Escándalo, attested in the Spanish language at least since 1374 and derived from Latin scandalum, taken in turn from the Greek to skandalon, with the meaning of “trap or obstacle to make one fall” -in the classical sense- and occasion for sin -in the New Testament sense-.

In classical Greek, ho skandalarios / hoi skandalarioi are the pebbles or planks of the roofs (the scandularius Latin). More interesting to us is the noun he skandaleThis refers to the stick that is carefully placed in the center of an animal trap and on which bait is placed. When the bait is lifted from the stick, the trap closes and kills or captures the animal.

The term is also used in ancient rhetoric in the sense of a dialectical trap, a word trap (sv Liddle-Scott-Jones) that is thrown at the interlocutor so that they assume or accept that which will later contribute to its refutation and failure. The neutral to skandalon and the verb skandalizein They already explicitly mean “to cause someone to stumble, offend, or scandalize” in the evangelical sense of being an occasion for sin or fault, as in Mateo 5.29 and 13.14. The noun is also very powerful in a metaphorical sense. ScandalistsThat is, the trapeze artist or acrobat (literally "the one who walks at heights") who performs on a trapeze, the trapeze being called precisely skandalon: an opportunity for the disaster, for the fall in both a literal and figurative sense, as we read in Liddle-Scott-Jones (sv)

If we focus on the trip on and in the stumbling block We see that, as Corominas indicates, it is a late term that appears around 1535 and that can already be glimpsed in Portuguese to trip, very present in the 13th century in Spanish and in Portuguese until the 15th century. It derives from Vulgar Latin INTERPEDIARE, derived in turn from INTERPEDIRE, which with the meaning of classical Latin IMPEDIRE The verb "to stumble" (to impede, but also to entangle, hinder, or obstruct) is found in post-classical authors. With the original meaning of entangling, the verb "to stumble" appears in the Middle Ages and spreads frequently during the Golden Age (it is still widely used in dialects today). According to Corominas, the verb "to become entangled" soon evolved into "to stumble" (sv. Corominas). In this family, we also find warm and unexpected words such as "tropical," "stumble," "fumble," and "to trip."

Let us return to the topic of scandal to facilitate a conceptual clarification, which proves especially fruitful if we consider the Greek of the Church Fathers. In the patristic traditions of the three major schools (the Asian tradition of Apostolic Fathers such as Melito, Hippolytus, Theophilus, Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Lactantius; the Alexandrian tradition, rooted in Philo and clearly defined in Clement, Origen, Ambrose, and Hilary; and, of course, the Augustinian tradition), the lexical family of scandal is placed at the service of the doctrine of original sin: “to scandalize” means to tempt, to set traps, to incite to the fall or to the sin that already constitutes us as finite creatures of the Adamic lineage. Scandal is a source of temptation and, therefore, a propitious occasion for sin, stumbling, and falling.

What is the point of scandal in a glossary about failure and its figures? The point emerges clearly and forcefully if we accept that the Modernity we are discussing is heir to Christianity and some of its most relevant controversies (such as that of Augustinianism and Molinism regarding grace). In this tradition, the idea of ​​modern failure (stumbling and falling into disgrace) is closely linked to the notion of temptation: that is, the possibility of success and the imminence of failure are encoded (both in creationist and secularized terms, both in ancient and modern contexts) in the idea of ​​the presence of a obstacle constant on the path to salvation (understood, in turn, as true good and authentic success in the face of false appearances of happiness and health). This obstacle is represented by the world itself and by the body, by the temporality inherent in history and finitude, and, of course, by the Devil, fallen angel and unsettling presence who tempts and prowls around us (as he did Jesus Christ in the desert), placing seductive traps (scandals) within our reach that inevitably lead us to disaster, failure, and perdition: that literally make us FALL.

The obstacle, therefore, is a trap and a stumbling block. And the stumbling block occurs when one falls into temptation. One stumbles upon falling into temptation. Or rather: one falls because one stumbles, because one succumbs. And what does one stumble over? One stumbles over the flesh, over the body, over erroneous opinion and judgment; one stumbles over vanity, over greed, over capital sin in its broadest sense and its many finite manifestations. Every stumbling block is a scandal, because scandal is the crystallization in which temptation (as the imminence of failure) and freedom (as the condition of possibility for human initiative that leads to action) are united. In the Sermon on the Mount, in connection with the sin of adultery, the evangelist has Jesus say that if something appears on the path of life as a possibility of stumbling or imminent failure, we must uproot it completely and without hesitation: the eye, if sight tempts us; the hand, if touch tempts us.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin (ei de ophthalmos sou skadalizei se)“Tear it off and throw it away; for it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; for it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.”Food. 5, 29-30, in La Cueva, 1987).

