Bernardo Bátiz V.
AND
I explain to my friends readers (and myself) the reason for the theme and title of this collaboration The Day. Remembering the sociology classes that teacher Alberto F. Senior taught us at the Faculty of Law, CU recently inaugurated, many years ago, I learned the definition of the human being as a zoon politikon“political animal”, and from that learning are derived today the observations and reflections that Aristotle left us in his essential work The politics.
It is obvious that we live in society, which could not be otherwise, we are sociable. A human being cannot be conceived outside of community life and we know that even the anchorites, despite their hostility to large cities, met in the desert in small groups. Our teacher then explained to us that each of us, human beings, participate in five or six different types of groups; of course, the family, the cell of society, and others with different structures and dimensions, such as work groups, educational, religious, political, recreational communities, and perhaps some others that escape me at the moment.
The Aristotelian conclusion is clear: in addition to being rational and free, we are also “social.” I explain why today, this reflection on our quality as “political animals” leads us to justify the reason for the title of this collaboration.
It happens that every year, an organization of friends and acquaintances, some, those of the initial idea, born in Ixtepec, Oaxaca, a town on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, celebrate punctually, in mid-October, a mass in honor of San Jerónimo Doctor and also an annual party that on this occasion took place on October 18 at the Campo Marte Military Casino; I start by saying that such a party is traditionally fun, very happy and emotional; Its organizers call it Vela de San Jerónimo, who is the Patron Saint of the typical city of Ixtepec, Oaxaca, not only a saint of Catholic saints, but also a doctor.
At that meeting, the men wear guayaberas and red scarves around their necks, but those who stand out especially are the Tehuanas, of all ages, girls, young people, adults and even the occasional grandmother. In that healthy and joyful party, to which I have been invited on several occasions, we live, we are members, in the same place and at the same time, of peasant and union relations, “societies” of the classification to which I referred, but it is also religious, family and community.
It is, first of all, a religious celebration, as I said, La Vela, in honor of a Catholic saint from the 4th century, but it is also made up of several family gatherings and, likewise, by some groups of friends who come from the Judiciary, both local and federal.
In that meeting we live together, eat, drink (in moderation), those of us who can still dance, and talk about various topics; We have rarely or perhaps never referred to the Catholic saint who gives the celebration its name, which is why I decided to share with my readers and with those who organize and cheer up the party, some information that I found out, on the run, about Saint Jerome the Doctor.
He was born in the year 342 of Christ, in Stridon, in the Dalmatian region of Pannonia, near Aquileia in Italy; From a very young age he had many intellectual interests that led him to be educated in Rome, with his teacher Donato; He then traveled through various places and finally arrived in Trier, where he found a deep faith, met Saint Valerian and other Christians who helped his intellectual restlessness lead him to the study of the scriptures, gospels and epistles, which could generally be read in Hebrew and were a source of reflection and comment.
It is known that in the year 382 he corrected the Latin version of the New Testament and later began to translate the books of the Old directly from the same Hebrew language, his mother tongue, but his most important contribution was the complete translation into Latin of the two so-called testaments, the old one of Jewish tradition and the new one made up of the four gospels, the acts of the apostles and the letters of some of them.
Saint Jerome, who inspired the joyful festival in which I participated, was a fundamental character for the Catholic religion to spread throughout the Mediterranean basin and reach the center of Europe, the British Isles and even very far north, areas in which Latin was either understood or at least, within the circles of scholars and religious people, it served as a bond of union.
This is how our history and our culture are formed; It is worth reflecting on how a joyful party, the dances and the flower-filled costumes of the Tehuanas, have a line through history with a time and characters who, despite not being well known, continue to be remembered. San Jerónimo, the Vela de San Jerónimo and a party in the long walk of history.
