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Contributions To Phenomenology 99
Avi Sagi
Living With
the Other
The Ethic of Inner Retreat
Translated by Batya Stein
Contributions To Phenomenology
In Cooperation with The Center

for Advanced Research in Phenomenology
Volume 99
Series Editors
Nicolas de Warren, KU Leuven, Belgium
Ted Toadvine, Pennsylvania State University, PA, USA
Editorial Board
Lilian Alweiss, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
Elizabeth Behnke, Ferndale, WA, USA
Rudolfh Bernet, Husserl Archive, KU Leuven, Belgium
David Carr, Emory University, GA, USA
Chan-Fai Cheung, Chinese University Hong Kong, China
James Dodd, New School University, NY, USA
Lester Embree, Florida Atlantic University, FL, USA
Alfredo Ferrarin, Università di Pisa, Italy
Burt Hopkins, University of Lille, France
José Huertas-Jourda, Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada
Kwok-Ying Lau, Chinese University Hong Kong, China
Nam-In Lee, Seoul National University, Korea
Rosemary R.P. Lerner, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Peru
Dieter Lohmar, University of Cologne, Germany
William R. McKenna, Miami University, OH, USA
Algis Mickunas, Ohio University, OH, USA
J.N. Mohanty, Temple University, PA, USA
Junichi Murata, University of Tokyo, Japan
Thomas Nenon, The University of Memphis, TN, USA
Thomas M. Seebohm, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität, Germany
Gail Soffer, Rome, Germany
Anthony Steinbock, Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, IL, USA
Shigeru Taguchi, Hokkaido University, Japan
Dan Zahavi, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Richard M. Zaner, Vanderbilt University, TN, USA
Scope
The purpose of the series is to serve as a vehicle for the pursuit of phenomenological
research across a broad spectrum, including cross-over developments with other
fields of inquiry such as the social sciences and cognitive science. Since its estab-
lishment in 1987, Contributions to Phenomenology has published more than 80
titles on diverse themes of phenomenological philosophy. In addition to welcoming
monographs and collections of papers in established areas of scholarship, the series
encourages original work in phenomenology. The breadth and depth of the Series
reflects the rich and varied significance of phenomenological thinking for seminal
questions of human inquiry as well as the increasingly international reach of phe-
nomenological research.
The series is published in cooperation with The Center for Advanced Research in
Phenomenology.
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/5811

Avi Sagi
Living With the Other

The Ethic of Inner Retreat
Avi Sagi
Department of Philosophy
Bar-Ilan University
Ramat-Gan, Israel
Translated by Batya Stein
ISSN 0923-9545 ISSN 2215-1915 (electronic)

Contributions To Phenomenology
ISBN 978-3-319-99177-1 ISBN 978-3-319-99178-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99178-8
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018953691
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of
the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation,
broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
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The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
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Acknowledgments
This is an account of a philosophical journey in the wake of the other. It reflects an

ongoing dialogue with colleagues and students who were my partners in shaping the
ideas suggested in this book. My students in the Graduate Program for Hermeneutics
and Cultural Studies at Bar-Ilan University were the first to hear, analyze, and criti-
cally respond to drafts of the book’s chapters. I am grateful for their comments,
from which I learned a great deal. My colleagues at the Shalom Hartman Institute
in Jerusalem contributed in a spirit of generous collegiality. Without them, this book
might not have been completed. Special thanks to Pini Ifergan and Dror Yinon for
their sustained attention and assistance and to Donniel Hartman, president of the
Shalom Hartman Institute, for his generous support and esteem. Thanks to my assis-
tant, Roni Bar-Lev, whose dedication and friendship made a significant contribu-
tion. Finally, I am grateful to Batya Stein, who translated this book into English, for
her partnership and her professional commitment, which are present in every word.
The dialogue with Batya is a permanent characteristic of my life.
v
Contents
1 Introduction�� 1
2 The Ethic of Compassion and the Ethic of Justice�� 7
The Ethic of Compassion�� 9
The Ethic of Compassion and the Ethic of Care�� 18
The Ethic of Justice�� 19
The Politics of Justice and the Politics of Compassion �� 24
The Politics of Justice�� 25
A Politics of Compassion�� 29
The Discourse of Justice and the Discourse of Compassion �� 30
Compassion and Justice �� 31
Camus on the Ethic of Compassion and the Ethic of Justice�� 36
The Rise of the Ethic of Compassion in Camus’ Thought�� 36
From the Ethic of Compassion to the Ethic of Justice�� 38
The Return of Compassion�� 40
Justice and Compassion in Halakhic Tradition�� 41
3 The Ethic of Loyalty to the Visible �� 47
An Ethic of Loyalty �� 47
Loyalty and Free Will�� 48
Loyalty as a Personal Value �� 49
Loyalty as Devotion �� 50
Loyalty as Duty�� 52
Loyalty as Practical Action�� 52
Loyalty and Exclusivity �� 53
Loyalty and the Constitution of the Self�� 54
An Ethic of Loyalty to the Visible �� 55
The Other: An Object that Is Not an Object�� 68
4 Love and the Politics of Sovereignty�� 79
On Love�� 80
On Love of Country, Dominance, and Sovereignty �� 91
vii
viii Contents
5 The Akedah and the Oedipus Myth�� 101

The Meaning of Culture: On Fathers and Sons �� 102
The Akedah Archetype�� 103
The Freudian Archetype�� 110
Two Archetypes: Culture as Dialogue or as Conflict�� 114
The Akedah Archetype in Jewish and Israeli Culture�� 120
6 The Real Other Beyond the Other�� 125
The Political Other�� 125
The Metaphysical Other�� 128
The Real Other Beyond the Other�� 133
The Real Other Beyond the Other and Jewish Tradition �� 140
7 From the Real Other to the Ultimate Other�� 161
Epilogue�� 191
Bibliography �� 195
Index�� 205
Chapter 1
Introduction
The protagonist of ethic, particularly of the deontological ethic that places the con-
cept of duty at its center, is the moral subject. The moral subject’s action is based on
the recognition of the duty that, as a rational being, he discovers autonomously. This
ethic marks the culmination of the individual’s process of empowerment as an active
agent and, in a deep sense, ascribes to her some of the characteristics ascribed to
God—a free being who legislates her moral duties for herself and by herself.
In the context of this ethic, which is quintessentially represented by Kant, the
object of the duty or of the moral action is the other. From this perspective, ethic
focuses on the subject and her duties rather than on her mutual relationships with the
other. Ethics has no particular interest in a concrete other; its concern is the other—
any other—as an object of the general duty. Even when the ethic does create mutual
duties, these are poured into a unique construct and run along parallel and comple-
mentary courses: every individual is a subject, since the moral duty is incumbent on
him, and every individual is also an object, as the target of the other’s moral action.
The domain that is created, if at all, through the actions of the various subjects is
not one of encounter, dialogue, or reciprocity, but one common to different subjects
whose actions sometimes coalesce. Thus, for example, if it is my duty to prevent an
injustice done to the other and the other is obliged to prevent an injustice done to
me, even if these injustices occur simultaneously and a reciprocal action for pre-
venting injustice is performed—creating a joint struggle against injustice is unnec-
essary. From each individual’s perspective, action is a duty incumbent on him,
independent of the duty to act that is also incumbent on the other.
This basic construct of ethic, which preserves the asymmetry and the lack of
reciprocity, is particularly important in moral terms, representing the principle of
independence from the other in fulfilling moral duties—moral responsibility is
absolute.1 Independence from the other and from the other’s concrete m anifestations
represents, in Kantian ethics, the perception of the other as an object of moral duty.
1
Cf. Emmanuel Levinas, Otherwise than Being or Beyond Essence, trans. Alphonso Lingis
(Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 1998), 84–88.
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018 1

A. Sagi, Living With the Other, Contributions To Phenomenology 99,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99178-8_1
2 1 Introduction
This description is correct even when we take into account the third formulation
of the Kantian categorical imperative: “Act in such a way that you treat humanity,
whether in your own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as
an end and never simply as a means.”2 According to this formulation, the other is
perceived not only as an object, as a means to my action, but also as an end in itself,
as a being “for himself.” Kant’s formulation is clear-cut: “Man, however, is not a
thing and hence is not something to be used merely as a means; he must in all his
actions always be regarded as an end in himself.”3 Kant, then, characterizes the
other as a being who is valuable per se.
Kant’s contribution to the recognition of human beings’ intrinsic value can
hardly be overstated but, even in this formulation, the other is still an object because,
despite Kant’s qualified formulation, he is still a means to an end in a dual sense.
First, the duty is imposed on the agent, who applies it to the other—the obligation
is incumbent on the active being while the other is the one who is activated and, as
such, an object. Second, the moral agent is the one who ascribes individual value to
the other. The other, then, is assigned value, even independent value, within a sys-
tem constituted by the subject, who is the sovereign. In terms of phenomenological
existentialist tradition, the other is valuable “for” the subject, given that he is epis-
temically dependent on him. The other, then, cannot as such impose her own
value—she is not “for herself” and, in an ethical context, she will always be the
object of the moral action.
This analysis indicates that the standard ethic is founded on the subject-object
relationship—the “self” is sovereign and active, the constitutive entity, and the other
is the constituted one. Ostensibly, this determination is too radical because the con-
stitutive relations between subject and object belong to the epistemological
domain—the subject, through her consciousness, constitutes the object. In the ethi-
cal context, however, the other is a constituted being, found “out there.”
In what sense is the other constituted? The answer to this question is a function
of what is meant by the constituting act. This act locates a raw datum (the other)
within an independent, existent epistemic scheme, and only this scheme endows the
raw datum with meaning and value. A similar mechanism is at work in the ethical
act: the other is “the datum” that exists “out there.” From the perspective of an ethic
of duty, however, the other does not create the duty that is imposed on me; instead,
I have to activate the conscious mechanisms by which I judge the duty toward the
other that is imposed on me. These mechanisms enable me to transcend the actual
manifestations of the other and locate her within the suitable moral context. The
other, then, is only the object of the duty, and her standing in the determination of
the duty depends on my previous network of meaning as a moral agent. The other’s
independence is not given a priori and is not imposed on the moral agent; instead, it
is constituted out of the categorical imperative and its justifications.
2
Immanuel Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. James W. Ellington (Indianapolis,
ID: Hackett, 1993), 36.
3
Ibid.
Introduction 3
According to this analysis, the ethic is correlated with our standard patterns of
knowledge. In both these realms, the subject-object relationship is ruled by a hier-
archical and asymmetrical network of meaning; in both these realms, the sovereign
subject enjoys a unique status that the object (even the human “object”) does not
have. In the ethical realm, this relationship is embodied in the attitude to the other
as a concrete entity. According to the original formulation of the categorical impera-
tive, the determination of the duty toward the other derives from the ability to gen-
eralize: “We must be able to will that a maxim of our action become a universal
law.”4 According to this formulation, which is characteristic of the ethic of duty, my
attitude toward the other is not exclusively determined by his situation—his con-
crete personality, his suffering, and his distress—but rather the opposite—I must
judge the other and his situation in light of the general legal system. In this sense,
my attitude to the other is only a representation of my attitude to all others. Her
uniqueness, if I cannot include her under a general principle, does not impose a
special duty on me. The victory of the principle of generality uproots something
essential from human existence because “the humanity” of each human being is not
only the universal foundation common to all but also, and mainly, the element that
differentiates them from one another. Uniqueness is what fixates them as concrete
individual entities.
Contrary to this ethic, which takes the active subject as its starting point, is an
ethic that begins with the unconditioned presence of the other. This ethic changes
the ethical domain. Henceforth, rather than the subject being the autonomous agent
who makes the other the object of her moral action, the other’s presence precedes
the constitutive act by breaking into the subject’s existence and imposing itself upon
it. I expand on this ethic in Chap. 3 below, and here I present only its basic assump-
tion—the other is an entity that is “for himself” rather than a perception in the sub-
ject’s primary conceptual network. The direction is the opposite: the other is the one
who imposes a duty on the subject, and in Levinas’ terms: “I analyze the inter-
human relationship as if … the face signifies an order in my regard; this is not the
manner in which an ordinary sign signifies its signified; this order is the very signi-
fyingness of the face.”5 According to Levinas, “the first word of the face is the ‘Thou
shalt not kill.’”6
In a more moderate formulation, in the context of an ethics of presence, “the
other” is the active being and “the self” is the activated one: the self can respond to
the other’s presence or refuse it. Whereas the standard ethic is based on the subject
and on her will and reason, an ethics of presence is based on the appearance of the
other. As shown in Chap. 3, Levinas describes this presence through a religious
term—epiphany, meaning the “revelation” of the other, which transcends the
scheme of subject-object relationships.
4
Ibid., 32.
5
Emmanuel Levinas, Ethics and Infinity: Conversations with Philippe Nemo, trans. Richard
A. Cohen (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 1985), 97–98.
6
Ibid., 89.
4 1 Introduction
The deep vulnerability of this ethic is its epistemology. It creates a phenomenol-