The biblical doctrine of scandal is very fertile ground for certain theological and philosophical debates within modern rationalism. Specifically, this doctrine, which links sin, disaster, and the possibility of salvation with the idea of ​​scandal and temptation, reappears in authors like Blaise Pascal and within the context of ecclesiastical controversy on grace and free will, as seen in the debates between Augustinianism and Molinism or between Jansenism and Anti-Jansenism. This line of thought undoubtedly leads us from the letters of Paul to Kierkegaard, passing precisely through Pascal's tragic rationalism. In contrast to the hopeful perspective of Jesuitism, which opens the possibility for humanity to attain or recover the lost paradise, glory, and reunion with God, philosophers like Pascal represent an interpretation of the human condition that conceives of our nature as inevitably condemned to failure—that is, to constant and constitutive stumbling, to wandering, the shipwreck and the fall. Pascal, like Blumenberg in his Shipwreck with spectator and Montaigne in his TestsIt identifies existence with a journey that cannot help but end in shipwreck. And this broken condition is incapable of salvation except through the grace of God. It is at this point that the biblical tradition of scandal, and specifically the Pauline tradition, as we observe in the Menus From Paul, it emerges with all its force for a lucid understanding of failure. J. Ratzinger has written about this extraordinarily fertile notion of the Christian cross as a scandal and of the irremediably doomed condition of finite being:

 “Paul’s experience is key: while at first he had been a persecutor and had used violence against Christians, from the moment of his conversion on the road to Damascus, he had turned to the side of Christ crucified, making Him, that broken body nailed to the cross, the reason for his life and the motive of all his preaching. Paul suddenly understands the central meaning of the Christian Cross “AS A SCANDAL” (Text belonging to the catechesis delivered by Pope Benedict XVI during the General Audience in St. Peter’s Square)VATICAN CITY, Wednesday, October 29, 2008).-

The cross is a scandal. In what sense? Paul understands that Jesus died and rose again for all and for himself, and that on the Cross, therefore, God's grace and free and merciful love are expressed and revealed. Benedict XVI's text continues:

“Day after day, in his new life, he experienced that salvation was ‘grace,’ that everything descended from the love of Christ and not from his own merits, which, moreover, did not exist. The ‘gospel of grace’ thus became the only way to understand the Cross, the criterion not only of his new existence, but also his response to those he spoke to. Among these were, above all, the Jews.” who placed their hope in works and expected salvation from them [as if one could successfully achieve salvation on one's own, as if not failing depended on oneself]; there were also the Greeks, who opposed their human wisdom to the crossFinally, there were certain heretical groups, who had formed their own idea of ​​Christianity according to their own way of life.

For Saint Paul, the Cross holds a fundamental primacy in the history of humanity; it represents the central point of his theology, because to speak of the Cross is to speak of salvation as grace given to every creature… The Cross, because of all that it represents and also because of the theological message it contains, is a scandal and folly. The Apostle affirms this with impressive force:

“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God… God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” (1 Corinthians 1:18-23).

The “scandal” and “folly” of the Cross are precisely in the fact that where there seems to be only failure, pain, defeatThat is precisely where all the power of God's unlimited Love lies.Because the Cross is an expression of love, and love is the true power that is revealed precisely in this apparent weakness. For the Jews, the Cross is skandalonThat is, a trap or stumbling block: it seems to hinder the faith of the pious Israelite, who cannot find anything similar in the Holy Scriptures: “Paul, with no small amount of courage, seems to say here that the The stakes are extremely highFor the Jews, the Cross contradicts the very essence of God, who has manifested himself through wondrous signs. Therefore, accepting the Cross of Christ means undergoing a profound conversion in one's relationship with God. If for the Jews the reason for rejecting the Cross lies in Revelation, that is, in fidelity to the God of their ancestors, for the Greeks, that is, the pagans, the criterion for opposing the Cross is reason. For the latter, in fact, the Cross is died, foolishness, literally insipidity, food without salt; therefore, more than a error"It is an insult to common sense" (Benedict XVI, 2008)

