Its a real treat, a real pleasure and honor to introduce you to Thomas Cahill. [laughter] and so its a real treat, its a real pleasure, its a real honor to be here today to introduce you to Thomas Cahill. You know, there are authors who write books about things that matter, and there are authors who write books that matter. And occasionally an author comes along who writes a book and accomplishes both. And when that happens, we have an extraordinary opportunity, a rare opportunity to piece to see a little bit more deeply, to glimpse the heart of who we are as human beings. For those of you who are familiar with the writings of Thomas Cahill, then i need not tell you that he is one of these authors and that heretics and heroes is one of these books. And for those of you who are new to Thomas Cahill, well, youre if for a big treat. In heretics and heroes, we are sort of given and afforded the leisurely stroll through the thrilling period of the renaissance and the reforbe mission. Reformation. Illuminating in this pathway are extraordinary works of art, great moments of discovery and invention. And the ongoing struggle of religious and secular power. And in that regard there is a current that runs through so many of his books and of this one, of the great cruelty that we human beings inflict on one another again and again. And at the same time of our extraordinary capacity to find ways of of relating to each other out of which we feel and communicate extraordinary love and compassion. I think that Thomas Cahill wants to remind us of these two aspects of who we are. And in this book especially of the aspects of us that are good and of our capacity to accomplish extraordinary and wondrous things so that as our history continues to unfold fresh with promise and possibility, we move into the future aware of the firmness of our step and of the consequence of our journey. Now, in addition to being an extraordinarily gifted writer, Thomas Cahill is a scholar and a gentleman, and you will find peppered throughout this wonderful book Beautiful Moments of humor and wit as well. I know that we are all excited to be here to listen and learn from Thomas Cahill so, please, join me in welcoming him here today. [applause] thank you, scott. Thank you, everyone. I cant tell you how happy i am to be here. I love miami, and it always is different every time i come back. It aa maizes he. Amazes me. And one of the most Amazing Things about miami which is always the same is the presence of mitchell kaplan. [applause] the last time i was here, i said i thought books and books was the best book shop in the galaxy. [applause] but ive come to believe that mitch is one of the people who holds the universe together. [laughter] heretics and heroes is a book about the two great forces that shaped the modern western world as we still experience that world today. One of these forces is nationalism, and the other is religion. More precisely, the book is about how the emerging nationalisms of western europe acted upon the sensibilities of human beings and still act upon those sensibilities and about how the experience of personal faith and practice partly informed by these emerging nationalisms brought about new religious insights as well as permanent fractures within the unity of western christianity. Today id like to focus briefly on nationalism and then spend the rest of our time together talking about the force of religion. But i wont talk directory about the book heretics and heroes. Thats for you to read later. Ive noticed that many author talks are basically advertisements for their book, and id like to give you something more, a sort of analog experience. During the height of the cold war, i heard a joke from an old italian priest a joke that still has some truth in it. Nato exercises were many progress over western were in progress over western europe to train new paratroopers from different nations. And the great moment for any novice paratrooper is the moment that he finally jumps. Or doesnt. And the instructor knowing in this decided to try to motivate each of his students in just the right way at that moment. So the first one to come forward was an american, and he says to him if you jump, it will be very all american. The american jumps. Its an italian joke. [laughter] the next one is a frenchman, and he says, you know, if you jump, it will be, tres sportif. [laughter] so the frenchman jumps. And the next one is an englishman, and he says to him, if you jump, youll get a lot of pun. The italians think of the english as money grubbers because as they go through europe, theyre always looking for good value. [laughter] and the italians have it a little wrong, but, you know, anyway, the next one is a german, and he says to him, i order you to jump. [laughter] and the last one is an italian, and he says to him, you know, jumping is forbidden. [laughter] well, her recently more recently i was told the joke by an australian physical therapist that somewhat updates and expands the latin the italian joke. And this is what will heaven be like. Well, in heaven the french will be the chefs. [laughter] the italians will be the lovers. The english will be the police. The germans will be the engineers. And the swiss will be in charge of making sure that everything runs on time. [laughter] in hell, however, the english will be the chefs [laughter] the swiss will be the lovers [laughter] the germans will be the police, the french will be the engineers [laughter] and the italians will be in charge of making sure that everything runs on time. [laughter] recently, Angela Merkel said i am so happy that i was born if a northern temperate climate and i never need to take a siesta. [laughter] shes missed a lot of pleasure. [laughter] the cultural and emotional preferences and prejudices of each society limit that societys ability to enter into dialogue and compromise with a different society. Even if two societies are as physically close as italy and germany hidden from each other by a dramatic screen called the alps, so much for nationalism. And now to religion. High in the Shining Mountains of greece just below the slopes of mount b parnossis, lie the ruins of the sapping chew ware of sanctuary of pith yang apollo