Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt is one of the few famous contemporary writers to openly display his Catholic faith. In 2015, he told beautifully, in The night of fire, his discovery of God, which occurred during a mystical experience in the desert. The God of whom he speaks then is beyond all religions; it is, according to the term of the writer, “the absolute”.
Later, Schmitt will immerse himself in the reading of the Gospels. His faith will then take on a more specifically Catholic face, while remaining inhabited by doubt. “To be a Christian, he writes today, amounts to accepting the mystery. It is not a question, he affirms, of abandoning reason, but of accepting its limits, its borders. “Christianity, he explains in a pretty formula, does not help us to think the unthinkable, it invites us to face it humbly. »
This journey is no stranger to the current sensibility of the writer. Humanist, supporter of a philosophical optimism “which reconciles a sense of tragedy and hope for the future”, as he noted in his essay on Beethoven, Schmitt refuses to wallow in lament and discouragement. Rather, he bets on a lucid joy.
For this reason, some critics, for whom what is not dark necessarily flirts with the cheesy, look down on it. It’s not my case. I don’t like all of his work, but I find nuggets there. Schmitt, for years, has often helped me to think better and to live better. I admire his courage to bear witness to his faith in a time when such a declaration is generally greeted with a smirk.
Last year, at the invitation of the Vatican, the writer agreed to take part in a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The challenge of Jerusalem (Albin Michel, 2023, 224 pages), postfaced by none other than Pope Francis, is the account of this experience. We find there a Schmitt who is both deeply religious and always inclined to take a step back from his religious feelings.
The writer is not fooled by biblical tourism. He knows well, for example, that the current holy sites are not always located on the precise places of the great events of the life of Jesus. He draws a paradox from this: the truth sought by the pilgrim, he observes, “is not that of earth, but that of heaven”. What matters is the reflection inspired by such a trip.
To be a Christian is to accept the mystery. It is not a question of abandoning reason, but of accepting its limits, its borders. Christianity does not help us to think the unthinkable, it invites us to face it humbly.
Schmitt takes the opportunity to relate the journey of his faith. Born in 1960 of atheist parents, he was nevertheless baptized and enrolled in catechism in order to have the religious instruction necessary to understand Western art. After a doctoral thesis on Diderot directed by Jacques Derrida, he found faith in the Sahara. His reading of the Gospels then makes him a Christian.
“And you, who do you say I am? asked Jesus to his apostles. Schmitt says he offered four distinct answers to this question in his lifetime. In his youth, he regarded Jesus as a myth and prided himself on disbelieving such nonsense. At twenty, after having studied the question more seriously, he recognizes the historical existence of the character and sees him as a prophet.
During his studies in philosophy, he attributed to him, in agreement with Spinoza, the title of “supreme philosopher”. Today, after this trip to Jerusalem, he murmurs, in response to the question, “the Son of God”, while specifying that it is a challenge for Jesus to be so and for him, Schmitt, to believe him. .
The heart of Jerusalem Challenge is in a hair-raising episode. The writer queues with his group to visit the Holy Sepulchre, that is to say the place of the tomb of Jesus. It’s hot, there are too many people and a tourist fair atmosphere prevails. Schmitt then confides that derision wins over him and that he “wants to desert this masquerade”. However, since he is there, he stays, he enters, he kneels down and says he suddenly smells the smell of a body, a look fixed on him, a presence, therefore, that he believes to be that of God.
Let’s say that the reader is also seized by such a story. Schmitt, previously, had nevertheless insisted on his “extreme reluctance in the face of miracles” and on the fact that, if he did not exclude their possibility, he refused to base his thought on them.
And here he gets carried away, saying that he abandons himself “with humility to what [le] outmoded “. Even Pope Francis has never gone so far in the mystical vein, he who recently confided that he had never seen God in a dream or heard heavenly voices.
“Humanity, concludes Schmitt, is divided between those who solve enigmas and those who remain attentive to mysteries. Staying on the lookout for signs of the supreme mystery, that’s fine, but I can’t get rid of an uneasiness in front of those who hear it too distinctly.