A Great Fall

Lately, I have been inundated with articles about how an accidental Fall is the biggest threat to the longevity of elderly people. It is a danger that I and my wife Anna are deadly aware of since we are both in our early eighties. I like to quip that I never fall but was more than likely to trip. This is probably a distinction without a difference. 

To date, the worst trip I ever took occurred on December 7th, 2001, the seventieth anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Rushing to a friend’s house in the dark to retrieve a forgotten article, I hit their trip step at a speed which sent me flying face-first into a small staircase of concrete steps. (I have expanded on this propensity of mine to hurt myself in an essay, The Accidental Kamikaze from March 21, 2017.)

I will wager that the first time any of us ever experienced the concept of a Fall dates back to our encounter with the character in the nursery rhyme or riddle, Humpty Dumpty. The first recorded exploits of this anthropomorphic egg can be found in a tune from author James William Elliot’s National Rhymes and Nursery Songs from late-eighteenth-century England. The earliest known version was published in Juvenile Amusements in 1797. 

This accident-prone egg is probably best remembered from the pen of author Lewis Carroll who made him an animated egg in his 1871 book, Through a Looking Glass. The American actor George L. Fox popularized him in the Broadway pantomime musical Humpty Dumpty in 1868. The lyrics of its initial stanza are pregnant with meaning for American culture.

What prompted me to think and write about the idea of a Great Fall was a cartoon from our local paper of July 15th of this year. I am talking about Patrick McDonnel’s Mutts, which includes pointed and humorous dialogue between the twisted syntax of his friends in the Animal Kingdom. This one had the cat, telling his bird friends that he was off on his shummer (sic) trip. In the second panel he slips from his favorite tree branch and in the third panel, the birds say, See Ya Next Fall, a double entendre which I am sure most of us got.

A Fall is a concept which can be applied to a broad spectrum of other life situations and can serve as a perfect metaphor for everything which befalls us during our respective lifetimes. History is replete with the Great Falls of dynasties, kingdoms and empires, such as Rome, Napoleon, the Qing Dynasty in China, the Weimar Republic and the Romanovs. Virtually all great powers have the seeds of their betrayal and decline sewn within the fabric of their empires. I believe this was, is and will be true of any dynasty, civilization or empire, including our own. This special seed is our own fallen human nature, which has been an endemic force in all history.

I believeThe Fall of Man is a pillar of Catholic Faith and Philosophy. Without it there would have been no need for a Good Friday or an Easter Sunday. Most Catholics should be familiar with the Bible story in the Book of Genesis, Chapters 1-3, of Adam and Eve and their forfeiture of the Garden of Eden for all mankind. Its impacts on the human race make it, in my mind, the Great Fall. While the Catholic Catechism states that the account of the Fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative Language…it affirms…the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents.

In the Catholic faith, the Great Fall is closely related to the ideas of original (or ancestral) sin because Adam and Eve brought sin into the world and an imperfect human nature all of us would inherit. This is a state where none of us can attain eternal life without the grace of God.

St. Bede of Jarrow and St. Thomas Aquinas said the fall of Adam and Eve produced four wounds in our human nature. They are original sin (a lack of sanctifying grace and original justice), concupiscence which created a disorder in the soul’s passions so they are no longer ordered perfectly to the soul’s intellect. Physical frailty and death, as well as a darked intellect and ignorance…round out the four wounds. 

As a result, all their descendants are subject to ignorance, suffering…the dominion of death and inclined to sin. With these human weaknesses and a propensity for evil, our first parents transmitted this ancestral sin to all the billions of their descendants, with the exception of our Lord’s Blessed Mother. 

While in their state of pure being, there was no need for any clothing because there was no sense of sin. It was only after Adam and Eve’s explicit sin of pride, in eating from the apple tree of good and evil, the only restriction God had imposed on them, that they forfeited theirs and our places in paradise. The loss of heaven through their sin robbed them and us of our innocence, and they became aware that they were naked and ashamed. From that moment in Biblical history the world and the destiny of man was changed forever.

Eve and Adam had fallen for the Devil’s vain promise that they would be like gods. Though many have blamed Eve for ruining everything, Adam was just as culpable in their original sin. Eve had been excited by the Devil’s false promise that she and Adam would become gods, like our heavenly Father. I call this the first and the greatest sin of all history, which can be applied to many kings, politicians and all thinkers who think they can be as great as God.

The Biblical Fall of Man* can be found in many other areas of our literature and culture. Unsurprisingly, playwright William Shakespeare referred to the fall of man in his play Henry V, where the King described the betrayal of Lord Scroop, a childhood friend as being…like another fall of man, in reference to the King’s loss of his own faith and innocence, the Lord’s betrayal…had caused him.

One of the most graphic references is William Golding’s novel, The Lord of the Flies. The plot revolves around a group of prepubescent British boys who are stranded on an uninhabited island and forced to govern themselves. This leads to a descent into savagery and murder. The book thoroughly explores morality, leadership and the tensions between civility and chaos, especially when there is no reference to God or any hint of religious or moral ethics.

I met a classic model for this most alluring of evils, in an Office Depot of all places. A few weeks ago, I had entered the store near us to buy a cartridge for my printer. After my purchase, I needed to get some forms copied. During an animated discussion with Nia, a young saleswoman, I also struck up a conversation with another of her customers, an athletic looking man in the final stages of middle age, who was virtually bursting out of his muscle tee-shirt.

One thing led to another and before I knew it, he shared his proud belief that he was a god and so was everyone else. I wasn’t surprised to learn that he had been raised a Catholic but believed no more. (One of the callers to my radio show years ago also admitted not practicing the faith, casually referring to himself as a recovering Catholic). In essence, Caesar (his real name) had typically replaced his faith with his love of self. After I raised a few simple questions, the conversation went back to Nia and we ended our discussion with a friendly man hug. 

In retrospect, I had probably missed an opportunity to have raised a few more pointed questions about his claims. But I sensed that he was a true disbeliever and very happy with his self-proclaimed godhead. I knew immediately that I would eventually write about him in one of my essays. 

I think his importance stems from the fact that there are many Caesars in our world and I trust most of us have met a few. Most of them will never assume enough power over the rest of us to order the universe in their image and likeness. Yet this was one very likeable and friendly man. I can certainly see how persuasive he may be in converting many to his atheistic existentialist, a person who believes all human beings are godlike in their control over their own destinies. 

The Caesars of the world have the innate ability to change minds and influence the flow of ideas in their own communities. In this, Caesar shares the pulpit with Sarte and Nietzsche. This in itself is a challenge for all of us to be prepared to handle such episodes with knowledge, spirit, compassion and understanding wherever and whenever we may encounter them.

*There is no greater depiction of the Great Fall than Michelangelo’s fresco in the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City, ‘The Fall and Expulsion from Paradise.’