Verses 40-52 discuss pride, clothing, cleanliness, idleness, and healing. I will begin with a verse-by-verse commentary, with any helpful cross-references I found. Then I will add some theological thoughts and questions, also arranged verse-by-verse.
EXEGESIS:
40 And again thou shalt not be proud in thy heart; let all thy garments be plain, and their beauty the beauty of the work of thine own hands;
-There are of course many times where pride is condemned in the scriptures. It is worth noting that here, the warning against pride comes after the law of consecration and before a talking about clothing, cleanliness, and idleness.
41 And let all things be done in cleanliness before me.
-It seems unlikely that “all things” refers to the clothing mentioned in the last verse, and rather to all things conducted by a Zion people.
-In D&C 90: 36 God will chasten Zion until she is “clean.” Isa. 52: 1 promises that “there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.”
42 Thou shalt not be idle; for he that is idle shall not eat the bread nor wear the garments of the laborer.
-The wording of this verse appeared to reference a story elsewhere, I assumed it was perhaps in Proverbs or a parable, but I could not find one.
-The phrase “thou shalt not be idle” is used only here.
43 And whosoever among you are sick, and have not faith to be healed, but believe, shall be nourished with all tenderness, with herbs and mild food, and that not by the hand of an enemy.
-Part 1 of instructions on healing. A person has not faith to be healed, but believes. The words “have not faith to be healed” are likely referring to the gift of the spirit (see D&C 46) rather than a person having not enough faith. The phrase “faith to be healed” is only used three times in scripture: here, D&C 46, and Acts 14:9.
44 And the elders of the church, two or more, shall be called, and shall pray for and lay their hands upon them in my name; and if they die they shall die unto me, and if they live they shall live unto me.
-Note this is still talking about those who “have not faith to be healed.” The command to call the elders appears, in this verse, to be when a person is near the point of death.
45 Thou shalt live together in love, insomuch that thou shalt weep for the loss of them that die, and more especially for those that have not hope of a glorious resurrection.
-“Hope of a glorious resurrection” only shows up here and in D&C 138.
46 And it shall come to pass that those that die in me shall not taste of death, for it shall be sweet unto them;
-To not “taste of death” usually refers to the change in body of those like the three Nephite disciples or Elijiah. However, see these curious verses:
John 8: 52: “Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death”
and Heb. 2: 9: “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.”
47 And they that die not in me, wo unto them, for their death is bitter.
48 And again, it shall come to pass that he that hath faith in me to be healed, and is not appointed unto death, shall be healed.
-Part 2 of instructions on healing. A person has faith to be healed. The sentence hinges on the reminder that God can appoint someone a time to die, even if they have a gift to be healed. It is not mentioned whether this is with or without a priesthood blessing.
49 He who hath faith to see shall see.
50 He who hath faith to hear shall hear.
51 The lame who hath faith to leap shall leap.
-In Isaiah 35:5-6, we have reference to blind, deaf, and lame in the same order: “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart” and this as they “return, and come to Zion” (v. 10).
52 And they who have not faith to do these things, but believe in me, have power to become my sons; and inasmuch as they break not my laws thou shalt bear their infirmities.
-Part 3 of instructions on healing. A person may not have faith, but IF that person believes the people should bear their infirmities (mentioned earlier as using herbs, etc.). This seems to imply that if the person breaks the commandments, the people are not bound to do so. (See theological questions below for further discussion.)
-There are three other places where the exact phrase “become my sons” (/daughters) is used:
D&C 39: 4: “But to as many as received me, gave I power to become my sons; and even so will I give unto as many as will receive me, power to become my sons.”
Ether 3: 14: “Behold, I am he who was prepared from the foundation of the world to redeem my people. Behold, I am Jesus Christ. I am the Father and the Son. In me shall all mankind have life, and that eternally, even they who shall believe on my name; and they shall become my sons and my daughters.”
Moses 6: 68: “Behold, thou art one in me, a son of God; and thus may all become my sons. Amen.” (This is after Adam’s baptism.)
THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS:
40
-Question: What might the Lord be teaching us by using clothing as the only example of not being proud? The commandment “thou shalt not be proud in thy heart” is followed by only one example: “let all thy garments be plain, and their beauty the beauty of the work of thine own hands.” Why the connection between pride and clothes? The Book of Mormon mentions this connection quite a bit (see Alma 1: 6, 27, 32, Morm. 8: 36-37, Jacob 2: 13, Alma 4: 6, Alma 5: 53, Alma 31: 28, 4 Ne. 1: 24). In fact, I’ve been impressed that often the first thing the Nephite people do when they begin to be proud is to wear fine clothes:
In Alma 4: 6: “And it came to pass in the eighth year of the reign of the judges, that the people of the church began to wax proud, because of their exceeding riches, and their fine silks, and their fine-twined linen, and because of their many flocks and herds, and their gold and their silver, and all manner of precious things, which they had obtained by their industry; and in all these things were they lifted up in the pride of their eyes, for they began to wear very costly apparel.”
Also, in 4 Ne. 1: 24: “And now, in this two hundred and first year there began to be among them those who were lifted up in pride, such as the wearing of costly apparel, and all manner of fine pearls, and of the fine things of the world.”
-Question: Is the command here for the people to make their own clothes a command about sewing, or a way to keep plainness and humility in the people? What does the text imply? How do we think of this direction: “and their beauty the beauty of the work of thine own hands” today? Am I commanded not to shop for my clothes? It would be easy to say, “No, no, of course not Karen, you are taking it too far…” But am I? How seriously are we to take this? If it were always cheaper to make our own clothes, then I could be persuaded that it was “smart.” But I don’t have a sewing machine, I don’t know how to sew, and since I usually shop sales and thrift stores, it would probably cost me the same to buy the fabric and make clothes. But, if I did, would I be able to lose the fashions and styles of the world? Or, would we all just copy the fashions of the world when we sewed anyway? I can follow the command to “let all thy garments be plain” even as I shop, but what about the rest?
