The Antichrist

Eyes are a window to knowledge, but many prefer to look in the dark.

God gave us eyes to see the light of his teachings, but many use them to walk in darkness. I drew this conclusion after a short conversation with a librarian from a university in Iasi. Surprised, I noticed how such a simple man, free to express his thoughts, could speak some chosen truths. And she told me, taking note, in a fit of sincerity:

"Every year, thousands of books are scrapped, for waste paper, and no one saves them. The teachers are no longer teachers, they are just gravediggers, because they are the ones who approved everything. What did these teachers learn from? What respect do they have for the teaching received from others?"

Another day, I went back to the library. Under a desk was a stack of older, dusty books, passed as if through the ranks of a forgotten time, representing a series of psychology volumes from the '67s. I was allowed to flip through one of the volumes, and among the well-written lines, like fragments of ancient stories that outline mysterious images in the readers' minds, I encountered a strange connection with an old Catholic church of which nothing but ruins remained.

Instantly, I remembered the forgotten words from the novel "The Name of the Rose":

"This inability of mine to see aright is perhaps the effect of the shadow which the great approaching darkness casts over the gray world. The more I read my own story here, the less I succeed in discerning whether there is any warp in it which goes beyond the natural course of events and the times which enclose it. And it is a difficult thing for me not to know whether the letter which I have written contains in it some hidden meaning, or whether it has more than one, and many, or none."

Can the memories that inspire you form echoes of past events, through the filter of an inner transfiguration that gives new life to your knowledge experiences?

I reread those few lines from the dusty volume for a good few minutes, hoping to find a deeper understanding in them. Moreover, I reflected on the words creating meanings that, disregarding the flow of time, immediately made their way into my heart, just as colors make their way into a painter's palette, only much more subtly. One of the lady librarians told me that those old volumes were put aside to be sent for scrap, and because they had the library stamp they could not be loaned to anyone.

So I immediately wrote a message to a good friend of mine, a highly influential university professor, whose office I don't think was too far from the library premises. That's all I wrote: "don't let the books get lost, lend them to me so I can photocopy them with my phone."

I wrote several messages to my good friend, the great university professor. He has read the messages, but he has not replied to me either so far. The only sign from him after a few weeks was a pile of pictures taken on a wonderful holiday abroad at a marathon in Greece. As for the old volumes, the only silent witnesses of the past, they have almost certainly been scrapped, and no trace of them remains. Nothing was saved.

Just the memory of those vivid, conquering lines, written in red ink, amounting to a whole page, still warms my memory. How carefully they were written, with soul and from the heart! I suppose that this detail is worthy of the character William of Baskerville who, with his last strength, managed to save some old manuscripts from the Benedictine monastery, before the fire engulfed it entirely. I, however, did not manage to save anything.

Can you watch the change pass before you, without being put in the position of witnessing the events that can hurt your hopes?

So, I turned to someone who had the power to save thousands of pages full of knowledge, but as the hero of Umberto Eco also stated: "The last efforts did not help anything. How could a wise man communicate his knowledge, if he lacks the proof of his knowledge? Perhaps the manuscripts were condemned by their own refusal to be known, by the secret they kept? Of one thing I am certain: the antichrist is indeed drawing near, for no wisdom is left to him in the way."

The darkness of ignorance spreads over the world, like a veil of the devil covering all living things. Especially knowledge is lost just like a light that goes out, like a flower that withers. And through their ignorance, the artisans of darkness keep the world in darkness by refusing to save knowledge, the same mediocre individuals who have learned nothing from books, and for whom books are of no use. Indeed, they have the power and authority to save much knowledge, but instead they let it all die. What is happening today, the scrapping of books without first being saved on the Internet, is similar to the burning of thousands of manuscripts during the Inquisition (1490-1500). The intelligent people of the past had something to say, and the system shut them up.

Those who defend science are the guardians of knowledge, while the others call themselves gravediggers of pure teachings, their ignorance revealing their easy nature, their superficial mentality, their great indifference. They are the creators of oblivion, not of rebirth. They are the evil in this world, the same inquisitor-clad soul from the past that still lingers.