ogy of the other without a subject, that is, without an active judging being that
locates the other within his world. How can the other become “other,” a transcen-
dent entity, without an active subject? If the presence of the other has any typical
characteristics, if the other has a face that can be described, the traces of the describ-
ing and characterizing subject cannot be blurred! On the other hand, if the other is
not characterized and she is a “pure presence”—what is the ethical meaning of her
existence? Finally, how can any duty be constituted without an active subject who
assumes it?
These two ethics face one another, each leading to an aporia. On the one hand is
an ethic whose hero is the active subject, which turns the other into an object and
denies him an essential element of existence; on the other is an ethic whose hero is
the other, an ethic that grants no meaning to the subject, who appears as activated.
The former ethic is based on the conceptual framework that constitutes the duty and
the standing of the other, while the latter rests on the presence of the other first.
Whereas the former ethic is found lacking in its excessive abstraction and its
empowerment of the subject, the latter overstates the empowerment of the other and
fails to locate her presence within the subject’s conceptual framework, which is a
condition of all conscious activity.
This book will offer an intermediate position, making both subject and other
active and activated. It does support the view that the subject cannot be denied her
sovereignty and standing, which is a condition of any act of judgment and commit-
ment and, therefore, takes the subject’s primary standing as its starting point. It also
states, however, that this unique standing could create a hierarchy between the sub-
ject and the other and, therefore, assumes that the other does indeed transcend the
subject. This transcendence is not merely a moral demand but a clear, multifaceted
phenomenological datum. Epistemologically, the other is not fully known and
invariably contains a residue that cannot be exhausted, evident in his refusal to be
located as merely an object in the subject’s world. This permanent refusal is
expressed in the fact that all attempts to locate the other as object compel some kind
of violence toward him—silencing him, excluding him, looking away, or viewing
him as transparent. The other is as primary as the subject, but this primacy can be
manipulated due to the fundamental attribute of the subject as a constitutive entity.
The tension between these two poles—the subject and the other—can be solved
through the sovereign subject’s special quality: the subject can retreat into herself—
restrict and limit herself to enable the other’s presence to appear. This act of contrac-
tion expresses the subject’s sovereign character. As an active entity, he can direct his
activity toward himself and relocate himself. When he situates himself as an open
entity, attentive to what is present before him, the other’s presence is not an imposi-
tion; indeed, it conveys the subject’s openness toward the other and toward the tran-
scendent. The subject is the one who enables this presence. In the context of this
openness, the other is not “for me”; instead, the subject’s self-location as an open
entity conveys her readiness to accept what appears before her. This openness to
what is enables the appearance of the other and, no less so—the appearance of the
transcendent experience in general, of which the other’s manifestation is a part. This
Introduction 5
complex movement, described in detail below, is what I called “the ethic of inner
retreat” or “the ethic of self-retreat.”
The “retreat of the self” means that the sovereign retreats inwards, delays his
activity, and locates himself in a position of openness to the other, a stance that
compels him to attention, to self-criticism, and to constant reflection. The subject
locates herself in a position typical of self-consciousness: she is the subject as well
as the object of herself. She relates to herself, examines her activity, and retreats.
Since in her consciousness the subject is identical to the object, and since the con-
sciousness of self does not assume shape outside the subject’s real existence—criti-
cal reflection leads to practical results when the sovereign subject relocates himself,
restrains his tendency to view himself as the source and the justification of the moral
action, relates to the other, and is open to what appears before him.
The ethic of inner retreat, rather than a one-time movement, is an existential voy-
age that the subject takes upon himself as an active agent. Moreover, it is a tense
movement because the subject, who is not meant to renounce his active stance,
shifts back and forth within a space whose borders are determined by two contradic-
tory dangers: on the one hand, the danger of constituting the other, and on the other,
the danger of the “other” violently overpowering the subject.
This book traces the contours of inner retreat and attempts to rethink it through
its concrete performance in various realms, without seeking to offer a general theory
of it. Each chapter focuses on a specific area and outlines the dialectical movement
of inner retreat in various realms of life, with Chap. 3 presenting the core of the
thesis in greater detail.
This is a personal, though not a private, book. It is personal because it conveys
my prolonged reflection, as a real person, on my own concrete personal existence,
as a being in touch with what is beyond him. It is not private because its insights,
like insights generally, transcend the personal and suggest new possibilities. The
book was born from my ongoing conversation with colleagues and close partners
over many years—actual partners and texts behind which stand actual people. The
approaches formulated in this book were woven in the course of our encounters, and
readers are invited to join this exchange.
Living with the Other: The Ethic of Inner Retreat is devoted to the blessed mem-
ory of my illustrious teacher, Prof. Éliane Amado Levy-Valensi (Marseille
1919-Jerusalem 2006). Prof. Amado Levy-Valensi was an intellectual of uncommon
stature, a scholar with an international reputation, an inspiring teacher, and a radiant
personality who, in her many studies, combined different dimensions of philosophy,
psychoanalysis, and Judaism. Her Zionist commitment led her from a Sorbonne
cathedra to the philosophy department of Bar-Ilan University. It is from her I learned
the first chapters in the ethic of inner retreat, both at the existential personal level
and at the intellectual one, in her profound lectures on the history of philosophy. The
seeds of her rich thought are at the foundation of this book’s central theme and of
many of my other works. Her thought and her personality have continuously inspired
me as well as her many other students in Israel and in the world. This book is
devoted to her with deep thanks and appreciation for all that she bequeathed to my
wife Rivka and to me—her students.
Chapter 2
The Ethic of Compassion and the Ethic
of Justice
The sole ruler in the normative kingdom is the individual, the subject as moral
agent. The best realm for examining the standing of the individual is the practical-
ethical field of action. It is through action that the individual can concretize his
appearance as one who constitutes the suitable moral norm relying on his epistemic
autonomy. Action, however, is also the field where the self can retreat when faced
with the appearance of the other. In this chapter, I show that the difference between
these two appearances of the self comes forth in the difference between two types
of ethic: the ethic of justice and the ethic of compassion. Whereas the ethic of justice
realizes the sovereign control of the moral subject, who constitutes the field relying
on her normative considerations, the ethic of compassion epitomizes the subject’s
readiness to retreat and renounce his active and sovereign standing in favor of what
appears before his eyes—the suffering other.
The roots of the tension between the two types of ethics date back to Aristotle
who, in one of the classic and influential discussions on justice, drew a distinction
between justice and equity,1 and concluded that “justice and equity are not abso-
lutely identical, yet cannot be classified as different.”2 This conclusion led him to
wonder about the exact relationship between the two, since it is hard to assume that
equity is entirely different from justice—were it so, the result would be that “either
the just or the equitable is not good,” while “if both are good the difference does not
exist.”3 This puzzlement leads Aristotle to the following conclusion:
1
A previous version of sections of this chapter appears in Avi Sagi, Albert Camus and the
Philosophy of the Absurd, trans. Batya Stein (Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi, 2002), 159–172.
2
Aristotle, The Ethics of Aristotle: The Nicomachean Ethics, trans. J. A. K. Thomson
(Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1955), 166.
3
Ibid.
This chapter appeared in a Hebrew book titled Facing Others and Otherness: The Ethics of Inner
Retreat (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2012). The Hebrew title is Mul aherim ve-aherut: Etika
shel ha-nesigah ha-penimit.
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2018 7

A. Sagi, Living With the Other, Contributions To Phenomenology 99,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99178-8_2
8 2 The Ethic of Compassion and the Ethic of Justice
Equity, though a higher thing than one form of justice, is itself just and is not generically
different from justice. Thus, so far as both are good, they coincide, though equity is to be
preferred. What puzzles people is the fact that equity, though just, is not the justice of the law
courts but a method of restoring the balance of justice when it has been tilted by the law.4
Aristotle finds that generalization, the basic feature of legal justice, is problematic.
Rather than a random feature or a mistake, generalization is “in the nature of the
case”: legal justice is meant to apply equally to all those bound by it. But precisely
generalization is what could lead to injustice in individual cases, since “there are
cases which cannot be settled by a general statement.”5 According to Aristotle,
equity, which is a specific kind of justice, enables the correction of this flaw because
it enables us to renounce the law’s general character:
And equity essentially is just this rectification of the law, where the law has to be amplified
because of the general terms in which it has to be couched. This in fact is the reason why
everything is not regulated by law; it is because there are cases which no law can be framed
to cover and which can only be met by a special regulation. It is useless to apply a definite
yardstick to something indefinite …
We now see what equity is, and that it is just and superior to one kind of justice. And this
lets us also see clearly the nature of the equitable man. He is one who by deliberate choice
has taught himself the habit of doing equitable things, who is not a stickler for his rights to
the disadvantage of others but refrains from pressing his claims even when he has the law
on his side. It is a disposition of this kind which finds its expression in equity—equity
which we have just shown to be a species of justice and not a disposition of a different genus
altogether.6
The importance of these matters can hardly be overstated. These Aristotelian deter-
minations have, ever since, continuously challenged practical, moral, and legal
thought. They point to the need for more than one kind of justice so that justice itself
may be perfected and attained. Despite their importance, however, the transition
from legal to equitable justice remains vague. Ultimately, it rests upon the discretion
of the judge, of the legislating society, or of the individual demanding her legal
rights and, according to Aristotle’s formulation, this transition is entirely voluntary.
But what is this discretion founded upon? Does it rest on an arbitrary decision or
whim, or is it perhaps an epistemological mechanism serving to identify individual
injustices? Aristotle’s critics claimed that taking an individual injustice into account
could lead to a greater one—breaking the law to solve a local personal problem
could cause greater damage to the generality of the law and to its contribution.
Aristotle himself merely hints to it here, but evident in his words is a vague con-
sciousness of the need for another ethic that, rather than beginning from the general
and the abstract, takes the individual as its starting point, and rather than at the
generality of the law and the discourse of rights it enables, looks at the concrete and
the local. If legal justice erases the specific face of the other, equity actually begins
from the other’s face. In Levinas’ terms, equity is responsive to the basic demand
that follows from the look of the other.
4
Ibid.
5
Ibid., 167.
6
Ibid., 167–168.
The Ethic of Compassion 9
According to Aristotle, equity is another layer of justice. In the formulation that

