Eschatological Nostalgia

“… This longing for Light shows that I am right,
It tells me about another world, my real Native Land .
Does it have any meaning for people today?”
( Albert Camus, The Summer )

Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore.
For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.
(Hebrews 13, 13’14 )

But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.
(Philippians 3,20 )

« Nostalgia », said a philosopher of Antiquity, « offers man lovely times and beautiful experiences ans memories which come from the past and which reality and the present cannot provide ». So, antiquity shows us the meaning and the content of this notion. But where does the term come from ?

Nostalgia (nostalgiva) is a Greek word ; we find it for the first time in the works of Homer (in Odyssey : « nostimon émar », « νόστιμον ήμαρ ») and then in the lyric poetry of the poetess Sappho. We find it also in the other poets, in ancient theatre and drama, and finally in the philosophical essays of Antiquity.

Philosophy as well as Philology defined the exact meaning of “nostalgia” : to have or to feel nostalgia for someone or something, and to feel nostalgic for someone or something. So today we use this word — especially after the influence of Romanticism — with the same meaning as in antiquity. In this way, nostalgia is a slightly sad and very affectionate feeling you have “for the past”, especially for a particular time ; eg. nostalgia for the good old days..., many people “look back” with nostalgia to feudal times..., he/she made me feel nostalgic..., and so on.

The English language, like the other languages of the world, uses the qualitative adjective “nostalgic” with an evocative meaning : “something that is nostalgic causes you to feel nostalgia”, like the sentimental meaning “someone who is or feels nostalgic is thinking affectionately about a happier time in the past”. In other words, nostalgia turns our minds “to the past”, to “look back”. That is the primitive philological or philosophical content of the notion “nostalgia” which today dominates the mentality of life.

But the etymological analysis, which gives the exact content of the notion, is a little different from the philosophical definition. The word came from the Greek verb “nost-algô (νοστ-αλγώ) : nosto-s (νόστος) and algo-s (άλγος). “Nostos” signifies “yearning, craving, longing, desire, anxiety or wish”. “Algo-s”, verb and noun, signifies “suffer, feel pain, suffering, pain”. “Nostalg-o” as such signifies “I have a yearning with mental pain for someone or something”. Read More...

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