at dell my. Today the ruined sanctuary remains the most spectacularly beautiful site in all of greece. Once upon a time, however, it served as greeces most sacred place of worship and was called [inaudible] the naval of the knave vel of the earth. From here the prison tease of apollo issued her revered oracles for telling things both wonderful and terrible. We know now that the press hes was high priests was high. Whether or not these fumes made her oracles chew or fact white house, i cant say. Though i can tell you that there was theres no record that any man or woman among the ancients ever questioned the absolute truthfulness of her ambiguous replies. Theres no one left who Still Believes in the god apollo, so we may today turn away from the priest heses without first ado. Still, before abandoning dell my altogether, we may wish to recall the solemn words that were once inscribed above its portals, carved into the cornice were several sayings. The most solemn of these and the most oftrepeated sentence in all the ancient world was this [speaking in native tongue] no thyself. It was not a sentence to be turned away from then or now. Those simple, straightforward words must have sent a kill through ancient worshipers and pilgrims as they approached the great temple of apollo. Know thyself. So, foo, these rez so, too, these resonant words stopped in their tracks those superserious christians who in the last days of the western empire abandoned the lively greco roman cities and set out for the cityless deserts to become the First Christian hermits, monks and nuns. Know thyself, they said to one another. That is the first task, the task of a lifetime. In this way the most exalted wisdom of the acomment pagans became the motivating wisdom of christian asset schism, the first and last rule of all interior life, know thyself. What kind of knowing is knowing one self . Its not like knowing Russian Irregular verbs or the principles of thermodynamics. Those are things we cannot know until we learn them from a book or from a teacher. But no one can teach me more about myself than i can by looking inside and coming to terms with who i am, with all my vir dues virtues and all my vices and then finding appropriate ways to water those virtues and starve those vices. The course of such an endeavor, of such a quest is the course of an entire lifetime. We can never know too much about ourselves. And we always have more to learn. As the greeks understood and as their tragic dramas reveal, much of who i am is hidden from myself. Many of the mistakes i make in my life are the result of the concealing of myself from myself. And the qualities i treasure most in myself can sometimes be the very things that will bring about my doom and downfall. Its not so much that the gods are arranged against me, its rather than often enough im ranged against myself, often enough without even being aware of it. But if smug selfsatisfaction, for instance, is never an admirable personal quality, it becomes no more admirable when exhibited by a religious figure or a religious movement. Religion so often used to cloak hidden and outrageous purposes such as land grabs. Recall the incall callly blood by thirty years war waged in the early 17th century over which european realms would be catholic and which protestant. And property grabs, recall the salem witch trials. So we must always ask ourselves the fine latin question [speaking in native tongue] who are profit . Who will profit . Sometimes the answer is shamelessly obvious as in the case of franz peter [inaudible] Roman Catholic bishop of lin berg, germany, who just finished spending 42 million to renovate his episcopal palace. The bishop who, i have to say, looks and sounds rather like a sesame street puppet [laughter] is likely to lose his seat, so egregious is his selflove. Less egregiously selfloving bishops who have spent far too much on their own comforts and splendors but not enough to attract International Attention will probably keep their seats and be spared. And lets not even go near the subject of all the bishops who out of fear of discomfort have covered up for untold generations of pedophile priests. But even when greed or selfprotection is not involved, never underestimate, never underestimate what a smug sense of superiority will do for many a religious chap. This smugness is invariably accompanied by the need to be exclusive. My religion is better, purer, more [speaking in native tongue] than yours. Indeed, there is an aspiration that runs through religious history no matter which religion is being studied that we might call the desire to limit membership and limit it severely. Many years ago i attended a religious publishing convention during which i was asked several times by people i was just being introduced to and with all the unsmiling seriousness of a cia inquiry, have you accepted jesus christ as your loved and savior . To these questioners, there was no point in further discussion of anything if i could not answer this question affirmatively. Such people are excluders who want their circle, the circle of the saved, to be as exclusive, as small and as uncomfortably intimate as possible. Luckily for me, the convention was held in late 20th century america, so i had no fear of being burned at the stake if i fumbled my answer. Still, i fancied i could see the licking flames in the eyes of my interlocutors. [laughter] another negative expression of religion, perhaps the one that most of us are most familiar with, is the tendency of ordained clergy to exalt themselves over everyone else. Jesus insistence that we call no one on earth our father and no one on earth our master is the commandment that most clergy tend to transgress most eagerly. How long does it take clergy to assign themselves titles intended to force every head but theirs to bow in the case of christianity, only a few decades at most from the time of jesus to the creation of the hierarchy that is, a sacred ruling elite by the end of the First Century a. D. And though Roman Catholicism and eastern orthodoxy and to some extent anglicanism manifest the most elaborate forms of hierarchy within christianity, there are plenty of poobahs in other christian denominations as well as