I wish to suggest here, equity implies another opening in the attitude toward the
other. Fostering this disposition enables us to transcend the perspective of the law
when looking at the other and develop a different attitude toward her as one deserv-
ing respect, attention, and consideration. A disposition of equity could also lead to
the contraction and retreat of the self in order to make room for the other. It does not
compel a dialogue with the other, but its focus on the individual could shape a dif-
ferent relationship, beyond the bounds of justice. In many ways, such an attitude
complements justice but not in the sense that Aristotle had pointed out—changing
the disposition allows changing the field where human relationships are shaped.
Ethics regulates the attitude to the other and shows the way to the good life. In
this chapter, I redraw the boundaries of the ethical discourse,7 which includes both
justice and equity. I claim that this is not a field where one discourse is merely the
correction of the other, as Aristotle suggests, but a discourse the two ethics conduct
simultaneously as part of a complex dialectic relationship. The ethic of compassion
and the ethic of justice differ in the dispositions they shape and in the object of the
ethical action, and each one creates a different kind of political discourse as well.
The complex relationships between these two modes of discourse will be at the
center of the discussion.
The philosophical discussion tends to blur the borders between the two ethics
(and the two political discourses derived from them) with vague claims. The moral
field of discourse will be explicated by approaching these two ethics as modes of
discourse, each one organizing a world of meaning, attitudes, and orientation in the
world. Both are myths since both create and shape real life constructs around an
organizing concept: “compassion” or “justice.” This methodological framework,
focusing on the explication of the two modes of discourse, obviously includes their
implications for humans as moral agents. The confrontation between the two ethics
(and the two politics) that I present in the discussion is itself part of the explication
strategy. Their understanding will enable a new approach concerning the proper
relationship between them in the realm of moral practice, a matter taking up a great
deal of the discussion.
The Ethic of Compassion
What is compassion? Is it a worthy moral quality? What type of interpersonal dis-

course does compassion shape? A basic description of the quality of compassion
was given by Hermann Cohen, who developed his thought through the critique of a
view he ascribed to Benedict de Spinoza.8 Spinoza describes compassion as “sorrow
7
For an extensive analysis of the “discourse” concept, which projects on my use of it, see Sara
Mills, Discourse (London: Routledge, 1999).
8
In this chapter, I deal with the way that Hermann Cohen understood Spinoza. A rigorous reading
of Spinoza shows that Cohen ascribed to him views that are not his, but since I do not deal here
which springs from another’s loss.”9 Compassion, then, is a type of sadness, differ-
ent from other types of sadness because its cause is the negative plight of the other,
and thus an affection of the compassionate person. According to Cohen’s interpreta-
tion, compassion is an inner event that does not necessarily influence the real atti-
tude toward the suffering other, because in compassion we do not exceed the bounds
of our circumscribed being. If the compassionate person does mobilize into action
in favor of a troubled other, this will only be a random event rather than a result of
compassion’s basic structure.
Cohen claims that Spinoza—and the ensuing Kantian tradition, which I discuss
below—had failed to understand compassion. He shows that, according to Spinoza,
the antithesis of compassion is envy. In compassion, the individual senses the depri-
vation and grievance of the other, whereas in envy, the individual senses the other’s
excessive abundance: envy is “therefore nothing but hatred in so far as it is consid-
ered to dispose a man so that he rejoices over the evil and is saddened by the good
which befalls another.”10 The implication is that “compassion … stems from the
same source as envy,”11 since both are selfish attributes. Cohen, however, makes
another claim: “Just this, however, shows the abyss in his [Spinoza’s] thinking; he
does not see the chasm that exists between compassion and envy. This comparison
is only possible when one does not think about social suffering.”12 Cohen points to
the etymology of the word “compassion”: “suffering with” (mitleiden).13 Thus, the
compassionate person becomes a partner in the suffering of the object of compas-
sion. This matter that, as I show below, Kant understood well but did not interpret
properly, leads Cohen to claim that this partnership in suffering enables us to dis-
cover the other as a human being, contrary to the view of Spinoza—as Cohen under-
stood it—and of Kant in his wake, stating that compassion is only an affection.
Compassion denotes participation in “social suffering.” It deals with the other for
what she is in her concrete existence—a being wrapped in suffering and sorrow.
Contrary to Spinoza and his followers, who view compassion as a feeling concerned
with the actual feeling subject, his emotions and experiences, Cohen shows that,
phenomenologically, compassion is an attribute that turns to the other.
It merits note that, already in the eighteenth century, beside the classic view of
compassion as an affection, another view was widespread that presented c ompassion,
in Norman Fiering’s words, as “irresistible.”14 This view assumed that people feel
with the history of ideas, I will refrain from discussing the sources that influenced his
interpretation.
9
Benedict de Spinoza, Ethic, trans. W. Hale White and Amelia Hutchinson Stirling (London:
Oxford University Press, 1927), Schol., Prop. xxii, 125.
10
Spinoza, Ethic, Schol., Prop. xxiv, 127.
11
Hermann Cohen, Religion of Reason Out of the Sources of Judaism, trans. Simon Kaplan (New
York: Frederick Ungar, 1972), 140.
12
Ibid.
13
Ibid., 139. In my quotations from the English version of Cohen’s book, I changed from pity to
compassion the translation of the original German mitleiden.
14
Norman S. Fiering, “Irresistible Compassion: An Aspect of Eighteenth Century Sympathy and
Humanitarianism,” Journal of the History of Ideas 37 (1966), 195.
compassion for the suffering of others and are driven to action: the fact that the other
is suffering compels the one whose heart opens up to this suffering to act. The com-
passionate person cannot disregard this suffering, which is the other’s call to action.
Arthur Schopenhauer ascribes a crucial role to compassion in the development of
morality. Schopenhauer rejects the Kantian position, which assumes that abstract
rules or principles might guide moral behavior. He holds that, just as knowledge of
aesthetic rules and principles does not turn us into artists, neither will knowledge of
moral laws and rules turn us into moral creatures.15 According to Schopenhauer,
compassion, namely, a yearning for the other’s well-being,16 is a criterion for esti-
mating the value of a moral action: “only insofar as an action has sprung from
compassion does it have moral value, and every action resulting from any other
motive had none.”17 Morality is rooted in the individual’s actual being, held
Schopenhauer, and compassion fully reflects it.
Phenomenological analyses of compassion have been widespread since Hermann
Cohen, confirming the intuitions that various theoreticians had tried to formulate—
compassion awakens vis-à-vis the distress of the other, the object of compassion is
one specific other, compassion is a response to the other’s pain, sorrow, anguish, or
vulnerability. In the words of the Jewish biblical commentator Samuel David
Luzzato (Italy, 1800–1865): “The compassionate man identifies himself with the
suffering person and does not rest until he helps him, and alleviates his pain.”18
Compassion, then, is one of the emotions where the object is the other’s distress.19
But what is the relationship between the compassionate person and the object of
this compassion? In what way, if any, does this emotion differ from pity? Stefan
Zweig, in Beware of Pity, draws a distinction between two kinds of compassion:
One, the weak and sentimental kind, which is really no more than the heart’s impatience to
be rid as quickly as possible of the painful emotion aroused by the sight of another’s unhap-
piness, that pity which is not compassion, but only an instinctive desire to fortify one’s own
soul against the sufferings of another; and the other, the only kind that counts, the
unsentimental but creative kind, which knows what it is about and is determined to hold out,
in patience and forbearance to the very limit of its strength and even beyond.20
Latent in Zweig’s distinction is the difference between pity and compassion, and
also a suggested outline for the analysis of compassion. Compassion, as Adrian
15
On his view, see Arthur Schopenhauer, On the Basis of Morality, trans. E. F. Payne (Indianapolis,
ID: Bobbs Merril, 1965), 187–198.
16
Ibid., 145.
17
Ibid., 144.
18
Samuel David Luzzato, “The Foundations of the Torah,” in Studies in Torah Judaism: Luzzato’s
Ethico-Psychological Interpretation of Judaism, ed. Noah H. Rosenbloom (New York: Yeshiva
University, 1965), 157. Hermann Cohen may have been influenced by Luzzato’s analysis. Note
that, like Schopenhauer, Luzzato too viewed compassion as a constitutive component of moral
action, and his definition of compassion is close to that of Cohen in Religion of Reason, 162.
19
See also Lawrence Blum, “Compassion,” in The Virtues: Contemporary Essays on Moral
Character, ed. Robert B. Kruschwitz and Robert B. Roberts (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1987),
230; Nancy E. Snow, “Compassion,” American Philosophical Quarterly, 28 (1991) 195–196.
20
Stefan Zweig, Beware of Pity, trans. Phyllis and Trevor Blewitt (London: Cassell, 1953), 209.
Piper indicates, involves three elements: (1) Empathic understanding of the other’s
condition. Although still passive, this understanding is only the beginning of the
opening up to the other. (2) A sense of suffering resembling that sensed by the
object of compassion resting on sympathy and drawing together the object of com-
passion and the compassionate person in a way that transcends processes of cogni-
tive understanding. (3) A change in the disposition of the compassionate person
from neutrality to action. From this analysis, Piper derives three components of
compassion: a cognitive, an affective, and a conative component.21 All three denote
stages in the process of increasing identification between the compassionate person
and the object of compassion, which eliminate the distance between them: from a
deep understanding of the other’s suffering, through identification with this suffer-
ing and a sense of partnership in it,22 up to the translation of this identification into
real action.
What enables this identification is the imagination.23 Compassion requires the
compassionate person to vividly envisage the sufferer’s plight, and we can feel com-
passion for the other enduring a pain we have never experienced. Compassion, then,
is not based on a shared experience but on imagination, through which the compas-
sionate person senses that the suffering other is a human creature, a partner to
human existence and its hardships.24
The view that compassion is not based on the compassionate person’s experi-
ences was clearly formulated by Cohen. In his view, Schopenhauer’s mistake was
precisely his perception of compassion as an expansion of the self: “Compassion
should only reveal to me that the other is rather myself. Therefore if I have compas-
sion for him, I have it rather for myself.”25 This misunderstanding of compassion is
a result of Schopenhauer’s view of it as a kind of affect, whose end is the self. Cohen
notes in this regard: “Every metaphysical and ethical misunderstanding of compas-
sion originates in the erroneous view that compassion is only reflexive and is only
incited in and by myself.”26
When feeling compassion, we transcend our boundaries and experience the suf-
fering of the other. Compassion is an opening up to the other and her distress, and
its emergence marks a deep transformation in our self-identity: from a creature
narcissistically constituted by the self and through the self to one constituted by a
profound experience of partnership. The compassionate subject identifies with the
other’s pain, recognizing it as an expression of human vulnerability that could affect
every human being at any time.27 Compassion is thus a change in the basic disposi-
tion of human beings toward themselves. It exposes our membership in the broader
21
Adrian M. S. Piper, “Impartiality, Compassion, and Moral Imagination,” Ethics 101 (1991), 743.
22
Snow, “Compassion,” 197–199.
23
Blum, “Compassion,” 231–232. On the imagination as a mediating mechanism in the relation-
ship with the other, see below.
24
Ibid.
25
Cohen, Religion of Reason, 140.
26
Ibid., 142.
27
Snow, “Compassion,” 197–199.
human community and the fact that the self is not only a subject for whom the other
is an object. The self is being with the other—both are subjects and, more precisely,
living beings.28 In this sense, compassion is not merely an act of the imagination; it
is not based on the random ability to imagine the situation of others and identify
with them but on the transparent recognition that shared human existence is vulner-
able and unsafe. An impressive indication of this recognition is found in Literature
or Life, a dramatic account of Jorge Semprún’s experiences in Buchenwald. Faced
with the death of his companions, he writes:
The look in my companions’ eyes, no matter how fraternal (because it was, on the whole),
reflected the image of death. Death was the substance of our brotherhood, the key to our
destiny, the sign of our membership in the community of the living. Together we lived that
experience of death, that compassion. This defined our being: to be with one another as
death advanced upon us … All we who were going to die had chosen the fraternity of this
death through a love of freedom.29
Semprún is indeed describing an extreme and atypical human existence, but it is

