09/12/2024

Sport and the Church - 2

Today, the word “sport” -  stemming from the Old French expression desporter or sedesporter– which is a derivate of the Latin word de(s)portare– and means to amuse oneself, stands for many different activities from ping pong to  boxing, rock climbing to swimming. 

Thus, it is hard elegantly to define. The best the 2018 Vatican document from the “Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life” could come up with was, “sports are bodily motions  of individual or collective agents who, in accordance with particular rules of the game, effect ludic performances which, on the condition of equal opportunity, are compared to similar performances of others in a competition.”  The document admits that this is not an exhaustive definition of sport since it exhibits lots of fuzzy edges.

Historically, over the past two thousand years, its meaning has evolved from gladiatorial conflicts, to archery, jousting, through caid, to cricket and basketball.

As the old dictum puts it ‘quidquid recipitur, mode recipientis recipitur’, loosely translated as “we see whatever we see as we are”. And as the non-culturally homogeneous members – and authorities - of The Church passed through developing cultures, their take on sports and games evolved.

Contrary to a recurring narrative in the writing of the history of sport, Christians prior to the Reformation did not have an unremittingly negative attitude toward the body. On the contrary they emphasized the goodness of the material world as it had been created by God and that the body was constitutive of human personhood. 

Underpinning The Church’s view on humanity is not only the Genetical conviction that we are “”very good” (Gen. 1,31) but that our bodies are sacramental. As I put it, our lives consist of The PIES - the physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual – as we exist thanks to our relationship with God, our soul.

In my role as Sports Chaplain, I came across a number of fundamentalist Christians who said that competitive sport shows a lack of love  - a lack of respect - for the opponent as each try to beat the other. However, the word competition comes from the two Latin roots “com” –with–and “petere” – to strive or to seek. The competitors are “striving or seeking together” for excellence. The many examples of athletes shaking hands and embracing or even socializing or sharing a meal after an intense contest have much to teach fundamentalists in this regard. Clearly, honest sport is clearly Ubuntu – good for all involved.

Consequently, unless the activity is clearly, like boxing before the Marquess of Queensbury rules, or Suntukan (also known as Dirty boxing) health and life threatening - or socially as mediaeval ball games between opposing villages, peace threatening - The Church’s view on sport has been and still is positive.

 The genesis of sport in Europe can be traced back to early Greco-Roman military conquests. When the battle finished, the victors engaged in sport-like activities to celebrate. In fact, any training that took place was done for war. The idea of training physically was not connected to sports—or even leisurely. Greek philosophers looked at post-war sports and began to philosophize about life, sport, and the athlete. Paul and other early Christian leaders adopted "sports as a metaphor for life" one step further by comparing it to our spiritual lives.

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul wrote, “Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it. Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one. So, I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air. No, I drive my body and train it, for fear that, after having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified.” (1 Cor 9:24-27) 7 

Gnostics, who around the end of the first century CE, taught cosmological dualism, strict asceticism and repudiation of material creation – and thus sport - as evil,  were rejected as heretical by the Fathers of the early church.

In his“City of God,” St Augustine (354-430) referred to the apostle Paul as ‘the athlete of Christ’. Thomas Aquinas, like Plato and Aristotle, advocated for the need to cultivate body and soul to flourish as human beings.

The beginning of the medieval era brought about new questions about Christian engagement with sport. When, thanks to the emperor Theodosius I in 380ce Christianity became the official religion in Rome, a new theological priority of pursuing virtuous living began to emerge. This meant looking at things, like sports, and asking questions like “If we engage in this, either as a spectator or as a participant, over time, will it make us more Godly or less?”

Hugh of St. Victor (d. 1142)  who  in his book ‘The Didascalicon’ dealt with the theoretical consideration of all human acts, it is not surprising that he included enjoyable activities that provided recreation in the curriculum he was proposing for the schools in the newly developing urban areas of his time. The significance of Hugh’s book is primarily in his insistence that recreation and sport have a legitimate place in society and therefore also among the arts to be studied. His arguing for their inclusion in educational curricula is important because of the level of influence his work would have on education throughout medieval Europe.

St. Thomas Aquinas was another theologian of the medieval period whose writings would have a significant influence with respect to play and sport.

The Philosopher Aristotle (384–322 B.C.E.) had  stated that games should generate eutrapelia,  good natured fun. St Thomas Aquinas ( 1225 – 1274) made it clear that the  enjoyment of play should avoid harm and indecency.  Too much – and too little – sport is, according to him, sinful. In  medio stat virtus: The best option lies somewhere between two extremes. 

Throughout the so called ‘middle ages’ - 500 to 1400/1500 ce - Christians participated in games and sports on Sundays as well as on feast days.  After Mass in the morning, people tended to lounge or – if they were more energetic - play sports in the  afternoon. Sundays were there to re-create the whole person – right across the PIES, the physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual constituent parts of  human life. 

It seems that this basic pattern was followed throughout Europe. Blessed by church leaders, accepted by landlords, and sanctified by tradition, some of these seasonal breaks in labour ran for several days. Wine or ale, music, and dance accompanied  games and sport  - as  depicted on stained glass windows and woodcuts in churches and in prayer books.  Feast days were so numerous that they seemed to have accounted for around one third of the calendar year. 