If we now turn to modern Europe and the figure of Pascal, it seems that we can find certain fruitful and suggestive connections relating to an anthropological conception where The failure of reason is a constitutive moment of the human condition itself: the folly of a reason that always fails in relation to the infinite and the scandal of an existence doomed to extinction and full of pain and shipwreck. As Kolakowski (1996) has studied, Pascal aligns himself with the Jansenist tradition in interpreting Augustine's thought on the possible compatibility of freedom, grace, and human salvation. Following Augustine and opposing Pelasgius, Jansen and Pascal question how it is possible to restore a corrupt, fallen, and sin-degenerate nature such as human nature. Jansen concludes that grace is infallibly active, without thereby destroying human freedom, and that God grants this grace to humanity by virtue of an entirely gratuitous decree of predestination. This implies that the freedom available to human beings is not synonymous with their capacity to choose between two opposing courses of action: rather, freedom corresponds to the spontaneous reaction of a corporeal nature that, as such, aspires to its pleasure and satisfaction. In other words, fallen nature and its constant grounding in the horizon of temporality, the flesh, and the temptation to stumble leave humanity free. just to do evil, to err, to fail again and again And in doing so, they gradually drift away from God and the kingdom. This constant decline, this wandering, and this failure can only be avoided through the intervention of divine grace. Against this view, as is well known, the Jesuits would write, attempting to create a space of purely human freedom that, through right action, would make possible the salvation of the fallen creature.. Within the framework of this discussion, Pascal aligns himself with the current of a scandalous look on human reason that agrees with a reading of the constitutive (not merely resultative) failure that runs through the human condition and that goes from Montaigne to the existentialism of Kierkegaard or Jaspers, passing through Pascal himself or F. Nietzsche: the human being, structurally and without remedy, is thrown into a failed, tragic, broken and limited condition, as shown by our inability to understand and govern epistemically the totality of meaning (or nonsense) that includes us.

In a series of unforgettable passages from his ThoughtsPascal identifies the only possible greatness of the failed animal in the recognition of its own ontological misery and its broken condition:

“Man is but a reed, the weakest in nature, yet a thinking reed. The whole universe need not arm itself to crush him: a vapor, a drop of water is enough to kill him. But even if the universe were to crush him, man would still be nobler than that which kills him, because he knows that he dies and what advantage the universe has over him; the universe knows nothing of this. All dignity, then, consists in thought. This is how we must rise, and not by space and time, which we cannot fill. Let us, then, work at thinking well: this is the principle of morality…” (Pascal, 1986: 81ff)

“Man’s greatness lies in knowing himself to be miserable; a tree does not know itself to be miserable. Therefore, to be miserable is to know oneself to be miserable; but to be great is to know that one is miserable… (Pascal, 1986: 49)”

On Musical In 330, the French philosopher and mathematician would go on to write: “If he exalts himself, I humiliate him. If he humiliates himself, I exalt him. And I always contradict him. Until he understands that he is a monster incomprehensible".

An incomprehensible monster: like the resurrected Jesus Christ for the Jews and for the Greeks. That is the meaning of the praise of failure that is developing in Paul's doctrine of the scandal of the cross: The “scandal” and the “foolishness” of the Cross reside precisely in the fact that “where there seems to be only failure, pain, defeat, precisely there is all the power of God's unlimited Love, because the Cross is an expression of love and love is the true power that is revealed precisely in this apparent weakness.

The greatness of humankind, which acknowledges and celebrates its constant failure, leads directly to God. Faith is not an indestructible certainty nor a secure possession. It does not depend on reason or on humankind in general, but rather it is a donation of God. This notion of the gift, the present or the sending that never depends on ourselves and that, nevertheless, determines the success and failure of existence, can also be read in a non-theological key: regardless of the existence or non-existence of an omnipotent being, the possibility of escaping scandal, failure, the stumbling of the world and degeneration is never within the reach of a finite and imperfect animal whose only greatness resides, precisely, in the tragic and lucid acceptance of its constitutive insignificance within the framework of a totality that always overflows our faculties of understanding.

Bibliography

Corominas, J. (1987). Brief Etymological Dictionary of the Castilian LanguageMadrid: Gredos.

Kolakowski, L (1996). God owes us nothing. A brief commentary on Pascal's religion and the spirit of Jansenism. Barcelona: Herder.

La Cueva, F (1984). Greek-Spanish Interlinear New TestamentBarcelona: Clie.

Liddel, H.G., R. Scott, and H. Stuart Jones (1966). A Greek-English Lexicon, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Pascal, B. Thoughts (1986). Madrid: Alianza, 1986.

Ratzinger, J. (Benedict XVI) (2008). “The scandal of the Cross, wisdom of the Christian”(Text belonging to the Catechesis delivered by Pope Benedict XVI during the General Audience in St. Peter's SquareVATICAN CITY, Wednesday, October 29, 2008.

Index of illustrations:

Fig. 1. Blaise Pascal (1623-1662). Lithograph after G. Edelinck. Public domain https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blaise_Pascal._Lithograph_after_G._Edelinck_after_F._Quesnel_Wellcome_V0004512.jpg

Fig. 2. Sin pursued by Death (John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 2, 787, 790-792).