precisely on the edge of destruction that the character of human existence becomes
clear and transparent. Facing the terror of death, the companions turn to one another
with a look of compassion.
All the elements of compassion are evident in the redefinition of the partners to
the relationship—the compassionate subject and the object of compassion—as
human creatures. Cohen holds that compassion plays a crucial role in the constitu-
tion of the attitude toward the other:
Compassion is so little reflexive from the other man back to the self that, rather, the other
man, who supposedly merely drives me back to myself, and who until now counts only as
the next man and does not yet exist as the fellowman, is to be created through compassion
as the fellowman.30
Compassion leads to changes in the perception of the other. Before compassion, the
other had been an undefined, random entity.31 Through compassion, the other
becomes a “thou,” a concrete human creature with a unique face. This transforma-
tion takes place through the feeling of compassion that directs one to the other’s real
pain, an actual pain implanted in a concrete world. Simultaneously, the other’s
transformation into a fellow—and in Cohen’s view, because of it32—the compas-
sionate person is reconstituted: compassion toward the other’s pain and her concrete
existence redirect me to my concrete being:
If now, however, through suffering and compassion, the Thou in man is discovered, then the
I may reappear liberated from the shadow of selfishness. Furthermore, even one’s own suf-
fering need not now be accepted with plain indifference. To have compassion with one’s
own suffering does not have to be simply inert and fruitless sentimentality. Corporeality
28
Alan R. Drengson, “Compassion and Transcendence of Duty and Inclination,” Philosophy Today
25 (1981), 39.
29
Jorge Semprún, Literature or Life, trans. Linda Coverdale (New York: Viking, 1997), 24.
30
31
Ibid., 16–19.
32
Ibid., 19–20.
belongs, as matters stand, to the soul of the individual and the soul is neglected when the
affliction of the body is neglected. Humanity requires consideration for one’s own
suffering.33
Compassion makes human beings aware of their circumscribed corporeal existence,

brings them down from the rarefied heights of abstract universal duties, and returns
them to the temporal historical circumstances of their lives. Compassion is no lon-
ger one feeling among many. It constitutes a renewed humanity in which concrete
human creatures turn to one another out of understanding and identification, willing
to commit themselves to action in the concrete world. Compassion restrains the pas-
sion for a solely metaphysical understanding of suffering and pain and redirects
each one of us to assume actual responsibility for our own and the other’s existence.
It reveals humans to one another anew, as partners to concrete human existence.
A fuller understanding of the interpersonal relationships shaped by compassion
requires a renewed analysis of the relationship between pity and compassion. As I
show below, Kant and his followers did not differentiate at all between them. Kant
even assumed that compassion/pity leads to unworthy relationships because it
exposes the hierarchical ties between the compassionate or pitying person and the
one in need of such feelings. This hierarchy is indeed found in pity and is actually
an essential feature of it. Don’t Expect Miracles offers an illuminating literary
expression in the monolog of a woman who is an object of pity:
But when they see you’re finished, their hearts become heavy, their hearts become black. So
what do they do to lighten their hearts again? They pour their pity on your head. A bucket
of water from the end of the mopping, black water, that is their pity. Now that they’ve
poured their pity on you, their heart is clean again. Sparkling clean! Shining from their
thinking how good they are. And you? What’s with you? You stand there, soaked to your
bones, and dirty too, from their black water.34
Zweig, however, was right. Compassion is not the same as pity, and Blum points to
several differences between them.35 First, compassion leads to the acknowledgment
of a basic human equality because it is predicated on our equal vulnerability to the
possibility of suffering, whereas pity perpetuates the inferiority of the object of pity
while uplifting the one generously granting favors. Without the empathy and sym-
pathy present in compassion, pity is founded on the mutual distance between the
parties. Another literary expression of this distinction appears in Yosef Haim
Brenner’s novel Misaviv la-Nekudah, where he traces the inner musings of
Abramson, the protagonist:
Since he had come to live in these poor quarters, Abramson began relating to everyone
closely and tenderly, himself unaware of how much this closeness was compassion and
identification with the sorrow of the heavy burden borne by these people, and how much of
it was scorn and condescension for all their concerns and values.36
33
Ibid., 19.
34
Sara Shiloh, Don’t Expect Miracles (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2006), 17 [Heb].
35
Blum, “Compassion,” 233.
36
Yosef Haim Brenner, Writings, vol. 1 (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1978–1985), 435–436
[Heb].
Brenner clearly separates compassion and the shared sorrow that brings the com-
passionate person and the object of his compassion close together from the feeling
of pity that conveys distance between them.
Second, pity rests on an explicit or implicit assumption whereby people in need
of it have brought their misfortune upon themselves through their ill-considered
actions, or by failing to prevent their misery in time, or because they deserved what
befell them. Pity is often accompanied by a negative judgment or by an accusation.
Both sides assume that the misfortune afflicting the object of pity is not wholly
unfair; indeed, pity goes beyond the requirement of justice.37
Compassion, by contrast, instead of a judgmental act that locates the object of
compassion in the depths of her affliction, is an act of participation and identifica-
tion with the sufferer in his pain, in a recognition that precludes accusations: “The
book of guilt must be destroyed … the question of guilt … cannot be considered in
this connection, because thereby the discovery of the fellow man would be missed.”38
Accusing the suffering other is an attempt to justify his pain, which allows us to
disengage and remain indifferent. Compassion is radically different—it involves a
partnership of understanding and identification, and entails no blame.
Third, pity is a passing, episodic feeling attuned to affections, whereas compas-
sion, because it is based on participation and identification with its object, is char-
acterized by the continuity of the feeling and the ensuing corrective action.39 The
episodic nature of pity comes forth in the fact that feelings of pity and brutality
toward the same person can be concurrent, “they can coexist in the same individual
and in the same moment, despite all logic.”40 Compassion, by contrast, dismisses the
possibility of cruelty, since it is based on a view of the other as one in whose suffer-
ing we share and with whom we feel solidarity.
In addition to the differences between compassion and pity noted by Blum, two
other differences follow from the essence of compassion. The first is that compas-
sion is directed toward a specific person experiencing a particular pain. It is
constituted in a particular situation. Compassion emerges in response to the demand
posed by the sufferer’s plight and according to her unique circumstances. It assumes
the other is an individual and, therefore, neither rests on nor strives for generaliza-
tion. Pity, however, rests on affections evoked by the pain of the other while blurring
the sufferer’s concrete specific pain, and thus his individual character. Pity can
therefore easily shift from one sufferer to another without the one who feels it sens-
ing it poses any specific demand because it is prompted by the experience of the one
37
On this matter, see George W. Rainbolt, “Mercy: An Independent, Imperfect Virtue,” American
Philosophical Quarterly, 27 (1990), 169.
38
39
For further discussion of the distinctions between pity and compassion and their implications for
interpersonal relations, see Aaron Ben-Ze’ev, The Subtlety of Emotions (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 2000), ch. 11.
40
Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved, trans. Raymond Rosenthal (London: Michael Joseph,
1988), 39.
who feels pity rather than by the pain of the sufferer. Pity, therefore, tends to
generalization.41
The second difference is that compassion is not sentimental, “not with bathos,”42
and does not express itself in words. According to Hannah Arendt, compassion is
not “talkative and argumentative,”43 since it is chiefly manifest in action.
Luc Boltanski rightfully concluded that pity is articulated through the distance
between the sufferer and the agent. Pity is based on a distant perspective, which
clearly distinguishes the parties from one another, while compassion minimizes the
gap, creating closeness and cooperation between the compassionate person and the
sufferer.44
Compassion lays the ground for what can be called the “ethic of suffering” or the
“ethic of compassion,”45 which is founded on several elements:
1. Acknowledging the existence of concrete human suffering, which cannot be
denied through cultural-sociological or metaphysical explanations.46
2. A persistent refusal to accept the existence of suffering and a recognition of the
human duty to engage in an intermittent struggle against it. The ethic of suffering
accepts that there are no metamorphoses in reality. Utopia is not a constitutive
element driving the purpose of the moral action, and the amendment of reality is
always piecemeal, localized, and hence ongoing.
3. The knowledge that the struggle to amend the world could fail: “If man loses a
battle from time to time and evil triumph over him, he must bear defeat with
dignity and humility.”47 Humility is a quality usually missing among those who
dream of mending the world and creating a utopia, of being God and creating a
new world without human failures. This absence of humility often serves to trig-
ger the ethic of justice, which I discuss below. The ethic of compassion means a
return to humility, and thus to typical human ways – amendment, development,
and continuous struggle, instead of a new creation. Bearing defeat with dignity
is humility’s complementary feature. Defeat after relentless effort attests to the
uniqueness of the human creature, bound to fail but also able to overcome failure
and return to the Sisyphean struggle against evil.
4. Hope, as evinced in the very turn to the future in an attempt to reshape reality and
in the belief that reality can be amended. This hope, however, is not synonymous
with the Kantian postulate assuming an ideal world where moral good equals
41
Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1990), 85–89.
42
Semprún, Literature or Life, 42.
43
Arendt, On Revolution, 86.
44
Luc Boltanski, Distant Suffering: Morality, Media, and Politics, trans. Graham Burchell
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 3–7.
45
Ibid., 4–5; Joseph B. Soloveitchik, “A Halakhic Approach to Suffering,” in Out of the Whirlwind:
Essays on Mourning, Suffering and the Human Condition, ed. David Shatz, Joel B. Wolowelsky,
and Reuven Ziegler (Hoboken, NJ: Ktav, 2003), 86.
46
Ibid.
47
Ibid., 103.
happiness.48 The ethic of compassion is not part of a general plan for redeeming
the world. It does look to the future, but to a possible, immediate and concrete
future, which is closely linked to the concrete fragile reality.
5. Absolute human responsibility for the surrounding reality. This responsibility
replaces the yearning to transcend the present reality, which is a key feature of a
utopian outlook. This absolute responsibility for the surrounding concrete reality
implies an understanding that this reality is the totality of existence and human
beings, who are “thrown” into it, are doomed to remain in it. Assuming respon-
sibility means changing our basic disposition toward the world and accepting
that, since we exist as concrete entities, the organization and regulation of reality
become our concern. This absolute responsibility is embodied in our attitude
toward ourselves as well as to the other, diverting us from metaphysical specula-
tion and imaginary constructs to the practice of everyday life.
6. This ethic compels what Alain Badiou called “fidelity to the event,”49 a fidelity
inspired by the recognition of every situation that involves the moral agent as
unique. For example, a doctor is faithful to the uniqueness of the event
only if he deals with the situation according to the rule of maximum possibility—to treat
this person who demands treatment of him … as thoroughly as he can, using everything
he knows and with all the means at his disposal, without taking anything else into
consideration … For to be faithful to this situation means: to treat it right to the limit of
the possible. Or, if you prefer: to draw from this situation, to the greatest possible extent,
the affirmative humanity that it contains. Or again: to try to be the immortal of this
situation.50
The antithesis of “fidelity to the event” is the perception of the specific, concrete
event in a wider setting. The uniqueness of the event is denied when it becomes a
vague manifestation or a statistical event in a broader context. “Fidelity to the
event” breaks down the generalization constructs. The ethic of compassion focuses
on the specific concrete event of a single pain, without assuming it is shallow or
locating it in a broader framework. Fidelity to the event of suffering is a resound-
ing no to its presence in existence, under all circumstances and in all situations.
7. Finally, this ethic addresses the other as a real individual being and approaches
human communities as concrete entities that should not be hidden behind some
veil of ignorance. The ethic of suffering is an ethic of concrete pain and distress.
Hence, its source is not in concepts of duty or abstract ideas but in the demand
ensuing from the true reality of a suffering other. Human pain provides the deci-
sive justification for action, and even encourages it. Seeking motivations for
action in a metaphysical idea rather than in actual reality implies, in Rousseau’s
terms, “to make a man a philosopher before making him a man.”51 Human beings
48
Immanuel Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, trans. Lewis White Beck (New York: The Liberal
Arts Press, 1956), 128–136.
49
Alain Badiou, Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil, trans. Peter Hallward (London/
New York: Verso, 2001), 40–44.
50
Ibid., 15.
51
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The First and Second Discourses, trans. Roger D. Masters and Judith
R. Masters (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1964), 96.
are moved to act, above all, by compassion, care, and a sense of responsibility
toward concrete human beings around them.
The Ethic of Compassion and the Ethic of Care
The ethic of compassion is close to the ethic of care that Carol Gilligan presents in
her influential book In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s
Development.52 Gilligan points to two perspectives that shape the moral discourse:
justice and care. The perspective of care is founded on a personal relationship and
on interpersonal communication rather than on the legal, objective, and rational
system that characterizes a perspective of justice. In her earlier work, Gilligan sug-
gested a gender division between the two perspectives: women tend to use a care
perspective while men use a perspective of justice. Later, however, Gilligan at times
perceives this division as one that crosses gender boundaries.53
The ethic of care is based on the personal aspect. Contrary to the ethic of justice,
it relies on personal and interpersonal relationships. This ethic is contextual and
concrete since it is always founded on existent personal relations—rather than con-
stituting these relations, it rests upon them.54
From a meta-ethical viewpoint, the ethic of care rests on the assumption that the
individual’s sense of selfhood is constituted and conditioned by the other. It is
thereby opposed to the ethos of autonomy claiming that humans are creatures who
function as legislators independent of the other.55 The ontology and the epistemol-
ogy shaping this ethic are entirely different from those that shape the ethic of jus-
tice, which is based on an ontology of the autonomous subject for whom the other
is the “object” of moral action.56
Although this concise discussion may create the impression that the ethic of
compassion is identical to the ethic of care, I claim that, despite the similarities
between them, the differences are clear. The ethic of care, as formulated by Gilligan
and her followers, is based on a long-standing personal relationship, whereas the
ethic of compassion is based on the presence of the suffering facing the compas-
sionate person before discovering the sufferer as a fellow. The fundamental
assumption of the ethic of care is only one of the options that follow from an atti-
52
Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982).
53
Marilyn Friedman, “Feminism in Ethics: Conceptions of Autonomy,” in Cambridge Companion
to Feminism in Philosophy, ed. Miranda Fricker and Jennifer Hornsby (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2000), 205–224. See also Gilligan, In a Different Voice.
54
Alison M. Jaggar, “Feminist Ethics: Some Issues for the Nineties,” Journal of Social Philosophy
1–2 (1989): 91–107; Joan C. Tronto, “Beyond Gender Difference to a Theory of Care,” Signs:
Journal of Women in Culture and Society 12 (1987): 644–663; Friedman, “Feminism in Ethics,”
208–209.
55
Jaggar, “Feminist Ethics.”
56
Jean P. Rumsey, “Justice, Care, and Questionable Dichotomies,” Hypatia 12 (1997), 100–101.
The Ethic of Justice 19
tude of compassion. The ethic of compassion provides an opportunity for shaping

