SEARCH Journal

One day, Abba Makarios came across a skull in the desert. The following dialogue took place: MAKARIOS: Who are you? SKULL: I was a priest of the pagans and you are Makarios. When you pray for us who are in hell, we are consoled. You are Makarios, the bearer of the spirit. When you have pity on the doomed and pray for them, they are consoled. MAKARIOS: What kind of consolation do you feel? What is it like in hell? SKULL: We stand in flames which reach up to the sky. And we cannot see each other, because we are tied back-to- back. But when you pray for us, the ropes become loose, and we can see each other again FACE TO FACE. That is the consolation! This dialogue between the saint and the skull is a compelling expression of the difficulty of human beings to communicate with the OTHER - their fellow human beings. Plautus stated that ‘homo homini lupus’ (Man is a wolf for man). And Jean-Paul Sartre put it in an even more tragic manner: ‘L ́enfer, c ́est les autres’ (Hell is other people). By contrast, Makarios’ text summarises the Christian belief that hell is not the presence of the other, but the ABSENCE of the other, the lack of communication.