Too many books
Preacher: Revd Dr Donald MacEwan, Chaplain
Readings: Ecclesiastes 12; 2 Timothy 4:6-15; Elma Mitchell, This Poem…
What is essential to life? Rarely has this question been as prominent as in 2020. Because of Covid, we’ve had to decide what is an essential shop. An essential product in a shop. An essential service. An essential journey. An essential medical treatment. Is it essential that we meet in person? Some decisions have been heartbreaking – who is essential in caring for the dying, or paying respects to those who have died?
In spring it wasn’t essential for children to go to school; in autumn it is. Yet all this year, education in this University has been essential: teaching and exams, and much research have continued.
When the Apostle Paul was writing to Timothy from Rome, he asked Timothy to pick up some things he had left behind in Troas, in modern-day western Turkey. A cloak – a few verses later he says that winter was coming. But also the books and the parchments he’d left behind. The books would have been scrolls, possibly of scripture. The parchments were for writing on – we don’t know if they were blank or drafts which he hadn’t taken with him.
It’s a lovely detail, and literally speaks volumes. For Paul was a researcher. He studied the scriptures, what we call the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament. He knew works of philosophy. He took part in seminars, he wrote theology and disseminated his writings. He travelled – if not to conferences, certainly to discuss his ideas and to form communities. His approach annoyed other scholars who disagreed violently with him.
We who have gathered here tonight may or may not share Paul’s commitment to God and to Jesus as the fulfilment of God’s promise to the world. But all who belong to St Leonard’s College share Paul’s identity as a scholar and researcher. Whether writing epistles or essays, tests or projects, dissertations or theses we belong to a community of researchers. Why do we do this? What is our purpose? Is it, in any way, essential?
I’d like to suggest a number of reasons why our life revolves around scrolls and parchments, or their contemporary equivalents.
One. A love of reading. Logan Pearsall Smith, the early 20th Century essayist once wrote, People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading. Of course researchers who work at a bench in the Purdie or the Willie Russell Lab may not identify with this. But all who research have read and do read, and find the ideas expressed in writing to excite them, and lead them to want to discover more. As that brilliant poem read for us by the Provost says, Words/ Can seriously affect your heart.
Which leads to Two – a love of learning, of discovering, of recognising, of creating new ways of understanding reality. Joseph Priestly, the 18th Century chemist and theologian wrote:
In completing one discovery we never fail to get an imperfect knowledge of others of which we could have no idea before, so that we cannot solve one doubt without creating several new ones.
Does that scare you? Exhaust you? Or thrill you that every breakthrough leads to more questions? If it thrills you, then that is why you are a researcher, always looking for more questions to explore.
So far, our purpose in research may have seemed a little self-centred – my love of reading, my relish in discovery. But reason Three is the opposite of selfishness: it is to help others. After all, we give papers to be heard, we write articles to be read, we make videos to be seen. We want our knowledge to be shared, and to improve the lives of others. Sometimes that’s simply the delight of knowing what a particular phrase in classical Persian means. At other times it is for the clear betterment of society as a whole, as we see in research happening in St Andrews on the coronavirus itself, for example testing different surfaces and coatings for their effectiveness in killing the Covid-19 virus
Paradoxically – and this is point Four of research – to help others we may have to rebel. New insight often requires breaking with received wisdom. Umberto Eco held academic positions in the Universities of Turin, Milan, Florence, Bologna and San Marino. But he is best known for The Name of the Rose, a mystery novel set in a 14th Century monastery. When it was filmed the Franciscan Friar William was improbably played by Sean Connery whose death was announced yesterday. Anyway, in the novel we read this:
Books are not made to be believed, but to be subjected to enquiry.
That may well mean disagreeing with famous writers, and taking on their reputations. Moreover it may mean disagreeing, and disagreeing profoundly with conventional pieties trotted out by those in power from governments to bishops, from NGO Directors to University Principals. Research is enquiry, and it never knows in advance what the conclusion will be.
This can be dangerous. The apostle Paul wrote to Timothy from Rome where he was imprisoned for his opinions, and very probably killed. This service commemorates St Leonard, venerated in part for the liberation of prisoners, who would pray to him and find their chains break before their eyes. Today, around the world, academics are in danger, sometimes imprisoned, because of political persecution from those in authority. This University is a University of Sanctuary, a member of the Council for At-Risk Academics and we offer a number of Sanctuary Scholarships for students who are seeking sanctuary in the UK. The 19th Century German poet Heinrich Heine wrote this: Whenever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings. We may be fortunate here to have more freedom than in other places and times, but our commitment to the truth, wherever it leads, remains fundamental.
One final purpose of research is more contentious. We may all agree that studying the world discovers ever more about nature, physical reality and human culture. But for people of faith, research reveals more. It discovers the world which has emerged from the Creator’s loving purpose. It explores an order to things evoking awe at the immensity, complexity and yet the simplicity of things. It conveys the extraordinary creativity of nature, including human beings. For people of faith, this is nothing less than an unceasing exploration of divine purpose, divine wisdom and divine love. It may only be in the Faculty of Divinity that God is the subject of research, but the divine may be explored no less in Science, Medicine and the Arts.
I hope I’ve made the case that the life of research is essential. The humanist scholar Erasmus once said, When I get a little money, I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food and clothes. Perhaps in any future lockdown Toppings should stay open just as much as Tescos round the corner. Surely we can never have too many books.
But although scholarship is essential, perhaps I should end with a little modesty. This necessary way of life, this community of research, goes back millennia. We heard that beautiful passage from Ecclesiastes speak of the cycles of life, and the journey which young people and healthy societies make towards old age and to breakdown. The writer goes on to say:
Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
I recognise the truth of that, as someone who wrote a PhD over 20 years ago. I loved doing it, I am proud of it, I even occasionally forward a chapter from it to an enquirer. It remains unpublished, with perhaps 2.9 people having read it all through. To my knowledge it has been cited twice. You are welcome to read it – it is on Open Access through the Library website of Trinity College, Dublin where, I note, the printed copy was damaged as a result of the Berkeley Library flood in 2011. One other printed copy is covered with dust sitting on the top of bookshelves in my office, a reminder that, as Ecclesiastes says, the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the breath returns to God who gave it.
And yet in that three years of my life, I shared the purpose of all the research that has ever been. And I hope that the span of your studies is the same: a love of reading, a joy in discovery, a desire to help others, a healthy doubt at received wisdom, and a wonder at the immensity of creation and the gift of the Creator.
I hope you can answer these questions as I can:
Was it exhausting? Yes!
Was it incomplete? Of course!
Was it essential? Absolutely!