an interpersonal relationship but does not assume its existence. The compassionate
person meets the face of the suffering other before meeting the other’s full exis-
tence. By contrast, in the ethic of care, the face of the sufferer appears after he has
been approached as a concrete person in the specific context of a relationship.
Whereas the ethic of care does not strive to transcend pre-existent interpersonal
relations, in the ethic of compassion based on the presence of suffering (even when
the suffering has an address since suffering is personal) compassion does not address
only a specific person. Preventing the sufferer’s pain is the essence of compassion
and may prevail wherever human suffering is found. In this sense, the ethic of com-
passion is broader and more powerful than the ethic of care, which is merely one
manifestation of the ethic of compassion.
Hence, when mapping out the three ethics, the ethic of justice and the ethic of
care are clearly on two opposite poles, whereas the ethic of compassion is some-
where in between. The ethic of care conveys an attitude that, by nature, is personal
rather than general and therefore opposed to justice. Compassion, by contrast, does
not begin at the level of personal relations; it responds to a demand posed by the
other’s suffering, which is not necessarily personal. This suffering could be medi-
ated more easily by justice than by a personal relationship between two human
entities.
The Ethic of Justice
My analysis of the ethic of justice takes as its starting point Kant’s critical approach
and the ensuing Kantian tradition on compassion and the ethic of compassion.
According to Kant, compassion cannot, due to its character, be a basis for moral-
ity—morality must be derived from objective rational principles and feelings, such
as compassion, are subjective. Hence, they cannot be a basis for stable moral activ-
ity and for a universally valid system:
Morals themselves are liable to all kinds of corruption as long as the guide and supreme
norm for correctly estimating them are missing. For in the case of what is to be morally
good, that it conforms to the moral law is not enough; it must also be done for the sake of
the moral law. Otherwise that conformity is only very contingent and uncertain, since the
non-moral ground may now and then produce actions that conform with the law but quite
often produces actions that are contrary to the law.57
Kant assumes that a universal formulation is the basic construct of morality. In his
view, the qualities that by nature are not based on a universal duty suffer from two
main flaws. First, they are random and unstable—a person can be compassionate
but can also remain indifferent to the other’s sorrow. The feeling of compassion is
not solidly established in human existence and, just as it appeared, it can also
57
Immanuel Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. James W. Ellington
(Indianapolis, ID: Hackett, 1981), 3.
disappear. Like any feeling, it is characterized by variations and fluidity. Second,

non-rational reasons ultimately rest on selfish foundations. When we act moved by
compassion, we do not acknowledge a duty toward the other but act out of “some
selfish purpose.”58 In a sharp formulation, Kant argues that, when moved by feel-
ings, “we everywhere come upon the dear self, which is always turning up, and
upon which the intent of our actions is based rather than upon the strict command of
duty (which would often require self-denial).”59
Feelings based on affections, then, ultimately convey a focus on the self, who is
both the subject and the object of the feeling. For instance, the true object of com-
passion is the self, who senses sadness. Although this feeling may at times lead to
action, this concentration on ourselves may often lead us to behave in immoral
ways.
Kant does not deny that some individuals have an inclination to be caring due to
a naturally compassionate nature. Yet, he argues that, in principle, this inclination is
not ethically preferable to the inclination for honor, since it lacks the foundation that
makes this act ethical – acting out of duty instead of out of an inclination.60 Only
actions motivated by duty override the subjective element and endow action with
moral value.
Kant is aware of the repeated scriptural enjoinments to love our neighbor,61
meaning that Scripture imposes a duty to foster natural inclinations toward love and
compassion, but he rejects this interpretation:
Love as an inclination cannot be commanded; but beneficence from duty, when no inclina-
tion impels us and even when a natural and unconquerable aversion opposes such benefi-
cence, is practical, and not pathological, love. Such love resides in the will and not in the
propensities of feeling, in principles of action and not in tender sympathy; and only this
practical love can be commanded.62
Beyond this general critique of inclinations, Kant formulates a specific critique of

compassion:
In fact, when another suffers and, although I cannot help him, I let myself be infected by his
pain (through my imagination), then two of us suffer, though the trouble really (in nature)
affects only one. But there cannot possibly be a duty to increase the ills in the world and so
to do good from compassion [mitleid]. This would also be an insulting kind of beneficence,
since it expresses the kind of benevolence one has toward someone unworthy, called pity;
and this has no place in people’s relations with one another, since they are not to make a
display of their worthiness to be happy.63
Kant points out several flaws in compassion. First, it increases anguish and sorrow
in the world since not only does the other suffer but so does the one who has
58
Ibid., 10.
59
Ibid., 20.
60
Ibid., 11.
61
See, in particular, Matthew 5:44–48; 22: 37–39; Mark 12:30, and ff.
62
Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics, 12.
63
Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, trans. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1996), 205 (emphasis in original).
The Ethic of Justice 21
compassion for the sufferer; second, it fixates the inferiority of the object of com-
passion, thereby leading to unworthy human relationships.
Friedrich Nietzsche was influenced by this critique of Kant and, in his resolute
fashion, reformulated the conclusions that follow from the Kantian position:
Pity a squandering of feeling, a parasite harmful to moral health, “it cannot possibly be our
duty to increase the evil in the world.” If one does good merely out of pity, it is oneself one
really does good to, and not the other. Pity does not depend upon maxims but upon affects;
it is pathological. The suffering of others infects us, pity is an infection.64
Compassion, according to both Kant and Nietzsche, is a participation in the sorrow

