Two books by Maurice Nicoll

Responding to my heavy-handed hints, Carol got me these books for my birthday. I'd once owned, many years ago, a copy of "The New Man", but it seemed to have evaporated - probably lent out and never returned. I can understand why a lendee might want to hang on to it. It really is the most extraordinary book. It is the only thing I have ever read that even comes remotely near a meaningful interpretation of the teachings of Christ. We are so familiar with the traffic-noise of Christianity that we can't hear it anymore. Nicoll succeeds in revealing the baffling strangeness of the New Testament and points the way to an entirely fresh understanding of Jesus' message. "The Mark", a volume of writings collected posthumously, is a sequel, expanding, with fresh examples, the basic argument of the earlier publication.

The idea behind all sacred writing, Nicoll insists, is to convey a higher meaning than the literal words contain, the truth of which must be seen by man internally. This higher, concealed, inner, or esoteric, meaning, cast in the words and sense-images of ordinary usage, can only be grasped by the understanding, and it is exactly here that the first difficulty lies in conveying higher meaning to Man. A person's literal understanding is not necessarily equal to grasping psychological meaning. To understand literally is one thing: to understand psychologically is another.

He then goes on to take a series of incidents in the life of Jesus, his teachings, particularly the parables, and, lifting them to the light of a subtle intelligence, turns them gently until wholly unsuspected facets are revealed. He carefully avoids the trap of producing a mere glossary of symbols - such clumsy literalism would negate his intention, which is, by delicate hints and promptings, to awaken in us a new sensibilty capable of apprehending a deeper truth, to bring out a new understanding, impossible at a literal level. To brutally summarise would be to betray the deliberate obliqueness of Nicoll's approach. Better, perhaps, to offer an example taken directly from the text. On the subject of the Kingdom of Heaven he writes:

...understood internally, the Universe is a series of levels, and a thing is what it is according to where it is, in this series. The level above Man is called the Kingdom of Heaven or Kingdom of God in the Gospels. It has many other names in different writings. In the Gospels, it is said that the Kingdom of Heaven is within. It is at a higher level of a man. To reach it a man must reach a higher level in himself. If everyone did this, the level of life on this earth would change. The whole earth would take a step up in evolution. But this step can only be taken by an individual man.

A man can reach a higher level in himself and yet live in the life of this earth. Each person has an inner but different access to a higher level. It is a possibility in him, for Man is created as a being capable of a further individual evolution or, as it is called in the Gospels, a rebirth. A man does not have to wait until he observes with his own eyes a visible kingdom called the Kingdom of Heaven surrounding him. Christ said that the Kingdom of Heaven is not to be looked for as coming in a way that can be observed outwardly. He said:"And being asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God cometh, he answereth them and said, The Kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo, here! or, There! for lo, the Kingdom of God is within you" (Luke XVII, 20).

The Kingdom of Heaven is an inner state, not an outer place. It is an inner state of development that a man can reach. There is no question of time and space, of when or where connected with it, for it is above a man, always, as a higher possibility of himself.

In "The Mark", Nicoll makes an intriguing etymological point about the idea of "repentance":

The word translated throughout the New Testament as repentance is in the Greek meta-noia which means change of mind...The word metanoia therefore has to do with transformation of the mind in its essential meaning... The English word repentance is derived from the Latin poenitare which means 'to feel sorry'. Penitence, feeling sorry, feeling pain or regret - this is a mood experienced by everyone from time to time. But the Greek word metanoia stands far above such a meaning, and is not a mere mood. It contains no idea of pain or sorrow. It refers to a new mind... A new mind means an entirely new way of thinking, new ideas, new knowledge, and a new approach to everything in life.

The New Man and The Mark do more than merely communicate information, facts to be stored and possibly put to use on some future occasion. They somehow communicate something of the author's deep understanding of the teachings of Jesus in a way that continues to resonate in the mind long after the book has been put away. The beginnings of Metanoia perhaps?