41
-Question: Is there any significant addition here to our understanding of Zion? There are far too many references to being clean in the scriptures to discuss them all here. It almost seems too obvious that being clean would be a requirement for Zion, but it felt too important to leave it out. Any further comments on this?
42
-Question: How does this verse relate to our discussion of helping the poor? Who is idle? How can you judge? Can you justify withholding help if someone is idle? Based on this verse, should the Bishop withhold assistance? (Is this verse prescriptive?) Do we (as a people, fortunately or unfortunately) generally consider someone without a job idle? Is someone without a job idle? Is this perhaps just a statement of future inevitability, that this is the idler’s natural outcome? (Is this verse descriptive?) Is the verse talking about short term or long term outcomes? What of the scriptures which say, “Come unto me all ye ends of the earth, buy milk and honey, without money and without price” (2 Nephi 26:25, also in Isaiah 55:1, 2 Nephi 9:50)? Is everyone who is working justified? Consider Jacob’s words from 2 Nephi 9:51: “Wherefore, do not spend money for that which is of no worth, nor your labor for that which cannot satisfy.” Can you be laboring and idle? What does “idle” mean?
-Question: Why clothes? Does it mean simply that if people do not sew they have no clothes? If they do not make clothes themselves they cannot take them from others? Or does the phrase “garments of the laborer” refer to specific clothes, almost like a uniform that designates them as a worker?
-Question: Where else in scripture do we read about people working for bread and garments, and how are each of those passages different? When Adam and Eve leave the garden they have to work for their food, but God clothes their nakedness. Later the Israelites are given manna by God. Here people should work for both food and clothes. Are there other noticeable variances on this bread/clothes theme in scripture?
46
-Question: Why this imagery of taste? The verse says if it is sweet, they do not taste it. Why can’t they taste something that is sweet? It then seems taste here is a negative image. Why?
I love this line from Hebrews: “that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.” If death is bitter, then, do the righteous have a death that is “sweet” because they don’t have to taste death itself (because Christ tasted it for them)? I’m not sure how to articulate this.
48
-Question: What do we learn from the words “and is not appointed unto death”? Perhaps it is a reminder that a gift is just a gift, and not something we can demand or control. How does this affect the giving and understanding of priesthood blessings? Do we assume that the elders would not bless a person to be healed if they were appointed to death? Or do we assume a person may die even if they are blessed to be healed? Does this verse assume a person received a blessing, or that their faith (as a gift) would be enough? Any clues from the text to help here?
51
-Question: What is the connection between a Zion being established and the healing of the blind, deaf, and lame? The reference to Isaiah is striking because these will “come to Zion.” In the Book of Mormon Christ comes to set up a Zion people and he heals those who are afflicted (3 Nephi 17:7-6). Other references containing blind, deaf, and lame include: Matt. 11: 5, Luke 7: 22, Mosiah 3: 5, 3 Ne. 26: 15, 4 Ne. 1: 5, D&C 35: 9, D&C 58: 11.
52
-Question: Are we under no obligation to help the unrighteous? This seems to be an odd, unfeeling question. I am not suggesting we ignore sick who are not perfect members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There are plenty of statements otherwise; think just of the Good Samaritan story and all of Joseph Smith’s words on charity. In fact he says, “[A member of the Church] is to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to provide for the widow, to dry up the tear of the orphan, to comfort the afflicted, whether in this church, or in any other, or in no church at all, wherever he finds them” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, chapter 37). Then why have this phrase “and inasmuch as they break not my laws”at all in the verse? What is it saying?
-Question: How does this reference to having power to become God’s sons change the verse? This seems to me to be a rich, powerful phrase to add in here. It certainly does not give anyone license to condemn someone for “not having enough faith.” Is it just to clarify that being ill or afflicted is not a sign of punishment from God? (See chapter 33 of Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith.) Why use this particular phrase? How significant is this wording? If it is a genuinely significant phrase, how does its presence affect our understanding of D&C 42 in general?
July 1, 2009 at 8:37 am
Likely because I’m delivering a paper on Parley P. Pratt’s theology of death tomorrow, I’m most taken by the verses that deal with death and healing here. However, I want to look at them a bit more carefully on my own before I try to add anything to the discussion. This morning, then, I’ll just throw out a few responsive thoughts, some of them hopefully constructive.
“The wording of this verse appeared to reference a story elsewhere, I assumed it was perhaps in Proverbs or a parable, but I could not find one.”
I’m puzzled here, as well. I assumed that this was making reference to a biblical text, but I can’t come up with one either.
“There are three other places where the exact phrase “become my sons” (/daughters) is used.”
The possessive (“my”) I think threw you off a bit here. The phrase is Johannine, though the possessive is replaced by a definite article. Take a look at John 1:12: “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God.” This is quoted in D&C 11:30 and 45:8.
“The Book of Mormon mentions this connection [between pride and clothing] quite a bit.”
Yes, and I suspect that the Book of Mormon tradition here is drawing on Isaiah, where the connection is also drawn. I’ll have to provide references when I have a bit more time.
