Confessions of the Flesh: The History of Sexuality, Volume 4 (History of Sexuality, 4)

My favorite scholar is the American Jesuit Renaissance specialist and cultural historian Walter J. Ong (1912-2003; Ph.D. in English, Harvard University, 1955). When he was working on his massively researched doctoral dissertation on the history of the verbal arts of grammar, rhetoric, and logic (also known as dialectic) and the French Renaissance logician and educational reformer and Protestant martyr Peter Ramus (1515-1572), Ong had an “Eureka!” insight.Ong promptly set to work trying to articulate to the best of his ability the “Eureka!” insight that he had had. Indeed, from the early 1950s onward, he persisted in explaining his “Eureka!” insight to the best of his ability – in one iteration after another.For example, in Ong’s massively researched 1958 book Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason [in the Age of Reason; also known as the Enlightenment] (Harvard University Press), Ong describes his “Eureka!” insight as involving the shift from aural to visual inner cognitive processing. Incidentally, in it, on page 338, in note 54, Ong credits the late lay French Catholic philosopher Louis Lavelle with suggesting the aural to visual shift to him in one of his books in the 1940s.Now, what Ong refers to in his massively researched 1958 book as the aural to visual shift was arguably involved – indeed, perhaps even pioneered – in the much earlier shift in antiquity that James L. Kugel discusses in his 2017 book The Great Shift: Encountering God in Biblical Times (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin).For further discussion of the aural to visual shift, see Werner H. Kelber’s 1983 book The Oral and the Written Gospel: The Hermeneutics of Speaking and Writing in the Synoptic Tradition, Mark, Paul, and Q (Philadelphia: Fortress Press).In any event, two of the persistent themes in Ong’s mature work from the early 1950s onward are (1) the theme of orality (as Ong himself came to refer to it, instead of referring to aurality); and (2) the theme of visuality (as I would characterize it).Ong’s next big book-length articulation of his “Eureka!” insight came with his 1967 book The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History (Yale University Press), the expanded version of his 1964 Terry Lectures at Yale University.In any event, Ong was off and running, so to speak, in his lifelong project of describing our Western cultural and religious history to the best of his ability in each successive iteration.Now, the late Michel Foucault’s latest posthumously published book Confessions of the Flesh, translated by Robert Hurley; edited and with a “Foreword” by Frederic Gros (New York: Pantheon Books, 2021) can be related to two key themes in Ong’s mature work: (1) the theme of agonistic structures (i.e., the spiritual combat theme in Western Christianity) and (2) the theme of the inward turn of consciousness (i.e., the distinctively Christian self that emerged in ancient Western Christianity).These two key themes in Ong’s mature work are both exemplified in the Spiritual Exercises of the Spanish Renaissance mystic St. Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556), the founder of the Jesuit order (known formally as the Society of Jesus; abbreviated S.J.). See The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius: A Translation and Commentary by George E. Ganss, S.J. (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1992).Now, whatever else may be said about Foucault’s latest posthumous book, it is not a completed book. For example, it has no introduction and no conclusion. The main text (pages 1-285), which is well-developed, is followed by “Appendices” (pages 287-384), “Notes” (pages 325-384), “Bibliography” (pages 385-396), and a “Translator’s Note” (page 397).“Appendix 2” (pages 291-314) is a reasonably well-developed essay. Perhaps Foucault planned to include it somewhere in the well-developed main text (pages 1-285). But it is not clear where exactly this essay might be worked into the main text.In any event, the main text is this edited book is divided up into three major parts, each of which is subdivided into chapters: “Part I: The Formation of a New Experience” (pages 1-110) is subdivided into four chapters; “Part II: Being Virgin” (pages 111-189) is subdivided into three chapters; and “Part III: Being Married” (pages 191-285) is subdivided into three chapters.Now, whatever else may be said about Foucault’s latest posthumous book, he deserves credit for exploring primary sources in Western Christianity from the second century to the death of the prolific Saint Augustine, the bishop of Hippo.For an account of the first century of Western Christianity, see John Dominic Crossan’s 1998 book The Birth of Christianity: Discovering What Happened in the Years Immediately After the Execution of Jesus (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco).For further discussion of the inward turn of consciousness in Augustine, see Phillip Cary’s 2000 book Augustine’s Invention of the [Western Christian] Self: The Legacy of a Christian Platonist (Oxford University Press).Now, no doubt Ong himself and Pope Francis, the first Jesuit pope, inherited through the Jesuit formation much of the early Western Christian heritage that Foucault explores in detail in his 2021 book Confessions of the Flesh.Ong himself explores Jesuit formation and spirituality in his 1986 book Hopkins, the Self, and God (University of Toronto Press), the published version of Ong’s 1981 alexander Lectures at the University of Toronto.Pope Francis himself explores Jesuit spirituality in his short 135-page 2013 book In Him Alone Is Our Hope: Spiritual Exercises Given [by then-Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio] to His Brother Bishops [of Spain] in the Manner of Saint Ignatius of Loyola, edited by Romain Lize; translated by Vincent Capuano, S.J., and Andrew Matt (New York, Paris, Madrid, Oxford: Magnificat).In light of this ongoing Jesuit heritage of what Foucault refers to as “The Formation of a New Experience” (pages 1-110), let’s examine this new experience of the self as it emerged in ancient Western Christianity.But “New Experience” compared to what? Compared to the ancient non-Christian philosophers and teachers. Yes, in the second century, if not before, ancient Western Christians had come to think of Christ as the Teacher, the Educator, instructing the faithful in the Christian way, or path. In this way, ancient Western Christians came to think of Christianity as the Christian philosophy over against, and distinct from other ancient non-Christian philosophies.According to Foucault, Christian “monasticism was able to present itself as the philosophical life par excellence: philosophy