and suffering of the other (mitleiden). Both of them hold that this participation fol-
lows from an affection, from the other’s conquest of the self—the other is active and
the self is activated. According to Nietzsche, compassion is an attempt to be liber-
ated from this conquest by removing its cause—the other. Humans act as heterono-
mous creatures, ruled by the other, and Nietzsche rejects this approach:
A higher stage [beyond following one’s feelings] is: to overcome this pressure within us and
to perform a heroic act not on impulse—but coldly, raisonnable … The same applies to
compassion: it must first be habitually sifted by reason; otherwise it is just as dangerous as
any other affect. Blind indulgence of an affect, totally regardless of whether it be a generous
and compassionate or a hostile affect, is the cause of the greatest evils. Greatness of charac-
ter does not consist in not possessing these affects—on the contrary, one possesses them to
the highest degree—but in having them under control.65
Kant and the ensuing Kantian tradition thus set up a dichotomy between actions
driven by natural inclinations and feelings and actions driven by the acknowledg-
ment of a moral duty, the only ones possessing moral value since they transcend
situations and affections and reflect the individual’s action as sovereign. Ultimately,
the critique of compassion rests on assumptions about the meaning of morality and
of moral duty.
Note that, for Kant, the object of the moral obligation is not a concrete unique
being but all human beings, who deserve respect because of their intrinsic value as
rational creatures. Kantian love of the other, then, is love for an abstract entity.
When I love, I am unaware of the unique face of the object of my love, whom I love
as a human being but not as a specific, particular creature. In fact, duty demands that
I dismiss the other’s concrete subjectivity. Similarly, when I love out of duty, I do
not love as a concrete, specific entity but as a rational being. The interpersonal rela-
tionship created through duty is alienating and alienated from the partners’ concrete
being.66 These formulations are an accurate portrayal of what I have called here the
“ethic of justice.”
The ethic of compassion is an ethic of virtue and the basic question it answers
is—what is the good character worth shaping and, more generally, what is a worthy
64
Nietzsche, The Will to Power, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale (New York: Vintage
Books, 1968), 2:368.
65
Ibid., 4:928.
66
See also Drengson, “Compassion and Transcendence,” 38–41.
life? The ethic of justice answers an entirely different question: what is worth doing?
What are the principles that moral action should be founded upon?
This ethic is based, above all, on the moral agent overriding personal inclinations
and acting as an autonomous sovereign. Nietzsche, who was extremely critical of
compassion, argues that this is the supreme rule of normative action. He views it as
a general formal principle, lacking any content, which molds the normative
evaluation:
Much that was called good by this people was called scorn and disgrace by another …
Never did one neighbor understand the other: always his soul was amazed at his neighbor’s
delusion and malice. A tablet of the good hangs over every people. Observe, it is the tablet
of their overcomings; observe, it is the voice of their will to power.67
The ethic of justice is therefore driven by the recognition that individuals must over-
come their personal inclinations and preferences to make the worthy and just their
main concern, a demand evident in the distance this requires from the person. Even
when individuals are driven by deep care, in the context of the ethic of justice their
commitment requires distance. Jane Flax formulates this demand as follows:
Thus justice calls upon a quality of care that arises out of a sense of connectedness and
obligation to others. We must be able to imagine vividly the (potential) experiences of con-
crete others and yet sometimes distance ourselves from them, to think about the more
abstract needs of the collectivity as a whole.68
Flax holds that justice requires distance from the other, who is the addressee of the
act of justice. Her analysis takes into account that the ethic of justice draws a clear
distinction between the motivation for action, which may flow from the depths of
the personality, and the principles of action and justifications of this ethic, which are
based on distance from the other. Without this distance, justice cannot be realized, a
matter that Aristotle had already emphasized:
For in corrective justice it is all one whether a good man has cheated a bad or a bad man a
good, whether a good man has committed adultery or a bad. The law never looks beyond
the question, “What damage was done?” and it treats the parties involved as equals.69
What are the elements of this distance from the personal? Above all, the principle of
generalization. Action founded on the ethic of justice must assume that any action
toward a concrete entity or entities can be generalized to any human being. The
specific features of people’s faces, their identity, character, and specific circum-
stances are precisely those things that should be ignored. The ethic of justice is an
ethic of non-discrimination and, therefore, strives for generalization—its principles
of action are valid for all.
67
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None, trans. Adrian Del Caro
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 42.
68
Jane Flax, “Beyond Equality: Gender, Justice and Difference,” in Beyond Equality and Difference:
Citizenship, Feminist Politics, and Female Subjectivity, ed. Gisela Bock and Susan James (London:
Routledge, 1992), 206.
69
Aristotle, Ethics, 148. See also John Rawls, Theory of Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1973), 22: “We need a conception that enables us to envision our objective from afar.”
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CHAPTER II.
REPTON (HISTORICAL). THE PLACE-NAME
REPTON, &c.
The first mention of Repton occurs in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,

under the year 755. Referring to “the slaughter” of King Ethelbald,
King of Mercia, one out of the six MSS. relates that it happened “on
Hreopandune,” “at Repton”; the other five have “on Seccandune,” “at
Seckington,” near Tamworth. Four of the MSS. spell the name
“Hrepandune,” one “Hreopadune,” and one “Reopandune.”
Under the year 874, when the Danes came from Lindsey,
Lincolnshire, to Repton, “and there took winter quarters,” four of the
MSS. spell the name “Hreopedune,” one “Hreopendune.” Again,
under the year 875, when they left, having destroyed the Abbey and
the town, the name is spelt “Hreopedune.” The final e represents the
dative case. In Domesday Book it is spelt “Rapendune,”
“Rapendvne,” or “Rapendvn.” In later times, among the various ways
of spelling the name, the following occur:—Hrypadun, Rypadun,
Rapandun, Rapindon, Rependon, Repindon, Repingdon, Repyndon,
Repington, Repyngton, Ripington, Rippington, &c., and finally
Repton; the final syllable ton being, of course, a corruption of the
ancient dun or don.
Now as to the meaning of the name. There is no doubt about the
suffix dun, which was adopted by the Anglo-Saxons from the Celts,
and means a hill, and was generally used to denote a hill-fortress,
stronghold, or fortified place. As to the meaning of the prefix
“Hreopan,” “Hreopen,” or “Repen,” the following suggestions have
been made:—(1) “Hreopan” is the genitive case of a Saxon proper
name, “Hreopa,” and means Hreopa’s hill, or hill-fortress. (2)
“Hropan or Hreopan,” a verb, “to shout,” or “proclaim”; or a noun,
“Hrop,” “clamour,” or “proclamation,” and so may mean “the hill of
shouting, clamour, or proclamation.” (3) “Repan or Ripan,” a verb, “to
reap” or a noun, “Rep, or Rip,” a harvest, “the hill of reaping or
harvest.” (4) “Hreppr,” a Norse noun for “a village,” “a village on a
hill.” (5) “Ripa,” a noun meaning “a bank,” “a hill on a bank,” of the
river Trent, which flows close to it.
The question is, which of these is the most probable meaning?
The first three seem to suit the place and position. It is a very
common thing for a hill or place to bear the name of the owner or
occupier. As Hreopandun was the capital of Mercia, many a council
may have been held, many a law may have been proclaimed, and
many a fight may have been fought, with noise and clamour, upon its
hill, and, in peaceful times, a harvest may have been reaped upon it,
and the land around. As regards the two last suggestions, the arrival
of the Norsemen, in the eighth century, would be too late for them to
name a place which had probably been in existence, as an important
town, for nearly two centuries before they came.
The prefix “ripa” seems to favour a Roman origin, but no proofs of
a Roman occupation can be found. If there are any, they lie hid
beneath that oblong enclosure in a field to the north of Repton, near
the banks of the river Trent, which Stebbing Shaw, in the
Topographer (Vol. II., p. 250), says “was an ancient colony of the
Romans called ‘Repandunum.’” As the name does not appear in any
of the “Itineraries,” nor in any of the minor settlements or camps in
Derbyshire, this statement is extremely doubtful. Most probably the
camp was constructed by the Danes when they wintered there in the
year 874. The name Repandunum appears in Spruner and Menke’s
“Atlas Antiquus” as a town among the Cornavii (? Coritani), at the
junction of the Trent and Dove!
So far as to its name. Now we will put together the various
historical references to it.
“This place,” writes Stebbing Shaw, (O.R.), in the Topographer,
Vol. II., p. 250, “was an ancient colony of the Romans called
Repandunum, and was afterwards called Repandun, (Hreopandum,)
by the Saxons, being the head of the Mercian kingdom, several of
their kings having palaces here.”
“Here was, before a.d. 600, a noble monastery of religious men
and women, under the government of an Abbess, after the Saxon
Way, wherein several of the royal line were buried.”
As no records of the monastery have been discovered we cannot
tell where it was founded or by whom. Penda, the Pagan King of
Mercia, was slain by Oswiu, king of Northumbria, at the battle of
Winwadfield, in the year 656, and was succeeded by his son Peada
who had been converted to Christianity, by Alfred brother of Oswiu,
and was baptized, with all his attendants, by Finan, bishop of
Lindisfarne, at Walton, in the year 632. (Matt. Paris, Chron. Maj.)
After Penda’s death, Peada brought from the north, to convert
Mercia, four priests, Adda, Betti, Cedda brother of St. Chad, and
Diuma, who was consecrated first bishop of the Middle Angles and
Mercians by Finan, but only ruled the see for two years, when he
died and was buried “among the Middle Angles at Feppingum,”
which is supposed to be Repton. In the year 657 Peada was slain “in
a very nefarious manner, during the festival of Easter, betrayed, as
some say, by his wife,” and was succeeded by his brother Wulphere.
Tanner, Notitia, f. 78; Leland, Collect., Vol. II., p. 157; Dugdale,
Monasticon, Vol. II., pp. 280-2, all agree that the monastery was
founded before 660, so Peada, or his brother Wulphere could have
been its founder.
The names of several of the Abbesses have been recorded.
Eadburh, daughter of Ealdwulf, King of East Anglia. Ælfthryth
(Ælfritha) who received Guthlac, (see p. 12). Wærburh (St.
Werburgh) daughter of King Wulphere. Cynewaru (Kenewara) who in
835 granted the manor and lead mines of Wirksworth, on lease, to
one Humbert.
Among those whom we know to have been buried within the
monastery are Merewald, brother of Wulphere. Cyneheard, brother
of the King of the West Saxons. Æthelbald, King of the Mercians,
“slain at Seccandun (Seckington, near Tamworth), and his body lies
at Hreopandun” (Anglo-Saxon Chron.) under date 755. Wiglaf or
Withlaf, another King of Mercia, and his grandson Wistan (St.
Wystan), murdered by his cousin Berfurt at Wistanstowe in 850 (see
p. 15). After existing for over 200 years the monastery was
destroyed by the Danes in the year 874. “In this year the army of the
Danes went from Lindsey (Lincolnshire) to Hreopedun, and there
took winter quarters,” (Anglo-Saxon Chron.), and as Ingulph relates
“utterly destroyed that most celebrated monastery, the most sacred
mausoleum of all the Kings of Mercia.”
For over two hundred years it lay in ruins, till, probably, the days of
Edgar the Peaceable (958-75) when a church was built on the ruins,
and dedicated to St. Wystan.
When Canute was King (1016-1035) he transferred the relics of
St. Wystan to Evesham Abbey, where they rested till the year 1207,
when, owing to the fall of the central tower which smashed the shrine
and relics, a portion of them was granted to the Canons of Repton.
(see Life of St. Wystan, p. 16.) In Domesday Book Repton is entered
as having a Church with two priests, which proves the size and
importance of the church and parish in those early times. Algar, Earl
of Mercia, son of Leofric, and Godiva, was the owner then, but soon
after, it passed into the hands of the King, eventually it was restored
to the descendants of Algar, the Earls of Chester. Matilda, widow of
Randulph, Earl of Chester, with the consent of her son Hugh,
enlarged the church, and founded the Priory, both of which she
granted to the Canons of Calke, whom she transferred to Repton in
the year 1172.
CHAPTER III.
REPTON’S SAINTS (GUTHLAC & WYSTAN).
“The sober recital of historical fact is decked with legends of singular