On clothing, idleness, bread, etc.:
Here I think we’re led a bit astray by the 1835 changes to verses 30-39. In the 1831 version of the text, it was clear that verses 30-39 were meant to establish a communalistic endeavor of some kind, and so these instructions would quite straightforwardly have followed: the individual order (a given “united order”) was to provide itself with clothing and food (so as to be independent from outside communities, etc.), and was to ensure that nobody in the established community was idle (since they would, if they remained in the community, be nonetheless provided for). Putting these statements into the context of communalism perhaps makes more sense of them. (It should be added that united orders in especially late nineteenth-century Utah followed these rules carefully.)
I think that the bearing with the infirmities of the “faithless” falls into this same camp: they are not to be thrown out of the order or of the community.
That said, we still have to grapple with the canonical text we have before us. How do we understand these questions of clothing, food, and bearing with the infirmities of the Saints when we do not have the commandment to set up united orders? How does the revamped version of verses 30-39 change the meaning of these things? This is what I see Karen struggling with here. And I’m not sure I have anything intelligent to say about these things yet.
I’ll try to get back to the question of death and healing today or Friday.
July 1, 2009 at 9:40 am
Excellent exegesis, Karen. Herewith some scattered thoughts, dealing mainly with clothing, pride, and production.
The commandment “thou shalt not be proud in thy heart” is followed by only one example: “let all thy garments be plain, and their beauty the beauty of the work of thine own hands.” Why the connection between pride and clothes?
One possibility is, of course, that clothing is the most immediate, outward way of communicating our identity, interests, and/or intentions to others, and hence is central to our ability to invite, manipulate, calm, provoke, or otherwise influence others. Obviously, clothing is just the initial step in such influence, and for a very great many people, for reasons both good and bad, clothing is entirely disregarded in how they interact or judge others. Still, the amount of money and attention paid to clothing suggests that this is an enduring element of human society–and not just in First World, liberal, market-based economies; you can argue this same point from inverse examples, when authorities spend a disproportionate amount of time squelching styles they think are wicked or counter-productive.
I think, however, the better possibility, or at least an important supplemental one, is contained in the line “the beauty of the work of thine own hands,” and connects to your follow-up question:
Is the command here for the people to make their own clothes a command about sewing, or a way to keep plainness and humility in the people? What does the text imply? How do we think of this direction: “and their beauty the beauty of the work of thine own hands” today? Am I commanded not to shop for my clothes? It would be easy to say, “No, no, of course not Karen, you are taking it too far…” But am I?…I can follow the command to “let all thy garments be plain” even as I shop, but what about the rest?
I think “the rest” is where the real thrust of this line is contained. Specifically, the idea that one’s “beauty” (which should be a “plain” beauty, not an ostentatious or outrageous one) should be connected with one’s own work, not the work of others. Given the frequent association clothing is given with pride, and the fact that pride is always about enmity and competition on some level or another, I would suppose that the deeper meaning here is actually a very simple one, one that has been firmly expressed by Elder Holland and Sister Tanner recently: do not hand your appearance, your identity, your image, over to the world; keep it your own (or, since we are talking about a consecrated community here, presumably within the community of faith).
As I so often do, I think Rousseau (and Marx, to a degree) are helpful here: contemporary forms of production and relation and exchange–which shopping for clothes certainly involves–involve elements of alienation and dependency. Who is making my clothes? Who is judging my clothes? Who is deciding what’s in style and what isn’t? Who is even setting the terms for what I or my community accept as “plain”? So often the answer to all of the above is “I don’t know, but it’s not me, and not anyone I know personally or have any relationship with.” But the Lord, through Joseph Smith here, is I think struggling to get us to understand that a community of consecration is not going to be durable–is going to be poisoned by pride–if its notions of “beauty” itself is tied up in something made and decided upon and judged by others than ourselves.
Whatever our other ruminations on D&C 42, it seems clear to me (following up here on Joe’s comment above) that the central take-home lesson of our discussions thus far is that the original revelation had an egalitarian, communal, tight-knit, self-sufficient order in mind, but as early as 1835 that order was already being compromised, though that hardly means the communitarian aspect of it all was being entirely. Today, however, we have no such order in the offing whatsoever (unless we choose to build one through our own resources, which perhaps is exactly what we ought to do); instead, we have a command to build Zion and purify our hearts through aiding the poor and striving for self-sufficiently, but without an explicit material within which to do so. So does that mean this particular line is meaningless? I don’t think so. We can keep in mind the deep point about avoiding dependency and seeking some plain, collective “sovereignty” over our own choices, including our choices as dressers. Perhaps we don’t make our own clothes, but can we support those who do? Can we fight against the pervasiveness of advertising and fashion which shapes how we think and what we choose to buy? Can we develop standards of dress (and I for one think standards of dress, professional and otherwise, are important; “uniforms<" as it were, matter, and can even be virtuous in a limited way) which do not reach beyond their place and oblige us to spend our money and time on and copy what the world does? Because if we cannot, then we're not moving towards a Zion where all are treated the same, I think.
I love the way the author (presumably Mormon) put it when talking about the Nephite community soon after the death of King Benjamin and the establishment of reign of judges. You mention this verse above, but the whole passage is fascinating, I think:
And when the priests left their labor to impart the word of God unto the people, the people also left their labors to hear the word of God. And when the priest had imparted unto them the word of God they all returned diligently unto their labors; and the priest, not esteeming himself above his hearers, for the preacher was no better than the hearer, neither was the teacher any better than the learner; and thus they were all equal, and they did all labor, every man according to his strength.
And they did impart of their substance, every man according to which he had, to the poor, and the needy, and the sick, and the afflicted; and they did not wear costly apparel, yet they were neat and comely.