Monks and other clerics, living apart from the populace, might well preach strictures against certain types of physical recreation. However, parish clergy seemed to have agreed  the need for play and sport and occasionally got themselves involved. 

Physical education was not included in the monastic curriculum  - offered to the monks or nuns, or indeed anyone aiming to go on to what we call ‘higher education’. It did include what was then called ‘The Seven Liberal Arts: the trivium with its grammar, logic, and rhetoric and the quadrivium with its arithmetic, astronomy, music, and geometry. 

This was also  true, for the curriculum of the "palace school" that were developed by the English monk, Alcuin of York (c.735 –  804) for children of the nobles during the reign of  Charlemagne, who ruled much of Western Europe from768 to 814. However, the irrepressible urges and instincts of young people for play and sport could not be denied or, indeed, eradicated. 

Paintings and etchings of the period depicted such activities as wrestling, jumping, ball playing, stone casting, and running. However, the Annales Lamberti, a chronicle of 1075, complains about the typical lack of physical fitness among many farmers, a fact that discouraged the nobility from pressing them into service as foot soldiers in battle.  

On the other hand, there were also the seemingly ageless contests that appeared at festivals and fairs such as foot racing, tug-of-war matches, sack races, quarter-staff throwing, archery, caber tossing, and bowling - with its many variations  - all of which must have produced some sort of physical fitness in competitors.

Mind you, life expectancy in  1200-1300 was  43 years. In 1300-1400, with the Black Death rampant, just 24 years and then in 1400-1500 it rose to 48 years. From the 1500s onward, till around the year 1800, life expectancy throughout Europe hovered between 30 and 40 years of age. Though it's hard to imagine, but it was only in the mid-1800s that  doctors  began regularly to wash their hands before surgery.

Fifteenth century schools -  primarily for lay students -  included  time to  play games and sports in their daily schedule. 

The first schools the Jesuits opened in the late 16th century,  set up in existing buildings,  did not have any space for games and sports. However, in the school buildings the Jesuits themselves built, they always included a courtyard  - what we would call a MUGA, a Multi- Use Games Area - in which students could enjoy games and sports. 

The Jesuits  provided an hour of recreation after the noon meal and  shorter periods for recreation between classes. On one free  - non docens - day in the middle of the week, students, who did not take part in games and sports, would be taken for a walk into the countryside. 

The approach of the early Jesuits can be traced back to their founder, Ignatius of Loyola. The third part of the “Rules of the Colleges” , written for the first schools where young Jesuits lived and studied, is dedicated to “Conserving the Health and Strength of the Body”. 

The document  makes it clear that there will be ‘some hours’ for honest bodily recreation.  “Some form of  relaxation is as useful for the body as for the studies, to which one returns with more of a disposition to make progress, when preceded by some honest bodily exercise.”. 

During the Renaissance, striving for perfection beyond life gave way to the striving for the full, all-around life in this world. Etiquette books on courtly behaviour advised youths to acquire a universal learning and proficiency in many arts, to give due attention to hygiene and physical exercise, to acquire skill in arms and every manly exercise, and to develop a graceful carriage and a beautifully proportioned body rather than mere strength. 

Dancing and fencing masters were employed in court schools. Dancing and tournaments were fashionable. Tennis, archery, fencing, bowling and hunting were popular. On these there seem to be no records of what the Church Hierarchy thought.

Engaged in sports, men could become over-excited – and as many sports lacked clear rules, religious leaders made  efforts  - not always successfully - to curb sports that led to riots or the destruction of life or property.

After the Protestant Reformation, the Puritans rejected  sport’s connection with the Catholic festivals and feast days. As the Puritans sought to purify the church back to what they thought Christ originally intended, they rejected the sporting activities that Catholics used to celebrate Sundays and Feast Days.

As The Roman Catholic Church started to fragment, leaders of the growing number of religious communities wrestled with the question: ‘what is the purpose of the Sunday sabbath? Is it for rest? Is it for devotion? Is it for worship? For recreation  - even re-creation - across the PIES? What is allowable for the Christian to do and not do? Should sport be allowed?’

“The Declaration of Sports” (also known as “The Book of Sports’) of James I of England, issued just for Lancashire in1617, nationally in 1618, and reissued by Charles I in 1633, addressed the  tension  between Catholics, who allowed sports on Sunday afternoons  and the Puritans, who thought it was sinful to engage in sports on Sunday. For them, Sunday was “The Day of Rest”. The King James’ declaration  took the  middle-ground position. The Church of England would allow “harmless recreation” after Sunday service.

I found it intriguing that the King's Book of Sports insisted that prohibiting sports on Sunday would hinder opportunities for Protestants to convert Catholics. Was this the first example of sport being utilised for evangelizing purposes? 

While the conversation around Sunday sports saw both Catholics and Protestants put their stakes in the ground, it would be wrong to think Protestants had a totally negative view of sports. Both Martin Luther (1483-1546) and John Calvin (1509-1564) participated in - and enjoyed -  sport. Luther admitted that he often visualized knocking down the bowling pins as knocking down Satan.

Calvin made it clear that, for him, sports had an intrinsic – not just instrumental – value. He believed that God’s creation was a gift that, in appropriate moderation, was there to be enjoyed. Sports fell into the category of God’s good gifts.

Both would have subscribed to the saying that “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” which first appeared  inJames Howell's, 1659, “Proverbs”in English, Italian, French and Spanish.