beauty, like artificial flowers adorning the solid fabric of the Church.
Truth and fiction are so happily blended that we cannot wish such
holy visions to be removed out of our sight,” thus wrote Bishop
Selwyn of the time when our Repton Saints lived, and in order that
their memories may be kept green, the following account has been
written.
ST. GUTHLAC.
At the command of Æthelbald, King of the Mercians, Felix, monk
of Crowland, first bishop of the East Angles, wrote a life of St.
Guthlac.
He derived his information from Wilfrid, abbot of Crowland, Cissa,
a priest, and Beccelm, the companion of Guthlac, all of whom knew
him.
Felix relates that Guthlac was born in the days of Æthelred, (675-
704), his parents’ names were Icles and Tette, of royal descent. He
was baptised and named Guthlac, which is said to mean “Gud-lac,”
“belli munus,” “the gift of battle,” in reference to the gift of one,
destined to a military career, to the service of God. The sweet
disposition of his youth is described, at length, by his biographer,
also the choice of a military career, in which he spent nine years of
his life. During those years he devastated cities and houses, castles
and villages, with fire and sword, and gathered together an immense
quantity of spoil, but he returned a third part of it to those who owned
it. One sleepless night, his conscience awoke, the enormity of his
crimes, and the doom awaiting such a life, suddenly aroused him, at
daybreak he announced, to his companions, his intention of giving
up the predatory life of a soldier of fortune, and desired them to
choose another leader, in vain they tried to turn him from his resolve,
and so at the age of twenty-four, about the year 694, he left them,
and came to the Abbey of Repton, and sought admission there.
Ælfritha, the abbess, admitted him, and, under her rule, he received
the “mystical tonsure of St. Peter, the prince of the Apostles.”
For two years he applied himself to the study of sacred and
monastic literature.
The virtues of a hermit’s life attracted him, and he determined to
adopt it, so, in the autumn of 696, he again set out in search of a
suitable place, and soon lost himself among the fens, not far from
Gronta—which has been identified with Grantchester, near
Cambridge—here, a bystander, named Tatwine, mentioned a more
remote island named Crowland, which many had tried to inhabit, but,
owing to monsters, &c., had failed to do so. Hither Guthlac and
Tatwine set out in a punt, and, landing on the island, built a hut over
a hole made by treasure seekers, in which Guthlac settled on St.
Bartholomew’s Day, (August 24th,) vowed to lead a hermit’s life.
Many stories are related, by Felix, of his encounters with evil spirits,
who tried to turn him away from the faith, or drive him away from
their midst.
Of course the miraculous element abounds all through the
narrative, chiefly connected with his encounters with evil spirits,
whom he puts to flight, delivering those possessed with them from
their power. So great was his fame, bishops, nobles, and kings, visit
him, and Eadburgh, Abbess of Repton, daughter of Aldulph, King of
East Angles, sent him a shroud, and a coffin of Derbyshire lead, for
his burial, which took place on the 11th of April, a.d. 714.
Such, in briefest outline, is the life of St. Guthlac. Those who wish
to know more about him, should consult “The Memorials of St.
Guthlac,” edited by Walter de Gray Birch. In it he has given a list of
the manuscripts, Anglo-Saxon, Latin, and Old English Verse, which
describe the Saint’s life. He quotes specimens of all of them, and
gives the full text of Felix’s life, with footnotes of various readings,
&c., and, what is most interesting, has interleaved the life with
illustrations, reproduced by Autotype Photography, from the well
known roll in Harley Collection of MSS. in the British Museum. The
roll, of vellum, is nine feet long, by six inches and a half wide, on it
are depicted, in circular panels, eighteen scenes from the life of the
Saint. Drawn with “brown or faded black ink, heightened with tints
and transparent colours, lightly sketched in with a hair pencil—in the
prevailing style of the twelfth century—the work of a monk of
Crowland, perhaps of the celebrated Ingulph, the well known literary
abbot of that monastery, it stands, unique, in its place, as an
example of the finest early English style of freehand drawing,” one or
more of the cartoons are missing.
The first cartoon, the left half of which is wanting, is a picture of
Guthlac and his companions asleep, clad in chain armour.
The 2nd. Guthlac takes leave of his companions.
The 3rd. Guthlac is kneeling between bishop Headda, and the
abbess, in Repton abbey. The bishop is shearing off Guthlac’s hair.
The 4th. Guthlac, Tatwine, and an attendant are in a boat with a
sail, making their way back to the island of Crowland.
The 5th. Guthlac, with two labourers, is building a chapel.
The 6th. Guthlac, seated in the completed chapel, receives a visit
from an angel, and his patron saint Bartholomew.
The 7th. Guthlac is borne aloft over the Chapel by five demons,
three of whom are beating him with triple-thonged whips. Beccelm,
his companion, is seated inside the Chapel, in front of the altar, on
which is placed a chalice.
The 8th. Guthlac, with a nimbus of sanctity round his head, has
been borne to the jaws of hell, (in which are a king, a bishop, and
two priests) by the demons, and is rescued by St. Bartholomew, who
gives a whip to Guthlac.
The 9th. The cell of Guthlac is surrounded by five demons, in
various hideous shapes. He has seized one, and is administering a
good thrashing with his whip.
The 10th. Guthlac expels a demon from the mouth of Egga, a
follower of the exiled Æthelbald.
The 11th. Guthlac, kneeling before bishop Headda, is ordained a
priest.
The 12th. King Æthelbald visits Guthlac, both are seated, and
Guthlac is speaking words of comfort to him.
The 13th. Guthlac is lying ill in his oratory, Beccelm is kneeling in
front of him listening to his voice.
The 14th. Guthlac is dead, two angels are in attendance, one
receiving the soul, “anima”, as it issues from his mouth. A ray of light
stretches from heaven down to the face of the saint.
The 15th. Beccelm and an attendant in a boat, into which Pega,
sister of Guthlac, is stepping on her way to perform the obsequies of
her brother.
The 16th. Guthlac, in his shroud, is being placed in a marble
sarcophagus by Pega and three others, one of whom censes the
remains.
The 17th. Guthlac appears to King Æthelbald.
The 18th. Before an altar stand thirteen principal benefactors of
Crowland Abbey. Each one, beginning with King Æthelbald, carries a
scroll on which is inscribed their name, and gift.
The Abbey of Crowland was built, and flourished till about the year
870, when the Danes burnt it down, four years later they destroyed
Repton.
Guthlaxton Hundred in the southern part of Leicestershire, and
four churches, dedicated to him, retain his name. The remains of a
stone at Brotherhouse, bearing his name, and a mouldering effigy, in
its niche on the west front of the ruins of Crowland Abbey, are still to
be seen. His “sanctus bell” was at Repton, and as we shall see, in
the account of the Priory, acquired curative powers for headache.
ST. WYSTAN.
Among “the Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland
during the Middle Ages,” published by the authority of Her Majesty’s
Treasury, under the direction of the Master of the Rolls is the
“Chronicon Abbatiæ de Evesham,” written by Thomas de Marleberge
or Marlborough, Abbot of Evesham. In an appendix to the Chronicle
he also wrote a life of St. Wystan from which the following facts, &c.,
have been gathered.
Wystan was the son of Wimund, son of Wiglaf, King of Mercia, his
mother’s name was Elfleda. Wimund died of dysentery during his
father’s life-time, and was buried in Crowland Abbey, and, later on,
his wife was laid by his side. When the time came for Wystan to
succeed to the crown, he refused it, “wishing to become an heir of a
heavenly kingdom. Following the example of his Lord and master, he
refused an earthly crown, exchanging it for a heavenly one,” and
committed the kingdom to the care of his mother, and to the chief
men of the land. But his uncle Bertulph conspired against him,
“inflamed with a desire of ruling, and with a secret love for the
queen-regent.” A council was assembled at a place, known from that
day to this, as Wistanstowe, in Shropshire, and to it came Bertulph
and his son Berfurt. Beneath his cloak Berfurt had concealed a
sword, and (like Judas the traitor), whilst giving a kiss of peace to
Wystan, drew it and smote him with a mortal wound on his head, and
so, on the eve of Pentecost, in the year 849, “that holy martyr leaving
his precious body on the earth, bore his glorious soul to heaven. The
body was conveyed to the Abbey of Repton, and buried in the
mausoleum of his grandfather, with well deserved honour, and the
greatest reverence. For thirty days a column of light, extending from
the spot where he was slain to the heavens above, was seen by all
those who dwelt there, and every year, on the day of his martyrdom,
the hairs of his head, severed by the sword, sprung up like grass.”
Over the spot a church was built to which pilgrims were wont to
resort, to see the annual growth of the hair.
The remains of St. Wystan rested at Repton till the days of Canute
(1016-1035), when he caused them to be transferred to Evesham
Abbey, “so that in a larger and more worthy church the memory of
the martyr might be held more worthily and honourably.” In the year
1207 the tower of Evesham Abbey fell, smashing the presbytery and
all it contained, including the shrine of St. Wystan. The monks took
the opportunity of inspecting the relics, and to prove their
genuineness, which some doubted, subjected them to a trial by fire,
the broken bones were placed in it, and were taken out unhurt and
unstained. The Canons of Repton hearing of the disaster caused by
the falling tower, begged so earnestly for a portion of the relics, that
the Abbot Randulph granted them a portion of the broken skull, and
a piece of an arm bone. The bearers of the sacred relics to Repton
were met by a procession of prior, canons, and others, over a mile
long, and with tears of joy they placed them, “not as before in the
mausoleum of his grandfather, but in a shrine more worthy, more
suitable, and as honourable as it was possible to make it,” in their
Priory church, where they remained till it was dissolved in the year
1538.
In memory of St. Wystan, the first Parish Church of Repton was
dedicated to him, as we shall see in our account of Repton Church.
Plate 3.
Repton Church Crypt. (Page 17.)