And thus they did establish the affairs of the church; and thus they began to have continual peace again, notwithstanding all their persecutions. (Alma 1:26-28)
Equality, shared labor, devotion to the word, support for the poor and needy, and an embrace of that which is “comely” but the avoidance of anything costly or fine (something that would presumably have been designed at a high-end New York fashion firm and manufactured in oppressive sweat shops in the Third World). It all fits together, I think.
July 1, 2009 at 10:47 pm
“Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.” –Mark Twain
“Other methods of putting one’s pecuniary standing in evidence serve their end effectually…but expenditure on dress has this advantage over most other methods, that our apparel is always in evidence and affords an indication of our pecuniary standing to all observers at first glance.”
–Thorstein Veblen
Veblen has a fascinating chapter on dress in his book Theory of the Leisure Class (a funny one too—like Borges I often thought he was joking when I read the book). Aside from the purposes of protection and adornment, people also buy and wear clothing in order to establish their status—in “pecuniary cultures”, their status in wealth. So despite the fact that there is an instinctual aversion to futility and waste in human beings, the demands of status require people to show, through their dress, that they can afford to waste resources (by wearing clothing with obviously expensive, useless elements), and that they don’t work (e.g. by women wearing huge, awkward hats and high heels). Many of Veblen’s particular examples and applications have been criticized (e.g. Do people really like golf mainly because it requires a lot of land?), but I think the fundamental mechanism is sound (if not as widespread as he thought). Status is a social good, which people sometimes seek through the purchase and display of expensive, ugly, useless stuff—often, the more expensive and the more useless the better.
But we might notice that it’s much more complicated than that in the most advanced commercial societies. Most people I know can’t identify extremely expensive clothes. Houses and cars—yes—but conspicuous consumption in clothing (to the extent that it exists) is for the most part a kind of coded message. I think some people could tell the difference between my $150 Today’s Man and someone else’s $5000 Brook Brothers suit, but very few could at a glance. We had to have someone look at the price tag to know how much Sarah Palin’s clothes cost. So I’m not sure that rich apparel is as conspicuously rich as it might have been or might be in other places. Perhaps it is where the ruling class and the broad standard of decency are middling (economically speaking), that flaunting wealth on your very person is not as much an uncomplicated social good as it is elsewhere. Pride can have its costs.
But at any rate, I can see why clothing is mentioned in verses we’re discussing. Costly apparel can at least be an effect of pride, if not an additional motive for it too. Moreover, aside from humility, there seems to be a sense of the virtue of seemliness—“proper order and limit”, even in appearance and physical form (Cicero)—in the reference to plainness and cleanliness and industry. Veblen thought that there’s so much ugliness in modern fashion because it’s more expensive to move from one hideous mode to another. Status-seeking overcomes our desire for adornment, until “aesthetic nausea” sets in and we seek relief in the next fashion. But ugly T-shirts and bad hair styles seem to show that people have a fashionable “libido for ugly” and for the unseemly even when the atrocious style doesn’t cost anything.
July 2, 2009 at 3:44 pm
Heh–I’d entirely forgotten about that chapter of Veblen, Jeremiah. Thanks for adding that to the discussion.
July 2, 2009 at 8:30 pm
I have nothing to say for now, other than to apologize profusely for my absence. I have been trying to pull together a cross campus seminar that I made the mistake of committing to at the beginning of the summer. I will try to get caught up on everyone’s comments and add something useful in the next day or so.
July 3, 2009 at 9:07 am
I haven’t had a chance even to read through the few comments, but I wanted to get a few of my thoughts on verses 43-47 into writing before I get on to other projects for the day.
Verse 43
This verse, along with verse 52, seems to split faith from belief. Well, not exactly, because it splits faith to be healed from believing in Christ, but I think it is certainly significant that it opts to use different but synonymous terms for the two things (rather than drawing a distinction between those who have faith to be healed and those who have faith in Christ, or between those who believe so as to be healed and those who believe in Christ). What should be made of this?
Verse 44
The more I read this verse and recognize its continuity with verse 43, the more I’m convinced that it is describing a kind of Mormon “extreme unction.” Taken strictly within the limits of its immediate context, I’m not sure I can find a way to justify reading it as referring to a blessing of healing or health. Is this, then, a kind of consecration of the dying?
Verses 44-45
Whatever the “extreme unction” of verse 44 is doing, it opens up for the possibility, if one survives, of living unto God. The word “live” at the end of verse 44 then ties very obviously the word “live” at the beginning of verse 45. This makes me want to broad the consecration of the dying in verse 44: since we are all, as mortals, in the (usually slow) process of dying, we should all be consecrated so as either to die in God, or to live unto God, and then we will see that what it means to live in God is to live together in love.
Verse 45
Interestingly, verse 45 further suggests that part of what it is to live is to weep for those who die. I like this: if the dying are consecrated so as to live unto God (and no longer to live “unto death,” as Heidegger would put it), then they stop focusing on death and begin weeping for the dead. This displacement from death to the dead is likely key to making sense of Mormonism.
Verse 45 again
The question of weeping in this verse does still more: it also splits death itself in two. We are to weep for the dead, but we are to weep more especially for those who die without hope of a glorious resurrection. Death here is broken into two kinds of death, something that is worked out in verses 46-47 in more detail.
Verses 46-47
These are the richest verses here, as Karen has already begun to show. And the result is that I have still more digging to do before I feel like I have anything really productive to say. For now, though, I will say that I see the split between two kinds of death being very helpfully articulated.
More soon.
July 3, 2009 at 9:14 am
There, I just read through the comments. Very helpful.
I find it interesting that when Nathaniel Hawthorne described having met Orson Pratt in England, the first thing he wrote about was his clothes.