according to Christ, philosophy through works. And the monasteries were able to be defined as schools of philosophy” (page 86).For a handy discussion of those other ancient non-Christian philosophies, see Martha C. Nussbaum’s clever 1994 book The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (Princeton University Press).But also see Robert E. Cushman’s 1958 book Therapeia: Plato’s Conception of Philosophy (University of North Carolina Press).In addition, see Pedro Lain Entralgo’s 1958 book in Spanish The Therapy of the Word in Classical Antiquity, edited and translated by L. J. Rather and John M. Sharp (Yale University Press, 1970).Now, according to Foucault, what exactly is the “New Experience” of the self that emerged in ancient Western Christianity? Simply stated, the ancient Western Christian authors of the texts that Foucault examines drew of the resources of texts in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament to construct what became the new Christian “formation of certain technologies of the individual [self]” (page 36).Foucault says, “The ‘flesh’ should be understood as a mode of experience – that is, as a mode of knowledge and transformation of oneself by oneself, depending on a certain relationship between a nullification of evil [including spirits in one’s psyche that one judges to be evil spirits] and a manifestation of truth [in one’s subjective experience in one’s psyche and in one’s externalized acts of behavior]. With Christianity, one didn’t go from a code that was tolerant of sexual acts to a code that was severe, restrictive, and repressive. We need to think differently about the processes and their articulations: the construction of a sexual code, organized around marriage and procreation, was largely begun before Christianity: outside it, then alongside it. Christianity essentially took charge of it. And during the course of its later developments and through the formation of certain technologies of the individual – penitential discipline, monastic asceticism – a form of experience was constituted that activated a new modality of the code and caused it to be embodied, in a totally different way, in the behavior of [Western Christian] individuals” (page 36).Now, the word “Confessions” in the title Confessions of the Flesh refers to “the way one thought of and justified the sinner’s obligation to speak the truth – or rather to manifest himself [or herself] in his [or her] truth – in order to obtain forgiveness for his [or her] sins” (page 74).Foucault says, “This necessity of penitential practice – that it be carried out only through manifestations designed to bring the penitent’s truth to light – raises a problem: when one has sinned, why must one not only repent – imposing rigors and macerations upon himself [or herself] – but also show these acts and show oneself as one is? Why does the manifestation of the truth constitute an intrinsic part of the procedure that enables one to redeem the sin? When one has ‘done wrong,’ why is it necessary to make the truth shine forth, not only the truth about what one did, but about what one is? The answer is obvious: once the Christian religion was formed into a Church endowed with a strong communitarian structure and a hierarchical organization, no serious infraction [i.e., sin] could be pardoned without a certain number of proofs and guarantees. Just as a candidate for baptism couldn’t be accepted without having been tested beforehand through the catechumenate – probation animae – the Church couldn’t reconcile those who hadn’t clearly manifested their repentance through discipline and exercises that stood for punishment in relation to the past and showed commitment to the future. They [the sinners] had to practice publication sui” – public avowal of themselves and their sin(s) (pages 73-74).However, in the context of Christian monasticism, the practice of the examination of conscience and confession changed. Foucault says, “It’s here [in the context of the interior examination of conscience] that the necessity of confession is established. This confession shouldn’t be imagined as the result of an examination first conducted in the form of strict interiority, and then offered in the form of confidential disclosure. The confession in this instance must be as close as possible to the examination – as the examination’s exterior aspect, its verbal face turned toward the other [person, the confessor receiving the confession]. One’s self-observation and verbalization of such should be one and the same. Seeing and saying in a single act – such is the ideal to which the novice [monk in the monastery] must aspire” (page 105).Even though Foucault often refers to technologies of the self, he does occasionally describe certain practices as a game. For example, he says, “Telling-the-truth-about-oneself is essential in this game of purification and salvation” (page 53).In addition, Foucault says, “The indispensable discretion [the virtue of discretion in one’s decision-making] – which enable one to trace the right path to perfection between the two dangers of the too-much and the too-little, this discretion, which is not a natural endowment of [humankind], haunted as [humans are] by the Enemy’s [Satan’s] power of seduction – can be practiced only with the grace of God by means of this process of examination-confession: this game in which one’s focus on oneself must always be combined with ‘truth-telling’ regarding oneself” (page 108).Foucault’s use of game in the two quoted passages calls to mind John Huizinga’s book Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture, translated from the 1944 German edition, but without identifying the translator (London: Routledge, 1949).

...and that reason is that it's painfully incoherent. This isn't Foucault's fault as an author: it's because he's trying to make sense of religious behavior from the outside of the religion, some roughly 1800 years removed. The project briefly observes the behaviors of early Christian cults (somewhat interesting) and then wanders into the twisting discourse on sexuality and how Christian cults were generally opposed to it until Christianity got too big to continue being opposed to sexuality and so a policy change had to be justified. This isn't particularly about sexuality; it's about people trying to to doctrine-ize asceticism fan-fiction so of course it's going to be incoherent -- only it can't actually admit that to itself which makes it a torturous read. The *bad* kind of torturous read.Really, Foucault was visibly bored of this project in the volume on Rome and we should acknowledge that and not have high expectations for the long-unpublished remains here.

So excited to read the final volume of history of sexuality by Foucault. It arrived quickly with care.