I can’t say with certainty that I’ll be able to work in the theme of this song into what follows, in spite of the fact that it speaks of the person of Jesus as being the incarnation of Love in no less than four different ways. Honestly, I just really like the song People, Look East, and after the priest at Mass pre-empted it being chosen by the music ministry as the recessional hymn, I set out to find a keen rendition of it on YouTube. The use of its opening strains as an entrance antiphon here are just icing on the cake, so to speak.

Those of you who enjoy these outpourings of philosophical meandering may have noticed that I failed, utterly, to produce a meditation last week. And while that certainly worked in my favour — in the sense that there are but Three Principles in Ultima lore, but four weeks of Advent — I can’t pretend as though anything more than a busy schedule contributed to the oversight.

The last Principle to meditate upon is Love. Now, I have to confess a certain irritation here, not with Ultima, but with the English language and the way it doesn’t adequately distinguish between the many facets of Love that exist:

Ancient Greeks identified four forms of love: kinship or familiarity (in Greek, storge), friendship (philia), sexual and/or romantic desire (eros), and self-emptying or divine love (agape). Modern authors have distinguished further varieties of romantic love. Non-Western traditions have also distinguished variants or symbioses of these states. This diversity of uses and meanings combined with the complexity of the feelings involved makes love unusually difficult to consistently define, compared to other emotional states.

The bold-text emphasis is mine.

And indeed, when we discuss the concept of love in English, like as not we tend to first think of eros, the romantic manifestation of love ; when we talk about e.g. “love stories”, we aren’t usually talking about stories about inter-familial relationships. (And as both further evidence and as a thought experiment, how many of you just experienced even a fleeting thought that connected the concept of inter-familial love with eroticism and sexuality?)

Ultima, to its credit, actually treats the concept of Love in ways that go beyond its romantic manifestation. I mean, yes, okay, Cove exists…but so too does Empath Abbey and its cloister of monks who live to make wine and meditate upon the deeper mysteries of Love. As well, Love’s most direct manifestation in Ultima’s philosophy — the Virtue of Compassion — puts forward an understanding of Love that is not particularly concerned with romance, but which seems very concerned indeed with kenosis:

Compassion is nonjudgmental empathy for one’s fellow creatures.

Compassion is the quality of empathy, of recognizing and sharing the feelings of others.

He who lives without compassion dies loveless. Compassion is the child’s awe at the natural world and his love for all who live in it. Compassion for others reflects the Love in one’s soul. It requires strength to hold Compassion, for under duress, it is quick to flee. In testing your will to aid others, Compassion shall grow in your spirit like a wildfire.

It’s worth noting, too, what the Virtue was twisted into under Blackthorn’s rule:

Thou shalt help those in need, or thou shalt suffer the same need.

This is a very important point about Love in all of its forms, especially kenosis: charity, empathy, and self-sacrifice aren’t things that can be forced. Forcible charity isn’t charity, for example; depending on who is applying the force, it is either extortion or taxation (or, possibly, both). Love, in all of its manifestations, is something which must be offered freely, as an act of the will. This is true even of storge, familial love. Granted, it may seem that the love between family members seems to be more of an obligation than something which the will can choose or reject, but I submit that it only seems this way because the stakes and consequences are more readily apparent. (To wit: I see my wife and children every day, and I love them dearly. Too, I see how they offer and respond to love on an hourly — and often minute-to-minute — basis. And so I can see, in stark detail, what the consequences would be should I ever withdraw my love from them.)

People, Look East speaks of Jesus as being the manifestation of Love — Love the Guest, Love the Lord, and so forth. Being an Advent hymn, the tune strikes an anticipatory note; it looks forward to His arrival, which is of course marked and recalled at Christmas. But the image of Christ as being Love Incarnate is hardly unique to this one song; it is a recurring theme in Christian philosophy, and is explicitly called out by Christ as well: “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” This saying isn’t merely an instruction for the Christian faithful; it’s self-referential as well, and speaks to Jesus’ own purpose as well. (The magnitude of His sacrifice isn’t explicitly called out; it is left for the reader to determine…but it is hardly an unobvious thing.)

Ultima captures some of this idea in the Virtue of Sacrifice (which the Principle of Love contributes to), although depending on which game in the series one looks at, the teaching comes across as being a bit too obligatory for Love to be truly manifest in the Virtue. I think the Virtue of Spirituality captures the idea best in its second meaning:

It is also the awareness of the love that unites one’s own inner being to those around one.

Because really, Love isn’t something that is meant to be solitary. That isn’t to say that one shouldn’t be able to love oneself, but Love is meant to be directed outward: toward family, toward friends, toward lovers…and toward others in acts of empathy and charity. Which is another theme that crops up in People, Look East and other hymns about Jesus as Love Incarnate; Love moves; it travels, leaps, dances. And it propels; it is behind every thought and act of those who show it. Would it be too much to point to Love as the most important of the Three Principles? On paper, it stands on equal footing with the Truth and Courage; each informs four Virtues, after all. But I suspect that it is Love that would animate an Avatar to pursue Truth, and to demonstrate Courage; Love is an impetus. It is the impetus.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

(Image credit: The Codex of Ultima Wisdom)