55 - Emile Cailliet

Émile Cailliet
(1894 - 1981)
By Frank E. Gaebelein

THIS informal memoir of a friendship of nearly forty years recalls one of the great personal privileges of my life.

It was in the 1940s that I had one of those happier indispositions that, while requiring me to stay in bed for a few days, provided time for reading and thought. Not long before, I had read Pascal's Pensees in the edition with an introduction by T.S. Eliot. Deeply impressed, I was like Queen Candace's treasurer when Philip the evangelist heard him reading from Isaiah. I, too, needed someone to sit down with me and, as Philip did, tell me more about what I had been reading. Cailliet's major work on Pascal - Genius in the Light of Scripture, later republished in the Harper Torchbook Series under the title, Pascal - The Emergence of Genius, had just come out and the original title had led me to buy the book. So I had my "Philip" at hand to explain Pascal to me.

Under Cailliet's masterly guidance there was opened to me the Christian development of Pascal's mind - one of the most powerful and spacious in human history. No wonder that at the end of my reading, I wrote Cailliet my thanks. I also ventured to send him a little book of mine, The Christian Use of the Bible, a modest contribution devoted to a word - by - word study of II Timothy, 3:16,17, and its relation to the rest of Scripture. Imagine my joy when I received a reply, which read in part: "It is essential that those who are the Lord's should know one another so as to be better co - laborers in his service."

I replied to this gracious response with an urgent invitation for Cailliet to lecture on Pascal to our Stony Brook juniors and seniors - an invitation that began our friendship. Though we did not meet very often, our relationship developed through a correspondence of well over thirty years. Occasionally we would lunch together in New York, and my friend would come to Stony Brook School to preach in the chapel. With

Émile Cailliet was a charter member of the Editorial Council of THEOLOGY TODAY, and we publish this tribute be a personal friend in recognition of a scholar of versatile talent and restless spirit. Ever moving beyond, toward new vistas of truth. his own Christian commitment gave his life an unusual quality of grace and composure. At the conclusion of this tribute, we print a brief Curriculum Vitae and a Bibliography of his major works the titles of which provide an accurate index of the man's mind.

Frank E. Gaebelein, Headmaster, Emeritus. of the Stony Brook School, former co - editor of Christianity Today. and General Editor of The Expositor's Bible Commentary, died January 20 1983. This informal memoir must have been about the last thing he wrote, and he was looking forward to seeing it in THEOLOGY TODAY. Of Emile Cailliet and Frank Gaebelein we may apply the words relating to Saul and Jonathan that they were "lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided" (II Sam. 1:23).

56 - Emile Cailliet

his great shock of silver hair, his massive brow, the thick lenses of the glasses through which his penetrating eyes shone, Émile Cailliet was always a dramatic presence. As he stood in our school pulpit for the first time, after introducing his text, he looked over his audience and said, in his unmistakable French accent: "I know why some of you are smiling; you think I sound like Charles Boyer."

But the purpose of this memoir is not just to reminisce about a personal friendship, but to share a unique example of what friendship with Émile Cailliet could mean. Some years ago, I unwisely accepted an assignment to do the major article on "Symbolism" for one of the multivolume Bible encyclopedias. After checking authorities like Eliade and Tillich, and doing my own thinking on the subject, I realized that I was in water beyond my depth. So I called my friend and told him of my predicament. He said he would send me some notes. In a few days, a handwritten essay arrived, entitled, "Memo on Symbolism for Frank." With it was a note urging me to use its ideas but not to mention his name. Of course, I drew upon it and of course I referred to him by name. What he did for me was to solve my dilemma by giving me the catalyst that refined my thinking and resulted in my completing the article.

I had gone, without knowing it, to one of the fountainheads on the subject of symbolism. Earlier in his career, much of Émile Cailliet's reputation was built on his research into the primitive symbolism of Madagascar, for which the French government decorated him. His studies were published in French under the title, Synibolisme et Ames Primitives (Paris, 1936).

In distinguishing between "sign" and "symbol," Cailliet appears to have anticipated Tillich in this regard. In his memo to me, for example, he offered this simple but profound illustration:

Here is a Roman soldier, seeing the design of a fish. For him, it is a sign that Christians are 'round and about. It leaves him cold but alert. Later, a cautious Christian passes by and suddenly sees the fish. Immediately his heart pounds and his mind is filled with rich associations. To him, this fish drawing is emphatically not a sign. It is a symbol. Clearly, what animates the symbol, makes a symbol a symbol, in the final analysis, is the sense of participation. To me, a symbol should be defined as a sign of an experienced participation.

For Émile Cailliet, this distinction involved a biblical - theological dimension. Christian faith, for him, meant God's symbolic participation with us through Jesus Christ, and the Christian life, however else it could be defined, implied our participation in and with Christ, the Lord of Life.

57 - Emile Cailliet

Curriculum Vitae

Émile Cailliet was born in Dampierre, Marne, France, Dec. 17, 1894. He was a graduate of the Universities of Chalons and Nancy, and he received his doctorate from the University of Montpellier in connection with research on the island of Madagascar. An infantryman in the French Army, he was wounded in WW I and carried the scars of a dum - dum bullet the rest of his life.

Migrating to America, Dr. Cailliet served as Assistant Professor of French Literature, University of Pennsylvania; Professor of French Literature and Civilization, Scripps College; Professor of French Literature and Civilization, Graduate School, University of Pennsylvania; Professor of French Literature and Philosophy, Wesleyan University; and Professor of Christian Philosophy, Princeton Theological Seminary. After a long illness, Émile Cailliet died in California, June 4, 1981.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

- Essai sur le psychologie du Hova (Paris, 1925).
- La foi des ancetres essai sur les representations collectives des vieux Malgaches (Paris, 1930).
- La prohibition de l'occulte (Paris, 1930); E.T. Why We Oppose the Occult, trans. by G.F. Cole (1931).
- Symbolisme et Ames Primitives (Paris, 1936).
- La tradition litteraires des ideologues (Paris, 1943).
- Pascal: Genius in the Light of Scripture ( 1945)
- The Beginning of Wisdom (1947).
- Great Shorter Works of Pascal (with J.C. Blankenagel, 1948).
- Pascal's Short Life, of Christ (with J.C. Blankenagel, 1950).
- The Christian Approach to Culture (1953).
- The Dawn of Personality ( 1955).
- The Recovery of Purpose ( 1959).
- Pascal - The Emergence of Genius ( 1961 - Young Life ( 1963).
- Young Life (1963).
- Journey into Light (1968).
- Alone at High Noon: Reflections on the Solitary Life (1971).