in religions far beyond christianity. If youve forgotten who poobah is, you should listen to the mercado again. The new pope, francis i, has been acting as if even he is aware of the inadvertently comic dimensions of being addressed as your holiness and of being treated as if that title could possibly be a reality for any mere human being. If im right, his pontificate may open a road seldom traveled by form bal religion. Formal religion. And lets not even go near the subject of infallibility, an invention of 19th century european catholicism constructed for the sake of extreme prerogatives in italy that was marginalizing the papacy. Good religion, however, is neither greedy, nor selfprotective; neither exclusive, nor hierarchical; but, rather, exceedingly lacking in discrimination, wishing to include and aid as many as possible in a loving embrace. Of course, to do this one must lower ones standards. [laughter] at least in the eyes of the excluders. But from another perspective, the perspective of the includers, one is simply opening the windows to fresh air and the doors to all comers. One is acting as jesus, for instance, advised in the sermon on the mount when he blessed the poor in spirit, the humble, the merciful, the peacemakers and those who hunger and first for justice. One is acting as gandhi, a hindu advised in his repeated meditations on that sermon, how can we, said gandhi, little crueling creatures so utterly helps as he has made us, how could we possibly measure his infinite compassion such that he allows man to insolently deny him and cut the throat of his fellow man . How can we measure the greatness of god who is so forgiving, so divine, thus that we may utter the same words as jesus did . They have not the same meaning for us all. Thats gandhi. In heretics and heroes, most of the heroes are heretics, and many of the heretics are heroes. [laughter] but their extraordinary stories cannot be summed up in a brief talk. You must experience each one in your own personal encounter. Figures such as leonardo, mix el anglo, botticelli, thomas moore, william tindale, rembrandt, shakespeare and john dunn need at least a few more pages that we can hope to devote to them here. For the truly great figures are always pointing to what is invisible and are somehow managing to express the inexpressible. Which brings me to my ultimate and outsized assertion about these matters. Good religion, like great art, is necessarily mystical, affirming what is always beyond proof or even likelihood or even possibility. So take that, richard dawkins. [laughter] think of job perhaps 27 centuries ago insisting that all his supposedly comforting and quite comfortable friends are wrong. That as job insists in an assertion without proof and in a better translation than hes usually given, this i know, that my avenger lives, and he the last of all will take his stand upon this earth and in my flesh shall i see god. Quite impossible. Quite batty really. And utterly necessary. For only such a reality can redeem, vindicate, avenge the innumerable injustices of history, the slaughtered, to to oppressed, the tortured, the abused, abandoned, the forgotten, the despairing. A courageous friend of mine, a woman in her 60s, a gifted painter of beautiful and ominous nature has spent years mourning for her only child, a young man who committed suicide more than a decade ago. She lives in the Connecticut River valley where i visited her amid the red and gold of mid october. How she survived her childs suicide, i have no idea. She certainly knows what darkness is. But shes joined a Small Community half sufi, have quaker where her sense of the mystical universe is accepted and even honored. Never denying her suffering, she is returning to the land of the living. The colors of this autumn, he affirmed solemnly she affirmed solemnly, are the most beautiful she has ever experienced. Nature is dying, but the thrilling colors are a pledge of what exactly it may be hard to say. But im fairly convinced that like job and against all odds she harbors a sneaking suspicion that there may be life beyond death. Thank you. [applause] i think the organizers are concerned about the time, but im happy to take some questions which i think will be suddenly and abruptly turned off by the organizationers. But we can begin organizers. But we can begin. [laughter] its all right, there are no questions. [laughter] anybody . My question is yes, sir. Okay. Oh, i didnt realize there was okay, a way of doing it. My question is, is it jewish people are the first ones to believe in one god, or was it the persians . Or is it some other group of people . Well, you know that theres a theory know that the now that the egyptians might have thought it up before or moses, but i dont believe it. I think that the pharoah who did try for the worship of one god was not necessarily a monothist, and we know we only know a few things about him, and theres no reason to connect him and moses. And his reform, if thats what it was, survived only a short period of time. It certainly isnt the persians. No, i think that the jews still get the award for monotheism. [laughter] and its very interesting that this is sort of off the point, but that the greeks who were the great philosophers of ancient times, of course the more they looked, the more the greek philosophers thought, well, this doesnt make any sense, all these gods, apollo, you know . The universe or wouldnt work if it was, had all these warring gods in it. God must be one. And then they heard about this strange people who believed that there was one god, which is rather like saying god is one, isnt it . You know, and so many, many people in the ancient world greeks in particular or greekspeaking people became very interested in judaism. They didnt convert completely. They were called, you know, sons of noah and thicks like things like that. Because the idea of circumcision wasnt something they just couldnt bring themselves and also the dietary laws were extremely inconvenient especially if you were going to have an orgy. [laughter] what really happened with christianity, you know, forgetting about the word kris canty, didnt know he was a christian. He thought he was a jew. [laughter] so the early