July 3, 2009 at 9:20 am
On clothing: The reference to Veblen reminds me of Eric Posner’s discussion of conspicuous consumption in his book Law and Social Norms. His argument there is that it is a form of signaling about one’s future discount function. In social interactions we need to know how much the person we are dealing with values the future. A person who sharply discounts the future (ie doesn’t value it highly) is going to present real problems for social cooperation. They are much more likely to engage in opprotunistic behavior that has an immediate pay off and long term costs. Think of the way that a teenager views the world and all of the associated pathologies. In contrast a person who places a high value of the future (ie does not discount it very steeply) is much more likely to engage in cooperative behavior.
If I am a banker it is very important that I convince those that I work with that I place a high value on the future. I need to get people to believe that I really care about the the future and therefore will engage in cautious behavior with their assets, foregoing short term profits that may have big upside risks down the road. Of course, all bankers will say “I am a cautious guy who cares about the future,” but talk is cheap. On the other hand, if I build a permanent and beautiful marble building and buy expensive durable clothing I signal that I expect to be around for a long time and will be using these things. In other words, I signal that I don’t steeply discount the future.
There are, however, so problems with the signalling game. First, it may be wasteful. I may be devoting a lot of resources for the soul purpose of trying to convince others about the shape of my discount function. If they simply believed what I said, I would have to engage in a bunch of costly behavior to “put my money where my mouth is.” Furthermore, to the extent that what I need to do is signal differential discounting, I will be locked in competition with the slick-talking, steeply-future-discounting huckster who buys an expensive suit to look like a banker. I will have to in effect outspend him on durable goods. Finally, even after I’ve spent all the money trying to signal, I may fail. The hucksters may simply keep pace so that the nice suit and marble building signals nothing at all.
Notice that this provides a neat efficiency argument against conspicuous consumption. If the signalling game is ultimately unwinnable, everyone is better off if we simply never play. On the other hand, if one party refuses to play and then the other party plays, the person who unilaterally chose to not signal loses out. In other words, we have a classic prisoners’ dilemma. The solution is to force everyone to commit ex ante not to play the wasteful game, say through a norm against costly apearal.
I through the hard-nosed efficiency argument into the mix for your enjoyment.
I am fascinated by Russell’s suggested answer to Karen’s question, namely that there is something about how we understand beauty that is at issue here. If I understand the claim correctly, it is that the prohibition on costly appearal can be understood as rejecting the notion of beauty created by distant outsiders. Instead we learn that “the Lord, through Joseph Smith here, is I think struggling to get us to understand that a community of consecration is not going to be durable–is going to be poisoned by pride–if its notions of “beauty” itself is tied up in something made and decided upon and judged by others than ourselves.”
What we have here is the beginning of a link between the idea of Zion and aesthetics. I would like to see this fleshed out. It seems that Russell is making two claims here that are potentially very interesting. First, the notion that what should count as beautiful should be tied up with the ethical and especially the economic circumstances of its creation. What are the implications of this? Does it mean, for example, that the paintings commissioned by decadent Renaissance Popes are less beautiful because of the nature of their origins? If the pyramids or the temple of Karnak made with slave labor are they less beautiful? (BTW, my understanding is that the pyramids were most likely made by contract, wage labor, but maybe they were wage-slaves ;->)
The second assumption behind Russell’s reading seems to be that we can deliberately construct a concept of the beautiful. I wonder if this is quite right, however. It seems to me that part of what makes the beautiful beautiful is my sense of it transcending myself. A beautiful object is something that grabs me and pulls me out of myself. In this sense, I am skeptical about the extent to which we can deliberately create a sense of beauty. On the other hand, what counts as beautiful clearly changes over time and it is certainly possible to cultivate certain kinds of tastes and sensibilities. The notion of cultivating sensibilities and habits is itself an idea with a read application to ethical thinking, particularlly of the aretiac variety, which circles back around to the first assumption. In short, I’d like to see Russell go someplace with this.
July 3, 2009 at 9:21 am
Joe: Where is the Hawthorne reference to Pratt found?
July 4, 2009 at 7:42 am
Hawthorne’s English Notebooks, p. 442.
I read about it in Breck England’s biography of Orson Pratt (I’ve pulled the reference from his notes).
July 3, 2009 at 9:29 am
A final thought for now: I think that verse 45 is striking in light of section 42′s self-identification as a law. Generally laws are not about weeping. Indeed, we have a whole iconography of law — the blind statue of justice, etc. — suggesting that it is supposed to be indifferent to precisely the kind of subjective or emotional responses. The law does not go quite as far as commanding weeping, but it does suggest that weeping is an indicator of whether or not one has loved as the law itself requires. This gets back in part to Robert’s earlier discussion of North and the rise of impersonal relationships in society. Part of what is happening here is an attempt to bridge those two worlds. We have a vision of society that is organized around non-familial and in some sense impersonal and formal relationships, e.g. the office of bishop, the formal procedure of consecration, etc. This objective and impersonal world is then bridged by a criteria of rule following that pushes one into the personal response of tears.
July 4, 2009 at 7:45 am
Interesting comments, Nate.
Wondering out loud here: Could it be that the law’s commandment to weep subtracts, to some extent, the law from law? I can’t help but wonder whether the command to weep is included so that we don’t call faithless those who mourn, so that we don’t cast out those who believe, fundamentalistically, that death is absolutely nothing in light of the resurrection. But then I wonder whether what leads precisely to this kind of thinking is a kind of legalism, such that the command is an attempt to extricate the law from the legalistic (as all laws are meant to be). Does this not just establish a boundary for the interpretation of the law?
