The Time Ship by Enrique Gaspar

Author:Enrique Gaspar
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wesleyan University Press
Published: 2012-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

A Bit of Tiresome, Though Necessary, Erudition

ON the fourteenth day of the ninth month of the year 604 BC, in the village of Li in the feudal state of Ch’u, now Ho-nan province, the great metaphysician of China was born after eighty-one years in the womb (so say his disciples). Because he was born with white hair he was called Lao Tzu, that is, “the old child.”31

Until he appeared, the Celestial Empire’s most arcane philosophy had been distilled into the I Ching, an encyclopedia organized by Fu Hsi, in whom historians believe to recognize Noah after he left the Ark and made his way to Shansi province near Mount Ararat on the opposite side of Bactriana. Its fundamental purpose is to teach the origin of things and the transformations undergone with the passing of the ages. In it, God is considered the cornerstone upon which everything rests. It is both Li and Tao (reason and law) and as such it reveals itself to human intelligence.32 Lao Tzu, guided by a peaceful sort of wisdom, taught the spurning of passions and the elevation of oneself above all earthly interests, grandeur, and glories, recommending self-denial for the benefit of others and humility as a path to exaltation: language that calls to mind the humbleness and charity of the Savior’s doctrine.

He enshrined the whole treasure chest of his intelligence in his work called the Tao Te Ching. Ching means that the book is a classic: Tao and Te are the words used to begin the two parts which make up his treatise and that, as happened with the Pentateuch, gave it its name. Together, the two titles mean Book of Supreme Reason and Virtue.33

Here is a fragment that confirms that, when faced with the spectacle of his country’s misfortunes, Lao Tzu isolated himself instead of striving for reform, as Confucius did later. He exhorted man to seek in ascetic solitude supreme goodness, which consisted of absolute calm: “Man,” he says,

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