Can your thoughts form the whole of a universe out of torn pieces, seeing with the mind's eye the things that others do not?

The hand of God creates, does not hide, and does not throw anything into oblivion. The fragments of thoughts from that outdated volume, left in my memory like puzzles, echoes of some ancient social morals, until they form the whole, still arouse my questions and curiosities, bearing in mind the events of the time. Some of the great works of humanity were saved, most of them perished. And trying to piece together the words from that page, still in my memory, with eyes that see things that others don't, I find myself again in the novel "The Name of the Rose":

"There were few traces left of the church portal, gnawed by mold, even though so many decades had passed. Rummaging through the remains, I sometimes found pieces of parchment, fallen from the scriptorium and the library, surviving like treasures buried in the ground. I began to collect them, as if I had to put the pages of a book back together.

Along a piece of the wall I found a cupboard, still standing amazingly upright against the wall, escaped from the fire, I don't know how, pierced by water and insects. There were still some sheets in it. Others, torn, I found rummaging through the ruins below. It was a poor harvest, but I spent a whole day collecting it, as if I should have received an announcement from those "disiecta membra" of the library. Some pieces of parchment were discolored, others allowed the shadow of a face to shine through, sometimes the ghost of a word or several. Sometimes I found sheets on which whole sentences could be read, more easily I found links still untouched, protected by others that had had metal flaps. Bookworms, still looking healthy on the outside, but devoured on the inside; and yet, sometimes, half a page had fallen off, one could see an incipit, a title..."

Can the discernment you exercise towards some memorable details protect a creation of great spiritual value, so that what you feel in your soul is not lost in oblivion?

God is what remains in the soul, not what perishes in oblivion. Few, as many as they were, those words so deeply rooted in my memory sparked the need to write this article. They planted understanding, sprouting thoughts and feelings like unseen flowers, but full of the essence of life. In their light, I have contemplated the essence of my existence, and what I have written here are like the stars in the night sky. They were guides, guiding me through the darkness of uncertainty and providing a beacon in my march through the maze of reality. Or maybe my words are a mirror of Umberto Eco's story, which contains a hidden meaning at the end:

"I collected all the remains that could be found and filled two traveling bags with them, discarding such things as I needed to save that wretched treasure. All the fragments, sentences and unfinished phrases, I will know how to put them together, outline them in a different way, so that I can create something great from their littleness.

Along the way back and then to Melk, I spent many, many hours trying to decipher those vestiges. I often recognized, by a word or by a lingering image, which work it was. When I afterwards found other copies of those books, I studied them with love, as if fate had left me that legacy, as if the discovery of the destroyed copy had been an unmistakable sign from heaven. which said "Toile et Lege". At the end of my patient recovery, a small library appeared in my mind, a sign of the big one, which had disappeared, a library made of pieces, quotes, unfinished sentences, torn books.

These unfinished pages have accompanied me all the life I have left to live since then, I have studied them like an oracle, and it even seems to me that everything I wrote then on these pages, which you are reading, unknown reader, is nothing but a mixture, "a carme a figura", that is, an endless acrostic that says and repeats nothing but what those fragments whispered to me. And I don't know if until now I spoke about them, or they spoke through my mouth..."

The divine vision is acquired in the light of a hidden wealth, with the help of the thought of saving knowledge as a great creation, receiving the echo of an image left in the memory.

The Antichrist is a man totally devoid of knowledge, who cannot recognize a fortune in the subtle representation of some works, being blinded by the illusion of a claimed omniscience. He only follows the darkness that shows him the way, as a kind of compass in his life. Instead of orienting himself by the light and clarity of the teachings, he chooses to walk in the direction of darkness, guided by obscurity and the unknown. Thus, the darkness becomes for him a guide, a source of guidance instead of the light of the divine.

In this case, it is enough to leave the thought of saving knowledge, to see everything dissipate like sand in the wind.