July 3, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Wow, great post and discussion. I only have time to name a few thoughts that I’ll try to find time to elaborate on later:
1. Regarding the laborer, I’m struck by the potential parallels with 2 Nephi 26, esp. the end of the chapter warning (to the, presumably latter-day, Gentiles…) against priestcraft (v. 29), preceded by a “without price” phrase (v. 29), and followed by a discussion of “the laborer in Zion” (vv. 30-31)—”for if they labor for money [cf. "riches" in D&C 42:39] they shall perish” (v. 31).
2. Regarding the shift from then to now, I wonder if we can’t think of the relatively recent emphasis on the family by Church leaders as a kind of “new type” of the United Order, perhaps paralleling the shift from the 1831 to 1835 textual changes that presaged a shift from a more isolationist way of building Zion to the more integrated mode that is more common today (i.e., being an active part in local neighborhoods, communities and political districts, as well as local families, wards, etc.).
3. I really like Russell’s emphasis on beauty in the “work of thine own hands” verse. This relation between beauty and clothing is fascinating to me, esp. b/c it is given such import in Isaiah’s writings (viz., “put on they beautiful garments, O Jerusalem[/Zion in Moroni 10:31---see this and other verses using this phrase here]” in Isa 52:1).
July 3, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Robert, expound on your kind of “new type” of the United Order. Are you suggesting that the family is a separate community that can create its own Zion? Fascinating idea. Or, are you suggesting that a family should work together with other families and create a network of sorts?
July 4, 2009 at 7:47 am
Yes, Robert. I’d like to hear more about what you’re thinking here too.
July 3, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Yes, Robert, I do think that 2 Ne 26 is very important to look at. (Note he begins it all by saying “and the words which he shall speak unto you shall be the law which ye shall do.”) There are some interesting insights here into what Christ taught the Nephites in 3 Nephi, before their “Zion” time in 4 Nephi.
July 4, 2009 at 7:47 am
Ooh. That’s nice. That’s very nice.
July 3, 2009 at 12:29 pm
It is interesting that “faith” and “believe” are used as separate ideas, though we usually use them interchangably. In the past I’d seen someone not having “faith to be healed” as someone without enough faith, though they believed it was possible for others or simply believed the gospel. I’m thinking of what the man in Mark 9:24 says: “And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.”
However, when I read it this time, it seems the word “faith” is used separate from “believe” to point to the gift “faith to be healed.” Then it becomes not a test of faith, but simply a fact of a person not having that particular gift. Then it becomes a gift of grace, not a work of faith.
July 3, 2009 at 12:36 pm
What about “garments of the laborer” as being a sort of uniform – not in that everyone is wearing the same thing, but in meaning that they are excluded from the community of laborers? Almost like the virgins without oil could not enter the marriage feast. Those who do not labor now will not wear the clothes of those who “labor for Zion” (to quote 2 Ne 26). And, is there any reason to connect this to Adam receiving a garment? To the temple garment? Does this labor = working, such as physical labor, or are we referring more to a “labor for Zion” ideal?
July 4, 2009 at 12:10 pm
I’ve been thinking about this as the garment given in the Garden, with the accompanying injunction (effectively) to labor “by the sweat of thy brow” in order to earn a living. Not quite sure what to do with that thought, but I do think the symbolic allusions are rich—Zion as a return to the Garden, perhaps, through the pre-ordain plan, perhaps? I feel like we’re missing something significant here, but I’m not sure what….
July 4, 2009 at 7:55 am
In order to flesh out the idea of clothing just a bit more (before leaving it for good to think more seriously about the question of death here), let me quote from Arrington’s City of God the story of the demise of Orderville:
(p. 283)
July 4, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Fascinating, thanks for quoting this, Joe.
July 4, 2009 at 12:16 pm
I’m really curious about the discussion of death here, but more than the substance of that discussion, I’m gripped by the question of “why is this discussion here?” Food and clothing are often discussed together, is death taking the place of a discussion of food? Is there some overall structure that we’re missing in this section? I still don’t feel like I have a very good idea of the development of the ideas in this section,a nd these are the verses that I think are most important from a structural perspective. Do these commandments link up somehow with the previous commandments? Should they be read as relating more directly to the commandment to remember the poor, rather than the previous commandments? I’m really stumped on this….
July 5, 2009 at 8:58 am
Ignoring Robert’s question of how this question of death fits into the larger revelation (something I can’t even begin to ask until I get to the bottom of the business of death itself), I want to look a bit more closely at verses 46-47.
(1) These two verses are set off slightly from the passage in which they appear (verses 43-47) by the use of the phrase “it shall come to pass.” This phrase is used seven times in the revelation (if we consider the revelation only up through verse 69, that is), and it seems to serve a rather consistent function: it is used to mark implications, consequences, illustrations, or applications of the laws laid out in the revelation. (I use four different terms here not because there are four different functions, but because I’m not sure that any one of these best describes the function of the phrase.) Here, the phrase seems to imply that the question of the two versions of death cannot be disconnected from the preceding verses: the split in death here described follows from the person’s (a) not having faith to be healed, (b) but believing nonetheless in Christ, (c) and receiving the “extreme unction” of sorts described in verse 45.
(2) What seems to split death in two here is the question of dying in Christ or not in Christ. The phrase is relatively uncommon. So far as I can find, it is used in only three texts besides D&C 42: Revelation 14:13; D&C 29:13; and D&C 63:49. Both of the D&C passages listed here obviously draw on/make allusion to the Revelation passage. Hence, in all three—as the context in Revelation 14 makes clear—are eschatological in scope: it is, in all these passages, a question of dying in Christ after the world has been conquered. D&C 63:49, interesting, most clearly draws on the passage from Revelation, and yet it seems, in its context, to have more to do with the D&C 42 text than anything else. If, then, it is eschatological, it might be eschatological just so as to de-eschatologize the phrase so that it can be, as it is here, tied to a pre-eschatological Zion community.
