourages us to see in the stigmata the expression of love as the root of feeling and reason that integrates them both. Bergson would relish the flame of the seraph angel that inflames the dryness of dogma. I think Bonaventure shared this ‘stigmata’ insight as well with repeated and penetrating insight. And Bergson would highlight here Francis’ experience of prayer that deeply prefers silence to words and speech.[18]
Bergson points to the creativity that expresses the saint’s joy and enthusiasm.[19] Francis’ own creativity went beyond the Praises of the Virtues, The Salutation of the Blessed Virgin and the well-known Canticle of the Creatures. His creativity witnessed a new form of life in the church, a new way of seeing, an enviable life of conversion in terms of its results. Because Bergson lays such emphasis on the creative effects on those drawn to a saint, one can note here the early Franciscan creativity expressed, for example, in learning and in evangelizing.[20]
We may recall Bergson’s thesis that the origin of war is ownership and that therefore war is natural and our inclination towards it strong and inevitable. Against the tragedy of war, with which he was distressingly familiar, Francis encourages us not to despair. He has a simple confidence in his peacemaking gestures, embracing Brother Leper, peace between the podestà of Assisi and the bishop, peace between the wolf and the people of Gubbio, his visit to the Sultan. This is the example others will follow until the inevitability of war is no longer inevitable.
Conclusion
What has been learned about St Francis when viewed through the typological lens of Bergson? Whether there is anything strictly new is debatable but there are new emphases. Joy, for example, is long associated with Francis as the jongleur de Dieu but with Bergson this joy is a force, an impulse, an enthusiasm moving us forward to the new species of individuals together. This is a far cry from confining joy to a sweet smile or sense of humour.
Bergson also challenges one to see Francis as a man of action rather than renunciation. There is a balance here in that renunciation is an emptying in view of a filling in which lies the principle of action. Renunciation is not an end in itself but the setting aside in oneself of anything that God cannot use. Action works better without clutter and takes on a clean, sharp and confident appearance.
Finally, Francis’ creativity is the product of his love for God. It is simply a towering and sweeping force that has touched the lives of millions by offering them a new species of themselves, a form of life that was deeply attractive and appealing, characterised by a new spirit of vitality and movement.
With Bergson we can take a new look at the joy, the energy and the creativity of Francis. Bergson helps us dust them off and reframe them as indispensable elements of life itself going forward, transforming and bringing forth a new species.
[1] See Josef Czapski, Lost Time: Lectures on Proust in a Soviet Prison Camp, trans. by Eric Karpeles (New York, NYRB,1987), 29–30.
[2] Frederick Copleston SJ, Friedrich Nietzsche: Philosophy of Culture (London: Burns, Oates & Washbourne, 1942). The conclusion of the work is devoted to Bergson, cf. 208.
[3] Copleston, 211–212.
[4] In a recent issue of The Tablet (9 July 2022, p.22), the German filmmaker Wim Wenders calls St Francis of Assisi a hero of humanity, a word almost Bergsonian.
[5] Henri Bergson, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (Notre Dame, Ind: University of Notre Dame Press, 1977), 174–176. And see generally the section Static Religion.
[6] Bergson, 35.
[7] Bergson, 49–52.
[8] Bergson, 95. The author develops his ideas extensively in the pages devoted to Dynamic Religion.
[9] Bergson, 96–97. For a very complete discussion of this point see his Creative Evolution (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1911).
[10] Bergson, 220–21.
[11] Bergson, 227–31.
[12] Bergson, 237.
[13] Bergson, 252.
[14] Bergson, 284–285.
[15] See G.K. Chesterton, St Francis of Assisi (London: Hodder & Stoughton,1923), ch.5, ‘Le Jongleur de Dieu’, 74–93.
[16] See William Short OFM, ‘The Rule and Life of the Friars Minor’, The Cambridge Companion to Francis of Assisi, ed. by Michael J.P. Robson (Cambridge: CUP, 2012), 61–66 and Michael Blastic OFM, ‘Francis and his Hagiographical Tradition, 68–83.
[17] See Hans Urs von Balthasar, ‘Soteriology: A Historical Outline’, Theodrama: Theological Dramatic Theory, IV The Action, trans. by Graham Harrison (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1994), 298–308.
[18] …but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words, Rm 8:26.
[19] Bergson, 45.
[20] The literature here is vast. See Bert Roest, ‘Francis and the Pursuit of Learning’, 161–77 and E. Randolph Daniel, ‘Franciscan Missions’, 240–57 in Robson, Cambridge Companion.