‘Territories of Grace’
– ‘ What does it mean to say that a place underwent a change from being pagan to being Christian, or from being Christian to being Muslim?’ The Corrupting Sea, A study of Mediterranean History, P Horden and N Purcell, Oxford 2000. The question was asked by the writers at the beginning of their Chapter 10 entitled ‘Territories of Grace’.
About Aya Sophia – The Church of the Holy Wisdom : what does it also mean to be changed into a museum (as it is currently), or (through the eyes of Gary Snyder) to be changed into a Buddhist "temple"?
The writer’s conclude both Islam and Christianity are geographical religions – ‘There is a spatial conception – the ‘territory of grace’ – within which and accross which the religious system can be expected to function in a recognizably orthodox way’ [Pp457]. Therefore for Islam or Christianity, geographical conquest brings change.
The spatial conception of wisdom in a museum or a Buddhist "temple" are not geographical in the same way. Change of a space to a museum might happen anywhere in the world. While the religious system known as Buddhism is located geographically in Asia, this is clearly not the change in the ‘territory of grace’ to a Buddhist "temple" that Gary Snyder was seeing.
Whatever it is, this change is always very present, imminent. Previously, ak and I spoke of Aya Sophia – The Church of the Holy Wisdom as being – "ripped out" or – "eviscerated". Another change of view. And today ak and I might see it differently – "more presence in the void" as Gary Snyder put it.
Reading the Grammar of the Turkish Language, F L Hopkins, (1877) today I see – on page 24, on Verbs – that the Turkish language skillfully accomodates the notion of change in the way it structures verbs:
FIRST PRESENT –
severim – I love ("I am accustomed to loving, but this might change at any moment")
and SECOND PRESENT –
seviorim – I love ("right now – no doubt about it – I am loving")
While the second kind of present has FAITH to support it, in the first kind of present there is clearly more WISDOM.
mmj