(3) Death seems rather straightforwardly, in the Old Testament at least, to be described as being naturally bitter (see 1 Samuel 15:32; Ecclesiastes 7:26), which might suggest that “they that die not in [Christ]” are those who die a “natural” death, and that this is why “their death is bitter.” This might in turn make sense of the claim in verse 46 that, because death is sweet for those who die in Christ, they do not taste it at all: death is, in and of itself, bitter, and those who have a sweet death therefore do not taste (what is actually) death. (I’m a little uncomfortable with these particular formulations. Given the “it shall come to pass” business that ties this split between sweet and bitter death to the categorically defined persons under consideration, it seems that the “bitter death” can’t be assigned facilely to everyone. I think.)
(4) Most important, though, is this question of not tasting death, as Karen suggests. The metaphor of tasting or not tasting death appears in twelve different texts in the scriptures: once in each of the Gospels, once in Hebrews, four times in 3 Nephi 28, once in Ether 12:17 (describing the circumstances of 3 Nephi 28), and twice in the D&C (including the present text). Of all of these references, as Karen points out, most are referring either to John, the three Nephites, or Elijah. But two of them seem to deserve closer attention. Karen already pointed to Hebrews 2:9, which I think more or less speaks for itself: Christ tasted death for all, according to the generally Pauline doctrine of reconciliation. But in John 8:52, Jesus’ opponents translate his claim, “If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death,” as “If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death.” Here, as in the D&C 42 passage, tasting of death seems to be deliteralized: whereas most of the appearances of the phrase refer rather straightforwardly to those who will not actually die (or will not die until a certain event has taken place, as in some of the Gospels references), here it seems the phrase is (as everything is in John) a disorienting metaphor. We have a notion of dying without dying, as if one could be granted a kind of pseudo-translation experience. I’m not sure what to make of all this.
(5) Finally, though, I should simply note that all of this is caught up into the broader Pauline/Nephite “theology of death,” according to which one’s relationship to the so-called “second death” or “spiritual death” is entirely a question of the nature of one’s “first death” or “temporal death.” The two deaths cannot be disentangled, as the split between two kinds of natural death makes clear. This is tied into much larger theological questions hardly raised here, obviously.
July 5, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Joe, you haven’t mentioned the Book of Mormon verses that the “more especially” of verse 45 most reminds me of: Alma 28:11ff where an unequal mourning for the wicked is contrasted with the mourning for the righteous, and Mosiah 25:9-11 where the sorrowing for the slain Lamanites is explicitly linked to a concern for the welfare of their souls. I understand why you’re thinking about the verses you’ve mentioned, but I wonder if these Book of Mormon passages might be helpful for your thinking.
Also, I was reading something on Heidegger’s Being and Time recently that linked up his discussion of being-towards-death and idle talk, and it made me wonder if his linking might be helpful in thinking about the link in these verses, in a way that gives a different kind of connotation to the word “idle” than we normally think of (e.g., not engaged in meaningful work, rather than just not engaged in any kind of work—this is related to our discussions of why take care of the poor, I think—if it’s merely in a being-towards-death kind of way, authentic or inauthentic, then it nevertheless might be construed as idle…?).
July 5, 2009 at 8:37 pm
Joe, that last comment puts me in mind of Sam Brown’s paper at MHA–did you hear it? We should try to get a copy from him.
July 5, 2009 at 8:39 pm
Also, just a note to myself and everyone that I want to write some more about the idea of an aesthetic for Zion, as soon as I can.
July 6, 2009 at 1:36 pm
I’m back from a mini-July 4th vacation, and have the time to make a couple of brief responses to Nate and others.
Nate took my comments in a direction I did not expect: that of the larger issue of aesthetics, as philosophically understood as well as something subjectively appreciated. I’m not sure my comment necessarily open up that line of argument, but perhaps they do. In specific regard to Nate’s first point…
[Regarding] the notion that what should count as beautiful should be tied up with the ethical and especially the economic circumstances of its creation. What are the implications of this? Does it mean, for example, that the paintings commissioned by decadent Renaissance Popes are less beautiful because of the nature of their origins? If the pyramids or the temple of Karnak made with slave labor are they less beautiful?
…I would have to say, yes, I think that is exactly the assumption being made by Joseph Smith as he communicates the impressions/ideas/words being given to him by God. Look again at the wording here: “let all thy garments be plain, and their beauty the beauty of the work of thine own hands.” It is possible, I suppose, to understand “beauty” in the second instance of this passage to refer to some neutral, objective description, but I don’t think so; I think both uses of the term are communicating the same idea: “the thing that makes the plain clothes beautiful is the fact that plain clothes which you yourself, or which members of the community that you are part of, have had a hand in producing are by definition beautiful.” Which means, as I take it, that Joseph Smith and/or the Lord would be in complete agreement with Nate’s suggestion: the colorful (and expensive, and ostentatious, and historically and critically shaped and assessed) paintings commissioned by Renaissance Popes are so much dreck; a false beauty, as compared to the homely beauty which Zion is urged to embrace.
As for Nate’s second point…
[W]e can deliberately construct a concept of the beautiful. I wonder if this is quite right, however. It seems to me that part of what makes the beautiful beautiful is my sense of it transcending myself. A beautiful object is something that grabs me and pulls me out of myself. In this sense, I am skeptical about the extent to which we can deliberately create a sense of beauty. On the other hand, what counts as beautiful clearly changes over time and it is certainly possible to cultivate certain kinds of tastes and sensibilities.
