"The tragic motif in Greek drama is thus either Promethean or Dionysian (Freudian). In the one case the human imagination breaks the forms of prudent morality because it strives toward the infinite; in the other because it expresses passions and impulses which lie below the level of consciousness in ordinary men and which result in consequences outside the bounds of decent morality. The Greek drama thus surveys the heights and depths of the human spirit and uncovers a total dimension which prudence can neither fully comprehend nor restrain. But the tragic hero is not a mere victim of these passions and ambitions. He wilfully affirms in his own act what may be an unconscious impulse or an inscrutable necessity in lesser men. In that sense Greek tragedy is both romantic and aristocratic: romantic because it affirms the whole of life, whatever the consequences, in its dimension of nature and infinity, of Dionysian impulse and Promethean will; aristocratic because only a few titans and heroes dare to break the bounds which check ordinary men. Greek tragedy declares that the vitality of life is in conflict with the laws of life. It does not draw pessimistic or negative conclusions from this fact. The tragic hero simply undertakes to break the laws in order to express the full dimension of human existence. The tragic hero is an aristocrat for precisely the opposite reason of Aristotle's and Plato's aristocrat, who expresses his superiority over lesser men by the restraint which reason has placed upon emotion."...
"However wide and deep the differences which separate the Christian view of life from that of Greek tragedy, it must be apparent that there are greater similarities between the two than between either and the utilitarian rationalism which has dominated contemporary culture. Both measure life in the same depth; and neither gives itself to the simple delusion that the titanic forces of human existence, whether they spring from below the level of consciousness or rise above the level of human limitations, can easily be brought under the control of some little scheme of prudent rationality.
Christianity and Greek tragedy agree that guilt and creativity are inextricably interwoven. But Christianity does not regard the inevitability of guilt in all human creativity as inherent in the nature of human life. Sin emerges, indeed, out of freedom and is possible only because man is free; but it is done in freedom, and therefore man and not life bears responsibility for it. It does indeed accompany every creative act; but the evil is not part of the creativity. It is the consequence of man's self-centredness and egotism by which he destroys the harmony of existence. The fact that he does this is not an occasion for admiration but for pity: "Weep for yourselves" remains Christianity's admonition to all who involve themselves in sin and guilt, whether by unconscious submission to forces greater than their will or by consciously affirming these forces.
A survey of the modern titans and heroes, whether nations or the oligarchs of nations, whether political or economic and industrial oligarchs, must certainly justify this Christian estimate of their true character. These nations and these leaders overreach themselves so pitifully. Their strength is so obviously bogus. It is weakness which poses as strength; it is the pride of an inferiority complex. It may create but it destroys more than it creates. It involves Europe in carnage for the sake of a brief hour of glory. Like Agamemnon, it sacrifices its Iphigenia under the illusion that the father who sacrifices a daughter, the nation which sacrifices its sons, for the sake of victory, is proving its unselfishness. It forgets, like Agamemnon, that the pride of the man and not the unselfishness of the father is the dominant motif in the sacrifice.
It must be admitted, of course, that there are genuinely tragic elements in the human enterprise, simply because nobility and strength, dignity and creative ambition are mixed with this sin, and frequently make it more destructive. Thus Japan lives in greater ultimate insecurity than China because Japanese patriotism has created a nation of greater unity and force than China, a nation playing for higher stakes, at greater risks and with the certainty of ultimate disaster. In the same way the British Empire could not have been built without the solid achievements of British statecraft, a statecraft which made moral qualities serve political purposes. But the British aristocrats who built the Empire are also sealing its doom by policies which are prompted by some of the same class characteristics which were responsible for their original success. However we may qualify the judgment to allow for authentic tragic elements in human life, Christianity is right in its general indictment, "Weep for yourselves." Sin is pitiful.
The Saviour who utters these words dies upon the cross. He dies not because he has sinned but because he has not sinned. He proves thereby that sin is so much a part of existence that sinlessness cannot maintain itself in it. But he also proves that sin is not a necessary and inherent characteristic of life. Evil is not a part of God, nor yet a part of essential man. This Saviour is a revelation of the goodness of God and the essential goodness of man, i.e., the second Adam. He is indeed defeated in history but in that very defeat proves that he cannot be ultimately defeated. That is, he reveals that it is God's nature to swallow up evil in Himself and destroy it. Life in its deepest essence is not only good but capable of destroying the evil which has been produced in it. Life is thus not at war with itself. Its energy is not in conflict with its order. Hence the Saviour truly says: "Weep not for me." Christianity stands beyond tragedy. If there are tears for this man on the cross they cannot be tears of "pity and terror." The cross does not reveal life at cross purposes with itself. On the contrary, it declares that what seems to be an inherent defect in life itself is really a contingent defect in the soul of each man, the defect of the sin which he commits in his freedom. If he can realise that fact, if he can weep for himself, if he can repent, he can also be saved. He can be saved by hope and faith. His hope and faith will separate the character of life in its essential reality from life as it is revealed in sinful history.
This man on the cross who can say "Weep not for me" is also able to save us from our tears of self-pity. What he reveals about life transmutes tears of self-pity into tears of remorse and repentance. Repentance does not accuse life or God but accuses self. In that self-accusation lies the beginning of hope and salvation. If the defect lies in us and not in the character of life, life is not hopeless. If we can only weep for ourselves as men we need not weep for ourselves as man."
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