It’s funny when people think their actions have no consequences.
As far as I can remember the world’s villains, warlords, and lords of great power, almost all of them perished miserably – contrary to what their courtiers and the wider world would have expected due to their brilliant biographies. Sándor Nagy basically drank himself to death after he and his boy lover, Héphaistion, had already finished drinking. Julius Caesar was helped to the other world with well-aimed stabs in the chest. A whole series of Roman emperors were slaughtered and chopped into pieces, just as the English and French kings were later executed. Like the Russian Tsar, who was shot dead with his family by the Bolsheviks in a cellar. Napoleon had to die in exile, broken, Stalin suffered a gout, urinated himself, and was found in his room. Hitler first married Eva Braun in the bunker, and then both committed suicide. Let me not enumerate how many powerful leaders have done it badly, and the fact that before that everyone feared them, but at least admired their strength and determination, does not change this fact.
For a long time, I did not understand why evil sometimes prevails, and how darkness can get close to the ultimate secrets. After all, in the kingdom of light, you can only shine happily, cleanly and freely. Then, one fine day, I understood that the Faustian tradition (“does evil and does good”), which Bulgakov considered so important that he inserted it as the motto of The Master and Margarita, guides us precisely.
Because evil is also part of creation, it is no coincidence that Lucifer guides us through The Tragedy of Man.
It is worth taking a close look at how Madách presents and then removes Lucifer from his work. When the lord of darkness talks about creation, he mockingly calls man an “art lover” and a “small rock kneaded in mud”, that is, he raises doubts. This is actually natural, since the lord of the dark substance disturbs harmony and perfect creation by expanding uncertainty. In the final pages of The Tragedy of Man – after guiding the human pair through the various earthly arenas and trying to pour out his own nihilism on them – Lucifer essentially turns away. When the Lord appears (“To the dust, spirit! There is no greatness before me!”), Lucifer only has enough strength left to refer to his reason, for him the emotional family scene, that is, the meeting between the Lord and man is “infinitely boring”.
By this time, however, it becomes clear that the Lord is the commander of the universe, the final decision is his, and that everyone else in the Tragedy only smells the flowers of creation, but does not understand the meaning of flowering. Finally, the Lord speaks about the role of evil: “You, Lucifer, you are also a ring in My All – continue to function: / Your cold knowledge, your wild denial / Will be the leaven that brings you to the spring, / And will discourage you, even though – it does nothing – / For a minute, then it will return. / But your guilty soul is endless / Seeing endlessly what you desire to harm, / Beautiful and noble will have a new sprout.” Then the Choir of the Angels will be heard, then Madách rises to the final secrets, the meaning of our destiny and existence: “Freely between sin and virtue / To be able to choose, what a great idea, / And yet to know that above us / God’s grace stands as a shield. / Do it boldly, and don’t mind if / The crowd is also ungrateful, / Because don’t consider that as your goal, / Self-esteem only, who does great, / Being ashamed to do otherwise; / And the self-awareness of this shame / Pins the abominable to the ground, / Grabs the glory, – But in the majesty of your way / Don’t be blinded by the image, / That what you do, you do for God’s / Glory, / And he would just need you, / As for the purpose of: / In fact, you won an ornament from him, if / He allows you to do it for him.”
That would be the secret, the task and the hope. Evil inevitably creates good, because if we choose light instead of darkness, we have resisted temptation and become stronger. This is also the case in Faust and The Master and Margarita: it is a possible scenario in life that breaking bad and cultivating good sometimes appear together. But the point is always the goal, not the journey. In the East or in ancient Hellas, it would have been said that in the final, relaxed state of mind, we expand our divine essence, and our human and animal selves are repressed. Ultimately, therefore, it is not possible to judge our lives only rationally (of course, it is hardly a coincidence that Lucifer also defends his reason when the Lord appears and restores the truth).
In fact, there is only one way we can reach the Creator God: by asking for grace, because if we are not able to do this, then we close ourselves in our own narrow and limited system.
And we cannot break out of it with either philosophical, scientific, or artistic means, the barrier placed in front of us collapses in front of everyone. So the ancients will be right, our Benedictine and Reformer predecessors, who said and wrote ora et labora (or orando et laborando) by chance, since prayer and work are the most important things for a person. You are a combination of the longing for grace and our own will, or, if you like, the unity of divine help and our own action.
There are passages in Scripture about the limits and nature of our power. “Let every soul obey the superior powers, because there is no power from other than God, and whatever power there is, it is ordained by God. Therefore, he who goes against the power, is against the order of God; and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves.” (Rom. 13, 1–2.) Could it be that simple? In fact, yes, although the unbeliever tends to blame chance and bad luck for his misfortune, even though divine justice overtakes all created beings. After all, we received life itself from the one to whom we will return, and we do not control our own destiny, although we are responsible for our decisions. Everything else is largely theory and doubt – as we have seen, these are Lucifer’s most powerful weapons.
Once we have understood the above, we can no longer worry about anything. What is bad for us is not a misfortune, some kind of random accident, but a necessary test of our life.
The politician, who is also responsible for others and has the power to act for or against the community, has a particularly big responsibility if he goes the way of Lucifer. If, as Péter Magyar, he can only tell his constituents and others that no fucking way, he has not done anything to expand clarity.
Rather, it drifts towards the inevitable end, the ugly and tragic conclusion, the origin of which we may have doubts, but how it will occur is absolutely certain. However, it is never too late to change, and if a person starts his life anew, if he understands and then corrects his sins and mistakes, then he can see the light at the end of the tunnel. After all, the Lord always appears in the end, and Lucifer leaves at such times because his time has expired, his function has ceased, his purpose has been derailed. Perhaps that would be the meaning of history.
Source: magyarnemzet.hu