CHAPTER IV.
REPTON CHURCH.
Repton Church is built on the site of the Anglo-Saxon Monastery,

which was destroyed by the Danes in the year 874. It was most
probably built in the reign of Edgar the Peaceable (959-975), as Dr.
Charles Cox writes:—“Probably about that period the religious
ardour of the persecuted Saxons revived ... their thoughts would
naturally revert to the glories of monastic Repton in the days gone
by.” On the ruins of the “Abbey” they raised a church, and dedicated
it to St. Wystan. According to several writers, it was built of stout oak
beams and planks, on a foundation of stone, or its sides might have
been made of wattle, composed of withy twigs, interlaced between
the oak beams, daubed within and without with mud or clay. This
church served for a considerable time, when it was re-built of stone.
The floor of the chancel, supported on beams of wood, was higher
than the present one, so the chancel had an upper and lower “choir,”
the lower one was lit by narrow lights, two of which, blocked up, can
be seen in the south wall of the chancel. When the church was re-
built the chancel floor was removed, and the lower “choir” was
converted into the present crypt, by the introduction of a vaulted
stone roof, which is supported by four spirally-wreathed piers, five
feet apart, and five feet six inches high, and eight square responds,
slightly fluted, of the same height, and distance apart, all with
capitals with square abaci, which are chamfered off below. Round
the four walls is a double string-course, below which the walls are
ashlar, remarkably smooth, as though produced by rubbing the
surface with stone, water and sand. The vaulted roof springs from
the upper string-course, the ribs are square in section, one foot wide,
there are no diagonal groins, it is ten feet high, and is covered with a
thin coating of plaster, which is continued down to the upper string-
course. The piers are monoliths, and between the wreaths exhibit
that peculiar swell which we see on the shafts of Anglo-Saxon belfry
windows, &c.
The double string-course is terminated by the responds. There
were recesses in each of the walls of the crypt. In the wall of the
west recess there is a small arch, opening into a smaller recess,
about 18 inches square. Many suggestions have been made about
it: (1) it was a “holy hole” for the reception of relics, (2) or a opening
in which a lamp could be kept lit, (3) or that it was used as a kind of
“hagioscope,” through which the crypt could be seen from the nave
of the church, when the chancel floor was higher, and the nave floor
lower than they are now.
There are two passages to the church, about two feet wide and
ten feet high, made from the western angles of the crypt.
A doorway was made, on the north side, with steps leading down
to it, from the outside, during the thirteenth century; there is a holy
water stoup in the wall, on the right hand as you enter the door.
For many years it has been a matter of dispute how far the
recesses in the crypt, on the east, north, and south sides, extended.
Excavations just made (Sept. 1898), have exposed the foundations
of the recesses. The recess on the south side is rectangular, not
apsidal as some supposed, it projects 2 ft. 2 in. from the surface of
the wall, outside, and is 6 ft. 2 in. wide. About two feet below the
ground level, two blocks of stone were discovered, (each 2 ft. × 1 ft.
4 in. × 1 ft. 9 in.), two feet apart, they rest on a stone foundation. The
inside corners are chamfered off. On a level with the stone
foundation, to the south of it, are two slabs under which a skeleton
was seen, whose it was, of course, cannot be said. The present
walls across the recesses, on the south and east, block them half up,
and were built in later times.
The recess on the east end was destroyed when a flight of stone
steps was made leading down to the crypt. These steps (there are
six of them) are single, roughly made stones of varied length, resting
on the earth, without mortar. When the flight was complete there
would have been twelve, reaching from the top to the level of the
crypt floor.
The steps would afford an easier and quicker approach to the
crypt and church, but when they were made cannot now be said.
The recess on the north side was also destroyed when the outer
stairway, and door, were placed there, probably, as before stated, in
the thirteenth century. On the outside surface of the three walls,
above the ground level, are still to be seen traces of the old
triangular-shaped roofs which covered the three recesses, and
served as buttresses to the walls. Similar “triangular arches” are to
be seen at Barnack, and Brigstock.
The eastern end of the north aisle is the only portion of the ancient
transepts above the ground level. During the restorations in 1886 the
foundations of the Anglo-Saxon nave were laid bare, they extend
westward up to and include the base of the second pier; the return of
the west-end walls was also discovered, extending about four feet
inwards.
Over the chancel arch the removal of many coats of whitewash
revealed an opening, with jambs consisting of long and short work; a
similar opening to the north of it used to exist, it is now blocked up.
The Early English Style is only represented by foundations laid
bare during the restoration in 1885, and now indicated in the north
and south aisles, by parallel lines of the wooden blocks, with which
the church is paved. In the south aisle the foundations of a south
door were also discovered (see plan of church). To this period
belong the windows in the north side of the chancel, and in the
narrow piece of wall between the last arch and chancel wall on the
north side of the present choir. There were two corresponding
windows on the south side, one of which remains. All these windows
have been blocked up.
The Decorated Style is represented in the nave by four out of the
six lofty pointed arches, supported by hexagonal columns; the two,
on either side, at the east end of the nave, were erected in the year
1854.
The tower and steeple were finished in the year 1340. Basano, in
his Church Notes, records the fact—“Anᵒ 1320 ?40. The tower
steeple belonging to the Prior’s Church of this town was finished and
built up, as appears by a Scrole in Lead, having on it these words
—“Turris adaptatur qua traiectū decoratur. M c ter xx bis. Testu Palini
Johis.”
A groined roof of stone, having a central aperture, through which
the bells can be raised and lowered, separates the lower part of the
tower from the belfry.
The north and south aisles were extended to the present width.
The eastern end of the south aisle was also enlarged several feet to
the south and east, and formed a chapel or chantry, as some say, for
the Fyndernes, who were at one time Lords of the Repton Manor. A
similar, but smaller, chapel was at the east end of the north aisle,
and belonged to the Thacker family. They were known as the
“Sleepy Quire,” and the “Thacker’s Quire.” Up to the year 1792 they
were separated by walls (which had probably taken the place of
carved screens of wood) in order to make them more comfortable,
and less draughty! These walls were removed in 1792, when “a
restoration” took place.
The square-headed south window of the “Fynderne Chapel”
composed of four lights, with two rows of trefoil and quatrefoil tracery
in its upper part, is worthy of notice as a good specimen of this style,
and was probably inserted about the time of the completion of the
tower and spire. The other windows in the church of one, two, three,
and four lights, are very simple examples of this period, and, like the
chancel arch, have very little pretensions to architectural merit, in
design at least.
The Perpendicular Style is represented by the clerestory windows
of two lights each, the roof of the church, and the south porch.
The high-pitched roof of the earlier church was lowered—the pitch
is still indicated by the string-course on the eastern face of the tower
—the walls over the arcades were raised several feet from the string-
course above the arches, and the present roof placed thereon. It is
supported by eight tie-beams, with ornamented spandrels beneath,
and wall pieces which rest on semi-circular corbels on the north side,
and semi-octagonal corbels on the south side. The space above the
tie-beams, and the principal rafters is filled with open work tracery.
Between the beams the roof is divided into six squares with bosses
of foliage at the intersections of the rafters.
The south porch, with its high pitched roof, and vestry, belongs to
this period. It had a window on either side, and was reached from the
south aisle by a spiral staircase (see plan of church).
The Debased Style began, at Repton, during the year 1719, and
ended about the year 1854. In the year 1719 a singers’ gallery was
erected at the west end of the church, and the arch there was
bricked up.
In the year 1779 the crypt was “discovered” in a curious way. Dr.
Prior, Headmaster of Repton School, died on June 16th of that year,
a grave was being made in the chancel, when the grave-digger
suddenly disappeared from sight: he had dug through the vaulted
roof, and so fell into the crypt below! In the south-west division of the
groined roof, a rough lot of rubble, used to mend the hole, indicates
the spot.
During the year 1792 “a restoration” of the church took place, the
church was re-pewed, in the “horse-box” style! All the beautifully
carved oak work “on pews and elsewhere” which Stebbing Shaw
describes in the Topographer (May, 1790), and many monuments
were cleared out, or destroyed. Some of the carved oak found its
way into private hands, and was used to panel a dining-room, and a
summer-house. Some of the carved panels have been recovered,
and can be seen in the vestry over the south porch. One of the
monuments which used to be on the top of an altar tomb “at the
upper end of the north aisle,” was placed in the crypt, where it still
waits a more suitable resting-place. It is an effigy of a Knight in plate
armour (circa Edward III.), and is supposed to be Sir Robert Francis,
son of John Francis, of Tickenhall, who settled at Foremark. If so, Sir
Robert was the Knight who, with Sir Alured de Solney, came to the
rescue of Bishop Stretton in 1364, and is an ancestor of the
Burdetts, of Foremark.
The crypt seems to have been used as a receptacle for “all and
various” kinds of “rubbish” during the restoration, for, in the year
1802, Dr. Sleath found it nearly filled up, as high as the capitals, with
portions of ancient monuments, grave-stones, &c., &c. In the corner,
formed by north side of the chancel and east wall of the north aisle, a
charnel, bone, or limehouse had been placed in the Middle Ages:
this house was being cleaned out by Dr. Sleath’s orders, when the
workmen came upon the stone steps leading down to the crypt,
following them down they found the doorway, blocked up by
“rubbish,” this they removed, and restored the crypt as it is at the
present day.
During the years 1842 and 1848 galleries in the north and south
aisles, extending from the west as far as the third pillars, were
erected.
Plate 4.
Repton Camp. (F. C. H.) (Page 3.)
Repton Church. (Before 1854.) (Page 22.)

In 1854, the two round arches and pillars, on either side of the
eastern end of the nave, were removed, and were replaced by the
present pointed arches and hexagonal piers, for, as before stated,
the sake of uniformity! Thus an interesting portion belonging to the
ancient church was destroyed. The illustration opposite was copied
from a drawing done, in the year 1847, by G. M. Gorham, then a
pupil in the school, now Vicar of Masham, Bedale. To him our thanks
are due for allowing me to copy it. It shows what the church was like
in his time, 1847.
In 1885 the last restoration was made, when the Rev. George
Woodyatt was Vicar. The walls were scraped, layers of whitewash
were removed, the pews, galleries, &c., were removed, the floor of
the nave lowered to its proper level, a choir was formed by raising
the floor two steps, as far west as the second pier, the organ was
placed in the chantry at the east end of the south aisle. The floor of
nave and aisles was paved with wooden blocks, the choir with
encaustic tiles. The whole church was re-pewed with oak pews, and
“the choir” with stalls, and two prayer desks. A new pulpit was given
in memory of the Rev. W. Williams, who died in 1882. The
“Perpendicular roof” was restored to its original design: fortunately
there was enough of the old work left to serve as models for the
repair of the bosses, &c. The clerestory windows on the south side
were filled with “Cathedral” glass. The splendid arch at the west end
was opened.
The base of the old font was found among the débris, a new font,
designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield, (the architect employed to do the
restoration), was fixed on it, and erected under the tower.
Since that restoration, stained glass windows have been placed in
all the windows of the north aisle by Messrs. James Powell and
Sons, Whitefriars Glass Works, London; the one in the south aisle is
also by them. The outside appearance of the church roof was
improved by the addition of an embattled parapet, the roof itself was
recovered with lead.
In 1896 all the bells were taken down, by Messrs. John Taylor, of
Loughborough, and were thoroughly examined and cleansed, two of
them, the 5th and 6th (the tenor bell), were re-cast, (see chapter on
Bells).
The only part of the church not restored is the chancel, and we
hope that the Lord of the Manor, Sir Vauncey Harpur-Crewe, Bart.,
will, some day, give orders for its careful, and necessary restoration.
INCUMBENTS, &c. OF REPTON.
Jo. Wallin, curate. Temp. Ed. VI.

1584 Richard Newton, curate.
1602 Thomas Blandee, B.A., curate.
” John Horobine
1612 George Ward, minister
Mathew Rodgers, minister
1648 Bernard Fleshuier, ”
1649 George Roades, ”
1661 John Robinson, ”
1663 John Thacker, M.A., minister.
” William Weely, curate.
1739 Lowe Hurt, M.A.
1741 William Astley, M.A.
1742 John Edwards, B.A.
1804 John Pattinson.
1843-56 Joseph Jones, M.A.
1857-82 W. Williams.
1883-97 G. Woodyatt, B.A.
1898 A. A. McMaster, M.A.

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