…I will have to think more about. Aesthetics is probably that area of philosophy in which I am least well-read, so my thinking may not matter for much anyway. I would, however, suggest that Nate seems to be implying a notion of the aesthetic which is somewhat static: that there are these works of art (or performances, or images or whatever) which pull us out of ourselves, and then there are those which do not. But of course, not only does what we subjectively appropriate as “beautiful” (transcendent, captivating, etc.) change over time and change from one cultural milieu to the next, but it also changes within individuals’ own minds from one moment or one living environment to the next. I’d bet that the majority of us have had the experience of hearing a song and being greatly struck by its musicality or emotional resonance, only to realize that we’d heard that song a before, perhaps many times before: we just hadn’t appreciated it earlier. I don’t if a “concept of the beautiful” can be constructed, and I’m not sure that such is what the revelation is suggesting we do. But it’s not at all impossible to imagine sense of beauty being changed as minds and hearts do through the act of joining an aspirational Zion community.
July 6, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Robert and Karen, regaring your point about the 1835 version of the revelation opening to door to families becoming the “site” for consecrated/devotional/poor-assisting communities:
Are you suggesting that the family is a separate community that can create its own Zion? Fascinating idea. Or, are you suggesting that a family should work together with other families and create a network of sorts?
These two points aren’t, I think, in the least mutually exclusive. In my immediate and extended family, there are have been extensive (and mostly moderately successful, depending on how you measure these things) experiments with both.
July 7, 2009 at 1:21 pm
I am very curious about this “art of Zion” concept. Being a Humanities major, I should have a lot more to say.
But I am puzzled over this idea. My definition of art, myself, is something that calls us to think. There is a truth that the artist experienced in the making of the art and that truth calls us to think something we had not thought before. That being the case, I myself have tried to create art (I enjoy architecture and drawing mostly) but every time I find I can’t create but just imitate. How do you think something you’ve never thought before? How do you create something entirely new? It is something I have not yet experienced. So far I think we, in Zion, have been copying the great artists (to varying degrees of success), but have we ever had a unique art, in any of the arts? I have yet to experience it. Is it possible? What would it look like? Can we even ask that question? I would love to think about what “beauty” might be in Zion, but I am far from comprehending these questions.
July 8, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Karen: Wandering a bit from the text, I suspect that the answer to the question of “How do you create something entirely new?” is that you can’t. Put another way, I suspect that art is always a process of imitation and adaptation rather than ex nihilio creation. Indeed, I can’t help but think that the notion of the artist as creator of the new — which basically emerges with the Romantics — is a kind of Promethean imitation of an apostate God. If God himself cannot create something from nothing, who are we to suppose that we can do it?
July 10, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Sorry for making this comment a week late (and a dollar short?!), but several issues from these verses are still gnawing at me.
First, to try and weave together a few thoughts from the discussion above, one reason I wonder if a notion of family-as-Zion isn’t quite interesting is because of how it maps up with Old Testament and Jewish themes of exile, but exile in a way that plays an immediately redemptive role, without risking the eternal deferral of a more eschatological perspective where we think of Zion as only being what is build in Jackson County. And so, if there is a shift of caring for the poor from a communally-mediated to an individually-responsible approach, then carrying out the trajectory of this idea leads us to something that Adam Miller described in our first, Abraham seminar as “ethical bricolage” where the idea is that we are effectively called to labor in the part of the vineyard in which we reside, to redeem what we can, rather than being called physically flee out of Babylon into a new promised land of Zion. So, if we take this “stakes of Zion” / ethical bricolage approach, and apply it to community networks and aethetics, then I think we have a vision that fits quite comfortably into the modern culture and discourse of Mormonism (i.e., families who are good and active citizens, community members, and neighbors who live modestly, ecologically, and simply, finding beauty in the simple wonders of everyday family and community living, etc., etc.).
Now, a couple other textual thoughts:
Verse 43: What does “mild food” mean?!
Verses 44-45: The “die unto me” and “live unto me,” along with the “live together in love” phrasings are particularly striking to me. I’m planning more and more to write my paper on the meaning of consecration, and so perhaps that’s why these phrases strike me. Death, as well as life, can be consecrated (which suggests an interesting understanding of Derrida’s Gift of Death…).
Verses 46-47: I was reminded of the bitter vs. sweet phrasing here as I something by Agamben about the tree of knowledge being cut off from the tree of life, and how it is this separation which makes the difference. So, “they that die not in me” experience death as bitter because their death is cut off from meaning, and cutoff from a network of interpersonal relations that is not fixated on death. Again, I think this links up in interesting ways with modern church discourse on eternal families (and it would be interesting to link this up with the everlasting covenant as discussed in the D&C itself, though I haven’t even begun to think how that might be linked with death…).
Verse 48: “Appointed unto death” is a really curious phrase. It suggests to me a possible link with notions of fate (which are really prevalent in at least some strands of Russian literature). What I mean is that it suggests an attitude toward death that is much more connected to, again, a gift-like view. Alma describes the resurrection using similar language: “there is a time appointed that all shall come forth from the dead” (Alma 40:4; cf. 40:21). Also, “appoint” takes on calling-type connotations in the D&C. Most proximately, D&C 41:9 says that Edward Partridge was “appointed by the voice of the church.” Death, then, on this linguistic link, is like a calling we receive in church: who can sustain Sister Spencer to the Primary, oh, and Brother Couch unto death?!”
Verses 49-51: The only other connection between see, hear and leap that I could find was in Isaiah 35:6 (Zion and cleanliness are also mentioned in that chapter…).