A Jewish Gnostic

Cicero’s gone. We have to find our own way in the dark. By remembering what Cicero told us.

I’ve forgotten what Cicero told us.

It was mostly insults.

But kindly insults. Carefully tailored insults. For each of us, specially. Based on real knowledge. And dare I say it, love.

Fuck off.

Her insults were her way of showing us kindness. Of bringing us on. Cicero was generous, in her way. But it was a negative generosity. It was a cruel kindness. Cicero wanted to push us. For us to be better than we are. Cicero was ambitious for us.

Did we disappoint her, do you think?

She was saddened by us sometimes, I think. She was saddened by the world. She was saddened by what the world made us. How we couldn’t escape the world.

Like her? Of course, like her. She insisted on our not being part of the world. Not regarding it as some gift. Do you remember how she nearly spat out that word, gift. The world is not a gift – that’s what she used to say. Angrily. Don’t be fooled by the beautiful day, she used to say. This is the universe of death, she used to say.

 

She used to call herself a Gnostic. And a Jew. A Jewish Gnostic! A Gnostic Jew! What can that possibly mean?

She used to quote Benjamin on the perfect culpability of the world. And Scholem on the religion of nihilism. Perfect disenchantment – that’s what we needed to reach, Cicero said. So we can see the world as it is. In its pure, brute being. So we can discern the horror.

What horror?, we said. The horror she said! Which you guys probably like, she said. Like pigs. Like pigs in a trough. Like pigs rolling in the filth. In the filth of the world.

 

Why did Cicero live at the coast if she was so horrified by beauty?

It wasn’t horror at beauty, it was more … suspicion. She didn’t want to be seduced.

She loved really beautiful women.

She did, it’s true. That was part of it. She wanted to be close to what could seduce her. But that she could resist. It was about keeping herself in tension … That’s why she lived at the coast, in that really beautiful flat. Where temptation was at its greatest! It was a test. Of herself. Of her Jewish Gnosticism, or whatever.  

We have to complete the disenchantment, she said. We have to go to the end of nihilism. There must be nothing left of myth inside out heads. We have to understand the world as curse.

 

This world is not a gift: hang onto that, that’s what Cicero used to say. Don’t ever feel at ease in this world. This isn’t your world. You don’t belong here – remember that, Cicero always said. We don’t belong to the cosmos. Stand guard against beauty. Don’t be seduced, Cicero would say.

We must be anti cosmic, Cicero said. We’re not citizens of this universe. We’re not cosmopolitans. How wrong the Stoics got it. How right the Gnostics were! We have to disenchant the universe, Cicero said. Continue the disenchantment. Pursue it’s logic to the very end. Because it shows what there is as what there is. The truth of it all, the whole universe.

 

Cicero was able to distract us for a while. Cicero was able to make us believe we might be capable of something.

The idea of being part of some thought-school. Some reborn Jewish Gnostic school of philosophy. The idea that there really could be a Newcastle school of philosophy.

Led by Cicero. Guided by Cicero. Carried away by Cicero. By her rhetoric. By her readings of this philosopher and that philosopher. By her example. Her impromptu improvisations on this or that topic. By her philosophical extemporisations on the Metro. On the Metro!

 

Gradually, we all moved to the coast to be near her. Kitten to South Shields, Io to North Shields, Gazelle to Tynemouth and me to Cullercoats.

Oh we denied it. We pretended we moved out there, a half hour’s metro ride from the campus, for other reasons. But it was entirely because of Cicero. Solely because Cicero was already there, ahead of us.

 

Walking on the beach, with our beach thoughts. Walking Spanish City, with our Spanish City thoughts. Walking with our fish and chips, with our fish and chip thoughts. Walking through the Fish Quay, with our Fish Quay thoughts.  

Crossing from North Shields to South Shields on the ferry, with our ferry thoughts. Walking down Ocean Drive to the beaches, thinking our Ocean Drive thoughts. And all of them because-Cicero-is-close thoughts! Because-Cicero-is-at-the-coast-thoughts!