faith and the error of our deviations. Today merely thinking that makes me ashamed, and I let that kind of suspicion fall useless to the sand where my decapitated head lies. Filopater did not condemn Nietzsche or praise Saint Augustine. And he did not pull another Catholic theologian from his sleeve. We should not have been surprised, in short, that the lesson he set aside for us would bear the name and imprint of a thinker condemned as a heretic by both his original Hebrew community and eventual Christian one.
Therefore, before expounding the philosophy of Baruch (Benedetto, Benito, Benoit) Spinoza, Filopater, as he placed on his head not a biretta or a cap but a black zucchetto, reminded us of the origin of the word “heretic,” which was the Greek
“Then heresy is freedom,” Jerico hastened to say.
“Which obliges us to think, what is freedom?” the priest shot back.
“Fine. What is it?” I came to my friend’s assistance.
To obtain an approximate answer, Filopater asked us to retrace the path of the heretic Spinoza.
“You have just told me you believe in freedom of thought.”
“That’s true, Father.”
“Is the thought of believing in God free?”
We said it was.
“Then, can faith be free?”
“If it isn’t consumed in obedience,” said Jerico.
“If it affirms justice,” I added.
Filopater adjusted the black calotte.
“If it doesn’t, if it doesn’t… Don’t be so negative. Do you believe in the will? Do you believe in intelligence?”
Again, we said we did.
“Do you believe in God?”
“Demonstrate it to us, Father,” Jerico said, arrogantly, brazenly.
“No, seriously, boys. If God exists, He is a God who does not demand obedience and offer justice, but a God positively intelligent and possessing will.”
“Our differences aside, I would say I agree,” I affirmed.
The priest playfully pulled my ear and placed the zucchetto on my head.
“Well, you’re mistaken. God is not intelligent. God has no will.”
I laughed. “You’re more of a heretic than we are!”
He removed the zucchetto.
“I am the most serious of orthodox believers.”
“Explain yourself,” said the very haughty Jerico.
“Believing that God has intelligence and will is to believe that God is human. And God is not human. I do not say with vulgarity ‘He is divine.’ Only that He is other. And we gain nothing by turning Him into a mirror of our virtues or a negation of our vices. God is God because He is not us.”
“Why?”
“Because God is infinitely creative.”
“Isn’t that what we humans are, individually, collectively, or traditionally?”
“No, because our creativity is free. God’s is necessary.”
“What do you mean?”
“That God is the cause of Himself and of the finite beings-you, me, everything that exists-derived from Him. God is active not because He is free but because all things necessarily originate in Him.”
“Then he isn’t the bearded man in the sky?”
“No, just as light isn’t the light of a candle or a lightbulb.”
“And Jesus, His son?”
“He is a human form among the infinite forms of God. A form. Just one. He could have chosen others.”
“Why?”
“To let us see Him.”
“And then return to nothing?”
“Or to everything, Jerico.”
“What do you mean?”
“That God is vast, not intelligent. God is infinite, not divisible.”
“But He can be human, material…” I apostrophized.
“Yes, because the body is one thing and matter another. We are only body, the stone is only matter. But God, who can be body-Jesus-can also be matter-creation, seas, mountains, animals, plants, etcetera, and also everything we don’t even know or perceive. What we do manage to see and know, touch and smell, imagine or desire, are for God only modalities of His own infinite extension.”
I believe he saw us looking somewhat perplexed because he smiled and asked:
“Do you subscribe to a theory of the creation of the universe? In reality, there are only three. The one of the divine
I don’t know if Filopater was proposing to us a kind of menu of the origin of the universe, and if he expected us to subscribe to one or the other of his three theories he was mistaken and knew it. He wanted only to force us to think on our own, and in the course of our talks we realized our initial error. Filopater did not want to convert us to any orthodoxy, not even his own. And I confess I ended up wondering what, then, if not religious faith, the philosophical reasoning of our teacher could be.
What was he saying to us?
“If you don’t believe in God, believe in the universe. Except that the universe is identical to God. It has no beginning and no end. That is why God alone can see a thousand-year-old tree grow.”
In the admonitory reference to Spinoza, however, we encountered a personal resonance that Filopater could not, or would not, let us hear. Spinoza was not expelled from Judaism because of persecution. He expelled himself because of love of solitude, and he loved solitude-Filopater explained-in order to think. He wanted to be expelled from the Hebrew community to demonstrate that religious believers care more about authority than about truth.
“What do you think?”
After consulting with each other, Jerico and I told the priest he would have to answer the question himself. We were disrespectful.
“If what you want, Father, is to set a trap for us so we commit today to what we won’t commit to tomorrow, we believe the one who has been trapped is you.”
“Why?” the cleric said with great, with real humility.
How to tell him that whatever happened, whatever he thought, Filopater would never renounce his religious fidelity? He would be faithful to it no matter how
Perhaps he guessed the answer we didn’t give to his “why” loaded with responsibilities for two young students who were alert but immature.
“Why?”
He looked at us with the gratitude, confidence, and affection we would always have for him.
“Listen, don’t be satisfied with telling me what I might want to hear. And don’t challenge me out of mere negativity. Be serious. Don’t exaggerate.”
It was another way of telling us he had chosen a path but it was up to us to choose our own. He said it in the indirect way I’m saying it now. He left us with a permanent feeling for the unavoidable difficulties in living life seriously. Spinoza engaged in rebellion and scandal intentionally, in order to be expelled and be independent. Filopater had not done the same. In the light of his experience, was the venerated Baruch (Benoit, Benito, Benedetto) a coward who, instead of breaking with his Church, looked for the way in which his Church would
